dear splink girl,

i took your advice and walked the four blocks to the sunset junction street fair and music festival.

if theres one person who understands my love of home it's you, and i appreciate that.

because im lazy i took the bus three blocks and it turned down hyperion and dropped me off and it was sunny and glorious and warm at the beginning of sunset junction, and i was glad i had decided on the long hawaiian shorts.

as you suggested i took a buttload of pictures. my batteries die quickly and mc brown says that it might be my camera cuz he says he can take pics all day with his one battery and there i was with two and one died after just about an hour.

the kids were beautiful. i think you would have liked them. everyone was out. the hipsters, the gay boys, the lesbians, the mexican punker kids, black skaters, little kids, dogs.

and everyone had tattoos.

beautiful ones.

i saw this girl that was covered in them, gorgeous girl. my heart hopes that she's a stripper but i don't go to any strip clubs so what's the use. she had a great skirt on too. i tried to take a picture but how do you do it and not be like a pervert.

i need a camera in my sunglasses.

people would understand if i had a camera in my sunglasses.

i walked down the midway about halfway and saw someone selling chicken on a stick for three bucks and i had to. it wasn't bad.

im not sure how you feel about chicken, but when grilling it, especially outside, and esssspecially in little bites on a kabob stick, theres no reason that they have to be over cooked. people are so freaked out about undercooking chicken but its so easy to tell how you've done, just wait till its white.

it never hurts to see a little pink in there.

and if its just a little pink you know you're almost there.

the muffs played. for a little while in frisco i listened to blonder and blonder every day.

loudly.

it was nice to see her again and her band played hard.

her guitar amp blew up after the first song and she was pretty punk rock about it. bitched a little tiny bit and turned her back on the crowd as they rolled on a spare. and then rocked us.

instead of being a courtney she has aged into something softer and sweeter. still quite beautiful. still loves to yell. still a far better songwriter than kurts wife, who i have no problems with.

before her was the new greg dilulli band, the afghan whigs guy. i forgot how much i liked him. all that fake drama. but he sings good and the music is strong.

after the muffs the circle jerks played but first there was the inbetween music that a dj spun as the roadies set up the drums and junk. they played a smiths song. i thought of you. i wish i knew the title, but i don't know any of their titles.

they also played teenage fanclub, who i hope you listen to.

i left about halfway through the circle jerks. they were damaging my eardrums. at first it was in a good way, and i must say, they blew everyone away. they not only still have it, but it felt like they gained even more anger and spirit and attitude over the years.

a pit formed immediately and people don't fuck around with punk pits on sunset in hollywood. especially since they probably haven't gotten in one in a while. and people were rough. people fell down and people didn't pick em up like they shoulda. people were rough. people were on the edges and people grabbed them and dragged them in.

punk chicks got in there and elbowed and it was sweet. young mexicans dressed for the occasion got in there. but the fat head skin heads appeared like it was yesteryear and they were drunk or stoned with that sleepy look in their eyes that said hit me i don't care i wont feel it ive been hit all my life.

and someone hit me and i took a picture cuz ive been in pits fuckhead.

best one i was in was public image at the ventura theatre and johnny spit on us and insulted us and picked his nose and held it out to the grasping hands below and wouldn't even give a snot to us, but he rocked us. in plaid.

depression leads to freedom. boredom can be a breakthrough, i type as i watch triple x and wait for the man.

on top is a picture of me and marc and jeff from my favorite band.

blogger turned four years old today while studiolog is one day old.

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caption this, please

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i want to tell you what an amazing and lucky life i lead but in some ways i do care what you'd think. and i am nervous that youd think im bragging, because it isnt that. half of my life my jaw is on the ground because i cannot believe what is happening to me, or what im seeing, and im wondering why it all takes place infront of my eyes, and not someone elses, and i scour the blogosphere to see if anyone else is seeing what im seeing and doing what im doing and i dont see it and i try to figure out why me why me in good ways and i think that on the bus to work and i get into work and they say take the day off tony, we're sick of hearing you cough all week.

and i go, really?

and they go, yeah, enjoy the sunshine.

but i just go right back home and put on my pajama bottoms and walk to the po box and see that theres mountians of fan mail and i go, why me why me.

