Ray Bradbury will receive France's highest Arts & Letters Award, the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, tonight at 6pm in Beverly Hills for his contributions to literature all over the world....

Introducing the TV Junkie Black List: While waiting for Spoon to go on the Tonight Show last night I had to endure Leno and guest Denis Leary talking about how they'd like to get cyclists off the roads and how they enjoy honking at them, etc. Both of these a-holes know* what went down recently in Beverly Hills as reported by LAist and the last thing LA needs is more SUV drivers feeling justified in......

We thought we knew uber-blogger and writer Luke Ford. He's best-known for his probing stories about the porn industry (nsfw), and most recently admired for being the first reporter to state that Mayor Tony's marriage was dunzo. But it wasn't until this week's interview with the Jewish Journal that we learned how real Ford keeps it. From his 300-square-foot Pico-Robertson crib, the fact that he used to live out of his car, or the......

When actress Kate Walsh (Dr. Addison Montgomery Shepherd on Grey's Anatomy) appeared on Ellen Degeneres' show last week, Ellen didn't feel like waiting for the upfront announcement of whether Walsh's spinoff would get the green light. So she gave ABC President Steve McPherson a call from her show to get the scoop. McPherson, being the suit that he is, would only say that he "thinks she's in pretty good shape." While LAist has no......

We caught wind of the axing of the "Jamie, Jack and Stench" show on Star 98.7 in the L.A. Times Calendar Weekend this morning: In a news release, the station said that "Star 98.7 management decided that the show is not a long-term fit with the music-intensive, artist-driven direction that began last April…." The station said it would announce plans for the morning show "in the coming week." Jamie has always been in the......

Stocking stuffer alert for the foodies on your list! When it comes time to make New Year's resolutions, oftentimes at the top of ours is "Try more restaurants!" And this is when "new" is a relative term; sometimes "new to us" is as good as new, if not better. But then as any given mealtime approaches, we find ourselves scrambling for ideas: Where should we go? How much of a dent in the wallet will......

Tongues are wagging about the long-anticipated opening of Mozza, the love child of local legend Nancy Silverton and celeb chef Mario Batali, that took place early last month. We, too, had our eye on the pizzeria's progress for most of this year as the changes happened molasses-slow over on the corner of Melrose and Highland. While LAist waits for the hype to die down a bit before we belly up to the bar, we're tuned......

While LAist was checking out the malls on Black Friday (Century City and Paseo Colorado were easy to navigate), we stumbled across a live performance by Incendio. The Los Angeles based Latin Guitar band was jamming in Pasadena, playing kind of music that makes us wish we could play guitar. If you want to be treated to one of their performances, check out their schedule on Myspace.......

While LAist hasn't really made up our mind yet who we're voting for in the Governor's race, it looks like Jay Leno has. In an bizarre move, the Tonight Show invited Governor Schwarzenegger on the air yesterday as a guest on the show -- in the middle of a close race. But for some reason they didn't invite the Democratic candidate Phil Angelides, which has prompted Angelides' team to begin an online protest, demanding......

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......

It's rivalry week and a cursory view of our blogroll shows the Trojan/Bruin war rages on. Boi From Troy is, obviously, almost all USC all the time this week while Loteria Chicana and Ultratart both wax nostalgic with dreams of past glory. Caroline on Crack wants you to visit Hunky Santa at the Beverly Center. Hunky Santa? What, no Hot Hannukah Harriett dancing the horah for the lovers of ladies? Was that enough alliteration......

The Los Angels of Anaheim suffered a bitter defeat yesterday, falling to the Toronto Blue Jays 2-1 in a marathon 18 inning game. The loss was the fourth in a row for the struggling Angels, who have seen their AL West lead shrink to 3.5 games over the surging Oakland A's. While LAist still thinks the Angels will wind up winning the West, Bill Stoneman and Mike Scioscia need to be very concerned about......

The Pasadena City Council chose stagnation over progress, and voted 4-2 to help make the Rose Bowl less relevant. In other words, the Rose Bowl has rejected the NFL's potential offer to give Pasadena more than $500 million for renovations. What kind of City Council says "no" to $500 million to fix up a facility that loses $2 million a year? The Rose Bowl is a gorgeous stadium, a true historical landmark, but it's......

Just as Pasadena was arguing its environmental impact report for a renovated Rose Bowl, Anaheim's football stadium proposal suddenly got contentious. LAist thinks the Rose Bowl renovation plan is a good one for the city of Pasadena. It's important to remember Pasadena is not debating building a football stadium. The Rose Bowl is there and not going anywhere. The question is how to ensure the economic viability of a facility that loses $2 million......

The Angels won and the Dodgers lost on Opening Day, so as you can imagine, the Los Angeles Times interprets this a sign of things to come. While LAist doesn't doubt the Angels are a great team, we'd like people to evaluate the Dodgers on more than one game against Jason Schmidt. Perhaps halo fans should be concerned that only Vlad Guerrero could muster any damage off of Texas' Ryan Drese. But then again,......

