The only thing I love more than the Arclight is a good story about the Arclight, and Kathy’s post about going to see The Prestige is right up there with the best of them.

Chad and I got up from our seats in the Arclight Theater and headed toward the concession area. That’s when it happened. A light hand on my shoulder and a familiar voice,”You look like intelligent people. Can you explain the ending to me?”

We both turn and cast eyes upon Richard Simmons, looking more frail then usual but unmistakable. Without skipping a beat we launch into a explaination of the complicated mechanics of The Prestige’s ending. He nods a lot, smiling, “Ohhhhh… wow… I would never have gotten that. Thank you!”

Like many of my fellow Angelenos, I have a love/hate relationship with our local news. On the one hand, the overwhelming sensationalism, the focus on lurid stories or stories that are obviously little more than cleverly-disguised advertisements, and the Hal Fischman commentaries make me want to stab myself in the eye. On the other hand, sometimes you need to get your weather forecast from Tits McGee. And if you tell me you haven’t flipped between KCAL, KTLA, and KTTV during a high-speed chase to get different angles or because the commentary on the current channel wasn’t colossally stupid enough for you . . . well, your pants may very well be on fire.

From time to time, however, our local news delivers something so absolutely wonderful, so utterly perfect and brilliant, you may skip Futurama the following night and tune in again, hoping for a repeat. One of the best moments in probably the last decade of local news coverage is presented for your viewing after the flip. And please flip. This one is a visual.
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Last week I posted about how someone ran into my car while it was parked outside of my house and then drove away. I got a lot of great suggestions from people and talked to even more folks in my neighborhood. I’ve now got witnesses, sightings, and photos. Yesterday I put these flyers (unredacted of course) up and I’ve already heard from people confirming earlier speculations. I’ve also heard from the repair shop and the total is close to $3,000 for the damages to my car. This is about to get interesting…

After completely overlooking it for the nine years I’ve lived in LA, the Craft and Folk Art Museum is my new favorite place…continue reading.

I must admit, I’m not a big Halloween person. I don’t plan events, don’t get a costume together weeks beforehand and since I live in a tucked away place, never get trick or treaters. But inevitably the day of the dark night I get that witchy feeling and want to do something. This year I’ve been invited to a couple of parties on Saturday night, which is WAY before Halloween, but it seems to be the day everyone is getting their pumpkins rolling. One fun event that’s going down this Saturday night is at The Highlands, where a friend is a promoter for Dave Navarro, who’s DJing along with a bunch of former bunnies (the Playmate kind). That might be fun.
Go here for tickets.

Anyone who lives in a city like LA has a few secrets that they hold dear to themselves knowing that if the rest of the population found out about them the value of the secret would quickly erode. I’m sure all of us have little hold backs like this about LA, something that we know about that makes our lives that much easier and we shudder to think what might happen if our neighbors found out about those conveniences. Well, Coop just totally screwed any of us who count the downtown AAA office as one of those secrets with by making a post called The DMV Is For Suckers!

In fact the DMV is for suckers, and as Coop points out the AAA Office at Fig and Adams is more than enough reason to purchase a membership. The building is fantastic, there is sorts of California history strewn about, and you don’t have to deal with any of the DMV hassles. Of course now I’m sure all the schmucks in line at the DMV will just move over to AAA but it was great while it lasted!

The downtown nonprofit gallery Pharmaka Art has put out a call-for-entries for their annual fundraising art raffle event to benefit the gallery called Small Wonders…continue reading

One of my favorite nooks in my part of town is the courtyard of the Materials & Applications group on Silver Lake Boulevard below the reservoir. Since I’ve become aware of its projects, I’ve seen the space transformed with innovative and compelling endeavors titled Maximillian’s Schell and Here There Be Monsters. The current installation is Bubbles. It’s been up since the middle of last month but it was only last night that I stopped to snap some pix of the ethereal headturner.

[Flickr photoset here]

From the M&A website:

The interactive installation is a spatially adaptable pneumatic environment at an urban scale. The installation consists of large air-bags or “bubbles” that inflate and deflate in reaction to visitors pushing or bumping the lower inflated volume of each pair. As visitors enter and move through the installation, they must navigate through the lightweight 8′ diameter spheres that fill the space. When the bubbles are bumped, sensors initiate a chaotic exchange of air between the spheres. When no visitors are present, the system returns to its stand-by state: the lower bubble in the pair refillls with air and awaits another interaction.

M&A is located at 1619 Silver Lake Boulevard (map) and Bubbles is open for interactive exploration 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. daily until January 31, 2007.

