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By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Terminally ill with cancer, Warren Zevon told producer Jorge Calderon that he wanted to record Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."

Calderon groaned. Anything but that, please. He still can't listen to it without tears.

Dylan's tale of a doomed gunslinger reaches a new emotional level coming from the voice of a man who's really dying. The choice also — let's be frank — reflects the 56-year-old singer's well-known twisted sense of humor.

Given a death sentence by doctors, Zevon hasn't retreated. He wrote and recorded a final album at a furious pace and opened his life to VH1 cameras for an intimate diary. The VH1 special premieres 10 p.m. EDT Sunday, then "The Wind" CD comes out Tuesday.

And Aug. 28 marks exactly one year since Zevon was told he had inoperable lung cancer and three months to live.

Jordan Zevon, Warren's 34-year-old son, was happy the prognosis proved incorrect and his father was around for the birth of twin grandchildren, but he doesn't hide his disgust at the doctors.

"Human beings have no right to tell other human beings how long they have to live unless they have some kind of firearm in their hands," he said. "Thank God he didn't take it and use it as an excuse to throw everything away and give up."

After initially agreeing to answer some e-mailed questions, Warren Zevon was too sick to complete them, a publicist said.

The musician who's known for "Werewolves of London" and "Excitable Boy" has been spending time with his family and watching a lot of television. Some days he's well enough to talk to friends, some days not.

Zevon set short-term goals to help him through the year — big ones like seeing his grandchildren or finishing his album and small ones like a particular movie release, those close to him say.

A week before his diagnosis, Zevon had called Calderon and said he wanted to make another disc. The two men have been best friends since their first meeting in 1972, when a mutual friend asked Calderon for a ride to bail Zevon out of the drunk tank.

"The question was, `Do you still want to do that or do you want to go to Mexico and lie on a beach and forget about all that,'" Calderon said. "He was going through that in his mind, what to do with such a shocking piece of news. Who knows how to handle that?

"He called back and said, `I still want to do this.'"

Zevon, who titled one best-of compilation "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" and put a picture of a skeleton smoking a pipe on another, talks on VH1 about how he's always been interested in writing about death and dying. Circumstances gave him a perspective few, if any, active artists have shared.

His new music is poignant and emotionally direct. "Keep Me in Your Heart," the first song written after his diagnosis, is the one to address Zevon's condition most directly, beginning the lyric: "Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath."

After playing on the song, veteran session drummer Jim Keltner told Calderon it was only the second time he'd been moved to tears in a recording session. The first one was on Dylan's original version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."

"The album was full of all of those moments," he said.

On "El Amor De Mi Vida," Zevon writes specifically for a former girlfriend, telling her — as the title says — that she was the love of his life and he still regrets letting her get away.

Subsequent to recording the song, Zevon managed to get in touch with the woman for the first time in many years, Calderon said. She had moved away, married and was raising a family.

The album's hardly a one-note tearjerker, however. Bruce Springsteen adds biting guitar and vocals to Zevon's cranky look at the world, "Disorder in the House."

"It's the home of the brave and the land of the free," Zevon sings. "Where the less you know the better off you'll be."

Sardonic humor sneaks in, too. "I'm looking for a woman with low self-esteem," he sings, "to lay me out and ease my worried mind, while I'm winding down my dirty life and times."

"We'd write a song and record it the next day and before we could sit around and say, `this is great,' we were writing the next one," Calderon said. "We didn't have much time to think and analyze and change things around, which gives this album a real honesty and immediacy."

The biggest hurdle was Zevon's flagging energy. "It's not that his voice would go away," Calderon said. "It was like, `Get him while he's rested and don't work him to hard.'"

All sorts of famous friends showed up. Springsteen chartered a plane between concert dates to make a session. Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris, Dwight Yoakam, John Waite and Eagles Don Henley (news) and Timothy B. Schmidt appeared.

One song, "Prison Grove," features guitarists Ry Cooder and David Lindley, with back-up vocals from Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Billy Bob Thornton and T Bone Burnett.

Jordan Zevon, who runs his own music equipment company, believes the creative energy helped lengthen his father's life.

