Night Lite

Dave Shulman
Some of you might remember: Before the second coming of Reagan (Bush) and His New World Hors d'Oeuvres, people used to come home from work while it was still light out and have something called Their Own Lives, during which it was not uncommon for them to have something called......

School Board Fires Hamid Arabzadeh

Stuart Timmons
Charges of endangered public and student health rang out at last week's hearing that preceded the dismissal of L.A. Unified's safety director, Hamid Arabzadeh. Not present, however, were half a dozen district staff members, some of whom attested in writing to the matter Arabzadeh was officially fired over: his management......

Black Like Who?

Ernest Hardy
The recent 100th anniversary of cinema encompasses a span of time that almost perfectly parallels the stretch of this century. From the beginning, film was yoked to racist imagery. In 1903, Edwin S. Porter, a white former mechanic, directed a 12-minute version of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Tom was played by......

Kiss and Tell

Chuck Wilson
If you had driven past Mann's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard two Mondays ago, you would have been greeted by all the familiar trappings of a movie premiere: red carpet, searchlights crisscrossing the night sky, anxious tourists straining at barricades. "Just another premiere," you might have thought as you peered......

As You List It

Paul Malcolm
List them and they will come. At least that's what the American Film Institute and the home-video departments of the major studios helping to hype its ranking of America's 100 greatest movies are hoping. Behind the AFI's 100 Years . . . 100 Films list is a marketing campaign of......
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The Ballad of Chalino Sanchez

L.A. Weekly
Saturday slides toward Sunday at Rodeo de Medianoche, a cavernous nightclub in Pico Rivera, as the duo Voces del Rancho sing the story of how Lamberto Quintero died. A drug smuggler in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Quintero was killed in a 1976 shootout, and his ballad - or corrido......
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Sing Now, Die Later

L.A. Weekly
Return to part1 At Cintas Acuario, Pedro Rivera's other son, Juan, devised a series of compilation albums with photographs of staged drug deals and drug robberies: Puros Corridos Perrones (Badass Corridos, more or less). Volume 5, with no promotion whatsoever, sold 60,000 copies in a single week last year. Juan......

Letters

L.A. Weekly
PLAYA VISTA'S CROCODILE TEARS DEAR EDITOR:Re: "Brinkmanship at Ballona Creek" [July 10-16]. Ever since the federal court handed down the order for Playa Capital to cease and desist in the destruction of the Ballona Wetlands, Playa Vista's would-be developers have been tying themselves in knots trying to explain how their......
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Cosmic Things

Lawrence Ferber
"Let your freak flag fly! Whatever you are, don't be afraid to let it come out. We support people's individualism . . . and freaky-deakyness." This proclamation comes not from Abbie Hoffman or Bill Clinton; instead, look to Kate Pierson, one-fourth of the most relentless group of revelers our millennium......
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Tramp on Your Street

Jonny Whiteside
Billy Joe Shaver, widely recognized as one of country music's greatest songwriters, is continually beset by a cycle of professional and personal woes that seems weirdly inevitable. The former hard-bitten outlaw brawler has seen some spectacular high tides over the course of his near-30-year career: His songs have been recorded......