dont worry what they think of you

Posted on July 25, 2021 by tony

griffith j griffth, benefactor of griffith park was a terrible man

unless you think shooting your wife in the face is ok

all of santa monica hated him for that because she was the prettiest woman in the entire city

which is saying something because hoooo boy.

even back then.

griffith j went to jail for that. san quentin.

even though he used a defense that is no longer legal to even utter

your honor my client was totally drunk at the time.

didnt work for griffith j, and it aint gonna work for you.

weirdest part was, his lawyer, the one who tried that nonsense

had to do whatever he could because the prosecutor was the former governor of california

true story

drunk ass griffith j griffith wasnt even from the golden state

he was a former journalist from colorado who learned about alternatives during

the great gold rush

hauled ass down to mexico where he “found” a copper mine

mined the shit out of it and bought damn near all of the hollywood hills, los feliz

and a big ass house to annoy his hot wife.

like most angelenos, griffith was a transplant who spent money on things like mountains

which were totally impractical back then because you couldnt grow any fruits or vegetables up there

and they were filthy with wild animals who were just as dangerous as a newly rich coloradan with a gun and a bottle of jd.

earl rogers was his name

who

his lawyer.

was so good and so famous that they would later make a hit tv show after him

perry mason

why perry mason?

because earl rogers was from perry new york.

look it up for all i care.

earl had many famous cases including the one of clarence darrow that you might have heard of.

darrow was also a lawyer but he was accused of bribing a member of the jury during a very famous case, the one where these guys were being accused of blowing up the LA Times building which killed 21 people.

earl won, darrow went free and then was accused shortly thereafter of bribing another juror in that same case. earl won again.

but my favorite victory of his was he defended a man accused of murdering his wife and won by asking the jury to think of their own spouses. really think about them. and the jury said yeah not guilty.

afterwards his client wanted to hug him and earl rogers said, “get away from me you slimy pimp, you’re as guilty as hell and you know it.”

which is exactly why you should never worry what people think of you

history will forget almost everything

the only person anyone remembers out of this entire fascinating tale is

perry freaking mason

the fictional version of the late earl rogers who ran all of los angeles for a little while when the mayor got thrown in jail

but earl just doesnt sound as cool in an ozzy osbourne song

how ozzy bounced back

Posted on August 1, 2019 by tony

when ozzy osbourne got kicked out of black sabbath at the end of the 70s,

little did he know but it would be the best thing to happen to him

and it would revolutionize heavy metal.

but at the time, it felt awful.

he was drunker than ever. he had hit rock bottom. and he thought it was doomsday for him.

his first bit of luck was auditioning Quiet Riot’s Randy Rhoads in LA the day before ozzy was to fly back to the UK

as the guitarist was warming up, an extremely drunk ozzy, who had played for years with guitar god Tony Iommi, was blown away and hired him within minutes. “He played this fucking solo and I’m like, am I that fucking stoned or am I hallucinating or what the fuck is this?!”

Rhoads, who didn’t even want to go to the audition because he never thought he’d get the gig, admitted that he didn’t really rock out… all he had done was a few scales and warmup solos.

but still Ozzy was sad. for a decade he and Sabbath pioneered what would be called metal. not too shabby. but he felt shabby. he went on a three month coke binge.

when he assembled the rest of the band, the first tune they recorded was “Goodbye to Romance,” a melancholy song about missing his old friends. as great as it was, the record label wasn’t thrilled about releasing a gloomy, borderline ballad to kick off The Prince of Darkness’ solo career.

no worries, Rhoads had an amazing riff that would become “Crazy Train,” one of the greatest rock songs of all time, one that gets played in sports arenas everywhere for various reasons.

and more importantly, a song that would have never have come from Black Sabbath.

it was fresh, it was wild, and the solo is breathtaking.

exactly how every new beginning should be.

and then ozzy said

Posted on October 30, 2010 by tony

im going to live my life to the fullest.

every chance i can.

in a respectful, loving, beautiful, inspiring way.

and the tuba player said

and dont forget to rock

went to see ozzy this weekend. he played on the street.

Posted on September 14, 2009 by tony

hung out with these people

he rocked harder than all of the previous bands on that stage combined

when he raised his hands, the crowd raised their hands. it was an evil, wonderful ballet

even satan himself was there. er, santa. someone.

there were fights. there was slamdancing. there were panicked people. there was love.

there was also a firehose filled with foam. and one ozzy.

the results were hilarious

only bad thing about the fest was if you werent drinking in a club,
you had to drink in one of the beer gardens.
although it would be nice to drink on the street,
this randomly selected woman didnt seem to mind

neither did this fascinating woman
who had stars autograph her arms,
which she then turned into tattoos

speaking of tattoos. if you’re a nice lady with a tattoo like this, i will talk to you.

