L.A. Stories/The Roving Eye

Seat Czar

Otto Spoerri, once dubbed “the ultimate arbiter of industry power” by the Wall Street Journal, is retiring after 24 years as the controller for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

While Spoerri was in charge of the Academy’s financial dealings, he was perhaps best known as the man who annually decided who sits where at the Academy Awards.

It’s been a thankless job. In addition to turning down bribes of up to $5,000, Spoerri said he endured multiple threats to have him fired.

But Spoerri downplays talk of being an industry power broker. “I think its all a little bit overdone,” he said.

Michael Angel, the Academy’s membership administrator, is taking over the seating arrangements.

Advice from the old master?

“You’ve got to be very diplomatic and non-committal at all times,” Spoerri said. “Be very stern and strict. Once word gets out that you’re playing favorites, it will come back to haunt you.”

Hands Down

The sign in front of the Studio City Car Wash is down literally.

The 26-foot-tall statue of a hand holding a sponge topped with a 1957 pink Corvette has been lying on its side for the past month as owner Behzad Forat jousts with the city and some of his neighbors.

Forat pleaded no contest in September to violating regulations on the size and location of his sign. But Forat who promised to reduce the height to 20 feet said he is still contesting the the city’s regulations about where the sign should sit.

In the meantime, Forat says sales are down.

“Thanks to the Department of Building and Safety we’re losing $500 a day,” Forat said. “If nothing’s resolved, we’ll file an action.”

At the Car Show

The Business Journal’s roving reporter attended the Los Angeles Car Show at the Convention Center, asking representatives of several auto manufacturers a basic question: Why buy this car?

2002 Ferrari 456M GT, $225,000: “The success that Ferrari has had in more than 50 years of racing is woven into the car and the technology that’s derived from the racing goes into the road cars. It’s not just window dressing.” (Don Hedistan)

2002 Lamborghini Murcielago, $277,000: “Rich people like things that other people don’t have. There will only be about 130 made for the U.S. market .It looks like a piece of art.” (Nora Keuylian).

2002 Aston Martin V-12 Vanquish, $220,000: “It’s a reward purchase. What you’re looking for is hand-built exclusivity. I’d compare it to a boat, or maybe a watch. Something unique.” (Simon Rodd).

Deep Dish

Deep’s cover has been blown.

The hip Hollywood club that prides itself on being known only to those in the know is getting some major exposure in the Warner Bros. movie “Ocean’s Eleven.”

In real life, the only evidence of Deep’s existence is the line of people waiting on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. There are no signs outside to identify it. But in the movie, which features several scenes filmed inside Deep, a prominent neon sign is visible.

That was director Steven Soderbergh’s doing, said Deep owner Ivan Kane, a friend of the filmmaker.

The appearance in “Ocean’s Eleven” has already generated lots of buzz.

“It’ll add to the mystique. The club’s really hot right now and it’s in a big movie,” Kane said. “It can’t hurt.”

Scenic Visions

The 150-acre state park about to be developed along the banks of the Los Angeles River downtown has been widely touted as a major victory for environmentalists and a humbling defeat for commercial developers, especially Majestic Realty’s Ed Roski Jr., who wanted to build an industrial park there.

But developer Dan Rosenfeld of Urban Partners sees it as a huge business opportunity.

“Look at what happened with the value of real estate surrounding Hyde Park in London, or Central Park in New York,” he says. “By having the surrounding parcels up-zoned for high-rise development, where residents and office tenants could overlook the park, those property values would soar.”

L.A. urban parks (e.g. McArthur, Elysian, Echo, etc.) haven’t been much to look at, to say the least. But Rosenfeld points out that even Central Park was a crime-infested nightmare until Rudy Giuliani decided to crack down.

“It’s all in the enforcement how the park is run,” Rosenfeld says.

The Roving Eye

You Mean Max Kaminsky is on CD?

Anyone browsing through the aisles of a music store faces the same quandary: Dare I plunk over 20 bucks for selections I might not like?

Amoeba Records, the Bay Area institution recently opened in Hollywood, is rendering moot such concerns. The store offers listeners a chance to sample a portion of its CD inventory for as long as they like (within reason).

“Our idea was to have it be like walking into a friend’s house and perusing their record collection,” said Karen Pearson, a co-owner of Amoeba.

About 12,000 titles are available on the listening stations and Amoeba eventually wants to make available up to 200,000 titles.

Listening stations are not new, but Amoeba aims to go beyond the more limited offerings of the competition. The ports have incorporated scanners that allow shoppers to listen to virtually any CD in the store. The selections are stored MP3 files on one of two networks located in-house.

Pearson said the listening stations are updated weekly and require substantial upkeep. They also have seen their share of glitches, from not-so-user-friendly software to design flaws that make it difficult to scan certain CDs into the computer.

The new store is the only one in the three-store chain with the system so far. Pearson said the store’s substantial size, 43,000 square feet, made it easier to incorporate the new idea.

Conor Dougherty