Get Your Lit On: The Week in Bookish LA includes some outstanding readings this week from some fine, fine writers including Maggie Nelson, Anne Enright, Colm Toibin, Toby Barlow, Amy Hempel, Peter Carey, John Rechy, Martha Grimes and Russell Banks....

How much money would it take for you to go on tv night after night and be wrong about things? Millions? Tens of millions? Even if they gave you $10 million a year could you really enjoy the caviar, Hummers, and grillz if you knew that you were rollin in your 6-4 due to bullshitting America? Especially about war? Well every night Bill O'rly says something stupid or lame or embarrassing and the next......

Remember back in the mid 90s or so, when MTV used to play videos? Think hard. Okay, and then there was this period where, right before they cut to a commercial, there was a clip of a Sinatra wannabe singing the song you just saw a video for? Like a snazzy rendition of "Kharma Police" or something of the sort. (Okay, that would've been late 90s. Whatever.) Well, that dude is "Rudy Casoni", a character......

Datarock, Honeycut, Foreign Born @ The Echo Mark Ronson @ El Rey They Might Be Giants @ Avalon Queensryche @ The Canyon Joe Frank @ Largo Nikhil Korula Band @ House of Blues Kid Creole & the Coconuts @ Key Club Bob Schneider, AM, John Neilson @ The Hotel Cafe Driveblind, Sink To See, Love Lies Sleeping @ Viper Room Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers, Mozella, Curtis Peoples @ Knitting Factory Gruff Rhys, Her......

Whispertown 2000, Wintergreen, Satellite Class, You Me & Iowa @ Spaceland Toby Keith @ Irvine Meadows Mat Kearney @ House of Blues Sidestory, Greg Laswell, Marie Digby, Waz, Emma Hill @ The Hotel Cafe Tight Fitting Pants, Coffin Draggers, Tokyo Smog, Inazuma, Glen or Glenda @ Knitting Factory Paper Thin Walls, Sleestack, Great Glass Elevator, Radio Parade @ The Troubadour Old Time Relijun, Mr. Tube, Ettrick, Lucky Dragons @ The Smell Slow Motion Reign,......

And you shall know Mr. Bowie by the size of his purple spandex package… The 35mm reissue of the 1986 Jim Henson/George Lucas magnum opus, LABYRINTH, is now playing at the Nuart Theatre. The new print will continue showing in all its goblin glory until Thursday August 2nd. Tonight, there is a post-show Q&A with the entire Froud brood -- Brian Froud, the conceptual fantasy designer, Wendy Froud, the puppet designer, and baby-actor extraordinaire,......

A Word or 39: It feels like Wednesdays are going to be the night with new programming this time of year. It feels like it, but it doesn't look like it since not much of this stuff is watchable. Hidden Palms?? For effsake. Tonight - Wednesday - June 13th, 2007 Mets @ Dodgers (PRIME, 7:00 p.m.) Hidden Palms (the CW, 8:00 p.m.) Country club party time The Next Best Thing: Who Is the Greatest......

A Word or 56+/-: Even the movie selections suck tonight unless you want to watch an Ida Lupinow filmfest on TCM, which I really don't want to do. I'm superexcited to see Parker Posey on Late Late and hopefully I'll catch Feist on Conan after switching over. Tonight - Tuesday - June 12th, 2007 Mets @ Dodgers (PRIME, 7:00 p.m.) Angels @ Reds (Fox Sports, 7:30 p.m.) On the Lot (Fox, 8:00 p.m.) The......

A Word or 14: Check out all the crazy bands performing tonight on late night shows(??) Bolded below. Tonight - Friday - April 27th, 2007 Angels @ White Sox (KCOP, 5:00 p.m.) Ghost Whisperer/Close to Home/NUMB3RS (CBS, 8-11:00 p.m.) Melinda meets another ghost whispererer!/Anabeth discovers police corruption!/Death-row inmate wants to reveal location of bodies Bill Moyers' Journal (PBS, 8:00 p.m.) The Daily Show's Jon Stewart! Henry Rollins Show (IFC, 8:00 p.m.) John Waters visits;......