the host of this website offered to take me to the ball game last night and i had to decline, then he offered to take me down to san diego for some horse racing and that too i had to decline and i felt bad because hes the best.

all my friends are the best.

there are ways to show you how cool they all are and one day very soon i hope to accomplish that but how do you capture that really, and tack on 15 years of experiences?

last night miss montreal took me to elvis thai, then we watched porn.

let me tell you a few things about this girl.

first of all, totally gorgeous, which you have to be to win miss montreal because they send all the ugly girls in montreal back to san tropei.

i ate the tom kha gai.

the contact wearing (blue) teenage thai girl who took my order asked me how spicy i wanted the soup.

i said, i dare you.

it's great to make the kids do a double take.

and my old girlfriend chris will tell you that it's great when you ask for fucking spicy soup that they give you fucking spicy soup.

and palms thai on hollywood blvd lived up to the challenge and gave me such spicy soup that i sucked down my beer at a rapid pace and soaked it up with the combo fried rice and i was a happy man.

when miss montreal kissed me goodnight it was only 9:30pm but i was very drowsy and drunk and warm and happy and full and refreshed and happy and as stoked as any fellow would be after being in the presence of such a dynamite girl.

i even considered taking a little nap.

numnumnumnumnum.

and then karisa knocked on my door wearing a little black miniskirt, tall boots, with tube socks sticking out the top which only made her legs look longer, and a baseball shirt that matched the socks whose arms had been cut off and which was very tight and exposed the belly.

apparently we had a bowling challenge that she was not going to postpone for one additional day, no matter what.

and it was then that i knew what she was up to. she had worn that outfit to distract me while i bowled. i was on to her.

and she giggled and denied it saying that she hadnt done laundry and those were the only clothes that she had left that were clean.

and smiled. and said, hey can we do some absinthe real quick before we jet?

and this morning i woke up and went through my camera and i was shocked to see that she had some glittery eyeshadow on last night. shocked because i had successfully, if thats the word, not really looked at her, especially in the eyes, which was why i won our three game match.

in which karisa bowled a 204 in the final, most drunken game.

only to be topped by my 209, thank you.

which was then topped this morning by having no hangover, thai leftovers in the fridge, and the rest of a friday to do anything with myself that i please.

and now that ive written you, im not sure what to do.

other than sit outside in the sun and maybe get that nap that i had wanted so badly, and foolishly, twelve or so hours ago.

oh, if only some of what was in here was true.

treacher + negrophile + technorati

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yes, Americans for War won the Sponsor the Busblog for a year auction.

they won fair and square.

their bid wasnt even that big.

i would like to say "this is what happens when you dont bid." but thats not my style.

i would like to say, "lets have a recall auction."

but im not a weasel like lots of people in my state.

trust me, i was just as shocked and freaked out when i got the email from the winning bidder telling me the name of the website that they wanted me to link

for a year

on my beloved, completely anti-war busblog.

plus the winning bid came from an email address from an ivy league school.

and our dear president came from an ivy league school, so that made me nervous.

so then i actually went to the site that i was going to link for a year.

and the design was very professional.

and then i saw a picture of the guy from Phish under the header: Future Targets for War:
Familiarize yourself with the enemies threatening America. Know who we should attack next and why.

and i realized it was a joke.

it was satire.

a satire website had sponsored my sweet blog for a year.

and i sighed a long breath of relief.

and then i inhaled

and exhaled.

and then i thought, i really do live a lucky ass life.

so welcome aboard Americans for War.

congratulations on winning the auction!

Americans For War, LLC

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rob neyer is wondering why the cubs are trading for scrubby players who arent as good as their current scrubby players during the homestretch of their playoff chase.

the guys the cubs picked up in the last month have been:

Tony Womack
Randall Simon
Doug Glanville
Kenny Lofton
Aramis Ramirez

it is very hard for me to believe that such a great baseball mind as espn's neyer cant see the pattern here that dusty baker is handpicking for his playoff run.

theyre all brothas.

i know aramis is from the dominican republic.. but those are just details that will be answered in due time.

so the question that mr. neyer needs to be posing is why would dusty baker be requesting so many african-americans. and that answer is also easy to answer.

because black folk like to be around black folk. dusty'll tell ya.

dusty is black and before he arrived the only other black players were corey patterson and compton's own troy o'leary - if you dont count coaches gene clines and billy williams.

