we ate morracain and then drank in a place that used to be a hospital but is now a squat. but not just a squat, a squat bar and lil restaurant.

i dont understand the whole deal but its what i said it is. and it made you feel like you were in bladerunner.

the dj spun crazy industrial trip hop which at times was mixed with smooth jazz but oftentimes mixed with jackhammers and white noise. in some places you have to shoot the dj, and in other cases you just have to bribe him, at this place i bought him a beer and pointed at the smooth jazz disc spinning and he got the message.

bicycle mark’s roommate is lebanese but seems even more worldly than that.

the bathroom at the squat bar was immaculate. i wondered who youd call to fix the wc if something got stuck in there, and youre just a squatter.

then john americablog asked can a sqatter squat someone elses squat?

but apparently there are rules among squatters and thats the second rule.

the first rule?

dont clog the head.

its 527am and im determined to wake up at a reasonable hour and check out some van gogh and rembrant, especially since this is the 400th birthday of my man.

im addicted to shawermas. tonight i got a late night one served with a pita, like a civilized person would want it.

so let me say a few things about this hotel. its swanky downstairs, and i like the room cuz its warm and its dark and theyve got this trippy revolving door that makes you feel happy.

the shower is good, the toilet sticks out of the wall like youre in a spaceship, the bed is fine etc

but if you have a do not disturb sign on your door handle why on earth would that make someone think that it would be ok to call you saying housekeeping would you like more towels?

what if miss amsterdam would have still been sleeping?

do not disturb should mean no knocks no calls no esp

i should run every company in the world.

look at the pretty pictures

maybe it has to do with the two liters of coke that im drinking and the fact that i keep going to sleep when the sun comes up and waking up at 2:30pm. at this rate i’ll never make it inside all those museums.

they gave me a card where i can go into pretty much all the museums in town. my question is, why cant these places be open at 4am where a guy can really sit down in front of those bad boys and truly study them?

also, i dont think you should allow yourself to be considered five star if you dont have a real fridge and or a microwave in your room. i stayed in the worst motel in oregon and it had a real fridge And a microwave. yes the floors were so scary i didnt walk anywhere without my slippers but there you have it.

the lobby here is beautiful and modern. they say the huge Nightwatch is a copy but thats not what i tell my visitors.

people watch soccer here. they stand out in the cold and watch it being shown in restaurants. wednesday night soccer. you dont see people standing outside on a cold chicago spring night watching baseball. or basketball. so props.

i also like the flag of this city. its red and black and has three x’s on it.

it looks like a pirate flag. like someone saying our flag is a treasure map and we have three treasures here. sex is legal, drugs are legal, and our art is better.

i like the windy streets but i dont understand them. how did they get that way? did people build ten feet of street and then got bored of making it go straight? was it to make invading armys confused? whatever it is i like it. i feel like im on the stage of a shakespeare play.

someone offered me hash and i said, “Macbeth shall never vanquished be
until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him.”

something is giving me munchies like crazy and if i ever moved here i would open up a Pink Dot because it’s not all that huge of a town so all youd need is three to cover the whole place. and the streets are empty at night pretty much so let people with munchies call up and ask for snacks and charge em for it.

let me tell you how much i love the world we live in.

theres a thing called peer to peer sharing.

im a subscriber to sirius sat radio. i paid for the whole year at one pop. but its only in my car radio. so i was sad that i was going to miss the howard stern show while i was on this trip.

well some very nice person started sharing yesterdays show and the day befores show. so i must say that its quite a bonus to be able to be here in this fair city And get to listen to howard late at night while watching the dutch broadcast of the olympics.

my bicycle must be freezing out there.

if you ever find yourself on a rainy day watching the documentary on woody allen’s european jazz tour “wild man blues” i hightly recommend it.

finally we see what the woodman saw in soon-yi, the same thing i saw in the teens when i was in that phase. to have a perky young woman guide you around the dark twisty alleys of old europe is a treat in itself. and sometimes i think the youngsters seek out such relationships and sometimes i think it is a blessing.

