busblog

one of the bad things about being part of the xbi (or the canadian version, the cix) is that the agencies like to poison its agents

even if youre the boss’s daughter.

at some point you feel like youre gonna die.

and the way the crazy doctors are inside the xbi

they might even tell you straight up you are gonna die.

a few weeks ago your girl was told she could quite possibly have

HIV, cancer, or shingles or godknowswhat.

I was all, you dont have those things. She was like. I know.

But she was getting terrible rashes, she was dizzy

all she could do was sleep and vomit.

i said send me a picture. she sent this one.

i said no of the rashes. but she was on to me.

then the other day i got this email:

Not dyyyyyyingggy

Not caaaaaancer!!!!!

I have a genetic cholesterol thing and its got to be treated with some months of drugs, that caused my dizziness. And i have an infection. My liver.

So tomorrow i already have 2 doc appointments.

It can all be treated with drugs!!!

And my liver infecion might have caused my lil tumors AND my rashes and so i still have to get a catscan amd control my things but my hair will grow back and ill be normal soon i hope!!!!%!

Im soooooo happy

Your praying worked!!!!

but apparently theres still a little praying left to do, so when you say yours tonight feel free to give etienne a shout oot

so of course when i asked her how she was feeling

she made sure to wearing the sweatshop shoes in her photo.

her brother is here on business so last night we went to Home with danielle and her doctor friend

where we drank 8pm mimosas and sat in the catbird seat as the sun set on the

longest day of the year.

then we had gelato and sped over to the El Rey

where sea wolf had attracted a very impressive crowd.

we were on the left balcony and i saw an old guy sitting on a chair

obsessed with his cell phone for much of the night.

near the end of the first set i saw his teen daughter ask him for money

she and her date walked off to buy cokes

then when they returned the dad wasnt there.

they put down the cokes

and standing up kissed. french style but not very much moving at all. so sweet.

may have been their first kiss ever, cuz then they hugged.

so i yelled DOWN IN FRONT

jk

afterwards we mugged the dad for his cell phone

born to a soft spoken chilean action hero and a chic acadian revolutionary,

etienne and i started talking with each other the last time i was between jobs a couple of years ago.

someone is so good at chatting that pretty quickly she made a few calls and hopped on a private jet

from montreal to LAX to meet the world famous busblogger and see what LA had to offer.

strangely she’d lived around the world but had never stepped foot in sunny california

(probably because her dad was the head of the xbi and never wanted his little angel involved with any agents

especially a rogue agent who had turned his back on the agency many moons ago)

but as the infamous fortune cookie once said “what you resist, persists”

and there she was having the time of her life with the man of her dreams

at the hard rock pool during the cheesy rehab.

and later in beautiful baker, home of the largest broken thermometer in the world.

clearly lust-struck and wooed by your hero, etienne made a few calls

and the pair were soon on a jet to canada where she tried to get him to like coffee: as if.

they went on a mysterious road trip where legend has it the pair were wed in beautiful niagra falls

one thing’s for sure, she taught him to love poutine and canadian health care

one thing led to another and she came back to LA not soon after i returned but was swooped by the chilean xbi

and for the last couple of years she has been holed up in misery in santiago

forced to eat french fries minus the cheese curds and gravy

but somehow she’s making due.

currently today’s birthday girl is writing a major motion picture, a tv series, and cute little drunken texts

she swears she misses LA and wants to return as soon as she can

even though she also says she left her heart in san fran, and isla vista and some place shes now modeling for

i need to visit you asap, antoine, she told me in french, only problem is i have no money.

i said i’ll wire you a few bucks at the nix cheque cashing on sept 11th street

the next day she was all omg ok now my problem is i dont have a clean passport

i said theres a cafe on the ground floor of your building, the handsome guy will have a “package” for you tomorrow

she said why did you send me three? i said a canadian one, a chilean one, and an american one, duh.

but tonight she’s drinking with her amigos, as she should. and according to my spy cam…

shes having a gay old time.

happy birthday boss’s daughter!

see you in 2014!

 

Tony,

Chile is the best place ever.

The Oscar-nominated film, ‘NO’

The movie ‘Aftershock’ directed by Chilean, Nicolas Lopez, who came out with the biggest deal with Dimention (hellewwww Weinsteins!) after TIFF

‘Young & Wild’, official selection in film festivals around the world and also suuuuper sexy

‘Bonsai’, Official Selection in Cannes, written and directed by Cristian Jimenez based on AMAZING short novel written by Alejando Zambra…

…also called ‘Bonsai’ and won the national critics’ prize for best novel and is now available in English through Melville House

Amazing female rapper, Ana Tijoux

The Chilean band, Astro, being written about in the NYT and other such publications that the coolsters like…

Javiera Mena (Chilean) covering Jorge Gonzalez (another Chilean from the band Los Prisoneros)

And let me tell you, brother, I could go on. Chile is awesome.

Land of cool.

Land where fax machines come to die.

Land of waiting in lines.

Land of $3 bottles of wine that you buy in Canada for $15.

Land where they don’t say ‘East’ but ‘Orient’.

Land where toilets flush the wrong way.

Land where the big dipper is upside-down.

Land where you can’t see the north star.

Land where people think you’re funny if you take off your shoes in a house.

Land where the most bread is eaten. Anywhere. In the world.

Land where bread is shaped like a hockey puck, and no one has ever skated on ice.

Land where local organic food is the easier option.

Land where solar panels thrive.

Land where they protest for quality and free education by dressing as zombies.

Land where 100% of all water, anywhere, ever, for the rest of the life of the universe is private.

Land where Wal-Mart bought a big super market chain and now I can buy mac&cheese.

Land where Uva was born.

Land where I live.

Land that I love.

Land that I call home.

