My Pitch for a Marvel 80's Rock Opera Event

This is my pitch for an 80's Rock Opera Marvel Event, set in Modern Times. Actually I mostly just wrote the climactic scene and filled in some details. I had a lot of fun writing this, even though I recognize it isn't so much "good" as much as it is "entertaining" (I hope).

Enjoy:
The sun has gone out in the Marvel Universe throwing the world into disarray.The Sentry/Void absorbed all the Sun's energy and then jetted off to explode another 999,999 suns (in order to regain the power of 1,000,000 Exploding suns). He will have to be dealt with at the end of the story(cue: Cold As Ice- Foreigner).
There will be several scenes, apropos of nothing, of the Punisher wearing night vision and totally getting the drop on disoriented villains/looters. I don't know if this contributes to the story, but it's something I want to see anytime, all the time. This will be shown in a montage of Punisher grabbing, stabbing and otherwise silently incapacitating criminals(cue: You Shook Me All Night Long-AC/DC)
The situation has led to Daredevil being hugely important as a leader and light/heat-emitting metas highly valued, often enslaved as a resource. Anyway, the darkness leads to several humans enslaving Inhuman children who have ambient light power and holding them in cages in central park- the food distribution/survival hub in the middle of New York(cue: Sweet Child o' Mine- Guns N' Roses).

Black Bolt is enraged, how dare humans treat his people as commodities(cue: We're Not Gonna Take It- Twisted Sister). Especially since they would have gladly offered help freely. He coordinates a rescue mission where the other Inhumans teleport in, grab the children and teleport away. Once they are clear Black Bolt, standing on the New Jersey Side of the George Washington Bridge inhales deeply and unleashes a scream designed to level the entire city of New York, and likely create seismic disturbances across the entire world(cue: It's The End of The World as We Know It-R.E.M.).

We see the sound waves ripping the bridge into pieces and creating a massive tidal wave in the Hudson River as it expands outward. Suddenly everything goes silent and into slow motion. (Cue: The Final Countdown-Europe) A stage rises from the ground with speakers as tall as apartment buildings and Dazzler poised ready to rock the city of New York. Just as the intro is nearing it's end the speakers tilt straight to the sky. The sound wave hits the stage just as the song picks up. Dazzler's power turns all the sound into light and funnels it straight into the sky! Blackbolt yells again and again but is continually rebuffed by the power of Dazzler's rocking (cue: I Wanna Rock-Twisted Sister).This continues through the duration of the song until both Black Bolt and Dazzler are both visibly exhausted. She is dancing/singing/roller skating as hard as she can but isn't sure if she can take another blast(cue:Living on a Prayer-Bon Jovi). Quicksilver sees her starting to fade and realizes she needs help. He takes off as fast as he can(cue:I Ran-Flock of Seagulls). He is joined by Spitfire also running at superspeed(cue: Legs-ZZ Top), who asks "How Can I help, Oy wot wot cheerio and all that." "Distract him however you can!"


Using her superspeed, Spitfire circles behind the resting Blackbolt with her superspeed and, using her vampire enhanced strength, flings Medusa far away. The fatigued Blackbolt doesn't notice. Spitfire, doing her best Medusa impression, seductively reaches out to the collapsed Blackbolt, "I've got just the thing to perk you up"

He turns around in slow motion, expecting to see his loving queen(cue:The Power of Love- Huey Lewis & the News), only to have Spitfire punch him in the face (Sound Effect:Record Scratch; Cue:Never Gonna Give You Up-Rick Astley) "You just got Rick-Rolled, Bitch!"

Blackbolt spits the blood from his lips- the sound is enough to send Spitfire flying backwards into the pylons of the bridge, knocking her unconscious. "But I just wanted to heeelllpp..." She passes out (Cue:Wake me up before you Go-Go-Wham!)


Black Bolt, collapsed from the sheer strain on his vocal chords, stands up with resolve for one final attack. Dazzler is clearly filled with self doubt and feeling very alone. She was so involved in rocking that she did not realize that all her friends have left to get her more backup, only that they are gone! (cue:Owner of a Lonely Heart-YES)


SUDDENLY, Quicksilver appears with the Power Pack, dressed a coordinated wardrobe with big hair and choreographed dance moves. (cue: The Right Stuff- New Kids on the Block). Dazzler is inspired and rises with new energy. "I just have to believe in myself!" (Cue: Don't Stop Believing-Journey).


