Three - Long Beach Studios Hoax

(If you haven't read Installment One, Installment Two Spielberg Narrative and
Installment Two Spielberg Documents go back to them at some point.
But THUG is designed so you can read the Installments in any order you want.)

HOOK, LINE, AND STINKER:

PARA AND ALEXANDER FALL FOR

THE LONG BEACH STUDIOS HOAX

On a cheery afternoon in mid-February 2009, cheery Professor Brian Alan Lane went cheerily to his mailbox in the Film and Electronic Arts Department (FEA) at California State University Long Beach and he found this:

Lane was cheery because he'd only recently survived major surgery for kidney cancer, and, while the pains were still bad, they were getting better.  At the very least he was adrenalized because he'd been the instigating force (and checkbook) behind bringing some major donors to campus, and the money was being used for hybrid student/professional film and theatre productions, by which students and recent graduates were hired and paid and earned professional credits working alongside professionals -- a great way to jumpstart careers in the entertainment industry, in fact the only way other than nepotism.  So, this Spring semester was starting out well, and the invitation to the Long Beach Studios Presentation seemed, to Lane, to hint at a thawing of the nearly year old freeze between himself and his former best friend, College of the Arts (COTA) Dean Donald Para.  The invite had come from Para. The Ice Age had started the previous May when Lane had gone public with his whistle blowing about professors with fake credits and the fact that the school was steadfastly refusing to do anything about it.  

The instant Lane went public, Para ended their almost daily chats and e-mails, let alone their dinners and sporting events and other personal/professional get-togethers.  Then, as the press jumped on the story, Para went from ostracizing to retaliating.  It wasn't enough that Lane was dead to him, now Lane had to die -- at least in the sense of having a teaching career at CSULB or anywhere else.  As Para would explain to Lane years later, Para was a hit man acting under orders from CSULB President F. King Alexander, but Lane is still not clear on who really pulled whose strings.  Upcoming litigation will finally answer that question, so stay tuned. Nonetheless, from the beginning Alexander was doing his own retaliations as well. When Alexander and FEA Chair and CSULB Trustee Craig Smith attended a CSU Trustees Meeting on May 14, 2008, as an article on the imposture appeared in CSULB's own Daily 49er student newspaper (which always slants content in fawning favor of Alexander, but this time couldn't quite figure out how to do that), Smith sent Lane and Para the following e-mail:

From: Craig Smith

Organization: CSULB

Reply-To: Craig Smith

Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 08:03:57 -0700

To: Brian Alan Lane

Cc: Don Para

Subject: Re: did you see the 49er article?

This has badly embarrassed The King and I at the Board of Trustees meeting.

Take care,

Craig 

_____________________________

C. R. Smith, Member of the Board of Trustees, California State University System

Chair, Film and Electronic Arts; Director, Center for First Amendment Studies

See our web site:

www.csulb.edu/~crsmith/1amendment.html

Smith phoned Lane later that day to laughingly tell him that Alexander had been mocked by all the other CSU Presidents when, during the meeting, there had been discussion of a potential hiring situation and one of the other Presidents had popped off:  "Just make sure that it's not someone from Long Beach, because you won't know what you're getting!  Could be a PhD, could be the janitor!"  According to Smith, from his Trustees' seat he could see Alexander doing a slow but white hot burn in the Presidents' section.  

The next week, the CSULB campus cops showed up at Lane's office door and announced that they had to search him, his bag, and his car, because "someone at the highest level of the university" had filed a (false) report that Lane was bringing guns to school.  Lane understood this to mean Alexander, and Lane also felt this wasn't the sort of pissy little action that Para would take.  This is what Lane wrote to Alexander and his "team" at the time, cc'd to Lane's close colleagues and legal representatives:

From: Brian Alan Lane CSULB

Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 04:48:14 -0700

To: F King Alexander , "kgould@csulb.edu" , Holly Harbinger , Rene Castro , Don Para , Craig Smith

Cc: Maria Viera , Mike Pounds , Tom Pinkava , Tom Blomquist , Michael Olecki  

Conversation: Search

Subject: Search

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Yesterday we did MFA Oral exams, after which I met and worked with FEA 340 students, and then an FEA 505 student, and then more FEA 340 students.  A lovely day and evening and many consecutive hours of teaching.  

However, in the middle of all that and much to the upset of my students, the campus police came by to conduct a surprise search of my office, my bag, and my car. 

These police were terrific and professional and courteous, and I happen to think that our campus police force is the best I’ve ever seen.  They were just doing their job yesterday, and I allowed them access to whatever they wanted. 

They were there because of the administration.  Please let me know what's going on, rather than making me think you are retaliating against me for whistleblowing.

Thank you.

Brian Alan Lane

Lane got no response from this e-mail.  And then, nine months later, the imposters were gone, the press had left the story behind, there had been more weirdness toward Lane by Para, and yet Para had invited Lane to this Long Beach Studios Thing.  Lane quickly re-arranged his schedule to make sure he would attend.  A thaw would be a good thing for everyone.

When Lane got to the presentation on Thursday February 19, 2009, he saw that many of his FEA teaching colleagues were there, along with dozens of CSULB folks who ranged from vaguely familiar to complete strangers.  At the impromptu dais were COTA Dean Para, CSULB Provost Karen Gould, and two men -- one short and slight, the other massive enough to work as a solar eclipse in his spare time.  Behind them was an old-fashioned easel and a stack of large presentation art boards.

Para quickly signaled that it was show time, and he stepped to the podium.  "Thank you for coming, let's get started," he said, "We have something very exciting to talk to you about today.  The Long Beach Studios.  The Long Beach Studios is the greatest thing to ever happen to this University."

The hyperbole became even more hyperbolic as Para launched into a quick overview:  The Long Beach Studios was going to be the biggest film studio in the world and CSULB was already joined at the hip with the Studios and their visionary founders.  While the Film Department could certainly expect Studio perks for their students (including dedicated sound stages for CSULB student film productions), all the departments on campus were expected to participate in the relationship and to find inventive ways to get their students involved.  That's why folks from the Nursing School and the Engineering Department and every other discipline were in the room to hear the presentation and come away inspired.  The Long Beach Studios were going to need student nurses and student engineers and student actors and student fashion designers and on and on and on.

