Bob Baker runs the writing website newsthinking.com. He was a reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times for 26 years before leaving in 2004 to become a novelist and songwriter. (Current project: The heretofore-untold 1952 civil rights movement of left-handed golfers that shaped MLK’s Montgomery strategy.) Baker co-authored the autobiography of R&B radio legend Magnificent Montague ("Burn, Baby! BURN!," University of Illinois Press, 2003). He is also a longtime fan of the Los Angeles Clippers, citing Matthew 20:16: The last shall be first and the first shall be last. He lives on Mar Vista Hill. Email
Only one thing will save the L.A. Times: topless girls.
Dear Sportswriters and Athletes, Could we come to an understanding about the reigning sports cliché of the 21st Century? Could...
It was the greatest feeling: Blogging. Vrooooom! An idea struck me and with nary a thought I had posted it...
I have fallen in love with the new education column by a Times Pulitzer Prize winner for editorial writing, Bob Sipchen. A short Q-&-A.
I got the phone call at home an hour ago: The Tribune Company fired the L.A. Times’ publisher. Tribune insists on pushing into an arena it knows nothing about — greatness in journalism.
(Written in American Airlines security waiting line at LAX) Here I sit, watching X-rays of your suitcase for six twenty-five...
This is a great time to be living in California. With less than two months before the election, we’re about...
Tonight, trying to decide whether to watch the start of the ABC docudrama or the end of the Manning Brothers...
For once I can recommend a fact-based melodrama that doesn’t have to dip into cornball fiction. The film is called...
My car’s radio buttons are set to talk stations. I can’t find a music station I like, and my CD...
July 31, 2006 Laurence Apathe President Los Angeles ArtWorks Center for the Performing Arts Dear Mr. Apathe, Here, in answer...
For 39 years—from the 12th grade until the middle of 2004—I wrote in the dialect of journalese. I communicated through...
| The question 'how hot is it?' once again will be answered by the landmark thermometer in the desert town of Baker.
| With the Lakers worst-ever season in Los Angeles ending this week, it's time to look ahead. What should the Lakers do next to reverse their fortunes?
| LA mayor Eric Garcetti has a narrative problem. The two stories he is telling about Los Angeles don't line up. Winning an Olympic bid could provide the deus ex machina the city needs in the absence of a heroic storyline.
| Take My Picture Gary Leonard is a weekly feature of LA Observed.
It’s not easy to figure out Mayor Eric Garcetti’s grand plan for Los Angeles, or even if he has one. His state of the city speech Thursday didn’t help. "It starts with modern technology,” the mayor said, and then sort of left us hanging.
Before I lived in Echo Park, there was a tiny 1920s bungalow-cottage-standalone house on N. Occidental in Silver Lake. I...
