they also had a silent auction. which our friend Karisa was very happy to show you, the busblog reader.
i dont know how good this video quality is, so if you want high def(fer) click the video and then click “to view in higher quality” or something. i dont know
im tony the blogger, not joe the plumber, i dont know everything.
update: i blogged about it here at the Times. apparently those bands werent there for me?!?! can you believe this?!?!
i was all just come to my birthday party on wednesday at the redwood. she was like, no no, other than that, of course i will come to your party, but what do you want on top of that?
i was like, i dont care, lets just hang out if you have some time either the weekend before or the weekend after. she said duh, but what? i was all, lets eat somewhere and see a movie or something.
but karisa doesnt like movies so she said “how about i get some of your favorite bands together, i know how weird you are about getting everyone together.”
so i was all, cool! tsar, monster squad, rocket, mere mortals, this will be great! so yesterday she picked me up, i didnt know where the rock was gonna be. and she drove me to the valley, which is weird cuz most of our friends play in silver lake or hollywood or downtown.
we went inside this car dealership where she had rented out this well whole car dealership
and there were remote control cars to play with
and the batmobile was there!
and this crazy space ship car from the Jetsons was there
this car from the future by Ford of all people was there
but i was promised rock. so we went inside and there was Dave Navarro playing guitar with kip bauersfield singing!
then my favorite American Idol, Ryann Starr showed up with these dirty pussycat doll babes and they danced to one of my favorite AC/DC songs “girls got rhythm”
then the guitarist from The Cult came out and everyone sang “Love Removal Machine”
then Steve Stevens came out and they all sang “Rebel Yell”
then Xzibit came out and rapped something crazy but i was getting drunk at this point and i cant remember what he sang but Karisa was fully eating it up
but weirdly, all of that was just the warm up for the good stuff. all of a sudden Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols came out and everyone sang “EMI” and “suffojet city”
then Cypress Hill showed up and did a few numbers including my fave “Rock Superstar”:
with SLASH on guitar!
then they did Welcome to the Jungle!
slash + navarro trading solos was pretty amazing all by themselves
then because karisa is the best. and she hearts me. and i heart her back.
Ozzy
Frickin
Osbourne
busted with Crazy Train, Iron Man, I Dont Know, and S.O.S.
with Slash and Navarro on the dual guitar attack
then she sent me home with bai ling
best birthday ever.
i think you start off with a swim in the ocean, then you ride your bike like 15-20 miles, then you do like a half marathon.
no big whoop.
thats what i love about this picture. for most of us the mile or two that youd have to swim would be a workout all its own. or the prospect of a huge run after the long bike race would be enough to make you all, !@#!@#@, but theres karisa just smiling away like its the most fun thing in the world.
maybe it is the most fun thing in the world. but i will never know because i still have two flat tires on my bike and my swim suit says Chicago Cubs on it.
speaking of politics. lets talk about politics. the busblog has been amazingly consistent in its stance about being partisan. i believe that people do themselves a disservice when they say oh im a liberal or oh yeah im a conservative. what is that?
if you ask me all thats doing is allowing the politicians to suck at their jobs.
if i knew, for example that no matter what i wrote, day in, day out, i would have millions and millions of readers who might whine a tad but ultimately support me when it mattered, i would end up being the laziest, fattest, most boring blogger ever. but because i know that on any given day you might leave the busblog and never come back it sorta makes me have to earn it each and every day.
i think thats healthy.
but in politics people choose their sides and mostly stick with em. they dont care what positions their “party” goes for, they will back them. the dems for example gained the majority in congress after the last elections. many think they were hired to go in there and end this war, impeach the president, and stop all this crazy spending. the democrat-led congress has done none of that. they havent even tried. and the result? yawns from the people who took time out to vote for them.
same could be said for the republicans. conservatism is based around certain ideals like a small government, a balanced budget, and a strong national defense. this administration has a bloated government, the highest deficit ever, and a military that is busying itself with the furthest thing from a defense – more like an offense.
