Remember Cindi Burkey, who used to voice the local wraparounds for the KCRW broadcast of ‘All Things Considered’? She was mysteriously replaced last month by Ken Borgers. Turns out she quit after being transferred unwillingly to an off-air position by Ruth Seymour, and of couse, she’s now blogging about it. Well, it’s not so much a blog as a web-page with lots of text. Lots and lots of it. Worth reading the whole thing for a look at KCRW internal politics.

If I had to sum this up quickly, I would tell you this: One listener letter was influential enough to get me booted from my job as local host of All Things Considered. The letter came in February, and it came from a subscriber who criticized me for stumbling on the air.

[...]

Fast-forward to early April: Ruth calls me into her office, tells me I am stumbling and generally sounding terrible on the air, and says the situation has forced her to take me off, and replace me (permanently) with Ken Borgers. This would be effective in one week. Ken Borgers had, very recently, become a weekend announcer during news programs. Also, Ruth told me, my voice had changed: It sounded different, strained, thin. She strongly suggested that I see an ear, nose and throat doctor.

Ruth went on to tell me that my new job would be running the board for Ken–ie, engineering the afternoon broadcast –ie, pushing the buttons. I would be “allowed” to do traffic, but they would have to monitor me. She said, “I don’t know what’s going on with you that’s causing you to do this–” and went on to probe me as to whether I was having some sort of problem that was rendering me incompetent on the air.

Now Burkey is selling things on eBay and looking for voiceover work.

(link via L.A. Observed)

This Sunday’s LAT Magazine looks at the use of outdoor space in California residential life. You know, elaborate hedge arrangements, ridiculously over-furnished porches, and so forth. Dan Neil sums it up nicely:

Nearly all of my neighbors have established some sort of horticultural retreat in their backyards-floored with pavers and carpeted with turf, walled with bougainvillea and roofed with pergolas. What they have constructed, whether they know it or not, is another room of their house.

[...]

…[I]t seems to me people are furnishing their outdoor spaces mostly out of bored consumerism; they have run out of room in their houses and outdoor living is simply spillover from endless acquisition.

‘Bored Consumerism’ would actually be a great name for a new catch-all LA Times section.

What’s happening? Sunday’s New York Times was strangely full of Angeles-ness. In Styles: Paul Haggis has a tame night out, Cruise and Holmes get analyzed, a WASPy screenwriter gets married, a second-hand store sells fancy clothes, and, lo, a screenwriter discusses her online dating experiences.

Then, in the Magazine, there’s Hamburger Hamlet and Gigi Levangie Grazer! This last item is worth an excerpt about the whirlwind of activities Grazer takes writer Alex Witchel along to:

The only activity we did not have time for — the pediatrician put a crimp in that plan — was a visit to the personal shopper at Neiman Marcus. When it became clear that that opportunity was lost, Grazer admitted that Elena Zennaro, the couple’s assistant and the children’s nanny, a woman Grazer calls her wife, had offered to go to the store first and preselect the clothes Grazer was supposed to like. See, Grazer doesn’t like to shop. Zennaro shops for her. By telling me this story and exposing the contrivance of Hollywood wifedom, Grazer seemed to figure she was being authentic. Or was it just another layer of artifice: Can you see how outside I really am?

Anyway, how could so much of Los Angeles be stuffed within that taut, blue NYT home delivery wrapper? It’s like a magical sausage– a sausage which I’m still digesting.

First off, I gotta ask: why is the LA Times Column One feature called ‘Pacific Time’ on the latimes.com homepage (or,if you prefer, vice-versa)? Whatever you want to call it, it’s generally the best thing in the paper, and today is no exception. A feature on people struggling to make their way as California real estate brokers reveals a startling statistic:

There are 437,000 agents in California, enough to form the state’s eighth-largest city.

According to the article, these 437,000 agents made 680,000 home sales last year. That’s 1.56 sales per agent. (Although presumably a sizable fraction of those agents specialize in commercial real estate, which the article doesn’t discuss.)

I don’t know if we’re in a California real estate bubble. But we’re certainly in a California real estate broker bubble.

According to the LA Times, celebrity-hood is a stressful profession. Maybe not quite as stressful as, say, fighting fires or working in air traffic control, but more stressful than, for instance, being a comp lit grad student:

Stress expert Charles Figley, director of the Traumatology Institute at Florida State University, conducted a study 10 years ago on celebrity stress, interviewing 51 A-listers, and found that stars consider the media their No. 1 stressor. And that was before reality TV and the overwhelming popularity of blogs.

Tabloid reporter / Hollywood Interrupted co-writer Mark Ebner, who is personally responsible for raising the anxiety levels of a celebrity or two, has this to say in the article about absconder Dave Chappelle:

“He’s my hero… [H]e extracted himself from the problem and went as far away from Hollywood as possible…. If he stays as far away from people like us, he’ll be fine.”

Hypothetical question: If every single A-list celebrity suddenly got fed up with their lives and moved to South Africa, would B-list celebrities then become A-list celebrities, the C-list become B-list, and so forth? Or would the celebrity industry simply collapse?

Send entries to FishbowlLA AT mediabistro DOT com.

It is now officially untrue that media people in New York are more intellectual and sophisticated than us.

… who turns out to be a(n anonymous) teenage member of an online hacking gang. Awesome, dude!

(link via Jossip / Defamer)

In honor of the ‘Revenge of the Sith’ opening and with apologies to Spy:

LA-based Wall Street Journal movie critic Joe Morgenstern, and Emperor Palpatine:

(Research assistance provided by tv writer / cupcake expert Michael Oates Palmer.)

Readers,

I have taken a solemn oath to inform you of Los Angeles media goings-on. On the other hand, I am loath to pull a Sally Horchow and use my role as a journalist to promote an organization I’m affiliated with. So let me say that I urge you NOT to attend the LA Inneundo-sponsored performance next Wednesday night at the Comedy Central Stage in Hollywood. The show, entitled ‘Adventures in Profiling’, will feature dramatized readings of celebrity magazine profiles, performed and conceived by a bunch of marginally talented layabouts.

If, despite my warning, you choose to attend, details are after the jump. Free, and reservations required.

Read more