Los Angeles News Blog

All the talking heads are saying that the key to Sarah Palin's success in Thursday night's Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden is to "let Sarah be Sarah."

I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I think the gist of it is that Palin has been over-managed by handlers who are stuffing her head with too much knowledge. And we all know a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Seems she does better in these setting when she knows less and is free to just let her stunning disposition shine. To put it another way, people like her when she's not trying to be knowledgeable. You could say she's on a need-to-not-know basis. I think it's about time we elected someone who doesn't know much. That would be a refreshing change.

Well, whatever they decide -- whether to try to fill her mind with useless stuff like knowledge, or not -- I do hope they give Palin one piece of advice. Stop wearing those Mother of the Children of The Corn, stiff-collar, hawk-neck, Amish prom dress type blouses. Particularly that red one. Put them away. They kill whatever tiny amount of kinky sex appeal is still left.

Unless you pick up a pitchfork to go with it. Then, I'm back in!

BY MARC COOPER

Here's the only tin-foil if not exactly the silver lining in yesterday's literally depressing economic news: Next year's bread lines will be administered by a Democratic, not a Republican, administration. You can bet on it.

For personal reasons (like now I have to work till I'm 113) I'm not going to dwell on the monetary side of yesterday's events.

Let's stick with the political. Get out your tops, mix-masters or even your cement trucks but there are ain't no possible way to spin this episode other than as a crushing and humiliating setback for McCain in specific and the Republicans in general. It's not just that McBumbler was taking credit for the deal before the deal imploded.

That, my friends, is but a mere detail.

On Monday, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa unveiled a $5 billion housing plan for the middle class and poor. Reaction to the plan was definitely mixed, and with good reason: According to the LA Times, "many City Council members and business and housing groups said they had not yet seen" it.

Like so many young actors after the ravages of puberty or the pitfalls of adulthood had rendered them into celebrity non grata, Linda Blair’s post-Exorcist acting career dove headfirst into low-budget exploitation like Roller Boogie (1979) and Night Patrol (1984, which partners her with Pat Paulsen and The Gong Show’s Unknown Comic). However, unlike such never-was cases as Richard Grieco or Christopher Atkins, Blair’s fallow period was actually kinda fun, and she took to the grimier material with a remarkable good cheer motivated either by financial appreciation or genuine let’s-put-on-a-show spunkiness. The best of her B-pictures, 1984’s Savage Streets and Chained Heat (1983), get a rare screening at the New Beverly Cinema’s Grindhouse Film Festival tonight, which has been keeping creeps and weirdos off the streets with prints of rare horror and sexploitation movies for the better part of the last five years.

Savage Streets (which also received a recent double-disc treatment from Code Red) has Ms. B copping the Runaways’ fashion sense and attitude as the leader of the all-girl Satins, a good-girl gang who run afoul of the Scars, a psychotic male gang who rape and butcher Linda’s deaf-mute sister (psychotronic saint Linnea Quigley) over a perceived slight. Blair’s all-grown-up (and decidedly va-va-voomish) frame is central to the imagery of the film’s second half; decked out in spandex tights and toting a crossbow, she invests herself whole-heartedly into her role as avenging street angel, and if you don’t entirely believe her, she’s at least awfully nice to look at. TV habitués will note the presence of Johnny Venocur, a.k.a. Johnny V, whose deep-rooted bromance with Scott Baio is one of the most curious aspects of the latter’s reality series.

Last week, the City's planning commission voted on a proposal that would tighten up the city's "specialty billboard district" laws. The plan to revamp the sign district ordinance came about after concerns that the city was frivolously granting too many sign districts to billboard companies.

The plan sets the minimum size of a billboard or sign district to one block or three acres, "which would have the effect of discouraging very small sign districts designed for one or two signs," says Dennis Hathaway, president of the Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight.

What would you think if you saw a Fed Ex logo made out of tulips as you were motoring along one of California's freeways? How about the Golden Arches made from yellow roses or buttercups along the shoulder of the road?

