i am doing this thing for work this week about star wars

so to refresh my memory and to stir up ideas i got the original trilogy because i dont think ive seen it in its entirety in quite a while.

for some reason i was looking at it trying to think of the camerawork and lighting in 1976. what was that like? how were they able to show us something very modern using mostly common equipment.

and why are there only one set of shadows on a planet that has two suns?

right before Luke, Han, Ben and the crew go into the bar there are long shadows

but on the way there it seems like it’s high noon

issues that would not happen in a digital, almost entirely computer generated film

but when filmed on actual film, it would take forever to clean up those inaccuracies.

says the blogger who grammars bad on purpose.

theres a big bru-haha over some jokes and i have a hot take

if you cant take a joke about you, then fuck you.

if you invite a comedian to your event and you have dressed up and all your friends dressed up and if theres some serious parts, some boring parts

and then a part for 19 minutes where what amounts to the court jester points his or her stick at you

and lampoons you in exactly the same way that they have been doing for centuries and centuries

and you sit up there and make a face like you just ate a bad lemon

and in reality you are a very not nice person in your actual job and the jester is IN JEST talking about it

then fuck you, your friends, the people you work with and the people who raised you

because you have not learned shit about life and your peers have not supported you in how to behave.

we have a president who says and does whatever the fuck he wants to do and no one is apologizing for his behavior

likewise we have had a White House Press Whatever dinner for decades

and man after man after man after man has got up on there and played the role of the court jester

but now that a woman does it in a comedically whiny scratchy delivery

then OMG THIS TRADITION MUST END BECAUSE OMG WHAT IF THE KING AND HIS COURT ARE OFFENDED

OFF WITH HER HEAD!

fuck that, fuck you, fuck this

i decide whose head gets chopped off and for now i want everyones head on

and looking at each other and when the funny lady says the funny things, fucking laugh

like a human fucking being for once in your stupid life.

flint still doesnt have clean water.

what would i do if i was truly free

or if i allowed myself to be truly free?

i would read more. i would watch less tv. i would listen to all the music i love and not try so hard to learn about this new junk.

i would swear more and never wear pants. i would go to church more. i would work out even less.

id work on my crossover dribble. i would cook. i would clean.

today i have to buy a printer and a shelf.

i know amber likes me but she Loves tea and has nowhere to put her tea cup when she adjourns to bed

currently shes using the window sill but a shelf would be better.

a little one.

one that hasn’t seen the evils of the world and only wants to hear sweet soul music and the murmurs of these two cats who snore when they snooze and startle easily

im pitching this book, it wont make me rich, money is the fakeout the bible says and the richer my passengers are in my uber

the quieter they seem.

the happiest: me.

so maybe i am free.

things i would do if i ran uber

people know me as a successful businessman, a powerful influencer, a bon vivant, and a deliverer of unsolicited advice.

some of those are true. but the thing that im most expert at is uber, lyft and all things ride share.

as you may know, Uber lost over $1 billion last quarter, which is nearly impossible to do when you are such a darling in the market that no matter how bad your PR team is or your leadership, people still use your services in droves.

it’s also hard to blow that sort of change when, in theory, your overhead should only be software engineers, customer service reps, and paying off politicians.

uber however has figured out ways to burn money via fines, robot car technology, and lawsuits. but as you can see from this example from an Uber Express Pool I drove yesterday, they also lose money by offering ridiculously low rides while paying the drivers what amounts to $37 an hour.

Uber needs to knock it off and charge the correct amount.

the experiment is over. people love ridesharing. they liked it from the very beginning when they were paying half what a cab cost. but for some reason Uber wanted to charge a quart of what a cab costs. they wanted to compete with busses. they wanted to then compete with their own drivers via automated cars. all of that has sent their profits spiraling down down down deep into the hole.

there needs to be real minimum fares of $6 for X and $12 for Select. they need to reward frequent passengers with a free $12 ride for every 6th $12 ride.

they should reward tipping by giving a 50% discount to every 10th tipper. they need to have a button that allows passengers to see if their favorite drivers (those who they have tipped) are nearby and let them select them for a slightly higher price (which would be split between uber and the driver). they need to have an option on the app that says I LOVE YOU I SERIOUSLY LOVE YOU BUT PLEASE DONT TALK TO ME IM SLEEPY OR SHY OR JUST WANT QUIET.

they need to reward drivers who have a high rating with trips that they prefer. for example, I prefer long trips, some prefer short trips, I prefer trips to DTLA or LAX, some prefer trips to the Valley or the OC. if i am in Santa Monica and a request comes in for DTLA and i am close to 5 other available cars but i have a higher rating, I should get that call. because WHY WOULDNT YOU WANT YOUR HIGHER TICKET RIDES TO GET MATCHED WITH YOUR BEST DRIVERS?

there should be an option for what sort of music you want to be played. or what news station you want on the radio.

