Horseshoes & Hand Grenades: John Corabi

Written by John Corabi, with Paul Miles. I imagine Miles did the heavy lifting with the prose and based it on Corabi's stories. Not completely sure. I really liked it. One of the better rock biographies I've read. Corabi comes across as a down to earth sort of fellow, a decent sort who is not afraid to tell the stories that make him look like a flawed human.

I'll admit I bought it primarily for the connection with Motley Crue, but I enjoyed the whole thing. Corabi was in Crue for five years and they did their self-titled album with him as the singer. That's a really good album, although not my favorite by the Crue. Corabi has also been in many, many other bands. I had no idea how many until I read this. He's mostly been a singer but also a guitar player.

One thing I particularly liked is there's a real focus on the music and his experiences on the road without dwelling on groupies and drugs. In fact, he says he never did hard drugs, although he apparently drank quite a lot. And he wasn't the kind of person to try to sleep with as many groupies as possible. Overall, a good book.

Books in the House

Although I buy quite a few Kindle books on a weekly basis, it’s been a while since I put in a big order for print works. One thing of interest came in last week and a bunch more today. So here’s where I spent some money:

1. Warbirds of Mars, edited by Vaughn and Gilmour. This is a collection of connected short stories about the human resistance to conquerors from Mars.  I love the concept but haven’t started reading it yet.

2. This is Gonna Hurt, a book about music, photography and life by Nikki Sixx. I’ve already read this. Not a lot of new stuff if you’ve read his Heroin Diaries, but it certainly held my interest. He has apparently really gotten into photography and has sprinkled quite a few odd shots throughout . It also has quite a bit of his philosophy of life in it, things he’s learned from his experiences. I’m not much of a fan of such things; they generally appear pretty self-evident. I learned a little more about his childhood and his music, which is what I was most interested in. Most of the music stuff had to do with Sixx A.M rather than Motley, which is not particularly what I care about.

3. Proactive Contrition: A Meta-Memoir, by Wayne Allen Sallee. Wayne is an extraordinary short story writer. I’m not quite sure what to expect from this “meta-memoir,” though, but I know it’ll be surprising, entertaining, and will make me think.

4. The Saga of Dray Prescot: The Lohvian Cycle books 1 and 2, by Kenneth Bulmer.  This is a two volume set, each of which collects three of the Dray Prescot books that were not originally published in English during the original run of the series. They were published only in German. They have since been brought out in English in ebooks, which I bought already, but I wanted the print copies. Each volume has three books in it. I’ve read the first two from book one but still have four more complete novels to go. Looking forward to getting into these.  The cover below is for volume 1 but 2 is the same cover with II on it. Interestingly, the second volume includes a “compendium” much like I was thinking of adding to Wraith of Talera.

Speaking of Wraith of Talera, sitting on my desk right now is the contract from Borgo Press, as an imprint of Wildside Press, for the book.  I wrote a lot of rough draft and outlined the last few chapters yesterday so I expect to have the book finished and turned in by August. Since this one will be part of a duology, I am considering starting the next one immediately after Wraith is done. That one will be called Gods of Talera. 

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Cover of Witch of Talera

A friend of mine, Steve Harris, found this picture of the cover to Witch of Talera at The Book Place here.

It looks great to me. Each cover is darker than the last, which is kind of true for the contents of the books as well. I'm happy.

In other news, I started and finished James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice yesterday, and now I'm into his Double Indemnity. Although the opening line of "Postman" is great, there are some snags in the first couple of pages. At one point it looks like the main male character is talking to some guy who has car trouble in the Kitchen but it turns out to be the main female character. And the main male character seems to jump to the conclusion that the woman is Mexican even though nothing is set up for this and she is married to a guy who is clearly Greek. But once I got through those relatively minor snags I was hooked and raced through the book. You can definitely see where Cain's influence on the development of noir fiction comes from. Personally, I didn't think his characters were particularly realistic, certainly not as realistic as John D. MacDonald's, say, but they were fascinating nevertheless.

I also finished reading The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx of the heavy metal band Motley Crue. It was pretty fascinating but I'd like to have heard more about how he still managed to write songs during his "gone to Heroin" days. It's basically the story of a year in Sixx's life when he was at the height of his drug addictions, and is taken from actual diaries he kept at the time. Interesting from a psychological perspective and very honest, even to the point where the reader is likely to say, "you dumb ass, what were you thinking?" I found it a worthwhile read, better than Tommyland but not as good as The Dirt, both of which were about the Crue.

Tidbits

Just some tidbits today.

Steve Malley has a link to Alan Gutherie's 32 rules of writing and they are excellent ones. Check 'em out. Even though most of us know this stuff implicitely, it's still helpful to see them explicitely stated some times.

Sid and Wayne have an interesting thing going about what you might find in a "dead man's pockets," including their own. I don't have a camera handy but in my pockets now there is a "billfold" with fifty bucks in it, a driver's license, two credit cards, a Barnes & Noble card, two library cards, some pictures of my son, some business cards, a Save A Center grocery store discount card, and a few business cards from other folks. Also in my pockets? A buck o' six cents in change, including a penny I picked up in the parking lot yesterday, a set of car keys, a cell phone, and a piece of chalk.

Writing wise, I did a bunch of rough draft last night on my fantasy, "The Blackest of Hates," and I'm finding that present tense sure does push the pace along quickly, perhaps too quickly in some cases. I also started on my next column for The Illuminata, and this one too owes a great deal to discussions I've had with folks here on the blog, as well as with my writing group. Thanks folks.

In reading, I finished Tommyland, which is Tommy Lee's (of Motley Crue)autobiography. It was actually pretty interesting, although I was most interested in the Crue years, being a big fan of their music. I'm also reading Charlee Jacob's Haunter, which is certainly one of the most graphic books I've ever read.