Celebrity chef Cat Cora used the “N-word” (no, not that one) after she rear-ended someone in Los Angeles, calling them a “nerd.” Cora was subsequently arrested on suspicion of DUI after her blood-alcohol level registered 0.19, according to TMZ. The legal limit in California is 0.08. People magazine reported Wednesday that she won't be facing charges for the incident, which happened last summer. Read More

As a kid, Julie Edwards constantly had her grammar corrected by her talk-show-host father Steve Edwards, who now anchors “Good Day L.A.” “I couldn’t say, ‘Everyone has their own thing.’ It had to be, ‘Everyone has his — or her — own thing,’” says the drummer, who rebelled by dubbing her new duo, with guitarist-vocalist Lindsey Troy, Deap Vally. “But one day, someone told me the theory that every form of communication works,” she adds. “It doesn’t have to be proper. So spelling and grammar are for elitists — the world belongs to the common people!” Read More

The beginning of Thomas Bradshaw’s 2009 one-act “The Bereaved” — the first of Bradshaw’s many plays to be produced locally, thanks to Crowded Fire Theater — seems like a domestic comedy. Husband Michael (Lawrence Radecker), a low-wage-earning, unambitious adjunct professor, is fiddling on his computer. Lawyer wife Carol (Michele Leavy) stomps in after a busy work day. The two immediately start squabbling about who should be taking out the garbage. “You’re a retard!” they shriek at each other, upping the ante of a scene that had seemed mild enough. Read More

French-born, London-based art rocker Jehnny Beth isn’t content with her new, all-girl, quasi-goth combo Savages, nor her sidelined duo with longtime beau Johnny Hostile, John & Jehn, nor the record label they run together, Pop Noire — about to issue the Savages’ debut recording, “Silence Yourself.” She knows it sounds corny, but the singer, who also acts, really wants to direct feature-length films. Read More