If you’re interested in the history and culture of blogs, check out the in-depth treatise from Steven Den Beste.

He discusses the rise of the A-List bloggers, those first pioneers who form the original concept and the warbloggers who prefer to discuss current affairs.

An interesting note, is the comparison to blogging and Usenet. From my vantage point, Usenet ceased to be useful around 1995. I always preferred e-mail discussion lists where spam and flames could be more easily controled.

The advantage of NetNews was that it was a single stream; it was inclusive; you could post your message and know that pretty much everyone else participating would see it. But inclusiveness was also the disadvantage, because it meant that you’d soon be flooded with messages written by idiots and unpleasant people, and by trolls.

Blogging for me is more of an extension of these lists. It gives me the opportunity to more fully express myself on a wider range of topics and hopefully reach a wider audience.

The idea of starting a new newspaper in Los Angeles is appealing to me. Like many newsmen, I’m a romantic about the days when competing newspapers fought hard to beat each other, when scoops meant something and every city editor had a bottle of rye in his bottom drawer.

In the good old days of newspapering, publishers weren’t afraid of pushing an agenda and reporters had no qualms about aggravating a source with a hard-hitting story.

There are still a lot of things I like about newspapers today, and I think higher professional and ethical standards are a good thing, but for the most part, the edge is gone from most daily fish wraps.

If any modern newspaper man can put out an edgy, well-written, hard-hitting daily, it’s Ken Layne, who is part of a widely reported proposal by former LA Mayor Richard Riordan to start publishing a five-day-a-week competitor for the Los Angeles Times.

I’m not clear on exactly what role Layne will play in the new paper, but we should hope that if this project actually gets a press rolling someday, that Layne will have a strong editorial voice.

That’s the good news. The bad news is, I’m skeptical that a new daily in Los Angeles can be successful. Layne and Matt Welch, his partner in the local-media watchdog LAExaminer.com, bristle at the nay sayers and critics of this idea, but it isn’t like the skepticism isn’t well founded.

In this day and age, starting a daily newspaper and having it actually become profitable is a long-shot at best. Of course, media critics scoffed when Rupert Murdoch wanted to start a new television network, but Fox is doing OK. Brandon Tartikoff, Fred Silverman and Grant Tinker all predicted doom for Fox. That was in 1987.

So who am I, or, for that matter, Bryce Nelson, to say “The Daily Dick” will fail?

At the risk of drawing the ire of Layne and Welch, I’ll point out a few things they probably already know, but are worthy of discussion.

• Daily newspapers have been in decline for more than four decades, at least. The trend has been for newspapers to close, not open. The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner shut down in 1989. A historical trend, in itself, means nothing, but there is a reason newspapers close, such as declining readership and more options for advertisers. In defense of a start-up, the expectations are different and the revenue modal will be designed to fit the times. Newspapers that closed were obviously unable to change with the market. That still doesn’t mean the right business plan can be formulated today.
• The expense of publishing a daily newspaper remain enormous, even with a good business plan. Paper is expensive, labor is expensive and you need a lot of working parts — newsroom, circulation, classifieds, advertising, human resources, facilities. Riordan’s plan calls for a staff of 40, but even then the logistics of starting a new daily will be significant. Of course, money can solve a lot of problems, and Riordan will reportedly have the financial backing.
• Classifieds are declining. The biggest problem facing daily newspapers today is the loss of recruitment advertising, the help wanted ads. The main reason your daily newspaper only costs 50 cents instead of the $2,00 (or more) it should cost, is the presence of paid classifieds. But the Internet is hurting classified sales in a number of key categories, such as autos, personals and real estate, not just jobs. The battle isn’t over, but “The Daily Dick” will need a good online presence to leverage these categories.
• The big advertisers, those who buy the multi-page display ads (the other large slice of a newspaper’s revenue), don’t care about a newspaper’s politics, its commitment to the community or the quality of its writers — big advertisers only care about numbers, circulation numbers. And those circulation numbers need to be audited, and the circulation numbers of free papers (which Riordan is planning) are always viewed with suspicion. I have direct experience with this issue and I can tell you, it’s a bitch to overcome.
• Reader loyalty for the Times will remain strong. I don’t care how much people bitch about the Times, it is still their newspaper. They will be reluctant to give it up. In hectic, always-on-the-freeway Los Angeles, how many people are going to read two daily newspapers? That was the problem the Herald-Examiner finally succumbed to. If “The Daily Dick” can’t compete in the areas of sports, lifestyle and entertainment, it is going to have a hard time gaining reader loyalty. And since Sept. 11, international news is in bigger demand than ever, and this is something the LA Times excels at (even with an anti-Israeli slant).
• LA isn’t New York. Those promoting the idea of “The Daily Dick” are fascinated by the launch of the New York Sun, which hit the streets April 16. New York is more urbanized than Los Angeles, with residents who feel more rooted to their communities (many Angelenos are transplants, either from another country, another part of the country or another part of California) so New Yorkers are more likely be fascinated with a new newspaper that aims to serve New York. They have a bigger stake in their city and their burroughs.

