gets called sexy-looking, then answers q’s about rev. wright

id never wish anyone to have to do three segments on the View, especially a presidential candidate, but with that said, i think bro held his own.

see all of the clips here

starring you, the beloved readers of the world famous busblog

Matt Welch asks: Hey Tony! We’re coming to Southern California from May 2-18, doing a Palm Springs book festival that first weekend, Mother’s Day the next, and a Zocalo deal on May 15. My question to you is, when do we go over to Sam Zell’s house in Malibu, and play his little wind-up airplane toys?

That seems like a pretty long ass book festival, and that Zocalo deal sounds pretty highfalutin’. Now lounging at Sam’s house in Malibu, thats something I can get behind. Just as long as Sam’s not home. I have no problem with the owner of the Times, and I think I understand why he wants to sell the naming rights to Wrigley Field, and I’m sure he’s a really nice guy – if only he could learn how to break out of his shell. But I don’t wanna be at his house when he’s home because I don’t want him to ask me how to save the newspaper industry. That is a question I get asked at least once a week and people hate the answers I give them. Plus it’s not my expertise, which appears to be providing interesting content online. I love newspapers, I love journalism, I respect the history of journalism, but I’m clearly someone who was meant to be online, all the time, f’ing with the program. Sam would be wise to ask me my ideas, but I’m not sure I would have the wisest answers. I know what works online. I know what works in blogs. And weirdly, those things are different than what works in newspapers in 2008. These are very scary and fascinating times in the journalism world. I’m happy and honored to be part of it. And I wish you were at the paper with me.

Suzie sez: I thought about what I’d like to ask you…. nothing came to mind. So, how about something blog related, which may finally encourage you to write a post for me…..which you have promised to do on more than one occasion MISTER! 😛 What is the quickest, most efficient way to do a blog post?? including pics, vids etc….how can you make an elaborate post quick and easy to do Mr. Tony Pierce????

The quickest way to do a blog post is to forget about pictures, just type, and then hit publish. Lots of bloggers do this and some even do it and get lots of traffic. However those blogs are painfully dull and relatively insightful. It’s a lot like making love: if your partner is thinking “how can i do this the quickest, most efficient way” odds are the sex wont be great.

So heres a tip as to how to include video and images in with your words. First take a shower with no music playing. Just shower and think. After you dry off you should have something to blog about. Then go to flickr or yahoo or somewhere where you can hotlink an image. i dont recommend hotlinking cuz its not web 2.0 and its not even very polite. plus the pics can disappear from your archives the second the owner of said photo feels like having it expire, etc. but you asked and its been a busblog tradition, etc. and really it doesnt hurt anyone except those looking thru archives, etc.

what you do is you type in the code area (or Edit HTML) of blogger {img src=”http://www.flicker.com/busblog/piccrazything.jpg” /}. you want some space between the image and the text so throw in an hspace=11, and you might want the text to wrap around the pic, so say align=right. therefore your whole code will be {img hspace=”11″ align=”right” src=”http://www.flicker.com/busblog/piccrazything.jpg”}.

if you wanna put a youtube video in there use the Embed Code. but remember that content is everything. have something to say first, then pump up the post with images and vids.

xtx ponders: If you could ask me one question, what would it be?

when we first met virtually in the AOL poetry boards, some 15 years ago, or whenever it was, what did you think our lives would end up looking like in 2008?

In response to my latest poem/song, Scott says: That’s fantastic! So can we cover your song in my band? 😀 (I’m actually serious)

of course, my bad lyrics are your bad lyrics.

maybe today would be a good day for our Ask Tony segment (put your questions in the comments below)

and while you do that, here’s some action happening on the LA Times today:

best headline on a blog – Mist Connections, LA Now

best headline about an interesting story on one of our blogs – Leave Britney a Loan, Fark

biggest mea culpa youve ever seen in the LA Times – Times apologizes about 2pac story

best video on Funny Pages 2.0 today

Kareem interviews Donald Trump

sped up version

of “la grange”?

go to 1:27 of the van halen video and tell me that thats not really close to the riff of la grange – and then both songs break into the rock out.

coincidence, probably…

until you hear Van Halen from their early club days actually covering “la grange”, a riff that eddie learned and obviously never forgot

i wonder if zz got a cut of the 1984 hit?

after the cheerleader passed out i flipped on part two of Bush’s War on Frontline last night. so good.

and you know what my “takeaway” was? i hate that word, btw. my takeaway was i dont wanna be an unorganized dipweed who doesnt have a plan, who doesnt understand whats up with the world that im sticking my dick into, who cant explain what just happened and whats about to happen.

i am in charge of over 30 blogs. and as the chickie snored the most adorable dreams of daffodils and butterscotch cocktails i started putting together three-ring binders so i could start tracking and noting and documenting the ups and downs of each of these blogs. how insane is that?!>!?!

instead of just learning about recent history, or trying to understand human psychology, or political agendas; or instead of diving back into typical carnal rewards, there i was in the wee hours in my pajamas trying to organize and summarize and categorize everything that is going on in blogs that most of you dont even care about.

sometimes i wonder if you even care about this one, the greatest one of them all.

but this one doesnt put pearl necklaces on starlets so fuckit, i guess.

