Jan/Feb issue, left; current "Recession" issue, right.

Things at GOOD magazine could be better. Like so many ventures conceived in rosier economic times, what seemed like a sure-fire idea has encountered financially choppy waters.

Launched in 2006, GOOD is a magazine that defined itself as “a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward,” an attempted end run of sorts around the prevailing narcissism, greed and cynicism of the last eight years. It was aimed at what have been defined as Gen Y-ers or millenials, considered idealistic, altruistic and wanting to make a difference in the world by helping others. (Disclosure: GOOD wrote about Metblogs’ owner Sean Bonner last fall.)

On its cover it says, “GOOD is for people who give a damn.” Instead of the usual blather about celebrities and lifestyle, the magazine covers topics about survival– like environmental, social, technological and health issues– and how they are impacting some of the most vulnerable people on the planet, as well as those who are more fortunate but still at the mercy of a hobbled political system.

A notable article in their Jan/Feb 2009 issue explored alternative urban housing developments being built in San Ysidro CA and Hudson NY, virtual border towns geared to the challenges new immigrants face in a country where the gap between rich and poor has increased dramatically in the last decade.

Last week GOOD hosted an event in affiliation with Art Center College of Design, based in Pasadena, called Good Design, Solutions to LA’s Toughest Problems, getting students involved in thinking creatively to benefit others. Krista Kline, Planning and Urban Design Coordinator for Mayor Villaraigosa’s office, an invited guest, encouraged the young designers to download the briefing from the new Recovery.gov site and explore solutions to LA’s problems. Read the rest of this entry →

I loved the Tindersticks’ “Can Our Love…” in 2001. I sorta lost track of them after that. It’s therefor really gratifying that they’re coming to LA to perform tomorrow night at the Fonda–it’s been way too long since I’ve seen ‘em. They play with critically acclaimed moody-Americana troubs (and locals) Spain.

To win tickets tell me your favorite Tindersticks OR Spain song, and why you love it so. We’ll randomly pick a few winners. Show info is here.

This book might just save your life indeed.

Neil Strauss aka Style, the LA author who changed the lives of single people looking for love forever with his books The Game & Rules of the Game has a new book out. This new title, Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life hit the shelves earlier this week. And while The Game was about getting some ass, this one is quite literally about saving it. Neil has spent the past 3 years training to turn himself into a one man survival machine. ‘Emergency’ is his story of learning how to track people and animals to living off the land to learning to fly and ride motorcycles and many many other skills. I’m almost finished reading it so I won’t spoil the ending but what I will say is if you live in Los Angeles you should read this book because there are some basic lessons on surviving ‘when the shit hits the fan’ that we all could take away from it.

In the book Neil takes a course on Urban Escape and Evasion from the New Jersey based OnPoint Tactical. A group who specializes in training members of the military, law enforcement, and government security contractors but also has courses for us civies too. The same course that Neil took in the book, Urban Escape and Evasion, is being offered next week here in LA and a few of us Metbloggers have already signed up. We’re looking forward to learning about lock picking, escaping from car trunks as well as blending into any urban environment. Sean, Burns! and I will be there and last time we checked there were a few spots still open so if this sounds interesting to you at all I’d recommend signing up for this class too – once the book is on the shelves a little longer I suspect these classes will be full full full. Plus, you’ll get to take it with us!

And if that’s not enough fun Neil is having a Book Signing here in LA tomorrow night.

Friday, March 13th at 7:00 PM
H.Wood Club in the Hollywood and Highland Complex
1738 N. Orange Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90028 – map

More information about the signing can be found on Neil’s site. I hear talk that Neil may be bringing a live Wolf with him. With the huge fanbase he has here in LA I’d suggest showing up EARLY. It’s bound to be quite the shindig.

Believe it or not, during the last Depression, Hollywood’s movie studios went out of their way to appear more ethically responsible. Driven by fear of government regulation and church boycotts, in 1934 the studios began strictly enforcing the draconian Hays Code. Shortly thereafter, the studios of “Sin City” began cranking out a different tune.

“Combining good citizenship with good picture-making” was the Warners Brothers mantra during the Depression. And with its portfolio lined with gritty gems like Little Caesar (1931) with Edward G. Robinson, Public Enemy (1931) with James Cagney and I Am A Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) with Paul Muni, the studio was smart to brand itself as a champion of American values.

Starting tonight and continuing through March 22, the American Cinematheque presents The Brothers Warner: Classics and Pre-Code Films at the Egyptian Theatre. In addition to the above pre-Code films, the series also includes Captain Blood (1935) with Errol Flynn, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) with Humphrey Bogart, the pre-Code Ladies They Talk About (1933) with Barbara Stanwyck, a recent documentary on the pioneering Warner brothers, and much more.

