Biography
Columnist Steve Lopez joined the staff of the Los Angeles Times in May 2001 after four years at Time Inc., where he wrote for Time, Sports ...
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The Soloist
Steve Lopez has chronicled the life of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a homeless musician with schizophrenia who sleeps each night on one of skid row's most dangerous streets.
Some of L.A. County's most vulnerable vets to get badly needed care
February 16, 2011
White male, age 69. Homeless for 15 years and three months. Usually sleeps at the beach or along a riverbed. Has hepatitis C and suffers from mental illness. Has no health insurance. Has been incarcerated.
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A combat veteran's struggle of the soul
February 13, 2011
Greg Valentini's room in Hollywood is bigger than a jail cell, but not by much. It's a home, though, and better than lockup.
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Sarah Palin and the Edge: Nonsense in two different guises
February 9, 2011
What do "tea party" beauty queen Sarah Palin and U2 guitarist the Edge have in common?
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Lots of love for stadium idea, but the deal -- not so much
February 6, 2011
Last week, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa got a new job:
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Peering into a post-petroleum world
February 2, 2011
The story of how I ended up in the basement of a UCLA physics building, getting a tour of a plasma facility with a young scientist working on the development of clean fusion energy, begins with the uprisings in the Middle East.
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Pasadena businesses step in to aid schools
January 30, 2011
Bob's Big Boy has bought in. So have Old Towne Music, Big Mama's Rib Shack, Brookside Golf Club, Pie 'n Burger and Mijares restaurant.
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Fresh face in Bell is a break from the past
January 26, 2011
OK, kids. Time for a quiz.
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Love, hate and Robert Rizzo
January 23, 2011
In nearly four decades as a journalist, I've tossed a fair number of public figures onto the grill. But I don't recall a reaction as polarized as the response to my Jan. 13 skewering of former Bell city administrator Robert Rizzo.
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It's time to inject sanity into the gun debate
January 19, 2011
The gun was in a backpack, we're told. The backpack was dropped or set down in a Gardena High School classroom Tuesday morning, and the gun fired accidentally, critically injuring a 15-year-old female student who was struck in the head. A male student, also 15, was shot in the neck.
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Dissident L.A. teachers want more from their union
January 16, 2011
Quietly and carefully, a movement of dissident teachers has been taking shape within United Teachers Los Angeles. It began last fall, with e-mails and telephone calls among a group of disaffected and disappointed teachers. By year's end, some 50 of them had volunteered to become official members of UTLA's policy-making body, the House of Representatives.
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Robert Rizzo is serving time behind cars
January 13, 2011
A tipster dropped me a line the other day to say she'd spotted an infamous former public official in Huntington Beach, working as a parking lot guard at the International Surfing Museum.
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Mental health services should be part of the discussion in wake of Arizona shooting
January 10, 2011
Predictably, politics has dominated the reaction and commentary about Saturday's deadly rampage in Arizona, with no shortage of wild speculation as to whether festering national divisiveness was to blame for the shootings.
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We can build it, but will they come?
January 9, 2011
Anybody out there miss having a National Football League team in Los Angeles?
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Follicles show signs of life in Glendale
January 2, 2011
I can't say that what's been happening on the top of barber Vaughn Vasquez's head is the talk of Glendale, because for lots of men, matters regarding hair and hair loss are a private matter.
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A 30-year layover in L.A.
December 29, 2010
Gary Chen was writing the final pages of his book when I walked into Stein on Vine. When I asked what the book was about, Chen said it was the story of a kid from Taiwan who walked in the door of a legendary Hollywood music shop 30 years ago and never left.
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Standing up for injured vets
December 26, 2010
More than 40 years ago, while the Vietnam War was raging, the Los Angeles son of a world-famous critic of the war got a draft notice. Steve Peck managed to get a temporary deferment because he was in college. But after graduation, it was time to report to the Marines for duty.
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Iraq's legacy includes heroes
December 22, 2010
In November, after writing about the anti-war mother of a Los Angeles soldier killed in Iraq, I got a strongly worded note of objection.
