TURN OFF, TUNE OUT, TRANSFORM! "WHEN I HEAR THE WORD 'CELEBRITY' I REACH FOR MY REVOLVER!" The Revelations will be televised as the suicide bombing of a television studio and the symbolic on-stage martyrdom of a charismatic rock star present the world with a startling new phenomenon. The Radicalized Celebrity. Investigating a wave of attacks against high-profile media targets, lifestyle magazine editor, Miranda Black, participates in the A-List Asylum reality TV show, staged in a disused madhouse by the controversial psychiatrist, Dr Phaedra Lake. And, as the programme approaches its violent climax, Miranda finally discovers the truth behind the escalating terror campaign and the subversive ideology its visionary founder describes as "a quantum leap into an unimaginable future." CELEBRITY DEATH CULT combines satire with the conspiracy-thriller genre and dystopian science fiction to depict a psychopathic mass-media environment in which the Cult of Celebrity and urban terrorism collide catastrophically.

The book covers the epoch of the celebrity beginning in the 1930s with Howard Hughes and Walt Disney and continues to the present day with the life and death of Michael Jackson. Dead Celebrities, Living Icons documents the philosophical importance and significance of the contemporary cult of the celebrity and analyzes the tragic consequences of a human life lived in the glare of the media spotlight. --from publisher description.

A free preview collection of essays from Tom Payne, author of FAME We may regard celebrities as deities, but that does not mean we worship them with deference. From prehistory to the present, humanity has possessed a primal urge first to exalt the famous but then to cut them down (Michael Jackson, anyone?). Why do we treat the ones we love like burnt offerings in a ritual of human sacrifice? Perhaps because that is exactly what they are. In this collection of essays, Tom Payne -- of the website Popcropolis and the "trenchant, unsettling, and darkly hilarious" Fame (New York Times Book Review) -- draws the narratives of the past and the immediate present into one intriguing story. INCLUDES AN EXCERPT FROM FAME!

Cult Cinema: an Introduction presents the first in-depth academic examination of all aspects of the field of cult cinema, including audiences, genres, and theoretical perspectives. Represents the first exhaustive introduction to cult cinema Offers a scholarly treatment of a hotly contested topic at the center of current academic debate Covers audience reactions, aesthetics, genres, theories of cult cinema, as well as historical insights into the topic

This in-depth series of literary portraits studies celebrities who died in famous and tragic ways—ways that still resonate as archetypal death scenarios in present day. We know their likes and dislikes, admire their talents, envy them for daring to be what we can't or what we won't. When they are snatched from us, we feel a personal loss and an unwillingness to let go. And so we transform these mere human beings into icons whose stars often shine in death even more brilliantly than in life. Dead Celebrities, Living Icons: Tragedy and Fame in the Age of the Multimedia Superstar explores this phenomenon through a series of essays on 14 men and women who are, arguably, the most famous people of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The book covers the epoch of the celebrity beginning in the 1930s with Howard Hughes and Walt Disney and continues to the present day with the life and death of Michael Jackson. Far more than just a collection of biographies, Dead Celebrities, Living Icons documents the philosophical importance and significance of the contemporary cult of the celebrity and analyzes the tragic consequences of a human life lived in the glare of the media spotlight.

The term 'cult film star' has been employed in popular journalistic writing for the last 25 years, but what makes cult stars distinct from other film stars has rarely been addressed. This collection explores the processes through which film stars/actors become associated with the cult label, from Bill Murray to Ruth Gordon and Ingrid Pitt.

In Only Love Can Break Your Heart, David Samuels writes with a reportorial acumen and stylistic flair that recall the pioneering New Journalism of Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, and Joan Didion. Combining elegant, nuanced personal essays with far–out reporting—on the lives of radicals in the Pacific Northwest, anti–abortion zealots, demolition experts, suburban hip–hop stars, and more—Samuels shows us an American landscape whose unsettling mix of profound dislocations and blue–sky optimism is both instantly recognizable and thrillingly new. These essays display his unusual sensitivity to both the tragic and comic dissonances that bubble up from the gap between the American promise of endless nirvana and the lives of salesman, dreamers, aging baseball legends, crackpots, atomic test site workers, and dog track bettors who struggle to live out their dreams one day at a time.

