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This ad has been popping up on various websites I visit. If you’re not familiar with “Rich Dad” Robert Kiyosaki he’s a rags-to-riches self-empowerment guru who’s built an empire through books, seminars and such, preaching about how knowledge is the key to success — and there’s nothing wrong with that truth.

Trouble is I wish whoever was in charge of this particular ad had the knowledge to recognize that the unsuccessful juxtaposition of a blithely smiling Kiyosaki sitting next to his proud doomsaying boasts about devastating economic events past and to come (pitched, of course, to draw people to his “free”workshops, so he can profit off them as they learn his “secrets” for how to “profit” off such tragedies) conjures up a vision of him not as someone inspiring trust, but rather as something of shill grinning his way through the gates of hell who can see suckers much more clearly than he can see the future.

Not sure what at all’s going on with the sudden and surprise change from my blog’s long-standing theme to this default version that I discovered this morning when I opened up my browser.

It’s through nothing I did and other than contact my webhost I’m at a loss as to how to fix it.

So here’s hoping Dreamhost can figure it out before I go crazy from the bland derivativeness and do something to break it further.

UPDATE (2:32 p.m.): Well, my original theme is back. Yay. Somehow, unbeknownst to myself nor my webhosters it got deactivated so after much fretting, I clicked the “activate” link and everything seems back to how it once was. I hope.

My good man Jason DeFillippo, Metblogs cofounder and most decidedly one who does not mince words harshly took me to task after I tweeted who won “Survivor” following the finale’s conclusion a couple Sundays ago:

“Posting spoilers is like fucking someone’s kitten. You just don’t do it.”

And he was right to do so.

In my defense, I did the deed after the result was aired on the west coast, but still. It was an important reminder that beyond timezone differences we’re in an age of DVRs and delayed viewing. And it’s simply good and considerate practice to keep the beans unspilled. For how long? I don’t know that answer. I don’t care about that answer.

Fast forward to last night and I’m watching “American Idol.” Early on in the typically interminable finale, shortly after the Bee Gees sang “How Deep Is Your Love” with a couple of this season’s Top-10 finishers, I tweeted how seeing the surviving Brothers Gibb perform, made me smile. Sincerely so.

Not long thereafter came a response from a bike-minded enthusiast I follow whose Twitter name is cyclingnirvana:

“Yes, me too! But the power grab from Janet Jackson made me sick.”

Wondering what he was talking about, I tweeted back:

“Hmmmmm, I think I missed that… Or it hasn’t happened yet?”

And he came back with:

Sorry, it happens late in the show.

Ah, so now the two of us realize two things. I know he’s in a timezone east of me (turns out  way ahead of me in Florida), and he knows I’m in one behind him somewhere. I fleetingly toy with the idea of requesting that he keep any news of the winner to himself but give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t do such a silly thing.

Not more than a few minutes later while I’m transfixed by Christina Aguilera’s performance, he does:

“Really would have liked to see Crystal Bowersox win. She has an awesome voice and style. But I’m sure she’ll do well.”

I toyed with several harsh replies, such as a replay of Jason’s aforementioned reality check and  “Really would have liked to see you STFU,” but instead because I’m sure he’s a decent fellow who was just tweeting what happening around him I just admonished him with an entirely expletive- and animalporn-free:

“Dood. Way to spoil it for those of us who aren’t in your timezone.”

Which the guy completely ignored. Nirvana? More like some nerve.

UPDATE (11:52 a.m.): Strike that part about him ignoring me. I got a direct message from him this morning apologizing.

Friday was a sad day that just got progressively sadder. In reverse order of discovery, one of our three treefrogs died, the imminent demise of LA Metblogs was announced, and I lost a Twitter friend. It’s the last one that’s affected me the most.

Her Twitter name was @glittergran. Her real world name was Sonia and she was a retired fashion editor somewhere in England, and that’s about all I knew about her (which is a helluva lot more than I know about most of the tweeters I follow or am followed by). I’m not even sure how we found each other out there in the ether, but I fell in love with her because of her marvelous personality, which came shining through in 140 characters or less. In turn she enjoyed my tweets and my blog and always found time to encourage others Twitter followers to give me a looksee.

A few weeks earlier this month she suffered a stroke, but was released from the hospital and seemed to be recovering. Then came the news yesterday that she had passed Monday, provided by an assistant of hers who’d taken over her Twitter account.

It surprised me how much her death affected me — even moreso when I found that her final tweet had been to me.

