Los Angeles

BOOKS

Waiting for the Sun: A Rock & Roll History of Los Angeles, Barney Hoskyns, 2009.  Came recommended from Tom O’Neill’s book, Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA, and the History of the Sixties, Tom O’Neill, 2019.

City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles, Mike Davis, 1990.

Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America, Steven J. Ross, 2017.

This book came recommended by the lawyer, Robert J. Barnes in a video privately released to his subscriber audience. Barnes also references the German television series, Babylon Berlin, which forms the background for Hitler’s rise. As of April 2, 2021, the series can be found on Netflix. The wardrobes and set construction of Germans films are quite luxurious. The sets and props do a good job of pulling you into the drama.

“Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties,” Mike Davis & Jon Wiener, 2020.  https://www.amazon.com/Set-Night-Fire-L-Sixties/dp/1713587149/ref=d_pd_sbs_sccl_3_5/138-7198689-6153328?pd_rd_w=RGzbK&content-id=amzn1.sym.bf42acb1-03cc-4a7b-a343-860b9e7fe4bf&pf_rd_p=bf42acb1-03cc-4a7b-a343-860b9e7fe4bf&pf_rd_r=ZQS1Z2VBPZSX8KG8QNGV&pd_rd_wg=FsNG0&pd_rd_r=1dfefe46-147c-48dc-8523-d95c16efd4dc&pd_rd_i=1713587149&psc=1

Obviously, the topic of immigration plays a significant role in the history and development of Los Angeles.  But where does one start to filter through the politics of it all?  I recall when I taught in Los Angeles, English teachers were tasked with teaching to the immigrant and not the kids of East LA, as though all the kids in East LA were children of migrant farm workers.  Was it LAUSD or the local literacy coach who was rattled in the head by race?

MOVIES

1942,  This Gun for Hire, Alan Ladd & Veronica Lake.  Eddie Muller does a terrific review of the movie.  It is based on the 1936 novel A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene (published in America with the same title as the film).  The movie is set in wartime, the second year of the U.S.’s involvement in WWII.  There is a scene toward the end where the main character, Philip Raven, is running from the cops across the footbridge that used to arch over the Cornfield Rail Yard north of Chinatown.

1944, Murder, My Sweet, starring Dick Powell and Claire Trevor.

1950 movie, Sunset Boulevard, starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson.

1967, Point Blank.

1973, The Long Goodbye, starring Elliot Gould.

1974, After that, it was probably Roman Polanski’s 1974, Chinatown.  Now that was quite a movie.

1984, Repo Man.

1985, To Live and Die in LA, starring William Peterson and Willem Defoe.  based on the 1984 novel by former U.S. Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, who co-wrote the screenplay with Friedkin.

1991, Barton Fink.

1995, Heat.

1997, Boogie Nights.

2021, City of Lies is a crime thriller film about the investigations by the Los Angeles Police Department of the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.  The film stars Johnny Depp as retired LAPD detective Russell Poole.

Thanks to One Room With a View.

The movie really is about the desolate lives and an indictment of making a living and a lifestyle of degradation.

This could be one of the most memorable, harrowing scenes of the movie.  How many of us kids growing up in the 70s found ourselves in houses where someone was showing off large quantities of pot and dirty money?  Always caused my heart to skip a beat. That’s what makes this scene unforgettable; that, and the fireworks, gun, and the homeowner doing a deal undressed..

The other scene that left an indelible impression on me was the one with Don Cheadle in a white suit and tie walking into a donut shop late at night.

From LA Curbed,

The scene where Buck (Don Cheadle) is caught in the center of a robbery-turned-triple-homicide was filmed at Miss Donuts in Reseda, which still exists today. Given Anderson’s mandate to find locations within close proximity to one another, securing the donut shop was imperative, though it wasn’t easy to get.

The desolate characters were contrasted against the sacred with the ending scene of the catholic church, St. Catherine of Siena in Reseda [from movie-locations].

LA Curbed does a decent job of reviewing the different Valley landmarks used in many of the scenes.

This movie was as much about the porn industry as it was about the San Fernando Valley back in the 1980s.  It presents some terrific iconic middle-class scenes of wealth, business, and religion lived by middle-class youth. It was the first time, I think, that I saw the gorgeous actress, Heather Graham, whose parents promised their support to her as long as she didn’t do any naked shoots in any movies.

1998, The Big Lebowski.

2001, Training Day,  two LAPD narcotics officers over a 24-hour period in the gang-ridden neighborhoods of Westlake, Echo Park, and South Central Los Angeles.   This movie was about Rafael Perez,

Entered these movies after watching Sidebar with Hunley, Groubert, Viva, & Barnes.  01/19/2022.

2011, Rampart, a movie about the Rampart scandal of the late 1990s, when corrupt Los Angeles Police Department Officer Dave Brown (Harrelson) is forced to face the consequences of his wayward career.

2018, City of Lies, a crime thriller film about the investigations by the Los Angeles Police Department of the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.

1994 O. J. SIMPSON, O.J. murders his wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Brown.

October 16, 2022.  Here is Part 2.  Part 1.  Chris Todd has a few books published.

There are 2,000 unsolved murder cases in Los Angeles.

Casey’s Nickelodeon Murders.

O.J. Simpson’s blood was mixed with the victim’s blood together in his Bronco.  Did he get off?  Yes.  If you have a string of coincidences like O.J. was there, his shoeprints are there, those are his shoes, size 12.  His blood is there, and his DNA, is dripping from his left finger next to his shoes.  Use the coincidences.  Sometimes you can’t have facts.  These defense attorneys are brilliant; they can put doubt in anything.  I’ve seen it.

