True, drugged-out writing has given us some bonafide classics in thepast (Crowley, Burroughs, you know). But it is the mark of the speedfreakthat he produces tangled heaps such as this. Convoluted, obsessivelyrepetitive (how many times do we have to re-read the ethical mindsetof the Angels?), and in the end just plain annoying. Maybe you likethis aggressively "hip" style of gonzo journalism, but ifyou don't, maybe you (like me) would prefer the more, uh, "linear"text of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. --T.C.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #3)

Dean Martin. Most of us run for the door when the name is uttered--theunspeakable atrocities of Cannonball Run, Airport, the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast. And, worst of all, Jerry Lewistoo ingrained in our childhood (and a decade best forgotten) for our heads to bear. But this bio portrays Dino more as the lackadaisical exploiter, the crass drunk who crashes the Hollywood dream-party,steals all the broads and booze and escapes to a golf course in Beverly Hills and a one-show-a-night gig in Vegas... The man who knows all the cogs in the Hollywood meat grinder and jumps into it willingly, sipping martinis all the way through, doing what he's told when the cameras roll, but somehow getting away with letting his jolly contempt of the whole business shine through the facade.

But through it all (though Dino Crocetti stands square at the center) the reader knows what Tosches is really getting at: this book is less a myth-busting hatchet job (Dean, after all, dissects his own myth better than Tosches ever could) than it is a document of the riseof the American cult(ure) of mediocrity--the bread (Wonder) and circuses (television), the Martin and Lewis. The US, after all, never really belonged to the ivory tower types (despite what Camille says),but to the drinkers and gamblers, entertainers and mobsters, the crooks and politicians that pull the strings from behind the big curtain. And what makes this all so amusing is the fact that no matter howmany times someone yanks the sham aside and reveals the shadows behind it, the reaction is the same: "So what?" But Tosches realizes this, and the result is this tome, cynical, gruff, abrasive, funny,and as fine a read as I can think of nowadays. --T.C.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #3)

last update 7/30/97


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