The Book Faery Reviews » Biography

Topless Prophet, Alan Markovitz

The Book Faery — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:39:08 +0000

TITLE: Topless Prophet
AUTHOR: Alan Markovitz
PUBLICATION DATE: October 1, 2009
PUBLISHER: AM Productions
PAGES: 307 pages
GENRE: Non-Fiction - Autobiography

One man’s story of what it takes to run a strip club empire – the dangers, secrets, pitfalls, surprises – and rewards – and the business lessons learned.

What is it really like to open and run a successful string of strip clubs? “It’s not at all what you think it is,’ confides Alan Markovitz, author of a new book and owner of the nation’s leading gentlemen’s club. Topless Prophet: The True Story of America’s Most Successful Gentlemen’s Club Entrepreneur offers a rare glimpse into the world of gentlemen’s clubs, taking us behind the scenes of the operations of one of the nation’s most successful club owners. Where other books provide insight on the scandalous side of strippers, escorts, and x-rated entertainment, Topless Prophet is as much a business book and autobiography of an ingenious entrepreneur as it is an exploration of what goes into staying on top of an industry filled with cut-throat competition, corruption, celebrities, and beautiful women who make a living dancing. Alan Markovitz, who owns several Penthouse Gentlemen’s Clubs and the country’s No. 1 ranked adult entertainment club (The Ultimate Strip Club List (www.tuscl.net), The Flight Club, Topless Prophet chronicles a first-hand account of a Detroit businessman who has helped change and grow an industry while overcoming many challenges, some life-threatening, some business-endangering. He has spent nearly the past three decades reformulating the ultimate fantasy setting for men.

Markovitz overcame many unique circumstances, including when he:

Had to testify against the Mafia when they threatened him.
Saw his club raided by the police as part of a smear campaign by a competing Eight Mile club owner – and spent the weekend in jail.
Was shot by one of his own dancers after he fired her.
Saw his dancers try to unionize to block a new compensation system.
Had one of his clubs tank after the local city (Ft. Lauderdale) changed the laws about alcohol being served in strip clubs.
Was blocked by political cronyism when he tried to open in Las Vegas.
Got sued for trademark infringement by Boeing.
Was accidentally shot by a drunken patron, an off-duty police officer.
Had his father, a Holocaust survivor who became his business partner, negotiate with a menacing biker gang that threatened his first club.

“The business of entertainment has a lot of glamour and glitz – and beautiful women for sure -- but it’s filled with many forces that can challenge and chew you up in no time,” says Markovitz. “The key is to think ahead, exceed expectations, be ready for a fight, and be wise enough to know when to walk away.” Markovitz’s story begins with humble roots growing up in the Jewish middle class neighborhood of Oak Park, Michigan, the son of a television repair shop owner. He starts out like a kid in a candy store, working the bar for the neighborhood strip club as a teenager. Markovitz befriends the owner and seeks him out as a business partner when he ventures out to buy his first club at age 22. From there on he comes back stronger from every challenge, crisis, or adversity he faces along the way to establish himself at the top of the topless business.

Topless Prophet also shares Markovitz’s personal experiences, professional insights, and vision for the future of adult entertainment. He reveals just what it is about the allure of the dancers that captures men’s hearts and wallets. He tells us if customers really have a chance to date a dancer and discusses how he romanced some of the dancers. He also shares how one unhappy ex-girlfriend/stripper drove her car into his club looking for blood.

Markovitz shares many insights about how to be successful in business, and admittedly bares mistakes made along the way as well. He explains how he:

Moved the strip club experience from a blue-collar to white-collar audience.
First discovered moving dancers off the stage to tables and then customers’ laps – and went from paying his dancers to having them pay him.
Had to work alongside a business partner who hired two hit men to kill him.
Manages over 300 dancers at each club.
Attempted to bring the strip club setting to airplanes and golf courses.
Got swindled out of a million dollars when trying to buy a club.
Views expansion, upgrades, location, quality of service, the competition, pricing, and knowing when to wage a legal fight.

“The formula for success is fleeting,” says Markovitz. “Just when you think you know what it is, it changes. You can’t be complacent in this business.” Markovitz certainly knows what it takes to make millions and have fun doing it.

