worked hard the last few days on this podcast

and the thing is i know what im in for. im trying to make something out of

not nothing, but im upset that my interviews with relative unknowns are not popular.

i am having intelligent, interesting chats with normal people and

every week im surprised a thunderstorm of traffic doesn’t come racing to it.

for years ive studied this.

for years i was successful at this.

even at the academy when i presented normal people, bright as they were,

to the madding crowds it was met with yawns.

i am so idealistic its gonna kill me.

i want people to see the absolute beauty in these people.

love your neighbor.

today i got super depressed about global warming of all things.

i kept thinking, the worlds gonna end bc people just cant stop voting for republicans

or fucking people who vote for republicans.

both are unhelpful.

but then my brain would say, no no, the world will be fine

the people will die, the world will keep spinning and become healthier

the minute the last human has coughed themselves to death.

that minute.

ive talked to people who are buddhists pretty much.

theyd say just let it be

relieve yourselves of your attachments

who cares if the people die?

we have had plenty of chances to support more AOCs and defeat more GOPs

but this crowd just couldn’t

these fuckers couldnt be bothered with a vaccine for the plague!

so if anything this podcast is what i hope the aliens find

so they know not all of us

were terrible

this won’t end well.

it’s not enough for some people that you are doing well.

if i had a farm and the corn was growing and the collard greens were coming in and the indica was on point

but the pigs weren’t as fat as they should be

don’t you think we would work on the pigs?

instead the message is, let’s change everything about the farm.

but the farm is good.

i know but it could be better.

yes but the indica is the best indica for miles around. people come from all over the world for this indica. no one is coming for the pigs.

yes and the solution is change the farm.

i don’t think we should change the whole farm.

well all these others are ok with it.

but those people aren’t farmers.

but they’re part of your team.

imagine if the team worked on the pigs.

why wouldn’t they work on the whole farm?

because ughhhhh fine, redo the whole farm who cares any more, north korea is gonna blow us up anyways.

that’s the spirit tony!

are they gonna destroy us, asked the corn?

yep

what about us, asked the greens,

uh huh.

us too, asked the crystallized indica flowers waiting to bud?

no, you i will save. you are my babies.

i woke up puking

puked at night too.

its my throat chamber. a little nose too.

if i die give everything to the truest.

give the rest to the ronald mcdonald house.

i drove past them today as i was coming back from the store.

ive lived here for so long and ive never donated anything to them.

hopefully i live long enough to give them some of my fucking kick ass clothes

and video games

id give em my baseball cards but do they even know who those old players are?

i guess thats how you learn.

tonight i watched two episodes of The Young Pope on HBO. so good. i watched it standing up because i kept having to blow my nose.

if i die put my body in a canoe on the lagoon at ucsb and have an archer shoot a flaming arrow at it and let it catch fire.

i used to want my ashes to be spread around wrigley but they have country concerts there now and other bullshit so fuckit.

isla vista lagoon.

flaming arrow

explosions.

let bands play.

kegs

bring yr own cup.

and on that day i dont want anyone to take it easy on me just because i died that day.

we have this strange form of “politeness”- an unwritten rule – that says you can’t piss on the grave of the recently departed.

i hate that.

theres only one time when people from all over talk about you and thats the week that you die.

if youve kept it real when talking about someone their whole life, why must that be put on pause simply because youve left this mortal coil?

why must we bullshit each other during the week when we’re all talking about you?

my guess is it’s rooted in some sort of superstition that The Gods are listening and will decide what to do with the dead’s soul based on what they’re overhearing from below.

which is just as stupid as withholding criticism.

if you loved me when i was alive and said so when i was alive, say so when i die.

if you thought i was full of shit when i was alive and said so when i was alive, then lay it on me when i die. trust me, the comments will be up.

and if you kept it all to yourself when i was alive and there is a conversation when i die, honor me in this way: add to the conversation. do not be stifled.

if there is an afterlife and if im lucky enough to make it into Heaven, trust me, I won’t be reading the comments. I will be chasing Marilyn Monroe around a hot fudge hot tub with a giant super soaker.

if there is an afterlife and im unlucky enough to be sent down to Hades, trust me, the Internet connection will blow and i wont be able to read what you say anyways, so go for it.

and if there is no afterlife and my ashes are spread around the bleachers of Wrigley Field, trust me, i won’t know what you wrote.

so go for it.

live your life.

that is the message of the busblog anyways: live. rock. be creative. be interesting. do not be stifled. be free. enjoy all the riches of modern life.

which includes pissing on the graves of those you hated.

or sending a million roses.

me, id prefer Gerbers

and honesty.

id be a fucking asshole if i didn’t celebrate the death of the president who started all this bullshit.

the gipper today met the reaper and ive never believed that on a mans death everyone should kiss his ass if indeed he was an asswipe when he was alive, so fuck you mr president. im glad you’re dead and i wish you had never lived.

the liberal press deemed him the great communicator despite the fact that he said only one great thing in the entirety of his presidency.

after he was shot by jodie foster stalker john hinkley he told his wife nancy

i forgot to duck.

funny.

other than that he was in office eight years and just smiled a lot and made people chuckle.

he never said squat that people are repeating nowadays.

his only legacy is one of spend spend spend and watch the next guy struggle to pay for it. an interesting strategy thats being used today.

the first bush couldn’t pay for reagan’s tax cuts, budget deficits, and 35% defense increases, but somehow clinton/gore was able to.

and from that reagan legacy, today’s president is back to increasing the military, and spending the country into a $521 billion hole, with little popular backlash from those who consider themselves republican.

heck, if they didnt bitch twenty years ago, why would they bitch now?

what reagan showed the world was that if you called yourself republican, all you had to do was be a little goofy, and a little off, and smile a lot, and it didn’t matter how much money you spent, as long as a lot of it was for the military, you’d be given a free pass everywhere else.

iran/contra? it’s all good.

