Farley Elliott

For a war that is nearing the decade mark, Afghanistan sure does fly under the radar. Lindsay Lohan’s SCRAM or the follies of modern athletes are likely to receive as much or more air time than armed conflicts involving our own neighbors, friends, and family members taking place in some hard-to-fathom hovel. In fact, compiled television news data from 2008 shows us that the Afghanistan campaign netted just over 1% of total airtime. Not...

The evening's host. Photo courtesy LA Stage. The Pico Corridor, that unofficial strip of street past Beverwil but before Koreatown, surely has a story to tell. There are the ubiquitous taco spots, auto mechanics, bodegas and crumbling city blocks, the pitted indentations of weather or street warfare, some washed over with waves of spray paint. There are also lots of little gems, like La Maison du Pain, Sky’s Gourmet Tacos, Local’s bar, The Comedy...

Cat fart? Photo by 51221241@N02 via LAist Flickr pool. It's a bit of a mixed blessing week, folks. The US Mens National Team is no longer in the World Cup hunt, but we can still get as drunk and meat-crazy as we want this weekend. That's what makes this country great - we get drunk in the face of adversity. And there's no better place to get drunk this week than at one of...

Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino. Photo courtesy DG. Last year, LAist got an early leak of the Poindexter album by rapper Childish Gambino. Or, as he's more universally known, actor / writer / comedian Donald Glover. Since then, his show Community has been picked up for a second season on NBC, he's had a stand up special on Comedy Central, the film he co-wrote, stars in, and scored - Mystery Team - has moved...

MONDAY 6/21 Neutrino Video Projects, 8p iO West. This highly successful show, originally from NYC, the Neutrino Projects bring long-form, character-based improv to the silver screen - live. It’s shot, edited, mixed and scored in real time, presenting the audience with a finished product in no time flat.

Theatre Row in Hollywood is, more often than not, a grab bag of possible shows. There’s the longstanding stalwarts like Horrible Movie Night, ComedySportz, and even the improv showcase show Room 101 in the Flight Theatre at The Complex. These, of course, are mixed with a rotating blend of fresh ideas and old implementations, deliriously wonderful runs and excruciatingly overdrawn flops. But one thing Theatre Row always seems to have in it’s favor is...

A while back, LAist tipped off the local comedy scene about the upcoming Friars Club Improv & Sketch Competition being held June 25th and 26th at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB) in New York City. Well folks, we weren’t joking, and the $10,000 grand prize certainly isn’t anything to laugh at. Apparently a few hundred sketch and improv teams didn’t think so either, forcing the Friars to separate out the comedy gold from...

It hasn’t taken long for well-known curmudgeon Adam Carolla to embrace his role has the new podcast king. Within months of losing his cushy CBS Radio job, Carolla had the most-downloaded podcast on iTunes, and vowed to keep content flowing fast and free. And while that model has continued to exist in some form, the year anniversary of the Adam Carolla Podcast brought with it a few changes, including the always popular ‘freemium’ option...

In the entertainment industry, everything is about ‘being prepared’. People have to look the part, know their lines, keep a script in their back pocket, and produce business cards like ninja stars with a flick of the wrist. Indeed, that great scientific milkman Louis Pasteur himself is quoted as saying “chance favors the prepared mind”. So then what exactly is going on with Mike Mitchell? “Nothing much”, if you ask him. But that doesn’t...

I particularly like the unintended photobomb. Via drtran in LAist flickr pool. This week is a nice mix of old school and new school. Dasariski is up and running again after being bumped in favor or the LA Improv Comedy Festival, David Alan Grier is out on the West Coast again, and doing stand up down in Irvine. Meanwhile, Hot Pants, Cold Feet are doing their great sketch show at the Comedy Central Stage,...