Heroes & Villains — Stories for Men, Hollywood Pop Culture and Next Gen Politics

Why Nancy Pelosi deserves the credit for Health Care Reform

March 22, 2010

Who would have ever though that C-SPAN could rival ESPN March Madness in terms of crowds, angry team members and pure testosterone? There we all were last night, glued to the procedural votes and parliamentary procedure of the Health Care Reform Bill like a nation of first year debate team captains. But when the air [...]

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Is California Becoming a Third World Nation?

March 16, 2010

A new day, a new sign that California is sinking into a metaphorical, if not literal, ocean. True/Slant colleague David Knowles points out a new UCLA study that shows 1 in 4 Californians are uninsured. The day before, Michael Roston took a look at the state’s spectacularly bad unemployment numbers and saw nothing short of [...]

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Why L.A.'s New One Block Railway Is a Sign of Things to Come

March 15, 2010

At 6:45am this morning one of L.A’s many moribund rail lines reopened for passenger service , just in time for the daily commute. Admittedly, Angel’s Flight, the line in question, is only one-block long, but what it lacks in distance it makes up in spirit. Opened in 1901 and closed since 2001, when one of [...]

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Decoding the New Lady Gaga Video

March 12, 2010

Last night, in a rollout that rivaled anything done in the heyday of MTV, Lady Gaga premiered “Telephone”, the most hotly anticipated music video since, well, the last Lady Gaga music video. A nearly ten-minute long mini-epic directed by Jonas Åkerlund and featuring Beyoncé and cameos by Tyrese Gibson and glam rock outfit Semi Precious [...]

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Your Moral Outrage at Whale Sushi is Unjustified

March 11, 2010

After being exposed during the Oscars by the producers of The Cove, whale-meat-selling Santa Monica sushi restaurant The Hump was charged late Wednesday by federal officials with violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act. If found guilty, Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, the owner of The Hump’s parent company faces $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison. [...]

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Meg Whitman Invites Press, Then Kicks Them Out

March 10, 2010

California Republican and eBay doyenne Meg Whitman has certainly taken the lead in media exposure in her campaign to be the next Governor of California. TV viewers from across the state have been barraged with ads touting the former-CEO as a business-friendly technocrat who will save California from itself. Meg’s millions have given her exposure [...]

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Why Shouldn't We Treat Celebrities as Gods?

March 9, 2010

Observe for a moment the divine rites of Oscar: It’s the Friday before the awards and the Vanity Fair girls from New York are putting the finishing touches on the day’s party. Forty some odd celebrities will drive along Mullholland Drive in borrowed Z-series BMW’s up to the Getty Center, Richard Meir’s hilltop reinterpretation of Olympus. [...]

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Found Dialogue #2

January 5, 2010

Co-Worker: What are you watching? Me: Oh, um — some girl putting on Avatar make-up. Co-Worker: Lame. Me: Actually, she’s kind of clever about it. And she’s fat, so it’s funny. Co-Worker leaves.

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12 Habits for 2010

January 3, 2010

Every year, I do some variation on a New Year’s resolution and usually I get a fair measure of them done, but never enough. I was late to work before the holidays and cabbing it. I started complaining about not being able to do everything I wanted and the cabbie told me I was trying [...]

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