This Might Get a Little Heavy

This Might Get a Little Heavy PDF Author: Ralphie May
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250085748
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
There was a time when Ralphie May was one of the biggest standup comedians in the country, both by ticket sales and by tonnage. While some things changed—Ralphie lost half his body weight—others did not: he will be remembered as one of the most successful comics of his time. Completed just months before his untimely passing, in This Might Get a Little Heavy, Ralphie takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of his life and career, one that winds across the country, over obstacles, beyond heartbreak, and through the golden age of stand-up. Raised in poor, rural, Arkansas by a single mom who struggled to make ends meet, Ralphie’s early years were the perfect breeding ground for the kind of pain and stress and adversity that only comedy can cure. Bitten by the comedy bug at a Methodist sleep-away camp when he was 12 years old, Ralphie seized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity six years later at an open-mic in a pizza parlor. Mentored and inspired by legendary comedian Sam Kinison to move to Houston, where he got his start, Ralphie packed his bags and never looked back. A major headliner for over twenty-five years, in This Might Get A Little Heavy, Ralphie finally tells the world how a chubby poor kid from Clarksville went from Arkansas to Houston to Hollywood and beyond. Full of never before told stories from Ralphie’s life, This Might Get A Little Heavy will bust your gut, pull at your heart strings, and touch your soul.

This Might Get a Little Heavy

This Might Get a Little Heavy PDF Author: Ralphie May
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250085748
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
There was a time when Ralphie May was one of the biggest standup comedians in the country, both by ticket sales and by tonnage. While some things changed—Ralphie lost half his body weight—others did not: he will be remembered as one of the most successful comics of his time. Completed just months before his untimely passing, in This Might Get a Little Heavy, Ralphie takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of his life and career, one that winds across the country, over obstacles, beyond heartbreak, and through the golden age of stand-up. Raised in poor, rural, Arkansas by a single mom who struggled to make ends meet, Ralphie’s early years were the perfect breeding ground for the kind of pain and stress and adversity that only comedy can cure. Bitten by the comedy bug at a Methodist sleep-away camp when he was 12 years old, Ralphie seized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity six years later at an open-mic in a pizza parlor. Mentored and inspired by legendary comedian Sam Kinison to move to Houston, where he got his start, Ralphie packed his bags and never looked back. A major headliner for over twenty-five years, in This Might Get A Little Heavy, Ralphie finally tells the world how a chubby poor kid from Clarksville went from Arkansas to Houston to Hollywood and beyond. Full of never before told stories from Ralphie’s life, This Might Get A Little Heavy will bust your gut, pull at your heart strings, and touch your soul.

This Might Get a Little Heavy

This Might Get a Little Heavy PDF Author: Ralphie May
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250085756
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
There was a time when Ralphie May was one of the biggest standup comedians in the country, both by ticket sales and by tonnage. While some things changed—Ralphie lost half his body weight—others did not: he will be remembered as one of the most successful comics of his time. Completed just months before his untimely passing, in This Might Get a Little Heavy, Ralphie takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of his life and career, one that winds across the country, over obstacles, beyond heartbreak, and through the golden age of stand-up. Raised in poor, rural, Arkansas by a single mom who struggled to make ends meet, Ralphie’s early years were the perfect breeding ground for the kind of pain and stress and adversity that only comedy can cure. Bitten by the comedy bug at a Methodist sleep-away camp when he was 12 years old, Ralphie seized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity six years later at an open-mic in a pizza parlor. Mentored and inspired by legendary comedian Sam Kinison to move to Houston, where he got his start, Ralphie packed his bags and never looked back. A major headliner for over twenty-five years, in This Might Get A Little Heavy, Ralphie finally tells the world how a chubby poor kid from Clarksville went from Arkansas to Houston to Hollywood and beyond. Full of never before told stories from Ralphie’s life, This Might Get A Little Heavy will bust your gut, pull at your heart strings, and touch your soul.

