Meadia COOL
This revision of Preiss's '79 bio hit the stands about a month prior to Dennis Wilson's death, so timely it isn't. But authorized it is—which means sanitized, dry, approved-bycommittee and positive, always positive. Even when it shouldn't be.
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Meadia COOL
THE BEACH BOYS by Byron Preiss (St. Martin's Press)
This revision of Preiss's '79 bio hit the stands about a month prior to Dennis Wilson's death, so timely it isn't. But authorized it is—which means sanitized, dry, approved-bycommittee and positive, always positive. Even when it shouldn't be. The story of the Beach Boys — the most fascinating soap opera in all rock—contains enough tragedy, comedy and tangled relationships to confound Willie Shakespeare, but here author Preiss tells us nothing that couldn't be gleaned from a Beach Boys press release. Do you realize Dennis Wilson's last wife was actually Mike Love's daughter? And that these guys used to hate each other? And maybe still do? If so, you read* it in People, not here. This doesn't even scratch the surface.
D.D.
FEVRE DREAM by George R.R. Martin (Pocket Books)
A vampire novel you don't have to mourn to enjoy. Set in the 1850's, the milieu of Mississippi steamboats and Natchez-New Orleans-St. Louis urban blight (yep, things were rotten back then, top) is evoked in convincing detail and is peopled with entertainingly pulpish stereotypes. But Martin's main contribution to vampire lore is to posit a schism in the bloodsuckers' ranks between moral progressives and immoral reactionaries—the bad guy vampire believes in the sancity of the status
This Month's Media Cool was written by Dave DiMartino, Keith Gordon, Rick Johnson, Richard Riegel and Richard C. Walls. quo while the good guy vampire is peddling a new deal that would involve detente with 'straight' humanity, aka, the victims (referred to by the baddie as 'the cattle'). Readers can draw what analogies they may or simply enjoy a solid, satisfying, ripping yarn with a modern sensibility (i.e., you know that even if good does triumph in the end, the price is gonna be heavy). R.C.W.
POP 'N' ROCKER GAME'
(Syndicated TV)
fans of the old Sha Na Na Show (a syndicated half hour that combined the worst of Grease and The Moppet Show) will be relieved to learn that (an albeit blowdried) Jon 'Bowser' Bauman has resurfaced on the tube as host of this fun & games half hour. (Also syndicated; does Ted Nugent shit in the woods?) Pop TV' Rocker Game includes rudimentary quizzes where da Bowser poses rock 'n' roll brainteasers to the usual lumpen-contestant types. E.g.: Hints for this song title are 'Texas rock,' 'cowboy boots,' snatches of a ZZ Top vid, Bauman dangles 'Sharp...' in this aspiring lawyer's face, and the guy comes up with '.... Bullet-s!' BZZZT! Then the audience does a virtual Who-concert stampede over to the stage to see the Commodores (or was it Jack Mack & The Heart Attack?) perform live. Somehow the significance of*all this escapes me; I'll wager Pat Sayjak's not exactly shaking in his Hush Puppies over Bowser's competition. R.R.
PETSEMATARY by Stephen King (Doubleday) This book stinks. King's formula is getting irritating—take an average guy and his average wife and their 2.4 average pre-adolescent kids and slowly (oh so slowly) introduce the horror element and have it build until it destroys if not all the boring characters at least their boring little nuclear family. The Shining was the blueprint and it was pretty good, but why do it over and over again? When King's creative writing teacher told him that writers should write about what they know he sure took it to heart—but you'd think that a guy who had enough imagination to create a town called 'Salem's Lot could come up with a more interesting protagonist than a guy who names his kid Gage, likes to build model cars and have a few beers in the evening before he goes home to fuck the wife. Maybe next time he could at least make the couple childless or even (no, it's too nutty) make the lead character a single adult. Who hates kids. R.C.W.
CASHEW CHICKEN IN SAUCE WITH RICE (Stouffer's)
Here's another groovy new 'single's' dindin for those of us considered single because it's' the number of digits in our IQ. From the lovingly pictured Serving Suggestion on the box to the fearless bars of the Universal Product Code, Stouffer's (pronounced 'Stoofers' after 9 p.m.) has another hit on their hands with this mischievous combination of quack and slither. 'Boneless strips of chicken breast are combined with toasted cashews in a delicate Oriental sauce, ' sez the box and who can argue? Extra fun ingredients include carmel coloring, brown sugar, water, corriander, and modified cornstarch. Plus, it's inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture! Can you say the same for any of these other items? Tastes icky, though.
R.J.
THE OFFICIAL COUCH POTATO HANDBOOK by Jack Mingo & Robert Armstrong (Capra Press)
Forget all about what Jerry Mathers had to say about his arguments in favor of eliminating television, here's a tome that echoes what we video addicts have realized all the while: TV is good for you! Promulgating the philosophy that 'there's no such thing as too much TV,' the Couch Potatoes are a recently out-of-thecloset cult worshipping the electron, tube, pursuing inner peace through prolonged television viewing. This handbook assists one in joining their numbers, providing invaluable information on such important subjects as Couch Potato etiquette, TV-tested toaster oven recipes, the history of the Couch Potatoes, 'Tele-cise' (television exercise), proper viewing technique and, most of all, a spiritual guide to the Tao of television: discovering inner peace throughtranscendental vegetation. At once both humorous and factual, The Official Couch Potato Handbook is a must for every TV junkie's coffee table. K.G.
