It's been a long time, I shouldn't 'a left you...

...without a dope beat to step to.

Sorry, having a Rakim moment.

Been a very busy few weeks. Hardly any time to blog. Wrote my first obituary early this month, for management guru
Peter Drucker. Writing an obit is a fascinating thing. I have a lot of respect for the folks at daily newspapers who do it on a daily basis. I think there is so much care one must take when trying to encapsulate a person's entire life into one short story. We should all be so lucky to have that amount of thoughfulness and care put into the telling of our lives.

From there, things got a bit surreal. I was covering the mall shooting and hostage situation in Tacoma, Washington on Sunday. The shooter, a 20-year-old, was holed up in a Sam Goody record store after shooting six people. On a whim, I gave the store a ring, and sure enough the gunman answered the telephone. I could immediately tell he was a young guy by his voice. He seemed very interested in who I was writing for. He expressed real disappointment when he found out I didn't know Connie Chung and hung up on me. Rather than call back and agitate a hostage situation, I just continued reporting through police statements and such. Fortunately, all three of his hostages were released unharmed.

Walter dropped in from San Francisco again. He was having computer problems, and was going to miss the deadline for an important arts grant. He ended up flying down and crashing at my place so that he was able to deliver his application in person to the organization. Since it was a rare free day for me also, we kicked around the city. Got some great photos at the beach and Griffith Park, including dolphins (from the pier) and some great hummingbird shots, which I'll post later. He also managed to catch on camera the hawk that's been prowling around on my rooftop. Looks like it is probably a Cooper's Hawk (a bird hunter), which would explain why all the other birds vanish when it's around.

Got an Xbox 360 console, and all of the key launch titles (Perfect Dark Zero, Project Gotham Racing 3, etc.), but haven't had time to try them out. Maybe this weekend.

Been reading a lot lately. I haven't written a book review in a few years, but happily had a chance to do one for my good friends back at the alt-weekly City Pages, on an interesting
urban planning book.

Also have my first meeting with a producer coming up. He liked my script a lot. Though he passed on it, he was very taken with my writing and wants to meet with me about another project he's working on. Very interested in seeing where this leads. Stay tuned...

And finally, my rant for the day...when will people stop hating on Disco? I heard Ring My Bell on the radio the other day, and couldn't stop moving. I swear, disco is aging like wine. WINE, I tell you!!! Amazing that music critics still show no love to disco, when they have been salivating over 80s synth-pop for the past few years. Flock of Seagulls get a VH1 reunion special, but no one has any love for Gamble & Huff? What gives?

Winter? Winter who?

Like most East Coasters reluctant to move out West, one of my top reasons for not wanting to live in Southern California was "I'd miss the seasons, particularly Winter." Boy, was ever a comment less true than that one? I was strolling on the beach a couple days ago while talking to my friend back in New York. He heard the crashing ocean and asked where I was, and I told him the beach. His next question was what the weather was like, and I told him that also (75-80 degrees F). I then heard his muted grumbling into the telephone. It's so easy to take 80 degree November beach days for granted, until your friends in places where they have to wear parkas tell you about their planned "snowbird" trips someplace warm.

The only season I truly miss is Autumn, and not because of the climate. I miss the Autumn colors. I miss the foliage in general back east (ah, the beloved oak tree). But do I miss it enough to want to give up winters at the beach? As Whitney would say, hell to the naw! If I want some snow, I'll go to Big Bear for the weekend. It's only 45 minutes away.

Spamburger

Ok, this is getting annoying. About two months after I launched my blog, I started getting occasional spam posts in my comments section. I didn't think much of it, and simply deleted them as they came through. Now, for some reason, I'm getting 10-20 spam posts on my site per week! How does this happen, and how on Earth do I stop it? I welcome suggestions from any and all experienced bloggers on how to stop (or at least slow down) my blog spam. Shoot me an email.