Countdown to The Balding Handbook

Eckhartz Press is currently taking pre-orders for our next book, "The Balding Handbook" by David Stern. (And by the way, the orders have been coming in fast and furious). We'll be getting them from the printer on November 16th, and they'll be out in the mail the week of November 19th.

In the meantime, we'll bring you highlights, blurbs, and reasons to buy it.

In Stage Four Depression, Stern shares some soothing words of comfort from some of the greatest poets of all-time. Turns out that many of them were also balding, including the immortal e.e. cummings.

This is an excerpt from Chapter 17...

E.E. Cummings (1894-1962)

Famous balding poet E.E. Cummings was one of the most popular American poets of the 20th century. He was known for his bold approach; shunning rules and conventions. Cummings wasn’t bothered with rhymes, punctuation, syntax, or baldness. He was a poetic rebel and an intellectual giant.

My baldology colleague Michael Medina has been a Cummings-head for many years, and claims to have uncovered this previously unpublished Cummings poem. Yes, it was hand written, and yes, a few handwriting experts have confirmed that the handwriting was an exact match with Medina’s own handwriting, but whether or not this is the really work of Cummings himself or just a Cummings-head, it’s truly comforting. It’s entitled “Follicles”…

follicles needy, my petulant child, gimme gimme gimme,
gimme nutritents, gimme soap, gimme nutrients, gimme soap, gimme life then give me freedom
take your freedom, take it down the drain, tangle yourself there
a plumber charges seventy five dollars an hour, liquid plumber is cheap,
and I pour it on you, eating you up, sending you down in the sewer,
now you tangle on rats as you swim to the sea and you tangle on dung and you reek,
you have freedom, enjoy your new life, my bald head doesn’t miss you, my petulant child,
no more gimme, no more gimme, no more gimme.
I breathe now.
You rot in the sewer.

Pre-order your copy of "The Balding Handbook" today!

Meet Randy Richardson

It's local author night at the Book Cellar in Chicago (right next door to the Brauhaus in Lincoln Square), and one of the featured authors this month is Eckhartz Press' very own Randy Richardson ("Cheeseland").

The other authors scheduled to be there include Bree Housley (We Hope You Like This Song: An Overly Honest Story about Friendship, Death, and Mix Tapes), and Samantha Hoffman (What More Could You Wish For).

Come on out and support your local Chicago authors!

Countdown to The Balding Handbook

Eckhartz Press is currently taking pre-orders for our next book, "The Balding Handbook" by David Stern. (And by the way, the orders have been coming in fast and furious). We'll be getting them from the printer on November 16th, and they'll be out in the mail the week of November 19th.

In the meantime, we'll bring you highlights, blurbs, and reasons to buy it.

In Stage Three Bargaining, Stern helps the balding man prepare his inevitable offer to God. (If you give me my hair back, I'll...). There are gift suggestions that you'll simply not find anywhere else. There's even some sales training to help you if you somehow get direct access to the client.

For instance, the following is an excerpt from Chapter 13...

What If He Answers Me?

Good news, bad news. The good news is that He does grant face-to-face sales appointments on occasion. The bad news is that you’ve probably just been involved in some sort of fiery car crash.

This is the ultimate go-time. Have your closing argument on the tip of your (potentially severed and bleeding) tongue. It’s your only chance. Here are a few tried and true sales approaches that might work for you.

The Porcupine Close is a technique that uses leading questions to get desired results. For instance, if the Lord asks: “Have you accepted me as your personal savior?” You can respond with something like “Would you like my bushy new full head of hair and me to accept you as my personal savior?”

Mirroring could work too. That’s a technique that counts on mirroring speech and mannerisms of your potential client in an effort to build a rapport. It’s going to be tough to prepare because He hasn’t really spoken to anyone we know of for a while, but last we heard, He was doing the whole burning bush thing. A few prepared quips like “And I thought Boca was hot, you know what I’m saying?” could work wonders.

