Weekly archive
December 3 - December 9, 2006
Saturday, Dec. 9
School board incumbent David Tokofsky, a critic of the mayor's bill to dilute the board's powers, has filed papers with the City Clerk dropping his campaign for reelection, according to...
Jan Perry and her estranged husband, Douglas Galanter, blame him and his business problems for falling $270,000 behind on taxes and being late on mortgage payments. Legal separation papers and...
Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart uses today's column to say he doesn't think much of The Envelope, the L.A. Times' effort to take Oscar campaign ads away from the trades. He...
On January 1 Mayor Villaraigosa becomes responsible for three clusters of L.A. Unified schools — three high schools and the elementary and middle schools that feed students to them. It's...
Friday, Dec. 8
Richard Montoya of Culture Clash (left, as Sen. Gilbert Garcia in "Water and Power" at the Taper) recently joined the Villaraigosa Administration as a commissioner on the Cultural Affairs board....
Staffers at the South Bay Daily Breeze were previously told to switch to a new, post-Copley ownership timecard as of Sunday. That directive has been cancelled: Subject: Timecards All employees,...
There's already been an item today about David Geffen and the L.A. Times, but this is about his home on Carbon Beach in Malibu. The mogul goes to the Coastal...
Nelson is a professor at the Annenberg School of Journalism at USC and a former national correspondent at the Los Angeles Times. In an op-ed in next week's Los Angeles...
Couple of interesting sessions coming up at Zócalo, the public lecture series started by Gregory Rodriguez that LA Observed helps sponsor. Next Tuesday, Dec. 12, "L.A. vs. New York: Who's...
There will be a new lineup of Los Angeles Times editors managing coverage of the next presidential race. The desk will be bicoastal: one editor in Washington, one here in...
Stromme died yesterday of cancer at the age of 59. She wrote the Echo Park novel Joe's Word and the Underground Gardener column for the old L.A. Alternative Press. Just...
Brief history lesson and somewhat optimistic view of the future from The Economist: In the past 15 years the city has gradually built a skeletal subway and light-rail system. Thanks...
Breeze sale '99% complete' Hearst will buy the Torrance paper but MediaNews will "operate" it, until eventually buying the paper from Hearst, the Breeze says in a story today....
David Geffen tells the WSJ that Dreamgirls is his final Hollywood project: "I don't want to keep solving the same problems. I'm not interested in buying things simply to make...
Morning Buzz will be delayed today....
The Museum of Neon Art has to vacate its downtown space by the end of January. Talks on a new location have broken off, the Times' Christopher Reynolds reports today,...
Thursday, Dec. 7
The South Bay Daily Breeze will fetch just $25 million and end up in the hands of Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group via an indirect route, according to the San Jose...
Hollywood Reporter lays off five more, including executive editor Peter Pryor, Fishbowl LA and Nikki Finke say. Earlier in the week editorial director Howard Burns got the axe. (I'm...
Maybe it's the nature of LA Observed, but I keep hearing nothing but horror stories from subscribers to the Los Angeles Times and disgruntled customers of Time Warner's cable service....
Sean Joseph Meade, 41, was taken from home on order of Chief Bill Bratton after a videotape allegedly showed him choking a handcuffed sixteen-year-old suspect at the Central station. Meade...
Richard Bloom, the mayor from 2002 to 2004, is back again after the bi-annual dance of the slates on the Santa Monica City Council. You probably have to live there...
With Glendale and Burbank included the Valley's population is now 1.74 million, larger than every U.S. city except New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.
Announced today: Developer Geoffrey Palmer, Tom Gores of Platinum Equity and Eric Smidt, CEO of Harbor Freight Tools in Camarillo and collector of postwar art. Previously: New blood at LACMA...
Development stories Only in L.A. would a pair of 47-story condo towers in Century City be rated by planners as good for traffic, and Universal City has the mayor's...
Wednesday, Dec. 6
Benett Kessler lives 225 miles from Los Angeles but has been covering the Department of Water and Power as a local story for more than 25 years.
While Greg Maddux takes however many innings might remain in his 40-year-old arm to San Diego, the Dodgers appear to have a deal with Jason Schmidt for three years at...
