In response to an ongoing trend of departures from LAPD, weakening the department’s personnel strength, the Los Angeles City Council has approved a four-year contract agreement aimed at improving LAPD officer recruitment and retention through offering raises and bonuses for rank-and-file police officers.
Expiring in 2027, the agreement, raised by the Los Angeles Police Protective League, will increase the starting base salary of LAPD recruits by 13% with a 3% annual increase in base salary wages through the duration of the contract. It will also include retention bonuses and improvements in insurance subsidies for life, health and dental insurance.
According to Police Chief Michel Moore, LAPD’s current personnel strength stands at 9,011 officers, almost 1,000 fewer than 2019. He said this depletion has limited the department’s response to calls for service and impacted its visibility.
“Our response to urgent calls and routine calls, those response times are significantly lengthened, which undermines the public’s confidence in policing,” he explained during a recent police commission meeting. “There’re also critical investigations that are being addressed by prioritizing, but many other investigations that could be pursued, lesser crimes, particularly in the area of property crime, that we do not have the sufficient resources in order to apply.”
He added that 250 of the officers who left the department last year have gone on to serve new agencies, with the “vast majority” of them making a better wage in better work conditions than they were in LA.
“A week does not go by in which a councilmember or other community leader is asking for additional police officers,” Moore said. “Just this weekend, there was a community meeting in the Hollenbeck area following a series of murders. … A 16-year-old boy was murdered as a result of an ongoing gang dispute. … Six individuals had been murdered in that area.
“Violence in this city is far too high and gun violence is particularly still a problem, and our ability to be present in those parks, in those communities, and
having a visibility where we’re not simply responding to it afterwards but having presence there in advance, has been significantly compromised.”
The new contract agreement, which was approved after a 12-3 vote in favor, was delivered to the council through a report brought forward by the Office of the City Administrative Officer that outlined three primary objectives: improve recruiting and hiring of new officers, retain new and experienced officers, and incentivize critical public safety functions.
Before the implementation of the contract, LAPD ranked last in starting salaries across the region with a salary of $74,020, placing the department behind the LA County Sheriffs, Burbank, Pasadena, Long Beach, Glendale, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, whose starting salary is $109,392. After the agreement’s approval, the LAPD’s starting salary will be $86,193.
While Moore thanked Mayor Karen Bass and the city council for their commitment to aiding the department and said that he sees the new contract is a “significant step” forward, the three councilmembers who voted against the agreement, Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Nithya Raman, voiced concerns.
“The premise behind this is that LA
must provide competitive salaries … in order to be a more attractive employer than other law enforcement agencies in the region,” Raman said. “Unfortunately, the evidence from these other departments doesn’t support that premise because these departments are, almost to a department, also facing recruitment issues and staffing shortages, the exact same issues that LAPD is dealing with, with many of their shortages actually larger than LAPD’s. Beverly Hills has a shortage. Burbank has had a shortage since 2016. Glendale has a shortage. Long Beach has a shortage. Santa Monica has a ‘record shortage.’”
Raman also called the LAPD officer shortage a macro trend that isn’t unique to the region, citing a report from the Police Executive Research Forum which stated that 86% of departments across the United States are also facing shortages. She said that nearly every department across the country has been steadily losing officers at a rate that is “very comparable” to LA.
“This contract, because of its enormous fiscal impact, potentially prevents us from being able to build out an alternative response to nonviolent calls for service, which are the majority of 911 calls, many of which are calls regarding homelessness and mental health issues, a system that if we actually invested in building out citywide, we could actually free up armed response for violent and serious crime,” Raman added. “If we can build out a public safety response that … makes sense for the range of public safety issues that this city deals with, we won’t lose a step when we’re hit with financial crisis or macro trends that cause these shortages in the first place.”
The agreement will increase the city’s police spending to an estimated $3.6 billion by 2027, a nearly $400 million increase from this year. Bass said she believes it’s a price worth paying.