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Factions in school debate need a time-out
December 18, 2010
Pardon me, kids, but is it too much to ask that teachers union representatives, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and L.A. Unified School District officials begin acting like adults?
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Baca's done it again, and this one's a doozy
December 15, 2010
In conversations with Lee Baca, you sometimes find yourself wondering, "OK, is this guy a sheriff or a shaman?"
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Sitting down with A.J. Duffy
September 19, 2010
Ordinarily, when someone cancels his subscription and organizes a protest outside The Times, I don't go and knock on his door to talk him into subscribing again. But I have a soft spot for A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, and I know he'd be a smarter, better-informed leader with a Times subscription, particularly since we've started a much-needed conversation on how to better serve hundreds of thousands of students.
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Una conversación con A.J. Duffy
September 18, 2010
Cuando alguien cancela su suscripción y organiza una manifestación de protesta frente al edificio del Times, por lo general no voy a tocar a su puerta para convencerlo de que se suscriba otra vez. Pero siento cierta simpatÃa por A.J. Duffy, presidente de United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), y sé que si se suscribiera al Times serÃa un lÃder más inteligente y mejor informado, sobretodo porque hemos entablado una conversación muy necesaria acerca de las formas idóneas de servir a cientos de miles de estudiantes.
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How to fix a system that one teacher calls 'a joke'
August 29, 2010
Steve Franklin, a middle school teacher in L.A. Unified, had some issues with The Times series on teacher evaluations, so he fired off a letter to the editor. It read, in part:
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Maybe we should thank Bell's Rizzo for shedding light on pension excesses
August 1, 2010
Marcia Fritz remembers it distinctly: She had a chilled glass of Handley chardonnay in her hand and was chatting with friends on the shores of Lake Tahoe in August of 2002. She was totally relaxed until one of her pals brought up an official in her mid-size city who was retiring. His pension was to be based on a 3-50 formula.
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The bleeding Bell blues
July 21, 2010
In the newspaper business, when editors are asked what kinds of stories they want to go after, there's a popular two-word answer. The first word is "holy" and the second word is unprintable.
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Deposition paints an unflattering portrait of Mahony
June 20, 2010
I've said many times that Cardinal Roger Mahony should stop resisting the release of church documents in the sex abuse scandal. But after a Mahony deposition in a molestation case was made public by the courts last week at the request of The Times, I can see why the cardinal has fought to keep things under wraps.
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A calm voice on Arizona's immigration law
May 2, 2010
As usual when the topic is immigration, there's lots of heat out there and very little light.
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Who's Who with whose funds?
April 21, 2010
A few weeks ago, my colleague Garrett Therolf wrote about how Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas used $25,000 in public funds to buy himself a place in "Who's Who in Black Los Angeles."
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Go tell it on the mountain: The Edge doesn't need five homes here
December 23, 2009
Just so you know, it's not easy for me to refer to U2 guitarist David Evans as "The Edge." Sure, there was a time when I referred to myself as S. Lo. But I quickly realized that once you've gone gray, it's hard to get away with anything other than what's on the birth certificate.
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Riding the public gravy train
December 9, 2009
If you're looking for work in this rotten economy, I've got a tip:
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High fashion in the medicinal high business
November 18, 2009
The physician was wearing high heels, a tight-fitting white lab coat and lots of gold jewelry, which is not quite what you expect to see when you visit a pot doctor. Nor do you expect to see a chandelier the size of a Christmas tree in a waiting room decorated like an Indian palace.
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A bit player in L.A.'s medical marijuana theater
November 4, 2009
All right, so I'm a few days late with this update on my medical marijuana adventures. In answer to readers, no, I was not too stoned to write about it earlier.
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Can he even get to first base?
November 1, 2009
Dear Jamie McCourt:
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A visit to the medical marijuana doctor
October 28, 2009
Oooh, there's a pinch in my lower back.
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Want this fan's World Series tickets? Give Manny what for
October 7, 2009
Anybody out there want my World Series tickets? For free?
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Polanski's defenders lose sight of the true victim
September 30, 2009
Q: Did you resist at that time?
