This past weekend marked the end of a long run for self-described LA County District Attorney ”flack” Sandi Gibbons. After 24 years served on behalf of a quartet of bosses, she retired March 30 at age 72.

San Gabriel Valley Tribune reporter Ruby Gonzales does a really nice job of paying tribute to Gibbons. The exiting spokesperson says her job was like being a “city editor to the world” and remembers how it sometimes involved brushing shoulders with Hollywood:

Gibbons recalled teaming TV producer Dick Wolf with deputy DA Pamela Bozanich, who prosecuted Lyle and Erik Menendez in their first trial.

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The title of the book is Assassins… Serial Killers… Corrupt Cops… Chasing the News in a Skirt and High Heels. The recalled contents are to SoCal journalism what On the Waterfront was to Hollywood.

Author Mary Neiswender began her trailblazing, twice-Pulitzer Prize nominated reporting career at the Long Beach Press-Telegram just a few years before Brando’s Terry Malloy eviscerated the big screen. She quickly established herself as a journalistic contender, becoming later that decade the first female member of San Pedro’s Harbor Press Room. The booze-soaked, cigarette-stenched den was located above the Harbor Division police station and directly below court chambers and the local jail.

Here’s how Neiswender recalls her first day, alongside ten waterfront-beat reporters for all the major LA newspapers:

As I pushed open the door, the room quieted. There were a lot of throat-clearing noises. I saw my desk top was clean, except for a lone, plastic geranium in a broken pot. I smiled. I could handle that.

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LA playwright, labor columnist and author David Macaray takes a colorful stroll down memory lane today with a Huffington Post recollection of efforts once made to interview Charles Manson from prison.

It all went down around 1979 and started in earnest with the help of California Public Information Office staffer Phil Guthrie. On this gentleman’s advice, Macaray penned a letter to Manson and chose to make the unusual exception of suggesting the equal share of any resulting media proceeds:

And (in violation of yet another journalistic practice), I offered to submit a list of 33 questions I’d already composed, guaranteeing him the right to choose only those he wished to answer…

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If “So What Do You Do, Jay Mariotti” wasn’t enough for you, we have more from our exclusive interview with the former Around the Horn contributor and Venice resident.

In Part II, Jay Mariotti discusses in greater detail his relationship with Alison W., his departure from ESPN and what’s next for the opinionated sports columnist.

Did your legal troubles affect your relationship with your daughters? What did they initially think when they found out you were arrested?

The only call they allowed me to make from jail was to my oldest daughter. She kept her cool and she said, “Dad, this isn’t you.” They knew I was living out here now and they didn’t know who this woman was. It saddens me but to this day, the relationship is great. One is still in college at Syracuse. She’s overseas in London on an exchange program. The other one is working at McGraw-Hill. Great relationship and they understand everything. But they trust their dad.

Did they read the book?

Yeah. I told them it was coming. They knew a lot of the book would be about Chicago. This is only 10 chapters out of the 23. I think some of the bits and pieces might have shocked them, especially this last time around.

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Ashley Todd is a 20 year old McCain/Palin volunteer from Texas.

She claimed that a tall black man mugged her at an ATM, then saw her McCain/Palin bumper sticker and went into a rage and superfically scratched her face with a backwards ‘B’. She then said she was also sexually assaulted and lost consciousness.

So Drudge called it ‘mutilation’ in big banner in red. Poor McCain volunteer viciously attacked by black man matching Democratic candidate general description.

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