Earlier this month we asked our readers how they'd feel if we started covering the adult video world, you know since it's a huge part of the LA economy and everyone who commented were totally into it. The only thing they asked us to do was to keep the nudity after the jump.

Deal.

OK after the jump, enjoy a lil photo essay from last week's "Man's Ruin" dvd release party sponsored by Vivid-alt, the more punk rock Suicide Girlie arm of the glamorous porn company. The party was held at Little Cave in Highland Park and was attended by Dana DeArmond, Reagan Maddox, Gia Jordan, Melodie Gore, Kimberly Kane, Mia and Ava Rose, Gia Paloma, director Octavio "Winkytiki" Arizala, and Vivid-Alt head Eon McKai.

In the next several weeks, LAist will embark on a series of hikes and present to you an ambitious 6-part photo essay. This is the fourth one. Here is parts 1, 2, and 3.
As always, LAist encourages you to get out and take advantage of and experience the beautiful landscape of Southern California. Most of us forget that we are fortunate to live in such a diverse and ecologically unique locale that offers breathtaking sites at spectacular heights -- hike LA!

Photos continue after the jump.

One can speculate a number of reasons, but the actual reason is because he's fucking hilarious.

This is Juan at Dodgers photo day. While the pitchers walked around in a little clique and waved and Nomar was shooed along by security, Mr. Pierre was the life of the party. He was dancing and posing and making his GQ sexy face. When we asked him why he was walking around with his pants over his socks, he immediately pulled his pants up and posed again. I love this guy. I won't go so far as to say I love his throwing arm, but hey, he's working on it. A for effort.

I happened upon this event last year and giggled for about 4 days. Last year I had the fortune of walking by just as the women's figure competition was finishing up, and there was this voice of God over a microphone that would say "LEFT DELTOID" and then everyone would turn and flex their oily glistening shoulders in unison and smile their most constipated smile while standing atop 4 inch tall plastic hooker shoes.

This year, however, we stumbled upon the competition just as they were beginning the Men's 40+ competition. Then the 50+. And then the 60+. Don't let your imagination run wild, I took some photos for you. This is not just any bodybuilding competition. These are men eligible for MediCare and Social Security who are standing in front of hundreds of people all greased up and wearing nothing but tiny shiny speedos.

Cajun-Creole Fest

(See Photo Essay after the jump!)

Thursday's Metro Board meeting to hear public comment and vote on new fares for public transportation in Los Angeles was, simply put, an amazing scene. An estimated 1500 people showed up with approximately 1498 of them opposing the insanely high raised fares (try 500% for some passes). During public comment, speakers spoke with passion, anger, tears and fury.

One of the day's best quotes came from a woman who held her baby in her arms talking of the hardships a raise of fares will cost her and her family, most likely forcing her to move out of state. She ended her statement with "I can budget for my family. Why can't you?" As with just about every speaker that day, it drew cheers from the crowd.

Laughter helped in the tense environment when a man spoke and Board president Gloria Molina asked him if he had already spoken earlier that day. He said yes and a girl from the audience shouted "too late now!" The room broke out in laughter, Molina included.

The day ended with a vote for fare increases, albeit a more modest proposal than the harsh and extremely pricey one brought foward by Roger Snoble and Metro staff. Metro's website summarizes the new rates.

Walking the halls, we found that the meeting brought together a lot of the who's who in the public transit advocacy world of Los Angeles. And that is what follows after the jump...

Above photo by Stephen Box

In the wilds of Santa Monica, just south of Montana on a little street named Lincoln, lives this wonderful and mysterious creature. Some say its tears cure the sick, but I think those people have it confused with the Unicorn that lives on Pico. This is just a car that looks like a giant chicken. And thank God for that.

More finger lickin' goodness after the jump...

Although it's probably not true, and if it were, hard to believe, 30 years ago LAist was around 10 years old. And let's pretend that when we were around 10 a movie came that summer out that the newspapers claimed to be "The New Western".

Let's also pretend that when you're 10 years old you don't wanna go to any lousy New Western no matter what the tv commercials are showing you - for even at 10 years old LAist knew advertising was usually bullshit - ask the slot cars that collected dust under the bed which never sped around those corners like they did in the commercials, instead they flew off the tracks and into the shag carpet; ask the "electric football" game that vibrated the little guys in tiny circles, forcing us to invent "tryouts" so we could figure out which player could run the straightest, thus it too sat collecting dust; and ask our walkie-talkies which promised long engaging conversation with mysterious truckers who would teach us about the ways of the world, but were taken away once our mom found out that mysterious truckers were teaching us the ways of the world.

