Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess (Abacus Books)
by Danny Sugerman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Danny SugermanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1993-08-01
ISBN: 0349101752
Number of pages: 462
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Book Reviews of Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess (Abacus Books)
Book Review: ROCK'S ULTIMATE CAUTIONARY TALE
Summary: 5 Stars
Danny Sugarman was a 14-year old kid living in the L.A. suburb of Westchester, near LAX. He was troubled, and did not like his step-father. He read an ad or heard about a rock band in Hollywood that was hiring a teenager to answer mail, so he went for and got the job. The band was The Doors. Getting from Westchester to Hollywood by bus is not all that easy, but he did it just about every day. Jim Morrison befriended him and told him not to let his parents addle his brain with Ritalin, an ironic anti-drug message coming from the Lizard King.
As a teenager, Sugarman accompanied Morrison on sojourns to the Sunset Strip, where despite his minority he was admitted to the rarified air of The Doors, The Byrds, and other classic California bands. His step-father was appalled.
Remarkably, despite his lifestyle, Sugarmnan was good enough at baseball to be offered a scholarship of some kind to play at UCLA, but his commitment to the band tugged at his dedication for the game, so he never went the diamond route.
As Morrison went downhill, so too did Sugarman. Unlike the song "No One Here Gets Out Alive", Sugarman managered, barely, to escape. After Jim's death, Sugarman picked himself up and lived in a house on Wonderland Avenue. It was all set up by Ray Manzaerek, the Doors' keyboardist extraordinaire. Manzarek, the "sensible one" among The Doors, wanted to continue the band, or at least his own musical career. Sugarman was hired to be the band's manager, and it was a lucrative life for a guy still in his early 20s. He quickly found himself drawn back into the sordid life of drugs, alcohol, sexual excess, and the like. The Wonderland address did not help, it being a small enclave off of Laurel Canyon, the famed street that connects West Hollywood with the San Fernando Valley. Its narrow canyons and streets are dotted with picturesque homes that embody the California Dream, and are inhabited (especially then) by those artists whose labors have born fruit. The Sharon Tate murders occurred in the general vicinity. Wild, loud parties were so commonplace that neighbors hearing the screams of Charles Manson's victims thought it was just another bash. John Holmes would be involved in a massacre there in the '80s. Later, this would be the area where Heidi Fleiss connected porn with Hollywood money.
Sugarman, who eventually would marry Iran-Contra ingenue Fawn Hall, lived with his gorgeous girfriend and lived the life. Aside from The Doors, he also managed the unbeliavable Iggy Pop. Once at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, Iggy was sunning himself next to "Gilligan's Island" icon Tina Louise. Iggy plopped his manhood from out of his floppy shorts, showed it to Ms. Louise, and asked sardonically if she would care for a shag of the old English sausage. Tina politely declined.
The book describes one after the other of Sugarman's friends and associates meeting the Grim Reaper, and in the end he lists pages of names - musicians, producers, groupies, enemies, friends, girfriends, agents, and others - who died of drug overdoses in the pre-AIDS, pre-Cocaine-is-addictive era.
The message of this book is that despite glamour and fun, it is essential to be grounded, and one must do whatever he or she can to find that center.
Summary of Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess (Abacus Books)
This is the autobiography of Danny Sugerman, Jim Morrison's protege and one-time manager of The Doors and then Iggy Pop. It is also an account of heroin addiction and the madness of life in the LA rock 'n' roll scene.
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