first things first, it was our good pal Matt Welch’s birthday yesterday!

what sort of friend am i to not know this???

me and matt go way back. after ‘nam we cooled off by starting up a taqueria in a sleepy little town called goleta which eventually got shut down when the sherrif found out that we were selling beer without a license which was ironic because the deputy who discovered it had a half chewed carne asada supreme in his hand and was taking a sip of a corona when he asked welch when we had gotten our liquor license.

with nothing better to do we enrolled into uc isla vista where we discovered the daily nexus, the college paper. welch figured it out first, i followed.

after huge successes in college journalism, matt decided that he would start an english-language paper in czechoslovakia way back when it was still called czechoslovakia. i promised him that i would be the arts and entertainment editor but instead i stayed behind in isla vista to be with my then-girlfriend jeanine (scroll down four posts, shes the one im mackin with as welch tries to figure things out).

this didnt not sit well with my bespecled bud, but when he got a chance to meet jeanine and witness our bizarre monkeylove he gave us his blessings and put wade on the job. after our breakup jeanine would end up in prauge with the gang and i would lose both my girl and my pals… but only temporarilly.

truth be told our paths ended because i was being trained to be a super agent for the xbi here in cali. matt and the gang were doing superheroics themseves kicking ass with Prognosis and busking on bridges.

as ive said often, and i will continue to say to my grave, the only regret i have in my life is not following my friends and rocking out in eastern europe to help them swallow pork and quarter beers.

since then welch has made his way back to america but before he did he picked up the hottest jeune fille en france and made her his. and if theres one thing that we love him for, besides Slip Disko, it’s importing emmanuelle who we all adore.

i could go on and on but my 15 minute break is nearly over.

i also love matt because he knows every tune on the guitar that the isla vista posse has ever written.

happy birthday, angel fan, im glad your team won it all last year.

in other news my review went suprisingly well.

strangely i got high marks in Communication but not the highest mark. hmmmm.

all in all they said that i am doing a good job and that im on par to do a better job and that they think that i have everything it takes to be a Leader, which in the xbi is… well, top secret.

thanks for all your kind words below.

now its time to get loaded, as Captain Morgan and his Morganettes are visiting us here in the office for the agency party.

matt welch + emmanuelle + la examiner

this will probably be the only post of the day today.

my work is reviewing me today.

scary part about all of this is that i moved into chopper one a little over six months ago and my boss hasnt said a good word about me since i got here.

after a few months i asked him why and he said he didnt think he should say anything good to someone for just doing their job. even though everyone knows it’s probably the toughest job in the company.

me, i thank people just for showing up.

we hire a bunch of freelancers every day. heck, i hire a bunch of freelancers every day. when i see them i shake their hands, look them in the eye, and tell them thank you for being there.

call me crazy but i think that one reason that they continue work for us and our notoriously low wages is that they appreciate being treated with respect.

my boss would probably say that im shmoozing them, but i would disagree. i would call it treating them with the respect that i would like get. that anyone would like to get treated.

i know girls who think they always have to keep their boyfriends in line. girls who withhold this or that. its a control thing, a power trip, a game.

my game is the reverse at work. i know the world doesnt shake people’s hands every day. i know the world doesnt pat people on the back for the little things and the big things.

and i also know that not everyone chooses where they will work solely based on who will pay them the most money.

i like to work where i do because of lots of reasons, none of which is the salary, which is minimal.

i like to work where i do because first off, the team is tremendous. i like the end result of what we do. i like that i can wear anything i want. i like that i can take the subway to work and save the enviornment. i like that theres more hot chicks in our building per capita than pretty much anything in hollywood outside of a modeling agency.

i like that im in the center of everything.

the only thing that i dont like is that im not listened to and that i get zero respect.

so im a little nervous about this review because everything that ive seen in this half-year makes me think that my boss doesnt want me. that he doesnt appreciate what ive done. that he isnt rooting for me to succeed. that he has making a nasty little list of “wrong” things that ive done, and he hasnt even considered making a list of “good” things.

my belief is that a review should be like a portrait. the artist looks at his subject and paints what he sees: warts and all.

