Louisville — a.k.a. "Glitter Ball City" — in the HBO spotlight

Join us live: Our next live podcast, "Access Louisville: The State of Dining Out," is set for 4 p.m. April 21 at 500 West Jefferson. We’ll talk about issues facing the industry, including food costs, changing neighborhood dynamics and more. Tickets are available here.

Hollywood is shining a spotlight on Louisville with HBO's true crime documentary "Murder in Glitterball City."

The doc, which released a few weeks ago, was based on the book "A Dark Room in Glitterball City" by local author David Dominé. And he joins us on this week's show. Dominé is also the owner of Louisville Historic Tours, which gives architectural and ghost tours in the city. 

We give our impressions on the 2-part series, which — in spite of the heinous crime at the center of it — somehow manages to paint Louisville in a charming light. That was core to the book as Dominé explains, as he wanted the Old Louisville neighborhood to feature like a character in the book.

As Dominé notes on the show, the book and the documentary are two different things. But he was very happy with HBO's take on it. It's not everyday an author gets his work translated to the screen in such a way. 

"Just a fact that it attracted attention and made it to the screen was very gratifying," he said. "It's great that Louisville still gets it time in the spotlight. I love the fact that people are talking about Louisville."

Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. You can follow it on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

A new documentary shows Louisable in both a charming and sometimes disturbing light. We're gonna get into it next on Access Louable. Thanks for joining us. My name is David Mann, and joining me today are Michael L. Jones. How are you doing out there? And Shea Van Hoy. Hey folks. We also have a special guest today joining us, local author David Domini. Welcome, David.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Hi, thanks for having me on today.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Yeah, so we're gonna chat about David's book, which is called A Dark Room in Glitterball City, and then we're gonna talk about a new HBO documentary based on the book called Murder in Glitterball City. But before we get into that, let me get into a few bits of housekeeping first. Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First, and it is sponsored by Baird. Discover the difference Baird can make in your financial life at rwbaird.com slash Louisville. Also, our next live podcast is set for 4 p.m. on April 21st in this building, 500 West Jefferson. It's called Access Louisville, The State of Dining Out. We got three local restaurant folks coming on. We're gonna talk about issues affecting that industry, including uh food cost, changing neighborhood dynamics, and more. I'll leave a note in the show notes where you can buy tickets to that. And uh, if you're a local foodie, it's not one to miss. We'd love to have you out for it. Uh, but now let's get into this documentary, and I'm gonna start just by saying, let's all go around the room here and just give first impressions what we thought of this uh documentary. We've all watched it. It came out about, I guess, two, three weeks ago, something like that. Three weeks today. Yeah. So I'm gonna start with you, David. Like, what did you think of it? It's obviously it's based on your book, so you had to have some opinions.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

Yeah, well, I had seen, you know, uh earlier cuts, and it was actually it's been over a year that it's been ready to go, but they were just waiting for HBO to green light it and tweaking and last-minute things like that. So I had seen it, and you know, um, it's not the same as my book. They're two different things. And a lot of people are calling it my documentary. It's not, you know, I'm the author of the book, and then uh Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbado, you know, they're the authors of the film. Uh famous um uh personalities from World of Wonder. A lot of RuPaul's drag race people might know them, and from lots of other great things like um Party Monster, The Eyes of Tammy Faye. But um overall, I was very happy to see it. Um an author doesn't have his book turned into some kind of adaptation on the screen. It's very rare that that happens. So just the fact that it attracted attention and made it to the screen um is gratifying to me. It was very eye-opening and educational to be a consultant and learn so much about an industry that I don't know a lot about. And then um, even though at hand we're dealing with uh a terrible murder, you know, a crime, uh, it's great that Louisville still gets uh its time in the spotlight. Yeah. And um we'll talk more about what people think about it, but um, I love the fact that people are talking about Louisville. The minute the documentary came out, I started seeing people online saying, Well, I just booked a ticket to Louisville, Kentucky. I want to go to that place. I didn't know anything about it, but I want to go. And so in that respect, I've uh I've succeeded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Louisville Tourism thanks you.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

I hope so. Yeah. Any thoughts on it, Shay or Michael?

