Sunday, April 26, 2015

Fifteen Things I've Done That You May Not Have Done*

*or may not want to have done
PS These are only the ones I would let my mother read.

By Kristi Belcamino

Sometimes I feel like I've lived many lives. Here are some of the odder things that have happened in my life. So far.


1. Got up close and personal at an autopsy of a drug overdose. Smelled the dead guy later for hours as I went about the rest of my day.
2. Attended several barbecues at the morgue. The deputies liked to grill in the oversize garage where the big body vans parked. We’d grill and then carry our meat back past the big freezers and through the autopsy room into the morgue offices. I always worried meningitis germs or something else would jump on my hamburger before I got it in my mouth.
3. Flew in an FA/18 jet with the Blue Angels over Big Sur. Click link for video of it, but be warned it includes barfing footage.
4. Had Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson ask to be introduced to me once while I was eating breakfast at a restaurant because he liked a newspaper article I had written about a man who crashed his car while naked and masturbating.
5. Lived with Beck and his family in a Mara Salvatrucha gang neighborhood in South Koreatown L.A.
6. Shook hands with President Bill Clinton while he was in office.
7. Raced a Dodge Viper at Laguna Seca Raceway.
8. Had Jerry Seinfeld roll his eyes at me. For no good reason.
9. Was with San Jose homicide detectives during the first twelve hours of their murder investigation, including going into the living room of a house to notify parents their son had been murdered.
10. Had a K9 save my life. He jumped on a man with a knife running toward me in an empty parking lot. When the dog attacked the man, he killed the dog with the knife and it gave me time to get in my car and lock the doors. The cops arrived seconds later and surrounded the man, guns drawn, right in front of my windshield.
11. Got a message on my phone at the newspaper from Clint Eastwood where he talked about an unfortunate printing mistake in the local weekly that gave him a HUGE bulge-y shadow in a particularly unfortunate (?) spot on his thigh.
12. One night in L.A. my job was to escort porn star Traci Lords around a rave at the Shrine Auditorium.  (I also got to talk to Dennis Leary and Pee Wee Herman as part of the event coordinator for this fundraiser rave.)
13. Was in the lead cop car in a high-speed police pursuit on a San Francisco Bay Area freeway. Trust me when I say my life flashed before my eyes.
14. Slept in my hatchback car in a parking garage in Jersey City. For three nights. Each morning washed up with the homeless people in the bathrooms at the transit station before I went into NYC for the day. (Give me a break, I was broke and young and wanted to visit the city.)
15. Spent hours talking to a serial killer and received dozens of phone calls and letters from him, which spawned the idea for my first book.



1 comment:

Dana King said...

That's a good list. I'm not even going to try to compete with it, though I may appear to be stalking you at Bouchercon. Things seem to happen around you.