Today is Suicide Prevention Day and my YouTube short interview series, Talking About Suicide Loss With…, is back from our covid hiatus. This series, along with The Silent Goldens documentary in production, is my effort to make the issues suicide loss survivors face part of the conversation that is, thankfully, growing nationwide about mental health. Conversations bring healing. Awareness brings help. Help brings hope.
For this occasion I am posting two segments, David Felton and his daughter, Caitlin, who I had the privilege of working with at MTV in the early 1990s. David was a writer and Caitlin was a producer in the promo department when we all helped bring the monumental Rolling Stone 25: The MTV Special – a retrospective of the magazine’s first 25 years – to the small screen. And, yes, since then they have celebrated their 50th.
Tragedy struck in January 2016 when Caitlin’s daughter Charlotte took her own life. I learned about it from mutual friends just as I was immersing myself in the suicide world and focusing on my own grief. I was so impressed when I learned Caitlin, David, and their whole family where being open about Charlotte’s death.
Less than three months after I saw David perform in a stage show telling stories with two other former MTV “old-timers” about working there in the very early, very innovative days. He spoke about his loss and I was so moved by his words and impressed by his grace and ability to keep his composure that when I started the series, they both were at the top of my list to interview. Since they didn’t have any silence to break, they could speak to how that helped them each deal with their loss and healing from the moment it happened. This past February – just before corona hit – I was able to connect with them in NY and am very grateful to them for sharing their stories.
David won a Pulitzer Prize as part of the LA Times staff covering the Watts Riots before joining the staff of Rolling Stone magazine where he and fellow journalist David Dalton won a National Magazine Award in 1971 for their five part series on Charles Manson and his “family.” He also edited Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In 1981, David got sober, gave up journalism and did some comedy writing before landing at MTV where he helped develop Beavis and Butthead and rose to Senior Vice President. He is the author and editor of Mindfuckers: A Source Book on the Rise of Acid Fascism in America.
David’s interview: https://youtu.be/WzMas1ACYlA
Caitlin began her career producing and directing promos and show opens at MTV Networks, winning numerous BDA, ACE & Telly Awards for her visual design and storytelling. She became a sought-after commercial director and created ad campaigns for clients including Crayola, Subway and Medicare and filmed her own short documentary, Brick by Brick, about the creation of a brick cooperative the empowered Rwanda women to supply building materials for an education center. Caitlin co-founded Detox Films with her husband, Barney, where she works as the Director/Creative Director.
Caitlin’s interview: https://youtu.be/P0qVioimeAc