we watch as woody isnt at all taking advantage of his former step daughter and now wife, if anything we see her care for him in a manner that not only seems appealing but warranted. woody stumbles around the huge italian suite like mr maggoo having no idea where the indoor pool is or his bedroom for that matter.

i bring this up because in the olden days i had a very nice traveling companion who would do good things for us like keep me out of trouble, most of which started with my mouth. while traveling my heart opens and i end up talking to everyone. chris can tell you how a simple train ride from paris to venice ends up in an all night party with the train conductor, an aspiring model and two guitarists, where in order to get our own couchette i am enlisted to put pillowcases on pillows(!) for twenty minutes.

ashley however was the best one for me on the road as she was protective and jealous, wanting all atention and conversation to revolve around her, thus when strangers ended up talking with me for more than five minutes she would either drag me off somewhere suddenly or blatantly pout thus ending all conversations. this would keep me out of trouble. what trouble? the trouble of meeting all walks of life and the parties that they were to invite us to. the trouble of ending up drunk within an hour in a foregin land with a foreign party with a forgeign map and no phone on the first night of vacation.

or in a foreign coffee shop despite making the promise that i wouldnt go to one for fear of coming across as just another american tourist doing the typical ugly american things. i didnt know it was a coffee shop. it looked like a nice bar. and all i wanted was a pepsi.

she asked me if id like it in the bottle with a straw and i said yes. she had flat pumas, fishnets, a ridiculous miniskirt that just flopped around the hips and a pirate shirt and a nametag that had lots of a’s in it.

previously i had met some australians at a bar who had offerred me a half pot half tobacco cigarrette puff and i said nah but drank with them because they were singing and i asked them if they knew any pogues songs and they knew pretty much all of them starting with “south australia” which we sang maybe ten times. it got annoying after the third time but by the fifth time i had knocked back enough rums that i was begining to understand the words.

the general rule of thumb is you dont want to be caught in the red light district after dark but i woke up at one of the australians friends rooms. we both had our clothes on and one hand was on her ass and one hand was under the pillow that she was sleeping on. it was three am. who was this girl i thought. cute. not super cute but cute enough. what had i said to her? was that my laker hat on her blonde head?

she spoke the crazy language that i hear a lot in this city. gotta give em props for sticking with that language. whatever it is. its pretty. she whispered and followed me into the hall speaking the nice words and holding my hand.

i told her that i was hungry and heading home. and she said no no. red light district. how fucked up would it be if the only words you knew in english were no and red light district. she was saying this because in order to get to my hotel id have to walk through the famous area known for its legal prositution and illegal drug dealing and pimping.

i was hoping that it would also be famous for late night eateries, particularily something chinese. as i walked through the mazelike tiny alleyways i was tempted to smell my fingers to see if they could refresh my memory but its so cold here right now, if you remove your hands from your coat they will break right off. im getting gloves and a coat tomorrow. serious.

i ended up settling for a shawerma served not in a pita but in a french roll with french fries. a rasta man approached me as the dude was fixing my dinner and asked me if i wanted any e i said no thank you. coke? no thank you. a fat joint for a euro? uh.

and they say you shouldnt get weed from people you dont know because they might lace it with something and i always thought why on earth would people spend extra money and time to put more drugs in your drugs?

and now it’s 641am and i wish i had my teenage accompliss because she would have kept me out of trouble or she could have told me what had happened last night, but mostly she wouldnt have allowed me to pass out whenever it was that i passed out because now im up at 642, off schedule and this is how jet lag can get you.

tomorrow (wednesday) im meeting adam from sliceny, john from americablog, alice from finslippy, mark from bicyclemark and los angeles blogger mr brian flemming at Cafe Americain, at the American Hotel, Leidseplein 28 at 4:20pm so if youre in town stop by and say hola or holla or whatever it is that they say here.

the magical little place in my apartment that used to be what emmanuelle called the makeout room back in the day. when shira got this place she put bookshelves in it, and when ken layne had this place he put a laptop on one of the shelves, and when i moved here five years ago i put a full blown computer in it and here i write you and im avoiding something i have to write for the austin chronicle and im avoiding telling you about last night

because when i write about it it will be over and i dont ever want it to be over but today is presidents day and honest abe would write it and george washington would write about it and then chop down a cherry tree so here goes.

yesterday i picked up my true love at shiras house and we drove to burbank to Fry’s Electronics to get her a solar generator for her ipod and her other devices when she goes to deepest darkest africa next week. we also went there to get me a power converter for when i go to deepest darkest amsterdam today.

because she had been shopping for clothes that would be easy to wash up against rocks she was tired of roaming ill-marked aisles and she had a little freakout but the reason shes my truest is because she and i know how to handle each other when we’re freaking out. heres my trick: whisper. for when you whisper the other person has to come closer to you to hear you and when she gets closer i kiss her cheek.

she no longer has those sorts of feelings for me but we hold hands and last night we went to a romantical italian place in south pasedena whose portions were large but whose service was so bad that i only left a 16% tip. but we had red wine and pasta and held hands as the candles flickered and she wept a little and i said its ok baby its ok.

then we drove home on the twisty turny 110 to the hollywood freeway and i started a roaring fire and we cuddled up under blankets and i went through my tv showing her matisyahu on letterman, some weirdo piano playing crazy man on visiting with huell houser, campus ladies my favorite new tv show, various daily show episodes, and angelina jolie talking about the motherland.

then we adjourned to my bedroom and cuddled and talked until 3:30am and i finally had to tell her to hush cuz i was falling asleep and i didnt want her to think i wasnt listening. and we held each other and slept all twisted and it was just like the olden days when we had done that for years after years after years except this time it didnt begin and end with a good olde fashioned romp.

little tone kept poking her in the back because he was sure he knew this lass but fortunately she didnt notice or was bothered because she backed up into it and stayed there until the phone woke us up in the morn because my phone has a nasty habit of ringing off the hook.

it was very sweet last night and it was even sweeter this morn as i told her that i didnt care that she didnt love me as much as i loved her because if she had we’d be like lots of our friends and shed be knocked up or would had squeezed one out and that little angel would have been awake by now and we would have to run around after him or her and she wouldnt be on her way to africa and i wouldnt be on my way to europe.

so i told her that if something happens to her in africa and she sees the light and chooses to come back to me that we can adopt one of those who already knows how to fix its own breakfast and hopefully will be so grateful not to be where it once was that it will keep quiet until poppy says its ok to be a kid and scream and yell and try to ride its big wheel around our tiny apartment.

she said tony im never going to marry you. and i said shhh shhh baby youre delirious, shhhhh.

ive learned never to take no for an answer. all no is is “im not there yet.” and the key word is yet. or its the Lord saying, dude as soon as you get off her ive got two laker girls im dying to fix you up with. two, fool!

but love is blind, and dumb and deaf, and even though this girl has been saying no i mean not yet for years and years its not like i havent met the lord halfway by accepting clipper girls. maybe i dont want the laker girls because then i will marry one and that would mean that this chapter of my life would be over and i dont want it to be over because it was the longest and the weirdest and the one that i loved the most because the communication was almost espish mostly because of the whisper trick and dozens more like it.

i just walked in on her in the shower to get one last look.

and normally i have no idea why anyone would be jealous of anything about me, but if you just saw what i just saw you would be hella jealous.

above are africans who put leaves in their headbands for good luck. but as a Christian i will be praying for her every night, and i invite you all to do the same with me.

Rachel asks, If you could relive one memory all over again, which would it be, and why?

many moons ago when i was a senior at ucsb i had a love hate relationship with the editor-in-chief of the college paper, the daily nexus. he hated me and i loved me.

we had run against each other for the top job and i lost by one vote. my entire platform was “i may not be the best, but im better than that jackass.” for some reason he chose to take it deeply personal and never chose to forgive me. he even made me interview for the job that i would have easily gotten if i had never ran for EIC, that of the Arts & Entertainment Editor.

a job that i got after the interview.

i had one rule as the Editor of the arts desk: get your story in on time, and if youre late not only will it not run but you cant write anything for Arts for one week. so basically if youre late youre blackballed for two weeks.

