Thursday, February 11, 2010
Dan Neil Leaving the Los Angeles Times
From: Neil, Dan
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 2:54 PM
To: yyeditall
Subject: Dan Neil on the bounce
Friends, colleagues, brothers and sisters,
In the past week or so people have come up to me and said words to the effect: “The Journal, huh? Sinking ship and all that?” And I just want to slam their heads in a car door.
I absolutely love this newspaper and I am immensely proud of my association with it. People who talk shit about the LA Times to me are going to find me in their grille in a major way.
Maybe you don’t know this story. In November 2002 I had just come through an awful divorce (we pronounce that DEE-vorce in North Carolina). I was sitting heartbroken and alone in a villa in the south of France, on some godforsaken travel assignment, contemplating the taste of gunpowder. Nobody knew where I was. The phone rang. It was former editor John Carroll, who had somehow tracked me down. He wanted me to come to Los Angeles and be the paper’s car critic.
Well, I said to him, as it happens my schedule has just opened up.
It was the beginning of the most wonderful professional experience of my life, the most fun, the most satisfying, the most intellectually challenging. This placed saved me. It made me.
It’s been a rough few years here, mainly because of the jackasses in Chicago who own us. To them I say, with as much gusto as I can muster in an email, fuck you.
On a happier note, there’s not a person in this building I do not like, if not love. The paper has more greatness ahead of it, and I’ll be watching from the east coast and rooting you on.
If you are able and inclined, there’s a beer call at Redwood tomorrow, around 5 pm. Hope to see you there.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Dan Neil
-30-
SOURCE: Kevin Roderick
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4 comments:
Best to you Dan. You've been a delight! I've been a car hound since I cried when we sold our Plymouth when I was 4 years old. Geez.
Well, it's Friday again, November 26th 2010, and with a certain ill-at-ease sense of anticipation I turn to the business section of the Los Angeles Times for Dan Neil's automotive review / commentary on the ways of the world. NOTHING!!! "Where is Dan Neil"! I search at the Times' website which yields nothing. I 'bing' him and AHAA! Mystery solved. I guess I'll be continuing my subscription to the Wall Street Journal after all.
For the last few years, I've looked to Dan Neil to reaffirm my prescient take on cars and the world. Hopefully, at WSJ, they'll call upon him to write a daily column in every section of the paper. Godspeed.
Allen Mostow
Neil's column on friday was the reading high point of my week. Be sure to look up his review of the Ducati 999, and the 2007 review of the Dodge Charger. This is a writer who proclaimed, "Fast is the kineasthic equivalent of beautiful." I may have to subscribe to the WSJ. Thanks, Dan! Best of luck.
Neil's column on friday was the reading high point of my week. Be sure to look up his review of the Ducati 999, and the 2007 review of the Dodge Charger. This is a writer who proclaimed, "Fast is the kineasthic equivalent of beautiful." I may have to subscribe to the WSJ. Thanks, Dan! Best of luck.
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