It’s probably not Kosher, either. But I’ll be damned if they’re not going to blow your mind. You’ve been warned.

Ham and Honey
Bacon Caramel
Chocolate and Bacon
Cheddar and Cinnamon
Goat Cheese and Basil
Mascarpone and Pumpkin

Excluding the Marscapone and Pumpkin ice cream, don’t know whether to barf all over my keyboard or get one pint of each. But who am I kidding? The Ham and Honey is a no-brainer, and I’m also looking forward to the Cheddar and Cinnamon flavor.

I snapped a photo of my Scoops suggestion board suggestion of the week but now I can’t find the damn digital camera. In case you were wondering, it was “Mommy’s Purse Smell”. I’ll post a pic if I can find it tomorrow.

Until then, save a scoop for me!

But I don’t not support it, either.

I am getting pretty sick of hearing about the strike, though; About how everyone thinks the writers are millionaires, the studios are evil, and the ulterior motives lying just beneath the surface on either side.

If I have your attention now, there’s more to be read after the jump…
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Last week the “sea salt” flavors at Scoops were fantastic. On Saturday the GF and I stopped by to enjoy a Salt Caramel/Walnut Horchata combination (me) and a Sea Salt White Chocolate and Lemon/Pistachio combo (she).

This weekend, Tai is brewing up a batch of tea-flavored ice creams for your enjoyment. I can’t stress enough how good his coconut ice creams are. You simply have to try one.

Earl Gray and Lemongrass
Green Tea and Coconut
Jasmine Tea and Ginger
Chocolate and Lapsang Tea
Lung Ching Tea and Dates
Chai tea and Egg Nog

No suggestion board suggestion of the week this week. Instead, I’d like to open up the comments for your Thanksgiving flavor suggestions. I’ll pass the best ones on to Tai.

Ready… Go!

If you’re not already planning to ride the Midnight Ridazz La Noche de los Biciclistas Muertos (Parte Dos), I’ve got a couple of fun alternatives for the evening of November 9th.

Here’s a hint – they involve comic books and robots!

More details after the jump…
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In this bar amazing music is played. People smoke cigarettes and lounge on couches. After 2AM, the doors are locked and anybody still inside is given coffee mugs to drink their alcohol from until five in the morning. There are never more than twenty or thirty people present, even on the weekends. The owners seem to not have redecorated since 1978.

It’s the only place I’ve been to in Los Angeles that doesn’t feel like Los Angeles. It’s like a portal into another time and place.

And I’m sorry folks, but I’m not going to tell you its name, or where it is. You’re going to have to find it on your own.

Keep reading to find out why…
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Skylight Books in Los Feliz is celebrating its 11th Anniversary! This is kind of a last-minute notice (the story of my life right now), as it’s been going on all weekend and ends tonight. Go and check it out, eat some snacks, donate to the Lucy Fund, and get discounts in multiples of eleven on all the books you buy.

No matter how busy I am with my other writing gigs, my day job, moving, and blogging, I’ll always have time to stop and get some Scoops ice cream. Eager to get a sneak peek at some of Tai’s always-exciting weekend flavors, I pedaled down to HelMel for a taste.

This weekend’s flavors are all about combining the sweet and the salty, making for some particularly exotic combinations.

Get the rest of the Scoop after the jump:
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As in, “The Wright Stuff Film Festival”. As in, Edgar Wright, director of the already classic Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

The New Beverly Cinema remains undaunted by the recent death of longtime owner Sherman Torgan, and continues its excellent reputation for offering Los Angeles moviegoers with above-average programming by playing host to a festival of oddities and lost favorites, all handpicked by the eponymous Mr. Wright.

The fest runs from December 2nd to December 17th, and will be chock full of special guests and special introductions by Edgar himself. I’ll have some more info for you next week, including interviews with the folks at the New Beverly… In the meantime, check the festival’s lineup after the jump (thanks again, CHUD.com).

Photo by Math Smath. Used under Creative Commons.
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There’s no shortage of Scoops love on b.la, and if you’ve been there, you know why. Proprietor Tai Kim not only whips up some of the most imaginative and delicious ice cream treats I’ve ever tasted, but he changes them on an almost daily basis. The Scoops Scoop is going to be another one of my irregular columns, and will keep all of you ice cream enthusiasts up to date on Mr. Kim’s latest concoctions.

Keep reading to learn more about the ice cream-making process… (Update: Just added – this weekend’s Halloween holiday flavors!)
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A.N.S.W.E.R.* LA is organizing another “stop the war” protest on Saturday and all the details are posted on the AnswerLA.org website. This time around, there’s going to be a march and a rally, where protesters will stage “a mass symbolic ‘Die-In’ to illustrate visually the impact of the war on Iraqis and U.S. soldiers.”

