Kim Cooper

Author of The Kept Girl, fact-based '20s L.A. mystery starring the young Raymond Chandler (Commendable -Kirkus). @esotouric L.A. true crime tours.

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

Friends and fans of Shelley Ganz, an opportunity to visit his home, now on the market, and snag a moment of silence to honor a true Hollywood original. RIP, pal. Love your frosted swan shower door, and you!

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Just listed: our late pal Shelley Ganz' rock 'n roll pad at 147 N. Formosa, minus a lifetime of cool collectables, still sporting some far out wallpaper, shag carpet and a mod pink bathroom. https://t.co/rGdJSaPUT6

Dig his band The Unclaimed here:
https://t.co/5VfkgyiCso

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

My mystery novel is set in real time on the cusp of September 1929, and the story begins today. Here's chapter one if you'd like to have a taste of what I imagine went on at Raymond Chandler's oil company office when an astral cult came calling.
https://t.co/V4q6N7ZYDa

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Exactly 95 years ago (August 29, 1929), the action in "The Kept Girl" mystery begins. Join Raymond Chandler in Art Deco Los Angeles, a wild town populated with demented oilmen, deadly angel worshippers, clean and dirty cops and one fearless stenographer. https://t.co/QTKttoDk1J

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

I thought I was writing a book about crime & social history in postwar LA, a temporary sideline from Scram Magazine. I found a new calling, by following Beth Short into a richer understanding of my hometown and her stories untold. Thank you, dear lady, for being my Virgil. RIP.

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

July 29, 1924-July 29, 2024

Remembering Beth Short, known in life and in death as the Black Dahlia, on her centennial.

Boston born, honorary Angeleno, never forgotten.
Rest in Peace.

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

Paying my respects in the ruins of M. Flax Artists Materials, a lovely shop on Westlake Park that sold supplies to several generations of Otis, Chouinard and Art Center students. Empty for years, demolished for nothing, and all I got was a LABCO brick to remember her by.

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

A little light larceny as "The Kept Girl" cover art appears on Chinese drama "Never Too Late." https://t.co/3zub3GV14D via @jmshghtwr

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

When it happened, I was in a sort of trance, trawling a web that still had not been polluted by monetized search, AI and deliberate deception. The ghosts of old Los Angeles were steering my hands and mind. They wanted Ray's secret to be known.

Ten years ago today.

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Raymond Chandler as a writer of comic operettas in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan? It's not fiction--this really happened, when he was a young dairy worker in 1910s Los Angeles. And ten years ago today, our Kim Cooper uncovered this real life mystery! https://t.co/oY1fUBSgze

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

@la_dorkout Monkey civics? Yes, please!

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

If you're in LA and at loose ends, you can join me and my crime buddies for a guided tour of Downtown landmarks that reveal a dark history of corruption & violent death. Plus, I seem to have uncovered an unknown serial killer with a truly demented motive. https://t.co/msUF68aDpc

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Join us at 10:30am for a true crime walk through Downtown history, to sites that figure in the Black Dahlia and Skid Row Slasher cases, and to the Hotel Cecil where we'll share evidence of an unknown serial killer who killed humans to stop them being kind! https://t.co/fsnCIqKnuv

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

As a zinester who operated proudly outside of whatever passed for popular culture with Scram, I'm thrilled to honor an earlier generation on this new @Esotouric tour on Saturday. We'll talk about Vice Versa and ONE and visit the only cruisy toilet on the National Register!

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Tigrina! She bedeviled, beguiled and tortured a generation of sci-fi geeks, but her heart belonged to zine publishing and giving a voice to Hollywood's closeted Lesbian community. We'll stroll in her striped shadow on Saturday's gay history tour of DTLA. https://t.co/FJkpdMKEnR

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

Saturday, join me on the @esotouric crime bus on a tour that seeks out the troubled, seeking soul at the heart of L.A.'s most notorious unsolved murder, The Black Dahlia case. In getting to know Beth Short, the city's secrets are revealed. https://t.co/En9lOEthHT

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

@novaren My 33 1/3 book about Neutral Milk Hotel and the Elephant 6 community is in the AI training pool and I am not happy. I wouldn't even read the Audible audiobook for this title because the contract tried to eclipse my copyright. I want to sue these brain eating amoebas into dust!

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

The star John Waters is getting--near where I once nearly slipped on human brains--is for all the freaks and creeps who made art not because it was remunerative, but because the alternative was hurting people. Seems related Jann Wenner lost a lot of his unearned power this week.

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

John Waters' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is FILTHY! See it for yourself 11:30am Monday. Plus Larry Edmunds has signed copies of the Pope of Trash catalog that you can buy after the famous people get off the sidewalk. https://t.co/sdB6Ukryk8

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

These are lousy times for Angelenos. A century ago, my family arrived here on a diasporic wave that washed them from Kherson to Egypt to New York City. Every place they found wanting, until they found this place. So to honor them, and to be perverse, I am staying and fighting.

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Ever wonder what it's like to eavesdrop on our unvarnished opinions about all that's wrong with Los Angeles & why we never stop fighting to preserve the past and shape the future? Tune in to episode 44 of the Crown City Podcast, recorded at The Huntington. https://t.co/uIQOLxEnTS

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

One of my favorite @esotouric tours returns this Saturday, and I'll be sharing tales of the wild amusements that could once be found on Downtown L.A.'s Main Street, including Zip capering in his custom fur suit and the mummified outlaw with the psychedelic paint job. Join us, do!

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Saturday, on the Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice crime bus tour, we'll honor Zip the Pinhead, one of the greatest American sideshow performers of all time, and Downtown LA's very own non-traveling circus. https://t.co/06Xp1vjfdl

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Here's a discovery with just 400 views: INTERSECTION is an unreleased 1972 UCLA promo clip for Todd Rundgren's "Wolfman Jack," featuring the Wolfman, Ms. Bobby of the Cockettes and a golden hour cruise to the Chateau Marmont. In full Quadraphonic sound! https://t.co/fZkdMzNPqA

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

The original Downtown Los Angeles true crime and sleazy cultural history tour is back. Join us on August 26 to explore the loveliest, freakiest crime scenes in town! https://t.co/06Xp1vjfdl

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

I have made it in my chosen career: telling Jazz Age murder stories to cats!

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Cheers to the crime buddy who captured a magic moment at the Bat Man House. We often meet residents curious about the historic crimes that happened in their homes, but this is the first pussycat who ever stopped just to listen to Kim's Echo Park Book of the Dead stories!

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Tomorrow! Murder and mystery in the streetcar suburbs, as early Angelenos run amok in the gilded sunshine. Do you think they would have behaved any better if they knew, a century later, we'd still be gawking at their haunts? https://t.co/G9A79Ww8sO

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

ahem @TheGussReport did you block @esotouric intentionally?

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

Apparently Daniel Guss got an @LAPressClub award but we wouldn't know it from Twitter where @TheGussReport has blocked us. Didn't stop us from giving him props for the deep work on Curren Price's corruption, but it's a little odd. Open the door, Daniel? https://t.co/ZegZAlHM8g

[Kim Cooper @kimcooper]

"It's Spanish." ; )

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

As we get closer to the June 24 relaunch of our bus tour programming with The Real Black Dahlia (it's filling up, book your seat soon https://t.co/1hHixWQCR1) we're looking back at @kimcooper's hilarious appearance on @GhostAdventures. See it here: https://t.co/7mGC8yYOaP