Photo by Ned Raggert via Flickr Those of you still looking for something to do this weekend, who also want to somehow combine this weekend-something-doing with music, leftist politics and dancing are in luck. The feisty internet agitators at Kill Radio are holding another fundraiser, this one at the Echo Curio, Saturday night (January 26 if you're nasty) at 9 PM. For a small donation (just 5 to 10 rapidly devaluing American Dollars,) you'll......

UK punk band, The Gallows, play at the Troubadour tonight | Photo by Michael/www.attheshow.org Punk rock from London and Toronto at the Troubadour, Frenchies visiting Spaceland, and Reggae Dub at Echoplex -- we've got an internat'l flair going on here. You can also be overly hip and cool at The Roxy (one artist, A-TRAK, is from Montreal). Gallows, This Is Hell, Cancer Bats @ Troubadour The Teenagers. Run Run Run, Mostly Bears @ Spaceland......

Here is a self-portrait of Watt braving the frigid January waters off of San Pedro in the 37th annual Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears Plunge on New Year's day. As far back as anyone can remember, an informal New Year's day swim has been led by lifeguards or the Dept of Parks and Recreation at noon off of Cabrillo Beach. In 1953, John Olguin and Jack Cheaney started the Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears. John's wife, Muriel......

LNA was rained out this morning, but we're back with a quick update ... #5 UCLA 76, #24 Stanford 67 - The Bruins sent a clear message about who's atop the pecking order in the nation's toughest conference. Josh Ship led the way with 21, followed by Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook with 15 apiece. The Cardinal came into the game with a 7 game win streak. Cal 92, #22 USC 82 - The Trojans......

With the regular season of the NFL coming to an end, what have we truly learned? 1. Perfection is Possible! The New England Patriots join the ranks of the 1972 Miami Dolphins and the 1942 and 1934 Chicago Bears teams. However they are the first to do this with a 16 game schedule (the other teams did it on a 14, 11 and 13 game schedules respectively). It may be tempting to call this......

For those of us not stuck on the 15 to Vegas, here's what's going on around town tonight: FILM The So Bad It's Good Film Fest presents the movie that showed how crazy Joan Crawford really was: Mommie Dearest. But it's "Faye Dunaway's over-the-top performance in the lead role has become legendary." There are prizes for the best Joan Crawford costume at the show: dinner for two at Saddle Ranch Chop House and a guest......

I've always been intrigued by other "best of" lists, but this year I decided to take it to a whole new level. I e-mailed a handful of bands that I've seen this past year in order to unearth what exactly captivated them in '07. As music listeners, it is our duty to take a keen interest in our favorite musician's influences. After all, they rocked our little world, might as well see what rocked their......

With week 5 done in the NFL season, what have we learned so far? Thing learned the first: Norv Turner really isn’t that great a head coach. Granted they beat the Chicago Bears in week 1, but to lose to the Kansas City Chiefs who still have a question at quarterback is inexcusable. Thing learned the second: Rex Grossman is bad. True the ole ball coach Steve Spurrier named him Sexy Rexy, but he’s......

I’m a huge Chicago Bears fan, and my friends saw the terrible pain I was in watching the Superbowl this year. After that loss it pained to me to make the prediction that the Bears would be in a lot of trouble this season. The fact that it has come true makes me feel like I’m passing a kidney stone. Just like Grady Little was obstinate in keeping Nomar Garciaparra at first base this......

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers......

I know our city hasn’t had an NFL team in over a decade, but that doesn’t mean the NFL is dead in this city. Since most of us Angelinos come from other parts of the country, we still hold on to our hometown football teams. Even though I grew up in Baton Rouge, LA until I was eight, I am a huge Chicago Bears fan. My first recollection of football was Superbowl XX which......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

Historically the first week of the college football season is filled with boring tune-up games from the powerhouses. Take tomorrow’s matchups between Idaho at USC, Youngstown State at Ohio State and Arkansas State at Texas. BOR-ING! However here are three games that should be quite compelling to watch. UCLA at Stanford. This is probably most compelling for local reasons, but I really want to see how UCLA’s offense operates. From all accounts the offense......

Here at LAist we faced a tough decision last year - to cover the Raiders or not cover the Raiders. With no football team, LA is in a rough situation. We pretend like it doesn't bother us and perhaps it doesn't bother some of us, but you know what, if it doesn't bother you then there's something wrong with you. So we were either going to cover the Oakland Raiders or the Chicago Bears......

Sunday there are lots of great bands, culminating with the reunion of one of the best groups ever, Rage Against the Machine. Here's how we're probably going to do it, thanks to the magic of the Coachooser which, if you leave a little early from shows will show you how you too can see 17 bands. Mika: 1 - 1:30 Anathallo: 1:30 - 2 Mando Diao: 2:15 - 2:35 Tapes 'n Tapes: 2:35 -......

USC 70, Washington State 61 - After loosing to the Cougars twice in league play, the Trojans avenged the regular season by beating Washington State in the Pac 10 Tournament semifinals. USC led most of the way, thanks in part to 24 of 33 shooting from the charity stripe compared to just 6 of 8 for the Cougs. The Trojan's tenacious D also held their opponent to 36.1 percent shooting. Oregon 81, Cal 63 -......

