every time me and anna break up it’s the same routine.

she’ll say shes in town which is about once a week and she’ll pick me up at work and drive me home.

and maybe first we’ll stop off at the best buy or a boutique on melrose or at arbys or at amoeba and at first shes a fucking cold fish because shes mad at me about something and holding it in or if things are going well we’ll tickle each other walking down the aisles or i’ll put my hand on her ass because its meant to be there and she’ll slap it away

and say omg i cant believe you just did that or i’ll walk in her path and sorta direct her into the wall by my intentionally retarded walking or i’ll just walk superclose to her and pretend im not and alls great until we start getting to my house

and then she breaks up with me.

sometimes its cuz she’ll swear shes in love with enrique. sometimes its cuz she swears im in love with the swedish chick or the hawaiian chick or clipper girl or my true love or the cuban or raymi or martha washington

or some one. sometimes its cuz she says my apartment is always so fucking filthy or cuz the tabloids would go nuts if they ever found out or its cuz my dicks so big it hurts jk or cuz i watch too much tv or cuz all we ever do is fuck or cuz i dont wanna marry her or cuz like boys ii men we’ve hit the end of the road.

at this point i dont even pay attention to the reason cuz to me all it is are the demons in her head turning a good thing into a bad thing. the opposite of turning water into wine, these demons turn omg omg into whines.

i dont mean that in a mean way i mean that in a sad way like doesnt it suck that someone cant just enjoy the enjoyment someone who cant begin the beguine someone who is in a position where something that makes them so happy also bums them out so much that theyre willing to stop the one thing that truly gets their juices flowing now that shes put down her tennis racket

and broadened her horizons.

so either we’ll sit in her limo and fight for like a minute and then she’ll cry and then we’ll work things out in like minutes and cuz im an idiot i will agree to whatever she proposed which is usually no more lovin and then before i know it we’re making out, and the evening always ends in a series of one last kisses.

one more juicier and delectable and memorable
than the last.

i’ll whisper something like its cuz im black isnt it and she’ll chuckle and kiss me so deep and hard as if she wants to remember this for forever too cuz it is amazing and so unlikely and very good when its good

which is all of the time except when shes breaking up with me.

she was all who are you going to coachella with and i was all i dont know if im going and she was all but you have to go and i was all but everything got screwed up it was a mess the only reason i wanted to go was if i could get a photo pass and i got one then i didnt then i did again and now i dont and she kissed me and rubbed her cheek against me as we stood in the hallway leaned up against my bukowski poster and she said do you have backstage and i said i think so and she was all then you have to go and i was all eh

i have worked for the xbi directly and indirectly for nearly 15 years now, i went to the greatest college of its day with the coolest people, ive made out with the hottest girls, ive seen all the greatest concerts, i told her with one hand down the back of her jeans palming her thonged tanned ass digging my knee just a little higher than necessary, ive done it all and now i know why all the great poets died before fourty.

and anna said well thats why the lord wants us to have kids, so it’ll give us something to do, something that makes us appreciate our free time and our opportunity to listen to a zillion bands in the heat of the desert.

and i said fine then i’ll go. which wasnt the answer that she was looking for nor was my response when she asked me who i was taking.

but the joke was on me for after anna left and i called my wouldbe date and asked her if she would like to go to the show with me and after she said yes i asked her what band she really wants to see

and did she say weezer or the raveonettes or m83 or k-os or wilco or sage francis (pictured, with bunny mc),

of course not

she said snow patrol bauhaus and coldplay.

coldplay?

and the reason you want to date smart girls gentlemen is not for their taste in popular music

its so that they can tell you right before you say you dont want to go they can tell you hey go see spoon while i watch coldplay, thats probably whats gonna happen at eleven, all the boys are gonna see spoon and all the girls are gonna see coldplay

and tomorrow i will have pictures for your asses.

doc breaks it down + ipod table + blinkorama + kimbalina

a year ago

today i had the best day of the year

im still in a hazy fog of happiness. i was invited to return back to the greatest classroom ever and sit at the head of the table and teach. later i was asked by someone what i taught, what the book was about, what were the themes.

