LABJ’s LA Stories
Local Color
“Saturday Night Live” just met reality TV. Aspiring filmmaker Asif Ahmed took two staples of American tube culture and created “L.A. Special,” a 30-minute variety series showcasing undiscovered talent in Los Angeles.
“Everyone seems to be pushing on their own in the city,” said Ahmed. “Why not pool all these directors, actors, writers and musicians?”
The independently produced program features Ahmed and his co-host, Jessica Harwin, trekking around the city “discovering cool spots and cool people” while showing amateur band performances or short films in between the segments.
Ahmed’s goal is eventually to have “a diverse cast that represents the people of Los Angeles.” The sketches are shot in a record one to two days with none being longer than seven minutes so that “no one dominates the broadcast.”
“L.A. Special” airs on local cable channel LA 36, but Ahmed wants to take the program national. “We’d love to sell the show, do this on a weekly basis and be a starting ground for actors and filmmakers.”
Katherine Wang
Up in Smoke
Iconic symbols of Southern California were targeted when six palm trees were set ablaze in a residential neighborhood of Long Beach in the predawn hours of Sept. 5.
Firefighters had barely extinguished the conflagration when neighbors told them dry fronds of other trees had been alight and “lit up the street,” said Long Beach Fire Department Public Information Officer Wayne Chaney.
“It was as if (the arsonist) was taunting us, going back and forth setting fires while we were still in the area,” Chaney said.
Arson investigators and Long Beach Police searched the area but did not identify a suspect. No injuries or serious damage were reported, but the smoke forced the evacuation of a 10-unit apartment building.
A city arborist will examine the trees to determine whether they will be destroyed, according to City Engineer Mark Christoffel.
Matt Myerhoff
Wanna Neck?
A few years ago, Leigh Ann Adam, a morning co-host at KBIG (FM 104), allowed a Web cam into her maternity room to broadcast the birth of her baby.
“I will do anything to get people to talk about this show,” Adam said at the time.
It worked. The event generated 8 million hits on the station’s Web site.
It also set a precedent Adam may regret. After deciding to undergo plastic surgery to swap her breast implants with a more modest pair, the station’s new manager, Craig Rossi, suggested she undergo liposuction on her thighs. She agreed, and also chose to have a neck lift while under the knife.
Though this procedure was not to be Webcast, the station’s sales staff went to work looking for plastic surgeons not exactly a tough assignment in L.A. But after all the nipping and tucking, Adam was surprised to find she was left to foot the $5,000 bill.
The doctor, who felt it unethical to give away the surgery, had billed the station which billed Adam.
So much for free publicity.
Kate Berry
Bad Break
In baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out.
For the Long Beach Breakers, an independent minor league team, three summers without enough fan support has put them in bankruptcy.
The team’s owner, Breakers Baseball Inc., filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in Los Angeles on Sept. 5, listing assets of $400 and debts of $302,056. That’s far from the grand slam enterprise owners Chris Anderson and Ross Arbiter promised when they bought the team in 2001.
They paid the Western Baseball League a $1 million franchise fee and planned to spend $100,000 to upgrade locker rooms, concession areas and the public address system at the team’s 3,000-seat Blair Field.
At the time, owners predicted they would break even in 2002 and turn a profit this summer. But competition for Long Beach sports fans from the Angels, Dodgers and hugely popular Long Beach State 49ers proved hard to overcome.
Anderson and Arbiter couldn’t be located for comment.
David Greenberg
The Roving Eye
Love on the Run
It could reasonably be argued that rock widow-cum-singer-cum-actress Courtney Love has led a comic book life. So it’s fitting that she has finally become a comic book character.
Love is working with Los Angeles-based TokyoPop Inc., a publisher of Japanese comic books, to create a title that fuses her fascination with Japanese fashion, music from her upcoming CD and elements of her personal life.
“Princess Ai,” should be released in the spring in Japan and the United States. The Love-like central character is an on-the-run alien who becomes a famous nightclub singer in Japan, only to find that her newfound fame comes at the price of her privacy.
“She’s a princess from a mysterious, unknown land that escaped to our world and has taken refuge in the nightclubs of Kabushiki-cho,” said Jeremy Ross, editorial director at TokyoPop. “It will tell the story of her life and adventures.”
Love lived in Japan as a child and has become enamored of the so-called Gothic Lolita look, where an innocent-appearing girl wearing dark gothic dress will be the basis of the book’s design.
Ai Yazawa, a Japanese comic book artist, will do the initial character designs while Love will work with TokyoPop as a writer and designer.
Love is using lyrics from the songs of her upcoming CD, “America’s Sweetheart,” for the story. She also plans on incorporating elements of the book’s design into her album cover and wardrobe on tour.
“It’s a particular style just coming over to America. There’s an opportunity to create East-West fusion of American artists and Japanese writers,” said Ross.
Michael Thuresson
