Re: RARA-AVIS: Algren's trip

From: Rene Ribic ( rribic@optusnet.com.au)
Date: 21 Jun 2002


>
> So Mario, who's next in your revivial, Hubert Selby, Jr?
>
> Mark
>
Nothing I've read by any of the authors mentioned (or rather, dissed) comes anywhere near being as bad as Ellroy's THE COLD SIX THOUSAND. Nothing. I've recently read 2-3 of Carroll John Daly's stories & Daly is someone who gets dissed a lot re: his literary skills & nothing I've read by him is as bad as Ellroy's last. I don't know about comical, either intentional or not, but Ellroy has to win worst noir/hb novel hands down. I couldn't imagine a worse book ever being published but then, before reading it, I didn't think one as bad as that could be published, either. And Ellroy apparently thinks he's one of the great up
& coming "real" (as opposed to genre) writers. For his sake, I hope that's just more of his publicity drivel.

>Reed read it and thought, What am I going to write
>songs about, a cripple going to the bathroom?

So he wrote a song about a drag queen shaving her legs & giving head. So much more elevating :-)
(Which reminds me. When I was a tyke, the song was a huge hit in my part of the world. Although censorship was rampant & one of Sydney's 2 Top 40 stations was run by the Catholic church the line about "giving head" was never censored because no-one in Australia knew what the expression meant at that time, at least not before "Walk on the Wild Side" came out. Around the same time Rod Stewart had his 1st big top 40 hit, "Maggie May" which contained the verse" "all you did is wreck my bed & in the morning kick me in the head" - this line was censored by the Catholic station (2SM - the SM stood for St Mary). The Church knew what beds were used for & they weren't having none of it.

Rene

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