Tomorrow night’s Live Talks Los Angeles event featuring Burt Bacharach in conversation with Mitch Albom is notable for a couple of additional reasons. It will mark the three-year anniversary of the popular local series and is the first of several Live Talks events planned for Glendale’s Alex Theatre.

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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There’s something hilarious about the idea of the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Juno being housebound due to the care of a newborn. But such has been the case in recent months for Diablo Cody (pictured), albeit from the relative comfort of her well-appointed Hollywood Hills abode.

As any parent who has gone through that drill knows, the first real trip out of the house is one to both look forward to and savor. In Cody’s case, it will be when she heads to the east coast at the beginning of February to attend the third annual edition at Barnard College of the female-centric Athena Film Festival (February 7-10), for which she is one of the co-chairs.

“I have a toddler and an infant right now,” Cody tells FishbowlLA via telephone. “I don’t get out to the movies, I don’t get out to have dinner, I don’t get out to my friend’s Live Reads [Jason Reitman, LACMA]. I am so home-bound right now. That’s why I’m so excited about the Athena Film Festival and getting to go to New York for a couple of days. I’m going alone, so I don’t know what I’m going to do with all that “thinking” time.”

Cody will also have the opportunity to finally meet a fellow female Hollywood trailblazer, Gale Anne Hurd, who is receiving the event’s Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award. “I’m really excited about that,” Cody confirms. “I think it’s so cool that she’s getting this award. I’m really interested to hear the Q&A with her and hear about the experiences that she’s had. Especially making these films that I think a lot of people would consider not to be in a woman’s wheelhouse. She’s probably got a lot to say.”

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Before and after the Golden Globes, one of the best sources of inside info about the 70th annual awards telecast remains, not surprisingly, the chairman of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Ruben Nepales and his wife Janet (also an HFPA voting member) beamed in very early PT time this past Saturday to chat on Canadian cable channel CBC News Network’s program News Now about the next day’s big awards show. And today, in his latest Inquirer column, Ruben shares this fascinating tidbit:

Now it can be told — the original plan was for Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey to co-host the show but that did not pan out (he reportedly declined). That’s when the Tina Fey-Amy Poehler combination was suggested. The idea was immediately met with excitement. The duo lived up to expectations and more.

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The media blitz for this weekend’s Golden Globes BFF tandem has included exclusive chats with THR and EW as well as a Wednesday afternoon conference call. From each, we’ve gleaned a suitably cheesy highlight.

Best Sports Analogy: If the Oscars are Hollywood’s version of the Super Bowl, then the Golden Globes logically correspond to the NCAA Football championship game. When asked by EW‘s Dan Snierson about their kudos M.O., Fey suggested that she and Poehler are “going to be the first people ever to do a man-to-man hosting strategy. We’re going to tell a joke to every single person in the audience. Most people do a zone — we’re going man-to-man.”

Best Q&A Glitch: During the bi-coastal telephone interview with THR news editor Matthew Belloni (Fey dialed in from New York, Poehler via LA), the Parks and Recreation star fell off the call halfway through. What’s funny is that the Q&A fully transcribes the details, right down to Poehler’s joke that she had stopped for a “quick facial.”

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Late this afternoon, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association tweeted out a spectacular bit of news:

Media reaction is pouring in and so far it’s unanimously ecstatic. Anne Thompson cheers “Good call, HFPA!”; CELEBUZZ senior TV editor Jethro Nededog suggests that Dick Clark Productions, the HFPA and NBC all “deserve a standing ovation;” and TVLine’s Michael Ausiello and Kimberly Roots enthusiastically declare “we want to go there.”

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Comedian Tracy Morgan is in full damage control mode after a homophobic rant at one of his shows. He’s already apologized for the ugly remarks, but now he’s going further, by voicing his support for gay rights. In an interview published on GlobalGrind.com, Morgan spoke with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons about the “indefensible” rant, and where he stands on gay issues:

Of all the sicknesses, there is probably none more abusive than homophobia. My heart is committed to giving everyone the same rights that I deserve for myself….. I believe everyone deserves the right to be happy and marry who they want too; gay, white, black, male or female.

And about that remark that he would stab his son if he turned out to be gay?

The truth is if I had a gay son, I would love him just as much as if he was straight … I might have to try to love even more because I know of the difficulty that he would have in society.

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Will Ferrell has earned himself a major accolade. The Kennedy Center has announced it will be honoring Ferrell this year with its 14th annual “Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.” The award ceremony will be taped for TV broadcast, and is basically a fundraising measure for the Kennedy Center. Single tickets cost $1,000 each for the live event.

Nonetheless, “I am truly honored to receive this distinction,” Ferrell said in a press statement. “I will now begin cultivating a Mark Twain-esque moustache in anticipation of the event.”

He’s got some time. The ceremony won’t be held until October 23.

Tina Fey, incidentally, won the award last year.

Female entertainers who make upwards of $20 million a year normally get a little more media respect than Chelsea Handler. According to an entertaining profile in Newsweek, that’s how much the host of E!’s Chelsea Lately earned in 2010 thanks to an ever-expanding empire that encompasses books, large venue stand-up comedy performances and various in-progress TV spinoffs.

Handler tells reporter Jennie Yabroff she is aware of the discrepancy between her success and media coverage, but that overall she’s fine with “being a bit under the radar.” Writes Yabroff:

Unlike Tina Fey or Jon Stewart, Handler is not a darling of the media elite. She rarely appears on magazine covers. She’s never hosted Saturday Night Live (though a Facebook group is lobbying for this to happen). Her books aren’t reviewed by The New York Times. And when they do notice her, critics are unkind.

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Thanks in large part to a successful Internet campaign to get her Saturday Night Live, Betty White has been named the Associated Press‘s “Entertainer of the Year.” Kind of a surprise, but not really. White was all over the place this year.

102 ballots were sent out to the Associated Press‘s various entertainment affiliates to determine the winner. The vote was apparently close. White beat the cast of Glee by only two votes.

“It’s ridiculous,” White told the AP from her Los Angeles home. “They haven’t caught on to me, and I hope they never do.”

Previous winners include Tina Fey,  Stephen Colbert and…Taylor Swift? Alrighty then.

Tina Fey goes back into her roll as America’s most real Americany American Sarah Palin.