John Buntin's L.A. Noir Crime Tour

http://www.esotouric.com/lanoir

John Buntin's L.A. Noir Crime Tour

LA. NOIR uncovers the secret criminal history of Los Angeles that inspired writers and filmmakers for generations and profoundly shaped the city we live in today. Get on the bus as the whole filthy truth is spread out before you, on the first new Esotouric bus adventure of 2009.

Novelist Michael Connelly calls L.A. NOIR "fascinating, flat out entertaining," Kirkus Reviews raves, "A roller coaster ride…. gripping social history and a feast for aficionados of cops-and-robbers stories, both real and imagined," and USC historian Kevin Starr says the book is "a tour de force of non-fiction narrative."

Now John Buntin, the author of "L.A. NOIR: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City" (Random House), brings his groundbreaking book to life with a guided tour of the haunts, "hits," and harems where some of the most shocking and influential moments of 20th century crime history played out and an introduction to the two men whose rivalry profoundly shaped Los Angeles — one L.A.'s most notorious gangster, the other its most controversial police chief.

Former street thug turned featherweight boxer, Mickey Cohen left the ring for the rackets, first as mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel's enforcer, then as his protégé and successor. A fastidious dresser and an unrepentant killer, the diminutive Cohen was Hollywood's favorite gangster — and L.A.'s preeminent underworld boss. Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum, and Sammy Davis Jr. palled around with him; TV journalist Mike Wallace wanted his stories; evangelist Billy Graham sought his soul, declaring memorably that the fast-quipping gangster "has the making of one of the greatest gospel preachers of all time."

William H. Parker was the proud son of a pioneering law enforcement family from the fabled frontier town of Deadwood. As a rookie patrolman in the Roaring Twenties, he discovered that LA was ruled by a shadowy "Combination" of tycoons, politicians, and underworld bosses. His life mission became to topple it — and to create a police force that would never answer to elected officials again.

For more than three decades, from Prohibition through the Watts Riots, their struggle convulsed the city, intersecting in the process with the agendas and ambitions of J. Edgar Hoover and Bobby Kennedy, Mike Wallace and Billy Graham, Lana Turner and Malcolm X, and inspiring writers from Raymond Chandler to James Ellroy. Its outcome shaped American policing and the history of Los Angeles, fueling racial distrust that sparked the Watts riots and continues to this day.

From the streets of Boyle Heights to the downtown movie palaces where the young Bill Parker worked as an usher — and Mickey Cohen commenced his life of crime, Esotouric's luxurious coach passenger bus will revisit the haunts where Parker mentor James "Two Gun" Davis played William Tell — and the gutter where "the Combination" disposed of the garroted bodies of those who dared to cross it. We'll stop by "the glass house," visit the apartment tapped by LAPD sergeant Charles Stoker and "sound technician" Jimmy Vaus as well as the site of Billy Graham's "canvass cathedral," which launched Rev. Graham as a celebrity preacher and began his curious effort to "save" Mickey Cohen. We'll check into Cohen's old commission office, hear a first-hand account of how Mickey operated, and visit the Lincoln Heights jail, where on Christmas 1951 events transpired that inspired the opening of the book L.A. Confidential. With Kim Cooper, the creator of Esotouric's true crime tours and founding editrix of the new website www.inSROland.org riding shotgun, there will also be plenty of surprises. So get on the bus and get ready to meet the Dragnet-era LAPD — and the "the Mickey Mouse Mafia" — on this the first new Esotouric bus adventure of 2009.

Weird Las Vegas and Nevada

Weird Las Vegas and Nevada is the new book by Tim Cridland, better know to many by his stage name Zamora the Torture King.

Weird Las Vegas is the latest in the Weird US series, which started with Weird New Jersey. Each of the Weird US books covers the legends, folklore, personalized properties, eccentric people and events, outlandish rumors and of the different States.

Why was Zamora selected to write Weird Las Vegas? The Las Vegas weekly newspaper City Life explained it well when they wrote "...the selection isn't so puzzling. Turns out Zamora's real name is Tim Cridland, a Las Vegan who, before he decided to make a living by sticking spikes through his face, used to publish a 'zine devoted to the weird called Off the Deep End. This venture allowed him to indulge in his passion for sideshow acts by forming one himself with the help of friends. His act would eventually evolve into the Jim Rose Circus, which toured not just Lollapalooza but the world. If Cridland's name (or pierced profile) seems familiar, it's because you've seen him on shows like Ripley's TV, Guinness World Records and 48 Hours. Oh, and he already co-wrote the book Circus of the Scars, a history of the early years and rise (if you can call it that) to infamy of the Jim Rose Circus."

