busblog

theres many things to appreciate about a long legged blonde who will wear ridiculous shirts and come to a rock show with you

one is i enjoy taking pictures of pretty girls standing next to strange men, especially if theyre gay or holding signs.

the first gentleman was advertising one of my favorite soul food haunts, M&Ms (which stands for Mississippi and Memphis(?)

they keep closing locations and opening up new ones, theres a new one kitty corner to The Forum,

but for some reason it closes at 9pm which is way too early for the post-show meal but it’s cool.

what else is cool is people still dont understand that M&M’s signature is they dont give a flip. heres a typical review:

The food was cold and the service was crap when I went there before Christmas, but the place is ghetto and the waitress was new that short changed me $5. When I brought it to her attention she displayed major attitude telling me that her tip was automatic. Beware of the light-skinned older lady with the crooked afro.

god i miss that place.

my favorite place to park at the Forum is across the street from people who rent out their own parking spots

that’s where we met Jorge who was so excited to take our $20 and run around the block showing us his “last spot”.

it sure looked like his last spot although when we got out and paid he ran after someone else claiming that person should take advantage of his last spot

apparently i parked so well he could squeeze someone else in.

good for Jorge.

before i paid i asked him if he would be interested in posing next to Amber

he said oh noooooo.

i said i wont tell your wife. he said oh nooooo.

i said if you dont, i WILL tell your wife.

click.

he called me his amigo and loco and a few things and it was super sweet we shook hands and he said he would watch the car all night.

i said if he hears any muffled sounds from the trunk or knocks he should ignore them.

he winked and said, dont forget to lock your doors “welcome to inglewood!”

and we became friends

another thing nice about amber smith blog is she appreciates getting to the show at a reasonable hour so you can watch the opening band.

last night’s opener was Slash who has no problem playing all the classic Guns n Roses songs that either he co-wrote or played a prominent part in.

not only that, but part of that great sound were his piercing solos, of which he clearly loves busting.

we got there a tad late but just in time for Sweet Child O’Mine.

Slash’s singer, Miles Somebody is no Axl but from the cheap seats (thanks, TravelZoo) he sure sounded like a decent substitute.

after Miles introduced the band he said, thanks for coming, get ready for Aerosmith, but first, Welcome To The Jungle.

and it was on.

Aerosmith was amazing. especially compared to KISS and Def Leppard who we saw a few weeks back.

Steven Tyler has so much energy its tremendous and he can still hit all the high notes.

some of his moves are worn out and predictable but theyre still so fun and their catalogue is so deep they still had a half dozen super great tunes (Amazing, What It Takes, Janie’s Got A Gun) that they just didnt have time to get to.

They brought out Johnny Depp for Big Ten Inch Record but unfortunately Amber was in the ladies room interviewing the ladies and when she got back she only caught a few seconds of the end.

I said im so sorry, she said, that’s ok, hes not really my type, and then kissed me on my cheek.

the xbi sure programs these blondes perfectly.

ktla however needs to fire this reporter:

also, why were they there?

speaking of, why were the dorky college kids in the row in front of us there?

ive never seen a group of youngsters flip through their social media more during a concert in my life.

during some of the biggest hits one dude was seriously going through his Facebook timeline seeing what his friends were up to.

meanwhile another guy was texting his friend and his friend was all “are you singing along?”

and the dude, honestly replied “LOL No.”

LOL NO IS RIGHT.

back to amber…

so to test her willingness to hang with the busblog after the show i was all you didnt drink a drop in the show, you only had a few bites of my pulled pork sandwich

either you are an amazingly realistic animatronic creation from the future

or youre starving right now. how about a Munchie Meal from Jack in the Box

she said, only if you get extra jalapenos.

which just happened to be the magic phrase so she won Cubs tix for friday night.

update: someone DOES think i’m fashionable

Rejoice!

He’s a catcher. Not a pitcher.

He hasn’t hit a home run in 5 years and hasn’t pitched in over 12.

Last night at Wrigley Field, 6 hours into the longest game the Cubs have ever played in their 100+ year history, John Baker was called off the bench to pitch the 16th inning.

And boy did he.

Not particularly well, compared to actual professional baseball pitchers, but he only walked one batter and promptly coerced the next batter to ground into a double play.

He ended his inning without giving up a run and when he came up to the plate at the bottom end of the inning, Baker drew a walk and eventually scored the winning run. It was an exclamation point at the end of a historic and wonderfully epic game that meant nothing to the last place teams, but everything to the players and fans who experienced it.

When it was over his teammates showered him with beer, chocolate milk, shampoo: anything they could pour on him.

“I think about all the guys I played with who are pitchers who are very good and never got  a chance to pitch in the big leagues,” Baker told reporters after the game.  “My hat is off to all those guys that grinded for so long and never got a chance to pitch.  It’s something I definitely will cherish for a long time.’’

See kids, that’s class.

Baker hadn’t pitched since his early days in the minor leagues and remembers that season fondly.

“It was the Cape Cod League,” he said. “I believe I had like a 27.00 ERA, but I was getting squeezed from what I remember.”

