I’ve admit right off, I’ve always been prejudiced against books that include footnotes, so I groaned a tad when I saw L. Jon Wertheim’s BLOOD IN THE CAGE: MIXED MARTIAL ARTS, PAT MILETICH, AND THE FURIOUS RISE OF THE UFC included them. If you ask me, footnotes should only exist to tell you what the acronyms S.H.I.E.L.D. and A.I.M. stand for, and to refer us to whatever back issue of a comic book the characters happen to be referring to at the moment.

However, as I actually read the footnotes, I saw that they included a great story about Steven Seagal getting his ass kicked by an old dude named Judo Gene LeBell. And I gotta admit, that’s a great use of a footnote. I’m still not a fan of footnotes and find them distracting, but in this book, many of them deal with various forms of violence with a smattering of sex and even bank robbery tossed in, so I guess I can deal with it.

BLOOD IN THE CAGE tells two stories that are intertwined, yet distinct: the story of the rise of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC for short) and the story of Pat Miletich, who was a great Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter and is now one of the premier MMA trainers in the world. Reading the description of the book, I wasn’t sure how this technique would work, but the author actually does a great job of seamlessly melding the two.

Basically, the book follows Miletich through his troubled life and his legendary status as the toughest man in Iowa until the point where he sees a flyer of his karate school advertising a seminar for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and then he attends said seminar, at which point BLOOD tells the story of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the Gracie family which originated the technique. The way I describe it sounds kind of clumsy, but it works pretty well.

I’m a fan of MMA, but I’m not quite a hardcore fan, so I wasn’t familiar with a lot of Miletich’s story and how significant he was to the whole rise of MMA. The two stories actually have a lot of parallels: Pat goes through a lot of personal and professional struggles trying to actually make a living through fighting, while the UFC actually came this close to going under, thanks to the efforts of John McCain and various critics who declared it “human cockfighting” and got its pay-per-view matches taken off of most cable systems.

In Pat’s case, he was saved basically through hard work and dedication, and the UFC was saved when it was bought by Dana White and the Fertitta brothers. White is a guy whom I’ve seen on TV kind of acting like an arrogant prick, and I wondered what his deal was. I had just kind of assumed he was a big-mouthed figurehead who was buddies with the brains behind the outfit, but come to find out, the dude actually is the brains behind the whole thing.

He still seems kind of arrogant, but he’s earned the right by being the guy with the brains and the vision to take the UFC mainstream. Of course, with UFC’s success, it appears that the fighters themselves may be getting a raw deal in terms of money, and that part of the story is told as well. Miletich himself gets screwed over by White, and it seems he isn’t the only one.

Overall, I really enjoyed Wertheim’s book. I learned quite a bit from it, and I’d say if you’re interested at all in MMA or UFC, then it’s a must-read. I will say I caught one factual error that on its own wasn’t a big deal, but did slightly change the context of what the author was trying to say. It’s possible a hardcore fan will find a dozen more, but on the whole, this was a fairly quick, enjoyable read.

If nothing else, it’s worth reading just to find out why fighter Luke Cummo drinks his own urine. It’s one of those theories that sounds so crazy, it almost makes sense.

Source: Eric Lyden

I think constantly about the ABC drama: when I’m in the shower, walking my dog, even when I’m watching other TV shows.

I also frequently visit my local library to dig up copies of the books that have appeared on the show. Hold up, you say. There’s literature on Lost?

Oh, yes, there is. Lost may center around a mystical island, but it’s also about larger themes like religious faith and the importance of community — the stuff of memorable novels. Happily, the show’s writers weave in so many literary references that each installment also opens up a world of transcendent reading. Here are three books I re-fell in love with courtesy of Lost.

Watership Down — the first book ever prominently featured on Lost — is, technically, a story about bunnies. But there is nothing cuddly, or for that matter, wuddly, about it.

Like Lost, the story focuses on the members of one community forced to scrap and struggle their way toward survival. But what makes it a joy to read is the way author Richard Adams personifies those bunnies, endowing them with stubbornness, fear and resourcefulness as well as a unique, melodic vocabulary. Invented words like “Owsla” (a bunny police force) and “silflay” (to go above ground to feed) waft effortlessly into the prose, enveloping the reader in the world Adams has created.

