Kirjahaku

Discover the harrowing journey of survival and resilience in "Call Me Chris: A Tale of Healing, Recovery, Selfishness and Resolve" by Chris Akin. This book delves into the depths of human endurance, exploring the question: What is the most painful way to die? Chris Akin, who survived a catastrophic industrial accident in 1994 where he was burned over 69% of his body, provides a firsthand account of what it truly means to face the horrors of severe burns. Akin, once an ordinary man with roles spanning from business owner to soldier to shock jock, and finally a cremation technician, brings his extraordinary story to life. Despite being given no chance of survival, with medical professionals preparing his family for the worst, Chris defied all odds. Not only did he survive, but he also overcame predictions of amputation and lifelong disability, showcasing an incredible testament to human spirit and determination. In this gripping narrative, Chris does not hold back. He shares the raw, painful, and often embarrassing moments of his recovery, including the physical agony, the psychological torment, and the strain on personal relationships. "Call Me Chris" is not just a story about surviving burns but about transforming adversity into motivation, pushing beyond the boundaries of what was thought possible. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in burn survival stories, true stories of resilience, recovery from severe injuries, and overcoming workplace accidents. With its candid portrayal of the recovery process, the emotional and physical toll of burns, and the journey to reclaiming life, "Call Me Chris" will captivate readers looking for inspiration, or those curious about the realities of surviving one of the most painful experiences imaginable. CALL ME CHRIS is the third release from Chris Akin. Experience the story of a man who turned a near-death experience into a life of triumph. Order "Call Me Chris" today and see how one man's resolve can redefine what it means to live. For more information about Chris Akin and his books, visit him online at www.chrisakin.net. Burn Survival, Chris Akin, Recovery Stories, Severe Burns, Workplace Accident Recovery, Inspirational Survival Tales, Healing from Trauma, Overcoming Physical Challenges

LITTLE VICTORIES: A TALE OF DIVORCE, DEBAUCHERY AND FINDING HAPPINESS is the story of a shock jock's emotional struggles. It's a real world, raw emotional look at a year that saw not only a shattering divorce, but a rebirth of a person who had spent his whole life raging against everyone, everything and who purposely pushed every button to come off as the most powerful person in any room. It profiles the victories as well as the defeats; some of which are so sickening in emotional scope that they leave you questioning how his friends ever stuck around to see him through the tough times."Feel like your gonna die / But you don't / You think that the world will stop / But it won't / And it's the darndest thing I know / The sun comes up / It's another day / And your heart still beats / And you'll say, "Hey, I'm still breathing" / Take it from me / These little victories / Are all a heart needs"-Blue Sky Riders, "Little Victories"These words above are far more than simple song lyrics to author Chris Akin. They stand as the lyrical map to a time in his life when he needed every positive bit of motivation to make it from minute to minute, day to day and onward to a new way of living.People that know Chris Akin publicly are aware of him for being a no-nonsense type of person who seemingly has no sense of personal feelings other than anger and rage. As a respected hard rock and heavy metal critic in both print and online mediums, Chris has long been known for crucifying bands and releases for doing anything which he feels is substandard. On radio, Chris Akin has seemingly no remorse for anything he says or does. His willingness to attack has become not only notorious, but the signature element of his public life which has seen him gain great attention over the last 15 years.Like anyone else though, there's a personal side to Chris Akin - one that has rarely been exhibited publicly, and one that will almost certainly surprise people that have followed his career in the public forum.LITTLE VICTORIES: A TALE OF DIVORCE, DEBAUCHERY AND FINDING HAPPINESS is a real time outline of a time in this seemingly invincible person's life where all the bluster of his public persona is stripped away in the wake of the traumatic events that took over his life. Starting with his divorce from his wife of 23 years and combined with the death of his father who he had just rekindled a relationship with after a 12 year feud, LITTLE VICTORIES outlines the day to day struggles of an emotional transformation.In LITTLE VICTORIES, Chris Akin says: "A decision has been made. Georgetta has decided to divorce Chris Akin. You know what? I've decided to divorce Chris Akin too. I've decided that while the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, the road to Heaven is paved with struggle, hard work and commitment. As far as I'm concerned, the old Chris Akin has been packed away with the stuff Georgetta is taking with her out of my life. It's my hope it never gets unpacked."Outlining in startling detail the pain of divorce, the emotional wreckage of losing both a spouse and a father, showcasing how sinking into alcohol further complicated things, and finally detailing a startling emotional change that found Chris Akin happy for seemingly the first time in his life, LITTLE VICTORIES: A TALE OF DIVORCE, DEBAUCHERY AND FINDING HAPPINESS is a surprisingly honest statement of how low emotions can take someone, and how the choice to fight back can lead to a much better future if you're willing to do the work.

