Tomokazu Matsuyama was born in Japan. He moved to the US when he was around ten years old, not speaking any English, and being overwhelmed by the culture shock of 1980s Los Angeles. His artistic work is a reflection of this upbringing. Matsuyama’s paintings envision traditional Japanese imagery through the lens of American pop art, creating a unique and beautiful hybrid. He strives to portray this global melee through a conscious “appropriation” of all of his influences: cultural, artistic, and personal. Matsuyama’s unconflicted and positively ebullient works do not ask, “What am I?,” but assert, “I am everybody.” (via) [more inside]
posted by netbros on Nov 29, 2009 - 14 comments

The Donald Sterling Rule "Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling lives by his own rules. And the only one that matters, apparently, is this: all bad deeds go unpunished. Over the last six years, nearly two dozen L.A. residents have sued Sterling for engaging in racist housing practices and Jim Crow-style bigotry. In a 2003 deposition, the 76-year-old real estate mogul admitted to paying a former employee to have sex with him in an elevator. Three years ago, the U.S. government charged him with "willful" mistreatment of African-American and Latino tenants, and earlier this month, he agreed to pay the Dept. of Justice nearly $3 million to settle a federal racial-discrimination housing lawsuit, the largest award ever for a case of its kind." So why, asks California's Tenants Together, has the NBA said nothing about Sterling's less than sterling behavior? [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco on Nov 27, 2009 - 27 comments

Photographer Matt Logue's empty L. A. shows the effect of the city being completely people-less.
posted by gman on Nov 20, 2009 - 42 comments

In the late 1890s, a wooden "cycle-way" was built between Pasadena and Los Angeles for bicycle travel before freeways existed. It ran along the Arroyo Seco and though it was planned for the full ten mile distance, only two miles were completed by 1900 as the popularity of the bicycle waned. In 1983 a bike path was built along the stream basin but is both riddled with glass and debris and dangerous to impassible during a rainstorm. For the last 15 years, a group in Pasadena has been leading the effort to restore a bike path between Pasadena and Los Angeles.
posted by mathowie on Nov 9, 2009 - 15 comments

She's a public mystery, craving attention but shying away from private interviews. She is a human being Andy Warhol would have created, a painter (of) herself. She ran for Hollywood City Council in 2002, joined the much-parodied 2003 California gubernatorial recall election (previously), and most recently tried to become Mayor of Hollywood (archive of her Mayoral site). She is still loved by snark-mongers. She is Angelyne. She is ... [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Nov 5, 2009 - 44 comments

Suzi Barett made a video to dissuade her actor friend OT from moving to Los Angeles. Very NSFW language [more inside]
posted by lazaruslong on Nov 1, 2009 - 51 comments

"Chinatown" communities across the United States (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco) are undergoing a shift in linguistic identity, as recent immigrants are more likely to natively speak Mandarin (the official spoken language of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan,) instead of Cantonese. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Oct 22, 2009 - 56 comments

Inside America's most dangerous national forest.
posted by WPW on Sep 5, 2009 - 44 comments

A short documentary on John Nese: Soda pop obsessive. His store Galco's in Los Angeles sells more than two-hundred kinds of soda pop, particularly favoring small-label, glass-bottled and cane-sweetened fare. Yay. [more inside]
posted by Bookhouse on Aug 28, 2009 - 47 comments

He lives somewhere in LA, looks like Michael Jackson and Barack Obama, loves rap, chess, nachos, movies and pizza, has some comic books to sell, and wants to meet white, Asian and Latina Ladies with big butts to give him money, be his sex slaves, or just help him with Things. Performance art project or genuine kook?
posted by acb on Jul 16, 2009 - 44 comments

RIP Julius Shulman, iconic photographer of modernist architecture.
posted by WPW on Jul 16, 2009 - 13 comments

An expose of non-vegan ingredients in pancakes at LA Vegan Thai inspired the QuarryGirl.Com writers to conduct their own extremely thorough investigation of LA vegan restaurants, testing their meals for traces of casein, egg, and shellfish. Over $1000 and a chain of interviews up to Taiwan later, they find that half the restaurants aren't as vegan as they claim, with half registering Positive or High and one registering Overload. Some restaurants vowed to conduct their own tests or requested further assistance; one banned them from the establishment.
posted by divabat on Jul 5, 2009 - 260 comments

