By Bill Lascher
In the middle of the night I had it all figured out. In a journal rescued from stack of half-finished tomes, I penned thoughts about what I am doing here, free of school, free of work and ready to cast out on my own yet again. Writing with a sudden fervor, I listed the major projects I wanted to work on, projects I’ve discussed tangentially here on this site from time to time, and repeatedly in conversation with my friends and family. I knew what it was I wanted to do. After an uneasy weekend of random, mounting bits of disappointment and frustration, I went to bed content.
Hours after waking, it all seems to have dissipated. I can’t start one project for fear it will distract from another. I send out queries. I update my résumé. I catch up on my reading. I research. I follow-up and I wait in silence.
Meanwhile, the life I want surrounds me. The radio crackles behind me as I type. Through a light fog of static Warren Olney spends 45 minutes catching listeners up on the rapidly changing situation in Iran then deftly switches the topic to American policy in Afghanistan.
Across the room one of my typewriters rests on a table. The paper is rolled up to reveal the few lines of faint text I’ve randomly typed on it. A reused sheet, I can see enough of the paper’s opposite side to know it’s an old 460 — a California campaign finance reporting document — printout I must have consulted for some story about political donations, or one I hoped to tell. It makes me hunger to pore over documents, to analyze connections, to question and prod and explore.
A pile of books sits stacked against my bed. Stories and stories and stories full. I want to tell so many similar tales. I want to bring people and places to life; to recount histories of far-off lands as well as all-too-familiar backyards. I want to look beneath the veneer of political and social idealism to the true machinations occurring in even the most progressive atmospheres. I want to translate complex knowledge to lush, page-turning narratives about the fascinating processes governing this world in which we live.
On one corner of my computer screen a little box occasionally lights up. It tells me I’ve received new updates about stories I’ve been following. Subjects that matter to me. Right now it’s announcing the release of the full text of a new federal transportation reauthorization bill in Congress. It seems boring, but what it contains will directly shape how we get around our neighborhoods, our cities, and our country. I want to dive into the text, to carve it up, to continue one thread of my master’s project. Then I realize that project still sits on a shelf. I wonder whether it will see the light of day, whether the editor pondering it will write me back, will find it suitable for publication, will believe that I have something to say, a story to tell that no one else can tell.
I’ve talked about this project for months and I’m starting to feel like a lier, like a cheat, like I’ve told all these people how I was compiling this grand tale of movement and transportation in Los Angeles. So far, most of them haven’t seen word one. It’s there, it’s on the page, and I think it’s fantastic. I think about it every time I ride the subway or the bus, or tell someone I am doing so and they look at me quizzically, as if they’re shocked to learn there are ways to move about this vast, deep city without a car.
I understand – trust me I understand and kinda don’t want to discuss – that the publishing world is rapidly changing. Even if it weren’t, it takes time and patience to get something published. But I wonder about the rules of the game. With information spreading so rapidly how am I supposed to do this, to wait patiently on a story that is constantly evolving? Even if things go well with this story, how do we publish, how do we write or report anything? How do we set boundaries? Do we just say “that’s the story” even as it continues to change? Do we just cut convenient slices of ever-lengthening timelines out?
I’ve just finished reading Roxana St. Thomas’s most recent “Notes from the Breadline.” The poetry in her words. The honesty. Most importantly, the resounding familiarity of her situation, despite our differing professions, has brought me close to the point of tears. When she wonders why she left “The Big Law Firm” I ponder why I left my Big Job, then finished school feeling less certain than before about where I wanted to be, more certain than ever about my ability to do it, and completely lost about how I could ever fit into this transitioning world of journalism.
She ultimately recognizes the fight she has left in her and I think of the times I’ve come to the same realization, of the numerous times I’ve gotten off the mat, of the blessings I’ve counted, of the gratitude I have for the ceaseless support from my family and of the friends who have lately been crawling out of the woodwork. But I also feel the ebb and flow more than ever, the impermanence, the sensation that everything about where I am is foreign. I feel as I always have: neither here nor there. Too experienced to start completely fresh, not quite accomplished enough to stand out.