when you allow “your” party to veer so far off it’s goals AND THEN continue to support them, then you have become part of the problem.
american citizens should go back to being the employer. we can vote out whoever we want. we can vote in whoever fits what we believe in and what they say they will do. if they dont do what they say they are going to do, they should be fired. period.
instead we coddle them and pretend that if we vote for others our world will crumble.
meanwhile our world goes through massive changes everyday regardless. and id have to say most of that is due to our own doing and our lack of individualism and courage to do the right thing.
karisa was born to carpenter ants in the jungles of brazil back in the ’50s.
she can carry 10times her weight, climb 90degree traverses, and fall from great heights without even a whimper.
ive never met a bigger showoff in my life, and i know some showoffs.
she reads every book sold at borders, she orders the best sushi, and currently shes training for a triathlon, while getting her masters in nutrition.
unlike other fakers who pretend that they dont even Own a tv, karisa watches every channel, while doing yoga, while redecorating her house, while removing mold from her beach home. her favorite shows are on TLC, the Discovery Channel, and Bravo.
she makes her own clothes by spinning silk out of her ass and knitting while on the treadmill.
for a few years she drove a toyota sedan and i called her grandma and now shes back behind the wheel of a 4×4, where she belongs.
karisa can tell you the nationality of any serious dj, she can tell you every morning FM host’s real name and radio name. and she can drink you under the table in a variety of ways while creating a halfway decent fondue.
her favorite blog is the busblog. which is the only reason i love her.
happy birthday karisa j. allen, second coolest chick i know.
hi tony
what brings you here to the busblog?
just wondering wtf youre doing?
what for ever do you mean?
um, no archives, just todays posts, sorta crappy attitude, etc etc
aint no etc younger karisa
so whats going on, midlife crisis?
first off im 101 so if you think im gonna last till 202 then god bless you, no wonder youre one of my best friends.
im one of your best friends because, in part, this amazing blog of yours
get out
no really, so why are you effing with it? the busblog is one of the more perfect things on earth. happy earth day fyi
ive always effed with it, so to speak. btw do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
pot kettle, black…
racist, anyways ive always experimented with blogging and this blog and consider this an experiment. no archives. posts just for that day then they disappear.
will they ever reappear?
do you believe in magic, five years ago karisa?
of course tony pierce
then maybe they will. but dont hold yr breath.
are you excited about coachella, tony?
every day excites me karisa, especially with you around. thats why we should enjoy each day and never look back.
you realize youre saying that to a five year ago me
the symbolism is damn near malkovichian
it started off early because karisa and i wanted to go to the Obey / Giant sample sale down in the OC.
the sale started at 9am so on friday she said, lets go early how early you wanna get there? i tolder as early as possible. she said that she gets up at 8am, which she knew would be tough for me to match since i usually dont wake until 11am thanks to my beautiful job which im about to hand over.
sigh.
so i said i better get used to waking up early so i will meet you at your beach house around 9:30am. she said, no way. i said way, and the deal was on.
at 9am i tolder i was up, showered, and had pockets full of cash to give to shepard fairey and his subversive elves and at 10am there was me and karisa at the manhattan beach starbucks getting some lo fat breakfast and listening to the new steve aoki cd on our way to the OC.
at 11am we found ourselves in the longest line that ive ever been in to buy clothes.
let me tell you a little something about me and clothes. we dont get along. i do my best to get by on items my mom buys me for christmas and birthdays, and clothes of any style find their way on anyone other than me.
the rare exception are the weirdo threads by the good people of obey giant.
last year and the year before i made my way to the sample sale and all was well, but for some reason this year every one knew about the sale and they told two friends and so on and so on.
after 10 minutes the line hadnt moved so i said karisa, fuck. this. shit. and she said we’re here, where else are we gonna go? i said anywhere except this non moving line. but she said, maybe youre just hungry, go get some tacos over at that roach coach and we’ll see if the line moved at all. so i did as instructed and when i returned the line had moved a little.
