Haunted Hollywood, Part 6

6.  The Colorado Street Bridge
     Pasadena, CA

Personal ghost story six of six.

The Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena is the most haunted location I've investigated in the Los Angeles area.  Soon after the bridge opened in 1913, it became a perch for suicide jumpers.  Since then, roughly 200 people have committed suicide by leaping off the bridge.  Though the depression years saw the highest rate of jumpers, the suicides have continued to occur with regularity over the years.  There has already been a suicide in 2012.  Thankfully, though, one jumper was talked off the ledge just last month.

I explored the bridge for the first time in 2009 when I had just finished writing Soul Trapper and was considering ideas for the the second novel in the Kane Pryce series.  During that first visit I experienced  paranormal events that I couldn't explain.  I will detail those events and share the paranormal evidence I collected in an upcoming blog entry.

It didn't take long for the bridge to lure me in.  It's a beautiful structure that winds like a skeletal snake--a complex architectural wonder.  The elegant arches and ornate lamp posts give it an unmistakable elegance.  I've always believed that unique and special structures have a gender.  The Colorado Street Bridge is female.  It's a timeless, beautiful woman. . . with a dark and unyielding soul.

I decided immediately during my first visit to the bridge that this was where Kane Pryce was going to have  his next adventure.

During my second visit, I remember distinctly standing on top of the bridge, gazing over the side--the last image on Earth that so many different tortured souls ever saw.

I had a million ideas swirling through my mind.  I could take the story in so many different directions.  My imagination was racing and my mind felt muddled and overwhelmed.  Then I lifted my gaze from the bottom of the bridge to the far-reaching view of the surrounding area.  From atop the bridge you can see for miles.  I studied the landscape.  I could see the San Gabriel Mountains and Rubio Canyon in the far distance, the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab campus, Devil's Gate Dam, the Rose Bowl.  From my vantage point atop the bridge, I could see all of this at once and more.  

It was then it almost felt like someone took me by the hand and said, "Follow me."  That's where Devil's Gate began.  I followed and was amazed by what I learned, not only about the bridge, but about much of the surrounding area.  I've heard many writers say that at certain times their stories seem to have written themselves.  I never understood that phrase until Devil's Gate.  I definitely felt like I was guided to certain information, certain insights, certain connections that were never made before.  It's a novel where the lines between fact and fiction blur.

The Colorado Street Bridge left me a haunted man--literally and figuratively.  Now that I'm across the bridge in one piece, I know the experience made for my best work of my life.

Devil's Gate is available August 7, 2012.

Haunted Hollywood, Part 5

5.  The Roosevelt Hotel
     7000 Hollywood Blvd.
     Hollywood, CA 90028

Personal ghost story five of six.

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is one of those places that just feels haunted the minute you walk through the front door.   It's iconic.  Over the decades, practically every Hollywood legend has stepped foot in that hotel.  In fact, the first Academy Awards were presented in the hotel ballroom in 1929, thus cementing the location as a true Hollywood historic landmark.

Ghost stories at the Roosevelt are plentiful.  The restless ghost of Montgomery Clift is said to haunt Room 928.  There'a mirror in a hallway near the gift shop where the ghostly image of Marilyn Monroe is sometimes seen.  The ghosts of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard are also rumored to pay visits to the site.  

I enjoy popping into the Roosevelt  when I'm in Hollywood.  I always end up wandering around, soaking up the atmosphere.  Almost always, I stop in the bar for a drink or two.  A bartender used to swear to me that a ghost broke at least one glass a day during her shift.  While I wish I could say Marilyn winked at me or Clark Gable broke my whiskey glass, I can only speak to one paranormal claim at the Roosevelt -- the alleged cold spot in the hotel ballroom.  I've been in that ballroom at least four times and each time, I've felt that cold spot.  If you're walking gin the ballroom door, the spot is roughly in the left center of the room.  There's no explanation as to why this cold spot exists.  But it does.

