thats right, on 6/6/06

Jake and Jen accepted the recommendation from outgoing LAist boss, Carolyn Kellogg,

and made me the first paid full time editor of the LA blog.

the first thing we did was have a big party at the Good Luck

where we drank and i begged everyone i knew to write for me

for free and make this thing bigger than ever

and they did it.

all these people, many who i had never met before, worked and wrote and

took pictures and interviewed people and went to games and shows

and covered LA in a beautiful way

and here was my secret. i let them be themselves.

it was the only way. it was the best way.

it was the way that helped us increase our audience by 1,500x in a year and a half.

when i started we had a staff of about 10. the same as blogging.la, our rival.

weirdly there were other local blogs that got more traffic than us.

but that wasnt the case after a year. after a year we were the most popular.

by a lot.

we had anti reviewing weed, we had girls writing about video games

we had girls writing about dating in LA, we had so much news coverage it was crazy

we had Koga and Joey Maloney, who i had found on Flickr, suddenly taking great pictures for us

we built relationships with the concert venues, and promoters

with the Dodgers, with other blogs, but most importantly we built a great bond with LA

it was more of an agreement. the deal was we were gonna write some great stuff, maybe 20 stories a day

and they better say nice things about us in the comments

or i was gonna get in those comments and tell em to go to hell.

it was a full court press. 

heres the story and if you dont like it imma get you.

the other secret to the success was jake and jen let me be me

when they saw me telling people what part of hell they could visit and what family member they would find there,

they didn’t tell me to knock it off.

when i said after four months that i wanted to drive around the US and compare it to LA, they said fine, as long as you keep growing the site.

when i said i wanted to go to SXSW and have a party and a battle of the bands, they said, fine as long as you keep growing the site.

when i said i wanted to have bbqs at my house instead of treating the staff to drinks at a bar, they said, fine do whatever you want as long as it doesnt get us sued.

and they stuck to their word

i will always be so grateful of them for giving me that level of freedom with their baby.

their LA baby.

their baby that spun off the LA Beat and helped launch the careers of soooo many great writers and editors

i had a lot of fears ten years ago. i had a lot of confidence because this blog had done well and i had been fully trained at the Daily Nexus, but i was afraid that if i failed i would screw it up for all the other editors and writers who would (hopefully) follow me.

and once i went to the Times and we started forming LA Now, I was worried that LAist would be crushed.

fortunately none of my fears came true. fortunately LAist is its own thing and it has grown into something so unique and so vital to the LA scene that nothing will be able to crush it.

so on this day, the tenth anniversary of Jake and Jen hiring me, i want to thank them of course for taking that chance.

i also want to, of course, thank Carolyn Kellogg for approaching me after the Blogging While Black panel at the 2006 SXSW and floating the trial balloon past me. Carolyn has done pretty well on her own, by the way, she is now the Books Editor at the LA Times.

and mostly i want to thank all of the people who contributed during my time there. it was a voluntary thing. they were doing it mostly because they wanted to write and be part of something. they wanted to talk about their neighborhoods. they wanted to eat Thai Food, they wanted to talk to bands and filmmakers,

and yes, they wanted to tell us what stanky green was out there and what we should look for.

it was a sprint that turned into a marathon. i barely left my house. i barely took a break. and in retrospect it’s probably the thing i’m most proud of in my life. 

but heres one thing i want to share.

when i got the gig, the first thing i did was drive to Las Vegas.

i got a nice hotel room, i brought a bunch of books and my laptop

and i wrote down all the best laid plans i could think of.

i ordered room service and just wrote and wrote and wrote plans and ideas and strategies and i spent like 15 minutes at the pool and then i went back up to the room and planned more. but heres what i learned from that experience: plans are crazy.

you can plan all you want but theres nothing like getting in the middle of it all and experimenting and vibbing off of your writers and seeing what the audience responds to and seeing how your staff reacts during crazy situations.

maybe the best idea we had was the Neighborhood Project. no way did i think that up in June in Vegas a decade ago.

