the 100 pics project is now underway

tony pierce blogger xbi agent your friend

as you may know i love pictures. who knows why but i do. love them.

for a while there were pictures and posters all over my apartment walls. as high as i could reach, if there was any blank space i would put something in it.

my philosophy was, what good are these pictures in a photo album when they could be right there over the toilet?

then one day i fell in love with a young lady who moved in with me briefly and asked if she could remove all of the memories of my past. it seemed like a reasonable request so i allowed it. now, years later, i am slowly putting new photos back on my walls and i love it. i love seeing all of these… things… all the time. friends, family, strangers, famous ppl, not famous people, and just great images.

so last night while driving the mean streets of downtown LA i thought, dude you’re gonna turn 100 in a few weeks! you should probably do something for such a milestone of a birthday. and you should do it on the world famous. and it should be something you aint never done before — which is a tough assignment for someone with  11,240 posts.

i concluded that every day for the next 100 days i will put up a picture that means something to me. a special picture. one that might be on my walls – or should be on my walls. and i should write about it with as much honesty as you have grown to expect from this humble url of love.

so lets start with this selfie. this one is from the buzznet days. i can tell because im using a canon rebel camera. only time i ever had that camera was when marc brown bought one or two for buzznet so they could send me out on assignment and take pics for the pic site. i was on a little roadtrip up to vancouver for a buzznet meetup party. it was thanksgivingtime. i had just spent the holiday with the truest and her family in Umpqua, OR and took some really great pics along the way.

but this one was taken in, i wanna say in the portland area at a cheap motel. i was alone. i missed the truest already but i was looking forward to hanging with chad and smelly danielly and matt good and the canadian crew. it was going to be my first time in canada i think. either the first or second time.

back then neither my beard or moustache liked to grow in and i was just starting to get gray hairs in there.

i was cold. i was alone. and the florescent light of the bathroom made me look green. i loved it.

ten years ago today i was fired from buzznet

holland wtf

did i deserve it? probably. you cant yell at your boss apparently. even if he deserves it.

was i great at my job? i was incredible.

when it happened i was actually shocked so i went home in a daze and put together this blog post to sorta remind myself what i had done there in such a short period of time.

sadly now the links are broken because buzznet not only doesnt exist but the people who bought the people who bought the people arent like me and dont appreciate the necessity of keeping links working so you’ll just have to use your imagination i guess (or the wayback machine).

regardless i did a lot but i wasnt happy. i was getting sick all the time and throwing up blood almost every day near the end. why? because i was so stressed, more stressed than id ever been in my life. why? because even when i was successful, even when i hit the outrageous goal that one of the co-founders set up for me, he would get angry and disappointed that i didnt fail.

my whole life was about hitting goals because the love of my life, the chicago cubs, could never hit goals. so i had made it my mission to never fail like they had. therefore when i did what was asked of me i expected: rewards, glory, positive feedback, celebrations, smiles, pats on the backs, etc. but i got the opposite.

so i vomited blood.

i went to the doctor and he said dude youre not sick you’re in a terrible situation and your body is telling you to get the fuck out. i said doc youre the greatest. he said “yes yes i am. then he said, any time you talk about blogging you light up, and i dont even know what youre talking about but i light up. i dont know if theres any money in this blogging but you should seek it out.”

and because God is beautiful and life is weird, soon after writing the blog post laying out all the things i did at buzznet i got an email which led to another email which led to me running LAist and getting paid to blog. which a year and a half later led to me running all the blogs at the Times.

so the lesson of this bittersweet anniversary is a) listen to your body b) listen to your doctor c) if youre in a bad gig get the f out and d) there really is light at the end of the tunnel, dont be afraid of it, there is someone somewhere who will appreciate what you have to offer: run to them. now. NOW.

two years ago yesterday i was fired at buzznet

even though for the last month that i was there i was vomiting every day and emotionally ill, when i was let go i was pretty much devastated. since i had been there i accomplished some ridiculous things over my eight months as community manager: millions of hits, over a half dozen parties in three different countries (with a budget of less than $500), thousands of photos, etc etc etc. so i never thought that i could be canned.

