Hermann Hesse

"For he was aware that in the academy he would have to be even more ambitious if he wanted to outstrip his new fellow students. Why did he want to surpass them actually? He didn't really know himself."- Excerpt from Hermann Hesse's 'Beneath the Wheel'

"It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is."- Hermann Hesse

For most of us who read, it seems that we all have one particular favorite author that goes beyond the consideration of literary tastes of other people; some of the great classic literary authors are also considered “too deep” for others. Hermann Hesse is of the authors that people seem to be impressed, shocked, or curious about that appears on my Goodreads list, my list of literary influences, my bookshelf, and when a book of written by Hesse is in my hands. Hesse never appeared on any required reading sheets in the school that I went to back in Ohio; when I moved to California, I noticed that his classic ‘Siddhartha’ is listed as required reading for some of the local area high schools. The reactions I get when people see with a Hesse novel—or even mentioning Hesse as an influence of mine—is “that’s a little too deep for me, Brian.” I’ve also heard that he’s a difficult author to read for many people, which somewhat baffles me. I’ve also heard the surrounding controversies about his supposed views on the Nazis during WW2.

I recently found a copy of ‘Demian’ at a Barnes & Noble in the bargain book section and couldn’t resist checking it out. I’d always heard about it from people who read it; one of my friends absolutely loves the book and calls it Hesse's best work,  I remember reading a lot of different moral points of view on it over the years, and it was one of Hesse’s novels I had never read. My purchase of “Demian” and reading it while at Starbucks, at home, or friends seeing that I was reading it from my Goodreads list, and people seeing the book in my possession in general sparked a lot of conversation about Hesse. So, this is my Hesse inspired entry as a result of reading "Demian." 

My appreciation for Hesse is actually recent; I want to say that I first started reading Hesse around 2006. I stumbled upon Hesse's "Beneath the Wheel" while shelving books in the literary section. And again, I also knew a couple of people who read Hesse and told me he was an author I needed to start reading. Plus as a Buddhist, I knew about his book "Siddhartha" given I had listened to good and bad conversations about it with other Buddhists--some of which turned into nasty arguments about the Buddha's teachings. I remember being told to read it, but take it with a grain of salt if I was looking for Buddhist insight from it. 

Hesse is indeed one of my favorite writers. And I have heard time and time again that it’s very heavy reading, very deep, and that it’s too difficult. I have never found his writings to be any of those things. My interest in Hesse’s writings are all based around the moral dilemmas that his characters face, and I don’t find his message or the viewpoints of his characters to be all that difficult to understand—even in today’s standards. If you remember yourself as a child, if you've had a life full of predicaments, or you've struggled to make the right moral decision, you can understand Hesse. He's not as difficult as many of the classic literary authors that I have tried to read, such as Goethe or O Henry. Now those authors are some heavy reading! O Henry's short stories are like having teeth pulled; Goethe bored me to the point of contemplating literary suicide and never wanting to pick up a book ever again. 

One of my favorites of Hesse’s works is “Beneath the Wheel.” The main character, Hans Giebernath, is a sensitive and gifted child. His father has very big demands of Hans' academic performance, people who know him around the town are proud of him and want to see him succeed beyond their expectations, and he’s eventually encouraged and nudged into a private school on a scholarship. The question of what Hans really wants for his life is the main idea of the book; the teachers presenting the works of Homer to him in different languages to read and understand, the pressure he faces when it comes to other assignments and pressures from his school and competitiveness with the other students also depress him and makes him feel burnt out. He worries about disappointing the people who love him and believe in him, he worries about the consequences of failure in his own life; and at times his life is not that of a child, but of an object, an object and showpiece to please those with high hopes of him. His friendship with another student of a rebellious nature who opens him up to the idea of finding his own way, finding his own voice, and finding what he really wants out of his own life becomes his downfall to where he simply burns out and can’t take it anymore. He goes home a failure, he can’t face his father, he can’t face people in town, and he’s desperate and lonely. He is crushed by his failure to where he doesn't feel alive anymore. The ending is so sad and tragic, but it's a story we have heard time and time again, especially in this current era. 

