April 15th, 2008 Written by: Artie · 1 Comment
Hal Ackerman is a poet, playwright, author and screenwriter, yet his curriculum at UCLA has remained uninterrupted until this week. This friday at the Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica his latest production Testosterone: How Cancer Made a Man of Me begins. Only this time, he’s playing the lead.
As he would tell you, this was not part of the plan. There was no ambition to be onstage in spite of his affection for it. But the play is an anomaly, the culmination of years of struggle, recovery, and adaptation of his own personal experience with cancer.
Now Hal speaks to LA.CityZine about the shock that redefined his life and what came out of it.
Testosterone: How Cancer Made a Man of Me began as a personal account. Were you always intending to bring it to the stage?
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Tags: Interviews · theatre
Finding that rare title can be worth a trek into the valley, but for everything else the LA Gamers need, specifically those that actually reside in LA county proper, there is Next Gen Games.
The name alone is a lofty proposition (the “next-gen” systems themselves have been short on games worthy of the title) but it’s full of brilliant touches that make other stores seem primitive by comparison. The killer app: nearly every title in stock can be tried on-site for a modest fee.
The layout has undergone a minor facelift over ‘07. Flat screen monitors line the tops of the shelves and bar stools are scattered around. For older titles, a dollar gets you an hour of uninterrupted play. Newer titles on the big three are rented at a premium, but the $3.50 also nets a bean bag chair in front of the three hi-def displays by the check out. It’s common to see a few local kids scattered around the place, most of them eerily silent and fiercely intent on squeezing every last second out of their time.
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Tags: Local LA · Reviews · Shopping
Colin Hay began with a pronouncement, “This is my final show at Largo.”
The silverware stopped clinking, whispers dried up. We just watched and listened to him strum.
“Sixteen years ago, I started playing here…kind of an interim thing. Then it just…went on.” He noticed earlier a fan had tried, and failed, to get a clap-along going. “Didn’t quite work, did it? What’d you expect? it’s Wednesday!”
“Not manic depressive like the beginning of the week, and it’s not like it’s Thursday and you can say ‘it’s Friday tomorrow!’ It’s just…fuckin’ Wednesday. Nothing really happens on Wednesday.” He deadpans to an almost full house. Everyone laughs and Colin smiles, but here he is playing on a Wednesday. He’s singing and cracking jokes to a crowd of fifty when twenty years ago he was playing to thousands with Men At Work.
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Tags: Reviews · bands
Much like fashion and automobiles, gaming is a magnet for trends. Occasionally ridiculous, and always sweeping, it’s easy to lose the innovators in an angry sea of crap. Light guns, motion sensing, voice chat, hard drives, and more currently the wars over guitar-shaped controllers and the media format itself. But this is just hardware.
The software fad of the hour is the destructible environment. Not the casually absurd, shooting gallery brand that has you blasting apart the Eiffel Tower, but something a little more daunting.
Developers are hyping buildings that can be reduced to scrap piece by piece, terrain that can be reshaped on a whim, and for the lil’ engineer, worlds so detailed the in-game structures must be architecturally sound to stay upright.
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Tags: Reviews · Videogames
Last night, So Cal’s own Say Anything played The Avalon with three guests on the bill: San Diego’s Weatherbox, Glasgow’s Biffy Clyro, and Atlanta’s Manchester Orchestra.
Weatherbox opened to a half-full venue and by the end of their brief set the crowd was getting restless. Brian Warren’s nasal delivery didn’t translate live, and the first two songs’ wall-to-wall lyrics added a layer of monotony to some otherwise enjoyable hooks. Bassist Dave Silverman stole the energy, leaping around stage center and feeding off the percussion, as Warren and guitarist George Pritzker stood as still as pillars.
Scottish three-piece Biffy Clyro gets credit for waking up the house, dropping their first number on full-blast with a relentless, clear riff. Lead guitarist and singer Simon Neil looks like a son of Malibu money (no shirt, tight jeans, white shoes, scattered tats, and mucho hair) but he plays like a machine, ably supported by Ben and James Johnston on drums and bass.
