ive learned so much from twitter

ever been in a relationship and you’re like why did they take that the wrong way?

then you get on twitter and ppl constantly taking things the wrong way

including you.

how many twitter accounts are called bus-something? not a lot.

how you gonna block busblog and you’re named bus something LA?

maybe i do wanna be blocked by such a person.

been watching The Great on hulu bc someone recommended it and also i wanted to use it as background noise as i worked on my website.

way better than i expected.

the longest job i ever had was writing social media for the academy

so when bizarre tweets like this pop up, like it did today

i’ll get DMs and texts and etc asking “holy crap man, what was that tweet all about?”

and i have to explain that i havent worked there for years

and for the last half of the time i was there i had to go through extreme scrutiny to get

any

of my proposed tweets and instagram posts through

because i no longer had a boss who could shield me from those who didnt truly

live and breathe social media like i do.

so they didnt get it.

imagine if there was a committee who had the power to tell Led Zeppelin

dudes Stairway to Heaven is too long, can you trim 3-4 minutes from it?

and how about give the album a name?

youre trying to do your thing and be creative and witty

AND trying to gain followers all while maintaining a sense of the brand people love

with a fresh spin that is slightly unexpected

and may i say daring.

so i get it why someone in my old seat would *want* to make this tweet

and i also get why there may not be anyone there now who could give that person constructive criticism as to why they should throw it right in the trash

and i am super grateful that for two years i had a boss who could communicate with me in such a way that we could check off all the boxes:

  • interesting
  • insightful
  • fresh
  • unique to our brand and our assets
  • something others would want to share

when youre dealing with a 90 year old organization that aint easy

especially when the peanut gallery hears Stairway to Heaven and says

this isn’t at all like Whole Lotta Love, what gives?

if i was running the show over there the first thing i would say to the person creating the content is

women have it hard enough,

whore is a powerful word

in context of that movie it means one thing

but out of context, on our feed, even with what you think is a funny caption

it’s easily misunderstood and

should be avoided

in part because

of all the great lines written in the scripts of our overstuffed archives

that one was not one of them.

every day for the last month ive been trolling the LA city atty

so if i die, investigate his ass.

im on him because he refuses to drop the charges on an LA Taco reporter who was just doing his job the night the Dodgers won the world series.

only problem was, this journalist captured video of the LAPD going wild on the crowd in the streets.

months later the cops mailed this reporter a citation saying he didn’t leave the area when he was instructed to.

huge problem with that. the constitution doesnt say “there is a freedom of the press unless the cops say fuck this, y’all need to go home now.”

in part because sometimes, as we have seen, the cops go apeshit when the shit’s going down and the only people who can check them IS the press. so no.

just last month a journalist in Iowa was aquitted for a similar so-called offense of not dispersing even in conservative ass Iowa the jury only needed two hours to uphold the constitution.

so why is the City Attorney going forward on a case he knows he has no chance of winning?

because he is running for mayor and wants the cops on his side.

even though by doing this, every journalist (rightfully) thinks he’s a moron and gutless and a puppet for the LAPD.

meanwhile this journalist is a Hispanic – which are the majority in LA – so dude’s burning that bridge too.

and yes i remind him of all of these things every week, daily, in rebuttals to every dumbass thing he tweets

which is a lot because he and his staff tweet 3-4 times a day POORLY.

so if i die go after him.

today i learned the guy who covers the cubs likes the DH

can you imagine working for a big newspaper in Chicago,

sorta big, it’s the sun-times

and you get to go to the most beautiful park 100 times a year

and you are fundamentally against what makes the National League the National League?

to me that would be like being a bartender but not appreciating booze.

it’d be like saying you love women but would rather they be completely odorless

it’d be like being a librarian but you prefer the film adaptations.

we battled a little on twitter and he took offense when i told him that i was unfollowing him and then all of his fans piled on

and one by one i picked them off.

it was astounding how few of them really understood the nuance and truths about not just baseball

but strategy, pace, and how to score a run.

scoring runs, of course being the prime objective of baseball.

one guy told me that he liked the AL style that included the designated hitter because it sped up the games and created more runs.

i told him to find me the proof that the games were shorter in the AL than the NL

he conceded he was wrong.

so to reward him i showed him that the amount of runs scored in each league were virtually identical.

i even showed him a chart

 

more people defended the sun times reporter.

one guy asked me a ridiculous scenario where it was the first inning and the pitcher was due up, would i pinch hit? he said he would i said, “why? your team had batted around in the first. you’re doing great, why take out your pitcher for the hope of another hit even though the odds of a pinch hitter being successful is low?”

he was all, “well he has a better chance of a hit than a dumb pitcher!”

which is true but still inane. so i asked him about another scenario.

i said what would happen if its the bottom of the 7th, scoreless game, two no hitters until the Cubs #8 hitter smacks a double into the ivy.

one out, man on second, do you let your pitcher bat or do you yank him because now you have the best chance youve had all game to score… but if you yank him you are also pulling out a pitcher who is mesmerizing the opposite team?

he said, oh id let him bunt. its an obvious sacrifice bunt scenario.