The premise of “Beneath the Wheel” applies today. We live in an era where we’re applauding Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” for her intense parenting style to where she demands her children be child prodigies instead of live happy, normal childhoods. It seems children are not allowed to be children anymore. While we should definitely strive for them to learn as much as possible, we see the “Beneath the Wheel” effect. The character of Hans Giebernath lives in many high school children who have been crammed with educational material that they don’t have any social connections, and haven’t been able to discover themselves as children, and they don't know where they fit into this world with their talents. Some children are naturally gifted and should be allowed to naturally follow their own pursuits; sometimes being intelligent comes with the cost of sensitivity, and sensitivity can be a good or bad thing in my own opinion and experiences with my own sensitivity. Hesse was writing about something that has been going on for years in many different countries when it comes to the cultural influences of parents on the subject of education. The children in South Korea are unhappy, overworked, overstressed, and are committing suicide. South Korean advocacy groups for children run around the cities at night looking for these “after-school centers” that keep children learning late at night, sometimes beyond midnight. Plus consider adults who are pressured in their careers who are Hans Giebernath. We're all Hans in our own ways. We strive to be people we are not to win over others, we strive to destroy competition without an understanding of why we choose to live this way at such a high cost to our moral and spiritual well-being. 

Next is 'Siddhartha.' The book is one I have seen sold even in Buddhist publishing such as Shambhala Publications, I've seen it in new age bookstores, I've seen it in coffee shop bookshelves, and it's a book that is everywhere. As a Buddhist, I’d like to correct the people who believe that “Siddhartha” is a fact-based story about the Buddha. It’s actually not a fact-based story, but it’s inspired by the life of the Buddha. Many of Siddhartha’s (the novel character) experiences and point of view are based on the actual story of the Buddha; being the son of a Brahmin who sets off to seek enlightenment with a friend of his. Siddhartha encounters a lot of painful journeys along his road to enlightenment, and Hesse’s understanding of the life of the Buddha provides a different twist to his own character of Siddhartha embracing his own pain, emotional issues, and the fact he’s just tired of life to where he wants to find freedom, but is too afraid to experience freedom. There are a lot of ways to interpret the book. A lot of Buddhists I know find it to be a cutesy novel with a lot of references to Buddhism; I personally find it as one that doesn’t really have anything to do with Buddhism in general, but it does reference how we suffer, how we yearn, how we struggle to understand ourselves. Hesse kind of left it open for the reader to interpret in his/her own way how to view the story. I enjoyed Hesse’s story about the Buddha like character of Siddhartha, but I personally don’t find the book to be one that I would consider to have a genuine connection to Buddhism. It makes for great literature, but not for literal interpretation. Plus I remember reading a Theravadan Buddhist monk’s autobiography where he mentioned a follower of his treated “Siddhartha” as if it were a Buddhist text, would abandon his wife and children for days at a time to seek his own freedom, and didn’t realize he was oblivious to the pain he was causing his family and to himself. As far as high school kids reading it, I see a lot of critical thinking essays and getting students to understand things such as balance, responsibility, and asking questions about ourselves and our intentions as people.

If you’re a fan of the lives of classical composers or artists who found solace in their pain, ‘Gertrud’ is one of Hesse’s true masterpieces for anyone of that crowd. If you can tolerate hearing about the life of Mozart or any other composer, you can read 'Gertrud.' And some of those composers from various eras were fucked up, and 'Gertrud' doesn't even go close to the lives of actual composers. I used to recommend ‘Gertrud’ to a lot of people as a great introduction to Hesse. I also feel that ‘Gertrud’ has been the real life story for many through so many musicians throughout many eras of music history, including modern and mainstream music. They say that “pain makes great art,” and that’s the premise of ‘Gertrud.’ A young struggling composer named Kuhn who thinks everything he writes is unworthy of being his opus; he falls in love with 2 troubled people who make his life miserable. It doesn’t have to be love, you can relate to it through so many other things that end up making someone who thinks their art is shit actually turn around and write something truly remarkable. Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd lost his mind on LSD, went schizophrenic, and wrote truly genius music while Pink Flord wrote 20 minute long songs about Syd's demise, or even whole albums. Gwen Stefani from No Doubt broke up with the bass player in the band before they eventually found success, and wrote nearly 2 albums about her pain from the heartbreak that spawned hit single after hit single in the late 90s. That experience made them a modern day 'Gertrud" with Gwen Stefani being Kuhn. The guitar player of the band said, “it felt like it was her saying, “here’s another song about Tony (the bass player)” Kuhn’s burn from love ends up creating his best piece of work. This is another story that goes to show Hesse’s struggles with emotional pain and pressure can bring out the worst or the best of us. 

My experience in reading ‘Demian’ is that ‘Demian’ was unlike any of Hesse’s other novels—at least in my opinion. It’s a very complicated novel to explain in detail given it’s in parts of a man’s life where there is so much going on, and the redeeming character of his life that helps him through his trials and tribulations appears in his life at various times through the book. I found it to be similar to Hesse’s works that I have read, and I also found it to be unlike him after reading his other books based on the experiences of the character being changing from phases in his life from childhood to adulthood. The theme of war also set the tone to make it even more of an interesting novel.

