27 APR 2024 · Detective Louis N. Scarcella was a legendary figure in New York City during the '90s. In a city overrun with violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. But the story changed when a group of convicted murderers-turned-jailhouse lawyers made a startling discovery that linked all their cases: Scarcella was the cop who helped put many of them away. They made a vow: Take down Scarcella. And with the help of a relentless New York Times reporter, they did just that. Thirty years later, 20 people who Scarcella helped put behind bars have since walked free. In the media, he's known as the disgraced, rogue cop who hoodwinked an entire system. But was this really the workings of one person? "We spent hundreds of hours talking with witnesses who were coerced, jailhouse lawyers, outraged attorneys, and righteous cops. Scarcella insists he didn't do anything wrong. And after finally tracking him down, he agreed to take us into the belly of the beast... where justice is done (and undone)." Episodes here: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-burden-157314804/  

27 APR 2024 · Fifty-year-old Violet has had a good life. The love of an honest man. The joys of motherhood. Yet, even in 1955, her heart still aches over the death of her sister more than four decades earlier. Lately, Violet can't help thinking about the little girl, picturing her in the moments before the accident, wearing that pleated white dress and a hair bow to match. Maybe if her big sister were here now, she could tell Violet what to do about the secret she's been keeping from her daughter Daisy. Daisy has a secret of her own. When she first moved back home to Scranton, she wasn't ready to give up her dreams of performing in Atlantic City. Then she met Johnny, a man who needs music as much as she does. Her first real chance at love. If only they can find the courage to buck small-town thinking when it comes to interracial dating. Small-town thinking. Zethray had seen her fair share of it. That's why she advertised a room to rent in The Negro Motorist Green Book. Give folks a safe place to stay away from home. That's how Johnny ended up at her door. Now he's sweet on some young woman. Not that he told Zethray, but she knows. The dead like to talk, and she listens. If only her mother would tell the secret behind her shocking death. Instead, she stands silent, while that little girl with the bow in her hair runs wild. Rain Breaks No Bones, is the final novel in the Scranton Trilogy, starting with Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night, followed by All Waiting Is Long. Though the novels are connected, they each stand alone.

26 APR 2024 · Fallen Angels is a journalistic thriller - Chinatown meets Spotlight - one that takes us into the shadows of sunny LA. Over 10 thirty-minute episodes, we go deeper and deeper into the intermingled world of power and privilege. L.A. Times investigative reporter Paul Pringle is our host - but he doesn't simply narrate this story. Like a classic L.A. Noir, as Paul and his team of reporting colleagues, who joined forces in secret from their bosses, investigate the story, they meet obstacles and stonewalling at every turn - from USC, from the city, and more troubling still, from their own organization. Episodes here: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-fallen-angels-a-story-of-160652083/ 

26 APR 2024 · Blackstone Publishing announces the forthcoming release of Zoro's book, MARIA'S SCARF: A MEMOIR OF A MOTHER'S LOVE, A SON'S PERSEVERANCE, AND DREAMING BIG . A beautiful and transformative memoir, Maria's Scarf is the incredible story of a mother's love, a family's unbreakable bond, and a starry eyed boy who never lost sight of his dreams. As the fatherless biracial child of a Mexican immigrant, Danny Donnelly was never expected to amount to much. Before the age of nine, his single mother had moved her seven children more than thirty times-from the impoverished streets of South Central Los Angeles to rural Oregon and everywhere in between. Sometimes there was no home to go to, so they slept in their '62 Chevy; sometimes dinner was a slice of bread; sometimes they showered in a nearby park. Desperate yet ever hopeful, they clung to the only thing they had-each other. Through it all, Danny longed for his father's love and approval, ultimately channeling his pain and transforming himself into Zoro, one of the world's greatest drummers. Eloquent, hilarious, and remarkably tender, Maria's Scarf: A Memoir of a Mother's Love, a Son's Perseverance, and Dreaming Big, tells the story of a family fighting for survival against almost insurmountable odds. Through laughter, tears, and many misadventures, Zoro's autobiography touches the heart of every reader-young or old, citizen or immigrant-and speaks to the dreamer in all of us, emboldening everyone to live fantazmical lives.

24 APR 2024 · For decades, David Alexander enjoyed a successful career as a commercial photographer, known for his work on the album covers of artists such as the Eagles, Aretha Franklin, Linda Ronstadt, James Brown, Ringo Starr, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, to name just a few, and movie posters for box office smashes like The Blues Brothers and 9 to 5. In the process of making art, he began to see connections that expanded his thinking about the planet we humans share with the environment. In his debut book, PICTURES OF TIME: Seeing Time in the Ordinary World (Silver Street Media; April 22, 2024; ISBN: 9781542212786; $70.00/Hardcover; 12 x 12; 124 pages), David Alexander uses the language of photography to share his revelations into how all living things are connected, and how these connections are often hidden in plain sight all around us. The common bond is a constant, yet continually changing, fact of life: time. As Alexander reflects: "I find the ordinary world to be extraordinary, and I hope that comes through in the photographs. I want the book to reveal signs of evolution for the reader-glimpsing the past by looking closely at the present, seeing connections among living and natural things, and, ultimately, feeling our place during evolution, i.e., time. Seeing and taking pictures of this stuff, to me, is fun and often funny."Organized by descriptive chapter headings-Shape, Pairing, Reflection, Rhythm, Together, and Aging-Pictures of Time presents a collection of full-color photographs of people, trees, flowers, and birds captured in similar configurations or forms.

23 APR 2024 · Imagine you were a fly on the wall at a dinner between the mafia, the CIA, and the KGB. That's where this unprecedented podcast begins. Brought to you by the makers of the #1 podcast To Live and Die in LA, To Die For marks the first time a Russian-trained sex spy has told her story. All of it. Taught to seduce men for their secrets, and sometimes their lives, Aliia Roza was trained to believe that her body no longer belonged to her. It belonged to the State. She was meticulously trained to be the perfect weapon, able to seduce her "targets" into compromising situations that have ended careers-and sometimes lives. Hosted by Neil Strauss (Rolling Stone, The New York Times), To Die For brings listeners into the dangerous world of Russian sexpionage, where enemies of the State are not the only victims. So are the spies who are brainwashed and abused by the State. Episodes here: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-to-die-for-157352863/ 

22 APR 2024 · Bloomberg's Saleha Mohsin shares one reported story a week about how money, politics, and power shape Washington - and the consequences for people in America and all over the world.  Episodes here: https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/big-take-dc/4822870 

22 APR 2024 · Americans lived in a different reality in 1980: Vermont was the only state that let residents carry a concealed firearm without a permit. Twenty-four states now allow this-and numerous other gun laws have fallen by the wayside. When police were accused of wrongdoing, the default answer from society's arbiters-courts, politicians, newspaper editors-was: "The police wouldn't lie." Editors steered clear of stories about rape and sexual violence. The word "homeless" wasn't in common use. The fabric of the middle class had not yet begun fraying. America of the 2020s is living with cultural shapeshifting rooted in the 1980s. History, of course, is not a snapshot-it's a film. To understand the United States today, we have to know the 1980s. American Doom Loop chronicles the first part of that moving picture, then brings the story forward. As a newspaper journalist, Dale Maharidge had a front-row seat to this decade, immersed in disparate worlds. He was in the Philippines during the last days of Dictator Ferdinand Marcos, witnessing the US lose a critical piece of its empire dating to the Spanish-American War; he traveled to Central America where the East-West conflict was playing out by proxy; he smuggled a Salvadoran family marked by death squads, driving them through trackless desert to the US border; he embedded with a group that was a precursor to the Oath Keepers; and he investigated police, who kept trying to get him fired. Through it all, Maharidge gained an invaluable view of a complicated decade that offers insight into our society today.

21 APR 2024 · Those old sayings. Who what where when and how? Some of those old sayings are not only ancient but still carry an impact today. One of them? Money doesn't grow on trees.

21 APR 2024 · Fifty years to the month after Trouser Press published its first issue, Trouser Press Books has released Zip It Up! The Best of Trouser Press Magazine 1974 - 1984. This 440-page large-format paperback collects more than 90 of the best articles - profiles, interviews and histories - that appeared in the magazine fans have called "the bible of alternative rock" but had a broader mission than that. Sections on: . the 1960s. classic rock. glam rock. prog and art rock. reggae. the roots of punk. American punk and new wave. UK punk and new wave. post-punk Annotated with recollections and reflections on the changing times, the ridiculous business of independent magazine publishing and the colorful, complicated artists - illustrated with cartoons, covers, documents and ads from the Trouser Press archive - Zip It Up! is vintage rock journalism of a form that is no longer widely practiced: features heavy on historical detail and lengthy, probing interviews, all written with wit, intelligence and a willful expression of opinions and values. It is also an extensive document of rock's evolution from the 1970s to the mid-'80s, often capturing now-iconic bands in the early stages of their existence. By turns reverent, snarky, adulatory and cynical, Zip It Up! is a rich grazing ground for fans and students of music and music journalism. 

7 NOV 2022 · Happy Birthday!!!