Of All the Gin Joints: Stumbling Through Hollywood History by Mark Bailey

The film industry came of age during the Roaring '20s and Prohibition so it makes sense that Hollywood, especially Golden Age Hollywood, always had more than its' share of drunks. To read the sodden stories Mark Bailey has assembled in the delightful Of All the Gin Joints: Stumbling Through Hollywood History is to learn that damn near everyone in Tinseltown was a drunk and often of epic proportions. 

Having has bellied up to the bar before with Hemingway & Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers, Bailey brings artist Hemingway along for plenty of oddly twisted caricatures of all the inebriates. They also offer up forty cocktail recipes and short histories of some of the great restaurants, bars, and nightclubs of days gone by like Chasen's, Ciro's, and The Brown Derby. 

Starting with the Silent Era and ending at the end of the '70s, Bailey regales us with drunken exploits of the writers, actors, and directors who managed to have successful careers while nursing enough bad habits to outfit a softball team of fallen nuns. While all the tales are told with a light touch, the author doesn't shy away from showing us the sad side of the stars, as well. The Miley's and Lindsays of today might be amazed to learn they didn't invent trampy, bad behavior. Some of the silent films actresses of the '20s were quite the drunken, self- and sex-obsessed airheads we know so well today. 

WhiIe I had heard a few of these before like Sinatra and Ava Gardner drunkenly shooting out streetlights and the massive binges of Faulkner and Raymond Chandler, Errol Flynn and Spencer Tracy, most were new to me and highly entertaining. The excesses of Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, the tag team power drinking of Richard Harris and Peter O'Toole, and the wagering by Jackie Gleason and saloon keeper Toots Shor were among my favorites. 

A Curious Man: The Strange & Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It Or Not" Ripley by Neal Thompson

Most of us grew up with Ripley's "Believe It Or Not" in one form or another but the story of the man behind it all is far more interesting than expected.

Ripley grew up poor and isolated in Santa Rosa, California which at the time was the very definition of nowhere. His father, a rather dispirited carpenter, died when Robert was a teen and his mother was left the task of providing for and raising three children. Robert himself was a shy, awkward child with a prominent set of bad teeth and a pronounced stutter. However, he began to come into his own through athletics and drawing. 

In the early part of the 20th century, newspapers were the dominant media and the cartoons within them became a vibrant part of the American culture. In 1918, Ripley sold his first cartoon to LIFE magazine and expected it would be Easy Street from there. It wasn't but it led to work at the San Francisco Chronicle and from there to the New York Globe in Manhattan. Originally, sports was his cartooning beat but he was able to convince the Globe to send him to Europe and the Middle East. There he began to flourish, turning out dispatches of oddities and what Ripley called "queeriosities". At the time, the world was a MUCH bigger place and Ripley was fascinated by the different cultures, customs, and histories and threw himself into his work. The result was a wildly popular cartoon that made him a superstar.

Even then, Ripley understood what we now call "branding" and he was wise enough to continue to build his brand. His cartoon became a syndication smash which led to his Odditoriums at World's Fairs and a succession of popular radio shows. While most Americans struggled through the Great Depression, Ripley became very wealthy, living a lavish life of first-class travel, beautiful women, and ever larger homes yet despite all his achievements and wealth, Ripley was plagued with self-doubt, loneliness, and the crushing pressures of staying on top to protect his brand and his fortune. 

Author Thompson should be commended for continually making Ripley real. Ripley was especially fascinated by what some would call "freaks", a term he refused to use, that he encountered and eventually sought out in his travels. Here Thompson is especially successful at showing us throughout the book how much Ripley related to their disfigurements, their isolation within their own societies, and the pain of being an outsider, something he felt keenly. He also portrays Ripley as a capricious playboy with a petulant streak who, as he rose higher and higher, lost touch with the stuttering boy he once was. A highly readable, entertaining story.

In The News

Remember In The News on Saturday mornings? I do. 

Just a couple of things you might want to check out: 

Here's a terrific article by Nick Hornby entitled "The Perils of Being a Book Critic" which just ran in the Sunday Times. He raises a number of interesting points about reading, how best to keep up with the onslaught of books and recommendations (even if you aren't a book critic), and offers some sound advice. He also includes a list of books he has happened upon that he thinks deserve a look. 

Great news on the podcast front: Jess Walter and Sherman Alexie have launched their own show entitled "A Tiny Sense of Accomplishment". The two old pals talk about things literary but promise they won't be limited to just bookish pursuits. Both are rather chatty fellows and they have a strong rapport. Having listened to the first episode, I think it shows promise. 

The especially cool part of the show is that each will read from works-in-progress and unpublished material, giving the listener a rare glimpse at work that may or may never see the light of day. As a giant Alexie fan, I'm terribly excited about this. 

You can listen to it here: http://www.infiniteguest.org/tiny-sense/