tony pierce.com + mary!
busblog at gmail dot com

nothing in here is true

 


   Saturday, November 02, 2002  
while slash and ron wood posed infront of a private showing of fine art across the street from xbi's headquarters, i was fingering chopper one contemptating "testing" it to see if it could make it up to frisco so i could see tsar and then back down to los feliz to partake in ken and laura's day of the dead costume party when i heard the familar voice in my ear mail that said "simone."

i accepted the message and the voice said

Subject: Free laker ticket for tonight...amazing seats. call me, call me, call me.

Hey dork!! Listen, I don't have your cell #...and I thought that I might catch you at work. I have an extra ticket to the Laker game tonight...amazing seats in one of the suites. My cousin is six and bailed out last minute. Call my cell @ 323-555-0101 if you want to go.

Kisses Dahhhhhhhrling.

The lovely miss simone.

a car arrived and in it a beautiful dark skinned girl who looked like whitney houston waited for me with a greasy bag with the beautiful words fatburger printed on it and i recognized the woman, she was simones friend from caa, and she was an aquarius. i got in.

fatburger with chili and cheese, dr. pepper, seasoned fries and sweating next to the fully stocked bar was a large chocolate shake.

is this what everyone got waiting for them when the whistle blew on 5:30 on friday?

fuck.

drove down wilshire to k town and whitney i'd met before, her name wasnt whitney, though. it was, what was it? and there i saw it spelled out in gold dangling from her neck and who hasnt found that sexy as hell as it sparkles from the overhead passing streetlights getting their peek through the moonroof.

the car dropped us off at simones, i gave my top hat to the doorman who flipped it upside down so i could stuff my gloves in it and nodded and said, "mr. pierce."

we walked to the elevator and the young woman whispered, he reads your blog. and that explained everything.

simone had just arrived herself when we were greeted at the penthouse level, she put in millie jackson and the two ladies began to dance and i sat down flipping through the new mojo freshly removed from its plastic cover.

simone stirred up some drinks quickly for her man was about to arrive. our true host. hangar one vodka and riffraff for the ladies. bacardi neat for the gentleman.

i tore through the final 50 pages of white oleander and nearly finished but the ladies were going through several different combinations of clothes asking my advice switching up varietis of original miss simone jewlery designs, so needless to say it was distracting as i felt i was backstage in one of the milan fashion week tents, but who's complaining. simone turned up the knob and pointed at the stereo and sang along with millie and posed while she danced.

i said you really dont need to do that for me.

she said honey who said i was doing it for you.

her babydoll tshirt said

its all about me.

i had to pee.

this is possibly the finest thing ive ever read. thanks, bloviator

   Friday, November 01, 2002  


Tsar

Tsar
Hollywood Records, 2000

Ordinary Girl
(Whalen)

She never changes her mind
Loves him cuz he's so fine
Though she never tells him so
she loves him, oh.

Sometimes she feels so sad,
Other times feels twice as bad,
But when the tears are in her eyes...
she never cries.

Ordinary Girl,
I know, you're different
But I do believe it's love
Ordinary Girl
Wish I were different
But I'm a stranger in the world.
Ordinary Girl.

And when the night won't last,
Her mind moves much too fast.
And she nearly crashed her car,
when she broke a star.

Ordinary Girl.
I know, you're different.
But I do believe it's love.
Ordinary Girl.
Wish I, were different.
But I'm a stranger in the world.
Ordinary Girl.

Ordinary!

She waits for him to call.
But then she feels so small.
Though she never tells him so,
she loves him,
oh.

photo by wKen who reviewed last night's tsar show at the capitol garage, which sounds like it was a bummer on many levels, still ken gives a thumbs up to the band. (this, sir, is what i believe the slow song was.)
 
moxie picked me up right on time porsche revving in my circular driveway beeping at the security gate.

i walked down to the drive and she was cleaning out the back seat area of her targa. our pal marc weisbott was in the passenger seat jetlagged but looking like a million. he was dressed up as a weary canadian and obviously spent a lot of time and money on his costume. i shook his hand, always impressed by a journalist who got paychecks from the likes of the village voice.

moxie (pictured) floored it and left a nice skidmark on the brick driveway and sped through the iron gates.

took sunset east hugged a tight right at alvarado and in no time we were being valeted at casa de marc brown, a 17 story 50s office building that had been converted to artists lofts. the mc has always lived large and im talking plate glass windows super high ceilings, exposed walls, track lighting. minimalism at its finest.

upon arrival we saw transvestites dressed as men, women dressed as ghouls, quite a few dot com casualties, wizards, even a very large man dressed like anna nicole smith with pill bottles in her hair instead of curlers. it was awesome.

i was invited to mix a drink for a lovely lass and i fixed one up for her and made a spiced rum and coke for myself.

happy halloween, captain morgan.

happy halloween, jack from the white stripes.

me and marc go back. how far back? way back.

he was the man who first showed me the world wide web. he also turned me onto some of my favorite bands like the muffs and monster magnet. if you look at his cd collection you will go home and look at yours and want to punch it for being so lame. same goes for his clothes. same goes for his life. very few men have made me jealous with their lifestyles but marc brown tops my short list.

because he's a great host, marc (not pictured) invited us to follow anna nicole downstairs one flight where she lives. turns out she lives with another man and together, in real life, they are interior designers, and it was totally amazing what these gentlemen have done with their 1,600 foot rectangle. it was like night and gay. buddah head statues, faux marble floors, luxurious furniture and window dressings. recessed lighting.

it was hard to chose which we liked better, the german influenced grays blacks and whites of the mc's pad or the browns and greens and whites of the fellas downstairs. we went back upstairs to marc's pad and i felt more at home there. i felt like i could rollerskate up there like in "betty blue" which, i believe, is one of the fine aspects of having a loft. why turn a loft into an apartment when it's perfect just being a loft?

the views were breathtaking. long, sweeping panoramas of downtown la, complete with the police helicopters shining their floodlights upon the ruffians near staples center. it looked straight out of terminator. i was mesmerized.