Uber has fallen into the trap that poor salesmen fall into: only believing that price price price is what is appealing to all customers. no, my friend, features, benefits, personalized tastes are the little things that people will pay a premium for.

how about i am a woman who likes to take Uber Pool, perhaps theres a button that says “please only match me with other riders who are female”? Uber swears they are a tech company not a transportation company, so then excel at the tech part.

partner with advertisers to partner with full time drivers to wrap their vehicles with ad wrap. then offer passengers a discount if they take rides in these vehicles. that way the passengers dont feel dumb in a Coke Adds Life car, and Coke gets their message out more.

but the biggest thing i would do is i would pay the drivers 75% of the ride no matter what. the quality of drivers has dropped year after year because part time drivers just cant afford to drive their cars into the ground for peanuts. yes i can figure out how to make it work for me, but many drivers cant. weirdly uber has failed at figuring out how to benefit from those ignorant drivers, but maybe that shouldnt be their business model.

maybe they should start hiring smart veteran uber drivers to run their company instead of these bros who wouldnt drive an uber express pool to save their lives, thereby never learning that you can make just as much on pool as you can on select if you do it right.

weed is legal in california, and yesterday we were invited to a weed thing

trust me, i dont believe it either. i grew up thinking that even though weed never killed nobody and guns kill everyone, one of the strange dichotomies of the world would be that guns would be legal and weed would not.

forever and ever amen.

but once colorado and then oregon didnt blow up in a spectacular explosion of OMG after they legalized Satan’s Sunflower, the floodgates opened and everyone with sense wanted their states to get in on the greenrush of the 21st century. not only was the tax money great but secretly many of these holier than thou nay sayers remember the time when they toked the sticky icky back in college and giggled and ate and fell asleep with stupid smiles.

amber is more connected than you think and being a concierge at one of the fanciest hotels in 90210 has its perks. one of them is high class companies want to get in their heads so when VIPs ask things like “wheres a good sushi joint nearby” or “how can i score weed”? they will answer in an educated way.

Dosit, formerly Hmblt, is a California weed company with a unique vapor pipe. For $45 you can get one of Dosit’s 6 different strains that will either slow you down, pick you up, or steer you into a mood somewhere inbetween. Unlike smoking the traditional way of pipe, bong, or apple, vaping produces no skunky smell. Thus fancy pants hotels LOVE them. (as do their fancy pants guests.)

but what makes Dosit such a compelling device is it has this little vibrator in the pipe so you know when you have ingested the recommended dose. Thus you will never get “too high” if you just take one or two puffs. It’s weird to think that people need help to know when theyre doing too much, but people do. especially newbies or stoned people.

last night’s meeting was at a fancy beverly hills rental house where delicious foods were served and beautiful members of the Dosit company explained its name change, the various strains, and all the ways hotels can connect their guests to these devices without having to actually sell them the units themselves.

but best of all we got to taste the merchandise.

Dosit has several strains with cute names like Bliss, Arouse, Passion, Sleep, and Relief, but the one that intrigued me the most was Calm.

Calm has only trace amounts of THC (the natural element that gets you high) but a bunch of CBD that chills you out, especially if you are experiencing anxiety.

one of the employees told me that sometimes people eat too many edibles or experience weed that is way too strong for them. the solution: a few puffs of Calm which will bring them back to Earth.

so i tried some Passion, some Bliss, and when we were about to get into our Uber i puffed on some Calm to see if it brought me down. I can’t say it did (maybe I had had too much fun) but i loved the concept and will eagerly try it again if i ever do find myself in a perilous situation.

the 200 hit pipes go for $125 making it a pretty decent value. and best of all if you return your spent weed pens to the place of purchase they will give you $5 back, thus all of this was recycling, which Mother Earth appreciates.

i slept like a baby last night and woke up with a smile this morning. thanks Dosit!

why i dont care if you dont like this blog, by tony pierce

once you start caring what John thinks, you’re gonna care about what Paul, George and Ringo think.

and fuck Ringo.

once you start caring what Beyonce, Michelle, and Kendrick think, you’re gonna have to care about what Bruno thinks

and fuck Bruno too.

i dont mean that in a mean way i mean that in a Bruno shouldnt care what the busblog thinks either.

people should just do their own things in as close to a vacuum as they can

because before we know it we are going to be like Kansas: dust in the wind

and the kids who see what little evidence we have of our existences are going to see what we wrote

and if what we wrote was bullshit like OMG Trump Rulez or OMG USC helped South Central become what it is today

well, those kids will laugh and dismiss you forever and your legacy will be tainted.

however, if what you wrote was true and pure and honest and filled with soul and black girl magic then they will gobble all the rest of it up too.

and they will see that one page of a great blog is different on each page and each month and each year.