“Our police department, just like other major city police departments, is enduring a hiring and retention crisis,” she said in a statement. “Around the same time that we struck a tentative agreement, the LAPD sworn force dipped below 9,000 for the first time since 2002. I want to thank the leaders of the city council for supporting this action, and I look forward to working together to ensure that Angelenos are safe.”
facebook:
twitter:
instagram:
EXECUTIVE
Christina Fuoco-Karasinski
DEPUTY
Luke Netzley
STAFF
CONTRIBUTING
Ellen Snortland
STAFF
Chris Mortenson
GRAPHIC
ACCOUNT
Catherine
Michael Lamb 213-453-3548
LEGALS
VICE
Following the completion of the Regional Connector, the signing of major leases in the office market and evidence that residential and hospitality markets continue to act as major drivers of economic recovery, the Downtown Center Business Improvement District (DCBID) has cited favorable activity across all Downtown LA sectors in its 2023 Q2 Market Report.
“The DTLA market is showing its resilience and flexibility, with the increasing strength of residential and hospitality balancing slower recovery in the office sector,” said Nick Griffin, executive director of the DCBID.
The DCBID, which has provided leading research and reports on the Downtown LA market for over 20 years, found that while the area’s office market remains in flux, the recent signings of several significant leases have signaled a surviving demand for office
space in the wake of the pandemic. These signings include a 295,000-square-foot lease for the city of Los Angeles at the Gas Company Tower, a nearly 68,000-squarefoot lease renewal for Lumen Technologies at 818 W. Seventh Street, a 57,000-squarefoot lease for law firm Sidley Austin at City National 2CAL and a 48,000-square-foot lease renewal for Morgan Stanley at FourFortyFour South Flower.
The report also called UCLA’s purchase of The Trust Building, an 11-story art-deco style landmark on Spring Street, a sign of a growing appeal for nontraditional office space uses.
“There’s an interesting dynamic in the shifts that are going on in the office space, which are opening the door for other uses, and education is a great example,” Griffin explained. “You have UCLA taking over The Trust Building, and what that does is that
“Be Bonobos; don’t be jerks!”
“What a Bonobo brother he is!”
“What would a Bonobo do?”
“Have I ‘Bonoboed’ today?” Some books are life-changing enough to generate their own lexicon, and Diane Rosenfeld’s “The Bonobo Sisterhood: Revolution Through Female Alliance” is one of them. The book is so good that I gobbled it up in record time.
Last week, I was at an Empowerment Self-defense Global camp in upstate New York, and Ms. Rosenfeld was a featured speaker. I was introduced to her by ESDG’s founder, Yudit Sidikman, and when Rosenfeld heard my name, she said, “You’re Ellen Snortland?! I’m so glad I wrote my book before I read your book ‘Beauty Bites Beast,’ or you might have a basis for plagiarism!” Of course, that’s a generous joke reflective of Rosenfeld’s ample heart and abundance of spirit. She has a Bonobo glow.
Bonobos are the only primate that seems to have transcended the threat and practice of male violence. Chimpanzees, gorillas and, yes, human males (we are primates, after all) use force or the threat of force to get their way via tantrums that can be lethal. Their “way” may be more food, territory, or increased access to female bodies.
I am proud to say that I can include my writing within Rosenfeld’s “Bonobo Sister-
hood.” We hit upon many of the same tenets of women’s and girls’ liberation, although I am much more of a smart aleck. Simplistically, you could say that “Beauty Bites Beast” is a clarion call to women to learn how to defend themselves verbally, emotionally and when and if push comes to shove, physically. “The Bonobo Sisterhood” expands on that idea by having us be ready to provide safety for ourselves and each other by any means: courts, families, on the street, within friendships, campuses, institutions — you name it, we can do it.
Educational pioneer Maria Montessori said, “Everyone talks about peace, but no one educates for peace. People educate for competition, and that is the beginning of any war. When we educate for cooperation and be in solidarity with each other, that day we will be educating for peace.”
That is the way of our primate cousins, the Bonobo. If you want to study a nonviolent society, study the Bonobo, who are endangered and only live in the forests south of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Also, study the suffrage movement in the U.S. It wasn’t a perfect movement — racism, classism and anti-Semitism were present — yet they did make enormous strides. Do you want to find out whose shoulders Gandhi and Martin Luther King stand on? Study the Quaker women who learned about equality from their Haudeneshawnee (Iroquois) sisters.
Back to the Bonobo: Their females rush to each other’s aid without regard to kin-
Downtown News wants to hear from people in the community. If you like or dislike a story, let us know, or weigh in on something you feel is important to the community.
Participation is easy. Go to downtownnews. com, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Letter to the Editor” link.
For guest opinion proposals, please email christina@timespublications.com.
ship or even affinity; Bonobo “women” share food and affection and demonstrate a way of living that human beings can aspire to. As a group, they will chase an errant Bonobo male away!
