My Booky Wook: A Memoir of Sex, Drugs, and Stand-Up
by Russell Brand
Russell Brand is a English comedian best known in America for portraying the rocker Aldous Snow in the comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. In England he was famous for outrageous behavior and being The Sun newspaper’s three year running champion of the “Shagger of the Year.”Anyways in this biography he details his thirty years of missed opportunityand lost time, as he sank deeper into the world of severe drug addiction. Usually I find the cliché statement if I hadn’t have done some behavior (in this case rehab) I would have been dead. I hear this a lot at LDS testimony meetings wherein someone says without the church I would be dead or in prison – REALLY?? If that was to be believed the church is packed full of felons in waiting. One bad service project and they are going to be out robbing liquor stores. It is a load of crap by people who are incapable of having an ounce of introspection. But to Brand’s credit I find it amazing he survived as long as he did, let alone his future if he kept up the crack and heroin use.
The book opens with him entering rehab to address his last addiction, having been drug and alcohol free for a few years, he begins working on his sex addiction. The book details his tragic life but with a lot of self-depreciating humor. He recognizes he has problems and was a bit of an ass, but he finally got clean and his career began to take off. I learned a few things including insight into racism as explained by penguin bars, a funny picture from his youth where he states “The moment I began to act gay to get girls. It took 15 years to show results.” Finally, I always keep the term Knobstacle Course dear to my heart.
Should you read this book? If you find Brand funny, or if you want to gain some insight to a world you probably will never see; then it is worth it. It just might give you some compassion for people who are addicted instead of just passing them off as weak willed.
Mormon Mentions: Absolutely None.
by Russell Brand
Russell Brand is a English comedian best known in America for portraying the rocker Aldous Snow in the comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. In England he was famous for outrageous behavior and being The Sun newspaper’s three year running champion of the “Shagger of the Year.”Anyways in this biography he details his thirty years of missed opportunityand lost time, as he sank deeper into the world of severe drug addiction. Usually I find the cliché statement if I hadn’t have done some behavior (in this case rehab) I would have been dead. I hear this a lot at LDS testimony meetings wherein someone says without the church I would be dead or in prison – REALLY?? If that was to be believed the church is packed full of felons in waiting. One bad service project and they are going to be out robbing liquor stores. It is a load of crap by people who are incapable of having an ounce of introspection. But to Brand’s credit I find it amazing he survived as long as he did, let alone his future if he kept up the crack and heroin use.
The book opens with him entering rehab to address his last addiction, having been drug and alcohol free for a few years, he begins working on his sex addiction. The book details his tragic life but with a lot of self-depreciating humor. He recognizes he has problems and was a bit of an ass, but he finally got clean and his career began to take off. I learned a few things including insight into racism as explained by penguin bars, a funny picture from his youth where he states “The moment I began to act gay to get girls. It took 15 years to show results.” Finally, I always keep the term Knobstacle Course dear to my heart.
Should you read this book? If you find Brand funny, or if you want to gain some insight to a world you probably will never see; then it is worth it. It just might give you some compassion for people who are addicted instead of just passing them off as weak willed.
Mormon Mentions: Absolutely None.
3 comments:
I saw this book reviewed in Entertainment Weekly a month or so back. They said about what you did. I am not familiar with this guy at all, but I am intriuged by his story. I may have to give it a shot.
If you go to youtube you can find all kinds of information about him.
If you go to the last four links I embedded they are to a serious interview he did with Dawn French.
He was played Adam Sandler's friend in Bedtime Stories.
The interview of Russell Brand by Dawn French is in my oppinion one of the best of him. The radio interview with NPR from Mar/09 was also super. Russell is misunderstood in my view. He is deep, had a very troubled life, but the depth of his intelligence and thoughts are far deeper than the man on stage. And I am totally intrigued by the energy he exudes, and can't wait to meet him one day.
Post a Comment