The Twitter feed is curated and updated most days. Posting to the blogs is more sporadic.
Archive: LA Observed
A memorial for Al Martinez will be held Feb. 8 at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica.
The Bard of LA, as he was called, had a long career at the Los Angeles Times and had also written columns for the Topanga Messenger, the Daily News and AARP — plus books and TV episodes.
Al posted this message on Facebook over the weekend.
The funeral for Mark will be Sunday at 12 noon at Hillside Memorial Park. Details inside.
The Kickstarter campaign to support the hidden beach access app that grew out of an LA Observed series runs only until May 30 — that's Thursday. The LA Times featured Jenny Price in today's Column One feature.
Just over four years ago, Steve Greenberg began to contribute cartoons to LA Observed. His LA Sketchbook archive grew to more than 275 cartoons — and made a huge impact on the site. Now it's time for Steve to focus on other projects with my thanks and gratitude.
LA Observed now has more than 16,000 followers on Twitter. We use the Twitter feed to post shorter items before they become full posts on the blogs, and also to pass along links to what we're reading. It's also a good way to get alerts when something new is posted at LA Observed. Follow
I will be signing "Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles" and "The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb" at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC on Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. Look for me at the Angel City Press booth and around the grounds.
Hey all, I'm traveling this week. They have wi-fi in Canada so I'll be posting a little bit here and there, but probably not in the mornings.
Sorry, these things happen. Posting will continue to be sporadic this week.
As usual, writers from LA Observed will be all over the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this weekend at USC. I'll be there both days signing books and schmoozing with anyone who drops by.
This is the first time we have rebuilt the coding guts of LA Observed from scratch. It has taken many months of work behind the scenes — and isn't finished. But it was time to go public and live with the new look awhile. The biggest change, obviously, is a rethinking of the LA Observed front page — something I've wanted to do for a few years. I'm truly thrilled by the possibilities.
We're in the final stages of a thorough freshening up of the site. Stay tuned.
I'm in the midst of a fun project extracting photographs from the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of 3,000 pictures from the morgues of the old Valley Times and Hollywood Citizen-News newspapers.
Steve Harvey's column of only in Los Angeles items, formerly a staple of the LA Times Metro section, are now at LA Observed.
We have a simple web widget you can put on your blog or desktop and have easy access to everything posted at LA Observed.
Visiting blogger Barbara Kraft, a Los Angeles writer and former Time magazine reporter, knew both Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller. She met the famous former couple independently while they were living here.
Steve Greenberg's LA Observed cartoon on Jerry Brown makes Joel Pett's selection on the LAT op-ed page.
Instead of the traditional end-of-year look back, I'll be using the holiday down time to freshen up the site.
The Atlantic Wire picked up my post from last night remembering — with photographic evidence! — the time when Mark Willes commissioned a sniff test comparing the smell of his L.A. Times with other papers.
Tonight's radio commentary: a quick take on the media infatuation with the color and authenticity of Occupy L.A., and the challenge for the politicians inside City Hall.
Hey, the little Twitter counter thingie says LA Observed is about to go over 10,000 followers. Who will push us over?
Lots of new stuff from the weekend.
Around the LA Observed blogs this emotional weekend, 9/11 posts from Ellen Alperstein, John Schwada and Veronique de Turenne. Plus more.
The newest contributor at LA Observed is John Schwada, the longtime reporter in Los Angeles who was recently let go by Fox 11.
Veronique de Turenne celebrates five years of blogging with a pictorial tour of her favorite posts.
I'm off to the Pacific Northwest and the upper end of California for a week.
I'm the reporter-narrator on a UCLA-produced program on the 405 closure that's airing as a special edition of "SoCal Connected" on KCET, Wednesday at 8 p.m. and Friday at 9:30 p.m. Here's the trailer.
I'm tied up all day on other tasks. Mark at LA Biz Observed posted on Mayor Villaraigosa's chief of staff giving notice and other news, starting with the morning headlines....
Political consultant Michael Trujillo disagrees with writer Joel Fox on the comparison between the Los Angeles of 1993, when Republican businessman Richard Riordan was elected mayor, and the condition the city will be in when voters choose again in 2013.
Mark's got new ticket prices at Disneyland, bankruptcy for Marie Callender's, boffo ratings for the Mavericks and Heat, analysis on Facebook going public and Conan O'Brien's life lesson from losing 'The Tonight Show.'
Mr. and Mrs. LA Observed announce the graduation of our cherished and super-cool Sean from the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture. (Phew, glad that's over.)
Ron Rapoport, the author and former sportswriter and columnist, stops in as an LA Observed visiting blogger on the occasion of Dick Ebersol leaving NBC and the network getting the rights to keep airing (on delay) the Olympic Games.
Hey, we're on the LA Weekly's list this year.
We crossed over the 8,000 followers barrier at Twitter this weekend. Plus: Parking and politics on LA Observed on KCRW.
Veronique de Turenne breaks some personal news today on her blog.
Adrienne Crew came to me a while ago and said she wanted to do a personal blog on growing older in Los Angeles. The topic is one that a lot of people quietly think about, but it doesn't get a lot attention in the blogosphere.
Los Angeles Magazine usually does well in the National City and Regional Magazine Awards competition, and this time took home five awards. T
I'll be signing books and having great conversations at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books from noon to 2 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. Look for me at the Angel City Press booth.
Donna Perlmutter, the former dance and music critic for the Herald Examiner and CityBeat — and freelancer for the L.A. Times and New York Times, among other places — is the newest contributor to Native Intelligence.
I was quoted on camera in the "NBC Nightly News" story about the Dodgers mess Saturday, plus other news of the day.
Nancy Rommelmann in town to read and sign her novel, plus Gary Leonard and Deanne Stillman.
There's less web access in the Santa Ynez Valley than I expected. Up here for a couple of days. Posting will be spotty. Be sure to check in with Mark...
Good news for LA Observed contributor Deanne Stillman, whose book, "Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West," will be the basis for a Hallmark Channel movie on mustang activist Velma Johnston.
The LA Observed contributor's book, The Bad Mother, is set among street kids in Hollywood.
I'll be out of pocket Thursday morning, so Morning Buzz will be put up late if at all. Been a while since I pointed these out, but here are some...
Thanks to everyone who has emailed about the intermittently slow load times of the last couple of days. The hosting service is working on a Denial of Service attack.
On gun violence, signs of life in the economy, Boyarsky on redevelopment and schools, and the return of Angeleno Datebook.
LAO Contributor Jenny Price, who has written here before about guns and her brother's killing, at Native Intelligence.
Regular followers of Here in Malibu know about Veronique de Turenne's "sweet 1949 Plymouth."
I was tied up most of the day, but these were highlights from other contributors to the site. Think books and politics, with a little fashion.
In today's L.A. Times, Bob Pool picks up and runs with Eric Lynxwiler's visiting blogger post from a couple of weeks ago on the terra cota angel that sits in his Arts District loft.
I'll be offline until later this afternoon.
I'll be out of pocket most of the day. My posting will be lighter through the week. * Update: Went through LAX Terminal 3 this morning virtually without breaking stride,...
This is the tenth anniversary of the murder of David Price, the brother of our contributor Jenny Price.
I'll be in the Bay Area on business all day.
I'm on a panel at 3 p.m. called Blogging L.A.
Ellen Alperstein writes at Native Intelligence that the world is in love with Zenyatta, the mare featured inside the same issue of W Magazine that has a naked Kim Kardashian on the cover.
f you were thinking of coming on the Neon Cruise this Saturday night, come on down.