Simply put, here’s The Bonobo Principle: No one harms my sister, and everyone is my sister.
We need to adopt the principle that All Women Are Equal. That’s a twist, isn’t it? Think about it: When the founders got together, they looked around the room and declared, “All men are created equal.” Women worldwide — including in our country — aren’t equal to men by any metric you want to use, so we can certainly declare that all women are created equal.
It doesn’t matter what our background is, our assigned gender at birth, economic or educational status, or the color of our skin: By declaration and then by action, we are equal simply because we say so. That is the power of a declaration, which is more potent than divine right or what any power outside of ourselves can “bestow” on us. If Bonobos can alter society without a legal document, we can, too.
I urge you to read “The Bonobo Sisterhood” immediately, given the pandemic level of violence perpetrated upon women and girls. We also need to be like the Bonobo, considering the climate crisis that affects all of us daily and, in some places, hourly. We even need to be Bonobos for the endangered Bonobos themselves.
Since protecting each other from harm is the rallying principle for Bonobo behavior, now is the time!
I got to speak briefly and stood shoulder to shoulder with my Bonobo sisters at the Pasadena City Council meeting on Aug. 28. We stood in solidarity to goose Pasadena into moving its energy away from gas and oil, pronto! We reminded the council that Swiss women are suing their government for not protecting them from the lethal impact of excessive heat on women over 60 and how Montana kids successfully stood together and declared that their human rights were being trampled by a state government ignoring climate change’s impact. We are all Bonobo-ing! I ended my mini speech with “Be Bonobos; don’t be jerks!” The councilmembers were a tad surprised.
Males are included in the Bonobo Sisterhood, too. We can’t do what’s necessary by ourselves. We all need to Bonobo! Be Bonobos, don’t be jerks. Join the Bonobo Sisterhood: bonobosisterhood.com.
2023 marks the 30th year that Ellen Snortland has written this column and was one of three winners of the LA Press Club’s Journalist of the Year. She also teaches creative writing online and can be reached at ellen@beautybitesbeast.com. Her award-winning film “Beauty Bites Beast” is available for download or streaming at vimeo.com/ondemand/ beautybitesbeast.
Los Angeles’ creative voices will be the toast of Inner-City Arts’ Summer on 7th party, headlined by Tiffany Haddish on Saturday, Sept. 9.
“I’m excited to be part of this year’s Summer on 7th,” Haddish said in a statement.
“It’s so important for adult mentors to support the dreams and creative talents of youth facing extra hurdles, just like we do through my She Ready Foundation. I’ll be part of a fantastic comedy lineup that night to support Inner-City Arts’ programs.”
Stand-up comedian Martin Morrow will host the evening, joined by Mateen Stewart. The benefit party will feature DJs, including Glenn Red, Wyldeflower and Sadubas, each showcasing a distinct aspect of LA’s music culture.
Art exhibits will include lowriders on display by East LA’s Imperials Car Club, and local food and drinks will be available
at booths and bars throughout campus where guests will also enjoy hands-on art activities — all supporting arts education for the region’s youth.
Inner-City Arts President and Chief Executive Officer Shelby Williams-González is looking forward to showing off her facility.
“LA is the convergence of so many cultures and unique creative expressions, where you can stitch together your interests to create something new,” she said.
“We have taco trucks, lowriders and genre-bending music, all with the intention to create joyful moments with others. At Inner-City Arts, we walk the talk; we want our students to thrive in creative spaces, and we know adults need that space to feed our souls as well. Come explore our studios and celebrate your own artistry with us.”
Just as important as the fundraising is bringing awareness to the program.
Tucked within the historic Commercial Exchange building on 8th Street, an eccentric apparel shop shines in a cinematic glory. For artist and designer Matt Warren, it has become the perfect home for his contemporary clothing line.
Born on the island of Guernsey, Warren described himself as a creative child that used drawings and sketches as a form of expression and escapism as he grew older. He named his grandmother as one of his earliest artistic inspirations.
“I never was aware of her drawing,” Warren said. “Then when I was at her house one time when I was probably 14 or 15 and really just getting into drawing faces a lot, I found this whole stash of these drawings of old Hollywood stars, like Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, that she had drawn when she was in her early 20s. And they were really good.”
