MEDIA COOL
Here’s a passively bad book that, while purporting McCartney was Lennon’s musical equal (at least), does little to evoke that spirit, or, in fact, much sympathy for its subject. Salewicz’s main theme—that the early death of Paul’s mother was pretty much his sole motivation—is harped on frequently...and the dope didn’t even manage to include a picture of the mysterious mom.
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
MEDIA COOL
This Month’s Media Cool was written by Bill Holdship, J. Kordosh, Michael Lipton, Richard Riegel and Richard C. Walls
MCCARTNEY by Chris Salewicz (St. Martin’s Press)
Here’s a passively bad book that, while purporting McCartney was Lennon’s musical equal (at least), does little to evoke that spirit, or, in fact, much sympathy for its subject. Salewicz’s main theme—that the early death of Paul’s mother was pretty much his sole motivation—is harped on frequently...and the dope didn’t even manage to include a picture of the mysterious mom. Although the cover maintains that this is “the definitive biography” (which I could’ve accepted even though Salewicz didn’t interview McCartney), I can’t accept reading a bunch of stuff I’ve read elsewhere as definitive. And McCartney’s music is glossed over in a most shocking fashion. Boring and punchless—a far better book would be an analysis of McCartney’s post-Beatles singles. No kidding.
J.K.
ANNUAL SENIOR CITIZENS CRITTER DINNER
(Dunbar, West Virginia)
Want to eat the bear before he eats you? Start making plans now to attend next year’s annual Senior Citizens Critter Dinner in Dunbar, West Virginia. A few miles down the river from the now-famous Union Carbide plant at Institute, about 400 people recently dined on such local fare as squirrel, groundhog, racoon, elk and bear. It was great! My personal favorite? The bear, fixed two different ways, barbequed and baked; sort of like a pot roast that fights back. The rabbit and squirrel tasted a lot like chicken, while the groundhog and raccoon have a distinctive “wild” taste—and lots of little bones you can use to pick your teeth with afterwards. This year it took the combined effort of over 50 volunteers to ready the critters for dinner. Some of Mayor Frank Leone’s hunting friends provided the game, and Opal Thompson, again, made her famous dinner rolls. As usual, Leone asked for donations of any edible critters indigenous to West Virginia, with the exception of possum. “The cooks won’t fix possum,” explained the mayor. “They say it’s too greasy.”
M.L.
ELVIS AND GLADYS by Elaine Dundy (MacMillan) (Dell Paperback)
With all the furor and hype over Priscilla’s gushing schoolgirlish memoirs, this book kinda got lost in the shuffle. Which is a shame because not only is it the best Elvis book published in the last year—it’s possibly the best Elvis biography ever. To scrutinize Elvis’s relationship with his mother, Dundy actually went to live in Tupelo and Memphis, interviewed over a hundred people who knew the Presleys well (some even present at Elvis’s birth), traced the family tree back four generations—and came up with many facts and insights previously unexplored. She even throws in fascinating speculation about the Colonel’s devious “mind control” over the King. If you’re at all interested in Elvis—and why things went down the way they did—read this book.
B.H.
ELVIS AND GLADYS by Elaine Dundy (MacMillan) (Dell Paperback)
Having just read the above review—and the book—I can assure you the reviewer has understated things. This isn’t just the best Elvis biography ever, it’s the best rock biography ever. Maybe even the best biography ever. Buy it and read it.
J.K.
ANY SIMILARITY TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL
by Drew and Josh Alan Friedman (Fantagraphics Books)
Hoo-boy, this is some funny book; vicious, sentimental, gritty, and warm, these “comic strips,” (words by Josh, pix by Drew) culled from the fun-loving pages of such mags as Heavy Metal, National Lampoon, and High Times, are calculated to strum the caustic enzymes of a particular post-sick humor, TV-fed, pop-culture glutted sensibility. It’s aimed at anyone who can appreciate the rib-tickling absurdity engendered merely by juxtaposing certain show-biz inanities and what you call your serious real-world problems (e.g., Frank Sinatra Jr. and irreversible cancer) or by fleshing out the one-dimensional worlds of old TV faves (Fred Mertz hustles thru nighttime Gotham; Andy and Barney engage in nefarious Klan activity). Or anyone who’s willing to wallow in the awful wretchedness of the Wayne Newton story. If this means you (and be warned, these guys don’t worry about being, as Richard Dawson used to put it, “too hip for the room”), then run, don’t walk.
This Month In IV History
ON AUGUST 8™, 1974 OVER 100 MILLION VIEWERS TUNED IN TO WATCH AS PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON RESIGNED IN DISGRACE, LIVE FROM THE OVAL OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE.
AT LEAST THIS TIME HE ^ DIDN'T TRY TO BLAME IT ON HIS DOfr!
CHORTLT SNICKERS!
R.C.W.
FREAKS’ AMOUR by Tom De Haven (Penguin)
This novel was originally published in 1979, but has just been reissued in conjunction with the acclaim for De Haven’s newer Funny Papers. The cover blurb calls Freaks’ Amour “frightening and wildly comic,” but I found more fright nights than comedy workshops in this future-depressionist tale. This is the story of all of our posthippie drug & death culture gone still further, projected 30 more years into a drab junkyard existence. All the puritan paranoia of the antinukes, and all of our doomy lust toward economic and ecologic collapse are beginning to come true in the New Jersey of 2010 A.D., by then populated with a large subculture of “Freaks” mutated that way by a mysterious nuclear explosion in Jersey City back in ’88—shades of fellow Joiseyite Allen Ginsberg. Much of Freaks’ Amour reads like a compellingly futurist ashcan-school revision of Miami Vice: the streets are full of drugs & deals, but nobody’s cool anymore. Or ever again.
R.R.
