 |
 NEWS
: all the latest news about Anthony...
|Click here|
|
|
| 2006/08/09 12:48 - HOW THE CARDIFF DEAD LIVE | 
 Another disastrous brush with Cardiff…what is it about my birthplace that gives me the horrors so? Maybe its because I experienced some of my most important, formative and happy times there? Parts of my childhood…first Love…but growing up there… I had an urge to leave the place, an urge that grew more definite and defined as I approached my twenties…I haven’t spent more than 5 days there since 1993. The place has a bad mojo for me. It’s kind of ...a place of dead roads. | |
 I only truly return for my family, or more truly, my ma. I have (had)? - One proper friend in Cardiff (who fucked me in the heart on this occasion, forcing me to take another nightmare train journey. 8-30am Sunday morning with a screaming nicotine Jack Daniels hangover, change at Hereford, a 2 hour bus journey staring at a greasy dyed black Goth hair thinning scalp, hunger, sickness, and another train at Shresbury etc etc. My happiest memory is of watching the bunnies frolic on the dead ground between the Ibis hotel we were staying in and the adjacent railway track).
And now my ma is suffering from chronic arthritis, is actually on meds stronger than morphine for Pain. This means she’s less ‘there’ than ever before and cuts down our options. She also gave up drinking a year ago - oddly, one side effect of this is that she now finds it hard to appreciate music…
So it’s even grimmer than usual lately, and this was only the first time in a year, I think I’d ventured back…no; I was there at ‘The Big sleep’ hotel for my birthday last February…but I mumiffied myself through the whole experience on that occasion.
One theory I’ve been nestling as to the cause of my sense of displacement in Cardiff is this: My Mothers mother gave birth to my Mum when she was almost 50. This was quite rare back then, in the late 40’s/early 50’s and quite unexpected in this case. (Then again my grandmother was a devout catholic, so...).
My mum’s brothers (Albert died at 19) were almost 20 years older – more than her.
Anyway, what I’m getting at is that by the time I came along in 1971, most of my immediate extended family were getting on a bit and by the time I matured, (i.e. could hold an adult conversation), they were all dead, more or less. (That said both Nans lived long, long lives, my Mums mum making it to 101, but obviously didn’t socialise much in the last decades). What this meant is that I had no immediate social framework, outside of friends, to interact with. If my mum had been born at an average or usual time, it would today be 1986. I would be the age I am now in 1986 and my granddads and grandmothers friends would have all been down the pub etc in tremorfa and Splott…I would have had family present in the community and more importantly would have had so since I matured, i.e. in the last 15 years. I’ve no doubt that being able to go for a drink, hang out with etc these people would have made Cardiff and in particular the howling wilderness of Tremorfa, a much less alien place to me than its been. I have one brother, who despite some efforts on my part, remains a mystery to me.
Another childhood friend took his life in 1996 in a house a short walk from my parent’s home. (They moved there in 1974). All my other childhood buddies and their families have long since moved out tremorfa, a long, long time ago, replaced by young, noisy families who seem to rev their 4x4’s inscecantly, particularly as I nurse a alcohol induced head wound.
|
 So I guess that while its no wonder that the place seems like a haunted wasteland to me, this doesn’t entirely explain why I’ve never forged any new relationships in my brief trips back there since leaving that beautiful autumn of 1993. It’s a cosmopolitan city, right? And the utter transformation of the docklands seems cool…(It was a weird lunar wasteland when I left).
I think I’d like to do a book…investigate the history of the place…I’ve only ever read two books remotely dealing with this aspect; a powerful account of the murder of Cardiff prostitute Lynette White in the 90’s and a roaringly terrible novel called ‘Cardiff Dead’.
Thers a riddle within Cardiff’s ugly architecture and barren loveless facades, a mystery and enigma in them there kebab shops.
And when my Parents are no longer there, I’ll have no reason at all to visit the place. So…a return is due proper in some as yet undefined way.
|
 My source of comfort, reading wise these last few days has been Jay Rubin’s ‘Haruki Murakami and the music of words’. I’m besotted by this Japanese author lately (thank you, Chris Roberts, for the accidental (?) introduction). And to find he was mates with and a fan of Raymond Carver is powerfully affirming.
