i can die a satisfied man.

ive been linked by ESPN page 2. (scroll down to the picture of Anna)

i dont know who Eric Neel is. i dont know how he knows about me. but he does. he knows that im a “photo-essayist”, he knows that i live in LA, and he knows that Anna Kournikova and I have imaginary conversations.

all i know is i got a flood of hits and for that i thank you, Mr. Neel. if we’re ever at the same bar together i owe you a round or two, because i would say that outside of being linked from my small circle of friends theres only a handful of sites that i would feel as honored being mentioned upon like ESPN page two – home of some of the finest columnists in the world, including that of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, who knows a thing or two about talking to oneself in print.

today i felt so terrible from complications of dentistry and then i come into work late and i discover this – sheesh, i havent had this much pleasure and pain in one sitting since the time when — well, it’s been a long time, lets leave it at that.

anyone who knows me knows i dont do this for the money or the attention, but for the chicks.

and the next time that an interesting young lady looks at my business card and tosses it aside and says, “so?” i can say, “espn page two, girlfriend.”

and she will be mine all mine.

God Bless you Eric, and pick up Paul Westerberg’s new solo record, it’s way better than Bob Mould’s.

and for more Anna K. love click here.

this morning went to the dentist

so that they could give a look-see at what used to be my wisdom tooth. all was fine.

they told me that they had a cancelation and they could whiten my teeth professionally for a ridiculously low price (much lower than the $575 they normally charge). uncle sam gave me a few bucks back in disguise as a tax refund so i went for it.

if theres one thing that i want you to know from me this month it’s this:

professional teeth whitening, even from the greatest dentist in the world like my dentist, can hurt like a mother fucker.

how bad does it hurt, still? remember the line that marilyn manson sang, “i don’t have enough middle fingers.”

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckity fuck.

this is superagent feelsnopain telling you: fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!

the bleach can leak into your gums. the bleach opens the pores in your teeth. your teeth have pores. the bleach opens it. if you have any sensitive teeth the bleach takes switchblades out and finds the most sensitive areas and wacks at it.

i went through my list of blessings a hundred times.

i reeled off every handjob, blowjob, lapdance, promotion, raise, friendly smile, love letter, lust letter, random hookups with short skirted nymphos ditching their junor college french classes.

i even dug into memories of last month.

right now id rather listen to rosie o’donnell sing every barbara streisand song, in alphabetical order, through a megaphone directly into my ear than go through what im dealing with now. that’s how bad this is.

if the grim reaper knocked on my office door, i would cry tears of joy, i would bend down at his feet and kiss them and stretch out my neck on my oak desk so his sycthe would have a good target and i know i spelled that wrong but i dont give a shit. im dying.

and the dentist says that tonight the pain may intensify.

and, now i love my dentist, but when i said, is there anything i can do about this pain? he gave me a tube of toothpaste and said, “use this.”

beloved drugs of the world, i call upon thee.

find me.

find me before its too late.

find me.

when i was being trained to be a superhero

they got us in the practice of counting our blessings, and that habit has stuck with me like many of the tenants that i took to heart.

in listing the good things about life, an agent was less likely to act emotionally or recklessly or without care for life or limb. it will help center you, ground you, and help you remember who and why you are protecting whatever it is that we consider valuable.

and it will help get your mind off the toothpicks being jammed under your fingernails if youre being tortured by a trio of young punks who got lucky in koreatown.

im grateful for going to college in santa barbara where we had Red Rocks to escape to up in the mountains, home of the swimming holes that weren’t much to look at during the drought where for an entire year there was no rain, but now it looks to be coming back.

im grateful for my friends who just might have convinced the former mayor to put his life savings into their hands and turn vengence into art – and, if i have anything to do with it – vice versa. mwahahahaha.

im grateful for my good looks and thick fingers, my rich uncle’s diet which caused him cancer thus bequething to me so many bags of cash that the brinks truck got a flat on the way over. oh wait, that’s someone else.

i’m grateful to live in an age of broadband where for $50 a month, i can turn on my computer and download pictures of naked broads and hot bands.

im grateful that JC gave me a buck last night for my Snoop DeVille.

im grateful that the Cubs still play at Wrigley and that my mother and sister still live an hour away from the friendly confines, because if they lived any closer, i might not live here in Hollywood.

im grateful for the close personal relationships that defy traditional definitions that i am lucky to share with some of the finest young women in Los Angeles.

im grateful for my health, my wealth, and my ability to type in the dark to you.

and im really grateful that m finally has a blog.

look around, around, the second drummer drowned

the mailbag is full of haircut questions, so i’ll tell you the little story.

probably just like the place where you work, the xbi has its share of security gaurds. especially after september. just like the rest of us, the guards are undercover. if you walked past our heaquarters you’d just think that a row of old men were waiting for their doctor, but no, they are retired g men with itchy and arthritic trigger fingers dying to bust a cap in your ass.

ive always said that im an old man in a young man’s body, so whenever i can i ask the fellas things like where i should get my hair cut. there was a minor disagreement, but eventually there was consensus on a barbershop near la brea.

