This is much belated. There was a time on the internet when the words still crackled. When the blogs were not yet polished newsletters with branding guides and social media strategies, but more like kitchen table pamphlets scattered into the ether, sustained by the raw joy of writing and the sheer stubborn belief that words mattered.

For me, Calbuzz stood as one of those beacons. It was California politics served up with wit, irreverence, and a journalist’s nose for the absurd. Their mottos were "shooting the wounded" and more seriously "comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable." Phil Trounstine and Jerry Roberts never asked for permission to write the way they did. They simply did it, producing sharp analysis that was equal parts insider baseball and outsider satire.

I still remember clicking through those posts in the early aughts, marveling at how alive the writing felt. It was not perfect. It was not meant to be. But it was real. Those posts illuminated how power actually flowed in its messy human forms in ways that dry dull but important articles never could. One week it might be a serious take on redistricting, the next a gleeful takedown of some hapless politician’s spin. Calbuzz, like the best of that era’s blogosphere, made politics fun again without losing sight of the stakes.

Phil’s passing in 2022 was a reminder that those voices were more than words on a screen. They were people who cared enough about California’s messy democracy to keep the conversation alive. The archive notice remains a simple farewell to Phil Trounstine (1949–2022). The Calbuzz archive is still there, a record of devotion, a mix of bite and heart, satire and sincerity.

Looking back, I realize how much that moment shaped my own approach to writing. My later experiments, from reflections on California’s alternative paths to more recent blog wanderings, all draw, in one way or another, from that early spirit. Writing not as an academic exercise or a career move, but as a living conversation with whoever happens to be listening.

The early blogosphere was messy, yes, but it was alive with possibility. And in Calbuzz’s wry voice I still hear a call: do not write to impress, write to connect. Do not polish the rough edges too much, the edges are what make the thing real.

So here is my belated ode to Calbuzz, to Phil and Jerry, and to all the scribblers of that unruly age. You taught me that writing can be a form of civic play, a way of inhabiting democracy as more than a spectator sport. That is a lesson worth carrying forward, long after the RSS feeds have gone quiet.

This is much belated. There was a time on the internet when the words still crackled. When the blogs were not yet polished newsletters with branding guides and social media strategies, but more like kitchen table pamphlets scattered into the ether, sustained by the raw joy of writing and the sheer stubborn belief that words mattered.

For me, Calbuzz stood as one of those beacons. It was California politics served up with wit, irreverence, and a journalist’s nose for the absurd. Their mottos were "shooting the wounded" and more seriously "comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable." Phil Trounstine and Jerry Roberts never asked for permission to write the way they did. They simply did it, producing sharp analysis that was equal parts insider baseball and outsider satire.

I still remember clicking through those posts in the early aughts, marveling at how alive the writing felt. It was not perfect. It was not meant to be. But it was real. Those posts illuminated how power actually flowed in its messy human forms in ways that dry dull but important articles never could. One week it might be a serious take on redistricting, the next a gleeful takedown of some hapless politician’s spin. Calbuzz, like the best of that era’s blogosphere, made politics fun again without losing sight of the stakes.

Phil’s passing in 2022 was a reminder that those voices were more than words on a screen. They were people who cared enough about California’s messy democracy to keep the conversation alive. The archive notice remains a simple farewell to Phil Trounstine (1949–2022). The Calbuzz archive is still there, a record of devotion, a mix of bite and heart, satire and sincerity.

Looking back, I realize how much that moment shaped my own approach to writing. My later experiments, from reflections on California’s alternative paths to more recent blog wanderings, all draw, in one way or another, from that early spirit. Writing not as an academic exercise or a career move, but as a living conversation with whoever happens to be listening.

The early blogosphere was messy, yes, but it was alive with possibility. And in Calbuzz’s wry voice I still hear a call: do not write to impress, write to connect. Do not polish the rough edges too much, the edges are what make the thing real.

So here is my belated ode to Calbuzz, to Phil and Jerry, and to all the scribblers of that unruly age. You taught me that writing can be a form of civic play, a way of inhabiting democracy as more than a spectator sport. That is a lesson worth carrying forward, long after the RSS feeds have gone quiet.