so marc brought us upstairs to the roof where the wizards had congregated to smoke.

even on a roof moxie attracts attention. of all the beauty of hollywood and koreatown and downtown all eyes were on the nancy sinatra outfit of madison and one courageous wizard trekked across the roof to offer us a puff or two of his "cigarette". moxie blushed and refused the generous offer. i followed her lead. hugs, not drugs, harry pothead. pounded my rum and threw the cup off the roof at the crackheads in the park twenty flights below.

marc had a dj on the wheels of steel who busted out the slow jams and even threw in a little Toto that brought back memories of halloweens of the past.

when i got home i found a message on my machine from my mom who said that she was remembering when my sister and i were little kids and she would help paint our faces and make costumes and she wondered if i remembered any of those nights and of course i do.

who could forget.

strangely none of the kids from my neighborhood came around for the mini tootsie rolls that i had waiting for them.

perhaps my home was decorated too scary for them.

maybe it was the creepy church next door.

maybe life is super different these days than they were when i was a boy when you could knock on any door in the neighborhood and get a treat.

oh well, sometimes change is good. if moxie and weisblog and i drove 20 minutes west instead of 20 minutes east we would have seen Pink sing for free on santa monica blvd.

i think our party was way better.

and because i was buzzing so hard and my arms had had the night off before i laid myself to rest, i whipped up a quickie little photo essay for your costumed posteriors that goes a little something like this hit it.

and for those of you into politics, may i suggest: daily instigator
 
theres a few girls that i go out with that i never write about. i do that because theyre famous celebrities and their girlfriends would be pissed if they knew they were slumming with the likes of me.

one of them really likes mannish guys, the type that i can be sometimes but i am rarely on dates.

in real life i have a stubbly beard and a beer belly and a messy apartment and i have sports on all the time.

but on dates im well shaven, the maid picks up after me, i laugh at all her jokes, i keep my distance, i bring roses and wine, i pull out the chair, and kiss the back of her hand. all the things we gentlemen were trained to do in boarding schools in switzerland. n'est pas?

this one particlur model i have gone out with a number of times and shes never really seen the man inside that i am who is a brute and a cheat and a bum and a fucker. i can be mean and dirty and masculine (in a good way) and animal and every time im with her i think i would like to show her that part of me but all that comes out is this very polite quiet shy happy person because im very happy whenever im with her and its murphys law cuz her best friend tells me that she hates wimpy dorks like that.

one of the best moments in last week's anna nicole show was when anna was meeting up with a matchmaker who was asking the texas playmate what sort of man she was looking for.

225 lb. anna said, "someone who's arms i can jump into and he can make me feel small, like a little girl."

and i thought, shaq is taken, baby.

and ive heard this request from the opposite sex before and the only person who i know i have made felt that way is ashley.

and i wondered if that meant that i should just give in and have what i have and take the princess in front of me who loves me and wants me but who im really wrong for - and try to make it work out - or if i should just keeping on moving dont stop like soul II soul.

sergi fedorov wouldnt even think these thoughts anna k whispered my way, he would just take whats in front of him and take whats behind him and take whats next to him and take. hes a man but thats what i got sick of, she told me in morse code tapped on my palm as we held hands in the back of a limo on the way from the airport early this morning.

and i fucking hated his stuble, she tapped and kissed my silky smooth cheek.

azarock
 
the train has turned into the nappytime express lately. everyone's asleep. everyone either has their head down in their chest or their head back and mouth open or their head over to the side resting against the graffitied plastic window pane.

no one is pretty. least of all me. tall skinny girl isn't there. the good morning good morning oh im so happy you're with me this morning conductor isn't around any more. the super professional olde man conductor isn't around much.

the subway is sad in the mornings nowadays like a pumpkin patch on november first with all the cold scarred gourds fresh with morning dew that looks like tears.

it's okay fallen scarecrow with stolen straw hat. it's okay indian corn half gnawed by rats.

it's okay wig store and halloween superstore where everything is now fifty percent off.

theres a warehouse in tustin where you'll be reunited with all your holiday friends and the rats wont have their way with you, just little mice and dust and loneliness.

santa is coming and all of last years leftovers will be dusted off and released to fill the aisles of drug stores and main streets next week since theres only fifty four more shopping days left till the celebration of our savoirs birth.

me, i spent halloween with moxie and marc weisblog who flew down from canada to party with ken and laura layne for tonights day of the dead fiesta. but last night we partied with mc brown in his badass echo park loft.

we'lll talk more about that later.

right now lets just tell the left over snack size candies that it's okay.

its okay candy corn and brown and orange felt stained with applesauce at jo-anne fabrics.

it's okay glow in the dark skeleton marked down to $1.99 made of incredible plastic that allows it to stick right on your window.

it's okay plastic jackolanter empty of treats with broken handle.

it's okay fake blood hardened cuz it was opened.

it's okay.

weisblogg

   Thursday, October 31, 2002  
the superstars were out last night in hollywood did you see them? there was winona and dorothy, spiderman and heidi, anna nicole and bobby trendy, there were sluts and pimps, 80s chicks and 60s mods.

everyone drove their silver shifters to the lava lounge on labrea last night to take in the dulcet sounds of americas number one rock group tsar.

and no one left disappointed.

basart and my attorney and shannon and this girl who works at the beverly hills starbucks met at el compadre for flaming moes and burritos pre show, then i picked up karisa and we jetted to the show and found tsar backstage drinking krystal and complaining because their m&m's hadn't been sorted.

the boys looked terrific and were gracious hosts as the backstage area slowly filled with the likes of moxie, ted danson, tv's ed bagley jr., and jeweler to the stars, my exgirl jeanine.

moxie, by the way looked radiant, dressed in black, skin so elegantly pale that her blond locks glistened in comparasion under the stars of the backstage smoking area. is there anything cooler than a single girl arriving in a porsche and tossing the keys to the valet after they have opened the door?

perhaps.

