I’m old. Let’s golf

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Growing old is something everyone deals with in their own special way. I’ve seen hipster couples toting children in strollers and it makes me wonder why Mr. Tattooed Tight Pants and Mrs. Nose Ring chose such a lame way to usher in adulthood, but I’ve found an answer: These [...]

The iron-on ironia of Chicano Style

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Once you get past fact that Chicano Style is in the Lakewood Center mall—and not someplace funkier and less cookie-cutter, like, say, Retro Row—it’s easy to appreciate its mishmash of affordable Mexican-American apparel and Latin pop cult memorabilia.
The boutique’s best sellers are sarcastic Spanish language versions of [...]

Hard water torturing your hair? Make a date to wash your hair at The Spot in Seal Beach

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
There are those who will tell you that washing your hair every day is bad—as in awful. No good. Evil. These same people (like hairstylist and salon owner Sandi Sandman—best name ever, right?) will recommend [...]

Ditch the big box at Go Go Guitars

PHOTO by RALPH PALUMBO
It’s funny: the thing that finally soured me on mega-music retailer Guitar Center wasn’t the know-nothing salespeople or the mass-produced, overpriced merchandise. It wasn’t even the omnipresent teenagers, emboldened by a night of “Guitar Hero III” ecstasy, butchering some riff from some Every Time I [...]

District K saves the best for the rest of us

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
A few years ago, fed up with driving to LA to score unique fashion and design finds for herself, her friends and her home, Long Beach local Kim Porche decided to solve the problem right in her own Bluff Park neighborhood. At the [...]

Long Beach Bike Shop gets things rolling–quickly!

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
The guy behind the Long Beach Bike Shop is a man of few words. His name is Carlos, and to make matters more complicated, he mumbles rapidly and has a thick accent. If I’m lucky, I catch about 50 percent of what he’s saying—but I don’t [...]

The extra dark shades, Playboy Bunny stickers and computerized voices of Sunless Tanning Co.

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
A decade ago I moved to Long Beach from New Hampshire, home to some of the coldest, fiercest winds ever recorded, a place where the insides of your nostrils freeze solid the instant you step outside—and where shorts are [...]

Last minute costumes and fake gun shot wounds at Halloween Adventure

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
What can Halloween Adventure do that the combined might of your abysmal credit rating, Judd Apatow, and rising movie ticket prices hasn’t quite managed to do? Easy: make you wish you were back in high school––specifically, when you were looking for work. [...]

Broken typewriter? Trust MapQuest: Guadalupe Solis has got you covered

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA
Only in today’s world of Intel technology and gigahertz computers does inquiring about typewriter ribbon get you weird looks at Staples (negating both of their slogans in one visit). Thankfully, though, we’ve got Guadalupe Solis, a retired Mexican immigrant who answers the side [...]

Learn Italian at Angelo’s Deli

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
It’s unfair, I know, but lately I’ve found myself at an impasse with Italian food, frustrated by the $15 price tags and sagging quality at some of my favorite red-sauce restaurants. The way I see it, I’m better off rolling my own pasta dough, feeding it through a [...]