Hesse as a person was no doubt a very complicated man. It’s been said that he suffered from very horrible depression after trips through various countries in Asia as a result of experiences he had on those trips. He was seeking so much in terms of spiritual knowledge, spiritual experience, and spiritual freedom that he failed ,and had a point of view from those experiences that tore him apart. His marriage was falling apart, he found himself in WW1 as a volunteer in the imperial army, until he was deemed unfit for combat. He made controversial statements; one of which was saying that patriotism was not a virtue or a trait of a true intellectual, and it was during a time when his country was at war. His son became ill, his wife was diagnosed as schizophrenic, he remarried and kept having failed marriages, and Hesse observed Hitler’s rise to power and Nazi Germany spreading through Europe with great concern, but he was criticized for never making any statements against Hitler, and he was condemned by people from that era for not writing statements of outrage or shunning Hitler (Hesse was living in Switzerland at the time), yet he was never a supporter of anti-Semitism, and his wife at the time was Jewish. Hesse's silence on a matter of horrific events in his native country, as well as other parts of Europe, became part of a dirty rumor and lie about his life and work. 

There’s no doubt that many people probably don’t understand the depth of Hesse’s work; many probably find it depressing, or they simply don’t want to. I know a lot of people who came into the bookstore seeking out material that didn’t have death in it, didn’t have deep sentiments, and didn’t have anything depressing in them. I wanted to tell those people not to read books, listen to music, or watch movies.  I also believe that we all have our own understanding of literature with our own developed tastes; some of us understand literature that others do not. I don't believe any of us are more well-read than others--unless all you're reading are the "Twilight" novels, or all the James Patterson books that come out once a week. 

The one thing I can say about Hesse is that if I can understand him and find reason in it, I believe a lot of other people could. He’s deep, but his characters stay with you after you read his books. The character of Hans Giebernah is one character I thought of a couple of years ago as a friend described the dilemma of her son being in a private school with a heavy curriculum, his vocabulary and ability to use words that his classmates didn’t understand, the pressures he faced in school, and the sensitivity he had as a result of being a smart child. Hans is also a character that fits part of the description of my childhood. Hans is with me right now after suffering too many setbacks this year that derailed me. Hans represents Amy Chua’s daughters that she wrote about being a hard ass, Chinese culturally influenced mother who refuses to let her children be children in hopes of them becoming child prodigies. Hans represents the younger generation of people who had expectations placed on them by their parents and have found it hard to find a suitable career or life due to a recession and "NOT HIRING" signs.

Hesse's characters moral dilemmas make you view your own perspectives and the perspective of others in a different light. Hesse is one author I believe wrote about the human condition to where we could gain an understanding from where he failed. I also believe that while he suffered so much in his life, he was able to create some of the world’s greatest literary works. His failure in spiritual matters made him a great philosopher, and he philosophized through his characters and in his novels. 

5 Questions for "Skinhead Confessions" Author T.J. Leyden

“Every night, everywhere we went, my gang and I were packing guns, knives, and enough ammo to take down the Alamo. I always had my 9mm pistols with me. At times, I got a weird a feeling—fast, strong, and shocking. The tension had become almost palpable every night we went out, and were out every night. Something inside me inherently knew what we were doing was wrong, but eventually I came to believe so heavily in the cause that it didn’t matter. I was a soldier for the movement, and I was committed to my very core.” – Excerpt from “Skinhead Confessions.”

There have been a few recent memoirs written by survivors of the white supremacy movements in the United States—one of which was written by T.J. Leyden. “Skinhead Confessions” is Leyden’s story of his broken home leading to his life of racial hatred and violence, and his shocking moment of truth where he turned his back on it all. T.J.’s childhood and family life in the beginning of the book start out like many at-risk youth story: his father was an alcoholic and the family suffered through his verbal and physical abuse. His parents eventually divorced and he went through a period of numbing himself and disassociation. 

T.J. joined the white supremacy movement when he was a teenager. He took part in physical violence against others, he began drinking heavily, and he began actively recruiting other people into the movement. He eventually developed a reputation that caught the attention of local law enforcement agencies in Southern California. After some brushes with the law, he joined the United States Marine Corps and began recruiting members of the military into the movement. He eventually married his girlfriend who was also involved in white supremacy. When he and his wife became parents, they began to raise their young children to be white supremacists, which later inspired him to leave the movement.  

After T.J.’s moment of truth and rejecting the movement, he found himself at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, allowing himself to be interviewed and interrogated by the people he once loathed entirely, confessing to them all of his sins, and giving them information to help them in their fight against these groups. He became an employee of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, he began doing speaking engagements, and he became a marked man by several white supremacists.