Here is what the reviews have said about Weird Las Vegas and Nevada:

"Do not venture into the Silver State without this guidebook..." --- Richard Menziez

"This book is a must if you visited or live in Las Vegas... Buy this book is worth every dollar!!!!!" --- Paul A. Vincent

"This is a great book for anyone’s collection on Nevada. The stories are interesting, well-done, and the quality of the book is superb."
--- Ryan Jerz's blog

"Anyone ... curious about some of the off-the-wall history facts; plus ghosts, bizarre architecture; unusual places to visit; UFO’s will have a field day with this nicely-priced guidebook to the Silver State should get a copy of Weird Las Vegas and Nevada. Beautifully illustrated, easy-indexed and covering everything from Busy Siegel to Elvis, Area 51, Liberace, thrill rides, strange museums, roadside oddities and more, it’s a “gee-whiz” book with class and character. It approaches this unique state like no other travel guide."
--- Howard Schwartz Gambler's Book Club

"...add Weird Las Vegas to your collection of quirky books about Sin City" --- Las Vegas City Life

You can get a copy signed copy of Weird Las Vegas, direct from the author, postage paid, for only $20.00, less than it costs at a store. Plus, you will also get a copy of the article Fear and Loafing in Las Vegas from the newspaper Los Angeles Alternative Press. This is a mini-guide to Weird Las Vegas written by Zamora and is one of the things that lead to the contract to write the book.

Los Angeles Alternative Press is now out of business and the article can no longer be found on the Internet. I saved a stack of the issue when it came out, so you will receive the original article, not a photocopy or rewrite.

To get your copy of Weird Las Vegas, send $20.00, cash check or money order to:

Tim Cridland
PO Box 71652
Las Vegas, NV 89170

Make the check or money order out to "Tim Cridland" and state how you would like your copy signed

Underworld figures at Vegas mob museum

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071210/ap_on_re_us/vegas_mob_museum_glance

Underworld figures at Vegas mob museum
Mon Dec 10, 2007

Some underworld figures whose stories will be told when Las Vegas opens its mob museum:

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

Pioneered Las Vegas as America's glamorous gambling capital, opening the lavish Flamingo hotel-casino in 1946. Rubbed out in 1947 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Hollywood handsome, he was played by Warren Beatty in the 1991 movie "Bugsy."

Meyer Lansky

The mob's money man and one of the underworld's most powerful and influential figure. Helped bankroll Siegel's Flamingo. Legend has it he had Siegel killed over the vast cost overruns on the project. Kept a financial interest in the Flamingo until the 1960s. Lee Strasberg played a character based on Lansky in "The Godfather, Part II." Died in 1983 in Miami Beach at age 80.

Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro

A Chicago mob enforcer who moved to Las Vegas in 1971, Spilotro worked with Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who ran several casinos, including the Stardust. Spilotro and Rosenthal were the inspiration for characters played by Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro in the 1995 movie "Casino." Spilotro was killed in 1986 and buried in an Indiana cornfield. He was 48.

Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal

Now 78 and living in Florida, Rosenthal was a behind-the-scenes hand running the Stardust, Fremont and Hacienda casinos when they were controlled by the mob. Banned from casinos in 1988 because of his mob ties. Served as the model for Sam "Ace" Rothstein, played by Robert De Niro in "Casino."

Morris Barney "Moe" Dalitz

A former bootlegger from Cleveland, Dalitz financed completion of the Desert Inn hotel-casino in the late 1940s and owned it until 1967, when he sold it to the billionaire Howard Hughes. Also ran the Stardust for a time. Died in 1989.
___
Sources: Professor Michael Green, College of Southern Nevada; "Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas," by Nicholas Pileggi; "The First 100:" http://www.1st100.com/

Las Vegas plans to open a mob museum

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20071210/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_vegas_mob_museum

Las Vegas plans to open a mob museum
By KEN RITTER, Associated Press Writer
Mon Dec 10, 2007

Las Vegas is building a museum about some of its founding fathers and most influential figures — guys with names like Bugsy, Lefty and Lansky.

The mob museum will stand as frank acknowledgment of the major role mobsters played in developing Las Vegas into the gambling capital of America and giving the city its rakish glamour during the 1940s and '50s.

"Let's be brutally honest, warts and all. This is more than legend. It's fact," said Mayor Oscar Goodman, a former defense attorney whose clients once included mobsters Meyer Lansky and Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro. "This is something that differentiates us from other cities."

The project has gained the support of the FBI and is guided by a retired FBI agent. They say they are involved because you can't tell the stories of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, his banker, Lansky, casino boss Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal and others without telling the story of the lawmen who pursued them.

"This is a way to connect with the public and show the results of our work," said Dan McCarron, a spokesman for the FBI in Washington.