late stories were the only thing that slowed up our incredibly powerful machine and with a rule like that i was able to lay things out creatively with my assistant editor and photo editor and illustration editor, and i was able to produce kickass sections.

one day the EIC asked to review something and he was late. so i reminded him about my only rule and he wanted to bicker and fight with me but i said dude if there are exceptions to the rule then my section will fall apart and it will be your fault. so no you cant review Sinband’s comedy stylings next week and we cant run your movie review about the Neverending Story Part II this week.

i was fired that night.

a few months later i snuck into the office to ask his best friend, pat whalen, brother of Tsar singer jeff, if my sections had been entered into CIPA, the california intercollegiate press association awards, a competition that we at the nexus cared alot about. he said no. i asked him if it was too late to get my stuff entered. he said if we do it by tomorrow you’ll be in.

so pat, god bless him, convinced the eic to enter my stuff over my assistant editor’s entry on the grounds that he was a junior and would have a chance the following year.

the nexus had never won Best Arts in california. and a few months later i attended the awards with the rest of my friends and cohorts in sacramento. i was just falling in love with jeanine. we all wore dresses to the award ceremony, as was our semi-rude tradition. and that night i won best arts editor with the thunderous applause of my coworkers who knew the drama well and with pat whalen yelling “irony of ironies!”

i would relive that memory because my two loves: editing and romantic love were at its peak. and the only thing i would change is id have made my dress a little shorter cuz i never looked that fit again.

Mimi asks when are you coming to savannah?

my grandparents on my mother’s side lived in fort valley georgia for a very long time. and i would like to see mrs bunny mcintosh in her natural environment. so yes i would like to visit the red clay hills of georgia again soon and party with some southern belles and sweet peaches.

if i had my way id travel everywhere that i was welcomed.

erin asks If you were the person who made up the fortune cookie fortunes, what would you write?

i’d write things like, “youre not fat” “youre smarter than you think” “youre not insane” “more people love you than you know” or “you should play with yourself more”

Debbie asks, Vanilla, Chocolate or Strawberry?

chocolate chocolate chocolate

Josh Kinniard asks, Where do you see you taking yourself in the future, do you feel a necessity to give something to the world and if you do what does this consist of and what are the prerequisite/s, do you ever question your own justifications, how many blog characters do you have and if you choose not to answer any of these questions will you justify that decision with an explaination and/or acknowledge the audience if anything answered is untrue?

even though i believe we have free will, i dont think that in my life at least, that i have been the master of my own destiny. so im willing to go whereever this road is leading and i will call bullshit on certain roadside attractions but i dont feel like im in total control of everything that crosses my path.

i feel a necessity to give everything to the world, meaning all of my thoughts, all of my lessons that ive learned, all of the advice that might be helpful to others, all of the respect that people deserve, and all of the criticism that others havent yet heard.

even though my blog states that “nothing in here is true” i dont feel like ive used it as a sheild or a crutch. rarely will you hear me cop out with that line. usually if i say it, its as a preface before i write something truly true that nobody would believe.

for example, i have had sexual relations with some celebrities. and i am not handsome, rich, powerful, or attractive. therefore if im going to write something about that experience i will start it off by saying… “because nothing in here is true i can tell you that last night i…”

the tagline then becomes a shield for the young lady who when asked if she was indeed with me can say, “you know nothing in his blog is true. lets go to kitsons.”

Fred asks Gay Marriage? Yes or No?

if gays cant get married then nobody should be allowed to get married.

joe asks, will you smoke copius amounts of… nahh… in amster…nahh.

i live in a city where the highest quality of nahh flows through endlessly. i didnt quit smoking it because i was bored or nervous or paranoid or losing my job. i quit because it didnt work on me any more. ive been to holland before. ive tried their best shit and their best shit is as good as our best shit. which means it wont work on me.

if the cannibis cup wants me as a judge id be perfect because i could smoke all day and never get high and id be able to tell you which tasted good, which smelled good, which gave me a headache, and which sorta got me high.

if someone approaches me and says, tony come on, smoke this its really different than anything youve ever had then maybe i will sample it because i wouldnt want to be rude, but no im not going to go out of my way to give myself a headache or make myself drowsy doing something that i know wont send me to that “better” place like it once did.

i now get high off life. and beer. and hot babes.