but life is a bizarre deal. and sure enough, despite my indisputable numbers, i was out. none of it made sense. least of all the fact that i was relatively unhappy in my job and bummed that i had been relieved of my duties.

theres a cheesy saying, though, that says “when one door closes another one opens”. and whattya know, just as i was trying to figure out what i was going to do with my newly found summer vacation (which i knew wasnt going to last that long because i hadnt made very much money over those eight months) carolyn kellogg was stepping down as editor of LAist. she sent jake dobkin and jen chung a link to this very blog, and less than two weeks later i was the new editor of that amazing blog.

i had gone from being totally unloved and vomiting and having to go to an office where i sat quietly and wasnt invited into meetings where i belonged to having my office be my couch. jen and jake actually meant it when they said that hits and quality was all they cared about and they left me alone to build whatever i wanted at LAist. they even let me do the one thing i had been trying to do for years – drive around america and write about it.

now here we are two years after being axed and im at the LA Times. in part because of not just what i was able to do at LAist but because of what i did at buzznet.

im not one who believes in luck. im not one who believes in divine intervention or karma or any of that crap. usually i simply believe in hard work and a little bit of prayer. but looking back over the last three years, especially what went down two years ago yesterday its hard not to believe that Good had a plan for me, professionally, which led to the unbelievable gig i have now.

which tells me that we should never give up on our dreams. we should never get too depressed about anything. and we should never stop trying even when it appears that those closest to us dont appreciate or respect what we’re doing. what we’re doing is growing. and sometimes we get transplanted at the exact right time in a place where we can really blossom.

one thing i would like to add: the day i got fired and wrote about it on my blog i got dozens and dozens of emails and comments. you have no idea how much all of that cheered me up. so thanks to everyone who was there for me when i was pretty much at my lowest. often i tell people at the Times that blogging has given me everything, and that day it gave me so much love when i felt so lousy. its one reason that i will probably never stop writing on this blog.

one of the secret weapons of buzznet

is mr mark edge

who turned me on to lots of cool music including The Bronx

who just happen to be from Los Angeles, yeeee-uh

they just wrapped up a residence at spaceland

heres their video for They Will Kill Us All (Without Mercy)

and a live version of that tune in Sydney, Australia

because South Australian girls like to party

probably the best new band in LA, next to Silly

so guess whose summer vacation just suddenly arrived?

ice cream man coachella mine.

hi tony.

hi vacation?

i didnt think i was going to have a summer vacation, and ive gotta say, i was a little jealous of a lot of bloggers out there who were all pumped that their finals were over or they were graduating, and that they were going to laze into trying to find a little job to get their parents off their back, but mostly work on hitting the sand surf and suntan oil.

why is it that may has found me unemployed two years in a row now?

because the Lord loves me? lets pretend that thats why.

who knows, its probably true.

mid october i started working at buzznet. immediately i was sent to nyc to attend the BlogOn conference with mc brown. we threw our first east coast Buzznet meetup party at Lolita in chinatown. ironically i was abducted by a couple of lolitas right after meeting jamie and his girl, and several other manhattanites, but i managed to escape in the morning. i also hung with AJ who i hadnt seen in quite a while, scott and tons of friends, hung with amy, met jeff jarvis, met my book agent, and even ate with anne ferris. and saw the daily show, thanks to jason ross.

as soon as we got back to LA we had a Los Angeles Buzznet meetup back when the office was sort of still a loft. i met so many buzznetters who i’d always admired, but never met. plus a lot of the girls from my old job at look-look showed up and i had missed them so that was killer.

that next week one of buzznet’s biggest bands was playing at the wiltern. fall out boy. they were playing with panic! at the disco and motion city soundtrack. so i was sent down there to pass out flyers about buzznet and take pics of the kids in line. the kids were wonderful and now panic! is a top 40 band. i took over 100 pics.

