and its cute. if i wasnt me id probably be jealous of me too. especially if i was a maddox (pictured) wannabe who loved coldplay and starbucks and lived in frisco ten years too late.

or a guy who knows nothing about making a decent blog so he changed his name to mirror mine so as to try to gank some of my google hits – he has subsequently quit blogging (after posting an ironic last post), which is definately not the way i’d wanna go out.

but because i am me i know a thousand reasons not to be jealous of me so this morning i will give you one of them: the hell i go through to buy things.

yesterday it took me like an hour and a half to buy new sneakers. it took that long because for some reason buying shoes is the most political activity i ever find myself involved in. even moreso than voting for president, because at least with elections i pretty much vote for who i like.

the problem with buying shoes is, nike has the best designs but no way in hell would i ever buy their shoes because they use third world sweatshops and then charge the highest price for their shoes.

im all for a free market but i dont think that its right to be a part of the greed cycle.

nike doesnt need to exploit third world countries to remain competitive in the market. they could very easilly either pay their third world employees a reasonable wage AND charge $100 for jordans, or they could move their factories back to the usa and charge $125 for jordans.

but to exploit AND charge the highest price i feel is disgusting and im always surprised when i see politically correct millionaires who should know better, like, say, jennifer anniston, sporting nikes.

after the tibetan freedom concert that i attended in sf’s polo fields i was pretty much convinced not to buy shoes made in china either. this has been increasingly tough because my favorite brand, converse was recently bought by nike making them off limits to me AND they are now made in china.

hell, pretty much every shoe is made in china these days.

because i have no fashion sense, i wear the same pair of sneakers every damn day. and because of my finicky political stance about shoes, ive been the proud owner of some (relatively) expensive pumas for the last two years. i dont mind paying double the going rate for shoes though because i get my moneys worth. i paid about $75 for my kicks two years ago which means i paid about $37/year or $3 a month. thats like seventy five cents a week for my most imporant accessory.

so yesterday for some reason i just felt like driving. it was gorgeous after work and i had my window down and it was warm and i had just filled up my car with gas and you know how good your car drives for some reason with a full tank… so i just kept driving east. in echo park i remembered there was a Shoe Outlet of some sort.

it was an irritating store whose banda music kept clicking on and off because their radio was on its last legs and i even told the pimply faced dude that unless he threw the radio out the window or put in a cd i would kill everyone in the store. the security guard raised an eyebrow so i turned to him and said, do i have a point bro? and he nodded and chilled. a snoop dogg cd was popped in and i was able to try to figure out my new shoe situation in peace.

the store had seven rows of sneakers for men. three were nikes. i tried not to look, but its impossible. they make great shoes. and the jordans were incredible. then i wandered the rows looking for non-gay sneakers. their puma selection was horrible and their clearance section didnt really have any 10 1/2s. there was a pair of cons that i really liked but what could i do, so i kept moving on.

way in the back were some DC skate shoes. they werent made in china or indonesia. some were made in vietnam. i wasnt sure what to think about that. but some were made in mexico because this store was incredibly shady. i could live with mexican gray market skate shoes, so i tried a pair on but they had this gayass velcro top thing where you would normally tie your laces.

i tried them on and they fit right, they were black with red lettering and a little bit of white which looked like sorta old school chicago bulls, so i bought them for $60 and felt good.

then i saw they were selling basketballs and i had recently found some basketball courts that nobody used because it was in the center of gangland. because i am no one to truly be jealous of, im not afraid to die since i have nothing to lose, so when i saw those basketballs i was all “thats how you can get rid of those extra ten pounds around the waistline”.

there were twelve basketballs. eight were nike. all eight were spectacular. my favorite was an old aba red white and blue one. so that meant i had four spaldings to choose from. two of them looked like normal basketballs. one was painted purple and gold like the lakers and one of them looked like it had been splashed around in standing water for a week. since i knew the gangmembers would probably try to challenge me to some one-on-one and the loser had to give up his ball, i chose the old-lookin one.

because someone was going to be shot

and i didnt want the blood to stand out on my new basketball.