We're doing another LA Observed night on the world-famous Neon Cruise on Saturday, October 16.
I'm the keynote speaker today at the Founders Day celebration at California State University, Northridge. Five hundred something alumni from the college's early years will be there. They're going to...
Bill's hard at work on a future book and needs to pull in from his writing on politics for awhile.
Over the weekend Kara Seward became the 5,000 follower of LA Observed on Twitter. Her food blog is Front of the House, and she tweets as @frontofthehouse. Thanks for the...
A quick search for LA Observed on the L.A. Times website found four mentions this year, all on blogs. That's fewer links than LA Observed provides to LAT stories on a typical day.
In Part 6 of The Lisker Chronicles at LA Observed, Bruce Lisker is hit with the state's move to send him back to prison, just as he celebrates his one-year anniversary of freedom.
For me, anyway. My finger joints hurt, and it's a summer Friday....
Not a good start to election day at LA Observed Tower.
Need to call a little posting hiatus until late in the day on Friday. Made it to New York fine, just busy — though the cab driver nodding off at the wheel on the Williamsburg Bridge did kick up the tension level a bit.
Nothing but tweets for me until probably tonight. I'll be in New York for a media panel and meetings. Watch Mark's space at LA Biz Observed for updates during the...
When he's not contributing to Native Intelligence or writing novels, or tweeting as himself, TJ Sullivan tweets as @Eyjafjallajokul.
Bill Dwyre and Nancy Rommelmann on having second thoughts about a story.
My take on the Kings' exciting playoff win last night was really just a sequence of quick observations. Brian Kennedy, my seatmate in the press box who covered the game...
TJ Sullivan was standing in line at a warehouse store when he called out a couple of his fellow shoppers for strategically staking out spots in two lines, waiting to see which moved faster. OK, so they took umbrage at TJ's umbrage, then things got racial.
I'm LAX bound this morning. I expect lighter posting over the next couple of days. Watch Mark at LA Biz Observed for updates on City Hall and other news.
Adrienne Crew has posted her latest Angeleno Social Diary, listing some upcoming events of interest. Find it at Native Intelligence. In addition, an event on my calendar: Frank Gehry will...
The newest LA Observed contributor, Bob Timmermann, has blogged about American and Japanese baseball, "The Prisoner," and every president of the United States.
The code conflict that has been causing LA Observed to act erratically (and sometimes crash) in Internet Explorer 8 seems to be repaired.
LA Observed and the Drudge Report are blocked on military computers over there.
Well, I told you I was engaged in some website housecleaning over the holidays. This is the third or fourth redesign of the site since 2003, and by far the...
I emerged from my redesign hole for a bit to go live on KFI with Tim Conway Jr. a few minutes ago. We talked about the 405 widening project, today's...
In past years, this is about when I'd start rolling out posts looking back at the events of the previous twelve months. My KCRW commentary on Christmas Day talked about...
When our LA Sketchbook cartoonist Steve Greenberg had a drawing in Sunday's Daily News, it was something of a time warp. He was the paper's first staff cartoonist back in...
TJ Sullivan has a nice piece at Native Intelligence on the essential role that the venerable Editor & Publisher played in his early years as an itinerant journalist in Ketchum,...
In part three of Iris Schneider's exclusive-to-LA Observed posts following Bruce Lisker's reentry to society after 26 years behind bars, Bruce moves in with Kara in Marina del Rey. Iris...
I guess the media liked the Jerusalem Post story we posted this morning — on a LAPD deputy chief saying the two rabbis shot here in October were "kneecapped" in...
Steve Greenberg, LA Observed's editorial cartoonist, posts at his Cagle.com blog about his year of underemployment since being laid off by the Ventura County Star. "I thought my position was...
LA Observed contributors Veronique de Turenne, Jenny Price and Denise Hamilton will be heading to Guadalajara in coming days (or are already there) for the big book fair, which has...
Here's what I've been doing all morning: UCLA Newsroom. New posts at LA Biz Observed and Native Intelligence....
I'll be poking around in the Sierras for a few days. Back on the blog Tuesday. Stay tuned at LA Biz Observed for updates from Mark Lacter. Recently posted around...
No time for the Morning Buzz today, but you should check out the new unemployment figures — worst since 1983 — at LA Biz Observed, plus Mark's morning headlines. Also...
One of our helpful readers emailed the evidence that KNBC is asking its readers to rate the station's staffed-up, big-deal but news-lite website alongside little old us: Thought you might...
In the second part of her series at Native Intelligence, Iris Schneider (and a CBS crew) accompany former prisoner Bruce Lisker to the beach. Earlier, Iris was along as he...
I'll be out of the loop most of the day. My LAObserved on KCRW segment this afternoon (4:44 p.m. on 89.9 FM or on the web) touches on those water...
In case you missed them: Bill Boyarsky spent a delightful evening with Norman Corwin, the 99-year-old "Los Angeles literary treasure," at the Barnes & Noble in Westside Pavilion. Visiting blogger...
A big hand to Mark and Veronique for stepping in with substance, style and good cheer over the past week.... Nothing says being back like slogging through email, phone messages,...
August was a heck of a month around here for news and visitor traffic -- the highest of the year so far. One way of looking at that is it's...
I thoroughly enjoyed reading two recent books on the colorful history of Los Angeles politics, mobsters and City Hall corruption. This afternoon I get to host a discussion on KCRW's...
Departing Villaraigosa chief of staff Robin Kramer and publisher-education adviser David Abel both sent Bill Boyarsky emails about his LA Observed post on the mayor and charter schools. Bill talks...
Bill Boyarsky has been absent from LA Observed since February writing a book and taking some vacation. The book hits stores in September — and looks truly gorgeous. "Inventing L.A.:...
Sad news at Chicken Corner. Rosie, who decorates the blog's banner, has gone to the big farm in the country at age fourteenish. "Rosie's dog friends included Oscar the Dog...
Mark's mother Helen Lacter passed away Tuesday evening in Plantation, FL. She was 96. Posting at LA Biz Observed will be intermittent over the next week or so while Mark...
Light posting here today. There will be no LA Observed segment on KCRW this afternoon due to the station's pledge drive. Noted: I was on KPCC with Patt Morrison yesterday...
I'm taking part in an episode of Channel 7's "Vista LA" in the MacArthur Park area this morning. There's no LA Observed segment on KCRW this afternoon due to the...
My commentary today talks about the murder of 17-year-old Lily Burk and the strong reaction it has evoked in the city. The piece airs at 4:44 p.m., can be heard...
Just a heads up to the 12% of LA Observed visitors who still drop in using Internet Explorer version 6 or earlier. The bane of web designers everywhere may soon...
Jenny Burman is back and blogging at Chicken Corner after a bit of hiatus. She explains. Watch for her blog to expand beyond the borders of Echo Park....
Los Angeles photographer Iris Schneider attended this week's birthday party for Farmers Market and took in the USC band and "hokey card trick" spelling out 75 years. Schneider covered news...
LA Observed will begin observing the first holiday weekend of summer by switching early to infrequent posting mode. Enjoy the weekend!...
A nice local book deal: Penguin picked up "Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books, Now Presented in Twenty Tweets or Less," called a humorous retelling of works of great literature in...
Sorry about that. LA Observed has been down a couple of times today, then it was up for awhile when both Mark and I were posting but the new entries...
Couple of deadlines looming so posting here will be light until later today. But I have sent a few local media updates over on the Twitter channel. Mark's morning headlines...
