“Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo”
I will sodomize you and face-fuck you · Gaius Valerius · Catullus · Carmen 16 · c. 84 BC – c. 54 BC
#NickTosches #Hellfire is one of the greatest rock bios ever written
Quote Tweet New York Times Music @nytimesmusic
is the first line, sometimes used as a title, of Carmen 16 in the collected poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 BC – c. 54 BC).
The poem, written in a hendecasyllabic (11-syllable) meter, was considered so explicit that a full English translation was not published until the late twentieth century.[1] The first line has been called "one of the filthiest expressions ever written in Latin—or in any other language, for that matter."
Although I'm not short on metaphor, analogy, or love of 'the rule of three,' I am apparently a few roses shy of a Valentine's Day bouquet
Nick Tosches and @mrjyn sound a lot like Nick Tosches
Nick Tosches, who started out in the late 1960s as a brash music writer with a taste for the fringes of rock and country, then bent his eclectic style to biographies of figures like Dean Martin and Sonny Liston and to hard-to-classify novels, died on Sunday at his home in Manhattan. He was 69.
The exact cause has not been determined, but he had been ill, a friend, James Marshall, said.
Mr. Tosches (pronounced TOSH-ez) and his fellow music writers Richard Meltzer and Lester Bangs were labeled “the Noise Boys” for their wild, energetic prose, a world away from fan magazines like Tiger Beat. Interviewing Debbie Harry of the band Blondie in 1979 for Creem magazine, he thought nothing of asking whether she shaved or waxed her legs. Neither, it turned out; she told him she plucked them, one hair at a time.
“We speak for many minutes of legs and their lore,” he wrote. “Each of us learns a great deal from the other. A mutual respect is born.”
Mr. Tosches’ first book, “Country,” published in 1977, was a well-researched look at some of country music’s lesser-known and often roguish figures. “Unsung Heroes of Rock ’n’ Roll” followed in 1984, with chapters on Ella Mae Morse, Skeets McDonald and many more.
But by then he had already begun to branch out. His first biography, “Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story,” came out in 1982, and in 1986 he ventured beyond music with “Power on Earth: Michele Sindona’s Explosive Story,” about an Italian financier who was involved in assorted scandals.
One of his most attention-getting biographies was “Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams” (1992), about Dean Martin.
“Recordings, movies, radio, television: He would cast his presence over them all, a mob-culture Renaissance man,” Mr. Tosches wrote of Martin. “And he would come to know, as few ever would, how dirty the business of dreams could be.”
For Mr. Tosches, Martin was a celebrity who beat the unrelenting fame machine, the one that often ground stars up and consigned them to early deaths. (Martin died in 1995 at 78.)
“I would describe Dean as a noble character in an ignoble racket in an ignoble age,” Mr. Tosches told Karen Schoemer for a 1992 profile of him in The New York Times.
“Life is a racket,” he added. “Writing is a racket. Sincerity is a racket. Everything’s a racket.”
Mr. Tosches was born on Oct. 23, 1949, in Newark to Nick and Muriel Ann (Wynn) Tosches.
“The things I wanted to be when I was a kid were an archaeologist, because of dinosaur bones; a garbage man, because they got to ride on the side of the trucks; and a writer,” he told The Times. “If I had become a garbage man, I could have retired by now.”
His father owned a bar, and working there as a boy, as Mr. Tosche often said, provided him with the type of street-smart education that mattered. College was never a consideration; instead he held what he described to The Boston Globe in 2000 as “a bunch of strange jobs, both legitimate and illegitimate.”
He liked to tell of the few weeks he spent as a snake hunter for the Miami Serpentarium, which collected venom for research, even though he was afraid of snakes.
“You’d smoke out rattlesnakes by pouring gasoline down their holes and the fumes would drive them out,” he told Salon in 1999. “I did not make it too far in that job. Part of the con was anyone who brought in a rattlesnake over six feet would get a thousand bucks, and the thing is, there’s never been a rattlesnake over six feet. It’s a myth.” (Some experts contend that six-foot rattlesnakes, though rare, do exist.)
At 19 he was living in New York and, as he often related, working for an underwear company on Madison Avenue.
“I was doing back then, in the days before computers, what they called paste-ups and mechanicals,” he told Vanity Fair in 2011. “You have a glue pot, a T-square, a razor blade, and you physically put together advertisements.”
