Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess

It is NOT moralizing. It is a super fun read! It is NOT a dry lecture about the dangers of drug addiction - read it because it is fun! That it has a 'message' is a bonus - the book itself is a masterpiece!I love this book! I've read it twice and could not put it down! Danny's writing style is superb! I have read LOTS of books and this is my #2 favorite book of all time (after The Mists of Avalon)!Very decadent but has tremendous redeeming value. Danny was press manager for The Doors, and this is his story....Witty, funny, outrageous! Danny's style of writing is SO incredible you really can't put this book down! (well after the first chapter anyway). And there is a bonus: after reading this with my son, he decided to become straight-edge! Note: has lots of sex, drugs, and rock n roll, not to mention excessive profanity. Not for the squeamish.Interestingly, all of the reviews rave about this book except for one, and that one is by someone who obviously is very self-righteous and couldn't handle the sex drugs rock n roll. Too bad. His loss.

This exciting story of a young man who is taken under the wing by Jim Morrison is incredible! It's quite a journey to see how a 12-year-old morphs into a rock stars right hand man into a full-blown rock and roll band manager.Even more incredible is his journey through drug addiction and his candidacy in describing how great life is without all of that stuff.And lastly his great writing style makes it very difficult to put down a good read.

Danny attended Orville Wright Jr. High from 1966 - 1969 and then Westchester High from 1970 - 1972. During these years, I was there with him -- in the classroom, gym class, drama class, and, admittedly, even in Mr. Tanner's office getting a whipping with a paddle (albeit not at the same time as Danny). We knew each other -- but only as classmates and acquaintances, not as friends. I picked up this book to see a side of his life that I had heard about, but that was largely unknown to me. And, to read his accounts of the times and places of our adolescence attending the same schools in Westchester.As I recall, Danny usually seemed somewhat out of place and uncomfortable. The odd man out who tried hard to prove himself. One of the last to be selected during gym period to be on a team -- but not due to a lack of athletic talent, but because he was somewhat pushy. It was that pushyness, ego and drive that apparently jettisoned him through the keyhole to The Doors.Morrison must have seen something of himself in Danny. The odd kid in school. And so he took him under his wing. Morrison became the mentor and older friend that Morrison himself desperately needed as an adolescent -- Morrison was a transient military kid with an overly strict father (Danny had an overly-strict step father). Why else would Morrison allow a 13 year old kid to hang out and crash at his office?Danny feared he would be asked to leave at almost any minute. He was told to leave at least twice.Once by The Doors manager:"I was sitting on the couch up at the Doors' office...when Siddons stuck his head out his office and called me in. '...This is a place of business,' he told me firmly. 'It is not a hangout. It's not a clubhouse. I know how important it is for you to be able to come up here, but it's gone too far. You're getting in the way of office procedure ...You can't expect to drop in and have everybody baby-sit you, goddammit. I don't like saying this, but you aren't welcome anymore. Now, get out of here." (p. 95)Another request to leave comes from Morrison's girlfriend, Pam. Danny had arrived at her apartment to find Jim on a Friday night just before dinnertime. After Danny had ignored multiple cues that he was not welcome, Pam said to Morrison, "Just get him out of the house!" Yet instead of respecting the couple's privacy, Danny writes: "Dinner was ready. I wasn't welcome, and I knew it." Does he leave? No. (p. 115)Finally, it comes from Morrison himself, and this was the most biting:"I showed up the next day after school (at The Doors office)... (and Morrison says to him) 'What are you doing up here all the time anyway? Don't you have anything better to do? It is really pathetic, ya know, just hanging out here all the time like you do, getting in everyone's way... Nobody needs you. You're just a loudmouth punk...' ...I bit the inside of my cheek and tried not to cry."The key point here is that, despite the painful rebuke from his idol, he eventually returns again! In terms of persistence, Sugerman makes Yoko Ono's stalking of John Lennon look timid." ...Over two months later I returned, timid and uncertain. I felt like I barely knew Jim anymore and had to ingratiate myself all over again. I wasn't feeling real cozy, more like someone was going to throw me out of the office any second." (p. 156)Sugerman is aware of his own foibles and unpopularity. Yet he also has the fortitude and honesty to freely admit to them in print. The prose above comes from his own hand! For this, we must give Sugerman credit, even begrudging respect.However, he was ever the self-promoter. Although Sugerman portrayed himself as the manager of The Doors, he really wasn't. Keep in mind that Jim Morrison died while Sugerman's job was to answer fan mail and write fluff PR pieces. Danny was only 17 and had yet to graduate from high school when Morrison died.I recall reading Sugerman's articles about The Doors in the Westchester High School student newspaper. I appreciated The Doors' music myself, having played guitar in a band that covered "Soul Kitchen," "Light My Fire," and "Hello, I Love You." Sugerman's writing was intellectual, analytical and precocious, but it left me thinking "Who does this guy think he is?" He was just a scrawny, unpopular kid in school who was a loud mouth. Nobody thought he really was "in" with The Doors and Jim Morrison. Now, after reading the book, I believe it.But don't believe everything Sugerman writes. He describes hijacking the PA system at Westchester High School. He wrote that he played the Country Joe and the Fish song ____ (rhymes with "Luck") to the senior lawn during lunch, and everyone joined in the song's cheer -- "Gimme a F" "F!" "Gimme a U." "U!" -- while Mr. Tanner looked on with consternation. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a fellow classmate who remembers that incident. One classmate, Kathy Ferris, said: "Never happened. Danny was good at embellishing." And, I'm not sure if artist's license would allow placing Mr. Tanner at Westchester High School when in fact he was at Orville Wright Jr. High.(Update: one classmate, Ken Insay, recently said that he does remember the Country Joe and the Fish song incident.)Another classmate, David Freeland, wrote: "I knew Danny very well. We were best friends in Jr High & High school. We would thumb up to the Doors office after school. I was at the Wonderland house many times. The books I feel were books of fiction and some truth. I say that because I was there."One truth that reveals itself between the lines was that Morrison and Sugerman saw something in each other that they lacked. For Morrison, it was a mentor during his lonely adolescence, a mentor that he later became to Sugerman. For Sugerman, Morrison had the popularity and status that were always just out of Danny's reach as an odd-man out at school. Their shared intensity, rebellion and unrelenting persistence opened doors. Sadly, with their shared self-destructiveness, they were prematurely closed. Danny was a long time smoker. He died before his time of lung cancer.

