and they heart them

but something tells me theyre lying

cuz this amazing nerd has virgin written all over his face

sweeter still when one of the people is a son of a gun with no fear no pity and nothing but guns blazing from his poison pen.

mike royko, its been stated here before, is my newspaper hero. hes the reason i wanted to write for my college rag and who i drew inspiration from in the pursuit of blogging every day.

when i first learned of the windy city legend he was writing for the chicago sun-times, otherwise known as the paper White Sox fans got.

the chicago tribune, naturally, is what the educated read.

in our school library were racks of magazines and newspapers. i would go into the library every day and take the paper into the corner desk and read and smile, secretly, at the joyous writing royko threw down each and every day.

at some point he got mad at the sun times and moved across the street to the tribune where he wrote until he died.

while i college i was an ok opinion columnist but i aspired to write every day. i remember clearly being told that no one could write well every day. so i wrote for Sports one day, wrote for News the next, wrote for Arts the day after, then wrote a column for the opinion page the next, and made out with a hippy girl on the fifth day because i was told what i was told.

jk i wrote my ass off every day several times a day because i saw royko pull it off and i knew it was possible. great training for when i went to LAist and was asked to write 6-7 times a day and saw Jen Chung do more than that at Gothamist.

the closest thing LA has to Royko is Steve Lopez who got to meet the legend way back when, and in his piece about Royko’s new book of love letters to his wife he said pretty much what i heard way back when.

“His only advice was that I not write too many [columns a week], because although it’s a terrific job, it can wear you down,” Lopez recalled.

fortunately Lopez didnt take the advice. he writes several times a week and each one is solid and usually funny.

in his piece about the book of love letters (edited by the son of a gun’s son) it’s obvious that Royko didnt take his own advice neither. when the moment strikes, like being in love, or having a vibrant city to inspire you, the words flow.

Royko reached for his pen and went after Carol with a fever, displaying the same level of pursuit he would later employ in chasing bureaucrats and political hacks. He confessed his feelings in March 1954 — “I’ve been in love with you so long, I don’t know when it started” — and wrote like he was on fire for months.

“Sure it’s possible for two people to fall in love that fast,” he wrote in May of that year. “Three months? I fell in love with you in three minutes and I couldn’t have been more than 12.”

Even after he won over Carol, and she accepted his proposal in September 1954, Royko kept pursuing her as if she might have a change of heart. Distance made his heart beat faster, and it’s interesting, isn’t it, that a guy who would become known for such rugged self-assuredness was so tragically insecure?

The two things aren’t mutually exclusive, though, especially among journalists. The best ones are often brimming with both confidence and self-doubt, their edge rooted in that conflict.

see? bro can write. and when you can write you should write all the damn time.

you should do the same thing regarding kissing, laughing, and rocking.

meanwhile dont trust anyone older than me. they’re trying to fake you out.

no ones gonna spit on us

“people smoking weed over there. they want their team to win but theyre buzzed.”

seriously how can racists hate black people?

“never scare a black man”

god bless halloween

i scored a dream job at a record store

and in this store – besides all the great records cassettes and cds – were all these amazing people, all of whom taught me priceless things about the music we were selling.

the two most famous employees from Licorice Pizza in West LA at the time that i worked there were probably Gary Calamar who rocks the mic at KCRW on Sunday Nights and he also is the music supervisor for some of your favorite shows like Dexter, True Blood, and House where he picks the sweet tunes.

the other was Gunnar Nelson, the long haired blonde drummer and guitarist of Nelson, who i remember clearly asked for some time off so his band could perform as the musical act on Saturday Night Live. (to the chagrin of the many struggling musicians who also worked at the store.)

but one of the more interesting characters i’d ever met was one Tosh Berman who exuded class. not snobby class, just the opposite. class like he’d been somewhere and he wanted to share his badass exotic discoveries with you.

some people make you feel dumb when they teach you stuff, tosh made you want to just listen and listen and listen.

turns out Tosh went on to bigger and better after Licorice Pizza – as many of us have. and who knew he was the longtime book buyer for one of the best book stores in all of LA – Book Soup?

thanks to the magic of video + facebook + a cool blog named SinningInLA i got to see and hear Tosh exactly as I remembered him, just a tad grayer around the temples, giving a nice tour of the best book store on the Sunset Strip.

heres a photo of tosh and i with our coworker kara way back in the day.

i believe im tapping along to the dulcet tunes probably being played live by the ridiculously talented Willie Aaron of the Balancing Act.

it was Willie who turned me on to The Replacements, Lou Reed, and John Coltrane among others.

and yes i do believe thats a wine cooler in front of me. i told you it was back in the day!

how can the busblog be the first LA blog to notice this?

where’s LAist? Where’s Curbed LA? EaterLA?

how is it that the lowly granpa of an LA blog has this meltdown of a scoop?

thats the way Google Street View saw the old gal. Now theres a For Lease sign on it?

Not even the hyperactive UGC-powered Yelp has the news!?! Or Pinkberry.com itself?

How can this be??? I thought it was Crackberry and all the ladies and hipsters used it as rocket fuel while bloggers loooooved to write about its openings, closings, and copycat competitors?

Or the sweet pad the Pinkberry owners were able to buy from the Froyo.

The closing of the Abbot-Kinney Pinkberry gets blogged but not the Los Feliz locale? Someone’s gonna pull yr Eastside card, bloggers.

Oh well, guess you had to hear it here first.

see that soup? that delicious looking spicy coconut milk chicken soup with mushrooms?

only thing in the world that could make karisa hurl eases my upset stomach and soothes my soul.

the truest yesterday asked me if she could bring me anything and i said Palms Thai.

but because i love her so much i didnt want her to catch my deliberating bug. so i said no never mind.

then she asked dont they deliver? and i said no. sadly no. unfortunately no.

so i said i’ll order from an inferior place, dont worry. i live minutes from Thai Town for god sake and this is exactly what delivery is all about.

i go to palms thai anyways just to see if things have changed. and bam look at it, no better words could i have seen: Now Deliver.

ordered up my food, threw the wastebasket filling over with used kleenex into the dumpster, washed my hands, and when the next fine lady asked what she could do for me i said, just send me a nude.

your boy had turned the corner and was making a recovery.

yes ive been blogging while sick:

Rand Paul coordinator Tim Profitt admits to stepping on woman from MoveOn.org before Kentucky debate

Tim Profitt blames police and his bad back for his Kentucky stomp and wants victim to apologize to him

Christine O’Donnell threatens to sue radio station, retreats when reminded about the 1st Amendment

Sharron Angle ad spurs a … colorful … outburst by ‘The View’s’ Joy Behar

Sharron Angle gives Joy Behar flowers; ‘The View’ co-host calls the candidate that name again

heres a self portrait

if i die, ive loved you all.

scatter my blog in the bleachers.