Ed Sanders, who was a member of the underground rock band the Fugs and operated the Peace Eye Bookstore in the East Village in Manhattan, a counterculture hangout, befriended Mr. Tosches and gave him encouraging words about some poetry Mr. Tosches had written, nudging along his budding interest in becoming a writer. He sold his first article, to Fusion, a Boston magazine, in 1969.
Through the 1970s and into the ’80s he wrote for Fusion as well as for Rolling Stone, Creem and other publications, practicing a free-ranging brand of journalism that fell under the label “gonzo.” Although his music-related books were obsessively researched, he didn’t always take his magazine writing so seriously, especially early on, when he was known to do things like review nonexistent albums.
“I was just using it as a rubric to get away with things in print, things that probably would be impossible to get away with now,” he told The Times. “Like making records up, which I’ve done. Reviewing records without even opening the shrink wrap.”
Mr. Tosches published his first novel, “Cut Numbers,” about a small-time loan shark, in 1988. Another, “Trinities,” about the international heroin trade, appeared in 1994.
In 1996 he became a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and an article he wrote for the magazine on the boxer Sonny Liston became the 2000 biography “The Devil and Sonny Liston.” That same year, he published “The Nick Tosches Reader,” a collection drawn from his three decades’ worth of work.
His most acclaimed and most audacious work of fiction, “In the Hand of Dante,” was published in 2002. The story centered on a previously unknown manuscript of Dante’s masterwork, “The Divine Comedy,” and a more or less fictional character named Nick Tosches who is called upon to authenticate it.
“‘In the Hand of Dante’ weaves together the life of Dante with the life of a character named Nick Tosches,’” Will Blythe wrote in a review in The Times. “Fortunately, it’s not quite as postmodern as it sounds. In fact, it’s kind of a mess, but a splendid, passionate mess, with a moral fervor far exceeding most novels of better grooming.”
In his review in The Edmonton Journal of Alberta, Dennis Chute delivered a considerably more backhanded compliment.
“I think Tosches is a puffed-up buffoon whose bio is a pile of horse manure,” he wrote. “Let me tell you that he also has a prose style made up of pretty phrases that mean nothing, a fixation with the word dark, and a love for obscure words he doesn’t understand how to use. So why do I think this is a must-read book? Because Tosches is one of the few writers you can experience on a visceral level. Reading Tosches is like being mugged.”
“Me and the Devil” (2012) also featured a character named Nick who bore similarities to the author, though one hopes not too many. This Nick enjoyed vampiric sex with young women. The book was not well received. In The Denver Post, John Broening called it “a series of self-aggrandizing pornographic daydreams intended to prop up the sagging legend of its author as an icon of below-14th Street duende.”
If his writing fell somewhat out of fashion, in late midlife Mr. Tosches cut a distinctive figure in that below-14th Street world, his natty dress inevitably commented upon by interviewers. One focused on his leopard-skin loafers, another on his silk homburg.
“I always felt that that was one of the rewards of being 50,” he said. “You could wear a homburg.”
An early marriage, in 1972, was brief. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.
In 2006 the British publication Observer Music Monthly named the 50 greatest music books ever written. Mr. Tosches’ Jerry Lee Lewis biography, “Hellfire,” was No. 1. He sat for a question-and-answer session in conjunction with the honor.
“At the end of the book, you leave him very much alive, still roaming the earth, but pretty much facing the abyss,” the interviewer said of “Hellfire.”
“It’s the way we all live,” Mr. Tosches replied. “Shallow life, shallow ditch. Big life, big abyss.”
Neil Genzlinger is a writer for the Obituaries Desk. Previously he was a television, film and theater critic. @genznyt
#NickTosches Favorite Quote · I will sodomize you and face-fuck you [1] · Nick Tosches and @mrjyn sound a lot like · #Hellfire · @nytimesmusic · @Drawmark · [1] Gaius Valerius Catullus · Carmen 16 · c. 84 BC – c. 54 BC · “Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo”
Nick Tosches, Fiery Music Writer and Biographer, Dies at He brought a brash style to coverage of the rock world in the late s and ’ s, then applied similar skills to novels and books on Dean Martin and Sonny Liston. nytimes.com Brant Moorefield · h Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams Oahu Nick Tosches, Fiery Music Writer and Biographer, Dies at John Grant Music Journalist and Novelist, Dead at . RIP. – Rolling Stone Nick Tosches, Music Journalist and Novelist, Dead at Nick Tosches, novelist and music journalist who penned books about subjects ranging from Jerry Lee Lewis to Sonny Liston, has died at . rollingstone.com Mark Kaufman @Drawmark · h Image Time to break out the Bible. RIP Steven Ward @wardreporter · #LesterBangs #RichardMeltzer were great but my favorite #NoiseBoy has always been Oct Nick Tosches, fiery music writer and biographer, dies at nyti.ms O'Shaughnessy Public Library @oshpublib · Oct Farewell to Nick Tosches, legend. Coincidentally picked up Viva Las Vegas' memoir yesterday based solely on Tosches' front cover blurb. The name holds weight.
