Click to go to the NYT article.

I read this story in the NYT a few days ago, but it’s stayed in the back of my mind, accompanied by a weird distaste. The writer ID’s a “trend” among the children of Hollywood elites: playing music, having shows in each other’s luxe backyards, slumming at thrift stores for hipster threads.

Indie music has a long and storied history in Southern California…continuing today at popular all-age sites like the Smell in downtown Los Angeles and Pehrspace near Echo Park.

But to veterans of this scene and the latest crop of show-going kids, elements of the city’s music landscape have lately been skewing even younger and emanating from tonier enclaves, like Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood and Hancock Park.

Really?

Where is this animosity in me coming from? Am I just jealous of how these trust-fund kids can pursue their PBR wishes and record-crate dreams? Or am I annoyed because this doesn’t…seem…newsworthy?

When I was working in print, they’d say “Three makes a trend.” Writer Jennifer Bleyer definitely name-checks more than three Industry spawn: Tallulah Willis (of Bruce); “Keely Dowd, the daughter of Jeff Dowd, a producer on whom the Coen brothers based the main character of ‘The Big Lebowski,’”; apparently the girls from The Like all sprang from the loins of Industry (music and movie) players; and, oh yes, “Michael Shuman, the bassist for Queens of the Stone Age who went to Campbell Hall, is the son of Ira Shuman, a producer of ‘Night at the Museum’ and the new ‘Pink Panther’ films.”

Bleyer tells a tale of a successful screenwriter who’s arranged for his son to continue his drum lessons during their summers in Italy. Which is great. Right? Good for him.

So why am I so annoyed? Am I just jealous? Should this article ever have been written? Haven’t the rich been indulging their kids’ dilettantisms for millenia? This isn’t a “trend.” This is business as usual.

I’m calling on the NYT to actually cover newsworthy scenes producing quality art–be it music or any other creative efflorescence–in LA. Stop going for the low-hanging fruit that only underscores your lack of familiarity with the cultural terrain. If this story even deserves to exist, it should have been about the music–not the pedigrees.

"The first diet cola for men" (3rd St, Near Fairfax)I

Your author, Lulu, is a manly man. Brimming with machismo and testosterone. And yet I never knew until just recently how badly I was threatening this masculinity by consumption of those girlish, effeminate colas I drank until I learned of the virtues of “Pepsi Max”!

It is true that I had already learned, through the joys of commercial advertising, to conform with my gender identity by choosing shampoos, perfumes (sorry, colognes), razors, vitamin, cocktails (though I drink rarely), yogurt (I know to drink mannish kefir), and media, that flatter my swagger.  I am happy my local corner alerted me to this additional constraint.  Oh, the pitfalls of gender!

I have no words.

I’m going to be brief and bloggy and ranty for a moment:

1. Last night at 4am I couldn’t get to sleep because of music blaring from the roof of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel over 4 blocks away. When I arrived in the lobby there were two other neighbors there as well, one had been there over 45 minutes. The hotel acknowledged the music started at 2am. It took over an hour for the police to respond (the music finally stopped around 4:30am).

2. Yesterday, blogger “Toastycake” wrote that he went to see “The Hangover” at the Arclight with a friend who stars in the film, and took a still of the screen when said friend appeared. Arclight staff took notice, escorted Toastycake out of the theatre where four LAPD officers were waiting to give him a verbal lecture on piracy.

More on the whole Roosevelt situation later - but 4 officers respond almost immediately to a piracy complaint, but it takes more than an hour for them to respond to numerous residents complaining about being woken up by music at 3am?

h/t Molls She Wrote

My dearest native informant has insisted since I arrived in the City of Angels that the parking notices are self-evident.  I think it is a point of pride for the natives that they know the secret to these matters… I joke that my informant “knows a guy who knows a guy in the parking department.”

I am a bit alarmed, actually, that I no longer have too much difficulty deciphering signs like the ones shown (though this is not the worst of them). Or at least I can understand them to a first brush, enough to park or not with a moderate degree of confidence.  Of course, it is all relative, since I have found that being in clear conformance with signage does not necessarily prevent tickets, in any case.  You have the right to contest a $40 ticket, of course… as long as you are willing to spend a full day, at an unspecified future date, waiting in lines at court (and probably being ticketed outside the course building).

