COMEDY “Groundlings Swimsuit Edition” is the comedy troupe’s latest offering, with plenty of sketch and improv. Keep your fingers crossed that we won’t see them in Speedos. (But then again, Speedos are funny…) 8 pm // Groundling Theatre // 7307 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles // $21.50. FILM Crenshaw Boulevard comes to life in the hands of director Dan Wozniak and producer Christopher Molony. The documentary features 12 vignettes of people along the street’s 24......

photo courtesy of artist Local independent dance artist Liz Hoefner has directed and choreographed Fear of Drowning/Fear of Flying and will present its premiere this Friday through Sunday at the Diavolo Dance Space in the Brewery Arts Complex. According to her, the new dance theater work is a collection of stories, dialogues and dances that relate to actual and metaphorical fears of traveling, flying, drowning and dying in a post 9/11, tsunami, and Hurricane......

Mardi Gras + Super Tuesday = Drinks with LAist @ Seven Grand tonight. SUPER TUESDAY DRINKS WITH LAist It’s Super Tuesday and Mardi Gras. What other reason do you need to celebrate with LAist? Come to Seven Grand tonight to watch election returns. (Who knew that primaries would be this exciting?) You never know…people may start flashing for beads after a few Glenlivets. For questions or to RSVP: events@laist.com (Note: Seven Grand is a......

Bobby Fischer died this week. He was totally insane and totally brilliant, a prodigy and a pariah. In the world he inhabited, the only thing you could possibly do was throw up your hands and move to Iceland. Chess players, you know? Twelve California research institutions (including UCLA and USC) are in the running for $263 million dollars worth of valuable stem-cell research funding from the the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The body......

You can't be assured of getting the proper assistance and funding from the unbelievably-not-renamed-since-Katrina Federal Emergency Management Agency (they even faked their press conference while SoCal was burning). But if you live in LA or Orange County and suffered damages in the October wildfires, you have until 6 p.m. to apply for federal and state assistance. FEMA reports that 19,000 requests have been filed to date. Applications can be filed, and their status checked,......

Want a Wii this holiday season? Well toooooo fuckin bad. The best you can hope for is a rain check certificate that will entitle you to a console at some point in January. Even the Wii people themselves are now admitting what a mess they've made of manufacturing this thing. Two members of a terrorist cell have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to wage war: the splinter group was "was poised to attack......

An area of Mexico larger than metro LA is almost completely underwater after two days of severe flooding. Granted, we're busy fighting a Global War on Terror and it's inconvenient to help our neighbors, not to mention our own domestic needs, but... it's probably worth knowing that 80 percent of Tabasco is underwater. More rain is on its way. Our fires were on front pages around the world. So how come when Mexico experiences......

You'd think that two years after the slow-as-molasses response that President Bush was justly criticized for in the wake of Katrina, that he would have learned from his mistakes and treated the most recent California fires the way a leader should: quickly, decisively, and compassionately. Instead, he flew out to Cali on the fourth day of the fires (progress from the five days that it took him to set foot in the Gulf Coast......

That's what Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather said this morning:If we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire. Instead we've been stuck in this initial attack mode on the ground where we hopscotch through neighborhoods as best we can trying to control things. But OCFA is not the only frustrated agency in Southern California, as losses grow to an estimated $1 billion in San Diego County......

Hear that sucking sound? The media's commitment to learning from its many recent mistakes in reporting ethics and the semantics thereof is again being sucked out of the collective memory hole. Two years ago, Hurricane Katrina survivors were initially referred to by numerous media outlets as "refugees." While "refugee" can be inferred to be descriptive of one who "takes refuge," the fact is that -- at least since the 1951 approval of the UN Convention......

8:00pm Prison Break FOX - This is a show for teenage boys: enjoy the season premiere kids. 9:00pm Most Honorable Son PBS/KCET - Bio of the first Japanese-American war hero. 9:00pm K-Ville FOX - Series premiere. I much prefer Anthony Anderson as a villain (Antwon Mitchell from "The Shield") rather than a cop. It's a cop series, but set it New Orleans, post-Katrina, but the question is whether or not it will truly leverage......

Two high ranking former CIA officers are speaking out about the run up to war in Iraq. Namely the fact that the President was briefed about Saddam's lack of weapons of mass destruction, and didn't care, he was set to take the nation into war. Sidney Blumenthal writes in Salon today: On Sept. 18, [CIA Director George] Tenet briefed Bush on [Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister]. "Tenet told me he briefed the president personally," said......

We were all emotionally affected by Hurricane Katrina. And I'm sure we are all frustrated by the lack of progress in rebuilding New Orleans. But like me, you are probably wondering, "What can I do about it?" Well, right now, you can buy a CD or a download. Enjoy some rightous music while doing what's right. Our New Orleans: A Benefit Album This is one of my favorite CDs of all time, with every track......

8:00pm Going Back to New Orleans UPN/KCOP - Music icon Deacon John Moore documents the unique culture of the Big Easy. 9:00pm Against the Tide: The Battle for New Orleans CNBC - The business side of the New Orleans recovery effort. 10:00pm Still Waiting: Life After Katrina PBS/KOCE An African American/Creole family returns to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, hoping to hold on to their bayou culture. 10:00pm DIY to the Rescue: Katrina Rebuild......

Last year I was lucky enough to land the fine job of being editor of LAist, the city I love. So naturally three months after covering LA I had the brilliant idea of taking a road trip around the country, thus covering anything except LA. Everything was just a little whimsy roadtrip discovering parts of the US that I hadn't imagined, until in New York people demanded that I go to New Orleans and......