Ken Layne and Matt Welch are very experienced Web publishers. I’m a little surprised that they would want to get involved in a print publication, except that I think they share my romantic idealization of the good old days of newspapering. But from a business perspective, the Riordan venture would have a much better chance of succeeding if they at least started out as an online-only publication. In that scenario, expenses could be controled and they could serve their readers better. LA is a very wired area and since Riordan seems most interested in reaching a more affluent audience, he should be able to find that audience online. Instead of wasting money on newsprint and circulation, Riordan could funnel those millions into billboards and television commercials. Also, reader expectations would be dramatically scaled back and the need to be inclusive (covering sports, lifestyle and entertainment) would be mitigated. Yes, there are some tough revenue hurdles to clear online, but I’m confident that it can be done.

There are lots of bad jobs in the world, but two of the worst must be either being a Colorado Rockies pitcher or a Rockies manager.
If I were a major league pitcher, I’m not sure there’s enough money in baseball to convince me to sign with the Colorado Rockies. I’m not sure any pitcher will ever succeed in Colorado, at least not enough of them or at a high enough level of performance to carry the Rockies to a world championship.
In Colorado, the problem isn’t that balls fly further (they do) or that the outfield is bigger, giving more room for liners to drop for hits. The problem is that the thin air flattens breaking balls. A breaking ball that doesn’t break is the easiest pitch for a major league hitter to slam.
Denver makes bad pitchers horrible and good pitchers … well, horrible, too. Look what it’s done to Mike Hampton. Good pitchers, of course, can go bad suddenly, but every attempt Colorado has made to find good pitchers has soured. Last year Jason Jennings looked like a hot young rookie. This year, he’s mediocre at best. It’s getting to the point where it’s more than coincidence. There is something going on here.
My theory is this: When a pitcher is asked to make half of his starts in Coors field, he beginngs getting shell shocked. Because his breaking stuff doesn’t break as much, he starts trying to adjust his delivery, his grip, his timing — anything to get some break. It’s a futile task. But what this tinkering does is gets his mechanics out of whack so that even when he pitches at sea level, he doesn’t have the command necessary to get out major league hitters. Once he’s thoroughly demoralized, he isn’t even worth trading.
But team owners can’t fire high-priced pitchers such as Hampton. The contracts are guaranteed. But the owners can fire managers, and that’s what happened to Buddy Bell today. After a 6-16 start, Bell is the fall guy
Of course, I’ll never be offered the managerial job in Colorado. But just for the record, I don’t want it.

CDs in the morning mail, several of them. The first one in the CD player and the only one still playing — Now Again from The Flatlanders (scheduled for release May 21).

I didn’t really mean to listen to Now Again four straight times, but it’s like a good book — you don’t want to put it down.

I’m predisposed to like this CD, I guess. I already own every CD Jimmie Dale Gilmore ever put out, plus several Joe Ely LPs and I look upon Butch Hancock as one of the Southwest’s great songwriters. But even with high expectations, I’m still thoroughly impressed with Now Again. It’s 14 tracks of love and longing and the Texas twang that made the first collection of Flatlanders recordings such a classic.

Of course, few of use heard those first Flatlander songs until the early 1980s, after the reputations of Ely, Gilmore and Hancock were established quite apart from the Flatlanders, when More a Leg and than a Band was released. The Flatlanders first got together in Lubbock in the early 1970s, when there was no alt-country, only a bunch of rednecks in Bakersfield, some hillbillies in Nashville and maybe a few hippies in California with a steel guitar. The Flatlanders independently of the California country-rock revolution put a saw (yes, a saw can be a musical instrument) to their honky-tonk-meets-the-Beatles inclinations and created a fresh sound.

Unfortunately, few listeners, even in their native Lubbock, were ready for what the Flatlanders offered. Of course, songs off that first set of recordings would become alt-country standards, such as “Dallas” and “Tonight I’m Going Downtown.” Despite the slow start, the Flatlanders became every bit as important to the development of alt-country as Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt, and Ely and Gilmore became its chief practicers.

Now, older and wiser, with no new group material in three decades, the Flatlanders have mustered their considerable talents and managed to meld their different approaches to country music in, once again, a single cohesive package.

And I’ve got another great CD to add to my collection.

The Padres hitting just looks really pathetic. Pitching has carried them this far, but it can’t carry them forever. Bruce Bochy keeps messing with the line up, especially the outfield. I know that’s always been his style, but he needs to let some guys get untracked. This is the line up he should play for at least the next 14 games: Jimenez, 2B; Kotsay, CF; Nevin, 1B; Klesko, RF; Trammell, LF; Burroughs, 3B; Vazquez, SS; Lampkin, C.
Billie and I went to the Dodger/Padres game tonight and it wasn’t an entirely wasted trip. Even though the Padres fell to the hated Dodgers 5-2, we did get to see Sean Burroughs hit his first Major League home run.