Dearly Departed Newsletter – 07/17/2020
Hi everyone!
Still on lockdown(ish). Still not giving tours. Oh, that reminds me. The Marilyn Monroe tour and Rock ‘n Roll Circus tour with L.A. Woman Tours? Cancelled. You’re not surprised. Neither are we but it’s part of what has become the hellhole that is 2020.
You may have heard about the actress from the TV Show Glee, Naya Rivera, tragically and accidentally drowned last week in a lake about an hour north of Los Angeles. It took 5 days to locate her, so the search was very high-profile. She was boating with her 4-year-old son, WHO IS FINE, but it made the beauty of the lake even more disturbing. I liked the show and I liked her a lot – so I created a video documenting her last day.
If you go out on a boat, PLEASE wear a personal floatation device. Please.
On a much lighter note, I took my car in for servicing. I know! So exciting! While it was getting a tune up I took the downtime to putter around the hood with camera in hand. It’s like a typical spin around any neighborhood. Famous people. Slasher movie sites. Hookers. Sketchy movie costume purchases. Alcoholic blondes. The usual. Welcome to Hollywood … what’s your dream? We actually love our city the way it was, f*ck you much developers. Did that slip out? My bad. I’ll take a hooker over a developer any day though – in fact just the other day… At least you know what to expect with a hooker, STDs aside. P.S. Thank you for the autograph Divine Brown.
Our next video comes from the “classic” files. That is to say, we just recently found it again. The quality is not the highest, but it gives it that cool vintage-y feel (trying to be positive). Years ago, Dave Navarro from Jane’s Addiction (also Ink Master and Red Hot Chili Peppers) interviewed Mike Dorsey and me about our Dearly Departed documentary. Dave has been very friendly and supportive of all things Dearly Departed Tours. If you’ll recall, Dave and artist Meg Zany tagged our museum office a couple of times with artwork. Our favorite was the hitchhiking ghosts from Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. Checkmate, Dave. We contacted him for permission to post this old video and he very graciously said yes.
Finally, during the lockdown I actually ventured out of a 5-mile radius and traveled home to Detroit for a quick visit. I realize what is happening out in the world is very serious but so is seeing my family. While in Michigan, I ventured out to visit an old friend. Jay Sebring (real name Thomas Kummer) is laid to rest at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, which isn’t too far from Detroit. We took some things to share with him, like a napkin and matches from El Coyote, where Jay had his last supper, and some items from The Movie, which was very kind to Jay. If only real life had ended like The Movie did.
We hope Jay saw that these items were placed with love and please notice that nothing permanent was done to his headstone. In fact, I tried to clean it up as best as I could. Those of you who leave waxy greasy lipstick kiss marks, glue items, place stickers on or write on graves—please don’t. It’s gross. Sure, leave a memento if you like. Flowers or a coin… I think photo ops are fine, obviously. But I took my shit with me.
This is the BEFORE I cleaned it.
So the YouTube thing is keeping me busy. In the next few days I’ll be releasing a video about one of my hometown favorites, Gilda Radner. I found her childhood home, and her High School. Soon there will be more videos about Jay Sebring’s Detroit, Florence Ballard and the Lennon Sisters’ Murder! Please visit my channel, LIKE and SUBSCRIBE (or don’t like and SUBSCRIBE) pretty please with “summat about sugar.”
With that, until next time …
Love,
Scott and the Dearly Departed Team
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