dear history, this week there were terrible floods in Houston

one of the nice things about this blog is you can go back in the archives and see what was going on

weirdly i hardly ever go back in time.

but for posterity sake, heres how i feel about this flood: it makes me cry. all of it.

thousands and thousands of people. tens of thousands. maybe hundreds of thousands, have lost everything.

most of whom don’t have flood insurance.

this hurricane that brought the 4-5 feet of rain dumped on Texas which apparently has very few zoning regulations so businesses can do whatever.

the problem with that is a chemical factory was able to be built close to regular homes and today the flooding compromised the factory and it exploded.

the last time something like that happened the Texas government did precisely the wrong thing. instead of saying no you cant build dangerous factories next to regular homes, they said factories no longer have to tell reporters or the public what chemicals are in their factories.

all if it is so sad.

i love living in the Land of the Free, but this disaster shows why most of the logical states have zoning laws and regulations to PROTECT the people from businesses doing things willy nilly all in the name of profit.

also we’re not the land of the free if women don’t have total dominion over their body.

but thats another story.

are there things in my life i fucking hate? you betcha.

but theres also parts that i fucking love.

after writing a couple of years of dark poetry in college i realized that looking at the negative sad stupid parts of life is easy.

anyone could do it.

worrying about dying, getting fired, getting shot, getting cancer, getting fat,

is also super easy, reactionary, less-than-superior.

not what we were meant to do here.

life is a miracle.

you can believe in God or not, it doesn’t matter. being alive makes no sense.

it’s magic.

for a very short period of time we get to be the embodiment of that magic.

so what are you going to do with that sliver in history?

fret?

fuck no.

obsess over the deadends and cockblocking in this giant ass maze called life

or nah?

consider me vice president of nah.

drove 100 miles yesterday for Lyft n Uber

first ride was right close to my work. two hollywood producers from up north. they didn’t know movies. it was weird.

the one guy kept asking the other guy “who is that?” and they were talking about Famous people!

we were speeding across town to go from one fancy hotel to another.

i mighta blown my tip when, while driving north on La Brea, one of the dudes asks, “so we’re taking side streets?”

i said, “gotta take them to get to the freeway, but yes.”

it came across snotty i think. am i defensive about my routes? maybe. sometimes.

but i did follow up by asking, “is there a way you wanna go?” he said no. he was just asking.

after that i saw that i was in an area that Uber was giving us a 1.7x bonus.

i was downtown where you have to be careful because a lot of times people are just going 5-6 blocks and its annoying because you have to wait for them and the roads are packed and youre double parked and ughhh.

but at 1.7x i figured i would head over to the train station and see if i could get a long ride from there because often people get off the train and have to go to places where there isnt a train station like Santa Monica or Manhattan Beach or Pasadena.

got over there and immediately got a ping. and whattya know it was a Select ride! thank you Lord!

ended up being a really good kid who had some birth defect or learning disability. he sounded like Rain Man a little.

he sat in the front seat which is extremely rare for Uber Select. i hit the app and saw he was going way out over to the Wesssside. $40 ride at least for me, probably $60 for him.

i said, this is Select, you know that right? he said yep.

and we were off.

while talking it became obvious that his parents were very rich doctors and he regularily takes the train East to volunteer at a hospital.

which ward did you work at today? i asked

The Burn Unit he said.

dude, youre going straight to Heaven.

i know, he laughed.

i was all, do you go there often? he said every Monday Wednesday and Fridays. so i told him i would see him on Wednesday at the same time.

he was all, ok!

my goal every week is $200 as that is what my car costs when all is said and done. if i could make $120 of that on one passenger, i could probably hit $300 every week.

best laid plans tho so relax.

so there i was at UCLA pretty happy with myself. i texted amber to see what she had planned for the night. maybe we would get some grub somewhere.

when ping i got a call from the center of UCLA. usually i would cancel that because those rides are shorter than DTLA ones.

turned out this woman wanted to go to Rancho PV, which is damn near long beach. 22 mile ride.

but it was Uber X at only 1.3. I told amber i wouldnt be home till 10pm and id be exhausted from doing the 10 twice and now the 405 there and the 110 to get home.

she is always a good sport so she said there will be food when i got home.

for some reason traffic was a dream and i did the whole thing in no time and got home at 9:30p

amber had told me not to go to fast food, that there would be food waiting so when i got home and there wasnt

i was mad.

here i had this super profitable day driving, traffic was amazing, a half naked babe was cooking for me and all i could feel was unfulfilled entitlement.

it made me upset that i was mad because it reminded me of people who would get mad even though others were doing nice things for them.

i dont wanna be that guy.

so i took a walk to get her some milk that she needed for the mashed potatoes and apologized profusely for being a jerk.

its weird how automatic emotions can filter up.

i got emotional thinking about how i am not 100 per cent in control of my feelings all the time and sometimes they are dark.

she said you are super kind, you were not mean, you have nothing to apologize about.

but i knew what was inside and it reminded me of fellow Libra Jimmy Carter who told Playboy that a sin in your heart is just as bad as a sin you take action on.

and of course i agree with the president.

shout out to Funky Cold Mark Medina who is heading to the Warriors

One of the funnest parts of overseeing the blogs at the LAT way back in the day was our sports blogs.

the Lakers Blog was one of the first blogs at the Times and it was already a monster before I ever got there.

i was able to convince LA’s best Dodger blogger to blog for us, and i was able to do it without costing the paper a lot of money (because we had just gotten rid of some salary elsewhere).

but when ESPN poached the Kam Bros I was suddenly lost because i never expected them to leave us.

