Live Review: Dave Navarro and J. Mello

ILLUSTRATION by ERIN SMITH
Sachi Bar | Fri Dec. 12
Hard to say exactly why Friday night’s Dave Navarro/J. Mello show at Sachi Bar ended after six songs, but it would be easy to point to the jerk who threw a bottle of water on stage. That’s what the go-go dancer [...]

MacGyver crafting with the ladies of $ucka-Free $undays

PHOTO by JEFF ZIELINSKI
Nearly every Sunday evening, DJ Elle Jay—aka Linda Russom—packs up her records and plays hostess to bands and other guest DJs at Que Sera’s $ucka-Free $undays. But if the weekly vinyl haul drains some DJs—and it does, inevitably—after two years, it doesn’t appear to affect [...]

A graduate remembers when Brooks College was the height of fashion
For nearly 40 years, Brooks College provided creative outlets for thousands of aspiring Coco Chanels, Gloria Vanderbilts—and possibly a few Vera Wangs. As it prepares to close its doors, we sit down with a 1975 graduate who explains how she wouldn’t be the person she [...]

Brooks College: 1971-2008

PHOTO by JEFF GOULD
There are boxes everywhere: boxes placed upon boxes and boxes standing alone, some of them sealed and others not so. Where there are no boxes, there are piles of loose paper—piles, not stacks, because stacks would imply order, and order would imply a reason for it, like maybe a future, [...]

Torii Mor—2006 Oregon Pinot Noir

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
This pinot’s glowing pomegranate hue leads you to a more perfect place, one where vintage grapes practically dance down your throat. After a moment of swirling, dip your nose into the glass—wet soil won’t run up into your nostrils, and the berry scent won’t blitz you, but expect [...]

Destination dining certainly isn’t recession-proof, but the best opportunities to break the cycle of Trader Joe’s stir-fries and microwaveable meals are finally here: Christmas and New Year’s. And swooping in to sweep you and your stomach off your feet are two of the city’s best restaurants—Tracht’s and Michael’s on Naples. First is the Christmas dinner [...]

Eating the old and the new at MVP and Five Guys

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
It’s been more than 50 years, but Southern California’s burger business is as crowded as ever. Those looking to break into the patty-flipping scene would now only be entering hostile territory, home to the fast foods that have morphed from simple midcentury [...]

Rocket men and a kayak made from trash shine in CSULB student film fest
Good news: Every student film in tonight’s (Wednesday’s) CSULB festival at the Art Theatre is at the very least watchable. Better news? A few are truly quite good, leaving both your faith in the house-that-Spielberg-didn’t-quite-build intact and your hopes for Hollywood to [...]

Photographer Stefano Paltera has a photo essay on the Los Angeles Times website documenting his recent visit to downtown’s historic Masonic Temple Lofts.
Check it out. Long Beach Heritage President John Thomas is featured, telling the building’s story.
“The buzz words around here are ‘adaptive reuse,’ a term that represents a truce of sorts between developers and [...]

Our main man Dean Singleton, who owns the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, the Daily Breeze in Torrance–and a slew of other newspapers in California and across the nation–is in today’s New York Times talking about how his MediaNews Group won’t be defaulting on the rather large debt it racked up buying all those, well, newspapers.
Thought [...]