4 comments about Drugging America: A Trojan Horse, Second Edition.

1. Fills in so many blanks. It is a given that the CIA is the mother of all drug cartels, but Rodney Stich show us exactly what that looks like. He also paints a picture of how this issue has corrupted our entire society.
   
   Bob Kirkconnell, Veterans for Peace, Academics for Justice



2. Rodney Stich strikes back at Big Brother
   again with another winner. Govourment
   Deep Cover Agents, CIA connections,
   socalled 'War on Drugs' [no more effective
   than Nixon's once ballihooed 'War On Can-
   cer'], Mena Airport and Clinton have nothing
   on this book! But both are related. The ope-
   ration to drug America will just make it ea-
   sier to sell the dupes the New World Order!



3. I have read this book twice. It is not for readers who assume that cops are the panacea to the down and dirty world of drug trafficking. The American people must put a stop to this insanity, like illegal immigration that's killing our country and its economy through cheap substandard labor and a sieve of cocaine through the porous borders. What the hell is wrong with this picture when we're fighting terrorism, yet letting illegals through unabated. Think about this serious danger to our security. Are Cuban cigars as bad as cocaine?? Crazy!



4. Author Rodney Stich requires documentation from those who select to confide in him ... his sources feel compelled to talk, to spread the word, about many unconscionable acts by Federal Agency personnel and other Government Officials. Rodney also offers advice and insight for people who may feel "under assault" by courts, or government personnel ... generally put (1) you have something they want (2) you know something and they don't want you to succeed ...

   Rodney's book is very "readable" and is well-indexed. It's tough to put it down, absorbing subject and insights.

2 comments about Cass.

1. 
   As a previous reviewer pointed out; this is not a typical hooligan book its a biography of Cass one of the main members of the IFC one of the most famous hooligan gangs of the 70s and 80s.
   
   The book covers his childhood, being a black child adopted by a white couple and raised in an all white area, the racism he encountered as a kid and how his foster parents taught him pride in who he was and to stand up to anyone. The book then goes into how he got hooked up with the IFC and hooked on the violence that went with it.
   
   The many trials he went through, how he went into bouncing post jail time, how he met his future wife and finaly got his life together metting up with his natural parents back in Jamacia.
   
   Realy interesting read especially his connections with Frank Bruno and Lenny Henry.
   
   Honest book, highly recomended.



2. When i started reading this book i thought it would be about a MORONIC FOOTBALL THUG that all the media wants us to believe they are, but this is how CASS found true friends at West Ham, who didn't care about his colour but just the love of his team and how he grew up amongs racists,football rivals and police prejedice and came out a proud person and a loving parent. Excellent reading

5 comments about I Am Jesse James.

1. I was a bit disappointed in this book. I did like the bike photos that were shown... not many. Lots of filler of Jesse and his gang posing with guns. What looks like porn stars on the bikes.... I would rather just see the bikes man. I don't need to see pictures of Jesse playing tough guy holding a shotgun or burning money. Or his freaking dog dish with the WCC logo on it... my god. It makes you wonder what he is trying to make up for. His bikes are cool. They need to show more of them. And the text is pretty much a joke too... F this and F that. Its like a big kiss up to Jesse as a bike god or something and F the rest of you. If you pay full price for this book, you deserve to get beat down by Jesse.



2. Don't expect any lessons on how to build a custom Harley Davidson. This book is just pure eye candy. Considering that bike magazines are so expensive this book is worth buying for inspiration. As a 'coffee table book' (whatever that means!), it serves its purpose well, which is why I'm giving it 5 Stars.
   
   I'm not really into custom Harleys (As far as H-Ds are concerned I would prefer a Buell X1 Lightning or Sundance Performance Super XR1200) but I appreciate the effort, skill and craftsmanship that goes into each of his bikes. Jesse James is famous because he's the real deal. He can actually do his own metalwork, shaping sheetmetal into a tank or fender, and does his own welding. His style is a bit on the extreme side of things, yet isn't bizzare or cartoonish, which is probably why he's successful.
   
   I bought this book because I wanted to know ... "Who is this guy?" ... "Why is he so famous"? I've created a couple of special edition automobiles ... but why am I not even half as famous? :) We could all learn a bit about marketing, advertising and promotion from Jesse James. If you want to read about Jesse James himself, buy the Mike Seate book "Jesse James, the man and his machines".