if i do not hear,
i will not know.
if there is no hope, belief, or spark,
i will maintain hopefulness, believing and tinder.
If i do not know still,
I will fucking curse all everloved.
If I do not destroy now,
What I do not hear is ended.
I will destroy forever which never was, nor never will be mended.
I realized, but not before *you had gone.
develop romantic life, ever it pleases
desire to relieve the Past,
destined never to relieve its Future.
endure sadness today,
do not speak of unenlightened future tomorrow.
Looks like it's fucking time FOR fucking TIME!
It seems like I was.
Fucking calm.
Fuck, grow up.
It seems to have been!
It seems to have been!
He seems to have been fucking mean and selfish.
the Truth said, 'Not tonight.'
'Fuck me on a plane,' half accused but
never convicted of halfing it in her.
again, half-in the bathroom suite, sui generic, carpeted kitchen, too ugly to hide, too-naked, rushes your truth, your gaiety.
Give me some inserts of amphetamine, and lemme hides as "nobody looks at me".
fuck. Tell me!
Who is the man you are so angry with?Yes, you have been very long and selfish,
especially for your man who doesn't get fucked!
He stopped being your man who would know you!
Yes, you were shaking. but only apparent as trope, or long con .
Half-rounds, like horrors, are neither the price,
nor the reason why people move,
if people move.
moving is not half-bad if its half-bad people who move.
But, you separated! But yes, kill me, fuck me, may I. I would be happy to.
listen kindly and fucking empathy...Fucking, fucking grow up. It seems! Looks like I'm mean and selfish even fucking. He seems to be! It seems to have been cruel and selfish. He seems to have been fucking day by day. You unhealthy whore. I would be happy to listen kindly and fucking empathy... Looks like I was! He seems to have been very vicious, vicious whore. It seems to have been! This seems to be the mean average mean way. Looks like I was! He seems to be real and fucking. Neutral whore. Fuck, grow up. Looks like I was! Looks like I was! Looks like I was! It seems to have been! He seems to have been fucking mean and selfish. It seems to have been! Looks like fucking bad people are wrong. Looks like I was fucking final. He seems to have been mean ultimate selfish. It seems like I was the last silence. He seems to have been fucking first.
Unfinished who're unable to act,
share limited last action only...
Fucking fucking happy .I love the blue train:
its selfish fuckingtells my Frog Bayou breasts
of its cock and cypress insensitivies
tree-times-a-month monthly.
its wine, the very life.
faith
below is something which you have never before read, and which, as you will soon see, have not and could not have written...emotional, respectful, responsible, and free from reproach or duty it springs, from the unmuddied wellspring of my clear unreachable ocean floor.
You may read and feel discouraged at its overly florid, inappropriate contextual tonality, but continue...let it inside; where, i promise its eternal timelessness--although uncommon, becomes its subject, befitting few, and singularly, one, whose grandiloquence directs its necessity.
I only know it exists because it is in your hand.
urgent
minimal cooperation for benignity on-call ruled out for good of emotional health.
This, however, ruled out, can not wait.
I respectfully implore expeditious reprieve to current cessation of communication;
as fish may not cut bait, I ask, angler to angler.
I suspect, as deeply my understanding allows, allowing for my previously failed understanding and engagement, or lack thereof, to the serious matters necessary for the previously thought impossible superfluity of organic mining, whose reliance on the redundant sounding unsatisfactory modalities of interpersonal communication, mentioned innumerously, and further repeatedly warned as contributory, I maintain, still their major accusatory party to this notable setback.