Oh, and you didn’t think I could do a whole post on Warner Brothers and not mention this guy, did you?

Image: Stills from Little Caesar (top) and Captain Blood (bottom), courtesy of American Cinemathque.

Live from Jack In the Box in Hollywood, KCAL9's Glen Walker says "The Do-It-Yourself Bailout" is "a must read."

“The credit card companies, the banks that issue credit cards, really don’t want to talk to you about settlements while you are current on your payments. When you get two to three months on your payments, then they start to get interested. Six to nine months on your payments – they’re really interested.”

That’s right: buy a bunch of stuff on your credit card (or finance a feature film, like he did), don’t make any payments, ignore the credit collectors for a few months, then finally give them a call an make a deal to pay a fraction of what you actually owe. 

Golde was able to use this technique to lower his credit card debt from $212,000 to $30,000.

Genius!

Tomorrow night, I’m hoping local news will devote a segment to the secret trick for getting free meals (pssst… it’s called “dine and ditch,” or “chew n screw”).

I have only been to CalTech once, and Pasadena is admittedly not quite Los Angeles… although they were pretty close from the perspective of my still-East-Coast eyes at the time of that visit. I’m sure no one is really waiting with bated breath, but I warn you now of a future rant on the meaning of “place.” I digress.

While wandering the campus, I sat for a while near a small pond filled with frogs. Actually, the frogs were a nice addition to the campus, with maintenance people returning them to the pond from various nearby buildings. Aside from the pleasant scene, what caught my eye was a sign at the edge of the pond:

“Please do not feed or remove animals from pond”

In some sense, a reasonable and commonplace enough request. On closer mental inspection it struck me how odd it was. In particular, it is a lovely case of a turn of classical rhetoric: amphiboly. About… well, amphibians.

There’s little in life I like more than alliteration.

9-11=Controlled Demolitions

I spotted this group of demonstrators at the corner of Los Feliz and Riverside on my way home from work this afternoon. There was also a guy holding a sign and shouting at drivers on the southwest corner of the intersection. I don’t think I’ve seen protesters at  this location very often. I’m usually entertained on this drive by the Saturday afternoon Quinceañera photo shoots by the big fountain.

Home is where the tarp is

Since yesterday’s post on the rise in homeless families, I’ve received a host of emails, tweets, and comments offering various resources and links. Most immediately, Union Rescue Mission is trying to combat a hostile press and public in Burbank and Glendale. It seems the mission has had a hard time providing services in Burbank because of a hostile public reception. Some connected Burbankians (connected to the city council and the press) claim that the shelter serves drug addicts, sex offenders, and criminals, and they would like the shelter guests find somewhere else to be impoverished .

The Rescue Mission is calling for interested Burbank citizens to show up:

Thursday, March 19 to the Burbank Fire Training Center Meeting Room, 1845 N. Ontario Street, Burbank, 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. to speak up for a local solution to the homelessness faced by many in the Burbank area.

Read the rest of this entry →

I am a valued customer to Time Warner Cable in Los Angeles, so they afforded me due respect today by notifying me, via mail, of their latest round of price increases starting in April.

But with the deluge of grim economic news lately, in their keen sensitivity to my feelings, TWC didn’t want me to think I am not valued, so they avoided the word, “increase,” replacing it with the much more respectful, valued-y term, “adjustment.”

I only have broadcast cable, so my bill is only increasing being adjusted by eleven cents, but my internet service will change by two dollars– guess which direction.

Other services are being adjusted from $3 to $5 per month.

This is at the DMV office in West Covina.  It is 3 inch thick concrete and its somehow not secure? Yes, I understand its all about identity theft it just struck me odd on a can that is so secure it couldn’t be lifted and could not imagine someone dumpster diving in the skanky mess.  The sad part is that something must have happened for the DMV to even post such a warning in so many languages in the first place.   Curious, who all shreds out there to protect themselves now?

Pick by me with the trusty cell cam, it does get bigger with a click.

Scenic Sake

Sorry, that title was a bad visual pun.  That aside, my friend just alerted me to the Little Tokyo Service Center’s “Mystery of Sake: Jizake Investigation” sake and food tasting night on April 23 at the California Science Center.   Drawing its theme the Science Center’s limited-time-only “CSI: The Experience” exhibit, the event will give you a very rare opportunity to play Scully as you finally make use of your forensic analysis skills to deconstruct the exhibit’s crime scenes – all while under the helpful influence of copious sake pours.  Even Scully needed a glass or two here and there.

Along with the sake, you’ll also be privy to “gourmet hors d’oeuvres” from various restaurants and vendors.   Just to get a taste of the selection, last year’s event drew the likes of Maison Akira and Water Grill.  This year, Maison Akira is confirmed, and there are one or two other fantastic places that are in the works.

