Thursday, April 19, 2012

I love Dean Martin and good biographies seem to be scarce.

Hey pallies, likes today we turn 'gain to our youthful Idahoian Dino-devotee Miss Pamela Hay and her wild blog, "Adventures of a Wild Woman." Pamela has shared a number of Dino-focused reflections, and today we read her ruminations review of Nick Tosches' Dino-tome, "DINO:Living High In The Dirty Business Of Living."

Faithful readers of ilovedinomartin knows how this pallie feels 'bout Tosches Dino-epic....I simply loves it....and always will....no one or nothin' will ever change my beliefs that this is simply the greatest of the great Dino-writes. But, likes I knows plenty of pallies who dig our Dino who ain't so sold out to Tosches' Dino-reflections.

It appears that Miss Pamela is 'mong those 'cause her thoughts on Nick Tosches' Dino-scribin's are anythin' but complimentary sayin'..."The San Francisco Chronicle was wrong. This book was neither brilliant, nor compelling. Let me tell you why." And, that dear readers is just the beginnin' of her unfavorable remarks.

Well, I ain't gonna try and persuade Miss Pamela of the extraordinary effective efforts that Tosches poured into his Dino-efforts. What I will do is simply repeat remarks I made when asked by our pallies Frank and Joe of "classicmoviechat.com" 'bout my thoughts on Tosches' Dino-bio.....

"Hey pallies Frank and Joe, how great to have you feature my Dino-thoughts in this here post. To me Tosches’ stunnin’ Dino-bio is not the sort of masterpiece that one reads cover to cover likes any ordinary volume.

DINO: Living High In The Dirty Business Of Dreams is our main man’s main book, and I see it as the essential Dino-resource for all Dino-philes to savor and delve deeply into over and over again.

As scriber Nick points out….our Dino is likes the ultimate engima…likes totally totally unknowable, but Tosches does a stellar job of puttin’ the life, times, and teachin’s of our Dino into one portable source. Others have spoken of Tosches havin’ sorta a love/hate relationship with our great man…and I thinks that is perhaps the best way of framin’ his amazin’ work.

In other writin’s on our Dino, Tosches has described our most beloved Dino as “an American Buddha” and I find that a brillant comparison. You may wanna checks out the Dino-amore-day 2012 post at ilovedinomartin tagged Dino-amore Nick Tosches Style where we posted Tosches amazin’ Dino-essay God Created Dean Martin In His Own Image Then Stood Back, which is chapter 27 in Nick Tosches’ Reader. Anyone who questions Tosches devotion to our Dino simply needs to read that amazin’ reflection.

BTW, did you know that DINO: Living High In The Dirty Business Of Dreams won Blender Mag’s top award for greatest Rock and Roll bio of all times? Pallies who shy away from Tosches’ tome simply are afraid of seein’ all sides of our great man’s great life. Those who truly love our Dino loves each and every detail of his amazin’ life journey."

So, you see that truly Miss Pamela and I don't agree on Tosches' tome...but certainly each Dino-holic is entitled to their personal Dino-perspective...and I certainly wants to be far and air other's thoughts on Tosches...and thus today we hear from Dino-digger Miss Pamela.

ilovedinomartin thanks Idahoian Dino-phile Pamela for liftin' up the name of our Dino at her blog and sharin' her personal ponderin's. To view this in it's original format, likes just clicks on the tag of this Dino-message. Dino-always and ever, DMP



Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams by Nick Tosches



The San Francisco Chronicle was wrong. This book was neither brilliant, nor compelling. Let me tell you why.

First off, it was poorly written. Really really poorly written. There was zero continuity and I often found myself rereading passages because I couldn't figure out what in the world the author was talking about.

The f-word was also used way too much for my liking. I understand using it when quoting people (such as Taraborrelli did in Sinatra: A Complete Life), but the author was swearing up a storm. The only purpose I can see behind it is that Tosches was trying to sound like Dean Martin. It just became annoying to me.

On the same note Tosches also spokes for Dean, as if he knew what Dean was thinking as various times in his life. Tosches also states that no one really ever knew Dean. I guess that loops me back to the fact that it was poorly written.

You may be asking yourself why I bothered to finish the book. I had two pretty good reasons. The first one being the I ordered the book through Interlibrary Loan. This means that BYU-Idaho sent out a request for the book to be sent to our library from another library so that I could check the book out. This costs money. It didn't feel right to have them order a book only for me to send it back the next day. The other reason is that I love Dean Martin and good biographies seem to be scarce. I really wanted to learn about him. I'm not sure how much truth I learned, but at least I now have a general idea of his life.

If anyone knows of a better or accurate Dean Martin biography don't keep it to yourself!

5 comments:

Always On Watch said...

There are SO MANY biographies of Frank Sinatra.

In fact, a lot of lesser stars also have numerous biographies written about them.

I do wish that our Dino had more such biographies about him.

I'm not crazy about the book that Tosches wrote -- a bit too "artistic" for my taste, I guess. I'm wishing for more balance with more biographies about our Dino.

dino martin peters said...

Hey pallie, likes I hear you Miss AOW, but personally I am surprised that we have as many as we have...our Dino bein' such a man of mystery...truly no one coulda ever write the kind of book that our great man deserves...just as you will note that none of the Dino-flicks purposed have gotten off the written page. Of what we have, Tosches is the greatest is my Dino-book. Keeps lovin' our Dino!

CarolMR said...

I loved Tosches' book. You could tell he had a real admiration for and understanding of Dino.
OT (I apologize), but I just saw the beach movie FOR THOSE WHO THINK YOUNG and both Nancy Sinatra and Claudia Martin are in it. Claudia was an incredibly beautiful woman. I'm surprised she didn't make more movies. Didn't she die fairly young (after her dad, thank God)?

CarolMR said...

I don't understand why there aren't more bios of Dino. He certainly lived a full life! Maybe the public just took, and takes, him for granted. As Frank Sinatra poignantly said after he heard Dino died, "He was like the air I breathe." I took that to mean that he was always there, you never thought about not having him around. I remember some other friends who commented on his death. Another that stood out was Shirley MacLaine. She said, "Dean Martin was the funniest man I ever met." That's high priase from an actress who knew everyone in show business.

dino martin peters said...

Hey pallie, likes Miss Carol, delighted to hear that you also appreciate Tosches' tome on our Dino. Indeed, Claudia did die a bit after her father's passing.
Keeps lovin' our Dino!