Readers who are from Detroit or have visited respond positively to my column on my trip there. Plus: a KTLA forecast for this week gives Wednesday’s predicted high in the IE as 700, and a reader resurrects a local joke from the late Martin Mull’s “America 2-Night” talk show parody. That’s my Wednesday, pre-holiday column!
Category Archives: My So-Called Life
Column: Once on the mat, a revived Detroit packs a punch
As part of my Midwest vacation, I journeyed on to Detroit, mostly to see a baseball game (Stadium No. 17 of 30 for me), but also to explore. Detroit’s reputation may not have caught up with the reality, because the city once synonymous with urban rot is booming. Read about my experiences in my Wednesday column. And yes, I’m back at work. Huzzah!
Column: In the IE again but out sick
I came down with a cold and was unable to write my regular Friday column. So I wrote a very brief column to explain my absence. Didn’t want to confuse everyone by having returned from vacation for one column and then go missing. I’ll be absent from Sunday’s paper too but expect to return Wednesday.
Column: Pomona pals meet up in IL for breakfast and selfies
While I was on vacation in my hometown of Olney, Illinois, last week, a friend from Pomona passed through town while on a road trip. We had breakfast. The whole thing was a novelty and, I hope, will prove to be one for you as well if you read my Wednesday column! And yes, I’m back from vacation and writing columns after nearly two weeks away.
Column: Life in their 60s is ‘liberating’ and fulfilling, readers say
I asked for life advice about turning 60 and a bunch of you shared wisdom or perspective. Or jokes. I share some of that commentary, with some of my own, in my Wednesday column — before taking the rest of the week off.
‘Truly a columnist’s columnist’
Photo by Gustavo Arellano
I had dinner in Santa Ana two weekends ago with journalist and LA Times columnist Gustavo Arellano, writer Susan Straight and journalist Cynthia Rebolledo after Gustavo and Susan’s event at LibroMobile, the subject of my column last Friday. Gustavo, seated across from me, asked to take my photo after our food arrived but before I dug in. I agreed, without asking why.
Well! On Saturday morning, a week later, I opened Gustavo’s weekly newsletter, to which I subscribe, to find that he’d featured me. Gosh! He wrote about the event, our dinner and our long association. And he used the restaurant photo seen above. Ha! I like the picture; I think it captures my amused tolerance.
Gustavo’s write-up about me is very generous, with lines like these: “He’s the best type of columnist, too – the one that gets better as the years go on, that continues to learn and documents a region until you don’t know a region unless you know the columnist.”
It’s not for me to say if any of that’s true, but certainly I continue to learn, I like to think I’ve gotten better and if I’m a must-read, well, that’s a goal, albeit one that to my mind remains elusive. (Especially given the very poor reader numbers for my column on the Santa Ana event, cough.) You can read his newsletter here and judge for yourself.
And Gustavo: thank you!
Column: ‘Barbenheimer’ proves just the ticket
Five weeks after release, I saw “Oppenheimer” on National Cinema Day and “Barbie” the day after. You may well have seen one or the other by now, if not both. I highly recommend each. My moviegoing experience is the subject of my Friday column.
(Writing this one was a reminder to myself that not every column needs to be reported in some way and that they can just be for fun — especially at the start of a holiday weekend when fewer people will be reading.)
Column: Visit to SB was his viral moment
My Wednesday column is absent, more or less, due to a cold. I wrote a few paragraphs anyway to explain. I hope to be back Friday!
Column: Delights of Minneapolis leave him walleyed
Highlights of my visit to Minneapolis include the Mary Tyler Moore statue downtown, a Bob Dylan mural, Hmong food and a Twins game (Ballpark No. 16 for me). I write about that in my Friday column.
Column: SF is struggling, sure, but the beat goes on
In Wednesday’s column, I visit San Francisco, where I watch the Giants, climb stairs, browse for books, eat well, gaze at gardens and reject the doom spiral narrative for the city. It’s troubled, but it’s still a great place. (The headline will make more sense when you see the accompanying photo.)