LABJ’s LA Stories
Strip Scenery
On July 10, the competition among Sunset Strip billboards came to a head.
No, advertisers weren’t painting over each other’s creations they were battling more civilly at the Fourth Annual Sunset Strip Billboard Awards.
This year’s Billboard of the Year winner was the Yahoo Inc. sign created by Outdoor Vision. Target’s “Surfer,” created by Hawthorne Media, was selected Tall Wall of the Year, a category for the building-sized billboards.
“These billboards are an attraction in and of themselves,” said Mindy Bradish of the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who directed the awards.
Among the seven judges was Bill Farley, vice president of event marketing Playboy Enterprises Inc.
“We ranked each board according to aesthetics and the message,” Farley said. “I felt it was very important that when you’re going by at 30 mph the look of board and whatever it conveys has to catch your eye.”
Matt Myerhoff
Carson Crawl
The Dave Matthews Band christened the new Home Depot Center in Carson late last month as a rock arena. But don’t expect rave reviews of the trip to the venue from concertgoers.
The stadium got panned for its version of a transportation service a couple of shuttle buses that were hyped on its Web site before the concert as offering a speedy alternative to onsite parking.
When fans arrived at the Carson Mall parking lot, they were met with only an unruly crowd that spent a half-hour waiting for a bus to arrive and another agonizing 20 minutes in traffic, fearful they would miss the show.
On the return trip, the buses emptied the crowd at the other end of the parking lot, forcing several concertgoers to walk through a wall of shrubbery and three-inch deep mud puddles to get to their cars.
A call to the new arena’s transportation director was not returned.
Kate Berry
Reality Complications
Max Factor heir and convicted rapist Andrew Luster’s spectacular capture by bounty hunters in Puerto Vallarta was a made-for-TV-ending to a dramatic story.
But reality threw a wrench into the made-for-TV movie Executive Producer Larry Thompson was five days away from completing.
“On a personal level, having lived with this story about these poor women, it was great he was captured, and gave a real sense of poetic justice to our story,” Thompson said. “But as a professional making a movie, I thought, ‘what do I do now?'”
His Larry Thompson Entertainment Inc. is promoting the cautionary tale as “the first drug date rape movie,” basing the script on transcripts of the trial, which landed Luster a 124-year sentence. Luster was convicted in absentia on 86 counts of sex and drug violations after skipping bail and fleeing to Mexico.
Thompson’s crew was shooting in Victoria, Canada when they learned of the capture, and the $4 million budget precluded shipping the operation south, so they stayed put.
“It’s the magic of moviemaking,” Thompson said. “We found an area with the ocean and a cruise ship in the background, and made a taco stand, some sombreros and got some chickens walking around. We used color correction to give it a ‘Tequila Sunrise’ tint.”
The tale will air this month on the Lifetime cable network.
Matt Myerhoff
High Notes
With increased security, occasional flight delays and choking exhaust, LAX may not generally put passengers in a singing frame of mind, but that will be different for part of the airport’s 75th anniversary celebration.
On Aug. 6, Southwest Airlines is hosting a karaoke contest in which contestants will be required to sing the same song: Leanne Scott’s 1971 country tune “Los Angeles International Airport.”
But while the music remains the same, the lyrics have been updated for the contest, which will be held at Encounters Restaurant.
A preliminary round this past weekend was held to narrow the field down to 10 finalists, who will each get to belt out their version on country station KZLA-FM (93.9).
“The contest seemed like a great way to get the word out about LAX’s 75th anniversary,” said Southwest spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger.
Katherine Wang
The Roving Eye
Real Golden Arches
Who says Los Angeles doesn’t celebrate its past?
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the oldest operating McDonald’s in the world the landmark site right in Downey two local pop-culture historians have set up a bus tour exploring “the legacy and hidden history” of the brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald, founders of the fast food chain.
Los Angeles Conservancy activists Chris Nichols and Ross Plesset have designed a bus tour that starts at the historic store and will travel Route 66 to the Inland Empire.
The bus will stop at the original McDonald’s in San Bernardino it was torn down in 1974 along with the colonial home of the McDonald brothers and the San Bernardino machine shop where many of McDonald’s fast food innovations were first created.
“It’s a real big deal,” said Nichols, an assistant editor at Los Angeles magazine, “and it came from these humble beginnings that (McDonald’s Corp.) doesn’t even talk about.”
Rare films and still photos of the early days of McDonald’s will be screened on the bus.
“My whole story ends just as Ray Kroc shows up at the place,” said Nichols, who has nearly sold out the first tour scheduled for Aug. 16.
Ron Piazza, the owner and operator of the Downey location, is throwing an all-day party on Aug. 18 in celebration of the anniversary. The party is modeled after a 1950s sock hop.
“I’m just privileged to be taking care of the restaurant,” Piazza said. “But it will long outlast me. This is something that will stand the test of time.”
Andy Fixmer
