Fucking Day: Captured by Love

People find love in all kinds of places. Like The Vietnam War, and others. Let's focus on that first one.

Captured By Love (2023) is exactly what it says it is– a collection of love stories from twenty Vietnamese prison camp survivors. "Am I on the right website? That sounds sort of triumphant and wonderful," you might be saying. You're right! It is! These American heroes went through hell and came home to blissful, decades-spanning marriages. It's magical! We're here today talking about it because of that text in the corner.

No, not "Foreword by Gary Sinise." If you're a military author writing about the military, try not having star of Forrest Gump, Gary Sinise, write your foreword. Gary Sinise supports the troops. If you look in the back seat on the drive home from boot camp, Gary Sinise is there to thank you for your service. If you're turning five years old and the theme of your birthday is "Army," Gary Sinise and his band jump out of your cake. When deployed troops return home, every family member at the arrival terminal tears off their face to reveal Gary Sinise. No, I'm talking about the text in the other corner.

There it is. "Love Expert" Gregory J.P. Fucking Godek. How is this man still on anybody's media call list? He wrote 1,001 Ways to Be Romantic thirty-three years ago, and I have argued many times how useless that book was. Greg writes like the final thoughts of a boy who died trying to unhook a bra at Christian summer camp. His books are identical to what you hear after the words, "This ain't my department, I work in plumbing, but sure, I can help you pick out a gift for you wife." The point is, Greg Godek knows one very specific way to be romantic for one very specific woman who loves pizza, puns, and puns. Calling him to co-author any book is a stupid idea. For this book? Fucking madness, as you will see.

One great thing about having Greg on board is that the albatross of his unappealing lack of talent gave me a collectible treasure.

Thanks for the autograph, Gregory. Big fan.

I bought Captured by Love six months after its retail release at a GoodWill, and my copy was signed by both authors. This doesn't say good things about the book's success. To put it in film industry terms, this is like going to see Peter Five Eight and finding an empty theater except for Kevin Spacey offering free back rubs.

But whether anyone bought it or not, Captured by Love was not another sad Gregory Godek scheme. As a reminder, Greg tried to cash in on 9/Goddamn/11. For real, in 2001, while the smoke of the Twin Towers was still rising, he published 1001 Ways to Celebrate America, which was just 700 random American things he remembered during his patriotic grief. But this, Captured by Love, is a real book. It was a project. To start, the publisher tracked down every military author still living, and dozens of them wrote glowing, heartfelt endorsements.

This gushing goes on for so many pages:

There are a couple of Gregory's civilian friends in there too to say things like, "I haven't read it yet, but I owe Greg a favor for buying 100 copies of my book for his wife. I don't know, it had the word tulips in the title and he said something about wanting her to always have his "two lips" near. He's a weird guy. And speaking of weird, Vietnam prison camp romance? You're not really going to use this, right?"

After hearing from the 70 authors too wordy to make the book jacket's pull quotes, we finally get to the first introduction by the main author, Lee Ellis, Colonel USAF (Ret).

This is a beautiful way to open the first paragraph of your book.

You know what? It's a beautiful way to end the first paragraph of your book too. You spent 7 years in a jungle cage, you can reword your book's thesis as many times as you want, Colonel. In fact, with all due respect, I might have to skip some of the front matter. Let's jump past the preface and the dedications…

… I think we covered this…

… ah, here's what I was looking for: Preface, Part 2 by coauthor Greg Godek. Here's where we'll hopefully learn what the fucking shit Godek is doing here. Like all civilians near military officers, he opens the conversation with how someone in his family was also in the service, but then it gets very Greg. "When I tried writing, alas, my dad thought I was positively crazy with my letters and spacebars! But his soft boy became a strong boy when the dumbest idea anyone ever had went viral in 1991, still available in stores! In the eyes of my disappointed father, I'm a kind of POW survivor."

Greg continues…

One of 17 books he's written!? Let's be fucking clear: Greg Godek sort of wrote one book. After 1001 Ways to be Romantic, he wrote a much less coherent sequel which was the exact same book with "More" in the title. He's a man who remembers a Dolly Parton song and thinks, "That's one tenth of a percent of a book right there!" His other "books" are rearranged clips from the first "book," and several of those were adapted into coupon. One of them is a clumsy mock textbook for square married couples in an imaginary love course, and I already mentioned the one exploiting the tragedy of 9/11. And despite it being a "celebration of America," I notice he isn't telling Colonel Ellis' readers about that one.

So anyway, this opportunistic hack is not here for his Vietnam expertise. He's here for his love tips and principles (his italics, not mine). I'll let him explain:

I've never seen Godek write well, but he is flailing here. He's trying to come up with credentials to co-author a Vietnam War romance book and the first thing he says is, "I watched a lot of news coverage of the war." I can see blurting that out in an awkward conversation with your dad's friend, but this is a book. You could have backspaced that, Greg! It's okay if you didn't sneak out of middle school to go to Vietnam, Greg! And what is that story of him getting a draft number and not caring? It's like he's trying to steal draft dodger valor. I guess my point is, it seems difficult to be less qualified than Greg to coauthor a book like this, and if he was "a writer" he should have been able to explain that more efficiently.

