Esotouric: Journalists Invited to Tour LA's Secret Heart through True Crime, Chandler, Fante and '60s Rock

WHAT: Launch of sophisticated bus tour series Esotouric, a spin-off of the popular 1947project Crime Bus Tours
WHEN: Free press junket tour, April 22 in LA, public tours begin in May
TOURS: Raymond Chandler's LA, John Fante's Dreams of Bunker Hill, Riot on Sunset Strip ('60s Hollywood rock scene), The Real Black Dahlia, Pasadena Confidential, etc.
WEBSITE: www.esotouric.com

LOS ANGELES- A fascinating city gets the bus tours it deserves. The team behind 1947project, the critically acclaimed time travel blog and its sold-out Crime Bus Tours, are expanding to include literary, musical and (soon) architectural themes. Passionate expert guides host these provocative tours on comfortable coach class busses. Tours wind through fascinating, neglected neighborhoods and feature vintage slide shows, original research, eclectic snack stops and a mix of laughter, poignancy and rich historical fact.

The first set of tour dates has just been announced, and Esotouric would like to extend an invitation to members of the media to join them on the bus on Sunday, April 22 at 1pm for a three-hour anthology tour, featuring excerpts from a sampling of their new and classic tours, and a complimentary tasting of Esotouric-themed flavors at Scoops Gelato.

Priority seating will be given to reporters with an assignment to cover the tours, but feel free to RSVP now and follow up with assignment details. If space permits, we will offer seats for a +1 guest shortly before tour time. If interested in attending, please reply with your name, credentials, contact info, assignment (if any) and if you want a +1.

ABOUT THE FEATURED TOURS
The Real Black Dahlia (May 5): Our most popular Crime Bus tour, The Real Black Dahlia spans the city from downtown to Hollywood to South Central, visiting the actual scenes of Elizabeth Short's brief life and 1947 death in Los Angeles, and those places that have become attached to her in the ever growing mythology of the Black Dahlia murder. The major and minor theories of Short's murder are explored and debunked and passengers are introduced to a little known and quite convincing suspect with ties to the body dump scene near 39th and Norton.

Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles (debuts May 12): Bungalows. Crime. Hollywood. Blondes. Vets. Smog. Death. This was Raymond Chandler’s L.A., which resonated from deft and melancholy fits of his writer’s bow. Join us as we go down the mean streets that shaped his fiction, and in turn his hard-boiled times. Through published work, private correspondence, screenplays and film adaptations, we trace Chandler’s search for meaning and his anti-hero Philip Marlowe’s struggle to not be pigeonholed or give anything less than all he has, which lead them both down the rabbit hole of isolation, depression, and drink. This tour is hosted by Kelly Kuvo and Richard Schave.

John Fante's Dreams of Bunker Hill (debuts June 16): Before Kerouac and Bukowski, there was John Fante, author of five Arturo Bandini novels, including "Ask the Dust," chronicles of a neighborhood teeming with immigrants, criminals and dreamers. Bunker Hill is gone now, redeveloped by corporate and civic interests. But the same stories still play out downtown, where artists and writers find their voices, some making it big and others breaking up on the reef. Arturo Bandini is alive and well, his lament as relevant as 75 years ago. Join us as we follow in his footsteps, to the Goodwill, King Eddie's, Clifton's Cafeteria ("pay what you can") and other evocative scenes of old L.A. Along the way, we'll visit the scenes of some of the most peculiar crimes to befall downtown's denizens, and invite their ghosts to join us on our time travelers' jaunt between the 20th and 21st centuries. This bus and walking tour is hosted by Kelly Kuvo, Kim Cooper and Richard Schave.

Riot on Sunset Strip (debuts June 23): On the Sunset Strip in 1965-66 an electrifying scene exploded into creativity and just as suddenly, vanished. So much remarkable music, art, and social upheaval erupted, it's difficult now to grasp how it all happened, and why it all, so suddenly, stopped. This tour tells the story of that astonishing time. Nightlife on the Strip was a heady mix of modernist design, pop art, and beat aesthetics. Pop art and rock'n'roll combined, and the new fusion quickly permeated TV, animation, and New Hollywood's indie cinema. Riot on Sunset Strip is partly based on Domenic Priore's forthcoming book of that name, and is hosted by Priore and Kim Cooper.

Upcoming Esotouric tour schedule:
Sun April 22 - Press Junket (downtown and Hollywood)
Sat May 5 - The Real Black Dahlia
Sat May 12 - Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles: In A Lonely Place
Sat May 26 - Pasadena Confidential
Sat June 16- John Fante's Dreams of Bunker Hill
Sat June 23 - Riot on Sunset Strip

The Esotouric tour guides are available for interviews.

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