When Kim Cooper discovered ConocoPhillips' new "oasis" design for its 76 brand stations meant lollipop-style signs, no spherical 76 balls and a new red color scheme, she swung into action and started savethe76ball.com. Still, ConocoPhillips didn't return her calls. Would they really choose to ignore the thousands of 76 ball fans from across the globe that visited her site and signed a petition to save the familiar orange balls?

Guess not. Last week Cooper got the news she was looking for on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. While ConocoPhillips didn't decide to change course and go back to the orange color scheme, up to three dozen of the iconic orange balls -- first introduced at the 1962 World's Fair -- will now be sent to museums and preserved as a piece of American design history. In a strange twist, ConocoPhillips also decided that up to 100 of the orange balls will now be replaced by -- get this -- red 76 balls!

In my video report, I take you inside the struggle to save the 76 ball -- from from Atwater Village to Ontario -- and introduce you to Kim, her colleague Nathan Marsak, and perhaps the most important player in this drama -- a guy by the name of J. Eric Freedner. Take a look:

Native Intelligence contributor Erika Schickel', whose book, "You're Not the Boss of Me" was just published this month, can't quite bring herself to write about it. Too self-serving, she says. Too me-me-me. So here's a bit about Erika: she just got a great review in today's LA Times. The copies she autographed last week at the Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica are flying off the shelf, She'll be at the LA Times Festival of Books in the spring. And if you'd rather not wait that long. Erika's going to do guerilla readings of the book at local playgrounds around LA. Check out her website for events and info. And check out her book. As the LA Times says, Erika's "the girlfriend we had in high school and college who was soda-through-the-nose hilarious."

It was already a pretty great day. A tour of the Port of Long Beach - look for a post (or two - Jenny Price arranged the port visit and may write about it as well) - followed by dinner with Jenny and author D.J. Waldie at a pretty good Cambodian restaurant on Anaheim Street. When Don offered to spring for ice cream in Belmont Shore, who could say no? Though the only ice cream left on Second Street is at RiteAid (where they don't let you get two flavors in one scoop) we did find a new indie book store. Shore Books. Just three months old. It's a quirky place with an interesting mix of books, cards, framed art and even some furniture. The owner, Marie Deary, wasn't there but her husband ("I'm just the hired help...") said the place is doing pretty well. So nice to have some good news about book stores for a change.

I was lucky enough to spot several dolphins off the beach in Santa Monica [see inset] this morning while taking a walk on the pier.

However, I didn't realize until I downloaded the photographs this evening that I had captured a bit more than fins.

Looks like a bottlenose dolphin to me.

Just got back from Hollywood where legendary Channel 5 reporter Stan Chambers talked with me about citizen journalism and the Kathy Fiscus story that created live televison news coverage in L.A. When the four-year-old girl fell in a well here in 1949, KTLA stayed on the air for 27 hours. Melrose Larry Green, L.A.'s most famous political gadfly and former member of Howard Stern's "Wack Pack" also makes an appearance in the video.

Check it out:

At the age of 18, Charlie arrived in Los Angeles fresh from working the family farm in Texas, looking to start life on his own. He casted about town for a job and ended up at a Westside diner where they baked pies each morning, grilled burgers all day, and served Coke, Nehi Orange and Nehi Grape in paper cone cups. He planned only to stay a few months, then find something else, but when he looked to leave, his boss made a sweeter deal of staying put.

That was 1957 — 50 years ago — and Charlie Collins never left the diner he wandered into one January day. Now 68 with no plans to retire from the restaurant, Charlie lives an enviable life as the owner of a three-unit apartment building in Venice, as well as a home in Inglewood, properties he bought in 1965 and 1978 respectively. He’s the father of two adult sons, both college graduates, one of whom teaches grade school and the other of whom works for Los Angeles County. Charlie is also a grandfather, twice. He lost his wife, Mary, of 38 years in 1998, and says his job has become his devotion.

