LA Weekly

As the airline industry collapses in on itself faster than the top speed of a Concorde, there are still a couple of non-frustrating things about a visit to LAX. Not the traffic, the prices, the ridiculous security lines and beaten-down airline employees. Not the new arcane rules of packing shampoo, or throwing away your bottled water to repurchase it from a "safe" airport vendor... No, all of that remains truly awful, getting worse all the time, and if you're headed out of town this weekend by plane, good luck to you.

What's still wonderful about LAX is the unimaginatively named Theme Building. Sitting in the center of the airport, like the eye of a hurricane, it's oddly quiet there, even at the airport's busiest hours. At least it is if construction work isn't being done at the moment.

Last February, a 1,000 pound chunk of stucco fell from one of the building's four legs, prompting the closure of the building and its restaurant.

Currently, all of the stucco has been stripped away from the legs to be replaced as part of the $14 million dollar renovation. The Encounter restaurant inside the dome is also open again, (though it wasn't when I visited last week, so you get ground level only photos). While the restaurant itself still has a gaudy Tomorrowland feel to it since its own facelift in 1997, there's still no better bar at LAX to relax your visiting guest after what was no doubt a harrowing flight, before forcing them into another nailbiter on the 405 or 105.

The scaffolding has created an elaborate exo-skeleton of 90-degree angles covering the now-skinny exposed metal legs of the Theme Building. It's all the more odd, since the structure itself lacks almost any right angles.

And though we're coming up on a year and a half since the building was closed, it's good to see work being done to preserve and restore an iconic LA structure, rather than just let it rot, or tear it down and start again.

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By Pandora Young

I have loved Arianna Huffington since she was the voice of the right wing on KCRW's Left, Right & Center. I loved her before I knew she was a gorgeous red-headed Amazon with some serious junk in the trunk. I fell in love with her shrill, heavily accented voice as she berated her helpless, liberal, weenie-boy co-hosts.

I would have fallen in love with that voice if it had belonged to a cockroach sitting atop a pile of dung. But when I learned she was hot, that she was getting a divorce from her homosexual, would-be-governor husband, that she was becoming a liberal, that she was super-wealthy, that she was a power-hungry bitch intent on world domination, well... I loved her more.

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And so begins LA Weekly's last day in Hollywood. Sunny, 72 degrees... 12 minute commute. As of Monday LA Weekly will be run out of offices nestled into the on-ramp of the 405 on the outskirts of Culver City with convenient access to the only store left in America that still sells Murphy Beds.

Here are a few things that I for one will miss about being in Hollywood. (The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the management of Village Voice Media.)

In no particular order....

Well, superheroes for one thing. And Christopher Dennis in particular. When I first started working in Hollywood 15 years ago (at Bong Load Records), I remember seeing shock and horror form on the faces of Australian and Japanese tourists as they got off he bus in front of the Chinese Theater. They traveled thousands of miles for this? Filth, abandoned buildings, dilapidated theaters and some downright aggressive homeless people - and that was before the sun went down.

Now, for better or worse, Hollywood is a lot closer to what they imagine they're going to see, and there's no better ambassador than Superman. Star of last year's excellent documentary, Confessions of a Superhero, Christopher Dennis is the de facto spokesman for the costumed actors who hang out on Hollywood Blvd. He's a kind, sweet guy, who always will make time to talk to you. While I took this picture at least half a dozen kids gathered around him, stunned, waiting to shake Superman's hand. Also coming up close as a favorite is the guy who plays Jack Sparrow, who really does look disturbingly like Johnny Depp. Craig Gaines wrote about him last year.

Photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

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All day long at 3700 Wilshire Blvd., between Oxford and Serrano Aves. there will be live music on a solar-powered stage, as well as a bike raffle.

Michael Franti of Spearhead plays at 4 p.m., a yoga session at 3:30, Chris Pierce at 2:30, Latin music from Cava at 1:30 and lots more, including Balinese Monkey Chants. Click here for the full list.

Besides the music, there are tons of kids events scheduled: green magicians,Super Dogs, puppet shows, and even more Balinese Monkey Chants. Kids' schedule here.

And not for kids, is learning about "green" sex toys and "natural" lubes from the folks at Babeland. And there's something about a sex-positive bike tour and craft night there too.

If you can wait for the weekend, C.I.C.L.E. hosts an Urban Forest Bicycle Ride for Pasadena's Greening the Earth Festival. More info at Envirolink.