the lava lounge isn't built for rock history and im sure in the future people will look back at all hallows eve and say "how on earth did the mighty Tsar play such a teensy place like this?"

if any of you are old enough to remember the classic alex cox film Repo Man, theres a scene where the Circle Jerks are squeezed on a tiny stage in a small bar. crank up the heat, put witch hats on os and ali and jeanine and paolo and you might get the gist.

the lovely simone was there in a shirt that was ripped in all the right places and i wanted to look closer but no matter what i do theres still a catholic boy stuck in me so i blushed and ordered a pair of kamikazes for karisa and i.

many men dressed as ugly women bobbed their heads to the new tunes. i even saw a guy who dressed like the white stripes but did not look as good as i will look for he did the white shirt red pants thing which is way too easy. mine will be all red.

dylan was there trying to hide behind glasses and a fake beard but disguises don't mean nothing we know who's inside.

tsar played old tunes fast tunes, slow tunes.

because the lava lounge isn't used to rock shows they made the boys keep it down which was like weird. i found myself uncomfortable hearing all the lyrics. as clever as they were i wanted more guitars, more noise, more feedback. more curtain less wizard. whalen was showing all his secrets and there are so many more sonic youth notes in a dan kern solo that were trapped in the marshall half stack restrained at 2 that all we heard were the major ones, which did the trick and impressed starbucks girl but so much depends on the red rockbarrell filled with fuck for the chickens.

give me decibels or give me death.

this was nearly an mtv unplugged event but i'll take anything i can from these fine young fellows who i am proud to call my friends.

we all left drunk and happy and satisfied but wanting.

heidi walked outside, pulled a marlboro from behind a pigtail and dug around her bag and a pudgy spiderman tapped her shoulder and lit her up and we all drifted back to our mansions and penthouse suites happy little pollywogs, warm, buzzed, and giggly.

anorexorcism
 
i took down the comments yesterday and in came a bunch of fan mail. i took them down because the service i was using was having problems and that, in turn led to my page loading very slow.

thanks for hanging in there with me.

and thanks for writing all the nice letters.

lately i have been receiving a lot of love from the college girl demographic.

one young lady likes to write me erotic emails. you know who you are, and i love you.

thank you.

thank you so much.

thank you from the bottom of my heart.

if i was the wind i would find you and kiss you.

but i am ten times your age so i will just thank you in my blog.

another 18 yr old from usc wrote me to tell me that if i got the job from the la times that she would be my intern.

i told her that the la times would never hire me and even if they did she should intern for a real writer.

she replied with a photo of a girl, who, if it is her, is a knockout, and a message telling me "i don't want to be an intern for someone else. i want to be an intern for you."

oddly, i could use an intern. she could fact check my ass. copy edit. go through the email. give me story ideas that i could riff from. and find me pictures of our president trying to use binoculars, which are tricky devices.

and all the old posts in the archives are missing pictures. i would love an intern to put those pictures on my server so that they'd stay up forever. or in the meantime put new pictures up in their place.

ah, luxury.

but what would an intern want from me?

my knowledge?

i interned at mtv a long time ago. i worked for chris connelly's movie show. he was super nice. i drove him somewhere because he didnt have a drivers liscense. i still dont think he does. i did learn a lot at mtv. i learned that you work your ass off over there.

the bush picture that is above was sent to me by a young girl who's going to OU. is that oklahoma? i think so. who knows? i cant find that picture anywhere on Reuters. i suppose thats the liberal media again, suppressing a picture of our president being a dumbass. thank you kristin.

all reuters has of that day is the picture on the left.

busblog coming through for your asses, thanks to readers like you.

i also got an email from my former editor amy.

now some people think that i cannot be edited. that is so not true. if i respect someone i actually love being edited. im not 21 any more. i appreciate a second pair of eyes. a different point of view. an educated collaborator. i enjoy the editing process. im not attatched to anything that i write.

amy has mucho experience in the newspaper biz and even worked for abcnews.com. she says that i have what it takes and she said that i shoulda linked to the times yesterday so they could see how much traffic i get.

times, i get about 600-1,000 readers a day.

dont be impressed or not impressed by traffic. if i wrote about the middle east all day i'd have twice as many readers. if i put porn on here i'd get 6 times the readers. the first photo essay that i did of anna kournikova got more hits than all of my photo essays put together because it was a discussion of anna's alleged nude pictures in penthouse magazine.

it was a good photo essay, as good as any of the others. but it had naked pics. so guess what. all of the horny guys from around the world linked to it on their sites and on their message boards, and blogs, and sent emails to each other linking to it.

i got 2 million hits in 2 days. 3 million in 4 days. in fact if you type in "anna kournikova nude" into google my sixth month old photo essay is currently holding steady at number four on the list.

those hits don't mean that i was a good writer. it means that everyone wanted to see if penthouse really had nude pics of tennis's sexiest female player.

be impressed that a blog of a guy with no money no car no girlfriend and a thankless job can get a thousand people a day to his blog despite the fact that he interviews escalators and kisses no one's ass on the blogosphere.

im impressed by that thousand. im impressed that people will read something that isnt xrated or news-related, or scandelous, and probably not even true.

i want the times or whoever wants me to be their blogger to hire me because i write well and i have an imagination and the ability to bust a rhyme or tell a good joke in the middle of a narritive. i want them to hire me because i'm not like everyone else and because i can see this city in a different way, a positive way.

perhaps i still have a bit of the 21 year idealism in me. sue me.

amy also sent me a book yesterday called It's Not Carpal Syndrome. i know what i have is repetitive stress. and not from writing this blog but from doing the job that i will soon be transfered away.

but whatever it is is killing me right now.

so thanks for all your cards and letters and books.

thanks for saying that you'd be part of a letter-writing campaign on my behalf.

thanks for telling me all your secrets and telling me that you'd work for me for free.

right now i just want you to be happy in your lives and keep reading my page.

i dont want to convince anyone of anything. i would prefer them to make their decisions on their own.

happy halloween,

tony

hbo3
 
tony pierce!

jam master jay?

yup yup.

but, aren't you dead?

gone but not forgotten, my young brotha.

yeah, me and karisa were driving to the tsar show last night and we heard it on the news.

we all go sometimes, yesterday was my day. it's all good.

wow, jam master jay, you're sure taking this well.

bro, i'm cold chillin in heaven right now. i just had a tequila sunrise with jimi hendrix.

but you were in the studio making a new record!

lets keep it real. no one really cared about us after "raising hell."

i bought "tougher than leather."

and when was the last time you listened to it?

good point.

we were the kings of rap. then the beastie boys came up, cool j, then gangsta rap and we were through. at least we had our day in the sun, and people know who made the first crossover: dmc.

"walk this way" was brilliant.

gotta give it up to rick rubin and aerosmith for that too, you know.

some would say that that collaboration is what helped aerosmith's comeback.

we both helped each other. we needed a big hit, we loved their records. it was a perfect match. sorta like you and this blog.

what's heaven like, jay?

great music everywhere. you get to fly. everything's edible. you dont have to poop. that blew me away. no pooping, unless you want to, but you dont really need to. when you do it turns into a fruit cake and sinks down to earth.

really?

lots of good pinball machines. swimming pools. movie stars.

do they play rap up there.

okay, theres a big escalator. then you get off it and theres a big tram. then theres a ski lift. then theres a helicopter ride. then theres a flying bus. then theres a 747. and on the way up you get to meet people from lots of other worlds. planets other than earth. the whole time youre singing cuz you're going to heaven and everyone knows it. and the weirdest thing happens. you can remember all the lyrics to all the songs you've ever heard. and when people recognized me, everyone started singing run-dmc tunes.

with no shoe strings in em

i did not win em

i bought em off the Ave with the tags still in em

i like to sport em

that's why I bought em

a sucker tried to steal em

so I caught em

and I thwart em

and I walk down the street and I bop to the beat

with Lee on my legs and adidas on my feet

we'll miss you jam master jay.

no you wont. our music will live forever.

say hi to kurt cobain for me.

he's right here, we're playing ms. pacman. they have cocktail angels that give you free quarters for the machines. kurt is throwing you the peace sign.

okay, well so long, jam master jay.

up here you dont say that.

what do you say?

aloha.

aloha, jay.

aloha, tony.

kool keith
 



Run-DMC

Greatest Hits
Def Jam

Jam Master Jay

Kick off shoes jump on the jock
Listen to the Jam Master as he starts to rock
His name is Jay and he's on his way
To be the best DJ in the US of A

J a y are the letters of his name
Cutting and scratching are the aspects of his game
So check out the Master as he cuts these jams
And look at us with the mics in our hands
Then take a count 1 2 3
Jam Master Jay Run D.M.C.

He's Jam Master Jay the big beat blaster
He gets better cause he knows he has to
In '84 he'll be a little faster
And only practice makes a real Jam Master

We're live as can be but we're not singing the blues
We got to tell all y'all the good news
The good news is that there is a crew
Not 5, not 4, not 3, just 2
2 MC's who are claiming the fame
And all other things won't be the same
Beacause it's about time for a brand new group
Run-D.M.C. to put you up on the scoop
We make the fly girls scream in ecstacy
We rock the freshest rhymes at a party
We put all the fellas in a daze
It's everyone that we amaze
And we got the master of a disco scratch
There's not a break that he can't catch
Jam Master Jay that is his name
And all wild DJ's he will tame
Behind the turntables is where he stands
Then there is the movement of his hands
So when asked who's the best, y'all should say:
"Run-D.M.C. and Jam Master Jay"

Jam Master Jay is the one in charge
It's up to him to rock beats that are truly large
He is the master of the scratch and cut
So move your arms, so move your legs
So won't you move your butt

We're not talking ground, we're not talking sky
We're not talking low, we're not talking high
We're not talking big, we're not talking small
We want all of the people on off the wall
We're not talking night, we're not talking day
But we're talking bout Jam Master Jay

- originally on the self titled debut "Run-DMC"

   Wednesday, October 30, 2002  
hi Yao Ming.

hi, tony pierce!

well, today is your first real game in the nba, how does it feel?

pretty trippy.

okay, so you're 7'5" hows the weather up there.

[ silence ]

did you hear my question?

no the soundwaves didnt reach me yet. see, i'm that tall.

now, i've got a picture of philly guard Aaron McKie trying to drive the lane on you. How tall is Aaron?

i dont know, i think maybe 6'5".

thats what a guy looks like who's only a foot shorter than you?

think about it, you're 5'10", tone, ever meet a guy who's really 6'10"? they're huge.

what do you mean "really"?

come on, everyone knows that the nba stretches the truth about their 7-footers. Howard Stern is 6'6" and Magic Johnson is supposed to be 6'9", but when Howard was a guest on Magic's old talk show, Howard looked a little taller than Magic.

so youre saying Magic is really just 6'6"?

maybe shorter.

and you're really 7'5"?

yup. we dont lie in China.

about height.

about anything. it's dishonorable.

don't make me bring up taiwan. or tibet. or sweatshops.

bring up anything you want. i dont care.

ok, that dude from Yan Can Cook. i hear his accent is fake.

it's television, who cares, he cooks his ass off, most the time just using chopsticks.

well i have no gripes with the chinese. i once dated a girl from china. very sweet.

i once dated a girl from hollywood. very sour. get it? sweet and sour. now im the comedian.

who's your favorite hollywood movie star?

jackie chan.

who's your favorite metal band?

loudness.

who's your favorite comedian.

eddie murphy.

really?

no, wait, jackie chan.

how old are you?

22.

ever kiss an american girl?

not yet.

ever kiss a Black girl?

not yet.

want to?

if she's nice, sure.

what do you think about Shaq?

i respect him but i will have to destroy him.

i hear you dont have any defensive skills.

i hear you're not really 109.

touche.

okay i gotta go count my millions.

all right, thanks Yao for your time.

no prob, tony. i love your blog. i hope you interview me later.

are you kidding? the readers might see more of you here than they saw of anna kournikova.

wow. thanks, bro. by the way, the weather? it's rainy.

[ spits on me ]

keep your hands up on defense.

will do! but hey, no comments? what gives?

oh, YACCS is having technical difficulties, so i took down the comments till they get their stuff together.

should we email you if we have love to give to you?

yes, please.

hope the Times hires you soon.

me too!

bye Yao Ming, rookie of the year candidate.

hahaha, adios tony pierce, big dork of the year winner.

intricate plot
 
dear los angeles times

hi, my name is tony pierce.

i would like to be your first full time blogger.

since the dawn of mankind humans have wanted to tell the story of their lives.

i'm no different.

like you, i grew up in chicago, moved to la, and took over.

i moved here a little earlier than you did, i came out here the day after my high school graduation and got my first job at a mcdonalds in santa monica.

i went to santa monica college, met a punk rock girl from malibu and lost my virginity in ventura.

i transferred to uc santa barbara and got a degree in literature from the college of creative studies.

there i worked for the college paper, the daily nexus, which, like you, had no real competition. i learned a lot.

our paper won every award that a college paper could win while i was there. i even won best arts and entertainment editor, beating schools like usc, ucla, and uc berkeley-- schools that had journalism programs and advisors.

the nexus didnt have any of those things. it was magical.

after college many of my friends moved out to prague and started a newspaper. my only regret in life is that i didnt go out there with them. instead i stayed in santa barbara with my girlfriend and landed a job with a $50 billion international tech company who i represented.

after that i worked for the start up, webtv.

they got bought by microsoft, who i stayed on with but then quit to sell hot dogs, garlic fries and chablis for the san francisco giants.

after that i moved back to LA and hired 400+ people for an internet start up in westwood and when the dot com boom boomed i started editing for the tv network that i am currently employed at.

the whole time ive been writing and writing and figuring out this world wide web craze, and now i am starting to get noticed in the world of blogging.

all blogging is is a way for normal people to easily express themselves on the web without a lot of fancy software.

typically, serious bloggers update their page several times a day. like a columnist who just writes and writes and writes.

i don't know what the philosophy of the Times is, but i know that i would have loved to read Royko several times a day, and at night, and on the weekends even if he just wrote a little blurb on a sunday night saying "i just watched the sopranos. wtf was that?"

wouldn't you?

let rosenberg get into the details of tv. sometimes it's nice just to have your average guy on the street give his two cents.

i think i would make a great guy on the street.

my idea for the Times Blog is to have a page on latimes.com where i would update several times a day and once or twice at night and let the people of the world know what life is really like in LA.

on the bus today a man with a walker recognized a man and they said

hey buddy.

oh, hey man

see that laker game last night?

yeah, they lost huh.

well they don't have much of a team. shaq is hurt and foxy is suspended from that fight.

what about that new guy.

yeah, with the funny name, where's he from, europe?

no, africa.

all this was going on while i was sitting next to a transvestite who was flipping through a trade school work book titled "Introduction of Computers and Microsoft Windows"

i looked over her shoulder to see how much i knew about computers and windows.

the first paragraph said "a computer can be broken up into four parts, external hardware, internal hardware, input devices, and output devices."

she had this part of a sentence underlined "software, otherwise known as programs..."

we were driving south down fairfax right past santa monica blvd.

i love normal life. i also love the myth of hollywood. i would like to write about everyday life, but also cover the movie premieres, the sporting events, the rock clubs, the beaches, television. everything.

i'd probably write about everything except politics. is that okay?

okay, my fifteen minute break is almost over. so let me wrap this up.

times, i love you. i know my friends are critical of you. i am critical of you sometimes, but i want to make a truce. i say if you hire someone like me you will bridge the gap that just might be out there between the "mainstream media" and the world of blogging.

a few months ago i challenged the web to link me on 100 different sites. i gave the world a month to do it. i got 100 links in three weeks. then this summer i asked for money. the readers gave me enough money to fly to aruba and back.

imagine the traffic i could generate if i had a real blog on a real newspaper's website. and imagine what would happen if readers from around the world finally had a chance to see los angeles, the city of their dreams, through a tiny little window of happiness and love.

and sarcasm.

and celebrity interviews.

and photo essays.

via a young single man who takes a bus to work who finally was given a break by his hometown paper.

i bet you in a month i could get 1,000 links and the entire web will be abuzz from the groundbreaking move the LA Times made by signing up one of the web's most loved and innovative and creative bloggers.

if you want to see news blogs, you can see them on the wall street journal dot com, slate, salon, msnbc.com has six blogs, and fox news used bloggers for a daily online column (even though the writing was good, it wasn't a good idea cuz you never knew who you'd get.)

i don't want to do a news blog. i want to do an LA blog that focuses on life in LA.

i don't think that any one could write one better than me. maybe welch could or layne could or rabbit could or amy could or ben or kate, but none of them could do the photo essays like me, none of them could write about dating in hollywood like me, and none of them ride the subway.

so i win.

:)

email me, please. im serious.

p.s. yes i do plan on changing the world.

but in a sweet way that everyone, like my mom, would be proud of.

p.p.s. no one pps's enough these days. anyhow, even if you see a diamond in the rough here it's still a diamond. bukowski basically starved for decades while he lived in LA. i dont want to be like that. anyway. think diamond in the rough. or maybe just think diamond.

p.p.p.s. i dont think ive seen a ppps since highschool. told ya, innovative.

los angeles times
 
tsar plays tonight at a secret locale in hollywood. super close to hollywood blvd. super close to where jeanine's uncle used to be an ob/gyn for hollywood prosititutes in a strip mall. super close to hollywood high.

its tsar's double super secret rock tour:

Thurs Oct 31 Capitol Garage, Sacramento, CA
Fri Nov 1 Stork Club, Oakland, CA
Sat Nov 2 Plant 51, San Jose, CA
Sun Nov 3 Red Devil Lounge, San Francisco, CA
Sat Nov 9 Lucky's, Bakersfield, CA

are they the greatest unheard band in america?

yes.

are they the coolest unheard most rockingly band in the universe.

you betcha.

if you see tsar in concert will a sunbeam come down from the heavens and blind you and convert you and you "get it" immediately and you tap your little foot and want to kiss a girl on the cheek?

