Carolyn Kellogg

farm flashback These may be the last days of the community farm in south central LA; supporters are $10 million short in their efforts to buy the property from the developer who's ready to take his 14 acres and make a profit. But Hollywood is lending a publicity-generating, eviction-fighting hand: Daryl Hannah is camping out on the property, Laura Dern and husband Ben Harper stopped by and Joan Baez is treesitting. Treesitting, you ask?...

Our photo of the day is a mystery. What's so dangerous about the bees in Marc's neighborhood? Does he live in Corona, where bees attacked firemen and motorists after a pickup drove near their hive? Or is there another reason to see bees and flee?...

Last night, LAist decided that today was the day to do something only tourists do: go to a TV taping. And not just any taping — our destination was the Tonight Show. We don't particularly like Jay Leno, but it's something we've never done. So why not? OK, we had a reason: the Flaming Lips will be on. So we trucked out to Burbank and found the right gate and brazenly parked in the...

Score one for the little guy. The verdict is in on the fraud and conspiracy trial of Enron's Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, and it's guilty, guilty, guilty. Lay was found guilty on all charges while Skilling was found guilty on 20 of 28 counts (conspiracy, fraud, false statements, insider trading). Maybe they weren't the smartest guys in the room after all. Here's extensive Enron coverage from our brothers at Houstonist. They've been on...

If you listened to KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic today, you caught the Ditty Bops, whose record release party is tonight. Tomorrow the band leaves on tour — on their bicycles. We know bands who've toured tirelessly, and we've known people who've biked across the country. But before now we didn't know of anyone who had tried to combine the two. If you're free tomorrow, we suggest heading to Venice Beach at 10am to wave...

Behind the Wall of Sound - Turns out legendary record producer Phil Spector has been quietly filing civil suits as he awaits trial for murder. The civil suits, which include a suit and countersuit with his former assistant, can proceed before the murder trial, a judge has just ruled. The best part: in court documents, the assistant says Spector is visited by only handful of people. One of the chosen few? A wigmaker. when laundry...

Back when this LAister was a dewey-eyed new Angeleno, we loved all things that were genuinely Los Angeles, that were cheap, that were a little bit strange (we haven't changed much). Back then we were drawn irresistably to Venice Beach, which was free — and a freakshow of street performers, muscle men and the scruffy hippie punks of Zendik Farm. The Zendik Farmers carried smeared newsprint zines that they wanted to sell you, and if...

The magazine Tu Ciudad has taken on the monumental task of discovering the best of Latino Los Angeles — it's all packed into their June/July issue, on newsstands this week. To celebrate, if you bring your copy of the magazine to Ciudad, Loteria Grill (in Farmer's Market) or Porto's Bakery in Glendale you can score free food. Congrats to our friends at La Bloga, which the magazine has named the Best Blog for Latino...

Every week in Living in Sin, Jen Sincero provides advice to LA's sexually curious. You can see her column in print, too, in the LA Alternative Press. Ask Jen your questions: all are posted anonymously. Dear Jen, I started a new job two months ago and met this guy who I had incredible chemistry with. We flirted pretty steadily for the first couple weeks, and then one day after work, he just blurted out...

arsenic and old ladies - A 73-year old and a 75-year old have been arrested in a life insurance scam that has allegedly netted them more than $2 million. Olga Rutterschmidt and Helen Golay took out life insurance policies on homeless men, carefully crafting ficitonal relationships that would qualify them as beneficiaries. Authorities say they took out at least 19 policies on two men who both died after being run down in alleys. want...