Here's a great chance to join in the sometimes-annual LA Observed Neon Cruise — and to help out the wonderful and very-Angeleno Museum of Neon Art downtown. How better to...
At last Friday's LA Observed rooftop party at the Formosa in Hollywood, city attorney-elect Carmen Trutanich stuck around for some fairly extended conversations with revelers. Celeste Fremon reports on hers,...
Hey everybody, this month — meaning May — is our sixth anniversary. In post #1, I said I didn't know how active the site would be. Well, this is post...
Over at Run On, Sara Catania wraps up her career as a marathon runner for charity. I ran longer and faster than I ever have in my life and I...
I've now read and thoroughly enjoyed Michael Connelly's latest book. In today's Times review, Tim Rutten calls "The Scarecrow" Connelly's best since "The Poet," and also the first novel to...
"I feel very, very, very good," Sara Catania posts after finishing today's Los Angeles Marathon. More at Run On. Race results: Kenyan Wesley Korir won in a race record 2...
I just started reading Michael Connelly's latest Los Angeles mystery "The Scarecrow," and it feels hot off the presses. He's got the Rocky Mountain News shut down in Denver, newspapers...
Sara Catania demanded a cortisone shot this morning — from a reluctant doctor — and will drag her bum knee to the starting line of Monday's Los Angeles Marathon. Will...
We had a pretty good week for exclusive posts around the LA Observed blogs — news scoops and observations by our great contributors. And, wow, next Monday Sara Catania actually...
Associated Press photographer Nick Ut receives the Lifetime Achievement Award from the L.A. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists tonight at the Omni Hotel downtown. On June 8, 1972,...
I'm pleased to say that Steve Greenberg will be contributing original editorial cartoons to LA Observed; this is his first. Steve is an editorial cartoonist, illustrator and graphic artist...
Sara Catania has a month to go before the Los Angeles Marathon, but her training regimen would be a lot more tolerable if she, you know, enjoyed running. Week 30...
A nice group of LA Observed contributors will be taking part in this weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA. I'll be signing copies of Wilshire Boulevard and...
Websense appears to be the one web watchdog that has been slow to clear LA Observed from its malware list. That's why computers at the L.A. Times, some other companies...
Today's segment is called "Stupid Government Tricks" and mentions the county's odd obsession with water bottle labels, as well as the state's flirtation with banning black cars and the sales...
Now just seems like the right time to upgrade the software that runs this place. So some links may not work this weekend. Then it will all be over. In...
LA Observed is safe to visit -- readers coming in on IE are having zero trouble. But Google is being slow to update its alert about yesterday's malware script, which...
Google's security team got in touch to alert me that their scans have indeed found a malware script hidden in some LA Observed pages. They don't think it's infecting visitors,...
Some people coming to LA Observed in the past day or so have received pop-up warnings, ostensibly from Google, saying the site is infected by malware. As far as we...
I'm in a conference all day....
Veronique de Turenne really dislikes Daylight Saving Time. I, on the other hand, consider the first day of evening sunlight like a second New Year's Day. I love that it...
I've been enjoying a few days criss-crossing the deserts of Arizona and California, landing for the moment at a sidewalk cafe with wireless on Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs....
I'll be on the highway most of today and assuming a relaxed posting pace the rest of this week. Keep an eye on Mark Lacter at LA Biz Observed for...
Sara Catania hasn't been running fulltime to get ready for her first marathon — though she certainly has been running plenty (see Run On), and recently completed the first race...
L.A. County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore is getting some nice attention for Sunday's visiting blogger post at LA Observed about his famous father, the actor James Whitmore. He told the...
LA Observed contributor Cari Beauchamp's new biography, "Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years," is about to be released and she has a piece in the new Hollywood issue of...
Mark Lacter of LA Biz Observed talks about why another 164,000 people (or so) will be losing their jobs in the Los Angeles area this year, on KPCC's Off-Ramp at...
Here's a shortcut to all of my posts this week, in order with a brief summary of each. Plus: Mark Lacter, Native Intelligence, Bill Boyarsky, Jenny Burman, Veronique de Turenne...
LA Observed contributor TJ Sullivan talks about the new parking regulation controversy in Los Angeles with Warren Olney on "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW at 7:30 p.m. He's up against...
I'm going to ease back on posting to once or twice a day — or as needed — through the holidays. There will be a lot of maintenance going on...
Mark Lacter and I are taping KNBC News Conference in Burbank, plus I have a trio of KCRW segments to record for the holidays, plus regular work. So slow posting...
A few miscellaneous items: Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein is scheduled to speak with Warren Olney tonight at 7:30 p.m. on "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW. He's also on KPCC's "Patt...
My duty is done for another year — such as it was. After forming a pool of 99 jurors for a 25-day trial in Dept. 107, the judge came out...
Welcome back to the work week. Here's everything that has run on LA Observed since close of business on Wednesday. The blog: Channel 13 drops goofy news Where in Los...
The Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists will honor Paul Pringle of the Times, John Schwada of Fox 11, Frank Stoltze of KPCC and Terri Vermeulen Keith...
After a couple of delays, this one I have to do. I'll be at the downtown criminal courts. * Update: Freed after a couple of hours, to return another day....
That's it for me on the front page of LAO. Kevin comes back tomorrow and will, no doubt, fill in the gaps in things I missed. Thank you all for...
And now, some stuff I missed because I was actually working. Let's start here at LAO: Today's biz headlines (Japan is in recession) and an answer (hah) to the subprime...
I'll be vacating the virtual premises through the weekend and into next week. If there's posting to be done — and there surely is — Veronique will be doing it....
Light posting today. I'm on a panel this afternoon at the UC Irvine Humanities Center, part of a conference they call "Public Spheres, Blogospheres" that's described as "conversations among important...
Jacob Soboroff, who produced and appeared in more than a dozen LA Observed videos, is now executive director of the voting reform group Why Tuesday. He and new best pal...
In week four of her voluntary conversion from unathletic journalist to marathon runner, Sara Catania discovers that runners are serious rewardists. Massages, carbs, margaritas and naps — what's not to...
I've never felt the need to do this before, but it seems prudent to alert the Los Angeles Times staffers who help me stay informed about the inner workings of...
Add the LA Weekly's Detour festival to the list of Downtown traffic challenges on Saturday. Not to mention that at 5 pm, Sen. Hillary Clinton and celebrities like Natalie...
Our columnist Bill Boyarsky has been on the national campaign trail this year for Truthdig, and as he used do to for the Times as a columnist and political reporter,...
Run On is our newest blog in the LA Observed family. Sara Catania, whose work I knew from the LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times and her occasional blog, emailed...
More than 200 journalists, authors, bloggers, Los Angeles political types and other readers of this here blog filled the outdoor deck of the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood Thursday night...
Mark Lacter is keeping tabs on the morning's fast-moving stock market and financial world developments over at LA Biz Observed....
My KCRW commentary on Friday talked about the Sarah Palin Effect with an eye toward the media and blogs, in particular here at LA Observed and the UCLA faculty blog...
Taking a little summer respite. Mark Lacter has morning headlines and more at LA Biz Observed, Adrienne Crew checks in on the new Holocaust photos at Native Intelligence, and there...
In case you missed any, here are quick links to the weekend posts at LA Observed. (That new publisher of the Times seems so long ago.) You can always get...
I was an assistant metropolitan editor at the Los Angeles Times when the Rodney King riots erupted in April, 1992 and the Northridge earthquake struck on Jan. 17, 1994. Huge...
