For those of you who have not been lucky enough to be privy to the deliciousness that is the Kogi BBQ taco truck, the video below is a great primer.  Briefly, Kogi BBQ puts the “Korean” in “taco truck” with Korean-inspired tacos and burritos to dish out.  If you find the truck, you’ll see hungry masses amass for delicious shortrib, chicken, spicy pork, and (my least favorite) tofu tacos and burritos.  In the best use of Twitter that I’ve seen, the truck twitters its anticipated locations, from Venice to Silverlake, every day – how awesome is that! And, in an unexpected reach for taco truck street cred, it’s finding itself running away from the cops every other night or so.

As Kogi has really taken off, be prepared for a wait of at least 20 minutes (or more) – the lines are getting longer by the twitter minute.  Kogi offers some tips to deal with the wait.

KFI was one of the first high powered clear channel stations in the nation. The “FI” part of the call sign stood for Farmer’s Information. Every Winter’s night at 8pm, they broadcast the frost report from 141 North Vermont in Los Angeles.

The year was 1940.

Photo from the USC Digital Archive

This post’s headline was the tagline to the 1978 feature film “FM,”also billed as “The movie coming at you at the speed of sound.” “FM” had an all star cast including Howard Hesseman and Eileen Brennan, and featured appearances by Linda Ronstadt and Jimmy Buffet. The plot focused a highly popular Los Angeles “rock’n'roll” station, apparently in some parallel universe where Linda Ronstadt and Jimmy Buffet were considered rock’n'roll.  The synopsis via IMDB:

Q-SKY is the #1 radio station in Los Angeles mainly because of the music they play, and running the station the way they want to. It has led them to a ratings success. The interesting radio personalities include: Jeff Dugan, rebellious head of the radio station; Mother, who is burned out from being a DJ; Eric Swan, a self centered romantic who wants more than just being a DJ; The Prince of Darkness, the hip night DJ; and Laura Coe, the easy-going type. The movie focuses on the battle between Jeff and his corporate bosses, who want more advertising and less music.

Sound familiar? Thanks to Colin Remas Brown, for steering me to the vintage must see trailer:

 

DJ Tedd Roman was the one we followed on Twitter all day at the news that critically acclaimed Indie 103.1 was signing off forever.

We followed Tedd from the first rumors of the format change, to cleaning out his stuff and frantically ripping albums, to picking up his last check. He even managed to snap one last picture of the Indie 103.1 studio.

Thanks for letting us listen in on your last day, Tedd. You hit the post.

Metro Facebooked me again.

This time, it was about the Regional Connector project for Downtown Los Angeles. It will connect the Blue Line from Long Beach to the Gold Line – wherever and whenever it ends. It will also connect to the Expo Line that may or may not reach Culver City, and the Purple Line, which is slated to reach Westwood 20 years after the end of the world.

From the inbox:

We invite anyone who is interested to let the Board know how they feel about moving the Regional Connector project into the next phase — a Draft EIR/EIS.

Hmm. How do I feel about Metro moving forward? On better public transit for L.A.? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s not that urgent. Let me take a vote around the office and get back to you.

I just heard from Center Theatre Group‘s rockstar promotional team. They gave me the one bright bit of news in an otherwise s**t-tastic day:

squeeeee!

The Ahmanson. Summer 2009. Another reason this year won’t suck.

Last summer there were a few cases where innocent people were convicted because of faulty fingerprinting analysis at the LAPD. Those were caught and the people were released and all was right with the world. Except maybe not. Turns out this might be more than 1 or 2 errors, and in fact up to 1,000 cases need to be looked into as they could possibly have had bad evidence based on bad fingerprint analysis – which means it’s possible that people who didn’t have anything to do with a crime were convicted of it and have been sitting in jail for it. The good news is that this is coming out and will be corrected, the bad news is that it happened in the first place.

The Motion Picture and Television Fund’s hospital and nursing home in Woodland Hills will be closing by the end of this year. The statement issued on the fund’s website credits “declining demand and challenging economic outlook,” as well as their yearly $10 million budget deficit, as the impetus for this and other changes facing their delivery of health care services. They estimate that 290 jobs will be eliminated.

The non-profit Motion Picture & Television Fund was created by such industry luminaries as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith in 1921 as a charitable resource for economically challenged industry professionals. Years later, it became a benefit for those working in film or television production based on years of service. The MPTF will continue to provide community-based care and current residents of the Woodland Hills facility will be relocated.

Very sad news for the residents, patients, and employees.

Radio Insight chimes in on the flip of Indie 103.1 to Radio El Gato.

A pair of domains: elgato1031.com and 1031elgato.com were registered to Entravision in late December. The former points to an Under Construction page for the new station, while the latter redirects to a sister station in Sacramento.

Last week Entravision shuffled formats at a bunch of their stations nationwide. Many switched from its Spanish CHR “Super Estrella” format to Adult Hits “Jose”. In El Paso, TX one of the stations, 94.7 KSYE debuted the new “El Gato” format. Billboard described the format as such:

Featuring contemporary regional Mexican music, “El Gato” debuted on KYSE El Paso (94.7 FM) on Jan. 6 and plays music by acts such as Horóscopos de Durango, Intocable and K-Paz de la Sierra.

It also includes Entravision show “Erazno y Chokolata” in the afternoons.

Indie 103.1 is one of the most critically acclaimed radio stations in America and it will be interesting to see if any of its elements are able to transition elsewhere.

Have a nice day, listeners.

Sunday 1/18 may be the day of the Parade but Pasadena and the local bloggers and media are amped and starting the celebrations early.  