Music wise, (Thank you George), I’m intoxicated by Scritti Polliti’s latest; ‘White bread, Black beer’ (I think its called). ‘Boom Boom Bap’ is the sound of afternoon pub drinking…(I miss the smell of fags and Tennants soaked carpets, the way the light falls, turning the bar into a church)…but my fave tune is ‘Sun and snow’ (?)…The arrangements are really kinky and surprising….the lyrics are..Weirdly arresting. The joke being, I guess, that Green Gartside is Cardiff born too…
Oh, but what does it all mean….?
|
‘We don’t choose our lives but we are responsible for them nevertheless’ – I found this scrawled in one of my notebooks. I vaguely remember writing it…its hardly a comfort…
But is that the point. (Rubs chin)…’Hmmm…one wonders…’
| |
| 2006/08/04 10:23 - A Welshman in England |
 Going back to London…I always think it should feel weirder than it does. Y’know, being a tourist in ones old hometown.
But da thing is- I felt like that when I lived there.
Life on the farm lately has been blazing days of outside ness and reading, barely dressing…poppy thins and the usual Sauvignon…but now I must re enter the world of men..the market place… once more…
So anyway, as I climb aboard the 9 34 to Euston from Crewe, I am already as ever knackered, but long used to it. But do people do this every day? Commute?
I’m in London to have a meeting with a new book publisher who is interested in my Walker brothers biography. Its long finished but difficulties with the publishers I wrote it for –basically an illness-have delayed the books final stages and release. So…the meeting is good. I’ve had so many now…in the last decade…always just me usually, representing Tony enterprises PLC…I know how to sit etc
By 3 it’s over and I’m broiling in the London heat. On leaving Shropshire it was raining and gusty but now the sun is beating down through the fumes and I’m melting beneath my hat, leather Jacket and Versace Denim shirt…literally melting- I lost 10 pounds in a day-again. My train is at 6. I made a point of not arranging to meet anyone else here, as it would lead to booze and me probably missing my ride…
So, I walk the old haunts toward Euston, make a few emotional phonecalls and try and kill as much time as possible in the Amnesty bookshop on Euston Rd…the one that leads to Camden…I talk to a nutty guy in the basement…and I’m suddenly so tired…did I really walk this much when I lived here? My own life is a mythic mystery to me…as with all bookshops I forget who I’m reading as soon as I enter…but lately I’ve been on a Haruki Murakami binge…just finished a collection of short stories, the name of which my Vodka pickled brain forgets…I gave up on Bob Woodward’s ‘Bushes war’…makes the Bush fella seem like a canonised John Wayne…read Yentikoffs’ ‘Howl at the moon’ in 12 hours…Good, good, except he’s saved at the end. I prefer sad endings.
| |
I’m homeward bound by 6-30, crushed against a window by a Russian lady, forced to listen to beautiful looking women across the way gabbing about Tory party conferences.
Blonde and sleek in their polka dotted summer dresses its odd to hear them gush on about how ‘lush’ David Cameron is. In fact, it’s somewhat sick and this leads to equally sick (i.e. Good) fantasies that mushroom within my aching brain. Great, I’m cramped enough as it is. I truly need a third leg.
I listen to the newly remastered Jack Cd’s…its not painful at all for me to go over this old ground-someone has to-but there’s something deadening about it. I’m far enough away from it for it to sound like someone else. The mistakes in the original compositions and recordings-and these are plenty plentiful- makes me wince but the mastering job itself is good (The original was so quiet-a fault with most of my records). Anyhoo. George got in touch lately-he’s found new old photos of us in Cologne. The artwork is 70% done now but not too late for a few interesting additions.
I arrive at Crewe with an hour to wait for my final train-a ten-minute journey. I drink a Fanta with ice in the horribly overlit ‘café’. (Why are public places lit like hospital theatres)?
My head is close to exploding, I’m so tired and under refreshed. The morning’s anti histamines are wearing off, I can feel Pollen tickling my throat and Sinus’…lord, get me home…
We internally pace ourselves…I’m allowing myself to wind down now I’m so close to home; I can smell the Sea breeze…
My train is 21-18 from platform 5. A train pulls in at 21 16. I’m fit to drop. I shuffle on, my feet throbbing, my head pounding, my finances low. The deodorant I put on 14 hours earlier is dead and last weeks Smoky Jim is purging my pores…
I settle into my seat. 10 minutes to go. Mission accomplished. No fuck ups on this jaunt. I’m too tired to read. Maybe a tune or two. As I wrestle with my faulty CD player the doors hiss shut and we ease out.
‘Sorry for this delayed service’ says a friendly voice through the PA…’we will arrive at our next destination 7 minutes late - at 10-30. Our next destination is Milton Keynes.’
