“Down That Lonely Road”

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Young Woman Whose Life Ebbed as She Wrote “Thirteen Cigarettes” Left Empty Purse.  Funeral Plans Pending

 “Look down – look down that lonely road, the hacks all dead in line:  Some give a nickel, some give a dime, to bury dis po’ body o’ mine!”

All ready for the dismal ritual of burial lies the body of the author of those lines – ready for the trip down the lonely road.

And the money – it must come from some place other than the pitifully empty purse that was found in the little attic room at 1625 K street beside the body of the author yesterday morning.

All that is mortal of Miss Draper Gill, romantic booklover, who finally found that in poverty the body shackles the mind to the humdrum of this world, and who broke the shackles with an open gas jet, lies in the Tabler Funeral Home, 828 M street, while friends and relatives busy themselves with the arrangements for her funeral. The arrangements have not been completed.

                                        Lines Written as Life Ebbs.

Miss Gill, whose closest friends were the fanciful figures from between the leaves of books, wrote the above lines as the close of her life, as her final efforts to slash the shackles of poverty that took her too often from her friends of the phantom book world into the every day pursuits of livelihood.

With her was found her story, eloquent in its pathos, telling a tale of “Thirteen Cigarettes,” the “coffin nails” with which she sealed the lid upon the shackling body and with which she hoped to free her intangible self to stay always with her fanciful friends of fiction.

Even as she died in the shabby little room some time yesterday morning, she moved with her fiction friends, this last time as a fictional character of her own creation, as “Carol,” a girl like herself, strangely, though, even in the tale, coming every now and then into the world of real men and women and leaving the fancy world behind.

                                         Left Only Few Pennies

The story she ended with the two lines above, she wrote as gas filled her room and as, all unmindful of the danger to her plans her smoking might constitute, she inhaled puff after puff from the fatal number of cigarettes. As she took the last puff from the last cigarette she laid her story aside, and lay down quietly to await the final shattering of her shackles to this world.

She left only a few pennies, and there is none coming to her from her last place of employment, the book shop of the Woodward & Lothrop department store, for she had on Saturday, the last day she worked, drawn in advance the little pay she had coming to her.
                                         Story of Thirteen Cigarettes

Eloquently, the story of “Carol” and the “Thirteen Cigarettes” tells of the death of all that was mortal of Draper Gill. It follows:

“October 21, 1930
“Thirteen cigarettes.
“The bare attic room bore signs of former occupancy, but none of them sufficiently interesting to fire any one’s imagination. Discolored, once-white walls, the plaster chipped and cracked, and a few nail holes were about all. Situated on the fourth and top floor and partitioned off rom the unfinished attic proper, the room had probably been occupied by careless servants.
“Carol lay prone on a cot in this same room, ostensibly reading, but stopping at intervals to rehearse what had become a very futile philosophy of life – her life.

                                         Termed Coffin Nails

“Just the other day she had read a story entitled ‘Something Will Happen,’ but nothing had in the story. Carol had been more fortunate in the past, and the evil spells of desirable circumstances have always been broken sooner or later. Now it was different. She was 26 and, voluntarily or involuntarily, she herself had closed all avenues of escape. The 13 cigarettes indeed represented the oft-bruited coffin nails. When they were gone and when the ash tray held the thirteenth stub and contributing ashes, Carol’s doom would have been knelled, silently but significantly.”Reviewing events, recent and long past, was not very comforting. Always she had made wrong moves and suffered from the unexpected results. A childish spontaneity had been half smothered during adolescence and thoughtless selfishness coupled with an indefinable weakness of purpose were growing up in its place. Carol recognized the change dolefully and helplessly, and so did very little to remedy it.

“Hovering on the brink of poverty soon loses all semblance of the picturesque and grows very irksome indeed, particularly when expensive tastes and a flair for spending complicates matters. Carol, –at the moment had a few coppers in her purse and nothing really to look forward to except the impossible settlement of large and small debts. That financial status might have ‘roused the fighting blood’ of a huskier vitality, but served only to overwhelm poor Carol quite completely.

                                         Humdrum Routine

“If one demands the pleasantly unexpected of life, and likes the knack of arranging for joyous events, only to find a series of whirlpools circling rapidly from the crest to the depths, it is disappointing, to say the least, and even trifling pleasures can be obtained only through persistent loyalty in the execution of humdrum routine duties, nine-to-six sort of existence, it rouses a perverse in nature, such as Carol’s, and a black mood of rebellion conspires to blind utterly even the instinct of self-preservation.

“Inspiration was necessary to Carol, as much so as the contant goading indispensable in getting beasts of burden to their destinations. She learned to con it from many sources, books and strangers and abstract beauty. The supply gone, she was like a mechanical toy with no one to wind it – powerless.

” ‘Lazy–I fear I’m incurably lazy -quite worthless in fact,’ she mused. It was too bad, for people really expected great things of her, until she, too, was sometimes convinced, but nothing came of it -only this sorry end, that approached as each tobacco-filled cylinder dwindled into gray ash and blackened stub.

“She had done reasoning out of the possible effects of heredity, environment, individuality and incalculable circumstance – they were so hopelessly tangled in a knotted mesh, an eminent psychologist might well hesitate to unravel the skeins.

