busblog

if you pay $40 they give you two huge shopping cart of food and drink and vegetables and 7 loaves of bread and rice and frozen things like a case of burritos

and everything is about to expire and if you dont buy it they give it to zoo animals who are gonna be fine

aint no one ever heard of a zoo animal dying of starvation.

but still its hard to roll up in there with a benz and fill up the trunk and back seat with food earmarked for the poor but the poor are too poor to drive down there and volunteer for 4 hours or hand over $40

plus amber gets stressed out trying to

• find room in our fridge for all of it
• eat it
• watch it stare at us and slowly age as we try to eat it all

so i was like, it’s just $40, why dont we give away as much as we can on the way home

keeping the stuff we really like

and anything thats left over will probably fit in the fridge.

seriously who needs 200 tortillas and 5 lbs of frozen lox?

lets give it away and we will feel stoked and they will feel stoked and we end up with 6 heads of lettuce

and 22 apples.

she goes, its my day off, please dont stress me out.

i hug her and apologize and then flash my man boobs.

and then the food bank texts me again

this time in spanish

i was all, im all ears

she said dont hear, listen

i was like

finally she said stop doing all the things of the past

this is the second half

do second half things

i said like cutting sugar out of my diet

she went, yep

and then disappeared

i woke up and this pretty girl was napping beside me

shes seen it all

and yet is so impressed by the simplest things

which is where i come in.

im way into simple.

weed is legal now in the republic of california

if you havent heard the news

so theres this app that tells you thing

and i like to know the things

so i go beep bop boop and it goes, .9 miles from your house

we park by a used dishwasher store, i show the lady my broken washer machine knob

she goes into a file cabinet and plastic knobs are spilling over in there

quickly she says we dont have

we walk out and down the street.

cant find it.

i look at the app for the address

pretty girl says there it is, across the street.

i say no dear the boop boop bop machine says its here and i point at the numbers on a store

and just to the right of it is a storefront with no sign

no words no numbers and the glass doors are closed

although the right door seems to be slightly ajar

so we waked in, and i told the gentleman checking IDs

of course.

turns out they have yoga in there too once a day.

especially if theyre good which they are right now

i don’t own any bears paraphernalia

but i pay hundreds of dollars a year to see them on tv, happily

and i have since i lived in san francisco.

for a while i would only live in places that allowed for a good clear view of the direct tv satellite in the sky

and in the olden times, not everyone let you have a little dish.

amber came home from work around 4pm and i was finishing up with the bible

i said, ok at 5pm im going devote 100% on this game

which is odd because i can get totally distracted in so many other aspects of my day, but if da bears are on tv im locked in, like solid.

and yet the universe often tries to distract me. amber at 530p couldnt find this or that as she was on her way to a fancy dinner with her work friends

finally i said, too many questions, and shut the door.

but i could still hear her high heels clanking on the hard wood floor.

then near the end of the first quarter my mom texted me.

after the half there was a knock on the door.

am i 6850 del playa? no, postmates, im 6848 and 1/16th!

the bears are playing so well nbc moved them from a morning game to a night game, shouldnt you people be watching?

it seems like it’s only me.

my nephew stole the hearts of all the busblog readers

It took a while, but this week we concluded The Sopranos. I was re-watching it for the first time since the infamous finale. Amber was watching it for the first time.

My biggest takeaway was how talented James Gandolfini was in the role. Such a range of emotions, many of them subtle. He was such a dominate boss and cool handed leader, but when he saw his shrink he turned into a whining baby and a terrible liar.

It was also interesting to watch them eat. Rarely was it anything other than Italian food. But when the mobsters ate pasta they would play with it on their fork like they were airing it out to dry.

Anthony Jr’s role could have been sussed out way more. Most of the time he was brooding, dumb, clueless, constantly running to his room or being sent to it. In actuality he was far more complex than his sister who had way more screen-time (because she was gorgeous?) than he had.

Edie Falco was also incredible. But I wasn’t crazy about her arc either. Sure it was good that at some point she called bullshit on all of it – in fact that was the best stretch for her character. But after they reconciled she lost her interestingness.

I had forgotten how long Junior was on the show – the whole time! And weirdly Tony’s sister didn’t annoy me as much on the re-watch as she did originally.

My favorite character was Silvio, played by Miami Steve Van Zant. Bruce Springsteen’s BFF. The perfect Consigliere. Always there for Tony when asked, but never overstepped. Not just the voice of reason, but he lead by example, providing the anchor to the choppy waters all around them.

I also didn’t realize what a slam The Sopranos was to the 12-Step approach to addictions. Maybe it just showed that neither AA nor NA could solve your problems if you’re surrounded by people who are constantly drinking, but I can’t recall any success stories in the series who worked the program.

Finally, my other favorite character I had forgotten all about, Svetlana Kirilenko, the straight talking one-legged Russian home care manager who always seemed to have a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She had some great lines, perfectly delivered by Alla Kliouka Schaffer.

