VANCOUVER, BC-

My eldest sister, Sara, was sixteen years old the night she ran away from home. My two older brothers and other older sister and I were in the den, sitting on the multi-colored shag carpet, watching “The Brady Bunch,” when Sara walked past us, clutching a bundle of laundry. No one paid her much attention; but as she walked through the room I looked up and she looked down and in that moment, that fractured, timeless glance, I saw her eyes, a searing, searching look inside her eyes. I have to go before I die; I can’t look back or else I’ll cry. Then she was gone, around the corner and down the stairs and, as I learned later that night, out of the house and our lives like an unwelcomed guest taking flight. (more…)

BAKERSFIELD, CA-

Recently the ex-mayor of a small town near Bakersfield called me at the news station. He’d just read my book, Lords and he was more than a bit shook up.

After we spoke for nearly an hour I asked him what he thought about the Lords of Bakersfield. Rumors were, their cult-like activities shot back to the late 1800s when dark-minded young British blue-bloods, booted out of Europe for being embarrassments to their well-to-do families (too gay in their county and city salons) ended up in the less than idyllic swamplands of the San Joaquin Valley, victims of false marketing. (more…)