Dreary, dumpy & dank: Steve Friess insults Los Angeles architecture in reheated cover story for LA Weekly

Guess who wound up with an LA Weekly cover story? Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen Steve Friess, that's who, with an article on the death of Mike Penner, the Los Angeles Times sportswriter who went public in a column as a transsexual and returned to work as Christine Daniels in 2007, changed his mind about the process and resumed his original name in 2008, and allegedly committed suicide in 2009. The article and its cover placement are confusing in that Friess's work is little more than a reheating of and elaboration of a number of previously published pieces on the subject, including a well-publicised article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in March.

On his own blog, Friess describes his LA Weekly work as "one of the finer pieces of journalism, with the space and time truly needed, I've had a chance to do." Yet, his contribution to the Penner/Daniels saga appears to be a GLBT activist slant which points blame at Penner's co-worker wife, a competing journalist who wrote that Penner as Daniels resembled a man in drag, and even respected journalist Evan Wright (Friess challenges Wright's claim that he'd put the brakes on a Vanity Fair article because of Daniels' fragile mental state). And although he promises revelations from Penner's wife and Penner himself ("Dillman has never spoken on the record about her husband's transition, and Penner never answered the media's questions about their relationship..."), those teases do not pay off.

For all his alleged research (phoning people who had already appeared in other articles), Friess insinuates that he never even read, nor ventured to find the LA Times blog Penner wrote during his transition and which the Times has removed from its site and archives ("...Daniels also never wrote of it in her blog on transgenderism, according to those who read it when it was available online.").

The Las Vegas public figure who came to our attention after he attacked Tabloid Baby online and in print for asking questions about the Las Vegas media's lax coverage of the death of local superstar Danny Gans, is most egregiously ungrateful in his use of the forum to toss off lazy, disputable and easily fact-checked insulting of various Los Angeles locations, all of which seem to have been cooked up at the kitchenette table of his Las Vegas apartment:

"a dreary apartment building on Sepulveda just north of National..."

"...a small shop of roughly 1,000 square feet nestled in a dumpy Studio City strip mall..."

"...a circuitous and dank hallway in L.A.'s fortress-like, nondescript Westwood Villa Apartments..."

Beatles songs for Schmucks

Patrick Goldstein writes a heartwarming story in The Los Angeles Times about how director Jay Roach got permission to use the Beatles song "Fool On The Hill" in his movie, Dinner for Schmucks.

We've condensed the inspirational piece to the crucial lines:

How did Jay Roach get a Beatles song
for 'Dinner for Schmucks'?

"...Jay Roach did what filmmakers do best. He wrote a long letter to Paul McCartney, making it clear that there was no possible substitute for having 'Fool on the Hill.'

"...Roach sent McCartney footage of the opening sequence, with the song playing over it, and--voila--permission was granted."

Punchline:

"Paramount/DreamWorks reportedly paid $1.5 million for its usage."

Richard Abowitz opens Gold Plated Door

Richard Abowitz is not wasting any time getting back into the game after having the distinction in recent weeks of losing both his blog on the Los Angeles Times website due to cost cuts and his print column in the Las Vegas Weekly due to the impending death of the newspaper industry.

The Dean of Las Vegas pop culture writers has started up a new site called Gold Plated Door (see Sin City) which he describes as "an honest broker reporting on all things Vegas," and which will include his unique take on Vegas news, show business, media, and hopefully, anything else he wants to write about.


The site's first "test post," which gives an idea of his style and what's ahead, focuses on Tiger Woods:

"...the most boring celebrity I ever interviewed. I should not be surprised, the connection between a VIP host and a louche celebrity, remains typically Vegas, even if for Woods, Vegas turns out to be only one geographic stop of globetrotting infidelity.