One of her best lines came in Season 4 and it perfectly summed up the entire show. Tony, who seemed to genuinely respect her, tells her that she’s inspiring because even though she lost her leg she keeps keeping on.

Svetlana: That’s the whole purpose for people like me. To inspire people like you. So is the trouble with you Americans. You expect nothing bad ever to happen, when the rest of the World expects only bad to happen. And they’re not disappointed. You have everything! And still you complain. You lie in couches, and bitch to a psychiatrist. You’ve got too much time to think about yourselves.

Amen, sister.

documented beautifully here.

since then ive taken it easy on the Cokes, only one a day max. but usually just half of one.

days like yesterday, none.

it’s weird to have addictions and maybe mine is coca-cola.

id drink three a day if i could.

im jealous of people who can drink a bottle of wine or a six pack of beer and not have any side effects.

my effects are literally in my side.

is it the syrup that fucks me over? coke is mostly water. i see it come out of the fountain at mcdonalds.

maybe my kidney just isn’t perfect and the chemical imbalance with pop screws it up?

who knows.

will this be the thing i ask God about first if im lucky enough to meet him? no.

but it would be nice if in Heaven they go over our body and tell us what the issues Really were and what we should have done to prevent them.

why is my belly so fat? why were my eyes so good. why did booze never affect me negatively? why was i able to get away with so much? was it the xbi? was it genes? speaking of, exactly who was in my family tree? tell me about africa. tell me how so much lightness ended up in the skin of me and my relatives on both sides.

i would love for that recap to happen before all the parties and hoo haw of the afterlife commences.

today i have to go to the police department. we have a neighbor who has been worse in the past, who has tried, but things could be better. one of the things is the sprinklers on their grass. they’re way too high. i get my car washed at least once a week but i can never park over night by this guy because the water literally sprays all the way up the side and on to my roof. thats how powerful they are and how little regard he has about wasting water.

afterwards i need to run back and finish this part of the project. two days ago amber had a little run in with a restaurant that distracted me. yesterday she was home but spent time away from the house enjoying her day off. then we went for a nice walk and went to a $4 Pho joint. we have a simple life.

her pa wants us to join he and his sister for thanksgiving up in thousand oaks. thankfully theyre all ok. i havent been to too many turkey days with a gf’s parents but the ones ive been to were nice. he’s a good guy. former military. big wig. secret. but thats all behind him now. thankfully.

may everything be behind us in due time.

tom waits

dave brubeck

ac/dc

the replacements

mazzy starr

kids see ghosts

im overwhelmingly consumed by the secret project. i havent ubered in months and my bank account shows.

the xbi says you can do this little job for us, you know, and i say i know.

i went to get this thing removed from my head. many people have told me its a transmitter.

it aint no transmitter. i dont think. but it’s gone now. the bleedings stopped.

the pretty girl made me oatmeal this morning before i left.

is there anything more a man could want?

the sun is warm, the air is less smokey.

i go to the mailbox at noon to see if the check has arrived.

this is no way to live.

but im obsessed with this project.

it must be great.

or else.

im not great.

i had to do this thing in Hollywood this morning and i found myself doing the thing that i used to tell people to do.

comic book legend Stan Lee died. i was really close to hollywood and highland where all these cartoon characters hang out shaking down tourists for money.

i had this crazy idea that all the Marvel ones (the hulk, iron man, black panther, black widow, captain america, wolverine, etc) might be hanging out at his star because thats where the fans would go, no?

no. turned out neither of the spider men knew even who Stan was

but fortunately there was a Cap and a Logan who totally knew what was up and were willing to talk to me quickly so i could get a few quotes, take a few pics, and zip it over to LAist before lunch.

it was startling how easy the words came out of me in writing this little thing. with LAist i know exactly what humor to inject and where the line is. bing bang boom it was over before it started which was great because i had a big day planned for me for the secret project.

the talented mike roe, comic book expert had just posted his obit, so it fit nicely under the tweets. teamwork makes the dream work and they were able to move on to more pressing issues like these damn fires.

read the whole thing here.

shes a nice girl. she doesnt wanna hurt no one.

sometimes we’ll be driving and

like today, today we were driving and she got real quiet so i put on the beastie boys book on tape

im a book on tape fiend right now

whats great about theirs is they have different people reading different chapters because theres close to 100 chapters and they are correct in assuming we dont wanna hear just two guys reading that big ass book

we would much rather hear them along with the likes of ben stiller, wanda sykes, ll cool j, amy poehler, spike jonze, and wes anderson — among many others.

so we were listening to this story about them going to england for the first time and they mention the fact that they were at mick jones’ house and right before joe strummer popped in adam yauch asked mick to play clash city rockers.

because im a million years old and amber is innocence and youth personified i asked her if she knew that tune. she said nope. i go siri play clash city rockers by the clash. and we listened and

i thought to myself

this poor girl. bad enough shes gotta listen to the beasties book on tape but worse,

jarvis cocker reading from the book

and just when shes settled in listening to the story i go siri play this song shes never heard

i wouldnt be able to stand it if the roles were reversed.

all she wanted was a salad.