The Entrepreneur: Also includes The Truth About Peking Duck

Rick Casteel
CreateSpace (2010)
ISBN 9781453818220
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (12/10)

 

It seems to me that we all know that one person who always has a plan to make it big by doing something unusual. For me it was a guy that was going to get rich by retarring driveways; in a city full of concrete parking spots.  In the twenty years that I have known him he has had a few other zany plans, but for now he makes a great stay-at-home dad. 

In “The Entrepreneur,” the narrator of the story takes his crazy ideas to a higher level.  Seeing how popular that tattoos have become, he decides to do something bigger and different by tattooing internal organs.  To make the business grow even faster, he promotes the urban legend of the organ thefts, and offers tattoos that contain personal information, just in case it does happen.  This leads to a huge increase in kidney tattooing.
           
His business is booming, until he gets a threatening phone call to stop doing what he is doing.  Most likely it is from an organ thief.  This incident causes him to lose his tattoo artist, forcing him out of business.  Moving on to his next idea, he finds a used WWII Japanese submarine at a great price.  So he buys it and decides to offer dinner cruises in the San Francisco Bay.  Having personally experienced a dinner cruise in the harbor, I can see where this would be a great idea.  He is elated to find a captain who can maintain and man the sub.  He becomes a little deflated when he discovers that the propeller is missing. Thank God for Costco. 
           
Once the sub is assumed to be seaworthy, he is able to hire on a sushi chef, a Dixieland band, and an aging stripper.  Once again business is booming. Unfortunately, the sub isn’t quite as seaworthy as he hopes.  Apparently, whales find antique Japanese subs to be quite attractive, especially if they have the right kind of music on board.  Once again, due to unforeseen circumstances, his business hits a huge snag - to the point that the sub is destroyed, the harbor seals are angry, the Coast Guard is extremely unhappy and Governor Jerry Brown needs to make him go away.  Note, that he wasn’t yet governor again, so the author shouldn’t be accused of ruining his political career.

Once again, the narrator is out of business and now has to leave the state.  Good things still came from this; love bloomed twice for his former employees.  He also finds a woman that is willing to travel with him to New Mexico to take on his next venture of having a pancake house that caters to aliens.  Once again he finds success, and another huge surprise.

“The Entrepreneur,” is a funny, quirky, laugh-out-loud kind of book. I totally enjoyed reading it.  It allowed me to step outside my mundane world and see life through the eyes of someone who looks at life differently, and refuses to let anything stop him from following through on his plans.  Thank God we don’t have more people like that!

I highly recommend “The Entrepreneur.”  It would also make a great gift for others, especially people who need something to laugh about.

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