i was feeling pretty good about myself. laist had doubled what it had done the year before and i had had a steady increase in hits each month.

by the end of sunday, laist will have as many visitors in july as we had in all of november.

im about to go to a concert. i cant wait. i mention stats because in this photo of me in las vegas there are two people taking a picture of me and i wonder if either of them know that what im doing in that photo is looking at the referal logs of all the people who had just come to laist.

there is something very wrong with me. inside.

this month was also the month that i promised to start taking more time off, namely the weekeneds, namely the night time. namely because its hard to be a good booty call if youre always like nah.

i hate having to do things. i hate schedules. i hate appointments. even if its for something that i like. i like waking up and having zero commitments. nothing.

i dont want to owe anyone anything and i dont want to have to do shit. when im in that place i can do everything. beautifully. and i will do it a lot.

however, i have noticed that the things that have come good for laist over the last year that ive been helming the ship have come when either i least expected it or had only a glancing influence.

in fact, it could be possible, that i might be part of the problem.

imagine a race car driver with a nice lead sticking his head out the window or setting it on cruise control? maybe that driver is really good at getting leads but then he doesnt know how to keep it.

every time we had a big month in the past i thought how the hell are we gonna do that again. and sure enough we pretty much did. this month is gonna be a freakin monster and most of it happened during a holiday weekend when there was a sunday, a holiday in the middle of the week, and slowness everywhere.

dont ever listen to anyone who says you cant do well at any time day or hour on the internet.

except maybe if youre up against american idol.

the other day that involved myself and one of my female contributers to laist. and it was a rumor allegedly begun from the lips of someone who i trust very much. someone who i not only respect a great deal but in a way look up to and admire.

which isnt to say that the young lady in question isnt beautiful and charming and definitely worthy of the attentions of a single man… with great needs. but the truth of the matter is i love my job so much you have no idea. therefore i am being especially conservative in some of my actions so that i lower the risk of losing said dream job.

so no, i did not have relations with that woman.

i know that more and more bloggers are beginning to get hired at real places of employment, in fact just last month the LA Times plucked our film editor, but to be a paid blogger is still a super rare thing, and i want to be part of the people who help others get ahead blogging, not part of the people who take advantage of their situations and fuck shit up for the brothers and sisters comin up.

plus with all the hotness in la, you probably shouldnt be banging your writers, especially when you dont pay them, and especially when the blogosphere is a gossipy fucking place, and especially when you find yourself asking favors from your writers all the time – and vice versa – and everyone should know that there are no hidden agendas, theres only one goal

world domination.

crazy thing is, LAist is on the right path. people talk about the holidays and the weekends and the summer time being slow for the blogosphere but these have been the hottest five days that LAist has ever had, infact we have had more people come to our blog in these past five days than came to the site in all of last july. and at the time, july 06 was the biggest month laist had ever seen.

the monster has been created. and its alive.

now, boinking busblog readers is a different subject entirely.

to celebrate, tonight i found myself with a clear evening calendar so i drove down sunset to down town and cruised up grand and wound up at one of my favorite soul food places, this 99 cent one over by usc

i always get the same thing cuz im an old man.

smothered chicken breast over rice with gravy
collard greens
sweet potatoes

karisa will tell me that ive blown my diet but hanging out with matt good did wonders for me. true hes a rock star and can get away with a little paunch, but being out there with him made me realize that thats how men are supposed to look, like men. not little skinny boys.

he smoked his cigarrettes and i smoked my medical herbs and we had our shirts off and we blogged by the pool

as the crazy little self cleaning pool thing slowly scrubbed the bottom of the deep end

and ive gotta say, even though we will have random weirdness from time to time on the web site, that fucker can take any spike i bring to it. quick, sustained, spikey – that site never goes down, never gets slow when we’re hot. i love that. i love everything.

and i really love that the cubs are hot as fuck too.

you could be my black kate moss tonight. when i was in vegas this stripper crawled up on me and said i’ll be your black barbie.

which isnt the first thing that i would have liked her to be because i dont know about you but i used to pop my sisters barbies heads off, put fire crackers into the body cavity, put the head back on (usually backwards)

and then put the barbie into one of my tonka trucks and light the whole damn thing on fire.

when i got home i was motivated to start the new book, 101 great porn ideas. and i wrote a few chapters my last day there. and i wrote a chapter last night.

and someone very sweet was internet message chatting with me and said

why dont you make them all twenty bucks, check only, and you will have a limited supply of 666, and they will all be numbered and you can only get them if you have a link on your blog to the busblog

and i said but what about people that dont have blogs

and she said then tough shit, everyone at least has a myspace

i was all, myspaces count

she said uh

and i forgot shes a big wig at myspace

and looks great in a bikini.

my favorite summer jam so far is Kid Sister’s Pro Nails which you can get off the Kanye West “Can’t Tell Me Nothin” Mix Tape which is genius and you can download the whole cd (25 songs) for free right here.

im going to bbq with laist
drink beers, eat meats, then watch shit blow up.
thanks ben franklin!