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Yeah, uh, well, you know, first off, our uh maybe a week after it came out, our editor of our San Francisco paper, we're part of a chain of 40 papers across the are you watching uh the documentary? And he's like, he's like, you need to take that real estate agent out for coffee and find out like what uh so you know my thought was, and and like David said, we'll talk a little bit more about the reaction, but to me it felt uh like it was kind of made in a way for Louisville's. Um they're little things that we know that the outside world like fan service, basically. It was like so. I kind of felt like if you're from Louisville, maybe um of course you like seeing things go national or international about where you live, but um the little pieces like little John, like we've all seen his commercials and things like that. So to me it felt very like aimed at um you know at Louis Villions, and so I think probably Louis Villions for the most part appreciated that about it. Yeah. And and then the people that remembered who were living here when the when the coverage of the murder was happening, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah. Well, you know, I live in Limerick, which is on the edge of Old Louisville, it's kind of part of it, but uh historic district. So at when at first I'm watching them going like, what neighborhood is this? I didn't know we had so many like colorful people in this neighborhood, but I really enjoyed the end, the second part the best because it it brought out a lot of details about I knew about the crime and everything, but I didn't know all those details.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Yeah, that's a similar observation, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

And that was really good, and it kind of like where's Jeffrey thing at the end. I I enjoyed that overall. I thought it was a very good documentary.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Yeah, I enjoyed it. There were some things I took issue with, like um they just brought in a lot of characters who like were just there to be funny, yeah. And I'm like, why is this here?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

And they were criticizing your writing.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Oh, yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. I mean, David, it seems like they did have a little fun with your writing, like just kind of um, you know, you know, they would they would take a phrase from your book and somebody'd kind of like read it out loud or whatever. So, what did you think of that?

SPEAKER_04 5:47

Was that like was it yeah, or was it like I know the couple parts you're talking about? Some people said I got a little pushback. But um, yeah, let's talk about those several parts. But um, so when I saw the first cut, um Randy and Fenton, you know, they were they're very d deferential. Um, you know, it's a scandalous story, it's a documentary, and they're Hollywood people, but uh they really kind of did try to do the right thing. You know, they didn't want to throw anyone under the bus and um they tried to be fair. And so when um oh it was November of 2024, I went and saw the first cut. It was two parts. They were a little longer, but when we were watching the two parts, I could see Randy and Fenton kind of looking at me out of the corner of their eyes to see how I would react to a couple of those parts. Yeah. And um they even we talked about taking them out, but I was like, no, actually, it's not really untrue what they're saying. And I said, a little friction creates interest. Yeah. And I said, leave those things in. And so one of them, um the the real estate agent you were talking about, she points out that um I said it was uh America's largest Victorian neighborhood. And she said, Well, I'm a writer. I would have edited this a little differently, but I wasn't asked to edit it. We are not America's largest Victorian neighborhood, and she had to put in some qualifiers. And the thing is, I never said it was America's largest Victorian neighborhood. I said many claimed it was. And that's a fact. So there's nothing to correct there, but it's interesting. Yeah. My friend Kim, she's a writer, she lived on St. James Court, and they interview her quite a bit, and she's getting recognized on the street. She just sent me an email uh telling me she's basking in her 15 minutes of fame. But she said something to the fact that um well David said, I serve chicken salad canopies on a silver platter. She said, I do not serve chicken salad canopies on a silver platter. She said, So this is creative fiction, you know, David's um changing things around. And that's true. And so I thought that was great that they put that in because when I go and do talks and stuff, I can talk about my writing process. And it's true that didn't happen at Kim's house, but Kim hosted a party. That was the setting for that part in the book. And it was for another writer friend down who uh who lives down by the fountain, Cena Jeter Naslin. And all those people were there, but some of them had said things or done those things at different times the week before. So instead of talking about this house and this place and this person, I just brought them all together in what we call a composite scene. Yeah. So all that stuff happened. It might not have been exactly those same people saying and doing it, but that happened. So it was all accurate. I just kind of condensed it and fudged the timeline and the the location a bit. And then another thing everyone loves, I see this a lot commented on is um there's one part, and you know, the for me as a writer, it's great. And my publisher, my publisher and the agent, they just love it. People are picking up my book and holding it and reading from it on screen.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

