Product Description

Side Step Me dips into pill-popping culture, a never-ending need for one-night stands, conspicuous consumption, intoxication. Happy doctors dispense pills like Halloween candy – extolling the sensation of faux bliss, through the lonely intimacy; often, fever of New York. To create the work, the author pulls from his own experience, withdrawing from Celexa, cold turkey, because insurance ran dry. Capturing the cities inhabitants as they constantly navigate this forever-up-and-coming world, wait for lovers, or try to cope with their lives. Poetry and short stories take us through the bathhouses of online sex; they watch us as we traverse the subway and perpetually trade up. The many powerful people find stillness must be avoided, since the sickly things they do surface in the night. It’s a world where people kill for the perfect apartment. Yet. Finally the reasons for joy float into reality and are understood. Side Step Me is the compilation of Alex Geana’s work, bringing together ten years and the honing of a strong voice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1990847 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-18
• Released on: 2008-08-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 140 pages

Customer Reviews

Side Stepping with Alex
Like many writers, Alex Geana probably keeps a journal. When his Mead black and white notebook isn't at hand, he grabs a cocktail napkin at the bar and borrows a pen from a waiter to record the thoughts forming in his brain. He says so in the introduction of his anthology called Side Step Me. One poem is even labeled "Poem on a Bar Receipt." My favorite surface was always using the back of the cardboard beer advertisement tents on the table. Geana says the collection of poems in Side Step Me spans ten years. You'd think he was in his fifties because he mentions a dead mentor in the first sentence of the introduction, and his writing style is extremely adult and somewhat weathered.

However, just a few sentences later Geana tells you the work is from his early teen years through mid twenties. The picture on the author page confirms he's probably still in his twenties. I mention this because it's no surprise that the author has experienced so much when it comes to drugs and sex and has chosen to write about it. Those sorts of things often influence young writers. A young man of his generation is often experimental. That's nothing new, but that's also assuming that as an author, he's telling the reader the truth. It's okay if he isn't. Poetic license and all. But if he is, prepare for shock and awe when reading this book.

Honestly, the first 15 pages of the book are boring and jaded. Sorry, Alex. The poems are meanderings probably penned on a taco wrapper after a night of fumbling around high, beneath a disco ball with sweaty go go boys. Each poem weaves a play on words or some hint of erotic mystery, but falls short with a nice quipped ending that just leaves the reader hanging there cheaply like a blind date that didn't show up. But, for anyone about to reveal a secret or tell a friend a very personal and sensitive story, there are always those useless words we spew in the beginning while our guard is still up. In a book though, the reader doesn't always want to warm up to you. Geana stands to lose his readers right from the start.

For those who choose to stick around, myself included, you are in for quite a ride throughout the rest of the book. The author prepares you quite abruptly for what is about to come next with a picture on page 13 of a full frontal nude photograph of a man (not the author, by the way), and it is indeed a hard cold slap to the face. Just turn the page. This is followed by a very truthful poem about sharing pics in chat rooms...

that chat
everyone looking
some men with perfect pictures
turn out ugly, face to face
then there are the ones
hiding behind the corner
sometimes a camera

Not until page 16 do we read the first of the author's poems that reveals a soft underbelly of emotions and doesn't get "wrapped up" in the end with a cute little bow. It's about the author coming out to his mother while she buys him clothes and furniture and instructs him not to tell the family.

she bought me clothing
told me I didn't look good in mine
that they were too tight
that no one would like me
without the right clothes
unless she bought them for me
that she could save me
if I did what she said
tied my drawstring pants
the world full of symbols.

Later in a poem called ONLINE, the poet counts the number of people in different chat rooms and laughs at the propositions he keeps getting. He's amazed at the drug use and how boring people have become on them, in comparison to what brilliant writers wrote a long time ago when they were high:

I remember when people
used to pour out
their deep down unheard thoughts, the feelings
that scared them, on ecstasy people could cry
the real tears.

I miss somehow
the writer junkie.

I miss the writer junkie too sometimes, and Alex Geana definitely shows signs of being just as talented as those from yesterday who passed out in the streets of Paris, sloppy naked and high, but somehow sobered up long enough to write about the trips they took. But again, is this author telling us the truth? Or was he, too, high when he wrote this?

Kudos to Alex for a creative cover. It's prescription bottle look and color echoes the content of the book very well, and if you look closely you'll see a sketchiness of city inside the pill bottle, often a setting for story lines and poems involving drug use, sex, dancing, experimentation, and such. It gives the book a very personal and private tone, and I commend Mr. Geana for being sensitive and forthright in such a way both on the inside of his book and out.

