Guarasci Land...

I love books. Let me rephrase. I love the concept of books. The actual chore of reading them is where I need a bit of assistance. I own a substantial amount of books in varying topics. If one were to peruse my library, and by library I mean a hand made bookcase that I received as a gift from a very close friend of mine back when Grunge ruled the world, but I digress…

In said library, you can find biographies of music icons, comic book heroes, political pundits, and gangsters (La Cosa Nostra gangsters not members of the hip-hop community) to name a few. Marilyn Manson, Kurt Cobain (Am I the only one left that thinks Nirvana was not overrated as everyone seems to suggest to me?), Jenna Jameson, Elvis, and Al Capone all share the same shelf.

Upon further gazing one might find tales of the Ebola virus and classics from H.G. Wells right along side Sylvester Stallone's 1st person novelization of the cinematic treat, Rocky II which goes very nicely with the FotoNovel: The Best of Rocky & The Complete Rocky II. The Grease FotoNovel (complete with song lyrics) is my favorite of the select few I own. What's that you say? You're surprised by my fondness for Grease? C'mon now, Grease is STILL the word.

Stephen King and Clive Barker, the full-on horror Barker before the fairy tales, (not that there's anything wrong with fairy tales) also grace the shelf with various books depicting non-fictional accounts of World War II.

Books about Vampires share space with rants from George Carlin and Michael Moore as well as David Milch's True Blue: The Real Stories behind NYPD Blue, which sits right alongside No Lights, No Sirens: The Corruption and Redemption of an Inner City Cop. A host of Dummies books also fills shelf-space in the hopes that one day I become smarter. Take note: If it hasn't happened yet, it never will.

Most of these treasures have been read and re-read, but there is that certain percentage that has not. Is it because I do not have time, or is it out of laziness? If you know me but at all, you would know that I am one of the laziest cats that have ever walked the earth. It could very well just be intimidation. Have you ever started reading a book, and looked down at the page number? It is intimidating to see that you are on page 5 and you have 498 pages more to go. It's enough for anyone to put the thing down and go take a nap.

Paul Reiser had a great idea when he wrote Couplehood - He started the book on page 145. No intimidation factor there - that is pure genius. Perhaps if the folks that publish books formatted them like a magazine or, even better yet, as comic books, I think that I would read a whole lot more.

My latest attempt at reading is a book called Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill. Yes, it's Stephen King's li'l boy all growns up now. I started it with a fervor, enjoying the characters and the story, but just like his daddy, it started to give me the heebie-jeebies (For the record – I do not know what neither a heebie nor a jeebie is, but I know that they can't be good.) I started worrying that the ghost was going to; not only, get all the characters in the book, but also me. If I had room in my freezer, I would have hid the book in there. In the midst of getting scared, I became worried for the Goth Girl character (I don't know if I liked her cuz she hardly wore any clothes or what) and I stopped reading the book, for fear the ghost was going to get her. For you see, in my world, if you stop reading (or watching the TeeVee) the bad thing can't happen. So now, the book sits hidden underneath my mattress until some of the frozen treats are removed from my freezer. Maybe I'll just go read a comic book instead…