Steve Jones, the self-proclaimed Sire of Wilshire (a nod to the physical address of his former home at Indie 103.1 FM), is back on the air!

The former host of Jonesy's Jukebox is now hosting a two-hour program every Sunday at BBC 6, according to both MusicWeek and the BBC 6 Web site.

His first show, to which you can listen online, aired Sunday, Nov. 1. The show's title is "A Month of Sundays with Steve Jones."

You'll recall that Indie 103.1 went off the air in January, when pretty much all we heard from Jones appeared in a press release from MSOPR, the public relations company that represented Jones' group, The Sex Pistols. See LA Observed, Variety, LA Weekly and OC Weekly for more background.

-- TJ Sullivan

This year, for Halloween, my fourteen year-old daughter Franny wanted to dress up as a Swingers waitress - a hip, mini-skirted figure in fishnets and lug-soled boots. Halloween, for so many girls (and sadly, also grown women) is often an excuse to wear skimpy outfits, and I was proud of my daughter for finding a newer, hipper iteration on the over-played sexy kitty/sexy witch motif.

Here's what made her costume choice scary: I had once, in the long-ago days of yore, before I had ever borne a single daughter --- been an actual Swinger's waitress. Back in the sepia-tinted days of the early '90's, I had lived the dream of serving tofu scrambles to the Hollywood hung-over. My daughter's sassy dress-up notion was the uniform I crawled into at 5:30 every morning for the breakfast shift. Her Halloween fantasy was once my grinding, bleary, time-to-make-the-smoothies reality.

Ever the enabling mom, I took Franny and her sister on a pilgrimage to the original shop on Beverly Boulevard where I once slaved worked. Our mission: to cop a Swingers baseball T (that Franny might scissor into fabulous, rib-revealing shreds) and one of the wee, blue Dickies uniform skirts that had once barely covered my ten extra pounds as I bent over to wipe down tables. We settled into a booth and were approached by a fresh-faced, tattooed waitress not much older than my eldest.

"What can I get you?"

We ordered our grub and then I launched into my odd, back-storied request; "My daughter wants to be a Swinger's waitress for Halloween..."

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today signed a bill that effectively approved construction on a new football stadium in the City of Industry. This is truly a landmark day for those who have been yearning for the NFL to return to LA, myself included, since the Rams and Raiders left 15 years ago.

For years, the biggest hurdle to NFL football in LA was the lack of a stadium. The city government in Los Angeles was only willing to get behind the Coliseum, a site the NFL desperately did not want. City politics helped kill perfectly legitimate plans in places like South Park and Chavez Ravine. (The latter led Peter O'Malley to sell the Dodgers, which ultimately put us in the bizarre situation we're in today with the McCourts. For the record, I blame Mike Hernandez and Mark Ridley-Thomas for that, but that's a conversation for another day).

There's a laundry list of other failed stadium plans. A plan for the Raiders to move to Hollywood Park fell apart because Al Davis didn't want to wait for it to be built. A plan to renovate the Rose Bowl was rejected by the Pasadena City Council. A plan in Carson failed because partially because it was on a toxic waste dump. Other stadium proposals in Anaheim, El Segundo, and Lynwood never materialized.

But now, thanks to the incredible work of Ed Roski and Majestic Realty, we are as close as we've ever been to a modern football stadium in the greater L.A. area. Make that the state of California actually, as all three NFL teams in the state play in aging stadiums. I'd argue that today is also a victory for development and progress in California, as we showed that eight homeowners in Walnut are not enough to stop a project that will create jobs and benefit the region economically. In fact, those who are upset about the environmental exemption granted by the governor neglect to mention that the proposed LEED-certified stadium would actually be better for the environment than what would go there otherwise.

The biggest remaining hurdle now is getting a team to move here. Now that there is an actual stadium plan approved, expect relocation talks to get serious. The hope is that a team could move to the Coliseum or Rose Bowl in 2011, and the new stadium could be completed by 2013. Of course, relocation could be complicated by existing stadium leases and I am unsure what kind of deal Roski wants to work out in order give him at least some ownership stake in a franchise. There are seven teams that could potentially move to L.A. and I'll take a look at each of them.

