busblog

life is a cabaret old chum.

theres no such thing as average. everyone wants to fall within the boundaries.

everyone wants to fit in.

crazy thing is, though is, if you showed me an Average person i probably wouldnt wanna be friends with them.

in fact, nowadays theres a great phase: BASIC

no one wants to be that.

people should fly their freak flags.

show us the thing that the others dont have.

the great thing about this is if you can figure out what makes you unique your friends will be able to tell you immediately.

now heres the tough part:

if that wild card feature is about something lame like your hair or your clothes or your shoes

you should probably either change that

or let out the real thing inside that makes you you.

because i’ll tell you right now, you are not your shoes

you are not your hair. and for damn sure you are not your height.

back before blogs and facebooks and twitters there were AOL chat rooms.

and in those rooms all you were was your user name. and you could be TallBitch988 but only if you truly wanted to be. usually you were MaryfromLA or something

and as you chatted with people they got to learn your personality.

there werent profile pictures or anything that showed who you were visually. it was your ideas.

yes virginia, for a small sliver of Time, people were not judged by the size of their instep

but on the quality of their blah blah blah

he does things and he cant help it.

im the same way.

if you throw his favorite little bell-ball he will run after it like a dog. eventually you will find it near my bed. a weird, slow, game of fetch, even though he’s a cat.

me, i drive uber and lyft as often as i can, even though i have a perfectly good normal job.

even though the roads are dangerous, the traffic is heinous and letting strangers in my Benz isn’t the wisest move deep down.

but i am addicted to learning about and helping people. ive got a friend Ben who works at a Catholic soup kitchen. they lure Catholics to skid row, murder them, and make soup out of them. the poor are nourished and Ben feels good about himself, which is crazy because Ben is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.

got another friend, Steve, who writes novels and interviews other authors about their process. i almost wanna write another book just so Steve will interview me about it.

some nights i will drive and drive and drive for eight hours straight. peeing just once or twice. usually mcdonalds but today i peed in a bowling alley bathroom. what a great place.

my problem is i love people for about 25 minutes. i wanna know everything about them. and then they’re gone. no fuss no muss. am i a commitment-phobe? probably. who cares. we live such short lives why are we trying to box ourselves in? why can’t we just enjoy a bite-sized conversation, especially if it goes into a deeper truth.

the problem though with driving for 8 hours is somewhere along the way you get tired so you eat something and drink a giant Coke. then you get home totally frazzled and you can’t get to sleep.

luckily for me, theres a long legged blonde girl who dresses sexy and helps me get my Zzzs. and she has a key to my castle.

do i wanna write novels? yes. do i wanna have a great podcast? yes. would i love to build a house one day and shove a Conversation Pit in there? of course.

but i am currently addicted to lifestyle choices that keep me a mild mannered apartment dweller with no hope for advancement.

except in my heart.

where all my little conversations with the good people of this city live forever.

occasionally i will let you in for a peek.

which is how Prince would do it too.

(my Prince, not yrs.)

im spitballing, im freeballing im baseballing im softballing im team coverage im fast breaking

sip taking ball breaking rum jumping

i used to be the one who was the man who beat the man who helped the man who was the man

im super dooping free throw shooting mario jumping sonic tumbling

i got an idea i got an idea i got an idea

i love tough assignments i got one today they said make magic happen by the end of the day

which would be fine if i could just focus on the divine but

all these other distractions came up in my face and now im creating some space

so im spitballing free falling snow balling hand jiving

i fink yr freaky and i like you a lot

i fing you freely and i heart you a like

and you’re waiting in a line that wont move and amber says hey im gonna get some bananas at the Jons and i’ll meet you outside.

and you wait and you wait and as you’re waiting you hear the booming sounds of what appears to be a band playing.

now you’re old enough to remember when rock music used to float through the air all the time.

but those times are long gone.

so when you connect with her outside you say, hey lets go over to that alley to see what local schmos are about to get shut down because clearly this music is too loud.

and as you walk with your pillows and bananas

you see a tiny little crowd in the alley are looking over a fence

and you get closer and notice theres an entire parking lot fenced off with a huge catering situation. really good smelling food and people in chefs outfits scrambling.

then you see a security guard but not in a cheesy Don Knotts outfit but a suit and tie like the Secret Service. and he’s guarding the back of what appears to be a stage.

and then you hear what has to be the worlds greatest Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band break into “Under The Bridge”

and someone nods their head.

and you see Flea’s head bounce above the fence.

and then you realize, uh, this is one of rock’s biggest bands playing 10 feet away from you

playing one huge hit after another.

so you keep standing there with 5-6 others and no one moves you and no one tells you to get lost

and amber goes to a woman smoking by the back door

and the woman says,

Randy Newman is coming on next.

and you’re all,

you mean one of my favorite musicians of all time?

you mean the same guy who I chose to see over seeing Stevie Ray Vaughn w/ BB King or The Who because they were all playing the same night in 1991 in LA

and even though i sorta regret never seeing SRV, i thoroughly enjoyed seeing Randy at the Universal Ampitheater that night.

and the stars say yes.

but it was taking a while.

and two college aged kids came out through the back entrance. past the secret service dude.