It was sent at the end of a brief exchange (trivial even — but on Twitter aren’t they all?) that began when I sent out a brief harumph of a critique about the disappointing “The Lovely Bones.” In the tweet I said the best thing about the film was its somewhat out-of-nowhere use of The Hollies “Long Cool Woman.” She tweeted back that I made her feel old because she owned the original vinyl album that song is on. I tweeted back “Sweetheart, damn the years. If you’re old then I’m a martian,” followed up by another tweet: “PS. I have my own share of those LPs,” accompanied by a picture (at right) that I snapped of our shell-full of vinyl.

In the busy week that followed I didn’t really notice an absence of Sonia’s presence on twitter. I figured she had doctors’ visits and was doing more important things like resting and getting better. Then came the message to me Friday morning:

Hi I am glittergran’s PA. I know she tweeted to a cyclist in LA so I guess it must be you. In case you don’t know she sadly passed away on Monday. Her funeral is tomorrow at 11am – just in case you want to share a thought at that time. I know she was fond of your blog and tweets.

I was stunned, but handled the shock and the emotion until I was looking at her past tweets and found the last one she sent after I had tweeted that picture to her of my record collection:

Thanks WB. I was having a bad day, but that made me smile.X.

Then I lost it. Jeez, I just got choked up again. Whoo…

Rest in peace, Sonia. My Twitterverse has lost a lot of its sparkle, but I know Heaven’s that much brighter with you there.

Dear Verlyn Klinkenborg,

I just read your May 8 column about your ongoing failquest to find the “real” Los Angeles on nytimes.com today, and if I wasn’t so enamored with your entirely awesome name, I’d have sworn at you three times already, because normally when I read something like what follows, I just want to cuss like a sailor:

Something escapes me about Los Angeles. Wherever I go, I always imagine I’m finally going to grasp its essence. I try to feel its harmonics in my bones.

I watch the edges of the freeway to see if there is a clue in the debris the traffic sweeps to the sides. I wonder if there would be room for all these cars if they decided to find parking spots at once.

The iconic glimpses don’t help me in my quest — not the sudden view of the Hollywood sign I get from the Hollywood Freeway, not the view of downtown almost floating in the sunset from Pasadena. Every now and then, I turn a corner and think that something essential is about to be revealed. The feeling intensifies all the way up Venice Boulevard into Culver City, and then I’m on National taking one of those curious hidden freeway entrances and suddenly the feeling vanishes.

I’m new to you so I have no knowledge of how long you’ve been in Los Angeles and writing about it. Maybe you’re fresh and fully assimilated into the prevalent car culture. Or maybe you’ve been out here awhile and this is just more of what you’ve been writing. Gawd, I hope not. But either way, as someone who’s a native as well as a perpetual tourist in my own town, I’m the first one to admit your job ain’t easy. I’ve spent a good portion of my life trying to feel the city’s harmonics in my bones and it don’t come simple. Having said that I can only wonder if you’re kidding or if you indeed really think you’ll find what you’re looking for strapped in behind the wheel of a vehicle, seemingly addicted to our freeways and one of the more soulless stretches of Venice Boulevard. As such, if you’re at all legitimately interested in ending your deadend game of seek and hide with this wonderful city, I’m going to tender you the following heartfelt advice.

1. Get off the 101 or the 10 or the 134 or the 405 — and stay off!
2. Get out of your goddam car — and stay out!
3. Get somewhere. On foot, on a bike, on a bus or a train — but for gawd sakes as much as you might want to don’t go to City Walk, or LA Live or the Grove. Go to a Dodger game. Go to Boyle Heights. Go to Union Station. The LA River. Go to Leimert Park. MacArthur Park. Go to the Watts. West Adams. San Fernando Mission. Venice.

Of course if you sincerely think that eye-spying shoulder trash and stalking onramps is the way to go about grasping at any of this city’s essence then my advice will be lost on you. And if so, tell you what: get out. Because it’s never going to happen. You’re just going to pound out more banal columns bemoaning Los Angeles as always being beyond the reach of your vestigial intellect.

So either get your boots on the ground and get busy or do yourself and L.A. a favor and order yourself up a window seat back to NYC. and as the jetbird swings back over land after its LAX take off over the ocean, look down. You’ll have just as good a chance of harmonizing with our lost city from that removed and encapsulated a vantage point as you would from a car stuck in traffic on the 110. And when that fails to happen you should have no trouble picking out the 10 and the 101 and the 405 and the 134 from the grid below and remembering all the good times you had on them.

