am i happy? no.

does this have to do with the Rona? probably. it also has to do with expectations and age and respect and lack of communication and so many things.

but maybe the worst is that MLB is trying to use all of this to figure out a way to sneak the DH into the NL.

it reminds me of horny teenage boys trying to slip their scrawny little dicks into the buttholes of their unsuspecting girlfriends.

at first the girls giggle and say whoops, not there

then they start to realize it isnt an accident and say Chad, come on. Be nice.

then they see Chad really wants it no matter what they say.

it’s foul. its unnecessary and it doesnt add to the game.

MLB’s excuse is that half of these games are going to have to be interleague because they have to play so many so quickly and probably not in MLB stadiums, so why not?

i’ll tell you why not. because it’s unnatural, dumb, foolish, and shouldn’t even be in the AL, let alone all of MLB.

use the DH in AL parks and play actual baseball in NL parks. how hard is that, Chad?

the shortened season interleague argument could also be used in the reverse: because the season is shortened, why not go back to traditional baseball rules, and use the old fat washed up DH’s as pinch hitters in the late innings?

You know why they wouldn’t do that?

Because if they did they would notice that the strategy involved and the excitement whenever a pitcher got a hit would far exceed the baloney in the AL.

valley livin

went to walmart, but there were lines

so we went to another walmart. amber was sleeping

we were going because it was hot in the apartment and we needed some things and the ac in the car was nice and the radio was on miles davis and the traffic was light and we went to in n out afterwards and talked to my ma

and then drove real slow through the valley and the moon was high up there and big and beautiful and

amber said this is so great

then i got home and procrastinated my tail off

which i guess i am still doing.

the mayor today said that the trails will be open on Saturday except Runyon (pictured)

first thing i thought “isnt today Saturday”?

the mayor is smart. this weekend is going to be super hot. people are gonna be passing out and no way wouldnt it be a zoo.

theres a million trails in LA though, i wonder if some of the other ones will be packed because of all the people who suddenly wanna hike

i just wanna sit on my black ass.

dear the future, hope yr there

i forget to write you, not because i dont care, i just take you for granted. which is lame.

if anything this terrible disease has taught us how precious and fleeting life is.

a perfectly healthy person finds themselves dead in just a few days.

poof.

and yet because of POLITICAL BELIEFS there are thousands of people in the USA who are willing to risk it and go back to “normal” and not believe scientists and not even believe the current administration that they seemingly support

who tells them to wear masks and chill out and stay away from each other

even if that same administration refuses to wear masks, or chill, or distance.

im sure you are now up to your ears with biographies about those dead souls, future, and for that, i hope they’re well written.

today was Cinco De Mayo which happened to fall on a Taco Tuesday so i took amber to my favorite taco truck in Echo Park and since we are currently not allowed to eat next to the truck i drove her a few blocks south to the actual Echo Park which has a pretty lake.

there were hella people over there, future. too many for Amber to feel comfortable with so she made us stay in the car

but isnt that fountain pretty? arent those two empty benches? wouldnt it be romantico? it was 77 degrees. night. mexicans with beers. hipsters with weed. homeless with tents.

¡no! she said in spanish, which means business.

so we listened to Ozzy in the Benz, and watched the people walk by and then we drove to DTLA and took this picture for you.

hope it’s still there when you are.

Arrivederci!

everything every thing ev

when i first moved to LA the beverly center was incredible

we would go to the hard rock cafe and try to spot celebrities

they had movies on the top floor in tiny theaters, it shouldnta even counted as the movies but i saw a bunch there. one or two with michele even.

down the street was this kinda gay dance club called odessey. i didnt know it was gay.

i just thought the girls kissing were fascinating.

