Month: March 2021

HBO’s celebratory Tina Turner doc gives her the final word on the woman behind the iconic name

HBO’s celebratory Tina Turner doc gives her the final word on the woman behind the iconic name

“Tina Turner, the woman who taught Mick Jagger to dance, is on the prowl again.” This headline opens Carl Arrington‘s 1981 interview with her for People magazine, a feature Turner hoped would serve as her official coming out announcement. In “Tina” it is the dividing line in between her life as it was and the force she became. Forty years ago, however, Turner hoped that by opening up to People she could provide a definitive response to all the queries about her ex-husband Ike, the man who made her second billing on the Ike & Tina Turner Revue and subjected her to horrific physical abuse for years. Turner was ready to start her next chapter, a solo act to leave behind a past she desperately wanted to forget. When that story led to curiosity of a morbid nature, Turner tried to set the record straight again with her 1986 autobiography “I, Tina,” co-authored with journalist Kurt Loder. In the book’s 1993 cinematic adaptation “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” star Angela Bassett depicts the violence Tina …

The 70 best hikes in L.A. and Southern California

The 70 best hikes in L.A. and Southern California

My single favorite sound, if pressed to choose, would be crunching gravel on a hike. Hiking, for me, is a sensual experience. It starts the moment I step out of my car, whether that’s on a mountain road in the Angeles National Forest, in a parking lot at Debs Park or on a residential street in the Hollywood Hills. All of my senses immediately engage — call it “hiking foreplay” — while surveying the open vistas, or dusty switchbacks, or the forested path ahead; while tuning in to the chorus of birds, rustling tree leaves and, as I climb upward, my own rhythmic breathing; while inhaling the commingling scents of, say, wild fennel, sage and sweat. Even the dry air on my dehydrated tongue or my aching glutes on an especially long journey somehow add to the experience. The body responds, unfurling. The effect, no matter how rigorous the trek, is calming. Hiking, more than anything else, is what grounds me. Los Angeles is a mecca for hiking, if just because of the topographical diversity …