STRAIGHT WHISKY: A LIVING HISTORY OF SEX, DRUGS, AND ROCK 'N ' ROLL ON THE SUNSET STRIP by Erik Quisling & Austin Williams

Finished Fr 6/26/20

This is one of my old hardbacks and according to the flyleaf I bought the book at E bay on the Internet and finished the book the first time on We 9/29/04.

The book deals with the birth of Rock'n' Roll clubs on the Sunset Strip.

From the book's page at Amazon:

"Straight Whisky is the first book to chronicle all the music, magic and mayhem of the Sunset Strip. Includes rare photos and original interviews."

During the early part of the 20th century movie stars frequented the bars and restaurants along the strip. There was no sympathy for the 'wild and woolly' rock and rollers and they were allowed into these more staid clubs. 

Lou Adler and John Phillips (MAMAS AND PAPAS) partnered with a guy named Henry Valentine to make a bar restaurant to cater to the needs of the new stars of the Rock World. Mario Maglieri was added to run the establishment on a day to day basis. This man had ties to the Chicago mafia.

The 'Whiskey A Go Go' was the place. This is where the concept of 'Go Go Dancing' with women in cages on stage was developed. 

Then came The Rainbow, Over The Rainbow, The Troubadour, The Roxy, The Viper Room, The Masque, El Cid.

***In the late seventies and early eighties the VCR Revolution greatly enabled the popularity of Porn-On-Demand and it went through the roof. Then the porn stars began to party with the rock crowd on the strip. Then the parties went into cosmic overdrive. 

Strange vignettes about the crazy stuff that went on at the clubs. 

-Bowie got punched out by a crazed guy wearing a karate outfit

-The Doors are banned from The Whisky

-Steve Marriott might have started the place on fire. And years later he dies in a fire

-THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW premieres at The Whisky. The film failed until it was released and shown after midnight and then it became wildly famous.

-Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison appear to be lovers, and then she brains him with a whisky bottle.

Not a very deep book, but filled with anecdotes. I can read stuff like this all day long.

WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT by Sarah Winman

Finished Mo 6/22/20

This is one of my ancient trade paperbacks that I bought on Amazon and received on Mo 11/4/13. No note on the flyleaf that I had read it, but parts of the novel were familiar.

I really liked the book because it is chock full of colorful characters and odd situations. 

The first part of the novel is set in Cornwall, England. The rural southwestern county of Great Britain. 

Elly is the protagonist. Her brother, Joe is five years older than her and he has been protective all his life. He has been gay since he was a very small child. 

Charlie was Joe's childhood friend. Charlie's father was a diplomat and when Charlie's family left Cornwall Charlie is held hostage by radicals. His ear is cutoff and he is held for ransom. No one sees Charlie again until they are adults. 

The second part of the novel occurs twenty years later so that you see the young children as adults. 

Elly's father was an avid lottery ticket buyer and when he finally wins he feels completely unworthy of his luck. They make the home into a bed and breakfast and it attracts an odd group of people. 

Elly's parents marriage is probably a sham. Her father's sister Nancy is a gay actress. She was in love with Elly's mother and she is the one that initiated the 'attraction' between Elly's parents. 

Arthur is an older man who is into yoga and knows the moment of his death. He is hit on the head by a coconut although he was supposed to have run out of his money at the same time that he runs out of money. 

Fro the New York Times review:

"“If this God couldn’t love me,” she resolves, “then it was clear I’d need to find another one that could.” This new divine entity is encountered some time later, after she tells her brother that she’s been sexually abused by their neighbor, Mr. Golan. “I’ll get you a proper friend,” her brother declares, as he holds her “in the darkness, as defiant as granite.” The new friend Joe finds for his sister turns out to be a Belgian hare, a pet she names “God,” who sometimes talks to her. Although Joe swears never to reveal Elly’s dark secret about their neighbor, it turns out to be mere prelude to total eclipse: the mentally disturbed Mr. Golan (who has lied about being a Holocaust survivor) commits suicide."