3. I am a big fan of Monster Garage and of Jesse James. I bought this book after reading The Man and His Machines thinking it would provide an insight into who Jesse is and some details about his life and his struggles. The photo's of the bikes are great but I have seen those same photo's over and over again. I expected to see more photo's of Jesse. I also expected it would be a more autobiographical book, not something I needed a magnifying glass to read and finished within the hour. Jesse needs to release a true autobiography. His fans would love it.



4. I received this book as a gift, which is the only reason it's not in a trash can right now. People are paying $17 for a bunch of recycled photos, only 40 or so of which portray Jesse James, along with a few hundred words of unreadable text? This is the "authorized" biography? Is the man's life so horrible that no one could write about it? Frankly, this book is an insult to Jesse's fans. If you want to read about Jesse, buy "Jesse James: The Man and His Machines," by Mike Seate.



5. This book's title just scream's "kids book" ... This redneck is a moron and his picture book and last review say it all. Any good book is not read "in about an hour".. if you're looking for a biography.. look elsewhere. I saw this book at the checkout in wallmart (if that tells you anything)... and read it while waiting in line. This picture book was meant for inbreeders and morons and I thought it was a good laugh... don't waste your time.

5 comments about Rescuing Patty Hearst: Growing Up Sane in a Decade Gone Mad.

1. I thought this book we tell me something new that I didn't know about mental illness but it didn't really do that.



2. Holman's autobiography of her childhood abuse at the hands of a schizophrenic mother is surprisingly tame: Holman writes with considerable emotional distance, as if she's still uneasy about approaching the memories. This tone makes the book read more like fiction than reality at times. Unlike many memoir writers, Holman talks little about her childhood emotions, instead opting to probe into the "why's" of the events: why her father didn't "save" her from her crazy mother, why Holman herself didn't flee, etc. It makes for an interesting psychological tale. However, by the same token it prevents readers from getting too emotionally tied to the book and its young, suffering Virginia.
   Holman's tactic of switching abruptly back and forth between the present and her childhood also does some major damage to the book's flow. The same goes for the book's structure: Holman divides her story into short chapters, many of them only 2-3 pages long.
   Still, anyone with a relative suffering from a mental illness--particularly illnesses as quirky and unpredictable as schizophrenia, will find a familiar voice in Holman's childhood self and will recognize all too well her adult frustrations with finding logic in the illogical waters of her experiences.



3. When she was eight years old, Gingie was forced to leave town with her mother Molly, a schizophrenic under the delusion that she was needed to set up a makeshift hospital for war children. Molly took Gingie and her baby sister Emma, who was only a year old, to the family's Virginia summer cottage, and for several years, forced Gingie to humor her in collecting supplies, adapting their home and going along with a variety of delusions as she began to descend more and more into the illness.
   
   Meanwhile, Gingie's father remained in the family's original home, visiting on weekends. After he requested a divorce, he told his daughters he couldn't take them, because the law usually ruled in favor of the mothers. That may have been true in the mid-1970s, but what jury could possibly recommend two little girls remain in the custody of a schizophrenic? It seems odd, how the girls' father knew first-hand what they were undergoing, but did nothing to remove them from the situation.
   
   All the while, Gingie keeps thinking of Patty Hearst, the heiress who was kidnapped and found robbing a bank with her captors the previous year. She wonders what really happened to Patty; did she cooperate of her own free will? Was she brainwashed? Did she want to get away? Gingie figures it's not too different from her own situation.
   
   Interspersed between Gingie's recollections are brief comments from the adult Virginia. Although happily married and doing well in life, she's unable to stop thinking about her childhood. Why did it have to happen? If it happened to her mother, well after she entered her thirties and had children, could it happen to *her*?
   
   An intriguing read, giving a vivid picture of life with a mentally ill person in control of the situation...



4. At first when Gingie's mother begins to show signs of becoming delusional, it's a bit like an adventure. Gingie and her sister Emma is one. When their mother, in the early stages of schizophrenia, announces they must be vigilant and look for clues, it seems to Gingie that they are plunged into an exciting world, like Nancy Drew, where anything could mean something important. They walk though the woods, examining the trash they find, and Gingie's mother records everything in her notebook.
   
   Life continues to get stranger and stranger, though. Gingie's mother moves her daughters into their summer cottage and paints the windows black, confiding in her that they have been chosen to create a field hospital for the war orphans who will be arriving any day. For years Gingie endures night maneuvers and quizzes on the contents of the first aid book her mother expects her to learn, so she will be able to help treat the war children.
   
