The 1st 7th Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational will explode with cheesy goodness all over Los Angeles on April 25.

More info to follow as the organizers make it available.

Don’t even ASK what’s in the trunk!

A friend of mine is really active with the local American Cancer Society Relay for Life.  Mohna is extremely creative when it comes to fund raising with all the groups she works with.   This weekends bazaar promises a lot of unique items as well as the expected fresh from India.  Of course all your purchases are tax deductible so how much better could it get?

Details:  Saturday March 28,2009 10AM-2PM.  135 W Foothill Blvd, Monrovia CA 91016  (Dr Domotor’s Animal Hospital).  MAP HERE.

(I can’t link the larger file so squint close on this one)

Classic Eats is April 4th, you get to choose the place.  Have you forwarded these posts to all your friends?  We like new friends.

Click here to go to the survey and make your choice.

Click past the jump to get more details on all the choices.

As of 7:30 pm Wednesday night, Hot Dog Death March is in the lead, followed closely by Pasadena Bound.

Read the rest of this entry →

Is it just me, or is this totally the automotive equivalent of the “kick me” sign?

[Edit: 2011: It is with great pleasure that I get to announce WLT is back in print and on newsstands around the southland. Former publisher Abigail Lewis re-entered the scene and rescued the publication from going web-only. What a delight it is to see something come BACK into print instead of going OUT!  -Lucinda]

Longtime LA publication Whole Life Times, recently folded into  “Conscious Enlightenment”  Media, is joining the ranks of local pubs that are quitting the print game.  Their last print issue will be in April.

WLT provided a great resource for local info on eco-responsible businesses, individuals and ideas. It will apparently continue online, but firsthand experience has taught me to be skeptical about the longevity of such endeavors. I’m personally bummed because I did a fair amount of writing for them, and the editors were fantastic to work with and really cared about the “green scene” in LA.

You can find their second-to-last print issue, for March, on stands now at most health food stores, yoga studios and Whole Foods throughout LA.

Clickably bigger, but really, why bother?

What exactly is on offer here?

Truthfully, this post should really be titled “ICMIT-Y-OE: It Caught My Inner Twelve-Year-Old’s Eye.” As previously mentioned, I think my inner 12-year-old is an outty.

I’m sure everyone has seen signs like the one on the left around Los Angeles. They are found on lots of streets, mostly residential, where large speed bumps are used to slow the flow of traffic. In fact, there are several of these bumps and signs near my neighborhood in Silver Lake.

The one that really caught my eye, though, is the one on the right. While there are several “Bumps” signs throughout the neighborhood, to my knowledge there is only one sign like the one on the right. The former is clearly a caution to slow down for a potential road hazard, while the latter appears to be a warning (an offer?) of something else entirely.

Los Angeles (Metblogs) – Just when you thought you’d have to wait until Festival De Cannes in May to spread that gooey brie all over your crusty baguette and stick it in your grosse bouche, a week of French films will be premiering in Hollywood April 20 – 26, 2009 as part of the 13th annual COL•COA French Film Festival.

Francois Truffart at the 2007 COL•COA Film Festival

Metblogs reader, Laure confirmed that tickets are available online NOW and will likely sell out! Click here to check out what’s available.

Beginning April 11, you can purchase advance tickets at the COL•COA box office (cash or checks only) located in the lobby of the Directors Guild of America. During the festival, the box office will open a half an hour before the first show time of the day. All films will be presented with English subtitles.

The event takes place at the Directors Guild of America Theater Complex at 7920 Sunset, LA, CA 90046.

So how many francs will this petite festival set you back? Read the rest of this entry →

Kung fu fans, rejoice!

No, RZA hasn’t updated his Afro Samurai vlog.

Tomorrow night, the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena is welcoming the Venerable Abbot Shi Yong Xin of China’s Shaolin Temple. The abbot is bringing with him a group of monks for a seminar and, you guessed it, kung fu demonstration.

Here’s a flyer that explains how to buy tickets.

What’s the occasion? Shaolin Temple USA just opened a brand new cultural center in San Francisco, so the abbot is in California for the grand opening festivities. With his Bay Area tour finished, he’s now spreading Shaolin love to the Southland.