There are corner cases still, naturally.  Were I to have that district no. 13 permit, would I be ticketed on Tuesday mornings? Do readers have any more convoluted examples to add to my bag of arcana; I am sure I’ve seen five adjoined signs at times, but cannot remember exactly where now that I’ve thought of posting these mysteries. (more…)

OK, this may not be strictly Los Angeles-related, but it’s been chapping my hide since learning about 329,000 tax dollars that went into that panic-inducing bonehead-authorized photo-op of Air Force One’s low-flyover of Manhattan a couple days ago. And since there are taxpayers here in LA, go with me on this entirely frivolous attempt to save us all some money next time by introducing the White House Military Office and any other government agency about a little program called Photoshop (foe-toe-shahp) that can not only save about 99.967 percent of any future such taxpayer expense, but can also totally avoid idiots making really stupid decisions that end up scaring the fucking bejeebus out of civilians and shit.

Against my better judgment I’m going to assume that all the bureaucracts around the beltway have at least a passing awareness of The Google (gew-gull) and its pretty decent image library. So, crossing my fingers and hoping that’s indeed true, the first step is to get on an electronic device that accesses the internet (eeen-tar-net), such as a computer (cum-pew-tuhr) and search out the pictures that you’ll need — in this case lookeehere: one of the Statue of Liberty from the air and another of Air Force One from the air.

It’s an amazingly simple process when approached from within an expanded noncomplex frame of reference (that’s interdepartmocratspeak for “easy-peazy”), but should difficulties be encountered, don’t panic: Al Gore (Al Gohr) is a self-ordained ready resource for online information and invention who could be and should be contacted in case of emergency.

After the jump, you know what’s next right? Yep, even with my rudimentary skills: clickably biggifiable, magic that cost NOTHING and freaks out exactly ZERO justifiably angst-ridden post 9/11 New Yorkers:

(more…)

OK, who the gotdangit is responsible for this? In case you don’t feel like clicking that link let me sum it up for you. Someone with clearly no understanding of zombies is organizing a zombie walk this weekend in Downtown LA. Now you might think that sounds interesting and fun and interesting, but you would be wrong. This isn’t a zombie walk where hordes or zombies descend upon and unsuspecting populous and stumble around getting blood on things. Oh no, this one is being used as a marketing tool for a horror convention, happening in an otherwise empty part of town ensuring that only convention attendees will even see it, and worst of all, it’s for charity.

News Flash: Zombies don’t care about conventions or marketing, they go where crowds of people are–not where they aren’t–and they don’t give a crap about charities. All they want is to eat you. Is that so hard to understand? This is what a zombie walk should look like:

That photo taken by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid shows an outright zombie attack on an Apple Store in SF. Zombies were removed by force at the hands of the cops because people were so freaked out. That, and other events like the ones organized by eatbrains.com understand the chaos that would be a swarm of zombies invading a metro area. Chaos! You can’t have order and corporate backing for a zombie walk. Way to suck.

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.

That's Mr. Los Angeles, not Mr. Louisiana.

Recently, Los Angeles Magazine has taken it upon themselves to crown Tom LaBonge, “Mr. Los Angeles.” No offense, to my City Councilman, but while I’d whole heartedly support him being called “Mayor of Hollywood,” I don’t believe he represents L.A. as a whole.

Apparently, the folks at the magazine had second thoughts, and have now decided to poll their readers on who deserves the “Mr. Los Angeles” title. Unfortunately, while they have a couple of worthy choices, there is at least one glaring omission, but even more WTFs?!

First up, LA Observed’s Kevin Roderick. Indeed, K-Rod, as some of us at Metblogs like to call him, is a blogging God. My daily read of his “Morning Buzz” supplanted my browsing the L.A. Times a few years ago. And he clearly has a love of the city. I’d even call him, “The King of Los Angeles New Media,” or “The Mayor of Wilshire Blvd., ” but not Mr. Los Angeles.

But largest WTF on the list is Wolfgang Puck. Do I even need to explain this? Heck, Bob Baker, of Marionette Theatre fame, a Los Angeles institution, deserves the title 10x more…. and even then doesn’t come close. (more…)