4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Truth About Tallahassee, April 13, 2008
This review is from: Surfing Armageddon: Fishnets, Fascists, and Body Fluids in Florida (Paperback)
I bought this book after discovering (from a google search) that George Tabb and I share many of the same life experiences - we both attended Leon High School in the late 70's, rode the same school bus (the "Nairobi Express" as George's brother called it), and were both "Rocky Horror" devotees @ the same theater on North Monroe st.
Like George, I also first saw the Ramones live when I was 16(in Atlanta) and later sat transfixed (and alone) through 5 screenings of "Rock and Roll High School" at the Tallahassee Mall and... we both attended the same Ramones show in Gainesville, FL in 1980.
I even wrecked my parents car at the same intersection as he did!
Surfing Armageddon contains so many untruths, distortions, and just plain hogwash that I have to go through them in a list.
1. I assume the sale price of his Fathers house in Greenwich, CT in 1977 was 1.4 million and not 14.1 as printed. 14.1 million for a single family house in Greenwich is high even by 2008's standards and would have been unheard of in 1977. Dunnellen Hall, which is now the most expensive property on the market in Greenwich @125 million (followed by Old Mill Farm @ 39.5), sold in 1976 for 3 million.
2. Tallahassee is within driving distance of, but not part of, the Redneck Riviera as Tabb frequently refers to it. This would be comparable to calling Yonkers "The Hamptons".
3. There were many Jewish students attending Leon High in 1978/79 including members of the football team. There were three synagogues in Tallahassee at that time and the idea that a Jewish kid would have caused such an uproar (or that a group of athletes chanting JEW JEW JEW would force him to pull his pants down to reveal the oddity of a circumcised penis) is preposterous.
And I can personally vouch for the fact that 99% of the boys in the locker room, whether Jewish or not, were circumcised. If anyone stood out it would be the one kid with foreskin!
4. The Killearn section of Tallahassee is a wealthy neighborhood populated by Doctors, Lawyers, Professors and high-ranking State Officials. Tabb's account of encountering barefoot, redneck children spouting off about niggers, jews, and jesus on the sidewalks of this manicured , country club enclave is highly improbable.
Tallahassee is very progressive politically and has voted Democratic in every national election since 1992. Tallahassee was also the first U.S. State Capitol to elect a Black Mayor - James Ford in 1972, 76, and 82 - who was followed by Penny Shaw-Herman (a JEWESS!)
5. Mad Dog contractors are a progressive, green oriented (since 1974), company of (basically) hippies who started a business as an outgrowth of their work with the Miccosukee Land Co-op and are now one of the leading contractors in Leon County. HIPPIES - NOT REDNECKS!
6. Tabb states that 11th grade in Tallahassee is like 6th grade any where else in the country. Because of the presence of three large universities in town, Tallahassee schools have always been top-rated. In fact, in 2006, Leon High was rated 109th in the U.S. by Newsweek Magazine's highly regarded "1000 Best Public High Schools in America" with Tallahassee's 3 other high schools coming in at 115, 153, and 157.
Maybe if he had left Greenwich High (which does not make Newsweek's List) a little earlier he would have learned the history of the Ku Klux Klan and where babies came from before starting college- (we had already covered those subjects in Middle School).
7. I was at Rocky Horror almost every weekend of it's first year's run on N. Monroe st. and never saw anyone who could be called the "Sal Piro" of Tallahassee.
8. I attended FSU so I can only say that his college dorm mate's being involved with the klan and keeping a klan robe in his dorm closet (as well as his racist remarks and violent behavior in the dorm) would have sparked a campus-wide protest and would have certainly resulted in his expulsion had it happened 100 miles away at the other large state university.
I'm just assuming that some of the characters in the book are composites of people Tabb COULD have met in Florida - but I doubt that this really was a student at U of F.
p.s. George - do some homework on the klan - who and what they were in 1980 in central FL. The Southern Law Poverty Center is a great starting place...
Finally, despite everything I've mentioned, and the fact that Tabb stoops to the use of a "Magical Negro" to free him from his conflicted family life in the last chapter of the book, by the end I had developed an affection for this lonely, searching , virgin and actually enjoyed the book.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Mother Of All Sequels, May 16, 2006
This review is from: Surfing Armageddon: Fishnets, Fascists, and Body Fluids in Florida (Paperback)
Surfing Armageddon is easily George Tabb's best work so far,and if you've read his columns and last book,you know that's saying alot. It's got everything the reader expects from his stories and more. As George gets older, his style of writing somehow makes you feel like you're getting into your late teens along with him. The stories become more similar to your own experiences i.e. too much masturbating, only caring about losing your virginity, almost dying after smoking a joint laced with enough chemicals to give you the strangest hallucination imaginable, falling in love with the easter bunny at the mall, having a wanna be slave master father who you catch practing cracking the whip in a full white southern suit in the middle of the night, and so on. The book slowly becomes more dramatic towards the end that provides the most shocking and satisfying conclusion that one could ask for.
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