USC wins the Emerald Bowl!

Well, the football gods smiled on the University of Southern California yesterday, as the almighty Trojans beat Boston College, 24-13. In a nice touch, Patt Morrison interviewed Pete Carroll yesterday in the LA Times. Carroll is one of the best college football coaches ever, and one of the most important people in Los Angeles. He's also a great guy who does a lot for the community, and does a lot without getting any credit for it. Props to the LA Times for running this series of Patt Morrison interviews. One thing that the LA Times has done exceptionally well over the last few years is experiment with their Op-Ed page, and this is a great example.

Matt Barkley threw two interceptions, but he was also 27 for 37, for 350 yards. We'll take that. Here's a video highlight. Now I just have to figure out why it's called "the Emerald Bowl."

Wildfires and Scrambled Eggs: Elegy for the Hidden Springs Cafe

Here in LA, we're almost used to wildfires. We're surrounded by lots of dry trees that seem to burn quickly. That's one price we pay for living in a hot, sunny, dry climate. We're starting to learn to live with them, getting better at defensive construction, getting people out of the way. But there's always an element of tragedy in fires as big as the ones we have had here in LA, particularly when, like these, they burn close to large population centers. I could see smoke - lots of it - from my office in downtown LA.


For me, the great tragedy in this fire was the loss of a small building in the middle of the Angeles National Forest, the Hidden Springs Cafe. The Website is still up, but the Cafe itself is completely gone. The LA Times, to its eternal credit, had an article about the Cafe before its fate was known. They devoted a fair amount of space to it.

I discovered the Hidden Springs Cafe several years ago, driving through the Angeles National Forest. It wasn't hard to find, once you knew where it was, but it sure was hidden. To get there, you headed up the 2, into the Forest. Once there, you drove about 7 miles, and then turned left. Then another 7 miles, and it was on your left. Impossible not to notice, because it was the only building for miles. I'd go there every few months, for a mini-vacation.

I have to admit that I didn't really go there for the food, except for the chili, which was great (it was advertised as "nearly world-famous"). Most of the rest was pretty basic diner food, but very good diner food. I usually went for the grilled ham and cheese.

But what the Hidden Springs Cafe lacked in culinary flamboyance it made up for in charm and character, and it had those in spades. It was a small place, with about 8 stools around a horseshoe counter, and a couple of picnic tables outside. There was only room for one cook in the kitchen, but that was all that was needed. The cook's name was Jim, and his twin sister Janice was the waitress. Their mother Elva was usually there too, partially because she lived upstairs, partially because she owned it, and I don't think I ever remember her not smiling. Jim and Janice traded banter like nobody's business. Their older brother Otis was there occasionally. He would play banjo for the customers. He was there the last time I was there, in July, subbing for Jim. I ordered scrambled eggs for breakfast, with toast and bacon. Otis told me that he wasn't really good with scrambled eggs. I thot this was something of an odd confession for a short order cook, but it was utterly charming that this guy would share this kind of tidbit with me. The eggs were fine, they just weren't very scrambled. But they were the only scrambled eggs I've ever ordered that I remembered, and will always remember.

The family had owned it since 1971, and you could feel every day of those years on the walls. The best of those years was carefully layered on those walls, and preserved, not so much through comprehensive attempts at preservation as through constant attention to keeping the place like it always was. Ironically, one of the major decorative features was a string of Smokey The Bear posters, including the very first one. It was the kind of place where you felt very comfortable immediately, and kept feeling that way.

It wasn't just the family that ran it that made it a fun place; it always attracted people, some regulars, and some people just wandering by. You were pretty much guaranteed a good story, either from Jim, Janice, Elva, or Otis, or from someone who had been there dozens of times and was stopping by to check in and catch up. The Hidden Springs Cafe was like its very own small town, in the middle of a National Forest the size of Rhode Island, in the middle of one of the most populous counties in the world. It was a quiet little dot a few miles north of Hollywood, world capital of spectacle and glamour. The food was cheap but as good as it could be, the root beer floats were classic, and the charm was real. Just as real was the love the people there had for each other, their jobs, the lifestyle they had carved out for themselves, and the people who had discovered this little bit of magic. I will miss the Hidden Springs Cafe.

Whale Watching in Santa Barbara

I'm posting this just for fun. The LA Times has an article about whale watching off the Santa Barbara coast. Apparently this is a particularly good year for whale watching, because the humpback and blue whales are here at the same time, which is unusual. Also, krill are close to the surface, so the whales can be seen opening their mouths and scooping up a bunch of krill.

I'm also posting this as part of my campaign to reward the LA Times when it does something right, particularly on its Website. There's a good video associated with the story. I've been critical of the LA Times for not doing enough with video on its Website - hello, this is the filmed entertainment capital of the world - but this time, they got it right. It's a very good video, basically a mini-documentary. Good job, LA Times. I'm not even going to post it on this Website, I am going to encourage readers to actually click on the link above and watch it at latimes.com.

The New LATimes.com: Love The Redesign, Search Engine Still Sucks

The Los Angeles Times did something right. They redesigned their Website, from top to bottom. I've only been there a couple of times, but I have to say that it looks great. It may even be better than nytimes.com, and that's high praise from me. It feels comfortable but comprehensive, and it looks like I can find my way from there to anywhere in the paper. I might actually start going there just for fun. That would be a major change; I really did not like the old latimes.com. So, kudos to the LA Times. It's nice to be able to take some pride in my hometown paper.

In the print edition, the LA Times is still struggling. I like what they have done with the Op-Ed page over the last several years; they've experimented quite a bit, which is good in and of itself, and now they seem to have found a structure that works, although I miss Joel Stein. So the print edition still struggling, but some parts are getting better.

However, a caveat: I still don't like the search engine on latimes.com. I have a standard test that I run on latimes.com to see if it is working the way I want it to work. Their car critic is a guy named Dan Neil, who, for my money, is one of the best newspaper columnists in the country on any topic. He's the only car critic to win a Pulitzer. I like the fact that the LA Times has given him a second column, on general cultural topics. Good call.

My test is this: Dan Neil wrote a column on November 3, 2004, reviewing the Ducati 999R, an Italian motorcycle. I remember this because it's my birthday, and that was the day John Kerry lost the presidential election. He described the bike as evil on two wheels:

Its 150-hp V-twin motor runs on damned souls and is lubricated with the fat of unbaptized children.

I test latimes.com by trying to find that article using the search function on latimes.com. This time around, I tried several combinations. Nothing. This article is less than 5 years old - it's not exactly archivable material. But you may have noticed that I linked to it, and quoted from it. How did I find it? Simple. I Googled "Dan Neil los angeles times ducati unbaptized children," and voila! There's the article. On latimes.com. So I can find this article using Google, but not the LA Times' own search engine.

One step forward, yay! Still waiting for the next step. Newspapers complain that they can't make as much money from the Web as they can from their print editions, and some are threatening to force users to pay for content on their Websites. Here's a hint about how to make money on a newspaper Website: get the basics rights. Execute well. Make sure the damn thing works the way users want it to.

A Completely Unsurprising Political Development

The House Judiciary Committee has released emails pertaining to the U.S. Attorney's scandal of a couple of years ago. To absolutely no one's surprise - no one, of course, except the hardest of hardcore Republicans - Karl Rove was, in fact, intimately involved in the decisions, particularly the decision to fire David Iglesias.

Rove denies it, but Karl Rove would find a way to put a positive spin on the apocalypse.

35 Years Ago: Nixon Resigns

35 years ago today, Richard M. Nixon announced to the country that, because of Watergate, he would resign the presidency. Watching this video, it's amazing to see how studiously he avoided taking any kind of responsibility. He says that he doesn't have a political base in Congress, that the country needs a "full-time president," and a "full-time Congress," that he has never been a quitter. But at no point does he take any kind of responsibility. I suppose that's understandable, because admitting that he had done anything might have been tantamount to admitting guilt in a criminal trial. But he also seems to believe very thoroughly that he hasn't done anything wrong. This is from the LA Times.

That's An Email You Don't Get Every Day

This morning, everyone in my office here in Los Angeles got an email from our Office Administrator with this in the subject line:

Yes, It Was An Earthquake

It was down in Baja California, about 360 miles south of the border, or about 500 miles south of LA, but it was a 6.9, which is a good-sized rattling. We're all fine here, and there are no reports yet of injuries or damages.

I feel a certain responsibility to report these things, given the title of this blog.

Quote Of The Day

"Generally, films have dialogue to support the plot," Chung says. "This one has a plot to support the dialogue."

Eddie Chung, director of the "The Achievers: The Story of the Lebowski Fans," a documentary about the cult that has arisen about the Coen brothers film "The Big Lebowski."

Skateboarding in Afghanistan

Every once in a great while, you read something that is both heartwarming and surreal. This is a story about an Australian who brought skateboarding to Afghanistan. Regardless of what you think of globalization, the war on terror, Western cultural imperialism, or even skateboarders, this is simply amazing. In a country with not-really-modern attitudes towards women, girls are finding something new to do.

It was the sight of girls spinning across the concrete, their scarves billowing, that caught the eye of Kenny Reed, a skater from upstate New York. "You know," he said, "I think this is the first time I've ever seen little girls skating anywhere."

It's called Skateistan. I'll never look at skateboarding the same way again.

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson's memorial service was here in LA on Tuesday, at the Staples Center, our big indoor arena. There were 17,500 tickets, distributed free through an online lottery. 1.6 million people applied. People came from around the country; some people came from other countries. Streets were closed; buses were rerouted. But apparently it was not a mob scene, and very tasteful. The LA Times captured the mood:

In the end, they brought Michael Jackson to the one place where his life always made sense -- beneath a spotlight and in front of his adoring fans. The superstar, in a gleaming gold coffin, was celebrated in a Staples Center memorial service that was beamed around the world and, like the icon himself, strove mightily to be all things to all people.

I'm not a big Michael Jackson fan, although I like many of his songs. But as I was watching the "Beat It" video the other day, I realized something about him. It's a good video today, but it was a great video back then. It seems standard now, maybe even cliched, to see the singer leading a dance routine. But it was groundbreaking back in the day. Of all the great male rock and pop stars, Michael Jackson was far and away the best dancer, one of the only ones who had the natural talent to move with that kind of grace. Elvis, of course, was famous for his moves, but he was also mostly standing in one place while he shook his hips. The Beatles? Rolling Stones? The Police, Jimmy Buffett, The Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin? Mick Jagger is very athletic and charismatic, but even he doesn't have the kind of rhythm Michael Jackson did.

Most lives worthy of celebration have their share of controversy, but death has a way of rebalancing the scales of fame. Michael Jackson was famous for his talent and his art, then he was famous for being famous, then he was famous for being weird. Now he's back to being famous for what he was originally known for; some damn good music.

Michael Jackson started on the road to stardom a long time before MTV was born, but he did it, and it did him, some very large favors. Like most people between the ages of about 25 and 55, I have long since lost interest in MTV. I'm one of those old-fashioned people who like music videos. This is why I like YouTube. I watched "Beat It" on mtv.com, but then tried to find some other favorite videos, and of course was greeted with a message that they were somehow lost. But MTV was going to get them back! That's just sad.

But in honor of The Gloved One, I'm going to end this post with a link to mtv.com.

Stars falling from the sky

One meme in Hollywood this summer is that the movie business seems to be going through a shift of sorts. Movies featuring movie stars are failing, while the most successful movies are those without stars. The LA Times examines this trend, and, unfortunately, engages in some utterly trivial, completely inside-Hollywood analysis.

The studios, which for years have banked on richly paid stars to open their movies, are now witnessing a new reality: even the most reliable actors can be trumped by what Hollywood executives like to call "high concepts" (a bachelor party gone awry), movies based on brand-name products (Hasbro's Transformers toys), and reinvented franchises (not your father's "Star Trek")

I have name for this current batch of "high concept" movies.

I call them "good movies."

And this, quite simply, is the secret of how to make money in Hollywood: make a good movie for a reasonable cost. That's it. Of course, making a good movie is not simple, just like writing a good book or painting a good picture is not simple. But there is no secret beyond that to making money in Hollywood. Whether or not "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen" is a good movie is debatable, but it clearly delivers substantial entertainment value.

People who believe that casting movie stars is the secret to making money on a movie confuse correlation and causation.

Correlation is when a moviegoer says to herself "I have seen Julia Roberts in good movies before, so if Julia Roberts is in a movie, then there is a good chance that it will be good, and that I will enjoy it." If you eat an apple and enjoy it, then there is a good chance that you will enjoy the next apple. But that is not guaranteed - you may have liked that particular apple more than the next apple you eat.

Causation is when a moviegoer says to himself "I have seen Tom Cruise in good movies before, so if Tom Cruise is in a movie, that automatically means that it is good, and I can be sure that I will enjoy it." If you drop an apple, it will fall to the ground. If you drop another apple, it will also fall to the ground, because it is affected by gravity, which is the cause that makes the apple fall. As long as you are standing on the planet Earth, that will not change.

But there is no such thing as causation in the relationship between movie stars and whether or not the movies that they are in will make money, because there is no causal relationship between movie stars and whether or not the movies they are in will be good movies. Movie stars have a combination of qualities: good looks, talent, and the ability to choose good roles for themselves, and good movies for themselves to be in. Julia Roberts and Harrison Ford are both great examples of this. Both of them have demonstrated very good taste when it comes to picking roles for themselves over the years. So moviegoers have strong associations between Julia Roberts and Harrison Ford and good movies. But neither of them has a perfect track record. About the only actor I can think of who has a near-perfect record of choosing good roles is Meryl Streep.

Casting Julia Roberts does not mean that the movie will be good, or that audiences will automatically assume that it is a good movie. Casting Julia Roberts means that audiences will notice the movie, and pay some attention to it, and start out with a favorable impression of it (at least many people). That's it.

People do not go to see movies strictly to see the actors and actresses who are in them. They go to see the movie itself. The movie itself is a package, and the stars are parts of that package. Important parts, to be sure, but only parts.

People go to see movies for one reason: they want to see a good movie. They may want to see a comedy, a tragedy, an action-adventure movie, a thriller, or a horror movie. They may want to laugh, cry, or be terrified. But at the end of the day, they want to see a good movie. Putting a movie star in it increases the chances that audiences will perceive it as a good movie. But putting a movie star in a movie does not guarantee that it will be a good movie. And good movies do not necessarily have to have movie stars in them. Consider the following list:

The Graduate

Jaws

Star Wars

Raiders of the Lost Ark

E.T.

Back To The Future

The Usual Suspects

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Shakespeare In Love

Titanic

Pulp Fiction

What do those movies have in common? Each of those is a great movie. And not one of them featured an actor or actress who was an A-list star at the time of the movie's release. The closest any of those has to a star is John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, but he was considered a has-been at the time, and this was his comeback role. Some of those are utterly cliched. Jaws? Jaws is about a giant creature that terrorizes people, with the creature created with mechanical effects. The same description can be applied to King Kong, Godzilla, and a thousand other cheesy B movies. There is one thing that distinguishes Jaws from those thousand other movies: it's a damn good movie.

High concept? Consider Titanic. It's based on one of the worst ideas for a movie ever made. "I know, let's spend $200 million on a movie about one of the worst man-made disasters ever, cast two unknowns, and make it a tragic love story, with one of the main characters dying a horrible death almost immediately after they fall in love." Great! Let's go! Sounds like a winner!

By the standards of Hollywood that the LA Times recites, Titanic should not have been a successful movie. Kate Winslet was a total unknown. She wasn't even particularly svelte. Leonardo DiCaprio had been in a bunch of art house movies. But it's the most successful movie of all time.

The article quotes a number of Hollywood executives. They all try to provide solid analysis, but they somehow manage to make trendy marketing concepts sound like bad post-modernism.

"The world has changed, throwing conventional wisdom out the window," said former studio marketing executive Peter Sealey. "The star-power opening is fading in importance and the marketing and releasing of movies is going into new territory where the masses are molding the opinion of a movie. People no longer say, 'It's a Tom Cruise movie, let's go see it!' With social networking, you know everything about a movie before it comes out."

Let me quote part of that again: "the marketing and releasing of movies is going into new territory where the masses are molding the opinion of a movie."

In other words, the opinion of the customer matters. Moviegoers are now finding out whether or not a movie is good very quickly, before the marketing has a chance to work its seductive magic.

The opinion of the customer matters. Hey guys, welcome to capitalism. News flash: figuring out what the customer wants and delivering it is your job as a studio executive.

I don't think that every studio executive in Hollywood is this obsessed with marketing, but I have noticed a tendency in the LA Times, particularly in the business section, to engage in this kind of analysis. The problem with trying to analyze trends in the movie business strictly in terms of marketing is that you end up with some serious nonsense:

"Movie stars in the right films provide a certain amount of value from a marketing point of view," he said. "But there is no star power that you can throw at a movie that gives you the kind of brand awareness you get from pre-sold titles."

But "Star Trek" was not a pre-sold title. The last few Star Trek movies were forgettable. "The Hangover" is about the farthest thing from a "pre-sold" title. "Terminator: Salvation" is a pre-sold title, part of a franchise, with star power, and yet it's not doing all that well. "The Proposal" is a movie with a somewhat silly premise, without a great deal of originality. But it's a good movie, it works, and it's making money. The woman in the lead in this romantic comedy is in her 40's, and there's a joke in the movie about the fact that she doesn't have a very big bust. She's not funny or charming; she's very unpleasant through most of the movie. But she's the lead in a successful romantic comedy.

Adult dramas are allegedly not doing terribly well. But the examples cited here, "State of Play," "Duplicity," and "The Soloist" all sounded very cliched to me, which is why I didn't see any of them. Corporate and political conspiracies? Yawn. An inspirational movie about a black homeless guy? Please. Not finding myself excited about that one. I don't care who is in them - if I think they're cliched and boring, I'm not going to go see them.

The basic problem with trend analysis is that trends are, by definition, ephemeral. Movies are the ultimate trend-resistant industry because they are one industry defined by a constant demand for the new. That's why it's a "creative" industry - customers want something that has just been created. Very soon after a trend starts, if indeed it is a trend, customers will be bored by it.

I'm sure all of the executives quoted in this article are highly educated. But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

"There's something to be said for chemistry between actors, and you don't need to be a star to have chemistry," said Oren Aviv, Disney's production president, suggesting that is exactly what the casts of "Proposal," "Star Trek" and "Hangover" all have in common -- "combined with an idea that people connect with."

"There's something to be said for chemistry between actors." Well, yeah. Sort of like there is something to be said for baseball players who can hit the ball. "[A]n idea that people connect with." Somehow it's impossible for these people to say "You know, what people want is to see good movies." Like there is this urge to sound deep and profound, an urge that apparently interferes with the operation of common sense.

Maybe the problem is that the LA Times needs to figure out something to say about movies on a constant basis, and there just isn't that much to say. Good movies are more likely to make money than bad ones. The definition of what is a good movie changes, and is different for different people, but good movies make money. That's the formula, folks. Trying to find lots of different ways to say it just ends up sounding like you are on the wrong side of the sublime/ridiculous divide.

Someone once said that movies are a great art form, but a terrible business. What they meant was that business is about finding the rules that will determine how to make money, and then following those rules. But art is about finding the rules of what makes good art at a particular time, and then breaking them.

Businesspeople want stability and certainty. Artists want the freedom to be creative, to be daring and different.

But it's not even that simple. Good artists do follow some rules; good businesspeople do too. But great artists follow certain rules, and then break others. Great businesspeople do the same thing. The first trick is knowing what rules to follow, and what rules to break. The second trick is getting the great artists together with the great businesspeople. The last trick is figuring out what the audience wants before the audience knows that it wants it.

Today in Los Angeles

Sometimes I feel like I have to take a step back from life, take a deep breath, and realize what an amazing thing it is to be living in the 21st Century in the United States of America.

Today in Los Angeles, three notable things happened:

1. The Los Angeles Lakers won their 15th NBA championship. Go Lakers! It just occurred to me that "Lakers" is an odd name for a team that is based in a desert. Regardless, they won! Congrats Kobe, Phil, and the rest of the team!

2. There was a gay pride march on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, with the mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco both in attendance.

3. Not far from the gay pride march, there were protests by Iranians against the results of the elections in Iran. Los Angeles has a large Iranian population. The Mayor of the most famous LA suburb, Beverly Hills, is an Iranian Jew (what makes him particularly cool is that both of his kids went to USC).

Celebration, protest, and revolution.

One hell of a day.

Physics and surfing

I've read a couple of articles recently about physics and surfing. One was in the Financial Times, about Garrett Lisi, who lives and surfs and thinks about the universe in Maui. Love this:

When I was about 16, I found out that the abstract mathematics I was learning in school actually describes how the physical universe operates. It was like stumbling on the existence of true magic in the world.

I made a movie at USC called Chasing Patterns that is about a young man discovering the beauty of math in patterns in nature, so I totally grok this idea.

On this side of the Pacific, the LA Times has a story about a class at UC San Diego that combines surfing and physics. The students attache equipment to their boards that measure various things in the ocean, and they study the physics of surfing - how waves form, that kind of thing - in the classroom.

I'm a big fan of this for a couple of reasons. First, I am a strong proponent of just about any kind of teaching that takes place outside of the classroom. I think schools in this country at all levels should do more to get students away from desks and chalkboards. That, after all, is where they are going to spend most of the rest of their lives. Also, I am an equally strong proponent of anything that combines theory and practice, particularly real-world experience. When I was a philosophy major, "real world experience" consisted of typing up papers.

A unique solution to the housing problem

We have had more than our fair share of problems because of the housing bubble out here in southern California, particularly in the farther reaches of the Inland Empire, where houses sprouted like weeds, with little rhyme or reason. Or, more importantly, economic rationale. Now one bank that repo'd some houses has a unique solution: it's tearing them down. It makes more financial sense for them to destroy them than to try and finish them and then sell them. There's almost no salvage value; a granite countertop went for $40, some scrap lumber was traded for a six-pack of Corona. 30, 40, 50 years from now, this will live on as a symbol of a world gone mad.

LA Times does something right

The LA Times has done something innovative and kind of cool! Whoa! One of their Op-Ed columnists is a woman named Patt Morrison, who is sort of the LA version of Gail Collins of the NY Times, but a little spunkier. She has had a column on the Op-Ed page for a couple of years. Today the Times introduced a new feature - Morrison will be interviewing a different person each week, with the interview on the Op-Ed page. The first interview is with everyone's favorite Chick. Laura Chick, that is, formerly LA City Controller, now going to Sacramento to audit the state of California's $48 billion from the stimulus.

Great move by the LA Times, and a great way to start. This is a wonderful way to create unique content - leverage one of their best assets, a woman who knows LA like the back of her hand. She's already received one of the highest honors a Los Angeleno can get - she has a hot dog named after her at Pink's, the legendary hot dog stand. This is even more remarkable given that she is a vegetarian (it's a vegetarian hot dog). Even better is starting with Laura Chick, who worked wonders as the LA City Controller. She's currently one of my heroines. One of the most inspiring civil servants I have ever seen. That's not damning with faint praise - she has worked very hard, and very smart, to try and make LA government work better. It was a very good call on Arnold's part to appoint her. She has voodoo dolls in her office. An auditor with voodoo dolls (they're all anonymous) - you gotta love that.

To make room for the interviews, which look like they will be taking up most of the page, the Times is moving Meghan Daum to Thursdays. Another good call. She's one of my favorite columnists in the LA Times, and I've been a little bummed that she is on Saturdays, because that's the day of the week with the fewest newspaper readers. It made a certain amount of sense to publish her on Saturdays, since she is sort of a lifestyle columnist, but it's good to see her being published during the week.

The LA Times did something right, and cool, and innovative. Can I get an Amen!

Quote of the day (from yesterday)

"It's sad what's happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of the big tent; now they're the party of the sideshow attraction, a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid."

Bill Maher, in the LA Times. Maher publishes an Op-Ed piece in the LA Times about every six months. They're always good. Love that guy. It's a very good piece, and I could quote more from it, but I will just post one more:

"The thing that you people out of power have to remember is that the people in power are not secretly plotting against you. They don't need to. They already beat you in public."

Except, of course, that Republicans don't think this way because they DID plot in secret, because they knew that what they were doing - warrantless wiretapping, torturing people, abusing the Constitution - were wrong.

Newspapers and the "unique content" problem

Newspapers are in trouble. This we all know. Today, Kos, in his latest post on the topic, looked at how many links to newspapers Daily Kos had over the course of a week. Maureen Dowd interviewed Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. She's a little nervous about her job.

One problem newspapers face is that they used to (emphasis on the past tense) have a semi-monopoly on news in their geographic area just by virtue of their format. Megan McArdle once pointed out (I think it was Megan) that the NY Times used to know at least two things about their customers. 1, they lived in the NY area. 2, they could afford a daily newspaper. Now the Times reader could be in Bangkok.

Newspapers used to have a huge advantage because they were the only source of news in a particular geographic area that was available almost whenever you wanted it. If you wanted to know if your team won last night, you could listen to the radio, watch TV, talk to someone else, or read the newspaper. Of those sources, newspapers are the only one that is available at any time after you picked it up. Radio and TV broadcast news at a specific time. If you missed any of that day's broadcasts, you were out of luck.

Newspapers also provided a great deal of content for a very cheap price. A newspaper has a lot of content, particularly compared to a radio or TV broadcast. And that content was not available anywhere else. Providing it gave newspapers a sort of monopoly. The only way to avoid that monopolization was for there to be multiple newspapers in a given city.

My grandfather, a small-town lawyer in the Midwest in the 1950's, used to subscribe to the Sunday NY Times. It would arrive on Thursday (even though NY was less than 1,000 miles away) because it took that long for the mail to deliver it. But he still read it, presumably because there was content in there that he couldn't get from any other source (I never talked to him about it, I heard this from my mother).

What newspapers have to do is figure out a way to provide unique content. I subscribe to the LA Times and the Financial Times. The LA Times is convenient (I can read it on the bus into work), but there isn't a lot of unique content. I like some of their columnists, particularly Meghan Daum, but I rarely read the articles on the front page, because I usually already know the story. The LA Times has done a fair amount of innovating in the last few years, but there is still much to do.

But the FT has a nice amount of unique content during the week. At least it's unique for me, because I don't subscribe to another business periodical, like the Wall Street Journal. And it's got global news, which I like.

Where the FT really shines is on the weekend (again, particularly for me), and most newspapers could learn some things about unique content from the FT Weekend. They have columnists that I can't read anywhere else, but who I read religiously. I don't have any particular interest in real estate in London, but I read Secret Agent religiously. I have learned a fair amount about wine from Jancis Robinson. On the back page is Fast Lane, by Tyler Brule, the ultimate jetsetter, and Slow Lane, by Harry Eyres, one of the few people alive who can write about Madonna and Nietzsche at the same time.

The NY Times, of course, has a fair amount of unique content, starting with its columnists. The LA Times has some unique content, like Dan Neil's car column, which is a great read. But it needs better unique content. Which, if you think about it, really should not be a problem. LA is one of the largest metropolitan areas on the planet. There are 88 cities in Los Angeles County. There are multiple mountain ranges in this county. We have a National Forest that has 650,000 acres. This is the world headquarters of the entertainment industry. There are something like 130 institutions of higher education just in LA County. There's no lack of material. Plus, there are several thousand writers who are all on a constant lookout for work.

So here's a new buzzword that will hopefully enter the zeitgest: "unique content." It's not hard to understand. Once upon a time, all newspapers provided it, just by virtue of being what they were. That is no longer the case.

Oh, and that unique content has to be in interesting formats, it can't just be text. The LA Times is doing more interesting things with photo essays, but I still don't think they're doing enough with video, particularly since some of the best cinematographers in the world (and many aspiring camerapeople) live and work here.

Limbaugh, liberals, and the LA Times

Last week, in the Sunday LA Times, a guy named Andrew Klavan threw down a challenge to all the liberal readers of the Times: listen to Rush Limbaugh. Klavan is a conservative, and a pretty hard-core one. He explained why liberals don't listen to Rush Limbaugh in very explicit terms:

You're a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward. You're terrified of finding out he makes more sense than you do.

I find this very funny, largely because it's just so ridiculous. This is what conservatism has become? This guy thinks this kind of childish taunt is going to get me all riled up and offended? Is he on crack? I think it's hysterical. The good Mr. Klavan seems to think that the Op-Ed page of the LA Times is the intellectual equivalent of an elementary school playground. Am I supposed to be impressed that he can repeat cliched insults? This is the kind of nonsense that George Will outgrew at roughly the same age that he outgrew holding his mother's hand as he walked across the street.

My answer to him as to why I don't listen to The Large One is grounded in a good old capitalist value he presumably would approve of: efficiency. I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh because it's not a productive use of my time. There are lots of conservatives I read and listen to. They are, for the most part, people from whom I might actually learn something. Rush Limbaugh is not one of them. I also don't engage in somewhat more wholesome pursuits, like reading People magazine, watching Fox News, or playing online poker. I do occasionally read the Wall Street Journal (which I have been doing since I was nine, when I bought my first stock), but the editorial page is so predictable I no longer even find it amusing.

Klavan accuses the mainstream media of distorting Rush Limbaugh's message, taking his comments out of context to inflame liberal outrage. So what? Who cares? That's exactly what Rush Limbaugh wants. He wants liberals to hate him. He wants liberals to be afraid of him. That's part of his schtick. He's the master of the soundbite. He loves being quoted, in or out of context. He would be nothing without his enemies. Which is exactly why I neither hate him or am scared of him. I think he's a brilliant entertainer, and he's very good at what he does, but I also just don't really care about him. When I write about him, it's usually about his place in the political/media boxing ring. I don't pass judgment on his ideas because I could care less about his ideas. He's a convenient bogeyman for liberals. And that is exactly what he wants to be.

Rush Limbaugh is the perfect embodiment of conservative, capitalist ideology: he acts according to what is in his own best self-interest. Which doesn't necessarily coincide with the best self-interests of, say, the Republican leadership in Congress. Which is one contradiction that I find hilarious.

But what makes this debate really interesting is how the LA Times itself responded to this throwing down of the gauntlet (Klavan has written for the LA Times Op-Ed page before). They asked some very prominent LA liberals to take up the challenge and actually listen to Rush Limbaugh. Would they be up to the challenge?!?! Could they deal with the deeply meaningful and insightful challenges to their worldview?! Or would they melt in the face of Rush's great onslaught of profound truth!

Maybe not.

Here's the weird thing: the people they selected already listened to Rush Limbaugh. It's entirely possible that they found the only four liberals in LA who did so, and invited their commentary. But the four they invited are four of the most prominent liberals in LA, including Norman Lear, founder of People for the American Way, Laurie Ochoa, editor of the LA Weekly, LA's alternative newspaper, and Constance Rice, arguably the most prominent civil rights attorney in LA (and second cousin of Condi Rice). I hadn't heard of the fourth liberal, Marc Cooper, but he's an academic at USC, so he's got to be a good guy.

Ha! Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Klavan. My favorite part of the response is from Mr. Lear:

El Rushbo suffers from extreme flatulence of speech, emotion and personality. The 'hilarious' El Rushbo is simply a pompous, self-worshiping blowhard and bully. And you, sir, Mr. Klavan, are silly.

He is more than silly. He is, in this episode, a loser. Here, Mr. Klavan, use this towel to wipe that egg off your face. Maybe next time you won't flaunt your stereotypes quite so blatantly. Let's perform a cost-benefit analysis, shall we? You got a check from the LA Times, so, financially, you'll be coming out of this OK. Politically, however, I don't see how you could have come out of this any worse. You probably scored some style points with your politically sympatico comrades (Klavan also used to write for Libertas, a conservative film blog run by some friends of mine). Great - your friends still like you. But I'm not sure how many people are impressed by someone who throws out a challenge, and then sees that challenge met so decisively. And so calmly. The ball, Mr. Klavan, is, as they say, in your court. Unless have one hell of a comeback, you just lost this game of wits rather badly. May I recommend taking your opponents a little more seriously, and treating them with a little more respect?