   Despite this weirdness in her childhood, other parts of Gingie's life are remarkably normal. She plays with her cousins who live nearby, attends school and worries about making friends. Nobody seems to be concerned with her mother's increasingly strange behavior.
   
   Although Gingie's experience was worrisome, I didn't get a feeling of urgent danger from her story. She described some of the crazy things her mother did, like refusing to leave their cottage during a flood, or giving her sister a glass of bleach to drink, or, much later, physically attacking Gingie when she was visiting from college, but she didn't give the impression that the situation was dire. I think this made the story less dramatic than it could have been, because the narrator didn't seem overly horrified by the effects of her mother's mental illness.



5. This book chronicles the experiences of one family when the mother develops schizophrenia after giving birth to her second child. Unable to convince the mother to get psychiatric help and without the legal means to force her to do say, the family is instead forced to simply stand by as her delusions slowly take over their mother's life, and, in the process, also their own.
   
   Quote: "I think about this now: I was seen at my worst and loved. Forgiven. This still astounds me. And it makes me want to be kinder to people, more compassionate. I begin to wonder: Can I find a way to forgive my mother for being so sick?"
   
   
   I thought this book was extremely interesting and also very saddening because, as it is written by the family's older daughter, the reader gets a glimpse into how schizophrenia affects both the person who is diagnosed with the condition and the people who love and surround the individual. The daughter finds that she is able to connect with her mother less and less until she is forced to choose between having nothing to share with her mother or being a part of her mother's delusions.

2 comments about Vanilla Slim: An Improbable Pimp in the Empire of Lust.

1. The author describes running a small contemporary escort service in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, as well as producing erotic camcorder flicks, featuring the most beautiful of his contractors, and her answering trivia questions related to world history. This entertaining book is short (but succinct) on the voyeuristic side. It gives a compassionate view of the seedy part of the city, the action and follies of its inhabitants, sex-seeking visitors, those catering to them, and of the cities legislators and cops. Streets, buildings, and shops come to life, as does some of its recent history and art, the drug scene, and the authors days in prison. The "language" is mixed: direct and often beautifully poetic. This book parallels in a way John Steinbecks Cannery Row; I found it at least as much fun to read.



2. Elmore Leonard rules the Florida Coast; Bob Armstrong nails San Francisco!

5 comments about Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life.

1. The life of Meyer Lansky (little Man), who became a Big Man in developing the casinos and all the entertainment in Free Cuba. Buy it!



2. This is a very misleading book about a man who was so much more then what Lacey actually claims. His sources are very questionable, especially Lansky's crippled son Buddy. It was well known that Lansky's family had caused him much heartache and his son Buddy especially. He made some bad business decisions and his health kept declining each year. Lansky decided early to keep his family far away from the criminal world so if you wanna know about Lansky Mr. Lacey, investigate criminals, FBI bugs, trial transcripts etc. etc.
   
   All of Lansky's friends died wealthy and you know why? because that was Lansky's own damn money. Robert Lacey doesn't get it. Avoid this book.



3. Lacey's biography is an interesting, relatively faced-paced read; although the sub-title for this book is a bit misleading. Little Man provides an interesting perspective on Meyer Lansky as a man and as a "family man." However, the book is pretty thin on describing Lansky's exploits as a gangster and about the "gangster life." This perhaps isn't too surprising since a major source for the information Lacey provides was Lansky's family members, and particularly his son Buddy, who worshipped him. Overall, I found the family perspective on Meyer Lansky provided me with a lot of new insight into the character of the man. This book served to comlement what I learned from reading other bios on Lansky that delved much more deeply into Lansky, the gangster. One big point of difference between this book and others about Lansky pertains to the amount of money he was worth at the time of his death. While according to Lacey, Lansky had lost almost all of his money in his later years and had to live quite frugally, other books claim that Lansky left a fortune of about $300 million. Whatever he was worth really isn't important to me. What I hope will be important to you is that Little Man is a worthwhile book to read.



4. The book is well written and is full of interesting personal facts about Lansky, but comes up shorthanded in details about the man's enterprise.There is little mention of his role in the
   rampant bootlegging in the 1920's and the violence that went along with it.This is a good book if you are already familar with Lansky and want more information on his personal character.Much of the details are provided by his son Buddy and numerous others that were close to him, but not in a "business" sense.



