Hello,
The above picture is of the incredibly gorgeous Hannah Storm. It was good to see her back on ESPN's morning Sports Center. She's been gone too long. She's one of the hottest women involved in sports currently.
Going from the hottest to the lamest. Carlos Boozer and his idiocy strike again. With the NBA lockout extending for who knows how long, he's talking about playing internationally as well. If you want a good laugh, find that story at ESPN and then read the fan comments. Many of the comments are from Chicago Bulls fans. The best comment is along the lines of "hearing the bench is more comfortable in Europe" I would say at least 85% of the comments have the theme that he should go international and stay in whatever country he ends up in. Many Bulls fans don't want him and his $15 million average per year contract back. I think the Bulls now realize how worthless he is and they've been bamboozled. Boozer I hope you tipped your agent appropriately. Boozer won't finish the contract, the Bulls will cut him long before it is over. I would say someone might trade for him, but who's going to pay for a whiny, oft injured Loozer?
Dear NBA players: please stop telling us your going to play internationally if the lockout eats into the season. We don't believe you and who would want some of the players being mentioned? Does anyone really want Ron Artest and all the baggage he brings? No! With Boozer thinking he's better than he is, which international team will pay him to his demands? No one! A lot of teams may want Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant, but how many international teams can afford to pay them? I'm guessing not many. With both having injury problems, how good of an idea is it for them to risk their career internationally? My guess is the player's union is telling it's players to say they will play internationally in hopes of pressuring the NBA to accept their demands. However I don't think the players are going to win this game of chicken.
Again the book club selection for this month is Colin Harrison's "The Havana Room". I've read to page 182 so far. Here are some questions that you can think about and respond to if you would like.
First here's a list of the main characters. The protagonist is Bill Wyeth. He's a lawyer, unlike most lawyers he seems to have some scruples. He's divorced and father of a son. His ex-wife and son has moved to California and married a Silicon Valley big shot. She divorced him following a disastrous lawsuit that financially ruined him.
Jay Rainey seems to think of himself as a real estate mogul, a low rent Donald Trump. He recently traded property he grew up on. However the land he got rid of and the land he traded for both have many legal issues. Jay is also hard to find, he makes himself scarce. He seems to be hiding from someone.
Allison Sparks is the manager of the unnamed Manhattan steakhouse. At this point the book alludes to the fact that Sparks and Rainey are lovers. They don't have a set schedule for when they get together. Jay calls Allison and lets her know where to meet him. I question whether they are really lovers. While sex may be a component of their relationship, there seems to be more to the relationship than that.
The Havana Room is a private room at the Manhattan steakhouse. Very few people are allowed in there and you must receive an invite. Although an invite is never guaranteed and you can lose your invite if you are an idiot.
Other characters. Ha the mysterious man behind some of the "entertainment" that occurs in the Havana Room. Lipper claims he's the owner of the steakhouse. Marcelo is the new owner of Jay's old property. Mrs Hallock is a realtor that was involved in a private sale of Jay's old property. Poppy is the nephew of Mrs. Hallock and an employee of Jay. Hershel is the man who died on the tractor, we only meet him after he died. He was doing something suspicious, presumably at the direction of Rainey, when he died. For some reason he was out in the cold without his socks on.
Why doesn't the Manhattan steakhouse have an official name? Who really owns the Manhattan steakhouse? Old man Lipper says he owns it now and that Frank Sinatra used to own it. However Bill didn't find either name listed when he looked at city property records. What does that mean? Who really owns the steakhouse and why are they so secretive about it?
The more we learn about Jay the more it seems like he's hiding something. But what is he hiding? Also it seems he had an abusive childhood. Did he kill his Dad? Is his Dad buried at his former property? Jay obviously is very complicated, is he a good guy or a bad guy?
What is so important about the new property Jay has bought. From watching too many TV shows and reading too much fiction my thought is there's something hidden there. And that Jay will only have claim to it if he owns the property.
I'm not liking that the story has veered so far away from the steakhouse. The story just seems to have a tangential link to the steakhouse now. As the story continues, the action seems to be getting further away from the steakhouse. Do you like this and why do you think the author is doing that? I don't like it although I remain very intrigued by the story.
There have been multiple explicit sexual scenes. Some of the sex acts are described in excruciating detail. Do you like this or not? Do you think this adds or detracts from the book. How much does graphic sex scenes determine your pleasure in reading?
We keep on meeting characters that don't seem to be the most wholesome people in the world. We meet Mr. Marceno, he's the owner of Jay's old property. He wants to create a vineyard on that property. However he has some concerns. There seems to be a threat of things not going well for Bill if things don't work out for Marceno. How much of Marceno's threat is a bluff? If it's not a bluff, how far will Marceno go to get what he wants?
Jay is giving me the creeps with his binoculars watching the 14 year old Sally Cowles play basketball. Especially with her dad being own of the business owners at Jay's new property. Nothing is as it seems in this book. The only straight shooter, at least at this point, is Bill Wyeth.
After meeting the classy but threatening Marcelo, the next person we meet is the scummy HJ. He's related to the dearly departed Hershel. He's also the owner of dance club and studio. That makes me wonder why didn't Hershel work for his own relative. Or did he and this is his way to blame his death on someone else? HJ has no pretensions or sophistication, he's a gangster that loves the benefits that brings. He has Wyeth taken to visit him and demands $300,000 from Wyeth.
At the bottom of page 172, most of the above is explained in a more concise fashion. These are Bill Wyeth thoughts: "I began to see that whatever was going on with Marceno, H.J., Poppy, Mrs. Jones (also related to Hershel) and Jay constituted, in its entirety, a piece of machinery, call it a gear, that was engaged with another smaller gear, this one sprocketed by Jay, and the building on Reade Street he so badly wanted, a building that housed the business owned by David Cowles, whose daughter, Sally Cowles, apparently so fascinated Jay that he was secretly attending her high school basketball games. Did Jay himself understand these two sets of complications? And where did Allison fit in?"
My thoughts about where Bill fits in. Is he involved because he happened to be a random lawyer when Jay desperately needed one. Or is he part of a plan that he's completely unaware of. I'm hoping this and other questions are answered in the next 200+ pages.
themusicaddict
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