Well, the word "bud" is in Buddha. Today, organizers of Saturday's first-ever Buddhafest held a press conference in which celebrities and other big names spoke in favor of Proposition 19, the November 2nd ballot measure to legalize marijuana. more ›

Stand Up To Cancer announced on Sunday that "from its launch on May 28, 2008, through September 5, 2008’s historic simultaneous commercial-free telecast, the initiative has raised more than $100 million to accelerate ground-breaking research and bring new therapies to patients more quickly." more ›

Luckily, since SXSW Music officially starts on Wednesday, tonight's massive line-up of residencies is hardly affected, save for The Voom Blooms who are replaced by We Barbarians and others at the Viper Room tonight (full list of tonight's residencies after the jump). However, the exodus of Los Angeles based bands is upon us. more ›

A couple more days of this visual and mental assault. I've discovered that drinking really helps though. 7:30pm Where Eagles Dare TCM - Here's your chance to bypass most of the new and quite possibly very mediocre offerings this evening by watching this classic. Richard Burton is wooden and robotic in this good guys vs. the Nazis flick, Clint Eastwood is fantastic and there's lots of cool explosions and Nazis getting shot and stuff. 8:00pm... more ›

Tonight, Los Angeles will be playing host to the Democratic Presidential candidates as they square off in a forum to specifically discuss gay issues. The groundbreaking event will be televised on LOGO, and simulcast on the Internet, and will be moderated by Washington Post writer Jonathan Capeheart, Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese, and singer/friend of the trees, Melissa Etheridge. Many of the candidates will continue their courting of a specific demographic with fund-raising... more ›

LOGO, the nation's first (and only) openly gay television network, is set to host the next Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles on August 9. The moderators will include Joe Solmonese, the president of Human Rights Campaign, and Melissa Etheridge, the Academy Award (for her rendition of An Inconvenient Truth's "I Need to Wake Up") and two-time Grammy Award-winning rock musician and prominent gay rights activist. So what specific topics will be on the... more ›

The Oscars as TV This is strictly opinion about the Academy Awards broadcast on ABC - not the pre- or post- shows. This isn't about who won and the merits of their winning, this is just about the nearly 4 hours of TV that was on. The Oscars are a marathon, no doubt about it, and a slow marathon at that. Most able bodied people should be able to do a marathon in about... more ›

Joss Stone, the 19-year-old British soul singer, who's probably best remembered for singing barefoot with Melissa Etheridge at the Grammys in 2005, has a new album due out in March. But LA fans have the opportunity to see her test drive her new material on Monday (1/29) in West LA at 7 p.m., courtesy of Yahoo! Music and Virgin Records. The first 200 fans to e-mail: Invites@YahooLiveSets.com will get in the doors (with a... more ›

Look at that line-up, people. Accept that you live in the greatest city in the world for live music. We might not have a thousand venues, but how do you resist these options? LAist is going to see the Format, but only because we've already seen the Chilis a million times, and the Subs earlier this summer, and the Foos, and Talib, but never Steve Wynn, especially in a tiny place like that. Hmmmm...... more ›

Lots of baby news today: more ›

Our college guest speakers were never this cool. (Except maybe for the group of Hare Krishnas in sociology sophomore year, but that's another post.) more ›