” ‘Too much purple and yellow in the color scheme,’ was Carol’s whimsical verdict, upon visualizing an untidy basket of interwoven threads of varying hues.

” ‘I must be strong in going,’ was uppermost in her mind. ‘I have gained nothing by lingering so long-and only done others harm-caused them inconvenience, worried the few who have shown concern. Lacking strength for noble deeds, this will offer part compensation, a forfelt to subsequent years that promised similar cycles of non-achievement.’

                                         Voices Farewell

“Upon second thought, ‘If I should fail—‘ but that was too terrible to contemplate. She wouldn’t consider it.
“Farewell to all the ineffectual dreams and aspirations, beautiful and impracticable, glorious and non-existent.
“Farewell to friends – she had only been a burden to them, often stupid and misunderstanding their motives, not troubling to see from their point of view.
“Farewell to relatives, to whom most of her actions had ben inexplicable.
“Farewell to her brother, whose esteem was unwavering, who needed her support, and whom she was leaving.
“Farewell to them all – no remorse now – only regret.
“How slowly they were going. There were eight of them left to mark the passage of time and a few details crying out for attention – they would fill the last moments.

“How cheery the clock sounded, as though pleased with itself for playing so important a part in reckoning Carol’s oblivion. ‘It will not have long to wait, Carol. I wonder?’ was the natural query.

” ‘Perhaps I am writing drivel and silence were better, but I want them to know, even the bit that will be comprehended-it will be of little moment and soon forgotten, anyhow,’ she ended, wondering if that were true.

“The dog-eared phrase: ‘Survival of the fittest,’ Ah, but I do not belong in their ranks, for I have failed completely and they will go on. I wish them well.

    ” ‘Look down–look down, that lonely road, the hacks all dead in line:
“Some give a nickel: some give a dime, to bury dis po’ body o’ mine!'”

Miss Gill’s grandfather, Delancey Gill, is an illustrator with the Smithsonian Institution, and lives at the Rutland Courts Apartments, Seventeenth street and Riggs place. Her uncle, William H. Gill, an engineer with offices in the Transportation Building, Seventeenth and H streets, is handling the arrangements for the funeral.

Editor’s Note:  This article appeared in the Washington D.C. Evening Star on October 23, 1930.  The writer of this interesting obituary is unknown.  The deceased young woman, a grand-daughter of the famous Delancey Gill, worked as a low-paid clerk in the book department of a large department store.  Note today the struggles of workers at amazon.com and other places for a “living” wage.  Too many are still working at what could termed a “death” wage, as illustrated by this poor soul who was penniless and took her own life.

Volume 2 of Australian Bookman’s Hollywood Odyssey Now Available

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Noel Hart’s Second Volume of Working in the Used Book Business in Los Angeles Has Just Published!

This is the cover for the new volume.

His book: “And That Was Only the Front Counter Too” is now available.  This is Noel Hart’s second volume of fun and adventures at Cosmopolitan Book Shop in the shoddy East end of the once fabulous Melrose Avenue/Hollywood corridor.  Eli Goodman’s shop was more than just a bookstore:  it was it’s own 7 day a week circus, with insane bedlam, and enough eccentric behavior to fill 30 psychology dictionaries..  And that was just the owner!  The customers, the transients, the Trannies, the UCLA philosophers, the writers, the readers, the Hollywood goof-balls, the celebrities, and even the Mayor all found their way to Cosmopolitan Books.

And for years a young naive fellow from Australia, who somehow was accidently hired to work in the midst of the Avant Garde Absurdist Capitol of Melrose Fantasy-Land, kept secret diaries and notes documenting his disturbing but often hilarious trip following Eli Goodman and his Associates down the doomed literary Rabbit Hole.

Cosmopolitan Book Shop is no more.  Eli Goodman has passed on, during his mid 90s, to that great seat of esoteric knowledge in the etherial world.  Only memories remain.  There are a few scattered among the faux history on this website and three books on the sordid, screwy, hilarious  goings-on at Cosmopolitan.  Arnold Herr started it all with his riotous account of his years working with Goodman.  His book, published in 2016, “The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Bookseller,” is out of print and used copies, when available, sell for $80-$100.

Noel Hart followed up with “And That Was Only the Front Counter,” published in 2023.  It is an encyclopedic romp of working at Cosmopolitan.  It is a massive 451 pages of Noel Hart’s memories:  goofy customers, hilarious incidents, the always entertaining and eccentric Eli Goodman, with many touching moments and introspection from Eli, who was at his core a romantic book lover, a self-made man, a philosopher, a rogue psychologist, an icon of thriftiness, an avid alley scrounger, a glorious pack rat and the uncrowned King of the East Melrose Storefront housing the world’s most eclectic jumble of books, both new and shiny or scorched by fire that could have only been assembled in Hollywood, curated, and at times we suspect, actually eaten by ravenous drug addicted homeless folks who in their hallucinatory state somehow mistook the bookstore for a free food restaurant.