It's some good advertising, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

Um, the prosecutor, Ryan Conroy, she uh reads a part about her and it ends with, and she unwrapped a piece of candy with a loud cellophane crinkle or something like that. And then she rolled her eyes. They asked me what I thought about that. I said, it's fine, you know, it's true. And the thing is, Ryan Conroy was eating candy throughout the whole damn trial. Every day she'd come in and put her bag of candy in front of her table, and it was always by the microphone, and it was always hard candy or something wrapped in something crinkly. So my friend Carrie, who is my research assistant, she did a lot to help me get good information on the book. Every day we'd walk in, we're like, how many pieces is Ryan gonna eat today? You know, I say 13. No, I say 24, and we'd take bets on how many pieces of candy she'd unwrap during the course of the day.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

Well, it definitely showcased your writing style. I would have thought it was charming. If somebody's like having a little fun, poking fun at my writing style or anything creative about doing it, I wouldn't think that was pretty. I would I would just be happy that it's being taught. Happy you're being discussed, right?

SPEAKER_04 9:55

Yeah, you have to have a sense of humor. Yeah, you really do. If you're writing something, you're putting yourself out there, you gotta take the bad with the good. It's not all gonna be good.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

And I hadn't read your book, but now I want to after uh after watching the you'll see, they're two different animals.

SPEAKER_04 10:10

Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure um yeah, Michael was saying, you know, the second part had a lot of stuff that he didn't know about. Well, there's a lot of stuff in the book that even more. And then they were able to find a lot of stuff that I didn't know about because after the book came out, people came out of the woodwork with more stories and great information. Now that the documentary is out, they're coming out of the woodwork with even more stories and great information.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

Well, I want to ask you how the deal came together. Like how did HBO get involved? And uh or or did they they do it on spec and then shop it to a lot of different places?

SPEAKER_04 10:44

So what happened was you know, the book took me 10 years to write. It finally came out in October 2021, and within a week or two, I got a a good review in the New York Times. When that review landed, I just started I or my agent, we started getting calls from all the big networks and the names in Hollywood, and um they all wanted to do something with it, and they all had different ideas, and so for a month, month and a half, we just talked to different people, and we ended up going uh with HBO uh by January of the next year. We had signed the contract with HBO because um Lisa and Nancy, the two vice presidents of HBO Documentaries, they actually seem to get the book. And this is a thing that you know is important to talk about, and it comes up uh a lot. But the thing is the book, yes, it's a true crime book. It's about a terrible murder that took place in Louisville, it's about the trials of the accused killers that followed. But it's not just about the murder of Jamie Carroll. The book is more, it's about Louisville, it's about the neighborhood where it happened, and it's kind of the ripple effect. And you know, I I wrote the book because this all happened in a house I almost bought.

SPEAKER_05 11:59

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:59

So what are the chances of this kind of story falling in your lap? So um the HBO people, they got they got it right away that this was more than just a true crime story. Yeah. That it was a story of a city. They saw Louisville and old Louisville as a character. And part of that was bringing in all these ancillary characters and personalities like Little John. Everyone's like, what does Little John have to do with this murder? Well, if you read the book, he's in it because I was watching TV the morning the news story broke and it interrupted a Little John's commercial. So I wrote it like that in the book because that's how it happened. And then he just kept popping up every now and then, and he's such an integral part of Louisville pop culture and stuff. I wanted stuff like that to kind of provide a lens to filter all this terrible stuff through. And so um we decided to go with HBO, and then they said, okay, so uh David, we're gonna put you in touch with Randy and Fenton. They're the people at World of Wonder, and I'm a huge RuPaul's Drake race fan. Yeah. It was like, you know, it was like a match made in heaven. It was like it was perfect. And so um, so what they did is they um, you know, optioned it. And a lot of times what they do is they pay you X amount of dollars to not do anything with it for 18 months, just like them think about it, and then they renew it for another 18 months. But uh within a month or two, they had exercised the option, and a month later, uh World of Wonder was in town with their camera crews and they were going around talking to people. I was hooking them up, and uh, they immediately just fell in love with Louisville, old Louisville, and they loved Little John. Um, so he does get a lot of screen time in the documentary, more so than I think he gets in the book, but they loved him. And I'm not gonna give any spoilers, but you know, we might see little John on some kind of um some other kind of thing on the screen that I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Some of the things his wife was saying were just had me scratching my head, like when she talked about carrying the gun, the 25th in Broadway, and I'm like, down the street from the new hospital in Kroger. Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

Yeah, I thought that that was the one part I was like, ah, come on.

