Last Thursday night, an improbable collection of DJs, Douchebags and Dorks gathered in a posh Downtown penthouse for a sneak preview of DJ Hero, the latest entry in Activision’s increasingly ginormous Guitar Hero video game series. The appetizers were exquisite, the ambiance (provided by actual, non video game playing DJs) was redonkulous, and DJ Hero, a game which finally does for knob twiddlers and air-scratch nerds what the main Guitar Hero series did for vicarious cock-rockers, was, well, pretty damn good in the same way that the Dead Sea is kind of brackish and Sir Paul McCartney has a couple of extra dollars lying around.
Half Hearted – Shoot The Stars
“Being in a band right now just makes sense”. So says Nathan Buckley, co-founder of Downtown’s-by-way-of-Echo Park The Half-Hearted. Maybe it’s the economy, the last eight years, or the fact that the Nobel Peace Prize is apparently less difficult to recieve than student of the month, but we’re inclined to agree – it’s either that or take up painting.
Enter The Half-Hearted. Formed from the detritus of Silverlake’s The Rattlesnakes (who broke up in 2003), and fueled by the breakups, transitions and other assorted difficulties of early onset adulthood as experienced by the band’s members, their self proclaimed (and admittedly, somewhat snarking) mission is “mend the hearts of the hurt and failing world around us”. Ambitious, and understandable given the times in which we live. They’re making their live debut tonight at Pehrspace, and Nathan and Co-founder Valentina Silva were nice enough to submit to rigorous LAist questioning beforehand.
The successful passage of Prop 8 took those of us who aren’t bigots by surprise in the same way Barry Keenan took Frank Sinatra Jr. at gunpoint. Having assumed that California was different from the Medievalists running the American South, the codification of anti-gay hatred was a stroke-inducing reminder that the State most associated with GLBTQ rights is also the State that inflicted Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Howard Jarvis on the World.
Obviously, the revocation of equal marriage rights was a massive wakeup call to the GLBTQ community, and since November numerous groups have sprung into action, working solo and in tandem on Prop 8′s repeal. One such group is Equality Network. They’re holding an Oktoberfest Fundraiser tomorrow to raise money to send 4 of their activists to the National Equality March in Washington, D.C. We spoke with co-organizer Max Buschman about the fundraiser, Equality Network, and the apoplectic side effects of Prop 8.
Ross Lincoln is a freelance writer and wine-soaked dilletante based in Los Angeles. He writes about console and PC games for 
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