On Saturday, February 14, couples across LA will be billing,
cooing, sipping bubbly, exchanging roses, and doing all the polite things
expected of them by the Valentine Industrial Complex. Yawn.

Why not be two of the lucky oddballs who will be exploring the other side of
love on Esotouric’s most bizarre true crime and cultural history tour, BLOOD
& DUMPLINGS instead? Because love isn’t all red paper hearts and gooey
ballads, bent knee proposals and stars in your eyes. Sometimes love reveals
itself with a knife in its hand and flesh in its teeth, and on this tour of
the Eastern San Gabriel valley, passengers will meet some of the Southland’s
most memorable victims of romance.

Among them: the young bride who vanished before her wedding day and was
discovered rotting under her parent’s house, the lesbian roommate who kept
her ex-gal pal pliant with frequent jabs of the needle, James Ellroy’s
ill-fated mother Geneva whose search for male companionship ended violently,
the miffed wife who beat her crippled hubby to death with brass knuckles on
their front lawn, and the b-movie actress whose late night visit to Phil
Spector’s spooky castle would prove to be a very bad idea indeed.

But BLOOD & DUMPLINGS isn’t all romance gone wrong. Starting from the
premise that the secret heart of Southern California’s weirdo culture beats
strongest in the Eastern San Gabriel Valley, the tour introduces passengers
to such fascinating local characters as the Man from Mars Bandit, the hippie
leader of the local Nazi party, and indie filmmaking icon Timothy Carey,
whose notorious “The World’s Greatest Sinner” was shot on location in 1960s
El Monte. The tour also includes a stop at the former site of Gay’s Lion
Farm, an incredible mid-century tourist attraction that symbolized the deep
love lion tamers Charles and Muriel Gay shared with each other and their
pride of cats.

WHAT: Valentine’s Day edition of Esotouric’s Blood & Dumplings Crime Bus
Tour
WHEN: Saturday February 14, 12pm-4pm
WHERE: Tour departs from Philippe the Original, 1001 N. Alameda Street
COST: $63, including valentine’s candy and dumplings (vegetarian options
available on request)
INFO: http://www.esotouric.com or call 323-223-2767

I would go on this, but I’ll be at OmniCircus in San Francisco that night for their performance of Misera-BALL’ A Party and performance for the LONELY and DEPRESSED. I am neither, but I love their performances!!

The OmniCircus at Natoma and Russ in San Francisco
The OmniCircus at Natoma and Russ in San Francisco