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Still catching up to the backlog...
• CityBeat's current "Real. Best. LA" theme issue is the largest yet at 108 pages. Fun tidbits include the revelation that some King Tut treasures first came to L.A. in 1962 and a list of traffic shortcuts.
• Shannon Murphy, the former Fleishman-Hillard operative who jumped to City Hall as press spokeswoman for Mayor Jim Hahn, is now on the staff of Sen. Gil Cedillo.
• Herbalife's new sponsorship deal with the Home Depot Center in Carson and the L.A. Galaxy is interesting for one reason. The owner of rival soccer power Chivas U.S.A., Jorge Vergara, is a former Herbalife salesman who runs a competitor called Omnilife—and his team plays in Carson too. Also, posters at the Big Soccer bulletin board are skewering the Times for covering both teams' road games from Los Angeles. Should be noted, though, that none of the papers (including La Opinión) travel routinely with the local soccer teams. Expect huge coverage though for Wednesday's match at the Coliseum between visiting Chivas Guadalajara and Club America, Mexican teams with huge followings here.
• Blogger Rodger Jacobs posts about last week's LAist party and uses the occasion to settle an old score with cartoonist Donna Barstow.
• Attention Assignment editors I: Did pressure from Paramount last weekend shut down Seth Isler's (pretty hilarious) one-man show "The Godfadda Workout" at the Century City Playhouse? Looks that way.
• Attention Assignment editors II: Is the LAT's Michael Kinsley making a run at the top job at The Atlantic? Purely unconfirmed rumor at this point.
• Yin and yang of media parties: SPJ is hosting Tu Ciudad editor Oscar Garza for drinks tonight at the Figueroa Hotel, while the Press Club is having a book party for Paul Feig's Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin on Wednesday night at the Grafton.
• I'm quoted as a Wilshire Boulevard expert by William M. Welch of the USA Today bureau in Los Angeles in a situationer last week on the Ambassador Hotel.
• Fishbowl L.A. notes that Variety will start running Liz Smith gossip when Army Archerd's column ends.