Crime Expert BURL BARER. Edgar Award Winner and NYT Bestselling Author

Mopping up in True Crime -- Alan Emmins' fame is growing!

I was recently delighted to receive a message from famed journalist Alan Emmins, author of the cult classic crime book,    Mop Men: Inside the World of Crime Scene Cleaners

I visited his blog, and his MySpace page, and WOW, was I impressed. It turns out that the rather famous Alan Emmins is on a world tour, currently in Denmark. However, due to the amazing invention of the telephone, Mr. Emmins has volunteered to actually make a transatlantic phone call to join Don Woldman and me on True Crimes this Saturday, 2pm PST. You can listen live by clicking THIS at 2pm Pacific time this Saturday. Now I am REALLY impressed with this guy.  In addition to talking about MOP MEN,  he will share his experience of comparing homeless life on the streets of NYC with London. Yes, he emptied his pockets and lived broke on the streets in these two major cities, then wrote about his "Adventures."
Here is the scoop on Mop Men:
Mop Men: Inside the World of Crime Scene Cleaners

Neal Smither is making a killing. His business puts it plainly: "Crime Scene Cleaners: Homicides, Suicides and Accidental Death." Whenever a hotel guest decides to check out of life, the cops finish an investigation, or an accidental but bloody death is reported, Neal and the Crime Scene Cleaners are the ones picking up the pieces and mopping up the stains.

In 'Mop Men', journalist Alan Emmins follows Neal and his unlikely team to gory locations throughout California. He learns how the work is done–and how to make millions doing it. As Emmins rolls up his sleeves to get down with the gore, he takes us behind the scenes of this little-known aspect of society's most gruesome deaths. In the process, he examines not just the public fascination with murder but also how a man like Neal can make a living simply by praying for death.

Filled with eye-opening, gut-wrenching details of one of America's strangest jobs, Mop Men shows what life is like for the hugely successful and extremely eccentric Crime Scene Cleaners, the men who step in after CSI steps out.

"Kip Addotta Encyclopedia of Products, Services, Health & Entertainment"

Kip Addotta is, or was, a professional comedian. He is retired, and turns down amazing amounts of money to perform because he doesn't have to do that anymore.  If you are not familiar with Kip's career, his perfectly timed and structurally flawless routines, or his odd-ball off-the-wall YouTube videos, you are missing out on a one man encyclopedia of comedy professionalism.  Kip and I are often together on Matt Alan's Outlaw Radio. I play a smart ass who doesn't know when to just keep quiet...and Kip plays the mature man who tells me to shut up...or maybe we have that backwards. It varies from week to week. People occassionally ask me, "what is Kip really like?" To this is I calmly reply, "How the hell should I know? I spend a couple hours a week with a guy doing a live unrehearsed radio show and you think I can see into his soul? Are you nuts?"

Well, I can say that Kip, from my limited experience, is a kind and generous person, even if he doesn't always play one on the radio. Visit Kip's website for a good laugh, or several good laughs.

  

Blind Author Battles Depression.

One of my remarkable characteristics is my ability to be happy most of the time. This is not most of the time. I see the eye specialist Monday. Actually, if I coud see him I wouldn't need to see him, if you know what I mean.  This being half blind business is aggravating. I bump into things and people, and everyday I wake up more pissed off that "the operation was a success" but success does not equal sight. Thank God I still have one eye that works well enough to see with lenses, but I don't have the lenses. Get the picture?

My favorite line from our new President's innaugeral speech is the one line that got some jerks irked. He actually included ALL AMERICANS in his speech. GASP!! He actually spoke truth. We ARE a nation comprised off all sorts of races and religions -- that is supposedly what America is all about. To pretend this is a "Christian" nation is offensive -- we are a secular political body assuring freedom of religion. There is a wall between Church and State -- no establishing of a State Religion, not in the USA! When the President factually mentioned our diversity, some hard core fanatics were upset that he dared include ALL Americans -- Jews, Moslems, Hindus..he didn't mention Zoroastrians, but we have them too. 

One more thing -- I am behind deadline on my  new book. It is driving me crazy. Everytime I turn around I bump into another problem on either the photos, the release forms, or the manuscript. This too shall pass, but right now I'm ready to crawl under the covers -- but i don't have covers, either!

By tomorrow, I'll have cheered up I hope. Not having my medications I'm sure effects my mood, and not having any way to get them effects my mood too. Now, where did I put the razor blades and the handgun?