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Dark charges from Mahony's inner circle
September 22, 2009
If you've got rosary beads handy, please say a prayer for the leader of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Last week was not a good one for Cardinal Roger Mahony, and there may be no letup in weeks to come if a certain monsignor continues to testify in a deposition being taken as part of a civil case against Mahony and the diocese.
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It's funny what passes for offensive these days
September 9, 2009
The ads weren't far from each other on Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown.
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For veterans, a gift from the sea
August 23, 2009
If you had seen Tatiana Reyes in the water at Zuma Beach last week, gliding smoothly toward the shore, you couldn't have guessed she was nearly killed in a crippling explosion while serving in Iraq. She looked like she could have been one of the surfing instructors.
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'Tommy Bahama State Beach' might be the only way to go
August 5, 2009
Maybe it's the summer heat. Or maybe, like a lot of people, I've given up all hope of any bold leadership in California when it comes to the budget.
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Serenade in the key of glee
July 12, 2009
He was so eager to make the trip, he called several times to make sure it hadn't been canceled.
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A modest proposal for fiscal misery: Make them hurt in Brentwood and beyond
June 10, 2009
We're in a bind here in California, mates, in case you hadn't noticed. The till is tapped, the budget deficit is bigger than the great outdoors, and lately even the sun has disappeared.
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A better way of dealing with society's neediest
April 19, 2009
So what exactly am I doing on Capitol Hill? I'm at a congressional briefing, which wouldn't be entirely out of the ordinary, except that I'm not taking notes and not planning to beat up on anyone.
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Former judge fired up on making pot legal
March 29, 2009
All right, tell me this doesn't sound a little strange:
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Villaraigosa's win might not be a victory
March 4, 2009
Is it possible to win an election and still come off as a loser?
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Loaves multiply in the hands of Bagel Brigade
February 8, 2009
It's morning, technically, but the San Fernando Valley sky is black as a stone. Art Siegel, with 80 years on the clock, is trolling the lonely predawn avenues in a white van, casting about for his daily catch of donated bread. ¶ "Bagel Brigade," says the sign on the van. ¶ I ask about the quantity of stale goods Siegel and his buddies gather every day and give to people in need, and his voice drops. ¶ "I don't use the word 'stale,' " Siegel says. "I use 'day-old.' " ¶ It won't happen again. ¶ "You see this guy coming out to us right now?" Siegel asks as we stand in the parking lot behind the Gelson's on Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. "He's going to give me a full basket of bread."
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Give up the yacht AND the personal trainer?
February 4, 2009
WALL STREET CEO: Hi, honey, I'm at the office and I've got horrible news.
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97% in poll want Villaraigosa to debate, but he still refuses
February 4, 2009
The question I put to readers last week was clear and direct:
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Mayoral race is worth a debate
January 28, 2009
If I could have had it my way, Rick Caruso would be running for mayor of Los Angeles. I don't know if he would have won, and I don't know if I would have voted for him. But I love a good fight, and Caruso is rich enough to have raised the small hairs on the back of Antonio Villaraigosa's neck.
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Story of homeless mother and ill daughter brings in the mail
December 23, 2008
On Sunday, I reported the story of a 16-year-old girl with leukemia, living with her mother in a Ford Explorer in the parking lot of a McDonald's restaurant while undergoing chemotherapy. Since then, the story has taken a few twists.
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They're living with cancer and little else
December 21, 2008
So you think you've got it bad this holiday season? Here's a story that will put things in perspective for you, no matter how grim your job prospects or how invisible your shrinking retirement fund.
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LAUSD flounders as superintendent rakes it in
December 7, 2008
I had lunch with Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. David Brewer earlier this year at a restaurant near downtown Los Angeles and almost choked. Not on the food, but the prices.
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Happiness, fear and hope at Oakridge mobile home park in Sylmar
November 17, 2008
It's 90 degrees in November, the full glory and perennial curse of Southern California on fierce display. Devil winds, hill-hopping infernos, smoked mansions, torched trailers, barren freeways, and brilliant sunsets lingering in low-hanging canopies of burnt dreams.