Sunday Parade Day details.  1/18/09, 8:30am set ups,  11:30(ish)AM start.  Pasadena Cal.  The Parade starts at Raymond/Holly south to Colorado then turns west to Colorado/Pasadena Avenue.

Queen Skittles blog is full of information.  She and the Grand Marshall, Charles Phoenix (my favorite Mid-century Americana pop culture archivist) kick of the activities tomorrow morning on KTLA’s morning show. She’s arriving at 5:30 in the freaking am Friday at the studios and will be on anytime between then and 9AM.  Queen Skittles advises that among the activities will be disco dancing with the choreography by the woman who came up with the YMCA dance routine.  Tivo this one if you can’t sit in front of the tube waiting for it to happen.

Mademoiselle Gramophone broke the news on her blog regarding one of the entries in the parade in her post “Thorny Rose“.  Ann Lau, human rights activist and winner of the “Thorny Rose” award will be in the thick of it.  She won the award for her pressure on the Pasadena City Council and the Rose Parade last year to not allow the Chinese a float in the parade.  She will be riding her own float of sorts led by the “Great Firewall of China Marching Brigade”.

The official Doo Dah Parade site can’t be skipped.  The page to bookmark and keep for reference is the Parade Route and Directions as it gives you driving directions and Metro station info for those of you who are rail enabled. 

The invite card provided by Queen Skittles.  It does get bigger with a click.  She asked that all the local talent that helped her with the shoot, costuming etc., be given some recognition.  Here it is: Photo Assistant: Alex Fallas, Blue dress: Aaardvark’s of Pasadena, who is the official clothing sponsor; modified with fabric and rhinestones by Kristina King, Crown: Cassie Marquez, Hairstylist: Reyna Rodriguez Soto, Makeup: Airica Hartsfield.

One final note, zomg…it looks like we are home this weekend as all the kid sports are “bye”.  A first in many years and I get to go this year!

I’m about as heartbroken as I’ve ever been (and man, that is some serious heartbreak) about Indie 103.1′s demise, but, well, I still have these tickets to give away. I’m too bummed to get all huckstery and clever to sell ‘em, so really, if you want ‘em, just leave a comment telling me your favorite thing about (R.I.P.) Indie 103.1 and I’ll get back to a few winners.

Autolux with Wooden Ships at the Fonda, 1/17
and we still have tix to The Delta Spirit with Everest at the El Rey, 1/16.

Represent, indie rock lovers.

Twitter is abuzz with news that Indie 103.1 is seizing their broadcast on that frequency.

RT @vickistep “http://www.indie1031.com/ just says “Thanks to everyone who made Indie 103.1 possible. We love you all.” new splash page on http://www.indie1031.com/ says 30 days until something. hmm???

UPDATE: Indie’s Tedd Roman Twittered “Rumor is the sation will now be El Gato 103.1.”

UPDATE 2: RT @TeddRoman: It’s official. All jocks cleaning out offices, lockers, etc. Online will be no DJs as of right now. Spanish flip tomorrow afternoon

UPDATE 3: RT @TeddRoman: This is posted on the Indie studio door. http://twitpic.com/1353l

UPDATE 4: RT @TeddRoman: About to turn the keycard in to HR and grab a final check. FRANTICALLY attempting rips of EVERY possible album in to my computer.

UPDATE 5: RT @TeddRoman: The shelves are quickly being emptied. We are all in shock. I feel like I need to puke. http://twitpic.com/135e4

Classic Eats Event #2 is coming up on Saturday January 24 and YOU get to decide where we go on that day. Please click here to see all the options and to vote. The polls are open until Tuesday, January 20.

Once the locations are decided, we’ll send you more specific times and meet-up info. Please remember that while we would love to host this event financially, none of us get paid to write here. So we will all pay our own way. Depending on the turn out, though, we may be able to convince future locations to give us some discounts or freebies (no promises), so get the word out!

Vote Vote Vote!

Want to own a piece of Battlestar Galactica? Geeks everywhere, including myself, are already mourning the fact that the series will be wrapping up for good very soon. A company called Propworx has teamed up with Universal Studios to auction off props, costumes, art and more from the show. You can bid online or check out some of the “less expensive” items on eBay. For those of you in the Los Angeles area, you can attend the event in Pasadena this weekend, January 17th and18th.

Personally, I don’t know many people who can afford to purchase the Arrow of Apollo or Six’s First MiniSeries Costume, but wouldn’t it be cool to at least get a close-up look at the items for sale? The exciting news is that there is a Preview Day on Friday, January 16th, which is free to the public and includes panel discussions with various production crew members.

Event details after the jump

Every community has people at its core who believe in giving back and helping where they can.  In my little corner of LA its Donna Baker.  Her latest project was to accept the challenge from Renew America Together and Obama to honor Martin Luther King by doing good, a service project if you will in your community.  The Christmas Holidays are over, we still have homeless and the hungry.  Donna is organizing a food drive as her service project in the SGV.

 I’ve had the pleasure of crossing paths with Donna on a few things and have admired her get it done attitude.  Those efforts won her dual awards here in Monrovia.  First is the Mary Wilcox award from the Boys & Girls Club of the Foothills for Youth Advocacy & Community Involvement.  The other is from the Chamber of Commerce’s Iris Award for Citizen of the Year.  People like that don’t need to be reminded to provide service to the community.  They do it as it is the right thing to do.

Details on the Food Drive: Monday 1/19/08 10AM-5PM, Bring non-perishable items or food gift cards to Dickson Podley Realtors, 242 W. Foothill Blvd. Monrovia, CA 91016.

If you can’t get yourself over to Donna’s office at Dickson Podley you can always sign up directly with Renew America Together.  If you are a facebook type with some time to spare you can sign up for the “Give a Day for MLK” event there.