Founded in 495 A.D. by the Indian dhyana master Buddhabhadra, the Shaolin Temple rests in the Song Shan foothills of China’s Henan province (50 miles outside of Zhengzhou), and is the birthplace of both Zen Buddhism and Shaolin kung fu.

Not bad for a scrappy little temple, eh?

Images: A Shaolin monk in action (top, photo by fab to pix) and statues of monks at the Shaolin temple outside of Zhengzhou (bottom, photo by Galvez).

Just a quick follow-up to yesterday’s post in which I wondered exactly how lame the turnout would be for the 26th State Senate District election.

Monumentally so: 6.16% of the 390,409 registered voters. The total ballots cast came in at 24,039, which means LAist’s Zach Behrens (who savvily suggested 25,000) wins! Of note: more than half the votes — 12,049 — were mail-ins. That leaves only 11,990 of us who actually went to the polls.

That’s what I call $2.2 million well spent!

And the winners? As expected frontrunners Curren Price (8,442 votes; 35%) and Mike Davis (5,158 votes; 21%) finished at the top. The 26th District’s next senator will be decided in a May 19th run-off.

UPDATE (10:12 a.m.): Just when you think it couldn’t get any zanier, it does. Many thanks to Zach at LAist for pointing out that “Unlike the city election runoffs, it’s not the top two, it’s the top from each party who go to the runoff.”  So despite Democrat Mike Davis pulling the second highest number of votes (5.158; 21.78%), he’s out. And on the May 19th ballot will be Democrat Curren Price, surfing Rabbi Republican Nachum Shiffren (2,731; 11.53%)  and Peace & Freedom’s motorcycle mama Cindy Henderson (414; 1.75%) — the latter two running unopposed within their parties.

wet pavement "AHAED"

Spotted this gem in Pasadena on (new) York Avenue near a construction zone and where some filming was going on a few blocks east of Lake.  Someone in the sign department needs to have a remedial spelling class, or this was let loose just to remind us how much help CA schools really need.  

Pic grabbed by my daughter on the trusty cell cam.

Shepard Fairey has just written an extensive piece about the AP lawsuit and the Obama image. If you’ve been following this story at all his post is worth reading to get his perspective right from the source:

I’m very saddened to see many people try to demean my Obama poster as being “stolen” or that because I used a photo I “cheated”. As far as the idea of the image being “stolen”, I would love to have the clout to command portrait sittings from world leaders, but for me and most artists out there, that is not an option. For lots of artists, even licensing an image is out of the question financially. Should artistic commentary featuring world leaders be stifled because of copyright of the reference images even when the final artistic product has new intent and meaning? Reference is critical to communication, and in my opinion, reference as a part of social commentary should not be stifled.

He gives an extremely sound argument about the usage of reference photos in the history of art and points out many contemporary artists who use reference photos all the time. Referencing photos for illustrations is taught in art schools and has been practiced since photography was invented. However I don’t think that is the most important point. At the end of the piece he notes that “If the AP wins their case, every Obama art (or any other politician) that was based on a photo reference that was not licensed would be rendered illegal… I think art that is critical of leaders that neither the subject or the photographer approve of need to be a legal form of expression.” Political art, for or against a candidate, almost always features an image as the quickest way to convey the idea (think of all the Bush images you’ve seen the last 8 years) – if the AP wins this case those would all be made illegal and free speech will suffer a very painful blow.

New Beverly Cinema TONIGHT: Grindhouse Film Festival pays tribute to exploitation and indie film legend Sid Haig.

From their bulletin:

While Sid has captured a legion of new fans as a result of his starring roles in Rob Zombie’s HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, he’s been a welcome face in a long string of cult films and television programs over the last fifty years. For this special event we’ll be screening two of his greatest from the 1960′s and 70′s, SPIDER BABY and THE BIG BIRD CAGE, both written and directed by his longtime collaborator Jack Hill. As an added bonus, we’ll have not only Sid Haig but also director Jack Hill and SPIDER BABY co-star Beverly Washburn attending as special guests and doing a Q&A between the films.

