So this week, I watched pitcher Roger Clemens as he desperately fought for his name in baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown – without the asterisk. The seven-time Cy Young award winner testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on whether or not he was pwj – playing while juiced (on steroids and human growth hormone). Here’s a recap: Under oath, Clemens told the panel that he never used steroids or......

Jazz performers improvise in front of an audience all of the time. At each sitting, different combinations of instruments and players create unique variations of existing sounds and tunes or develop something brand new to our ears. It’s thrilling to listen to the artists search for their individuality within the known arrangement of tones, scales, rhythms and meters. Or, it can fall flat. Still, when you bring the best together, even flat can be amazing......

I know I’m about as consistent as the Lakers in doing these things. So here are my quick takes of all of the Sunday games. There’s a quarterback who breaks records, a team that finally does something with a kick off, a team that will not live in infamy and a bunch of ugly games that made me really happy to be huddled in my bed with the heater on. Cleveland Browns over Buffalo......

My brother is a wine snob. What I love about him though, with all his tattoos and his refusal to wear anything other than shorts and flip-flops regardless of weather, is that he isn't a real snob. He knows good wine. He seeks it out. But he's all about finding the best wine at a great price. When he's in town, he wants to visit every wine bar, wine boutique and wine warehouse in LA.......

The holidays are a great time to sarge (pick up) women. Why now? Because shopping malls are FILLED to the brim with hot women doing their last minute shopping. Go to any major mall in the country and you'll have the chance to meet all the smokin' babes you could possibly want! Use any of these 4 basic approaches, adapted for the holiday shopping season, to meet the sexy girls of your dreams!...

OK, maybe I lied about the mashed potatoes. What I love most is the stuffing. Man, it's like Sophie's Choice trying to decide. I don't see any reason to deal with the hassle of making cornbread just to use in stuffing. But straight out of the box is boring. My mom has always used ground pork sausage in hers and it is killer. Ask the guy at the meat counter. We are also going......

I'm hoping that no one had time for TV last night and if they did they had the class to watch the Boris Karloff marathon on TCM. 8:00pm Ugly Betty ABC - The Halloween Episode. TV Junkie 8:00pm Pick. 9:00pm To Die In Jerusalem HBO - Have heard enough about this documentary on NPR and elsewhere to know it's a good thing. TV Junkie Pick-O-The-Night 9:00pm The Office NBC - If you don't feel like......

Over hot chocolate and chocolate-chip rugula at Canter’s in Hollywood, we spoke with LA author Mark Z. Danielewski about his latest novel Only Revolutions and got all worked up about film, freedom and fonts. He will be reading tonight @ UCLA, 5 p.m. RSVP here or call (310) 206-0961 to reserve a seat. You were recently quoted as saying if you could live anywhere in the world, it would be Los Angeles. You’ve traveled......

Would you pay $85 for truffle mac n' cheese? Or would you rather enjoy the cheaper, classic versions at Larkin's or Lucky Devil's? The Glutton over at the LA Times samples the goods for you. What do we want? Conservation programs, access to healthy food, and promotion of renewable energy! When do we want it? Whenever the Senate gets around to voting on the Farm Bill. There's still time to make your voice heard.......

OK, so maybe I'm inflating it a bit since there were 18 people on the phone interview with Glenn Close and we each got just one question but I got mine in there! I managed to say "uh" only twice or so to the 5-time Oscar nominee which made me happy. What I learned in the interview (other than that Close is a fan of the Daily Show) is that they just finished shooting the......

I think a lot of people imagine San Pedro as a gray town at the end of the freeway. Oil tankers, canneries, and smokestacks make up the landscape of Pedro. What I like about Mike Watt's pictures is that they show you the color. When I look at this photograph, I can smell the ropes, damp with saltwater. It makes me think about my dad's Chinese junk he kept docked in San Pedro. It......

For this belated Season Preview of the USC football team I haven’t concerned myself with typical journalistic staples like accuracy, objectivity, or integrity. I am not a sports writer or blogger (I’ll leave the heavy lifting to guys like Scott Wolf and Ben Malcolmson). What I am is a USC graduate with an extremely biased view of Trojan football and semi-regular Internet access. In the exhaustive research I put into writing this, I have......

Tonight at the Shrine Auditorium, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will bestow the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards. This year the Academy has launched their Green With Emmy Campaign. The event features the use of alternative fuel sources for deliveries, hybrid vehicles for talent, recycled paper, a set created from mostly rentals with less construction and waste, staff tuxedo will be dry cleaned with eco friendly solutions and not covered in plastic bags,......

Artist: Memphis Album: A Little Place In the Wilderness Release Date: June 2007 Label: Good Fences Memphis released this album in Canada a year ago and now it's made it to the US. This was a hard record to listen to in the summertime, what with it's many references to snow and snowy countrysides, ostensibly up in Canada, as it was written and recorded in the winter of 2005-6. All the vocals, guitars, and......

Guest Day Editor Fred Camino of MetroRiderLA will be joining LAist with a few posts throughout the day. Read his introductory interview here and check out his site. MetroRiderLA promotes what I call the "Los Angeles Public Transit Lifestyle" (it's not really trade marked, feel free to use those words in anyway you please). The idea behind the Public Transit Lifestyle goes something like this (from the website): "The implication is simply that the citizens......

