‘CarnivĂ le’ Creator, Nick Searcy Read Last Rites to California
Artists bemoan once-great state, now bludgeoned by ineffective, one-party rule
Daniel Knauf created a dystopian take on the Great Depression with HBO’s “CarnivĂ le.”
The cult series ran for just two seasons, but many fondly recall its premise and spiritual themes. The saga earned five Emmys and remains part of TV’s new Golden Age.
Carnivale: Another hidden HBO gem 💎 pic.twitter.com/g4U3WVwdVw
— Stephanie Rosendorf Diaz (@srosendorf1014) October 6, 2024
Now, Knauf is mourning the decline of a very real realm, once lovingly dubbed the “Golden State.”
The former Calif. resident, whose credits include “The Blacklist,” “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” and “Supernatural,” penned a somber ode to his former home on X.
I was born in California. Second generation native Angeleno.
For 60 years, it was my home. I vigorously defended it against all the trash-talkers. But the slow, grinding circle around the drain began around 2005 and inexorably continued until the insane policies under Covid…
— Daniel Knauf 👹🌎 (@daniel_knauf) July 7, 2025
The Great Rotting began in inland Orange County and gradually metastasized until communities that had once possessed distinctive, unique cultures merged into a big, bland, vaguely shitty blob.
To me, the definitive image of the death of my California was the helicopter shot of bulldozers filling in the Venice skate parks. That was my Tiananmen Square—the moment I knew that “we” had been outnumbered by “them” and there was no longer any vestige left of the Golden State that raised me.
Worse, there was no going back.
My California is dead.
In its place is a ghastly, shambling, zombie-version of itself; the animated corpse of Gidget, her decomposing, desiccated flesh squeezed into a teeny-weeny polka-dot bikini soiled with glistening body-fluids…
To those who fight for what was, I salute you and wish you well. But I loved California too much to inhabit the shell of it.
Veteran actor/director Nick Searcy chimed in on Knauf’s note, detailing his relationship with what appears to many as a failed state.
I concur with @daniel_knauf.
I moved to LA in 1992 to further my acting career. It was an exciting, vibrant city, buoyed by a film industry teeming with opportunity. For about 20 years, I had the time of my life there.
Then it turned sour. Even during the 2010-2015 run of… https://t.co/z7iRc3cKib
— Nick Searcy, Actor/Director/Producer/Author (@yesnicksearcy) July 7, 2025
The film industry is gone. I began saying 20 years ago that LA would wind up being only the already rich people and their servants, since the middle class would not be able to survive. All that has come true.
I miss the old LA like a dearly departed friend. But just like them, it is gone forever.
Leftists are locusts. They destroy everything.
RIP, Los Angeles.
Novelist and screenwriter Gigi Levangie (“Stepmom”) echoed Knauf’s lament.
Hi, Daniel! 3rd generation, here. Born and raised in working class, immigrant Hollywood. I’ve lived everywhere from West Adams to Beachwood Cyn to the Palisades and Malibu Colony – I moved but grieve for my home and still love it. But the people you describe make it unlivable.
— Gigi Levangie (@GigiLevangie) July 7, 2025
Even a few Left-leaning Hollywood denizens have had enough of the state’s soaring homeless rates, wildfire mismanagement and other chronic ills.
Second generation born in Inglewood 1956. the best sate in the union.
now the most rapidly developing third world state on earth.
I’m sorry to say I don’t feel sorry for them. I’m no Einstein but, how long do you keep doing the same thing before you realize there is something wrong here and we better rethink this. I will bet anything that the next Governor to be elected will be a Demoncrat and the Legislature will say in their hands and then it will be another year of people walking around going “How did this happen”. Sorry if your going to continue banging your head against a brick wall don’t come crying to me that you have a headache.
And WHAT , or rather WHO, initiated this demise and fueled the disaster? In issues where misery and decay occur – THANK A DEMOcrat! Look at the population of ILLEGALS and how they have essentially captured the social benefits and rewarded DEMOcrats with VOTES (probably MANY illegal ones)! There was a proposal years ago to split CA into FIVE STATES. One would be an insane asylum and the other four would be decent, SANE, common sense State of Freedom and Prosperity! Of course you’d need laws to prevent the invasion from the INSANERS!!