
Hours before two of the most storied franchises in NFL history met in Super Bowl XLV, more than 8,000 people kept a Redondo Beach tradition alive in what has become one of – if not the – largest Super Bowl celebration in Southern California. Read more on the fog, costumes and finishers.

The story of how Trace Bundy built his very own music industry is somewhat analogous to the way the song “Missile Bell” came to him a few years ago while traveling in Central America.
Bundy was a recently liberated young engineering professor. He’d been playing guitar more or less as a hobby since he was 12-years-old and possessed a genuine gift for it. But musically Bundy felt like he had an inescapable limitation: he could not sing. So he did the practical thing, took an engineering scholarship to go to college, and eventually became Professor Bundy.

Neil Simon’s 1965 comedy about two mismatched roommates is spring-loaded with one-line zingers, and they’re so good that the play – at least in the capable hands of director James Gruessing, his actors, and the Norris Theatre – never seems outdated. True, Simon is somewhat of a comfort food that seems tailor-made for community theater (as we saw recently with “Barefoot in the Park” at the Hermosa Beach Playhouse), but no one can say that he isn’t a master of his craft.

The Torrance Theatre Company, under the auspices of their artistic director, Gia Inferrera-Jordahl, has done a very cool thing: They’ve snagged a vacant storefront in downtown Torrance and fixed it up remarkably well. Now it’s their new home for the four-weekend duration of Joe DiPietro’s “Over the River and Through the Woods,” one of the saddest comedies I’ve ever seen.

Cities are becoming more and more creative about ways to provide revenue for their coffers. In the light of end run after end run by the state to disrupt their structural revenue base, such as the latest hit, redevelopment money, cities need to find ways to obtain more direct fees for services.

Bay League competition concludes Thursday with many playoff spots yet undecided. Redondo’s girls basketball team captured the Bay League title while Mira Costa secured second place with its only two losses coming at the hands of rival Redondo.
Both soccer teams from Mira Costa remain in the playoff picture and 16 wrestlers from the Beach Cities will represent the Bay League in the CIF Central Division Individual Championships Feb. 18-19.