Eric Estrin and the LA Observed Script Project were featured tonight on the KCAL news at 8 pm and 10 pm and the Channel 2 show at 11. Eric says...
Here are Mark's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed. (Morning turned into all day. Should be back posting tomorrow.)...
Bill Boyarsky, LA Observed's occasional politics columnist, is a finalist in nonfiction for the 2008 book award from the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association. It's for "Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh...
The month just ended was the second-highest ever for visitors to LA Observed. We're over 2.6 million visits for the year; July is the earliest month that LAO has reached...
Catching up to a bunch of good stuff around our blogs: Bill Boyarsky says a David Zahniser story out of City Hall should have been on page 1 of the...
My KCRW segment airing at 4:44 pm contrasts a recent taping at the E! Entertainment Television studios on Wilshire (about sex scandals in politics, including Antonio and Mirthala) to another...
It's a summer Friday, what can I say. My weekly LA Observed commentary airs on KCRW at 4:44 this afternoon. Subject: what else, the incredible shrinking LAT. Mark Lacter's Friday...
Tomorrow at noon on KPCC (89.3 FM), John Rabe and his Off-Ramp Players will read a scene from "Right of Way," the script for a noir movie that LA Observed...
The LA Observed neon cruise with the Museum of Neon Art a couple of weeks back is featured on today's Off-Ramp on KPCC at noon. The show also remembers George...
Eric Lynxwiler and I will be the featured speakers in Westwood today at 4 pm at the inaugural literary salon of the Friends of the Westwood Library. It's a benefit...
Quick run around the site: Celeste and Mayor Napolitano are reunited — with a twist I didn't see coming — and it's time to tie together some of the...
Back later in the afternoon. Check out Mark Lacter's posts at LA Biz Observed and listen to him this morning on KPCC....
Billy Vasquez has only posted a few dozen times at The 99 Cent Chef, but he makes them count. He was featured recently on "Marketplace" and tonight he's scheduled to...
My KCRW commentary airing at 4:44 pm ties together the Lakers, the Roman Polanski documentary and Susan Atkins. Archive and download Mark Lacter's LA Biz Observed headlines...
Weather reader Jackie Johnson was out last night with Channel 9 colleagues Mary Beth McDade and Melissa McCarty, but it was Johnson who got all the personal attention from Girls...
Our bi-annual (or so) LA Observed neon cruise pulls out of the Museum of Neon Art downtown this Saturday evening. Urban anthropologist Eric Lynxwiler serves as our hilarious guide, narrating...
Erika Schickel chatted up Bo Diddley on a plane to New Mexico. She was ten and headed for sleep-away camp. Denise Hamilton loved Pest Control the Musical so much "my...
Deanne Stillman, author of the forthcoming "Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West," posts a Memorial Day paean to Buffalo Bill Cody and one of his...
Sorry, LA Observed was down for several hours last night and today. Little domain registration issue... If you can see this, all is well. Thanks for everybody's concern. And check...
Busy day and a deadline week, so posting will be lighter than usual. Check our Mark Lacter's Morning Headlines at LA Biz Observed. This was also Mark's morning to make...
We're getting back on the bus in honor LA Observed's fifth (!) anniversary. There have been a couple of thousand posts since the last time we teamed up with the...
Denise Hamilton sits in at The Elegant Variation today and guest-interviews author Nina Revoyr about her new novel, "The Age of Dreaming." Excerpt: "The Age of Dreaming" recounts the story...
Our blogger-columnist Bill Boyarsky covered a march Downtown on Friday by 700-1,000 janitors and renters of the slum housing around MacArthur Park. It got him thinking about the two (or...
Just look at all the great stuff... Friday morning headlines by Mark Lacter at LA Biz Observed. Former Times city editor Bill Boyarsky dissects a story on the county health...
This year's L.A. Times Festival of Books is the weekend of April 26-27 at UCLA. I'm moderating a 3 pm Saturday panel called "California: The Great Experiment," with a distinguished...
The Webby Awards are annual plaudits bestowed on corporate and institutional websites and a relative few blogs, with 8,000 entries in nearly 70 categories. Five finalists in each category were...
The Atlantic's new blog The Current gave one of its three "Best Opinion" slots on Friday to Mark Lacter's recent post at LA Biz Observed wondering why most Americans feel...
No fooling... Adrienne Crew is the newest contributor to Native Intelligence, this week offering up her L.A. news recap for the DVR generation. Earlier Adrienne chased the rumor that the...
I've got a bunch of things to do away from the computer, and today really is a holiday for some, including UCLA staff: Cesar Chavez Day. Here's a roundup of...
Tad Daley, a writing fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, rides on weekends with Los Angeles Wheelmen, Santa Monica Critical Mass and the South Bay Cruisers....
My LA Observed commentary on KCRW today talks about the scene that awaits Lindsay Lohan when she reports to the Los Angeles County morgue for her four hours of mandatory...
Her years in Los Angeles taught Nancy Rommelmann, an ex-New Yorker, that no one is more provincial than New Yorkers. So she isn't surprised that Manhattan's publishing industry and the...
Madness has swept KCRW and they're letting me host Politics of Culture today at 2:30 pm — a half-hour of live radio on the blurred lines between journalism and blogging...
When LA Observed was just a toddler of a blog, I watched Nancy Rommelmann chronicle her anxiety-filled but hopeful (and ultimately happy) move to Portland in a blog she called...
Meet Eric Estrin, if you haven't already. He's been an occasional contributor to Native Intelligence for awhile now, as well as a TV writer and a moderator of the Writer...
President Felipe Calder�n of Mexico was in Chicago and the Bay Area yesterday. Today he'll address the Legislature in Sacramento and visit the Napa Valley, then be greeted at LAX...
You may have noticed a few changes on the site. We're part way through a thorough freshening of the pages at LA Observed. There's more than 10,000 of them, so...
Native Intelligence contributor Deanne Stillman has the cover of the new Los Angeles CityBeat with a nice piece on the Mojave Desert portion of L.A. County. Photos by Mark LaMonica...
Election coverage and assorted deadlines have prevented me from finishing off the design freshening and links cleanup I mentioned last week. They're coming. In the meantime, you may encounter some...
I'll be freshening up the site's look all week, eventually rolling out new logos and content. The ShareThis widget, new on some pages, is a one-click place to email posts...
I'm on assignment most of the day today....
As several KTLA staffers have emailed to remind me, the station had been blocking employees' access to LA Observed. Even while cooperating from time to time at the news level....
Eric Estrin, a striking WGA member, is a moderator at Writer Action, the message board where Writers Guild members hang out to float conspiracy theories, skewer the producers and rip...
The Times seems happy with the traffic performance of its national politics blog, which has been covering the presidential races mostly in posts by Andrew Malcolm and Don Frederick. It...
Quite a media zoo at UCLA today as Rick Neuheisel, who led the Bruins to a Rose Bowl victory as quarterback back in his day, returned as head football coach....
KNBC Channel 4 leads the TV stations with six Golden Mikes from the Radio Television News Association, including best newscast writing, documentary ("On the Verge") and investigative story (for its...
I'd forgotten what happens in offices around the holidays — tons of cookies, pumpkin breads, cheese platters and fruit baskets show up and sit around. I must have gotten hold...
David Rensin writes with affection at Native Intelligence about all the months he spent with Freddie Fields, the agent who died this week, talking about Hollywood and a book proposal...
The erstwhile LA Observed video maker pulled up to the Des Moines Register's Republican debate in Johnston, Iowa in a horse and buggy, trying to make a point about outdated...