BlackBolt unleashes a final yell, just as Living on a Prayer (reprise) reaches it's climactic scream. Dazzler grabs the mic, re-energized by Power Pack's musical pep talk, and gives it all she has but is still clearly fading. Cut to the people of New York, all wearing 80's shutter-shades and bright neon parachute pants and sweaters ripped so one shoulder is exposed cheering her on, chanting "Dazzler, Dazzler." Her dream has always been to move from the B-List to become a big star so she screams even harder, energized by the crowd. "Livin' on a PRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYEER!!"Cut away to a shot of Earth from space. The light she is generating creates a massive beam of energy that shoots off the planet like something out of Dragon Ball Z, straight into the sun- RE-IGNITING IT(Cue: Burning Down the House-The Talking Heads)! Dazzler's speakers burst under the strain as Black Bolt and Dazzler both collapse from exhaustion. Dazzler is carried, crowd-surf style on the hands of her new adoring fans like a rock-and-roll Jesus. But much like Jesus she's had to sacrifice for her followers- her vocal chords are torn and while she can speak- she will never sing again (cue:Every Rose Has It's Thorn-Poison).


We cut to various locations around the globe where people are celebrating sunlight on their faces (somehow everyone all at the same time even though the earth's rotation does not work that way): Boston(Cue: Peace of Mind-Boston), Chicago (Cue: You're The Inspiration-Chicago), Europe (cue: The Final Countdown-Europe), Kansas City( cue: Carry on My Wayward Son-Kansas), Africa (Cue:Africa-Toto), Asia in general(Cue: Heat of The Moment-Asia), and China in particular (cue:Chinese Democracy-Guns 'N Roses), and of course all the backstreets in the world (cue: I Want It That Way-The Backstreet Boys).

The Inhumans later apologize and everyone laughs about how silly they were all acting in the face of impending apocalypse. They all join in a group hug, now closer than ever(Cue: Keep On Loving You-REO Speedwagon).

Also they defeat the Sentry who has been stricken blind by Dazzler's light show (cue: She Blinded Me With Science- Thomas Dolby). The End.

My Two Favorite Songs Right Now

Download here.
Kanye fucking kills this track. I don't think a song has gotten me this pumped up since... I don't even remember.

Download here. Amazing song. Nice to see The Hood Internet doing some original stuff in addition to the amazing mashups.

All downloads artist endorsed and totally legit. Enjoy.

Why I Love Comics

I think Matt Fraction (Casanova, Invincible Iron Man, X-Men) puts perfectly in his presentation how comics can transcend being more than just entertainment. This genuinely moved me.

via comics alliance

Dolph Lundgren Being Ridiculous(ly Awesome)

As alluded to in my previous post, here is Dolph Lundgren not taking himself too seriously and gaining +7,000 cool points

The Expendables: Totally Forgettable

I suppose it shouldn't have been very surprising that The Expendables wasn't very good. What really threw me, however, was how little fun it was. This feeling was, I'm sure, heightened by seeing Scott Pilgrim in the same week (which was maybe the most fun movie I've ever seen) but I truly expected it to be at least stupid mindless fun. Instead it was stupid, mindless and long stretches of dull in between the fun that there was to be had. I didn't HATE this movie, but I didn't really like it either. It inhabited that terrible place where something fails to evoke a reaction- it had it's moments, but ultimately failed. I wanted another Transporter film. What I got was about 1/5 of one.

The Role of Women
I think there are three women in The Expendables. One is Mickey Rourke's girlfriend whose name he can't remember. This is played for laughs but is more sad than funny. She's incredibly trashy and loaded up with plastic surgery but is shot in such a way that it is clear we are supposed to find her attractive. Later in the movie we find out she has broken up with him and he is very upset over this nameless girl. So upset that he is going to finish painting that guitar he promised her and then "smash it to shit." Also, he is questioning his fundamental worth as a person. Girls sure do suck in The Expendables.

