Monthly Archives: May 2018

saw U2 play last night at the forum

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it wasn’t good.

amber, who is sweet about everything, even looked at me about 90 minutes in and was like wtf

they played a few hits, but the rest of the show was new songs, and old songs that no one liked even back then.

and i like MLK, i mean who doesnt, but must we hear Pride in the Name of Love every time U2 throws a party?

the stage was cool and they moved around the stadium a ton, so those of us in the back corner were very happy

but still.

and to top it off, Ticketmaster gave us an email before the show saying Doors Open at 6:30pm, and U2 starts at 8pm sharp.

we got there at 8:11pm terrified that we had missed some, but we hadn’t.

so we went to get some food and drink, i was surprised at how some of the bars had no lines.

i was like, yo can i get a diet coke for the lady and 8 shots of rum for me?

dude was all, yes, but we are closed until the band starts.

i was like hmmm, weird, but whatevs, whats a few minutes.

fuckers didnt go on till 9pm.

and then gave us weak sauce.

U2 has delivered the magic every time I ever saw them play.

zero magic last night. super disappointing.

this is what happens when youre rich and idealistic and you think you can get away with not playing Streets Have No Name or With or Without You.

you cant.

even Dylan plays Blowin in the Wind every show.

even Dylan.

 

we’re not alone

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ive seen em

they look like us

dress like us

they even drive around

poorly, but still.

they say things

and i listen.

they write

little notes

scratchy like.

other day i

saw one of them

scribble something

ball it up

toss it.

and write more

on a new paper.

for some reason i looked

at the balled up piece.

a car drove by.

a bird cawed.

i unballed it

it said

we’re not alone.

i think i know what movie i wanna make

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oscar levant was a concert pianist who was so beloved at one point he was the highest paid pianist in the world

he was also so funny and smart that he he wrote books and was a regular guest on all the talk shows and game shows of the time.

BUT

he had incredibly low self esteem.

George Gershwin, who was writing music at that time, said Oscar, I love you, please be my friend.

so they became friends and any time Gershwin wrote something new and handed it to Oscar

Oscar would play it in a more beautiful way than George ever imagined.

but still Oscar thought George was full of shit whenever he praised him.

im not very good, he thought to himself.

in fact im close to terrible.

so he got involved with drugs. bad drugs. the baddest drug of them all: heroin.

but it was codenamed Demerol.

and it ate at his beautiful brain.

all of his celebrity friends marveled at him, his sense of humor, his quick wit, his vocabulary and his neurosis

but they always assumed his instability was either a complicated put on

or something that he could keep in check.

he couldn’t.

he was assigned to one mental institute after another. until he finally died in one.

penniless.

and alone.

i think Jonah Hill would be perfect.

but maybe John Legend would be more perfect because it would be cool to have the piano playing be real and believable.

 

shout out to my mom

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“The most disrespected woman in America, is the black woman. The most un-protected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America, is the black woman.” – Malcom X, 5/5/62, Los Angeles

my mom was queen of her school, entered college at 16, and yet her family was so poor they couldn’t afford melanin.

after earning a masters, having two kids and getting divorced all in a matter of 5 years, she became one of the first computer programmers

because back then men thought computers were like typewriters, so let one of the girls in the typing pool figure it out.

oh she figured it out.

my mom raised me and my sister pretty much alone. no immediate relatives were near by. we were the only black people in a huge suburban community so she was isolated in so many ways. and yet both of her kids went to college, on her back, because she persisted.

it is a quiet, even-keeled, magically locked-in confidence that i also see in Beyonce, Michelle Obama, and the sun. she is reliable and together and organized and elegant. now more than ever.

the only time i have ever seen her seriously flustered was a few years ago when we were walking the two short blocks from the Loews hotel in Hollywood to the Oscars red carpet, and it began raining.

black women do not like getting their hair wet.

especially in a formal affair.

my mom was raised in the deep south in the 1950s by a mother who, like many other black women, taught their black babies what the stereotypes were and how to be the opposite. the idea was, if they thought blacks were messy or “raggedy” or ignorant, then we had to be clean and sharp dressed and smarter than they could ever expect.

and when it came to being a lady, the bar was set even higher. thus looking drenched from the sudden rain burst was an instant nightmare.

with no umbrella in sight, my mom’s anger reached the heavens and she looked up with pursed lips

and it stopped.

until the mother of the busblog had safely entered the event.

i have many many things to be thankful for in my ridiculously blessed life, but at the top of the list is to have my mom as my mom.

dear tony, how do i get this thing that i want?