"The second you let yourself fall into a pattern is the second you become part of that pattern. I'm just not willing to do that." - Author Chris Akin, October 2019Chris Akin is a lot of things. He's an entrepreneur that has built and owns multiple businesses. He's a highly regarded hard rock/heavy metal comedic shock jock that has been featured on radio, television and documentaries for more than 20 years. He's a father of three. He's the most loyal and honest guy you'll ever meet. He's also a successful author. "When I'm asked what I do, I always say "author" first," Akin admits. "The businesses, the radio and the other stuff are all fun, but writing books that move people in various ways is just the thing I take the most pride in." His first 5 books have been well received for different reasons. His CAUSE & EFFECT series of heavy metal books have taken a personal-yet-industry-phobic look at albums that heavily changed the way fanbases looked at some of the biggest bands in the world. His books LITTLE VICTORIES and CALL ME CHRIS have been widely regarded as "self help" novels that have shown how he tackled two of the hardest situations he's had to endure - divorce and an industrial explosion that nearly killed him. Based on these books, Akin's latest book ...AND OTHER THINGS I SHOULD NOT SAY... is bound to send a shock to the system of people that are looking for more of the same type of writing. "If you are looking for more inspiration, I suggest you look past this one," Akin says with a chuckle. "Not everything I've ever done is all flowers and candy. There's not a lot of "self help" here. Just a need for some mental help "Unlike his past works, ...AND OTHER THINGS I SHOULD NOT SAY... is geared more toward the fans of his radio show than his previous books. While autobiographical, Akin has chosen to tell stories that (like with most people) should probably have stayed in the back of his memory as "crazy things" he did in his youth. "We've all did really stupid things when we were kids," the author admits. "I was just more wild and dangerous than most people. I packed a lot of crazy living into a very short period of time." ...AND OTHER THINGS I SHOULD NOT SAY... covers a small, defined period of Akin's life. The stories told in this book cover a small period of time between 1986 and 1990, when he had just graduated high school, joined the military and quickly found himself living in Korea as a member of the Armed Forces. As he admits, it was just a long party. "It was all sex, booze and partying," Akin recalls. "Yes, I was in the military and I played that game as much as I had to, but in the end, all I wanted to do was run around, party hard, drink myself into oblivion, and repeat." As you will see in ...AND OTHER THINGS I SHOULD NOT SAY..., Chris Akin did just that. While some of these stories are absolutely ridiculous, calloused and, well, crazy, Akin tells these stories in a way that will make you laugh if you aren't overly sensitive or looking to impose today's standards of conduct onto actions from 30+ years ago."I doubt I'll be making any new friends or fans with any of the overly sensitive, social justice douchebags of the world with this book," the author laughs. "That's not really the point. ...AND OTHER THINGS I SHOULD NOT SAY... is probably the most appropriate title for any of my books. Every story in this book, every word of it, are real events that happened. I'm not proud of all of them, but I wouldn't take any of them back either. We've all lived through stupid things we've done as people. Too many people live in fear of people finding out about their past. I don't and won't. Here is it. It's ugly. It's filthy. It's wrong. And it's mine. I fear nothing. These stories are things that society would instruct me not to tell. Because of that, both middle fingers are up and aimed firmly at society. I don't do anything else based on what anyone wants. This is no different."