From Goodreads:

"Spanning four decades, from 1968 onwards, this is the story of a fabulous but flawed family and the slew of ordinary and extraordinary incidents that shape their everyday lives. It is a story about childhood and growing up, loss of innocence, eccentricity, familial ties and friendships, love and life. Stripped down to its bare bones, it’s about the unbreakable bond between a brother and sister."

THE FOURTH DEADLY SIN by Lawrence Sanders

Finished We 6/17/20

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I have apparently never read. The book was released in 1985.

THE FOURTH DEADLY SIN:

Greed (Latin: avaritia), also known as avarice, cupidity, or covetousness, is, like lust and gluttony, a sin of desire.

PREMISE: (From the back of the book). "A celebrated New York psychiatrist- considered a saint by patients and colleagues is brutally beaten to death. There are no leads, no apparent motives, and six suspects- the doctor's own patients."

Generally I dislike when a writer throws out a 'bunch of suspects' and the reader is left to 'figure it out'. My feeling is that the writer will not allow the reader to know the culprit unless he is a bad writer.

Diane Ellerbee, the wife of the psychiatrist, Simon Ellerbee, is the killer. She is a beautiful woman and could not accept the fact that her husband of many years had fallen in love with a dowdy woman who was one of his patients. And, he wanted a divorce so that he could marry this woman. Diane felt that this would open her up to public ridicule and this would be unthinkable.   

I suppose there was a red flag because his wife is the one who gives the police the list of possible suspects. She would obviously use this list to maximize misdirection. 

Edward X. Delaney is a retired member of the police and he is brought back to oversee the murder investigation because the death of Simon Ellerbee was a murder that must be solved. He was very popular, well-liked, and influential. 

Within fifty pages of the ending, Delaney solves the case, and I thought that maybe this was a red herring, but this turned out to be the truth. I was waiting for a surprise ending, but this was not the case.  

From the book's page at Amazon:

"Lawrence Sanders (1920–1998) was the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty mystery and suspense novels including the Edward X. Delaney, Archy McNally, and Timothy Cone series, as well as the acclaimed Commandment books. The Anderson Tapes received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for best first novel."

PROJECT POPE by Clifford D. Simak

Finished Sa 6/13/20

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I had never read.

A fantastic concept and you could really tell that Simak had a background in newspapers. His writing style was clear and easy to understand. 

PREMISE:

For over a thousand years on a planet far away from Earth, robots and humans had been collaborating to located a 'one true faith' loosely based on Catholicism. 

Humans called 'Searchers' are used to 'visit' different dimensions. An old woman named Mary claims that she has visited 'Heaven'. She goes back for another visit and is expelled from Heaven. Later it's determined that it was not the real Heaven. 

This 'area' of the galaxy was populated by very ancient philosopher beings. They were in the forms of 'bubbles' and 'haystacks'. 

This is where the novel broke down for me. These beings were just too weird. The novel could have really taken a philosophical turn, but instead it became kind of clownish. 

From the book's page at Amazon:

"Robot believers at the far end of the galaxy endeavor to create a true religion, but their efforts could be shattered by a shocking revelation. Far in the future, on the remote planet End of Nothing, sentient robots are engaged in a remarkable enterprise. They call their project Vatican-17: an endeavor to create a truly universal religion presided over by a pope, whose extreme godliness and infallible artificial intelligence are fed by telepathic human Listeners who psychically delve into the mysteries of the universe. But the great and holy mission could be compromised by one shocking revelation that threatens to inspire serious crises of faith among the spiritual, truth-seeking robotic acolytes while tearing them into warring religious factions; for the Listener Mary is claiming that she has just discovered Heaven.

