Ellroy gets a TV show

"James Ellroy's LA: City of Demons" debuts Jan. 19 on the Investigation Discovery channel. It will look at notorious L.A. crimes, of course. From Michael Schneider at his Franklin Avenue blog:

In the six-part series, Ellroy will be front and center, talking to witnesses, prosecutors, investigators and jurors. To add an even more surreal sheen to the show, Ellroy's work will be interrupted occasionally by an animated crime dog, "Barko." Seriously.

"Crime is a palpitatingly perennial gas – and L.A. crime is the craaaazy creme-de-la-crime," Ellroy says. "Viewers are terribly tired of the trailer trash tragedies that caustically contaminate documentary TV. They wantonly want to groove, grok, gravitate and glide toward glamorous crime – and L.A. is where all that shimmering sh…stuff…pervertedly percolates. This show will be serious, satirical and great fun."

Ellroy, of course, is the author of "The Black Dahlia," "The Big Nowhere," "L.A. Confidential," "White Jazz" and most recently "The Hilliker Curse."

Add Franklin Avenue: Mike's fifth annual Great Los Angeles Walk this Saturday returns to the scene of the first: Wilshire Boulevard. Those who are walking shove off promptly at 10 a.m. from Pershing Square. A 15.8-mile trek to Santa Monica somehow doesn't fit into my Saturday plans, but I'll be out there in the morning to help send everybody off. The Los Angeles Conservancy has also freshened up its Wilshire site, Curating the City, for the occasion.