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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind #2
Bad Grass Never Dies
Good killers are hard to find. But the CIA has no trouble finding the legendary TV producer and game show king Chuck Barris. In Bad Grass Never Dies, Barris picks up the fast-paced intrigue in Hollywood, where his emotional life lies in ruins, his career careens out of control, and he can't get a break anyplace he turns. Then one day a high-ranking CIA boss appears unannounced on Barris' doorstep. The CIA needs the cooperation of a Mexican terrorist, and Barris is ordered to recruit the killer as a paid assassin. Complicating matters is the fact that this same assassin is responsible for the death of two of Barris' fellow operatives. What's to prevent him from facing the same fate on arrival in Mexico? Barris' beguiling humor and a crack-shot taxi driver hold the answer. The stakes continue to build in this eagerly awaited sequel from the author who dazzled and amused readers—and later movie audiences—with the publication of his first book of memoirs, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1900
2 people are currently reading
120 people want to read
About the author
Chuck Barris
15 books21 followersCharles Hirsch "Chuck" Barris was an American game show creator, producer, and host. He is best known for hosting The Gong Show and creating The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. He is also a songwriter, who wrote the hit "Palisades Park", and the author of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a story about himself that became a film directed by George Clooney.
Barris was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Drexel Institute of Technology where he was a columnist for the student newspaper, The Triangle. He graduated in 1953.
Barris got his start in television as a page and later staffer at NBC in New York City, and eventually worked backstage at the TV music show American Bandstand, originally as a standards-and-practices person for ABC. Barris soon became a music industry figure. He produced pop music on records and TV, but his most successful venture was writing "Palisades Park". Barris also wrote or co-wrote some of the music that appeared on his game shows.
Barris was promoted to the daytime programming division at ABC in Los Angeles and was put in charge of deciding which game shows ABC would air. Barris told his bosses that the pitches of game show concepts were worse than Barris' own ideas. They suggested that he quit his ABC programming job and become a producer.
Barris formed his production company Chuck Barris Productions on June 14, 1965. Barris first became successful during 1965 with his first game show creation, The Dating Game, on ABC. The show would air for eleven of the next fifteen years and be revived twice in the 1980s and 1990s.
The next year Barris began The Newlywed Game, originally created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir, also for ABC. The combination of the newlywed couples' humorous candor and host Bob Eubanks's sly questioning made the show another hit for Barris. The show is the longest lasting of any developed by his company, running for a total of 19 full years on 'first run' TV, network and syndicated.
Barris created several other short-lived game shows for ABC in the 1960s and for syndication in the 1970s, all of which revolved around a common theme. Barris also made several attempts through the years at non-game formats, such as ABC's Operation Entertainment; a CBS revival of Your Hit Parade; and The Bobby Vinton Show. The latter was his most successful program other than a game show.
Barris became a public figure in 1976 when he produced and served as the host of the talent contest spoof The Gong Show. The show's cult status far outstripped the two years it spent on NBC (1976–78) and the four years it ran in syndication (1976–80).
Barris continued strongly until the mid-1970s, when ABC cancelled the Dating and Newlywed games. This left Barris with only one show, his weekly syndicated effort The New Treasure Hunt. But the success of The Gong Show in 1976 encouraged him to revive the Dating and Newlywed games, as well as adding the $1.98 Beauty Show to his syndication empire. He also hosted a short lived primetime variety hour for NBC from February to April 1978, called The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show, essentially a noncompetitive knock-off of Gong.
In Barris's biography, he claims to have worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an assassin in the 1960s and the 1970s. A 2002 feature film version, directed by George Clooney and starring Sam Rockwell, depicts Barris as killing 33 people. Barris wrote a sequel, Bad Grass Never Dies, in 2004.
Barris published Della: A Memoir of My Daughter in 2010 about the death of his only child, who died in 1998 after a long struggle with drug addiction.
Barris was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Drexel Institute of Technology where he was a columnist for the student newspaper, The Triangle. He graduated in 1953.
Barris got his start in television as a page and later staffer at NBC in New York City, and eventually worked backstage at the TV music show American Bandstand, originally as a standards-and-practices person for ABC. Barris soon became a music industry figure. He produced pop music on records and TV, but his most successful venture was writing "Palisades Park". Barris also wrote or co-wrote some of the music that appeared on his game shows.