David Rensin rants at Native Intelligence about a close call with a cellphone-gabbing, wide-turning Valley driver, and Jenny Price makes the case for camping in the canyons above Malibu despite...
No LA Observed on KCRW today since I'm traveling, but I'm told there's another of my segments about the Valley on John Rabe's "Off-Ramp" Saturday at noon on KPCC. This...
Thanks to Veronique for keeping everything going while I got drenched by non-stop rain in Hawaii. I never suspected lightning storms would be the best part of the trip. (Blizzard...
Karl Dorrell's stint as head coach in Westwood isn't over yet — officially — but the Times reports that UCLA has been in contact with at least three potential successors....
The red flag alert is definitely over. No Morning Buzz today. My KCRW commentary this afternoon at 4:44 will talk about USC and the Coliseum....
Here are quick links to some posts from the weekend, which wasn't all about Malibu fire coverage and the end of Mayor Villaraigosa's affair with Mirthala Salinas. In case you...
Posting will be intermittent until Monday. My regular Friday afternoon LA Observed spot on KCRW is pre-empted today by a This American Life marathon....
In addition to his blog here at LA Observed, Bill Boyarsky is a regular columnist for Robert Scheer and Zuade Kaufman at Truthdig. They actually pay him, unlike here, and...
No Morning Buzz, sorry. * Where did the time go?: Before you know it, Friday turns into Sunday......
Events are starting up for Bill Boyarsky's major political history from University of California Press, Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics. Unruh, of course, was the...
The surfers get edgy when the big waves roll in as they did today, "sleek and steely and cold, spitting out sets like a Tommy gun." Here in Malibu Also:...
No LA Observed on KCRW this afternoon — I had to take the day off. Purely by coincidence, I will be on KPCC's "Off-Ramp" tomorrow at noon, beginning an occasional...
Here's some of what the LA Observed contributors have been posting while I've been away from the desk: Mark Lacter was on the Dodgers drama this afternoon at LA Biz...
This is one of those occasional Fridays when I need to stay away from the keyboard to meet an outside deadline. Back Monday, if not sooner, and I'll be on...
While I've been dilly-dallying on other projects and trying to get over a nasty cough, LA Observed contributors have been busy. Not Mark Lacter, though — LA Biz Observed is...
Readers of LA Observed are not just intelligent, discerning and sexy, they are also helpful (and well traveled, apparently.) David Hackett caught my mention last night of spotting the American...
Our erstwhile video contributor has a couple of gigs taking away his time and his physical presence from L.A. One pursuit, as executive director of Why Tuesday, bears some fruit...
Veronique de Turenne didn't take the official snail mail seriously until it talked about "warrant for your arrest" and "$950 fine." But all's well that ends well. Here in Malibu....
Bill Boyarsky went back to the ethics commission yesterday for the first time since his fellow commissioners didn't elect him president. In fact, nobody seconded his nomination. They didn't let...
I'm jet-lagged and hacking loud enough to frighten the neighbors, but they tell me it's my turn to blog. Huge kudos and thanks to Veronique de Turenne, Jenny Burman and...
It has been a couple of years since I put down the keyboard for more than a few days at a stretch. This time I'm vowing to stay away for...
The Huffington Post's better commenters can now become bloggers for the site. Arianna explains. The editor of USC's Online Journalism Review really didn't like this morning's Times editorial about...
Ex-Times columnist J.A. Adande has resurfaced as the NBA columnist for ESPN.com, a move that David Davis comments on at SoCal Sports Observed. Adande's first column talks about why he...
I'll resume posting on the front page this evening....
KCRW swings into fund drive mode today, so the LA Observed commentary that usually airs at 4:44 pm on Friday won't be heard. Same thing next week. If you want...
Catching up on some business: If you saw today's L.A. Times story on the city's Historical Resources Survey Project, this will make more sense. I'm one of the advisers retained...
Noted photographer Edward Weston preferred smallpox and poverty to Los Angeles, as he says in a new post at Native Intelligence. But he made some of his most admired images...
Free wine and eats! For Saturday evening's Extravaganza of the Senses on the 20th Century Fox lot, benefiting the Los Angeles Free Clinic, we can provide a couple of pairs...
His kidney stone left the building, so Mark Lacter is back at the LA Biz Observed desk. The Morning Headlines led today with the Dow dancing with 14,000. Mark also...
Elsewhere on the site: David Davis has a good interview with David Zirin, the provocative progressive writer who is author of Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise...
Here's some of what you can find around the site today: Paddle boats will remain for rent at Echo Park "as long as I am a councilmember," Eric Garcetti says....
The biggest benefit of subscribing to LA Observed is the satisfaction of helping the website thrive. But sometimes we also get free tickets to pass along. When they're offered, we...
I'll be part of a "poolside chat" at the Los Angeles Film Festival tomorrow night called "Who Let The Blogs Out?" The panel and schmooze session will be held around...
I'm away on business today, so there's no Morning Buzz. My KCRW commentary this afternoon speaks to the context of media reports on Mayor Villaraigosa's marriage. It airs at 4:44...
Reader Leon Kaspersky will be taking his family to Sunday's debut performance in Pasadena of Peter Schickele's "Three Cellos," courtesy of the Pacific Serenades chamber ensemble. Leon was the first...
Veronique de Turenne at Here in Malibu says signs are posted everywhere about the year-old German shepherd taken by a 50-ish overweight woman with bleached blond hair who drove a...
Unless something startles me out of my stupor, News & Chatter will be taking off until after the holiday. Keep an eye open for fresh posts on the other great...
LA Observed subscribers are being offered tickets to another musical premiere, this one the debut performance of composer Peter Schickele's new work Three Cellos with the Pacific Serenades chamber ensemble....
The L.A. Phil is treating another LA Observed subscriber to this weekend's late-night premiere of Pravda. Daniel Evans and a guest will be in the audience at Disney Hall, probably...
KCRW has invited me to join the roster of commentators that air in the afternoons during NPR's "All Things Considered." General manager Ruth Seymour, who has been mentioned here more...
Phew, there was quite a rush to claim the free tickets to the Saturday, May 26 world premiere of Pravda at the Walt Disney Hall. I had to wait to...
The L.A. Philharmonic is again making two tickets available free to LA Observed Insiders for a special performance at Disney Hall. On Saturday May 26, starting at 10 pm and...
Today's New York Post praises our friends at Los Angeles magazine in a piece reviewing the best of city magazines around the country: Like the city it covers, Los Angeles...
Once around the LA Observed blogs: Jenny Price writes at Native Intelligence that since the Virginia Tech tragedy, friends have been checking in with her a lot and asking if...
A local television legend of sorts, and LA Observed oldie but goodie, returned tonight to the Los Angeles airwaves — and now to the blogosphere. Sharon Tay co-anchored the "KTLA...
I'm talking about today's Times news with guest host Jon Beaupre on KPCC's "Patt Morrison," after the NPR news at 2 pm. Update: Times Publisher David Hiller and USC Annenberg...
New LAUSD Supt. Supt. David L. Brewer has discovered what most of us knew — that things in his district are seriously awry. He releases a scathing 115-page report...
Tom Mott is the LA Observed Insider who was first to speak up and claim two tickets to Wednesday evening's Complete Tristan and Isolde at Disney Hall. When these perks...
The Tristan Project has returned to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The L.A. Philharmonic's Esa-Pekka Salonen, director Peter Sellars and video artist Bill Viola are again creating "a multi-discipline arts...
The News & Chatter side of LA Observed plans to stand down for a day or so to mark the passing of my father. Robert Roderick lived to 89 and...
