Category Archives: Travel

The State of The World as LA Burns

Robert Stark casually chats with his friends and fellow authors, Matt Pegas, Omar King,  and Adem Luz Rienspects. Omar has his debut novel, An Odyssey of Dingbats! out in February, and Adem is the author of Mixtape Hyperborea and has a podcast, Static Blue. (Please excuse the background noise and interruptions as we recorded while eating dinner in a crowded restaurant, after a long day at the Hot Spring)

Topics:
-Matt and Adem’s observations of the LA fires from Encino
-How Matt and Robert used to hang out at the Pacific Palisades Starbucks that burnt down
-Whether the Palisades will lose its charm after it rebuilds
-Politicization and class warfare narratives about the fires
-Adem thinks we must have respect for the power of nature
-The philosophical debate about attachment to possessions
-How tragedies, including natural disasters and death, are great equalizers
-The bidding wars and soaring housing costs on Westside real estate
-Robert thinks Adem looks like Luigi Mangione
-How we saw a lot of nudity of both genders at the Hot Spring
-How the crowd at the Hot Spring was upper class coded
-Robert’s adolescent trauma regarding the Palisades
Filthy Armenian’s podcast about Elliot Rodger and Isla Vista
-Why upper class coded areas like the Palisades and Montecito have a high concentration of attractive people
-Whether the fires will cause White flight out of SoCal
-Why Omar hopes they don’t gentrify his hometown Gardena
-Adem’s thoughts being from Phoenix that people there tend to be philistines about art and culture
-Adem’s description of Scottsdale, Arizona
-Omar tells Robert he needs to “check himself before he wrecks himself,” in regard to his oral fixation
-How Adem likes living in LA
-Contrasting LA’s dark energy with the spiritual rejuvenation of the Hot Spring
-Omar tells Robert to strive for excellence
-Adem’s literary event in Paris, France
-Adem’s South African Jewish background and his recent trip to visit family in South Africa
-Adem’s observation that South Africa is as dangerous as people say, with terrible race relations
-Adem’s observation that South Africa’s White upper class has an exceptionally high concentration of attractive women

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California Redwoods Photo Album

The album includes Trinidad California, Lady Bird Johnson Grove, Klamath River, Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park, Winchuck River Oregon, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, and Avenue of the Giants. The photos were taken over Memorial Day Weekend.

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Lassen Volcanic National Park Photo Album

Album of Lassen Volcanic National Park in Shasta County and the Cascade Range in Northern California. The album includes the town of Mineral, Lassen Southwest Entrance/Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center, Sulfur Works, Little Hot Spring Valley, Diamond Peak, Lassen Peak, Manzanita Lake, Devastated Area, and Hat Lake. The photos were taken over Memorial Day Weekend.

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Sacramento Photo Album

The album includes Pea Soup Anderson’s in Santa Nella, Downtown Sacramento, Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, California State Capitol and Capitol Park, Sutter’s Fort, Midtown Sacramento, the Golden 1 Center, Old Sacramento, and the Sacramento River.

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A Rainy Weekend in Vegas

Photos were taken over labor day weekend, during a tropical rain storm, in Las Vegas. Album include the Rio hotel and casino, the El Cortez, the Fremont Street ExperienceFremont East, the Gateway Arch, Bonanza Gift Shop, Gold Coast Casino, Paris, Bellagio including the conservatory/botanical garden, Flamingo, Caesars Palace, The Mirage, The Venetian, Whiskey Pete’s and Buffalo Bill’s in Primm Nevada, Peggy Sue’s 50s Diner in Yermo, and bonus photos of Heaps Peak Arboretum near Lake Arrowhead.

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Big Bear & Lake Arrowhead Photo Album (Summer 2023)

Photos were taken over July 4th weekend in the San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California. Album includes, Big Bear VillageBear Mountain Ski area, Garstin/China Island and Stanfield Marsh at Big Bear Lake,  Baldwin Summit Vista view to Mojave Desert, Snow Valley Mountain resort in Running Springs, and Lake Arrowhead.

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Robert Stark interviews Montgomery Markland about his movie Malibu Road

Robert Stark and Matt Pegas speak with filmmaker, Montgomery Markland, about his film Malibu Road, which he both directed and starred in. Malibu Road is available to watch for free on Tubi, and for purchase on Apple TV and Amazon. While the pandemic delayed Malibu Road’s theatrical release, Montgomery has further plans for multipicture deals.

“Fast living Los Angelenos are targeted by the Central Intelligence Agency during Operation Midnight Climax, part of MKUltra. The experience takes a turn for the deadly during New Year’s Eve 1960 and now a professor, a starlet and the workers at a hotel with a questionable reputation must rediscover reality or be trapped in an endless cycle of sex, drugs and murder in ‘paradise.'”

Malibu Road (2021) IMDb 

Montgomery Markland has an idiosyncratic resume. Originally from Dallas, Montgomery was a state and local reporter in Austin, worked in the Texas state legislature on policy, was  then a producer, president, and CCO at a number of video game companies, before working in Hollywood. Follow Montgomery on Twitter.

Topics:

Applying videogame design principles to Cinema
The Meisner acting technique
MKUltra connections to university professors and Hollywood (eg. Irvin Keshner)
Timothy Leary’s prediction that video games had the potential to recreate psychedelic trips
The History of the Albatross Hotel in Malibu and connections to Old Hollywood
Cinemaphotographic techniques used to capture the psychedelic aesthetic
Distorting reality in stories as representations of dreams (eg. traumnovelle), and influences from David Lynch
Influence from soap operas, telenovelas, and 90s Cinemax
The set design, recreating the aesthetics of the 60s and 70s
Influences from Jungian archetypes, as well as Ancient Greek, Hindu, and Buddhist mythology (eg. Timothy Leary on the Tibetan Book of the Dead)
Hunter S. Thompson
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
Malibu Road’s filming locations, including Malibu State Park and Will Rogers State Historic Park
The politicization of entertainment, and why overtly political conservative media fails
Reasons to be optimistic about opportunities in entertainment via niche markets
The Banking crisis, Economic Death Spiral, and narratives of collapse

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Eastern Sierras Photo Album (Mammoth, June Lake, & Whitney Portal)

Album includes the town of Bishop in Owens Valley, June Lake, Minaret Vista, Mammoth Mountain, Horseshoe Lake, McLeod Lake, Lake George, Ski Lodge Urbanism at The Village at Mammoth, Mount Whitney Fish Hatchery, and Whitney Portal, the gateway to Mount Whitney. Photos taken on Labor Day Weekend 2022.

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Karlsruhe Germany Photo Album

Photo album of Karlsruhe in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Photos taken on trip to Europe in May of  2018 (Part I: Robert Stark talks about his Trip to EuropePart II: Robert Stark talks about his Trip to Europe). Album includes photos of Karlsruhe City Center, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, Hotel Burghof, Karlsruhe Schloss (Palace),  Schlossgarten, and forest on the outskirts of the City.

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San Diego Backcountry Photo Album

Album of Eastern San Diego County, includes Borrego Springs, The Slot in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, Julian townsite, Lake Henshaw, Pauma Valley, and Palomar Mountain.

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