Thanks to the movie Resolved, discussed in a prior posting, we know that the number one fear Americans have is public speaking, and number two is death.

Dare we suggest that number three might be confinement in a room with a deathly dull public speaker?

It's inside the Billy Wilder Theater, and a group of the artists profiled in a doc we've just seen, titled THE COOL SCHOOL, are coming up to the stage to talk about it. But oh lordy, this moderator...I understand he's an art gallery owner, which is appropriate, but he's not a speaker.

Friday at the fest was a little bit different -- all the interesting-looking films were playing at the Landmark Westside, that new fancy art-house 12-plex at the Westside Pavilion. Parking there is free, unlike in Westwood, where everything else is happening. The trade-off you make is that beer is not free. I tried a $12 Avant-Garde Ale at the theaters beer and wine bar -- it came in a big bottle and was worth $12. A bit French-tasting, so probably not recommended for Republicans.

Likewise, the new Michael Moore movie. Nope, haven’t seen it, but Constantine’s Sword director Oren Jacoby told us that, because Sicko is doing boffo, Michael’s movie got added into another big auditorium, with LAFF wedged into one of the littler places. I have no independent confirmation of this -- but feel pretty certain that the LAFF screen was not the size any festival organizer would pick, given the choice.

This would cause some trouble later on.

Raise your hand if you thought Gavin Rossdale of Bush could be a decent actor. Or a decent anything. Yeah, he got his face melted in Constantine, but that proved nothing.

But Mr. Gwen Stefani really shows something in HOW TO ROB A BANK, as a pill-popping criminal named Simon (after Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran, as it turns out), who apparently didn’t get the memo that “LOVE” and “HATE” tattoos on the fingers went out of style years ago (as per his own lyrics, "love and hate, get it wrong"). Simon is the principal bank robber of the title, whose plans are derailed slightly when a pissed-off, Hobbit-looking good-for-nothing named Jinx (Nick Stahl) gets himself locked in the bank vault during the heist, alongside Simon’s associate Jessica (Erika Christensen). The story that ensues is a four-way stand-off among Jinx and Jessica in the vault, Simon and his armed thugs in the bank, flustered Officer DeGepse (Terry Crews) and his cops outside, and a mysterious man on the other end of Erika’s phone named Nick (voice of David Carradine).

The city of Santa Ana's EPIC Commission, a group of local politicians and activists formed to prevent gang violence, offered a guided tour through what one official called "one of the worst neighborhoods" for crime in Santa Ana June 27.

At a natural break point during its three-hour meeting, politicians, some local youth, some older ex-gang members, pastors at local churches and four police officers—two in bulletproof vests, two in a cruiser—set off on an evening stroll through the neighborhood.

The streets we walk are located a few blocks to the west of where the meeting was held, the Boys and Girls Club on Highland Street between Flower and Shelton streets.

As we arrive at Shelton Street, I already feel intrusive just being a member of what looked like nothing so much as tourists on a ghetto safari, eyeballing residents' living rooms through open doors.

Bribing your child, Huntington Beach style:

The scene: A nail shop run by cheerful, chatty Vietnamese ladies. A large white mother and her two daughters — one in her 20s, one probably 12 — sit in the spa chairs getting pedicures. A little white dog lounges on mom's lap.

12-year-old to Mom: I don't wanna go to that thing later.
Mom: But I want you to go.
12-year-old: But I don't wanna.
Mom: But I want you to.
12-year-old: No.
Mom: $40. I'll give you $40 to go. I want you to be there.
12-year-old: *ignores Mom and instructs the lady doing her nails to paint three flowers onto her larger toes*
Mom: Honey . . .
12-year-old: $60.

• Immigration reform bill tanks: Local politicians applauded the death of a bill that would have legalized millions of immigrants, reports the Daily Pilot.
• Newport OIS: Newport Beach police fatally shot a man suspected of driving drunk after a three-mile chase this morning.
• iPhone madness: The Register's in-house gadget nut has been in line outside an Irvine Apple store overnight. The iPhone goes on sale at 6 p.m. Friday.
• Today in court: Arraignment is set for Guillermo Rodriguez Sr. and his son, Guillermo Rodriguez Jr. The pair allegedly strangled a neighbor to death last year.

