California

My immune system didn’t do me many favors in 2019. I was sick on five or six separate occasions in the first half of the year, including an obnoxious bout of bronchitis that lasted the entire month of February. Luckily that didn’t stop me from having an adventurous and fulfilling year, and for the first time in my four years at ProPublica, I used every single one of my vacation days.

Projects

My first three… See more →

That’s more like it.

Nice to see you, San Francisco. It’s been awhile.

People of Los Angeles: I have arrived. Come see my friends and I battle for @usairguitar supremacy on Saturday: concerts.livenation.com/event/09004AC5…

Waiting to see if I can do better than the red-eye I booked. Could be a very long da @ LAX Los Angeles International gowal.la/c/45zbq

If any LA friends are around, I’m wandering around downtown with time to kill.

Today’s agenda: 1. Drive across the desert with @essl and @VictoriaMia. 2. yfrog.com/h0bjeifj

Indio’s Motel 6 is currently dirtbag central. We are home.

I'm at The Big 4 Festival in Indio, CA gowal.la/c/459Fh

A N T H R A X

S L A Y E R

For some reason, Twitter didn’t want you to know about M E G A D E T H and M E T A L L I C A .… See more →

En. Ter. To. The. Realm. Of. Sa. Tan. (@ Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) w/ 280 others) 4sq.com/flnoBB

Surveying the Lakers' victory from the lap of luxury. Quite a final night in LA — at The Standard Hotel - Rooftop Bar gowal.la/r/8MwC

Day 1 of E3 complete. This is the biggest, most extravagant sausage party I have ever attended.

And the radio man laughs, because the radio man fucks a model too. — at LAX Los Angeles International gowal.la/r/5Do7

Adios, San Francisco. You were lovely as always. My thanks to your denizens for their tremendous hospitality.

By God man how tightly can chains be pulled?! Alcatraaaaaazzz…

Hey, San Francisco. I will be visiting you this weekend. Tell your people to gimme a shout if they wanna hang.

Headed to SFO, sad to be leaving San Francisco but glad to have some truly unique and fantastic memories.

Wandering the deserted Embarcadero Center, killing time until Man on Wire starts and keeping our eyes peeled for zombies.

At SFMoMA, where Lee Miller is making me curse the day color photography came into being.

Having a grand day out with Leah, @trammell, and @linoleumjet. Iced cream at Mitchell's is imminent.

Sometimes, you just can’t fight the urge to have your hair shaved into lightning bolts, hop a plane to San Francisco, and stand glaring in chaps on a stage in front of 1,500 drunken lunatics. I did this at the behest of my alter-ego Windhammer and the 2008 Cuervo Black US Air Guitar National Finals last Friday while the rest of the world had decidedly less fun watching the Olympic opening ceremonies.

The competitors may… See more →

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Neither Wayne nor I was prepared for how quickly northern California surrenders San Francisco’s unique metropolitan vistas to what I’ve come to call “New Ohio.” Flat, unremarkable farmland for miles, as far as the eye can see. The scenery eventually gives way to an astonishing panorama of snow-capped mountains, forests, lakes, and hills, but we were initially unsure of exactly how long the bland, agricultural nothingness would plague our eleven-hour drive, so we needed to… See more →

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The ninety-sixth episode of Full House, which marked the series’ halfway point, was called “Matchmaker Michelle.” In it, the youngest Tanner child decides to fix up her father with her preschool teacher, who is a generation older than him. What I find really interesting about this episode is that the catalyst for Michelle’s desire to find a new mother is her friend Teddy, who asks why she is always the daddy when they play house.… See more →

Made the boat to Alcatraz by the skin of our teeth.

Hoping to see all of my San Francisco friends at @trammell's joint tonight.

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Among thousands of acres of land, a private airstrip, several species of exotic wildlife, and many millions of dollars worth of imported works of art, today belonged to Hearst Castle. I’m speaking, of course, of the incredible and excessive home that newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst built for himself over the course of more than twenty years in the early-mid twentieth century. As far as I know, it is the closest thing this country has… See more →

Today’s drive was by far the prettiest of the trip so far. If I could, I’d take it out to dinner and a movie. I’d bring it home to meet my parents. I’d buy it a blood diamond and audition wedding DJs with it. We’d honeymoon at Disneyland, put a down payment on a mortgage in a Toll Brothers gated community, and have cute disagreements over paint chips. We’d have three kids named after our… See more →

Santa Barbara is really beautiful. I believe the name is Spanish for "No Public Restrooms."

Had a fantastic day in LA thanks to @TheAdnostic!

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Yesterday, as we sped along I-15 en route to LA, signs started pointing us toward a ghost town called Calico. Naïve tourists that we are, we were startled to find people working there and asking us to pay them six dollars for admission. A town with employees, an infrastructure, a web site, and its name painted in giant letters on the side of a mountain can’t rightly be described as ghostly, so we continued on… See more →

Overheard: "Dude, check it out, I'm standing in the orbit of Neptune!"

Preparing to meet @TheAdnostic for breakfast and a tour of LA, and hopefully meet @Brilliantcrank later.

We have reached the ocean! I was excited to begin the historic documentation of our discovery of America’s west coast, and perhaps begin plans for the construction of a city here with a thriving entertainment industry. I guess I missed the issue of National Geographic that covered someone beating me to it. Apparently I have friends here, too!

Imagine my surprise when I set foot in southern California for the first time and found it… See more →