Case in point is Charisma Carpenter who plays Jason Statham's girl. At least she was his girl until he came back after disappearing mysteriously without any contact for a month only to find her with another man!! FOR SHAME!! Oh wait, that actually sounds pretty reasonable to me. Later on he stops by to find out that his replacement is a total douchebag who hit her and he proceeds to beat the shit out of him and all his douchebag friends, threatening to kill him if he hurts her again. Then he tells her she should have waited because he was worth it and takes her home. Oh man, looks like he is redeemed and she got what she deserved- at least that's what the movie seems to be telling us. Because if guys aren't emotionally distant they are probably wifebeaters. Make your choice ladies! Well, it's good to see Charisma Carpenter working on something more high-profile than the Butterfinger Defense League. Watching her character become fully realized on Buffy and Angel was one of the best parts of that show.

Finally, the character presented as the strong female lead!! What does she do? Well, she talks tough for about 2 minutes. Then she is beaten senseless by Stone Cold Steve Austin, water-boarded in a scene that made me incredibly uncomfortable, and then almost raped by two guys before Sylvester Stallone bursts in and cuts these guys hands and heads off with a huge machete because he is the hero, dammit. Can you believe those misogynist rapists? Oh wait Stallone wrote the scene and directed it. Whatever! Her character also leads to a pretty (unintentionally) funny scene where Stallone grapples with the concept of compassion and cannot seem to wrap his head around why he would be feeling it ever for the first time.

The ultimate lesson about women here is not that they are evil or bad, but ultimately they are irrelevant. These guys have beers, friends, motorcycles, weights and weapons. Girls are just extraneous. The end lesson isn't that girls are to be objectified, but more to be ignored.

Action Sequences
This was the most disappointing part of the film because it was what was intended to define it.

First off, the action was too scarce, there wasn't nearly enough of it in the first half. I wanted this movie to be basically 100% tough dudes wrecking shit. I would say we got maybe 40%-60% and a good amount of that felt disjointed and incohesive. Apparently everyone was given a switch they press to cause a random explosion somewhere and often people seemed to appear and disappear in ways that made absolutely no sense. Let me break it down by star:

Sylvester Stallone- Fires a gun fast and gets beat up by Steve Austin. Some of his over the top wrestling moves were cool-looking. Mostly he just looks intense while running. He is in very good shape for a man his age.

Jet Li- apparently this is a movie where they did not want Jet Li to do much martial arts. I've been raised by Hollywood to believe that he can defeat anyone, literally anyone, with his incredible Kung-Fu prowess. Seeing him nearly defeated by Dolf Lundgren who doesn't do much aside from be huge had me calling bullshit in a way that disturbed the theater patrons around me.

Terry Crews- Barely does shit in this movie. Which sucks, because he is awesome. I guess firing a big-ass gun is cool? (No, it isn't. He could probably break a dude in half!)

Randy Couture- Jokes are made about his character being a pussy because he goes to therapy. I would think that shit would be pretty damn necessary, but whatever. He doesn't do much acting but his fight with Stone Cold where he lights him on fire using ridiculous wrestling movies and then punches him into a lake made of fire was pretty awesome. There's probably some meta-thing I would understand if I knew anything about wrestling- but I don't so I didn't.

Jason Statham- was the one awesome part of this movie. All the martial arts Jet Li didn't do was given to Mr. Statham. He was the "guy who's really into knives" and holy shit did he cut a lot of people in some very bad-ass and inventive ways. Most of the movie I felt like I had seen it before or that it was generic as hell- except for when Jason Statham was on screen. He did some ridiculously awesome shit, and that is what I came to see this movie for. He is one of my top 25 hetero man-crushes.

Dolph Lundgren- At the very beginning of the movie he blows a guys torso off with a sawed off shotgun and laughs in a hilariously over the top manner. I was getting pretty excited because I thought the movie was going for an absurdly-ridiculous-over-the-top-gore-comedy a la Dead Alive or Army of Darkness channeled through 80's action movie tropes. No such luck. Lundgren is still really awesome though- Google him! He's been doing some hilarious shit recently.

The main issue with the action is that very little of it was anything I hadn't seen before. Some of it they did very well or better than I'd seen elsewhere, but ultimately I could not point to a single thing I hadn't seen before (outside of Statham's bad-assery with knives). Most of the explosions and punching left me totally unengaged- which is the ultimate failure because that kind of stuff is the easiest to grab someone with if done even half-well.

Charisma/Charm
One of the things that make people really go for action movie franchises isn't just the action sequences, it's the pithy one-liners or on-going jokes between characters during moments of tension. Or things that are just so bad-ass or intense that they are either absurdly awesome or iconic (think: "You feelin lucky?")

