Burrell - I checked my account and whoever used my credit card or replicated it or whatever the hell they did spent almost all of my money.

I can't do anything yet - but tomorrow when the post is concrete I can file some sort of dispute paperwork.

In the meantime, I am broke.

Before I did my tour on Saturday I went out to breakfast with Kim Cooper and her husband Richard (she's my co-editor, and they organize the tours) at the Los Angeles Athletic Club (old school!).

We met with John Buntin, author of L.A. Noir, Richard Meyer (son of former US Attorney under Nixon, Robert Meyer), and Officer Mike (an active Deputy Sheriff in L.A. County, and also a historian and archivist of the L.A. Sheriff's office).

erika you would have loved this conversation. You too, Jesse. Kim and Richard are putting on one of their quarterly salons at Musso and Frank (old Hollywood haunt), and Buntin will be the guest speaker. But he was there to interview and meet with Richard Meyer and talk about his Dad's career, and background on various shenanigans between the LAPD and the Sherriff's office and the Feds and the weird history overlapping law enforcement in SoCal.

Officer Mike had gone into the old Hall of Justice before it was renovated and taken material out of the Confidential Safe which had been there for 80 years! And he digitized it! All sorts of fascinating inside stuff. (I'll never be able to hear about the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion the same way anymore.)

Most fascinating were the accounts of the intelligence units for both the LAPD and Sheriff's office, which existed solely to dig up dirt. As Officer Mike noted, they had boxes and boxes of files that were never used for any prosecution. One of the main reasons for digging this stuff up was to blackmail city council members into funding things like the Sheriff's office new fleet of cars. That's just how shit worked back then. And probably now as well.

More inside info: Marilyn Monroe's house was completely wired and bugged. And not by the local law enforcement. So everything that happened in her house during the last months of her life are on tape somewhere.

There was also fascinating stuff about Nixon and Daniel Ellsworth and the Pentagon Papers (which I had not realized were downloaded through ARPNET, the precursor to the internet).

Sumi, that sucks. I hope your bank gets your money back to you quickly.

Nora, I'm sorry about the lower offer. Is the bank taking what they can get or are you going to owe them the remainder after the sale?

Ugh, that's terrible, sumi.

Hey everyone. Happy Monday. Still not king pregnant.

Shit, sumi, that's awful. And Nora, I'm sorry about the sucktastic low offer.

David, sounds like a fascinating trip! I'm about to read the Guardian article about your tour. Very cool.

sumi, that's horrible. I'm sorry, I hope you get it straightened out right away.

Well, at least I have now done what I can do and there isn't anything else I can do until tomorrow (at the earliest.)

ION all white Orca!

Sumi- that is awful!

Have a baby monkeh: [link]

Seriously, I cannot stop looking at this little guy!

Ugh on a horrible, irritating call with finger pointing and bleh. Why can't I retire?

David, sounds like a fascinating trip! I'm about to read the Guardian article about your tour. Very cool.

She even got my quotes correct! And she definitely got the right feel of the tour.