The VH1 cameras record these sessions, as well as several personal moments. At one point, Warren Zevon rails against fans who wrote on a Web site that he was being heroic in not seeking treatment for his cancer: "I think it's a sin to not want to live."

― ham on rye (ham on rye), Thursday, 21 August 2003 04:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Do you think it would be possible for a critic to give Zevon's latest a mediocre review? Would it even be desirable? Or would it be advisable for said critic to pass it over in respectful silence if his/her immediate reaction was unenthusiastic? (The reviews so far have been v. positive. But given that Zevon hasn't made a notable album in a long time, and given the typically-foreboding raft of "guest stars," I wonder if it's actually all that good.)

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I've heard a bit, and it sounds like more Warren Zevon. He's been exploiting his illness in public so much that, frankly, I think it's fair to find it a bit tasteless.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I must remember to pray tonight that Bono is never told he has a year to live.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

"If it wasn't for Bono, there would be no U2."

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Has he really been exploiting it a lot? I watched the Letterman apperance and it didn't ring of explotation at all. "Enjoy every sandwich" is certainly a sentiment that Ilx can agree with. I know Warren has also done the Rolling Stone thing and the VH1 thing but other than that I havn't seen him much.

It does seem that album is being billed as his wave goodbye. Which I can understand people being uneasy about. Has his death become nothing more than the type of marketing opportunity that Bill Hicks frequently likened to "sucking satan's cock?" Bill certainly didn't handle his run-in with cancer this way.

Does it even matter if he is exploiting it?

― ben welsh (benwelsh), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Are you sure Zevon is exploiting his illness or is it his record company et al? And are they really exploiting it or is it just that the tone of the press reports inevitably take on the quality of an encomium?

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

(x-post)

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

OH GaWD. The prospect of a Bono goodbye album is equally frightening to me.

― ben welsh (benwelsh), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

You people are heartless.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think he's been exploiting it. He's always been death-fixated, so his next album probably would have been about death even if he hadn't been dying. (The two before this one sure were.) Plus, there's that great moment in the VH-1 special where his manager or publicist tells him the New Yorker wants to do a profile, and he thinks for about two seconds, then says, "Too late."

― Phil Freeman (Phil Freeman), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:46 (twenty-two years ago)

He's definitely been exploiting his certain death more than anyone else I can ever think of. Especially if you think about the fact that he's basically hawking his ALBUM rather than trying to raise awareness about his illness.

It matters in the sense that A)it's happening in mass culture, which is what we shoot the shit about here and B)a lot of us are critics, and whether or not one surrenders to the "critic-proof" nature of this album is a valid dilemma. I don't think this is heartless, unless his dying wish is to have a platinum album.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:46 (twenty-two years ago)

the notion that zevon is exploiting his own death by releasing an album, doing a few covers and appearing on tv (stuff that, i dunno, seems pretty ordinary for a musician) is one of the most mean-spirited things i've read in a long time.

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:46 (twenty-two years ago)

raise awareness about lung cancer? i'd say there's plenty of people covering that for him, given the constant anti-cigarette ads on television and so forth.

i think he just wanted to spend his remaining months making music; what you seem to be asking, miccio, is for him to struggle to divert attentions away from that process when people are naturally interested (perhaps morbidly so, but so be it).

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, the press would NOT be talking about Warren Zevon unless his handlers weren't handing his story to them. You think they've been keeping tabs on him since "Werewolves Of London"?

Mark p, he's doing this much more high profile than any of his previous albums. He's got a documentary appearing about the recording of this album WITHOUT ADS on Vh1. All this crap may not have been his idea, but a cynic like Zevon should be aware that his situation is being hawked.

There's a real irony in protecting WARREN ZEVON, the crankiest of crankies, from any harsh analysis of the situation.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Zevon's certainly been no more death/illness-sploitative than Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin have the last few years.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

haha dying celebrities have a public duty to raise awareness about their disease before they die but the living have no right to critique their stuff in a RIP thread = political correctness and karmic politeness taken to new heights of idiocy!

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Zevon was doing regular apperances on Letterman for quite a long time before he was ever diagnosed with cancer.

It isn't that unusual for an artist given a diagnosis of death to try and go out with a blaze of new work. Keith Haring did many interviews and created a bunch of new artwork after he was diagnosed with AIDS.