Charlie is the general manager of The Apple Pan on Pico Boulevard east of Westwood Boulevard, an institution that will celebrate its 60th anniversary in a little more than three months — the menu is dated April 11, 1947.

Charlie does not drop the names of famous patrons by habit, although when asked to do so he can compile a list that includes such Hollywood royalty as the late actor/comedian Rodney Dangerfield and performer Sammy Davis, Jr. (Davis used to like for Charlie to step out from behind the grill and talk to him.) “I think he wanted people to recognize him,” Charlie said. Film Critic Joel Siegel still stops in to say hello. (Siegel put Charlie on national television during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.) Director Rob Reiner took a seat at one of the counter stools recently, Charlie said.

Charlie isn’t the only long-term employee at The Apple Pan, where patrons line the walls, and the sidewalk, to wait for a counter seat. Victor Vetayases has worked there 35 years, and Gordon Teske has logged more than 40. Standing shoulder to shoulder the three men represent more than 125 years of classic Americana, a walking, talking Edward Hopper painting, the only missing ingredient being Tom Waits in the background singing “burgers and fries, what kind of pie?”

Outside the walls of The Apple Pan, American service jobs like Charlie’s have changed dramatically since he stacked his first Steak Burger with a hunk of iceberg lettuce and a slice of Tillamook cheddar. The average diner worker in the 21st Century can't hope to achieve what Charlie did on his salary, especially in Los Angeles. With the median housing price in the Greater LA region set at more than $590,000 [see Nov. '06 figures], an annual income of more than $127,000 a year is necessary just to qualify for a 30-year-fixed mortgage on a median-priced home [see PDF from State Division of Housing Policy Development]. There are lawyers in Los Angeles who don't make $127,000 a year.

Charlie praises The Apple Pan's founder, the late Alan Baker, for holding fast to his business philosophy, “Quality Forever,” which is explained in the menu as being possible only if the restaurant succeeds in winning customer approval and repeated patronage. It's a recipe, Charlie said, that continues to be followed by Baker’s family.

Many of the houses in the neighborhood have been replaced by McMansions. The Westside Pavillion mall across Pico has been built and rebuilt. And a flock of wild parrots has moved into the trees down the street. But inside The Apple Pan, just about the only significant change in 50 years is the selection of sodas.

Coke, Diet Coke, Dr Pepper, Orange Crush, Root Beer and Crème Soda fill the bill today, and still in a paper cone cup (a dedicated customer located some of the rare paper cone holders on the Internet after some patrons of "The Apple Pan" began stealing the Grail-like objects as souvenirs). Sodas are served in cans. No soda fountain was ever installed because, as Charlie explained, the late founder “didn’t want people to think he was watering it down.”

It's clear to anyone familiar with Los Angeles eateries that The Apple Pan is more than a place to eat, having earned a distinction on par with The Original Pantry in downtown LA. Theirs is a club with few members.

“People have been coming in the past 25 years to write about it,” said Charlie.

And that doesn’t seem like it’s about to change either.

What a strange feeling to walk around on the foundations of the beach houses that burned on Malibu Rd. You see the remains of ovens, bathtubs, hot water heaters, and air conditioning units (on the beach?).

But what you notice most are the the bare-metal BBQ grills with gas tanks, the coiled black garden hose with spots of surviving green, the skeletons of patio chairs and potted cacti, the hot-tub depressions with ocean views, the red brick stairs that lead toward the water. You notice the makings of paradise.

It reminds me of the time I walked around the house foundations in Pasadena Glen, where mudslides in the mid-90s wiped away a string of houses in that stunning canyon in Altadena. There, the gardens have regenerated and grown wild: the palms and the tangerine trees thrive without the homeowners who planted them and invested them with meaning. Here, the gardens are still charred and spectral, and they speak only of tragic loss.

How strange to see the gaping hole in the wall of houses. I crossed one of the black lots, kicking up ash, and descended the stairs from the patio down to the sand. I was driven, I guess, by some mix of voyeurism, sympathy, and sadness--and a weird sense of misplaced guilt, as I couldn't help but think: This is not how to create public beach access.

