Monkees lead singer Davy Jones has taken the last  train to Clarksville, and for fans of the iconic 60s band, it’s become an un-Pleasant Valley Wednesday as news of the singer’s death at age 66 from a massive heart attack hit Facebook. The Monkees were formed in 1966 as for-television version of the Beatles. Though a created band, the group–which included Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork–fought for the right to control the music put out under their names.

Though the Monkees series only ran for two seasons on television, the band continued to record and perform through 1970–at one point the Jimi Hendrix Experience was the group’s opening act–and making the commercial flop/cult favorite movie HEAD with Jack Nicholson, and their songs left an indelible impression on young fans and generations to come, with MTV and Nickelodeon spawning an outbreak of Monkees fever. The group reunited and toured as recently as the summer of 2011.

No word yet if the Mormons plan to baptize Jones.

Bandmate Michael Nesmith posted this on his Facebook page:

All the lovely people. Where do they all come from? So many lovely and heartfelt messages of condolence and sympathy, I don’t know what to say, except my sincere thank you to all. I share and appreciate your feelings.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. While it is jarring, and sometimes seems unjust, or strange, this transition we call dying and death is a constant in the mortal experience that we know almost nothing about. I am of the mind that it is a transition and I carry with me a certainty of the continuity of existence. While I don’t exactly know what happens in these times, there is an ongoing sense of life that reaches in my mind out far beyond the near horizons of mortality and into the reaches of infinity.

That David has stepped beyond my view causes me the sadness that it does many of you. I will miss him, but I won’t abandon him to mortality. I will think of him as existing within the animating life that insures existence. I will think of him and his family with that gentle regard in spite of all the contrary appearances on the mortal plane.

David’s spirit and soul live well in my heart, among all the lovely people, who remember with me the good times, and the healing times, that were created for so many, including us.

I have fond memories. I wish him safe travels.

(photo: alynch)

Today, a seriously good old-fashioned scandalous divorce trial hits the courts so I’m hightailing it downtown to LA County court to watch the unfolding. It’s Getty versus Getty as Jacqui Getty seeks divorce from her husband of 10 years, the filthy, rich and filthy-rich Gordon Peter Getty, known as Peter, whose father Gordon is worth $2.5 billion. Jacqui reveals a scenario ripped from an episode of Cops, except it takes place in several mansions instead of a double-wide or stucco suburban split level:

Jacqui seeks a restraining order, claiming in addition to inflicting physical injuries, Peter threatened to have her killed. Here’s the back story that takes this sordid tale out of the trailer park and into the glamour zone.

Jacqui de La Fontiane was a working-class teenager, pregnant with daughter Gia when her boyfriend and baby’s father, Gian-Carlo Coppola–son of Francis Ford Coppola–was killed in a boating accident. The Academy Award-winning director took care of Jacqui and Gia, incorporating them into his family, buying a house for them in the Hollywood Hills. He even walked Jacqui down the aisle when she married Peter Getty.

Wow! Single mom with cool career– Jacqui worked as a film and video costumer and a fashion stylist for “Harper’s Bazaar”–marries super-rich guy with arty aspirations. How fairy-tale perfect! At one point Getty had his own band and had written an opera when he was still in his twenties; he also occasionally wrote a music blog under a pseudonym. Her celebrity friends Leo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore were in frequent attendance at her stylish parties. Her filmmaking family included Sofia Coppola (Francis’s daughter), Jason Schwartzman (son of Francis’s sister Talia Shire) and Nicolas (Coppola) Cage. Peter loved being included in the tight-knit clan–who wouldn’t relish watching Nic sing “Sister Christian” on Francis’s karaoke machine at Gia’s pre-teen birthday party? On his own, Peter had–well, cousin Balthazar, arty aspirations, and what appears to be in retrospect a rather substantial appetite for partying.

During the marriage, Peter founded a record label, Emperor Norton, which had some nepotistic success, releasing the soundtracks to Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation before shuttering. But mostly his life was filled with people trying to get their hands on his money in one way or another. He always seemed a prisoner of his dazzling last name.

Then in June 2009 Peter decided he wanted to make another dream come true: He wanted to be a real blogger, so Peter and his brother Billy began writing a column for the “San Francisco Chronicle”’s SFGate. Within hours of publication, Peter Getty got into an embarrassing online feud with Gawker which rightfully called out the Brothers Getty on their self-entitled, self-indulgent wankery.

Peter Getty caved to Gawker’s jabs and jibes, trying to make nice after experiencing just a couple days of cyber snarking. Truly, the Getty columns for SFGate were tragic, unfunny, puerile. And they lasted a mere two months. When the brothers started writing the blog, “What the Butler Didn’t See,” Peter claimed he found

real work. . . wearisome.

Like when he ran a record label, Getty seemed to come to the conclusion that jobs–even blogging ones–are um. . . work.

And maybe there’s something else problematic and destroying of potential here, aside from just being rich and not needing to earn a living: Peter Getty’s admitted drug use, which is a key point in the divorce trial, since it may form the foundation for his alleged online porn addiction, the extra-marital affairs and the domestic violence.

More to come. . . .