Heavy

Heavy PDF Author: Kiese Laymon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501125699
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
*Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times* *Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, BuzzFeed (Nonfiction), The Undefeated, Library Journal (Biography/Memoirs), The Washington Post (Nonfiction), Southern Living (Southern), Entertainment Weekly, and The New York Times Critics* In this powerful, provocative, and universally lauded memoir—winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and finalist for the Kirkus Prize—genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon “provocatively meditates on his trauma growing up as a black man, and in turn crafts an essential polemic against American moral rot” (Entertainment Weekly). In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to time in New York as a college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. Heavy is a “gorgeous, gutting…generous” (The New York Times) memoir that combines personal stories with piercing intellect to reflect both on the strife of American society and on Laymon’s experiences with abuse. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, he asks us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free. “A book for people who appreciated Roxane Gay’s memoir Hunger” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family through years of haunting implosions and long reverberations. “You won’t be able to put [this memoir] down…It is packed with reminders of how black dreams get skewed and deferred, yet are also pregnant with the possibility that a kind of redemption may lie in intimate grappling with black realities” (The Atlantic).

Too Bright to See

Too Bright to See PDF Author: Kyle Lukoff
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 059311115X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
A Newbery Honor Book • Winner of the Stonewall Book Award • A National Book Award Finalist "A gentle, glowing wonder, full of love and understanding." –The New York Times Book Review It's the summer before middle school and eleven-year-old Bug's best friend Moira has decided the two of them need to use the next few months to prepare. For Moira, this means figuring out the right clothes to wear, learning how to put on makeup, and deciding which boys are cuter in their yearbook photos than in real life. But none of this is all that appealing to Bug, who doesn't particularly want to spend more time trying to understand how to be a girl. Besides, there's something more important to worry about: A ghost is haunting Bug's eerie old house in rural Vermont...and maybe haunting Bug in particular. As Bug begins to untangle the mystery of who this ghost is and what they're trying to say, an altogether different truth comes to light--Bug is transgender.

Heavy

Heavy PDF Author: J. J. Anselmi
Publisher: Barnacle Book
ISBN: 9781940207506
Category : Bicycle motocross
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
In twenty heavy chapters, this book chronicles Anselmi's experiences growing up as a straight edge, BMX-riding metalhead in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a place with one of the highest per capita suicide rates in the United States. His grandpa was a well-known businessman and politician in the area, and was featured in a 1977 60 Minutes episode for his alleged connections to organized crime. This is only the beginning of Anselmi's heavy saga, and it interweaves all of the social and personal history one might expect from a story like this--including Black Sabbath, Pantera, and Metallica logo tattoos, explorations in LSD, metal, and BMX culture, self-loathing and sobriety, and--finally--a very unique perspective on what it means to live in a heavy fucking world.

Waging Heavy Peace

Waging Heavy Peace PDF Author: Neil Young
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0670921718
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
Neil Young is a singular figure in the history of rock and pop culture generally in the last four decades. Reflective, insightful and disarmingly honest, in Waging Heavy Peacehe writes about his life and career. From his youth in Canada to his first band's travels across the US seeking fame and girls, through Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash, to his massively successful solo career and his re-emergence as the patron saint of grunge on to his role today as one of the last uncompromised and uncompromising survivors of rock 'n' roll - this is Neil's story told in his own words. In the book Young presents a kaleidoscopic view of personal life and musical creativity; it's a journey that spans the snows of Ontario to the LSD-laden boulevards of 1966 Los Angeles to the contemplative paradise of Hawaii today. 'I think I will have to use my time wisely and keep my thoughts straight if I am to succeed and deliver the cargo I so carefully have carried thus far to the outer reaches. Not that it's my only job or task. I have others, too. Sacred things that I need to protect from pain and hardship, like careless remarks on an open mind.' Neil Young from Waging Heavy Peace

A Little Life

A Little Life PDF Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804172706
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 833