Warren went on to study undergraduate fine art at The University of the West of England in Bristol, where he began to weave his fascination for Hollywood, Americana and pop culture into his practice before undertaking his masters at OTIS College of Art and Design in LA.
“When I did my grad program here, I was doing a lot more performative art and installation, making these big projects based around cinema and how it kind of interacts with the stereotypes of the American hero,” he explained. “Once I graduated, you know, you try and figure out a way where you can make money. … That’s when I went back to drawing.”
After finishing school and leaving for home, Warren wanted to find a way to return to the United States on an artist visa. He decided to build on his portfolio of work and delve deeper into the areas of artistic and academic discovery that he loved.
Warren began developing a series of pencil illustrated posters for his favorite movies, scenes and characters.
“At the beginning, it was the more traditional movie posters like ‘Chinatown,’ ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s,’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ ‘Pulp Fiction,’” he said. “I tried to really bring out the details and, even like the pretty ones, make them look a little bit gory, just highlighting the shadows.
On the ‘Breakfast of Tiffany’s’ one, they’re kissing in the rain, but the way that it’s drawn … the raindrops almost look like blood.”
After receiving his visa and landing in LA, Warren sold his movie posters as prints online and at the Melrose Trading Post, an open-air market on Fairfax and Melrose Avenue, where he set up a foldout table.
“It just grew from there,” he recalled. “I built a bigger setup and got more products, then just through interacting with people, some suggested, ‘Oh, these would look cool on t-shirts.’”
Warren took their advice and started outsourcing for samples, then invested in his own t-shirt printer and heat press that he operated out of his one-bedroom apartment. By 2016, he purchased a new $20,000 printer and moved into his first studio space in Downtown LA on 7th and Los Angeles Street.
“I think it was like 300 square feet, maybe, and it was a six-month contract just to test it out and see if it worked. And it worked,” he said. “It was scary, but I was ready. … I’d been doing it for two to three years already, and I knew that there was a market out there and … people who responded well to my designs, so I had faith in it.”
Warren then moved to Virgil Village, where he stayed for two years until the outbreak of COVID-19 shut his doors. When the pandemic began to wane and restrictions lifted across LA, Warren moved back to Downtown at 416 W. 8th Street, where his current storefront sits within the Freehand Hotel.
Specializing in pencil-drawn designs on crisp white t-shirts and sweatshirts, Warren’s art and apparel remains heavily influenced by cinema and American popular culture, with references to films like “Kill Bill,” “Fight Club,” “American Psycho,” “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and musical artists like Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift.
For Warren, his relationship with cinema has long been concerned with the consumer experience and the way that a viewer can insert themselves into a work of art.
“A lot of it was about … how we relate to these kind of hero roles or these characters,” he explained. “I did this project that was based on the ‘cowboy’ that
Along with his contemporary clothing line, Warren’s Paper 8 storefront includes posters, prints and props that pay homage to the golden age of Hollywood.
we see in the movies. I rented this horse and went to Montana and rode out into the sunset for a couple of weeks to have these experiences of trying to capture this moment that I’ve seen in the movies.
“(In the designs,) I try and be a bit more creative and take moments that are important or specific to me, that I relate to and that I think people relate to as well. … It’s not the standard design that you would see for the film or the main character that you would see. It’s taking one of the side characters and making them the main character in that poster.”
Within the walls of the Paper 8 store, Warren’s exploration has become a visual feast. The store’s interior blends a vibrant color palette with imagery and iconography that pays homage to Hollywood’s golden age.
“It isn’t an empty shell of a shop,” he said. “I have all the t-shirts packed in popcorn boxes. I have lots of old props like Super 8 cameras and projectors and old analog TVs that are either just used as props or play movies or have my social handle and website on them over the static. … I have a big movie marquee sign that has ‘Now Showing’ on it with the flashing lights around it in the window of the Freehand with one of my movie posters in it.”
In his old DTLA space, Warren used to host draw-along movie nights that wel-
comed guests in to watch films, create designs and receive a custom-printed t-shirt at the end of the event. He said that the series will be returning with monthly screenings in October, November and December in collaboration with the Alamo Drafthouse, noting that the customer experience remains an important component of Paper 8’s existence.
“A lot of it is just watching people come in and seeing people smile,” he said. “I try and do a variation, so there’s old Hollywood … and then contemporary stuff, but a lot of it is probably more from the ‘80s and ‘90s when I grew up.