― earlnash, Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Hmmm. I saw that Vh1 special. Every few scenes would be him walking around New York, smoking a cig. And he looked like shit.
If that isn't enough to make you wanna get some nicotine patches, nothing will.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm fine with a harsh analysis. I made a joke about the situation saying "Best. Promotional. Scam. Ever." on another webboard and got called out immediately by people for being cruel. The same irony you're pointing out occured to me then: there's nobody that would have agreed with the spirit of that joke more than Warren Zevon himself.

― ben welsh (benwelsh), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:53 (twenty-two years ago)

But Anthony what harm is befalling ANYONE from his story being "hawked"? Is the documentary notably sentimental or mawkish? (I haven't seen it.)

Zevon's "crankiness" has always rung a little hollow for me. Well actually crankiness is a good word, the commonly-applied "misanthropy" or what have you has always seemed overstated. (Anyway misanthropy is a notably romantic disposition compared to, say, lethargy.)

crazy x-post

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

people are naturally interested

judging by album sales, people are not naturally interested in Warren Zevon. And if all Warren wanted to do is make music, I wouldn't be hearing about it. Why would he have announced his situation to the public if all he wanted to do was spend time with his family and make music? Wouldn't the publicity make those things HARDER?

He doesn't HAVE to raise awareness about his illness, but don't expect me to be impressed and in awe that the man decided to spend his final days in more limelight than he's ever experienced before.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

who asked you to be "impressed" or "in awe"?

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

miccio, he's an artist. one who's probably got all sorts of new opportunities because of his unique condition. and anyway, HE'S the one who's dying - it's not like we're talking about mary guibert here

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

was Carl Hiaasen on the Vh1 special?

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah - Zevon is totally exploiting his disease. And when he dies, sales and popularity will go through the roof. Marketing genious. He's going to be so rich and famous it won't even be funny. I'll be he can't wait until he dies!

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

who asked you to be "impressed" or "in awe"?

see the introductory post to this thread and every review of the album.

one who's probably got all sorts of new opportunities because of his unique condition

I doubt many of these opportunities have anything to do with the music he makes, unless Springsteen wouldn't normally return his calls.

I'll be he can't wait until he dies!
At the very least Artemis Records might have conflicting emotions about his situation.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I will note that if I found out I had a limited amount of time left on this planet and some companies decided they wanted to promote a critical and commercial reappreciation of my works, I probably wouldn't stop them and I might help out a bit.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

even more tasteless, miccio, is that your feigned humanity (inherent in your stance, esp. all that b.s. about how zevon should be upping cancer instead of "hawking" his final record) is basically a smokescreen for you to begrudge the fact that he's not gonna be kept in his place for this album.

god knows, i don't give a fuck about warren zevon, but yours is one of the most preposterous, cynical and flat-out opportunistic criticisms i've ever seen. how can a limp bizkit fan cry sell out? shouldn't you be past that?

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:04 (twenty-two years ago)

and do you really think that, upon hearing that he had three months to live, zevon simply decided to expense his personal life and family for the sake of one last record that might possibly sell three times as much? i mean, have you ever met people?

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I've heard a couple tracks off the record. His version of "Knockin' on Heavens' Door" is moderately good, and "Disorder in the House" is passible. His vocals are a bit rough. But thats to be expected.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

miccio: no one has asked you to be "impressed"--that's a straw man. so i still don't know what HARM you think has been done.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:11 (twenty-two years ago)

-- amateurist (amateuris...), August 26th, 2003 1:31 PM. (amateurist) (link)

― J (Jay), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

mark p, I didn't say he SHOULD be promoting awareness of his illness. I simply said that be a more praiseworthy act that a star-studded heavily-hyped farewell album.

I'm never going to run for office. Undoubtedly the phrase "you like Limp Bizkit!" will be angrily hurled at me by an opponent, and I will have no defense.

