The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon by John Joseph
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Book Reviews of The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon
Book Review: evolution
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a good book, i personally feel it could've been trimmed down a bit, but all in all a good read.Book Review: A Crazy, at times definitely disturbing Ride
Summary: 3 Stars
Being a long time Cro-Mags Fan and lucky enough to see them in the old days I had to read this book!
John Joseph's life took me on a crazy emotional ride! At first I felt horrible for him for all the terror he went through as a abandoned child living in foster homes with his brothers. People like the Valentis should be locked up for life, for the crimes they commited.
After that part of his life and when he is getting into his teens, I started feeling horrible for everybody else who had to deal with John, because as a result of his troubled childhood, he became a pest for anyone who had to deal with him and he constantly blows all chances that were given to him. Instead violence, drugs and scamming people became his way of life. Or better his way of survival in the hellish place New York must have been in the 70's and early 80's. You get a pretty good picture of the place. But actually living through all these crazy things, surpasses my worst nightmare.
Amazon is right letting us know that this book is unapologetic and raw and that we should consider ourselves warned. Johns writing style is straight out and full of slang and the fact that he almost never makes a statement that certain things were just a step too far is disturbing to me too, as another reviewer mentioned. Where he (other reviewer) takes the example of John and his brother, scamming their Indian landlord out of months worth of rent, there are plenty more earlier in the book. There is the story where he watches one of his lowlife hangouts smashes a broken bottle through this girls face without any reaction from him.
On another occasion he knock's out his younger brother to get in his mothers house. Frank their younger brother was trying to live with their mom at the time and had strict instructions to not let John and his older brother into the house, because they knew how out of control they were, but they tricked him to open the door anyway. By telling him that they had to use the toilet and this: "Frank we love you, we would never do anything to get you in trouble. We promise.", after Frank opens the door John knocks him out and they eat and steal everything in sight. As a result Frank is sent to another Foster home. At the end of this story he writes "which made E (his older brother) and me laugh"). That's it, without any comment he just moves on to the next story. Now of course you have to see, they were homeless, dirty, hungry, angry teenagers who felt all the terror and abuse they endured in their life, was their moms fault for giving them away. But I couldn't help but think, come on man, it's your brother!
Now this book is full of gnarly, gnarly stories, but a few stood out to me as especially cold hearted. And throughout the whole book you get the feeling that he is very proud of his fighting and scamming skills. I can understand that he is proud to have survived all those years living on the streets, but as you get older, shouldn't you realize that a lot of the stuff was very stupid, not cool or very wrong. Almost nothing of such realization in this book. He does throw in positive comments how thing could be made better for the unfortunate.
He ripped off so many people in his life, that it almost came as a surprise to me that on the other hand he complains quite a bit about the fact that he never received a single penny for all he did with the Cro-Mags and got completely ripped off by their manager and later even by his own bandmates. I do feel bad for him, but talk about karma.
Most of the book has a high tempo and is an exciting read, I only got bored after pages of pages of describing all the scamming techniques during his time as krsna devotee. It just became too repetitive. I agree with most other reviewers that the Cro-Mags part of the book is not even the most interesting in the whole book, but in my opinion the Cro-Mags part of the book is also way too short. After all it's the reason why he became a person of interest around the world. I would have liked more. I understand that he didn't want to fuel the whole ridicoulous beef between his old bandmates, but more insight in the band and the New York Hardcore scene in those days would have been great.
But don't get me wrong, I do think it is amazing that John Joseph overcame all these hardships and drug addictions, reveals his life in this book and finds closure with his mom and other issues and that he became such a positive member of society and does so many good things these days and still kicks ass with his Cro-Mags Jam at his age.
Book Review: Disturbing
Summary: 3 Stars
No one is saying John Joseph didn't have a terrible, abused childhood. He did. No one deserves what he endured. However, I wonder if I am the only one noticing certain disturbing things. I guess the main thing that bothers me is is his total lack of remorse for certain bad things he did. I am not talking about the Krishna stuff -- and he says he does feel bad about that -- I am talking about stuff he did on his own.
On pages 347-348, he talks about how he and his brothers rent a house from an Indian immigrant, Umon. For some reason, this man and his family remind John of the Valentis, the terrible foster family that abused him and his brothers when they were kids.
John takes about two pages to describe how they scammed this man out of months worth of rent and caused him all kinds of emotional distress. John describes this with such glee -- he doesn't seem to understand that he is hurting a human being, a person with a family, a person with bills to pay. NEVER does John indicate that he is sorry he did this. It's almost as if he thinks this family owes him somehow. Read the pages (347-248) and really think about what John did and how he sounds when he writes about it. It's disturbing.
This family MAY have reminded him of the Valentis. But they weren't the Valentis. They were just trying to make a living. John should have expressed some remorse. Instead he mocks this Indian man in a way that sounds -- I hate to say it -- almost racist. Look what John wrote: "When he (the Indian landlord) returned with the cops he starting yelling in a mixture of Hindi and English, 'Doo bah did dee had bah dee dee 'want my money' da dondi did dee boo dee dah...now!'"
I couldn't believe what I was reading. OF COURSE this man wanted his money! He had bills to pay and a family to support. How dare John make fun of his language?
The last John has to say on that topic is, "We made plans to meet him one morning at the house to give him his check for the seven or eight months of back rent. We pulled a midnight move the night before and left his a** sitting high and dry on the doorstep."
And that's it. Not one word of apology -- only pride in the fact that they tricked this man. Is it just me or do others think that comment is just dripping with self-righteous contempt? I felt bad for that man and his family. John sounds PROUD of how he scammed him.
When John describes the beginning of the scam, he wrote, "Umon kept smiling, patting Frank's sons on their heads and repeatedly saying in his super-thick Indian accent, 'What a nice American family. So, so nice all of you are.'" After John reports this, he mockingly writes, "Guess he shoulda read Robert McKee's 'Story,' cause the brotha got fooled by the characterization."
That shocked me, too. Why should Umon have read anything? Why is John blaming the victim? Someone who was being truly honest about himself would have written, "I shouldn't have scammed someone who was trying to make an honest living."
And Umon was trying to be nice, to say kind things to kids who, I imagine, didn't hear nice things very often.
I wonder how much personal growth John has really done. He just wrote this book, and he could never have described how he scammed this man with such pride if he had done as much personal growth as he claims he has.