Longtime readers know this is an issue near and dear to my heart, but California’s laws on Concealed Carry licenses are about as shady and corrupt as it gets. The majority of US states have laws akin to drivers licenses in that a person must meet a defined set of guidelines (such as required training, background checks, etc) before they can be issued a license to carry a weapon. CA’s laws are a little different in that they place the decision not on a set of specific requirements but on the personal whim of the Chief of Police or Sheriff. This practice breeds inequality and abuse by giving people who live in some parts of the state more state-wide rights than others and placing an insane amount of power in a single person’s hands. And since individuals have different motives, the policy from one county to another is vastly different. Is it any shock that people who have contributed to the campaigns for many of these people have a much higher chance of receiving one of these permits?

Luckily CA Assembly Member Knight is aware of this abuse and wants to stop it. He’s introduced a bill called AB 357 [PDF link to the bill] which removes the authority of the individual Sheriffs & Police Chiefs in favor of a clear set of statewide guidelines. That’s right, if this bill passes it will be a major step towards ending the good old boy, friends-only system currently on the books. The last 20 years have seen nation wide reform towards more liberal policies that have had clear effects on reducing crime and I’m excited at the prospect of CA finally giving this some serious attention. If you are too, then you can help out – follow this link to find your representatives and let them know you are sick of elitism and want these cronies thrown out and that you support AB 357. And tell your friends to do the same.

Found in the east Valley (gets hella bigger with a click):

I particularly enjoy the hard horizontal line of the edge of the roof, occasionally broken as an awning extends forward; the vibrant blue of the stucco; how the grey of the roof matches the windows in shadow; and, of course, the grid of thoughtfully-placed lawn ornaments, almost as though a tiny little cemetery had been built into the front yard & each grave marked by a fake Canada goose or potted plant.

Behind the jump, a gem of a find…: Read the rest of this entry →

Have you ever tried searching for Los Angeles in the iTunes App Store?

I did it sort of by accident and was shocked to see so many options. I picked up LA Traffic Cam because the idea of having all those traffic cams in LA streaming right to my phone just seemed kind of fun. The reality is a bit less glamorous – the video is very choppy and 4/5 cams are offline every time I look. There’s also no shortage of Map apps, but I grabbed Mappity Los Angeles because it seemed to be the most comprehensive. Most people I know carry around Thomas Guides in their car, so having that level of map available regardless of data connection seemed like it might come in handy. There’s a lot of travel guides too, which not being someone who is visiting LA but rather one who has lived here for many many many years are all but useless to me. Also some stuff for sportsfans. Of course these are just the apps with “Los Angeles” in their name, anyone found anything less obvious that comes in handy around LA?

This is very last minute but I have heard through the grapevine that Ruin, a nightclub for the gloom cookies and darker souls of Los Angeles, may be shutting down if the numbers don’t improve on attendance.  A number of nightlife spots are struggling during this time as people aren’t playing in their usual sandboxes with any regularity but there aren’t very many playgrounds of this ilk.  If you are a member of my tribe, come out tonight (the earlier the better) and save our little black sandbox.

Ruin is held at the Monte Cristo located at 3100 Wilshire Blvd.  Entry is free if you arrive at 10 pm when the doors open. It is $5 before 11 pm and $10 after that point.  There is valet parking for $5 in a safe, enclosed parking lot just below the club.

The ends of a couple loaves of bread have sat in the pantry for more than a week waiting for me to break them up into bits and leave a few minutes earlier than usual one morning like this one, thus making time to hang a bit feeding some of  the feathered set Ballona creekside in the Del Rey.

I dig that scene better than the local park because pitching the fresh croutons brings greater variety. In your average urban setting you’re likely to draw pigeons mostly. House sparrows too, and maybe some mockingbirds or jays. Here by the waterway you get your pigeons of course, but you also bring in some ravens, who swoop in then quickly to realize they don’t need you’re damn handouts because they’re bad ass self-sufficient ravens who could make their own bread if they wanted so fuck off. Then the goofy coots pad up tentatively on their disproportionately huge feet, looking a bit non-plussed. Next waddle in the mallards a-quacking. Lastly and mostly are the gulls, of course. Gulls, gulls, and more gulls. Multiple species but all with the same outsided and noisy ense of entitlement. You tell them to chill, there’s plenty, but they just screeeee at you in between busting half-assed chickenshit moves like this one I snapped (biggifiable):

The duck got a bonus handful for enduring that ass assault.

Before long the bag’s empty and I’m back up on the bike path watching for a few moments as they swarm where I’d been sitting for the crumbs that fell there. Then they go their ways and I mine.

