Griffith Park Blog » Breaking the 4th Wall

The LA Times has been Wiki-Leaked!

Donna Barstow — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 03:26:33 +0000

Restaurant critic for the LA Times has been outed! Her feelings about food are no longer secret!

S. Irene Virbila, the L.A. Times’ restaurant critic for the last 16 years, was visiting Red Medicine restaurant in Beverly Hills when the manager took her photo, and ordered her and her 3 companions to leave the restaurant. In Beverly Hills! An LA Times Reporter!

restaurant critic cartoon from daily special

Ellis [from Red Medicine] said he was intentionally trying to take away Virbila’s anonymity because he does not like her reviews: “Our purpose for posting this is so that all restaurants can have a picture of her and make a decision as to whether or not they would like to serve her. We find that some her reviews can be unnecessarily cruel and irrational…”

Kevin Roderick, of LA Observed, responds:

Geez, dude. Just shut up, man up and make your restaurant better. If you’re afraid to have your place independently reviewed, that tells me all I need to know.

I disagree! He has every right to decide who goes to his restaurant and to toss out people who he feels might harm it in any way; restaurant writers are kind of sneaky, aren’t they? On the other hand: he should never have taken her photo. That’s an invasion of privacy, even as Virbila came in under an assumed name: Fred Snow! So this is a nice piece of drama.

: Image of the ideal Beverly Hills via Wikipedia

I met Irene when I did the restaurant cartoon for the LA Times, called Daily Special ( now running in many other papers). We agreed to meet for lunch at a restaurant on Sunset – I think it was called Dome. I was so anxious and excited about meeting her that I spent too much time getting ready for my big opportunity, and was 15 minutes late. I was ready to kill myself! Fortunately, she was even later, and so the event continued.

She ordered at least 2 choices for each part of the meal, and I still got to eat what I wanted. We had plates full of food left before we had gotten to dessert, and I whispered to her, “What will they think of us?” I never forgot her reply: “They’ll think we’re ladies who lunch!”

I had a great meal, and got to take home all the leftovers, because she said she hated to see food go to waste. As I recall, her review was pretty good for the restaurant. The whole experience was thumbs up for me. :)

She’s not my favorite food critic, however: that’s reserved for Ruth Reichl, former LA Times reviewer, and then editor of Gourmet til it folded. I miss her Reluctant Gourmet (her husband!) I don’t see how Irene can continue doing reviews at the Times, however…and that’s wrong, to ruin her career like that.

More on the story at examiner.com. And over here, some cartoons talking about privacy issues for all of us.

Beverly Hills restaurateur outs LAT’s Irene Virbila (laobserved.com)
LA Times: Online journalism ‘contaminated’ by web format, says Flipboard chief (blogs.journalism.co.uk)

Or were you looking for one of these?

My exciting Sunday afternoon.

Donna Barstow — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:24:27 +0000

Got up late. Checked all blogs, social networks, etc. Put on sunscreen and drove to Porto’s Bakery in Glendale. Within 5 minutes after entering city of Glendale had to turn on air conditioning. :( the week before Halloween. :( (Glendale is about 10 degrees hotter than any part in LA.) Very long lines today in Porto’s, and extra hours. Who knew that people think of bakeries when they think of Halloween? Is this a cultural thing?

Warning to self: stood in line behind extremely wide woman who took up the space of 2 people. Both sides of her touched the wait line ribbon thingies.

Got my chocolate croissants, but no samples today. Too bad for them, because last time I tried Quesadilla for the first time from a sample and bought it!

Drove to Armstrong’s Nursery on San Fernando. I like it, but how anything can grow there, in one of the hottest streets in the valley…Looked for scented geraniums, my favorite plant. Didn’t have any.

Drove to 99 cents store in Burbank. (Shout out to 99 Cents Chef, who I met through Kevin at LAObserved!) The homeless woman out front joined me. Lots of fun Halloween decorations, but didn’t buy any. (Now I feel bad – what was I thinking?!) Got a few necessities. I put some back, though, because this is a difficult month, even in a difficult year.

Drove home behind a wall (an assy SUV with illegal tinted windows.)

But the bright spot on my mind behind my errands: already know what I’ll do as my cartoon for Slate today, and I think it will work! No worrying and fussing over what to pick, and that’s always good.

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons, by HeySandra.

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Now’s your chance to change the world!

Donna Barstow — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:36:56 +0000

Hey, kids. Oliver sudden I’m going to start guest blogging at the LA Weekly! I’ll be writing about anything interesting, newsy, discoveries, happenings in the city, and of course Griffith Park is included. I have some ideas, but feel free to send me any tips or leads or ideas about things you think should happen, [...] Or were you looking for one of these?

Meeting to see coyotes graves in the Park on Oct 1, Wednesday.

I have a new blog.

