The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon
by John Joseph
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Book Summary Information
Author: John JosephBrand: PUNKHOuse
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-12-23
ISBN: 0980065704
Number of pages: 428
Publisher: PUNKHOuse
Book Reviews of The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon
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.
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