benshlomo + ashley went to hawaii + danielle has the worst luck with dudes

but i dont do it. i know what would make me richer and hotter and cooler and even taller but i dont do it and i wonder if its cuz im genx and i wonder if its cuz im a hippie and i wonder if its cuz im a libra and i wonder if its cuz im a cubfan and i wonder if its because im a triflin fool whose gonna get chewed out by st. peter if i even make it that far.

super hot chick left me a message on my home phone and i didnt caller back. ashley who is pretty damn hot also left me a message on my home phone and i didnt caller back. a woman who wants to get me fame and fortune left me a message but i didnt caller back. someone very nice showed me a nice picture of her body part and i think i told her thank you but im not sure. yes i tolder thanks. but thats it.

my do i shoot myself in the foot. why do i work on my sails but tie tighter knots and lay more anchors. why am i such a weird beast who can do anything but settles for nothing. why am i me. why do i do this. why do i give it away to corporations and startups and undercover antihero agencies that rhyme with sbi who make me work all night even though ive worked all day.

how come when i pass by mirrors i dont even recognize myself even after two years with the shaved head why is my afro calling me back why is the belly leaving me why are the pants sagging why cant i find a new pair of shoes/

why do i keep tivoing regis and conan and the three stooges and the banana splits when i have so many channels to choose from, why do i listen to people who are so dumn, why dont i spend more than a dollar on myself when i can spend so much so easilly on cheerleaders who barely please me and why do i shut them out and close off my heart and yet feel like hugging every tourist on hollywood blvd with their suntans and bad shorts and cameras and cameras and cameras.

i want to say all youre taking pictures of are other tourists, all youre filming is the ghost of hollywood, all youre capturing is the resin of la. but where would i send em, santa monica? no. westhollywood. no. south central, hell no.

if you want the real la you have to live here for a while you have to lose your own style you have to get drunk in a rag top party in the hills go to an afternoon laker game and leave early at a dodger game. you have to eat roscoes after clubbing you have to find needles at the beach you have to hear the stale lies of an actress as you drive down pch. you have to learn to love the valley the real valley which isnt south of ventura blvd but north. you have to know your way to east la and eat more than just mexican there you have to buy plants in chinatown and one dollar tshirts that cost five if theres a bootleg iron on of g-unit on it.

you havent lived in la until you really know some celebrities, you havent lived here unless you know eight different ways to lax. you havent really lived here unless youve learned how to live with out lax. you havent lived here until youve been to mexico and frisco in the same month and you dont feel it.

none of this helps tourists who take pictures of the pretty woman apartment who take pictures at manns chinese who take pictures of the hollywood sign. smoke weed off the Y in the hollywood sign, get lost on your way to the watts tower, go to church at the forum, buy a taquito for a tranny at del taco, or hit the brakes when you dont see a line at pinks and youve gotten a taste of the angels.

have a drink in the window of the world, have a drink at the hotel california pool, have a drink at the rainbow at the whiskey at marilyns tomb. have a drink and dont drive have a drink and party right.

la changes so much that i take pictures to remember yesterday. la changes so much that they named it once. la changes cuz weve all seen it all. la changes cuz its one big mall.

today i went to hot topic at hollywood and highland and got two sonic youth washing machine stickers for ninety eight cents each proving that im the biggest loser fake punk rocker in all of america cuz what the hell was i doing there and what did i do taking the only good thing they had there.

kitty bukkake + bunnie + alecia + bing

starring tony as the teenage jerry fallwell.

if you dont know you better axe somebody but my life is 2903742343 times different today than it is a year ago or two years ago. the biggest difference is my job my car and the girls who get naked for me. and out of that comes all the other little differences.

last night for example i studied about my new job and then i called someone from my new job and we talked about my new job and all the behind the scenes shit that i have to know about my new job

and then christie st. martin (pictured) chatted me up and we decided to have a podcast and it was only supposed to be fifteen minutes long but we totally hit it off so it lasted 50 minutes

and all along i was making chicken on my george forman grill so if you actually do listen to it and hear what might sound like distortion its actually chicken being foremaned.

