Revisit: Rookie Cop: by Richard Rosenthal

Revisit:
Rookie Cop
by Richard Rosenthal
2000

Rookie Cop is Richard Rosenthal's account of his time spent as an undercover police officer embedded in the Jewish Defense League in the early 1970s. Published in 2000 and chronicling the events of the group's early history, the book still serves as an outstanding insider's view of one of this country's most controversial fringe organizations as well as a snapshot of New York's political, cultural and racial climate during the Cold War. The JDL Rosenthal depicts could be both remarkably incompetent and dangerously motivated, with its key figures defiant in their defense of Jewish interests and advocating the types of provocative actions - confrontational sloganeering and protests, bombings, one attempted hijacking - that would eventually land the JDL a spot on the FBI's register of right-wing terrorist sects.

Rosenthal's back story is the stuff of Hollywood; indeed, it's hard to understand how Rookie Cop hasn't yet been adapted to the silver screen. After a four-year stint in the Air Force where he worked as a Russian language specialist followed by an aborted attempt at college, Rosenthal was accepted into the NYPD but didn't receive a single day of training before being recruited for his undercover assignment. Over the ensuing months Rosenthal would essentially play the role of weapons expert, with direct access to the JDL's leader - the "strong willed, determined, and...forceful" Rabbi Meir Kahane - as well as gain and dutifully report to his law enforcement superiors intimate, first-hand knowledge of the JDL's attempts to acquire and, ultimately, utilize, firearms and bomb-making materials.

Through Rosenthal's book we see individuals driven by a narrowly-defined but broadly applied ideology and the steps they would go to defend that ideology. Though the group may have had its fair share of "a bunch of people who were some combination of fools and neurotics," Rosenthal never discounts the JDL's desire to combat its perceived enemies and their policies, particularly the Soviet Union's refusal to allow Jews to emigrate from the Communist nation. While there are actually some humorous moments in which Rosenthal recalls some of the members' almost caricature-like amateurishness - "inept bomb-making attempts, long hours spent with heavily armed paranoids who hadn't a clue how to handle their firearms" - the JDL undeniably meant business.

Backed by a charismatic, media-savvy leader who once famously preached a policy of "every Jew a .22" and a core following of disaffected, financially struggling men, the JDL made its aims violently clear, attempting to hijack an airline as retribution for an earlier Arab hijacking and later bombing the offices of Sol Hurok, an entertainment mogul who earned the JDL's scorn by arranging for Soviet artists to perform in the United States. The explosion would injure scores of people and leave one person dead: a young Jewish woman.

To Rosenthal's credit, he never sensationalizes his gig as a spy; unlike other true crime memoirs that seem designed to stroke the author's ego and portray said author as a super-badass James Bond hopped up on righteousness and 'roids, Rosenthal's text is understated, humble and meticulously detailed. He harbors no illusions about how laborious and monotonous his job often was, albeit with a degree of risk most of us will never encounter in the workplace. In this way Rosenthal is likeable as both a writer and cop, and though he occasionally weakens his narrative by tangentially offering his views on gun control, wiretapping and various other hot-button topics, for the most part he presents his story without prejudice or judgment. Rookie Cop is never sexy or stylized; it is simply a reliable, informative and responsibly written snapshot of the JDL in its earliest incarnation, as well as an important document in understanding the collective mindset of a collection of zealots.

Letters to Emma Bowlcut: by Bill Callahan

Letters to Emma Bowlcut
by Bill Callahan
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Publisher: Drag City

Letters to Emma Bowlcut is one of the few works of musician-penned fiction that is not appallingly abysmal or vainly self-indulgent. There's a stigma attached to works of "literature" penned by a lyricist, and with good reason. Even heavyweights like Bob Dylan and Nick Cave haven't dodged this particular landmine. With its Beat Generation-aping stream of consciousness style and nonsensical wordplay, Tarantula is still mostly unreadable, whether you're sober or stoned. Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel is no better - hell, it's actually much worse - as its tale of Euchrid Eucrow over-imbibes in the gothic excesses that somehow still work on Cave's 1980s albums. A reader could be forgiven for hearing echoes of Cave's albums in that text; Christ, the rain even pissed down in the book too. Some wits favorably compared Angel to both Faulkner and O'Connor - surely an insult to both of those writers (to be fair though, Cave's more recent The Death of Bunny Munro is a little better).

It's therefore a minor miracle that Bill Callahan's Letters to Emma Bowlcut is actually worth reading and would likely garner attention even if Callahan didn't already have indie music name recognition to give this publication a little PR push. Alternately described as an epic poem and an epistolary novel, it consists of 62 letters over which a relationship between an unnamed man and a woman, possibly a librarian he meets at a party, develops. If the whole concept sounds too quaint for this email and text age and just a little bit precious, at least it's well-written enough to make it easy for the reader to forgive its somewhat rustic premise.

