full weekend. too full to write

coulter reading

friday i MCed the SW Lauden Replacements-inspired mystery novel short story collection

did i know what i was doing? do i ever?

most of life is being on time.

the rest is being black and proud.

i was incredible. the writers/readers were too.

we even had a guy who skyped in from Scotland to read.

turned out it was his idea, he got the book deal, and it wouldnta happened without him.

also his story was great.

afterwards some of our friends played replacements songs and it was beautiful

weird thing about my friends: we all love the Replacements soooooo much, but for some reason it’s like an unspoken rule that you dont cover them you dont sing them at hootenannys and you dont really even talk about them very much

but when this book came out i guess a few of them were all, lets learn some tunes and rock that shit

it was dylan, greg and marko

marko was a local santa barbara teen who stumbled across our friends and befriended them

he placed bass in Popsicko which was fronted by Keith Brown (RIP) who went to high school with coulter, greg, and dan

he said something really nice at the beginning, he said, a lot of these guys have known each other since freshman year of college

and a few have known each other since high school so it’s really great to be around them

because these songs mean so much to all of them.

so true. so very true.

afterwards i got a few tacos at a taco stand, then ubered for a while.

it was a good weekend.

i’ll figure it out

kennyi always do

time takes time.

been sending emails back and forth with Uber for like a month.

at USC they have this special deal with Uber that im sure ive talked about. i like it because it’s short rides, everyones nice,

and best of all they are out there waiting for you right away because

a) kids are alright
b) kids understand ubes
c) they’ll get charged $5 if they’re not there in two minutes

when the payout is right you can make decent money and every now and then one of the people at USC wants a Select ride and there you go off into the night.

the trouble with Ubes is they outsource their email support to a dark dark place — it could be all a computer program out in Westworld for all i know because all the responses are canned and they hate being specific about you

finally today i either got super lucky or said the magic words but i got someone who actually understood what i was trying to say and bingo i got my money.

persistence. clarity of message. asking for what you want.

next time i’ll ask for some pre-IPO shares

do i care that Trump is hiring racists

GOP

and anti semites and homophobes and liars and haters and nogoodnicks

and an attorney general who hates weed

and has a VP who thinks you can electrocute the gay outta people

and kids who think they belong in meetings with japanese political leaders

and omg the head of breitbart “news”?

no. i dont care.

the bible says, clearly, and repeatedly,

“doth not give two shits about thou earth. only care about Paradise.”

because the Lord saw the future, and it involved a selfie stick, a whole bunch of people who look like they were at the same family reunion, all pretending that theyre representing the most diverse country in the world

while pretending global warming doesnt exist

while pretending that weed kills

while pretending that their odd ways of no taxes and heavy spending on the military

wont sink this economy  like it did with bush, bush, and reagan.

let the meek inherit the earth, homeboy.

who are the meek?

youre looking at em.

drove around USC last night because of a bonus

logicand at first i thought they were paying me right but when i got home i saw that they werent.

i wrote them and they just lied and lied and lied.

so today i showed them that they were wrong and i told them that if they didnt fix it i was going to write to my local newspaper.

but in reality if they are wrong i am going to write to the Massachusetts lawyer who successfully sued them in a class action suit.

this would also be a class action suit because im sure it affects every driver who picks up passengers at USC after 7pm.

i used to say that if i had to do it all over again i would be a guitar player because everyone loves guitarist. but thats not entirely true.

now i say if i had to do it all over again i would be a lawyer

not because everyone loves lawyers but because everyone at least respects lawyers and are forced to pay attention to them if they send you a letter.

it sucks that life is like that but whatever, it is what it is, as they say.

tomorrow i am going to MC a book reading.

my life is over.

The Frogtown Serenaders debuted last night at the Mint in Hollywood

Os and Greg

and they were fantastic.

