Rodger Jacobs

Rodger Jacobs (March 12, 1959 – July 5, 2016) was an American journalist, writer, author, film producer, columnist, playwright, editor and screenwriter.

Career

Jacobs was a journalist for publications such as ''Salon'', ''Los Angeles Review of Books'', ''Las Vegas Sun'', '' Eye'', ''Hustler'' and ''PopMatters''. He also worked for many years as an '' AVN'' award-winning adult film industry screenwriter and trade journalist.

In 1999, Jacobs wrote an essay, ''Running with the Wolves: Jack London and the Cult of Masculinity.'' In 2010, Jacobs provided the preface for ''Jack London: San Francisco Stories'', an anthology for Sydney Samizdat Press.

''Go Irish: The Purgatory Diaries of Jason Miller'', a play based on actor Jason Miller, known for the role of Father Damien Karras in the film ''The Exorcist'', that Jacobs co-wrote with Tom Flannery, had its world premiere in 2007 and continues to be displayed in various theatrical venues in Pennsylvania and upstate New York with actor Robert Thomas Hughes, a childhood friend of Jason Miller. Writing in ''Stage'' magazine, critic Jack Shaw hailed ''Purgatory Diaries'' as "a stirring examination of celebrity madness." ''Go Irish'' was performed again in 2015 by Robert Thomas Hughes.

In 2007, Jacobs wrote and directed a live presentation, ''The Ragged Promised Land'', for the Vesuvio Cafe and The Beat Museum in San Francisco to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac's ''On the Road''. In 2009, he released ''Mr. Bukowski's Wild Ride'', a collection of original surrealist fiction, for exclusive consignment sale at City Lights Books in San Francisco; writing in the ''Self-Publishing Review'', author Henry Baum cited the book as "another piece to add to (Bukowski's) towering myth … it also gets to the soul of the man … as funny as any of Bukowski's own writing."

Jacobs' controversial series for the Pulitzer Prize-winning ''Las Vegas Sun'', ''The New Homeless'', about Jacobs and his girlfriend Lela Michael and their experiences with homelessness in Las Vegas, elicited praise and commentary from ''LA Weekly'', ''Witness LA'', ''The Awl'' and '' La Presse.'' The series was also the subject of a three part documentary by Katharine Euphrat featuring Rodger Jacobs and Lela Michael.

''Silver Birch Press'' published Jacobs' original work ''The Furthest Palm'' in August 2012. Jacobs describes "Palm" as a series of "heavily autobiographical stories that were woven into the tapestry of a novel", and "postmodern L.A. noir heavily influenced by Raymond Chandler, Leonard Gardner ("Fat City"), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Pat Hobby Stories", as well as Ernest Hemingway's "The Nick Adams Stories."

In December 2012, Jacobs' collection of short fiction and novellas, ''Invisible Ink'' (The Book Motel), was lauded as the "most exemplary L.A. book of 2012" by Joseph Mailander in his ''City Watch L.A.'' column.

''Salon'' and ''Los Angeles Review of Books'' published Jacobs' Franz Kafka themed essay in January 2013 entitled ''Did Kafka Invent Noir?''

Jacobs was also a film producer best known for being the screenwriter and producer of the 1998 documentary '' Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes''.

Death

Jacobs died at home on July 5, 2016, in Los Angeles, California.

After learning of Jacobs' death, Jacobs' former girlfriend Lela Michael attempted to preserve his archives yet failed to do so since the two were never married. Lela Michael called off her efforts and died from cancer in Lake County, California on July 28, 2016, twenty-four days after Jacobs' passing.

References

External links

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Rodger Jacobs
at ''PopMatters''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacobs, Rodger
American male journalists
American columnists
American literary critics
American male screenwriters
American male dramatists and playwrights
American alternative journalists
American political writers
American editors
Film producers from California
American male short story writers
American documentary film producers
American bloggers
Writers from San Francisco
1959 births
2016 deaths
20th-century American short story writers
21st-century American short story writers
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
Screenwriters from California
American male bloggers