Johnny Angel Wendell

Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill Of The Lord God Oil

|
(0)

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, I take a brutal boot-camp type class at the Hollywood YMCA here in LA. 45 minutes of sheer hell, but as these things are measured, surely worth it. I've been going for the last year and a half at the prodding and urging of my friend Stacy "Beano" Johnson, a lively and lovely woman and an ex-pat Okie from outside Tulsa. Yesterday, I walked in to find her strecthing and she seemed, as you would imagine, distraught. Read more »

A chance meeting with the Doors' Ray Manzarek, RIP

|
(3)

Ray Manzarek, co-founder and keyboardist of the Doors, died today at 74. Complications from bile duct cancer.

As the master of the spooky-sounding and creepy organ first heard in rock and roll in "96 Tears" or "She's About A Mover," Manzarek was both the embellishment and the bottom for Venice, Calif.'s most famous band. They had no bass (live, on records they did). The bass was Ray's left hand -- according to Manzarek, every time they tried to add a bass, the sound became leaden and useless. And so, that oddly springy feel the Doors made real owed as much to Ray as it did their colorful frontman or their jazzy guitarist and drummer. Read more »

Ray Manzarek, RIP

|
(5)

Ray Manzarek, co-founder and keyboardist of the Doors, died today at 74. Complications from bile duct cancer.Read more »

Legalize it--All of it

|
(36)

Tomorrow is election day in Los Angeles and beyond the biggest race (for mayor between a pair of dull left of center bureaucrats of whom the less said is better), the most important ballot measures are three that, in varying degrees, are used to restrict the explosi Read more »

The "Do Nothing" Solution to "Illegal Immigration"

|
(97)

Both sides of the political aisle have made a major issue out of the problem of the 11 million people inside the US illegally or presently undocumented. The president has said this is a priority and Florida senator Marco Rubio has agreed. Read more »

Cryin' wolf

|
(123)

This has been a wretched stretch of brutal press for Barack Obama lately. Battered over and over by revelations of IRS malfeasance, aggressive assaults on press freedom at the AP and Benghazi ad infinitum, the hits keep on coming, amplified by the dual forces of the "Conservative Entertainment Complex" (as exemplified by this great pundit) and a "liberal media" that has realized that Internet hits are their most likely saving grace and revenue stream. It has reached such fevered pitch that the media is making a chilling analogy commonplace! Read more »

What $40 million buys

If you own the megaphone, the transmitter, and the mouth, we are not equal -- especially when it came to the cigarette tax

|
(5)

OPINION I am a diehard and devoted follower of the round-ball. Basketball. If the game did not exist, I wouldn't spend a minute — hot or cold — planted in front of telly, save the half hour my kids and I watch the new Regular Show. I have no idea who wins the beauty contests or who is villain or hero on reality TV, couldn't ID you the hit sitcom star of today, don't know and don't care.

For this reason, I am intimately aware of the massive anti-Prop 29 campaign waged by the tobacco companies (their target audience is male and of a certain age).Read more »

Saying goodbye to the Nuns singer Jennifer "Miro" Anderson

|
(1)

Jennifer "Miro" Anderson, former co-lead singer and keyboardist of one of SF's first punk bands the Nuns, died in New York, December 16th, of complications from breast and liver cancer. She was 54. Read more »

Rand Paul's baby talk

|
(17)

Last week, Rand Paul (R-KY) -- man, there's a double entendre just waiting to happen -- went shithouse ballistic (pun intended) over what he sees as one of the most pressing issue in the nation today -- low-flush toilets.

At a hearing while grilling a lower level Obama Administration Energy department spokesperson, Paul was in full fury.

 

"Frankly, the toilets don't work in my house," Paul said. "And I blame you, and people like you who want to tell me what I can install in my house, what I can do." Read more »

How taxes on millionaires could save the NBA

|
(6)

March is heaven for basketball junkies. The NCAA tournament goes full-tilt boogie and for fans of the pro game, playoff jockeying intensifies into overdrive. As a member of the latter camp whose team sits atop the NBA East, there is a river of joy flowing through the ventricles of my pumping heart.Read more »