im not very handsome

its true. nor am i rich or smart or tall or priveledged.

im not really motivated or ambitious or wise or jolly or cultured or tidy or fit or trim.

i lack hair where i should have it and i have it where i shouldnt.

im turning gray in the worst places like in my nose

and on my nuts.

i dont pray as much as i should.

i dont read books as much as i should.

i dont visit my friends i dont seek out religion.

i dont write enough. i dont art enough.

i should give my mother more gifts but i refuse.

when people call me on the telephone to ask my opinoin i dont lie as much as i could.

and i accept far too little a wage from my employer.

i get the biggest thrills from the littlest moments

i dont have a car, or good clothes,

or the desire to ask for the things that i want.

which makes the gentle perfumed tap

at my back door on cold evenings

like tonight

all the more inconceivable.

and youd be stunned at how quick

theyve stripped.

how to vote + bob hayes + daily clerks + panama jane

october thirty first

that is my date of birth…

my favorite beastie boy, king ad rock

turns 38 years old today.

oh man.

heres what beastiemania says about him:

If there was ever a popularity contest amongst the members of the Beastie Boys, Adam Horovitz would come out the winner. To prove this point, consider going in with two other people, each spending $333.00 to divide up a set of the Beastie Boys action figures. Now ask yourself: “If I have to choose which figure I want, who would it be?” Follow that with: “Which figure is everyone else going to want for their $333.00?”

Being probably the most popular with female fans, it should be noted that Adam has had a handful of very public relationships. During the Licensed to Ill tour he was romantically involved with actress Molly Ringwald. Following the band’s move to Los Angeles in the late 1980s, he met and fell in love with actress Ione Skye and later married her. After the demise of that marriage, Adam was seen with Kathleen Hanna, who is best known for her work with the bands Le Tigre and Bikini Kill.

Adrock wasn’t always a member of Beastie Boys though; he and Dave Scilken were in a band called The Young and the Useless. The Young and the Useless had a sound similar to that of the earlier incarnation of the Beastie Boys. The Young and the Useless put out the very rare and sought after Real Men Don’t Floss ep, which to this day brings top dollar in online auctions.

Adrock joined the Beastie Boys during their metamorphosis into a hip hop act and the rest is history. Yet recently Adrock has ventured more deeply into his hobby of collecting beats, releasing both the self-titled BS 2000 album as well as Simply Mortified with partner AWOL.

Along with making music, Adrock as also made a few full length feature films. “Lost Angels” was released in 1989 and “Roadside Prophets” was put out in 1992. He also has had memorable roles in “A Kiss Before Dying” and “Cityscrapes”, which stars his friend Max Perlich and his former wife Ione Skye. Before appearing on the large screen though, Adam guest-starred on a 1985 episode of the “Equalizer.”

“Well, I’m a funky skull and I’m a Scorpio…”

from imdb’s info:

Son of Israel Horovitz

Brother of Rachael Horovitz and Matthew Horovitz

The other two Beastie Boys admitted that he was the author of about 80% of the music on the album “Hello Nasty.”

His mother died of alcoholism while he was in his teens.

Has been dating Kathleen Hanna of the punk band Bikini Kill for some time.

Is the Beastie Boys’ guitarist.

Few people know that he suffered from a major epileptic fit, caused from flash photography. His seizures are now under control and is under constand medical supervision.

Pursued an acting career in the late 80s and early 90s, typically getting James Dean-style parts as brooding, troubled young men. He apparently abandoned his acting career in 1994, although he continues to “act” along with his Beastie Boy bandmates as the various bizarre characters they play in their videos.

Although born while his mother was visiting in New Jersey, he was raised in Manhattan, where he still lives.

people born on halloween:

1795 – John Keats, British poet

1912 – Dale Evans, singer, actress

1920 – Dick Francis, novelist

1920 – Helmut Newton, photographer

1927 – Lee Grant, actress

1931 – Dan Rather, American news anchor

1936 – Michael Landon, actor

1944 – Kinky Friedman, musician, novelist

1945 – Brian Doyle-Murray, American comedian and actor

1947 – Frank Shorter, marathon runner

1949 – Stephen Rea, actor

1950 – John Candy, Canadian genius

1950 – Jane Pauley, news anchor

1959 – Neal Stephenson, author

1961 – Peter Jackson, New Zealand film director

1961 – Larry Mullen, Irish drummer for the rock band U2

1963 – Fred McGriff, baseball player

1963 – Rob Schneider, actor

1968 – Vanilla Ice, rap music singer

people who have died on halloween:

1926 – Harry Houdini, magician

1983 – George Halas, American football player, coach, team owner

1984 – Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India

1987 – Joseph Campbell, American author and expert on mythology

1988 – John Houseman, actor, director, teacher

1993 – Federico Fellini, Italian director

1993 – River Phoenix, actor

2000 – Ring Lardner, Jr., American screenwriter

2002 – Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell), rapper (Run DMC)

wiz bang + rabbit blog + my hallway

courtney love

wiltern theatre, los angeles

10/30/04

it should first be mentioned that i love courtney love.

i want my rock stars to be drug addicts. i want them to get naked.

i like them sloppy and passionate and dangerous and intense.

i like it when they take themselves too seriously and back it up with powerful music and fascinating performances.

and i especially like it when theyre crazy.

you can have pearl jam, i’ll keep courtney.

the best part of grunge to me were the riot grrls: bikini kill, babes in toyland, 7 year bitch, L7, the muffs, and once kurdt started writing songs for them hole.

i love courtney love so much that after her july 23, 2004 show was canceled due to her legal issues, ticketmaster said i could hold on to them and use them when it gets rescheduled or get my money back.

well i still have those tickets cuz im going when it happens.

say what you want about her but shes a rock star and i pay money to see rock stars, especially when their worlds are falling apart around them.

just this week she was ordered to stand trial for allegedly throwing a bottle at some chick she found at her ex-boyfriends house, chasing her around the house with a flashlight, throwing a lit candle at her and pinching her breasts.

and shes allegedly broke.

none of that drama stopped her from going on a five stop mini tour which ended last night in koreatown halloween eve.

it should also be mentioned that i was dressed in red pants a red shirt and a wig as jack white and my date for the evening was dressed as a sexy vampire

who swore she was wearing undergarments

but i sure couldnt feel none.

and even though i looked retarded, people said very nice things and took pictures of us.

because we were late i couldnt get any full body shots of us but you sorta get the idea below i hope.

juliette lewis ripped off her public enemy tshirt during her third tune and writhed around on the oriental rug and shook out whatever demons could still be haunting that wild little girl as her band kicked out the jams.

she was janis and pj and iggy and mick

rolled up in a skinny little nimble porn star actress chick who either has so many issues or none left cuz she just fucking lets loose.

courtney appeared around 11:30p, flowers everywhere, pretty dress, ballerina shoes, gracious, mellow, smiling, geniunely happy. shit.

the wiltern was not sold out. her record americas sweetheart had been her worst selling record ever. she’s obviously been gaining weight.

but there she was smiling at everyone. so happy.

Mono

But Julian I’m A little Bit Older Than You

Asking For It

Plump

All The Drugs

Reasons To Be Beautiful

Malibu

I’ll Do Anything

Miss World

Violet

Codiene (Buffy Saint Marie Cover)

Sunset Strip

House Of the Rising Sun

Northern Star

Celebrity Skin

she didnt hit all the high notes on all the songs, she didnt play any guitar, but when she went for some of the more powerful screams she nailed em and it was really nice.

and i have to say the songs that her husband wrote were particularily moving and rich and memorable.

heres what dave navarro said about the show:

October 31, 2004

The Morning After Love

Last night we went to see Courtney play at the Wiltern. This girl has really gotten it together. What a star. Energy, presence and light like never before. The show was brilliant and with the all girl line up, they really give the men in this game a run for their money. She has really become one of my favorite people in the world. Sweet, endearing and a true pleasure to be around… even more captivating than the old self-destructive artist be grew to love. I am really happy to see her talent take the front seat away from some of the headlines she has endured over the past few months.

it was a very sweet, very feminine night, the sights and sounds of the wiltern were intoxicating.

photo by dallas from kittyradio.com + which also has three vids from the show + the comedian

saturdays are rough

cuz i really should rest my precious paws.

wouldnt want those who wish me increased carpal tunnel to get their twisted dreams realized.

because of that i will reprint a few reasons jim treacher will vote for kerry (or nader?) on tuesday

10 Reasons I’m Not Voting for You, Mr. George W. Bush

10. Do you really think it’s a good idea to be Hitler, George? Hitler killed millions of people and his approval ratings are for shit. Why can’t you be somebody who people like? Regis, maybe, or the Prophet Mohammed. Anybody but Hitler! Being Hitler = BAD IDEA.