and i said the book was about sex drugs and rock n roll.

a few of my closest friends were there, my favorite teacher was there, the class was packed, nearly everyone had read the book and were giving their two cents. it was super nice.

they told me the terrible news that the college paper, the daily nexus wasnt good anymore, and right away i told them that that only means that they should write for it.

i told them that since the college of creative studies doesnt have any grades or tests or finals, i started writing at the nexus to not only practice writing, but to get paid to practice, and that nothing was better than having 10,000+ people read your shit every day.

i didnt say shit.

afterwards i gave my teacher a copy of Blook, which i had saved for her for over a year and a half now. then we walked to isla vista and had pizza at woodstocks. and it was delicious.

not only did she tell me that i did a good job, and that aj and i worked together very well in the class, but that i should get a masters in creative writing and persue teaching college. a million people have told me that, but when she said it i said ok. she never lead me into a bad thing. although at the top of her list of recommendations, above princeton, stanford, and cal arts, she kept talking about uc irvine.

i was thinking, i dont wanna be an anteater.

then she went home and our little happy group of close friends began drinking, eating, and then someone slipped something in our drinks which made us very fond of one another, and we sat infront of the biggest fireplace that ive ever seen and listened to jeanine serenade us on guitar, a piano was played, aj spun the most wonderful curtis mayfield slowjams and this morning i woke up

sick

in santa barbara, and told my work that i was sick and they said cool cool

and i hope i get better quick because the pixies will hit the stage in about four hours and twenty minutes.

utter wonder + brett lamb + blogumentary + little bicycle mind

im not sure if you know it or not but

nothing in this blog is true.

which of course means some of this blog is true.

its tricky because lets say about once a week you get to make out with a cute little australian girl who bites your neck so hard you feel like a pussy saying ow. and lets say she doesnt understand why you dont want to be committed right now this second, and to be honest you dont understand it yourself either. so lets say that you want to write a little something about her, instead of saying hey i was hang gliding with this hot austrailian girl yesterday and the funniest thing happened, you might say, i was playing footsies with the swedish virgin in her best friends hot tub yesterday during lunch and

you have to mix it up.

the tricky part is when some really funny story gets into your head that is truly fiction and the swedish girl i mean austrailian girl and you are pretty much exclusive, but you want to talk about an entirely different girl, the first thing you have to do is email her and say baby nothing in my shit is true so dont freak out.

its tricky cuz what if you forget to email her and she blows a gasket all over you as youre trying to fly over the 405 in chopper one because some seriously nasty shit is about to go down on the dark side of town.

but whats the trickiest is when you really want to write something but you literally got stabbed in the back and you should not be sitting at the computer you should be resting. because nobody really believes that you work for the xbi and therefore certainly doesnt believe that its possible to get stabbed in the back by some dirty teenage gangmember who doesnt know who the fuck hes stabbing and doesnt know that it isnt a little game that we play in the streets of LA its a job and its mixed with a healthy dose of vengence on our part and a healthier dose of amateurism and ignorance on their part, that if you even squeeze your fist into a ball at an xbi agent you will suffer the agonies of the ancients. and not the refined ones.

so basically if you get stabbed and youre not supposed to type at the computer you just say that you have carpal tunnel and you copy and paste some old shit or you copy and paste something that someone else wrote or you do the week in rock a day early so as to have something up for the kids.

well today is friday and i cant even do a today in rock in la cuz i did it yesterday so instead i will copy and paste something that my favorite baseball analyist aaron gleeman wrote about me today.

when i was younger i was as sick about baseball as aaron is now, except he has taken it to a level that i had only dreampt about, he understands all the newjack stats and because of the interweb he can keep up with minor leaguers and game notes around the league and he absorbs that shit and brings it right back into his blog.

today aaron doles out some links around the blogosphere and says this about me which is great because i really shouldnt be typing today due to my… carpal.

