Back on March 10, the National Center on Family Homelessness released a report with the widely reported headline 1 in 50 children in America are homeless each year. Its summary continues, “Without a voice, more than 1.5 million of our nation’s children go to sleep without a home each year. ” This is certainly a provocative number, and one that was presented in most places with either a hint of skepticism or, over at the Murdoch and Moonie press, with outright ridicule.

Looking at the report, I tend to think the mainstream press, for once, got their tone more or less right.  The NCFH seems to have overreached, which is probably a shame given the reality of our growing poverty and foreclosure crisis… Read the rest of this entry →

If you like click on the photo it like totally gets bigger. Totally.

When Frank & Moon Zappa’s “Valley Girl” hit the airwaves in 1982, I was 11 going on 12. I guess these days I’d have been considered a “tween,” but back then I was just dorky and awkward. I can’t remember exactly when or where I first heard the tune or when I bought the 45 pictured on the left. What I do know is that I became obsessed with it, memorized the lyrics, and sang along in my bedroom. I’m pretty sure this was going on in preteens’ rooms all over the country.

I’d never heard anything quite like “Valley Girl.” Even though it was quite catchy, it was equally as odd and certainly different from other songs playing on the radio such as “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “Eye of the Tiger.” It was a lot more fun though!

Like, OH MY GOD! Like, totally click here to read more about this tubular song!

I first encountered the spiritual and artistic phenomenon known as Monastic while working on the production staff of  an event.  It was a crazy night.  But I remember making my way through the crowded venue as Monastic took the stage.  Even in the maelstrom of my production obligations, I stopped and soaked up a uniquely exquisite performance that defied explanation.  I was an instant fan.

Monastic is the brain child of the gifted and charismatic Anthony Jones.  He has taken the various spiritual beliefs of the world and melded them with a kind of tribal meets opera aesthetic that can only be described as the sound of heaven showering down love upon the earth.  Adding to his self produced and performed music are various dancers and stilt walkers melting on and off the stage with a dream-like quality.  Being in the audience at a Monastic show is one part transportation into a strange, beautiful new world and one part entering into a deeply spiritual ceremony.  It has to be seen to be truly understood.

For the first time in recent memory, Monastic will take their show out of the night club setting and offer it in a theater.  On May 3rd they will be performing at the Baldwin Performing Arts Center.  Tickets are $10.  The show begins at 7 pm. Because Monastic is a non-profit creative collective, all proceeds from their performances are donated to various charities.

Hat tip to my neighbor for posting this notice on her blog about a community meeting (conveniently timed during the middle of Coachella weekend) on April 18 regarding a proposed mixed use development for 94 rental units, restaurant and retail in Silver Lake on Sunset at Sunset Junction.

Dear Neighbor, Guess Who's Moving In?

Here’s what the notice says:

Dear Neighbor,

The Silver Lake Neighborhood Council

Invites you to attend

Community Meeting / Open House
Saturday, April 18
11:00 AM
Location: The parking lot on Santa Monica between Sanborn and Manzanita, across from Jiffy Lube

Regarding 4000 Sunset Blvd. (Sunset Junction)
Proposed mixed use development for 94 rental units, a restaurant and retail Read the rest of this entry →

Spotted this in-store advertisement today at a Ralphs in Venice. Yes, that’s a photo of a skinned human corpse. In the frozen food section. Ew.

The leaf blower and I have long been at odds.  Ever since my very first hangover, it’s an inevitable aural torture clawing at my ears just under my window early in the morning at all the wrong times.  These days I don’t party like an inept teenager.  I’m a professional lush with a careful grasp of how to minimize damage. So, for me, the new issue is the frequent 24 hour days I pull and the lack of sleep I get trying to shove entire lifetimes into every week.  Just like being hungover, extreme exhaustion is painful and the bone jarring sound of a leaf blower is enough to induce murderous intent.

In recent weeks I have begun working very late into Saturday morning, which is essentially still my Friday.  I get to bed between 6 am and 8 am.  At 9 am, for some reason I have yet to fathom, the groundskeeper for my complex cranks up his leaf blower and does his thing for an hour – thirty minutes of which tends to be right beneath my window as if he has some special radar for degenerates who don’t keep normal schedules.  

I am starting to give a great deal of thought to Mister Reed’s suggestion that the contraptions should be banned.  At very least, there should be some rules about when they are used.  What genius thought that Saturday morning would be a great time to use such an invasive piece of equipment?!  It’s L.A.  We work hard.  We play hard.  Many of us are crashed out on Saturday morning or otherwise reduced to a twitching pile of flesh.  We’d like some peace, or what passes for it living in a city.

I guess if you see a news story about  a woman out in North Hollywood involving a leaf blower, you’ll know I finally couldn’t take it any longer.

Art by Gigi Deluxe

Trying to explain a gallery night thrown by the fabulous Miss Heidi ‘Bluegirl’ Calvert is difficult.  Sure, there is art in a gallery and a parade of imaginative performances through out the night.  But the patrons and revelers get into the spirit of things in a big way, almost becoming more of a draw than the canvases on the walls. Her themes are always erotic with a silly twist, inviting people to dig deep into their imagination to pluck forth the most outrageous kernel of creativity they can find.  After all, if there is anything the human animal is creative with – it’s sex.  

In a follow up to her previous show “Booty!” where apple bottoms and pirates came together to spank the high seas, “Peep!” promises to be a perversion of all things Spring.  Taking place on May 2nd at the Infusion Gallery in Downtown L.A., expect wild fashion, shameless displays of flesh and enough shapely bunnies to fool Hef into thinking he’s at home.

