Kevin Scanlon

The capital-A Art World loves its temple-esque grandeur and its Sotheby's auctions where Impressionist Painting Y or Futurist Sculpture Z sells for the price of a small island. Lately, L.A. has been on the ascendant in the art world, and fortunately, the city will always have its art makers who will work happily in the weird spaces where engineering and art make sweet bedfellows, where a parking garage displaces the opera house and where poppy seeds make for better artillery than bullets. And they're all in our 2012 People Issue.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

Two of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

Before she ended up milking cows at a boarding school in Vermont, Caroline Roman cycled through the doors of numerous prestigious schools in Los Angeles: Buckley, John Thomas Dye, Harvard-Westlake, Beverly High. None of it prepared her well for college. She went to Boston University, her safety school, and between trips to Europe was an indifferent student.

But her private-school upbringing gave her an elaborate network of friends. And that led to her current calling.

Roman, 35, is an online chronicler of the social life of L.A.'s Westside. Her website, the Daily Truffle, covers fashion, parties and politics from a native's perspective. Having grown up with the children of moguls and celebrities, Roman reports on their milieu with an insider's grasp.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

Considering she leads her own militia, Christy Roberts is surprisingly charming in person. The Upland native isn't exactly secretive about her plans for global rebellion, but then again, this former high school cheerleader is hardly your garden-variety survivalist.

For one thing, her California Poppy Militia is armed with seeds rather than bullets. Whenever it rains, Roberts and her nonhierarchal army commit not-so-random acts of benevolent sabotage by scattering poppy seeds in deserted public spaces throughout the state. What would seem at first to be a fairly innocent form of guerrilla gardening is actually an elaborate and provocative art project that works on several levels.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

RJ Mitte of Breaking Bad

Somewhere between the hyper-visibility of Vogue cover and the obscurity of straight-to-DVD, Hollywood has a small silver crescent of limelight reserved for those teetering on the brink of celebrity, and who happen to be legitimately talented. It's a nice place to be. Just ask these people: 10 people from our 2012 People issue you've never heard of who are changing what you watch.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

In 1993, Luis J. Rodriguez published a book about fighting his way through the mean streets of East L.A. He wrote about friends he'd lost to gang warfare, drugs he'd snorted, girls he'd screwed. And he wrote about how art, and activism, had saved him -- how they had helped him leave behind la vida loca. Called Always Running, it became a sensation, earning Rodriguez a six-figure paperback deal and selling a half-million copies.

Last year, Simon & Schuster published the sequel: It Calls You Back. Rodriguez's second memoir, which came after well-received volumes of poetry and fiction, focuses on the difficulty of fully abandoning la vida loca. Years after leaving it, he found himself still wrestling with its siren call.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

Two of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

On a Saturday night last year, 99 theatergoers sat in chairs that were a bit too small, with those flip-up school desk attachments dangling from the sides. Jay McAdams, the executive director of the 24th Street Theatre, took to the stage to introduce La Razón Blindada, a two-person play about Argentine political prisoners, which was named Production of the Year at the L.A. Weekly Theater Awards in 2011.

But McAdams speaks "pretty bad Spanish," he says, and the translator for his speech couldn't make it that night. So he asked if there was a Spanish-speaking audience member to help him. The volunteer evidently wasn't enthusiastic enough for McAdams, a former actor on Days of Our Lives and a theater producer for the past 20 years. McAdams tried to amp things up. "We're excited!" he said, pumping his fist. Then McAdams' cellphone rang. It was an actor backstage, asking if they could start doing the play already.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

Liz Meriwether

Yes, Los Angeles is wading in a profusion of comedic talent and is home to countless excellent comedy clubs (some housed in fish taco joints.) For our People 2012 issue, we zeroed in on six L.A. comedians who traffic in everything from sitcom writing to cartoons to YouTube videos.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

Two of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

The first time Isaac Aptaker and his partner, Elizabeth Berger, were on a professional soundstage together, everyone kept trying to take their clothes off.

"Hair and makeup kept coming up to us," Aptaker reports, "saying, 'OK, let's get you guys in your nude cover; let's get you guys in body makeup; your scene is probably coming up!' "

"They kept thinking Isaac and I were a couple," Berger interjects.

"And we had to be, like, 'No, we're not shooting a sex scene -- we're the writers,' " he says.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

Eight is considered a particularly lucky number in Chinese culture, so Bertha "Bert" Chan's 88th birthday on Feb. 8 should have signaled the beginning of her most fortuitous year. Instead, she found herself covered in shingles on New Year's Day and suffered a heart attack as soon as she had healed enough to return to her studio to resume teaching tap dancing. But Chan isn't hung up on age, and she doesn't exactly fit a traditional Chinese mold, either. "Chinese don't tap; they do martial arts," she quips.

Chan's dance practice is an age retardant. The muscle memory helps prevent dementia, she says, and she should know: She started tapping eight decades ago and still teaches classes for seniors six days a week at the Tap Academy in Santa Monica. The group of elderly hoofers often performs at retirement centers around the city, where, Chan jokes, "You can wear the same thing every time and they won't remember."

More »

Kevin Scanlon

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

When RJ Mitte first moved to Los Angeles at 13, he never imagined he'd be an actor. "Sometimes I think about where I'd be right now if I weren't doing this," he says. "I'd be on a boat somewhere. Fishing!"

It was 2006 when Mitte's family moved here from Louisiana in order to support his younger sister's work as a print model. But a talent manager found Mitte photogenic, and Mitte agreed to work with him in the hopes that it would help him meet new friends.

More »