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Book details
  • Genre:BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
  • SubGenre:Personal Memoirs
  • Language:English
  • Pages:214
  • eBook ISBN:9798350907261
  • Paperback ISBN:9781667892849

Stories I've Been Meaning to Tell You

by Andy Romanoff View author's profile page

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Overview

STORIES I'VE BEEN MEANING TO TELL YOU is a young man's wild stories told with an older man's wisdom. It speaks to anyone with an interest in the 60s and 70s, subcultures (particularly bikers and hippies), and tells the stories of young men and women who hang out on street corners waiting for something to happen. "Stories I've Been Meaning to Tell You" chronicles Andy Romanoff's troubled and troubling years, and how he went on to make a different life for himself.

Description

Andy Romanoff's memoir is a book about life and living, stories of hard choices and unlikely outcomes disguised as a book about running wild and raising hell. Filled with 80 years of stories told as fresh as today Romanoff takes you along for the ride as he makes a meaningful life for himself without turning his back on the person he'd been or the places he'd come from. "Stories I've Been Meaning to Tell You," is a wild ride filled with tales of getting thrown out of five high schools; stealing cars and motorcycles; getting tossed in jail; finding his way into the sleazy end of the film business; being there for the invention of Gore Films; spending time with counterculture legends like Ken Kesey, the Hog Farm, and Nick Ray; then slowly learning about love, life, and death as he becomes a reluctant success. Come along with him as he shares eighty years of stories, learning to accept success, friendship, and family while raising hell along the way.

About the author

For half of his life, Andy Romanoff wasn't looking further ahead than his next meal. After getting thrown out of five high schools and going on to steal motorcycles, scam credit cards, and burn cars for weekend fun, it seemed clear to everyone around him that he was a screwup. He took that reputation and ran with it, working on the first gore film "Blood Feast;" living with the legendary commune The Hog Farm; and hanging out with tricksters, scammers, and legends like Nick Ray, Ken Kesey, and Wavy Gravy. As he got older and saw more of life and how it ended, he realized he wanted more for himself than a list of adventures. He pioneered the use of remote-operated cranes in motion pictures working with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Hal Ashby, Billy Fraker, Conrad Hall, and Vilmos Zigmond. He is a member of the Motion Picture Academy, an Associate Member of the American Society of Cinematographers, and a member of the Motion Picture Camera union. He is also a regular contributor to L'oeil de la Photographie, the leading photographic arts publication with 250,000 daily readers, and he writes regularly on Medium. Most importantly, he lives a peaceful life with his wife of forty years and two grown children, who he adores.

Book Reviews

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niki
A Wild and beautiful Ride At first glance, this book may appear to be another memoir of youthful rowdiness; in fact, it’s much more. Fascinating, impossible to put down, and deeply affecting, STORIES I’VE BEEN MEANING TO TELL YOU is at once an insider’s oral history of the 60s counterculture, and a profound meditation on the healing love of family and friends. From his movie-industry camera work through Hollywood’s craziest years, to his travels with the Hog Farm, Romanoff’s witness cred is impeccable---his are the stories I’ve always wanted to hear about this era which unfolded when I was still too young to take part. Yet it is the emotional power of this book that really shines. Building an emotionally compelling story—fiction or nonfiction—is the hardest of writerly feats, and Romanoff nails it. His vulnerability is real. His love blazes. And not just for family, but for his extensive and colorful cast of friends; this is a man who keeps several thousand friends’ phone numbers. Unable to stop reading, I felt myself becoming part of his sprawling community, until the passing of several of his friends, whom I had never met, brought me to tears. Andy Romanoff has written a big-hearted book which touches your heart, even as it keeps you compulsively turning the pages. Along the way he manages to illuminate a watershed era that transformed America. And damn, did he tell his story. Read more
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