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Thursday, April 30, 2009

H U N G : HBOs New Envelope Pusher Films at my Job

Imagine my astonishment when I walked into my office today and found that, for some very odd reason, the newspaper I work for--The San Fernando Valley Business Journal--had gone through an overnight name change to become the Detroit Metropolitan Business Journal. That's what the letters spelled out on the gray partition that greets me every day as I approach the office from the mezzanine-level lobby.

I almost didn't notice when I swung open the glass door, but the words "San Fernando Valley" had been replaced by "Detroit Metropolitan." Quite economically, the "Business Journal" part was unchanged.

In most places in America, I might have rubbed my eyes and wondered if was being punked. "Okay, where's the camera; where's Ashton...oh wait; I'm not famous," I might have said to myself. "Then I'd have defaulted to the other possibility: "I must have fallen through a cosmic wormhole into an alternate reality: Detroit (funny, I'm a business reporter here too)."

However this being L.A., I instantly realized the extra-busy lobby I had walked right through, without really noticing how extra busy it was, had probably been artificially populated with, well, extras.

Indeed, it turned out our building had been scouted as a location for a new HBO series that will run this summer. It's called HUNG, I learned. And, it's about a guy whose personal and professional lives are in the toilet, when an old high school gal pal helps him decide to use his one big asset to make new opportunities. No really.

And, it's called HUNG.

Oh yeah, I already siad that. Here's a link to HBO's website for the new show, which is still in production. It stars Anne Heche, of whom I think I got a little glimpse (and caught on the video above, so please click play), as well as Thomas Jane, playing the lead role, of Ray Decker.

This should make coming into the office more interesting for a few weeks, if not a little inconvenient. But, this is the home of show business, and I, like most Angelenos, am happy to support the industry and stem the tide of runaway production, even if I have to wait until I hear the word "CUT!" before I can cross somebody's set to go home for the day.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Michelle Bachman: The Once and Future Dunce

Michele explains it all.

You've got to feel sorry for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota): All the pieces are there for her to be a sort of ready-for-prime-time, mainstream version of the ghastly Ann Coulter.

Congresswoman Bachmann doesn't frighten little children--so far as we know. She's extremely telegenic (with the TV on mute). She's an elected official, whereas Coulter is just a shock-schlock "author" who's usually peddling a book at the same time she's damning everyone from Democratic presidential candidates for their "French manicures" to the wives of 9/11 victims for supposedly exploiting their "exquisite grief."

Yes, Coulter knows how to pick her victims to make her look savage and screechy. But when Michele Bachmann tries to pull a Coulter, she just looks oafish and petty.

Take for instance her recent interview on a conservative video-news website. She sounds logical in presenting her partisan case until she starts talking about energy and the swine flu crisis. That's when the congresswoman completely melts down, yet again rolling out the aging anti-science of the last eight years, which denies the significance of human activity on global warming .

Then she bends reality, actually saying that, somehow, by not agreeing to the tougher emissions standards of the Kyoto Treaty, the U.S. has lowered its carbon emissions during the past year. Worse, she goes on to credit our nation's recent prosperity (huh?) for lower emissions.

I'm no expert, but if there were an economy-based reason for lower emissions in the U.S., maybe it's that industrial production has diminished during the Great Recession. In fact, an Apr. 9 USA Today article confirms that a slower economy has helped cut some emissions worldwide.

"...and it's because of our prosperity," Bachmann explains to the interviewer. "Prosperity has enabled our country to have cleaner factories, cleaner coal plants. When you have prosperity and you can have the new and the latest technology, then you have the best chance of being able to have a cleaner environment, and that's really a good direction to go."

Okay, so because business is so great (ahem) kindly utility companies decided to install expensive clean-air technology? WRONG! Can you say regulation Rep. Bachmann?

But the Ann Coulter-light comparison comes in when Michele Bachman is asked about swine flu. I need not spoil the fun. See how she twirls the issue like an unpracticed majorette (do we still call them that?) fumbling her baton at the phalanx of a high school marching band. Click on the image above for a link to the interview.

Monday, April 27, 2009

To be Liberal and Proud in America


There's a new freedom in America. Self-identifying liberals are feeling, well, liberated. We see in the national discourse a revival of the once-proud nomenclature of liberal, liberality, and liberalism. What is amazing to me is how quickly it has happened. Not long ago, a handful of months back, in fact, to call someone liberal was to poison the political well of opinion about that person's views. If that person was a politician, fuh-geta-boudit. Their career was over if you could make the tag stick. And so it was for almost two decades.


