Occupy protesters and followers are questioning whether or not Los Angeles will face similar rioting as the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Oakland movements. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has supported the movement from day one, and at least one other councilman - Bill Rosendahl - are losing patience and feel that the time has come for occupiers to pack up camp and create a new tent city elsewhere. more ›

Roastmaster General Jeffrey Ross entertained the Occupy L.A. troops yesterday in a special Wall Street roast. In solidarity with all global Occupy movements, Ross stood on the south lawn steps of City Hall and did what he does best - he dissed. more ›

Despite his hankering for hookers, booze, cocaine, voicemail, knife threats, divorce, rehab, rehab and more rehab, Mr. Carlos Irwin Estévez aka Charlie Sheen has managed to stay within range of public favor while also keeping a flourishing career as a top-paid TV actor -- $1.8 million per episode -- on CBS' "Two and a Half Men." more ›

Even Hollywood's been breached by the midterm elections! Gloria Allred, apparently bored with muckraking the governor's race, has her sights set on Conviction, the new Hilary Swank film where the actress goes from low-life to lawyer to defend her brother from a murder rap. Go rattle your own saber at Inside Job, the Wall Street corruption doc in limited release at the Landmark. Propositions 20 & 27 aim to change the process of redistricting - what a perfect time for a cinematic primer on Gerrymandering! LAist's own Farley Elliott reviewed Gerrymandering earlier this week. His conclusion? The film "very smartly peeks open the heavy lid of political dullness", but it often "lacks a clear message". This critique cannot be applied to I Want Your Money, whose trailer boasts Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Fox News clips and a cartoon boxing match pitting Obama against Reagan. more ›

Nationally headlining comedian and best-selling author Aaron Karo is 30, single and loving it. The New York native who walked away from a Wall Street job to jump into a career in comedy isn't going to abandon the bachelor life to leap into marriage anytime soon, even if all of his friends are. In his new book, I'm Having More Fun Than You the LA-based comic shares with readers exactly why he's perfectly happy to live a life free of commitment and full of nights spent chasing chicks at the bar. Karo's book, which was the top selling comedy book on Amazon.com last week, is a celebration of singlehood through anecdotes, observations and a few tips along the way. more ›

"Hollywood Casts Wall Street as Villain to Tap Anger at Crisis," writes Bloomberg in a headline about film and TV studios "rushing to tap America's fixation with the financial crisis and anger at the Wall Street executives blamed for it." For example, some current working titles include "The Wolf of Wall Street," "Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy" and a familiar one, this time in sequel-mode, "Wall Street." "Our development is tied to what is relevant in today's world,'' Teri Weinberg, an NBC Entertainment VP said. "We hope to exemplify the foolishness of the human condition in the world of finance.'' And as usual, episodes of Law & Order will also be "ripped from the headlines." more ›

The House rejected the bailout plan earlier today sending stocks down and worrying people across the nation. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is not happy with the idea of bailing out the "failed lenders and investors," is not satisfied with congress doing nothing. He tells Congress to get back to work in a statement released this afternoon. While it's obvious Congress still has a lot of work to do, Villaraigosa's statement emphasizes how all of this affects local services. more ›

The results are in and the House voted 205 to 228 to reject the Bailout plan which in turn sent stocks plunging. more ›

On your commute home tonight, don't be surprised if you see corners full of people protesting President Bush's proposed bailout of Wall Street (did anyone catch Bush's broadcast last night?). Instead, members of True Majority want to save Main Street. Protests are planned for 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, at Highland and Melrose across from Mozza and a few other locations from around town. more ›

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New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who rode into office on the high horse of morality after years of spearing Wall Street robber barrons as the attorney general, has been linked to a prostitiution ring that has operated in Los Angeles. more ›

On Monday the NY Times reported that ABC and Cox Communications are collaborating on a video-on-demand service with disabled fast-forward, meaning, yeah, that you can't skip the commercials. This isn't that new an idea as Time Warner Cable has been doing the equivalent with two features called "Start Over" and "Look Back" (after using them IMHO they stink). more ›

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that '24' co-creator Joel Surnow is bailing from the show and the Fox network. Surnow is the "right-wing nutjob" who is a personal friend of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and President Bush - he's the one that had the brilliant idea to come up with a right wing "answer" to 'The Daily Show' for Fox, but the failure to produce one is evidence he never understood the question. more ›

There's a sports game on right now. The Big Game. You know, the championship game between two conferences of a league that specializes in playing the sport with a football. more ›

