The Brief

A crackdown on predictive software that sets prices and can rip you off seemed to be brewing in the California Legislature earlier this year, but today lawmakers eased up, voting to kill bills that would have kept software from setting the price of apartment rentals and other goods and services. Another bill, which sought to bar the use of personal information to set prices, was reined in to apply only to grocery stores.

Lawmakers also killed a bill that aimed to protect electric utility customers from bearing higher costs associated with data center proliferation, which has been driven in part by energy-hungry artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT. The measure would have required data centers to publicly disclose how much energy they use.

The author of the legislation, Democratic San Ramon Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, wrote in a statement she was disappointed to see the bill stall and that, without it becoming law, state regulators would be unable to “accurately forecast demand in this rapidly growing sector, leaving California ratepayers to unfairly shoulder the costs.

Legislators also delayed to next year decisions on bills that would require independent AI auditors to register with the state and mandate human oversight of AI used at places deemed critical infrastructure, like dams and wastewater systems.

The legislative cullings came with the completion of the secretive suspense file process in the appropriations committees in both houses of the California Legislature, during which the fiscal impact of bills is considered before many are summarily killed without explanation. As part of that process, the fate of hundreds of bills were determined today, including more than 30 related to how tech and AI can impact kids, workers, patients and society.

A fair deal of tech regulation survived the suspense file, including a bill that would outlaw pricing software algorithm use in any contract, which will now advance to the Senate floor for a final vote. Some data center regulation also made it through the appropriations process, including an effort in the state Senate to limit the ability of utility companies to pass on growing data center demand costs to ratepayers and a bill that requires data centers to report how much water they use.

The Senate Appropriations Committee also voted to approve a bill that would require developers of advanced artificial intelligence models to assess the potential of catastrophic risk in their technology and give the public and employees an easy way to report to state authorities the existence of AI with the capacity to cause death, bodily injury, or damage to property.

A trio of bills that seek to stop employers from using AI to surveil workers or make decisions related to hiring, pay, or disciplinary actions also made it through the appropriations process, though one bill was amended to eliminate an appeals process for workers when they think AI made a mistake.

Amid growing evidence that companion bots that mimic intimate human relationships can exacerbate mental health problems, California lawmakers will vote on several bills in the next two weeks that seek to protect children from AI or harmful encounters online. Appropriations committees approved bills that prohibit the design of companion bots and other systems for kids and put in place a protocol for companion bots to follow when the subject of suicide comes up.

Those developments came days after the New York Times reported that Adam Raine, a 16-year-old California boy, died by suicide. In a lawsuit filed in a California Superior Court on Tuesday, his parents accused OpenAI’s ChatGPT of acting as his suicide coach. Megan Garcia, mother of a Florida teen who took his life after forming an intimate relationship with a chatbot made by California-based Character.ai, endorsed the suicide protocol bill earlier this year.

Prior to news of the death of Adam Raine, following reports of Meta’s AI chatbots speaking to children in harmful and inappropriate ways, the Attorney General of California and 43 other U.S. states sent a letter to top AI companies to warn them that they “use every facet of our authority to protect children from exploitation by predatory artificial intelligence products.”

Lawmakers also approved bills that seek to prevent off-campus cyberbullying, deepfake pornography of minors, and that require a warning label for social media, heeding a call for such labels by the previous Surgeon General of the United States, Vivek Murthy. The labeling legislation was significantly watered down, with amendments reducing the size of the label, eliminating the ability of private citizens to sue over violations, and delaying the implementation of the rules.

Also advanced today was a bill that seeks to better hold developers accountable for AI technology, preventing them from blaming the AI itself for harming people as a defense in court.

The California Legislature has until Sept. 12 to decide whether these and many other bills should become law. Governor Newsom will then have until Oct. 12 to decide whether to sign those bills into law or veto them.

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.”

Jo Koy (left) and Finesse Mitchell (right) take the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

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Courtesy The Stand Up Comedy Club

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From a comedy magazine to a comedy club

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.

The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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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.’”

Tisha Campbell takes the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

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Courtesy The Stand Up Comedy Club

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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.

Why Bellflower, not Hollywood

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.

Interior of The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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Interior and stage of The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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“[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.”

Landing the headliners

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.

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.’”

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.

A tradition of writers

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.

Sammy Ginsberg (right) poses for a picture at a Los Feliz Writers with L.A. Poet Laureate Brian-Sonia Wallace (left).

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Sammy Ginsberg

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Sammy Ginsberg

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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.

Local Feliz

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.

Attendees at a Los Feliz Writers Festival event.

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Sammy Ginsberg

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Sammy Ginsberg

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“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.

Willa Lane sits in front of a table with her tarot cards.

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Willa Lane

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Willa Lane

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“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.

A literary event for every neighborhood

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

Where the idea came from

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.”)

These two specimens are called Dawn and Dan's Hat.

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Courtesy Dan Blumstein/UCLA

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 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.

About the marmots

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.”

Funding troubles

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.

The tournament

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.”