Jokes My Father Never Taught Me by Rain Pryor

This is about the life and times of Rain Pryor, one of the children of comedian Richard Pryor. She tells a candid story of growing up with a Jewish mother and black father. It wasn’t easy. Born in 1969 and growing up in the 70’s she faced racial connotations from adults and children alike. She also grew up with a set of parents that didn’t hold anything back from her. They cussed in presence and also when speaking directly to her. She had a well rounded word bank at the young age of four. At least Rain decided that she would do the opposite with her children then how her parents raised her – at least, the way Richard raised her. All in all, she dearly loved her father. Through all his issues, girlfriends, wives, drugs and illness, she never turned away from her father. She understood his upbringing had a lot to do with his ways and means. It’s a well known fact that he grew up in a whorehouse owned by his grandmother who also raised him. When his grandmother died, Richard’s world changed. According to Rain, this was the beginning of his downfall.

I’ve always known Richard Pryor to be an X-rated comic, but he didn’t start out that way. During his early years, he was compared to Bill Cosby; however he wanted to be known for himself, thus the transformation of talking about things that others wouldn’t want to talk about – race relations, sex, and drugs. He did open the way for the comics of today and also had a good acting career. Unfortunately, when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis his health deteriorated slowly, along with his career. Richard Pryor died in 2005 at the age of 65.

Rain went on the become an accomplished actor, starring in the television show Head of the Class alongside Robin Givens (the former Mrs. Mike Tyson) and Howard Hesseman (WKRP in Cincinnati). She became an actor on her own name and is still acting today.

This book was published in 2006 and at the time Rain Pryor was currently starring in her one-woman show titled Fried Chicken and Latkas.

SH*T My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

I thought it to be the equivalent of a “dark comedy” of memoirs. The author’s father says what he means and means what he says. I’ve often thought of writing a blog on “sh*t my mom says”, but this guys dad takes the cake! As a parent, I never cursed at my kids, however, the author’s dad has a no-holds barred attitude. He has 2 favorite 4-letter words and I’m going to let you imagine what they are! At least my mother only used the word “ass” when conversing with me. Then there’s the story about dad defending the house with a rifle, crawling on the floor, nude. When he discovers the “burglar” is just his sister-in-law getting a late night snack, he shrugs it off with the comment that a man’s house is his house. Filled with stories and quips and rants from a doctor of nuclear medicine, he really does care and love his family. I thought it was good for a few laughs. What started out as a simple twitter feed, is now a published book. What a great way to get a major book deal. And his dad is just as amazed! And, btw, there was also a TV comedy of the same name starring William Shatner as the ranting dad. I have not seen the show as I’m waiting for its release on DVD. The author, Justin Halpern is a writer and contributing editor at Maxim Magazine.

The World In Pieces by Bart Midwood

I enjoyed reading this story of the Brody family. If you think your family has issues, I’m sure this one may top it all. The juiciest tidbit is that Lo Yadua is the son of Anchel and Surah Brody and they are brother and sister! The family is Jewish and that’s just to give you an idea on how they may have handled that. The journal starts with Blima Brody, mother of Anchel and Surah. She was a free-spirited girl. A girl who spoke many languages, thus she was able to talk with anyone – and this she enjoyed dearly. She translated letters and love notes for everyone. She was a young girl in love with Yusef. However, her father had different ideas. Yusef had a sister who married a non-jew, thus Yusef’s family was un-clean according to Blima’s father. He had already arranged for Blima to marry someone else, but she wanted no part of this. After her father broke Yusef’s legs, she decided to go ahead with the arranged marriage. The story gets juicer and I will spare you the details about Surah having sex on a ship with a bunch of sailors! A true story, the author tells a tale of Anchel and Surah Brody who, upon their death, left him a box filled with letters and diaries. After getting in contact with Lo Yadua, then his wife, then their daughter, he publishes part of the letters into this story. In between the stories of Anchel and Surah, he also prints the correspondence between himself and Lo Yadua. When Lo Yadua is killed, the correspondence is continued with his wife, Ilana. She adds more to the tale of her in-laws as well. It’s quite interesting and I enjoyed reading it.

Not Buying It by Judith Levine

What an interesting concept: to only buy necessities - and even then the author thought hard about the purchase.

This is a chronicle of the author and her husband’s year long project of not buying things they did not need. I love her candor about her project and her writing in general. Before starting, they shop and stock up.

During this project, they discover many free events and they make use of them. One was the public library. The author also talks about consumerism. Why do we buy the things we buy? Do we need them or is it because we have a coupon that expires which would make the price a steal? In the beginning, the author has a desire, almost a longing to buy something that is not needed. But by the end of the year, the she feels great about being able to walk through a store and not buy a single item. She doesn’t feel any urges whatsoever!

I admire their dedication!

Just After Sunset by Stephen King

A collection of unrelated short stories (and I’m not a short story lover). I only selected this book because of the author.

Ten stories. Different characters, different and unusual story plots. Each story has that good old Stephen King spin, from dead band players to a cat who has more than 9 lives.

All I can say is that the last story in this collection , “hits a “20” on a vomit scale of 1 to 10 – read past those words quickly and don’t re-read! Stephen King knows how to get his characters into some pickles! This one is stuck in a Port-o-Potty! The last book that I read of Mr. Kings was “Gerald’s Game” and the protagonist was stuck in handcuffs for most of the book. And after reading that I read “Intensity” by Dean Koontz and his main character kept getting locked up in hand-cuffs. Is there some unseen trend to my reading rotation?!?