Barris was promoted to the daytime programming division at ABC in Los Angeles and was put in charge of deciding which game shows ABC would air. Barris told his bosses that the pitches of game show concepts were worse than Barris' own ideas. They suggested that he quit his ABC programming job and become a producer.
Barris formed his production company Chuck Barris Productions on June 14, 1965. Barris first became successful during 1965 with his first game show creation, The Dating Game, on ABC. The show would air for eleven of the next fifteen years and be revived twice in the 1980s and 1990s.
The next year Barris began The Newlywed Game, originally created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir, also for ABC. The combination of the newlywed couples' humorous candor and host Bob Eubanks's sly questioning made the show another hit for Barris. The show is the longest lasting of any developed by his company, running for a total of 19 full years on 'first run' TV, network and syndicated.
Barris created several other short-lived game shows for ABC in the 1960s and for syndication in the 1970s, all of which revolved around a common theme. Barris also made several attempts through the years at non-game formats, such as ABC's Operation Entertainment; a CBS revival of Your Hit Parade; and The Bobby Vinton Show. The latter was his most successful program other than a game show.
Barris became a public figure in 1976 when he produced and served as the host of the talent contest spoof The Gong Show. The show's cult status far outstripped the two years it spent on NBC (1976–78) and the four years it ran in syndication (1976–80).
Barris continued strongly until the mid-1970s, when ABC cancelled the Dating and Newlywed games. This left Barris with only one show, his weekly syndicated effort The New Treasure Hunt. But the success of The Gong Show in 1976 encouraged him to revive the Dating and Newlywed games, as well as adding the $1.98 Beauty Show to his syndication empire. He also hosted a short lived primetime variety hour for NBC from February to April 1978, called The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show, essentially a noncompetitive knock-off of Gong.
In Barris's biography, he claims to have worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an assassin in the 1960s and the 1970s. A 2002 feature film version, directed by George Clooney and starring Sam Rockwell, depicts Barris as killing 33 people. Barris wrote a sequel, Bad Grass Never Dies, in 2004.
Barris published Della: A Memoir of My Daughter in 2010 about the death of his only child, who died in 1998 after a long struggle with drug addiction.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 16, 2022
It is shit
August 13, 2012
First off, let me say that I am a big fan of Chuck Barris, a big fan of "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," and a big fan of my Kindle to boot.
With those three things said, I truly despised this "novel." Barris pretty much lets us know right away in "Bad Grass Never Dies" that the first novel had been made into a movie. Once he lets us know that the movie exists in the same world as this sequel, it becomes painfully obvious that this was just a quick cash-in for him. Whether he was really a CIA hitman is irrelevant. What IS relevant is that this book did not have any of the wit, the originality, the over-the-top greatness that existed in the first go-round.
This book is so disjointed, so sloppily written, so monumentally poor in the editing department that several times I considered just putting it down. But no, I wanted to give Barris a fair shot and read it through, hoping it would come together. It didn't. Barris was loveably grouchy in the original, but this time has turned up the negativity to 11. Further, this was less a spy/pop culture novel than a chance for him to rant and rave about how bad show business has become, how much of a bitch Penny was, and how much he hates having to attend Bar Mitzvah training. All of the spy stuff was rudimentary, by the numbers, and far from riveting. Furthermore, when we get a "villain" of sorts in Elke Metz, it's so anticlimactic I wanted to scream. He's told in the last few pages about her life story, and then, as some little addendum, "Oh, by the way, she died in a car crash."
To add insult, this is a professional copy for the Kindle, yet has zero editing. Words are misspelled, "its" and "it's" are used interchangeably, there are grammatical issues abound, and I do believe there are more chapters and "Parts" than actual pages. How could this be a major ebook release, in this condition? I was thoroughly disappointed, with every aspect of this novel.
A real shame, considering Barris is in the twilight of his life and releases this as his final "memoir," so to speak.
With those three things said, I truly despised this "novel." Barris pretty much lets us know right away in "Bad Grass Never Dies" that the first novel had been made into a movie. Once he lets us know that the movie exists in the same world as this sequel, it becomes painfully obvious that this was just a quick cash-in for him. Whether he was really a CIA hitman is irrelevant. What IS relevant is that this book did not have any of the wit, the originality, the over-the-top greatness that existed in the first go-round.
