I opened my LA Times fearfully Sunday morning—which is not a relaxing way to approach one’s weekend paper. Even though Kevin at LA Observed reported that we’d still have the Sunday Opinion section and the Book Review until the end of this month, I became convinced that the Zellster and cohorts might order the editors to pull the sections early, just to mess with our heads.
Thankfully the grafted-together Opinion/Book Review combo was still in evidence, although reading it was a little like going to the ICU to visit a terminally ill family member. While you’re thankful for the time together, any real delight is tempered by impending loss.
Matters were not helped by the realization that, if this Sunday’s paper is any kind of accurate bellwether, while opinions and books will take a powder, we can count on having 48 freaking pages devoted to style and entertainment.
Look, I go to movies, concerts and I…uh…wear clothes, so I’m as fond of style and entertainment as the next person. (Actually, in my long-ago checkered past I was a fashion editor for several women’s magazines, so I’m probably even more fond of all that style-y stuff than many readers might be.)
But I really, really don’t need or want 48 pages of it, particularly if 20 of those pages come at the expense of opinion and books (and the environment and transportation and whatever else it is they keep cutting, or just fail to cover now.)
And I definitely don’t need eight pages (count ‘em) about goddamn surfing attire.
But if you’re some Chicago billionaire real estate jerk (who, as someone noted recently, bears a creepily strong resemblance to an escaped garden gnome) apparently you believe that Los Angeles residents are primarily interested in movies, movie stars, TV stars, high-end clothes shopping, and…..surfing. (At least those residents with enough discretionary income—or stupidity, like me— to subscribe to a daily paper when they can get it online for free instead.)
Oh, yeah, it appears we’re also allowed to like sports and real estate—-hence, I guess, Sunday’s front page story, which answers the burning question: Where Are Sports Stars Buying Real Estate?
(HINT: at the beach. Where there’s casual fashion…….and surfing.)
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photo of life’s important issues by Anne Cusack, LA Times)
Yes, I take your general points: some LAT writers have opined that Zell expressly wants to go much more towards Entertainment and Style (which is fine upto a point, since that is a lot of what distinguishes us, fortunately, apart from also being “the gang capital of the world).
But did you catch that in the article about how sports stars AND others were moving to Manhattan Beach not only because it has surf and sand and all that nice California stuff, but also SAFE STREETS AND GOOD SCHOOLS? And you CAN CATCH THESE STARS AT THE LOCAL PTA MEETINGS? As I’ve been harping on in this blog and elsewhere, those two things, including very primarily schools, are a huge draw for both the average middle class person, the upper middle class two-income lawyer couple (who are perhaps more likely to move to Palos Verdes, to get more land around their house) as sports stars earning 6 figures.
Just confirms what I also keep harping on: that you can’t blame the people who put their kids into private schools, you have to blame the outlandishly outdated PC dictators like Julie Korenstein for NOT giving them an alternative: just saying, “if you don’t put your kids in a way underperforming, unsafe, gang-infested place where white kids, let alone rich white kids, are bullied, you’re a racist.”
When the good schools exist, even rich celebs take advantage of them — having kids from a neighborhood go to school together forms lifetime bonds, and keeps them “grounded.” We just plain have NO CHOICE in much of the city. Here in LA, we can catch celebs in the deli aisle at Bristol Farms or just walking the aisles at Bed, Bath — but other than at a very small handful of elem schools, not in the schools. And that’s a huge loss to LAUSD — since if these people did put their kids there, the level of overall support and fundraising for the schools would shoot up astronomically, as would feeling of civic cohesiveness.
She’s a cutie. I need sports and you want fashions. I suggest subscribing to Sports Illustrated and get the swimsuit issue.
Celeste: Amen. I surf and I don’t need eight goddamn pages about surfing attire, especially written in a superficial way by mostly non-surfers. The whole exercise seems aimed at no one except editors who want to make themselves feel in touch by publishing a shallow, surface feature on the most meaningless aspect of one of the most-important sports and cultures on the West Coast.
Just kidding. Me and my bros were just discussing the importance and political implications of length when it comes to board shorts.
Still, the TIMES had the Maliki story on page one. I know – must have shocked Zell to see Real News in the paper but neither the WaPo nor the NYT had it there.
I had to laugh at the lead story in the Sunday Business section. Teens shopping for cheap back-to-school clothes?? Um. O.K. Fascinating story indeed, but 1/2 the front page of the Sunday Business section being dedicated to this drivel?? If this is the new direction that this section is being steered, then I suppose we’re in for more entertainment news, but in the business section. Whoo. Hoo.
But, LA has a huge garment industry, which the LAT has ignored in favor of sending Booth Moore to Milan and Paris. While the Image section couldn’t be more jejune, at least they’re actually writing about clothes made hereabouts. Retail stories are a constant in the business section, as is back to school.
And the sports stars story was good–finally the LAT reports a local news story that’s not “gangbangers at work and play” or “high-density housing can work here”.