ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT CANDIDATE
Out of town readers may not be aware that a mayoral election is about to take place in LA. I'll spare you all the gory details but LA citizens don't seem to have much to pick from. For one thing, all the candidates are Democrats. Republicans don't even bother fielding a contender because the city is basically a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party. While it's amusing to watch liberals savage each other, it's pathetic watching this cast of characters propose the same tired agendas that put the city in the financial hole. They all seem to be saying, "If you don't like what happened in the past, I promise to give you more of it."

Bob Hertzberg is the first candidate to air a TV spot. It looks like it was produced by legendary science fiction shlock-meister BERT I. GORDON. Gordon, known as MISTER BIG, worked the gigantism formula to death in movies like THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN (giant bald guy attacks Las Vegas), WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST (giant bald guy attacks Griffith Park), EARTH vs. THE GIANT SPIDER (giant spider attacks what looks like Palmdale), and BEGINNING OF THE END (giant grasshoppers attack bad background plates of downtown Chicago).

In his ad, Hertzberg looks like a benign Gordon-inspired, 50-foot giant walking around the city in a suit and apparently fixing things like the LAUSD and traffic problems. On the up side, it's a refreshing change from most political ads where the candidate sits in a classroom and pretends to care deeply about teaching kids or is surrounded by uniformed cops and pretends to get tough with crime. On the downside, it makes Hertzberg look like an atomic mutant ready to wipe away traffic jams with the sweep of an arm or crush under-performing public schools. When you're completely out of ideas or have nothing new to contribute, somebody in the campaign must have figured it would be neat to make Hertzberg look like he's about to battle Mecha-Godzilla to the death. Boy do we deserve better.

BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN
January has been particularly rough around here. We haven't posted for nearly a month due to the press of circumstances. The dry spell is over and we'll be posting regularly. Thanks to all the readers who sent emails asking what happened and when we'd be back. It's gratifying to be missed.