A Hollywood Ending
Hi everyone,
If you get a chance, listen to Brandi Carlile's gorgeous song 'Turpentine.' Love ya Starbucks/Itunes.
Mwah! I have been listening to Ms. Brandi as I've been following the harrowing, tragic suicide of media artist/writer Theresa Duncan and her longterm lover Jeremy Blake. I first read about their July suicides (one week apart) in a fascinaiting LA Weekly article by Kate Coe and more recently in an indepth New York Magazine piece, which I finally finished reading last night.
It boggles the mind how love and passion can so easily turn to codependence, insanity and so much pain. I didn't know Theresa Duncan but found the story of her 'failure' in Hollywood leading to a slide into mental illness to be more than plausible.
In a weird case of serendipity, I was just having this conversation with friends last night. We talked about all the actors and writers we've known in our years here who couldn't 'crack it' and disappeared.
"Whatever happened to...?" has become a somewhat easier, yet sinister game to play thanks to the internet.
For example, I had this complete nymphomaniac landlady in Studio City when I first moved here and I often wondered what happened to her.
I [literally] watched her seduce the garbage collector, the Sparkletts guy, the next door neighbor (and his father) and a dozen or more creepy guys in between.
I came out of my guesthouse one morning and found a naked, sweating guy who looked like a Las Vegas lounge lizard lying on MY chaise and shouldn't have been surprised to discover he actually WAS a Las Vegas lounge lizard.
But I digress. I recently googled the said landlady and found she now runs an online advice column from some nudist commune in Oregon.
I laughed out loud.
I'd take advice from her only when my last brain cell was left and the rest of the world was incinerated in some kinda new age holocaust.
Then there was the new age guru who was the hot thing when I arrived here 23 years ago from Australia.
Now he was an interesting cat. Claimed never to have eaten a morsel of food in sixteen years and a week after I arrived, he was caught eating an omelette at Ben Franklin's on Sunset.
Aaah..remember Ben Franklin's????
In my time here, I've seen more than a few kids get off the bus from Kansas only to find LA ain't all it's cracked up to be.
It's therefore no mystery why a staggering 70% of marriages fail here.
Duncan and Blake did the right thing returning home to New York when it looked like things here were sinking fast. How sad none of their friends or family were able to intervene when it was evident that her conspiracy theories of scientologists stalking them and sabotaging their careers tipped over into Blake's apparently gullible mind.
I don't think I've ever had anyone love me so much they simply could not live without me and walked into the ocean, giving up their lives to be with me in death.
It is deeply inexplicable, romantic, sad and sick.
And of course, the irony is not lost on me that in death, Theresa Duncan finally gets her Hollywood Ending.
Aloha oe,
A.J.
If you get a chance, listen to Brandi Carlile's gorgeous song 'Turpentine.' Love ya Starbucks/Itunes.
Mwah! I have been listening to Ms. Brandi as I've been following the harrowing, tragic suicide of media artist/writer Theresa Duncan and her longterm lover Jeremy Blake. I first read about their July suicides (one week apart) in a fascinaiting LA Weekly article by Kate Coe and more recently in an indepth New York Magazine piece, which I finally finished reading last night.
It boggles the mind how love and passion can so easily turn to codependence, insanity and so much pain. I didn't know Theresa Duncan but found the story of her 'failure' in Hollywood leading to a slide into mental illness to be more than plausible.
In a weird case of serendipity, I was just having this conversation with friends last night. We talked about all the actors and writers we've known in our years here who couldn't 'crack it' and disappeared.
"Whatever happened to...?" has become a somewhat easier, yet sinister game to play thanks to the internet.
For example, I had this complete nymphomaniac landlady in Studio City when I first moved here and I often wondered what happened to her.
I [literally] watched her seduce the garbage collector, the Sparkletts guy, the next door neighbor (and his father) and a dozen or more creepy guys in between.
I came out of my guesthouse one morning and found a naked, sweating guy who looked like a Las Vegas lounge lizard lying on MY chaise and shouldn't have been surprised to discover he actually WAS a Las Vegas lounge lizard.
But I digress. I recently googled the said landlady and found she now runs an online advice column from some nudist commune in Oregon.
I laughed out loud.
I'd take advice from her only when my last brain cell was left and the rest of the world was incinerated in some kinda new age holocaust.
Then there was the new age guru who was the hot thing when I arrived here 23 years ago from Australia.
Now he was an interesting cat. Claimed never to have eaten a morsel of food in sixteen years and a week after I arrived, he was caught eating an omelette at Ben Franklin's on Sunset.
Aaah..remember Ben Franklin's????
In my time here, I've seen more than a few kids get off the bus from Kansas only to find LA ain't all it's cracked up to be.
It's therefore no mystery why a staggering 70% of marriages fail here.
Duncan and Blake did the right thing returning home to New York when it looked like things here were sinking fast. How sad none of their friends or family were able to intervene when it was evident that her conspiracy theories of scientologists stalking them and sabotaging their careers tipped over into Blake's apparently gullible mind.
I don't think I've ever had anyone love me so much they simply could not live without me and walked into the ocean, giving up their lives to be with me in death.
It is deeply inexplicable, romantic, sad and sick.
And of course, the irony is not lost on me that in death, Theresa Duncan finally gets her Hollywood Ending.
Aloha oe,
A.J.
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