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

nothing in here is true

 


   Saturday, June 07, 2003  
all my friends are nice but todays birthday boy jeff solomon might just be the nicest. and there is competition.

solomon, the bass player of tsar, turns ninety nine years old today. congratulations.

just like welch and amy and ben and whalen and dylan don and dan charlie and bonnie jen and czaben and scheer and dougiegyro and jeanine and aj and ali and joel and broome and denis and sandy and everyone, solomon wrote for the college paper with me. we even wrote a few stories together, including this one.

jeff was the county editor with max when i started and during the persian gulf war we were both associate editors.

although he has never been married, i did attend his bachelor party in santa barbara where many of us jammed into a porn shop video room and watched a few minutes of big mamma jamma which i highly recommend for any bachelor party.

even though he played in many bands in isla vista, he was never upset when i would say that the wonderfuls were my favorite band, even though he didnt play with the wonderfuls.

after spending time in prague in a band that didnt include whalen so they naturally called it whalen, solomon moved to frisco and joined greg from the wonderfuls to form san franciscos best rock band of the nineties, thee mystakes.

i managed thee mystakes. the only reason that nobody knows that thee mystakes were the best band in frisco at the time was because i was the manager and i was experimenting with reverse psychology and esp.

during this time i had my own installation business. i would go to peoples homes and hook up their audio/video systems, home theatres, satellite dishes, and computers.

i charged $50 an hour. i advertised through the salesmen at good guys and circuit city and sears. because i had trained every one of them as a rep for philips and webtv and microsoft they all knew me and trusted me. and i gave them a ten percent kickback. being in those stores i learned that the missing link was installation of the items. typically it took a week or two to get installation and rarely was it any good.

so when i found that i was working for microsoft, who i felt didnt need my help, no offense, i quit and sold peanuts at candlestick at night, and hooked up peoples shit in the day.

i had a good thing going until solomon asked if he could work for me.

at the time i had a great relationship with my girlfriend who i lived with, i was watching baseball almost every day, i was driving a brand new explorer, and i was the manager of my favorite band. and strangely all of that made me very lazy.

i was too content.

life wasnt hard enough.

so when solomon offered to split my income in half, at first i saw it as a bad thing, but soon i saw it as the opportunity to get motivated.

part of the laziness that i had before solomon (bs) was that i would turn down small jobs or jobs far away. one of the best things about my company is i would go to sacramento or reno or santa cruz, next day. i'd charge a little more, but i love those towns, why not go there, write off a sweet room, take my girl on a long weekend and meet some cool customers in reno? but bs i pushed those back a few more days than i should have.

when solomon showed up not only did i take those right away, but it was fun because solomon's the best and it was great to have a second opinion on how to do things. and we got things done faster, especially the wiring, and we discovered something that i hadnt ever noticed before which solomon rectified immediately.

one time while crawling under a house in davis i found myself face to face with a dead rat and i screamed.

we finished the job and as was the norm, returned when the customer realized that they wanted to wire more rooms and give us more of their endless amounts of money and home cooked food and teenage daughters and incredible stories.

so we returned and jeff said that he would crawl under the house and i never had to crawl under that shit again.

we found out that that was the best way to do things because i would be talking to the customers and explaining what we were doing and teaching them how to use their new equipment and calling their salesmen and ordering more stuff for them to get which i would in turn install.

while jeff dealt with the rats.

my hero.

you'd think that would have been enough right there for me to not put up the gayest picture of him that i have.

and it is.

this isnt the gayest picture i have of jeff.

we installed for a nice little run there for awhile. always together. rarely would we do an install without the other person.

some jobs took forever cuz im a dumbass and some jobs took a matter of minutes and we felt guilty for charging our fifty dollar minimum but not only would people pay us, but many times theyd give us fat tips.

and yes they did introduce me to their daughters, who were all beautiful, and rich, and amazed by my handimanliness.

sometimes it would be late and jeff would drive the explorer back to the mission and he'd light up a smoke and we'd listen to the radio and talk and talk and talk.

one day whalen called.

solomon played with greg from the wonderfuls, and whalen was playing with coulter and dan from the wonderfuls.

whalen wanted to know if it would be ok if he asked solomon to join tsar and replace welch who was stealing too much of the limelight.

whalen knew that he was not only breaking up my business, but also my favorite band.

i remembered one of the conversations that solomon and i had had when i asked him what life he would lead if he could do anything.

he said he would travel around playing in a rock band with his friends.

not soon after solomon moved to la i also moved to la and then pretty much everyone moved to la which was great because we have gotten to see tsar from day one, or day two.

and here it is day five and its sounding better than ever and rock's gaping wanting hole is about to be filled and satisfied.

jeff solomon is not only responsible for being the secret weapon of la's finest rock group, but he is also the architect and engineer of the home computer that i type this very entry from.

he not only repairs and improves it, but he does it for free, and he does it for all of our friends, all the time. with a smile.

the only way the busblog and tonypierce.com could be coming to your asses and the ships at sea from a 400mhz p2 running both win2k and win me is because its totally taken care of by solomon, the lion of judah, the valley's own, and the only member of tsar with his own shrine webpage.

one day tsar will put out four simultaneous solo albums.

dont be suprised if solomons outsells them all.

ok, be very suprised, but dont be suprised if you play his more than you expected.

