Larry "Ratso" Sloman, "Secret Life of Houdini," author: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 2

(RETURN TO PART 1)

ANDELMAN: Good luck with that. Let’s talk about some of your work as a collaborator or a ghostwriter. I know from my own experience, because I do a lot of that work, that you never know from book to book if you’re going to be thought of as a ghostwriter or a collaborator. Even if your name is on the book, some people still call you a ghostwriter. You worked with Howard Stern on both of his books. How did that job come about?

SLOMAN: That was the beginning of my second career. I had been writing my own books for years. I had done that Dylan book which you talked about, On the Road with Bob Dylan, and while I edited High Times magazine and then National Lampoon magazine, I wrote a book called Reefer Madness, A History of Marijuana in America. Then I did a book on the New York Rangers, because I played hockey twice a week, even still today. I had kind of an eclectic nonfiction background.

I had portrayed myself in a movie that a friend of mine shot in Luxemburg, and the director was friendly with Stern’s agent, Don Buchwald. Buchwald had clients that he was always trying to get in to direct his films, and I had heard Howard talking on the air about writing a book. I said, “Wow, that sounds like fun. I wouldn’t mind doing that.” So my friend the director called Buchwald, and Buchwald said,

“‘Ratso?’ That sounds like a perfect match for Howard.”

And I met first with Judith Regan, because she was the editor of the book. We had a nice meeting, and then we set up a meeting between me and Judith and Howard and Buchwald. I remember the night before the meeting, I’m wondering, “Should I come up with something for this meeting? I mean, what should I do? Is it just a meet and greet?” And I figured out, I’ll come up with some idea. I remember going to the meeting, and we were talking about what the book might be like, and I said, “You know, Howard is very famous for his on-air ad lib ads, where he’ll do like a whole minute or two and just rip for one of his sponsors, Snapple or whoever it is. I said, “Why don’t we have each chapter sponsored by a different sponsor, and they loved that idea. Howard couldn’t believe it. “That’s fantastic!” Ultimately, they never did it, but that would have just been so great to have to interrupt each chapter with Howard doing an ad. So that’s how that came down.

ANDELMAN: I have that in front of me. It was just a fun read. It was unlike any autobiography I think I’ve ever read.

SLOMAN: Talk about being a ghostwriter! I became the most famous ghostwriter in history because my name’s not on the front cover, but….

ANDELMAN: But your picture is in there.

SLOMAN: Yeah. The lead acknowledgement. But more than that, Howard had five or six hours every morning on the air, so what does he talk about? He talks about his life, so he talks about working with Ratso. I became such a celebrated ghostwriter because he was talking about it every day on the air. And he was so shrewd. He’s such a master of publicity, like P. T. Barnum. Howard had worked up his audience, literally, for months and months and months before they released the book.

I’ll never forget, when the book finally came out, on that day, right after the show, we were going to go over to Barnes & Noble on 5th Avenue for an autograph signing. Howard rallied the troops – “Come out and see us on 5th.” The morning show was over, and I went in the limo with Howard to drive over there. We were driving down one of the side streets, and we couldn’t even get close to 5th Avenue. We figured there’s been some accident or someone got shot. Ronnie, the limo driver, said, “You better get out here, because I can’t even get close to 5th Avenue.” We got out, and we see 5th Avenue’s been closed down because 35,000 people were in front of Barnes & Noble! I felt like Murray the K; I felt like the fifth Beatle. One of the greatest experiences of my life.

ANDELMAN: I’m guessing that the store did not have that many copies of the book on hand. If you guys were surprised by the turnout…

SLOMAN: They were reaching out to every other store in the area. I know Howard wound up staying there until six in the afternoon, and he signed every book. It was just phenomenal.

ANDELMAN: That was quite a story, and when you have that kind of outlet to promote something, and of course, the movie then followed and the same reaction…

SLOMAN: Right. And he was a joy to work with. He makes what he does look so easy, but I know how much preparation goes into his radio show. The guy was just a tremendous Jewish workaholic, and it was two Jewish workaholics in the same room. I would go out to his house after he got off the air. We’d get out of there maybe around 11:00, and we’d start working, and sometimes it would get to be 7:00 at night, and Howard would look at me and say, “Are you hungry? Do you want to keep going?” And I’d say, “All right, let’s eat something.” And he was always into these weird diets, measuring out how many almonds he could have, and he would put out food like salads, and I would say, “Howard, feed me! I’ve got to eat something!” But we had a great time doing it.