'fraid so.

time to get it together, people. and northern california, we are sorry that we took the world series away from you so in return we give you our most precious sons this weekend to rock your little worlds.

dont miss em.

jeff solomon

   Tuesday, October 29, 2002  
today is the opening day of the nba



my prediction? pain.

 

happy birthday, winona

thanks, tony.

what are you going to do for your birthday today, baby?

i'm gonna sit in the beverly hills courthouse and keep my mouth shut.

gonna steal anything?

nope.

what if something shiny catches your eye?

nope, no stealing today. dont hafta anyway.

whys that?

because today is the day everyone gives me something.

what do you want for your birthday, winona ryder?

i want a sexy 109-year-old man to give me a shoulder rub.

is that all?

then i want him to give me a foot massage while kitaro plays.

hmmm, it's your birthday. anything else?

then he can wash my feet in a bucket of oranges and water and flowers.

thats it?

then i'd like him to kiss my feet with short little caresses and tell me im beautiful.

you are beautiful.

[whispers] no say that at the end, and mean it.

but i do mean it.

you do?

yes.

aw tony, you're the best.

you can steal anything of mine you want winona.

if i did, would you promise to search me?

is today really your birthday?

yes.

then, yes, i would search you.

gotta look hard.

okay.

amy
 
yes, we know this is wrong and if i had the power to apologize for it i would.

disneyland is not the place one begins a victory parade that snakes its way through anaheim, but this is what happens when a mouse owns a team, and this is what happens when no one buys it from them before they win the championship.

it's a blight to humanity. it's another black eye to baseball. it's repulsive. it's girlie. it's soft. it's weak.

it has nothing to do with baseball, a game that is played by men on grass with metal cleats and wooden bats.

it's okay to be bandwagon fans of the angels and lifelong enemies of disney corp.

the angels do play in anaheim, home of disneyland, which is owned by disney who owns damn near everything in anaheim, which is why it's such a beautiful city.

disney owns The Anaheim Pond where the second leg of the parade went through. It owns Edison Field where the celebration congregated.

It even owns my favorite rock group Tsar.

hurts me to type that. even if it wasn't for the carpal.

to parade the world champs through a theme park diminishes the achievement to a level of fiction, not fairy tale. another smiling face to throw confetti at like they were dwarves, clowns, or cartoon renderings of fake heroes.

call me dramatic but david eckstein, all 5'6" of him, is a flesh and blood rendering of a real hero. nearly traded to the white sox, told all his life he wasn't enough, was the spark plug and emotional leader of your anaheim angels.

he deserves better than to be seen alongside the likes of Goofy.

disney, im sure, are selling rally monkeys in their theme parks, but that trophy isn't theirs. disney didn't dig into their vault and spend massive amounts on free agents last winter. they treated the angels like a step child and now they want to bask in the glory of the ball, and because why again? because they let jeff edmonds go?

the x factor wasn't the multibillion dollar ownership who has controlling interest in abc tv, espn, touchstone films, miramax, buena vista, and many others.

the x factor was a monkey.

body language might mean something in the rest of the world, but in southern california it's all about what you wear on your body. when michael eisner accepted the world series trophy while sporting an old school mickey mouse tshirt, he couldnt have said it any better.

the back of his tshirt should have said, "no matter what you do, angels, you're unloved, unwanted, and currently a cute plaything for the house of mouse. thank you for the free publicity, but you will be sold to the highest bidder like a beanie baby on ebay."

maybe the back of the tshirt did say that, which is why mike had a blazer on.

far be it from me to rain on the victory parade. the angel fans deserve their day in the sun, which is why i'm glad that the big Ed is far enough out of the shadow of the magik kingdumb.

up yours
 
last night a bunch of us went over to palermo a fun family style italian place in the middle of the hip part of vermont ave in los feliz.

you'll see cops sitting there sharing a pizza, armenian families twirling spaghetti, cool kids draining bottles of wine one after another. they give you pizza bread when you sit down that really looks like little slices of pizza. they give you garlic bread.

if they dont give you your soup, they'll give you a bailey's on the rocks to go along with your veal.

mmmmm veal.

they have 8x10 glossys of celebs on the walls, some you might have even heard of.

walls full of bottles of wine and wine and wine. even a few tvs for your monday night football enjoyment.

i was surrounded by good friends and we talked about how the russians should have handled the chechen rebels who took over that theatre. the consensus was if you're going to gas a theatre of opiates into a crowd of 700, have a bunch of ambulances waiting outside and a large supply of the serum on hand.

ruskies. no wonder a non-war crushed em.

we sat in the little ante-area that had a balcony overlooking us. it made you feel like you were in a little corner of roma with your best girl, minus the dirty pigeons and tourists.

afterwards we converged on my bachelor pad and drank assorted beverages. os loves my cuban rum as much as i do, so it's always nice to share that with him. layne brought over a perfect bottle of red. kitty bukkake brought over a fresh loaf of zuccinni bread.

i drank beer as we watched the sopranos. weird ass episode.

seemed like everyone smoked. because theyre polite they went outside to smoke but i told them that in my house my friends can do whatever they want, so then they smoked inside, where they belonged.

when kitty left and we realized that we were all dudes, someone asked me to put in some porn.

always one to fulfil the requests of my visitors, i selected something from playboy tv.

it was met with loud disdain.

i replaced it with something a little more spicy.

that didnt please the fellas either.

then i put in something downright disgusting.

it shut them up for a few minutes.

then someone yelled, "why are there so many dicks on the screen? i want pretty girls!"

the weakness in my collection was revealed. not a lot of lesbian love in my cabinet of smut.

one drunken guest bitched until 230am and then i had to kick everyone out.

some of us had to work in the morning.