In the audience, Lane leaned toward Theatre Professor (and Former FEA Chair) Maria Viera and current FEA Chair Craig Smith.  
      "Student nurses?" whispered Lane.  

"Can't have too many," chuckled Viera.  

"FEA has been promised two sound stages," said Smith.  

"Right.  And the Brooklyn Bridge," said Lane, "And what exactly did Para and Alexander have to do as quid pro quo?"     
      From behind, FEA Professor Micheal Pounds chimed in: "Tax advantages?"  

To which Smith nodded:  "And introductions to the Mayor and City Council."  

"So, tax and zoning benefits.  Nice."  Lane snorted.

Pounds eyed Smith:  "Alexander and Para get seats on the Studios' Board of Directors?"  

Lane sighed:  "And their very own parking places on the lot."

"Seventy-six trombones led the big parade," said Viera.

On the dais, Para turned things over to Provost Gould.  A physically tiny person from New York, Gould had been Alexander's big "outside hire" when he first came aboard.  But, as a Provost, Karen Gould had proven to be the adult version of a dry hump.  She'd only come to Long Beach to notch her resume and up her baseline salary as she hunted for a better titled job back east.  In the meantime, no one at Long Beach saw her.  When professors phoned or e-mailed her, she literally never replied and never even had her staff reply.  When controversies -- like imposter professors -- wound up on her desk, she did nothing.  But, to make faculty think she cared about them even as she saved herself from interacting with them, she sent out e-mails and memos giving more release time (non-working but paid time) to new tenure-track hires, even though the University really needed more teachers teaching more classes.  Her release time tactic also gave pretensions of this "teaching university" being a more important "research university" where faculty took time away from the classroom in order to commit to scholarly pursuits and where being the Provost was a bigger deal.  And, by providing extra release time so that new faculty could better acclimate, it would mean that more would be expected of them when they came up for tenure, thereby reducing the ranks of the tenured and making Alexander and Reed happier than pigs in their own piggy banks.  

All in all, what happened was exactly what you would have predicted: more part-timers were hired, curriculum became inconsistent and worse as the recession hit and classes were dramatically cut back, and the wondrous Provost Gould got the job as President of Brooklyn College and hurried her ass back to where she came from as fast as her broom would fly.

In the meantime, here she was introducing the dynamic duo of confidence men who were selling their delusion of The Long Beach Studios.  There is some disagreement in the recollection of whether Gould was wearing large pearls or large beads that day, but no argument that the choker around her neck was insufficient to hold her back from spewing out a sequence of false and puffed up credits which she read from index cards.  "Jay Samit is the CEO of The Long Beach Studios.  He has decades of leadership in the entertainment industry, from President of SONY's New Media Connect, to twenty-five years as a member of the Writers Guild, and writer and producer of many feature films."  Gould waxed both efficient and rhapsodic for minutes more about the acumen, the genius, the stewardship, and the downright heroism of the anchor bearded Samit, the slight gentleman of the two.

In the audience, Lane exchanged knowing glances with the two FEA professors who had actual industry experience. They all knew that everything Gould was saying was bullshit.  

First of all, SONY Connect was an industry joke. In 2004, more than a decade too late, Samit convinced SONY that he was the man who could help SONY compete with iTunes by starting their own on-line music service, spending (reportedly) more than a hundred million dollars, with Samit as General Manager turned Executive Vice President. After less than three years, the project was completely abandoned and written off by SONY, leaving consumers in the lurch, but not before Samit spent millions on concert promotions so he could roam the world and be photographed next to Sheryl Crow. The one thing you can be assured about Jay Samit: he does nothing that does not involve public self-promotion above all else. "Boondoggle" is his middle name.  

But what particularly annoyed Lane about Gould's fictional claims for credit for Samit was that the latter was a "writer and producer of many feature films".  

Only months earlier, Gould was smack dab in the middle of the Berlin and Jacobs impostures for both industry and academic credits, and, at the very moment of The Long Beach Studios Presentation, Gould and Alexander and Para were concluding their follow-up investigation to whistle blowing on the industry and academic credits of another Professor, Diana Wagman, which would lead to Wagman being removed from tenure track, losing her contract and her rank as Assistant Professor, and given a bye-bye few classes of part-time work.  So, it was nothing short of madness that Gould was here, all four foot whatever of her, standing proud and announcing phony credits for Samit, credits so problematic that Lane saw Samit himself cringe at them.  One had to wonder:  were these fake credits coming from Samit, or from Gould/Alexander/Para?

The fact is that Samit -- even now -- promotes himself as "a member of the Writers Guild of America".  But a check with the Guild proves that Samit has no credits whatsoever for any productions of any kind, let alone "many feature films".  Unfortunately for Samit, Lane was and is an honored lifetime active member of the Writers Guild, and has been further honored by a longtime appointment to the TV Credits Policy Committee by which he serves on or chairs credits policy review boards, oversees credit arbitrations, and functions as a legally cognizable expert reader with respect to creative contributions and crediting.  In other words, the top dogs in credits and contracts at the Guild are programmed into Lane's mobile phone speed dial.  

So it took very little effort after The Long Beach Studios Presentation to affirm that Samit has no credits and no contracts as a writer, and seems to have gotten his membership in the Guild by giving himself a phantom hire either directly or through his then wife (who is a member with two credits shared with others).  In other words, Jay Samit is no writer and never has been, and using the claim that he is a member of the Writers Guild has just about as much credibility and import as putting down on your c.v. that you are a "member of Costco".  Samit uses his Guild membership and his fake "writer and producer" credits to suck up to non-industry people like Gould and Para and Alexander, to entice them into thinking he actually knows something about filmmaking and would therefore be a reliable major domo for a new film studio.  These mock credits also help Samit get speaking gigs from non-industry folks.

The never-was writer Jay Samit strode to the podium as Gould passed him the microphone, and he glibly and obsequiously and lugubriously and smarmingly thanked Gould for her introduction and then launched into a host of helium-inflated anecdotes about his brilliant career, passing over the fact that every endeavor had ended in abject failure and he was now essentially unemployed except for the money he was scrounging from investors and loans for The Long Beach Studios.  

