New Book: Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen's American Vision by Louis P. Masur

I finished The Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath by Philip Carlo a couple weeks ago. It was really interesting. As I said before, it follows Tommy "Karate" Pitera, a Mafia capo who was essentially a serial killer in the 1980s. He killed dozens of people, chopped up their bodies, and buried them in various wildlife sanctuaries, and, as you might imagine, he was one of the most feared people in Mafiadom during that time. The book also tracks the DEA agents who brought him down, and the various steps that led them to Pitera. All in all, it was a fascinating book, which I would recommend for anyone who likes true crime or Mafia books.

I have moved onto Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen's American Vision by Louis P. Masur. Born to Run is one of the greatest albums of all-time, and definitely one of my favorites. It's an album with a universal message about wanting to escape, even if you don't know where you want to go or how you want to get there. The album applies to all walks of life, whether you're a high school kid looking to get out of a small town, a thirtysomething looking to make a career change, or a fat old man looking to get back down to your fighting weight. The entire album is set during the summer and at night -- the ideal time to hatch an escape plan. You can't listen to this album without thinking that you can break free from the chains of your situation, whatever it may be, or at least make an attempt. It dares you to "case the promised land," even if you never actually end up living there. You wake up tired, work all day in a soul-crushing trapeze artistry job, come home, your daughter smells like cucumbers, dog needs to take a crap, pregnant wife on the verge of tears because the pita bread she bought doesn't have pockets so "what the fuck" is she going to do with all the tuna salad she made, and you know you're stuck being a trapeze artist even though you regret ever going to trapeze artist school in the first place, but all you want really want to do is make a living hunting goats with bows and arrows. Born to Run tells you that, if nothing else, you at least have to take an archery class and see where it goes. Maybe you find out you have no aim or maybe you can't find a good fletcher. But maybe you kill a bunch of goats and live like rapper. You have to give it a shot. Anyway, this book is about Born to Run.

Books read in 2011:
Life by Keith Richards
Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music by Ted Gioia
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Devil We Know: Dealing With the New Iranian Superpower by Robert Baer
Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and The Doors by John Densmore

The Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath by Philip Carlo