After the claustrophobic overcrowding of Broxton avenue for the LAFF opening night party, I wasn’t expecting the Transformers premiere bash to be as well-run as it was. Adjacent parking lots were opened up, and food and drink were so prevalent that, if you actually ventured all the way in, it was possible to get plenty of both with no waiting.

Half the food was Burger King, which was a letdown, despite the presence of that creepy King guy from the ads. But there was plenty of other stuff too, including a make-your-own chili-cheese dog buffet line with gourmet chicken sausage, Caesar salad shakers, roast veggie wraps, and fancy low-carb pizza. Cotton candy and churro stands were also in effect.

And if you wanted to find a bar -- look up. Each booze-stand was adorned by one of the movie’s Autobots (only in vehicle mode, though a Bumblebee robot was spotted in the street outside). Optimus Prime was in the exclusive press area, but other than that, said area had nothing the rest of the party didn’t have, except too many people.

• Liar, liar: Yesterday, we noted that The OC Register wouldn't be taking Marti Buscaglia on as publisher after all, after she confessed she'd misrepresented her education in her résumé. The Times and Register follow up with the story.
• All apologies: Three former Exodus International leaders issued a public apology yesterday, saying their efforts at the ex-gay ministry caused many gays and lesbians harm.
• New crime trend in LB: Snagging restaurant safes seems to be the latest in thing on the Long Beach crime scene, reports the Press-Telegram.
• How annoying: A man in Newport Beach has been seen annoying children for the third time, reports the Daily Pilot.
• Door slams on the slammer: Mismanagement (and creepy ex-employees) closes the Seal Beach jail.

The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics released the final standings of their annual Directors’ Cup today, with three Greater Orange County universities making the top 100.

UC Irvine topped the OC representatives at 56th, followed by CSUs Fullerton and Long Beach at 79th and 91st, respectively. Stanford finished first, capturing its 13th straight title (seriously, Stanford, take it down a notch, okay?).

Universities are awarded points based on how many sports are fielded in national post-season events and how well they do. The scoring system is easy to follow. Here’s an excerpt of the Directors’ policy:

If three teams tied for 30th place in a 64-team event, the average of the points given to places 30-32 (44 pts., 43 pts., 42 pts.) will be given to all three teams. In this case, each team would receive 43 pts. ((44+43+42)/3=43).”

See? Simple. Anyway, local schools have three in the top bracket of Division I rankings, so it’s been a good year. Cheers and congratulations.

The Orange County Register seemingly made history earlier this month when it announced that Marti Buscaglia would be its new publisher. Buscaglia would've been the first Latina publisher at a major daily and would've started July 9. We speak in the past tense because Buscaglia unexpectedly announced her resignation today. In a memo to Register staffers, current publisher and CEO of Freedom Communications (the Reg's parent company) N. Christan Anderson III announced that Buscaglia "has come forward to inform us that she misrepresented her educational qualifications on her résumé, and agrees that it damages her credibility with Freedom and by extension with the readers of the Register."

It's not known what lie ("misrepresented," my ass) Buscaglia told Anderson. Her résumé claims she graduated with a B.A. in advertising and communications from the University of Lima in Peru. Did she finish her studies? Was the university in fact Lima Technical College in Lima, Ohio? Stay tuned . . .

Have you ever seen a movie that you really liked, but realized you couldn’t recommend it to anybody you know because they’ll probably all hate it?

I’ve been pegged as a contrarian before, but a lot of the time I’m genuinely surprised when people can’t see the merits of a film that I really dig. However, in the case of BUILD A SHIP, SAIL TO SADNESS, I totally get why many will hate it, and why so many walked out during the festival screening.

Picture Borat crossed with The Brown Bunny, minus any nudity. Got that? Now imagine the worst visual quality imaginable -- the movie was actually shot on Hi-8 and transferred to 16mm, but it looks like it was shot on VHS and left unplayed in a closet for ten years. This is deliberate, but ugly as hell, and a major gamble with jaded audiences.

If you’re going to talk during a movie, really do it. I’m talking like they do at the Magic Johnson theater. Yell out something like, “Oh no you didn’t!” or “Bitch, don’t go in there!” That can be fun.

