way

I went to bed at a decent hour Monday night and got a pretty good sleep.

I woke up refreshed Tuesday morning, only to see the news that President Trump seemed to have told a crowd in Nebraska that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Iran attacked Southern California.

“Let ’em take out Los Angeles. Let ’em take out San Diego,” he said in a typically meandering speech, perhaps trying to justify a war he has repeatedly claimed is keeping the U.S. safe, even as gas prices have spiked. “This is a very small price to pay.”

The Nebraska crowd cheered.

California electeds scolded.

“San Diego is not collateral damage,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.

Such “dangerous” remarks could “potentially compromise our safety,” said L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.

“He is deranged and dangerous,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom.

President Trump throws a pen into the crowd after he signed an executive order during a campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center in Grand Island, Neb., on Oct. 5, 2026.

(Kent Nishimura / AFP via Getty Images)

About 8 a.m., I took my dog Philly out for our morning walk. This is usually a lovely time for us. I clear my head. For Philly, a 3-year-old beagle, these are essentially business trips.

I got to thinking about the similarities in the daily routines of Philly and the president of the United States.

The thing is, I carry bags with me and clean up after Philly. The president to my knowledge has nobody on his staff doing this. We are at a point in American politics at which we must consider posting signs, everywhere Trump travels, that say, “Please Curb Your President.”

Not that it would be easy to clean Trump’s daily messes. You’d need the equivalent of those parade attendants in overalls who run along behind the horses with shovels.

The White House does not use poop bags. Instead, it uses denial and spin.

Critical reactions to Trump’s Nebraska comments were “not rooted in reality,” said White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung, who claimed Trump was misrepresented.

We’ve got to respect Cheung’s opinion. Does anyone in the world have more experience when it comes to analyzing comments not rooted in reality?

Some of you may know there are two topics I often revisit in my column. One is the effects, good and bad, of aging. The other is failure of leadership.

So I feel eminently qualified to psychoanalyze the president.

I don’t mean to generalize, but as people age, it’s not unusual for them to undergo behavioral changes. Some folks mellow, they abide, they lean into the ride. Others can become churlish, combative or grouchy.

Not only is Trump the poster boy for the latter group, but as things go wrong, he becomes more obstinate.

And things have definitely gone wrong.

The war in Iran is a disaster. The president is personally responsible for rising gas prices. He’s ruined the economy with his tariffs. He’s picked a fight with Canada. He may cost his party the House and the Senate because his almost daily outrages have pumped oxygen back into the blood of long-slumping Democrats.

A normal person would have the good sense to scale back or shrink away.

President Trump at the campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds on Oct. 5, 2026, in Grand Island, Neb.

(Win McNamee / Getty Images)

Trump keeps doubling down, wants to put his name on everything, and lashes out the way someone does when it’s not clear what’s bigger — their ego or their insecurity.

I’ve been to Nebraska, by the way. Nice place, met a lot of lovely people.

I enjoy corn, on or off the cob.

Popcorn. Caramel corn.

Not wild about “Children of the Corn,” the slasher movie based on Stephen King’s short story. But thank you very much, Nebraska, for Fred Astaire, Johnny Carson and Henry Fonda, who, by the way, was born in Grand Island, where Trump made his cracks Monday about California.

Did it occur to any of the shuckers who cheered Trump’s throwaway line about an attack on San Diego and L.A. that:

A: It wasn’t funny.

B: San Diego has one of the nation’s largest military installations, with thousands of personnel currently deployed to the Middle East because of the war in Iran.

C: Maybe we should expect more from someone serving as president and commander in chief.

In defending Trump, the White House said news outlets had misunderstood and misrepresented the president’s comments in what amounted to a “media freakout.” A White House media post singled out an L.A. Times post that said Trump suggested “letting Iran take out” L.A. and San Diego.

“No, he didn’t, you buffoons,” said the White House. “He was saying the U.S. is fighting to STOP Iran from having the ability to take out LA and San Diego with a nuclear weapon — which they would if they had the chance.”

Please.

This buffoon would like to point out that this is yet another case of Trump using California as a punching bag to prop up support for the war and nail down what’s left of his diminishing base. But even some of his longtime disciples know that he has said on dozens of occasions that the war had ended, was ending, or had been won, and not once were any of those words rooted in reality.

It’s not clear whether we’re any safer in the U.S. as a result of the war, although it is clear that we have paid with lives and higher costs.

So maybe a gratuitous and unfunny line about anyone taking out American cities is better left unsaid.

I’m fresh out of muzzles, but I do have extra poop bags.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Rams coach Sean McVay told reporters Monday that he had spoken with his assistant coaches about the way some of them behaved toward the end of the team’s 24-20 win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field.

“We did talk about it,” McVay said, “and that won’t be an issue moving forward.”

Videos posted on X by user @RBPhillyTake appear to show some Rams coaches inside a glass-enclosed booth interacting with Eagles fans sitting outside directly below them. The caption on one of the videos says the coaching staff was “taunting Eagles fans after the game-winning touchdown.”

“The Rams coaches started to bang on the windows and flip off Eagles fans which caused retaliation (which also isn’t right),” the caption reads. At least one person in the Rams’ booth can be seen giving the middle finger to those outside. A fan appeared to throw a water bottle at the glass window, while others yelled and displayed their own middle fingers.

In another post, the user wrote that “the Rams coaches started banging on the windows for about 30 seconds after the touchdown which then resulted in the Eagles’ fans turning around and chirping back.”

Trailing 20-10 late in the fourth quarter, the Rams appeared to be on their way to a second-straight loss and a 1-3 start to a season in which they were considered by many to be the Super Bowl favorites. But Kyren Williams rushed for touchdowns of one and seven yards in the final four minutes to lift the Rams to a stunning comeback victory.

The sudden turn of events may have gotten folks in the Rams’ coaching booth a little too amped up.

“We’ll be better in those situations,” said McVay, a former assistant coach in Washington. “I’ve been a part of that situation where when I was with Washington calling it from the booth, and you get excited and emotional. … You know, we’ll learn from that. We’ll be better.

“Those fans are really into it. But I know we want to make sure we’re representing the class and just the calm steadiness that we want to have while also being emotionally into it. And there’s ways that we can have that reflected.”

The NFL did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter. Its personal conduct policy states that “everyone who is a part of the league” must refrain from behavior detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the NFL. Earlier Monday, two officials were suspended for separate instances of “unprofessional conduct toward a player” during Sunday’s games.

Staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this report.

SEATTLE — In a game that looked lopsided for the better part of three quarters, the Chargers did enough Sunday to scare the defending Super Bowl champions.

Small victory, but at least it was something for the winless Chargers, who scored a touchdown and field goal in the fourth quarter before falling to the Seattle Seahawks, 30-23.

The visitors, who trailed by 19 in the third quarter, were behind by a touchdown when they took over at their 11 with 1:42 remaining. Three plays into that against-all-odds drive, the Seahawks stripped the ball from Justin Herbert, recovered the fumble and ran out the clock.

The Chargers dropped to 0-4, likely crossing the point of no return. The last time the Chargers started 0-4 was 2017, their first season back in Los Angeles.

Only one team — the 1992 San Diego Chargers — made the playoffs after losing its first four games, and that Bobby Ross-coached squad won 11 of its final 12 games.

These Chargers have 13 games left, and identifying potential wins on the remaining schedule is a nearly impossible task.

Remember the thought that new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel would unlock all the potential of Herbert? Almost sounds silly now, with the way the team has stumbled and bumbled its way through the first four games.

Previous little rhythm or continuity. Nowhere to go but up.

Sunday was the first time the Chargers finished within a touchdown of their opponent.

For much of the game, Herbert looked lost. His pass was intercepted on the first play from scrimmage and again late in the first half, when his throw landed right in the belly of linebacker Ernest Jones IV.

Chargers running back Kimani Vidal scores a touchdown during the fourth quarter of a 30-23 loss to the Seahawks on Sunday.

(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)

Injuries didn’t help. All-Pro safety Derwin James Jr. was deactivated by the Chargers because of a hamstring injury, and the team subsequently lost No. 1 receiver Ladd McConkey (foot) and right tackle Joe Alt (neck) for the second half. In the fourth quarter, left tackle Rashawn Slater lay for several moments on the turf and was examined by medical staff before rising to his feet and walking gingerly to the sideline with an ankle injury.

Herbert took a beating. He was sacked four times, and the Seahawks were flagged twice for roughing the passer. He had three turnovers. His toughness was not in question, though, not after some of those crushing hits.

At least last season the Chargers could point to a specific positional breakdown. Their offensive line was a disaster. This year, nothing is working well — although the defense did turn in a gem for three quarters in the Week 3 loss at Buffalo, including five takeaways.

It has been a disastrous and unfamiliar start for Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh, who before this season had never lost his first two games, either in college or the pros.

Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh reacts during the third quarter Sunday.

(Steph Chambers / Getty Images)

As unpleasant as his job might be at the moment, Harbaugh is ostensibly safe. He’s signed for two more seasons, and the Chargers would owe him more than $30 million were they to part ways with him. Cutting loose McDaniel would be expensive, too, and there’s no clear successor waiting in the wings.

There’s little respite to be found in the Chargers’ upcoming games. They play host to Denver next Sunday, then are at Kansas City, and play the Rams after a week off. Then, the Chargers have a home game against Houston — also surprisingly winless — then play at Baltimore, where the 3-1 Ravens are coached by former Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter.

The Seahawks, defending Super Bowl champions, got a collective whiff of smelling salts before Sunday’s game, having suffered an embarrassing loss at Washington a week earlier. They weren’t about to lose back-to-back games for the first time since 2024.

They were far from perfect, however. After the Seahawks picked off Herbert on the first play from scrimmage, the Chargers returned the favor on Seattle’s first play, intercepting a Sam Darnold pass. That set up a field goal drive and a fleeting 3-0 lead by the visitors.

According to Elias Sports Bureau, the Chargers-Seahawks game marked the first since 1978 — as far back as the stats go — that began with consecutive interceptions.

The advantage didn’t last long. The Seahawks pulled away as the second half wore on, scoring three unanswered touchdowns and tearing through the heart of the Chargers’ defense, sometimes scarcely touched.

When Matisse Thybulle was asked what it has been like trying to defend offensive savants Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves during the Lakers training camp, he shook his head and smiled.

Thybulle was emphatic with his answer.

“I mean, you have to work soooo hard. They’re soooo talented,” Thybulle said, laughing. “And it’s just … I think for me it’s great because getting to play against two of the best offensive players in the NBA every day just primes you for — I think it primes all of us, but me specifically — just primes you for what to expect. And I think it was a big thing when you’re growing up that practice should be harder than the games. And I think in the NBA it’s a little different because you just have to pace yourself for such a long season. But guarding Luka and AR, practice is definitely going to be harder than the games.”

During the first four days of Lakers training camp, Thybulle was frequently listed as one of the players who has been a menace on defense.

It was why the Lakers signed the 6-foot-5 free-agent wing to a one-year, $3.2-million contract.

Thybulle, along with Ziaire Williams and Adou Thiero, has been praised for how disruptive he has been during workouts.

“I just think naturally it’s going to be a healthy competition and it gets you better. It’s going to make Austin better when Ziaire is picking them up full court every possession and Matisse is in the passing lane trying to blow things up,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “I think [Thybulle and Williams] — [and] Adou with his physicality — those guys are getting better from practicing that way. It goes both ways.”

Thybulle made a name for himself on the defensive end of the floor. He is a two-time NBA all-defensive second team selection, both times with the Philadelphia 76ers in 2021 and 2022.

Still, Thybulle said he’s picking up new skills.

“I think, like the best offensive players in the league — Luka being probably one of the best — change pace so well,” Thybulle said. “And I think as I’m growing in this league, growing as a defender, learning when to change pace and go for steals versus sitting back and being solid and make it more of a cat-and-mouse game as opposed to trying to be in every passing lane every single time.”

On offense, Thybulle will try to mold his game around Doncic and Reaves.

Thybulle will be asked to knock down corner threes and fill the lane on the fast break.

Over the course of his seven-year career, he has made 34.9% of his three-pointers.

“I think luckily for me, I started my career in an offense that was similar to that, and just understanding you never know when it’s going to come, but just to be ready,” Thybulle said. “And just for me personally, at this point, having the confidence in my shot to know that when it comes, I’m ready for it, as opposed to just hoping for the best. I think it goes a long way as well.”

Health has been an issue for Thybulle during the past two seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers.

He played in just 30 games last season while recovering from a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb and in just 15 games during the 2024-25 season because of right knee and right ankle injuries.

But he’s healthy now and ready for a breakout season.

He’s one of nine new players on the roster and he’s one of the Lakers that will compete for a starting role.

“I leave those decisions up to the coaches,” Thybulle said. “Yeah, so for me, if my teammates are happy with how I’m playing and the coaches are happy with how I’m playing, that’s a good sign to me that I’m doing a good job. But if that means I’m coming off the bench or that means I’m starting, I trust that the coaches know how to use me best to create the most impact, and we’ll go with that.”

Two starting spots up for grabs

When the Lakers play their first exhibition game Monday night in Sacramento, the big story line will be the starting five.

Redick has said Doncic, Reaves and Walker Kessler will for sure start and that the other two spots will be decided by an open competition.

Redick was asked who would be available in Sacramento.

“Obviously, [we’re] still working through stuff,” he said.

The Dodgers are better than you. They’re smarter than you. They’re richer and deeper and more popular than you. You know it, they know it, there’s no point pretending otherwise.

So, yes, they went into the National League Divisional Series looking past the threadbare Atlanta Braves and thinking about the National League Championship Series.

Who does that? In the playoffs?

Your two-time World Series champions with the world’s best starting pitching rotation and a 1-0 NLDS series lead, that’s who.

The way the Dodgers did the math, it made sense to save their ace of aces, Yoshinobu Yamamoto — who last postseason went 5-1, had an ERA of 1.45 and 33 strikeouts in six appearances and won the World Series MVP — for Game 3 of the NLDS.

Not for the tone-setting Game 1 and, potentially, Game 5 on regular rest.

But Game 3.

Because to the Dodgers, that’s not even much of a calculated risk. It was a math problem specific to them, before they beat the Atlanta Braves 5-3 in Game 1 in 100-degree heat Saturday afternoon.

They figured they’d be able to throw two consecutive left-handers at the lefty-averse Braves lineup, starting Saturday with recently acquired two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, followed Sunday by Blake Snell, also a two-time Cy Young winner.

Additionally, this way they could have Yamamoto pitch Tuesday on the road, where his ERA is 1.77 instead of at home, where it’s 3.13. And where he’s given up 14 home runs compared with six on the road, where he’s made four fewer starts.