I don’t think there was anybody in the mystery community quite like Barbara Seranella. Oh sure, a lot of us talk a good game, we write gritty noir scenes about grifters, hookers, drug addicts, teenaged runaways, motorcycle mamas, crooked cops and large homicidal tattooed bikers named Tiny, but the truth is that most of us only know that world second-hand.

Barbara Seranella, a nice girl from Pacific Palisades, walked the walk. She ran away from home at 14, hung out with outlaw motorcycle gangs, lived in a Haight Ashbury commune, partied hard and generally led a life outside of societal conventions, cramming a lifetime’s worth of experiences into a few crazy years.

From what I understand, by her 20s she had gotten sober, reconnected with her family and found a career that suited her idiosyncratic personality – she became a female auto mechanic. Eventually, she rose to service manager and married the boss.

I like to think that during her wild years, Barbara was already collecting the experiences and characters that she’d one day turn into fiction.

By the 1990s, she’d found her way into writing classes. In 1997, her first book “No Human Involved” featuring Munch Mancini, came out. This is how it starts:

"Buy you a drink?"

Munch turned to size up the man who spoke to her. His sad, baggy eyes were set in a basset hound face. A five o'clock shadow rolled in and out of the loose folds of skin on his cheeks and chins. Deep lines creased his forehead. She squinted a little to bring him into focus, then looked at her glass. There was only ice left.

What the hell. She shrugged an indifferent acceptance.

"Jack Daniels, black label." She always said "Black Label," when she ordered. She didn't know what it meant or if it was any better than any other colored label, but she liked the way it sounded.

Munch lived in a ‘starter house’ in the slums of Santa Monica, back when blue-collar people could still afford to buy there. Barbara’s books are a gritty but nostalgic ride through a Westside that has changed so much in a mere handful of years that it’s almost historic – the only sawdust-floor biker bars in Venice today are faux retro ones. Barbara wasn’t only good with plot and character, she was great with local color and ambience.

Of course, I hadn’t read her yet during those days. I was working as a journalist and reading a lot of classic crime novels instead. Then my first book came out in 2001 and I started hearing about another female Southern California writer with a gritty style and a tough, independent sleuth. I wanted to meet Barbara, but what I’d read intimidated me so much that I was a little nervous.

We finally connected when we spoke on a panel together at the Camarillo Library. Barbara picked me up for the long drive in her big white Cadillac. The two of us and author Taylor Smith yakked the whole way up, enjoying ourselves and not even minding the horrible weeknight traffic.

It was then I learned what so many others have long known – Barbara, despite her sometimes gruff, raunchy exterior, was one of the warmest, funniest, most generous people in the mystery community. She’d long ago traded motorcycles for golf, communal life for matrimony. She’d become an inspiration to other writers and a quiet help to those struggling with sobriety and dysfunction.

I knew Barbara more as a fellow writer and acquaintance than a close friend, but for several years we were stablemates at Scribner and even shared the same editor, the legendary Susanne Kirk, who discovered female mystery authors from Patricia Cornwell to Janet Evanovich, Linda Fairstein and Kathy Reichs.

On the night we met, Barbara told me in her typical blunt fashion, “You know, I wanted to dislike your new book, because I thought, who’s this new Scribner author who’s getting so much attention.” She went on to then tell me how much she had liked it. Coming from her, it meant a lot.

Even as she struggled with two liver transplants in two years and failing health, Barbara kept her grace under fire and her sense of humor, and her books continued to win accolades and praise. Her latest, “An Unacceptable Death” got starred reviews in Library Journal and Publishers’ Weekly, was an LA Times Bestseller and a finalist for the Southern California Booksellers Association for “Best Mystery of 2005.”

And despite her mounting health problems, she managed to write one last book, “Deadman’s Switch,” which will hit the stores in April and was meant to launch a new series.

