Siran Babayan

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The Mousse That Roared

Siran Babayan
Until the Key Club starts hosting weekly Grunge Skool nights, or Penelope Spheeris directs The Decline of Western Civilization Part IV: The Flannel Years, it looks like nostalgia for ’80s hair metal — much like its new-wave counterpart — is here to stay. Witness the popularity of VH1 Classic and......
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Katt Williams

Siran Babayan
Katt Williams is short, his hair (relaxed or permed or shooting for the stars) is prettier than yours, and his diamonds look like they were excavated from the mines of Africa. He enters a stage sipping from a chalice and accompanied by ladies sprinkling rose petals along his path. And......

Arpa International Film Festival

Siran Babayan
In addition to turning a lens on Armenian filmmakers and subject matter — a documentary on composer Aram Khachaturian narrated by Eric Bogosian, and a day in the life of the late painter Jirayr Zorthian at his Altadena hippie commune — the Arpa International Film Festival also showcases the works......
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Celebreality

Siran Babayan
Since 1998, writer/comedian Eugene Pack has been assembling his actor friends to dig through the literal garbage of celebrity autobiographies not even the tabloids would touch, further proving that stars should stick to reading books and not writing them. For the performance In Their Own Words, which aired as a......
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The Nellie Olesons

Siran Babayan
If you’re conservative, overweight, handicapped or squeamish at the site of two naked men playing the flute while their bits and pieces are tucked between their legs, do we have the queer comedy troupe for you. Terence Michael and John Cantwell, and Nora Burns, the hetero-female meat in this homo-male......
Axl: Alien invasion (Photo by Wild Don Lewis)

Bullshit! (But Thanks)

Siran Babayan
KROQ INLAND INVASION with Guns N’ Roses, Alice in Chains, ?Muse, Papa Roach, Avenged Sevenfold and Atreyu ?at Hyundai Pavilion, September 23 Whaddaya know, the redheaded albino actually showed up. Sure, it took a near riot to get Axl Rose onstage, but the latter-day Guns N’ Roses performed a two-hour......
Olympic Medallion

Shine On, You Crazy Gem Sweater

Siran Babayan
Take a plump, 24-year-old girl from the Midwest who raps about her affinity for gaudy, adorned sweaters only the mother of a Solid Gold dancer would love, and, voilà, another Internet star is born. By now you’ve probably received the Web links directing you to Leslie Hall’s video for her......
The come from a land down under. See Saturday.

Mime Talkin'

Siran Babayan
FRIDAY, September 15 Away from the beach and teen-infested Third Street Promenade is the Santa Monica Arts Festival, where wall-to-wall vendors will try to sell you wind chimes as well as fine art, sculpture, photography, jewelry and fashion among 15,000 original works. A highlight is the hourly Art Alive! demonstrations......
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For Those About Türoque

Siran Babayan
It takes Yngwie Malmsteen–sized balls to always be the bridesmaid of competitive air guitar. A few years ago, Dan Crane quit his job as a software producer, adopted the stage name Björn Türoque — adding the double umlauts “as any metal band worth its weight in cocaine would” — and......
Not Cher

Gypsies, Vamps and Queens

Siran Babayan
“After the nuclear holocaust there’ll be cockroaches and Cher.” We were reading one of the T-shirts in a booth set up inside the grand ballroom of the Woodland Hills Warner Center Marriott for the Cher Convention 2006. We’d seen Nine Inch Nails the night before, so, no, we don’t exactly......