Scott Beale from Laughing Squid posted a bunch of photos sent to him from Culver City like the one above. I love it! (I am a huge fan of billboard liberation.) He also recently visited Hollywood Forever and Johnny Ramone’s grave. Reading his blog makes me miss San Francisco. :(

Earlier this week benhigh posted about an LAPD officer who had died after being hit by a car on Riverside Drive. He mentioned that the LAPD Blog was one of the first sources he checked for info about the accident. It turns out that Lieutenant Ruben De La Torre, who actually runs the LAPD Blog, previously worked directly with Officer Landon Dorris and yesterday posted his reflections of the times he shared with him. Lt. De La Torre writes:

“As supervisors we are expected to mentor, train and lead those entrusted to our care. However, sometimes we forget that we too can learn from those younger and less experienced. Landon left me with a lasting impression, which I will never forget and hope to pass on to my sons. Landon was a confident man in both his abilities and training. Reserved and quiet like the wind, but who could erupt for the preservation of peace. Many nights and early morning hours, Landon and I shared conversations about our profession, families, and friends. I came to understand that as a watch commander I was very fortunate to have Landon on our team and Northeast Area was all the wealthier.”

Not to turn this into blogging.flannelcakes.la or anything, but today we were at Musso and Frank to celebrate my birthday, and although I’m sure they offer other lunchtime foodstuffs, flannel cakes simply must be obeyed.

There are three older guys at the bar as we come in. (This is
around 11:00 AM, for those of you keeping score.) There were some raised voices at the bar after we were seated, but I wasn’t paying attention until two of the guys get up to go to their table, and as they pass the third one, one guy tells him to, and I quote, “Kiss my ass.”

We are in our usual booth next to the bar, so I see the aggrieved lush (a morning regular, as we were later informed: martini and a Heineken) grumbling as the two gentlemen are seated behind us. The guy at the bar gets up, pays his tab, and walks past us, drink in hand. At this point I got a nudge from my man, as he had a better view and was confident that something amusing was about to happen.

The injured party walks over to the guy seated at the booth, grumbles something about ass-kissing, and TOSSES HIS DRINK ON THE GUY! He then walks out, Johnny Wetpants in hot pursuit. Apparently there was further friction either on the other side (with the counter) or in the parking lot, which we were not privvy to, alas.

It turns out there is now some evidence in the practice that many people have been suspecting for quite some time. On Monday LA Voice linked to this LA Times story stating that LAPD officials had photographed and videotaped ambulances from Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center allegedly dumping five people on skid row over the weekend and were calling it a major break. Since then both NPR and CNN have jumped on the story. What’s worse is that of the 5 cases from this weekend, at least one of them was not even homeless and other reported they did not want to be taken to Skid Row. From CNN:

In one case, a man dropped off at Skid Row was in fact not homeless, said Smith, the LAPD captain. A police officer took him home and the man’s family was “outraged,” he said.

“Not only did they not know that he was discharged, but the fact that he had been brought to Skid Row instead of being brought home was what further outraged that family,” Smith said at a news conference Tuesday.

The investigation began on Sunday, when an LAPD sergeant saw a patient being left in front of the Volunteers of America homeless services facility.

The sergeant called an LAPD videographer, who over the next few hours recorded four more ambulances arriving at the facility and leaving recently discharged patients.

Fenton said three of the five patients had arrived at the hospital from Volunteers of America or the nearby Lamp Community center, and gave the street addresses on their admission information.

Officials at Lamp and Volunteers of America, however, said they had no record of any of the five patients having been at their facilities. Police also said the patients stated in their interviews that they didn’t want to be left there.

[Thanks Xeni!]

The James Irvine Foundation’s Arts Regional Initiative

Four Southern California museums recently received funding via the The James Irvine Foundation Launches Arts Regional Initiative: Charles W. Bowers Museum, Santa Ana ($400,000); Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside ($350,000); Orange County Museum of Art. Newport Beach ($400,000); and Riverside Art Museum, Riverside ($300,000)…continue reading

This past week, fellow writer and photographer extraordinaire eecue and I got a special in-depth tour of the Griffith Park Observatory that was really out of this world! Awesome is the only way to describe it. You get the full run. From the classics: The Zeiss 12 inch refractor telescope, the Foucault Pendulum and the Camera Obsura; to the new: the Event Horizon Auditorium, The Café at the End of the Universe with a perfect view of the Hollywood sign and the new Carl Zeiss Universarium. Every inch is stunning. I was reminded once again, how lucky we are to live in Los Angeles. From the deck of the observatory you look out to the west and see the ocean sparkling beyond the towers of Century City, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. To the east you have a great view of downtown and then behind you are the hills of Hollywood with the Hollywood sign nestled in so sweetly. It was stunning.
Over the next week, we’re gonna do a several part series to give you a re-cap of some of the new aspects of the joint. It’s opening on November 3rd, so make your reservations now.

You can see more Griffith Observatory photos from eecue here.

Ever since Howard Stern left “Free FM” (n√©e KLSX) for the FCC-free “airwaves” of Sirius radio, I’ve felt like L.A. radio was the poorer for it. However, I didn’t want to be the poorer for listening to him post-move, so I bailed on the King of All Media.

If you want to see what the fuss is all about (or just hear Howard with swears), check out the two-day free trial, today and tomorrow only. Just give ‘em an email addy and it’s all Howard, all the time.

Except for the, um, long commercial blocks and stuff. Hmm…feels like home…