Last fall, Barbara won the Dennis Lynds Memorial Award for Social Consciousness in Crime Fiction. As the chair of the judging panel, I can say that the decision was unanimous. Barbara brought so much to the genre over the years and we wanted to recognize her contribution. I’m just sorry she was too sick to attend the banquet to receive the award in person.

RIP Barbara, you’re in a better place.

After losing Westside icons like Rhino and Penny Lane Records in the past couple years, I expect few other than yours truly will express a pang of loss Monday when the Suncoast Motion Picture Company store at Westside Pavillion closes its doors for the last time. But, for those of us in Generation X, who grew up in shopping malls (see Fast Times at Ridgemont High [1982]), the Suncoast video store is as much an icon of Americana as foodcourt fixtures like Orange Julius and Hot Dog On A Stick, both of which have also faded from many mall environments (much to the pleasure of diet-watchers and fashion police everywhere, if not hot dog aficionados).

Suncoast is no Laser Blazer, to be sure, and if one of them had to shutter its doors, I wouldn't hesitate to point an executioner's finger at Suncoast. But, unlike the late-fee tyrants at Blockbuster, which has closed so many blue buildings on the Westside in recent months that I've lost count, Suncoast didn't appear to hurt anyone. It wasn't the sort of place I sought out to purchase movies, but rather, a place to wander, and make impulse purchases. Indeed, since the Barnes and Noble bookstore closed to accomodate the renovation of the mall's wing west of Westwood Boulevard, Suncoast was the last pleasurable place to wander before, and after, a movie at Westside Pavillion Cinemas. Of course, a new movie megaplex is coming to the mall later this year, and Barnes and Noble is expected to reopen in its old location at the corner of Pico and Westwood boulevards. Six months from now, who will miss Suncoast? Still, it's worthy of note as it was likely the scene of more than a few teenage love-at-first-sight encounters, and maybe even a few breakups. We mark our lives with places like this, where we were when she said "lets slow down and just be friends," where we got up the courage to ask for a phone number, or even where we could count on escape when the wife said "just let me run in Nordstrom and look at shoes for a minute."

An employee at the Suncoast at Westside Pavillion told me today (Saturday) that the mall decided not to renew the store's lease. Suncoast, the employee said, communicated no current plans to the staff about re-opening the store somewhere else (Suncoast has been bounced around between owners the past few years, but still has about 170 stores nationwide, including one at Fox Hills Mall in Culver City).

We’ve heard a lot recently about the cold weather’s impact on the California economy: millions lost, higher orange prices, and disaster relief on the way.

But we haven’t heard much about what the freeze means to the Los Angeles area, a region rich in agricultural history. I took my video camera to the office of the County Agricultural Commissioner for a history lesson/post-freeze briefing. I ended up in an Irwindale strawberry field. Take a look:

Dear Sportswriters and Athletes,

Could we come to an understanding about the reigning sports cliché of the 21st Century?

Could you folks retire “swagger” and find something else to describe that all-important quality that lies halfway between confidence and cockiness?

This needs to happen quickly because your overuse of "swagger" has dilluted an interesting notion, stripping it of its vitality. Two hundred times a day, a sportswriter types "swagger" into his copy. Every athlete or team on earth either has his swagger back or is trying to get his swagger back.

This has particular significance to the the Los Angeles Clippers as they move unsteadily through this season—especially because the guy they rely on is the Prince of Swagger, veteran point guard Sam Cassell. I have been forced to grapple with this since mid-December as the Los Angeles Times' "Clipper Blogger." Cassell is big on swagger, playing for a 17-21 team that has trouble evidencing any.

Consider a small portion of this swaggaholic addiction:

From a pre-season story about Cassell: He averaged 17.2 points and a team-leading 6.3 assists in his first season with the Clippers, but Cassell's swagger, upbeat personality and clutch shooting were considered as important to an organization that needed a confidence boost.

From a story after the Clips lost their first six road games: "Maybe our swagger on the road is too swaggerish, if that's a word," Cuttino Mobley said. "We're too cocky. We haven't established anything.

From a story after the Clips won three in a row at home last month: "We're getting our swagger back,'' Brand said.