I have boarded the wrong train. I am heading back to London with no money, half a bottle of water and 2 bars on my no credit Mobile phone…
This then, is hell….
|
 Going back to London…I always think it should feel weirder than it does. Y’know, being a tourist in ones old hometown.
But da thing is- I felt like that when I lived there.
Life on the farm lately has been blazing days of outside ness and reading, barely dressing…poppy thins and the usual Sauvignon…but now I must re enter the world of men..the market place… once more…
So anyway, as I climb aboard the 9 34 to Euston from Crewe, I am already as ever knackered, but long used to it. But do people do this every day? Commute?
I’m in London to have a meeting with a new book publisher who is interested in my Walker brothers biography. Its long finished but difficulties with the publishers I wrote it for –basically an illness-have delayed the books final stages and release. So…the meeting is good. I’ve had so many now…in the last decade…always just me usually, representing Tony enterprises PLC…I know how to sit etc
By 3 it’s over and I’m broiling in the London heat. On leaving Shropshire it was raining and gusty but now the sun is beating down through the fumes and I’m melting beneath my hat, leather Jacket and Versace Denim shirt…literally melting- I lost 10 pounds in a day-again. My train is at 6. I made a point of not arranging to meet anyone else here, as it would lead to booze and me probably missing my ride…
So, I walk the old haunts toward Euston, make a few emotional phonecalls and try and kill as much time as possible in the Amnesty bookshop on Euston Rd…the one that leads to Camden…I talk to a nutty guy in the basement…and I’m suddenly so tired…did I really walk this much when I lived here? My own life is a mythic mystery to me…as with all bookshops I forget who I’m reading as soon as I enter…but lately I’ve been on a Haruki Murakami binge…just finished a collection of short stories, the name of which my Vodka pickled brain forgets…I gave up on Bob Woodward’s ‘Bushes war’…makes the Bush fella seem like a canonised John Wayne…read Yentikoffs’ ‘Howl at the moon’ in 12 hours…Good, good, except he’s saved at the end. I prefer sad endings.
I’m homeward bound by 6-30, crushed against a window by a Russian lady, forced to listen to beautiful looking women across the way gabbing about Tory party conferences.
Blonde and sleek in their polka dotted summer dresses its odd to hear them gush on about how ‘lush’ David Cameron is. In fact, it’s somewhat sick and this leads to equally sick (i.e. Good) fantasies that mushroom within my aching brain. Great, I’m cramped enough as it is. I truly need a third leg.
I listen to the newly remastered Jack Cd’s…its not painful at all for me to go over this old ground-someone has to-but there’s something deadening about it. I’m far enough away from it for it to sound like someone else. The mistakes in the original compositions and recordings-and these are plenty plentiful- makes me wince but the mastering job itself is good (The original was so quiet-a fault with most of my records). Anyhoo. George got in touch lately-he’s found new old photos of us in Cologne. The artwork is 70% done now but not too late for a few interesting additions.
I arrive at Crewe with an hour to wait for my final train-a ten-minute journey. I drink a Fanta with ice in the horribly overlit ‘café’. (Why are public places lit like hospital theatres)?
My head is close to exploding, I’m so tired and under refreshed. The morning’s anti histamines are wearing off, I can feel Pollen tickling my throat and Sinus’…lord, get me home…
We internally pace ourselves…I’m allowing myself to wind down now I’m so close to home; I can smell the Sea breeze…
My train is 21-18 from platform 5. A train pulls in at 21 16. I’m fit to drop. I shuffle on, my feet throbbing, my head pounding, my finances low. The deodorant I put on 14 hours earlier is dead and last weeks Smoky Jim is purging my pores…
I settle into my seat. 10 minutes to go. Mission accomplished. No fuck ups on this jaunt. I’m too tired to read. Maybe a tune or two. As I wrestle with my faulty CD player the doors hiss shut and we ease out.
‘Sorry for this delayed service’ says a friendly voice through the PA…’we will arrive at our next destination 7 minutes late - at 10-30. Our next destination is Milton Keynes.’
I have boarded the wrong train. I am heading back to London with no money, half a bottle of water and 2 bars on my no credit Mobile phone…
This then, is hell….
I’ll skip the details that followed- should I pull the emergency cord? Could I tumble from the carriage into a nearby field like the cowboy I am? Could I bugger. We’re vacuum packed into this train. The days of playing poker with a drunken coal shunter on the final carriage while the Blue Mountains recede into morning mist are long gone.