I love this photograph of the first Academy Awards, taken in the ballroom.

Look at all the smiles, the egos, the suspicious glances.  It's a portrait of power, stardom, luck, and skill in all its black and white glory.  Dreams were realized and dashed in that room.  In many ways, Hollywood, as we know it, was born on that spot.

If the afterlife truly is is devoid of ego, I'm willing to bet a lot of dead, bored Hollywood legends are just dying to revisit the town where stardom and power still rule the day.

What what better spot for a door to the other side than the Hollywood Roosevelt ballroom?

Haunted Hollywood, Part 4

4.  Ruins of Houdini's Mansion (?)
     Laurel Canyon


Personal ghost story four of six.  

In an area of Laurel Canyon where the narrow road winds a bit treacherously on late weekend nights, sits the ruins of an old mansion.  Rumor has it that these are the ruins of Harry Houdini's mansion, which supposedly burned to the ground in 1959.  No one is quite sure if this was really Houdini's home or not, but when I first came to L.A. in 1996, I read about the site and decided to have a look for myself.

Irregardless if it was the home of Houdini or not, the place had a very creepy vibe.  The way it was perched high on a hill, overlooking Laurel Canyon Boulevard, led to me to believe it might have a man-made tunnel structure beneath it.  A couple of years after I first visited the site, I was out one night in Hollywood with my wife and a friend of ours who was staying with us from out of town.  I told our friend about the ruins and she asked me to take her to the site on our way home.

It was literally a dark and stormy night.  My wife stayed in the car while me and our friend climbed the mansion's staircase and walked the cobblestone pathways in the rain.  The place did feel haunted that night; I had this feeling I was going to bump right into Houdini.  Suddenly we heard a really loud car barreling down Laurel Canyon Boulevard directly below us.  Right in front of our eyes, we watched in horror as the driver lost control of the car on the rain-slick windy road, spun out, and crashed into a tree.  The car was about forty yards from us.  I told my friend to call 911 and took off toward the smashed and smoking car.  It was a late sixties muscle car--a red or orange GTO, I think.  And it was in bad shape.  I feared the driver was in far worse shape.  There was a lot of smoke, but no flames.  When I got about fifteen yards from the car, the engine revved.  Loud!  Unbelievably, the car backed up away from the tree, throttled up again, and tore out, throwing mud and debris everywhere.  The windows were dark; I couldn't see the driver.  I watched in disbelief as the mangled car hit road and raced down Laurel Canyon into the darkness.  It was like a scene from friggin' Christine.  My friend, standing up near the ruins with my wife, witnessed the entire event.

Was it a ghost car?  Was it a real car with a driver so hopped up on the Hollywood designer drug of the hour, that he could feel no pain?  Was it Houdini performing a magic trick just for me?  I don't know.  All I know is that that car hit that tree going at least forty miles and hour and it looked too smashed to smithereens to ever drive.  Whatever it was that happened, it ranks up there in my diary of bizarro Hollywood moments.

Authorlink Interview with F.J. Lennon

Many thanks to Authorlink's Diane Slocum, who recently interviewed me about Soul Trapper and the path to its publication.  CLICK HERE to read the interview.

Pranic Healing

When protagonist Kane Pryce nearly dies on a spiritual journey in my novel, Soul Trapper, his life is saved after several intensive prana healing sessions. 

The kind of healing I described inthe book is based loosely on Pranic Healing^®, a form of energy medicine that uses prana, or life-force, to balance and harmonize body's energy pathways. 

I studied Pranic Healing about a decade ago.  Though I would never favor it over conventional medicine, I found it to be a very interesting topic.  And I personally got a lot out of the guided meditation sessions that are a part of the process. 

To learn more about Pranic Healing, click here.

The Books Everyone Must Read

I enjoyed reading exploring these lists:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/14/information-beautiful-books-read-100#

Could you become the next big author? | This is Money

Attention all would-be writers. This is an insightful article about the realities of the publishing industry.

Could you become the next big author? This is Money