In a bid to revive the Hollywood stars after years of abuse and being stepped on, Absolut Vodka became the first corporate contributor to a $4-million dollar restoration plan in advance of the Walk of Fame's 50th anniversary in 2010. To recognize Absolut's initiative (and creative marketing tactics?), Leron Gubler, CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce presented the company with an honorary star near the entrance to the Kodak Theatre. More on the "Friends......

Celtics 104, Clippers 76 - The NBA's top team won last night in the Staples Center, and it wasn't the Lakers. Boston, now an NBA-best 43-12, was just too much for the Clippers. Chris Kaman sat out once again, dropping LA's record to 1-6 without the big man in their lineup. Sam Cassell was also injured and watched from the bench. Kevin Garnett, one of five Celtics to hit double digits, was recently named by......

These murals outside Pincher's Liquor on Pico were some of your favorites this week on LAist | Photo by Osmany Rodriguez/LAist When you read something you like on LAist, we love it when you hit the "recommend" button, and we love it even more if you put your two cents' worth in the comments. Getting a dialog going with our readers and making sure we're giving you content you can use are top priorities......

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......

The moment has finally materialized: The official lineup for the three-day mega music fest in the middle of nowhere (aka Empire Polo Field in Indio) has been announced. Start putting those Susan B. Anthonys in your piggy banks now, music fans. 3-Day passes will run you $269.00 (+ $3 charity + applicable service fees), and single day passes are $90 (+ $1 charity + applicable service fees). If you're just picking one day, be ready......

NFL Playoffs - It was almost the perfect Super Bowl match up. Instead of Brady-Favre, we get Brady-Manning -- but it's the wrong Manning, if you're going to have one. New England held off San Diego and New York stole it in OT from Green Bay to face off in the big game. Green Bay would have presented the better threat to the Pat's attempt at a perfect season (their secondary is better than the......

Clippers 97, Suns 90 - LA picked up their second win in the past 12 games and snapped a 4 game losing streak on the back of Sam Cassell, who scored 32 ... In their previous three meetings, Phoenix won by an average of 15 ... The Clippers are the lowest-scoring team in the NBA (92.6 points per game) while the Suns are the highest (110.3 ppg). Ducks 4, Stars 2 - Scott Niedermayer notched......

M.I.A. struts her stuff at the Echoplex, July 31 UCLA's online student radio station UCLAradio.com has released its list of top 10 most-played albums of 2007. Looks like it was a good year for hip-hop at the station, with the above-pictured third-world jetsetter M.I.A. taking the number one spot. The station also recently put out favorite record lists from many of its managers. Longtime Promotions Director Jason Stern describes his favorites using only lyrics......

Johnny Grant was found dead tonight, around 7 p.m., on a bed at the Roosevelt Hotel where he lived on the 14th floor in a suite.Grant, 84, has been one of Hollywood's most enthusiastic supporters for more than 50 years. Grant got his start in entertainment by hosting a daily radio show in New York City for servicemen and women during World War II, and later co-hosted the first national telethon ever produced to help......

I didn't want to just do a "best of" list. So this year, I've decided to take a years worth of personal New Year's Resolutions, ask around for those of friends and put a call out to readers (email me here) about things you've always wanted to know, always wanted to do and then take those requests and ask an expert, an insider to help out. The result? Here goes... Today's Resolution: "I want......

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......

I'm hoping you got a bunch of DVDs to tide you over during this dead week as well as until the writer's strike ends. It looks like TCM is running an "aviation in movies" marathon tonight and IFC's featuring Harvey Keitel. For further marathon action, check out BRAVO which is showing all of Project Runway's fourth season (starts at 6:00pm). 4:15pm Five Easy Pieces IFC - (1970) If you've got the day off like me,......

Everybody's doing it, right? I don't pretend to be hip or edgy or rebellious. I mean, I grew up on Billy Joel and Madonna and Motown and then the Gen Xer's basic dichotomy of KROQ versus Top 40 in the 90s. I find it increasingly harder to fall in love with albums in the downloading age, and am one of those people who obsessively compiles mixed cds for friends and iPod playlists full of......

Etta James & Chuck Berry - "Rock n' Roll Music" Etta James and the Roots Band @ Wiltern Stevie Wonder @ Nokia Theatre Les Savy Fav @ El Rey Snoop Dogg's Smokin' XMAS Party @ House of Blues Mellowdrone @ The Echoplex Greyboy Allstars @ The Troubadour Lamb of God @ Long Beach Arena The Nightwatchman, Jill Sobule, Low Stars @ Hotel Cafe Andre Legacy, Dirt Nasty, Beardo @ Safari Sam's Mike Stern Quartet......

"A Little Prayer" by Evelyn Glennie, played with Fred Firth The Watkins Family Hour @ Largo Mike Stinson @ The Echo Sixteen Stars, Major O, Eggman & the Starkillers @ The Derby The Brown Out @ Fais Do-Do Wreckless Eric @ Safari Sam's Puddle Of Mudd, Solarcade @ Roxy Marc Cohn @ El Rey Theatre Francisco Aguabella Seven Piece Latin Jazz Ensemble @ Charlie O's Moutin Reunion Quartet @ The Jazz Bakery Evelyn Glennie......