Crazy as Chocolate by Elisabeth Hyde

I need to make a side comment here: I have no rhyme or reason as to when I read any particular book, BUT it appears that whatever I select to read, there's always some small similarity to the last book that I read. For example: this book I'm posting on now is about mental illness and my last posting was a book I read about mental illness. It was a coincidence... Another time, I read a Dean Koontz book and the main character was handcuffed a few times in the book and right after reading that I read a Stephen King book and his character was in handcuffs throughout 90% of the book! There have been other related readings, but I just wanted to note that here! Thanks for reading!

I could have read this book in 1 day, maybe 2 if it was on a day off! I bought this book from the employee bookstore at Bookspan, a place I used to work. The title was what attracted me. I just love chocolate!

It’s about a family dealing with mental illness. The story begins with the main character, Isabel, who is turning 41 the next day. Her mother committed suicide when she turned 41. She’s not looking forward to the birthday for obvious reasons. She recants growing up with her mother. She starts out by stating how she kept her mothers’ illness a secret during her college years, and even from her husband Gabe.

As her older sister Ellie gets older, she gets diagnosed as manic-depressive, obsessive-compulsive, clinically depressed and phobic. It seems that Ellie never remembered any of their mom’s odd moments. I wonder if she blocked it out because perhaps she was already showing symptoms in herself of some kind of mental imbalance.

Although I don’t make light of any illness, I found the tales of Isabel’s mother funny. She would lie in the blink of an eye and think nothing of it if she got caught. Isabel and Ellie never disclosed to their mother that they knew of the lies she told people. The girls were allowed to get a dog and their mother would walk them to school with the dog every day. She was not a quiet dog and caused quite a stir on the playground. The Principal told their mother that she was not allowed to bring the dog onto the playground anymore because the children didn’t feel safe. Their mother told the Principal that she had a maniac of a brother who had just got released from jail and was harassing the family, thus the need for the dog. This was all a lie, but the Principal still banned the dog.

The story hits a crescendo, on Isabel’s birthday, when Ellie tells Isabel that she and her husband are getting a divorce and he wants to take obtain custody of their daughter, Rachel. That might have something to do with Ellie all of a sudden, opening a window and climbing outside to stand on the window ledge, in front of Rachel. Rachel gets lost and Isabel almost loses it when they all come together to celebrate Isabel’s birthday.

A quick read with a happy ending!

A BRILLIANT MADNESS: Living with Manic-Depressive Illness by PATTY DUKE

Very informative, as well as biographical, with many resources listed at the end of the book.

I think there are a lot of people suffering from M-D (Manic-Depressive) Illness that do not get the help they need because of either ignorance or misdiagnosis.

Anna Marie Duke, known to the world as Patty Duke, has led an extraordinary journey with this illness.

I liked when Patty made a comment that people have “an unbelievable ability to deny” and that if we didn’t we all would go crazy! We do tend to live in denial at times.

Patty talked about having panic attacks as a young girl and claiming to herself that when she becomes nine they will stop and every year she claimed the same statement and then at forty-five, up jumps the devil and she is still having attacks! That comment about her continually claiming to stop doing things hit home for me! I'm sure we've all been there with some ungodly habit we want to quit. Unfortunately for Patty, MD was not a habit. She also mentioned the suicide attempts and discovers they were a classic cry for help and how she felt as though there were demons inside of her making her do all those crazy things!

She talks about the things that happened in her life that were triggers of her manias such as not being able to appease her mother while dressing her to attend the Emmy Award show, being pregnant and unmarried and losing a close person who died. All these things happened to Patty around the same time.

Patty talks about the shame felt being manic-depressive, the guilt at how she made people feel and the stigma that is placed on people once its learned they have manic-depressive illness.

Patty’s mother thought she killed her mother when her sister opened the door for her. This was probably the key that triggered her manias.

When Patty did the movie, Call Me Anna, it was to let people be aware that manic-depressive illness was fixable.

What I gleaned from reading this book:
When a person is going through their mania, they feel as though there are no consequences to anything they may do – and the mania can be as minute as having a box for each earring or being sexually promiscuous.

At least two to three million Americans suffer from Manic-depressive disorder.

Families suffer because of the abuse they receive from the MD person.

The National Mental Health Association notes that 43% of Americans believe that depression is a personal or emotional weakness and not a disease.
Manic-depressive illness is often misdiagnosed by doctors. Thus patients receive treatments for illnesses that doctors think they have and the medication just doesn’t work.

There really needs to be a study of the persons family history. Genetics, loss and turmoil – lots – make a ripe combination for classic manic-depression.

Manic-depressive illness runs in families. Its encoded in the genes (a genetic tendency toward temperamental instability). The relationship between environment and genetic is what allows the disease to flourish.

When manic-depressives are in their manias, they often feel this is their most creative time. If they need medication, there is a tendency to not want to take it because they feel they will lose that creativity. They like their manias.

I would like to point out that the doctors who gave their input in this book do stress throughout the book that some people tend to be moody and have high-sustained energy but are not manic-depressive. Not everyone with mood swings are MD. A person should only be diagnosed as MD when their family history has been considered, mood swings are cyclical and this interferes with their jobs, families and they have thoughts of suicide.

Some very creative people were manic-depressive: Virginia Woolf, Vincent Van Gogh, George Frederic Handel, Robert Schumann, Edgar Allen Poe, just to name a few.