I'll Be Gone In The Dark · Capone's House · NBA Scandal Pod
Plus Sean Penn vs. Netflix, (Grateful) Dead And Gone, and more
the true crime that's worth your time
June 2020: like March 2020, but longer! I’m mostly kidding. Not about this, though: please be safe out there. Wear your masks. Hydrate. And if that AC bill is already unmanageable, remember: we pay for content! It’s a pittance, but if you’ve got a listicle forming in your brain and you’re sick of trying to sleep with a Diet 7Up down your sweatshorts, we would like to hear from you!
We would also like to hear what you would like me to read for next month’s bonus book review! Paid subscribers will be perusing my take on Vanity Fair’s Schools for Scandal later today; what am I reading next?
Thanks to my esteemed colleague Dan “The One-Armed Bandit” Cassino for the Murakami suggestion! Make YOUR suggestions here, on my Goodreads page, or on Twitter. I love hearing what you guys are reading/watching/into true-crime-wise. — SDB
I’ll Be Gone In The Dark dropped last night. I’ll be discussing that (and a Murder Made Me Famous episode; we’re nothing if not klassy here at Blotter Enterprises) on this week’s podcast, as part of another Golden State/Garden State ep with my man Mike Dunn. In the meantime, here’s my review on Primetimer. The short version: because I’ll Be Gone is both the story of EAR-ONS/the Golden State Killer AND the story of Michelle McNamara, that meta-ness means the series stumbles a bit in both focus and clarity — not least on the talent of its subject. McNamara was in many ways a formidable researcher and interviewer, but I’ll Be Gone’s extreme reverence for her doesn’t “play,” not least because, in the timeline in which she’s still living, I think McNamara herself would have insisted that, for instance, comparisons of her work to Capote be cut. Not that they’re not apt vis-a-vis the corrosive effects of living with true-crime stories for years on end, but based on the three episodes I’ve seen, that’s not the metric.
The series is good, and interesting; I’ll continue watching. Halo effects…happen, and I don’t think badly of anyone involved for that. But I’m looking forward to unpacking it with Mike, and with you guys. Anyone have thoughts so far? — SDB
Al Capone’s childhood home in Brooklyn is for sale. I’d like to thank Eve for holding this item for me, because as the spouse of a Brooklyn realtor — and we both used to live within sight of this building! — you better believe I have some notes.
Let’s get the Capone-iness out of the way first, namely that there functionally is none, which the realtor repping the listing admits (“There are no original components to the house”). It’s the same address; that’s it. Which is a good thing! I live in a century home and those beautiful leaded-glass windows will cost you a fackin’ fortune in heating bills. I also just spent 15 minutes trying to confirm whether even the street name would have been the same, which in fact it was, as “Garfield Place” was previously “Macomb” before getting renamed to honor the assassinated president.
It’s also about as close to the edge of Park-Slope as you can get. The 11215 is a big Zip code and contains multitudes, not just the Karens at the food co-op (hee); it’s also Windsor Terrace, where I used to live, over by Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery (“eternal residence” of, among others, Crazy Joe Gallo and Boss Tweed) — and it’s Gowanus. The Slope ends at 4th Ave. and it’s common practice for brokers to neighborhood-play addresses close to it, but… even on the technicality, that address doesn’t support that price, which Dan (that’s m’husband) called “ridiculous” for a “‘renovated’ house with a pedestrian brick facade on a tiny 20x60 lot.” Gowanus is really coming up in the last ten years (on the map below, you can see the Whole Foods that helped change the neighborhood’s Superfund game; just down the street from there is the Bell House, where I’ve attended several live true-crime podcast events; my brother’s music-rehearsal studio complex, King Killer, is two blocks down from that).
And if you’re writing a book, Dan used to live near the Calexico pin, before we knew each other; my brother lived basically on the Garfield Pl “arrow” to the right of that; and I lived in a building right over the subway “M” next to Olivia Cooks For You.