conrad

   Monday, October 28, 2002  
ashley takes halloween seriously. so seriously that she flew to vegas to see her sisters, get her hair and nails done, and go shopping at her favorite costume store and picked up exactly what she wanted.

theres something nice about being with someone who knows what they want.

if ashley likes you she loves you. if she holds your hand and she likes how it feels she'll tell you right there. if shes mad at you she'll yell. if you bummed her out, she'll cry. she's not a great bullshitter. she doesnt kiss people's asses without a purpose, and in most cases, she has no purpose. she wants to be with who she wants to be with and thats it.

me, im the best liar of all. so i try to keep that superpower to strangers on the street and for the busblog. if i like you i'll talk to you. if i dont, i wont talk to you. i'll raise my voice when im happy. if im really happy i'm quiet. thats sorta fucked up, but after a while people get it.

ashley loves my hands. she says that theyre made of magic. she wants to be touched at all times. it doesnt matter where. some girls when you touch them for too long they'll push you away. ashley has never pushed me away. ever. in that sense, we're perfect. there was a movie a long time back called Gregory's Girl. i think it was british. gregory finally found his gurl and he said that the earth rotates fast and you have to dance or else you'll fall off. i think you should hold hands.

it seems like whenever ashley is mad at me she's in the bathroom or it's 3:30 in the morning where all the neighbors can hear. and she says the worst things. things that if you overheard them out of context you'd think i was the worst person ever.

i am the worst person ever but not like how she verbalizes it.

ashley doesnt eat much. doesnt like crazy foreign foods. doesnt like any of the music i play for her. she thinks im dumb. shes right.

it's hard to believe sometimes that im almost a hundred years older than her because she is really smart. we can talk all day. still she gets jealous over the simplest things and that makes me wonder if she even knows me.

it makes me think that in a pastlife she was my exwife.

my other pastlife exwife: tanya
 
do you know i love you? i do. my fingers are numb from taking the weekend off and suddenly having to grip the stick of chopper one and typing up reports as it takes me home via autopilot and i don't dare tell this new division of my ailment less they quit this special training and bring in a man half my age to replace me and send me down to the evidence room with the ladies and the retirees, but being 109 sometimes brings you to your knees.

meesh and simone and mr. know it all and i jetted back to simones penthouse after drinks on friday night and we cracked open several different types of vodka.

meesh likes to make big tall glasses of love and it's weird having three libras in a room because we're balance and love and beauty and miracles and i was none of the above that night as the photographic evidence suggests, i was just there. someone for the ladies to dress up like barbies, but i didn't mind. you wouldta either.

simone went through her closet of gifts from suitors and entered the wing where the furs were stored. we tried on minks, and beavers, and more minks. some were fake. some were not. i couldn't tell the difference, they all fit me a bit snug.

chuck sang "fat man in a little coat" as the ladies laughed and cuban 33s spun in the wheels of steel while right outside the window on a hidden patio a fountain bubbled and i could of sworn it was rain.

me and chuck were far from being the stars of the show. it was all about the ladies who had enough swagger and grace and energy for the both of us. if it was a doubledate it woulda been a high school boy's fantasy, but it wasn't. the ladies only had eyes for the man with the leather appointed tahoe and this is the busblog, as you know.

i kept quiet for most of the night, which might stun some of those of you who know me but i swear theres so many different tonys. and when im overlooking the city in a place like simone's theres not much more a guy can add to a conversation that zips through topics faster than a woman speeding through the yellow pages while not having a good grasp on the alphabet. so me and chuck just chilled and like catholics stood when we were instructed, spoke when it said so and got on our knees when the music ended.

i wish.

as the night turned into day, meesh laid down on the couch and we talked and said that we'd miss each other. she's moving to aspen to be with her true love: freedom. she'll meet a rich young doctor and you might see her in first class and recognize her and if you do say hi for me too.

simone and chuck were in the laundry room taking advantage of the lack of competition for the machines so i asked meesh if she wanted me to put a blanket over her. she said no. then i asked her if i wanted me to put my mink coat on her and she had her eyes closed and smiled.

and when i closed the door she looked like an asian deb on her mummy's couch with her grandmother's fur, surrounded by flickering candles throwing shawdows on the bronze statues not at all affected by the opened french window.

some people might get nervous walking down wilshire in the mist in the wee hours looking over their shoulder for a cab and not finding one, but i don't.

this, after all, is the city of angels.

and the streets and the sidewalks and the alleys and the condos are filled with beauty at all hours.

meesh
 
my man stuart found me the pic of reggie sanders getting thunderswapped. thank you stuart.

do some people get front row access to game seven who don't deserve it, like our miss heidi who was removed from the game after she added insult to injury? yes, especially in LA.

for example, is John Travolta really an Angel fan? is he really a Mike Eisner fan? how much did Eisner pay him to sit next to him? and while we're at it, is Travolta the biggest name that Eisner could find to sit by him?

me, i would want a chick to hug me when my team that i'm about to sell, wins the world series in the seventh game.

kirsten dunst? yes, i think she'd do.

certainly theres a hot chick in all of LA who wouldnt want to sit in the owner's box for the climatic game.

invite hef, bro. maybe he knows where to find some ladies.

if i was disney there would be no way that i would sell the angels now.

i know a lot of people would say that this is the best time to sell a club, but i disagree.

the angels are all young, all under contract, the park is going to sell out over the next few years. they completely own the yankees. most of that team still has some of their baby teeth.

the angels, barring a terrible tragedy know exactly how much theyre going to pay the world champs, and practically how much they can make off them in the next few years.

plus youre gonna make a bundle on rally monkey nonsense next year and the year after.

thundersticks, collector thundersticks, designer thundersticks, special edition thundersticks.

and i know, disney thundersticks.

yeah, i guess theres no reason any one would want to have a few million people flooding the park buying all sorts of angels merch. disney doesnt know anything about merchandising.

they should probably sell.

plus that manager of their seems like a hothead and would probably do nothing but embarrass a squeaky clean corporation like the mouse.

