Justin’s Newsletter: May 2025
Vol. 5, Issue 5
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What’s Up With Me
One of my TV shows, “Well Read with Justin Chapman,” has won a Hometown Media Award from the Alliance for Community Media for my episode featuring legendary Northern Irish politician Gerry Adams! This is a national contest for community media, community radio, and local cable programs. Watch the episode here.
I’ve been nominated as a finalist for two more Los Angeles Press Club journalism awards! One is in the Obituary category for my story on former Pasadena Weekly editor Kevin Uhrich, and one is in the Local Political/Government Reporting in Broadcast category for my other TV show, “Pasadena Monthly with Justin Chapman.” Winners will be announced on June 22.
I’ve got two Paradise Springs book events coming up in June. Hope to see you at one or both of them (addresses are in the flyers below):
Saturday, June 7, at 11 a.m. (coffee gathering at 10 a.m.) at the Linda Vista Library in Pasadena. Read more here.
Saturday, June 28, at 7 p.m. at Paradise Springs itself!
I served on a panel at LitFest in the Dena. We chatted about “Pasadena as a character.” Read more about it in Pasadena Now, Pasadena Weekly, and Colorado Boulevard.
Watch the latest episode of “Pasadena Monthly with Justin Chapman.” This episode features an interview with award-winning writer and filmmaker Ellen Snortland. Read more here.
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:
Foreign Devil: Thirty Years of Reporting in the Far East—Richard Hughes
Richard Hughes was an Australian journalist who covered Japan before and after World War II, China during Mao’s reign, and the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. He was the correspondent who exclusively interviewed British traitors Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess in Moscow after they fled the U.K., confirming that they in fact were spies for and did defect to the Soviet Union. Hughes was friends with Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, and was the basis of Fleming’s character Dikko Henderson in the Bond novel You Only Live Twice. There’s a great chapter in Foreign Devil that describes a research trip to Japan by Hughes, Fleming, and Tiger Saito (who was the basis for the head of the Japanese intelligence service in You Only Live Twice), in which it is exclusively revealed that Fleming was considering setting his last Bond novel in the Panama Canal. Foreign Devil is filled with chapter after chapter of Hughes’ wild and poignant adventures of a Western journalist in the Orient. He captures the essence and contradictions of Chinese and Japanese politics at that time like no one I’ve ever read. The book is hilarious throughout and a real eye-opener. Highly recommended.
Seventeen Moments of Spring—Yulian Semyonov
Semyonov was a Pravda correspondent and author in the Soviet Union whose fictional character Stiglitz was considered the Soviet version of James Bond. Stiglitz was a Soviet spy in the Nazis’ Gestapo during World War II. Semyonov said the character is a combination of traits of several actual Soviet agents. His book is a finely written, edge-of-your-seat thriller. Seventeen Moments of Spring was also made into a 1973 TV show that’s available here.
Great Listens & Watches
My favorite show of all time, King of the Hill, is coming back this summer with new episodes!!! The long-rumored and long-awaited revival by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels has been officially announced. I literally cannot wait for this.
It will be interesting to see how they handle the characters whose voice actors have died since the show ended in 2010, namely Luanne Platter (Brittany Murphy), her husband Lucky Kleinschmidt (Tom Petty), and Dale Gribble (Johnny Hardwick). I’ve read that the great Toby Huss, a white actor who voiced Laotion character Kahn Souphanousinphone in the original, has been recast as Dale, which is about the best move they could possibly make, given the circumstances (I also read that Hardwick did finish recording some episodes before his death).
The new show will take place several years after the original, so all the characters will be a little older. Going to be amazing, don’t miss it!
Spotlight on My Past Stories
Since Ellen Snortland was my guest on my show this month (and since she’s a finalist once again for three LA Press Club journalism awards including Journalist of the Year!), I’m revisiting the two Pasadena Weekly cover stories I wrote about her: one about her movie “Beauty Bites Beast” and the other about her suffragettes history exhibit at the Pasadena Library.
And read all of my journalism here.