Being the last real home game before they go on a 10-game roadtrip, I really wanted to witness the last game of the Met’s series Wednesday night. I’m sorry, but I think interleague play is a complete farce even if it is against the Angels. This was a spontaneous affair. I had this hankering this morning and made a couple of IMs to friends. One of the reasons I love baseball so much is......

Believe it or not, but glampop rockers Poison have been on Capitol for 21 years now. And if that doesn't make you feel old, next year, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" will be 20. To celebrate their new album Poison'd (a collection of newly recorded cover songs, which drops today), the band played a short set to about 40 people in the famous Studio A at Capitol Records. They opened with a version of......

Leah Muse is a young wife whose husband just happens to be an up-and-coming rock star, signed to Orange County's Northern Records. The band, Quiet Company is on their summer tour and we were lucky enough to have Leah write about what it's like being the only girl in a van full of bearded rockers. Some of you ladies that have hopes of dating a rockstar, are currently dating a rockstar, even married a......

A bear-hugging belated congratulations to local rockstars The 88 for their record deal with Island Def Jam (announced last week). These LA marvels have been working their tush (it’s a technical term) off for years and I am thrilled for their success. I heard a track off Kind Of Light in 2002 or 2003 and it was one of those compulsive, immediate love, kismet things. I assaulted the internet looking for any information on the......

Last night I login into MySpace tonight and there is the usual flurry of spam friend requests. But tonight was different: there was a friend request from a picture I knew quite well. That's because I took it when covering the Holly Trolley last year. Last week, a new push for the Holly Trolley went into effect touting some changes, mainly the new 6:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Thursday through Saturday service and a two......

LAist is proud to offer a weekly chart roundup of Billboard Magazine's most coveted rankings. Join us as we revel in the conventional standard of musical success. Let us cross our fingers, hoist our lighters, and dream together of the supreme resurrection of artist-driven recordings that will forever eclipse the dark cloud of big label greed, A&R sleaze and disposable audio. Amen. Here are this week's chart toppers. Behold the #1s. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Billboard Charts......

Saturday is going to be huge. I’m not even talking about Cinco de Mayo. Granted, Cinco de Mayo will be a huge day of cultural celebration for the many Mexican-Americans in LA, as well as the many boozers who will be, um, celebrating in their own way by double fisting Coronas. What I’m talking about is a boxing match. Wait, a boxing match? Seriously? Yes, I know, boxing is full of corruption and politics, more......

The Dodgers were swept. I was also yelled at by 3 traffic cops on my way to the stadium. Juan Pierre missed the sign for the squeeze. I had to look at Barry Bonds. Nomar represented the tying run with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and he struck out to end the game on his own bobblehead night. I don't really want to talk about it right now. So instead I offer......

As a girl with little money and parents who love to dine out, I often find myself eating with them on a Friday night. And I often have to twist arms to get to go to place I want (cough cough: Paco’s Tacos or Hide Sushi). Well, last Friday I was unable to twist the arm that feeds me. My step dad headed out towards Marina Del Rey hoping to take us to CPK......

Don Imus is an old man. Maybe back in the day he was funny, but he hasn't been funny for as long as I've been aware of him. But he does live in America, and here we have the freedom of speech. Now that Right doesn't mean that people cant call you out on what you say, but it should mean that you shouldn't have to get fired or jailed or killed for saying......

STARDOLL.com is the new best thing I have ever seen. Having only scratched the surface of this sugary pop paperdoll fest, I speak on little authority as to the full functionality of the site. What I do know, however, is all you really need to know -- you get to play dress-up with your favorite icons, and onto some of their faces you can also apply makeup. The end. Been a while since you've......

Sex is something that drives us, empowers us and gets us into really stupid situations with people we have no business seeing naked. Jen Sincero is the bestselling author and sexpert with the carnal knowledge you need. Ask her your questions (all are posted anonymously). Cuz there's no such thing as being too good in bed. Dear Jen, I saw your book, "The Straight Girl's Guide To Sleeping With Chicks" in Borders about a year......

New York-based magazine Marie Claire paid a visit to Hollywood Wednesday night to find out what LA gals dig about their bodies (not including the silicone/restylane/botox enhanced parts). The event was held at the not-so-hip-anymore club Mood, and was promoted to some (including us) as a model search. In fact, the photo shoot was for a monthly feature called “Beauty Roadshow,” a photo montage of women from different states and a blurb from each......

Sex is something that drives us, empowers us and gets us into really stupid situations with people we have no business seeing naked. Jen Sincero is the bestselling author and sexpert with the carnal knowledge you need. Ask her your questions (all are posted anonymously). Cuz there's no such thing as being too good in bed. Dear Jen, Could you explain what a light hug means? There's this woman that I've been making friends......

Monday Robert Fagan discusses The Notebooks of Robert Frost 7pm @ Vroman’s Rebecca Liebermann signs We Are Still Here 7pm @ Dutton’s Brentwood Josh Peter discusses Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies & Bull Riders 7pm @ Studio City Branch Library Tuesday David Lynch presents Catching the Big Fish 7pm @ Borders in Westwood Martin Amis discusses House of Meetings 7pm @ Central Library Robert Stone & John Densmore in conversation about Remembering the Sixties 7:30pm......