busblog

i’ll probably win. that’s cool. because i have a plan.

odds are i’ll only get $800 million of that (because i’m black), which is fine.

i bet i could work out a deal with a bank that if i gave them my $800 mil they’d not only make me a bank vice president (my secret wish), but they’d give me 5% interest on that chunk.

that means if i don’t touch it, ever, i would make $40 million a year, forever.

of that $40 mil i bet i could, if i budget correctly, live off $20 mil, and make 20 people a year millionaires for as long as i live. and *still* have $800 mil in the bank.

so who would i make millionaires? well the first year, fam and ex girlfriends, of course.

the next, public school teachers.

next, social workers. next firemen.

like that.

i have had a good life. i blame my mom.

she taught me early on not to be afraid of strangers.

when i was little she used to say, “say thank you to that man.” or “i better hear you say ‘Excuse me’ to that lady you just bumped in to.”

these last few weeks i have been talking to strangers which might be my favorite thing of all. i am completely fascinated with people’s stories, how they became who they are.

but i also love to hear them talk. like what words they use. what details they find interesting in a story. and best of all, what they try to hide from me.

i am always surprised. i try to be honest with them. my car license plate says XBI, which most people know means that we can read your mind or know when you’re lying. even if youre wearing sunglasses. even if youre french. naturally everyone lies, but sometimes you’re sitting there and you wonder, why are they bullshitting me on this? no one cares about this. why this?

i once had a supervisor, when i was young and asked this. he said the best thing. “when you listen to hard rock, particularily a guitar solo, theres all this distortion all around the notes. thats what these little lies are. atmosphere. flourish. a frame. don’t let it throw you.”

i know people are scared. i know trust is a bitch for a lot of people. im sure i would be freaked out by the world a lot more if i didnt have super powers. but isnt that what religion is supposed to do for people? isn’t that what experience is supposed to bring you: trust that a + b = c?

and yet the people who exhibit trust the most when i talk to them are kids. the ones who have zero experience, zero power, zero reason to believe. yet they do. with me at least.

this week i have talked with a lot of interesting people. yesterday for four hours on venice beach as pretty girls and freaks paraded past us. i will be forever grateful of the experiences that i have had and i will continue to use that to fight evil and reflect goodness.

and the best way i can do that is to never bullshit you. ever. even when the going gets tough.

when will we get there

when will they trust us

when will they talk to us

when will it get better

what did i do wrong

who did i diss

every kid is told ‘be yourself’

so when i am myself the world implodes

maybe it needs an implosion

maybe it was gonna implode anyways

maybe none of this has to do with me

maybe nothing has to do with us

the good book does not promise that it will get better

ive been reading Job, who was truly blameless and still he got warts all over his body and face, his family died, his crops withered and his animals were stolen and when he asked his friends wtf is happening why does God hate me

what have i done?

his friends answered with maybe you fucked up, maybe you are whining too much right now, maybe you shouldnt question things

when all along Job had every right to question and fret and be sad with his boils on his face and back and nose and balls and trust me, everywhere

maybe in the whole wide world Job was the one person who had the right to say, i used to be God’s favorite and now im enemy number one, yet i was exactly the same Job as before.

i love the bible because it confirms that life is the craziest bowl of WTF of all.

and doesnt make sense

and probably has nothing to do with you.

or me

and God doesnt hate any of us.

amen.

you will run into people who do not always keep it real.

and the assumption is you are at a disadvantage.

because say you’re playing poker and they are holding some extra cards in their lap

arent you going to “lose” if you play by the rules, honestly?

yes, but life is not poker. and people who do not keep it real should be respected right alongside people like you who are doing your best to be open and honest and transparent and idealistic and creative and brave.

eventually what will happen is you will help them out of their defensive stance of occasional bullshit. but it can only happen if you do not fall for bad practices or get distracted.

i once dated a girl who lied all the time and i was like baby what? and she was all what do you mean what. and i said im gonna tell you what, i know that this is the game people play most of the time, but that game is old and dumb and it leads to half of marriages ending in divorce and everyone cheating and kids growing up screwed up. this is just you and me. lets do it the right way. lets trust each other and talk to each other and if you feel the urge to fucking lie like a little kid then fight that urge and just omg talk to me about it and see what happens.

and she instantly cheated on me and i cheated on her right back and we both felt terrible about it and broke up.

but then years later she said i dont lie any more. because of you. i dont cheat on anyone. because of you. no one else taught me these things and i am so much better for it now.

