Thursday, January 02, 2003

Those of you who have visited this site in the last few months may be aware of the ongoing MYSTERY PHOTO CONTEST, whereby you have to guess the cultural/historic significance of an unmarked photo that I have taken (with a chance to win a free, signed book of mine.)

Well, I can announce now that those photos are all part of a book I have coming this May from Santa Monica Press called "James Dean Died Here… The Locations of America’s Pop Culture Landmarks." The premise was to locate the exact sites where all sorts of pop culture history was made, from music to movies to crime to TV to Americana and beyond. (Over 600 sites will be included.)

It’s hard for me to contain my delight with this book. Photographing and writing about "places where stuff happened" has been a passion of mine for a long time, and so I have poured a lot of energy into this book. Though the release date is still a few months away, I’ve created a page here with some details on the book. I’ll also be taking some of the entries from the book (which are fairly short) and adding expanded versions of them here on line, with bonus photos, video, essays, etc. The first of these will be up in a week or two and will focus on Room 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn, where musician Gram Parsons died in 1973. We stayed in the room very recently and the experience is worth recounting.

The photo contest will continue as well, and a new shot has been added here. (Congrats to Trent M. in Huntington Beach on guessing that the last shot was the lake from the opening credits of "The Andy Griffith Show." It’s actually located up in Franklin Canyon, above Beverly Hills, California.)

Much more to follow… soon…

Happy New Year