Continue reading “Cooking Up Frustration”
By Bill Lascher
“Wheel is going green,” blared a television announcer during a Spring broadcast of TV’s popular game show “Jeopardy.” The wheel in question? “Jeopardy”’s sister show, the equally well-known “Wheel of Fortune.”
Pat Sajak and Vanna White — icons for decades of American dreams of easy money — became the latest public figures to urge mainstream Americans to pay attention to their impact on the environment. The television personalities told viewers how they could find recycling programs in their neighborhoods and offered simple suggestions to conserve, such as taking shorter showers.. Meanwhile, Sony Pictures — which produces the show — convinced sponsors to offer prizes related to the green theme, such as $500 worth of environmentally-friendly cleaning products from 7th Generation or a hybrid Honda Civic. The promotion was an offshoot of Sony’s “Take Back” recycling program, and each episode included information about how the electronics giant’s employees and customers could stop trashing their stereos and TVs.
But how sincere – or environmentally-responsible – are such appeals?
Whether or not green is the new black, more and more Americans are reaching for ecologically-shaded opportunities as they try to spin their fortunes out of the red. With enthusiasm echoing the early days of the dot-com boom and the heady days of sub prime loans and home flipping, would-be entrepreneurs are starting to gamble that the solution to their economic puzzles is spelled e-n-v-i-r-o-n-m-e-n-t. But are they kidding themselves? Will a wind turbine manufacturer or biofuel harvester generate stock prices beyond everyone’s wildest expectations, only to tumble like the next Enron? Will green investment lead to gold, or more empty pockets?
Sony’s own investment was small. It already produced the show, and it could get sponsors to pay for the special prizes. The company didn’t gamble on a green week just because Vanna started to spend less time under the faucet and reuse her plastic bags, or because Pat changed his stripes from well-documented doubts about anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change (An April 6 post about “Wheel’s” eco-friendly campaign from the Treehugger blog cited columns expressing these doubts and written by Sajak for a conservative Web site). Instead, the effort was the calculated outgrowth of a pre-existing Sony public relations campaign.
About a week after “Wheel” went green, another spin was taking shape during a workshop in a nearly-empty Downtown Los Angeles library auditorium.
“I would like to make this something for you, to help propel you into that green economy,” Alan Tratner, a green-tongued pitchman told his sparse audience, “If you’re interested in getting some great ideas, making a difference in the world and making some wealth for yourself, then please get involved with us.”
Us, in this case, meant Green2Gold, a green “incubator” that mentors and nourishes budding inventors and entrepreneurs trying to turn eco-friendly brainstorms to lucrative, marketable products. Tratner founded and directs the Santa Barbara-based Green2Gold, which is an offshoot of his nonprofit, the Environmental Education Group.
“If you do this right there’s money out there to fund you,” Tratner said,pacing about the stage and beaming. A natural presenter, he took the stage like a T.V. Pitchman. Clad in a green polo shirt and jeans, both made from organic cotton, as well as eco-friendly shoes, Tratner resembled the love child of a three-way between your neighborhood Amway salesman, the woman down the street constantly giving tours of her solar panels and low-flow toilets, and the man around the corner always tinkering in his garage. At any point during the presentation, it seemed Tratner was moments away from declaring “It slices! It dices! It … saves our planet!”
Continue reading “Will Going Green be the Next Way We Go Bust?”
By Bill Lascher
As mentioned in my bio, I recently completed the Master’s in Specialized Journalism program at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication. I reported and wrote a number of stories dealing with the environment and science during this program. Beginning today and continuing all week, I will publish these stories here (With the exception of my [...]
By Bill Lascher
 I have to admit Streetsblog beat me to posting a picture depicting this sign (others may have as well), although I took this picture May 29. Back when I was editor of the Ventura County Reporter and still penning (or is it “keying”) the Fir & Main blog, I wrote enthusiastically about the possibility of mass transit options linking to Dodger Stadium. As the Dodgers fans and Angelenos reading this site know, later in the 2008 season the City of Los Angeles paid for a free shuttle service linking Dodger Stadium to Union Station. This allowed riders of multiple transit services — particularly Metro’s Red and Purple Line subways — to easily make it to Chavez Ravine without a car to watch the boys in blue. Sadly, as these same observers also understand, the Dodgers refused to help pay for the service for the 2009 season. Now, the best way to get to Dodger Stadium by public transit remains taking the #2 or #4 bus along Sunset and hike up Elysian Park Ave.
