Mr. Lynch
David Lynch’s plot at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. For more of my photographs, follow me on Instagram.
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Filtering by Tag: DEATH
Mark Kernes Has Died
Image via AVN
Mark Kernes, who probably knew more about the legalities of the porn industry than anyone else, has died.
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What I'm Watching (Drowning)
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RIP David Lynch
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What I'm Watching (Fruit Bowl)
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Ma Vie en Rose
An estate sale in Glendale with lots of pink decor. For more of my photographs, follow me on Instagram.
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Books I Read in 2024: Confessions of a Serial Killer
If you’re looking to get into the mind of the serial killer BTK, aka Dennis Rader, Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer by Katherine Ramsland is one way to do it. Filled with communications between Rader and Ramsland, this book delivers an avalanche of detail about Rader’s crimes, offers hypotheses about what drove him to murder, and reveals what the layman and law enforcement can learn about people like him so as to better avoid/hunt them. This book is grim! You may have nightmares.
Books I Read in 2024: Victory Parade, I Hate Men, My Friend Dahmer, The Crying of Lot 49, Machines in the Head, Big Magic, The Valley, End of Active Service, An Honest Woman, The Money Shot, Atomic Habits, Finding Your Own North Star, Crazy Cock, Sigrid Rides, Your Money Or Your Life, The Big Sleep, Eventually Everything Connects, Smutcutter, Shine Shine Shine, A Serial Killer’s Daughter, Confessions of a Serial Killer
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Books I Read in 2024: A Serial Killer's Daughter
A Serial Killer's Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming by Kerry Rawson is not a good book. Written by the daughter of serial killer BTK, its greatest achievement is its title. Beyond that, it’s 135 pages of irrelevant backstory of the author’s life followed by her engagements with her father post-capture. The prison letters between the two are moderately interesting, but it’s like watching two people pretend a terrible thing didn’t happen with a few exceptions. Poorly written, badly edited, and only glancingly illuminating. Hard pass.
Books I Read in 2024: Victory Parade, I Hate Men, My Friend Dahmer, The Crying of Lot 49, Machines in the Head, Big Magic, The Valley, End of Active Service, An Honest Woman, The Money Shot, Atomic Habits, Finding Your Own North Star, Crazy Cock, Sigrid Rides, Your Money Or Your Life, The Big Sleep, Eventually Everything Connects, Smutcutter, Shine Shine Shine, A Serial Killer’s Daughter, Confessions of a Serial Killer
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Body Parts
I took this photo in Burbank on Magnolia Boulevard. For more of my photographs, follow me on Instagram.
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RIP, Evan Wright
Image via Mark Ebner
Last weekend, I got a call from a friend who had heard that Evan Wright had killed himself. I knew Evan, had met him over 20 years ago, had kept in touch over the years but not in recent years. Before he did all the war reporting, he had been an editor at Hustler. So we had writing about porn in common. I wasn’t really surprised to hear that he had killed himself. This kind of journalism takes a toll on you. It’s taken a toll on me. It’s hard to bear witness when you stand in the face of insanity. Back in 2009, I interviewed Evan about Hella Nation for The Daily Beast. In the last question, I asked him about his friend David Foster Wallace’s suicide.
You were friends with David Foster Wallace. Were you surprised that he killed himself?
I wasn’t surprised because, I mean, actually there were a couple conversations we had a few years before where, you know, he said as a grim joke, “Well, if I continue in this state of mind …,” and then he did say, “I’d be hanging from a rope,” or something like that. On a super-functional level, he had a gallows sense of humor. It was actually a theme. When I heard about [Wallace’s suicide], I was surprised.
I once complimented him on some piece—he referred to his writing as his “shtick”—and he was very self-deprecating. He separated himself from the persona he had as a famous writer. So, when he died, I was very sad. Back to that gallows humor, knowing him pretty well, what I resent is all these stories where they’re all, “Oh, it was inevitable.” I look at it like he had a bad day. And as an accidental death. I know there were attempts before. A lot of people almost do this, and then they don’t. He was a really great person, a really extremely generous person, and it’s hard to see him as anything else but that.
Read the rest here.
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The Last Thing
This week’s must-read essay is “The Last Thing My Mother Wanted” by the (pseudonymous) Evelyn Jouvenet.
Books I Read in 2024: My Friend Dahmer
I really enjoyed Derf Backderf’s graphic novel, My Friend Dahmer. It’s about the author’s high school relationship with the guy who would become America’s most notorious serial killer. Creepy, suspenseful, voyeuristic, savage, and peculiar, it raises interesting questions about how things might have turned out differently if you’d lived your life another way and didn’t end up murdering and eating other people.
Books I Read in 2024: Victory Parade, I Hate Men, My Friend Dahmer, The Crying of Lot 49, Machines in the Head, Big Magic, The Valley, End of Active Service, An Honest Woman, The Money Shot, Atomic Habits, Finding Your Own North Star, Crazy Cock, Sigrid Rides, Your Money Or Your Life, The Big Sleep, Eventually Everything Connects, Smutcutter, Shine Shine Shine, A Serial Killer’s Daughter, Confessions of a Serial Killer
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Retro
Vintage tech at a Valley Village estate sale. Follow me on Instagram for more photos from my life in L.A.
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Selfie at 55
“There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.” ― J. Michael Straczynski
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The Other Funny Girl
The estate sale of Carol Burnett’s assistant. Follow me on Instagram for more photos from my life in L.A.
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You Can't Take It With You
A few highlights from my “You Can’t Take It With You” estate sales photo series exploring love, loss, and the fleeting nature of fame in the San Fernando Valley (and Los Angeles too). Follow me on Instagram for more.
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All Her Dying Lovers
Loved this short from The New York Times Op-Docs: “All Her Dying Lovers.” It combines animation and assemblage audio to recount the enigmatic tale of a woman who sought revenge. A fascinating parsing of truth, memory, and myth.
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You're Thinking of Ending Things
Behold the trailer for Charlie Kaufman’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things.” Amazing.
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The Last Plague
Image via Wikimedia Commons
Awhile back, an audio producer friend of mine asked me to write up a pitch for an original fiction podcast series inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. The series I pitched wasn’t picked up, but here’s an excerpt from the pitch:
What if you thought you were the last person left alive in the world? What would you do? And what if one day you discovered you weren’t the only one? “The Last Plague” is a two-part, 70-minute, fictional oral history of what happened after The Last Plague (as it’s known) leaves one lone virus-immune survivor on each continent. Narratively framed through interviews conducted by a researcher in Singapore, this original fiction podcast series examines the power of our will to survive and the determination to connect with others in the wake of a global catastrophe.
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Death of a Woodsman
Earlier this week, AVN reported that performer / director Brandon Iron, “who had mysteriously fallen out of contact with friends since roughly mid-April, in fact died around that time in Dublin, where he had been living for several years with his girlfriend Sarah O'Brien and their daughter Lily.” A sad story. I interviewed Iron several times, and he seemed like a nice, sensitive guy. I quoted him in the most-read story I’ve ever written for Forbes: “The Hardest Thing About Being a Male Porn Star.”
According to Iron:
"‘The hardest thing about being a male porn star is convincing your female co-workers that you are an interesting, well-rounded, fun guy who they might consider dating in a parallel universe after a few drinks,’ Iron says.”
Buy my digital short story, “The Tumor” … “a masterpiece of short fiction.”