Today, T.J. Leyden continues to speak to law enforcement agencies and political leaders, he also gives presentations to teens and gang members, he’s helped people leave the movement, and he has appeared on several news networks to discuss the issues related to white supremacy gangs. His now ex-wife and his children are out of the white supremacy movement. T.J. is now remarried, a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, and he recently celebrated 11 years of sobriety.

You mention at the beginning of the book that you came from a violent and broken home, that you found an outlet for your anger in the punk scene, and that you eventually found an attraction to the Neo-Nazi lifestyle. I remember seeing an HBO documentary years ago about Neo-Nazis who said they sought out young individuals such as yourself: teens from broken homes, teens who were angry, and teens searching for a family environment. Plus there are people who left the movement such as yourself that said you believed minorities were the source of all your problems. Do you find that this mentality is hard to overcome when someone wants to leave racial identity movements? 

The mentality of racism is easier to break then people think. Racism is an ISM or a belief. So, if a belief can be proven false or untrue, then you are a fool to follow it. The truly hardest thing to give up is the power and sense of identity it gives you. When one’s own life agenda gives them power over others, it’s very hard to surrender that power and control.

    The one thing that is interesting about you is in order to avoid jail and to try and escape the notorious criminal reputation you built up for yourself, you joined the United States Marine Corps. You handed out white supremacy literature and your commanding officers knew that you were doing this. You tell an interesting story about a commanding officer that was African-American and a racial separatist, whom you had mutual respect for. Are racial identity movements common in our military?

Racial groups are still alive and well in the United States Military. The FBI just released a report that proves this. The FBI said that there are 53 different gangs in the U.S. military--and that’s just the ones they know of. Below is a picture of two of the US finest, one covering his buddy so he can tag a wall in Iraq.

    Your family life during the times of when you were in the movement is probably the hardest part in this book to read. Your wife at the time was in the movement, you were still very deep in the movement, and you began to raise your children to accept the movement. There’s an interesting story that I’ve heard you tell about the exact moment when you knew you didn’t want this lifestyle for your children. Can you explain that moment and how that began your exit from the movement? 

Well, it was a morning when I was watching TV with my youngest at the time and we were watching a show on Nickelodeon called “Gullah Gullah Island.” We were laughing loud and woke up may oldest son who came out in to the living room and saw what was on the TV. With an angry look on his face he turned off the TV and said, “we don’t watch TV with Ni**ers on it!” At first I was proud of him, but once I started thinking about my boy’s future, I knew who they were going to become. I really wanted more for them than jail, gangs and fighting. It was the first time I think in my life that I was more concerned about someone else.

    When you left the movement, you showed up at the Simon Wiesenthal Center with loads of material to give to them in order to help their cause against white supremacy groups. Over a period of time, you let their staff interrogate you and ask you question and after question in a tone of which that suggested they didn’t really know what to think about you being genuine about leaving the movement. They even asked you to come back on certain days to answer more uncomfortable questions and interrogate you, to which you agreed. Did you feel that this was this part of the healing process for you? 

This is and was a part of the healing process. I thought I was doing a good deed, so they could have asked me to come back 100 times and I would have. I did it to try and pay back a little of the wrong I had done. I never thought in a million years they would ask me to come to work for them and speak out. Over the past 15 years I’ve been speaking out, I still have healing moments.

You have the book; you’ve been a commentator for racial issues on various news outlets; you’ve met presidents and several influential figures; you travel around the country speaking and doing presentations for law enforcement agencies; you are an encyclopedia on things such as the language of white supremacy groups, as well as the symbols—some of which you still have tattooed on your body to this day; you are still a marked man amongst the white supremacy movement; you’ve helped people leave the movement; you’ve probably saved a lot of lives; and you haven’t stopped educating people since you left the movement. Do you ever have days where you wish you could just put all of this behind you and feel satisfied with what you have accomplished after leaving the movement? What would you like to see happen for yourself for the long-term?

I am never satisfied--and never will be--as long as one kid is at risk from these groups. I do feel that I have accomplished many things and I feel I still have much to do. What would I like to see happen for myself long-term? I would like to put myself out of work. I would love to see tolerance become real. I don’t really like the word tolerance, because it means to “put up with.” I would love to help the world get to acceptance.

Many thanks to T.J. Leyden for allowing me to interview him. You can learn more about T.J. and purchase the book at Skinhead Confessions. You can also follow his blog at Former Skinhead. 

Video of T.J.

The Character Assassination of Sarah Palin

I will admit that I don’t have warm and fuzzy feelings for Sarah Palin. In fact, I disagree with most of her stances on the actual issues. I will also state for the record that I don’t believe she isn’t an articulate speaker; however, I will note that I think some of the things she has said have not been really thought out, and some things she has said don’t seem to be based on actual facts. The life of anyone in the political spotlight is always made out to be a circus. While Sarah Palin has some very thoroughly documented skeletons in her closet, the latest book ‘The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin’ by Joe McGinniss seems to be a character assassination that resembles an issue of the National Enquirer.

