I have been posting in a lot of different places the last year. Here are the biggest places you'll find me, other than this blog, in the order I visit them.

Friend or follow me on any/all:

THIS BLOG: Dave Cullen: Conclusive Evidence of My Existence

I've added them all to the left column.

I've been inactive on digg for awhile, so I never had many followers there. I could use a few.

Thanks.

Well it took most of the day, but I copied all the posts I made at my OpenSalon blog this year over to this blog.

This will return to being my main blog. I had some tech problems here. (I started this blog in 2001 or 2002, and I'm still stuck on the dreaded Radio Userland softward. Sometimes, it gives me fits.) 

I only went back through this year, so there are some 2008 posts which you will only find on my OS blog.

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FYI: to easily find this blog, go to my main site (davecullen.com) and click BLOG in the main nav bar.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2009 7:23PM

Laura Bush announced the line-up yesterday. It's quite a list, and according to the Dallas Morning News story, I'm not one of the headliners. They wrote:

Headlining authors include Buzz Aldrin, M rgaret Atwood, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Bryan Burrough, Jeanette Walls, Jonathan Safran Foer and Taylor Branch.

Maybe next book. Hahaha. The official announcment cited me this way:

AUGUST 19, 2009 10:01AM

I did Ashleigh Banfield's show again today. This time, in a CNN studio.

That was fun--despite the content. I've gotten used to staring at a lens, pretending it's the Ashleigh's face. I guess she can see mine, and react to my facial cues, but I have no idea how she's responding to me. Maybe that's for the best. Hahaha.

Actually, that part would be good, but it would be horrible if I actually had to look at my own face and kept trying to adjust everything that made me gasp. They don't have a long enough show for that.

I got there early and sat in the chair for nearly an hour, much of it listening to the latest updates from the trial on the show, and I've been reading about it, too. Man, there  there are some creepy paralells. It's very painful to see so many mistakes repeated.

In this case, the mom knew Castillo was obsessed with Columbine and even took a trip to visit the school and taped it. (She knew because she went with him.) He was in treatment at the time after a serious suicide attempt, and his doctors never found out. Ouch.

So much information that didn't get shared. The docs also didn't know he had obtained guns.

Some day, we'll learn.

The jury has some tough questions to answer on mental insanity. More on that later.

thanks, everyone.

As for the Ashleigh Banfield experience:

She was great. Very bright woman. Quick on her feet. I like her.

(I don't like most network anchors. That's saying a lot.)

If you saw the interview, let us know what you think.  I have to run to O'Hare, but will try to check in via my iphone from there.  I'll be back in Denver this afternoon.

AUGUST 14, 2009 12:47AM

I will be on Ashleigh Banfield's CourtTV show "Open Court" Monday, 8/17 at 9:15 am EDT.

I will still be on vacation with the family, but phoning it it. (They'll put  my pic on the screen--the one on this page--and a map of where I am, on vacation in a tiny rural town, which seems slightly weird to me. )

FYI, CourtTV is now officially named TruTV. I believe Ashleigh's show is called "In Session."

The network wants me on to talk about Columbine, and connections to the Alvaro Castillo trial they are covering, which should go to the jury early next week.

Here is some background the producer sent me about the case (I assume it's copy from their website. I didn't write it, I'm just passing it along):

The defendant was 18 years old in August 2006 when he allegedly murdered his father, Rafael Huezo Castillo, and then drove the family minivan to his former high school and opened fire.  That attack left two students with minor injuries.  Alvaro Castillo was obsessed with Columbine and even sent an email to the principal of Columbine stating, "In a few hours you will probably hear about a school shooting in North Carolina.  I am responsible for it. "  He even traveled to Colorado to drive by the school and homes of the  Columbine shooters.

MAY 5, 2009 6:52PM

But I'm afraid I didn't appreciate it. I didn't catch a wink on the flight from Chicago, so I've been up 36 hours now.

It was just a quick twelve hours on the island. I'm London now, checked into my hotel in what looks to be a nice section, called Earl's Court, and just laid down on an actual bed. Ahhhhhhh.

I can't wait to close my eyes.

Dublin was beautiful, despite the sleepwalking. I did two BBC national Ireland radio shows--The Gerry Ryan Show and The Last Word with Matt Cooper--and they were both really good. Knew their stuff.

I also spent an hour with a very bright woman from Hot Press magazine, which will be out next month.

Then I strolled around central Dublin for a few hours, laid on the quad at Trinity College, and signed a bunch of books at several local stores. Very nice people, the Irish. Makes me proud to call it my mother country.

Tomorrow we've got a lot of radio planned in London, and more of the same Thursday. I think I'll be able to appreciate it more.

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Links to the Irish shows: Gerry Ryan. Matt Cooper.

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Also, I signed a ton of books at the Hudson stores in all three concourses at DIA. Looked for autographed copies if you're going through that airport.
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We're going to try to arrange a place for me to be tomorrow or Thurs at a bookstore if anyone wants to meet me.

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Wednesday Update:

It was a really nice day. Great interviews, and I had two hours off to stroll around Houses of Parliment and lie in the grass in St. James Park and contemplate the whole experience. That made me giddy.

