Noirvember
The day after the election I was headed east on the 210 when traffic came to a sudden halt. I slammed on my brakes. For a second there I thought my daughter’s ashes would explode all over the interior of my car.
Fortunately, her receptacle merely took a little tumble. Before traffic resumed, I cradled her in my lap, thanking the universe for not making a weird day even weirder.
Previous to this brake-shredding stop, I’d realized I had forgotten my glasses back at the apartment, so that meant adding an extra 45 minutes to the drive to Palm Springs. By the time I rejoined the flow of traffic it was stop-and-start all the way. Finally, wheeeee here we go OH SHIT WHY IS EVERYBODY SLAMMING ON THEIR BRAKES
The Daughter, if she had any comments, kept them to herself. (I suspect she was smirking.)
We were headed to Palm Springs as a family but we took separate cars. The Bride with The Boy and The Pooch; me with the Daughter’s ashes. (Whenever we travel as a fam, we bring her; it doesn’t feel right otherwise.) I needed my own car to drive back and forth to NoirCon, which was the reason for the trip to the desert so soon after the election. I had been looking forward to it for months. But now I wasn’t so sure. The world had become a weirder place pretty much overnight.
Somewhere in San Bernardino a bunch of people stood on an overpass waving the U.S. flag and blue Trump flags, pumping their arms, jumping up and down, clearly excited to live under the rule of gangsters and broligarchs.
This happened not once… but on two separate overpasses. I kept both hands on the wheel. My middle fingers twitched a little.
By the time I arrived in Palm Springs it was dark. I had booked a place that claimed to be the former home of George “Superman” Reeves. There were a few photos of him, both as Clark Kent and Big Blue, around the house. Dude, I wanted to tell him. Where are you?
The next morning I discovered Superman’s pad was just a few blocks from an outsider art exhibit called “RoboLights,” which artist Kenny Irwin has been creating since 1986, when he was 12 years old. Imagine if an army of robots made out of recycled parts decided to overwhelm a random Palm Springs home. But even that description doesn’t prepare you for the absurd scale of this place: four acres of a gloriously dystopian robot orgy. I wondered if any of the robots had any spare middle-finger rocket launchers.
NoirCon kicked off that night, but I was too exhausted to drag myself to the opening festivities. I hadn’t slept right in days, maybe weeks.
One good thing about waking up at 3 a.m. on the regular is that I arrived in plenty of time to make Friday morning’s panel on noir poetry, led by Robert Polito and Suzanne Lummis. I spent the majority of this panel furiously scribbling down titles of poems in a little red notebook: “Crime Club” / Weldon Kees. “The Assassin’s Fatal Error” / Laurence Raab. “In Dark Times” / Brecht. “Violence, I know you” / Khadijah Queen. And a familiar one: Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” which I read in a whole new light once Polito framed it as a noir confession.
That’s the appeal of NoirCon: gathering with fellow eccentrics and introverts (I say this in the most loving way imaginable) to hear about cool new shit, or look at the same old shit in a cool new way.
For example: the “It’s a Corrupt, Corrupt, Corrupt, Corrupt World” panel explained that a huge part of the noir style was a direct result of politics. In 1942, the War Production Board decreed that no Hollywood production could spend more than five grand on any film set. So, filmmakers got creative and starting using real neighborhoods like L.A.’s Bunker Hill and existing structures like Union Station. This reinforces my fervent belief in “creative handcuffs” — if you’re told you can’t do something, you’re going to have to get inventive. And perhaps create a whole new language or style along the way.
The happiest surprise of NoirCon was director Oren Shai’s rundown of the noir films of actor/director Robert Hossein, whose work is largely unavailable in the U.S. That was accompanied by a screening of his 1995 shocker The Vampire of Dusseldorf, which creeped the hell out of everyone in the theater.
I was also thrilled to learn that Hossein was close pals with French noir novelist Frédéric Dard, whose work has been recent translated into English by Pushkin Press.
There were many other highlights, almost too many to recount. I watched Gary Phillips win a Maltese Falcon replica (“Dude, that’s the stuff dreams are made of,” I told him). Vicki Hendricks talked about her hundreds of skydives, which included more than a few near-death experiences. New pal Patrick Gatov spun a true tale of Palm Springs murder starring noir D-lister Tom Neal. I was also witness to a loving tribute to the late Jim Nisbet, winner of the Jay and Deen Kogan Award for Excellence.
My NoirCon panel, mysteriously billed as “A True Crime Story,” ended up being the final one Sunday morning. I originally pitched it as, “How to Kill a Swierczynski and Get Away With It,” but I guess that was a bit too wordy. And might give someone… ideas.
Essentially, it was my live test-drive for the pulp nonfiction gangster memoir I’ve been writing: Man Full of Trouble. In Hollywood, they speak in loglines, so here’s mine:
Reeling from the death of his daughter, a crime novelist investigates the rise and fall of a gangster who killed a family member more than 100 years ago.
My panel was a brief overview of the book, along with some gratuitous quotes from Bruce Springsteen (“Everything dies baby / that’s a fact / maybe everything that dies someday comes back”) and Tom Waits (“Today’s gray skies / tomorrow is tears / you’ll have to wait ‘til yesterday’s here”). I ended with an idea that only occurred to me as I sat in Palm Springs preparing my talk: Writing can resurrect the dead—just not always the way you expect.
I’ve been promising excerpts of Man Full of Trouble for a while now, but the trip to Palm Springs inspired me to give myself a hard deadline of March 20, 2025 (the 106th anniversary of the murder). Between now and then, I’m going to be sharing excerpts from the book on “Trouble Tuesdays.”
Many of these posts will be free, but I also wanted to make a bunch of them exclusive to the paying subscribers (my “Trouble Gang”). I’ll also be starting a Trouble Substack chat, in case you want to ask questions or offer feedback along the way.
I’m writing this book on spec, so the proceeds will help fund the research. Either way, I’ll hope you’ll check out the first installment this coming Tuesday, December 3rd.
Elsewhere in the Swierczy-verse
The 7th Annual Team Evie Holiday Book Drive is currently underway with a little more than a week remaining. Putting a new book in the hands of a kid at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles couldn’t be easier. This year’s focus is on picture books — and if you’re not in a position to donate, spreading the word is just as wonderful.
The oversized 20th issue of bare*bones is now available, and it includes my latest “Field Guide to L.A. Pulp” column featuring the life, work, and untimely death of Robert Edmond Alter. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to speak with Sand Kakuda, Alter’s daughter, who gave me a glimpse into her father’s life that I hadn’t seen anywhere else.
Finally, I think I have a real shot at becoming Arby’s official Pulp Fiction Ambassador. (A boy can dream, right?)
What, staying at George Reeves' house!! So cool!! Cannot wait to read MAN FULL OF TROUBLE :D
This has such a Hunter Thompson vibe. I love it. And I think the only better companion in a trip like that would be your daughter’s ashes. What a great detail.