i said is it? and i pulled out this Runs Expectancy chart like the nerd that i am that shows you have a .66 chance of scoring if you have a man on second with 1 out. but you only have a .35 chance of scoring if you have a runner on third with 2 outs.

so by bunting you are actually halving your chances, so you may as well let Kyle swing away and/or try to draw a walk… and make the pitcher waste valuable pitches.

all he could say was that the stats i provided were 5 years old (as if that matters) and any time he sees pitchers they stand there for three pitches and then walk to the bench.

it was then that i realized who i was talking with. and who this writer attracts. and that i was wasting my time with both of them and i should get back to actual work.

which i did

which i am nearly finished with.

which makes me very happy.

and tomorrow i will sell my OJ helmet.

to a very nice man who once used it in an art show.

and i will throw in an OJ football card.

everything must go.

im selling everything i own,

new year new you.

what if im addicted to twitter?

since Friday i have been without my phone. my girlfriend is more uptight about that than i am.

WHAT IF THERES AN EMERGENCY she asked as we drove to Inglewood last night to get some ribs.

then i die.

have my ashes sprinkled among the ashes of Hollywood.

the day before we went to Target and she did not let me leave my phone at home in case we got seperated in the two story store in Pasadena.

now its lost somewhere in this house, locked, and trust me when i tell you last night when i gleefully told her i dont care where it was she about blew a gasket.

things i miss about my phone are minimal. i miss calling my mom when i go on long drives. i miss having it tethered via bluetooth to my car’s Alexa so i can say hey alexa play Tsar

but other than that it has been a pleasant separation and im sure my phone feels the same way about me.

but this twitter. holy moley, i had no idea.

it all happened saturday night, as per my previous post. i watched Josie get arrested and via twitter and my iMessage i was able to alert some of the people she works with. Lord knows i was not going to sit on my hands as she wa being driven to prison because of some weirdo goal to be off the grid.

but as the conversations got weirder and weirder on Twitter regarding her case, the first amendment and the plausibility of a pro journalist jumping into a law enforcement scrum like some modern day Leroy Jenkins i began seeing why i love social media so much.

often times it’s an interesting conversation, but moreso it’s debating with people who are so different both politically and otherwise that it’s eye opening that we can both be looking at the same half full glass of water and they say

not only is it half empty but because of Obama it’s undrinkable.

theres many things i should have studied at UCSB than poetry, namely: Spanish, coding, and apparently Philosophy. I flunked two courses in school, a cinema class on Buster Keaton because i refused to over analyze his slapstick comedy because i didnt want to ruin future viewings, and the philosophy of Berkeley because apparently im dumber than i look.

in that class we had one book. it was a paperback called The Philosophy of Berkeley. It was about 75 pages. I couldn’t get through 5 of them.

im someone who was able to read much of The Bible, Finnegans Wake, and The Sound and the Fury in college. while distracted by the beach, the ladies, and my real goal: writing 100+ articles for the Daily Nexus a year. but those who understand philosophy is something i really admire because it was so foreign to me.

Give me Faulkner’s crazy, trippy, stoned, drunk run on sentences and Joyce’s Ulysses (which I tried to read on shrooms) any day over philosophy.

I read Milton’s Paradise Lost as an ice cream man on summer vacation, for fun but i bombed big time with Berkeley which is why i appreciate trying to conversate with these twitter people with their American flag icons in their bio about what a good journalist can and cannot do.

and yesterday i went on twitter to see the rest of the debate AND TODAY I DID IT TOO!

partially i did it because two of my stories for Los Angeleno were published over the last few days an i want people to read them.

the first was about diversity at the Oscars and how their new rules can be easily gamed

and the other is about diversity at the LA Times and how they really should bite the bullet and let Angel Jennings have full on veto powers otherwise she will be frustrated as merely a token.

going forward i have no other excuses.

but here is the biggest problem i have with twitter: i learn s much. i follow about 1,300 people. about half of them are fully alive on the platform, tweeting out and retweeting fascinating things. news breaks and theyre on it.

who doesn’t love breaking news?

who doesnt want to talk about the president visiting california and saying that the global warming will just disappear? who doesnt want to talk about the Bears’ crazy comeback yesterday or the Cubs’ no hitter or a thousand other things?

i do i do i do!

the greatest thing about being the blog editor of the LA Times was being able to bounce from desk to desk and talk with some of the greatest writers and editors of those sections about the stories theyre working on and how we can make the ones theyve recently published get seen.

it was like going to college and being given an All Access pass to every classroom, all the star students, and all the best professors. every day i learned so much.

twitter is a tiny version of that. oftentimes the journalists will tell you in real time what they are working on or what their recently published stories are all about. and the best ones will answer your questions. you do not need to be a Philosophy major to chat with them because they see the half full glass of water and will talk all day with you about it.

using their real names.

using links to support their point of view.

and often the people who follow them are also interesting and educated people who also want to learn.

so why am i giving that up for even a week?

because all addictions should be put under control.

even if they are fulfilling and wonderful and incredible.

at least for me.