None of that is worth $2.9M (hee), and I feel for Nadia, but the school zoning’s not particularly choice, and it’s 2020 and marketing a property as a rental-income driver is tricky. Anyone want to bet on the final price point? Dan’s taking $2.3M. I think out-of-town buyers with more money than experience come in at $2,409,000. — SDB
We don’t need to buy Capone’s house ourselves — but we wouldn’t mind renting the 1975 Capone starring Ben Gazzara, and paid subscriptions really help with B.E. costs like that. A sub is just $5 a month, and gets you extra book reviews and discussion threads, so if you’ve got it to spare, we’d love for you to subscribe. If you don’t, we get it! Keep coming back anyway; we’ll be here.
Tenderfoot TV announces upcoming pods on, among others, a Grateful Dead murder mystery and a 2007 NBA scandal. Tenderfoot has also renewed To Live And Die In L.A. for a second season. Per Deadline, “Disgraceland host Jake Brennan has teamed up with Tenderfoot TV co-founder Payne Lindsey in Dead and Gone, a true crime music mystery set in the world of Jerry Garcia’s psychedelic rock band,” which may get me for a couple of episodes even though I historically have not cared for either Disgraceland or Lindsey’s work.
I’m also likely to try, then leave behind, TLADILA S2 — Neil Strauss is a tough sell for me — but the basketball thing sounds interesting:
The series, hosted by sports journalist Tim Livingston, will tell how a NBA referee, a gambler, and a middleman were arrested on charges relating to a mob-backed betting scheme and explore the FBI investigation and examine NBA culture.
The podcasts are set to launch later this year “and next year,” and Tenderfoot is positioning them to become TV properties later on. But if you’re impatient to learn more about the betting scandal (and suspect that Tenderfoot’s take might not be for you), you can read up on it here, or rent a 2019 documentary on the case. — SDB
Hey, remember that time Jessica and I set out to talk about The Last Narc, but then we couldn’t because Amazon pulled the docuseries? Remember how there was literally one guy who was talking about that, who claimed the CIA got it kiboshed? Well, Tatiana Siegel had a piece for The Hollywood Reporter last Friday talking about streaming services quashing controversial properties…and guess which series isn’t even mentioned there, either?
Siegel does discuss Michael Moore’s Planet Of The Humans, yanked from YouTube last month after a copyright claim made against it; Alex Gibney’s Citizen K, deemed “too risky” in its portrayal of “the rise of [Vladimir] Putin and the fall of titular oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky” and quietly removed from Amazon’s release schedule days ahead of its premiere in Venice last August (with Amazon denying even the extent of its relationship with the film); another Amazon project, Hoaxed, described by THR as “a right-wing take on corporate malfeasance and media bias” that was apparently critical of Jeff Bezos and that Amazon won’t comment on at all; and Netflix’s avoidance of controversial fare like Welcome To Chechnya (premiering on HBO tomorrow) and The Dissident. The streamer probably regrets its decision to “[stay] far away from the Jamal Khashoggi doc,” since that put it in actor-vist Sean Penn’s sights. Penn snarked that Netflix “was ‘too busy’ paying off sexual misconduct settlements — an apparent reference to former House of Cards star Kevin Spacey — to back The Dissident, adding, ‘There's a lot of stress on such a gentleman as Ted Sarandos.’” Reluctant as I usually am to side with that dude? That’s a sick burn, Penn-trice.
There’s a lot here, little of it surprising re: media corporations’ unwillingness to stray towards edges of any kind — but again, it’s interesting that The Last Narc is NOT here. At the end of the day, if we ever DO hear the story, it’s probably not a long one (i.e., “someone was threatened and Amazon elected not to risk it”), but in an age where every literal and figurative cancellation is fine-tooth-combed to death on Twitter, the silence on the Last Narc front is noteworthy. — SDB
What’s Eve going to find noteworthy in Tuesday’s edish? Maybe some Black Donnellys, maybe a DNA mix-up, maybe New York State’s Old Sparky. Let’s find out together!
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