Bookselling:

Because I have a book to sell (see directly above), I’ll be accepting all requests for interviews. I just taped one for the British Broadcasting Company. Saturday night I appeared on the Joe Franklin show. I’ve agreed to be interviewed for a Linda Lovelace documentary, etc. And, as a good author should, I’ll promote my book every chance I get.

My heart, however, is with I Cover The Waterfront by Max Miller. Brilliant in its simplicity. Unlike most books published in the 1930s, this one reads as if it was written an hour ago. If you don’t want to spend the $12, borrow this gem from your local Public Library.

Sunday’s New York Times Book Review:

Some years ago, Carole and I were at a California spa with the owner of one of the largest bookshop chains in America. He’d just paid $6 for a copy of the Sunday New York Times, which he carried under his arm.

“Let me see the Book Review when you’re through with it,” I said.

He pulled the section from the paper and handed it to me.

“I’ll get it back to you,” I promised.

“Skip it,” he said. “It has no relevance to me.”

I was somewhat startled. His words gave me pause for thought.

I was reminded of those words again by a comment by New York magazine columnist Michael Wolff that was quoted in the New York Observer. “I stopped reading the New York Times Book Review. It was always one of those things you felt obligated to read, and then I realized no one cared. I now have 45 minutes more free time on Sundays.”

The Book Review has reviewed one Barricade Book in the last ive years. I doubt that this has impacted the sales of our titles. Like that chain store mogul, I long ago concluded that the Book Review isn’t relevant.

Now I hear that its editor, Charles McGrath, is leaving. That’s one step in the right direction.

Corrections:

I strive for 100% accuracy in Hot News but sometimes memory doesn’t cooperate. Last month’s Hot News contained two factual errors. (1) I gave the wrong address for the Norwegian Church that Barry Farber took me to for lunch. It’s on East 52nd Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues. (2) The article about Jake LaMotta by Marilyn Lownes appeared in the London Observer and not the Telegraph. London’s Ernest Hecht was the first to point this out. He was seconded by Marilyn’s husband, Victor Lownes.

Incidentally, you can read the Jake LaMotta article in its entirety on the Internet if you bring up Marilyn Lownes on Google.

Publisher Bad Sales Predictions:

It was way back in March when we last revealed those excess inventories among major publishers who guessed wrong on how many copies a title will sell.

Leftover copies don't always mean that a book hasn't earned money for its publisher, but they do reflect someone's over-optimistic guess on how many copies would be sold.

Title

Quantity remaindered

Random House:

Black House by Stephen King 300,000

Dave Barry Hits Below The Beltway 12,995

Dearly Departed by Eleanor Lipman 5,546

Ever After by Eduardo Jackson 4,170

Broadway Books:

At The Buzzer by Bryan Burwell 38,054

Christmas In My Heart by Joe Wheeler 11,227

Close To Shore by Michael Capuzzo 7,315

The Triumph of Katie Byrne by Barbara Taylor Bradford 35,949

Bantam Dell:

Brazen Virtue by Nora Roberts 10,547

After The Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfeld 610

Final Target by Iris Johansen 17,039

May There Be a Road by Louis L’amour 24,641

The Smoke Jumper by Nicolas Evans 46,747

Black Dog & Leventhal:

African American Archive 11,400

Dollhouse Book 9,000

Forbes book of Great Business Letters 6,750

World of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not 11,950

Our website address is: www. Barricadebooks.com

Palm Springs Book:

Although officially a 2004 publication, our Production Director Jeff Nordstedt is working overtime to assure that copies of Palm Springs Confidential (subtitle: Playground of the Stars) by Howard Johns, will be ready before Christmas. Johns has already lined up orders for about 1,000 copies in the Palm Springs area alone.

Political Correctness:

The cover story in a recent issue of New York Press by Celia Farber on the death of political correctness deserves a much wider audience. She declares “the death of Political Correctness” with the election of Arnold Schwartzenegger as Governor of California.

The long article is a deep and brilliant piece of writing. And I don’t say that just because I’m named in it. She condemns group after group including, “Most newspapers, magazines and members of the media, excepting a few people such as Nat Hentoff, Dorothy Rabinowitz, Lewis Lapham, Alan Colmes, Lyle Stuart, Russ Smith, John Strausbaugh, Richard Johnson and Bob Guccione Jr. -- and others who believe that freedom, ideas and language should enjoy an unfettered relationship.”

Friendly Reminders:

¶¶¶ A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

¶¶¶ When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

¶¶¶ 99% of all politicians give the rest a bad name.

¶¶¶ The goal of a gambling casino is to relieve you of all your money.

¶¶¶ The rich man has many treasures, but he’ll still take everything you give him.

¶¶¶ A small hatchet can fell a large oak tree.