9. Two words: You. Are. Dumb.

8. When Karl Rove used the remote-control device implanted in your upper back to force you to murder Iraqi babies and American soldiers for oil and/or no reason because Saddam was mean to your dad, plus what about the WMDs you lost after you lied about them even being there in the first place, and then Rove tried to make everybody think your Thanksgiving turkey wasn’t plastic by planting fake documents about your military service and forcing Dan Rather to say “Sorry, I guess” on national TV, did you really think we wouldn’t figure it out?

read the rest here

jim got a bunch of good responses in the comments including this from rich of sandesk:

Dear Jim:

I respond, point by point, thusly:

10. Bush is not like Hitler. The German people elected Hitler. We all know Bush was not elected. The German People LOVED Hitler. The German people HATE GW. Therefore GWB is NOT like Hitler, and on this point your argument fails.

9. He may be dumb, but he’s really, really cute. AND, I happen to like the way he pronounces “nukeelar”. You lose this point, too.

8. It wasn’t Rove, it was Cheney, dummy! After losing the first part of this one, you don’t get any points for the rest of the point in question either. Three down.

ken layne + matt welch + f 9/11 free for the taking + doc searls links a larger list of online vids

Osama bin Laden:

We found no difficulties in dealing with the Bush administration, because of the similarities of that administration and the regimes in our countries, half of which are run by the military and half of which are run by monarchs. And our experience is vast with them.

And those two kinds are full of arrogance and taking money illegally.

The resemblance started when [former President George H.W.] Bush, the father, visited the area, when some of our own were impressed by America and were hoping that the visits would affect and influence our countries.

Then, what happened was that he was impressed by the monarchies and the military regimes, and he was jealous of them staying in power for tens of years, embezzling the public money without any accountability. And he moved the tyranny and suppression of freedom to his own country, and they called it the Patriot Act, under the disguise of fighting terrorism. And Bush, the father, found it good to install his children as governors and leaders.

We agreed with the leader of the group, Mohammed Atta, to perform all attacks within 20 minutes before [President George W.] Bush and his administration were aware of what was going on. And we never knew that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his people in the two towers to face those events by themselves when they were in the most urgent need of their leader.

He was more interested in listening to the child’s story about the goat rather than worry about what was happening to the towers. So, we had three times the time necessary to accomplish the events.

Your security is not in the hands of [Democratic presidential nominee John] Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands.

John Kerry: In response to this tape from Osama bin Laden, let me make it clear, crystal clear. As Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. They are barbarians. And I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes. Period.

George W. Bush: Earlier today I was informed of the tape that is now being analyzed by America’s intelligence community. Let me make this very clear: Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I’m sure Senator Kerry agrees with this. I also want to say to the American people that we’re at war with these terrorists and I am confident that we will prevail.

wait, is bush still saying that iraq has something to do with bin laden?

still?

idebate pic via larry + umar has a texas fair photo essay + bunny mc photographed a local for suicide girls

we were getting shot at today

a saturday!

i hardly ever have to work saturdays and here i was on the wrong side of an assault rifle.

in my earpeice during some silence my partner whispered:

why dont you ever say how fucking fucked up this xbi shit is on your gayass fucking fucked up fucking baaaa-looooooooog.

and i thought about it and i just shrugged my shoulders and picked off a perp on the roof above a dumpster who

tumbled

into the garbage,

conveniently.

cuz thats how everyone dies in real life.

on good days the lid closes after they fall as rattled doves scatter into the sky and the young girls swoon and continue walking to korean school.

yeah the xbi sucks. sucks so bad i thought to myself (while under a car, mind you) “when did work start blowing so much?”

then i thought, “im a college graduate!”

then i thought, “ive had a poem published in the connecticut poetry review!”

and then i heard what sounded like a molitof cocktail smash through the window of the car above me and i rolled out from under it and hightailed it like a pussyass.

turned out it was just a brick being thrown at me and i blew my cover.

