Nanette Gonzales

Rabbi Mark Borovitz in his office at Beit T'Shuvah

It seems like the setup for a corny joke: A rabbi and an ex-con walk into a room. Except here's the punch line: They're one and the same.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz, 60, runs Beit T'Shuvah, a residential treatment center and Jewish congregation in an otherwise nondescript building in an equally average section of Culver City. And though he looks every bit the part now -- he has the gray suit, full beard, glasses, steady eyes, calm voice -- as a teen growing up in a lower-middle-class Jewish home in Cleveland, he didn't necessarily exhibit traits one associates with a rabbinical scholar. More >>

Tanja M. Laden

Wilshire Boulevard Temple

​
If you've ever cruised along Wilshire Boulevard between Western and Vermont, you've probably noticed a massive, domed structure at Hobart Avenue, kitty-corner to an indoor golf driving-range. That building is the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, aka the Best Jewish Reform Synagogue Built by Hollywood, according to our 2011 Best of L.A. issue.

You might have also noticed that, these days, the temple is covered in scaffolding -- signs the 1929 landmark is in the middle of a multimillion-dollar renovation. The large-scale extended project includes a cleaning and restoration of the Warner Murals, commissioned by none other than Jack, Harry and Albert Warner, otherwise known as the Warner Bros. The artist, Hugo Ballin, would have been a whopping 133 years old today, so what better time to revisit his work than the present?

More >>

Mike Ciriaco

OWBC founder AB, aka Mormon Rockwell of the Air Guitar scene

​

This past Sunday, the Westboro Baptist Church gagged on a spoonful of its own medicine. During its annual demonstration against the Academy Awards show in Hollywood, the homophobic religious group, notorious for its zealous protesting of military funerals, was itself the target of picketing by the aptly named Occupy the WBC organization, at Sunset Boulevard and Highland Avenue.

While the WBC brandished placards stating "God Hates Fags," "God H8s Media" and the more event-specific "Whitney in Hell," its political analogs countered with signs of their own. Messages ranged from the positive ("God Loves Everyone," "...And the Oscar Goes to Love"), to the confrontational ("F*** You Haters"), and even the facetious ("I Have a Sign Too"). The OWBC movement leader, who simply answers to the moniker AB, claims the WBC has earned their ire.

"Why not target the WBC?" AB posits. "If you are looking for the most fervent, destructive, vindictive, religious extremist group in America, it's them."

More >>

​Ever had questions about Hell, Satan or various and sundry demons? Then TV writer Martin Olson's Encyclopaedia of Hell: An Invasion Manual for Demons Concerning the Planet Earth and the Human Race Which Infests It will prove most edifying, as it sheds some much-needed comedic light on the dark side.

Purporting to be a detailed manual for demons who are invading the Earth, with a truly encyclopedic glossary of terms featuring often hilarious definitions, fastidious, Sears catalog-Gothic artwork by Tony Millionaire and Mahendra Singh and interesting cosmological stories and sidebars, the comedy is close-to-the-vest and sophisticated enough that the exceedingly pious and godly may still take offense at its flirtation with the Satanic and demonic.

More >>

Courtesy of JanetReitman.com

Janet Reitman

Every folding chair at Skylight Books in Los Feliz is taken, and standing-room folks jam into any available spot offering a sight line to the front.

The questions pop out.

"What is the political agenda of the church?" asks an audience member.

"What's their attitude toward homosexuality?" asks another.

A third adds: "How much does the average church member spend on texts?"

Even in 2011, Angelenos are fascinated by and fearful of Scientology, the organization started decades ago by philosopher-impresario L. Ron Hubbard.

The speaker this night is Janet Reitman, a tall, whippet-thin writer, who is discussing her book Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion. She is an accomplished journalist who has traveled the world in pursuit of stories and whose long piece on Scientology in the February 2006 Rolling Stone provided the seed for the book. She makes a strong point of the objectivity of her work.

More >>

The Buddhist Geeks conference is filled with, well, geeks. Who happen to be Buddhists. Who happen to be meeting on a recent Saturday for a conference in Rosemead to share their common afflictions.

There's nothing crunchy here -- no handwritten signs, no dreads, no Birkenstocks. These techno-literati share a common language. References to the Borg, World of Warcraft and HTML are tossed into discussion of Buddhist concepts of mindfulness, interdependence, the jhanas. Conference-goers share a belief that a full embrace of the dharma, or the teachings of the Buddha, isn't limited to Himalayan mountaintop hermits but can be a living, 21st-century experience, complete with Wi-Fi.

More >>

Paul T. Bradley

​
Boobs. There's nothing that spawns puerile imaginations and adolescent snickers more (except for maybe butts and butt-associated puns). So it's no surprise that Go Topless Day in Venice nabbed its fair share of gawkers and boob-struck stares. For a purely visual recap, please go see Keith Plocek's titillating (ugh, sorry) slideshow for some great NSFW boobage.

The pro-topless march, led by a smooth-talking gentleman in a bikini, hooted and hollered its way down the boardwalk with slogans like "Everybody say 'Equal Rights for Women and Men!' and "Free those boobies and Free Your Mind!" among others. Women sported rubber nipple covers and men, in support, wore bikini-tops festooned with political buttons.

More >>

Paul T. Bradley

Is Super Mario a Buddhist? Er...probably not...

​
While mooks gawked the nether parts of starlets all weekend long at Adultcon downtown, another, radically different group of conventioneers gathered at the University of the West in Rosemead to lube up their third eyes and wax philosophic on the state of modern Buddhism.

Buddhist Geeks, are not as the name may suggest, cosplay devotees decked in Shaolin monk robes or Jedi garb...they are instead the Western face of an eons old religion. They are teachers, psychologists, professional bloggers, scientists, lawyers, et. al. trying to reconcile and integrate an ancient and contemplative practice with a contemporary culture that seemingly values neither.

The group started as the brainchild of Vincent Horn and Ryan Oelke -- two Boulder, CO religious studies students -- in 2007. They started with a podcast geared towards techie dharma devotees and it has since grown into a digital magazine and now this, their first ever conference. Their podcasts have reached millions of downloads and the gathering itself drew a few hundred attendees -- including some that trekked from Europe and Asia. Oelke left the group a few years ago (though he was kind enough to come back for the conference and run sound).

More >>

It's a warm, bright Saturday down at the intersection of Pico Boulevard and Western Avenue, just below the bottom edge of Koreatown, and a kind of joyous street party erupts on all four corners of the major crossing. The crowd features people across a spectrum of ages, but with an emphasis on youth. They spill off the sidewalks onto the edges of the street, waving signs, gesturing wildly and yelling giddily to passersby, many of whom honk their horns in spontaneous assent.

The festive gathering seems as if it should be connected to a car wash or bake sale, but in fact this lively aggregation is a celebratory outreach, an attempt by members of a megachurch called Iglesias de Restauracion, located a couple miles away at Adams and Crenshaw boulevards, to reach the "unsaved."

More >>