A few words on the self-destruction of erstwhile presidential candidate John Edwards. At first glance, yes, it’s just another tired and ugly story, tabloid drivel about deviant sex involving another slick Washington shark. Then, when you stop for a moment and consider the actual human fallout, it becomes a gut-wrenching soap opera with seriously depressing undertones…the sort of story that makes you put down the newspaper and turn away from the television entirely. Elizabeth Edwards, the wife, has terminal cancer. The couple have three children: Cate is in her twenties; Emma Claire and Jack are eleven and nine, respectively. (A fourth child, Wade, was killed in a car accident in 1996.) And Rielle Hunter, the mistress, is now a single mother raising an infant daughter—identity of father as yet unknown.

So yeah. It’s pretty safe to say that the political career of John Edwards now finds itself at a dismal dead end. Maybe temporarily; probably permanently. American implosion at its finest and most telegenically pulverizing. Any hope of a Cabinet position in an Obama administration appears to be a silly pipe-dream. No veepstakes, no attorney general…not even housing and urban development.
(more…)

BAKERSFIELD, CA-

The orange truck came speeding south on H Street. My kid Landen, 17, said, “There’s that orange truck. I see it everywhere. It’s following me.” He was half joking, but it’s true. I recognized the orange truck’s driver. He lives with his wife in a little bungalow on Blanche Street, close to St. Francis of Assisi Church.

Sometimes I see the same person everywhere. There’s a disfigured man who seems to haunt me. He passes on a bus, walks past on streets. He once roamed campuses while I attended local colleges. He appears in libraries and grocery stores—even on Internet sites. I’ve seen him for nearly 20 years and have pointed him out. He’s everywhere. (more…)

BAKERSFIELD, CA-

There’s that one line from the new Dark Knight Batman movie that I keep stumbling on. It sticks in all the commercials. I hear it from my family. I read it in grafitti. It squeaks from comic book action figures: “Why so serious?” Maybe it’s because Comicon 2008 in San Diego is a place of spandex god worshippers who want their asses signed with celebrity lightning bolts. I mean, that’s gotta seriously hurt. (more…)

BAKERSFIELD, CA-

Can I just say now that spoken word poet Rich Ferguson is a great inspiration? Recently I wrote a rebellious poem-essay that I read at the Virgin Megastore in Hollywood and got freaky nervous because Ferguson showed up. OK, I would have been nervous anyway, but he was there looking like a poet gunslinger… (more…)

LOS ANGELES-

By now you’ve probably realized that TheNervousBreakdown.com has undergone an overhaul. As we approach our second birthday on July 31st, it seems appropriate to launch a new and improved version of the site that reflects our growing maturity (?) and enhanced sense of possibility. In short, the beast is getting older…and hopefully a little bit wiser. But rest assured: The beast is no less ornery. And no less inappropriate in public.

Please feel free to browse around. Wander. Kick the tires.

Please excuse any glitches. These glitches are temporary, and we will be weeding them out in short order.

(more…)

LOS ANGELES-

And here’s some more good news:

Jonathan Evison, contributor to TheNervousBreakdown.com, has just published his debut novel, All About Lulu, which comes to us from the fine people at Soft Skull Press in New York. The movie rights have sold, the buzz is building, and critics are calling it “a viciously funny and deeply felt portrayal of a blended family and one man’s thwarted longing.”

In short, it’s a great story. And one worth sharing.

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of chatting with Mr. Evison about his recent life and times, and I’ve posted the transcript of our meandering conversation right here at TNB.

(more…)

LOS ANGELES, CA-

I think I just had an epiphany regarding the Veepstakes debate and Barack Obama’s selection process in particular. I was reading the newspaper in a state of customary numbness, and all of a sudden it hit me like a thunderbolt. Please excuse me while I nerd out for a moment.

I think Barack Obama will choose one of the following two guys to be his VP:

Evan Bayh, senator from Indiana

or

Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia

Here’s why:

(more…)

LOS ANGELES, CA

Every year, the New York Public Library hands out its Young Lions Fiction Award, a $10,000 prize given to a writer under the age of thirty-five who has published a novel or a collection of stories of great distinction. The award was established in 2001 and is helmed by NYPL committee members Ethan Hawke, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Rick Moody, and Hannah McFarland. Past winners include Andrew Sean Greer, Monique Truong, Colson Whitehead, and Jonathan Safran Foer.

(more…)

PARIS-

The ad usually states something like “Apartment offered in exchange for services,” a banal phrase that for students and young professionals here in Paris might seem attractive.

After all, lodging anywhere in this city is expensive.

Why not do a little cleaning or errand-running, and receive a free place to stay?

But it turns out that a lot of unscrupulous landlords aren’t looking for someone to mop the floors.

According to recent news reports, young women are being asked to prostitute themselves for a place to stay.

Sadly, women have answered these ads in droves. (more…)

PARIS-

The Olympic Flame passed me by, and I didn’t even see it.

I was waiting outside Stade Charléty, not far from Paris’ Chinatown section in the 13th.

As the Olympic torch makes its second-ever global tour of the world before the Beijing Games this August, it swooped into Paris on a cold April day.

Already plagued by protests, starting with its lighting ceremony on Mount Olympus a few weeks ago, the Olympic Torch Relay (OTR) ran into continual hassles along its Parisian stretch, which caused organizers to stash the torch in a bus and keep it rolling through the city, the flame sadly reduced to a few licks of fire in specially-designed lanterns.

At Stade Charléty it seemed like the cop to spectator ratio was about 1:1. (more…)

SEATTLE, WA-

Tomorrow’s a big day.

The whole country is buzzing about “Super Tuesday” and all of the possibilities that may ensue.

As a matter of fact, this primary season has actually garnished a lot of attention within popular mainstream culture; a first in my lifetime. (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…)

BAKERSFIELD, CA-

My kid Lando sat in the stands and huddled in the cold with the rest of his mates from the pop punk band Dirty Spanglish. Their claim to fame? Performing their song “Hots for Hermione” on Harry Potter book seven release night at Vromans Bookstore. That was five months ago. Friday, they showed up more than two hours early to the stadium and barely got a seat in the stands. It was a night not about rock and roll legacies, but football.

(more…)

LOS ANGELES, CA-

Money apparently buys happiness. According to University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener, very rich people rate their level of life satisfaction substantially higher than do their impoverished counterparts. Adds Andrew Oswald, an economist at the University of Warwick in England: “There is overwhelming evidence that money buys happiness.”

The only remaining point of debate, then, seems to be: To what degree? And naturally, some people harbor serious doubts about the aforementioned notion, including yours truly. I’m not entirely convinced that money alone makes people happier. I think it’s much more complex than that. (more…)

PARIS, FRANCE-

Waiting at a stop light the other day, I saw a bus stop and begin letting people out even though there was no bus stop marked at that corner.

A group of about 20 business people got off and began crossing the street in front of me. One by one they began to gain speed, until they were running en groupe to the other side of the street where they all made a right turn and continued to run, holding their scarves and hats against the wind.

Just as the light turned green I saw what it was they were all running toward. (more…)