San Francisco 49ers: The Niners are the least likely team to move among the seven. The team has been working for a long time on a new stadium in Santa Clara. It's possible that could fall through. But even if that were the case, the Niners are the dominant team in the Bay Area, there is a ton of history with the franchise, and one would reason that the Niners would exhaust every Northern California option.

Oakland Raiders: The organization is completely unstable right now, and it wouldn't surprise me if Al Davis were admitted to an insane asylum at some point. In the meantime, he's in a horrible stadium in Oakland with a lease that expires after the 2010 season. The NFL wants the Raiders to consider sharing a stadium in Santa Clara with the 49ers; however, the team has never given a definitive answer to that idea.

Rumors have persisted for years that anyone from Dean Metropoulos to Ed DeBartolo would like to buy the Raiders and move them south. Al Davis only owns 26% of the Raiders and he is not in great health, so anything could happen there. The Raiders also have as sizable a fan base any NFL team in L.A.

But part of the problem with the Raiders is their brand. When they played in the Coliseum, the Raiders name was synonymous with gang violence. Families stayed away from the Silver and Black. Players were afraid to let their kids attend their games in person. Even the NFL wouldn't allow Monday Night and Sunday Night games to be played at the Coliseum because they thought it wasn't safe.

It's true that USC football and continued development in the region has helped change the perception of the Coliseum and the surrounding area. But it will take a lot to change the perception of the Raiders. Perhaps a new owner with the right personality and the right marketing plan can make a difference, but it won't be easy.

San Diego Chargers: They might be in the best position to move of any team in the NFL. The Chargers can get out of their stadium lease if they're willing to pay a fee that decreases every year. They've been trying to get a new stadium in San Diego for a long time, and as far as I know, there aren't any serious proposals on the table. Still, it remains to be seen how much of a stake the Spanos family would be willing to give up, and at least publicly, they remain very committed to staying in San Diego. I think the NFL would like to keep a team there too, if possible.

Jacksonville Jaguars: If I'm NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, I'm looking at a team in a tiny market like Jacksonville that won't sell out a single home game this year on one coast, and I'm looking at an unserved market with 17 million people on the other coast, and I'd be wondering "how do I get them to move?"

I lived in Florida for two years, and I'd bet the Jaguars rank about fourth in the Jacksonville pecking order -- below Florida, Florida State, and Georgia college football. Certainly Jaguars attendance would bear that out, as the team appears to be nearing a crisis situation.

Moving the Jaguars to LA seems to make perfect sense. Even the name "L.A. Jaguars" has a nice ring to it. Unfortunately for LA though, Jacksonville has one of the toughest leases to break in the NFL. The team can only break its lease if it loses money for three consecutive seasons or if a judge determines that the city has not properly maintained the Jaguars' stadium.

On the first point, the Jags may very well be able prove financial losses at their current pace. But doing so would require the team to open its books to the public, something that sports teams almost never want to do, and the NFL might not even allow it. On the second point, the city has paid millions on improvements to the Jaguars' stadium, and it even hosted a Super Bowl as recently as 2005. Even if the Jaguars found a way to get out of their lease, they might have to pay up to $50 million in rent owed to the city in a lump sum.

The lease was negotiated by Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver, who is a Jacksonville guy and wants the team to stay. But he is also nearing 80 and has also openly talked about selling.

Perhaps a solution can be reached for the Jaguars to move to LA, especially since Jacksonville would appear to have little strategic value to the NFL. But for now, I still wonder why the league granted Jacksonville an expansion franchise over Baltimore and St. Louis back in 1993.

St. Louis Rams: I would absolutely love it if the Rams moved back to L.A. I grew up a Los Angeles Rams fan, and I have to admit -- as bizarre as this sounds -- that I miss them. TJ Simers recently wrote an article joking about how he didn't want the Rams back here because they're a terrible team right now. But good teams generally don't move, and in the NFL, bad teams can improve quickly. On-field performance is the least of my concerns right now.

The Rams have a storied history in Los Angeles, dating back to the days of Bob Waterfield, Norm Van Brocklin, Crazy Legs Hirsch, Deacon Jones, Eric Dickerson, and Jackie Slater. Despite what Simers might argue, the name Los Angeles Rams has cachet in this city, and at least has a historical brand to sell.