I babble to train staff and remarkably, they are thoroughly decent and kind, Whowoulda thunkit! I’m brought iced water, true compassion…all I’m missing is Jimmy Stewart in a stovepipe hat:’Awwww…we’ll get ya home son, now, just you simmer down…awwwww…’
Cut a long story short. The end.
|
No. Seriously. Although I did have to go Alllll the way back to Milton Keynes (it never looked so depressingly beautiful at 10-30pm)…by midnight I was sat in first class drinking complimentary Pinot grigio and munching Japanese Rice crackers…
By 1-30 I was face down on Egyptian cotton, righteously spent, with all the love, money and beauty of the world in front of me…
|
 | |
| 2006/07/23 10:02 - HEAVY WEATHER |
 laughing at the heat. Stupid hot.
Concrete burning soles of feet.
cats stupiefied, breathing like bellows.
Butterfly mania at day, Moth Fest at night. | |
 Most productive ever, work wise.
Most broke ever, money wise.
So it figures, If I do nothjing, money would roll in, right?
|
 Listening to cubam music. Smoking cuban cigars. Writing Bossa Nova. Reading japanese Novels in English. |
 A forest.
Deer.
English Wedding.
Hot.
Scotch.
Waking to feel like kidney's have been kicked. |
 italy calling... | |
| 2006/07/10 10:14 - BUFFALO |
 A sweet inferno, gusting, funneled
crowds of every colour in the Oval
echoing with megaphones. The Buses
emptied out in waves into the evening
The heat evaporated into smoke
above the seething gulf: a shining arc inscribed a current down below
and the crowd was ready at the crossing. | |
 A black man dozed inside a beam of light
that sliced the shadows
in a box
breezy, easy women waited for a ferry to arrive. |
 I whispered: Buffalo! - and the word worked.
I plummeted into the limbo where the voices of the blood are deafaning and gleaming burns the sight
like mirror flashes |
 I heard the dry whip crack and everywhere
saw striped backs
bent and churning
on the track.
Poem by Eugenio Montale.
Pictures By Anthony, portrait by Anna. |
 | |
| 2006/07/05 10:20 - Atari Atari |
 Samo Studio is now state of the art...as home studios go...circa 1985...
I've added an Atari St 520 to it, with a 1967 B&W Portable valve TV as monitor...
Mixing Arcade game beats with Piano, crooning and radio Loops...
| |
 Of course, the temptation is to get excited by this new, ahem, technology and rush in, Joystick blazing...
but that ends up as formless sound when i do that...
better to work it into a song...
|
 Reading the collected selected interviews of Tom Waits ...so inspiring...
Doesn't this guy have it all?
A wife collaborater/family.$/studio farm?
I worked out he made more money by not making commercials and suing his soundalikes than he would have by doing the commercials maybe....
a metaphor for the dude...
Imagine what his songs will sound like when he's 78...
|
 So very hot here and I like it...the wood and stone floors hot to the feet...the cats laid out (I check for their breathing)...
An abundance of Kipple... |
 | |
| 2006/06/23 15:23 - Hey, Fever!! |
 How comes there’s no bleedin’ cure for Hayfever?
It’s fucking daft. Waking up in the darkness of a stuffy summer morning with clots of mucus and cotton bedding ones throat, sneezing like Ron Jeremy ejaculates.
Bees in my chest, for God’s sake!
And as for the eyes. I’ve never read a description as to how it feels to have eyes pollinated into agony. It’s as if the whole eyeball has been taken out and rolled in itching powder and Buffalo wing sauce. That shit gets BEHIND your eyes.
And one of the worst things about hayfever is that it makes relaxing difficult.
I.e., it’s uncomfortable to do nothing when afflicted by hayfever.
I remember as a kid I was having injections every week for one spring. ‘This’ll cure it’ I was told cheerfully by a Giant nurse. They stopped abruptly. No explanation. Something about another kid on the same course developing all over body fur at 9 years of age.
It took me 20 years longer.
But hayfever makes…it confirms my suspicion that earth is not my natural environment.
| |
 I surely don’t feel like I belong spiritually and increasingly, I don’t belong physically, so it seems.
Does anyone?
Do Dolphins get allergic to seawater?
So my nightime ritual involves even more pills now, asides from the usual Xanax and painkillers. Beechams powders capsules. A Decongensent spray. Double the dose of prescribed anti histamines. No wonder my dreams are full of nostalgia and loss, eh?
|
 Sounds like Lou Reed Song.
