to discuss the accomplishments and failures of the worlds most well spellchecked blog.

this quarter we met at the world famous pump room in chicago where we went over the chart to your left.

one man stood up and said, as you can see, the hits of the busblog have tripled since last year.

another man stood up and said, yes, but last year he was only getting 1,000 hits on average per day, which really isnt very much.

a woman rose and said that 1,000 hits a day was actually pretty good last year.

a giraffe craned its neck and belched. it sounded like he was saying bullshit.

an important looking old man did not stand up but looked at me and asked if i can explain the record-setting month that i have just experienced?

i said that like in many quarters i have no clue why more and more people are coming to my blog.

then a very nice looking woman stood up and via a powerpoint presentation showed us that this month, despite taking a week off to enjoy sxsw, due to heavy traffic induced links (and a subsequent victory) at the bloggie awards, a trio quartet of singaporian powerhouses, canadian rock star matthew good, a flattering photo essay by the inventors of blogger and audblog, and the enduring popularity of the “how to blog” post, the busblog eclipsed 100,000 page views for the first month ever.

at which point i stood up and said, i also think it has something to do with the hundreds of much much smaller blogs who link to me every day.

the giraffe sneezed, but i said, no im serious, yes its nice to have those spikes from cute chicks across the sea and from award programs and for being mentioned in big sites, but if you have a consistant and growing base of real bloggers and readers then the spikes only add to an already nice head-start.

people were falling asleep so i farted and everyone laughed.

and then i looked at the camera and i said, from the bottom of all of our hearts we here at the busblog are so grateful to everyone who has linked to this blog and everyone who has ever visited here.

thank you. thank you. and thank you.

morland + simpleton + wunderdog

the forum
inglewood, ca
3/23/05

the first time i saw motley crue was at the aragon ballroom in downtown chicago on 5/11/84, i remember because it was my buddy keef’s birthday and he was the one who got me into the crue.

shout at the devil had been out for a few months and it was instantly one of my favorite albums. maybe it was the ominious black cover with raised devil star promising some sort of occultish mystery, maybe it was the hot babes in the video, maybe it was the newfangled semi-kiss makeup and teased hair.

but it was probably the heavy guitar mixing some of the best of malcom young, judas priest, and the parade of hair metal bands that were popping up on the sunset strip like so many palm trees.

alot has changed with the crue since their debut Too Fast For Love in ’83. theyve gone from being just another poison + warrant + tesla + cinderella + ratt peer to being legit rock stars who have lived the life harder faster and livelier than pretty much any group.

teetering between laughably forgetably and atypical to downright catchy and lasting, motley crue has somehow kept it hard for all these years which is certainly saying something considering the long strange trip that theyve been on.

and so when i got the email asking if i wanted to go to the show That Night and cover it for my favorite local weekly i thought about it for a total of one second and quickly looked at my gmail to see when the email had been sent. ah four minutes! i hope they hadnt already found someone. so i wrote back with a hell yes and got a quick reply telling me that my tickets would be waiting for me at the forum club. i had made the big time. fucking a.

back in the day the forum was it, and the forum club was the little bar that only the v of the v.i.p.s would party in before and after laker games, concerts, boxing matches, etc.

all the great acts have played at the forum. hendrix, zep, nirvana, ac/dc, prince… everyone. the former home of the lakers and gretzkey’s kings is now owned by a church but every once in a while they lease it out for a rock show and that night it was the return to LA by one of their own, Motely Crue who somehow had sold out the 20,000 seat arena despite ticket prices hovering around (and above) triple digits.

we arrived, paid our $20 for parking and got into the show after some confusion and security people pointing us in the right way. strangely it was the swedish virgin who found out how we were supposed to get into the forum club as me in my iron maiden longsleeve looking like a venezualian thug wasnt getting us the right answers, but fortunately her sweet disposition and ability to overhear other journalists got us where we needed to be

and soon we were eight rows up and to the side of the stage. pretty much a perfect view of what was happening which was rock had returned to the fabulous forum. the micro miniskirts had also returned, the devil horns had returned, the leather pants and long hair and chicks in lingerie. everything had come back with a vengence and there were all those classic tunes again and everyone was smiling. the band just as much as the fans. it was a lite metal love fest. it was great.

and when we drove home the swedish girl said thanks for taking me to my first rock show, what will you write? and i said kiss me and i’ll tell you. she said i cant im driving.

and when we stopped at a red light she said why are you smiling and i said cuz im about to kiss you. watch out. here it comes. she said but the lights about to change. i said shhhh. kissed her, and this is what i told her.

mr miyagi keeps the sexiness coming + paul jones admits defeat to me wastes me in googlefighting + fil represents

and today is her 22nd birthday.

by america i mean south america, central america, north america and canada america, of course.

raymi writes exactly the sort of blog that id make if i was a chain smoking karaoke singing topless cussing rock star from toronto.

she had me at pffft.

people say why dont you just marry her already but im not worthy of a raymi le minx. what would i do but disappoint her. she deserves so much more than me. she deserves like the ’97-98 chicago bulls.

i dont know how her man fil does it. whats it like to stare into the sun all day. whats it like to hear symphonic music every time she opens her mouth. whats it like to see the mona lisa every time she strikes a pose.

raymi came over to my house once a very long time ago. not even the stars knew what to do so they all fell all at the same time and night was turned to day. the world kept spinning but the earth locked up and raymi got off and straightened its axis cuz it looked “gay” all crooked like that.

soon there was a knock at the door and there was a pizza boy there with beer and smokes and weed and funyuns. he would not accept our money when he saw who everything was for and raymi said thats right bitch and kicked his ass as he left. it was a love tap but after she slammed the door she pulled out the yellow bag and said who the hell ordered the funyuns.

i never admitted that it was me who ordered the funyuns. until now.

the pizza dude had left behind an ice cold two litre of coke which raymi drank straight from the bottle. i was happy to drink from it right after she did and i didnt even wipe it off. if there were such things as raymi germs i wanted them. who wouldnt.

i think she drank a lot more than i did because soon she was bouncing off the walls, getting terrifically bored with everything the minute she looked at it. it was awesome. here i was mr. entertainment and i had my blogging idol in my domicile and the game was “dont bore raymi”. so i turned on the tivo and she worked through that super fast, so i turned on my vcr and she tore through my 55 years of tape recordings, then i clicked some bill monroe on my winamp and we square danced right there in the living room accidentally knocking over bongs and water pipes and hookahs and midgets.

i wondered if she was going to get naked for me but she didnt and i was sorta relieved becuase i didnt want all my hair to turn white and i didnt want to pass out right there infront of her, which i woulda done. no seriously, i woulda.

we had a little semi battle of wills when she started ordering me around, which she seemingly likes to do. i dont mind being of service, but in america im the king of the jungle. and by america i mean my house. and theres only so many things a man can do at once. do you want the tortilla chips or do you want your crust removed from your slice. make up your mind. do you want me to find the liquid e or do you want me to dig up the new j-lo video. i only have two hands.

but raymi was great. she wanted all of it. she was very much like the lizard king, she even whispered it: we want the world and we want it

now.

so happy birthday queen of everything, princess of persia, goddess of the underground, ruler of all things considered. even though you may not know it you’ve influenced every blog ever made including this one. every day.

in a perfect world our two countries would buy us a motorhome and let us drive around the globe telling people how to do everything from line dancing to building spice racks.

we’d be bigger than howard stern

and we’d never go disco.

raymi + the + minx