When I first met Eberardo I was surprised by the gentleness of his demeanor. He offered his left hand. His handshake was not the firm handshake that my father taught me. It was a gentle, non-threatening, noncompetitive touch. It put me at ease.

The reason he shook hands with his left is that his right arm is impaired—the result of a stab wound four inches long and three deep to his neck that didn’t succeed in killing him, but did cut nerves. Continue reading →

Photo by Glenn Samuels

By Jim Berg

Mind and body. Science is beginning to catch on to ancient wisdom that didn’t separate the two. We are discovering that mind and body are not separate, but that the two are each possessed in the other. The mind is in the body and the body is in the mind. Dancers know this, referring to the memory and knowledge that the body contains. Any beginning student of dance quickly realizes there is much to learn from the body, that the body requires study as well as the mind, and the when the body studies, it remembers. Continue reading →

By Charles Austin
Photos by Gissele Austin

Pat Solomon is 8O-something, but she’s no old woman Her work area at the front of her shop, Solbrook, on Magnolia near Cahuenga, is strewn with photographs of friends and the famous (sometimes they’re both). In addition to photographs are many charity-related paraphernalia including awards and requests for donations – mainly the latter. Continue reading →

Drawing by Jason Greenberg, 18 years old. He is a former tagger and occasional graffiti artist trying to go legit.

By Jim Berg

Graffiti is exploding across the Valley. One of its more recent victims is the Lankershlm Art Center. As I drive south on Lankershim Bl., the black spray paint appears as a cancerous blemish on the side of the building The tagger was thorough. He had to get on the roof of the building next door, and must have felt relatively safe from discovery to take the time, probably using the whole can.

The response to graffiti in the Valley has generally been one of one of anger and fear. Anger from property owners and taxpayers who have to pay for cleaning graffiti, and fear from parents who see graffiti as a harbinger of violent street gangs. The anger and fear borders on hysteria when combined with confusion and a sense of helplessness at not knowing how to stop it. The first reaction seems to be a kind of denial and blame. Denial that my children are involved and blame on someone else’s children, namely minority children. Continue reading →

By Jim Berg and Teresa Willis

It’s Miller time. This Bud’s for you. Tastes great, less filling. Why ask why? Please step out of the car. How much have you had to drink tonight? Blood, breath or urine? Point one zero, point zero eight…

As consciousness rises and the legal limit falls, alcohol is becoming less and less a social requisite and more and more a social hazard. With the decline of alcohol has come increased popularity of the coffeehouse as a viable alternative to the bar scene. NoHo is home to three coffeehouses that have benefited from and are serving the need for unimpaired social interaction. Continue reading →

By Jim Berg

Valley culture is often regarded as an oxymoron. It’s not that culture doesn’t exist in the Valley, it’s just that it’s regarded as being so inane as to be nonexistent. For many, the definitive statement on culture in the San Fernando Valley was made by Frank Zappa and daughter Moon Unit. The NoHo News is here to try to redefine Valley culture, and this particular issue is devoted to perhaps the greatest denizen of culture, the coffeehouse. Continue reading →

By Heidi Matz

I’m sitting in a bar on Lankershim Blvd. It’s shortly after quitting time: 5:15pm, I’m the only person in a crowd of about 30 who is of the female gender. It’s an oddly quiet group, mesmerized by what’s on the small triangular stage in the middle of the room.

It is a very dark bar, illuminated by neon beer signs and a couple of dim stage lights. The only decor is a spinning disco ball circa 1974, and some aging silver tinsel on the rafters.

It’s cold inside, air-conditioned, but I’m sweating. We’re watching a show, a song/dance number performed by a girl/woman (“Miss Bambi” they say is her name). She is very tan all over. I know this because she’s clad only in an orange postage stamp-sized bikini and crimson spike pumps. Her honey blonde curls fall over her face, revealing a teasing smile. She’s made up red-neck pleasing Texas style, with blue eye shadow, pink cheeks and light pink frosted finger-nail polish and lipstick. Continue reading →

By Jim Berg

A stripper’s dance is a simulation of that moment when two people expose themselves to each other for the first time. It is a simulation of the charged moment when two people become lovers for the very first time.

But it is a simulation, it is not the real thing, therefore it is ultimately inadequate. In a strip bar, the equation is out of balance. In a strip bar, only the woman is naked, only the woman is exposed, only the woman is vulnerable. Some balance is restored by the economic power that the woman exercises. If the male wants her to perform for him, he must pay. So she goes to the rail, and she pouts and she purrs; she twists and she gyrates; she arches her back and spreads her legs, she runs her fingers up the inside of her thigh, over the g-string, across her navel, up to her nipple and into her mouth until she finds the right move that turns him on, and he reaches into his pocket for a buck to reward her performance. If she’s good, and has the right look, she can pull in $100/hour. Continue reading →

By Jim Berg

As I sat in a Granada Hills park on the morning of January 17, waiting for the sun to rise, my only thought for the future was that this was going to change everything. In two directions I could see flames licking the morning sky less than a block away. With my neighbors I shared a comforting camaraderie as we gathered around a car radio, hungry for news about the extent of the calamity we had just experienced. There was a disbelieving moan when they said it was only a 6.6. Surely this must be the Big One, we thought. Then we heard that the epicenter was in nearby Northridge. We were glad to know that we had experienced the worst of the quake, because if the rest of the city was in the same shape as us, we were in big trouble. Continue reading →

By Daniel Holmes

“You’ll never go broke underestimating the taste of the general public.” P.T. Barnum

Occasionally a show comes along that makes you think about the difference between talent and showmanship. In The Music Man, Robert Preston couldn’t sing, but floored audiences with his charisma as a canvasser selling a dream. P.T. Barnum wasn’t a performer, but was touted as the greatest showman on earth, once making a huge profit selling tickets to view a rare Buffalo migration in New Jersey that never materialized. This month, in Across From Cindy’s Corner, Gene Bua takes a crack at a one-man show about his life and his dreams. As a talent, Bua falls flat, but as a showman, he plays to sell-out houses every weekend. Is it church, is it a holistic seminar, or is Gene Bua the Valley’s master showman? Continue reading →