Celebrity butcher Dario Cecchini was in town at Mozza for a beef butchery demonstration, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals thought the demo was the perfect opportunity to bring the message of veganism to the masses. more ›

Police say that the naked, yelling and wildly gesticulating guy who climbed all the way up a tower in downtown Los Angeles and stayed there for six hours only agreed to come down once his demand for McDonald's hamburgers was met. more ›

A naked man climbed to the top of a tower in downtown this afternoon. Witnesses said not only is he naked but he's been gesticulating wildly and yelling. An LAPD spokesman confirms with City News Service that, yeah, the man might be "mentally unstable" and he's threatening to jump. more ›

When performance artist Marina Abramović put out a call to performers to participate in a performance piece for MOCA's fundraising gala, she whipped up a frenzy in the art community. This afternoon LACE is hosting a forum discussing some of the issues that were brought up by the performance (which made some donors clutch their pearls). more ›

The global news cycle and media saturation means we might be scalding our tushies here in L.A. but we aren't immune from non-stop coverage of Hurricane Irene as she unleashes her winds and rains up the nation's Eastern Seaboard. And what every great live hurricane update on the Weather Channel isn't more cowbell, but perhaps more (or less) streaking dudes. more ›

Nudists are claiming that they are being harassed by park rangers in San Onofre, according to KTLA. In the buff beachgoers were banned from San Onofre State Beach and have since migrated their parts to other area sands. more ›

Before Venice Beach became the tourist hot spot it's known as today, it was one of L.A.'s secrets. Actually, it was a topless secret. Before 1974, Venice Beach was a nude mecca and apparently pretty private. But thanks to some media attention, a gubernatorial candidate campaigning in the nude and word spreading throughout town, people started to come and check out the spectacle. Controversy, of course, came to a head and the city banned nudity. But that didn't stop people from coming to Venice. "... it was too late to turn back the clock," wrote historian Jeffrey Stanton wrote in Venice California: Coney Island of the Pacific. "For people had discovered that Venice still existed and was actually a relatively safe place to visit during the day." more ›

It's all in the name of equal rights. Why should it be okay (legally) for men to walk in public shirtless while it's not for women? Here in Los Angeles it's illegal. "There could be some consequence for that," an LAPD spokesperson, calling it indecent exposure, told LAist. more ›

Is this the summer of nudity or what? From naked PETA protests in Orange County to random and criminal instances of nudity on the 405 Freeway, Azusa and Temecula (and let's not forget the drunk teen in Simi Valley who went to his former house -- the keys still worked! -- and went asleep in a bed nude). more ›

If you've enjoyed legally walking topless around the streets of New York City (yes, it is legal there and if you do get busted, you can take the police to court and win), then you might be interested in protesting for the equal opportunity to go topless in California, too. Tomorrow is National Go Topless Protest Day (with one protest at the Democratic National Convention next week) where those in support of this constitutional cause will march clad in nothing or slightly more. The Venice Beach protest begins at noon on the boardwalk at Navy St. As the neighborhood blog Yo Venice says, "CA Ladies, if you want the same rights as your NY sisters…be at the beach this Saturday." more ›

• In the wee hours of the morning, a cop driving west on Victory Boulevard in Van Nuys crashed his patrol car into a tree in order to avoid a collision with another driver who was believed to have been under the influence. The suspected DUI driver allegedly was driving away from a bar, and got away after the cop's crash.
• A small wildfire broke out this afternoon north of Arcadia in the Angeles National Forest. No homes are in danger, but a group of Boy Scouts had to leave their camp.
• Did Caltrans ignore warnings saying that the stretch of I-5 that saw a deadly 30-car crash last fall was imminently dangerous? An AP report claims "transportation experts had made repeated requests to close the road in stormy weather that went unheeded."
• Think California is a 'land of plenty'? This year's average income as reported by the Franchise Tax Board might change your mind. "Tax returns filed before this year's recession began showed that the average Californian earned $35,390 a year."
• Need to know the latest about the SAG contract talks? Deadline Hollywood Daily has an update.
• Glendale is getting ready for next week's grand opening of the Americana, SoCal's latest shopping "destination." The mall is expected to cause 20,000 more drivers to hit the streets of Glendale per day, making for a potential traffic headache.
• Up in Ojai, folks are talking about Jennifer Moss, an eccentric resident who likes to ride around on her motorcycle in a hemp g-string and flower-shaped pasties in the name of environmentalism. Her latest outing was on Easter Sunday outside a Catholic Church, which locals did not appreciate.