"I interviewed Woods for Tiger Jam, his annual charity concert at Mandalay Bay, a few years ago, and I was given 5 minutes with the golf legend. I have turned down a couple interview offers since. We were done at 3 minutes. He was nice and all, but the money was not worth the time. Woods is boring. When I had no golf questions he was without anything to say. He mentioned that he had little to do with the acts that were playing his concert. He could not name a single song he liked by any of the bands that were performing unless you count 'All of them' as an honest answer and not an expression of total ignorance... Woods did offer to me that his favorite song of all time was 'Eye of the Tiger' and then he explained the pun with his name in case that could be missed. The most memorable thing about the interview was that it is the single time a publicist has asked to search me before I entered an interview room. Did he think I was dangerous? No, he wanted to make sure that I had no golf memorabilia on my person for Woods to sign..."

He refused to be searched.


Abowitz is known not only as the most knowledgeable journo in town, but for his taste for classic literature, self-revelatory writing about his fascinating life and obsessions and an ability to be totally immersed in Vegas culture while remaining somehow above it. He was one of many axed from The Las Vegas Weekly, a fake alt-weekly filled with leftover and expanded articles from Las Vegas Sun columnists like Jon Katsilometes and recycled blogwork from local hacks like New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, comp queen and concert promoter Steve Friess.

It's the LA Times cut that's the head-scratcher. The national paper with the most confusing, behind-the-times website must know that the Internet is where operations must move, and Abowitz' The Movable Buffet blog was not only one of the first LA Times blogs but among the most distinctive and informative in the entire business. Idiots.

We first corresponded with Abowitz after he commented on our initial coverage of the Danny Gans death mystery (he suggested that we were insane), and after a series of collegial and thoughtful exchanges (unlike the hysterical attacks from Friess), we count Abowitz as a Tabloid Baby pal.

Now that he's gone solo, we're glad to see the compromised Friess has a competitor in the Las Vegas blog arena-- and only urge that Abowitz get on that Danny Gans story!

Click here for Gold Plated Door.

The Los Angeles Times also ignores theatre legend John Kenley's pioneering, cross-dressing, hermaphroditic glory... but Brett Hudson remembers

Add the Los Angeles Times to the mainstream media outlets that leave the most colorful part of a great person’s life out of the story. The LA Times is a couple of days behind the New York Times in reporting the death at 103 of John Kenley, the Ohio summer stock theatre impresario known for casting television and movie stars including Burt Reynolds, Mae West, William Shatner and Joe Namath in popular plays and musicals.

We were doing a bit of quick research Sunday morning to see if he’d brought The Hudson Brothers to Ohio, when we discovered that the famously-closeted Merv Griffin had outed the beloved Mr. Kenley as an alleged "registered" hermaphrodite, and that the producer lived half the year in Florida as “Joan.”

Neither Times found that information fit to print. We did. His determination to live his life in the Midwest on his own uncompromising terms surely makes him a trendsetter of the 20th Century.

And just a few minutes ago, Brett Hudson phoned our office to sto say he’d read our post about “Mr. Kenley”—who indeed had produced a Hudson Brothers in Godspell in 1977.

Said Brett:

“I couldn’t believe you did an item on Mr. Kenley. We did Godspell in Columbus, Ohio. It was the summertime and it was sold out. And after we finished the performance, my brothers and I would sit in the lobby and sign autographs.

“On the second night after the show, we’re signing autographs and there’s a long line, and John Kenley is in the autograph line, and he hands us a photo and says, ‘Will you sign this picture?’ And we see that the photo is already signed— to ‘Joan.’ We asked him, ‘Who’s Joan?’ and he says, ‘Didn’t you notice? I was in line on Opening Night!’

“He was in line-- in full-blown drag! It was unbelievable! You know how you can usually tell? You couldn’t. He was a complete— he was a woman!”

“He was the strangest person. And he was the nicest guy. He loved great theatre. He had such passion for the theatre. And when I found out that he’d died, I teared up a little. With his passing, you lose that passion, that Old School passion.

“Working for John Kenley was a pleasure. He loved what he did. He was a wonderful person. A great guy. And yeah, a great gal!"

Performers were known as The Kenley Players. Paul Lynde is said to have been the most popular. There's a website seeking out surviving Players.

Day Two: LA Times website now displays several photos of an accurately middle-aged Roman Polanski for feature on his rape of a 13-year-old girl

It took a day, but as a result of our insistence, editors at the Los Angeles Times have presented an accurate visual presentation of Roman Polanski in its website promotion of a feature story that recounts the sordid, explicit details of his 13-year-old rape victim's grand jury testimony.