and a year ago or even two years ago or even three years ago there would have been a hot babe waiting for me in my waterbed or watching tv on my couch but thats not the case right now. right now im attatched to no one, which is also weird for me, and youd think id be more productive but no, im running reruns on this shit and deep down i wonder if its because i just dont think i have anything to write about but deeper down i know thats not true

cuz i could write pages and pages about the republicans and how theyre the tightest sorority on greek row.

yesterday i was driving to work and i was a tad late, by a tad i mean a schmidge, so it was like 9:03am and rush limbaugh was on my new car stereo and he went into this little pompous rant about how all these mainstream media outlets had called him before the show to ask him if he was planning on talking about pat robertson’s bizzare comments on everyones favorite show The 700 Club where he said that we should assasinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

limbaugh proudly said something along the lines of “no i will not be commenting about that because You dont determine the content of this radio show, mainstream media, I DO.”

and it made me wish i was a republican because that sort of loyalty is priceless.

btw, how rush got away with keeping his job after getting caught being a druggie still blows my mind, and how he kept his ass out of jail during the same time that tommy chong did hard time for selling bongs is still intensely curious to me, but pretty much everything is.

i reran the previous post from two years ago because it shows you that two years ago when arnold schwartzeneggar was running for governor that the repubs were behind him despite the fact that his father was a nazi police cheif and despite the fact that he had been shown smoking weed on video and despite the fact that he had no experience and despite the fact that he had been boning a kennedy among other women

all things that you’d think the conservative party would rally against, but no, because he put an (R) next to his name all was good in the hood

and quite a hood it is, if even blowhards like Rush who have a few hours to kill each day on the radio wont touch a church leader expressing illegal activity on the head of democratically elected sitting president, thats a brotherhood i think we all wish we could belong to.

im still waiting for guys like the instapundit to try to spin the latest harris poll that says that bush’s approval ratings are at an all-time low, infact lower than Nixon was during watergate.

but i dont control his content any more than i control rush’s.

what rush doesnt seem to understand is he’s the master of spin and this is his chance to show his stuff. glenn did the right thing yesterday and called the minister “one of the original models for the term “idiotarian,” which is accurate, but im not going to hold my breath to wait to hear him say that about our dear leader who might not be the original model of anything

but he is a dipshit

and id give my kingdom to a right wing blogger or radio talk show dude who just owned up to that one day.

but like my new cohort explained to me last night, not everyones as honest as i am

about anything

and sometimes you just have to chill out and be mellow about things.

even if we’re at war.

even if people are dying over nothing.

even if gas prices are $3 a gallon for no good reason.

and one of the nice things about rerunning posts is we get to see how times have changed and arnold was the right’s bestfriend back then and now he’s done absolutely nothing good for california and it’ll be interesting to see if he even wins the republican nomination, but he will, cuz theyre all in lockstep with each other.

be as much as they call california crazy, we dont mind voting out retards when they are proven to be bad for our state, which is nice, but its too bad that trends that start here take years to spread across the country.

all things christie + best week ever blog + my podcast with christie

im used to it.

i know that there are a handful of hecklers out there who either arent comfortable with my thousand readers a day, my dominance at the scrabble board, or my wicked crossover dribble.

hecklers make me feel better.

they remind me that im the man.

they remind me that i am on the right path, that im doing exactly the right thing, that im typing the right way, that im saying what needs to be said.

the sweet people remind me of those things too, but not like the haters.

the sweet people make it all worth it.

actually it’s worth it without any of the people, but the sweet people make it especially worth it.

i remember all the things youve done for me.

youve sent me on vacation, youve bought me gifts off my amazon wishlist.

youve written me when i was down, youve written me when i was up.

youve gotten me about $1,000 closer to a car.

youve linked me on your blogs.

some of you have even come over to my house and gotten nude for me.

some were even women.

none of that shit ever happened when i wrote this in a trapper keeper.

magazines have interviewed me, ive been invited to speak in public, strangers say hello to me at the baja fresh. all cuz of this blog and how i write it.

so you dont have to tell me how to do it, fakers.

youre fakers cuz you fake at hating when all along you love.

you cant wait for me to post again.