It was a masterful speech, to the extent that the audience of rubes was all starry-eyed at the thought of Hollywood coming to CSULB. But Lane and his FEA group sat there with arms crossed wondering what the fuck was really going on.

What Samit told the room was that the former Boeing manufacturing hangar and plant at The Long Beach Airport was going to be ground zero for The Long Beach Studios.  The gigantic building had been abandoned by Boeing years ago, but, through the unerring and unequalled creative "second sight" of Samit and his partner, they imagined the potential for this being one of the largest film production stages in the world.  That building, plus tons of acreage around it which would be developed by The Studios, would create "the largest independent production facility in the world" and "the hub of five new studios worldwide".  According to Samit.

Now, for those of you who don't know Long Beach Airport, it is a working, commercial, jet airport.  It is a hub for JetBlue, and many major carriers fly in and out of there, day and night.  The noise there is deafening.  The take-off and landing noise extends all the way to CSULB some miles away, as the flight patterns take planes low over the University.  If you live there, you get used to it or you don't live there.  But, shooting a movie at a working jet airport is a whole other issue.  Not only noise, but vibration.  And the Boeing hangar is sheet metal and windows and vents, with giant doors.  It was never intended to be soundproof or environment proof.  It's an airplane manufacturing facility at a working airport.  It was designed so you could openly test jet engines and do a lot of riveting and welding out loud.  You could not use that building anywhere other than at a noisy airport.  Its own noise was designed to blend in.  And, even then, workers wore earplugs and noise-cancelling ear-cocoon headsets.

Nonetheless, at the Presentation, Samit sold and re-sold the beaming Para and Gould and the audience on the certainty of The Long Beach Studios at the Long Beach Airport.  Samit didn't say this was a maybe, he said this was a done deal, and he said that Alexander and Para and CSULB were instrumental in helping him and his partner bring the Studios into being.  And he said that every department and every student at CSULB had something to gain by the Studios' operation.

After espousing the virtues of his past and his vision for the Studios, Samit stepped back and his massive partner took to the microphone. This man was Jack O'Halloran. Generations before he had been a heavyweight boxer and a boxing trainer/manager. Later he had become an actor. Not a big actor, a large actor. His only credit of note was a mute co-villain aptly named "Non" in the film Superman II. Being mute, he had no lines, and his action consisted of fighting. But he was large, no getting away from that. His boss villain "General Zod" (played by Terence Stamp) rolled his eyes a lot at Non and Non never seemed to notice. That sufficed for character development and subtext. In all fairness O'Halloran did all he was asked in Superman II, although a toupeed cargo container could have done the same.

But the thing about O'Halloran was that, in real life, he charmed the ladies.  While Samit is that weasly sort of spitty guy whose very presence makes you want to take a shower and STD tests, O'Halloran is that sort of Man Mountain who grins and looks deep into your eyes and soul and makes certain women swoon.  There is no man who can understand this effect, maybe because guys shake O'Halloran's hand when introduced, and that bursts any potential love bubble.  

Shaking O'Halloran's hand is like being forced to fist the rectum of a shaved pink piglet. It's hot and humid and your fingers can't unravel, and when you look down all you see is your wrist ending abruptly at this loaf of shapeless bubblegum flesh. Somewhere inside his hand is your hand, and while that's oddly claustrophobic and intriguing, there's also the possibility you may never see your hand again. In all events, even should your hand be pooped back out, you will never shake O'Halloran's again; you will find a way to wave or give him the high sign or something, the next time you meet. But Lane had previously met O'Halloran at a distance at the College once, when one of the development ladies had all but drooled over the Man Mountain, and the Man Mountain had flirted shamelessly with her as if he were sharing all the secrets of Krypton. Privately she had told Lane that O'Halloran was "very impressive...  and funny." Lane thought she'd lost her mind.

At The Long Beach Studios Presentation, O'Halloran was glorious across a range of gruff and smooth as he and Samit unveiled the art boards which contained multi-colored renderings of the Studios logo and the Studios Complex and the Studios Hotel and the Studios Spa and the Studios Childcare Center and the Studios Petcare Center and the Studios Shopping Center and on and on.  Of course, none of this existed other than in these silly renderings, none of which showed giant jet planes zooming by.  But, finally, they got to renderings of the Boeing hangar itself, re-made by brush strokes into a film stage.  And not just any old film stage.  The rendering showed the Boeing hangar had been filled with the entire backlot of a film studio.  There was New York street, and California Beach street, and Old West street, and this street and that street, the Eiffel Tower and high-rises and landmarks, and every region and every period in history available simultaneously UNDER ONE ROOF.  It was like when you write the entire Bible on the head of a pin.  Here was all of Universal's backlot and studios tour, plus Las Vegas, jammed inside an Arby's.  

As O'Halloran explained it, multiple film productions could be shooting simultaneously on totally different sets under the same roof, all they had to do was slide some walls and props around.  That was the plan for The Long Beach Studios.  Also, O'Halloran boldly suggested that stars like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie would welcome staying at the Studios Hotel or Bungalows there by the North runway, rather than being put up in mansions or yachts or five star suites down the coast.  According to O'Halloran -- speaking as an actor about what actors want -- the "convenience" of living right there by the set was immeasurably invaluable.

Now, dear readers, if at this point you think O'Halloran's and Samit's ideas are sensible ideas, you need to stop reading this and check in to rehab.  And do it before the creatures from the Comet BlowMe land and probe you in places best left unperturbed.

For the rest of you, the tale continues.  

In the Presentation audience, Lane was about to scream.  He wasn't sure what he would scream.  He was thinking some sort of Non noise would be even better than actual words, but, other than his FEA buddies, the rest of the audience was eating up O'Halloran's words as if Moses had just trudged them down from the Lord Himself.  And now O'Halloran proved he had saved his best for last: "The Long Beach Studios is no longer just an idea, it's a reality!  We have two major studio feature productions booked for March, and a third coming in April!"

At that point, there was so much excitement in the room it could not be contained.  Faculty from the Nursing program hollered:  "Will you need nurses?"  To which O'Halloran crossed his arms across his Devil's Monument chest and said:  "We will need everybody!"

And Para's beaming turned into a beacon of light.  

