Just Skimmed Through STORMS

[louielouie2000]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

What I find hysterical is most people around here seemingly discount every version other than LB's version, which is sacred for some reason He was there and he was doing the drugs too

Precisely! That's why I say we can't discount any one person's story completely. In reality we should probably look at ALL versions of Mac history, and realize the truth is somewhere in the middle. None of them were saints, and none of them have entirely pure motives to this day to tell the complete truth. Honestly, of all of them Carol Ann has the least reason to cover her own ass, or the band's. I suspect we'll get the least biased story from her versus the band members. I mean truly, what's in it for her? She knows she's not going to get rich of famous at this point for telling her story. Her days of cashing in on the Fleetwood Mac cash cow are LONG past. I guarantee she makes more each year in her daily job than she did from this book. She doesn't have to worry about protecting the Mac cash machine either... her ties were cut from the band nearly a quarter of a century ago. Honestly, her gossipy little book could only help fuel the soap opera legend that is Fleetwood Mac. The band has long survived on the voyeur nature of it's followers, and her book certainly has aided in that. So in the end, she isn't helping herself all the much, but she probably in a minimal way is adding fodder to the Mac's bottom line $$$.

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

The band has long survived on the voyeur nature of it's followers, and her book certainly has aided in that. So in the end, she isn't helping herself all the much, but she probably in a minimal way is adding fodder to the Mac's bottom line $$$.

I wonder if Lindsey will respond to the book in his songs!!!

[michelej1]

I read it within a few hours of getting it in my hands. I found it very entertaining. It made me smile and I liked the romantic parts.

I suppose the book contained some truth, but not an overload of it. If I knew nothing about FM going in and had never heard of Carol Ann, I would not think she was a credible person. She seems to have a need for attention that makes her writing fantastical.

Just as a small example, she says she was wearing a see-through skirt standing in the wings of the stage while Stevie was performing. Suddenly, everyone in the audience stopped watching Fleetwood Mac and started staring at her in her transparent skirt. Um? I think that happened . . . never.

I mean, from the moment the book started and she described her and her many (6?) sisters all curled up in corners reading (presumably Tolstoy) as she was growing up, I knew she was trying to present herself as cultured, literary, intelligent and innocent and I suspected that presentation was false. The book continued on in that same vein, but yet it was a great read.

I just think back to watching her on that Discovery Health channel show about 5 years ago, when she was preparing for repeat plastic surgery. She was thumbing lovingly through the pictures of herself with Fleetwood Mac and saying how she wanted to attain the look she had back then, when she felt she was most beautiful. I got a perception of her as desperate and fragile, living in the past and trying to recapture a time that was far from perfect, but was the happiest she's been. When the book came out, it reinforced that image.

Michele

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

I mean truly, what's in it for her? She knows she's not going to get rich of famous at this point for telling her story. Her days of cashing in on the Fleetwood Mac cash cow are LONG past. .

Her days of cashing in may be long past, but her days of TRYING to cash in aren't. That was obvious to me just 3 or 4 years ago when she appeared on the Discovery Health Channel's plastic surgery show, talking about her beauty of the past and hoping to recapture it by going under the knife. Explaining why she wanted further surgery, she wistfully fingered old pictures of herself with the band members and talked about their glory days.

She was never really in the spotlight herself, but it was obvious she missed being on the periphery of it, the vicarious glow. I imagine the book helps her relive a little of that, just as the cheek implants do.

My approach to the Mac is the same as my approach to Siskel and Ebert (or Ebert and Roeper or Roeper and Phillips). I may not trust either of their individual viewpoints completely, but when they reach a consensus, that's when I decide whether I want to see or skip the movie. I form an opinion of Mac history in much the same way. I don't discount all of Carol's story, but I could hardly believe it all. I also don't believe all of what Stevie, Lindsey, Mick, John or Christine have to say either. Without throwing any out, I fit all of the pieces together -- even the mismatched ones -- as best I can and form my own picture, but I never think any one piece is the definitive key to the puzzle.

Michele

[macpai]

I bought this in hopes of learning a little bit more about Lindsey and the band. But early on, it's been written in such romance novel speak, that I can hardly get through it.
I know there are kernels of information to be gleaned, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get through this.
I'd say maybe it was a drugs haze, but she wasn't even into the drugs at this point.

[marinnette]

Originally Posted by macpai

I bought this in hopes of learning a little bit more about Lindsey and the band. But early on, it's been written in such romance novel speak, that I can hardly get through it.
I know there are kernels of information to be gleaned, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get through this.
I'd say maybe it was a drugs haze, but she wasn't even into the drugs at this point.

I got the same feeling too... but at the end it is worth it. The bad thing is that, as you go on, the language gets more "fairytale-like"...eventually, I did diagonally reading. but I insist, I strongly recommend you this book. among others, you'll find out how drugs side effects last so long they even have a tough effect on some people's writing.