busblog

life is fucked up, unfair, focused too much on money and worldly possessions, invested too much in cops and not love

and rooted in fear.

i watched a lot of TV this weekend, tweeted a bunch of it, and even went through a bit of Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and Inglewood to soak in what i could.

to me the best take on it was Trevor Noah’s about the Contract.

when people are sold a lie that things will be a certain way, and it’ll be fair,

and if time after time after time it’s not fair, and the rules change, but never in your favor, after a while you’ll say fuck this game.

and fuck this contract.

and part of the contract is you and your whole neighborhood won’t bum rush a store — or all the stores — and take everything.

even the ice cube tray.

but trevor doesnt address why the cops are acting so out of control.

i think its the same reason trump supporters do

they know it’s about over for them.

the same way 9/11 transformed air safety, this is the last straw between cops and The People

and so every chance they could they beat a kid, or ran over pedestrians, or shot pepper spray or rubber bullets at a journalist.

the free for all is ending among the bad apples and this is the last dance.

love it or hate it but generally shit changes after riots and looting.

people start treating each other better.

especially businesses to their community.

i remember clearly a year or two after the rodney king riots i was in a liquor store and the customer whispered to the shop

see you at the riot.

just that threat is good enough to improve customer service by A LOT.

is it right? no. did i hang in there for a good 20 years or so? yes.

well it was a crazy week

and as life goes, what you may think is weird in your personal or professional relationships can suddenly turn into small potatoes when shit goes afoul in the USA and then your own city.

this was the week that a young man was killed in Minnesota and it was filmed.

his murderer: a cop.

it took forever for the cop to get fired which pissed off a bunch of people, and then it took a while for his three partners to get canned. but only the one cop ended up getting arrested, and that took a bunch.

so add to the mix the fact that most of the USA is locked down, watching things over and over on the internet and TV, and added to that people don’t have to go to work in the morning. Also people are nervous and mad and scared about their jobs. 40 million americans are unemployed.

then sprinkle onto that the fact that white women are still calling the cops on black men for being black, and the POTUS has zero leadership abilities, and the rich are somehow getting richer from funds that are supposed to go to small businesses

and you have a slow burning fuse

and then a powder keg.

riots.

fires.

looting.

mahem.

people stealing stuff not just in the hood any more, that’s so 20th century, now they have gone to beverly hills, and melrose, and today was santa monica.

nordstom at the grove was hit.

gucci on rodeo drive.

big five in santa monica.

everything must go.

now theres fires across the street from the white house.

on friday trump was rushed down to an underground bunker.

shit’s so crazy and so wild that i have zero story ideas.

and whats worse is i have three stories in the can that if i had worked faster and pushed harder would already be out there but now if they go out this week they’ll probably seem stale.

cuz theyre based on COVID, which is still a thing, but the Riots are the new thing

racism, police brutality, the national guard

the deadly disease is def not the main thing any more.

which is a lesson i knew a long long time ago: publish your stuff ASAP because you never know what world changing event will happen tomorrow.

tons of uncertainty. financial pressures. emotional intensities. and now there are fleas in the house no matter what we do.

we bombed the place. we gave the cats meds. we even took them to a pet hotel the other day so the flea bomb dust could settle. when i brought the girl cat in from the car to the apartment she pissed herself in her cage. soaking herself. how that much pee was in one little cat is amazing.

then they slept for an entire day.

jeanine just called. drunk. i dont know what to do about her. she has had a very tough life. very tough. then a year ago her new husband died. it sent her down a terrible spiral. so many of us went out to Las Vegas to visit her and give her everything we could. our good friend barney even went out there and spent a week with her and finally drove her 8 hours to go to rehab.

but here she is drinking again. you can see why if you ever visit her. the apartment is like a memorial to her dearly departed. his stuff is everywhere. memories are literally wall-to-wall. she says she hates vegas, so i say move. she says she will never get rent as cheap as she has it there.

i disagree. sure rent in vegas is cheaper than it is in LA, but anything is cheaper than it is in LA. yesterday my man Roy was telling me about properties in Joshua Tree that a friend of his has that are empty because they are meant to be Air BnBs. I told her that she should consider JT where she could work, do jewelry and maybe even work at a restaurant and cook — shes probably the best cook ever.

but instead she drinks. and drinks.

what can i do? i can pray i guess. i will pray.

took the cats to a kitty hotel. Getting them into the carry cases was not easy. But I had no time to pussyfoot. Because before we left I set off 4 flea bombs.