30 years ago we ended up at "Star Wars" the weekend it came out, despite our protests, and ten minutes into it we were... into it. This weekend there's a big ass Star Wars convention going down next to Staples filled with people who once into it never left.

After the jump some more photos shot by Peter Kambasis who gave us permission to use them, so may the Force be with him as he tours our fine city.

San Franciscans love getting things off their chest (like clothes, for instance). It's a very expressive city where anything goes -- so we went. LAist vaguely remembers Bay to Breakers. Initially it just gave us a sunburn and splitting headache, but we're looking back on it more fondly after returning to LA.

With over 60,000 participants (some years it hits six figues) B2B is known for nudity and drunkenness. We saw plenty of both. There were a number of religious groups on hand trying to show people the light, but the debaucherous types were more interested in finding a bush to pee in. And if the bush were on fire and spoke, that would have only been the tenth or eleventh coolest thing seen at the race.

Enjoy this photo gallery of the race's world-famous costumes, tortilla throwing, and all around craziness. And yes, Bare to Breakers lived up to its name (WARNING: link contains nudity). There are no full-on nude shots in our gallery, though. As Jerry Seinfeld once observed, there's good naked and there's bad naked. This race had more of the latter.

Oh ... so how did we do on the run? After some mildly confusing transportation issues, we kicked things off with a Camelbak full of beer. That didn't last too long, and by mile 2 (just before the highly over-rated Hayes Street hill) we were in a liquor store to pick up a 40 of Miller High Life and a couple tall boys of Steel Reserve. By day's end, we downed well over 140 ounces in less than 7.5 mile of running. That equals a can of beer for each of the 12 kilometers of the race. It's not quite as intense as the Beer Mile, but way more hardcore when it comes to enduro running drinking.

Bay To Breakers is held annually in San Francisco on the third Sunday in May. Next year is the 97th running. If you've never done it, you should fix that.

All photos taken by Rob Takata for LAist.

Last night the Mann Village theater in Westwood hosted the premiere of writer Judd Apatow's latest comedy, Knocked Up. The movie is hilarious! From start to finish. And worth watching multiple times. But we'll save the review for another day.

Here are some snaps from the post-premiere party, which was held at a dolled-up parking lot adjacent to the theater.

I was tipped off by my boy Eddie B to this alley spot off of the 5 and Atlantic in the City of Commerce. The story is that a graffiti crew did a sick piece in the alley, and the residents and businesses adjoining the alley liked the looks of it and have since allowed crews to decorate both sides of the 2 block alley. What's more, in a part of town that is literally destroyed by crappy tags done by first-time spray paint users, these incredible walls seem to hold up with relatively minimal vandalism for quite a while.

All photos © / Pesky Humans.

Check the full 37 image gallery from this shoot.

After yesterday's citizen forester training, we decided to join a tree planting up in Lake View Terrace in the Northeast Valley to see a citizen forester in action. A teenage girl led it for her Girl Scout troop, planting 25 trees at the Lake View Terrace Recreation Center.

Supported by TreePeople, the morning was a cinch. It began with sign-ins and registration, followed by opening remarks and training. Then groups spread out to plant trees. With tree planting supervisors (volunteers who took training) on hand, trees were easily planted in about 20 minutes each and of course named. We planted two trees and named them Buddy and Ezekiel.

Today is the last day for the planting season, so let LAist tempt you to start thinking about your volunteer time this next Fall.

More photos after the jump...

Back in the heyday of CalArts, there are true stories of graduation ceremonies where the president of the institute would make his entrance by helicopter or where Lilian Disney (Walt's Sister) was writing a very large check to the school on stage only for a large inflated penis to be thrown from the roof of the building onto her. Once, when a students name was read, he repelled from the roof to the stage.

But the best story goes to the institute president who left by air balloon. Apparently, the wind blew him further than he wanted to go and he ended up in the desert like setting of pre-developed Santa Clarita. He flagged down a car to get a ride back to town. They said they were lost and looking for the CalArts graduation.

Graduations at CalArts are a bit more tame these days, but still are unlike any traditional college with the cap and gown. Here, you go with what you wear and what you make of it. When this LAist writer graduated four years ago, he stood in line for his diploma next to a man who painted his whole body in red. We haven't seen any people nude, clad only in a boa constrictor (like back in the 80's), but CalArts students still dress for the occasion.

Photos after the jump...