One of the things that discourages me most about the world is when extremely passionate and talented people have major roadblocks thrown in front of their dreams because someone else fails to recognize their unique gifts. This relates to baseball in some ways (remember that whole “Free Johan Santana!” thing?), but in this case I’m talking about one of my favorite non-sports bloggers being denied admission to a writing program at the University of California, Irvine.

It is really sad in general when someone isn’t able to do something they want and deserve to do. But in a case like this, the worst thing is that an amazingly talented person may let some self-doubt creep into their mind simply because someone in a position of power wasn’t able to spot that talent. I am of the opinion that every person who is to become successful at what they dream of doing has to have at least one other person or group of people as a chip on their shoulder once they get there.

In other words, it hurts like hell now, but think about how great it’ll be in 20 years when a wildly successful and famous Tony Pierce can tell his millions of adoring fans about the time he got rejected from U-C Irvine. Everyone will laugh, and he’ll smile. And then when he goes home to his penthouse apartment filled with leggy blondes watching the Lakers on a big-screen plasma TV, he’ll take out that rejection letter from a box somewhere and have a nice, long, motivating look at it.

thanks pallie. win twins. but im sure if i ever make it, that rejection letter will be framed in my den to remind me that i wasnt always all that.

speaking of rejects, today is the 22nd anniversary of the time that cubs manager lee elia told all the fans of chicago that since the cubs played all daygames that anyone who regularily attended cubs games and then “ripped” the manager every time he did something were obviously unemployed losers.

which means that tomorrow will be the 22nd anniversary of the time that me and my buddies todd keef and bob went to wrigley field got bleacher tickets for $3 just so we could tell lee elia what his mommas cooch smelled like, and so on.

so here in all its glory is lee elia:

“Fuck those fuckin’ fans who come out here and say they’re Cub fans that are supposed to be behind you rippin’ every fuckin’ thing you do. I’ll tell you one fuckin’ thing, I hope we get fuckin’ hotter than shit, just to stuff it up them 3,000 fuckin’ people that show up every fuckin’ day, because if they’re the real Chicago fuckin’ fans, they can kiss my fuckin’ ass right downtown and PRINT IT.

“They’re really, really behind you around here… my fuckin’ ass. What the fuck am I supposed to do, go out there and let my fuckin’ players get destroyed every day and be quiet about it? For the fuckin’ nickel-dime people who turn up? The motherfuckers don’t even work. That’s why they’re out at the fuckin’ game. They oughta go out and get a fuckin’ job and find out what it’s like to go out and earn a fuckin’ living. Eighty-five percent of the fuckin’ world is working. The other fifteen percent come out here. A fuckin’ playground for the cocksuckers. Rip them motherfuckers. Rip them fuckin’ cocksuckers like the fuckin’ players. we got guys bustin’ their fuckin’ ass, and them fuckin’ people boo. And that’s the Cubs? My players get around here. I haven’t seen it this fuckin’ year. Everybody associated with this organization have been winners their whole fuckin’ life. Everybody. And the credit is not given in that respect.

“Alright, they don’t show because we’re 5 and 14… and unfortunately, that’s the criteria of them dumb 15 motherfuckin’ percent that come out to day baseball. The other 85 percent are earning a living. I tell you, it’ll take more than a 5 and 12 or 5 and 14 to destroy the makeup of this club. I guarantee you that. There’s some fuckin’ pros out there that wanna win. But you’re stuck in a fuckin’ stigma of the fuckin’ Dodgers and the Phillies and the Cardinals and all that cheap shit. It’s unbelievable. It really is. It’s a disheartening fuckin’ situation that we’re in right now. Anybody who was associated with the Cub organization four or five years ago that came back and sees the multitude of progress that’s been made will understand that if they’re baseball people, that 5 and 14 doesn’t negate all that work. We got 143 fuckin’ games left.

