L.A. Stories / The Roving Eye

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L.A. Stories

Short Commute

After hosting countless Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremonies (including his own), Johnny Grant got his own 15 minutes in the sun last week.

The honorary Mayor of Hollywood not only received a special star in front of the Kodak Theater, the Oscar’s new home, but reveled in the fact that a street has been named after him.

Well, sort of.

Johnny Grant Way is actually the name of a Highland Avenue entrance into the new Hollywood & Highland project. The length of the street, which looks more to be a driveway, wasn’t lost on the 78-year-old Hollywood booster.

“Somebody said, ‘Jeez, they could have given you a longer street.’ Yes, it’s a very short street, but I’m a very short guy so it fits,” said Grant, who stands all of 5 feet, 6 inches tall.

Cold Call

Rather than curse the frigid West Coast winter, conservatives should hope the chill continues, says Republican stalwart Sheldon Sloan, of counsel at Lewis D’Amato Brisbois & Bisgaard LLP.

“Unusually cold winters are generally followed by unusually warm summers, and if that pattern persists, there’s some reason for optimism in the Riordan camp,” Sloan deduces.

Severe weather brings high power bills and brownouts, which would hurt the Davis campaign, or so the theory goes. Of course, the pattern would have to persist through next fall, with a frosty September and October heading into the Nov. 5 general election.

So where did Sloan come by his meteorological expertise? “I’ve gone outside and put my finger in the air,” the L.A. politico retorts.

Fast Pitch

Aspiring screenwriters look for inspiration in any number of places, including the pages of the Los Angeles Times.

Within a few days of reading a Jan. 10 article about Japan’s “wakaresaseya” folks who make a living breaking up relationships writer Ricky Blitt developed a concept for a movie project. DreamWorks Pictures promptly acquired the pitch.

In “Breakups Are Their Business,” Mark Magnier of the Times’ Tokyo bureau reports on the growing popularity of break-up specialists in a country that eschews confrontation. “The day it ran, it got quite a bit of reaction, including several calls and e-mails from people in Hollywood,” Magnier e-mailed from Japan. “At first, I thought someone was playing a joke on me.”

My Generation

In perhaps the most anticipated game of the NBA’s regular season, Michael Jordan and the Washington Wizards will be at Staples Center Feb. 12 to take on the Lakers. Special attention will be paid to the on-court dynamic between His Airness and His Airness’ heir apparent, Kobe Bryant.

Jordan, who has the surprising Wizards in the playoff hunt, is known for having a long memory when it comes to slights, real and otherwise.

After last year’s game at Staples, in which Jordan watched from a private box high above the court, the then Wizards executive offered a few pointers to the young Lakers’ star, according to Washingtonian magazine.

“You better just stay where you are,” Kobe was quoted in as saying. “You’re better off up there than down here.”

Lost Dogs

Geffen recording artists Bloodhound Gang have a dilemma to reconcile before commercially releasing their home video “One Fierce Beer Run.”

The Philadelphia-based rappers, who record on the Santa Monica-based label, need to track down 30 people who appear in the upcoming racy documentary of their 1997 world tour and secure their consent.

The band describes the task as falling somewhere between the international manhunt for Osama bin Laden and the sort of street-by-street canvassing one might undertake to find a runaway pet.

A Bloodhound Gang employee who goes simply by Kenny is running the search, which is aided by pictures of the missing fans on the band’s Web site. The hunt, he said, was mandated by Geffen, which was concerned about liability. “They seem to think some of the people in the video might not like being there,” he said.

The Roving Eye

L.A.’s Showbiz Jail

It doesn’t carry the same prestige as Alcatraz, but the Lincoln Heights Jail has a special place in Los Angeles heritage.

The pokey, built in 1931 and designated an L.A. city landmark in 1993, is being rescued by Entertainment Industry Development Corp., a nonprofit organization that promotes the Los Angeles region to the entertainment industry. The EIDC has leased the building for $1 per year and is fronting the money to bring the building back to safe standards. The organization’s money comes from fees paid by production companies that utilize its services, which include on-location services, community relations and lobbying in Congress.

EIDC spokesman Morrie Goldman said the group wants to recoup the expenditure estimated at $800,000 so far and maintain the facility through fees paid by production companies that use the building. EIDC plans to build new sets for filming on the third and fourth floors.

The jail, which averages 250 days of filming each year, also is home to a boxing club and an arts center that have to cope with exposed wiring, open plumbing, falling ceiling plaster, broken windows, peeling lead paint and asbestos.

The conditions, which violate the city’s building and safety codes, are worsened by unsecured access that bring in pigeons and homeless people. Goldman said the fourth floor is so full of dead birds that it is inaccessible. He said seven, 40-foot trash bins have been toted away from the building in the last week.

When finished, the building will have what Goldman called a youth skills center on the first floor that would be a place for city youngsters to work on productions at the jail and learn about the film industry.

Christopher Keough

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