West has been in the business for a long time-- acting, comedy, even game show announcing. Many of the stories here do deal with the game show business, and I really enjoyed that.
However, I almost didn't get that far. I nearly put the book down, for good, during an over long, over wordy, over tedious, over ponderous preface. It improved markedly during the meat of the book. There are some great stories here-- some I already knew, many, I didn't.
It's amazing how much bad behavior is tolerated if you bring in the money.
Even though the book is thoroughly enjoyable, it does touch on the sadness of addiction, and how we were forced to say good bye to soo many people way too fast.
He does write about the Rebecca Schaeffer story, a 1989 murder victim, and it's an incident that bothers me to this day.
I would quibble with West's characterization of radio as the show biz "ghetto." As someone who worked in radio for a long time, and someone who still loves it, I found that remark insulting.
If you can overlook a few missteps on the writers' part, this is a fun read.