There are those among the Clifford D. Simak faithful who consider Project Pope his masterpiece. But whether the crowning literary achievement of a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science-fiction Grand Master or merely another brilliant novel of speculative fiction to stand among his many, Simak's breathtaking search for God in the machine ingeniously blends science and spirituality in a truly miraculous way that few science fiction writers, if any, have been able to accomplish."

Random comments from Goodreads:

"Not sure why it happens that the man (Dr. Jason) Tennyson and the woman Jill (Roberts, journalist) arrived on this planet just as the robots' Search for Knowledge and for a constructed Faith also arrived. But so it did, and so we learn about these robots who are interested in humans and in relitions, and about humans, and about a bunch of other truly alien aliens."

"Tennyson is running from people, so he stows away on a ship going to a planet called The End of Nowhere. Arriving there with another passenger, a reporter, he settles down in a society called Vatican. The planet was built by human made robots and loosely based on the Catholic system. When a human "listener" thinks she has found heaven, the robots have to determine its validity and the split between factions begins to escalate. Meanwhile, after befriending a being called The Whisperer, he and the woman, Jill travel to strange new worlds of equation beings and the place that turns out NOT to be Heaven."

"Running from the middle of nowhere (the feudal planet Gutshot) after his patron dies and he’s afraid he’s going to be forced to take the fall for it, Dr. Jason Tennyson takes the first ship out and ends up at the end of nowhere—the planet End of Nothing.

End of Nothing has one settlement: Vatican, a robot project to discover the one true faith, preferably one that will include robots.

This is a typically nice Simak story, with friendly characters, who despite being friendly all have different motivations that cause conflict. Stories like this or Way Station are a refreshing change of pace. There are also some neat ideas here. Just as humans find it difficult to lose a reverence for their own hypothetical creator, robots find it difficult to lose their reverence for their visible creator: mankind. That’s one of the conflicts on End of Nothing, that some robots came to the planet, having been created by humans, and some were created later by the human-created robots.

Into all of this, one of the human researchers claims to have discovered heaven—the real deal, with golden stairs, ivory towers, and flying angels. A human heaven. And all the conflicts come out into the open."

I really liked Simak's writing style and would read more by this author. 

PHIL LESH: SEARCHING FOR THE SOUND- MY LIFE WITH THE GRATEFUL DEAD

Refinished Th 6/4/20 This is one of my hardbacks that I ordered from Amazon five years ago and finished the first time on Th 6/11/15.

Phil is a native Californian and first was a young trumpet player. He played at the 'youth symphony' level and even played in the Army band, but was discharged because he was unfit for military service. 

He was born in 1940, so he's quite a bit older than most of 'The Youth Culture'. 

I loved the early Dead's experimental stuff and it seems that he was responsible for this. And, I guess to a certain extent, Mickey Hart. Lesh doesn't seem to register the big change when the group released 'AMERICAN BEAUTY' and 'WORKINGMAN'S DEAD'. It would seem that a radical shift from 'electronic music' to 'country' would have been a tough thing for him to accept, but I guess that wasn't the case. It would bother me. 

He has a successful liver transplant. His drug of choice seems to have been beer, although pot and acid and everything else were part of his psychedelic diet.

He claims that Jerry Garcia had a cat that he taught to fetch; p. 273.

From the book's page at Amazon:

"In a book "as graceful and sublime as a box of rain" (New York Times Book Review), the beloved bassist tells the stories behind the songs, tours, and jams in the Grateful Dead's long, strange trip from the 1960s to the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995 and beyond. From Ken Kesey's "acid tests" to the Summer of Love to bestselling albums and worldwide tours, the Dead's story has never been told as honestly or as memorably as in this remarkable memoir."

I read it this time in two days. Hard to put down and lots of details about the band and the community of Dead Heads. 

Musician's biographies are my soft spot. 

PALE KINGS AND PRINCES by Robert B. Parker

Re-finished We 6/3/20

This is an ancient paperback that Su 2/5/06 and according to the flyleaf I finished it that afternoon.

