The blog of author Dennis Cooper

8 court appearances by TJ Lane in chronological order *

* Halloween countdown post #10/restored

1. Detention hearing













































 

2. Lane charged with three counts of aggravated murder, two counts of aggravated attempted murder, and one count of felonious assault








 

3. Judge orders a competency hearing












 

4. Judge sets a date for the competency hearing







 

5. Lane pleads not guilty by reason of insanity



































 

6. Judge orders Lane to be tried as an adult









 

7. Lane pleads guilty on all counts




















 

8. Lane sentenced









 

The Chardon High School shooting

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Good morning and indeed on both fronts! ** Misanthrope, Hi. Yeah, I mean, for all the Academy Awards and shit, the actors who end up being the most passionately beloved are often ones who stuck to doing kooky work in horror movies and so on. I’m with you on novelists too, obvs. If someone put a gun to my head and tried to force me into a theater to watch ‘A Star is Born’ I would take my chances and try to wrestle the gun away from him. Dude, obsession is one of God’s loftiest gifts. And novel writing too, and, thus,  awesome about your progress. ** Steve Erickson, One thing I like about the Tubeway Army album is that he uses guitars like he wishes they were electronics. A bunch of those ultimately popular 80s synth pop bands started out a lot weirder and more interesting: Simple Minds, Human League, and on and on. Great news about the sound editing! I don’t mind people talking about American politics on the blog, and obviously I agree with you on that issue, I just really like that political talk rarely happens here. ** Bill, Your assessment of the doc sounds right-on to me. Did I have a Queer Punk post on the blog? Huh, I can’t remember. I’ll check back and try to restore it if I did. Or I’ll at least put together a Queer Punk-themed gig post or something. What’s on your events calendar? I need to ramp mine up. ** Sypha, Never read the ‘Frankenstein’ novel. Barely knew there was one until now. Hm, I’ll peek at it and see if I can handle the prose or not. Glad you liked ‘ASiB’ for your sake. Honestly, I can’t even remember there having been a movie that I am less likely to ever watch under any circumstance, ha ha. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Yeah, right? Oh, I just restored your old Italo Tearjerker post for rerelease next week. It holds way up, of course. I’m very, very glad to hear that the steroids are being of considerable help. What an incredibly cool necklace, man! ** Kier, Kier, my soon to be across-town buddy and partner in mischief! Le Manoir is a lot of fun, and they’re doing their Halloween makeover show right now, which is awesome. No, it’s not scary, not that I’m the one to judge. It’s definitely not extreme or anything like that. It’s mostly about the sets and is kind of like a walkthrough spooky theater thing. So, yes! I’m sure Zac would be way up for going. I’ll go ahead and score us all tickets for between the 15th and 18th! Yay! Oh, Zac and I get back from Porto on the Sunday, the 14th, which I think is also the day you guys arrive too, no? Yes, all foreign movies are released here both in their original languages (VO they call it) with subtitles and in French dubbed versions. The only movies in English that are kind of hard to see in English are animated films, I guess because they assume the audience will largely be kids. So … I’ll get to see you in a week! That’s so exciting! Paris already has its bells on! Love, me. ** Okay. I’ve restored the post today because it’s one of my all-time favorite blog posts for reasons that may either be confusing or completely predictable. See you tomorrow.

15 Comments

  1. Kier

    Hey D yay haunted house with you and zac! I asked ottar and he said what i thought he’d say which is no, it sounded too scary but i usually have to do some hard persuasing (should be a word non?) just to get him to the movies for a scary film. But im all in! We arrive in the afternoom on the 15th so 16th-18th is optimal for me:)) is there anything else good happening while im in town u know of, like art music events whatever? We had a look at upcoming exhibitions a while back but the only one i remember now that was interesting was an ana mendieta video work show. I also wanna go to the perfume museum, have you been? Haha i just rememered there is a word for persuasing and its persuading duh. Persuasing rolled off the tongue well tho. How are you today? Im feeling sick which is a bit disastrous since we leave in a week so im planning to cancel all my everything this week to do some heavy recovering. Wish me luck! Say hi and cant wait to see you to zac for me! Big hug minus the chance of infection! Love me

    Ps.ottars boyfriend øyvind is coming to paris for a few days towards the end of our stay and he’s a fan of yours so hopefully we can meet up for a coffee while he’s there:))

  2. Kier

    Also really good post?

  3. Dominik

    Hi!

    Sleepy-eyed TJ Lane. I’ve always found him one of the most terrifying school shooters I know of.

    I’m glad to hear you’re okay!! And yes, inching back into the TV script work is a good start! Do you have a deadline by which you have to be done with this round of revisions?

    Thank you. I turned into a hermit during my weekend, again (though I did go to see Anita) and there wasn’t a thing I wasn’t satisfied with. I went on with Peter Sotos’ new book, I started the biography of Robert Mapplethorpe (he’s such a “close” kind of inspiration. Not exactly like Richey Edwards but similar in intensity.) and I also started this book ‘Nowhere Slow’ by Bertie Marshall. I’m only at the very beginning so I don’t know if I’ll like it but I think I will. I bought it in Amsterdam after opening it at a random page a getting slapped by the words there, in the best possible way. Have you read it? So… yeah, my weekend was everything I love about weekends.
    How about yours? What did you do?

    But today… I was casually walking my dog in the morning when my right foot started hurting so fucking much that suddenly I could barely stand on it. I limped home but it didn’t get better so I need to see an orthopedist as soon as possible, which is around 4 in the afternoon – if I’m lucky and actually get in. I’ve always had a pretty bad posture so maybe it’s related to that but nothing like this has ever happened before. I really hope it doesn’t require any kind of serious treatment, only maybe an arch-support or something. Wish me luck!

