hey sara,

no i didn’t read the article about baseball.

baseball is fucking with me and im in denial about it all. part of me wants them to strike because the cubs are out of it, and certainly another strike will rid us of the wicked witch of the midwest bud selig, and maybe some of the other terrible owners, and if we’re lucky baseball will completely tank and go out of business for a few years only to be revitalized by new owners who actually care about the sport and its oh-so-forgiving and patient fans.

i do not see how strikes and threats of strikes are less-bad for the game than whether or not pete rose bet on baseball.

i do not see how gentlemen, most of whom came from less than fortunate circumstances, can take away entertainment from people who might not ever make $2.3 million in their lifetime, $2.3 mil being baseball’s average salary.

i do not see how the president of the united states can allow the national pastime to stick its head up its ass in front of children and women as if alls good.

i do not see how every pundit, commentator, announcer, spokesperson, reporter, and broadcaster in baseball cant be yelling at the top of their lungs, “this is so much bullshit, this is so much bullshit, this is so much bullshit.”

no, i don’t read about “labor” disputes concerning baseball. i also don’t read the obits, i also don’t read about the war in the middle east, i also don’t look at my bank account, or the police blotter, or the monthly health report of all the restaurants that were closed due to vermin. these things depress me and the only way that i can get up and walk to the subway station each morning is the belief that there is a reason to continue this grand parade. and i don’t find that inspiration in gloomy news of greed, evil, and ignorance.

what makes me happy is when people leave comments, paypal my ass, fill out simple questionnaires, and take lil hikes with their wonderful spouses to newspaper offices of yesteryear and take pictures and write about it.

i really do have the greatest friends.

she let me borrow her car for the two weeks that she was away.

i picked her up at the airport, spent the night at her place, then on saturday we went to my favorite movie theater (The Vista in Los Feliz) and saw “Signs”.

i don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to stay friends with their ex-girlfriends. it was so great to be able to hang out with her. she brought back many gifts from her travels for me. lots of chocolate. she has many stories that i wont reveal here about her trip, but needless to say, i would have loved to have traveled with her there.

so, “Signs” … as you know i don’t give away things in my movie reviews, so don’t worry if you haven’t seen it yet.

Howard Stern said that it was scary as hell. it wasn’t what i would call scary as hell.

everyone is calling M. Night a genius. geniuses have great endings, and not many loose ends. M. Night has so many loose ends from this movie its bizarre.

i have typos and loose ends and mistakes and junk on this blog all the time, but it’s a blog! i didn’t spend $45 million bucks to make it. for if i had i would have spent like $30k to pay someone to clean up those mistakes especially if many of them are central to the main conflict.

people need to tell guys like M. and guys like Speilberg and Woody Allen and all the others that people call geniuses and someone needs to cough *bullshit* in the meetings from time to time because there is a huge amount of bullshit in this movie that made for an unpleasant experience for Chris, who called bullshit in The Sixth Sense halfway through that film.

oddly, as critical as i can be, not only did i enjoy the Sixth Sense, but i also enjoyed Signs, despite its gaping holes of believability or common sense. why? i don’t know. M. Night hypnotizes me through his movies. the pace is so calm and light. he’s very funny in this movie. lots of tiny little happy laughs. we like this family, we really like the kids even though they’re more like adults than the adults are – which makes no sense.

do i recommend this movie? no. i would rent it, but i would really see it on an airplane. did i enjoy myself? yes.

but i might have just been really happy to be with my best friend, the girl i proposed to 15,000 times during the 1,500 days that we were together, whose hand still feels great in the airconditioned movie theatre on a hot summer afternoon.

much love to: rick, jody, george, and chuck for stoking the busblog

also, no need to be shy about my interview with the shy model. i stayed up late last night (3am) putting together that interview for you, yes you, the beloved reader of the blog. i should have been resting the wrists that are now tired and sore to begin the week.

what i’m saying is, its’ okay to comment on the conversation. it might inspire more non-blog type things.

http://anorexorcism.blogspot.com

meets http://www.tonypierce.com/blog/bloggy.htm

xxsosaxx: go back to page six, hit refresh

flagrant: who’s that girl?

xxsosaxx: no idea

xxsosaxx: i steal pics from all over the web

flagrant: put somebody pretty there

xxsosaxx: ahahahaha

xxsosaxx: on page six?

flagrant: yes

xxsosaxx: hahahaha ok

flagrant: *blush*

xxsosaxx: any requests?

flagrant: an old pic of kate

xxsosaxx: wow, im so happy you liked the others of her then

xxsosaxx: i was afraid youd think it was cliche

flagrant: no, i love her

flagrant: i ate with her once

xxsosaxx: did you really eat?

flagrant: yeah

xxsosaxx: or poked at things

flagrant: it was, get this, mcdonald’s

flagrant: no lie

xxsosaxx: yay!

xxsosaxx: what did you have?

flagrant: i remember i had a vanilla shake and she had a mcrib sandwich

flagrant: and she ate it like a starved cat

read more of the interview here

in order to form a more perfect union, i would like to find out a little more about you, the readers of this blog.

if you would be so kind, i would LOVE it if you would answer these ten simple questions as honestly as you can.

i will not be selling your info to anyone, or even giving it away. this is all just for me and if you dont want to put it in the comments section, you can email it to me here.

please answer any or all of these questions, but i would totally totally appreciate if everyone answered something from this list:

1. what city do you live in?

2. how did you hear about this blog?

3. name three of your other favorite blogs

4. what sort of connection do you have to the internet (dial up, dsl or cable)

5. do you normally read this blog from work?

6. how often a week do you come here?

7. what would you like to see more of on this blog?

8. what would you like to see less of on this blog?

9. would you like to see more or less adult content on this blog?

10. is this your favorite blog?

if you would like to participate in a much more indepth questionaire similar to this one, email me here along with the answers to this questionaire.

ok, thanks, thats it. love ya.

and i also send cool beams of gratitude to: tom, jeremy, brendan, daniel, david, and gary, who have stoked the busblog and raised the meter. thanks, fellas.

but it’s involved so i wont be able to write much on this today because i want to get it all done before the whistle blows because i want to get the weekend started before any new fires get going.

last night was my first xbi softball practice. i missed the first one due to the carpal and even though im still not 100% i wanted to establish my position at shortstop.

we practiced last night way over in westchester across the street from the new otis parsons building near the airport. and even though i haven’t played softball in years and years and years it was like riding a bike. and needless to say i definitely pulled my weight.

i realized that i love to run, i love to be ready for the ball, i love to hit, i love to be hyper out there. i was backing up throws, hitting the cut off man, telling people “nice hustle.” basically all the things that i haven’t been able to do at work: be involved.

on the field, especially at shortstop i can be back at being in the middle of everything. and when you are in that position it forces you to keep your head down on grounders, you cant be a sissy, you have to take the bad hop in the nose if that’s what’s gonna happen, you have to peel off the blister with your teeth, you have to slide, you have to dive, you get to sweat and be dirty.

i loved it.

and im loving the flow that is coming to the busblog.

the YACCS notes are down, i would love to take them down entirely cuz it slows up this page which is already bogged down from the multitude of posts and pictures, but the kids seem to like it.

one of the kids is our pal chris c. who wants to have a big meet-up for my birthday in rocktober. i think that’s nice. but i really don’t recommend meeting me because i doubt that i could live up to your expectations.

as you’ve seen from this blog, i can be pretty unbalanced where one moment i can be really nice, and then arrogant, then nice, then mean, then righteous, then quiet, then loud, then dirty, then nice, then i just might puke on your shoes and blame you for standing there.

it’s not pretty.

meesh is so right on about Libras. we’re everything, and it can freak people out who aren’t ready for the rollercoaster. but we are loyal and loving and we want to have everyone have a good time. and chris if we were to have a party to celebrate my birth, tsar would have to play, but i wouldn’t do it to raise money, this $1,000 drive isn’t about that.

the $1,000 experiment is just that, an experiment to see if a guy who is not a cam girl, who no one will get anything from except pictures and words, can get people to send him enough digital dollars to reach $1,000. the money part is only important because money means something to people. but really it is about the whole giving enough as a whole so that one can reach a semi-outrageous plateau.

it’s commie art, i guess.

thanks to ann, and tom, and andrew, and, tom d and matt c., and anonymous for the morning’s flow. im sorry i don’t have a graphics program so that i can adjust the meter accordingly but when i get home i will add some more red to the thermometer.

if i don’t get to update much more today, make sure to check out moxie selling her soul, or her panties, or whatever shes selling over there. shes a good girl.

speaking of link love. people write in all the time begging for me to link to their sites and for the most part i don’t and it kills me to say no. so me and moxie were talking last night as i was driving to practice and she and i came across some ways that i would be inclined to link people.

1. have a kickass site

2. have a super well-designed site

3. give at least a buck to the blog

4. link me on your link list at the very top

i forget the rest of our list but if you fulfill just one of those things, i will link you. how’s that?

finally, i will be adding more song lyrics to this blog. this is inspired by dawn, who gets linked because she fulfills requirement #1 (and she, illegally, fulfilled #3 several times).

anyhow dawn has put lyrics on her page and i like that. often times i find myself singing along to mixed cds that i have made and i think, “why isn’t this on the radio? this is so damn good.”

our first selection is off a record that i just discovered today is out of print!

i know that Rhino bought the Costello catalog and for some reason i thought that they re-released King of America, but i guess they haven’t done that yet, so the link goes to an Amazon gold-cd version that is going for $100! unless you have $100 for a gold cd, i say wait for Rhino to get it together soon. they do such a great job with their re-releases and im sure they will do KOA its just due.

if you live in LA turn on the tv, they’re broadcasting Chick Hearn’s wake. Right now Cardinal Mahoney is doing his thing.

Chick deserved the damn Pope.

what’s creepy is his casket is sitting right there in front of Mahoney, but its not on a pedestal its on what looks to be a gurney.

oh no.

his little great-granddaughter just spoke.

i gotta go

little too sad.

“Suit of Lights”

King of America

While Nat King Cole sings “Welcome To My World”

You request some song you hate you sentimental fool

And it’s the force of habit

If it moves then you fuck it

If it doesn’t move you stab it

And I thought I heard “The Working Man’s Blues”

He went out to work that night and wasted his breath

Outside there was a public execution

Inside he died a thousand deaths

And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground

And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground

And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground

And they put him in a suit of lights

In the perforated first editions

Where they advocate the hangman’s noose

Then tell the sorry tale of the spent Princess

Her uncouth escort looking down her dress

Anyway they say that she wears the trousers

And learnt everything that she does

And doesn’t know if she should tell him yes

Or let him go

And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground

And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground

And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground

And they put him in a suit of lights

Well it’s a dog’s life in a rope leash or a diamond collar

It’s enough to make you think right now

But you don’t bother

For goodness sake as you cry and shake

Let’s keep you face down in the dirt where you belong

And think of all the pleasure that it brings

Though you know that it’s wrong

And there’s still life in your body

But most of it’s leaving

Can’t you give us all a break

Can’t you stop breathing

And I thought I heard “The Working Man’s Blues”

I went to work that night and wasted my breath

Outside they’re painting tar on somebody

It’s the closest to a work of art that they will ever be

And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground

And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground

And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground

And they put him in a suit of lights

And they put him in a suit of lights

i said i would only keep answering them if i could use it on my blog. the celebrity said that as long as i didn’t reveal who they were then it would be all good.

it was all good.

tony, you’re black, what’s your fascination with white women.

im fascinated by all women. skin color is as extraneous to me as the color of their toe nail polish.

then why all the white women on your blog?

coincidence. next week i’ll have no pictures of white women, would that make you happier?

not really.

i’ll do it anyway.

of the girls that you are dating, would you marry any of them?

wow. that’s a tough question. i wouldn’t marry any of them, not that there are that many, but i wouldn’t marry anyone any time soon. but i don’t think any of them would marry me either, so we’re even.

then why date them?

cuz they’re amazing people.

don’t you think you’re too old to be treading water by dating just to date?

its better than staying at home pulling my pud. but dating can be really fun.

sex, you mean?

no, just hanging out. being on a date. dressing up. being somewhere you normally wouldn’t. sexual tension. the great unknown. sometimes looking in the mirror seeing all these flaws and sucking it up and going for it anyhow is exactly the hurdle that some of us need in our lives. the date might not end up a huge success, but sometimes just getting out that door and going through with it is a win right there.

you rationalize a lot, don’t you?

optimism is something you have to work on, constantly. you and i are roughly the same age and yet i look a lot younger than you. i credit some of that to good genes, but i think some of it is due to the fact that i don’t dwell on bad stuff being bad. sometimes the bad stuff isn’t as bad as we originally thought.

so you revise history, then. i see.

no, think about sept. 11. when that went down i had all these weird little fears. i looked at tall buildings as possible targets. those first days everyone was scared. no one knew what was going to happen next. then the anthrax happened. then the vice president went into hiding. but now when i look back at it i see a very very small group of people who had a plan, executed it, got lucky during some very key moments, and knocked down some buildings. in retrospect it was not the end of the world that we thought it was. not for me, at least.

but our innocence as a nation is gone.

not mine.

but surely…

they had box cutters and got on some planes. very low tech. wake me when some asshole launches a nuke.

is it your spirituality that you draw from to think this way?

not that im aware of, no. i think im just logical about these things.

what are you illogical about?

my career.

in what way?

im terrified to go for what i want. and it’s silly because i could probably get it. still i procrastinate like crazy.

who’s your favorite artist?

whoever painted the night sky.

is the thousand bucks you’re raising going to your cadillac?

no.

what’s it going to, then?

it’s a secret. but it’s a good secret, i think people will like it.

i swear im such a luddite, all i can do is give you a dollar at a time, how do i give you more than a buck?

click on the big thermometer on the left and in the box that says “amount” type in the amount that you want to give me.

do you think you’ll get the thousand bucks?

no.

do you really get 500 people on your blog a day?

i get more.

and all they have to do is give you $2 each?

wow, you’re a celebrity *and* you can do math! im impressed.

i can cook too.

ordering take out isn’t cooking.

seriously, im a really good cook.

seriously, i don’t believe you.

why do you say things like that?

im just kidding. i say those things so that people will prove it. i want to taste good food.

then just ask! im so sure.

ok, are we done?

yeah, i guess so.

did you like interrogating me?

yes, you answer the questions. i never do.

why not?

i have a hard time thinking on my feet like that.

i found the secret is not to care so much about what people think. just tell the truth.

well, im a bit of an approval whore.

between me and you, i bet people would approve of you even more if they thought you were being genuine.

ok, thanks dad.

lets go drink now. come pick me up.

not tonight.

come on!

im so tired.

everyones tired. its midnight. two hours of drinking then its over.

im not even dressed.

pick me up in 15 minutes or i will tell everyone your name and your real age.

give me 20.

thanks: to andrew, ann, elle and everyone else who flowed the busblog who i may have overlooked.

back in the early ’60s, the first thing we did was try to figure out a way that we could take over the world.

as time passed we realized that we were not the ones who were going to really use the web to take over the world, we were going to use it to look at nudie pics, download free music, and show off to the world at how fucking badass we were.

along the way killer companies like netscape and webtv and progressive networks and nullsoft and zillions of others showed up and everyone got rich except me.

my dream was to work for netscape but i ended up working through a high tech temp agency for webtv as an “evangelist” of sorts. i kicked ass at that gig but the mothership did not want me to climb aboard as a permanent employee even though i had been around since day two.

the day webtv got bought by microsoft for a half billion dollars was a good day and a bad day for me because all the cool kids at webtv who had webtv stock options, i assumed, would have that transferred over to microsoft shares, etc. etc.(jealousy anger bitterness whatever.)

so the high tech temp agency renewed their contract with webtv but now their checks were being signed by microsoft and the polo shirt that i was sent had the familiar logo from the lil company that could from redmond.

and tony pierce was shilling for microsoft.

if you were lucky enough to go to comdex in the late 90s when the web was seriously gaining some steam you would have seen me right there in the middle of the gigantic microsoft booth of the convention center right next to the porsche we were giving away, surrounded by tv cameras pitching and answering questions about the new webtv box, the webtv plus.

i believed in that box then, and i believe in that box now. im bummed that gates & company decided to ignore it, but with the advent of digital tv, perhaps they will put the steve perlman-designed Solo chip inside those tvs and Ultimate TV will someday simply be a feature that you’ll see listed on the Circuit City description cards like the ones that currently boast features like “Stereo” or “Comb Filter”.

back in the days of marc brown and netscape 2.0, microsoft didn’t even have a fucking browser. and when they did finally get one it sucked. we were all very very happy to use this punk rock netscape software that was distributed free (a novelty at the time) that somehow always had a step or two on their sleeping giant of a competitor.

yes, it was politics, but it was more like supporting the underdog.

fuck nike when you can sport pumas.

today is all different. theres no more competition. microsoft is huge, aol/time warner is huge, i suppose Opera and Linux are the underdogs, but im too old to keep fighting these losing battles, i’ll leave those to the true geeks, the ones who like to spend all night turning their X-Boxes into mp3 servers. me, ive got skirts to chase and opportunities to squander.

people write in and tell me that my page doesn’t load on Mozilla on a Mac or that it looks like shit on a linux box and i appreciate the feedback but really people, since the marc brown days i have always been fully committed to making my page look good on my computer and my computer only – which is work enough, trust me.

maybe one day i can form a posse of mac loyalists and netscape users, and aol hackers who want to tweak what i do and make it more palatable to the wide spectrum of variables out there, but shit man, i got three pornos that are due tonight yet to be duped before i go to softball practice, and you want me to worry about mozilla?

fuck aol fuck microshaft fuck them all, but mostly fuck aol and here’s why.

they are a company who had a great thing with netscape and they squashed it. i am as loyal as can be and they never took the magic that was behind that browser and helped use it to radiate the rest of that company. all aol has ever done is lie.

back in the day with one aol account you got 5 screen names so when they said they had a million users, they really only had 200,000 users who each had 5 screen names. what they were secretly saying is, “we have a million spam addresses that we are willing to sell to every smut peddler who is willing to meet our price.”

im shocked that they’ve basically been able to take something free like the Internet and charge people for being lazy ignorant asswipes who are willing to pay top dollar so that the three people who have their email address will always know where to forward the chain letters.

aol time warner is huge as fuck and yet where’s AOL DSL? wheres AOL TV? wheres the AOL channel on tv? we’re more than halfway through 2002, motherfucking backstreet boy is about to fly to the moon, and AOL is still hustling dial-up through mailing cds to people?

die.

aol has never graduated itself as being anything more than the web with training wheels and lucky for them most of their users are satisfied – or not dissatisfied enough to switch. it reminds me of all my high school friends from illinois who visit me in the winter and say, “God, California is awesome,” and then fly back to the snow and shit and pay the same rent that i pay and suffer and age and die in their own filth.

the internet is no mystery. im a fucking poetry major. i show all of you sites like leah’s and nay’s and chelle’s because i can not put it to you any simpler than to say that little girls are kicking your ass in major ways. you, who figured out life enough to buy a house, and land a great job, and raise kids. you, who can fix cars and bake lasagna and read tolstoy. if these strawberry shortcake super nintendo loving barely teen girls can figure out all sorts of java html and photoshop tricks while twirling their hair, then why cant you?

i know you have stories to tell. i know you have an arty way to show it. i know the music’s inside you.

i don’t use netscape because it is the rotting corpse of an unfulfilled promise demolished by white men in white suits who took something brilliant on one coast and rubbed shit all over it on the other coast and its existence only causes trouble and brings about sad memories.

the beauty of those early days of the web was the result of thousands of people trying new things and exploring the ends of cyberspace.

i invite each of you to come with us now and return to those magical days of yesteryear when grad students obsessed with sumo wrestling and bookmarking neato sites goofed off and created “yahoo!”

allen greenspan, death himself, and all the other talking heads on cable news networks who never loved computers anyway may tell you that those days of glory are history but as always they are so so wrong.

those days may be behind us but theyre not forgotten and its not too late to use them as springboards into the future, which is where you should be aiming.

aol and netscape and mozilla and greenspan are behind us, it’s time to soar into infinity.

and you might start by making that dumbass meter turn red.

so i feel pretty cool.

leah (pictured, center), you might remember is, what 15, 16 something like that, kicking ass and taking names in texas. formerly of canada, now writing about 30 words a day, basically showing off that she barely has to write a thing and still averages 700 hits a day.

lil dose of reality for you, people.

got a little link love from mark over at swannie’s blog who says he likes my new blog header but feels let down that im busting with the IE and not the Netscape.

“I was a little shocked to see that it is IE, not Mozilla. I thought this guy was down with the geeks :P” mark writes.

geeks, let me educate you a little. its no longer 1997. netscape got bought by aol. aol is no friend of the geek. aol is no friend of anyone other than steve case and now aol is no longer a friend of steve case.

aol is the friend of the garbage man who gets paid bonuses for all the tossed out 1000 Hour Free cds that, if recycled, could build condos for all the homeless in hollywood.

aol bought time/warner and basically ruined them in the process.

just like their software does on my computer.

just like their software has always done on all of your computers.

download netscape, you’re downloading aol and you’re downloading trouble. so, no thanks.

and since i use windows 2000, ie is all up in there good and tight, so i don’t even bother with fighting it, so it’s there, so i use it. sue me.

ashley likes to come over and change all my settings and turn my tool bars pink and when i was thinking about what sort of blog header i should use i figured i would let people see what i see when i go on the innernet and there you have it.

anyway, hope this lets you know, swannie, that i still have love for the nerds but i have more love for my 400 MHz P2 wonderbox and i will do anything to protect it from enemies foreign or domestic and atop that list, above all the virus makers from manila, is a o hell, not so cleverly disguised as mozilla.

mass has ended.

rock in peace.

no offense to you, but my favorite blogger is the tiny little penis. rabbit. heather. i miss her. i miss her a lot. alot a lot.

what’s going on with her?

i understand that you two are neighbors. i understand that for layne’s wedding she was there with her ex-boyfriend. i understand that you went to a party with karisa that was next door to heather’s house and all holy heck broke out and all the ladies in the house said hey. hey hey.

in fact i hear tell that pretty much every party that you’ve been to in the last six months when heather showed up all the ladies and gentlemen swarmed her and were delightfully entertained by her drunken war stories of love, lust and intrigue. i love you tony, but i hear that at these parties you hold her ashtray and fill up her long island ice teas when she snaps her fingers.

is any of this true?

but tony, tell us, where the heck is heather and is it nice where shes at?

lonely in louisville

Dear Lonely,

how many of times do i have to say it? Good web site, dull life. Great blog, dull job.

heather, the rabbit, is a vivacious witty sexy young brilliant professional writer based in hollywood. she has a handsome boyfriend and tons of friends. all this psycho-babble where she tries to pretend to be crazy is crazy. shes a hot child in the city and shes squeezing life’s juicy lemon until there isn’t none left.

she writes all those articles for salon and maxim and mother jones and high times and shes also writing a book.

its true that when i see her at a party i know that i better get used to holding up one of the walls because all the cool kids are going to recognize her and stand in awe as she holds court. but it’s cool, i like to hear what she has to say too. oh that’s right, shes also on npr all the time.

so why should she even keep up something lame and nerdy like a friggin blog?

do you really think that someone as hip and happening as heather needs a daily unpaid outlet to spill her guts or let loose her endless creativity and soulful knowledge? hell no. in fact, its my belief that the only reason she even kept the blog was as a public service to those of us who don’t read salon or high times except in the waiting room of the dentist office.

they’ve got dentist offices in louisville, don’t they?

besides, just because we need heather doesn’t mean that she needs us.

and like i said, she is writing a book so back off and let the writer write. don’t make her use up all her special goodness on this disposable medium of the click click blog.

anyway, shes just a girl, what else did you expect?

kisses,

tony