Usually writing in short, declarative sentences, Callahan gradually reveals details about each character, always through the voice of the male. The man's job remains nebulous; he works with micrometers, studies the "Vortex" and makes one trip to company headquarters, but otherwise, Callahan offers glimpses into the man's past and present in the subtlest of ways. The man is a boxing enthusiast - "god I wanted the uppercuts to connect," he says in an early letter - as well as something of an emotional live wire. He vacillates between extremes: sobriety and intoxication, insecurity and bravado, dissatisfaction and contentment, chivalry and crudity. The character is meant to be viewed sympathetically despite his flaws, as many of the events he recalls - especially phone calls with a grandmother whose memory is failing - seem designed to evoke compassion from the reader. Though the woman remains a little more sketchy, primarily because everything we know about her comes from the letter writer's perception of her, Callahan similarly provides enough back story to make her more than the man's idealized muse.

Some traits of Callahan's lyrical style find their way into Letters to Emma Bowlcut (indeed, the title of Callahan's latest studio album Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle can be found in letter 20). The letters are frequently poetic; in letter 3 the man says that "at the heel end of day, I need my glass of wine. Christmas lights for the brain. In lulls we assess the gulls." It could be gibberish but, damn, it sounds good. Other letters feature Callahan's sardonic and borderline cruel sense of humor; in letter 44 the man describes how he reacts when someone falls down: "I have an inability to help anyone who has fallen. To witness injects me with a paralytic joy. If someone falls in front of me, you've never seen such a smile in your life." But the book is not simply Callahan's lyrics set to paper, and is better for it.

Sometimes Callahan's inner monologue ponderings on so much of life's mundane daily acts of repetition smack of pseudo-psychological babble. But Letters to Emma Bowlcut is usually pretty damn good and shows all the traits that make Callahan's music so worthwhile. It also doesn't embarrass its author, something a few big-name lyricists who've released some serious drivel can't claim.

The Only Thing I Have, by Rhonda Waterfall

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Unnerving, moving and sometimes exceedingly bleak, many of the stories included in The Only Thing I Have are likely to stay in the reader's mind long after that final page in this slim volume has been turned. The debut book from Canadian writer Rhonda Waterfall, it is written in a brutally direct style that heightens the impact of these narratives of loneliness and loss. Its topics aren't particularly novel, but no matter: there is plenty to like here, with the author's unadorned prose and gift for storytelling offsetting any lack of originality.

Waterfall's writings can roughly be described as mostly sympathetic examinations of the human psyche disguised as simple tales about failing relationships. Several begin with this common motif: the central characters of "When You're Gone," "Around the Park" and the title story all feature intensely restless and dissatisfied people who envision idyllic - and most likely unattainable - lives that break from their status quo domesticity. These are portraits of characters desperate to escape but paralyzed by bouts of inaction and their own conflicted emotions: these characters know they want something else, but aren't sure of what that something is. Their indecision cripples them; worse, when these characters take decisive action it doesn't turn out well.

There's also a heavy amount of fatalism in the world the author portrays in The Only Thing I Have. Coupled with the writer's tendency for invoking the sinister and gothic - especially in the Post-It Note double-murder tale of "The Last Note," the taxi cab driver killing in "Shooting the Driver" and the chilling, remorseless next-door neighbor murder of the title character in "Fatty" - hope and optimism are in short supply throughout this collection. For the most part Waterfall's writing cannot be described as excessively nihilistic - though one character slowly freezes to death with only a grainy homemade sex tape of himself and the woman he either can't stand or desperately needs for comfort - as she clearly cares about her characters, as deeply flawed and sometimes self-absorbed as they are. Their sufferings in the face of an indifferent world are immediately recognizable; Waterfall is never over-indulgent and her dramas unfold subtly and not on a grandiose scale. Her characters are acutely aware that daily struggles sometimes exact the heaviest toll on a person's mind: "I think sometimes I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. I suppose it's not the real thing, the full-blown deal. It's just small breakdowns. Little breaks along the way," Waterfall writes at one point.

If there is a shortcoming to these stories, it's that periodically they sound like minor variations on the same theme, especially in terms of how Waterfall's plotlines unfold and how her subjects react to adversity. Though it also at times feels overly repetitive - too many entries involve clichés like seedy hotels, people downing liquor like water and anonymous, mostly unsatisfying sex - The Only Thing I Have is a promising first effort from an obviously gifted writer. With its precise and economical writing style and characters whose struggles will likely feel prescient to readers, this book convincingly speaks of shared human experiences, as we embrace life's comforts and equally try to make sense of its cruelties.

Rock On: An Office Power Ballad, by Dan Kennedy

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Much of Dan Kennedy's Rock On: An Office Power Ballad is as tedious and ennui-inducing as the mainstream music acts and corporate culture he lampoons throughout the book. Based on the writer's experiences as an Atlantic Records employee during that label's clusterfuck 2000s, Kennedy certainly had plenty of material from which to base his memoir/200-plus page rambling inner monologue: music industry weasel executives whose wardrobe never advanced past the early '70s but whose self-preservation skills are finely honed; the inherent absurdities of work life as part of a company on the auction block; the mass layoffs that sent both label presidents and lowly grunts cowering under desks as they tried to avoid getting the axe. Yet the book never really manages to say anything more than major labels are prone to the same shenanigans as any other mega-corporation and are primarily focused on pushing image-conscious and blandly generic artists onto the public instead of fostering a musician's artistic growth or providing quality product to the listening public. No shit.

