November 2011
8 posts
6 tags
At Occupy LA, Whose Streets? Bees Streets
“We need to…WE NEED TO… get -on-the-sidewalk… GET ON THE SIDEWALK%2
7 tags
4 tags
6 tags
8 tags
4 tags
Iron Chef Battles Wall Street
Never did enjoy a meal at Mario Batali’s joints-both Otto in NYC and Mozza in LA disappoint big time-but his TV persona keeps the energy up, his cookbooks are worth their weight in gold (just owning one will get you some) and now he’s won our admiration for his convictions and sincerity, as he recently spoke out against the banksters. Even though these crooks are his...
3 tags
4 tags
Fresh for Fall
Damn ear worm of “Mic check” from our days reporting from occupyLA got us thinking of blog-check. A world wide revolutionary movement inspired us to at least update the LegmanLA and banish the multi-column page to the trash bin of history. We all FRESH with the exciting words sure to come for Fall 2011.
October 2011
1 post
5 tags
Walking Down The Boulevard, At Your Own Risk
We can’t walk down the stretch of Hollywood Boulevard a bit east of the tourist joints without growing wistful with thoughts of the Deuce back in the day. We appreciate the pageant of down and outs from nearby SRO’s like the Mark Twain, crusty punks down from Seattle for bum break, and LA’s ethnic melange of thugs all mingling amid the backdrop of tatoo joints, a couple edgy...
September 2011
1 post
6 tags
Surprising Music Selection at Hollywood Rite Aid
Popped into our default late night booze purveyor Rite Aid, scoring that nite cap to fuel the solitary act of writing into the early morning and this tune surprisingly playing in that emptied flourescent Eggleston venue made our night; Many Rivers To Cross had us joining in with Lenny Kravitz in front of the wall of beer, as did a shell shocked rocker who had admirably downed a Modelo tall boy,...
July 2011
1 post
6 tags
Mark Todd At La Luz de Jesus
Artists Talent Test Mixed painted media on panel 13.5” x 20.5”
The Marvel universe inspired paintings of Mark Todd drew a happening crowd to the show’s opening last Friday at La Luz de Jesus, including an intrigued Ashoton Kutcher, taking a rest break from battling the LA Weekly and owner Village Voice Media.
With this cluttered show-IN AMAZING 3-D- the Hollywood gallery...
May 2011
1 post
3 tags
The Donald Evokes Prince of Darkness
When we fled the Big Bagel we thought we’d heard the last of that pushy-shovey Queens accent, seen the last of those horrible gilt buildings but no, Donald Trump got souped up enough to surface as a figure in national politics. So we really enjoy this hilarious take down of Trump in Vanity Fair which brings to mind the very interesting style of Gary Oldman’s Dracula.
April 2011
3 posts
3 tags
2 tags
5 tags
We're On The Air KPFK 90.7fm
We’ve been busy with our new project, producing news features and reporting from the streets on the Truthdig Radio show streaming live and archived at KPFK and today at 2:00pm Pacific Time we’re visiting The Green Jello house. Does the band name resonate? Kind of a Spinal Tap reaction for most as a lot remember their MTV video “The Three Little Pigs” but many wonder where...
March 2011
1 post
American Revolution 2.0 Begins In LA, Quietly
Michael Moore can babble about Wisconsin being “a little bit Egypt” claiming that state ground zero for revolt against the unequal distribution of wealth in America, but the argument for insurrection was first touched of in Los Angeles.
Revolution Books opened stealthily in January- well before Governor Scott Walker assailed his state’s public worker’s union- cleverly...
February 2011
1 post
5 tags
Put An H on Your Chest and Handle It
Tired of being broke-ass broke, perhaps the time has come to adopt the posture of the junkie in joining the New Economy? Getting on smack we could nod out all day evading the talking-head-news-chatter about the “second year of the recovery” and no doubt we’d become more resourceful in generating revenue. Back in the day Alphabet City junkies formed a damn whirlwind of an...
