no, i'm not mayor yet
August 19, 2004 by Eric Richardson
So, a funny thing happened last night: I became an elected official.
I think my title is "Area-Wide Resident Artist", a position on the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council. Yeah, "Resident Artist"... Me... What does that say about art?
Here's how it went down:
Around noon I got an email from Brady Westwater asking if I was going to be at the election [last night]. I called him back and said something to the effect of "What election?" He explained , sort of, and said the Higgins building was behind a candidate and I could just show up to vote. That's cool, I'm curious about this whole hyper-local government via neighborhood council thing, so I figure I'll show up.
6:30pm I show up where the voting's going to be. I then find out that the actual votings not until 7pm. No problem... I hung out and got to know the few people who were there already.
It gets to be 7pm. The Higgins group hasn't showed. Brady's calling people. Somebody's stuck in traffic. That person says they'll call the candidate. No one else shows.
Several of the 6 or 8 people there to vote are getting impatient. There's no one to vote for. To pass the time I ask more about what the position is. I don't get a very clear answer, other than the title and that the person attends the board meetings and is expected to be on a couple of DLANC's committees.
A minute or two more pass, and they're telling me that web design counts as an art these days. All of a sudden I have a candidate form in front of me and I'm filling out my name.
Paperwork done I get nominated, give a very short speech telling a little about me, how I love living downtown, and how I'm interested in pursuing ways to enable localized community via the Internet, and the voting ensues. I'm running unopposed, and everyone votes for me.
As of 7:20 or so I'm an elected official, with a position I didn't even know existed until seven hours earlier.
This is the kind of random stuff that happens to me in LA. Cool stuff, but so random...
oh so tempted
August 18, 2004 by Eric Richardson
I'm really tempted to get a Tivo. Best Buy has the Toshiba SD-H400 for $199, and then you can get a $100 rebate for signing up for the Tivo Plus service (for $13/mon). So basically you get an 80gig Tivo + DVD player for $99, which is the price of the regular Tivo 40-gig models.
I understand that I need a Tivo. I've played with them before. I love them.
I'm a little sketchy on integrating the Tivo with a cable box, using the whole IR repeater thing. I wish I lived somewhere where I could get DirecTV and get a DirecTivo. Those are very cool.
I have to run the numbers and see if, for instance, I could buy this and still be able to eat for the rest of the month. If I can, though, this may well be something I need to get.
i might not be the right person to ask
August 18, 2004 by Eric Richardson
A friend IM'ed me the other day. He said his company had asked him to start a blog, and he was looking for advice on how to go about that. Obviously, he hadn't read my paper, "Can Blogs and Corporations Co-exist?" I told him to read that first, and then we'd talk.
Today we followed up a bit, and I asked him a few more questions. Turned out the company wasn't satisfied with their placement in google, so they were looking for something to expand their web presence. My friend's boss told him "blogging would be a good way of doing it."
Right. See, if I were using examples for how not to go about starting a corporate blog, this would be a bullseye. No direction, no vision, just the vague idea that this new-fangled "blogging" trend might bring in more eyeballs. Sorry, but it doesn't quite work that way.
Blogs need to have a voice. They need to have a vision. A personal blog is focused on the interests of that individual. A blog like google does might be focused on exposing details of a company that a whole lot of people are interested in. But it can't be something written by "the company." My friend's company does business consulting: business plans, venture capital advice, stuff like that. "The company" can't write about that kind of stuff and make it interesting. I don't trust "the company." I think it's going to sell me things. My friend can't write a blog about that; he just doesn't know enough about the subject to write authoritatively. Why do I want to go read something written by some college kid trying to bring people to the company website?
this man never quits
August 18, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Like I do most mornings, I'm sitting here right now listening to Morning Becomes Eclectic. As the current song began I recognized a familiar voice. The song is RL Burnside's "Someday Baby" featuring Lyrics Born, off the album A Bothered Mind. The last (and only) RL album I've owned was 1998's Come On In.
I love this from the album description for Come On In:
I finally done did it. The world can finally hear my sound. I've been hollerin' and screaming to let them let me get my hands on the mixing knobs. I'm getting too old to waste my time with stuff that isn't on the cutting edge. I'm too old to be staying up all night writing songs; I got to spend my time on remixes. I always was a behind-the-scenes kind of man anyway.
You tell em, RL. The new album definitely sounds worth checking out.
and for tonight's entertainment...
August 17, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Yesterday was my birthday, so I cut out of work a bit early, picked Kathy up, and we went shopping. My wardrobe still needs a good bit of help, but it's doing a little better thanks to the Banana Republic in the Beverly Center.
Now, on your normal Beverly Center trip you see a lot of very trendy people buying very trendy things. It's a fancy mall, after all. Our trip, though those people may well have been there, featured a different main event. We arrived, went straight to the food court, and got some lunch. I went to Great Steak & Potatoe; Kathy went somewhere else and got a salad. So we sit down, start eating, and what breaks out in the Beverly Center food court? A fight. Not a fake fight, where a couple girls arguing over a pair of jeans start pushing, but a real full-on punching and kicking fight between three black guys. Now, I'm not 100% who started it, but after a prolonged exchange of words I seem to recall the physical action being initiated by the little guy -- probably 5'10", 160-170 lbs. The guy he took on was not little. He was probably more along the lines of 6'2", 240 lbs. And with him was a guy probably 6'0", 180 lbs, who had a solidly early 90s flat top. Needless to say, the little guy didn't win. Tables were upturned, people moved hurriedly to get out of the way of oncoming bodies, and before you knew it the whole thing was all but over.
What surprised me was how long it took Beverly Center security to show up. Once major combat broke out it probably took 4-5 minutes before the first officer arrived. By that time the little guy was bloody and being held down against a bench.
But hey, what better way to start your shopping experience?
For dinner Kathy had made reservations at The Lobster, in Santa Monica. The food was very good. I had blackened yellowtail, with spinach and potatoes. Our waiter was very good -- very attentive to the little things. For instance, when I go to a resturant and order a coke, and they bring it out in one of those nice resturant glasses, I don't use a straw. I take the straw out, and drink from the glass. Our waiter noticed this and next time removed the straw for me. It's the little things...