and ernie banks up in the front office.

so with patterson and o'leary ailing, load up on the brothas and give sammy sosa a fellow countryman in ramirez and you have what all teams need: diversity and chemistry.

most of the cubs pitching staff is lily-white if not rednecked, the glaring exception is the firey 22-year old venezuelian
carlos zambrano.

so of course you need some soul.

duh.

now we're only a french-canadian closer away from a pennant.

rob neyer + matt welch + howard owens + bambino's curse

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chatted with madpony kristin last night. it's nice to know that there are still some very classy young women being raised right in america.

today is the madpony girls' mom's birthday. happy 31st birthday mrs. madpony!!!

had to fight a little crime last night on the way home.

seems there was a guy on the san diego freeway who wanted to kill himself, so they called out the swat team.

the swat team had rifles.

since when is the proper way to handle suicidal people to show up with rifles?

speaking of swat, did you guys see that dumb movie?

many many la subway errors in that movie.

the worst being that they use the Same subway station for all the shots. its the wilshire / western station that i use every day.

in one scene they run down there and say "oh, hes at the Figueroa station! Lets get him. And they miss the subway and have to drive to the Figueroa station and we see them run down into that station and they look around and they say, damn, hes not here. Meanwhile right behind them it says "Wilshire / Western".

one of the things about the subway stations in LA, each has a different theme.

The Wilshire / Western theme is the art deco green and silver style that can be found at the historic Wiltern Theatre that can be found at the corner of WILshire and wesTERN.

the same Wiltern that is prominently displayed in the background as the SWAT guys climb out of what we are told is the Figueroa station.

dumbasses.

why cant madpony kristin live in LA so that i could show her the subway system of this fair city?

why cant madpony kristin live in hollywood and teach me class.

and how to tame wild horses.

and how to successfully rush a sorority house.

oh why isnt life fair.

moxie + madpony + goobita

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new photo dealie

threats from the first black president

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my boy david blaine is going to suspend himself over the thames river in jolly olde england for 44 days in a glass box.

reuters is reporting that the new york street magician, best known for banging the likes of madonna and josie maran will attempt the stunt on september 5 of our lord 2003.

"We are all capable of infinitely more than we believe," Reuters reported blaine of saying. he will have no means of communication, no food, and it will be his first major "illusion" outside of the usa.

there will be one plexiglass tube for water, and another for his urine, the article stated, adding that brit tv will telecast the event live.

what on earth could they do with a guy sitting in a box for 44 days?

make it interesting and that would be magic.

splink fucking rocks

heres my astrology for next week.

i dont know what it means.

Libra Horoscope for week of August 21, 2003

"You have to recognize the demons or else they'll annoy you like mosquitoes," poet James Broughton told interviewer Jack Foley. "But if you acknowledge their existence, if you say, 'All right, here's a cookie, go sit in the corner,' then you can go about your work and you don't have to go into depression because of it." I suggest you follow Broughton's advice, Libra. Neither ignore nor over-indulge those pesky voices in your head.

the only demons that i have are the ones that tell me that i dont f good, write well, or do my job as good as my coworkers.

the hottie from the other night wrote me a short little email the next day saying

you are very very good.

that should hopefully keep the demons at bay for a week, but you never know.

then the instapundit linked me the other day, something he doesnt do that often, and he linked the longest post ive written in a long time.

so his acknowledgement should f with my demons for a little while as well.

and then i got a good review a few weeks at work, so the xbi is covered.

therefore i dont know what mr. brezney is talking about.

i know my house is messy, but thats certainly not a demonic deal that i worry about.

very interesting.

maybe the astrology is telling me that i need to think about things that i have pushed so far down that i am in denial about them being demons in my life.

hmmmmm.

i do have some loose ends in the dream job department, but those things are pretty much out of my hands, therefore no need to worry about them.

clipper girl isnt talking to me, neither is her cousin, but cheerleaders are as tempermental as the stock market, so no need to worry about that.

and the cubs are the cubs. theyre doomed to fail.

maybe astrology is full of it.

maybe i need to find out who im going to see the muffs with this weekend.

maybe thats the worry i have smooshed down and forgotten about.

this is what happens when you write too much in one day.

go read doc searls who is on fire talking about his mom + or sk smith who's just plain rad

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if im in LA on september 20th
i think you might see me here



KROQ'S INLAND INVASION III
Glen Helen Hyundai Pavilion, September 20th
The Cure
Duran Duran
Hot Hot Heat
Dashboard Confessional
Interpol
Echo and the Bunnymen
Violent Femmes
Psychedelic Furs
Fountains of Wayne
Bow Wow Wow
General Public
Marc Almond of Soft Cell
Berlin
Dramarama

# | |

ive been renting out one of my yachts to these frenchies this summer and they beached the fucker the other day and tried to lie about it, but one of my buddies was vacationing in marsailles and sent me this picture and said isnt that The Ilka II?

and yes it was her, all tilted and bouncing in the surf, so i called up the frenchies and i said wtf bitches? and they snivelled and said that there was a terrible storm and i said too bad, take care of the shit, you break it you own it and they started yelling at me in french and i said i will come over there and i will fuck your shit up and they were all, come on out here and you know what i did, i flew chopper one out there after work yesterday and i landed it in their backyard in the middle of the night and i kicked down their front door and i said daddys home motherfuckers.

and right away they surrendered like cheap trick.

they wrote me a check for like a million euros and i flew back home, so forgive me if i dont write a lot today, im tired.

chopper one has a really good auto pilot mode but youre not supposed to flick it on and fall asleep cuz its what the manual calls "unsafe."

but i have had the best girlfriend that im ever going to have, ive had the best sex that im ever going to have, ive had the best head im ever going to get, and ive even had the best teen girlfriend im ever going to get.

the only reason for me to go on each day is to try to stay alive long enough to watch the cubs win the world series.

and as long as the Tribune Corp owns my team im screwed.

so i flicked on the autopilot, told the cd player that i wanted to hear my Air mix tape, and i snoozed my way across the atlantic.

like a pimped out superhero's supposed to, chienne.

some people dont sleep well as their black helicopter is hurdled through the pre-dawn darkness on autopilot invisible to radar and jets and etc., but i sleep very well.

and oddly its the only time that i dream consistantly.

last night i drempt that i was back on this stakeout that we'd been on last week.

it was outside of a construction site. i was noticing how all the construction workers were actually giving all the women a really fair assessment.

it didnt matter what the woman looked like, the fellas would give them a good look-see and after they passed by they would say to their associates good things about one part of the body or the other.

as piggish as it was, it was actually open-minded and forgiving.

then i woke up.

jack + dougie + >dean + katie's hot new do

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my cubbies are letting me down. this is supposed to be the year.

they keep on getting these scrubs like kenny lofton and tony womack who arent bad and its not like theyre not trying, they are trying.

and randall simon was the hardest guy to strike out last year and im glad they got him too.

but we need a-rod.

why should the yankees get everyone?

i just finished Moneyball, and i dont finish many books, but i took my time with that one and i loved it.

it taught me to look at life differently.

Moneyball shows us that the best way to follow baseball is to not watch it too closely, so when i was at the ball game the other day i took pictures of pretty much everything other than the game.

im not quite sure thats what the book was talking about, but it was a great book.

i'd like the author to follow the Cubs next year and explain to us why its going to be another hundred years before they win the world series.

im hungry. im thirsty. i think i have a bowling date with karisa tonight but she'll probably wuss out because she fears my mighty bowling prowess.

the last time we went she got me hammered and beat my ass and she keeps reminding me that she beat my ass and wont let me forget it.

i dont even remember the game i was so drunk.

moneyball was written so clearly that it made the narrator seem invisible. it just told the story. yes it was slanted towards one side but its an amazing story: how you can spend a fraction of what everyone else is spending on players and beat their ass repeatedly.

now i know why theyre not going to re-sign miguel tejada.

if i go bowling with karisa tonight im going to beat her by 100 pins. and then i'll drink.

i know i always say that and i know she always ends up getting me drunk but i have will power.

i dont but lets pretend i do.

i like it when people say that i have the coolest blog going.

if i dont go bowling tonight i will update the front page, and i will look for a new stat program.

the one i have doesnt do averages very well.

the last two days the blog has gotten on average of about 3,500 hits. one day it got 5,000 hits.

the average day in the busblog i get about 1,000.