Echos of JFK's nomination acceptance speech to the Liberal Party in New York in 1960 have seemed quaint--until lately. Consider Kennedy's words then:

"...if by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.'"


Although many liberals made their way through what were the dark times for their breed by swapping the L-word for the P-word (progressive), some are now reclaiming the mantle of Roosevelt.


The Internet is the battering ram with which American liberalism has made its surprise, sudden comeback.


Today, Paul Krugman's (pictured above) New York Times blog http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ called "Conscience of a Liberal," seems to be earning the title the author lays claim to. At the same time, Ariana Huffington's Huffington Post is the clearing house of new liberal media. Then there's the person who has made the most of the Internet's potential in a single victory: Barak Obama.


We'll see how long this lasts. As baby boomers age and, pardon my crassness, begin to die off, the likelihood of a continuity of this trend becomes greater. While that generation had its moment of being liberal-ish, they have clearly become more conservative on many, if not most, issues. Their younger siblings, Generation X and their children, the Millennials, are far more progressive. Scratch that. We're far more LIBERAL!


Friday, April 24, 2009

My Car Accident (VIDEO): The Damage

So, instead of the update on UBOC (still to come, next week). How about a little video update of my crash on the southbound off-ramp of the the 405 at Santa Monica Blvd? I was exiting the freeway and, as you will hear and see, stopping the car required an application of Newton's Laws in the crudest of fashion. Note: If you're expecting to see video of the crash, sorry. It's just vid. of my car after it was towed home, but it's still pretty gnarly from my point of view.
(CLICK THE PLAY > BUTTON BELOW)

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

My Auto Accident Means UBOC Update w/be Delayed


(Not my car pictured; I'm too exhausted to take one as the tow truck just brought me home).

Sorry to say, I think my car is totaled. I'll follow up on the Union Bank Story (see below) Friday.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Equal Rights for Midwestern Couples, but not on the West Coast


Apropos of the passage of Prop 8 last year, the Golden State, the People's Republic of California, as right-wingers like to call this bastion of progressiveness, now has the distinction of having a proud bigot as our representative in the Miss USA Pageant (yes, grown-up beauty pageants still exist).

Blonde "lovely" Carrie Prejean believes God was testing her faith by having judges ask for her opinion on gay marriage. The hubris of Ms. Prejean (maybe when gets out of pre-jean status and grows up to be a full-fledged "jean" she'll have a little more tolerance for others) was revealed in an interview with Fox News Channel:

"It did cost me my crown," the beauty queen said. Your crown? Unless there's something about beauty pageants that escapes me (and I'm sure there is), it's not your crown unless you win.
Prejean continued. "I was raised in a way that you can never compromise your beliefs and your opinions for anything."

There's something Shakespearean about the fact that some California couples have to go to places such as Iowa and Vermont to legally marry the ones they love. Welcome to the new Golden State: Oklafornia.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Banks Hoarding Bailout Money, Won't Even Loan to Themselves


Banks across America are hording money given them (okay, loaned to them--theoretically) by the U.S. Government. The the bailout money was meant to free up stalled credit markets, i.e., give banks money to lend to businesses and consumers. The idea is to reinvigorate the economy with a little spending. But we have just learned (again) banks who got bailout money loaned less money in March than they did in February! A Wall Street Journal investigation found that the more money banks got, the less they lent.

Though not a bailed out bank, and having told me late last year for a story I wrote in the Business Journal that they have money to lend and are lending it, I posted this Union Bank of California image because of an interesting anecdotal connection to the tight-credit angle of this post: Union Bank of Calif. has had a new branch under construction on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood for almost two years now. Progress on construction has been slow to say the least. Even banks borrow money to build. Has UBOC found credit markets too tight to get on with opening the much-anticipated (the nearest location now is in the heart of Beverly Hills' worst traffic area) branch in WeHo? Stay tuned...I'll learn and let you know Wed., April 22 what's the delay.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Space-based Solar Energy Coming to Earth

I was in Mrs. Litton-Smith's sixth grade class at Hohokam Elementary School in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1978 the first time I ever heard about the concept of capturing solar energy in space for use as electricity on Earth. Now, a California Company says it wants to make the concept happen...REALLY! (via bldgblog.blogspot.com). Image courtesty of Wikipedia.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Region's Largest Mall in Bankrupcty; Northridge Fashion Center not Closing--for Now

The Great Recession is pounding once-bustling malls across Southern California and the nation, moreover. Case in point, General Growth Properties, the nation's second largest mall owner/operator, has announced it is bankrupt. GPP is seeking Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankrupcty Court.