The first time I ever watched Julia Child in action was actually on a show marked by her inaction: on Cooking with Master Chefs, she curiously peered over the shoulders of various “master chefs” (Jacques Pepin, Border Grill’s Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken, Alice Waters, etc.) as they cooked.  It’s to her credit, and fault, that I love food, can get totally snot nosed about food reviews, and budget my income so I have a good meal at Mozza instead of a new pair of jeans (which I sorely need).

Beyond cookery, Julia was an unabashed supporter of a number of causes, including Planned Parenthood.  She even wrote a fundraiser letter on their behalf in 1982 (“Few politicians will take the risk of publicly supporting either contraception or abortion – and who is ‘for abortion’ anyway?  We are concerned with choice.”).  Apt, then, was her appearance at Planned Parenthood’s inaugural Food Fare in 1979, a food tasting and fundraising event.  As the event became an annual bash, she made subsequent appearances, even managing to get out there in 2002, two years before she died at 91.  Now, that is commitment!

Filling Julia’s big shoes at this year’s Food Fare (at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium) were Suzanne Goin (chef-owner of Lucques and AOC) and Nancy Silverton (former owner of La Brea Bakery and current co-owner/chef of Mozza).  Sadly, there were no cooking demonstrations; they were present just to autograph their respective cookbooks.  There also were tasting booths, vendors selling womanly wares like purses and children’s goods, and, as this was a fundraiser, a silent auction.  The tickets themselves weren’t cheap: $125 for the day session and $175 for the more happening night session.  I usually am extremely skeptical of well-to-do crowds congregating for fundraisers in which their donations help boost their ego, and, incidentally, their cause, but this event generally smacked less of privilege and more of an old-fashioned benefit ball.

Chatting with Suzanne Goin about her new restaurant, food tastings, and winning strategies for silent auctions after the jump.

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Let’s make radio history tomorrow morning.

You probably thought you’d be a movie star by now. Or running a fortune 500 company. Or settled down with Mr. or Mrs. Right. Ask yourself: Are you right where you thought you’d be at this age?

Tomorrow marks the launch of a brand new radio show by three thirty-somethings who are just trying to make it in Los Angeles. We want you to be a part of it. Just tell us what you want to talk about. On Twitter. Facebook. Skype. Whatever.

You’ve got problems. So do we. We’re here to listen. And make fun of each other.

Tune in to LATalkRadio.com, Channel 2, for the first broadcast of LAGenX, Saturday March 14 at 11AM Pacific. If you miss it, you can always download it later. We know you’re a slacker, just like us.

Let’s party.

Fan us on Facebook: LAGenX.com

Follow us on Twitter: @LAGenX

It was called a service station, because it provided more than gasoline. Even in Los Angeles.

The year was 1920.

Photo from USC Digital Archive

With scores of Angelenos heading to Austin for the annual SXSW music, film, and interactive conference & festival, this is the perfect opportunity to explore the grubby underbelly of Los Angeles.

Tomorrow, Esotouric, the same unconventional tour company responsible for “The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus” and the “Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits’ LA” tour, will be leading an excursion through Los Angeles as Bukowski lived it in, “Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles.”

Charles Bukowski 1920-1994

A dirty realist, Bukowski’s writing was heavily influenced by his hometown of Los Angeles and now you too can get a first hand glimpse of the gritty world he inhabited.

It’s not too late to sign up for tomorrow’s Bukowski tour, as they take reservations up to the morning of the tour. So stock up on scotch and cigarettes and Read the rest of this entry →

If you haven’t yet been over to kibbitz on the LA Times Mapping L.A. site, today is the last day they are accepting your input on where to draw the lines that separate east from west, Valley Glen from North Hollywood. Should Rancho Park have its own designation or is it just plain “West LA”? These are the questions that try men’s souls.

UPDATE 3/14/09 Pasadena Star News has an article on this newest suit that also enumerates some of the settlements paid to date to officers who successfully sued the city.  They also have a link to the full suit if you want to read to satisfy your prurient interests.

Dear City of Monrovia.   Please quit pissing away my tax dollars.  Wake up.  

You have a far bigger problem than you realize.  Something is wrong when a department of 52 +/- depending on how the wind blows, when in less than 2 years you have 5 suits for racial discrimination and civil rights statutes.  (For those of you counting 1 officer has sued the city twice and their lame ass defense in a cross-complaint was “being held to public ridicule” based on posts I have done here.  Lame).

Dear Scott Ochoa (city manager) please get the priorities right.  Human rights and dignity first.  Next remember we in the city want strong police and fire, these suits tell us you aren’t giving us the former.  Fix it so we don’t keep having to spend great sums of money on suits with merit.  We can’t afford it, we certainly can find better things to do with the money.

