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...
| At LACMA on Thursday night, a packed and very excited audience, some dressed in 80's garb, watched a screening of "Valley Girl" as the the museum's Film Independent program celebrated the movie's 30th anniversary. "This film was well-researched and shot in Los Angeles. It is about our cultural history," director Martha Coolidge told the crowd.
| Ricky Jay could conjure a taxi in the rain in the middle of a cornfield. A documentary film about the renowned illusionist doesn't explain how, and, really, would you want it any other way?
| Take My Picture Gary Leonard appears every Thursday at LA Observed.
| Why would you stand on a corner with a picket sign if you don't want people to hear your message?
| He was greeting people good naturedly on Barrington Avenue just south of Sunset on Friday. The only name he wanted to give was Giant Robot.
| The first major museum retrospective of Jones' work comes later this month to the Hammer Museum. Jones was a seminal figure in late mid-century modern architecture and planning.
The latest poll, which finds Dennis Zine ahead in the controller’s race and Mike Feuer leading for city attorney, also shows that half the voters don’t think Los Angeles is heading in the right direction.
Dear Readers, it's true. Chicken Corner has decamped. Just a few months ago, I believed I might possibly never move from my house in Echo Park, and now here I am moved out of that house and on my way to Cincinnati, Ohio. (Via I-40.)
