LA LA LA NICE JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #350!

David Bowie – “Where Are We Now?” (ISO) :: I hate to kick a diamond dog when he’s down, but kids, this is what happens when you stop taking cocaine. Carrot-top used to release his catchiest track as an advance single to get everyone excited about his forthcoming album—remember “The Jean Genie,” Dave?—but if this dreary death-dirge is the best that Bowie can come up with after sitting around slack-jawed and drooling for the past ten years, then he should’ve stayed retired because time isn’t waiting in the wings, it’s standing center stage in a spotlight and taking a bow. What a drag it is getting old.

David Bowie – “Where Have All The Good Times Gone!” (RCA) :: Exactly!

SIZZLING BOOK OF THE WEEK: Jerry Lewis – Dean & Me: A Love Story (Broadway) :: Say what you will about the guy, but whether you Buddy Love him or better leave him, Jer has come up with the candid career memoir to end all candid career memoirs.

This heartfelt rags to riches story about how he teamed up with Dean Martin in 1946 to become the biggest entertainment act in the world for ten years running is brutally honest to a fault. Nothing, from the extramarital affairs to the Mob owed gambling debts, is glossed over or covered up; and no one is spared—least of all the happy-go-hapless author who, to his everlasting credit, shoulders more than his fair share of the burdensome blame for what had gone wrong by 1956.

It’s all here, from beginning to breakup to their live television reunion ramrodded by yenta Frank Sinatra to an unexpected happy ending in the ’80s—but not before Lewis hits rock bottom with an attempted suicide fuelled by a daily intake of 13 Percodans with the occasional Dexedrine chaser. Take that, Lou Reed!

Then again, it takes one to know one, so I’m not telling Unca Lou anything that he didn’t already know as far back as 1976. For it was then, during our three hour liquid lunch at Trader Vic’s, that I said to Lou: “You’re such a loveable character, I can’t see why you get all this bad press. It’s the Jerry Lewis lovability—”

“It’s the Dean Martin build that does it,” Lou interrupted as he picked up his glass of Johnny Walker Black. “Jerry Lewis has had more horrors than all of Hollywood combined.”

Be seeing you!