i would have gone to the show but i had to run over to Tower on Sunset to take a bunch of pics of Tsar doing an instore. then i ate a burrito and hustled back to the strip to take a bunch more pics of tsar who rocked the roxy.

a few weeks later i was flown to vancouver, bc, canada where we had our first canadian buzznet meetup. i hung out with matt good and took tons of pics and from the best ones i made this photo essay. i met so many cool canadians it was ridiculous. i was treated like the queen. id be back.

juliette lewisi got back to LA in enough time to take over 100 pictures at the Doo Dah parade. and that night i went to see Juliette Lewis and the Licks play with Tsar. i took hella pics including that crazy one of juliette on the right, who i adore. tsar ruled too, fyi.

a week later i flew to chicago and for a thanksgiving Chicago Buzznet Meetup. among others i got to meet jessica and erin who partied with me and bob all night. as in All night. so fun. hi kids from oswego. hi brian and byron. the best part of the meetup was it was in the shadows of wrigley field. so rad.

the first week of december found me at the virgin at hollywood and highland for an inxs in-store. inxs was working with buzznet at the time so i got to take a bunch of pics for them for inxs.com and buzznet. it was an honor.

a few days later i shot a ton of pics of tsar at spaceland where they were just named one of the top bands in los angeles by the LA Weekly. my highlight was getting a half dozen pics of poison guitarist cc deville with rocket and tsar.

my mind is fuzzy but i think somewhere in december i helped buzznet have their biggest hit day ever, biggest hit week, and biggest day of signups. we all hugged each other and it was decided that i was the man, because i had used the guidelines given to me from the book buzzmarketing to create attention and news to our site.

to celebrate i drove up to san francisco where i hung out again with jessica and many other cool kids where we sang karaoke. by we i dont mean me. then i drove up through northern california to umpqua oregon and celebrated Christmas in Eugene. i pretty much worked every day of this so called vacation. not because i had to but because i wanted to. i loved doing what i was doing.

after Christmas i drove up through some rainbows to tacoma and actually sang karaoke with the pants who is far more beautiful in real life. the next day i drove through seattle to take pics of kurt kobains old neighborhood and his old house.

made it to vancouver again, had sushi with mr good again. turned around the next day, drove through oregon and tried to go down the 1 but there was super flooding happening. i saw a dead cow in an overflooded river. it was so sad. got stuck in southern oregon. worked from the motel. got up in the morning and took lots of pics.

got home on new years day and took pics of the rain coming down on the rose parade.

in the middle of january koganuts from virgin megastore started inviting me and buzznet to some of their secret shows. the first one was with giant drag. i took pics. i wasnt very good with the camera that we had bought. but i was there. i did what i could. a week later we were invited to the Coachella The Movie premiere. i took a bunch of pics there on the red carpet including my hero the cobrasnake.

near the end of the month i was on a date with a super hot chick when heather graham showed up to have her birthday party there. i took this picture which got linked by defamer. heather’s way hotter than that but we had both been drinking for many hours at that point. me, i had been drinking for 6 hours by then. of course cobrasnake was there.

a few weeks later my true love Chris moved off to africa. i said let me take some pics. she said no. i said baby i work for a photo sharing community, i sorta have to. plus your cans look great in that shirt, i mean your eyes are so beautiful. she sneered and almost smiled. then she smiled. then she almost cried.

a few days after that, this is february by the way, i was sent to Amsterdam by the dutch government. i figured this would be a good time to have our first european buzznet meet up. i got to meet bicyclemark, the dude from americablog, justagirl and tons of other cool kids. it was cold but i took shittons of pics and even found some pics to put on buzznet that got us tens of thousands of hits. i know it may have looked like a vacation but i worked and produced and got buzznet some great attention. justagirl even got to hear me vomit. lucky babe.

blogging while black sxswtwo weeks after i returned i was being sent to Austin Texas for SXSW. i got to meet leah for the first time which was a thrill because we’d been reading each other since she was 15. i got to speak on two panels. i met sooooo many cool people it was retarded. i got interviewed a bunch. and me and marc saw tons of bands and took tons of pics and video. in fact almost every night i was at the red bull house, of which we were co-sponsors and we were mentioned the usa today blog pop candy.

i worked and partied every night till 3am almost every single night. asher was great, bunny was great, the pants, ev and robert, marc canter, dan and sara, the fajita prince, dooce and jon, halley and scoble – they were all killer. i even got to take a few hundred pics of one of our most popular Buzznet band, my chemical romance. far more pics of them than anyone on the web. plus i was blogging on the buzznet blog almost every day. oh and we got to hang with the texas roller girls, of whom i took buckets of pics.

despite all the hits i generated for buzznet, or all the kickass people i met, or attention i brought to them, probably my proudest moment were those ten days that we covered sxsw interactive and music. no other outlet covered it every day, took tons of pics, took tons of video, and wrote about it every damn day. not pitchfork, not mtv, not anyone. i was there even after it was over to see how the locals rocked. the best bands of the event? the bellrays, honkey, and the go! team.

it was there that i got sick and didnt recover until this week. exhaustion? burn-out? stress? who knows. all i do know is i got a day off when i returned and i was back at it the day after that and i wanted to be at it. i loved what we had done and coachella was right around the corner.

when i got home i took pics of Hard-Fi at the virgin private show thing. they were rad.

the next week i found myself in toronto slash waterloo for a one night only toronto buzznet meet up. i was there for 24 hours. just enough time to see toronto for the first time, catch a matt good show, and go to a strip club with pitt and chad and mikey and fil and raymi and a few others. i also got to meet the outlaw and several others who pulled me aside at the show to introduce themselves. oh canada, thanks for making me feel like a star. oh we also saw a baseball game at the dome. yes all of this in 24 hours. and we went to tim hortons.

every day for the month of april i wrote at least one pre-write about coachella in the buzznet coachella blog, i even asked fellow bloggers to run a free blogad to it and 30 of you were nice enough to do so, and then at the end of april we were there at coachella. i even blogged about that. some of the posts were silly, but the point was to do just like how we did SXSW – provide the best coverage BY FAR of any other outlet in the world. pre-writes, photos, videos, and post coverage.

buzznet was the official photosharing community for the fest. i got to do so many things but mostly i took pics and helped others upload their pictures onto buzznet. sometimes for the first time ever. it was hot. and at the end of the two day fest we had collected and uploaded nearly Four Thousand Photos. i think we had done our job.

coachella 2015oh and we got 128 videos, including some silly interviews i conducted with people who were camping out in the tents, the security chief, and a tour of the campground, among others.

madonna, matisyahu, kanye west, wolfmother, the yeah yeah yeahs, and cat power were my favorite bands that weekend. but the best part was working with my coworkers at buzznet: marc, lizy, mark, bree, steve, bree’s boyfriend and marks drummer. and the good people at coachella and the at&t blue room who both stoked us. there is nothing more enjoyable to me than to work with a great team of people who just work and get the job done. to me its all about results and the results of that gig mostly have to go to marc and the content team. flickr would have loved to have had our spot but coachella loves buzznet, and should.

still on the ride home i pulled over and barfed and told lizy that it was because i had a bad feeling that our results wouldnt be met with the love that it should. and sometimes being right will make you sick to your stomach.

when we got back we were mentioned in the usa today, defamer linked it, laist linked to it.

right after coachella i was tasked to start finding great content for a new project buzznet is slowly unveiling called big hombre, a blog of sorts for young men in the vein of maxim or fhm, mostly about hot babes, funny videos, and street fights and stuff. every day i was supposed to find a certain amount of content, write funny headlines, and post them. among other things that i did, when i had extra time i started giving people photography assignments in our forums. one forum discussion got over 500 posts in a few days. pretty much a record that i doubt will be broken any time soon.

all in all i was responsible for at least 13 million page views to buzznet in the seven and a half months that i was there. no one user had ever attracted more than 2.5 million hits other than the pretty boy bass player of the top 40 band fall out boy. i had one user account that got 9.5 million hits, another which is at 2.3 million, and my personal account went over a million hits just a few weeks ago, meaning not only had i been the only person to ever have two accounts to ever get over 2 million, but the only one to ever have three go over a million.

and to be honest, before i showed up no one even thought that anyone could get a million that quick, but one of my accounts did more than that in a week.

buzznet stickeri took over 4,000 pictures and posted them, i wrote over 100 blog entries, i sent out over 50,000 messages to our users, and in seven months i hosted seven buzznet meetups in three different countries, most of the time at no cost to the company. i think i was a pretty decent community manager.

unfortunately not everyone saw it that way. which is why tonight im unemployed.

so my plan going forward is to try a few things. i want to send my resume to a few companies, but i cant see them saying yes. i mean the cubs will probably say, dude we already have a black manager and he sucks.

then i will probably get scared and compile a new collection of better-than-average busblog posts like what i did in How To Blog, and maybe that will sustain me for the summer, but anyone who flowed to my ipod fund knows i suck at mailing shit. in fact any one who didnt get what was promised should email me. i now have time to make good on your generosity.

and then come the fall i’ll probably just start selling my ass on santa monica blvd while wearing a dress and a blonde wig at the del taco.

whatever i do, i think im gonna take a few days off from the busblog this weekend. in two years ive done on here what i did at buzznet, pretty much work every day. even when i wasnt asked to, even when nobody cared. have i even taken two days off from this blog in three years? i dont think so.

some people like to jump into things full force. im one of those weirdos. some people get freaked out by that energy. me, my best times have been when ive given 100% on things i really know about. i knew how to be successful at buzznet. that is, i knew how to make buzznet more successful. maybe i will have a shot at making some other company more successful. or maybe i will have to just try to do something myself.

right now i have no idea whats next. none. and thats not the best feeling. i know it could be, but i dont have a bunch of cash to sit on. ive gotta figure something out soon. sux. although this might be a good time to head to the desert and talk to the spirits. or to isla vista and talk to the bikini team. or to vegas and talk to the elvises. or i could sell everything in this junky house and see what it gets. and then write an autobiography and start a new slate.

i do know that you guys will be here, and that is a blessing that not too many people have, and for that im so grateful you have no idea.

joe, it was nice sitting next to you.

at the bottom of one of those pictures below, on buzznet,

is a caption that says “all of these nexus men now have children except tony”, and karisa asked me if i was upset about that, and i can honestly say hell to the no.

i dont even want a dog right now. shit, this blog is enough responsibility for me and i would love to have an intern plagarize me in the future. remember when the renaissance artists used to have their “students” do their shit for them? ahhh, those were the days.

thankfully i have all those reruns i can put up here when work gets too busy or the phone keeps ringing, or the girlies start blowing up the pager and the web cam.

its not that i dont love kids, i do. its not that i dont love the blog, i do. its just that theres a time and a place for everything. and right now its time for pretty much all of my friends to have kids and its time for me to start reaping the rewards of this blog.

last night a lovely young lass wanted to show me her uniform on the web cam. always one to analyze the amazing curves of my readers, i took her up on her offer.

europe, where have you been all my life?

now if i had a child, how could i have explained how daddy had his hand down his shorts while in the computer room? i mean seriously. and what would wifey say?

i mean it was hard enough to explain to the chickey that what she was doing was driving me crazy and i had to do what was natural. fortunately she not only understood but asked me if i would lower the angle of the cam so she could see what i was doing down there.

now what i find fascinating is this girl – IS A VIRGIN LIKE EVERY GIRL IVE RUN ACROSS LATELY – but was super into it. obviously not ho-ey, or slutty, and in a very cute way shy about things. she kept looking around to see if her sister would open the door but thankfully that didnt happen until the end.

and i kept thinking to myself – “this girl can see your stupid face, your hairy fat belly, and your stupid clothes… your cam isnt forgiving, your closet is a mess. and shes got that huge smile on her face. how can this be?”

