Carolyn Kellogg

In Los Angeles we sort of live in our cars, but we do have to have someplace to park them. And stretch out a bit, even sleep. And having that home sweet home is just not that easy for Angelenos. Average home price in Los Angeles County, September 2005: $494,000 Monthly payments on such a house, assuming 10% down, 6% interest, and 30-year fixed rate: $2,665/month Maximum portion of income under federal guidelines that...

Got a crush on Jason Bentley? Wanna know what Nic Harcourt looks like? We can't promise you they'll be nearby, but we know how you can get behind the scenes at KCRW. Right now the station is is signing up volunteers online to help with their winter fund drive in January and February. Volunteering to answer phones during the fund drive is a cool (cheap) way to support the station. Chances are they'll have...

A Girl Walks Into a Bar (Exam) reads the Wall Street Journal (so we don't have to). She snips parts of a story about not passing the bar -- one guy made it after taking the California bar 47 times. Jaguar Edu blogs about conscientious street vendors in Lincoln Heights. Slate combines two recent scientific studies and comes up with the booze-n-coffee diet. Better than Atkins! Local nouveau horror producer Gregg Hoffman (Saw, Saw II,...

Early in the morning of February 6, Devin Brown, 13, and a friend, 14, stole a 1990 Toyota Camry and went driving around South LA when the LAPD began to follow the car, which they observed as driving erratically. The car didn't stop when the police turned on their lights, and a 3-minute chase ensued. The car ran a red light and drove up on the sidewalk; the passenger got out and ran, the...

Every December hundreds of folks on motorcycles participate in toy drives for needy kids. Which is just sweet. But we kind of long for the time when we used to call them "bikers" and they were scary. Before nice guy Jay Leno was riding a hog with a jet engine. Well, just in time for Christmas, the bad boy bikers are back. The LA Times reports that yesterday's Spark of Love toy drive in...

When we spotted a place called Paris Baguette on Western near 1st Street, we naturally thought French pastries. But that's because we've never been to South Korea. There, Paris Baguette is a well-known chain, about as French as french fries. Enchanted by the cross-cultural oddness, we were lured inside. We like the little boxes for your pastries, the fancy self-serve, the extra-polite staff in bakery outfits. We tried the enormous triangle toast, somewhere between...

Longtime LA Times pop music editor Robert Hilburn has taken the Tribune company's buyout package and will be leaving the paper, LA Observed reports. It was kind of nice to have a stiffening baby boomer still going out to concerts and writing about new musical acts like they were as relevant to his generation as, say, visiting LACMA or seeing Garrison Keillor at the Hollywood Bowl. Recent changes at the paper, including the current...

It sounds like something Boris & Natasha would make up -- a devious plan to blow up a corner of Hollywood that includes a shopping center, a fabulous bar, and a major Hollywood/West Hollywood thoroughfare. Rumors are flying that a passenger boarded a bus near La Brea and Santa Monica and handed the driver a note saying he had a bomb in his bag. Some say traffic has ground to a halt for the...

Beaudry Avenue doesn't do much more than provide a quick driving getaway from downtown to Echo Park, but since we travel that way a lot we're quite familiar with it. So driving home one nght, we were compelled to stop short and get a photo of the new pedestrial signals at Beaudry and 1st. These new countdown signals feature the classic walking guy then switch to ye ol' blinking red hand when you're running...

LAist Rants are strictly the opinions of the author in question. They are even in first person! We keep them on Sundays because even the hive mind needs a rest. I used to spend my weekdays in gray-carpeted offices, wondering how I could get out of work in time to beat everyone else to Ralph's, say, or get through Glendale during Christmas season without battling Galleria traffic. I imagined driving up to LAX without...