Daryl Gates had been LAPD chief for about a year when Eula Love was gunned down by his police officers on January 3, 1979.

Eula Love was a 39-year-old mother living in the West Athens area of south Los Angeles near Hoover and 120th at 11926 S. Orchard Avenue, in a neatly kept bungalow on a street of neatly kept bungalows in a proud and quiet neighborhood. Eula Love was a widow. Her husband had died of sickle cell anemia six months earlier, leaving her to raise their three young daughters and make the mortgage payment and other ends meet on $680 a month in social security benefits.

Eula Love’s $69 gas bill had been past due for as long as her husband had been dead, and when a utility worker from the Southern California Gas Company showed up that afternoon to shut it off if she didn’t make a $22.09 payment, she became irrational and abusive. When he made a move toward the meter she picked up a shovel, struck him in the arm and then chased him off the property.

While the gas man was advising his superiors and making an assault complaint to the police Eula Love walked to a nearby market and purchased a money order in the amount of $22.09. Returning with it in her purse, she was verbally abusive toward a second gas company employee that had arrived and who she found sitting in a truck at 120th and Orchard. Leaving him she returned to her house only to emerge brandishing an 11 inch-long boning knife, 5 1/2 inches of which were handle.

Next came the cops.

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Paging all Deadheads & fans of the jam! Dark Star Orchestra recreates, in epic detail, full-on Grateful Dead shows, paying homage to the auteurs of spinny dance music.

Info on the show is here, and we’re giving away tix to two lucky winners!

Get on your swirly skirt, your tie-die tee, and get ready to jam ’til you can’t stand. To win tickets, tell me your fave Deadhead or jam band experience….duuuude. Be sure to enter your return email address into the form when you sign in to leave a comment, so I can hit ya back if you win.

On the heels of the Venice Spring Home Tour comes the Venice Garden & Home Tour.

The tour takes place May 1st from 10:00AM to 5:00PM and will feature 25-30 gardens and homes in Venice and surrounding neighborhoods.

Tickets are $60 in advance and $70 on the day of the tour which starts at the Las Doradas Children’s Center at the corner of Broadway & Pleasantview. Directions are here.

This is an annual event to support the Neighborhood Youth Association’s Las Doradas Children’s Center.

Yay!!!! Playboy founder Hugh Hefner stepped up today and threw down the last $900,000 needed to buy the land around the Hollywood sign that was threatened by developers. The Trust for Public Land had to put together 12.5 million dollars to rescue the view from being blighted by houses built on the famous ridge and that $900,000 was the last piece of the puzzle . The 138 acres of land will now be donated to the city to be added to Griffith Park, preventing any construction that would ruin the view of the Hollywood sign.

“As I’ve said before, the Hollywood sign is Hollywood’s Eiffel Tower and I’m pleased to help preserve such an important cultural landmark.”"My childhood dreams and fantasies came from the movies, and the images created in Hollywood had a major influence on my life and Playboy,” Hefner said in a statement. What’s good for the bunnies is good for Hollywood!

We are less than two months out from the Donut Summit, and, oh boy, are we getting excited. Or at least I am getting excited because, well, DONUTS! If you haven’t already marked your calendars in indelible ink, the Donut Summit is scheduled to take place Sunday, June 13th at 1pm. The festivities will take place in Griffith Park, at the picnic area near the Vermont entrance. (We will have a big, donutty sign, so we’ll be easy to find!)

If you’ve forgotten (and how could you forget?) admission to the Donut Summit is one dozen donuts from your favorite local donut joint, to add to the donut pool, so that we can share them and try donuts from all across this fair land. And because nothing is fun unless it’s a contest, we’ll vote on LA’s best donut. Stay tuned for an updated list of LA area donut shops that you can choose from later this week!

Meanwhile: the Donut Summit is on twitter, bringing you all manner of donut news (and documenting my donut cravings) at twitter.com/donutsummit.

And I want to give a huge thank you to Noah Caldwell, who put together our awesome Donut Summit logo! Nothing makes me happier than the idea of a giant donut rising like the sun over the Pacific.