but those two days out of 200 shouldnt bump the average to close to 2,000. the average is like 1,250.

i like site meter, ive had them forever, but their numbers cant be trusted. im not as popular as the average says i am and i know i get more hits than the daily stats say.

and karisa, if youre reading this, im going to beat you by 100 pins with an 8 pound ball.

virginia + flagrant + how i didnt catch a home run ball

# | |

dear raymi in the mix,

hi.

do you know i love you?

its true.

anti knows, so it's cool.

and it's not dirty love anyway, it's sweet bloggy love. partially dirty. i cant lie. but not really cuz im olde.

i envy you rameee you and your man. you two can do anything

and everything you type is funny and cool and not as canadian as i thought it would be, except the weed.

in so many ways you are the epitome of canada.

you get away with murder. you parlez francios when you think we're listening. you smoke. how youre not the biggest thing in rock is beyond me. you take off your clothes and write better than most of them and still theyre all oh shit my boss might see and they go back to being stupid.

when can we have our tv talk show?

when will you blog again?

when will canada forgive us?

what school will we send our kids to?

its people like you raymi, and anti, that make me want to go back to the suburbs.

i want you two to live next door and our kids to get in fights with each other and then make up as they build a halfpipe with wood they stole by the lake.

i want to tell my kids not to eat your brownies.

i want to enter a dozen failed businesses with anti

funded by our one real success

the strip club

laundramat

discoteque

magic store.

even after david blane and david copperfield got those hot chicks the kids still didnt learn their magic tricks

until the magic store showed up.

oh raymi.

this time last year you had four five blogs rolling.

is that a wedding band?

i hope so.

i miss you.

thanks for not bringing sars to hollywood but why am i coughing so much?

yours in Christ,

blunty

ray me + az anti + which rhymes with jay me

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caption this, please

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karisa tells me that connecticuit girls are crazy. karisa, though, is one of the craziest girls i ever met.

Adrienne T. Samen (pictured) got married saturday night in South Windsor, Conn.

when the restaurant that she was having her reception in closed the bar, the 18 year old newly wed got beligerant and started throwing shit.

all sorts of shit.

vases, plates, glasses, even her own wedding cake.

i dont see any problem with that.

does that make me crazy?

i think that a woman on her wedding night, in her wedding dress, should be allowed to trash her reception area all she wants. especially if they cut her off from the pink champagne.

whats a cuter sight than a drunken teen in a strapless dress hurling a wedding cake across a bennigans?

two drunk teenage brides going rockstar on a reception.

weddings are so special that i would go as far as to say that if a bride wants to break everything in the place she should be allowed to, as long as the only person that she harms is herself.

everyone knows her old man is going to have to pay a bundle to get her hitched, why not keep the tab going?

and what sort of weasly establishment wouldnt want to get a few new vases and mirrors and lamps and mooseheads on account of the feisty young lady.

but more importantly, since when do you cut off the bridal party on her big night?!!?

booze should flow until the morning.

thats the america that i believe in.

adrienne, you can marry me anytime you want baby.

i want to be the name across your tattoed heart as soon as they let you out of the pokey.

love always,

marc brown

leah + seliot + oliver

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i dont know why good things happen to me. have we discussed this before? i think we have.

lets just say that good things happen to me and keep happening and then some bad things happen and then a lot of good things happen to make me forget about the bad things, and then other good things happen and then the ladies knock on the back door and then they come in and then they dont leave and then there they are in the morning and then more good things happen and then they drive me to the busstop.

before the busstop i was standing there naked dripping wet from a nice morning show. its hot in la and so my showers have toggled to the colder just so as to cool off. and a ridiculously well built girl was drying her hair with my snoopy towel and i was thinking how i wanted to just stand around my house dripping wet and naked for the rest of the day.

how could i call in sick and make this happen?

ive found that i think of a lot more things than i actually do these days.

i think about all the letters i want to write people, and all the things i want to fix up around my house.

i think about all the photo essays i want to write and all the cds i want to download and burn.

i think about all the jobs i want to have and all the traveling i want to do.

i think about how differently my life would be if i could only stop time and get unshackled from the responsibilities that i have and actually go do a study on the best taco in east la or the best place to get a burger on the beach.

ive never actually hiked to the hollywood sign.

ive never been to catalina.

or the playboy mansion.

