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Old 17 Nov 2017, 16:26   #39
CarylB
Mega Loafer
 
Join Date: 16.04.2003
Location: Sheffield UK
Posts: 5,910
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jmfreeman View Post
For anyone following this, the Amazon 'look inside' feature now lets you browse through a good deal of the book. It doesn't seem much like a traditional biography, and indeed doesn't seem to go into much detail about anything. It skims over Meat's life and albums, but probably offers nothing that you don't already know. Still, if anyone reads the full thing do let us know what you think of it.
It's not a traditional biography at all. Loaferman said it sounded like a cobbled together re-hash aggregated from other sources, and much of it is, augmented by the author's interviews with Meat over the years. What it offers seems to be the writer's take on Meat, Jim, and their relationship. One thing that I am fairly sure of is that these interviews were undertaken by a journalist as part of many runs of promotional interviews, and not conducted with Meat (or Jim I suspect) in the knowledge that this book was planned. Much of it you will probably have read .. he quotes Meat extensively from THAB and others' interviews as well as his own.

Not uninteresting, but not illuminating either. Some of his perspectives on both men you may agree with, some may make you frown. It DOES cover the time since Bat II, but when Loaferman says he'd think many of us would know more information than this author does, I think in part that may be true .. certainly he seems to have no knowledge of Meat's protracted difficulties with his back beyond the general level of press coverage .. "a trapped nerve". He seems to have written off Meat in terms of any career going forward from now. His last interview with him was in 2016, and he leaves us with the picture of an old man, walking with a cane, words slurred, face drooping, who is done; based heavily I felt on much of what was being said when Meat, despite excruciating pain, was here promoting the album and the musical. My initial reaction to this was to remember that books can be with publishers for some time before they hit the shelves .. but then I saw he refers to the significant weight loss Meat's achieved, which has been this year. However, nothing about the TV series Meat has made with Vincent D'Onofrio, who said of this decrepit old man .. "Meat has real acting chops!!"

Then I registered something he said about his last meeting with Meat .. "He didn't know who I was". He portrays himself as one of Meat's friends in the world of journalism, and indeed comes across as having been an admirer much of the time. Perhaps Meat's not greeting him as a well known and appreciated friend last year was put down to him losing his marbles, rather than him not being quite as close as he believed? That was MY impression and conclusion .. and this book is mostly the writer's impressions and conclusions, so I feel OK making mine, and I caught a whiff of sour grapes

I felt left with a pervasive sense of Meat being seen by him now as an artist who managed to get rich but never quite reached his potential, or real solid success, and is now a frail old man, washed up and finished. At one point he mentions Meat's time on Celebrity Apprentice, and says something on the lines of Meat reaching the stage artists whose careers are in the embers, and are left chasing reality shows .. this despite it being a one-off, back in 2011, and all he has achieved since then. Artists like John Rich, Marlee Matlin, Lil John? That rather pissed me off tbh.

Touring may be over, we may or may not see him take to the stage again in some form or other, but I think he has managed great success and we have not seen the last of him by a long chalk.
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