SPEAKER_04 14:09

And that was actually um so that isn't in the book. I try in the book to shoot down a lot of the stereotypes about certain time, certain parts of town and the crime. So that uh when I saw the first cut, they the way it came out, it was it was basically talking about the West End, you know. And I was like, that just feeds into a lot of stereotypes people in Louisville have. I said, I I don't really I'm not fond of that part. And they they tamped it down, actually. Is that right? So it's not what it was, but um all the guns and little that was not in the book. Well, yeah but they love that, it makes good TV and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

It does, and he owns a jewelry store, so I could see why they're gonna be able to do that. Yeah, it's his place.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

So but yeah, that was not really part of the of the story that I wrote.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Yeah, that that one that was the one part. Um, and they said somebody said Louisville's the carjacking capital of Kentucky. I'm like, well, what else would be the carjacking capital of Kentucky? Yeah, and I didn't know I that was not in the book.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

Yeah, a lot of that stuff was not in the book, but they thought it was germane and it's their documentary.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

So and we can criticize. Like it's like you say, you make something creative, you know, it's it's out there for the world to uh to digest. But uh and I don't know you don't want to get into too I don't know, I'm not sure what you can get into here, but uh as far as the business part of it, like they pay you for it, or is it like it like really good exposure?

SPEAKER_04 15:34

Is there different well yes, but the thing is a lot of people think you know Hollywood turns your book into some kind of uh film or movie or something, and bam, you're a millionaire. Yeah, that's not what happens. Sorry to hear that. Um yeah, I can't disclose numbers, but I still need to work. I still need to write books. So um they they paid me for rights, and um whatever happens down the road, like if it's nominated for an Emmy, uh which I hope it will be and it wins, I could earn some money in that respect. So um it's very piecemeal. Like if this happens, you get this. If this happens, so it's that makes sense. Yeah, it's yeah, I'm not I'm not retiring anytime soon.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

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SPEAKER_03 16:51

So you're also the owner of Louisville Historic Tours, and Michael, you were gonna ask uh ask a question about that part of the business.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

So, yeah, I wondered um, is um this part of your ghost tour, the the house where the crime was?

SPEAKER_04 17:06

Actually, yeah. Um God, it's been for 10 years, I think. Um that's one of the stops on our evening ghost tour. And the thing is, you know, we do other tours. People think it's only ghost tours and around Halloween. We do tours year-round. And like I just I'm running from a history and architecture tour I just did. Yeah. Um, we do food tours and history tours in other parts of town, downtown and German town. But um, yeah, it's a popular stop on the evening ghost tour. And um, since the documentary came out, of course, we're seeing lots of people signing up from tours. Um when the book came out, we started to see an increase in people coming to Louisville because they had read the book, but specifically old Louisville and uh Louisville Historic Tours get some good screen time. They followed me around on tours. They um interviewed some of my tour guides, like Deborah uh Harlan, who is in the documentary. Um I think we can say this, but uh she's the self-proclaimed neighborhood pain in the ass. Oh, yeah. People love her. That came up. People say, I want to go hang out with Deborah.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

And then she could just like like uh auction off coffee time or something. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:13

And then um Angelique, my lead tour guide, um, the one who sees ghosts and the medium. The medium. Yeah. Um she's getting a lot of requests for tours. People are traveling just to come and do tours with her. So yeah, we're seeing an increase in interest in the neighborhood overall, but it's being reflected in the number of tours.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

So what what was your thoughts about the way the neighborhood was portrayed?

SPEAKER_04 18:39

Um I think overall it's positive. You know, like I said, there's a terrible crime at its heart. And so when you talk about real-life people, real events, you're always going to, you know, rub some people the wrong way. There's that faction that would rather sweep things under the rug, and it you know, it's in the past. Why do we need to talk about it? But then there's people, you know, who want to talk about it. And so, um, like I said, there's there's always going to be detractors and naysayers, and I've been hearing some criticism. But for the most part, and this includes the people who are represented, you know, on film, they think it's great for the neighborhood. Um, some of the neighborhood looks kind of kooky and crazy, but I don't think kooky and crazy is a bad thing, right? Where in the South we embrace that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

So I I have to admit, I curse you sometimes because I live in a house that was built in the 1890s, and people are always asking me if there are ghosts there. That just Michael, are there ghosts there?

