I almost didn’t go to see Ann Summa’s Los Angeles punk photo exhibition at Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica. No offense to the once, raw obscure photographers who happened to be at the right place at the right time 30 years ago, snapping amazing images of once, raw obscure bands. Your recognition is well past due. It’s just that there’s been a plethora of punk picture/art/flyer/book exhibitions in the past few years and I’ve seen most of them and on the night in question, I was running late from an earlier art opening and thought, “maybe I’ll just skip this one.” Thankfully, I came to my senses and hauled my lazy ass over to Bergamot Station. On the way in, I was greeted by the nostalgic sight of a drunk-off-her-butt teenager being half carried through the parking lot by friends. I took it as a sign from the gods of punk rock. more ›

Monday Mike Carey presents The Devil You Know 7pm @ Book Soup Tuesday Doug Stumpf presents Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy 7pm @ Book Soup Joy Horowitz presents Parts per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School 7pm @ Central Library Michael Tucker signs Living a Foreign Language: A Memoir of Food, Wine and Love in Italy 7pm @ Dutton's Jerry Stahl presents Love Without 7pm @ Borders, Long Beach Thomas... more ›

We spent Memorial Day Weekend away from the computer. We were enjoying the surprisingly pleasant weather outside running and reading books. We spent Saturday night at the Infusion Gallery with Cannibal Flower and their 80s prom art event (which featured an awful lot of art focused on the vagina as well as Vincent Calenzo). We caught up on our spring cleaning and we enjoyed "The Longest Yard" far more than we ever expected to. more ›

Veteran journalist and cultural chronicler Kristine McKenna has profiled, documented, and interpreted much of what and who has impacted Los Angeles over the past several decades. Her work has appeared in numerous newspapers and publications including the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, and the erstwhile great Wet magazine. The subjects of McKenna’s tête-à-têtes reads like a virtual who’s who of influential thinkers, artists, writers, musicians, and personalities of our times. Many of these interviews have been collected into two volumes: Book of Changes and Talk to Her. She is currently curating an exhibition about and writing a biography of the artist Wallace Berman. more ›