¶¶¶ What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

¶¶¶ I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

¶¶¶ If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

¶¶¶ The early bird may get the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Dr. Albert Ellis:

Last month I reported on the 90th birthday party for Dr. Albert Ellis. One week later, The New Yorker devoted an entire page to the party. They obviously didn’t understand why Nicole Kidman was there. Apart from that, they misquoted me, referring to me as “somebody.”

What “somebody” said in my brief talk was that in a letter to his son, Dalton Trumbo urged him to secure a copy of Sex Without Guilt by Dr. Ellis. He mentioned the chapter titled “New Light on Masturbation” and went on to say that he considered Albert Ellis the most important man on this earth after Gandhi.

The New Yorker said that I said that letter was part of the show Trumbo now playing Off Broadway and starring Brian Dennehy. I couldn’t have said it because I haven’t yet seen the show.

It’s worth noting that Dalton Trumbo wrote about Ellis in many of his letters to friends. In one letter quoted in the letters collection called Additional Dialogue he writes: “I wonder if you will ever be able to understand that flood of savage joy which filled my heart on first reading Sex Without Guilt. I felt, with Keats, like some “watcher of the night skies when a new planet swims into his ken.”

Ellis, at the age of 90, has completely rewritten his classic volume which we’ve just published under the title: Sex Without Guilt in the 21st Century.

Sharks in the Desert:

Our Spring 2004 list will feature an explosive new book by John L. Smith titled Sharks in the Desert. Smith, whose four-times-a-week column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal has won multiple awards, has written intimate stories about the casino owners who built Las Vegas and the ones who control it today.

His biography of Steve Wynn, Running Scared, generated several lawsuits to prevent its publication or remove it from the market. These all failed, and an order by a Kentucky court prevents Wynn from bringing any further lawsuits against the book anywhere in the world.

Running Scared continues to sell at a steady pace both in the hard-covered Barricade Books edition and the Four Walls Eight Windows trade paperback edition. A Japanese edition was published recently.

Unforgettable Scenes (1):

Of my two closest boyhood friends, one was Irish and one was African-American. The African-American was Avant Keels. After serving in the Navy during World War II, Avant couldn’t find employment and so he re-enlisted. On being discharged, he joined Lyle Stuart Inc. He was given several responsibilities, one of which was to make our deposits at a midtown bank.

One afternoon, Avant telephoned the office. He was obviously upset. He explained that although he had been on line at the bank, the teller told him it was after three o’clock and she couldn’t accept his deposit. He then walked to a nearby desk to open a new account for one of our subsidiaries. The clerk had observed Avant’s encounter with the teller, and said curtly, “Didn’t she tell you that we don’t do business after three-o-clock?”

The Winkers
“They were winking at each other,” Avant told me on the phone.

I directed him to return to the office. Then I fired off a Special Delivery letter (yes, Virginia, there used to be such things!) to the bank’s president.

Two days later, the bank president phoned. He apologized. Then he asked if I would join Avant and come to the bank. He had us picked up and driven there in a limousine.

One we were inside the bank, he asked Avant to identify the teller and the clerk involved. Avant pointed them out. Without ceremony, the bank president fired both of them on the spot. Then he told us again how sorry he was about the incident.

My company printed calling cards identifying Avant as our “Assistant Vice-President.” Thereafter when he delivered a package to a fancy building and was told to use the servant’s entrance, he would present his card and be regaled with apologies.

Golden Rainbow:

Last year, on December 18th, Blanchard, the country’s largest large gold coin dealer, filed a lawsuit against J. P. Morgan and Barrick. Their suit charged the two giant companies with conspiring to manipulate the price of gold and to monopolize the gold market in violation of U.S. antitrust laws.

Morgan and Barrick made a motion to have the suit dismissed. Their motion was denied. A trial is scheduled to begin on April 5, 2004.

Since the day the lawsuit was filed, the price of gold has gone up by more than 25%. A bull market for gold is anticipated should Blanchard score a victory.

Mailbag:

A light-hearted letter from Joe Maniscalco suggests that maybe, as a Private First Class and an M.P., it was his assignment to find and arrest me on the Air Transport command base at National Airport – but that I outsmarted him by doing K.P. (kitchen police) peeling potatoes. (See last issue.)

Will Fowler refers to the same article, saying “I consider it one of the finest short-short stories I have read having to do with the World War II period.

“It had everything in the right place for every student of English literature… It’s a perfect package of suspense, wit, cunning and downright guts mixed with ‘blasé’ , as, for example, when you casually decided to attend a dance before turning yourself in to the military police. I had my daughter make copies so I could send the story to several of my friends.”

Nice praise from the kid who grew up surrounded by the likes of W.C. Fields and John Barrymore!

English
From Victor Lownes: “We take English for granted but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. There is no egg in eggplant, no ham in hamburger, no apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads which aren’t sweet, are meat.”

Enthusiastic Reader
The following letter wasn’t received by us but by Arthur Milton, the author of America will March Forward. It was written to himby an attorney named James A. Purdy of the law firm of Vittoria, Forsythe & Purdy.