“Seeing people remember like ‘Grease 2’ and ‘The NeverEnding Story’ and then having conversations with people about their dogs who look like Falkor from ‘The NeverEnding Story,’ … it’s fun to talk to people about the memories that they have based on these films that you don’t really see that much anymore.”
Warren said he hopes that this community interaction will continue in the DTLA storefront, where he has renewed his lease, and in his newly opened location in Hollywood on the corner of Highland Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard.
“I just opened a second place and I have some employees now, so it isn’t just me working on my own, and it feels like it’s in a good position,” Warren said. “It’s an exciting time.”
801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA
The challenges of our times are demanding more than just political reforms. They are compelling us towards journeys of the soul that will ask not only for great courage, but new understandings of power and inclusive leadership, new mythologies of collective heroism, more diverse communities and organizational models that are more sustainable ecosystems than hierarchical power pyramids. We invite you to engage with contemporary issues and the latest in depth psychological thinking and practices, join interactive learning sessions on the cutting edge of practice and theory, and explore all that Pacifica Graduate Institute has to offer for your personal and professional journey.
Paper 8
HOURS: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 12 to 6 p.m.
Sunday and Monday
WHERE: 416 W. 8th Street, Los Angeles
INFO: paper8apparel.com
brings in academics, students, researchers and all these people who are doing creative, interesting work, which sort of intersects with some of the creative industries that are down here and the type of people who are either working or studying at those universities and the people who are working in those industries.
“An interesting thing to look at is the extent to which, not always the nature of traditional office work is shifting, more broadly the nature of Downtown is shifting and the nature of what those office buildings are used for is shifting. (That’s) not just adaptive reuse to residential, but adaptive reuse to other types of commercial uses.”
In residential, new inventory has arrived following the completion and delivery of 785 units in Brookfield Properties’ Beaudry development, which has claimed to be the largest single-tower residential community on the West Coast. Jade Enterprises also added its third Downtown residential project with the opening of 154 units at Emerald DTLA, a new mixed-use building in South Park.
Though the arrival of the new units dropped occupancy numbers to below 90% for the first time since Q4 of 2020, they are expected to rapidly rebound as these new properties lease up, according to the DCBID. Downtown’s hospitality sector has also celebrated the arrival of new inventory af-
ter the opening of the AC and Moxy Hotels near the LA Convention Center. With their combined 727 keys, Downtown hotel inventory now exceeds 10,000 rooms, nearly twice as many as 1999.
In terms of dining, the Q2 Market Report referred to Downtown’s food and beverage offerings as “indisputable bright spots” with several new openings, including a concept called House of Cocotte comprised of a restaurant, co-working and event space. The DCBID noted that the growing strength of the hospitality sector play a vital role for the region as it prepares for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympic Games.
The Regional Connector, which opened with three new art-enhanced stations, has
now created a one-seat ride for north/ south and east/west travel across LA County through Downtown for the first time in the region’s history. With the new stations providing access to the iconic arts institutions along the Grand Avenue cultural corridor and several million square feet of Class A office space, the Regional Connector has further solidified Downtown’s position as the heart of LA, according to the report.
“Seeing the stunning Regional Connector come online and Downtown’s high-quality offerings continue to expand is really exciting,” said Suzanne Holley, president and CEO of the DCBID. “It’s a sign that all roads are leading to a vibrant future for DTLA.”
2023 Q2 Market Report highlights
Residential:
• 89.7% residential occupancy rate
• $3.36 apartment asking rate per square foot
• $2,790 e ective rent per unit
O ce:
• 23.6% o ce vacancy rate
• $3.79 Class A rent per square foot
• $3.70 overall rent per square foot
• 891,808 year-to-date leasing activity
Retail:
• 8.6% vacancy rate
• $3.16 average rent per square foot
Hospitality:
• 67.9% year-to-date occupancy rate
• $224.36 year-to-date average daily rate
• $152.26 year-to-date average RevPAR
of everything, Williams-González said.
“People come and experience what Inner-City Arts does with its students,” Williams-González said. “It’s an introduction or reintroduction into our programming as a whole.”
Founded in 1989, Inner-City Arts is led by professional teaching artists. Inner-City Arts’ students find a safe and supportive environment where they engage in a variety of visual, media and performing art forms in a studio setting.