Which is when Professor Jack Anderson raised his hand.  Anderson is a Film Professor.  He is a big man, but not a large man like O'Halloran.  He teaches cinematography.  He is a former hippie turned curmudgeon.  Until a recent pre-stroke incident at school, he smoked more often then he breathed.  He still eats enough to feed a small village anywhere you choose.  You take one look at Anderson and you are certain that every extra minute you spend in his presence is a minute in which there is too high a probability that he will keel over and die.  He's one of those people that causes you to negotiate with yourself whether you will give him CPR or not.  Mostly the answer is dependent on what food is in his beard.  But Anderson is good for the off-the-cuff public comment, which he always phrases as a question so that it seems less poorly-intended.

When O'Halloran did not at first recognize Anderson's hand in the air, Anderson just blurted out:  "I have a question." 

At that point O'Halloran reluctantly eyed him.  
      "I just want to be clear," said Anderson, "I'm from the Film Department.  Did you say that there would be two sound stages of dedicated space and lighting equipment for our students?"  

Samit and O'Halloran and Para all nodded hugely.  

"Yes," said O'Halloran.

"Sound stages separate from the hangar space you just described?" asked Anderson.

"Eventually," said O'Halloran. "Right now what we have is the space in the hangar."

"And we would get space there?  And lighting equipment?" asked Anderson.

"That's right," said O'Halloran.

"But that space is not light-proofed or sound-proofed, is that right?  And other productions are coming in there?" asked Anderson.

"The productions shooting there are doing large action sequences," said O'Halloran, "so sound is not an issue, lighting is just a matter of lighting what you want to light, and there's plenty of space for everybody."

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh." said Anderson.  It is a reply he makes quite often, but it has more "h's" when he is responding to something that is inexplicable.

The FEA cohort all exchanged looks.  Lane wanted to burst out laughing.  The last time he'd heard this much bullshit in public were the eulogies at his grandfather's funeral.  Lane had wanted to laugh then too.  In fact he had had to pretend he was crying in order to cover the laughter.  This time he just grinned like he suffered from incurable gas and schizophrenia.

The Presentation ended.  The FEA group filed out in silence.  Once they were clear of that venue and well on their way to their own building, Lane eyed Anderson, Smith, Todd Baker, and the others.  

"Well, this is ridiculous," said Smith. "This is not what they promised us."

"It's not real", said Baker.

"It's a movie studio at a working airport," said Lane.

"It's a problem," said Anderson.

"They don't even own the Boeing hangar or the land yet," said Smith, "Escrow has not closed.  They don't own anything."

"Then how are they booking in productions for two weeks from now?" asked Baker.

"I don't know," said Smith.

Lane sighed.  "So, who's going to be the one to tell Para and Alexander this is all a con job?" he asked.

Everyone pointed at Lane.

So much for the great thaw.

Despite nearly three decades earning his living in the mainstream entertainment industry, Lane had never heard of Jay Samit.  That was a red flag.  But Lane had  known a "Michele Samit" -- she'd been the in-house publicist at the publisher of Lane's last book, a creative non-fiction novel about a serial killer.  Also, Lane had a lot of present day ties with executives at several divisions of SONY.

Lane had to teach a class the night of The Long Beach Studios Presentation.  But he could google and e-mail and leave phone messages later that night, all in search of information on Jay Samit and The Long Beach Studios.  The next morning, he was able to follow up on all his enquiries.

The answers were unsurprising. The Studios did not exist. There was a website which continues to this day and pretends to represent a viable studio, listing a contact phone number which seems to be an office number but is in fact O'Halloran's cell phone. There is a California LLC (a Limited Liability Corporation) which is tied to the non-existent Studios and has a mailing address in Woodland Hills that ties to Samit. Back in the day, O'Halloran was listed as the LLC's agent for service of process, but he was subsequently deleted. The purpose of the LLC seems to be a legal entity so Samit and O'Halloran can bank funds from investors, with the money then being used to pay themselves fees, expenses and perks.  

As for Samit's professional credits, reality did not match up to his own publicity, let alone Gould's statements about him.  And it turned out that Michele Samit had indeed been Jay Samit's wife.  

Finally, Smith was quite right that the Boeing property was still owned by Boeing.  Samit and O'Halloran had opened an escrow to buy the property, and now Boeing was cancelling the escrow since their buyers had failed to come up with the money.  The months of previous CSULB support from Alexander and Para had been intended to help Samit and O'Halloran raise investment capital and obtain tax and zoning advantages, and the big Presentation was designed to gain publicity in order to convince Boeing to extend the escrow they were about to shut down.

Worse, when Lane dialed the number for The Long Beach Studios back in February 2009, intending to speak to some studio manager and ask innocently about getting FEA's advanced students in to shoot per O'Halloran's promises at the Presentation, it was O'Halloran who answered what was clearly a cell phone, and O'Halloran's answers completely contradicted the pledges he'd made previously.

"Hi, I'm Brian Lane, a CSULB Professor who runs one of the advanced film production courses.  I was at your Presentation, along with my colleagues, and we'd like to find out what process you want us to follow in order to book time on your stage.  We've got a bunch of senior thesis films ready to go."

O'Halloran answered with a laugh and then some high and mighty advice:  "Well, Brian, here's the best advice I can give you, and it's the best advice you can give your students.  Tell them the only way to learn how to be successful in this business is to get out there and do everything for yourself.  Tell them that.  They gotta do it on their own."

"Are you saying there is no time they can book your stage?  And no lighting or other equipment available to us?" asked Lane.

"Our stage is all booked up and we don't have any equipment," said O'Halloran in his gayest friendliest tone, "Your students should find locations someplace else.  Or, I guess they could talk to the production companies that are using our space and see if they'd let your students in during down time."

"You know that's not possible under union rules and insurance regulations," said Lane.

"Well, they could ask," said O'Halloran, "but the best would be for your students to get creative in finding their own locations and equipment.  Don't you have equipment?"

The conversation actually went downhill from there.  Lane tried to pin O'Halloran down as to the promises he and Samit had made at the Presentation, and O'Halloran just shrugged them off, never denying them, merely suggesting that what was true a few hours earlier was no longer true now.  According to O'Halloran now, there wouldn't even be overnight equipment storage space if students wanted to come over and shoot in the parking lot with their own equipment. O'Halloran and Samit were giving CSULB literally nothing.