and i think that such portraits are important because even a mirror can lie, and believe it or not, but i appreciate feedback. but dont distort it by only giving negative feedback.

my belief is that this portrait will only show the warts and the bald spots and the pudgy belly, and the gray hairs, and the nose hairs, while leaving out winning smile and massive cock.

the shit goes down in my job nearly every day.

and one thing that im baffled by is that when the shit goes down my body takes over and slows everything down and my brain goes into overdrive and i become so cool under pressure that its amazing.

i take no credit for this, but ive seen it happen and its sweet.

i dont think that will be covered this afternoon after lunch, even though it should, and it should be studied.

instead we will fight over little distracting things that dont mean much at all.

what they should be trying to figure out is how did a guy like me, who isnt the prototype chopper one pilot, climb onboard and not only complete the missions day after day, but do it while laughing, making others laugh, and doing it with style and grace and respect for those around him?

cuz the truth is you dont always have a group of qualified individuals for a job: look at politics. so how do you identify which underqualified person could actually do the task at hand.

on paper i shouldnt be a popular blogger. i never got an “a” in any english class ive ever taken – and i went to college for seven years. i never got an “a” in any photography class or art class and yet when some people talk about this site they talk first of the photo essays and the design.

but fortunately life isnt played out on paper. it happens every day between the time the alarm wakes us up and when the beertender yells last call.

sad thing about this review, i fear, is that i will prove that on paper i have been accurate about 98% of the time and instead of saying, shit man, we are impressed with this, they will focus and grill me about the 2% even though im responsible for doing a job and a half, even though i eat my lunch at my desk, and answer the phone with a sandwich in my hand, and run around the building at a fast pace, a building where everyone knows my name and says it with a smile, except for the man who will try to judge me today.

im nervous about this review because i am a sensitive poet and a talented debator and a smart cookie and i have just as many facts and figures as they do and i even have some secret weapons and i dont want to use them. what i want is for them to present me the way i am which is flawed yet fabulous, and if that happens then i will sit there and smile at the good things and frown at the bad things and speak softly and take it easy because there might be a light at the end of this tunnel and i should just focus on that instead of the fact that not everyone will always understand or appreciate you and lots of the times that person works right next to you.

since i have new comments today in honor of my work review, maybe you can give me a review on this blog, which is weeks away from being two years old.

pretend you are the boss of this blog and today is your chance to tell me the good things and bad things of what you see here everyday.

i promise that i will take it all in and i wont talk back.

why? because i love you.

clipper girl’s cousin came over last night.

party timeshe was trying to be mean to me because i took karisa to coulter’s wedding and not her, but she knew i didnt play that game so she called me and arrived with an apple pie and the dvd of american pie and mischeif in her eye.

needless to say it helped me not get shut out of july.

afterwards she accused me of being anti-breast.

i told her i wasnt anti-breast.

she asked me why i never really spent much time working the twins and i said i thought a gentleman wasnt supposed to. she said a gentleman was supposed to do whatever the gentlewoman wanted and i said fine, i’ll pay more attention to the zooms.

these are the biggest issues i have to deal with these days:

play more with my titties.

growing up i read a lot of Cosmo. i watched a lot of tv. i listened to women talk.

most the time i would read that guys would spend too much time on the cans and not enough time kissing or whispering or finding that magic spot.

“he thinks he’s tuning into a mexican radio station,” the frustrated women would write to Dear Cosmo.

if a girl had very small breasts i would make sure to work em a little more than i normally would, sorta to say, i know theyre there. theyre fine.

same would go if a girl had misshapen or scarred ones due to gunshots or plastic surgery: attention would be paid.

but if a young lady had perfect ones, or big huge ones, typically i would make the rounds and then try to downplay the obvious.

too often i had heard from women with generous portions that the men in their life would stare at them and be hyptonized and do nothing other than zero in on them.

im more than just tits, theyd whine.

fine.

i guess sometimes you can outthink yourself.

thankfully at the root of any good relationship is communication and trust

and the permission to be felt up.

raymi + true + chuck + keanu fever

i just need more time

i told my boss yesterday that my day goes way too fast. that i never look up at the clock and say, oh shit its only 2pm. i never think shit i wish this day would go faster.

