Showing results by narrator "Jim Goad" in All Categories

What do most people think of Idaho? Well, see, that's the problem - they don't think of Idaho. Despite its breathtaking natural beauty and the fact that it's crammed to the gills with eccentrics and freethinkers, Idaho may as well be the moon as far as the rest of America is concerned. Jim Goad recently spent a week in Idaho mingling with state troopers, political extremists, collegiate progressives, and heartbreakingly friendly locals.

On a warm spring evening in 1982, 37-year-old accountant Margaret Barbera left work in New York City and walked to the parking lot where she kept her BMW. Finding the lock on the driver’s side jammed, she went to the passenger’s side. A man leaned through the open window of a van parked in the next spot, pressed a silenced pistol to the back of Margaret’s head, and fired. She was dead before she hit the pavement. It was a professional hit, meticulously planned - but the killer didn’t expect three employees of the nearby CBS TV studios to stumble onto the scene of the crime.

If Andy Warhol could have anticipated the Internet, he would have said it’s where everyone will be stalked for at least 15 minutes. Notorious underground author Jim Goad describes himself as “a lowly neutrino in the vast universe of celebrity,” yet he attracts a certain breed of demented fan that treats him as if he’s the second coming of Christ - that is, until they feel he’s somehow snubbed them, at which point he transforms into Satan.