Weekly archive
July 23 - July 29, 2006
Saturday, Jul. 29
So much for Mel Gibson wrapping himself in God. When he was arrested Friday on suspicion of DUI in Malibu, a very un-pious Gibson resisted the deputy and threatened repeatedly...
Who knew it's illegal to play ball on L.A. streets?: The Los Angeles Municipal Code forbids playing "ball or any game of sport with a ball or football or throw,...
Air traffic controllers described this week's runway encounter as "the closest call they have seen at LAX in seven years." A small passenger jet speeding into its take-off missed colliding...
Each of the local billionaire media moguls-in-waiting — Eli Broad, David Geffen and Ron Burkle — sent separate letters to the Tribune Company board this month expressing interest in buying...
Friday, Jul. 28
You can walk into a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company emporium on Maui or at the Mall of America and find pretty much the same menu: shrimp and more shrimp, done...
Mayor Villaraigosa's independent fundraising committee for his school reform effort reported raising $1.1 million. James G. Robinson, head of Morgan Creek Productions, lambasted Lindsay Lohan in a letter chiding...
TMZ.com says that Mel Gibson was arrested this morning on suspicion of DUI by the Malibu sheriff's. He made the mistake of speeding in the dark on Pacific Coast Highway....
Is there a lazier media and blog meme going around right now than the anti-Westside digs over the 310/424 area code overlay and resulting addition of four digits to every...
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is swirling through California for a bunch of appearances, including the Rupert Murdoch bash in Pebble Beach. On Monday he will meet the local elite...
Mayor Villaraigosa's preferred course toward reform of the LAUSD — Assembly bill 1381 — came up for endorsement before the the City Council's Intergovernmental Relations committee this morning. When no...
Top News Unprepared for the worst The DWP was "shocked" at the peak levels of electricity used during the heat wave and overestimated the quality of its aging transformers...
Thursday, Jul. 27
Those instructions on how aides are supposed to "staff" Mayor Villaraigosa are still being passed around. The demand for unlimited Listerine breath strips and room temperature water, as reported by...
Author Mariane Pearl describes getting behind the wheel in the NYT's New York Observed column [editor's note: harrumph] last Sunday. It's what prompted her to start driving that got my...
David Rensin has been a contributing editor of Playboy since before web browsers came along. He has written more than a hundred interviews for the magazine and devotes most of...
Aquaman the movie? John Horn reports on the Times website that the real Ari Emanuel is at the center of real "informal talks" on a movie deal that parallels the...
News out of Mayor Villaraigosa's office is that Rafael López will serve as interim executive director for the Commission on Children, Youth, and Their Families, and Ken Simmons will do...
Rushmore Cervantes is general manager of El Pueblo, the City Department with responsibility for Olvera Street. He will come to City Hall East as Controller Laura Chick's chief deputy controller....
Former model Tina Teets came forward today to talk about appearing on the Sheriff's roster of 54 missing women — and her run-in with photographer-murderer William Bradford in 1984. At...
Top News Leads on missing women pour in Sheriff's detectives get the help they hoped for, including a single email from an unidentified tipster giving 12 names. They think...
Wednesday, Jul. 26
Writer, producer, novelist (and significant other of Helen Hunt) Matthew Carnahan had his personal home page taken hostage by pro-Palestinian hackers. Ray Richmond blogs that Carnahan hasn't written or done...
Former CityBeat columnist Erik Himmelsbach has taken his Valley Boy persona to the blogopshere. In his second post, he talks about the book he is writing about legendary Los Angeles...
An eagle-eyed (female) reader with a sense of Los Angeles history spotted a paid obit in the Times for Big John Mazmanian, a legend of Southern California car culture. (No...
Posting has been a tad light today due to the intrusion of life and preoccupation with the changes around here. This makes it worth it, though. I'm pleased to announce...
Funny you should ask. The former NPR reporter and KPCC host is in Kenya with a delegation from St. Monica's Catholic Church in Santa Monica (home parish of the Schwarzenegger-Shrivers.)...
Rip Rense has written about his devotion to the Beatles before. After attending the Las Vegas premiere of the new Cirque du Soleil show he makes no pretense of equanimity...
The Onion plans to peel off a Los Angeles edition to hit the streets Aug. 10. They plan to dump about 50,000 copies at the usual coffee houses, free racks...
Morning Buzz is late today due to some technical snags. Hope you find the new look to your liking. Top News Missing women update Multiple murdered William Bradford told jurors...
Duke Helfand of the LAT's city-county bureau got his hands on a fascinating instruction sheet given to staffers who accompany Mayor Villaraigosa in his travels around the city. The two-page...
Tuesday, Jul. 25
Around LA Observed's sites this afternoon: Warner Bros. deal with iTunes, new prez of Disneyland, and who to blame for power woes. Jered Weaver is no Fernando, but then who...
The KCRW host returns to court August 15 to be sentenced on a cocaine possession charge, the only prosecution to come out of his June 6 arrest on suspicion of...
They had to bribe Kansas City to take him. Story at SoCal Sports Observed....
Santa Barbara News-Press owner and co-publisher Wendy McCaw delivered another missive to readers today claiming that she's the victim in the explosion of upset over her journalism ethics. She says...
After my Monday scooplet (yes I mean it ironically) about Los Angeles Times managing editor Doug Frantz giving Metro reporters pony rides at lunch hour as a staff bonding exercise,...
The Times editorial page today follows the Daily News in wagging the finger of shame at the politicos and local leaders who lined up to throw money at disgraced ex-councilman...
The OC Post launches Aug. 21 as a six-day, full-color home-delivered tabloid that will feature many of the stories and columns that run in the Register, "but in a shorter,...
On his blog over at TV Week, Christopher Lisotta is letting readers vote on the dumbest question asked during the the Television Critics Association pressfest going on in Pasadena. My...
In the increasingly bitter match of wills over control of LAUSD schools, Mayor Villaraigosa aced today's serve. He named former superintendent Ramon Cortines to be his deputy mayor for education,...
Sheriff's homicide detectives plan to ask for the public's help in locating 54 women (!) whose pictures were found in the home of multiple murderer William Bradford, who used to...
Time for a change. A fairly major change, in light of the way things have been done here so far. There won't be a Morning Buzz today so I can...
Monday, Jul. 24
Staffers at the Los Angeles Times are giggling about a morale booster that managing editor Doug Frantz perpetrated in the midday heat downtown today: pony rides for the Metro staff....
Philip Anschutz's image as the most important Angeleno that most people have never seen — or even heard of — got a big boost with a front-page primer in Sunday's...
There's some chatter out there about today's Daily News editorial lambasting last week's Holmby Hills fundraiser for Martin Ludlow, the ex-councilman who had to give up his County Fed post...
We've got Arnold and Antonio, Frank and Jamie, Ramona and Joel, Mike and Sylvester, and even Bill Handel. It's a full helping of the Morning Buzz for a Monday. Click...