Hat tip to RCJP over at the Foothill Cities Blog who broke the story earlier today.  Read his post for the details on the suit itself.

Fourteen art instituitions open their doors for free tonight in Pasadena for the Spring ArtNight, an event put on by the Cultural Affairs Division of the City of Pasadena. Between 6pm and 10pm, you can enjoy artwork, literature and music all for free. There are shuttle buses and an organized bike tour to get you to and from each venue.

The Pasadena Jazz Institute will celebrate John Coltrane, The Pacific Asia Museum will exhibit how today’s manga and anime has it’s roots in ancient Samurai traditions and the Armory Center is display and selling artwork from local artists. Other venues and their exhibits are:

Alliance Francaise
Armory Center for the Arts
Art Center College of Design
Norton Simon Museum
One Colorado
Pacific Asia Museum
Pasadena City College
Pasadena Jazz Institute
Pasadena Museum of California Art
Pasadena Museum of History
Pasadena Public Library
Pasadena Symphony
Side Street Projects
Shumei Arts Council

For more information on parking, public transit or self-guided tours please visit the ArtNight website.

Photo by Burns! Nearly life-size with a simple click.

Tom Jones opened his set Tuesday night at the House of Blues with “I’m Alive” from his latest studio recording, 24 Hours. No one in the sold out audience needed a reminder. The tension had been building since early in the evening, and when Jones took the stage, the crowd erupted.

From the moment the spotlight hit him, Tom Jones had everyone in the room in the palm of his hand, but that should come as no surprise. In a career that has spanned five decades, Jones perfected his craft long ago. But while some performers might be content to rely on the hits of their early career, Jones has managed to remain current, hip even, by continually stretching as an artist. He still writes new material, covers popular hits and adds his own style to them, and collaborates with other top artists and producers. For example, “Sugar Daddy” from 24 Hours was co-written with Bono and The Edge of U2.

More about Tom, projectile panties and a pleasant surprise; just follow me past the jump…

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Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Apak!, Andrice Arp, Charlie Becker, Robert Bellm, Christopher Bettig, Bigfoot, Aaron Brown, Buff Monster, Shawn Cheng, Catia Chien, Luke Chueh, Eleanor Davis, Dutch Door Press, Katherine Guillen, Clement Hanami, Brent Harada, Lizz Hickey, David Horvath, Michael Hsiung, Levon Jihanian, Kaori Kasai, Dan-Ah Kim, Le Merde, Benjamin Lee, Daniel Lim, Little Friends of Printmaking, Justin Morrison, Joel Nakamura, Kiyoshi Nakazawa, Tom Neely, Mylan Nguyen, Martin Ontiveros, John Pham, Silvio Poretta, Jesse Reklaw, Albert Reyes, Brian Rush, Shizu Saldamando, Emilio Santoyo, Ryan J. Smith, Deth P. Sun, Ryohei Tanaka, Daria Tessler, Elisabeth Timpone, Joe To, Edwin Ushiro, Michelle Valigura, and Amanda Visell.

Who?

We’re all here for Giant Robot’s Year of the Ox. It’s a group show at GR2 that celebrates the year 4707 of the lunar year. The show opens tomorrow — there’s a reception in the evening — and it runs through April 15. Now, can you please open up?

Dave’s not here, man.

Year of the Ox features work by Amanda Visell
(top) and Jason Reklaw (bottom) and dozens more.
Images courtesy of Giant Robot.

Playwrights Arena in Los Angeles is a unique hot bed of creativity supporting the development and presentation of daring, original works written by Los Angeles-based writers.  Tomorrow evening begins the run of Oliver Mayer’s Laws Of Sympathy.

Laws Of Sympathy deals with our newest American immigrants — Somali Bantu — on the moment of their immersion into our culture. Two women arrive in the outskirts of Atlanta without knowledge of gas stoves, refrigerators, toilets or the difference between flour and borax — but with heightened powers of observation. When the refugee resettlement worker assigned to their acculturation falls in love, the immigrants begin to see the differences between American truth and propaganda. Every step in love and life can either lead them to connection or loss, and there are no second chances. 

Laws Of Sympathy is a play that looks at this country with eyes wide open from the POV of its newest refugees. 

You can check out the play tomorrow night in a preview evening for $5 at 8 pm.  The production opens Saturday evening at 8 pm ($25) and runs through March 29th ($20 for all other performances) at Studio/Stage located at 520 North Western Ave. (between Melrose and Beverly).  Remember to allow time for street parking.  To reserve seats call 213-627-4473.