KATO & CALENDAR: FIRE AWAY

Kato Kaelin’s appearance on the April 16 cover of Calendar disturbed me greatly for two reasons:

First, because by stoking Kaelin’s celebrity, and thereby ignoring other worthy and legitimate artists, you have demonstrated an appalling shallowness.

Second, because I read the whole article.

CHRIS R. WESTPHAL

Ojai

It’s one thing to write an article on his dance with Hollywood, but to put Kato on the cover? In the very same issue, you have a piece on the great film director Satyajit Ray. For God’s sake, you’d think this man’s body of work would put him ahead of Kato for a cover story. (Just maybe!) Sure, people are interested, but you have sunk so low by giving Kaelin’s article such prominence.

Seriously, what is this person’s claim to fame? He was friends with a woman who was brutally murdered and he was sponging off of O.J. Simpson as a house guest. That’s it. I hope Kaelin quickly joins the ranks of these other pseudo-’90s “celebrities” like John Wayne Bobbitt and Tonya Harding.

What’s next, Kaelin landing a lead in a TV sitcom--”Kato & Allie”??? Yikes!

MARK JORDAN LEGAN

Santa Monica

How dare you! Kato Kaelin your cover subject! What symphony did he compose? What piece of art did he paint? What film did he direct? What has he accomplished that warrants his picture on the cover of Calendar?

BARBARA KLUBER

Chatsworth

Look, Kaelin hasn’t committed a crime. Just because he was at the right place at the wrong time is no excuse to crucify him. The guy is only trying to make a living, even before or after the tragic murders.

He’s a cool dude. Yes, the cover photograph was an attention-getter. Lawrence K. Ho captured Kato at his best, although at first glance I thought it was Brad Pitt. Anyway, my sister liked it.

TONY T. VIZMONTE

Glendale

I’d be delighted to know such a funny, kind, “nice” person as Kato. Has anyone noticed--he never has said one bad thing about anyone, including O.J. That alone puts Kato ahead of most all of us in this world. As for his talent, why would he be any worse than others who have gone on to great success, e.g. Tom Arnold, Sylvester Stallone?

This society needs to see that big bucks, big jobs are not the measure of a person. He was apparently poor before, but as far as I have seen, he was and IS a far better human being than all the rich “successful” men in Hollywood.

SHEREEN WALKER

Los Angeles

Kaelin doesn’t want to be an actor--he wants to be a celebrity.

I have worked at and studied acting for 15 years. I am not in any 12-step program. I am not related to anyone famous. I am not bulimic and/or anorexic. I do not use drugs. I have never been abused or molested as a child. I hope to be a cover story in Calendar one day, hopefully and simply because I’m a terrific actress.

BARBARA TREUTELAAR

Shadow Hills

Your April 16 article on tabloid television reporters Terry Murphy, Doug Bruckner and Jodi Baskerville looked fascinating. I was especially drawn to the two provocative headlines: “But Are They Still Journalists?” and “Have Aliens Captured Their Brains?” I didn’t read the article, though, because I was busy reading your “real” hard-hitting journalistic cover story on Kaelin.

Incidentally, has anyone asked the aforementioned two questions to any of your Calendar editors or reporters?

KELLY GALLAGHER

Tustin

Your assumption that vast numbers of Times readers have any interest in this person is totally inaccurate. I’d wager 90% of your readers would be just as happy if in their lifetimes they never heard Kato’s name, heard that voice nor saw his face again.

JERRY HERMES

San Diego

Prodigy address: FTDX55A

I was starting to get concerned about Calendar’s respectability, but then I saw the cover story and gave a huge sigh of relief.

The guy has gotten so big that my kids now have their own Kato doll. It doesn’t do anything, but it has an adorable glazed look, just like a cute deer caught in a car’s headlight.

Keep up the good work and continue to strive for that journalistic integrity.

STEVE BELGARD

West Hills

I know you are ripe for letters concerning your “follow the herd” mentality in deciding to devote not only a portion of space but also the cover to Kato K. However, I found a much better way to spend my time and energy with your article:

My rabbit needed to have her cage cleaned and Kato’s picture is now being used more appropriately!

CYNTHIA LEE DEZIEL

North Hollywood

To grace the cover with Kato Kaelin’s picture is truly a joke, but April Fool’s was three weeks ago. It lessens its value for those far more deserving. This man’s career consists of a few low-budget films and a guest role on one of TV’s lowest-rated shows. This makes him viable for the cover? What’s next? The guy who sold Carroll O’Connor’s son drugs?

JOHN UFLAND

Premiere Artists Agency

Los Angeles

I have no idea what gems of show-business fun I missed in last Sunday’s Calendar. I refused to turn the pages at all once I saw another area of entertainment lionize the sordid O.J. Simpson trial.

GIACINTA B. KOONTZ

Woodland Hills

After seeing Kaelin’s visage across the breakfast table on Easter morning, I lost all respect for Calendar. Fortunately, general disrespect did not deter me from reading the otherwise good articles therein.

PATRICK S. MURPHY

Corona

Greg Braxton writes that Paula Barbieri is not using her affair with O.J. Simpson for press (“No Kato Route for Barbieri”). Braxton wants us to believe that she spends most of her free time doing volunteer work and reading the Bible. She is so pure that she confiscated nude photographs from Peter Beard, who wanted to sell them to Playboy. This is garbage journalism!

For the real Paula, check out the October, 1994, issue of Playboy. Turn to Page 74, where you will see a full pictorial of Paula Barbieri without her clothes or her Bible! Photos by Peter Beard!

JOE O’NEILL

Seal Beach

Your cover made me want to puke. The world of entertainment must be at an all-time low for California’s No. 1 newspaper to waste a Sunday Calendar cover with this smiling shot of human excrement. And what a delightful choice for Easter Sunday. What are you saving for the next family holiday . . . a gaggle of maggots enjoying an open wound?

MICHAEL G. GUETZOW

Chatsworth

In the future, whenever anybody, responding to some new stupidity on your part, says, “You have reached a new low, etc.,” none of those “new lows” will come anywhere near last Sunday’s new low. You reached the very pinnacle (the Platonic form) of low-icity.

JONATHAN AURTHUR

Santa Monica

Kaelin has taken the ball of “opportunism” and run with it and never looked back. When he finally does, he will see his trail, which has led him to where he is. That trail will be lined with the blood of the real victims in all of this, Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown. Kaelin is not the only one guilty of this, but at this moment--and only for the moment--he is the most well known.

My apologies to the Goldman and Brown families. There are still some of us out here who see your pain and sympathize.

FRANK KNITTEL

Burbank