It turns out that putting "vegetative advertising" - a logo or advertisement made out of flowers, shrubs and other plants - along California's freeways is Caltrans latest plan to raise funds towards the financially strapped highway fund.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced this morning (well, if you don't count the New York Times and L.A. Times, both of which got the story last week for publication today) a $45 million donation from Stewart and Lynda Resnick. The gift will fund the building of a large new Renzo Piano exhibition space directly behind the architect’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM). The one-story building, 200 feet by 180 feet, will feature all natural light via a skylight system like that of BCAM, and is expected to house special exhibitions.

The announcement, held in a tent on the site, was made by LACMA director Michael Govan. (Okay, the CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, yadda yadda.) He introduced Lynda Resnick, who has been on the acquisitions board at the museum for 16 years. She credited Govan's leadership as being central to her and her husband's decision. Stewart Resnick said there were two reasons he decided to make the donation: "Number one, because Lynda wanted to do it."

At this point, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, sitting next to the podium, made an aside to Stewart Resnick, who laughed and said, "Antonio, who knows something about the relationship between men and women" – doh! – "says that's also the second reason." Stewart Resnick went on to add that Los Angeles had been very good to him, better than other places might have been, and that he believed in giving back to the community.

When the mayor spoke, he said how amazing it was that the Resnicks had accumulated so much wealth having started washing windows. Lynda Resnick, who was wearing a fetching gray outfit that suggested there are more millions where the 45 came from, immediately noted with a faint look of horror that it was not she who had done the windows.

The Yes on Prop. 8 campaign has released a new television ad today, featuring San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Frank Schubert, campaign manager of ProtectMarriage.com, the umbrella group leading the fight to ban same sex marriage in California, also asks supporters to donate $3.6 million in the coming weeks so TV ads can be aired throughout the state. The additional money would put anti-gay marriage proponents over the $20 million mark in total contributions.

Amidst the failed federal bailout and the ensuing stock market tumble, the media world had its own depressing contribution to today's news cycle. Tampa-based Creative Loafing, owners of the second largest alternative weekly chain in the country, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today.

The move comes just more than a year after Creative Loafing's purchase of the highly regarded Washington City Paper and Chicago Reader. Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason counters suggestions his company may have overstretched by insisting the chain's failure to pay nearly $500,000 in interest payments and service fees, which contributed to the filing, "has little to do with the acquisition."

Washington City Paper's Erik Wemple reports that the company has no immediate plans for "liquidation," or layoffs, and that the move even has its sunny side: "Cuts to edit staffs at all the papers would be rolled back."

Wemple goes on to report, however, that the chain will hereby follow a new editorial mandate that "stress[es] that all the papers should proceed with “Web-first” publishing strategies, in which writers and editors customize their content for the Internet and subsequently transfer that content into their print products."

For some reason this sounds ominous. As good as putting LOL cats on the front page seems, take it from the L.A. Times -- not the way to go.

They say people turn to comfort food in times of grief and, well, nothing proved more true in Los Angeles over the weekend. To ease the worry brought on by the current economic crisis and looming presidential election, we gladly welcomed a weekend of over-eating and over-imbibing. Check out what we ate, who wet met and what we drank...

Dodger Debauchery
The Dodgers started their weekend early as they celebrated their Western Division championship on Thursday night in Echo Park. Pitcher Chan Ho Park and shortstop Angel Berroa donned goggles and snorkel masks as they showered fans with Moet champagne. Read Mark Groubert's full account of the evening.


Photo by Mark Groubert.

Art About Bukowski
Saturday at the Hyaena Gallery in Burbank was the opening of Art About Bukowski, a group show dedicated to the life of Charles Bukowski. In addition to the 13-plus artists involved, the opening also showcased Weirdo Delux author Matt Dukes Jordan who signed copies of his new book Bukowski's L.A. Guests were treated to a surprise appearance from Bukowski's wife, Linda, who smiled and greeted artists as she checked out the many portraits done of her husband. Check out the slideshow here or click on the image below.


Artist Jeremy Cross and Linda Bukowski.

Precious Cheese Italian Feast of San Gennaro L.A.
Friday through Sunday marked the seventh annual Precious Cheese Italian Feast of San Gennaro on Highland in Hollywood, hosted by funny guys Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla. We ignored the creepy carnies while we drank Pironi beer, feasted on cannolis and boned up on our history of Italian-American culture in Los Angeles. Check out the slideshow here or click on the image below.


Photo by Shannon Cottrell.

