LABJ’s LA Stories
Just Chillin’
First an extraordinary amount of rain and hail turned parts of Los Angeles into a scene right out of “White Christmas.”
Now, there’s an ice rink in Pershing Square.
No, it’s not a remnant from the freak storm that blanketed parts of South L.A. on Nov. 12. It’s actually the public ice rink that the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks is hosting for the sixth consecutive year.
Keeping the ice frozen, however, can pose a challenge.
“We actually have an ice engineer who’s on call 24/7,” said Vicki Israel, Human Services Director for the Department of Recreation and Parks. “The temperatures in downtown L.A. vary throughout the day, so sometimes we need to make it a little colder or a little warmer.”
Israel said there’s also a plan to bring in snow on Dec. 6. L.A. residents should feel right at home.
Janna Braun
Hold the Presses
Readers of Parade Magazine may have been a tad confused.
The magazine, which inserts 37 million copies into 335 newspapers every Sunday, including more than 1 million in the Los Angeles Times, ran a full-color ad on Nov. 16 for the CBS movie “The Reagans,” beckoning viewers to tune into The Eye that evening.
There was just one problem: on Nov. 4, CBS shifted the movie to the Showtime network, also owned by Viacom Inc. Parade’s printing deadline came a week before the last-minute announcement, leaving it unable to pull or alter the ad.
“We’ve had a long-standing relationship with TV networks, but this is the first time anything like this has happened,” said Jim Hackett, Parade’s executive vice president of advertising. “Hopefully, it’s a unique and isolated situation.”
Chris Ender, CBS senior vice president of communications, said the network was understanding.
“We’re in the media business, we know there are deadlines,” he said.
Showtime announced last week it would air the controversial movie on Nov. 30.
Janna Braun
Butter Fingers
For all the sweeping grandeur of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, it still harbors hazards strikingly similar to those at more lowbrow venues.
At a World Music concert last week, at least one program came plummeting from the uppermost seating level to the one below and another fell onto the stage in the midst of the performance. Is an audience member or a design flaw to blame? Perhaps both it seem some late-arriving bottoms brushed past programs propped on front-row ledges.
Elizabeth Hinckley, a spokeswomen for the L.A. Philharmonic, said she hadn’t heard of any problems when the orchestra played.
“An orchestra audience is used to being quiet for long stretches,” she said. “This was a different group of people” used to standing and clapping while the music played.
Jonathan Diamond
Not Kidding
A Web site specializing in satirizing local news has put out its first want ad and its creators are serious.
The LALA Times, a bi-monthly blog that pokes fun at Southern California news and cultural icons, is looking for a publisher and investors to grow its operations and turn the publication into a self-sustaining business.
The site, whose lead stories as of last week included “Dog Meditation: All the Rage in L.A.,” and “California Bans Alcohol in Bars,” is run by a husband and wife team from their Venice home.
“We have a niche and we need to find some folks with business sense to manage the thing and raise some money,” said George Wolfe, who writes the site’s copy. “Ideally, we’re looking for an initial investment of $25,000 to $50,000, but we’re really pretty open to any offers.”
Wolfe, a former assistant editor at Metropolitan Living Magazine, and his wife, Thea Mercouffer, started the site as a part-time project shortly after moving to Los Angeles from Seattle last year.
Danny King
The Roving Eye
Don’t Try This at Home
Anyone who has spent time driving around Los Angeles knows there are a heck of a lot of SUVs to choose from. And it’s probably safe to say that most will never make use of their height or four-wheel drive capabilities to fjord anything more challenging than a pothole.
Still, the folks at Land Rover are giving buyers a chance to push their vehicles to the limit, sort of, before driving them off the lot.
Most of the U.S. Land Rover dealers, including the two in L.A., have built off-roading obstacle courses that allow customers to get a sense of what the vehicles can do if called upon.
In Thousand Oaks, the roughly 150-meter course is decked out in safari theme, complete with African foliage and a rhinoceros statue. In addition to rocks, railroad ties and steep up-and-down ramps, the course features a bank that puts the vehicle at a 32-degree tilt.
“Some people get nervous, but they’re usually pretty game,” said salesman Scott Thomas.
In Encino, where the course has been in place for five years, the theme is desert but the experience is pretty much the same. “You go up a 45-degree angle and when you come down the car is literally on its nose,” said Sales Manager Dexter Everhart. “The car has a top-heavy appearance so some people have concerns that it could tip over. Once they go over the course, they know it’s pretty stable.”
But potential customers who plan an off-roading adventure at their local dealership should think again. Only sales people are allowed to drive the vehicles.
“We have had a few people who tried to sneak onto the course with their cars,” Everhart said.
Darrell Satzman