AIDS epidemic? whatev.

“I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964”? its cool. its cool.

america liked him not because of his policies or his accounting. they liked him because he looked good in jeans and a cowboy hat. which is why they like the current president too.

they liked him because he was the punchy grampa that they never had. the one who slept through emergencies and called his wife “mommy”.

television loved him because he was easy to imitate and he reminded people of a simpler time, the 40s and 50s when minorities were less visible and anyone could afford a house and a car.

ronnie was dopey and detached, his wife regularly consulted astrologers and outquipped him with her “Just Say No”, and his daughter posed for playboy more-than unimpressively, and watch republicans go on about how the gipper was one of the greatest presidents of all time.

what i remembered was he had a less grasp on reality than even today’s fuckup, but he was smoother, and was quick with the “i don’t recall” card.

if he had remained a democrat there’s no way he would have gotten the love that he got once he defected.

he grew far older than anyone ever expected

and with that at least ive said one good thing about the old coot.

which is one more than this amazing piece about the former president from rotton dot com.

66 things to remember + cnn’s reagan obit from three years ago + i had reagan in the gmask death pool

dear prospective employers, i nearly died today.

crazy lady busdriver ran not one but two red lights this morning blazing down wilshire.

im not exactly sure what her rush was since there were two red busses ahead of her a few blocks and three behind her. we too were on a red bus. the Rapid. and apparently she was living up to the name.

first red light was a yellow that turned red within plenty of time for her to stop, but no, she went through it without braking or speeding up at all. that made me think maybe she didnt see it.

but then on the very next light, plain as day red, red thinking about turning green but not through thinking yet.

lady didnt care, she finished doing the thinking for it and decided it was a green light. we went through that intersection and i was all, im gonna die.

all day long i chase guys with guns, break down doors that could be boobie trapped, fist fight with guys who have spent most of their lives in jail, and still i hardly ever think im going to die.

this morning i was sure someone was going to cross the intersection with their car and slam into our bus and send me careening head first through a pole in the bus and then people would publish this busblog into a book and it would be a best seller, and my mom would be proud, but the millions would be bittersweet. hopefully more sweet than bitter.

please hire me before i end up tomato soup on the side of the road.

i have so much love to give.

when i was sixteen my buddy todd used to blow off stop signs.

we lived in the sticks in illinois so you could see for miles that no cars or trucks or busses werent coming to the intersection and he wouldnt even slow down, he would just bust right through it. and when youre sixteen its sorta thrilling.

in a stupid teenage midwestern bored out of our skull way.

if i had died today at least i wouldnta had to do all the work i have to do. which is thankless. and miserable.

if i had died today at least i wouldnta had to do my dishes which are piling up because my maid gave birth a month ago and i feel weird asking a momma to get away from her newborn to clean up my crappy casa.

if i had died today i wouldnt have to watch any more of this ridiculous governer’s recall election thing. the same one that inspired my photo essay of a few weeks ago, which apparently is the biggest hit in sweden. if you look at my site meter, it seems that people are forwarding an email and in the email its saying something like, check out this photo essay.

if any of you swedes are reading this and you got the email, post it in the comments or email it to me. translated, preferably, but im very curious whats in it thats bringing people here.

hola, swedes.

in other news, splinkgirl has put her blog on vacation, something that i would like to do at some point but this bus is flying down wilshire as fast as can be and nothing looks like its going to stop it any time soon.

not even sudden death.

dougie gyro + coyote

i want there to be a party.

i want there to be several kegs.

i want there to be loud music and bands playing and great food and i dont want people to dress uncomfortably or feel like they have to say good things about me if they dont wanna.

i want ac/dc to play on the boom box, and zep, and the beastie boys, the replacements, the police, and of course all my favorite bands from isla vista, and of course tsar.

i want people to kiss each other and hug.

i would want people to exchange recipies for baked goods, and i want the girls who have crushes on boys to tell at least one of them, and vice versa.

i would want people to wear silly hats and play spin the bottle.

i would want karisa to teach everyone how to play Allen and afterwards nobody drive home drunk because there might be a quota as to how many people make it to heaven on a particular day and i dont need any damn competition.

i would want people to read from the Bible but not in a ned flanders dumbass born again way, but in a real way.

i want someone to say Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing to do with gay people, and then i want a lot of people to say Right On!

i want there to be soul food and soda pop and bacon frying and a barbeque.

i want people to talk about life and love and living and possibilities and how i talked a mighty good game but i hardly lived for the day the way i wish i could live. people like stacy sullivan and dan grant and hillary clinton really lived for the day, but i wouldnt want anyone to talk about politics.

i would want people to get high.

i would want people to dance on my grave.

i would want people to breakdance on my grave.

i dont want flowers, give them to your mommas.

i would want fireworks and a huge makeout session and jello wrestling and happiness.

mallory + doktor frank + three hot chicks living in norman, one named lauren one named kristen!