On Wednesday, we drew your attention to a how-to video featuring a scantily clad young lady putting chains on tires. The video was posted by Bear Mountain Resort on YouTube, and it stars 24-year-old Lauren Lunday. more ›

When local author Anna David set out to follow the advice in former Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown's 1962 book, "Sex and the Single Girl," she hoped that in the tome of a controversial magazine guru, she'd find the unlikely key to love and happiness. Instead, in her new book, "Falling For Me," David details the bumpy ups and downs of adhering to the wisdom of a woman who once wrote that, "you may have to have a tiny touch of anorexia nervosa to maintain an ideal weight." more ›

Would you take dating advice from an actress and a model? Maybe not right off the bat, because it seems like their point of view on snagging a man might be a bit...well...skewed. But actress Cheryl Anne Meyer, 25, and model Tara Landon, 25, have set out to change that. more ›

By Gareen Darakjian more ›

After twenty-five years of punk rock, PCP and hippie bashing, Fat Mike and the boys of LA-born NOFX haven't stopped their fight to uphold the tenets of the punk ethos. Having played three shows at the Henry Fonda last week, the band highlighted songs from every era of their history, never once failing to entertain the crowd with their signature hilarious, immature and oftentimes bigoted banter. more ›

Donna Wares is a travel writer, a former editor at the LA Times and most recently, a neighborhood blogger in Seal Beach. Her enthusiasm for California is evident in her projects and it was thanks to her book that we participated in Santa Barbara Car Free. With a long weekend ahead and many people sticking around instead of traveling, we decided to ask Wares her suggestions on what to do. Holiday weekend or not, these tips will work for those looking to explore the Los Angeles region any day. more ›

Randy and Jason Sklar are two faces that you probably recognize; and not just because they share the same face. Born as identical twins, the pair have decided to stick with it, and have achieved a surprising level of comedic success, without having a ‘good-looking one’ to fall back on. They have since gone on to appear in numerous television shows and stand up houses all across America, including their successful Cheap Seats show that enjoyed a four-season run on ESPN Classic. more ›

Los Angeles-based trio Street Drum Corps are living proof that the Hollywood rock star dream can never die. Widely recognized as the "punk rock Stomp" group that plays every stage from drum circles to huge arenas, the boys of SDC are right where they want to be; opening for LA metal gods Motley Crüe. With the show coming up this Friday, we got a chance to speak with front man Bobby Alt about the bands humble beginnings and how they worked their way up to sharing the stage with one of metal's biggest groups. more ›

Submitted and Written By Dan Collins more ›

Note: Robert Francis plays tonight at The Troubadour.

Nam Le was recently in town to read from and sign The Boat, a wildly diverse and intense collection of short stories that did not immediately strike us a short stories and which prompted an interesting dialogue. While we make a point in our author interviews to ask questions that would be of interest to our readers, we found that in this case, we were compelled to ask some pointed questions about our own reading experience as we started this collection thinking it was a novel. Over weeks of email and a meeting at The Dresden last week, we sorted it all out. And lest you think we are the only ones who are crazy enough to cry foul about the elusive "stories" title on the book cover, take a look at Antoine Wilson's review of The Boat that appeared on Sunday in the LA Times. more ›

Janelle Brown's debut novel, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, is just out and it's generating serious buzz for its funny, yet painful look at a family that can no longer keep up appearances. Brown will be reading tonight at Skylight Books @ 7:30pm. more ›

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. more ›

Comedian Brian Regan has been on "The Late Show With David Letterman" an astonishing 19 times - if you haven't seen him there, then how about Conan/Johnny Carson/Dr. Katz/etc.?? The man that has been everywhere is coming to The Wiltern, this Saturday, May 3rd at 8:00pm. more ›

Big Business, Red Fang, The Cops @ Spaceland (Tho Cops reviewed on LAist, 3/20/06) more ›

Carter Tanton of Tulsa always gets rave reviews about his voice like this one from Pitchfork: "Lead singer Carter Tanton has a spectacular voice... [he] could probably sing a recipe for chocolate éclairs and still make it sound good." And Rolling Stone said "his indie-seraphim voice is not of this world." Both reviews referenced the similarities to My Morning Jacket. And not to forget the band, the Boston Phoenix, their hometown paper, said "we weren’t the only ones who walked out of the club convinced that we had just seen the best rock band in Boston." more ›