Tabloid Baby was the first to direct readers to the girl's graphic grand jury testimony, on the day Polanski was arrested in Switzerland, 32 years after he fled the United States to escape sentencing. Close to a month later, the LA Times ran the story on its website and as a front page come-on in its Weekend print edition, and featured a photo of a baby-faced Polanski, a dozen years younger than he was when he admittedly anally raped the child. The photo selection and juxtaposition did make it appear as if the age difference between predator and victim was not so great (it was 30 years), and subtly lessen the impact of Polanski's crime. The paper replaced the misleading photo late yesterday, after our staff reached out to the reporter.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

This morning, the website has gone overboard, with several photos of an adult Polanski-- and without the additional photo of the smiling young victim.

Update: LA Times website replaces photo of youthful Roman Polanski in promotion of article about his rape of 13-year-old girl when he was 43

More than ten hours after we pointed put that the Los Angeles Times was using a photo of a youthful Roman Polanski to promote its sexually-explicit recounting of his 13-year-old victim's grand jury testimony of her anal rape by the then 43-year-old celebrity director in 1977, the paper's website has replaced the 1965 picture with one showing Polanski in 1979.

Although Polanski was 43 when he was arrested for the anal rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977, the paper's website used a detail of a photo of the fresh-faced 32-year-old Polanski with Jill St. John at the New York premiere of Bunny Lake is Missing in 1965.

The site added insult to the girl's injury when it juxtaposed the young Polanski with a photo of the smiling victim.


Why the paper chose to promote a front-page Sunday feature about a 43-year-old's rape of a 13-year-old with a shot that makes the admitted perpetrator seem like "a kid" was also a mystery to the article's writer, who emailed us to say:

"Not sure exactly. Good point though. The one they had up earlier was when he was 43, as will be the one in the paper."

Sometime after our exchange, the Times website switched to a photo taken in October 1979, after Polanski had fled sentencing for the sex assault:


In a photo gallery added to the online feature, it's revealed that the repalcement headshot is a detail of Polanski with 18-year-old Nastassja Kinski, star of his film Tess (in his autobiography, Polanski admitted engaging in intercourse with Kinski when she was 15):


The Sunday print preview edition of the Times features a large version of this photo from the 1977 legal proceedings:

Why did the LA Times choose a photo of a young, boyish Roman Polanski for its late and lurid feature on his child rape case?

Los Angeles Times photo

The day Roman Polanski was picked up in Switzerland on a fugitive warrant issued in 1978 after his guilty plea in a child rape case, we led our readers immediately to transcripts of the 13-year-old victim's testimony about her ordeal with the 43-year-old celebrity director that included drugging her with Champagne and Quaaludes, oral copulation and anal sodomization.


So it's interesting that this morning, close to a month after Polanski's September 27th arrest and weeks after the expected Hollywood brouhaha of support has died down in wake of the stark details of the young girl's words, that the Los Angeles Times chooses to run a lurid recreation of the testimony under the guise of it being somehow "lost in the spectacle."


What's more interesting is the Times website editors' apparent decision to lesson the blow to Polanski and his high-profile Hollywood supporters by using a photo of the criminal apparently taken when he was in his baby-faced early twenties, before he let his hair grow out int he style of the day-- a stylistic move the took at least a decade before he, at age 43, admittedly preyed upon a 13-year-old child.

It appears to be a subtle and subliminal flourish. In the Los Angeles Times photo chosen to represent today's extended story, Polanski looks like a boy. When he ran away, he was a man.

Roman Polanski 1977-1978

Mainstream media begins to realize TMZ's Jacko death scoop was not what it seemed

It's taken them a few days to catch up, but the established mainstream media is beginning to clear the stardust out of their eyes and realize there was something fishy about corporate, porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com scooping the world on the death of Michael Jackson.


