LA Observed is posting news that The Huffington Post has sent around feelers to various Los Angeles area bloggers to pen LA-centric content for a new “HuffPost LA” column. Losanjealous did not make the cut. Maybe they haven’t really trolled our 4+ year archive and peeped the wide range of LA-centric classic posts, such as the Lincoln Blvd Cock Car, The Secret In-N-Out Menu, or The Busiest Taco Truck In Town or Mr. T Visits Neverland Ranch. Not to mention Bill DeMarco’s LA.

Roderick has the full text of their invite e-mail over there but here’s the generic core of it, the usual LA boilerplate:

»continue reading That’s OK–You Couldn’t Afford Us and We Weren’t Interested Anyway

Drama in yon Echo Park! Renown street artist Shep coats own exterior brick studio wall with anti-graffiti material, reports Eastsider LA blog. Shepard takes umbrage to said post and fires off angry email. Eastsider blog reprints said email this AM; comment section goes up in flames accordingly.

While I’m not about to throw my hat into the ring here, as a blog writer, or “blogger” if you will, I respected Shepard for offering the following quote to LAist’s Andy Sternberg back in February, 2008:

Any words of wisdom for aspiring street artists / disruptors / dissenters?
My advice is to stick to what you believe with tenacity. Don’t read snarky blogs and message boards because lazy sideline critics can bum you out, and ultimately have little effect on the outcome of things compared to those who take real action. Just follow your passion.

I should elaborate. Having spent way too much time online over the course of the last two decades, much as I respected Shep for saying that, I firmly believe that many peoples’ passion in life is in fact being snarky-as-a-motherfucker for no apparent reason. »continue reading Shepard Fairey Takes On Eastsider LA Blog: Gloves Off!

A Call-Out To Los Angeles Blogs On This Day

Please pick up this story on your website. Keep the ball rolling. Let us not rest on this day of days until the LA Times ultimately has no choice but to re-post the redesign story itself, thus completing our commentary circle in some crudely beautiful, minuscule-yet-altogether-infinitesimal fashion. The logged-in user at the time of the above already-published LAist screen shot capture, one “Margot.Roosevelt@”, will no doubt be forever indebted as well. Instructions: (1) Capture this browser screen and prep for your blog of choice. (2) Your headline might read something like “Losanjealous Nods @ LAist Nod @ La Times Online Redesign”. (3) Provide instructions if need be, and get some other blog to pick up your story accordingly (you are on your own here). Look, dammit, this should be easy. I’ve even captured the next screenshot for you already – downloadable right here, 576px wide, 72dpi. Size to fit, post before noon. Don’t forget your end-of-article attribution links for our joint end-of-day paper trail! Thank you in advance; see you over at the Times website around 6pm. First round’s on me.

» The L.A. Times Gets a Nice Redesign (LAist)

Pssst! Huell Howser and documentary film fans alike: Harry Pallenberg, doc filmmaker and segment producer for California’s Gold (13 years working with Huell, over 800 shows in various series) is guest blogging this month over KCET way. Thus far he’s delivered two solid entries and for the rest of the month, he will be discussing Los Angeles and serializing his documentary SHOTGUN FREEWAY: Drives Thru Lost L.A. Snippet:

The living-room of our apartment was covered in tapes and archival films that we’d begged, borrowed, and (depending on the statute of limitations) stolen. In classic DIY fashion, we did whatever we needed to do to get it done. At one point we were editing SHOTGUN FREEWAY from 10PM to morning on the Northern Exposure series Avid system, which was fun until I re-calibrated the monitors one night. For another long stretch we found ourselves hand cleaning 100’s of hours of old films that the LAPD Historical Society had discovered in a back jail cell…

Go check it out and do pose your questions and comments directly to Harry in the comment section, should you get the chance.

FROM A LONG TIME AGO (tangentially related)
» Huell Howser: The Drinking Game

Ok, people. The mighty gurgitators of the LA Metblogs are having a Hot Dog Death March to the Death on June 13 (week from Saturday). Information is here. They’ll be eating at Oki-Dog, Pink’s and Skooby’s, all during the same afternoon. Maybe you join them, let us know how you fare. Me, I’m steering clear. In fact in no way and at no time do I recommend you join this event. No, I must advise against it. For reasons to remain unblogged at present I no longer condone any sort of social experiment regarding Oki-Dog, Hollywood Toll Booth, Day-glo Bastion of Toothlessness, North Fairfax, Willoughby, Tinseltown USA. I will not be at this event; I will not be at the Oki-Dog. I will be nowhere anywhere near this event, at all. Do not let this stop you.