my nights go superfast. my mornings speed by. i fall asleep on the couch cuz i dont want to admit that its bedtime.

last night i woke up at 5am, went to the bedroom, said my prayers and thanked him for everything. there was a lot to thank him for. then went to bed for an hour an a half. then woke up. then listened to howard stern. then started to write cuz the clock is ticking.

i want to hit the road.

i want to show people that On the Road was a pile of shit written by a guy who wasnt honest about anything in his life.

i want to turn this blog into nothing but true stories because the truth is stranger than bullshit and the truth will set you free.

im so not free right now.

if i was free id still be asleep sorta listening to howard stern.

if i was free id be following the cubs around right now cuz the cubs are on fire right now and theyre gonna make a run for it. they are making a run for it.

if the cubs were free and not full of bullshit theyd sign aaron boone and let him play third base. then we’d have a team.

i know theyd say, oh we cant afford aaron boone, but thats lies. lies are dumber than nonfiction. tribune corp owns the tv station and the newspaper.

george steinbrenner doesnt own the newspaper and the tv. he just owns the product. and the angels own the yankees. which is why he’s running scared.

tribune corp is full of shit. they lie to the people who love them. they sit around and hope and hope and hope cant play third base.

sign boone, trade ramirez or let gonzales come off the bench. how hard is that? i mean really.

if i can sit on my ass watching the clock tick down to shower time and i can tell you to pick boone up instead of letting the dodgers not get him, then why cant the cubs just do the right thing.

with aaron boone you might be able to slide with joe borowski as your closer. with aarone boone you have completed your team. and trust me when i tell you that some people always have something askew. something quite not right.

trust me when i tell you that i have gone long enough with the cubs on the fucked up end of the see-saw. with the cubs being lovable and quaint.

i want the cubs to be scary.

i want people to say, fuck the cubs are coming to town.

i want steinbrenner to have to spend more money to compensate for his little schween.

i dont have a lot of time.

now is the only time.

tribune corp would delay the daily paper a day, if they could, to save a buck.

sign aaron boone so i have to pray words of thanks a little longer tonight.

im sick of feeling like havana. gorgeous and pure but missing something

and stuck in a commie time where you cant win cuz youre barely playing and the best thing you have is booze and smokes and wonderful people who have convinced themselves that where theyre at is fine.

where im at is fine.

but where i want to be is finer.

as fine as an aaron boone homer in october at wrigley with sammy on deck.

on the busride home all i ever think about is coming home and writing.

something good. something for you.

then i get home and every night its like this, its like the apartment takes over and all of my plans get sucked away.

even on the happiest of evenings where i think about coming home and blasting the good tunes and dancing around i always end up doing something completely else.

today they had a surprise for us at work.

59. blackmask

they blindfolded us and put us in limos.

everyone thought they were going to kill us. we were esping like crazy.

finally i just told them all to relax, that if they wanted to kill us they would just poison the coffee.

everyone began to relax.

we ended up in this place that was really beautiful, i imagined. there were pillows on the lush carpet. the sofas were all pillows, the room smelled of incense, spanish guitar was playing in the distance.

when they unblindfolded us we saw that there were flowers all over and fruit in large bowls and fountains of apple juice.

we were told to sit down.

they washed our feet.

who did? they did.

they.

none of us believed it.

it was weird at first, and a little, hmmm intense? but it was nice.

then they dried our feet and then wrapped them in towels

and then put flowers on the towels and then they brought out chairs

beautiful women emerged and sat on the chairs.

they held out the bowls of fruit for the women and we were told to remain silent while the guitar played and simply receive.

and the women fed us.

they dabbed our chins with napkins and held the goblets while we drank, and then the women fed us some more.

a voice said

you are the undercover superheroes of the city of angels

if people knew what you were doing, they would thank you

but even they couldnt thank you enough

then they read off our names one by one.

then they played david bowies heroes as the women gave us shoulder rubs.

then the lights went down

then most of us fell asleep.

when we awoke they drove us to a local theatre and gave us a special preview screening of swat.

which might have made sense in the meeting, but in reality it just brought us back to thinking about work, and wishing it was as easy as samuel jackson made it look.