The only issue was how to give the bad news to Para and Alexander and Gould.

Lane sent the following e-mail:

From: Brian Alan Lane

Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:43:14 -0700

To: Karen Gould , F Alexander , Don Para

Cc: Craig Smith

Conversation: Jay Samit & Long Beach Studios update

Subject: Jay Samit & Long Beach Studios update

Hi All.

I was at yesterday’s Long Beach Studios presentation.

Before any of you fall further down the rabbit hole, here are some things you might want to know:

I happen to know Michele Samit — Jay’s ex-wife.  (The entertainment biz is small.)  I well know people who are close friends and colleagues of both Jay and Michele.  (These are people I can call who will tell me anything I want to know about Jay and Michele.)  I am also, as we know, on the TV Credits Policy Committee at the WGA, as well as a lifetime current member.

Bottom line: easy for me to check on industry credits and such.

Yesterday, even going beyond the debacle that The Long Beach Studios are giving us NOTHING but a backhanded thank you for helping them get into business (you heard that, yes?  they are giving us NOTHING), Dr. Gould read out loud a list of credits for Jay Samit, some of which are not merely overstated but flat-out lies.

Jay joined the WGA when he married Michele — she was a member, and it’s still not quite clear how she got him in, because that was back in the early 80’s.  Dr. Gould stated that Jay was a 25 year member. That’s true only in the sense that he’s been an inactive member since his first year.  He’s never had any work.  Dr. Gould said that he has many feature film credits.  That’s totally untrue — he has none.  He’s been a production executive — a techno-geek guy — for his entire career since graduating college in 1982.  Interestingly, he tells everyone in the biz and all his bios state that he has a Bachelor of Science degree (since that would have been the preferred degree for the jobs he’s had), but UCLA says it’s a BA. 

Why should we care? 

Because we are the folks who enable folks to lie about their credits. We believe them and we pass them along and make the lies bigger and better. This is where it begins. This is how the Zeligs are created. By their suggestion and OUR action. Yesterday, Jay talked about being involved in every level of production, from college through the pro ranks, as if he were a trained and experienced writer/director — but he’s not and never has been. If you check out his history of bios, he first began to add this made-up stuff just last Fall when he spoke at The Milken Institute (how appropriate). Guess now that Jay’s dealing with the actual entertainment production side of Hollywood, he wants to seem like he fits in. And we have picked up his lies and run with them and given them credibility.

Look, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. I can only say, you run a multi-millionaire dollar business, yet you are not businesspeople, you are academics at heart and teachers by trade. You — and we — are all easy prey because we don’t naturally distrust. Knowing that limitation, we need to hire professional vetters — lawyers, like the NCAA does — that would be my suggestion. I do not want to see any of you embarrassed and I do not want to see my University further embarrassed by having us vouch for liars and cheats. 

You’ve no doubt seen the NYT articles this week, on grading and on lying — we have given birth to a generation of liars because, somehow, with all the best of intentions, we have enabled those of our own generation to lie, to cover up their lies, and then set themselves out as the example for the next generation to follow.  At the fundamental level of teaching, we are failing to teach by word or example that liars are not tolerated and that ignorance is the only enemy.

I remain devoted to CSULB — hence, this note to you.

Best -- B

The response to Lane's e-mail was a deafening silence, but he was right then in the middle of funding a play and workshops that CSULB students and recent graduates were producing alongside Hollywood professionals in Los Angeles, so he forgot about the non-existent Long Beach Studios for a couple of weeks.  

Then, suddenly, on March 9, 2009, Lane got a message from "Andrea", one of Alexander's secretaries.  Alexander wanted to meet with Lane at the end of that week, on the Friday in the morning, and he wanted to discuss The Long Beach Studios and Lane's chat with O'Halloran.  It was clear by the tone of the message that Alexander did not intend this to be a pleasant discussion.  Lane immediately phoned Andrea, but all he got was voice mail, so he left a detailed message.  Later that night he doubled-up on the message by sending an e-mail directly to Alexander.  Lane was not available for a Friday morning meeting that week, but he had plenty of openings in his schedule and was sure a day and time could be arranged for either a face-to-face or a phoner even before Friday.  This was Lane's e-mail to Alexander in the wee hours of March 10, 2009:

From: Brian Alan Lane

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:51:48 -0700

To: F Alexander

Conversation: Long Beach Studios

Subject: Long Beach Studios

Hi President Alexander!

I’m sure Andrea told you I’m crazy busy in rehearsals and teaching and student film production as of this week, but hopefully we can do a phoner in lieu of a face-to-face.  I will call her to see what we can schedule.  I think she was aiming for Friday — and I can pop out of rehearsal to use the phone at whatever time works for you.

In the meantime, with respect to The Long Beach Studios, I did have a lengthy and private phone conversation with Jack O’Halloran.  As chair of the FEA Budget Committee, Chair of Production Option Admissions, and de facto head of the Production Option (since I teach the advanced production course), I contacted Mr. O’Halloran in order to see how best FEA could interface and get our students into the LB Studios.

I therefore feel I have a complete and definite understanding of what is on the table.  Mr. O’Halloran was very clear, and what he told me comports with industry standards that are to be expected.  

In other words:  No pie in the sky.  He and I exchanged information and ideas helpful in both directions, and, if and when the Studios actually become viable, he and I will be in touch.

That is the positive detente of the matter.

The practical reality is another story, which we really should discuss.

Until then my advice is don’t offer any quid because there isn’t gonna be any quo, pro or otherwise.

Best -- Brian

Unknown to Lane, on the very date of this e-mail the Daily 49er was about to break the story that Boeing had just officially cancelled the escrow with Jay Samit and Jack O'Halloran and The Long Beach Studios.  Also unknown to Lane was that Alexander and Para believed that Lane was somehow responsible both for the story and the reality, since it was Lane who had spoken with O'Halloran and burst the bubble of false promises that Alexander, Para, Gould, Samit, and O'Halloran had been making to the CSULB community that "The Long Beach Studios is the greatest thing to ever happen to this University".

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The internal result of the cancelled escrow was that Alexander and Para were thoroughly and publicly humiliated once again, much as they'd been the year before during the imposter mess.