This Tuesday evening Joseph Menn, author of the fantastic Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet will be speaking in downtown LA at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy [map]. Presented by Zócalo and the Financial Times, Menn will be covering many of the ideas he covers in the book. From Zócalo’s site:

Internet commerce has boomed in the last decade. Americans alone spend over $150 billion in online transactions, and over 50 million U.S. households bank on the web. But how safe are the sites computer users around the world trust with their most sensitive information, and how precarious is the system? Isolated cases of identity theft and computer viruses fail to capture the vast risk crime poses to the way we use the Internet, and a real public debate has yet to begin. Exploiting systemic security holes and a Wild-West-style lack of governance, supported by governments bent on cyber-espionage and cyber-warfare, and rarely thwarted by law enforcement agencies, organized crime has made the web its main operation, compromising more than half the world’s computers.

Sound interesting? It should. It’s important stuff. Tuesday night, 7:30pm. Go check it out.

OMFG. Seriously. This show, on Tuesday–I don’t even know what to say. I can’t even imagine what it will be. Except “weird.” And “good.”

This is a live stage show from the psychotic creators of Adult Swim’s most postmodern and bizarro series, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” which stars a combo meal of a self-centered and thoughtless milkshake, a paternalistic serving of French fries, and a childlike, naive wad of ground meat.  The trio interact primarily with their hapless trogdolytic Jerseyite neighbor, Carl, and a rotating cast of various & sundry aliens, monsters, and forces of evil, who they often outwit through no actual effort of their own. The show always ends with a masterfully executed non sequitur.

The live show combines stand-up and senselessness from creators Dave Willis & Dana Snyder, animated clips “that may never be shown again! But probably will!”, free stuff, a Meatwad competition (I have no idea what this could entail), and general epic hilarity for people whose idea of “funny” is what most average people consider “confusing.”

To win, tell me your favorite ATHF episode in the comments. One lucky winner and a pal will see the show!!!!!!!!! If for any reason you can’t create a new account with us right now (pardon our dust), email me at lucindamichele (at) gmail (dot) com. Word.

Web friend and fellow of the double boing David Pescovitz, points out that his sister-in-law is “organizing a fantastically geeky fundraiser for the Los Angeles Audubon Society involving bird watching and, er, Star Trek. To celebrate LA Audubon’s 100th anniversary, the group is hosting a week-long “Bird A Thon” where you can sign up on a team to visit hot birding spots in the area with an experienced birder. The teams will compete to see who can spot the most species. Mary is pals with John Billingsley of Star Trek: Enterprise and he kindly gathered some of his Trek friends to form the Bald(ing) Eagles of Star Trek Team.”

It costs $150 and your RSVP needs to happen by May 1, but assuming you are in you’ll get to spend all afternoon spotting our feathered friends with always delightful cast of Star Trek. More info on the LA Audubon Society site.

For the locavores in all of us, Unique LA returns this weekend to the California Market Center downtown, yeah!  For those who missed the previous iterations, Unique LA brings together over 300 local artists, designers, and other crafty sorts who show and sell their awesome wares together in one giant, Costco-sized room.  From the looks of their participant list, you’re going to find everything from one-of-a-kind stationary sets to hand-dyed tshirts to you-definitely-did-not-get-that-at-Ikea housewares.   Last time, I scored two awesome $5 tshirts and a pen (this is better than it sounds), and my neighbor walked away with a super kawaii purse.  When you get exhausted from walking around the room (and you will – my advice is to pace yourself and constantly refer to the map like you were at Disneyland trying to figure out where Space Mountain is relative to Toon Town (answer: opposite sides of the park, get ready for a walk)), you can walk the line between hipster and homemaker at one of their DIY workshops, or you can check out Amoeba’s pop-up store, or you can eat.  Yes, eat: the Flying Pig truck will be there, as will be Cool  Haus (whose cookie ice cream sandwiches provided a much needed respite from the 90+ degree heat at Coachella) and Platine Cookies (get the platino.  At least one.).  Tickets are $10; it includes a free (alcoholic, yes) drink.  If you are absolutely certain about going, I’d buy tickets online ASAP to skip the crowds offline.  Eat local, buy local.  See you there.

Hooray for Hollywood!

