PEN Center USA and Hollywood Forever proudly present:
WONDERLAND AVENUE
A reading from the classic rock memoir of the late Danny Sugerman, former manager of The Doors and Iggy Pop.
FEATURING JOHN DENSMORE of THE DOORS, Actor JULIAN SANDS, Actor/Comedian/Author RICHARD LEWIS, Actor JAKE WEBER, Author JOSEPH MATTSON, and Legendary Disc Jockey JIM LADD!
Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles, CA: PEN Center USA will present a reading of Danny Sugerman’s memoir, WONDERLAND AVENUE: TALES OF GLAMOUR & EXCESS, in the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles on June 22, 2012. Doors will open at 8 PM for a cocktail reception in the lodge’s Eastern Star Room. The reading will begin at 9 PM and will feature the drummer of The Doors, John Densmore; comedian, actor, and author Richard Lewis; author Joseph Mattson (The Speed Chronicles, Eat Hell, Empty The Sun); Julian Sands (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Leaving Las Vegas); and Jake Weber (Medium, Dawn of the Dead, Meet Joe Black). Legendary disc jockey Jim Ladd will host the reading.William Burroughs, author of NAKED LUNCH, described Sugerman’s classic rock memoir this way: “Danny Sugerman spent his youth in Hollywood’s rock ’n’ roll fast lane, following the example of his mentor and idol, Jim Morrison. Although he crashed at age twenty-one, Sugerman ultimately survived and has given this savagely engrossing account of his wild misadventures. WONDERLAND AVENUE shatters the myth of glamour of hard drugs and hard living. A most entertaining and informative book.”
Danny Sugerman was born in Beverly Hills in 1954 and raised in Los Angeles. He began working for The Doors opening fan mail and was still working for the band when Jim Morrison died in Paris. He went on to manage The Doors and, for a period of time, the careers of Iggy Pop and The Doors' keyboardist Ray Manzarek. Sugerman also worked as a freelance writer for music magazines in the US and abroad. He coauthored NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE and was the author of THE DOORS: THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY, THE DOORS: COMPLETE LYRICS, and APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION: THE DAYS OF GUNS 'N' ROSES. Danny passed away at the age of 50 on January 5, 2005, after a prolonged battle with lung cancer.
WONDERLAND AVENUE is Danny’s tale, a cult classic, a rock ’n’ roll CATCHER IN THE RYE. Big, brawling, excessive, scandalous, irreverent, and entertaining, it chronicles the 60s dream gone-to-rot and the early life of a Hollywood Wild Child who was just brilliant at being bad.
PEN Center USA, a literary nonprofit based in Beverly Hills, has a membership of more than 600 professional writers. PEN Center USA strives to protect the rights of writers around the world, to stimulate interest in the written word, and to foster a vital literary community among the diverse writers living in the western United States. PEN Center USA has a long, successful history planning literary events in and around Los Angeles; special programming has taken place at the Hammer, Hotel Café, Largo at the Coronet, the Echo, Actor’s Gang, the Saban Theatre, the Pacific Design Center, and the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Tickets for WONDERLAND AVENUE are $15 and can be purchased online at http://hollywoodforever.ticketfly.com/.
For more information on this event, please contact Michelle Meyering, Director of Programs and Events at PEN Center USA: michelle@penusa.org
THANKS!