if it is a game, the game is long and the ones who “win” are the brave who excel at the fundamentals: trust, honest communication, and the desire for all of the parties to collect as many points as possible.

always keep it real. it’s easier that way.

amber participated in this event that our good pal AJ is charge of about Women’s Empowerment

amber went last year and was so blown away she said that AJ reminded her of a white Oprah.

so immediately she started saving up for this year’s trip.

usually i like to say hell yeah whenever she asks me to plan a weekend excursion but because the Cubs are apparently a perennial post-season team now, i kept telling her that any October plans would depend on how well the Cubs were doing because either i would be near where they are playing or glued to a TV.

but as you know their bats could have used some empowerment themselves and as soon as they were booted from contention, i promised to drive her down and chauffeur her all around the picturesque landscape of north county.

while she did her thing i worked on the secret project. and when she was done we dined at luxurious buffets and mexican haunts.

she handled some deep emotional things in those woods and i respect her – and all the ladies – for the work they put in.

and when it was over i got to say hi to AJ who looked so happy and at peace and – it’s hard to describe – maybe a little elevated herself. all that great energy had washed all over her.

twas a good weekend and im glad to be back in LA.

i said the only thing i feel constantly guilty of,

shame isnt the word id call it,

is this blog.

this humble collection of zeros and ones floating around in the cyber space.

i said, i wish i spent more time on it, with it, through it,

pushing things, pulling things, stretching, revealing

i wish i was able to create some of the beginnings of magic i used to be able to spark back in the day, the years before punk broke.

there was a time i wouldnt have been happy only posting twice a day, let alone take whole days off

or two.

when i was young and dumb(er) and riding the bus every day i truly felt invincible

that because i had nothing, really nothing, what could you take from me.

so my girlfriend at the time took my hair.

shaved it right off.

put it in a bag and sold it to chokey chicken.

then my bad job took my bad job.

and then all these really good things happened. because of the sacrifice? yes. because of the growth? yes.

yes to all of it.

add some heat and funky fertilizer and water that shit every day and something new will happen.

so the question is, am i ready for new. newer than new. is this the new? is this the thing?

maybe its just the fertilizer.

maybe it’s time to bring the heat.

Here’s what I think about National Coming Out Day

I have had gay co-workers, teachers, bosses, and friends.

On average they treated me with respect and taught me some great lessons.

I’ve heard that 10% of the population is gay.

If that’s true, I’ll say this: I wish more were, because the ones I know are fantastic and I’m grateful that they were (and are) in my life.

Now about the Bible, which I also love, which I think confuses casual readers regarding this topic.

While it’s true that early in the book there are references to this and that,

later in the book comes a man named Jesus.

And after Jesus has experienced life on Earth as a real man, He said this, he said

I have a New Commandment: love one another, like I’ve loved you.

And since Jesus was not homophobic, I think, like with most good books,

we should pay more attention to how it ends than how it begins.

Because it is in mimicking the growth of others to the light

that we become enlightened.

the first job i had after college graduation was Sears.

a bunch of my friends had moved to Prague to start and English language newspaper, drink 50 cent beers, play guitar on the Charles Bridge, and make out with european tourists

and i was at the La Cumbre Plaza in Santa Barbara getting scolded for not selling enough extended warrantees on console Zenith tvs and cheap-ass no-name vcrs

they were wearing tshirts and flannels, playing pool and getting interviewed by CNN and i was wearing dress shirts and ties making so much money by noon that i would go fishing at Goleta Pier on my lunch breaks and calling in to my boss to see if i could take the rest of the day off.

commission sales had been something i excelled at in junior college, post-college at Sears was even easier, but dull and depressing. i found myself yelling at customers who said they were gonna go to the nearby Circuit City to see how our prices compared to theirs. i told them what the price was and i told them if they didnt trust me on a stupid tv then i didnt want their business, that they shouldnt come back once they learned that i wasn’t bullshitting them.

they came back and i only got angrier. my boss, who wasn’t a bad guy at all, suggested i take a vacation because even though i was tops in our department, it was obvious i was going crazy. “you fish ALL the time!”

and i dont catch nothing. thats why i love it.

i didnt mind working at Sears because i knew there was no future there. i didnt want my boss’s job. i didnt wanna run the store. back then i had the most creative imagination and yet i had zero ideas of how to get people into Sears. the only thing we had going for us back then was the Sears card and people’s memories of how things *used* to be.