DON’T sit down beside me, and spend the movie murmuring stuff just loudly enough to annoy me, especially if your observations are such gems as, “He did something to her,” or “I like the score.” Thanks, dummy, we were all on pins and needles wondering if some random jerk thinks the music is effective. This was the guy to the right of me during the screening of JOSHUA; I told him to shut up, and that lasted maybe 30 minutes. To my left, my lovely companion, and to the left of her, a bald Persian dude who complained about her text messaging (which is fair game to complain about) only to engage a running commentary throughout, at one point even kinda dancing in his seat, or something.

• Dismantled Pride: The Pride of Newport, a replica riverboat that's been a local landmark for 43 years, has been sentenced to death by dismantlement — which started yesterday.
• Back from the border: A "career criminal" deported around a month ago is back and already stirring things up — allegedly dropping his pants before a woman in Lake Forest and peeking through a window to watch a 12-year-old boy emerge from the shower.
• Up, up and away: The 75-foot-diameter helium balloon that will hover over Irvine's Great Park is projected to run a $500,000 annual deficit, reports the Times.
• Aaw: Earlier in the month, two pit bulls killed Nan Haacker's beloved pet poodle. So the Tustin Police Officers Association drummed up some dough and bought her a new one.

Last night was the opening of Lalita, a new Monday club at Fury, and Leslie (Le Receptionist) came along with me to provide her brilliant photography skills. This was my first time going to Fury, and weekday night clubs are always questionable in terms of awesomeness. Sometimes they absolutely go off, like Call Sick, and sometimes they sink (I won’t name anybody). Really, it’s either hit or miss.

“So, what kind of music?” Leslie asked me.
I have no idea.

“What’s the crowd like?”
Beats me.

Basically, we were venturing into uncharted waters. Whatever: It was Monday night, and there was nothing better to do.

I said, if it sucks, we’ll go eat somewhere.

Suck it did not. In fact, I’m putting Lalita in the “absolutely goes off” category.

It was packed, and there was a line of hopefuls outside waiting to get in that snaked around the building. All the waitresses wore little red kimono minidresses, which was a cute touch, and the bartenders were heavy-handed with the alcohol.

Being in Newport, I was afraid the crowd would be rife with the typical spray-tans-and-silicone uppityness, but it was actually pretty chill. The invitation said, “Dress to Impress,” which everybody did, but there was a relaxed attitude hovering over the black suits and slinky dresses.

The dance floor could be bigger, but it didn’t matter. For the first few hours, it belonged to the breakdancers anyway.

One wall was covered in a checkerboard pattern of screens that shifted from shot to shot of grainy black-and-white photography. It was so visually delicious I almost didn’t realize some of the subjects were Lindsay Lohan and Avenged Sevenfold. Almost.

Everything was lushly decorated with black upholstery and Eastern red accents. The club’s layout swept downwards, pulling you toward the central bar, aglow with red light shining through hundreds of neatly lined bottles. It looked like it was on fire.

You must, must, must check out Leslie’s slideshow!

"Damn it! This is not a good sign."
—OC defense lawyer who, before a court hearing, dropped her in-custody client's white button-down shirt in the street and watched as a pickup truck ran over it

Remember in the movie version of Silent Hill, how the haunted town was a rural coal-mining community where coal fires burned non-stop underground? That was partially inspired by Centralia, Pennsylvania, subject of Chris Perkel and Georgie Roland’s documentary THE TOWN THAT WAS. In 1962, the townspeople started a “controlled” fire to burn up the local trash heap, but seams of anthracite coal down below caught fire, and have been burning ever since -- all attempts to stop it failed when projects would run out of money, and the government ultimately calculated that it would be cheaper to pay for everyone’s relocation than to actually stop the fire.

Eleven people are left. Most are old men, but one is a 33-year-old named John who has a strong sense of tradition, and a pretty good sense of denial regarding the harm that living on top of a seeping bed of carbon monoxide can cause.

Shane West needs to shut his friends up.

Just as a rule of thumb, actors -- if you’re starring in a movie, and want people to like it, don’t reserve an entire row of seats in the theater for people who are going to annoy the audience. Their enjoyment of your film will be hampered. I don’t know who the two people behind me were that kept muttering throughout, when they weren’t getting up and going to the lobby, or coming back from the lobby, but they were in Shane West’s row. I’d have moved, but for having snagged one of the few seats in the house with great legroom.