More photos from last night's Undie Run here. Strathmore Tunnel Photos by Contributing Writer Henry David. Photos in the thick of it by Sports Editor Adam Rose and LAist Editor Zach Behrens.... more ›

LAist has been sending undercover reporters to UCLA's undie run for the past few quarters and trust us, there's no better place to be embedded than in a throng of thongs. Try as they might to duplicate our coverage (we're looking at you, KTLA ... and the creepy dude with a camera lens that was a lil' too long, if you know what we mean), nobody can uncover a story like we can. Thanks... more ›

Jim Gaffigan is an actor that does stand-up but his stand-up is what has made him so popular. He's got the Comedy Central Specials, his performance DVD and CD called Beyond the Pale, his regular bits on Conan pushing the hilarious and self-effacing animated series Pale Force, and, of course, there's a soft drink called Sierra Mist. We talked a bit about the creation of Pale Force and the recent contest where 3 lucky viewers... more ›

Last week, we headed over to a really cool club (whose name I will not disclose, because I don't want to get it shut down). We were saddened to discover that we had missed the band we had come to see. They were already over by 11pm; I had assumed they would be the headliners. But the crowd was a fun mix of 20-40 year-olds. And while the next band, the McDaniels, did not... more ›

The fall tradition of releasing prestige films continues tomorrow as Resident Evil: Extinction opens wide. Milla Jovovich stars as the beneficent Alice, a latter-day Tess of the d'Urbervilles who is charged with the stygian task of killing armies of the undead--and the joke is now over. Anyone dumb enough to see the latest chapter of this awful series probably didn't notice anyway. At least there's nudity. But not from Ali Larter. Dang! Into the... more ›

Los Angeles based artist Tom Neely has been on my radar for a long time, so I am really looking forward to his first solo show here in L.A opening this weekend! (Stay tuned for my interview with him next week!) more ›

I'm not sure which is more confusing: that (11.6M). more ›

We know lots of people are heading out of town for a jumpstart on the Labor Day holiday. But if you’re sticking around -- maybe check out one of LAist’s theatre picks this week: 365 Days/365 Plays: Week 42 The staging of Suzan-Lori Parks’s massive experiment of writing a play a day continues this week in the hands of the Angry Bubble Productions. Audience members will be taken in 20 at a time for... more ›

El Vez, a Mexican Elvis impersonator famous in his own right for his adding a Latin and political flavor to the King’s undying legend, is playing a free concert in downtown LA tonight at the California Plaza as part of the Grand Performances summer series. more ›

For what seems like the first time in years, The Simpsons actually exceeded expectations. The first movie of America's first animated family took in a whopp(er)ing 71.8 million dollars at the box office this weekend, demolishing even the most optimistic of estimates. Credit Fox's clever marketing campaign and the opportunity to finally see Bart's shrimpy doodle. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry finished a distant second, making 19 million bucks to raise its total to a dismally robust 71.6 million after two weeks. Why, America? Why? more ›

Photo by Henry David for LAist.com Any time the gay community pitches, LAist can't help but catch. As an aftershock of Outfest '07, RuPaul and film director Mike Ruiz had a special screening of Starrbooty at the Showcase in West LA this past Saturday night. The film is the brainchild of RuPaul herself; a raucous tribute to every great blaxploitation film ever made. Think Grindhouse but with full frontal nudity every 2 minutes? Needless... more ›

- You don't have to be in snow to say "mush." Try urban mushing in Costa Mesa. - "Cardinal Roger M. Mahony today apologized to victims of sexual abuse by priests in the Los Angeles Archdiocese." - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa skips his monthly appearance on KABC-TV's Eyewitness Newsmakers because of personal questions. - By the 1930s, the Los Angeles streetcar system had nearly 600 miles of track and used more than 1,200 cars. Downtown... more ›

The new weather systems have hit, possibly due to global warming, and our country is a desert. It's Mad Max in America. It's Firefly/Serenity minus spaceships and western clad. It is The Famine Plays by Richard Caliban. Part of Theatre of NOTE's "apocalyptic season," this cyberpunk drama is not just about survival and finding water in the desert, but about violence, loneliness and denial. In what other world do people get beat to death as... more ›

Yesterday in Extra, Extra, we brought you the story of the Pleasures Gentlemen's Club in Pasadena getting cited for excessive nudity and illegal contact with patrons. A savvy commenter linked us to an oldie, but goodie Best of Craigslist posting from three years ago featuring a guy with some supposed political connections: Fellow CLers take notice because this is going to blow you away! I just landed a job that you won't fucking believe.... more ›

- Sunday Morning Travel Alert: Caltrans will close the northbound San Diego Freeway (I-405) connectors to the east and westbound Ventura Freeway (U.S. 101), Sunday from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. for maintenance work. -UK based Tesco will launch Fresh & Easy Neighbourhood Markets in Los Angeles stocking healthy, chilled food in 10,000 sq. ft. spaces. - The Parker Center, LAPD HQ, was evacuated today over a bomb scare. It was just a suitcase.... more ›

- Barack Obama says that blacks are pissed and there's a "quiet riot" brewing in LA and the rest of the country. Does that mean that the real trouble won't come for another 20 years when folks begin to finally "rage against the machine"? - AP - Although the adult video world generates about $12 billion nationally, Vivid Video co-partner David James says, "Very few people make over $150,000 in this industry" - Daily... more ›

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,... more ›

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... more ›

Remember the sex ed film that the high schoolers produced in the romantic comedy The Girl Next Door? Well, think of The Maxwell Multiple Climax DVD as the sequel those boys would have made as dirty old men. It's fun and instructional -- and if it works for him, the DVD would be the perfect gift for Valentine's Day -- for both of you. Yes, finally a gift that truly keeps on giving...and giving... more ›