It all began May 14, 2010 with author Jane Smiley interviewing Dave Barry. Since then, series founder-producer Ted Habte-Gabr has staged more than 100 events, bringing together everyone from Steve Martin and Tina Fey to Fred Willard and Darrell Hammond to Sharon Waxman and Sir Michael Caine. In addition to the evening series, which focuses for the most part on arts and culture, Habte-Gabr curates a downtown daytime business-themed bracket, Live Talks Business.

“We have three events booked at the Alex,” Habte-Gabr tells FishbowlLA via telephone. “The first one is Burt Bacharach; the second one is Phil Jackson in conversation with John Salley on June 12; and the third one is Neil Gaiman in conversation with Geoff Boucher, June 27. Then the Alex shuts down for some major renovations and they open back up in November, at which point we’ll probably have one or two more events there before the end of the year.”

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As Anne Thompson notes this morning in her updated coverage, Boucher has kept right on going since seguing from the LA Times to Entertainment Weekly. Though the PR for his writing, so far, has been less prominent at his new home, the fans have followed en masse:

Boucher’s new CapeTown blog – covering all things superhero, genre and fanboy/girl – has been a huge success, generating 2.5 million page views in its first month, which is close to the number of monthly readers the five-year-old LAT blog gets.

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The daily morning radio show hosted by assistant managing editor Dalton Ross will include a forum for listeners to dish during recaps of last night’s TV shows as they drive to work; a weekly show hosted by editor Jess Cagle will showcase entertainment news; additional programs will include What’s Hot Today, The Must List and a radio version of the “Bullseye” column.

There’s no mention in today’s announcement of Geoff Boucher, the LAT Hero Complex creator who moved over to EW last year. But something tells us he too will soon be branching out to the magazine’s SiriuxXM airwaves.

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That context gives the piece some extra urgency, and from this excellent bit of work by Aron, we were most struck by the following:

Richest Man in LA vs. Richest Man in the World: Aron references Patrick Soon-Shiong (pictured) in connection with former mayoral candidate Austin Beutner’s effort to put together a stealth group of combined LAT buyers. Surprisingly (at least to us), nowhere in the article does Carlos Slim come up, the man responsible for the relaunch of Larry King and much more. Aron confirms to FishbowlLA that it was not a case of being edited out; “no one ever mentioned Slim,” the writer says.

Two Shades of WSJ: The article characterizes Rupert Murdoch as the man who could potentially outbid everyone, with media expert Ken Doctor telling Aron the Wall Street Journal owner remains the odds-on favorite to acquire the newspaper. Doctor also thinks the two publications’ editorial and ad operations could be streamlined in a number of intriguing ways.

Which is perhaps ironic, because Aron also reminds that Times publisher and Tribune Co. CEO Eddie Hartenstein took a lot of flack internally for his decision to allow the Journal to print at the LAT, bumping the paper’s daily schedule down and “ruining its time-zone advantage over east coast papers.”

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The memo, via LA Observed:

To: The Staff
From: John Corrigan, Assistant Managing Editor

Pop culture aficionados have long sought out the work of Chris Lee. His keen sense of story and gift for words has led to scores of memorable pieces, including Hollywood foodies, Muslim punk rockers and the “club girls” who prowl the Sunset Strip for celebrity gossip.

His takes on celebrities rank among the very best, and the most eclectic. Zack Galifianakis, Gustavo Dudamel, Angelina Jolie, Jerry Lewis, Kanye West … all have gotten the Chris Lee treatment, to the delight of readers. He also chronicled Michael Jackson’s attempted comeback, and shared a Times Editorial Award in 2010 for his role in the breaking news coverage of Jackson’s death.

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Karger’s new boss Hilary Smith, senior vp of digital communications for NBCUniversal’s Entertainment & Digital Networks and Integrated Media division, is quoted in the press release as saying that the hire is a “game-changer” for Fandango. She’s absolutely right.

While the now Comcast-owned movie ticket behemoth has been churning out movie-related news, review and interview content for years, they’ve never had a marquee reporter in the mix. The addition of Karger provides Fandango with a name brand already seamlessly plugged in to sister properties such as Access Hollywood, The Today Show and E! Entertainment.