Since I missed the 60s and 70s, I'm learning now. Books written by and about the times and the people are facinating.i would probably not be alive if I were there.

So I bought this book for the third time because everytime I loan it out I don't get it back. I am not loaning this book out anymore. I love Danny's writing style. I feel like I am back in the 60s and 70s with him. I've been caught laughing out loud to myself because he is so sarcastic and funny.The book also has a lot of juicy bits. Most obviously about the Doors and Iggy Pop. There was a chapter where he was hanging out with Mackenzie Phillips (14 at the time) and he had saved her from being gang raped along with other shocking accounts.Some parts of the book are very disturbing. It is sad at times and the length he goes to to score heroin will scare anybody straight. He was lucky to have even survived his youth.

Being a "coming of age journey" Danny's story is about struggle on several fronts. Missplaced guilt on himself for our parent's divorce. The interwoven conflict between the seduction of the rock and drug life style as exemplified by Morrison as a role model,versus sober living,our father's world. Danny's final struggle against addiction with ultimate death and coming back to life is pretty wrenching stuff. I keep copies of Wonderland in my office and frequently give one to young patients that seem troubled with similar issues. Danny never thought of himself as "great author". However, his story has a universality about it which makes reading it a touchstone in the lives of a lot of people. I get letters expressing thanks and telling me of the impact Wonderland Ave had on them. Before he died of lung cancer, I told my brother that he had immortalized himself and his times. He laughed softly, but it seemed to comfort him quite a bit.

I would have liked to hear a bit more about Morrison and the Doors and Iggy a quite a bit less about Danny Sugerman but still, he remembers a surprisingly large amount of detail for someone who was so inebriated for do much of the time. An interesting window into a specific time and place. There is enough interesting and entertaining material to make it worth the slog through the slower and more self-absorbed parts (and there are many).

I'm rating the sale, not the book itself. The sale went well, seamless and positive. But the book is tragic, and tells the tale of a guy who idolizes Jim Morrison and tries to emulate him in appearance, speech and lifestyle, making a mockery of himself and impacting the people around him to obscene levels. Danny Sugarman should not be praised

An enjoyable read - well-written and so crazy you'd think it was fiction. A must-read for any fans of the Doors and tales of the dark side of rock and roll in the 60s.

Well written very descriptive, it's like you're there in every moment

I remember reading the beginning of the book on an airplane. I couldn't stop laughing loudly, although I tried hard controlling myself.The story is interesting and well written. I would recommend it to people:- who want to know about the life of people such as Jim Morrison or Iggy Pop or other Rock stars of that time- People who like social DramasI have recommended it very much to my friends. And I am thankful to the person who had recommended it to me before.

An excellent page turner.The stories about Jim, Iggy and the 70's drug scene were intense, absorbing and shocking.