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.

Michael Jackson, a man apart

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/25/michael.jackson.legacy/

Michael Jackson, a man apart
Story Highlights
Michael Jackson was a towering figure in entertainment
Singer led the way in establishing music video, revitalizing pop music
Songs, including "I Want You Back" and "Billie Jean," are part of enduring legacy
By Todd Leopold
CNN
6-25-9

(CNN) -- He was lauded and ridiculed. He broke down barriers and built them around himself. He soared to heights unimaginable with his music, and he made the ignominious front page of gutter tabloids worldwide.

Michael Jackson broke down musical and cultural barriers his entire life.

For Michael Jackson, the spotlight was always present, and the rest of the world followed.

With "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" -- the latter with Eddie Van Halen's scorching guitar solo -- he was almost single-handedly responsible for getting videos by African-American artists on MTV and helped revitalize the moribund Top 40 format in the early 1980s.

"Michael Jackson made culture accept a person of color way before Tiger Woods, way before Oprah Winfrey, way before Barack Obama," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a friend. "Michael did with music what they later did in sports, and in politics and in television. No controversy will erase the historic impact."

"Thriller," a 14-minute video extravaganza directed by John Landis, paved the way for the elaborate music videos to follow -- including Jackson's "Scream," recorded with sister Janet in 1995, which cost a reported $7 million and may be the most expensive video ever. Audio slide show: Michael Jackson and his music »

His incredible dance talent, a modern twist on the Motown moves he witnessed as a child, led to a heightened focus on choreography in pop music videos and stage shows.

His 1982 album "Thriller" smashed records. It was No. 1 for 37 weeks and, at its peak, sold a million copies a week. To date, it has sold nearly 50 million copies worldwide. The achievement set a high bar for Jackson; when his 1995 greatest-hits CD, "HIStory," sold 7 million copies, it was considered a relative failure.

Jackson was also a fashion icon, his heavily zippered leather jackets a de rigueur 1980s fashion accessory, his single, spangled glove beyond compare.

On the down side, Jackson also led in making pop stars the subject of the paparazzi and tabloids in a way, perhaps, equaled only by such icons as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the pre-"Sgt. Pepper" Beatles. Rumors abounded, from his pets to his sleeping habits to his cosmetic surgery, all fodder for the press. After stories arose of possible child molestation, he never got back in the media's good graces; he was treated as a traveling circus. Watch reaction to his death

From the time he was a child, it was obvious Michael Jackson was something special. In 1966, when he was 8, he joined his brothers in the band his father put together and started singing lead with brother Jermaine.

Though Motown Records was the top label of the 1960s, inventing what it called "the Sound of Young America," by 1969 -- when Jackson and his brothers in the Jackson 5 first hit the charts -- the label was finding itself out of step with the psychedelic and hard-soul sounds of the times. Watch reaction from Motown »

Enter the quintet from Gary, Indiana.

Motown signed the group in 1968 and poured its all into the Jackson 5's first single, "I Want You Back" -- the writing and production team were credited as "The Corporation" -- and Jackson's imploring, dramatic vocal rocked America. The song hit No. 1 in January 1970, and was followed by three more No. 1s in quick succession.

Thanks to their squeaky-clean image, the Jackson 5 became teen idols, unusual for a group of African-American youngsters. Michael Jackson's face appeared on the covers of teen magazines; the band even became the subject of an animated Saturday-morning TV show, another first for an African-American group.

But it was in the 1980s, when Jackson became a worldwide phenomenon, that his impact really began to be felt.

He was much imitated, from his hair to his clothes to his dance moves. The music was superbly crafted pop, produced by Quincy Jones and often written by Jackson himself. Even rock critics approved; the album "Thriller" earned an A from the picky Robert Christgau, among others.

There came a moment, around that time, when pop music went into a Jackson era. "Thriller" had nine songs; seven of them became singles. Jackson teamed with Lionel Richie to write the fundraising song "We Are the World"; it was his presence, as much as that of Richie, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder, that propelled the song to No. 1.