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A Full House – But Empty, Angus Munro: Author Guest Post 7.23.09

The Book Faery — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:57:32 +0000

Filled with anecdotes, lessons learned, and an inspirational message for everyone, who believes that hard work breeds success, this moving autobiography shares the remarkable story of Angus Munro.

Munro is just three when he suffers from appendicitis and spends several weeks in a Vancouver hospital as his family struggles to survive the Great Depression. After finally arriving home, Munro asks his sister, "Where is Mummy?" and is promptly told his mother doesn't live there anymore. It is this traumatic event that changes the course of Munro's life forever. His father is suddenly a single parent while simultaneously turning into Munro's mentor and hero. He teaches Munro the motto, "Always do the right thing," while raising his children in an environment that is at the very least hectic, and more often completely chaotic.

Through a potpourri of chronological and heartfelt tales, Munro reveals how he learned to view incidents in life in terms of responsibility, recognition, personal conduct, and consideration for others. Despite dropping out of school at a young age, Munro perseveres, eventually attaining professional success.

Munro's memoir is a wonderful tribute to his father's legacy and the greatest lesson of all-Whatever you do, follow through. - FROM THE BOOK

AUTHOR GUEST POST...A view of A Full House – But Empty

I was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada during the Great Depression. Our father, a single parent raised my two sisters and me. Those were very tough and hectic years both economically and emotionally. The Depression ended and World War II started. At age fourteen, I dropped out of school due to an unfortunate incident the prior year and having had repeated the seventh grade.

At age seventeen, this grade-school dropout was working in a sawmill tossing lumber ends off of a conveyor belt. A theological student from the University of British Columbia attended one of our home parties. We became friends and one evening he delivered a Dutch uncle speech to me. He told me in plain English to get off of my ass and get moving in the right direction. He suggested that I take evening classes at a local high school in typing and accounting to acquire some basic skills. He also stated that I should seek an entrance position in a white-collar setting that would afford future advancements. I attempted to refute his suggestions by stating I was a failure, a dropout with no skills. He stated that I unequivocally had above average intelligence and assuredly possessing great untapped potentialities. He pointedly stated that is your focus not unfortunate past events. Mission accomplished – I immediately did exactly what he suggested.

I progressively worked up the vocational ladder, starting from the bottom rung. During my career, I spent nine very successful years in the petroleum industry and was scheduled for a junior executive position in home office. I decided to change careers. I spent thirty-nine very productive years in hospital administration in California and Alaska. I was a director of several departments with staffing complements of fifty-five to seventy employees prior to my retirement.

My message is of moving ahead and lessons learned from my father and others. Thus helping me to successfully climb up the vocational ladder along with enhancing myself in addressing my needs and importantly the needs of others.

Angus Munro has roots that run deep. His farming ancestors came from Scotland in 1830 and his relatives still reside on the same farmlands in Southern Ontario, Canada. His grandfather left Ontario and took his family to Saskatchewan in 1905 and became a prosperous wheat farmer. When Angus' father married, the grandfather leased other farmlands to get his son established. Angus' father lost the total proceeds of his first wheat crop in a wild poker game at the local grain elevator. The grandfather was none too happy and decided to relocate to Vancouver, B.C.

The Depression deepened and sadly Angus' grandfather passed away - leaving his entire estate to his second son. Angus' father traveled to see his brother to seek financial assistance and received nothing. He returned to Vancouver unexpectedly one evening and found his wife in bed with someone else. Thus, his father became a single parent to three children - Laura 6, Angus 3, and Marjorie and infant. The following day, Angus became very ill with appendicitis and spent seven weeks in the Vancouver General Hospital. The author vividly covers his early childhood years and living with another family - similar circumstances, a father with five children, coping with the Depression and, thereafter, addressing their dual basic family needs.

Angus' new memoir, A Full House - But Empty, is the gripping story of young Angus' life growing up in the Depression years based on the positive lessons he had learned from his father during their somewhat traumatic and hectic years together.
If you would like to find out more about Angus and his new book, visit his website at www.angusrmunro.com.