But mostly the Dodgers’ calculus was that having Yamamoto pitch Game 3 means it will line up so that they’ll have him for Game 2 in the NLCS and, if necessary, Game 6 against the Milwaukee Brewers or San Diego Padres. (Or, if you really want to plan ahead — and the Dodgers with their leaky bullpen absolutely should not — for Game 1 of the World Series.)

“That just sets up the rotation and Yamamoto better looking forward,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts explained before Saturday’s game.

“Not discounting this series, because you’ve got to win this series first, but you start from the fact that they’re all going to pitch — the three [Skubal, Snell and Yamamoto] are going to pitch for sure … and then what sets them up going forward.”

It feels like a faux pas, to be that forward-thinking, and to be saying the quiet part out loud!

“If you can kind of line it up in such a way to give guys ample rest, it puts you in a better position for more options down the road,” Roberts said. “That’s kind of some of the math we had.”

I mean, it adds up. And for these Dodgers — whose fourth starter, Tyler Glasnow, was a key cog in last year’s World Series-winning rotation — it’s a fair assessment.

Though it’s nice of Roberts to pay enough lip service that he’s not totally discounting the best-of-five current series they’re in.

Predictably on Saturday, Skubal, who previously had a 2.04 ERA, a 0.73 WHIP and 56 strikeouts in 39⅔ playoff innings for the Detroit Tigers, brought his own October heat.

The 29-year-old from Kingman, Ariz., gave up just one run and two hits, walked two and struck out seven — giving him 64 in the postseason, the second most in his first seven postseason appearances behind only Bob Gibson (74), per MLB’s Sarah Langs.

Skubal retired 15 consecutive, hit 101 on the radar gun in the second inning and didn’t have a three-ball count until the fifth inning.

“We knew,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said, “it was going to be a rough ride.”

But Weiss did not know, immediately after Saturday’s loss, when he’d be able to deploy his sole ace, 37-year-old Chris Sale, the 10-time All-Star who just pitched in the Braves’ Game 3 wild-card closeout.

“To me it’s not that big a deal when he pitches,” Weiss said. “The Dodgers can’t win it in two.”

A true statement and a matter of fact: The Dodgers can’t win in two, but they’re not shy about expecting to win.

“It’s prudent to kind of map out potentially how they could line up,” Roberts said Friday. “And that’s just doing your due diligence.

“We are very fortunate because we have four guys essentially that you could really kind of pick through to figure out what’s the best way to deploy all four starters, that’s the exercise. But it starts with having four talented guys.”

Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, reveled in the notion that his club might actually be disproving the rule that you can never have enough pitching — at least when it comes to their elite quartet of starters.

And that, Friedman said, “is very impactful for quality of life.”

And the Dodgers aren’t afraid to say it.

Tony Romo and CBS Sports have “mutually agreed to part ways” two months after he was placed on indefinite leave following his July arrest on suspicion of operating while intoxicated (OWI), the network announced Friday morning.

“We thank Tony for his contributions over the past nine years and wish him the best moving forward,” CBS Sports said in a statement.

J.J. Watt, who has been filling in for Romo as the color commentator on CBS Sports’ lead NFL broadcast team, will continue in the role for the remainder of the season. Romo, a former four-time Pro Bowl quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, has been booth partners with play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz since 2017.

“I’m proud of what I accomplished at CBS Sports over the last nine years,” Romo said in a statement released soon after CBS announced the move. “I approached my role as a game analyst the way I’ve approached everything in my life — with a desire to win and be the best that I can be.

“I’m going to use this time to take a break,” he added, “something I’ve never done before, and focus on my health and my family before moving on to my next opportunity.”

On Sept. 1, Romo entered a a no-contest plea to the OWI charge from his July 23 arrest in Wisconsin. A Milwaukee County judge found Romo guilty of the charge and took away his driving privileges for six months. Romo also was ordered to pay $834, and have an ignition interlock device installed on his vehicles for a minimum of one year.

Citations against Romo for having an open container of an alcoholic beverage in a moving vehicle and unsafe passing were dismissed.

Afterward, Romo said in a statement that multiple back injuries from his playing career led to “a dependence on pain medication, and my efforts to get off those medications led to an over-reliance on alcohol.”

“None of this is an excuse,” he wrote. “These are my failures, and I take responsibility for them.”

As Olivia Rodrigo kicked off the Unraveled Tour in support of her third album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” the internet had plenty to talk about—from her dissolving dress and flower-covered stage design to her custom-made, pink heart-shaped guitar.

The guitar was built by Luis Muñoz, a Mexican American guitar technician and luthier who operates out of a tiny repair shop in East L.A.

Originally from El Paso, Muñoz moved to Los Angeles in 2009 and took guitar repair classes in Hollywood, hoping to find his way into the music industry.

Music was always around Muñoz. He remembers discovering Slash after his family got cable television. Mesmerized by the Guns N’ Roses guitarist, who stole the spotlight with his top hat and searing guitar solos in videos for “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” on MTV’s Hot 100 music video countdown, Muñoz knew that was what he wanted to do.

He picked up his father’s old guitar and began learning to play, experimenting with the strings and teaching himself along the way.

His first opportunity came with singer-songwriter LP as a guitar technician. Muñoz admits he exaggerated his skill set to get his foot in the door, but he was determined to make the opportunity count.

“Once you’re in, you’re in,” he said.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

Over the years, Muñoz has toured with artists including Smashing Pumpkins, Deftones, Bush, Anthrax, Fall Out Boy and his most recent touring job was with Rodrigo, after his wife, the pop star’s former bassist, told him she was looking for a new guitar tech.

Rodrigo’s heart-shaped guitar was another opportunity to put his craftsmanship on display.

“I’m sure Olivia has every guitar company in the world in her DMs, and she still trusted a small shop in East L.A.,” Muñoz wrote on Instagram, alongside photos of Rodrigo with the guitar.

“Five prototypes before I got the body right. It had to look cool, play easy, feel comfortable, and most of all, sound good. Built completely by hand, late nights after shop hours.”

Muñoz recalled the moment Rodrigo’s team reached out to request a custom-made guitar. He knew he had one shot to get it right: “In the back of my mind, I’m like, I only got one shot and it has to be made with love.”

The guitar took several months to complete and was built entirely by hand. He later hinted that it is currently one-of-one for now. After Rodrigo shared the guitar with her fans, Muñoz’s one-of-a-kind creation quickly became part of the visual identity of the tour — but for him, the significance went beyond the instrument itself.

Now retired from touring to spend more time with his family, including his 18-month-old daughter, Rosie, Muñoz says moments like seeing young fans in the crowd are what stay with him.

“One of my favorite things being on tour was seeing all the little girls lose their minds. The power of seeing that. Immediately in their head it’s like, ‘I can do that too.’ Imagine if I’m playing a tiny little role in that, yeah … all day.”

Star receiver Puka Nacua will play against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday in Philadelphia, but star defensive lineman Aaron Donald is out because of a back issue, Rams coach Sean McVay said Friday.

Donald, a three-time defensive player of the year, has not practiced this week following the Rams’ loss to the Denver Broncos on Sunday in Denver. McVay said Donald, 35, was experiencing back soreness.

“He’s as tough as it gets. Just not feeling good enough,” McVay said, adding, “He would do it and he could probably go be productive but part of our job is to protect these tough dudes like him from themselves.”

Donald has played in two games since ending a two-year retirement in late August. He did not make the trip to Australia for the season opener against the San Francisco 49ers, but made three tackles in the Rams’ 28-6 victory over the New York Giants at SoFi Stadium.

Donald had one tackle and one quarterback hit in the 30-26 loss to the Broncos.

“He’s working as hard as he can to get himself feeling as good as possible and we’re hopeful and optimistic that good days are ahead,” McVay said.

Nacua sat out the last two games because of a hip injury that caused hip, groin and abdominal soreness.

McVay said Nacua has been “strong, looks sturdy, looks explosive,” during practice this week.

“I think it will really just be a feel for the overall conditioning,” McVay said, adding that he hopes “the magic of the [game] jersey” will help Nacua have a productive game against the Eagles.

Tight end Terrance Ferguson (ankle) and cornerback Jaylen Watson (shoulder) will not play on Sunday, McVay said. Tight end Colby Parkinson (shoulder, knee) and edge rusher Josaiah Stewart (groin) are questionable.

Rams place Terrance Ferguson on injured reserve

Rams tight end Terrance Ferguson jogs back to the locker room against the Giants on Sept. 21.

(Kyusung Gong / Associated Press)

The Rams opened the season with five tight ends on the roster, which some might have regarded as a surplus.

But the Rams need the depth.

On Friday, the team put Terrance Ferguson on injured reserve because of an ankle injury.

Ferguson, a 2025 second-round draft pick, was injured Sept. 21 against the Giants, but he played through it against the Broncos.

Ferguson has seven catches for 63 yards and a touchdown.

Ferguson must sit out at least the next four games against the Eagles, Buffalo Bills, Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders. He is eligible to return for the Nov. 1 game against the Chargers.

The Rams began the season with five tight ends on the roster. Tyler Higbee and Davis Allen are at full strength. Max Klare, a second-round draft pick from Michigan, could get his first action on offense against the Eagles.

Rams release punt returner Xavier Smith

Rams wide receiver Xavier Smith runs the ball against the Kansas City Chiefs during a preseason game in August.

(Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)

What a difference a day makes.

Less than 24 hours after Rams special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone said the team was not going to replace punt returner Xavier Smith, the team released him.

“We just need better production out of that position,” McVay said, adding that some of the “decisions” that Smith made in last Sunday’s loss to the Denver Broncos proved costly.

“We’ve got to make better decisions,” McVay said. “We’ve got to be able to field it.”

Receiver Alex Bachman is expected to be promoted from the practice squad to handle punt returns. McVay said he was “optimistic that I think we’re going to see some good stuff from Alex on Sunday.”

Smith, 29, is a third-year pro who signed with the Rams as an undrafted free agent and worked his way into a role as a kick returner and rotational receiver.

Smith appeared to be on his way to overcoming a major error in last season’s NFC championship game, when he lost a fumble in the 31-27 defeat by the Seattle Seahawks.

But through three games, Ventrone on Thursday described Smith’s performance as “inconsistent.”

“We need to do a better job of tracking the ball, judging the ball, fielding the ball when necessary, not fielding it in other situations,” Ventrone told reporters. “He knows that and hopefully we’ll get the improvements that we need in that area.”

Ventrone was asked if there was any thought about replacing Smith as the punt returner.

“No, we have a lot of trust in ‘X’, I really do,” Ventrone said. “He’s put in a lot of time and effort in training camp and obviously moving into the season. I think that he’ll do the necessary things to be able to sustain at that position for us.”

But on Friday morning, the Rams announced they had waived Smith.

McVay said the Rams “weren’t thinking” about making a change when Ventrone spoke to reporters Thursday.

“As you get a chance to kind of take a step back, evaluate the totality of our group, what’s the best way to try to be able to put together all three phases, did feel like that was in the best interest of the group,” McVay said, adding, “and that decision was made kind of later [Thursday night].”

This summer, Southern California hiker Mark Orr spotted a hazard he struggled to stop thinking about: a crumbling, narrowing section of the Devil’s Backbone Trail near Mt. Baldy.

Orr wanted to help.

In early August, he trekked about 5.6 miles from the trailhead near Manker Flat campground to the site, hauling 85 pounds of gear with him over two trips. Orr first spent two hours digging out a wider route and then built what he dubbed an “anti-erosion fence” by installing 30-inch rebar stakes, stainless steel wire, clamps, aluminum flashing and zip ties. A few weeks later, Orr posted a video documenting his work to his YouTube channel, where he’d previously shared about hiking and other DIY projects. In the video, which Orr has since made private, he said he’d never performed trail work.

A view from Baldy Road leading up the Mt. Baldy Notch in the San Gabriel Mountains.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

The people of the internet were initially grateful. “I can’t imagine doing this in my backyard let alone at 9,350 ft. You are THE MAN,” one YouTube user wrote. “I’ve hiked the backbone dozens of times and will remember you with gratitude every time I come across this section,” another person said. One person said his son was one of the three people who died while hiking the Backbone Trail in late December, and he wanted to connect with Orr.

But, as the video’s view count ticked up, concern over Orr’s work mounted into rage.

Two camps developed: Those who lauded Orr’s efforts and those who felt he should be held accountable for what they argued was damage to the trail. “I give this guy an A+ on his intentions and effort,” a Reddit user wrote on a post about Orr’s video. “If a section is dangerous, it should ‘look’ dangerous. To make it look safe, creates a bigger hazard as people will come to rely/trust in what is actually a DIY retaining wall. What happens when that eventually gives way? What if someone is hurt/killed as a direct result of this DIY project?”

In this edition of The Wild, our weekly outdoors newsletter, I will report out the current status of the trail where Orr completed his work. I will discuss how we got here — where an individual, not the U.S. Forest Service, tackled a trail repair — and where we go from here, including how you can do your part without upsetting half the outdoors corner of the internet and violating federal policy.

First, let’s talk about Mt. Baldy and how people usually get there.

A segment of the Devil’s Backbone Trail that hikers take to the Mt. Baldy summit.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Mt. San Antonio, commonly referred to as Mt. Baldy for its appearance, is a 10,064-foot peak in the San Gabriel Mountains and is the highest point in Los Angeles County.

Outside of winter, when much of the trail can become covered in snow and ice, most hikers reach Mt. Baldy via two routes. They start near the Manker Flat campground and walk Falls and Baldy roads until they either turn north-ish onto the Baldy Bowl Trail, often referred to as the “Ski Hut” route because hikers pass the Sierra Club’s green building, or hikers continue on Baldy Road until they reach the Mt. Baldy Notch. From here, hikers start the Devil’s Backbone Trail first by trekking up a fire road and then taking on a grueling, narrow 1.9(ish)-mile jaunt that gains about 1,500 feet and always makes me question my life choices about halfway through.

The Devil’s Backbone is named as such because of its shape, including segments where hikers walk a narrow stretch with steep drop-offs on both sides. This steepness is part of what makes it susceptible to erosion — and why only serious, well-equipped mountaineers should traverse it during the winter.

The Devil’s Backbone Trail, per the U.S. Forest Service, is 3.24 miles long, starting at Baldy Notch and ends at Mt. Baldy Summit.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

On Sunday, I headed up Baldy Road to see how Orr’s repairs were holding. I am active in the r/socalhiking Reddit community, where I first learned of the story, and had already seen images showing a hole developing at the start of Orr’s repairs.

But no one had pinpointed exactly where they were.

Once I reached the Devil’s Backbone, a hiker warned me about a particularly steep and narrow section he’d just traversed.

“Is this the part with the repairs?” I asked.

“No, that part is way up, and it is already breaking down,” he told me.

I then chatted with two high schoolers coming back from summiting Baldy, one of whom hopes to attend a University of California school to study environmental science. “A little bit of rain,” and it’s gone, he said of Orr’s repairs.