Etienne Aida Reyes Le Blanc

or 10, or 8, who knows

do kids even have ages any more?

arent they on the metric system yet?

anyways, Kyla is my favorite niece. shes keeps it real. i like that.

she says that her brother is my favorite of the pair.

it’s good to keep kids guessing.

i talked with her on the phone yesterday as i was getting my oil changed.

at first kyla seemed a little grumpy that she was a year older

but then when we talked about the presents she received at her party

she pepped right up.

she was happy to have a new digital camera

and a colorful bag.

“a purse or a backpack?” i asked.

“like um like a messenger bag,” she said, “which is good because i lose stuff a lot.”
she then said,

“oh and I got a shirt that says ‘I’m Awesome’. BECAUSE I AM!”

and then super fast she said, “heres Jo.”

she doesn’t call my mom grandma
she calls her her name.

etienne used to say kyla was our daughter.

cuz she sorta exactly looks like what our kid would look like.
and act like.

hard to disagree with weird truths.

“love you!” she screamed in the background
when she realized she forgot to say it.

hi future. hope things are going well at 12:22pm.

yesterday at lunch i had some bad fish. i got it at this sushi place where the food is on little boats.

the boats float around the place and you grab a little dish and eat it and say ahhhhhhh.

sadly after few hours the stomach and the fish were all AHHHHHHHHHH

and i had to leave work about an hour earlier than i wanted to.

b/c every time i stood up i got dizzy and i felt like my face was turning green.

my belly and i have a weird relationship. always has.

when i was a kid it didnt like hardly anything in it. during college i weighed like 120 pounds.

i could barely eat a whole slice of pizza.

but soon after college everything was coolio so i ate EVERYTHING. but now i have a gut.

some of the ladies dont mind. in fact some think its sexy. but of course most dont. nor do i.

so last night when all my belly would tolerate was saltines that was fine cuz i did eat a bit in vegas.

however this morning during my morning constitutional it was a bit odd to smell crackers again.

in the last year the worst my stomach ever felt was in the photo above when etienne and i were eating poutine at mcdonalds

we were up to something. it was secret. even though im xbi, i really dont like secrets and my belly Hates them.

and all that cheese and gravy and french fries and happiness and stress and pre stress made me cray.

strangely i miss all of that, future.

probs b/c im cray times a zillion.

the entire thing was top secret.

still is.

international. undercover. so natural.

so wrong. so sweet.

such a rip off.

once etienne learned spanish while on a long busride in south america

then taught her dog, Uva.

Uva sends me text messages but i dont read em.

they dog me.

most of the time i think the things in my life have some sort of rhyme or reason.

its then i remember that dylans most of the time is so underrated.

just like todays birthday grrrrl

etienne, which rhymes with

i’ll never see again.

sept 1, we have a little earthquake, KTLA shows their twitter feed. apparently Dirty Sanchez is a viewer

sept 4, im still unemployed so karisa and her family get me sloshed near the beach

sept 7, i interviewed for a job at a giant cable network. we agreed to disagree. but it was fun.

sept 8, san diego has a huge blackout. they blame one electrical worker. i call bs

sept 9, we are reminded how far away the GOP has drifted from their bff Ronald Reagan in many regards, including immigration and building a fence on the Mexican border

sept 10, the xbi catches wind that i am considering a trip to canada. and they try to disuade me from going because they know i may be accompanied in part by the leader of the xbi’s daughter.

xbi: tony, seriously you cannot do this. there will be trouble at the border.

tony: we wont have any troubles, any where.

xbi: you’ll have trouble in the South.

tony: we’re not going to the South.

xbi: we know you’re going directly to the South.

tony: then make sure we wont have trouble.

(there ended up being trouble)

sept 11, tenth anniversary of 9/11. these kids make me cry

sept 12, second interview at kpcc. they feed me croissants and apple juice (my faves)

sept 13, andy malcolm, my blogging buddy and one of the main reasons we had huge success at blogs at the LA Times, leaves the paper to blog for someone else.

sept 14, i head to canada. i let two hippies housesit my crib. omg omg awaits

sept 15, hola toronto. hola canadian version of the xbi (the cix). hello snow?

sept 16, for some reason in montreal they insist that you parlez vous

sept 17, im allowed a canadian cix copter so i fly back to TO to have sushi with lowercasecarmen – who is even more delightful than when i first met her in BC

sept 18, the boss’s daughter and i experience trouble at the border. we get a luxury suite in niagra falls, consider getting married, instead spend much of the evening laughing and laughing and laughing.

sept 19, there are funny signs in niagra falls

sept 20, mcdonalds poutine is way better than youd think.

sept 21, the xbi doesnt like that im flying canadian copters, spending much time in niagra falls, or refusing to respond to their esp communiques. whatevs

sept 22, we fly to ottawa and sample kfc poutine which is even better than mcdonalds’

sept 23, food truck poutine aint bad either i discover, but the cix poison me so i have to see a doctor… which is free and a 5 minute wait

sept 24, ottawa is funny. and i see that the USA doesnt always export well.

sept 25, omg ottawa house party – shwarmas and obama cookies, what a day

sept 26, the CIX shows themselves to be polite and well dressed but a tad creepy. so we decide to peace out. the cix then have a party for me.

sept 26, someone sends a limo. dude says where ya wanna go. i say is this free? he says yep. i say, how about quebec. dude says fine. allon-z

sept 27, quebec city turns out to be my favorite everything. the cix put me up at the Lowes, feed me the most delicious foods and booze, its so warm i decide to flash the paparazi. im in love with everything.

sept 28, “one place the xbi wont follow you into is in a church”. and its crazy beautiful.

sept 30, even mall poutine makes me love everything. its super nuts. i fall completely and totally for canada. so the xbi forces me to go home.