i was just there for some taquitos, little did i know that id leave the place with her email address.

i asked for her number, but she sized me up and probably figured i couldnt afford a computer. so she gave me her hotmail address.

hotmail, i said to her as she handed me the napkin, thats pretty hot.

she scowled. secretly loving my pun. of course she did.

little did she know that i knew my way around the computer and i emailed her some nice letters and she found my website but still she was playing hard to get and made me wait months until i cornered her straight up at that very same salsa bar, and gave her the, “im young, you’re young, lets have fun,” line. which never works, but she emailed me back with these demands when i offered to take her to a romantico lunch.

she wrote: Don’t press your luck! Just kidding. Here are the rules:

If you can live with that, I’ll meet you out front of Marie Calander’s at noon.

a week later she was on my couch shaking. i said why are you shaking? she said, cuz youre a boy and this is scary for me. i said dont be scared all im gonna do is kiss you. she said, oh no youre not. i said, im going to put my hand on your neck, im going to nuzzle up to you, im going to press my lips against yours and then im going to tounge wrestle with you. so get ready.

she closed her eyes and sucked in her lips, giving me no target whatsoever.

i didnt make a move.

she opened up one eye.

dont listen to people who tell you to look at a girl’s body language. everything is a fake out, fellas. everything. you are the one they want. you are the one theyve always wanted. you. girls want to kiss. they buy lipstick and gloss and liner and fancy clothes, they shave their legs, they work out they eat right they clean their ears, they do myriads of things you’ll never even know all so you will kiss them on a tuesday night in hollywood.

and i kissed her.

and it was terrible.

she said, happy?

i said, how can i be happy? lets do it right this time. she said, get out, no way. no! i said, i know you can kiss. you told me how much you like making out. lets kiss.

she said, its dark, ive never been this east in hollywood. you live near that scary church, you write about being with all these women.

i said, it’s not that dark. welcome to east hollywood. thats not a church its a cult, and nothing on my site is true so pucker up.

she said no.

i said, then porno kiss me.

she said what the hell is that?

i said just stick your tongue out for the camera and i’ll stick mine out.

she laughed and thats when i got her.

today is Free Slurpee day.

and nobody calls in sick on bagel day. people who i never see around the office suddenly are in the kitchen with their plastic knives and their blueberry bagels and the schmeer.

that’s not how you spell it.

oh, hi blog.

hi tony, hows it going?

terrible.

you know what tony, i used to like being your blog, but you’ve turned into such a whiney little bitch lately. i swear.

get bent.

you have everything in the world. everything. everything that matters at least. but you’re missing one very important thing.

oh, please tell me, oh all-knowing bloggy blog blog.

omniscient. the word is omniscient. be concise for pete sake. people have jobs they have to get back to.

fine.

you need to learn how to be a man, tony pierce. this pouting stuff. i know where you get it from. you get it from anna and ashley and it’s ok if youre a cute blonde chick, but its really not even attractive for a grown man.

dude, i know i know. trust me, the last person, the last thing i need is a blog to tell me how to be a man.

best thing you ever had, motherfucker.

i know what a man is, blog. theres a look a man gives you who isnt a whiner. the same look you get from a man who works at a brick factory in kabul for $2.50 a day. confident, strong, beaten but not broken.

exactly.

but sometimes, blog, it’s ok for a fella to let down the facade and cry into his corn meal.

for a second, yes. but for a week? uh, no.

why not for a week? why not for two weeks. why not get it out and be done with it?

because theres work to do, superhero.

gotta build a brick shithouse do i?

no, that job’s already taken. your job is to show them how its done. and spread the word.

i thought that was your job, slacker.

no, my job is to sit here an look pretty, and i sure do look pretty. now get to work, fuckr.

ok, blog. fine.

wishing: i had a dirty car

and your chassis groans as the mexican ladies run with their hands up holding their transfers and the kids flip you the bird and i just shake my head cuz like marilyn manson, i don’t have enough middle fingers.

bus driver.

every lap dance, or chance meeting, job interview, blind date, or cross country airplane flight, at some point someone asks what i do for a living and i can only imagine what you say. but i know what you should say you should say Fuckr.

you dont deserve the e cuz e brings smiles.

you see us waiting for the Walk sign to glow so we can sprint across the street and race you to the bus stop but you don’t even care if we win, you’ll just blow off the stop if no one in your half million dollar office rang the little bell. you’ve got places to go. you’ve got a schedule to keep. you’ve got people to pick up. people other than us.

LA bus drivers are like doctors. they don’t like it if you haven’t waited a while for them. several differences between doctors and bus drivers though, let me work real hard to see if i can think up a few. hmmm. ok, heres one. doctors at least pretend to like the common man.

who rides the bus in LA? everyone. poets, priests, and politicians. maids, janitors, lots of security guards. old ladies, kids going to year-round-school, xbi agents, whores, drunkards, convicts, David Byrne, and the homeless who stretch out in the very back row and sleep and sleep and sleep. when they wake up and sober out they’ll apply for a job, yours, and they’ll get it. and you’ll go back to your old gig at the DMV.

bus driver, and i know you read this, all of you read this. I’ve seen you read the print outs as you kill time at your Chill Out stops. you blow off riders at the big intersections like Wilshire and LaBrea or Hollywood and Highland so you can make up time, but when you’re ahead of schedule you open your double doors at the Chill Out and punch holes in your stack of transfers and make all your passengers wait with you. you don’t care if it’s during rush hour. you don’t care if it’s at two in the afternoon. you have no life. why should others?

prolific sci fi typist Piers Anthony reversed my name for his pseudonym like no one would notice and no one noticed. but he’s a decent writer and in one of his books he tells the story of a young man who accidently kills Death so he must assume the duties. After he kills you, he reaches his hand into your chest and releases your soul, if it floats to the heavens, alls good in the hood, if it sags in his hand, he has to put it in his satchel and deliver it to the Depths.

look around the MTA locker room tomorrow morning, bus drivers who keep pulling away from the curb as the immigrant beats on your door, because there will be a bus drivers conventions in the Depths and all your pals will be there.

and when the convention is over theres a shuttle to a very dark place. very dark.

and trust me when i tell you that the shuttle driver will wait for you to climb aboard to take you there.

and finally you will experience

total

customer service.

lusting: madison