Then dinner with publisher, late-night radio and got home to hotel to news that the book will be #5 on NY Times list next week.

  ---

Saturday Update:

Home! Back in Denver, body on UK time. It's confused.

More coming. SO much to get done now that I'm back.  Some of it will wait till my luggage gets back. It's still in Chicago. Ugh.

Yesterday was the travel day from hell: 25 hours from hotel to apartment. Three flights, three countries, four cities, lots of delays. I'm pooped.

Will I make it to dancing tonight?

MARCH 7, 2009 12:10PM

Friends have been telling me for years how much they hate their book tours, but that I might be the exception. I've been expecting to like mine.

I still think I will, mostly, but I got an unexpected taste this week.  I've had nine solid days of book promotion mixed with meetings, prep and other sorts of immersion, and I am totally wrung out.

None of this was intended as a dry run for the book tour, but it worked out that way. That was a highly useful side effect. The book tour starts exactly one day from yesterday, and now I know what to prepare myself for.

It looks pretty easy, getting your picture taken, or sitting in a chair answering questions, but whoa, it sucks the juice out of you.

Thursday night I got back to Denver late, and yesterday morning the videographer arrived at my apt to shoot the book trailer. He left at 8 p.m. I wanted to sleep for a week.

It's a lot like when you do a speaking engagement, or a board presentation: For me, at least, I feel pumped and full of energy while I'm doing it, because my brain keeps ordering up adrenalites, and they are surging through my bloodstream the whole time. Those are powerful little hormones, that allow you to do anything.  But that energy doesn't come out of nowhere: the hormones just order every cell to give up everything it's got stored. When you're done, you are really done.

The shoot was great, BTW. We did four separate locations--my studio, a gravesite with thirteen marble crosses, the school and the permanent memorial in Clement Park--plus the filmmaker interviewed and shot footage in the car while I drove. He said he was really happy with it, and I could tell right off he was good at his job. (Plus he spent six years working on South Park.)

(The filmmaker is Andrew Kemler. Check out his previous book trailers, including Temple Grandin's Animals make us Human.)

The timing was good, because I got to implement some of the great advice I got this week at two lunch meetings: one with my editor and publicist, another with my agent. They both said I was doing well on communicating about the book, but with one big exception: brevity. 

My blabby approach to life and stream of consciousness style is not going to work in four-minute TV interviews, or even somewhat longer TV and radio. At least it won't work as well as if I distill certain ideas into a few sentences first, and then expand on them. 

Good advice. Tough for me, but necessary. The first big test was the book trailer, because the entire thing is set to run about two to three minutes. I could use that up on one anecdote. That's not going to cut it. We need to touch on as many great aspects of the book as possible in that time. And we want to do the same in the live interviews I do later. 

It's a good challenge for me as a writer, and a lot like poetry: fierce economy of language: expressing what I have in the minimum number of words.

My agent gave  me an exercise, and it's been incredibly helpful already. She gave me a list of nine key questions about my book, and told me to come up with two-sentence answers to each. They are very broad questions, which I often take five minutes to answer. This is good. Even if I use a longer answer later, this forces me to confront the essence of my answer, and to distill it down to one core idea. 

(Betsy, my agent, wrote a brief, sweet blog post about the lunch here.)

I've got to run, but will return with more on the NYC trip, and the amazing Dart/Nieman conference at Harvard.

So much happened, I don't even know where to start.

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REQUEST:

If you have a blog or website, please consider adding a link to my book page, with "Columbine" as the anchor text (the highlighted text they click on), so it looks like this: Columbine.

Thanks. That will help my google rank.

The page to link to is: http://davecullen.com/columbine.htm

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Sept 7 Update:

I was a lot harder than I imagined. But quite a ride, too.

FEBRUARY 21, 2009 2:12AM

Today was a big day in my career. I have literally gone to sleep hundreds of times fantasizing about Publisher's Weekly reviewing my book, and giving it a starred review.

Today it happened. Woohoo! My editor is ecstatic. Me, too. Most of my friends are confused. My family, too. They tried to cheer me up for getting only one star. 

I forgot that most of the world has never heard of the weird book-industry lingo. Here's the primer:

There are four major trade journals, that review books weeks ahead of publication: as a guide for editors of the books sections at newspapers and magazines, booking agents for TV shows, booksellers, Hollywood scouts, etc. The most important, by far, is Publisher's Weekly, or PW.

(Good Slate piece about how the trades work from 2003 here.)

They all use the same system, which is entirely different than the four-star movie system. With books, most get a one-paragraph review, with no stars. A few get a star.

That's their top honor, and there's an actual pink star printed on top of it. (The star below is the actual gif from the PW website.) There is no such thing as multiple stars in their world. Their definition which I found online and I think matches what I've seen in the print version of the mag is:

"A starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality."

Getting a starred review can really help a book take off, though they probably have less influence than they used to with buzz, but much more influence via Amazon and B&N online. Both of those signed agreements with PW, so that the first review shown for every book on Amazon is PW's. (I'm not sure about the B&N arrangement, but I think it's similar. Of course it only applies to books PW reviewed, but that's all major books.) That gives the PW assessment tremendous clout in online sales, which now account for about a quarter of the total book market.

