busblog

hated onions, loved funyuns

fortune teller looked at my palm

she said you’re holding back, why do you think that is?

i said, what does my palm say?

she said, it says look into the crystal ball

i said wheres that?

she said yr heart.

i said im probably procrastinating because ive been dealt a long series of nos lately and im a sensitive poet and i take those things very personally and it crushes my fragile ego and my body says just curl up and die in a ball instead of trying

she said, wrong heart, that was the heart of a coward. you’re tony pierce, look into your heart.

and in my heart there was a party going on. everyone was dancing around or telling jokes or playing in a band or eating cake or being jolly and singing songs.

i asked, what was the question again?

she said, why are you dragging your feet on the ladder of success?

i said, cuz theres poop on the soles of my shoes and im trying to get them off?

she said, just take off the shoes entirely, we are a happy family.

i said ok now what

she said, rise.

rise!

i could always cheat. smart people are the best cheaters.

but i dont wanna cheat. just like how i never cheat in fantasy sports. when you get that stupid silly golden trophy next to your team name you wanna know that you earned it. that you did all the right things.

and then you tell your brothers and sisters what youve learnt.

but if you cheat, whattya gonna say, “so heres how you screw over the people doing it right”?

i may never have a garage with a fridge in the back. and if i do i might be so old i’ll only have pepto bismol and depends in there. but if i ever get it i will be able to invite the mtv cribs crew down and say i did this the old fashioned way

i earned it.

which isnt to say that the cheater way isnt earning it too. theres work to do there as well. namely shady people. and you might say, ah ha, but werent there shady people where you worked at mcdonalds and the tv store? yes. but the people i loved were in places that were not shady. at the record store. at the newspapers. at the radio station. etcetera.

also i have a crazy feeling that in heaven right now is St. Peter eating popcorn on a huge laz-y-boy recliner and theres angels and saints all around him and theyve got me and maybe 100 other dudes going through the Struggle and any time one of them does something super shady out of desperation they all go “awwwww”

and his name gets erased from the Big Board. not that he isnt going to go to heaven, but he let down the boyz. hank aaron and babe ruth’s numbers are amazing because they didn’t cheat. and in hank’s world, just the opposite happened. you know there were some umps that called every damn pitch a strike just to screw him over. but he sat in there and did the right thing. day after day. year after year.

it is so tempting to do the thing, no matter how short term, that isn’t best behavior busblog. but i keep thinking about all those bible stories where people just trusted. no matter how crazy or dire. they hung in there.

dont you wanna be someone who is reliable no matter what?

dont you want, for example, a car, that doesnt break down, even if it’s outta gas, or low on oil, or has crappy tires and it’s raining. it has every reason to just Not be the cool car you always have. but it hangs in there. it muscles through.

i have been a good this, a good that, ive done well on that thing, and so now it looks like the test in front of me is can i make it to this next step without panicking and doing something shameful. just cuz it’s easy. and just cuz it would make me richer than ive ever been.

sunday i read the part in the bible where Jesus was tempted by Satan. he went though that for 40 days straight, without eating anything.

at the end of it Satan said, just turn those rocks into bread loaves and Jesus said

almost got me, but nope.

 

im not gonna release it until i have 25 episodes in the can

it’s gonna be good.

for a long time i avoided podcasts because everyone has one and who needs another one

and who wants to rush into an oversaturated situation

but thats a silly way to look at anything.

i wouldnt tell people not to get a twitter account or a facebook, merely because everyones on it.

and when it came to blogs, i have always encouraged people to have multiple blogs – even during the blogosphere era when literally everyone *did* have blogs.

i also wanna do this podcast because i am competitive and it would be interesting to see if i could make something that adds to whatever is out there.

one of the voices that goes through your head when youre getting rejected by places you would love to work at is, “you are no longer of value. find a hole to crawl into. despite the economy booming and unemployment at its lowest in years, you should sell oranges in a parking lot out of a baby carriage. go sleep in your fancy car!”

so it would be nice to see if i could do something most bloggers haven’t done all that successfully en mass.

except my friends of course.

fuckers.

i was thinking about calling the podcast All My Friends, Ranked

but i love them, and ranking is passe

then i was thinking about calling it 25 lies and a Truth

but dont we have enough bullshit right now

i know what i want but its twitter handle is taken

fuckers.

they’ll go to garage sales, thrift stores and estate sales and buy things and run home and sell it on ebay.

the more professional ones will also have an amazon seller account so they can sell them there too.

watching these guys made me want to see if i could first sell all the crap I have in my house and then maybe i could think about being a junk flipper like my hero fred g sanford.

as i was watching one of these guys i noticed i had this Obama action figure, still in the box, under the tv.

so i looked on ebay to see how many other people were selling them. Just one guy… for $190 shipped.

like me, the guy is super honest and mentions that a corner of the box is slightly damaged… just like mine is.

but inside, obi wan obama is experiencing no drama.

for some reason i went to amazon to see if they sold it there still, after four years, and not only do they, but it reminded me that that’s where i bought this… for $16.34

however their resellers are selling it for between $400-$450. so this is what i’m thinking. i’m thinking about writing a less dramatic ebay headline than

Obama Star Wars Rare Jedi Knight Figure Purple lightsaber New In box has damage

and list it at $325. i’ll show them the minor blemish on the corner and if they choose to go for the $200 one, fine. scram. now i have the lowest price Obama and i will profit over $300.

millions of people love our greatest black president.

there are two who want this super rare weird action figure.

his name is Clint Miller, an Army veteran who appears to make a pretty good living buying palettes of returned Amazon products and selling them on eBay

what’s different about Clint is he enjoys teaching others how to do it too via his popular YouTube channel, Franchise Kicks

nearly every day Clint makes a video of how many boxes of random stuff he bought from Amazon, what he thinks he will make from it, and what he’ll throw away or keep.

sometimes he’ll get lucky and it’s a smart watch in a shabby box

sometimes he’ll get unlucky and it’s an article of clothing coated with a healthy layer of pet hair

so part of the joy of watching him dig through his daily haul is living vicariously through him, true

but the other part is getting to know this gregarious, seemingly happy, generous man

who has figured out how to flip the richest man in the world’s trash

and turn it into his treasure.

and it’s simple, according to Clint: just do it.

just buy a small box, he advises, something for, say $58. and then list them on ebay.