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Into the wild of Wasilla, Alaska, where Sarah Palin once ruled
September 23, 2008
I almost ran into a moose on the way to Sarah Palin's hometown.
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Covering Sarah Palin campaign from the Nome front
September 21, 2008
Yes, Nome.
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At 99, psychoanalyst still has a lot on her schedule
September 14, 2008
She answers the knock at the door, smiles exquisitely, floats through the afternoon light of her Brentwood home with casual grace.
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Glendale yard cops are at it again
August 6, 2008
Here we go again, back to my favorite place in all of Southern California -- the city where no good deed goes unpunished.
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'Black & White and Dead All Over' by John Darnton
July 28, 2008
ANY GREAT newsroom worth its salt is an ink-stained asylum, a toxic landfill, a college of cranks and a museum of misfits who never learn, despite years of broken promises to weary spouses, that they will not be home for dinner.
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Why your 50 cents for The Times is the best bargain in the world
July 16, 2008
Way back in my cub days at the Oakland Tribune, the paper I read growing up, I learned to check the bulletin board every day to see who the owner was. We had four of them in six years, and a wise man would have known then to leave journalism for dry-cleaning, embalming, clam-digging, anything with a brighter future.
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Dodger chef hits them all out of the park
July 13, 2008
The first half of the season has been a yawn, and some of the biggest sluggers in the lineup have holes in their bats. But one time-tested veteran swings for the fences and hits a home run every night at Dodger Stadium.
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'Thanks' just isn't enough
May 25, 2008
The names sit like scattered ashes, enough sacrifice to turn an entire page gray as a tombstone on Memorial Day weekend.
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Admiral Aloof? Admiral AWOL
May 7, 2008
When it comes to the management of the Los Angeles Unified School District, there is such a rich buffet of material lately, I hardly know where to begin.
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The design of L.A. Unified's new arts high school is convoluted and costly
May 4, 2008
"What is it?" Kelly Charles asked as he walked to his job as a custodian in downtown Los Angeles and gazed up at a rather odd construction project. "A roller coaster?"
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. . . And most of them lived happily ever after
April 27, 2008
Five years later . . .
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Mr. Ayers drives toward a mulligan
April 20, 2008
Of all our many adventures, the trip to the golf course in Griffith Park might be the most memorable.
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Escaping the heat in a hotter clime
March 30, 2008
Charlie Bonner went to the closet and shoved his wife's clothes aside, a small fortune worth of chic rags she'd never worn twice. He opened the safe and reached for his passport, two bundles of cash and the address of the dancer from Jumbo's Clown Room on Hollywood Boulevard.
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At 20, his experiences reach far beyond his years
January 27, 2008
He's how old?
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A family's resilience withstands the flames
October 28, 2007
The beige French country-style home in the hills, with a distant view of the sea on blue-sky days, had been built to withstand California's best punches.
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Katrina comparisons are a different class of wrong
October 26, 2007
You knew it had to happen.
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Fires in Malibu ignite rage on the Web
October 22, 2007
In times of natural disaster, the best often surfaces in all of us. Donations, warm blankets, sandwiches. Whatever is needed, we're at the ready.
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'60s still alive on a corner in Echo Park
October 17, 2007
A spirited Art Goldberg was up in his shabby Echo Park office Monday afternoon, above the Vietnamese bakery with the moon cakes he loves, counting votes for the antiwar resolution he's been touting since August.
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Charity begins at home plate
September 9, 2007
OK, so how did I end up standing at home plate in Dodger Stadium with a pitching wedge in my hand and a golf ball at my feet?
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We laugh, cry, hiss at 'Perils of Antonio'
July 6, 2007
Who needs telenovelas when you have Los Angeles City Hall?
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At L.A. City Hall, the summer of love
July 4, 2007
At Cal State L.A. on Tuesday, Jaime Regalado was fielding a steady stream of e-mails, almost all of them from women who've had it with the Don Juan who calls himself our mayor.
