crenshaw district residents read obamas acceptance speech

and react to it all

we have an incredible staff at the Times. still. and every day i am finding out first hand how incredible they are. last night we broke an all time daily record on our website and today we topped that. last night we broke an all time daily record on our metro blog LA Now, and today we topped that too.

we sold so many newspapers today that we had to print 100,000 more and those sold out so fast that we printed more and todays papers will be sold tomorrow. it is a hard time to be working there, but its also a good time because change isnt only happening in washington, and not all change at newspapers is bad.

you might remember myung chun as the video journalist who shot and edited my video of the playboy mansion’s haunted house. today he went to the area i once lived at in south central and got some reactions to last nights speech. needless to say this is not the type of thing a newspaper could have shown you 20 years ago. clearly im all for the written word, but sometimes video on a website is exactly the right media in the correct medium and we are so lucky to have our killer video staff.

i have a hot date with a hot girl tomorrow, america

we probably shoulda gone out months ago but she text messaged my ass and i didnt text message her ass back. and she has refused my advances ever since. email or other wise. i wasnt playing hard to get when i didnt text her back, i just didnt get the sms.

the other day i used the old school Presumptive Close on her. the regular Close is “so would you like to buy these sweaters?” the Presumptive Close is “so would you like the pink and the blue sweaters or just the pink?” or better “would you like the matching scarf and gloves to go with that sweater?”

it makes things way easier.

i saw her on AIM and i just started off by saying “of course i will go on a date with you on Thursday!”

to be honest i didnt know if it would work because – well – sometimes people say no. can you believe it?! omg wtf. but sometimes they say yes. it took the lovely lady a long time to say yes but when she did she said, “fine i will go out with you, but lets not call it a date.”

problem with that is, if the girl doesnt think its a date, how are you gonna get a kiss at the doorstep? also wtf is it if its not a date? hello friendzone!

lucky for me i have esp, even in a chat situation. i knew that girl didnt want me as no friend. dont we all have enough frickin friends? what that girl wanted was a man. a man who could dance with her objections like a matador and red pillowcase.

i was all “baby everyone loves dates. it’s a date. indeed, its a hot date. pick up a plaid skirt.”

she was like, “fine, but no kissing.”

again i ask you america, who doesnt wanna kiss on a thursday in hollywood with a world renowned blogger some carefree brisk autumn evening? the answer: everyone.

i was all, “hot babe. invest in lipglosslike whoa.”

she said fine and for some reason she wants me to confirm today, but im pretty sure she reads the busblog, cuz hi, so this is me confirming. i’ll be at your bachelorette pad tomorrow at 7. so get ready to lol and xxx.

id really hate to be a columnist today

cuz what do you say?

if you try to be emotional, nothing could be more emotional than the emotion that swept most of the nation and the world last night. my phone rang off the hook. my email box was filled. twitter and facebook – everyone’s middle name was suddenly hussein everyone was excited. everyone, like the iconic poster predicted, was filled with hope. everyone was a member of the liberal elite media.

this joy was not the universal vibe i remember in the wake of the previous two presidential elections.

as you might recall i have not been much of an obama supporter. i went to one of his first rallies in LA back in february of 2007 and it was ok. he was fine, and it was odd that there werent any metal detectors. just a big speech in a park in south LA.

i went to his really big rally in december of 2007 and he couldnt even fill the gibson. that speech also made me feel meh. in fact the whole time i looked and listened and asked myself, could i be mere feet away from the next president of the united states? and both times i thought, no. seems like a nice man, seems like a smart man, but thats no rock star, and say what you will about bill clinton but bro was and is a rock star.

still obama slowly and steadily made all the right moves. in fact almost everything was perfect in that campaign down to the font on his posters. the whole style was new and fresh and unlike anything i remember seeing in any election, especially a national one. meanwhile his opponents stuck to the same old same old.

be it the shepard fairey posters to the knock offs, to the yes we can, to the will.i.am song set to one of his speeches. nothing was cheesy. nothing seemed forced.

he was tested a few times, the most impressive to me was when he gave a speech about his longtime pastor, reverand wright. they set up a row of american flags, he walked up to the podium and he laid it out. i dont know about you, but i bet you that is the moment that he won this job. he impressed me that morning because he had a difficult situation and he addressed it head on in an articulate, non bs manner. sorta like the way you want your executive-to-be to handle things. and in that moment i realized that maybe its better to have an intellectual as opposed to a rock star in the big light.

this is a time when we dont need a salesman. we dont need an ad man. we dont need a good ole boy. this is a time when we need someone who is respected internationally who can work together with the globe as many of our most dire issues are worldwide. it is much easier to work with the planet when the planet wants to work with you. ask our coalition of the willing.

some of the best moments for me last night was reading the words from my friends in canada and europe and how excited they were that the united states, overwhelmingly, picked this young man from chicago.

and i thought how great it was that there wouldnt have to be another site like “Sorry Everybody” this time around.

now lets go find osama and finish this damn thing.