KCRW’s annual Masquerade Halloween party rocked the Legendary Park Plaza Hotel for the fourth year in a row over the weekend. Your humble Fishie was in attendance and is still recovering. Sadly, he was driving, so he can’t even say he got drunk and hung over. Nay, he’s simply old and out of shape and can’t dance until 2 a.m. anymore without a week of pizza and bed rest to recuperate.

Although Mexican Institute of Sound and Z-Trip both put on great shows, the highlight of the night was undoubtedly seeing John Lydon, better known as the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten, singing along to Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is In the Heart.” Cross that one off the bucket list.

We have to admit, we were a bit disappointed that Masquerade goers didn’t seem to get our brilliant Gordron Gartrelle costume. Although the two people who did thought it was hi-larious. Props to the lovely and talented Jennifer Calica for making the shirt from scratch.

All in all the event raised nearly $70,000 for KCRW’s coffers–topping last year’s effort. A smashing success.

More photos after the jump:

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It’s no surprise that photojournalist Gary Leonard was present to document the Los Angeles riots in 1992. Chronicling the city’s history through his lens has long been his life’s work. But Leonard wasn’t working alone during the riots — his then 14-year-old son David was with him.

Marking the 20th anniversary of the riots, the pair will exhibit their work as part of a show titled, “Parker Center” at the Take My Picture gallery downtown. This Sunday, April 29, from 12 to 5 p.m. at 860 S. Broadway.

Parker Center from David Leonard on Vimeo.

Photo: Jeremiah Garcia

KCRW’s annual Masquerade party has pretty much become the go-to Halloween event of choice here in LA. Despite the origins of the flu, your humble Fishie was in attendance–with the assistance of ample amounts of Red Bull–and he’s happy to report this year did not disappoint.

Like last year, the event was held at the Legendary Park Plaza hotel across from MacArthur Park. Moby, Mariachi El Bronx, Dengue Fever and Milagres all played–and KCRW’s various DJs alternated sets throughout the night on four different stages. Moby’s performance was so crowded they blocked off the door and wouldn’t let anyone else in 30 minutes before he went on. So we missed the set. In lieu of a description, we’ll give you a great photo by Jeremiah Garcia after the jump.

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At the beginning of October, members of the LA media were invited to preview the reward that would be claimed on October 7 by 71 people who had met a certain Boy Scouts fundraising threshold. Each good citizen was going to be allowed to rappel down the side of downtown LA’s 32-story Westin Bonaventure Hotel.

Despite suffering from a fear of heights, Downtown News reporter Richard Guzmán (pictured) decided to give it a go. Per the headline of his resulting October 21 account, things did not go well. All hail “The Not-so-Amazing Spider-Wuss:”

Everything was great for about four or five floors. Then, I made the mistake of looking around, and when I saw how high I was, I lost it. My arms literally went numb and my legs felt like loose spaghetti. I couldn’t plant them on the side of the building. I couldn’t make my hand squeeze the lever to lower myself.

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Longtime LA photojournalist Gary Leonard celebrated his 60th birthday last Friday night at his gallery “Take My Picture Gary Leonard.” The place was packed. In the narrow confines of the gallery, it was basically impossible to move from one end of the room to the next. Your best hope to talk to anyone was to spin in circles and say “hi” to the person next to you. Those definitely in attendance: photographer Kevin Scanlon, Slake man-about-town Craig Gaines and LA Weekly‘s Erica Zora Wrightson. There were no doubt other journos of note sandwiched in the back of the room somewhere, but we suffered a mild crowd-induced panic attack and had to go outside to catch our breath.

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No Friday night plans yet? Well, get moving then, because longtime LA photojournalist Gary Leonard is holding a photo firesale tonight at his Downtown gallery “Take My Picture Gary Leonard.” The event starts at 7, in honor of the photog’s 60th birthday. Everything in the gallery will be 50% off–including old-school shots of Warhol and the LA punk scene. Leonard’s been in business a long time.

So go check it out. More info here.

It seems almost too preposterous to believe. But apparently, the current on-location work being done in Silver Lake by PBS’ venerable This Old House marks the first time the show has ever hit LA, even though the program has been on the air since someone by the name of Samuel W. Yorty was mayor.

The Spanish Colonial Revival home being expanded and filmed through February 17th belongs to Sony production executive Kurt Albrecht and his wife Mary Blee. Per today’s article at Echo Park Patch:

The program recruited Albrecht and Blee out of lots of LA-area applications because they were the only owners of a Spanish Colonial Revival home. “We felt it was very important to highlight [one],” said This Old House series producer Deborah Hood. “We’d never done so, and it was our first visit to LA, where the style is so prevalent.”

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It (absurdly) hasn’t gone national yet, but the Downtown News’ Ryan Vaillancourt broke a story late last week that you should be hearing more about soon.

It seems that in advance of an upcoming street art show, MOCA commissioned Italian artist Blu to create a giant mural on the wall of MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary. The artist complied, producing a mural depicting coffins draped in dollar bills. But only a short while after finishing the piece, the museum inexplicably decided to whitewash the work.

More from the Downtown News:

A MOCA spokeswoman would not comment on the whitewashing, but the piece may have struck a delicate nerve center that sits just steps from the wall. The piece faces the Veterans Administration healthcare building on Temple Street. The dollar bills draped on Blu’s caskets seem to be an overt replacement of the customary American flags that cover the coffins of soldiers killed in wartime.

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