A segment of a repair performed by a local hiker that has started to fail.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Just over a mile into the Devil’s Backbone, I spotted the shiny aluminum of Orr’s anti-erosion fence. And I spotted the hole where fill dirt has fallen through. Before Orr started his work, the trail was narrow — his work did widen the route, but how long will it hold?

Alan Coles, a trail crew leader with the San Gabriel Mountains Trailbuilders, which maintains routes in the backcountry and Baldy area, told me the answer is probably not long, especially given the rain and snow we could get this winter from El Niño.

A segment of the Devil’s Backbone Trail where a hiker attempted to widen and repair the crumbly trail.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

“Taking another look at the video, the problem with the trail may be due to a buildup of material washing down from above,” said Coles, who has 35 years of trail maintenance experience. “Often the best solution is to dig it out and lower the trail to the original alignment, which will also widen it. The problem with the repair is that the hardware he installed would make that difficult. In time, the material he used will come apart, and those stakes will get more exposed, leading to problems with people tripping on them, especially if there is snow.”

Coles said to begin work in Angeles National Forest, he must submit a list of trails that his organization wants to work on to the U.S. Forest Service. The agency’s archaeologist, biologist and other technical experts will review his list. If there are any issues with a particular trail that Coles has identified needs repairs — like if an endangered species is known to live in a creek next to the trail — the Forest Service could deny his request, thus leaving the trail unmaintained.

A hiker walks near the hole created by unauthorized repairs performed in early August.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Coles said the Devil’s Backbone Trail is a “very difficult repair” for a lot of reasons, including its high altitude and the need for a crew to get permission to use the fire roads to shorten the distance they have to haul their gear. Coles said hikers often ask him when his crew will work on the Three T’s Trail, as the route has several downed trees and other issues, and his crew faces similar access issues.

Coles said he sympathizes with Orr’s reasoning for repairing the trail: People died in that area.

“His heart’s in the right place, but it really needs to be done with someone who says, ‘OK, here’s how you properly do a repair like that,’” Coles said.

It’s impossible when thinking about Orr’s repairs not to think about the old adage of, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” and the brutal irony is that, once you reach the Devil’s Backbone, you’re going to need more than that.

Two hikers navigate down the Devil’s Backbone Trail after summiting Mt. Baldy, the highest point in L.A. County.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

When I spoke to Orr after my hike, he said he hopes that he can join the trail crew to remove what he did and repair the trail properly.

“The first thing is, it was nothing but well intentions by somebody who loves the mountain and wants it to be safer for everybody,” Orr said. “I totally get that my first crack at this, I didn’t do everything right, and I’m actively working with the San Gabriel Mountains Trailbuilders to get it right before this winter.”

The final challenge, though, will be getting officials at the U.S. Forest Service to approve the work plan. A spokesperson at Angeles National Forest did not respond to my request for a comment or an interview for this story.

Orr’s trail repairs come at a time when outdoors lovers are feeling particularly protective of public lands. The Trump administration has continued its efforts to peel back layers of environmental protections, like the Roadless Rule, raising the alarm of park advocates who fear not even Yosemite is safe from development.

The sunset as viewed Sunday on a trail often referred to as the “Ski Hut” route.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

At the same time, the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service have both seen massive staffing cuts during Trump’s second term, and this comes after decades of underfunded trail construction and repair.

In the early 1980s, “each of the five Angeles Forest districts had a full-time, paid trail crew of eight to 10 members. Now there are only summertime crews with three to four members. Forest Service officials and the agency’s critics agree that if it were not for the volunteer corps of 700 trail builders, the mountain paths would not be repaired for years,” according to a 1993 Times story.

Those crews, Coles said, were one of the casualties from a swath of federal budget cuts in the 1980s. A 1986 Times story noted that, in just four years, “the amount of federal money allocated for trail maintenance nationwide and in Southern California … dropped about 50%.”

“For the most part, without the volunteers, you wouldn’t have a trail system today,” Angeles National Forest official Don Gilliland told The Times in 1993.

The sun goes down, casting orange and pink hues through the clouds above the San Gabriel Mountains near Mt. Baldy Village.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

The agency continues to rely heavily on volunteers. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that it has about $10.8 billion in deferred maintenance, including $241 million in deferred trail maintenance and almost $70 million in trail-bridge deferred maintenance, according to a recent budget document.

In an analysis of that backlog of work, officials with the U.S. Government Accountability Office heard from one regional official who told them that the trail maintenance program “is held together by Band-Aids and baling wire.”

If you’d like to be part of that baling wire, you can join Orr in joining a local trail crew. There are several who service the San Gabriel Mountains and their foothills.

It is easy to read about Orr’s efforts and point out the obvious mistakes he made. It’s another thing to take action, whether that’s donating to local trail crews or volunteering on their work days. I’ll see you out there, focusing on the latter.

3 things to do

A coyote drinks water puddling near the golf course at Griffith Park.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

1. Document dicots and deer in L.A.
The Los Angeles Public Library, along with other city agencies, will launch this year’s L.A. Nature Quest at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Griffith Park Visitor Center. The L.A. Nature Quest is an annual monthlong effort to document as much of L.A.’s flora and fauna as possible using iNaturalist, a citizen science app. Attendees will be guided by rangers and other experts in a morning of outdoor exploration and nature journaling. Downloading iNaturalist beforehand is recommended. Register at eventbrite.com.

2. Sit down and spy birds in Pasadena
The Pasadena Audubon Society will host a seated birding experience at 8 a.m. Saturday on the Gamble House lawn (4 Westmoreland Place in Pasadena). Guests should bring water, sunscreen, a lawn chair or blanket, and a hat. Participants can bring their own binoculars, but there will be some to loan out for those without. Register at eventbrite.com.

3. Marvel at mushrooms in Monrovia
Monrovia’s Canyon Park Nature Center will host the opening reception for the Mushrooms of the San Gabriel Mountains at 10 a.m. Sunday. Mycologist Aaron Tupac will share with guests about how and why they photographed the specimens shown in the exhibit, along with sharing information about our local fungi populations. Learn more at Tupac’s Instagram page.

The must-read

Biologists collect olive ridley sea turtle eggs from nests on Southern California beaches.

(Huntington Beach Police Dept.)

In mid-September, two heart-shaped olive ridley sea turtles made history when they dug nests on Seal and Huntington beaches, marking the first documented natural sea turtle nests on the U.S. West Coast. Times staff writer Corinne Purtill wrote that biologists and cheloniophiles barely had time to celebrate before realizing that these nests were at risk of being destroyed by incoming storm surges and high tides. Biologists recovered just over 200 eggs. “We had to make some quick decisions,” said biologist Jonathan Snyder of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach on Friday. “This is the decision that we made, and I think it’s the best one for species recovery.”

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

Montrose Search and Rescue recently highlighted the perils of taking the wrong route to hike Strawberry Peak. Strawberry Peak, visible from several L.A. hikes, is the highest point in the front range of the San Gabriel Mountains. Montrose Search and Rescue recently rescued hikers, though, who’ve ended up on the mountaineering route. Their video highlights how crucial it is to know your route before you go — and to ensure you have a physical map with you in case you get lost. Stay safe out there, folks! (And don’t hike Strawberry Peak right now — it’s too hot.)

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

The California I grew up in had its pluses and minuses, just like the state I’m living in now.

But consider this:

In 1974, I wrote a check for a semester of college.

The fee was $98.

That was the cost of registration, by the way. Tuition for in-state residents was free at San José State University and other public universities in California. The state’s leaders believed subsidized higher education would serve the greater good and seed economic growth.

Two years after graduating, I was working as a sportswriter for a small Bay Area newspaper. My spouse was a drug store clerk. Together we made less than $20,000 a year.

And we bought a brand-new house, 45 minutes east of Oakland, for just under $50,000.

In a thousand ways, we’re living in a different California today. Tuition and fees for a semester on a Cal State campus now run about $4,500, and the average mid-tier home costs about $775,000 in some places and far more in others, which is out of reach for nearly 80% of working people.

So as I watched the gubernatorial debate Wednesday night between the two men who want to lead us into the future, I was wondering which California is better in terms of hope, opportunity and livability?

The one I was born in during the postwar boom, or the one we’re living in now?

There’s no easy answer. The California of my youth was more affordable, but it was no utopian dreamscape. Housing discrimination and segregation were deep-seated, and the Los Angeles sky was the color of swamp water.

In the last half of the 20th century, California went on to become a global leader in technology, aerospace, the arts and healthcare, and its investment in public education helped build an economic superpower. Even the air got cleaned up, to a degree.

But for all of California’s riches and unrivaled natural beauty, it’s fair to say things are out of whack at the moment. How is it that the world’s fourth-largest economy also has the nation’s highest poverty rate?

There’s a flotilla of yachts, but millions of have-nots, and enough homeless people to fill stadiums. If we’re so progressive, and swimming in more venture capital than the rest of the nation combined, why are the masses crippled by a housing shortage and the high cost of living, and why did we build a soaring higher education model while letting our once exalted K-12 system sink in national rankings?

If California weren’t so lopsidedly blue, Republican candidate Steve Hilton might get a little more traction with a campaign built around the idea that there’s an easy explanation for the state’s misery of problems: Democrats have been in charge for years, they’ve mucked things up, and Xavier Becerra is yet another textbook California liberal who will stay the course.

“It’s impossible for regular working people to live in this state anymore,” Hilton charged during the debate, calling out over-regulation, the high cost of living, the housing shortage and a homelessness problem that “shames” our state. “And all you’re offering,” Hilton continued, “is more of the same, backed by the same corrupt machine in Sacramento.”

Becerra, meanwhile, kept handcuffing Hilton to President Trump, a good move, given that the president has helped launch an idiotic war, gummed up the economy, and seen his favorability plummet.

Hilton is not entirely off base, although there’s no evidence he has plausible solutions.

What he doesn’t tell you is that other states have their own problems, many of which have more to do with global economic forces — and President Trump’s war-mongering and tariff tirades — than with public policy decisions at the state level.

When I was a lad, my father drove a milk truck, and then a bread truck, and then he sold candy and tobacco for a wholesale distributor based in Oakland, near the Coliseum, where he’d take me to A’s games but save a few bucks by parking next to the railroad tracks a half-mile away from the parking lot.

His jobs were mostly unionized. Unions were plentiful in the private sector back then. My family saved up for a house while we lived in an apartment, and then I paid next to nothing for a college degree.

The boldness of that idea — a free education at an elite university, with a lofty if unfulfilled goal of equal access for all — is still a testament to California’s long-ago grand ambition, even if Gov. Ronald Reagan eventually ended free tuition.

In her new book, “California Dreams: The Making and Remaking of the University of California,” Miriam Pawel references a quote from UC Berkeley alum Joan Didion, who called the system “the most coherent expression of the California possibility.”

The staircase I climbed was the essence of what USC professor Natalia Molina called “the infrastructure” of upward mobility. In her immigrant family, her grandmother established an Echo Park restaurant that Molina wrote a book about — “A Place at the Nayarit” — and her mother ran the bar there after attending bartending school.

Molina went to UCLA, and is now both a MacArthur Foundation fellow (the “genius” grant) and a Guggenheim fellow.

“There’s not that same path for upward mobility,” Molina said. “But there sure seems to be a path for downward mobility.”

That brings me back to the economy, and lessons I learned in 2018, when I spent several weeks in and around Telfair Elementary School in Pacoima, looking into why nearly a quarter of the students were homeless.

The answer? Several once-bustling manufacturing and aerospace companies in the area had shut down. The new economy was fast food and big box stores. Pay dropped; housing prices spiked. It was a snapshot of a changing world — one we haven’t yet adapted to.

Modern politics is not built to foster long-term thinking about such challenges, said longtime political strategist Darry Sragow.

“What are the dreams, what are the aspirations, where do you want to go?” said Sragow, who doesn’t know the answers but would like to at least hear the questions. “I keep looking for somebody who will do that.”

Agoura Hills resident and attorney Dan Douglass, 80, who detests President Trump and isn’t a fan of Hilton, told me that as a moderate Republican, he feels like “a man without a party.” But he is not without an answer to California’s housing problem.

“They’ve made it too complicated to build anything,” Douglass said. “Too many permits. Too much time to build.”

He is not wrong.

Samuel Trachtman, a political scientist with the UC Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative, argues that despite recent legislative progress on the housing crisis, state policies are restricting growth and making California more unaffordable.

“California must reduce regulatory costs that fall disproportionately on low- and middle-income residents,” Trachtman wrote in a recent four-part analysis.

“The state has “long led the nation in regulations promoting safety, sustainability, and quality,” he went on. “These policies can produce strong benefits. But they can also drive up the cost of essentials — costs that hit the poor hardest. This amounts to regressively funded progressivism.”

California was, and is, a work in progress, richly endowed and deeply flawed. Fixing complicated problems isn’t easy, but what I’d like to see from the next governor is more of the striving, imagination and sense of collective purpose that made California great.

There’s no way and no reason to go back to the state of my youth, but Trachtman had a thought about where to go next.

“In some ways we can use the past as a model,” he told me. “But in other ways we need to be more innovative and think about charting a path forward.”

Toward the most coherent expression of the California possibility.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Earlier this summer, Akriila flew to Los Angeles and played two nights at the Roxy in West Hollywood. At 22, the Chilean singer-songwriter, most identifiable by her fire engine red tresses, is one of the most visionary newcomers in the latest wave of post-urbano Latin artists.

Fittingly, Akriila kick-started her career with a trap mixtape. The most-streamed tracks on her debut, 2024’s dazzling “Epistolares,” favor a progressive reggaeton vein. She also collaborated with Milo J on “Llora Llora” — a folksy lullaby off the Argentine rapper’s masterpiece “La Vida Era Más Corta.”

“Hot gays listen to Akriila” became a celebrated slogan on social media.

Turns out she was just getting started. Released Sept. 3, her latest album, “Lucy Miró al Mundo y Notó Que Está Girando” — its title a delicious riff on Beatles lore — eschews reggaeton altogether, in favor of a hallucinogenic collage of shoegaze, electronic glitch pop and South American roots sounds.

A guidepost of Chilean hyper-pop, it is also a heart-wrenching mash of tenderness and distortion. The lyrics describe the trauma of a recent transition, after she left her father’s home and ventured to live on her own — and though she’s now an established artist signed to Atlantic Records, her music is still aching and vulnerable.

“She is a reference point for all of us in contemporary music,” says producer Diego Raposo, a Dominican tastemaker who featured Akriila on his 2023 debut album. “I believe we’re witnessing something that we’ll probably never see again. Her music reminds me of Björk, Aphex Twin, even Shakira — but it’s also incredibly fresh and original.”

A few days before traveling to London for her inaugural European tour, Akriila spoke to De Los about the seduction of second verses, her obsession with ’90s dream pop and the growing pains of living alone.

