Introduction by New York Times bestselling author and famous minor television personality John Hodgman
One of my dad's favorite jokes about getting older was: "I went out for coffee when I was twenty-one and when I got back I was fifty-eight!"
I get what he meant now. Time flies. My first book, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a "B" Movie Actor, was published back in 2001 and it chronicles the adventures of a "mid-grade, kind of hammy actor" (my words), cutting his teeth on exploitation movies far removed from mainstream Hollywood.
This next book, an "Act II" if you will, could be considered my "maturing years" in show business, when I began to say "no" more often and gravitated toward self-generated material. Taking stock in the overall quality of my life, I fled Los Angeles and moved to a remote part of Oregon to renew, regroup and reload.
If that sounds tame, the journey from Evil Dead to Spider-Man to Burn Notice was long, with plenty of adventures/mishaps along the way. I never pictured myself hovering above Baghdad in a Blackhawk helicopter, facing a pack of wild dogs in Bulgaria, or playing an aging Elvis Presley with cancer on his penis, how can you predict this stuff? The sheer lunacy of show business is part of the fun for me and I hope you'll come along for the ride.
"Campbell is an amusing raconteur, sharing stories about shooting the indie film My Name Is Bruce in his backyard, working on his old friend Sam Raimi's Spiderman movies, and spending seven seasons on Burn Notice. . . . Campbell is always entertaining, and his smart-ass style makes for a groovy ride. . . . Fans will eagerly await a sequel."
Publishers Weekly
"Die-hard fans will embrace it as canon..."
The Washington Post
"Whether recounting his life in the boondocks of south Oregon or the making of the dud The Man with the Screaming Brain in Bulgaria, Campbell, backed by co-author Sanborn, and his B-movie anecdotes, are thoroughly engaging and witty."