His letter reads in part: “I recently had the pleasure of reading America Will March Forward. You have somehow found a way to distill American History from what most Americans found in high school to be a mishmash of dates, names, places and ‘acts’, to an easily understood summary of our founding fathers’ motivations and accomplishments. You sprinkle in the actual text of relevant documents and speeches, so that the reader can understand the brilliance of these documents and why they endure.”

Purdy adds: “Personally, I would recommend that the first half of your book be required reading for all high school students before they begin to study American history.”

I’ll drink to that!

Anecdotes:

On October 26th, the New York Times published an obituary of radio cowgirl Rosalie Allen. These are some of the things it caused me to recall. Eight anecdotes packed into one short piece!

Let us turn time backward in its flight.

1. The year was 1908. As an aspiring songwriter, Bob Miller was thrilled when a Chicago music publisher ushered him into his office and listened to his newest creation. The publisher liked the song and offered Miller $25 for all rights. Miller accepted the money. The publisher put the names of two songwriters on the sheet music. Bob Miller wasn’t one of them. He was given no credit for his creation., Nor did he ever receive another penny from the million-copy sheet music and record hit, “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland.”

2. Many years passed. Miller continued writing songs but he became a music publisher as well so he could publish his own songs. He had ups and downs but the downs didn’t discourage him or change him from being a sweet, somewhat naïve man.

Then, in the autumn of his life, he met and married Esther Van Sciver. Esther was everything he needed. She was sharp. She was tough. (Far tougher than her 100-pound body would suggest.) She had a good feel for talent and she persuaded Bob to remain in music publishing.

3. Bob published a song (not his own) that is still little-known in the city of New York but was the most successful song to come out of World War II. “There’s a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere” became an anthem for country music folks.

4. Bob had a small press in his office in the Brill Building at 49th Street and Broadway (otherwise known then as Tin Pan Alley) where he printed his own sheet music. One day he received a phone call from Jack Robbins. Robbins was the most powerful man in music publishing. He headed the music publishing empire owned by MGM and 20th-Century-Fox, the film companies who made most of the musical movies. To describe Jack Robbins as coarse would be an understatement.

“Miller, I heard you have a pretty big hit song?” Robbins barked.

“Yes, Mr. Robbins, it seems to be doing quite well.”

“I heard it. It’s a piece of shit. How much do you want for it?”

That wasn’t exactly the most effective way to approach gentle Bob Miller.

“Mr. Robbins, sir,’” Miller said, “please listen to this.”

He held the telephone receiver close to the printing press which was going click, click, click.

“Do you hear that clickity-clack, Mr. Robbins? Well every click gives me a clear profit of 17 cents. I think we’ll keep those rights.”

Side item: the man who wrote the song was almost arrested when he walked into his local bank in his bare feet to cash a $70,000 royalty check. The bank manager was sure the check had to have been stolen.

5. Esther Van Sciver had a good friend at RCA-Victor. He wasn’t doing well and feared that his job was in jeopardy, so she persuaded him to sign a new folk singer. This in a short time made him a hero, and got him a raise. The singer’s name was Elvis Presley.

6. Esther’s brother, Malcolm McGlasson, was finishing his stretch in the U.S. Navy. He was also madly in love with a cute female country music singer named Rosalie Allen who was heard every night on New York radio. He’d proposed again and again. Finally, he said that he couldn’t live without her. She agreed to play a certain song on the air if she’d marry him and a different one if she wouldn’t. Rosalie played the song turning him down.

This prompted Esther to go to the radio station and bawl the singer into tears. So Rosalie played the other song and the couple married.

7. Esther asked me if I could help her brother find a job when he left the Navy, so I hired Malcolm as a reporter for Music Business magazine where I was its managing editor. He had a pleasant manner and was a good reporter. A few months later I had a quarrel with Johnny O’Connor, the chief honcho. I quit the magazine.

8. My first wife and I spent a lot of time with Malcolm and Rosalie socially. Meanwhile, I was managing one of radio’s pioneer acts, the Landt Trio. To give their career a boost, we’d leased Carnegie Hall for a sing-along festival. Rosalie promised to appear to sing a couple of her songs. That would attract some people and I needed all the help I could get.

One evening I phoned Malcolm in response to an invitation to his home for dinner. He told me that Rosalie had changed her mind and decided not to appear. Why? Well, he still worked for Music Business magazine and if Johnny O’Connor learned that Malcolm and I were that friendly, it might damage his career.

I declined dinner at their home and I never saw Malcolm or Rosalie again. A few years ago, I tried, without success, to learn if either she or he was still alive.

The Times obituary headline described Rosalie as “a yodeling radio cowgirl of the ‘40s.” It gave her age as 79.

How did we get so old so quickly?

Until next time ---
Lyle Stuart
lyle@barricadebooks.com