5. I can only assume the applauding professional and amateur reviewers were swept away by Lacey's evocative descriptions of Lansky's surroundings and cultural background. Lacey's detailed study is, I will readily admit, finely wrought, but this book should have been sold as fiction. Besides totally whitewashing Lansky, "Little Man" is peppered with countless factual errors (e.g. Joe the Boss Masseria was not waiting for a late lunch when he got hit in 1931-- he'd already eaten a huge lunch), many of which bolster the author's fantastic characterization of his subject. Where is there any discussion of Lansky's operation in Covington, Kentucky? Why is Murder, Inc. mentioned only three times in this book when Lansky was crucial to Siegel and Lepke's killing-for-hire enterprise? I certainly understand a biographer's decision to lionize his/her subject, but this exoneration of a well-documented monster is criminal.

4 comments about Tom P's Fiddle - A True Texas Tale.

1. I have some personal knowledge of Tom P. Varnell. According to family research, he is a very distant cousin of mine. This book really brings the story to life. The book is so well written, you feel like you are there, sharing in all of the problems that Tom P faced. I bought two books, one for myself, and one as a gift. I have had so many requests to loan this book that I am going to order another from Amazon. I wouldn't part with my personal copy.
   
   I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in life as it was around the turn of the 19th century.
   
   I can't wait for Sherri Knight's next book to come out, as I am sure that it will be as interesting as this one is. Tom P's Fiddle - A True Texas Tale



2. Sherri Knight made me feel like I was living during the time of Tom P. The book read absolutely fantastic!! The entire family seemed so real that I just hated finishing the book. It seemed like I was leaving friends behind. The land and the times are particularly well portrayed. Just reading about Tom P made me want to have been able to travel back in time to that era! Thank you Sherri Knight for making 19th century Texas come so alive!!



3. I discovered this book when it became a finalist for the North Texas Book Festival Book Award for Non-Fiction. As a 6th generation Texan, I'll admit the cover drew me to this True Texas Tale. However, I'm a noted critic that authors fail to do justice to our frontier way of life and our rich, unique vernacular. Hollywood always seems to have a cursory presentation. But Sherri Knight's prose effortlessly drew me into the world of our ancestors, where life was as tough and gritty as our language.
   
   I found the compelling story of Tom P Varnell populated with strong, engaging characters that often had to rely on their own sense of justice on the frontier. I was so drawn into Tom P's world that by the end I desperately wanted to reach across time and space and spend the afternoon at the Varnell ranch sipping a cup of Arbuckle with Docia. With the complete immersion that I found in Ms. Knight's illustrative prose, I really did find the next best thing.
   
   When I went to Google to learn more of Tom Ps story on my own, imagine my surprise to find Sherri Knight had a complete blog that detailed her journey into Tom P's world. I was astounded by the vast amounts of research executed by this author. I highly recommend a visit, as you will be richly rewarded with vast amounts of supplementary materials and photos. I need not be a skeptic when it comes to Sherri Knight, she knows her history and she knows her Texas!



4. Many of us would like to know what our ancestors lives were like. If we are lucky, we have relatives alive to tell the tales. But like the game of gossip, the tales differ from relative to relative, and a kernel of truth is in each story, but not the whole truth.
   
   Sherri Knight has meticulously pulled together family stories and researched dilligently to find that kernel of truth and in doing so, has written the story of one man's life in the late 19th century. It reads as though we are the crowd watching the events as they unfold before our very eyes. We are the neighbors, the jurists, the lawmen, the womenfolk, who are seeing the events that are set in motion, when in a youthful moment of indiscretion, shots were fired.

5 comments about The King of the Sunset Strip: Hangin' With Mickey Cohen And the Hollywood Mob.

1. The New York mob has been written about and expounded upon ad infinitum/nauseum, so it's nice to see a book that revolves around the West Coast mob, which has comparatively less written coverage. This book grabs you from the first page and doesn't release it's grip until the last. The pacing is excellent. It's one of the most absorbing organized crime books I've ever read(and I've read a lot)and one of the few I've seen that isn't marred by pages upon pages of exhaustive, boring detail about every single scam and racket perpetrated by the criminals(which, in my opinion, horribly slowed the pace of Jimmy Fratianno's book "The Last Mafiosi" and Nick Pileggi's "Wiseguy").
   
   I've lived in Los Angeles for 40+ years and this book really brought the City of Angels to life, capturing a time and mood that can never be repeated or duplicated. The rancid underbelly of the Hollywood dream is laid bare in all it's ambiguous glory.
   
   Get this book!