thats love.

i see you in the archives. soaking it all up. trying to hate, but cant. trying to lurk but having to say something. something dumb, but something.

you think i like saying bad things about the president of my country?

you think i like the fact that the son of a nazi is the favorite in the coup thats going on in the state that i live in? the most important state in the union?

unlike many i dont sit in my many mansions and root for the republicans to keep fucking it all up.

they just do it anyway.

and if some want to identify themselves with the son of a nazi, or a son of a bush, thats their problem.

i look at my elected officials the same way that i look at the batteries of my remote control – when they stop being effective, they get removed.

the president, the congress, and the supreme court have not been effective.

dont take it personally.

dont be dumb.

dumb is trying to show someone up in their comments, when that person writes three times a day.

david didnt get goliath by kicking him in the leg.

if you want to shut me up about politics, do it with facts and figures.

show me how bush/cheeney have made the greatest country in the world even better.

use charts.

show me that im wrong about them bungling the economy, about how they lied about why they wanted to blow up iraq, and failed at finding the leaders of the evil doers, and that failure is costing us a billion a day.

and dont try to pretend it was for humanitarian reasons. fakers.

show me that they had nothing to do with the california energy crisis two summers ago, or the recent blackout on the east coast.

or just admit it all and say, so what, my daddy voted republican and i’ll vote republican till i die.

but dont tell me to go back to talking about the weather.

even if its beautiful and a mild seventy three degrees here in hollywood at midnight with a gentle breeze coming from the west at about two miles per hour.

cuz if you do, i’ll tell you to go back at doing what you do three times a day.

the buzzmachine has ads + annie + danielle k + congrats mel!

Thanks again for the book… I really enjoyed reading it–parts of it more than once! I know you are crazy busy guy but if you have any thoughts on this can you let me know?

Since you’re mega-blog man… and my blogs are still new-ish… where do you draw the line at sharing personal information? What do you do if you’re getting that skeevy wierd feeling from people?

I have been getting these blocked ID phone calls on my cell leaving really bizarre messages… I thought nothing of it til it occured to me that it’s really easy to get my number online because of my photography-that info is easily found.

I wonder if it’s such a good idea to be so frank and open on blogs-if that invites the weirdos to come out of hiding. My blog doesn’t get that much traffic, and I started it for me to talk about what I wanted. As soon as you get an audience however, I become aware of them, what they think- am I boring them- how will they take what I am saying… Do you just ignore that feeling?

signed,

w (not the president)

dear w,

turning off the internal voice that tells you not to do shit on your blog is the toughest thing that you will encounter while blogging.

on one hand you and i both know that the best part about reading blogs is learning about the people and about experiencing their “edge”.

two of my favorite bloggers handle this totally different.

in canada we have Raymi who not only tells us everything about herself from her shits to her clothes to the way she parties to even her very sensitive sexual situations. and she also gets naked.

here in LA we have flagrant disregard who tells us everything about her eating disorders to her suicidal tendencies to her globetrotting.

on the surface you might think that these young women are doing things totally different since flagrant doesnt show any pictures of herself and she never announces where she will be and doesnt broadcast her voice or her moving images, and raymi does all of those things.

but in truth they are both hiding behind fake names and they keep their whereabouts basically anonymous.

however: raymi’s real name, for example, isnt raymi, but a regular reader can pretty much figure out her real name, whereas flagrants real name is hidden from everyone.

i say learn from both of these women and be out there as far as your emotional information but be smart about your whereabouts like what school you go to or where you work.

i know its slightly different for girls, but when i worked at E! i didnt say so on my blog for several reasons, one being i didnt want someone pissed at something that i wrote to be calling me at the E! switchboard, nor did i want them waiting for me out side of the koo koo roo with a sledgehammer to see if i really do work for the xbi or not. its not that i wouldnt totally love to waste someone on wilshire, its just the paperwork involved after the fact is a nightmare.

plus it doesnt really add to the story.

in fact the fact that i worked at E! may have convinced people that that was one of the reasons that my blog was popular (relatively) or why i was the writer that i was. however neither of those assumptions were true. my blog flourished because of the content and the committment that i had for blogging. period.