Bill Boyarsky played a prominent role in cleaning up the L.A. Times' ethical mess after the Staples Center scandal in 1999, serving as the conduit for ex-publisher Otis Chandler to...
LA Observed's man with the video camera, Jacob Soboroff, greeted the A380 Airbus this morning at LAX. Check it out at Native Intelligence: He's got interviews with the French pilot...
There's no Morning Buzz today due to the press of other time commitments, but just look at what's fresh on the site right now. Good stuff: In advance of today's...
Bit of a short week due to the holiday, but things are never slow around here. Some of the most review-worthy LA Observed posts of the past week: Sen. Barack...
Mark Lacter wonders if too much attention is paid to the 29,000 people who live downtown, in a city of four million. It's one of the smaller communities in Los...
LA Observed's Jacob Soboroff took his video camera behind the scenes at today's crowded Barack Obama rally at Rancho Cienega Rec Center and chatted with Councilwoman Janice Hahn, Channel 4...
Jacob Soboroff took his LA Observed video camera to the Clippers' morning shoot around at Madison Square Garden and chatted with New York native Elton Brand about coming home —...
Bill Boyarsky directed the Times reporters covering the county Board of Supervisors for more than ten years. He doesn't blame Thomas Mauk for fleeing from the CAO job before he...
More findings from last week's LA Observed reader survey: → Half of the 804 respondents live in the city of Los Angeles (so half live outside — duh.) Half are...
The lumber has arrived, demolition has begun, and Veronique de Turenne is off on the home remodeling ride of her life. She tries at Here in Malibu to take it...
More than 500 LA Observed readers put their media savvy credentials on the line and offered predictions on the top Los Angeles media stories of the coming year. The news...
Thanks again to everyone who answered last week's LA Observed reader survey. I closed it at 800 responses, blown away by the wealth of insight and suggestions that came in....
LA Observed contributor Jacob Soboroff caught up with local TV news legend Stan Chambers in Hollywood at KTLA's 60th anniversary bash. Click on the pic to watch the short video...
No sonorous hard sell by Ruth Seymour or endless loops of Roy Orbison at the Cocoanut Grove. Just a simple pitch. We all love putting LA Observed on the web,...
Hey, please don't forget to take a couple of minutes and give me your opinions on LA Observed. Along with some basic survey questions, you can let me have it...
Eli Broad has opened up a bigger lead on David Geffen as LA Observed readers' most likely (or preferred?) buyer of the L.A. Times. Ron Burkle runs a distant third;...
Less than twelve hours into Pledge Week and the number of replies to the LA Observed Visitor Survey is fast approaching 200. Thank you for helping. I'd like to crack...
Hi all. My traditional State of the Blog message was delayed a bit while I got my head around what has to happen in 2007. If you've been here much,...
Some lovely holiday finds around the LA Observed blogs: On old Mulholland: Veronique de Turenne ventured into the hills above Malibu in search of The Old Place, a mythical spot...
Rick Orlov gives a sneak peek at tomorrow's Tipoff column in the Daily News to LA Observed video blogger Jacob Soboroff — psst, there's a good item about City Attorney...
My favorite posts, or just the newsiest, from the first week of 2007. The lost Hollywood tape of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jim Lampley and El Cucuy get arrested, but...
City ethics commissioner Bill Boyarsky took the on-line ethics course required of Los Angeles officials and found the exercise filled him with mixed emotions. "Campaign contributions -- the target of...
Lots of Time Warner cable woes, a response to Daniel Hernandez on Latinos and the L.A. Times, many complaints from Times subscribers — also Stephanie Edwards, Dean Baquet as a...
No Morning Buzz today, but here are some offerings from LA Observed contributors. How not to blog: When his piece flinging around 23 n-words riled a friend, Bob Baker faced...
Some highlights from the past week at LA Observed, chosen by the guy who signs the checks. Judith Regan's firing by fax breaks late Friday. David Geffen offers $2 billion...
Video blogger Jacob Soboroff uploaded from last night's Clippers' game, chatting in the floor seats with #1 fan "Clipper" Darrell Bailey and courtside at Staples Center with Bob Baker, the...
No, not Allen Iverson — not yet anyway. LA Observed contributor Bob Baker has taken over from Rick Cipes as the official, paid Clippers blogger at LATimes.com. He'll be spending...
I've switched the color of links here on News & Chatter to black, hoping to cut down on the cacophony of dark red (closer to brown on some monitors) that...
It was a good week for scooplets, links and smart posts by LA Observed contributors at large in the city — here's my dozen-plus-some for catching up on what you...
Richard Montoya of Culture Clash (left, as Sen. Gilbert Garcia in "Water and Power" at the Taper) recently joined the Villaraigosa Administration as a commissioner on the Cultural Affairs board....
Couple of interesting sessions coming up at Zócalo, the public lecture series started by Gregory Rodriguez that LA Observed helps sponsor. Next Tuesday, Dec. 12, "L.A. vs. New York: Who's...
Hollywood Reporter lays off five more, including executive editor Peter Pryor, Fishbowl LA and Nikki Finke say. Earlier in the week editorial director Howard Burns got the axe. (I'm...
Some of the more talked-about, linked-to or noteworthy exclusive posts from the past week here at LA Observed: Job openings in the mayor's press office — and here's why. LAFD...
Jenny Price's detailed directions on how to find and get into Malibu's less-well-marked beaches pretty much nixes any chance that David Geffen would give up his quixotic quest to buy...
It may have been a short holiday week, but news didn't take a breather. There was plenty happening around LA Observed: Michael Richards commits career suicide at the Laugh Factory,...
Remember last month when videographer Jacob Soboroff was trying out his new camera at the Cornfield park near Chinatown and ran into Huell Howser — and they videoed each other?...
Twelve of the best from the past week of LA Observed posts, plus a few freebies... When a UCLA student is Tasered on video in the library, students protest. Where...
After today's Ethics Commission meeting, the panel's vice president writes, "Give me a cynical old pol who at least keeps his or her word...We voted 4-1 to send a public...
Veronique de Turenne gives bicyclists their space on Pacific Coast Highway, but asks the same in return. "Share the road, you arrogant cyclists. Sure, it's narrow, sure it's scenic, sure...
Bill Boyarsky, the newest LA Observed contributor, used to be city editor of the Los Angeles Times, wrote a local column called "The Spin" for many years, and created the...
While I've been away, the Native Intelligence contributors have been doing what they do best: 4-ever X-mas Perpetual Christmas has come to Los Angeles supermarkets, leap-frogging right over that silly...
I will be on live talking with Warren Olney about LA Observed's coverage of Dean Baquet's ouster tonight between 7:20 and 7:30 pm. Wall Street Journal reporter Sarah Ellison, who...
Around the grassier neighborhoods of Los Angeles, November means the unpleasant aroma of lawns being fertilized, Native Intelligence contributor Denise Hamilton writes on today's Times op-ed page. It's a rite...
USC professor David Carter is the media's go-to guy on the business of sports. More than an academic, he also has a private equity firm operating in the sports, well,...
Highlights from the super-busy past week here at LA Observed... LA Weekly opens its tent to Jill Stewart: first the scoop, then the scene, the dismay, the notice and the...
The LA Observed contributors have been building up to Halloween in their own ways. TJ Sullivan gave himself a tour of the hidden cemetery in Westwood he calls "the final...
Glitches at the server end have been plaguing LA Observed all weekend. They are close to being worked out, I think, and posting should resume soon. I'm not aware of...