Shane stars as Darby Crash in a new movie about punk rockers the Germs, called WHAT WE DO IS SECRET, and presumably Germs fans will know what that title means, because the film never says.

• Everest, take two: A 65-year-old Costa Mesa man was 330 feet from Mt. Everest's summit last time around. This time, he says he'll make it.
• Wait, what? Yesterday, the word on the street was that unionized grocery workers had decided to strike. Now the OC Reg reports they're holding off.
• Layoffs on the horizon: A lack of funds could cost 18 full-time classified employees their jobs in Irvine Unified.
• Best tap? Long Beach and Anaheim's tap water placed in the top five of the nation's best-tasting, according to a contest judged by hundreds of U.S. mayors.

It's half past midnight. Where's KTLA?

Standing outside Paris Hilton's West Hollywood house with the paparazzi, providing hours of live streaming video to their website and latimes.com.

The scoop? The heiress has been released and she juuuust might come home. Or not, the genius giving the report (Chris Wolf), announces. She could very well go to her parents' home. Or a hotel. Or get on a jet...the inane monologue continues...

Then, at 12:35 a.m., they mercifully cut the sound on the video.

Noted : The creepy balding man in the pink shirt and floral shorts prancing around holding up the "Welcome Home Paris, We love you" sign.

12:44 a.m. Sound comes back on. Wolf repeats the message as some folks trying to promote their movie URL picket and smoke cigarettes in the background.

"They're going to be here all night long and so will we," he says, before the sound is cut at 12:46 a.m.

I don't know who's sadder. Wolf and co. for getting saddled with the gig, or me, sitting up watching it. Dunno about him, but there's a pillow with my name on it.

State Senator Dick Ackerman is as conservative as they come, and must no doubt be thrilled that ICE raids in OC are now as common as sunny days. But his thinking on a proposal by Los Angeles-area State Senator Gil Cedillo to require that California schools teach kiddies about the illegal roundups of Mexican-Americans during the 1930s is spot-on. Ackerman told La Opinión (who knew he spoke Spanish?) that "Aquí hay mucha gente que piensa que cualquier asunto particular es muy importante y quieren que se enseñe en las escuelas. Yo no creo que eso sea una buena manera de educar a nuestros niños." Translation: learn Spanish, damnit! Okay, fine: "Here there are many people that think that whatever particular issue is really important and they want that it be taught in the schools. I don't believe that this is a good way to educate our kids."

Look, we're as big a fan of revisionist history as anyone, but the state shouldn't require schools to teach particular incidents in history classes--and especially a bunch of fickle politicians. Change the makeup of the Assembly or State Senate to lean Republican, and they might pass bills forcing kids to learn that Ronald Reagan was God Himself, and that Hillary Clinton bathes in the blood of babies daily to keep her looks. So Gil: drop the bill and get back to trying to get driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, ¿qué no? As for Ackerman: can you get a less-gerrymandered district, por favor?

Two weekends back, The Mexican picked up the LA Press Club's President's Award. And just yesterday, Mireya Navarro of The New York Times gave his story some print time.

Some highlights:

In the process, “¡Ask a Mexican!” has turned its 28-year-old author into both a pundit, sought after by national news media to comment on all things Mexican, and a pariah.

Mr. Arellano, born in Anaheim to Mexican immigrants, one of them a father who crossed the border illegally several times starting in the 1960s, doesn’t deny that his satire is not for everyone. “I use the column to give the straight dope but also be as rude as possible to people who deserve it,” he explained. Accordingly, his responses often cite studies and statistics in a flurry of profanity. And he tackles some questions with the gusto of someone who not only wants to set the record straight but also wants to settle scores.

“My father was an illegal immigrant,” he said. “My mom was a tomato canner. They live their lives in Spanish. My parents are the immigrants that conservatives hate.”

Dozens of media outlets filed reports this weekend about the historic Orange County visit of Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet, but only one American reporter gained exclusive access.

Read R. Scott Moxley’s story in Thursday’s edition of the OC Weekly.

I think I may finally be getting the hang of this festival schedule. Four shows today, and I never felt close to collapsing from tiredness. Perhaps it was the concession food that kept me going. Speaking of which, doesn’t it seem totally wrong that a hot dog is cheaper than a small popcorn? I’m no economic whiz, but meat product, bread, and multiple condiments seems a better option than corn-flavored air dipped in grease. But maybe that’s just because the latter often comes free at press screenings.

