Oh Kindle Unlimited, how I love you! I get to ‘check out’ ten books a month and while most of my choices are around marketing, online biz and stuff like that there, the last two I’ve picked up have been quite different.
‘Johnny Carson’ by his former lawyer Henry Bushkin is a quick and entertaining read. Having watched the documentary about the late Carson, nothing in this book surprises me much. But it’s an inside look at the man behind the facade, for better and for worse.
I grew up on Johnny Carson and he so reminded me of my dad (dapper, intelligent and charming) and I even remember him referring to Bushkin as “bombastic Bushkin”.
It’s a fascinating story, really, and delves a bit deeper into the relationship between Johnny and his cold, critical mother Ruth. He sent his mother and father on an all-expenses-paid cruise with top-of-the-line accommodations and neither one called to thank him for it. At all. When he asked, his mother said “it was okay” and left it at that. He was perpetually trying to get one word of encouragement from her and failed in every attempt (according to this story and others).
Checking out some of the criticism on Amazon (because I’m avoiding doing PI work!), I see that it centers on Bushkin inserting himself into the story. Well, hell! It’s *HIS* account of *HIS* life with Carson. Of course he’s featured in it! He’s the damn narrator. Sheesh.
I’m about halfway through and enjoying the peek behind the curtain.
The other book I’m reading (interesting but not nearly as fascinating) is “How I helped OJ get away with murder” by Mike Gilbert.
This was suggested by someone in the Serial Reddit thread and I picked it up on a whim. Nothing new here either (and FTR, I am firmly in the ‘he totes did it’ camp) but again, looking behind that facade always lures me in. OJ has always seemed to me to be a dim-witted narcissist and this story certainly doesn’t change that opinion. It does, though, explain some of the dynamics of his relationship with Nicole Brown Simpson and how truly toxic it was to both of them. He had the money and the power over her, she had her own issues with that power struggle and it ended so so badly.
When the OJ trial was going on, I was immersed in it 100% (as you all know I am with anything that strikes my fancy!) and read pretty much all the books about the trial and the civil suit. Gilbert’s book, released in 2008, is his attempt at coming clean with his part in the cover up. He was Simpson’s sports agent and advisor so was in the inner circle and privy to all the info. His book reads as a big mea culpa and the writing is direct and plain.
So this is what I’ve been doing lately – instead of watching TV or sitting in front of the laptop (like I should be doing PI stuff). Also too: going to the gym! I’ve made it twice now and it’s a big win to get there no matter what I do once I’m there.
How’s life witchooo?
I completely enjoyed the Carson book. Especially with all the recent hand wringing about how “hurt” Joan Rivers had been by him. Please! If she hadn’t screwed him over, he wouldn’t have had any reason to “hurt” her.
What did bother me about it is that Bushkin waited until Carson was dead. Why? The story would have ended the same way and in the same spot if it had come out in 2004 or even 1994. (It probably would have sold better, too.) If everything is accurate and on the up-and-up, why publish it posthumously? And Ann-Margret’s husband old and very ill husband didn’t need her infidelity aired this way. We would have gotten the “Johnny was a horndog” point without including her name. (Upon her return from the around-the-world cruise, Mom said, “It’s good to be home.” She was a piece of work, wasn’t she?)
As one who survived an intense and abusive relationship, I find Nicole Brown’s life haunting. And in a strange way, I feel sorry for OJ. For he killed the only one who would understand why he did it. Have you read “Raging Heart” by Sheila Weller? It focuses more on the marriage and less on the crime.