Two days later, on March 12, 2009, Alexander sent Lane a nasty letter by snail mail and Para went to FEA's monthly faculty meeting. The Ice Age had just gone Volcanic.

Deans do not attend departmental faculty meetings unless there is something important to announce. Such would be the case this day. In spades. And it was digitally recorded so it cannot be denied. That recording will be made available by link in a future Documents Installment to THUG The Book.  

But here are the lowlights:

"I have written out my comments, so as not to ramble," said Para.

"Some of your particular issues have been shared with the news media," said Para.

"This is not acceptable, it will not be tolerated.  I will not tolerate it.  The University will not tolerate it.  The new leadership will not tolerate it." said Para.

"Resources for faculty positions and equipment money are being withheld," said Para.

"This is indeed a high price to pay and in fact the ones who will be hurt the most will be the students," said Para.

"This department has so much to look forward to: the new Spielberg space, the promising link with the Long Beach Studios," said Para.

You get the gist.  FEA was being punished for whistle blowing.  And Para was living in lala-land.  

Two weeks later, on April 6, as an act of admitted retaliation, Para would suspend admissions to the Masters of Fine Arts Dramatic Writing Program (MFA DW) and thereby breach the terms of Spielberg's donation pledge, leading to the death of a multi-million dollar donation.  So Para making a positive reference to Spielberg at the FEA faculty meeting was bizarre. (More details on Spielberg in Installment Two).

Even more bizarre was the reference to "the promising link with the Long Beach Studios".  Unless Para was channeling the dead, there were no Long Beach Studios, they had never existed anywhere but on art boards and in the greedy little minds of Para and Alexander and Samit and O'Halloran.  So what was the real "promise" of The Long Beach Studios? you ask.  Boards of Directors.  That's the answer.  

There will be more details on this in Installment Four of THUG, but follow this logic for now: CSULB is a community of 40,000 people which runs vastly more than 200 million dollars a year through the local economy. Businesses want to do business with CSULB, they want to make inroads into its citizens to sell goods and services. They also want "ties" that lead to tax and zoning advantages and opportunities for State and Federal funding.  

So, for example, the minute Fieldon King Alexander moved from Kentucky and arrived in Long Beach, he was hired to be on the Boards of several corporations, including a Bank and a Medical Company.  What did Alexander know about banking?  Answer: nothing more than you know by having a checking account.  And what did Alexander know about medicine?  Answer: nothing more than you know when you take aspirin for a headache.  Yet, Alexander gleefully accepted these positions on these Boards, for which he was paid salary and given stock and stock options!  All of this over and above his moose-choking CSULB salary and perks and benefits.

But poor Para -- the ersatz Chair turned Dean turned Interim Provost -- was not yet on any paying Boards, well none he reported out loud anyway.  (More on the legality of these positions and the reporting required -- in Installment Four, upcoming.)  So, The Long Beach Studios was truly going to be Para's coming out party, his chance for the big brass ring of graft and corruption and payola.  And he was not about to let that dream go quietly.

Two days after Para met with FEA faculty and told them he and Alexander were fucking them and their students with a non-lubricated telephone pole, Alexander's snail mail letter arrived at Lane's house.  Here it is:

Lane knew at once he was in big trouble.  It was really the first time that "whistle blower retaliation" sank into his consciousness.  (The killing of the MFA DW a couple of weeks later would confirm the depth of Alexander's and Para's retaliatory intents.)  The red flag in the Alexander letter was that it was cc'd to Rene Castro, the notorious Torquemada who served as Inquisitor, Assassin, and Junkyard Dog for the President and Provost.  The only reason the letter was cc'd to Castro was to turn him loose on Lane, to find some way to get Lane out of CSULB, even if the reasons and the evidence had to be fabricated.  Whatever it took.  Castro would later tell Lane: "No matter what anyone else says when they complain about their jobs, I have the worst." 

Of course, the contents of Alexander's letter were appalling.  Like Para, Alexander was still pretending that The Long Beach Studios were not a mirage, and the language reveals that the ties to CSULB ran deep.

Lane determined to turn his back on the Studios mess at that point, particularly since the press quickly started reporting that Tesla Motors was now bidding on the Boeing space as a possible location for a new auto manufacturing plant.  Samit and O'Halloran kept issuing press releases that they still meant to buy the property, but no one -- including Boeing -- was taking them seriously.  

By October 2009, O'Halloran was calling reporters to say:  "The film studio's definitely happening, it's going to happen."  

But Boeing spokesperson Debby Arkell responded:  "The status of the facility has been unchanged since March of this year when it fell out of escrow with the studio."

And Bob Foster, the Mayor of Long Beach, was even more pessimistic:  "I want to see a deal that's inked," he said, and then made very public jokes about the unlikelihood of the Studios ever happening.

Yet, although he was quietly removed as the Studio LLC's Agent for Service of Process around this time, Jack O'Halloran was still out there raising money and shooting off his mouth.  "All the people who are Doubting Thomases can get their crow machines out and start eating crow."  said O'Halloran to LBReport.com (in a January 22, 2010 recorded interview that is on-line in full link here), "Long Beach Studios is going to happen, and that's a 100% guarantee.  It's going to happen."

Then came what was, for Lane, the final straw in this tragicomedy. In February 2010, with Para as CSULB Interim Provost and his brain dead lackey James "Jay" Kvapil as Interim Dean of COTA, in-house word came that they had chosen Jay Samit to be Commencement Speaker for CSULB's College of The Arts come May 2010. So Lane sent this e-mail:

From: Brian Alan Lane

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:59:44 -0700

To: F Alexander , Don Para , Jay Kvapil

Cc: Chris Miles , Micheal Pounds

Subject: SAMIT AS COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER

Gentlemen:

Last February 2009, Jay Samit was introduced to an invited assembly of faculty and university "others".  Para and Gould made this introduction by citing to a vast array of quite simply fraudulent industry credits for Samit, including crediting him as a writer on feature films.  Samit then stood up and embellished further on his phony credits.  And Para advised the crowd that "The Long Beach Studios is the greatest thing to ever happen to this University."