Then to Pep Boys to get four tires. They only had two. Paid. Will get them tomorrow.

Then off to the smog check. Met these guys originally from Guadalajara. Just like the tires, I was overcharged. Fuckit. Had more to do.

Got home and opened the windows. Then to the grocery store. Then amber left with her work friends to hike around Griffith park.

Fine. I swept and mopped all the floors to rid the dead fleas and the poison off my surfaces. Did laundry.

When amber got home I said something wrong so we fought for a good 7-8 hours. Jk. I typically say the wrong thing. It’s amazing the fights don’t happen more frequently.

Then I cleaned more. All the floors are clean. My bed is amazing. Full fridge.

But best of all Amber cannot believe how clean the place is. She’s proposed 7 times. She’s been hyper since 10pm. Scribbling notes. It’s adorable.

I folded everything by midnight. There might be a few fleas about. We have some diatomaceous earth from when Jeanine lives here and the cats were kittens.

speaking of. I miss them. It’s sad they’re not here. But it had to be. I get them tomorrow after my tires.

tired.

i would first want to study writers block. because when you think you have mastered it it creeps up on you and paralyzes you.

there are tons of excuses your brain makes up about it: you are distracted, youre tired. Youre not stoned enough. Youre too stoned. Its a bad story, you cant write, youre old your magic is gone. You just cant.

But the truth is, if you just get down to it you can do it.

Heres my problem. Right now a lot of this feels like my LAist times. Except at LAist i never had deadlines and no one could ever tell me no. So i was free. I dont remember there being any writers block.

I had lots of other blocks though, time mostly, time sped by because i was editing, recruiting people, getting people into shows, finding photographers, dealing with brands who wanted shit, soooo many other obstacles for writing.

But now i have none. So i create obstacles like setting up way too many interviews. Trying to make the stories way more complicated. Rearranging my closets. Fighting with my sweetheart. Watching everything on TV. Suddenly its too late and i gotta go to sleep.

And then i blog at 1111pm when i should be writing.

Recently i havent wanted to finish things. I have no idea why. I want to go on to the next thing, and better, i want to be ready for the Spur of the Moment thing. And the only way to be ready is to have an open plate. But im not

I dont know why im doing this to myself.

Now is the time to shine. Now is the time to head to the next level.

Now is the time to remind the haters the critics and the demons in my head that im the motherfrickin busblog. Peerless. The one who kept blogging even when erryone else quit. The one who was never the best but was always there. Was always pumping out the hits. Always doing the damn thing even if all that meant was telling you how crazy blogging is.

If i was a teacher i would say, tell me your deepest darkest most fucked up secret. Bring it in tomorrow

And then i would not read them i would say to them, you completed the assignment

It doesnt matter what you wrote. What you did took courage and that was actually the assignment: writing through the scary part and handing it in on time.

i have to pay my rent, please my gf, make my momma proud, and stay on the right side of the Lord.

everything else are things i wanna do.

i wanna write about interesting people, i want to do it in interesting ways.

i wanna eat shitty little debbie brownies and type with my shirt off and keep pushing the boundaries.

i wanna be looked at in 100 years as “well he wasnt boring.”

i wanna feel so good after i write something thats so good.

i wanna find this thing i lost that someone bought on ebay and then mail it to them and never sell anything ever again because my house is a mess so who knows where it is.

i wanna do tomorrows work now so i can sleep.

As you know, I believe that Ticketmaster should be taken around back and shot. They’ve never given one damn about its customers and for some reason the government just allows them to rip us off daily in a variety of ways.

And right now, during a pandemic, where 30+ million people are finding themselves unemployed, they are showing their true colors.

Concerts are cancelled. We shouldn’t have to *ask* for refunds. They should be automatic. They have the technology. Lord knows when they want to charge you a few bucks for *using* that technology they have a million reasons why their tech is superior and deserving of the charge.

And yet now they want to sit around and make us work for our own money.