This is such a dreamlike record. Was that intentional?
I wanted it to feel not necessarily ethereal, but hazy, like you’re inside a bubble. I love the way my voice is processed, sharing the space with so many layers. It’s really cool when the vocals are part of a track instead of lying there in the center of the mix.

I was your age in the ’90s, and this album has a very strange emotional effect on me: It reminds me of what it felt like to be in my 20s, listening to dream pop for the first time.
That makes perfect sense, and it connects with a favorite exercise of mine: Every week — ideally, every day — I listen to a full album from beginning to end. I started with new releases, but then set my sights on the classics.

The Sundays’ [1990 masterpiece] “Reading, Writing and Arithmetic” was the album that opened up the space mentally for what I wanted to do. I always say that I make alternative pop. I start with something that’s catchy and easily digestible, and then mix it with sounds that feel uncomfortable. As I was starting to work on this album, I listened to the Sundays, the Cardigans, and every single record that Prince ever made.

I can definitely feel the ’90s vibe in the closing track, “Lucy.” It’s gorgeous.
That’s inspired by the Sundays’ “Gone,” and the drums sound like Cocteau Twins. I love the art of collage — stealing from different artists, but doing it my way. There are samples of PJ Harvey, Patti Smith, but also Rosalía. When I make videos, I’m always thinking of something that MTV would have played back in the day.

I keep thinking of this record as a concept album, even though the actual concept is more of a feeling than anything else.
I totally get you. It’s not an album like the Who’s “Tommy” — an actual musical that takes the conceptual deal to another level. I feel we’ve forgotten the art of making albums now that we’re so focused on playlists and TikTok. I invest a lot of effort in making my albums conceptual, since I’m not into records that are random collections of tracks. “Epistolares” was all about sending letters and dedications. The deluxe version was more sentimental. This one is a concept album for sure. I could outline in detail why every moment of the record happens when it does.

The bridge on “Abrázame” is incredibly romantic.
That bit really freaked me out in a good way. It was shorter at first, but then I asked [producer] Vinco to make it longer. Those guitars on the bridge are the most beautiful thing he’s ever done. The contradiction of “Abrázame” is that everyone kept telling me that it should continue going up and explode at the end, but I had already overused that device on “Epistolares.” So I did the opposite and gave it a happy ending. That ethereal, ambient thing at the end kills me.

Talking about songwriting devices, here’s a trademark Akriila move: A song may be moving forward, and suddenly there’s a fracture — everything breaks and decomposes. Why?
I think I have ADHD and need things to be constantly changing. I’ve tried to make songs that are plain, but I just can’t do it. My favorite part of songwriting is working on the second verse. You’ve already presented the main idea and shown what the chorus is like. On the second verse you can change the beat or the lyrics, and do anything you like. [Producer] Clemente is just like me in that respect. Sometimes we take things to the limit, and then step back. It’s one of the great things about my creative team: We’re not married to the demos. We may do five versions of the same tune until it sounds right.

Your Chilean roots shine through on “Partedemipartedeti.” I listened to those folk bits and thought: Here’s someone who grew up listening to Los Jaivas and Inti-Illimani.
When I first started obsessing about music, the stuff that I liked was all in Spanish. I listened to tons of records from Chile, Argentina and Mexico. “Carta a Mi Papá” is like a traditional balada from Chile. I stole those chords from “Quizás, Porque” by [Argentine supergroup] Sui Generis. I listened to a lot of Pescado Rabioso when I was a teen. My partner has a cassette deck in her car, and she’s always playing [Charly García’s] “Piano Bar.” I don’t identify only with Chilean music. It’s more of a música latinoamericana thing. I don’t think gringos are that good in the lyric writing department. Artists like Bandalos Chinos, Alex Anwandter and Zoé are really great composers.

Do you think you’re an old soul?
People always tell me that [smiles]. We’re a team of three; I think Clemente is a really young soul. Vinco and I are the old ones.

Before making this record, you stopped living with your dad, moved to a place of your own, and experienced a time of profound loneliness. What does your father think of the finished album?
He loves it. He is a musician himself, and it must have been hard for him when we started living apart. It was also difficult for me to get home and feel so lonely because there was no one waiting for me anymore. My dad still comes to my place once a week; he doesn’t want to bother me, so he leaves food in the reception area. It’s his way of making sure that I’m doing fine.

Dennis Haskins, an actor known best for playing Principal Richard Belding on the 1990s high school sitcom “Saved by the Bell,” died on Sunday night. He was 75.

Haskins’ friend and longtime caretaker, Kimberly Snow, confirmed the actor’s death. A cause of death is unknown, but Haskins had quietly battled Parkinson’s and was candid about other health issues. According to Snow, the actor died around 11 p.m. in a Burbank assisted living facility.

Snow, a former manager of Burbank’s since-shuttered Dimples Karaoke, shared the news of the actor’s death on Instagram, writing that Haskins was a staple at the joint, so much so that many of the patrons thought he owned it.

“A lot of people thought he owned it, but he didn’t,” the tribute read. “He just loved the place and its people. He enjoyed singing for people, meeting them, and taking selfies with his fans. Dimples closed down about 11 years ago, and people still associate him with his beloved ‘second home.’ He was known to most as Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell, but to us, he was much more than that.

“About eight years ago, he became ill,” the post continued. “He had been silent about his fight with Parkinson’s, among other health concerns, because he did not want the attention. He did not want to have to tell people. He would say, ‘What do I even say?’ So I respected his wishes and stayed quiet, and I helped him through his journey into the next chapter of his life.

“Late last night, that journey ended for him. He is now at peace and is probably entertaining the people in the sky. Just know that if you tried to reach out to him in the last few years, I did read your messages to him, and you were heard.”

Haskins played the earnest and beloved Mr. Belding across the “Saved by the Bell” franchise for 12 years, from 1988 to 2000. As recently as 2015, he reprised the role for a sketch on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” alongside Bayside High School alums Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Elizabeth Berkley, Mario Lopez and Tiffani Thiessen.

Haskins was born in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Nov. 18, 1950, to parents Dennis Button Haskins IV and Veneta Marilyn Yarbrough. One of three boys, he attended Notre Dame High School in Chattanooga and, later, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

He ultimately made his way to Los Angeles where he broke into acting, with his first on-screen gig playing a workman in “Archie Bunker’s Place” in 1981. He acted regularly through the ’80s, landing parts in television shows “Magnum P.I.” and “The Dukes of Hazzard” before finding his way to the part that would make him America’s favorite principal.

He played Mr. Belding across seven different series, including, “Good Morning, Miss Bliss,” “Saved by the Bell,” “Saved by the Bell: The College Years,” “Saved by the Bell: The New Class,” “The Rerun Show,” “Robot Chicken,” and “Victorious.”

“It’s a tragic loss,” Jay Schachter, head of film and television for Stewart Talent in New York City, said in a statement to NBC.

“Everyone loved Mr. Belding and those of us who got to know Dennis, loved him even more,” Schachter said. “He was a great person, and he loved, I mean absolutely LOVED his fans.”

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu and Pop artist Ed Ruscha have a long history of admiring each other’s work. Twenty-four years ago, a nervous Iñárritu visited Ruscha’s Venice studio to offer him the role of the gynecologist in “21 Grams.” They needed a doctor with noble features and blue, believable eyes. That plan didn’t pan out, schedule-wise, but the filmmaker and the artist finally found a way to collaborate.

The result — a Ruscha-designed poster for Iñárritu’s new film “Digger,” starring Tom Cruise — was unveiled Sunday at an intimate brunch at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, attended by Iñárritu, Ruscha and Cruise, as well as “Digger” actors John Goodman, Jesse Plemons, Michael Stuhlbarg and Ross Hatt.

Iñárritu and Cruise laughed as they made a clumsy attempt at a countdown before whipping aside a black velvet curtain to reveal the poster for the first time: a very Ruscha, text-heavy work on a slate gray background with a beige border. A looming ice shelf in the background is surrounded by phrases including, “A Man. A Plan. A Meltdown,” and “Comedy equals tragedy plus time.”

Filmmaker Alejandro Iñárritu and “Digger” star Tom Cruise unveil Ed Ruscha’s new poster for the film. (They just pulled off the black velvet curtain on the floor below.)

(Kevin Garrison)

“Well, the movie blew my hair back,” Ruscha said at the unveiling brunch inside LACMA’s new (still unopened) restaurant, with LACMA Director and Chief Executive Michael Govan by his side. “And not only that, it parted it down the middle. It has since grown back.”

The crowd laughed knowingly. “Digger,” which opens Friday, is a satirical black comedy that follows oil tycoon Digger Rockwell as one of his drilling rigs in Greenland explodes, dislodging an ice shelf that floats away to cause a global disaster. As a dark parable for the dangers of climate change, the film has already proved polarizing, with early reviews coming in mixed.

Ruscha noted that he first saw “Digger” at a screening about six months ago, alongside Govan. “I knew I had seen an epic production, an epic product from an epic producer,” Ruscha said. “So I jumped at the idea of doing the poster. And I thought about it, and I think about this movie, and it reminded me of a kaleidoscope. It’s got so many running-around ideas. It was kaleidoscopic in its message, and its content and its humor.”

Ruscha turned his attention to Iñárritu, “It’s got something to offer to the world, and I thank you for that.”

The filmmaker loved the poster, and the fact that the ice shelf sat front and center.

From left to right — “Digger” actors John Goodman and Jesse Plemons, filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, artist Ed Ruscha, actor Tom Cruise, LACMA director Michael Govan and actors Ross Hatt and Michael Stuhlbarg — pose with Ruscha’s new poster for the film.

(David Jon)

“The billing is nature: We are human beings, we are in a war against nature,” Iñárritu said — describing what he feels the poster relays — in a phone interview from Mexico City a day before the event. “We think that we are different from nature. So nature, in a way, becomes our enemy. We are fighting a fight against nature, and the enemy is an ice shelf going to Europe. And he just put [that] in the center of it, [like] a disaster movie, which is very clever, as he always is.”

“Those decisions that he made with a very prominent element in a simple way, with one or two words, it just says so much with so little,” Iñárritu continued. “And then he [put] some lines around [it], very Ruscha, that in a way convey the spine or the character itself.”

The director had the same feelings two years ago, at LACMA’s Ruscha retrospective. He said so much with so little, Iñárritu thought, and that “less is more” thinking could hold so much power in a film poster.

Iñárritu, too, has been exhibited at LACMA: earlier this year, with the film installation “Sueño Perro,” a resurrection of lost footage from “Amores Perros;” and in 2017-2018, with the virtual reality installation “CARNE y ARENA,” which explored the human condition of immigrants and refugees.

The director’s collaboration with Ruscha is proof of concept for LACMA’s annual Art + Film gala, entering its 15th year, which seeks to highlight and strengthen the connections between film and visual art by bringing the two communities together at a splashy party — often creating lasting connections between the two groups.

Both Ruscha and Iñárritu have been honored at the gala, the former in 2012 (with Stanley Kubrick) and the latter in 2015 (with James Turrell). “This is a beautiful encounter of art and film,” Govan said at the unveiling.

“Digger” has evolved over nine years, Iñárritu said. It’s been a long journey of taking note of current events, including where the world is going, as well as people’s obsessions and fears.

“The film is a love letter for the young generation,” Iñárritu said. “I think it’s kind of a warning, or a wake-up call. But you can have fun about it, because it’s the only way to — humor allows us to have space and recognize ourselves in that absurdity. So I feel that it’s a human, urgent, now film.”

John Green’s nine-year hiatus from fiction has ended, and his adult debut, “Hollywood, Ending,” comes right on time to explore the dark side of fame.

The novel centers on former child actor Juniper Castillo and Hollywood newbie Kai Laramie, who are cast in the artsy biopic “Andy Warhol Never Gets Old,” with hotshot movie star Matthew Malone in the title role. It’s Juniper’s chance to establish herself as an adult actor and Kai’s first foray into the spotlight, a position he quickly realizes doesn’t come without a personal cost.

“There’s no way I could have written this book without spending a lot of time on film sets,” Green told The Times in a recent call.

Over the last two decades, several of the author’s bestselling young-adult novels have been adapted for the screen. His debut, “Looking for Alaska” (2005), was adapted as a Hulu limited series in 2019, the same year Netflix released the feature film adaptation of his co-authored holiday anthology, “Let It Snow” (2008). On the big screen, “Paper Towns” (2008) made its film debut in 2015, while his bestseller “The Fault in Our Stars” (2012) became a box-office hit in 2014. Most recently, his 2017 novel, “Turtles All the Way Down,” received a feature film adaptation in 2024.

“I hope the book is a love letter to movies. But I also wanted to be honest about how difficult it is to make a work of art that, in order to be commercially successful, has to be loved by millions of people,” Green said. That’s where the Hollywood machine comes in. “It’s really hard to figure out how to get millions of people to pay to watch something, and that challenge leads to all kinds of compromises and sacrifices.”

While Green’s young-adult novels have often explored the teenage experience, he never felt confined by the YA genre. “I think teenagers have infinite intellectual capacity,” he said, adding that he doesn’t really think about which shelf will hold his novels inside a bookstore. In “Hollywood, Ending,” his main characters are navigating their early 20s, a period which Green finds especially interesting.

“The questions in this novel explore how it feels in those early years of adulthood when there are still so many possibilities, so many directions you might go,” he said.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you land on Andy Warhol as a celebrity figure and metaphor to use in telling this story about Kai and Juniper?

I think Andy Warhol saw so much of our world coming. He saw that three-dimensional experience was going to be rendered in two dimensions. He’s most famous for taking cylindrical soup cans and making them flat, but he also saw celebrity culture coming.

There’s the famous quote about everybody being world-famous for 15 minutes. I think he understood that normal people were going to experience celebrity, and he also saw the way that the repetition of images, as I write about in the novel, would lead to a certain desensitization. So I think everything from screen-based experience to the ways that technology was going to reshape our lives, he was the patron saint of all of that.

One of the images that really struck me is when you talk about him dying wigless and being too uncomfortable with that to have friends come and visit him in the hospital.

I think Juniper says at one point that fame is a kind of armor. I don’t know how Warhol thought of his wigs, but I wanted it to be a sort of emblem of protection for him.

Your wife, Sarah, is an Andy Warhol scholar. Was that a major strength while you were writing this?

There’s a huge advantage to being able to fact-check something by shouting down the hall. I also wanted to include Warhol partly as a love note to Sarah … She co-wrote a book about Andy Warhol’s relationship with money and business called “Andy Warhol Enterprises.” After 25 years, our way of looking at art and the art that we’ve shared together is so deeply intertwined that anything I write is unimaginable without her. She’s my first reader and most important reader … It’s only thanks to her that Warhol’s in the book.