The only harm being done is the subtle reaffirmation that people are afraid to truly analyze certain works, depending on the cultural status of the artist. It's small potatoes, but I never claimed it was anything more.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't follow. I was just asking if editors would allow negative reviews to run, or if critics would employ self-censorship and fail to write or submit negative reviews.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:14 (twenty-two years ago)

(that was to J's quoting of my first post)

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Miccio, one can analyze the work fairly (perhaps by running a lukewarm or negative review) but still not suggest that the work was in any way ignoble.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I find the hype surrounding it somewhat ignoble. But again, this might be more Artemis Records fault rather than Warren's (earlier I acknowledge I wouldn't refuse a little limelight if I was leaving this mortal coil either). Didn't Rhino rush out a greatest hits album right after his announcement?

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)

also: if it's a shit album, it should be reviewed as such

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

To answer the original question - I think if anyone has anything bad to say about it, they will surrond it with praise so as not to appear like they're heartless. Like a "Not his best work, but tremendous emotion was put into it ..."

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Was Bruce Springsteen's The Rising a similar case?

― ben welsh (benwelsh), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

The Rising is much, much, much, much, more offensive. And shitty.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:20 (twenty-two years ago)

And could a critic come out and blast The Rising? I know Jim Dero tried, to an extent.

― ben welsh (benwelsh), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:21 (twenty-two years ago)

mark p, I didn't say he SHOULD be promoting awareness of his illness. I simply said that be a more praiseworthy act that a star-studded heavily-hyped farewell album.

praiseworthy? whose praise should zevon be chasing - yours?!

tell me again that you're not being opportunistic and just a little bit disingenuous with this argument.

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:21 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, I was sort of wondering about albums whose circumstances forbid critics from running negative reviews. also given the critical taste for irreverance, it's difficult to imagine such a thing. certainly the springsteen album received some negative reviews. (what's funny is that i think in the case of certain of those reviews, there was a kind of force at work reverse to what i've just described. the unapologetic weightiness and occasionally sanctimony of the material seemed to blind people to its virtues. not to say it was a great album, but it was a good one i think.)

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:22 (twenty-two years ago)

i thought calling a song 'my ride's here'
in light of one's impending demise was darn dignified and
funny and disarming and cool even though i don't especially
care for him one way or another.
just *imagine* what he could have done.

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:23 (twenty-two years ago)

"My Ride's Here" was the album before his announcement.

mark p, I'm afraid you're either losing me or getting lost yourself.

Springsteen's album was less critic-proof (punks could rip on it, though clearly they can't rip on Zevon at all), but more likely to get classic status, simply because Springsteen is higher profile. Zevon can be certain of positive reviews and the utmost respect, but few will say The Wind is one of the most important albums of all time. Rolling Stone gives the Wind four stars and a few articles, gives the Rising five and the cover says THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:27 (twenty-two years ago)

i think springsteen's "big elephant" status actually makes it somewhat more tempting for critics to produce negative reviews, or at least harder to produce balanced reviews. i think we're saying similar things in a different way, actually.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:31 (twenty-two years ago)

miccio: by masking your problem with zevon's last antique road show media circus as a "what's best for warren" psa (cf. 'praiseworthy'), you're being disingenuous to the nth degree. your argument is ostensibly what he should do if he wanted to die with dignity, and you're coming off all shocked and appalled that someone else could exploit something as precious as human life by hawking their goods blah blah blah when the reality is that, like any critic, you're just looking for another new thing to get fired up about.

so, which is more exploitative?

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

i should add that i don't think it's a crime against humanity for critics to self-censor themselves in a circumstance like this. in fact i'm not certain how i feel about it.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:37 (twenty-two years ago)

the work should be judged on its own merits and the life on its own merits. these can be done.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:38 (twenty-two years ago)

"Didn't Rhino rush out a greatest hits album right after his announcement?"

I thought that album was already in the pipeline before the news broke.

By the way, Horace OTM.

― Charles McCain (Charles McCain), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not getting fired up, Mark P. I just think the whole thing's kinda tacky. I don't see how having a reaction to something is exploitive.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Watching the VH1 special, I kept thinking that if I were in one of the crowds of fans being shown I'd shout "Knock'em dead, Warren!" I also kept thinking about how this album and the documentary are permitting Zevon to die in exactly the way he wants to, to dramatize exactly the way he wants to be remembered. We should all be so lucky.

