cuz my computer wont connect to the interweb and im at an internet cafe thats gonna close in 9 minutes but because im a freak i felt like i had to come here to get my fix.

i saw the president speak and listening to him used to give me hope that anyone ANYONE could be president. as long as they were the son of an xpresident. but now i think anyone could be president if they were full of enough shit, which is why al gore will never win.

and why people fear hillary so.

being without the internet today has been painful but the good news was im so addicted to the computer in my house that i stood in front of my computer and cleaned up all around it. so everything is clean there. and i found some things that i was looking for for my upcoming court case that i will let you in on once it happens.

over lunch i went to the Virgin Megastore HQ and saw Hard-Fi whose singer is reportedly linked to Scarlett Johansson. when i first saw him i was all, nah, cuz hes so normal looking and has big teeth.

but then when i saw him play i was all, hmmm, maybe because fucker can sing and play and has great tunes but his fingers moved real fast and maybe thats what the ladies like.

anyways thanks koga for the invite and thanks goldenfiddle for letting me know a little bit about the UKs #1 band of the week.

also thanks to everyone who ordered Stiff. thanks because you’re going to have to be a tad patient with me because i do all my shipping via the interweb and its a long story but hopefully i can get these things shipped out tomorrow or the next day. trust me i want them out of my house. i will never ship books myself again. yes you make a buck or two more, but the pain in the ass isnt worth it.

finally lots of people i talked with on the streets are disappointed in the coachella lineup because we were all hoping the Smashing Pumpkins would reuinite but everyone in these comments, pretty much, and on various web sites that i surfed to breifly this afternoon when i made my only other post were stoked by the lneup especially with Depeche Mode.

alll i know is im going, im gnna get paid to go and i really hope my shit is fixed tomorrow cuz this rentacomputer’s keyboard sux.

much love to all of you, im gonna have to read or something tonight.

and by read i mean a book.

oh the humanity!

i get email. i love my email. glenn reynolds doesnt have comments so he gets hella email. but i get my share even with comments.

today i got this from a lovely reader and i asked her if i could respond on the blog and she was very polite and said yes. so here goes.

Tony,

I love your blog and I know you probably get this question every other day but I have to ask dont you know any hot black women? How come you never blog about them? How come you never post pictures of hot black women up on your site. I know its your site, your rules but a sista gets a bit sad that a cool guy like tony won’t put up a picture of one ebony goddess and say this girl is all that an a bag of chips! Maybe you dont know any!

N–

PS. I’ve been wanting to ask this for a long time but didnt want to seem to critical.

OK first of all, thank you for being concerned about being critical, but it’s ok, i can handle it.

secondly, people who know me know that im a very odd bird. VERY.

even though i was born in the nations capital, a place filled to the brim with people of color, i was soon relocated to the lily white suburbs outside of chicago where i lived from k-12.

my sister and i were the only Black kids in school for years and years. eventually a few trickled through but just as quickly their families ran away to a more… diverse… neighborhood leaving us being the only Black folk in school again and pretty much the only minorities.

even though i am very lightskinned now, when i was a youth i had much darker skin and a very noticeable afro. plus because my sister was only a year younger than me, and even darker skinned, everyone knew that we were the Black kids, so despite the fact that some people might thing that i was “passing”… i wasnt passing for shit other than Black. which i was fine with. well, as fine as i imagine anyone would have been in my shoes.

because we had moved to hangover park so early on, kindegarten, i didnt have to worry about making friends because we were all new to school. and immediately i had no problems being popular and liked because little kids are pretty accepting. plus i was good at sports and funny and extremely outgoing.

that doesnt mean i wasnt met with some overt racism and some indirect racism. the best example of the later had to be in 8th grade. i had a crush on a girl and i wanted her to be my girlfriend. she liked me too so after school i chased her down before she climbed on the bus and i asked her if we could “go out”. she said she couldnt because her dad would kill her. believe it or not thats when i first really understood racism. being denied something simply because of ones heritage. truly ironic because this was happening right next to playground called heritage park.

what was great though was it was a wakeup call to me that things were different. that there were differences in the world. and i was part of those differences, like it or not.
but as i grew up there was nothing i could do about the fact that i was attracted to the opposite sex, so i had to keep plugging away despite the fact that now i had to somehow not just woo the chick but somehow convince her that her dad wouldnt be fucked with at work that his daughter was dating the only black kid in school.

