Of course there being no normal...

...then there's really no abnormal, no crazy.

`There's no normal' is not just some meaningless refrain I've been repeating for the last 30 years, there IS NO normal (What is it and who says so?), so all manner of behavior is therein implied, if not exactly forgiven when it strays way beyond`generally accepted' behavior, but even that is relative...it's alright to
_____________________ but you better not ___________________, fill in your own blanks, based on what YOU call normal.

But...

Ah yes, but - the qualifier, the modifier, the mitigating circumstances you say, a benchmark from which to judge. Well, I make no value judgments - I don't know how I could ever sit on a jury - but if you want to pay witness to far-out behavior in a world you may not be familar with but toward which you have a vicarious leaning (long windy sentence huh? It's the blowhard way of diehard NFTD...)

...now where was I? (I just had some GOOOD bud!)

Yes I recall now: If you want to see how the flip side of Family Values lives I suggest you pay court to Seth Morgan's book called `Homeboy', a tour de force and a walk on the wild side courtesy of Fate, courtesy of the California State Board of Prisons and the great talent of Seth Morgan, who had to be writing more or less autobiographically and for all I know may still be languishing on ice waiting to raise up out of Coldwater. It's a wild ride on the wild side. Pretty violent but pretty right on.

`Homeboy,' by Seth Morgan. I think it was Vintage Press, yes it was, it's Vintage. It's Vintage press and it's vintage prison. So all of a sudden I review books you say? Among my remaining qualities is a love for good writing and I feel eminently qualified to hold forth. Maybe I'm boasting but I got 6,000 books in my head to back me up. That may be a little high - Henry Miller once claimed I think that he'd read 5,000 books in his life he figured, course he was around 80 when he said that so maybe I'm pushing it but if I've read one book I've read thousands and thousands.

Seth Morgan and Edith Wharton are about as far removed as two people can
get in literature but truly they are soulmates. Both transcribed a period and
a way of life with profound exactness, or at least wrote in such a way as to
make a believer out of me anyway, poetic license don't you know...

Well, so much for my book report...