i had this oversized white shirt that fell off the shoulder

black parachute pants

little kung fu black shoes that cost two dollars

i looked like a Culture Club groupie which was what you wanted to look like if you were

new wave

fuck if i knew what i was but i knew i wasnt gay as soon as this old guy tapped me on the shoulder and asked if i wanted to dance

today the poor kids cant even get outta their houses. although the traffic on the 101 was seemingly back to normal today at 4pm as i was driving in circles around hollywood

interviewing a helicopter pilot.

driving because my phone cuts out usually after 20 minutes in my home but this time it did it in 5 minutes just as i was preparing to move the interview to the car

he was cool about it. he was cool about everything. we really hit it off.

in 45 minutes we talked about maybe 15 different things. all relevant. all solid.

if i just made it a Q&A it would be speed reading.

im mad at the world tonight, though, at 1:20am.

i keep telling myself everything happens for a reason everything happens for a reason

even though is that even true? has that been proven somewhere?

do dudes who go into comas and come back from the afterlife say oh yeah bill everything happens for a reason.

no.

they dont tell bill shit.

they tell bill, the drinks are fucking free up there!

you know what i miss because of this coronavirus

spitting

ugh, a music war

Every morning I kiss my GF and tell her to run away for several hours because I am going to dive head first into the septic tank and fish around for chunks of gold which I will then place into a list of COVID stories.
 
I am a sensitive man. I may not seem like this affects me, but when every day there’s a 9/11 of deaths and illnesses and suffering, it hurts me because, these are people and I love people.
 
Who cares if you have a pre-existing condition? I am a relatively healthy man but if I did from the Rona they will say oh he had high blood pressure. As if I ordered it off Amazon too many times. If my GF dies they will say oh but she had the diabetes. As if she begged for it. These were both conditions nature delivered to us which we take meds for and try to eat in healthy ways. Then this hidden killer as I call it gets you in the middle of the night and yr gone.
 
So delving into that pit of news every day is emotional for me but it’s important to the website I work for because it brings eyeballs and if there’s one thing you know about me it’s that I have been figuring out how to get eyeballs to web sites since 591 Haight Street in 1994.
 
I try to do it in a sensible, informative, respectful way. The other ways may be effective to, but I like the straight and narrow path.
 
The problem with that dive into the muck is I am a terror to deal with for hours afterwards. Here it is 5 hours later and I am still a mess, in part, because the failing NYTimes in a link on this list below, says that by next month we will see 3k deaths every day. That’s more than a 9/11 a day. People alive and flipping the TV will not see the fourth of July. I have a thick skin for many things but not that.
 
Usually after I make that list I lay down for a few minutes or I take a nap or I have a shower. Today I had to take a meeting. I don’t like meetings. In my world all meetings should not only be emails, but they should be Tweets.
 
The only exception to that is if it is a motivational meeting where the boss goes around and praises everyone individually and we all clap for everyone. I ran LAist for a little while and we never had one meeting. We had drink fests once a month, BBQs at my place and sometimes work would come up, but never meetings.
 
Am I weird. Very. Should I expect that the world would act like I do? Nope.
 
But because I am weird I get uptight a lot. Nowadays more than ever. In part because I feel like at 53 years old I should be given the benefit of the doubt that I have not only been around the block, but I have been around This block and I etched my name in the old oak tree.
 
Because of that I never want any one to ever say no to me. An insane request. It’s a Trumpian come-from. Obama would never say that. He wouldn’t even think it. Obama would never say, I went to Harvard. I got Michelle to marry me. I got white people to vote for me. Are you crazy to disagree with me about anything?
 
But I am not Obama. Hell, I lost to Larry freaking Speer. By only one vote, but I lost. And I am glad I lost because I didnt wanna run that ship, I wanted to write. And I am writing now. And it’s great to write every day. It’s great.
 
