Topline:
Forget Hollywood. A comedy club in downtown Bellflower is quietly pulling in big-name headliners.
Like: Jo Koy, Deon Cole, Stormy Daniels have all performed at The Stand Up Comedy Store in this suburb.
Read on ... to learn why a former comedian decided to build a comedy outpost far away from Hollywood.
Bellflower isn’t exactly known for its stand-up comedy culture. But that may be changing.
Since 2021, comedians like Tisha Campbell, Frankie Quiñones and Jo Koy have taken the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in downtown Bellflower.
“We knew that the Downeys, the Cerritos, the Lakewoods, the Long Beaches, the Norwalks, and Compton and Paramount would come,” said general manager and co-owner John Giries. “That was our bet, and it's been working.”
Giries, a former stand-up comedian himself, grew up in Bellflower. He co-created and helped run The Stand Up Comedy Magazine in the mid-aughts, along with his late friend and fellow comedian Julian Vazquez. Names such as Maz Jobrani, Sebastian Maniscalco and Rachel Feinstein all graced its cover.
After Vazquez’s passing in 2020, Giries decided to put the magazine on hold indefinitely and launch a comedy club.
Giries’ family was an investor in Hambone’s BBQ Smokehouse on Belmont Street, next door to the Bellflower Theatre, downtown. He recalled seeing that theater for the first time and how it felt like something out of a movie…
“It was one of those moments like "Field of Dreams" where Kevin Costner saw the baseball diamond being built in the cornfield,” Giries said. “And I kind of looked at it and said, ‘you know, I can see it.’”
After doing gut renovations and waiting through the first year of the pandemic, Giries and his wife and co-owner, Scarlett, opened the club in June 2021.
The roughly 2,400-square-foot space space seats 140 and has a full bar with a steakhouse feel. Photos and memorabilia of Robin Williams, Richard Pryor and Phyllis Diller pay tribute to some of comedy’s legends.
Giries had always planned to have famous comedians perform here. He chose Bellflower because it didn’t have the competition of legacy clubs such as the Improv, The Comedy Store or the Laugh Factory. It was also a closer alternative for locals who didn’t want to brave Hollywood traffic and pay for valet parking.
“[Bellflower] fit the criteria of what we wanted to do. It's not in the desert. You're not by the beach and it's easy to get to if you live in a five to 10 mile radius,” Giries said.
“So never L.A. Never thought about it once.”
For the first three years of opening the club, Giries focused on getting big-name acts. He had already made connections with notable performers through his magazine, and was able to enlist help from talent bookers including Richard Barrett, who was the entertainment director for The Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. Giries credits Barrett as “one of the best bookers in L.A.”
Since then, Deon Cole, Sheryl Underwood, Paul Reiser, Billy Gardell, Chaunté Wayans and others have taken the stage.
That list is growing.
The Stand Up Comedy Club
Where: 9831 Belmont St., Bellflower
Check the club's event calendar for upcoming lineups
Stormy Daniels visited the club in July on her "Unicorns in the Kitchen" storytelling and comedy tour. Last week, Jamie Foxx produced and hosted a comedy special featuring Donald Ray “Speedy” Caldwell. All four shows were sold out.
Giries recognizes that the club is still young, but is proud of what they’ve accomplished since opening five years ago.
“No one remembers, ‘Hey, they've been here for 30 years,'" Giries said. “They just remember, ‘Man, that club was kind of cool. They really took care of us. That was really funny stuff there.’”
Topline:
Writers will gather in venues across Los Feliz to hone their craft at the 2nd Annual Los Feliz Writers Festival.
What is this: It’s the second iteration of the small neighborhood literary festival. RSVPs are ten times larger than last year for doubled the amount of events.
Read on ... for festival highlights this closing weekend ...
Reading, writing, and drilling down on the craft — that’s the focus this weekend at the 2nd Annual Los Feliz Writers Festival. Various free workshops are happening at multiple venues across the neighborhood such as Barnsdall Art Park, Fred 62, and the Vermont Triangle.
Festival founder Sammy Ginsberg has a passion for small literary festivals. She fell in love with them while studying abroad in the United Kingdom, and once she moved back to Los Angeles, her love continued.
Last year she set about hosting one in her own neighborhood, Los Feliz.
“There's a tradition of writers and artists being in Los Feliz. Joan Didion lived in Los Feliz for a bit. Charles Bukowski went to Jumbo's [Clown Room],” Ginsberg said.
Last year’s inaugural festival had six events and about 100 people. This year, there are 1,000 RSVPs for its 13 events.
Writers living in Los Feliz are leading all of the workshops. Like William J. Meyer, who’s published his fantasy and sci-fi writing as podcasts. His workshop is at the diner Fred 62 this afternoon, focused on how to write with audio in mind.
“It's about taking that writing and making it fun for an audio recording. Tone, voice, and things like that,” said Ginsberg.