I want to remind liberals of something that happened during the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. In 2004 when John Kerry was the Democratic nominee for president, a conspiracy theorist named Jerome Corsi teamed up with a Vietnam veteran named John O’Neill and wrote a book titled ‘Unfit for Command’ about John Kerry’s military service. In the book, he made accusations based on hearsay from some people who never served with John Kerry in Vietnam. Veterans who actually served with Kerry who were not contacted by Corsi or O’Neill to tell their versions of the story came out swinging against the book. The book led to the P.A.C. known as “Swift Vets and POWs for Truth” that ran ads against Kerry stating that he wasn’t entitled to the Purple Heart honors, questioned his honesty about the war, and criticized his anti-war stance after his service was up. The book made a lot of serious accusations that even upset people in the right-wing; John McCain was upset and was one of the Vietnam veterans who defended John Kerry.

In 2008 during the presidential election, Jerome Corsi was back in the spotlight after releasing a book against Barack Obama titled ‘Obama Nation.’ The book was highly controversial, had questionable sources, made strong and baseless accusations, and left-wing figures immediately fact-checked everything that Jerome Corsi wrote and appeared on television with him questioning his sources. Jerome Corsi’s only defense was that he hadn’t been sued for slander. The book stated that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama bought their condo and lived out of wedlock, which was later proven as false when Obama’s wedding date was thrown at Corsi and the date of their condo purchase as a matter of public record was after their wedding. And of course all of the accusations of being affiliated with extremist Islamic groups and other conspiracy related garbage was stated in the book. John McCain was hesitant to criticize the book during the campaign and stated that one needs to keep a sense of humor.

This past Tuesday, Joe McGinniss released his book on Sarah Palin that is similar to the slanderous accusations that Jerome Corsi made against John Kerry and Barack Obama during their presidential campaigns. The book states that Sarah Palin had premarital sex, used illegal drugs, isn’t the mother one of her children, and that she had a fear of colored people. The book is an unauthorized look into her life and also has the similar style of “research” that Jerome Corsi uses to write his books on the left-wing. The book obviously has an “anti-Palin agenda” and is in poor taste.

The sad fact is that people will read these books to feel their partisan rage coming into fruition and believe that character assassination through the stories of others and shoddy research will mean the truth. John Kerry wasn’t popular with the right-wing based on his affiliation with anti-war groups after he came home from Vietnam; the right wing came up with some hearsay to throw at him that was pretty questionable and equated it with the truth. The right-wing continues to the same to Barack Obama given he’s someone they saw as a political threat the minute he made a speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention where he stated his liberal values that fired up the base and made him an overnight sensation. Sarah Palin obviously infuriates the left-wing voters for reasons that are obvious, but does this really justify someone having the right to character assassination via the printed word?

While I’m a liberal, there is one thing I hate about a lot of political books: you can judge them by their cover. You’re finding what you want to hear to broaden your point of view. Good political books are hard to come by and I don’t like to read a lot of political books based upon the fact that you already know what you’re getting. There are some political writers who do great research that can be backed up that starts an honest political debate, but many of them are just blowing smoke. The sad thing is that there are publishers who will publish this garbage. There are also people that see this as sweet revenge. Either way, I don’t believe anyone should have to go through these types of accusations, no matter what their political beliefs are. If you have the facts on someone’s dirty laundry that you can prove instead of hearsay based on a few people telling you some fairy tales, then it’s justifiable.

Whether you are a liberal or a conservative, I’d say that these books are a horrible representation of your political values. I hope that both the right and left will agree and not support these kinds of books. But I guess I’m asking for too much in a world where spin based on “garbage writing” is all about setting up someone’s political victories. 

A Look Into Prodigy's Infamous Life

I’m impressed with the amount of people in the hip-hop/rap industry who are writing autobiographies/memoirs; I’ve found that a lot of the autobiographies/memoirs that have come out by rappers have actually been well written, informative, and actually quite interesting. The RZA wrote ‘The Tao of Wu,’ which was a very impressive look into his life, his spiritual beliefs, and his dedication to making The Wu-Tang Clan one of the world’s most commercially successful rap groups. I stumbled upon Prodigy’s ‘My Infamous Life’ during our liquidation and decided to give it a read based upon my interest in hearing rappers explain their lives.

