Adam Gropman

Cash Levy; Credit: Nanette Gonzales

Comedian Cash Levy Explains His Odd Path to Stand-up Success

Adam Gropman
See also: *5 Best Comedy Shows in L.A. This Week *10 Best Stand-Up Comedy Shows in Los Angeles It's around 11 a.m. on a Wednesday as Cash Levy enters a banquet room within the pleasant, faux-sylvan Etiwanda Gardens event center near Rancho Cucamonga. Sixty employees of a major Southern California......
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By George

Adam Gropman
Kelly Carlin nicely defies expectations. Having grown up in an L.A. celebrity home, she is authentic and down-to-earth. The daughter of one of America's most acclaimed stand-up comedians, she's felt no need to try to be a jokester. And in a town where people with her family-name situation have projects......
Alan Katz marries an estimated 1

Alan Katz, L.A.'s Most Hilarious Wedding Officiant

Adam Gropman
It's a mellow day at Point Dume. A scattering of beachgoers lies in the Malibu sand or walks ankle-deep inxto the waves, while the occasional sandal-clad hiker ascends the adjacent hilly path. Over to the side, near a rough wall of boulders that jut out into the ocean, a couple......
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Justin

Adam Gropman
Justin Willman's favorite compliment from a show attendee was that he's "a magician for people who don't like magicians." Not that the youthful-visaged entertainer is self-hating. Willman is a proud, card-disappearing member of the species Magicus Illusionus, yet he's also something more. Far from a rakishly mustached, ultra-dramatic showman executing......
Justin Willman; Credit: Michael Maples

Justin Willman, Alternative Magician, Mixes the Dark Arts With Irony

Adam Gropman
It's Tuesday night in the loftlike performance area semi-hidden behind Meltdown Comics' retail floor, and a crowd of more than 60 in neatly arranged chairs intently watches the show's youthful host, Justin Willman. He disappears behind a large black cloth, then asks an audience member to name a fruit. When......
Tom Leykis in his Burbank studio; Credit: Photo by Nanette Gonzales

Tom Leykis, One of Radio's Top Talkers, Is Off the Airwaves — and Online

Adam Gropman
"There were a lot of greedy home flippers!" radio talk-show host Tom Leykis exclaims into the microphone. "Everyone who got evicted got exactly what they deserved. They didn't evict enough people."Leykis is blasting what he considers the avaricious, irresponsible impulses of those participating in the real estate mortgage boom --......
Credit: Kevin Scanlon

Varun Soni: The Real Spirit of Troy

Adam Gropman
One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here. When he was named dean of religious life at USC, Varun Soni became the first Hindu in American history to serve such a role. Even today, four years later, he's......
Credit: ILLUSTRATION BY FRED NOLAND

Why the San Fernando Valley Hate Needs to End Once and For All

Adam Gropman
Midafternoon at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Santa Monica's Main Street, an impromptu conversation sparks between two strangers just feet from me -- he a cheerful, swarthy, well-fed, balding accountant originally from New York City, she a pretty, willowy, 20-something brunette, just arrived from the Boston area and......