Best Posts of the Week

Kelly Clancy

Lionel Boyce

Let's start by bringing you up to date on our new columns. If you haven't yet, be sure to check out Odd Future member Lionel Boyce's Thoughts From A Random Black Guy, which began last week. In this edition, he talks about his surf god past. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll buy a wet suit.

We also launched Fuck Guilty Pleasures, a column dedicated to owning up to our crappy corporate preferences. In this edition, Ben Westhoff admitted to not being ashamed of his love for Avril . Bold.

Shea Serrano, meanwhile, broke out his highly scientific technique to determine Why This Song Sucks. In this instance, it was Birdman's "Y. U. Mad," featuring Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne. What other songs suck? Well, most of the ones that Glee has reworked. Phillip Mlynar listed the five worst. We personally would have added Gwyneth's defiling of Prince, but in any case God bless him for sitting through those episodes.

Meanwhile, we got all punk on everyone's asses. Javier Cabral wrote the definitive run-down of the East L.A. backyard punk scene, and also offered up his top five eastside backyard punk bands. Glorious. A little more sedate, but no less compelling, was Molly Bergen's account of Bon Iver at The Shrine. Andrea Domanick, for her part, enlightened us on how Wavves managed to get kicked out of both the VMAs and Lil Wayne's afterparty, and visited frontman Nathan Williams' house, the one he shares with his Best Coast GF.

A visiting friend once commented, "All the best bars in L.A. have no windows, and are red-lit." True, some of our favorite haunts are hidden in modest, bricked-up buildings tucked between glitzy clubs. Lina Lecaro lamented the demise of The Spotlight Bar, a "delightfully crummy place" with cheap drinks and colorful characters.

But just as one old bar exits, another gets a makeover. At the beginning of the week, Lecaro broke the news that gringos will now be going into Los Globos instead of just parking in front of it. Don't worry, the Latin music mainstay will keep three nights of Spanish music, and on those nights, the wonderfully weird pricing system as well -- seven bucks a drink, no matter what the drink.

And what of the new nights in Los Globos? Oh, Obama's DJ will be throwing the old-school hip-hop party AFEX there every Thursday night. As Ben Westhoff discovered, DJ Adam 12 is being pulled closer into the president's circle. No word yet if we can expect the big O at Los Globos.