So I'm happy. Extremely.

I was going to just post the damn review with the news this morning, but luckily I had to run out and got to people via cellphone first, and realized I'd just draw more condolences. LOL. I hope this helps clear up confusion.

It doesn't seem to be online yet, but it will be soon. Meantime, here's the entire review (they're always this short): 

Columbine
Dave Cullen. Twelve, $26.99 (432) ISBN 978-0-446-54693-5

In this remarkable account of the April 20, 1999, Columbine High School shooting, journalist Cullen not only dispels several of the prevailing myths about the event but tackles the hardest question of all: why did it happen? Drawing on extensive interviews, police reports and his own reporting, Cullen meticulously pieces together what happened when 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold killed 13 people before turning their guns on themselves. The media spin was that specific students, namely jocks, were targeted and that Dylan and Eric were members of the Trench Coat Mafia. According to Cullen, they lived apparently normal lives, but under the surface lay “an angry, erratic depressive” (Klebold) and “a sadistic psychopath” (Harris), together forming a “combustible pair.” They planned the massacre for a year, outlining their intentions for massive carnage in extensive journals and video diaries. Cullen expertly balances the psychological analysis—enhanced by several of the nation’s leading experts on psychopathology—with an examination of the shooting’s effects on survivors, victims’ families and the Columbine community. Readers will come away from Cullen’s unflinching account with a deeper understanding of what drove these boys to kill, even if the answers aren’t easy to stomach. (Apr. 6)

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This might also be a good time to announce that Barnes & Noble selected Columbine for its "Discover Great New Writers" program.  So the book will be featured in a special section in the front of every B&N store in the country, and singled out on its web site, featured in its print flyers and emails. They have an editorial committee which only pick a handful of books a month, and it really helps launch a book.

Borders has also really gotten behind the book, so my publisher added four extra tour dates for their stores in Colorado. (I'll now do an east coast leg, a west coast leg, and a Colorado leg.) I'll have the east coast dates on my website soon.

East coast and Denver events include:

• Denver: Tattered Cover LoDo, April 7, 7:30 p.m.
• NYC: B&N at Broadway & 82nd, April 13, 7 p.m.
• DC: Politics & Prose, April 15, 7 p.m.*
• Miami: Books & Books, April 16, 7 p.m.

Please RSVP at the Facebook event page for Tattered Cover. I'll get invites up on Facebook for the others, soon.

I may be on your local radio April 14. I'll be doing a national satellite tour of 20 cities, back to back over the course of six hours. They will have the option of airing it live, or using it later, most likely on the tenth anniversary of Columbine, April 20.

National TV is getting booked and several big national mags are on board, but I can't discuss them until right before they air/publish. I'll let you know when they do, though. I'll have everything on my website, and will try to post here and lots of quickies on my facebook and twitter pages during the book tour.

I finally got my iphone last night, which will make that much easier. (Thank you all you OS Mac fanatics who pushed me over the hump. You really did. And I LOVE it BTW, even more than I expected to. Much more. It really is a little gift from God.)

Of course none of these gigs are booking themselves. The best thing I have going for me is the team at Twelve: a great editor, Jonathan Karp, and a brilliant publicist who is working his ass off, Cary Goldstein.

I finally get to meet them in person a week from Tuesday. I was invited to the Nieman Center's Aftermath conference at Harvard next weekend, and from there, I'm doing four days in NYC, for a whole lot of pre-launch publicity stuff.

I'm finally going to tour the Hachette building on Park Avenue and meet all the wonderful people who worked on this book. You would not believe how many it takes. They have been so good to me: but all by phone and a zillion emails. It will be nice to see them.

Then Jon and Cary are taking me to my first official author lunch. Just like in my dreams.

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* For anyone in DC, my Slate editor (now Editor In Chief there), David Plotz has a new book out, Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible and will be at Politics & Prose March 7. (Click for details on Facebook.) He's a really bright guy and a great writer. 

FEBRUARY 16, 2009 1:06PM

Man. My editor (Jon) always seems to have an amazing email to start me off Monday mornings. I wonder if he saves them up till then.

I thought I got to return the favor this week, but he trumped me. I got a really nice email over the weekend, and forwarded it to Jon yesterday, but he had a better one for me when I got up.

I pasted them below, with the names of the writers abbreviated, and the even nicer letter second. (I snipped a few words out of the second one because they're spoilers. I don't want to start giving away plot developments to OS regulars--you might want to experience those yourself.)

BTW, if you ever really like a book, or a song or TV show or whatever, and wish you could tell the guy or the woman or the people what it did for you, for God's sake,act on that urge.

I always figure famous people are already deluged, and they probably are, but you can never get enough validation. At least I can't. I have a feeling a lot of people who go into the arts are that way. And the less famous and non-famous can probably really use it. I'm going to go looking for an address for Dimitri Martin. I can actually send one on myspace.