two dudes came out of the exit door and i said, bros, when did you get here? they said, we got here at 6am. may i remind you it was 11:15am when i asked them that question. i looked at karisa. then they said, but our line was waaaay longer than yours, you probably only have a 2 hour wait.
now again i hate clothes. i love obey and i love karisa. i hate the OC but i hate lines even more. i love tacos. but i love karisa and never get to see her. but i hate clothes. why am i here? but karisa and i can talk up a storm about anything so the two hours went by pretty quickly and the one saving grace was the kids in line were all dressed really cool, and many of them were of the college aged variety and quite attractive. so if one had to be in a two hour line, this was the one to be in, and next to karisa didnt suck either.
sadly it was a three hour line.
when we got in the place had been picked through pretty well, and the prices had increased since last year. $20 tshirts that went for $5 last year were $8 if you bought 4, and there werent really any big jackets or pants. and there was only one skull cap for my sensitive bald head.
still somehow i managed to blow $160 because as i said i hate clothes, so if once a year i stock up then i can have that last for a good long while.
when i got home i went to this art show. it was supposed to be the most offensive christmas art show in hollywood, but maybe my tastes have dulled over the years but it wasnt all that offensive. it was funny. it was good. but not as offensive as i wanted. still i said hi to the curator. took tons of pics that will be on LAist tomorrow, and got out of there.
then i went to my former cohort bree’s 25th birthday. bree and i worked at buzznet together. when i first worked there there was only 4-5 people. after i got hired they hired 3 more younger kids to do a variety of things. all 3 of them are still there including bree. i hadnt seen her in a long time. the party was at the Cha Cha in silver lake next to a really great record store.
i met some of her friends who were really nice, i said hi to one of the original buzznetters, Steve, and said hi to a few other current buzzneters including their PR lady who kept mum regarding a partnership of sorts between one of my favorite music blogs Stereogum and buzznet. why keep mum over something good? dont ask me, but buzznet never made a lot of sense to me, but of course i was fired from there so clearly my brand of thinking and theres were often at odds. whatevs. it was nice to see everyone and since i had never been to the cha cha, it was nice to check it out out.
afterwards bree and i ate fish tacos in the cold outside at King Taco and had such a nice conversation that i thought about it all night.
last week i was on the phone seemingly all week. people were calling me non stop about my new job, people were emailing me, chatting, everything. yes i was very happy to talk to everyone, yes it was terribly exciting, but for a year and a half i had pretty much stayed to myself and only talked to people via email and IM. to actually use my voice for 7 days straight was a bit much.
which is ironic because yesterday chatting with karisa all day in the parking lot of Obey, and then later that night in deep personal conversations with everyone at the bar and the taco stand… i dont know. it was sorta powerful. and then today my bro Kemp came over and we talked about black colleges and bill cosby and dave chappell, the good talks just kept going.
it made me hope that my conversations at the newspaper will be equally thought provoking and actually meaningful cuz isnt that what its about – being surrounded by smart people talking about smart things? it is for me.
it made me grateful that i have good friends, and it reminded me that im not so much a loner in this dark world. there are others who might not look anything like me, but theyre more like me than they think.
ps happy birthday bree. i dont know if you read the busblog but if you do, thanks for inviting me to yr party!
im in vegas. listening to gogol bordello on the plasma screen. karisa is snoozing away in her room. my room is calling my name. last night we attended the mtv video awards and it blew our minds.
like many of you, i grew up on mtv. but unlike most of you, i remember life pre-MTV so when our town finally got it, we were glued to the set – even when the videos were as lame as chris debarge, men at work, and krokus.
but through all of these years mtv has been a mainstay on my television dial. not only did they turn me on to a lot of music that i ended up love, ive also watched almost every reality series that theyve run. definately every episode of The Real World, Ozzy, Remote Control, my super sweet 16, “I’m a …” and oh so many more.