There were college days of my own when I jotted down thoughts after a few shots and too many Long Island Iced Teas, but those are just scribblings in a journal or on the back of a bar receipt now. I'm a much better writer clean and with a bit of age and experience. Alex will be too.

Finish your drink, Alex. Your readers are waiting.

Side Stepping with Alex
Like many writers, Alex Geana probably keeps a journal. When his Mead black and white notebook isn't at hand, he grabs a cocktail napkin at the bar and borrows a pen from a waiter to record the thoughts forming in his brain. He says so in the introduction of his anthology called Side Step Me. One poem is even labeled "Poem on a Bar Receipt." My favorite surface was always using the back of the cardboard beer advertisement tents on the table. Geana says the collection of poems in Side Step Me spans ten years. You'd think he was in his fifties because he mentions a dead mentor in the first sentence of the introduction, and his writing style is extremely adult and somewhat weathered.

However, just a few sentences later Geana tells you the work is from his early teen years through mid twenties. The picture on the author page confirms he's probably still in his twenties. I mention this because it's no surprise that the author has experienced so much when it comes to drugs and sex and has chosen to write about it. Those sorts of things often influence young writers. A young man of his generation is often experimental. That's nothing new, but that's also assuming that as an author, he's telling the reader the truth. It's okay if he isn't. Poetic license and all. But if he is, prepare for shock and awe when reading this book.

Honestly, the first 15 pages of the book are boring and jaded. Sorry, Alex. The poems are meanderings probably penned on a taco wrapper after a night of fumbling around high, beneath a disco ball with sweaty go go boys. Each poem weaves a play on words or some hint of erotic mystery, but falls short with a nice quipped ending that just leaves the reader hanging there cheaply like a blind date that didn't show up. But, for anyone about to reveal a secret or tell a friend a very personal and sensitive story, there are always those useless words we spew in the beginning while our guard is still up. In a book though, the reader doesn't always want to warm up to you. Geana stands to lose his readers right from the start.

For those who choose to stick around, myself included, you are in for quite a ride throughout the rest of the book. The author prepares you quite abruptly for what is about to come next with a picture on page 13 of a full frontal nude photograph of a man (not the author, by the way), and it is indeed a hard cold slap to the face. Just turn the page. This is followed by a very truthful poem about sharing pics in chat rooms...

that chat
everyone looking
some men with perfect pictures
turn out ugly, face to face
then there are the ones
hiding behind the corner
sometimes a camera

Not until page 16 do we read the first of the author's poems that reveals a soft underbelly of emotions and doesn't get "wrapped up" in the end with a cute little bow. It's about the author coming out to his mother while she buys him clothes and furniture and instructs him not to tell the family.

she bought me clothing
told me I didn't look good in mine
that they were too tight
that no one would like me
without the right clothes
unless she bought them for me
that she could save me
if I did what she said
tied my drawstring pants
the world full of symbols.

Later in a poem called ONLINE, the poet counts the number of people in different chat rooms and laughs at the propositions he keeps getting. He's amazed at the drug use and how boring people have become on them, in comparison to what brilliant writers wrote a long time ago when they were high:

I remember when people
used to pour out
their deep down unheard thoughts, the feelings
that scared them, on ecstasy people could cry
the real tears.

I miss somehow
the writer junkie.

I miss the writer junkie too sometimes, and Alex Geana definitely shows signs of being just as talented as those from yesterday who passed out in the streets of Paris, sloppy naked and high, but somehow sobered up long enough to write about the trips they took. But again, is this author telling us the truth? Or was he, too, high when he wrote this?

Kudos to Alex for a creative cover. It's prescription bottle look and color echoes the content of the book very well, and if you look closely you'll see a sketchiness of city inside the pill bottle, often a setting for story lines and poems involving drug use, sex, dancing, experimentation, and such. It gives the book a very personal and private tone, and I commend Mr. Geana for being sensitive and forthright in such a way both on the inside of his book and out.

There were college days of my own when I jotted down thoughts after a few shots and too many Long Island Iced Teas, but those are just scribblings in a journal or on the back of a bar receipt now. I'm a much better writer clean and with a bit of age and experience. Alex will be too.

Finish your drink, Alex. Your readers are waiting.

Excellent Compilation
Alex has created here an excellent compilation of thoughts, musings and art in his collection about our pill-popping culture. As has been made clear by other reviewers, this is a must read for anyone caught up in "the the sensation of faux bliss." Highly recommended.