and let me tell you, the midwest at the time was many things, but tolerent it was not. everyone dressed the same, looked the same, sounded the same, and acted the same. so if a dudes young daughter was dating big afro tony it would definately be reported back to that father immediately and he would be joked with by his buddies, his neighbors and his boss.

so needless to say, i didnt have very many girlfriends in highschool, despite being pretty much the same person i am now.

in fact i only really had one. and the only reason, i feel, she said yes was because she was going to be moving away to california about three weeks after i kissed her.

she was tall, blonde, had blue eyes, and long legs.

even though her dad worked for the airlines and could let her fly wherever she wanted for free she couldnt fly back to my prom with me, because, well… you know why.

but all those years whenever me and my buddies looked at girls, we never saw any Black girls because the only Black girl in my school was my sister. and the only Black girls i ever really knew were my mom, my grandmothers, and my cousins.

so its not that i dont think that Black women arent beautiful, they just remind me of my relatives. and non-Black women remind me of all the girls at school who would flirt with me but wouldnt, because they couldnt, put out.

now ive been conscious about the fact that i have a very diverse readership here, especially after being a panelist of the Blogging While Black panel at last years SXSW, a group of amazing people who i am so happy to reunite with in two months in austin. and part of that consciousness is knowing that just like i identified with Michael in Good Times because i looked like him, i didnt have the hots for his gf played by janet jackson because she looked pretty much exactly like my sister.

so do i find Black women beautiful? of course i do. do i know any Black women?

well lets go back to highschool. i left illinois the day after high school graduation and moved to california. but not just cali, santa monica california. not too many black folk there. then i went to uc santa barbara. it was either ucsb or ucla and if i had chosen the later i would have definately confronted this issue, but i chose ucsb because i was under the odd belief that if i went up there it would be easier to study because it was away from LA and right on the beach. plus everyone that i knew who went to ucsb adored the experience. just like how i feel about it now.

at ucsb they had the 100 Black Men’s club. i seriously dont think we had 100 Black men at ucsb. total. so we definately didnt have 100 Black women either. so i have a feeling that i dont know any Black women really because ive never been around them.

should i have more Black faces on the busblog? df course. and i thank you for remiding me to do it.

to be honest i was thinking about putting up a picture of Oprah during that weird little scandal with mr Frey and i was thinking about putting up a picture of Da Brat when she was photographed kissing Liza Minelli’s ex. but i have a funny little rule on the busblog – i dont put up pictures of Black people that will make us look bad in any way. so im certainly not going to put up a picture of oprah to bash her or da brat kissing on some gay dude.

im very protective of my people because i do know the struggle. and depending on how long youve read me, you’d have heard me defend OJ, michael jackson, kobe, mike tyson, and proclaim that every QB in the future should be Black.

i even capitalize the b because it is a reference not just to a color but of a region. you capitalize African American, so why not Black?

i love my people and if i run across some fine soul sista who treated me right im sure there might be a possibility of a love connection down the road – something my mom would love, especially if she wasnt half my age like these other skinny white girls – but something tells me the odds are low.

however, if you run across any photos that you feel deserve a place on the busblog, feel free to email me a link to them and i will seriously consider it. as im always looking for good pictures, and it would be my pleasure to spotlight my nubian princesses far more in the very near future.

xoxoxox
tony

culture kitchen + lynne d johnson + koganuts

snoop dogg was on. old school was on. a girl who sorta looked like a younger gabrielle reece if you know who she is had just left behind something smoking in the ashtray and i had just picked it up to see what it was for the odor was seductively curious. i was just about to touch it when a little tap at the front door startled me.

this one looked like an older marisa tomei, but taller. i dont know if ive ever told you this but ive always liked tall girls.

her name was gretchen she lived across the street. little purse little socks tall shoes big hair. her dress sparkled from thousands of sparkley sparklies as she shivered next to my satellite dish.

its funny how sometimes you think a bad date is just that.

she was drunk. hot. sloppy. pale.

someone wrote in one of my posts this week that he didnt believe the story i was telling.

duh.

nothing

real tits

in here

totally shaved

is

pierced nips

true.

woke up this morning still on the couch with her.

got up

pissed

brushed my teeth

took my socks off

gave each of my feet a generous spray of desenex

put two clean white socks on

fixed up some scrambled eggs

stirred a griddle of bacon around

boiled some grits

toast popped up right when i had poured two glasses of apple juice.

