GO LA: Louis C.K., Cupcakes for AIDS Research and Jokes for Old Jews
Plus various other events to help you forget this cruel world, March 27-April 2
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Hey, Brother, Can You Help an Old Jew?
With this lousy recession having some of us curled up in the fetal position trembling most Saturday nights (what? you too?), let’s say to hell with it. I say get seven pals together to fork in for the “Yada Yada Yada Sponsorship Package” for The Los Angeles Guardians of the Jewish Home for the Aging Comedy Club 2009 fund-raiser. It’s $4,500, but here’s what you get: VIP seating for eight at the beautiful new Eli and Edythe Broad Stage, limousine service for the evening, a preshow reception, prominent placement of your company logo (or a Xeroxed picture of your ass) in the Playbill, and a full-page ad in the Guardian magazine. The comedy lineup is terrific — Andy Kindler, Shawn Pelofsky, Sarge (I’m Black, But God Knows I’m Jewish), Ray Jessel (he was the last lyricist to work with Richard Rodgers). You’ll be benefiting an important cause. Of course, I’ll be at Madeleine Peyroux on this particular night, benefiting another important cause: the Nokia’s bar revenue.Eli and Edythe Broad Stage, 1310 11th St., Santa Monica; Sat., March 28, 8 p.m. $150-$4,500 (the Yada Yada Yada Sponsorship Package); all tickets or sponsorships of $300 or more include a private reception at 6:30 p.m. (310) 479-2468 or www.laguardians.com. —L.M.
SUNDAY, MARCH 29
EVENT
He Who Dies With the Most Frosting in His Hair Wins!
Cupcakes, like leggings, are a privilege, not a right. And only cupcake connoisseurs with the most sophisticated taste buds are encouraged to attend the second-annual L.A. Cupcake Challenge. The butter cream will fly, as nearly 20 bakeries, from Delilah in Echo Park to Miss Priss in Long Beach, will compete in three categories: traditional vanilla, chocolate and red-velvet flavors, original and overall. Wine and coffee will be available, and to sweeten the pot, proceeds benefit the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Remember, the higher the frosting, the closer to God. Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, 1755 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood; Sun., March 29, 1-4 p.m.; $40. (310) 902-6955 or www.drinkeatplay.com. —L.M.
MONDAY, MARCH 30
POETRY READING
A Wise Man Once Wrote
For some poets, authenticity’s elusiveness drives them into mock-impressive displays of cognoscenti-friendly writerliness or confessional outbursts of soul-baring histrionics. Not so with Robert Hass, whose verse helps unravel what he calls “this vast, deeply strange net of contingencies.” Whether his themes are personal, societal or natural, the former U.S. poet laureate’s humble, truth-seeking, syntax-suspending poems plumb and ponder life’s mysterious interconnectedness. They riff on the seen world and the self, and at times are angry, funny, sad, lustful, fragile, wondrous. “September, Inverness,” describing a scene on Tomales Bay, captures a moment “when bliss is what you glimpse from the corner of your eye.” In “Bush’s War,” he asks, “what good is indignation to the dead?” Hass, now pushing 70, said a few years ago that his “sense of the instability of memory, and of the language in which we can recover it, has intensified.” Evidence of Hass’ creative intensification can be found in the California native’s latest collection, Timeand Materials: Poems 1997-2005, which won the National Book Award and shared the Pulitzer Prize — all the more reason to hear one of our most honest poets read his work with tender energy and wry elucidation. University of Southern California main campus, Doheny Memorial Library, Room 240, L.A.; Mon., March 30, 5 p.m.; free. (213) 740-3726. —Tom Cheyney
THEATER SPECIAL EVENTS
Stage Against the Machine
So yes, L.A. Weekly was forced to lay off its Theater editor this year — but the guy still writes reviews for us every week anyway. Even more important for L.A. theater people looking for recognition in the form of a trophy and the thunderous applause of an audience of peers, critic Steven Leigh Morris is still producing the 30th Annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards. For a description let’s go to the press release: “Holy Moly, Lounge Lizards! A Depression? Layoffs? The crisis of the century? Let’s party! Okay, James Dean wannabes and Marlon Brando worshippers, or, if you can’t get enough I Love Lucy reruns without needing medication, this is your night! Get out those black leather jackets, shine those saddle shoes, drag out that poodle skirt you found on eBay, and get ready to jive with all the cool cats. ’Cause the El Rey is going to be as sizzling as the Sahara in Las Vegas, circa 1958, as the King and Queen of the Lounge, Louis & Keely (a.k.a. Jake Broder and Vanessa Claire Smith) host the Weekly’s 30th annual celebration of L.A.’s best intimate theater produced between January 1 and December 31, 2008. It’ll be cabaret seating, as co-hosts Broder and Smith reprise the repartee and show numbers from their hit prize-winning musical, Louis & Keely: Live at the Sahara.” Plus, there will be special guests ... politicians ... famous actors (did someone say 90210?) El Rey, 5515 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.; Mon., March 30, 7:30 p.m.; $20. (310) 574-7208. —L.M.
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