Our Town

It’s not quite Epic Rap Battles of History. But Andy Hermann‘s late rebuttal to Hillel Aron‘s February 26 LA Weekly item “Echo Park: Greatest Neighborhood in Los Angeles, Which Has 87 of Them” is still a lot fun to read.

The nearby residents respectively overstate their neighborhood arguments and, within that context, Hermann saves the best for last:

And OK, if we’re really going to get into a neighborhood pissing contest, let the record show that Highland Park, not Echo Park, has the city’s most dazzling and dangerous display of illegal Fourth of July fireworks. Oh, you set them off over your nice big lake, Echo Park? That’s adorable. We light that sh*t up in our driveways and then run for cover. And we’re not talking M-80s, either. These are professional-grade pyrotechnics.

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Far-flung tech journalists have converged on downtown Los Angeles this week for the Electronic Entertainment Expo (June 11-13). Among this group of E3 journalists is Mike Yawney, a correspondent for Toronto’s CITY-TV who goes by the Twitter handle of @Gadget_Guy.

The big news on Monday’s preview day was the aggressive price point ($399) and advantageous policies of Sony’s PlayStation 4. Yawney has a page set up on the CITY-TV website to showcase his convention floor tweets and at one point, while raving about the Sony press conference live demo of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, he reminded his readers that the game is Canadian-made.

After that particular demo was cut short due to a technical glitch, Sony Computer Entertainment of America president-CEO Jack Tretton told the crowd there are currently 140 games in development for the PS4. A hundred of which will be available in the first year.

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We’re not sure who individually is responsible for this great radio.com lede. But whoever you are, bravo!

The article starts out with the arresting mental image of Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme roaring into the KROQ-FM parking lot astride a Harley-Davidson Ultra Classic Electra Glide. Not quite, the item suggests, the kind of bike a hard rock singer would be expected to favor. Then, the kicker:

“Yeah, I like to cruise around on it because I can listen to NPR while I ride,” Homme explained plainly, referencing the non-commercial radio network popular for such highbrow programming as This American Life and All Things Considered.

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Buoyed by post-Memorial Day reports in the LA Times and on Kevin Roderick‘s LA Observed, the Kickstarter campaign for Our Malibu Beaches last night reached its goal of $30,000. Along the way, it was also at one point highlighted by Kickstarter as a worthy Journalism project.

The money will allow LA journalists Ben Adair (formerly of APM’s Marketplace) and Jenny Price (LA Observed, Hidden LA) to work with the firm Escape Apps to put together a tool that informs locals how to gain legal access to some of LA’s prettiest beaches. From last night’s Kickstarter update:

We made it!… with just hours to spare! Amazing! From all of us behind Our Malibu Beaches THANK YOU! You all are doing so much to open these beaches to EVERYBODY. This is gonna be the best beach summer ever.

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The timeline for this publicity campaign is impressive. On Thursday night, the billboard pictured below went up on Pico Blvd. between Fairfax and La Cienega; less than a day later, it was being relayed by E! Online, Gossip Cop and others.

This may surprise you, but the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) – the D.C. non-profit responsible for the billboard – did not have to secure Bieber’s permission. The photo of the performer was licensed through Getty Images; a rep for EPI tells FishbowlLA the picture was taken during Bieber’s arrival for last year’s WANGO TANGO KIIS-FM concert at Home Depot Center in Carson. The expression on Bieber’s face was deliberately posed.

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Approximately 300 union members, activists, and Los Angeles Times readers rallied downtown yesterday to protest the potential sale of the paper to right-wing billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.

The protest was held at noon outside the downtown office of the investment firm Oaktree Capital Management, which holds the largest share of the Tribune Co. Musician Ry Cooder performed for the crowd, singing “I Don’t Want Your Millions, Mister” with special anti-Koch lyrics added.

From the LA Times coverage:

The protesters targeted Oaktree because the firm manages pension investments on behalf of unionized government employees, including those in the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

“We don’t want that kind of thing going on with our money,” said Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. “That’s like us selling you a car so you can run us over.”

The rumor of a Tribune Co. sale to Koch Industries has already inspired multiple online petitions and vocal opposition from unions and politicians.

The LA Weekly also covered the protest, and took some great photos.

Remember that great scene in Annie Hall where kids in an elementary school classroom speak directly to the camera and indicate what they will become as adults? On Friday afternoon, a charming echo of that classic sequence unfolded at the offices of JibJab.

The company threw open its doors to celebrate the success of StoryBots, a content App aimed at families with children ages two to seven. A gaggle of kids in the target demo, mostly sons and daughters of JibJab employees, were running around the offices Friday trying out different aspects of the App, which is free to sample and costs $4.99 a month for a full interactive subscription.

At one point, a majority of those kids were seated around the JibJab boardroom table, raising their hands as co-founder Evan Spiridellis asked various questions and played animated shorts. Judging by this future career-achieving group’s response, StoryBots’ upcoming Animal Songs are going to be very popular.

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Given how the Dodgers 2013 season was truly in danger of going to the dogs this past weekend after a Friday night Marlins loss, FishbowlLA is a little surprised at the lack of bow-wow references by local sportswriters in their coverage of the first of two much needed weekend victories against the Florida visitors. Especially since the right-field All-You-Can-Eat Pavilion section on Saturday night was full of four-legged fans whose owners had paid an extra $30 to put pets in those seats.

The Dodgers are the latest team to participate in an ongoing 2013 season MLB promotion that allows dog owners to bring their pets to the park. There will be another “Bark in the Park” opportunity at Chavez Ravine on September 28. The other SoCal event of this MLB type takes place August 25 at a Giants game (the Angels are not participating).

At press time, the only canine coverage we can find is a pre-event teaser on the CBS LA website and a couple of AP shots (#6, #10) in a post-game gallery shared by the Miami Herald. There’s also the above YouTube video, showing owners and their dogs walking the warning track before the game.

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It’s been three months now since Morrison Hotel Gallery opened for west coast business in the lobby of the Sunset Marquis.

The co-owners of the flagship gallery in New York’s SoHo district spent a great deal of time looking for the right “foot traffic” location here in LA. When you add in the historic record industry vibe of the renovated establishment they chose on Alta Loma Road, it’s hard to think of a better home for an outfit that represents about 90 top-flight music photographers.

There have been a couple of dedicated exhibitions so far at the LA space highlighting the works of co-owner Henry Dilz and moonlighting musician Graham Nash. There was also a launch event late last month for the iPad book Led Zeppelin: Sound and Fury by client Neal Preston.

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Fortune magazine’s three-day conference event “Brainstorm GREEN” got off to an intriguing start this afternoon in Laguna Niguel. Actor Harrison Ford, there in his capacity as vice chair of non-profit Conservation International (CI), participated in a 2 p.m. special session with CI CEO Peter Seligmann and Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer.

The first point made by Ford is a dramatic reminder of the surprising, costly and sometimes dangerous human reactions to environmental problems:

“For instance, what’s happening with the Somali pirates, you can look at that and recognize that it’s the collapse of the fisheries, the sustainable fishing, that men equipped with boats had no other options but to be involved in piracy, and that’s cost us and the rest of our NATO partners $2 billion to try and redress. That’s the national security connection to an environment issue, conservation issue.”

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