I've since found another mistake: The name of a club mentioned is apparently Bliss, not Blink. Two other corrections for the article were published in the Weekly's letters section last week.

Also, Vankin's response that Circus Disco is bigger than Le Prive is odd, in that she's admitting her mistake without appearing to do so. What's more, I only used Circus and it's 1,800 capacity (1,850, to be exact, I believe) as an example. She ran with it, but I think Soho (a.k.a. L.A. Entertainment Center, 333. S. Boylston St.) is even bigger than that. I believe Orion downtown is in this league of huge clubs as well. And what about Florentine Gardens in Hollywood? She says she talked to the fire department to confirm her figures (after her story, apparently, since it calls Le Prive the biggest club in town), but a spokesman there doesn't remember getting any inquiry, and didn't have that kind of information on-hand anyway. Calls to the LAFD about city-set club capacities are referred to the Department of Building and Safety, which keeps certificates of occupancy, the documents with a club's legal capacity, on file. Hmm.

Her response is interesting. She belittles my L.A. Times piece, jokingly so, as being an oversized blurb, while touting hers as an authoritative opus. My piece was actually originally assigned as a cover piece for the Times' Calendar Weekend section, but was later cut down for inside use. It was edited down for the better. In any case, her piece appeared to contain all of her notes. It needed some serious editing, in my opinion. She boasts of its 7,000-word size, but it's really 6,000 words too many. Size does not authority -- or accuracy -- make.

On the issue of stereotypes, Vankin claims she was only airing the concerns of K-town locals. This fails, in my view, because it's a reporter's duty to be a filter. We don't just air everything (a rapper calling another a racial epithet, for example), we make conscious and studied judgements about what is relevant. The idea that Korean American youth have pent-up party vibes as a result of their stereotypically studious upbringings is about as shallow as they come. What about the Koreatown gangsters trying to put their lives together at the Korean Youth Community Center? Were they just rebelling against their parents' Harvard-bound dreams? Try another stereotype: Just like the rest of the young people in L.A., people in K-town mostly work hard, play hard.

Vankin tries to pass off her piece as some sort of deep social reportage when it's just a stereotype-laden, first-person, guided-tour of K-town in a publication that should know better.

1) Correction to Romero's "correction:" It is Blink that I was referring to. Bliss is across the street. (I'm disappointed that after Romero's "many years of hanging out in the area," as he put it, and with his keen reporting skills, he didn't figure this out himself.

2) The experts I spoke with at the Fire Department accessed computer files for Le Prive and Circus Disco Nightclub.

3) It's unfortunate that Romero's cover piece for the Times' Calendar Weekend section was cut down to 803 words. That sucks.

4) Finally, Romero may have extensive free time on his hands, but I won't be able to respond to any more of his idle salvos. I have a job -- and a life.

"... Experts I spoke with at the Fire Department accessed computer files for Le Prive and Circus Disco Nightclub."

Funny (see above). According to Brian Humphrey, the public information officer for the LAFD, there are no such "computer files."

I could be wrong about Bliss vs. Blink, but yeah, in years of hanging in K-town I haven't heard of Blink, and neither have the nightlife experts at http://www.ktown213.com, the authoritative online guide to Koreatown, who were sure the author was referring to Bliss, one of the nicer, newer spots in the area, but certainly not the tops. It's quite possible the author made a discovery here. I'll have to check it out.

My life is reporting and journalism, especially as it concerns Los Angeles youth culture and night life. So yeah, I have all the time in the world for this.

Jeez, I know I promised "no more responses," but this is just too good to pass up.

It's Blink, Dennis. Not Bliss. According to ktown213.com's Ralph Min, Blink is newer and FAR more popular than Bliss, which is across the street. Glad you learned something, though. Hey, if you're interested, there's a big color photo of Blink on the ktown213 website.