A long time ago in response to the latest in a seemingly relentless if occasional parade of Curbed LA posts focus-mocking on the theme of “What Is/Is Not The Eastside” and the frustration it generates to those of us who know and give a damn, I  submitted a comment that offered what I consider to be the perfect alternative title to supplant the imperial ignorance of those Westside-influenced apathetics who can’t help but disrespect the significance and relevance of what is the True Eastside of Los Angeles by lazily and hipsterly and even sometimes indignantly and belligerently lumping the general region encompassing the neighborhoods of Atwater Village, Echo Park, Los Feliz Village, East Hollywood, Elysian Park/Valley, Historic Filipinotown, and Angeleno Heights as their kneejerk version of “eastside.”

To those edge-seeking dullards who are too busy growing ironic facial hair and shopping for ironic clothing to waste time considering the ironic error of their “if it’s east of the westside than it’s the eastside” ways, I offered something of the following comment:

Simple. Call it: The Upside. Problem Solved.

It had flavor. It had style. Being “up” from downtown it was not geographically incorrect. And it was certainly more compact and catchy than something compass-like such as Northwestcentraltownville. But of course, with the exception of a fellow commenter or two chiming in with an appreciation for my suggestion, nothing came of it.

At least not until a  couple weeks ago when sure enough Curbed LA decides to resurrect the issue once again — only this time with a surprising twist. Acquiescing that my surrounding area is indeed the “Not Eastside,” the good folks at Curbed made a call for nominations for a poll/contest that will result in what that new name should be. So of course re-submitted my original suggestion, but with no campaigning and little hope that it would make the cut.

Well the contest began this week and guess what?

Not a shocker: currently The Upside is losing badly to gimmicky stuff like “Hipster Heights” and “Griffith Triangle.” Right now the totally boring “North Central” is kicking ass. And as much as I’m biasedly partial to my creation, I gotta admit I voted for “The West Bank,” in part because I’m kicking myself for not suggesting something even better than The Upside: The Left Bank. Doh!

I’m used to getting slagged at some of my posts on YouTube, most notably the ones where I “hate” on the failings of various other road users that I observe from my bike. In fact, it happens with such regularity that when several days or a week goes by without me being called out there by some anonymous cheesebag I begin to wonder if something’s wrong.

I’m readily dismissive of that trash, but I don’t have the same tolerance for those who stop by this blog and behave in a similar fashion.

Make no mistake, if you want to take me to task or criticize me, I’m totally open to it providing you do so with consideration and in an attempt to promote discourse and dialog — and most importantly: not from behind some sort of phony name and email.

Anything less is fully lacking civility and credibility.

See, I view my blog as a bit of a stage version of my house, in other words there’s no fourth wall and anyone can grab a seat in the theater and observe the stuff I report on.

But it’s my house. And sure, I know that having open and unmoderated comments leaves anyone in the peanut gallery feeling so entitled to stand up and shout what an idiot they think I am. And that’s fine because 89.9523% of the general population is blessed with something that the 10.0477% lack and it’s called a sense of decency.

Speaking of that minority percentage, let’s take this morning’s respondent to my previous post about the bike count, one which I rightfully predicted there would be people who’d have no problem finding me to be way outta line in their not so humble opinions. Using the name “Aw Shux. Credit? No thx!” and the email address of “Anonymousjonson@gmail.com” this person couldn’t resist leaving the following comment:

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I don’t know what it is about YouTube. The indignation and insultation one can find there either directly or directed at others often achieves a cro-mag baseness that seldom fails to amaze.

I certainly don’t help matters with my “”This Is Why I Hate” series of posts usually video’d from the POV of me on my bike. I’ve “hated” on mopeds, FedEx, bicyclists, motorists, and boy have I been hated on in return.

Now if you know me, you know that one of the few things I hate is hate. But of course those on the YouToobz, they don’t know me. And whether they’re self-righteous or just good ol’ knuckle-draggers they can get pretty inflamed — especially when I push their buttons.

So you can imagine my surprise when instead of the usual “Get the fuck off the road, Lance!” I found this rather reasoned and articulate reaction from user “simplecreativity” to my “This Is Why I Hate: Fedex” post:

Don’t you think this is a bit much? You hate FedEx because they happen to employ some inconsiderate drivers? Welcome to the world, good sir. This is like me saying I hate people who own Fords because someone in a Ford cuts me off on the road. Take it easy. And while you’re at it, slow down. I bet it wouldn’t have been nearly so threatening if, in the great span of time you had before getting there, you applied the brake.

