Archives: November 2012

Earlier this month, we told you about a second act of vandalism targeted at a mid-city billboard advertising Internet radio show The Craig & Robbie Hour. This weekend, we can happily report that a unique fix devised by Craig Olsen now covers over the previous paint splatter defacement.

The above design was commissioned by Olsen from local graffiti artist Jamie Ochoa. “I wanted to turn this [gay] hate crime into a positive message for the community,” Olsen tells FishbowlLA. “I have owned and operated my own interior design showroom in this community for the past 16 years and I also live in Hancock Park.”

Olsen and co-host Robbie Laughlin, of E! News fame, have been best friends for more than two decades. Their one-year-old Thursday 5 p.m. program generally highlights the latest endeavors of their numerous entertainment industry pals.

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In between serving up the details on a very good Thanksgiving weekend at the box office for the Hollywood studios, Nikki Finke has cranked out a major sports beat scoop.

According to her Saturday post, a record deal is about to be consummated for the renewal of Dodgers TV broadcast rights, which are currently set to expire at the end of 2013:

Insiders tell me that Fox Sports is close to clinching the exclusive TV rights for the Los Angeles Dodgers by paying between $6 billion and $7 billion over 25 years to put the team on its regional sports network in Southern California and of course its national Fox Broadcasting Company. Fox already shows the games on its Prime Ticket local cable channel but also has Fox Sports West here…

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This is not exactly the holiday weekend Diana Madison had planned. But thanks to being in the right place at the wrong (camel) time, she’ll take it.

The hollyscoop.com executive producer and host found herself at the center of a literal media circus Saturday after she recorded, in east Glendale, some cell phone video of a runaway camel on Friday. Atula got loose from the Ramos Bros. Circus and was quickly recaptured. Madison’s Twitter feed provides a vivid reminder of just how quickly this sort of footage can go from local… to national… to viral:

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Have you yet attended an “ugly Christmas sweater party?” If today’s press release for the November 23 launch of Pleasanton, CA based online retailer jingleballz.com is to be believed, these gatherings are an of-the-moment strand of the North American hipster social fabric:

“Ugly sweater parties are hot right now, but to really stand out you need more than just a gaudy Christmas tree or flashing reindeer nose. That’s where we come in,” said jingleballz.com founder Shawn Nohr. “Whether it’s a gift for yourself, a friend or for the White Elephant gift swap, calling these cheeky sweaters a ‘conversation piece’ is an understatement.”

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As if dozens of anachronistic full-time newspaper jobs and a renewed commitment to the print side of the Orange County Register isn’t enough, the paper’s new publisher Aaron Kushner is giving OC residents yet another reason to feel thankful that he is their local paper’s owner.

A special gift cheque program rolling into driveways and mailboxes this weekend is set to earmark up to $12.4 million in “ad dollars” for OC non-profits. Here’s how the program works:

The Register’s 124,000-plus seven-day subscribers are receiving receiving gold envelopes in the mail during the next few weeks immediately after the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Each envelope contains a $100 gift cheque, which they may designate to an Orange County-based 501c3 charitable organization they care about most passionately.

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There’s a brand new online women’s magazine in the Internet mix. It’s called DAME, was founded by publishing vet Jennifer Reitman, is aimed at the female over-30 crowd and counts as editor-in-chief Sanjiv Bhattacharya, former features editor for GQ UK.

Bhattacharya helps get it going with a snappy profile of Laura Wasser, the Century City denizen generally referred to as “Hollywood’s top celebrity divorce lawyer.” The label definitely fits:

Right now, Wasser has 35 active cases, allegedly including Laura Dern, Heidi Klum, Dennis Quaid and 80s saxophonist Kenny G (though Wasser herself won’t reveal any names). She even looks like a celebrity – the kind of lawyer that all those hot TV lawyers are based on. She’s smart, fast-talking, expensive (at up to $800 an hour) and in the words of the drooling producers at TMZ, “superfine.”

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With Christian radio host Frank Pastore hospitalized in critical condition as the result of a motorcycle accident on Monday on the 210 freeway in Duarte, veteran LA radio personality Frank Sontag took over the reins of The Frank Pastore Show Thanksgiving Day. The program airs weekdays from 4 to 6 p.m. on Glendale’s KKLA-FM 99.5.

Sontag, for many years the host of Impact on KLOS-FM, re-converted to Christianity in December 2009. He devoted a large portion of the first hour retracing that part of his life and the role played earlier this year by Pastore, a former pitcher with the Cincinnati Reds:

“When I first came to KKLA-FM in April, I proceeded to share [publicly, for the first time] my [conversion] experience in December 2009 [and hearing the voice of God]… My marriage was pushed to the brink, I actually thought I might lose my marriage… As I shared this story [on-air] with Frank, he just looked at me with eyes of love, and I thought, ‘This man genuinely knows the Lord.’”

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We all know what KROQ employee Scott Mason is thankful for this Thanksgiving.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the story about how Gene “Bean” Baxter from the Kevin and Bean show donated his kidney to his friend and colleague.

Well, CBS This Morning has been tracking this story and aired a piece on Wednesday that will choke you up if you aren’t stuffed with food yet.

Happy Thanksgiving!

On Monday, as part of a report about the latest violence in the Middle East, LA Times Jerusalem bureau chief Edmund Sanders wrote the following:

Among the dead was Ramez Harb, a Palestinian journalist. Israel said he was a legitimate target because he served in the information department of Islamic Jihad.

On Tuesday, a blogger for Boston-based watchdog the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) challenged the designation of the victim as a “journalist:”

The Los Angeles Times does it again. Last month it transformed a slain Hamas gunman into a “Palestinian man.” Today Sanders transforms a slain top Islamic Jihad commander into “a Palestinian journalist…”

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The protagonist of Melissa M. Garcia’s Luc Actar book series is the product of what may seem like an inverted career progression. Given today’s Fourth Estate economics, it could make more sense for him to have segued from journalism to hot-wiring Hondas, not the other way around.

Be that as it may, Garcia’s second Actar e-book – Chasing Demons – is just out. This time around, a personal loss triggers the investigative narrative:

When detectives arrive to inform Luc of the death of his father, Luc is hesitant to get involved. But once he discovers a powerful leader in the mental health industry is pulling the strings in his father’s investigation, Luc is determined to tear him down. As he chases the demons of his past, Luc unknowingly steps right into the crosshairs of a killer determined to keep his own life from falling apart.

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