While I have explored toxicity levels, less manufactured but more consciously ignored from malignant inaction, no less complicit does my discovery, of which, by client, and unlike him, I hereby toothlessly, and sworn free from future beneficiary royalties, inducements, proprietary incentivizations, or other interests, implore, as sworn representative in and about all matters, no waived privileged confidentiality exists, and/or other stipulations from privilege do not exist implicit to and current of this meeting...
head in hands, I ask for forgiveness for the effects, remarkably neutralized by the penitential mandate imposed through Wisdom and possible nonexempt duty of enforcement, as uncontested, and unaware of the severity and magnitude of the charges proffered, in absentia, but notwithstanding of them, and mindful to their relevant accountability, of which I as sworn amanuensis, hereby, accept responsibility, rejecting its very perception to future deficiency, neither provably postulate here today, nor retroactively probatory for all past misdeeds and insult to you and the body whose enterprise my clients did cause, and for those of which he or I may not be aware.
My predication, not loyalty, I ask, cognizant of your Right recognized and keenly aware of your concerns, am I.
I ask for a limited reinstatement from previous imposition of written order produced by yourself of 10 October, 2019, understanding all thereby given and not excluding those not included within, for a temporary, upon deliberation, immediate abstention, regarding all future penalties regarding only the matter at hand, and indemnity from same, as relief for my client's benefit, and in light of my client's continued imposed correctional sentence, as time served, plus, 30 days, from date of agreement and subject to any and all qualification, addendum, revision which you may require, and as per my client's acceptance, shall be from that day forward free from displeasure to both parties, and thereby reliant upon both parties for the future benefit of these, mutually acceptable, granted.
This overwrought catharsis with which we...
I now share my experience ...
I have maneuvered by myself, aided by an overabundant searchable archive of undeniable evidence as to its legitimacy and inconsolable regret and disbelieving incomprehension of myself and wonderment that I, as a fully emotionally evolved person, no stranger, and even current supporter for the importance and essential endowment for and to women's struggle for equality, empowerment, and radical gender-shifting improvement for themselves which begins with the abolishment of traditional and formerly ingrained generational legacy brought from a patriarchal cause and denial of the sad state of man/woman equality roles in the past and to their immediate rejection in the present...
... In the first three months of what I considered an emotionally and sexually charged compatibly reciprocal love affair, the likes of which in my experienced I had never known, whose romantic, intellectual and sexual spell I found myself under, whose benefit of circumstance provided a means for me to explore and reappraise critically and with the unenviable perspective of its too-sad failure which I now sought out to understand and correct.
the opportunity to, not so much, put closure, I hate that word, but fully close and fully reconstruct the unnaturally quick dilapidation of this house, and its unpleasant, though sometimes understandable, contribution fraught with infinite possibility, frustration, excitement, limitation, practicality, spontaneity, and both our age, and the age we both acted, not from immaturity but from some like-minded, raised by wolves feral wonder we both found each other in ourselves and now in us, together more lupine than human, more pack-minded than lone survivor...I'll stop but you get it.
i hope you also get the true tenor and seriousness of what I have discovered; the quest I've begun to find it again, and the care and care I intend to put toward its extrication, restoration and continued preservation, by me.
Although I'm not short on metaphor, analogy, or love of 'the rule of three,' I am apparently a few roses shy of a Valentine's Day bouquet.
And, while I would never consider flowering appreciation of classic beauty an expression too pedestrian impediment, as partial presentation among one thousand and one nights of all manner, multiplicity, and eccentricity,
frissonage du puissance sexe
from concubinage to menage, cuckoldry to coprophagy (mes amis, non pour moi, merci, mais, je ne regarde pas pour vous), incorporeal to interspecial, submission to Sade, bagatelle to diamond symoblically whimsical or potent, or portent, importunity, or disposable amuse bouche, automatically exempt to impart, for you, my exquisite singularity, bed-whetted, never bed-tested, nor broken in, insatiable as it is,
your
penumbrae emanates reverentialy beatific significance,
I,
through
you,
am present;
threefold,
others impenitently observe:
before, during, and after it come;
to me, more formally, to me, it come,
other admirers diminished intimation, while not less acute shows what they are prepared to see;
mine, never prepared, of experiential, non-idetic recollection, insensate,
piques
from
deprivation.
I am
now
piously
resupplied
offerings,
desire,
and
tongued with voice for you to gain.
your Will take this lease as article, its promise
your guarantee on delivery, future spoils of its discovery to you as tribute to you,
yours to Conquer,
mine
it to defend, not destroy,
repayment, its provident blessing, both good omen and irreducible faith promise success,
sealed destiny,
rewarded faith,
and
redoubtable fortune.