turned on the tv

and i hadnt realized that bitch had knocked my dish out of alignment last night when she waited for me to answer the door.

she woke up next to a vase of fresh snapdragons rubbing her good eye and noticing me flipping through the tivo deleting the shows that had only recorded a black screen that said “searching for satellite signal”.

and then i knew who was gonna get the slice of toast that

briefly

had fallen on the kitchen floor.

the all-girl band Rocket (pictured) plays tonight (1/30/05) at 10:30p at the Viper Room! Free!

of which i have more than a few.

i believe this is the year of the dog, which i love because dogs have all the answers and it could be because they can lick their own nuts but it might also be because their stomachs are far more advanced and once youve licked your nuts a few times im sure it loses its charm especially if you sleep in the dirt with your sweaty dog balls.

i say their stomachs are far more advanced because dogs can drink gutter water and alls cool in the school. they can literally eat shit and everythings fine.

but the best lessons that ive learned from dogs have been not from their scholarship of what i like to call the Polite Piss but how it seems that their feelings are never hurt.

now matt and jenny will disagree with me on this but thats because theyre pretty much canine crazy and think their dogs are people, and dont get me wrong i love thier dogs. lets see if i can even remember their names, weve got pete, benjy and shit shit whats that little ones name fred? wilma? im not gonna cheat. obviously ive forgotten the little one who i love because hes so good about playing fetch with his little half raquetball ball. fuckr fetch that thing alllllll night long and never tire. love that.

itll come to me.

maurice?

so yeah dogs have personalities and likes and dislikes but theyre not human theyre better. and their feelings dont get hurt, im sorry quit projecting. they get hurt like physically and emotionally but if for example lets say that benji is at the dog park and hes sniffin around and sniffs some little poodles ass and she snaps at him hes not gonna mope about it all day. hes not gonna smell under his pits or stare at the mirror when he gets home and ask himself if hes looking old. hes gonna sniff some other bitches ass and move on with his day.

spanky? fuck!

in that sense dogs have it over people by like a lot. now of course theres disadvantages for being dogs. like theyre short for the most part. you dont see dogs at too many concerts unless they have super great seats like in the balcony or backstage cuz even on their hind legs they cant see shit so why bother.

paulie? no.

im not a cheater and im not a liar. i know ive written these dogs names when i visted the goods and i know jennys blog has their names but im not gonna cheat and look. hot chicks i went out with this weekend if youre reading this know that im a good man and i dont cheat or lie, i mean the blog – this blog – you shouldnt really trust but thats only because its the interweb and you really shouldnt trust anything on here but in real life im not a bullshitter, in real life trust is everything. and if you cant trust me in real life you cant trust anyone.

dogs also have it made because they dont have to worry about taxes or shoes or landlords fucking with em. a homeless dog is actually a happier dog as far as ive seen. back in isla vista the frat boys would buy labrador puppies to impress the bimbos and in the summer when theyd go back home to san diego theyd let Kegger just roam the streets of IV with the packs of other orphaned dogs and sometimes youd be blazing on some really good liquid acid and youd see 25 random dogs jogging down del playa with their tounges hanging out and their tails wagging and youd think where the fuck are those dogs going and if your skateboard was nearby you might follow them for a block or two but back then there was a keg at every corner and a girl with a bikini top on every balcony and the acid would fade out for a sec and youd realize that your priorities were all fuct and youd kick yr skate into your hand and ask a hottie what she was reading and you were back

and only later when the sun was rising as you were sitting on the cliffs with her in between little kisses would you ask yourself hey wait i wonder where the fuck those dogs were headed i mean they looked like they had just found out there was a keg on sabado or a kicked over pizza on the streets of trigo or something.

and im not gonna stop writing until that dogs name comes to me. i lvoe that fucking dog. merle? manny? franny? zooey? im not gonna cheat. im not gonna cheat.

im listening to the strokes new record and its pretty good now that ive heard it a zillion times. which is another thing dogs sorta miss out on. its hard to download music when youre a dog.

CASEY!

