The Demon Dog gets a podcast

Great news: Author James Ellroy will be doing a Los Angeles based true crime podcast.

The bad news: It's only five episodes and doesn't launch until August.

Still, this is going to be fun. I saw Ellroy in person years ago when he made an appearance at an L.A. bookstore in support of the film version of his novel The Black Dahlia, and he did not disappoint (although the movie did). The best way I can describe him is that he is a James Ellroy character, a throwback to another era, a larger-than-life legend in his own mind (and in the minds of many others, mine included).

From the article:

The series, based on his own true crime reporting, will be narrated by Ellroy and will tell the story of a slew of memorable mid-century murders.

Episodes include Glamour Jungle, which explores the 1963 unsolved murder of Karyn Kupcinet, daughter of Irv Kupcinet, famed columnist and friend to mobsters. Stephanie tells the haunting tale of Stephanie Gorman, who met an untimely end in the Cheviot Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1965. Clash by Night fast forwards to 1976, to the murder of Rebel Without a Cause star Sal Mineo. The series concludes with a two-part episode - Body Dumps and My Mother's Killer, which tells the story of the 1958 murder of Ellroy's own mother.

Yesterday I read that John Stamos (apparently a big Rat Pack fan with connections) will be doing a podcast in late July about the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Jr., and now this. Lots of cool podcast goodness to look forward to.

Recent Reading: "Rat Pack Confidential"

Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey and the Last Great Show Biz Party by Shawn Levy

My second Rat Pack book and another good one. 

This book focuses primarily on Frank Sinatra, a lot on Sammy Davis, Jr., and a bit less on Dean Martin and Peter Lawford (his importance to the group was mainly his connection to the then up-and-coming John F. Kennedy) and even less on Joey Bishop. 

It focuses a lot on the mob's involvement with Sinatra and Las Vegas, as well as both the mob's and Pack's involvement with the Kennedy presidential election and inauguration, and the subsequent deterioration of both's relationship with the Kennedy White House. Sinatra's infamous temper and violent outbursts get a lot of ink as well.

There's a lot of information on racial issues that Davis had to deal with over the years. I was surprised to learn that he took a lot of crap from the black community. Blacks thought he kowtowed to whites and some despised him for it, and while white audiences loved the gifted entertainer, he lived in an era where he could entertain these audiences but not stay at the same hotel as them. In fact Davis was instrumental in the eventual integration of Las Vegas hotels and casinos.

There's also a bit on Marilyn Monroe's sad ending. She and Lawford were close friends and he was trying to save her from herself at the end. In fact, some of her last words ever were made to Lawford, telling him, "Say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy." The author makes no attempt to pin Marilyn's death on anyone or put forth a determination of murder, suicide, or accidental overdose, but does point out how she was used and abused by so many men around her that her destruction was pretty much inevitable. 

One thing I didn't realized when I bought the book was how old it is - it was published in 1999, when Joey Bishop was the last surviving member of the Rat Pack. So everyone else's death gets discussed except his. I initially wondered why Bishop didn't get eulogized, then checked the publication date - it was because he was still alive at the time. Despite its age, it's a great book on the men of the Rat Pack (they preferred to refer to that brief, glorious run as "The Summit"), their lives, and the era they lived in. 

If the Kennedys now found Frank's society politically untenable, the others party to the singer's audacious juggling game found his lack of juice with the Kennedy family infuriating. Frank had indicated to Giancana that the mob's assistance with Jack's election would be recompensed with the easing of federal inquiries into racketeering, but the fall of Sinatra's star in the eyes of the Kennedys coincided with an increasingly ravenous attitude toward the mob on the part of the Justice Department.

Recent reading: "Deconstructing The Rat Pack: Joey, The Mob, and The Summit"

Deconstructing The Rat Pack: Joey, The Mob, and The Summit 

by Richard A. Lertzman with Lon Davis

I came about this book in a kind of roundabout way. Until Better Call Saul and Barry return, there's absolutely no first run TV shows that I have any interest in. Luckily there are a couple of channels showing old and classic TV shows, MeTV and Antenna TV. I've been DVRing old Carol Burnett episodes and stumbled across a couple of shows I'd never seen or heard of before: Lotsa Luck! and The Joey Bishop Show.