Anyway, the letters I just got. For me, they made the ten years worth it:

Dave -

As I'm currently working at a Barnes & Noble I was able to receive and read an advance copy of Columbine. Aside from being immensely readable and completely absorbing (I plowed through it in just a couple days), I think you've written an important account, not just of the massacre, but the impact on victims, families, law enforcement, the community, religious leaders (and opportunists), the media, and indeed the country as a whole. I was amazed that so much of what I knew about the tragedy was based on a mythology that was set in motion almost immediately after the attack, and allowed to remain in place for, well, a decade now.

By revealing the true nature of the event and its aftermath you've provided an accurate record of a complex story that needed to be told truthfully so that genuine understanding can be achieved, and as a result real change effected. It touched me, it moved me, and it scared me. It's a magnificent piece of work.

Ten years well spent, man.

David H.

Dear Mr. Karp -

I am a bookseller at a wonderful independent bookstore in Massachusetts.  I have been captivated by many of the books you have published, particularly TITANIC'S LAST SECRETS and GIANTS.  Thank you for producing works of such singular quality and relevance.  I look forward to reading many of your upcoming releases.  I am grateful to our store's enthusiastic and responsive rep, Roger Saginario.  He was most accommodating (as always) when I requested an early copy of Dave Cullen's COLUMBINE.  I feel compelled to offer some feedback on this unforgettable book.

COLUMBINE is perhaps the most haunting book I've ever read. During the week or so that I was reading the book, the events of that horrible day came to mind with surprising frequency; I found myself talking about the book often to friends and colleagues.  I typically read lighter fare.  Sadly, this is not the product of some Hollywood screenwriter's vivid imagination; COLUMBINE is all too true.

Cullen's compelling book is amazingly thorough.  The grim day is recounted with gruesome clarity.  The many controversies are effectively related: the response of law enforcement teams, the crosses for the dead, the lawsuits, Cassie Bernall's profession of faith, and so much more.  Forgotten bits of the story are supplied.  I was horrified to read that Anne Marie Hochhalter's . . .  Cullen's exhaustive research also leads to fascinating updates on how many of the survivors are faring a decade later.  Readers will cheer again for . . . as they read of his improbable victories.  And, Mr. Cullen gets as close as anyone could to fleshing out the killers' reasons for their rampage.

I was quite moved by this book.  I find myself making efforts to be a kinder person, hoping somehow that tiny individual efforts might cancel out the evil of those rare haters among us.  Cullen's book also reminds me that our schools, small reflections of our larger society, are wellsprings of goodness, brimming with unlimited potential.  We must nurture them.

I predict (and hope for) big success for this book. Both as a reader and a bookseller, I look forward to its publication.  I will do all I can to get this book into the hands of as many readers as possible.  Thank you!  Please continue to publish wonderfully important books.  Finally, thanks for taking the time to read this too-long missive.

Gratefully,

Christopher R.

Andover Bookstore
Andover, MA 01810

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(From Dave again):

That second one. I teared up when I got to the part about  the tiny individual efforts to be a better person. That's way more than I had hoped. I only hope it lasts. 

Now I'm so glad I spent the ten years. (Not that it's all I did during the ten years--I don't want to overstate that--but it was the bulk.)

The thing is, during the ten years, I never knew whether I was actually going to get a book done, and I definitely didn't expect to land a publisher like Twelve, or to get this kind of a launch. Things have fallen into place amazingly well. I'm giddy almost every day. (Except when my car gets robbed or I get a frustrating prognosis on my back condition.)

I still don't want to spend ten years on the next one, though. Hahaha.

FEBRUARY 14, 2009 3:03AM

One month, three weeks and two days till publication day, and I'm already checking my Amazon rank once a day. Only on good days, actually--when it tanks, I don't check it for awhile.

Today I broke 10,000 for the first time: woohoo!

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,905 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

#2 in  Books > History > United States > State & Local > West#9 in  Books > History > United States > 20th Century > 1945 - Present#16 in  Books > Nonfiction > True Accounts > Murder & Mayhem

And I hit the top ten in a couple categories, though, I doubt they're actually selling a whole lot of those Western books. (Still, I can't wait to knock over that John Muir book I've never heard of. Hahaha.)

That True Crime category, though, that's big. Those books sell, and there are some bestsellers and classics at/near the top, like In Cold Blood, Devil In The White City, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil . . . 

I wish they actually called it True Crime instead of Murder & Mayhem, though. That's an accurate category title, but kind of unseemly to mention to people. I do not want to brag about that title. Even if/when I do pass In Cold Blood. 

If I understand the significance of all this--and I'm not at all sure I do--the most important number there is making the top 25 on the murder/mayhem list. They list 25 per page. Most people won't click to the second page.  I've learned about google that it's much more important to be on the first page than where you are on it. Presumably,  most people scanning that page will know all about In Cold Blood and Helter Skelter, but will be surprised to discover a book on Columbine, and may click over to read more and buy it.

Our main goal at this point it to raise awareness that it's out there. And the people scanning that page are not likely to be put off by the subject matter.

