His new gig at the times will be “running all of their blogs.”

LAist interviews their own.

Life’s certainties:

1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Stupidity of the DMV

My temporary registration expires after today. I thought it might be fun to wait until the last minute to get that straightened out. So a quick trip from work in Sherman Oaks on my lunch break was in order.

Upon arriving, I remembered the efficiency of the machine known formally as the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Parking spot in this section? No. How about this one? Nope. Over here? Fat chance.
(more…)

[photo from Wikipedia]

We all knew this day would come, but heck I thought things were actually looking up for old Evel Knievel, what with his recent settlement with Kanye West and all.

But nothing lasts forever, and it’s with a heavy heart we say farewell to one of the last great stupid daring large-living no-apologizing Americans.

He successfully jumped 50 stacked cars at the L.A. Coliseum in November of ‘73, but he was a citizen of the whole goddamned world.

One of my favorite designers…. and okay, she’s also a swell friend, is Calleen Cordero. I loved her shoes, belts and bags way before we met at Burning Man one year and hit it off. And yes, it’s a great perk to be friends with someone who has the inside scoop on fashion and who ALSO has an amazing eye for her own designs.

Anyway, she’s having a crazy once in a lifetime blow-out sale tomorrow, December 1st at her Beverly Blvd. store. They’re bringing all the stuff over from the warehouse and discounting it between 50-90%.

She does beautiful leather work; shoes, belts, bags and other assorted items. Starts at 12, 7384 Beverly Blvd. Check out the web-site for a peek at her stuff.

I pass this building every day on my way to work and it never fails to make me smile. If you click on the images you can make them bigger and truly appreciate the spirit of the place. Note the cardboard window dressing and the crappy brickwork repair job as well as the air conditioning unit leaning out of the wall next to the paint-spattered shutter. You may not be able to see from these craptastic photos that the Financial Training Center sign is hand-painted. Mike Russ, I’m sorry to see you go. You cheer me up each morning.
(more…)

Thanks, LA Map Nerd!!!

In case you didn’t want to follow links and download, here’s the map of the road closures for Sunday.

Yes, it’s sideways!

I have NEVER seen a map with North pointing left - just one more way this whole event is cock-eyed.

Click to see it large enough I hope to read it.

UPDATE:

Actual road closures and times after the jump!!!
(more…)

Avoiding Malls is one of my past times this time of year. A tradition my wife and I started a few years ago is getting one large gift for “the house”. This year we’ll be on Myrtle Avenue in Old Town Monrovia visiting the various Gallery’s who are hosting open houses and special events. We are looking for something big for either the patio or living room. With a little luck we’ll find that piece that makes our hearts sing “buy me”. Regardless it is nice way to meet the local artists, enjoy some art and just hang in Old Town with our friends.

The Three largest Galleries’ will be sponsoring receptions through out the day where you get to meet and greet local artists as well as enjoy their work. They are also hosting receptions at various times of the day so if you plan it right you can nibble and drink your day away. You can end your day by meeting 40 local artists at the Monrovia Art Festival Associations Christmas Party at Paint N Play which is also a FREEBIE to thank everyone for their support this last year. (All the details after the jump).
(more…)

I’m on the other side of the world in Vienna all this month but please join me in taking a quick walk down memory lane. Four years ago today, Jason made the first post right here on blogging.la kicking off this whole crazy ass roller coaster we now call Metroblogging. Wow… 2003 sure was a long time ago! Thanks for putting up with us all this time.

A little while ago, I wrote this post about the fiasco of “Norm Day”, wherein LAUSD adheres to these arbitrary ratios of students-to-teachers. I described the ensuing clusterfuck: how students were sardined into classes, how teachers were released of their positions, only to have their positions reinstated thanks to some state monies, and how Norm Day occurs every semester (October and February).

Well, good news! The school board just voted to maintain staffing levels for the remainder of the school year; in other words, there will not be a Norm Day in February. $18 million will be spent to keep teacher positions.

At our school site, we were particularly worried: we had already lost about 10 positions; we have declining enrollment; we were sure to lose more positions. Even though Superintendent Brewer likes to say (and this often, like a recording),”It is my goal to transform the LAUSD into a world-class school district,” I can’t help but feel I’m being forced to provide a third-world-class education down here in my humble South LA school. It bears repeating that Brewer opposed this measure, on the grounds that LAUSD needed to keep a tight budget.

Speaking of tight budgets, are you aware that LAUSD just spent an extra $200,000 to hire image consultants? This is money on top of a $10m communications budget ($1.4m of which goes to staffing).
(more…)

You remember the Disney-meets-Bavarian-fetishist schnitzelhaus known as Lowenbrau Keller? No? That’s likely because, like most Angelenos, you probably never went, and that’s why the Black Forest-themed eatery, opened by set designer George Eder in ‘67, is finally shuttered. As I live right down the street, I pass by the corpse frequently and I’ve been seeing a lot of suspicious doin’s going on outside of the now defunct ‘Brau. So, worried that one of my favorite local spots might be getting the Koreatown karaoke makeover, I emailed the folks over at Eater to see what they knew.

Turns out, it’s not much more than the Downtown News already reported: the keys have been turned over to The Wanton Group. Eater was able to suss out, however, that it will reopen as “Medusa” and it’s as yet undetermined how much of the hallmark interior will remain. I can tell you from personal observation, however, that the exterior has received quite a bit of cleaning up, and the mighty lions that once flanked the driveway entrance have been moved to new cement pedestals guarding the front entrance. No telling what’s going on inside, but here’s a Flickr set of the interior that documents what it used to (and hopefully to some extent will still) look like.