Tickets are, ahem, $60 each; splurging on the $100 VIP ticket will get you “higher end sake,” which, for a sake novice like me, sounds either like an awesome idea or a bad one.  VIPs will get exclusive access to tasting menus created by Andy Nakano (chef of the former Jozu restaurant on Melrose), and, because this is LA, Hollywood-style gift bags (which, ideally, will recoup some of that extra $40 you shelled out for the VIP pass).  This is a fairly popular event – tickets sold out last year – so I’d get on it stat.

Funds raised will go to benefit the Little Tokyo Service Center, which presumably will apply the monies towards adapting to Little Tokyo’s rapidly changing environment.  Hello, giant Korean-owned supermarket.

It started with the shrill battle cry and a flurry of activity in the sky yesterday afternoon.   My nesting pair of hawks returned to my ‘hood.  The cries at first were that of 3 Hawks chasing away parrots that have been trying to turn my ‘hood into their breeding ground for the last several winters.  The parrots left, score one for the native birds.

By late afternoon the cries shifted to more melodic and rhythmic shrieks in the tree next door to me.  It was the mating cry with two males courting the one female.  I don’t know which one succeeded, but the female was the lone occupant of the tree at dusk.  I managed to grab one shot of her basking in the final rays of the setting sun just before 7 last night.  (The pic will get bigger with a click).

I really enjoy watching nature and the natives flourish in spite of man’s dominance of the region.  Of course their arrival means that Spring has officially arrived in the Foothills.

Some of you folks might remember my Dances With Rabbits post last December when, while biking home from work five days before Christmas, I was surprised to discover a white rabbit loose curbside on Crescent Heights Boulevard south of Olympic in the South Carthay neighborhood and ended up capturing timelapse video of myself goofily but in the end successfully catching up the critter on my bike’s handlebar cam:

Well it’s been a couple months since I’d last seen what I learned that night from the owner’s roommate was an  intentionally free-ranging bunny, and while my positive side hoped its absence was a sign its previously irresponsible peeps had wised the hell up and secured the animal, my realistic side figured it had ultimately been left to roam the streets and was now pushing up the grass blades it had previously nommed.

Then last night while biking home, a few doors north of my original encounter I spied a fuzzy snowball chowing down on the parkway greenery and thought well don’t beat all: cottontail didn’t kick the bucket. Stopping, I snapped a couple pix (the one at right is clickable), told the urban bunny tale to a passing couple — remarking at how much larger it had gotten — and moved on.

It was only after getting home and reviewing the pix that I realized: totally different rabbit. The one in December was snow white and had ears that stood up, whereas this one’s are lopped and its coat and tail has a darker tinge to it.

This of course begs some questions: is this a replacement obtained by the owner of the first one? Is it another Crescent Heights resident’s? Am I entirely out of the loop in just now discovering a long-entrenched westside street bunny subculture? The queries could multiple… like rabbits. But I’m not sure I want to know the answers.

Classic Eats #3 was another fun evening, thanks to all who made it to Tiki Ti and to Taix! Nice to see previous attendees plus new Classic Eaters! The crazy tropical drinks were a hoot and if you haven’t been, I think everyone who was there would recommend going and would also recommend going *early* to make sure there is enough room to hoist that cocktail. And for fans of moules, we were not disappointed by Taix.

Ready your calendars: Classic Eats #4 will be on Saturday April 4. How easy will that be to remember? Pretty easy. We look out for you here at Los Angeles Metblogs. Look for another post within a week that will have a poll and we’ll vote on where Classic Eats will hit next.

Oh and next time I’ll remember to bring my camera. If anyone has photos from the evening, please share!

See you on the 4th!

Fetish Film Fridays returns this week to the Egyptian with a batch of films “for and about Radical Faeries,” according to series programmer Rick Castro, whose Antebellum Gallery, around the corner from the theater, is presenting an exhibit commemorating the 30-year anniversary of the alternative gay movement of men seeking to escape the limitations of an urban environment.

The evening’s centerpiece film is Dances, Sacred and Profane, a 1985 documentary about Fakir Musafar, called the father of the Modern Primitive movement. In the film, Musafar performs the Sundance ceremony (no, not THAT Sundance) in which he hangs suspended from flesh hooks that have been pierced through his breast.

“Not for the squeamish,” says Castro. But certainly for some, given the crowds that have been turning out for Fetish Film Fridays.

After the screening, audience members are invited to a reception and discussion at Antebellum Gallery. Artworks by Musafar and other Radical Faerie artists will be on display and for sale.

At the end of last month, Castro hosted the opening of the Radical Faeries exhibit honoring their three decades of existence at Antebellum, where members of the movement and their admirers converged.  Photos after the clickety.

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