Services include core classes during the instructional day for grades K to 8 students, after-school and weekend workshops for teens, and professional development training for educators. Children who attend Inner-City Arts develop skills for life and work such as collaboration, creativity and critical thinking.
“On campus, the bulk of our programming is during the school day, in partnership with schools in the Los Angeles area,” she said. “They’re bused to us. They get to take art class in one of our eight studios.”
To date, Inner-City Arts has served over 200,000 students and 10,000 teachers in the Los Angeles area.
The nonprofit teaches a variety of arts, including visual, media, theater, dance, illustration, stop-motion animation — a little
“It’s all about exposure to all of the arts and connecting the arts to their curriculum as a whole,” she added. “Their classroom teachers are part of our program as well. We also have programming after school and on weekends.”
Students in grades five to 12 can register for The Visual, Media & Performing Arts Institutes, a collection of self-select classes that take place Saturdays from Sept. 16 to Nov. 18.
Among the programs are beginning acting, film production, hip-hop/street dance, acrylic cartoon portraiture, graphic design and color, improv comedy, rock band, photography, sculpture and light, music production, samba in the streets, and transportation design with ArtCenter.
“It’s a way for young folks to go a little deeper into any creative artform,” she added.
At the benefit, Haddish’s She Ready Foundation will be present. She created She Ready Foundation to inspire, protect and provide resources for youth impacted by foster care.
“We just feel like it’s so parallel to what we’re doing here,” Williams-González said. “It’s about making sure people have access to all the great resources we have here in Los Angeles.”
In a celebration of culture and artistry born from the Skid Row neighborhood, music and advocacy nonprofit Urban Voices Project recently held its second annual C’mon, Sing! Festival. The event invited community musicians to join professional session players at seven locations across Downtown LA: Little Tokyo, South Park, the Historic Core, Exposition Park, Grand Central Market, the Arts District and the heart of Skid Row.
“We found that this was such a beautiful experience,” said Urban Voices Project co-founder and artistic director Leeav Sofer. “The whole point of it is to get anybody from any socioeconomic background and whatever background to sing shoulder to shoulder, neighbor to neighbor, in this case neighborhood to neighborhood, and unite Downtown through song.”
Staff photographer Chris Mortenson attended the festival and captured the action.
Mona Pasta Bar is owner Devin Carlson’s love letter to Downtown Los Angeles. When Carlson — a longtime Downtown resident and Italian food enthusiast — noticed an absence of a tried-and-true Italian restaurant in his neighborhood, he knew something needed to change. Shortly after, Mona Pasta Bar was born.
The intimate Italian eatery opened for dinner service on Aug. 4, serving up Italian classics like Bolognese, spaghetti alla vongole and veal chop Milanese with a Southern Californian farm-to-table twist.
Carlson, who owns and operates the design and building firm Suplex Agency, wanted the pastel pink and tan interior to harken back to Memphis Milano, a playful Italian design group from the 1980s. The sharing menu reflects the coziness of the space — just under 850 square feet — filled with white tile and backless stools for a total of 34 seats. The restaurant is outfitted with local art, including a floral installation and a soffit sculpture.
The space formerly housed 9th Street Ramen, a dark, neon-lit Japanese noodle restaurant at which Carlson was also a partner. Whereas the culture surrounding ramen can be fast-paced, Mona Pasta Bar is intended to be a relaxing respite from the toil of the day. Carlson’s goal is for the restaurant to be “conducive to people enjoying and taking their time and enjoying the people that they’re with, getting a little bit of an escape from the day because downtown is pretty grueling.”
The menu, overseen by executive chef Freylin Morales, formerly of All Time, Café Stella and L&E Oyster Bar, highlights classic Italian flavor profiles and techniques paired with the bounty of Southern California.
“(The menu) is a nod to classic Italian cuisine but inspired by Southern Californian ingredients,” Morales explained.
A dish might see a local heirloom tomato from the Santa Monica Farmers Market alongside handmade burrata from Puglia. Guests can enjoy branzino stuffed with caramelized fennel, which grows wild on the hills of California and the Mediterranean alike.
The menu is designed for tasting and sharing over a glass of wine with fresh, inhouse-made pasta as the focal point. Diners can enjoy a variety of lesser-known pasta dishes, such as Lumache alla vodka with prosciutto and Casarecce with lamb sausage and rapini.
Although the restaurant is newly opened, there are already standout dishes.
“The pece crudo is a big hit,” Morales noted.