LA Metblogs Leads the “Los Angeles Hot Dog Death March” To Sample 3 Eateries in 1 Afternoon

Calling all hot dog lovers & pop culture fans! LA Metblogs (la.metblogs.com), obsessed with covering everything quintessentially “LA,” is gathering for a mass “meat-up” over three of LA’s best-loved hot dog stands.

»continue reading Under $10 And In No Way Advised: “Hot Dog Death March” (LA Metblogs)

A few days prior to activating the crucial “download” buttons on his website, Aquarium Drunkard’s Justin Gage offered yours truly a sneak preview of the project he’d been finalizing: a collection of Los Angeles artists paying tribute to Paul McCartney’s 1971 album Ram, song by song, titled Ram On LA. In his words:

As records tend to do, a revisited appreciation of Paul McCartney’s 1971 solo album, RAM, had begun to see a resurgence of sorts within a number of local Eastside artists, coming up in conversations and on the turntables of various house parties.

The theme was found. Over the course of the second half of 2008 eleven Angeleno artists individually went in to various studios, rehearsal spaces and apartments to record their take on what is my favorite, and arguably, McCartney’s best solo work…. the end result is RAM On L.A.

»continue reading “Ram Fever 2009″ Simultaneously Strikes Benevolent Sensibility Cells Of East, West Coasts

Quarrygirl sent us a tip this morning as follows:

LA’s first vegan hot dog stand, in a different location all the time. It’s so good, and you can find it outside of venues like the smell and pehrspace. Kogibbq has got nothing on this! the kids LOVE IT.

I tried to verify the tip by googling Franken’s, and was returned a bunch of HuffPo articles regarding Al Franken, so I’m assuming this phenom is relatively new. (No bullshit: Google Franken’s hot dogs and you get “Coleman has as much chance of winning as a vegan at a hot dog eating contest” …)

What I do know is that at $4, these plant-based sausages (sun-dried tomatoes!) are priced considerably cheaper than the gourmet veggie sausages at Wurstküche and the free toppings don’t appear to be numerically limited, either (glares toward 3rd & Traction). And, oh – the line’s shorter than Kogi, and the location’s trackable online? Count me doubly interested. Get the full scoop here.

Blogging about music “just for fun” is, as it turns out, not particularly easy. Sure it starts out that way, but something happens while you’re busy writing and uploading mp3s. Pageviews grow, pressures mount and the next thing you know you’re shilling concert tickets, securing photo passes and every music publicist under the sun is facebook-friending and trying to slip you an artist they’re working with. Believe it, man. Clell Tickle is out there, he’s your new best friend and he’d love your mention. As such, this week’s announcement that the doors have closed over at our buddies The Scenestar poses two very real problems: (1) one less voice to offer an alternative to the filthy Tribunes of the world, (2) this will inevitably just make the rest of our inboxes that much more stuffed. Fact of the matter is that when one music blog shuts its doors, we all lose. Good luck to Oscar and the entire gang; sorry to see you go. We’ll be interested to see what 2009 brings.

In no particular order below are a few local (Los Angeles-based) music-centric blogs that I enjoy, if you haven’t already found them. Each has its merits and specialties. Feel free to add your own blog or any you feel I’ve forgotten to the comment section.
»continue reading TheScenestar.com Throws In Digital Towel

THE STORY TO DATE
Some manager (and Agent for Service of Process) at El Coyote, an insufferably terrible restaurant with strong drinks to make you forget about the mind-blowingly horrible food and parking nightmares, donated $100 to a direct “Yes on 8″ organization (protectmarriage.com), thereby potentially giving outraged citizens a tangible reason to not further patronize the insufferable, taste-void, overblown, overpriced tourist haven.

»continue reading DEVELOPING: Following “Yes On 8″ Donation Discovery, LA Blog Commenters In Full-On Crazy Tizzy Over Boycott of Insufferably Bad Restaurant

In an era when the digital landscape is becoming increasingly Thirty-Mile-Zone-ified, no local writer has ever been able to write so eloquently, seemingly effortlessly, consistently, hilariously, or wholeheartedly insidery about Hollywood and, broader, the entertainment industry as a whole, as Mark Lisanti over the course of the last four years at Defamer, and so it is with not a small pang of sadness that we raise a glass of André – his drink of choice – to his announcement this evening. We wish you nothing but the best. (At the same time, we’ve already put two-and-two together; we, too, saw the recent open call for writers over at LA Taco – another editorial favorite – we’ll keep our eyes glued to both sites just to be safe.)