Spend Xmas With the Demon Dog on the James Ellroy Digs L.A. Bus Tour

For immediate release

November 13, 2007

Spend Xmas With the Demon Dog on the James Ellroy Digs L.A. Bus Tour

WHAT: Esotouric presents "James Ellroy Digs L.A."
WHEN: Saturday December 22, 1pm-5pm
COST: $60
WHERE: departing from Arnie Morton's Steakhouse, 735 S Figueroa St., LA 90017

LOS ANGELES- Best-selling crime novelist James Ellroy has built his career digging deep into the underworld lore of L.A., drawing connections between his personal experience and the complex real world histories of cops, killers, victims and journalists.

Now James Ellroy teams up with Esotouric, the eclectic bus adventure company whose tours reveal L.A.'s secret history, to debut his personal guided tour through the city that haunts his dreams and inspires his art. Riding shotgun and curating the experience is Kim Cooper, creator of the 1947project time travel blog and host of Esotouric's true crime tours, including The Real Black Dahlia.

Passengers on "James Ellroy Digs L.A." will gather at Arnie Morton's downtown bar (opened specially for our party), then accompany the author in a luxurious coach class bus on an uncensored time travel journey to tony Hancock Park, where he stalked his teenage classmates and later broke into houses. . . to the Hollywood flats to explore some of the heinous 1950s murder cases that fascinated him as a youth and continue to feed his obsessions. . . and out to El Monte, where his mother Geneva was murdered, the unsolved crime that runs through all his work, from "The Black Dahlia" to "My Dark Places."

James Ellroy says, "I dig L.A. because I'm from here. My parents hatched me in a cool locale. I'm desperate to impress people, I'm a good talker, I know a shitload about L.A. and I want to share it. On this tour, you'll get L.A. crime and social history on an unparalleled AND intimate scale."

So get on the bus at Arnie Morton's in downtown LA on December 22 and spend your holidays with the demon dog of American literature, on what's sure to be the coolest ticket in town. Seats are extremely limited on this special event tour; and sorry, no discounts or Esotouric season pass tickets will be honored.

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule:
Sat Nov 17 – Pasadena Confidential tour
Sat Dec 8 - Raymond Chandler's LA
Sat Dec 15 - James M. Cain's So California Nightmare
Sat Dec 22 – James Ellroy Digs L.A.
Sun Jan 15 - Vroman's edition, The Real Black Dahlia

For more info on Esotouric, please visit http://www.esotouric.com
For info on this tour, visit http://www.esotouric.com/ellroy

James Ellroy is available for interviews, as is Esotouric's Kim Cooper. Contact Kim at amscray@gmail.com, 323-223-2767.

November 10: Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice historic downtown LA bus tours

For immediate release

October 10, 2007

November 10: Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice historic downtown LA bus tours

WHAT: Esotouric presents Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice
WHEN: Saturday November 10, 1-2:30pm (Hotel), 3:30pm-5pm (Main)
COST: $25 for one tour, or ride both for $45
WHERE: Both depart from Cafe Metropol, tours cover downtown LA's historic core

LOS ANGELES- From the founding of the city through the 1940s, downtown was the true center of Los Angeles, a lively, densely populated, exciting and sometimes dangerous place. After many quiet decades, downtown is making an incredible return. But while many of the historic buildings remain, their human context has been lost.

That's why Esotouric, the eclectic bus adventure company whose tours reveal the secret history of L.A. through crime, culture, literature and architecture, is offering two new downtown tours meant to bring alive the old ghosts and memories that cling to the streets and structures of the historic core. These tours were launched in September to thank the downtown community and Downtown News for voting Esotouric Best Downtown Tour earlier this summer. This is the second time they have been offered, after a sold out debut.

Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice are both are hosted by Esotouric founders Kim Cooper and Richard Schave. The 90-minute tours begin at Cafe Metropol (near the old Santa Fe train terminal at Third and Santa Fe, better known today as SCI-Arc) and meander through downtown, with a one-hour snack and conversation break between them. On each tour we'll visit the scenes of crimes and interesting happenings, and share vintage photographs of the scenes as they appeared up to 100 years ago.

Tour #1 is Hotel Horrors, a true crime and oddities tour featuring some of the wildest, weirdest, goriest and most memorable happenings in historic hotels like the Alexandria, Rosslyn, Barclay and Cecil. Get on the bus to find out where Night Stalker Richard Ramirez liked to stay and the hotel that saw a visit from the Skid Row Slasher, plus which hotel was the choice of Columbian drug mules with cocaine in their platform shoes, what lobby hosted a small scale anarchist riot, where two traveling chocolate salesmen laughed so hard they fell backwards out a window to their deaths and the truth about the myth that Beth "The Black Dahlia" Short was last seen alive at the Biltmore. We'll explore the fiery curse that repeatedly leveled the St. George Hotel and thrill to the litany of stars who stayed at the long-lost and truly grand Hotel Nadeau (now site of the L.A. Times building) including actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Lily Langtree, Henry M. Stanley of “Dr. Livingston, I presume” fame, singer Nellie Melba, Mark Twain and Hawaiian King Kalakua and Queen Liliuokalani. Also included are some light hearted stories to help the blood and gore go down.

Tour #2 is Main Street Vice, a celebration of the ribald, racy, raunchy old promenade where the better people simply did not travel, but kicks were had by all who did. Burlesque babes and dirty picture parlors, mummified old west outlaws and old time tattoo parlors, wax museums and pawn brokers, "professors" offering sex lectures and magazine peddlers with nudie Marilyn Monroe calendars under the counter, sophisticated steak houses and nickel donut dives -- these were the pleasures and the people to be found along Main during the first half of the 20th century, a street that every Angeleno knew offered more (yet less) of what could be seen anywhere else. On this tour, we'll visit the scenes of some more unforgettable debaucheries and share stories of crime, smut, passion and commerce. The tour runs primarily along Main Street, with a few detours to explore similar entertainments offered in the vicinity of Main.

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule:
Sat Oct 20– The Real Black Dahlia tour
Sun Oct 21 – Where the Action Was (rock history tour)
Sat Oct 27 – Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's LA
Sun Oct 28 – Hallowe'en Horrors featuring Crimebo the Clown
Sat Nov 10 – Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice tours
Sat Nov 17 – Pasadena Confidential tour

For more info on Esotouric, please visit http://www.esotouric.com
For more on the 1947project crime a day blog (current year 1927), see http://www.1947project.com

Hotel Horrors tour hosts Richard Schave and Kim Cooper are available for interviews. Contact Kim at amscray@gmail.com, 323-223-2767.