Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Who In The Wide World Reads Los Angeles City Beat?


So in the post below I refer to a stupid review of the Phantom Sightings show published in the LA CityBeat. Which got me thinking: does anyone read that rag? For real? I think over the last 4 years I must have picked it up twice while I was running out of reading material at the coffee shop. I don't recall anything I've ever read in it, so it's thin. I tend to think of it as the Weekly poor cousin, something that might subsist only because (maybe) their advertising rates are lower than the aforementioned concurrent publication.
So I thought, let's start a contest! There are two questions:

1) If you read City Beat for real, where do you do it? On the toilet? At the dentist? While waiting for your shrink appointment? Do you use it as packing material for fragile items? To wash your windows? When you run out of toilet paper? Out of desperation when I haven't updated FBC! for 3 weeks and you need a alphabet fix?
2) How do you think it's financed? Does it have better-thinly-concealed porn advertisements than the Weekly? Do unlicensed dentists and plastic surgeons way up in the Valley place placards there ("Dr P. Niss can extend your schlong up to a meter!" "2 fake boobs for the price of one if you sign up for our Botox package!"). Is it the repository for super cheap futon and ugly furniture stores addresses? Is it financed by Eli Broad arch-nemesis (and who is that?)


The most original, funny entry will win either a coffee and pastry with me at La Maison du Pain, or his/her weight in current issues of City Beat (works only if you're anorexic/a SAG actress). If you can answer the subsidiary question below, I will also treat you to my "The History Of The Last 5 Years Of LA Art In 5 Minutes" during our coffee date meeting.

Subsidiary question: is there an art critic at City Beat, and if yes is it someone we know? ( a recent grad from Art Center now-defunct Critical Theory program doesn't count).
Please enter all your suggestions/entries in the comments section.
If you're male, send me a recent picture of you with measurements (naked, of course), this may help for our coffee.

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