sk smith + coyote + c monks

the voice said that you know youre in trouble when it feels like

everything is keeping you away from blogging. work, subway rides, super heroics, eating, pissing, yelling, laughing, getting nominated

doing laundry.

if i was any sort of man i would have photographed the block before the rainstorm when the armenians were at their card tables outside in their fenced in front yard driveways where the little puppies lay at the feet of the dark haired men with frowns on strong faces and relatives all around.

proud people. proud of something. proud not to be dragging a granny cart of the most miserable clothes down the street.

the skies were midnight blue and it was almost eight pm, last wash at 8 pm. 8pm at the coin laundry means that both of the tvs are going to be on spanish stations.

a woman with four children. the two oldest are reading two books. the two minute detective and harry potter.

theyre teasing each other about the endings. dont tell me dont tell me. was it ….? dont tell me.

chinese man flips the sign at eight and half the place is still full.

mexican woman wipes down each one of the washers one by one. getting every crevice. she eventually will start sweeping as people slowly finish washing their terrible clothes.

the thunder began and then the lightening. one of them was first.

a woman talked to her old woman momma.

a young mexican woman smiled at me. i wondered if she smiled at everyone. i wondered whos kids those were. the one who dopped the fruit rollup on the floor that had gone through a lot that day.

i was wearing shorts. didnt happen to be washing any raincoats. no car. about four five blocks back home. for some reason i wasnt worried and i ate my pork skins and drank my water.

this was one of those super grab bags of pork skins. about the size of a sixty nine cent bag of fritos.

it said 85 calories a serving.

some how they get 5 servings out of that bag of pork rinds.

extra spicy.

and i was thinking if i was married to that woman and her three kids, could i really bring home a buck bag of pork skins and say, here you are family.

a serving for each of us.

and when i was done there wasnt any more raining. just good smelling nothingness.

and the dogs still barked at me from behind their chains.

and the little kids blew bubbles from their bubble thing thing and said hi.

and the church members talked about official business.

and my gwar shirt was finally clean again.

i think im gonna start a secret blog sometime soon.

dont take it as a threat. you havent done anyting wrong. there are things that i cant write in here and its disappointing to me, because even though ive got the best disclaimer in showbiz, you still cant write everything without ruffling feathers or appearing one way or the other way which is sad cuz im just being myself.

for example. theres no way on tonypierce.com that i can write about my job. theres no way.

firstly, if you knew the truth about it, many of you would feel differently about me. not necessarilly in a bad way, but maybe. but whats worse is many of you would feel differently about me in a good way. i dont want that either.

mostly i want to write about things that interest me and concepts that i havent fully formulized yet and its cathartic for me to bring them out in this forum and disect them.

i dont need a zillion people looking at them, thus i dont need a super popular blog in which to bust.

same goes for writing sexy things.

same goes for writing a bunch about baseball.

during the all star weekend i wanted to do nothing other than write about baseball. plus im reading this baseball book and everything that i see here at work and in life i am relating to Moneyball. im trying to see if there are things in my life that i am overlooking because they dont fit into my stodgie ideas of How Things Should Be when all along they were Right On.

i dont really feel comfortable writing about that on here.

same goes with entries that start off with “I dont like…” and “I think that…” and “I dont want…”

my fear is if you make your blog waaaaaaaaaaay too first person it will get dull. who cares what tony pierce thinks every damn day about honey nuts of o’s?

i mean seriously.

then theres the dating.

i have never felt comfortable talking about my real dating life on this thing ever. the only time i felt even halfway ok was when i was dating ashley and i felt ok because i knew that she wanted me to write about her and even though she minded when i said not-so-favorable things, she still liked the press.

not many people are like that, which i totally understand. im not like that.

but there are things that i want to talk about that fascinate me and if thats the context and if those chicks found me through friendster and they all of a sudden find themselves being written about, they might not appreciate it. and i cant blame them.

but the storyteller in me says that the stories must be told. cuz Lord knows youre not telling them. and the chicks arent telling them and if they are theyre not telling them from my point of view which is admittidely twisted, but interesting, to some, at least for right now.

thus the new thing.

tolstoy wrote a diary for his local paper, he kept a private diary, and then wrote one he knew his wife thought was a private one but he kept it to throw her off track.

the new one will keep my fears off track.

