Howard Owens

Here's another example of how the lack of affordable housing in Ventura County is impacting my life.

On Saturday I took the train to San Diego. I planned to depart at 7 a.m.

On Friday, I went to the gym after work, as I usually do, with every intention of stopping off at the Von's pharmacy before 9 p.m. to pick up my heart medicine. Per usual, I had waited until I'd taken my last pill before ordering a refill.

When I arrived at Von's, the pharmacy was closed. "New Fall Hours" the sign read. Closed at 7 p.m.

My medication is not something to trifle with, according to what my doctor's told me. Skipping dosages, especially more than one, can be fatal. So I was a tad upset to find out I couldn't get a refill right when I expected it. It would have been OK if I could have gotten into Von's after nine o'clock the next morning, but I planned to be on a train by 9 a.m.

Fortunately, the pharmacist at another chain was willing to give me a couple of pills to hold me over. That apparently isn't legal, but it is the ethical thing to do and I know happens all the time in similar circumstances.

Today, I finally got a chance to speak with the pharmacist at Von's and he apologized, but said the only reason they have started closing early is he hasn't been able to find anybody to fill the evening shift. No pharmacist wants to move to Ventura County and contend with local housing prices.

Why are housing prices so high in Ventura. Well, first, it is a great place to live. And with current interest rates, demand for housing is strong. But the biggest thing driving housing prices up is a cadre of slow-growth laws and slow-growth politicians and activists who don't want to see any housing built in this county. There is plenty of good land to build on, but there are too many laws, regulations and fees that prevent builders from doing what they need to do.

Ventura's rental vacancy rate is 1.7 percent. It is estimated that you need to earn at least $21 per hour to afford a decent apartment in Ventura County. That's a big reason many Oxnard-area apartments have two, three and four families sharing small units.

As for buying a house in Ventura County -- forget it. You need at least $400,000.

In Ventura County we have something called SOAR. I didn't vote for it. It's a particularly draconian anti-growth measure. It is the bane of every working family's existance in Ventura County. If you want to know why there is a 1.7 percent vacancy rate in Ventura, look no further than SOAR. People like County Supervisor Steve Bennett will tell you that housing is all about supply and demand, and that to blame high prices entirely on SOAR is unfair. There is a lot of demand because of low interest rates. That may be true, but the people of Ventura can't do anything about low interest rates (the demand side), but we can do something about the supply side. That is entirely within our power. Increase the supply and you drive down prices. It's simple economics. That's why I favor the repeal of SOAR and pray that some day that glorious event will come to pass.

In the meantime, I'm supporting Measure A this November. Measure A will allow a group of land owners to develop the hillsides behind the city of Ventura. The planning measure would protect the ridge lines, including the important and beautiful Two Trees area. But it allows development. And that's the key point. The measure probably won't pass because most voters are already home owners and it's in their best interest to prevent development (drives up housing prices). People tell me I shouldn't support it because more development means more traffic. When compared to high housing prices, I don't care about the traffic. They tell me the new housing allowed under the measure won't bring down housing prices because they will be rich people's homes and there won't be enough of them. And this is true. But a vote for Measure A is still a big "screw you" message to the SOAR fanatics. I will vote for anything that chips away at SOAR.

There are vast tracks of prime real estate in the city of Ventura that are undeveloped. Under SOAR, this land will never be developed. This is criminal. It is immoral. It prevents hard working people from getting good housing at a fair price. It means that my pharmacy can't stay open until 9 p.m. because no right-minded pharmacist will move into a city he can't afford to live in. That just isn't right. It's time to dump SOAR back into the garbage heap it came from.

Alan Trammell's a nice guy who knows baseball and probably did well teaching young Padres the fundamentals of the games.
But when Davy Lopes was the Padres first place coach, the team seemed to play with more fire. Of course, we had Rickey Henderson then, and for a time the likes of Ken Caminiti and Steve Finley overlapped with Lopes' tenure. But I always felt that Lopes brought a fire to the coaching staff that Bruce Bochy and Tim Flannery lacked.
So to me, it's good news that Trammell is leaving (to become manager of the Tigers) and Flannery has been fired (though I loved Flannery as a player and was once convinced he was a good coach, I think his heart hasn't been in it recently), and Lopes is probably returning to the Padres.

Newspaper industry magazine Presstime carries a profile of the Santa Barbara News-Press this month (story not online, as far as I can see).

Key graph from my perspective:

Most content on www.newspress.com is available on a pay-per-view basis ... Fleet (the publisher) makes no apologies: "Local news is our franchise;" he sees no logic in giving it away. ... This policy, explains Alcorn (CFO), has made "our Web product among the first in the newspaper industry to be profitable."

It's a minor trend for newspapers to go to paid subscriptions, and contrary to the myth, enough readers will pay for content to make such a move profitable. But paid subscriptions are not the only way for a newspaper to make money online, and, in the long run, is probably curtailing potentially larger profits available to a free-content site.

It is also a myth that online news sites are not making money. Many, many sites are making money. In fact, it has become so easy to make money online for a newspaper site, that the only news sites not making money are only doing so because of poor management, not because putting local news online is a bad business model. There is no reason to resort to paid subscriptions to make money.

So my problem with the statements from the News-Press are two fold. First, contrary to Mr. Fleet's statement, there is no logic in charging for content; and second, it is a bit of an overstatement for the News-Press to crow about being among the first to be profitable. Being profitable is old news late.

While it is possible to turn a profit charging for access, you greatly restrict the size of your audience, and there are bigger profits to be made from money-making applications that rely on aggregated eyeballs. There are numerous ways to repackage and upsell classified ads and featured ads, there are online auctions, and many local newspapers have found great success in banner advertising and building custom Web sites. When you restrict your audience size through paid subscriptions, you take all of those options off the table.

So, in short, I don't agree with the way the SB newspaper is running their online operations.

UPDATE: Very smart media analyst Vin Crosby also finds fault with the growing trend
toward paid subscriptions. It's a quick fix that only digs publishers in a
deeper hole.

This season was going to be different. This season, we were going to win at least half our games.
This is my second year as coach of the Ventura County Star's softball team. Last year, we went 1-11, which made me the second winningest coach in the team's history. Going into this season we were 5-47 (or something like that) over five seasons. There's no telling how many of those 47 loses were by 15 runs or more, which is the demarcation of "mercy" after five innings.
Dave Montero, who coached the team in the last fall league, is out this season with a broken collar bone. He broke early in the summer league while diving for a ball. I had positioned him in right field, not a position he has played much and now vows never to play again. Injured, and inspired by our ineptness, Montero decided to film a documentary about our team -- the worst softball team in the world. Since he couldn't play, why not film?
I asked him before the season started, "What if we're a better team?"
"I'm not worried about that," he said with a wry grin.
I made some adjustments from the summer league to the fall league. The main thing was, we weren't going to play every guy who showed up -- only a 10-man line up every game so our best hitters could get more at bats every game. We recruited a new shortstop -- Jeremy -- who is a natural athlete, and I anchored some key guys in regular positions.
Coming into the season, I felt good about our chances.
Our team name this season is "The Fred Mertz Experience." We change team names every season, picking the odd names of obscure rock bands. We've been the "Swinging Udders" and the "Rats of Unusual Size". We are, after all, a team made up primarily of journalists, so words are important to us. Our esthetic sense would never let us be the "Outlawz" or the "Beer Bellies." We want a team name that no other team in its right mind would pick.
In our first game, "The Fred Mertz Experience" took on a team that shall remain nameless, to protect the innocent. And for the first time in team history, we mercied the other guys.
Dave Montero was seriously bummed. How can you do a documentary about the worst softball team ever and show that team winning its first game of the season?
But Montero did not give up hope.
He showed up to the second game with camera in hand. This time, our foes was Possas.
We played them well. We played them tight. We hit, we caught the ball, we made good throws. We were never more than four runs down and at one point, we held a one-run lead. But walks killed us. We walked 10 hitters and lost 16-13.
Such a tight game convinced Dave that we were no longer the worst team in history. We were playing well, so he stopped showing up.
Too bad. In our third game, we failed to catch the ball, our throws were weak and off line and our hitting was abysmal. I won't even go into our base running. In other words, we reverted to form. We were mercied by VACCO by more than 20 runs.
Tonight, we returned to the field of battle to take on Possas again. We felt good about our chances -- cut down on the walks, we thought, and we win. We had the same pitcher going, but he's proven before he can throw strikes, so I wasn't too worried. And tonight, he threw strikes and only walked two batters. Unfortunately, tonight Possas decided to hit the ball. Really smack it. Add to that some horrible fielding blunders and anemic bats and you wind up with a lopsided score of 18-5.
We were supposed to be better this season. We've got eight more games to go. Let's hope we get good again real soon. Next week, we go against the first place team (VACCO) again. We've just got to play better.

Gene Autry is in Cowboy Heaven singing a happy song.
The California Angels did the improbable. They beat the New York Yankees in four games to advance to the ACLS.
Why? I say it's the uniforms, but more important is the gritty determination of the Angel players. They're the kind of team you've got to admire. They aren't intimidated by anybody. They play hard. They hussle. They do the little things that win games, such as managing the strike zone and advancing runners. The Angels hit nearly .380 in this series, which is a new baseball post season record. Amazing.
It was in the Angels favor that the Yankees probably approached the series with a little too much arrogance. It also helps that the Yankees pitching staff is aging rapidly. In fact, if the Yankees have a weakness going into 2003 and beyond, it is their starting pitching. They don't seem to be developing any young arms and with guys like Jeter and Giambi and Williams sucking up a huge portion of the payroll, along with a bigger luxury tax in coming years, it's not going to be easy for the Yankees to fix their pitching. The idea of an ongoing Yankee dominance is a lot less believable than it was even just yesterday. Sure, the Yankees are always going to be competitive, but at least for the next four years (the length of the current collective bargaining agreement), they may find it harder to reach the post season.
Congratulations to ultimate Angels fan Matt Welch. I happy for all Angels fans really. I know what it's like to wait a long time for your team to win a big post season series. I may very well even root for the Angels over the A's if the A's make it to the ACLS. We'll see where I'm at emotionally on the question at the time of the first pitch of that possible series. If it's the Twins and the Angels, then there's no doubt I'll be 100 percent behind the Angels.
As for the NLCS, my money is on a series between the Giants and the Cardinals, with the Giants taking the NCLS in 5. Of course, part of that is just kind of disliking the Braves. I really don't want to see the Braves advance. They don't deserve it. They've blown too many previous chances.

Hurray! The Diamondbacks lost. Now we just need the Giants to knock off the Braves and all the evil teams of post seasons past will be gone.

Here's an interesting fiction site. It's called FictionLine. It's a fairly democratic way to publish short stories. Each hopeful writer submits a story and pays a $2.36 fee. After 500 stories have been submitted, one story is selected as the "winner" and is published on the Web site. The winner is paid $1,000, which isn't a bad pay day for a short story when many literary journals may nothing and few writers who are not established can get published in the better paying markets. Now, the normal rule of thumb is writers should never pay reading fees, but do the math: $2.36 x 500 = $1,180. Subtract from that the credit card processing fees and you have your $1,000 prize. The site is entirely non-profit.

I've finished "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett.

It's a fast-moving, compelling, well-plotted book. The story pulls you from chapter to chapter and the twist and turns hold your interest. As I have read from various critics, Hammett does do a better job of plotting than Raymond Chandler (at least based on what I've read so far of the two authors), but I still prefer Chandler's prose style. He is more poetic, more descriptive -- his scenes come alive in a way Hammett never quite achieves. Neither writer really develops three-dimensional characters, but Chandler's are less cardboard than Hammett's, I think.

As for my own writing, I'm more than half-way through the second draft of my current story. Though, with a computer it seems silly to refer to anything as a second or third draft. It's not like the old typer days when you would retype every word of every draft. Now it's read and make changes as you go.

So far, I'm pretty happy with what I've written. I'll get through this "second draft" and then give it a third read through and then have my wife play fiction editor.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Check out my landlord.

My plan this evening was to relax. Read. Read Bukowski. But I had to work late. Fortunately, I have a TV on my desk. I tuned in to ESPN2. I saw Oakland score five quick, easy runs. The first inning of a potentially history making game. I thought, this is baseball. Breaking a big record isn't going to be this easy, so when I came I home I tuned in. It was soon 11-0. This is baseball, I thought. It isn't going to be this easy.
How could Miguel Tejada, of all players, make a stupid error that turns a one-run inning into a five run inning? But without Tejada, the A's streak would have ended at least two games ago, so I kept a civil tongue in my mouth.
Imagine the pressure on the A's. Good ball players dream of being part of something special in a game so steeped in history. On top of that, the A's winning streak should have made them runaway leaders of the American League West, but the pesky Angels have been playing good ball, too. Matt Welch's favorite team has hung tough, remaining three games back. We have a real pennant race here.
In the 8th, I began to worry the game was slipping away. Tejada made another bonehead play, trying to get the tough out at home when he should have gone for the easy one at third. Instead of 11-6 with one out and runners on first and second, it was no outs with the bases load.
The Royals scored another run. It was suddenly 11 to 7. A four run lead is nothing for any major league team to overcome.
In baseball, nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.
The camera gave us a look at the on-deck hitter. Never have I loathed such chiseled good looks as I did at that moment. I said to my wife, "There's the most dangerous hitter on the Royals. He worries me." Mike Sweeney was on deck. The score was 11-7 and there were two men on base. Sweeney couldn't tie it, but he could change the whole complexion of the game.
Billie left the room, but rushed back when she heard my blood curdling, "Oh Fuck." She arrived in time to see Sweeney's base-clearing shot land in the left field bleachers -- barely fair. "What did I tell you," I moaned. "It's now a one-run game." My wife stated the obvious: "This game is too exciting. I'm not leaving the room again."
At that point, she didn't even realize the A's were trying to win an AL-record 20th-straight game.
Billy Koch will never be mistaken for Trevor Hoffman, the most proficient closer in MLB history. Koch is the King of Coaster Kingdom. He takes A's fans on more wild rides than any closer in baseball. Still, he throws hard and is effective more often then not. If Hoffman were closing the game, you would feel like it was almost a sure thing; with Koch, you never know.
Yeah, you don't want to leave the room with Billy Koch enters the game.
With a runner on second, Luis Alicia came to the plate. The thing about Alicia is he's a veteran. He knows how to be patient at the plate and get a good pitch to hit. He isn't swinging for the fences. He isn't going to give you a cheap out.
Koch against Alicia. You don't want to leave the room.
Now, it's 11 to 11. All square. Tim Hudson ain't getting the win (bad for my fantasy team), and you've got to think, "maybe it wasn't meant to be." But if you're an A's fan, you also know that this is a team with a flare for the dramatic. Tony Gwynn remarks in the bottom of the 9th, "You get the sense that the A's fans are just waiting for this game to end this inning. They don't know who is going to win this game for them, but somebody is going to do something this inning."
Scott Hatteberg comes to the plate as a pitch hitter with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning. I like Hatteberg. He's a good solid, middling ballplayer. He's done reasonably well for one of my fantasy teams this year. I thought, he would be a good guy to hit a home run.
Barely had the thought crossed my mind --
Boom.
It was a blast.
There was no doubt.
Going ...
Going ...
Gone!
I shouted. I screamed. I jumped. I yelled. I didn't care what the neighbors thought.
The A's win number 20. Truly amazing.
See, what makes baseball so great is that nothing worthwhile is ever easy.
What was it about all this strike talk last week? Such a distant memory now.

Instapundit notes that the Blogcritics review of "Divine Operating System" has been blurbed by the band on its site. Cool. I'll just note that I wrote the review. It's the first time one of my reviews has been blurbed.

I interviewed Geri Soriano-Lightwood a week or so ago, wrote the article last night, and it will appear on InsideVC.com in about two weeks. I'll post it here and on blogcritics.org after it appears on InsideVC.

Advance copies of "Divine Operating System" are available through Amazon.