And now, to wrap up 2024, Mr. Hart has released volume two of “And That Was Only The Front Counter Too.”  This is also 451 pages.  It is another bombshell of hilarity.  Much more on Eli and his brother Ezra, some great nostalgic photos, and page after page of book stories.  This volume, like the first, lends itself to be opened almost anywhere and be endlessly entertained.  The good news is that both of Noel Hart’s books are available NOW.  Get them quick.  They are both published in Australia and the shipping is expensive but you will never regret obtaining both volumes.  Just think of the past books that you have been disappointed with.  These will entertain you forever, especially if you are a senior, because by the time you get through the total of eight hundred pages, if your memory is fading a bit you can then start all over again on page 1 and relive the humor, enjoyment, and nostalgic moments of working at Hollywood’s last big bookstore.

One of my favorite sections of the latest volume is called “What Was I Saying?  The Quotable Eli.”  It is itself 17 pages of classic quotes from Eli.  I’m going to share just a few with you here:

“All this talk about too much waste in the world, too much garbage. I’m doing my bit for the planet, I haven’t thrown out anything in decades.”

“I used to think I’d like to have more books.  Now I think I’d like to have less.  On second thought, I think I prefer my first thought.”

“I don’t want to be content then I’d have nothing to complain about.”

“My relationships with women have been such a mess that I should’ve been looking for a cleaning lady.”

“My eyesight is so bad that my optometrist gave up, he said to look somewhere else.”

“Too many books, not enough time?  I’ve had time. I’d say too many books, not enough space.”

Here’s a few photos included in the new volume.  Happy reading folks!

The Last Bookstore Now Open in NOHO

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Beautiful New Store Now Open at Riverside and Lankershim

Here’s a few random photos from their new store.  Alongside the books are various artifacts from the landlord’s collection of architectural items.  Happy book scouting, we need more second hand bookshops to sop up the stagging amount of books available from the publishers. There are now two large bookstores in the area, the other being Iliad Bookshop also in NOHO, 5500 Cahuenga.  The Iliad nicely remodeled after the pandemic and arson fire.

Last Hours.

4437 Lankershim, just south of Riverside Dr. NOHO.

The books are piling in.

 

Kelly Goodside’s Tumultuous Adventures in Bookselling

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Inspired by Ayn Rand to go West but the trail stopped in Death Valley; From Death Valley to a Book Store on the Sunset Strip; Hiding out in Alaska; The Serial Killer who stole his car; Bookselling days in Southern California.

by Paul Hunt

Ellsworth “Kelly” Goodside could be a little on the dour side. I know because he worked for me for years and he was rarely cheerful, an intellectual mind, but always dodging the most amazing personal disasters that increased his paranoia of the dark clouds passing by overhead on a regular basis. Bookselling is a tough business, especially if you have thrown away the good advice to stay away from it and jumped in the river and found out that the rest of trip would be just trying to keep from drowning. The idyllic thought of swinging in a hammock while your little cruise ship sails down the river of life is nothing more than hallucination between gasps of air and thrashing around the fast moving waters. Some of us are lucky enough to flop on to a sand bar for a few months and get some respite, but the river is always rising and the flood is often only days away.

New York Days With Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand

Kelly Goodside worked as a waiter in New York after his school years, which I know nothing about. He told me that one day he walked by a place where a man named Nathaniel Brandon was speaking. He started to attend these lectures, read Ayn Rand’s books and became a devoted fan of her philosophy, Objectivism, which has been described as “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute“ He eventually was convinced that he should go to the West Coast where there was surely more opportunity. One day he packed up his car with his belongings and his worn copy of Atlas Shrugged and started to drive west to Los Angeles, California to start a new life.

Stop Over at Death Valley

Somehow Kelly ran out of money and a usable vehicle somewhere in Death Valley, where he had stopped for a couple days to take in the scenery. The only place nearby was a tourist attraction called Scotty’s Castle, so fairly desperate to keep from starving in this potentially dangerous desert hell, he applied for a job and was hired. The pay wasn’t much and Kelly had to slog it out for about a year to save enough money to hop a bus and eventually land in Los Angeles. He said he had nightmares of being stuck in Death Valley for the rest of his life, always hot, always thirsty, and always just a few bucks short of the bus fare to get out. I began to see how events like that could make a person a bit on the negative side. In my entire career, I never ran across another individual who actually worked at the famous Scotty’s Castle. Don’t bother thinking you might go there and look around and breath the same dry air as Kelly Goodside did, the Castle is closed for the foreseeable future.

In 2015 an enormous flood washed over the place, followed later by a devastating fire. Scotty’s Castle, now owned by the National Parks Service, is facing decades of work to repair the damages. If Kelly were still alive, maybe he could spin some yarns about his time working there, maybe even tell about the gold treasure mine that Scotty had. Lost tales are now only partially available in a few old tourist pamphlets about Death Valley Scotty. As in many other things, there’s no one left to tell the stories.

From Janitor to Entrepreneur and a Bookstore on the Sunset Strip

When Kelly landed in Los Angeles he needed a job right away. He found one at a place called Preview House on Sunset Blvd. just East of Fairfax. The business had a large auditorium and would show previews of motion pictures, commercials, and other films. The audience was randomly picked but balanced as to the “average” movie-goer. There were buttons on the chairs so the audience could give their opinions of the films and commercials they were viewing. This was important information and feedback for the studios, and sometimes lead to the ending of a movie to be changed because the preview audience did not like it.

