I saw my devil and I saw my deep blue sea
It is no secret how much I love LA. Aside from the obvious (the city's history, cinemas, art, music, and the fact that so many of my friends are here), I love Los Angeles' inherent weirdness, especially its conspiracies and eccentricities. As a true crime junkie, I am obsessed with the darkness that lurks behind the glitz. But there is magic to the city, specific moments that could only happen in LA. People speak about these occurrences, but you need to experience them for yourself, no matter how seemingly small (for example, the magic hour in the early evening when the sun sets in the most spectacular light, turning the sky shades of orange, purple and pink). The city is a vortex that keeps me coming back. I will be sad to leave it again next weekend. But I'll be back next year.
Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson's new film Something In The Dirt (2022) is now in cinemas. It’s one of my favourite films of the year, my favourite film of this year’s Beyond Fest, and one of my favourite films about Los Angeles. I love movies about LA for obvious reasons, from the classic to the contemporary, but there is something about this film that is so esoteric, so strange, so perfectly LA that I fell hook, line, and sinker for it. I have an incredibly soft spot for films that tap into the stranger, weirder side of the city (no surprises there!) and the energies that make LA so unusual, sometimes frightening, and beautiful. Everything from Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) and Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950) to David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) and David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake (2018). Yet something about the inherent oddity of Something in the Dirt, especially its revelry in a specific type of bizarre only achieved through independent filmmaking, really taps into what I am attempting to convey. As Moorhead and Benson said during their fantastic post-film Q&A at Beyond Fest, they took their weirdest, strangest ideas and poured them into this film. As someone currently working on a few niché projects rooted in LA, I felt that all too well. Made during the pandemic, independently and on a low budget, they described the film as a love letter to LA and making movies with your friends. I've now seen it twice and will be buying the DVD.
The desert holds strange and mysterious secrets, and Something In The Dirt knows this all too well. You know about Jack Parsons, right? The Strange Angel himself, Parsons was a rocket engineer and chemist and one of the principal founders of the Jet Propulsion Lab and Aerojet Engineering Corporation. Parsons was also a Thelemite occultist, a disciple of Aleister Crowley, and a proponent of sex magick.
In 1945 Parsons had conducted a ritual in the desert, something he described as Babylon working intended to invoke the Thelemite goddess Babalon on Earth. (My friend Marco Visconti can elaborate on this more descriptively and accurately than I!) Following the final ritual in February 1946, Parsons returned to his home to find Marjorie Cameron, a visual artist who he would dub his Scarlet Woman and his soon-to-be partner in sex magick and until his death, waiting for him.
Parsons conducted many of his experiments (both scientific and occult) in the desert and died a mysterious death in a massive explosion in his home lab. The entire city shook from the blast at this converted coach house behind a mansion on Millionaire’s Row in Pasadena. Was Parsons, as is the official verdict, killed by an explosion at his Pasadena home, or was his death suicide? Some believe it was murder or something much more mysterious. Conspiracy theories continue to surround his death.
By 1945, Parsons and Cameron's relationship had become fractious, yet, obviously devastated, Cameron engaged in blood rituals to communicate with Parsons’ spirit. Later she entered into a relationship with filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Her filmography includes Harrington's The Wormwood Star and Night Tide (1961), and Anger's Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1953-1954).
While Something In The Dirt only mentions Parsons briefly, I’m sure that invoking Parsons’ name will send some viewers, either those unfamiliar with him and Cameron — or know their names but not quite the whole picture — down some rabbit holes. I hope it does.
As an aside, I think Olivia Wilde’s tabloid-fuelled Don’t Worry Darling (2022), a film of visual style but no substance, would have benefitted from the men doing some Jack Parson’s shit in the desert. I had hoped they were, but Hollywood can be so boring. Thank goodness for Moorhead and Benson.
One of my favourite legends about the desert is the “cremation” of Gram Parsons. A brilliant musician, he remains one of my all-time favourites, Ingram Cecil Connor III, was born into a well-off, yet troubled, family and played in such groups as International Submarine Band, the Byrds, and the Flying Burrito Brothers before going solo. He popularised what he called "Cosmic American Music." His second and final studio album Grievous Angel, compiled four months after his death in 1973, is one of my all-time favourites/go-to records. I defy you not to be moved by his duet with Emmylou Harris, ‘Love Hurts.’
Gram was too young and brilliant to leave when he did, at the age of 26. After consuming large quantities of alcohol and various drugs, he OD-ed on morphine and alcohol inside Room 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn. He was declared dead on arrival at Yucca Valley Hospital at 12:15 a.m. on 19 September 19 1973. Gram loved Joshua Tree, frequently using psychedelics, and experiencing numerous UFO sightings while in the area. I have long wanted to visit Joshua Tree, mostly for reasons to do with Gram.
Before he died, Gram explicitly stated he wanted his body cremated at Joshua Tree and his ashes spread over Cap Rock, yet his stepfather arranged for his body to be taken back to New Orleans for a private ceremony and didn't invite any of Gram's friends from the music industry. A couple of reasons for this decision were rooted, many believe, in money: if Bob Parsons could prove that Gram was a resident of Louisiana, he would inherit his late stepson's share of Grandfather's estate.
But friends always come through, even in death. Two of Gram's friends, one being his close friend Phil Kaufman, refused to have their pal's last wishes unfulfilled and stole his body from Los Angeles International Airport. In a borrowed hearse, they drove it to Joshua Tree, aided by five gallons of gasoline poured into the open coffin and a lit match, attempting to cremate Gram's body over Cap Rock. Obviously, crematation is a much more technical process, so an enormous fireball occurred. Following a police chase, arrests followed a couple of days later. However, since stealing a corpse was not technically illegal, they received a $750 fine for stealing the coffin and were not prosecuted for leaving 35lbs (16 kg) of Gram's charred remains in the desert. What remained of Gram's body was later buried in Garden of Memories Cemetery, Metairie, Louisiana. The site of the fire is now The Cap Rock Parking Lot.
While there is no monument to the attempted cremation, fans gather at the location, and I have always wanted to make a pilgrimage to Joshua Tree and Cap Rock. One day I will. Funny, I am sending this to you on the eve of what would have been Gram's 76th Birthday. Happy Birthday to a legend.
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p.s. On Sunday 20 November, I’ll be giving a joint (online) Lynch-themed lecture with the brilliant Mary Wyld for Morbid Anatomy Museum. My talk is about Maya Deren and David Lynch’s Cinematic Surrealism in Los Angeles. Please join us!