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American Lion, Jon Meacham: Author Guest Post 7.16.09

The Book Faery — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:01:58 +0000

Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson’s election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson’s presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama–the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers–that shaped Jackson’s private world through years of storm and victory.

One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will–or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House–from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt to FDR to Truman–have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision.

Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe–no matter what it took.

Jon Meacham in American Lion has delivered the definitive human portrait of a pivotal president who forever changed the American presidency–and America itself. - FROM THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR...Jon Meacham is the editor of Newsweek and author of American Lion and the New York Times bestsellers Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. He lives in New York City with his wife and children. You can visit his website at www.jonmeacham.com.

AUTHOR GUEST POST...The punch saved the day. On the afternoon March 4, 1829, Andrew Jackson’s supporters, thrilled that Old Hickory had ended the reign of the unpopular son of another president, joyfully swarmed the White House, destroying carpets and crockery before being lured out of the windows by strategically placed buckets of punch. “Here was the corpulent epicure grunting and sweating for breath,” reported the New York Spectator, “the dandy wishing he had no toes—the tight-laced Miss, fearing her person might receive some permanently deforming impulse—the miser hunting for his pocket-book—the courtier looking for his watch—and the office-seeker in agony to reach the President.” Establishment Washington was horrified, and Jackson’s aides had to form a protective circle around the new president in order to get him back to safety at his hotel. It was mayhem; “the whole house,” said Margaret Bayard Smith, a longtime Washington observer, was “inundated by the rabble mob.” There was, though, another way of looking at the matter. Perhaps, just perhaps, after six presidents from the upper reaches of American life, democracy—Jacksonian democracy—was making its stand.

I wanted to write about Andrew Jackson not only because of what he once meant, but what he means even now. History is not a clinical undertaking. The past, as William Faulkner once wrote, is never dead; it isn’t even past. To understand Jackson is to understand ourselves—the good and the bad, the light and the dark, the hope and the tragedy.

Every president since Old Hickory has worked in the shadow of, and stood on the shoulders of, Jackson, a man who is at once ubiquitous yet unfamiliar in the first decade of the 21^st century. Think this may be overstated? Look no farther than the 2008 presidential campaign, one in which both candidates evoked elements of Jackson’s character and persona. Barack Obama was a change candidate, the nominee of the party Jackson founded, who would come to Washington, as Jackson did, to clean house. John McCain was a noble warrior who bears the scars of combat, a hawkish politician with a notable temper who is also capable of great human warmth.

Soldier, brawler, duelist, lover and politician, Andrew Jackson was the first American president to be the target of assassination, and the only one to attack his assailant. Tough and wily, passionate and canny, Jackson created the modern presidency, rewriting the script of American life to give the people a larger voice in its affairs than the Founding Fathers—who preferred government by elites over mass democracy—envisioned. Before Jackson it was possible to think of America without taking the role of the people into account; after him such a thing was inconceivable. As Harry Truman once said, “He looked after the little guy who had no pull, and that’s what a president is supposed to do.”

The challenges he face resonate in our own age. He believed the financial sector of the American economy was spoiled, corrupt and bad for the overall health of the nation, and so he destroyed, at great length, great drama and great cost, the Bank of the United States. He wanted the country to be a respected force around the world, and so he was quick to send forces to confront pirates, and he engaged in an epic diplomatic battle against France when the Chamber of Deputies refused to pay money it owed the United States. He thought the American Union sacred, and so he threatened civil war to put down radicals in South Carolina who were considering moves that could lead to secession. He was convinced that church and state should remain separate, and so he resisted calls for the formation of a “Christian party in politics,” and was troubled by ministers who involved themselves in politics.

He was the first truly self-made man to become president. Jackson was, to put it kindly, no scholar. When Harvard University voted to give the seventh president an honorary degree in 1833, a Massachusetts newspaper wrote that he deserved “an A. S. S.” as well as an “L. L. D.” From afar, the man Jackson had defeated for the White House, John Quincy Adams, was horrified his alma mater was recognizing a man he thought a barbarian who could barely spell his own name.

