Could a 1977 homework assignment at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design ultimately be responsible for the current Tournament of Roses logo? Former student Dave Bartholomew definitely thinks so.

His legal battle with the tournament and parade organizers, which began in 2007, is  extensively detailed by LA Times reporter Mike Boehm. The logo, in use since the late 1980s, helps non-profit event organizers earn more than $1 million a year in licensing fees. Per Boehm’s piece:

Bartholomew contended that Susan Karasic, the officially acknowledged designer credited with having created the logo at the same school in 1981, must have taken it from drawings that he and a now-dead professor turned over to tournament officials during the spring of his senior year.

Read more

Missed this one from earlier in the week, as the obit ran on Christmas. But Art Rogers, a native Angeleno who worked for more than 40 years as a photographer for the LA Times, died earlier this month at the age of 93. Rogers was part of the LA Times team that won a Pulitzer for its coverage of the Watts riots in 1965. According to the Times obit, he once had the distinction of having 22 of his photos run in the same Sunday paper.

The Times a put together a nice slideshow of some of Rogers’ best shots in honor of his passing. Definitely worth a visit.

San Diego Union-Tribune staffers will be ringing in the New Year with longer hours with no additional pay. The new workday is 8:30 to 5:30–up 30 minutes per day from under the previous ownership. You eat lunch on your own time under Douglas Manchester‘s watch.

The new hours were just one in a series of largely cosmetic but annoying changes announced today by new U-T CEO John Lynch in a memo to staff. U-T employees will also be required to start dressing in “sharp business attire.” Just because it’s warm and sunny all the time in San Diego doesn’t mean employees should dress like it. “Casual Friday” will remain intact. But, according to Lynch, it “should be only slightly less business oriented than Monday through Thursday.”

So… not really casual at then…

San Diego CityBeat has the memo in full.

Another old-schooler bites the dust. LA Times columnist Jim Newton has officially joined the ranks of Twitter. Looks like he’s got the hang of it. He’s already giving Susan Orlean shout outs.

Never mind that West Hollywood journalist Cary Harrison, the person at the center of a recent Patch item about 2007 indie film Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, lives in an apartment once occupied by Marilyn Monroe. In the case of this article’s slant, Google could have turned out to be the reporter’s best friend.

Patch contributor James F. Mills frames Harrison’s upcoming January 9 free Internet stream of the film, and planned accompanying interviews on his radio show, as a newsworthy event. But in the article comments, long-time sci-fi journalist Michael Hinman clarifies that the movie–featuring Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig–is anything but “rarely seen:”

I think it’s great to see some interest put into this production, which I thought was pretty top-notch, to be honest. But I think the story is a bit misleading to suggest that the only way you can see this film is at a Star Trek convention, or through this gentleman’s website.

Read more

A noteworthy series of essays at Salon.com, grouped under the heading “Pariah Personals” and inspired by the film Pariah, draws to a close today with an entry from Prumsodun Ok (pictured). The Cambodian-born Long Beach resident is an artist, 2011 TED Fellow and executive editor of VoiceWaves, a youth-focused journalism project of New American Media.

Ok details a furious argument with his sister, which led him to pick up the phone, call his 80ish dad in Cambodia and finally come out. All seemed to work out fine, but later, Ok discovered the dangers of waiting until that late in someone’s life to make such a declaration:

At this time, a reporter from the LA Times was interviewing me (for a story that never ran). She wanted to speak with my father. We met at the dance studio where I was teaching. After questions about my father’s life, she asks me, “So what does your father think about your being gay?”
“Pa, she wants to know how you feel about my being gay.”
“You’re gay?”

Read more

Hollywood box office numbers are down significantly from 2010. Movie attendance is at its lowest rate in 16 years. Piracy and file-sharing seems to be getting plenty of blame. But Roger Ebert isn’t buying it. Nor is he buying this Fishie’s contention that a glut of crap movies is at fault. On his blog, Ebert argues that while 2011 lacked an Avatar to boost box office numbers, the theater experience is to blame for Hollywood’s poor showing. Which is interesting, because the spate of 3-D movies that came out this year were supposed to be about improving the theater-going experience–providing something viewers couldn’t have at home.

But Ebert says 3-D ticket prices are gouging audiences. That, combined with concession gouging, and inconsiderate idiots with cell phones in the theaters are keeping people home. But all that could be overcome, Ebert argues, if theaters just took a chance on the American viewing audience and started screening decent films.

Writes Ebert:

Box-office tracking shows that the bright spot in 2011 was the performance of indie, foreign or documentary films. On many weekends, one or more of those titles captures first-place in per-screen average receipts. Yet most moviegoers outside large urban centers can’t find those titles in their local gigantiplex. Instead, all the shopping center compounds seem to be showing the same few overhyped disappointments. Those films open with big ad campaigns, play a couple of weeks, and disappear.

The myth that small-town moviegoers don’t like “art movies” is undercut by Netflix’s viewing results; the third most popular movie on Dec. 28 on Netflix was “Certified Copy,” by the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. You’ve heard of him? In fourth place–French director Alain Corneau’s “Love Crime.” In fifth, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”–but the subtitled Swedish version.

Read more

Tribune Company’s protracted bankruptcy isn’t going to be resolved anytime soon. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey said in a ruling yesterday that he wouldn’t hold hearings to end the case until May at the earliest. Some apparent good news, however, did come out of Carey’s ruling yesterday.

From the LA Times:

In his order, Carey reversed part of a ruling he made in October that seemed to give an advantage to a deeply subordinated class of note holders known as the Phones.

At the time, Carey indicated that the Phones class should be able to recover at least part of a claim with a face value of $1.2 billion, getting its share from money that would otherwise go to Aurelius and other junior creditors.

That opened the door to a parallel demand from Tribune Chairman Sam Zell, whose affiliate owns a similar note. It was Zell who acquired the company in a highly leveraged buyout in December 2007, a deal that landed it in bankruptcy a year later.

Read more

The Young Turks just posted some funny behind-the-scenes footage of Cenk Uygur celebrating victory over his fantasy football league. Those of you who have never spent days agonizing over whether Mike Shanahan is going to inexplicably bench Roy Helu for the first three quarters of a meaningless game against the Miami Dolphins, despite not giving a flying crap about the Redskins, can never understand Uygur’s joy.

Purists will no doubt assail the new owners of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre for allowing three guys in Chipmunk costumes and French DJ David Guetta to joint the handprint and footprint parade this year. But get used to it.

Although co-owner Donald Kushner is upfront in an an LA Times article by Amy Kaufman about the fact that the Alvin and another, similar Smurfs ceremony in 2011 was “mock,” with the cartoon star slabs slated to be housed in a secondary location, he and partner Elie Samaha are looking to add many more people to the cement:

Kushner revealed that Grauman’s is in preliminary talks with boxer Muhammad Ali and is also speaking with the family of Michael Jackson about a square that could use the imprints of a shoe and glove the pop star donned in some of his music videos.

Read more