GPP's Northridge Fashion Center, the largest mall in northern Los Angeles County is assuring customers and tenants that, as general manager Danielle Gordon put it, "...the mall will be open today and tomorrow, and going forward."

What was interesting to me, however, was the fact that I did not ask Gordon if the mall was going to stay open. I only asked what impact there would be locally in the face of the parent company's Chapter 11 filing. In Chapter 11 bankruptcies, companies generally continue operating while they restructure their debt with the protection of the court from adverse actions by creditors. The $30 billion real estate investment trust is believed to owe more than $28 billion to its creditors.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Phantom Billboard Artist, Gias, Strikes on La Cienega


Remember L.A. artist, David Browne's little doves hanging over intersections across the city? Well it may be that artist Gias is the next David Browne. Check out this amazing video of the artist's rogue billboard (on La Cienega just south of Pico on the west side of the street) message about the perils of TV, Drugs and Religion in time-lapse progression over the course of four days and nights (courtesy joosbox.tv):

Monday, April 13, 2009

Dedication of Hunter Allen Trail

They say only the good die young. I don't know how true that is, but I know the people who gathered at the west end of Victory Blvd. last Saturday morning for the dedication of Hunter Allen Trail at Ahmanson Ranch in the far west part of the San Fernando Valley would rather have seen Good Hunter Allen live into his thirties and beyond.
The ceremony was officiated by a Chumash Indian medicine man, who, in full-native prayer garb, dedicated the trail to Hunter's family, the American People, Native Americans, and their ancestors, who are buried on lands across the continent.
Hunter died tragically a year ago when the pain of his personal life became too much for him to bear.
However, the way Hunter lived his public life earned him the name Baby Dragon. Though somewhat diminutive in physical stature, he was a force to be wreckened (as fomer WaMu CEO Kelly Killinger learned. Killinger lost his battle with Hunter, a young West Hollyood activist, determined to save a large swath of hilly California meadowland, which the bank owned and developers salivated over. With no money and a gut full of passion, Hunter used cunning, irony, and friends to succeed in making the land part of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy--forever protecting it from the voracious appetites of California's sprawl-driven developers. Thanks to his efforts and the efforts of others, banks and developers are now looking at urban redevelopment as the wave of the future for building in Southern California.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

A Model for Rivers and Greenspaces

L.A. City Councilman Ed Reyes has invited Seoul's deputy mayor for infrastructure to show us how it's done...building a riverwalk and a park with environmental sustainability as the guiding principle, that is. All snarkiness aside, this is actually a great idea. The South Koreans have done good work in urban planning in terms of such projects. There will be a presentation at City Hall, open to the public, Friday, April 17 at 2:30, where
Dr. In-Keun Lee will talk about and show images of how Seoul has transformed a canal into a beautiful river walk. Expect to see more of these kinds of exchanges as L.A.'s new 4-block great park to be installed at the foot of City Hall downtown, and the L.A. River project unfolds (however slowly completion of the two shall meet the light of day).

Monday, April 6, 2009

Ipod Touch Here: A solution for a Frustrated Verizon Blackberry User


For more than a year, I've struggled with my Blackberry. Don't get me wrong; I know how it works. That's the problem: I hate how it works! I think there are two kinds of people. There are those who get algebra and the Blackberry algorithm. Then there are those of us who think a whole other way.
However, I don't want AT&T. So, for now, no iPhone. My plan is to ditch the Blackberry, get a regular, non-PDA camera phone, and and iPod Touch for my other, net-based needs. Tell me what you think of this solution if you have any experience with similar situations--especially if you know about the mythical world of unlocking the iPhone for use with Verizon (which I understand to be impossible because Verizon doesn't use removable chips).

Friday, April 3, 2009

Mark to Market: Other Big Financial News

FASBE, the rule-making body for the accounting industry (think of it as the lawyers' bar, except for CPAs), has bowed to political pressure and approved "more flexibility," i.e., more generosity, in the valuing of legacy, i.e., toxic, assets. The bottom line? Better-looking bottom lines for banks and other financial institutions. But is this just institutionalizing the kind of willy-nilly analysis that was the problem way back with Enron, and during the current crisis on Wall Street? Or, is it a necessary evil to grease the gears of the U.S. and world economies? I'll try to get some answers from leading accounting firms later at the Business Journal's website: sfvbj.com. (Maybe accounting is not such a bad beat for this reporter after all). Meantime, here's Reuters U.K.'s take on the so-called mark to market issue: http://uk.reuters.com/article/regulatoryNewsFinancialServicesAndRealEstate/idUKN0226528020090402