    I hope you’ll have an amazing week, Dennis!! See you on Friday!

  4. Misanthrope

    Dennis! A Star is Born was pretty good. Not mind-blowing and not complete shit at all. The acting was great, even Gaga was very, very good at times. But there was something a little disjointed and incomplete about it for me. They did add this element that was interesting, where, as she becomes more and more famous, she’s at the beck and call of her manager and the industry, making her do these silly pop songs that weren’t really her forte, with all the dancing and talking about jeans and asses and stuff. I wonder if Gaga wasn’t responsible for that. So no, not a waste of time at all. Bradley Cooper and Sam Elliott were pretty great.

    Looks like my next film with my friends is Bohemian Rhapsody. I’m kind of dreading it, but I said I would go. I’ve made a point this year of going to more movies. Unfortunately, because of the area I live in, it’s hard to get to see really good films, the the types you and I and everyone here would be into. But I like hanging with my friends and I can sit through a movie that might not be to my extreme liking for them.

    I like that, one of God’s loftiest gifts. I need to remember that and use it.

    I have gotten some writing done. Indeed. I’ll be getting more done today, my last day off work for a while (besides the weekends, duh). So far, so good. I’m happy with what I have so far. Not satisfied but happy, and really, can one ever be satisfied? I feel like you can always make it better, you know. Just plugging away, though, on this first draft, and so far, I’m not unhappy.

    • David Ehrenstein

      That’s from the REAL A Star is Born

  5. Sypha

    Dennis, yeah, FRANKENSTEIN the book is like one of the most iconic horror novels ever… it’s also one of the very first science fiction novels. The woman who wrote it (Mary Shelley: she was the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley) was very ahead of her time in some way. I will say that FRANKENSTEIN was a big influence on HARLEM SMOKE, along with various other books dealing with people being haunted by their creations (such as LUNAR PARK, Lovecraft’s HERBERT WEST: REANIMATOR, and others).

    re: ASIB, I think you need to live dangerously and get outside your comfort zone, ha ha… but I understand it wouldn’t be your thing. I don’t know, I guess I’m just a sucker for old-fashioned melodrama…

    I forgot to mention this but recently Snuggly Books released a new version of Jean Lorrain’s novel ERRANT VICE, the first time it’s ever been translated into English. It was one of the two novels he wrote towards the end of his life that were meant to summarize the Decadent movement (the other being MONSIEUR PHOCAS), and though he did a few other books after that many people see ERRANT VICE as his last truly great work.

    • _Black_Acrylic

      Frankenstein is up there with Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as one of the great Scottish horror novels.

  6. David Ehrenstein

    Lorna sez —

  7. Steve Erickson

    I’ve never heard of Lane, but I will google him.

    A Scottish journalist who now lives in DC that I follow on Twitter posted photos from a recent Simple Minds concert a few days ago, saying he first saw them 35 years ago! I liked “Don’t You Forget About Me” when I was a teen, but now I prefer their first few albums. I’ve never heard the first 2 Human League albums, but their 1978 Peel session and indie singles are excellent. (I do like DARE, but it’s nothing like that original synth-punk sound.) I started my rough draft of my review of the Bronski Beat reissue today.

    I tried getting an appointment with my doctor today because the pain in my ear’s back (did I complain about this yesterday?), but due to the holiday in America now his office is closed. I will probably have to cancel some plans tomorrow to do this, but I need to call him then and see if I can get a same-day appointment.

    It’s unhappy how marginal foreign-language films are in the U.S., but I’m grateful that dubbing is taboo (with the partial exception of Japanese anime, which usually gets released in both dubbed and subtitled form.) Some people have suggested that foreign films, at least the kind of international horror films that are fairly popular on VOD but get minimal theatrical release, would do better if dubbed, but I’m glad that the original culture is respected here.

  8. _Black_Acrylic

    Oh this TJ Lane storyboard must surely be the quintessential DC’s post. To me he kind of looked a bit like Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys fame but way more cool and interesting obvs.

    I’m happy to say that these steroids I’m taking to treat my MS are having a definite positive effect. I was at the DCA this morning for breakfast and for another look at their magnificent Mike Kelley – Mobile Homestead installation, and was able to get around the gallery noticeably better. It’s a sprawling show with 3 screens, sculpture, a notice board and reading room so it was nice to take more of all that in. Long may this upward curve continue.

    Super excited about that Italo Tearjerker Playlist restoration! I DJ’d an Mp3 of Helicon – You… See at Gayle and Ross’s Wedding Reception in Knoydart last year and the crowd was going wild.

    • _Black_Acrylic

      Reading Viz magazine just now and am excited to see that the V&A Museum is listed in the new Profanisaurus swearing dictionary.

    • _Black_Acrylic

      Possibly double posting this but reading Viz magazine just now and am excited to see that the V&A Museum is listed in the new Profanisaurus swearing dictionary.

  9. Jamie

    Hey Dennis!
    I love this post! I knew nothing about the story and I gasped like an old fashioned mum when I got to the the last picture. Woah. I also thought his t-shirt said MILLER and spent some time trying to work out what that name had to do with things, haha.
    How are you? Sorry to hear you had some bad news and hope your natural optimism has been restored. Virtual hug, if you want or need one.
    I’ve been writing the Horror Film script, which is going very well, except from when I wonder what I’m doing and why am I doing it.
    How was your weekend and the Nuit Blanche, if you went?
    May Tuesday make you think that whoever’s writing it is a fucking genius.
    Reservoir Appreciation Society love,
    Jamie

  10. JM

    yes this is a great post as others have mentioned. builds empathy via non narrative and then fucks us over with a narratively structured ending, total explosive climax. deeee lish ouce.

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