Many great screenings have been held in the mighty Mann National -- King Kong, Gladiator, Fantastic Four, and lots more were experienced by me there for the first time, so it’s sad to hear that it will soon be no longer, replaced by a Banana Republic store, of all things. But before the end comes, festival-goers get the last of it, and on this occasion, it was hosting a movie called CHASING GHOSTS, which sounds like a really banal title until you realize it’s referring to Pac-Man. The original obsessed videogamers are the topic of this documentary, from Joel West, who has mapped out all 64,000 possible winning techniques fro Berzerk, to Chris Steele, who chose his own last name in honor of TV’s Remington Steele, and mullet-headed Billy Mitchell, self-proclaimed “player of the century” (and also featured in the upcoming doc King of Kong, about Donkey Kong). Then there’s “Mr. Awesome,” who wears a modified cop uniform, calls Mitchell “Silly Bitchell,” and proclaims to all who will listen that Missile Command is a macho game, unlike Pac-Man, a “candy-ass” game “for girls and chumps.”

• Culture clash? An article in Sunday's Times delves into the increased intermingling of the Vietnamese and Latino communities in Orange County.
• Clinton in town: Former Prez Bill Clinton will be in Newport Beach today, but the press isn't invited — unless they want to donate between $300 and $4,600 to Hillary's campaign, notes the Daily Pilot.
• Welcome to the jungle: The Times hops on the white-supremacist-trial bandwagon.
• To have great sex: You need a great brain, according to one Newport Beach doc.
• Today in court: Sentencing is set for Germaine Green, who was arrested for crossing state lines to pimp out a minor.
Photo: LAT

What can I say about LIBERTY KID? To be honest, not a lot, except that I liked it. Produced by Larry Fessenden, who’s best known for independent artsy horror, it’s a streets-of-New-York movie about how it’s rough out there, and opportunities slim -- but as far as I know, none of the actors is a famous rapper, and there’s no gratuitous tragedy at the end of the second act. People just keep on keepin’ on, and end up more or less where they started.

Our lead is “Derrick,” actual name Odalis, a Dominican black Spanish-speaker, dubbed “Peace Pipe” because he can get along with blacks and Latinos, played by Al Thompson, a young actor who apparently has 33 credits to his name, though he doesn’t look familiar. Derrick and his best friend Tico (Kareem Savinon, a newcomer who’s just as good as Thompson) work at the Statue of Liberty in September of 2001. Needless to say, shit happens, and they lose their jobs. Derrick struggles to get his GED while being aggressively pursued by army recruiters (in the scene that gets the movie’s biggest laugh, a recruiter insists that war with Iraq is “Not gonna happen”).

Tico, meanwhile, deals drugs, and urges Derrick to do likewise, just for a little while, to make some money. But thankfully this isn’t your typical “drug movie” -- at one point Derrick gets mugged for some money that isn’t his...and nothing happens as a result! No-one tries to kill him, or his family; life just goes on.

PRISON TOWN USA is the best movie I've seen at the festival so far, and the best documentary of this year so far.

Confession time: More often than not, we critics will favorably review a documentary that's kinda boring, if the subject matter is important enough. Even documentaries we like are a little boring sometimes. Rarely do we go to documentaries and think, "Tell me a good story."

But this one does, and it's never boring for a second. But that may be my biases -- I love prison movies, across the board, from the ones about action heroes fighting in prison, to documentaries about convicts who do rodeo.

One of the ideas the festival is heavily pushing this year is that for every movie you attend that you planned on seeing, you should go to another one you don’t know anything about, or might not be inclined to go to normally.

I tend to do this sometimes when I attend something simply because it’s playing at the right time, and thus found myself in BAJO JUAREZ, a movie with the all-lowercase secondary title of “the city devouring its daughters.” It’s a documentary about Juarez, a Mexican town near the U.S. border with work opportunities aplenty due to the maquiladoras, but also an epidemic of teenage girls being abducted, raped, and killed. At one point we’re told there have been 356 since 1996, which a prosecutor straight-facedly tells us is “not such a scandalous number.”

