Star Foreman

Bermudez, left, and Rabe at Bermudez Projects

*Check out our entire 2013 Couples Issue here

John Rabe, 46, and Julian Bermudez, 38, met at the close of a sunny day in Malibu in 2001, when separate afternoons spent sunbathing on the shores of El Matador beach led both to the Friendship on West Channel Road. The nautical-themed watering hole, one of L.A. County's oldest gay bars, was a popular alternative to the club-heavy scene in West Hollywood, Rabe recalls. You could go just to talk, not necessarily to hook up.

Established in 1937, the bar's history ran deep — most of the structure had been ruined in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, but the original old keel, salvaged from a shipwreck in the 1930s, remained over the bar, carved with the names of men who'd shared drinks there. By the time the bar closed a few years ago, most of the names had been painted over in white — a ritual memorial to customers who'd died.

Long before Rabe and Bermudez met, Christopher Isherwood, who lived nearby in Santa Monica Canyon, depicted the landmark affectionately in his novel A Single Man, "down on the corner of the ocean highway, across from the beach, its round green porthole lights shining to welcome you."

Rabe bought Bermudez a $1 burger, and they were a half-hour into their first chat when the friend Bermudez had arrived with decided he was ready to go home. Rabe insisted that Bermudez give him his number first. "And don't give me a fake one," he said.

Bermudez's friend warned him not to get involved with the tall Midwesterner. He was obviously a hustler, he cautioned. But Bermudez ignored him. "You have a bad track record with boys in general," he thought. "I'm not going to follow your advice. I'll go with my gut."

The men dated exclusively from the beginning. Eleven years later and now happily married, "It's the world's longest hustle," Rabe jokes.

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Photo by Nanette Gonzales

Tom Leykis in his Burbank studio

"There were a lot of greedy home flippers!" radio talk-show host Tom Leykis exclaims into the microphone. "Everyone who got evicted got exactly what they deserved. They didn't evict enough people."

Leykis is blasting what he considers the avaricious, irresponsible impulses of those participating in the real estate mortgage boom -- and subsequent bust.

"When I saw houses in Palmdale going for $500K," he continues, on-air, "I knew something was wrong. If you got foreclosed, I don't feel sorry for you!"

Until just a few years ago, Leykis worked for CBS-owned KLSX 97.1 FM in Los Angeles, syndicated to cities across America through Westwood One. Hosting an eponymous national show for more than a decade, Leykis was one of the most successful -- and highly paid -- nonconservative hosts in the history of American radio.

Today, though, Leykis is off the air -- and on the Internet. Broadcasting from a studio concealed behind an old-school east Burbank storefront, he opines daily from 3 to 7 p.m. at newnormalnetwork.com, an online radio network he owns outright. And he couldn't seem more content.

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Illustration by Jimmy Geigrich

"Stephen, how's your eye?" Ethan Lindsey asks.

It's 3:30 a.m. Outside in downtown Los Angeles, it's the dead of night, but inside the Frank Stanton Studios on Figueroa Boulevard, it's the heart of the work "day" for the Marketplace Morning Report overnight shift. And things are bustling.

While most of the world sleeps, Lindsey, the show's 34-year-old producer, spearheads a close-knit team of six, which churns out seven newscasts and more than 40 minutes of original programming nightly. This is the fast-paced world of public radio: There's no time to be tired when 5.9 million listeners depend on you for the morning news every week.

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Doug Sadler

Host Howard Kremer, guest Zach Galifianakis and co-host Kulap Vilaysack fart up, err chart up the room on the podcast Who Charted?

As the Buggles once forecasted in their 1980s pop single: "Video Killed the Radio Star." Today, it's more accurate to say that the podcast resurrected the radio star, or more specifically, the comedian.

Over the last three years, podcasts have become a platform for comedic artists to extend their brand and service fans in the boonies. But now they're looking like a calling card for bigger projects.

On Sunday at 11 a.m., KCRW began airing 10 weekly episodes of WTF With Marc Maron, a podcast numbering 200 episodes that has been a therapy chair for funny people. We take a look at the top 10 comedy podcasts, many of which are fresh, some of which are old shoes.

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Gabriel Cifarelli

Last night the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA brought art into the streets, though not necessarily with the exhibition, "Art in the Streets," which, contrary to its title, shows art in a museum. Rather, with In Your Car, a participatory sound project by the art collective NPR (Neighborhood Public Radio), which managed to make, out of unpromising symbols of suburban isolation -- the automobile and the parking lot -- a sociable, freewheeling evening, and, more importantly, a wonderful racket.

Organized by Engagement Party, MOCA's arts-collective-in-residence program, In Your Car turned its audience into the performers of a polyphonic parking lot orchestra. Participants entered lot seven (free parking, by the way, and while NPR clearly encourages community-based practices, free parking verges on utopian) and drove past a momentarily confused parking attendant (why were these people coming to an "engagement party" so under-dressed?). The far edge of the lot, right in front of the museum, was reserved for the performance. First come, first chair.

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