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Tag Archives: Dean Martin
“Cock your hat – angles are attitudes.” — Frank Sinatra
“Frank [Sinatra] is a singer who comes along once in a lifetime, but why did he have to come along in my lifetime?” — Bing Crosby (This quote may be apocryphal. But I like it.) It’s his birthday today. 1. … Continue reading
“Given as much to the gutter as to the gods” — Nick Tosches
“He was born alone. He would die alone. These truths, he, like every punk, took to heart. But in him they framed another truth, another solitary, stubborn stone in the eye of nothing. There was something, a knowing, in him … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, essays, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jerry Lewis, Nick Tosches, nonfiction
8 Comments
“I want them to think ‘He was a nice guy. He did pretty good and we loved him’.” — Dean Martin
From Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams, by Nick Tosches. Getting to the heart of it all. His schoolmates had never really known him. Even his loving family could not tell for sure what lay within this … Continue reading
Music shuffle: The Return
To quote the final line of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: I been away a long time. My last “shuffle” post was in 2022 and I worried about what I would do when “my laptop goes”. Well, it happened … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged Bleu, Brendan Benson, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Eminem, Eric Church, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Iran, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Link Wray, Mike Viola, Nirvana, Pat McCurdy, shuffle, The Beatles, Tracy Bonham, Waylon Jennings
16 Comments
Dino and Ella = Heaven
There’s so much to be said about the two of them together, but mostly it’s how perfect they both are as performers. Look at how throughout the medley, Martin is turned slightly towards her. He’s not “in this” for himself, … Continue reading
Recommended: Biographies
For starters: My recommended Fiction books My recommended Non-Fiction books BIOGRAPHIES: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, by Joseph Ellis I’ve written a lot about Joseph Ellis’ work here. While I love David McCullough’s work so much, Ellis is … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Directors, Founding Fathers, James Joyce, Theatre, writers
Tagged A. Scott Berg, Abigail Adams, Alexander Hamilton, American Sphinx, Benjamin Franklin, Biography, Bruce Springsteen, Charles Lindbergh, Charlotte Bronte, David McCullough, Dean Martin, Edie Sedgwick, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Ellen Terry, Elvis Presley, Emily Bronte, George Washington, Henry Irving, His Excellency, Howard Hawks, Howard Hughes, James Dean, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Adams, John Wayne, Joseph Cornell, Joseph Ellis, Marlon Brando, Mitford sisters, Montgomery Clift, Nick Tosches, Nureyev, Orson Welles, Oscar Wilde, Patricia Bosworth, Patricia Highsmith, Richard Ellmann, Ron Chernow, Sam Cooke, Simon Callow, Tennessee Williams, Thomas Jefferson, Truman Capote, W.B. Yeats, Zelda Fitzgerald
9 Comments
Reading Tosches Reader
I’m reading The Nick Tosches Reader right now, a super dense collection of his writing – put together by Tosches himself, from book reviews in long-defunct ‘zines, to pieces he wrote for Creem and etc. Nobody. Like. Him. I can’t … Continue reading
Posted in Books, writers
Tagged Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Nick Tosches
7 Comments
R.I.P. Nick Tosches
Rest in peace to sui generis writer, whose books blaze with such individualism, such unforgettable prose, such high-flung sweeping paragraphs – so hard to paraphrase – impossible to parse out – he’s almost intimidating. His style is so his own, … Continue reading