Once, it was easy to write a Lou Reed Song.
Choose a phrase;
“Bunions and Ink”
Do a classic G –A -D riff for the verse. (or other way round).
Next, ruminate on Bunions and ink.
‘Itchy feet and dirty fingers/No marathon for me/Writing up on dead sea scrolls/never went to universit-ee…’
Then change one chord for the chorus and almost, but not quite, scream:
‘BUNIONS AND INK!! Bunions and ink” Over and again for a bit.
|
 Been trying to read, through my misty Corneas.
Wading through Peter Biskind’s ‘Low down and dirty Pictures’.
A heavy read…I Loved ‘his ‘Raging bulls…’ but this is. Not very dynamic. But what’s weird, is reading about films that I watched when they came out..’Jackie Brown’. ‘PI’,
‘Spanking the monkey’…reading this as history.
So, have spent most of the weeks evenings watching films.
The above, plus Robert Altman’s ‘Nashville’…(Tooo Long//nah, unfocussed)…
Finally saw ‘Capote’ which I Loved…the score was great. Actually a character in its own right. A lovely low-key minor chord movie.
Re watched ‘True Romance’ last night…bittersweet. This was the first film I watched having moved to Londonin 1993 and the last I saw with my girl of that time, Kirsten Seager.
(Who inspired the soon to be released ‘Pioneer Soundtracks’ album).
Watched Cronenberg’s ‘A History of Violence’, which, were I an emotional humanoid, would have brought tears. What a film! Devoid of Cronennerg’s excesses, which I’m not enamoured of…but lovely…wickedly funny too.
Sunny out. Pollen lays off. I move toward the light, a heart of beating darkness within.
|
| 2006/06/18 12:03 - if your telephone dont ring that ll be me |
 June 1st…I meet Leonard in my favourite Kensington Hotel…we will share a attic room there for two days…we’re in town to see two good ol’ boys, Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham…and also, to experience the bends…its also the birthday of my beloved pal Chris Roberts on Friday, or rather his party…so…a busy time of no sleep…and little wakefulness… | |
 By the time we get to the Church venue by Piccadilly, I forget the name…I am stoned in four ways…the evening is bright London summer and the wind is dirty and hot…
The gig is one of those where people scream ‘Shhhhhh’ when you flex and eyebrow…so I leave Len to it and retire to the back pew. Chug intermittently from my Bourbon bottle nestled in my Lonsdale satchel..and then shut my eyes and enjoying the chemical soup sloshing round my skull, kick back and tally with the moment…
I am awoken by a late middle aged southern American lady who says in a twang; ‘Thankyou’. I blink into partial consciousness. ‘Er, thankyou’ I retort. ‘Ah ahm mrs Spooner Oldham’ the gracious lady says. ‘Thank yew’. Without thinking I tell her ‘Thanky you, mam, for keeping him on the straight and narrow’. I have no idea what I’m talking about. Len is the big fan. I’m deeply appreciative of ‘Dark end of the street’ and ‘A woman left lonely’ but I could hardly claim to be a huge fan…But it’s that kind of evening.
Soon, Len, I and Mrs Oldham are chatting in the garden of the church. Its dusk and everything is alllllright. Bobby Gillespie hovers in a nearby Archway and in my high condition I think of introducing myself. (we have one mutual in common –Dot allison. But I introduced myself to Bobby before, on the premise of False information –Someone told me he was a huge Jack fan-and it didn’t work out. And , nah, I’m not even a fan so, it’s nicer to talk posture and Elvis with Mrs Oldham)…
And then my pal and I are being blown through the gritty mineral wind shuttles of the London’s sidestreets…dark is coming on beautifully…
We meet Julian Simmons, Martin Hay and Alison Dear in a bar…Fiona Brice, coming from an Ed Harcourt rehearsal joins us…
Its one of those evenings where one is director and star in ones own movie…there is no apparent decision making…on a swell of chemicals and liquor one surfs through the evening easefully, with an intoxicated grace and a stolen cigarette between chapping lips…before long we are ensconced at the Phoenix bar, or shuttleworths or whatever…where I hung a lot circa 97-99…I’m talking gibberish and good sense…and..no photos please…and then bar Italia and it’s eerily quiet…and the stink of dawn infecting the sky…and its 4am..and we’re in a taxi…
And then ..trying, furiously to sleep to no avail. I stir into white-hot sunlight and a horrible unwanted morning of free breakfast…pink drool stains the sheets…I have lost 10pounds in 24 hours… |
 When I return to Home I am gripped, my way of a borrowed Johnny cash biography in a Country and western fever…
This last week has seen white white hot weather and we made a den out back…
Having drunk nowt but wine all year Ive been on a Bourbon binge these last two weeks…it’s the perfect drink for this weather while listening to my latest obsession, GEORGE JONES.. a man with a caramelised voice and a life story that makes Bowies Coke phase seem like an extra sugar in Ghandi’s coffee…
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:yya9keft7q7n~T1
Check him out (above) and also his song titles…genius…
I think what I like in particular about country music is its absolute self pity…
Having eaten up the Cash Biog I delved into my library and came up with
‘Dreaming out loud’ by Bruce feiler. A unique and slanted book dealing mostly with modern C&W and the enigma of the satanic Garth Brooks…
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380794705?v=glance |
 I’ve read my fiar share of pitiful life stories but this one is a monster.