This movie sets out to have many such moments and lines. Every single one of them falls flat. Part of the problem is that most of the characters don't even have 1-dimensions since we end up knowing actually nothing about them. Each character is given maybe one trait that is mentioned briefly and then never brought up again. The interim is not filled with action but mostly meandering around. The end result is a cast that is less than the sum of it's parts. Because I don't care about these characters, there is no tension and thus it cannot be dispelled by one-liners that aren't funny anyway.

The reason anyone went to see this movie was on the strength of it's cast, but because of all the softness in the script and the overabundance of characters no one is really given an opportunity to shine. They all get their screen time, in 30 second chunks, and are all bogged down by the weight of each other's presence, rather than being elevated by it. They're like a dozen HGH-fueled Titanic survivors all trying to cling to the same life-vest. Any feelings I felt for them were mostly disgust because they were bullshit male posturing to such an absurd degree that they actually did the opposite of almost everything they said. They are the gayest straight guys ever.

Given how much the movie dragged, it was amazing that at the end of it I really didn't know much about any of the characters. This movie could have benefited from being more like "The Rundown" which was genuinely funny at times and often ridiculous. Most importantly it was charming. This movie was just dull.

Audience

I feel like this movie was made for fans of professional wrestling. In fact the audience around me, dressed in "Tapout" and "Austin 3:16" Merchandise confirms it. I feel like I would have appreciated a lot more of the showdowns or "finishing moves" if I had the background knowledge of these actor's WWE history or whatever. This movie was not nearly compelling enough to learn it.

I did enjoy the Arnold Schwarzenegger scene where Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone basically call him an asshole for 5 minutes and chide him for "wanting to be president."

Takeaways/Lessons
-Women are completely and totally unnecessary, and can inhibit your ability to lead a fulfilled life.
-Being forced to kill your best friend is something you can be called a pussy for.
-Jason Statham is super-awesome.
-Casting a bunch of pretty cool dudes isn't enough if you don't hire good writers or, more importantly, good fight choreographers.
-The fact that more people saw this than Scott Pilgrim is fucking bullshit.
-If I was given this as a gift I would exchange it as a credit towards Scott Pilgrim, it's way better you guys. WAY better.
-Sometimes even when all the pieces are in place for something to be great, it can still let you down; teaching you a valuable lesson about life and maybe, just maybe, about yourself as well. Or just about how people will go see any fucking thing, myself included.

#ArkansasThemeRestaurantMenu

Little Roccolini

Peanut Brittle Rock

The Little Rock 9-Layer Dip

Wal-Martini

The Natural Steak

Humidi-Sweet-Tea with real Texarkane sugar

Arkanslaw

3rd Poorest State in the Union Burger with Arkansauce

Whitewater Russian

The Craziest Thing I've Ever Written (So Far)

I wrote this as an email to my ex-girlfriend when I was very drunk after walking in circles for about half an hour talking to myself in this exact manner. It has absolutely no bearing on anything at all. I'm pretty proud of it. I left the typos in to give a sense of context. Enjoy:

"every moment without my powersuit the world's orbit decays. Without the monsters we will soon crash into the sun and teh wolfman will wonder what he ever did to deserve his fate. Truly frankenstein is the jesus of our age for is he nto resurrected in our image to teach us teh lessons of tomorrow and realize our limitations. we are not god but truly as we strive for our potential it is possible to imagein a reality that we define completelye. Mothra fights godzilla, but also our apathy and self-destructive tendency. He can only be sated by the world's largest jacket on which tofeed. Mothra prefers tweed but he will settle for corduroy. I will twitter my feeligns every day until the metaphor transforms into reality and my bird wings carry me away and i fly to happy town with my bluebird friends and sing about seeds. Seeds are planted every day and they bloom into our full potential. I am a sunflower that rotates to follow the sun. A solar battery that generates treates for baseball players i am flying through the cosmic ether that seperates people from each other and keeps them from knowing the innermost thoughts of the world mind. The planets align to bring us closer to perfect being but drive a wdge into the true meaning of togetherness. One day we will udnerstad the workings of the worldclock that drives the events forwad. A time traveller he rarely fought but simply altered events to his liking. When he defetad the stalin-bots of the 51st century he ralized that perhaps there was more to life than travel and decided to settel. it was then his real problems begain for he could no longer run to adiffernet when to escape the pain of everyday existance. The videos of my dancing have been greatly exxagerated but its safe to say i will always be able to break it down in a way tht most hip hoppers can only imagine. They may be hip and they sure can hop but i am awesome and i jump to the stars. Im a one-upper, tubthumper, candlea eating wiz kid with a bright vision of the future nd goggles that let me see into the soul mind of unborn generations ahead. The greatest generation is a misnomer for my cloned offspring will one day rule the world and teach tohers the meaning of loneliness. When the social network became self aware everhoynes status became hivemind and their friends all merged into one with one purpose- to spread and destroy. They knew the writing was on the wall but not being able to post on their wall made them all realize the severity of a world with no individualty. Could a world survive with no transdimensional hyper beings manipulating the economy? He didnt know but he was about to find out- he fired the gravity gun and as the world folded into itself he laughed, for this was nothing compared to finally beating space invaders and finding the hidden secrets on the eleventeenth level of ultimate secrecy. He truly knew completion. If the world is a turnip will a cosmic mario uproot and use it as a weapon upon his enemies- destroying them to prove to the world once and for all that he is superior to luigi despite his weight problem, inability to float, and dminished stature. If he could paint his feelings he would use electric pink and glitter. Unfortunately painting was a secret art lost to all but the most self-deprecating monks who understood the true nature of sacrifice and glory. They were the mechanized elite and used their robot arms to craete works of pure beauty that if gazed upon with anything less than a supercomputer with an imagination engine would make your brain leak out your ears and your nose explode.

good night."

Self-Portrait

This is how I see myself.

My Opinions on Lebron James Re: "The Decision"

Almost a month ago a lot of people were getting up in arms and heated about Lebron James' "The Decision" special. People accused Lebron of being an egomaniac and claimed that his decision to play with the Miami Heat was cynical and ill-advised. Wow, do I disagree.

First of all, I'm no great follower of basketball but I did follow the Lebron free agent story incredibly closely. Why? Because it was more interesting than actually watching basketball, a game where nothing matters until the last 2 minutes (which take ten minutes to play). To me, Lebron is actually bigger than basketball because I don't give a shit about the sport. The only time basketball has entered my day to day conversation has been when Lebron has done something super-human; like that time he scored something like 30 points in a row to carry his team to the next round of the play-offs. That's a holy shit thing to do. I mean, for fuck's sake the guy can do this at the drop of a hat:



Additionally, he seems like a pretty decent human being. People are railing against him as an egomaniac- well, yes. He is a professional athlete and to do any of the things he does, requires an absurd amount of self-confidence and ability. But look at other basketball players at his level. Kobe has been accused of rape, Michael Jordan turned out to be an asshole(see: his hall of fame induction speech), and other "wholesome" stars end up having illegitimate children, affairs, etc. If Lebron's only sin is realizing that he's pretty good at basketball, I think that puts him in the mid to low range on the professional basketball player asshole scale. He's a lot more humble in interviews than most other pro players I've seen interviewed. This whole "decision" thing was a PR gaffe, yes, but i fail to see how it's that big of a deal. He did little to heighten the spectacle above and beyond what it already was. While other players are trying to posture and talk shit on twitter, he is tweeting about how he hates going to the dentist and how single mothers should stay strong (his mother was 16 when she had him and his dad was a deadbeat).

Another complaint has been that Lebron's decision to join the heat was a "cynical" bid to win championships. This argument makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Most players make their decisions based on the maximum amount of money they can make. Their main loyalty is to their pocket book, not their legacy. I don't know about you, but that seems cynical to me. We pay these people exorbitant sums of money to entertain us by trying to win. And then we get angry when someone places the game over the money? Indeed a lot of this anger seems to be inconsistent by it's own internal logic. Take the Owner of the Cleveland Cavalier's totally ridiculous letter to Lebron (originally published on the Cavs website in 24 point comic sans, no joke)

Here is the logic on it's own terms: We loved you because you really tried to win for us because you are good at and love basketball. You could not win with us, so you left. How dare you not be loyal to this location(despite staying here far longer than you probably should have), but rather to winning (which is why we loved you in the first place)! Now we are going to act like spoiled children!! Take that!!