yes i tell people where i live, hollywood, but i never gave out my real address, and when i did have to give an address to anyone, i used a PO box that i rarely visit. that too deters stalkers. not that i have any, but who wants them?

i also dont talk about my sexual encounters unless the woman that im with truly wants me to write about them. and even then, oftentimes i let them have first crack at editing. lately ive been with women who arent the exhibitionists that we all wish they were so mum has been the word.

i do talk about my gray nut hairs, about some of the times that i beat off, about my dirty apartment, about my maid who has turned it into a clean apartment, my old drug habit, my laziness, my fears, some of my adventures, my past loves, and some of my plans. its my belief that the deeper you can get with your audience the more they will eat it up and the more your blog will be like a real diary and the more loyal your readership will become because they will feel like youre letting them into a special secret place that only a few (thousand) people have discovered.

its all a trick. its a trick creating intamacy, its a trick to allow yourself to open up, and its a trick to ignore the naysayers who i promise you will criticize anything that you do even if its opening your heart.

good luck baby,

tony

aaron + far from relevant + mitya + black lilly

and man is hindsight a 20-20 bitch.

because i have so many young readers here im not sure you all remember the Good Old Days but a while back Los Angeles had kobe, shaq, and a little thing called chemistry that the chicago bulls proved could make nobodies like bj armstrong and steve kerr magical heroes when it mattered the most.

look no further than the career of former laker robert horry and look at the teams that he played for and you will begin to understand chemistry.

better yet, look at the teams that horry’s teams beat and you might better understand this theory. it doesnt matter how many great players are on your team, without teamwork, unselfish play, good coaching, and chemistry you will lose.

the rise and fall of kobe bryant may not be as dramatic as the tragedies that have befallen young phenoms like mike tyson and ricky williams but his bad choices were just as devistating.

kobe bryant came to the nba straight out of high school to play for a laker team that was so good they didnt need any 18 year old. they had shaq, eddie jones, nick van exel, elden campbell, and robert horry. little did they know but the very next year the teenager would break into the starting lineup and start his reign as one of the best shooting guards in the game.

but ask vince carter how important it is to be one of the best shooting guards in the game, and how more important it is to be one of the best team players.

yes kobe won three rings, but it was because he had the best center in the nba next to him and the best coach in the game giving them all direction.

during the peak of the lakers a few years ago kobe was on top of the world and some may think that it was his rape trial that helped in his fall from grace, but anyone who paid any real attention to that trial knows that it wasnt that case (one in which the accusser wouldnt take the stand after the truth about her lifestyle and about that night began getting investigated on trial), it was kobe’s selfish, yuppie, me-first attitude.

kobe bryant began to embody everything that people hated about the lakers and los angeles and privelege.

people talked shit about shaq and how he made his bad rap records and his bad movies and how he allegedly wasnt ever in shape, but when it came time to play shaq was always right there getting triple teamed and hacked and when you look at his numbers they were always solid.

kobe’s, especially after the trial, were never the same. particularily in crunch time. especially during the detroit pistons series two years ago.

LA will tolerate a lot of things, and big egos are nothing new here, which is why shaq jerseys are still seen on the kids in the playground, but winning is everything, and the lesson of kobe bryant is that you cannot win alone in a team sport.

this year the lakers didnt make the playoffs and shaq’s miami heat took the pistons to seven games in the eastern conference finals. and now that the heat have picked up antoine walker, jason williams, and james posey theyre everyones favorites to win the east.

and kobe’s lakers, even with phil jackson back, are a crap shoot to get into the playoffs.

all because kobe is a shelfish bitch who got what he asked for: the lakers to be his team and only his team.

be careful what you ask for my friends, especially on a stage as big as the staples center, because one man cannot make a team, but one fool can break it.

and thats the story of todays birthday boy who has yet to prove that he’s anything more than just a boy.

his rookie card is only worth $28 + swamp donkey + fook the people + matt welch

matt good and i
have conducted three different podcasts

one was about baseball + one about cindy sheehan + one about his latest troll

at the viper room

performing the song band girls money, their opening salvo,
last friday on the sunset strip

