We get it. You're one part Royal Tenanbaum, two parts Edward Gorey.

I hated The Decemberists the instant I hit Play.  It was around 2004, I just moved here from the Bay Area, and a guy named Brian – who I always mixed up with a guy named Ryan – swapped me his copy of The Decemberists‘ Her Majesty in exchange for my copy of Belle & Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister.

There is a city by the sea
A gentle company
I don’t suppose you want to
And as it tells its sorry tale
In harrowing detail
Its hollowness will haunt you

It was really lead singer’s Colin Meloy’s nasally drip voice that got to me.  He sounded like he was channeling, in the worst way possible, David Bowie circa “Space Oddity.”  I saw their band picture and immediately grumbled that they were borrowing a little (a lot) too heavily from Edward Gorey and Masterpiece Theater.  I get that they are supposed to occupy a space left blaringly vacant by Neutral Milk Hotel’s break-up, supposed to be every Pitchfork-reading, thin-cordoroy-pants-wearing hipster’s wet, erudite fantasy of rich, complex lyrics.  And, indeed, their lyrics are disarmingly beautiful.  But, really?  I’d much rather read their poetry than listen to the books on tape version.

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It opens in Santa Monica with blues legend Roger Ridley performing on the 3rd Street Promenade, and ends up becoming something, much, much more.

I strongly recommend cranking up the audio on your computer and putting the video up full screen.

Prepare for chills. Prepare to be energized to change the world. Read the rest of this entry →

If you’re still stubbornly for gay marriage and have no respect for peoples rights, then fear not:

“A rainbow coalition of every creed and color are coming together in love to protect marriage.” 

And this video is their testament.

A California doctor says gay marriage will force her to choose between her faith and her job. A young woman says, “My freedom will be taken away.”

Really, you intolerant, heterophobic bastards, don’t you know that your goals could threaten what happens in straight peoples homes across the United States? (h/t BoingBoing)

Consumerist.com reports that a “card skimmer” was recently found on a local Chase/WaMu ATM.

Skimmers are little doodads that fit over the card slot, look like they belong there, but end up capturing your card number as you slide it into the machine. Some skimmers even have a tiny camera that record the keypad as you enter your pin number. Ahh, the wonders of technology!

Feeling paranoid? You should be. For more on how skimmers work, and how to spot one, check out The Consumerist.

Spring springs in mysterious ways in Los Angeles, no more so than at Antebellum, Los Angeles’s (and the world’s only) fetish gallery, located in the heart of Hollywood.

Rick Castro, Antebellum owner and curator, has a new exhibit opening this Saturday, as well as  April’s edition of his programmed movie series, Fetish Film Fridays, at the Egyptian Theater, that touches on three fetishes this time, called Clownie, Baby, Amputee – Three Unique Fetishes Together at Last!

Prelude to Happiness, at the Egyptian on Friday night, is a film about an amputee who gets dumped by her boyfriend and enters into a torrid relationship with the doctor who performed the amputation. According to Castro, it’s “an amputee love affair filmed like a low budget Douglas Sirk melodrama, crossed with an even lower budget episode of As the World Turns with bad acting, bad hair and more booms in shots than a reality show.” After the screening, Castro is inviting audience members back to Antebellum, around the corner from the Egyptian, for a preview of the exhibit, Clownie, Baby, Amputee.

As an added attraction before Prelude to Happiness, Castro will also be screening clips of the exotic dancer Bettie Page, filmed by Irving Klaw, regarded as the originator of contemporary fetish film. Ultimately, Page and Klaw were prosecuted for their efforts and forced to abandon their collaboration.

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LeVar Burton is starring in a new play opening this Friday at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks. In The Caterer, @levarburton plays a man who sells you your appropriate death. It marks the Emmy-nominated actor’s return to the stage after a 25-year absence.

Reason #1 to see The Caterer: @levarburton is awesome. He called our fledgling little LAGenX radio show last weekend to chat about theatre, and to find out who we are. We’re not even sure who we are. But, we talked, and he tweeted about it. And we tweeted back. It was internet bromance. You can hear the interview here.

Reason #2 to see The Caterer: @levarburton is hosting an exclusive tweetup for audience members with tickets for Friday or Saturday night (Apr. 10, 11.) And you KNOW theatre tweeps like to party. From TheCatererPlay.com:

LeVar Burton will mingle and raffle off personal memorabilia.
Location to be encoded within program insert.
Must be 21 years of age to attend the after party.
Limited seating available.

See a show – Tweetup with the stars. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

I posted last week about the Reel Recovery film series hosted by Writers in Treatment (WIT), Tuesday nights at the Silent Movie Theater. Because I only write about the stuff I find interesting (hello, difference between blogging and other writing) I went to the opening screening of Permanent Midnight the night before last and I had such a good time I thought it only right to let you all know what you missed.