Listen to my radio show tomorrow, please. Details at http://outlawcrime.com

DSL - High Speed Woes

I have not had any sort of reliable Internet connection lately. I'm staying with a friend in N. Hollywood where ATT was SUPPOSED to have installed DSL last week. So far, all we have is a 'trouble ticket" because the damn thing doesn't work.  The apartment owner, fed up, called the cable company and also signed up for cable DSL. When that arrives, ATT receives a cancellation call.
Added to my Internet woes is a Dell Latitude D610 that is having a complete nervous breakdown. Of course, this all transpires when I have a (missed) deadline on my new True Crime book. <sigh> I can't keep my computer from locking up or crashing, and in order to get on line, I have to be lucky enough to piggy back on someone else's unsecured wireless at 3:30am. Yes, that's when I wrote this.
Soooo....before it all goes away again, please check out my guest this week on TRUE CRIMES by visiting http://outlawcrime.com

Hart D. Fisher and Burl Barer -- evidence photos

 This photo was taken towards the end of Matt Alan's show -- after Hart had ingested a massive amount of what he termed "Girlie Beers" (lite). He was all dressed up because he was supposed to be somewhere else!

Here is you-know-who (ME) hosting TRUE CRIMES.

Note the lovel glasses from the 99 cent store!

HART FISHER AND BURL BARER TOGETHER??? SHOCKING!!!!

HART FISHER LIVE, IN PERSON, ON TRUE CRIMES!!!!

LIVE This Saturday 2pm PST -- HART FISHER!!!  Just click this link to listen live!

 

 

The following info, except for my obvious intrusions, is from the wonderful AMERICAN HORRORS site!:

 

LOS ANGELES, CA- In the 1990s, perhaps no independent publisher partied as hard, shook the industry's foundations, or endured more public and private turmoil than Boneyard Press founder and president Hart D. Fisher. While the man Hero Illustrated dubbed 'The Most Dangerous Man In Comics' was interviewed in virtually every comics trade publication and on mainstream TV programs like Larry King Live, The Jerry Springer Show, and The Sally Jesse Raphael Show, Fisher always held back. Some subjects were too personal; too painful to broach. Living on the edge for the better part of a decade, there were stories behind the stories, skeletons in the closet, and bloody ghosts that continue to haunt him to this day.

Join Edgar Award winner Burl Barer and famed attorney Don Woldman as they grill Fisher like a swordfish! Yes, we will go for the tough stuff --   The murder of his first love & live in girlfriend during filming of his debut feature film, The Garbage Man; the legal battles fought over the publication of his Jeffrey Dahmer comics; the events which led to a threatened KKK protest march on his home in Illinois; what brought him out to Los Angeles and eventually led to him running the show at rock superstar Glenn Danzig's Verotik and the creation of the most controversial comic book in 50 years (Verotika #4’s “A Taste of Cherry”), the shut down of Planet Comics in Oklahoma City, the true story behind Hart D. Fisher’s “Death” in a 1998 April Fools Day prank gone wrong, discovering a young Gerard (My Chemical Romance Frontman) Way and taking the young artist (at the tender age of 15) under his wing, the decade long legal battle to keep the murderer of his first love in prison.

FOR MORE STUFF ON HART D FISHER, go to the TRUE CRIMES website!
Oh......last week's show is up on the archives.

Burl Barer Returns to Los Angeles!

Okay, I'm back.  I-5 was flooded, the trains were not running, but thanks to the current economic climate, I found a flight back for $69.00

Life is crazy. I'm swamped with work yet payday is far away. Sigh. Same old story is getting far too old. And so am I.

Working on confirming Hart Fisher for my show Saturday, but have the brilliant and talented Stephanie Angelo booked for the 24th. Check out the TRUE CRIMES site for details.

Movie updates:  GRAN TURINO -- loved it.  FROST/NIXON -- loved it

THE WRESTLER - OMG! Loved it and I cried twice, dammit

DOUBT -- excellent. My pal Leonard didn't like it, but i did.

Now, back to work!!

TUPAC, BIGGIE, AND TRUE CRIMES This Saturday

TRUE CRIMES returns LIVE Saturday, January 10th with special guest Cathy Scott!Listen 2pm PST by clicking this link!  

 Cathy Scott is the author of the Los Angeles Times' best-seller The Killing of Tupac Shakur, as well as The Murder of Biggie Smalls, Death in the Desert: The Ted Binion Homicide Case, and Seraphim Rose: The True Story and Private Letters. Her latest true-crime book is Death of a Mafia Daughter: The Life and Tragic Death of Susan Berman.

The Las Vegas Review Journal had this to say about Scott's latest book:

COLUMN: John L. Smith

Killer of mafia daughter probably won't get justice, mob or otherwise

Susan Berman's killer might never be tried for her December 2000 murder, and that's a shame.

Robert Durst, the man suspected of shooting the former Las Vegas casino princess in the head, faces a full slate of felonies associated with two other homicides, including the death of his wife, Kathleen Durst, and the grisly death of 71-year-old Morris Black. Durst's murder trial was set to start this week in Galveston, Texas, but now faces more delays.

