Ever wonder why the Berber carpet used in most office workplaces is the most heinous looking kaleidoscope weave imaginable? It’s so when your red-dyed soda explodes all over the place the minute you pop the tab, no one’s really going to notice. It just blends right in with all the other garish color splotches. Who knows, maybe that’s how they make this carpet in the first place.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, this post was brought to you by the word “Procrastination.”
Gather round, kiddies, for this fiendish tale spun for you from the depths of your Uncle Alice’s darkest nightmares!
Okay, maybe not. The book is called Golf Monster after all. You know Alice is a huge golf junkie now, right? That was the whole “Fairway to Heaven” reference in my last BC entry. He used to be a drunk, and then he replaced his alcohol addiction with a HUGE golf jones. Seriously. He plays at least 18 holes almost every day, no matter where he happens to be.
Of course, I love Alice Cooper. I love his music. I love his camp. I love his snakes (real snakes, you dirty buggers!). I love his speech about Milwaukee in Wayne’s World. He is teh awesome. Therefore, take my review of his book with that caveat as an apéritif.
Also, take the book as a history of Alice Cooper as told by Alice Cooper. History always looks different when told by the winner. I’m not necessarily saying that I think he lies in this book; just that we should always take things in stride and remember that every coin has two sides.
That being said, this was a fantastically entertaining read. I was worried at first that the golf talk would be a huge turn-off. I’ve never made secret of the fact that I share Mark Twain’s view of golf as being “a good walk spoiled.” Admittedly, by the time I reached the final few “steps” of the golf addiction sections, I was skimming them for funny bits. But each of those sections was short enough that they were minimally painful to non-golf fans.
Plus, the book is loaded with name dropping, and not just the names that you would expect to be part of Alice Cooper’s past. Yes, he interacted with the likes of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Aerosmith, Frank Zappa, The Who, Pink Floyd, etc., but did you also know that he was friends with Salvador Dalí, Peter Sellers, Groucho Marx, Vincent Price, Fred Astaire, Bob Hope, and even Frank Sinatra, who sang one of Alice Cooper’s songs at a Vegas show? See what being a shock-rock monster with a golf handicap of three or four will get you? Possibly the strangest mix of friends this side of nowhere.
I think the most jarring factoid to come from this book didn’t appear until almost the end: Alice Cooper is a born-again Christian. I nearly dropped my goblet of goat’s blood when I read that.
Okay, just a joke there. I only use sippy cups when I’m drinking goat’s blood.
I must have missed this point in Cooper’s time in the rock god spotlight. Admittedly though, I know very little about most of the musicians I listen to, especially from the heavy metal/hard rock genre. I suppose I could rectify that, but holistically, what makes it into the entertainment headlines about them is usually so off-putting that I just can’t be bothered to want to know more about them. And ever since the Dark Prince of the Black Sabbath allowed himself to be turned into a doddering, burned-out clown on that abysmal reality show about his family, I think I’ve avoided any further revelations about these icons of my misspent teen years.
This book, however, was totally worth it. If you enjoy Alice Cooper and would like to read his take on the history of how young Vincent Damon Furnier turned into the originator of musical concert Grand Guignol, then I would recommend this book.
Final score: 4.5/5. I’m deducting for the golf angle because I’m just snippy like that, and for the fact that it does drag a bit toward the end (everybody needs an editor!).