Red velvet cupcakes. More on this and other lures after the break. Read the rest of this entry →

This song holds a special place in my mind, not even so much because of the song itself but because the video is just amazing. It’s one of the first videos I remember talking to people about and getting excited when it ran on 120 minutes or wherever it was showing at that point because MTV quickly banned it for a collection of stupid reasons. Something about copycats. Of course this all shouldn’t be surprising since Spike Jonze directed it. That said, it’s actually a kind of catchy song that sticks in your head even if the lyrics don’t make much sense other than dissing LA to some extent. Something about smog. Anyway, I actually bought this album because I liked the video so much, but listening to it wasn’t quite the same as watching it and I’m certain I lost it many many years ago.
More songs about Los Angeles

A Side-by-Side Comparison of Los Angeles’ Metalhead and Pirate Populations

Apple / Tree

There’s many reasons that I love Los Angeles. It’s the place where driving 40 minutes for a $1.25 taco isn’t unheard of; where the rumble of jets taking off makes beach bonfires more charming; and where one can experience a metalhead explosion and sexy female pirate wrestling, just days apart…

That’s right, I’m talking about the Revolver Golden Gods metal awards and Lucha Vavoom’s Girlie Girl Catfight.

As a quick two part love note to this fair city I present to you, Metalheads vs. Pirates…

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Jack Wrangler, the Beverly Hills-born porn superstar, has died. He was 62. The reported cause of death was from complications from emphysema.

Although he performed in both gay and straight adult films, he was always open about his homosexuality and considered a hero of the Gay Liberation movement.

Born into a Hollywood film industry family, he first worked in early Christian television before studying theater in college.  After stints  bartending and go-go dancing at West Hollywood gay bars, he went on to achieve icon status in 1970s gay porn.  In the early ’80s he switched to starring in straight porn, eventually leaving porn altogether to marry Margaret Whiting, the film actress and singer (known for her hit, “That Old Black Magic,”) and began producing her cabaret shows.

The first Wrangler film I recall seeing, as an impressionable, newly-out gay youth, was Kansas City Trucking Co., made in 1976. With its hyper-masculine performers and the athletic abandon with which they threw themselves into their work, KCTC is  credited with setting the standard for all-male gay porn.

Photo: courtesy of TLA Releasing

To this day the only words I know in the song are “Los Angeles.” Seriously.

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It was earth-shattering news, literally, when, during the digging stage for LACMA’s new underground parking structure, excavators came upon a huge cache of fossils from the Pleistocene age– the last ice age that began 1.8 million years ago and ended 10,000 years ago. Crews found 16 fossil deposits and ended up removing 23 large cubes of earth that now sit in wooden crates (above) outside of the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea tar pits waiting for researchers to sift through and date them. It’s speculated that the findings could double the museum’s current fossil collection, already the world’s largest.

Photo: CP

Shhh! Don’t tell Dennis Woodruff, but this Thursday night (7/9) at 6:30 pm the Hammer is hosting what they’re calling Open Projector Night.

Hosted by comedian Jason Sklar, the free event will consist of individuals presenting their short films (10 minutes or less) and letting the audience decide how much should be screened.

The Hammer describes the evening as “a cross between open mic night and the Gong Show for locally made film and video shorts” and warn that audiences should “expect rowdiness to ensue.”

First come, first served sign ups start at 6:00 p.m.

This is the perfect opportunity to dash somebody’s hopes and dreams. And just in time for Easter!

Image by libraryman via Flickr.

On "Southland," BenMcKenzie (left) plays the doe eyed LAPD rookie with a mysterious past alongside the tough as nails vet played by Michael Cudlitz (right).

In the meantime, NBC has an online quiz asking if viewers know what a Code 3 or a 10-98 means. If you’ve either spent a bit of time listening to police scanners, or, ahem, riding in the back of a cruiser, you’ll probably score better than my lackluster 40%.

Check it out here.

My review after the jump… Read the rest of this entry →

Ahh weather in LA. Yeah, it’s an anomaly to have anything but sunny skies… so last night’s wind and rain was rather exciting. Even more rad was the huge explosion of sci-fi light and sound it caused in Beachwood Canyon around 8:30 last night.

As we were sitting down for dinner, suddenly the whole canyon exploded in eerie blue light. Crazy jolts of electricity thundered in the air. The lights flickered and for a moment, everything went dark. Then huge arcs of electricity bounced back and forth over the power lines and across the canyon in a spectacular display. Sparks flew everywhere. This went on for at least a minute. I seriously thought we were goners. It was right next to the house and I’ve never seen or felt anything so other oddly worldly. And damn scary. Electrical arcs that huge are pretty awesome.

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