Culver City

Actor Gary Busey, whose 1978 performance in "The Buddy Holly Story" won an Academy Award nomination, was critically injured Sunday in a motorcycle accident in Culver City, police said. Busey, 44, of Malibu, was driving west on Washington Boulevard near Robertson Boulevard at 11:40 a.m. when his Harley-Davidson motorcycle fell to the ground, Culver City Police Sgt. Karin Reagan said. "He was thrown off, and the back of his head struck the curb," Reagan said. "He was not wearing a helmet."

Blind Barber Where: 10797 Washington Blvd, Culver City When: Barbershop: noon-9 p.m., Monday-Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Sunday. Bar: Tuesday-Saturday, 6 p.m.-2 a.m. Price: No cover, drinks $7 to $18 Info: blindbarber.com

IF it's been a year or two since you've shopped for a mattress, you're in for some surprises. That memory foam bed that once seemed so novel? It's now decidedly mainstream. Latex is the hot material of choice. And that's not all that's changed. Choices are multiplying -- especially on the luxury end -- and prices are too.

At a new, clean, classically styled barbershop in Culver City, the three young owners sit in the sun coming through their open storefront window talking women, restaurants and booze. Casual and welcoming, the attitude is akin to that of a clubhouse - a community hangout as in times past. It helps that their shop, the Blind Barber, is also a bar. "My grandfather was a very well-dressed and put-together man," said Jeff Laub, 28, one of the partners. "He hung at his barbershop. That's where they talked about women, that's where they played cards, that's where they made deals, that's where it all went down.

At a new, clean, classically styled barbershop in Culver City, the three young owners sit in the sun coming through their open storefront window talking women, restaurants and booze. Casual and welcoming, the attitude is akin to that of a clubhouse - a community hangout as in times past. It helps that their shop, the Blind Barber, is also a bar. "My grandfather was a very well-dressed and put-together man," said Jeff Laub, 28, one of the partners. "He hung at his barbershop. That's where they talked about women, that's where they played cards, that's where they made deals, that's where it all went down.

Alternative Living for the Aging, a nonprofit organization that provides affordable-housing alternatives to low-income senior citizens, is offering roommate-matching services at the Culver City Senior Citizens Center. ALA, established in 1978, has brought more than 4,250 people together to share houses, condos and apartments.

Question: My 68-year-old mother has lived in a single-family home in Culver City for the last five years. She pays $600 a month rent. The house was sold last month. The new owner said he will upgrade the house, raise the rent and let her stay, or sell the house and ask her to move. If he does decide to sell the house and asks her to leave, is she entitled to any compensation? I once read in your column that seniors older than 62 are entitled to $5,000 in relocation fees.

In yet another demonstration of the power of entertainment and technology firms to bring neglected neighborhoods to life, an obscure corner of Culver City has emerged as a fashionable hub of creative industries. Architects, advertising agencies, post-production companies and Internet-related firms are crowding into the Hayden Tract, a 50-acre huddle of industrial buildings south of Venice Boulevard that was formerly considered a drab secondary market.

Culver City Police Chief John Montanio, accused of giving a city councilman's son special treatment during a traffic stop, signed a letter this year urging leniency for the same man in an earlier concealed weapon case. Montanio went to bat for Albert Vera Jr., 39, who received probation after pleading no contest to illegal possession of a handgun. The gun was discovered when the son of Culver City Councilman Albert Vera Sr. was arrested for petty theft last year.

The neighborhood around the office of Eric Owen Moss feels first like Mayberry, then a bit like "Killer of Sheep." And just after the block of tree-shaded single family homes runs into a stretch of factories and warehouses, a parched, undeveloped hill rises -- almost a bit of John Ford. It's near where Culver City -- that once forgotten, now chic, city -- rams into Los Angeles, and it's the kind of hybrid, fragmented setting that Moss says makes the greater L.A. area so rich with possibility.

Cuningham Group Architecture's office is situated a few blocks from the water in Marina del Rey, where some workers like to run, bike or skateboard to work. In June the firm will be moving seven miles inland to an office compound in Culver City. The draw? The nearby Expo Line station. "We wanted to be in Culver City because of the rail line," said Jonathan Watts, a firm principal. "We end up being in downtown Los Angeles a lot dealing with the city and permitting, and we have a number of employees living east of downtown.