You really humanize the young actors in “Hollywood, Ending,” which, unfortunately, is a unique thing. This is an intimate, vulnerable portrayal of behind-the-scenes Hollywood — why was that important for you to examine?

I wanted to write about the machine that takes private experience and commodifies it, and I think that machine is especially challenging to navigate when you’re young, when you’re in early adulthood, because you don’t yet have those relationships that are going to carry you through. You don’t have the love that you need to survive all that you’ve got to survive. When my work became very successful, I was in my 30s. I was married. I had two kids. I lived in Indianapolis. I had best friends. I was pretty grounded, and it was still very disorienting.

How so?

It’s a completely different life to have everybody have opinions about your work than it is to take your kids to school every day. So I was thinking partly about that, but I was also thinking about the influencers I’ve known, and the actors I’ve known who’ve had to go through that [while] much younger, and what that’s been like for them as well.

You do a really good job of examining the dark side of the attention economy. Why was this especially of interest?

Well, it used to be that the attention economy was mostly a problem for actors and other celebrities, but now the attention economy is something we all participate in. We’re all taking our private experiences and packaging them up for public consumption on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and Reddit, and I think we gain something from that, or we wouldn’t do it. But we also lose a lot.

I wanted to try to be honest about what we gain, and also be honest about what we lose. My last novel, nine long years ago, was about a young woman with OCD. I also have OCD, and I had to make a decision when I was promoting that book, about whether I would talk about having OCD, and I decided that I would, and that became a huge part of talking about the novel — talking about my own experiences with mental illness, and it was a gift in many ways because so many people have said to me that it helped them to see that it’s possible to have a good and fulfilling life while living with a serious mental illness, and it was helpful for me because it helped me feel less alone in it.

But it was also complicated because there are real costs when you share something. It’s not yours anymore in ways that are a relief, but also in ways that are difficult.

You’re offering it up for scrutiny in a way that can be really scary.

It is really scary to have your private life scrutinized in that way, right? And there’s an element of judgment that comes with creative expression that’s a natural and healthy part of conversations about what art is and what art should be, but being in the middle of those conversations isn’t always fun.

I think you capture that in Kai’s experience. He is really pressured to come out and talk about his traumatic experience, and he doesn’t want to. The “machine” wants to sell tickets and exploit his trauma in the process.

It’s one thing to try to make good art. It’s another thing to try to make good art that lots of people interact with, and a portion of that second issue is inevitably finding ways to interest an audience, and nothing interests an audience quite like a personal story, especially a personal story of overcoming difficulty.

Was the movie star Matthew Malone based on anyone specifically?

I have aphantasia, this brain condition that causes me not to be able to imagine anything visually. I have no visual imagination, and so I can’t see actors when I’m writing. I can’t see characters when I’m writing. I can’t see anything. Everything’s made out of language, and so there’s no way I could have cast the movie in my mind or had somebody in mind for the character. It’s been great to hear all the folks who people were thinking of. I’m curious who you were thinking of.

I thought of Tom Cruise a couple of times. Have other people said that?

A couple people have said that as well. Yeah.

That’s so interesting about your work with language solely. Do you think that’s been a strength with you as a writer? Because you create such vibrant visuals for your readers.

It’s the only way I’ve ever been. I never knew that other people had this vibrant visual imagination until I was in my 40s, and my wife said I think maybe the reason you don’t have a sense of direction and you have to open up all the cabinets when you put away the dishes and you don’t know whether there’s a rug in the living room is because you don’t have a visual imagination, and I was like, of course I don’t. Nobody does, and she was like, you can’t picture an apple in your head? And I was like, no, nobody can picture an apple in their head. They say they can, but they mean it metaphorically … And Sarah explained to me that, in fact, the vast majority of people can see an apple, which still seems fictional to me, like science fiction stuff.

Some people don’t have that inner voice in their head (anendophasia).

I do have an inner voice. I think. But this all gets to something really interesting about being a person, though, which is that you’re stuck the whole time you’re here inside of one consciousness and looking at the world through one set of eyes. And I have no idea what it’s like to be you. The great thing about writing fiction for me is that act of imagination, that attempt to empathize, that attempt to escape the self and imagine what it would be like to be somebody else with some clarity, but of course, there’s always a limit to my ability to do that, and that problem has fascinated me my whole career.

Your books have meant so much to so many people, and in recent years, I’ve reported quite a bit on your book, “Looking for Alaska,” being one of the most commonly banned books. How do you feel about that?

I’m really concerned about attempts to limit intellectual freedom in the U.S., especially when it comes to libraries and schools. We have professionals we’ve trained to make collection decisions and to make curricular decisions in schools, and those professionals are teachers and librarians, and I’m very disturbed when other people come into that conversation and try to usurp the work that teachers and librarians are doing. I think a lot of times authors get most of the credit for the fight against book bans, and the truth is, all the credit should go to the teachers and librarians who are often putting their jobs on the line, making really difficult decisions to try to do the best by the kids that they’re representing and working with.

John Green will be in conversation with Julia Whelan to discuss “Hollywood, Ending” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13, at a ticketed ALOUD event hosted at Saban Theatre. 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills.

DENVER — The office of Colorado’s attorney general is a perch 10 stories above downtown Denver. From his aerie, Phil Weiser has a sweeping view of the city skyline, the gold-domed Capitol and, occasionally, a red hawk on the wing.

But looking toward November, Weiser sees something darker.

Federal agents swarming polling places. Voters intimidated or blocked from casting their ballots. A tyrannical president using his powers, real and imagined, to undermine or try to overturn the Nov. 3 election.

“With this administration what we have seen is it’s important that we not limit our imagination to what … type of harm could happen,” Weiser said during a sunny noon hour in the Mile High City.

For that reason, Colorado’s attorney general and his Democratic peers around the country have spent more than a year strategizing — by phone, via Zoom, sometimes in person — on ways to Trump-proof the midterm election.

They’ve researched history and the law, war-gamed what-ifs, divvied up responsibilities and drafted emergency lawsuits and temporary restraining orders so they can be hurried into court at a moment’s notice.

“We have prepared for a range of contingencies … so that we’re ready to act,” Weiser said.

“We’re not going to be reacting in real time” or pulling all-nighters, he added. “We are going to be following through on plans we’ve made, having looked at what’s possible.”

The efforts of Weiser, California’s Rob Bonta and more than 20 other Democratic attorneys general are part of a mass mobilization aimed at thwarting Trump’s unprecedented efforts to pervert and subvert November’s midterm balloting.

It’s remarkable that kind of man-the-barricades action is needed to preserve and protect the voting franchise in this, the land of the free and home of the brave. But having weighed the threats, Weiser said his greatest fear of election interference comes not from a bad overseas actor or some terrorist group, but rather our own federal government “and what this administration might do.”

So here we are.

To fend off that threat from within, state Democratic parties across the nation are aiming to recruit 10,000 volunteers to guard polling places in the event armed federal agents show up.

Various sponsors have launched education campaigns to explain election rules and offer hotlines for voters who have trouble casting their ballot.

Civil rights groups and democracy-defending organizations have staged their own tabletop exercises brainstorming and rehearsing various scenarios. A group of Democratic U.S. senators has done the same.

“What we’re doing is preparing for the fact that Donald Trump, in 2020, lied about the election in advance, lied about it in the aftermath, went to court … and then he instigated a violent insurrection in this very building,” Marc Elias, a Democratic elections attorney, told MS NOW in a July interview at the Capitol. “So I think we need to take these threats in the 2026 midterm run-up … both seriously and literally.”

In a more courageous, less heedlessly partisan world, Republicans would be working with Democrats to keep the power-drunk Trump in check. (The House and Senate supposedly comprise a separate and equal branch of government, with its own power, prerogatives and such.)

But, as Weiser noted, this Republican-led Congress “has been lacking in backbone, lacking in the role of checks and balances. That has left it to state attorneys general to fill that vacuum, going to court and essentially playing the role of a check on a lawless and often bullying president.”

The nation’s 24 Democratic attorneys general have filed more than 125 lawsuits in Trump’s second term alone, fighting his moves on trade and tariffs, energy and immigration policies and efforts to gut or eliminate programs and whole government agencies. They’ve prevailed in the overwhelming majority of cases that have been adjudicated or settled.

Even before Trump was elected again, some attorneys general began conferring on ways to fight the excesses they anticipated in a second administration. Anyone who didn’t see them coming wasn’t paying attention, said Weiser, who, most likely, will be elected Colorado’s next governor on Nov. 3.

(His victory in Colorado’s Democratic primary stemmed in good part from Weiser’s record battling Trump in court.)

“The worst-case scenario was that a Trump presidency would work to implement Project 2025 and would do things like try to end birthright citizenship, try to interfere with the delivery of ballots in the mail, would seek to use ICE in ways that were a basic affront to the rule of law,” Weiser said. “All those things have happened.”

So why not expect more of the same come November?

Trump is constitutionally (small “c”) incapable of acknowledging the result of any election he didn’t win. He’s openly urged supporters to “cheat like hell.” Thus, one can only assume malign intent when the president tries to wantonly purge voter rolls, hijack the U.S. Postal service to gum up mail balloting and override the Constitution (capital “c”) by federalizing November’s election.

Some might call such fears melodramatic, or overblown.

But as Weiser said, “We need to stay nervous and stay vigiliant because [of] what this president has shown, Jan. 6 being one of the telling examples.”

Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of elections “is historic,” the attorney general said. “It is unique. It’s a threat. And it’s why we have to stand our guard.”

Vote, to bring this rogue president to heel. Stay vigilant, to make sure that vote counts.

Two good watchwords for this midterm election.

In an otherwise empty compartment of a regional train on its way to a small town in Germany last month, a friendly passenger asked if I was headed to Halberstadt for “the note change.” He was an Australian law professor based in Hong Kong who was traveling with his Swiss mother for the irregular ritual every few years of a new note being sounded on a decommissioned old church’s diminutive modern pipe organ in what feels like the middle of nowhere.

He was hardly alone. The audience the next day in the packed late-Romanesque St. Burchardi “John Cage Organ” Church had come from seemingly everywhere, along with international media, to witness a barely distinguishable new note added to a sustained chord in Cage’s “Organ2/ASLSP.”

“ASLSP” stands for as “As Slow(ly) and Soft(ly) as Possible,” adapted from the opening line of the final paragraph in James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake”: “Soft morning City! Lsp.” Cage had meant his organ piece to enjoy the indeterminacy of neither the performer nor the audience knowing how long the score, in eight parts, would last. In Halberstadt, they are stretching it out 639 years! The performance began in 2001 with the intent that each note change would be a great event.

Four years ago, Times columnist Nicolas Goldberg wrote an opinion piece about his fascination with what to him sounded like a profound project about the meaning of time. I tried to talk him out of what I believed to be a gimmicky violation of the being-in-the-moment spirit of Cage. But what mattered to Nick was the idea, not the intent, and he used me in his column as a foil. Still, Cage has been central to my practicing what some people (not me) call music criticism, and I contended wild horses couldn’t drag me to Halberstadt.

Nevertheless, early August’s “From 7 to 8,” as the note change was advertised, occurred almost exactly to the day, as when, 50 years earlier, I filed my first music review in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. This was also to be my last summer and 121st season on staff of the Los Angeles Times. I step down as music critic Friday. (I still plan to contribute to The Times on an irregular basis.)

I happened to be visiting the Salzburg Festival in August and, in a spirit of endgame, hopped on a train to Halberstadt. On the seven-hour ride, my half-century Cage-suffused career passed through my mind.

I thought about how Cage had once told me that when he was a boy in Los Angeles, he loved Grieg with no need to know why. When he studied music, reason replaced love. It was only regaining the ability to hear music as music that he could compose.

Cage described this as an example of the celebrated Zen koan about reality: First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.

When I accidentally stumbled into music criticism with an academic penchant for music analysis, my crutches for writing about music were technical and of little use in a newspaper. I had to find a way to simply listen. It gave me new ears, and I was hooked.

Cage solved my next problem by insisting that the way to discover new things is to overcome our dependence on our likes and dislikes, those supposed pillars of criticism. College taught me to investigate the “great” composers who mattered and disdain those of no value. Consequently, I had never paid attention to the likes of Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich but discovered that they moved listeners deeply. Again, for me, so-called criticism proved a pathway to opening the mind, and writing about discovery is an ancient pleasure. Cage put it this way: “It’s not what I don’t know that scares me, it’s what I do know.”

The great enticement to return to L.A. after spending nine years in New York (and periodically reporting on Cage from the East Coast and Europe for The Times) was the prospect of Walt Disney Concert Hall. Construction hadn’t yet begun and fundraising was iffy; the community was scared about what it didn’t know. I came armed with another Cage-ism: Every seat is the best seat in the house.

I tried to get the Music Center to make that the motto of the hall. After all, Cage was born at Good Samaritan Hospital about a mile from Disney. That didn’t fly. Still, thanks to Frank Gehry, every seat meant every view inside and out was the best. Every way of seeing also meant every way of hearing. Disney taught L.A. the joy of architecture in a way many of us had never known in this haphazardly built town. Once it was built, there was no choice but to embark on an ongoing love letter to L.A.

Such thoughts on the Cage train poorly suited arriving in the heart of the state of Saxony-Anhalt. One of the first things to catch my eye was a campaign billboard for a far-right Alternative for Germany candidate. A month later AfD would win a landslide victory, dividing Germany and alarming much of Europe.

The streets were mostly deserted. There wasn’t much open, giving the handsome and well-preserved Halberstadt a “Twilight Zone” aura.

In the St. Burchardi Church in Halberstadt, Germany, “The Cage Organ Project” is to be played for 639 years.

(Mark Swed/Los Angeles Times)

Dawn, though, attracted life. “The Cage Organ Project” proved marvelous, to use one of Cage’s favorite words. Whether they were 200-euro ticket holders who had journeyed long and far to be in the church for the note change or the hundreds on complimentary folding chairs outside on the lawn, unshaded in the hot sun watching on large video screens and listening with the assist of a fine amplification system, the aura was now calmness, grace and gratitude.

Nick had been right all along. Time became grounded. The note change is a marker, but the organ, in which air is electronically blown through the pipes day and night for all to hear, has become an endearing sound that connects you to your being. Here and now and hear and now are the same.

ASLSP, moreover, reflects the magical unhurriedness the world craves, be it the slowing down of AI or turning down the volume on social media and politicians’ bully pulpits. None of this may have been on Cage’s mind when “Organ2/ASLSP” had its premiere in Metz, France, in 1987, five years before Cage’s death. That performance lasted a half hour. But Cage is no longer with us, and “Organ2/ASLSP” now has a marvelous life of its own.

One of my most memorable interviews at The Times was with the Dalai Lama in 1999. He had never given one about music and appeared at first sorry he had agreed to. Every question about music got a negative response. The only need he expressed for it was as a fundraising tool for his Tibetan government in exile.