O.J.’s legal Dream Team.  You had the best attorneys in the country all on the same defense team: F. Lee Bailey, Robert Shapiro, Johnny Cochran, Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, Sean Holly, Gerard Ullman, Dershowitz, Karl Douglas.  They’ll never be that again.  That’s why they call them “The Dream Team.”  Robert Shapiro began it, and there was another lawyer first, Howard Weitzman,  A famous studio executive helped get Robert Shapiro who knew Joey and Charley Ippolito.  investigatorla19@gmail.com.  Shapiro starts to assemble on the 13th/14th Pat Mckenna, and Tom McNally, the investigators.  He’s already getting on Dr. Henry Lee from Connecticut, the forensic pathologist expert in the world.  He gets Michael Badden.  Cochrane comes on a little later.  When they figure they have to get an African American attorney, which brings in Carl Douglas.  He had Gerard Yeoman early on.  They bring Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, and they do DNA stuff with the Innocence Project.  So Robert Shapiro assembles this team.  There’s a mountain of evidence.  There’s a trial that went over 10 months long.  For you to watch the whole trial, it would take you 10 months watching 8 hours a day every day.  I still haven’t seen every minute of the trial.  You can’t!  Howard Weitzeman who was on the case early started to move away from the case because he started to see the evidence.  Other sources are saying that he “got kicked off,” because they needed . . . .  The studio exec who hired Shapiro cold-called Shapiro and O.J. telling him he wants to help.  The studio exec was a mobbed-up guy with heavy mob connections and personally knew Charlie and Joey Ippolito and the studio exec had to step in.  The guy was super slick, a wealthy guy, and discovered very famous people.  He died, dropped dead in December 2007.  And they talk about him.  If you look up OJ on the Fx Series and you type in “New Revelations” or “American Crime Story O.J. Simpson,” “New Revelations,” things they couldn’t reveal, they talk about this guy.

07:35  Today, Charlie [Ippolito] runs a strip club in Miami.  He races horses too.  A lot of these guys can never get away from it.  They were born into the mafia; that’s what the screenplay and the confession tell you.  Their fathers and their uncles and their stepdads.  At 20 years old, you don’t have high-level cocaine connections in Colombia being a nobody.  That’s how old Charlie was when he went to Colombia and made a huge connection for 6 months.  You have to be initiated into the family, into the system.  Joey was the same way.  Joey’s dad was a famous mobster.  Joey’s dad, Joey Ippolito, Sr. worked for Sam the Plumber, DeCavalcante.  They’re great stories.  There’s a lot of mysticism.  You had on a couple of mob guys.  People love it.  I’m not here to slash and burn the mob guys.  I think they should all come together and let’s go make some money, make a movie, tell a story.  Let the people know they have a right to know and a need to know.  And the people who need to be blessed are the media, the Hollywood media.  That’s who’s to blame.  The screenplay is 5 years old.  They can’t make it into a movie.  There’s a lot of press and media right now about Charlie.  There’s a lawsuit.  We have this thing going on in Miami.  Other sources came forward, people close to Cato Kalin, people close to Faye Resnick, close to Nicole, they’re coming forward.  We’ve kind of lit the brush fire, but I don’t know if they’ll ever make a movie.  Hollywood and the media block stories, they discriminate against people, they censor people, and a lot of people have to tell stories,

Thank you to Johnny Kramer @ Lew Rockwell, April 19, 2024.

More on OJ Simpson from Chris Todd and Robert Barnes.

Charlie Erlich

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Eric Hunley interviews John Eckberg who claims that Glen Rogers, a jewelry thief and convicted serial killer, was involved. According to Eckberg, O. J. hired Glen Rogers to steal Nicole’s diamonds back.   Rogers murdered a Tampa, Florida woman, Tina Marie Cribbs.  What’s interesting is that he murdered her the same he murdered Nicole Brown by cutting her throat and femoral artery.  Ugh.   Wednesday, May 8, 2024.

29:46  Ron Goldman was stabbed in the leg to make him bleed out, stabbed 28 times in the torso, and one stab wound in the leg, similar to the murder of Tina Marie Cribbs who was stabbed in the leg in the femoral artery.  Yep, he would go for the femoral, and Tina Marie Cribbs, who was a pretty big woman, he did the same thing at the bath in Florida.  One of his murders was a woman named Linda Price, about cut her head off, same as Nicole.  So that the patterns were very similar to other murders.  When OJ shows up going “No, no, no” with his hands in the air, Rogers likely went “Oh, how convenient.” I’m cutting him two, three times to make sure he gets OJ’s blood on the scene.  Then Glen swabbed up his footprints, which he did at most of his crime scenes.  The Linda Price one is notorious.  He swabbed up the footprints.  There was a bloody mop.  There were bloody paper towels.  Glen knew enough about police work to know that heel prints and footprints and fingerprints, generally key pieces of evidence that are used against him, swabbed up his finger–footprints, leaving OJ’s footprints, met OJ, departed in a different direction, met OJ at the car with a knife probably to OJ’s throat.

31:55  So many flaws with that crime scene.  They didn’t videotape it.  The keys that Ron Goldman had in his hands were blood-caked.  They put them in an evidence bag apparently, and gave them to the car owner because he borrowed the car to get there.  Why would you do that?  The DNA of the attacker was on those car keys.  By the way, OJ’s face was perfect, meaning unmarked.  Ron Goldman’s knuckles are torn and bruised, meaning he got some shots in.  As you say, it wasn’t an easy kill.

O.J. Simpson & Glen Rogers: The Juice, Road Dog, & Murder on Bundy Drive, John Eckberg, 2018.

My Brother, the Serial Killer, a 2012 television documentary, directed by David Monaghan.