before i tell you what i really wanna tell you, which is something i read off Metafilter just know, which is that the Library of Congress just got its hands on some sweet ass baseball crap from over 100 years ago.

what i wanna tell you is, lets say you work at a dry cleaning establishment and you see the same guy who always comes into your place. lets say he always brings in some slacks and some shirts and he pays in cash in advance.

lets say you are doing a task like putting plastic over the newly dry cleaned articles, or youre stapling receipts together, or you’re organizing the hangars…

don’t make that regular customer wait for you as you do your task. dont let him stare at you and then the clock and then back at you. say hi tony. say thanks for your money. say thanks for new money. say i can get back to my other work when youre not here handing over cold hard cash.

lets say you do that next time, k?

k.

in other news the LAT Travel Blog published this little post i wrote about these 400 MPH Hand Driers that are now at LAX.

whats great about them is it only takes about 10 seconds, it doesnt burn, and you dont have to touch shit. all you do is stick your hands down into the wacky device, the air automatically starts blowing LIKE CRAZY and as soon as you pull your hands out theyre magically dry!

so awesome.

got Rick Astley to talk about Rick Rolling

Rick Rolling is sweeping the nation

and now our story about Rick Rolling is sweeping the blogosphere

it’s huge on Digg, huge on Reddit, even LAist has the fever

update: omg even Rush Limbaugh is talking about it!

today or yesterday she put up the pics from her bridal shower

i guess this means i hafta officially start dating her sisters

or something.

either way, congrats ashley!

who writes for Searchviews “the company blog of Reprise Media. We impart daily insights on Search Marketing, Social Media and SEO.” i first met Sepi at the Live from the Blogosphere panel in Chinatown where ev announced that google was about to buy blogger. not too long after that i asked Sepi to help me on Blook II, a project that never happened because i hate looking backwards, but over time Sepi found it in her heart to forgive me and when i finally came out with How to Blog i gave her a shoutout in the “thanks” section.

i have been approached by many people to talk about the cool and weird things that we are doing with the blogs at the LA Times but i say no to mostly everyone. sepi however is an exceptional person so therefore she is one of the exceptions.

later this week i will be on a panel organized by Harvard Law hosted at the Annenberg School of USC and moderated by a dude from MIT, but the real reason i accepted was because Doc Searls will be there, another exceptional person. sadly his presentation happens the same time as my panel but maybe we can knock back a cold one after the dealio (if not before, as im sure i will be pretty nervous).

anyways, heres my answer to one of Sepi’s Five Questions:

SV: Tony, part of your job at the LA Times is launching new blogs; for example, you recently brought Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on board and he’s done some interesting stuff with video and written about everything from jazz to politics. What new blogs are you planning now, and what ideas make for viable blogs? In other words, what should newspapers or other media companies consider when they’re planning new blogs and hiring bloggers?

TP: We are planning a wide spectrum of new blogs that I am not at liberty to reveal at this time, but they will leap from and be based within every section of the paper that you could imagine – from the front page to the back page.

Kareem has been quite a blessing. I don’t think anyone anywhere has a Hall of Famer writing for them, from their heart, every day, about sensitive and interesting topics. And as you said, he does it with video, audio, and the written word. His Rolodex is endless, so one day you might see him doing an interview with will.i.am and the next day he’s exchanging emails with Senator Barack Obama. The day after the Super Bowl, Kareem reminisced about hanging with the Manning brothers, and the day after the Grammys, there was a picture of him with Herbie Hancock. Last week he was on the Colbert Report, and when the Lakers return you will see him inches away from the court with the Lake Show. And he writes about all of it. He is a totally fascinating man with an amazing and unreal life, and we are so lucky to have him writing about it daily.

When newspapers are planning new blogs they should consider what jewels they have in their backyards. It might not be ESPN’s Collegiate Athlete of the Century, like Kareem, but odds are they have more than a few precious gems on their radar. My advice is to reach out to those people and let them do what we’re doing with #33: let them write about whatever they want, using whatever format they feel most comfortable with. Not everyone wants to write about what made them famous, not everyone wants to type away at a keyboard. Most people are complicated. So let them tell you a wide-ranging assortment of things in a variety of ways. The blogging medium is dynamic and limitless, so don’t let your own boundaries limit your bloggers. Let them go, let them experiment, encourage them, and be there when they need you.

read the whole thing here and dont miss the part where i diss mark cuban whose dallas mavs have been on a karmic-induced slide lately.

investigative reporter of the LAT

who recently wrote more on the 2Pac shooting

enter the chat now (we’re chatting thru 1pm PT)

while lots of blogs were out hiding and finding eggs instead of blogging, LAist was hustling as they should!

Friday afternoon my alma matter posted a few dozen pics of the tri-yearly UCLA Undie Run, a continuing tradition at both the campus and the blog. Usually LAist will get a nice bump of 100k page views or so – a little less if there arent many good stories, a little more if some wacky Russian or Croatian blog finds it. But Saturday it got on Digg and it shot across the web like wildfire racking up over a half million page views in just two days.

there were months when we struggled to get a half million hits and this weekend LAist did better than that in just two days. so i take my hat, shirt, and pants off to you Undie Runners and Undie Bloggers. maybe now the belief that you cant get hits or traffic on weekends or over holidays can be officially put to rest. you can get traffic whenever you want, you just have to be on top of stories and present them in ways people can get behind.