L.A. Noir

Bookish News

2009-07-07T17:57:00.001-07:00

Because I'm a slacker I'm running slow on things today. So...

First off, Brett Battles' new book, Shadow of Betrayal is out today at all fine book-selling establishments.

The meeting place was carefully chosen: an abandoned church in rural Ireland just after dark. For Jonathan Quinn—a freelance operative and professional "cleaner"—the job was only to observe. If his cleanup skills were needed, it would mean things had gone horribly wrong. But an assassin hidden in a tree assured just that. And suddenly Quinn had four dead bodies to dispose of and one astounding clue—to a mystery that is about to spin wildly out of control.

If you aren't reading the Jonathon Quinn books, one, the fuck is wrong with you? And two, you're really missing out on some great fiction.

Yes, yes, full disclosure. He's a friend of mine. But don't hold that against him. Seriously, his books are great. His taste in friends is questionable, but his books are great.

Speaking of which, he'll also be signing next (not this) Saturday, July 18th at The Mystery Bookstore at 5:30pm. I'll plug it more as the date gets closer.

And that note on the page about Stephen's Favorite? Different Stephen. Not me. Classier guy. Not the one with the shifty eyes.

On the same day (Saturday, July 18th) also at The Mystery Bookstore, there's a double feature at 2:30. Two, yes TWO kick ass writer types with those, you know, bookish... things.

Megan Abbott signs her latest, Bury Me Deep.

BURY ME DEEP is the dark, dreamy, impressionistic story of Jazz Age grass-widow Marion Seeley, who winds up alone and working in an Arizona sanitarium, and falls into some bad company. One bad move leads to another, as Marion's world turns into a spiral of doom. All of Megan Abbott's characters live in a fragile world bound by brittle rules, and once those rules break, chaos inevitably follows.

Yeah, no shit. Queenpin, The Song Is You, Die A Little. If you want a taste of her stuff, check out her story, Cheer in the noir issue of Storyglossia from last year.

Does not disappoint.

Not to be outdone, Theresa Schwegel signs her latest novel, Last Known Address.

Detective Sloane Pearson is already at a low point in her professional – and personal – life when she comes across a tough case that turns into a hunt for a serial rapist. She directs all her frustration into working the case, but she's not the only one looking for answers, or the only one who finds them. A great, moody character piece. Anyone who wants to see more of the dark side of Chicago won't be able to put it down.

Her books are wonderfully dark and you're going to want to pick this one up. Really. And buy ten copies and send them to you friends or you'll have twenty years bad luck, your cat'll die, your daughter'll start dating Mongol Bikers named Little Louie (seriously, there's more than one) and you'll never have sex again.

Ever.

So buy her books.

Did I mention we were working backwards here? Well, consider it said.

Which brings us to Seth Harwood signing his novel, Jack Wakes Up at, you guessed it, The Mystery Bookstore THIS (not next) Saturday, July 11th at 2:00pm.

In the three years since Jack Palms went clean: no drugs, no drinking, no life, he's added fourteen pounds of muscle, read 83 books, and played it as straight as anyone can ask him. Now, when an old friend from L.A. calls, he hits the streets of San Francisco to help a group of Czech drug buyers make one big score, a single drug deal that he hopes will set him up for life.

But when people start turning up dead, and an old nemesis on the police force calls, Jack finds himself with just 24 hours to track down San Francisco's biggest drug supplier or face charges that will put him behind bars.

Only an Oscar-caliber performance will get him through this alive.

Lots of good stuff going on here this week and next. So don't miss any of it.

Or, you know, that whole Mongol biker sex dead cat thing.

Today Is A Good Day To Rob Somebody

2009-07-07T07:30:00.001-07:00

Los Angeles, CA

Just not Downtown.

Thanks to a memorial of an alleged pedophile and well known circus freak, the LAPD is deploying about 3,200 officers around Staples Center today.

They only have about 9,000.

That means that a third of the police force is going to be watching the perimeter to make sure that no... illegal moonwalking takes place, spontaneous outbreaks of Thriller sing-alongs? With any luck, they'll arrest that Phelps asshole.

If a riot of Jackson fans were to really break out, it'd be like fighting a zombie horde. Shoot for the head, and if a Boomer shows up, remember to shove him back first. You don't want that fucker puking all over you.

I'm assuming that the bulk of the force will be made up of off-duty officers and trainees, but that's still over 30% of the goddamn LAPD to keep order for the poster boy of bad plastic surgery.

