Addition note:

…Best of L.A. issue. It was kind of an honorable or mosomthing, to be asked to edit Best of L.A.’s in general. The year before, Libby had edited it with Sara Scribner, and it had been well received. Coolio on the cover, as a part of the solo system. Was that Scott’s last Bola? Libby had already edited one d I was assistant or associate editor. It was a gig lasting almost three months, during which our regular jobs were kept for us to return to after the special issue went out the door.

The Weekly and the Dave

L.A. Weekly had been a part of my life since the early ’80s, when I was an undergrad at UCLA. In 1985, I’d managed to live in an amazing studio in the hills of Beverly Glen — $350 a month! I shared a kitchen and bathroom with a roommate who’s remained my friend through all these years. Beside the toilet we maintained a stack of L.A. Weeklys, which was

The Internet was just getting started, and the Weekly was a [big part/somethingpart] of living in Los Angeles The only catch was that I could write whatever I wanted — fiction and essays. The fiction tended to include some nonfiction, with some stories only qualifying as fiction because I changed some names. The nonfiction is as true as can be. Essays are essays. You might be surprised which are which.

At first, the column was called Sitegeist, as the internet was just coming into existence, and the Weekly had come up with a budget for a Tech section and ran it there, even though the stories had nothing particularly Internet-related, but at then end of the stories I’d list obliquely related URLs, or recipes to download various video and audio files to create your own multimedia art pieces, or whatever they were. Years later, after the internet had saturated all of our lives, the name was changed to Column Dave. In the early days, stories were illustrated by furniture designer Mike Lee, who illustrated lots of technology-related stories in the Weekly, and whose amazing furniture designs can be found at Chinese Jesus. (I take partial responsibility for the name of his company.) Later, after the internet had lost its novelty, the stories were illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators/poets, #1 New York Times Bestselling author Calef Brown, now one of my closest pals.

It’s difficult to categorize the stories, but since I’m only publishing a couple of dozen here (to entice publishers to publish an anthology, of course), I’ve broken everything down to TK distinct sections

Prior to becoming a columnist, I’d been working at the Weekly since 1993, doing a bit of everything there was to do except selling ads, and when I was offered a regular column I was pretty excited. The only catch, it turned out, was that I’d have to write anything I felt like writing — fiction, essays, poems, gobbledygook — and I’d get paid enough to live on.

If you feel like reading more about my fascinating Weekly life, including the evolution of the columns Dada searches on pre-Google search engines and DYI download-and-play multimedia art projects through the demise of all things, please click here, or scroll to the bottom of the page.

The Weekly and the Dave

L.A. Weekly had been a part of my life since the early ’80s, when I was an undergrad at UCLA. In 1985, I’d managed to live in an amazing studio in the hills of Beverly Glen — $350 a month! I shared a kitchen and bathroom with a roommate who’s remained my friend through all these years. Beside the toilet we maintained a stack of L.A. Weeklys, which was

The Internet was just getting started, and the Weekly was a [big part/somethingpart] of living in Los Angeles The only catch was that I could write whatever I wanted — fiction and essays. The fiction tended to include some nonfiction, with some stories only qualifying as fiction because I changed some names. The nonfiction is as true as can be. Essays are essays. You might be surprised which are which.

At first, the column was called Sitegeist, as the internet was just coming into existence, and the Weekly had come up with a budget for a Tech section and ran it there, even though the stories had nothing particularly Internet-related, but at then end of the stories I’d list obliquely related URLs, or recipes to download various video and audio files to create your own multimedia art pieces, or whatever they were. Years later, after the internet had saturated all of our lives, the name was changed to Column Dave. In the early days, stories were illustrated by furniture designer Mike Lee, who illustrated lots of technology-related stories in the Weekly, and whose amazing furniture designs can be found at Chinese Jesus. (I take partial responsibility for the name of his company.) Later, after the internet had lost its novelty, the stories were illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators/poets, #1 New York Times Bestselling author Calef Brown, now one of my closest pals.

It’s difficult to categorize the stories, but since I’m only publishing a couple of dozen here (to entice publishers to publish an anthology, of course), I’ve broken everything down to TK distinct sections

Prior to becoming a columnist, I’d been working at the Weekly since 1993, doing a bit of everything there was to do except selling ads, and when I was offered a regular column I was pretty excited. The only catch, it turned out, was that I’d have to write anything I felt like writing — fiction, essays, poems, gobbledygook — and I’d get paid enough to live on.

If you feel like reading more about my fascinating Weekly life, including the evolution of the columns Dada searches on pre-Google search engines and DYI download-and-play multimedia art projects through the demise of all things, please click here, or scroll to the bottom of the page.

The Education

My background is in visual arts, and in 1992, after I’d suffered my first major depression and was writing and performing standup comedy and figuring out my way forward, my pal Mike Rockwell hired me to co-write an instruction manual for ProTools software/hardware suite. Mike needed someone to break down complex concepts into simple language, and he thought I was good at that. (See standup comedy, above.) He paid me well, plus he gave me a bunch of (properly licensed!) painting, drawing and layout software. I bought some Peach Pit Press manuals and read them cover to cover. When I was hired as a proofreader at the Weekly, I started covering for vacationing designers in the production (advert design) department, and after a few years I was given a full-time job in the editorial art department, where I remained for eight years, until my pal Bill, the art director, left the Weekly and the editors hired someone who didn’t know the first thing about publication design. That was fun. Fortunately I had enough income from the writing to keep myself afloat. 

Pal Bill is still my boss/colleague — the founder of designSimple.com. Pal Mike is now the head of Apple’s augmented reality division. Me, I’m still sitting here, trying to finish my website.

Features

At some point in 1995 or so, the L.A. Weekly’s editors decided they liked my voice.  I’d done some book reviews for the Weekly as well as for the Los Angeles Times — and some of the editors

Distinguish between celeb interviews and other cover stories — Andy Kaufman and Dungeon.

they started assigning me various kinds of features, most of which were interviews with people who’d made interesting things and were out promoting them. Collectively, I called these stories Celebrity Handjob Corner, because I’m emotionally 15 years old. There were lots of non-CHC stories as well. I rarely pitched a story; the editors just kept ’em coming.

Here are some of those:

[Do same format as columns landing page. No images here, just names and links.