Beach Cruisers

You begin noticing them before you reach the beach: The opalescent baby blue cruiser with pink rims and white walls in front of the yoga studio on Main Street, its flip-flop-wearing owner removing her mat from its wicker basket. The matte black and solid chrome cruisers, draped with young men in mesh-back caps clustered outside the local dive on Washington Boulevard. At Windward Avenue an art grrl in thrift-store couture pedals past, a Paul Frank monkey mugging from her bike’s shiny red frame. These days is seems beach cruisers catch your eye everywhere you go in Venice, even at the beach.

Continue Reading →

“We Became Parents and Fell Out of Love”

Alison and Trevor were living together and considering marriage when Trevor’s sister Yvette — a single mom — was killed. Though he and Alison had been together eight months, they took in Yvette’s 4-year-old son, Donovan. But with Trevor nearly incapacitated by grief, the two were soon overwhelmed by their new responsibilities and conflicting parenting styles.

Continue Reading →

This is Tribute Band Land

Nature abhors a vacuum, which is why nature is so into tribute bands. Say a classic band dies in a mysterious plane crash. Kablam!!! Fifteen tribute bands spring up before the NTSB has a clue of what went down. Artists don’t even have to be the victims of gnarly circumstances anymore to spawn tribute bands. They can be pouting in Malibu…while a red-hot tribute band named for their last hit is playing packed bars in the Valley and sucking face with their old groupies — a red-hot all-girl tribute band. I’m not sure if that’s hot or completely hot. But I am sure this is Tribute Band Land.

Continue Reading →