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What’s Up With Me
I delivered two presentations about my book Paradise Springs this month. One was at the Linda Vista Library—you can watch the full event here. The other was at Paradise Springs itself—stay tuned for the link to that video. Learn more about the book here. If you’re interested in purchasing a copy, reply to this email.
Watch the moment when my TV show "Well Read with Justin Chapman" won a Hometown Media Award from the Alliance for Community Media for my episode featuring an interview with (Northern) Irish politician Gerry Adams:
Finally got around to finishing the video of my Jack Parsons presentation that I delivered at the Altadena Historical Society in 2022, which you can watch here.
Watch the latest episode of “Pasadena Monthly with Justin Chapman.” This episode features an interview with Pasadena Public Works Department Director Greg de Vinck. Read more here.
So sad to hear the news about Jonathan Joss, voice of John Redcorn in “King of the Hill,” who was shot and killed earlier this month. I performed with him in a 1997 episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” in which I played a young Chuck Norris. Watch my scenes with him here. I had just reconnected with him a few weeks before his death. Rest in peace, Jonathan.
Check out this new (and positive) review of “Problem Child 3,” lol.
My family’s GoFundMe page is still live, if you’d like to contribute to Eaton Fire survivors.
Around Town
Great Reads
Here are some recommendations for interesting books I’ve read recently:
The Hook and the Eye—Raymond Benson
Benson authored several celebrated James Bond continuation novels in the late 90s and early 2000s, and is now out with a book featuring Bond’s friend and collaborator Felix Leiter, a CIA agent-turned-Pinkerton detective who appeared in a number of Ian Fleming’s original Bond novels. In Live and Let Die, the villain feeds Leiter to a shark, which bites off an arm and a leg but doesn’t kill him. The Hook and the Eye takes place shortly after that story, so we see Leiter dealing with his new prosthetics as he tries to unravel a case involving Polish spies in New York City, which ends up sending him on a road trip to Texas, where he’s originally from. The book is currently available as an e-book only, and will be published in paperback form on October 2. Originally, the e-book was going to be released in 10 installments every two weeks, but readers were having issues with their e-book reading platforms not updating, so Ian Fleming Publications decided to abandon that plan and just release the full e-book this past week. It’s a fun read, and it’s great to finally see Felix Leiter take a starring turn.
Slow Horses/Dead Lions/Real Tigers/Spook Street—Mick Herron
One of the best TV shows right now is “Slow Horses” on Apple TV, which is based on the Slough House series of books by Mick Herron about a group of ragtag MI5 agents on the bottom of the Security Service totem pole. Gary Oldman is brilliant as the group’s rough-around-the-edges boss, Jackson Lamb (who reminds me of my old editor, Kevin Uhrich). The books are also highly recommended, whether or not you’ve seen the show. They are quick but well-written thrillers with insightful social and political commentary on modern espionage, intelligence, and international relations. I’m all caught up on the books that were the basis for the four existing seasons of the show. The fifth season, airing September 24, is based on the fifth book, London Rules (and there are several more books after that which are already out). I can’t decide if I should read the book first or watch the new season first. Help me out here.
Great Watches
I highly recommend anyone who lives in Altadena or Pasadena to watch “The Mortician” on HBO. It’s a three-part documentary series about the Lamb Funeral Home, which used to be on Orange Grove near Los Robles and was run by a family that was doing all kinds of unethical and illegal things in the 1980s and 90s, from cooking the books, to stuffing tons of bodies together in the old crematorium at Mountain View Cemetery and mixing the ashes all together so bereaved family members didn’t know if the ashes they received were in fact those of their deceased loved ones, to beating up and allegedly murdering critics, to stealing gold teeth and organs from dead bodies, and more. The main subject of the documentary, David Sconce, practically admits to murdering three people at the end of the third episode. It’s wild, and it all happened right here in Alta/Pasadena.
Also, if you’re missing “Welcome to Wrexham,” stop what you’re doing and get your shit together. Every episode makes me laugh, cry, and go through a roller coaster of emotions, from despair to hope and joy. The 4th season finale just aired last week with a blockbuster episode depicting Wrexham AFC achieving historic back-to-back-to-back promotions in English football.
On a related note, the best show ever made and the longest-running live-action sitcom in television history begins its 17th season on July 9: “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” (related because Rob McElhenney, who plays Mac in Sunny, is co-owner of Wrexham AFC alongside Ryan Reynolds, ya goober).
One more for the road: I absolutely loved “28 Years Later,” the third movie in the “zombie” series after “28 Days Later” (2002) and “28 Weeks Later” (2007). They’re not really zombies, of course—they’re humans who have been infected with the “rage” virus. Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting”) and Alex Garland are back as director and writer after skipping the sequel, and this new one is the first in a new planned trilogy (“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” already shot, will be released January 16, 2026, and the following one will hopefully be greenlit depending on how well these two do in the box office—Cillian Murphy is confirmed to be back for those two). The soundtrack to the new movie, by Young Fathers, is so good and haunting. Some viewers didn’t like that the movie is part of an upcoming trilogy, but I like that there’s more coming. The story is a metaphor for our current fucked up world, and while the final few minutes were a jarring tonal shift from the rest of the movie, the deeper meaning of the characters signal where things are headed in the follow up film. I hate horror movies, but I love this “28” series.
Spotlight on My Past Stories
Revisiting my Paradise Springs stories, in LAist and Pasadena Now, since I just spent the weekend there and delivered a talk about my Paradise Springs book.
And read all of my journalism here.