A new series of personal essays about job loss, mental health, and the undying pursuit of art.

When I arrived that morning, the magazine offices were nearly vacant. Nothing but the dull hum of a thousand overhead florescent lights and the distant clicking of a few phantom keyboards registered a sound. A stack of empty boxes had been left on my desk. Looking at them, they seemed to tell the true story of the last 24 hours: We care, we really do. But please take your shit and leave, it’s time for us to move on (Read: ‘Fear & Self-Loathing…’ Part I). I looked at the boxes, then over at the woman from Human Resources →

A new series of personal essays about job loss, mental health, and the undying pursuit of art.

When we drove out of the mountains that morning it was hot, the sun climbing higher in the sky, heating up the plants and the air around us and the metal of our car as it barreled down a neck of Lincoln Highway woven like thread through the Pennsylvania Laurel Highlands. →

After a suicidal freefall that landed him in the Cedars-Sinai psych ward last year (following an eight-person intervention that included Johnny Knoxville), post-millennial stuntman Steve-O is attempting to put his life back together. I only learned of Steve-O’s addiction-fueled meltdown after flipping through the current issue of Spin magazine and stumbling across this article — “The Last Temptation of Steve-O” — by David Peisner (I just don’t keep up with Jackass like I used to I suppose). Anyhow, as a fan of human redemption stories, Peisner’s article pulled me in. Here’s a quick and dirty recap on where Steve-O is today, with some fairly insightful commentary from TV’s Dr. Drew. →

“In its apparently catastrophic form… Detroit has recently emerged as a figure for abject urban failure,” writes Andrew Herscher of Detroit Unreal Estate Agency. Herscher, an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Michigan, and collaborators Mirielle Roddier, Femke Lutgerink, and Partizan Publik’s Christian Ernsten and Joost Janmaat, are attempting to redefine the term economy with regard to Detroit’s post-industrial blight.

Herscher and his collaborators define ‘unreal estate’ as “urban space that has slipped through the literal economy, the economy of the market, and entered other economies, included but not limited to those of survival, invention, play and desire.” →

In case you haven’t heard, Buzz Aldrin doesn’t give a fuck. He isn’t fixated on the fact that he was the second human to walk on the surface of the moon. Nor is he looking to relive that moment time and again for the American public, no matter how much they ask. In fact, the 79-year-old former Apollo 11 astronaut is far more comfortable discussing how his hour and a half moonwalk on July 20, 1969 impacted his personal life –  and for good reason. →

Film still from Frontline’s “The Released.” William Bryan Stokes, diagnosed as schizoaffective, being released from prison. Stokes is a cutter and has a long history of psychiatric hospitalizations starting at age 12.

Sitting across from Joni Schwager, executive director of Staunton Farm Foundation, we discussed one of the daunting challenges faced by those who work in the field of mental health: reducing the stigma associated with mental illness. →

Los Angeles hip-hop/soul stalwart Stones Throw Records is well known for its high caliber stable of artists and producers — from Madlib and J Dilla to Wildchild and label chief Peanut Butter Wolf, among others. So it’s no particular surprise that the latest addition to the Stones Throw family — 29-year-old singer/producer Mayer Hawthorne, who hails from Ann Arbor, Michigan — has assembled an ear-catching single in the track, “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out.” Slated for release on his debut album, A Strange Arrangement (street date: October 6, 2009), the song highlights Hawthorne’s convincing falsetto, which channels Curtis Mayfield and other classic soul singers. →

For those unfamiliar with The KDU (The Keystone Design Union), Complex Magazine recently launched a two-part mini documentary series on the global collective and its collaborative work process. These segments are interesting because they take an intimate look at the power and practicality of collaboration. What struck me most was the notion of solitary work versus group effort that kept coming up in the pieces. →

The face of torture: Former Khmer Rouge torture chief Kaing Guek Eav aka 'Duch.' Photo via Telegraph.co.uk

Back in the summer/fall of 2005, I was working on what was intended to be a short article for Swindle magazine (which Evil Monito later republished). It was a piece that was going to look at the significance of Parallel World’s Cambodian Rocks compilation of garage/psych-rock from the pre- and post-Vietnam War era. The compilation featured music performed and recorded by Cambodian musicians channeling the style of American and British rock acts of the day, mostly to cater to U.S. servicemen frequenting small clubs and bars on the border between Vietnam and Cambodia. The recordings were lo-fi but displayed impressive musicianship and raw energy, not to mention stylistic twists that foreshadowed a burgeoning rock scene in Southeast Asia. →

This past April was a particularly violent month in America. On Friday, April 3, gunman Jiverly A. Wong killed 13 people at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York. He shot himself before law enforcement could take him into custody. The next day, Saturday, April 4, three Pittsburgh police officers (Eric Kelly, 41, Stephen Mayhle, 29, and Paul Sciullo III, 37.) were slain during a standoff with Richard Poplawski, →