so to actually Be at the vmas, and get invited to interview people on the red carpet, and hang out in the free bar – i mean Press Room – and get to talk to Common whose song “The People” i play almost every day – was so surreal.
i met so many stars. i saw so many of the biggest people. i got to interview so many artists who i’d seen so many times – from Scary Spice to Steve O to Ron Jeremy – and to be there with one of my best friends, in my third favorite city, and get paid for it. well, if you were ever gonna hate, this would be the time to unload cuz ive had a dream weekend.
speaking of karisa, mtv gave me 1 pass to one of the fantasy suites that they had. in each room there was a band playing. in one room you had fall out boy, in another foo fighters, in one was Kanye, and in another was justin timberlake. mtv said you can get a pass for one room and party there for the length of the awards show and the artist will perform a mini concert. but you can only pick one suite to go in, and you have to stay there.
so i picked JT for our girl but because Justin was winning awards and having to perform on main stage downstairs at the Pearl, he had 50 cent do a concert in his suite, and then TI, and then Justin came up and did his thing. so yeah, 3 concerts basically. although the suites are big, theyre still just a hotel suite, so karisa was just feet away from the fellas.
she also told me that when Justin was trying to get on stage, someone pushed her into the former boybander and her hand sorta ended up on JT’s backside. which means that if you hooked her up to a lie detector and asked karisa if she had ever tapped Justin Timberlake’s ass, she could say yes, honestly.
after the awards we tried to accept Diddys invite to meet him on the 32nd floor of the Palms but were shunned by security at the door of the suite. but we got to ride in the elevator with Megan Fox who was the only chick in the house, other than rihanna, who gave karisa a run for her money.
afterwards we ate crab cakes and fried cheese at the Peppermill and one guy seriously spilled his drink when karisa crossed her legs in her short black dress.
and in 7 hours we have to leave this excellent hotel and this fine city and go back home. and ive been here in vegas many times, but this was probably the most fun ive ever had here. booze flowed like it was liquid! the food was amazing. and the company was ideal.
and in a strange bit of good luck we ended up in a stretch limo that took us to the awards for a ridiculously low rate. particularly since so many limos had rolled into that hotel at ridiculously high rates.
once again, the Lord showing that he has my back.
on the way here to vegas, karisa suggested that we make it an Honesty Weekend. since we’re good friends, and since what happens in vegas stays here, we could be brutally honest about everything regarding life, our friendship, and rock music and we had to accept the feedback or answer the tough questions. and i gotta tell you it was a great excersize cuz i learned things about her that i never knew, and she told me things that i would have never guessed.
if you do have a close friend who you trust, i highly recommend it. you might be pleasantly surprised by their feedback.
it was crazazy and shit amd i glad i dont kneeed to html andy more.
ok it was betsey johnson night and if you wore some betsey then you got a free bag. but we didnt know that. we just thought it was some weird raffle. and the line was long and it was La so peopl were cutting and ckarisa has a cast on and i just got back from sant i mean isla vista and nobody was prepared for the little LA hollywood game that you gotta placy to get whatr you want in hollywood on a friday night
and all we anted waws to get karisa a bag and there were super cool ones and there were betsey johnson runway videos playing on the main screen and this horriblke female dj oon the wheels of sttttttteeeeel and we tried to get our groove on but nobody could get there groove on
even with free drinkls
even with cute gursl everywhere
but is anyone cuter thank karisxa? no. maybe yes.
there were som hotties but no nobody hotter than our girl.
we drank. i forgot how quickly we can drink. has it been that long sincw e drank? i should take a cab to her house tomorroww. its her and her bfs bday tomorrowwww. im ean just his.
i went to IV today cuza iut was hot.
