AltWeeklies Wire
Penelope Sudrownew
Lionel Rolfe meets actress Penelope Sudrow.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
12-27-2013 |
Commentary
Obama Will Go Down In History As One of Our Greatest Presidentsnew
In my mind, there's little doubt that Barack Obama will go down in history as one of our greatest presidents. He is presiding over a country almost as torn by divisions as it was in the civil war. Our greatest presidents come out of troubled times.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
09-30-2013 |
Commentary
A Deeply Melancholic Statenew
A couple of days ago I was in a deeply melancholic state because of various personal struggles, including health and financial issues and an ex-wife I still love, but it all is leavened with the sense that as one approaches the end of life, the world becomes a much more apocalyptical place.
Sitting here in Los Angeles, I gazed at recent photographs of Nelson Mandela in South Africa wearing a kind of a beatific smile. It left me wondering if he really felt that sanguine about the planet he is leaving soon. I pondered these matters in part because it evoked some powerful links in my own life.
Mandela, as we all know, was a compatriot of another great Apartheid leader--Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who I saw in 1999 at Westminster Abbey in London at a memorial for the violinist Yehudi Menuhin--who also is my uncle.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
08-12-2013 |
Commentary
Lionel's Lamentnew
Lionel asks, "Why is the world so full of pain? Why does the world seem to be going mad with excess pain? Bombs are exploding in our major cities, people are dying in incredible pain."
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
04-22-2013 |
Commentary
An Old Quandarynew
Now that they have found the “God particle,” maybe it’s time to solve far lesser but still deserving and perplexing questions of existence.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
07-29-2012 |
Commentary
Deep In Echo Park, A Bohemian Nexusnew
Long time Echo Park residents Anne Stein and Gary Leonard are planning to showcase the paintings of Anne's father, Philip Stein, at their Take My Picture Gallery in downtown Los Angeles. They are doing so as the restored Siqueiros mural "American Tropical" is about to be unveiled in Olvera Street.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
05-13-2012 |
Commentary
LES & ANNIE CLAYPOOL: Echo Park’s Last And Truest Bohemiansnew
Little more than 50 years ago, a guy named Les Claypool lived with his lovely wife Annie at the top of Echo Park Avenue in what may be the most Bohemian section of Los Angeles. They lived in a home built on the steep hillside out of giant redwood lumber and lots of glass and sunshine. It was a lovely place to wake up in after a great night of partying.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
04-06-2012 |
Commentary
Why I Like My Old Friend Gerald Nicosia So Muchnew
Lionel Rolfe's recollections of his time with Gerald Nicosia and the making of On the Road.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
03-23-2012 |
Commentary
The Greatest Music In The Worldnew
You might ask by what right do I have to proclaim what is the greatest music in the world and what isn’t. Who the hell am I? Well, you can judge by what I say, but when it comes right down to it, your opinion has as much validity as mine.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
12-08-2011 |
Commentary
People’s Capitalism Is Dead!new
With two of the three leading Republican candidates for president threatening to set up a new Christian theocracy, this next election may be our last. We know that it will be brutal, the Republicans will use every cheap bullying lie and tactic that they can, and we’ll end up with America’s first fascist state if they prevail.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
08-26-2011 |
Commentary
Who Was The Real Columbo?new
The death of Peter Falk at 83, the actor whose most famous role was a rumpled, eccentric Los Angeles police detective named “Lt. Columbo,” brought to mind the real story of who Columbo was.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
07-01-2011 |
Commentary
Tags: Columbo, Peter Falk
Roots in the Garden of California’s Bohemianew
Charles Fletcher Lummis, L.A.’s “renaissance man” from the turn of the last century, began building El Alisal in 1897. Later, he liked to throw soirées on Saturday nights there among the sycamores on the Arroyo Seco. That is the memory people will try to recreate at El Alisal and along the arroyo when artists, poets, musicians and dancers celebrate “Charles Lummis Day” on Sunday, June 5.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
06-03-2011 |
Commentary
My Hero, Ed Asnernew
Twenty-five years ago, my mentor and hero was a city editor of television fame. The actor's name was Ed Asner and he played a city editor named Lou Grant, which was also the name of the television series.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
04-14-2011 |
Commentary
Bukowski: Tales of an Extraordinary Madmannew
Charles Bukowski was especially popular in his native Germany, but in the United States he was selling only in the hundreds. Even though the movie Barfly didn’t do well at the box office, it helped draw more attention Bukowski’s way. Let me tell you about the time I reconstructed Bukowski.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
05-21-2010 |
Commentary
Special-Election Masquerade
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's support for propositions 73 through 78 exposes the corporate-driven right-wing GOP political machine for all of its not-so-compassionate conservatism.
Random Lengths News |
James Preston Allen |
10-28-2005 |
Commentary
