Love, Loss, Long Beach

Christian Slander, a man on a journey, going from a Rock & Roll lifestyle, living like a Rockstar, touring around the country, living above a Punk Rock bar, chasing wild women, getting high and drunk, to being forced into the adult world, plain old Christiaan Pasquale, having to take up a job driving 18-wheelers, working fourteen-hour days, sleepless nights, long, lonely roads, overworked, underpaid, isolated, and hopeless.His friends are strung out losers, his pockets are empty in spite of working like a dog, his health is failing, delirious with exhaustion, seeking some semblance of his former life.He's had a longing, one that's haunted him for decades, a name, a woman, one that was always out of reach. Someone he deemed his soulmate in spite of her barely acknowledging his existence...Miss Lourdes Malum.With nothing else to lose, he decides to roll the dice and pursue the woman of his dreams. Along the way, he faces ghosts from his past, loses people precious to him, contends with his discontent, the passing of time, the cops, the crooks, the bosses, the futile stride for fulfillment, the ugly world he sought to escape for most of his adult life. He learns many lessons along the way, about love, loss, and in the end, his ability to survive it all.

Christiaan A. Pasquale has been a writer, musician, and filmmaker in the Los Angeles underground scene for the last 28 years. His roots are grounded in a life long romance with the city and the light and dark sides of its streets. Christiaan Angelo Pasquale was born in Fullerton California to Jan and Victor Pasquale on July 29th, 1972. He excelled in theater in high school as an actor, playwright, and director. After graduating he moved to Hollywood to study at The Lee Strasberg Theater Institute but quickly became disillusioned with acting and fell in love with the Beat Poets and the mid-20th-century literature. He got on a train bound for nowhere, in particular, to see Kerouac's America, and forever thereafter focused on writing music, poetry, and short stories.He moved out of Hollywood and settled in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District in 1996, and lived and worked there for 12 years. Fronting the Psychobilly band The Slanderin as Christian Slander, he has toured extensively in the U.S. and England. He recently finished a documentary film which he wrote and directed, about his working-class upbringing called Angels & Oranges. Pasquale's column, The Christiaan Bible (a collection of short stories) has been published in Destroy All Monthly, Rabid Magazine, Hellcat Magazine, and even got a mention in Vogue. He's published three collections of poems and short stories A Marked Man~ The Misspelled Ramblings and Pointless Poems of Christian Slander, You Can't Lose if You Don't Want to Win~ Memoirs of a Charming Loser, and his latest, Violets & Vitriol He lives in Los Angeles and continues to work as a writer