POPTIMIST/SUKRAT book-larnin shout-out

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

which 33/13s are good to fry read? if poss say why

Comments

[koganbot]

I've never even seen let alone read anything in the series (this shows which part of Barnes & Noble I don't frequent). Based on convos I had with Eric at the time of Use Your Illusion, I'd expect it to be as good as everyone says. skyecaptain suggested - a good thirty-six hours before the deadline - that I pitch Autobiography or Raw Power or New York Dolls. I figure that the last two I've already done, in effect (could just as easily have given Real Punks Don't Wear Black the title Raw Power vs. New York Dolls (if you accept the premise that the Sex-O-Lettes and Debbie Deb are as truly the Dolls and the Stooges as the Dolls and Stooges are; and so is Bob Dylan, and my friends Maureen Nolan and Tina LaConte). As for Autobiography, I wouldn't want to concentrate on SNL and the sneering but rather on the whipcrack kid who stepped out and declared "I walked a thousand miles while everyone was asleep," but I don't think I could make a full book on that. OK, that's nonsense. I could write a full book about my toenail, if I envisaged the right readers. Which is the real issue: I'm afraid that my prose will go dead in the face of the "general reader," which is what happened in my first attempt at a book back in 1986 (called Raw Power, by the way). The "justifying Ashlee to the clods" aspect will enter unbidden, to the detriment of the prose. And so will dutifulness, including my not permitting myself the usual "Well, I have no clue who actually wrote these lyrics, but if Ashlee's name is in the credits only as a courtesy, how come the lyrics on her albums are way smarter and more complex and restless and probing than the lyrics on anything else Shanks and DioGuardi and Peiken have had a hand in?" Which means I'd have to get in touch with some of the principals, and I'm basically too shy to, and even if I weren't, I suspect that getting near Ashlee would take a team experienced in international negotiation, and that, while John Shanks and Kara DioGuardi might be happy to have their labor feted at book-length, they're awfully busy, and I doubt that they hang around Denver much, and - as I said - I'm fundamentally too shy. However, a book might do something that no amount of posts and articles will: turn around the critical understanding of Ashlee (and of modern music). So I feel guilty and like I've let her down. Oh well. Maybe UGA Press would be interested in something, but I'd also need a grant from somewhere to pay bills and rent (I need this anyway) while writing the thing.