This Fishie drove by the Alex Theatre in Glendale earlier today and was shocked, SHOCKED to see Deep Throat on the marquee. For those of you not familiar with the Alex, Deep Throat is not the kind of flick one would typically expect to see at this particular establishment–even if the film is undergoing a bit of a resurgence. The Little Mermaid is edgy for the Alex. That shameless tramp Ariel doesn’t wear any pants, after all.

Next month’s Joseph the Dreamer, The Musical presented by the Heart of Worship Community Church is more typical fare. Yes, it’s about the bible.

We figured there must be new ownership or the event programmer had a seizure. But the Glendale News-Press set us straight. Turns out the Linda Lovelace biopic is shooting in town and simply borrowed the Alex marquee for the afternoon.

There goes our Friday night plans.

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In recent weeks, FishbowlLA has written about two separate Variety.com blog posts that alleged the time-stamps of Emma Stone and Sundance Film Festival news items on Deadline.com were false. In both cases, Variety‘s BlogDogger–based on some stated live Web monitoring–insinuated that Deadline.com must have jerry-rigged the date-time stamps of these particular articles, to make it appear that the items were posted earlier than when they actually were.

Baloney, counters the author of both Deadline.com items, Mike Fleming. Speaking to FishbowlLA today via telephone from New York, he explained that he has the ability to direct-post articles to Deadline.com and did so with the first article in question, about Stone’s project Little White Corvette.

“I had the story done the night before,” Fleming explains. “I wake up early every morning here in New York, before driving my daughter to school. My computer is always on, and even though I had been in touch with GK Films the previous day and was told I could post the item sooner, I figured I would just break it in the morning.” In other words, Fleming says the 6:00 am ET/3:00 am PT time-stamp on the Stone item reflects what he did at his computer the morning of Thursday, January 5.

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Adam Jacobi, the CBS Sports writer who ran with an erroneous tweet about Joe Paterno‘s death, has been let go by CBS. Jacobi’s story was almost immediately challenged by the New York Times’ Mark Viera. But that didn’t stop the story’s embarrassing rampage through the blogosphere.

H/T Deadspin

Previously on FishbowlLA: Premature Reports of Paterno’s Death Embarrass Major Media Outlets

Comedian Mark Malkoff recently took a trip to LA from New York, and rather than paying for hotels he decided to cold call celebrities to see if he could crash at their places. Of course thirteen said yes.

It’s just that easy!

Malkoff got a bunch of name brand celebrities to take part. But our personal favorite was Martin Kove, who played the asshole karate instructor in Karate Kid. The guy has serious Gary Busey potential. Get him a show immediately.

Australian House of Representatives leader Anthony Albanese was just busted lifting lines from the 1995 film The American President, written by Aaron Sorkin, in a speech to the National Press Club of Australia.

Here is the part of Albanese’s speech in question:

“In Australia we have serious challenges to solve and we need serious people to solve them. Unfortunately, Tony Abbott is not the least bit interested in fixing anything. He is only interested in two things: making Australians afraid of it and telling them who’s to blame for it.”

And here’s are Sorkin’s lines delivered by Michael Douglas in the film:

“We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.”

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Jaime Stryker‘s new romance novel Two Spirit Ranch sounds at first plot-glance like pretty standard genre fare. A successful female lawyer flees Manhattan for the quieter confines of Montana, where she meets and falls in love with a local sheriff.

But the heroine of this one  is actually a transgendered female. The title of LA based Stryker’s book is derived from an old Native American belief that some tribe members could assume the identity of the opposite sex and “still be accepted and respected by their community.” From the book’s official website:

“Popular art reflects culture, and the past year brought trans issues to the forefront,” says Stryker. “It was simply time for a romance that also touched upon gender issues.”

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Terrible news. Manhattan Beach surf journalist Michael Scott Moore has been taken hostage by Somali pirates. Moore was in central Somalia researching a book on the subject of pirates when he was abducted.

The LA Times has the story:

Moore was en route to an airport when 15 men in two SUVs kidnapped him. They have taken him to Ceel Huur, a village on the Indian Ocean.

The U.S. State Department issued a statement saying it was concerned about Moore’s safety.

“We are aware of news reports that a U.S. citizen has been kidnapped in northern Somalia and we are concerned about the individual’s safety and well-being,” the State Department said in a statement.

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From Leeds in Northern England, 30-year-old video game PR manager Paul Rayment (pictured) recently chatted with KPCC reporter Ashley Bailey about his surprise at the success of a map he created tracing the notable touchstones of late rapper Tupac Shakur.

FourSquare users can download the map and check in to various Tupac places. Rayment meanwhile has already completed a second such interactive tool, which locks into Jay Z‘s “Empire State of Mind” references. Per Bailey’s report:

The map plots Tupac as he zigzags from his pre-fame days in Baltimore to school in Oakland to his record label in LA, and on to Las Vegas–where someone shot him in 1996 when he was 25-years-old. “Some of them had to be included like where he was shot and hospitals–that kind of thing,” Rayment said. “But, I wanted to do something more original. For instance, what he did in school, how he was first talent-spotted.”

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After 23 years as the New York Bureau Chief for The Los Angeles Times, Geraldine Baum is stepping down. Tomorrow will be her last day.

In her farewell email to colleagues, she has high praise for both the paper and her colleages:

Journalism for me, at its best, is a team sport, and what distinguished the LA Times from other papers was not only that it was a writers’ paper but also the basic decency of just about everyone with whom I worked here.

Baum gives her reasons for leaving the LA Times simply as, “it’s time for Geraldine 2.0.”

Full memo after the jump.

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It sounds more like a first-story-back-from-break on one of NBC4′s TV newscasts. Two kids, running amok in a TV studio, armed with a ukelele.

But in fact, the pair–as reported recently by the station’s website–were given full permission to roam the NBC4 Burbank premises beginning last summer. Taylor Mackall (on the ukulele) is the son of a promotions employee, while Mackenzie Cregan is his tag-along pal. FishbowlLA’s favorite jingle so far is the very catchy one for anchor Robert Kovacik:

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