Okay, let's at least briefly talk about the book itself. Captured by Love is quite a thing. These couples have stories refined by decades of retelling that swing dramatically between the cruelty of man and the power of devotion. These people speak with a sincerity that will be extinct soon, and it could have been something special if it hadn't touched Greg Godek's desk. Let me show you what I mean with a random clip.

This is the basic setup for most of the stories. We hear about the frustration of a wife or girlfriend at home doing everything she can to get information or arrange care packages. And then it cuts to Vietnam where the prisoner is doing some awesome shit like plotting an escape or inventing secret codes. It's the best. If a couple is telling you about how they met and the story starts with, "I was tapping escape plans to the rest of the POW camp," you hit the conversation jackpot.

Look at this chart. Col. Ellis knew I was curious, so he stopped the story to explain the Tap Code. Fantastic. A welcome and informative digression. Now let's see the kind of thing Godek offers:

This national hero spent 2,106 days in a North Vietnam prison camp. And here, in the middle of the horrifying story of the Hell he endured, Godek jumps in to interject, "Golly gee, I know you think fairy tales are real, but they're not! Except this one is close, giggle!"

This stupid piece of shit chose this extremely sensitive moment to say the only things he ever says: something obvious, and something about his 17 books, which are again, about 1/3rd of a book smeared across far too much paper.

He does this the whole book!

Here, the first American POW to be held in North Vietnam talks about one of the proudest moments of his life where he was honored by the President and Godek interrupts to say, "I read this guy's book and he wrote the cutest caption! But wait there's more! He wrote another cute caption! Don't you see? It's this type of romance that helps make romance work! See you in the middle of the next stirring story! -G"

Super helpful, Greg. This is like a man interrupting your meal to say, "You know, many various people from all walks of life also enjoy pizza." I don't know why I'm using the word "like." Greg is that exact man. That pizza fact is at least eight of the entries in 1001 More Ways to be Romantic. But these little coauthor notes are only annoying. Let me show you the main way Godek truly fucks this book up.

Greg Godek, relationship expert, has decided the best way to tell these triumphant stories of survival and true love is to turn them into a fucking coursebook. So each one ends not in quiet reflection on their inspirational story, but with a Chapter Review. Readers, do you recall what the Major did to turn his lust for vengeance against the Viet Cong into his lust for the perfect anniversary gift?

This is grotesque, insane, and ludicrously unnecessary. A third grader with below average reading comprehension is getting more out of these stories than Godek and here he is deciding what wisdom we should take from a veteran saying, "I attribute my marriage's success to trust and perseverance." Oh, nyuUurRh, were the keys trust and perseverance, Godek?

Here's the bigger problem. There are 20 love stories in this book and Godek sums up each of them with three lessons. That's sixty romance lessons! Now listen: between 1001 Ways to Be Romantic, 1001 More Ways to Be Romantic, 10,000 Ways to Say I Love You, and 365 Ways to Be Romantic alone, I've read 12,367 of Godek's romance tips. And judging by the errors and repetition, I'm the only person to ever do this, including his editors. And so it is I alone who can say with certainty: this stupid son of a bitch doesn't know 60 things about romance. Which means a lot of these stories end with the same lessons.

Reader, your heart is soaring from another inspiring love story! How would you like to read a rambling, generic description of HUMOR again? And you probably missed how important faith was to this couple who often mentioned their faith and how important it was to them. If so, let's go over faith and how important it can be.

This is infantile. This is the textbook you'd give a horse who, just this morning, switched bodies with a husband. And I'd insist this should not be a textbook at all. It was nuts to tell these stories like this, and it was probably their last shot to be told. These couples are in their eighties, and I don't think we're going to see a bunch more entries in the "Vietnam POW camp love biography" genre before they die. They survived plane crashes, years of sadistic imprisonment, and fifty years of marriage only to get immortalized in a Godek lecture -to no one- on the importance of HUMOR. Fuck. Fuck.

Now, I know what you've been wondering since the very first moment you saw this book's title: what's the deal with the torture? Well, it's not great! Maybe this is part of Godek's textbook influence, but every few love stories there is a bonus section on the horrors of war– hundreds of words detailing how muscles are ripped from bones and indescribable pain replaces all you know. So if you were wondering if actual descriptions of torture are better than Godek's love advice, now we know. Yep!

This is both unthinkable and the exact page I was expecting to find when I opened the book.

Another question I immediately had when I saw Captured by Love was if any of these stories involved POW escapes. Can you imagine Rambo: First Blood Part 2 only it ends with fifty years of fucking? That's the ideal story! And… we didn't get that!

Two prisoners escaped from Hanoi in 1969, got caught less than two days later, and the North Vietnamese response was three different war crimes. And if you were hoping for some good news when you read the word "MIRACLE" in the title, the "miracle" was that Ho Chi Minh died of a heart attack later that year. [Greg's coauthor note:] "My disappointed father told me about this in 8th grade, and it teaches us valuable lessons of love. Before I was an official so-called relationship expert, I brought my girlfriend a bag of 'Ho Chi Minh-estrone' because she liked soup."

