Photo by House of Sims via Flickr On the edge of Los Angeles at the Calabasas city line is the Sagebrush Cantina. It's the last place you can smoke in public before getting a ticket within a few steps, it's a place where margaritas are flowing and where bikers are hollerin'. Even if it is officially in Los Angeles (by 20 feet), come on, it's really Old Town Calabasas. At today's LA City Council......

WINE TASTING Rock 'n Roll Wine brings exactly those two things at the Santa Monica Bar & Grille tonight. Vegas-based The Bends play live music while guests taste more than a dozen wines throughout the evening. No one will judge if you swallow it all and don’t spit – between wines. 7 pm // Santa Monica Bar and Grille // 3321 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles // $40 at the door. OPERA USC’s Thornton Opera......

Pasadena ARTS Bus/Gold Line Map We are not all drivers, we are not all cyclists, we are not all transit riders, but we are all pedestrians. Every trip we take starts and ends with a walking trip. And no matter what part of the Los Angeles area you're in, walking can be, well, no walk in the park. There's always something: a bad sidewalk, ditzy drivers, driveways, the lack of a sidewalk, zero street......

The BBQ & Hibachi Marching Grill Team are taking part in the mischief of the Doo Dah Parade, as they did above in '05 Forget the pageantry and regal demeanor of the Rose Parade, the 31st Occasional Pasadena Doo Dah Parade is the ultimate antidote. Billed as being the loud and irreverent twister sister of the aforementioned annual march down Colorado Boulevard, the parade promises to "send up a woolly range of mischiefs, grounded superheroes,......

Last night's Old Town Pasadena shooting that left an Arcadia man wounded is reportedly a result of a drug deal gone awry. Police today released the name of the accused shooter, who is 18-year-old Mark Cole of Claremont. It's awful hard to put a plain brown wrapper on the porn you check out online. A New Jersey-based company that runs several internet porn sites revealed they recentled suffered a security breach that made its users......

Yesterday, as shoppers lined the streets of Old Town Pasadena, four shots rang out on Colorado Blvd. A 23-year old man, the intended victim, was hit once in the back. He's in stable condition at a nearby hospital. It is, the LA Times reports, the area's first shooting. Channel 9 happened to be there. Old Town Pasadena is filled with mostly mallish chain stores and dining establishments and a few independent restaurants, but it's......

We leaf through various calendars so you don't have to. HOLIDAY FUN: The folks at the Troubadour Theater Company who brought us It's a Stevie Wonderful Christmas and Fleetwood MacBeth are back with A Charlie James Brown Christmas. The show features Charlie Brown singing "It's a Man's Man's World" or maybe James Brown singing "Christmas Time is Here." Or maybe it's both? 8 pm // Falcon Theatre // 4252 Riverside Drive, Los Angeles // $20-$37.50.......

A listing of LAist picks for music in Los Angeles tonight. Includes Of Montreal, Poncho Sanchez, The Walkmen, Coheed & Cambria and more......

I've lived in the U.S.A. for more than half my life now, but I still grapple with the issue of cultural identity and a sense of national heritage. This is further complicated by the fact that my people and my motherland suffer from what I see as a lack of culture beyond a handful of longstanding stereotypes that I feel oftentimes at a loss to counter or defend, unless I am taking exception to......

Every Friday, LAist is taking you on a trip down to Orange County to uncover the unique dining experiences that await adventurous eaters willing to explore beyond the county line. I’ll just say it simply: LA rocks Mexican food. With the largest population of Mexicans outside of Mexico City based in the City of Angels, we are blessed with a preponderance of high-quality, authentic grub (at least based on my uneducated Chinese taste buds).......

Brisk weather seems to beg for warm soothing beverages, the company of good friends, and tasty treats. This is why we recently culled together all three of those components at Pasadena's cozy Chado Tea Room for an afternoon of eats and drinks. Before we began our tea adventure, we'd done a little bit of online digging. We found ourselves on TeaMap.com, a site that, well, obviously, maps out tea houses in the U.S. We......

We had a chance to stop by the farmer's market at Wilshire Boulevard and Mariposa Avenue on Friday morning. The little market bustled with workers from the nearby office towers and people who live in the neighborhood. The first spring produce was already available. We picked up some slim spears of new asparagus. The strawberries smelled nice, too, though we didn't buy any this time. Also, we haven't had great luck buying bread at......

We'd heard a lot of good things about Marston's some time ago; apparently some chow-minded folks swear by it, although there are some who swear at it. LAist had more of the good stuff in mind when we planned a breakfast get-together there recently. Marston's is located in Pasadena, just far enough away from Old Town and not too close to the Paseo's looming retail eyes. The restaurant is in a little blue and......

American restaurants, for the most part, favor the ample portion. Giant salads, sandwiches the size of your head, mounds of mashed potatoes holding up something big and meaty. Sometimes a person doesn't want to eat that much--maybe it's late at night, maybe you had something super-sized for lunch and only want a small dinner. But a taste of something...now that would hit the spot! Enter tapas, the Spanish version of bar hopping and snacking......

We've got two spots we've recently hit up in Pasadena that let you feast on fantastic fare for less than $25 a person. Today's spot is sushi, at a little spot on Colorado in Old Town called Ari-ya. Most likely as a reaction to the neverending "half-price" sushi special down the street at the chain restaurant Kabuki, this hole-in-the-wall has extended their happy hour sushi pricing to all the time, which works out well......

Here it is again... the weekend. Will it cool down? It's all relative, we suppose. Just remember, whatever you do, keep your cool! There are plenty of things to do around town that are indoors, or outdoors, to suit your mood and temperment, in addition to the other events we're talking about. Friday --Delve into the primitive roots of electronic music (and we mean primitive) with a free screening of the documentary Theramin: An......

Wasn't it Freud who said there were no such thing as accidents? We wonder what sort of analysis he'd have for our love (bordering on obsession) with sushi, and the happy accident that brought us to Sushi Roku in Pasadena, when our previous dining plans didn't pan out. Actually, we don't care what anyone says; Sushi Roku is an affordable, fun, and delicious restaurant tucked in among the bigger name chain eateries in the......

Congratulations, LAists. Another week successfully past and a new weekend just beginning! Because of the sheer volume of events over the next two-and-a-half days, this post will only cover Friday's events. Look for another post later today with all the juicy details for entertainment on Saturday and Sunday. Get some air at an outdoor screening of the 1953 classic How to Marry a Millionaire, starring Marilyn Monroe. The movie, which will be digitally projected......