Ellen Knowlton, who retired in 2006 as FBI agent in charge in Las Vegas and now heads the not-for-profit museum organization, said FBI officials have offered to share photographs, transcripts of wiretaps and histories of efforts to kneecap organized crime in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

"Despite the sort of edgy theme, this museum will be historically accurate and it will tell the true story of organized crime," Knowlton said. "The plan is to give people a kind of gritty taste of what it would have been like to be not only a person involved or affiliated with organized crime, but also what it would have been like to be in law enforcement."

Officials expect to open the museum by 2010 in a brick federal building that was the centerpiece of this dusty town of 5,100 residents when it opened in 1933. In 1950, the three-story building hosted a hearing by Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver's special investigating committee on the rackets.

Goodman, who showed his own willingness to play up Las Vegas' mob past by making a cameo in the 1995 Robert De Niro-Joe Pesci movie "Casino," has pushed the idea of a mob museum from the time he was elected mayor in 1999.

He brokered a deal for the city to buy the building in 2000 for $1, with the understanding it would be turned into cultural center. Officials expect the final cost, including renovations, to reach almost $50 million.

About $15 million has been raised through grants, city funds, contributions and the sale of commemorative license plates that marked Las Vegas' centennial in 2005.

It was Siegel who pioneered the transformation of this one-time desert stopover into a glittering tourist mecca, opening the $6 million Flamingo hotel on the fledgling Las Vegas Strip in 1946 with financial backing from Lansky.

The movie-star handsome Siegel was rubbed out six months later in Beverly Hills, Calif., perhaps because he angered the mob with cost overruns on the hotel.

Spilotro and Rosenthal were associates in the 1970s, when Rosenthal ran several casinos, including the Stardust. Spilotro was killed in 1986 and buried in an Indiana cornfield.

Organized crime eventually was driven out of Las Vegas in the 1970s and '80s by the FBI, local police and prosecutors, state crackdowns and casino purchases by corporate interests.

Many of these stories have been dramatized by Hollywood in such movies as "Bugsy," "The Godfather" and "Casino." But documenting mob history isn't going to be easy.

"If anybody out there finds a memo saying: `To the boys, from Meyer. Re: Bugsy. Kill him,' We'd love to have it," said Michael Green, a College of Southern Nevada history professor who is researching exhibits for the museum. "But we doubt it's there."

"Because of that, you have to do a lot of reconstructing, inferring and implying," he said. "There's a lot of winking we're going to have to do."

Green pointed to stories about Moe Dalitz, a Cleveland businessman who rescued the Desert Inn and Stardust casinos in the 1950s and '60s and built a hospital, golf courses and shopping centers.

"Was he tied to the mob or involved with the mob? Yes," Green said. "A mobster? Harder to explain."

Dennis Barrie, who designed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the popular International Spy Museum in Washington, said he will design the as-yet-unnamed Las Vegas museum to show how organized crime and the fight against it shaped modern life.

"Whether it's running the casinos in Las Vegas, or controlling cigarette sales or numbers or trash collection in any city, organized crime is part of the American culture," Barrie said. "Everybody has a mob story or a brush with the mob world. Or they at least say they do."

Organizers say paying visitors might be asked to decide as they arrive which side of the law they want to be on, and then be given a story line tracing the life of a famous lawman or mobster or a street cop or numbers runner.

"Were you a hit man? Were you a prosecutor? What choices do you have to make?" Green said. "We're telling a story of things that are multisided."

Organizers also hope to have an oral-history area where visitors "can sit down in front of a camera and say, `I knew Bugsy,' or `I saw Meyer,' or whatever," he said.

Has success spoiled Robert Sterling?

Has success spoiled Robert Sterling?
Kenn Thomas
SteamshovelPress.com

Has success spoiled Robert Sterling? Ever since his recent move to Las Vegas, the former gadfly darling of the konspiracy set has paraded his debauchery before the serious students of parapolitics; held former cohorts up to ridicule and scorn; has done little more than cut and paste lefty opinion rags to present as part of "his" newsletter and has mumbled incoherently about how the konspiracy world has "changed". How is this different than it ever was? In subtle ways, perhaps, but clearly Mr. Sterling has been emboldened by his displacement from the celebrated center of all American kulture (LA) and has taken on the corrupt characteristics of the land of Bugsy Siegel. Rumor has it that these recent charges against Greg Bishop come from the descended remnants of the Meyer Lansky's organization in an attempt to deflect its co-optation of this former great kommentator on konspiracy. This also goes a long way in explaining where Rob is now getting his bucks AND his babes.

Robalini's response: Hopefully, the answer is "Yes!"