2. But where does one draw the line? There is an enlightening disclaimer in the opening Authors Note: It states that "sequences of events... have gone through memory's filter". That is the perfect focus through which to view "King of the Sunset Strip". A young actor, Steve Stevens, somehow falls into the circle of LA mobster Mickey Cohen. Stevens never rises above the rank of gopher but that low level affiliation is dangerous enough. This is starkly obvious when Mickey's Boys brutally rough up a neighbor who was hassling the author's Dad. Readers will get a whirlwind tour of late 50s and early 60s LA: The Brown Derby, Schwab's Pharmacy, Dino's, among others. There is no doubt the author hung in those establishments. Capos Phil Packer, Fred and Joe Sica are authentic enough and the author's friendship with Annette Funicello was genuine. Yet, one strains to take KSS at face value: Some of the characters are probably composites. The events do not seem to follow a straight sequence. One suspects Stevens has compressed multiple incidents into a manageable few. The 4 star review is a compromise between the 3 it rates as a believable story and the 5 it deserves as entertaining fiction. KSS is definitely quick reading. This very slow reading reviewer finished it is one sluggish day at work. Previous reviewers have stated that they "couldn't put KSS down". Readers won't have to, since the pages will fly by. For pure entertainment, KSS will satisfy. Other reviewers have mentioned movie possibilities. That is a winning concept, though the studio would have to take pains to recreate the LA of the era-a "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" with real people.



3. It's not as if this book is good or bad. What is surprising is the overwhelming positive reviews, as if backed up by the author's own fan club. Some of the book is insightful. What I don't get is the fawning over the author and his past as if he was a real movie star or player in Hollywood folklore. As for his relationship with Mickey Cohen, who knows how much is fact and how much is an embelishment? Regardless, the book has its moments, and the relationship between actor and mob guy is entertaining.



4. A story worth hearing , this book gives the reader an oppertunity to jump in the back seat of a mofia owned convertable and get invitation into the social scenes , and political scandals surrounding old hollywood. I had the honor to meet both authors. The book is writen in true gonzo style , and puts you in the fast running shoes of Steve Stevens.
   
   Steve , a mousekateer , and teen idol for that generation , finds easy money and VIP friends in the shadiest parts of mob run Southern California before realizing that "the mob life" wasnt worth it.
   
   Finding bills to pay , parts to audition for , the most bueatiful starlets in the business in his bed , and a mysterious invitation to an ice cream parlor , Steve unknowingly stumbles into FBI's Public Enemy Number One : Mickey Cohen , kingpin of the west coast mafia. Cohen recognizes the actor and invites Stevens to roll , eat , drink , and take part in the whole racket he and his mobster crew owned and opperated over Hollywood. Garenteed Work , Bills Paid , Hotel Rooms , and power were now all within Steve's reach. The reader gets to see Cohen , the true scarface of godfather mobsters at home, at work, and interacting with friends , enimies, and the public. Steve and Craig remain to be a pair of clowns , and classic hollywood teen rebels ! A MUST READ FOR ANY FAN OF CINEMA , MUSIC , CRIME , HISTORY , or MOBSTER.



5. Steve Stevens was a young teen in the fifties trying to be a movie star. Mickey Cohen was a famous gangster at the time and befriended Steve because he was a teen actor and because he knew Annette Funiciello. It seems that everyone wanted a signed photo of Annette and Steve was accommodating Mickey's gang members with these requests. Steve called him his Uncle Mickey. However, you would not want an Uncle like this. Steve became involved in the crime part of Mickey's life in an almost too innocent way and barely escaped with his life. Steve was John Ashley's roommate for a time and both were lucky that they did not get killed. This is a great fifties story and the best part is that it is a true and scary inside look at just what kind of sociopath Mickey Cohan really was.

No comments about Love or Honor: The True Story of an Undercover Cop Who Fell in Love With a Mafia Boss's Daughter.

3 comments about Toppamono: Outlaw, Radical, Suspect, My Life In Japan's Underworld.

1. Toppamono is a Japanese phrase for someone who pushes ahead regardless. Miyazaki Manabu has been doing just that for the last sixty-one years -- regardless of the law, regardless of social convention, and now, alas, regardless of his readers' patience. Eighty-plus pages describing the student riots of the 1960s are used mostly to recount how the writer charged around Tokyo hitting people over the head with lumps of wood. Coming early in the 460-page book, this section presents a strong disincentive to finish it. But that's a pity, because there's some fascinating stuff later.
   