I wrote to Alexander/Para/Gould/Smith at the time to alert them to the fraud and to the university's promulgation (and perhaps creation) of it.

Alexander's response was an absurd cease and desist order to me not to make any misrepresentations when dealing with Samit and O'Halloran (at the non-existent Long Beach Studios).  Alexander ignored my whistleblower claim entirely, preferring instead to impose restrictions on my speech.  (His letter stated and re-stated that I could say what I wanted so long as I didn't say what he didn't want me to say.  It was a lovely bit of veiled and not-so-veiled threat in retaliation for my whistleblowing.)

The backdrop is that I note I am batting a thousand when vetting and finding fault with claimed credentials of folks around here.  

The Administration are the folks who are batting blind, with a long history of trying to avoid the matter unless and until you are called out publicly on it and unless I personally provide you with the documents that force you to act.  (For example, Mike Berlin would still be here had I not crawled out of cancer surgery to send your administration the document which proved him to be a liar -- after the administration had gratefully accepted yet another false document from him and was whitewashing the situation despite a stack of evidence to the contrary.)

So here's the poop now that you've announced this non-artist Samit as the commencement speaker for the College of the Arts:  if COTA or the University puts out any public claims of credits for Samit that are in fact false or inflated, I will blow the whistle publicly.  You can choose whom you want as speaker, but you don't get to lie about him.

I trust we are clear on this, and I write this in advance in order to give you opportunity to be accurate this time.  If I did not care about my University or if I had the personal animus toward you that you have toward me, I would have waited to nail you after you sent out phony p.r. material.

But, meanwhile, I now also ask -- for a public answer:  as you keep telling us all the things that the non-existent Long Beach Studios have to offer us, what is it that the University has given them as quid pro quo?  

Rumors abound that we have give them educational status that is allowing them tax, zoning, and other advantages, or simply that the University and its President are involved in influence peddling in helping the non-existent Studios receive City Council and Mayoral okays for their plans.

Please answer the above question so that I can advise my faculty as Budget Chair and so that I can respond accurately to speculation when presented to me by reporters and others.

Needless to say, all our industry-experienced FEA faculty are amazed and appalled at your choice of commencement speaker when real artists and real industry movers were available.  You are always so thrilled to show us where CSULB ranks on lists of Universities with respect to various indicia -- how's about where we stand on that list of commencement speakers?

Thank you.

Brian Alan Lane

Of course, Lane received no response.  Then, in April, Interim Dean Kvapil put out an official announcement. 

Now Kvapil is best explained as a zombie martinet who broaches no oversight.  To his face and on more than one occasion, Lane has told Kvapil: "I've never met anyone so simultaneously ignorant and arrogantly proud of it."  Such is the truth for most bullies, if you think about it, and Kvapil has nothing unique about him and nothing that deserves a second look.  

As longtime Chair of the Art Department, Kvapil had seethed when Para accidentally beat him out for Dean.  Years later, Para installed Kvapil as Associate Dean under him, and then, in Summer 2009, Kvapil moved up to Interim Dean when Karen Gould flew away to Brooklyn and Alexander sucked Para up to Interim Provost.  So, in Spring 2010, Kvapil was stumping hard to make Para and Alexander happy so that he would get the "Full" Deanship after a search the following year.  And Para and Alexander were doing their best to avoid direct contact with Lane and let Kvapil and Castro be their hit men. 

But you just can't really rely on Kvapil if you need him to do anything that requires actual thought or some sort of skill.  (Wait until you see the childish, false financial documents he crafted -- in an upcoming Installment of THUG.  Your five year old could have done better.)  So let's take a moment and enjoy Kvapil's misguided, dishonest, absurd announcement about Samit here in April 2010.  Here's a CSULB Dean crowing to the world that the highly coveted and important Commencement Speaker is going to be the "Chief Executive Officer of Long Beach Studios, the largest independent full-service studio in North America", even though the Studios do not exist and Samit doesn't even own the property.  And then the credits go on to give Samit credibility in film and video production which he doesn't have.

Why was Samit so determined to be Commencement Speaker, you ask?  Answer:  because he'd run through the seed money for the non-existent Long Beach Studios, he had insufficient other work, and that meant his best hope for future employment was as a paid speaker.  Indeed, if you check out Samit's credentials on-line right now, you will find the speech he gave at CSULB.  He uses it to sell himself for other speaking engagements.  

But why would Alexander and Para continue to perpetuate the myth of The Long Beach Studios in Spring 2010?  Answer:  because they were out on a limb with political and business ties, having sold the Studios on behalf of Samit and O'Halloran, and Para was up for the competitive contract as "Full" Provost now that his Interim Year was winding down.  So Alexander and Para were utterly desperate to maintain the myth of The Long Beach Studios for just a little while longer.

And Lane could not resist the fun of hitting back at the retaliators.  Alexander and Para and Castro were killing the MFA DW, they were auditing Lane, they were fabricating false financial documents, they were doing everything they could to kill Lane's teaching career, they were torturing his students and his colleagues and withholding funds from Lane's department.  So Lane did what he does best:  he wrote something.  In fact, he wrote two things.  Here's the first -- an e-mail:

From: Brian Alan Lane

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:52:29 -0700

To: Katy Kroll , Jay Kvapil

Conversation: Invitation to Commencement 2010

Subject: Re: Invitation to Commencement 2010

Seriously, how’s it possible to be the CEO of “the largest independent full-service studio in North America” when that studio is merely prospective?  Does this mean that I am Provost of the largest CSU campus?  Heck, better, how’s about President of Harvard?  Hey, prospectively, I could darn well be King of The World, right?

Please do me the courtesy of adding “prospective” or “non-existent” to your press materials on Mr. Samit’s studio. 

Or surely I will do it for you. 

B

And Kvapil responded:

From: Jay Kvapil

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:21:29 -0700

To: Brian Alan Lane

Cc: Katy Kroll

Subject: Re: Invitation to Commencement 2010

Brian,

You are correct on this.  We will change the wording on any other information we send out on this. 

