hes 56. and the king of all media.

i grew up listening to the original shock jock, Steve Dahl, who actually began his show right around the same time Howard created his. in fact their paths crossed in Detroit early in both of their careers. so who really knows who shocked first.

but because i grew up with Steve i was extremely resistant to Stern when i moved out to California. i thought howard was phony, i thought his songs were second-rate compared to Steve’s, and i thought he was riding on the coattails of Dahl who had done the syndication and… everything before Howard.

but as time went on i not only listened to Howard, but id stay up late at night just so i could start recording his show at 3am. id wake up in the middle of the night, flip over the tape, continue recording, and go back to sleep.

since then ive been a super fan. ive been to two book signings (both times i didnt get my book signed because there were way too many people in line), i have been a subscriber to Sirius since he made the move over to sat radio 4 years ago, and i was even lucky enough to work at E! when he had his show there – so i got to see a lot of the unedited video tapes of his tv show. i even bought some stock (at $3, uh thanks)

the thing i like the most about Howard is he’s real. the strippers, porn stars, and freaks are fun, but be it talking about the news, his personal life, or even the weird tragic news about his sidekick Artie’s suicide attempt always begins and ends in a real, frank discussion. pardon me, but thats why talk radio was invented.

howard doesnt back down from any topic. why would he? we are paying $13 a month to hear this guy’s take on Everything. he’ll talk about his small penis, his obsessive compulsion, his too-healthy diet, his fears, his love of The Bachelor and other less-than-manly tv shows.

but i think his biggest strength is that of an interviewer. no matter who he has on the show from Paul McCartney to JFK Jr. to Warren Beatty, Howard has absolutely no problem asking all the questions that the audience wants to hear – starting at the guests’ love lives, wild adventures, and controversial periods. his interviews are do probing that after a while you start judging the guest by how well they open up. the focus moves away from howard almost immediately. exactly what interviewing is all about.

id say that howard is easily the best interviewer on radio, tv, anywhere. he gets right to it, and he gets more out of people than anyone. live on the radio. and now that radio is uncensored so the conversations and interviews are more natural.

critics often get distracted by the adult nature of the show, but theyre prudes and theyre being dishonest. everyone knows that most real conversations can easily include adult details and frank words. but for some reason when they write about howard doing that on the radio they pretend like its “raunchy” instead of real.

theres a reason that morning radio collapsed when howard moved over to Sirius. he was the star and his departure created a black hole that no one was able to fill. howard was #1 from NY to LA. and now he has convinced over 12 million people to pay for radio. not oprah, not anyone could do that.

to say that howard has been an inspiration to me and this blog would be an understatement. to say that this blog aspires to be as funny and frank and real as his show is a given, but unlike howard, i dont have the courage to put everything on the line like he does, which is why i dont have the success and riches that he has.

but theres always tomorrow.

doing cool video, teaching cool deals

the first is Mickipedia who is helping a new generation of entrepreneurs launch their startups to help achieve their dreams. one of her new projects is Neighbor Goods where you can “save and earn money by sharing stuff with your friends”. as someone who started his own business many moons ago, i can tell you that its pretty awesome to call your own shots and make your own money. it would have been great to back then to have had people like Micki around doling out sweet tips and creating communities like Neighbor Goods. she also skates for the LA Derby Dolls.

the second is Keri, the Canadian Explorer. you may recall that i met Keri on New Years Eve and we waited in line to buy booze. she has a cool deal going where she travels around Canada and video interviews interesting people. sorta like a younger, hotter, huel howser. with a better theme song.

what i love about both of these ladies is theyre following their dreams and making things happen on their own terms.

but theyre fighting the wrong fight anyways and their deathclocks are demented on principle.

but in a story that ran in todays paper, an independent non-profit study determined that most news comes from the same old channels it’s always come through: beat reporters on newspapers, tv, and radio. An excerpt:

About two-thirds of articles that did break new ground came from newspapers. Television news accounted for about 28% of the stories that offered new information, with radio providing 7%. The study included websites affiliated with these traditional media sources.

Digital-only outlets accounted for just 4% of original pieces of reporting: One report came from a local blog, and the other was breaking news disseminated by a police Twitter feed.

shoudlnt be a surprise to anyone who is soberly observing the media landscape, and those naysayers will gladly instead move the discussion to the fact that fewer stories are being reported out, but when you think about stories like the most recent one about the USC football coach bolting for the NFL, that story broke not on ESPN (and not even on the LA Times) but on the LA Daily News.

proof that there is still competition in LA. newspaper competition.

because im the blog editor of a newspaper company im happy to report that the story first broke on the LA Daily News’ USC blog, but that thing wouldnt exist if not for the newspaper. and it is a ink stained reporter who keeps that blog.

so yes blogging is part of the mix. but it isnt mutually exclusive from the paper.

how is that even possible?

nine years ago i was going through a very rough break up with the girl of my dreams.

most guys would have just jumped off a bridge, traded arms for hostages, or put explosive powder in their underpants and gotten on the first flight to Motown. for some reason i decided to throw myself into designing web pages.

in doing a little “research” to find photos of marilyn manson, i stumbled upon a fansite about the shock rocker. in the folders of one of the message boards i saw that “daisy_princess” was quite active in the community.

at the same time my bros Tsar were starting their band in full force.

i had the brilliant idea that if someone as excited and motivated as daisy_princess was just as in love with Tsar as she was in mr manson, Tsar would get huge.

turned out, instead, that i began to become smitten by the carefree teen, and vice versa, but because i was in such a dark, sad, lonely place, i didnt realize that the feelings were mutual until i went out to las vegas four months into our email/chat relationship to meet the young lady in question.

