Okay, it’s sick. It’s disgusting. And I wouldn’t want to encourage this sort of thing, but hey, the guy who came up with the “Bumfights” idea graduated from Grossmont High School, my alma mater, in La Mesa, Calif. You’ve got to admire that kind of capitalistic spirit, don’t you think. I mean, the guy took a very simple idea and made a fortunate off of it.

The whole thing also reminds me of Charles Bukowski’s novel “Hollywood,” where Bukowski describes scenes of drunks fighting in back allies in what, whether intentional or not, was a form of entertainment.

The Bumfights scandal makes you wonder though — how much lower can our society sink?

The first person to recommend “A Confederacy of Dunces” to me was Dermot O’Dwyer, a literature and English teacher at Allen Hancock College in Santa Maria. He thought it was a brilliant book. Mr. O’Dwyer was an Irish man and one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. He shared my love of James Joyce and Anthony Burgess (having actually met Burgess once at a Bloomsday celebration in Dublin). Mr. O’Dwyer taught me a lot about writing and pushed me to improve. He was a very good teacher (I believe he is retired now and living again in Ireland).

Since that recommendation, other friends and professors have told me to read the book. The latest recommendation came from Ken Layne.

I’ve owned a copy of the book for at least 15 years, but until last week, I had not heeded all of this good advice.

And it was good advice. It’s a very fun book. John Kennedy Toole certainly was a crisp and clear writer with strong powers of observation, which you need to truly capture the absurd realities of human behavior. The story, of course, seems fantastic, but there is real pathos behind every misadventure of Ignatius Reilly. And Reilly is so finally drawn that you don’t know whether to be repulsed by him or root for his ultimate triumph. He is at once a tragic figure (i.e., an Othello or Hamlet) and a pathetic character.

I don’t want to give away any of the plot to those who haven’t read it, but one thing I love in really good novels is the ability of the author to create a world of seemingly desperate events and people and leaving you guessing for most of the book as to how all of this fits together. Toole is stunning in his ability to weave together an incredibly complex plot. Even if the book wasn’t wickedly funny, it would be worth reading just to enjoy Toole’s plotting mastery.

Having read two Raymond Chandler novels now, I’ve placed him among my personal pantheon of literary greats. Other occupants are Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce and Anthony Burgess.

Chandler is not the greatest story teller. He paid little attention to plotting. But he is a master of characterization and poetic prose. I can’t think of a writer I’ve read who is better at describing scenes and people and action than Raymond Chandler.

This essay appeared on Salon a few months ago, but it makes a good case for Chandler’s place in true literature.

I lost a $5 bet to my dad today.
It’s the best $5 I ever lost in a bet. I lost it because the Chargers won. The San Diego Chargers are now 4-0.
Obviously, I thought there was a very good chance they would lose to New England. New England has a pretty impressive offense and they really tore the Charger defense apart last year. So, I wasn’t about to pick the Chargers to win, even as I felt pretty confident that they would play a good game today.
Well, the Chargers played a great game. The defense held NE to 14 points and LaDainian Tomlinson played the best game of his young career, tying a Chargers record with 212 yards rushing.
The Chargers are now 4-0, and the Raiders are 3-0. Denver is also undefeated, but they play tomorrow night, so we’ll see if they remain undefeated. That makes for a hell of a AFC West. Only the Chiefs suck, and they seem to have an unstoppable offense.
The Chargers go to Denver next week, but I don’t think they will have much trouble keeping Denver from mounting a good offensive attack. Denver isn’t that scary offensively and the Chargers have the #1 defense if football.
Beating NE is huge. Yes, the West if tough, but I’m starting to believe that the Chargers can win the division. I’ll feel even better about their chances if they do beat Denver next week.

The season premier of Boomtown tonight.

It’s an interesting premise — the story of a single crime from multiple perspectives, such as the cops who respond, the detectives who investigate, one of the criminals, a news reporter, an attorney.

There are many fine things about Boomtown. The writing is quite good. I mean, it’s very good. They story tonight was compelling and the characters are well developed and portrayed well by the respective actors.

But the show has one fatal flaw — the ethics. TV writers never get the ethics right when it comes to news reporters. For example, in Boomtown, the reporter for the “Tribune” is sleeping with the District Attorney (or ADA, not sure of his rank). Now, I’m not saying every reporter avoids sex with sources, but it isn’t likely. Most reporters do have a better sense of ethics than that. Or at least they’re smart enough to realize that it’s not a good career move.

There was a TV show a couple of years ago on NBC called Deadline. In that show, the editor of the paper hid a wanted criminal, whom she had been having an illicit affair with, in her apartment, and even as her staff wondered where he had disappeared to, she kept quite.

Such ethical foul ups just simply destroy a show’s sense of reality.

Still, we may tune in again. Like I said, the writing is good, very good.

As a reporter in El Cajon, Calif. (in San Diego County), I covered the plight of the homeless in that city many times. Anne Kruger, writing for the Union-Tribune, says El Cajon is “becoming a mecca for homeless people around the county.” No. it’s always been a mecca. The homeless are drawn there by the consistently warm weather and many programs catering to their needs.

Now another dogooder wants to build yet another shelter.

There are two problems with building another shelter in El Cajon. First, no matter how many shelters you build, there will always be more homeless. Build more shelters, draw in more homeless. Second, there are shelter beds throughout San Diego County that go begging every night. Why? Because any shelter that is going to be well run, well maintained and be of any real benefit to homeless people is going to insist residents follow a few rules and regulations. Many homeless people won’t give up their freedom. They will tell you as much in just those words. I’ve interviewed many, many homeless people in El Cajon. They want a bed and a bath and food, but not if it means they have to wake up at a certain time in the morning, do chores, get educated and be encouraged to find a job.

The El Cajon City Council rarely does anything right, but putting the breaks on this homeless shelter proposal makes a lot of sense.

Artie Shaw and his music has been getting some renewed, and deserved attention these days. Some think he was better than Benny Goodman (I don’t). Ventura County Star reporter Charles Levin, himself a jazz musician (drums), provides an insightful profile of the Newbury Park resident.

The renewed attention started with a 1999 Vanity Fair profile, detailing his life in music and notorious sexual exploits (Shaw’s eight wives included Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Kathleen Winsor, Betty Kern, Doris Dowling and Evelyn Keyes). Reporters from National Public Radio, the nation’s newspapers and music trade media have all made the pilgrimage to Shaw’s home in the wake of the CD’s release.

And why not? Shaw, who turned 92 in May, is the last icon of the big-band era, having outlived Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers, Bunny Berrigan and Glenn Miller, whom Shaw decries as the Lawrence Welk of jazz. But comparing Shaw to those bandleaders is like comparing Philip Roth to Danielle Steel.

I agree that Miller was the N’SYNC of his day, but Shaw’s later comments knocking Goodman are off base. Why was Goodman better than Shaw? Because Goodman packed more emotional punch. He was both silkier and more melodic. Besides, Shaw never came close to touching something like “Live at Carnegie Hall.”

Matt Welch loves LA and once again does a good job of keeping the pulse of the city. This time, giving a blow-by-blow report on big money, politics and the fear California has of losing entertainment productions to Canada. I have a couple of Hollywood chums who stop by hbo3 from time to time. Maybe they’ll have some thoughts on this issue.

Last week, all of my Dodger-fan pals were bemoaning their fate. Trailing the hated Giants for a wildcard spot, the Dodgers were slated to play seven of their final nine games against the San Diego Padres.
Normally, playing so many games against a last place team would seem like a dream come true. You could purchase your playoff tickets and expect to see a game.
But as any true Dodger fan will tell you, it’s no fun playing the Padres. It’s been a century – or so it seems – since the Dodgers won a season series against the Padres. And the Dodgers have only done it two or three times in the last 33 years. In fact, the Padres have been particular successful against the Dodgers in the Bruce Bochy era.
This season, so far, has been no different. Including tonight’s victory over the Dodgers, the Padres are now 8-5 this season against LA.
The Padres own the Dodgers. (Here’s a story from June about just how dominating the Padres have been in Dodger Stadium under Bochy.)
And I can predict what I’ll read in the LA Times tomorrow – the beat writers will whine about how the lowly Padres managed another victory against the boys in blue. And I mean WHINE. One of the great joys of beating the Dodgers is reading the Times the next day. It’s always good for a laugh. The Dodger writers hate the Padres (especially Plaschke), and it shows.
Yup, this will be a fun week of baseball as I get to watch my Padres knock the Dodgers out of the playoffs.

I’ve read only two Raymond Chandler novels, both recently, including The High Window, which I finished last night.

One thing that strikes me about Chandler is his attitude toward cops. They are not to be trusted, though they are not necessarily evil or vile. He just doesn’t trust that they will be either competent enough or honest enough to uncover the truth of a crime. Phillip Marlowe is the lone-wolf investigator. The only one who cares about the truth.

This characteristic is best illustrated in a story Chandler tells in The High Window. It’s about an apparent murder-suicide in which the police declined to pursue an official inquest, even though there was ample evidence that not everything was as simple as it seemed. But one of the victims was a rich and powerful man. Marlowe recognized that the cops involved in the case were not necessarily corrupt; they just didn’t have the freedom to investigate the case in the manner it should have been handled. There were more powerful forces who wanted the case swept away. And so it was.

And it’s also a true story. I happened across this link this afternoon. It’s a fascinating bit of Los Angeles history that ties in with the power of the Los Angeles Times in that era, big oil and the Teapot Dome Scandal. This is my recommend reading for the next 10 minutes of your life.

I’ve already posted one link to an LA Times story about my landlord, who plead guilty to nine counts of sex with a minor. Now I learn that while that was going on, one of his employees reportedly embezzeled $190,000 from him. But the story doesn’t end there. Two weeks ago, my new downstairs neighbors were arrested on drug dealing charges.

I live in a nice neighborhood. Honest. There’s even a guy down the street who ran for District Attorney last election cycle. He lost, but he’s still a decent guy as far as I can tell.

Johnny Cash used to raise hell there. Merle Haggard would drop in and sing a few songs when he was in town. The place was one of the hottest honky tonks on the West Coast during the California’s country music hey days in the 1960s. It was even named the Honky Tonk of the year in 1966 by the Country Music Association. Back then recognition by the CMA meant something.

The Ban-Dar on Main Street in Ventura should have been declared a historic landmark. Instead, it was torn down. They didn’t even preserve the old sign.

At least the owner sounds like somebody who had the background and common sense to understand the gravity and sadness of the day. Maybe the Ban-Dar’s passing couldn’t be helped.

What planet has Tony Pierce been living on. He says “there has never been a Dodger/Padre rivalry.” He’s joking, right?

In September 1996 I moved to Ventura from California. We rented the second level of a duplex near the beach. My wife had to stay in San Diego for a while, and during that first week in Ventura, I had no furniture, including no TV.
In September 1996, the San Diego Padres entered the final three games of the season two games out of first. The final three games were to be played against the Dodgers. The hated Dodgers. The only place I could go to see the games was a little dive bar half a block from the beach.
Fortunately, the turn out for the games was light. I was the only Padres fan in the bar, and pretty much the only patron who really cared about the games. Sure the other guys would raz me, but it never got serious. Still it was fun to watch the Padres sweep the Dodgers over the next three days while I was in a room with nothing but Dodger fans.
The Padres won the Western division in 1996 — one of three times they’ve won the division. The Dodgers, of course, have won it many more times than that.
Years later, I read some comments by Bob Costas who was arguing against the current playoff format. He says that when two division rivals are both assured of a playoff berth, season ending series are meaningless. The teams don’t take them seriously. They are gearing up for the first round of playoffs. He pointed to that 1996 Padres-Dodgers series where, he said, two teams were just going through the motions. The Padres championship was meaningless because the Dodgers didn’t really care about winning.
Tonight the Anaheim Angels beat the Oakland A’s for the fourth time in six head-to-head games — games that have all been played after both teams clinched playoff spots. The only thing up for grabs is the AL’s Western Division crown.
Are the A’s just going through the motions? It’s tempting to think so. Their bats have been somnolent recently. There’s one thing for sure, Mark Mulder isn’t letting up at all. He pitched 9 shutout innings against the Angels tonight, striking out 12 batters. He should have gotten the win, but Jerrod Washburn pitched 8 shutout innings before handing the ball to a reliever. The Angels won in 10, 1-0. It was an exciting game, but there’s that lingering thought — how much do these guys really care? Especially the Athletics who have been in the playoffs the last two years and know that’s where wins really count.
One thing’s for certain — the Angels are conceding nothing. They are playing to win. Any team that trots out its ace on only three days rest is gung-ho for victory. Winning the West obviously means something to the Angels.
If the A’s aren’t loafing, I’m concerned. You don’t want your team limping into the playoffs. They need some momentum. But maybe that 20-game winning streak sapped them of some energy.
I’m still bullish on the A’s, though. They’re pitching is just too good not to think they’re going to be a serious threat to any team they face if a five or seven game series.

Thanks to all who answered my call for some e-mail, so I would get something besides spam every day. I got quite a few private notes. I actually have a couple of fans. I’m a little surprised. I’m more surprised at the number of people who are sticking with my blog even though it is far less political than it was. I know many of you only found out about my site because somebody linked to one of my political posts (nobody has ever linked to one of my non-political posts, as far as I know).

Here’s my next request. I’m looking for good fiction sites. By that I mean sites that publish short works of fiction. I’ve found several sites that post unvetted, unedited stories, but few that operate like a real publication would — editors selecting only the best stories to publish.

As I work on my short story, I’m not sure what to do with it once I’m finished. The traditional approach is to send it to the big magazines, such as The Atlantic, and then work down the food chain until you finally get an acceptance from some obscure literary quarterly. That process sucks up a lot of time and postage. It might be better to try a couple of online publications first.

Do you read fiction online? If so, where? What sites. Please post the URLs in the comments link to this post (no HTML in the comments section … just post the URL). That way other people will know about these sites, too.

Here’s what I’ve found so far:

• Intertext
• Kudzu
• Small Spiral Notebook
• Collected Stories
• Fictive

I’m really only interested in sites of general fiction, not scifi or mystery or horror, etc.

The Padres won and the Chargers won.
I switched back and forth between the games on TV, especially in the second half when the Chargers were just running out the clock and the Houstan Texans couldn’t make a game of it.
Highlight of the day, seeing Trevor Hoffman strike out Barry Bonds with the bases loaded. You won’t see that happen too often.
The only marr on the day — the A’s lost, and the Angels look like they’re on their way to a victory, which will give them sole hold on first place in the AL West.

I’ve finished reading Pulp. Good book. Great book. The story flows; it’s funny as hell and wicked in its language and outlook. Previously, I compared the book to Layne’s Dot.Con. Layne wrote to tell me he wasn’t consciously copping Bukowski. He said some other very interesting things about his novel, but since it was a private e-mail, I’ll let it go at that. But you can bet I saved it. I’ll probably donate to the Huntington Library someday for a tidy tax write off.

Tonight I finished another Bukowski novel — Hollywood. I’m pretty much hooked on Bukowski now, though I’m going to read a couple of other things before picking up another one of his novels. He’s a natural storyteller. I never read Bukowski before because my image of him was that he was somewhat avante garde, which usually translates into difficult, slow reading. That’s OK sometimes, but I since I got out of college, my tolerance for oddly constructed prose has been sporadic. To my surprise, Bukowski is the exact opposite. He reads quickly, smoothly, easily. He goes down like a good shot of single-malt scotch.

In between Pulp and Hollywood, I read Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. This is the first Chandler novel I’ve read. What impressed me most about Chandler is his eye for detail. He vividly captures places, things and people. There is nothing glossed over and his details ring true.

At seven the rain had stopped for a breathing spell, but the gutters were still flooded. On Santa Monica the water was level with the sidewalk and thin film of it washed over the top of the curbing. A traffic cop in shining black rubber from boots to cap sloshed through the flood on his way from the shelter of a sodden awning. My rubber heels slithered on the sidewalk as I turned into the narrow lobby of the Fulwider Building. …

An old man dozed in the elevator, on a ramshackle stool, with a burst-out cushion under him. His mouth was open, his veined temples glistened in the weak light. He wore a blue uniform coat that fitted him the way a stall fits a horse.

Monday night at the A’s/Angels game I told Matt Welch that given the opportunity, I probably wouldn’t sacrifice my current job for a chance at a start-up, such as the paper Richard Riordan is reportedly interested in launching. Of course, if it were a tabloid funded by the Tribune, well that would might be worth considering.

A while back, I did an item about the LA Times giving songwriting credit to Ike Turner for “Rocket 88.” Jamie Gold sent me this final response a few days ago:

Hi, lest you think this issue has been forgotten, it hasn’t. Working with multiple editors is always time-consuming. In this case, the Business editor deferred to the music writer even though the article was about cars. I’m told their combined decision is that something will run saying that Brenston is actually credited with the song, though there is some dispute over whose song it was.

Thanks very much for your time and help on this.

My friends at work who helplessly root for the Dodgers were grateful today — the Padres did the unexpected and beat the Giants. The Dodgers are in a bad spot in their battle with Barry Bonds and cohorts for a playoff berth. A majority of the Padres remaining games are against the Giants and Dodgers. For several seasons now, ever since Bonds put on a Giants uniform, the Padres have had a tough time beating the Bay Area Nine. But the Dodgers have rarely ever had much success against the Padres. The Padres, fans and players, consider the Dodgers the team’s biggest rival, so the games are charged with emotion — on the Padres side, but not necessarily on the Dodgers side. This seems to give the Giants a decided advantage. If the Dodgers have any hope of making the playoffs, they’re going to have to beat the Padres. Of course, you won’t see me weeping if the Dodgers are sitting at home come October.

BTW: The Padres got crushed by the Giants tonight, 10-3. In the other race that matters, the A’s won and the Angels won, so they remain tied.

When I was a reporter at the Daily Californian in El Cajon, Calif., I did a story about the “Campaign of the Century.” That was a book about Upton Sinclair’s campaign for governor of California. It was significant because it revolutionized the way major campaigns were run. It was the birth of the modern media campaign.

Given that, I thought it would be interesting to did through the archives of my 100-year-old newspaper and see what we said about that campaign, if anything.

What I found fascinating was reading the coverage the old Valley News had given to the war in Europe and American attitudes about going to war. In 1939, fewer than 40 percent of those polled supported America’s involvement in any war. By the summer of 1941, even before Pearl Harbor, that number had risen to nearly 70 percent.

It can be instructive to get one’s history from newspaper archives. Patt Morrison at the LAT had the good idea to peruse the Times’ archives and see what the one-year anniversary of Pearl Harbor was like. (via LAExaminer.com)

We’ve probably all had the experience of knowing a person only through e-mails, letters or phone conversations and so we fill in the blanks of our mental image. We put hair on heads and shape to bodies, often to find the person looks nothing like we imagined. Where we saw tall, we find short. Where we envisioned a chiseled face, we find a chinless wonder. Such are the tricks of the imagination.

In meeting Matt Welch last night, I had already seen his face. His mug is on his blog, and from that I had made certain assumptions about his personality. Every picture may tell a story, but not all pictures tell the truth. Where I looked at that picture of Matt and imagined a jaunty, tough, gritty slinger of hard words and harsh judgments, I found Monday night a man of gentle manners, a civil bearing and a good heart. A thoroughly friendly chap who is as witty and thoughtful as his writing suggests.

Humble and soft spoken, Welch wears his artistic airs without the pretension so common in Southern California. In Buddy Holly horn rims and a simple T-shirt and shorts, Welch is svelte without being awkward. He shows little interest in taking center stage. Few L.A.-based writers can say the same.

Matt and I (along with my wife) attended the A’s vs. Angels showdown in Anaheim. They call it Edison Field now, but it will always be the Big A to me. The game was tense and exciting. My A’s won, which disappointed Welch no end, but the conversation itself was worth MLB’s inflated ticket prices. We glossed over our bios, delved into California and Los Angeles history (subjects we share a passion for), swapped baseball tales and stats, and spun lurid yarns of Ken Layne’s debaucheries. I learned of Matt’s success as a high school athlete. He learned of my failures. I told him hair-raising stories of drug busts I made as an Air Force cop, and he filled me in on the difficulties of a post-dot.com free-lance writer (somebody really needs to give this man a weekly column at a substantial fee; he is most deserving). All in all, it was thoroughly entertaining.

Books we discussed included Cadillac Desert, Workin’ Man Blues and Campaign of the Century (Matt also gave me a couple of book recommendations — hopefully he’ll post Amazon links to those so I can pick them up, and you can, too).

The game was a fitting cap to a nice vacation in San Diego. I have other tales to share from that trip. Perhaps tomorrow.

Glenn Reynolds has some good observations about journalism and public perceptions of the media. He’s feeding off an E&P story that reports the public’s low opinion of the news business is at pre-9/11 levels.

Then the story seems to drift into a discussion of how the public doesn’t like the press to ask “tough questions.” But I think that misses the point. The public doesn’t like the press asking dumb-but-slanted questions and pretending that they’re tough questions.

Reynolds is dead on right here. It is excruciating for any one who has ever been a truly professional journalist to watch the Washington press corps work a press conference. The inanities, the misinformation, the lack of erudition of important issues, the snootiness, the obvious bias, the contempt for the American people – it all seeps through. You wonder how these people get their jobs, but then you realize that the East Coast journalism elite has become such a closed society that these poor people and their editors are basically clueless. They think they are being clear-headed and objective. They just don’t know any better.

But you become a weblogger because, fundamentally, you think the press is important, and you love what it does enough to hate to see sloppy and biased work — which unfortunately, you see a lot of even in the elite media.

I quibble here: You become a weblogger not because you think the press is important – you become a blogger because you think NEWS is important.

It is interesting to me just what news bloggers think is important when compared to what the media elite treats as important. When is the last time you found a blogger giving wall-to-wall coverage to the kidnapping of pre-teen waifs? Or taking the Chandra Levy case seriously? Bloggers tend to be much more concerned about real news, real issues, such as Iraq, or what the EU is up to, or what’s in the water we’re drinking or whether there’s life on Mars. We don’t spend a lot of time debating the relevance of how many miles George Bush jogs each morning.

If you spend much time reading blogs, you get an entirely different picture of what’s going on in the world than if you just watch CNN, or even Fox, all day.

If the media started paying more attention to what bloggers found important, they might be surprised that both their ratings and their standing in public opinion would go up.