Fred Dorsett worked at Preview House with Goodside.  Both became Booksellers.

Kelly worked there and eventually got a contract with the company to supply the janitors to clean up the theater after a show. Oddly enough, another bookseller was also working there at the time: Fred Dorsett. Fred would later open his shop in the Artisan’s Patio on Hollywood Blvd. This time period of the early 1970s was when I was also bookselling as a book scout and finally opening a shop in West Hollywood. You can check out Fred in the articles on Hollywood Blvd. booksellers and also in the story about Charles Bukowski on this website.

Kelly was doing well as an entrepreneur, he ran a crew to clean up the Preview House and saved enough to open a nice book shop at 7525 Sunset Blvd., a few blocks east of Preview House. His determination and hard work was paying off, and he said that he was inspired by Ayn Rand. I met Kelly through Fred Dorset and was a customer of Kelly’s shop, much impressed by the good quality of books that he had for sale.

Kelly Goodside’s Book Store on the Sunset Strip

Photos by Kelly Goodside

 

A couple years later I was driving around West Hollywood looking for yard sales on a bright spring day. I stopped at an apartment sale and was surprised to meet up with Kelly. He was selling everything and moving out of California. He said that his Janitorial company was based on the premise that the employees were “independent contractors”, but the IRS and the State of California disputed that and fined him many thousands of dollars, bankrupting him. (Somewhat of the same fight continues today with Uber and Lyft claiming their drivers are independent contractors and not subject to withholding taxes). In his view, the persecution from the government was just another Atlas Shrugged case.

Hiding Out in Alaska

Kelly closed his book store, selling off the stock, disposed of his personal property, and left for Alaska, where he hoped to find a new life. That lasted a few years. What he found there did not sit well with him: a lot of drinking, months of boredom due to the weather, a lack of an electrified entrepreneur class. He eventually came back to Los Angeles.

Disastrous return  to Los Angeles

By this time, the mid 1980s, I was in Burbank and in the process of opening Best Seller Book Shop, an all-paperback store, under the Book Castle corporation. Kelly had gotten a job delivering telephone directories for Pacific Bell. His car, full of those thick, bulky Yellow Pages, had broken down in North Hollywood, and he wanted to borrow some money to fix what I saw as a really shabby piece of junk. But he needed it for work, so I loaned him the money and he had me drop him off at a run-down motel on the edge of Burbank where he was staying.

A couple weeks later his car was stolen from the Motel parking lot sometime during the night. Kelly was naturally distressed at this “last straw” of bad luck. Without the car he couldn’t deliver the phone directories. I knew him to be a capable bookman, so I hired him to manage the new paperback store we had opened. I also let him stay in one of the extra rooms above the Book Castle that we had fixed up with showers, etc. for our employees who were on hard times. All this helped to pull him out of his depression and the financial hole he was in.

The Serial Killer

Meanwhile, his car appeared in the news. It had been stolen by serial killer Richard Ramirez, and had broken down in East Los Angeles, and when he tried to carjack an Hispanic woman driving another car, some locals apprehended him, beat him senseless and turned him over to the police. This happened in the mid 1980s. And for all the Ripley Believe it or not fans here’s one more weird event. A pretty young woman, obsessed with the killer, came into the Bestseller Book Store when Kelly was running it and paid us to mail a book to her new friend who was in L.A. County jail. A book sent to a prisoner had to be mailed from a legitimate book store, it cannot come from a private person. Kelly took the money and I mailed the book. “What the hell does that young woman see in that vicious killer?” I asked Kelly. He grunted, “sometimes good looks goes forth in life without any brains directing traffic.”

The Final Years

Cliff’s Books, Pasadena

Kelly worked for us at Bestseller and also at Atlantis Book Shop until Redevelopment wiped out Atlantis and our warehouse in one of Burbank’s real estate frauds, tearing down 2 blocks of small business folks and turning the land over to huge developers for $200. I found Kelly a job at Cliff’s Books in Pasadena, which enabled him to survive along with his social security. When Cliff sold out to an amazon.com dealer one day (without telling the employees, like no notice at all, not even 10 minutes) Kelly was again cast out into the darkness. I lost touch with him. He had been considering moving back to New York to live with his brother, I don’t know if that happened or not. Twisting an old saying about soldiers, “Old booksellers never die, they just fade away.” And so Kelly Goodside, bookman to the end, just faded away.

RIP Kelly Goodside.

Last Bookstore to Open in NOHO

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Last Bookstore Moving Their On-line Warehouse to NOHO

by Paul Hunt

This will be their new location in a few months, the currant occupant is having a sale of furniture and decorative items.  The Last Bookstore said they could not renew their lease on their Northridge On-line warehouse, so decided to move and open a retail location.

The new location will be at 4437 Lankersheim Blvd., in NOHO, corner of Landale.  It will probably be several months before they can get occupancy and then move in thousands of books.  The good news is that it is not far from the NOHO Metro Station and there is a bus stop on the corner.  There are restaurants in the area, and a Coffee Bean & Leaf across the street.  There is plenty of parking in the area, and it is an attractive location.  They will continue to operate their store in downtown Los Angeles.