The popular dish features toasted hazelnuts placed atop a pool of citrus and beet vinaigrette, soaked in aromatic Sicilian extra virgin olive oil. Other crowd favorites include the meatballs and pappardelle Bolognese pasta with veal and prosciutto.
Wine aficionados can peruse the eatery’s extensive wine list, which spotlights fun, low-intervention natural wines selected to accentuate the flavors of the cuisine. The predominantly Italian-oriented list, featuring selections from Puglia to Sicily, will rotate seasonally and according to availability. To close the evening, guests can indulge in the sole dessert item on the menu: a specialty tiramisu.
The restaurant offers a daily happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m., featuring $10 glasses of wine and a selection of dishes priced between $10 and $13. Regular dinner hours are from 5 to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays and Sundays and 5 to 10 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Bryan Ross could be called an “inspiration.”
The Watts-born, Compton-raised comedian spends his days teaching in schools throughout underserved communities in Los Angeles County.
In August, he did something for himself. He performed during the renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland from Aug. 17 to Aug. 21.
The Ánimo Venice Charter High School teacher landed the gigs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival thanks to Ryan Mold, a London-based comic he befriended.
“I wanted to take my stand up international,” he said. “Ryan said if I was ever in London to hit him up, he’d find a couple places for me. I saw that the Fringe Festival was coming up in Scotland, so he added me to the bill.”
Ross will show off his comedic chops at The Electric Lodge in Venice at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 4, and at the Asylum’s “TV Land: The Live Immersive Show” in Los Angeles at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7.
A teacher by trade, Ross has worked at Para Los Niños in DTLA. Currently, he is a physical education instructor at Ánimo Venice Charter High School.
“Comedy helps when the students get a bit out of control,” said Ross, who has a T-shirt line called Chuckle Brand. “I use my humor to get them back in line.”
He considers his comedy “observational and a bit self-deprecating.” Sometimes it didn’t quite translate well to the U.K. crowd, but he was nonetheless happy with the appearances.
“It was definitely an amazing, life-changing experience,” Ross said. “Once I got there, I learned that Edinburgh is a walking town. Everything is so close. You don’t need public transportation, Uber or a car service. There’s this saying in LA, ‘Nobody walks in LA.’ It’s so true.
“It was very refreshing to be able to walk around. The architecture, the buildings, that rich history was just so amazing to take in. Everyone I met was very nice, very genuine. That’s just the start.”
The interaction with other artists was refreshing, Ross added.
“Everyone was there doing a show or promoting a show, trying to get on a show,” he said. “There was this hustle, but this positive energy of everybody
hustling, trying to network and be seen. It felt like, for me, that you were doing something great. It was on such a grand scale. It’s one of the largest free art festivals in the world. Just to be a part of that was incredible.”
An actor as well, Ross said the hospitality was great in Scotland — especially at the Castle Park Guest House, where he stayed.
“It was lovely,” he said. “I had a Scottish breakfast there. I wasn’t familiar with a Scottish breakfast. It’s eggs, baked beans, square beef sausage, a flat scone and vegetarian haggis. It was a really big breakfast every morning. There was a fifth option: smoked salmon. I had more of that option than the Scottish break-
fast. Those Scots know how to eat, and that’s a great thing.”
Comedy wasn’t always in Ross’ cards — but community service was.
“Me growing up in Watts, I was a product of the inner-city,” he said. “I grew up in the ’80s. The crack epidemic was happening, and my father was affected, so were a couple of uncles and aunties. I saw there was a definite need for male mentors to get the youth off the street. I told myself that once I had the opportunity to do so, I would give back as well.”
Concurrently, he was frequently told he should do stand-up, something he long had in mind.
“Fear is what kept me from being in stand-up,” he added. “I grew up in musical comedy. One of my high school history teachers really pushed me. I was afraid of the boos. Fast forward to when I was 34, and I was tired of being afraid. I just wanted to do it. The best way was on my own terms, on my birthday, at the biggest venue I could think of: The Comedy Store off Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.”
Even though he was prepped by other comics, the show was pretty lackluster, he said.
“I fell flat on my face,” he said. “I was terrible. It was so bad.”
However, that rush of being onstage kept him inspired. That initial “failure” kept him motivated to do better next time.
“Every opportunity I had, I became more confident,” he said. “I love the feeling of being up there and telling my story. I knew I needed to continue doing this.”