Oh, and one last tip: sometimes it pays to get past the flack: inspector Steve Monteel, who monitors the Koreatown area for the fire department -- CAN verify nightclub capacity information on his computer.

Dennis: glad we're on a first-name basis now. Maybe I'll see you around sometime. Perhaps at Blink...

It's nice to see I inspired the author to find some decent sources, but it's still after the article was published. Maybe if she would have consulted ktown213 during her research, she would have discovered that Orchid is the latest hotspot, not Blink, or Bliss.

It's ironic that, after having written up her guided-tour of K-town, with two corrections to show for it, she's telling me to dig deeper. I did, and the LAFD referred me to the Department of Building and Safety. Because I write a lot about clubs, I want to know what the largest-capacity venue in L.A. is. I have a message in to the department and I'll post the results here later if anyone cares.

In any case, the author got it wrong and is using circular arguments to turn the tables. I don't want to villify Vankin.

Look, here's my point: I think Vankin probably went into the story honestly and with intent to do a good job, but a paper like the Weekly should be advancing coverage of place like K-town, not just discovering it. I mean, two years ago, when the Weekly did a piece on 10 years of rave culture in L.A., it sent a reporter out to her first rave!

Back to K-town: Okay, I'll say it -- couldn't the Weekly find a young, Korean American reporter -- or someone, anyone with a passion for the area -- to write this piece? That way Vankin could use her valuable time writing about whatever she obviously cares more about.

I realized why I keep confusing Bliss and Blink. It's the result of yet another mistake in the piece. It describes Blink as being in Chapman Market (or rather, Plaza). Bliss is in Chapman Plaza. As the author describes it, Blink is across the street.

Dennis, do you have reading comprehension problems? In the piece on the death of rave the author talked about going to see The Orb back in 1993, and being told rave was already dead back then. It wasn't about anyone going to her first rave. It started with her being disgusted with Paul Oakenfold at the Area One festival, and lamenting that the scene was over. Except it wasn't, and still isn't -- and that was the point.

There are clinics that can help you with your difficulties absorbing the written word as meaningful English. You might also seek some advice about the personality disorder that causes you to be preoccupied with a story in a free newsweekly about a local nightlife scene when, in fact, people are dying and stuff.

ENUFF, kids. Stop immediately, or I'll pull this car over right now.

OK, I'll say it: Couldn't the Weekly find an aging, North Korean dictator with a pent-up party vibe to write this piece? Or are they just too shallow to even consider it?

Mom's right but we don't have a dictator here. And "Hollywood Molly", your last part suggesting Dennis Romero has a personality disorder is a bit vulgar, no offense. And what do sickly people have to do with K-town?
I smell some naivete and irrelevance in your post. I interned at CityBeat last summer, and Dennis was always at his computer working studiously from what I remember. Suggesting that he hasn't a life is an idiotic cliche. And reporters are apt to make a couple careless mistakes occasionally, at least they learn from it. Thanks for the entertainment!
Mom was really amused by the "slapfest". http://cathyseipp.journalspace.com/?entryid=254
Happy Reporting!

was so immature I couldn't imagine writing that.

In criticizing the Weekly's coverage of 10 years of rave culture, I was referring indeed to a piece in which the author describes her first "rave" in 1995, in yet another tortuous first-person discovery. The author's subsequent visit to Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion in 2001 doesn't really count as a rave. However, I was wrong in describing the story as the Weekly "sending" the author to her first rave. That's kind of how it stuck in my head. I should have reviewed the piece two-year-old article before mentioning it in passing. I was commenting of the top of my head. My bad -- indeed. Honestly, I had a hard time getting through it the first time and even harder time trying to review it. Maybe I do need some help with my reading.