   And earlier, for that matter. Miyazaki's description of the milieu into which he was born is riveting. He was the son of a Kyoto gang boss and made his entrance back in the days when yakuza were mostly working men, tough and industrious. His father specialized in demolition and selling off whatever could be salvaged from the postwar ruins. To call the competition fierce is a serious understatement. It was as if the war was still being fought -- not the war against the Allies (interestingly, MacArthur and his army of occupation aren't even mentioned) but the endless skirmishing over limited resources which characterized so much of Japan's history. In the late 1940s they were scarcer than ever. The gangs staked out their own territory, and any incursion was a call to battle. Members would gather in the boss's house, dressed in black so the blood would not be visible if they were hurt, and turn the tatami over so they wouldn't slip. Armed with shotguns, bamboo spears, swords, and sticks of dynamite, they drank, and awaited the enemy's assault.
   
   It was an unorthodox childhood, and not surprising that Miyazaki turned out as he did, with a propensity to rely on violence and intimidation. His story has a larger-than-life quality, from bankruptcy and massive debt to the dazzling glitter that was Tokyo in the 1980s. "Beneath society's peaceful façade there is always a storm blowing," he writes at the end of Toppa Mono. "It tosses people together and reeks of sweat and cosmetics, sometimes even of blood. I have lived all these years thinking it wasn't such a bad smell." He has passed on a strong whiff of it in this book.



2. Toppamono is a speedy, exciting and somewhat bumpy ride through the first 50 years of the author's life as yakuza scion, student subversive, criminal suspect, paparazzi reporter and eye-witness to the expansion and eventual bursting of Japan's bubble economy. Although neither an intellectual nor a gifted writer, Miyazaki tells a riveting tale of postwar Japan as it successfully pulls itself out of poverty only to devour itself with greed. Like his life, his writing style is unpretentious and choppy, and he frequently flits back and forth between personal observations, historical events and the nitty-gritty now. However, there is method to Manabu, as he concludes in the Epilogue. And this is where things go a little bit loopy. Toppamono, one must not forget, was written for a Japanese audience, whose weltanschauung differs considerably from that of Americans and that of Europeans. Throughout Toppamono, Miyazaki's sympathy for Japan's gangster class is never far from the surface, and he frequently hints at an expanded role in society for the yakuza. In the book's Epilogue, he fesses up, describing the ideal future as one where the chivalrous yakuza will join with its Korean and Chinese counterparts to punch a hole in global Western culture and recreate a brave new world; and as one in which the scar-faced will rightly return to their roles as community cops and enforcers of corporate and political purity. Cuckoo. Fortunately, his sentimentality can be put down to his yakuza roots, and the reader doesn't have to take Miyazaki's opinions too seriously to enjoy what is a rollicking story and an important piece in the literary jigsaw of post-war Japan.



3. This is quite a good read which I can recommend to anybody who likes to read that genre which Japan produces so much of so well: The personal reminiscence. This particular one is penned by a chap who was able to make strides in two worlds, the so-called Underworld and the above-board one occupied by the likes of you and I. Author was born into a Kansai region Yakuza family of some means, albeit perhaps deplorable ones, which afforded him the opportunity to get an unusually good education despite his best efforts. This recounting is the fifty year trajectory of the man's life as he went from neighborhood tough to University-enrolled student activist (often of the most violent kind) to scandal rag newshound to General Manager of Yakuza-affiliated family construction (well, destruction, actually) business to Yakuza enforcer and point man to Bubble economics land speculater and enabler, to authorial spokesman for the Burakumin, traditional gangster and Third Country National minority. Although Mr. Miyazaki is not the most talented author, he is a wonderful raconteur with a gift for the nifty vignette that will often have you laughing or sympathizing with the subject of his little stories. The difficulty with this book is that there is a lot of information contained in it that has cultural taglines significant only to a Japanese of the author's era and while the Western authors tried to edit much of it out, there are large bits of the book that get bogged down in detail that make little sense to and hold less interest to the western audience. I am speaking directly to the authors years spent in protest whilst enrolled at Waseda University. I know from anecdotal experience that the student activism that occurred on Japanese campuses during the 1960's still has reverberations in Japanese contemporary culture, but much like the exploits of Weather Underground or the Berkeley Califorinia culture of the same era, this is historical ephemera that is hard-pressed to hold one's interest for long. Overall, this is definitely a worthwhile read, it would have been a spell-binding one if the author had chosen to go into more detail. H'mmm, and finally, this author does not entirely convince me that he is NOT the 'Fox-eyed Man' of the Morinaga scandal.