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Two more contributors have posted over at Native Intelligence, the LA Observed blog where selected writers are invited to post their unedited observations about Los Angeles: their life or work, reaction to something in the media, survival tips, restaurant reviews, whatever moves them that day.

Bob Baker was moved by the details of Mel Gibson's police report — the real one, not the initial cleaned-up version — to scribble out a treatment for a musical he calls "I Own Malibu." Earlier, Bob introduced himself:

For 39 years—from the 12th grade until the middle of 2004—I wrote in the dialect of journalese. I communicated through crisp, direct, no-frills sentences and paragraphs. I wrote, I edited, I coached, I taught--all in that mother tongue.

Then I stopped. I quit the newspaper where I’d spent almost three-quarters of my adult life. And suddenly I felt the tug of another dialect.

It was music, and I wanted to speak it....

Bob was a reporter, editor and writing coach at the Los Angeles Times for many years and has authored a couple of books, the most recent the story of legendary Los Angeles radio personality Magnificent Montague.

Cari Beauchamp, the author of books about Hollywood's past, uses her first blog post ever to explain her fondness for history. She writes for Vanity Fair and has been a private investigator, press secretary to then-Gov. Jerry Brown and president of the National Women's Political Caucus of California. She also tries not to venture east of La Cienega during the week.

As long as I can remember I have loved history. I find it both liberating and consoling to realize little has not happened before in some variation or another. It is a filter through which I view not only current events, but often relationships as well. Yet truth be told, one of the major advantages to actually being paid to write about the past is that it provides a fabulous excuse not to deal with the present....

She continues over at Native Intelligence, a spot you might want to keep an eye on for more new contributors and writing about L.A. At the Online Journalism Review at USC, editor Robert Niles put up an interview with me conducted over the phone last week. It covers the thinking behind LA Observed 2.0 and some of the other features planned. If I had realized it was going to run as a verbatim Q-and-A, I would have tried to be more coherent and organized (and to stop beginning replies with Well.)