what you are reading is a 17 year work in progress. and it has progressed and changed and gone through ups and downs

as it has stretched and risen and flown and grown.

thats what good things do.

so if some fool takes a stab at one page and disregards the hundreds others, well

fuck Ringo and Bruno and Hater 1 and Hater 2

this aint for you anyways.

this is for the far-aways.

hey siri, remember that time i gave a fuck?

drove two japanese girls from beverly hills to newport beach.

they were quiet and shy and incredibly beautiful.

talked super quietly to each other, giggled, checked their phones.

usually a 90 minute ride would include colorful conversations, mutual discoveries,

and beautiful tales from our unique walks through this so called life

but i never pushed, and they never asked, so in 20 minutes they were snoozing in the back.

i played the sirius venus channel quietly: modern tunes by women singers.

traffic wasn’t bad and when we got there i asked quietly

“is this a motel we are going to?”

they said, even quieter, “yes the blah blah on the beach hotel”

so i went where i was supposed to go, a little street that dead ended at the beach

the sun was setting, but not in a spectacular way.

i took the two huge suitcases out of the trunk and said, “im sorry you couldnt get closer”

they laughed and weirdly there was no sign that said Hotel

and they looked around and began wandering

without their luggage!

but i was already driving back out of the narrow street.

hoping theyd find their hotel. hoping it was just a door or two away.

i was in a rush to get back to the safety of hollywood.

and on the way home i was sure they would give me a less than perfect rating because i didnt show them

exactly to the door.

but this morning i looked and voila

they tipped me $20 on the $160 fare.

arigato sleeping girls!

the first rule of Uber is don’t pick up Uber Pool

the second rule is don’t ever pick up Uber Express Pool.

these are the short-sided mantras left by inexperienced but extremely vocal drivers on Facebook Uber groups.

any time someone posts a screenshot of a ride and it says Pool, or heaven forbid Express Pool, the overnight know-it-alls type brilliant things like Pools are for Fools.

then they call each other Ants as a slur for dutifully picking up all rides for low pay.

the truth however is more subtle. like in most things.

hidden among the not-so-small print of the Pool Rules is if you pick up Rider A and it’s surging at 2.0x, then you will get a double fare for all the riders you pick up in that pool.

So when i saw there was an express pool request coming out of CAA in Century City, I figured this fool wants to go to LAX super cheap, and I will be able to get a ride *from* LAX at 2x.

or at least that would be a possibility that I would hope for.

what i got was actually better.

i picked up a very attractive young lady who turned out to be Molly Bloom’s lawyer. Bloom of course is the writer of Molly’s Game, one of my top 4 favorite films of last year.

Mollys Game / Star Wars / Lady Bird / Florida Project

she was headed to meet with Molly at a fashion designer’s daughter’s mansion atop a Beverly Hills hill.

as we drove to the gated community she told me that she helped co-write certain aspects of the script with Aaron Sorkin.

was that totally intimidating? i asked her of working with the lauded writer of the West Wing, Moneyball, Sports Night, and others.

no, he was all ears and a total pro, she said.

the thing about Uber is no one is going to get rich except Uber. the drivers will spend hours and hours and eventually wear their cars down to the nub, so the question is: did you learn anything, did you meet cool people, did you see cool things, and was it worth your money?

when you get to spend 20 minutes with someone super interesting who can answer all of your little questions about one of your favorite films, that’s priceless to me.

Me: OK in the film the poker games were at the Four Seasons on Doheny. Is that where they were?

Her: At first they were at the Viper Room and when they got bigger we took them over to the Peninsula.

Me: Was Michael Cera’s character really Tobey Maguire?

Her: Yes.

Me: Why not just use Tobey Maguire?

Her: [Redacted]

Friday after work I got a 2x surge of these two Japanese girls from Beverly Hills to Newport Beach. I ended up with $129. Everything evens out.

imagine not being trusted for anything

imagine people scared of you – of YOU – even though you were the one who was victimized a long time ago

and forced to come over here and work for free

and who built this city and country

and, sure has an attitude sometimes BUT EVERYONE WOULDA

and along the way you created rock, jazz, blues and hip hop

taught everyone how to dance

even how to dance backwards, spin on your head,

and line dance

dominated every sport

imagine people didnt trust you because you were stronger, quicker, faster

and dare this blog say

smarter at times.

is there a better church than a southern gospel church

does creativity come out of you like a broken water main

and style, imagine every time you do something that look gets copied not just in suburban malls, but all over the world.

and yet people fear you, mistreat you, flinch whenever the sunlight shines in your eyes, and tell you to shut the fuck up whenever wisdom comes from your mouth

when all you are trying to do is share the majesty that is inside of you

with everyone.

freedom is the one thing descendants of slaves hold more dear than anything

for good reason.

and yet at every turn that freedom is challenged.

i wonder why.