“the best thing about this is literally anyone can do it,” he said in a recent video to his viewers.

despite having 164,000 subscribers, his videos only average about 25k views,

but one last week, “I bought TWO 450 Pound Amazon Customer Return Pallets Valued at OVER $2,500” was seen over 200,000 times.

why? who knows. it’s a big bald guy taking things off the back of his pickup truck for a half hour in sweltering heat,

while showing a single camera if any of it was good.

we’re rooting for him, because we are rooting for our future selves. we want to believe that there is money in rolling the dice on gently used – and sometimes new – stuff that all we have to do is list, ship, and profit from.

while keeping some good stuff for ourselves.

we are rooting for us.

we see ourselves in him. our best selves.

once a week he has been doing videos of boxes of gifts his fans send him

he does it in front of his enormous shoe collection.

not only is the internet wild, and bizarre

but it is filled with love.

someone noticed he got ripped off of something, so they sent them theirs.

someone else drew a beautiful picture of him

someone else bought him a new knife for opening his boxes with.

who doesn’t love Clint?

well, it is YouTube, probably the most rude social media channel when it comes to comments

so there are some in there who make jabs at him.

can’t win them all.

Clint took to Twitter to admit that it does bum him out a bit.

we’re all human. even an Army man has feelings.

so i think im gonna send him a mystery box of my own. some fan mail from one cub fan to another.

His UPS box is: 484 E. Carmel Dr. #127 Carmel, IN 46032

Rock on Clint, YouTube star and dream maker, who, when he has earned some spending money,

pays what it takes to get some of the Avengers to autograph toys for him

dont ever change.

a long time ago i was in a poetry writing class at my university

it was a trick class because the credits did not count for any requirement in letters & science

even though it was a letters & science class.

you took it because you wanted to

and that was all.

the trick though, is it was taught by the most popular writing teacher in

the mysterious college of creative studies

a place where if you could somehow get in, it would bless you with

the unimaginable gift

of no grades, no tests, no finals.

but none of us who took this class knew that.

at least i sure didnt.

none of us knew that this teacher was the key to that incredible world.

incredible, in part, because everyone in that college was super talented

in art or music or math or words.

one of the things this teacher did was she required each student to meet with her privately

twice that quarter, after class, for about an hour.

weird, but ok, whatever.

upon my first visit she asked how i liked class, and i said i liked it.

we went over some of the poems id written and after that i said

hey i have a 13 page epic love poem id like to ask you about because im having

a hard time finishing it.

and i gave it to her and we read it and the next time that we had a meeting

she was asking me if i would be interested in transferring from letters and science

to go to the college of creative studies.

little did i know it was a trick question.

because it tricked me into believing i could do it.

which i did.

one of the things i asked her that pivotal afternoon was something that i remember even now,

centuries later

i said, robyn, obviously you know a few things about creativity,

as that is the college you teach at, and also attended,

i am really afraid that the ideas will stop one day.

will they?

and she said:

nope.

and she aint never lied

you might not get paid a bunch for it. you might not get famous

you might not have a gazillion people cheering for you

it’s ok. do it.

you might actually get to be the best in the world

and still you might not get paid a bunch for it

you still might not get famous

you still might not be recognized

ever

for how super cool you actually are in what you do

but do it.

dont worry about those things

those things are silly.

who was the best singer in the world in 1902?

who was the best singer in 1809?

who was the nicest person in 1705?

fame and acknowledgements and big houses and parades and hangers on

none of that is gonna help you when you get to the pearly gates

none of that shows how pure your heart is

none of that shows what a real g you be

be the real g that you know you are

as often as possible

even when

noneones watching

i wasnt a boy scout but i was a cub scout and then webelo and i loved them both

and one thing that stuck with me was to be prepared.

so with this rash of earthquakes here in LA, reddit has been a good place for people to show off their emergency bags and this guy showed his today

and people weren’t having it.

they said the water supply was too low, as was the food,

and this person should have a 12 inch wrench to turn off the gas

and gas masks to filter out the toxic air

and way more clothes and prescriptions and weed and booze and blankets

although i think the altoids might actually be weed.

their feedback made me nervous because i dont think i have enough water now

or a wrench or the proper gas masks

all of which i will buy this week because

i loved cub scouts

is there anything left in that secret bag?

was it all total luck?

who are you and is that a good thing

or a great thing?

the mysteries are there because who wants to know how it’s gonna end.

you can do it again.

i was asked the simplest questions the other day and it was like when a pitcher throws a batter

a slow ball.

they call it a change up because your whole life you learn at first to hit the fast ball and then the curve

then someone, especially in a pressure situation, just throws up the easiest ball to hit but sooooo slowly and you get to anxious

and you whiff.

i whiffed on the two easiest questions the other day and if i was able to get a redo id knock it outta the park

but how often do we get a chance to try it again, slower? hardly ever.

like the guy in hamilton said, make sure your palms aren’t sweaty,
knees strong, arms aren’t heavy
iron your shirt, eat your mom’s spaghetti