Mon | MAR 24 Steve Lowery announces his departure from The District for Los Angeles CityBeat, depriving adoring interns and possibly several staffers of the surrogate father-figure they’d come to love if never quite know. His replacement (for almost all intents and purposes) is the District writer next most suited to cover cable TV, the everydad experience and local sports—music editor Chris Ziegler, who hasn’t even opened his curtains for nine days. In related permanent-darkness news: Second Street’s landmark Steak-O-Rama closes to make way for an expansion by Open Sesame, who ran out of rama of their own. This leaves Long Beach with zero functioning O-Ramas and only two functioning A-Ramas, which are both sign shops that do not deliver three-course steak dinners anywhere—even if you call one pretending that the other said it would be OK. Those seeking steak delivery now are invited to tame and eventually betray a stupid cow.

Tues | MAR 25 Los Angeles Times reports Mexican officials are ready to solicit bids on the construction of a $4 billion mega-port in the one-stoplight town of Punta Colonet. In fantasy land, where Puerto Fantastico demands a dedicated rail extension to connect with existing yellow-brick infrastructure, the facility would drain millions of containers a year from the ports of Long Beach and LA. But $4 billion is a lot of money even in Mexico, and a lot still has to happen before Punta Colonet is anything but one street and a stoplight. The project is wishfully set to finish in 2014 and/or before the dollar is trading one-to-one with the peso and the only containers headed for American soil are packed with Chinese grain aid, whichever comes first. (Grain aid.)

Wed | MAR 26 Local-ish abstract artist Skullphone—responsible for the only recent street art not advertising Barack Obama or go-nowhere T-shirt start-ups—is fakely busted by bloggers who spotted his distinctive skull-on-a-cellphone on several Clear Channel digital billboards and assumed they were a Skullphone “hack.” Today they learn Skullphone “hacked” the billboards by paying Clear Channel for the space—a process still involving a cellphone, however—and respond by calling him a sell-out, even though he never claimed he hacked anything (or claimed anything at all) and even though he actually had to come up with the probably considerable funds himself, which if anything makes him more of a pay-out. Reached by Paper magazine somewhere inside a real life that doesn’t involve making assumptions on the Internet, Skullphone said: “What is hacking?” Audiences who appreciate the art of angering Internet people are thrilled.

Thurs | MAR 27 America’s Mexican Gustavo Arellano announces he is fakely retiring from ¡Ask-a-Mexican! and leaving the insult-u-cational field to Ask-a-Jew, Ask-a-Hipster, Ask-a-Ho, Ask-a-Drunk-Dude, Ask-a-Drunk-Student, Ask-a-Drunk-Man, Ask-My-Drunk-Ass-Anything and Ask-a-Drunk-2.0. By the time you read this, however, he will be back and a lot of other people will still be drunk.

Fri | MAR 28 News hogs line the trough when they hear Long Beach legal-notice money rattling in the feed-bucket after Mayor Foster’s this-hurts-me-more-than-it-hurts-you semi-threat to explore diverting $250,000 in city-funded advertising from the Press-Telegram toward other local-ish publications. Except, of course, for the noblest hog of all, The District Weekly, whose Will Swaim agrees with LBReport.com’s Bill Pearl that maybe the city of Long Beach would be better served just posting junk for free on its own website and putting that quarter-million annual sum toward perennial civic problems like potholes, streets and children. However, since an Editor & Publisher article also today finds newspaper ad revenue declining more deeply than ever—and in somehow unrelated news, The New York Times also discovers food-stamp use near record levels—I would like to advocate for the hungry-hog position and say give this paper or even just me personally money while there is still any money to be got. I have only one mouth to feed, but it’s a big one. (Grain aid.)

Sat | MAR 29 East Village gallery Koo’s enjoys one of its most successful closing receptions ever as patrons line up to purchase giant glossy photos of rock stars. Although I miss when Koo’s actually had live bands, it’s encouraging that they can now exist simply by having pictures of bands, an important step toward the universal dream situation of making tons of money by doing nothing at all. Steve Lowery would have liked that.

Sun | MAR 30 Got a banned book on Charles Manson. Steve would have liked that.

Mon | MAR 31 Forgot I had to do this day. Steve would have liked that.

Tags: charles manson, grain aid, Long Beach, open sesame, puerto fantastico, punta colonet, steak-o-rama