and the only answer is its because of blogging. the biggest blessing of my life since the Nexus.

for fun i put a wooden spoon in my shorts and played with it so that it looked like it was my schween. i was all, mind if i take out my rock hard wood? her eyes got huge. and she typed in “go for it” and looked at the door for her sister.

i had both hands on the spoon so she couldnt see it. every now and then the head of the spoon poked out and her mouth gaped. i threw my head back and rubbed the spoon furisiously. as she was glued to her screen.

eventually i showed her the spoon and she laughed.

again, i couldnt have done that with kids bumping into me on their trikes.

well maybe I could, but i doubt my wife would like it. so yes, im very happy for my friends, and my sister, and everyone with their kids. and im also happy that i can stay up late and do the things that i like doing best. making hot girls’ jaw drop.

i hear tell that we at buzznet have some competitors

gnarls barkley who dont like us. which i find odd because some of them have nothing to do with what we do.

for example we allow regular users to post up to 120 photos a month and over 1,000 a year and they only allow 12 total.

obviously they have some advantages over us like tens of millions more users, plus all those child molesters at no extra charge.

im just kidding. no seriously. that was a joke.

honestly some of my best friends have accounts on some of our competitor’s sites, infact i even have an account at one of the sites, myspace.

to me the internet is like a huge shopping mall. a super huge one. one in which you can buy an ac/dc shirt at target or hot topic or sears or the record store and even though its basically the same product, you feel slightly different about your experience depending on where you’re getting it.

for example, as much as i love the 99 cents store, and even though i love luncheon meats, and even though here in California our health department is so anal that they put A B or C ratings on any establishment that sells food, i have a very hard time buying 99 cent luncheon meat.

i think the same goes for buzznet and myspace and all the others – each destination is a slightly different experience physcologically.

as you know im a huge fan of raymi, but for some reason i find myself spending far more time on her blogspot account than her buzznet or myspace pages. sure i will go to her buzznet deal every day to see what video she has up and i might drop by her myspace to see what crazy comments she gets from people, but pretty much the first blog i go to every day is our pallie in toronto.

therefore i sorta wish that people would get off their kick about all of us being in competition with each other because we really arent. we each have a slightly different experience to give to each visitor and i know i sound like a hippie, but, we really all can compliment each other… since we actually do.

another example. tomorrow (friday) im going to set up our tent at Coachella. yes Buzznet will have a photo uploading tent right between the Mojave and the Gobi tents, right by the Blue Room tent (map)

i love Coachella and im stoked to actually get paid to go there, take pics, help people upload their pics, dance, rock, and write about it. but as much as i love Coachella, their myspace page is sorta worthless to me. however their website, specifically their message boards, are killer for me.

similarily, i hope the Coachella Blog that i helped write (with Luke and Bunny) for Coachella was useful to those who checked it out.

and over this weekend, i totally hope that the pictures that i upload onto buzznet are of some value to those of you who enjoy great music.

see, all parts of the web can co-exist and there can be many winners.

similarily anyone who is here in LA friday night, i understand that Gnarls Barkley is having a secret show at the Roxy, first come first served. me, i will be checking out kid rock in palm springs.

peace out my homies.

and ps, all the people who have been super cool to me over the last few weeks, i totally appreciate it. its been a blessing to me and you have no idea what its meant to me.

lindsay + amy + zulieka + hey krista, i played montage at the wedding last week!

Buzznet Red Bull Party in Austin this Friday!!!

In the last four months we’ve had Buzznet parties aka meetups in LA, SF, NYC, Vancouver, Chicago, Amsterdam and this Friday (3/10) prepare for our best one… AUSTIN TEXAS during SXSW.

Check this setup out… Red Bull has partnered up with Buzznet and they have a 10,000 square foot mansion right near downtown Austin which they are sharing with us.

There will be drinks, there will be killer djs, free wifi, good vibes, and pictures projected from Buzznet all over the walls.

If we could think of a better way to kick off SXSW … we’d be doing it.

Now all we need is you.