It’s also easy to get buried in The Turn of the Screw, the 1898 novella written by Henry James. Well, that is, after you adapt to the author’s sometimes flowery Victorian prose. Once that relatively minor adjustment is made, the eerie power of this classic ghost story will inevitably creep up on you.

In this twist-filled tale, a skittish governess begins to care for two spookily well-spoken young charges at an isolated country estate in England. Almost immediately, she sees visions of a seemingly sinister couple. Is this mysterious pair a danger to the children? Or is the governess truly mad?

The reader is never quite sure whether the version of events she’s being told in The Turn of the Screw is gospel — a trait it shares in common with Lost. Another connection? In both James’ book and the ABC drama, people from the past often return in spectral form to tidy up unfinished business.

There are no ghosts in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. But there is a plane crash, a former soldier who gets “unstuck in time” and a group of characters connected to each other in ways they don’t initially understand. If that all sounds very Lost-esque, it is.

Also like Lost, Slaughterhouse defies genre. Is it a war novel? Science fiction? Social commentary? Yes, yes and yes.

As protagonist Billy Pilgrim attempts to revisit the events of the bombing of Dresden during World War II, he hops backward and forward through the major events in his life. The result is a complicated, thought-provoking and absurd look at the choices that define one man’s time on Earth … and, briefly, away from it.

Vonnegut doesn’t follow the standard, linear approach to storytelling. For that, I salute the late author. And, as a Lost addict, I feel grateful that the writers of my favorite show have the courage and the latitude to shake up their narrative every week, too.

Source: NPR / Three Books / Jen Chaney

Outrageous, raw, and painfully funny true stories straight from the life of the actor, comedian, and much-loved cast member of The Howard Stern Show—with a foreword by Howard Stern.

When Artie Lange joined the permanent cast of The Howard Stern Show in 2001, it was possibly the greatest thing ever to happen in the Stern universe, second only to the show’s move to the wild, uncensored frontier of satellite radio. Lange provided what Stern had yet to find all in the same place: a wit quick enough to keep pace with his own, a pathetic self-image to dwarf his own, a personal history both heartbreaking and hilarious, and an ingrained sense of self-sabotage that continually keeps things interesting.

A natural storyteller with a bottomless pit of material, Lange grew up in a close-knit, working-class Italian family in Union, New Jersey, a maniacal Yankees fan who pursued the two things his father said he was cut out for—sports and comedy. Tragically, Artie Lange Sr. never saw the truth in that prediction: He became a quadriplegic in an accident when Artie was eighteen and died soon after. But as with every trial in his life, from his drug addiction to his obesity to his fights with his mother, Artie mines the humor, pathos, and humanity in these events and turns them into comedy classics.

True fans of the Stern Show will find Artie gold in these pages: hilarious tales that couldn’t have happened to anyone else. There are stories from his days driving a Jersey cab, working as a longshoreman in Port Newark, and navigating the dark circuit of stand-up comedy. There are outrageous episodes from the frenzied heights of his coked-up days at MADtv, surprisingly moving stories from his childhood, and an account of his recent U.S.O. tour that is equally stirring and irreverent. But also in this volume are stories Artie’s never told before, including some that he deemed too revealing for radio.

Wild, shocking, and drop-dead hilarious, TOO FAT TO FISH is Artie Lange giving everything he’s got to give. And like a true pro, the man never disappoints.

Pitchfork is making the leap from pixels to the page: On November 11, Simon & Schuster imprint Fireside Books will publish The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present. This handy paperback chronologically explores Pitchfork’s 500 favorite songs from 1977-2006, constructing an alternate history of the past three decades of popular music– one that extends beyond the typical Baby Boomer-approved canon of the Clash, Prince, Public Enemy, Nirvana, Radiohead, and Outkast.

“This is a fascinating, convincing, and highly detailed discussion of the innovation-and-marketing process as it actually works. Phil Baker has helped me understand how the modern, global high-tech industry actually works, and anyone who shares that curiosity will benefit from reading his book.”
–James Fallows, The Atlantic Monthly
“In the high volume, fast moving field of high-tech consumer gadgetry, learning from your mistakes can be a very expensive education. It takes much more than a great inspiration to create a great product, and Phil Baker’s book provides hard earned, practical advice (and fair warning) to those obsessed with making the next great shiny new toy.”
–Paul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm