Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/18929
NOVEMBER 2010 THE BEST OF LONG BEACH 72 This is an old-fashioned story with a happy ending, right off the celluloid of the Silver Screen. And it even has a modern twist that could have been lifted from a groundbreaking sitcom. Tim Grobaty writes one of the city's most popular columns for the Long Beach Press-Telegram. But, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, "it's a column about nothing." Nothing indeed. But like Seinfeld's show, Grobaty's column manages to be on point with the little concerns we all have to face in our day-to-day existence. One day he might write about belligerent squirrels that are out to get him. The next he might tempt you to lay off your diet and indulge in a malt at a local diner. His seemingly bottomless wealth of ideas comes to him, he says, just through everyday life. "If it happens in my life, chances are excellent it will end up in my column." Grobaty has what most regard as one of the most enviable of jobs. He comes into the office. He writes his column. He leaves – whether for home or parts unknown where he spends time with friends, readers and potential subject matter. "It wasn't always like this," he said. "I started out as a copyboy. Really." In the age of computers and email, copyboys only exist in reruns of The Front Page or the fantasy world of Superman, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. But back in the day, the copyboy was a jack-of-all-trades. "The job had nothing to do with writing," Grobaty day in the life of… TIM GROBATY FACES & PLACES : DAY IN THE LIFE OF … WRITTEN BY CHERYL SCOTT PHOTOGRAPHED BY HARTONO TAI