And how much is that going to cost the city? $3.8 million.

Time and a half, baby! Woohoo! Tonight, we're goin' to Applebees.

The city is a bucketload and a half in the red and after catching shit for wanting to drop a cool mil on the Lakers parade, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of noise on the pricetag here, as well.

Oh, wait there already is.

Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine called Monday on AEG to cover the full cost of the memorial, saying the company had made the decision to hold it at Staples. "I don't fault their decision," Zine said. "I'm just saying that it should be at their expense, not the taxpayers'."

Little late for that, isn't it Sparky? You know, it helps to grab the money before you hand out all the permits and make the arrangements.

Well, you'll just bill them. I'm sure they'll be very prompt in their payments. They are, after all rolling in dough.

Spring's Come Late This Year

2009-06-30T13:23:00.001-07:00

But well worth the wait.

The Spring 2009 issue of Spinetingler is out with stories from Graham Powell, Stephen D. Rogers, Anthony Rainone and others. It's got reviews, interviews and the usual raising of the quality bar.

And check out that cover art. Looks like PWG might have some competition on the cool photo front.

*Hat tip to Patrick S. Bagley.

Criminal Tip #78,983: Don't Fuck With The Dog

2009-06-30T08:27:00.001-07:00

Hawthorne, CA

Girl loses dog. Boy finds dog. Boy calls girl. Girl and Boy meet. Kind of like one of those star-crossed lovers things. Only with a registered sex offender.

So Pineapple, a cocker/poodle mix, wanders away from home and Alfredo Jaime Dempkey, 27, finds it, grabs a phone number off the collar and gives the owner, a 17-year-old girl, a ring.

And then tells her that she can either give him 70 bucks or have sex with him to get the dog back. When she balks at that he threatens to torture the dog.

Did I mention that Dempkey's the sex offender here? In case it wasn't obvious. Did a stint in the pokey for forced oral copulation. And he's been in violation of his registration status since the end of May.

So the girl agrees to meet him at a local El Pollo Loco.

Dempkey shows up. Girl shows up.

Hawthorne Police Department shows up. Everybody's happy. Except Dempkey. But screw him.

You don't fuck with the dog.

I Thought They Shot Them When They Crossed The Border

2009-06-29T09:30:00.001-07:00

Beverly Hills, CA

Some guy hung himself in a stairwell outside the Beverly Hills City Hall on Sunday. Bet you're thinking it was somebody famous. Because, you know, only famous people live in the 90210.

But nobody panic! Sergeant Kelly Spedden of the Beverly Hills Police Department sets us straight:

"This person is not a celebrity, and we believe he was a local homeless person."

Well thank god for that. For a second there I was scared the paparazzi were going to explode or something. There's only so much an asshole with a Nikon can shoot in a day, ya know?

So, just some random homeless guy. Eh. We'll get the butler to take him out to the curb later. Trash pickup's on Tuesday.

You'd Think He Was The Only Dead Guy Around

2009-06-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles, CA

So, yeah. Rant time.

Michael Jackson. Let's see. Decent singer, hell of a dancer, awesome sideshow freak. Suspected pedophile. And he's dead, a fact which I'm sure all of you have been endlessly inundated with by now. How'd he die? Who knows. Personally I don't much care.

Now he died, what, Thursday? And his autopsy was Friday.

This makes me angry.

Back in the distant lands of 2006, the L.A. County Coroner was running a serious backlog. They had bodies double and triple stacked. They've had to contract out to Cedars-Sinai to help out with autopsies and with local morticians to handle the cremations. As far as I know they haven't gotten much better.

They currently have 4,773 unclaimed persons, many of whom are sitting in little boxes in a brick building on Mission Road. They handle the entire load of the murders in the City of Los Angeles, 138 this year, as well as the whole of Los Angeles County, 107 so far from reporting agencies. Plus questionable deaths.

They even do private autopsies. Six thousand bucks a head, in case you're interested. Bring you kids. Fun for the whole family.

In 2005 out of 18,854 reported cases they handled 9,494 of them. Accidents, suicides, homicides and natural causes.

They are, and have been and will be, in a word, busy.

So why does Michael Jackson get an autopsy the next day?

It's not because they don't know what killed him. Lots of those hit the Medical Examiner and those can take days or weeks to get around to. Even if they do, and it's obvious, like a gunshot, it could be a week or more.

