Tuesday Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

JM, La Sauz, Mariscos, San Fernando Blvd., 1.21.08


Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

No problemos at La Opinion, where the pueblo's mariscos wrap of record fires up an exclusive interview with Police Chief Bratton. He says of the incident at parque MacArthur "Fue una aberración, fue enorme, pero ésa no es la forma en que operamos."

He also says that the undocumented don't need to fear the LAPD unless they're also criminals, a statement which should drive some of the lads here loco. "La comunidad latina e inmigrante, legal o ilegal, no tiene nada que temer del LAPD, excepto los criminales."

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Mitt Romney has an ad in Spanish, Mi Padre, spoken by Romney's son, who was a Mormon missionary in Chile. Currently playing in Miami. Rudy Giuliani has an ad there in Spanish too. The Times warns that photo-ops alone won't work with Latinos in California. "I guess they have to do these desperate things in an election, but I'm not going to vote for someone just because they go to King Taco," Latina mom Denise Mendoza tells the Times.

Dennis Zine turns a deaf ear to a Neighborhood Council and would-be neighbors to a 160-unit multiuse complex in West Hills. The developer has paid to play with a scant $1,500, and the development will require a zone change from Gail "GPS" Goldberg's Planning Department. It's great to see a newspaper covering these kinds of issues; people might yet learn a few things about their public "servants."

Robert Culp believes the one-elephant elephant exhibit at the LA Zoo should be shut down. He filed a lawsuit in an attempt to get his way, the Daily News reported late yesterday. The Zoo says it is well within animal reg standards.

A credible research org said last week that the Writer's strike is impacting television viewing habits. "About 35 percent of Americans have changed their media consumption habits as a result of the Hollywood writers strike, according to a report by the consultancy firm Interpret, and 27 percent are watching less network TV." So what are the feelings on the matter of the allegedly pro-Union Mayor of Los Angeles? Or, for that matter, the allegedly pro-Union Barack or pro-Union Hillary?

On one end of town, downtown blogger Dave Bullock was rocking Wired with photos of spy gadgets at the Homeland Security conference downtown, and at another end, 24's homeland security stalwart Kiefer Sutherland was released from a Glendale jail after 48 days dry.

Yesterday, the sacking of James O'Shea at the Times was a national and even an international story. Even so, some readers don't think the news is newsworthy for MayorSam. I disagree---no organization in town has the potential to influence City politics the way the Los Angeles Times does; but I read all the comments here and respect all commenters.

But for today anyway, if anyone is Jonesing for new developments re the Times, look to Ed Padgett's blog.

Sunday Morning Mimosa

JM, Mourners/Labyrinth, Forest Lawn Glendale, 9.13.07


Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

Aw...damn it. Suzanne Pleshette, 1937-2008. Yet again: lung cancer.

Here's a blog devoted to aggregating stories relevant to transportation in LA: LosAngelesTransportation.blogspot.com.

Oh, really? The Downtown News quotes Related Cos.' Bill Witte on why there's been no groundbreaking on Grand Avenue as yet: "The groundbreaking is more of a symbolic event," Witte told Los Angeles Downtown News last week. "It has little to do with where we are in the project schedule. We are continuing ahead, and we have the wherewithal to do it."

We have two words explaining the groundbreaking delay: Frank Gehry. Gehry won the commission in 1989; the Disney Hall groundbreaking came only in 1999.

But we already told you so. Or did you already forget how the Disney Hall was delivered a decade late and a hundred million over budget?

BTW, add the Downtown News' Anna Scott to the City's short roster of very dependable City reporters worth following.

Gail "GPS" Goldberg's bizarre Historic Employment Preservation Zone downtown is shutting down the highly successful loft movement there, the LA Business Journal notes. "“Under this policy, it looks like it could remain a parking lot for years to come. It’s a shame, not to allow the evolution of a unique neighborhood."

Murders on the perimeter: a body is found with stab wounds under an overpass in Porter Ranch. Homicides at a party in Long Beach; problems in Compton, altogether totalling eleven shootings, reported in the Times.

Missed this last week, but it turns out Al Martinez is a member of the Writer's Guild. And family think he's looking more like Homer Simpson every day. So why not a column reflecting on why the purportedly pro-Union Mayor hasn't been jawboning the studios?

You are exactly one leap year away from inaugurating a new President. So hold on.

Saturday Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

JM, Franklin Av. Dusk, 1.2.08


Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

Nikki Finke all by her lonesome broke at her site last night that the Writer's Guild has settled independently with Tom Cruise's United Artists. This is just the kind of side deal yours truly said a week ago that the Mayor should be calling for publically. Instead he was adding value to your urban experience by cutting out to Io-wayy and campaigning for the show horse.

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Cops come up for air: narc and gang unit cops have made a big media radio buy, the Daily News says. They'll tell the snooze alarmers that as many as 500 officers would rather leave their beats than disclose financial info, and suggest that this would hurt LA bigtime. Sounds like a threat to public safety; from cops, that's inappropriate, even if their position is the right one. Listen to the spot yourself and decide here.