“What I’m tryin’ to say is don’t rip them fuckin’ guys out there. Rip me. If you wanna rip somebody, rip my fuckin’ ass. But don’t rip them fuckin’ guys ’cause they’re givin’ everything they can give. And right now they’re tryin’ to do more than God gave ’em, and that’s why we make the simple mistakes. That’s exactly why.”

the audio of mr elia + aaron gleeman + the hardball times

the week in rock in la

tonight 4/28
the sights, ameoba (free)

friday 4/29
puffy amiyumi + aquabats, wiltern
pete escovedo, the center
gilby clarke + bang tango, malibu inn
tyrannosaurus sex, the smell

saturday 4/30
weezer + wilco + bauhaus + chemical bros + raveonettes + spoon + sage francis + rilo kiley + k-os + secret machines + the kills & others, coachella
willie nelson, greek
steve vai, wiltern
the bangles, vault 350
cher, hollywood bowl
warrant + great white, house of blues
michael penn, mccabes
grant lee phillips, largo

sunday 5/1
nine inch nails + new order + gang of four + arcade fire + dresden dolls + the prodigy + tegan n sara & others, coachella
eating alice, whisky

monday 5/2
bruce springsteen, pantages
crash davis, temple bar

tuesday 5/3
bruce springsteen, pantages
aimee mann, amoeba (free)
agnostic front, el rey
mudvayne, henry fonda

wednesday 5/4
strunz & farah, catalina
cake, royce hall
jill sobule, largo

cinco de mayo 5/5
mere mortals, the mint
cypress hill, vault 350
jedi mind tricks, knitting factory
black label society, house of blues
poncho sanches, conga room
malibu hillbillies, whisky
better than ezra, roxy

zulieka is one of my favorite people.

ive met a few fellow bloggers in real life and lots of times its nice to finally hang out with someone who ive read, but in the case of raymi and zulieka it was better than i could have ever imagined.

today z recounts the second time that we met, which also happened to be the day that she discovered that she was pregnant. at the time she was living in beverly hills and looking for work in hollywood.

I woke up that day with a headache and ate bananas and tylenol and went to the beach, then met Tony around two o’clock. I popped 6 or 7 tylenols total carried loosely in my pocket, and Tony must have thought I was a drug addict though he didn’t say anything. For lunch he took me to a restaurant named ironically Fred. Fred 62. I knew something was wrong with me when I couldn’t eat the food I had ordered.

Tony wanted give me an idea of L.A.’s grid so I drove around while he directed for the next four hours. I was starting to feel pretty sick by then, and he periodically asked me in which direction the Pacific Ocean lay to help me get my bearings but despite his pedagogical talents I wasn’t a quick learner. (If you ever DO land in Lalaland though, and you’re lucky enough to get his attention, Tony Pierce is THE best tour guide of this city he so unconditionally loves.)

We pulled over in Venice at a bar and I had two martinis and he had–I can’t remember, maybe a couple of rum and cokes–and I took more tylenol. He confessed that he was 116, and I said incredulously “Holy shit, I don’t believe it. You look about 23 to me.”

Then I thought I was hungry again so we went to a Mexican place and took the food back to his apartment. And again, I knew something was really off-kilter because I had this authentic chicken burrito and I couldn’t eat it. I stuck a fork in it and pulled the fork back out and inspected the tines but it didn’t make it to my mouth.

heres what i remember from that afternoon and evening: i had a great time, zulieka looked waaaay better than in our first meeting and now i realize it was probably because of that maternal glow that everyone always talks about, i didnt care that she kept saying outloud that she might be pregnant i just didnt want her to be drinking if she was, and i really didnt care that she didnt eat her burrito because i took care of that for her in the morn.

we’re all lucky that she has kept her blog going during this magical time in her life.

zulieka + porn happy + michèle changes my rules + wildbell

karisa is turning 25 next week

and even though it wasnt freaking her out last week it sure as hells freaking her out this week.

i kept saying its just a number. she kept saying i know i know but its a quarter century. century!

i was all i remember my first quarter century. it hit me like a ton of bricks, but fortunately i had good friends around me and a hot girlfriend who dressed slutty for me, and my old band even got back together on my behalf.

