The owner of the Warfield Theater in San Francisco filed suit against Bill Graham Presents on Oct. 13, according to the Bay Guardian. The suit alleges that BGP -- a Clear Channel subsidiary which operates the Warfield under a lease that expires in 2008 -- damaged the value of the theater's name by changing it to the SF Weekly Warfield. The naming rights were sold by BGP in June to SF Weekly-parent New Times.
An article by Shawn Levy in today's issue of The Oregonian calls the Longbaugh Film Festival -- sponsored by Willamette Week -- "the city's most ambitious festival of independent film from all over the world" and "doggedly glitter- and hype-free." The festival's creative director, Willamette Week film critic David Walker, will premiere his own feature film titled "Damaged Goods." The article doesn't mention if the film will reflect Walker's "characteristically pugnacious attitude."
Readers of Gambit Weekly, New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Miami New Times, Weekly Planet (Tampa), Weekly Planet (Sarasota), Folio Weekly and Orlando Weekly have lately seen Mother Nature at her worst. Distributed in areas affected by the hurricanes that have pounded Florida and surrounding states since August, these alt-weeklies have come out on schedule -- thanks to determined staffers and contingency plans.
Westword staff writer David Holthouse won't face criminal charges for allegedly having a friend follow a man he accused of raping him when he was a child. The man and his wife had contacted police when they noticed they were being followed, but the case fell apart when they refused to help prosecutors, John Ingold reports in the Denver Post. Holthouse defended his decision to have the man followed in an interview with 9News reporter Paula Woodward.
Bob Grant, district attorney for Broomfield and Adams counties in Colorado, told the Denver Post's Sean Kelly Tuesday that David Holthouse's arrest was based solely on the suspicion that he followed an unnamed man over the weekend. The person Holthouse is accused of stalking is the man he says raped him when he was a 7-year-old. The 33-year-old Westword reporter is free on $2,500 bond.
Outgoing Cleveland Free Times editor-in-chief David Eden used to work for Barney, the purple dinosaur, Connie Schultz reports in The Plain Dealer. Schultz takes issue with reporting in the alt-weekly's "The Nose," which Eden described to her as "a snarky gossip column," and with news coverage at Channel 19, where Eden will soon become managing editor. But, she writes, "a guy who used to cavort with Barney can't be all bad."