Hennyway, I was very relieved a few years back to discover everyone  obsesses over their rank. My Slate editor is/was a very big deal, and when his first book came out I thought he'd be above it. Nope. I emailed asking, and he said something like every five minutes. He could not stop himself.

And Frank Rich's book debuted at #1 on the NY Times list, but that first week, I gave it a good review on Amazon and it poste while he happened to be taping Colbert/ An hour later, he emailed thanking me. And I laughed my ass off: Near as I can tell, he went right home from the studio and checked his Amazon rank, and/or new user reviews. 

So I feel OK about it. I would do it exactly the same regardless, but this way I feel OK about it.

And thank you whoever you people are who are ordering it. I got mentioned in two newspaper columns this week: that was probably most of it, and temporary. 

But it makes me smile. I had a hard morning, so I was ready for a smile.

FEBRUARY 9, 2009 5:58PM

"Brace yourselves:" a column  in today's Westword, begins: "The tenth anniversary of the attack on Columbine High School arrives this April -- and it will be accompanied by a media avalanche that will hopefully add enough perspective about these horrific events to at least partially offset the pain many locals will feel at being forced to relive one of the grimmest periods in metro Denver's history."

Westword is Denver's alt weekly, and Michael Roberts is the leading media critic in town. The deluge will be a lot stronger and more sustained here. But you'll get your share, too, if you're in earshot of this blog. 

Hopefully he's right and some of that coverage will  lead to real understanding. And of course I'm hoping it will direct some people toward my book. I'm grateful to Michael for the second sentence and what followed:

"The book likely to receive the most attention is Columbine by Dave Cullen, a local author whose writings about the killings have appeared in Salon and other nationally known media outlets. The tome is being issued by Twelve Books, an innovative, and relatively new, publishing company that puts out one book per month, thereby allowing the firm to put all of its resources behind a single project. Christopher Buckley's Supreme Courtship is among the house's success stories thus far -- and it's already contracted with ailing senator Ted Kennedy to publish his autobiography."

(Unfotunately, they pictured a locally-produced and distributed book also coming out, but you can't have everything. And hopefully his book will do well, and shed some light, too. I have not seen a copy yet.)

I think this is officially the first news or feature story to appear about my book. I'll try to avoid posting about all of them. LOL.

FEBRUARY 7, 2009 1:06PM

I got my first prepublication review for COLUMBINE this week. It's from Kirkus Reviews (2/15).

Most of it is glowing, with a few jabs. I agreed with my publicist that I would post only his edited version:

Comprehensive, myth-busting examination of the Colorado high-school massacre . . .

“We remember Columbine as a pair of outcast Goths from the Trench Coat Mafia snapping and tearing through their high school hunting down jocks to settle a long-running feud. Almost none of that happened,” writes Cullen, a Denver-based journalist who has spent the past ten years investigating the 1999 attack. In fact, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold conceived of their act not as a targeted school shooting but as an elaborate three-part act of terrorism . . . Drawing on a wealth of journals, videotapes, police reports and personal interviews, Cullen sketches multifaceted portraits of the killers and the surviving community. He portrays Harris as a calculating, egocentric psychopath, someone who labeled his journal “The Book of God” and harbored fantasies of exterminating the entire human race. In contrast, Klebold was a suicidal depressive, prone to fits of rage and extreme self-loathing. Together they forged a combustible and unequal alliance, with Harris channeling Klebold’s frustration and anger into his sadistic plans . . . Poignant sections devoted to the survivors probe the myriad ways that individuals cope with grief and struggle to interpret and make sense of tragedy . . .  

Carefully researched and chilling.
 
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Cary, my publicist, also sent out a press release with the following, including confirmed tour dates:

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Several prominent national magazines are currently scheduled to feature the book. 
 
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Dave’s book tour is still coming together, but so far includes the following (all events in evening):

• April 7—Tattered Cover, Denver, LoDo (16th St. @ Wynkoop), 7:30 p.m.
• April 13—Barnes & Noble, Upper West Side, Broadway @ 82nd Street, NYC
• April 15—Politics & Prose, Washington DC
• April 16 & 17—Books & Books, Coral Gables, FL
  (one event at the store, another at a school with teachers, parents and students)
• April 27—University Bookstore, Seattle
• April 29—Books, Inc., San Francisco

April: Borders has just scheduled four more events around Colorado. These four are tentative, with dates and locations awaiting final confirmation:

• April 8th at Park Meadows (8557 Park Meadow Center)
• April 9th at Northglenn (241 W 104th St)
• April 10th at Boulder (1750 29th St)
• April 21st at Colorado Springs (2120 Southgate Rd)

Memorial event in Littleton, CO (possible).
 
Events may also be scheduled in Los Angeles and Portland, as well as additional events in Colorado.

Last night was rough. I've been sailing along, ecstatic about the progress of my book, but a few events this week forced me to confront something that's been looming: the brutality in my book. There's some pretty searing stuff in there.

So the past few days, I've been thinking about the parents reading it: parents of the victims and the killers. I wrote someone an email about it last night, after midnight, before I went to bed, and I thought that would help a little, but it tore me up and I was here all alone and needed a hug or something. Or just to say it out loud, because sometimes I can't get to the sadness and let it out unless I say it to someone first. It wells up, but I can't get it to the surface.

