Posts Tagged ‘Literature’
The Wild Rumpus
For me, Maurice Sendak’s “Where The Wild Things Are” is mixed up with the wild rumpus of my parent’s divorce. I don’t remember when Sendak’s creatures first appeared in my life; his fifteen-page book was always present. I do remember wandering the wide, book-strewn aisles of the Oak Park Mall’s Kracht & Brentano’s with my…
Read MoreGateways To Science
My writing and photography has garnered a fair dose of newspaper column inches, a few magazine and website articles and, well, more than 3000 of my own blog posts, but not much by way of good, old-fashion, hard-cover books. In 2004, my pal Ron Lieber hooked me up with some expat pals of his, Mike…
Read MoreHit Hard
Such is my rock bio jones that, not only was I the only person in the office to grab a copy (an unproofed gally, natch) of Joey Kramer’s “Hit Hard” out of the mailroom, but surely the only to read the Aerosmith drummer’s tale of drug addiction and recovery in a measly 24 hours. Listen,…
Read MoreBill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock & Out
Even within the context of my well-chronicled rock bio addiction, this is an anomaly: 608 pages about neither a singer, guitarist nor even a bassist or drummer. Nope. Six hundred and eight pages about a rock ‘n roll promoter. That said, Bill Graham was no run of the mill rock ‘n roll promoter. Until his…
Read MoreMy Life Inside Rock (And Out)
For me, browsing the music section at the local book store is a little like an alcoholic ogling the top-shelf at the local tavern, or a sex addict wandering 4th Street in the Meatpacking District. I have an unnatural (though entirely understandable, I think) compulsion to consume rock bios, memoirs collections and compendiums. I’ve read…
Read MoreThe Dirty Life And Times Of Warren Zevon
I’m pretty sure I’m not a tortured artist, though I may be a masochist. Most readers flock to best sellers, pap like Joseph Hellerman, Dean Koontz, or Scott Turow. Nothing wrong with that; I enjoy a blockbuster page-turner like the guy in the next seat on the plane. My pap, though, is the rock bio.…
Read MoreBlack Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance
“Waking their latest triumph, ‘Penthouse,’ from its mordant and mellow foundation, Wareham and Sean Eden’s wall of swirling, simmering guitars blared a full-tilt, cosmic radio clamor.” That’s my review of Luna’s September 1995 Tramp’s performance. I especially like the phrase “cosmic radio clamor.” I wanted to be Lester Bangs so badly. That concert review was…
Read MoreBenjamin Braddock, Holden Caulfield & Me
There’s a great article in Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue on the making of one of my all-time favorite film’s, The Graduate. Of course, the film, released in 1967, somehow captured the zeitgeist of the late ’60s, especially the generation gap between parents weened on Eisenhower-era prosperity and optimism, and their increasingly disillusioned kids; Kennedy had…
Read MoreTrying To Tell Me All Along
There are a few authors whose books, based on their bibliography alone, I buy as soon as they hit shelves. Tobias Wolff is one. He was my creative writing professor at Syracuse. His PEN/Faulkner Award-winning memoir, “This Boy’s Life,” came out my freshman year there, and premiered on the big screen (starring Robert De Niro…
Read MoreSky Blue Sky
I’d been out of bed just three minutes, but already I’d dropped a ten spot. Sleep was fitful again, at best. Maybe it’s the loratadine. Maybe it’s the blue agave. Maybe it’s all this change I keep talkin’ about. Either way, I was wide awake and clock watchin’ at three o’clock. I lay there tossing,…
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