Christmas by the Caribbean with the CSULB steel-drum band

PHOTO COURTESY CSULB COLLEGE OF THE ARTS
With all due respect to famed cricketsman Brian Lara, it can be safely said that the steel pan is Trinidad and Tobago’s most reverberant cultural contribution. Concave, refashioned, 55-gallon oil drums that were heard vibrating like underwater xylophones behind the calypso [...]

‘It’s a Stevie Wonderful Life!’ funks up Christmas

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TROUBADOUR THEATER CO.
Once again, the holidays are upon us, and that means every stage in town will be filled with mean old shysters who reevaluate their lives for fear of leaving behind a bad legacy, sugar-coated ballets of sword-laden mice trying to murder oversized [...]

Divas, Daredevils and Deco

‘LA SALIDA’ by SHANNON JONES
All Aboard Eureka Technically it isn’t art, but Airship Ventures’ Zeppelin Eureka (246 feet long—that’s 15 feet longer than a 747) provides a glimpse of Long Beach like you’ve never seen it: from the sky. For added effect, bring your kaleidoscope. LONG BEACH AIRPORT AIRSHIPVENTURES.COM • ONE AND [...]

At age 76, Joan Collins blows full steamy ahead

Divas seem to be a dime a dozen these days, with any cheap slag who rolls drunkenly from her car or poses for incesty photos with her father feeling entitled to the label. And with so many wannabe divas skanking about, it’s often hard to remember that [...]

FRI. FEB. 8: ON POINTE!
Tues | Feb 5 Super Tuesday is here and Californians go to the polls to exercise their right to vote for whoever they want. They respond by reiterating their love of term limits, thereby limiting their right to vote for whoever they want. Except, of course, when it comes to Warren [...]

Male comedy troupe Trockadero goes there

PHOTO by SASCHA VAUGHN
It’s understandable that anyone, well, me, would first think about the Harlem Globetrotters when learning that Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo—“Trocks” to their buds—is coming back to town. After all, the Trocks, who perform Feb. 7 and 8 at Cal State Long Beach’s Carpenter Center, and [...]

Valerie Plame warms up at the Carpenter Center

It’s funny: four years after Valerie Plame was outed by Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer and Dick Armitage as a covert operative of the CIA working in nuclear counter-proliferation, I forget there are people who haven’t quite heard of the affair.
“Valerie Plame . . .” friends would [...]

The Dibs’ Chris Hamlin comes home happy

On Saturday, Chris Hanlin returns to Long Beach, the city he left two years ago after acting for years as a fulcrum for its music scene. The founder and driving force behind The Dibs, Hanlin and his band are performing at “Schooled in Song,” a benefit at the Carpenter [...]