karisas family is coming out next week to party with her so last night she and i grabbed a few cocktails at the rustic on hillhurst one of our favorite bars.

besides the fact that a lot of our friends regularily drink there, its got lots of tvs to keep us up on current events, and a really good jukebox. but the best thing about it is even though its in allegedly hipstery los feliz all i saw in there were very normal people of all walks, including a table of drunken tshirt wearing coeds singing along to the areosmith that they put in the machine.

dream on.

dream until your dreams come true.

afterwards i was super hungry.

despite what you read on this blog, the chick situation isnt what it used to be.

in my glory days i had chicks who would take care of me three times a day. maybe i wrote better back then, who knows.

nowadays im lucky just to get a nibble. perhaps ive hit the wall.

so my body has all this unused energy and lord knows im not running or working out to get that energy out of me, so what my body has been doing im noticing is redirecting all of that locomotion into hunger and i eat man shit do i eat.

had some thai beef ribs the other day and i just tore them from the bone and cleaned it off real good, even dipped rice into the sauce and got every bite.

im eating cereal right out of the box. i’ll eat anything. at any time. right before i go to sleep i make some toast. i put butter on one slice and grape jelly on the other. i fall asleep with toast in my mouth and wake up with grit in my gums. now you know why the ladies flock to me.

so last night after drinking with karisa (one beer for her, two double baileys and a sam adams for me) we were driving through hollywood and i wanted a whole chicken. karisa was all you dont need a whole chicken tony but i wanted a whole chicken and i coulda sworn that zankou was open til 1am but it wasnt.

theres two things i would do if i was mayor of los angeles, and thank you to whoever nominated me for that position last week.

the first thing is i would revitalize westwood to its former glory of the past. theres no way in hell that there should be a friggin ghost town in the middle of all the wealth that surrounds the college town of ucla. here are the neighboring towns of westwood: beverly hills, bel air, brentwood, santa monica, and west la. how you can have a black hole right in the middle of all of it is just plain laziness.

even the cruddiness and piss-stained streets of hollywood blvd have more life in it and tourists handing over monies (some willingly) on it than the pathetic mess called westwood village. which has sunk so far down that it doesnt have a Tower Records any more or even a Gap. how can a village have a booming In-N-Out, a Best Buy, a Jerry’s Famous Deli, a Circuit City, a Bebe, several movie theatres that regularily host movie premieres, a campus next door of 50k students and staff, and not be able to support a Gap?

im not a huge fan of the store, but it’s the canary in the coal mine.

mayor pierce would fix all of that immediately. and it would start with two big time dance clubs like westwood used to have in the 80s.

then i would sprinkle the city with 24 hr chicken places because if we’re seriously going to be the 2nd biggest city in america the beautiful we should act like it and not roll up the sidewalks at 11:30 like a gaggle of pussy ass bitches.

superheroes being bad + nohealani + welch + dougie

today walking home to the busstop

i started to get really sad.

sad for lots of little reasons.

i focused on that sadness and thought of letters that i would write to people, and things that id say.

and i got home and i was still sad which is incredibly rare for me. when i was younger i could get a little depressed for an hour or two but hardly ever nowadays.

then i sat on my couch and i could feel myself getting better.

and then anna kournikova came over out of the blue on her scooter.

she parked it outside my white picket fence and ran to my door and knocked on it.

she said, my scooter’s running, i just had a little bit of marijuana on me and i wanted to give it to you because im about to go on a plane.

i said first of all im straight edge, i cant smoke this.

she said ah quit being a wuss, and another thing, youre not straight edge!

then i said, where are you flying to anyway?

she said, im flying to san diego to throw out the first pitch at the padre game on friday.

and then she lit the joint and inhaled, pulled my head towards hers and blew it into my mouth

completely against my will, your honor.

and then she ran to her idling scooter and scooted off.

and wouldnt you know it, but i feel like a zillion times better.

so yes, i think they should legalize that shit cuz it’s amazing.

and now im going to drink with karisa

in hollywood.

the city of everything

a crazy man’s cioppino.