Bringing Up the Competition is another possibility. We live in competitive times, and the Almighty may not be immune to market forces himself. If it starts sounding like your request is about to be denied and all hope is lost, you may want to bring up the competition. For instance…

God: I appreciate your time on Earth and all, but we’re really looking at going in a different direction.

You: Satan said you’d say that.

God: You’ve called on Satan?

You: Oh yeah. He said that hair re-growth was definitely an option, and that I should go with him, because you couldn’t do it.

God: He said I couldn’t do it?

You: He also thinks you can’t restart my heart and make me avoid that fiery car crash.

God: Satan is a hack. Watch this.

The Balding Handbook is available for pre-order now!

Countdown to "The Balding Handbook"

Eckhartz Press is currently taking pre-orders for our next book, "The Balding Handbook" by David Stern. (And by the way, the orders have been coming in fast and furious). We'll be getting them in on November 16th, and they'll be out in the mail shortly thereafter.

In the meantime, we'll bring you highlights, blurbs, and reasons to buy it.

The balding reader will probably most enjoy the second stage of grieving: Anger and Rage. In that section Stern provides healthy, fun and cathartic exercises for the angry balding man, while still helping him stay out of jail.

For instance, who or what is it OK to hate? The following is an excerpt from Chapter 8...

Hating the Generic

During Stage Two Anger and Rage, you might want to avoid hating specific people entirely. There are plenty of generic classifications of Fullheads that are easy to hate instead.

For instance; Anchormen. As a group, it’s hard to top anchormen. Television news directors obviously scour the country looking for genetic freaks that still have fabulous heads of hair well into distinguished old age. The list is endless. On a national level, over the years we’ve been treated to Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Peter Jennings, Scott Pelley, Brit Hume, Wolf Blitzer, Sean Hannity, Chris Matthews, Geraldo Rivera, etc. Local television news anchors are also hair freaks. Just hate them all, and you can’t go wrong.

Movie casting directors are another safe target. Why? Because the evil villains in movies are disproportionately bald. The James Bond series was particularly inflammatory in its portrayal of bald men. No less than three of its evil villains were bald. “Austin Powers” went so far as to call its bald villain, “Dr. Evil.” This is not a new trend. Since the beginning of the movie era, the bald character was more likely to be the murderer, the psychopath, and/or the bad guy. Was it really necessary to cast a balding man as Mr. Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life"? Surely Bela Lugosi was available.

The Broadway musical “Hair” is another great thing to hate, for obvious reasons, but instead of hating the specific people that perform in it, or the jerk who wrote it, if you hate it generically, you can’t get into trouble. It still plays all over the country, so there will be lots of opportunities to have it boil your blood. Just leave Treat Williams (one of the original stars) alone. He has suffered enough in his career. If you reserved a weekend to watch all of Treat’s award winning acting performances, you would still have time left over to clean the garage, run a marathon, cure cancer, write a novel, translate War & Peace into Gaelic, do a 34,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and balance the United States budget.

It’s also OK to hate children. Instead of lashing out at specific kids like the one in the elevator that says to her mommy “What happened to that man’s hair?”, if you hate all children equally you won’t feel the need to lash out specifically. Your own children may have a few rough years, but remember that Anger and rage won’t last forever, and think how much emotionally tougher they’ll be if they have to work a little harder to receive Daddy’s love.

High school reunions are another easy target of generic hate. There are really only two things that former classmates discuss at those horrible events; the girls that got fat, and the guys that went bald. Just so you know, the girls that got fat usually don’t attend. That leaves one target, and you look at him every day in the mirror. For the love of God, don’t ever attend one (unless your school mascot was the “Skin Heads” or "The Fighting Emus"--then school spirit may compel you), but feel free to generically hate them anyway.

And by all means, hate the hair care industry. These faceless generic people think nothing of charging $20 for a thirty-second haircut. They intentionally sell some of the ridiculous hair care remedies we mentioned in Stage One. But worst of all, they treat us as if they haven’t even noticed we aren’t Fullheads. Ordering workers to make small talk about mundane matters while pretending to cut non-existent hair is contemptible, and certainly worthy of your generic Stage Two hate.