I tried everything in the book to convince them to stay saying things like, “radio isn’t where intellectuals go, it’s where washed up journalists and jocks go. You are both young, pretty, full of life, do you really want Bill from Downey to tell you that he thinks Kobe should pass the rock all day?”

it didn’t work, The Sports Leader ganked the brothers and I had a giant hole to fill.

at first I decided to replace them American Idol style by having 4-5 contenders take over the blog, one applicant per week, and at the end of the trial period we let the readers vote.

but life is rarely that exciting. so we interviewed this guy from that paper and this other dude from this other paper. they were fine.

but Mark Medina had something special that i liked: he was young, totally down for Whatever, and somehow it came up that he lived in El Segundo so he could be close to the Lakers and Clippers practice facilities.

i was all, this is the sort of insane fan/pro that i need to write 3-4 blog posts a day.

so we hired him and expected the worst because the Kams totally dominated the Lakers blogosphere up until that point.

and part of their popularity was the fact that they’d get 100s of comments a day. Could Mark mix it up in the comments AND go to practices AND interview the players AND cut videos AND go to all the games AND give me half or 3/4ths the traffic that the Kams did?

weirdly he Could!

in a total shocker, many of the readers did not follow the Kams to ESPN, they stayed loyal, for reasons I still don’t know (habit maybe), with the Times.

people asked, is Mark really that good of a writer? what’s his secret?

and maybe the secret was the readers saw what I saw: Funky Cold truly loved the game, was earnest, wasn’t full of shit, and was personable.

and for two years straight his numbers were consistent with the kings, the Kams.

Mark was so friendly that when Ron Artest (aka Metta World Peace) first retired from the Lakers he gave a shout out to Funky Cold.

Today Mark announced that the San Jose Mercury is hiring him to cover the world champion Warriors.

Last night he called me to tell me he was going to announce it all today. He thanked me for the help I gave him at the Times.

But the truth is, he wrote everything, he did 60+ hour work weeks, he studied film, he worked as hard as anyone out there.

I am Very happy for him. Boring as that team will be to cover, at least he will get to go to a few more postseason games than if he was stuck covering the Lakers.

Give em hell Mark!

what if we actually do live forever

what if the world is a vampire

what if the caged bird doesn’t know why its singing

what if no one is really reading anything that we tap tap type except for the angels

what if the angels every once in a while see God skateboarding on the half pipe and he glides over to them

and says whats going on

and what if they say have you read the busblog in a while

and he goes, actually no, THAT DUDE IS THE SAME AS HE WAS BACK IN 2004

and what if the angels are all, in a way yes

but in another way, nope

and what if God is all, are you disagreeing with the man upstairs?

and what if the angels are like, uh.

the best thing about angels is theyre like George Washington:

they love cutting down cherry trees

their favorite thing is wooden teeth

and they cannot tell a lie, like ever.

which is why God loves them so much because they try to keep it in but their cheeks get red

and their wings flutter

and their robes get all tangled in the wind

as they fly away

higher

and higher

while saying

noooooooooooooooooooooope

clutching their harps.

benz is in the shop so i took the bus home from work, AMA

it was fine.

hour and change but it felt like nothing.

bus wasn’t super packed, subway was quick. if the cubs weren’t playing i woulda gotten off on santa monica and walked the rest

also my phone battery was dying and it was playing me trumps speech from Zona.

i was texting with my mom when it died completely.

magnets, how do they work?

one thing you should know about me, theres very little that will get me depressed, but there are a few.

today my dealer told me to fix my car will cost $700.

it gets me sad bc i got the car because the dealer offered this 4 year unlimited mile guarantee for free. but now this is the 3rd thing thats not covered.

its ok i called another shop and they’ll only charge me $300, but i gotta pay my dealer $180 for the inspection. everythings a con job.

nothing out there is true.

which is why sometimes when you look in someones eyes and you see something good in there

and it turns out that there really is something good in there

then that gives you hope that theres good in other spots too.

i think the reason people got emotional Monday during the eclipse is when they looked into the eyes of the Heavens,

they saw something good in there.

and it made them cry.

we all need good so much

that when it happens, it’s sorta startling.

dear tony, why is everything terrible and only getting worse

in the days of Chimpanzees, i was a blogger.

and what i learned during that beautifully explosive era is: context.