Donna Barstow — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:30:25 +0000

…in case you missed it at LAO the other day, who kindly mentioned my Sarah Palin cartoon.

“Dear Islander, enclosed are the 5 books you wanted most…”

It’s mostly about my cartoons, but also includes desserts, my pets, and other goodies. It’s called, Why I Did It.

I might cross-post now and then, but not much. Here’s how I see it: this is my outside blog, and that’s my inside one. Take a peek, and let me know what you think!

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Ipower is dying.

Donna Barstow — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:12:00 +0000

My server company, Ipower, was down for 2 hours on Tuesday afternoon, and 14 hours from last night through this morning, so both my website and my blog were offline. What should I do?

This is the only server I’ve had, and they were recommended highly when I started. They’re still one of the biggest, if not the biggest out there. But when they migrated us to the “upgraded” servers this year, it got worse and worse, with outages and slow slow interface on vdeck. My free ftp is literally 10 times faster for moving files.

Now I’ll have to figure out how to move my domain, db, etc. Any suggestions on servers?

And if you think this was boring for you, think about me for a change.

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Silver Lake cartoonist now in Facebook.

Donna Barstow — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:12:54 +0000

It’s not you, it’s me. My server has been down maybe 8 times since it “upgraded.” (It’s Ipower, just fyi.) And I’ve been busy setting up my new cartoon blog, Why I Did It. (Did what? Read it and find out.) And now it’s decorated for Christmas!

Also: I joined twitter and Facebook. I’m now ready for ~~Social Networking~~ fun and games.

Photo by Sherlock Holmes wallpaper. I like the painting.

Also: I would love to write brief items, with a link, great photo, and a few pithy words to put them all into perspective. Short and sweet. But that’s not how I roll, not in this blog. Instead, I find an interesting item, google, find out the facts I read aren’t right, get mad, and investigate. Then I don’t write anything until I’ve researched, called people, emailed, verified things once again, and then put everything in order so it makes sense (or until I’ve made my point, which is the right one :)).

And I always want the facts, ma’am. I am fond of details.
Like, I’ve called the makers of the (now) notorious bird balls in Ivanhoe every day for over a week, trying to find out what grade of HDPE they’re using. As I said in the comments of LA Now blog (which also has a number of other, perhaps funnier, comments):

HDPE comes only from 2 places, the big oil companies: Exxon and Chevron. Both companies told me that the grade of plastic is very important, and literally changes as it’s being manufactured, and SHOULD be evaluated again after it’s formed. Wonder if LADWP will do this…Who wants to bet on this?

Orange Plastics has never picked up the phone or called me back. Does that seem suspicious to anyone? A reputable company would be happy to give out the answer, although they are not rated in the BBB, so I don’t know their reputation… I did find out that Weener Plastics (which is only a year old) makes the balls for them, and am waiting for calls to be returned…toe tap, tap, tap…

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I had food poisoning.

Donna Barstow — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:00:29 +0000

Yes, I know the store and the food, and will report more once I have all my ducks in a row. Let’s just say that I was on the bathroom floor for two days, and I was fortunate that I live alone.

On the other hand, that’s kind of sad.

I was in a haze of daytime TV watching, to try and take the pain away, when they announced the earthquake in China, so it took me a couple of days to process that. I feel so terrible for everyone there, those who lost others and those buried alive. It reminded me of 9-11, of course.

And so even though dwp did say it would take 3 weeks to fill slk – as I predicted in the last post – and they continue to be dweeby about it, I am just so grateful that I can see water in the lake now, and that it will be there for any emergency in this city.

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Don’t hate me because…

Donna Barstow — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:54:36 +0000

I haven’t posted recently. I’m back, aren’t I? That’s all you should worry your pretty little head about.

And besides, heavy blogging can lead to heart attacks. (Hat tip, Luke.)

And I got jealous, because I took a quick peek at Stuff White People Like when lao linked to it and thought, okay, but I could have written it. (You know that’s true.) Well, it’s too bad I didn’t because someone else did, and got a huge book deal from it. He also uses the same theme I do here (in Word Press, they call the design or look of the blog a theme), MistyLook. So he’s not all that creative, is he?

Hey: did you notice I changed the font recently? I think it’s much easier to read, and attractive to boot. But please do let me know what you think.

Also, does anyone mind if I start writing posts about makeup? Say, MAC, my favorite? Because apparently, according to the NY Times, that leads to much swag, and trips to Gay Paree. Which I’ve already missed. Pout.

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Griffith Park Blog » Breaking the 4th Wall

The LA Times has been Wiki-Leaked!

Related:

My exciting Sunday afternoon.

Now’s your chance to change the world!

I have a new blog.

Ipower is dying.

Silver Lake cartoonist now in Facebook.

I had food poisoning.

Don’t hate me because…