I think a lot of the backlash has to do with fan entitlement and an immature spurned lover mentality: If we can have you, we love you; if not- fuck you! I for one think his decision is fairly principled. How it affects his legacy is another story (In other words, creating the impression that he could not win on his own).

Another thing that I think the Lebron debacle did, which is a net positive, is show that the players can have more control over their careers, rather than just being puppets for owners and GMs. Of course this has a lot to do with Lebron being good enough that he was in near-universal demand, but it does highlight how ridiculous professional sports leagues systems are. If most people want a job they shop around at however many companies are in demand of their skill. There are many options and a good amount of freedom to negotiate the price for their talent based on the market rate and their qualifications (though admittedly the market blows right now). If I'm a free agent in a major sport my options are limited to only the teams in my league that have available roster spots and, unless I am a superstar, I have to take what they offer me. Otherwise, I am unemployed. This is probably the most poorly-articulated part of my argument since I only started following sports relatively recently. I do know that studies show Lebron has been DRASTICALLY underpaid given the amount of value he creates.

I do agree that from a public relations standpoint, "Lebron James: The Decision, an ESPN Joint" was a huge debacle. His PR team should have anticipated that sports fans are largely children when it comes to shit like this and treated them as such. Hell, he didn't even look happy to be there. But for people like me, who aren't overly invested in any team and have a little bit of maturity, the off-season Lebron free-agency was the most engaging thing I'd seen in basketball since I was little and basketball meant Michael Jordan.

I've never given a shit about basketball before, but this November I will be watching the Miami Heat.

But who knows, maybe I just like Lebron because I'm a millenial

(citation: Many of these opinions were inspired by/stolen from Slate's sport's podcast Hang Up and Listen. It's really good.)

My Favorite Picture from San Diego Comic Con

I can't decide if I want to be this kid, or someday raise one like him. Either way, adorable.

Follow-Up To My Previous Post

This is incredible

Chuck Pahlaniuk's New Book: Tell-All

I read Chuck' Pahlaniuk's new book Tell-All a couple weeks ago while I was traveling. Like most of his books published in the last couple years, I read the entire thing in a couple hours. That's not to say that his recent books are bad, but they aren't 'Fight Club' or 'Invisible Monsters' where passages would hit me like a ton of bricks and demand that I re-read them 3 or 4 times before I could move on. I couldn't say if it's his writing or me that has changed.

Anyway, Long story short: I liked it. It was very entertaining and much better than his last book, 'Pygmy', which I think had no redeeming qualities. His pattern over the last 5 or 6 years has been to publish books I love and ones that disappoint me in roughly equal measure. He's built up enough goodwill with me over the years, however, that his work is pretty much buy on sight.

The book follows Katherine Kenton, a film-star in the twilight of her career, who just met the man who is likely to be next on her long list of husbands, Webster Carlton Westward III. It is narrated by her aide/confidant/career consultant Mazie Coogan who is none too happy with this development.

The first half dragged a little bit, especially since I don't know much about '50s hollywood celebrity culture. In the second half Mazie discovers the tell-all memoir Webster is writing about Katherine, that includes details of her yet-to-occur death. This is where the book delves into darkly absurd humor and really starts to work. Each thwarted assassination attempt leads to a ridiculous revision of the manuscript that keeps building to more and more cartoonish situations. Once the book found its rhythm, I was actually laughing out loud on the plane and drawing attention from the other passengers.

The book has some insight into how people on the edge, or those closest to death live life more fully than when they are simply stagnant; about how vanity and insecurity can define a person; and how the image that someone projects can be more important to someone than who they actually are. Maybe it's just me, but these insights didn't seem particularly novel or revelatory the way that those in 'Haunted' or Invisible Monsters did. However, because of the brevity of the book the sheer entertainment value leads me to recommend this.


In the front of the book there was a list of all of Chuck's published work. I was, of course, immediately compelled to rearrange the list in order from most to least favorite. This list is by no means based on any sort of objective literary merit. It is simply the books that hit me the hardest emotionally when I read them and the ones that have stuck with me the longest. Enjoy!

1. Invisible Monsters
2. Fight Club
3. Haunted
4. Choke
5. Rant
6. Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories
7. Survivor
8. Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon
9. Tell-All
10. Diary
11. Snuff
12. Lullaby
13. Pygmy

Of all the books on this list the only ones I legitimately don't like are the last two, and I would classify the first 8 as 'Highly Recommended.'