If you’re not familiar with Prodigy or Mobb Deep, Prodigy is considered to be one of the best rappers in the game. He and Havoc made an impact with Mobb Deep in the mid-90s representing the Queens borough of New York City. They referred to themselves as part of the “Queensbridge Murderers” and were contemporaries of The Wu-Tang Clan, The Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy, Nas, Cormega, and many others. Prodigy’s story is unlike many of his contemporaries when it comes to his family tree and his struggles with a lifelong illness. His great-great-grandfather was the founder of Morehouse College; his grandfather was Budd Johnson, a jazz saxophonist who worked with Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, and Prodigy made the claim that his grandfather taught Quincy Jones how to read music; his grandmother was Bernice Johnson, a dance teacher and the founder of the Bernice Johnson Cultural Arts Center; his mother was an NYU graduate who later worked her way up in the housing authority; his father was a businessman with a street hustler mentality who later battled drug addiction.

Prodigy discusses his early life in his musically and culturally rich family, but he also goes into detail about being born with sickle-cell anemia and the pain he endured with sickle-cell related episodes as a child. His father’s street hustler ways were part of his early influences; he describes incidents while growing up where his father told him to never walk away from a fight and to never let anyone have an advantage over him in order to gain respect. While his family struggled with living in the projects, his grandmother paid for him to attend a prestigious private school where he was one of the few black students. His grandmother’s dance studio was a place with cultural-richness, as well as celebrities and their children; he took dance classes with children who would go on to be musicians themselves such as Ashanti, and he lost a Broadway acting role during his childhood to Alfonso Ribeiro, who later went on to be part of the TV show ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.’ 

One would question as to how Prodigy would become involved with the street mentality. His father’s influence ran very deep. He took part in selling drugs to buy his own clothing that neither his mother or grandmother would purchase for him, he took part in street crimes and robberies, and his relationship with Havoc was the result of a botched attempted robbery that they both took part in. He began to use his street mentality as an influence to rapping when he was a teen. With his mother managing his music career, he landed himself on the soundtrack to ‘Boyz in the Hood’ and was nearly signed to a record deal that he later refused due to the record company’s refusal to allow him to include Havoc in his recording contract. Havoc and Prodigy persevered on their own to become the best in their game amongst their contemporaries; Havoc learned how to produce and come up with their beats while Prodigy worked on his rapping, which led to a rap battle with Nas in which Prodigy lost, but gained Nas’ respect and encouragement.

The memoir pulls no punches when it comes to the wild times of Mobb Deep, the conflicts they had with other rap artists that included many of their close friends, the gun violence that they took part in as a result of their fame, the loss of many friends due to murders and retaliation, and the excesses that they took part in with female groupies. Prodigy is open about the relationship he has with his wife, he’s open about the drug use he took part in, he’s open about the birth of his children, and he’s honest when it comes to his criminal rap sheet and his history of run-ins with the law that some of the most expensive attorneys in America defended him from. The spiritual side of Prodigy’s life includes influence from ‘The Autobiography of Malcom X,’ various Nation of Islam figures, conspiracy theory related material in relation to the Illuminati and secret societies, and his own personal views of God that are not made up of biblical truths.

While the memoir is detailed, it’s also an unorganized mess that also seems to have dates and places mixed up. Prodigy tells the story from the perspective of flashbacks while he was serving 3 years in prison for a gun charge (he was released this past spring), but it goes all over the place and there are moments where I found him going way off track. The moment in his career that people would probably find most interest in would be the time that Mobb Deep were part of the G-Unit stable under 50 Cent, which is what most of Mobb Deep’s fans gave them criticism for, and yet where they found the most financial success even while having dismal album sales. The one thing that I find disturbing about Prodigy’s point of view is the fact he doesn’t seem to offer much remorse for what he’s done, but he justifies it with human nature being that of a savage and that being a savage is part of any human being’s survival. Prodigy’s conspiracy views of the world are also hard to take; he equates conspiracy theories as truths. The truths of his conspiracy theories include vaccinations of his children including microchips, his ability to view advertisements and billboards the same way Roddy Piper does in John Carpenter’s ‘They Live,’ and his stories about being visited by UFOs hovering above his home.

While Prodigy does have a personality and lifestyle that many of us probably do not understand, his knowledge and experience of the music industry is very well stated and explained. He has a do-it-yourself ethic that has kept them successful, has helped them in negotiating their record deals, and it has also put him at odds with Havoc and many of their former business associates. He also makes it clear that he doesn’t believe anyone should be oppressed for who they are and states that he doesn’t believe homosexuals should face discrimination, and he is sincere when he thanks many of the white musicians that include Eminem and many rock bands who were supportive of their music, listed them as influences, and toured with Mobb Deep during the ‘90s and during the last decade. He's also thankful for the white audience that has followed Mobb Deep since the beginning. Some of us would probably not understand Prodigy’s life, but nevertheless, it is one that is based on his hard work and his love for what he does. For someone who has a disease with a life expectancy of 40 years (which he has lived beyond), he is a truly blessed individual who is likely going to dazzle the rap world once more now that he’s out of prison and recording music again.

