Larry Sloman
Sloman at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	(1950-07-09)9 July 1950
Pen name	Ratso
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	American
Signature

Larry "Ratso" Sloman (born July 9, 1950) is a New York–based author.

Career[edit]

Sloman was born into a middle-class Jewish family from Queens. His nickname Ratso came from Joan Baez who said Sloman looked like Dustin Hoffman's character Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy.

He wrote for Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, and Creem in the 1970s.^[1] He wrote a column, "Ratso's Pallazo", in Heavy Metal in 1985.^[1]

He collaborated with Howard Stern on the radio personality's two best-selling books, Private Parts and Miss America. He also appears in all of Kinky Friedman's mystery novels as the Dr. Watson to Kinky's Sherlock. Sloman wrote an account of Bob Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour, On the Road with Bob Dylan. He also penned Reefer Madness, a history of marijuana use in the United States, Thin Ice: A Season in Hell with the New York Rangers, a 1982 on- and off-ice account of the 1979–80 New York Rangers season^[2] and Steal This Dream, an oral biography of Abbie Hoffman.

His book The Secret Life of Houdini, written with magic historian William Kalush, presented research that attempted to prove that early 20th-century American magician Harry Houdini was a spy. The authors also raised the possibility that Houdini had been murdered by a cabal of Spiritualists, prompting Houdini's great-nephew to call for an exhumation of the magician's body to test for poisoning.

Sloman's other collaborations include Mysterious Stranger, with the magician David Blaine and Scar Tissue, the autobiography of the Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer Anthony Kiedis.

Starting in 1985, for a few years Sloman served as executive editor of National Lampoon magazine. He was also editor-in-chief of High Times.^[3]

On 5 April 2019, he released an album, Stubborn Heart, that includes a duet with Nick Cave, among others. Sloman and George Lois directed the music video for Bob Dylan's song "Jokerman."^[4]

Works[edit]

• Sloman, Larry (4 December 1975). "Bob Dylan and Friends on the Bus: Like a Rolling Thunder". Rolling Stone.
• Sloman, Larry; Kinky Friedman (introduction) (August 2002) [1978]. On the Road with Bob Dylan. Bantam, Three Rivers Press. ISBN 9780553116410.
• Sloman, Larry (1979). Reefer Madness: The History of Marijuana in America. Bobbs-Merrill. ISBN 978-0-672-52423-3.
• Sloman, Larry (1982). Thin Ice: A Season in Hell with the New York Rangers. Morrow. ISBN 978-0-688-00628-0.
• Stern, Howard; Larry Sloman (October 1993). Judith Regan (ed.). Private Parts (1st ed.). New York, New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-88016-3. OCLC 28968496.
• Stern, Howard; Larry Sloman (November 1995). Judith Regan (ed.). Miss America (1st ed.). Regan Books. ISBN 978-0-06-039167-6.
• Sloman, Larry; Howard Stern (introduction) (August 1998). Steal This Dream: Abbie Hoffman and the Countercultural Revolution in America. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-41162-2.
• Kiedis, Anthony; Larry Sloman (October 2004). Scar Tissue. Hyperion. ISBN 978-1-4013-0101-9.
• Kalush, William; Larry Sloman (October 2006). The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-7207-0.
• Criss, Peter; Larry Sloman (2013). Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of KISS. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-2082-5.
• Tyson, Mike; Larry Sloman (November 2013). Undisputed Truth. Harper Collins. p. 592. ISBN 9780399161285.

Further reading[edit]

1. Hershkovits, David (2017-10-18). "The Life and High Times of Larry 'Ratso' Sloman". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved 2017-12-29.
2. Bienstock, David (2003-01-27). "Bob and Ratso: Larry Sloman goes On the Road with Bob Dylan". High Times. Archived from the original on 2007-08-11. Retrieved 2007-12-30.
3. "Larry Sloman". Bold Type. Random House. Retrieved 2007-12-30.
4. "Larry 'Ratso' Sloman on His Time with Bob Dylan's 'Rolling Thunder Revue'". rock cellar magazine. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
5. McCormick, Carlo (April 1999). "Larry "Ratso" Sloman". High Times.
6. Bracy, Timothy (2017-06-01). "Speaking With Behind-the-Scenes National Treasure Larry "Ratso" Sloman". Men's Journal. Retrieved 27 August 2022.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Official website
• Website at SimonSays.com
• Larry Sloman at IMDb
• Interview Leon Charney November 2006
• Larry Sloman BroadwayWorld