JaG asks, What are we going to do in Amsterdam next week?

eat drink and be merry.

Jack Bog asks, Shaved or unshaved?

if a lady shaves, fine. if she doesnt, fine. even though im 113 yrs old i still feel like im 17 aka just lucky to be there. so i couldnt care less whats going on down there as long as its there for me.

if your question is am i shaved or unshaved… recently i had a young lady ask me to shave down there and i told her that me and my nuts have a long standing agreement – i wont put sharp objects near it as long as it never goes on strike when i need it most.

never have we failed on our ends of the bargain for the exception of one night when i was on e and lil tone tapped out despite the handiwork being performed by the young nude japanese lass. but there will be no scissors blades or chemicals near the family jewels. if that means i miss out on some action then i guess i will have to make due with the other 3.6 million runway models of los angeles.

jessica asks, do you ever see yourself getting married?

yes, with five or six open minded ladies just like you.

it just dawned on me that i will be jetting off the day after tomorrow so lets try to get things planned for our meetup(s).

monday is a travel day and tuesday i will either be hung over jet lagged or bum rushed by the poets priests and politicians. so lets say on wednesday, humpday, there will be an official buzznet busblog blogger meetup at the De Bierkoning which is at Paleisstraat 125, 1012 RK Amsterdam. they claim to have one of the largest selections of beer in the world at over 750 beers, so i figure thats a good place to start a party. 8pm

because i have heard tell that some europeans would like to travel to amsterdam to meet me, we should also have a meet up on Saturday night as well.

so on Saturday lets meet at ‘t Arendsnest home of 350 dutch beers. people talk shit about most dutch beers but those are people who usually order Bud at TGIF. when im in a foreign land i like to taste the foreign brews. ‘t Arendsnest is at Herengracht 90, 1015BS, Amsterdam. 8pm.

if youre going to be at either of these events, please rsvp to me at tony at buzznet dot com so i can know to be somewhere else if no one can make one of these.

also be warned, i can drink.

know two things about me, i went to college at ucsb, the university of isla vista. and my hero is mr charles bukowski.

i didnt stop smoking pot because of any moral or social or legal reasons, i quit because it stopped working on me, so i wont be bothering myself with that nonesense. therefore if you are meeting me at a pub get ready to drink because if there are 350 dutch brews in the hizzie im gonna want to come back home with a greater understanding of how dutch beer diffrenciates from the rest of the worlds’ brews.

if for some reason you cant keep up with me and you have the urge to hurl, please dont be embarrassed, let nature take its course, just please dont expunge on me. and if youre going to kiss me after your little accident please make sure to eat a mint first. my pallet is quite sensitive.

tonight im hosting a party for my longest lasting girlfriend. ms christina spurnikova, pictured. she and i were together for almost five years. because she has a heart of gold and ideals that are like very few others she is going to move to africa to volunteer with the Peace Corps.

she was accepted a few months ago and theyre shipping her out in a matter of weeks, so she came down to LA to say goodbye to her friends here as she will be in Uganda for two and a half years.

ms spurnikova taught me so much i cant even scratch the surface in this post. but here are a few bulletpoints. she taught me to forget any ideas i had about bodyshapes eyecolors or hairstyles. she taught me how to see peoples hearts. she taught me how to believe in my ideals and not think that they were silly. she taught me how to kiss all night and she also taught me how to hold hands in every situation.

we went to europe twice, we went to every mall in northern california, we lived in three different apartments, we volunteered for various causes, we had very high highs and not many lows at all.

in fact it was with her that i had some of my deepest spiritual moments including the time that i read the new testament and decided that the story of the rich prince was something i should embrace and i sold all of my shit and i hit the road to see where the Lord would take me. he took me here to LA and i ended up making more money and having more success than i ever expected even though all i applied for were $10 an hour jobs.

i started blogging because of her, i started businesses because of her, i grew up because of her. i cannot imagine a better ambassador for what America could be like than her, so americans, consider yourself well represented.