To write about this city is in some essential way to create it. Not in cement and steel, but in the imagination of its citizens, as well as in the minds of people who will never come here but who nevertheless carry an image of it in their heads. An image that is, in its way, as important as the concrete place where people live and sleep and look for places to park. So many people come to Los Angeles with an idea of the city, some apotheosis of the American Dream with palm trees plus a really nice car. Then they settle down into ordinary jobs and don't even understand the part of town they live in, let alone how it fits into the city as a whole or how the city started and grew.

The upcoming Screen Gems movie "Think Like a Man" is a romantic comedy based on a bestselling book by comedian Steve Harvey. It's also a love letter of sorts to Culver City, which plays a starring role in the movie. "I came up with this idea that if we shot Culver City for Culver City, we could get the local politicians and shop owners on board and excited about this movie so that it would almost be a little postcard for the community," said Glenn Gainor, head of physical production for Screen Gems, a label of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Here's what you need to know about the new Expo Line, the latest addition to L.A.'s patchy network of light-rail spurs: It's fast - for about three miles, then it gets pretty slow. It's so brand spanking new that the slimy stuff you feel on the stainless steel handrails is actually oil, not something more infectious left behind by passengers with bad colds. It's quiet as an elevator. And it's opening April 28. Here's what it isn't: The first rail line since the closing of the old Red Car network to connect the Westside to the rest of L.A., as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other leaders of L.A.'s transportation scene said repeatedly Friday during a media test ride.

You'll be hard-pressed to find a more complimentary pairing this weekend than the mysterious guitar explorations of Sir Richard Bishop and the equally confounding confines of the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Surrounded by exhibits that blur the line between fact and fiction, the co-founder of the surrealistically psychedelic band Sun City Girls should fill the air with a similarly bewitching atmosphere as heard on the Middle Eastern-tinged mix of surf rock and ragas on his 2009 album, "The Freak of Araby.

About $100 million worth of PCP was seized this week in Los Angeles and Culver City in what authorities described as a major bust of a national drug-trafficking organization. Officials said they found huge amounts of PCP — totaling roughly 10 million individual doses, which in the Los Angeles area sell for between $10 and $20 each — at two local storage facilities and several other locations. Authorities also recovered nearly $400,000 in cash. Authorities believe the trafficking organization included at least 10 individuals locally and that it was distributing to Texas, New York and Washington, D.C., and other U.S. cities.

Culver City will make existing city restrictions on smoking even tougher when a new law goes into effect next week limiting smoking in restaurants, public places and in the workplace. The amended ordinance expands a 1975 law that was one of the first of its kind in the United States. That law restricted smoking in certain public areas and retail establishments. The amendments were passed unanimously by the Culver City Council on Aug. 10. "It's strong enough to make a significant statement and .

Marilyn Clark is a peppy, birdlike woman who has written a song about Culver City. I heard about her endeavor at a time when I was in desperate need of a column. A song about Culver City? I could not believe my good fortune. A song about Culver City is like a song about Lompoc or Pacoima or Spofford, Tex. The very idea is humorous. God had me in mind when he inspired Marilyn Clark. I came home that night brimming with happiness, which in itself is out of character.

Barron Storey, an illustrator and art instructor based in San Francisco whose work has been paired with writing by Neil Gaiman as well as a familiar reissued edition of William Golding's "Lord of the Flies," is creator of the solo exhibition "Soliloquy," which captures elusive thoughts in darkly surreal images and muted, expressive colors. LeBasse Projects, 6023 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Through March 3. (310) 558-0200, http://www.lebasseprojects.com .

The Los Angeles Community College District has ended its contract with a construction-management company that oversaw the rebuilding of West Los Angeles College, where tens of millions of dollars went to waste on abandoned projects. In a settlement with the district, Turner Construction Co. agreed to leave its post of managing projects on the Culver City campus Feb. 1. Turner, which the district was preparing to fire, also said it would not seek further work from the district before July 2015.