It's money, of course. And noise. He's an important guy. More important than the rest of us. As important a pederast as you're ever going to find, certainly. The family wants to know, the media wants to know. Hell, Agnes Lippenschlinger in Bayou Creek, Louisiana standing in line at the Piggly-Wiggly with a National Enquirer in her fat, sweaty hands wants to know.

And chances are, so do you.

This is LA and if there's one thing we do well it's carve up our idols. So you'll have your answer soon enough. Probably sooner than we'll know who killed Danny Quijada, 30, who was gunned down outside his apartment in May.

Or Herbert Turner, 42, shot on 48th and South Ascot. Christopher Herera, 18, dead in Koreatown. Anson Greenwood, Raul Castillo, David Mam, Dannie Farber, Robert Rodwell, Jose Ramos, Ly Tran, Erika Balayan, Courtney Adams, Draysean Earl, Rosa Gallegos, Thomas Wade, Abraham Mkrtchyan, Michael McCullough, or Daniel Chavez.

So fuck you, Michael Jackson. I give a rat's ass how important a pop singer you were.

Like everybody else, get in line.

Now That's A Confidential Informant

2009-06-18T07:59:00.001-07:00

Los Angeles, CA

Back in 2007, Luis Angel Garcia, 23 days old, was hit by a stray bullet in MacArthur Park by an 18th Streeter going after one of the street vendors for not paying "rent". Shitstorm ensues. Police, regular citizens and La Eme all want this guy's hide. So his fellow 18th Streeters, how's this for honor among thieves, take him down to Mexico, strangle him, toss his body into a ditch and speed away. Only they forgot to actually, you know, kill him.

And, my aren't paybacks a bitch.

The trigger man, named in court records simple as "unindicted co-conspirator #1" (I'm pretty sure his name is Giovanni Macedo) is in protective custody helping prosecutors build their case. Obviously it's a plea deal. He was charged last year in the baby's killing. The guy's going to go away for a very, very long time.

But in the meantime he's going to make some people squirm. The 114-page indictment charges members of Columbia Lil Cycos, a branch of 18th Street, with racketeering charges involving murder, drug trafficking, money laundering, and kidnapping, among other things. They've also got an attorney they're accusing of acting as an intermediary between La Eme and 18th Street.

Taking these guys down is a lot like eating an elephant; a bite at a time. Undercut the foot soldiers, you can disrupt the power structure. Hopefully, eventually, you can damage the infrastructure enough that it slows them down and makes things better. For a while at least.

Now if we could just make some room in the prisons.

David Del Toro - 20 Years?

2009-06-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

Just got this comment on a post from 2007 on the long and drawn out saga of David Del Toro:

Rumor at the FD: he plead to 2nd degree, sentenced to 20 years. Can someone verify?

For a refresher see here and here.

So, anyone? True? False?

At Least He's Not A Flight Risk

2009-06-11T19:12:00.000-07:00

Ladera Ranch, CA

A few days ago Mark Alan Jarosik, 43, was in jail for attacking his ex-girlfriend and allegedly raping her back in May. Took him a while to post the $100K in bail, but last Saturday night he did.

And boy was that a bad idea.

Jarosik was arrested again Monday morning after he attacked the woman again outside her home, smashing her head into the curb and landing her in the hospital.

Seems he may have tried to break into the house Sunday night, too, but that's still up in the air.

Overall, he's being charged with:

Forcible rape and attempted sodomy
Attempted murder with premeditation and deliberation
Residential burglary
Corporal injury of a former cohabitant
Dissuading a witness
Violating a protective order and sentencing-enhancing allegations of great bodily injury inflicted during domestic violence
Committing a new crime while out on bail for a previous crime.

Or, in short, 29 years to life.

Enjoy the prison loaf, Sparky. Something tells me you're going to get a lot of it.

A Question For The Writers

2009-06-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

What do y'all think of multiple points of view. Not reading it, but writing it? Pain in the ass? Too hard to keep everything straight? Easier because you can get more on the page?

Never done it before and I'm playing around with the idea. So far I'm, 60/40 against. I have a hard enough time pulling off a single POV.

Thoughts? Anyone? Bueller?

People With Discerning Taste

2009-06-09T05:47:00.001-07:00

Carl Brookins, who I embarrassingly didn't know anything about before last night, is one of the people responsible for Minnesota Crime Wave, which I also knew nothing about before... 10 minutes ago.

