Happy Birthday, Michael Simmons!

The legendary troublemaker/writer will be celebrating tonight at Little Joy.

1477 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

The festivities commence around 8 and FBLA readers are cordially invited to toast the birthday boy. If you want to bring a gift, Mr. S reminds us that he's "registered with several cannabis clubs" around town.

(And no, that's not him in the photo.)

Just to keep our readers up-to-date, Carmen Scheidel, our West Coast director of Education and Events tells us:

The West Hollywood office of mediabistro.com will close as of June 30. We'll continue to run the same amount of classes, but we're experimenting with other locations, since the city is so spread out. We want to make the classes convenient for as many people as possible, so we may offer them from Pasadena to West Hollywood in various locations.

And don't forget the All Media party hosted by Michelle Thatcher on April 22 at

The Palm West Hollywood
9001 Santa Monica Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069 map

RSVP here.

HQ tells us that there's a big West Coast event planned for later in the year, as well.

And of course, Mediabistro Circus is the perfect excuse for a trip to the other coast.

Active Arts urges all sax players to join with others of their ilk:

Get Your Chops Back

Connect with the musician inside and flex those music-making muscles again!

A low-risk, mistakes-allowed saxophone workshop featuring Traditional/Classical explorations, the Latin sounds of Cumbia, and sonic-art improvisation techniques--all in one day!

Get Your Chops Back is for adult learners (18 years or older), non-professional/ recreational musicians with basic playing and reading skills (standard music notation). Acoustic instruments only, please bring your own. Soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones are welcome.

Register by April 7th here (click on Active Arts).$10.00 registration fee includes parking

The Music Center
135 N. Grand Ave. (between Temple & 2nd Street)
Saturday April 19th, 2008
9:30am --1:30pm

And this is another reason why LA is superior to New York. There, bad sax players ride the subway, begging for spare change and destroying your eardrums until they get paid. Here, we corral them all in one spot, making them easy to avoid. We love LA.

At a discreet screening room on Sunset, a select group gathered to watch The 7th Python, the new documentary from Frozen Pictures. The film, a portrait of rock legend Neil Innes, of Bonzo Dog Band and The Rutles fame, is the work of Burt Kearns, Brett Hudson, animator Bonnie Rose, editor Dan Brown, and producer Sean Connors. Crowd reaction was strongly approving of the film, which is touching, hilarious and inventive.

Hanging out were Weird Al Yankovich, Emo Philips, Martin Lewis, Allyson Holloway, tv producers Peter Brennan and Lisa Lew. Chelsea Lately writer Steve Rosenfield assured us that Chelsea Handler herself is really funny. We're so relieved. LA Timesman Randy Lewis said his story for the Calendar section would run on Saturday.

Innes, here with a fan, will be at the Monday screening of All You Need is Cash as part of the Mods and Rockers film fest of the American Cinematheque.

Anonymous, the anti-Scientology crowd, are celebrating dead bad-sci-fi writer turned bad-religion founder, L. Ron's birthday next Saturday in the Washington, DC, Wardman Park Marriott hotel--right where the "Church" is having a shindig. From the press-release:

We regret to inform you that due to time constraints, we are forced to hold the convention in the same building as Church of Scientology's L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Celebration for members of the entire central east coast of the United States

This Saturday in NYC, you can join in the fun across from the Times Square Church of Scientology on W. 46th Street.

In San Francisco, also this Saturday, meet at 701 Montgomery St. at the Transamerica Pyramid from 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM.

Here in Los Angeles, according to Enturbulation:

When and Where:
3/15 11AM-2PM @ 4810 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA (In front of Big Blue)

Address:
We take a three hour "break," you do your own thing, and we meet at the next location.
3/15 5PM - Whenever @ 665 W Jefferson Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90007 (The Shrine Aud. aka L Ron Hubbard Birthday Party)

Events:
11AM-2PM is for us to get traffic's attention very well. At 5:30PM at the above listed Shriners, doors open for the Church of Scientology's birthday party for L. Ron Hubbard. His birthday is March 13th.

(Cup)Cake(s):
Cake and cupcakes are welcomed, just don't be offended if people aren't eating your food. There is obviously a risk of OSA plants poisoning the food, and no one wants that. Bring sweets for you and your friends, primarily.

Signs:
No "honk" signs please, that is a police request. Also try to avoid the use of the word "hate" in your signs, as it tends to bring in bad public attention.

Julian Schnabel's paintings of bones (used in the credit sequence of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) are on view at Gagosian Gallery, with a preview party last night. Schnabel's at work on his next film, because he evidently needs no sleep.