Thanks,

Jay

Of course, it was a pyrrhic response.  Kvapil and COTA had already sent out their press releases and were not planning on sending out anything more.  Which brings us to Lane's other writing -- an Op-Ed "Fable" published April 25, 2010 in the Daily 49er:

A day later -- on April 26, 2010 -- the campus police phoned Lane. Here is the e-mail he sent to CSU whistle blower retaliation investigator Uyen Pham at the time:

From: Brian Alan Lane CSULB [mailto:brianalanlane@earthlink.net] 

Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 3:12 PM

To: Pham, Uyen

Subject: retaliatory harassment

Importance: High

Dear Uyen --

I am extraordinarily upset.

The campus police just called to “interrogate” me and “strongarm” me because a highest level administrator at Brotman Hall has reported to them that I am allegedly planning a disturbance at graduation this Friday!

I use the words in quotes above not because I am quoting anyone, but because that is my impression based on how I feel to be wrongfully accused of such a thing.  

If I told you you better not go home tonight and abuse your significant other again, you would understand how I feel.

I have no disturbances planned or contemplated.  This is a completely fabricated lie by administrators abusing their access to police power in order to intimidate and harass and retaliate against me.  And, as you know from my filing, this is not the first time that the admin has dragged the cops into this.

What do we do here to stop this activity toward me?

Please get back to me right away about today’s police intervention.  I feel very much as if this is a warning to me not to come to graduation, which I only attend because my students want me there and want me to meet their parents and families — that’s my only motive ever for getting up and driving at such an early hour.

Thank you.

A shaken Brian Lane

Lane knew from his discussion with the police that the "administrator" who had filed the false report was either Para or Alexander, but it was obvious that they were both responsible, and Para confirmed that to him later.  As for Pham, she did nothing required of her by law to properly investigate the case on behalf of Lane -- in fact, she did everything to compromise it.  And, yes, that will be an upcoming Installment of THUG.

As planned, Samit came and did his Commencement Address.  The Op-Ed did not daunt him.  But he was reasonably careful not to over-inflate his credits at the time.  Instead, he gave a speech which can best be described as "Let me tell you about all the famous people I went to school with!"  Of course, since then, Samit is back to a life of fiction, even though he has painstakingly erased The Long Beach Studios from most of his bios.

In October 2012, Boeing sold their old hangar and all their remaining property at the Long Beach Airport to the Sares Regis Group from Irvine.  Sares Regis plans to develop commercial industrial projects, and possibly a hotel and retail center.  

There is no property there for Samit and O'Halloran to turn into a film studio.

Yet, while this Installment Three was being written, we noted that the old Long Beach Studios website is still up and running, unchanged since it began in 2008, still promising the largest independent production facility in the world, still promising actor housing, a spa, daycare and petcare, and on and on.  And the same contact phone number is still there.  

Dialing it -- who could resist, right? -- leads to an answer from someone who represented himself as Jack O'Halloran. Asked if the Long Beach Studios were available for students from CSULB, the voice on the phone said: "There's a production in there now, booked by Skyline Locations.  You can contact them if you need the studio right now.  Otherwise contact us later."  The implication was that The Long Beach Studios were indeed in business and busy.

And now, our coda:  when Lane told this story to some students who asked about The Long Beach Studios last month, Corey Nakashima went ashen at it.  "Oh no," said Nakashima, "The Long Beach Studios is why I came to the Film Department at CSULB when I could have enrolled at other schools.  It was all because I thought we would be able to do our productions at a real studio, at The Long Beach Studios.  I heard that from a friend of the family who works here and told me to come here, and I heard it from professors when I toured the campus, and then I came here and no one has mentioned it since.  Now I know why."

"On the one hand, the truth is a bitch," said Lane, "On the other, it makes for a helluva good story.  Sorry."

"I'm not the only one who was misled, you owe it to me and to them to tell that story," said Nakashima.

And that, dear readers, is why Fieldon King Alexander and Donald Para and Jay Samit and Jack O'Halloran will all, some day, burn in hell.  Purely for their own monetary greed and ego-gratification they have misled an entire generation of students who counted on them not only to be honest but to protect them from those who would deceive them.  

(If you haven't read Installment One, Installment Two Spielberg Narrative and

Installment Two Spielberg Documents go back to them at some point.

But THUG is designed so you can read the Installments in any order you want.)

Installment Eleven - If A Para Falls In The Forest, Does Anyone Care?

Installment Ten - Cookin' The Books Alexander Style

Installment Nine - The Riddle of The Stinks

Installment Eight - the King Who Must Not Be Named

Installment Seven B - The Biggest Academic Ponzi Scheme Ever

Installment Seven A - Indictment of The Alexander Family For Criminal Conspiracy

Installment Six - The Odor of Mendacity

Installment Five - The King's New Clothes

Installment Four - High Crimes and Pissy Demeanors

Installment Three - The Long Beach Studios Hoax

Installment Two - Spielberg Narrative

Installment Two - Spielberg Documents

Installment One 

Email us and we'll keep you in touch when we post new installments info@thugthebook.com

Installment Four "High Crimes and Pissy Demeanors" begins to expose the family soap opera, bogus corporations, unfiled tax returns, unpaid taxes, and all the perks and stock and cash that Alexander receives from outsiders, over and above his salary and benefits from the CSU, all while failing to disclose it all on California's famous annual Form 700.  (Yes, this is what got LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in hot water.  And there's plenty more heat to go around.)

And then, Installment Five "The King's New Clothes" where Alexander lies like a rug in his C.V. in order to get his new job at LSU!  

And Installment Six "The Odor of Mendacity" where Alexander and his family prove themselves worthy of America's Most Wanted or a guest episode of Shameless.

THUG!  Stay tuned.

Brian Alan Lane is a tenured Full Professor at CSULB.  In addition to receiving numerous awards and grants, he was selected as a Favorite Professor in Fall 2005, and was named Most Valuable Professor in Spring 2008.  Then he became a Whistleblower. For more info you can visit his website BrianAlanLane.com 

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Documents herein have been edited for formatting and reading clarity in this medium, and to protect privacy of innocent parties.  We have many more documents on the preceding matters -- those and all documents are being held, in original form, at the law offices of Grodsky and Olecki, 2001 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 210, Santa Monica CA 90403, Attn: Michael J. Olecki, Esq..  Please contact Mr. Olecki if you want access to documents.  But also feel free to request them in your comments at this blog, as we can add material to the posting.