Here's today's bonkers tidbit from a story about Facebook's impending IPO in the New York Times: In 2005, street artist David Choe painted some murals in Facebook's offices and was offered, as compensation, his choice of either a few thousand dollars or meager 0.1 percent of the company's stock.

He thought the idea of Facebook was "ridiculous." But he chose the stock.

And now he's expected to make $200 million when Facebook goes public.

Learn your lesson from Al Jolson, folks, who allegedly turned down a stock offer of 25-percent ownership in Warner Bros. to make The Jazz Singer, instead accepting $75,000. Take the stock!

Maybe it's because it my all-time favorite movie, but when the Bernard Herrmann score from the unfuckwithable Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo was hijacked and reused in The Artist, I sided with Vertigo star Kim Novak: "My body of work has been violated by The Artist," she said. "I believe this kind of filmmaking trick to be cheating. Shame on them!"

To no one's surprise, The Artist director Michel Hazanavicius defended the usage as a tribute, which is what everybody says when they steal an idea verbatim without adding anything of their own to it. Taking music from a very famous movie and putting it in your movie is not a "tribute." It's just a stupid thing to do.

Yo, Hazanavicius! Take a cue from Bike Monkey, who actually pay tribute to Vertigo by at least slightly manipulating some of Saul Bass' title design for the cover of their latest issue:

See what they did there? See how they changed it, so that it fits a magazine called Bike Monkey? See how they're not trying to pull one over on anybody, but slyly tip the hat to a master? (Like Antioch Arrow did with their stenciled Man With the Golden Arm-inspired LP?)

That's how it's done.

This morning, media blogger Jim Romenesko caught this screengrab from the site of Halifax Media Holdings, LLC, based in Florida, listing among their companies the Press Democrat and other regional papers owned by the NYT.

The arrangement was later announced formally in this NYT press release.

The Times' Regional Media Group consists of 16 small and mid-size newspapers. Forbes' Jeff Bercovici has more:

Why sell? For starters, the Regional Media Group’s fortunes have been trending downward. Its revenues were down 6.7% through the first nine months of 2011, versus a 0.4% dip for the New York Times itself and a 5.5% decline for the Boston Globe, which isn’t part of the sale.

Press Democrat publisher Bruce Kyse broke the news to staff in meetings this morning. No purchase price has been announced.

This cannot possibly bode well for the Press Democrat, especially since Halifax CEO Michael Redding does not exactly seem to have the best reputation. In April last year, he purchased the Daytona Beach News-Journal, slashed staff and immediately replaced the editor; this year, Redding shattered the long-respected firewall between editorial and sales and actually asked News-Journal reporters to sell advertising and subscriptions:

Daytona Beach News Journal Publisher Michael Redding marked the one-year anniversary of the newspaper under his co-ownership with an offer to most of the 400-some remaining employees of the paper, including editors and reporters: Anyone selling a three-month subscription to the paper would get a $25 bonus, or $50 for a six month subscription. Anyone selling $100 worth of advertising would get $50.

This, in brief, is a goddamn crazy, unethical, unheard-of thing.

Best of luck to our many friends over at the Press Democrat, who no doubt are today wishing they'd taken a Times severance package while they had the chance. The only silver lining we can see is that at least the paper wasn't sold to the Bay Area News Group, which basically owns every paper in the Bay Area except for the San Francisco Chronicle; media monopolies are never a good thing.

And one more thing: maybe, just maybe, the Press Democrat will now restore Luther Burbank's "chosen spot" quote to the top of the Empire News section. It was a beautiful local touch that for some reason died with the NYT acquisition.

But with headquarters in Florida, who knows what'll happen?

Christine Tafoya is busy. She and husband Patrick recently opened the riotously successful Restaurant P/30 in Sebastopol; she’s the owner of in-demand graphic design company Deluxe Modern, and she’s the proud mother of two zippy daughters. The woman’s plate is full. But when she read about Constance McMillen, the Mississippi teenager whose school canceled its prom rather than allow two girls to attend it together, Tafoya found time to be impressed by the situation’s intense witlessness.“It’s so ridiculous!” she told us. “What ages are we even living in? I guess being in California, I can never see that happening. People are so liberal and nonjudgemental, we’re kind of spoiled. Plus, one of my good friends is a lesbian and it’s the best thing that ever happened to her. She dated boys and when she came out she found total peace and happiness.”

The ACLU has taken on McMillen’s case, filing a complaint in federal court charging the Itawamba County School District with violating her First Amendment rights. As part of its outreach campaign, the legal group recently announced a logo design contest on Facebook, where the issue is carefully watched by 379,080 people and counting. “Constance will select her favorite from the entries,” the contest promised. Hundreds of logos flooded in -- Tafoya’s contribution among them. “I thought, well shoot, there’s no reason for me not to. This is what I sit around and do all day anyway. And I completely am passionate about creating something that would get their point across, put a picture to the cause.” Just like that, bam, Sonoma County’s own was in the top five designs presented to the teenaged celebrity.

