Can’t You Get Along With Anyone?

by Allan C. Weisbecker

Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? A Writer’s Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer’s Paradise This is the story of screenwriter, surfer and critically acclaimed author Allan Weisbecker’s end-of-the-road tropical paradise, its underbelly and his fall from grace. When Allan Weisbecker penned the last sentence of In Search of Captain Zero, most readers assumed the full scope of the tale had been told. But apparently, life had other plans. In his latest offering, Can't You Get Along With Anyone? A Writer's Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer's Paradise, Weisbecker chronicles the bizarre and convoluted circumstances that drove him from his adopted home in Costa Rica. As his sanity, health and existence are simultaneously mangled, Weisbecker somehow manages to solve a murder, wrestle the dark side of paradise, and wind up on multiple third world hit lists… surfing seems to be the only point of salvation in Weisbecker’s world, which is something we can all identify with. Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? is a necessity for anyone who believes truth is indeed stranger than fiction… an entrancing, thoughtful and darkly humorous calamity. About the Author Author, surfer, screenwriter and former pot runner Allan Weisbecker has collaborated in screen and television writing with the likes of Michael Mann (Miami, Vice, the Insider, Heat) and Robert Chartoff (Rocky, Raging Bull, the Right Stuff). Weisbecker's previous books including Captain Zero were published (by Penguin Putnam) in 2001 and both have been bought for the movies by major stars - Sean Penn and John Cusack, with Weisbecker adapting for the screen. Weisbecker splits his time between Montauk, New York and an undisclosed location in Mexico.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

Paperback

Published January 1, 2007

About the author

Allan C. Weisbecker (1947/1948 – October 2023) was an American novelist, screenwriter, memoirist, and surfer.
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Reviews

[Marye odom]

The sequel to In Search of Captain Zero. I waited years for this book, I emailed the author, I begged. He came through and he hasn't disappointed. It's big, it's heavy, it rocks.

[Elijah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually really like the book, but it's so damn depressing! Loves a woman who is a perpetual cheat, lives a lifestyle where he loads up on drugs in order to kill pain and forgot about people trying to kill him, sleeps with a gun, battles with Hollywood movie star produces and ex-skate heroes.

I think I might have found a pulisher!

Interesting character that Alan.

[Ian Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

An unhinged rant.

[E. C. Koch · Rating 1 out of 5]

Early in this book, while discussing the editing of his previous memoir, In Search of Captain Zero, Weisbecker recalls an unpleasant interaction with his new editor during which she proclaimed to know how long his book (i.e., Captain Zero) should be without even having read it. Weisbecker makes a big deal out of this, saying the obvious stuff about how anyone should at least read the thing before making such a proclamation, and then takes matters a bit further by citing passages from the editor’s book to show just how bad a writer she is. Anyone who does this – lambastes an editor’s instincts and then tries to show how much better his own writing is by comparison – has to be totally buttoned up in every conceivable way in order to not come across looking like an ass. This is precisely how Weisbecker comes to look. After finally staggering across the finish line of his second memoir, I can say that Weisbecker, ironically but predictably, was in desperate need of an editor because Can’t You Get Along with Anyone is a mess. Throughout the whole thing, Weisbecker regularly interrupts himself to expand on the importance of building narrative tension and maintaining the reader’s momentum and massaging facts in order to make the whole a more pleasurable read, but then loses narrative tension by rambling and exhausts the reader’s momentum by failing to pursue any interesting narrative line and getting bogged down in attempting to substantiate every claim he makes with evidence. And what’s most frustrating is that there were probably four interesting, worthwhile books he could have written with the material he tried to cram into this one. What do I mean? First there’s the stuff about him mom dying, then there’s the stuff about trying to get Cosmic Banditos turned into a movie, then there’s the stuff about trying to (simultaneously) get Captain Zero made into a movie, and then there’s the stuff about his meeting the woman he believes to be the love of his life only to learn that she’s cheating on him. This last part overshadows the entire book, but since Weisbecker is so obsessive about proving his innocence and her guilt to us, the readers, he comes across as feckless and petulant, never getting anywhere close to pathos, making the work a reading this thing a slog. So the stuff I don’t care about is all he can be bothered to deliver, and the stuff that I do care about doesn’t interest him. At the end of the whole everything there wasn't any structured through-line holding this thing together which makes it seem as through Weisbecker wasn’t in control of what he was writing, that, instead, the events he was writing about were in control. The kind of structure I’m talking about demands a certain curation of events – which may even require not telling us everything that happened exactly how it happened – in order to expose and illuminate the organizing themes that make any book feel substantial. And another word for this kind of curation is editing.

[Djaaronb Bierman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allan captures so much of the surfing/adventure/life experience that he should be commended. The wild tales in his book are beautifully set up and the payoffs bring insight and wonder.

It is such a simultaneously painful and enjoyable experience to read this guy, cringing and laughing all at once. You feel so much for his life experiences and you root for him every step of the way.

A great book- here's hoping he continues to pump them out!

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

currently reading this, sort of a sequel to in search of captain zero...

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm cuckoo for allan! ;)

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

there, but for the grace of god, go i

[Julius · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this author, sadly there is so much self loathing and paranoia that I can only read so much! I am putting it away to finish at a later date...

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

just ok. Worth the read to read about the Max Dalton case.