The Balding Handbook is available for pre-order now!

Some Love from Shore Magazine

An excerpt from Pat Colander's Everyday Living blog at Shore Magazine...







Catching up with Shore Columnist, Renaissance Man and World's Best Dad Rick Kaempfer: I'm beginning to lose track but I believe when the The Balding Handbook starts shipping next week (November 16th) it will be the fourth book for his Eckhartz Press, which Rick launched about a year ago. The first was a novel Rick wrote with Brendan Sullivan called “The Living Wills,” a comic morality tale about a bowling team I thoroughly enjoyed. (Can't wait for the movie!) This season, The Balding Handbook by David Stern is going to be a hit for creative gift-givers who are victims—or members of the family of victims---of involuntary hair loss. Stern describes the five-stage grieving process including denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. On the cover, the author is shown working through Stage 4. At the end of the process, Rick says, the fully actualized bald man can emerge whole into the light. “Of course, you'll need sunscreen when you get there, but the few extra bucks you shell out to the Tropicana people is a trifle when you consider the incredible life that awaits you after reading this book. Whether you're a fellow sufferer or just a mean person that wants to give this book as a gag gift to that baldy you know (Tee hee, Get it? You're bald.) The Balding Handbook is for you.”

Next up for Eckhartz? The long-awaited story of John Records Landecker, Records Truly is My Middle Name will be published as part of John's 66th birthday celebration in March. With Rick's help---not to mention his other famous friends and colleagues including Bob Sirott, Jonathon Brandmeier, John Gehron, Joey Reynolds, Jan Jeffries, Catherine Johns, Eric Ferguson, Bill Zehme, Kevin Matthews and Don Wade---John has managed to tap into his inner playlist and remember an astonishing amount of what actually happened during the past 40 years. You heard that number correctly Boogie Checkers. John Landecker first conquered nighttime radio in Chicago, oh, I don't know, probably some time in the 1970s or 80s. I mean who cares, right? But Landecker is still going strong in the same time slot from 630 – 11 pm weekdays on Cumulus Media classic hits WLS-FM (94.7) Keep your eye on this blog for more information on this upcoming bestseller. Who knows you could be in it?

John Records Landecker

The mystery radio memoir we've been teasing on our website has been revealed by Robert Feder at TimeOut Chicago. Here is what he wrote...

Next March 28th will be a red-letter day for fans of John Records Landecker. It will mark not only the Chicago radio legend’s 66th birthday but the publication of his new memoir, Records Truly Is My Middle Name. Written by Landecker with longtime producer Rick Kaempfer, it’ll be published by Kaempfer’s Eckhartz Press. “I worked with the guy every single day for 10 years, and never heard some of these stories he tells in this book,” Kaempfer says. Among colleagues and pals who contributed additional stories about the great man are Bob Sirott, Jonathon Brandmeier, John Gehron, Joey Reynolds, Jan Jeffries, Catherine Johns, Eric Ferguson, Bill Zehme, Kevin Matthews and Don Wade. Forty years after he first conquered nighttime radio in Chicago, Landecker is still going strong — from 6:30 to 11pm weekdays on Cumulus Media classic hits WLS-FM (94.7).

We'll have more details in this space in the weeks and months to come.

Countdown to The Balding Handbook

We're currently taking pre-orders for our next book, "The Balding Handbook" by David Stern. It ships on November 16th.

In the meantime, we'll bring you highlights, blurbs, and reasons to buy it.

In the first stage of grieving (Denial), a balding man will go to miraculous lengths to restore his hair. In Chapter 3, David debunks each and every one of them.

However, Stern also notes the 5 methods that have proven to work...


#1: Get bitten by a werewolf.
#2: Wear the enchanted skin of a dead wolf or werewolf.
#3: Drink water from a wolf's footprint.
#4: Eat a wolf's brain (a little cayenne pepper really brings out the flavor).
#5: Have sex with a werewolf and survive.

The Balding Handbook is available for pre-order today!