Willa Lane is a writer and tarot reader. She’ll perform tarot readings today at her workshop in Barnsdall Art Park, using the cards and their symbolism as writing prompts.
“Sylvia Plath had a deck of tarot cards that she used. So a lot of artists and creatives have been using tarot to inform their work at some level,” Lane said.
Today’s events culminate in a live reading of a zine put together by Los Feliz Writers for the festival. The Barnsdall Art Park event will feature a mix of short stories, a screenplay, an audio play, and more.
“ I wanted to represent different voices in the neighborhood and different backgrounds and I really think that this does,” Ginsberg said.
The festival continues through tomorrow with an open mic at the Vermont Triangle, a panel and performances from writers of color, and a mixer for activists and writers.
Los Feliz Writers Festival
Find the full schedule.
Ginsberg wants to continue the literary tradition in Los Feliz — for all kinds of writers, emerging or established.
“Live, work, or play. It's L.A., that's the energy. Like, we want you to be part of this,” Ginsberg said.
She said the wider vision is to help and inspire other neighborhoods to build their own literary events.
"There’s 99 neighborhood councils in Los Angeles. That’s like 99 writers' festivals and 99 poet laureates," Ginsberg said. "That is magical."
Topline:
Even in the era of YouTube tutorials and AI assistants, learning weekend warrior skills — like how to fix a leaky faucet or the brakes on your kid’s bike — is sometimes better IRL.
When: On Saturday, Aug. 29, a community of DIYers will come together at a Skillshare Fair, co-organized by the Los Angeles Tool Library and the Democratic Socialists of America, Los Angeles.
What you'll learn: Clothing repair and alterations, how to use power tools, gardening techniques and more.
Why: Hoang-Creton said the benefits of these events are manifold: It’s great to keep stuff out of the landfill and save money, but it’s also a place to make friends and build community.
Read on ... for event details.
Even in the era of YouTube tutorials and AI assistants, learning weekend warrior skills — like how to fix a leaky faucet or the brakes on your kid’s bike — is sometimes better IRL.
On Saturday, Aug. 29, a community of DIYers will come together at a Skillshare Fair to teach and learn about things like clothing repair and alterations, how to use power tools, gardening techniques and more. The event is organized by the Los Angeles Tool Library in Koreatown and the Democratic Socialists of America, Los Angeles.
Skillshare Fair
When: Aug, 29, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Where: Immanuel Presbyterian Church (basement level), 3300 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Vi Hoang-Creton, an event coordinator with the Los Angeles Tool Library, said the benefits of hosting events like this are manifold. It’s great to keep stuff out of the landfill, but it’s also a place to make friends and build community — and save money.
“I mean who doesn’t want to save money, as the economy gets worse and worse, people are trying to lean on each other,” Hoang-Creton said.
Topline:
Fat Marmot Week, the brainchild of UCLA researchers, is happening next week to highlight one of the longest ongoing animal studies amid federal funding cuts.
What it is: Eight competitors will face off — five females and three males — and there’ll also be a “true” winner who’s announced at the end based on the lab’s observations on which marmot gained the most weight this spring and summer.
Where the idea came from: UCLA’s Dan Blumstein had the idea for Fat Marmot Week ever since Fat Bear Week went viral – but it took two of his graduate researchers, Katie Adler and Emily Renkey, to organize it this year and see it into fruition.
About the marmots: Their names range from Dawn, who is reportedly a “a very special boy who enjoys the taste of rocks,” to a “proud mama” named 1 and a “girl boss” with no mate named Open Kite.
When to vote: The first round of voting will be Monday, Aug. 24, followed by the semifinals on Wednesday, Aug. 26 and the final showdown on Friday Aug. 28. Voting runs from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT.
Read on... to learn lots of fun marmot facts.
The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory may run the second-longest study of individually identifiable mammals in the world, but they’re not afraid of trying something new.
The lab is launching a bracket-style competition, Fat Marmot Week, for people all over the world to vote for their favorite chunky ground squirrel.
The UCLA researchers who work there have faced a loss of federal funding in recent years, so they’re now pursuing creative fundraising efforts, including a (G-rated) OnlyFans account for marmot content called OnlyMarms and a meme coin created by supporters of the project.
Dan Blumstein, a UCLA ecology and evolutionary biology professor who came up with OnlyMarms, said he’s wanted to do a Fat Marmot Week ever since the success of Fat Bear Week, in which the public votes on grizzly bears bulking up for the winter in Alaska. But it took two of his graduate researchers, Katie Adler and Emily Renkey, along with another volunteer who helps with logistics, to see it to fruition.
“ Science isn't just writing the papers, it's also the communication side of things,” said Adler, who’s also the lab’s field team leader.
Like bears, marmots prepare for the winter by fattening up, with some more than doubling in weight from about 5.5 pounds to as much as 13. But unlike bears, marmots are true hibernators. For months, their body temperature drops very low, and they breathe and have a heartbeat about once a minute. (Blumstein described a hibernating marmot as “sort of a fuzzy stone.”)
