Readers who happen to be old ladies:

Younger men are better looking, healthier, have more energy, are more fun, don’t need Viagra, and won’t die on you!

Such is the rationale for tonight’s California Cougar Convention.  While older men are considered men even though they show off their grays in the form of a young blond, society’s answer to the reverse situation is: predatory animals.  So, in the spirit of the jungle kingdom, the Society of Single Professionals (yes) organized tonight’s convention  for cougars and their would-be cubs at the Beverly Hills Crowne Plaza Hotel.  Thirty dollars will buy you access to the stalking, the pouncing, and the purring; in addition, the young cubs will vote to elect a Miss Cougar California (who must be 40 or over (that’s who an “older woman” is, apparently) and “legally single”) during the night’s dance party.

For those of you who want so desperately to cougar, but don’t know how, take the 6:30 class in cougaring at The Cougar School, free for paid convention goers.  I’m not exactly sure what this will entail, but I’m envisioning the scene from The Lion King where Mufasa teaches Simba how to pounce.  Cubs, heed the sign’s warning: If attacked, fight back.  Zazu should have been so lucky.

When mountain lions attack photo taken by jurvetson and used under a Creative Commons license.

Downtown Los Angeles was no stranger to adaptive reuse. Dr. Walter Lindley built California Hospital at 315 W. Sixth Street in 1887. Years later, you could yourself buy a hat for $2.00, or rent a room for 50 cents at “The Lindley.”

The year was 1912.

Photo from the USC Digital Library

Photo by Annie Liebovitz

The inimitable Rachel Rosenthal has been an icon of performance art for decades, equal parts priestess, goddess, shaman and oracle. The gal’s been honored by the City of Los Angeles as “a Living Cultural Treasure of Los Angeles” and has recently been the subject of several monographs on her performance pieces and life. Not a whole lot of people are well-versed with the panopoly of major names in contemporary art–I myself am certainly not–but if you can add Rachel to your list of cocktail party conversation topics, everyone will know you’ve got your basics down.

In honor of the grand dame of experiential performance art’s 83rd birthday (83rd!), Track 16 Gallery at Bergamot Station will be hosting a birthday bash on Saturday night, with artworks contributed by luminaries of the art world: Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg, Eleanor Antin, Lita Albuquerque, Judy Baca, John Baldessari, Llyn Foulkes, George Herms, Mike Kelley, Martin Kersels, Ed Moses, Lee Mullican, Betye Saar, Masami Teraoka, Patssi Valdez, and June Wayne. The pieces are to be auctioned off to raise funds for Rosenthal’s dance company, the TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theatre Ensemble, funding student scholarships and visiting artist stipends. Nice.

I know I won’t be able to afford any of these pieces, but I want to go just to take in the assemblage of the 20th century’s great West Coast artists all in one place–a Broad Collection-esque justaposition, cherrypicking the biggest names of the past century. Thank you Rachel. (There’ll also be cake by Cake Divas and “Bitch”-brand wine & bubbly, so, there’s that too.)

Next Monday, to celebrate the first year of Club Nokia being in existence (and IMNSO as one of the best large clubs in LA), Band of Horses will bring their ethereal, melodic sounds to the club along with supporters Warpaint.

We have tickets! We can send you! To party on a Monday! Now that’s EXTREEEEEEME!!!

To win, leave a comment telling me your favorite band that has played at Club Nokia this past year. Haven’t been? Tell me your imaginary, in-a-perfect-world show to come to the club. For me it would be Ryan Adams and Wilco. And Wilco would finally play “Hotel Arizona.” [sigh]

Dan over at Drink:Eat:Play is putting on another one of those classy dress up fun events this weekend.  They are transforming the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel into a 1920’s “Speak Easy”.  The tickets are valued at $75 each so this is no slouch of a give away.  Tix include unlimited cocktails in the Speak Easy lounge made from the best whiskey, scotch and gin with the help of The Edison and K&L Wine merchants.

To win.  Tell me your favorite classic cocktail (my choice varies, classic martini, side car or cosmopolitan).   Tell me the ingredients.  Make sure you include a legit email address so I can collect your information for ticket pick up at will call.  Sorry, since this is a booze filled event you must be 21 to enter.  Remember this is a classy event so you have to dress accordingly.  First two complete responses win!