What intrigues me is not just someone’s need and ability to get fucked up or someone’s same to sing and impart something’s well….but the combination of both…
Surely someone has done a study in such?
But now the holiday is over…I’ve put on 12 pounds in a week for the 10 I lost in a day and have gone from 5ft;11 to 5ft;9.
Awoke to heavy Rain, and chronic hayfever. Huge arcs of fluid ripping up my throat and out of my nose just when I’m settled…
No cure, there is no cure…
love thy medicine... | |
| 2006/05/19 11:32 - Garson Kanin |
 What I like about....one of the things I like about Junk Shops, Charity shops, etc is that they allow things; books, artists, records, writers, to find ME as opposed to me having to hunt down stuff..The mountain, the molehills, come to this Mohammad.
I live in or near a 'historic market town'..the town, the highstreet, is tiny. But it has two charity shops.
the wealth of art thats reached me through these two tiny portals is amazing; Raymond Carver, Pablo neruda, Bogdanovich, Pavarotti, Mario Lanza, yevtushenko...
All picked up because I liked something about the cover, the way the first line read and because they were so cheap to buy that is was a no risk investment.
The first time I had any money, realatively speaking, was whenh I was 24 and I signed a humble Publishing advance with Warner Chappell. (Ive never received anything approaching a substantial advance from any of the various records deals I've had-its all gone to recording).
i decided I would buy everything I needed from Harrods; because as a kid I read a lot of comics and harrods was portrayed as a mythical empire where you could buy everything from chocolate covered ants to sad eyed Elephants...and it just seemed like the right thing to do.
i bought one top; a YSL thing that looked liek Jean cocteau might have worn. Is till have it, and it still fits amazingly..(i noticed today that the waist size of my trousers corresponds and has done,for the last 5 years with my age).
But the shopping experience was unfullfilling. i didnt liek the 'assistants', the lay out, the lights..and ultimately the lack of mystery.
I liked finding an old packet of woodbines in a De mob suit. The inscriptions in the book, a feather falling out of a Cocteau biography...
And i have a knack; the right things find me.
In Nantwhich the other day i chanced upon an orange book called 'Hollywood'. the dust jacket had been lost and it was rather uninspiring to look at...
But I'm a sucker for the true life tales from the 'Golden age' of tinseltown..and somethign about the font and the density of the words appealed to me. It appeared to eb biography, so i bought it.
I've had problems getting into books of late, trouble finishing them. But this grabbed me, hooked and railed me in..the hilarious idiot logic of characters such as Sam Goldywn and Harry Cohn..and at the heart, the writer himself, the playright turned director, Garson Kanin.
| |
 The natrual warmth and wit, the evolved intelligence and spirit of the man flows from the book in the same way that they do from John fante's books..
And one of the things about good writing is that it doesnt tell you something, it makes something happen to you.
There are numerous lives Ive never lived and sometimes one gets a hint of these, a reflection of a phantom when reading of the lives of others...
reading about Garson and his first wife, Ruth as they prepare for dinner in their NYC apartment, if elt I was there...I was Aznavour in 'Happy anniversery'.
And you read of his struggles, his dissapointments, the great work, the average work, the books, the novels, the directing..
And you think 'this is a life'...
And yous ee your own stretching out behind you, marked by records released, shows played, love affairs, meetings, trips, sitting rooms..
|
|
I then found a copy of ‘In the country of Country’, which turned me onto George Jones..