LA Times reporter Scott Martelle sent us this photo from the reading he held at the 107 Bar in downtown Los Angeles for Blood Passion, a history of the Ludlow Massacre, an assault by the Colorado National Guard on the families of striking coal miners in April 1914 that left 20 dead, the majority of them children. “The inadvertent highlight was when a guy at the bar wandered back to where we had gathered for some blues by fellow staff writer Louis Sahagun and my 17-year-old son Michael,” Martelle tells us, “asking for the guy who wrote the book. Then he pulls up his t-shirt to reveal a tattoo with the word Ludlow and a handful of gravestones. Thought we had a great zen moment but then he says Ludlow is his last name and the gravestones represent dead relatives.” Still, I wish we had a picture of that!
Martelle’s heading to Colorado for readings next week; we understand his appearance at Denver’s Tattered Cover bookstore may well be recorded for BookTV. Oh, and about that tattoo guy, Scott emailed us this morning: “You ask, you get.”