This event will also serve as the opening of a one-week screening series programmed by Sid Haig at the New Beverly. From March 25th until March 31st Sid will be introducing some of his favorite classic films, including RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, THE WILD BUNCH, THE THING {FROM ANOTHER WORLD}, HOUSE OF WAX and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. The festival will conclude on March 31st with screenings of the rarely seen Jack Hill film PIT STOP, the recent Sid Haig starrer LITTLE BIG TOP, and a special reel of clips and trailers from Sid’s long career. In addition to attending our tribute on Tuesday, Sid is currently scheduled to introduce the films on March 25th, 27th, and 29th, and will be joined by Jack Hill for the final night on the 31st.

The event starts at 7:30pm, and admission for the double-feature, raffle and reel of rare exploitation trailers is still only $8.00. You won’t find a bigger bang for your entertainment dollar during this economic meltdown! So escape from your soon-to-be-foreclosed home and join the usual crew of Grindhouse maniacs for a night of cinema insanity!

For additional information and schedules for upcoming events, visit our MySpace page at: www.myspace.com/grindhouse.

If you happen to reside and abide in the 26th State Senate District, you may or may not have heard that there is a special election today to fill the seat previously occupied by Mark Ridley-Thomas who was newly minted as an L.A. County Supervisor in that other election held March 4.

I previously wonder-huffed as to why the two elections couldn’t have been combined and it turns out they could have been had Gov. Shwarzenfailure made it so, but he didn’t because the $2.2 million that this election is costing is that much less that needs to be spent on the homeless or bike infrastructure or park rangers or textbooks.

Anyway, there are eight candidates vying for the post (or just hoping to finish in the top two for the inevitable May 19 run-off), from a motorcycle mama to a surfing rabbi to a trio of African-American candidates whose campaign mailers don’t fail to showcase photographs of them shoulder-to-shoulder with the President of the United States of America. Info on the octudates can be found here at Smartvoter.org.

With 369,000 registered voters in the rambling district, my man Zach over at LAist and I agree that voter turnout is going to be ridonkulously abissmal.  In the comments to his post yesterday Zach’s hazarded a guess around the 25,000 mark. I’m going be just slightly less realistic and offer up 35,000. Since I’m already ashamed I’ll literally be blown away if we see ballots cast into the double digits.

What say you? Drop your prognistication in the comments and whoever comes close to the official tally will win a sticker or something.

As the economy has taken a toll on the City of Angels, I have become deeply moved by the stories and experiences of the average person here living through it.  It is part of how I cope with what is happening to my own household as well as the color running out of the face of the place I live, love and dream in.  I look for common ground and perspective.  I also look for inspiration in the form of kind acts executed quietly without a camera there to document the gesture.

I have one friend who hasn’t had hot water in months.  In their home mornings begin with boiling hot water so they can bathe themselves.  Shaving has become something of an art carefully plotted for economy of razor strokes choreographed in as short a time as possible.  Meals are prepared mostly in a microwave or a rice cooker with humble supplies.  Even so, they find ways to be creative and decadent when possible.  A sense of humor and escapism (World of Warcraft) are what get them through the day.

Another friend was part of a group that discovered a young expectant mother in their social circle hadn’t eaten anything in days and there was no heat or electricity in that home.  She had kept it all a secret from everyone.  The circle of friends went about creating a plan to get food to that family of four (five if you count the unborn little girl) to help them with the next couple of months.  

Prompted by a story on CNN about Craig’s List being used as a cry for help that was having some surprisingly responses of generosity, I began scouring the website for any evidence of such exchanges.  I only found one post but it still haunts me.  A woman in her forties lost her job, her home and eventually the car she was living out of in a horrible domino of misfortune.  All she wanted was a cup of soup for the night.  She had a plan and she had a sense of hope that she could get through it but she was without any family willing to help out or friends.  I have no idea if she received help or not.  She didn’t respond to my email, though I did write after the library she was using to access the internet closed.

It is an unusual time for many of us.  I’ve never lived through anything like this that I remember.  I have vague memories of my parents scraping by when I was younger (around 1982) but we were very carefully protected from any true understanding of what was going on.  What I do know, intuitively, is that the key to getting through it all is remaining connected in a positive fashion to one another.  

Generosity doesn’t need to be grandiose to be useful.  It can be simple and powerfully uplifting.