Carolyn Kellogg

Randy's Donuts has always been a landmark to us, one that says we're close to the airport, that says we should lighten up and enjoy life via ginormous lifelike donuts. But to some, Randy's Donuts not just a landmark: it's a place to actually stop and buy a donut. It's also midway through the adventure taken by writer Jim Ruland exploring the long and winding Manchester Avenue, starting seaside in Playa Del Ray. His...

We'd like to think that all is happy in Los Angeles. We're having a beautiful, mostly dry winter. We've got a new mayor who's charming, handsome, and seems to be excited about his job. Sure, we might complain about traffic tickets, rude waiters, disloyal football players, and dumb questions for David Foster Wallace, but we all kinda love this place. Right. Right? Well, maybe we do, but people reading the LA Times today —...

Yesterday the nonprofit Environment Calfiornia released a report on soot levels nationwide, and we're right up there. LA-Long Beach ranks logs in at number three for fine-particle pollution, which is caused by power plants and deisel engines. Pittsburgh is number two, but SoCal's very own Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario ranks #1! Thanks for knocking us out of the top spot, guys! The nonprofit explains that the report looks at all of the instances in 2004 when...

Join music fans from around the city in bidding a sad farewell to the Rhino Records Store in Westwood this weekend. After a couple of decades of selling records, then 8-tracks, cassettes and CDs, it will be shutting its doors; the very last parking lot sale is this Saturday and Sunday from 10am-4pm. That's at 2028 Westwood Blvd, in the parking lot. Everyone probably has their own favorite Rhino Records memory. They used to...

The Los Altos was built in the 1920s by William Randolph Hearst for his mistress, actress Marion Davies, who of course got the penthouse apartment. Once glamorous, it is rumored to also have been home to starlets Clara Bow, Judy Garland and Bette Davis. But the Los Altos, like so many other grand buildings on Wilshire Blvd, fell on hard times. Some sources say it started to go to seed during the Depression (although...

Leif Garrett has been charged with possession of heroin, after taking the subway to score. The most grisly part of the story: he's been in jail since the weekend, and his banged-up face makes us think maybe former boy pinups don't do so well in jail. But we are left with so many questions: Leif was picked up on the Pershing Square subway platform, carrying heroin. At which subway stop did Leif buy his...

What were they thinking? The LA Times Home Section's big feature this week is: Going Costal: The modest Southern Calif. beach cottage once ensured inlanders an outpost with an ocean breeze. Today, residents call their ramshackle charm an antidote to modern life. Elsewhere in the paper, there is continued news of the 2 million gallons of raw sewage that spilled into the Santa Monica Bay on Sunday. 11 miles of beaches remain closed. On...

The Daily News talks to Cherie Currie, now a mom who lives in the Valley suburb of West Hills. Currie was the lead singer of The Runaways from 1975 to 1977; that's her in the center of the photo next to Joan Jett. You've heard "Cherry Bomb," right? That's Cherie rocking with The Runaways. Reassuringly (at least to us), Cherie still hasn't lost her edge. She may be a 40-something divorced ex-actress, but she's...

A Garden Grove High School student was arrested, CBS-2 reported yesterday, for planning to plant a bomb at school. Friends say he wasn't really going to plant a bomb. There are some things you just shouldn't do in jest, however: make a joke about having a bomb while in flight, and save an arial image of your school to your hard drive with after labelling a spot "bomb destination." The latter, that's what this...

As the Ambassador Hotel has been ignominiously knocked down, we've been following its last days on Ambassador's Last Stand. Well, it's over, kids. Yesterday, as we were overtaken by Golden Globe Fever, ALS announced that the rest of the hotel was gone. Only the Cocoanut Grove remains: the LAUSD has plans for it — it's going to be an atrium or a library. (We can't find the current plan online, but we admit, our...