 

are things terrible?

only the important things.

are they getting worse?

yes, but just technically.

in all your favorite movies here’s the structure:

the main characters are introduced

you fall in love with them

then their lives are fucked with ruthlessly

and at some point they say Fuck This Shit and do something spectacular.

and if it’s a really good movie they are challenged again

and if it is a super great movie they team up with someone you overlooked in the first act

and TOGETHER they kick the crap out of the evil that’s bumming everyone out.

we are about to find ourselves involved with the Something Spectacular

we are about to do the things that we always knew we could do but for some reason we have not seen the need to kick it into that higher gear. but i promise you that gear exists and it will take a little more than just moving the gear

Shift

from the upright, locked position

and into the downlow, unlocked re-position.

to get there we will need to mash the

Clutch.

we are about to be clutch.

things are about to move in ways that they were designed.

in ways that will create magic.

in ways that will serve others.

it is right for you to question.

but it is best if you realize that you are the answer.

so let’s rock.

dear tony, why haven’t you written in like sooooo long?

dear britney,

omg i know. right?

picked up these four kids in beverly hills. i mean kids.

seventh grade.

we’re headed to the grove and unlike many of the kids i occasionally get on uber or lyft, these boys are really well behaved.

what’s going on at the Grove today, boys? i ask.

“nothing much. just signing some autographs, waving to the tourists.” one of them say.

we drove down 3rd Street and i was all, what are those people standing in line for?

must have been 30-40 people.

“sneakerheads!” the kid next to me says.

is that all, i ask

kid goes “yeah, shoes are overrated.”

one of his friends in the back says, “whatever, Gucci.”

another says “dude’s got Gucci flip flops!”

kid next to me says, “they’re my uncle’s”

i demand to see said flip flops. they’re quickly produced.

kid has black socks on and black Gucci sandals

manufacturer’s suggested price: $200.

i go, well, they are cool.

agreements all around.

i say, answer me a question about the 7th grade.

eagerly they await my amazing ponder.

i ask, what do 7th graders think of our president?

from the back, a kid says, “oh donald dunk. donald dump? uh…”

another finishes the thought, “everyone hates him.”

Gucci next to me says, “well a few say they like him but we all yell at them.”

we took a selfie at a stop light. they added me on Insta.

and when i dropped them off they all waved and said thank you!

thank YOU

Thank YOU!

hi future, it’s 2017 and we’re talking about nazis

and whats weird is we have a president who is afraid and angry about

every damn thing

but he’s not afraid or angry about Nazis, Russia, or Vladmir P on the wheels of steel.

as you know every Sunday for the last 25 years i have read the bible for an hour.

and when i do i put on either Miles Davis, John Coltrane or Thelonious Monk

which might not always be the best idea because i love that music so much i sometimes fall asleep.

one of my favorite Monk records is “Underground” which I really should read up on because the cover alone is fantastic, in particular one aspect of it

namely the Nazi tied up in the corner.

the thing i don’t get about todays political climate is if we had seen the resurrection of the Black Panthers,

with black folk marching around with torches and mace and open carrying semi-automatic weapons

and Heaven forbid one of them got in a muscle car and killed someone

trump’s head would have exploded and there would have been marshall law.

instead we barely know this suspect other than the fact his mom is in a wheelchair and he has a history of being abusive to her. WHICH SHOULD BE BAD ENOUGH AND ENOUGH REASON TO SAY NAZI BAD.

we live in a politically correct world where there seems to be two groups of people: those who seriously dont give a fuck and those who try super hard not to step on any toes.

and both of those sides tend to be consistent with which political beliefs they eschew.

so unfortunately there is not much room in the Venn Diagram for discourse.

yet there should be.

maybe there isn’t room because when the IDAF speak, what they say is so hateful and ignorant that it gets to their bosses and they (rightfully) get fired because who wants a Nazi in the building with access to the server?

but we are not going to get anywhere until we hear the fears of our brothers and sisters and allow them to speak their minds.

because it isnt until they speak from their hearts that we can help their anxiety.

i mean, i wouldn’t know, as a black man born to parents from the South, but i can imagine if you and your family have been somewhere for hundreds of years

and all of you have been able to call most of the shots in your life and have privilege and live in the best neighborhoods and can travel unmolested

that you might be fearful thinking of the fact that those who have been oppressed over time might want a little payback once the tables turn.

but heres the thing they dont realize: minorities don’t want payback.

we want peace.

we want love.

we want all the things contained in the ideal of the American Dream

and violence and revenge might make for great Tarantino movies but they bloody the cul-de-sac, so fuck that.

there are great black neighborhoods all over the USA.

i yearn for a tv show where they assemble some of those Americans and sit them down with the freaked out white males and educate them that we have our own problems, we don’t have time to treat others the way we and our ancestors have been treated.

we want simple simple things: respect, opportunity, and the ability to move freely and grow our families.

if you don’t trust me, trust that Good Book you flip through on Sundays.