This book is so disjointed, so sloppily written, so monumentally poor in the editing department that several times I considered just putting it down. But no, I wanted to give Barris a fair shot and read it through, hoping it would come together. It didn't. Barris was loveably grouchy in the original, but this time has turned up the negativity to 11. Further, this was less a spy/pop culture novel than a chance for him to rant and rave about how bad show business has become, how much of a bitch Penny was, and how much he hates having to attend Bar Mitzvah training. All of the spy stuff was rudimentary, by the numbers, and far from riveting. Furthermore, when we get a "villain" of sorts in Elke Metz, it's so anticlimactic I wanted to scream. He's told in the last few pages about her life story, and then, as some little addendum, "Oh, by the way, she died in a car crash."
To add insult, this is a professional copy for the Kindle, yet has zero editing. Words are misspelled, "its" and "it's" are used interchangeably, there are grammatical issues abound, and I do believe there are more chapters and "Parts" than actual pages. How could this be a major ebook release, in this condition? I was thoroughly disappointed, with every aspect of this novel.
A real shame, considering Barris is in the twilight of his life and releases this as his final "memoir," so to speak.
July 30, 2019
It's actually really good and I read it in two days. So why only three stars? Because it is such a pulpy book of indulgence - both for the reader but mostly for the author.
There is no doubt he's clever. The mix of autobiography with bland spy fantasy rolls by quickly and with loads of personalty.
Mostly, it's funny. And a way of exercising some of his demons. I may upgrade the star rating but then it appears that everything I've ever read is four or five stars.
There is no doubt he's clever. The mix of autobiography with bland spy fantasy rolls by quickly and with loads of personalty.
Mostly, it's funny. And a way of exercising some of his demons. I may upgrade the star rating but then it appears that everything I've ever read is four or five stars.
March 5, 2018
If you liked “Confessions”, you’ll like this book!
I will say this: I thought it was great - until the last 60 paged. Then it all felt kinda rushed. But still, a good book.
I will say this: I thought it was great - until the last 60 paged. Then it all felt kinda rushed. But still, a good book.
June 3, 2024
Could not even finish 2 chapters in the book. Sloppy writing. Just horrible.
April 6, 2025
Very entertaining read. Still not sure if I buy Chuck Barris being a CIA Agent. Barris writes about his very interesting life. A good mix of comedy and mystery as he tells his story.
April 29, 2008
I did not read the first book. Chuck Barris likes to talk about Chuck Barris. I could only stand to read the first half. I was stuck in Montana and bought this at the only bookstore in town. Imagine...Chuck bragging about how crazy is is and how he would "wack" someone and roll their body up in a rug and toss it in the sea all for the CIA. Give me a break.
March 19, 2016
Inevitably, it lacks the shock value and novelty of its prequel, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. By the end of this, the pretense wears thinner and, if that is possible, less believable. But it is an entertaining read. There's actually more about his romantic relationships in this book than about killing people.
March 4, 2011
Very entertaining, Chuck Barris's attention to detail, and comical nature leads to a fun book with danger around every corner. I would highly recommend this to anybody who has a unconventional sense of humor with some good action.
October 4, 2007
a good sequel but don't believe everything you read. this book really makes you think the guy is full of buffalo chips.
November 25, 2007
Chuck Barris is nuts.
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September 10, 2010If you'd like to know what I thought of this book, please contact me directly and I'd be happy to discuss it with you.
All the best,
- TB
All the best,
- TB
August 5, 2010
No where near as good as the first.
May 2, 2013
Barris' Confessions of a Dangerous mind is amazing. This sequel was good, not great.
March 1, 2012
Not as good as "A Dangerous Mind" but still a worthwhile read. Barris has proven to be a pretty good writer.
May 5, 2014
Rambling, slow, and needlessly personal. 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' was much, much better. I can't say for certain I'll read any more of his books. Still, not the worst book in print.
November 14, 2015
an entertaining tall tale, just as in-credile as the last one!
September 10, 2015
More of the same. If you liked Confessions, you'll like this. Found myself wanting to just finish it, though. Sort of just rambles. Absolutely the worst title ever!
July 25, 2008
Nowhere near as good as "confessions", but you still gotta love chuckie...
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews