beyonce called, but fuck her. things get weird when i talk to her.

cher called, it was the wrong number.

david letterman called, but then he put me on hold.

angus young called and i said, i love you and he said, right back at you.

madonna, prince, rupaul, sting, eminem, shakira, britney, and liza called but none of them could get me stones tickets for the halloween concert at staples so i hung up on each of them, disappointed and put-off.

venus called, then serena, then their mom. fuck em all.

the president called and i said, legalize weed like britan did. he said, it’s not legal?

“spin” called and offered me a job, but they didnt really mean it. they havent meant it since 1989.

hef called, but he was just looking for ashley.

then anna called. my love. my true love. the girl of my dreams. my lil russian nite cap. the only girl. the reason some of you are here.

she said, quit recording my calls.

i said, done.

she said, quit using pictures of me when you talk about me, it makes me think that you only like me for what i look like.

i said, fine.

she said, and whatever you do, do not under any circumstances post another entry until at least three different readers comment in your comments section.

i said, uh…

she said, you get 500 people a day on your shit and you let them lurk. if they’re not going to give you money for a car any more, make them– a few of them at least– show some love.

i said, they show plenty of love.

she said, do you want me to call you again?

i said, yes, my dear.

she said, then dont let me see you write another post until this one gets at least three and your last one gets three. i liked your last one.

i said, then why didnt you comment?

she said, im commenting now, dumbass.

cute picture of the day

your pit boss tells you to hop back on but fernando threw down his helmet and walked off the track climbing over the hay bales that lined the chain linked fences, unzipped his fire retardant leather suit and retreated into the adjoining forest.

quitter, his crew was heard yelling in a variety of languages and he thought to himself fucking ride that shit yourself then fuckers and walked and walked and walked. eventually he couldn’t hear the whines of the motorbikes and the screams of the crowds and he climbed out of his advertising, stripped off his long johns and climbed an inviting tree in nothing but his lucky boxer shorts that said chico’s bail bonds.

as he climbed he saw he had a different perspective of the forest and saw it was bigger than he thought. he saw the race below him and couldn’t make out who was winning and eventually grew disinterested when all that it looked like were colors and shapes circling and circling. motion but no movement. action but and no progress. volume but no sound.

he kept climbing and discovered something very uncomfortable in his right boot and realized it was his secret diary, just a little spiral notebook with a few pages and a pencil stolen from his country club golf course. he sat on a branch staring at a clear-cut section of the forest thinking about a happier time when he was an ice cream man during a summer vacation from college, and he thought of a girl he met on his route and wrote the first chapter of a poem that he’d never finish.

he wrote:

in the richest meadow of a wooded plain

Where clouds and rain and pain,

are as

rare as a train.

You take your showers by standing outside

in the sun

and letting its rays soak you.

While the birds hum

and the children play, and the day

and the air and your hair

are all one.

every once in a while you sigh

and say, “Where the heck am I?”

It’s then that you know,

(although you sorta thought so)

that’s you’re on vacation

or at recess

or at home

or in Love.

and lucky for all of us, a huge gust of wind took the world champion by surprise and sent him to his violent and dramatic death.

blushing: at moxie’s photo essay

is because none of you would believe it. but last night’s blogger party (#4, i think) had some photographic proof, and several witnesses, so let’s pretend that last night really happened.

my good pal the rallying point picked me up and we drove through hollywood listening to the blasters. even though it was about 830pm, traffic was nuts because there was a blackout near paramount studios. rolling blackout? terrorists? too many LA women all blowdrying their hair at the same time? who knows these days.

well brian probably knows. he certainly knows how to throw a blogger party. the host of the very first LA blogger drinkfest, the den of lion’s producer put together a guest list that included eric and dawn fresh from the sandy beaches of waikiki; charles johnson from lil green footballs; bill quick was in town from frisco so it was a treat to meet the daily pundit; i never had the chance to say hello to doc searls who i didn’t know was from santa barbara; shook the hand of a man who actually gets paid to blog, mickey kaus representing the wesssside; was introduced in person to the original patio pundit – accept no imitations; some guy named warren zevon (pictured, with dawn) who crashed the party despite not having a blog; ann salsisbury proved the fact that no blog party is official without a super cool lawyer in attendance; i talked about the power of Tsar with Brian an associate editor from Reason; and libertarians with brian’s cohort, sara, an assistant editor from Reason, which is the beautiful publication that runs nice pieces from welch.

matt and emmanuelle were there; os and ali were there; ben was there and pulled a coulter on me; a woman with gigantic boobs and no bra was there with a very dark mysterious stranger with long hair and a huge hat; scott rubush showed up only to tell everyone he’s moving to philly cuz the party scene in LA is played out; said bon jour to an enchanting french woman tolerated the ten non-dirty french words i still remember; and not only did i get to meet madison slade but i got to drive her porsche. but more about that in a second.

another party crasher was famed music video director nigel dick who is responsible for g’n’r’s “sweet child o’ mine”, britney’s “baby, one more time,” and several others of hers, and many many many many other vids that you’ve enjoyed. did i ever tell you that my secret dream is to make music videos? i didn’t tell nigel that either.

instead i drank wine with madison who lived on russian hill when i was in the haight, little did we know.

one of the nice parts of not having a car is being able to ask for a ride home from a girl who looks even better in person than on her blog. driving down hollywood blvd looking for a gas station, the quick witted capricorn cruised past two CHP motorcycle cops who were putting on their helmets to bust a different hottie in a volvo. just our luck they pulled her over in the same gas station that we pulled in to. and as i was trying to be a gentleman by holding the gas pump into the sweet targa, cop #2 circled madison and her car as cop #1 “investigated” the miniskirted twentysomething in the four-door.

cop #2 made madison follow his finger and asked her how much she drank that night. she told him two glasses of wine, which is the wrong answer, apparently, and when he got distracted, moxie said, “fuck this, im getting some smokes” and strutted over to the cashier leaving me at the pump with the cop.

i told my man that she really only had two little glasses and i only had one and she was taking me home. he gave me the follow the finger test which i failed at first because those things always crack me up but then i got it together and passed and he said, “if you drive out of here i wont give her the breathalizer, which she would fail.”

i said, two glasses of wine will make you fail?

he said, 14 years ive been a cop…

i said, you’re the boss.

and when the long legged skinny blonde returned she handed me her keys and i drove her to my house in her porsche.

too bad it was 3am or i woulda invited her in.

but i did get her number.

thanks for throwing the bash, brian!

and last night, right before i was tucking myself in to sleep, i heard him land on my roof, pissed as all hell.

he explained to me his point of view, but i said, bro, do you see my nite cap? do you see my empty tumbler of rum? do you see my oprah bookclub bookmark on page 234 of “dot.con“? im nearly finished, it’s time for me to go to bed. come back this weekend if you want to complain.

he said, no. i want answers from you, pierce, i want to know right now what you would do differently going forward. forget the all-star game, that’s over.

i said, ok, first thing i’d do if i were you is i would step down.

not an option, he said. arms folded. standing like a goblin with the sole candle light flickering in the california breeze.

then i would name me commissioner of baseball.

tony, get serious.

as commissioner i would abolish the DH rule, i would order the Cubs to tear down the lights of wrigley field and i would impose a salary cap.

you’re in favor of a salary cap?

i said, as a proud american capitalist, no im not in favor of a cap, but i read somewhere that the Desire of money is the root of all evil, and i think that’s what the problem is with the grand old game.

he said, so how would your cap be different than mine?

i said, because i would put a cap on owners and their incomes off baseball too. if a player could only make $10 million a year, so, too, would a team. profit that is. the rest would go to the united negro college fund for all those years you kept blacks out of baseball.

selig said, but many of the teams aren’t making anywhere close to that.

i said, bud, this bedroom is a sanctuary. it’s as close to holy as your midwestern ass is going to get, please don’t bullshit the king of bullshitters with your dirty lies.

and he clammed up.

then, i said, i would move the montreal expos to las vegas.

and after he fell down i helped him back up.

then i would put pete rose into the hall of fame. it would be a year-long traveling celebration with parades in each city, culminating with the retirement of his number 14 in a similar manner as your predecessor did for Jackie Robinson.

that would never fly, bud selig told me.

that’s what they told the wright brothers. i told him. pete rose is the epitome of baseball. he’s an ignoramus who took what little skills he had and honed them into the finest ball player ever. he did what no other man ever did, he played all the positions except pitcher and catcher in the all star game, got more hits than anyone who ever played the game, won world series, managed brilliantly, all with a fucked up hairdo and a chipped tooth.

but…

and, i said, and he got banned from baseball, was shunned by the game that made him, and now we will reinstate him to a glory deserving of the finest hitter the pastime has ever seen.

but he bet on baseball, tony.

get out of my mansion, bud.

lets get back to moving the expos to vegas.

lets get back to you retiring from baseball. nothing that pete rose ever did was as detrimental to the game than what you have done during your reign. Pete never bet against the Reds, you can barely prove that he even bet at all, but it’s never even been hinted that he ever — that Charlie Hustle ever threw a game so that he could make a few thousand dollars. so quit fronting.

you, though, i continued, in order to help the owners save millions and make millions, you canceled the world series, you colluded to stop players from making the market salary, you wiped your ass all over tradition in the name of Interleague Play, opening day in tokyo, contraction, Bob Costas!, and much more in the name of the all mighty dollar. and just because the chicago black sox didn’t do that a hundred years ago, you get away with it today. fuck you, bud selig and your hypocracy. my warm milk is curdling.

but vegas? he asked.

las vegas is the fastest growing city in america. you could fill a 50,000 seat stadium from tourism alone. the hotels would pack the luxury boxes, Del Webb, Spud Webb, one of those guys, Seigfreid and Roy would own the team and all would be good in the hood. the front row of the bleachers would have slot machines, cocktail waitresses, scoreboards like you’ve never seen, between innings there’d be keno on the jumbo tron, im in my pajama bottoms and i can reel this shit off, imagine what some ivy league marketing major could think up, or the good people at Circus Circus LLP.

but wouldn’t people worry that the mob, that gambling, that…

bud, nobody thinks that organized crime and gambling on professional sports could only happen in las vegas. what did you just try to tell me about pete rose and what he did in cincy? allegedly.

but how would it look?

oh, please, bud. like you’ve ever cared how things look. nice comb-over, by the way, mr. let’s stop the all star game.

i hate you, tony pierce.

and when all this shit was completed, bud selig, you know what i’d do.

no, what?

i’d name hank aaron as my successor and i’d move the brewers to the dominican republic.

you fucker.

at least i admit it.

he slammed the door and the wind blew out the candle and i set my alarm and said my prayers.

breathalizing: a drunken marc brown

seems like summer has just started and i already want a do-over. it’s like that Kevin Costner film where he says, “black is white, white is black, we’re through the looking-glass people,” everything that seems real is fake, and everything that you once trusted has turned its back on you.

my name is never was. my name’s forgotten.

I’m the best blamer in the world. if i make a foul and i get called on it i pout, i blame the guy with the whistle, i’ll blame everyone around me. i’ll raise my hand for the score keeper but in my head I’m saying, “this is so much bullshit.”

but unlike the nba, in real life people won’t always talk to you when theres a discrepancy. theres no press conference afterwards where you get to give your take and you get to hear theirs. and you don’t always get a chance to lace them up the next night and prove to the world that you are the real deal. that you are the mvp. that you are the man.

my whole life ive felt incredibly misunderstood. i don’t say that as a victim, im no victim. i say that as a curiosity. i know that sometimes i cause my own confusion, but most of the time i think to myself, “am i insane?” “did that person see what i saw?” “is that person for real with that shit?”

you better watch out, for what i wish for…

ive had a few dreams come true and usually they turned into nightmares. ive met some of my heroes and they were mere mortals, that broke my heart. ive had jobs where i made tons of cash, or had amazing amounts of power and freedom, and despite my best laid plans, the soaring heights that i reached only made for a more tragic and fucked up descent.

and when you fall that far, you don’t end up at the beginning, you sink below the surface. it’s not bad enough that you’ve seen the glory of the heavens, but now you’ve got to start over on the fiery sands of pandemonium.

when I wake up in your makeup, have you ever felt so used up as this?

but i press on. what else can i do? bandage up the shooting arm, slap a knee brace on, stick the elbow out and drive through the lane with my head down. everyone knows im going to shoot it. i cant pass it. you don’t pay me to pass. you pay me to pull up and nail it.

but in life, sometimes, when you think you’ve nailed it, some people will try to convince you that you did something wrong.

theres no scoreboard to point at for reassurance, theres no instant replay or millions of witnesses. theres fucked up me and pissed off you, and after years and years of this shit i don’t even know who to believe– which is why i hung with you in the first place.

but the worst is when you bail on me. the worst is when you treat me like a common frat boy spilling his coors light with his neon visor flipped upside down and backwards. you’ll listen to your fears, you’ll listen to everyone else. you’ll listen to people who are never there for you like i’d be. you ask others questions and you forget that they call me the answer.

honeysuckle, full of poison, i obliterated everything you kissed

fucking cheap.

clicking: the 50 page summer fashion special

i was just there for some taquitos, little did i know that id leave the place with her email address.

i asked for her number, but she sized me up and probably figured i couldnt afford a computer. so she gave me her hotmail address.

hotmail, i said to her as she handed me the napkin, thats pretty hot.

she scowled. secretly loving my pun. of course she did.

little did she know that i knew my way around the computer and i emailed her some nice letters and she found my website but still she was playing hard to get and made me wait months until i cornered her straight up at that very same salsa bar, and gave her the, “im young, you’re young, lets have fun,” line. which never works, but she emailed me back with these demands when i offered to take her to a romantico lunch.

she wrote: Don’t press your luck! Just kidding. Here are the rules:

If you can live with that, I’ll meet you out front of Marie Calander’s at noon.

a week later she was on my couch shaking. i said why are you shaking? she said, cuz youre a boy and this is scary for me. i said dont be scared all im gonna do is kiss you. she said, oh no youre not. i said, im going to put my hand on your neck, im going to nuzzle up to you, im going to press my lips against yours and then im going to tounge wrestle with you. so get ready.

she closed her eyes and sucked in her lips, giving me no target whatsoever.

i didnt make a move.

she opened up one eye.

dont listen to people who tell you to look at a girl’s body language. everything is a fake out, fellas. everything. you are the one they want. you are the one theyve always wanted. you. girls want to kiss. they buy lipstick and gloss and liner and fancy clothes, they shave their legs, they work out they eat right they clean their ears, they do myriads of things you’ll never even know all so you will kiss them on a tuesday night in hollywood.

and i kissed her.

and it was terrible.

she said, happy?

i said, how can i be happy? lets do it right this time. she said, get out, no way. no! i said, i know you can kiss. you told me how much you like making out. lets kiss.

she said, its dark, ive never been this east in hollywood. you live near that scary church, you write about being with all these women.

i said, it’s not that dark. welcome to east hollywood. thats not a church its a cult, and nothing on my site is true so pucker up.

she said no.

i said, then porno kiss me.

she said what the hell is that?

i said just stick your tongue out for the camera and i’ll stick mine out.

she laughed and thats when i got her.

today is Free Slurpee day.

and nobody calls in sick on bagel day. people who i never see around the office suddenly are in the kitchen with their plastic knives and their blueberry bagels and the schmeer.

that’s not how you spell it.

oh, hi blog.

hi tony, hows it going?

terrible.

you know what tony, i used to like being your blog, but you’ve turned into such a whiney little bitch lately. i swear.

get bent.

you have everything in the world. everything. everything that matters at least. but you’re missing one very important thing.

oh, please tell me, oh all-knowing bloggy blog blog.

omniscient. the word is omniscient. be concise for pete sake. people have jobs they have to get back to.

fine.

you need to learn how to be a man, tony pierce. this pouting stuff. i know where you get it from. you get it from anna and ashley and it’s ok if youre a cute blonde chick, but its really not even attractive for a grown man.

dude, i know i know. trust me, the last person, the last thing i need is a blog to tell me how to be a man.

best thing you ever had, motherfucker.

i know what a man is, blog. theres a look a man gives you who isnt a whiner. the same look you get from a man who works at a brick factory in kabul for $2.50 a day. confident, strong, beaten but not broken.

exactly.

but sometimes, blog, it’s ok for a fella to let down the facade and cry into his corn meal.

for a second, yes. but for a week? uh, no.

why not for a week? why not for two weeks. why not get it out and be done with it?

because theres work to do, superhero.

gotta build a brick shithouse do i?

no, that job’s already taken. your job is to show them how its done. and spread the word.

i thought that was your job, slacker.

no, my job is to sit here an look pretty, and i sure do look pretty. now get to work, fuckr.

ok, blog. fine.

wishing: i had a dirty car

and your chassis groans as the mexican ladies run with their hands up holding their transfers and the kids flip you the bird and i just shake my head cuz like marilyn manson, i don’t have enough middle fingers.

bus driver.

every lap dance, or chance meeting, job interview, blind date, or cross country airplane flight, at some point someone asks what i do for a living and i can only imagine what you say. but i know what you should say you should say Fuckr.

you dont deserve the e cuz e brings smiles.

you see us waiting for the Walk sign to glow so we can sprint across the street and race you to the bus stop but you don’t even care if we win, you’ll just blow off the stop if no one in your half million dollar office rang the little bell. you’ve got places to go. you’ve got a schedule to keep. you’ve got people to pick up. people other than us.

LA bus drivers are like doctors. they don’t like it if you haven’t waited a while for them. several differences between doctors and bus drivers though, let me work real hard to see if i can think up a few. hmmm. ok, heres one. doctors at least pretend to like the common man.

who rides the bus in LA? everyone. poets, priests, and politicians. maids, janitors, lots of security guards. old ladies, kids going to year-round-school, xbi agents, whores, drunkards, convicts, David Byrne, and the homeless who stretch out in the very back row and sleep and sleep and sleep. when they wake up and sober out they’ll apply for a job, yours, and they’ll get it. and you’ll go back to your old gig at the DMV.

bus driver, and i know you read this, all of you read this. I’ve seen you read the print outs as you kill time at your Chill Out stops. you blow off riders at the big intersections like Wilshire and LaBrea or Hollywood and Highland so you can make up time, but when you’re ahead of schedule you open your double doors at the Chill Out and punch holes in your stack of transfers and make all your passengers wait with you. you don’t care if it’s during rush hour. you don’t care if it’s at two in the afternoon. you have no life. why should others?

prolific sci fi typist Piers Anthony reversed my name for his pseudonym like no one would notice and no one noticed. but he’s a decent writer and in one of his books he tells the story of a young man who accidently kills Death so he must assume the duties. After he kills you, he reaches his hand into your chest and releases your soul, if it floats to the heavens, alls good in the hood, if it sags in his hand, he has to put it in his satchel and deliver it to the Depths.

look around the MTA locker room tomorrow morning, bus drivers who keep pulling away from the curb as the immigrant beats on your door, because there will be a bus drivers conventions in the Depths and all your pals will be there.

and when the convention is over theres a shuttle to a very dark place. very dark.

and trust me when i tell you that the shuttle driver will wait for you to climb aboard to take you there.

and finally you will experience

total

customer service.

lusting: madison

i’m the guy who shut off the baseball game last night.

before i begin i would like to thank the good people at tonypierce.com for allowing me this opportunity to explain myself, tell you how sorry i am, and beg forgiveness from you.

i have never been a bright individual. my parents were dullards, my schooling was subpar, and i ate a lot of paint chippings from my grandfather’s barn.

still do.

i dont what the hell im doing, and i never did.

but i love baseball, the history, the tradition, the pagentry, the rivalries.

you might forget, but i was the one who thought up Interleague Play and implemented it, despite public opinoin, and history, and tradi… but you love it. you know you do.

im the one that got all these immigrants to play here. guys like ichiro whose voice youve never heard. and those cuban brothers. and john rocker.

michael jordan quit basketball because he wanted to play baseball.

michael fucking jordan, people.

so go ahead and boo me, ingrates.

i didnt even know you cared about the all star game. i dont remember too many of you voting.

but suddenly you care about it, infact, you even care very much about who wins. and why is that? because of me, thats who.

in 1994 i canceled the world series. i wasnt even technically the commisioner at that point, but i made you care passionately about it.

absence makes the heart grow fonder, and by taking the world series away from you because we owners disagreed with the players union, poof, you loved and subsequently missed the october classic. genius, if i do say so myself.

sure the judge ruled in favor of the union when we went to court, and said i was totally wrong, but im not wrong when i say you will never forget that lost world series.

you’re welcome.

but i have one question for you, the year before i yanked the world series away, the average attendence was 31,612 a game. if you missed baseball so much during the strike why arent you proving it by coming back to the game?

ive juiced up the ball, ive let people use steriods, ive let steinbrenner cheat so that you can hate him. just for you, america.

all these home runs people are hitting nowadays, you didnt see anything like that before i showed up.

guys have hit 50 or more home runs in a season 34 times in the history of baseball, 18 times players hit over 50 in the 8 years that ive been around. so blow me.

since ive been around you’ve seen a ton of new baseball stadiums.

i was the one who said that fans would like new ball parks and they would really like new ball parks that look like old ones. a lot like the acid washed jeans i see all the kids wearing today.

i can’t believe that the cubs havent torn down wrigley or the red sox havent demolished fenway so they could build a brand new replica impoved with sky boxes, swimming pools, and ELECTRIC scoreboards, hello, we have electricity now. but whatever. what do they know?

i know theres no real Monday Night Baseball on ABC in primetime any more, and theres no saturday afternoon doubleheaders on NBC, but theres bobbleheads now. bobbleheads! when you think of bobbleheads you really should be thinking of me, because i made you fall back in love with them.

and God have i made you love that gambling fool Pete Rose. you people used to boo him as a player, but every year when we put people in the Hall of Fame, there you people go on and on about how he got more hits than anyone whoever picked up a bat.

you know who has a lot of hits?

me.

and last year was my best year. the mariners got more wins than any other team in baseball, it was a great world series with a very new team playing the bronx bombers, seven games, bottom of the ninth drama. what, are you going to give all the credit to byung-hung kim? come on, now.

yes, one of the baseball parks last year was called Enron Field, and the owner of the twins loans me money from his bank, and we owners lost our collusion case a few years back, and we probably lied to the senate committe when they asked us how much money we make.

but if it werent for me, america, you’d never really realise how much you love this game.

theres no lightness without the dark, no pleasure without pain, no love without hate.

boo me, baseball fans, it wont be the last time i ignore you.

anyway, sorry about last night, i should have had ichiro tell you to get the hell out of my daughter’s stadium instead of the faceless public address announcer.

i promise the next time i prematurely end a night’s festivities i’ll pick a more familiar face for you to throw things at.

listening: the super mellow new beck watching: weezer with the muppets