Read the rest of this entry →

Ya know, one of these days I’m going to quit just lazily thinking about doing it and put on my walking shoes for an extended excursion along Jefferson Boulevard from Figueroa out to the top of the soon to open Baldwin Hills State Park — in large part because the thoroughfare (that I regularly traverse on my bike commutes to/from work) courses through enriching and eclectic communities, and is absolutely full of awesome, such as this very new east-facing mural (click to biggify) from street artists Retna and The Mac that I found Friday morning at Chesapeake Avenue (pinpoint map):

Deciphering the installation’s highly stylized text takes some doing for this noob. So far I’ve found the words “barrio,” “brother,” and “love.” Can you make out any others?

I don’t remember where I was when I first heard Los Angeles-based Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” in 1987.  As a student, I was probably either studying, or, more likely, partying.  Not because I partied more than studied necessarily, but because I couldn’t study to music.

Especially this music.  “Welcome to the Jungle” was a hard-edged kick in the ass not only musically, but lyrically and visually.  Welcome to the Jungle of L.A., after the jump

Olvera Street’s 79th Annual Blessing of the Animals — otherwise known as a really good excuse for a couple margaritas — will be happening today at El Pueblo de Los Angeles. Festivities are scheduled to take place between 12 – 5 p.m. with the eclectic processional starting at 2 p.m.

This’ll be the sixth year my wife Susan and I have attended this awesome Los Angeles tradition, willingly putting our agnosto-protestant asses out there to get burned by the residually sprinkled holy water flung by Cardinal Roger Mahony at our Russian (but not Orthodox) tortoise Buster, who has once again been elected to begrudgingly and curmudgeonly serve as ambassador for our two dogs and four cats. After getting doused we will most likely adjourn to La Golondrina to indulge in the curative and restorative powers of tequila.

Photo from 2007 event. I call it “Nicole & Paris.”

L.A. Derby Dolls in action. Photo by Stalkerazzi f/8, courtesy of laderbydolls.

The L.A. Derby Dolls return to the Doll Factory on Saturday, April 18 as the Sirens battle the Varsity Brawlers. Because I love you L.A., I want to share the roller derby awesomeousity. (That’s right, my fun is so awesome I have to make up new words to describe just how awesome it is.) I’ve got free tickets for you. Read on…

If you’ve learned anything about me since I began writing for MetBlogs, it’s that at heart, I am still an adolescent. No…wait. If you’ve learned two things about me, it’s that I’m still an adolescent and I love the L.A. Derby Dolls. And our chief weapon is surprise. Suprise and fear. Come in again…

Really, what’s not to love? Roller derby is a fast paced, full-contact, action packed sport. And the Derby Dolls? In addition to being poised, refined, attractive young ladies, those girls are bad-asses and that is sexy as hell. The bouts at the Doll Factory are some of the most exciting sporting events in Los Angeles. My only wish would be for more.


If you’ve ever been to a bout at the Doll Factory, you already know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, you don’t know what you’ve been missing. Either way, you’ll want to follow me past the jump to find out how you get your free tickets (and nifty bonus prize)… Read the rest of this entry →

A Post-Facto Sexy Wrestling Pirate Review

THE PIRATE craze of the early 2000′s has died down. The pirates vs. ninjas debate has long been settled by nose-wiping, light-avoiding digital dorm rats years ago. But what happens when pirates take on pirates? For the edification of your eyes (and brainhole) I present to you the second part in the Metalheads Vs. Pirates debate: The Girlie Girl Catfight Show…

Read the rest of this entry →

Or maybe I mean adver-torial.

I saw the large L-shaped NBC ad meant to resemble an actual article on the front page of yesterday’s print edition of the LA Times and it did cause me to pause, for two reasons: It took up a lot of space where I’m used to seeing news and looked clunky. And it was for a new cop show, curiously with almost the same title, Southland, as a crap movie I had the bad fortune of enduring last year. (Actually, the first 10 minutes of Southland Tales were really good, compared to the following 145 minutes, which were really, really bad.)

I don’t watch much TV, never watch cop shows, but I do read a lot of newspapers, the print editions. For all of the trouble both the network and the paper took to formulate the ad, you would think it wouldn’t have looked like, according to an article in today’s NY Times raking LAT over the coals for this latest embarrassment, “the kind of thing that says, ‘Sell Us Your Gold” inside the paper or something.” As it turns out, the ad was LAT’s idea in the first place.

The NYT article also contains some amusing ad-speak from NBC’s marketing president, Adam Storsky, that would not be out of place in farce.

“What was great about this ad unit is it gave us a quote-unquote ‘editorial voice,’ ” he said. (Sigh. Did he really say, “quote-unquote?” Did he also cackle like Richard E. Grant in How to Get Ahead in Advertising and make the little finger dance when he said it?)

After editor Russ Stanton’s hastily organized hand-wringing session yesterday with disgruntled employees protesting the ad, LAT released a statement with phrases like “innovative approaches,” “unique marketing opportunities” and “stretch traditional boundaries.”

So continues the desperation dance of stumbling media giants.

A nation in the midst of The Great Depression paused. Picked itself up. And dressed in its Sunday best to reflect on family and faith.

It was Easter in the Hollywood Bowl. The year was 1930.

Photo from the Los Angeles Public Library

If you’re one of the lucky few who hasn’t gone into foreclosure and still owns property in the city of Los Angeles, today, April 10th is the deadline to pay your property taxes.

Arggghhhh!  And just 5 days before April 15th!  As long as your envelope is postmarked by midnight you’re free to roam without penalites.  Pay later than today and you’re paying a good 10% or so in late fees.  And if you bought your house in the last 7 years, now might be a good time to also check and see if your property value has sunk so low as to warrant a revaluation on your tax amount.  Just sayin’.