(where do they get all these bricks?)

and now you know why we dont do saturdays.

mcdonalds was my first bad job. but it was also my first job so i didnt know at the time if it was mcdonalds that sucked or working.

believe it or not my next shitty job was selling ice cream out of a truck the summer the cubs put light up in wrigley field. the ladies were cute, the kids were cute, the money sucked, but thats not what made the job shitty, it was that i had to work 6 days a week and i was so exhausted with only one day off.

my year of driving a cab for the fbi wasnt much fun cuz it was so dull and all the russian cabbies were always trying to make me quit.

cabbing. not fbiing.

bad part about saturdays is you have to go to sleep early on friday.

good thing about saturdays is youre usually done before 9am, and afterwards we get some mcdonalds bacon egg and cheese biscuits and we’re home by 10am.

with a little spending cash for saturday night.

which i now have.

and a bruise the size of a melon on my ass when the car exploded and the passengers side mirror nailed me.

which i cant wait to show my truist when she picks me up tonight to see courtney love, juliette lewis and the licks, with the suicide girls at the wiltern.

and you know what else is nice about saturdays

ten thirty naps.

soulful spells + whitey + i aint scared to say it

Hi there Tony,

So you don’t know me well maybe you have seen my blog before but today I want to email you and say you are saving my life.

So I live in France, you see. And just moved to Vancouver. And everyday I sit here at my internship job and I have nothing to do but to browse the web for hours and maybe blog too but I don’t trust my words anymore and I am scared to write down my thoughts but I know it will eventually come back and it leaves me terribly frustrated but then I read your blog everyday

And i think, Tony, this guy Tony, he should be the President.

Well maybe not, but I don’t think you realise. If all americans were like you the world would be a better place and Prince would be the minister of Culture and everyone would be partying like it’s 1999 and there would be no wars and we would just have a good times.

As you know french people have some kind of…hidden anger towards the American people. Which can or can’t be understandable…For the main part I disagree and only hate the US government (and I study politics! I have good reasons to hate those mofos), but then they think ‘oh the american peeps must be as ignorant as the gvt’ which of course isn’t true if you watch Woody Allen movies or like Lou Reed and Wharol and read Kerouac, but is true if you think America is SNL live and Ashlee Simpson and only think as America as the stupidest country on earth with the stupidest TV channels, helloooo fox news.

Anyway this is getting off subject. Tony my point is, I read you everyday and you gibe me hope and you make me believe that it is still worth fighting for my opinions and Tony you show the world that America still has great writers/bloggers filled with passion and anger and rage and digust and hate and also lots of love. Yes i said it, love, for America.

I think America needs to be loved more. But America needs to start a revolution or produce more Tony Pierces in order to be looked at something to be loved.

That being said. I am back to work. This was a silly email but I felt like I had to tell you those things. Excuse my english and stay rock n roll.

Peace out,

Jessica

– – – –

Dear Jessica,

Prince would be on the payroll, im not real sure where he would be best used.

Minster of Culture though would be reserved to my friend Karisa who would light the bowl of the Worlds Biggest Water Pipe as it leaned against the washington monument where Anti would inhale the first legal puff of weed in the usa in decades.

I think it’s weird that the French have hidden anger against Americans. but i understand. when we travel we’re not the coolest cats. i was at Versailles surrounded by the history and across the street i could hear a woman in the scratchiest midwestern voice screech,

“hey harrrrry. they hahhhhvvveee berets here for just ten frahhhhhhhhnks!”

i lowered my cubs hat and hid behind my 35mm camera while flipping through my Lets Go and pretended that i was from egypt.

america is slightly less fucked up than americans and for that reason you should bestow some patience on us.

now, as for our government. i hear things like, “we dont hate america, we hate your government,” and i think, “you probably mean you hate our politicians, not the government.”

the system is pretty good, it’s the dumbshits that we elect who you should direct your anger toward. but i guess since we elected them you should hate us. whoops.

and thats why i tell people to quit voting like sheep for asswipe A or asswipe B and start voting for asswipe G who nobody thinks will win, but you like their ideas.

eventually we will get the right asswipe in the right seat and things will begin to change for the better.

whatev, its friday and the sun is setting and i am loving the email you sent me. thank you so much for it.

for the record, im not a huge fan of keroak. i read On The Road in paris oddly and hated it. i should give him another chance, but my real heroes are Bukowski Shakespeare and Twain.

anyway, vive la france. God bless Canada. and if you run into raymi give her a big hug for me.

merci beaucoup!

tony

sk smith + clever hack + the saucy rabbit

this year at the xbi halloween parade

i have dressed up as a gangmemeber.

which isnt much of a stretch since i normally dress up as one anyhow.

