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While I realize this blog’s audience comes for the cheesecake and stays for the humour, no funny business shall be found at present moment. I am a firm believer that humour is one of the best damn things in life, and, most of the time, I can use comedy to work through my anger on any given topic. However, I am quite disgusted about something, and I am not even gonna pretend that this doesn’t make me absolutely furious. Since the deaths of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake (lovers, companions, and “co-muses”), their memories have been trashed. The culprit? Oh, just an establishment that is known for its heavy-handed influence in Hollywood. You tell me.

In June 2007, Theresa L. Duncan, a filmmaker, blogger, and a kindred soul on all matters related to Kate Moss and Pete Doherty, took her own life by way of a diphenhydramine and alcohol cocktail. A week later, Jeremy Blake followed her into the abyss by drowning himself in the Atlantic Ocean off Rockaway Beach. Within a few months, a random jackass began shopping a script based upon the couple’s imagined sex life around. Vanity Fair magazine waited about six months before painting a paranoid picture of Duncan and Blake in an article entitled, “The Golden Suicides.” Now, primetime television has followed suit, and, if you’re wondering just what this is all about, Fishbowl L.A. nicely summarizes:

Law and Order Depicts Theresa Duncan’s Death

But there was a twist - the writer character was murdered instead of committing suicide and the cult harassing her had a leader that isn’t publishing books from the gave. Crazy. Plus on TV - the cult was totally innocent - it was the insane paranoia and hatred AT the cult that lead the husband to murder his wife and throw himself off a building to try and give the cult bad publicity. And it was that same paranoia and hatred that made him confess instead of accepting an impending mistrial.

Ripped from the headlines.

The ever gallant Flea voices his anger: “Law and Order has violated the memory of Theresa Duncan and slandered Jeremy Blake as a murderer.” That is exactly what happened on the “Law and Order” of April 30th, which has been discussed in detail at Television Without Pity:

Jeremy Sisto mentioned in a recent interview that he enjoyed working on “… an episode about Scientology. I have friends who are Scientologists, so I hope they aren’t offended.”

Surely, the families of Blake and Duncan must be offended. Did ya think of that?

For his part, Jeremy Blake was a well-respected artist who created, among other things, the abstract hallucination scenes in 2002’s Punch Drunk Love. Blake was also hired by Beck, musician and celebrity Scientologist, for some cover work for one of his albums. Blake and Duncan had also been friends with Marisa and Giovanni Ribisi for a number of years. About the same time that these friendships dissolved, the alleged harassment from the COS began.

At the time of their suicides, Blake and Duncan both genuinely believed they were being harassed by Scientologists, and Theresa remained frustrated that production had halted for a movie based upon one of her scripts, which happened to somewhat criticize the cult. She had a hunch that Tom Cruise, who possessed the requisite access and power, had blocked the film. That certainly sounds reasonable, since his control-freak tendencies are quite notorious. Did Cruise actually do it? We’ll never know, but it’s time for any “interested parties” to stop the madness of destroying the legacies of Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan. Let. Them. Rest. In. Peace.