First, a few polite words. The persona Kennedy adopts throughout Rock On - a well-meaning thirtysomething who initially thinks his lifelong obsession with music will be fulfilled when he lands a job in Atlantic's marketing department - is likable. The author brings a modicum of common sense to a frequently bizarre world of major label internal politics, gamesmanship and ass-covering. He doesn't buy into Atlantic's effusive praise of its illustrious artists, nor does he tow the official party line or hold back criticism of the label's outdated sales methods (in print, at least). The book's best moments occur in its latter half - well past the point by which many readers will have lost interest - where Kennedy offers an insider's view of life in a sagging music company whose employees expected to be unceremoniously canned on a daily basis. Kennedy's writing here is both cynical and poignant, exhibiting a flair for dark humor and a keen eye for capturing the company's anxious mood as loyal workers - including Kennedy - were laid off.

Yet Rock On has one significant shortcoming: it's just not that funny, which is an obvious problem for a book whose primary goal is to humorously skewer the music industry. Kennedy's humor is too often of the snarky, smarmy variety favored by a seemingly increasing number of cultural pundits and hack comedians. Moreover, many of Kennedy's witticisms are fairly obvious, beyond stale and grossly repetitive; 200 pages is a lot of paper to waste to simply state that a lot of mainstream acts are lousy and that executives driven more by self-interest than any abiding love of music are hopelessly out of touch with contemporary listeners. The author's first-person writing style quickly becomes rather exhausting and, quite simply, annoying, as Kennedy at times comes across as more neurotic than George Costanza. Readers who aren't fans of inner monologue writing likely won't enjoy this book.

Rock On isn't a total letdown, but it is trite and formulaic, while rarely offering any new insight into corporate culture that can't already be gleaned from Office Space or "The Office." Kennedy gets some points for deftly - and sometimes, comically - depicting what the atmosphere at Atlantic was like when the label began to flatline, but this only accounts for a small portion of the book. It's actually fitting, in a way; Rock On is unintentionally a lot like the mainstream acts Kennedy jabs at throughout his book: there's a decent tune surrounded by a whole lot of filler and banal sentiments, none of which ever really say anything of substance.

Book Review: My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands, by Chelsea Handler

Chelsea Handler certainly can’t be accused of being shy or subtle. Her brand of humor is often snarky, sarcastic, and a little (ok, a lot) vicious. Her current show on the E! Network, besides being one of the few shows on that channel worth watching, is often a vehicle for her sometimes crude, sometimes mean, and often funny comedic approach.

This sense of humor also makes My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands an engaging, funny read. Published in 2005, before Handler become a quasi-household name, the book is raw and honest; the Victorians and Puritans among us would be best served to avoid reading it. Some of the language would make a drunken sailor blush. The first chapter, which recounts how Handler as a young girl discovered her parents doing the Big Nasty, might also scare some people off right away, even though it is laugh-out-loud funny. Each remaining chapter chronicles one of Handler’s one-night stand experiences, including hookups with a cruise ship performer who bears a small resemblance to Party of Five actor Scott Wolf, a midget, and a stone-dumb male stripper.

Although there are plenty of one-night stands described in this book, along with its kissing cousins of vodka and Ecstasy, the book’s funniest moments come from Handler’s descriptions of her family life, especially her car “dealer” father and Mormon sister, her various friends and roommates, including the clueless and naïve “Dumb Dumb,” and her misadventures. In a truly hilarious story, she finds herself breaking into her own apartment the morning after a non-hookup, still wearing her M&M’s costume from the previous night’s party. Handler also uses plenty of self-deprecating humor; she stumbles through some of her experiences and is clearly learning as she goes.

Women might find this book more humorous than men. Written from the point of view of a brutally honest female, it does reveal something of the mentality of what at least one woman searching for a one-night stand looks for in a guy. For the guys out there, it’s a little disheartening: one potential hookup is scuttled because he’s too well endowed, where on another occasion, Handler makes a quick exit because her potential suitor has a “shrinky dink.” I’m sure you can figure it out.

This begs the question as to whether a dude can read this book without feeling like a total, grade A pervert. To determine that, there are simple guidelines to follow:

• If you’re a married or otherwise non-single male and your special lady friend asks you to read it, you’re covered. Pervert Rating 0.
• If you’re a married or otherwise non-single male and you’re sneaking peeks at this book out of curiosity, you’re partially covered. It’s not quite as bad as swiping your woman’s Cosmo for bathroom reading material, but it’s close. Pervert Rating 5.
• If you’re a single male and you claim to be reading the book to understand women, you’re full of it. Pervert Rating 10.

My Horizontal Life ends with the author realizing that a life of one-night stands is exausting; it’s the closest the book comes to having a theme or message. This isn’t a bad thing; Handler never takes herself or her subject matter too seriously. Instead, the book delivers enough witty one-liners, observations about dating and life, interesting characters, and funny bedroom (or cruise ship) stories to make it a humorous book worth reading. Unless you’re a single male.