Matthew
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"Reality and myth merge in the quarries – and like the light and dark, it’s tough to tell where one ends and the other begins"
Male
37 years old
Las Vegas, Nevada
United States
Last Login:7/23/2008
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http://www.myspace.com/beneaththeneon |
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Matthew's Interests
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| General | Art, food, music, silence, movies, sports, coffee shops, trivia, yoga, hiking, biking, San Francisco, journalism, literature, history, traveling and urban exploring. | | Music | Tom Waits, Saul Williams, Bruce Springsteen, Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley, Ani DiFranco, the Smiths, OutKast, Neutral Milk Hotel, R.E.M., Ben Harper, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Ray LaMontagne and Ryan Adams. | | Movies | Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy, the Commitments, Five Easy Pieces, High Noon, Barton Fink, From Here to Eternity, Natural Born Killers, Gandhi, Amadeus, Erin Brockovich, the Godfather, Russian Ark, Sophie's Choice, the Lost Weekend, the Last Metro, Roger and Me, Friday, Manhattan, Badlands and Ghost Dog. | | Television | A&E, CNN, PBS, MTV2, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, SportsCenter, Jeopardy, the First 48 and 60 Minutes. | | Books | Desert Solitaire, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, How I Got Cultured, Don Quixote, the Catcher in the Rye, Where I’m Calling From, the Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills, Sweet Promised Land and In Dubious Battle.
I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4 |
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Matthew's Details
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| Status: | Single | | Here for: | Networking, Friends | | Zodiac Sign: | Virgo | | Occupation: | Writer and editor |
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Matthew's Latest Blog Entry
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Now that was cool!
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Panel discussion
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The exhibit
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Exhibit reminder
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Las Vegas Sun
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Matthew's Blurbs |
About me:
Matthew O’Brien is the author of Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas. The creative nonfiction book chronicles his adventures in the Las Vegas storm drains, which he explored for four and a half years with a flashlight, tape recorder and expandable baton for protection.
The catacombs of ancient Rome served as houses of worship for Jews and Christians. When surveyed in the early 1800s, the sewers of Paris yielded gold, jewels and relics of the revolution. And thousands of people lived in the subway and train tunnels of New York City in the 1980s and '90s.
What secrets do the Las Vegas storm drains keep? What discoveries wait in the dark? What’s beneath the neon?
Las Vegas writer and editor Matthew O’Brien sought to answer these questions. Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas details his many journeys into this uncharted underworld. He follows the footsteps of a psycho killer. He two-steps under the MGM Grand at 3 in the morning. He chases the ghosts of Benny Binion, Bugsy Siegel, Elvis, Frank Sinatra and Howard Hughes. He learns how to make meth, that art is most beautiful where it’s least expected and that there are no pots of gold under the neon rainbow.
"Continually contrasting the sparkling casinos above with the dank, cobwebbed catacombs below, the observant O'Brien writes with a noirish flair, but his compassion is also evident as he illuminates the lives of these shadowy subterranean dwellers." Publishers Weekly
"You won’t want to put this book down. But when you do, you’ll want a very hot shower." Kansas City Star
"The Huntington Press title is the freshest approach on the Vegas idea in a long time." Las Vegas Review-Journal
"Through his exquisite reporting, O'Brien paints a starkly different portrait of the city than the one you get while playing the $25 table at the Bellagio." mediabistro.com
"Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas is nothing short of fascinating: O’Brien captures the fragile and often heartbreaking stories of people who would like nothing more than to not stay in Vegas, to be taken somewhere else completely. The lucky may get that wish; the unlucky may find themselves washed away, literally, by monsoon-driven surges of desert flood water." E! Online
"From retracing a murderer's escape route and learning how to make meth from a tunnel dweller to partying with naked crackheads and dancing under the MGM Grand, this photo-filled account proves that the only place more surreal than the Vegas strip is beneath it." Wired
To view pictures from the book, visit the Pics section of this page.
To buy Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas, visit www.shoplva.com/productdetail.cfm?ItemNumber=1495.
For more info, visit www.beneaththeneon.com.
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Who I'd like to meet:
Anyone who shows up at the panel discussion July 17.
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