We laid out the evidence on Friday that under the leadership of shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin, TMZ took the same information that everyone else had and gambled that it spelled out that Jacko was dead-- that they ran the "Michael Jackson is dead" story before getting official confirmation, before knowing for sure. The upside? Well, look at how the mainstream media, from Brian Stelter in the New York Times to beaten beat writers in the Los Angeles Times, have responded with awestruck wonder at the supposed technological and journalistic brilliance of the jealous, corrupt mutts at TMZ for going with the story a good forty minutes before anyone else (see Dan Rather at Parkland Hospital). The downside? There's not much of a downside. There was enough confusion in which smarmy sleazy Harvey could have slimed his way out of it, and gotten the attention just the same (see The Hitler Diaries).


This afternoon, the Los Angeles Times website runs -- and Drudge headlines as a "whine"-- a "comment" piece entitled, "How would we have reacted if TMZ had been wrong about Michael Jackson's death?"

Alexandra Le Tellier writes:

"TMZ would become the first outlet to announce the singer’s death. What came next was a surprise. Before the RIPs and the 'he touched us all' jokes, many users began posting jabs aimed at CNN -- more specifically, its irrelevance as a news source...

"Has technology’s ability to deliver information at such a rapid pace corrupted us? ...Have our standards for accountability dissolved?

"...And who was TMZ’s source anyway? The site’s managing editor, Harvey Levin, said he and his staff made hundreds of calls, but he didn't divulge whom they spoke to, which begs the question of whether they confirmed the news with a reliable, accountable source -- as is required by the Los Angeles Times -- or if they spoke to someone who was violating patient confidentiality.

"When 19 employees at this same hospital, UCLA Medical Center, were busted in 2008 for snooping through Britney Spears’ confidential medical records, it was hard not to wonder why they’d have risked their jobs. Were they looking for a story to sell just as their colleague, Lawanda Jackson, had done? She was indicted in 2008 for selling information about Farrah Fawcett and accessing hundreds of other files. If that’s the case here, are we seriously going to trust people who’re willing to break the law for some fast cash?

“'A curious thing is at play here,' (NY Times syndicate ethics columnist Jeffrey) Seglin continues. 'Few people expect TMZ or Drudge or the National Enquirer to get things right or to report on issues of substance. When they do, at least so far, it’s a bit of an anomaly. So the consequences for getting it wrong among such sites do not seem terribly high. If CNN, Fox … got such things wrong, the consequences would likely be higher...'

"Would TMZ take the same approach to a political figure, which in turn could pose a threat to national security? Let’s hope we never find out."

Though the article is deep in the Times' little-read Blog section and its writer is under the impression that TMZ got a legitimate scoop through illegal, paid sources, it's significant for a few reasons. The writer quotes an ethicist from the national competitor in New York, whose kid TV writer led the TMZ cheerleading over the weekend-- a sign that after their initial starry-eyed reaction to being beaten on the story, the old world news media is gathering the forces to get back at the sleazy TV lawyer who broke the rules. Drudge may call it a "whine", but obviously unhappy being lumped in with TMZ, he posted the link on his influential page, which means talk radio producers and other news organizations too lazy to come up with their own ideas will pick up the TMZ story.


And even though the TMZ gamble paid off in the end, the Jackson death stunt does not bode well for TMZ's plans to encroach further into Washington, D.C. politics and matters of national importance. Its corporate overlords Time Warner and AOL may have found it cute when Harvey and his boys began comparing the pectoral muscles of congressmen or playing their curbside ambush games in Georgetown, but they wouldn't be happy at all if their bastard child jumped the gun on an assassination and caused panic and riots in the streets.

Developing...

Gans memorial will go on with no answers about what caused his untimely death at 52; Vegas journos waste column inches questioning public invites

The memorial tribute to Danny Gans will go on at the Encore Theatre later this afternoon without most people having any idea of what caused the gifted musical impressionist to die suddenly at age 52. A spokeswoman for the Clark County Coroner's Office told TabloidBaby.com minutes ago that the results of toxicology reports on the late superstar are "still pending," and suggested that they won't be known until early next week, "after the holiday" at the earliest.

As a footnote we'd like to point out that our team members have spoken to several spokeswoman for the coroner in the past week or so, and to a person they have been more than professional: courteous, helpful and charming. This is not a fawning note-- they really do stand out.

What also stands out is the attitude of more than one Las Vegas columnist when it comes to the free tickets to today's Gans memorial that were handed out to members of the public. We were astounded yesterday when comp queen and Vegas writer Steve Friess (left) called the idea "strange," and referred to the ordinary folk who'd attend the tribute as "seatfillers" as if they were paid stand-ins who fill in empty seats at award shows to make the room look full. We saw it as smart and generous way to allow the common man to pay tribute to the Everyman superstar (limited seating, great demand, makes sense)-- especially after the panic over the public storming the gates at the event or his secret funeral.

Yet today, two Las Vegas print columnists also mock the idea. Richard Abowitz, who writes the Vegas blog for the Los Angeles Times and has maintained a noticeable hands-off policy with the Gans story ("I have tried to write as little as possible about Gans' passing. Right now the death investigation is awaiting a toxicology report and then we will know better if we are discussing a John Ritter or a Heath Ledger death or something else. Whatever the cause, the facts are that the father of three is dead and the show is closed. Those are the two facts that matter most in Vegas, and no future information will alter them.") posts today:

"I assume trying to cajole volunteers to come to the memorial at Encore is being done to create a full house for the cameras and media covering this tribute to Gans. 'Free Comp tickets are currently available for Danny Gans Memorial Thursday afternoon at Wynn,' the e-mails read. Has anyone ever heard of being comped to a memorial service before?"

Even Mike Weatherford of the Las Vegas Review-Journal took time to question the gesture:

"...It was quite a surprise to see one of the daily blasts offering a complimentary ticket to the Danny Gans memorial service today at Encore.

"Well, it's not a surprise in one sense. ShowTickets4Locals is co-owned by the late impressionist's manager, Chip Lightman. But it did raise questions of why they needed to 'paper' a service that had been characterized as an invitation-only gathering of family and friends?

"'It was not an effort to fill the house,' says Gans' publicist, Laura Herlovich. Rather, 'Danny was very active in a lot of community things,' and this was part of the outreach to include some 'regular' fans and locals in the memorial. Tickets also were given to firefighters and police officers, she said..."

These Vegas journos think differently than the rest of us beyond the desert. Of all the things to write about in the case of Danny Gans, this gets them to their word processors.

The Las Vegas Sun? John Katsilometes, who's backed way off from the Gans story since his Day One questions, jots off a quick column saying that today's memorial has got him listening to Paul McCartney and attending a family reunion.

Go figure.

Developing...

Exposed and scrutinized by Tabloid Baby, the Los Angeles Times acknowledges the Sarah Palin pregnancy scandal it had deliberately ignored

Under pressure from TabloidBaby.com and in response to yesterday's post calling attention to its deliberate deception, the Los Angeles Times has replaced its initial story on the pregnancy of dangerously extreme and ill-equipped vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's daughter with a new report that includes a mention of the initial question that led to the announcement.

The McCain-Palin camp announced yesterday that 17-year-old Bristol Palin was pregnant, in order as the New York Times and other media reported, "to counter rumors by liberal bloggers that Ms. Palin had claimed to have given birth to her fifth child in April when, according to the rumors, the child was her daughter’s."


The struggling and increasingly "square" Los Angeles Times, in its 20th Century notion that certain news should and can be withheld from the public, ran the story without mentioning the rumours that had swept through the Internet all weekend:

"(McCain strategist Steve) Schmidt said the campaign had hoped that Bristol's pregnancy would remain private in spite of 'a lot of very disturbing nasty smears moving around on the Internet.' He said the campaign released the Palins' statement because of the number of media inquiries about Bristol..."

Yesterday afternoon, our staff contacted reporters Robin Abcarian, Maeve Restson and Mark Barabak, who shared the initial byline on the story, why they chose to leave out such a crucial element of the story.

None of the reporters responded, but today, hours after our posting and emails to the reporters, the original story was replaced on the website by a new one, attributed solely to Barabak, and including this line in the sixteenth graph:

"(McCain strategist Steve) Schmidt told reporters that the campaign issued the statement on Bristol's pregnancy to rebut Internet rumors that the governor's 4-month-old baby, Trig, is in fact Bristol's child."