For those of you not fortunate enough to win tix you can order your general admission tix here.  For those of you wanting to splurge for the VIP tickets that include access to a private lounge with all sorts of extra goodies at $150 you can order your tickets here.

Deets: Nov 7, 8PM-11PM,  Hollywood Renaissance Hotel, 1755 N Highland Ave, Hollywood 90028

A true Stargate fan could read this from the back of the room.

I had lunch with a few people recently in which the conversation started and ended with a mention  of “The Plan.” Non-Battlestar Galactica associates quickly booed and told us to leave the table if we were going to talk about it, and, not wanting that, we had to cease (but really, if you’re going to have a whole movie about the Cylons, why oh why would you leave Lucy Lawless out?).  In contrast, I have an inkling that a fair number of you are unabashaed BSG fans and that an ever fairer number of you were/are fans of Farscape and Stargate SG-1. I bet some of you even loudly registered your protest to Sci-Fi brass after the network abruptly, and meanly, cancelled Farscape before its 5-year contract was up.  Lucky for you, there are fan conventions in town for both Farscape and Stargate SG-1.   Starting tomorrow and running through the weekend, Creation Entertainment is hosting the annual event at the LAX Marriot.  Stars will be in tow to commiserate and commemorate, and, of course, people will be dressed up to the gills.  Best part: On Friday, Gary Jones (Stargate’s Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman) and Dean Haglund (you know, Langley) will participate in a celebrity cabaret called Starhole.  Yes, that’s right, Starhole.

Ticket prices vary depending on what days you go, and what a la carte items (i.e., autograph sessions) you want to add to your cart.  For more information on prices for the Stargate convention, see here; for Farscape, see here.

There are four million stories in the City of Angels (ten million in the County), and a bunch of them will be told at the 8th Annual L.A. Storytelling Festival. The Festival, which takes place on Saturday, November 14 at the Culver-Palms UMC Complex in Culver City, will feature stories, tales, concerts, workshops, and more.  Information about the Storytelling Festival, including the lineup of workshops, registration instructions, ticket prices, and directions, can be found at the event’s website here.

What’s the difference between a story and a tale?  Head to the Festival and find out!

I always understood the general rule to be: one in 10 people is gay.  This ratio, which apparently has been oft-repeated to a point where it still remains lore 10 years after I first heard it (the gay population apparently has not adjusted for inflation), is a nice shorthand for: it could be you.  (One of my favoritest people of all time, Jane Lynch, interviewed with Terry Gross on NPR yesterday, and this was her reaction to her 20something realization that she is gay: “Oh man, really?”).  The threat that you could be the one left holding the rainbow flag is the greatest fear tactic of all: it results in the simultaneous internalization and externalization of one’s homophobia.  This is, in part, what moves certain people to go to the polls, draw the little iron curtain, and, in the comfortably private, if not stuffy, polling station, mark a mark that will seal the fate for all those ones in tens, if not themselves.  And they are, of course, protecting the children.  Remember the children!

Yesterday – one year after Prop. 8 passed here, and one day after a similar referendum passed in Maine – Equality Network organized “Death to Discrimination,” a march-and-mourn protest and rally in Silver Lake.  The LA Times estimates that 60 people were present when the march started, but grew to a bit over 200 as the march marched up Vermont and down Sunset towards its destination in front of Le BarCito at Sunset Junction (overall, a decent turnout, but a far, far cry from the 700+ people who RSVP’d for the event on Facebook — like certain people I’m sometimes frustrated to know, you’ll always have flakes).  As the speakers began their spiels to the converted, the number of people dwindled – slowly at first, then “exponentially faster,” as Narinda Heng, my fellow mourner, observed.  Tip to future organizers: a rally and protest aren’t the Oscars.  Keep the speeches short well before the orchestra starts to hum its boredom.

A handful of pictures from the post-march rally, after the jump.

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Yesterday afternoon there was a shooting in Venice, followed up by another in Santa Monica last night. Both shootings left one victim dead and countless others terrified. The LA Times Blog has lots of details on the actual shootings but makes no mention that these were both gang related shootings, a fact the LAPD confirmed with Yo! Venice. Residents of the area heard shots and began questioning things right away. A source which asked not to be named told me that both the victim in the first shooting in Venice and the shooters who were apprehended in the second shooting in Santa Monica are members of the Venice Shoreline Crips. The LAPD hasn’t confirmed that publicly yet however. If you’ve been following this at all you’ll remember that last year a huge sting brought down 19 members and earlier this year I spotted some of their tags on a wall in the area. Clearly the busts didn’t eradicate the gang as was hoped by many, and clearly something is going down right now. Hopefully it gets under control before more people get shot.