Jackson reteamed with his brothers for an album, "Destiny," and accompanying tour. It was the hottest tour of the year, despite complaints about sales practices. (Partly because of the controversy, Jackson announced publicly he was donating all his money from the tour to charity.)

He was a role model. At the peak of his fame, there were reports of a humbly dressed Jackson ringing doorbells as part of his Jehovah's Witness faith.

Though Jackson's image eventually became sullied by the molestation allegations and stories of eccentricity, there was never any doubt about his entertainment legacy. "Thriller" and "Bad" are still among the top sellers of all time. His fluid dance moves and stage presence set standards that rising stars -- often compared to Jackson -- struggle to equal.

"Of all the thousands of entertainers I have worked with, Michael was the most outstanding. Many have tried and will try to copy him, but his talent will never be matched. He was truly one-of-a-kind," said Dick Clark, who would know.

And then there's the music, from the early, explosive joy of the Jackson 5 hits to the elegant ballads, down-and-dirty grooves and ecstatic dance hits of his solo years. "The Love You Save," "Billie Jean," "Beat It," "Bad" -- they are pop music boiled down to its best essence, with a good beat, an engrossing melody and even, sometimes, a message of love and fellowship.

It's enough to take a listener to the moon.

Elvis: The Last Romantic

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1653366,00.html

Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007
Elvis: The Last Romantic
By Richard Corliss

At a Hollywood party on Aug. 16, 1977, word reached the celebrity revelers that the 42-year-old Elvis Presley had just died at his Graceland home in Memphis. Amid the murmurs of shock, one industry type noted, "Good career move."

Rarely has sarcasm been so prophetic. The dead Elvis — if he did die; some of the faithful still think he's in seclusion, holding out for a second coming — quickly became more valuable as a memory than he ever was as a singer or movie star or Vegas action figure or living proof of the marketability of youthful rebellion. Every year on his birthday (Jan. 8) and death date, new packages of his old music and movies are snapped up as instant relics by his venerable fans, even as they attract kids who hadn't been born when he was just the King on earth.

This year is special — the big three-oh — so the sales pitch is at fever pitch (and that's saying a lot when one considers the marketing schemes in previous years). In addition to an eight-film collection of his early Paramount features, a six-pack of his later MGM movies, and a month of specials on TV Land, Elvis-mongers are offering a colorized silver dollar, "the Elvis Presley 30th Anniversary Silver Eagle 2007," yours for only $39.95;, and an Elvis edition of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with "a specially formulated peanut butter and banana crème flavor." Presley-philes in a higher income bracket — Jay Leno's — will want one of the 30 Harley-Davidson bikes built as replicas of Elvis' 1957 Black FLH model (Retail price: $58,812; each comes with a painting and sculpture of the King). Tonight some lucky souls will attend the sold-out 30th Anniversary Concert at the FedExForum in Memphis, where giant-screen clips of the singing King will be accompanied live by his old musicians and back-up singers. You can charge it all to your Elvis Visa card ("for takin' care of business").

The commercial hype is appropriate for a singer who made the trip from anonymity to commodity in no time flat. He was an instant sensation with the Jan. 27, 1956, release of his first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel." The following night he appeared on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey's Stage Show, flinging rock 'n roll into the faces of a slackjawed TV audience. In August he had the two-sided smash "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel." By November his first movie, Love Me Tender, was in the theaters. Five #1 singles, a debut album that went gold, and a movie, all in one annus mirabilis — no other entertainers had gone from nowhere to everywhere quite as fast as Elvis had, or with quite the force.

Everybody concentrated on his looks — the sultry, pouting, feminine face, with its unabashed sexual threat — and his moves, cranking those hips like a honky-tonk woman's. As John Lennon said much later, it was an epiphany for kids to see "a guy with long, greasy hair wigglin' his ass and singin' 'Hound Dog'." Elvis was the first pop singer who had to be seen, not just heard, to be appreciated (or condemned). What was ignored at the time was his connection to the two crucial vocalists who had preceded him: Bing Crosby in the 1920s and 30s, Frank Sinatra in the 40s and 50s.

