music couldnt get any better. half of tsar were in the wonderfuls. half were in mons pubis. and half were in the brothers steve.

the best band of iv changed every night. one night it was a bunch of heroin taking punkers from downtown santa barbara called bad neighbor. one night it was the all girl even punker Pre Marital Sex. one night it was keith browns glitterbug. one night it was the sean white band. one night it was grateful dead-esqe electric blue, but only if you ate acid first.

an isla vista metal band that year was flown to florida to compete in mtvs battle of the bands. their name was indica. they won.

but the next year indica had been forgotten because isla vista’s ugly kid joe had actually broken through and had a top 40 hit on mtv, the spunky i hate everything about you.

people speculated as to who would be next to get signed and be huge.

because the pixies had a minor hit with “here comes your man”, locals immediately pointed to pop punkers rogue cheddar. a working man’s camper van beethoven. a lazy man’s cioppino.

rogue cheddar’s bass player and axe wielder was a fella named tom, who is now better known as tomdog, buzznet’s #2 most active user (second only to buzznet founder, mc brown, who used to play rogue cheddar tunes on kcsb-fm where brown was music director).

at blogtime, with 11,506 buzznet comments posted, tomdog is only 1,100 comments from being topdog.

rogue cheddar was the thirsty thursday house band for quite awhile. thirsty thursday was the weekly keg that my hippie friends hosted nearly every thursday for the four years that i was at ucsb. bring a buck and your own cup was the environmentally conscious motto of the long-running party hosted by jesus rob, toms next door neighbor when they lived on sabado tarde.

at first rogue cheddar was very bad.

they were the sort of band where youd get your beer and walk into the house and pick up on girls with the closing line of, “come with me, i live very very far away.”

and then seemingly overnight rogue cheddar not only had it together but they had original songs, a band groove, a tightness, a style, and a feel.

it was truly bizzare.

they were still playing thirsty thursdays but now they were releasing 7″ singles. i still have one.

they ended up playing on my radio show.

soon they had a tape out.

but then, as was the case of lots of great rock dreams, the singer fell in love and the band sorta fizzled into the overstuffed manila folder in the sky labeled “the woulda-beens”.

today tom turns thirtyblahblah years old.

when he was here in LA last he brought me over some rum, he gave me some good advice about my bicycle, and we even took a nice ride along sunset and downtown in the cuban girl’s honda element.

a few days later he created a buzznet account, and the internet hasnt been the same ever since.

we wont even get into the beauty of the tomdog bug (pictured) + happy birthday tomdog!

and every day i say thought of you and then passed out.

but the truth is every day i get home, check the voice mails, get the mail, check on the plants, close the drapes, put on my sweat suit, put on the ipod and take a quick run around the hood.

then i get home, do some curls, shower, and i put on my pajamas.

maybe i’ll pour myself a tall sip of rum and i’ll toss something in the microwave and flip through the tivo.

sometime before 8pm the phone will stop ringing. i really dont like to be on the phone after 8pm and people are starting to catch on. ive even started getting in the habit of keeping my answering machine near full so that i can only get one or two messages per day.

the thing is, when youre an xbi agent flying chopper one and shooting at bad guys youre ON for 8-10 hours. always talking, always thinking, always running, adreneline pumping the whole time.

then because im a dumbass, during my breaks at work im blogging, so i really dont have any downtime, per se, for my mind.

thats what the evenings are for.

typically i will turn on howard stern, flip on the computer and check my fantasy baseball and basketball stats. hoops just ended so now i only have to concern myself with my 12 baseball leagues. half of which i commish.

it seems like a lot but its not. once you know the 700 major leaguers its all about getting the good ones on your teams.

about a half hour after the microwave dings i remember that i put food in there so i get up and eat my cold food and drink a diet cola.

last night the hawaiian girl was over. she was experiencing menstrual cramps. i was all, wheres your pussy pills? she was all excuse me? i was like your midol your alleve your demoral?

she was all, i didnt think i was due for this for another week. its at home. i got up and went to the medicine cabinet.

every bachelor should stock their pads with a variety of feminime products. we’ve discussed this. im talking pads, ‘pons, pills, combs, toothbrushes, clean pajamas, face cream, cotton balls (i still dont know what women do with these, but whatev), shampoo, conditioner, clean towels, clean sheets, etc

she was all, no no no, i’ll just go home, i cant drive if i take an alleve.

i was like, i know. and i winked.

i suck at winking and she left.

karisa (not pictured) meanwhile was dancing on the tables at a swanky club in west hollywood.

she lives in the hollywood hills. i live in the hollywood hills. and yet our lives couldnt be more different, and we never see each other.

each chat begins with an i miss you and ends with a lets do laundry next week.

in a perfect world she would be writing this blog and telling you about the super cool shit that she does every day.

ok, my break is over, back to the stakeout in watts.

above photo of ashley’s sister + sk smith + stag + annika

by Sidney Blumenthal in today’s Salon.com

President Bush treated his final visit with Pope John Paul II in Vatican City on June 4, 2004, as a campaign stop.

After enduring a public rebuke from the pope about the Iraq war, Bush lobbied Vatican officials to help him win the election. “Not all the American bishops are with me,” he complained, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

He pleaded with the Vatican to pressure the bishops to step up their activism against abortion and gay marriage in the states during the campaign season.

About a week later, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a letter to the U.S. bishops, pronouncing that those Catholics who were pro-choice on abortion were committing a “grave sin” and must be denied Communion.

He pointedly mentioned “the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” — an obvious reference to John Kerry, the Democratic candidate and a Roman Catholic.

If such a Catholic politician sought Communion, Ratzinger wrote, priests must be ordered to “refuse to distribute it.” Any Catholic who voted for this “Catholic politician,” he continued, “would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion.” During the closing weeks of the campaign, a pastoral letter was read from pulpits in Catholic churches repeating the ominous suggestion of excommunication. Voting for the Democrat was nothing less than consorting with the forces of Satan, collaboration with “evil.”

In 2004 Bush increased his margin of Catholic support by 6 points from the 2000 election, rising from 46 to 52 percent. Without this shift, Kerry would have had a popular majority of a million votes. Three states — Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico — moved into Bush’s column on the votes of the Catholic “faithful.”

Even with his atmospherics of terrorism and Sept. 11, Bush required the benediction of the Holy See as his saving grace. The key to his kingdom was turned by Cardinal Ratzinger.

read the whole thing

stag + patricio + this is not a love song + my icelandic girlfriend