22 fillmore + jeff s. rocks + tsar

   Friday, June 06, 2003  
the best photo essay of may




nVIDIA's E3 Party


(not safe for work)


 
balls-out ran out of the office today and ran and ran.

sound barriers being broken everywhere.

every hot chick at the xbi said nice things to me today.

and the hottest of all looked at me a few times.

and i may have even looked back.

there was a plane crash in la today pretty close to where i was at the moment.

kept running.

got on the bus there was a traffic jam. we crept along. i read my new favorite magazine, the week. passed a man on the corner, firetruck, stretcher, looked dead.

there are kids on the bus suddenly because schools out. the kids are loud. they have a lot of hair. i don't envy their youth i envy their hair.

all you kids who read this. dye your hair more.

two fat punk rock girls got to the top of the escalator and said to the first person they saw, which way is wilshire. free. loud. stinky fresh.

hot dog man now wears safety goggles because theres nothing that fucker does wrong.

if i had a cable access talk show called bloggers with raymi as my sidekick i would have lisa marie presley on every single time as a guest. im watching her on howard stern. again. tell me whats better.

there is no finer interviewer than howard stern. he's fearless.

fuck the media for not acknowledging his dominance, influence, talent, and on-going success.

when rush limbaugh was hot everyone talked about him and referenced him and there were features after features about him.

they actually wanted us to admire an obese, narrow minded, one sided, bald headed, wrong ass playa hata.

you know why nobody listens to rush limbaugh anymore?

because he told us that clinton was bad and bush was good.

ran a block as fast as i could.

then stopped and didn't move an inch

red. green.

then ran as fast as i could down the next block.

hauled ass down the sidewalk because its friday and you cant get me

unless you catch me

but my shadow wont even get me tonight.

madpony on vacation + i can blog + red sugar muse + ev
 
caption this, please

 
Sosa suspended for using corked bat
Associated Press

CHICAGO -- Sammy Sosa was suspended for eight games by Major League Baseball on Friday for using a corked bat.

The Cubs slugger will appeal the suspension, said Jim Hendry, the team's general manager. The appeal will make Sosa available for a four-game series against the New York Yankees.

"We support him in his appeal," Hendry said. "We have no reason to believe it was anything more than a one-time incident. We will support him and his right to exercise and appeal."

The appeal had to be filed before Friday's game so Sosa could play.

A piece of cork was found just above the handle in Sosa's bat Tuesday night when it shattered after he grounded out in the first inning of the Cubs' 3-2 victory. Sosa didn't deny the corked bat was his, but he said it was a batting practice bat he had grabbed by accident.

"Some punishment is in order. Hopefully, it can be reduced," Hendry said.

He noted that Sosa "has been shattering bats his whole career" and no other corked bats had been found.

Bob Watson, baseball's vice president in charge of discipline, met with Cubs manager Dusty Baker and Hendry at Wrigley Field on Thursday, then returned to New York. Watson did not talk to Sosa.

Other players who have used corked bats have been suspended for up to 10 games. The Cubs had hoped that Sosa's cooperation, as well as the fact that no cork was found in any of his 81 bats that were checked, would work in his favor.

The Hall of Fame said Thursday that X-rays or CT scans of its five Sosa bats showed no cork or anything else that would violate baseball rules. Baseball officials didn't find anything in 76 bats confiscated from Sosa's locker after he was ejected from Tuesday night's game, either.

"The sad part about the whole thing is that he had 70-some bats and it's like you still don't believe it. That's what's unfair," Baker said. "He was wrong with that one bat. It was a bad decision."

Boston Red Sox ace Boston pitching ace Pedro Martinez came to his Dominican countryman's defense, saying the incident was being blown out of proportion because of racial bias by the media.

"If it was (Mark) McGwire, it would still be a big deal, but not like this," Martinez said. "We might be Latin and minorities, but we're not dumb. We see everything that happens."

Several other players have been caught or have admitted using a corked bat. But none has had the gaudy resum� of Sosa.

In a five-year stretch from 1998-02, Sosa hit 292 home runs. He's the only player to hit 60 or more homers in three seasons, hitting 66 in 1998, 63 in 1999 and 64 in 2001.

He's No. 17 on the career list with 505 homers. And at just 34, many believe he'll have a chance at Hank Aaron's record of 755 homers.

Sosa insists he's never done anything illegal.

"I feel very bad for having used that bat, but my conscience is clean," Sosa said Thursday. "I'm not a criminal nor someone who intended to deceive or take advantage of others."

Watson spent about two hours at Wrigley, meeting with Baker, Hendry, Cubs president Andy MacPhail and clubhouse manager Tom Hellmann, then went back to New York.

Baker said his meeting with Watson wasn't an interview so much as an explanation of what Watson was doing.

"I called him Judge Dread. He thought it was pretty funny," Baker said. "He just wanted to let me know that they're going to try to come up with a quick decision, a fair decision. Whatever happens after that it's up to Sammy and the organization, if we want to appeal it."

Not only is this weekend the teams' first meeting at Wrigley since the 1938 World Series, but Roger Clemens goes for his 300th career win Saturday against fellow Texan Kerry Wood. The games Saturday and Sunday will be broadcast nationally, with 90 percent of the country seeing the Clemens-Wood matchup on Fox.

espn + cubs.com
 
today is michele's birthday. michele was my first california girlfriend. we were together for three years. best friends. i did a lot of things with her for the first time.

she called me a year and a half ago and asked me to remove her last name from the stories that ive written about her because she is a famous childrens book author and a mommy now, so i said ok.

without michele i would have not been interested in poetry or journalism or the cure or u2. she taught me to appreciate all of those things.

her family was and is wonderful, and incredibly loving and free. the parents let the kids do anything they want including letting fools like me spend the night on many occasions. i love them all very much and sometimes when im in malibu i will stop by and say hi - even if i have a different girlfriend to introduce to them.

michele lives in washington now, or oregon, or somewhere beautiful and natural. for a punk rocker she had many hippie qualities about her. she would weep at the sight of a whale or a dolphin, she would weep at the news story that would talk about global warming, she would weep at the newspaper articles about womens rights issues.

all of this was very eye-opening to me, who was from the suburbs of illinois and never thought twice about enviornmental affairs, or gender roles, or sylvia plath.

and fuck if i ever considered free verse valid.

michele allowed me to take lots of pictures of her, and for that i am indebted. in many ways i owe her big time. in many many many ways.

she was my buddy and my first real friend here in the golden state and if it wasnt for that begining guitar class in santa monica college my whole life, as dramatic as that sounds, would have been completely different, and its hard for me to think it would have been different in a better way.

i was eighteen when i met michele and im 109 now, and yet somehow today is only her 23rd birthday.

apparently she still has many more lessons to teach me.

jason + je_apostrophe + jason
 
my buddy welch and i had a nice mexican dinner tonight. i have the greatest friends.

have i told you?

we had the shrimp special at casita del campo. i had baileys, he had a marguerita, i think.

we had been drinking, talking about baseball, nick cave, prauge, cuba, newspapers, blogging, and of course, miss universe.

he was supposed to take me to the laundromat but i got lazy after we had our first beer and we watched tv - like i make everyone do - and then we ate.

matt welch doesnt like conan o'brien. how can this be?

over tortillas we agree that since the longest suspension for a corked bat was a week (only to be negotiated down to four days) by the pouty albert belle, sammy should have to be suspended for thirty games.

my arguement was more than even that because sammy is on pace to be the home run king, and he's not a young man any more. and if he were suspended for say most of the season and when he gets to be 41, 42 he finds himself 30-35 homers short of 755, everyone will know that the suspension in '03 sparked by the corked bat stopped him from breaking the record.

fine. its the most precious record in baseball.

a sport that loves its records more than any other sport.

not only should sammy get a long suspension, but he should instigate it, and while he's serving his term he needs to go back to the dominican, set up a bench press in the center of town and work out on those dusty streets with the kids looking on and bench all morning.

then he needs to run all around town until its lunch time.

then he needs to eat grapes and melons and then go to the batting cage. the fucked up dominican batting cage.

then he needs to run a little more. then he needs to go back to that town square and apologize to his people.

it wouldnt hurt him if he cried some.

and then he needs to say that he brought shame to his mother and that brings him his deepest shame.

i dont ask you to forgive me, sammy should say in spanish, i only ask that you continue to pray for me.

and then run a few more miles around the town. and then go home and sleep and do it all again the next day.

and after thirty days or more of this sammy should come back to the cubs, my favorite team, leaner, meaner, refreshed, renewed, and ready to win a damn pennant.

thats what sammy sosa needs to do to get this shit forgotten.

and then we ate the plantains, finished off the beans and rice, and then we didnt gossip once about our friends.

splink + jennyyeah + alecia

   Thursday, June 05, 2003  
people ask me a lot about the xbi. i dont blame them.

xbi is a cool place. theyve taken care of me. i cant complain.

i could but i wouldnt. i never bitch about the people who pay me. not even on the job.

i have a weird belief that whatever you think or say comes out and multiplies so i try to keep things positive.

recently they moved us all around. took our desks and mixed them up. i think the gunfight had something to do with it.

typically a gunfight is a good red flag to management that the fellas need a new change of scenery. and since i was involved in the gunplay and because i am generally considered one of the most even-keeled members of the agency, when they saw that i had completely emptied my sidearm they knew that things should change.

so this is my new desk. maybe. we're seriously not supposed to talk about anything surrounding the xbi anywhere, especially not on a web site. especially not on an occassionally busy web site.

i like my new desk. which might be mine. im hardly ever at it because im usually flying chopper one, and thats why my area is fairly clean, but its nice on rainy days or mondays to sit there and look out at the people eating and smoking and think about what else i could be doing in my life and usually the list includes either flipping burgers or selling oranges on the medians next to the 10.

i dont have a lot of toys on my desk, but to the right of my computer you can see my sammy bobblehead, which really isnt a bobblehead its just a figurine.

if anyone wants to send me a sammy bobble head (or more importantly, a harry caray bobblehead) you can send it to: Pierce, 4845 Fountain Ave. #15, Hollywood, CA 90029.

if what you send me is super cool i will take a picture, cuz they last longer.

the best gift that you can give me is your loyal readership, and your sworn secrecy that you wont run around and blab to the world that you have stumbled across what might be the only photographic evidence of the inside of xbi hq.

now please let me get back to corking my keyboard.

xoxoxox
tony

one day in the us + kool keith + sarah crabtree + the ward
 
hi month of gemini you wicked witch from the west.

look what youve done to my beautiful wife. look what youve done to my beautiful house.

some bad guys wanted to send a message to some other bad guys this morning so they took a crane and tipped it over onto a bank.

people thought the bank was empty but there was something in the bank.

i cant tell you exactly what was in the bank because maybe the xbi was involved. indirectly.

maybe it was an accident. if you believe in accidents.

we dont.

which is why we dont believe that sammy sosa in the middle of his home run slump picked the only bat out of 75 bats with his name on it that had cork in it.

which is why if i was commissioner of baseball i would defrock him, expose him, and draw the line of offensive behavior in this, our national pastime.