This is one of The Spenser Series. Spenser's first name is never revealed through the entire series. I spent a little time looking through the book to find his first name before I learned the truth.

The author's curious living arrangement:

"I plan to have sex with my wife for the rest of my life, but I never want to sleep with her again".

He and his wife lived in a three story home near Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA. She had the top floor, he had the bottom floor, and they shared living spaces on the middle floor.  

In the novel Spenser is very much in love with Susan, however they do not live together.

Pithy dialog that leaps off the page. Spenser is a real 'wiseacre'. 

PREMISE:

Wheaton, MA has become a major distribution point for cocaine. Decades ago a wealthy factory owner from Columbia had trouble getting workers so he organized workers to come from his home town in South America. 

Spenser is being paid by a newspaper to find out who murdered one of their young reporters who was sent to the town to check out the coke trade. The authorities said that he was a womanizer and probably this was why he was murdered. 

Hawk- Spenser's friend and he is called in when the job proves dangerous. A huge black man with a shaved head.  

From the book's page at Publisher's Weekly:

"The TV series Spenser: For Hire is based on Parker's bestselling series of mysteries starring a Boston private detective, and this taut thriller will no doubt match its predecessors' success. The murder of newspaper reporter Eric Valdez takes Spenser to Wheaton, Mass., where Valdez was investigating a Colombian cocaine operation. After a meeting with the police chief, Bailey Rogers, the detective is waylaid by thugs whom he beats handily. Spenser confirms his suspicions that a grocery wholesaler, Felipe Esteva, is dealing the drug and paying off the police. The next murder victim, however, is Rogers, whose young son drives a truck for Esteva. Spenser daringly hijacks a fortune in cocaine and offers to sell it to Esteva, as dangerous a ploy as the macho detective has ever attempted. When his only ally, a state trooper, is ""reassigned,'' Spenser brings his lover Susan to help with psychological warfare and his sidekick Hawk to face Esteva's mob. Parker keeps the reader's adrenalin pumping overtime until Spenser and company claim the victory." 

I loved the book and would definitely read more of The Spenser Series or anything by Robert B. Parker. 

CUTTER AND BONE by Newton Thornburg

Finished Su 5/31/20

A couple of weeks ago I watched the film, 'CUTTER'S WAY' starring John Heard and Jeff Bridges and loved the film and wanted to read the book. I checked Amazon and the book was far too expensive, and I checked the library and noticed that it was available through Hoopla. 

Alex Cutter- Vietnam veteran who lost part of a leg and arm and body is disfigured. Maureen is his common law wife and Alex Jr. is his infant son.

Richard Bone- Alex's best friend. He's kind of a disillusioned hippie.  He missed the 'peace and love crowd' by almost a decade (the novel is set in the mid 70's). He's just as directionless, but all of his contemporaries seemed to have moved on. 

PREMISE:

Late one rainy night Bone notices a man disposing of a body. The next day he sees a very important man on the TV and believes that this was the man who was hiding a body from the night before. 

Cutter convinces Bone that they must seek justice. They recruit the sister of the girl that was murdered, and later they team up with another young woman. One evening Bone is swimming in the ocean. He leaves his clothes on the shore and swims out and loses control. He is washed up naked, and is met by three young women. Two of them have sex with Bone and the other woman becomes part of Cutter's team.

The dialog is just amazing. Alex Cutter has one of the 'smartest mouths' in literature. Bone's 'come backs' are equally as wicked. 

In the end Bone is shot and who did the killing is left up in the air but it is most likely 'the important man'. 

From the book's page at Amazon:

"First published in 1976, Cutter and Bone is the story of the obsession of Cutter, a scarred and crippled Vietnam veteran and his attempt to convince his buddy, Bone, that the latter witnessed a murder committed by the conglomerate tycoon, JJ Wolfe. Captivated by Cutter’s demented logic, Bone is prepared to cross the country with Cutter in search of proof of the murder. Their quest takes them into the Ozarks—home base of the Wolfe empire—where Bone discovers that Cutter is not pursuing a murderer so much as the great enemy itself, them, the very demons that have dogged his life."

