“Name-droppings: Close Encounters with the Famous and Near-Famous” is out!
I’m happy to announce that my newest book is now available, both as a soft-cover (list: $11.99) and an e-book ($2.99), directly from the publisher, Abbott Press-www.abbottpress.com, or Amazon-www.amazon.com. It’s a short read (128 pages), and I hope you will spend an evening or two reading it and enjoying it. You’ll find it a departure from my first book, Prague: My Long Journey Home. The famous and near-famous whose names I drop in the book are (in alphabetical order):
Bill Clinton (and Monica Lewinsky)
Michael Dingman
Larry Doby
Clint Eastwood
Andy Enfield
Jay Geils (and Jack Geils)
Henry Iba
Don Klosterman
Viktor Kožený
Helen O’Connell
Carroll Rosenbloom
Wernher Von Braun
Earl Weaver
Philip Van Horn Weems
Dr. Ruth Westheimer
The following is Abbott Press’ “teaser” about the book:
Captured in this short, yet unique, memoir are Charles Ota Heller’s myriad encounters with celebrities from various walks of life—business, politics, sports, entertainment, science. How did Clint Eastwood spend his Thursday evenings? What caused one of America’s greatest basketball coaches to scream the “n-word” at the author? How did Heller become an early witness to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair? Why did jazz singer Helen O’Connell proposition the young, innocent Charlie Heller? What led the author to insult the leader of America’s space program? How did Heller and a TV star/sex therapist develop immediate rapport? How did the author and the leader of the J. Geils Band become friends? These are some of the interesting vignettes told by Charles Ota Heller, a former CEO entrepreneur, educator, venture capitalist, athlete, and engineer who came to America as an immigrant from Czechoslovakia at the age of thirteen and who now looks back at a life of chasing the proverbial American Dream and the famous and near-famous he met along the way.