The Ford Amphitheatre opened its 2007 season last weekend with local favorite Charles Phoenix and yet another one of his slide show presentations culled from thrift shops in and around Los Angeles. Locally famous for his "Disneyland Tour of Los Angeles," Charles Phoenix knows his way around a good number of the city's landmarks, past and present. Opening entertainment was provided by an original roller rink organist who was then followed by a world champion hula hooper. Oh yeah, there was a pink poodle too, but we've all seen a few of those before, right?

As it was my first visit to the Ford, I used this as an opportunity to compile a few photos I took before the show. Vintage Vacations went all out and brought over a selection of their wares for all to see and explore. There's nothing really controversial or headline-grabbing about a beautiful night under the stars, but these things happen.

As most people in the blogosphere know, Flickr is a very (very) popular photo sharing site. It contains over half a BILLION images taken by people from every corner of the earth, and has become a meeting place for professional photographers, photo enthusiasts, and people who just want to share photos of their cats and kids.

Recently, Flickr decided to invoke a new filtering system, which rates photos according to their level of safety: basically rating your images G, PG-13, or XXX. Then you choose what sort of photos you want to look at (are you there for looking at kitty cats or genitalia?) and Flickr will filter them out for you.

Unfortunately, Flickr seems to be getting a bit carried away with their censorship powers. One of Flickr's most popular (and fabulous) photographers Rebekka recently had an experience where her photos were stolen and people were selling them to make a (rather large) profit. She posted her dismay on her Flickr page, and it 100,000 views later it was deleted without warning. You can hear her personal account of this story here. This was infuriating, to say the least, though they did at least admit their wrongs.

But now, Flickr, you have upset Malingering. And Malingering isn't as nice as Rebekka, and she doesn't take photos like Rebekka, and she's much more bitter when she gets screwed over. So Malingering gets home from work yesterday to find that her photos have been deemed unsafe. Including ones like this:

It is Bike to Work day and we hope you had the chance to take part. If not, every day is a bike to work day -- there's just no complimentary public transit.

If anyone wants to include their bike to work photos, join and add them to the LAist Flickr Group.

Photos after the jump...

Last night's game was an exciting evening filled with cracked bats and ass cracks. Where to start, where to start? There's just so much to look at. Okay, we'll go in alphabetical order.

She must be a Cardinals fan because she's showing all of us her Pujol.

written by Jenn Sherry for LAist

All I have to say is The Do LaB knows how to party. And I’m not talking Sunset Strip or even Vegas party, I’m talking about that scene in Matrix Reloaded where thousands of people are dancing like sexy savages to bass pumping house beats party.

The kid sister of Burning Man, Lightning in a Bottle is a green, giant, outdoor adult playground, where you can dress the way you want, dance the way you want, and take in as much as you can handle. It went down last week in Santa Barbara and I'm still glowing.

The “vortex” in which we roamed for three days was full of more stimuli than I ever imagined. To put it lightly there was PLENTY of drugs and sex roaming the campsite (which I did not deny), but that’s not what it’s all about. Deep down this community truly cares about the environment, spreading love to one another, and having the time of their lives.

One of the most attractive groups of people I’ve ever seen at a festival; the costumes, the face paint, and the art was visually stunning. There were so many outstanding performances I don’t have room to mention all, so here are a few…

In the next several weeks, LAist will embark on a series of hikes and present to you an ambitious 6-part photo essay. This is the third one. Here is parts 1, and 2.

Stunt Ranch is a 67-acre private UCLA reserve with public access to its trails. It is located on the north-central flank of the Santa Monica Mountains just outside of Malibu (4.5 miles North of). It was recently devastated by a wildfire in 1993 but has since recovered (as seen in these pictures) and is now used for research and education. It is dominated by Chaparral and Sage Scrub species.

GPS: 34 6' N Latitude, 118 39' W Longitude.

Photos continue after the jump.

The Meat Puppets are back with a vengeance! Last night the Troubadour hosted the Los Angeles performance of the Meat Puppets’ reunion mini-tour. Brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood have not shared a stage since the debacle that was supposed to be their tour opening for REM back in 1996. Since then, Cris’ personal struggles have been no secret to anyone, reaching their crescendo when he was shot by a post office security guard in 2003. The reunited brothers are about to release their first CD together since 1995’s No Joke. The new CD, Rise to Your Knees, was recorded with drummer Ted Marcus. This time, drummer Derrick Bostrom is not on on board. He is rumored to have quit music entirely.