… cheated

ten bucks this isnt matts last design of even the winter + jen the photographer + wienerdog rescue

some people think im their monkey.

some people think this blog is theres and or its something more than my two cents presented for the world to see.

some people think that when an old man dies youre supposed to all of a sudden say nice things about him even if you never really said anything nice about him. fuck those people and fuck the dead man too.

some people think that you shouldnt be honest about the recently dead because being dead means something different than being alive. it means you should be reverent, respectful, solemn, generous.

why? i thought this was Jesusland. i thought we all agreed that when you die, if youre a good person you go to Heaven. if youre in Heaven who the fuck cares about what theyre saying about you on the sleaziest of all bathroom walls, the blogosphere?

people originally didnt speak ill of the dead because they were pagans fearful of the ghost of the dead person haunting them and causing them lack of sleep. Christians shouldnt have that phobia because a dead soul either rises or falls, it doesnt loiter around terra firma waiting to scare some cocksucker who just typed some shit about them. so grow up.

the pope ran an operation where on one hand they said the only way to the Father was through the Son, and on the other hand they presented the baseless idea that the Pope had a direct link to God and was the head shepard in charge of the worldly flock.

the catholic church also made up non-biblical rules that prevented their priests from getting married or having sex, and the catholics were given rules against abortions, masturbation, and birth control. even the pontiff himself went to africa and told the people overwhelmed with overpopulation and AIDS that condom use was a sin – despite the fact that there was nothing in the bible to back it up.

and recently the lovable pope gave safe haven to an american cardinal who was deemed ultimately responsible and negligent as thousands of kids were being molested by Massachusetts priests.

an independent group of a dozen lay Massachusetts citizens were picked by the catholic bishops of the us in 2002. that group was called the National Review Board. the board released two studies examining the claims that 4,392 priests allegedly abused 10,667 minors. and they wrote a report condemning the church, calling them shameful, and criticized boston cardinal bernard law which led to his resignation.

the Board is deeply disturbed by the situation in Boston. The picture that emerged was that of a diocese with a cadre of predator priests and a hierarchy that simply refused to confront them and stop them.

It is clear from the Review Board’s examination of the Boston Archdiocese that Cardinal Law paid insufficient personal attention to the problem of sexual abuse of minors by priests under his authority and that the clerics to whom he delegated responsibility for this issue often failed in their handling of it,”

Nor did Cardinal Law properly supervise those to whom he delegated authority, essentially abdicating responsibility for a matter of paramount importance to the integrity of the Church. As one bishop said of Cardinal Law, `I think he wasn’t even paying attention,’ – boston globe

what did the pope do? he hired him. he brought him to rome. he made room by asking an 82 year old italian cardinal to retire. and whats one of cardinal law’s new duties?

picking new popes.

so wait, oversee one of the most heinous crimes on american soil – the sexual abuse of children – and you get a plush gig in rome

and i’m supposed to be cool with that?

christopher hitchens, who is rarely cool with anything, isnt havin it either

A few years ago, it seemed quite probable that Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston would have to face trial for his appalling collusion in the child-rape racket that his diocese had been running. The man had knowingly reassigned dangerous and sadistic criminals to positions where they would be able to exploit the defenseless. He had withheld evidence and made himself an accomplice, before and after the fact, in the one offense that people of all faiths and of none have most united in condemning. (Since I have more than once criticized Maureen Dowd in this space, I should say now that I think she put it best of all. A church that has allowed no latitude in its teachings on masturbation, premarital sex, birth control, and divorce suddenly asks for understanding and “wiggle room” for the most revolting crime on the books.)

Anyway, Cardinal Law isn’t going to face a court, now. He has fled the jurisdiction and lives in Rome, where a sinecure at the Vatican has been found for him. (Actually not that much of a sinecure: As archpriest of the Rome Basilica of St. Mary Major, he also sits on two boards supervising priestly discipline-yes!-and the appointment of diocesan bishops.) Even before this, he visited Rome on at least one occasion to discuss whether or not the church should obey American law. And it has been conclusively established that the Vatican itself -including his holiness -was a part of the coverup and obstruction of justice that allowed the child-rape scandal to continue for so long.