Yesterday the Hollywood Bowl announced their season would not go on. First time in 98 years. A real company would refund all of the tickets to those shows to the customers. They knew this was probably going to happen, so they had weeks and weeks to prepare.

They can sell out an entire football stadium without ever selling the same seat twice, in seconds. But give that electric money back to the exact same people? Suddenly that’s very difficult. And it is not a technical issue.

If they wanted to try to coerce us to give us TM credit instead of cash of the value of, say, 130% of what we want in a refund, that could be easy to do too. It’s computers. Write a script. Teens could do it.

There could even be buttons next to the Sell Tickets one that says Refund My Card, and Give Me Credit at 130%.

Instead they make you go through hoops. Like the bitches they are. Right now I don’t even know what hoop to go through. So I am waiting for someone on their Live Chat to guide me through it and I bet you they’re going to say something other than “here’s the link to get your money,” which, of course, is the only correct response.

I’m sure there are some very good people who work for this incredibly horrible company, but one day I will find a bottle. I will rub it. A genie will appear. I will have three wishes. The very first will be: destroy Ticketmaster and all the evil people who are behind their evil.

is it the covid? is it how i feel after doing my roundups every day? i am so angry.

i have headaches every day. my hands are sore. my heart is broken.

its gotta be the roundups. but i like doing them. i know im good at them. and i want to know these things.

but i should be doing other things. i should be walking. i should be driving. i should figure out how to transcribe faster. i should get a second job so i could just pay someone to transcribe. but what world do i live in? most people cant even find one job, i think i can have two?

i fight all the time. with everyone. every day. im a mess. i need a break. but to do what? sleep? sit on my ass? even my cats piss me off. the shower. the screwdriver.

if i could tell this lettuce on my egg sandwich how lackluster it was i would.

do i miss the Cubs? yes. do i miss the outdoors? yes. should i have my windows open? yes.

yes. yes yes

i can see why people freak out about having a hair cut.

they dont want a damn hair cut.

they wanna know theyre not going to die without a fight.

have i always been lucky in love?

yes but it never felt like it.

usually i wanted more. especially when i was young, i felt alone. i felt like everything was a long distance relationship.

back then you had to pay actual money to make long distance phone calls. major props to my mom for paying those crazy phone bills. major love to the post office for sending my little missives.

back then there werent blogs or email or even electricity so you would whisper something into the ear of an indian and he would ride his horse to the next state over and whisper it into the ear of the next indian who would ride his pony to the next state. and so on and so on.

finally when the last indian got to the pretty girl he would dance your message to her and she would hopefully understand every word and the spaces inbetween.

it was called the tony express.

mary was taller than me and smarter and softer and cooler and she would write actual letters

on stationary. in different colored pens. and cool envelopes.

every day we would write and confess our love even though we didn’t truly know what love was technically. we were teens. we were so midwestern. we were so wanting to live the california life.

first her. then me.

but never we.

not out here at least. not for any period of time more than a few days.

so i sent her a bear. and in the arms of the bear was a cub.

and in the cub was a piece of my heart.

and back then the indians would charge extra for shit like that.

but i had extra.

does this have to do with the Rona? probably. it also has to do with expectations and age and respect and lack of communication and so many things.

but maybe the worst is that MLB is trying to use all of this to figure out a way to sneak the DH into the NL.

it reminds me of horny teenage boys trying to slip their scrawny little dicks into the buttholes of their unsuspecting girlfriends.

at first the girls giggle and say whoops, not there

then they start to realize it isnt an accident and say Chad, come on. Be nice.

then they see Chad really wants it no matter what they say.

it’s foul. its unnecessary and it doesnt add to the game.

MLB’s excuse is that half of these games are going to have to be interleague because they have to play so many so quickly and probably not in MLB stadiums, so why not?

i’ll tell you why not. because it’s unnatural, dumb, foolish, and shouldn’t even be in the AL, let alone all of MLB.

use the DH in AL parks and play actual baseball in NL parks. how hard is that, Chad?

the shortened season interleague argument could also be used in the reverse: because the season is shortened, why not go back to traditional baseball rules, and use the old fat washed up DH’s as pinch hitters in the late innings?

You know why they wouldn’t do that?

Because if they did they would notice that the strategy involved and the excitement whenever a pitcher got a hit would far exceed the baloney in the AL.