Will Campbell at Metroblogging interviews the artist who claims to be responsible for the doves found hanging from wires over many Los Angeles streets. They started appearing in Venice...
Suspected gang members backed into and nearly totaled the car of a black woman who has been testifying for several days in the racially inflamed trial over assaults on white...
The talker item around here yesterday was definitely 99-tuba salute, my post on Hollywood studio musician Tommy Johnson from Bill Booth's story in the Washington Post. Yesterday afternoon, NPR's "All...
Courage on the witness stand Jill Leovy's lede on the LAT Column One: "Debra Johnson was poor, skinny, asthmatic, addicted to crack cocaine and spent her days pushing a...
Tuesday, Dec. 5
From Eric Lynxwiler at LottaLiving.com I learned that this classic-style, fully functioning neon sign on the Rose Motel in Harbor City was taken down before Thanksigiving. It was thrown in...
Harold Nelson is out as director of the Long Beach Museum of Art, replaced on an interim basis by former board president Ron Nelson in a move by trustees...
Barbara Bogaev is out as co-host of the American Public Media program heard here on KPCC. It sounds as if a number of Los Angeles producers for "Weekend America" (and...
LA Observed contributor Cari Beauchamp posts at Native Intelligence on the frustration of trying to wrestle answers about her cable service from the voice(s) on the line at Time Warner....
No, Michael Richards did not attend a celebrity roast for Whoopi Goldberg in blackface. Nor did he pour a bottle of Aunt Jemima syrup over Whoopi's head. That was satire...
Tuba players came from all over to play at USC's Bovard Auditorium in tribute to the member of their club whose deep notes you have heard the most. Tommy Johnson,...
New religion and higher education reporters, a philanthropy beat, a reporter for the South Bay and Long Beach and Jeff Rabin moves off the city ethics and developer influence beat....
Nativadad Cano, the gent on the right, is a legend in his own time. Born in Jalisco, he came to Los Angeles in 1957 as a member of one of...
Amy Pascal, promoted this year to co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, tops the latest edition of The Hollywood Reporter's Women in Entertainment Power 100. She also holds the title of...
Thinking through Prop. 83 Times reporter Peter Y. Hong wanted to hear out the convicted child molester before deciding whether to join his Altadena neighborhood's push to force him...
Monday, Dec. 4
William Morris has sent along the press release on former Villaraigosa deputy Cecile Ablack, who we told you Friday was going Hollywood. The flackage — which notes that Chris Petrikin,...
LA Observed reader Marc Litchman emails with one of those shake-your-head stories about trying to get through to the more-depleted-than-ever business side at the Los Angeles Times. I know circulation...
Reports in the newsroom are that Howard Burns, editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter, will leave the job tomorrow. A call to him was transferred to spokeswoman Linda Miller, who...
Tu Ciudad's new issue proclaims Erwin Raphael McManus's Mosaic the city's fastest-growing and hippest Christian congregation, with services that feature comedy skits, video clips and rock DJs. Also in the...
Political Muscle, the Times' Sacramento politics blog, sees a certain resemblance between Borat Sagdiyev and newly elected state Assembly member (and ex-L.A. City Council member) Mike Feuer. Can you tell...
Lippin had co-managed Brian Wilson and had been a PR rep for, among others, Prince, Eric Clapton and Stephen Stills. The Lippin Group, where she was president, said that she...
The LAT is once again trying to find good reporters willing to relocate to, as Jon Stewart puts it, Mess-O'-Potamia. Memo from foreign editor Marjorie Miller follows. The Foreign staff...
James N. Wood, former director of the Art Institute of Chicago, will become president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust in February. This is the replacement for Barry...
National Public Radio reporter Daniel Zwerdling spent six months investigating a story that is billed as an exposé of the mistreatment by the Army of soldiers with psychological problems. It...
Acting fire chief Douglas L. Barry has been with the department 31 years and is African American. Mayor Villaraigosa will introduce him this morning at Fire Station #66 at...
Sunday, Dec. 3
Some of the more talked-about, linked-to or noteworthy exclusive posts from the past week here at LA Observed: Job openings in the mayor's press office — and here's why. LAFD...