Adler, who's on her third year of marmot field observations, said the individual marmots are consistent enough that she can "see what they're doing a little bit and then know exactly who it is."
“I think it’s fun to think of this from an outside perspective – why do we like marmots and how can we share that with other people?” Renkey said.
LAist asked the UCLA researchers about their favorite marmot trivia. Here’s what they said:
The marmots are all given names to help tell them apart based on markings the researchers dye on their fur.
Their names range from Dawn, who is reportedly a “a very special boy who enjoys the taste of rocks,” to a “proud mama” named 1 and a “girl boss” with no mate named Open Kite.
“Our parties are quite boring to other people because all we do is talk about the marmots,” Blumstein said. “It's a soap opera.”
Faced with federal funding cuts, Blumstein realized he had to get creative, starting with the OnlyMarms account.
But he said he wasn’t expecting the “extraordinary” response – the $OnlyMarms meme coin has made more than $100,000 in transaction fees, though it’s still short of the $225,000 to $300,000 they need to fundraise to bring in more graduate student research.
Blumstein said while all funding is welcome, including the OnlyMarms subscriptions, it’s much easier for them to accept direct donations for tax purposes. The money will go to support researchers like Renkey and Adler’s contributions to the nearly 65 years of marmot research at the lab.
Eight competitors will face off — five females and three males. There’ll also be a “true” winner announced at the end based on the lab’s measurements on which marmot gained the most weight this spring and summer.
The first round of voting will be Monday, Aug. 24, followed by the semifinals on Wednesday, Aug. 26, and the final showdown on Friday, Aug. 28. Voting runs from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT.
“Everyone should vote. It's very exciting,” Renkey said. “They're huge this summer.”
Topline:
The younger bald eagle that Shadow has been seen hanging out with in Big Bear’s famous nest lately has a new name.
Why now: The bird, which is believed to be a female, is banded as KD1. Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs the popular YouTube livestream, has dubbed her Kaydee.
Why it matters: “This is kind of the banders dream, right? You put bands on a bird so that you can possibly get … a one-off observation of where it is at some point in its life, and we're getting way, way more than that,” Jenna Carpenter, a field biologist and environmental specialist with the Orange County Water District, told LAist.
Go deeper: Will Shadow stay in Big Bear without Jackie? What’s next for the famous nest
The younger bald eagle that Shadow has been seen hanging out with around Big Bear’s famous nest lately has a new name.
The bird, which is believed to be a female, is banded as KD1. Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs the popular YouTube livestream, has dubbed her Kaydee.
The organization generally doesn’t name visiting eagles, but Kaydee is sticking around so far and could become a new online star after Shadow’s long-time mate Jackie died last week.
One expert told LAist that Kaydee is more than 4 years old and was probably wandering much further than Big Bear before it was spotted on camera.
“This is kind of the banders dream, right? You put bands on a bird so that you can possibly get … a one-off observation of where it is at some point in its life, and we're getting way, way more than that,” said Jenna Carpenter, a field biologist and environmental specialist with the Orange County Water District.
“In this instance, we're getting 24/7 views and people are so tuned into it that they're keeping really good track of where KD1 is, and it's really awesome.”
Kaydee was first recorded on the livestream cameras in the Big Bear habitat on Aug. 6 — a few days before Jackie died — according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.
The nonprofit said the eagle started to perch by Shadow in several trees, which it has continued to do in the weeks since. The group recently referred to Kaydee as Shadow’s “shadow.”
Kaydee is from the Prado Basin area, where its parents Ricky and Lucy nest nearby. Carpenter said Ricky and Lucy have raised around a dozen eaglets since 2021, when they first started setting up shop in the area.
The eagle wears two bracelet-like bands on its legs, including a lavender-colored one, which can be used to track Kaydee in different areas.
“If someone sees [the color band] with a scope or binoculars or a zoom camera, it can be reported and put into a research database, which adds to the opportunity to progress conservation for raptors and eagles,” Carpenter said.
You can learn more about reporting a bird with a federal band or color marker here.
Kaydee is what's known as a subadult eagle, a stage in which Carpenter said raptors are still trying to figure out what they want to do and where they want to be.
“Big Bear’s a nice habitat, obviously they've been visiting this nest, you know, there's some interest there whatever it may be,” she said. “So it's possible that they stick around and find a mate, whether that be Shadow or another adult eagle.”
But it’s also possible Kaydee moves onto another habitat after the off-season. Whatever happens, Carpenter said us humans get to go along for the ride through the livestream, which she described as a privilege.
“We get this chance to witness something that we would not normally get to witness, because we know exactly who this bird is and we happen to have cameras in the area,” she said. “It might be everything and it might be nothing, and either way, I think that's really exciting that we get to have a little peek into this world.”