We arrived at the Troubadour late and missed Elmo Kirkwood’s band, and only caught the last two songs of opening band Trainwreck Riders. One of the songs made me want to do the pony. The second song I heard was one of those fast, cymbal-riding country-punk songs. It was as if the Meat Puppets had invented a new genre of music, and this band was playing that genre. Of course, who knows what’s happening in Phoenix? Maybe there is a whole generation of Meat Puppet-inspired bands.

Well, at least now we know. Dodgers pitching staff, take note. Give up 7 runs, you can stay in the game. Give up 7 runs and then giving up another hit and Grady picks up the phone to the bullpen. Oh wait, our long reliever is now our starter because Schmidt is on the DL. That's okay. We'll call in Saenez. Rudy comes in and next thing you know it's 8-0 in the 3rd inning (charge that 8th run to Tomko, who gave up 8 in 2.1 innings) and you're feeling like someone just kicked you in the stomach.

I made another trip under the bridges crossing the LA River and was pleasantly surprised to find a maze of catacombs covered in graffiti. This spot is both a proving grounds for artists honing their craft as well a a private place with lots of huge surfaces for crews to do larger pieces with a lesser risk of arrest. It is a landscape dominated by massive interior spaces, crushed top to bottom with every imaginable writing implement. The fine silt under the bridge rises in thin wisps with every step, and the ground is heavily littered with aerosol cans and latex gloves. This is one of the most disturbing and beautiful places I have encountered in the city.

All photos © / Pesky Humans

How can you resist Taix's Kitschy Decor?

I am probably in the minority here, and I couldn't care less. I am sick and tired of these solid as a rock tittie implants that women in LA are boldly carrying around on their chests like camels with cement humps.

There are a fair number of people who believe I have some sort of implant fetish because I feel the need to shout "LOOK FAKE BOOBS!" whenever I see them (as if the damn things aren't screaming that on their own). Well, for those of you who have the self-control to actually read the text of this bit rather than just jumping ahead to the photos, here's some background. This whole pseudo- obsession began when I moved back to LA from New York City. I was at a bar and I heard a woman telling all of her potential backwards baseball-capped suitors how much her implants cost ($4000). Of course I immediately snapped her picture and e-mailed it to all of my friends back in New York, with a message along the lines of "can you fucking believe the women here they have no shame and they pay for their boobs and they're proud of it please get me back to NYC ASAP because I really can't handle this place anymore I can't believe I moved this is out of control etc etc."

Well 7 years later I am still in LA, and I am still fascinated by the bold and confident manner in which women wear these udderly ridiculous sacs of saline. And this is my journey.

It was an interesting night in Los Angeles. A community generally lost to each other in the confines of Bluetooth headsets and commuter traffic united in a somewhat macabre spectacle: watching Griffith Park burn.

Griffith Park on fire: a photo essay

The brush fire has affected more than 50 acres of land in Griffith Park. The Autry Museum, the L.A. Zoo, a nearby charter school and local golf courses are in the process of being evacuated.

Sort of gives you deja vu of the fire we just went through that nearly totaled the Hollywood sign (above). New pics of this fire after the jump

Photo by Skunks via Flickr

From Sherman Oaks to Burbank Airport it was just a little over 45 minutes by bus. A few bucks later and some good podcast listening on the ride (The California Report, This American Life), we were on our travels yesterday in a flash. No bothering friends for a ride, no use of cars and no Supershuttle, a.k.a., we will pick you up 3 hours before your flight and have to go pick up 6 other people after we pick you up.

Not all of you live in Sherman Oaks, so here's the main tip. If you can get to the NoHo Red Line Station, you're one quick bus ride away from Burbank Airport (Use the NoHo -> Empire Bus that is referred to as the Airport Area bus. Catch it at Bus Bay 1. Get off at Thornton/Hollywood Way).

After the jump, the trip...

all photos by Wathana Lim for LAist.

Los Angeles may not be know for it's beer. Yet. But if you roll up to a bar with Craftsman on draft, you're about to drink the freshest and most flavorful beer around. So fresh, that it may have found it's way from the fermenting tank to the keg earlier that day. That keg of Craftsman was delivered by Mark Jilg or one of his two full-time employees who brew out of a modest warehouse in a Pasadena business park.

We spoke to Jilg about home-brewing, Prohibition, the microbrew renaissance and it's second coming, Cinco de Mayo, Wolfgang Puck, and mmm.... beer.

Crack open a cold one and read on for a hoppy Q&A + more photos...