Space As A Place

On Otherworldly Topics in Los Angeles History

John Lautner’s Chemosphere, one of the best flying saucer houses, though that was not the original intension

First things, I’m speaking at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz on Thursday, July 23 at 7pm as part of their LA History Month. Interested in attending? I would love you to come!

Here’s the ticket link

Now, when I came up with the topic, I wanted to tie in Jack Parsons, one of my favorite Los Angeles people, with some of our notable science fiction authors, and then also the places that were sets for space and sci-fi movies through the magic of Hollywood, and then also the unique architecture of the city that echoes and longs for a flying saucer or outer planetary home, and then also some of the musicians who have been enamored by aliens and interdimensional energy, and then of course I neeeeeed to talk about the true believers who devoted their lives and energy to waiting to board the spacecraft.

But once I started working on it, it’s much too much. Eventually there will be a follow up, but in the meantime I wanted to cover a musician’s story that is fascinating and was sadly cut.

In case you’re unaware, Tom DeLonge of Blink-182 has been loudly confident about the existence of intelligent life and extraterrestrial sightings and has pivoted to full-time UFOlogy in 2015. He founded an organization, To the Stars Academy, initially designed to educate the public on sightings and files he believed to be part of government coverups…until he began to be taken more seriously and working alongside some of the more scientific minds, and pivoted the company to be more based in streetwear and developing sci-fi-related media.

(Please note, if you were to simply type to the stars dot com into your browser, you will be redirected to L. Ron Hubbard’s Galaxy Press site, so search carefully.)

Since the current government has begun to release these long rumored files of UFO sightings, DeLonge’s fervor and perseverance has been rewarded with legitimacy, and love that for him.

He is far from the first Los Angeles musician to cry alien though, so let’s talk about the greatest mystery: Jim Sullivan, a talented singer-songwriter in 1960s Malibu who ran with the flourishing out-there crowd. He had a cameo part in Easy Rider, was friendly with Harry Dean Stanton, and had a wife and son. His Malibu bar shows were popular and well attended, and he hired the legendary Wrecking Crew as his backing band when it came time to record his album, releasing it in 1969.

It didn’t make much of an impact at the time, and his second release in 1972 was even less successful. Around 1975, Jim decided maybe there would be more of an audience for him in Nashville and headed east and then disappeared.

Somewhere outside of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, Jim checked into a small motel and then vanished. His VW bug was found about 20 miles away with his guitar in it, which struck his friends as strange. Even if he were trying to start over more definitively, he would have taken that as a source of income. His hotel room had not been slept in, his clothes and wallet were there. Jim Sullivan evaporated.

Now, there are practical theories that he wandered into the desert and got lost, or took his own life, or was trying to escape the broken family he’d left in California, but Jim Sullivan has never been seen since. An intriguing conspiracy theory pertains to the subject and title of his first album…”U.F.O.” Reissued by Light in the Attic Records a couple years ago, it’s worth the listen.

One other editorial note: so, space is hot right now, and the Hammer Museum also has an excellent exhibit on Sun Ra and Afro-Futurism. By pure coincidence, both this exhibit and the lecture are titled Space is the Place, but are unrelated events. This is also a great story I had to cut for time, it’s about a curse Sun Ra put on Los Angeles.

Hope to see you Thursday if you’re in Los Angeles and even though I say this every time, I will be better about writing this. As penance, here’s a playlist I made to accompany the recent lecture on David Lynch’s Los Angeles, and I will have a VOD link for that lecture soon if you’d like to watch.