The Rams have a clear out-clause in their stadium lease in 2014 and have a murky ownership situation. After Georgia Frontiere died, control of the team went to her children Chip Rosenbloom and Lucia Rodriguez. Rosenbloom has made it clear that he'd like to keep the Rams in St. Louis, although I'm not sure why. He lives in Los Angeles where he's a Hollywood producer who made the Shiloh the dog movies. Still, him and his sister have been fielding offers the 60% share of the Rams that they own (Rush Limbaugh's interest became very public), and it might be difficult to find a buyer who wants to keep the team in Missouri when it would figure to be more profitable in Los Angeles. Still, 2014 is a long time from now.

Minnesota Vikings: I would be surprised if the Vikings left Minnesota, but it's certainly plausible. The Vikings' stadium lease expires in 2011, and persistent efforts to build a new stadium have born no fruit. The organization has expressed clear frustration with the state legislature for several years now. If significant progress is not made soon, then Vikings will surely take relocation seriously.

Still, it's hard for me to believe that given the deep emotions Minnesotans feel for the Vikings, that the team would leave. They have a rich tradition in the Twin Cities. However, the same could have been said about the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Colts, and they both found a way to leave. It would be interesting to have two Purple and Gold teams in L.A. that originated in Minnesota. Of course, if the team could always change its name if it moved here.

Buffalo Bills: The Bills are in a complex situation in Buffalo. The city is not what it once was, and it simply cannot support an NFL team. Bills owner Ralph Wilson recognizes this and has reached a deal to play several home games in Toronto each season until the team's lease expires in 2012.

Wilson just turned 91 though and has said he will not give the team to his children. That could leave the Bills for sale and open the doors for an L.A. buyer. Still, it's also possible that the team could wind up playing more games in Toronto, or even move there under a new owner. Additionally, Roger Goodell is from Western New York state and would like to keep a team there. If the Bills did move to L.A. though, then a name change might be a good idea.

The Dodgers went out with a whimper in their season finale, losing Game 5 to the Phillies 10-4. This will no doubt give ammunition to the Dodger doubters who for months have said they were not built for the playoffs (a series sweep of the Cardinals, notwithstanding).

I've always believed the playoffs to be something of a crapshoot, but that's certainly no excuse for them losing this series. The bottom line is, the bullpen which had been their strength all season, fell apart when the Dodgers needed it most. George Sherrill had barely given up any runs in Dodger blue, but his three-run homer allowed in Game 1, and sloppy pitching in Game 4 were real killers. And of course, Jonathan Broxton's fear of pitching to Matt Stairs and sudden loss of command at the end of Game 4 was crushing.

Much has been made of the fact that the Dodgers didn't have an ace. But in truth, aces don't grow on trees, and the Dodgers did have the pitching talent to win the series. For all the hoopla about Cliff Lee, he only won one game in the NLCS... a game the Phillies could have probably won with Chad Durbin going a full 9 innings. Cole Hamels was hardly stellar in his outings, and Joe Blanton didn't do much either. The only other Phillies pitcher with a dominant outing was Pedro Martinez, pitching in a game the Dodgers won.

Still, Chad Billingsley's sudden second half slide (after an All-Star first half) deprived the Dodgers of a much-needed arm starting an NLCS game. I'm disappointed in the Dodger training staff and Joe Torre for thinking that Hiroki Kuroda was healthy enough to pitch in Game 3. He clearly wasn't ready to come back then. And sometimes managers overrate the small sample size of postseason games, which probably led Torre to think that Vicente Padilla was an ace based on just two good starts.

The Dodgers lineup wasn't bad in this series, but they did leave a lot of runners on base and didn't come through quite as often as they needed to. Conversely, you have to give the Phllies credit for getting their lineup together, especially Ryan Howard, who raised his game to a whole new level.

This season is not a failure, although many will call it that. The Dodgers finished 2009 with the best record in the National League, they won a playoff series, and their kids officially grew up. They will enter 2010 with their nucleus in tact, and have a talent base good enough to contend for a World Series. Obviously, they will need to explore options for starting pitchers, as John Lackey will be a free agent they could sign and Roy Halladay could be on the trade block.

Until then, as the old Dodger saying goes: "Just wait 'till next year!"

Ceramic artist Dora De Larios knows the exact moment when she began the journey that led to her current retrospective, "Sueños/Yume: Fifty Years of the Art of Dora De Larios," at the Craft and Folk Art Museum on Wilshire Blvd. She was eight years old and saw the historic Aztec calender stone at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Struck by its power, she instantly felt connected to her Mexican ancestry. From that point on, she knew she would become an artist.