 

Mysterious Disappearance of Charles T. Sprading Solved

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Mysterious Disappearance of Charles T. Sprading Solved

“I may be one of the last living persons to have seen him alive in the late 1950s”

by Paul Hunt (Reprinted from June 2012 from NowWeKnow.org)

Charles T. Sprading was one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th Century. He was a man who championed liberty and fought tyranny all of his life. He vanished around 1959, and many people over the years wondered what happened to him.

My dad was a great friend of Mr. Sprading. Although my father was a technical writer, he was very interested in many other subjects, one of which was rationalism, or free-thought as it is sometimes called. When I was a kid I spent most Saturdays riding around in our old car, visiting dad’s friends. Most of them were quite elderly. Two of the rationalists I remember were Sadie Cook and Charles T. Sprading. I was taught from a young age to listen, not speak. “Children should be seen and not heard,” was the refrain I remember hearing on a weekly basis. These visits to Cook, Sprading, and others opened my eyes to things in philosophy and history at a very early age. Listening to elders talk was serious in my family, so I grew up respecting the views of those who were in very advanced years.

I believe Sadie Cook was the secretary for one of the rationalist societies, and her small house was packed with papers, correspondence, books and magazines. I heard about atheism on Saturdays, then on Sunday it was off to church, for my mother’s side of the family was somewhat religious. I used to ask my dad why I had to go to church if there was no God, and he would answer that I would go to church until I was 18, and then make up my own mind about God. He never said God did not exist, I just picked up that from his discussions with Sadie Cook and others.

Mr. Sprading was a delight to visit, he was a wonderful man, an advanced age, very thin and fragile. He was living in a ramshackle garage in East Los Angeles, I believe it was behind a house on Folsom St., off Brooklyn, in the older section of the city. His living quarters were very sparse, a cot, a sink, some crates and old shelves that contained his remaining books and papers. Looking back, it is more than sad, it is a national disgrace that one of America’s finest intellectuals, a world-respected author and speaker, would end up in such poverty. During our visits, he never complained. He was always cheerful, speaking of many earth shaking historical events. His time was the time of great radicalism. His contemporaries were anarchists, rationalists, syndicalists, libertarians, the great union organizers, and especially Eamon de Valera, the great fighter for Irish Freedom. Sprading was a close associate of de Valera, and worked in the cause for Irish Freedom for many years, as an organizer, speaker, advance man, publicist, and writer.

I would sit in an old shaky wooden chair and listen wide-eyed to Sprading telling about Emma Goldman, revolutionaries, the great strikes, the libertarian campaigns against the religious “blue laws”, and other fantastic events. Most of the libertarian fights in the 1930s seemed to be against the “blue laws”, which among other things forbade retail stores to be open on Sundays. It is hard to believe now, in this time, that such laws existed 80 years ago. Mr. Sprading could go on for a couple of hours, his photographic memory for people and dates were very clear, he would never stumble over a date or a name. After about 2 hours, he would tire, and we would depart so he could rest.

My dad passed on at an early age in 1956. After a time, my mother would take me on a Saturday and we would make the long trip from Hollywood to East Los Angeles on street cars and buses to see Mr. Sprading. My mom didn’t drive, and when father died she sold the car, so we had to take public transportation. Believe it or not, it wasn’t bad back then, because we had the wonderful street car system, soon to be trashed by a conspiracy of GM, Firestone Tires, and Standard Oil. One fateful day we went out to see Mr. Sprading, but he wasn’t there. The landlady who lived in the front house said that he had died. We asked about his books and papers, and she informed us that she had “thrown away all those old papers and books, who would want them?” Even as a young man of 15 at that time, I knew those “old papers” were very valuable. I wanted to scream at this ignorant woman, but years of family training to be polite took hold. My mother was visibly upset, but she kept her cool. On the way home we discussed what a tragedy it was that the stupid woman threw away such rare photos, papers, and books in the trash. My mother knew that material should have gone to a library somewhere. And so it was that one of the giants of the 20th century died quietly in his sleep, living in a dilapidated old garage in the run down section of Los Angeles. His books still exist in libraries, and if someone could track down old copies of The Truth Seeker magazine published by Charles Smith, or other rationalist, libertarian, or freedom magazines, you will find some interesting articles by Charles T. Sprading. Since I was only 15 at the time (1959), and since I never heard of any other “youngsters” who visited him, I am pretty sure that I am one of the last persons presently alive who saw the great Charles T. Sprading.

Check out Mr. Sprading’s book on Mutualism at www.NowWeKnow.org.  It is listed under the menu heading “books”.  Sprading also wrote about “Freedom and its Fundamentals” and another volume called “Liberty and the Great Libertarians”.

Arson at the Iliad Book Store – Fahrenheit 451 in NOHO

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Book Store Arson Trail – From NOHO to Hollywood

 Who is Living Under Your House?

Drug Dealing Crusty Punks, The Rogue Cop, Stolen Lands, Mormon Zombies and the Arson Chronicles.

Part 2 of NOHO Fahrenheit 451 – Arson at Iliad Book Shop by Paul Hunt

NOHO – Arson at Iliad Book Store (AI Picture)

It Started Years Ago.