Los Angeles is home to approximately 3.8 million people in 498.3 square miles (1,290.6 km²). There are plenty of reasons to hate LA, but there are also reasons to love the City of Angels. Hidden Los Angeles is a treasure map to the second largest city in the US, charting upcoming events, local trends, and in-depth features. [via mefi projects]
posted by filthy light thief on Jun 18, 2009 - 54 comments

Five galleries of candid and behind-the-scenes production photos of the Star Trek cast, crew, sets, and soundstages in and around Los Angeles, circa late 1960s. I particularly like this one. And this one.
posted by mattdidthat on May 10, 2009 - 30 comments

We've gotten all stupid over the Kogi taco truck. [more inside]
posted by univac on Apr 10, 2009 - 118 comments

Plastic bags are bad for the environment, right? Not according to the Plastic Bag Coalition, which created savetheplasticbag.com in order to help stop the demonization of the supermarket staple. Taking a firm stance, they have recently threatened to sue the city of Santa Monica for passing an ordnance banning plastic bags. This isn't the first time they've sued. [more inside]
posted by jabberjaw on Jan 15, 2009 - 52 comments

Real L.A. Noir. (Video/audio auto-plays). Los Angeles Times reporter Paul Lieberman has been chronicling the era of the LAPD Gangster Squad, a secret division of the department that tried to combat the mobs of Jack Dragna and Mickey Cohen in the 1940s and '50s. (Keep the cast of characters straight with this handy chart.)
posted by Bookhouse on Nov 1, 2008 - 9 comments

NextBus uses GPS to tell you the predicted time of the next bus. Google maps show buses in real time, and you can get updates on your phone/PDA. The coverage is limited to certain agencies within the US, so these other sites might be useful: Hopstop covers subways and buses in NYC, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, DC, and more. (mobile version) Google Transit has many US metro areas in addition to Canada, Europe, and Japan. (previously) Many more locations inside. [more inside]
posted by desjardins on Oct 21, 2008 - 36 comments

Why do Asian-American students achieve higher grades than Latino-American students? Despite the fact that the students come from the same socioeconomic background (median annual household incomes below $50,000 in working-class Los Angeles neighborhoods), Asian-American students disproportionately get better grades, attend AP courses, and go to college than their Latino-American counterparts. Students at Lincoln High School sit down for a frank discussion of why that is.
posted by jabberjaw on Jul 23, 2008 - 234 comments

Kristin's List. There are plenty of events guides in Los Angeles, but none has as personal a voice, as finely honed an aesthetic (the Neutra font is an inspired touch) or as discerning an eye as Kristin's. Her weekly emails and web listings are one woman's recommended sampling of the most interesting music, film, architecture, food, fashion, literary and unquantifiable events across the megalopolis. And so far, it's completely ad-free.
posted by Scram on Jul 21, 2008 - 30 comments

myopenbar.com (Chicago link) is a dandy little site that lets you know where to score free and/or cheap eats and/or drinks on any given night in your area (assuming 'your area' = NYC, SF, LA, Honolulu, Miami, or the aforementioned Chi-town). The places are rated, and visited personally by the website's bloggers, but who cares? It's free booze. [more inside]
posted by shakespeherian on Jul 15, 2008 - 6 comments

Drive-through trees, Olvera Street, Knott's Berry Farm, and lots of other images and postcards of California at Image Archaeology.
posted by optovox on Jun 28, 2008 - 5 comments

Los Angeles-based photographer Andrew Bush mounts a camera on the side of his car to capture freeway drivers in the southwestern United States. [more inside]
posted by dhammond on Jun 24, 2008 - 33 comments

The world's largest ball pit? 400,000 black plastic balls, one reservoir, thousands of happy goths. Other unusual things being filled with balls: the Spanish Steps, Rome, a co-worker's cube, San Francisco. (videos)
posted by Leon-arto on Jun 10, 2008 - 44 comments

Tent cities spring up in L.A. With foreclosures rates still rising, shantytowns have started springing up in Los Angeles.
posted by MythMaker on Mar 18, 2008 - 81 comments

On Skid Row is a five part video series about Skid Row in Los Angeles from GOOD Magazine. Introduction, Kids, Drugs, God, Afterword via y2karl's earlier via
posted by sleepy pete on Mar 16, 2008 - 9 comments

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark California. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi on Feb 5, 2008 - 33 comments