An excellent feature on the plot of the novel and film from 'Crime Fiction Lover. Com':

"For many, first contact with Cutter and Bone comes via the lauded 1981 film Cutter’s Way, directed by Ivan Passer. The movie had a difficult pathway to production – funding changes, Dustin Hoffman pulling out because of scheduling issues – and despite good notices, it struggled to find an audience. More recently it has undergone a critical re-evaluation, and has come to be considered a neo-noir classic of early 80s American cinema. The recent death of John Heard (pictured above, playing amputee Alex Cutter) may bring it further attention.

The film was based on Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg, published in 1976 during the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era. The influence of those two events runs very clearly through the story. Richard Bone (acted by Jeff Bridges in the movie) is a dropout and country club lothario, getting by day-to-day on the generosity of Santa Barbara’s wealthy middle-aged, middle class women. He’s looking for a spot of danger. Back east he has a wife and two young kids, but he walked out on them when he left his high-paying job as a marketing director.

In between his romances, which he ensures never last longer than 72 hours, he sleeps on the sofa at his friend Alex Cutter IV’s house. The other occupants include Cutter’s partner Mo, and their infant son Alex V.

Cutter is the son of rich parents and had a privileged upbringing. A tour in Vietnam led to devastating injuries and he lost one eye, his right leg and the lower part of his left arm. His anger is directed everywhere and nowhere. He swings from charming to cynical in a heartbeat, is frequently confrontational, and seems to enjoy the discomfort of his victims, knowing they won’t hit a cripple.

Mo is a beautiful girl, whom Bone fantasises about, but a lost soul who gets through the day dosed on alcohol and downers, perhaps in part because of Cutter’s callous disregard of her and their son.

Disposing of the body

On his way back from a hotel late one night, Bone witnesses a man putting a large object into a dumpster before driving off. The man’s silhouette reveals a distinctively large head. On the news the following day they see that the object being dumped was the corpse of a young girl, and Cutter latches onto Bone’s speculation that the man looks a lot like visiting tycoon JJ Wolfe.

With Bone somewhat reluctantly involved, Cutter hatches a plan with the victim’s sister to blackmail Wolfe. There are some half-hearted attempts to rationalise the scheme, but it is pretty clear that a concern for justice ranks low on their list of motivations. Predictably, things go comically wrong, and the trio head out to pursue Wolfe in his own backyard.

There are so many things about Cutter and Bone which make it a classic, but everything comes back to the writing. The tone of the novel is angry and despairing, but made enjoyable by smartly humorous putdowns, and nail-on-the-head observations. Thornburg is sometimes described as a noir version of Ross McDonald, a writer who also set many of his works in Santa Barbara, and knew a thing or two about the written word.

Simple geometry

There is an interesting symmetry to the novel as well. In each stage of the story, there is always a principal trio of characters; Cutter, Bone, and one woman. Initially this is Mo at their Santa Barbara home, then the victim’s sister in Los Angeles as they plan their blackmail sting, and finally a naive, resentful student they pick up on their road trip. Cleverly, Wolfe real role is kept a mystery and his guilt or innocence is only revealed at the very end.

And let’s not forget that ending; Bone high-tailing it out of Dodge, thanking his lucky stars, when he sees a truck in his rear view mirror, eating up the tarmac… It is the cherry on top of the cake, epitomising one of Thornburg’s main themes in the book, which is the creeping fear that corporations are taking over American life, and the rise of the interests of business over individuals. It’s an ending that makes Cutter and Bone seem timeless."

I liked the book so much that I might buy a paper copy at Amazon. Also I'd like to read many more novels by Thornburg.