On the corner of Pine Avenue and Shoreline Drive in downtown Long Beach hangs a banner. It says "COMING SOON." and it's been hanging for years from what is supposed to be the newest Laugh Factory at the Pike at Rainbow Harbor.

A November 2003 article in the Long Beach Press Telegram celebrated the grand opening of the "entertainment-retail center," saying that it was "off to a good start." The article stated that the Laugh Factory was scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2004 (January 1 to March 31). Nearly three-and-a-half years later, the same dusty banner assures passersby that things are coming along nicely.

Dutch director Theo van Gogh is so identified with political martyrdom -- having been murdered by a radical Islamist -- that it comes as a bit of a surprise to sit down to a screening of INTERVIEW, the American remake of his movie of the same name, and discover that it's a comedy...sort of. Like Talk to Me, it uses humor to get you hooked, and gets a bit more serious later on. But no War on Terror metaphors...sorry, rabid bloggers.

It's directed by, and stars, Steve Buscemi, who, unlike some other actor-turned-directors, is usually best when directing himself (see Trees Lounge).

It's tough being a non-pro photographer at a major concert. The folks from the AP and Panic Channel are a clannish bunch, united by their über-long lenses and jargon-heavy trade talk. Standing there with your starter digital SLR can feel like dropping your pants at the men's room - and having the shortest stack.

It doesn't help when most of the photogs are giants, easily clearing the junk at the foot of the stage for their killer shots while you have to contort yourself in all directions to get a decent snap.

Still, it was pretty neat to be two feet from Sting and co., with the beer breath of the crowd behind me. What bit was only being allowed to stick around for two songs - and then being ushered out of the venue . . . and having to wait two hours for my music editor friend to download the entire show. I ended up cake-and-coffeeing it out at a joint across the street, flanked by dudes trying to sell me Police gear.

Ah, well, we got some cool photos, short stack and all. And he wrote a pretty solid review. Check that out over here.

Most car salesmen and toy slangers don't worry too much about labor issues in the shipping world, but perhaps they should. A strike or lockout at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach would disrupt mostly Asian imports like the cars, electronics, furniture, apparel and toys that comprise the port’s largest imports.

Maybe they'll worry now: Local 63 of the the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which represents nearly 1,000 clerical workers at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, may strike on June 30 because the employers at the port are trying to limit the workers' generous health benefits to a several-thousand-dollar-per-year stipend.

"But it's my word vs. the stinking pig."

— Angry, twentysomething defendant with his lawyer in the Central Courthouse hallway awaiting trial, June 22, 2007

• Anger in the air:Vietnamese-Americans are expected to gather in Dana Point tonight to protest the presence of Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet - who many have human rights and religious freedom questions for.
• Desegregation entry "festive" after all: Earlier in the week, we noted that a Huntington Beach panel frowned upon the idea of having a float celebrating desegregation in their Fourth of July parade. Not festive enough, they said. But a little media coverage and arm twisting later, and poof, they've had a change of heart.
• Marine bashing: Two marines were found beaten outside a San Clemente bar this morning - one with a broken arm, the other with an eye swollen shut.
• Mardi Gras in Long Beach: The 21st annual Long Beach Bayou Festival hits Rainbow Lagoon Park in Long Beach today through Sunday.
• Today in court: Arraignment is set for Blaine Bowker, 36, who police say stabbed two men and a woman in Dana Point.

[Part one of an ongoing series of reports from the Los Angeles Film Festival]

Parking spaces in Westwood are like special offers in spam emails -- if you think you’ve got a good one, it’s almost certainly too good to be true. So naturally, the super-sweet street space I pulled into at around 5:45 p.m. turned out to have a malfunctioning meter. Sensing a premiere night, some of the local parking lots were upping their rates to $20, but the good old reliable basement of Rite-Aid was still only $5.

The premiere gala to kick off the 2007 L.A. Film Festival was at the Mann Village Theater, and one of the perks of being on staff at a reputable publication is that one actually gets to go to the big opening show. Without being patted down by security, even, though I’d left my brand-new, ultra-cheap cell phone in the car. My companion had left her camera in the vehicle, and immediately regretted it when we realized no husky suited folk were going to seize it.