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80 in '08 is a Downtown News special on who's rockin' downtown. Including blogs, and we're so there. Thank you Anna. Other good lists are five residential projects and five key corridors.

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Hey, there's a novel set in San Pedro and it wasn't written by John Shannon. The Daily Breeze says that readers of Andrew Rafkin's first novel Creating Madness will "see references to Trani's Restaurant, the Port of Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, "Hurricane Gulch" (the nickname for Cabrillo Beach), Catalina Island, the Vincent Thomas Bridge, the Trump National Golf Club and other familiar local landmarks."

Good for him. Hard to beat Shannon's Terminal Island, though.

Reticent Mayors, Then and Now

from Los Angeles's Weekly News, April 23, 1866 - a dig at (French speaking) Mayor Joseph Mascarel; from Pioneers and Entrepeneurs; French Immigrants in the Making of L.A., 1827-1927 (click image to enlarge)

You would think el Alcalde, man of the people, would have something to say about the Letterman show's side-settlement with its writers. The bold logjam-breaker follows what Carson did during the 1988 strike and enables a dozen or so New York scribes to get back to work even while the other Hollywood scribes remain on the dole.

It's in the power of every independent production company to attempt to go this route; which makes it a special shame that the Mayor of Los Angeles isn't publically applauding the move. If the Mayor were to start jawboning the local industry to explore the possibility of following suit, some small but key part of LA's creative-based econony could get rolling again even while the mostly elsewhere-owned studios are taunting, Khrushchev-like, "We will bury you" and shut down tinseltown.

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The top excerpt is from the book Pioneers and Entrepeneurs; French Immigrants in the Making of L.A., 1827-1927. The book is an exhibition catalog; the exhibit is at Pico House, 424 North Main Street, through January 13, 2008.

Friday Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

JM, Alley, Echo Park, 12.13.07


Joseph Mailander • recent • email

Send in the Feds: The Writers go to the NLRB. The post-Valenti studios call the move "baseless, desperate." Hello, this is our town calling---things are getting ugly---where is the Mayor?

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It's about time the folks at Blue Shield took a little heat, and maybe they will, the Daily News says. "Blue Shield committed serious violations that completely undermine the public trust in our healthcare delivery system," [Callifornia Insurance Commissioner Steve] Poizner said. "Let this be a message to all health insurers that we will not tolerate irresponsible rescissions and shoddy claims handling. We will target this behavior on an industry-wide basis and continue to take appropriate action as needed, " he said.

It sounds like a lot, but it's not much of a message: a $12.6 million fine is a payout equivalent to about 120 patients on chemo. Across the whole state. Wrist. Slap.

And hey: won't they just turn around, plug that fine into some actuarial table, and bill us for it? When an insurance company gets fined, don't the policy holders pay? What they should do is make them restructure in a way that gets rid of $12.6 million worth of managers.

How much do they get out of you each month? Hah. Wait 'til you turn 50. You'll pay that fine yourself.

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The Dodgers: juiced from stem to stern, and the Times has a great special report on the Big Blue Wrecked Crew. The South Bay produces a lot of good baseball players, and the Daily Breeze has the local angle and concludes that steroid abuse does not start in high school. Palos Verdes High coach Evan Fuginaga is sensible: "It's better to look forward rather than backward," Fuginaga said. "The focus needs to be on the way we test, not on who needs to be punished. These are guys that a lot of people look up to. In some ways, it makes you ask where we are as a society."

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Last night, the LA Press Club bid Matt Welch and Emmanuelle Richard adieu as they prepare for an even tighter real estate market. Spotted: new Times blog go-to guru Tony Pierce, Steve Smith, Luke Ford, Amy Alkon, Brady Westwater, some of the thorny Reason types, and the world's most dangerous fishwrap band. And even with the big crowd on hand, it seemed like about a dozen people were missing, but in truth there was only one.

Sunday Morning Mimosa

JM, Broken Fence, Leaning Pole, Playa del Rey, Dec. 2003


Grand Avenue got in the ground last week, and as the project has already doubled in cost, keep an eye out for more public handout, says the Daily News.

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Now that the sides aren't talking to each other, your former fishwrap of record has not one but two stories about the Writer's strike. Amazing timing from Spring Street again. Scott Collins marvels at his own genius in one. Three less myopic scribes cobble together another story on economic impact, going with the LA County Economic Development Corp. estimate of $1 billion, rather than the UCLA Management School shill/Variety guess of $300 million.

As readers debated grammar yesterday, the jawboning speech I'd like the Mayor to give the studios is this: "For decades, the City has provided you with generous easements to your enormous lots, built great studio spaces for you, virtually gave you a venue to host your Academy Awards, lent to you dependable location and streamlined permits, and offered up all the talent you've needed, and you've rewarded us with runaway production, and disrupting the local economy by walking away from various collective bargaining sessions. The City is not your personal trough---so get back to the table."