UPDATE: Here’s an eye witness report from Bujinkan Santa Monica.

Our intrepid photographer CuriousJosh returns with photographic proof that Halloween happened, even though you wouldn’t know if from the trick-or-treater traffic in my ‘hood.

Thanks to the LA Weekly and LA Weekly web editor Erin Broadley for loaning these images–and Josh–to us.

Check out the slideshow here!

Sigh.  Maine.  In a scenario all too familiar to those of us in California, gay marriage opponents currently are celebrating their successful drive to prohibit gay marriage via public vote in the Pine Tree State.  For those of you keeping count, that’s the 31st state in our Union to have the issue defeated at the polls.   Meanwhile, one year after the passage of Prop. 8, gay rights proponents will be meeting en masse tonight at the Vermont and Santa Monica Red Line station at 7.  There, Equality Network will host a Death to Discrimination March, led by a New Orleans-style funeral, headed due north to Sunset, then to The Black Cat/Le BarCito in Silver Lake, where a roster of series will rally the troops.  After an appropriate time for mourning and moving through the stages of grief, organizers plan to continue fighting the good fight (i.e., “Don’t mourn.  Organize.”), and hopefully, there will be some talk about education and de-clawing the anti-marriage coalition’s fear tactics.

It’s not over.

There is a distinct breed of family restaurant founded in spades across the nation between the 40s and the 50s, few of which survive, that provided a Disneyana environment where the family could dine surrounded by a Yogi Bear-era “outdoor” look: faux trees, the occasional water feature, “log cabin” woodwork, abundant taxidermy. Clearman’s North Woods Inn, in San Gabriel, is one such institution.

I happened to be passing there the other day while spending quality time with the Mom. I went to Clearman’s only once, long ago, when I was in junior high school. For reasons that will forever remain elusive I had developed a passion for miniatures, along with another girl in my class, and the two of us made plans to go–or rather, made plans for our moms to drive us–down to San Gabriel where a miniature store sold itty-bitty pieces of handpainted china for lilliputian table settings to be set in itty bitty houses. Clearman’s happened to be right next door.

My friend had been there before. “You have to get the potato with the cheese butter,” she announced. Her mom, petite as a chihuahua and as perky, leaned over the table toward my mother and I. ‘CHEESE BUTTER,” she said in a low whisper… Read more

So I remember when Hanson got big for the first time. They were, like, eight or whatever. And everybody thought they were kinda a joke, even though they all grudgingly admitted the music was, indeed, good.

Fifteen years later, the guys are actually still together, no longer look like carbon copies of one another, and are still actually playing good music. They’ve converted skeptical critics nation-wide (and internet-wide) into boosters.

Wanna go check the show out? We’ve got your hook-up. Post a comment below telling me something that you’re not too cool to admit you like. For me, I will admit I read and enjoyed every book in the Twilight series and I spent my Halloween hanging out with my parents. There. Now you.

Info on the show is here.

LADWP is offering its customers free landscape classes focused on using ideal vegetation for our climate. The California Friendly Landscape Workshop will show you how to choose the right plants and conserve water in Southern California.

Class sizes are limited, so you must RSVP immediately.

If you’ve been reading here at LA MetBlogs for any length of time, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I am a man who is connected, and that I like to share those connections with you, dear reader.

Early in 2008 I discovered a great talent with the help of the good people at Boing Boing’s BBtv. Klaus Pierre, a German/French actor had come to Hollywood to train to be the next big action hero. If you’re not already familiar with Klaus Pierre, here is a BBtv episode you need to see:

I have recently become acquainted with the director who brought those episodes featuring Klaus Pierre to the world. He tells me that Klaus has recently completed post-production on his movie, and that it will be available for your enjoyment soon. In the meantime, Klaus will be shooting an interview later this week to let his adoring fans know what he’s been up to over the last year.

Here is where I share my connections. I know that you all must have many questions for Klaus, so leave them in the comment section below. I’ll pass them along, and perhaps Klaus will answer in his interview video. If you could ask Klaus Pierre anything, what would you want to know?

More BBtv episodes featuring Klaus Pierre after the jump… Read more