Orlando’s Jameer Nelson after the Magic came from behind to beat the Clips in the first game of a Clipper road trip: "We talked before the game about getting our swagger back. . ."We had that swagger early in the season, thinking no team could beat us. We had to get that confidence back."

Antonio Daniels of the Wizards before the Wiz came from behind to beat the Clips in Washington: "We're not the biggest team in the NBA, but we may be the swaggiest.”

From an Atlanta Journal Constitution story after the Hawks upset the Clips in Atlanta: “Zaza Pachulia regained his swagger, pumping in 22 points and grabbing eight rebounds.”

Cassell after the next game, when he returned from a heel injury to lead the Clips over the New Orleans Hornets: `` It's about bringing that swagger. I'm going to bring that swagger every night. That's what it's all about. If we continue to do that--have that swagger, keep our composure and just play hard--the key to our success is how hard we play.''

Headline from a St. Paul Pioneer Press story before the next game on one-time Timberwolf Cassell prior to the Clips win in Minneapolis: “. . . Sam Cassell, as confident as ever, hopes to inject energy and swagger into the Clippers. . ."

I did a database search of thousands of publications and found only 354 stories that used the words “swagger” and “team” from mid-November 1996 to mid-January 1997. Same search, same dates, four years later produced 814 stories. Same search, same dates 10 years later produced another doubling: 1,773 stories.

This is not just lazy writing. (Those of you who hate cliches might enjoy a list I compiled several years ago. Hungry for more? Click here to read a rant about the overuse of the word "passion.") It sends a signal that swagger for the sake of swagger is a virtue, when in fact the pursuit of swagger can backfire. Consider what Britt Robson wrote in a Minnneapolis alternative paper in the spring of 2005, when Cassell was still with the Timberwolves, having helped lead them to the playoffs in the previous season:

"Last year, for the first time in franchise history, swagger happened for the Wolves. . . .Having the capability to go beyond the borders of teamwork, albeit for the sake of the team, is integral to creating swagger on a ballclub. But selfish players don't make a team swagger. In addition to guts, you need talent and timing. When Sammy misses those crunch-time jumpers (as has happened all too often this year). . . . it reverberates beyond the scoreboard. And even if the success rate is extraordinarily high, too much individual brilliance dissipates the sense of shared glory upon which swagger is fostered.”

Replacement cliche nominations will be taken and posted. Sample: "Baker, writing tepidly, seems to have lost his [new cliche goes here]."

A first for Native Intelligence: a tag-team post, as I tag along after Denise Hamilton's wonderful musings about the L.A. River. I've seen the river twice this past week--first on the Los Angeles episode of PBS's Edens: Lost and Found series about remaking cities, and then in person last Saturday when Joe Linton and I led a busload of intrepid Angelenos on an all-day Friends of the Los Angeles River tour.

People are "dreaming a different city" on the river, narrator Jimmy Smits said on PBS. "A place to create the world anew," Denise writes. And Joe and I couldn't agree more. In fact, if you wanted to see that new and different city happening, you could also just talk to the people who were wandering around the concrete, egrets, trash, and willows on Saturday. Our bus-ful on this tour included leaders from the Verde Coalition, which works for the neighborhood parks that L.A. needs desperately; the Liberty Hill Foundation, which helped fund and develop the GREEN LA blueprint that a huge coalition of activists, academics, and public-agency advisors just handed to the mayor; and North East Trees, which built the new riverside mini-park where we ate lunch, and which plants trees, builds parks, and restores waterways across the L.A. area. I also met a blogger for WorldChanging, the Seattle-based website that just launched an L.A. branch. One thing I love about living in the American city with the worst environmental troubles is that there are so many people here who are on the cutting edge of problem solving. I mean, it's a lot less exciting to "create the world anew" in Boulder, Colorado, or even, say, Seattle.