The LA Times leaves out key information in the Sarah & Bristol Palin pregnancy scandal, showing again why it is irrelevant in the Internet age

Weeks after it ignored the John Edwards baby scandal that erupted on its turf, The Los Angeles Times runs a story on its website this afternoon about the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's teenage daughter Bristol, pointedly neglecting to mention that the reason the McCain-Palin camp released the news was to counter stories that Bristol is actually the mother of Palin's five-month-old son.

Who are these guys trying to fool?

LA Times:

"ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin said today that her 17-year old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant and plans to wed.

"In a statement released by the campaign, Sarah and Todd Palin did not say when their daughter told them the news. But John McCain's campaign aides said they were aware of Bristol's pregnancy before the presumptive Republican presidential nominee chose Palin as his running mate...

"(McCain strategist Steve) Schmidt said the campaign had hoped that Bristol's pregnancy would remain private in spite of 'a lot of very disturbing nasty smears moving around on the Internet.' He said the campaign released the Palins' statement because of the number of media inquiries about Bristol..."

The New York Times:

"ST. PAUL — The 17-year-old daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate, is five months pregnant, Ms. Palin announced today, adding a new element of tumult to a the Republican convention that had already been disrupted by Hurricane Gustav...

"The announcement was intended to counter rumors by liberal bloggers that Ms. Palin had claimed to have given birth to her fifth child in April when, according to the rumors, the child was her daughter’s."

The story's been on the front burner all weekend. The old men at the Los Angeles Times, in their white shirts and ties need to realize that nowadays, when they withhold information because it's deemed "unsuitable," they only expose themselves.

After weeks of dithering while the story raged, The LA Times explains why it's finally deemed the John Edwards love child story worthy of mention

On today's Los Angeles Times Readers' Representative Journal try to find it blog:




Handling the John Edwards Story

Times readers and others since late July have sent notes by the dozens to the readers' representative office, asking if The Times was looking into a story published by the National Enquirer containing allegations about John Edwards. National Editor Scott Kraft sent an e-mail Thursday night to the Times' communications department and the readers' representative office, two departments that have fielded the questions about how this story was being handled. [Update: This posting earlier said that The Times hadn't published anything about the Enquirer reports; in fact, the Opinion LA blog did post an item on July 23 that was a roundup of coverage by others.] Kraft's note:

"We have decided to post, on Top of the Ticket, an item and link to a Charlotte Observer report, quoting Democratic supporters of Edwards on the record as saying that they think he needs to address the National Enquirer report if he hopes to speak at the convention.

"While we have stayed away from that Enquirer report, because we couldn't confirm it, this strikes us as a legitimate story -- that on-the-record Dems, including a former Edwards campaign manager, are criticizing Edwards' decision to stay mum on the topic and saying it might affect his credibility enough that he wouldn't get a speaking slot at the convention. (Those speaking slots haven't been decided yet, the party says.)"

Another reason why the LA Times is crumbling

Big story breaks out in their bailywick. Of course it involves a liberal politician and was broken by a news organization with more reporters, lawyers, sources, tipsters and documentation that the dying mainstream giant can muster, so the LA Times doesn't only ignore the easily-confirmable story, it tells its online force they're banned from covering it. Hey, we like John Edwards, too. He stands for the right things. But you know what, like Gary Hart, he tempted fate and got caught. Here's the memo sent out by LA Times editor Tony Pierce,who's in charge of all the LA Times bloggers. Note the casual hipster greeting and signoff. Too bad, dinosaurs:

From: "Pierce, Tony"
Date: July 24, 2008 10:54:41 AM PDT
To: [XXX]
Subject: john edwards

Hey bloggers, There has been a little buzz surrounding John Edwards and his alleged affair. Because the only source has been the National Enquirer we have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations. So I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified.

If you have any questions or are ever in need of story ideas that would best fit your blog, please don't hesitate to ask

Keep rockin,

Tony


...A tip of the Tabloid Baby hat to Mickey Kaus and Gawker...