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Speaking of generous easements, the Planning Department often complains about how beleaguered it is, and Gail Goldberg swears that she's all for "smart growth"---which as far as we can determine is any growth that takes place within half a mile of a commercial street or busstop---which is, of course, any growth at all.

How smart is this: the City since Hahn has been peppering the City's Council offices with a document called "How to Request a Zone Change." It's mostly a blueprint for what might be the most effective way for one of your sellout neighbors to ruin the sanctity your neighborhood with a Zone or Height change.

"It's easier than you think!" is the message of this Los Angeles City Planning Department Guide. Love that "step" at the bottom: Mayor signs...



Click that image to enlarge it, if you dare. It's so easy, just like playing Monopoly!

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Alternative Holiday Fare: Today only, the famed Jazz Bakery presents Howlett Smith's The Carpenter, a telling of the life of Christ in an eclectic mix of jazz, spiritual, and classical. It's 3:00 p.m. at The Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Avenue, Culver City, admission $25.

Saturday Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

JM, Boy Setting Bicycle on Roof, York Avenue, 12.05.07

Conduct unbecoming: hangman nooses are popping up dangling from rearview mirrors at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the Daily Breeze reports.

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Sam Hall Kaplan describes in the DowntownNews how the planning, even the pre-planning stages for north Chinatown and the Cornfield are shaping up. "'Just think of it, 400 mostly underdeveloped acres, a few miles from the Civic Center and Downtown,' exclaimed [Planning Department admin Claire] Bowin, who deftly ran the workshop with thehelp of, among others, the Western Justice Center and the nonprofit Livable Places."

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As nearly everyone everywhere has predicted, there will be no immanent settlement to the Writers' strike. Why couldn't the Mayor use some jawboning power on this one? [answer: What, and risk offending studios?]

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It's not just their relentless seven-year coverage of priest molestation. If the Catholic Church made an error in the eightteenth century, the Times will be there to cover that, too.

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Uh-oh, looks like MayorSam isn't the only place where comment wars rage.

Management diminishes writer's strike impact

Alert the media! Management prof diminishes union strike impact!

No, you can't make it up. Variety gives the full force of its trade voice today to a...school of...management...prof...who (worthlessly) guesses that the economic impact of the strike is likely to be a mere third of current estimates.

Any union voices in that article? Any purpose whatsoever to comparing the length of the strike in 1988 to the (unknown) length of the strike 2007, other than to shortchange the striker's side?

I sure hope those striking writers let Variety know how they feel about such fair and balanced articles.

TGIF Outtakes from the "RED SPOT INSTITUTE"

TGIF from the "INSTITUTE OF BLUE DISGUST". That disgust is directed at many today. Can we start with the obvious ? Hmm.....

FABIAN NUNEZ IS A CROOK!!

For whatever reason, the "OLD GREY HAG ON SPRING STREET" has a "hard on" for State Assembly Speaker, Fabian Nunez. The "AMMO OF GRAFT" that Nunez provides would give goose bumps to an NRA member. Today the Times discloses that Nunez used a suspended "CHARITY" to funnel donations for events that help him politically. The "HORATIO FABIAN ALGER" from T.J. via San Diego, received nearly $300,000 from those who business would be affected by legislation that came before him. Taking a line from KRLA Talkshow host, Kevin James, its time to call the DA Office of Public Integrity, and demand that they initiated an investigation of the "HORATIO FABIAN ALGER", working class sellout.

IBEW censorship case against Daily News denied:

The union that is the "TRUE BOSS AT THE DWP" had their "CHONIES IN A BUNCH". This coming after the Daily News published the names and salaries of workers at the nation's largest public utility. So what were the fatcats like Brian D'Arcy to do about this ? SUE THE DAILY NEWS!! They asked a judge for a restraining order against the "MOLDY GREEN SHEET". This to stop the disclosures of employees and salaries. Outcome ? The IBEW's blatant attempt to bully the Daily News was thrown out of court.

HOLLYWOOD writers to strike:

Big yawn except to the likes of "WWG", LA Weekly's Nikki Finke, Variety, and industry insiders. In his endless pursuit of a photo op, our Mayor has offer to help mediate talks. Just give me reruns of "Archie Bunker", "Sanford and Son", "Married, with Children", "Benny Hill", this for the "WWG". Get the hint ? You "producers of smut" don't measure up to the past.

PROTEST, PAYOFFS, AND DECEIT AT THE SOUTHWEST MUSEUM:

The "GREAT SELLOUT OF THE SOUTHWEST MUSEUM" to the "AUTRY BOX MUSEUM" at Griffith Park, is going to have serious ramifications if allowed to go through. More on this in the days ahead. This weekend the true "FRIENDS OF THE SOUTHWEST MUSEUM" will be protesting at the Autry's Griffith Park location.

FRIDAY, 6:00-8:00 PM

SATURDAY, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM

SUNDAY, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM