Tom Campbell, the polite Republican running against incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer for the U.S. Senate, is prone to say things like, "Forgive me, but I'm going to be blowing my own horn just a bit." He's the the type of man who repeats your first name often, so that you feel important.
Jennifer Aniston rarely left her Malibu beach house during the summer of 2005. Richard Terry knows this because he sat outside every day for two and a half weeks.(Neon Tommy)
http://jezebel.com/5457369/
It's 3:20, and Santa's Craigslist ride hasn't shown up yet. With no phone on him, Santa is stuck. He stands on a street corner, holding a gigantic sign directing people to buy Christmas trees at a lot about a quarter mile down the road. He says his shift ended at 3 p.m. But because his ride is late, he is unintentionally working overtime. He normally likes the work, except his arms can get a little tired from waving the sign around. When he's not Santa Claus, Manny Masilla, 23, says he works on air conditioning units.
Masilla has fared much better than another Santa who recently worked the same street corner. On his first day on the job as Santa, a high school student was scared off by workers from a nearby competing Christmas tree lot.
A man whose coworkers would only refer to as Jimmy runs the competing tree lot in Woodland Hills. The street corner Santas work for a different lot, just a few minutes away in Calabasas.
Jimmy is not happy about this.
Continue reading The Competition is Getting Ugly At Christmas Tree Lots.
On Valentine's Day 2007, Alex Thompson biked over a piece of driftwood, which hit his face and sent him flying off his handlebars. "I was going to have a single Valentine's Day anyway," he said.
Having already sold his car, he called four different friends with cars, one of whom answered and took him to the hospital so he could get his lip sewn back up.
"Cyclists are a little bit stigmatized in LA, but you find this out when you go into like higher echelons of society, where its important to have a Mercedes Benz," he told me at a coffee shop on Venice. "But that's nothing compared to walking around Los Angeles with no teeth."
He says that for the next three months after the accident, he fought with UCLA, where he was a PhD student, trying to get new front teeth under the student health insurance plan. He rode the bus and swears that he smiled at people who tried sitting next to him.
Now, Thompson has front teeth again, and, still without a car, he depends on his bike to speed around Los Angeles; "I like to ride bikes fast, I ride everywhere fast."
Thompson recently was interviewed by NPR, for a segment on Los Angeles bike activists in the wake of the Mandeville Canyon trial.
Continue reading Cycling to City Council: Profile of an LA Bike Activist.
Jim DeRogatis drums for a punk band called Vortis. They sound like they could be fun live, as long as they play outside , you (the concertgoer) were drunk, and you enjoy moshpits that aren't safe for anyone under 200 pounds to participate in. If you are watch their YouTube video alone in your bedroom, they sound like a more annoying version of the Ramones.
Continue reading Jim DeRogatis: Not an Old Hack.
If your husband leaves you for another woman, it might be because she's better than you. Harsh, immature words, but believed to be true by many who aren't married, if online behavior is any indication. When I look at reader comments on blogs targeting younger people, I find that for every team-Aniston supporter, there's another reader still relishing the fact that Brad Pitt chose a hotter woman, four years later. On a Perez Hilton blog post about Aniston's appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, in which Aniston sang, one reader commented; "CANT ACT, CANT SING, CANT KEEP A MAN SAD! ******TEAM ANGELINA*******" People love love triangles, especially when the triangle features a clear winner and a loser, be it on fictional TV shows or in the tabloids. But, luckily for politician's wives, a love triangle among older, not-so-sexy people isn't cool at all. A scorned, cancer-ridden elderly woman like Elizabeth Edwards doesn't have to worry about bloggers rubbing the heartbreak in her face. The Pussycat Dolls might be hotter and more fun than your girlfriend, but there's a reason they'd never sing low-blow lyrics like, "Dontcha wish your wife was cancer-free like me?" I learned about advancements in the Edwards-Rielle Hunter- Edwards triangle from my rabbi this Saturday during a high-holiday sermon. Apparently, John Edwards might admit to fathering Rielle Hunter's baby. I searched "John Edwards" on Twitter to learn more. There, I was first lead to Huffington Post article that basically just paraphrased a New York Times article; "A man who once claimed to have fathered the child of John Edwards' mistress says in a book proposal the former presidential candidate is the real father and that Edwards and worked with his campaign finance chairman to hide that secret, according to a newspaper report published online Saturday. The New York Times said the book proposal by former Edwards aide Andrew Young states he helped facilitate the affair between Edwards and Rielle Hunter. According to the newspaper, Young wrote that Edwards once told Hunter they would wed after Edwards' wife, who has cancer, died. Edwards told Hunter that the ceremony would be held on a rooftop in New York and the Dave Matthews Bands would make an appearance, the newspaper said, citing its examination of the book proposal." Other tweets linked to the original New York Times article; "Mr. Edwards is moving toward an abrupt reversal in his public posture; associates said in interviews that he is considering declaring that he is the father of Ms. Hunter's 19-month-old daughter." In response to all the stories, one elderly woman tweeted; DEDEBACHER For Elizabeth Edwards it's tough to be fighting incurable bone cancer. The boorish behavior ofJohn Edwards is appalling. He has no decency." cmarq RT @jaketapper hey @DaveJMatthews big fan,whattup with John Edwards allegedly saying he's booked u for his next wedding? http://bit.ly/7lPdz RKania @DaveJMatthews what is john edwards talking about? rooftop wedding??? But DaveJMatthews hasn't tweeted since a nonsensical September 4th post. Meanwhile, as Elizabeth Edwards tries to make peace with her life, she might want to look on Twitter. There, she should be happy to find that there is no *TEAM RIELLE.* John Edwards is not a prize that Hunter has gloriously stolen. The twitter-verse, likely taking its feelings of John Edwards right out of his wife's mouth, describes him as a piece of shit, a skeez, scum, and a monster. In an exciting turn for people who think Dave Matthews sounds like Kermit the Frog, like my brother and me, some took their anger out on the supposed wedding band;
Continue reading Twitter Agrees: John Edwards is Horrible Person.
I spent last summer monitoring online reader comments for profanity, so that I could add another internship to my resume.
Before the digital age, reader grievances could only be published if they wrote a "letter-to-the-editor." The L.A. Times and N.Y. Times still publish articulate "letters" (more likely emails) in their Opinion sections every Sunday. But in my internship, I could not discard the stupid comments and save the clever ones, as a print editor would have to do.
Continue reading When Readers Strike Back in All Caps.
