Ok, I finally finished “Ghost Rider” yesterday. Here’s the low down if you haven’t bought it yet.
Here’s my “Quickie synopsis for Amazon”:
Neil Peart, of the popular recording artists “Rush”, life long blessed with talent, wealth, and fame, within a few short months lost his daughter and wife, shattering his incredibly fortunate personal, and professional life as he knew it. This book documents his subsequent and eccentric motorcycle journey across Canada, the USA, and as far as Mexico and Belize running as a “Ghost Rider” from this tragedy. Documented from his personal travel journal and filled with personal letters to friends, it is a soul revealing look into one of the most guarded celebrities in rock music. A great travel story that will keep you interested at his every new experience in-between the sometimes tedious personal insanity of a truly depressed man , and as a fan shaking your head and asking “why?” every other page.
Dega nailed the "Travel Journal of discovery" type books description. It’s at least that and a great insight on the mentioned places of travel, if not a bit “skewed”.
Which leads me to my opinion on some takes of it, without needing to discuss all the places traveled and details of the book.
His constant whining and outright sometime disgust of the United States (well namely, it’s tourists and it’s citizens described as obese people that don’t wear their pants right... (above the waist, don’t wear a belt and pretend you have a smaller pant size) got a bit tedious. As if the roads and hotels should be cleared for rich Canadian musician intellects on a personal breakdown, traveling with unlimited cash on a self imposed affordable 4 year vacation? We should all be so sour and unlucky.
Still, when he talks about how he changed his credit cards to an anonymous name, as Rush fans go, you are interested as a 'sideshow' of sorts to the true travel journey goodness of the book, and then just miffed a chapter later where someone recognizes him and he blows them off. Cool, cold, and almost as if we should pity him for these bothersome fans?
Just when you cheer him for finding a new travel experience that "soothes him", he makes every effort to squander a rare opportunity to really make someones day, hell, life, as a Rush fan. There's alot of "why's?" in this book.
On the real plus side, you get a almost free ticket into the mind of this interesting fellow.
Plus, the end of the book is what we already know. He gets the model California babe wife, goes on tour, gets even richer. What a whiney salamander.
I hate Canadians.