Relax. Not everything is cause for throwing around the word “hate”. Jeez.

I was actually quite impressed that he resisted the urge to just call me a fucktard or a douchebag (as so many other trollios have on that post), and in cordial response I commended him:

Excellent and intelligent argument, sc (accept for that incorrect assumption that I was somehow speeding on my bike, but I can forgive that mistake). For what it’s worth I used “hate” not because I actually hate, but because its such a loaded word. Somewhere on the Youtubes I even have a vid about “hating” cyclists! Cheers.

Did it stop there? Of course not. The fun had only started and it rapidly sped downhill in the ensuing back and forth (laid out after the jump) until he couldn’t help but demonstrate his hate (no quotes) by calling me a jackass and an asshole and cite the hate-filled comments of all the other mouth-breathing trolls as proof of why he was right and I was beyond help.

Tiring of the folly, I respectfully requested he quit while he’s behind fighting a battle he couldn’t win. When that didn’t happen I then asked him semi-politely a second time, and when again he continued his ranting I was left to the inevitable task of blocking him. Good times.

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Chances are what with the internut being what it is and all, I would have eventually stumbled across the video below. But because of the Blogfather Tony Pierce, who is always there to open a door for his readers and say “look inside and check this shit out now,” I got my day brightened that much quicker. Thank you, Tony:

You’ve probably figured out I can be a big manly man huff ‘n puff, stomp ‘n growl blowhard. What you may or may not now is I’m waaaaay in touch with my emotional side. As such before I was even a couple minutes into the vid I was shedding tears of joy over this, while simultaneously being envious at such wonderful creativity, and irrationally jealous at everyone who was a part of it either as a participant or spectator.

Sniffling afterwards, I even left the following comment on the vid’s YouTube page:

That was one of the most profoundly and beautifully celebratory things I’ve ever seen. Just miraculous and exuberant and unique and joyous and brilliant. BRAVO!

Your emotional connection may vary. But I’ll tell you what: If Susan and I ever renew our vows in a big church-set ceremony somewhere/time down the road some variation of this marvel is so on!

UPDATE (7.25): And yeah, prior to this video I never thought I’d ever be caught dead owning a Chris Brown tune, but now  I’m not ashamed to say this video made me purchase the single, “Forever,” off of iTunes — and I bet I’m not the only buyer. Brown oughta send the happy couple a wedding gift, for perhaps helping to revitalize his career.

UPDATE (7.27): Looks like embedding has been “disabled by request,” so if there’s trouble viewing it here, go here instead.

Wowza! Via a post at LAObserved about a wholly defaming and highly suspect slammajam made by an unnamed source about a downtown restaurant on the Eater LA blog, I just learned about something called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which apparently holds harmless from liability any “providers and users of an interactive computer service who publish information provided by others.”

So basically if some anonymous blogger with full intent to defame and malign however baselessly or biasedly writes that someone  who we’ll call “Jonas Dough” is a “raging pedophile and serial killer” I am entirely under no obligation to verify and/or debunk or in anyway research such opinion and am at entirely protected liberty to reprint it verbatim as fact.

Not that I do much in the way of such ax-grindingly libelous and patently damaging garbage like that found in the above-mentioned post at Eater LA, but it’s really good to know I can if I want to.

And by “really good” I mean really lame.

And by really lame I mean that if this kind of full-assed, irresponsible reporting being condoned and allowed to stand by Eater LA’s overlords at Curbed Network simply because there is precedent to do so (and probably because the resulting increased traffic is a cha-ching) then the least I can do is wipe Eater LA’s sister site Curbed LA from my blogroll and delete my account as a commenter.

UPDATE (11:04 a.m.): Eater LA has offered the owners of the restaurant the opportunity to argue the unsubstantiated allegations presented in the post. That’s a bit like Salem giving its alleged witches the chance to argue against their guilt with nooses tightened around their necks.

It almost pains me to spell this out because it’s common fucking sense, but instead  of “equal time” after the defamation (while also leaving it live), the simple and proper and legitimate and fair and ethical action Eater LA should have taken would have been to use the “tipster” accusations as a springboard to contact the eatery’s owners and get their responses to them and then post a balanced item about it. But instead Eater LA and Curbed Network is condoning laziness and irresponsibility and doing so from behind the protection afforded this indecent section of a so-called Decency Act, while snickering as it reaps the benefits from the increased traffic the controversy has generated.