and now you know why i dont blog when im sad.

a year ago

today

i hate tuesdays. i hate wednesdays. i hate mondays. im screwed. tuesdays we have our weekly meetings. typically they tell us how much chopper one has cost the agency and i have to defend it by saying how much money it has brought in. but not everything is that clear cut.

if someone says theres something going down in the lbc and we need chopper one for cover and if we dont get anything out of it then am i to blame? every meeting i want to say, its a black helicopter, it cant be seen on radar. the surveillance and intimidation and backup are priceless. but i cant because then everyones feelings will get hurt and people will start fighting and when we start fighting at work the guns get pulled and sometimes so do the triggers.

needless to say id much rather be flying around than being in a meeting. theres money to be made outside. i know we need our meetings but they could be done during lunch on fridays and it wouldnt bite into moneymaking time and people would chill the fuck out.

hot as fuck this morning. i got off the subway at wilshire and western and there were i swear 40 kids lined up for tonights morrissey show. most the kids had chairs or stools or sleeping bags or something. theyd been out there on the filthy sidewalk since last night. these are kids too young to ever have seen morrissey sing with the smiths. blows my mind. and its hot. and the scum of the earth walk around that corner sparechanging like a bitch.

in the three years that ive been commuting past wilshire and western ive never seen anyone sleep out over night for a show there until today.

the marquee said morrissey five nights sold out.

i love morrissey because he goes against everything. he’s gay but he pretends hes “asexual”. he doesnt have any hit singles out, he doesnt have any hot videos out, he split ways with the perfect guitar player and he insults his fans (“You’re The One For Me, Fatty”) and he can sell out anywhere he wants.

proof that holding true to your true self and image blows doors over selling out to whatevers hip at the moment.

i dont see him doing duet records or unplugged records or full soundtracks or even reunion tours. fucker just keeps on keeping on.

i love him and i dont even know what his new record is called.

five sold out nights at the wiltern and i dont think anyone knows what his new record is called.

does he have a new record?

hot as fuck and last night at eleven they had team coverage to tell me that at 91 degrees there were records broken. and if tivo was smart they would allow me to constantly send feedback to the broadcasters via my thumbs up and thumbs down buttons cuz i woulda mashed that red thumbs down button for a good five minutes before i went over to hbo to see the sopranos that i missed on sunday, which kicked my ass. thankfully. wonderfully. thoroughly. beautifully.

but the best news this morning was that howard stern got his ratings for march and he was up in new york chicago and la. but in san diego where he was dropped by clear channel, the station’s morning numbers plummeted from a 20 to a 0.6 in the prime demo of 18-34.

house.hardys + phillustrations + buggy doo + sean bonner

woke up at clipper girls house

cuz my carpal was bothering me and i didnt want the tempation of my computer. she lives next to a golf course in hollywood so this morning the freshly cut grass totally smelled like springtime.

i woke up earlier than i would have liked on account of the unfamiliar surroundings namely the barely there thin white curtains that dont keep the light out and dont keep the golfers’ eyes away from her cheerleader sillouhette as she stretches toplessly right before jumping on me.

shes cute but has a worse memory than i and forgot that i had a fresh stab wound on my back and nailed it pretty good causing me to yelp which of course caused one of the old geezers right outside our open window to miss-hit his tee shot.

so we laid there and she played with the random gray curleyques in my chest and she told me that i would make the best dad cuz i dont yell and im patient and im loving.

i started laughing and i said baby i dont yell cuz we dont live together. i dont yell cuz i barely see you and when i do its all uh uh uh and then zzzzzzzzzz, and as for being a dad if i was someones dad id advise them to be a suckup faker phoney and buy gay clothes and do your hair right and drive a beamer and the world will be your oyster.

she took my hand and placed it on her perfectly tanned ass which earlier i had searched hi and low to find a blemish – and had to hunt for quite a long time until i realized the only fault was my hand – and she said tony you dont do any of those things and the worlds your oyster and i said your ass my dear is not the world even though we both treat it as such.