When I was a kid in suburban St. Louis, I wanted to grow up to be a park ranger, or maybe I would live off the grid in the Alaskan wilderness. The L.A. River didn't exactly figure into my plans. And I doubt it figured into PBS's plans 6-7 years ago, when the channel aired the prior Living Edens series about the last wildernesses of the world. That series featured Denali, Glacier Bay, Yellowstone, Patagonia, Ngorongoro, Madagascar--and Peru's Manu National Park, a great chunk of the lowland Amazon rain forest. As a college student, I spent many amazing months in the rain-drenched Manu, studying white-winged trumpeters (I kid you not) for my senior thesis and living happily in a green 2-person tent. My post-college plan was to travel the wildernesses of the world--Patagonia and Ngorongoro included--and to write about them. And after that?--the cabin in the Alaskan outback.

Unlike the Living Edens series, I never got to Madagascar or even Alaska's Denali. But like PBS, I did find my way to the Los Angeles River--because as a wilderness-lover, I became convinced that the future of wild places depends on how sustainably we can live in places like the cities the Edens: Lost and Found series has been featuring--Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, and especially L.A. And as someone who has now come to love L.A., I have become convinced that the future of the city itself depends on figuring out how to live well and fairly in the ecosystems that L.A. inhabits--and on the work of North East Trees, the Verde Coalition, Liberty Hill, Friends of the Los Angeles River, the Green LA coalition.

Or as the actor Ed Begley said in the Edens: Lost and Found episode, "The environment is not just in Yosemite or Yellowstone....It's in all the cities that you come from....That's part of the environment too. And if we can save Los Angeles, Yosemite's gonna be just fine."

And as Jimmy Smits ended the program: "Stay tuned. Anything can happen."

It was small, plastic and yellow, gamely navigating through the rocks and bushes along a stretch of the LA River called the “Glendale Narrows” on the coldest day of the year.

My family and I were on a tour sponsored by Friends of the L.A. River that started at the Sepulveda Basin in the Valley where 12 streams and tributaries converge and wildfowl such as turkey buzzards, kites, egrets and blue herons abound. The tour concluded five hours later along a concrete, glass-strewn stretch in industrial Maywood. (The L.A. River runs 52 miles to the Long Beach Harbor, but tour organizers left the lower half for another trip).

Lunch was on the concrete banks in scenic Atwater, and that’s where kayaker George Wolfe hauled his craft up the embankment to say hello. He’d like to kayak the river’s entire length later this year and was on a reconnaissance trip. More rain would raise water levels and make his pilgrimage easier, but some overland hauling might be unavoidable.

As a novelist whose books are set in L.A., I’m always searching for new ways to imagine this place, and Wolfe’s quixotic quest enchanted me. It’s a reminder of the magic that can be conjured here, often where one least expects it. There is grace in small, unbidden moments, beauty hidden amidst chain link, trash and concrete. One wants to genuflect amidst the sycamores and native grasses along the banks (planted by Northeast Trees) and give whispered thanks.

Blues singer Robert Johnson talked about meeting the devil at a crossroads, but the crossroads where our tour stopped yesterday sent a different kind of shiver up my spine. It was a concrete ditch in Cypress Park, where the fabled Arroyo Seco of Pasadena (which wasn’t so seco Saturday) empties into the LA River.

In 1769, Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola stopped on these earthen banks, and marveled at the cottonwoods and alders, the wild roses, the natural paradise he’d found. Nearby, in 1781, the Spanish would establish the pueblo that became Los Angeles.

Two-hundred and thirty-eight years after Portola, I pick my way past broken glass, rusted metal pipes, rotting lumber, fast-food containers. What his expedition saw is long gone and I stand in sludge at the crossroads of an industrial nightmare. Overhead, half a dozen bridges, overpasses, railway trestles and freeways weave and cross. Metal clangs, cars roar. Colorful graffiti covers most surfaces. Filthy bedding is wadded under one embankment.

But the chill I feel has nothing to do with this or the weather. It comes from the Indians I hear, creeping through the hills to meet Portola. The calls of his men as they set up camp, the bray and whinny of his pack animals. The exclamations of Father Juan Crespi, marveling at what they’ve found. Their voices whisper in the icy wind. They screech and groan each time a car shoots across overhead. They are the spirits of this place.