(yes i know it’s heavy on the bass,
that was the side i was standing on)

this is my reaction to your posts on iraq crisis and w bush.
well, your president is not the smartest person in the world and makes mistakes. but think about his situation. he had to do something after 9/11.
his reaction was of course cowboy reaction, but it worked. taliban rules no more in afghanistan and iraq is under control of us.

nobody likes war, but sometimes war is better than bad peace.

i beleive, that countries like usa must play role of worlds cop. its their responsibility.

i live in a country which was sold to hitler by its allies at 1938 just to keep peace. it lasted just 1 year! hitler got all our border bunks and stuff and invaded our country 6 months later. took all modern weapons of our army and used it against poland and france later.

i dont care if saddam had wmd or not. i am sure he is one of the worst tyrans in history, murderer of hundreds of thousands. killer of his own people. i like to see him in jail in his homer simpson underwear. what a valuable message to all tyrans of the world. YOU ARE NOT UNTOUCHABLE!

i said nobody likes war. i hate to see dead or wounded civilians, especially kids. it often makes me cry.
but how many kids would this monster kill, if your soldiers wouldnt také his power.
i mean it is also about mathematics not just about emotions.

i hope weŽll live in perfect world one day with no wars and shit. but today we have to show our teeth, to insure the evil powers of this world we are not afraid of them.

i thank from my heart young american servismen and women to do it for us. your country spends tremendous financial resources and sends its youth to fight overseas to protect freedom of whole western civilization. i am glad that i can stay in home with my family and feel that my big american bro cares, as he cared during 41-89 when he saved world from fascism and bolshevism.

thank you america.

max

dear max i hate to break it to you but we’re not winning in iraq and we’re not winning in afghanistan.

we’re also not showing any other tyrants that they need to stop being tyrants.

if anything we have shown that iraq may have been better off with saddam in power as right now theres anarchy that we cant even control.

i dont know where youre getting your information but you need to click around the internet a little more than just the busblog.

the us has lost the iraq war

iraq at the gates of hell

does the us plan to be in iraq forever

us army planning on four more years in iraq

republican senator hagel says iraq looks like another vietnam

this president of ours, youre right, had to do something after 9/11, but what he did was start a trillion dollar war with a country that had no wmds, no ties to al queda, and was not responsible for 9/11.

he turned a terrible moment which had created the largest outpouring of support for the usa into what we have now which is a moment in time when we are currently despised by more nations than ever before.

there are times when we can show our teeth but we have to show them to the right people and we have not done that. there are times when we should dethrone tyrants but we chose the wrong tyrant.

the majority of the terrorists of 9/11 were saudi, a land of run by much more stronger tyrants than saddam and a country that most say are supplying the majority of insurgents. but we wont fight the real fight because bush is in bed with the saudis.

if anything we have proven that the us military, as strong as it is, cannot win battles alone, and the world is too smart to enter into wars that they know are unjust. this is not a world war. this is the us and the brits fighting a war that they lied about against a phantom enemy that did not attack us four years ago. we will continue to lose, and there will continue to be anarchy in that country until we get out of there and let the iraqi people stand up for themselves and determine their own future, which very well may be another dictator.

all george bush has done is kill hundreds of thousands of people, ruin our relationships with the war, and waste money we didnt have.

iraq cant even come together behind closed doors to agree on a constitution, let alone unite on their streets to ensure peace.

you say that you dont care if saddam didnt have wmds or not, but we do. here in america we dont think its a good idea to go to war over false information or get lied to about reasons to go to war.

perhaps you didnt read CNN on friday when former Sect of State cheif of staff said that his involvement of Colin Powell’s speech to the UN was the lowest point of his life. that was the speech where Powell said that one reason that we needed to go into Iraq was because they had wmds. you really should do yourself a favor and read that article because it shows you that the USA isnt just about being the bigger prick on the block but about having the same values that we claim others should have. otherwise we’re just another tyrant.

as george carlin recently said, if iraq needs a constitution they should use ours, cuz we’re not using it.

john wayne anti + raspil + aaron + rabbit