Here is a performance of Mobb Deep in 2004 with The Roots. Prodigy is in the Yankees jersey. And remember kids: there's no such thing as halfway crooks.

I've Decided to Continue This Blog

I made a post after Borders went into liquidation stating that I was going to stop this blog. I have since changed my mind and would like to bring it back. People aren't really talking about books anymore. I've always enjoyed sharing book recommendations with people, I continue to read a lot of books, and I'd like to continue to reach out to authors to help promote their books.

Consider this blog reactivated.

-Brian the Bookseller

The End

Well, it's unfortunate to report that I will soon be joining the ranks of the unemployed. The book chain that I have worked at for almost 7 years is now shutting its doors for good nationwide. Borders will be no more by the end of September.

People have asked me, "What went wrong? Are all Borders stores closing?" several times over the past week. It goes back a long way, back before I even started with the company. It supposedly started in the mid-90s, some say around 2000, and some say around 2005, and one of the first nails in the coffin happened around 2008. I don't want to bash my employer, but I can definitely concur that the company not getting behind the internet revolution was definitely one of the main faults. Borders wasn't selling books online as Amazon began to dominate the market, and they had actually partnered with Amazon.com for a short time sending Borders customers to Amazon's website.

People have asked, "Is it because of the Kindle?" Nice idea given most Borders employees hate Amazon.com, but the Kindle definitely didn't help as the company got behind the less impressive Kobo line of e-Readers and those horrible Cruz readers and Cruz tablets. People have asked a lot of questions that each represent a brick in the end of Borders--all of these things from people going online, the kindles, Wal-Mart and Costco are all to be considered. One thing I can say that probably took us down was the massive amount of debt that the company carried through the middle of the last decade until now.

I will say that I loved Borders as a brand before I even worked in a Borders. Borders is where I found all of my Buddhist reading material; I found such a variety of books that I didn't have to go into special bookstores to buy; I took comfort in the fact that I could buy my books, DVDs, and CDs all in one spot given they would likely have anything I would be looking for. Borders to me represented a place where you could go and find laid back and incredibly knowledgable people who could recommend anything to you; you wouldn't regret buying anything a Borders employee suggested. In late 2008, it seemed that being part of that Borders image was about to change for the worst. That's when a CEO came to town named Ron Marshall who forced us to sell specific "MAKE titles" to customers; it didn't matter if you came in for a specific book, we had to recommend these titles to you and push you to buy them. The image and the atmosphere of Borders wasn't what it used to be, and we played the role of a retailer that was desperate for sales as we prayed that we would never see the company in bankruptcy. We worked in the store short staffed and stressed out during peak times of the year--including the infamous Christmas season of 2009 where most employees were complaining about 3-5 people being staffed in the store during the Christmas peak shopping days and hours.

What are my reflections on it now that we know what our fate includes? I would say that while it's sad, we definitely knew what was coming (in fact, a Borders employee made a Borders Liquidation BINGO sheet that has a "we knew it was coming" tile). I can also say that people shouldn't think Borders is the end--Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million are going to be in the same position in 3-5 years with Barnes & Noble losing a couple of billion dollars in assets and Books-A-Million reporting 100 million dollars in losses. Amazon.com as one customer told me is the "Wal-Mart of the internet, and has killed the book business." I can say I agree, but I also heard many customers tell us how sad they are we are going under--but yet many of these people will also tell you they can't resist shopping on Amazon.com.

How am I handling the liquidation process?

Well, TIME magazine wrote this amusing article HERE about how much our liquidation sale sucks because anything that was discounted last week via a coupon or discounted price of 20-30% is now only 10% in the liquidation's starting process (funny how TIME Magazine doesn't understand how liquidation sales work), and we're hearing a lot of people say they want deeper discounts and will come back. We are simply in the store as staff of the liquidation company that now owns us and are selling off the assets. There is nothing we have to sell, we don't have access to our own computer systems to help customers find titles, the pictures from employees showing up on the net show stores in disarray with piles of books everywhere in their store, and we're simply there to take the customer's money. Am I taking it personally? Not one bit. Am I bitter towards the liquidators? Not at all. I'm just taking the process like those who knew what their fate was on the Titanic as it sunk.

To the customers asking me and my fellow Borders employees "What will you do now?" Please stop asking us. Many of us simply don't know what's ahead of us in our lives. I don't know what the conditions will be of the job market next week, next month, or around September when this process will supposedly be over and we're left to filing for unemployment. Many of us are responding with witty comebacks or mild smartass comments in reply that you are taking literally; I can assure you none of us are really going to go be on Safaris in Kenya, and none of us are going to be sitting at home counting how many millions we have left from our lottery earnings. Just stop while you're ahead, enjoy your bargains, and mourn the loss of your local Borders without asking us if they're finding us jobs or asking us personal questions about our finances--unless you're prepared to offer us jobs.