Noting my distress, he explained the problem with music is how easily we get attached to it, and at the heart of Buddhism is nonattachment. Then, breaking the tension with his trademark belly laugh, he admitted his problem was attachment to Buddhism.

At Halberstadt, I may have found my way of letting go. But I also leave The Times with the gratitude not only for the freedom it allowed me to champion causes but also to be part of a very long, quirky process that makes this newspaper unique.

Going back to 1925, there have only been four Times classical music critics in 101 years, and arriving here in 1996, I immediately discovered my roots in Isabel Morse Jones. A violinist who covered music from 1925 to 1947, she was a modernist with her finger on the pulse of the times and stood in refreshing contrast to the fussy East Coast male critics.

She was said to have provided an intellectual awakening of music on the West Coast. She put the Hollywood Bowl on the map. She championed new music and not just the stellar locals, Stravinsky and Schoenberg, but also the avant-garde and world music no one else gave the time of day. After leaving The Times, Jones founded the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara originally modeled after the Salzburg Festival.

She threw her lot in with the society page editor, who covered women’s clubs. Together they became a power duo who campaigned to build a home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which three decades later led to the Music Center. That society editor — who chronicled and illuminated the social, political and artistic issues in L.A. in the 1930s from the women’s perspective — was Crete Cage. John Cage’s mother was a must-read for all women in L.A.

We cannot hold on to Cage, but we can’t escape him either. Times look bad. L.A. feels in the dumps. It was like that, as well, when I arrived at The Times in 1996. The city was still recovering from the 1992 riots — the beating of Rodney King had caused a profound social reckoning — and the 1994 earthquake. There was a recession. The L.A. Phil, now the model arts institution in the country if not the world, was millions of dollars in the hole.

Today, catastrophe is wherever you look. The Olympics, the environment, the damn developers, self-driving cars, LAX. The news business isn’t so hot either.

But let history — and John Cage — remind us that opening our ears can be the conduit to opening our minds. We have a wealth of new artistic leadership on the way at the L.A. Phil, L.A. Opera, L.A. Chamber orchestra and Pacific Symphony; new management at the L.A. Master Chorale and the Wallis and Long Beach Opera. And new ideas all around us.

Just as Disney Hall spread joy when we needed it most, one of Gehry’s final masterpieces is taking shape, the Colburn Center on 2nd Street a block from Disney. I took a hard-hat tour after returning home from Halberstadt and experienced the same combination of awe and promise. When it opens next year, it will be a game changer.

And even here, Cage the connector can’t keep out. At the press opening of Peter Zumthor’s new LACMA building, I buttonholed the architect, telling him I see John Cage all over the place. He looked startled for a moment and then with an uncharacteristic grin replied that he considered that a welcome compliment. Chance, he said, is very important.

Across town, one of MOCA’s most successful exhibitions was its 1993 Cage celebration, “Rolywholyover A Circus.” Cage asked for natural light, so that paintings would always look different whenever you saw them. He wanted the surprise of artwork hung in an unpredictable fashion. He wanted to let the outdoors in and the indoors out.

It is no coincidence that this describes aspects of the new LACMA. “Rolywholyover” traveled to the Guggenheim in New York’s SoHo district the next year, and the young curator in charge was Michael Govan, LACMA’s visionary head behind the Zumthor galleries.

Along with the new LACMA building we have a new Metro D Line stop nearby. Now a direct connector between LACMA and the Colburn Center passes almost directly under Good Samaritan Hospital.

Let me make my last suggestion as “music critic.” How about naming the new D Line connection between LACMA and the Colburn Center the John Cage Express?

Not everything has to be as slow as possible.

Los Angeles County officials aim to break ground on the new Eaton Canyon Nature Center before 2028, with plans to construct a facility that can withstand the region’s changing climate and future disasters.

The previous nature center, which replaced the original Robert M. McCurdy Nature Center that burned down in 1993, was destroyed in the Eaton fire last January. The fire not only destroyed the structure but also a large library and several decades’ worth of archives, and it also killed the reptiles that lived inside the center.

It took about five years to rebuild and open the last nature center. L.A. County Parks Director Norma Edith García-Gonzalez said after the design phase is completed, which could be soon, the county and the architect firm hired for the project will plan out the construction phase.

“We modeled 100-year patterns of wind, fire and flood so that when we build back, we are building back with resistance, and that is able to guide how we plant [and] what type of plants, and how we build, [including] how we build back trails,” García-Gonzalez said.

Norma Edith García-Gonzalez, director of L.A. County Department of Parks and Recreation, speaks during an Eaton Canyon design meeting in mid-September.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The biggest impediment to rebuilding, though, is funding. The county has about $16.2 million in state money, about half of what county officials think is needed to build a new nature center, she said. García-Gonzalez said she hopes the philanthropic community will step up to fill the gaps, but county leaders have noticed that “philanthropy goes from one hot issue to another,” and interest to donate to fire recovery is cooling.

In this week’s edition of The Wild, our weekly outdoors newsletter, I will provide an update on the design plans for the new nature center and when we can expect to hike again in Eaton Canyon — and how you can help with the canyon’s restoration too.

First, let’s discuss a little bit of the history of the area.

The Eaton Canyon Natural Area, managed by L.A. County Parks and Recreation, is a 190(ish)-acre swath of land at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains near Altadena.

“Originally called ‘El Precipicio’ by the Spanish settlers because of its steep gorges, it is now named after Judge Benjamin Eaton, who built the first Fair Oaks Ranch House in 1865 not far from Eaton Creek,” according to the Eaton Canyon Nature Center Associates, a volunteer-run education and stewardship group. “Judge Eaton was the first to use irrigation from the creek to grow grapes on the slopes.”

The canyon has long been a fascination of adventuresome L.A. residents.

The hike to Eaton Canyon Falls in the San Gabriel Mountains before the Eaton fire last January.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

In 1921, writer Frances Mathilda Purdy wrote for The Times that few people knew of the “hidden, but very easily accessible waterfall” in Eaton Canyon. Purdy outlined a few ways to access the canyon and reach the falls, including a shorter route where visitors “after alighting from motor, or stage,” could take a small flight of stone steps near the Mt. Wilson Toll Road bridge.

I chuckled when I read Purdy’s suggestion that this particular route was “perfectly comfortable for those who have arrived on the scene in city garb.” Apparently, underprepared hikers have been coming to Eaton Canyon for more than 100 years. What do you think was the 1920s version of hiking in flip-flops?

For the more rugged adventurer, Purdy laid out a “serpentine trail” that leads to “such lovely possibilities for the pleasure-seeking jaded worker, who, from only one afternoon spent in this quietly entrancing corner of the great outdoors, will return, refreshed and invigorated to meet the daily grind with a mind stored full of the charm of Lower Eaton Canyon.”

Architect Anne Mooney of Sparano + Mooney Architecture speaks about a site plan for the next Eaton Canyon Nature Center.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

It wasn’t until 1930 that Pasadena set aside property that the city owned for a bird and game sanctuary in Eaton Canyon and Eaton Wash, preserving the land from development, according to a historical record compiled by the nature center associates.

There was interest in doing more.

Pasadena Park Superintendent Gilbert Skutt, who served from 1923 to 1936, wanted to see a large scenic public park in Eaton Canyon similar to what the city had built along the Arroyo Seco, according to city records. “He sought to correct the imbalance in the distribution of park space in Pasadena, which favored the west side of town,” according to a historical document. “During the Depression, however, the city could not afford to purchase the land.”

Over time, the city started working with county officials on Eaton Canyon Regional Park, eventually giving the entire project to the county.

In 1931, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors considered financing a 1,000-acre “gigantic regional park system” for the area, according to The Times’ archives, but that idea apparently never fully came to fruition.

Thankfully, in 1950, landowner Mary Beatrice Fox sold the canyon portion of her property to L.A. County to use for a park, “with a provision that mammals are not to be kept in cages,” according to a park history compiled by the Eaton Canyon Nature Center Associates.

A hiker slips in a creek in Eaton Canyon after a 2023 storm.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Then, in 1958, naturalist Louise A. Luckan moved her “nature appreciation operation from the Eaton Canyon Golf Course to Eaton Canyon Park,” according to the organization’s history.

Soon, L.A. County officials set aside $154,797 — about $1.7 million in today’s dollars — for the Robert M. McCurdy Nature Center. They had big plans for the facility, which was to include two classrooms, an office, museum, library, display area, gift shop, laboratory and an auditorium that could seat 200.

“This park will be an outstanding facility — the only one of its kind in magnitude this side of Chicago,” Supervisor Warren Dorn said in a 1962 Times story.

The nature center opened in 1963, and became popular among scouting and school groups, to whom naturalists taught about the local flora and fauna. By the early 1970s, more than 2,000 school children were regularly attending lectures at the nature center, according to Times archives. The students wrote thank-you notes to the park staff, including one that read, “I think it was nice of you to buy this park instead of someone buying it for houses and factories. Because if they did, it would ruin this beautiful land.”

L.A. County sustainability policy director Rebecca Ferdman talks with community stewards about how to educate and engage the public about the goldspotted oak borer, a pernicious invasive beetle that destroys oak trees, during a meeting at Eaton Canyon Nature Center in 2024.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

But, in 1993, the canyon’s first nature center was destroyed by the Kinneloa fire. The next nature center didn’t reopen until 1998.

Karen Mateer, vice president of the Eaton Canyon Nature Center Associates, said for more than 25 years, that nature center served as a meeting place and an educational hub for the millions who visited the canyon over the years.

Mateer, who started volunteering in 1998, said many local schoolchildren first experienced the concept of “nature” at Eaton Canyon on field trips. Volunteers would regularly hear from adults, who pursued recreation- or nature-focused careers, that the first place they ever hiked or learned about their natural habitat was at Eaton Canyon.

“Eaton Canyon also, for the community, for those of us up here who lost so much, it is familiar and is a place you often go for recreation, for solace,” Mateer said. “It means a lot.”

At a presentation last week, architect Anne Mooney said her firm analyzed where to best place the new nature center, and not wanting to destroy any existing habitat or take down any of the area’s oaks or other trees, recommended the new building be placed east of the previous site.

It was easy for visitors to miss the previous nature center, because it was situated in a thick stand of oaks, and the new location will allow the nature center to serve as a gateway to the park, as it will be near the canyon’s trailhead.

“The nature center has always been more than just a building,” Mooney said. “It’s really been a gateway to an experience of learning about nature, experiencing a connection to the wildlands and developing stewardship of the canyon. We want to continue that tradition.”

A diagram of the wind analysis conducted by architects as they assessed where to place Eaton Canyon’s new nature center.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The new nature center, as shown in the current design plan, is horseshoe-shaped with a covered entryway. It will be constructed using durable, fire-resistant materials, including stone and steel. Builders would also construct curved walls to serve as windbreaks, which would not only slow gusts but also divert airborne embers during a fire.

The proposed designs also include roof and eave sprinklers that could pre-wet the building and nearby surrounding area with a specialized firefighting foam during a wildfire.

“We recognize that the fire is a recurring part of the ecology, and we will have another fire,” Mooney said. “We’re working to design something that allows us to be more prepared in the future.”

The Eaton Canyon Nature Center, a 7,600-square-foot building, was destroyed in the Eaton fire. It housed live animals, exhibits, classrooms, a gift shop and more.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

The design also includes a research lab, a learning lab or classroom, a large multipurpose space that can fit an estimated 150 people when seated (or 300 people when standing), an exhibit space, a gift shop and a large courtyard in the center with shade, seating and live animal enclosures.

Officials stressed that the design is preliminary and dependent on funding. Anyone who wants to see the design for themselves and provide their feedback can attend the next public meeting, From Ashes to Action: Reimagining Eaton Canyon, from 5 to 7 p.m. Oct. 7 at the L.A. County Arboretum.

Kevin Singleton, center, points to the Eaton Canyon Nature Center design during a recent county event where officials discussed the future of Eaton Canyon.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

In terms of when hikers will return to the canyon’s trails, García-Gonzalez said the county needs an estimated $8 million to reestablish the trail system. The county has fundraised and received only $900,000 of that.

“We already put that money to work,” García-Gonzalez said, partnering with L.A. Conservation Corps to start rebuilding trails. “But there are some [trails] that really need significant and heavy engineering.”

The county also has to plan its work around the strong winter storms forecasted as a result of El Niño, she said. “We are bracing ourselves for even more damage,” García-Gonzalez said.

A map of the proposed courtyard of the new Eaton Canyon Nature Center.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Since the fire, volunteers have donated hundreds of hours to work on restoring the canyon’s habitat.

You can join them. Volunteers meet from 8 to 11:30 a.m. every Friday and the second and fourth Saturday of every month. Participants remove invasive plants that zap up resources for native plants trying to reestablish themselves. Training and tools are provided. You can sign up by visiting signupgenius.com.

“The love, the care, the stewardship, the commitment, the hope, the inspiration of the volunteers is unparalleled,” García-Gonzalez said. “They’re driving us to build back because they’re so committed. They’re all in.”

3 things to do

“MASH,” a military dramedy that aired on CBS from 1972 to 1983, is one of several Hollywood productions filmed at Malibu Creek State Park.

(Courtesy of California State Parks, 2026.)

1. Celebrate 50 years of public land in Calabasas
Malibu Creek State Park will celebrate its past 50 years from 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday at 1925 Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas. Attendees can touch fossils, explore the park‘s trees and make art, all while listening to music and eating from local food trucks. At Stories Under the Stars at 6:30 p.m., a diverse cast of storytellers will teach visitors about the park’s history, culture and science. The L.A. Astronomical Society will host a star party at 8 p.m. Guests are encouraged to carpool or use the free shuttle from Juan Bautista de Anza Park to the park. The event is free, but parking is not. Register at eventbrite.com.

2. Repair the river near Azusa
Volunteers are needed from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, which is National Public Lands Day, at the Oaks Picnic Area near the San Gabriel River for a cleanup effort. Organized by five community conservation corps groups, including San Gabriel Valley Conservation Corps, volunteers will pick up trash and help clean the river. Register at docs.google.com.

3. Cast a line under a full moon in Castaic
Friends of Castaic Lake will host the organization’s final Moonlight Madness event of the year from 6 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Saturday at Castaic Lake. Guests can fish from the shore, from a boat or not fish at all as they enjoy an evening in the outdoors. Tickets start at $23. Glow sticks required for each participant. Register at givebutter.com.

The must-read

Jim Crouch stands in a field with Englemann oaks at the Santa Ysabel Open Space Preserve.

(Sandy Huffaker / For The Times)

Jim Crouch, a retired science teacher near San Diego, noticed how the oak trees around him were disappearing, succumbing to disease, drought and development. Times contributor Jessie Schiewe wrote that Crouch, moved to action, collected acorns and gave away the resulting potted seedlings to others. Now, after planting 10,000 acorns, he dreams of the day he completes his 20,000th seedling. “I’ve never been so ambitious,” he says, “and I’ve never done a project with as much love in it and as little ego.”

