Some of my faves:
Ellei Johndro .
From LA Weekly:
Her Web site and moniker have become synonymous with the sloshed and sweaty shenanigans of L.A.’s cool kids and the underground ragers they frequent, but Shadowscene’s Ellei Johndro is far from just another “club photographer.” Unlike some novice shutterbugs who hopped the snapwagon when lens-toting characters such as the Cobrasnake started getting attention for their Web sites, Johndro’s had a passion for photography, editing and storytelling of all forms (creative writing was her major in college) since she was a teen growing up in Boston.
She started Shadowscene.com while still in Boston back in 2002, its original incarnation more of a personal showcase for her stark and, yes, “shadowy” cityscapes (lots of “streets and alleys,” she recalls). It wasn’t until she moved to Los Angeles seven years ago that the subject matter turned to after-dark hell-raising and earned serious hipster approval.
Jerry Stahl .
From LA Weekly:
Armed with his fourth novel since his breakthrough book, the memoir Permanent Midnight, Jerry Stahl has, in his own inimitable fashion, done a drive-by.
Pain Killers continues the adventures of Manny Rupert, the hapless, hopelessly romantic (in his own damaged way) cop-cum-detective we got to know and love in Plain Clothes Naked. This time a septuagenarian, Jewish millionaire named Harry Zell, who wields his walker like a shillelagh, enlists Manny to go undercover as a drug counselor at San Quentin. Rupert’s mission it to determine if a certain peroxide-blond, 97-year-old inmate is in fact none other than the Nazi Angel of Death, Dr. Joseph Mengele. As if that isn’t nettlesome enough for the illicit substance–susceptible sleuth, his first night on campus reveals his ex-wife and love of his life (who offed her first husband in Plain Clothes Naked by serving him a bowl of Drano-and-glass-laced Lucky Charms) has taken up with the leader of the prison’s Aryan gang … who happens to be Jewish.
Jesse Thorn .
From LA Weekly:
It’s odd, Jesse Thorn knows, for small children to adore public radio. “But it’s what my parents always had on in the car,” Thorn says. “I’ve been hearing Terry Gross my whole life.” All that listening time has given Thorn an uncanny ability to parse, in detail, the style and quirks of every interviewer to have appeared on NPR, nationally and locally, over, say, the past two decades. So it’s perhaps not surprising to learn that at 27, Thorn has already spent eight years with his own show, called the Sound of Young America, which he describes on his Web site — maximumfun.org — as something like Conan O’Brien on public radio, or Fresh Air, but more fun.”
Gary Leonard .
From LA Weekly:
On a gray March morning, photographer Gary Leonard stands in the center of his gallery, a small room dimmed by overcast skies, sunlight feathering through the gaps between high-rises on Broadway Avenue. Leonard has a cold, but he’s agreed to meet with us, anyway, at his new gallery, Take My Picture, named after his recently retired CityBeat column. Later on, Leonard will sit behind a table laid with a collection of his black-and-white photographs, smiling only when asked, while the L.A. Weekly takes his portrait.
Lucian Piane .
From LA Weekly:
When audio of Christian Bale’s tirade on the Terminator Salvation set surfaced, the actor unwittingly joined a select fraternity with Barbra Streisand and Bill O’Reilly: celebrities whose rants have been transformed into viral-dance remixes by RevoLucian. Almost as soon as Bale’s hissy fit went public, the Web picked up on RevoLucian deft a mash-up of Bale’s best quotes set to a synth-heavy beat. “Bale Out” turned “What don’t you fuckin’ understand?” into one of the year’s most addictive choruses and spun a little art out of the debacle. Considering how widely the song was heard, it’s almost surprising that nobody at the Newsroom Café recognizes songwriter and producer Lucian Piane, 28. RevoLucian is a pseudonym for what he calls “my remixes, my crazy things.”
Check out the entire list here.