I couldn't figure out who was up--most of my best friends are on the east coast, or central, so I texted a few people to see if they were without waking them (what a great invention that is), but nobody was, so I went to sleep.

I woke up numb, which is worse. I know it's still in there, but couldn't feel sad, or anything. That just means it's lying in wait.

And then I turned on Craig Ferguson on the tivo to share breakfast, and I have it set to catch the last four minutes of Letterman to play the musical guest.

I was not hopeful. The album cover, the title and the group name--The Gaslight Anthem singing "The '59 Sound"--all screamed rockabilly. 

I used to enjoy rockabillly, but it's a thin vein and been mined pretty deep. Can't remember the last rockabilly sound that felt fresh.

The singer started wailing on his guitar, and I thought, "Great, a noise-band, shitty garage band. Blech."

But the band kicked in and they hit a rhythm and it was glorious. Their faces were so expressive, but that was nothing compared to their bodies. They really meant it. They were playing for dear life. You could hear it, you could feel it, that's everything. (And only vaguely rockabilly, btw. Kinda punk. Fresh. They made it fresh.)

And the opening lines, which Brian kinda shouted:

Well I wonder which song they’re gonna play when we go
I hope it’s something quiet and minor and peaceful and slow

Minor? Peaceful? Nothing like what was coming out of him. This guy had a heart. And a brain. 

Then he sang about chains, Marley's chain's that he'd been carrying around his whole life. (Apparently the ghost from Dickens' A Christmas Carol, who carried one rung on his chain for each bad thing he'd done.)

There's a car crash, she didn't make it, he wonders if she was scared when the metal the glass, and most of all, he wonders if she heard one last beautiful song:

Did you hear the ’59 sound coming through on Grandmama’s radio?
Did you hear the rattling chains in the hospital walls?
Did you hear the old gospel choir when they came to carry you over?
Did you hear your favorite song one last time?

He sang it exhuberantly. Painful, but joyous. Life is exhilarating. Every brilliant song that revs up your bloodstream and makes you feel alive.

I felt a little guilty enjoying it. Romanticizing death, maybe, doesn't seem appropriate--ever, maybe, but particularly for me right now. But he was romanticizing life, I think, all those joyous moments the victim radiated life. This guy is radiating one on my teevee right now. I'm absorbing it and maybe some will reflect back.

The guilt helped, made me sob. The sadness in the lyric is understated, but it's everywhere, that got them rolling, too. It all boiled up to the surface and spilled out. Thank you. I got it all out, or crap, I guess the first wad of it out. There will be more, but I got the big chunks up. And I got hope with it. I feel alive. And I've got a wonderful new band who feel life and know how to write it and sing it and play it and explode with it to explore and enjoy. Who knows how much I might learn from them. They might comfort me and enliven me for years and years. Maybe they'll unlock nothing. This could be their one good song. It happens, sometimes. But I'll wager against it.

This is the thought that is really healing me right now: Each one of the victims in my book felt moments like this--I'll take that on faith; everybody does sometimes--even a baby, first time she notices her toes and latches onto them, you can see a delerious little smile. They had thousands of these moments, hundreds of thousands. Me too. Hopefully their parents still do, from time to time. I wish them more.

It may piss their parents off to hear me say that--I hope not. I started off worrying about the parents, but maybe it was the kids and the teacher I was hurting for, too. I never met any of the victims. I met a lot of parents, and so freaking many survivors in the school. I got a feeling for them. They were all different, but I got to know them. The victims--I have no way to reach them, to grasp who they were.

I think this song helped. He made me feel closer to the victim of this car crash because he knew her and he makes her real for me in this song.

My little sister Missez Che (that's what we call her) wrote me years ago and asked me to make sure they play Prince's "Sometimes It Snows In April" at her funeral, and to put a baseball in her hands, so that somebody will know how much she loved watching the Cubs. (We've from Chicago.) Wow, some weird paralells in that song. But this line leaps out at me right now: "Always cry 4 love, never cry 4 pain." I always thought that was niave, especially in light of the song, which is SO painful. I don't think he's suggesting we make true very often, just that we're better off when we try.

I asked her to play Rickie Lee Jones' "Company" for mine. I heard it first in 1979 and t's still the sweetest song I've ever heard. Sweetest sentiment: not I loved you madly and I'll miss the passion, she says, "I will miss your company." 

I hope someone misses mine. I hope somebody remembers which song. I better write it down somewhere.

I'm so grateful for pop music--and films, and books and sometimes even TV shows. Painting rarely does it for me, or live theater, opera, sculpture . . . most of classic arts, sorry. I don't feel the passion--or it's a passion I can't internalize. I may be a dimwit, but pop culture speaks to me. The good stuff zaps right through me: I feel what he felt when he wrote it, when they played it like their life depended on it.

It's a gift. How how does it know to arrive just when I need it?