it was so peaceful that all we could hear was a metal driver pinging a golfball and the gurgling sounds of the mr cofee in the kitchen.

isnt it nice to wake up like this she whispered

hinting ever so slightly to the idea that rising to the sophmoric jokes and xxx audio clips of mr howard stern, as i have done for years now, is somehow jarring and disturbing, and definately not the best sounds to hear first thing.

a long-standing minor battle that we often find ourselves in, and one reason why clippergirl and i dont sleep over at each others houses very much.

but alas, due to the carpal and howard being on vacation this week to celebrate passover i found myself in the feminine world of quiet elegance.

which of course called for a dutch oven

which oddly ms clippergirl had never experienced before

and when she accidentally squeezed my wound a second time i actually did scream and then paddled her as she squrimed in glee.

a morning mr ryan seacrest has never had

with a woman.

wil wheaton live tonight at 8pm + jay v + stereogum

How To Write A Newspaper Column

That Sounds Exactly Like A Delusional
Self-Important Gossipy Blog Entry

by T.J. Simers, LA Times

April 27, 2005

We’ve now gone full circle in the Dodger clubhouse, from grumps such as Kevin Brown and Gary Sheffield, to fun-loving good guys such as Shawn Green, Paul Lo Duca, Adrian Beltre and Steve Finley, back to a bunch of grouchy mopes.

Hey, I’ve tried talking to Mr. Chuckles on several occasions, but let me tell you, for pure enjoyment I’d rather spend a day — make it Super Bowl Sunday — shopping with the wife than trying to make small talk with Jeff Kent.

Until Tuesday I had never seen J.D. Drew in the clubhouse. The guy is obviously a loner who goes into hiding before every game — hiding, I presume, from Mr. Chuckles.

“I’m watching TV,” Drew insisted, and I know if I had Milton Bradley on my team, sooner or later I’d be looking for Dr. Phil’s advice too.

There’s no question Derek Lowe is a chatty guy as long as you don’t mind listening to him talk about the Red Sox and Yankees all the time. You can just imagine the frightened look on Jeff Weaver’s face every time Lowe brings up the Yankees, or for that matter, the satisfied look on the Boston Parking Lot Attendant’s face every time Lowe mentions the Red Sox. At least Lowe knows who signs his checks, but I’d like to see the look on Lowe’s face when he tries to cash them.

Just a little joke, of course, although you won’t find any of these mopes laughing, which brings me to the return of Green.

If you spent any time following the Dodgers recently, you know Green is one of the nicest athletes to ever play here. He never took himself too seriously, which already separates him from Mr. Chuckles, and although he went hot and terribly cold at times, his second-half play last year helped put the team in the playoffs.

A few seasons ago Green was struggling, so I sat him down to talk hitting — Green playfully going along with the gag, and responding a few days later with two homers against Milwaukee. Two days after that he had four home runs, a double and a single in the same game to set a major league record for total bases.

Last season I walked the Choking Dogs all the way to the finish line, Green & Co. jokingly going along with it. Had the guys signed on earlier, of course, they might have won a World Series — you know, like the Los Angeles Angels.

“I hate to break it to you,” Mr. Chuckles said the other day, “but you have no impact on what goes on around here.”

He’ll learn, of course, but in the meantime I thought I’d teach Mr. Chuckles a lesson.

I told Green before Tuesday night’s game that I had traded Jeromy Burnitz to the Bagger in our fantasy league to acquire Green.

I then asked Green to hit a home run for me against the Dodgers. I even took him out to the field and pointed to where I’d like to see the ball land — just draw an imaginary line from home plate over Kent’s head and into the seats.

Green came to bat in the second inning, and hit a home run over Kent’s head into the seats in right field. When he got back to the dugout, Green looked up to the press box, and while laughing, gave me a thumbs up.

I waved. I just hope it didn’t distract Mr. Chuckles.

(Funny thing, but Green’s team won by one run too.)

zulieka only gets cuter as she gets more pregnant + penguin mafia + alert me when glenn mentions delay