i went in on friday after work. even though the neighborhood is mixed, there was only black faces in the barbershop. all the chairs were filled and soon after i sat down on the comfy couch, the couch was filled with awaiting men of all ages flipping through industry magazines.

within a few minutes it was my turn, i put down my Black Entertainer and shook hands with my barber. from a snapshot he’d taped to his mirror, i saw that he had once had a much bigger afro than I was sporting, and now he was clean shaven. i became nervous.

i sat down and asked for a trim.

the joke is if you ask for a trim the barber will cut off most of your hair.

its a bad joke.

and it’s true.

my man pulled out a pair of shears that were at least 18 inches long. i know this because when i used to lay wire through the walls to bug an office or a bedroom, i used an 18 inch drill bit. after a few minutes most of my ‘fro was on the ground.

the whole time there was great music blasting from the boombox propped in a rocking chair. it was that nu-soul: jazz mixed with hip hop with lyrics that mattered not. my man brought out the buzz cutters to add shape.

when it was all done i paid my $20, tipped $5 and went on my way.

in the morning i woke and showered and resigned myself to the results and was mildly disappointed.

now i see there are rough edges here and there, small mounds of hair that wont push down on this side, and valleys on that side. theres too much hair on top, etc.

what i really need now, ironically, is a trim.

in the last 6 hours

this is the most emailed photograph via Yahoo.

is it that people are making fun of the fact that Cheerios tried to make their patches seem as conspicious as humanly possible? almost like they decided during the last round of the tournament to sponsor whoever was in first place.

im just jealous. i would love a corporate sponsor for the bus blog.

Cadillac? HP? Microsoft?

even though i dont believe in their practices of sweat shops, selling $125 shoes to children, and the billboardization of our culture, i would take a cool million from Nike if they wanted stoke a brotha.

i’d rather be sponsored by someone who i believed in though. Old Style beer. Vans. Directv, Southwest Airlines, Audiogalaxy, Shasta. 99 cent stores.

Visine.

If i had to play women’s golf and get sponsored by a cereal, i would prefer to wear the patch of Cap’N Crunch or Fruity Pebbles.

The latter would be protested by my fans, though, I would imagine.

Either that or they’d eat it up.

i’m here all week.

Let’s Go Kings.

i dont know whether to feel good or bad

that my super disgusting recently pulled wisdom tooth has no bidders with only a few hours left in the auction. it’s a gross proposition.

the only thing grosser than someone who wants to buy my tooth, would have to be someone who would want to swap wisdom teeth, i would imagine. brothers David and John proposed just that, which i respectfully turned down.

John flowed the Snoop Fund a buck, as did Hiram, my old pal from the dot com days. i have very few rules about donating to the Snoop fund, but one of them is, if youre my friend, as in ive been to your house, we’ve broken bread, you’ve been to my house, you’ve set me up with your sister, you’ve bailed me out of jail, i’ve removed a bullet from your tailbone, we’ve stolen hubcaps together, etc. you can’t donate to my car fund. it’s too weird.

otherwise, give till it hurts.

i did get a haircut on friday. for some reason i didnt think that it would be well accepted in the black community, but this morning a jay-walking security gaurd said, “g’mornin’, brotha.” so thats a good start.

it’s short. its barely an afro. it’s a mini ‘fro. a m’fo?

since we’re getting personal, ive been saving my nickles and dimes and i found a nice housekeeper who’s going to tidy my bachelor pad once a week. the hilarity is set to ensue.

in closing, may i say that although i havent published an opinoin about the Dick Riordan-led new LA Times newspaper that may or may not be run by Ken and Matt, i will say these two things: if you want to kick serious ass in journalism and you want to start something that others will call a newspaper, there are no two more qualified musical youth than the dynamic duo who pulled it off with one hand tied behind their backs in Prauge back in the day.

and secondly, the era of people asking to be called Dick seems to have ended, sadly.

me and chris went to the movies

today at the Grove next to Farmer’s Market. we saw Blade II. it was her second time seeing it. fucking awesome. totally violent, sick, nasty, excellent. perfect music. wesley snipes is perfect in it. whoever the director is is a damn genius. makes it look easy.

afterwards we ate at the farmers market. she had the shrimp louis, i had the shrimp boat. the place was packed. this teenage couple propped themsleves against a post and held each other and pretty much just made out. a dad was there with his two elementary school children and he said approvingly, “im just going to watch you two kiss.” the young couple giggled and looked the other way, but didnt move. after a few minutes they went back to looking in each others eyes and mackin. chris and i ate our entire meal, including her getting up and going over to the crepe place, getting a cup of coffee, finishing it, etc. and when we left they were still making out.

saturday night, what else are you going to do?

heard this young white girl by a payphone tell this black kid, “i could call my mom and have her pick me up, or you could drive me home.” needless to say, they left immediately without picking up the phone.

when we got home we pay-per-viewed “greenfingers,” a british indy about a group of prisoners who become gardeners. really good. funny. believable. great music: springsteen, sting, elton john.

today was 4/20 and all i have to say is, im not that old, and ive seen the berlin wall fall, ive seen the end of communism, ive seen a guy steal the presidency, i saw the raiders get fucked in the playoffs.

when i was a kid we had 9 tv stations to choose from. i saw calculators – simple calculators – get introduced to the world at $175, simple walkmans going for $200.

at my first job i got $3.35/hr – i thought i was the biggest stud when i got a new job that was going to pay me $4 an hour.

ive seen a lot change fast.

marijuana will be legal in my lifetime.

idiocy doesnt last forever.

