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Something for everyone in LA’s Little Tokyo tomorrow night as Giant Robot and the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center present a FREE evening of outdoor episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba and Ultraman in the event Ultra Gabba Gabba.

Click here for complete details.

From Giant Robot:

“***$1 Beers from 7p-8p! $3 Beers for the rest of the night!***

Break out the lawn chairs and blankets and kick off the summer with this free outdoor screening in Little Tokyo! Classic shows, food trucks and the music of DJ Ultraman all come together under the downtown LA sky for this family friendly event.”

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Curated by Hold Up Art, this month’s Downtown Art Walk goes a little far East as Little Tokyo takes over.

From Hold Up Art:

“The best of Little Tokyo is filling up the Banco Popular Center (4th Street & Spring Street) for this February’s Downtown LA Art Walk. Come by Thursday night, FEB 11th, to get a taste of the art, clothing, music and culture that make up the Little Tokyo district:

Music will be spun by Eron Surdam (Robot Love) and SP of DANCEISM. This magical evening is curated by Hold Up Art and sponsored by all the wonderful stores involved in the Invasion. Spread the word and can’t wait to see you all this Thursday.”

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Although it may be cold and damp in LA, this weekend’s openings and events are sure to heat you up physically, mentally, emotionally and hopefully drunkenly.

• Giant Robot’s Biennale 2: 15 Years keeps on rolling with Friday’s intimate artist talk with fabled painter James Jean and GR’s Eric Nakamura (special edition print release too!) followed by Saturday’s (free admission day!) kid friendly art-making workshop with Stella Lai at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo.

• Portland based artist Andy Kehoe opens his bigest west coast show to date when he unveils The World Unseen and Those In Between at Silver Lake’s Thinkspace Gallery. Take a sneak peek of the show here.

• The Multi-Plane group show at Culver City’s Corey Helford Gallery marks their biggest group show of the year in a throwback to early animation where “each artist created an original painting using the multi-plane, which was made famous by pioneer animators Ub Iwerks, Max Fleischer, Bill Garrity, and Walt Disney. Consisting of three individual surfaces housed in a custom-made frame, the multi-plane creates depth and a three-dimensional effect through two glass foreground layers and a background wood panel.” Among the incredible lineup of artists are Todd Schorr, Gary Baseman, COOP, Tim Biskup, Sylvia Ji, Ron English, Luke Chueh, Jeff Soto, Carlos Ramos and Sage Vaughn.

• The Hit+Run homeboys celebrate their four year anniversary of silkcreening Southern California with Repeat Offender at the Echoplex in Echo Park. A celebration sure to turn into the weekend’s funnest dance party. “With close to 100,000 one-of-a-kind HIT+RUN shirts printed since the debut in November 2005, show off your favorite H+R shirt and get into the party for FREE. The first 300 guests receive complimentary gift bags with mix cds, stickers courtesy of STICKY RICK, and your choice of a blank t-shirt or poster to customize.” Featuring live screenprinting of 20 exclusive designs from Kofie One, Shark Toof, Kime Buzzelli and Mike C among others as well as music from the Gaslamp Killer and many more of LA’s finest.

• A double dosage of the fine folks of Family on Fairfax as they open the aptly titled Group Show One on Saturday featuring artists Ashley Macomber, Kevin Christy, Nicholas Haggard and Sarah Soquel Morhaim, followed by Sunday’s launch of Dear JD Salinger, I Forgive You Signed, Yoko a limited edition book of new poems by Spencer Moody and Anthony Anzalone and published by Cali’s Teenage Teardrops.

• Sweetness is abundant on Saturday as Susan Cianciolo returns to LA with her latest collection of art and uniquely designed clothing with Mountains and Flowers. Also joining Susan will be the musical stylings of the multi-talented ASKA, all going down at Space 15Twenty in Hollywood.

• ‘Tis the season for Santacon. ‘Nuff said. Click here for Saturday Santacons in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. Check here for other worldwide Santacon locations.

• And finally, the fortunate art lovers of New York are treated to a double billing: James Marshall (DALEK) and his high flying space monkeys in his show And There Was War in Heaven; as well as the beautiful wooden women of Audrey Kawasaki in her show Hajimari-A Prelude. Both opening at the city’s Jonathan Levine Gallery.

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The day after Thanksgiving, a.k.a. Black Friday, is upon us which of course means the holiday shopping season has officially begun (in the United States). Let the commerce commence!

• In a novel approach to bring the art to the people, artist/designer Parra drives around LA with his mobile pop-up truck where he’ll be peddling both his art and clothing from his Rockwell Clothing line including various Stones Throw collabos. Truck stops at UNDFTD in Silver Lake from 12-2pm, HVW8 Gallery on Melrose from 3-5pm, and Archrival in Little Tokyo from 6-8pm. Take a peak at what items you may find via Freshnessmag.com.