and yet i saw people get busted for stealing every week. the best was this dude in a wheelchair. he had a blanket over his lap and sunglasses. and he went to one of our rows that had shitty cassette players, like Walkmans. except they werent by Sony. Fakemans we called them. fucker grabbed a bunch, tucked them under his blanket and rolled down to hardware.

as soon as he grabbed enough he scooted out to the parking lot, our security guy ran down from whereever, grabbed him and rolled him back into the store.

that weird, sad moment at the santa barbara sears was my favorite moment.

that, and the advice i got from my boss one day when he came in looking a little worn out from drinking the night before.

tony, heres the thing about hangovers: the longer the day goes, the better you feel.

nothing else is like that.

i disagreed but i liked his optimism.

he ended up canning me and my next job was working for Magnavox training salespeople, and his store was the first one i visited.

but something has happened and she has fallen out of love with her.

and it troubles me because amber stood in the front row for like 5 hours at coachella enduring all these other acts so when her girl took the stage she would be right. there.

so if she could fall outta love with her, what does that mean for me? sure i can play the piano and dance in 8 inch stilettos but i cant really hit those high notes any more.

turns out bradley cooper and gaga are in a movie. not far from my house. and since amber often finds herself here there and everywhere on her days off, to see her come home at a reasonable hour today, and since i had crossed off everything on my to do list (people actually wrote me back today and said yes, one after another after another), i was all, let me take you to a romantico italian early dinner

and she said yes too. then we walked over to the vista and saw the movie. what a theater, but remind me to stop buying popcorn, i never eat more than a handful.

tonight i found the only thing i dont like about my favorite movie theater. i like to hold hands. if youre my girl, im touchy feely. so i will hold your hand through the entire two hour deal. unless you have a tight, short dress, and then i’ll have my hand on your leg like a creepy congressman.

most theaters have those arm rests that you can pull up and get extra close. not the vista, the best theater in all hollywood. they are locked in. so you have to maneuver in such a way. like what they do to homeless guys who are just trying to sleep on a park bench. i just want to feel my girls thigh – is that asking too much?

gaga sang her tushy off and bradley did a passable kris kristopherson – that low, rumbling, slurring voice coming out of that fuzzy beard. we didnt realize till the end that he had directed it too and i gotta say, hats off there. but to me, and maybe because ive seen every rock movie, fact and fiction, and this one insisted on all the cliches. its shocking to me that it has a 93% positive rating on rotten tomatoes. but story aside, they both acted well together, shes a damn natural. and he is obviously winning people over.

high marks to andrew dice clay and dave chappelle. dice can really act, but he was mis-cast here.

every time it was gaga on screen though, she owned it. very impressive. solid b.

but they were detained at the border, separated from their children, and thrown in cages

so they flew home. and good morning to you!

im gonna be having a birthday in a few weeks and whats weird is i dont feel my age AT ALL

i guess that’s a good thing. no it’s a Great thing. but it’s also weird because i eat a lot of foods i shouldnt. i drink a pop every day and i dont exercise.

the only thing that makes me feel old is my buddy invited me to this rock festival the other day and some of my favorite bands were playing and we were gonna have full on VIP tix but i said, you know what i cant go with you because it’s far away and im gonna wanna go home after an hour.

which was the gods honest truth. just the thought of it was exhausting.

does that have to do with attention span or that i dont get supreme court drunk any more or im not interested in watching half dressed young girls who are the same age as my friends’ kids, or ive seen these bands when they were in other, better bands?

i think part of it’s that. i feel like ive seen it all. theres very little that impresses me because nowadays everything has to be so perfect for me to enjoy it. the mood has to be right, the temperature, i have to have a good seat, it can’t cost an arm and a leg and it has to be close enough to my house that it’s not a gigantic schlep. fortunately i live in hollywood otherwise i probably wouldnt ever do anything.

today i was watching Hiking With Kevin and he had Bella Thorne on who is 19 and she says she hardly leaves her house either and has nearly two dozen cats. but i think she stays inside mostly because of paparazi and shes uptight about her acne. who knows. my point is i love her and want to stay inside with her and amber forevers.

ive been watching old movies. today was the karate kid which ive never seen but knew the important parts. but i needed to watch every scene for the special project. it was way better of a movie than i expected and what i liked the most was elizabeth shue wasnt twig-skinny, she looked like a normal but pretty girl from the 80s. ralph macchio was better than i expected too. and the music was crappier. all in all a+ sorry for the spoilers. blame the alien invasion.