Mr. Hepburn and I had front row seats in part because Mr. Oswald J. Tyler had not sang in front of a live audience since Heather’s wedding

and it’s always great to hear Greg play any sort of guitar, even the acoustical.

this band is a super group of sorts which only is happening because Greg has parted ways with Vaude and the Villians, which was and is a great group, but as a fan, when theres 20 people on stage its hard to hear the rhythm guitarist.

so i was very grateful to see this new combo which contains the trumpet (or is it a coronet) and banjo dual attack of soloists.

this picture also doesnt show off their 24-year-old singer lady whose name escapes me but she was as talented as she is beautiful

even her parents were in the audience last night — awwwww – because they heard about Os

awwwwwwwwww

they play again in a couple of weeks at a Cubs bar in DTLA so i will have better video and pictures from that gig.

last night i just wanted to get wasted because of sads from politics.

whaaaaaa.

and when the planet hit the sun, i saw the face of allison

 mose allison
The Pixies‘ album “Bossanova” came out when I was at UCSB. At the time I was the entertainment editor of the world famous Daily Nexus so I assigned myself an interview with Pixies bassist Kim Deal. She was the sweetest, funniest, most open person I ever interviewed (next to Mojo Nixon – but he was kind of a cartoon). Kim was right there with me. AKA hyper and down for whatever.
 
Among many many things, I asked her about the barely one-minute long song “Allison” from the new record.
I told her I loved the music but I had zero idea what the lyrics meant. Who was this Allison? And what maniac writes a pop song about a girl named Allison after Elvis Costello pretty much wrote the greatest tune ever about a girl named Allison.
 
And Kim was all, “yes he did. But ah-ha! Ours is not about a girl. Ours is sorta about this jazz pianist Mose Allison.” I was like Kim Deal you’re blowing my damn mind. She said, you’re welcome.
 
Today Mose Allison died.

Here’s the Pixies song that’s sorta about him:

today is Licensed to Ill’s birthday, it’s 30

licensed to ill

i dont remember if i was still working at the record store or selling car radios at federated group

but i do know that once i did start selling stereos there was no better tape to demonstrate speakers

especially subwoofers than

“slow and low”

(white castle fries only come in one size).

anniversaries like this can make some feel old. but it makes me feel grateful.

im glad i was of age to see this record become the biggest debut ever for a trio or a group or a hip hop group or someone.

but it was also fascinating to watch this brand of rap evolve from Run DMC to LL to this.

and it was so obvious right away how much of an improvement it was to integrate the bells of DMC, the aggressiveness of LL with the led zeppelin and Mr Ed samples and just straight up tomfoolery to make this record

and live: all they did was run around the stage spraying budweiser cans on each other and the fans and sliding around in their adidases.

im so grateful i got to see their first show at the Paladium. im so glad i got to see them in college graduate to Pauls Boutique and then Check Your Head

and what a small world that i was in Atwater Village when they were in Atwater recording Ill Communication.

but it all started with the three bad brothers you know so well.

and they were so so def right from the jump.

happy birthday baby

kristin pony is gonna be a mom

kristin ponyold school busblog readers will know that pretty face. it’s the oklahoma blogger turned lawyer kristin pony who became internet famous many moons ago when she and her sister created the Mad Pony blog.

over the years we have seen kristin go from college to the pros,

shes changed jobs,

gotten married

and now look, she’s producing a nice young blogger,

who she tells me loves mexican food and hot showers.

kristin and i first met at SXSW (back when it was cool) and she did the sweetest thing, she drove all the way down in her convertible.

and one thing i have always been surprised about when meeting people from the blogosphere:

theyre usually prettier than their pictures and even nicer.

kristin is no exception to that rule.

she tells me that one of the boys’ grampas is a Cub fan and sent the little sprout a ton of Cubs gear so he’s got that going for him, which is nice.

will he ride horses like his momma and his aunt?

will he go to school at Norman or OKC?

so many questions surround this child who has yet to see his first Video Music Award show.

what we know is he will be smart and lovely and well behaved. and his first words will probably be Boomer Sooner.

either way, congratulations to kristin, one of the busblog’s all time favorite people.

no need to name him Tony.

Barack Hussein will be quite all right.