Customer Reviews

Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL from Someone Who Was There

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I'm a HUGE fan of SNL (especially that of the early years), so I snapped this title up almost as soon as it became available. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of believing that a book with the subtitle, "The Early Days of SNL from Someone Who Was There", might actually focus on, you know, THE EARLY DAYS OF SNL !!!

But that's really not the case.......

Instead, what we get are a patchwork of recollections from Tom Davis's drug-addled life and career, with emphasis on his friendship/partnership/break-up with Al Franken, some adventures and experiences shared with his pal Dan Aykroyd, and numerous exploits involving Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead (Davis's favorite band).

To be fair, over the course of the book Davis DOES relate a number of stories from his time as a writer (and occasional performer) on SNL, however, nowhere near as many as I expected, or had hoped for, based on the misleading title.

The other stories that are told are, for the most part, interesting, and help the reader better understand the truly atypical life that Tom Davis has led, however, it's the way he relates those stories that are this book's biggest problem................simply put, they're ALL over the place.

The story line (what little there is) is disjointed, and rather difficult to follow. The narrative constantly jumps back and forth from the present to the past (and back again) without much explanation (or segue) in between, leaving the reader in a semi-constant state of confusion regarding 'time and place'.........and THIS from a man who makes his living as a writer!!! (Though I realize that the writing of one's bio is VERY different from the scripting of comedy "bits" for tv, movies and stand-up, understanding that fact doesn't make the reading any easier.)

In the end, it's up to the reader to make some kind of sense out of the 'jumbled' story line. I did, and am (mostly) glad that I did, since I learned a few things about 'Saturday Night Live' that I didn't already know.

Still, I can't recommend this book to anyone looking for a highly informative read on that particular subject. In fact, I guess I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the most diehard of 'SNL'ers', or possibly to those looking for a glimpse into some of the formative experiences of Tom Davis's onetime partner, (Minnesota Senator) Al Franken (and "Deadheads" too, might enjoy reading the various exploits of their 'heroes').

Having completed this work, my vote for the best SNL 'history' book is still "Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests", by James A. Miller and Tom Shales. It provides a decent overview of the show from a number of different perspectives, and is a VERY entertaining (and often surprising) read, to boot (It's even been updated!). Comprised almost entirely of first-hand quotes culled from numerous interviews with the producers, writers, performers, and hosts from the show's past, it touches on every 'era' in SNL history.

And hopefully we'll one day still get the 'definitive' book on the early days of SNL from "someone who was there", but, sad as it is to say, it's now beginning to look like that may never happen.......

Hmmmmmmmm............."Paging Mr. Michaels, Mr. Lorne Michaels..."

From an ad on the back of the NY Times Magazine, I found out that Tom Davis was treated for tongue cancer and is in remission. I wish him well. Surprising though that his body didn't fail him previously, based on this tedious recounting of a charmed life on drugs.

Hearing endless descriptions of how cool it was to do crack with Jerry Garcia, and how a person with incredible opportunities, access, and, maybe, some talent, threw it all away, was even more of a drag than I thought it could be. I listened to this entire poorly written, rambling, annoying book, read by the author, waiting for
a. the funny, b. any insight that age brings to a wasted life, c. recognition of the obvious deep-seated, self hatred told in a post-modern, clever way. Other than a mention of suicide in a final epigram, this guy remains entirely clueless about what a fool he was/is.
Note to Tom and others who might think their lives are interesting.
A readable memoir should not include:
How many stunningly gorgeous women you slept with.
How many hits of acid you consumed or procured for famous people.
How terrific you thought that comedy you wrote decades ago was.
How you went to amazing places around the world and missed everything important because all you wanted to do was be stoned.

Watch some old SNLs and try not to think about him. I also feel sorry for Al F. He must have borne the brunt of this guy's pathology.

The book contains some interesting tidbits, but is not very well written. Every other paragraph ends with the author thanking someone. The book is disjointed, and out of sequence. Photos would be more elucidating if they were all captioned with subject's name. Strange how he refers to the "Franken and Davis" comedy duo, as if he wasn't the Davis of Franken and Davis. It's similar to a baseball player referring to himself in the third person.

