Book Wrangler

September 5, 2005

By Bob Patterson

It's time to switch channels and publish the "back to school" issue. 

Every school kid will be given the pep talk about how going to school will help make you a better person with more earning potential, but the Book Wrangler takes a more pragmatic approach to the subject of going back to school this Fall: it's the inside track for gathering material for a script!

The difficulties of maturing have always been fertile ground for adding conflict to Act II for scriptwriters. 

In 1955, two great films looked at the trials and tribulations of high school students: Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without A Cause.

Other more recent films in the genre are Animal House, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Risky Business.  (Should we mention High School Confidential?)  What about Hot Rod Gang from 1958 (with Gene Vincent), Hot Rod Girl (1956), Hot Rod Rumble (1957), or Hot Rods To Hell from 1967?)

Several classic TV series looked at the lives of high school students including: Our Miss Brooks, Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter, Mr. Peepers, Mr. Novak, and Room 222. Tommy Lee Goes To College is about college life and it's too soon to determine if it will join that list.

Catcher In The Rye is the first book that comes to mind when thinking up a list of novels about life for a high school aged protagonist. 

It's been some time since we found ourselves in a college bookstore (about three weeks ago we wandered through the UCLA book store).  Here are some books that this year's incoming crop of freshmen might find in the bookstores off campus (such as the Borders and Books in the Westwood Section of LA.)

Boys Will Put You on a Pedestal (So They Can Look Up Your Skirt): A Dad's Advice for Daughters by Philip Van Munching, with an introduction by Katie Couric ($12.95 paperback Simon & Schuster)

Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants: Based on a True Story by Jill Soloway  ($21.95 Free Press)

Naked Ambition: Women Pornographers and How They Are Changing the Sex Industry by Carly Milne  ($14.95 paperback Carroll & Graf)

An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas by Diane Wilson ($27.50 Chelsea Green)

Jailed for Peace: The History of American Draft Law Violators, 1658-1985 by Stephen M. Kohn  ($23.95 paperback Praeger Paperback) 

This isn't a new book.  It's listed here as a "golden oldie."

Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S .Army by Kayla Williams, Michael E. Staub  ($24.95 Norton)

America, Fascism, And God: Sermons from a Heretical Preacher by Davidson Loehr  ($12 paperback Chelsea Green)

Hell Riders: The Truth About the Charge of the Light Brigade by Terry Brighton ($16.00 paperback Owl Books)

On War and Leadership The Words of Combat Commanders from Frederick the Great to Norman Schwarzkopf by Owen Connelly ($19.95 paperback Princeton University Press)

A Question of Loyalty by Douglas C. Waller ($14.95 Harper Perennial) 

This book is about the court-martial of General Billy Mitchell.

Weekends are the perfect time to study, see the football game, or go on the road.

What's there to do on the 9-11 weekend? 

• The Fun Ford Weekend? 
• The Langdon Review event at Tarleton State University in Texas? 
• The unveiling of the renovated Leland Stanford Mansion for railroad buffs in the Sacramento area?  
• A Christian rock festival? 
• Let the Oktoberfests begin!  (We have no word on the possibility of an Oktoberfest in Stuttgart, Kansas.)  In Bavaria, the real Oktoberfest will wait until Sept. 21, to begin 

While we are on the topic of learning, we'll note that a project to sell T-shirts is running a bit behind schedule.  Since we have no crib notes about building an online T-shirt shop (at Café Press), we'll admit to a bit of cheating on this do-it-yourself project; we're getting some help from graphics art consultant John Berado.  E-mail address: fairlaneload@yahoo.com

Mark Twain made this comment: "In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards."

Now, if our disk jockey isn't sleeping with his head on his desk, it's time for him to play Chuck Berry's "School Days."  We'll mosey on out of here for this week.  Study hard, make us proud.  Have a dean's list week.