September MAX10: Bryan Ross
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 4
WHERE: e Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Avenue, Venice COST: $10
INFO: eventbrite.com
“TV Land: e Live Immersive Show”
WHEN: 8:30 p.m. ursday, Sept. 7
WHERE: Asylum at Stephanie Feury Studio eatre, 5636 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles COST: $15
INFO: hollywoodfringe.org
Electronic pop princess Grace Shaw, known as Mallrat, embraces contradictions.
“I like the idea of catching people off guard,” she said. With her debut album, “Butterfly Blue,” Shaw wanted to evoke both the energies of “angel choirs and monster trucks.” The dueling components of the album shape a seamless blend of dissonant hymns and feather-light ballads, creating a sonic landscape that is at once celestial and in the gutter.
Performing tracks from “Butterfly Blue,” the singer-songwriter returns stateside for her first U.S. shows since 2019. The brief West Coast tour will kick off on Monday, Sept. 11, at the Troubadour, with subsequent stops in San Francisco and Seattle, ahead of her performance at the Rifflandia Music Festival in Victoria, British Columbia. Shaw will be joined by LA native indie pop artist Lila Drew, who recently released her debut album, “All the Places I Could Be,” in 2022.
When Shaw broke into the scene at 17 in 2015, uploading her first single, “Suicide Blonde,” to SoundCloud, there were already enough “Graces” in the music world. On deciding her moniker, Shaw “wanted something that sounded androgynous, catching people off guard,” she explained. Hearing “Mallrat,” someone unfamiliar with Shaw might tell a different story. Shaw imagines an alternate reality where the name might be attached to an “indie rock band of four guys with long hair and shaved heads; they surf and yell.”
Shaw’s Troubadour show will be her first “Butterfly Blue” performance in the States. Shaw had planned to take the album, which debuted in March 2022, on a world tour but faced complications due to the pandemic. She is confident there will be another full-length American tour one day, but not before she puts out new music, Shaw explained.
The Brisbane native splits her time between LA and Melbourne.
“I don’t know what to call it if it’s living or just hanging out a lot, but I am pretty familiar with LA,” Shaw explained. The album is a composite of Shaw’s intimate musings over four years. “It felt like I had a bunch of different songs, and I didn’t know how to tie them together.”
It was not until Shaw composed the title track, which concludes the album, and the
opening song, “Wish on an Eyelash,” that the album came together.
“I finished (the songs) within the same week. It felt like I had the bookends for my album,” she said. “It all fell into place after that.”
The breakout single, “Wish on an Eyelash,” caught the attention of the Grammy award-winning duo the Chainsmokers, whose remix of the track has garnered over 400 million streams.
Shaw documents her growth throughout the album, which reflects the peaks and valleys of one’s early 20s and the gamut of love — fulfilled to unrequited. Looking back on her material, Shaw is still unclear where her music ends and her life begins.
“(There is) still not quite enough distance to see (the album) as separate from who I am and what’s going on now,” she reflected.
The album’s fifth track, “Heart Guitar,” sports some of Shaw’s favorite lyrics on the album and “some of her best writing,” she explained. Over a blown-out electric guitar riff, she croons, “Cross-legged on the floor, I’m sitting on the carpet of the boy that I adore. And I’ll leave him wanting more. Least that’s what I tell myself those nights that I’m ignored.”
The album’s midpoint, “Teeth,” with its heavy bassline and scuzzy guitar solos, is a favorite for Shaw to play at shows. Underlining the loose themes of sex and power, the song maintains a steady beat, which creates an energic swell during live performances.
Earlier in August, Shaw joined New Zealand artist Stella Rose Bennett, known as Benee, to perform their collaboration, “Do it Again,” at the FIFA’s Women’s World Cup opening ceremony at Auckland’s Eden Park to 42,000 attendees and approximately 300 million views. The song is the official anthem for this year’s global sporting event.
Shaw’s shows are less about grand theatrics as they are about creating an intimate environment of connection between concertgoers and artist.
“What feels special about when I’m onstage is the way that people connect with the lyrics together,” Shaw explained. “There’s just something special about hearing lyrics that you wrote quietly under your breath in your living room or in the corner of a studio sung back to you by hundreds of people like yelling them.”
Mallrat
WHEN: 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 11
WHERE: Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood
COST: $22
INFO: troubadour.com
