Carmine’s II By Laraine Newman Part 1: The West Side’s Been Swingin’ Since the 60s Carmine Competelli didn’t want to go into the ‘family’ business. Even though, thanks to his dad Carmine Sr., he’d learned the restaurant business from the, er, kitchen, up. Sure Carmine’s had a rich and glamorous history. Starting out in the … [Read more…]
My Summer Reading By Laraine Newman I have books stashed everywhere. The car. The kitchen. The upstairs and downstairs bathrooms and the living room just in case I’m watching something on TV that isn’t recorded and I have to endure the commercials. This summer I read the following books: “My Lobotomy ” by Howard Dully: … [Read more…]
Mars Attacks By Laraine Newman Last night, at about 2:00 a.m I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep. Normally I give myself an hour of trying to go back to sleep before I give up and go downstairs to watch TV. Last night I knew it just wasn’t gonna happen. It was warm … [Read more…]
Winter Fruit by Laraine Newman Sounds funny, right? “Winter fruit”. It’s a sorry state of affairs, especially in California where we can get so many splendid things almost all year round AND believe it or not, we DO have winter. The Farmers Market web sites list what’s in season and during winter the list looks … [Read more…]
I was a little bit frantic while speaking to my pal Raha Lewis, an editor at the LA Times Magazine.”Raha, they want me to interview this guy from Kaskade. Do they know what my story is about? I’m not a rock journalist…” I paused. Then, like Jon Lovitzs’ liar character I said ..”but I’ve always … [Read more…]
http://www.jewishjournal.com/books/article/childcare_for_the_book_collection_20100513/ This was in the May 13th online issue of The Jewish Journal. My friend, Jonathan Kirsch, asked me to review this book. It really came out of left field and his asking me made me fell all big ‘n smart ‘n stuff. I did my best and I’ve actually read a few of these … [Read more…]
The Golden State I recently joined Facebook and that is another story for another time, but its relevant to what I’m telling you because I’ve never made a friend this way until recently. I was reading my favorite magazine, The Believer. I always turn to Sedaratives when I first get it and this month it … [Read more…]
Gold Class Cinemas by Laraine Newman During the Great Depression, Hollywood did its part by providing people with the ultimate escape. It didn’t try to provide its audience with everyday situations that just reinforced their misery. Sullivan’s Travels made that point brilliantly. Instead, Hollywood gave them fantasy and opulence. The glamour of the Busby … [Read more…]
Hey guys. Please check out this article my daughter and I wrote for the LA Times Magazine online. Here is the link: http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/06/the-chords-that-bind.html My younger daughter took the pictures. If you like it, please recommend it to others. The more hits the article gets, the better chances I have of getting them to let me … [Read more…]
Happy Happy Joy Joy by Laraine Newman I hate 3:00 p.m. on a school day. It means I’m a failure. Once again, I’ve failed to come up with a “healthy snack” for my ravenous Varsity Cheerleader. Our routine was to just go over to Chipotle which wasn’t really great because those burritos, even though … [Read more…]