Since 1974, Judas Priest has established themselves as one of the go to bands in the history of Heavy Metal. They have played to millions of fans, have sold 50 million albums over their career - a testament to their ability to stand the test of time and continually create music that wowed their fans time in and time out. There was one major exception though. In 1986, when the entire hard rock and heavy metal world was embracing "hair metal," Judas Priest embraced the trend as well. Very much like fellow heavy metal artist Ozzy Osbourne did with his THE ULTIMATE SIN release, Judas Priest adapted their look and their sound to meet the times. "The 80s was a magical decade," remembers TURBO guitarist KK Downing. "When we started writing in the middle of the 80s, there's such a "good feel" factor with everything, particularly in music. It seemed like all of us bands of rock and metal who struggled to make ourselves known and make ourselves accepted as a seriously great genre of music...I think in the mid-eighties we were there. We were kind of celebrating. It's a celebration."With the release of TURBO in 1966, Judas Priest fully engulfed themselves into the world of heavy metal that was being popularized more by MTV than by their hardcore music fans. The album immediately took backlash from their fans. It was not well received by hardcore fans that had flocked to the band on their previous two best selling albums, SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE and DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH. Instead, it was shunned by most for it's commercialized sound and relationship based lyrics. For a teenaged Chris Akin though, the album fit in perfectly with where he was at as a person. "I was a 17 year old kid when TURBO came out," the author remembers. "I was a big fan of hair metal anyway, so having a favorite like Judas Priest come along with an album that fit so perfectly next to Van Halen's 5150 or Ozzy's THE ULTIMATE SIN just rocked for me." Reflecting on that time and remembering how the album caused (and still causes) a rift in their fan base, Akin decided it was time to analyze the album for the 3rd installment of his CAUSE & EFFECT series. The new book, entitled CAUSE & EFFECT: TURBO, highlights many of the events that were going on within Judas Priest at the time, as well as many of Akin's own personal recollections from that period in his life in 1986. In the end, TURBO is an album that has never changed the minds of hardcore fans, but brought in a new group of fans that stayed with them through their most recent works today. When trying to define the album and where it fits in Judas Priest's history, KK Downing simplifies just where it sits. He explains, "Each album is an important part of me at that point in our particular lives and career."CAUSE & EFFECT: TURBO will be release on Friday, November 23rd via Amazon or Barnes and Noble. It will be released in paperback, Kindle and Audiobook. For more information or to pre-order, visit www.chrisakinbooks.com.

If you were in your mid 20s and a hard rock fan in 1994, then your world was probably in a lot of turmoil. The entire industry was fully entrenched in what was the biggest musical shift it had seen since The Beatles replaced Elvis atop the charts. The bands that had been selling multiple millions of albums each and every time they released anything only 2 years earlier were now considered old and uncool. There were millions of rock fans out there that bought flannel shirts, Nirvana and Soundgarden albums, and pretended they'd never bought any of the biggest albums from only a few years before. In 1994, if you said you were an LA Guns fan or a Dokken fan, you were an outcast that had been left behind.At the same time, the very biggest band of that era, Motley Crue was not only dealing with a shift in the musical landscape. They had also replaced their singer Vince Neil. They had just signed what was, at the time, the biggest recording contract in music history and then were going to try to drive forward with a new singer and new sound in this new musical time. It was a seemingly impossible task, but if anyone could do it, it was Motley Crue. Always rebellious, and for years the setter of trends instead of the follower of them, Motley Crue seemed like they could act as the bridge between what was and what used to be.Armed with new vocalist John Corabi and a sound that, from start to finish, sounded nothing at all like anything they had done previously, their self-titled release was pushed out to the masses in 1994.Image: John Corabi, Motley CrueImmediately, it was polarizing. Most of the fan base absolutely hated it. They didn't buy it, and further didn't support the band to the point where the label themselves made the decision to stop pushing money into it. This was further pushed by an incident with MTV that had the channel boycott the band as well. In one of the most epic falls in history, one of the top 3 biggest bands in the world was pushed to small venues and out of the spotlight.That said though, many fans felt completely different about MOTLEY CRUE. They loved it. Then and now, they felt it was the best, deepest and most heartfelt album the band had ever and would ever do. One such fan is author Chris Akin. A well know rock critic and the co-host of the often controversial CLASSIC METAL SHOW, Akin was a worshipper of this release in 1994. He still is. Now, for the first time, Chris Akin looks back at 1994 and the release of MOTLEY CRUE. He remembers what so many of the songs meant to him, as well as how they were perceived to the masses at the time.With CAUSE & EFFECT: MOTLEY CRUE, author Chris Akin remembers both his personal experiences as well as the perception of this polarizing release on the world. It's one of the biggest flops in music sales history, but is also one of the most brilliant releases...at least in one man's eyes. CAUSE & EFFECT: MOTLEY CRUE explains why. "Restless soul deep inside / Searches for some piece of mind / Livin' just to die / I'm an angry man I always have / Had to fight to survive my past / Sign of these times" - Motley Crue - "Misunderstood"