• Giant Robot stores in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and on the interwebs go the more traditional route as they conduct their salesmanship in-store.

• Possibly the best place to do your gift shopping on the east side of LA is at the uniquely school themed boutique, Reform School. They may not have the crazy sales that many other chain stores are having today but they certainly have an abundance of those not-so-common gifts that are the hardest to find.

• And last but certainly not least is this little show I failed to mention last week and I can’t forgive myself for missing this one. Barry McGee (TWIST) and Phil Frost, two masters of graffiti-to-gallery art opened their group show Mind the Gap at the Prism gallery in West Hollywood last Friday. Curated by RVCA founder and fight aficionado PM Tenore.

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With their fresh locally grown produce, independent vendors and hours or operation that usually directly coincide with your workday, farmers’ markets have been a Los Angeles staple for 30 years now. This Thursday’s celebration of the LA institutions will be held at the first farmers’ market, the Gardena market which opened back on June 23, 1979. On hand will be Mayor Villaraigosa to start the day’s festivities, as well as our friends at GOOD (focusing on design solutions for local food) and Fresh Pressed (handing out free vegetable dyed produce bags from ECOBAGS and the crafty hands of Gelatobaby’s Alissa Walker), a salsa Contest, free birthday carrot cake and food samplings galore. A worthy celebration to be happy for, but sadly the farmers’ market schedule holds true as the party only lasts from 10am-2pm in Little Tokyo.

Click here for a confirmed list of the day’s participants and festivities.

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Got time for things to do on a Saturday in Los Angeles? Sure you do. Hopefully LA will stop burning by then.

• Tony Alva’s Exhibit A Gallery on Fairfax goes Bipolar with the group show featuring the likes of Tim Biskup, Bigfoot and Tiffany Liu among others.

• Hi-Fructose and Gallery Nucleus present Sweet Streets, a group exhibition inspired by the ever-changing and uniquely unexpected Japanese fashion sub-cultures. Featuring Tim Biskup and
  Tiffany Liu in another weekend show, Junko Mizuno, Kozyndan, Yumiko Kayukawa and many many more.

• The Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo opens for Mike Shinoda (yes, the Lincoln Park dj) as he follows his highly-successful 2008 show, Glorious Excess (Born) with Glorious Excess (Dies), the next chapter in his series exploring society’s obsession with celebrity culture, consumer addiction, and fascination with excess.

• And why not end your Saturday watching werewolves while in a cemetery? Cinespia and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery screen John Landis’ classic 1979 horror film, An American Werewolf in London.

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Oh how I long to be one of the many thousands of lucky nerds in San Diego for Comic-Con (still can’t believe I’ve never been, I fear my dork credibility may be in jeopardy!) Fortunately there are many a happening around Los Angeles to take your mind off all the geeky goodness we’re missing out on.

• With that being said, allow me to start with a few events at Comic-Con for those who made the trek down the 405 freeway:

Artist signings by Mark Ryden, Joe Ledbetter, James Jean, The Pizz, Scott Musgrove, Ron English, and Travis Louie for Last Gasp Publishing.

James Jean (again), David Choe, and David Horvath for Giant Robot.

And a Tim and Eric sighting at their very own con of the awesome variety, appropriately called Awesome Con!

• Wayne White (one of my favorite typographists) and Exene Cervenka fly their way over to the Western Project Gallery in Culver City with their two person show, We Are Not the Jetset.

• Stick around Culver City for a three person show featuring some Heavy Petting with David Burke, Riddles In the Dark with Mia, and Keep It Down with guest artist Sarah Folkman at the Corey Helford Gallery.

• Don’t leave Culver City just yet cause the Scion Installation Space opens up it’s place for the 2009 Vice Magazine Photography Exhibition featuring Jamie Lee Curtis Taete, Maggie Lee, and former Vice photo editor, Tim Barber.

• Cinespia presents The Muppet Movie at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, need I say more?

• Recoup on Sunday and take an Urban Hike through Little Tokyo with the Architecture and Design Museum Los Angeles.

• Spread your wings and fly to the MOCA’s Pacific Design Center on Melrose for an art talk with Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues whose installation Feathered Edge: A New Installation by Ball-Nogues Studio is currently on view and features “over 21 miles of colored strings configured in catenary curves span the gallery space to form a dynamic environment.”

• And finally, end your weekend on a “high” note (yeah, that’s right I said it) with Cheech and Chong’s classic Up in Smoke at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

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