Jeff Ross’s leafy backyard is usually tranquil. On an afternoon in spring, that's not the case: a backhoe is demolishing the house next door. Birds call nervously overhead. Cracks and booming thuds reverberate through the fence. Ross' own three-bedroom home would be the next to go, to make room for......
Fred Rothman was a fur trapper, World War I sergeant and telegraph operator for the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1915 he founded Downtown L.A.’s wildly profitable Angelus Typewriter company. Before the Depression struck, Rothman owned three of four property corners at the intersection of Western and Wilshire. One hundred and......
“All right Adam, don’t be the piece of garbage we know you are!” A yellow softball whiffs over home plate, but good-natured insults are landing hard and fast at the double-header championship of L.A.’s Comedy Softball League. Weekly games are on Sundays at Venice’s Penmar Recreation Center, field number five......
As a kid, Bob Saget snuck into a taping of Norman Lear’s All in the Family. “It was live theater done to perfection,” Saget reminisces. These days the former Full House and America’s Funniest Home Videos star counts the 94-year-old writer-producer among his friends, jamming on guitar at Lear’s home......
"You are an angry, Jewish gay man and we need you out here, so thank you," guest Wanda Sykes tells host Guy Branum on an early episode of TruTV's new series Talk Show the Game Show. "Political grandstanding," panel judge Casey Schreiner chimes in, adding, "Two points!" While it's true that......
Fun fact: Jonathan Katz once sold a vial of Robin Williams’ urine to a rabid fan for $500. The unassuming comedian, writer and actor behind the influential ’90s animated series Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist began his entertainment career late, forming a six-piece R&B band called Katz and Jammers when he was......
Since Kliph Nesteroff's The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy (Grove Press) was released last November, fans including Bob Odenkirk and Steve Martin have raved about it on social media and bought multiple copies apiece to share with like-minded peers. The Canadian transplant has appeared on......
Conan staff writer Laurie Kilmartin and The Dork Forest host Jackie Kashian are survivors of the '80s comedy boom who've seen, done and, most importantly, dealt with everything the stand-up industry can dish out. As tenets and tastes continue changing, so too do Kashian and Kilmartin's perspectives on what it......
Every Tuesday at 10 p.m. in the Improv Lab, '80s comic whirlwind turned genre-defying director Bobcat Goldthwait joins decades-younger San Francisco transplant Caitlin Gill (the Oddball, Bridgetown and Outside Lands festivals) to co-ringlead Crabapples, a variety circus of nontraditional locals and out-of-town pals who proudly rally around a certain freak-flag......