Tilda Swinton, Lauren Hutton, Ben Silverman, the Weinsteins, Brett Ratner, and Diane Keaton were sighted.

Fashion icon Lisa Eisner (she owns Sammy Davis Jr.'s wardrobe) and Nicky Hilton both looked great but not together, naturally.

We said hi to Roger Friedman but didn't recognize David Carr from the NY Times. (We don't seem to be the only ones.) Gabe Snyder took a smoke break with Schnabel, but we were too busy feeling inept.

We were just about to snap John Waters with our Speed Graphic camera disguised as a phone, when the official photog hissed at us to get out of his way. Waters told us he never watches The Wire, as it's too depressing, and that he's delighted for Patty Hearst and her show dog, but no, he's not making a movie about dog shows.

Outside, the paparazzi were getting soaked.

Coming in May in New York, Mediabistro Circus.

It's a two-day summit on technology and the critical platforms changing the flow of media. Topics include, according to the official blog:

Social Media: It's now statistically better than sex and chocolate
Web Video: Currently bigger than Jesus
Blogging: We've come a long way since chronicling one-night stands and our "stellar" grilled cheese sandwiches
Digital Publishing: Paper is so 20th century, and trees are our friends
Mobile Technology: Content is so much cooler when it's on something that costs $600

And if that's not enough--check out the speakers:

Nicholas Carr, Paul Cloutier, James Daly, Anil Dash, Jim Louderback, Robert Scoble, John Wiley

Speaker sessions and conversations around the technology platforms that are changing the media industry will fill a jam-packed agenda that will also include special guest appearances and memorable evening events.

Register here.

Slate's Jacob Weisberg read from his new book The Bush Tragedy at a Domino-sponored shindig in Brentwood. 300 guests stormed Arianna Huffington's mansion house. (Or home, as the invitations read.)

Adrian Grenier, sporting a beard that would have been a bushy tragedy on anyone else, Tracey Ullman, who does a wicked Arianna herself, and Christine Lahti represented SAG; Dale Launer and Stephen Gaghan were the WGA/DGA guys, and producers were thick on the ground with Lawrence Bender, Mike Medavoy, Irina Medavoy, Sam Goldwyn and George Stevens. Matt Groening had the animation arena all to himself.

Jim Ledbetter gave Arianna a copy of his new collection for Penguin--Karl Marx's Dispatches for the New York Tribune, stopping her as she was enroute to her office. Gabe Snyder got the story behind her distracted expression: book deadline! (Who else was in the study, anyway?)

Usual coterie of LA media types--Mickey Kaus, Carla Hall, Kevin Roderick, Nick Goldberg, Kim Serafin, Ruth Shalit, Rob Barrett, Roman Genn--let's move on, shall we?

Weisberg's clever wife, Deborah Needleman (she edits Domino) brought her Conde Nast cohorts along--Clemmy Closson and Beth Brenner.

Oscars were discussed perfunctorily, Obama enthusiastically (Rachel Sklar's cries of plagiarism! were dismissed as business as usual which means those dissing her didn't read very closely. Or else they were drunk.) Plenty of food and drink, which is unusual for book parties--and lots of copies of the book which looks like a fast read. No need to send it out for coverage.

(photos by Stefanie Keenan for Patrick McMullan)

As Sasha Stone reminds us, last day to submit Oscar ballots, so get your housekeeper cracking! You then can slip off to Santa Monica's California Heritage Museum and drink in

Lights! Camera! Glamour! The Photography of George Hurrell

The show, curated by Louis F. D'Elia (seen with Hurrell's boom) features the cream of Hurrell's work, from his earliest shots through his contact years at MGM, and ending with nudes of Shannon Tweed and Joan Collins.

The catalogue's introduction was written by Virginia Postrel, who's writing a new book on glamour, a subject she owns.

The ICG Publicist Awards were handed out, and let's just get the big news out of the way--Nikke Finke did not win the journalist of the year award, as it went to USA Today correspondent Susan Wloszczyna, who's not quite the lightning rod that Finke is. But she's not breaking anything as big, either. But who wants to be known as the BFF of publicists?

Harrison Ford won a lifetime achievement award, which is hilarious, as most journalists think he's a difficult interview. Judd Apatow and Warner Bros. Television president Peter Roth are showmen of the year, and Apatow could win that title, over and over again, saying

It's an honor to be up here and to be honored as publicity whore of the year and you're all my pimps.

Parse that sentence and pick out the joke.