SPEAKER_03 19:43

It's like, how do you answer me?

SPEAKER_04 19:45

Yeah, but overall, I mean, because there's some beautiful footage. I mean, a lot of people don't know. Even in Louisville, people don't know we have one of the largest historic preservation districts in the United States. We have a neighborhood with more than 40 square blocks of largely well preserved houses from the 1880s, 1890s. You just don't find that piece of history across the country anymore. And so the fact that they're showing some of the beautiful streetscapes and the houses, and a lot of people say, Oh my God, I never knew that was there. People in Louisville are saying that. So it's definitely shining a light on the neighborhood, and for that alone, it's it's going to be good.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Yeah. Yeah. Well, also just going back to the neighborhood, um, I'm, you know, familiar with like how the what the neighborhood looks like, but uh the the book and then the documentary allows Louisvilleans to meet some of the characters within the neighborhood they might not know. And that's what uh, you know, did um did you learn anything about uh, you know, some of your your neighbors there that you didn't know or something that surprised you that that came out of these interviews that then you saw in the documentary after after you saw the cut?

SPEAKER_04 20:50

Um there's one thing I found out I didn't want to know, but I'm not gonna talk about that. Um we'll talk about that after. Um well, I just found out there's uh a nice um underground SM scene in Louisville. Who knew? So I yeah, some people I discovered um are in in the and you know, it's consenting adults. I mean, I I talk about this in the book. Um there's nothing nothing wrong with that. But um I just found out that there's always kind of an underside to everything, and some people don't like that. But every neighborhood, every community has the soft underbelly, and right I'm fascinated by things like that. And like I said, I don't think we need to sweep things under the rug if we're adults and you know, we're mature. You can talk about things, and I don't think certain things like that are justified in painting a community or uh a city, you know, with uh a monochromatic brush. You know, we can use it as a way to look at other things, but um yeah. Well the only thing I really learned is that I have a lot of or I don't live in the neighborhood anymore, but a lot of my friends and former neighbors there there's a lot of interesting people. And um on more than one occasion, uh Randy and Fenton, the directors, they they talk about Louisville people in general. They say Louisvilleans are so smart, they're cultured, and they're such interesting people. So if they're saying stuff like that, you know, I think I think they saw the city in a good light.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

For sure. Um, you know, as you mentioned, uh you've mentioned this and I think elsewhere that watching the documentary, the filmmakers, um, because of time has passed and maybe just new information coming out, uh, you saw some things in the documentary that you didn't have access to, police court records, that sort of thing. Um, so anything that you think about the case or the situation that's changed, knowing what you know now versus do you when you wrote the book a few years ago?

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Well, um one thing that happened was uh World of Wonder and HBO, they had access to a lot more of the court documents and records that I was privy to. And um a lot of it included some of the videotape evidence they showed that was never showed during the trials and um that I never had access to. So that was kind of fascinating. Like um, I don't want to give a spoiler, but there's one kind of running theme, and that is um Joey Bannis, as his defense, said that he was terrified of Jeffrey Munt the whole time that they were together. And one of the reasons he was afraid of Jeffrey Munt is because Jeffrey Munt had worked as an assassin for the CIA. He had killed like 31 people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in the courtroom, we just all rolled our eyes. And it was so ludicrous and outlandish. But then later on, we started finding out these things about Jeffrey Munt. Like he was uh an expert in Eastern European politics and spoke several Eastern European languages. And um Randy and Fenton got access to a video where Jeffrey Munt apparently is semi-conscious, is lying on a bed, and he's talking about the bullet in his brain from Bratislava, and that came up during one of the trials, and supposedly Jeffrey had told Joey he had a bullet in his brain from this operation in Bratislava. Darren Wolfe, the attorney, mispronounced, he said Bratislavia, and so Jeffrey Munt kind of crinkled up his nose and acted like he didn't know what he was talking about, but he did. And he said, Oh no, that was a sex scene. We were just playing around. And then they have this video of him kind of confessing to maybe he was um an assassin, which is bizarre, you know. Yeah. So st some stuff like that came out that there was so much video. Oh, and so I mean, and there there was so much more they could have had.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Apparently it did not a lot. So that leads me to uh to a qu like is there any um kind of a two-part question, because we always like to to ask guests kind of what they're what they're working on now, but with the advanced with the advanced knowledge now that you have from the tri like, is there any more is there any more fruit to mine here on this for a for a for a sequel?

SPEAKER_04 25:16

I didn't think so when I wrote the book, but now more stuff is coming out. It's definitely more possible than it was a year or two ago. Right. Um and you know, if you watch the documentary, they don't come out and say it, but they almost come out and say that they think Jeffrey Munt got away with murder and he's gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

Yeah, they did seem to suggest that.

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Yeah, they definitely um are intimating that. So there's this whole thing, you know, what's Jeffrey Munt doing?

SPEAKER_03 25:46

And I think when I see a documentary do that, I'm I'm always wonder if it's like, you know, are they trying to are we implying or are they inferring? They're definitely wanting you to think that.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

And they even in some interviews they pretty much come out and say it. Yeah. And the way it ends, and the whole second part, you know, um Jeffrey Munt at first looked like the the more innocent of the two, but then all the stuff comes out. He wasn't he acted like he was an ingenue, like he never did anything. And we found out he had a uh a a dark side. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

And writing a script too for the confession that's a totally mind-blowing one. Yeah, just crazy.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

They did a good job of of you know building the drama by introducing that and then coming back coming back to it. Um so uh I just also want to what so what are you working on um right now? Like uh and and any both any new tours planned and then also uh on the author side.

SPEAKER_04 26:42

Well, tours all the time, and I got seven, eight good tour guides who help me out now. So come on down to the neighborhood and we'll show you the murder house. Everyone wants to see it. Is that the slogan now that you'd like? Yeah, the murder house. It's always been that. But um I've got several other things in the work, and um I just sold my next true crime book, which is not a continuation of this story, but it's another one that a lot of people know about, and it gives me opportunity to take a place and make it a main character, and that's Bardstown, the stuff that's been going on.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

David's Hometown, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:18

I'm gonna have to talk to you. You know, and so your next documentary, you know. And it's not just, you know, it's all these other deaths associated with it, and this small town conspiracy kind of thing in Nelson County where it happened, you know, they have this old Catholic tradition and all the bourbon distilleries. And you've got spirits there and spooky things. So Bardstown definitely has some potential. So that's gonna be my next um true crime book. But I also have um uh I'm switching over to fiction and I have a murder mystery that I'm trying to get out. And it's set in old Louisville because I love Old Louisville. Yeah. And um, this murder mystery has um the heroine, um, but she's a little different. She's a drag queen. Her name's Pooh Poo Chafan, and she's gonna solve mysteries. And so that's one of those two will be the next thing that comes out. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Nice. And and that was your first was that your first true crime book, the uh the murdering letter ball city? True crime.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

Nonfiction, I'd written ghost books and history, you know, that was my thirteenth book, but as far as true crime, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

I thought it was. So I went back and looked at your your titles, and it seemed like that was Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

We had done a couple of uh book signings together, and it's always I write dry history books, and so I have two people, and yeah, and you have this long line of people. And one thing that was interesting when I talked to you about the documentary where you said that you started uh focusing on the ghost stuff as a way to get the architecture and the history out. And uh I I think that that is is something that people don't really realize about your book, how much you really know about that part of it.

SPEAKER_04 29:02

Yeah, that's you know, I started writing ghost stories, and and people love ghost stories, but I always tell people you don't need to believe in ghosts to enjoy good ghost stories because there's so much more. So there's history and architecture, so ghost stories are just a way to present history in another way. And uh I think that's what we kind of discovered. But uh also, like I said, it's a straight true, it's not a straight true crime story. I I go off on all these tangents, this crazy Louisville history and stuff people don't know about. And so um some of the criticism that has come in is from people who'd rather just have a procedural straight true crime. And that's not what the documentary is, and that's not what my book was. So if you're that kind of reader or or watcher, um you might not like this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

I got the glitter ball in the title being for disco balls, but that was that something you thought of? Because that's a lot of the people online are like, whoever calls Louisville glitter ball city?