there might be a time soon where i will ask you to chip in to help buy her some supplies or to help her fund small projects in africa. i hope that you will join me in sharing some of our riches with the very poor of the dark continent.

tonight we will drink in santa monica with her friends and tomorrow we will shop at home depot and in a few weeks she will be half way around the world and i will miss her dearly.

if there are soul mates, she is mine. even if she wants to pretend that im not hers. no one said soul mates have to agree on every little detail.

unrelated: matt good invited me to blog with him and two others at thought mechanics and i said oui

was a fella named ev who sold his three and a half year old company, Blogger, to Google and got to announce it live from the blogoshpere in a packed crowd of hipsters and nerds in an overflow event on a sidestreet in Chinatown.

wanna know how cool ev is?

motherfucker’s sitting three chairs over from me, theres hundreds of people looking at him, but they are slightly distracted by another member of the panel who’s discussing the world of blogging. the attention comes back to Ev and he says, “oh, can someone put my blog on the screen again please, im sorry.”

fucker had gotten a call on his cellphone, but, being the gentleman didn’t answer it. instead, he checked his email via the wireless network that was in the building, updated his blog live and linked to the silconvalley.com column that broke the story that Google was buying Pyra Labs, the San Fransisco company behind Blogger.

and then he told us.

everyone cheered, as Ev was answering what was announced to be the last question of the two hour discussion that included Doc Searls, Heather from the Rabbit blog, Boing Boing’s founder Mark Frauenfelder, the Reverse Cowgirl Susannah Breslin, and yours truly who didn’t say fuck even once.

that’s the only reason that i can figure that the los angeles times reporter who was assigned to cover the Live from the Blogoshpere story chose to interview me directly after the incredibly wonderful event, instead of talking to the only person in the house who has suddenly become a millionaire and a validated success right before our eyes.

while wearing a blogger tshirt.

while looking reportedly so cute that my ex, chris, and my laywer giggled the whole night and snapped picture after picture of him and blushed and covered their mouths with their hands.

It was the coolest culmination and synchronicity, wirelessness, and instantaneous publishing.
– evan williams2/16/03 1:28pm

why is that quote on the busblog and not in today’s sunday la times? and why isn’t it on latimes.com?

la times got to read Dan Gilmore’s scoop before it even went to press! they were in the house! the story was there. the founder of the company was there. lots of other sources were there too. i would imagine that the la times had a camera and were taking pictures of the event, including when the founder made his grand announcement on this, his first trip to Los Angeles.

“see what happens when you come to LA,” i shouted in the microphone a few seconds after he broke the news to us all.

if you want to know why Google bought Blogger look no further than this very story.

Dan Gilmore published his scoop at 7:41pm on his blog, Ev linked to it on his blog at 9:10pm, metafilter published the link to Gilmore’s story at 10:08pm, followed by Ken Layne, and then Azeem Azhar, Rick Bruner, Henry Copeland, Anil Dash, Nick Denton, Jeff Jarvis, Shelley Powers, Mitch Ratcliffe, Emmanuelle Richard, Matt Webb, Slashdot, and even Chinese bloggers.

Still, because no major news source other than the SJ Mercury (who Gilmore writes for) has published the story, Google’s (beta) News page only ranks it as the number 2 result, even though it’s own data says that the Merc’s story is fresher than the link that is getting the #1 return.

The value of Blogger to Google is, if Google had a faster access to blogs, it would have seen all the activity (above) pointing to Gilmore’s blog, and to the Merc article, and to Ev’s page and would have basically figured out that it’s news.

Right now, even though the humans running it know that it’s news, their own computers don’t even know that it is happening.

So what’s the LA Times’ excuse?

They were there.

And so was MC Brown who takes wonderful pictures, except when theyre of me.

Thanks to Michael August Pusateri who took a great picture of me (above, speaking on the panel) feeling on top of the world, stoked to finally meet so many people who i admire and who’s blogs i read.

Thanks to everyone who were nice enough to come up and said hi to me, thanks to the nice ladies who invited me to speak with such excellent and smart adults, and thanks for my pals for eating slippery shrimp before and getting drunk with me after.

It was a night i wont soon forget.

Doc Searls