Opening a restaurant is not an easy way to get rich, but for 36 year old Lovie Yancey, an African American woman living in Southern Califoria in 1947, the gamble paid off. As founder of the Fatburger chain (warning - audio), Lovie is remembered as the creator of arguably the greatest hamburger in a nation obsessed with hamburgers. Lovie passed away Jan 26, at 96 years of age, and even if you're not a fan of her burgers, take a moment in tribute to a remarkable woman.
posted by jonson on Feb 4, 2008 - 34 comments

Meet The Crazy Robertson. The newest sensation at the center of Hollywood's fashion scene isn't a famous designer or starlet. It's a 56-year-old homeless man who spends his days dancing on roller skates. Check out his website, Myspace, and some of his sweet dance moves. There are some that find this not so cool.
posted by rooftop secrets on Nov 17, 2007 - 26 comments

Los Angeles Uber Alles. A passionate argument (by mefi's own bldblog, no less) for why Los Angeles is the greatest city in America. Dissenters, please see the more inside: [more inside]
posted by jonson on Oct 16, 2007 - 284 comments

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, formerly knows as King/Drew and forever known as Killer King, has shut its emergency room and will close in a week due to feds pulling its funding. The hospital near the Watts section of LA, best known for its incompetent staff and meaningless deaths was profiled here a few months ago. Local residents see the hospital as a symbol of freedom and don't want to see it go. (UpdateFilter)
posted by daninnj on Aug 16, 2007 - 28 comments

Crazy 4 Cult is a new exhibit coming to Gallery 1988, the Los Angeles art gallery that hosts the annual (and always great) IAm8Bit exhibit. Just as IAm8Bit uses videogames of the 1980s as the theme for the artists, Crazy 4 Cult is using Cult movies. For fun, the exhbit poster features a huge number of movie references - can you catch them all? Via.
posted by jonson on Jul 16, 2007 - 12 comments

Imagine being the mayor of Los Angeles, and after months (years, really) of rumored infidelity with an unknown woman, you finally decide to go public with news that you and your wife are officially separating. So you might ask yourself, as mayor, "How can I spin this story so as to minimize the damage to my reputation?" And it seems a good start would be to allow only one television network to cover your press conference live - hopefully, a network that is sympathetic to your political causes, and has a strong voice that will speak to your voting base as favorably as possible. So all was good in mid-June, when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa asked Telemundo to exclusively air the somewhat disastrous, but fairly well-contained, announcement of separation - which included a request for privacy, and a plea to respect the line that separates personal from political life. And that's when the proverbial shit hits the fan. A month later, Villaraigosa admits that the woman that anchors the 6 o'clock news on Telemundo - and announced the break-up to a national audience - is the woman he's being cheating with. Fox News also reports, and in keeping up with tradition, fucks up the pronunciation of his last name.
posted by phaedon on Jul 11, 2007 - 57 comments

A pedophile among us. Jack McClellan told us he's mapping out Southland events where little girls attend then posting them on his website. "Is that part of what drew you here to Los Angeles [...] the number of children?" "Yes." McClellan recently moved here from Washington state, having run a site called Seattle-Tacoma-Everett Girl Love for years, which offered tips on how to track children down and how to avoid getting caught by the police. He has never been arrested for a sex crime, so he is free to attend public events with children present, and live next to a school. It is currently not illegal to post a minor's personal information online. "I can understand the fear," he added. "I hope that what I'm doing is setting myself up as an example that it is possible to have these attractions and not be out of control." His site is hosted by the Canadian ISP Epifora. Here it is. [more inside]
posted by phaedon on Jun 11, 2007 - 148 comments

Yesterday, Design*Sponge added a city guide for Toronto to their small but growing list of Guides. The list also includes a Letter Press Guide, an Affordable Art Guide, a Gift Guide (2006), and guides for Brooklyn and LA.
posted by dobbs on May 12, 2007 - 9 comments

Re-imagining Los Angeles public transit: The ambitious vision of these transit advocates and amateur cartographers for an East-Coast style rail network in Los Angeles may seem too idealistic, but the map is still fun to look at. More on the history of LA public transport from the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library.
posted by bcveen on May 1, 2007 - 34 comments

Charles Phoenix's Disneyland Tour of Downtown Los Angeles... featuring Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. Feel like taking your own walking tour of Downtown? Here you go. But hey, why not stop and gorge yourself on a giant pancake breakfast at The Pantry first, just because? Open 24 hours a day, it hasn't closed since 1924 so the doors don't even have locks. Just like Disneyland!
posted by miss lynnster on Apr 21, 2007 - 25 comments