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve will be closed until March as construction workers upgrade gas, water, wastewater and communication lines. They also will install new accessible parking stalls and an accessible pedestrian path from the upper parking lot to the restroom and park’s lodge. Times staff writer Christopher Reynolds wrote that the park’s 1,750-acre Torrey Pines reserve attracts about 4 million visitors each year (about the same number as visit Yosemite National Park). Torrey Pines State Beach will remain open through the closure. If you’d hoped to visit this particular park in the fall, consider instead one of 13 places in California that Reynolds recently wrote are ideal to check out in autumn. Warning: As I read the piece, I felt the immediate urge to book campsites at several spots around our state! I am so ready for cozy season.

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

Every so often, an aspiring screenwriter wanders into the dim red glow of Jumbo’s Clown Room hoping to interview one of the dancers. “They’re like: ‘I’m writing a screenplay. Can I interview you?” says Cecilia Fairchild, one of the longtime dancers at the renowned East Hollywood bikini bar.

Her response is usually some version of this: “I’m like, ‘Why are you writing about that? Don’t you know we are all writing that too? Leave us alone,’” Fairchild says with a mischievous laugh. What bothers Fairchild is the assumption behind it — that the dancers are voiceless and helpless. Worst of all, they’re presumed to have stories worth mining but not the ability to produce literature themselves.

Jumbo’s has a longstanding reputation of being part of L.A.’s literary lore.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Charles Bukowski — L.A. nightlife’s debaucherous poet laureate — was rumored to haunt the bikini bar in its early days. David Lynch wrote his classic screenplay “Blue Velvet” at the bar. (According to local legends, the iconic opening shot of “Blue Velvet” came to Lynch when he spotted a dancer with only one ear.) Writer and director Quentin Tarantino reputedly wrote at the bar. But while Jumbo’s has garnered a mythology as a magnet for filmmakers, writers and musicians who collect impressions, the dive’s dancers have shifted from being the subject to the artists.

Many of Jumbo’s dancers write fiction and memoir, host literary salons across Los Angeles and find ways to tell their own stories rather than serve as muses. “It’s funny because I wish that male auteurs would tell the story of customers. I want a sniffer’s memoir. I think that’s a real point of view,” Fairchild says. (Speaking of alienation and horniness, the dancer has been meaning to crack the Marcel Proust canon.)

Honey Ryder (Claudia Musikul) types on the bar inside Jumbo’s Clown Room. (Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Fairchild is a playwright, poet and memoirist. Her recently completed memoir, “The Poison + The Spit,” traces a life of tumultuous love affairs and a stint dancing in New Orleans, rendered in prose that is whimsical, surreal and deeply emotional. The dancer also hosts the Downpour, a popular monthly literary salon at Bar Covell, and recently directed “Fool in the Pool,” a play that premiered at El Condor in Silver Lake this summer.

Her writing style mirrors her dancing: kinetic, wild and unpredictable. She sometimes takes the stage in roller skates, dancing to David Bowie. Her memoir achieves that same sense of hypnotic motion. “The memoir is so heavy,” she says. “Everything was so sad that I needed some lens to look at it that was fun, zippy and crazy.”

For Fairchild, dancing and writing possess the same need to expose oneself. “Vulnerability is one of the most interesting things about dancing,” she says. “There really is the potential to look into people, and they look into you, and you wordlessly share something with them that is half sexual and half this other thing.”

Meanwhile, Danielle Henderson — another dancer and aspiring novelist at Jumbo’s who writes under the pen name D.M. Faulk — has been working on a science-fiction novel titled “Meridian.” The book imagines a dystopian American wasteland where pregnant women are surveilled and controlled. She has been a longtime science-fiction fan since she and her father watched “Jurassic Park” and “Planet of the Apes” when she was a child.

Long treated as passive muses by visiting writers, Jumbo’s dancers — from left, Caroline Blaike (Caroline Moyer), Honey Ryder (Claudia Musikul), and Cecilia Fairchild — are reclaiming the narrative as active poets, memoirists and screenwriters.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Unexpectedly, the Jumbo’s comically tiny dressing room became the inspiration for her novel. In 2022, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, conversations between dancers about reproductive rights ignited in the dressing room, which in turn informed her novel.

“A lot of those conversations happen in the dressing room. I’m incredibly inspired by the women I’m with who are incredibly sex positive and strong.” That ethos informed Henderson’s protagonist, Zayla.

In recent years, the bar has become a local author hangout. Allie Rowbottom, the author of the recent buzzy adult film novel “Lovers XXX,” discovered the bar in 2011 on the occasion of writer Elizabeth Hall’s birthday party. “I recall sitting front row on novelist Jon Lindsey’s lap, raining dollar bills on dancers performing intricate, beautiful athletic feats,” Rowbottom says. “I spent more than I could afford that night and have been back often since.”

Increasingly, Jumbo’s has cemented itself as a watering hole to the local writing scene. “Two years ago, I rented out a few tables for Jon Lindsey’s birthday, attended by Los Angeles literati like Tea Hacic-Vlahovic, Sammy Loren, Morgan Krantz, Tex Gresham and Nada Alic,” she adds.

According to Rowbottom, Jumbo’s is rife for literary inspiration. “To me, Jumbo’s feels uniquely dedicated, as a venue, to intersecting sex and art, despite the obvious dissonance of selling either,” she says. “I suspect such is what has historically made it a rich spot for writers, dissonance and tension being of utmost importance to good literary work.”

From left, Caroline Blaike (Caroline Moyer), Honey Ryder (Claudia Musikul), Cecilia Fairchild and Stephen (Aaron Laughton) inside Jumbo’s Clown Room.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

A charged scene in L.A. writer Aiden Arata’s critically-acclaimed 2025 essay collection, “You Have a New Memory,” features a night out at Jumbo’s Clown Room. “The dancers are starlets, athletes, artists; the theme is clown, and also longing — longing is a high form of physical comedy,” says Arata. “It possesses that heady mix of scuzz and glamour that can trick you into thinking your life is about to change.”

Jumbo’s burgeoning literary interest revives a hotly debated question: Who gets to tell the stories of sex work? For decades, the club has inspired celebrated writers and filmmakers, but Claudia Musikul — a dancer at Jumbo’s and a screenwriter herself — hopes its literary legacy will increasingly belong to the people at its core: the dancers.

“I hope that everybody can actually get their work out there because I feel it’s much deserved,” says Musikul. “You’ve probably heard about Bukowski, David Lynch doing ‘Blue Velvet’, or Anthony Bourdain. That’s all really cool, but in a way, it’s the actual dancers’ turn to have that kind of recognition.”

Musikul primarily writes screenplays about strippers, a subject she believes is seldom represented authentically. She has been in writing partnerships and workshops while developing scripts centered on dancers. In a sea of films depicting sex work, she cites Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls” as a film that resonates with her experience.

“‘Showgirls’ is my very favorite movie,” she says. “It’s my very special place in my heart movie.”

For Caroline Blaike, a poet and dancer at Jumbo’s, the connection between dancing and writing lies in observation. Years of performing have made her acutely attentive to the people who pass through the club, a voyeuristic habit that carries over into her poetry.

“When you’re a dancer, you’re very observant. You watch every person that walks in,” she says. “I feel like the way dancing makes you observe people helps you write from a perspective that other people can then relate to.”

Blaike has been working on a poetry collection that explores love, queerness, desire and personhood. “It’s gotten a little sexier over time, which is kind of fun,” she says. “I also just write about love, being gay, just existing. It can be a little aggressive, but people seem to like it, so that’s good.” She writes these poems from her prized typewriter — a “1951 Olympia typewriter that is my child.”

Among Blaike’s earliest literary touchstones was Maya Angelou. She still remembers encountering Angelou’s line in her poem “Still I Rise,” “I dance like I have diamonds at the meeting of my thighs,” and being stunned by it.

“I was like, ‘Oh, you can write that? That’s amazing,’” she says.

The literary ambitions at Jumbo’s extend well beyond the stage. Stephen Laughton, one of the club’s security guards, jokes that he leads a double life. By night, he keeps watch at the door; by day, he is an award-winning playwright. He’s recently been named the new associate artistic director of the Echo Theater in Atwater Village, and Laughton’s served as the writer-in-residence in the astrophysics department at the Natural History Museum in New York. Last November, his latest play became the first in the world to be staged in a planetarium.

“It’s this crazy, beautiful science play about two guys who meet in a club that explores mental health in the LGBT community, human interaction, time and astrophysics,” Laughton says.

Like many of his co-workers, Laughton has found himself turning Jumbo’s into copy. The club, he suggests, has a way of compelling everyone who works there to write about it.

“I think that probably what we’re all going to realize is that we’re all writing a version of the exact same story,” Laughton jokes.

Blaike argues that the dancers’ diverse talents are a key reason why Jumbo’s Clown Room has become such a beloved institution in the city. “It attracts confident, creative women who work there,” says Blaike. “Our community of women is supportive of each other and each other’s endeavors. … It really does facilitate that.”

In the second week of the college football season, in a clash of titans, the University of Texas scored 21 unanswered points to surge past Ohio State in the fourth quarter and win, 24-23.

The comeback, Gov. Greg Abbott decreed, was the greatest home victory in more than 130 years of Longhorn football.

A screen grab of one celebratory moment showed a group of students ecstatic beyond belief. They were clad in the university’s signature burnt orange. Two wore cowboy hats. One flashed “Hook ‘em Horns,” the university’s proud hand signal.

To see the picture earlier this month was to witness pure, untempered joy.

But Bo French, the Republican candidate for Texas Railroad Commission, saw something different.

Most of the students were darkly complected and apparently of South Asian heritage. French posted the photo and wrote on X, “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”

He followed with a second post, doubling down on the racist “Great Replacement” theory.

“Like body-cams exposed criminals, social media is exposing how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners,” French spewed. “It’s everywhere and far worse than any of us could imagine.”

In many places, French’s unapologetic, unvarnished bigotry would be disqualifying. But given Texas’ strong Republican leaning he stands a better-than-even chance of being elected in November to the state Railroad Commission, which, despite its name, oversees Texas’ vast oil and gas industry.

The hateful gibe was perfectly in character. “In some ways in Texas this is old news,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, who teaches political science at the University of Houston.

Last year, as chairman of the Tarrant County GOP, French posted an online poll asking, “Who is a bigger threat to America?” The choice on offer: Muslims or Jews.

Speaking in March at a political conference, he urged President Trump to round up and deport every Muslim in the country, calling the Islamic faith subversive and a clear and present danger to America.

“The Republican Party is used to Bo French making these kinds of outrageous statements,” Rottinghaus said.

Still, the response to French’s latest acrid emission was telling, not least for what it says about reflexive partisanship and today’s political reward structure.

As you’d expect, his Democratic opponent, state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, was scathing. “I spent 25 years as an oil and gas engineer,” he wrote on social media. “Bo French spent Sunday morning sorting our student section by skin color … A man who can’t tell a Longhorn from a foreigner has no business regulating anything in TX.”

The state’s outgoing U.S. senator, Republican John Cornyn, was also quick to denounce French. “This is the Republican nominee for statewide office,” Cornyn said in a post. “Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized.”

For Abbott and for Ken Paxton, who beat Cornyn in an eye-gouging, rabbit-punching Republican Senate primary, the answer was, for all intents, the latter.

“That is not my message,” Abbott said in a written statement, summoning the moral clarity and political courage of a puff pastry. “We all support our college football teams. The way we win the state is the same way we win football games. We unite under the brand of Texas.”

Then, just to have it both ways, Abbott suggested “that doesn’t mean that Texas cannot also lead in having the toughest immigration laws of any state in America and freezing H1B visas at our universities.” (The overwhelming majority of those holding H1B visas are Asian nationals from India and China.)

Paxton responded by attacking his Democratic opponent, state Rep. James Talarico, for saluting Cornyn for taking a stand against French’s prejudice. “I condemn racism in all its forms,” Paxton wrote on X, adding, “Only one person in this race has a history of dividing Texans by race, and it’s James Talarico.”

A simple, straightforward condemnation shouldn’t have been hard. Lacey Hull, a Republican state representative from Houston, was among those in the GOP who showed how.

“Please delete this,” she urged French on X. “This post breaks my heart. I see college kids cheering on their football team. I see Texans.”

But Abbott, bidding for an unprecedented fourth term, is facing a tougher than expected race against Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa.

Paxton, whose unsavory resume includes impeachment, indictment, petty theft and charges of adultery, has managed the rare feat of turning his race against Talarico into a nail-biter. (It’s been more than three decades since a Democrat won statewide office in Texas.)

Both need a robust GOP turnout to win in November and neither wants to risk alienating too many within the party’s xenophobic, anti-immigrant wing.

“They’re concerned about turnout,” said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University. “Texas is a red state, but one thing that Republicans are concerned about is that the base may not turn out in as large a number as they need.”

Given French’s loathsome history, Abbott and others in the party establishment worked hard to keep him from winning the Republican nomination, Rice noted. But not Paxton. He headlined the kickoff to French’s campaign and has good reason to be glad he won and is now part of the GOP ticket.

His presence means that Paxton is only the second most odious figure seeking statewide office in Texas in November.

Hikers trekking along trails around Los Angeles know that, by late summer, most creeks and rivers have dried up for the season.

However, recent rainfall across Southern California has replenished our waterways just enough to bring back a little of their spring and early summer glamour.

In this week’s edition of The Wild, our weekly outdoors newsletter, I will highlight three L.A. trails where you can still find water flowing, offering a cool relief in a year when L.A. residents are sick of humidity, heat and high electric bills.

Before heading out, here are a few things to remember:

• Familiarize yourself with what poison oak looks like, as it will be prominent on all of these trails. Its leaves this time of year range from glossy green to red, orange and yellow.
• Practice seven Leave No Trace principles, including never leaving anything behind such as toilet paper or orange peels.
• Rocks and boulders in and along creeks will often be slippery from years of erosion. Take good care when climbing them or using them for leverage as you traverse an area.
• Wear insect repellent. Mosquitoes and ticks are both found along the routes below.
• Riparian habitats, like creeks flowing through canyons, are home to sensitive creatures including California newts, frogs and toads. Take good care to watch where you’re stepping, ensuring you aren’t crushing one of these little sweeties as you tromp along.

Now that we’ve all agreed to recreate responsibly, let’s talk about those hikes!

