Audiobook Review: The Alchemist

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelo – Grade: A

I’ve read this before, but I listened to “The Alchemist” on audiobook this time. I enjoyed absolutely everything about it. I also experienced this when I absolutely needed it. Not to sound like a total hippie, but a few omens popped up for me.

As I traveled to a job interview, I realized I didn’t really want to live in a crappy part of town or travel there every day. When I didn’t get the job, I realized I didn’t really care. All this sealed the deal about leaving Korea soon.

Later, a random guy wrote to me about how one of my old columns made him laugh. First, I thought he was trolling me, but it turns out he found some of my old poops jokes legitimately funny. So, I started writing more.

An old student was thrilled to tell me about joining the debate team. I gave her a copy of the debate book that I was just going to throw away. She was happy.

Did any of this have to do with magic or alchemy? No. But, this is a fun read.

Movie Review: Shadow in the Cloud (Spoiler!)

Shadow in the Cloud – Grade: F
Usually, I like Chloe for her Hit-Girl fame. However, this was dogshit. The beginning feels uncomfortable, because men degrade women. Then, the flick is claustrophobic. Then, it’s a little stupid. Then, this is absolutely one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen. Don’t bother suspending any disbelief. Don’t waste time with this pile of trash. It’s beyond worthless. SPOILER!: “Shadow” has some of my least favorite things: horrible writing, horrible fake accents, complete nonsense and (spoiler…) a baby for no reason.

Stephen King and Me

Stephen King and Me

My parents are big readers. They wanted my brothers to read – as long as we were reading.

I read all kinds of stuff. “Garfield” comic books, superhero comics, Roald Dahl, “Chronicles of Narnia” and somehow Stephen King. I don’t even know where I found one of King’s book. I don’t know which one. Maybe “Christine.”

So, I started reading like crazy. My parents were happy with that. They didn’t look into what I was reading.

As a boy, I liked horror. There was always a chance to see boobs and violence. Yay! Maybe as a result of King, growing up in the States or just who I am — I always liked horror movies.

The fact that I could read King’s stuff instead of watching it blurred on TV or in a movie theater was also a huge pleasure for me.

On top of that, parents, teachers and church adults would see me with a book. “What are you reading?”
“It’s a Stephen King book about…” zombies, vampires, a monster car, diseases, ghosts, etc.

Part of me liked the idea that this smart, good little Catholic boy read these monster stories and freaked out his teachers.

Did I understand any of them?

Nope. I just read them.

But, I remember reading “Gerald’s Game” and being horrified because it was all about sex. The horror part was awful, but the fact that they had sex beforehand was too gross for me. Boobs were okay, but actual sex was wrong.

If a creature killed a guy who smoked weed, I figured he deserved it. I was ten years old and Nancy Reagan’s DARE told me all drug abusers were evil…

A scene in “IT” doesn’t need to be in the book and I’m certainly not going to put it on my blog. That scene probably made me put King’s books down for forever. I probably read his books exclusively for about five years or so. Then…I stopped.

About 20 years later, I heard King wrote “On Writing.”

My dream job has always been to be a writer. I picked up “On Writing” and liked it. He has a lot to teach and I learned a lot.

So much of writing is not just learning how to write, but actually WRITING. If I didn’t pick up “On Writing,” I don’t know if I would have known King was a sports reporter before. Eventually, I became a newspaper reporter which is how I earned my writing chops.

Ages later, Twitter becomes. Like one of his books, one of King’s tweets flopped onto my newsfeed and I really liked it. I followed him.

A few weeks ago, I gave one of King’s novels a shot. I picked something at random: “Cell.”

Nope. It was awful.

King seems like a nice guy and all. He’s written a bajillion books and some of the movie adaptions have become beloved institutions. I don’t care.

I can’t waste any more time reading his stuff.             

However, I’d like King to write an action-horror novel starring two of my other older idols: Arnold and Marilyn Manson.

Yeah, there are other better writers, actors and singers, but these guys are showmen…

Book Review: On Writing

On Writing by Stephen King – Grade: B+
Stephen King impacted my life a ton.
First, he helped me start reading what I liked to read: horror. I know I didn’t understand his books, but I liked them. I also liked King as a person. He seemed so bad ass.
Plus, I liked when grandmas and teachers asked my favorite writers and books. I’d say “Stephen King.” They’d freak out. But suddenly, I quit reading his stuff.
About 20 years ago, I picked up “On Writing.” I reread this recently. It’s a writing book with great writing advice, some boring autobiographical stuff, and equal amounts of self-flagellation as self-praise.
I have a special place in my heart for King, even if I don’t care for his books now.