The Karger hire also greatly raises the Oscar season profile of Fandango. For the past two years, their chief correspondent has been the Academy’s official red carpet greeter and for many years more, a leading Oscars prognosticator. Karger’s last day at EW was September 18.

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“I was a screenwriting major here at Loyola Marymount University, and when I graduated I couldn’t figure out how to become a screenwriter. So I ended up getting into a Master’s program at [CSU] Northridge in communications. From there, I managed to get an [unpaid] internship at the LA Times and some clips.”

The Q&A by Loyolan managing editor Kevin O’Keeffe fails unfortunately to do justice to its headline, “11 Burning Questions with an LA Times editor.” That’s because there is no mention of the recent departures from Corrigan’s watch of brand name columnists Patrick Goldstein and Geoff Boucher, both reportedly unhappy with the new mechanics of the paper’s arts and entertainment coverage.

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On that same Monday, Pham will begin the next phase of her career as senior correspondent for Billboard, which has been doing a good job recently of reinventing itself on the Web. Her very fertile beat will be emerging technologies in music. From today’s release:

Pham will be responsible for covering new platforms and technologies in and around the music space, including startups and investments, Silicon Valley, and top companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. Pham will be based in Los Angeles and will report to Billboard deputy editor Yinka Adegoke…

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From this morning’s announcement:

Based in LA, Boucher will be joining EW’s Movies team on October 1st as a senior writer and will add his singular voice to EW’s print and digital platforms.

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Goldstein laid it out recently during Episode #161 of weekly podcast Showbiz Sandbox with J. Sperling Reich and Michael Glitz. Thanks to his LAT buyout, “The Big Picture” columnist said he’s going to take some time off and cheer his son on the baseball diamond. He also stressed that it was an amicable parting, a matter of new management wanting him to change his unbridled M.O.:

“I had a wonderful, long run. But all good things come to an end. I always had complete freedom and autonomy to write about what I thought was interesting and give my take on everything. But we have some new leadership in the entertainment features side of the newspaper and they wanted to make some changes and go in a different direction and have me go in a different direction. And I just thought… No, I kind of wanted to go in the direction that I’ve been going in.”

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Boucher has been with the paper since 1991. He would neither confirm or deny Finke’s sourced tip, but as she writes, this would if true complete a huge double-whammy loss for the paper:

Boucher’s exit follows editor Davan Maharaj’s arrival and then a new entertainment editorial team announced June 20th. That was like moving deck chairs on the Titanic given that the newspaper has become lazy and irrelevant and its showbiz ads have fallen 25% every year as studio and theater chains abandon the publication. Seriously, folks, no Boucher and no [Patrick] Goldstein = no showbiz readers.

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The Nerdist Channel makes its YouTube debut on April 2, while Hero Complex: The Show will premiere the week of April 9.

Press release after the jump:

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Boucher in fact for this story paid a visit to David Lee Roth not long after this year’s Rose Parade:

Earlier this month, on a crisp, sunny morning in Pasadena, Roth, now 57, welcomed a visitor to his 20-room, Italianate mansion to talk about Van Halen past, present and future.

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Although Favreau glosses over Walt’s live action catalog, he does put forth the intriguing idea that Disney had three perfect creative moments: Steamboat Willie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Disneyland. He also recalls one of the many moments in his life when the theme park loomed large:

My 1988 cross-country trip on motorcycle culminated with my Sportster padlocked in front of the happiest place on Earth. It was this month-long adventure that ultimately inspired me to leave New York and try to make it in showbiz. My first screenplay, Swingers, was rife with Disneyland references. Even now, with my own three children, I make the pilgrimage several times a year.

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Much like Orson Welles, Gilliam has spent a large portion of his career battling Hollywood execs and chasing after film financing. That remains the case today, with his decade-old project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote still languishing and likely never to be finished. But it is all by choice, thanks to a decision made decades ago in the San Fernando Valley:

“Look, the last proper job I had was [in the 1960s] at the Chevrolet assembly plant in Van Nuys. It was the night shift, and when I quit I said I would never work for money again. I believe in the things I make. The fact that God doesn’t want me to make them is beside the point.”

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