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

The Heavy

The Heavy PDF Author: Dara-Lynn Weiss
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345541340
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
For readers of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Bringing Up Bebe, a mother’s unflinching memoir about helping her seven year-old daughter lose weight, and the challenges of modern parenting. When a doctor pronounced Dara-Lynn Weiss’s daughter Bea obese at age seven, the mother of two knew she had to take action. But how could a woman with her own food and body issues—not to mention spotty eating habits—successfully parent a little girl around the issue of obesity? In this much-anticipated, controversial memoir, Dara-Lynn Weiss chronicles the struggle and journey to get Bea healthy. In describing their process—complete with frustrations, self-recriminations, dark humor, and some surprising strategies—Weiss reveals the hypocrisy inherent in the debates over many cultural hot-button issues: from processed snacks, organic foods, and school lunches to dieting, eating disorders, parenting methods, discipline, and kids’ self-esteem. Compounding the challenge were eating environments—from school to restaurants to birthday parties—that set Bea up to fail, and unwelcome judgments from fellow parents. Childhood obesity, Weiss discovered, is a crucible not just for the child but also for parents. She was criticized as readily for enabling Bea’s condition as she was for enforcing the rigid limits necessary to address it. Never before had Weiss been made to feel so wrong for trying to do the right thing. The damned if you do/damned if you don’t predicament came into sharp relief when Weiss raised some of these issues in a Vogue article. Critics came out in full force, and Weiss unwittingly found herself at the center of an emotional and highly charged debate on childhood obesity. A touching and relatable story of loving a child enough to be unpopular, The Heavy will leave readers applauding Weiss’s success, her bravery, and her unconditional love for her daughter. Advance praise for The Heavy “Have you ever been ‘that mother’? You know, the one who others criticize or question? If so, then you know what incredible courage and daring it can take to raise a child in a way that doesn't always meet other people’s expectations. Dara-Lynn Weiss is inspirational for her sheer will, her unwavering dedication, and her willingness to take accountability for her own actions. The Heavy is a stark look at imperfect parenting—and why our mistakes make us better parents.”—Christine Carter, author of Raising Happiness “Dara-Lynn Weiss had to defy her child’s school, the judgments of other parents, and our fast food culture to rescue her daughter from the epidemic of obesity. Parents should see this as an inspiration—and a wake-up call.”—Amy Dickinson, “Ask Amy” advice columnist and author of The Mighty Queens of Freeville “The Heavy should be required reading for every parent because it tackles—with refreshing honesty—that universal question we’ll all face: how to do what’s best for our children, even when the kids resist our efforts and society judges our approach. Dara-Lynn Weiss has written a brave book and started a crucial and overdue national conversation.”—Abigail Pogrebin, author of One and the Same and Stars of David

Long Division

Long Division PDF Author: Kiese Laymon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982174838
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Fiction From Kiese Laymon, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Heavy, comes a “funny, astute, searching” (The Wall Street Journal) debut novel about Black teenagers that is a satirical exploration of celebrity, authorship, violence, religion, and coming of age in post-Katrina Mississippi. Written in a voice that’s alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, Long Division features two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen “City” Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he’s sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie, where a young girl named Baize Shephard has recently disappeared. Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson—but Long Division is set in 1985. This 1985-version of City, along with his friend and love interest, Shalaya Crump, discovers a way to travel into the future, and steals a laptop and cellphone from an orphaned teenage rapper called...Baize Shephard. They ultimately take these items with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet to protect his family from the Ku Klux Klan. City’s two stories ultimately converge in the work shed behind his grandmother’s house, where he discovers the key to Baize’s disappearance. Brilliantly “skewering the disingenuous masquerade of institutional racism” (Publishers Weekly), this dreamlike “smart, funny, and sharp” (Jesmyn Ward), novel shows the work that young Black Americans must do, while living under the shadow of a history “that they only gropingly understand and must try to fill in for themselves” (The Wall Street Journal).

Traveling Heavy

Traveling Heavy PDF Author: Ruth Behar
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822354675
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Traveling Heavy is a deeply moving, unconventional memoir by the master storyteller and cultural anthropologist Ruth Behar. Through evocative stories, she portrays her life as an immigrant child and later, as an adult woman who loves to travel but is terrified of boarding a plane. With an open heart, she writes about her Yiddish-Sephardic-Cuban-American family, as well as the strangers who show her kindness as she makes her way through the world. Compassionate, curious, and unafraid to reveal her failings, Behar embraces the unexpected insights and adventures of travel, whether those be learning that she longed to become a mother after being accused of giving the evil eye to a baby in rural Mexico, or going on a zany pilgrimage to the Behar World Summit in the Spanish town of Béjar. Behar calls herself an anthropologist who specializes in homesickness. Repeatedly returning to her homeland of Cuba, unwilling to utter her last goodbye, she is obsessed by the question of why we leave home to find home. For those of us who travel heavy with our own baggage, Behar is an indispensable guide, full of grace and hope, in the perpetual search for connection that defines our humanity.