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Everyone loses with MTA's rate decision
May 25, 2007
The bright young Westchester High School students I was talking to at Thursday's Metropolitan Transportation Authority meeting were being cheated.
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Advice to Governor: Just Start Governing
January 8, 2006
First he was the Terminator.
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The Best Present for Nathaniel: a Future
December 18, 2005
Christmas came a couple of weeks early to the skid row apartment of a soulful gent who goes by the name of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers.
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Man of the Streets, in Three Suites
December 4, 2005
First Suite: The Apartment
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Peppering Raccoons With Mothballs
November 16, 2005
When I confessed a few weeks ago that I had a bit of a raccoon problem in my garden and was buying coyote urine to repel them, I had no idea I had joined the ranks of some of the most exasperated and unstable people in all of Southern California.
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Stakes Are So High, It's Hard to Wait
October 30, 2005
I could tell something was bothering Casey Horan and Shannon Murray, and it wasn't hard to guess what. They're in the business of patience, and I've got very little of it.
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Now Comes the Heavy Lifting
October 23, 2005
"I am going to take on the challenge."
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Urban Renaissance Meets the Middle Ages
October 20, 2005
They're yours for the taking: Luxury lofts in downtown Los Angeles, with rooftop pools, swanky cabanas, and views of Porta Potti brothels on skid row.
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Street Conversations With the Broken-Down Brigade
October 19, 2005
He's in a wheelchair, ducking behind a trash can. I step forward to see if he's OK and inadvertently scare him.
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Offering Compassion, Not a Cure
October 18, 2005
There is no such thing as skid row disease. But if there were, Lonnie Whitaker, 49, would have it bad. He hobbles into the office of Dr. Dennis Bleakley, lowers himself onto a chair and goes through the long list of what ails him.
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A Corner Where L.A. Hits Rock Bottom
October 17, 2005
A few hours after a homeless guy named Virgil died of an overdose in the portable toilet, the blue plastic outhouse at 6th and San Julian streets was back in business. Not as a toilet, but as a house of prostitution.
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Demons Are Winning on Skid Row
October 16, 2005
The call comes in at 11:18 in the morning. Possible overdose on skid row, just half a block from one of the busiest firehouses in the United States.
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From Skid Row to Disney Hall
October 9, 2005
Nathaniel was in a panic over what to wear.
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From Skid Row to Disney Hall
October 9, 2005
Nathaniel was in a panic over what to wear.
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A Ray of Hope for Future Nathaniels
September 25, 2005
The timing was perfect. I had just asked a Yale professor why there are no mentally ill people living on the streets of Norway, where he helped design some of the most progressive mental health treatment in the world. Then a colleague mentioned she was working on a story about Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies dumping a mentally ill man on skid row in downtown Los Angeles, where thousands of chronically ill people sleep on filthy, rat-infested streets.
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Vicious Circle of Hope, Despair
August 7, 2005
I got the message while I was out of town. The owner of Little Pedro's said Nathaniel had flipped out while playing cello at the downtown Los Angeles club, launching into a belligerent tirade in front of his audience.
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A New Stage for Homeless Musician
June 26, 2005
Alexis Rivera, owner of Little Pedro's Blue Bongo in downtown Los Angeles, was riding his bike to work one night when he saw Nathaniel Anthony Ayers playing violin near the mouth of the 2nd Street tunnel. Rivera stopped and listened for more than an hour before approaching Nathaniel with a proposition.
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A Twilight Concerto for Rats and Cello
May 29, 2005
I know only part of his story. I know him playing the cello on a dairy crate in the morning sun, suspended somewhere between boy genius and lost traveler.
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A Cello Backdrop for Voices Inside
May 8, 2005
When I saw Nathaniel Anthony Ayers back in his usual location, I had to ask: How could he stand playing a crummy violin when he had a brand new cello waiting for him several blocks away?
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Violinist Has the World on 2 Strings
April 17, 2005
Nathaniel was shy in our first encounter a few months ago, if not a little wary. He took a step back when I approached to say I liked the way his violin music turned the clatter around downtown L.A.'s Pershing Square into an urban symphony.
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