Read "Wired"- Belushi's biography if you want a great SNL primer.

Tom Davis and his cohorts at Saturday Night Live helped to shape my sense of humor. The show premiered when I was 14 years old and was very important to me at a very formative age. Therefore, I was greatly looking forward to this book. As stated in a previous review, Davis's memory for what drugs he took, actually discerning between window pane and microdot decades after the trips, is amazing, and also sad, because his memories of the amazing life going on around him aren't enough to make a good book.

What is really amazing is that he ever got anything done, being so effed up all the time. Had I not been a fan, there is no way I would have finished this disjointed conglomeration of one man's lifelong commitment to substance abuse, oh, and his marginally mentioned participation in the greatest sketch comdey show ever on American television. A lot of time could be saved by highlighting the few tidbits of confession or enlightenment that one can glean from the book, such as that he regrets dissing Jan Hooks, he didn't like Johnny Carson, he made and smoked crack with Jerry Garcia, he was sad about Belushi and Farley, but doesn't even mention Phil Hartman or Gilda Radner (they must not have done enough drugs with him), and he was bummed that no one knew his name as the answer to the Jeopardy question "He was the writing partner of Al Franken."

This book will be a classic of books that are funny for reasons they didn't intend to be (or in fairness, maybe he did intend it to be). Future generations can marvel at the sheer volume of hallucinogens consumed. The Tom Davis drinking game would be to pick out a random page and do shots every time the word "acid" appeared. You'd be annihilated after one page, just like Tom.

This all gets said a lot, but Tom Davis spends too much time talking about his drug intake, and very little time talking about SNL at all. I started reading this, giving it time, but after awhile I just couldn't wait for the narrative to get to New York and the subject that I was really interested in. But alas, hardly satisfying. You know, maybe some info on the original cast, besides Belushi and Dan Aykroyd? Laraine Newman gets one sentence... Hell, the Belushi chapter is only about 5 pages long!
I could deal with the disjointed jumping back and forth in time if there was some actual substance there. I'm willing to bet there is more in-depth writing concerning the Grateful Dead in here than anything about SNL. I don't know about you, but I don't give a @#%* about the Grateful Dead, in any context. I needed this book to tell me Jerry Garcia was a tubby, freebase-smoking junkie? No, I knew that already. Or that Lorne Michaels was an autocratic bastard? Or that Chris Farley was a talentless boozed up idiot? NO! God, by the time it gets to the "Timothy Leary" chapter, I'm asking myself: why the hell am I still reading this? Then near the end he meets up with Jerry's widow at Burning Man... can we get any more cliche than this?
Now, I have no problem with drugs. I've done some good acid and smoke green now and again, but this endless cataloging of who he ingested what with gets old real fast. It's the same kind of stuff I've heard from old baby-boomer hippies I know: hallucinogenics used to rain from the sky, great sex was had all around, you could wander the world with 2 bucks in your pocket and it was all such a beautiful place. You know what? [...] you!
So for old school SNL fans, there is very little here for you. To use an analogy from Davis's own generation, reading this book is like listening to some guy's Woodstock story: He never got to see any of the bands cuz he didn't get farther than the parking lot, but he did have a good BJ and a joint when he got there.

I've read quite a few other books about SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE's history and still find it fascinating. I grew up with the original cast and will always feel a special affection for that part of my youth. My favorite comedy was and still is NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE.

But something strange happened while reading Tom Davis' memoir: I reached the end and thought to myself, "Well, that's probably the best we're going to get from him."

The writing isn't particularly funny (memories of how funny SNL was carry the book). Some chapters repeat their openings of info he already wrote about. I had to double check pages 152 to 153 to see if I'd missed something since the narrative jumps from Davis showing Jerry Garcia an unproduced script to John Belushi's memorial.

The reason this didn't bother me so much: Davis chronicles the massive amount of drugs he smoked or ingested. He's lucky to remember anything! This is a guy who was getting trashed with John Belushi and Jerry Garcia--and a lot of other people on his way. I thought it was odd that he never appears to have a moment of self-reflection as Belushi, Garcia, Chris Farley and others start dropping dead from their habits. But I know a lot of drug users...and they never think about themselves (unless it involves a play for sympathy or self-pity).