Alice in Chains Singer Found Dead

Sat Apr 20, 5:15 PM ET

By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

SEATTLE – Layne Staley, lead singer and guitarist for the grunge band Alice in Chains, was found dead in his apartment, authorities said Saturday. He was 34.

Tests were required to establish the identity because the body, discovered Friday, had started to decompose. The King County Medical Examiner’s office did not release his cause of death.

“It was natural or an overdose � that’s the way it was determined by our investigators,” said Seattle Police spokesman Duane Fish.

Police did not immediately release details on anything that was found at the scene, and a spokesman did not respond to several messages.

With Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, Alice in Chains was one of the most prominent bands of the Seattle grunge scene of the early ’90s. The group was known for its dark, menacing sound, which combined grunge and heavy metal, and often wrote about heroin.

In a 1996 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Staley spoke of how his drug use influenced his lyrics.

“I wrote about drugs, and I didn’t think I was being unsafe or careless by writing about them,” he told the magazine. “Here’s how my thinking pattern went: When I tried drugs, they were (expletive) great, and they worked for me for years, and now they’re turning against me � and now I’m walking through hell, and this sucks.”

The group’s first album, “Facelift,” was released in 1990. It later released “Dirt” and “Alice in Chains.” The group’s hits included “Man in the Box,” “Them Bones,” “Rooster,” and “Would?”

The latter song was partly inspired by the 1990 heroin overdose death of Andrew Wood, singer of the seminal grunge group Mother Love Bone.

Staley’s body was found just over 8 years after Nirvana singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain was found dead in his Seattle home of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Heroin was found in Cobain’s bloodstream, and his head had been so mutilated that he could not be immediately identified.

In the 1996 interview, Staley reflected on Cobain’s death: “I saw all the suffering that Kurt Cobain went through. I didn’t know him real well, but I just saw this real vibrant person turn into a real shy, timid, withdrawn person who could hardly get a ‘hello’ out. … At the end of the day or at the end of the party, when everyone goes home, you’re stuck with yourself.”

is layne from alice in chains

dead?

the seattle times is reporting that a dead body was found at the singer’s home friday night.

if you remember, when kurt cobain was first found this is how the reports were written – some thought/hoped that it was a houseguest. unfortunately it was kurt.

alice in chains ruled.

this could be very very sad.

when i was a Catholic i used to hate going to church

but once i was in the church i felt sooooo much better. thats how i feel about socializing here in tinsel town.

last night i went to Casita del Campo – an amazingly fun family-owned family styled Mexican restaurant in Silverlake that has a wide assortment of free gay weeklies that welcome you as you climb the stairs en route to some powerful margueritas.

karisa and i can drink, and after only a few of them we were hammered.

the purpose of the night’s festivities was for the LA Press Club to meet the LA Bloggers, but like most parties, friends congregate with friends and I didnt actually meet that many new people, but the few that i did meet were completely cool. Yes, Virginia Postrel was there but I was slurring by the time i could have introduced myself to her, but i was happy to meet Andrew Hofer, one of the guys from Happy Fun Pundit, as well as adult industry gossip legend Luke Ford.

Rabbit was there, Prof. Volokh was there, the friendly republican, all the usual suspects really, including tons of my friends from college, and there was even a transvestite tarot card reader who got absolutely no attention paid to him since the conversation was predictably unpredictable and lively.

Topics that were discussed: The history of eye glasses. (Apparently the Romans invented them 600 years ago.) Somehow that segued into debunking the myth that homosexuals account for 3% and not 10% of the population. This caused much friendly debate after i pointed out that if the 10% was accurate, the Lakers have one gay player, and that discussion then segued to cheese and how it was created so as to preserve milk, bringing about the point that if refrigeration was invented earlier, we might not have ever had our glorious cheeses.

That’s when I met Luke Ford and we all started talking about porn and religion, sufficite to say I was feeling quite comfortable in that conversation.

Ford is an interesting person in that he was the superstar of adult video reporting. He says that his old site lukeford.com got over 8,000 unique visitors a day, but when he, an Austrailian, started to get serious about his Judiasm, he sold his site and renounced his career. his new homepage is at lukeford.net

Despite all the strange things that I have seen with my limited experience around the adult industry, there is nothing weirder than to see a guy with an Austrailian accent sporting a yamulke who has a striking resemblance to my long lost GS Warrior pal, Chris Scheer, propose that most girls who get into porn are closet “whores” who make their real money by marrying rich men who they meet because of their videos.

im sorry, im all over the place. im a little hung over. thank God today is Friday. i think im gonna get a haircut.

if you want to see how i can write when im focused, click over to yesterday’s Baseball Blog 2002 and watch me kick a man when he’s down.