Had the earliest version of Nickelodeon’s green slime actually been dumped on a human being, the results would have probably been similar to what happened in the late 1990s to comic book artist and San Diego Reader contributor Jay Allen Sanford.

As Sanford recalls today, his unauthorized Contemporary Bio-Graphics treatment of Paul Reubens‘ alter ego Pee Wee Herman eventually led to a one-on-one interview at the actor’s LA home. In character, Reubens playfully at one point dumped on Sanford’s head some old and, it turns out, rancid green slime, resulting in a very strong reaction:

Reubens was still apologizing the next day when he phoned to make sure I’d lived to tell. He kindly picked up the tab for $975, which covered the cost of my hospital visit and of the hair stylist later called upon to “fix” those spots where slime-encrusted hair had been excised from my shaggy ‘do.

Read more

The 4 Queens Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas has been in operation since 1966. The queen of AP courtroom reporting, Linda Deutsch, has been with the wire service since 1967. This week, the twain of these two institutions delightfully met.

Per Norm Clarke’s latest column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the LA-based Deutsch was having dinner Wednesday night at hotel restaurant Hugo’s Cellar, forgetting that she was due at that time for a BBC Radio phone interview about O.J. Simpson‘s latest courtroom theatrics. The restaurant was too noisy and there was no time to get back to her own hotel room. So instead, Deutsch gamely did the following:

Hugo’s manager Richard Assalone, who has worked at some of the best restaurants in town, came up with a corker of a solution: He borrowed a chair from a dinner table and gave Deutsch the coolest seat in town — inside Hugo’s 55-degree wine cellar.

Read more

Way down the list of Tiger Woods’ concerns this weekend in Las Vegas, right next to say waiting a little too long for the valet to bring around his shiny new car, is the idea that a local celebrity journalist is grousing about the lack of interview access. Nevertheless, ahead of the golfer’s series of big weekend charity events in Sin City, that is Robin Leach’s beef:

No questions, thus no answers to any subject. Nothing about his current game. Nothing about old loves and new ones. Nothing about anything. A tough assignment for us who are used to big stars sitting down for one-on-one conversations.

Photographers will get the slightly better run of things during this weekend’s 15th annual Tiger Jam, allowed access at the Mandalay Bay Events Center and later Saturday night for the Kid Rock-Uncle Kracker concert. Tonight, as part of a whole series of poker tournaments culminating May 24, Woods has a $10,000 buy-in event.

Read more

The title of the article is “Dan McSwain’s Disclosure Page.” And that, it certainly is.

Earlier this month, McSwain (pictured) moved from the paper’s editorial pages to the position of business columnist. Across two compelling and candid Web pages, he details the events that have led him to this latest journalism assignment and the ways in which he intends to honorably comport himself moving forward.

It’s anything but your typical journalist bio. There’s the recent short sale of a home that McSwain completed as well as recollections of a long-ago personal tailspin, something he has previously written about in the pages of U-T San Diego. From this week’s item:

In 1988, my dad sold his company, and I left to start a competing firm with my brother. It was successful. Five years later, I sold my half to focus on consuming bourbon and other drugs. Soon becoming a full-blown alcoholic, I moved quickly from wealthy to broke and homeless. It took me about four years to get sober; it’s been nearly 16 years since my last drink, drug, car wreck or jail term.

Read more

Brian Stelter, who launched TVNewser almost 10 years ago, is now a published author. “Top of the Morning,” out today, lays bare a tumultuous year for network morning news shows which saw one anchor pack her bags, another face a serious health issue, a ratings leader fall — and lose a quarter of its audience — and an entirely new show launch.

In his first interview for the book, Stelter tells us about the secrecy behind “Top of the Morning,” the access he got, and what he thinks about being called Matt Lauer‘s nemesis.

• Part II, tomorrow: What happens when Brian Stelter Tweets something he shouldn’t?

For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

For elite runner and SoCal freelance journalist Josh Cox, the destination that immediately followed his frightening presence at the Boston Marathon finish line Monday is of a kind that few other people can point to. He is currently in Olathe, Kansas, preparing to cover Saturday’s Garman Marathon for NBC specialty channel Universal Sports.

Speaking with San Diego ABC-TV weeknight anchor Kimberly Hunt via Skype, Cox explained that he had arrived at the finish line at 2:45 p.m. to set up for more live-remote coverage that day. Or less than a half-hour before the two bombs were detonated.

Read more

For Josh Dickey, Day One as managing editor of TMZ.com involved among other things the business of another Jenna Jameson arrest. In the case of his recent Variety charge Jeff Sneider, who officially returns next Monday to former employer TheWrap, the purview is much closer to the one he used to patrol at 5900 Wilshire Blvd.

Read more

The slick one-page write-up about Josh Levs appears in Modern Luxury’s The Atlantan magazine. But thanks to the magic of resourceful editors and far-flung freelancers, it was in fact written by Laguna Beach-based vet Wendy Bowman.

Bowman does a nice job of framing Levs multi-tasking talents. They are of a kind upon which Jeff Zucker can build a whole new foundation.

We wish there was a little bit more info about that novel the 40-year-old Levs is writing. But his subsequent explanation of how the whole pink-ties thing started more than makes up for this.

Read more

While the future of KCETLink’s SoCal Connected is very much up in the air, another namesake is about to be launched. Beginning Thursday April 4, Zócalo Public Square California editor Joe Mathews (pictured) will be writing a weekly column titled “Connecting California.” It’s the site’s first such regular feature.

In a brief teaser, Zócalo promise that Mathews will avoid the habit of many other Golden State commentators by focusing on the future rather than the past:

Each week, Mathews will offer new narratives for California – stories that show readers how life is here today, who Californians are now and how 21st-century California communities work — and don’t work. He’ll challenge media assumptions — that California’s people are a collection of competing demographic groups, that the good old days are behind us and that our politicians are always to blame for all our problems—by offering stories from all over the state.

Read more

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. The idea that Michael Sragow was hired as Orange County Register film critic at age 60, shortly after taking a Tribune Co. buyout from the Baltimore Sun, is the kind of surprise-happy ending that usually only happens in the movies.

Sragow this week is finally getting down to the business of picking up where he left off at the Sun, until reviews from Chicago Tribune colleague Michael Phillips began more recently taking budget-precedence. He’s also shared a wonderful introductory essay, revealing that Skyfall was his favorite movie of 2012 and that his all-time number one dates back to the Bond year of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service:

A great movie, like my all-time favorite, Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, quickens my whole system…

Read more