and i say, hey is it true that Randy Newman is on next.

and they say are you kidding us right now?

i say no, youre in there do you know if anyone else is playing?

and they say, oh youre serious? we are Randy’s children.

and we LOL and chat and i tell them to tell their dad that he’s amazing.

and 10 minutes later Randy walks from a car to that back entrance and plays.

and as he does Chad Smith from the Chili’s has a smoke and a chat and poses with Amber Smith and then puts on his motorcycle helmet and hops on his bike and zooms home

into the hills of Hollywood.

where 100% true stories like this happen.

born on a new moon in the woods of darkest africa, mary waltzed onto an oceanliner when she was 16 to america

she had no ticket, no reservation, and no money so she was ordered to sing show tunes to the elderly

and steal from the drunk.

once in the land of the free, mary was accepted by a catholic orphanage where she learned how to sew, hem, and sing psalms.

after school she read to the blind and helped rehabilitate returning veterans from our many wars.

her techniques were unusual but successful and when she graduated she applied at some of the top medical schools

but was denied because she failed the piss test.

not the drug test, she knew all those, she failed the urine exam because hers contained a fluorescent glow that the lab had never seen before.

“THATS NOT ILLEGAL!” she tweeted while trying to explain that it was due to how she healed the sick.

Ever the selfless saint,  young Mary would disrobe the soldiers, thoroughly examine them, and then suck the shrapnel and bacteria and mayhem out of their wounds and spit it out onto the floor.

Clearly some of it was ingested, she argued, BUT ITS NOT ILLEGAL she cried.

And cried.

Earlier this year she was awarded a Purple Heart for her service.

Except it was a Purple Mouth.

With distinction.

Happy birthday Mary and thank you for your service!

i wrote because i had a sports illustrated subscription

i read both papers every day in the library at school

not because  i was smart – if i was smart i would have read my homework.

i read them because of mike royko and because sports on tv was pretty much nonexistent.

i wrote because when i sent little stories to the girls,

they smiled and

took my hand and

i wrote because there was a typewriter in the house.

when i was little a fancy car rolled past my house and stopped.

a man got out and said tony pierce?

i was 13.

i said jd salinger?

he said, here is the secret to writing,

it’s called the baseball hat.

i said, n word please.

he said, no, this is a magical one.

i said i will accept it but i would prefer one someday that will match all the Cubs crap i wear all the time.

he said im sorry thats not how it works

and tossed me a weird green one.

i haven’t washed my hands since.

and it’s easy to feel that way nowadays

we’ve got a president who seriously doesnt give a damn

hurricanes all up in our south

dodgers are falling apart

less people are paying $13.75 a ticket to see movies

gas prices, house prices, get your Benz serviced prices.

i saw a kid, a little kid the other day with his hands in his pockets just crying

i was all, why you crying little brother

he said, i just watched the news for 20 minutes.

i gave him a hug and was arrested immediately.

does north korea wanna blow us up?

does russia want us to implode?

do the republicans want anything else other than mo money mo money mo money?

will rock and roll ever come back to save our souls?

and for Heavens sake will uber finally raise their fares or lower their fees so we drivers can catch a break?

no.

nothing good is coming except Jesus.

and when He comes it’s the grand finale.

but here’s the good news:

nothing in here is true.

the gray skies will turn blue.

and i’ll forever love you.

and that’s how you start walking in the right light.

amber wanted to go to a porn star party and i said have fun!

she said you dont wanna meet the girls? i said ive met everyone.

she said you wont get jealous if i have tons of fun?

i said life is short, always have tons of fun

and i watched the following films:

the bellboy, king of comedy, nocturnal animals

and the day before we watched a clockwork orange.

saturday i drove and drove and drove. it was a flashback to yesteryear.

i wish uber would realize that there are beautiful feelings that drivers get when you give us a goal and a proper prize

and then we reach said goal.

it makes us feel amazing and wonderful and all along the way we are counting down and

when we hit it we wanna dance around.

surely theres a way that we can capture this feeling and share it with other drivers

and inspire them too.

but  im not sure uber is ready for that jelly.

tonight im eating steak with my man chris.

one of the nice things about this blog is you can go back in the archives and see what was going on

weirdly i hardly ever go back in time.

but for posterity sake, heres how i feel about this flood: it makes me cry. all of it.

thousands and thousands of people. tens of thousands. maybe hundreds of thousands, have lost everything.

most of whom don’t have flood insurance.

this hurricane that brought the 4-5 feet of rain dumped on Texas which apparently has very few zoning regulations so businesses can do whatever.

the problem with that is a chemical factory was able to be built close to regular homes and today the flooding compromised the factory and it exploded.

the last time something like that happened the Texas government did precisely the wrong thing. instead of saying no you cant build dangerous factories next to regular homes, they said factories no longer have to tell reporters or the public what chemicals are in their factories.

all if it is so sad.

i love living in the Land of the Free, but this disaster shows why most of the logical states have zoning laws and regulations to PROTECT the people from businesses doing things willy nilly all in the name of profit.

also we’re not the land of the free if women don’t have total dominion over their body.

but thats another story.