busblog

and heres the crazy thing, i have a terrible memory, which is a main reason why i blog so much

and should probably blog more.

but heres what i remember… through Instagram of all places she noticed that i was taking pics of places near where she lived. this was back when the Academy was where the Academy Museum is now being built. well, she lived a few blocks away.

and either i said or she said, we should hang out after work one day.

i remember we went to Doomies because i had recently eaten a fantastic vegan Big Mac from them at a street fair and i wanted to try it again to see if i was hallucinating.

so i picked Amber up and she had these crazy shorts that rode up high on her hips but were chopped super short.

i was driving a Prius looking car back then, def not the chick magnet muscle car she was accustomed to.

she said she didn’t drink, so i didnt drink either. and i noticed that i hadn’t made a move during a date without liquid courage since… maybe high school?

amber looked so beautiful and knew everything about LA (she’s a native), i hugged her goodnight and putt-putted away in my slowass hybrid.

miracles of miracles she texted me back the next day saying she had a great time.

she may have even included a risqué photograph saying she was impressed that i was a gentleman the whole evening.

after some questioning, she told me she would be interested in seeing Aerosmith play at the Forum with me, Slash was opening. she wore a slinky sparkly dress and i noticed this was the first concert i had gone to without buying a beer since… high school. it was fun, she was cute. i put my hand around her hip for one song and was too scared to kiss her when i dropped her off.

a few days later she texted me, said how much she loved the show and wanted to see another concert with me, did i have anything on the calendar? i said oui, KISS is playing with Def Leppard opening in about two weeks. we went, i was nervous, i was still not drinking, but then the lights spelling K I S S blinked i knew i should and i did

and i must be an incredible kisser because fireworks started exploding

all over the stage, in the audience, pretty much everywhere.

i hear Kiss was so moved by my moves that they now incorporate those pyrotechnics in all of their shows.

you’re welcome.

they were honest and i was honest and we got it all out there

and they asked good, hard questions

and i had answers and examples and a few things they probably didn’t see coming

and i smiled and they smiled

and the food was super good

and we were just three people not fucking around, just getting it done with a shared goal

a pure goal

goodness all around.

fucking a. this city is so big but it’s rare when this happens. why is it rare? is everyone that scarred and worn down? does this happen only once every full moon friday the 13th?

or is this what ive been writing all along: that the man upstairs, you know that he cares, was just letting the ingredients meld together naturally, which is the best way

and then when it was time… ta da.

we talked about so much in such a short period of time.

even in hushed tones

(the best tones)

i ate rare beef.

im alive eating left over rare beef.

if i die i love you and that smile on my face is bittersweet

today is 9/11 and i had a terrible day

maybe the worst thing about having a bad day on 9/11 is you look like a jerk if you whine about it

bc anyone can rightfully quote the original Hangover movie and ask, but did you die?

weirdly if you asked Daniel Johnston that tonight at the reception party beyond the Pearly Gates he would smile and say yep.

i don’t know if this is how it is with everyone, but the basis of most of my bad days revolves around Communication

did that person say to me what i think they did? why isn’t this other person understanding what i want and my expectations and how small they are and yet they are still not being met?

i admit that sometimes, especially when it comes to jobs, i feel that at my age and station i have done the things necessary to be Qualified

and when a gig appears that suits me perfectly, the hiring manager would either piss his pants and say THE tony pierce wants some of this so shout heck yeah!

but youd be shocked how few times thats happened lately.

what good is experience if you’re gonna overlook it?

and i keep saying, God has something better. be patient, grasshopper. this endless chorus of nos is going to end in a bukakke of Meg Ryan when harry met sally yes yes

yessssssses

but you still arent allowed to have a bad day on 9/11 so suck it up macho man and get it tomorrow

but its been hot girls summer and i just needed to live a little before the rocket launches

but now murphys law now ambers sick.

i was gonna take her to san dieger because the cubs are down there

but now those plans are canceled

the curse of the 619

tomorrow im being interviewed for a documentary.

these sorts of things happen all the time.

heres the catch about journalists bloggers, people who like to talk to other people

often theyre the worst interviewees

as in most thing, i’ll try not to suck.

 

Anthony Rizzo has played over 1,200 innings in the majors.

A giant majority of that time was as a first baseman.

Over the course of the last few years he has spent a total of 5 innings as a second baseman… on a technicality.

occasionally Joe Maddon positions players very aggressively on bunts. Rizzo is positioned ridiculously close to home and the true second baseman covers first.

Because he is basically to the side of the pitcher’s mound during the pitch,

MLB rules say Rizzo can’t use a first baseman’s glove because those are only used for the player closest to first.

He exchanges his huge glove with the second baseman for a normal sized one.