Abbot Kinney Festival
On Sunday we took in the ocean air and enjoyed the swap meet vibe of the Abbot Kinney Festival in Venice Beach. Later that night the weekend ground to a sobering halt when news broke of a deadly shooting that occurred on Abbot Kinney and San Juan streets, almost three hours after the festival closed. For details, read Liz Ohanesian's account of her day in Venice. Check out the slideshow here or click the image below.


Photo by Shannon Cottrell.

At 9:20 p.m., almost three hours after Abbot Kinney Festival closed, a shooting occurred on Abbot Kinney and San Juan, killing one man and hospitalizing a woman. As of late Sunday night, no further information was available.

Organizers for the Abbot Kinney Festival make the claim that nearly 150,000 attend this annual street fair. That figure just might be accurate.

It took almost 40 minutes to find parking, and even then, the spot cost $10 and was an eight minute hike to the festivities. Inside the roped-off stretch of Abbot Kinney Boulevard, hordes of people sporting oversized sunglasses and miniscule dogs (yes, sometimes tucked into large shoulder bags) milled between rows of vendors hawking everything from handmade jewelry to Barack Obama t-shirts to mass produced clothing guaranteed to be out of style next summer and a few paintings thrown in for good measure. With 350 booths, the scene on Abbot Kinney was more swap meet than festival, albeit a swap meet without the piles of discounted tube socks and bootlegged DVDs.

Photograph by Shannon Cottrell. Click image for slideshow.

Thursday night at Chavez Ravine, a crowd of 52, 569 crazed cheerleaders came to celebrate something that had already happened five hours earlier. With the loss of the Arizona Diamondbacks to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Dodgers were automatically the winners of the Western Division and heading into the post season for the second time in three years. Apparently nobody bothered to tell Padres pitcher Jake Peavy, the legendary Dodger-killer who led his team to a 7-5 meaningless victory over the newly crowned champs.

Dodgers pre-game ceremony announcing they've won division.

BY MARC COOPER

What a shriveled tiny man John McCain turns out to be. And I don't mean physically.

I mean his soul.

Chris Matthews characterized McCain on MSNBC as a "troll" who was "angry at the world."

No kidding.

I am not the first to have noticed that in the first presidential debate, John McCain oozed contempt as he refused to as much as once even look at his opponent. And when Obama would differ with him on any issue of urgent seriousness, McCain would crack a condescending smile, a painful grimace as if someone was stuffing Freddie Mac up his arse.

There's plenty of spin out there so I'll keep it very, very short:

The first of nine alleged sexual assault victims began testifying against fashion designer Anand Jon Thursday. “Jessie B” told deputy D.A. Mara McIlvain she was an 18-year-old aspiring model from Lake Stevens, Washington, when, she was contacted on her MySpace page by Jon.

The trial of an alleged Avenues gangster is currently underway in a Los Angeles criminal courtroom. Nicolas Real is accused of pulling a gun on a family who accidentally drove their car through gang territory in Glassell Park.

Real, 26, is charged with two counts of assault with a firearm and other gun charges stemming from the June 2, 2007 incident.

My head is spinning and not just because this is the third time I've tried to write this. Unfortunately, as far as clarity and fresh thinking is concerned, my computer kept crashing as I pecked away at these thoughts last night, trying to make some sense of a dizzying day. Maybe my laptop was having some empathetic response to the banking crisis. Now I'm left feeling hungover and fuzzy. Probably like a lot of Washington Mutual customers.

More to the point, though, what can you say about a day like yesterday that begins with a walk in the park, literally, and ends with the largest bank failure in the history of the world? I don't have a brush wide enough for the strokes necessary to paint the picture of an average day in these times, one filled with blessings and a sense of impending doom. I wonder what's being taught in school, because I believe we're experiencing one of the most pointed lessons in civics in our time.

Let me start with how the day began. A beautiful day, like today. A couple friends and I took our dogs to Elysian Park and were treated to views of the San Gabriel mountains to the north and downtown Los Angeles to the south, which looked splendid peaking through the trees. The views were unfettered by clouds or smog. The whole magnificent metropolis spread out around us from the hills of the park. But there was something ominous in the air - a sense of uncertainty about what the day or the coming days would bring.