Back in 2015 I was working at Cosmopolitan Book Shop part time. There was a lot of crime happening in the neighborhood, and some flyers were dropped off at the shop inviting merchants to a community meeting to discuss the crime and the effects that a food distribution to homeless folks were having on the area’s problems. The Hollywood Food Coalition was distributing food every week night at the corner of Sycamore and Romaine, an industrial area that bordered the residential and apartments north of Melrose and East of La Brea. No tables could legally be set up, it was just a large truck, with volunteers who would hand a hot meal off the back of the truck to about 200 homeless.

The Food Coalition were great folks. They were doing what the City or County should have been doing. Since it was on the street, with no tables or chairs allowed, no bathrooms, no wash-up, just sit on the sidewalk and eat a dinner off of paper plates, it was demeaning. I know, I was on hard times and I was occasionally there. A lot of the homeless were seniors. We waited in a long line until the truck came, and then shuffled forward to get fed, a good hot meal and a drink.

There was never much trouble, most of folks were friendly and nice, considering what they were going through, but there were a few outlaws. Some of us called them “Crusty Punks.” They were pretty ragged, smoking pot, meth or crack, and filled with bitterness. When you can’t shower every day, you get “crusty”. Living the drug life, stealing to get dope, sleeping in tents in the doorways of surrounding buildings, it was the sub-culture of the damned.

I went to the community meeting to hear what the neighbors had to say. It was held in an apartment living room on a tree-lined side street. About 20 people showed up, local residents, a couple merchants, and two cops from LAPD. During the meeting several of the residents complained about the Food Coalition bringing in a bad bunch from “elsewhere” who were causing trouble, trespassing, defecating on private property.

“The Law was sinking into it’s big sleep in 2015.”

And that’s when I first heard about it: the dopers, the “Crusty Punks”, were creeping into the yards of the residents at night and crawling under their houses and apartment buildings. The next morning there would be needles laying around, food wrapper trash, pills, and filthy blankets left under the houses where they were sleeping and doing drugs. For those moms with young children, it was horrifying. Actually, hearing those accounts were scary for everyone. Who the hell wants some hopped up stranger creeping under your house? The cops didn’t say much and LAPD wouldn’t really do much about it. The Law was sinking into it’s big sleep in 2015, and was being hammered with defunding, BLM riots and even more avoidance of property defense in the future.

Things, of course, got much worse during the pandemic and the “lockdowns”.

The Bookstore Fire “NOHO: Fahrenheit 451”

Book Shop is open but still blowing out the smoke. (2022)

When the arsonists tried to burn down Iliad Book Shop on a Thursday night, November 3, 2022, there weren’t a lot of clues. The perps piled up some boxes of freebie books against the back door and torched them. Several copies of a strange 8 1/2 X 11 inch flyer were taped around the building. Not much to go on.

Dan Weinstein, owner of Iliad, holds copy of flyer left at the fire

I took a photo of the flyer, read the copy that Dan had retrieved, and made some notes. As soon as I read the posted flyer, I started to get a picture of the arsonist. To the average person, it’s almost gibberish, but to Mr. Conspiracy Theorist, it’s gold. The mind of the arsonist, the hatred that pours off the page, it’s there. I’ll share a few points: (these are my opinions derived from my own research into cults and conspiracy. It’s Ok to try this at home).

Rogue Cop Christopher Dorner

1. Several events and persons are referenced on the flyer. One is Christopher Dorner, an ex-LAPD cop. He was fired off the force after he filed a complaint that his partner had kicked a handcuffed suspect in the face and body. There was evidence to support the claim, but Dorner, a husky African-American, was fired over this. He was a sensitive person, a U.S. Navy reservist, a guy who would not put up with any kind of racism. He decided to clear his name by killing some fellow officers “to prove he was telling the truth.” He went on a rampage, eventually killing 4 people and wounding several others. He was an excellent shot. He was finally trapped in a cabin up in Big Bear and surrounded by a million cops. A fierce battle raged. The walls of the cabin were smashed, tear gas did nothing, so the cops blasted in a form of tear gas pyrotechnic called “burner” which set the cabin ablaze and ended Dorner’s life. The headline on the flyer says “We’re gonna go ahead with the plans with the burner.”

Many admired Dorner, he has become an underdog hero. He also sided with Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats and was pushing to legalize gay marriage. Note the Rainbow gay rights symbol on the bottom right of the page. Although many of his supporters agree with him that assault weapons should be banned, it is hard to reconcile his pronouncements on his manifesto with his violent actions using an assault rifle to kill 4 people and wound several others.

1601 N. Vista, Hollywood
(pre-destruction)

2. The Hollywood address on the flyer, 1601 N. Vista Street, 90046. This would turn out to be the best clue on the flyer. Why would this address, a property in Hollywood, and pictures of fire be so prominent? This will soon be revealed.

3. The “Major Land Theft Alert” and “Your Land Stolen” issue on the flyer could mean the author of it is pro-Native American rights. It could also refer to someone who previously lived on the property at 1601 N. Vista and was pushed out after a sale.