In some TV news with local flavor, Santa Monica-based Ovation, "The Arts Network" (I thought this was Lifetime's tagline?), has announced a series of partnerships with cultural institutions across the country to produce and promote their content and collections. Local organizations include: the LA Opera, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and P.S. ARTS. Now if I could only get Ovation on local cable.... more ›

As you can see below it's slim pickins tonight. Last Friday the Wall Street Journal ran an article about all the smoke that the networks are blowing with their overuse of the word "new" as it applies to their programming. ABC's "all new (but partial) season of Lost" and the "all new funny" Carpoolers, which would be a welcome change for that sub par offering. I guess we're supposed to be excited about this and the fact that Victoria's Secret will be running it's first Super Bowl ad since 1999, mark your calendars. more ›

Would you like a nonfat latte with that Big Mac? more ›

Finishing the book, the high that I got living vicariously through Mr. Jordan Belfort slowly started fading away. As he started sinking deeper into a drug addled paranoia, I began to empathize more than envy and the rooting for the protagonist of his book (so to speak), namely him, took on a new meaning (read Part 1). more ›

Stuck in the muck of collegiate winter fun (and by fun I mean endless hours of non-comprehension of Middle Eastern languages and religious legal texts, staring and pretending to read as your eyes begin to learn to work under the constant rain of exhaustion), I, in my perpetual procrastination mode, rummaged through my emails to find the title "The Wolf of Wall Street" leap out at me. Needless to say, I was as ecstatic... more ›

It's too hot for C-SPAN: Bush rocks out -- slightly -- to a band playing “Guantanamera” at a Hispanic heritage month event. "It's time to end the tradition of holocaust denial that has only deepened the pain of those whose parents and grandparents suffered the unspeakable horror of ethnic cleansing," Mayor Villaraigosa said about City Council's calling the 1.5 million Armenians killed a genocide. "When we don't speak up, when we are silent, what... more ›

Most people who don't know me are surprised when they learn that I am a born again Christian. I don't know why they're surprised. I think I'm a nice person. For example, even though for the last decade or so I've been writing article and post and column about how the Conservatives are evil and untrustworthy and now I am telling people how excited I am to be voting for the most conservative presidential... more ›

In what the Wall Street crowd might call a flight to quality, North American audiences made nose-dived 65% after an auspicious opening, adding 25.6 million to run its total to 128.5 million. more ›

Photo by Alex Kehr via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr more ›

Photo by MAXIMUMSHOTS via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr more ›

Monday Mike Carey presents The Devil You Know 7pm @ Book Soup Tuesday Doug Stumpf presents Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy 7pm @ Book Soup Joy Horowitz presents Parts per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School 7pm @ Central Library Michael Tucker signs Living a Foreign Language: A Memoir of Food, Wine and Love in Italy 7pm @ Dutton's Jerry Stahl presents Love Without 7pm @ Borders, Long Beach Thomas... more ›

Rarely does anything good come from the keyboard of an anonymous negative commentor. Despite the fact that one could hide from the bushes and snipe at people from the bushes doesn't mean that one should. Likewise, when commentors refuse to put their real name next to their criticism, the validity of the statement should be seriously questioned, as should its motives. more ›

This montage by Kelly Gallaher is upsetting enough to make me want to storm Capitol Hill and Wall Street to begin a mass boycott of the products sold by all of the big campaign-donating corporations until our Congress is forced to get American soldiers out of Iraq. Given that something drastic like a true boycott has not yet happened, I am going to agree with the Gallaher's montage accusation that we are all too... more ›

Do you want to get screwed? I know this sell-out whore who will screw anybody for five billion dollars. All you gotta do is call this number: 1-800-JOURNAL (1-800-568-7623). Just ask for Dow Jones, or Wall Street Journal, as that sell-out whore is known as on the street. But be careful because Dow Jones is crazy and could turn on you at any time. Everyone says that Down Jones used to be pretty honest... more ›

George Lucas is notoriously stringent when it comes to copyright and trademark issues, but it looks like the director has finally realized that remix is the aesthetic of the new millennium, or at least this first decade of it. The Wall Street Journal reported that Lucasfilm is taking approximately 250 clips from the various Star Wars movies and making them available to fans who want to download and use them in Internet mash-ups, re-mixes and... more ›

In like a fox and out with a yodel? Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo for $50 billion. Many have speculated that Microsoft would eventually spring for big Y, as a marriage with the online media giant increasingly appears to be the most viable option to compete with Google in the great war of search and online advertising. Always a fun rumor to kick around, but today it's being corroborated by the WSJ, and considering... more ›