After the hike, I went to get what was left of my hair buzzed. My barber, Tony, is a hard-working immigrant who's made good. Tony doesn't suffer fools or bullshit. Once, a gang-banger tried to skip out on his bill and Tony locked him in and threatened to call the police until the kid paid up. Tony's old-school. And he's old. But his liver-spotted hands are still steady and he has a great chair-side manner. We discussed the financial system bailout that was all-but-agreed upon by mid-morning yesterday. Tony, who doesn't take credit cards and doesn't keep money in the bank, isn't in favor. Like a lot of "Main Street" Americans (whatever that is) he doesn't know why taxpayers should be on the hook for $700 million dollars to bail out Wall Street, which he think should be made to pay for its own sins.

I respect Tony immensely, but I have to disagree. If this was about bailing out Wall Street, I'd say "hell no" too. But it's not. This is a financial system bailout, not a Wall Street bailout. It's about whether or not in the coming days or weeks you go to the bank to withdraw some money to buy groceries, or whatever, only to have your ATM card chewed up and the machine blinking system error or you get your $60 and go on your way. It's about whether or not my neighbor, whom I went to the park with, can continue to draw the payroll for her small business from her bank. It's about whether or not the money you have in the bank in savings or checking accounts or CDs or IRAs or the like have any basis in reality and are not just empty promises. It's that fundamental.

Here's an example of how unnerved the system is. I have had a fairly significant, relatively speaking, wad of cash in the bank for more than a year -- the result of selling a home I'd have rather kept. It's been just sitting there earning some small level of interest. I've basically ignored it because of some antipathy towards to the nature of how it came to be.

Yesterday, concerned that all that I have to show for a lot of work and some heartache might be gone if the banks fails, I decided to spread it around to other banks so it's at least covered by FDIC insurance. When I asked my bank for two sizable cashier's checks (I'd still be leaving a decent sized account with it), the manager nearly cried. I'm not kidding. It was as if i were breaking up with her. I felt bad. She felt bad. We both kind of understood.

Then, I walked across the street to another big bank and presented them with one of the cashier's checks and said I'd like to open an account and make a deposit. They almost didn't seem to understand. What was this thing before them? Someone with money... to put in a bank? A deposit? Liquid funds? It didn't quite compute. They were very happy. Same with the next bank, which got an even larger deposit. The bank nearly shut down to attend to me. I think they made a documentary of the whole transaction so they'd have something to use as a learning too for employees who have never seen such a thing.

Somehow I, who is less adept financially than a piece of wood had become that rarest of things -- a person with money. And that's the problem. Nobody has money. Everybody has debt. Collectively, our debt far outweighs our cash. And the fundamental law of physics, when it comes to finances, is that cash goes to debt. Thus the crisis -- there's not enough cash and way too much debt. And our banks to some extent are merely the institutions that hold our cash and our debt. So, if, as Tony and others say, we let the market run its course, there will soon be no cash in our banks. And, like Washington Mutual, they will collapse and your checkbook and ATM card stand a pretty decent chance of becoming souvenirs of ancient times.

By the way, I'm not sure my attempt to find FDIC coverage for my little nest egg is anything more than psychological, or stupid. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has enough assets to handle about half of the deposits it's on the line for.

So, as hard to digest as this bailout is, the calculus is pretty simple. But apparently not simple enough to be above exploiting by a political system that's become disingenuous at it's core. Instead of showing leadership by pushing Republicans to put politics aside and work towards the agreement, John "I'm In Charge Here" McCain uses the event for an almost comical stab at political theater. It would be comical if the joke weren't going to be on us. If ever you needed an example that this guy puts himself above the welfare of the country, this has been it.

McCain's been trying to exploit the situation in every way possible -- to delay his inevitable pummeling during the debates, to fog over his extreme complicity in the unchecked, trickle-down, greed-is-good, deregulating, securitizing, privatizing, bullshit brand of capitalism that got us into this -- and make himself look like a white knight. Instead he looks like a buffoon and was all but called that yesterday by those who are seriously trying to salvage this mess.

Churches across California are pulling out the stops, according to a recent Associated Press report, by praying and fasting for the next 40 days for the passage of Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage ballot measure. The faithful are reportedly planning to subsist on soup and juice, and then gather in San Diego for a tent revival of sorts three days before Election Day in November.