Beyond today's early News & Chatter on MTA bus service and peeking inside the mayor's private office, there's good stuff to be found across the vast LA Observed network: South...
It was a good week across all the LA Observed blogs. Here is an editor's dozen of notable news, scoops and observations: David Zahniser is the best reporter at City...
No News & Chatter until this evening. But go ahead and check out new posts on the other LA Observed pages: LA Biz Observed Native Intelligence SoCal Sports Observed Email...
Highlights from the busy past week at News & Chatter: Publisher out, publisher in, staff insurrection, Baquet t-shirts: exclusive insider coverage of the mess at the L.A. Times. Another scoop:...
Bunch of chewy new posts around the blogs today, starting at Native Intelligence. Judy Graeme stumbles on the Getty's secret art exhibit for staffers only, Veronique de Turenne eavesdrops during...
Here are some of the highlights from the past week of LA Observed posts, blog by blog. Click the links to catch up on anything you missed: Times politics blog...
Over at LA Biz Observed, Mark Lacter serves up a full plate of morning-after-Labor Day headlines including the abrupt departure of Tom Freston from the big office at Viacom. Don't...
Some highlights from the past week on the LA Observed blogs, for the review-minded: Welcome to Gentrification City, Leland Wong indicted, Sunset Junction kisses up to celebrities, Dopest Lawyer makes...
What's better than one insider pulling back the veil on exclusive Malibu? Why two, of course. Jenny Price actually lives in Venice, but she knows her way around Malibu's hidden...
Veronique de Turenne joins the LA Observed family today with a clear agenda: to raise the blogosphere profile of her hometown. Here in Malibu will feature her observations on coastal...
Just to point out some of the pieces now in the queue at Native Intelligence, the LA Observed blog where the subjects can range wherever the contributors want to go:...
Bruce Feirstein jumps into the pool at Native Intelligence with a post that labels Arianna Huffington's "defining Hollywood moment" spin on the Mel Gibson affair ridiculous and dismisses Ari Emanuel's...
One of the additions we've talked about at LA Observed — and have been hatching in the background — is encouraging writers to blog occasionally (or more) about the places...
Well, that was a good week. New blogs, new contributors, new design, plus the usual original posts and meaty news. These were some of the highlights, in case you are...
Posting has been a tad light today due to the intrusion of life and preoccupation with the changes around here. This makes it worth it, though. I'm pleased to announce...
Around LA Observed's sites this afternoon: Warner Bros. deal with iTunes, new prez of Disneyland, and who to blame for power woes. Jered Weaver is no Fernando, but then who...
Time for a change. A fairly major change, in light of the way things have been done here so far. There won't be a Morning Buzz today so I can...
Welcome to The Newshour with Jim Lehrer on KCET.org and PublicAffairs Books....
LA Observed plans to take advantage of the holiday calendar and call a first hiatus of the summer. Per the server stats it's been a record-setting month already: the first...
Well I lied; my desk is anything but clear. Here are some final news notes from the day though. Have a good weekend: • The Times replies to this morning's...
Thanks to everyone who joined Saturday night's anniversary Neon Cruise with LA Observed. The bus was full and boisterous, and a fun time was had by all. Part of the...
Hey, this week is LA Observed's third blogiversary. Perfect reason for a fun night on the town—literally. Join us on Saturday, June 3 to kick off summer early with LA...
Wow, lot of response to yesterday's Where in L.A.? challenge. Most who emailed knew (or guessed) that the monument in the photo is a graffitied fragment of the Berlin Wall....
♦ The Clippers tie up their NBA playoff series 2-2, beating the Suns 114-107 at Staples Center on Sunday. ♦ USC basketball freshman Ryan Francis was shot and killed while...
Eric Lynxwiler and I will be signing and talking about Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles this evening In Pasadena at Vroman's Bookstore, "Southern California's oldest and largest independent."...
Some posts from the busy past week here at LA Observed: May 1 coverage: Nuggets, more nuggets, street fighting, La Opinión's solidarity, my favorite march photo Reaction to the Michael...
Posting will be light (if that) this weekend due to time commitments at the Festival of Books thrown at UCLA by the Los Angeles Times. One of my roles is...
In case you missed them, some posts from the past week on LA Observed: Hiltzik unmasked and the Times reacts Times outsources to India and launches new ad campaign Pellicano...
Selected items from the past week on LA Observed... A Caitlin Flanagan two-fer Channel 2 bans fragrance and VNRs RJ Smith on L.A. and music Channel 5 and the ethics...
I'm indisposed Monday in some meetings and checking out colleges with the junior member of the LAO team. Here are some selections from the past week here on LA Observed,...
With four days to go on my server's stats counter, LA Observed has already surpassed the previous high for traffic in a month. I'm honored. As always, your comments and...
Some of what passed across the LA Observed front page in the past seven days... Streisand and Hollywood heavies christen RAND's global issues salon in Bel-AirEx-assemblyman Marco Firebaugh diesGustavo and the...
Most talked-about posts from the past week at LA Observed, including a few exclusives... Exclusive blog coverage of the Los Angeles Political Roast. Patt Morrison new host of "Talk of...
This weekend's ad for the New York City DUI attorney was the last straw for the top-of-the-page Google Ads banner. I'll keep Google elsewhere on the site for now, but...
Selected posts from the past week at LA Observed: Hilburn's replacement: Ann Powers.Kitty Felde dropped abruptly by KPCC.Reactions to the death of Otis Chandler pour in.Ethics questions at KTLA.Randy Harvey...
Even the Director of Literature at the National Endowment for the Arts has to hit the road if he wants to sell books. And it is Oscar week, after all....
Last week was a good one for LA Observed scoops. Here are some talked-about posts from the past seven days: Ensign Eric Garcetti, U.S. Naval Reserve Times and UFW go...
LA Observed is the first blog to have its content licensed by NewsBank, which provides libraries and schools with material from newspapers, TV and radio news, newswires, periodicals, business journals,...
Jim Bursch at West L.A. Online is peeved at the Daily News for some language in today's news story about the jaw-dropping cost of extending the Red Line all the...
It was thiry-five years ago today that the bedrock buckled beneath the San Gabriel Mountains, unleashing what became the Sylmar earthquake. In all that time, people still can't agree on...
I'm otherwise occupied this morning. Back soon....
I was interviewed at the fabulous old HMS Bounty on Wilshire this afternoon by John Rabe of KPCC News. His piece, about the loss of the Ambassador Hotel, supposedly will...
Eric Lynxwiler and I are supposed to be in a segment of Channel 7's Eye on L.A. today at 6:30 pm. Hard to tell what they will use. They shot...
Janko Roettgers, an L.A. based reporter for Austrian radio, came over a few weeks ago to interview me about LA Observed and being a journalist who blogs. His piece aired...
Happy New Year and thanks to everyone who made LA Observed a habit in 2005. More than 2.1 million visitors perused right around five million pages of Los Angeles observations,...
This will be a slow week around LA Observed Tower. I won't be doing the 'First thing' reports in the morning, but will probably pop in from time to time...
Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles was at number eight on yesterday's Los Angeles Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list....
I just taped a segment with host Conan Nolan to air Sunday at 9 am. Political analysts Arnold Steinberg and Darry Sragow are on first to discuss Gov. Schwarzenegger's hiring...
LA Observed has been down much of today due to a "bandwith issue" at the server end. In short, a rush of visitors this morning pushed us unexpectedly over the...
Steve Wasserman, the Times book editor until earlier this year, will give his take on the cutbacks at his former paper in the first issue of Truthdig.com, the webzine by...