Last night, however, the exhausted umpires were more forgiving.

“I shook a split-finger (fastball) and yanked it a little bit,” Baker continued, noting a pitch that veered off closer to Indiana than to the strike zone. “So I just decided I was going to bang it and go with a straight 76 mph heater. That seemed to be the most effective pitch in the game.“

About 1,000 loyal fans made it to the end of the game and when the catcher/pitcher led off the bottom of the 17th he was greeted with hearty chants of his name.

Baker walked to lead off the rally in the 17th, he was bunted over to 2nd. he eventually made it to 3rd, and then Cubs star Starlin Castro hit a long drive to right. Baker tagged up and scored the winning run with a mighty slide at home beating the throw. The chants continued and quickly segued into the “Go Cubs Go” victory song.

“Any Chicagoan’s dream is to be standing at home plate with the remaining people at Wrigley Field chanting your name, so it’s something you’ll never forget,” Baker said.

i saw so many great movies at the IV Theater

and lectures and learned so much.

basically everything i know about art history.

a class i never enrolled in, because it was packed. but i went anyways.

too bad the apes took it over.

 

then i remember shes a ghost

clara bow first became famous when she won a magazine contest at 16.

some pretty girl thing in 1921 to find pretty girls.

as if that has ever been difficult.

that lead her to fame and fortune in the silent movie business.

clara became the original It Girl when she starred in the film It (1927) which was based on a kipling short story that included this couplet:

It isn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just ‘It’.
Some women will stay in a man’s memory if they once walk down the street.

Bow had it. at the peak of her career she was getting 10s of thousands of letters from fans a week.

even though talkies moved in, she was able to adjust, but she didn’t want to. she didnt like them. she found them limiting.

she got married in 1931 and retired from movies in 1933.

bow had some unfortunate health issues later in her life and received shock treatment for her insomnia and mental instability. that didnt cure her and when she died in her 60s of a heart attack the autopsy discovered she had a separate, undetected heart attack earlier in her life.

one of her pall bearers was the boxing champ Jack Dempsey.

despite being known for her beauty, bow should also be remembered for her struggle to be unique in tinseltown, which isn’t always easy for It girls.

“They yell at me to be dignified. But what are the dignified people like? The people who are held up as examples for me? They are snobs. Frightful snobs … I’m a curiosity in Hollywood. I’m a big freak, because I’m myself!”

yes, yes it is

as you know charlie and bonnie, the only people ive ever married, ran away to Berlin Germany

to form a Lou Reed cover band with their little daughters.

by law they have to come back to America once every other super moon.

so kim and os opened up their beautiful home to all of us. and even the children.

its fun watching the kids get bigger and the backyards become more magical

 

not to mention the guacamole become more zesty

i was all, kim, this pool, is that a kiddie pool over there or a hot tub?

she was like, thats a hot tub.

the mcilvanes had just returned from a baseball game or two, later greg played some of your favorite Hank songs

someone said hey its boba fett someone else said no its a clone

and then the rest of the day was spent talking about star wars

we have known each other so long it’s amazing.

before the internet.

before laptops

way before universal health care.

there were so many kids and theyre at the age where they are adorable and so well behaved

we know that will all end soon, but for right now all is well.

there was a taco station and best of all a Ben Sullivan Salsa Bar,

where ben paired the best toppings for you depending on your eye color, nationality, and political leanings

 

the sunken firepit was great in the day but when the sun went down it became the perfect spot for a Hootenany

the guitar was passed around and all these great old tunes came out sung by the gents who wrote them

some parts of the audience knew the words better than their creators which was sweet

inside the kids were playing new games together while on their phones. it was very sweet.

but ive gotta say it was way sweeter hearing the classics in the back yard.

a tagger had gotten trapped spraying graffitti on a sign above the 5 freeway

and he didnt wanna give himself up to the cops so he just sat in the small space

between the sign and the overpass.

the cops couldnt get to him because of some fencing put there to prevent taggers!

so they shut down the freeway and set up a cushion for the tagger to jump

but the guy wouldnt move: for hours

so apparently some guy had all the fixings for a taco stand so he set one up.

first customer talked crap about it on yelp.

deep down im a very old man. actually not that deep.

while in college i went hiking my freshman year with a bunch of new college friends.

they thought it would be funny to wake up, sprinkle granola bars with lsd

and give them to all of us sleeping amigos as the sun rose.

i knew something was up because who giggles and says eat this tony unless evil lurks.

it was quite a way to wake up, lemme tell you, and that whole morning slash afternoon i whined

why are we hiking? whats the point? why did we sleep in the dirt? black people dont do this!

and i realized that i was like a weird milk chocolate candy bar.

on the outside i was beautiful and smooth and delicious

and in the creamy center i was full of youth and sweetness

but right in the middle of that i was this hard old nut maybe a million years old.

which i was reminded up not that long ago when i woke up in a hotel suite with a pretty girl

who for some reason thought it was ok to put her tea service on our bed

when there was a perfectly good night stand right next to her.

she was all, shut up grandpa and read this to me as i fall back to sleep.