so in retrospect heres what i should have done in Vegas a decade ago: ate, drank, and slept by the pool.

because i got very little sleep during my time at LAist. which was perfectly fine with me.

very mixed feelings. mostly sad. yes im excited to go change the world, but LAist was like being able to have the keys to that 66 mustang convertible with one instruction: floor it, fucker.

and then half way through the race learning about nitrous.

yes soon i will be part of a team that has the keys to the space shuttle, but you never forget your first girl. LAist was the first time i was able to do something i loved professionally and i was given all the freedom to try whatever i wanted: doing donuts on ice, jumping over semis, participating in the Cannonball Run. it still blows my mind that 4 months into the gig i asked if i could drive around the country and blog and my bosses said, go for it.

although i am pretty sure that my new boss is going to be just as open minded and trusting in me as my previous bosses, heres one thing that the Gothamist head honchos implemented recently that i love – they opened up our stats for all to see.

this is the main page of our Site Meter, which is like showing someone your bank statement. its scary for a lot of sites to do this because many sites lie to their advertisers and competitors about their hits. part of Web 2.0 is transparency and it will be interesting to see who tries to take shots at LAist in the future when they have their inevitable dips in hits. interesting because many who might use this transparency against them wont have their stats published publicly and/or wont have other Web 2.0 features like open or unmoderated comments.

but be careful with stats as they dont tell the whole story. for example, if you look at LAist’s monthly numbers over the last 6 months, it might look like we are on a downswing due to our monster September. truth of the matter was we would have probably hit 1 million in September but on the last day of the month we found ourselves with 2 stories on Digg’s top 20 early in the morning and they stayed there all day giving us like 350k hits in one damn day. yes we earned all of those pageviews, but it was such an improbable accomplishment that it was impossible to repeat during the months following. so in actuality, a better way to look at that trend is to say, yeah LAist has consistently averaged about 1 million pageviews for the last 6 months (even though august was below 900k and september was way above.)

inside blogging, i know, but for the three of you out there who enjoy it, root around in our stats and have fun.

the graph above is our stats for the last 30 days. take a good look at how our team was able to crank it up a smidge whenever we wanted, be it a few days before the end of the month, or during the last days of my regime. if LAist was a car, it was a car that responded so willingly to anything the team wanted. so awesome. so perfect. i will miss the team and that gorgeous vehicle.

i hosted not one but two bbqs and my personal trainer says that a body in motion stays in motion therefore a bbq thats grillin stays grillin

sunday was our monthly LAist meeting which is usually a dozen or so rounds at a local tavern, but because our staff has been growing like crazy it was decided that we were to get a keg of beer and have it at my house.

because it was the day before memorial day and we’re all proud patriots, we figured there should be some hotdogs and chicken on a flaming grill so i made an iTunes playlist, i had my maid show up on friday, and on sunday people showed up and it was really really really fun.

i seriously dont like hosting parties but when its over and i look back, often times im happy i did it. i really like the people who write with me and its nice to be able to give back since they all volunteer their free time to make that site as good as it is.

this month we could get lucky and break the all time record, but it looks like we might just slip under it by a tad. it all depends, i guess, on how many people at work feel like goofing off today and how many wanna get right to work.

last night i saw Quiet Company at the Silverlake Lounge. that is Leah’s husband’s band. before the show i got a call from them telling me they were coming into town from Vegas and i was all, awesome, i have all this left over bbq stuffs: chicken, hot dogs, buns, beer. and they were all awesome we’re a starving band on the road.

so we ate, drank and then they rocked the house.

good times.

i wont even talk about whats going on with the cubs. that would be silly.

one of the nicer things about our monthly meetings is i get to finally meet the new people who have recently signed up to write for us. and the other day i got to meet Malingering, who i seriously thought was a 400 lb woman. ms fader, her friend, said you really dont know what she looks like? and i said nope. and i told her what i expected and malingering came in the house a good 300 lbs lighter than i thought, attractive, and even her sister was cute. they both looked almost exactly like the new miss universe, congratulations, btw.