Behold the power of Google.

Anyway, it appears that Mr. Brookins enjoyed Uncage Me.

Twenty-two stories, dark, bleak, unsettling, yet many are affirming in odd ways. You find yourself unaccountably rooting for whoever the central character is, even while you know that the end result may be—is likely to be—mayhem, murder along with painful destruction. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

Affirming. Not a word that would have ever occurred to me.

Especially after reading Guthrie's piece. The things that man does to turnips...

Point is the dude likes it.

And that's enough for me.

Where You Least Expect It

2009-06-05T13:52:00.001-07:00

Los Angeles, CA

In 1986, Sherri Rae Rasmussen, a nursing director, was beaten and shot to death in her home. No one was taken into custody and the file sat open until recently when detectives started going back into some cold cases. DNA testing revealed that the killer was a woman, which surprised everyone because the thought at the time was that a couple of unidentified burglars who were operating in the area at the time had killed her.

When that broadened the search, detectives realized that they knew someone who had been in a relationship with Rasmussen's husband at the time. They put a tail on her, got hold of something with her saliva and ran a DNA test.

Which turned out to be a match.

Unfortunately, the suspect is one of their own, Detective Stephanie Ilene Lazarus, 49.

Lazarus was arrested this morning downtown at Parker Center on suspicion of murder. No word on formal charges or, well, anything else, yet.

Writerly Stuff This Weekend

2009-06-05T09:18:00.001-07:00

Light weekend. Must be the rain.

Tim Maleeny signs Jump at The Mystery Bookstore on Saturday at 1:00.

San Francisco police officer Sam McGowan hasn't even been retired for a full day when his obnoxious landlord takes a lethal fall from the top of his building. The city wants to call it a suicide, but McGowan knows that can't be true – not least because everyone in the building had a motive.

Jump is a standalone. A departure from his Cape Weathers series, the latest of which, Greasing The Pinata won the Left at Left Coast Crime this year.

Also, because I'm going to shamelessly plug this thing until Doomsday, he's got a story in Uncage Me coming out in July. It's a book. Of short stories. You know, an anthology.

I really need to work on this whole promotion thing.

===

Laura Levine signs Killer Cruise at The Mystery Bookstore at 3:00. I know nothing about this novel beyond the fact that there is a cat on the cover. And that the main character's name is Jaine.

Jaine Austen.

I will go no further with that train of thought. But if you're into that sort of thing... well, you probably wouldn't be here reading this, now would you?

However, Ms Levine used to write ad copy and episodes of sitcoms in the 70's. The Jeffersons, The Bob Newhart Show, Three's Company. She may have created Mister Furley, I don't know.

However, she did create Count Chocula cereal.

Count Chocula, people. Count Fucking Chocula.

How cool is that? Count Chocula. Damn.

So go buy her book.

Count Chocula.

Criminal Tip #87,687: The Warning Signs Really Mean It

2009-06-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

San Jacinto, CA

Not long ago tweakers could be confident that they had a steady supply of cash from copper. Cable from lampposts, pipes from houses and construction sites. Good money when there's a housing boom and contractors are looking for ways to cut costs. A little questionably procured pipe means fatter margins.

Everyone's happy, except for the people it's stolen from, of course. But who cares about them? The engines of capitalism must grind on.

But as the economy has tanked so has the market for copper. It also isn't as easy to steal from a construction site these days. There aren't as many construction sites to steal it from.

The money dries up. The stupid get desperate. Or the other way around.

And then this happens.

Two men were were found electrocuted late last night out by a blown transformer. Seems they opened it up and started yanking cables, which is, well, a bad idea. They pump through, what, 10,000 KVA? Electricity doesn't like being fucked with.

So remember, if you're ripping off copper, and these days why would you, there are better places to get it. Like ones that won't kill you.

An Ambitious Project

2009-06-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles, CA

I'm a fan of the LA Weekly. There's a certain grim absurdity to its pages that has always appealed to me. Breast enlargement and vaginal reconstruction ads sit alongside articles on remembering the Jonestown massacre, the Grim Sleeper and the dying off of L.A.'s newsstands. Escort services thinly disguised as personal ads sit among fiction from some of L.A.'s top talent.

Last week they launched the blog Murder Was The Case, by the very talented Christine Pelisek with the ambitious goal of documenting every homicide in the City of Los Angeles.