ive got my baggy ben davis work pants, low slung wallet chain, flannel buttoned to the top button, white tshirt, timberlands, and dodger hat.

i even found a gold tooth to make it festive.

i was gonna wear a bandanna, but if chopper one crashed in the wrong part of town i could be a dead man.

kimmy jason and graham of blogger/google dressed up beautifully (above) and if you want to link to pics of you & your workmates in their outfits in the comments of this post feel free.

ive worked at other places where dressing up in costumes on halloween was a much bigger deal than here at the xbi where we’re undercover for a living.

for example who can forget when karisa & our pals dressed up at the dot com many moons ago.

or the time karisa dressed up as that chick from scooby-do?

last night karisa asked what she should be this year and i said a Raiderette.

being from new england she gave me an As If look

but when i reminded her that the Raiderettes had far better uniforms than the NE Pattys she changed the subject, conveniently.

only reason im even here today is for the candy.

and the catholic schoolgirl runaways

although i just saw some mexican wrestlers who looked pretty funny.

and john woo as the lead singer from gwar.

halloween 2001 + halloween 2002 + raymi + no love with the anonymous commentors at buzzmachine

nasa says bush was wired

an excerpt from the Salon article:

Oct. 29, 2004 | George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. “I don’t know what that is,” he said on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. “I’m embarrassed to say it’s a poorly tailored shirt.”

Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He’s a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he’s engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn’s moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons.

For the past week, while at home, using his own computers, and off the clock at Caltech and NASA, Nelson has been analyzing images of the president’s back during the debates. A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject.

“I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate,” he says.

“This is not about a bad suit. And there’s no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt.”

read the whole thing

gorilla mask + iron mouth + the mighty doc searls + 20 great free video clips

first thing i thought was

he’s getting paid to hold up that sign. then i thought how scary if its real.

michael moore needs to do a movie about american christians.

republican american christians.

that one could probably make $500 million.

omg it’s laminated!

i wonder what i would have to do to get to conduct some of the interviews. cuz michael moore cant just walk into town and asking people questions. surely they know not to talk to him any more.

which is why fcc commissioner michael powell will never go on the howard stern show and defend himself. you don’t fight a war you cant win. w.

howard on the radio today, who has a deal to make a few interview specials for abc tv, invited powell to a “neutral” location for an hour interview that could be shown on abc.

later he played weezers hashpipe.

if you notice i don’t make fun of black folks. im sorta like the affirmative action instapundit. we blacks have enough problems. although a lot of you white folks are pretty fucked up too. shit. not like the asians are doing much better.

only ones i know who are happy are the retards on the bus to work.

every day they’re happy.

thirteen yrs old, holding hands with each other as they bounce on board, moustaches growing in real good.

ive noticed they don’t look each other in the eye.

wonder why.

i saw these deaf dudes yelling at each other yesterday.

one guy wouldn’t even look at the other guy hand signaling him.

every now and then he would take a peek to make sure his buddy was still going off, which he was, so he just looked away and handsignaled whatever dude

i wanted to handsignal the mean dude and pretend that i spoke a different language but ive noticed the evening commuters aren’t really into the funny like the morning kids are.

if i wasn’t black i would be calling michael powell a pussy ass uncle tom bitch whose prick must be the size of a splinter for who says “I would deny it exceedingly” except someone who’s making up for something.

or nothing.

bitch ass fuckr should be fired no matter who wins next week for the sole reason of (ironically) lacking any communication skills what so ever.

we don’t know what’s obscene now any more than we did four years ago.

why is oprah’s description of anal oral sex not a crime, but howard’s is?

why did janet and viacom get fined for showing her titty (even though she says that they had nothing to do with it) but bono wasn’t fined for saying fuck but abc was even though it’s obvious that they had nothing to do with it.

and even though he had originally said that because it was used as an exclamation and not an adjective it was “reprehensible” but not fineable.

michael powell should be on tv all the time. he should be on leno. he should be on letterman. he should have a book out talking about the decisions and why he thinks the way he does and why the commission acts the way it does.

and why it takes them half a year to figure out how to let oprah get away with talking about tossing someones salad on tv at 3:30pm when the little angeles of america are skipping home from school.

childrens heads literally exploded.

but powell is like me

we let the brothas and sistas slide.

we got enough fucking problems.

oprah, for example, is fat

and probably lesbian.

o’reilly paid the bitch off + isabella + my wife is a republican + remember caps lock day?