ANDELMAN: You were around on his last day on terrestrial radio, so you’ve obviously maintained that relationship. Will he ever write another book?

SLOMAN: One of the last times I saw him a couple of weeks ago, he said, “I really want to write another book. I don’t think now is the right time, but when it is, I am going to have a lot to say.” So we can look forward to that.

ANDELMAN: Let me ask you this: as you look back on all the biographies and the ghostwritten autobiographies, the collaborations that you’ve done, is there any book that you wish you hadn’t written? And I’m wondering this because of one particular title, and you kind of alluded to it earlier, Thin Ice: A Season in Hell with the New York Rangers.

SLOMAN: No, I was just taking a literary reference and putting “Rambo” into a book about hockey. That was actually a terrifically enjoyable book to do. I love hockey. In fact, I’m going to every one of the Ranger playoff games. It turned out not to be the greatest season because they didn’t do well that season, but I had tremendous access to the guys, and it was very fulfilling to write the book and to be recognized. There’s a book out I think called The Five Best of Hockey or whatever, and it has a list of the five best slapshots, the five best whatever, and one of them was the five best books ever about hockey, and they included Thin Ice, which was gratifying. If anything, to answer your question, I would say I don’t wish I didn’t write it, but probably the most tedious experience was the Abbie Hoffman book.

ANDELMAN: Really?

SLOMAN: Don’t get me wrong. Abbie was a hero to me. Growing up, he was the kind of Jewish warrior role model for me. I was very young, escaping Queens to go to the East Village for the Summer of Love.

The first time I met Abbie Hoffman, I was hanging out at the East Village Other, which was the underground newspaper in the East Village. This wild guy comes in with crazy electric hair, a Jewish Afro, and he says, “Come on, come with us, come with us.” And we went to the stock market, and the yippies threw money onto the floor of the stock exchange. It was one of the greatest guerilla actions of all time.

I loved hanging out with Abbie, and we remained friendly over the years. My friend Kinky Friedman even harbored Abbie when he went underground -- he stayed at Kinky’s ranch in Texas. But doing the book was unpleasant, and one of the reasons was because I did the oral biography form. I tried to make it as seamless as possible, just going from interview to interview without any kind of narrative thread.

ANDELMAN: It’s a challenge.

SLOMAN: It wound up taking about nine years to do because people’s agendas aren’t yours. You always have to track down this person, and this person leads to ten more people, and then if you’re a completist, I gotta interview a hundred more people, and so it just never ends. Also, there was all this animosity going on. You could see why the Left never succeeded in anything, because they were always devouring themselves. They were always fighting over turf, and it was like, how could you write this book about Abbie, because his wife is writing a book, and his brother’s writing a book… You know, it was just insanity.






ANDELMAN: Before we run out of time, we have to talk about Bob Dylan, of course. What is your fondest memory of the Rolling Thunder Review?

SLOMAN: Well, it’s hard to pinpoint one memory, because basically it was Dylan going back to his roots, surrounding himself so that the burden of superstardom wasn’t just on him but making it into an old-timey review and having Rambling Jack Elliott with him and Joan Baez.In every town we went to, whoever was in town, whether it was in Toronto, Gordon Lightfoot, Montreal, Leonard Cohen in Connecticut, Joanie Mitchell showed up. She wound up staying for the next three weeks. It was a magical kind of caravan of just wonderful creative people.

I think the greatest thing on the tour was when I had a fight with my editors at Rolling Stone. They were interested in how much the tour was grossing, and they were interested in that kind of stuff, and I was much more interested in describing this cultural phenomenon, so I wound up quitting Rolling Stone in the middle and leaving the rental car in Vermont somewhere and just staying on with the tour.

I had asked Dylan, I said, “Look, this has to be documented. Let me write my story,” and he did, and he let me stay on the tour, and I really documented everything.