So, with that, I'm sorry to say that I will probably not be seeking employment in this business after it's all done. I'm probably done being Brian the Bookseller. But I want to thank all the customers I had who appreciated all my recommendations, all of the authors who gave me the time of day when I e-mailed them or added me to their personal Facebook pages to talk about their books, and most of my co-wrokers who I have gotten to know over the years as well as Borders for giving me a job in 2005 when I relocated here to California.

I wish this blog could have lasted longer and regret that I'm pulling the plug on it as quickly as it began. But if you were a reader, thanks for following.

-Brian the Bookseller

Here are some liquidation related photos for your enjoyment. I took a few of these in my store during Day 3. I also included the Borders Liquidation Bingo, a letter to customers left by the staff in a closing store, and where you can find the nearest Borders restroom.

5 Questions for "Malled" Author Caitlin Kelly

If you're familiar with the work of Barbara Ehrenreich, you're probably aware of her book, "Nickel & Dimed." Ehrenreich did an experiment to see if she could survive working minimum wage jobs in various cities. Caitlin Kelly’s "Malled" is NOT one of those books.

Caitlin Kelly was a successful journalist and author. She did many exquisite pieces as a freelance writer, and for the Daily News. She had sipped tea with the queen, wrote a story on the DNA testing of 9/11 victims, and she has experience as an editor. As the journalism profession began to constrict, she found herself laid off after one of her most productive years ever; she eventually did something she never thought she would do, get a retail job.

Kelly took a job with The North Face at an upscale shopping center outside of New York City. Her book describes her transition into the retail world and having to use a different set of people skills, her frustration in dealing with the store and corporate management, and her research on the world of retail. “Malled” raises the question about the quality of our shopping experiences, exposes the low wages and the abuse of retail employees, and also talks about the extra mile that retail veterans go to serve their customers.

You weren’t sent to do this for an undercover writing assignment, and this was nothing that you had actually planned on doing; you really went to work in retail to pay the bills. You mentioned that during the year you were laid-off that you actually had one of your most productive periods. You have an impressive resume as someone who interviewed the Queen of England and did some very exquisite pieces in your journalism career. How much of a shock was it to go from a person in that position to going to work at The North Face? 

It was a shock, as much to go from an industry I know, and have worked in since college, as to drop from a good salary to a minimum-wage job. I was naive enough to think that any work done well and cheerfully would be respected, but quickly discovered how dismissive some customers can be when they assume you have no better work options than a low-wage position. I didn't mind the work at The North Face, but I really disliked the way many of were treated for simply doing that work. I liked that the North Face job required emotional skills from me that journalism did not.

What led to you writing a book about your experiences while working at The North Face? 

I wrote an essay for The New York Times, a column about work called Preoccupations, in which I compared retail to journalism -- and preferred retail, for a few reasons. The essay drew 150 emails from all over the world, so it clearly hit a nerve! I spoke in Manhattan on a panel about a month after that, and there was an agent's assistant in the audience who suggested I write a memoir. My new agent agreed and we sold it to Portfolio in September 2009.

As someone who has worked in retail, one of the interesting research points that I thought you made was based on the idea that you get what you pay for when it comes to people who work for you. You mention the high turnover, employees being paid less, and the quality of customer service going down. Do you think this is becoming more common? 

I really find it counter-intuitive -- pun intended! -- to underpay your front-line, customer-facing staff who very much help drive corporate profits yet pay them pennies, rarely give raises and offer little chance for promotion. Very few people will tolerate such conditions, and then companies just hire a whole new crew and burn them out. It's no way to run a business, yet it's very typical of large-scale retail. In a terrible economy, companies can be even more abusive, so I see little chance of improvement until things pick up again. If then!

You mentioned that you had applied to be in management and you were turned down. Were you ever given any idea as to why you were turned down? 

I was given no reasons why I was not even interviewed for a managerial position. I had asked repeatedly. I suspect because I would have been managing former co-workers and that might have been uncomfortable. If I had specific weaknesses preventing me from being considered for it, these were never addressed or discussed with me.

What has been The North Face’s response to your book? 

The North Face refused comment when the Associated Press called them about Malled. An employee at a store in another state told me the company required every staffer to sign a document promising not to discuss the book with customers.

Many thanks to Caitlin Kelly for allowing me to interview her. You can find out more about "Malled" and Caitlin Kelly by visiting CaitlinKelly.com