During those outs, he’s being recorded as a second baseman.

They are rare.

Extremely rare.

The Cubs have done that zero times this season so far.

But Rizzo, always the jokester, identifies himself as a first AND second baseman on his Twitter bio.

dude says do you know san francisco

i said, nope

he said, your thing says you lived there for years.

i said what thing

he said the thing

i go those things are always full of flaws

he said did you not live there for 4 years at the dawn of the internet and you started your own company and you sold beers for the giants and

you left because you read something in the new testament about the rich prince?

i said those reports have sure gotten specific

he goes do this thing be back soon heres a bunch of cash

next thing you know we’re on fishermans warf eating three types of fish and the freshest crab youve ever. we’re sitting on these outdoor stools. a young lady is yelling at the tourists trying to get them to come into her restaurant. there’s five others right next to hers. all selling the same thing.

i got seats available. who wants lobster? best on the pier!

i go, baby. let me hold those menus and give it a try

delicious food guaranteed to help you grow an inch taller. all the seafood is vegan. we dont use salt. and the water’s free. who wants two. i got two right by batters box. free peanuts for the kids. all the proceeds go to charity. thats the bosses girlfriend. who wants a booth. i got a booth. booth of you over there, you look hungry. give the leftovers to the poor. knock on the glass and scare the sea lions. penguins eat free. who needs two!

next to us was what appeared to be a pimp and his employee. they both seemed happy and not a care in the world. surely they were working but what was their angle. he was ordering food, she was reading a book on her phone.

something was fishy on the pier.

amber didnt like the scene so we split. she said she wanted to see all the places id lived.

i wasn’t that into it but for some reason the streets were empty, everything was desolate. so we sped through town.

first stop was the apartment a bunch of us lived in on haight street. because no one was in town there was a parking spot right infront of the door. there was a dude on the stairs smoking a cigarette. 40ish. gay. hippie punker.

i asked do you live here?

yep

oh man, i used to live here like 20 years ago.

he goes, wanna come look around?

shocked i said, why yes i would!

the place looks almost like we never left. it’s cluttered with the greatest things you are bound to find on and around the lower haight. mannequins, stuffed animal heads. props, sound equipment, guitars, bars.

the main living room had been turned into two living rooms. and the middle living room is now the dining room. but with tons of found out and second and third hand furniture.

perfect!

the kitchen strangely looked identical except for a holder for the pots and pans and a seriously organized dishes situation next to the sink. someone put some effort into realizing that a victorian with 5 bedrooms and no dishwasher is going to live or die by the dirty dishes solution, what ever that may be.

the woman was making like three pounds of ground beef. this other guy was eating a thick steak and bonding with amber because they’re both from the valley.

and a dog waited below waiting for something to fall off the small table.

upstairs the sole bathroom was modernized slightly and the front room where don lived was identical. and then we got to see my room and it was the natural progression of what it once was: enormous tv, and cool art around the walls.

what an amazing defiance of gentrification while all around it, the soul was being sucked out of a once vibrant source of idealism and creativity.

we hugged them many times and amber exchanged phone numbers like eight times to the same guy.

then we drove to the mission and ate a giant plate of mexican food at el faro lito. all i wanted was a burrito but amber pointed at a picture and out came rice beans enchiladas and salad.

the scene was amazing. all kinds of young people, some tow truck drivers, a black girl from compton who seemed more high than drunk, and this guy who amber swore was wasted on cocaine.

got to the hotel, pooped, cuz i had just driven six hours and passed out

next day i had to mail something for a friend of the busblog

we did it in this tiny mall that had a safeway in it. freakiest thing. but this mail place had it all. it was all spread out unlike most mail places. theyd do ups, usps, fed ex. and they also faxed. i needed to send a fax. faxing is still a thing right now, readers from the future.

this place did all of it, had stamps, packing materials. birthday cards. tv going on in the back. for some reason it was my dream store.

who doesnt want an alternative to the post office that has every little thing youd ever need. markers. tape. confetti.

only thing it needed was a couple of packs of baseball cards for sale somewhere.

then we drove to the house of nan king and not only wasnt there a line, but it too had a parking spot right in front of it because everyone was at burning man or some shit. no one was in town. for a good 20 minutes at lunch time, only half of the city’s best chinese restaurant was full.

how good was it? amber didnt wanna eat there. she eats chinese 3 times a week. usually dollar chinese joints cuz she keeps it super real.

she was all, nope, if i wanted chinese i woulda gotten something next door to the mail place, a poor man’s panda express called Asia Chinese.

but when we got there and she bit into the veggie chow mein her eyes got big and she saw the light.

i had shrimp packets and nanking sweet potatoes with crispy chicken.