January 2011
1 post
4 tags
Great Success
Finally a moment to wrap up the shit year that’s past. While we hit bottom, barely scraped by with paying the bills, LegmanLA killed it in our first year up with world around news picked up by Huffington, LAOBserved and with an inquiry of ours that launched a column on Truthdig.com. We’re starting the year with another exclusive LA crime drama that originated on this blog and got...
November 2010
1 post
2 tags
Legman Charged With Foolish Philistinism
We’ve been called many things but this rant from a Craigslist Wizard takes the cake. As we scramble for rent money, an ad for a “great writer” offering “excellent pay” baited us, but ever skeptical of anonymous nuts behind curtains we didn’t fire off a resume rather questioned the poster’s intent, earning this doozy of a response: “Your email...
September 2010
3 posts
3 tags
Waking Up on A Bigger Blog
Realizing a grander vision of story lines we’ve developed here, Legman has moved on up to a big blog with our economic reportage, our notion of Bukowski being a keen observer of the Great Depression, and gotten recognition for our notes on the citizenry of the LA megalopolis.
3 tags
NYC Abandoned, LA Moves In →
We have commited to posting original content almost exclusively, but this brilliant piece fits so neatly into the narrative parameters of Legman, we had to link it. And who are we kidding? the story we wish we had scribbled boasts a pic of Rudy in his warm up jackeon a late night train which made our day.
August 2010
11 posts
4 tags
Penguin Snatchers of Hollywood
The thud of rotor blades distracted our writing last night, at 11:05pm to be precise, and when the Ghetto Bird persisted in hovering over Legman HQ, searchlight raking our window every lap of the block, we hit up our LAPD Scanner to find out what was going down. After ten minutes of monitoring we heard the following:
PO: Robbery in area of Gramercy and Franklin. Suspect three male blacks. ...
4 tags
5 tags
MacArthur Fights The Second Depression
In July 1932 General Douglas MacArthur led armor, cavalry and infantry against hungry Americans, ending the Bonus Army march on Washington at bayonet point. Today his doll-like, pigeon shit patinaed sculpture stands in his eponymous LA park looking over a morass of crime, and once again MacArthur faces the down and out as each morning food stamp recipients shape up to clean the joint to keep...
4 tags
3 tags
3 tags
6 tags
If I Were A Whitman
Mike Bloomberg’s moneybags campaign bought him a job in New York, but emulating that strategy might backfire on Meg Whitman in her race against Jerry Brown for the California governor seat. In an economic environment where working folks are swelling lines at food pantries across LA County, we’ve found Whitman’s spending doesn’t sit well with many...
2 tags
Aqua Fowl Tortilla Tosser of MacArthur Park
As if there are others out there. Among the sprawled drunks, Central American tortilla hawkers, hookers and dope fiends that lend LA’s MacArthur Park its Third World charm, we found this man enthusiastically feeding the ducks and geese some stale tortillas, which they went for reluctantly. Not quite as nauseating as watching french fry eating seagulls at City Island in the Bronx, but...
4 tags
What's Past Is Prologue: Learning from Bukowski
The ghost like visage of Bukowski hangs high above the bar at The Frolic Room
Today marks the birthday of the poet Charles Bukowski, born Aug. 16, 1920, in Germany. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was a boy and in LA he weathered the Great Depression, a time “when people had very little and there was nothing to hide behind” he wrote in his poem The Lady In Red which evokes...
5 tags
The Emperor at The Getty
”How much, like 25 bucks? Sweet! I’m getting this” an overly excited Chris Namon, babbled to us, inexplicably waving an idol of some kind at our head. “This is TIGHT! Its Bonnie..Bonaparte, and he’s awesome and I’m getting it.” Seems after emptying his ubiquitous flask and pounding the last of the cocktails poured in the piazza of the J. Paul Getty...
5 tags
WatchFacing economic collapse, environmental catastrophe and a grim future, Americans, we’ve increasingly noticed, are taking refuge in the absurd. The other day while out and about in Hollywood we found this earnest but slightly rattled pet owner wandering the Hollywood Farmers Market offering a reward for his lost sabertooth tiger he claims is now loose in Beachwood Canyon. We were skeptical,...