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I'm pretty much caught up on The Wire. After weeks of avoiding Slate's discussion and bickering with David Simon about plot points and cutting out the 12 page New Yorker article that I didn't want to read until after I had finished season four on DVD, I felt pretty good. For the first time since the show began, I'm pretty well caught up with the story line as it's playing out.

Then our features editor Tom Christie asked me, "Did you see what the Times did today? They gave away a major plot point to The Wire!" Tom is still stuck early on in season four and all of my conversations with him are peppered by him saying, "Don't tell me!" Any conversation at parties or dinners about The Wire is politely prefaced with "What season are you on?" so you don't actually give away a character's death.

As Tom continues talking I didn't realize the Times article he was talking about had given away a major point of the episode that ran on Sunday night.

Tom continued, "Right in the headline! they said that ... gets murdered!"

Then I yelled. Too late. I'd heard him say it, and now I've been robbed too. I haven't seen the most recent episode. I didn't know I'd have to sequester myself from the LA Times and editors still watching season four.

Don't read past here if you haven't seen Sunday's episode (that ran on Jan. 27, 2008 so there isn't any confusion). See what I did right there? I warned you. You'll not find that simple courtesy in the Times today.

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They are the modern versions of monster stories.

True Crime writers seek out such tales every day, finding them in two sentence-long police blotter blurbs, law enforcement sources lamenting the one that got away, or victims looking for justice. They pile on hours of research and interviews, building a case while crafting a narrative. But unlike campfire tales, these monster stories cannot be embellished. The tale must be told straight. And as you will read in this collection, no amount of creativity can rival the treachery and depravity of the non-fiction world.

This year's tales include two internet identity hoaxes ending in mental torture or tragedy. One traces the final steps of a civil rights pioneer who vanished almost 70 years ago. Another outlines a daughter's slavish devotion to her criminal mother. A G-man turned criminal. A serial killer brought to justice. A crack-maker turned cake baker. A monster who gets his due.

These are the stories of the darker side of American life, told in Village Voice Media's newspapers across the country. —Compiled by VVM Staff

"Monster Next Door," by Malcom Gay, is the tale of Michael J. Devlin, who kidnapped two boys, one of whom lived with him for an extended period of time.

In "Broken Lives on Crystal Drive," Keegan Hamilton learns the tale of Lori Drew, a 47-year-old woman who used a fake MySpace profile to mentally torture her teenage neighbor, Megan Meier, who wound up committing suicide.

Josh Olson describes a twisted story of internet love and betrayal "The Life and Death of Jesse James," by Josh Olson.

R. Scott Moxley documents a sensational gang murder trial that puts infamous Southern California criminal Billy Joe Johnson on the witness stand in "White Power with a Lisp."

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"Ho ho ho, Bush must go! Santa wants peace for Christmas!" shouts the jolly guy on roller blades as he zips by the Hotdog on a Stick stand.

A nice lady who lives near Santa Monica's Chess Park lays a tin of Almond Roca next to Terry, who keeps his eyes on his game. Other homeless folks and chess junkies aren't shy.

A couple gets cozy by the crashing waves.

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"What kinda horn you got on that thing?" Ben Watkins yells into his megaphone as a bus crawls to a stop before Fox Studios' main gate.

The bus driver grins back and lets 'im have it, and a loud, low bleat lets loose. Around Watkins, the some 200 TV and movie writers assembled wave their union issue strike signs and cheer.

"Let Hollywood know you believe in fairness! Honk those horns!" screams Watkins, a writer for Burn Notice (never heard of it? Me neither). Passing cars and trucks heed him, and show the Writers Guild of America some love. These protesters were up at 9 a.m. and will be picketing till around 1 when another batch comes in to relieve them.

It's a pretty cut-and-paste rally for a slice of the studios' internet profits over in West LA. We kept an eye out for some creative posters, but nothing but the union signs were being hoisted into the air. (Boo! C'mon, creative people!) Nikki Finke posted some photos of the East Coast rally over at her blog, and it looks like a similar scene over there (though they appear to have a marching band of some sort pumping energy into the strike).

"Today we're just letting people know we're out here," said Erich Hoeber, WGA studio captain. "The longterm goal is to shut down production across Hollywood until we get a contract."

More photos of the strike here. Full coverage over at Deadline Hollywood Daily.

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