If anyone wants to give it a try, it's here: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/01/50/features-lewis.php

In any case, the story, to me, appeared to be another discovery of a scene that a paper like the Weekly should have been all long before. I brought it up because it reminded me of the Koreatown piece in that way. In reviewing the rave piece, using all the reading comprehension I could muster (and a few aspirin pills), I find it funny to note that, although the author proclaims that raving is dead (or not, she's kind of wishy washy on the topic -- and maybe that's where a good edit comes in handy) in 2001, that was the year of some of the biggest raves in United States history, including 30,000-capacity events at the Orange Show Fairgrounds in San Bernardino (see the Times for proof). Dead indeed.

It's also kind of funny: I point out several errors in a Weekly piece, and a correction (or "clarification") is published in that paper at my behest, but somehow I have trouble absorbing the written word because of a passing mention of another Weekly discovery piece. It's as if, for my on-point criticism (hey, pointing this stuff out as constructive criticism is different than actually publishing things as fact in a newspaper), I must suffer through name calling. I guess the facts speak for themselves.

Denis, PLEASE, I beg you, give it up.

No! Dennis--you go! I love a good fight, and besides, the Weekly can't keep it's self-proclaimed rep as the paper of note of cool when they get things wrong. The piece read like an intern did it, after walking around for an afternoon.

It's almost impossible to not "get things wrong" even when gettng them right, when writing about Koreatown. It's the kind of place where restaurants are named things like "Toad House", "Tofu Cabin" and "Young Dong Restaurant" and entire strip malls are signed entirely in Korean except for the ubiquitous "Grand Opening", for which there is apparently no Hangool character. My favorite, though, is the "Underwear Disconunt Center"(sic) right around the corner from my apartment. Except, of course, when I'm going to the "Aroma of Jesus Mission Church".

Romero raises an interesting point whether the story would have been better served by finding a Korean to write it. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience Koreans already know what's going on here and the whole point of the 3 part Weekly story was basically "Koreatown for the uninitiated by the uninitiated". Now, there are plenty of reasons one might not like that approach, but it's certainly more interesting to the average Weekly reader than, say, ktown213.com.

I remember writing infuriated letters to the editor that it was MAD magazine, not Mad. I'd interned there, you see. I knew SO MUCH MORE than the reporter did. Which is true, of course, but look how angry Dennis is. He got the story first, for a teeny li'l paper, and here comes old Goliath, stomping along in her big old monstrous Goliath shoes. And she is so STUPID! And nobody even notices that he knows WAY MORE than she does! Please, somebody, NOTICE him!
For the record, I work for VVM but I don't really read LA Weekly, so I've no idea if the story blew or not. It's okay, though. They don't read our rag either.

i read this article and i have to agree with dennis on this one. the article contained many bits of information that were incorrect. i'm no journalist but i always had the idea that articles that get printed in the paper are supposed to contain fact. i'm korean. i was born and raised in southern california. i have been coming to and playing in ktown for the past 6 years and have lived in the heart of it all for the past 2. i know where everything is. i've been to the places described in the article (with the exception of the room salon...i will let deborah be the expert on that) and i can honestly say that a lot of things are not the way it was portrayed in the article. the article makes girls who go booking seem like idiots who giggle and finger their hair for a shot of crown. PLEASE. albeit there may be a few girls who do, that does not describe more than half of them. The paragraphs describing korean clubbing and booking are ridiculous. That's NOT how it is. If this was an article to describe Koreatown to someone who has never experienced it before, it's just perpetuating stereotypes and exaggerations. There is no "complicated" word-of-mouth system to get into clubs. All you have to do is ask. With the exception of Karnak which is known to be more of a Koreanized club, all you have to do is tell the doorman out front that you don't have a waiter and he will get you one, as long as the reservations aren't booked. If they are, take a business card and come back next time. It's not the end of the world. If I had never been to Ktown and I used this article as a guide, I would look like a complete idiot on top of being totally lost. I feel this article could have been written a lot better.

I could go on and on pointing out the mistakes in this article but I think I've made my point. I hope LA weekly will take more careful consideration of the next article they decide to print on Ktown.