Results tagged “people”

Travel + Leisure came out with their America's Favorite City 2008 guide with lists shows how visitors and residents voted. For visitors (and well, residents), we came in last for--no big surprises here--traffic. And well, we also hit the bottom of the list for public transportation and pedestrian friendliness. And maybe we can blame these woes on our friendliness and intelligence, both of which ranked last too. All of this adds up to a trip to our fair city being one of the least relaxing ones (however, a wild weekend was our highest rating).

Old men smile at each other's stories over games of dominoes played on card tables set up on the street corner. Ladies in their Sunday best daintily nibble cake at outdoor cafes, and children run laughing around the fountain in the park. People stop to chat as they meander along the boulevard. This is not a scene from another era; it's a typical Sunday afternoon in Leimert Park.

It was a normal day on Twitter. New Media and Interactive Consultant Kyra Reed was going about her day (it was Reed who turned The Roxy into a Web 2.0 success story). On Twitter, she chatted with friends as she was at home.

Metro's Chair and City of Santa Monica Councilwoman Pam O'Connor held one of her monthly online chats with residents yesterday. StreetsblogLA was there and noted that she personally thinks transit planning needs to stop just counting cars and start counting people. You know, bicycles, walkers, people on busses -- all those aspects that make up street use. The current mainstream models mainly focus on cars, cars, cars.

Carlos Mencia is back at it and chances are you're either pumped or pissed about it. The loved/hated comedian's show, Mind of Mencia is back for a fourth season, his new Comedy Central special "Performance Enhanced" is now in heavy rotation on the cable network and he's hitting the road with the Bud Light Presents: Carlos Mencia at Close Range Tour, which hits the Gibson Ampitheater September 26 and 27. The comic who was born in Honduras and raised in East LA, took a little time out from production of his show to talk to LAist about the new season, race, Joe Rogan, being called a hack and the Internet.

After San Francisco Congressman Tom Lantos' death, San Fernando Valley congressman Howard Berman took the seat as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. That means he's in charge of the committee with "oversight over policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the globe's hotspots," according to an Associated Press profile of the politician.

At the end of April, Jose Canseco chatted on the phone with LAist's Tim Hammer regarding his life in Los Angeles, writing, steroids and reality TV. Oh, and one of his latest pursuits -- fiction. "Yeah it's going to be about baseball and cloning. It's a very dark dark sci-fi story."

Her first job? The state's budget crisis. The state is "a giant in crisis," she said. "Bass announced that she had asked former governors Pete Wilson and Gray Davis to help set up a bipartisan commission to study overhauling the state's tax structure. The panel will be asked to come up with recommendations 'to identify more consistent sources of revenue,' Bass said" in the LA Times. On Wednesday, Gov. Schwarzenegger will release a plan to combat the budget shortfall that could be up to $20 billion.

       

The difference between last year and this year was night and day. Last year, the police were in riot gear, got injured, shot rubber bullets into crowds full of innocent people including, children, the elderly and reporters live on air (see this video). This year, the LAPD retrained and chilled out... a lot more. By the end of the day, only five people had been arrested.

              

More scenes from yesterday's various May Day marches from LAist Featured Photos contributor Tom Andrews.

                            

LAist Featured Photos contributor Tom Andrews spent the day at yesterday's May Day marches. Here are some of the amazing images of the people he saw and met.

Just in time for St Paddy's Day, we check out some of the Irish coffees around town. Screw green beer. That stuff will kill you. After drinking many Irish Coffees in the name of serious scientific research, I have discovered a good Irish coffee relies on two relatively simple elements: the freshness of the coffee and use of real heavy cream

Human Giant unleashed itself upon an unsuspecting public last year via MTV and the bell just rang for Round 2 - are you ready? There's sketch comedy, there's underground sketch comedy, there's in your face on-the-streets sketch comedy, and then there's Human Giant, a team that presents, in each episode, collections of bits that are more like experimental movies than the sketch comedy we've been seeing for the last 15 years. There's plenty of parody to be sure although none of it is familiar-feeling, "safe", or boring - which is perfect for Human Giant's 11:00pm slot (what, the kids can't handle this at 10:00pm?).

Waking up at 5:30 a.m. and being rushed out of your downtown Wilshire Grand hotel room is not the ideal experience for your Los Angeles stay. However, better safe than sorry when the 10th floor of at least 80 people was evacuated due to pepper spray being released. In an e-mail alert, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Ron Meyers said 20-30 people were evaluated with none needing treatment or transport to a local area hospital. People complained of eye and throat irritation.

The defending Stanley Cup champion (and recently reassembled) Anaheim Ducks are holding a contest tomorrow for a chance to sing the national anthem at one of their upcoming games.

