Being bicoastal had always sounded really cool to me-the best of both worlds, the sanest way to endure the shallowness of L.A. and the hardship of New York. Then I actually began having to live it, and immediately found myself losing things-not just sleep, but house keys, mail, my wallet and the necessary calm attention-span Read More
I have never been much of a guy’s guy. But recently, I got an e-mail inviting me to a boys-only poker game; the pitch promised me (and a half-dozen friends) “an evening of gambling, drinking & telling tall tales about sexual performance … smoking allowed.”
My first reaction was anxiety-and not because of my aversion Read More
“When I was 19,” Jonathan Richman sang to the crowd at the Bowery Ballroom, “I was over-intellectual … I was such a little brat.” Then he grinned his goofy, mournful grin, reeled back from the microphone and launched into another acoustic 1-4-5 guitar solo, for “Nineteen in Naples.”
Now 48, Mr. Richman has a Read More
The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys and Sells the New Hollywood , by Tom King. Random House, 670 pages, $25.95.
David Geffen throws up twice in The Operator . He barfs after reading George Trow’s 1978 New Yorker profile of Ahmet Ertegun, in which the Atlantic Records mogul witheringly described Mr. Geffen’s “eager greed.” And Read More
“What’s he building in there?”
That’s the nonmusical question posed by the creepiest track of Tom Waits’ latest record, Mule Variations –a spoken-word piece about neighborly paranoia backed by spare percussion and sound effects.
“Now what’s that sound from under the door?” Mr. Waits wonders. “He’s pounding nails into a hardwood floor … and Read More
Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything , by James Gleick. Pantheon Books, 324 pages, $24.
As parenting and Web surfing have overtaken my life, I’ve found myself with less and less time for reading books (at least books that aren’t illustrated and don’t rhyme). This busyness, somewhat paradoxically, makes me a target demo reader Read More
Steve Nieve didn’t choose his fake showbiz name–it was thrust upon him.
Born Stephen Nason, he dropped out of the Royal College of Music in 1977 after answering the ad “Keyboard player required for rocking pop combo.” The combo turned out to be Elvis Costello’s new band, the Attractions, who embarked on a barnstorming tour Read More
When You’ve Got Mail was filming on the Upper West Side, Doris Basner and her family accidentally wandered onto the set, and “we got treated like garbage,” she said. So when the movie was released, she refused to go see it.
But now Ms. Basner has a better reason to avoid You’ve Got Mail . Read More
Way back in 1979, when Bruce Springsteen played the No Nukes fund-raiser concerts at Madison Square Garden, during a particularly athletic workout of Gary (U.S.) Bonds’ “Quarter to Three,” he pretended to pass out, exclaiming something like: “I can’t keep doing this–I’m 30 years old!”
Singing “Thunder Road” at the Continental Airlines Arena on the Read More