and that eckstein character looks shifty.

i dont trust him.

but what do i know?

i think they're a starter away from a real dynasty.

stuart!
 
you know who stole the show for me during this world series? the one who deserved the real mvp trophy? the littlest giant, three-year-old darren baker, son of dusty.

that little fella hustled, nearly got killed, kept everyone realizing that this whole who-ha is really a kids game, and then he cried like a baby on his poppa's hip when the fireworks went off and the giants fell.

i love that.

if i didnt have completely ruined limbs, i would have done a photo essay of the tyke.

speaking of which, does anyone know where i can find a picture of him crying right after the game? it's sad, but it's cute.

i am also looking for a pic of that blonde woman in right field smacking reggie sanders in the back with her thunderstick.

classic images.

i promised a reader to the busblog that i wouldnt "rub it in", this angels victory, and im a man of my word, but the coverage is important and tomorrow the angles will have their victory parade.

i wonder if anyone will attend?

as i drove around LA this weekend i saw only one angels car flag.

i see more mexican flags.

i have seen nobody wearing angels hats or tshirts or sweatshirts.

LA is very much a dodgers town.

still.

even though their little cousins down south just broke the hearts of their most hated rivals.

and i gotta say, if my buddy welch wasnt a fan, i probably would have instead pulled for my former employers, the gyros.

if you find those pictures, good people, email me the link and i will give you many props.

i say email me because my comments are not working so good all the time. :cough: i know i need to move to MT, i know :cough:

whump
 
game seven is a very different day, ashley learned. everything changes. woke up early and ornery and things that rhyme with ornery and she said, what's the occasion? and i said, game seven, bitch.

borrowed her car to do my laundry, chinese guy sees me there at 2:30pm and he says, ah Mr. tony why so early, i say, game seven, ho.

Mr. ho left the ice skating on the tv. it's all good. ho.

little kids were riding their little scooters through the rows of washers and one particularily annoying seven year old clomped around the laundry mat as loudly as any little girl ever could and everyone rolled their eyes and they looked at me, i was smiling, getting my quarters out of the machine and they asked me in spanish and vietnamese and chinese, why you so peppy? life blows. and i said, ladies, it's game seven and the angels are going to win.

a russian woman dumped her change on the top of a dryer and said, "five bucks on giants."

i looked at the hair poking out of her mole and i said, twenty or nothing.

the woman looked at me, hurt.

i said, game seven, bizitches. no more fucking around.

did the laundry in record time. i was focused. even ran over to the ninety nine cents store during the whole dance (soy milk for ashley, candy for the week, a new plant for the house, canned vegetables, a cheese slicer, gum, etc.) picked up a pizza from Mr. pizza man.

got home and there was ashley with a warm smile and a cold beer.

happy game seven, she said.

threw her on the couch.

she said, its 4:50 isn't the game on?

i said, not till 5pm.

finished up in time to hear melissa ethridge sing the national anthem, squeezing out every syllable like a show off. but it's game seven. even melissa was gonna leave it all on the field.

phone rang sometime in the 4th inning.

ashley, trying to bitch out whatever young lady was calling, picked up.

i gave her the dirty look.

she gave back a look that said, what, what are you ashamed of?

i shot back a look that said, game seven, ho.

turned out it was my buddy dan.

i love dan, but this is what it sounds like when you call me during game seven.

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

i cant tell you what ashley was wearing. i cant tell you what ashley wasn't wearing. for once in my life i didn't know where the remote was.

once in a while she would say blah blah blah?

and i said, uh huh.

she said, no, what inning is it? angel comes on at nine.

i said, the angels are on now.

game seven.

she said, no the tv show, angel. buffy ....

i was all, baby, other than your ass on my hand right now and this tv, there isn't anything else in the world going on, and if that ass got off and turned into a butterfly and flew off into the heavens, i wouldn't notice, as long as it didn't get in the way of the broadcast.

then anna kournikova called, ashley didn't pick up, anna left the dirrtiest message that quickly was deleted by the daisy princess and when i didn't care, i think thats when it finally sunk in to her what day it was.

matt welch

   Sunday, October 27, 2002  
caption this, please


 
caption this, please


 
caption this, please

 
my buddy ben works right across the courtyard from me. we live pretty close to each other. but our work schedules are a little different otherwise i bet we would carpool or some shit.

anyhow on friday he saw me walking to the busstop and offered me a ride. i gladly accepted. everyone loves ben.

he asked me how old i was, really, i said, 30. he said, wow, for some reason i though you were younger than me. i said nope.

i said, ben, it sucks getting older cuz i feel like im a failure, i don't have the car, the wife, the cool job like you, i don't really have anything.

he said, you're famous. you linked me today and my hits skyrocketed. what's better than fame?

i said, um, actually being famous.

we laughed at that one.

then i said barry bonds isnt gay and we both laughed like crazy.

the sign says "have what you have" so i'll take the thousand hits i get a day to the busblog. don't ever think i don't appreciate you.

i'll take the snoozing twenty year old blonde girl in my waterbed who i don't appreciate nearly as much as i should.

i'll take the raiders on one channel and the bears on the other.

i think my tv is the only thing i truly appreciate.

it's never given me carpal.

i'll take my friends who i completely blow off, who will one day turn on me, im sure.

and i'll even take all the good people out there like the 22 yr old nurses who send me their pictures, or the hose monsters who send me birthday gifts, and the bonnies and charlies who send me pancake makers. thank you everyone, i received your presents and they're all much loved.

the sign of libra is the scales and we're constantly weighing things: wants vs. haves. satisfaction vs desire. push vs pull. naughty vs. nice.

theres very little that i really want.

i want to blog for a living. i want a wife and kids and house and mini van. i want an old english sheepdog named angus. i want to write a novel in november.

i want these fucking raiders to get it together.

i want the angels to destroy the giants.

i want for people, who when they gank my shit, to let me know because i do find it flattering.

i don't see people stealing anyone else's style anywhere in the blogosphere the way people steal mine and i love it.

jason chin