If you’ve been a regular reader of this newsletter or even if you’ve just followed my career on the A.V. Club, then you know that one of the greatest regrets of my career is that Alex Rocco decided that he didn’t want to collaborate on his memoir with me. In the end, I don’t believe he collaborated with anyone else, either, but that’s not exactly a consolation, because the truth of the matter is that I wanted to read his stories at least as much as I wanted to be the one to help him record those stories, and if someone else had gotten the gig, well, at least I still would’ve been able to read them! But as I’ve said before and I’ll say forever, I really think the reason he opted out of our collaboration was that he had no idea how some of his stories would play once they were in print, and once he saw them, I believe he began to second-guess his decision to tell some of the stories that he’d believed would’ve helped him sell the book to a publisher.
Great story!