Is that exploitative? Well, I haven't bought a Zevon CD since "Learning to Flinch" but I'm buying "The Wind" because it's his last one; so yeah, maybe he is exploiting his death. Doesn't bother me, really. As a more-or-less Zevon fan, the "Death album" would have to be pretty bad for me to not cherish it on some level, but that won't keep me from saying I like earlier work better if it's so. Zevon's an entertainer. He's keeping (some of us, at least) entertained right up to the last and AFAIK, is doing so without any egregious lapses in ethics or dignity.

― Paul Ess, Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)

nb: he doesn't really stand to benefit financially from the exploitation unless his prognosis was really off.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 17:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been thinking about buying this record, but I'm actually thinking more about buying some of the ones before it. I like Zevon's old stuff, but the raft of guest stars on this one really puts me off.

― Phil Freeman (Phil Freeman), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 18:05 (twenty-two years ago)

He's definitely been exploiting his certain death more than anyone else I can ever think of

besides Puffy & friends making B.I.G.'s death their raison d'etre, you mean

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Does he have a family? A young family even? Then maybe he's exploiting his death to ensure that there's something left for them other than medical bills, which is pretty damn noble in a human way, maybe not an artistic way.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

i was wondering about that too...

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 18:09 (twenty-two years ago)

he's got two grown kids, jordan (a musician) and ariel, and two grandchildren.

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 26 August 2003 18:44 (twenty-two years ago)

FCC, remind me to thank yr parents for not naming you Flagrant Lie Affirming Cruz.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 26 August 2003 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

funny, that's my older brother's name. we had a lot of arguments growing up.

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 26 August 2003 19:31 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

you like limp bizkit

― gear (gear), Thursday, 10 August 2006 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

ok, we get it

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Thursday, 10 August 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

Well, THAT was the most absurd argument of all time. I miss Anthony.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 10 August 2006 17:42 (nineteen years ago)

I was hoping for something like "ZOMBIE WARREN ZEVON RELEASES NEW ALBUM ON K RECORDS".

― the doaple gonger (nickalicious), Thursday, 10 August 2006 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

'warren zevon exploits own corpse for posthumous profit'

― gear (gear), Thursday, 10 August 2006 17:47 (nineteen years ago)

"Excitable Bwai: A Reggae Tribute to Warren Zevon" (Artemis)

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 10 August 2006 19:01 (nineteen years ago)

"New supergroup consisting of Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Warren Zevon, Keith Moon and Jimi Hendrix to release debut album"

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 11 August 2006 22:01 (nineteen years ago)

every review I read of the last oops latest Johnny Cash album basically said "not bad for a guy with one foot in the grave."

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:29 (nineteen years ago)

i read a boatload of 'masterpiece' reviews, but i heard his last, er, next-to-last album american IV and there were only two good songs on it. it sounded like a DOC skit from 'the chronic', mostly.

― gear (gear), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:33 (nineteen years ago)

Every time I see this thread titale, I think: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

― Tab Hunter loves to take his shirt off (kenan), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:39 (nineteen years ago)

Now, there was some exploitation...

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Saturday, 12 August 2006 05:46 (nineteen years ago)

Didn't Zevon recently appear as a blip in the rock-and-roll news because, while he was awaiting the final curtain, Paul Nelson was one of the few people who got clearance to call him on the telephone?

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Saturday, 12 August 2006 05:55 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

who is paul nelson?

― memo from norv turner (omar little), Saturday, 14 February 2009 01:20 (seventeen years ago)

who is paul nelson?

Mercury Records A&R guy (signed the New York Dolls) and writer for Rolling Stone. Wrote a classic piece on Zevon in 1981

― Chris Barrus (Elvis Telecom), Saturday, 14 February 2009 01:27 (seventeen years ago)

More on Nelson: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10764481/paul_nelson_19362006

― Chris Barrus (Elvis Telecom), Saturday, 14 February 2009 01:28 (seventeen years ago)

At the end he was working at a video store, Evergreen, and if you went in there it's not like anybody would tell you who he was or what he had done, and apparently he was having difficulty even holding on to that job. Now he and Evergreen are both gone. http://rockcriticsarchives.com/features/paulnelson/links.html

― lemmy tristano (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 14 February 2009 01:46 (seventeen years ago)

Also this Paul Nelson R.I.P.

― lemmy tristano (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 14 February 2009 01:48 (seventeen years ago)

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