Recently, the Expo Line opened from Downtown LA to Culver City. In the next few years, this new subway line will be extended all the way to the beach in Santa Monica. This is a very exciting development. Finally, 21st Century Los Angeles will have a mass transit system that can compete with 19th Century London’s. Just think of all the thousands of underprivileged Angelinos living in blighted neighborhoods without cars who soon will have affordable and convenient access to upscale, safe and fashionable neighborhoods where they aren’t wanted unless they’re bagging groceries at Whole Foods. And think of all the yoga-matt-and-Prius moms who’ll have to twist themselves up into pretzels trying to explain why they don’t like poor people in their neighborhoods without sounding like a bunch of cross-burning racists (I just looove Lululemon’s new Swastika line.) Look at the bright side moms – the faster your nanny can get to you by subway – the faster you can get out to Breadbar to discuss The Help at book club. Of course, this is a particularly exciting development for me, because I am a non-driver (the technical term is “loser”) and LA is a city meant to be traversed by car. Mind you, this was not always the case. LA History buffs love to bring up the fact that, back in the 40s this city was criss-crossed by street-cars and had one of the finest public transportation systems in the country. This is very helpful information for me to know, since I’m often looking for faster ways commute downtown by using a streetcar and a fucking time-machine. Unfortunately, in the 1950s the streetcar lines were all torn out by GM and Standard Oil so they could force consumers to use cars and buses instead. This...

Fiercely Anticipating… June 24th What happens on June 24th you ask? Well then you clearly don’t have the borderline-unhealthy Aaron Sorkin obsession that I do. That’s right kids, the Emmy and Oscar Winner’s latest TV offering, The Newsroom, premieres on HBO in just a few short weeks, and I, for one, can’t wait. The pithy banter, the speechifying, the pediconferencing (walking and talking, for the uninitiated), the orchestral music swelling under climaxes of righteousness and do-goodery… What’s not to love? OK, yes, that’s not how people really talk. But don’t you wish it were? Wouldn’t it be nice if we all walked around our respective workplaces engaging in informed and witty discourse on the moral and ethical dilemmas of our day? Everyone in Shakespeare’s time didn’t speak in iambic pentameter and incessantly debate the nature of the soul, but that guy’s plays were still wicked popular. I’m not saying Sorkin is Shakespeare (though the authorship debate is so whack-a-doodle I bet someone out there is), but there’s something to be said for theatricality, especially when it renders entertainment that is thought-provoking rather than mind-numbing. That being said, nobody likes being preached at, and Sorkin is at his worst when ideology trumps character-driven storytelling (hostage negotiations from the green room of a sketch comedy show? Seriously Studio 60?). But The Newsroom, much like The West Wing before it, places its characters in an environment where big issues are the order of the day. After all, the news shapes our view of the world. I certainly hope the people that broadcast it are conscientious and concerned. And if the current spat of cable news programs seems to indicate otherwise, at least in Sorkin’s newsroom we’ll be able to pretend. Trepidatious About… My Birthday Don’t worry; this...

To be perfectly honest, I was always a lousy driver. Less then a year after I got my license, I began my reign of terror. Side-swiping my Dad’s 1960ish green van, one of those behemoths that was made entirely out of Adamantium. After that followed a series of unfortunate events, the last happening just a few years ago when I totaled my SUV. Now I can’t drive at all. It started when I was a Senior in high school, coming home late from theater practice one night. I tried to park my tinny Ford Fairmont in front our house and ran up against Dad’s van front bumper. The back passenger door caved in and one of my hub caps knocked off and folded in two, like a PB&J made on one slice of bread. Dad’s van didn’t have a scratch. We didn’t report it, so my car never got fixed. That incident was followed by a series of one-car mishaps. I backed into poles, spun out on icy country roads and scraped garage walls. I’m thinking now that maybe it had something to do with depth perception. Or maybe there was a correlation with how often I hit things when I was singing along with the radio. In between accidents, I loved driving. My chosen college sat exactly 10 hours from my parents house and I would drive back home every few months. Ten hours, by myself, rattling across Kansas in my old Ford Fairmoni (the “t” in Fairmont had lost it’s top at some point, so my car was a unique individual) with only an AM radio for company. The trip was boring, so I popped into the discount store of my college town and purchased a few fake animal nose masks. It...