it was then that amber said, why dont you just do people favors for a living. travel the state. eat the foods. fix problems.

i said, the xbi is dangerous. thats why it pays so well.

she said, this is an xbi thing?

we went around the block to the city lights book shop and she got emotional in there

it is pretty much living history, that book store. and all your friends are on the shelf.

it was nice that she felt the spirit in there.

we drove back fast as we could stopping here and there

and listening to jim acostas book Enemy of the People which he reads to you

and it reminds you just

how

much

shit

has hit the fan in the last little while with trump in office.

you really forget how much of it theres been

and acosta doesnt go into all of it, but weirdly he was in the center of a big one

when the white house revoked a member of the press’s hard pass

because they didn’t like his questions.

got home and finished my faro lita burrito.

ive lived in LA so long and ive met so many people but

im still a stranger and i havent met you and you and you and you

in the 80s i met a guy who ended up in brett easton ellis’s book shortly after he met me

not only did he meet me but he “borrowed” some of my clothes and left behind his super expensive threads.

i have kissed the prettiest girls. earned money in the fanciest homes. heard the best stories and written a few.

im thinking about starting an instagram about my neighborhood. i am thinking about every day going out and talking to just one person and either taking their picture or video taping it. even though video tape doesnt exist any more.

so much doesnt exist. even people. which is why i really need to document them.

sure theres humans of new york but and no offense but fuck new york. new york is the exception to all the rules. it may as well be a planet in another solar system.

LA though is different. so different. and hollywood even more so.

you drive around LA and into other counties. the further the better. and then you come back to this one and it dawns on you “how can anyone afford to live here?” how do they do it. which is im sure what you can say about NY too but fuck NY. why snow? why rain? why the yankees?

in a million years why the yankees?

but LA is the american dream. LA is where dreams come true is the best part. LA is where No Cal and Mexico french kiss on a balcony at 12:31am on the last night of summer.

new york doesnt even have summer.

his name was atif.

people can be against things, that’s fine.

people can try to stop you from your dreams… cool

but those who will, say, starve themselves because their favorite TV show has been pulled off the air? now those are my people.

i had just stood in line at the Popeyes on Hollywood Blvd to get that spicy chicken sandwich. i had nothing else to do so i walked home instead of taking the subway – gotta get those steps.

as i approached Sunset and the Netflix HQ, i saw a woman who i had seen a few times earlier in the week.

she had her sign that said Save The OA

but while i was driving in the past i hadn’t noticed that in small print it said Hunger Strike.

this woman had not eaten in 5 days when i approached her and had the nice little chat in the video.

i love TV. theres three TVs in my 1BR apartment. but would i stop eating if one of them shut down?

no. does that make me a bad person?

and how horrible was i holding a bag of Popeyes chicken talking to a woman who only had drank water for nearly a week? im a monster.

and then i asked her which foods she missed.

that proves im terrible.

so i posted the first minute of this on my Instagram and tagged she and the other young lady who was protesting and it’s already the most popular video of the month on my IG.

i think i will start roaming around talking to more people.

 

it started early in the morning.

i wanted it to start at 5pm cuz they said u can pick 5pm or 10am in santa monica and i said 5pm and they said too late all we have is 10am

and because they were paying $200 and beggars cant be choosers i said fine, fuckit, 10am. problem is last night after a delicious thai dinner, i passed out at 8pm. around 1am amber still wasnt in bed and weirdly that wakes me up.

its not that im afraid shes cheating on me or nothin, i just have grown accustomed to a hot babe spooning my unworthy ass at that hour and when it’s not happening i wake up and my body goes wtf.

but then my body thinks that four hours of z’s was a nap, and then im fucked till 5am. and my alarm was set for 8 because going from East Hollywood to Santa Monica in the morning is a schlep. i know this because ive been considering jobs on that side of town as that is “Silicone Beach” now and all your favorite companies are there for some reason which is ridic because the rents are the highest, the commutes are the worst and wtf, make your shit in DTLA in cool old buildings surrounded with possibilities.

woke up, shit showered and didnt shave and listened to the end of Artie Lange’s crash and burn which was touching because it was a little about Bruce Springsteen which was interesting because just yesterday i saw Blinded By The Light which is now my favorite movie of the year.

got to the place and its 90 minutes with Twitter. and i gave them the best advice and i wonder if they will take it to heart. it was not about a topic that i woulda brought up, which made my advice even that much more magical. this was something that they were really interested in and i gave them The Solution.

afterwards i had the rest of the day to myself and because i had paid $14 all day parking at santa monica civic i decided to deposit the money and take a little uber bike to venice.

