David Rensin has been a contributing editor of Playboy since before web browsers came along. He has written more than a hundred interviews for the magazine and devotes most of his time now to books, including a forthcoming biography of surfing legend Miki Dora. His introductory post at Native Intelligence fills you in on all that, reveals state secrets about the new LA Observed and says that my invitation to join in made him feel less—well, he'll tell you.

I just know I’m missing something. There’s a brass ring out there waiting to be grabbed and taken home. My needs for loopdom are simple: I just want to be able to shop at Whole Foods without feeling like I really belong at Ralphs. Oh, and I want all those health freaks in their muscle shirts and leotards, who smell like barley and patchouli, to melt on the spot like a warm Cinnabun. There’s a place I dream of where there are twenty words for “brilliant.” but none for “anxiety.”

I want to be in the loop even though as my friend Carrie says, it leads to “a constant state of lack and need. A gross existential solipsism. A hunger that when satisfied only makes you more hungry because the loop, the information and inclusion that supposedly makes you happy, is, like a wave, ephemeral. Tomorrow’s birdcage liner.”

I know that the urgency of wanting to be in the loop makes it feel important, even thought it’s not. But that’s not important right now.

So imagine how I felt that very afternoon a few afternoons ago, when I got an email from Kevin Roderick asking me – why me? – to contribute to this blog...

Read the whole thing at Native Intelligence.