Bart Bull: The Ladder of Success; a letter from Ted Hawkins

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

The Ladder of Success; a letter from Ted Hawkins

Booking No 6872-844
Terminal Annex
Los Angeles CA 90054

Dear Bart:

This will acknowledge receipt of the literature you sent me dated February 28, 1983. Thank you for the Mention you gave me in your year-end review listing. If that doesn't Make Me look good, nothing else Will. Especially the part where you put Me Up With Mr. Bruce Springsteen; that caused the people here to look at Me With their Mouth hung open, in surprise. I haven't had the pleasure of hearing Mr Springsteen sing before, however I've been told Many times that he is a great big super star. And is one of the best singers in the World. Are you sure you didn't Mean to Tie Me With some one else? Am I really that good? I remain humble.

I've got a private lawyer thanks to My Wife's begging, pleading and crying, she talked a private lawyer into excepting a retainer fee for $75.oo. The fee in full is $500.oo. He will allow us to pay him on time. I am very optimistic about the Outcome of the Whole thing now. All I need is an agent to assist Me in Causing the Album to become a periodical publication. The public is not buying the record fast because they haven't heard it. No Matter how good a record sound, if there's No one to push and permote it, It's going nowhere. Any agent knows that in Order to sell the Artist's records, One first has to sell the Artists. Thats the agents job. And I know Not the Whereabouts of such a person. I would perfer a femail for an agent rather than a Mail. I can relate to a Woman better then I can a Man, in Any Circumstances. I am More incline to take their advice quicker. During your daily Activities, if you stumble across one please inform Me.

Thank you for investigating regards to the lone that I asked from Rounder. But I don't need them now. I'll take care of it. I can't wait to read about Myself in Mother Jones. Thanks for sending the press clips. It Mean So Much to Me, to know that people are reading about Me in some parts of the World.

Very Truly Yours,
"Ted Hawkins"
Theodore Hawkins, Jr.

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It's Not All About Me

Vogue, Details, SPIN, Sounds staff writer, West Coast editor; loads of magazines, daily and weekly newspapers; columns, reporting, features, criticism. Couple of Deems Taylor Awards for music stuff, lots of other awards for reporting, writing, columns. Worked and traveled in more than twenty countries. Published in six languages; writes exclusively in American.

"The best new American rock writer of the '80s" — Creem

"[SPIN's] West Coast editor Bart Bull's piece on John Lee Hooker is as witty and perceptive a piece of writing as you're likely to find in any magazine anywhere." — Los Angeles Times

"Shakespearean." — Tom Wolfe

OG punk rocker, founded first American xeroxpunk fanzine, Browbeat, in 1977;
OG skateboarder, once clocked at 38 mph downhill.
Adequate accordionist; quarter-assed steel guitar player. Historian, cultural commentator, culinary adventurer, raconteur, wanderer, cook (pro/semi-pro/amateur), bon vivant (p/s-p/a), picaro y guero y gabacho.
Record producer, arranger, and mixer. Manager; Artistes et Property Intellectual. (Under his watch: Two Grammy nominations; more than one thousand tour dates internationally; precedent-setting application of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution to major label recording contracts; establishment of fiscally and aesthetically successful independently distributed record labels in territories on three continents; numerous other accomplishments.)
Urbanist

Designer
Documentarian
Expatriate American
High school dropout;

North Central Phoenix yo-yo champion, 1966.
Danced on Soul Train (one time, 1986; not invited back);
Hit loud foul off Juan Marichal, 1984;

Played accordion for 80,000 bikers and metalheads in Nuremburg, Germany, 1992;

Briefly (thanks to Title IX) a member of the Phoenix College Women's Volleyball Team ;

Charter member of the M. M. M. S.; Founding member/co-president of J.A.G.U.A.R. (Juveniles of Arizona Guard Against Undesirable Armed Rascals);

Co-founder of the notorious N.C. L. F. (Neon Cowboy Liberation Front); once shared a barber with the late, great Sam Cooke; accordion stylings favorably reviewed (as Jimmy Shands, Jr.) in the Manchester Guardian; numerous other awards, distinctions and visible scars

Once and former owner/operator/mechanic & close personal associate of: 1966 Pontiac GTO (389); a 1967 GTO (Tri-Power); a 1967 Chevrolet Malibu SS-327; a 1968 GTO (4ooCI, Hurst His'n'Hers shifter; Posi-Traction;); a 1969 GTO with Ram-Air III and four-on-the-floor; and a 1969 SS-396 El Camino with a 427 Corvette engine installed; numerous others, from three continents. Currently grumpy about Americans using too darn much gas. Rides the Metro standing up, goofy-foot; and a one-speed Dutch bicycle with coaster brake and friction-generated headlight (avec tres authentique Ed "Big Daddy" Roth Ratfink decals).

"Writer, musician, manager, gadabout, and cool-guy raconteur..." — New Times

"This obsessive, smart-ass, and at times uproarious collection... [has] nothing to do with commercial success. If (it) did, '...probably the eighth greatest band name ever would be Celine Dion, and we'd all know the Book of Revelations was kicking full effect.'"

Failure magazine "book" review of Battle of The Band Names

"His explication of why white America hasn't clasped Michael Jackson to its bosom as tightly as it has Bruce Springsteen [in another publication] was the most provocative, insightful, and prolix piece of writing I've read since Lester Bangs' famous piece on wanting to do James Taylor grievous bodily harm. . .

His condemnation of Woodstock a few issues back made me cackle aloud with delight."

Creem

"Ironically, for a book [Tom Waits On Tom Waits] that leans overwhelmingly towards smaller-press rock journalism, the most intriguing character in the book is Bart Bull, veteran journalist extraordinare, a large-publication writer and the former West Coast editor of SPIN. Two of Bull's Waits pieces are included — the first, the aforementioned "After A One-Night Stand" article from 1977, is the account of a fight between interviewer and interviewee that arose when a mid-tour Waits was particularly exhausted and cranky. The second, "Boho Blues, written for SPIN in 1987, is an ambitious, successful attempt to write a piece of Waits journalism in the style of Waits himself and the most insightful piece in the book.

"At it's best, as with the Bart Bull articles, "Tom Waits On Tom Waits illuminates its subject and allows a peek into the history of lesser-known late-20th century rock journalism, sometims from now-defunct publications."

"Not all the interviewers here fall into line and churn out cookie cutter questions, though. One of the best pieces is written by Bart Bull for Phoenix's New Times in 1977. Waits had just released Foreign Affairs and was in a particularly bad mood that evening. Rather than let Waits run roughshod over him, Bull fought back. Written in a narrative style, it stands out amongst the typical Q&A format that dominates this book. And what did Bull gain from giving the man such a negative profile? The chance to interview him again 10 years later for SPIN. In Tom Waits On Tom Waits, many music journos learn that flattery gets you nowhere."

"That was the craziest thing I ever read about us — I could never have written that." —Axl Rose to Bart Bull

Bart Bull

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

The Ladder of Success; a letter from Ted Hawkins

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It's Not All About Me

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