Esotouric to offer historic L.A. Noir tour

New Esotouric bus tour explores the historic L.A. NOIR world of mobster Mickey Cohen and LAPD Chief Parker

WHAT: Second edition of Esotouric's "L.A. Noir" bus and walking tour, which debuted in a sold-out September 2009 run

WHEN: Saturday April 10, 12pm-4pm, departing from Clifton's Cafeteria, 648S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90014

COST: $62/person including snack

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

RELATED TOURS: Esotouric's Spring guest tour series also includes "Maja's Mysteries: Rapture and Release: (3/20) and "Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits' LA" (4/3)

Other cities have histories. Los Angeles has legends. For more than sixty years, writers and directors from Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder to Roman Polanski and James Ellroy have explored L.A.'s origins, its underbelly, and (yes) its blondes in fiction and films like "The Big Sleep,""Double Indemnity," "Chinatown," and "L.A. Confidential." Yet this preoccupation with a mythic past has obscured something important -- the true history of noir Los Angeles.

Now John Buntin, the author of "L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City" (Random House), and Esotouric, L.A.'s most eclectic bus adventure company, have teamed up to explore the forgotten haunts, hits, and harems of underworld L.A. and the rivalry between the two men who shaped it -- one L.A.'s most notorious gangster, the other its mostc ontroversial police chief. The tour debuted in a sold out run in September 2009.

Featherweight boxer Mickey Cohen left the ring for the rackets, first as mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel's enforcer, then as his protégé and successor. 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.

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 L.A. 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. In the process, he created the Dragnet-era LAPD, unwittingly paving the way for the Watts riots and creating a culture that LAPD police chief Charlie Beck continues to struggle with even today.

Novelist Michael Connelly calls "L.A. Noir" "fascinating, flat out entertaining." "[I]mportant and wonderfully enjoyable," says Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times. 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."

Together, Buntin and Esotouric take you on a journey to the sites where Hollywood madam Brenda Allen played and where Mickey's enforcers killed to enforce his will. From Clifton's redwood-themed Brookdale Cafeteria downtown, L.A. Noir passengers will proceed on foot to the movie palace where 17-year-old Bill Parker worked as an usher -- and fell into a disastrous love affair -- as well as the site of 9-year-old Mickey Cohen's first holdup. Boarding a luxurious coach class bus, the tour will visit Mickey Cohen's childhood haunts in the old Jewish neighborhood Boyle Heights, as well as the site of one of L.A.'s most notorious attempted assassinations, en route to significant spots in LAPD and mob history. We'll stop by "the glass house," visit one of fashion plate madam Brenda Allen former haunts, revisit Billy Graham's "canvass cathedral" and discuss the evangelist's decade long effort to "save" Mickey Cohen, stop by Cohen's old commission office, hear a first-hand account of how Mickey operated, and visit the old Lincoln Heights jail, site of the brutal Christmas 1951 events that inspired the opening of James Ellroy's "L.A. Confidential."

With Kim Cooper, the creator of Esotouric's true crime tours and creator of the new L.A. time travel blog In SRO Land (http://www.insroland.org) riding shotgun, there will also be plenty of surprises. So get on the bus as the whole filthy truth is spread out before you, as only the Esotouric crew and special guest stars like John Buntin can do.

ABOUT ESOTOURIC:
Founded in 2007 by newlyweds Kim Cooper and Richard Schave, the company quickly cornered the market on offbeat true crime history tours and highbrow literary and architectural explorations. From their "The Real Black Dahlia" tour ("an L.A. classic" -- Los Angeles Times) to "Raymond Chandler's L.A.," sold-out personal history tours guest hosted by James Ellroy to alternative neighborhood guides like "Pasadena Confidential," Esotouric's weekly bus adventure has become a must for locals seeking to know their city better, and a lucky find for savvy travelers.

Author John Buntin's full schedule of L.A.-area appearances:
* April 9, 5:30 pm -- Whittier Reads, Whittier Public Library, 7344 S.Washington Ave., Whittier, CA 90602 (562) 464-3450
* April 10, 12 pm -- "John Buntin's L.A. Noir" Esotouric bus adventure,Clifton's Cafeteria, 648 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90014, (323) 223-2767
* April 10, 5:30 pm -- Metropolis Books, 440 South Main Street, Los Angeles,CA 90013, (213) 612-0174
* April 23rd, 12 pm -- Lunch at The Library, Whittier Public Library, 7344 S. Washington Ave., Whittier, CA 90602 (562) 464-3450
* May 15, 2 pm -- Marie Northrop Lecture Series: "Mayor Frank L. Shaw: 1933to 1938," Taper Auditorium, Richard Riordan Central Library, 630 W. 5th Street Los Angeles, CA 90071, (213) 228-7069

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour and special event schedule
Sat March 13 - Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles
Sat March 20 - Maja's Mysteries: Rapture & Release (debut)
Sat March 27 - Raymond Chandler's Bay City
Sun March 28 - FREE tour The Flâneur & The City (info at lavatransforms.org)
Sat April 3 ­ Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits' L.A.
Thurs April 8 - John Fante Square designation
Sat April 10 ­ John Buntin's L.A. Noir
Sat April 17 - John Fante's Dreams from Bunker Hill
Sat April 24 ­ Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's L.A.
Sat May 1 - Pasadena Confidential crime bus tour with Crimebo the Clown
Sat May 8 - Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour
Sat May 15 - The Real Black Dahlia crime bus tour
Sat May 22 - The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain's So. Cal Nightmare

Esotouric's Kim Cooper and Richard Schave are proud members of LAVA - The Los Angeles Visionaries Association.

http://www.lavatransforms.org