The only way in to this Exclusive party is via the guestlist,

so if you’d like your name on the guest list, email tony at buzznet.com or message me through Buzznet, but hurry because there only a limited amount of busblog readers that i can put on the list.

so get on it!

post haste!

which is french for in ten minutes.

this will be the party to start all parties, it will be the one that you’ll be telling your friends about back in des moines. it will be the one that when you’ll have kids you’ll sit em on your lap and say, now lemme tell you a little tale about the time i poplocked against mc brown and the furious five.

Our goal is to peak too early, to raise the dead, to set the bar for this 10 day festival, and mess with Texas in such a way that they say whoa nelly.

But mostly our goal is to live up to the hype.

Buzznet / Red Bull Partaaay
@ the Red Bull House Austin, 8pm, 3/10
400 Nueces St., Austin Texas
Corner of 4th and Nueces

dear amsterdam

 

amsterdamim writing you from your airport which is mellow and quiet and bright and clean. i miss you already.

last nacht you showed me whose boss. you led me to your bars and you sat me down and made me drink 130 of the 150 dutch beers that are worth a taste. they were all delicious.

then you introduced me to two people who knew a thing or two about the Canabis Cup and i knew i shoulda kept my mouth shut when i said that that stuff doesnt work on me any more, because these two dudes took me to a fancy club and we ordered the stuff and within 20 minutes i was spinning, and then i had to go outside to get my breath and then the cold winds slapped some sense in me but im only capable of a few seconds of sense and then im me again.

fortunately everyone was ready to go since i looked so green. so we walked. we walked down your beautiful streets. i didnt want to stop walking. i rode my free macbike over your roads and i loved each peddal and there i was walking in the middle of the night through your alleys and sidewalks and i loved each step.

i needed to hurl but i didnt want to hurl into your clean streets and adorable canals.

i tried so hard not to be the typical ugly american but there i was wasted off the herb and burping up beer. it was something the man with the camera had mixed in the joint i kept telling people but they just laughed at me and told me my Lakers ski hat was on crooked. one day i’ll have to tell you about the local who wanted to fight me over that hat.

you can diss kobe in compton but outside the 310 you better give respect to my man or i’ll teach you what 81 points feels like.

but the dutch are like me, lovers and jokers, not fighters. the worst they’ll do is jingle their bike bell at you telling you to get off the road.

or they’ll take pictures as youre totally trying to keep it together as you wait for your hotel to spin by.

buzznet stickerjustagirl and i waved goodbye to the 5 to 9 people who had joined us for drinks at the successful buzznet meetup. i wish i could remember what had happened there but all i remember were handing out stickers and buttons and drinking everything they put in front of me and loving all of it.

how do you do it amsterdam.

i got a cot so my guest could have my bed but before the dude had rolled it to my room my dinner was being flushed my desert was being drained and every puff i inhaled was being exhaled and i was embarrassed cuz justagirl had recently called me her bloggod. oh the emperor has no game. i walked out of the room just in time to tip the bellboy and hunt for water water everywhere but so little in the two liter jug.

she laid on my bed taller and younger than in her blog. i laid on the cot next to the awaiting toilet and we talked all night. as in all night. as in we only got one hour sleep cuz we were talking so long. then she woke me up, i packed, and we took the train to the airport and she said she hadnt lost all respect for me for not being mr superstar totally cool dude, and instead, mr average and typical american joe.

and her train rolled on to rotterdam and here i am in the airport and im trying to spend all my dutch coins but how much water does a man need to rehydrate?

and amsterdam you beat me this time, but next time im bringing my skateboard, im bringing a scarf, and im sticking to only drinking.

i seriously cant believe that i got to come here for free. a week wasnt long enough, which is odd to say for a small city, but theres so much to do here, theres so much to experience. i do hope i can return when its warmer, but after the first day the weather was no longer shocking, if anything it helped make the nacht stay longer.

i will miss you amsterdam, i will buy your flag from ebay, and i hope to get a tshirt before i get outta this airport.

all my love,

tony

bicyclemark was the mvp of the week