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Rating: 
Summary: Praise for PARADISE BURNING
Review: "...sparkling, often poetic prose, ironic humor and sudden surprising insights make this a delight to read."
--Carolyn Cassady, author of OFF THE ROAD"PARADISE BURNING is a blisteringly honest and sidesplittingly hilarious look at our current age of diminished expectations. Step aside, gonzo journalism wannabe's, Simunek is destined for greatness."
--Steven Hager, Editorial Director of HIGH TIMES
Rating: 
Summary: Before Slackers there were smokers
Review: Aint a smoker worth a dime who aint read High Times. As a cultivation editor of that esteemed publication, Simunek manifests the dreams of many a substance abuser with no real goals, no real aims, no real direction-that is, he gets paid to follow the psycho-delic brick road to where there is untold smoke at the end of the travel rainbow. Free drugs, hoping for a non-commital feel and making a hasty getaway with limbs unbroken is Simunek's Holy Grail. He gets an expense account which seems non-accountable and sometimes doesn't get the story. His editors don't seem to care too much provided he turns up with some buds (not the six pack variety) and a packet of papers. The Marx Brothers had Zeppo, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers have got Simunek. While these kind of tales have the pot-ential to bore some people stupid, Simunek relates his adventures in a way that makes us straightos wish we'd inhaled, chuck in our jobs, sell the house and the golf clubs, pack up the family and the Bob Marley vinyl and move to California. Once there, we could live out our days worrying only about low flying choppers and nosy neighbours with an unhealthy interest in genetically confused botany. Simunek is more than just a doper. He has an acutely sensible eye for cultural criticism and has an ascerbic wit through which he makes humorous value judgements about everyone and everything. His real talent is not so much for detail that can make these kind of yarns tedious, but for the analysis of situations from a viewpoint motivated by both a need for self preservation and lifestyle protection. I like that in an author. He is well aware that the attention span of many of us is weaker than a sparrow's ankle and moves onwards quickly to the next town, the next adventure, the next bong. His relating of a story at an LA heavy metal convention is simultaneously hilarious and sad. I reckon Simunek has probably given one lung, one nostril and innumerable brain cells knocking out this book. Pull out the bong, light up the lava lamp and recline in the bean bag. Where there is smoke there is fire - Simunek is worth a read.
Rating:
Summary: PARADISE BURNING brings down the house.
Review: BookList writes: "This is not not mere gonzo travel jounalism. It is excellent reportage...He describes, marvelously, a segement of society unlikely to go away regardless of how unhappy it makes William Bennett and George Will." And Publisher's Weekly says: "Fans of the film REEFER MADNESS and Hunter S. Thompson will be delighted by Simunek."
Rating:
Summary: Ya gotta read this one folks...
Review: Even if you don't give a hoot about smokin' one, pick-up this book. It's not completely freaky and unsettling like a great deal of beat works of fiction from an author like Burrough's, but it still has that candid and sincere feel to it. Meet a diverse array of characters while you tag along with the cultivation editor for a magazine about the greenest thing on God's earth. Once you're done, you are going to want everyone you know to read this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Beyond Gonzo!
Review: If you have made it to this review, Good! These people ABOVE don't know what they are talking about (wou will notice the 0 of x readers thought this helpful) and the grumpy first lady (top review) should lighten up! Plain and simple this writer is a genius. Long before his days at HIGH TIMES or doing readings in NYC, or his first great story written for EUGENE LANG (NEW SCHOOL) you could tell Chris had talent. Even if fans caught some of these stories in HIGH TIMES they will still make you laugh out loud on repeated readings. The first night I met chris was during a long frenzied night of acid on the edge of the godforsaken California desert. (moreno valley) This is long before the kind of success any NYC student would only dream about obtaining. Take a native New Yorker and drop him in the bleak unrelenting California desert and you would expect utter panic. Still, during that night his insight and sense of humor were right on the pulse of what I wanted my genaration's best writers to express. Forget dropping names like WILLIAM or HUNTER S. or Gonzo, only his employment at a magizine, makes the feeble minded reach for such easy associations. Simunek's talent goes beyond this, this is the book readers will look back upon to over a long career and see how people's demand to pigeonhole a new writer, underestimates the sounding of a true voice for our times, once CHRIS/GENE moves out of the subculture and casts he insight gaze on new areas will people realize what a unique gem they have on their hands.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond Gonzo!
Review: If you have made it to this review, Good! These people ABOVE don't know what they are talking about (wou will notice the 0 of x readers thought this helpful) and the grumpy first lady (top review) should lighten up! Plain and simple this writer is a genius. Long before his days at HIGH TIMES or doing readings in NYC, or his first great story written for EUGENE LANG (NEW SCHOOL) you could tell Chris had talent. Even if fans caught some of these stories in HIGH TIMES they will still make you laugh out loud on repeated readings. The first night I met chris was during a long frenzied night of acid on the edge of the godforsaken California desert. (moreno valley) This is long before the kind of success any NYC student would only dream about obtaining. Take a native New Yorker and drop him in the bleak unrelenting California desert and you would expect utter panic. Still, during that night his insight and sense of humor were right on the pulse of what I wanted my genaration's best writers to express. Forget dropping names like WILLIAM or HUNTER S. or Gonzo, only his employment at a magizine, makes the feeble minded reach for such easy associations. Simunek's talent goes beyond this, this is the book readers will look back upon to over a long career and see how people's demand to pigeonhole a new writer, underestimates the sounding of a true voice for our times, once CHRIS/GENE moves out of the subculture and casts he insight gaze on new areas will people realize what a unique gem they have on their hands.
Rating:
Summary: The best drug-laden gonzo tales since Fear and Loathing...
Review: Simunek's style reaches such an honesty that the bare lies shine right through his hysterical accounts of his HIGH TIMES mis-adventures that pierce the heart and soul of today's counter-culture underground. This is a book that'll be a necessary survival tool for future generations of misfits, malcontents and marijuana missionaries. Simunek's sure to leave no stoner unburned...Let the roasting begin!
Rating: 
Summary: Hip but harsh
Review: This book is written in a hip way, and its writer has had an interesting time getting stoned out of his mind. Unfortunately he is young, cynical and arrogant, and his insights tend to be either shallow or insulting. I think that he will one day regret having revealed how sordid and pointless a lot of the journalism is for his magazine, and how he exploited his expense accounts in a dishonest way. Marijuana is a good plant with many uses, but this author and his magazine promote the wrong image for marijuana and its users, and they are one reason that marijuana is still illegal.
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