I offered to send Ghosts and Ballyhoo: Memoirs of a Failed L.A. Music Journalist to a reader. She replied that emotions hurt, which I take to mean that she’d rather not read the book. I understand. Here’s what a reviewer said about it. At every turn revealing, enlightening, and heartbreaking in the most jagged fashion…
The person I came closest to murdering
September 17, 2014
Adapted from Ghosts and Ballyhoo: Memoirs of a Failed L.A. Music Journalist. The person I came closest to murdering is a lot like those who now threaten to murder me. Odd coincidence. So There You Are I met “Carmen” the Cardinal Ghost on November 6, 1987. Two days later, she invited me to her apartment…
The saddest movie ever made
September 3, 2014
On October 7, 2011, I was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease. My reaction was atypical: By that night I’d shaken off the chronic rage that had defined me. I thought that my new state of mind was permanent, but it wasn’t. No amount of good cheer could’ve withstood the suicides of my parents in February and…
Things that Jew-haters send me
August 27, 2014
Today started out badly. I’m a night owl, so when the phone rang at 7:00 a.m., I’d only been asleep for maybe three hours. It was a laughing women who wanted me to take a survey on whether or not I supported editing DVDs to make them family friendly. This was after one of the…
There was no father
July 29, 2014
What a day. I woke from a deranged nightmare in which I was teaching the Cardinal Ghost how to make pancakes by screaming the instructions at her. Then I was interviewed by Ali Gharib, who writes for the Nation Institute. After that I learned that a post of mine has caused a famous writer to…
Mike Albee, the stench that won’t go away
July 22, 2014
After Mike Albee, Lura Dold, and Becca Pilkington defrauded me of my life’s savings and ruined my three books, nobody cared. Some publicist claimed that he’d dedicate his life to destroying Albee, but it was just jive. Not a single law-enforcement agency even responded when I contacted them. Being a cop is all about salary,…
You don’t speak for me
July 11, 2014
Today I read a long blog post about how “90 percent” of us are furiously jealous of all good fortune that others enjoy. It’s only natural. If someone else is happy, successful, attractive, physically fit, talented, healthy, wealthy, and wise, the overwhelming majority of us wish ill on the person and hope they suffer calamity….
Do you have a price?
July 9, 2014
In the last year of my mother’s life, we talked a lot about the state of the world. Mom was born in 1928. Can you conceive the changes she saw in her eighty-five years? She asked me over and over why people did the things they did, and I told her that it was because…
Thank you, Miss Carol Colman
July 7, 2014
When I wrote Ghosts and Ballyhoo, I had to leave out tons of stuff I wanted to include. There just wasn’t enough room. Also, I’m not interesting enough to publish a multi-volume memoir. One of the bassists who I didn’t mention in the book but who had a huge impact on me is Carol Colman,…