The Brief

Calling all readers: It’s the annual L.A. Times Festival of Books this weekend, so bring your favorite tote down to USC, buy all your favorite books and hear from your favorite authors, publishing houses, chefs and more. We’ll be there, too. Come say hi.

Licorice Pizza has your music picks, from Coachella weekend and beyond. There’s a lot of skull-crushing rock, punk and industrial this weekend, starting Friday, with Avatar, Fleshgod Apocalypse and Frozen Soul at the Novo, and Blood for Blood at the Belasco. On Saturday, Gwar, with Soulfly as support, will spill their guts, literally, at the Belasco; My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult are at the Teragram … or, for something completely different, there is a literally hair-raising show by furry saxophonist Saxsquatch, with opener Olivver the Kid, at the Roxy.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can find out how the LAX people mover is coming along (spoiler alert: slowly), learn how to protect yourself from a stingray sting as warmer waters have increased attacks and read up on the history of Sunset Strip’s famous Marlboro Man billboard.

Events

Artist talk with Ruben Ochoa

Saturday, April 18, 2 p.m. 
Breakdown/Breakthrough: Art and Infrastructure
UC Irvine Langston Orange County Museum of Art 
18881 Von Karman Ave., Irvine
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Allison V Smith

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UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art

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The exhibit Breakdown/Breakthrough: Art and Infrastructure is on in Irvine through May 16, but this weekend you can catch an artist talk with Ruben Ochoa and a special pop-up activation at the Irvine Barclay Theatre Plaza (4242 Campus Drive, Irvine). Ochoa’s work, which spans photography, large-scale installations, AR and more, examines “how Southern California’s built environment shapes daily life … from our movement and visibility to our sense of belonging.” On Saturday, Ochoa will discuss his practice with curator Dr. Michaëla Mohrmann.

Elysian Park and the Stone Quarry Hills film screening

Saturday, April 18, 11:30 a.m.
Edendale Library 
2011 Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

Friends of Elysian Park hosts this screening of the Ed Ruscha short film, Elysian Park and the Stone Quarry Hills, which local favorite Ruscha made in 2023 with narration by none other than actor Benicio del Toro. The film takes a view of the history of the urban park, which includes its indigenous origins and later iterations as a quarry, a brick-making factory, a hospital and, of course, a baseball stadium.

Great Altadena Poppy Festival

Saturday, April 18, 10 a.m.
2270 Lake Ave., Altadena
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy Pasadena Jaycees

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Check out the blooming poppies while supporting local Altadena businesses at the Great Altadena Poppy Festival. The Pasadena Jaycees will be handing out passports so you can keep track of where you’ve been, take photos at the flower wall and drive through the scenic poppies. There’s also a fun run at 8 a.m. if you really want to get moving early! 

The films of Gordon Matta-Clark 

Sunday, April 19, 1 p.m.
LA Film Forum at 2220 Arts 
2220 Arts
2220 Beverly Blvd., Historic Filipinotown
COST: $15; MORE INFO

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Gordon Matta-Clark

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Electronic Arts Intermix

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Six films from groundbreaking artist Gordon Matta-Clark have been stitched together for this screening, giving a broad sense of his “building cuts,” which “expose the thinness of the boundaries that divide people, mediums, spaces and ideas.” Curators Jessamyn Fiore, who's the director of the Gordon Matta-Clark estate, and Dylan Adamson, a critic and programmer, will be in attendance.

Save the Pier play

Through Sunday, April 19, 8 p.m. nightly 
403 Santa Monica Pier (West end of the pier), Santa Monica
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Santa Monica Pier Corporation

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Eventbrite

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Did you know that the Santa Monica Pier almost didn’t make it? In the 1970s, plans were in place to demolish the iconic end of Route 66 until a noble group of local citizens fought to keep it alive. And now we can play Skee-Ball any time — thank you, elders! The story is immortalized in a new play being performed — where else — on the pier, for free, through Sunday.

Beverly Hills

Through Saturday, April 18 
Kirk Douglas Theatre
9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City
COST: FROM $34; MORE INFO

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Courtesy Center Theatre Group

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Long before he was an entertainment writer for the likes of EW and his own site, TV Line, Michael Ausiello wrote a soap opera called Beverly Hills. He was 13. His long-held dream comes to life on stage at the Kirk Douglas with a rotating cast of bold-faced names, including Nathan Fillion, Michael Urie, Edi Patterson and more.

Edd Kimber

Friday, April 17, 6:30 p.m.  
Fat & Flour 
11739 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City
COST: $15; MORE INFO

Ummmm, can you say yum? Fat & Flour’s Nicole Rucker will chat with Edd Kimber about his new book, Chocolate Baking: The Ultimate Guide to Cakes, Cookies, Desserts, and Pastries. Of course, there will be treats to go with a book signing.

Public Fruit Tree Adoption 

Saturday, April 18, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 
L.A. State Historic Park 
1245 N Spring St., Downtown L.A. 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

Part art collective, part food waste activist group, part community farm, the Fallen Fruit folks are always up to something cool. In the spirit of Earth Month, head to the L.A. State Historic Park to adopt a fruit tree and help grow the city’s Endless Orchard — a project to plant and map publicly accessible fruit trees all over the city. You'll also have the chance to be painted into the Community Portrait celebrating the Power of Pollinators.

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.