Judging by your writing, Mr. Klavan, you are quite the tough guy. Oooohhhh! But what today's liberals writing in the LA Times proved is that they, and other liberals, like me, are a conservative tough guy's worst nightmare: we are not in the least bit afraid of you. Or Rush Limbaugh. There are many conservatives I take very seriously, first and foremost my father, and all my grandparents, when they were alive. And our mutual friends Jason Apuzzo and Govindini Murty, founders of the Liberty Film Festival (of which I have attended almost every event). For the record, Jason and Govindini are wonderful people, and always welcomed me enthusiastically to their festival.

As of now, Mr. Klavan, neither you nor Mr. Limbaugh have offered me any reason to offer the same courtesy to you. But who knows what the future holds? Some day we may meet, have a beer, and get along famously. I'll try to keep an open mind on that score. I'm good on that whole keeping-an-open-mind thing; I'm a liberal. I am glad to hear that you pay attention to liberal media. That's one hopeful sign. Listening to NPR hasn't done much for your manners, tho.

Liberals, of course, have their own stereotypes. At our worst, we liberals think of conservatives as mean, petty, small-minded idiots with little sense of decency. We think of them as bitter, angry white men who spout venom instead of engaging in a civil debate about ideas. Personally, I try not to think in terms of those stereotypes, because I know many smart, competent, compassionate Republicans. I even know some with good senses of humor.

Which means, Mr. Klavan, that these liberals have defied your stereotypes, while you have strongly reinforced ours. Thanks so much. We owe you one. Never thot I'd be so grateful to a conservative for being a narrow-minded asshole.

You have your stereotypes and the king of talk radio. But you also have the legacy of George W. Bush, which is about the most toxic asset out there.

We, on the other hand, have the presidency, the House, and the Senate. I'll take our hand over yours.

Oh, and one other thing we've got that you and Rush may notice that you don't have: the respect and affection of most of the rest of the world. That kind of thing helps when you're, you know, trying to change the world. Or save it.

Better luck next time, Mr. Klavan.

Idiotic idea of the day: Geithner = Rumsfeld

Someone had to say it. Turns out it was Kos. Geithner is Obama's Rumsfeld? Apparently he floated that on a Tweet, so it's just that idea, not fleshed out (I didn't see it on Daily Kos). The man is a provocateur.

I'm glad Kos floated this idea, so I can shoot it down. I think this may be the stupidest idea I've heard all year. Let's see where this takes us, shall we?

Rumsfeld: Started a war that has cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars; repeatedly lied to the American public; tortured prisoners; ignored the Constitution when he wasn't shredding it; stained America's reputation around the world; and, last but not least, caused serious damage to the cause of upholding the rule of law, both within this country, and between countries. All of which was totally unnecessary.

Geithner: Missed the political ramifications of a few contracts in one company of the many that are in trouble; did not manage expectations perfectly when proposing how to solve one of the greatest crises in the history of the world.

Rumsfeld: Arrogant, tempermental, disliked even by ideological soulmates. Known to be a vicious bureaucratic fighter.

Geithner: Highly respected for his intelligence, work ethic, integrity, and character. I haven't heard any complaints about how he gets along with the rest of the Obama administration.

Geithner is attracting attention because of his job, not because of who he is. Pretty much anyone other than the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln would be a lightning rod as Treasury Secretary right now. This is what I call the "problem of unfocused anger." Many, many people are angry about our economic situation. They can blame Bush all day, but he's gone from office. So are Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulson. This unfocused anger needs a target. Desperately. It's like a hungry lion. A very, very hungry lion. It will find a target, regardless of how appropriate that target is. The anger is unfocused because it is combined with confusion. Theories and opinions about the source of this crisis abound; so do solutions. But the topic is so vast that no one person can begin to comprehend it. We need rules of thumb, heuristics, intellectual short cuts. We need something to argue about, and, ideally, someone to argue with. Whoever holds the job of Treasury Secretary is going to be that person for many people involved in the debate.

The comparison of Geithner with Rumsfeld is utterly superficial. Both were controversial and extremely powerful Secretaries. Other than that, they have almost nothing in common. One botched everything, pissed off millions of people, and left office in disgrace. The other is attempting the impossible. Geithner is like a man juggling torches. And knives and chainsaws at the same time.

I do not know if Tim Geithner will solve our financial problems. I do know he is one hell of a lot more qualified than me. There's a reason he has the support of Obama: he deserves it.

Obama in So Cal

Great photo spread by the LA Times of Obama's trip to Southern California. He spoke at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex (Miguel Contreras was a labor leader in LA who died very suddenly several years ago). I pass that every day on my way to work. It's brand new, so it was a good place for him to stop by. LA has been building new schools for several years, and seems to be doing a good job of it.

Check out the LA Times' photo essay here.