The most exciting college sports action is going down this weekend in Los Angeles and this time there's no pigskin involved. The Pac 10 Men's Basketball Tournament is taking place Staples Center. It's a little like that awkward moment just before the Big Dance. It can be expensive to go, you wish you were with one of those cheerleaders, somebody already got upset (big time), and somebody hopes to get lucky. Come to think......

UCLA Men's Basketball The UCLA Bruins will play the Cal Golden Bears in the PAC-10 Men's Basketball Tournament. As they file of the bus into the local Staple Center, they will be looking for a win against Cal in order to advance and secure the No.1 seed for the NCAA tournament. 2:30pm PT, no television coverage FSN. Two Men Charged in Cadaver Scandal Two individuals involved in the Willed Body Program were arrested yesterday......

During their Super Bowl run LAist sorta fell in love with Da New Bears. And seeing as it's going to be a long time till LA gets an NFL team we were kinda thinking about adopting the Monsters of the Midway, especially since so many of us on staff here are from the Windy. And we are willing to hang in there with Sexy Rexy as he learns how to get it together in......

Monday Paul Cummins signs Two Americas, Two Educations 7pm @ Dutton’s Tuesday Daniel Alarcon presents Lost City Radio 7:30 pm @ Skylight Books Jane Hirshfield reads poetry from After 7pm @ Hammer Museum Catherine Allgor presents A Perfect Union 7pm @ Vroman’s Brian Doherty Radicals for Capitalism 7pm @ Book Soup Tara Ison presents The List 7pm @ Borders Century City Wednesday Dinaw Mengestu signs The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears 7pm @ Dutton’s......

Dear LAist: Whatever happened to that Brentwood chic who gave away a Super Bowl ticket? - San Berdu Bill Dear San Berdu Bill, This video by Red Eye Chicago can pretty much explain everything. Needless to say the tallest guy ever won. Plus he knows all the words to "Bear Down, Chicago Bears". See more from Sarah's trip to the Super Bowl on her MySpace page.......

A Word or 108: Superbowl Redux: I found myself wandering over to the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet a couple times yesterday, and that isn't a bad thing -- the kitten halftime show was excellent. Almost all the Superbowl commercials had been leaked onto the web a week ago so there was nothing new there. I still can't understand why, with all those professionals there, that it would take almost Prince's entire (fantastic) set......

The final score of the Super Bowl was: Indianapolis 29, Chicago 17. Devin Hester got 92 yards. Many entered, but we had three people in our Super Bowl contest with the letter S who were pretty damn close: sam: colts 24-21 hester 123 stacey: colts:29 bears:21 hester:97 Stephen Westrich: Colts 27 Bears 23 Hester 111 Find out who won the cd-six pack (thanks to our pals at Filter) of tunes from Silversun Pickups, Eleni......

Colts 29, Bears 17 - If you happened to be near a TV, radio, or computer in the past day, you probably know about this lil' gem. The game was full of rain, turnovers, funny commercials, and a few explosive plays. Payton Manning shed the championship monkey from his back and was named Super Bowl MVP. Tony Dungy became the first black coach to win the big one, but said it was even more important......

This was supposed to just be a reminder to sign up for the Super Bowl contest before kickoff, but I may as well tell you how I came to my prediction of Bears 41, Colts 16 with Devin Hester running for 170 yards. Let it be known that I am not a psychic or a medium or seer or anything, I'm just a mild mannered American man who watches way too much football and......

Quite a few of the other Gothamist sites have an occasional feature called Photo of the Day where they spotlight a superb photograph of their pitiful city. Our editor isn't a fan of such posts. He likes beefy information in the stories that are posted to LAist. He thinks we should throw pretty pictures on news posts. Like we're arty or punk rock or something. This week he hasn't been 100% "in the game",......

Hey there's a football game going on on Sunday. Apparently the Chicago Bears are playing the Indianapolis Colts down in Miami. LAist is giving away a cd six-pack of new discs -- thanks to our pals at Filter (who are the best) -- to the reader who has the finest skills as predicting the future. Here is how we will determine the winner: 1) Did you pick the right team that won? 2) Margin......

I’ve loved sports since I was 11 years old. No one else in my family was interested in sports, but I independently developed an obsessive love for the Chicago Bulls, who promptly won six championships in the next eight seasons, enough to cement a life-long affair. I grew to love all Chicago teams and then, when I started college at Michigan, found a school just as much in love with its football, hockey and......

After sifting through thousands of emails, Sarah Spain chose her date to the Super Bowl: Alan Shahtaji, of Lincoln Park, IL. She broke the news to the also-rans in a very sweet email sent last night. Subj: So close... Hey guys... Just wanted to tell you thanks so much for your submissions. You made it all the way to the end of what ended up being an over 1,300 person contest. I literally read......

David Hiller may be the most pessimistic man in the newspaper business. The Tribune Company exec who took over as publisher of the Times when Jeff Johnson was forced out for refusing to roll heads down Spring Street, appears neither ambitious, nor comfortable. His rambling rhetoric (listen below) largely expressed that he "just doesn't get it" and that even he can't wait to get his butt kicked back to Chi-town after the TribCo pinches itself......