This book isn't so much a history of SNL. That's part of it. The other parts are Tom's trips overseas and his loyal devotion to the Grateful Dead. Since I love travel, I enjoyed the chapters of his drug-fueled wanderings in Asia and India. Since I've never been a fan of the Dead...well...not so much. But the writing is straight-forward and has a casual flow to it (if a little disjointed).

I can't argue with the criticisms and it's not the most insightful look into SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE's history...but it's probably the best we're going to get from Tom Davis.

This is a real mess of a book, one that purports to tell about Tom Davis's experiences working at Saturday Night Live. But all the book consists of are the following...

Tom did a lot of drugs

He slept with women

He's one of the "original" hippies

He partied with Jerry Garcia and followed the Dead around

He did more drugs

He occasionally wrote a sketch and did some comedy with some guy named Al

More drugs

Started out bitter, and grew more bitter

Partied with famous people

Did drugs with famous people

Wrote another sketch

Did some bad film work

Then wrote this book.

The book is a mishmash of what seems like diary notes that no one bother to organise. It jumps around like a person riddled with ADD had written the bloody thing. Davis seemed to get into show business to be famous and party with other celebrities, not to be a great comic writer and an artist. He's not the only one who has ever done this, and he sure as hell won't be the last, but his life's story is not worth reading about. Sorry. The book is really sloppy and repetitive, and Davis hardly talks about the material he actually wrote. It's more like a frat guy's journal where he brags about how much booze he drank, who he screwed, who he did coke with, etc., etc.. Actually, it's a depressing book that should be avoided. I'm done ranting now.

Other reviewers have already mentioned the disjointed, poorly edited story of someone who seems to remember every drug he took and was clueless about the life he led.

Tom Davis comes across as a 20-something creative kid who had a few years of fame and snorted, smoked and drank it all away - and never grew up.

Given that nothing is said of Davis's last 15-years, one can only conclude that this is a sad, money-making opportunity piggybacking on Al Franken's senate campaign.

Perhaps no other introduction more clearly defines the character of a book as does Al Franken's preamble to Tom Davis' recollections: "Tom's had a fantastic life...but it was my experience that he did not possess much of a memory---which seemed to me an essential ingredient in writing a memoir," writes Al Franken.

Three-fourths of the way through the book, I could not agree more.

One could summarize this book as being about his relationship with drugs, his infatuation with the Greatful Dead, intermissions with girls, drugs, more infatuation with the Greatful Dead, and more girls.

Tom Davis of the team Franken and Davis is best known for.... well, nothing that I can recall off-hand. Dan Ackroid's skit of Julia Child bleeding to death during a kitchen skit was classic, but beyond that one has to wonder just what exactly Tom Davis contributed to the success of Saturday Night Live, the early years.

His personal tales are often interesting, but his presentation is disjointed (no pun intended), and often incomplete. He dabbles into 1976 and the next page you are in 1980, back to 1978 and then off to the early 1990s. Somehow he manages to travel the world, but has no job or money. One minute he is in the audience on David Letterman, and the next he is writing for NBC.

Although this book has several highlights and interesting tales, it reads like a series of short SNL sketches. Basically, it lacks interesting depth. Just when you think you are going to find out something really neat, Davis has a mind blank and you move on to something else. One thing is clear: Tom Davis was, and probably still is, a doper who somehow (we never really find out) lucked his way into an interesting life and ultimately show business, but probably would have been happier if he could have been the publicist for the Greatful Dead. I wonder if that book would have been better?

Much of this book is, as other reviewers have pointed out, very disjointed. What struck me most was how many mean-spirited jabs he takes at the expense of everyone else. (Including Al Franken) Funny how he decided it was time to do this right after the election. It seemed like repeated crude attempts to make himself seem more important. I found it very sad. If this is what he is like, I guess it's a good thing he lives in a cabin by himself in upstate New York. (the jacket blurb makes this claim)