judge landis and happy chandler are drinking in their graves.

meanwhile where is the commissioner of baseball? the king of black eyes. why isnt he xraying all the bats in baseball right now. or cutting them in half or drilling into them.

baseball has finally come back after years of suffering and over the last few years there has just been one disgrace after another. and yes it bothers me and it hurts me as much as a crane falling upon my heart.

the commissioner needs to resign right now.

the new york times upon discovering that they had two rotten apples, got rid of the apples and today got rid of some of their top editors.

this year my man is corking his bat and roberto alomar is getting a hair cut in the bullpen while his manager is looking around the bench to have him pinch hit.

and chip caray is still broadcasting.

and the yankees are still getting away with murder.

and the commissioner's daughter is still running a team.

things are falling apart and you have no idea how i wish that i could get away with doing such a crappy job at my place of employment the way bud selig gets to just cruise around at his.

i'd suspend sammy for three months and fine him millions.

madmathias + steve czaben + bettie girl

   Wednesday, June 04, 2003  
if i was commissioner of major league baseball i would suspend my hero sammy sosa, of my favorite baseball team, the chicago cubs, for the rest of this young season.

a corked bat of any sort, especially one in the hands of the most loved player in baseball today shouldnt be tolerated any more than a locker full of kiddie porn.

because what it does is makes the public wince.

we want to trust our idols, especially in chicago, especially on the northside.

especially when our magic number is 121.

some might say that a corked bat is the same as a scuffed ball, or sandpaper in a pitchers glove.

we rooted for gaylord perry and his spitball, and we smile at ty cobb sharpening his cleats.

players cover their mouths with their gloves nowadays to prevent enemy lip-readers. cheating isnt cheating in baseball it's playing.

if you dont get caught: good for you. if you do: nice try you old dog.

but even in baseball at some point you have to draw the line and a guy who is on pace to be the all time home run king has to hit all of those home runs fair and square.

it was your practice bat? fuck you.

and fuck you for having a corked practice bat.

if i was commissioner of baseball i would be saying fuck you a lot i have a feeling.

someone got a piece of paper, rolled it up, wrote dunce on it and put it on my sammy bobblehead on my desk.

the sammy sosa story is a great one. skinny outfielder who gets tossed from team to team until he bulks up and starts hitting the ball over the ivy of wrigley field.

latin hero who blows kisses to his mother, and hustles, and has a gun for an arm.

he took the cubs to the playoffs in 89 almost singlehandedly.

and broke everyones hearts with a ground out

against the devil rays of tampa bay.

i keep telling you about night games at wrigley.

and its evil.

sk smith + lago + dancing + joh3n
 
people ask me questions about their blogs. one particular young woman was having a problem with hecklers. one in particular who threatened her.

but before we get to that, is there anything better than corn on the cob?

shit man.

back in the olden days i worked for some big companies as a manufacturers rep.

what i had to do, basically, was to teach salesmen how to sell better.

i would help them sell everything better and in return i would ask them occassionally to sell my stuff better.

strangely, my company hardly ever asked me to have them sell the stuff better.

anyway, sometimes i would have to give demonstrations in the stores to the general public. i really liked those days because then i got to show the salesmen that i really could stand on their floors, in their stores, in their house basically and outsell their asses on any given sunday.

it helped that i had giveaway pens, and i could call myself the factory rep, but still, a box went out that door because of me and thats all sales is.

sometimes i would be giving a demonstration to one person and several people would gather and some heckler would say something smart as he walked past.

i would say, what was that sir?

only do this when people arent buying. if theyre buying pay attention to them. if theyre not argue with the heckler, this way your pitch is delivered when people arent looking.

thats just a twelve dollar cd player with a six hundred dollar price tag! he heckled.

what was that sir?

mummble mumble.

sometimes you could call them out sometimes you couldnt. hecklers generally arent used to losing the power struggle so if you get lucky they'll repeat themselves or say something else stupid.

im sorry sir, this philips cd-i player not only plays mpeg video, kodak photo cds, over 125 interactive titles, but the audio is crystal clear with two hundred and fifty six times oversampling, created as you probably know from the inventors of compact disc technology, and the audio tape, philips electronics.

and since i see that the pioneer cd player next to you with eight times oversampling is being sold for $199 and all it does is play cds, then how much, if you were running philips, would you sell this revolutionary device for?

i would sell it for...

a thousand dollars? well thats what marantz cd players go for. some even more than that. marantz being philips high end boutique line. in fact the marantz model that has 256 times oversampling is listed at nearly three times the price of the philips cd-i. many people buy this just to have a hearty high end compact disc player that they can show their photographs on.

why would i want to see my pictures on tv?

well i dont know about you, but i have a huge

tv.

and sometimes im lucky enough to take a picture of a pretty girl.

i would rather look at the ladies on my tv with a beverage in my hand and my feet up--

why must you lie to the people?

i know, it sounds too good to be true--

philips didnt invent the cd player.

it's funny, one of the most common misconceptions--

Sony!

is that sony invented compact disc technology.

always stay cool people. its your house. not theres.

but if you look at the patent, for ever dollar of royalties sony gets a quarter and philps gets seventy five cents.

and in this whole store, as great as it is, you wont find one sony cd player that plays photo cds, compact disc interactive cds, movies, and audio with two hundred and fifty six times oversampling.

but they make nice walkmans.

after you make the pitch you have to ask for the sale.

ask the heckler how many he'd like. tell him to try it and if he doesnt like it he can return it. tell him if he buys it now you'll throw in comptons interactive encyclopedia absolutely free. it's a three hundred dollar value.

i dont need an encyclopedia.

what is it that you need?

not that.

you sure have a lot of questions about it. i think you love it.

laughter.

i know i love. and im not ashamed. i even bought one for my mom. and i got a roll of film put on cd and i mailed it to her along with the cd player.

because i love my mother.

it helps if youre partly insane. it also helps if youre on salary and drive a company car and have nothing to lose if nobody buys a damn cd player.

one of the best ways to close a sale is to be quiet.

and abc you should always be closing.

so if no one says anything and everyone stays seated wait just a few more seconds than you want and if you still have the floor you really have the sale so what you do is say, mario, how many of 910s do you have in stock.

same as they did for months before you showed up. three. two, really. one has the box ripped open and is missing a remote.

three!

ive got three pga golf games, a treasures of the smithsonian cd, and a coupon for a free kodak cd, but i might have three. i'll give those to the next three players that get sold.

at this point people will take action. they will either turn to their spouses and decide, or they will ask questions. if they ask questions say, if anyone wants one right now, mario will wrap one up for you, but i will be happy to answer your question. whats that?

and point at mario.

and keep the answers short.

the heckler will walk away and you will sell out. and then you will go home. and then any time you go back into that circuit city they will say there he is.

when hecklers show up on your blogs however, ignore them completely, delete their comments, ban them from posting, never reference them, and write down their ip address.

Earth-Info.Net
 
hi sammy

please dont make fun of me.

i wont make fun of you sammy, youre my hero.

it was a practice bat.

dude, youre preaching to the choir. im willing to say it was planted.

it was a practice bat that i use for batting practice for the kids to oooh and ahhhh before the game.

sammy, its cool, trust me.

if i knew it was my practice bat i wouldnt have used it.

bro, i couldnt care less.

this sucks so bad tony.

i know. im watching them saw in half your bat that you hit your 499th home run.

i want to die.

its just baseball, buddy.

its just my whole life. my whole reputation. my whole everything. baseball is everything to me. id be a busboy in cancun without baseball.

without blogger im nothing and you dont see me thinking about slitting my wrists when people say i cheat.

i didnt mean to cheat though.

if youre not cheating youre not trying, senor, you know that.

i am trying, and im not cheating. fuck!

what?

i just saw a kid wearing my tshirt walking down the street. i hate myself.

people still love you sammy. i still have my sosa bobblehead on the dashboard of chopper one and one on my desk.

you should throw those out.

why? are they corked?

even when im so very sad you can always make me smile tony.

thats very nice. do me a favor though, por favor, ixnay on the corked batsay, k?

done.

fuck people who show up for batting practice. theyre happy just to be watching batting practice. they dont need to see you hitting the warmup pitches into lake michigan.

i know. i know

and fuck this slump youre in, and fuck this goatee you have, and fuck whatever weird stress youre putting on yourself.

do you have any idea what youre talking about?

we all have pressure, bro, we dont have to cheat or lie to stay successful.

but i want to keep my goatee.

fine, if you keep the goat, lose the bad bats and learn to relax. your team is in first place even without your massive bombs.

yes, but for how long?

for as long as guys like carlos fucking zambrano keep pitching out of their minds-o

but i am the team captain.

yes and youre also the home run king. its math. put the home run king at the plate and let him swing, eventually home runs will appear. dont force it. do you force your poops?

sometimes.

ok stop forcing those too.

the pressure is insane.

sammy. pressure is in your head. its the devil. dont listen to the devil. listen to the angels. listen to the little voice thats trying to root you on. listen to the 37,000 fans who are rooting you on. all you have to do is put the ball in play. you have over 500 home runs. you know how to hit those. just hit the ball hard.

but what if i dont hit 50 this year?

dude, youre a Cub. we expect nothing of you. we're lucky that you even play on our field.

i love you tony.

right back at you corky.

tim blair + brian + coyote meets bush + brian
 
dear la times,

did you watch that Miss Universe pagent last night?

i sure as hell did.

my attorney was over, we had thai. God i love thai food. first we watched American Juniors, then we drank beers and watched Miss Universe and I have to say that I called Miss Dominican Republic, Amelia Vega. she had me at hola.

eighteen years old is the new miss universe, la times, and i dont ever want to hear any more shit from you about the ages of the girls that i date.

she was smooth, she was classy, she was happy, she had it all.

i did like the legs of Miss Namibia and the cool class of miss japan (who got robbed and should have been in the top three) and i even liked Daisy Fuentes who is still hanging in there which is tough when youre standing in front of scores of hot women from around the world.

i liked the costumes, the evenening gowns, the sexshay introductions, and even the swimsuit competition.

i liked it all, la times, and i think you did too, but i wouldnt know because i dont pick up the paper any more because you lost me as a reader a long time ago and youve done nothing to get me back.

how come you didnt do what i did and have a picture or two or three each day on your cover introducing each woman? people like to see pictures of pretty women.

miss universe is still in high school. how cool is that?

dont young women need role models any more?

isnt a high school miss universe from a country that most people cant find on a map even somewhat interesting? i think it is. but then again, i also think you suck so maybe you dont care what i think.

you suck because you pretend that you are a local paper but youre really an international paper, and then something like the miss universe pagent shows up that couldnt be more international and i dont see special sections or color full page spreads, or wagering, or handicapping.

maybe you could have given the kids of los angeles a two week geography lesson as to where most of these countries are and have a nice map and a nice picture next to it. maybe this week you could tell the kids of la about the four runners ups countries.

do you only educate the masses about geography when we're about to blow shit up?

maybe youre part of the problem.

quick: whats the capital of canada?

how fucked up is it that the kids of los angeles know what the captial of afghanistan but not the capital of canada, our neighbors to the north.

war shouldnt be the educator of everyone, peace and love should.

lets put these beauty queens to work.

your pal,

tony

la examiner + welch + big dump truck

   Tuesday, June 03, 2003  
caption this, please



 
people are asking me about the absinthe and thats fine. it is a mysterious thing and i cant really say that i am sold on it just yet.

i have not experienced the hallucinations that others may have, i didnt feel the urge to cut my ear off like some, and i didnt get the liquidy gorgeous dreams that helped spawn the likes of alice in wonderland.

all it did was get me a good buzz.

there is another bottle that has yet to be imbided and i hope to do that with my favorite drinking partner, miss poland, sometime soon. the only problem is shes going to be away for a while and i dont think she cares for the stuff any more.

people ask me what its made of, i tell them that i dont know. something to do with wormword.

people ask me if it tastes like black licorice and i tell them no, it tastes like black cough syrup.

people ask how they should drink it should they get their hands on a bottle from a mysterious stranger like i was lucky enough to be sponsored by.

this is how i have been drinking it.

yank a spoon from your heroin-taking roommate. take his lighter too. put a sugar cube on the spoon. pour a generous shot over the sugar. light the spoon on fire. dont get scared. let it cook. dump it into a glass. dont be scared if the glass catches fire.

be scared if the table and carpet catch fire.

be scared if your leg catches fire.

this is all a part of the crazy buzz and strange dreams.

then add a shot of water, stir the sugar cube, make a toast and shoot it down.

even under these circumstances its going to be strong and sweet and will burn a path down your throat that will go down to your toes.

kiss the girl in front of you and then hand her the spoon and repeat.

thats how i drink it.

now there are also lots of different fancy absinthe spoons. perhaps i will invest in one or more if my supply keeps coming in. i think crazy spoons are fun, especially if they are useful.

the point of the absinthe spoon is so that the cooked sugar + liquor can drip into the awaiting glass. i would also like to invest in some proper glasses.

one thing i learned in college is that there is a sacred ritual to getting shitfaced that is part of the glamourous dance and it is what seperates us from the riff raff.

enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

smell the booze, watch the flame, be one with the sugar cube, enjoy the nice kiss.

tune in next week when we discuss how to program your vcr.

reverse cowgirl + dumb monkey + cry of capricorn
 
what a difference a day makes. hi month of gemini, you random insult generator of a month. hi.

today for no reason what so ever i feel a ton better.

last night i made an 11-page photo essay of the Tsar show on friday night. i was up till 2am so you better say nice things about it.

and be careful because there is some full frontal nudity.

yes it's still gray and crappy in la but its beautiful because people said nice things to me last night.

one particular girl is trying to tempt me into doing bad things and when i tell her that she needs to stay away thinks im kidding, but no, you need to stay away.

normally i am in control of the things that i do, but for some reason with her im not so sure i could hold back my emotions and lustful feelings.

dont you women want honesty from us?

heres the honest message: stay away until this clears up.

bad part about animal magnetism isnt the animal part because that can be satisfied, it is the magnetism part because that never goes away.

so go away temptress, go away for a little while, i care about you and i want the best for you.

i hear metallica is releasing their cd early so as to thwart downloading. is this reverse psychology?

i wasnt even interested in even downloading the new metallica because they do nothing for me any more and i disagree with their politics.

but now, just to spite them i want to download their new cd and "share" it with all my anonymous friends.

is this just some genius marketing ploy on their part similar to when they first started out and acquired a grassroots fan base when they encouraged people to make tapes of their first recordings and trade them?

only the devil knows.

speaking of which, i dont want to see any more mean comments in this thing. this is a place of peace and happiness and if you need to be reminded, this is what is ok for comments: questions, praise, links to similar subjects, praise, clarifications, praise, and praise.

xeni + oliver + instapundit

   Monday, June 02, 2003  
it's hard to root for the mighty ducks. trouble starts every time you catch yourself rooting for a team called the mighty ducks.

then theres the fact that theyre an orange county hockey team.

fuck orange county, fuck hockey in orange county, fuck the ducks.

im into puck as much as the next guy, and in hollywood the next guy doesnt give a cluck about puck, and i give less.

i grew up in the midwest and my friends played hockey. i know hockey.

i was able to hang out with the girl who would be my first girlfriend because of hockey, so it's not like i dont appreciate it. i do.

and because i do i feel weird rooting for the maroon and teal.

down with disney.

are they my hometown team? no.

the la kings are my hometown team.

eazy-e never wore a mighty ducks hat, therefore neither will i.

and shit.

in other news i still havent done my laundry.

in other news i love my tivo.

in other news i told the pretty girl at work that she missed out on a naked man by not going to the tsar show, she didnt seem all that impressed.

in other news, wormhog flowed the busblog ten bones.