theres so many things that i need to do here in hollywood.

and yet i could have stayed in my christmas light lit room all morning today, taken a nap with that hot girl, ordered in some chinese and drank sake with her until the sunset.

but that wouldnt ever happen.

my life is good, not perfect.

gastbook + knives out + perfect gallows

# | |

well it was bound to happen. no, not getting linked by the instapundit.

getting a phone call from mr. bruce springsteen.

collect.

i tried to tell him that nothing on here was true, but he knew it was true.

he knew he had lost it, hit the wall, become stale and unimportant.

when he looked at himself he didn't see the man he wanted to be.

and he wanted to know from me if i was just a guy who kicked another guy when he was down, or did i have a solution for his lost ass.

62. o. lawless
63. shannon

and i told him that i was a guy who would kick another guy when he was down, but only to wake him up and remind him that he didn't need to stay down, unless he wanted to stay down.

with the dust.

and yesterdays news.

i told him that if he wanted to know how to get out of it he would have to do a little something from the past and do a little something from the present.

but he would have to trust it and believe in it and just let it happen and not be afraid, but ultimately do what he has been doing since he was just a scrawny little guy from nowhere.

he would have to pretend he was elvis.

everyone thinks that young bruce springsteen was super into bob dylan, but no little kids are into dylan, bruce and his mom were super into elvis, the king.

bruce even tells a story about hopping the fence at graceland in the middle of the night and knocking on the door in hopes to meet his idol.

this was the same week in '78 when bruce graced both time and newsweek.

elvis isn't home, he was told, he's in lake tahoe.

bruce needs to go to nevada too, but not tahoe, vegas.

las vegas.

and that's where he will regain his mojo.

laugh all you want and bring up celine dion but you know what, fuck celine dion.

bruce needs to remember that what was good for sammy, dean, frank, and the king of rock and roll is definitely good enough for the boss. might even be perfect.

best thing he does is perform live. that's taking nothing away from his songwriting. he has a gift.

there's no doubting his onstage charisma, his instant connection to a crowd.

he stood in the middle of a baseball park last night for three and a half hours. no opening band. no hit record. 30k fans paying a total of more than $2.2 million for tickets and no one is complaining.

even though he played 9 songs off the new record

that nobody really bought.

bruce needs to go to vegas to regain his soul, to hold court and tell stories, and rock the roof off the mother every night like he still can.

and he should take his time writing his next record called nevada

and he should dress up in the second encore

in an elvis suit that lights up

and after hes done singing burning love and all shook up and viva las vegas he needs to sing cant help falling in love with you.

lights dim.

applause applause

and then bruce springsteen emerges in the all black leather comeback special outfit

cuz it is a comeback

and he rocks us all harder and better than ever and ever.

then the curtain falls,

then he needs to take about a half hour of requests

and after about six months of that if he doesn't have a record that kicks way more ass than fucking lucky town

then nothing in this shit is true.

shellen + sutter + the best article about the biggest u.s. blackout was written by a brit

# | |

ernie the attorney questioned the brilliance of mr. tom waits in a comment today.

he said that the song "franks wild years" from the 1983 classic "swordfishtrombones" was sexist or... i don't remember. i don't want to fight today. i don't want to argue with ernie the attorney today.

i just want to make it through this manic monday and forget the fact that im (almost) three-times older than the 35 yr old standard by which we made our completely unscientific study of yesterday.

im just stoked that i have a date tonight.

im also stoked that i didn't go to the xgames this weekend because i would have felt like a complete loser.

those guys are flipping their motorcycles across football fields, skateboarding while on fire, riding bikes while standing on their banana seats.

it makes me wonder how one could do the same in the blog world and i see that there's very little that we can do in creative writing that hasn't been done before.

i can tell you about the dull work i do here flying thousands of feet above this great city, i can tell you about the lovely ladies who roll up in their mercedes, who tick tock don't stop, arriving in all ages.

but that's all been done. everythings been done.

the xgames showed me that pretty much nothings been done before in the world of hurling ones body around and i like that. no fear. no worry. no doubt. rock out.

my buddy steve noticed something at the busblog friday that he had never seen before.

he saw a caption this please picture that i took down after it got no comments.

that will happen.

what he didn't mention was the fact that someone actually won the auction to sponsor the busblog for a year and that person hasn't paid or revealed him/herself.

very interesting.

high bidder, reveal yourself and pay up.

else suffer the curse of the unpaid bidder.

mwhwhahahahahahaha

i should kid, i feel like im paying the price of something bad ive done.

i had terrible heartburn earlier today and now my legs are ridiculously sore.

how on earth can i entertain a fair damsel in this condition!

ernie the attorney

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Tom Waits
Swordfishtrombones
Island Records

"Franks Wild Years"
(Waits, 1983)

Well Frank settled down in the Valley
and hung his wild years
on a nail that he drove through
his wife's forehead.