July 2010
3 posts
4 tags
“So that party last night? Douche bag tells me oh, I was in the Army- I was a...”
– Cute LA woman on the patio of The Oaks Coffee shop, Hollywood, CA
5 tags
6 tags
Mongols Walk Among Us
An arrest in connection to the June 21 shooting outside The Echo nightclub that left three people injured portends the outbreak of a new gang war in the streets of LA.
“The suspect is Jose Luis Sanchez, 25, of Los Angeles. He is a suspected Mongols gang member, and the motive is believed to be his intent to shoot the Hell’s Angel at the club” Lt. Wes Buhrmester, LAPD Rampart Patrol...
June 2010
13 posts
7 tags
Watch Grazed by Bullets, Survivor Tells of Shooting at The Echo A night of ambient psychedelic rock at uber hip music mecca The Echo ended in bloody carnage last Sunday after a motorcycle riding gunman opened fire into the crowd outside the club in LA’s Echo Park. Two were shot and seriously injured while a third vic, music agent Adam D’Zurilla amazingly was just grazed by bullets....
3 tags
5 tags
ACHIM FREYER At ACE Gallery
ACE Gallery was a spectacular white box whose monolithic walls and rays-from-heaven- like lighting lent import to any damn thing on the wall when it was in SoHo back in the day. And while the adjacent deli that sells tallboys remains on 6th Avenue, ACE has long moved to LA where it became grander; occupying theme-park-scaled gallery space at two locations. We hit their Wilshire Avenue space the...
3 tags
3 tags
3 tags
Academy, Smell The Coffee
Now this is how to run an awards show. Robert Scheer whose web magazine Truthdig.com won best political blog at the 14th Annual Webby Awards Monday night, wins the crowd too. The event was held, fittingly, on NYC’s Wall Street.
4 tags
The Gayest Building in Hollywood
The Hollywood-Western building, c. 1928, has been many things through the years; movie mogul Louise B. Mayer’s offices, rehearsal space for Guns and Roses, porn studios. But what it remains is a wacky awesome structure with muscular nudes peering down on passersby. A high school English teacher back in the Bronx offered extra credit if we could accurately count the steps to the...
3 tags
Finally, The Legman is Welcomed
Walking along Western Avenue we looked up to find an ingratiating bit of signage, holding promise of arroz con pollo. But turns out this eatery that courted New Yorkers has long joined the trash heap of history. In its place, one of those Central American pupusarias, a shack lit by a single bulb churning out corn meal mush and cabbage in a scene that might as well be in Guatemala City.
4 tags
4 tags
One of A kind Entertainment Campus for the Down...
Our exclusive analysis of Hollywood’s Larry King Square being a haven for the down and out was met with skepticism, lacking photojournalism cred. Well some images that arrived at LegmanLA
show the square is a one of a kind entertainment campus for the indigent. You know, exactly what LA Live is to margarita guzzling douche bags.
4 tags
Inching Towards Urbanism
Our first visit to Sunset Plaza we took in the blond cougars draped in $10,000 worth of clothes dining outdoors while inhaling the traffic of Sunset Boulevard, and did an about face. Returning to the expansive (but free) parking lot, the Legman found the valets and security men had all abandoned their posts. They were gathered at the far end of the lot, huddled together and fixed on the adjacent...
11 tags
Hollywood Noir: Death at the Frolic Room
The Frolic Room, a bar aside the landmark Pantages Theater on Hollywood Boulevard is a location in murder-mysteries like LA Confidential and The Black Dahlia. This past April 5th reality emulated art when the bar became the scene of a grisly death. However, insiders say it is no mystery while police maintain it is not a murder.
Gerald Thomas Andersen, one of five ...
May 2010
5 posts
7 tags
LAPD Confronts Anarcho Cyclists
A Friday night ride brought cyclists into a confrontation with cops along Hollywood Boulevard, near Highland as best we can make out from this video posted on cycling scene site Midnight Ridazz. Holding promise for a truce during the popular monthly Critical Mass rides, Police Chief Charlie Beck announced a policy to better train LAPD officers on the rights of cyclists. Apparently this one...