ANDELMAN: You know, as you were describing that, I just remembered something from when I was a teen. I was about fourteen or fifteen when that tour was going on, and I remember being in the family station wagon driving through upstate New York on the way to Connecticut and hearing on the radio that this tour was going to happen, and it was the first time, and I remember thinking, you know, I’d really like to go to that.

SLOMAN: It was an amazing thing, because it was almost like a guerilla tour, there wasn’t really advertising. They would go into a town, and it was all small little venues for the most part at the beginning of the tour, and they would put up posters, the Rolling Thunder Review, and it was very mysterious. The tickets would immediately sell out. And to see him at the height of his creative powers, because I wrote the liner notes to the Sony Records reissue of the tapes from that tour, a two CD set, and if you listen to that, I mean, he’s in my estimation never been greater. So much energy every night and so inspired by all the artists around him and also trying to get Hurricane Carter out of jail, so you had the whole social consciousness. It just was an amazing, amazing tour.

ANDELMAN: What’s your relationship with Dylan today? Have you maintained that, as well?

SLOMAN: Yeah. After the tour, a few years later, George Lois, a famous advertising guy, and I produced a video for Bob called "Jokerman" that was on the Infidels album, and you know, we stay in touch, and I see him whenever… He told me in that book that touring is in his blood and he’s basically a nomad, and it’s absolutely been true. He’s on the road 200 days out of every year. So whenever he comes to New York, I go see the show and go backstage. He’s a tremendous inspiration just to keep going, and his last three albums have been amazing. I don’t like to use media terms like comeback, because he never went anywhere, but to have the attention focused on him again for his tremendous creativity, his contributions is very incredible.

ANDELMAN: Now, the story I’ve heard about your nickname, Ratso, which I can’t even, it pains me to even say it out loud, is that it came from Joan Baez, that she had called you Ratso, and you asked if it was because you reminded her of Dustin Hoffman, who co-starred with Jon Voight, in Midnight Cowboy, for the younger people who don’t know what we’re talking about, if that’s correct so far, could you kind of finish the story from there?

SLOMAN: Yeah, well, you know, it was during the tour, and you know how on a tour you get a little grubby and you don’t shave, maybe you take some substance so you can stay up at night… I had a red Granada rental car, and I remember driving up to the hotel where they were staying, and they were playing volleyball outside with a few people.

Baez comes over to the car, and she goes, “Hey, look, it’s Ratso!” And I said, “Oh, you called me Ratso because I remind you of Dustin Hoffman?” She said, "No, you remind me of Ratso Rizzo,” and that stuck.

Once she called me Ratso, I turned the book around from first person to third person, so then Ratso became this character that was kind of under the microscope for the rest of the book. It was an interesting trip, because Dylan had invited me on the tour, and then he had this layer of management and road managers whose job was to keep the press away from him. It was funny, because I knew all the people in his band, I hung out in that scene. Phil Ochs at the time was my roommate because I had moved into his apartment, and he had nowhere to go, so we let him stay in the apartment, so Dylan was very gracious and very forthcoming and very cordial to me, yet the managers were always trying to kick me out. They would even tamper with my car at times, and it became a big joke, so Ratso became this kind of character who had to surmount all the odds to get his story.

ANDELMAN: And you’ve embraced that over time. I mean, e-mails from you come with that in the name. I mean, you could have let that go at any time, but you’ve actually…. Am I wrong? You’ve embraced that.

SLOMAN: I guess I could have. Well, you know, Sam Shepherd wrote a book about the same tour. Sam Shepherd was high into writing a screenplay for Renaldo and Clara, the movie that Bob was doing while they were touring, and it wound up that that didn’t work out. I guess he felt he had spent so much time on the road, he may as well do something, so he put his journal together into the Rolling Thunder Logbook, and he wrote a couple of chapters about me in that book, and at one point, he called me “The Supreme Master of Tact and Bad Taste,” and it was a compliment. I mean, he compared me to some of the kind of avante garde artists that he knew from the East Village, so I guess, you know, I took pride in being that, and Ratso was as good a name as any.

ANDELMAN: Well, on that note, Larry -- "Ratso" -- thank you so much for joining us on Mr. Media this week.

SLOMAN: It was a pleasure.

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.