Thank you, The Gaslight Anthem. I've replayed the song at least eight times already--I'm afraid my neighbor below is going to walk up the stairway and complain--and it's not wearing out, not fading a bit.

I'm going to grab a Kleenex and then plug you into itunes, but youtube first, because I want to see more of that torutured smile. (Update: tons of free downloads at their myspace page.) Looking forward to plunging into your backlist. And hoping for many great moments to come.

I got a really nice message from my editor today. Alexandra Fuller, who wrote the critical hits and bestsellers Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, sent a really nice blurb for my book Columbine:

"Like Capote's In Cold Blood, this is a vivid exploration of the broken logic that drove two young men to commit a terrible, senseless crime. A stunning achievement -- clear-eyed, compassionate, thoroughly researched. However much we may want to, we cannot afford to look away."

How cool to get compared to Capote, and In Cold Blood. I freaking love that book.

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FYI, here are the previous blurbs. (My editor says I can't repeat them too much. hahaha. So I just added them to the sidebar, too):

"Half the anguish of Columbine is our mystification. How did those boys get so twisted, so murderous? Now, after nine years of great reporting, Dave Cullen has done the impossible: you will know these killers -- and it will shake you up. This is a big-time work that will endure."
        --Richard Ben Cramer, author of Joe DiMaggio and What It Takes

 
"Dave Cullen is the Dante of this high school hell. I came away from it thinking of Jack Nicholson hollering 'You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!'. Read this quietly powerful account of Columbine and find out if you can."
        --Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler and The Shakespeare Wars

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BTW, I would greatly appreciate any links to my book site -- http://davecullen.com/columbine.htm -- preferably with "Columbine" as the anchor text--so that google searches on "Columbine" find it. I'm currently ranked #16 on that keyword, and need to break into the top ten. So the completed link would look like this: Columbine.

Thanks.

I just saw The CBS Evening News, which described the new string of school shootings, different than Columbine, because they are committed by outsiders--adults. The reporter referred to this as 'puzzling.' I don't think so.

I really need to go to the gym to work out some of this anger and frustration, but I'll come back this evening after I've collected my thoughts on why.

Three hours after the hostage standoff at Platte Canyon High School ended, that seems to be the vexing question: Why did the cops move in?

I'm listening to talk radio here in Denver, and there is a lot of speculation about what was going on in that classroom to cause the cops to charge in. Some high-profile hosts and some of there guests are suggesting that the SWAT maneuver was a risky move, meaning that there was probably more happening than we now know about. I'm not going to repeat the rumors being bandied about, but there are plenty.

Yow. Those are some terrible questions to contemplate, and they are definitely burning for me tonight: What was happening in that classroom, and what calculation was made? Of the two hostages at the time, we now know that one survived without injury, one died. That's a terrible price, but it might have been twice as bad.

At this point, we don't know, but we are wondering.

As for other risk factors . . . I wonder. If you've read much about hostage negotiation, you'll know that this gunman was exhibiting very high risk factors already. I've spent a lot of time researching these situations for my Columbine book. I've also spent a great deal of time with retired FBI Agent Dwayne Fuselier, who led the Columbine investigation for the bureau. He is also one of the country's leading experts on hostage negotiation. 

Before he came to Colorado, he worked in the FBI's special hostage unit near Washington. His team studied a large number of critical incidents from around the country and drew several conclusions. His work is widely cited in scholarly work in the field, as well as the FBI's field manuals. You can see a really great document from the FBI here (Fuselier is cited, but not the author):

It's called 'Negotiation Concepts for Commanders,' and it was published in the 'FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,' in January 1999 (three months before Columbine.) It's available to anyone online as a PDF. It runs just nine pages, and it's written in a style that's easy for a layman to understand.

The crucial first question a negotiator faces, it stresses, is answering a deceptively simple question: Is this a hostage situation or non-hostage situation? That may sound too obvious to even mention, but it's not always as obvious as it may sound, and the consequences are crucial. All the suggested actions branch off from the answer to that question.

Today's situation sounds like an obvious hostage situation, but it actually has some of the trademarks of non-hostage. Consider these passage from the piece, starting on p. 7 (the second page of the piece--it begins on p. 6 of the journal. Also note that I use ellipses in order to give you a quick taste. I'm not editing to suit a particular line of thinking, just for brevity. I urge you to follow the link yourself):

'During hostage situations, subjects hold another person or persons for the purpose of forcing the fulfillment of substantive demands upon a third party, usually law enforcement. . . . Hostage-takers demonstrate goal-oriented and purposeful behavior. . . . The primary goal is not to harm the hostages. In fact, hostage takers realize that only through keeping the hostages alive can they hope to achieve their goals.

In nonhostage incidents, individuals act in an emotional, senseless, and often-self-destructive way. . . They are motivated by anger, rage, frustration, hurt, confusion or depression. They have no clear goals and often exhibit purposeless, self-defeating behavior.' They typically issue no demands, because 'What they want is what they already have, the victim. . . . The potential for homicide followed by suicide in many of these cases if very high.'

