Pssst Wanna Buy the Hollywood Sign?

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A hotly anticipated venture capital conference coming to Marina del Rey in October might not have come together if not for the Hollywood sign?

In 2003, Brentwood businessman and self-described serial entrepreneur Dan Bliss bought the original sign, which had been languishing in storage since it had been replaced in 1978. Not knowing what to do with it, Bliss offered it to billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson.

“He didn’t know what he could do with it, but he recognized I was an entrepreneur and we stayed in touch,” Bliss said.

Bliss, 39, eventually sold the sign for $450,000 to someone else; however, his contact with Branson paid off recently when he convinced the British megamogul to serve as the keynote speaker for the Perfect Pitch 2009 conference. The event is sponsored by PerfectBusiness.com, which Bliss co-founded. The winners of a contest will pitch their business ideas to Branson in front of an audience filled with venture investors.


Stay Hungry

Talk about commitment to your client.

Attorney Bonifacio Bonny Garcia and his allies last week wrapped up a seven-day hunger strike that was called to draw attention to budget cuts that are hitting his client, the Oxnard Elementary School District.

Garcia, 52, is a founding partner of Garcia Calderon & Ruiz LLP in downtown Los Angeles, which specializes in representing school and community college districts in California. As word of impending budget cuts spread, Oxnard Elementary School District board member Ana Del Rio-Barba decided to go on a hunger strike to draw attention to the impact the cuts would have on the district.

“She struck a chord and I told her, ‘If you go through with this, my wife and I will join you,'” Garcia said. His wife, Laura Garcia, is a teacher at a Los Angeles-area charter school for at-risk children.

Garcia said the most difficult part of the hunger strike was on the second day, when the weekly farmers’ market set up shop in Oxnard near the hunger strikers. “There was kettle corn on one end, tamales at the other end and churros in the middle. I just tried to block it out.”

After the strike ended Aug. 24, Garcia and his wife enjoyed their first meal, soup out of a crock pot.

“It was heaven,” he said.



Writer Unblocked

Anyone who finds themselves out of work and with spare time can take heart from Mark Jeffrey’s story.

When the last economic downturn cost Jeffrey his job at an Internet startup, he started penning a fantasy novel to wile away the hours. He posted the book online and it was downloaded 2.4 million times, inspiring him to write two sequels.

Two weeks ago, he learned from his agent that publisher HarperCollins bought the rights to his first book, “The Pocket and the Pendant.”

“It was a lifelong dream come true,” said Jeffrey, 42. He had always harbored ambitions of writing “a killer book” but couldn’t block out the time until he lost his job.

Jeffrey, who is now gainfully employed as chief technology officer at Santa Monica startup Mahalo.com, said he doesn’t plan to quit his job.

“Besides,” he said, “the book doesn’t come out until 2011.”


Staff reporters Richard Clough, Howard Fine and Charles Proctor contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].

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