Brett Johnson

• Experts hope weather won't cloud solar eclipse Published 05/19/2012 at 4:18 p.m.

  Watch the moon dance across the sun in Sunday evening's solar eclipse.

• The machine that shaped California Published 05/19/2012 at 3 p.m.

  The car — including its shotgun-riding companion, traffic — is arguably one of the two iconic images of California, the beach being the other. A new exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art attempts to tackle the car culture's ...

• First Conejo Wine & Jazz Fest on tap Sunday in T.O. Published 05/17/2012 at 3 p.m.

  If variety is the spice of life, then variety might not have enough spices in the rack to keep up with all the worldly sounds that emanate from Luis Conte's drums. The Cuban-born percussionist, who has called Thousand Oaks home ...

• The moon and Venus are set to put on a show; now blow away those clouds! Published 05/05/2012 at 3 p.m.

  Coming soon, some lofty entertainment for a change: The moon and Venus will dance across the face of the sun as celestial eye candy on different days barely two weeks apart.

• Santa Barbara Film Fest announces 2013 dates Published 04/28/2012 at 3 p.m.

  The marquee letters and rolled-up red carpets have only now made their way into storage, but the Santa Barbara International Film Festival already has its eyes on its next close-up.

• Breezing through the blues with Walter Trout Published 04/26/2012 at 3 p.m.

  Forget for a moment that Walter Trout's new album, "Blues for the Modern Daze," dropped Tuesday or that he's one of the headliners at the seventh annual Simi Valley Blues Festival on Saturday out at Hummingbird Nest Ranch.

• Former 'Jeopardy' champ Ken Jennings coming to Camarillo Published 04/21/2012 at 3 p.m.

  Game show champion will speak to The Star Scholar Awards program honorees (the area's top graduating high school seniors) at a banquet Tuesday in the Serra Center in Camarillo.

• A fine brush applied to horses: The art of Fred Stone Published 04/14/2012 at 3 p.m.

  Fred Stone claims he was too slow to be a commercial artist or to apply brush strokes to movie backdrops, but he's sure caught lightning on a canvas painting one of the planet's fastest animals.

• It's been a long, hard road to the new McEuen family album Published 04/05/2012 at 2:26 p.m.

  The McEuens know that road. John McEuen, the "String Wizard" who helped take that Crowell-penned song to No. 1 in 1984 as a member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, certainly has lived it — and still does. Two of ...

• Star Jon Hamm and others dissect the intoxicating mix that is "Mad Men" Published 03/24/2012 at 3 p.m.

  Break out the bourbon, martinis and Old Fashioneds, and drag the suits, fedoras and brightly colored dresses out of mothballs. Fire up the cigarettes and stogies, too.

View all stories for this staff member.