rumor has it that kojak’s son is a student at the university of arizona and that his girlfriend tori spelling has been seen around tucson and that tori spelling’s castmate from 90210 jennie garth is from phoenix which matters to devotees of the show you’ve never seen it though you know all of the characters’ names oj simpson is suspected of murdering his wife and her friend and then leads the police on a slow freeway chase radio personality howard stern withdraws from the race for governor of new york rather than publicly reveal his financial statements www.weresofamous.com www.jaimeclarke.com ..read more

bad reviews for bret easton ellis’s book start rolling in and you’re not sure why but you write a letter to the editor of entertainment weekly in response to one of the harsher reviews and to your surprise they print it the thrill of your name in the magazine matched only by the message on the answering machine at home that vanity fair is going to print your letter as well the stars aligning when you happen upon a flyer on the fourth floor of the modern languages building on campus where all your creative writing workshops are held for a new low-residency mfa program at bennington college you ..read more

magic johnson arranges a press conference to announce that he is hiv positive and will retire from basketball immediately and as his team the lakers are perennial tormentors of the hometown phoenix suns some fans are not as compassionate as they could be magic goes on his friend arsenio hall’s late-night show to assure everyone he is heterosexual and not gay which gets a standing ovation from the crowd lasting minutes one of the kennedy relatives goes on trial for raping a woman at the family compound in florida the movie about jfk’s assassination fires everyone’s imagination especially those ..read more

a teenage girl on long island shoots but doesn’t kill the wife of the guy who works on her car when she brings it in to his auto body shop the friend of the actor who played colonel hogan on one of your favorite shows as a kid hogan’s heroes is arrested for colonel hogan’s murder at an apartment complex in scottsdale the murder happening sometime in the late seventies long before you even started watching the show and you wonder at the complicit silence among the adults who knew that the actor had had his head bludgeoned in his sleep and possibly as a result of his sex life which included home ..read more

the old ford pickup truck cruises the harbor of ships gearing up for the sea the ships becoming smaller and smaller until you reach yours the smallest among them and you’re awarded a matching blue tracksuit with the words dutch harbor alaska stenciled in yellow down the right leg as clothes until your bag can be found you’re instructed to help load the supplies stacked on the dock for the journey men of substance both fictional like jay gatsby and real like charlie keating have about them the myth of the self-made man and you buck in under this pretense the money earned over the summer will be ..read more

an intern in washington dc goes missing and the congressman from her district in california is questioned the actor robert blake’s wife is found murdered in the passenger seat of his car madonna announces her first tour in over a decade the drowned world tour and you think that about says it all  www.weresofamous.com www.jaimeclarke.com @TypicaloftheX ..read more

your high school girlfriend on the ten-dollar-a-minute ship-to-shore phone calls that will come out of your paycheck along with the tracksuit you’ve been wearing day and night and when your high school girlfriend says maybe it’s better if you stay for the entire summer you jump ship the moment the boat docks after two weeks at sea spending five of your last dollars on a cab ride from the ship to the airport leafing through a discarded people magazine about marlon brando’s son murdering his sister’s boyfriend while your father tries to get you a ticket on the last plane back to civilization www ..read more

you feel strongly that whoever wrote the review should have to sign his or her name to it that publishers weekly shouldn’t be publishing anonymous reviews if someone feels strongly about a book one way or the other shouldn’t do so behind a curtain also the review mentions bret easton ellis twice which makes you suspect he’s the real target of the reviewer’s disdain you immediately recall an episode at harold ober where the editor of the los angeles review of books called the agent of one of ober’s authors who publicly hated an author with a new book out the editor wanted to hire the ober autho ..read more

a serial killer everyone describes as handsome is executed in florida the actor who played the older brother on diff’rent strokes is arrested for shooting someone in a drug den in south central los angeles the president or whatever of iran puts a bounty on a writer you’ve never heard of the commercial pepsi paid madonna millions to make debuts during the cosby show but the next day the video madonna made for her song like a prayer debuts and the two side by side are a study in extreme contrasts suddenly christians are supposedly not drinking pepsi  www.weresofamous.com www.jaimeclarke.com ..read more

the rapper eminem and his wife reconcile the magazine editor at shout who ran your piece on the rapper tupac shakur invites you to a party in chelsea thrown for a new magazine edited by the daughter of the rolling stones guitarist keith richards neither of you knowing in advance that keith richards is going to be at the party the magazine editor says oh my god when he spots the recognizable silhouette of the legendary guitarist you tell him he should go say something to richards and the magazine editor admits the thought makes him so nervous he might vomit  www.weresofamous.com www.jaimec ..read more