Not sure why, but I was never much of a reader until just a few years ago. I remember a time when I was growing up, say from 6 until maybe 10 that I read some books, but not a lot other than Hardy Boys books, which I remember being great little adventure escapes. The other shit that I fed my mind was mostly comic books. In the early years, it was Archie, Jughead, Richie Rich and Disney to keep me going, and stuff that I would just take from my uncle's shelf at my grandmother's house, stuff that was long forgotten I would imagine, like Treasure Island, Huck Finn and again, a lot of bang bang western shoot-em-up comic digests that were popular during that era.Then I remember that after I turned about 12 or 13, I started getting into Stephen King and Clive Barker, and a few other notable horror writers. Read almost everything by Stephen King right up until Dark Half. My brother was always reading a hell of a lot more than me, mostly travel shit, National Geographics, Hardy Boys, and James A Michener, never could figure out why he liked Michener. Don't get me wrong, Michener's stuff is definitely well-researched, but he ain't much of a writer. He's just plain boring. He just never did it for me, I'd rather read Penthouse letters anyday.
Comics and magazines were the other things when I was growing up. My old man gave me a buck for my allowance from about 6 until 8 or 9, I can't remember exactly. So every fuckin' Saturday morning, just as my dad was still in a Friday night after work "fuck-this-work-week" half-alcoholic mid-dream haze at about 7 in the morning, I'd be prying 'is fuckin' eyelids open tryin' to get my buck, so I could go blow it on candy and comics. I'd repeat "Dad." 20 seconds or so, he wouldn't respond at all, then a second "DAD", a little louder, then he'd rouse a bit and by about the 4th or 5th time he'd be pissed that I woke him up and mutter something like "Holy Jeeeezus, Mitch, it's fuckin' 7 in the mornin', fuckin' stores aren't even open yet. Didn't matter, just wanted my damn dollar. When my dad finally fumbled outta bed and gave me my dollar bill, I'd be happy as a wedding cock.
After a few years, my weekly allowance got raised to 2 bucks and eventually I stopped prying his eyes open at 7 in the morning and just waited until he sat down with his coffee around 8:00 am, then it got raised to 5, then maybe 10 for a bit, then I started getting too old to get free money from the old man. I had to start going around town askin' people if I could mow their lawns or do odd jobs.
I started getting into metal when I was about 13. This kid down the street bought Motley Crue "Shout At The Devil" and I had to have it too, because it was the heaviest thing I'd heard up to that point. I had a few metal albums around like Twisted Sister and a few other things, but I remember this being the first metal album I listened to on a daily basis. Before that, I'd only had an LP collection of about 20 albums, including Loverboy, Cheap Trick, CCR, Dr. Hook, Alice Cooper, J. Geils Band and some other shit.
Crue was the whole start of the rebellion thing for me, not just the loud obnoxious music, but the attitude and the image of these cats. And that's about the time I just lost interest in reading anything, except for horror comics and metal publications. My grandfather had been working on renovating one of the local grocery stores, so he carted a few magazine racks, a candy rack and a bunch of other crap home. Anyway, I talked him into giving me the magazine rack which i used to proudly display my metal magazine collection, as well as my beaten up issues of MAD, CRACKED, CARToons, FANGORIA, etc. Had pictures of glam rockers, album jackets and gore soaked scenes from splatter films all over my walls, so many that my mother wouldn't dare enter my lair.
So from about 14 to 20, my high school days and college days basically, I hardly read any books at all. Only comics and magazines, the odd horror or sci-fi novel thrown in from time to time. I'd always felt like reading a chore. How I missed out on all those years. So much of the stuff I've read in the last few years has blown my mind and I still don't know how it could've been, that i hadn't taken an avid interest in reading until just awhile back. But I do understand a bit now. Maybe my generation was a sort of pre-hipster culture, or maybe it was where I came from. I mean, fuck. Nobody under 20 reads books anymore. How many do you know? Kids are just not interested in creating anymore, they're just into technology and gadgets and recycling culture. They are not creating anything new. They're just busy getting fucked up on the latest designer drugs, engrossed in TV, video games and crappy pop music.
Anyway, the last few years i've been reading all I can get my hands on, finally discovering all the classics, old and new. I'm not sure what the spark was. I just remember being in a bookstore on day thinking I wanna start reading something again, so I picked up a few non-fiction books, one was Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and the other Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn of ADBUSTERS fame. They both took me about a month to read. Bu then I suddenly felt hungry for more, so I started Googling the fuck out of writers like Charles Bukowski, Thomas Pynchon, and Roddy Doyle, went and picked up some of their books, devoured them and continued my search. Then I got into some Sci-Fi stuff like Philip K. Dick and Iain Banks that a friend sent me, more Pynchon, Nicholson Baker, some science / physics stuff like the works of Richard Dawkins, Darwin and Stephen Hawkings. I was feeling so good about reading shit again, it was like I had discovered this whole new world that had been out there, but was just too lazy or uninterested to dig deeply into it.
This past year or so has seen me getting heavily into the classics. I managed to read Tolstoy's WAR & PEACE in a month, I want to read more of his, especially the epic classic ANNA KARENINA. I've read books by Somerset Maugham, D.H. Lawrence, Alexander Dumas, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Harumi Murakami, Mordecai Richler, Wayson Choy, Knut Hamsun, Cormac McCarthy, Michel Houlleberg, Voltaire, Henry Miller, etc etc. But it's not enough. I'm craving more. I seem to be a book junkie now where as 5 years ago, I hardly set foot in a bookstore, only when I did, to look at design books or titty books.
So all you young fuckers out there who think reading is a waste of time, think again. Feed your mind good stuff, not a diet of hip hop culture and FRIENDS. It'll do you good.
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