21mm + joh3n + bari jaona

when some people are doing well and you ask them how theyre doing

they will say, ah, doing fine, knock wood.

and then they’ll knock on some wood.

like if they didnt tap on the innocent wood which probably isnt acutal tree-wood they will stop having a good day or favorable luck.

i dont knock any damn wood.

which might be why i dont always have good luck. but i doubt it.

people are all the time talking about jinxing things.

people think, and you might be one of these folks, that you can control your destiny to the negative if you talk about things or if you dont knock on wood, or if you dont throw the spilt salt over your shoulder, or if you walk under a ladder, or if you break a mirror.

but these same people dont think that you can create “good” luck.

the general rule is, if you have something cool that might happen in the future, its in your best interest not to talk about. this will prevent you from jinxing it.

of course this flies in the face of common sense which says if you talk about something brewing, perhaps those who you talk with will either improve on your ideas or give you a better offer, thus increasing your so-called luck.

if you can turn blue skies to grey, why cant you created the reverse ive often asked.

if i do something and someone says, oh dont do that, thats bad luck i generally say, what can i do for good luck?

to which they can only give me ideas that begin and end with finding pennies or tossing them into a “well” or a shopping mall fountain.

either way the more i looked around this weekend and saw all the great friends i have and thought about where i live and what i get to do every day and people i get to do it with, i thank my lucky stars.

and the man upstairs.

cuz i know that he cares.

if i had a penny for my luck id be a billionaire.

the muffs will play on the street near my home + nocturnal angel + popie

where to begin about this weekend?

heather and steve this was steve and heathers wedding weekend, and my friends have the greatest weddings.

have i ever told you that?

this one was outside, perfect weather, jeff solomon marrying steve and heather.

jeanine made the rings, greg played sweet child o mine instead of here comes the bride.

there was even some secret private super cool moments that even defied physics.

it was beautiful.

it was a rock star wedding were adults wore ties and tennis shoes and the children unbuttoned their shirts and moshed with whiteboys who brokedance.

there was two different kinds of cake.

at some point everyone started dancing uncontrollably to the sweet tunes.

charlie moonwalked. i saw him.

my ex girlfriends were there lookin hot.

they were at table ten with me and karisa and paolo and famous photographer jim lowney who gave me tips.

which i have forgotten

due to the many gallons of red wine i drank.

but i think one of the things he told me to do was keep taking a shitload of pictures.

problem with pictures is they dont tell the whole story.

for example, this picture would have you believe that karisa won the best shoes contest.

but it takes a second picture to show that she only earned a second place.

i find it interesting that every time i go to a wedding, i always end up with the person who most wants to dance.

the interesting part is i usually have a great time.

and im thinking that maybe its because my friends are the best and on occasions like these theres heavy doses of love in the house.

so you have to go outside and put your feet in the fountain.

luckiest man in the world?

yes.

greatest friends in the world?

yes.

more pictures elsewhere?

yes + yes

today is mick jagger’s 60th birthday.

not mick probably the coolest man alive.

sixty and on a world tour.

sixty and knocking up south american girls like it aint no thing.

sixty and can still sing.

the celebration started early here in the hollywood foothills when i went through with a date that i had with a girl who during the last two meetings wouldnt so much as even kiss me. prounouncing repeatedly on both occasions that she was “over” me.

over.

and because life is a roulette wheel where one should always bet on black sometimes the girls who are over you will miraculously find themselves under you when you least expect it.

for no good reason. not like you deserve it. not like you did anything right.

dark skinned girl.

not of this world.

full lips thatd id kissed before but forgotten about

permanent pout.

we talked through the best movies and brainstormed

she told me i had great ideas and i went on and on cuz i do have great ideas motherfucker.

we hadnt kissed or held hands or done anything other than sit on opposite ends of the couch.

and i said lets continue this conversation in the other room.

only one other room in this house.

always be closing.

and she said can i pee first.

felt like i was with an ex wife. familiar but formal. hesitant yet heated.

but better she said than any other

and then we toasted to mr. mick jagger.

no use for virtue + os’s birthday + ming the mechanic