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A Running Gag... |
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Photo by Lauren Radack
HE’S SMOKIN’: Fabrice Hardel, the Westgate Hotel’s executive chef, started long-distance running as an aid to quitting cigarettes. And the running is going gangbusters. In fact, Hardel recently conquered the 100-mile mark. But then, he concedes, he did stop briefly at around 50 miles. For a smoke.
SO I HEAR: Michael Phillips, the former Union-Tribune theater critic and current film reviewer at The Chicago Tribune, has been tapped to join New York Times critic A.O. Scott as cohost of TV’s At the Movies. This month, they take over the seats made famous by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert ... Steve Nelson, construction manager of the $11 million Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center at San Diego State University, expects most of the work to be complete by the end of this month — well in advance of the scheduled October 17 grand opening. Nelson has his heart in the job. He’s an SDSU alum himself — class of ’96 ... Former eBay CEO and would-be governor Meg Whitman, campaigning this summer at Cuyamaca College in El Cajon, claimed California would be run “more like a business” if she were governor. If she meant more like eBay, that could be a good thing. While there, she grew eBay revenues from $4 million to $8 billion ... Chef Deborah Scott, whose restaurants are among the city’s best (C-Level and Indigo Grill, to name two), has new partners in yet another venture: Scott and partner Sharon Bristol have teamed with brothers Kevin and Dennis Comiskey in Oceanside’s Brooklyn Boyz Pizza. The brothers Comiskey, from Brooklyn, honed their skills at Hillcrest’s great Bronx Pizza.
REFERENCES: The Old Globe Theatre’s world-premiere musical Sammy, opening September 19, has Broadway written all over it. Based on the life of superstar Sammy Davis Jr., with music by Leslie Bricusse — who gave Davis his hits “What Kind of Fool Am I?” and “The Candy Man”
— the production stars Obba Babatundé, a Tony nominee for Dreamgirls, who was mentored by Davis. Babatundé’s best review probably came from Davis himself, who once said, “I feel safe knowing that with cats like Obba around, when I get out of this business I’m leaving it in good hands.”
PLEDGE CLASS: An e-mail from an old newspaper colleague, Cecil Scaglione, brought a lively update, and then a lovely flashback. It was Cecil, 25 years ago, who shared with me the story of the 5-year-old La Jolla pre-preppy who came home from school and announced his kindergarten class was learning the Pledge of Allegiance. “That’s wonderful. Do you know all of the words?” his mother asked. “Not really,” the boy confessed. “But the first thing you do is put your right hand over the alligator.”
QUOTEWORTHY: Minnesota governor and would-be president Tim Pawlenty was the star of last month’s Republican National Committee meeting in San Diego with a call for his GOP brethren to reach out to Democrats. The party should “respect those who don’t agree with us,” he said. But did that include President Obama? Not exactly. Pawlenty’s partisan-sounding take on Obama’s healthcare reform plan: “This is a scheme that would make Bernie Madoff blush ... It ain’t gonna work.”
ECONOMICS 1-A: Borrego Ranch Resort & Spa (formerly the Copley-owned La Casa del Zorro) has been doing some serious marketing. Book two nights, at $179 per, and get a $100 resort credit. But don’t bring the children. The resort reincarnate has a no-kids policy ... Recession indigestion: The list of local restaurant closings that started in June with “Best New Restaurant” Crescent Heights continues. Among the summer casualties: La Vache and The Better Half in Hillcrest, Modus in Uptown, 150 Grand in Escondido and Jack’s in La Jolla ... The entertainment industry feels the crunch, too. Media flash Dieter Schmitz (MTV’s Laguna Beach) is working the front desk at the new Hotel Indigo in East Village.
VIEW FROM AFAR: “Plenty of American states have budget crises, but California’s illustrates two more structural worries about the state. Back in its golden age in the 1950s and 1960s, it offered middle-class people, not just techy high-fliers, a shot at the American dream——complete with superb schools and universities, and an enviable physical infrastructure. These days California’s unemployment rate is running at 11.5 percent, 2 points ahead of the national average. In such Californian cities as Fresno, Merced and El Centro, jobless rates are higher than in Detroit. Its roads and schools are crumbling. [And] every year, over 100,000 more Americans leave the state than enter it.” —The Economist of London
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