He sold used office furniture
out there on San Fernando Road
and assumed a $30,000 loan
at 15 1/4 % and put down payment
on a little two bedroom place.

His wife was a spent piece of used jet trash,
made good bloody marys,
kept her mouth shut most of the time.

Had a little Chihuahua named Carlos
that had some kind of skin disease
and was totally blind.

They had a thoroughly modern kitchen,
self-cleaning oven (the whole bit).

Frank drove a little sedan.
They were so happy

One night Frank was on his way home from work,
stopped at the liquor store,
picked up a couple Mickey's Big Mouths,
drank 'em in the car on his way
to the Shell station.

He got a gallon of gas in a can,
drove home, doused everything in the house,
torched it.

Parked across the street, laughing,
watching it burn, all Halloween orange
and chimney red

then Frank put on a top forty station
got on the Hollywood Freeway,
headed north.

Never could stand that dog.

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in the last 24 hours at least 3,000 swedes have made it through the recall impeachment photo essay which is pretty good numbers for a sunday, but considering its probably monday in stockholm maybe this is what one can expect when one is linked on Buzz.

how ever you say thank you and welcome and thanks for checking it out in Swedish here's me saying it: _________, Swedes.

a few weeks after turning 21 i found myself in sweeden and i had a marvelous time. the people were warm hearted and generous, beautiful and friendly. most american travelers head south to Greece, i chose the northern route of Sweeden and Denmark and i think i made the better choice.

danke, amigos. je t'aime.

last night in glendale, the best band in america played a top secret undercover friends and family-only show in the quaint and empty bar called The Scene on colorado blvd.

it was a show booked earlier in the week by local faves Psoma, who apparently kept it a secret show too as maybe a dozen of the bands' closest friends were in attendence to hear psoma rock harder than this blogger has ever heard them rock.

it was pretty impressive.

"yeah, i like to play guitar," blue eyed front man Justin admitted, visably beaming, sweaty, and proud after his bands performance.

then tsar climbed on stage and carved rock a new a-hole blazing through a dozen new songs that made it impossible to ignore.

these are your new princeses, sweden. these are the vikings youve left behind. theyve grown up strong and mighty and have a message from another time.

the energy was so good that my old girlfriend wanted to start a fight with an armenian man who was playing pool. he looked at her like she was crazy. she is crazy. fortunately when i extended my hand she furiously took it and sat on my lap and then realized who i was, her sweetheart, and sat on my lap and told me how happy she was to be watching tsar with me, and i told her that i was happy to be watching tsar with her.

then we kissed several times.

then we stood outside with the kids as we should on a hot summer night in southern california as the stars became jealous as has become normal for them on nights when tsar plays indoors.

i didnt see my old hero springsteen last night.

and today i dont regret a damn thing.

instapundit + splink is swedish for warm fuzzy + dumb monkey

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for about ten years during and after college this poster of bruce springsteen was tacked over my bed. now i don't even know where it is.

i may have sold it, lost it, torn it, stored it or stained it.

and the reason frightens me.

one of the classic cliches in rock conversations is "i like his old stuff better."

in a way it says that the artist has lost his mojo, but in another way it identifies the critic as either being 1) stuck in the past 2) unable to flow with change or 3) a lazy snob.

i plead guilty to all of the above, but that doesn't mean that the boss hasn't hit the wall.

tell me one album that he put out since born in the usa that isn't full of shit.

tunnel of love, maybe.

but human touch, lucky town, the ghost of tom joad and the rising are far from fulfilling the prophesy of bruce springsteen being the future of rock and roll.

for if they are the future, rock is dead.

simple as that.