To date this year we've had 118.

Unlike the L.A. Times' Homicide Report it looks like they're shooting for real time. Someone gets murdered, they'll post a story as soon as they hear about it.

Ambitious. We get a lot of dead people out here.

Best of luck Ms Pelisek. Lot of potential here. This is one I'll definitely be paying attention to.

Ought To Be A Holiday

2009-06-01T07:52:00.001-07:00

It's Hogdoggin' Monday, boys and girls. What? You don't know what Hogdoggin' is? Besides a... uh, sport? where pigs are eaten alive by hunting dogs, Hogdoggin' is a book.

But not just any book. This is Anthony Neil Smith's follow-up to his novel Yellow Medicine.

Former Deputy Billy Lafitte is a no-good, crap-for-brains, despicable and dangerous traitor — Special Agent Franklin Rome is sure of it. So sure, in fact, that he’s willing to investigate outside departmental bounds. Willing to blackmail and bribe his fellow lawmen into helping him. Willing to ferret Lafitte out of whatever snake-hole he’s hidden himself in, and do what the too-lax government wouldn’t let him do back in Yellow Medicine county, just months ago.
And Rome’s plan is working. Squeeze a man’s ex-wife, especially an ex-wife as unstable as Ginny Lafitte, and watch her overprotective man appear from thin air to stand by his family. No matter that Rome’s had to bend a few rules in order to make it happen; Billy’s end will justify Rome’s means.

Of course, Rome didn’t count on Billy riding in to save the day on a turquoise motorcycle — with a beard, fifty extra pounds of muscle, and the weight of a man named Steel God at his back. Nor did he think Billy would go and get himself caught up with paint-huffing, knife-wielding rednecks. And Rome certainly never predicted that a broken-hearted, vengeful woman named Colleen would be just as hot for Lafitte’s blood as he is.

In short, this is the biker grindhouse movie you've been waiting for.

So go buy a copy today. If you don't, Steel God's gonna be awful unhappy with you. And you don't want that.

Because I'm Not Too Proud To Stoop To A Boob Joke

2009-05-29T08:14:00.001-07:00

Laguna Beach, CA

Back in March I mentioned Yvonne Jean Pampellonne, who was accused of stealing someone's identity and using it to rack up some $12,000.00 in cosmetic surgery charges for breast implants and liposuction. Well, she's in court now facing 3 felony charges.

What I hadn't realized at the time is what the police used to track her down.

Pampellone surrendered to police in March after detectives caught up with her using breast implant tracking numbers.

and in a related article:

Breast implants are medical devices with tracking numbers that helped confirm Pampellonne's identity. When implants are inserted or removed, the numbers are recorded by medical staff and associated with the patient in case of problems. The numbers can also be used by coroners to help identify bodies.

Reading that I have only one question.

How?

"When implants are inserted or removed..."

What, they took them out to see? It's not like they have RFID. Do they? That would be more than a little disturbing. Chip a boob like they chipped my dog? Cyberboobs?

I think I saw that movie.

If she was stupid enough to give her real address then they didn't need the serial numbers, right? The only way I can think this worked is if she gave one address for the surgery and another address for the... warranty card? Did she have to register her boobs to get free upgrades? Does she get email like, "Hi Yvonne! New Boob 3.5 (beta) is now available! Rounder! Fuller! Faster!"

I'm picturing cops roaming Orange County with handheld parabolic tracking devices that beep as they pass the fake boobs of Laguna Niguel. The damn things would never shut up.

Okay, cheap jokes aside... HA! Like that's ever gonna happen. The medical center staff ID'd her in a line-up... Which is another image that just opens itself up for frat boy comedy. Did they look at her or her boobs? And who'd they get to be in the line-up with her? And how do I get that job?

Anyway, as I was saying, the staff ID'd her in the line-up and they used the recorded serial numbers to confirm her identity. Which I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around. They've got her. They've got witnesses. Which really is all you need, right? The boobs are just superfluous.

I can't believe I just said that.

If it was so important that the boobs were used to confirm her ID, it's going to come up in court. Sure, they've got the recorded serial numbers. But how do they know that her boobs are the stolen boobs? How are they going to prove it?

And you thought jury duty was boring.

Great, Now Even The Gods Are Homeless

2009-05-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

Mount Olympus

Some guy lit a fire off of Laurel Canyon in the Mount Olympus area Sunday. Cops grabbed a homeless suspect Monday morning who I think we can all agree has a pretty solid case against him. His name? Pro Me Theaus. I think he's Greek.