the year was 2001 and ashley was 19. she looked 16. i was in my late 80s and looked twice that. still, for some reason lust is blind and she was way into me. why? who knows. could it have been my amazing writing? ha! of course i was into her because she was deceptively smart, way exciting, and very fun to simply be around.

it was one of the few times that I was the one trying to simply be friends and nothing more. in fact none of our four months of correspondences were anything other than PG chats, if not G. 5-6 hours long, for sure, but never adult-orientated.

once i met her though i told her that it wouldnt work because, obviously, she was temporarily insane due to my amazing wardrobe and would soon wake up from her delirium and learn that i was just a run-of-othe-mill dirty old man who might have originally had fine intentions but that nonsense would soon leave the building as soon as the diet cokes began to be mixed with The Captain.

ashley however was not one who took no for an answer. she would pout and cry and stomp her feet and cry and yell and stalk and write and whimper and cry and snark and beg and cry. for three years, for some reason i resisted her and for three years she was essentially my girlfriend. i have never experienced anything like it. or her. it was curiously wonderful.

she even moved to california. not to be closer to me, of course, but lo, there she was in the OC, far before it became trendy. and the busblog was created during all of this.

today she lives with her husband and young daughter in france. she works at her fathers vinyard in Jonce and she is surrounded with handmilked white cows and her hot sisters.

i miss her deeply.

and when i tell you that im the luckiest man in the world thanks to the web, she is one of my finest examples why.

happy birthday daisy girl from a foreign world. thanks for stalking me and keeping our friendship going despite my best wishes for you. thank you for showing me a side of love that most people dont understand. thanks for always wanting attention. thanks for always giving attention.

you look better than ever. however we are still waiting for the photo essay of your christmas in vegas.

xoxoxox

i have two important lunches

a new blog rolling out

and the weather will be sub 70 degrees in the first time in quite a while.

i also pledge to take pics of hollywood every day.

and take the subway to work at least once this week.

i also pledge to drink a lot of empty calorie pop, eat steak, and down pie.

but i like the Q&A she did with August Brown

from the Pop & Hiss blog post “Pop phenom Ke$ha: ‘I saw pretension everywhere and I wanted to fight against it'”:

Ke$hsa: This record very accurately documents my last four years of being absolutely broke in L.A. It’s honest, it’s real and I hope people can appreciate it. There was a good pop song in everything I did back then, like the backstabbing girl who stole my car. But the last song, “Animal,” that’s my philosophy on life, and that might be more the direction I go in the future. It’s about remembering that we’re really all just animals, and I indulge that more often than most people. I never said I was going to be the best influence.

Brown: So what should they take away from you instead?

Ke$ha: I’m making sure people know there’s no connection between money and happiness. I remember sitting in the Gold Room with two dollars in change wearing clothes I found in the garbage, but I was surrounded by people that love me. Those were my favorite moments from that time. To this day, if I see a pile of clothes on the side of the road, I’ll still pull over.

yes i know the picture isnt the Gold Room, instead its Gold Diggers, but if everything on this blog was true no one would believe it.

but to me they seem like really sweet people.

im not saying id want to fly to “upstate” south carolina to meet em

im just saying that they just dont realize that having Game is the opposite of being totally sincere.

also motel rooms are almost 100 percent creepy

not to mention the forced two-camera fade situation going down.

i’ll never look at the lady at the library the same again.

so why doesn’t she follow you on Twitter?

ha! flagrant is one of my favorite (ex) bloggers. but that doesnt mean that we’re bffs.

for example i dont even know if shes a woman. or a real person.

far as i know shes just a character some old tv writer created.

as for obsessing who follows me or doesnt on twitter – youre kidding right?

heres how you should go thru life: close your eyes, think about where you wanna go in life, then mash down the gas as far as it will go and speed in the direction of yr dreams.

almost everything else is a beautiful distraction. especially twitter followers, facebook friends, facebook fans, myspace friends, bank account balances, stock portfolios, and numbers of blog comments.

i was working at a tv network. i was a nobody.

i compiled a book of some of my best posts on the busblog and crazy things happened – i was still a nobody but i was being interviewed on tv, in the newspapers, and best of all, on the web.

one of the crazy things that happened was i got interviewed by an upstart blog called LAist.

it was the first step in what would become my relationship with the new york based Gothamist empire. a relationship that would change my life and lead me to my first dream job and then my actual dream job.

an excerpt:

6. Is blogging still an addiction? If not, then what motivates you to continue the busblog?

Yes I am still addicted. But the addiction doesn’t motivate me. What motivates me is my job is really hard and during my 15-minute breaks it’s really nice to just float away into a different world where I have total control and where people flood me with compliments and love and nice attention. I can honestly say that if I was happy in my career a few years ago there would have been no busblog.

7. If you had to make a soundtrack of the busblog, what might some of the selections include?

Tsar, “Wrong”
The Replacements, “If Only You Were Lonely” and “Kiss Me On The Bus”
R.E.M, “Superman”
N.W.A, “100 Miles And Runnin’”
Jane’s Addiction, “Three Days”
Led Zeppelin, “The Immigrant Song”
The Donnas, “Take It Off”
The Corvids, “Worried”
The Cure, “Why Can’t I Be You”
Soul Asylum, “Cartoon”
Beastie Boys, “Shadrach”

8. Has the response to your book How to Blog different from general response to the busblog itself?

Most people are aware that even a chimp can start a blog. But not until How To Blog did people realize that that very same chimp could turn their posts into a book that actually looks like a book; and then sell that same recycled nonsense and make it seem sorta cool.

Also, I wasn’t being invited to be interviewed on TV shows and the likes of laist.com until I compiled the book. However that may have just been a coincidence.

read all 28 questions and answers here. sorta crazy that was six years ago, it seems like 66 years ago.

good news is, im still a nobody 🙂