McMillen has been interviewed by Dan Savage, appeared on the Ellen Degeneres, Wanda Sykes, and Joy Behar shows, the CBS Early Show, and MSNBC, and is scheduled to speak at this weekend’s GLSEN conference in Washington, DC.  A court hearing was set for today, at which the U.S. District Court of Northern Mississippi may issue an injunction against the school board, preventing it from canceling the prom, and from preventing McMillen from wearing her tuxedo.

(We can hear you sputtering, and we validate your sputtering. We also sputtered when we heard about the tux.)

The winning logo, a serviceable affair featuring three mix-gendered couples, the relentless blue of Internet-land, and the legend “Prom Is For Everyone,” will appear on an ACLU Web site near you. But we like Tafoya’s design better, with its sweet and girly pair of girls in powder-blue and cotton-candy pink prom dresses complete with bows and flowers.

A good sport, Sebastopol native Tafoya (Analy Class of ’88)  bears the winner no ill will. “I was thrilled to be where I ended up. Because this isn’t about being gay or straight; this is about being closed-minded. It’s a really big deal.”

We have taken so many kind calls today re the Oxycontin image in the Jan. 6 paper.

Here's the deal: Stephan R., the subject, was fine with having his name shown on his ID because a scan of that text is not (yet) Google-able. Our original caption reflected that. An hour before presstime, our copyeditor suggested that,  just to do our highest diligence, we alter the image to obscure his name entirely and that we change the caption. We did both things. However, and no one can quite figure this out, the image that went to press was the original. Stephan R. is not harmed by this and, while we feel like dolts, we do thank all who have contacted us about it! One young woman just suggested that if we needed to take all the papers back off the streets (30,000 and counting) we could act today, so that's why she called. . . .

Good thing Deirdre Miller didn't wear a Nirvana shirt and flannels in 1994, or the SRJC wouldn't ever be able to get away with reusing the above 15-year-old photo for their brand-new 2010 Career Technical Education Guide, mailed out last week. Is it really so hard to shoot new photos instead of digging one out from 15 years ago? "Maybe I was the only girl to ever take an automotive class or something," says Miller, who now works in lingerie and thinks the whole thing is pretty funny.

DJ Brian Griffith mans the panels while some $1,000 worth of wine sits out at 8:30am on April 1 —no joke— after Ziggy's morning show. Barely seen to the left is Ziggy spreading French chévre onto bread before topping it with a smidge of fig jam because it's just so good with $600 Pinot in the morning. I had three sips—Three! Sips!—and was unable to remember today's cover story while on air.

The finalists for the annual awards for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies were announced last night and, once again, I'm way beyond all modesty in announcing that the Bohemian has two big reasons to be very proud. (None, of course, are quite as big as Sean Connery's honorary phallus!)

Our Arcadia issue is a finalist in the "Special Issues" category, with outstanding photos taken by the inimitable Sara Sanger. Genius-girl freelance contributor Carey Sweet is listed in the "Food Writing" category for her profile on Taverna Santi and reviews of the Sky Lounge and Carneros Bistro.

This will be the third year in a row that we've placed in the Food Writing category and the second time in a row that we've won in the Special Issue category. (Many of the bigger papers have editors who only handle the special issues, which would be like being a professional at dandling rubies.)

Awards and placement will be announced at the June 7 convention in Philadelphia. We are guaranteed a win; now, it's just up to which spot.AAN is our professional association, composed of some 177 papers nationwide and including Canada. Our circulation puts us in the under 55k category which is far more populated than the over 55k; there are a lot more "little" papers like ours than there are mega-papers like the LA Weekly.

Including this year's goodness, that totals seven national awards claimed by the Boho in the last five years. Being of a small and petty nature, I will probably find the time to research whether there's another paper in our circulation category that can make that claim; I doubt that there is.

For context, the only other papers of our size in California to get the nods are Santa Barbara (3), San Luis Obispo (2) and Monterey County Weekly (1).

Ahem: We rock.

It's just one of those days when tidbits fall from the sky into one's lazy lap. And so it was that a man called our offices this morning, wanting to talk about the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. A former staffer since laid off by the PD, our chap is a smart fellow with an interesting story to tell about how our own particular slice of modern day mass media is committing suicide by accident.

Outsourcing ad production and editorial layout to India (as seen above), anyone?