We hike along the trickle to where the Arroyo Seco ends. The water level is so low we can pick our way to into the middle of the LA River. My tennies squeak. My socks get damp.

My children run heedless, splashing and crowing with delight. They’re 8 and 10 and they don’t see the smog-choked weeds, trash and squalor. Like Portola, they see a new world to explore. They skip rocks. They send boats of dried leaves floating down to Long Beach. Inexplicably, they find a fresh orange and lob it as far as they can. Then they hop and leap and shimmy over to the concrete islands in the middle of the L.A. River, where they plant the flag of childhood.

I think about how each generation has the capacity to create the world anew. Maybe by the time they’re grown, there will be trees and a riverwalk here. That’s what FOLAR envisions and is working toward. Not Portola’s paradise, but not this abomination either.

“This is uncharted territory, and I claim it,” my 10-year-old shouts out jubilantly. “I’m the first human ever to set foot on it.”

I smile and tell him, “Indeed you are.”

If you type the name Rick Orlov into the search function here at LA Observed, the results will include scores of Monday "Morning Buzz" posts. Why? Monday is the day the Daily News runs Orlov's Tipoff -- probably the most-read political column in town. Orlov and I sat down Friday at City Hall and he gave LAO an advance look at the January 15 Tipoff -- tomorrow's news today.

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is making news again -- this time it's in the context of the debate over Measure R and how it might just lead to him running for city controller against City Councilmember Wendy Gruel. Take a look:

I spent this morning at the scene of last night's Malibu fire. Unfortunately, I missed both Suzanne Somers and my fellow LAO contributor Veronique de Turenne while I was there. Veronique just posted her observations of the aftermath at Here in Malibu. The LAO team coverage continues below with my video report:

Malibu fire media roundup

City of Malibu play-by-play
Malibu Times
LAT
Daily News
NYT
TMZ

Thanks, in part, to Paris Hilton, and her little dog, Tinkerbell, a new standard of pet etiquette has been set (lowered?) on the Westside, and beyond.

I now encounter accessory dogs in LA retail establishments about as often as I do people using cell phones in libraries and movie theaters. Unlike the latter issue, however, this one has legs.

Retailers appear willing to be wagged. Maybe I just haven't been looking in the right places, but the "no-pets" signs I recall seeing everywhere as a child are nowhere to be found today. Didn't it used to be that only working dogs were welcome in stores? Wasn't there some kind of law?

The OC Register's Robert Whitfield wrote last year about dogs in the workplace and included with the story an info box that addressed the legal issue:

In California, pets are not allowed within 20 feet of where "food is stored or held for sale," said Kathy Francis, a spokeswoman for Orange County Health Care Agency. Translation: Dogs aren't allowed inside restaurants or grocery stores.

Who's a good boy? Such a good boy.

I love dogs as much as anyone, but, as more and more people categorize their working-class dogs as "accessories," don't we have to ask where all this is headed?

Dogs being dogs, isn't it only a matter of time before their growing popularity results in more of them doing what dogs do? And, hey, how many "Code Number 2s" are going to have to be cleaned up in the shoe department before someone puts their foot down? And what about those overly eager little nippers who fuss and paw at the puny, pampered chihuahua when mommy isn't looking? Chihuahuas may not have hair, but they do have teeth, don't they?

Perhaps the most important question of all is who decides how big a dog is too big for Bloomies and the like. Is a beagle too large to stroll through women's lingerie? Can a golden retriever visit the bank? Might an old English sheepdog make a good companion in a bookstore? What about six old English sheepdogs, a German shepherd and Britney's three former pets, known by the (exotic-dancer?) names Lacy, Lucky and Bit-Bit? Don't such situations have the potential to erupt into territorial disputes at, say, Borders?