Death sometimes arrives randomly to those seemingly insulated from risk by virtue of their wealth, celebrity and protective environments. Periodically the world halts in shock and reflection upon the abrupt and sudden headlines of a celebrated personality’s death. Their demise jolts and reinforces our understanding of the fragility and vulnerability of life. This edition chronicles the background stories and detailed locations of some of the most newsworthy, famous and even infamous unexpected sudden passings. The profiles feature self-induced suicides, drug overdoses, celebrity murders, unexplained deaths and even brazen homicides where the perpetrator has taken their own life. The West Coast historically remains a vortex for the unexpected. Understanding the circumstances beyond simple summary reporting often clarifies the motivations behind each unfortunately and often desperate act. The contents are divided into four sectional categories including: FAMOUS SUICIDES Actress Peg Entwistle’s leap from the Hollywood sign, Oil swindler C. C. Julian, Valhalla Cemetery savior John E. Osborne Sr., Actor Ross Alexander, Actresses Lupe Velez and Carol Landis, Superman actor George Reeves, Actresses Marilyn Monroe and Pier Angeli, Actors Pete Duel and Freddie Prinze, Punk Rocker Darby Crash, San Francisco assassin Dan White, Seattle judge Gary Little, Singer Del Shannon, Actor Herve Villechaize, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, Actor Hugh O’Connor, Model Margaux Hemingway, Heaven’s Gate cult mass poisoning, Actor Brian Keith, Punk Rocker Dee Dee Ramone, Film Director Tony Scott, Right-to-Die Advocate Brittany Maynard, Comedian Robin Williams, Rock keyboardist Keith Emerson and Actor Verne Troyer. SHOCKING ABRUPT CELEBRITY DEATHS President Warren Harding, Evangelist Sister Aimee Semple-McPherson, Actor James Dean’s fatal car collision, Soul singer Sam Cooke, Comedian Lenny Bruce, Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, Actor Roman Novarro, Rock singer Janis Joplin and actor John Belushi’s drug overdoses, Actress Dominique Dunne’s strangulation, Beach Boy Dennis Wilson’s drowning, Marvin Gaye’s domestic shooting, Actress Rebecca Schaeffer’s stalker killing, Rock Promoter Bill Graham’s helicopter crash, Actor River Phoenix’s drug overdose, Jockey Ron Hansen’s mysterious drowning, Actor Haing Ngor’s killing, Sublime’s Bradley Nowell’s drug overdose, Revenge shooting of Notorious B. I. G., Rock singer Layne Staley, Singers Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston’s drug overdose, Paul Walker’s street racing crash and Singer George Michael’s outing and premature death. INFAMOUS MURDER SUICIDES Brides of Christ cult, LAPD Captain Walter Auble, Ned Doheny and Hugh Plunkett, Teenage Orcutt California Freeway sniper, Newhall California Highway Patrol shootout, Jim Jones and the People’s Temple, Richard Trenton Chase the Vampire Killer, Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten, Lynwood Jim Drake, 101 California Building Massacre, Actor Phil Hartman, Seattle Bus Shooting on Infamous Aurora Bridge, Kyle Huff and the Capitol Hill shooting, John Williams the man of a thousand identities, Bruce Pardo’s Christmas Eve firestorm, Portland’s The Zone nightclub massacre, Jed Waits obsession killing, Publicist Ronni Chasen midnight slaying, Speedfreak mass killing and burial grounds, Seattle’s Café Racer coffee house killings, Survivalist Peter Keller’s family murder, Actor Johnny Lewis’ outburst, Marysville-Pilchuck cafeteria shooting and the vindictive Isla Vista shooting spree rampage of Elliot Roger REPUTED SUICIDE LOCATIONS Pasadena’s Colorado Street Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Cecil Hotel Los Angeles, Vista Point Bridge Portland, Aurora Bridge Seattle and the USS Hornet

"Wry, fast and fiendishly clever" (The Times) One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones. Yet again the public gorges its voyeuristic appetite as another group of unknown and unremarkable people submit themselves to the brutal exposure of the televised real-life soap opera, House Arrest. Everybody knows the rules: total strangers are forced to live together while the rest of the country watches them do it. Who will crack first? Who will have sex with whom? Who will the public love and who will they hate? All the usual questions. And then, suddenly, there are some new ones. Who is the murderer? How did he or she manage to kill under the constant gaze of the thirty television cameras? Why did they do it? And who will be next?

Why Prince died? Is there a media cover-up of what actually happened? If so, who's involved? This is NOT a biography book about the pop legend Prince. This is a wake-up call for millions of fans around the world, because Prince was a very private person. We are going to uncover some of the mysteries about his death and the entertainment industry. Some people lost their lives over what we are going to be sharing with you, so this is a very sensitive information, but you must know the truth. We urge you to spread the word about this short book and get people involved to shed a light on what's really going on, because that's what Prince was fighting all of his life. There's a connection between Prince and Michael Jackson's deaths. We are also going to expose that in this edition as well. It's time to learn the truth! Grab your copy now!