What's next? Aphrodite turning tricks on Santa Monica Boulevard? Dionysus picked up in a gutter with a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20? I don't even want to know what Hades is doing down at the morgue.

I knew the economy was bad, but damn.

Uncaged

2009-05-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

Got a gander at the proofs for Uncage Me coming out in July by Bleak House Books and edited by the inimitable Jen Jordan.

Been reading the stories. Can't stop. Finish reading and I read them again.

My short "Like That Japanese Chick What Broke Up Van Halen" is in there.

How the hell did that happen?

I mean, look at the playlist here.

Scott Phillips, Declan Burke, Bryon Quertermous, Steven Torres, Brian Azzarello, Gregg Hurwitz, Tim Maleeny, Nick Stone, Marytn Waites, J.D. Rhoades, Simon Kernick, Patrick Shawn Bagley, Victor Gischler, Greg Bardsley, J.A. Konrath, Stuart MacBride, Allan Guthrie, Christa Faust, Blake Crouch, Simon Wood, Talia Berliner, and Maxim Jakubowski.

Foreword by John Connolly.

This is some serious shit.

And I'm between Konrath and MacBride.

Which might be the most disturbing sentence I've ever written regardless of context.

Point is. I'm in some fucking incredible company. I kind of feel like the guy they let into the clubhouse because he brought the beer and hope they don't figure out just how not cool he is. Low man on the totem pole?

Take a look at that list again.

Yeah. Low man on the totem pole.

And the editing. And the layout. And the whole fucking thing.

Jen is a goddess. Seriously. She's in some dark pantheon pulling together blood and bone, sex and death and laying it all out onto a page where if you read it too close you'll go insane.

And demand more.

Yes. She's that good.

The whole magilla drops in July, but you can preorder it if you want. Or go to your local Indie and buy a copy when it comes out.

Hell, buy two and scare your mom with a copy.

This Is Not Your Father's Ray Gun

2009-05-23T18:30:00.001-07:00

The latest Plots With Guns is up. Plots With Ray Guns this one is. Noir in the future.

Holy fucking shit is this good.

Kieran Shea, Garnett Elliott, Kyle Minor, Richie Narvaez, Pinckney Benedict, Cameron Ashley, Fred Zackel.

Ray guns, robots and romance in Toronto. A father trying to save his daughter in an orbital sea of irradiated hulks. A trigger happy bar owner on a really bad day. Guys whose jobs it is to get killed. Over and over and over again.

Might be the best issue ever.

So go read it. This thing rocks.

The Problem With Diversity

2009-05-21T13:30:00.001-07:00

Hawaiian Gardens, CA

Southern California is one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the nation. Pretty much every racial group is represented here. This is a good thing. People get exposed to other cultures, have their minds expanded to other possibilities, learn to work and live with people who have a different frame of reference.

Unless they're assholes.

A hundred and fifty members of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang has been hit with a racketeering charge that covers drugs, guns, kidnapping, shooting, intimidation and hate crimes against African Americans. Seems they don't like them. Apparently they have been suggesting for some time that they leave the area.

Forcefully. With guns and knives and, in one instance, a rake.

We're seeing RICO being used more and more against gangs. The Mongols, Vineland Boyz, these guys. But only a few times have they asserted that the crimes are racially motivated.

Locally not a lot of government types seem to want to come out and say that Latino gangs are targeting African Americans. Understandable. Nobody wants more noise. But it's not like it's news. Whether it's true or not, a lot of people believe it. This is why we have things like Jamiel's Law floating around and attempts to kill SO 40.

It's one of those topics that hits almost every hot button issue out there; immigration, gun control, gang violence, racism. It's not going away any time soon and if cities don't start dealing with this issue more openly instead of having the Feds do the heavy lifting, it's not going to go away at all.

So I ask you, assorted freaks who wander by and read my ramblings, what do you think? Got any ideas?

Fashionably Poor Judgment

2009-05-15T14:51:00.001-07:00

El Monte, CA

There's this video from the other day of an El Monte police officer kicking a suspect in the head after a high speed car chase. Apparently the suspect, after being run down, flops to the ground with his arms and legs out and the officer runs up and punts his head like a football. Just so you know, this isn't about the kick.

No, this is about fashion.

