The LABJ’s

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Cyber Category

This may have been the first year that music from video games could be nominated for a Grammy Award, but it could take a few more years to hear, “The winner is Mortal Kombat!”

Under revised Grammy categories, soundtracks from “visual media” like games can now go head-to-head with soundtracks from feature films and television.

That means music legend David Bowie’s soundtrack for the video game “Omikron: The Nomad Soul” could have joined Madonna’s “Beautiful Stranger” from “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” or John Williams’ score for “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” on this year’s nomination list.

As it turns out, video game tracks were left in the dark in what could have been their breakout year.

“The members decided that would be an important category, given the proliferation of music on video games and how it plays such a key role in the game,” said Adam Sandler, spokesman for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. “Unfortunately, there weren’t any nominees this year. There just were not any submissions for us to pick from.”

While the academy is taking some Grammy categories high-tech, it still hands out awards for “Best Polka Album.” (This year’s nominees were “Smokin’ Polkas” by Eddie Blazonczyk’s Versatones, and Jimmy Sturr and his Orchestra’s “Polkapalooza.”)

Why keep a category featuring music that never makes the Top 40 charts? “That stuff sells,” Sandler says.


Provocative Billboards

Women showing L.A. their panties? Men running into walls, or leaving their wives, or beating up on people from Oklahoma?

Those are the themes of a massive billboard campaign that sprang up across the city earlier this month, and has been prompting more than a little confusion and water-cooler conversation.

The boards are a common technique known as a teaser campaign.

The campaign is intended to promote the L.A. Avengers the new arena football team whose season debuts April 9 (the women showing their panties are cheerleaders; lots of players run into walls, spectators will leave their wives to go to the games, and the debut game features a team from Oklahoma).

“Our point is not to be offensive, but to provide some information on arena football that maybe you didn’t know before,” said Ellen Fuchida-Hawley, manager of brand development with Mendelsohn/Zien Advertising in West L.A., which created the campaign.


Democratic Digs

Long-awaited hotel assignments have been announced for the upcoming Democratic National Convention at Staples Center, and some delegations fared better than others in the location sweepstakes.

Massachusetts and Rhode Island get to stay at Merv Griffin’s Beverly Hilton Hotel. Landlocked Kansas gets the waterfront Marina Beach Marriott.

Some delegations will get to share the L.A. commuting experience. Illinois is staying at the Burbank Airport Hilton, while Nevada and Utah will stay in El Segundo at a Hilton Hotel currently under construction.

Rod O’Connor, chief of staff for the Democratic National Convention Committee in L.A., said all 56 delegations participated in a lottery to determine in what order they would pick hotels.

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