Some may know that there is the LA Homeless Blog, written by the CEO of People Assisting the Homeless (PATH). Tonight, the Hotel Cafe is hosting a benefit concert for the organization called Rock and Run for Charity. The name is not merely because the Marathon happened this morning. Sara Radle from Calamity Magnet and Chris Radle from Supersport both ran it and then will be playing later tonight. Talk about a lot accomplished in one day.

Fallout from the massive Westland/Hallmark meat recall scandal continues to affect Southland restaurants, stretching from San Diego to Ventura County. The California Department of Public Health has released a document listing every food purveyor which has purchased the recalled beef -- and at 59+ pages, it's a doozy. Chances are very good you have purchased or ingested some of Westland/Hallmark's product at some point, since markets and restaurants across the city are represented.

People gripe about the rain and its effects, especially on traffic. It's easy to forget that we're living desert-adjacent; being a part-time Hi-Desert dweller, I'm grateful for every inch of rain we get, especially after the devastating fires of 2006. Along with nourishing our parched land and turning that empty concrete wash into an actual "LA River", the rain brings an abundance of wildflowers, transforming the desert floor into a multicolored carpet for miles.

Remember the good old days, when you would just end up at a random artspace downtown sometime after midnight? People would be walking around wearing bowler hats and bunny suits while loud noise/music/artistic expression screeched out from the next room. So you would wander into the next room and find someone bellydancing or putting on a burlesque show. And you would think to yourself, "Oh my God! Who are these people? How did I get here? and how am I getting home?" A few hours later, you would find yourself in some Little Tokyo hole-in-the-wall drunkenly slurping up noodles.

When you read something you like on LAist, we love it when you hit the "recommend" button, and we love it even more if you put your two cents' worth in the comments. Getting a dialog going with our readers and making sure we're giving you content you can use are top priorities for us. So here's this week's top posts, as endorsed by you via the recommend feature, or as indicated by the level of talk going on in the comments:

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on LAist.

If you're like me, (white, liberal, living in an urban setting) you're probably a huge fan of The Neverending Story.

• Happy 5th Birthday Gothamist!!
• A "possible" security breach at the Department of Water and Power Monday may result in more than 8,300 employees wondering, why are there two me's? The lifted information included stats on active DWP employee's names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth and could result in a massive case of stolen identity.
• The gig is up for all you stingy, free-loading kids who like to use their school's gym for league sports. "Soccer leagues, volleyball clubs and basketball groups that have had gratis access to LAUSD facilities from the Harbor Area to Carson will need to pony up beginning March 1 to defray usage costs and raise revenue," the Daily Breeze said. And it's about time. I'm sick of hearing the joyful laughter of kids who should be out getting a real job or doing drugs. Thankfully, they now might have to turn some tricks to pay for what was once free.
• Yahoo is planning to lay off nearly 500 employees in the next couple of months, including 111 in Burbank and 52 in Santa Monica. Yah-poo is more like it for the jobless.
• The LA Times offers a scathing editorial of the state assembly's efforts to cut down the $14.5 billion deficit. Wait, that's not an editorial at all. That's a news story with sentences like, "their move would not actually reduce spending" and "lawmakers' measures would put taxpayers on the hook for more debt." Most (not all) of the stuff is attributed, but I can find ten people right now to tell me I look great though I have a bag over my head.
• In an effort to clean our smoggy image, Los Angeles officials are proposing tighter green building standards that would require large, privately built commercial and residential projects to use environmentally sound practices. This is a great step, but you know what would actually reduce smog? Less driving! And more public transportation!
• Do you love Los Angeles? Do you want everyone to know how much you love this city? Monopoly is giving you the opportunity as it prepares to unveil its first global board where you can vote for the city (ahem, Los Angeles) of your choice to appear on the coveted square. Right now, Montreal is first, followed by Istanbul and L.A. is sitting not so pretty in the 43rd spot. Vote here.
• One smart bastard from Long Beach turned his collection of 301 rare pennies into a $10.7 million pay day. Dallas-based auction house Heritage Auction Galleries, which held the sale in Long Beach Friday night says that coin and a 1794 cent with tiny stars added to prevent counterfeiters each raised $632,500. People make fun of me for picking up pennies, but this seals it: I am never throwing away anything ever again.
• Hey Momma, you have two more days to enter the Kanye contest on LAist. Who loves you? We do.

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on LAist.

Encountered this lineup for Vanilla Bake Shop in Santa Monica. The line was 20 stylish ladies deep with a sprinkling of guys. I asked one of the would-be cupcake customers who she was buying cupcakes for and she just said, "A friend." Another customer behind us wondered aloud why there were so many women and not really any guys. I guess women are more apt to buy cute cakes for each other and maybe their significant others while guys rather stick to ye old red roses for their gals.