but the biggest surprise was something i should have expected – the girl took all these pictures and didnt stop. it was awesome. it was really malingering!

and because it was malingering, i had to show off my muffin top. photos i will share with you once she posts em.

before i tell you about my odd little way of thinking up book titles, let me tell you something that nobody knows.

there are fifteen posts on laist before you have to hit next page. so when my boss first hired me and we agreed on a goal of twelve a day i noticed that there were fifteen per page so i secretly upped it to fifteen.

and yes im insane.

its also weird because i knew that id be writing most of those and i have this thing about group blogs, i dont like to see one person overwhelm the group thing.

most people dont realize, but most of the most popular blogs in the blogosphere are group blogs.

and the most popular of them all on the busblog rating scale is boingboing who i can now admit i dont read as much as i should because i am incredibly jealous slash impressed by them that they make me wanna quit.

now ive had some people come up to me when i was writing poems in college tell me things like that and i never could relate until i first came across bb. it was so clean and articulate but totally straight forward. not at all trying to writebetterthanyou or be cool, they just were. and it all seemed so organic like all of a sudden people would just send them cool things and theyd look it over and find the perfect picture and just do it exactly the way it should be done.

if AP had a blog about whats in the web.

they always kept it a blog no matter how big it got – no flash splash pages or crap – and it was always pretty equal as far as what the very few contributers delivered. and you could tell that an artist was behind it because the ads seemed like part of the design.

so of course i hardly ever read em.

murphys law of course was when i was asked to be on my first panel, and i sat right next to mark f and two seats down from xeni the night ev told everyone that google had bought blogger, which if you ask me is when the blogosphere was truly legitimized.

anyways i didnt want people to think that laist was the tony pierce show because believe it or not the whole world isnt as into your pal as you think. plus it wasnt like they were discovering me naturally, they were being sent someone from mitch & murray who enjoyed drinking coffee.

long story short friday we had 17 posts by 15 different contributers.

now thats a group.

i get my titles the old fashioned way

i drink a little smoke a little and when midnight rolls around i get on the scale

then i write down my weight and write down the first title that comes to my head

this week i was so busy that i wasnt able to talk about lost or the sopranos or about how i talked to chris in africa who told me that a goat took a dump on her bag while they were IN a cab.

of all the things i teased her that would probably happen to her, that was not on my neverending list of jungle-related comedy. the lord always has the last laugh.

adam + andy + tomdog + dumbass + malingering + ashleigh + lisa + kemp + (c) + jacy + carrie + elise + courtney + aarti + chris

it means one im a stud. and it means two i better go to sleep right after i blog.

the problem with sex for some of us, even rough and sloppy sex where the next morning you feel aches in muscles that havent been utilized in a while, is that some nights you just cant fall to sleep because youre jazzed.

especially when she comes out of the bathroom in her clothes, checking her messages, and packing up and ready to go home for the night.

leaving you to find little traces of her all over your place.

long hair in the sink. foreign soda cans in the trash or swanky water bottles on the night stand. barrettes, nail files, little lotions.

for a girl who isnt interested in being more than just a 100 night stand, someone sure has a habit of leaving shit behind as shes going home to sleep at her house.

no of course im not mad. this is what i wanted. independence and freedom have a price. ask the iraqis. you want no strings attatched, you dont get to have a hot chick laze around your house like so many forgotten baseball cards collecting dust on the mantle.

we’re holding a contest on LAist that i would like to invite you to participate in. if you dont live in LA you cant really claim your prize, but if youre one of the 10 winners and you know someone in LA who would like the concert tickets, id be more than happy to transfer it to your pal.

basically we have Ten pairs of tickets to see Macy Gray play a secret show in a few days in a small LA jazz club. we also have a concert poster that needs to get made. if you think you can make a poster for us, go to this post and follow the instructions. (its easy)

me, im going to smell my fingers fifty more times out of disbelief at the tail i get at my age and say a lot of thank yous in my prayers. including one about mr alex rodriguez who yesterday said how much he admires and respects mr lou pinella who is currently the manager of your chicago cubs. aka dear god please let the cubs have a new shortstop in a year capable of hitting 50 homers at wrigley amen.