Book on the Mormon Zombies

4. The mention of Alex Cox and a letter he wrote in 2014. He wrote a lot of letters. A stand up comedian, he was brother to Lori Vallow Daybell, a woman who was married to Chad Daybell, the leader of a “Mormon” cult (obviously not in any way sanctioned by the legitimate Mormon Church). Mr. Daybell has written several novels and one of his theories is that entities are taking over the souls of men, women, and children and they become Zombies. They must be killed in order free them of this curse.

Lori Daybell

Lori Daybell was convicted in 2023 of killing two of her children. The bodies were buried in Chad’s back yard. Her brother Alex Cox, now deceased, was named as involved in several murders, including possibly both of Lori’s ex-husbands and wounding the ex- husband of Lori’s niece. There’s more, like the mysterious death of Chad’s wife a few weeks before Chad and Lori were married, and other serious crimes relating to this cult. Chad goes on trial this year for murder. Lori is in jail for the rest of her life without possibility for parole. This case has been going on for years in Idaho, Utah, and as far away as Hawaii. Scores of amateurs and podcasters have investigated the Zombie murders for years. Was someone from 1601 N. Vista involved? Or just interested?

Now let’s turn the clock back from November 3rd, 2022, not a long way back, just 1 day to November 2nd and observe the horrifying and shocking events that took place at 1601 North Vista Street. The address is actually 2 houses, a front house and a rear house, both evidently being used as Airbnb. On November 2nd, social media influencer Justa Minx moved into the front house for a short stay. Minx, a pretty Irish girl who now refers to her sexuality as “pansexual”, has a huge youtube following of over 692,000. She also is on Twitch, has other youtube channels, and is in films.

Justa Minx doing her podcast

“Unknown Men Were Living Under My House”

Justa Minx had spent the Wednesday with her parents and friends, and returned to the rented Airbnb around 4 am. She went right to sleep but when she woke up she saw that a window was broken and her laptop stolen. This had probably happened while she was with her parents. The most distressing thing to her was that her 2 cats were missing. She called her friend Johnny. They found the first cat Cornelius, and brought him in. Then they looked around for the second cat, Sylum. Noticing the panel was off on the side of house that led to the crawl space under the house, they looked in but it was dark. They called the LAPD, who eventually came out and filled out a report. Justa asked them to look under the house, they refused, but loaned her a flashlight. Justa and her friend Johnny crawled under the house.

Flyers, drugs, sleeping bags, and other items under the house

They spotted her other cat, but could not get her. The house was old fashioned, on raised concrete pillars, not on a foundation, so there was a lot of room under there. They found piles of bags, sleeping bags, drugs, bags filled with credit cards and transaction slips and lots of miscellaneous items. Bags of weed are clearly visible in her video. The cops found the material interesting, but departed, not willing to stake out the house to catch the creeps when they came back. Johnny and Justa looked back under the house but could not find her cat. Frantic, Justa decided to camp out under house that night hoping her cat Sylum would appear. Personally, I would definitely not have done that.

Video camera during break in. Note blue gloved hand upper left corner.

Justa’s saga goes on until November 8th, when she finally found her last cat and moved out. However, until then, on the 4th, 2 of the burglars came back and knocked on her door and filmed her when she answered. They threatened her. They demanded their bags of drugs, which possibly, the police had gotten. They left, but other strangers showed up, the next day a journalist, then the owners trying to placate her. They were Russians or Armenians and owned several Airbnb places in the area. They had fixed up the houses and were just as upset about the events, calling the “Crusty Punks” who were living under the house “low level street guys.” They had actually hired a security guy to watch the houses and keep any uninvited druggies away. I don’t believe they had anything to do with the “Crusties”. Justa crawled under the house again to look for the cat. She cut open her arm on some wire and had to go to a med emergency and have stitches. The owners of the Airbnb found her cat next door and Justa finally moved out. She had escaped a very dangerous situation.

Blue gloved suspect leaving 1601 N. Vista on Nov. 3, 2022

After the two Crusty Punks broke into Justa’s Airbnb and stole her laptop on November 3, they might have been the arsonists who went to NOHO and around 11 pm tried to burn down the Iliad Bookstore. They are prime suspects. But why did they put their address on the flyers? My theory is that they were somehow booted out of N. Vista, their underground hideout discovered, possibly before Justa moved in, and wanted to get revenge on the owners by committing arson and blaming it on the owners of the N. Vista house. Another issue is that there’s at times drug dealing going on constantly at night in the neighborhood. Street dealing at night in Hollywood is rampant, even at Vista and Hawthorn.

The Arson Firestorms in Hollywood and NOHO

The sad fact of rampant homeless and crusty punks is that they not only occupy empty buildings or break into vacant houses or apartment buildings, but for the last several years they have been crawling underneath houses, moving in, doing drugs, burning things down. For those who feel all the land was stolen from others and that they therefore have a mandate to occupy it or burn it down, it becomes dangerous for everyone else. This could spell doom for those living above or next door.

Here’s a short slice of life in the Hollywood-NOHO axis, the area where this story took place.