that was a disaster. in fact my bike got stolen while i was at the ATM and this son of a gun rode the bike for three hours, i shit you not. $50 charge. not sure if he just did a bunch of drug deals or because he couldn’t turn it off, he parked it then someone else stole it. and so on and so on.

life is so weird.

so then i tried to take a Bird. but parts of Venice wont let you Bird. they’ll let you rent it but they wont let you ride it. the whole things a racket.

but Venice was where i had my first ever apartment back in the dark ages. it’s where i had some fun shenanigans. and it was even the place, when i first moved to california, where i would watch the sunset into the ocean as often as possible. cuz they just didnt have that where i came from.

me and venice are bros. so one lady offered me a taste of some pizza. someone else gave me a bottle of water which i gave to a homeless guy. i watched some skateboarding. i heard these jamacians hustle tourists. it was a good day.

then i wanted to ride a Metro bike back to the Civic Center but that thing was a royal pain in the ass. I had a Tap card. I had the app. but it didnt matter. today was not my day for riding these things around Venice. So i walked over to Innes Place where i once lived and there i saw this little bike thats motorized. so i took that in the bike lane down Ocean Ave and whattya know right after the Santa Monica line, it died. because Santa Monica doesnt allow them. but it didnt die AT the line, it waited a good block to die. and you cant just leave it there you gotta walk it backward from where you are to end the ride.

this is why the dinosaurs went extent. they jumped off cliffs due to this nonsense.

have i mentioned santa monica is not the place where i would put my business?

got in a lyft then drove to the santa monica kanpai, which was showing the last few outs of the Cubs game. yay. incredible lunch. $30? some handrolls, some spicy albacore, a coke, a smile, and a how ya been from the sushi chef who ive waved at for going on 10 years now.

feeling strong i drove home beating the rush hour.

turned on the youtube and watched this guy open baseball cards.

i dont know why but when im working on things – im working on something – i love having this guy on in the background opening baseball cards. i live vicariously through him. but also he teaches you about the players when he does it.

one of the things i learned is a perfectly graded Ozzie Smith rookie card is worth $20k-$30k because that year the printing was really bad and a lot of the cards were not perfectly centered. like it’s hugging the right edge or the left edge or the top is a little high up there.

and sure enough two of my Ozzie Smith rooks are way off-center.

so i started digging around to see if i had any more, because in 79 i was babysitting my neighbor. and back then cards were 20 cents a pack. so i would ask for 40 cents an hour so i could get two packs of baseball cards.

how crazy would it be if a card from a pack from my babysitting days could wipe out all my credit card debt and get me on the right side of life again? how bizarre would that be?

fell asleep thinking about that. woke up and thought, ambers not gonna be home till late, the rolling stones are playing in pasadena. i wonder if people are panicking and selling their tix at the last minute for below cost and i can catch the boys on what will probably be their last huge tour?

as i was doing that amber called, emotional, and needed me to do something for her over in beverly hills. swimming pools. movie stars. and of course i said yes because yeah its only rock n roll, but i like her.

so i did the thing. got a hug out of the deal. and had time to kill. so i went to south LA because thats where the nearest Popeyes is and everyones going crazy about their new chicken sandwich. theres a damn chicken war happening right now between Popeyes and Chick Fil Ayyyyy. Wendys is sniping from the brambles too.

so i go. huge line inside. two giant drive thru lines happening outside. now im listening to Jim Acosta read his book Enemy of the People. so i dont mind waiting 20 minutes for this sandwhich.

get to the drive through.

terrible sign.

outta the sandwiches.

but at least the Cubs won.

 

18 years old.

you know how old that is in Internet years? like wayyyy past retirement.

this blog has been a Godsend.

i have met people from around the world cuz of it. pretty girls and drunken dudes.

at least two foreign governments have flown me to their land to have me experience their worlds and write about it here.

sounds crazy but it’s true.

this blog has never demanded anything from me and i love that.

over the last few years i haven’t written in it as much as i used to, but this blog doesnt care.

it knows what it is and doesn’t need constant validation.

its like that mysterious foggy swamp near the mississip, it’s fine all by itself

but if you’re curious enough to explore it, you’ll be mystified by the twists and turns

sometimes beautiful, sometimes fugly, but never boring.

how many anythings with over 12,000 posts can say that?

i love you busblog, 42nd wonder of the world.

proclaimer of peace love and soul.

uniter of peoples, home of photos stolen from the www

graveyard of beautiful lies, half truths, and accidental wisdom.

will this go on for another 18 years?

probably.

hopefully.

god willing.

the only question will be, will you stick around for the ride?

i hope so, because i’ll tell you something, i can see the future and the next 8 years is going to be

cooler than the last.

that is my guarantee to you.

so strap in, pass around the juice boxes, and say yr prayers.