The Traveling Rings At Santa Monica Beach
posted by jason's_planet on Apr 5, 2007 - 12 comments

Burn Hollywood Burn. Some striking photos (from the BBC) of the conflagration that came a little too close for comfort to the iconic hillside sign. Some more details here.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Mar 31, 2007 - 19 comments

Blue Heaven: a tribute to Dodgertown. [ESPN link via]. Dodgertown in Vero Beach, FL became the spring training headquarters for the Dodgers and their many minor league teams in 1948. The site, which prepares the Dodger major and minor league clubs for the season, is being abandoned by the Dodgers for presumably less green pastures in Arizona. Voiceover narration is a bit maudlin, but the photographs are excellent.
posted by Tommy Gnosis on Mar 30, 2007 - 5 comments

A woman escaped injury when her car crashed through a fence and into a swimming pool on February 24, 2007 in Woodland Hills. (flickr. Via). Not the first time it happened either
posted by growabrain on Mar 12, 2007 - 34 comments

This gem got me thinking: Songs about a place. Some are more evocative of the geography, some of a tangential longing merely rooted in a place and others -- while about a place -- are really rooted more in a time. Some places immortalized in song you want to visit, others you don't , and others don't really exist at all, though we may know somewhere like it. But near or far, border to border, coast-to-coast (from the west side* to the east side and somewhere in the middle as well, there's musical pins all over the map. [links go to videos] *no direct link, second entry
posted by spacely_sprocket on Mar 3, 2007 - 16 comments

The Homicide Report, by Jill Leovy: An L.A. Times blog built on the list of homicide victims reported to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office each week.
posted by docgonzo on Feb 14, 2007 - 12 comments

"We're offering a fan amenity. Fans can elect to choose it or not choose it. We are offering basic ballpark fare that most fans enjoy." An all-you-can eat section at the Dodger stadium for the coming baseball season. Quintessentially American.
posted by jaimev on Jan 12, 2007 - 47 comments

was there just a second ago... Cop Watch LA, a police watchdog group, posted the video on YouTube, said organizer Joaquin Cienfuegos. Cienfuegos said the video was shot by a neighbor of Cardenas with a cell phone camera. The neighbor gave it to Cardenas' family, who then gave it to Cop Watch, according to Cienfuegos.
posted by Bravocharlie on Nov 11, 2006 - 83 comments

"Punk rock today is like Happy Days or Civil War re-enactment.” LA Weekly is sponsoring "14 and Shooting," an exhibit of west coast punk photos taken by Jennifer Finch, former bassist for L7.
posted by bardic on Nov 9, 2006 - 29 comments

Art of Bleeding: The first time Mr. Outerspace died, it was to serve the greater good of cleaning the Cacophony Society's gutters of useless hangers-on and lazybones. The second time, it seemed to serve no purpose at all. Some of us are hoping the third time will be the charm. You might not think you know his art, but you do. RIP Peter Geiberger, 1979-2006.
posted by Scram on Sep 22, 2006 - 4 comments

2 years ago I FPP'd FlavorPill, a company that sends out permission-based emails for books (Boldtype), music (Earplug), and fashion (the JC Report). They've since added ArtKrush (it's art, stupid! - nsfw) and Activate (world events) to their aresenal. In addition to the topic-specific mailing lists, they offer city-specific lists for London, New York, SF, LA, and Chicago. Sample issues are archived on the site.
posted by dobbs on Aug 11, 2006 - 6 comments

Tourists coming to Los Angeles usually visit the standard few spots; but there are some amazing urban ruins that even the locals are rarely aware of. From the original site of the Los Angeles zoo (abandonded cages & rock facades now) to the remains of the Sunken City, to the inexorably rusting hull of the 44 year old shipwrecked Greek freighter Dominator, L.A.'s forgotten places are tourist destinations for the intrepid, local & visitor alike. A PDF guide to how to find many of the best (including the Echo Mountain House & The Bridge To Nowhere) can be found here. Many links & inspiration via
posted by jonson on Aug 8, 2006 - 11 comments

Los Angeles in the 1900s is a collection of newspaper articles & photographs documenting life in L.A. from 1900 to 1909. Some of the articles are funny, some tragic, all informative about what life in the very young city was like prior to the explosive growth caused by Mullholland, the Film Industry, & the freeways.
posted by jonson on Jul 31, 2006 - 9 comments