…

But we cannot possibly let the case of Cardinal Law slide. And here the remedy is in the hands of American Catholics. They have had the guts to defy the papacy, in essence, when it comes to birth control. If they don’t want to be thought compromised, they can protest at the sheltering of this vile man by the Holy See. But when did you last read of a protest like that? Will any obituary in this week of piety even allude to the situation? Of course not. – slate

someone in my comments accused me of insulting the billion catholics who weep this weekend for their fallen leader.

if by catholics, the commenter meant people who stood outside the vatican praying and crying over the imminent death of an 84 year old man who had all the power

a pope

could have in this time where the line between church and state blurs more with each day id ask these catholics

and with that power he did what?

did he change the environment that bred and fostered such disgustingly vile and almost unforgivable behavior, or did he make it worse by promoting americas most despised cardinal and putting him in a position of hiring more in his image?

i dont know of another group who could rape molest and fondle 11,000 kids over 50 years and think that everything is cool

particularity in regards to reflecting on the leadership of their ceo who presided over them for nearly half of that dark era.

to be a Christian means you believe in Jesus Christ, who said the only way to the Father is through the Son

and this pope business is probably one reason why

paige + goldenfiddle + leah + buzzmachine

orry but im a little timpsy im spendint a fortune on cabs but its cool cuz thes e girls are incredible; and thank god ive been gettinf interviwed by ppl becuase its great practice for these dates.

whats been interesting is these last two ahave ben with girls wwho dont blog and dont really know the blogashper. this iss what you call a Stretch cuz i have to answer a lot more questions when im first meeting someone who has never read my shit,. i have to explain why i didnt have a car for five years i have to explain why i blog every day what blogging is “who” i am all that and i have to try to make it not sound like im vicepresident of the fucking burbank anime club.

prehaps some of you know what im talking about.

anyways tonight i met this cool young woman who was all “i like to write but sometimes i worry that im saying ‘I’ too much, how do you handle that?”

and it was a hel of wuestion and i said the best thing about blogging bexisdes the xvool peopel you mweet is you get to practice your writing and if you wanna try to go a week without making the post about your then you can try. if you want to just write i ii i i i i i like mad then nobodies gonna say shit because 1)most people arent gonna read everythinmg that you witn and wont notic 2)99 opercent of what is in a blog is someone saying “i just made the best cake” or “god i khate the customers at my mcdonalds” or other versions of iiiii whichis sorta the point of diaries or onliune diars and nwo blogs.

so i said for her to go for it.

and then we square danced.

i fucking dominate at aquare dancing.

i can alimand left like nobodies business.

of course we were at hollywood bar that was playing snoop dogg but when the girl your with is trying to outdo you you must win at all cost.

sadly you have to pick yuour battles and even though i won that one someone blew me off tonight with the prefect line

she said i really like you and im afraid that if i dont go home right now im going to have sex with you.

remember that one ladies.

now i dont know if she really nmeant it or if she was just adept at the changeup but it was pretty smooth.

and we were drunk and im a gentlemen and gentlemen dont bang drunk chicks

on the first datte

and at that point i wanted to tell her my real age because i think – which she had been asking for all night – becuas i think that if she kenew that i was realy 113 shed no that all i really wanted to do was just sorrta make out for a little while and just cuddle with her cuz this chick was hot america and soinmetimes its nice jsut to hold a hot chick for temn mintues before you pass your durnk ass out. and sometimes igts nice to wake up with a hot chick and taker to that huge pancake palece on sunset

but i guess that would be awkwatnrd if you dont really know the girl and like i said we dint really know iech other and bla balah bla im so tired of looking at this csreen anyways i hoipe she meant she really wanted to have sex and not omg you suck ejct ecjt eject

and now i know sorta what su0prjux is talking about when she talks about her dates xcoet she always has bad ones and mine are pretty much always fucking rad. but maybne its cuz i normally og out with girls who love the busblog and get naked minutes after coming in to my house and i know nothing in here is true but

i recommend that you do it.

he understands that sometimes peoples best work isnt done between the hours of 9-5, or in offices, or in conventional ways.

as the buzznet offices get made over this week and next ive been working from home, which for someone who does most of his work through a computer and email isnt that big of an adjustment. and to be honest, i think im more productive and more willing to get shit done from 9am-2am when im given the respect not to be micromanaged.

what marc and i do is chat via email so i can tell him what im working on and he gives me updates on assignments he wants me to knock out and sometimes a phone is used, but mostly he gives me big tasks and i complete them.

yesterday i told him that i wouldnt be around after noon because i had to meet with karisa for lunch and then with my lawyers on the wesssside and everyone knows that simply driving from santa monica to hollywood during the late afternoon on a friday can take hours.

the good mc knew that i would make up for it by either working at night or over the weekend. we’re a small company so we are constantly working not because we have to but because we want to. but also because if we dont do it no one else will.

as i was making my way through beverly hills i got a phone call from a young lady who i had met who asked me if i wanted to join her for happy hour at the shortstop, a really fun bar in echo park.

