Justin’s Newsletter: August 2023
Vol. 3, Issue 8
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What’s Up With Me
Watch the latest episode of “Pasadena Monthly with Justin Chapman,” featuring Dr. Laurie Leshin, the first female director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Check out our wide-ranging interview on current JPL projects such as the Mars Curiosity Rover and Voyager 2, upcoming projects such as Psyche and Europa Clipper, whether we'll land a human on Mars, JPL's origins and diversity, UFOs, and more! Don’t miss this one. Watch it here.
I found this old UPI story from 1995 that lists my nomination for Best Young Actor in a TV Movie/Miniseries in the Hollywood Reporter’s inaugural Young Star Awards. Here’s me on the red carpet at the ceremony in Hollywood on September 30, 1995. I was nominated for my leading role in “Problem Child 3: Junior in Love.” Other notable nominees at the same ceremony: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kirsten Dunst, Brad Renfro, Jonathan Taylor-Thomas, Joseph Mazzello (the kid from Jurassic Park, who won my category), Elijah Wood, Claire Danes, Natalie Portman, Kate Winslet, Christina Ricci, Haley Joel Osmont, Sarah Michelle Gellar. 👀
Around Town
Stories to Keep an Eye On
International: Man, Putin is one cold-blooded mofo. He straight up just said that Prigozhin “made some serious mistakes” in response to the fact that his former chef and essentially number two was killed in a plane crash caused by an onboard explosion. I mean, the minute Prigozhin turned back from Moscow with his troops, his death warrant was signed. Why he thought Putin would let him live after that is beyond me. Of course, his death warrant was signed when he first coup’ed, but if he had been successful, and for a minute there it looked like he could have been, it could have all been different. What happens to the Wagner Group now? Keep on eye on that.
National: The first Republican debate was so depressing. Nothing happened on that stage that cut into Trump’s lead. It was essentially a contest for vice president, with several of them already disqualified from contention, in Trump’s eyes. These candidates seem to be living in a pre-2015 world where Trump doesn’t exist and the Republican Party is still the party of Reagan and Dubya. And they just can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that their policies on abortion and the Big Lie are political losers.
California: The recent murder of Laura Ann Carleton in Cedar Glen near Lake Arrowhead because she flew a Pride flag in front of her shop Mag.Pi was absolutely sickening, senseless, outrageous, appalling, and heartbreaking. Friends of ours knew her, and my family and I actually ate breakfast at the restaurant next door to her shop—the Cedar Glen Inn, our favorite restaurant in Lake Arrowhead—just three weeks before the shooting, and we saw Carleton, who smiled at us and seemed very nice. We had remarked at the time that she was brave for displaying a Pride flag in that mountain community that is essentially Trump country. She had nine kids and step-kids. She wasn’t even LGBTQ herself, she was a supporter. Killed for that? For her belief that everyone should be treated with respect? The shooter was a 27-year-old idiot who died in a shoot-out with deputies the same day. A glance at his social media accounts reveals that he was clearly mentally disturbed and far down the rabbit hole of right-wing and religious conspiracy theories. These unhinged fanatics are increasingly becoming dangerous and lethal. Stop the hate!
Local: There’s a brand new media outlet in Pasadena, called Local News Pasadena. It was created by Sheryl Turner and Phil Hopkins of the Pasadena Media Foundation, which has supported my journalism over the years and does great work supporting local journalists. Check out their new website and sign up for their email newsletter. Support local news!
Great Reads
Here are some recommendations for interesting books I’ve read recently:
Blink-182: The Bands, the Breakdown, and the Return—Joe Shooman
Blink-182’s new album announcement is just around the corner (stay tuned here on 9/5 or shortly thereafter). Mark, Tom, and Travis have been hyping it up online in recent days, building anticipation (the first single “EDGING” came out a year ago). I know the album’s been done for months (my friend worked as an engineer on it). This book by Shooman about the band’s history, 2005 break-up, and 2009 reunion is the only book about blink-182 (besides Travis Barker’s autobiography Can I Say and a small early book by Mark Hoppus’ sister Anne called Tales From Beneath Your Mom), but it came out in 2010, so it doesn’t cover the latter half of the band’s history, including Neighborhoods, Dogs Eating Dogs, the 2015 break-up, subsequent albums with Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba replacing Tom Delonge, Mark’s cancer, 2021’s surprise announcement about the return of Tom, and the band’s ongoing World Tour (from which they earned more than $85 million so far). Mark recently announced that he’s writing an autobiography as well. And of course, Tom wrote a few books about aliens called Sekret Machines. He played a big role in getting the government to admit that UFOs are real in that there are “unidentified aerial phenomena” that it can’t explain. Tom was right: Aliens exist!
Evel Knievel on Tour—Sheldon Saltman with Maury Green
In doing research for my book on Mad Mike Hughes, I’ve been adding some context regarding one of his daredevil influences, Evel Knievel. Mad Mike had based his steam rocket on the Sky-Cycle that Bob Truax made for Evel’s failed 1974 Snake River Canyon jump. Sheldon Saltman was Evel’s PR guru for that jump’s campaign. After he wrote this tell-all book, Evel beat Saltman with a baseball bat in 1977 and ended up going to jail for six months and paying Saltman $12.75 million in damages. You can read a PDF version of the book for free here.
Spotlight on My Past Stories
Now that we’ve been graced with John Eastman’s mug shot (click here if you dare), here’s a couple of stories I did about the Pasadena Republican Club suing the City of Pasadena and the Western Justice Center because the WJC canceled the PRC’s event at the last minute that was to feature none other than Eastman, because of his role in championing the homophobic anti-gay marriage Prop 8 in California in 2008. The PRC lost the case and that was finalized when the Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal. Not exactly the best dude to associate with and sue to defend, considering he went on to mastermind a coup to overturn a U.S. presidential election and all.
And read all of my journalism here.