Thanks to all the Metblog authors who joined in the fun of our series about Los Angeles playing her own multi-facted self in the movies. There are so many movies out there that of course we would never be able to cover them all. But the mix and match aspect of the movies written about was fascinating: Noir and punk, pop and camp, blockbusters and indies.

Check out the movies after the jump, put them on your netflix queue and enjoy your fair city in all her starring roles.

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Westside! Here’s the deal:

5:00pm at Johnnie’s Pastrami for some outdoor lounging near their firepit, some meaty meat sandwiches and apparently chili cheese fries to melt for.

6:30 or 7 we will mosey over to the Apple Pan for dessert. Again, the Apple Pan will be a tad tricky as it is a small place, they only have counter seating and seating will be hard to come by. We may need to order “to-go” and eat our pie on the sidewalk outside. No matter what, it will be a great time!

Don’t forget they both take CASH ONLY!

Johnnie’s Pastrami
4017 Sepulveda Blvd
Culver City, CA 90230

Apple Pan
10801 West Pico Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90064

Stuck in my 10th-floor Westchester office under flourescent tubes with a microwaved frozen entry for lunch I chanced an envious glance out my window at the be-yoo-tee-ful day and down on the knoll outside found this absolute spot-on example of What I’d Rather Be Doing Right Now:

Here’s hoping we can all grab a best friend and a figurative patch of grass this spring weekend and do nothing but enjoy it.

Before the Expo Line… Before the Santa Monica Air Line… There was the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad.  It ran on steam, and terminated at Fifth Street and San Pedro in Santa Monica. A trip from L.A. set you back $1.00.

The year was 1895.

Photo from USC Digital Library

Ok, so you all know about the Grilled Cheese Invitational this Saturday at Los Angeles Center Studios in the warehouse district of downtown. (Right?) You should probably get your tickets now, because they’ll be more expensive at the door.

Of course there’s also LA Metblogs’ Classic Eats, Saturday evening, visiting Johnny’s Pastrami and the Apple Pan;

[edit--just remembered this one!] There’s also the US Air Guitar Championships at the Troubadour on Saturday;

But there’s also the LA Times Festival Of Books on both Saturday & Sunday at UCLA;

Unique LA’s amazing extravaganza of creativity (read our own Queequeg’s post on it here for more info–both Sat & Sun);

The Vintage Clothing Expo (Sat & Sun) allows ample opportunity for clotheshounds to geek out over vintage hats and 50s sundresses;

The TCM Classic Film Festival actually started yesterday and runs through Sunday at many of Hollywood’s most historic theatres, from the Chinese to the Egyptian, showing everything from A Star Is Born to Casablanca to 2001 and The Day Of the Triffids;

The Nuestra Tierra Conference happens Saturday at Olvera Street, commemorating Olvera St’s 80th anniversary, with environmental workshops, bands, mariachi, Aztec dancing and environmental speakers plus a tasty dessert fundraiser;

If you want lots of free junk, visit Fiesta Broadway downtown on Sunday; there will be lots of performers, but as LA Eastside has discovered, it’s mostly an opportunity for sponsors to give away lots of free samples of their products.

Then on Monday The Foundry On Melrose is hosting a “Happy Hour For Hunger,” a home-run if I ever heard one: from 6-10pm you can get one of Chef Greenspan’s epic gorditas and a handcrafted Latin-inspired cocktail.

Have fun campers!

In celebration of Earth Day, Mar Vista is having its annual Green Garden Showcase this Sunday, April 25. From their website:

This free, self guided garden tour is all about water conservation. These homeowners have all made choices to eliminate or reduce turf lawns and have created gardens that thrive in our Southern California climate while using minimal water. Many are investing the water they use to grow fruits and vegetables for their families to enjoy.

80 families will open their gardens to you on Sunday afternoon from 2-6pm. While it is a self-guided tour, the homeowners will be available to talk to you about their gardens and share resources and information on how you can start converting your garden to use less water and still look stunning.

Make sure to stop at the sign-in booth (3972 Coolidge Ave) where you can get a free reusable canvas bag, and your choice of free doggie bags, t-shirts or canvas tote bags from LA Stormwater as well as LADWP info on rebate and conservation programs.

Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase
Sunday, April 25 2-6pm
Click here for the full map