Lotsa Luck! was produced by Carl Reiner and starred Dom DeLuise as a New York City bus company employee who lived with his mother, sister, and deadbeat brother-in-law. It's a typical studio-bound 1970's sitcom, but for some reason I got hooked on it.

And then there's The Joey Bishop Show, a sitcom starring, of course, deadpan comedian Joey Bishop. Bishop had a decades-long standup career, was a fixture on 1950's and 60's talk shows (eventually guest hosting The Tonight Show over 200 times), was known for his quick wit, hosted the Emmy Awards multiple times, and most famously was a member of The Rat Pack, the uber-cool collection of superstar entertainer friends who briefly ruled Las Vegas, and according to this book helped make Vegas the destination it is today. 

The Rat Pack was comprised of Bishop, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, and Peter Lawford. Sinatra was the undisputed king. Davis was an established song-and-dance man and entertainer. Martin had not yet made the transition from Jerry Lewis's straight man to a successful TV show host on his own. Lawford, a handsome, British-born film actor, was included mainly due to his connection to future president John F. Kennedy (Lawford had married JFK's sister Patricia).

Bishop's show, like DeLuise's, is pretty typical of its time. But it made me curious about Bishop. You know that expression "don't meet your idols"? I was shocked to discover that Bishop was absolutely loathsome and despised by so many people that by the time his career tanked, he had burned so many bridges that he was pretty much over despite only being in his early 50's. Eventually he even pissed off Frank Sinatra, who then declined to include Bishop in future Rat Pack projects and performances. 

This book, just released in December, is the culmination of years of often combative interviews with Bishop in the years prior his death in 2007, along with some highly unflattering interviews with some of his co-workers from the sitcom. 

Bishop paid his dues in his early years, working his way up from small clubs to popular nightclubs. At the time he was considered cooperative - most clubs were mob-controlled and Bishop was the kind of guy who knew how to keep his mouth shut, so the mobsters liked him. His career really took off when Frank Sinatra chose him as an opening act. It was an ideal situation for Bishop - he was a low-energy performer who would warm up the crowd, but not wear them out before the headliner took the stage. But after The Rat Pack became huge, he shifted into star, rather than sidekick, mode. 

At this point in his career Bishop had two strikes against him - one, he was unable to update his act to fit changing tastes of the 1960's post-Rat Pack era. And as far as his sitcom was concerned, he was handicapped by not being trained as an actor. He also was a terrible tyrant to the people who worked on the show. Actors and writers were verbally abused and often fired. No one on the show seemed to have anything good to say about him. To add to Bishop's displeasure, the show was ripped to shreds by critics; in fact the original concept of Season 1 was was completely jettisoned for subsequent seasons. For various reasons the show was able to get through four seasons before getting the axe. 

There was some hope that his skills were better suited to a talk show, which became his next endeavor. His late-night talk show was intended to compete with Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show, but after two seasons he was replaced by Dick Cavett, who like Carson was better equipped to interview more intellectual guests. Bishop's career never recovered.

The book also delves into the legendary Rat Pack and aims to dispel some of the long-term stories and legends about that era. 

Joey, who had burned bridges earlier with Ed Sullivan and had alienated Danny Thomas, was attacking and firing the top writers and directors on his show, angering NBC executives with his prima donna-like behavior. But to bite the hand that fed him - Frank Sinatra - the man who made his entire career possible - that was tantamount to career suicide.

No joke, this exists: You can get married at a Taco Bell

And yes, of course, it's in Las Vegas.

For $600 you get:

Includes, among other things, a sauce packet garter and bow-tie,
sauce packet bouquet (which is a loaner, in case you need something
borrowed), t-shirts, a 12-pack of tacos, and a Cinnabon cake.

Taco Bell Chihuahua not included.

Look, I love their greasy food as much as the next person. I'm not even going to try and be a food snob about this - there's something in their meat sauce and mild sauce that is like crack to me. But I don't think even I could get drunk enough to get married in a Taco Bell, even if it's legit. Not to mention for $600 I'm going to want a lot more than 12 measly tacos, and I'll be taking that sauce packet bouquet home with me, thank you very much.

This almost makes getting hitched by an Elvis impersonator look like a legit decision made by sober adults serious about the sanctity of marriage.

And don't think I won't use this in a story someday, because I totally will.

However, to each his own, live and let live, yadda yadda yadda. So if you would actually like to get married in a Taco Bell (which no one will ever judge you for) you can check out the deets at Taco Bell Wedding.