its fun because its sorta a divey bar but not in a pretentious way. its got a great vibe and pbr on tap and pool table in the back.

happy hour isnt really a term im that familiar with because at Buzznet we dont really go out drinking after work. not because we dont like to drink – its just something that doesnt happen. so i had to ask this woman when happy hour was.

she laughed and said 5-8. buck pbrs.

because i had some other business to attend to i agreed to meet her at 6pm and boy am i glad i did because we ended up closing down the place.

at 6 the bar had a few people at it, then a few more wandered in and started playing pool as she and i talked in the quiet of the back room.

after a few rounds of drinks i adjourned to the mens room and when i came back i saw some dude talking with my date – if you wanna call her that. which if you saw her you definately would. my basic rule of thumb is you know youre with a hot chick if when you leave her to do something theres another dude hitting on her.

when i came back she introduced me to her and he went back to shooting pool. and she told me, “he just said that heather graham is going to close the bar in a few hours so she can have her birthday party here.”

and sure enough in a few hours there was heather with her assistant who had a three page guest list and a handstamp. apparently if you had a stamp the tab was being paid for by whoever was throwing the bash for rollergirl.

soon after heather arrived in came friends star matthew perry, chris katan from snl, and probably more stars but seriously after 6 hours of nonstop drinking even the bartender asked me if i had had enough. i pointed to the clock that read 12:15am and said i did a lot of drinking yesterday but i have yet to have a sip today.

that earned me one more shot of rum and pabst chaser but when i returned later he cut me off. first time thats ever happened to me. ever. and im old. but he was cool about it and i gotta give him props for that.

so me and the girl danced and drank and danced and she text messaged her friends to tell them that she was cooler than them. and when she went to the little girls room i walked over to heather and got a picture with her. and friends, she couldnt have been nicer. not just to me, but its not that huge of a bar and just watching her with everyone was really a lesson to celebs everywhere as to how you should act – normal.

then the cobrasnake showed up and i knew i was in the right place. he even took a picture of me when i said i knew marc brown and today he put it and the party up on his site.

i took a cab home, put the garbage can next to my bed as the room was spinning, and this morning i was not hung over very much. why? because the Lord loves me and the feeling is mutual.

the fencepost + the halifax redemption + estrojenn + phillipe

on fridays we talk about Lost. but im so busy today you dont even know.

and sadly i cant even talk about half of things that are making me busy today and the other half are so dumb like laundry that you dont really want me to talk about them.

so lets see if i can write about Lost for 15 minutes and because i might not get to the computer for the rest of the day im going to have to count on you, the reader, to fill up the comments with Losttalk until i can get back.

ok and for those of you who havent yet finished the first season what can i tell you? they reran the first season like four times on tv. the dvd has been out since fall, and every critic, viewer, and media outlet has been telling you since day one that this is the shit so sorry i cant wait for your asses any longer.

i feel that the busblog policy of not talking about this season until 36 hours after it aired is plenty of time to watch it on tivo or ipod or vhs or beta that you’re either in or out, so get into it. and if you havent seen this weeks episode now is the time for you to flee… may i recommend catching up on the wonderful blog of erin the oakparkmastermind

ok this weeks episode centered around chah-leee the elf the musician the junkie who nobody understands.

in a very sweet and tortured hour charlie is having bad dreams and he gets misunderstood when he tries to get rid of his stash and suddenly nobody trusts him.

but what really is interesting about this episode is locke and how suddenly we’re supposed to have suspicions about him. am i right about that? are we supposed to believe that hes the baby stealer? or are we supposed to believe that hes got the hots for blondie? im confused and im hoping its just a curveball.

one of the problems i had with this episode is something i learned in college. you cannot make your characters flat. meaning, they cant be all-good or all-bad. in wednesdays hour we see charlie supporting his brother, saving his family with his pianoplaying and songs, and then trying to save little aaron on the island. hes so 100% good that its literally unbelievable.

yes he has that flaw that hes a junkie but even when he was in that ridiculous band Driveshaft he was the perfect junkie, it seems, who could always handle it, whereas it was his brother who was the getting sick selling shit loser junkie.

meaning charlie is so good that even dipping into the candy store doesnt really affect his angelic personality and boyish desire to save the world.

then somewhere the idea of baptism came up and hopefully it will work its way through future episodes because i thought it was pretty damn cheesy here and was merely a device to allow abadeezay a chance to prove that he is really truly a preacher and that wasnt something that he did just to smuggle dope.