Still convinced we were dealing with a hostage situation? In reality, there were hostages. But from a negotiators' point of view, trying to comprehend and predict how his gunman is likely to react, he has to see past the obvious and I think he/she probably realized this afternoon that the gunman was exhibiting classic non-hostage-taker traits.

According to the Park County Sheriff's descriptions, the gunman was acting erratically and appeared to have no clear idea what he wanted to accomplish. He did not appear to seize the hostages with an agenda, but in some sort of desperation. Desperate people tend to do desperate things. Or as the FBI piece puts it, 'The potential for homicide followed by suicide in many of these cases if very high.'

The outcome bears that out: homicide followed by suicide is exactly what happened. Of course the SWAT team bursting into the room may have provoked that--or it might have just accelarated it. Not everyone responds to an attack by shooting the victim, much less killing himself. The fact that he did bolsters the probability that he had been erratic all along, and headed in that direction.

Consider also, how the negotiations were progressing. The same FBI piece cites eleven criteria for assessing progress. It states:

The following indicators signify progress and generally mean that current negotiation initiatives should continue. Specifically, since negotiations have begun:

• no additional deaths or injuries have resulted,
• the subject has reduced threats and is using less violent language,
• the subject's emotions have lowered,
• the subject has exhibited increased rationality in speech and action,
• deadlines have passed [Note from Dave. This one can be confusing; I believe it means that deadlines imposed by the subject have passed, without incident]
• the subject has become increasingly willing to bargain,
• the subject has lowered demands,
• the subject has released a hostage,
• the negotiator has built a rapport with the subject,
• the subject has made positive statements about the welfare of the hostage/victim and/or
• the subject has asked about the consequences of surrendering.

We don't have all the information yet, but from the sheriff's press conference, it sounded like only two of those eleven criteria had been met--the most basic two: letting hostages go and refraining from murder. And he had stopped releasing hostages and was giving an ultimatum, so progress there seems to have ended, too. All the other warning signs look pretty bleak, in this case.

If you start with the awareness that a situation like this begins with a high risk of murder/suicide, and then the gunmen fails to exhibit almost any of the indicators that suggest a diffusion . . .

Well, I guess I'd challenge the notion that there would have to have been more risk factors for a prudent commander to order an attack. I'll defer an opinion until I know more, because there is a great deal we don't know.

What I really suggest is that once we do know more, there may be a whole lot of screaming and yelling about it. And the command team's decisions may look wise or they may look foolish. But let's look at them with educated eyes. Just a few pages of reading on hostage-negotiation situations could clarify a great deal. It's just nine pages. Consider reading it.

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(Meanwhile, I feel like hell. This sure dredges up a lot of awful memories. I'm sure it's a hundred times worse for the people I've been working with the past seven years.)

Ugh. Too many of these lately.

And two recent ones from adults. The Montreal shooter did several things to make his Columbine-like, in an apparent desperate and disgusting attempt to garner more press. I hope that's not the case here, and/or a new pattern. These are awful enough for kids to do. Adults . . .

This is apparently still going on. No injuries yet, and hopefully it will stay that way.

This from the Denver Post:

A gunman is holding two girls hostage at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey.

Jefferson County spokesperson Jackie Kelley said the parents of the two students being held have not yet been notified.

She said there were no reported injuries, despite multiple shots fired. Originally, six students were taken hostage in a second-floor classroom, she said, but four had been released.

More than 20 jurisdictions have sent law enforcement support, and minor negotiations are underway with the gunman, but Kelley had no information about whether those negotiations had been successful.

Kelly said the gunman is an adult male, between 30 and 50 years old. He is armed, but the caliber of his weapon was unknown. Suspicious devices were found at the school, she said, prompting the bomb squad's response.

Park County authorities requested help from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department's bomb squad and SWAT team, said Jim Shires, Jefferson County sheriff's spokesman.

From the Rocky Mountain News:

BAILEY — Two Platte Canyon High School students remain in a second floor classroom with an armed man who walked into the school at took six hostages at noon today, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of students.

Four hostages were released uninjured, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Spokeswoman Jacki Kelley said.

Kelley said the gunman is an adult and not a student.

The students taken hostage were in an English college prep class.

At least one suspicious device needs to be checked by a bomb squad, she said.

Authorities continue to negotiate with the man, Kelley said, but are "sporadic."

There were no immediate reports of injuries at the schools in a narrow, winding canyon carved by the South Platte River about 35 miles southwest of Denver. The two schools have an enrollment of about 770 students, with 460 in the high school.

The Rocky also provided this link to google maps, with a satellite view.

You can zoom out to see the location better. The hybrid or map views-options (top, right of the screen) will help you see its location in relation to roads and towns. I made a view that puts it in better relation to Denver.

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UPDATE:

Rocky Mountain News update (same link; they're pasting over previous versions, apparently, which makes sense):

BAILEY — Two Platte Canyon High School students remain in a second floor classroom with an armed man who walked into the school, fired one shot and then at took six female students hostage at noon today, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of students and the closure of Highway 285.

Four hostages were released uninjured, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Spokeswoman Jacki Kelley said.

Authorities believe the man, who is carrying a handgun, is a parent, said Lance Clem of state Department of Public Safety.