“This is not political to us," Jim Garlow, the pastor of the evangelical Skyline Church in San Diego County, told the AP. "We see it as very spiritual.”

BY MARC COOPER

Call me naive or even delusional, but I think we can surmise the political implications of McCain's transparent campaign-suspension gimmick. I'm standing by my view that these past two weeks we have witnessed the implosion of his campaign. The American people take this catastrophic threat to their economic security far too seriously to be toyed with so blatantly by a desperate and failing McCain-Palin campaign.

Adam Nagourney and Elizabeth Bumiller say all you need to hear:

"Senator John McCain had intended to ride back into Washington on Thursday as a leader who had put aside presidential politics to help broker a solution to the financial crisis. Instead he found himself in the midst of a remarkable partisan showdown, lacking a clear public message for how to bring it to an end.

"At the bipartisan White House meeting that Mr. McCain had called for a day earlier, he sat silently for more than 40 minutes, more observer than leader, and then offered only a vague sense of where he stood, said people in the meeting.

Twelve years ago, Joe Torre was hired by the New York Yankees to manage a team that was expected to be a contender, but not necessarily the next world champions. In his first year, Torre made all the right moves, and with some dramatic hitting in the World Series against the Atlanta Braves--Yankee fans will never forget Jim Leyritz's home run in game 4--the Bronx Bombers won another championship.

Today, Joe Torre and his team have the chance to win the National League West Division and head into the playoffs. If the Arizona Diamondbacks lose today, the Dodgers will automatically clinch. If the D'Backs win and the Dodgers win, Big Blue will also clinch a playoff berth. A dramatic collapse by the Dodgers seems very unlikely, especially with Joe Torre at the helm.

This week, the Los Angeles Business Journal explains how the trickle down economics of the country's financial crisis may hurt LA...as well as some of its wealthiest citizens. Billionaire Eli Broad, who's a major shareholder of American International Group, the insurance company that the federal government wants to stabilize through its reported $700 billion bail out plan, has been particularly susceptible to the crunch, according to the newspaper.

The Schwarzenegger administration is considering advertisements on freeway signs used for Amber Alerts and other emergencies.

The advertisements would be posted on 674 electronic roadside message boards according to the LA Times. The funds raised – estimated at millions - would go towards the financially strapped highway fund.

There were moments when listening to journalist Chuck Klosterman read from his debut novel, Downtown Owl, inside Book Soup felt like watching a performance from the late comedian Mitch Hedberg. It was all in the pacing, with a simple pause and a slight shift in pitch turned simple observations into one-liners that drove the crowd to riotous laughter.

In Downtown Owl, Klosterman finds beauty in the ordinary, weaving together three different experiences-- those of rock music-hating teenager Mitch, new teacher Julia and widower Horace -- of life in the fictional small town of Owl, North Dakota. As with the non-fiction pieces that have made Klosterman an icon amongst music geeks and pop culture freaks, he does this by highlighting his subjects’ eccentricities in a thoughtful fashion-- never mocking, never condescending.

Photograph by Shannon Cottrell.

The Klosterman event was part of September 23rd’s double-header at Book Soup completed by an appearance from noted director Spike Lee. Promoting his upcoming film Miracle at St. Anna and the just-released screenplay, which look at the Buffalo Soldiers of World War II Italy, Lee fielded a handful of questions prior to the book signing. These ranged from background details of the film shoot to matters of race and war to his thoughts on the Yankees. It was the Yankees questions that seemed to perk up Lee.

Prior to the event, L.A. Weekly had the opportunity to catch up with Chuck Klosterman for a few questions.

Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigators were perplexed by a rash of arson fires around the neighborhood of Los Feliz in early June. The dozen or so rubbish fires were started in trashcans near bus shelters and were put out immediately by city firefighters.

Investigators caught a break later that month after a fire chief driving around Los Feliz for clues happened upon a rubbish fire slowly burning in a trashcan near Louise’s Trattoria on Los Feliz Boulevard. The culprit was nowhere to be found. However, a witness saw a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a copy of the LA Weekly sticking out of his back pocket leaving the scene.

Rant Alert: Be warned, this is a rant.

We don't give President Bush enough credit. Seriously, we have failed to give him his proper due. Here we thought his culture, philosophies (if you can call them that), politics and policies were just wrecking the country. Turns out, they were on the verge of wrecking the entire world.