but the biggest problem i had with the episode, which, believe it or not i liked, was charlie’s guitar. particularily his strings. when he was tuning his guitar on the rocks right next to the beach i wanted one of those strings to break. in the damp moisture of this tropical isle where in season one it would downpour without warning (unless you had the spidey senses of Locke) how is it that this guitar isnt warped and all of the strings work perfectly?

details myfriends details are what make good stories great stories and Lost is so close to being great that i would like some of these easilly fixable things to work their way out. for example, have charlie break a string and be forced to write a song without the high e string and make it a deep low somber song.

that to me would make this all believable. or in my case, more believable.

next to the girls inviting me to spend the night, requests for interviews are the most flattering… uh… flattery i could imagine.

lately a rash of college kids have asked me for interviews for their term papers.

im always curious how their professors feel about them writing papers about topics that the teachers probably dont know very much about.

be it for magazines, newspapers, or term papers, i try to keep it as real as i can.

rarely do i ever get to see the end result – the actual essay or paper, but Peter of the pgBlog posted his essay today as well as our unedited interview. go here for Peter’s essay and below you will see our interview.

1) How did you get into blogging? How did you even find out about it?

i was editing the closed captions at e! entertainment television networks in hollywood. an incredibly boring job. but one of the tools of the trade was a computer and the internet.

so during my two, 15 minute breaks, and during my hour lunch, many times i would write quickie little fantasy stories, or comment about something i heard in the hall or on tv. since most people were only writing maybe one thing a day – if that – i figured if i could knock out two or three things in a day then i was that much more worthwhile of a blog.

2) What made you choose Blogger over any other blogging website?

at the time (August, 2001) they were the only free one that all the other big people used. later they moved to moveable type and then wordpress, but im a loyal person and ive always had a very good relationship with the actual employees of Blogger. they read the busblog, link to it, and ive met a bunch of them at various events.

i also wanted to stay with Blogger to show people that you dont need anything fancy to have a halfway decent blog.

3) What do you think makes a good blog?

honesty isnt enough. you need style too. if i go to a blog and the person is super honest and has some sort of personality attatched to it then i’ll read on. a good blog also has to update every day, have pictures, be funny, be unique, and show the world their little zip code.

and if a blog cant do that, then somebody needs to get naked or set something on fire.

4) What’s your opinion on political comentary blogging compared to the journal type?

i read a lot of poltical blogs and journal types. i think that most political blogs are disingenious because they either show only one side “theyre bad – look how bad they are!” or they’ll pretend that their side has never done anything bad.

theyre also not very creative and when they do have pictures theyre dumb.

journal type are usually written by younger people and i like theirs better because theyre more honest and theres more freedom to change subjects or visual appearance, most of the time youre literaly in their bedrooms. political blogs dont have that sort of courage.

5) Why do you think blogging has become so popular?

– because people are naturally interested in other people
– because its so easy to get a blog up and running
– because everyone has a few friends
– because there are lots of people who can potentially get to your brilliance

6) Where do you see the future of blogging going?

more video
nakeder chicks
mo money mo money mo money

7) How do you think blogging has impacted the world?

blogging has become the real 4th Estate, and its just in time. my friend ken layne, whose former apartment i currently live in, warned, “this is the Internet, we can fact check your ass.”

it’s also shown how small this planet is. i never knew anything about canada until blogging, and i read you guys’s blogs and it made me believe that canada wasnt that different than the usa, and suddenly i wanted to visit to see the differences. without blogging i seriously doubt i would have ever gone there.

8) Are there any places you feel blogging has advanced too far?

in a way id say that it grew too fast for the average person, and definately faster than the average company. because it grew so fast it frightened Human Resource department heads and thats why you see all these bloggers getting fired for blogging. the bloggers knew they were just showing the world their private journal, but the HR depts didnt understand it and couldnt conceive why anyone would blog anything good – namely their real life.

9) Why do you think has been the cause of bloggins huge explosion in the
last few years?

– inexpensive computers
– free blogging software
– inexpensive high speed internet access
– the beauty of the human spirit
– inexpensive digital cameras
– 9/11 which spurred the “war bloggers” which have been the most publicized sector of the blogosphere.

it would have been interesting to see how much more blogging could have been if places like myspace hadnt shown up for people to say “here i am here i am” through pictures and stupid songs but what can you do.

oh canada + ryan_r + little kitchen