Mel Yiasemide

Credit: Mel Yiasemide

Manny Pacquiao: A Little Flat, but Very Sharp

Mel Yiasemide
World-class boxer Manny Pacquiao can’t sing to save his life — but then, he wouldn’t have to, would he? The cantatory low point of the Filipino superstar’s appearance at Hollywood’s Ricardo Montalbán Theatre on Saturday, a week before his big Vegas fight with Miguel Cotto, is his duet with singer......

LA People 2009: Iron Constitution; Miles Eastman

Mel Yiasemide
In a deserted downtown warehouse, sculptor Miles Eastman shapes an anguished face into his warm wax mold. “It looks like a Hank,” I say. “Uncle Hank,” he says. “Gotta make it family, right?” Money permitting, Hank will be cast in bronze, joining Eastman’s series “Fabric of America,” a line of......
Travis Walck; Credit: Kevin Scanlon

LA People 2009: Wilder Thing; Travis Walck

Mel Yiasemide
Travis Walck drips his Gene Wilder vibes all over the tables at the Brite Spot diner in Echo Park. He’s all floppy hair, sleepy eyes and skinny ass, working the night shift until 4 a.m. so he can audition during the day. “That’s why I look like this. I walk......
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Best Music for Cars: KXLU

Mel Yiasemide
Phil Collins should never have been allowed to happen. I also don’t need to hear “Love Come Down” three times a day — or ever, come to think of it. And “Maybe I’m Amazed” is brilliant, but Maybe I’m No Longer Amazed when it plays while I drive the same......
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Best Cutters: L.A. Final Cut Pro Users' Group

Mel Yiasemide
Every fourth Wednesday of the month is L.A. Final Cut Pro Users’ Group night in Hollywood’s Barns­dall Art Park, where filmmakers of every stripe congregate to explore different aspects of FCP editing software. As movie editing goes, Final Cut Pro is the Coke to Avid’s Pepsi (or is it the......
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Best Drinking and Dressing: Enid & Edgar Vintage

Mel Yiasemide
Dub night at the Echoplex and the DJs are hypnotic, the rappers phenomenal. I don’t drink too much, and soak it up afterward with a tofu dog from the street vendor — grilled jalapeños and everything. Then I walk a few feet down Glendale Boulevard into Enid & Edgar, an......
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Best Undercover Cafe: Psychobabble Coffee House

Mel Yiasemide
It happened slowly: I clipped the edge of my cup and the raspberry mocha went flying, like a liquid tongue, in the direction of a very nice man from Ealing. It missed his laptop by inches and formed a hazardous pool around the plugs and cords at our feet. I......
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Best Soul, Food: Fred 62

Mel Yiasemide
Like a cleft apricot, the logo of Fred 62 diner sits above a stretch of Vermont Avenue pavement in Los Feliz, where the smoking, chattering masses talk too much and too, like, loud as they ease your suffering soul. These are the outdoor tables, at which alcohol is not served,......