Damn good books - You Can't Win

For every piece of shit, half made up memoir like A Million Little Pieces by an asshole like James Frey, at least a dozen good ones fly underneath the radar. And this, ladies and gents, is one of them. The book in question as you might have guessed from the title, is William S. Burroughs' favorite book. You Can't Win by Jack Black. 

Jack Black around the age of 40.

No, not that hammy how-funny-to-be-a-stoner doughboy whose girth seems to take up more and more of the screen on my TV when I see him, but the genuine article. This is a much better Jack Black - a Jack Black with balls. You Can't Win opens up on a portrait of Mr. Black's face, no longer a criminal, but now a librarian. A respectable member of society, whose well-worn, lined face betrays his past, and shows that he has a story to tell.
At the heart of it, You Can't Win is the memoir of a Missouri boy, who decides to become a Yegg. A criminal. This isn't an instant decision however. We can start to see, as a reader where he might begin to look up to the romanticized life of Jesse James and wish to emulate them, but I think every boy does that. Now, when he is abandoned at a hotel by his father for weeks on end and left completely alone, and when his job as a 'bill collector' at a local saloon puts him in contact with a seemingly benign criminal element while showing the obvious cruelty of police that seals the deal.

Black writes much as Hemingway or Bukowski did, with terse uncluttered prose following easily off the page. This makes  the book impossible to put down as you want to read more about his experiences as a homeless highwayman. He does this effortlessly, without forcing the tropes that 'a page turner' would have upon the reader. Jack Black's recounting of his adventures in the criminal underworld offer something that isn't seem in the history books. His memorable language and plain and simple characterization turns him into an encyclopedia of American life. A slice of time that is long gone.

It is easy to fall into nostalgia, something that Black himself warns the reader against, while unintentionally swooning the reader with the story of his life.

'I'm not finding fault with these brave days of jungle music, synthetic liquor, and dimple-kneed maids, and anybody that thinks the world is going to the bowwows because of them ought to think back to San Francisco or any big city of 20 years ago - when train conductors steered suckers against the bunko men; when coppers located "work" for burglars and stalled them while they worked; when pickpockets paid the police so much a day for "exclusive privileges" and had to put a substitute "mob" in their district if they wanted to go out of town to a country fair for a week. Those were the days when there were saloons by the thousand; when the saloonkeeper ordered the police to pinch the Salvation Army for disturbing the peace by singing hymns in the street; when there were race tracks, gambling unrestricted, crooked prize fights; when there were cribs by the mile and hop joints by the score. These things may exist now, but if they do, I don't know where. I knew where they were then, and with plenty of money and leisure I did them all.'

While excellent, this isn't the most worthy part of the book for me. While it is indeed interesting, even light shedding to hear Jack Black speak of the olden days, what I really admire about the man is his moral character. Jack Black shows incredible resolve, moral fortitude, self-reliance and inability to feel sorry for himself or let others do it for him locks it into a unique niche when we are confronted by autobiographies that are written by a former criminal element.

There are three passages in the book, all of which are about prision and all of which are absolutely horrific. An excerpt if you will, where he describes being 'hot-boxed' for several days with a straight jacket on:

'Every hour Cochrane came in and asked if I was ready to give up the hop. When I denied having it, he tightened me up some more and went away. The torture became maddening. Some time during the second day I rolled over to the wall and beat my forehead against it trying to knock myself out. Cochrane came in, saw what I was doing, and dragged me back to the middle of the cell. I hadn't strength enough left to roll back to the wall, so I stayed there and suffered.' 

Compared to Black's unfiltered, raw approach, this is Mr. Frey's self-aggrandizing bullshit, wallowing in Bathos as he tries to speak of the travails of love.

A Million Little Pieces of Shit

"I start crying again. Softly crying. I think of Lilly and I cry. It's all I can do. Cry."

I could speak at length why I hate James Frey so much, but I'll save that for another day. Suffice to say that the majority of my fury focuses on the fact that Mr. Frey's book was on Opera, and has sold over five million copies, whereas most people have never heard of  Mr. Black's book. A crime more despicable than any of the burglaries that Mr. Black committed during his day.

The essay in the back of my copy of the book (printed by AK/Nabat books) contains an essay on the nature of criminality which speaks true today. What makes someone a criminal? Mr. Black asks. How can we prevent our children from becoming criminals? Mr. Black gives very few answers, but what he does do is draw upon his own experience.

He claims that the conditions that he suffered in prison made him more of a criminal, and the harder law-enforcement and society pushed against him, the more aggressively he pushed back. It was floggings and straight-jacket treatments that made him dangerous and savage, and it was the kindness of a Judge who convinced him to reform. Mr. Black suggests that in order to cut down on criminals, that more leniency is given for first-time offenders, an end to the death penalty and other cruel punishments, and more job-opportunities and support for ex-cons. Stating that the focus of prison should be on reform, rather than punishment.

After getting to know a man who has been on the other side of prison bars, and getting to know and like that man, it is hard to argue with that conclusion. Simply to read him and know that Americans were once a stoic, nosy, confident people with a nose for travel and adventure is balm, but Mr. Black has a great deal more to offer for the reader with a careful eye.