The CAFAM exhibit's name uses the Spanish and Japanese words for dreams. Born in downtown Los Angeles in 1933 to Mexican immigrants, De Larios grew up with Latino and Nisei neighbors. After Dorsey High School and studying ceramics and sculpture at USC, she opened her first studio in Los Angeles. Exposure to Japanese culture at an early age was a key influence. It "set the stage for relationships with other cultures later on," says De Larios.

A 13-month trip around the world in 1963 included stops in Japan, Hong Kong, Nepal, East Africa, and Egypt, and further broadened her knowledge and love of world cultures.

De Larios has had a "lifelong interest in the divine, its symbolism and its interpretation in various cultures," says CFAM guest curator Elaine Levin. "She offers us an extraordinary world of whimsical yet confident animals, loving friends, family. Interspersed in this colorful melange are the mystical forces of life, embodied by mythological creatures and goddesses which fuel the artists imagination." De Larios works not just in clay, but uses wood, plastic and steel in some pieces.

De Larios also does commissions for public and private spaces in California, the U.S., and internationally. Architect Lisa Landworth, of Landworth Debolske Associates on Wilshire, met De Larios in 1987 when her client, Alan Sieroty, "had the idea of integrating the work of an artist into the façade remodel of his building at 6022 Wilshire, in the heart of the Miracle Mile. An unfortunate remodel done in the 1960's had obliterated the building's Art Deco roots."

De Larios was chosen for the commission since her medium of ceramic tile sculpture, and her geometric design concept, perfectly meshed with the desire to recall the original Art Deco style. "Dora's tile installation provided a dramatic bas relief focal point that successfully integrated fine arts with architecture," says Landworth.

De Larios continues to be inspired by travel, world culture and her hometown. "I love the vitality of Los Angeles, the different cultures and enclaves. You can really get lost here," she says.

A favorite spot is the Greek Orthodox church near Normandie and Venice Boulevard. But she makes it very clear that her favorite place to be is her studio on Venice in Culver City. With a smile she says, "I work, and I work, and I work some more."

"Sueños/Yume: Fifty Years of the Art of Dora De Larios" is on view at CAFAM through Jan. 10, 2010.

Top photo: courtesy of Dora De Larios
Photo of De Larios: Judy Graeme

The big news in Dodgerland tonight is that Frank and Jamie McCourt have reportedly separated. I've actually been hearing this rumor for a while, but I'm surprised it happened now. It's very disappointing that this news would come out the day before Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. Couldn't it have waited until after the season?

I don't really know the reason for the split, but I've heard that there was an internal struggle between Frank and Jamie on how to run the team's business operations. Frank had brought in Dennis Mannion as President, a very sharp executive who has done some great work for the team. Mannion had previously been an executive with the Baltimore Ravens. Jamie had brought in Dr. Charles Steinberg, who now "has permission to entertain offers from other MLB clubs." Steinberg grew up down the street from Jamie in Baltimore and supposedly lost influence to Mannion within the organization.

We're down the League Championship Series, and the prospect of a Freeway World Series has never been closer. This season, Southern California is truly the king of baseball regions. The Dodgers led the Majors in attendance and finished with the best record in the National League. The Angels finished second in the AL in both the standings and in attendance.

For seven straight years, the Dodgers and Angels have been in the top-6 in attendance in MLB. Yes, baseball is alive and strong here, and Los Angeles has proven itself as a great sports town. Don't let any obnoxious East Coast-biased fans tell you otherwise.

The Angels win over the Red Sox was predicted on this site, although I was a bit surprised that they were able to sweep. The Halos lineup is the best it's been in years, and they are getting contributions from everyone in the batting order. Their pitching has held up well for the most part, and their defense is strong.

The Dodgers win over the Cardinals was not predicted on this site, but only because I thought the team's late season struggles would continue. I've been a big defender of the Dodgers all season long, and evidently the belief that the team would step up their play in games that mattered held up true.

I am a bit dismayed though at the anti-Dodger pro-Angel bias that we've seen in the Los Angeles Times and in other media local media outlets, and I'll touch on that briefly. Like me, the Times predicted a Cardinals victory in the first round, but unlike me, they saw a sweep. Turned out the Times got every single game wrong.