What could he teach the next president? Here are five lessons that President McCain or President Obama might usefully heed from Old Hickory:

Talk to people outside the Washington bubble. There was no Beltway in Jackson’s time, but there was an insular capital culture that could create divisions between Washington and the rest of the country. The White House can be lonely, isolating and distorting: presidents only hear good news from subordinates and criticism from foes. Jackson understood this, and often received members of the public as well as old friends, and he traveled every year to the shore in Virginia and back to his farm, the Hermitage, in Nashville, staying at hotels and public houses along the way. This way he could hear what real people were saying and get a sense of what real people were feeling—a crucial element in the art of democratic leadership. He also kept up a stream of correspondence with people around the country. No president will ever get as much unvarnished advice as he needs—the urge to defer to the man in power softens even the strongest of advisers—but Jackson found ways to learn more than he would have if he had simply depended on his staff.

Position yourself as the voice of the many. Jackson was the first president to assert that he was “the direct representative of the American people,” and he created a dramatic narrative in which he was the champion of the masses fighting corrupt elites—and he decided who to call a corrupt elite. Whether his foes were South Carolina radicals, the aristocratic Bank of the United States, or France, he always claimed the moral high ground. It drove his enemies crazy, but emboldened and motivated his own supporters beyond measure.

Turn your vices into virtues. Jackson was, to say the least, a hot-tempered man. (He carried two bullets in his body from duels and gunfights over matters of honor, and threatened to hang his own vice president.) But he was wise enough to know how to make this possible disadvantage an advantage. Once, during a crisis over the future of the Bank of the United States, he frightened a group of callers who had come to ask for economic relief. They left, terrified that to cross the president was fatal, and thus they moved closer to his position. After they left, Jackson’s apparent fury evaporated instantly. “Didn’t I manage them well?” he smilingly asked an aide. It had all been for show—and he got his way.

Control the message. Irritated by the coverage he was receiving from the partisan papers of the day, Jackson did not just whine about the press: he did something about it, founding his own newspaper, the Washington Globe. Often dictating stories and mapping out political strategy with its editors, Jackson was able to present his case in an unfiltered way to a broad audience. (It would be as though McCain founded Fox News or Obama created NPR.)

Appear inflexible—while being flexible. Jackson was an implacable defender of the Union against early Southern moves that could have led to secession. With thundering proclamations, he threatened the radicals with military invasion—he said he would personally lead the troops into South Carolina—but behind the scenes he cautioned the Union forces against precipitating any bloodshed, and in Congress his administration quietly produced legislation that ultimately defused the crisis peaceably. Old Hickory had won again.

FDR once said that Jackson was always relevant because the battles he fought—for the people against the privileged, for democracy, and for Union—were battles that face every generation. They certainly face ours. Here’s hoping the spirit of Jackson will help us see the way forward.

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Angry Conversations with God…3.18.09

The Book Faery — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:13:22 +0000

”Angry Conversations began when Susan hit hit forty and found herself loveless, jobless, and living over a garage. When a well-meaning churchy friend told Susan she needed to look at her relationship with God like it was a marriage, Susan decided to take God to marriage counseling.

Angry Conversations chronicles Susan's spiritual history, from childhood faith to midlife crisis, and all the bizarre church experiences in between. Lutherans, Pentecostals, Slackers for Jesus; and the über-intellectuals who had to "unpack" everything, even the announcements. Casting herself as the neglected spouse, Susan soon confronts her inner nag and the unrealistic expectations she put on God and herself. Angry Conversations With God is funny, vulnerable, and even at its most scandalous an affirmation of faith.” - FROM THE WEBSITE

Susan E Isaacs
http://susanisaacs.blogspot.com
Follow Susan on Twitter: http://twitter.com/suzer316
Join Angry Conversations with God on www.facebook.com

You can check out the original show the book was based on via YouTube.

FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS...When it was time for Susan to get real with God she took him to "marriage counseling". I absolutely enjoyed reading Angry Conversations with God! It was a funny read on a serious topic of one's relationship with God and one I could relate to on many levels.

Follow along with the FaithWords Book Blog Tour (you never know...you just might get an opportunity to get a copy of the book from one of them):

Books Movies Chinese Food - http://books-movies-chinesefood.blogspot.com/2009/03/angry-conversations-with-god-by-susan.html

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