Thursday, February 19, 2009

Esotouric to offer Charles Bukowski bus tour

Charles Bukowski Bus Tour Rolls To Newly Landmarked L.A. Home

WHAT: Esotouric's "Haunts of A Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's LA" bus tour

WHEN: Saturday March 14, 12pm-4pm, departs from Philippe The Original, 1001 N Alameda, Downtown LA

COST: $58/person, includes coffee and donuts served at Bukowski's favorite Pink Elephant Liquor Store

MORE INFO: visit http://www.esotouric.com or call 323-223-2767

On March 14, Esotouric, the company whose offbeat bus tours expose LA's secret history, rolls out its popular and occasional Charles Bukowski bus tour, HAUNTS OF A DIRTY OLD MAN. The tour departs from Philippe The Original, the legendary downtown sandwich shop where postal worker Bukowski often ate while employed across the street at the brutal Terminal Annex sorting facility.

The tour is hosted by Richard Schave, one of the forces behind the recent successful campaign to have Bukowski's one-time bungalow on De Longpre Avenue in East Hollywood declared an historic-cultural monument. This is the first time the tour has been offered since the official landmark sign went up on the site, making for a perfect photo op.

HAUNTS OF A DIRTY OLD MAN spans Bukowski's personal city, from the Skid Row bars where he tuned his young writer's ear to the voices of old rummies to the once-genteel Crown Hill apartments where he fought with his first love Jane, favorite bars and liquor stores, "Barfly" locations to the downtown library, where he discovered his "God," novelist John Fante.

German born, Bukowski spent most of his life in L.A., working for the US Postal Service, as "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" columnist for the underground press and writing the screenplay for the autobiographical "Barfly." The city and its characters are everywhere in the work, so this tour celebrates the artist within his city with visits to places that were important to him and to his work.

Esotouric has made its name with true crime bus tours (Black Dahlia, Pasadena Confidential) and explorations of literary LA (Raymond Chandler, John Fante, James M. Cain). Now they turn their creative attentions to Bukowski, the prolific poet, novelist and screenwriter whose rough-hewn tales of boozing, wild women and rotten jobs never obscure the deep vein of sweetness and hope that runs through all his work.

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule:
Sat Feb 21- Raymond Chandler's LA
Sat Feb 28 - Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits' LA
Sat March 7 - The Lowdown on Downtown: The Secret History of LA
Thurs March 12 - The Hippodrome (Downtown Art Walk Shuttle, free)
Sat March 14 ­ Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's LA
Sat March 21 ­ Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice
Sat March 28 ­ Pasadena Confidential
Sat April 4 - Wild Wild Westside
Thurs April 9 - The Hippodrome (Downtown Art Walk Shuttle, free)
Sat April 11 - Raymond Chandler's Bay
Sat April 18 - The Real Black Dahlia
Sat April 25 - Raymond Chandler's LA

For more info on Esotouric, visit http://www.esotouric.com

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