It’s great.

went to the beach

saw my bro, called my mom, at fast food, looked at the people, listened to howard.

i kept my hand on ambers leg for most of the journey.

got home Prince had puked, i think Michael has fleas

watched the Bulls doc, got super inspired.

i know im not the MJ of anything but its interesting to watch someone be so dedicated to something for no good reason. because really who cares if you’re The Best

theres always some jackhole about to get born whose gonna see what you did and genetics and luck and training and study is gonna kick your ass at it and hes not even gonna have to face the people you had to mow down

so why bother?

how about just be yourself and dont worry bout no one else? is that so hard?

life is crazy ill tell you that. i never thought i would be here doing this right now topless on a computer that fits perfectly on my knee and i can open Photos and copy and paste and boom boom boom

but Jordan does make me wanna do bigger things than I am used to. i was transcribing this piece that was only supposed to be part of something but i made it its own thing. who knows if my boss will allow it to be its own thing but its just right as a standalone. then in a few days i can make another standalone and another.

mooshing doesnt always do what you want it to. sometimes a pipe is just a pipe. sometimes many stories is better than just one long one.

i just want to live in a world where nobody says no to me they just let me make things. new things. because — and this is a hard thing for me to explain properly — when i do something it’s not just it, it’s part of something

it’s building blocks. it’s connected. it’s books in the bible. it’s words in a sentence that turns into a paragraph that eventually equals a page.

my whole life ive just wanted to do. and for some reason i find myself around others who want me to stop or slow or fit into a box. i may look normal but im so not normal. there is no box for me. who else would go in it with me? not bukowski, i dont drink any more. not ee cummings, i dont poetry any more. not jd salinger, im west coast. so who? no one. not one blogger because im one of the last. not one journalist because im secretly a blogger.

no one, im alone. defenseless.

n pure

ish.

i got a new laptop

totally overdue.

i had an old fella. you had to trick it into working sometimes. like open up the Photos or unplug the charger.

problem with that is it could only really go for about 45 minutes on its battery.

so i took the stimulus money i got about bought a macbook air which they say is for kids but all i do is write and watch porn and HTML and do fantasy sports and blog, and from what all the people on YouTube say, the Air will do those fine.

two things ive noticed after a few days of using it

its fucking fast.

its addictive

the screen is too small – im used to a 17″ and this one is 13″.

the speed is worth the screen size trade off.

what it really makes me want is the 16″ bad boy but that costs $3-$4k

the good thing about the little size is it fits anywhere. right now i got a pillow on it so it doesnt heat up m’balls.

its trying to get warm but it’s so wee it doesnt have the capability.

life is crazy right now. everythings nuts. things are backwards. bad things could happen at any moment it seems. bad things ARE happening at any moment.

its good we are staying inside.

it’s good i have a new computer.

it’s good you are there.

i’ll write something good with this because the keyboard is magical and it allows me to write from any position. ive been needing that.

the spirit will get through me with this.

you’ll see.

here’s what i wrote for Los Angeleno in April

Pretty sure this is the most productive I’ve ever been as a reporter. Even with LAist I didn’t produce these many original pieces in one month.

Of note: interviews with American Apparel founder Dov Charney about what his new company, Los Angeles Apparel is doing to help curb the pandemic, a visit to a Walmart in the Valley as it gets new pallets of toilet paper and paper towels, features on a radio journalist from KNX and an outgoing Pulitzer winner from the LA Times, an interview with an ICU doc in Palm Springs who uses the controversial cocktail to try to save lives of coronavirus patients, a feature on smokeless weed with several fascinating people, and a bunch of news wrap-ups all about the terrible virus that changed everything.

And I took some cool pictures.

Coronavirus: Fountains of Wayne Co-founder Dies; Covered California Extension

Dov Charney’s New Passion: Face Masks

Coronavirus: 1M Global Cases; Furloughs Hit Disney

Coronavirus: Richard Simmons Returns; News Viewership Up

T.P. Hits the Shelves — ‘This is Like War Rationing’

Know Your Journalist: KNX’s Claudia Peschiutta

Coronavirus: County Extends Stay-at-Home Order; Supplies Stolen at Naval Medical Center