since hindsight is 20/20 one could say that the boss probably stopped wanting to be the future of rock n roll about 20 years ago when he released the river, a double album whose best moments were its dark creepy violent and regretful tales of woe captured perfectly in the title track.

springsteen hit critical and artistic homers later with the all-acoustic nebraska and born in the usa, but take two critical songs off of each record, and you have what he has now: hum drum dreck from the jersey boy who we thought would be bob dylan and the rolling stones all wrapped up in one.

take two songs off of any of his first six records and you still have solid albums.

my fear is that age hit springsteen and wiped out his young man's desire for fast cars fast women and fast times and no longer was he interested in idealistic notions of being born to run, but more concerned with being a family man and a good citizen - both noble goals, for bankers, and bartenders, but i thought he made a deal with us, to never retreat, to never surrender.

springsteen was 35 when born in the usa, his last good album came out.

bob dylan was 34 when he came out with his last great album, blood on the tracks. when he was 35 he seemed incredibly confused with '76s "desire" and the downright failure of '78s "street legal".

near the end of 1978, when bob dylan was 37, he proclaimed that he was a born again christian and subsequently whipped out four totally solid records within 5 years (slow train coming ('79), saved ('80), shot of love ('81), and infidels ('83).

from the time springsteen was 37-46 he's given us tunnel of love, lucky town, human touch, and the ghost of tom joad.

i cant even think of four great songs from that era, and it worries me because it doesn't look like there's any sign of a comeback.

but there rarely is.

when neil young turned 35, he too freaked out.

when he was 34 he came out with the classic Rust Never Sleeps and Live Rust, only to follow with 8 really bad records in a row, 5 of whom were with the totally unlucky Geffen who had no idea that they were financing a ten-year creative slump.

but when neil turned 44 he released a mighty one-two punch of a comeback with '89 "freedom" and '90 "ragged glory." which was then followed up with the gnarly wild live records of "arc" and "weld" proving you could still Rock well into your 40s.

bruce.

and not only Rock, but inspire the kids, like sonic youth and nirvana.

sonic youth would end up opening for young in the mid 90s.

now its understandable that not everyone wants to be smashing guitars and fronting the likes of crazy horse while in their 40s and 50s.

tom petty has definitely taken off what little edge he had in his younger days.

when he was 34 he released his most creatively diverse lp "southern accents" which featured the sitar-flavored "don't come around here no more." two years later he would rock for the last time with "let me up (ive had enough.)"

and even though he mellowed, as on his first solo record "full moon fever" ('89) tunes like free fallin and i wont back down didn't completely suck despite turning 40.

if anything that record was a precursor for the subtlety that we would enjoy in his next three cds "learning to fly" "wild flowers" and the best of the bunch "Songs and Music From 'She's the One'".

but the artist that springsteen should pay the most attention to, if he even cares any more, is the man who wrote the first song that springsteen ever covered on vinyl: tom waits.

bruce released a live version of waits' jersey girl as the b-side of the born in the usa single "cover me." both good songs. the year was 1985, both men were 36 (waits is just two months older than springsteen).

springsteen had just released his most successful record, and waits was about to do the same with the 1985 classic "rain dogs."

where the boss had peaked at 35, waits was just beginning, starring in the '86 jarmush film "down by law", and in '87 busted with the bad ass "franks wild years" (a musical play he wrote with his wife).

in the 90s when springsteen was still floundering, waits came out with bone machine, the black rider, and mule variations. those first two right there: totally amazing.

what tom waits and neil young and bob dylan did was continue to experiment.

petty just aged gracely, but the boss didn't seem to know what exactly to do, or what it was that he wanted to do.

he seemed too afraid to make the embarrassing mistakes that neil young was unconscious about, and therefore hopeless to deliver forgettable middle of the road mush that is so fat and satiated that even dramatic topics like aids ("streets of philadelphia") and the attacks on 9/11 ("the rising") sound more like mumbles than thunders.

when i pay $85 for a rock show, i don't want to be mumbled at.

which is why i wont be at dodger stadium tonight, reliving past memories with a fallen idol.

instead i'll be seeing a band who tonight will be calling themselves steve garveys moustache.

at a secret location.

in glendale.

before they grow up and turn 35.

and die.

virginia + layne + ziboy + sean's blog + one day in the usa

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