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Ever heard of Angelo Mozilo? He is chairman and CEO of Countrywide Financial Corp., and king of the L.A. Business Journal's list of highest-paid local executives. His take last year: $71.8 million...Times columnist-cum-Hollywood wannabe Joel Stein's pilot about himself for ABC was not picked up. Sunday Opinion's blog this week is All About Joel...The Times editorializes Tuesday that Villaraigosa's 81-member transition team "could devolve into a tower of Babel. Or, more optimistically, it could allow Villaraigosa to enter office with his mayoral arms around every interest he'll need to call on later."...The Daily Breeze's David Zahniser points out that 26 of the transition team's members don't live in Los Angeles, and Joseph Mailander blogs that very few (perhaps only one) are members of neighborhood councils [* Brady Westwater, chair of the downtown NC, posts and emails that there are four council members on the team]...Richard Riordan's words get noticed again. Rick Orlov reports in the Daily News that the ex-mayor quipped about the Grand Avenue high-rise plan, "It's a bunch of baloney. It's just rich guys getting richer. I'm one of them." The kicker, Orlov says, is Riordan was joking and actually backs the plan. The Grand Avenue debate continues in this week's L.A. Business Journal (behind the pay wall): Eli Broad vs. Richard Weinstein of UCLA. Sunday's DN bannered the question: A Grand Delusion?...The Daily News editorializes today against the city bailing out Hahn supporter James Acevedo to the tune of $1.9 million...The Times catches on to the Baseball Reliquary, which I've mentioned now a few times...Master surfboard designer Dale Velzy died at age 77.
In blogs: Emmanuelle Richard takes in French author Michel Houellebecq's talk at the Hammer Musuem, hears him say that unlike Bernard-Henri Levy, he thinks "the future is cities like L.A."...La Bloga notes the publication by McSweeney's of The People of Paper, a novel by USC grad student Salvador Plascencia...Jeff of the SoCalLawBlog is guest-blogging for BoifromTroy, who is traveling in Europe...Arnoldwatch.org points the finger at what it calls product placement in Gov. Schwarzenegger's TV spots for brands that have donated to his coffers...In honor of Oliver Stone's weekend bust for driving under the influence and drug possession, Marc Cooper remembers that the drunkest he ever got was with Stone nineteen years ago.