No posting this morning. Check back later today....
Since the ad column is filling up with spots aimed at Tuesday's elections, it seems like the right time to remind everyone of the LAObserved ethic regarding political ads. Pretty...
Thanks for all the suggestions about the Front Pages box. I intend to tinker with both design and function when I get the time this weekend. So far, the Washington...
Abel Salas did a nice q-and-a with me pegged to my Wilshire book in Sunday's L.A. Times Magazine. We met at the HMS Bounty and talked about the boulevard's importance...
In addition to last night's items on the Times stories by Ken Auletta and the Wall Street Journal, here are some other things you might want to know about: ♦ Getty...
I have a lot of distractions this Friday, so before it turns into an off day I'm declaring it a day off. No postings unless something big happens. For those...
Some items from the last week of L.A. Observed... Kinsley gets the last word, via well-timed emailPlus: Andrés Martinez vows to pay more attention to L.A., and Kinsley viewed through...
Kudos to James Rainey, the LAT's media reporter—and a kick in the ass for me. Two weeks after I let the Tribune's spokesman blow off my inquiry, and a week...
• Looks like Gov. Schwarzenegger announces Friday that he will run for reelection, the Times says. Also, La Opinión says its reporter was denied entry to the governor's recent community meeting...
In case you missed them, here are some of of the items that achieved blogginess on LA Observed in the last seven days. Return of Calvin and Hobbes explained Dead...
New logo, new column array, same content (and bigger links.) I thought the blog needed a little dusting off. The way things are arranged now will let me try some...
Blogads is having a server problem that was affecting the way the L.A. Observed page loads. I've taken down the ads until Blogads says the problem is fixed. They will...
Some appetizers: • Marc Cooper of the LA Weekly and the Nation will be the guest host on KCRW's Left, Right and Center, today at 2:30 and 7 p.m. It's his...
These were some of the best-read or most emailed-about LAO items from the past week. I might do this every week. Anybody find it useful? L.A.'s most popular car Daily...
• That's Daily News sports columnist Tom Hoffarth in the photo, taking a parachute jump with an instructor at Lake Perris. It's front and center on the DN website this morning....
If I post at all in the next few days, it will be of the quick variety. Meanwhile, perusing the July logs has been fun. L.A. Observed set new single-month...
L.A. Observed is one of the Los Angeles-based blogs named in Forbes.com's Best of the Web. The other locals are The Elegant Variation for literary blogs, Metroblogging in the city...
But not good enough to bear repeating. For a few hours on Saturday, L.A. Observed was rolled back to April 26 by a server issue in Wisconsin or somewhere. Warm...
Geez, you try to skate by for a few hours and stuff starts to pile up in the in-box... • Former Burbank mayor and current city councilwoman Stacey Jo Murphy was...
I updated some behind the scenes stuff like the About page and the Advertisers Are Really Cool People page, so I ran the numbers for the first half of 2005....
I bumped up the main font just a hair. If it bothers you, let me know. By the way, I designed the site so most new browsers can adjust the...
The Times is converting a seat on the editorial board into a three-month visiting fellow slot, as a way to bring in more thinking from academics and foreign journalists. The...
• Bob Hertzberg, chairman of the Villaraigosa transition team, will be on KPCC's Talk of the City Friday at 2 p.m. with guest host Jon Beaupre. • Mayor-elect Villaraigosa has signed on...
With the mayoral campaign now history, I felt motivated to clean out some dead links and reorganize the lineup on the left-hand side of the page. It was long overdue...
It's jacaranda time in my neighborhood, and I'll be staring at the computer as little as possible. Back over the weekend....
* Fresh items are at the bottom, as usual... • This is anniversary week (the second) for L.A. Observed, a fact that the Downtown News dug up and turned into a...
Time to modernize the software that runs this thing. If all goes well, I'll be back posting Sunday. Wish me luck... * I'm back. Everything works except search, and I'll...
New items added at the bottom • Dawson's Books, the oldest bookseller in Los Angeles, celebrates its 100th anniversary this month with an exhibit at the store and Michael Dawson Gallery...
Couldn't find any fresh media mentions of Xeni Jardin today, but there are these things to know (updated at the bottom): • Local websites nominated for Webby awards from the International...
My host, Total Choice Hosting, has responded nicely with a detailed explanation of yesterday's interruption. It was due to an overload on the servers, probably from the vulnerabilities of the...
For reasons that still aren't clear, my hosting service — Total Choice Hosting — abruptly cut off access to L.A. Observed this afternoon. Luckily the break was temporary, but I...
Just got a look at the March stats, and it pleases me to be able to say that L.A. Observed set new highs across the board: for visits, unique visitors,...
Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. Sorry....
No blogging today. Back tonight....
Michael Hiltzik's "Golden State" column in today's Times tells the story behind Movable Type, the popular blogging software developed by Six Apart, a San Francisco company started by married couple...
Hilary Kaplan of the website The Next American City sits down with D.J. Waldie, author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir and the new Where We Are Now: Notes from...
Finishing off Monday's queue and looking into Tuesday: • LA.comfidential takes a look at the pro-Bush, anti-Hollywood billboards that Citizens United is buying near the Kodak Theatre in time for the...
From here on out, the race for mayor of Los Angeles is a sprint. With luck some Big Issues will be debated before March 8. Without a doubt there will...
Start of a new year and time for a little refreshing of the look. First, an update on how things are going. They are, in a word, good. On the...
I've mentioned before the strange fascination that some L.A. Observed visitors have with TV news women, in general, and especially with Gretchen Carr, the former CBS 2 News anchor. The...
No postings for a couple of days. Sorry....
The website selling the Schwarzenegger bobblehead doll via the new Blogad over in the right-hand column isn't very informative; here's a Sacramento Bee story from September with some background....
Some things to note from while I was gone: • Larry McCormick: The co-anchor of the KTLA "News at Ten Weekend Edition" began at channel 5 as a weatherman in 1971....
I'm back after a few weeks away from the web to recharge and enjoy the summer. There are some changes to point out. You can now read posts by topic...
I'm out of here until August 30. I thought about pressing guest bloggers into service or claiming to be "on assignment" then posting an occasional item. But in the end,...
L.A. Observed is pleased to introduce a new Premium Sponsor: The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. The community paper is published weekly on Fridays. Click on the logo at...
I turned off the comments function overnight to let a wave of spam blow past. Remember what we always say at L.A. Observed: only a fool would buy prescription drugs...
L.A. Observed ranked sixth (well, tied for sixth with Gawker et al) among favorite blogs of women in the media who responded to an email-in survey by Daniel Drezner of...
L.A. Observed is the newest co-sponsor of the "Public Square" Lecture Series presented by Zócalo and the Los Angeles Public Library. Zócalo seeks to create a non-partisan and multiethnic forum...
Time for a change. Some new colors, things moved around, a general freshening -- and a rail for advertising on the right side. I've been getting overtures about accepting ads...
A couple of liberal politics blogs, Joshua Marshall's Talking Points Memo and Atrios, are publicly pondering the pros, cons and blog ethics of taking candidate ads. Atrios already accepts them,...
Fully half of this site's unique visitors for the month of July have come by in the past 48 hours. Searches for "Kobe" and related terms have also shot up,...
This blog is coming to life in the midst of the scandal over disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair. He made up stories, claimed to be in locales where...
My name is Kevin Roderick. I am an author, a journalist, an Angeleno and wear assorted other labels. I suppose I'm also now a blogger. This will be a place...
New at LA Observed
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
