Archives: April 2007

Thomas J. Kelly, the warm-up comic for The View has a new site. At Little Merman, he’s the first male mermaid at the Weeki Wachee Springs underwater mermaid show.

Maybe he can get Rosie a gig there, too.

Pre-op transsexual Mike Penner’s column in the LA Times got some 500,000 hits and over a thousand comments. James Rainey follows up with an interview–the first for Christine Daniels.

The LAT also plans to give Daniels space to write about her transformation under the tentative heading Woman in Progress. Every other woman on the staff just felt her heart sink.

(Does Daniels inherit Penner’s seniority, or is she a new hire? Just asking.)

Christina Kahrl, at Baseball Prospectus, writes about her own transition.

OutSports writes about Penner’s journey.

Gawker posits that Joel Stein is next, but that’s just silly. Al Martinez is next.

Earlier:

Mike Penner Writes About Upcoming Sex Change Operation

Thoughtless Little Pig: Why is this still a story?

The Medium Is The Message (Board): We don’t like newspaper message boards. But for a story as deeply personal – and potentially explosive as the sex-change operation of an LAT sports writer, it seems especially gratitious to open an online “community conversation.”

Sandra Bullock’s Stalker Held: First Alec, then this. Damn it was a slow news day.

Among the shape-shifters leaving CAA is Larry Shapiro, as reported by Nikki Finke.

Shapiro was the head of the video game unit. Seamus Blackley is still there, along with Ophir Lupu. The team brought Doom to the multiplex, but the Halo movie stalled.

Back in the day, actors actually thought they would have some influence on characters and plotlines. SAG couldn’t even get them residuals, much less script approval.

Far bigger news in the game world is the retirement of Sony CEO current director, chairman, CEO, and “father of the PlayStation” Ken Kutaragi.

Wendy McCaw(ful) stories never fail to enthrall us. The empress of the Santa Barbara News-Press continues to make headlines. In fact, this week in the Santa Barbara Independent, she’s making three.

A Barney Brantingham column, calling McCaw(ful) out on her sleazy front-page character assassination of former editor Jerry Roberts.

A news piece about how staff computers at the N-P have been blocked from viewing the Independent’s Web site.

And a Nick Welsh column that discusses how unfunny this entire affair has gotten. Unfunny, sure, but not in the least bit boring.

Zell’s swell, but the really interesting media news is happening in a sleepy enclave up north.

FRIDAY 04.27.07
WHAT: Hollywood Collectors and Celebrity Show
WHO: Erik Estrada, Marcia Wallace,Tom Bosley, Juliet Mills, Pat Priest and Butch Patrick (The Munsters), Lorenzo Lamas, Henry Winkler, Mickey Rooney, Nastassja Kinski, Traci Lords and many others.
WHEN: 11 a.m.
WHERE: Burbank Airport Marriott
WHY: Because you never know when a fallen celebrity will wind up dead in a Florida hotel room filled to the gills with chloral hydrate.

FRIDAY 04.27.07
WHAT: Coachella
WHO: Bjork, Of Montreal, Bus Driver and many more.
WHEN: Flosstradamus kicks it off at 2 p.m.
WHERE: The Middle of Nowhere
WHY: Because we want to live vicariously through you. Asshole.

FRIDAY 04.27.07
WHAT: Screening of A World of Conflict
WHO: Kevin Sites
WHEN: 7 p.m.
WHERE: James Bridge Theater, Melnitz Hall, UCLA
WHY: As Yahoo!’s first news correspondent, Sites helped pioneer solo journalism across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. As an NBC News correspondent in November 2004, he videotaped a U.S. Marine shooting a wounded Iraqi insurgent in a Fallujah mosque. RSVP to erwin.c.ong@gmail.com.

FRIDAY 04.27.07
WHAT: Sarah Hethcoat performance
WHO: Sarah Hethcoat
WHEN: 8 p.m.
WHERE: The Joint
WHY: It’s cheaper and closer than Coachella, and you’re gonna like her sound.

SATURDAY 04.28.07
WHAT: Festival of Books
WHO: LAT and UCLA are hosting the event again, expected to draw everyone from Dr. Phil to Kirk Douglas to, you know, some actual authors.
WHEN: 10 a.m.
WHERE: UCLA
WHY: Because GalleyCat’s going to be there!

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Jack Valenti, dapper head of the MPAA and the movie ratings system, died today at his home in Washington, DC.

The Hollywood Reporter.

Scott MacTavish notices his WWII career.

Nikki Finke has quotes from friends.

Army Archerd has his own memories.

Karen Woodward plunges into the deep end of the wading pool that is Gwen Stefani’s cultural impact. She’s defending her thesis Deconstructing a cultural icon: A case study of Gwen Stefani next week in Syracuse for her M.A. in Media Studies.

Woodward writes:

I poured over magazines,TV appearances, concert footage, music videos, etc and analyzed how she presented herself, how the press presented her, and then I interviewed fans to see what they thought of her.

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After lunch, why not take in some of the events at the FOB’s stages?

But first–a stop at the Hi De Ho Comics booth, to meet the creator of Archie.

The Barnes & Noble Stage
4:00pm
Don Cheadle and John Prendergast In Conversation
Authors, Not on Our Watch: A Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond

The LA Times Festival of Books is upon us again, and FBLA picks the panels not to be missed.

Saturday, April 28

Dodd 147
PANEL 1012 11:30 AM
True Crime: When It Happens To You
Moderator Barry Siegel
Stanley Alpert
Terri Jentz
Dinah Lenney

Best line-up ever for this genre.

Then,dash over to Schoenberg Hall

PANEL 1033 1:00 PM
Joseph Wambaugh & James Ellroy in Conversation

Literary equivalent of Sinatra and Satchmo.

UCLA map here.