Minimal remarks to start the show, which was a nice change -- perhaps with the sponsors’ logos projected on the big screen, there was less need to name them all, and the festival organizers realized we weren’t there to see them. So instead, Andy Garcia comes out, sounds dazed, and introduces director Kasi Lemmons, who promptly says, “Don Cheadle, you gonna help me out?” He does.

Well, blow me. The Times (after cutting almost 60 jobs . . . ) managed to lure one of the best damn SoCal journalists around away from the LA Weekly. David Zahniser, last year's SPJ Journalist of the Year, is off to cover Mayor Villaraigosa - former Weekly editor Alan Mittelstaedt broke the news on Witness LA today.

(Aside: I must say I'm pleased to see Alan - a hardcore professor I was lucky to have at 'SC - up and blogging. He's one of the sharpest editors around. Rumor has it he has his eye on the transportation beat.)

LA Observed picks up the story and asks the question I was swishing around in my head: What happens to Duke Helfand, who currently covers the LA mayor? Will they keep him on the beat, maybe bump him onto the education staff, since he sometimes wanders into that arena? Perhaps ship him off to Sacramento now that political rock-star reporter and blogger Robert Salladay is gone? Hmm.

Speaking of LA Observed, Kevin Roderick ran a poll early in the year with predictions, and some readers voted that Zahniser was most likely to be snapped up by The New York Times. Guess the LAT beat 'em to the punch.

Photo: Alan Mittelstaedt

One of the reasons many people still don't know what to say when their sister or co-worker or mom says she's taking an exotic dance or pole fitness class is because many of us only associate what they're saying with one thing: strip clubs – low or highbrow, they are the places where women dance for men who pay them. But exotic dance has a long history, much of it grounded in religious fertility rites (Egypt) or entertainment (Vaudeville and Burlesque).

According to striptease historians Rachel Shteir, author of “Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show,” the first recorded act of undressing as entertainment occurred in France in the late 1890s. According to Shteir, two women danced and undressed in a half performance during a late night ball near the Moulin Rouge. The floating ball's theme was “Cleopatra” and the women performed their westernized imitation of the “dance du ventre,” or the belly dance. The performance caused a scandal and the women and one of the ball's organizers were fined. A little over a year later, according to Shteir, “undressing acts exploded into the music hall scene,” in France.

Gifts from the OC classifieds:

Free Brazilian wax, anyone? There's always a catch for this sort of $50 freebie. Answer this ad, and you'll get it done live at an education conference before a waxing class.

Put out: For free rent at one guy's Santa Ana home.

Lost a surfboard? If you dropped it on the 405, this dude may be your man.

Paint your parts: "Young, handsome artist seeks female model for masterpiece! Actually it's all experimental. i want to draw or paint female body parts but i also want to paint pictures on those parts . . . "

What a deal: $250 for one stud, $400 for two.

Urp: "Where can I find a good old fashioned Mexican sperm burper in Orange County? I don't even care about their legal status. Just has to be able to burp sperm on command."

Three days. Three meals. Stand and shoot:

H. Salt Fish & Chips
18856 Brookhurst St., Fountain Valley
Don't: Stop by for lunch. It'll take a small lifetime. And the seating area's tight.
Do: Step in if you like your seafood caked in batter. And if you don't mind that everything tastes the same.

Stone Fire Grill
18727 Brookhurst St., Fountain Valley
Do: Come on down if you like EVERYTHING with cheese. Cheese dumped on your salad and bread and mixed into your mashed potatoes.
Don't: Show up if you want a quick meal. Or if you're lactose-intolerant.

Kappo Honda
18450 Brookhurst St., Fountain Valley
Do: Check this place out if you're looking for something beyond the typical sushi and teriyaki joint. Everything's as fresh as you please, right off the grill that sits by the entrance. Note: come after 5:30 p.m. (when it opens). Kappo Honda closes at 1 a.m.
Don't: Come hungry. Running up a $60 tab for two is too easy.

Pick up the Los Angeles Times today and read my essay on the boneheaded Huntington Beach Fourth of July parade committee that decided to dick with Sylvia Mendez of Mendez vs. Westminster fame. Then browse through the Times' archives and find their June 17 best-seller list, in which my ¡Ask a Mexican! book clocks in at No. 9 in the nonfiction hardcover section. Finally, buy The New York Times this Sunday, when the Sunday Style section profiles me. And always, always click it or ticket. Now, back to another Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal story . . .