Later this afternoon, an email came in from the KRSH 95.9-FM, where I spend about 10 minutes every Wednesday morning nattering needlessly on about ahrt and the Bohemian. Seems top management at the KRSH are concerned that the morning "talent" talk too much. Ziggy Eschliman is on for 30 minutes on Wednesdays; Frank Hayhurst for an hour on Fridays. Theater, film and the occasional other round the week out. Now each of us will have three entire minutes. While I'm just as glad to have to either focus my words or quit the gig, I suspect that Ziggy and Frank might feel otherwise.

Our daytime caller wanted to talk news organizations. The PD's online masthead is woefully out of date, he complained. One of the Petaluma reporters listed has been fired, the other is on sabbatical. Columnists Chris Coursey and Susan Swartz recently left, as did editorial writer Ann DuBay. "It's almost as though," our caller said, "they're pushing up dummies." Well, shucks. Our masthead is usually out of date, too.

He went on to explain that the New York Times has set up two different budgets for the PD's print and online vehicles, the latter being hugely more funded. They're moving admin and accounting back to the East Coast, he says, creating a virtual office in which virtually no one works. "Floor by floor, department by department, the place is really vacating," he said. "It’s such a battle to serve the community with less and less resources and there’s this resistance between the two departments [print and online]. Online, a year ago, had a healthy budget but were nowhere near turning a profit." Reporters are being asked to shoot video while they interview subjects, take notes and keep everything organized enough to be able to ask the next question. And oh: then edit video upon returning to the office.

He also averred that, as a NYT company, the PD does in fact outsource ad design and editorial layout to India. We haven't had time yet today to confirm this allegation but it certainly does set one's brain a'brimming. I'm one of the few people I know who has genuine affection for the Press Democrat and the idea of the Press Democrat. Why mainstream media has continually chosen to slit its own throat for a few percentage points of profit is beyond me. Our caller indicated that the current state of school sports coverage—the sweet butter of any community paper—was very distressing to both staff and readers as stories post online and then "vanish" the next day.

Here's what you do if you're Larry Ellison: You buy a 23-acre site in Woodside for $12 mil. Invest another $190 million "improving" your new property, and then, in an era when middle-class homes values plummet but rich folk "luxury" estates like yours are still going gangbusters, you go hat-in-hand to local officials begging for a devaluation of your property by more than 60 percent—and get it!  Save yourself a retroactive $3 million, and another cool mil a year from then on. And, believe me, you really need that extra loose dinero, since you're only worth $25 billion.Here's what you do if you're J.P. Morgan: Conjure up a plan called Zippy Cheats & Tricks. Foist off sub-prime loans on as many suckers as you can. When you run low on marks, illegally goose the income figures on no-pay-to-play losers you'd normally not give the time of day to in order that they, too, are victimized by you and your fellow rapacious home loaners. You get your commission, and quickly get out. Oh, yeah—and don't worry about the law, we got Republicans in that thar Department of "Justice."Here's what you do if you're 22-year-old American arms dealer Efraim E. Diveroli: Make up a name for your business. Call it AEY, Inc. Hire a buddy as your company VP whose "arms" experience consists of rubbing limbs in his former profession as a licensed masseur. Next rent yourself an unmarked office in a gawdawful gaudy building in Miami Beach. Score $300 million in contracts from the U.S. government because you and your brand spanking new business are, well, time-proven and certifiably reliable. Now fulfill your U.S. government contract, sans oversight, shipping our faithful Afghan allies half -century-old "junk" ammo from former Soviet bloc countries, the same ammunition that our own government is actually paying these former commie governments to destroy because it's worthless crap. Beat up two girlfriends and claim immunity from prosecution due to the "national security" nature of your quarter billion dollar-plus taxpayer rip-off. Know you'll never get caught by the government, but hope and pray that by the time you launch your next criminal venture, the profession of investigative reporter will have been entirely eliminated from the media landscape.And finally. . .Here's what you do if you live on Mars, but just happen to be the current President of the United States of America: You stand behind a podium at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force and tell everyone who will listen just how wonderful things are turning out in Iraq on the very day a major oil pipeline has been hit, the number one spokesperson for your Iraqi puppet regime has been kidnapped—in broad daylight and despite his own onsite armed bodyguards—and major fighting has escalated in Basra while Bagdad explodes into widely scattered violence and the Green Zone looks like London during the Blitzgrieg. Ignoring all that, you say: "When it takes time for Iraqis to reach agreement, it is not 'foot dragging,' as one senator described it. . . . They're striving to build a modern democracy on the rubble of three decades of tyranny."

I hate to disagree with the prez, but just maybe the Iraqis are actually striving to simply survive in the rubble of five years of unprovoked illegal invasion and brutal occupation.P. Joseph Potocki