See, besides being the officer in the video, George Fierro also owns Torcido Clothing in El Monte. They sell t-shirts with logos, pictures, witty sayings. Things like LA County Jail: 1750 High Power Module, which is the section they stick the shot callers for the Mexican Mafia to keep them isolated. Or 186.22, which is the penal code for a sentence extension for a crime committed in prison for the benefit of a gang. And the ever popular 11550, the California Health and Safety Code for being under the influence of a controlled substance.

Starting to see a pattern here?

Yes, it would appear that officer Fierro is the owner of a clothing store that glorifies gang life.

This is either a conflict of interest, chutzpah or just plain stupidity. I honestly don't know which. Maybe he's using it to conduct his own sting operations? Keep tabs on the bangers who come into his store? Keep your friends close but your enemies closer?

In which case, bravo, officer Fierro. Good luck with that.

Officer Fierro also appears to have had some issues with the higher ups, having filed a civil suit last year alleging that he has been passed over for promotion time and again due to having reported on the unethical behavior of his fellow officers. The case goes to court in September.

I wonder if he's aware of the irony.

This Is Just Me Thinking Out Loud

2009-05-12T10:53:00.001-07:00

I've been doing L.A. Noir for over four years now. It will be five in November. I've been going over some of my old blog entries, lately, mostly because I still get comments on posts from years back.

Fun stuff. New comments on old posts mostly fall into three broad categories: Someone hates the subject (Like the Israeli hatchet man dying of stomach cancer right now - Hoo boy, do people want to see him dead), someone hates the previous commenter (Assorted baby mommas of guys doing three to five for assault - Like watching a cage match between rabid wolverines), someone hates me (An unsurprisingly long list - one guy even put up a website specifically to enumerate the ways in which I am an idiot. Apparently, I have arrived. I'd feel better if he'd had more than the one entry, though. I think he lost count)

Reading these has gotten me thinking about a couple of things. One, do I want to do anything different around here and two, what has this taught me?

The second one's easier, so I'll start with that.

People Are Assholes

The more I've done this blog the more I've come to realize that the biggest problems people face are other people. Yes, I already knew this, but trawling through the wasteland of human misery that is the evening news has just hammered that point home.

Seriously, human beings are fucking animals. Child torture, forced prostitution, domestic violence, murder, rape, assault, extortion, fraud, identity theft, carjacking, cannibalism, dismemberment, drive-bys, people set on fire, kids caught in crossfires, dogfighting, cockfighting, bumfighting, drug dealing, murder-suicides, drunken rampages, corpses dragged through the streets, nursing students stuffed in trashcans, men with shotguns, women with kitchen knives, children with pistols, rabid dogs, pissed off monkeys, political corruption, police corruption, judicial corruption, health fraud, bank fraud, bank robbery, and the ever popular shooting of a random stranger after uttering the phrase, "Where you from?"

And the reasons. Jesus. Except for the psychotic breaks and sociopaths (and there might be an argument for those, too) I think most of them boil down to fear. Something gets labeled a threat and people go apeshit. Threat to authority, threat to confidence, threat to livelihood, threat to identity, threat to manhood. Looked at that way it all becomes rather banal.

I don't think you can discount the cultural aspect, either. We have a culture that not only says it's okay for men to be violent, but that violence is a currency in its own right. It's how we settle disputes, right wrongs, maintain balance.

And when you mix up different nationalities that all have their own particular cultural boundaries, well, shit's bound to happen. One of the strengths of L.A., it's ethnic and national diversity, can also be its weakness. But that's for another post entirely.

So Am I

I have never pissed off more people, from more walks of life than during my time writing L.A. Noir.

I am well acquainted with the inappropriate comment. It really is kind of surprising I haven't gotten into more fist fights. It's a defense mechanism. Shit happens and I can't not joke about it. I'm a riot in the emergency room. Not so much at a funeral. Important note: DO NOT HAVE ME GIVE A EULOGY. Just sayin'.

Many of my posts haven't exactly been sensitive to the victims of the crimes I'm writing about. And people have pointed this out to me. Many times. Sometimes eloquently, sometimes in apoplectic rage, sometimes with the grammar skills of a three-year-old. Some threats, a few rants, more than a couple screaming rages.

To my mind it's really a matter of perspective. These are usually from people who are in the middle of it. Someone demanding sensitivity, someone wanting to set the record straight. More often than not that second gets contradicted by someone else who also knows the situation.