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Tags: Reviews · shows
Among my favorite things, I count a pristine Asteroids machine. Also high on that list would be a dive bar. The kind where the light is minimal, the volume is at max, and the locals are all but paying rent. Put an Asteroids machine in that dive bar, and you get something like Miss T’s Barcade, a nightspot on the outskirts of Koreatown. This week I paid a visit, hoping to find something to tide me over until the next Game Night at Brian’s. Unfortunately, the experience came up short.
Miss T’s was featured on Gametrailers TV, with a montage of patrons slamming back Sake Bombs and queuing up to Donkey Kong. It looked dark, loud, and had no real sign, just a blue neon rendering of a Pac Man ghost. It was like a speakeasy for geeks. A Geekeasy.
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Tags: Reviews · Videogames
Everywhere else it’s a crime, but in California, it’s convenience.
Some of us have back problems (wink), glaucoma (wink wink) or various sundry ailments that will provide access to the nation’s first weed vending machines. If you are cursed with perfect health and a scrupulous physician, however, there are games available that provide their own unique sensations of “heightened” reality.
In honor of this watershed achievement in self-service, here’s a list of titles that simulate (and perhaps stimulate) altered states.
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Tags: Entertainment · Reviews
In it’s heyday, arcade gaming had it’s galaxies, and Los Angeles was one of the most magnificent. The games’ communal blue radiation and discordant 8-bit symphonies spilled across the sidewalks, boardwalks, and galleria food courts.
Today these classic machines, arguably the pillars on which the industry was built, have all but disappeared from public view. They have moved from the street into the houses, basements, and living rooms of people like Brian Saur.
Brian has 22 original arcade machines scattered across his house, self maintained and lovingly preserved. Periodically he opens his doors to hold video game parties for friends and family. LA.CityZine.com was lucky enough to be on the invite list so we sat down to find out more about what motivates someone to turn their family home into Los Angeles’ version of Funspot.
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Tags: Interviews · Local LA · News
February 21st, 2008 Written by: Artie · No Comments
Ever wonder what video games are worth buying in the bargain bins? Lately they’ve been in a bit of a slump. The gems are all but gone, leaving behind the waste and detritus (The Getaway, Nightcaster, and nearly a decade of obsolete Madden football). It would be mournful were it not for the Xbox 360’s back catalog heralding a return to glory.
I picked up a used copy of Just Cause, and inside of twenty minutes from the start screen I hijacked a helicopter, ascended a vertical mile, and ditched it for a six-minute freefall.
Artistic liberties with gravity aside, it’s the best $14.99 I’ve spent in a while.
The player is cast as Rico, a full-auto modern Zorro with a taste for nickel plating and a green light to overthrow the vicious dictator of a fictional paradise. The plot is vaguely inspired by the CIA’s de-stabilizing antics in Panama, but that’s about as close to reality as it gets.
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Tags: Entertainment · General
February 15th, 2008 Written by: Artie · No Comments
The red band trailer for the Judd Apatow-produced Pineapple Express leaked yesterday. For those who wonder what would happen if
Lethal Weapon and The Big Lebowski got busy in the back seat of an Oldsmobile, hunt it down to find out.
Of course we at cityzine would never post such a link, but there might be such a site with a hint nestled in the comments section.
Photo courtesy of Martin Kingsley via Flickr
Tags: Entertainment · Film
February 14th, 2008 Written by: Artie · 1 Comment
Game stores are sad little dioramas. Uncivilized, unkempt, and unattractive, they speak to the deficiency of our culture. Which of us has time to think, plan, work, or innovate? We’re gamers, dammit. We pay others to do it for us. We do not build shrines. We do not dwell on the shopping experience. Walk into a Gamestop, any Gamestop. The branches in LA are petrie dishes at best, improvised day-care at worst. Big corporate doesn’t fare much better. Best Buy is a warzone and Target, a penitentiary.
There are oases to be found in this town, however, where there is law among the lawless. Game Dude is among them.
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Tags: Local LA · News · Reviews