57. wormhog

in other news my new best friend wants to send me more absinthe from overseas.

bless you, mysterious stranger.

yes, more please.

we took one down and passed it around, now theres only one bottle of absinthe one the wall.

why cant all of you send me wonderful gifts like my man did?

except for you, artistic woman who sent me two color photographs in a hand drawn envelope.

bless you too.

hell, bless you all.

even you mighty ducks of anaheim.

least intimidating sports franchise ive ever witnessed.

which may be their secret weapon.

that not so fresh feeling + lamelist + anti
 
eastern europe is in the house. im feeling better this afternoon. im not sure whats wrong with me.

maybe its the month of gemini. im all crazy inside. im all happy happy sad sad. now im mellow mellow.

i still dont want to work.

im on a government mandated fifteen minute break so i can answer all of the fan mail that i have been getting.

the first piece of business is to answer the question as to why i am putting these beauty queens on here day after day after day after day. the answer is simple. it is to promote my favorite beauty pagent, the Miss Universe pagent.

many people have approached me and told me that the busblog is a pretty sweet marketing platform and i look at them and say whaaa?

then they stuff money in my pockets and tap me on the back and leave after whispering things like talk about this, or talk about that.

is this to insunate that the busblog can be bought? you bet your bottom dollar. its just zeros and ones hippies and if the ones go infront of the zeroes then alls good in the hood.

meanwhile enjoy the parade of smiling faces and imagine the possibilities.

people ask me if i will promote this or that and without the proper zeroes and ones the answer is no.

then the correct ones appear magically and they ask if i would be kind enough not to say fuck this or fuck that and i say maybe.

then more zeroes and ones appear and poof the curse words disappear.

dont call it a sellout, ive been selling out for years.

every day that i walk into a profession that im not totally in love with and do the work of the man while he laughs at my lack of courage to go for the gold is a sell out.

if somehow i can weave the will of one with the art of another, thats not selling out, thats just beautiful.

and if i can get paid, then thats fucking rad.

heres to making dreams come true.

next year it wont be free, mr. trump.

brian has a good picture of karisa + bitchen + shark bitten + kate sullivan makes me love rock
 
hi miss serbia

hi tony, but i am sorry to say excuse me please but i am miss serbia and montenegro

you're so damn hot that you won miss serbia and miss montenegro?

no, i am simply representing both countries.

your name is Sanja, which rhymes with mange, which means eat?

i dont understand the question.

did you like the Matrix, miss serbia?

i liked the original matrix, but not so much the second one, but then i saw it again and liked it much better, yes.

do you like italian men?

no. i like french men.

i believe this interview is over.

and pale skin african american men.

suddenly we have a little more time.

and men named tony.

do you like my little paunch?

may i touch it? yes, i like it, and it is little.

ok, thats not my paunch.

what's that? shazam!

is that a good shazam or a bad shazam?

shazams are never bad, tony.

what's life like in serbia and montenegro?

war-torn, rugged, spectacular, unforgetable.

so youre saying if i would propose to you right now and make you an american you would do it in a second?

in a heartbeat, belly boy.

how do you say goodbye and thank you for holding me during this whole interview in serbian.

i like to say it with a kiss.

moxie + fragrant + sk smith
 
hi miss italy

hi tony. tony are you italian?

do you like italian men?

i love italian men.

then yes, i am italian.

where in italy are you from tony?

im more italian-american.

where are your parents from?

uh...

im from firenze.

florence? i spent my 21th birthday there.

i hear youre very old. is that true?

sadly, yes.

dont be sad, i like older men.

i love you miss italy.

arent you sweet.

yes i arent.

do you think i will win this pageant?

yes. i think you'll win because you look like former E! personality jules asner.

oh! i like her!

yes, me too. do you mind if i call you jules for the rest of this interview?

not at all. mind if i call you kmetko?

not one bit, jules.

isnt this lovely, kmetko?

will you hold my hand, jules?

certainly.

mmmmmm.

you have a strange hand, did you have an accident when you were a child?

thats not my hand, but yes i did.

wormhog + xtracyx + science blog + mad pony kristin
 
its fucked up and cloudy and gray and noisy and monday here in the city of angels and i cant say im in the very best moods.

on paper i really should be. on paper i should be one of the happiest people around. but theres a reason we play the game, now, isn't there.

i think my head is as gray as the horizon because my best friends sorta ditched me this weekend.

one is in love, the other... well, its not so unusual.

it looks like there might be some major changes in the busblog and i need these two people to give me advice and clarity and encouragement. i don't rely on that many people and im not one to really whine about friends so maybe i should shut it.

anyhow, anna, im sure you're in love with enrique, and i know this is your honeymoon, but you told me that you were going to help me with the redesign. this is no time to go off and get hitched.

today i don't want to be at the xbi but i have to go in earlier than normal. that blows.

i get to leave earlier than normal so that's fine.

sometimes i think people totally understand where im coming from, then i think people don't understand me at all.

i think im so easy to get along with.

gray skies of hollywood why do you cover my dear city so?

if i wanted this shit i would still be living in frisco.

i still haven't seen the matrix two, i still haven't seen bruce almighty, or nemo, or anything.

i have to cover for this guy in security and as i type this every two seconds a door opens behind me and its distracting and jarring cuz nobody should have a desk with a door behind them. not in this business.

i got hbo restored to my directv a few weeks ago and its been nice watching reruns of the sopranos.

yesterday was the first day that furio worked in america.

lane + jimmy t + lane + layne
 
seems like every sunday im procrastinating something. last sunday i was procrastinating about a proposal i was writing, tonight im procrastinating about a photo essay of all things.

the tsar show this weekend was magical and wonderful but for some reason i dont want to write about it, which sucks cuz i have lots of great pictures.

where are my interns?

wheres my writing staff?

jimmyt doesnt want me to write about chicks so much and if i told bob hope to fuck off last week for making it to 100 what do you think i should tell jimmyt for telling me to take it easy on writing about chicks?