Rockstar Supernova, The Panic Channel, Toby Rand & Juke Cartel, Dilana @ Long Beach Arena Money Mark @ Amoeba (free, 7pm) Mezzanine Owls, Black Palms @ El Cid The Exies @ Whisky A Gogo Tribal, Azur @ House of Blues Georgie James, Love of Diagrams, DJ Franki Chan @ Safari Sam's Tom Brosseau, Pedestrian, Ill Lit, Lenka @ The Hotel Cafe Le Rev, Northern, Castle Door, Locksley @ Key Club Nels Cline & Glenn......

Of Montreal @ El Rey Cold War Kids @ Spaceland Everclear, Jonny Lives @ House of Blues Rodrigo y Gabriela @ The Troubadour Bob Forrest @ Silverlake Lounge (5:30pm) Veruca Salt, Run Run Run, OK Stranger @ Safari Sam's The Briefs, Black Fag @ Alex's Bar Ozomatli @ The Canyon The Bobs @ McCabe's Whitestarr, Hollywood Roses @ Viper Room Carbon Leaf, Toby Lightman, Slackstring @ Roxy Noterock, More Gooder, City Slickers @ On......

GWAR, Municipal Waste @ House of Blues Barbara Streisand @ Staples Jello Biafra @ El Rey (spoken word) The Rapture @ Henry Fonda James Blunt @ Virgin Megastore (signing) Sarah Silverman @ Largo Sierra Swan, OK Stranger, Hope Republic @ Viper Room Matt Fishbeck @ Silverlake Lounge Mr. Divisadero @ The Scene Desmond Child, Billy Steinberg, Jill Sobule @ Hotel Cafe Van Gunn, Lions in the Street @ Safari Sam's The Need, LCD, Start......

After a summer-long audition, the Rockstar band formerly known as Supernova finally chose a singer tonight: Lukas Rossi. It wasn't a surprise that Magni was the first of the final four to go. Though he performed his blistering rendition of "Fire" again, American audiences never really connected with the man from Iceland. We were a little more surpised that likeable Aussie beefcake Toby got booted next. So it came down to Dilana and Lukas......

There were more signs that Rockstar: Supernova is becoming as cheesy as American Idol. First, fans voted and brought back kicked off rocker Ryan Star to sing his original -- and very romantic -- song "Back of Your Car." For his trouble, Ryan won a new, fully loaded Honda CRV. Hostess Brooke Burke then had to channel her inner Bob Barker to explain all the car's features since it was just sitting there in......

Rockstar: Supernova took a wrong turn down American Idol alley tonight, taping the arrival of the singers in their tricked out Honda Elements. We'll take solace that at least they didn't air commercials of the rockers riding the Elements through Hollywood like AI contestants did with the Ford Focus. So they didn't cheese out entirely. But there is one more show left.. All five of the finalists were in the bottom three at some......

What's up with all the Dilana bashing on Rockstar: Supernova lately? Sure, she might be the new drama queen now that Zayra's gone (read last week's entry about cutting Magni in the head), but no one can deny that the girl can sing. First, the house band leader mocked her re-arrangement of her first song; and nice guy guitarist Gilby Clarke bashed on her songwriting abilities even before she kicked off last night's show.......

Ryan Star, the "darkhorse" of the Supernova singing competition, has sung his last note for Tommy Lee and the boys. While the band members agreed that Ryan was the performer who's shown the most growth throughout the season, they felt he wasn't right for the band and let him go. Most of the audience and contestants were in shock, since Storm Large's performance shouting of "Helter Skelter" was pretty much unbearable. Now we're not......

We’ll skip most of the Dilana drama that was used as filler at the beginning of Supernova. So what if she dissed a few folks she’s competing against? BFD. Isn’t that what reality TV and rock’n’roll are all about? And so she shattered a glass and a piece flew up and cut Magni in the head, they’ve all kissed and made up. Let’s move on to the music, which was picked out by the......