It's been two years since an American city was destroyed. The above clip is a teaser of a video podcast series produced and promoted by entertainment icon Quincy Jones and pop guy Usher who have teamed up with Habitat for Humanity in order to urge Americans not to forget the victims of the hurricane. Think about what happened two years ago and think of a way to help. Editor Tony Pierce drove to New......

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley......

Monday T.C. Boyle reads and chats with David Ulin 7pm @ Mark Taper Forum Jennifer Kaufman & Karen Mack present Literacy and Longing in L.A. 7pm @ Studio Branch Library Denise Hamilton & contributors signs Los Angeles Noir 7pm @ Borders Torrance Pat Montandon discusses Oh, the Hell of It All 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Barry Glassner discusses The Gospel of Food 7pm @ Central Library Kirk Douglas signs Let's Face It 7pm @......

- LAPD seeks felony charges against a 13-year-old alleged dogfight organizer caught in South LA on Monday. The injured pitbulls are expected to recover. The kid, however, may be another story. - LA Times. - Claiming a victory in mission:gangbusters 2007, LAPD central division Capt. Andrew Smith reports, "We really believe we have taken the head off the 5th and Hill Gang." - Daily News. - The transcripts are out on the Khalid Sheikh......

The end of times are approaching. There's a female Speaker of the House, an African-American frontrunner for President of the United States, The Police are getting back together, there are no late fees at Blockbuster. So of course Blabbermouth.net scooped the world in December when they were the first to report that Eddie Van Halen wanted to get David Lee Roth back on the mic to front a new Van Halen. One that excluded......

Tonight - Tuesday - January 9th, 2006 Lakers @ Grizzlies (KCAL, 5:00 p.m.) Ducks @ Predators (PRIME, 5:00 p.m.) "Dateline NBC" (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) The one-track minds at NBC have dug up yet another polygamist murderer "Rome" (HBO, 8:00 p.m.) HBO is rerunning Season One in preparation for the season two debut on Sunday. Look for my upcoming DVD review on the Season-One set. "House" (FOX, 9:00 p.m.) House is back - and he......

- There are twice as many men than women with IQs over 120. Not so fast, Dubya - The Independent - Police taser an 11-year-old in a Jonesboro, Georgia middle school - WSBT - Just in time for Christmas! A perfectly preserved dinosaur nest containing 22 fossilized eggs of ancient dead baby dinos will go on auction tomorrow here in LA - AP - Just in time for Kwanzaa! Own Jessica Alba's bra -......

Great Northern, Meeting Places, Dead Ponies, Tigers Can Bite You @ The Echo Lucy Schwartz, Katrina Parker, Josh Allan, Paul O' Connor @ Genghis Cohen Let’s Go Sailing, Bedroom Walls, Dappled Cities Fly, The Coral Sea @ Spaceland Black Fuzz, Tristan & the Tramps, St. Jorge & the Dragons @ Mr. T's Bowl Metal Skool, Wrapt in Plastic, She's Your Sister @ Key Club Quirks, The Letter Openers, Kriminal Pogo, Bull Lee @ Lava......

Current Record: 2-1, T-2nd Pacific Last Week: The Clippers rebounded from a disappointing opening-night loss to Phoenix by knocking off Denver and taking out the Suns in the rematch. Sam Cassell showed that he still has plenty of gas left in his tank at 37, leading the team in scoring and taking all of the big shots down the stretch. Newly acquired Tim Thomas displayed the same form he had in last year’s playoffs......

Weekend Edition OK, so the TV Junkie completely missed Friday, this was because of a 50 mile backup on the MassPike so that's unlikely to happen in the near future. Now the TV Junkie is quite drunk in San Francisco which doesn't mean he doesn't want to be drunk in LA with you wonderful people. This doesn't mean it won't happen again, we're only somewhat human. College Football (ABC, ESPN and wherever else, at......

Sometimes we wonder if Bill O'Reilly isn't just trying to get on "Countdown's" Worst Person in the World. Last Friday after inviting University of Minnesota-Duluth Professor Jim Fetzer on The Factor to discuss why he believed the 9/11 tragedies were orchestrated via the White House, O'Reilly refused to let the man speak. LAist trusts this government, blindly. And we object to questioning anything this administration has been involved in, or in the case of......

Let's look back at a week in which no site in the -ist network adopted anyone from Africa... -Austinist reveled in the dumb antics of some U.T. law students and posted some great audio from former New Orleans natives who've decided to stay in Austin. But the best news for Austinist? They were voted Best Local Entertainment Web Site by the local Austin alt-weekly. Congrats, Austinist. -DCist gloried in being told their musical tastes made......

LAist is traveling around the country to find your next American Idol. But we might have already found him working behind a hot dog cart in New Orleans. As you know we interviewed a Tower Records employee in the French Quarter and a teenage girl in the 9th Ward, but Big John might be the best take on the aftermath of Katrina. But we wont tell you how to think, see for yourself.......

LAist is on the road and we're currently in the dirrrty South. Right in the middle of the touristy area of New Orelans we found ourselves outside a Tower Records. Tower, as you know, is going out of business, which only adds insult to injury for its New Orleans store, whose employees have been brutally affected by Katrina. Strangely, when we told them that we were from LA they asked us about Amoeba, which......

LAist is on the road keeping it real -- so when we were instructed by our friends to dip down into New Orleans and talk to the people, we did. Yesterday we made our way to the notorious 9th Ward, which was the area hit hardest by Katrina a year ago. We already posted a photo essay of some of the photos we took, but we were struck most by the young people in......