Crosby, no less an innovator than Elvis, was the first to play to the microphone in the recording studio, not to the last row in the vaudeville balcony. With his easy baritone (the top singers of the time were tenors), he introduced intimacy to pop music. Sinatra, whose bobbysoxer fans squealed as ecstatically in World War II as Elvis' would in the Cold War days, added a knowing sexuality to his exquisite reading of a lyric. His voice knew all the angles to any emotion. Sinatra was the citywise predecessor to Presley's Southern teen, hotrodding to the cathouse for the promise of dirty sex.

Elvis wanted to be the full-service, multigenerational entertainer; he was on a mission to convince his fans' parents that he could do more than grind his pelvis. So nearly every Elvis single would have a soft, sentimental tune ("That's When Your Heartaches Begin") on the flip side of a rockin' hit ("All Shook Up"). His movies balanced the uptempo songs with a few mellow ones ("Love Me Tender," "Young and Beautiful," "Blue Hawaii"). Later, some of his biggest hits were emotive reworkings of plaintive folk songs from Italy ("Sorrento" became "It's Now or Never") or France ("Plaisir d'amour" morphed into "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You"). You might guess he was ignoring his core fans to play to their elders. But no, kids liked the slow numbers too, if only because it allowed them to dance body-to-body.

Crosby and Sinatra, of course, became huge film stars as well as singers. Bing was voted the most popular actor of 1944 and 1945, and his Best Actor Oscar (for Going My Way) showed that he'd secured the admiration of his peers. Sinatra, who also had an Oscar (for From Here to Eternity) and a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award of all things, headlined A movies for three decades. These two were the model Elvis had to follow; and if he hadn't wanted to, his protective manager, "Colonel" Tom Parker, would have made him do it. In the 50s, being a mainstream movie star meant scrubbing up the image, turning Elvis from a satyr into a nice guy, the well-behaved boy parents wouldn't mind their daughter dating.

What Presley and Parker didn't understand was the revolution Elvis had created. He had overthrown the empire of nice; now the outlaw was in. Later pop stars, like Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, didn't sanitize themselves for the mass culture. They knew they were the mass culture, and they did films only as a lark. They had seen what indenture to the old Hollywood dream had done to Elvis: a bunch of B movies that betrayed his revolutionary promise, neutered the sneering sexuality of his early live performances. His top-of-the-charts ballads might have enlarged his audience, but these anodyne musical comedies served to demonstrate his irrelevance in a fickle pop culture. The white-hot star at 21 was an anachronism before he was 30.

That's why modern Elvis fans ignore most of his 31 Hollywood movies, except for the 1957 Jailhouse Rock (with its wild and crazy production number for the title song) and the 1964 Viva Las Vegas (where the feral Ann-Margret compels him to unleash some of the old animal urges). Today his most popular DVD titles are the ones that show him in unbridled action: the documentary This Is Elvis and the concert film Elvis: That's the Way It Is. They also allow the faithful to plunge more deeply into the sacred mystery that is St. Elvis.

When Presley gave up movies in the late 60s, and hit Vegas, he reverted to balladeer form: reprising his rock hits but concentrating on the passionate crooning of songs made famous by people like Crosby ("White Christmas") and Sinatra ("My Way"), finally outing himself as rock's first — maybe last — romantic. Sequins and strutting aside, Elvis had become the singers he grew up listening to. Only fatter.

But Bing's name doesn't get 37,300,000 links on Yahoo. Frank's fans don't gather by the thousands at his home on the anniversary of his death to hold a candlelight vigil. They were just great singers and movie stars. Elvis alone rules the kingdom, with the power of his myth, and the glory of a billion dollars in endlessly renewable merchandise.