James Sullivan (4) (1965–)

Despite how advertisers keep treating as a new and exciting clothing, jeans, and the denim they are made from, have been around for hundreds of years. Blue jeans are named after their place of first import, Genoa, Italy, and denim comes from the material serge de Nimes, a cotton blend from Nimes, France. Materials for jeans arrived in the America almost right after the Pilgrims did. Denim jeans have been part of the social and manufacturing landscape for so long that they seem almost show more ineffable. James Sullivan’s Jeans, however, goes a little deeper into the history of jeans to find a chronicle of rebellion and globalization.

Sullivan looks at denim jeans in their cultural context, seeing jeans as a symbol for other stories and feelings. From Levi Strauss’s initial pair of jeans in 1853 to help manual laborers in San Francisco to Brigham Young’s denunciation of jean-wearers to the youth rebellions of the 1950s, jeans seemed to exist in the past to show one’s ideals. Lately, not so much. While a fair amount of the book is devoted to Strauss’s company and each generation’s use of jeans, there are far more interesting tidbits sprinkled throughout. Sullivan looks at blue dye manufacturing in Nigeria (even the ink in the book is blue) and the specific advertisement of jeans. All in all, it’s a good book that provides an interesting perspective on an often-overlooked object. show less

Reaction to Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin

Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin, talk about a title. If you are not terribly opposed to profanity and cursing, I do ask that you YouTube this part of his act, it is very philosophical actually. I am not sure if you have ever heard of him but he is one of my favorite comedians. At first I thought this book was going to be a great recap about all the different pieces of his comedy and how he felt about show more them. I don’t think I could have been more off topic. However, what I did find was an amazing story of how hard this man worked and I was very impressed with his talent and perseverance as a comic. But with that I was also shocked to learn about many other aspects of his life that I just simply was not expecting.
The first topic that truly stunned me about this story was how big an issue four letter words were back in the fifties up until nearly 1980. A comedian could have said any four letter word and gotten arrested for it along with getting fined enormous sums of money. I could never really understand that, and I was amazed to find out the Carlin had been but in jail multiple times for using four letter words. However, he was the comedian that fought to make the point that there are no bad words, only bad people, bad thoughts, and bad intentions. I really liked that statement because I completely agree, there is not a word that can be said to me to offend me and I think it is insanity to take offense to words as such. But surprisingly, even as I write this paper, I realize that if I gave a descriptive example of any of these four letters words, there is still a good likelihood that I can get in trouble for writing it, isn’t that interesting.
But one aspect of Carlin’s life that I learned was very unexpected, that was the amount of drugs Carlin used. I am not even sure how I could describe the amount. To make it simple, he would go on a cocaine binge around five days out of the week and then crash on the last two days. I think this was absolute insanity and I was not surprised when it began to have adverse affects on his health. I had never realized that he was such an avid drug user when I first began listening to his comedy so this was very unexpected to me. But when I got to the final chapters, he admitted regretting all the drugs that he used. That really impressed me because even with all the fame and fortune he earned while on drugs, he still was unhappy with what they did to his body and his life which speaks volumes about drug use in general.
This book really opened my eyes about the history of the US before me. More than I had expected, it was an interesting time and I love hearing it through the life story of Carlin. This book truly made me think about words and profanity. Along with that, it was a great experience in learning George Carlin’s life and understanding the way thinks. I don’t think I could have been more pleased with this book, I opened it up expecting a joke book with some chronology involve, but instead I opened up a volume in US history that was much more enjoyable to read and learn from. This was a fantastic book. show less

Breezy read on James Brown and not simply about the famous Boston concert where Brown cooled the crowd but placing JB into the late '60s black power movement, civil rights, and the Godfather's unique brand of Americanism self-help, paired with the soul and funk legend.

This is a log sheet of Carlin's career, cataloging all of his venues and connections in the entertainment business. The dates are a bit jumbled at times. It is a tribute to a brilliant, hard working man, with full disclosure of his human frailties. It is a good expose on the industry, at least in Carlin's time. As a biography it glosses over much detail about his life but does record the events. He deserved this eulogy because of his courage, tenacity and insight.