For six years, the floor of Richard Meltzer’s Los Angeles living room–its walls festooned with books and boxing posters–was covered with neat piles of paper and folders containing old clippings, manuscripts, documents, and other writerly paraphernalia. When it got hot, use of a fan was prohibited, for fear the papers would fly away; lack of vacuuming made breathing difficult. A sign above the door announced “These digs were made for working”–sometimes a 14-hour writing day would yield but a paltry paragraph–and before he was through he scrawled another sign: “I have to think there’s a better hell than this.” Little wonder the finished product, The Night (Alone)–a compellingly claustrophobic, improbably expansive ride into the depths of manhood–is dedicated “TO ME (and I don’t mean you)” and has the foreword, “Nothing in this book is true (or good) (or beautiful).” That will be a subject of debate; to love it or loathe it, that is the question.
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With the 1970 publication of The Aesthetics of Rock–which could mention Kierkegaard and the Dave Clark Five in the same breath and was seen as a parody of academic style even as it was held up as a deep, dense investigation–Meltzer established himself as arguably the most idiosyncratic observer of American pop culture and certainly the most original stylist. The narrator of The Night (Alone) boasts: “I’m the guy who introduced ‘ain’t,’ ‘gonna,’ ‘wanna,’ deliberate misspellings, run-on, mixed metaphor, and most of that shit to rock crit, pop crit, and beyond Plus regular use of all the cusswords It was my doing (true) (Give me a medal) Not to mention, dot dot dot.” He doggedly developed that style–let’s not forget hyphens, parentheses, wild punctuation, made-up words, two-three-words-in-one, word abbreviations–in 1972’s Gulcher (Post-Rock Cultural Pluralism in America (1649-1984), 1988’s L.A. Is the Capital of Kansas, a totally rewritten collection of grimly funny pieces on that burg’s death culture, the eye-opening monograph Richard Meltzer’s Guide to the Ugliest Buildings in Los Angeles, and a poetry volume, 17 Insects Can Die in Your Heart. (Caned-Out, his authorized autobiography, was canned in the galley stage for fear his parents might sue.) He’s written over 3,000 articles for dozens of publications, high and low, including long, intense meditations on wrestling, the LA riots, and the beat writers.
It takes but a little while to know Rolf Metzgler, Rico Mezzner, Raoul Muzzler, Ridge Muleser, Ric Smeltzer, et al. One chapter itemizes his every piece of clothing. (“Fashion not permitted on the premises–must be checked at the door. Folks who insist on ‘dressing up’ should consider dressing down. If they wish to be invited–for sandwiches, Parcheesi, ‘bull’ sessions, or tea.”) Another (“Days of Beer and Daisies”) riotously recounts boozy misadventures. In “All the Godamn Summer Sadness” he sends his likeness to the pen pal column of Super Wrestling Monthly, soliciting “tank cars of letters I had no intention of answering. (How else to research human misery?)” “Housepets I’ve in All Likelihood Killed or Maimed” is a surprisingly moving communion with all manner of nonhuman life/death. “Eight Repugnant Rashes” deals with dealing with same. “Cole Slaw 1900” is an excruciating dialogue with his parents. “Old Tricks” describes covering up tell-tale signs of sexual extracurriculars. (“For stains I’d pretend coffee got spilt….Smells I always hated covering–would really rather have lazed around, basked around nostriling the galscent–but cowardice is cowardice and I’d light up a cigar.”) “Lover Ma’am” recounts a tryst in the form of TV listings and reviews (he wrote a TV column for two years). “The Kettle Black” describes 13 black artifacts from sexual encounters. “Anterior Metaphysics” sees the author becoming “one grimly sober RECLUSE-AND-A-HALF,” giving friends a new phone number due to death threats (that occurred after Meltzer penned a piece pillorying the religious right) and warning them not to tell anyone else. If his mother were to ask for it, though “beat and bludgeoned by clubwielding scumbags, begging with her dying breath for her sonny-person’s numero d’Ameche,” he advises friends telling her deadpan: “Funny you should ask. I was about to ask you. The little prick never gave it to me.”