Might we someday see stores setting limts? "No more than two dogs at a time." Will retailers police patrons by making use of measuring bins similar to those utilized by airlines to size up carry-on luggage? "If your dog doesn't fit in this box, it must be checked."

It's remarkable, the lengths to which some people will go to allow a dog to live The Simple Life. But then, that's the new reality, right?

The workers in the Los Angeles Times pressroom have voted to be represented by a union for the first time in nearly four decades. Here's my video report:

I just sat in on the counting of the votes at the National Labor Relations Board's regional headquarters downtown - no cameras allowed during the tallying, but I kept score myself. It felt like a sporting event - with multiple lead changes and a final come-from-behind run at the end by the "yes" side. The official tally was 140 for the union, 131 against - one vote off from my personal scorecard. The Times has five days from Monday to challenge the vote.

Before I went to the NLRB, I met Ed Padgett of the Los Angeles Times Pressmens 20 Year Club blog for breakfast at the Original Pantry. His blog incorrectly has the vote total at 140-139, so this is another exclusive LAO report. According to the NLRB, there were 288 eligible voters, no voided ballots, and 271 valid counted votes (275 if you add the 4 ballots that were challenged by the union).

Here's Jim Rainey's preview story from this morning's Times on the vote count.

* Edited

Director Quentin Tarantino has exhibited brilliance when depicting stories set on the streets of Los Angeles.

It appears, however, that the folks who produced the collector's edition DVD of his most-celebrated film, "Pulp Fiction," still have a few things to learn about our fair city.

Some of the trivia is educational. Some of it is effusive self-admiration. And at least one bit of it is flat out wrong.

I'm referring specifically to a kernel of LA ignorance regarding Echo Park (see inset). This trivial tidbit states during a scene set in Echo Park that the community is "a suburb of Los Angeles."

It's not a new mistake. Errors like this have appeared in news stories before. Even Starbucks expressed a lack of understanding recently about what communities are in LA. But the fact remains that it's not that complicated to differentiate communities like Silverlake Silver Lake from suburbs like Simi Valley.

A quick glance at Wikipedia would have revealed, had anyone bothered to look, that Echo Park is not a suburb of LA. Indeed, Echo Park is part of LA, and a very historic part at that. In fact, Echo Park is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city with a rich history in film.

Of course, I don't doubt a film buff like Tarantino knows the 909 from Edendale, but that's of little consolation to his partners in 213, who have now been forever branded with the "S" word in finer DVD collections worldwide. And that's about as wrong as giving another man's wife a foot massage.

“Auld Lang Syne” is a song made up of words in the Scots language, which means many of us understand only that it's about old friends and days gone by. And yet, "Auld Lang Syne" has been sung at the start of more than 100 new years in North America, including the one we've only just begun. We continue to observe this tradition despite the language barrier, as well as dramatic changes in the world and our way of life. I mumbled through it myself Sunday night in downtown Los Angeles as Lyle Lovett and His Large Band led a chorus in the warmth of the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Most of Lovett’s audience stood and sang in happy voices, same as their parents and their parents' parents sang it in their day. Some clutched their sweethearts. Some held hands. It felt very heartwarming and timeless, until I spied three women in about the 25th row raising their Blackberry (Crackberry?) devices aloft and waving the brightly lighted faceplates to-and-fro in unison.

I’d seen this before. The most memorable time was in July 2000, when Don Henley played the Universial Amphitheater. While Henley sang the lyrics of the Eagles’s tune “Hotel California” during his encore, many concertgoers held up cell phones with the green screens turned face forward.

Although some might have done this to share the sounds of the moment with friends in distant places, it's more plausible that most were flipping their phones as an alternative to flicking their Bics.

I have never joined in on this metamorphosis of pop culture, and don't expect that I ever will. When the cellular distractions start to sway, it always makes me shake my head. The open flame of a butane lighter actually improved the ambiance of concerts, particularly during the all-important power ballads of the '70s, '80s and '90s. But a color display? What contribution can that possibly make to a moment, other than proof that, as Henley sang, "we are all just prisoners here of our own device."