everything on here is symbolism, jimmy. they didnt like us writing symbolism in college, but then they had us read the most symbolic novels of all time: canteburry tales, ulysees, revelations.

dating women in hollywood is symbolism for lots of things, and never are the stories that i tell just about that one thing. the scene might be set in a boudior but the nugget of truth is discovered somewhere else. nakedness equals blank slate, vulnerabililty, trust, love, etc. never is having sex an accomplishment in the busblog, its merely a begining of a new set of problems, and how can you introduce those problems unless you describe how they got there.

most of the time its just he begining of the joke.

two midgets walk into a bar

but the way i do it, its just like, two hot chicks take off their shoes at the foot of my bed.

i say, no no no put those back on. who wants those off?

they say, fine fine. and put them back on.

who ever told van gogh enough with the flowers?

one of the girls i know. shes friends with someone i know. and because of that i know that she has a boyfriend. i dont know the boyfriend, but i know that hes an ok guy.

shes very beautiful and i dont know why she wants to cheat on him, and the devil part of my brain is on full blast saying do her do her do her and her best friend. look they put their shoes back on. they want to do whatever you say.

and shes gonna cheat on him anyway.

even the good part of my brain is pretty loud.

you have condoms, you know. lots.

but its sunday. the lords day. the day we were meant to keep holy, and this is far from holy so i tell them that i need to call them a cab.

they look sad in their matching blue sparkley wigs.

disappointed in their skirts.

so close and yet so far

so bad

buzz machine + beef jerky + bye oish

   Sunday, June 01, 2003  
if you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?

i would head to the corner of clark and addison in chicagos north side, wrigley field.

i would make sure to get there by saturday because on that day the new york yankees will play the chicago cubs.

it will be a match up of young versus old. power versus power. dynasty versus dustiny.

clemens versus wood.

roger clemens will be trying to get his 300th win, the milestone of milestones for starting pitchers.

he is also nine strikeouts short of 4,000, only two other pitchers have ever reached that mark.

earlier on ebay i saw tickets going for as low as $200 a pair, but now theyre up to $600.

i think thats nice.

what i also think is nice is that my phone keeps ringing and its anna kournikova.

shes calling from the dominican republic because she just got married to enrique and if i could go anywhere i wouldnt go to the dominican because i dont believe in that marriage.

its a sham anna and you know it.

for if you were serious you would have gotten hitched in vegas like you always said you would.

with me.

chinomikan + etoy + gnome girl
 
for the sake of clarity, digital tavern, last month's winner of the I Will Link You on my Blog auction will stay up for this week, a bonus week.

who doesn't love bonuses.

when i sold tvs they would have daily bonuses and contests.

on saturday mornings they would bring in a deli tray and we would sit on speakers in the speaker room and the boss would talk to us about numbers, and about which salesmen did what during the week, and what the truck just brought in, and what we should look out for because of the ad.

sometimes he'd reach into his pocket and pull out laker tickets.

sometimes he would unfurl a hundred scratch-off lottery tickets.

sometimes he would pull out a hundred dollar bill.

usually it was something like first person to sell a five year warranty wins.

for the laker tickets it was first person to sell a five year and a three year.

at a different job i once was given a trip to europe with my girlfriend.

one place i worked for two years and it was run on a tight budget so nobody got little bonuses and i thought that was sorta dumb. the least they could have done was give someone a bonus personal day.

ted youve kicked ass lately, have a day off on us.

the xbi is interesting because you cant really call in sick. everyone is vital. if one of the crew members of chopper one isnt there, we cant do it right.

first of all, its an illegal vehicle used from stolen parts and possible alien technology. secondly, it could be captured and end up in the wrong hands. thirdly it would be impossible to replace. therefore there can be no fucking around with it.

we get bonuses almost every day.

it's nice.

well this last week has been a bonus week to me. nearly every day something super cool happened to me.

sorta feels like a tip of the hat from the man upstairs, and i give a tip of the hat right back.

a tip of the hat to everyone.

it's been a pleasure to link to digital tavern this month, a blog with smart writing, excellent design, and as of late, great original photography.

and its been a pleasure to watch the cubs, who are still in first place, and its now june.

and it was a pleasure to kiss that pretty girl.

and it was a pleasure to be rocked by tsar.

thank you one and all.

digital tavern
 
last night i hosted the tsar afterparty again. why not. everyone was there and it was wilder than the last time.

its funny, as great as last night was, i really dont feel like rehashing it.

but i will try.

because you had to put up with that naked guy all day.

naked guy was even at the party. he was clothed and equipped with a smoking hot girlfriend. we were all drunk so i asked him all the questions people were too shy to ask.

have you ever been naked on stage before?

no.

who called the police on you in pittsburgh?

the hotel desk chick.

was she old?

no she was young.

did you see those gay guys totally loving your nudity?

yes!

did that freak you out at all?

no!

then i poured him some absinthe and decided that he was an ok guy.

he is an ok guy.

people lost their keys and their cellphones. i found some barrettes on the floor this morning. i had a terrible hangover. it took most of the day to recover.

im still recovering and now its bedtime.

all i have to say is im a lucky man and i have some great friends and some of my friends play in the best band in america, and that includes both north and south america.

and i have some great neighbors who put up with a much louder party than the other week.

and i live a blessed life, which i dont deserve, but i totally appreciate.

and the cubs totally won after 15 innings thanks to sammy sosa who is back

and now the cubs are unstoppable.

bettie girl + circa 1977 + moxie was there