and Lord thanks for all the nice people who have linked me for years and who are just now starting to and have told me so in the comments. its super nice. we should all orgy or something.

it was all about the police. they were the coolest band in town. everything about them was cool.

you bought their records for one reason because they all looked nice sitting in a row underneath your turntable.

it was burning hot here in LA so i woke up early and got some work done and tried to go to the bank but the bank by my house is so popular that even at noon fourty five its packed, so i drove over to where the masons are, overby wilshire.

weve signed up a few new writers so i figured i could spend an hour or two in the daylight.

i had lost my atm card which is why i was at the bank.

when i go outside i feel like i have a pretty obnoxious demeaner, and i mean it. i dont want anyone to approach, i want everyone to stand back, i dont want to seem friendly.

today my beard is a good two weeks full, i had a knit cap on that said disgruntal postal workers association that has an eagle holding a machine gun, i had a flannel over my kum n go shirt

get to the bank and at my bank theres a lady that has a little stand by the front door. usually you just speed right by her after saying hola or something but lately for some reason ive had to started saying more than hi.

but right as i start talking to her this korean old man approached and butted in, talking and pointing at a statement.

she tried to hook him up with an agent that spoke korean and i was all, take your time baby, and i sat down and looked at the man

and tried to esp him a book that ive writing called

flying fuck.

turned out it was close to 90 degrees today

and we had way more posts today than normal

– 10 reasons why LA is no chicago
– Phallus Classes at Occidental College
– Dear Minorities, Please Give Us Your Umbilical Cord Blood. Love, Kaiser
– My Picks for the Baseball Hall of Fame
– The Busses are too Crowded
– Video of a Drunken Cop Swerving on the freeway
– tomdog’s amazing TV Junkie column
– one of the best new bands of 06 will play every monday for free, the submarines
– topless photo of ali landry
– australia week begins on wednesday
– anti rants about bad drivers in LA
– sweet movie picks: Danger Diabolik, Babel, Age of Consent
– review of “Curse of the Golden Flower”
– tonight in rock in la – nofx, the blasters, the submarines, pigeon john, metal skool
– whats hot on the billboard charts
– my little celebrity quickies
– the video that got banned on youtube in brazil
– which pales when compared to My Box in a Box
– 1,001 Reasons LA is Better than Florida – #25-#29 (#29 Charlotte County step-father charged 3 1/2 years probation after chaining his “out-of-control” teenage step-son to a cinderblock via a 20 foot chain)
– Clipper Weekly
– Word of the Year – Plutoed
– Clinton Got a Blowjob Update
– Lakers are on a roll

but what if youre given lemons and you wanna drink rum?

theres absolutely nothing that has inspired me today.

not the boring shit not the exciting shit not the lame shit. the only reason i left the house was to go to the post office and i wanted to write about that on LAist

and i said to myself dude the day you start writing about the post office is the day people stop reading LAist.

this month, due in part, im afraid, to my jaunt around the country is the first month that we wont break a record. that has me a tad depressed but just a tad. and only because ive made that blog my. entire. life. small mistake.

i havent lifted my hood since ive returned to LA which is another mistake im sure. as i know the oil gnomes are leaving just enough earl in there to make me feel comfortable enough to drive a little further than i should.

i turned my cell phone off last night because someone was being annoying and this afternoon i realized i hadnt turned it back on and as soon as i did it started vibrating

and it wasnt the person who i thought it was but it was chris in africa asking how everything was, and i didnt want to tell her that everything wasnt peachy but she could tell

so i said how about we talk on saturday

and theres a reason i never saw shopgirl in the movies. im watching it now on tivo. and its because no matter how many times i go out on dates with girls like claire danes, they never end up naked and quiet in my bed on the second date unless theyre passed out, but there she is naked and quiet on steve martins bed on the second date.

i hate the movies.

i dont want any fucking lemonade.