Ghostface Killah The Big Doe Rehab Def Jam December 4, 2007 "No time...there's never any time," cried a caffeine pill crazed Jesse Spano in that very special episode of "Saved by the Bell." Ghostface Killah laughs at you and your complaints, Spano. While you can't find the time to balance a geometry midterm, getting into Stanford and covering Pointer Sister tunes, Pretty Toney is having no trouble finding time to spit sick verses on 8......

Monday Keith Gessen & Chad Harbach discuss the latest issue of n+1 7pm @ Book Soup Jay Inslee & Bracken Hendricks presents Apollo's Fire 7pm @ Vroman's Jenna Bush signs Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope 7pm @ Barnes & Noble, The Grove Robert Hass presents Time & Materials 7pm @ Central Library Tuesday John Leake presents Entering Hades 7pm @ Book Soup Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg present Superbad: Seth's Drawings 7pm @......

Just read that one of Sid Caesar's writers, Mel Tolkin, just passed away at age 94, godlove'im. Instead of running vintage Leno re-runs they should be running some of this classic comedy that actually had great writing from way back in the day. The kids might learn something. 8:00pm A Charlie Brown Christmas ABC - If only this didn't have commercials, hmm, but if it didn't have commercials the show would be about 11 minutes......

The WGA and the producers are back at the negotiating table, hopefully they will catch the breaks that they need so that the collapse of Western civilization is averted. In a desperate attempt to avoid family time over the holiday, I managed to watch season one of Showtime's Dexter and my optimism for the future of mankind was restored. I missed Dexter when it premiered last year but was happy to cover the zany stunts......

1. In N' Out I've been training for the LA marathon for the past month and once a week, after a super hard run, I reward myself by ordering a #3 w/onions. Seriously, how could a "fast food" hamburger taste so good? And it's really not that bad for you. If you order a burger combo with a diet coke, you'll consume less than 550 calories. It's totes a win-win situation. 2. Bros Because......

Tuesdays are a slow day for the networks. Dancing With the Stars will soon require someone to pass out every week in order for the show to remain interesting and House seems like it jumped the shark a while ago. For satisfaction we'll have to delve deep into cableland or pay-TV. 8:00pm TCM Crime Drama Marathon TCM - Starting out with The Lineup and following on with Armored Car Robbery, and Follow Me Quietly 8:00pm......

It's a dream date for fans of Canadian songstress Feist and Austin's Spoon. Feist is just now making her break on the world stage, with a little help from Uncle Steve. But anyone with an ear to the Toronto indie rock scene could hear her coming ever since her solo debut, Monarch, was released on the heels of By Divine Right's "Bless This Mess" Tour (she was their rhythm guitarist). For most of this......

Feist, Spoon @ Gibson Spiritualized @ Vista Theatre Little Brother, Evidence, Black Milk @ El Rey Sondre Lerche @ The Troubadour The Parson Red Heads, Or the Whale @ The Echo Gliss @ The Viper Room The Jealous Girlfriends, A for Attack @ Silverlake Lounge The Airborne Toxic Event @ Detroit Bar Stars @ Glass House......

Naked Ambition, book of photos of the adult industry by photographer Michael Grecco "Like everything else in this business, this is chaos." This is what Lonn Friend, Naked Ambition writer, told me when I showed up at the Naked Ambition signing at Book Soup in reference to the way the event was going. For an event full of porn stars, it was actually quite tame, and not so much chaotic as lackadaisical. But, I......

Scattered across Southern California today, the hundreds of fans who left Staples Center well before the game was over should be kicking themselves. Hard. Some wouldn’t blame them - the Dallas Stars were smoking the Kings 4-0, and it was Saturday night so perhaps they had amazing plans for after the game. If it were the latter, I can say with certainty that those postgame appointments should have been blown off or at least......

Sure, two members of Rage Against the Machine helped the writers rage, but this photo essay will focus more on the thousands of people who showed up to march, and the churros. Yes, churros of support were rolled into the Nakatomi Plaza for anyone who needed some churro love. And if people-watching is your thing, the Avenue of the Stars lived up to its name this morning. After the jump, a nice photo essay......

Jay-Z w/ Rihanna - "Umbrella" Jay-Z @ House of Blues Hanson @ Avalon Backstreet Boys @ Jimmy Kimmel (out back) Stars of Track and Field @ The Roxy Architecture in Helsinki, Glass Candy, Panther @ The Troubadour Teaneck, On Blast, Pop Noir @ Key Club Tunng, Big Search, Karin Tatoyan @ The Echo......

We had no good photos from last night, so enjoy a video of Chad Henne getting tackled by a goalpost. Stars 5, Ducks 0 - Dallas center Mike Modano described it as Anaheim's "Stanley Cup hangover." His team took advantage by dishing out one of the Duck's worst whoopin's in almost six years. Goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere got yanked in the third ... The Pacific Division seemed like the strongest last year, but this year......

Sports Illustrated busted with a sweet and comprehensive look at current-day NHL goalies and their colorful helmets. Sadly our local boys did not fare very well in comparison with some of the monsters that emboss a few of the masks, like the one above of Marty Turco of the Dallas Stars. They weren't embarrassingly bad, like some, but they're pretty near the bottom of the barrel. The Kings' Jason LaBarbera seems to have Metallica......

As a life long hip hop fan who's friends are mostly casual hip hop fans, at best, I am constantly being told that a live show that features an emcee rapping over the record is hardly entertaining. To some extent I would agree. On one hand I won't pass up the opportunity to see someone who's lyrics I feel even if they are simply rhyming alongside a DJ who is playing their record, but......