Foreign Legion

Remember the old Robin Leach Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous punchline “champagne wishes and caviar dreams?” We certainly do, and it came to mind while reading one of the choice anecdotes in Daniel Miller and Matthew Belloni’s Hollywood Reporter magazine cover story about flamboyant (and now embattled) megaupload.com founder Kim Dotcom (a.k.a. Kim Schmitz).

The reporters were unable to secure an interview with Dotcom. But they did correspond via email with Maximillion Cooper (that’s not a typo; that’s how he spells his first name), founder of the cross-continental car rally Gumball 3000. Cooper says he galavanted for a decade around the globe with Dotcom, and remembers one St. Tropez incident in particular:

Cooper recalls a memorable 2001 trip to the south of France on the 264-foot Golden Odyssey, which features a mosaic-tiled swimming pool, gym and coral-reef aquarium that spans two decks. For lunch, Cooper, Schmitz and a “huge entourage” that included what Cooper describes as “Aryan” bodyguards all took speedboats to the shore for lobster and champagne.

Read more

The very active expatriate journalism community in Glendale is mourning the loss this week of Armen Dilanyan, who died unexpectedly on Tuesday at age 56.

Before coming to the U.S. in 2006 and establishing a daily political talk show on SoCal’s Horizon Armenian Television, Dilanyan built up a solid reputation working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Per an obituary on azatutyun.am, he was one of the first correspondents for the service in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan and helped launch a local bureau after the territory gained independence in 1992:

Armen Koloyan, a longtime member of RFE/RL’s Prague team, had worked with Dilanyan since the early 1990s. “We colleagues called Armen Dilanyan ‘Dilo’ because there were several Armens in our office and we had to tell them apart,” he said.

Read more

Columbia Journalism Review columnist Justin D. Martin thinks it’s time for newspapers like the LA Times and Washington Post to stop referring to single, foreign-posted employees as a bureau. Combing through a 2011 American Journalism Review report, he found for example that eight of the LAT’s ten foreign “bureaus” consist of just a single employee:

I’m aware that the difference between being called a “bureau chief” rather than “correspondent” at some news organizations is similar to the difference between assistant and associate professors at universities: the coronation often nets greater job security and a bump in salary (and in some cases demands greater responsibilities). Still, journalists are supposed to use clear language. Period. A bureau in one’s bedroom is a chest of multiple drawers, and a furniture peddler who refers to a banker’s box as a bureau is being dishonest.

Another funny way Martin makes his case is to note that he is not the Columbia Journalism Review’s bureau chief in Orono, Maine. Rather, he is simply a columnist for CJR who happens to live in New England.

Read more

In an interview with the Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize winning LA Times foreign correspondent David Zucchino (pictured) shares some fascinating background information about how he obtained those grisly photos of U.S. soldiers posing in 2010 with the remains of Afghanistan insurgents.

Although the reporter’s source, a one-time fellow member of the 82nd Airborne Division, came forward because he felt the pictures violated the U.S. Army’s general code of conduct, he also told Zucchino he recognized how a war-is-hell environment can lead to such objectionable behavior. Something Zucchino has witnessed first-hand in Afghanistan:

“I’ve been embedded with Marines, and they complain all the time about how the enemy won’t engage in a direct fight,” Zucchino said. “So when [soldiers] come across their enemy or body parts, you can see the temptation to celebrate a little bit. They’re amped up, and they’re frustrated.”

Read more

After ten years of providing European media companies with the turn-key services Hawk, Panther, Lynx and Tiger, UK’s Digital Media Services (DMS) has decided it’s time to properly unleash the herd onto U.S. shores. And to lead their Hollywood-headquartered efforts, the company has tapped a veteran Tinseltown publicist.

Per a report by Screen Daily, Michael Wuechter will head up the new U.S. office after several decades of service with Paramount Pictures. The products he will be supporting include:

Hawk delivers specialized media, press monitoring and reporting for studios, music labels, sports and other branches of media. Panther offers video post-production services… Lynx is DMS’s creative division and produces tv spots, trailers, featurettes, EPKs, and multi-media presentations.

Read more

At a press conference today, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai said that after seeing the photos of American soldiers posing with the body parts of dead Afghans in the LA Times, he demanded an “accelerated and full transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces, so Afghanistan can take over its own destiny, and thus no such things can be repeated by the foreign forces in Afghanistan.”

In other words, he wants us out. And he wants us out quickly.

More from the LA Times:

The NATO force is due to wind down its combat role in 2014, but growing numbers of troop-contributing nations have indicated they plan to pull out their fighting forces next year. A transition of security responsibilities to the Afghan police and army is the centerpiece of the U.S. exit strategy.

Read more

We apologize in advance for anyone this tweet offends: #LAKings lead series2-0

— LA Kings (@LAKings) April 14, 2012

This could get ugly if the Los Angeles Kings manage to hold on in their series against the Vancouver Canucks.

We told you Thursday morning about a tweet from the official Twitter account of the Los Angeles Kings that ruffled the feathers of our neighbors up north in Canada.

As predicted, the Kings issued an apology:

“We encourage our digital team to be creative, interactive and to apply a sense of humour whenever possible. To anyone who found it offensive we sincerely apologize,” said Mike Altieri, the Kings’ vice president, communications and content.

Translation: Since we really mean what we tweeted, we are going with the “to anyone who found it offensive” apology instead of truly saying we’re sorry.

Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, is not amused. Nor are the great majority of the country’s devoted hockey fans after the following humorously intended @LAKings tweet crowned the team’s Game One upset playoff win in Vancouver last night:

The tweet is referencing the fact that the Canucks are not exactly adored beyond the eastern provincial border of British Columbia. Globe and Mail reporter David Shoalts got in touch with a spokesperson for the Kings, who confirmed the matter is being treated seriously. Also, to the NHL team’s credit, the tweet at press time is still visible; they did not try to do the old delete-and-skate-away routine:

Mike Altieri, the Kings’ vice-president, communications and content, did not go into details about the matter. But he said in an e-mail message “we are addressing” the situation.

Read more

Tuesday afternoon local time at Powerbooks in Makati City, Philippines, Hollywood Foreign Press Association member Ruben Nepales (pictured) will be joined by Tony DeZuñiga, a pioneering artist with Marvel and DC Comics, for the launch of his book My Filipino Connection: The Phillipines in Hollywood. This collection of updated Inquirer interviews showcases several dozen individuals with ties to the country who have found Tinseltown success.

Alongside DeZuñiga, others covered in the book include: Pixar animation artist and co-director Ronnie del Carmen, part of a group of Filipinos at the studio affectionately known as “Pixnoys;” Ronnie’s brother Louie (who works at Dreamworks Animation); and True Grit Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld. There’s also a bonus, never-before-published profile, which Nepales tipped over the weekend:

Darren Criss, the hot Glee actor who took over Daniel Radcliffe’s role in a limited three-week run on Broadway’s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying last January… It’s an extensive interview about his Filipino roots and many other facets about the actor.

Read more