SPEAKER_04 30:01

Yeah, that that's um that's one of the things I've gotten the most um pushback for. Like I never heard it called glitter. These people they think because they never heard it, it doesn't exist. You know, the world revolves around them. But the thing is, um, that's one of the quirks I wanted to tell. You know, we were the place where most of the world's disco balls were coming from in the 70s and 80s at the height of the world's disco craze, and the company's still around today. And it was a Kentuckian who first patented something called the Myriad Reflector in 1917. We've been making them for over a hundred years. The thing is, disco ball is the newest term. They didn't call it a disco ball in the 40s and in the 20s. Early on, it was called the myriad reflector, and then they were calling it a mirror ball, and they were calling it a glitter ball. So glitter ball has been around longer than disco ball. Um disco ball is much better known because of the disco era. Yeah. So when I was um looking for a title, you know, this really all started in 2010 when the story broke. You know, that's when I started thinking about writing the book. But I was looking for a title that would stop and make people think, and I wanted to have Louisville in it somehow. And uh I don't shy away from this in the book. Uh John Barrent's book about Savannah, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, was my inspiration. When I finished that book in the 1990s, I was living in Old Louisville. I stopped, I just looked around, I was like, well, we got that in old Louisville. We got drag queens and beautiful old houses and quirky eccentrics. And so when I was writing, I noticed a lot of what I was doing was striving to recreate that for old Louisville. And so um I really saw all the parallels in this story with the Savannah story. And so one thing I remembered about John Barron's book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the first time I heard about it or read it, it was a lot to get your tongue around. You know, it was hard to remember the title, and you had to stop and think. So I wanted to do something like that with my title. And originally it was longer. It was originally called the Fair But Fickle Mistress of Glitterball City. And that was going to be oh Louisville. That was the character. But my agent's like, that's too long.

unknown 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:14

I was like, I want it to be long, I want people to talk about it. She's like, it's too long. She's like murder in glitterball city.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

And now that like true crime is such a craze, you're probably your agent was probably onto something there.

SPEAKER_04 32:25

Well, murder cells. Yeah. So murder in the title. And the thing is, um, I I think I coined the term glitter ball city. I don't know that people were calling it that, but I had heard people say glit um disco ball city. Yeah. And so, and then when I found all the different gay angles to the story, you know, glitter, and I thought, oh, glitter ball city, that kind of works. And that's why I went with that.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

I hope people in the future just start calling us that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

I uh I shared a Facebook post today. In case you didn't know, you can actually check in at Glitterball City if you're on Facebook or Instagram. I did not know. So I told all my friends and followers, I said, you know the assignment, start checking in to kind of to make uh to be petty and make these other people who are mad that I'm calling it Glitterball City even more.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Well, there isn't that's the thing, is like even if you like you said, even if you have it, there is a basis for it. Like there's it's not just a mate, we're not calling it, you know, whatever, but it's like there is a background and a basis of history for that title. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:19

And you can have more than one nickname. Yeah, there's not there's no rule that says you can only call a place one thing. Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

And plus, you know, I mean, it had nothing to do with Derby. So if you would have gone with like Derby City, people would have thought it had something to do with the Kentucky Derby. The cease and desist from Churchill Downs. Yeah, exactly. That would have been a lot to work with. Well, I think that's all we have for you this week. Um, thanks so much, David, for coming on. Now, here at this part of the show, we uh we usually uh kind of plug where people can find us on social media. If you want to do that too, or if you want to plug a project you're working on, um, that's fine too. I'll start with Michael. Michael, where can people find you on uh on social media?

SPEAKER_01 33:58

I'm on Facebook and LinkedIn, it's Michael L. Jones.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

All right, uh, David, how about you?

SPEAKER_04 34:03

Uh you can find me on Facebook um under my name, or you can go to Louisville Historic Tours. Um, if you go to Instagram, I'm Bluegrass Peasant on Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

I like it. All right. How about you, Shay? Primarily, my name, uh, LinkedIn, and Blue Sky. All right. And you can find me primarily my name on uh LinkedIn only. Um if you like this podcast, you can find it on popular services, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Uh, thank you very much, Michael. Thank you, David, thank you, Shay, and of course, thank you, Baird, for the support and all you guys out there listening to us. We will see you next time. Bye bye, we're not going to be able to do it.