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the vast majority of questions that i have gotten recently are about attaining things. material objects, dreams, jobs, etc

and the answer is ridiculously simple: persist.

as we know from video games, nearly all of your opponents will be dumb, slow, and eventually predictable.

only at the end of the level will you be challenged with a person or a scenario where you might fail a few times (or more than a few times) before you succeed.

learn from these battles and look for the patterns.

if the giant slaps you twice with his left hand before going for his crossbow, then stop what you are doing on the second slap and dive at him when he reaches back.

same with life. note what your reactions are to things and how those become unhelpful to that particular move. maybe you are the one who is tipping off his patterns.

if you want the attention of a pretty girl, for example, and you find that you keep needing to have your lawyer pay them off so they doesn’t rat you out to the press

maybe getting a new lawyer isn’t the answer.

we all want to get as many points in this video game as we can, but we also should do it in as cool a way as possible.

the first time i actually wanted to be someone else was when i was at the roller rink watching this one dude dominate on Defender while smoking a cigarette while on roller skates. he was probably 14 . he played with ease. he was not reacting to the onslaught he was dancing within the patterns.

he knew not to shake the machine by yanking the controls because his beer would spill.

study what it is that you want.

be cool about it.

dont quit and dont spill yr beer.

there are ghosts in our minds who are stuck

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they havent floated up to the good place and they get tangled in tree branches

heart strings, rooftops, bangs, fishing caps

and dreams.

because they’re dead but haven’t risen they think the whole trip is over and ends poorly

but they haven’t seen the other side.

they still think Bin Laden is on the run.

they still believe OJ is guilty.

for all they know rock is doing perfectly well.

we have two jobs. one is to usher the spirits to the next Mario Bros level.

the other is to live by example.

on the playground where i grew up in the mean streets of the suburbs

if one kid nailed a 3 pointer then all of us started making shots way down town.

and if another kid dunked, then we all believed we could too.

after all, we all chewed the same gum, wore the same Cons, and kissed the same girls.

so of course we could all dunk.

which is why to this day you dont wanna see me driving the lane cuz yr gonna be in my poster.

living by example is the greatest lesson Pete Rose ever gave us. if a slow, stocky, hick, with no college degree can knock more hits than any other person in baseball history

then OF COURSE those of us with video technology, Jamesian statistics and some talent can make it to the 3,000 hit club, but alas so few do.

why?

because so few do.

we are monkeys. we have to see the 100th monkey wash his hands before we do. we have to see the reality tv star ascend to the white house before we believe it can be done.

and now we have to watch the right people do the right thing to truly drain the swamp.

the ghosts must be removed from the machine.

and then the machine needs to be turned into a computer chip.

and placed in a lock box

of love.

i had such a good day today

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after i published my Star Wars feature for Star Wars Day, the subject, the man behind so many of the best special effects in so many of my favorite films wrote me and said i “nailed it”

got a former Newsweek Editor who is also the former Executive Editor of Random House to make a funny video for me on the spot

got to ask a famous talk show host about this weed vape pen and he said basically meh LOL

spoke for about 5 minutes straight with the former CIA director and asked him what its like to tell the president to his face something that he probably wont like (he said it is uncomfortable, but it’s your duty)

drank two glasses of delicious wine

chatted with my buddy Matt for a little while so said it was me who introduced the nexus to the wonderfuls which created tsar and many of our lifelong friendships

he also said that during the battle of the bad, his band the long haired leaping gnomes were playing and in front of the stage two people who he had never seen before were wrestling in the dirt and those people it turned out where dan and coulter from the wonderfuls

ate a half of a delicious donut

drove home with all the windows rolled down because summer has finally arrived

thank you lord!

for everything!

it’s been a stressful week and it’s all my fault

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when you’re a writer, an editor, or someone like me who pretends to be those things, you find yourself making work for yourself.

you see something or you think of something and you say, “that thing oughtta be written about.”

but that means you have to research it, talk to people, watch things, learn things, talk to more people, read and read and read and then finally write.

as if the writing is the easiest part. IT’S ACTUALLY THE HARDEST.

then you have to edit and if you’re lucky you get to watch someone else edit it. and if you’re super luck two people will edit it. and then you collect all that sweet sweet praise on twitter.

the other day i interviewed a very very smart man and i asked some very dumb questions. because i am not smart. the good thing is the smart people Still have to answer your questions and when they do smarter things pop up.

and if you can sit down with them long enough you will eek a smart question out and they will smile and amaze you with their brilliant answer and that will be the centerpiece of your story or it will be completely over looked by the audience who just came there for the pictures, but who cares you got paid and now you can go on to your next assignment which will be harder, scarier, and if you’re unlucky someone else has assigned it so now you gotta do their thing.

it’s always better when it’s your thing but it’s also very hard. it’s like college and high school never ended. research, write an essay, hear the feedback, scribble in your Trapper Keeper, repeat.

right now i have finished my first draft of what i wanna send to my editor. it’s good. it’s not great. and this was my scribbling into my folder. but time is money so hi bye.