speaking of the law talking to the miller lite girls, hi.

speaking of learning one thing every day.
who knew that elmer valentine cofounded so many killer places?
most days im lucky to find my car keys.

wanna know something crazy? i really liked the kottonmouth kings

yes theyre just a group of white rappers trying to be hard while yapping about weed

but they’re reeeeeeallly into weed. they got this one guy who walks around with a backpack of it

and they got this guy who’s literally smoking the entire set

he was also in charge of the signs

cute, but after a while youd wonder, why’d they let the guy smoking the weed be in sign guy?

i mean this guy was really inhaling

and exhaling

one minute youd see backpack o dope guy bustin on the megaphone

next minute youd see crazy sign guy smoking another jay

after a while everyone looked high so i bailed.

and ran into my favorite american idol

who told me to say hi to you guys

so, like, hi!

i was in hog heaven yesterday

Posted on September 13, 2009 by tony

had mike singletary firing up his defense on fox, had the skins giants on some other channel. decided to have ice cream for lunch. prefect breeze is coming in thru the french doors. and after football i went to a coworkers house whose bf is a writer on True Blood and we went over to their house to watch the finale and the creepy evangelist’s hot wife was there. twas fun!

on wednesday i start a week long working summer vacation. meanwhile im uploading photos from yesterdays first sunset strip music festival on the streets.

got there yesterday in time to see the donnas, who for some reason havent been playing with their hot blonde drummer torey, but they were good. ive seen the donnas at the roxy a few times and once at the viper. theyre the perfect band to be playing this fest. actually it was a perfect selection of bands when you think about it.

the headliner was ozzy. opening for him was korn, who was surprisingly good.

on the more poppy dance stage was LMFAO, Shwazye, and the ever delightful kottonmouth kings of whom i will have a large photo essay of tomorrow. just too many funny tales.

karisa and i went into a couple of clubs since all of them were open as part of the festie. the photo is from going into the hustler store as it was only one of the few places with an atm. (keep this myth going.)

so the rock was tremendous, the lighter, happier dance stage was fun. we had some shrimp tacos that were pretty good. was anything bad?

yes, of course but not super bad. parking of course wasnt the easiest but pretty much none of these street festivals in LA can easily afford 5,000 extra cars in the neighborhoods. so i just parked over by Ketchup and walked the 5-6 blocks and considered it excersize.

another irritant was the no beer in the street / no water in the clubs. lets deal with the latter first. if you charge me $3 for water, why treat that bottle of water as the enemy when i want to take it into the whisky?

secondly, we’re in a closed in fenced in place. why cant i drink my beer and watch the bands outside? they can do it at sunset junction, and the people hosting the event are some of the most responsible club owners in town, why not be able to bring your drinks with you where you go?

i know there’s probably some safety theory, being as this is their first outdoor street fest. but the truth is, if you’re in one of the beer gardens, or in one of the clubs, and you decide to motivate elsewhere – when you arent allowed to take your drink with you, you chug it. therefore the rules are actually inspiring binge drinking. if you let a man nurse his beer, he probably will.

best part? getting doused by ozzy’s crazy firehose of foam.

the pictures of people covered in that crap are pretty hilarious.

after the show karisa wanted to get sushi so as she and her pal dave went to his house to drop off his bike, i sped back to my crib to shower and change out of my crappy clothes.

it made everyone late, and the geisha house gave away our table, but man did i feel better. whoops.

my full review of the rock here in a photo essay like no other, on the Pop n Hiss blog

ozzy ruled tonight

Posted on September 13, 2009 by tony

so did the donnas, kottonmouth kings, even korn

but this kid ruled all

930pm Room 710 Tia Carrera

Posted on March 13, 2009 by tony

stony trippy neverending three man instrumental heavy rock yesicanyesican rhymns might not be your cup of tea. Slowing down and carefully delving into the depths of hendrixs heart might not be your idea of a fun night out on a cold and drizzly night in Austin. But for those of us who aren’t too old yet and who appreciate a touch of Satan in our rock are fully grooving to this no frills evening on the first night of Texas here on red river.

10:45pm tia and i are upstairs at room 710 loving the ozzy tribune band that is now rocking downstairs.

since all those celebs and bands and cars and junk were at the thing…

Posted on October 20, 2008 by tony

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?!?!

amy was all “yo tony, got any video

Posted on October 20, 2008 by tony

for my east coast ass from saturday nights bash?”

do i? first up is Macy Gray (who i forgot all about) covering Seven Nation Army

next is Ryan Starr and Darling Stilettos doing AC/DC’s “Girl’s Got Rhythm”

and to finish you all off, heres Ozzy doing Crazy Train with Dave Navarro and Camp Freddy

yes im the luckiest man alive.

karisa asked “hey tony whaddya want for your birthday?”

Posted on October 19, 2008 by tony

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”