In honor of Saturday’s event, I submit my list of top five protests that changed the world as we know it today:

Tiananmen Square
Martin Luther King’s march on Washington DC
September 11, 2001
Stonewall Riots
Battle of Seattle

Protests, according to A.N.S.W.E.R.’s website, are meant to “galvanize people into playing an active role in the movement to stop the war”. In four out of five of the examples given above, that meant being willing to sacrifice something – maybe your home, your rights, or your life – to fight for what you believe in, and even MLK took a bullet for it in the end.

And mock the French as we may, at least they don’t let their cops beat up on civilians.

I guess I’m just disappointed that this week in Los Angeles the word “protest” means a mob of passive, opinionated taxpaying individuals with day jobs and rents and mortgages and gas-powered cars waiting for them at home would rather lie down on their backs than instigate some real action.

*Act Now to Stop War and End Racism

The story is that the area of Los Angeles just east of Hollywood and west of Interstate 5 known as Los Feliz was originally part of an early California land grant to one Corporal Jose Vicente Feliz. Later on (in case you missed benjamin’s Dead Angeleno bio of Griffith J. Griffith) the land was willed to the city of Los Angeles by the aforementioned philanthropist and wife-shooter. Once a home to the proud, seafaring Gabrielino Indians, Los Feliz is now known for its celebrity, hipster, and celebrity hipster inhabitants.

But how do you really pronounce Los Feliz?

I don’t know. I say Los Fe-LEEZ like everybody else (edit: Whoops, I meant FEE-liz.). If it was meant to be pronounced properly, FEE-liz would be felices because of the los, right? Shouldn’t it be El Feliz then? I looked all over for an official answer, but came up dry…

Until a few weeks ago when I was taking the bus from Hollywood to Glendale. It was one of those buses with the electronic voice that lets you know what streets are coming up. It pronounces the name Los Fe-LEEZ.

Eureka!

This must be the answer. It’s got to be the right one. I mean, city buses are pretty official, right?

UPDATE: In my haste to get the post up, I forgot to add a picture credit. Image courtesy of HoldThatTiger.

So a few weeks ago I went on about how the how turning Echo Park’s derelict Ramona Theater back into a working movie house would be a big step towards making a pretty great neighborhood a really great neighborhood (I’ve got an update on that coming soon, BTW). Well, I’ve been poking around another little neighborhood next to a big park, and over the past few weeks I’ve fallen in love with the Los Angeles community of Westlake.

More after the jump!
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At first glance, it would seem that we have Eliezer Mier – the once and future L.B. Mayer, son of an immigrant scrap metal salesman – to thank for helping plant the seeds of what has become today’s publicity hogging, hit-and-run driving, coke-sniffing celebutards.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Mayer got into the movie business by starting a chain of successful theaters in New England, while in California, cattle was still being herded down the ditch that would someday become Sunset Boulevard. In those early days of film, the most successful exhibitioners were the biggest entertainers, and L.B. was known for his showmanship.
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When future generations excavate the buried ruins of these primitive times, they will undoubtably draw many amusing conclusions about what lilfe was really like in our society – the gods we worshipped, the food we ate, the games we played, and the music we listened to.

What will they make of the theme song for The Legend of Zelda or Sonic the Hedgehog? I’d like to think that those enlightened future beings will find the simple melodies familiar simply because they’ve lasted that long. In the past four years, video games have become so mainstream even your girlfriend plays them (well, mine does), and I challenge you to find one person who doesn’t know the first seven notes of the Super Mario Bros. music.

Video Games Live is proof of just how far gamer culture has come. From their press release:

Video Games Live is an immersive concert event featuring music from the most popular video games of all time. Top orchestras & choirs perform along with exclusive video footage and music arrangements, synchronized lighting, solo performers, electronic percussionists, live action and unique interactive segments to create an explosive entertainment experience!

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Back in April, scumbag Hector Manuel Velazquez-Nava slammed his SUV into a car on Pacific Coast Highway while intoxicated, killing film director Robert Clark (A Christmas Story, Porky’s), 67, of Pacific Palisades and his son, Ariel Hanrath-Clark, 22, of Santa Monica.

According to KCAL 9, Velazquez-Nava was driving a GMC Yukon on PCH between Sunset Boulevard and Temescal Canyon Road about 2:20 a.m. when he drifted into oncoming traffic and struck Clark’s 1997 Infiniti Q30. Valazquez-Nava’s BAC was at .24 – three times the normal limit.

Velazquez-Numbnuts plead no contest to manslaughter charges, and last Friday was sentenced to six measly years behind bars.

I have no rant or lengthy indictment of the spineless judge presiding over the case (coughcoughHectorMGuzmancoughcough). I can only state my beliefs are that if you drink, you drive, and you end up killing two people, then you should be buried underneath a mountain somewhere.

Photo by Barbour. Used under Creative Commons.