National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman announced today that the NHL season is over. While LAist won't claim to be huge ice hockey fans, we admit it was always fun to go to Kings or Ducks games every now and then. Bettman and the NHL owners should be ashamed that they let this happen. After finally getting the players to agree to a salary cap, how could they not let it go up to......

The Los Angeles Times has a series of articles this week on LA surviving ten years without NFL football. Today's edition in the series, is about former 49ers and Browns executive Carmen Policy, and how he might be the savior LA has been looking for to bring us back a team. Come on! Enough already! How many more saviors can we take? Add Carmen Policy to a list that includes Jerry Jones, John Elway,......

LAist is feeling a little bit depressed at the current selection of new films playing at the local cineplex. We're just feeling a little bit taken advantage of, and you're about to read why. We remember 1976. Do you? Do you remember a movie called John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13? Do you remember anything so amazing that it was worth remaking the same exact movie about twenty-eight years later? Do you have any idea......

Phew! That was close. What for a second looked like the worst trade in Dodger history became absolutely nothing, as the Dodgers backed out of widely reported trade that would have brought Randy Johnson to the New York Yankees. While LAist has always been supportive of Moneyball GM Paul DePodesta, we're not sure what he was thinking here. Javy Vazquez is probably better than he showed in the second half this past season, but......

History confirms that LA's development has always been dependent on water and land annexation. These ingredients fuel our city's present development as well as its past. Back in April, things looked promising for the proposed 555-acre, mixed-use development known as Las Lomas when a judge blocked the City of Santa Clarita’s attempt to annex unincorporated land in its effort to thwart the controversial development. Now the fate of developer Dan Palmer’s dream project has......

Today in the Daily Trojan there appeared the article "Record Penny-pinching," a profile of the best record stores in Los Angeles. While LAist can't fault the need for such a list—and the conclusion that Amoeba Music is the best in LA—there are some fairly notable omissions. Topping the list are Hear Music, Record Surplus, Virgin Megastore Hollywood, Aron's Records and Amoeba Music. Fine places, sure, but LAist finds fault with the skimpy selection. Los......

Lovers of good food and doing good will revel in some new exciting businesses that recently opened. The Coffee Cellar (La Bodega de Café): Sustainable Coffees Community Roaster is the latest of the bunch. The Coffee Cellar is located at the MacArthur Park Sidewalk Vending District headquarters and inside Mama's Hot Tamales Café. An outgrowth of the Institute for Urban Research & Development, these projects merge progressive business philosophy with providing some damn tasty goods.......

The New York Times reports that Gov. Schwarzenegger has built a new lobbying coalition that assembles the GOP Governors of the four largest states - Arnold, Rick Perry of Texas, Jeb Bush of Florida, and George Pataki of New York. They plan to take on Washington to reclaim a share of the federal funding that gets unfairly siphoned away by smaller states. A "New York official" (big journalism, specific as ever) credits Arnold's administration with......

About the only thing consistent about the Dodgers this season is their inconsistencies. Two weeks ago, the Dodgers had lost six straight, were in third place, and considered becoming sellers at the trade deadline. Today, the Azul find themselves winners of five straight and atop the National League West. Last night Kaz Ishii pitched the best game of his MLB career, giving up just one hit and facing only 29 batters in a complete......

The new LA Weekly has a welcome set of articles on Burgers, Dogs and BBQ in the food section. My favorite notice is the profile on perennial Hollywood hot-dog favorite Pink's: "uncouth and garlicky, skin thick and taut, so that when you sink your teeth into it, the sausage . . . pops . . . into a mouthful of juice." One wonders if this review was prepared for the phone sex ad-laden back pages.......

Sunday marked another excellent episode of HBO's Six Feet Under. While LAist has always had a supreme affection for the The Sopranos, SFU keeps getting better and better. The show succeeds in part because it illustrates Los Angeles in all its kaleidoscopic glory - ranging from Nate's short fling with a Westside divorcee ("I have to meet someone at the Grove!") to Federico's ill-advised philandering with an exotic dancer. Larry David's misadventures on Curb Your......

L.A. news junkies would do well to check out Michael Kinsley's first column as Opinion Editor of the Los Angeles Times. While LAist appreciates Kinsley's amiable liberal style, we also hope to see the Times' opinion page take on local politics with a little more gusto and vigor. Keep those city councilmembers on their toes, guys! In an admirable show of editorial restraint, Kinsley spiked his very first column for the Times, in which he......

According to the Los Angeles Times, Rudy Tomjanovich is the leading candidate to become the next coach of the Lakers. While Tomjanovich is no Phil Jackson, this is good news for Lakers fans. In today's NBA, there is no coaching job more strenuous and complex than the Lakers', and Jerry Buss could not get away with handing the keys to the franchise over to a less-experienced coach like Jim Cleamons, Kurt Rambis, or Brian Shaw.......