Sara Melson has been in LA for some time now after graduating from Harvard with a degree in English (she's shy about this fact). First it was acting, now it is music. She loves living in classic Los Angeles area neighborhoods, especially those with history, roots and the word "canyon" in it. Currently living in Beachwood Canyon, which she describes as a "true oasis," her past homes have been Topanga Canyon and Laurel Canyon, both places seeded for artistic inspiration. more ›

It’s shaping up to be a busy year for singer-songwriter Cary Brothers. With the fourth annual Hotel Cafe Tour beginning in just a few days and his first full-length CD, Who You Are, getting great reviews, things won’t be slowing down for him anytime soon. Brothers first received nationwide attention when his song “Blue Eyes” was featured on the Garden State soundtrack four years ago, and his fan base has grown with the release of two EPs and the new LP. more ›

Alex & Sam may be a duo in title, but their fairly large band, sometimes up to twelve-members on stage, is quite a force of music that just puts a smile on your face. You can't really corner them into a jazz-blues rock or straight rock category. All we can say is that on stage, they've got it going and they are making their way to becoming a household name in Los Angeles. more ›

For those of you who don't know, Moistboyz are a politically vulgar Punk-Metal hybrid Featuring Lead Vocalist Dickie Moist (Guy Heller,) and Lead Guitarist Mickey Moist (AKA Mickey Melchiondo, AKA Dean Ween of Ween.) They've been playing and recording ittermittently since the early 90s, with increased activity during the 2000s. more ›

Want to be a singer, a model, or maybe a comedian or TV Host? Then Big Shot Live is your chance to do just that. Simply go to the site, submit your video, and see if you're one of the lucky winners to get flown to LA (given that you're not already here) to pursue your goal and have it documented on the web. But unlike most talent contests, you get flown out right away, so there's no wait to start making your dreams come true. more ›

In yesterday's LAist interview with Hillary Clinton, we had to ask about public transportation. Clinton said she would increase federal funding for public transit by $1.5 billion per year, link funding to local land use policies that encourage mixed-use and transit-oriented development (discouraging sprawl) and invest $1 billion into intercity passenger rail (think high speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco, or more locally, the MagLev concept from Orange County to Las Vegas). more ›

Jim Wirt is a St. Louis native living in LA, but most people know him as Gay Bigfoot. The 42-year-old North Hollywood resident moved out to Los Angeles in 1996 and is a local artist who recently found himself in the middle of some online censorship when he tried to get one of his pieces printed on a t-shirt. Here's his story... more ›

To Catch A Predator is one of the more intriguing shows to come around in past years, and certainly one that's sparked its fair share of debates. A group known as Perverted Justice goes into Internet chat rooms posing as young teens and engages in conversation with potential pedophiles. After a while, the offer is made for the targets to come over and a meeting time is set. Unbeknownst to the subjects, the person that they're really meeting is an actor or actress, known as the bait, who brings them into the home where they are interviewed by NBC's Chris Hansen before being arrested. The program has proven to be quite successful, both in the amount of arrests and in terms of ratings. more ›

We always encourage you to press that little recommend button at the bottom right hand corner of every post if you enjoyed it. For one, it tells us what you want more of here it LAist. So here's this week's five most recommended posts, as recommended by you: more ›

New York author Jami Attenberg is in town this week to read from and sign her excellent debut novel, The Kept Man which examines the life of a young woman, Jarvis, whose artist husband is in a coma. It also curiously examines the life of the"kept men" friends Jarvis meets who are able to spend their days as they please because of their wealthy wives. Attenberg's tale is intense, as any novel about a coma patient is likely to be, but her gorgeous prose and her pitch-perfect humor turn what could be a standard-coma-drama (is there such a thing?) into a story that plumbs the deeper depths of what it means to be an artist, what it means to live for your art and how to live - or die - with dignity in today's political climate. more ›

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LA-based Manimal Vinyl Records recently released Through the Wilderness, a tribute to Madonna benefiting her charity. We discussed the concept of Los Angeles' burgeoning lo-fi/whatcha-call-it music scene taking on Madonna classics with Manimal's founder, Paul Beahan. more ›

At the end of each month LAist attempts to review some of the music and musicians that were covered over that four week period. Below is a mix of just some of the month's musical moments: more ›

, Hilary Angelo jumps off the screen as one of the girls who catches Charlie's roving eye. more ›