The Philadelphia theater community has set up a protest blog to attack their vitriolic local critic, Toby Zinman, known as the Bitch of Broad Street for her snarky reviews. Zinman has been the main theater critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer since January and has alienated most of the town since then with statements like "You could go into the University of the Arts musical theater program and with your eyes shut point out five......

LAist managed to stop crying for a few minutes last night (over our girl Zayra’s shocking departure last week) to tune into the latest episode of Rockstar: Supernova. So Tommy Lee, Gilby Clarke and Jason Newsted are continuing their search for a singer to front their band. Here’s what we got left: Storm Large (yes, again, that’s the name she uses): Good singer, but a little too karaoke for our taste. She’s definitely the......

Jose Canseco, who was recently signed to the San Diego Surf Dogs was traded yesterday after just one game. And, Snoop Dogg, he's coming to the LBC. Reno Silver Sox general manager Dwight Dortsh said Tuesday that the former Major League Baseball slugger, who played for San Diego in Monday's 4-3 victory over Chico, will be traded to the Long Beach Armada for a player to be named later. - Nevada Appeal Frankly we don't......

The Dodgers announced yesterday that they were trading starter Jae Seo and former starting catcher Dioner Navarro to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in exchange for catcher Toby Hall and starter Mark Hendrickson. Hall, who had been Tampa Bay's starting catcher, will become a reserve behind Russ Martin, and Hendrickson will join a beleaguered Dodgers rotation. Apparently the Dodgers have other moves in store, as Dodgers GM Ned Colletti said "In my mind, we're......

Living in Los Angeles, LAist likes to think that we’re hip and ahead of the game. We know struggling artists and people who play their fingers to the bone to get a gig here and there, let alone face time with a record executive or A&R guy. We see good music at small venues around town and giggle when the “red states” slowly catch on to indie bands that have been on our radar......

We'd hate to think it had any connection to the death of Leo McGarry...uhh, we mean John Spencer...but it looks like when Josiah "Jed" Bartlet leaves the West Wing, so will NBC. Its true that the "Left Wing" was hitting the midpoint of a downward slide towards consistent mediocrity, ala Law & Order, though when compared to the rest of network TV it isn't all that bad. And if you think about it, the......

Green Day, R. Kelly and Toby Keith are the first confirmed performers for the 2005 Billboard Music Awards. The live awards show will be held December 6 at Las Vegas' MGM Grand Garden Arena. You can catch coverage on Fox. Green Day and Coldplay were the biggest winners at the 12th MTV Europe Music Awards. The music publishing and copyright assets of "M.C. Hammer" (aka Stanley Burrell) have been put up for sale. The......

On Thursday, we wrote:Our LA Flavorpill newsletter for May 31- June 6 landed in our mailbox on Tuesday. It's taken a while to digest their list of "hand picked" happenings, but we noticed that LA Flavorpill favors the Merce Cunningham Dance Company twice. First there's the wrap around ads for Dance at the Music Center's presentation of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Ahmanson Theatre June 2-6. While Flavorpill Productions states in its "About......

Spending the holidays in Northeast Ohio is, in a very real sense, like spending time in a different world than LA. It's quiet. Peaceful. Rustic. Cold. Very cold. And very interesting, especially to an outsider who has spent the better part of a year fixated on Ohio's role in the late Presidential campaign. Now, Ohioans don't march around in lock-step, thumping bibles to the beat of Toby Keith songs. Conversations with their fellow citizens......

David Patrick Columbia runs the society blog "New York Social Diary." Columbia's a former Angeleno and often includes dish from his friends on the West Coast. Recently, he attended a screeing of "The Aviator" in New York and was introduced to the film's star, Leonardo Di Caprio. He writes: Then I told [Di Caprio] I had lunch the other day with his next door neighbor in the Hollywood Hills – Joan Linclau, who owns......