This week, a number of local media outlets have noted that the Dodgers are allowing visitors to park for free at the stadium from June 16-18 while Joe Torre’s squad faces off against the Oakland Athletics.
Meanwhile, some of those who do choose to drive to Dodger stadium have made a habit of avoiding parking there, both to avoid the $15 parking fee and the headaches of trying to get in and out of the stadium on game days. Some lucky souls park right on Sunset while spaces are still available. Others park along nearby Lilac Terrace, Douglas St. or Sutherland St., or even put their faith in their parking brakes as they find a spot along the ridiculously steep Quintero St. (being that this is the direction from which I approach the stadium even if I take the bus — now that there’s no trolley from Union Station — I don’t know the situation in Chinatown or other neighborhoods east of the stadium).
In recent weeks, though, most of these options haven’t been available to most Dodgers fans. Signs reading “local access only” have popped up at the entrance to every street on the north side of Sunset between Lilac and Portia Street. Responding to inquiries I made June 9, Julie Wong, L.A. City Councilmember Eric Garcetti‘s communications director, and Monica Valencia, councilmember Ed Reyes‘ Press Deputy told me that the signs were a result of “concerns we heard from the Elysian Park Task Force and meetings with local residents who asked for assistance with alleviating activity such as speeding, drunk and disorderly conduct by people leaving Dodger Stadium, and tailgate parties on the street in front of residences — complete with blaring speakers and beer kegs.” Garcetti’s 13th district includes Douglas, Quintero and Sutherland streets. Lilac Terrace is within Reyes’ District 1.
Continue reading “McCourts Keep Dodging the Trolley”
By Bill Lascher
[Updated: In response to my critique, Behrens changed his headline and, as noted below and in his comment, he did use the terms "allegedly" and "according to the LAPD," so I'd be remiss not to correct my own mistake here]
Sometimes it saddens me what other fellow members of the media — loosely defined — claim to believe is acceptable “journalism.”
Yesterday, Zach Behrens, editor of LAist, the Los Angeles-focused child of the Gothamist network, posted a brief news piece announcing that, as his headline put it, “LAPD Arrests Sex Fiend Taxi Cab Driver.” In the piece, he named the suspect, though at no point did he mention that he was only a suspect and had been alleged to have sexually assaulted a passenger on May 17. Instead, . He presented the suspect as already guilty, mentioned how police believed there had been more victims and posted information about how other crimes could be reported to police. Behrens also posted a picture of what he described as the suspect’s taxi, although there is no unique identifier in the picture besides the cab company’s name, leaving the possibility of retaliation or lost business to the suspect’s fellow drivers, regardless of their danger or safety.
I wrote a long comment on Behrens’s piece that I will repost here after the jump. What I didn’t mention in the comment is the fact that Behrens has been open in previous pieces about volunteering for the LAPD. He is also a neighborhood councilman in Sherman Oaks. Neither of those roles should preclude him from writing his blog, especially because his bio on LAist describes his writings as “observations” of L.A. Nonetheless, those facts should make Behrens additionally judicious about clarifiying his motivations for his posts and he should make extra effort to disclose his influences when posting about the LAPD.
Still, this doesn’t change the fact that the suspect in this case has not yet been convicted of any crime (in this instance — a previous record isn’t mentioned either) nor has any information supporting the claim the accused is a “sex fiend” been presented. Behrens, his colleagues, and anyone with the public’s attention has a responsibility to caution the public not to rush to judgment. That is what the courts are and should be for. Our legal system may be imperfect, but it’s far more perfect in casting judgment than browsers of the Web presented with selected bits of information can be.
My original analysis posted in the comments section of Behrens’ LAist post gets to the point more articulately and directly. Continue reading to see it:
Continue reading “Trial by Blogger”
By Bill Lascher
New posts coming this week:
– Posts on production and consumption versus conservation; – Environmental critiques of train travel; – The ultimate (if not particularly green) multi-modal vacation; – Dodger Stadium gets even less accessible; – Privacy, chatting and (in)visibility.
To keep you sated, I’ve been meaning to post some of my photographs from [...]
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