The Santa Ynez waterfall is an 18-foot cascade through a canyon carved by water for thousands of years.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

1. Santa Ynez Waterfall Trail

Distance: 2.2 miles out and back
Elevation gained: About 200 feet
Difficulty: Easy in the beginning with technical aspects near the falls
Dogs allowed: No
Nearest to: Pacific Palisades
Accessible alternative: Inspiration Loop Trail at Will Rogers State Historic Park

The Santa Ynez waterfall trail is a 2.2-mile journey along Santa Ynez Creek in Topanga State Park, shaded by large sycamores, oak trees and the canyon’s walls. You’ll notice a small cave-like structure in the canyon wall shortly upon starting the hike. Unfortunately, other visitors have carved into its sides. Don’t be one of them.

To begin your hike, you will park along Vereda de la Montura. Note that parking isn’t allowed daily between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.

A small cave-like structure in Santa Ynez Canyon in Topanga State Park.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

I thought I was in the wrong place when I first pulled up, given the trailhead sits in the middle of a neighborhood. I walked northwest along the street and found an open gate with stairs leading down. This is where you’ll start the trail.

I was immediately reminded of Sullivan Canyon (which is about 3 miles away, as the crow flies), as the two canyons feature rocky canyon walls and tall old trees. There are a few times when the trail splits off and returns to itself. Just over half a mile in, though, the trail splits in two, with Santa Ynez Canyon Trail to the west (or left) and the waterfall trail, which you will take to the north or northwest-ish.

A lush tree canopy provides shade in Santa Ynez Canyon as hikers head to the waterfall.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

The first mile of this trail is primarily a nice stroll northward along a creek, the ground covered in green and brown leaves. However, just over a mile in, if you want to see the waterfall and small cave next to it, you will need to scramble up a large boulder and then rock hop through the creek. As of last week, there was a rope to aid hikers upward. (On my way down, I unintentionally slid quickly down the rock, feeling every peddle in the tuchus until I landed feet first in the creek — so take your time here.)

The waterfall isn’t roaring at the moment, but I found the trickling sound of water soothing. It’s also a geologically interesting area to look around, as the water has carved out the canyon walls into interesting shapes (and created a small cave near the waterfall).

The walls of Santa Ynez Canyon were carved by water, wind and time over centuries.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

As I was heading back from the falls, I noticed several bees circling an area high in the canyon wall where it appeared they’d built a nest. Pack accordingly if you are allergic to bee stings.

Slow down and look up as you hike through Santa Ynez Canyon, taking the opportunity to observe rock formations, plants and reptiles.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

I only saw three other people along the trail while there on a weekday. I was mostly alone, though, listening to the wrentits and spotted towhees as blue dragonflies darted to and fro.

Cold Creek in the Cold Creek Valley Preserve near Calabasas.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

2. Cold Creek Trail

Distance: 2.2 miles out and back (with option to extend)
Elevation gained: About 300 feet
Difficulty: Easier end of moderate
Dogs allowed: Yes
Nearest to: South of Calabasas
Accessible alternative: Nicholas Flat ADA Trail

The Cold Creek Valley Preserve, cared for by the TreePeople Land Trust, is a shady riparian habitat near Calabasas with a gently flowing creek that features multiple short cascades. The land was saved from development by several local residents and nonprofits, including Timothy B. Schmit, bass player for the Eagles.

The preserve features multiple public hiking routes, including the Cold Creek Trail.

“Located on an ancient trade route, the [I]ndigenous people of Southern California have used the area for hunting and settlement for generations, leaving a lasting influence visible on the land,” according to TreePeople. “The perennial Cold Creek is the keystone feature of the area, one of the cleanest free-flowing streams in the Santa Monica Mountains.”

The tree canopy along the Cold Creek Trail in the Cold Creek Valley Preserve provides a shady cool environment for hikers.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

To begin your hike, you’ll park in a bumpy dirt lot just off Stunt Road. Be mindful as you near the trailhead, as there will likely be construction crew members in the area. They’re working to install rumble strips and other infrastructure to slow down drivers and hopefully improve traffic safety.

At the start of the trail, you’ll find a portable toilet near the gate. You’ll walk southeast for a short bit before rounding the curve of the trail. You’ll officially be transported into this sylvan sanctuary (although I could admittedly still hear the construction workers communicating on their walkie-talkies).

The trail mostly runs parallel to Cold Creek, which you will hear flowing and have the opportunity to sit near at multiple points along the route, including on a few wooden benches. The trail crosses the creek about four times, but it isn’t overly technical to maneuver.

The Cold Creek Valley Preserve is open from sunrise to sunset.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

About half a mile in, the trail intersects with Lower Stunt High Trail. You can continue northwest along the creek. You will find another option, the Yucca Trail, just under a mile into your hike, a nice .68-mile loop through the preserve.

The park, open from sunrise to sunset, offers a sweet reprieve from the sun and is a great spot to take a deep breath and meditate in the woods.

The Gabrielino Trail is a multi-use trail frequented by hikers, bikers and horseback riders.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

3. The Gabrielino National Recreation Trail (multiple segments)

Distance: 28.8 miles
Elevation gained: About 6,000 feet
Difficulty: Challenging when done in its entirety
Dogs allowed: Yes
Nearest to: Arcadia and Pasadena, depending on the trailhead
Accessible alternative: Gabrielino Trail starting near North Windsor Avenue near Altadena

The Gabrielino National Recreation Trail is a 28.8-mile journey through the San Gabriel Mountains. Most thru-hikers start the trail at Chantry Flat and take the trail on a squiggly N-shaped journey all the way to its western trailhead near NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena.

However, it isn’t necessary to take the entire Gabrielino Trail to enjoy its beauty. The trail has several entry points, offering short day trips, including the following, which run parallel to at least one local creek or river:

Regardless of where you go, I hope you enjoy our last weekend of summer. That’s right: Summer ends Tuesday! Hopefully that means it soon feels like autumn in L.A.

3 things to do

Volunteers walk down the beach at a Heal the Bay coastal cleanup event in 2024 with Water for L.A.

(Heal the Bay)

1. Clean up public lands around L.A.
Heal the Bay will host L.A. County’s annual coastal cleanup day from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday in more than 60 sites. Participants should consider wearing closed-toe shoes and sun protection. Cleanup supplies will be available at sites but will run out at popular sites. Volunteers can pick a beach, river, park or trail near them by visiting support.healthebay.org.

2. Portray a bird of prey in San Dimas
The San Dimas Canyon Nature Center will host a guided sketch experience from 6 to 7 p.m. Friday at 1628 Sycamore Canyon Road in San Dimas. Participants will learn how to draw a red-tailed hawk. Learn more at the center’s Instagram page.

3. Learn dangers from rangers in Newbury Park
Hikers can bring their four-legged besties to Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday for a B.A.R.K. Rangers event where rangers will educate dog owners on how to safely and responsibly enjoy public lands. Rangers will also conduct a special swearing-in ceremony, complete with a Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area B.A.R.K. Ranger badge, for pups who complete certain challenges. Learn more at eventbrite.com.

The must-read

A juvenile great white shark in Hermosa Beach in April, seen via drone.

(CSULB Shark Lab)

Yes, El Niño morphed our city’s usually pleasant Mediterranean climate into the largest hot yoga class in L.A. But did you know it has also resulted in our ocean water being warm enough to attract animals not usually seen along our coastline? Those fishing off the Malibu Pier were surprised in mid-August by a hammerhead shark swimming nearby. A giant whale shark was recently documented by a fish spotter between Malibu and one of the Channel Islands, a species that prefers warmer waters (and is the largest known fish on the planet). And in line with our predicted “sharky summer,” a juvenile great white shark was spotted a bit close to a swimmer off the coast of Santa Barbara. The best news is: Nothing bad has happened to any humans or animals during these visits, underscoring how well we can co-exist with these beings, despite our fears of them.

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

More and more wildlife lovers are heading into public lands for “recreational herping,” the practice of looking for amphibians and reptiles. Conservation photographer Mario Ramos recently raised concerns via his Instagram page about how the increase is leading some folks to unintentionally harm the animals they seek to observe. “A harsh truth about field herping is that our interactions with wild herps are often stressful and potentially detrimental to the animals, no matter how you frame it,” Ramos wrote. Ramos then outlined how to ethically look for animals that slither and slide in the wild. Always respect the locals, folks!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

TORONTO — An actor from last year’s Toronto International Film Festival has been turning heads around town this week: Inde Navarrette, whose “Obsession” went from a modest 2025 Midnight Madness slot to a box office behemoth.

But if you had to pick this year’s Navarrette, who would it be? Among the breakout names of TIFF 2026 is unquestionably Rosalind Eleazar, the London-born 38-year-old star of “Misty Green,” the first film written and directed by Chris Rock since 2014’s “Top Five” and among the most notable world premieres at this year’s festival.

Misty is a Hollywood survivor who was never able to make the most of her own success, winning an Emmy a few years back but now losing the apartment she has been living in because the widow of the man she was cheating with wants it back. With her bad attitude and personal problems, Misty has burned many bridges along the way. There’s a chance she could be cast in a remake of “Dreamgirls” that would turn everything around for her, but Misty’s brother, Jay (Daniel Kaluuya, in his first major screen role since 2022’s “Nope”), was recently released from a mental facility and needs monitoring.

Though there are comedic moments along the way, “Misty Green” is very much a character study, as well as an unsparring examination of the systemic pressures on Black women in Hollywood — one executive interrupts Misty’s audition to ask if she is “mixed.” She does herself no favors, frequently self-sabotaging and getting in her own way.

“Being an actor is hard,” Eleazar said in an interview at The Times’ photo and video studio in Toronto on Sunday with a sense of well-earned candor. “I could totally relate to Misty’s journey and the setbacks and the constant picking yourself back up after multiple rejections and just going again. And trying not to have armor because as an actor you want to keep yourself open and you don’t want to harden too much. But it can be easy to harden yourself to an industry that can be unforgiving.”

Though “Misty Green” is Eleazar’s first lead in a film, she has had a steadily building career. She is probably most familiar to American audiences from her role as an MI5 agent on the Apple TV series “Slow Horses.” But soon she will likely be known for the explosive announcement that is “Misty Green.” The film will go on to play at the New York Film Festival and the London Film Festival and be released by distributor A24 on Oct. 9.

“It can be easy to harden yourself to an industry that can be unforgiving,” Eleazar says.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

After her movie’s TIFF world premiere in a coveted Saturday night slot at Roy Thompson Hall, Eleazar was included among those celebrated at the annual TIFF Tribute Awards, a fundraising gala put on by the festival. She was recognized alongside such actors as Helen Mirren, Penélope Cruz and Isabelle Huppert, whom she called “extraordinary company.”

“I grew up watching them and admired their work,” Eleazar says earlier in the day. “It’s just such an honor to be considered amongst heavyweights like that. Dame Helen Mirren. Crikey.”

With a warm smile she adds, “Just went very British.”

In accepting the prize, Eleazar recalled how when she came to Toronto for the premiere of her first feature film, 2019’s “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” she stepped away from a party to call her mother at 4 a.m. London time. Not wanting to make that same mistake again, she made sure her mother was there with her in Toronto for this year’s Sunday gala, sitting at a table with Eleazar’s husband, the actor and producer Gabriele Lo Giudice.

Eleazar performs two songs in the film, a heartbreakingly vulnerable cabaret version of Radiohead’s “Creep” and a stripped-down, tender reading of “One Night Only” from “Dreamgirls.” (Eleazar does not consider herself a singer and took vocal lessons before shooting.) Then, in a scene in which Misty demands she be allowed to finish an audition, she flashes into someone else in a bit of pure craft that leaves those in the room astonished.

It was important that Misty be seen as someone who is in fact immensely talented, who may even be worth all the bother and strife that she brings along with her.

“I think we’ve seen movies before where the character isn’t talented and it’s about the hustle and the dream of making it in Hollywood,” says Eleazar. “But I think it’s really interesting seeing someone that cannot get out of their own way — someone that is railing against the industry and is fighting Hollywood, fighting herself, fighting the people around her. It becomes quite a universal subject. It is about our industry but it’s also just about someone who is trying to escape herself.”

Despite Misty’s obvious talents, acting simply may not be the best career for her anymore; it strains her emotional and mental health and enables her substance abuse. Over the course of her own career, Eleazar has at times had to check in with herself to make sure she was heading down the right path.

“There are definitely times that I’ve questioned it,” she says. “For me it does really feed my soul and therefore, at my low points, I’ve managed better. But it can be really heavy. And maybe I shouldn’t but I feel like I’m pretty happy being an actor.”

Chris Rock and Rosalind Eleazar in the movie “Misty Green.”

(A24)

To land the role, after a few meetings with Rock over Zoom, Eleazar flew herself from London to Los Angeles so she could read in the room. As it happened, it made for an intense few days: First she had a chemistry read with Ralph Fiennes in the U.K. for a stage role (she would appear opposite Fiennes in “Small Hotel” in 2025) and then immediately flew to L.A. to read with Rock.

“What a mad, amazing three days,” she recalls. Similarly, Eleazar would be ending her whirlwind few days in Toronto by heading to Los Angeles to be with the “Slow Horses” team for the Emmys on Monday.

In introducing her tribute on Sunday night, Rock recalled when Eleazar auditioned for the part.

“The room just changed,” he said. “She was funny, she was dangerous, she was moving and completely in command. Misty Green is a woman whose life is coming apart. Rosalind never played her as a victim. She made you see the intelligence, the appetite and the fight underneath all the chaos. The audition was supposed to help me decide who to play Misty, but halfway through, the decision had already been made.”

“It becomes quite a universal subject,” Eleazar says of Chris Rock’s latest movie. “It is about our industry but it’s also just about someone who is trying to escape herself.”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

There is something poetic about the fact that playing a mid-career actress struggling to land her next job may be the very thing that brings Eleazar wider recognition.

“It’s kind of meta, isn’t it?” she says with a laugh. “Look, I’m so happy that people are responding to the film and my performance. That really is the cherry on top because for me — I know it sounds rather cheesy — but I literally felt like I won once I did that film. I had such a great time exploring who she was and working with Chris and Daniel and Adam [Driver] and that cast. So everything else is just so lovely.”

In accepting her own tribute award on Sunday, Helen Mirren went off-script from her prepared remarks to say how moved she had been by Eleazar’s earlier speech, adding, “It’s exciting to see the generations coming up, especially women.”

As Rock succinctly added in his speech, “Misty Green wishes she could be Rosalind Eleazar.”

Regardless of what happens with “Misty Green” commercially or throughout awards season, Eleazar will continue tending her steady climb. Production will begin soon on season 7 of “Slow Horses” and Eleazar is currently shooting a film role that she isn’t yet allowed to talk about.

But Misty and the experience of bringing her to life on the screen will remain transformative.

“It almost reminded me of like a Shakespearean character in a way,” Eleazar says. “She’s so self-destructive and flawed and contradictory and at times it’s hard to get onside with her. We see it a lot of the time with male roles and I’d love to see it more with female roles — these really complex and messy characters.”