At least that's what all the smart people gathered together to figure out some way to bail us out of this current financial mess are saying. Of course, the way it's going to be bailed out is by foisting more debt on cash strapped Americans, thus ensuring that we're cash strapped for generations to come. That is, if the entire house of cards doesn't come melting down like the polar ice caps that finally show in stark relief that global warming is real, unless you're of the Palin crowd and don't believe in global warming but do believe humans once rode dinosaurs like horses.

Yes, this crisis is real and more banks will fail, just like more Manhattan-size ice floes will break off and melt into the ocean. And before you know it, nobody's going to be able to afford to visit those saddle-backed Stegasours at your Creationism Museum.

The thing is, things will get worse before they get better and nobody's saying when they'll get better, only how worse they could get if we don't do this $700 billion bailout. Which is kiss all your money goodbye, your ATM card will only be good for picking locks or food out of your teeth worse. And they might get that bad anyway. Nobody knows and that's the truth.

Sure this is about sub-prime lending and securitization and deregulation, etc., but mostly it's about culture coming home to roost. And it's a no-accountability, instant-gratification, incompetence-loving, corrupt, cronyistic, arrogant, ignorant culture that has been allowed to run wild in the Bush years.

We are all complicit. Why haven't we been marching in the streets for years?

The Los Angeles Business Journal published an article yesterday about the city’s billboard ban, which exempts itself and a few large billboard companies.

The article focuses on two lawsuits filed by two smaller billboard companies that are suing the city of Los Angeles for – among other things - granting exemptions to its 2002 billboard ban to “favored” companies. The lawsuits also challenge the city’s “unfettered right to erect new outdoor ads on its property while prohibiting competition from doing the same.”

On Monday evening, three and a half hours after Variety reported that movie director Steven Speilberg had donated $100,000 to the "No on Prop. 8" campaign, Rabbi Elazar Muskin turned over his synagogue, Young Israel of Century City, to supporters of the anti-gay marriage ballot measure. Under Muskin's direction, according to its own web site, Young Israel "has become one of the fastest growing Orthodox synagogues in the West Coast." It was also apparently joining forces with a mostly Christian movement to ban same sex marriage in California.

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse speaks at Young Israel of Century City synagogue on Pico Boulevard.

BY MARC COOPER

I was around a lot of gloomy Democrats today who are more or less convinced that McCain's got this thing in the bag.

They came to me looking to get cheered up because I've been writing columns to the contrary. In the end, of course, I don't know. I can only guess.

But one of my arguments or, better said, talking points is this: Yes, you can say that something is awry because Obama ought to be up 20 points in the polls. Or you can take the opposite tack, one I've been pointing out, and say: "Here we have John McCain. A long-time senator. A bona fide war hero in a time of war. Someone who has indeed showed moments of great independence from his party. And yet, he's running a couple of points behind a 47-year-old, black freshman senator whose middle name is Hussein. So, exactly who is in trouble here?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21dowd-sorkin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The sexual assault trial of fashion designer Anand Jon turned uglier today amid disclosures that the sister of prosecution background witness “Kristin S” was contacted over the weekend in North Carolina by an anonymous caller who told the sister that Kristin was missing, and who then asked the woman if she knew Kristin’s whereabouts. The female caller hung up, prompting Kristin’s parents to ask their daughter to return from Los Angeles, where she is scheduled to testify against Jon this afternoon.

While Brad Pitt's $100,000 contribution to the "No on 8" campaign made big news last week, the larger money picture for the anti-gay ballot measure doesn't look so good for opponents of Proposition 8, and may be why gay and lesbian activists are still concerned about defeating the proposed gay marriage ban.

I've never welcomed a Monday with more relief. Over the weekend, pre-Emmy parties on Friday and Saturday crowded Hollywood, while the actual ceremony on Sunday at the Nokia made living downtown a pain the ass for anyone like me who wasn't glued to a television. Plus, we got a shock Saturday morning when news broke of Travis Barker and Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein's tragic Learjet crash that left the two in critical condition and killed four others. Los Angeles was a mess this weekend; it's a surprise Angelenos wanted to leave the house at all. But the L.A. Weekly did, and here's what went down.