Not all of the weirdness is Greg's fault. For instance, here is where the Colonel stopped documenting love stories to explain how POW camps were a racism free zone. That's good news, but it's also a strange thing to bring up. It's like saying, "I knew the second I saw her I'd make her my wife. On our first date I took her to an Italian restaurant and even though a man with a turban appeared, I treated him like any other cab driver."

As a civilian and soft indoor boy, Godek didn't have anything to add about the colorblind bond between brothers in arms. However, here's a great example of how Colonel Ellis and Greg Godek tackle the same subject.

When Godek talks about comedy, he says things like "Humor is a relationship lubricant and can be used for various purposes such as uses." When Colonel Ellis talks about comedy he's all, "Ha ha ha one night we made Charlie watch a fucking drag show about this ugly girl Smitty Harris used to bang ha ha ha!" Truly the two were destined to write a book together.

I mentioned earlier how well put together this book was. It's the kind of professionalism you don't normally see from Godek. For instance, it has an index! This is unusual because an index in a Godek book would just be the exact same book again with 4% less punctuation. So out of curiosity, let's take a look at it.

Thanks, "abuse," but I didn't need the reminder. Torture was already the first thing I was going to look up.

See, this is something you don't normally see in a relationship book. Thirty-five references to torture! Now let's see how important this 80-year-old Christian veteran author and this 68-year-old Christian square coauthor thought "sex" was to a successful marriage…

… zero!? That seems low. They must call it something else. What's the boomer Christian word for porking? Because it's not "porking."

Okay, this must be it. Under the header of "love" are two references under the subheader "making love." The first is a major who joked about how he and his wife were glad they remembered how to do it, cute, and the other is a midshipman who said he and his girl "used to make out till our jaws hurt!" But tha— hmm… it's possible, maybe likely, there is no mention of sex in this book at all. Hold on, let me look up pizza, heart-shaped… 17,983 references!? Ah, humor. It bonds us in good times.

So that's it for this volatile mashup of nonsense, romance, and darkness. All that's left is the acknowledgements. See if you can guess which of the coauthors wrote this one:

You were close! This one was Godek!

After Colonel Ellis spent five pages thanking all the couples he interviewed, all the researchers and veteran organizations who helped him, all the servicemen and women who gave their lives for our freedom, Godek comes in and thanks, geez, I don't know, his circle of high school friends? And his elementary school girlfriends by initial? What is going on here? This is a book for elderly fans of romance and war and this clown is signing off with, "Big hugs to the Pussy High Junior Balloon Club! Soar on wings of helium, Connie and Betsy! Those 10th graders won't know what hit them next year!"

Godek then goes on to thank an RV manufacturer, not for a settlement after one of their doors pinched off his balls, but to set up a shameless brag he's already made twelve times this very book. It's like saying, "Thank you to me for all my success, and to Jamaica Randy's Dick Shrinking Cream for helping me lead a somewhat normal life. And thanks to Lee Jeans for nothing, as my penis is still far too large for their product. Stay cool and cute this summer, Lee Jeans."

Alright! That's Captured by Lo– oh for Go–, there's another About section!?

Wait a second. Godek has only had nine relationships, and at least one of them took place in kindergarten? Do you know what a normal person does when they've had nine girlfriends across their entire life and feels the need to write a romance guide? Fuck 41 more people and only then start a first draft.

The other author of this book flew 53 combat missions over North Vietnam and has two Silver Stars at the top of an extremely prestigious list of accomplishments. And then here comes Godek listing his qualifications as, "Held seven hands, twelve if you count lefts! Jay Leno once ridiculed me, and he kind of has a point!"

Fuck it, let's let him finish.

Hold on. He claims he "retired from the romance biz at the turn of the millennium?" He was releasing his dumbass lists and coupon books until 2010. His attempt at social media was nothing more than a confused grandpa shrug, but he made one…

… and that's not to mention the time he invented a sexy young co-author, "Anastasia Winters" to help him write a romance novel. "Retired from romance biz." Psh. Fucking nonsense. He's been kicking and screaming to stay in the romance biz since his first and unexplainable success. He said in the same paragraph that he's currently working on 1001 Ways to be Romantic: The Baby Boomer Editio– wait, what? He's exhuming the corpse of his only idea again? How have I not heard about this? Let me search it up real quick.

Oh. The only match on Google is the afterword of this book. I know he's not a marketing genius, but did Godek casually announce his next book only here in the fine print of Captured by Love and nowhere else? This idea, a "boomer version" of his 1991 collection of tidbits, must have occurred to him at this moment, while he daydreaming about this book's success. Unfortunately, this book is 241,461st on the Barnes & Noble bestsellers list and the original 1001 Ways to be Romantic was the boomer version. At best. Most of its target audience was already dead before its first reprint, so in conclusion, humor is useful for relationships and miscellaneous comedy.

Seanbaby is a comedy humorist and love guru guru who has written 8 articles about Gregory Godek. Nine girlfriends from each first name and 15 years later, Seanbaby still finds Godek fascinating. The beloved Internet personality would like to give humble thanks to The Noble Society for Handsomeness and Jamaica Randy's Dick Shrinking Cream.

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