Guy I know put it this way. When it happens to someone else, it's pathos. When it happens to you it just sucks. Word.

I've tried to keep the asshole quotient down to a dull roar, but I don't think I'm very good at it. It's like smoking. There is no quitting, just longer peiods of abstinence.

Except When I'm Not

I am nothing more than an asshat with a bullhorn. Occasionally, though, I've been mistaken for something else. Two things, actually: a journalist or a private investigator.

And though I think both of those occupations are pretty goddamn cool, I'm neither. Journalist? Please. I don't write news. I make snarky comments on it. Journalists are out there digging this shit up. At best I'm riding on their coattails.

A PI? Besides serving court papers on an ex-girlfriend so her current boyfriend could get partial custody of their kid (loooong story), I've never done a single PI-like thing in my life. I mean, besides getting beat up.

And no, stalking doesn't count.

But I've gotten emails a few times from strangers looking for help. I'm the only guy they can find who has even mentioned something that's happened to a relative, an ex-husband, a friend. One woman couldn't comprehend how her ex could have been attacked and killed by one guy. Until I dug into it a little and found out that the attacker outweighed him by a hundred and fifty pounds.

Don't know why but that seemed to help her. And that made me feel pretty good about what I've done here.

There are other things, but these are the ones that have been forefront in my mind, lately.

The Point?

I've been wondering if maybe it's time to make some changes around here. To what I don't know.

The crime stuff I write about is staying. No question about that. That was the whole point of this site in the first place. Well, actually, the point was to stroke my own ego and see how many page hits I can get. That defines one's existence these days, after all.

But what else? I've also been using this as a marketing tool from time to time. Talk about my other writing.

Should I do more of that? Less?

What about rants? Stuff that isn't about a crime or a news story, just me rambling on? You know, like what you're reading now?

More stuff on other writers? More on book signings? Writing about writing? Not that I really know anything about that.

Thoughts, comments? I'll assume that silence means no one really gives a damn and I'll just put up pictures of clowns fucking circus bears or something.

Or the other way around. I mean, whatever floats your boat.

Passes The Doesn't Suck Test

2009-05-11T08:40:00.001-07:00

Publisher's Weekly has a review of Jen Jordan's noir anthology Uncage Me due out in July here (about 2/3 of the way down).

While John Connolly (The Reapers) rightly notes in his introduction that this all-original anthology isn't for the fainthearted, noir lovers will find plenty to savor among the 22 stories from both familiar and unfamiliar names.

Mine would be one of those "unfamiliar names".

I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet, but I have read Connolly's intro. It's a hell of a piece of writing on the point of and need for transgressive fiction. And then some. I'd buy the book for the intro alone. The man is clearly more intelligent, eloquent and thought provoking than I will ever be. I want this man's brain. Like, in my head, not in a jar.

I hear "Why don't you write happy stories?" one more time and I'm whipping that intro out. And then I'm beating the person who asked with the book. Wrapped around a 2x4.

Behind The Times - Writerly Stuff

2009-05-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know. I'm a slacker. Blame, I dunno, let's go with swine flu. Maybe California on fire again? Rickets? Something.

Anyway, as usual I'm a day late and a buck short, but here are some things I've been meaning to yammer on about for a while now.

Seth Harwood's novel, Jack Wakes Up came out. Go buy it. Or give it a listen.

Oh, and check out these reviews on the N.Y. Times and Boston Globe. Good stuff.

Then we have The Lineup: Poems on Crime 2, edited by Gerald So, Patrick Shawn Bagley, R. Narvaez, and Anthony Rainone, on sale now through Lulu.com and wherever fine indie bookstores get off their slacker asses and agree to carry it.

Incidentally, the aforementioned Mr. Harwood also runs Crimewav.com, where you can listen to some of the best crime fiction out there, including selected poems from The Lineup, starting tomorrow.

Let's see. What else? Oh, right.

Switchblade. New noir imprint from PM Press. Debut novels are a reprint of Gary Phillips' The Jook (Great book) and Summer Brenner's I-5 (which I can't wait to get my hands on).

I know there's more, but my brain is fucking cottage cheese these days. It's a wonder I remember to wear pants when I leave the house.

Oh, go pre-order Hogdoggin', out June 1st. Anthony Neil Smith's follow-up to last year's Yellow Medicine.

That it? Think that's it.

Dammit. Where are my pants?