The recently deceased author had a really colorful life. He
seems to have known everyone and done everything. Born to a cattle ranching
family that was powerful in Wyoming politics, he went to school with Bob Weir
of the Grateful Dead, and later went on to write lyrics for the band. He
mentored JFK Jr., and was campaign manager for Dick Cheney. Yes, he was an acid
loving, alcoholic, Republican. The cognitive dissonance is still rippling in my
head. Later he became a computer hacker and cofounded the Electronic Freedom
Foundation, well as writing a book that was basically an ad for Steve Jobs and
Apple. He hung at Andy Warhol’s Factory and dated the Dalai Llama’s sister. I’d
have thought it was all bullshit, but the people involved say his life really
was like that.
All was not sweetness and adventure. As I said, he was an
alcoholic. He smoked three packs a day, was a coke dealer, cheated on women,
and took off with a $5000 advance for a book he never wrote. He did some of the
stupidest things with his health and safety; it’s a miracle he lived as long as
he did. One thing his life never was, was dull. And he tells his story in short
chapters, as if he was telling them over drinks. At least in the first half of
the book; somewhere near the end he sort of … slows down. Given that he was in
failing health, I suspect that he just ran out of energy for telling. The prose
in the latter part of the book even has a different voice to it, as if the
first part was Barlow telling it in full, while the co-author had to fill in a
lot in the end. A truly amusing book- I figured I wouldn’t be impressed by the
man, but I was. Four and a half stars.
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I received this book from the Amazon Vine program in return for an unbiased review.
Neither of these things influenced my review.
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