A great California writer, Kaleb Horton, has died, reportedly during a seizure. He was one of my contemporaries and we were friendly, though not close. Most of the times we chatted, he was looking for work — did I know of anything? — and mostly I felt ashamed because I knew he’d do something good whenever given a chance, but there were no chances I could give him. That was just the state of things for most good writers these days. I don’t think Kaleb would have been offended by my saying this (except maybe that I couldn’t figure out how to work in a solid joke), but his death at an absurdly untimely age is congruent with his life’s work, which was filled with pathos both in content and production. It’s all part of a complete whole, like a perfect Country Western song, written sadly and sung sadly for the people born to cry.
Kaleb was an obsessed observer of “old” California, which is often just the California that’s still hanging out around the back: Think of the glammest neighborhood you can, then drive five miles in any land-bound direction. But also all the strange and ragged characters we either import or manufacture for cultural distribution — the Merle Haggards, the David Lynches, the Harry Dean Stantons whom he often wrote about. Kaleb himself was a screw-loose guy cursed by an extremely particular congenital defect: He was a born magazine writer long past the day when being a magazine writer was something you could make much a name for yourself doing. If you are a Californian and care about literary journalism and hadn’t heard the name Kaleb Horton, well, that’s part of the whole sad story.
Although I’m tempted to point you at Kaleb’s demonically funny stuff, like his wrathful, insane hatred of the “Entourage” movie, I should just let Kaleb play himself out as he’d done for his heroes. As the lapsed Bakersfielder wrote when he recently re-shared his obituary of Merle Haggard:
I can’t actually read this piece ever again because it was really me working through the feeling that the Bakersfield I knew, old labor camps and canals and Dust Bowl grit, was going away, and I was doing that thing where you realize your concept of home is going away and you have to make your own now. And you won’t ever get there. You’ll never feel home in the same way ever again. All you’ve got is memory, a place where you can’t live.
My condolences to Kaleb’s loved ones, and to all those who loved him, for all the heartbreaks that don’t fully heal up.
I found Kaleb in his apartment last night. He looked sweet and at peace with God. He believed in his Lord Jesus Christ and always spoke of his friends in journalism. He loved Los Angeles more than I wanted him to. He loved the real parts, the gritty parts that captured his soul. He was a dear, wonderful person full of talent and big, big dreams. Nothing can ever take his place. No one is quite like him. Hunter S Thompson had nothing on him. I hope you all know how much your kind words mean to me. I will miss him until we are together again with our Lord. Look for him in kindness from others and in the everyday beauty he saw in things that lots of people overlook. God Bless you all and his dear faithful brothers who will deeply miss his humor and their Monday afternoon Mario Kart races…which he never won.
"If you are a Californian and care about literary journalism and hadn’t heard the name Kaleb Horton, well, that’s part of the whole sad story."
It me, as the kids used to say. I am sorry for your loss and sorry to have only heard of Kaleb through the outpouring of heartfelt tributes today.