This side of a day of reckoning in court, those seeking justice for Berman have Las Vegas author Cathy Scott's "Murder of a Mafia Daughter: The Life and Tragic Death of Susan Berman," which nails Durst for the crime. With California authorities monitoring the Texas case, and New York authorities next in line, it's questionable whether they'll push hard to prosecute a man already on his way to life without.

That's where Scott comes in.

Scott, whose book on the murder of Tupac Shakur named the trigger man before some media clued in, attempts to render a sympathetic portrait of Berman. It isn't easy. Berman was talented, but she was eccentric and often took advantage of friends.

Berman came from what once passed for Vegas royalty. She grew up the daughter of green-felt privilege, and as a kid had the run of the house at the Flamingo.

She also idolized her father, a charming thug. Davie Berman had done penitentiary time and was a suspect in more than one murder before making the move west in the wake of Benny Siegel. Berman maintained his organized crime contacts beneath a facade of legitimacy common in that day.

Although Davie Berman died of a heart attack in 1957 when his daughter was 12, Susan Berman kept his spirit alive in her writing all her life. She lived off the mafia princess image, produced the poignant best-selling memoir "Easy Street," and parlayed her felonious family tree into a successful free-lance writing career.

Although Berman's paychecks ebbed, a lack of cash flow didn't prevent her from living in high style. She borrowed money from friends and admirers until both became neither. One of those intimates was Bobby Durst, whom she acknowledged in "Easy Street" as one of her "very special supportive friends."

Scott's book makes it clear Berman borrowed from the increasingly desperate Durst even as a New York district attorney's office crept closer to solving Kathleen Durst's disappearance. The so-called loans resembled extortion. Not long before she was slain, Berman received from Durst three checks totalling $100,000.

Durst, Scott contends, was hiding a dark secret that in a weak moment he had shared with Berman. That secret, which police believe was the admission that Durst had killed his wife, became Susan's ace in the hole.

In that regard, she was as calculating as her wiseguy father.

"I think Susan knew too much," Scott says. "From everything I can tell from talking to her friends, Susan couldn't help herself. She talked too much. Durst was worried about the investigation and what Susan might say about the investigation. She was in the way."

The Berman described by Scott was a skilled writer and journalist with a penchant for landing the big story. But, overall, the portrait isn't flattering. She was a former rich kid who lived off a trust fund, then sponged off friends when the easy money ran out. She won big jobs, but couldn't keep them.

And she never really got over being Davie Berman's Little Miss Marker.

The question now is, will someone pay for her murder?

Although Durst has an alibi, Scott's interview with attorney Dick DeGuerin revealed something she finds compelling: the admission that Durst was in California at the time of the slaying. Berman's medallion was in Durst's possession when he was arrested.

"All the evidence points to him," Scott says. "People would get mad at her and just walk away from her, but Bobby was worried about what she might be telling people."

Durst is a long way from trial in the Berman slaying, but Scott hounds him with the facts.

It might be his only conviction for the crime.

==================

     Scott is a member of the Authors Guild and the Society of Professional Journalists' national Speakers Bureau. She also serves as the Nevada chairwoman of the Society of Professional Journalist’s Sunshine Committee which works to keep government records open to the public.
     She’s also a freelance reporter and stringer for The New York Times and Reuters news service. Her work has appeared in George magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, New York Times Magazine, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Las Vegas Sun, AmericaOnline and APBNews.com. Until she went to New Orleans to cover the largest natural disaster in history, she taught journalism at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She left that position to report on the rescue of animals for Best Friends.
     She has appeared on Unsolved Mysteries, CourtTV, CNN, BET, VH1, MTV, Uncovered TV, CBS 2’s Morning Show, Talk Books, National Public Radio, and "Backstage Live" with Gary and Connie."
     Her work has taken her to Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Panama. A native San Diegan, she has one son and two grandchildren She lives in Las Vegas. ..

Berkeley in the Sixties.

They All Sang "Bread and Roses
(Si Kahn, 1989, 1991)

Now don't you think it's crazy,
This old world and its ways?
Whoever thought the Sixties
Would be called the good old days?
But like the Weavers sang to us,
Wasn't that a time?
When we raised our hands
And voices on the line.

CHORUS
And we all sang "Bread and Roses,"
"Joe Hill" and "Union Maid."
We linked our arms and told each other
We are not afraid.
"Solidarity Forever"
Would go rolling through the hall,
"We Shall Overcome" together
One and all.

The more I study history,
The more I seem to find
That in every generation
There are times just like that time
When folks like you and me who thought
That they were all alone
Within this honored movement
Found a home.
CHORUS
(And they all sang

And 'though each generation fears
That it will be the last,
Our presence here is witness
To the power of the past.
And just as we have drawn our strength
From those who now are gone,
Younger hands will take our work
And carry on.
CHORUS
(And they'll all sing ...)