wehyenever its hot i thin ki should go to Venice or IV
i picked IV
hung with my bro joe
and then ca,e home to hang with karisa who was sooooooo fun you have no idea. we drank and talked adn judged and gopt slowly drunk it was killer. shes the best shes probabkly the only person i coulda don that wiht,
time do sleep fuckrs i mlove ou all.
theres a destinys child on my stereo speakers. theres perspiration on my back. theres windows open. theres a suitcase and some boxes on my yard from my neighbor kicking out her boyfriend.
and until now theres been no friday posting on the busblog and here it is 3:18pm.
but the nice thing about video of karisa being funny is no one is going to complain if that shit stays up there longer than it should.
last night i went drinking with the LAisters at Don Antoinio in West LA. so fun. i love that place. it took forever for us to get a table in the patio so we just drank at the bar and chatted.
i was telling one of the girls who doesnt know me very well that secretly im very shy and sort of a reculse. she probbaly thought i was kidding since in four weeks shes dranken with me twice at bars and shes seen me surrounded by people. but she doesnt know that deep down id rather be in my walk in closet slash computer den writing to you.
got a phone call today from Jeff from Tsar who wanted to tell me that theyre playing next Thursday at Safari Sam’s which is a bummer since i am on the list to see Bloc Party at the Greek. but if i can get a different writer to go to the Greek then i will see Tsar seriously within walking distance of my house.
in fact i have been sorta working out a tad this summer and the other day i said, lets run to Safari Sams and back. lets say i didnt accomplish that goal completely which is why im going to have to join a gym because thats simply not acceptable. a grown man, particularily a black man in the xbi should be able to run a few miles without feeling like he’s having a heart attack. chopper one has made me lazy.
i decided that i should work for Pink Dot for a few weeks.
last night i got home and i had a knock at the door and the lady said can i come in and i said oh so you can just knock and get let in and she was all yeah and she smiled and i said this is why i had that satelite dish on the porch blocking the doorway so that random teens wouldnt think that it was ok to knock on my front door hoping that they could make lust to the famous blogger. she was all would you prefer that i knocked on the back door. i said why yes i would.
and she knocked on the back door and i said no ones home but the stove.
unfortunately i forgot to lock the back door or for that matter even shut it since i was trying to create a crosswind. and when she took off her shirt she covered her belly and said dont look ive been drinking a lot and im fat. i said you wanna see fat go read my blog tomorrow when i talk about you. she said youre going to talk about me and she perked up big time. i didnt know someone could have so much perk at 1am.
and yes ive been druinking and yes it s 248am amd ues karisa drove us home which maejkes me a responsigble driver and yes i ahda a great time, how cant you have a grerat time at a sweet party with 11 dollar drinks and hot babes everywhere and the hottest babe of the whole place as yuour dance partner.
there were gogo girls and normal girls and the normal girls, check it woul let you get right up on them and start donggy dance them whicvh is the new dance of you grinding up against them and them bending down so you can and yu givngin gthem your card and them puttin git down there bra and then you movionmg nt tothe necxt chick
yes i was driunking. eys i drank orange juice and vocedalk which eaquals a screwdriver
amnd ;et me tell you a little about karisas dress
it was low top,. ive never seen her wear anything where her boobies were poking out like that. and it was cut in a way that it showed her legs. and she danced and i danced with her and sometimes she took off her heels cuz they wer ebig and OBI Thrice showed up and 50 was supposed to shwo up but karisa had to work in the morn adn did i mention the googogogogogogogogo dancers. shit. and did i mention that karisa is the best girl to go to these dance contests with becayus shes fun and everyone loves her
and i wore a stupid hat and a suit and hse dint laugh once. not infront of me at least
and people wore jeans and baseball hats ans that upscale and trendy warning was bullshit, in LA you can wear whatever you want as long as youre on the list or as long as you have a super hot babe with you
and i wore my converse all star black leather shoes amnd im gladi did andim glad you still read me even though i havent been giving it my 100 percent but i have though of you adn thats why i give you this video
it sout of love
nothing more nothingless
xooxoxo
tony