The spectacular kick off was the October 26, 2022 Lamplighter Restaurant fire. This arson fire, along with at least 8 other smaller blazes, took place close to and just before the Book Store fire on November 3rd. It took 100 firefighters to put out the fire at the vacant restaurant building in Valley Plaza at Laurel Canyon and Sylvan. Two suspects were said to be detained, what happened to them is a mystery. Were they released?

439 N. Sierra Bonita

On November 24, 2022 a vacant 4 plex at 439 N. Sierra Bonita started to burn. Vagrants were seen in the building before the fire. The fire department got the fire under control quickly, and according to reports, only an upstairs bedroom was damaged. This was the Thanksgiving following the incidents on North Vista. Any connection is unknown at this time.

1601 N. Vista as it is today, totally gone.

Sometime in 2023, date undetermined, the front house at 1601 N. Vista St., burned to the ground. The only thing left is a plaque on the property facing the sidewalk on Vista. A report in a local online news source said that the fire was on the same date at the fire next door at 1607, but that is not mentioned in the fire report of 1607 N. Vista. At any rate, the beautifully re-modeled house was torn down. A substantial loss to the owners. The rear house, faces South, and its address is 7461 Hawthorn This structure, also nicely redone by a professional company, is still intact and occupied. I think it is most likely that the front house was torched by the man wearing the blue gloves in the security video. He is a suspect in other fires in the neighborhood, was secretly living underneath the house and was mad about being discovered, pissed about losing his drug stash, and evidently posted the flyers at the arson fire at the Iliad Bookstore.

The plaque with the address is all that remains of 1601.

Since the cops refused to crawl under the house and obtain the plentiful evidence, like fingerprints and DNA, among all the receipts from stolen credit cards and all the rest of the bags and sleeping bags, etc., did LAPD ever get any fingerprints or DNA? An early arrest might have saved other structures from being torched. Millions of dollars of property have been destroyed, both in Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley.

1607 N. Vista, front view.

1607 N. Vista, View of side of house from Hawthorn Ave.

July 1, 2023. An arson fire at 1607 N. Vista St. at 5:30am. This house was vacant, just next door from the Airbnb where Justa Minx stayed in 2022. 30 units responded to put out the fire. The building still looks vacant today (see photos), nearly a year later.

645 N. Gardner St. View of debris from alley.

August 10, 2023. An arson fire at 645 N. Gardner St., an older unit built in 1928. Buldozed down in September 2023, the piles of debris still remain behind a chain link fence.

1547 N. Sierra Bonita Ave, totally destroyed

October 18, 2023 arson fire at 1547 N. Sierra Bonita Ave., just a couple of blocks from the N. Vista house. 6 units put out the fire on this house that was vacant and although a historical craftsman house, was slated for demolition. Movie starlet Stephanie Powers grew up next door at the house on the corner of Hawthorn Ave. A block West on Curson Ave. is a stately house that was “creepy crawled” by the Manson Family, according to the tenant who resided there in the late 1960s.

1030 N. Sierra Bonita, now a vacant lot.

November 23, 2023. Fire at 1030 N. Sierra Bonita. The house sold for 1.3 million in 2016, but had recently become vacant. Vagrants moved in, the dopers moved in. The neighbors called it The Hell House because of all the criminal activity there. Complaints piled up. Finally torched by unknown vagrants. It was demolished in January 4, 2024 by order of the City. The fire damaged some of the units in the apartment building next door, forcing innocent tenants out of their apartments.

Around the same time period that the Bookstore was set on fire, other fires were set on Lankersheim Blvd., and surrounding areas. Millions of dollars of property has been damaged or lost. Lives destroyed. Is it time for the City to get a grip on reality? Is it time to realize that druggies and crusty punks living in temporarily vacant property are a danger to society? It’s not just trespassing, ignored by the D.A. It’s possibly death and destruction to those living nearby. Yet none call it murder.

Thanks for reading this. And please, find out if somebody is hiding under YOUR house tonight. Your life could depend on it.

“Lost” Documentary On Mayme Clayton Library Found

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Documentary Tour and Description of Fabulous Library

by Paul Hunt

Back in 2009, filmmaker Arnold Herr, assisted by Mosiah Kennard, made a wonderful documentary of the Mayme Clayton Library and Museum.  The film features Avery Clayton, Mayme’s son and director of the Library. ( Mrs. Clayton had passed before the Library was open.)  The film was shown at the Library but lost in the chaos of the eviction by Ridley-Thomas and the ensuing gargantuan problem of packing up and moving 2 million books and items.

In a strange set of circumstances, we have found a copy of the film, and Ranai Clayton, Mayme Clayton’s grandson, is excited to show the public what the fantastic collection of African-American books, literature and history was like when it was at the Culver City location.

The Library is Safe

If you read the previous article on the Mysterious Disappearance of the Mayme Clayton Library, the question on everyone’s mind:  is the Library safe?  I have been assured by Mr. Clayton that the Library is safe in a secure Storage Vault.

What the Library needs is a new home with enough space to display the over 2 million books and items, and to get it re-opened for research.  The Mayme Clayton Library and Museum would like your help to find a new home and they are in need of funding to re-activate the collection.

Meanwhile, travel back in time to 2009 and see this beautiful collection before the despicable politics of a few Los Angeles politicians took it away from the public.  Please enjoy the documentary and share it with your friends.