Posts by Ryan McDonald
After a brain hemorrhage nearly killed him, South Bay chef and musician Albert Kim reckons with recovery
by Ryan McDonald Early on in Albert Kim’s 61-day hospitalization at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center, a member of his medical team examined Kim’s hands, and asked if he was a “working man.” Had Kim been conscious at the time, he might have smirked at the question. Kim was in a deep coma…
Read MoreSkateboard legend, Caballeros at Redondo BeachLife
By Ryan McDonald Last year, Steve Caballero announced that he and two other musicians he had been playing with were looking for a new vocalist. Caballero, a pioneering professional skateboarder whom Thrasher Magazine called the “Skater of the Century,” announced the search on Instagram, where, as of June 2021, he has some 644,000 followers, and…
Read MoreFormer pro surfer Tom Curren at Redondo BeachLife
by Ryan McDonald Tom Curren is the rare surfer who inspires as much reverence in impatient youth as he does in his aging contemporaries. A three-time world champion who “retired” from competition three decades ago, his timeless style remains relevant no matter how much surfing progresses. Curren seems to operate with a blood pressure five…
Read MorePennywise’s Lindberg plans acoustic sets at BeachLife
by Ryan McDonald Jim Lindberg’s songwriting process almost always begins the same way. The question he has to answer, quickly, is where it will lead. “I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent staring at a wall, waiting for inspiration. It kind of always starts there,” said Lindberg, the frontman for Pennywise, the South…
Read MorePennywise’s ‘Bro Hymn:’ A hymn known by heart
by Ryan McDonald Justin Thirsk heard the plan the day before. He was nervous, but it was not the sort of thing he could prepare for. “I’m trying to think if I’d ever sung that part before that night,” he said in an interview last week. He paused. “No. There’s no way. I wouldn’t have.” …
Read MoreThe Drop: Surfing and Addiction
by Ryan McDonald If ever a life called out to be transformed into a podcast, it is that of Rick “Raz” Rasmussen, a towheaded trafficker who jet-setted from jungle to red carpet before being gunned down in Harlem following a botched cocaine deal. He was 27, not far removed from a comfortable childhood in suburban…
Read MoreSouth Bay’s Slaughterhouse ready for its curtain call after a year pent-up by the pandemic
by Ryan McDonald On March 6 of last year, when face masks seemed a paranoid overstatement, the band Slaughterhouse played a show at the Factory, a venue in a converted industrial space about a half-mile west of the Los Angeles River. Proceeds went to aid victims of the bushfires that had recently ravaged the east…
Read MoreAfter siege by Trump mob, South Bay’s Rep. Lieu helps lead impeachment effort [Updated]
Minutes after President Donald Trump concluded the “Save America” rally last Wednesday by instructing the thousands of people gathered on the Ellipse, a park south of the White House, to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” to the U.S. Capitol, Rep. Ted Lieu heard a loud, persistent banging on the door of his office in the Cannon…
Read MoreBeached party: Beach Cities Republican numbers tumble over Trump
When newly elected Congressman Steve Kuykendall arrived in Washington, D.C. in January 1999, the Palos Verdes Republican made a point of visiting Tom DeLay as soon as possible. DeLay, a Republican from the Houston area then entering his eighth term in the House of Representatives, had served as the majority whip since 1995. In a…
Read MoreTrapped in paradise: Manhattan Beach’s Pages hosts authors Stan Parish and Daniel Riley for stories about places we can only imagine (for now)
In the penultimate chapter of Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio,” the newspaper reporter George Willard is preparing to leave the village where he grew up for the big city. He spends the day walking through the county fair, alone amid the crowd and increasingly conscious of the stakes of getting older. He has reached that fleeting,…
Read MoreWill the pandemic reshape downtown Hermosa Beach?
Across the United States, the coronavirus has made packed restaurants and carefree urban mingling impossible. In Hermosa Beach there is hope that in the long term the pandemic may lead to a city center that is more bustling and attractive to businesses than the version that preceded it, as well as fear that things will…
Read MoreHermosa Beach health enforcement workers threatened over sports, mask rules
Rules on mask wearing and other public health precautions enacted by the Hermosa Beach City Council last month are encountering resistance, officials said Tuesday, with the workers brought on to enforce the rules occasionally facing harassment and threats. Chief Paul LeBaron of the Hermosa Beach Police Department told the council the contracted staff who…
Read MoreHermosa Beach teachers absorb lessons of spring shutdown as they ready for first day of school
It’s tough to conceive of a class that is simultaneously less suited to social distancing and harder to replicate over the internet than the Sparks Lab at Hermosa View School. The class, funded primarily through philanthropy, teaches STEM principles to first, second and third graders through what educators call “project-based learning.” In practice, that means…
Read MoreAbout Town Hermosa Beach
Back to school Citing a need to bob and weave amid the changing conditions of the coronavirus pandemic, Superintendent Jason Johnson unveiled plans for the coming year in the Hermosa Beach City School District with a little wisdom from The Baddest Man on the Planet. “I liken this year to the Mike Tyson quote: ‘Everyone…
Read MoreAccidental overdose claims Hermosa Beach youth
Scotty Hemstreet, a 14-year-old Hermosa Beach resident, died earlier this month from an accidental drug overdose inside an east Hermosa home. Friends and family recalled Scotty as funny, wickedly smart and often the center of attention, a person who was happiest in motion, either sailing over the ocean or with a skateboard under his feet.…
Read MorePod People: Schools to open the year exclusively with distance learning, so South Bay parents search for alternatives
Susan Robinson wants her daughter to be bilingual, so it was good news when the Redondo Beach resident learned this spring that her five-year-old had been accepted into the dual immersion program at Washington Elementary. The program, which includes kids from both English- and Spanish-speaking families, lasts throughout a child’s time at the school, but…
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