At 6:55 this morning, still dark here in Portland, there was a knock at my front door. My husband had just left for work and I was still in my nightgown.

"Who is it?" I asked, not being able to see through the keyhole, which, for reasons I have no explanation for, is set at six feet high.

"It's Hector," came the voice. "I'm Brendan Mullen's friend."

I remembered meeting Hector during Brendan's trip to Portland last year, to read from Live at the Masque: Nightmare at Punk Alley, his book about the proto-punk club he opened in Hollywood in 1977. Brendan's appearance at Powell's Books had been packed, more crowded than for any of the dozen writers I've seen read there, and as was fitting the subject and its author, included young punks, old punks, and one drunk heckler with a mullet. Brendan patiently answered the questions of each. Brendan always chose his words with care, and often spoke so softly, and with a Scottish burr so burry, one did not realize for several beats that what he'd just said was lacerating or funny or both.

But this morning, not yet having had a cup of coffee, I could not understand why Hector was on my doorstep this early, and so, I asked.

"Brendan died yesterday," he said.

I opened the door. The Army jacket Hector wore looked as though it weighed a hundred pounds. I brought him inside. He told me Brendan had died during a trip up the coast with his longtime girlfriend Kateri Butler; they'd been at a restaurant in Ventura celebrating Brendan's 60th birthday when he had a stroke. I asked if Hector had spoken with Kateri, with whom I worked for years at the LA Weekly. He said he had, several times, including once already this morning.

"I called and woke her up," he said, a little sheepish but it couldn't be helped. He needed to talk about his friend, so much that it drove him out of his own home before dawn to find mine, a place he had only ever been once, a year earlier.

"It's too soon," he said, of Brendan's death. "We still had so many things to do."

We talked about what had been done. About Brendan's books, and his latest project, writing the copy for a Red Hot Chili Peppers coffee table book, copy the publisher had apparently asked to be cleaned-up; they wanted a little less of the early-years drug stuff, a request, Hector said, Brendan thought pretty funny, as did Hector, as did I. We'd all been in LA in the 1980s; we'd directly seen the casualties; I can still see Jamie Slovak, brother of the Peppers original guitarist Hillel Slovak, standing in my driveway the morning after his brother overdosed, looking utterly broken and alone.

Brendan had both driven the LA punk era of the 70s and 80s and documented it, its epiphanies and deaths, its rattiness and joys. But he never seemed, to me, nostalgic for it; he seemed circumspect, and concerned with getting things right. And happy, I told Hector; that the longer I knew Brendan, and I had known him twenty years, the more joyful he became. I told Hector, also, of Brendan's generosity; how after my first big story for the Weekly, he was the first person to phone and congratulate me. It was a call that made me feel validated, as I imagine his giving venue to so many at the Masque did, the way his oral histories did, by giving people voice.

"That's how he was," said Hector, wiping at a tear with a crumpled piece of paper towel.

It's true. And while it is equally true we tend to say nice things about the dead just to say them, I have a story, a recent story that is testament to Brendan's generosity.

It was during his trip to Portland last year, during which I threw a little party for him, to celebrate his book and so he might get together with some of his friends here, and some of mine. Also invited were my 18-year-old daughter and her friends, including her then-boyfriend Aidan, who was playing guitar in the band Wolfgang Williams and the Punk Rock Faggots.

I told Aidan, Brendan Mullen was coming over; that he'd run a club in LA called...

"The Masque," said Aidan. "You're kidding me. You know him? Can I meet him?"

When Brendan arrived, wearing per usual a pork-pie hat, I told him to be ready; that he was going to have a novitiate sitting at his feet. Brendan's eyes went wide in mock alarm, and he said, in all sincerity, that it would be his pleasure to meet Aidan.

Which it evidently was: as the party went on around them, Brendan and Aidan hung out for two hours; they looked through Brendan's books and they talked about Aidan's band. It was a meeting of equals, and it was Brendan's patience, curiosity and genuine kindness that made it so.

I called Aidan just now, to tell him, about Brendan's death.

"That's terrible," he said. "I was just thinking about him two days ago."

What had he been thinking?

"I was thinking," said Aidan, "how nice he was. He was such a nice guy."