John Mendelssohn - I, Caramba

by John Mendelssohn

Back in the glory days of rock writing, when titans roamed the "Rolling Stone" record review section, they called him...John. With his lacerating wit and $15 haircut (we're talking early-'70s dollars, remember), he was the first superstar critic, the uncrowned king of Los Angeles. Led Zeppelin trembled at the mention of his name. He counted such megastars as Pete Townshend and David Bowie among his pals. And when he began his own singing career, no less than a former producer of the Beatles flew halfway around the globe to oversee it. The world was John Mendelssohn's oyster.

But pride comes before a fall, and when John Mendelssohn fell, he fell hard. He took to Dexedrine. He took to drink. Editors stopped returning his calls. His penis nearly exploded. He moved into one room in an art hovel and took the bus because his car was an embarrassment. Hitting a rock bottom, he was reduced to processing the words of fools at a law firm in the business of defending egregious toxic polluters.

Swollen with wanton arrogance and cruel comeuppance, with lust and lunacy, gracelessness and grandeur, I, Caramba is the riveting story of how John Mendelssohn clawed his way back. His loves and lies, his hubris and heartbreak, his blunders and blondes...they're all here, as too are his award-winning fiction and poetry, photography, graphic design, and photo captions. Make no mistake: I, Caramba is the autobiography that John Mendelssohn alone could write.

But wait! If you act now, you'll also get a CD comprising a whopping 75 minutes of John Mendelssohn's most disarmingly antic and heart-string-tuggingly romantic music, including rare tracks released by Major, Major Labels. Was the British pop weekly "Sounds" just being sarcastic when it said that John Mendelssohn "has in him, and truly deserves, a stack of gold albums?" You'll be the judge! Don't just stand there, buy the bloody thing.