Book Review: Cell

Cell by Stephen King – Grade: D

I used to read almost exclusively Stephen King as a tween/teen. For whatever reason, I just quit reading King’s stuff. “Cell” is my first “new” King book since about 1996, except for “On Writing” which I’ll cover in another blog.

“Cell” started off fairly interesting. But the leaps the characters made into solving the crisis were just too stupid. I didn’t care about the characters at all. They spoke so much about the exposition that I seemed to be reading an essay about the book instead of an actual book. Nothing did it for me. The ending was awful.

COOL QUOTE: “If you’re in New Hampshire, you can live free. If you want to come to New Hampshire, you can fucking die.”

Life Updates and Why?

Blah. So much stuff happened since I’ve actually blogged, journaled or written.

The crazy thing is, I am actually writing a lot, but I’m working on my novels. That is going quite well. I finished editing one novel and pretty seamlessly went to another novel. I need to butcher a lot of words and pages out of them to make them readable and publishable, but that is what editing is.

I finished working at one job and then thought I had another job. Unfortunately, COVID-19 kind of beat me up with that one, so I ended up unemployed and needing to do some last-minute scrambling for jobs. I found a good one, I hope. Allegedly, I will be teaching literature to elementary and middle school children. I think I have taught all types of things, but never literature.

As a English degree holder, I think this could be really fun.

However, that’s not totally true.

I moved from one place to the other to the other to this current place. Somewhere in those moves, I lost my undergraduate degree!

Yes, I still have a degree from NYU, but I just don’t know where it is. It’s not a huge deal. I can just reorder it. But, it’s just annoying.

I have a few more days of freedom, then this weekend I move to my new apartment and on Monday I start training for this job. Usually, these places want you to follow their system. I hope it’s not too big of a deal.

Movie Review: Despicable Me/Superbad

Despicable Me/Superbad – Grade: C+
My students love this film. I watched about 15 minutes ages ago, but couldn’t get past the beginning. This time, I finished the film so I could understand the Minions and whatever.
“DM” has some cute moments and great animation, but it’s not really a movie made for me.

Audiobook Review: Stranger in a Strange Land

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein – Grade: C
This audiobook started off boring, became interesting and then ended up boring as hell. Afterwards, if I heard the words “Grok” or “Thou art god” again, I would have gone insane. The audiobook could have been edited or updated for 2021. I grew ridiculously bored and annoyed after listening for so long.
The idea of a Martian starting a sex cult sounds interesting, but just took way too long. Also, I know this is an older scifi book, but some ideas were dated and stupid.

Movie Review: Promising Young Woman

Promising Young Woman – Grade: A
Yikes. I did NOT know what to expect with this film, but I’m glad I didn’t read anything about it before I watched. “Promising Young Woman” was scary, weird, uncomfortable, gross, sometimes cute, other times funny but in the end a complete curveball. This was perfectly done in every way and I could never guess what would happen next. The acting talent, story and resolution were great. But, wow. Not what I thought.
Honestly, I can see my younger self accidentally bringing a first date to this movie because I thought this was a romantic comedy. I did that with “The Wrestler.” Big oops…

Book Review: Forever Nerdy

Forever Nerdy by Brian Posehn – Grade: F-
This is in the running for my “Most Hated Book of 2021.”
Before reading, I’ve watched some of the author’s comedy and thought he was kind of funny. But, after trudging through his book I deleted him from Twitter and will never watch his stuff again.
Every other joke goes like this: “I did this thing as a kid. Yeah. Kids are dicks.”
I hoped he’d be a “funny nerd” in the sense that he’d be self-deprecating , but instead I needed to read page after page of crap about his favorite band/writer/director, their best album/book/movie and the year they appeared – this nonsense repeats over and over.
He feels the need to explain his jokes, which just makes him much less funny. He beats his explanations to death.
Posehn acts like he holds some sort of superiority over today’s nerds because, “Oh, you’re not a nerd. I saw the original ‘Star Wars’ in the theaters, so that makes me nerdier than you…’”
He seems to be an asshole. He criticizes everybody for being a sellout, but look at his own career! He’s on “Big Bang Theory” and “Everybody Loves Raymond!!!” He’s the definition of selling out!
He had a tough childhood, but very quickly I didn’t care. He openly admits to being an asshole to teachers, which I don’t accept at all.