a fun family style italian place in the middle of the hip part of vermont ave in los feliz.

you’ll see cops sitting there sharing a pizza, armenian families twirling spaghetti, cool kids draining bottles of wine one after another. they give you pizza bread when you sit down that really looks like little slices of pizza. they give you garlic bread.

if they dont give you your soup, they’ll give you a bailey’s on the rocks to go along with your veal.

mmmmm veal.

they have 8×10 glossys of celebs on the walls, some you might have even heard of.

walls full of bottles of wine and wine and wine. even a few tvs for your monday night football enjoyment.

i was surrounded by good friends and we talked about how the russians should have handled the chechen rebels who took over that theatre. the consensus was if you’re going to gas a theatre of opiates into a crowd of 700, have a bunch of ambulances waiting outside and a large supply of the serum on hand.

ruskies. no wonder a non-war crushed em.

we sat in the little ante-area that had a balcony overlooking us. it made you feel like you were in a little corner of roma with your best girl, minus the dirty pigeons and tourists.

afterwards we converged on my bachelor pad and drank assorted beverages. os loves my cuban rum as much as i do, so it’s always nice to share that with him. layne brought over a perfect bottle of red. kitty bukkake brought over a fresh loaf of zuccinni bread.

i drank beer as we watched the sopranos. weird ass episode.

seemed like everyone smoked. because theyre polite they went outside to smoke but i told them that in my house my friends can do whatever they want, so then they smoked inside, where they belonged.

when kitty left and we realized that we were all dudes, someone asked me to put in some porn.

always one to fulfil the requests of my visitors, i selected something from playboy tv.

it was met with loud disdain.

i replaced it with something a little more spicy.

that didnt please the fellas either.

then i put in something downright disgusting.

it shut them up for a few minutes.

then someone yelled, “why are there so many dicks on the screen? i want pretty girls!”

the weakness in my collection was revealed. not a lot of lesbian love in my cabinet of smut.

one drunken guest bitched until 230am and then i had to kick everyone out.

some of us had to work in the morning.

conrad

so seriously that she flew to vegas to see her sisters, get her hair and nails done, and go shopping at her favorite costume store and picked up exactly what she wanted.

theres something nice about being with someone who knows what they want.

if ashley likes you she loves you. if she holds your hand and she likes how it feels she’ll tell you right there. if shes mad at you she’ll yell. if you bummed her out, she’ll cry. she’s not a great bullshitter. she doesnt kiss people’s asses without a purpose, and in most cases, she has no purpose. she wants to be with who she wants to be with and thats it.

me, im the best liar of all. so i try to keep that superpower to strangers on the street and for the busblog. if i like you i’ll talk to you. if i dont, i wont talk to you. i’ll raise my voice when im happy. if im really happy i’m quiet. thats sorta fucked up, but after a while people get it.

ashley loves my hands. she says that theyre made of magic. she wants to be touched at all times. it doesnt matter where. some girls when you touch them for too long they’ll push you away. ashley has never pushed me away. ever. in that sense, we’re perfect. there was a movie a long time back called Gregory’s Girl. i think it was british. gregory finally found his gurl and he said that the earth rotates fast and you have to dance or else you’ll fall off. i think you should hold hands.

it seems like whenever ashley is mad at me she’s in the bathroom or it’s 3:30 in the morning where all the neighbors can hear. and she says the worst things. things that if you overheard them out of context you’d think i was the worst person ever.

i am the worst person ever but not like how she verbalizes it.

ashley doesnt eat much. doesnt like crazy foreign foods. doesnt like any of the music i play for her. she thinks im dumb. shes right.

it’s hard to believe sometimes that im almost a hundred years older than her because she is really smart. we can talk all day. still she gets jealous over the simplest things and that makes me wonder if she even knows me.

it makes me think that in a pastlife she was my exwife.

my other pastlife exwife: tanya

i do. my fingers are numb from taking the weekend off and suddenly having to grip the stick of chopper one and typing up reports as it takes me home via autopilot and i don’t dare tell this new division of my ailment less they quit this special training and bring in a man half my age to replace me and send me down to the evidence room with the ladies and the retirees, but being 109 sometimes brings you to your knees.

meesh and simone and mr. know it all and i jetted back to simones penthouse after drinks on friday night and we cracked open several different types of vodka.

meesh likes to make big tall glasses of love and it’s weird having three libras in a room because we’re balance and love and beauty and miracles and i was none of the above that night as the photographic evidence suggests, i was just there. someone for the ladies to dress up like barbies, but i didn’t mind. you wouldta either.

simone went through her closet of gifts from suitors and entered the wing where the furs were stored. we tried on minks, and beavers, and more minks. some were fake. some were not. i couldn’t tell the difference, they all fit me a bit snug.

chuck sang “fat man in a little coat” as the ladies laughed and cuban 33s spun in the wheels of steel while right outside the window on a hidden patio a fountain bubbled and i could of sworn it was rain.

me and chuck were far from being the stars of the show. it was all about the ladies who had enough swagger and grace and energy for the both of us. if it was a doubledate it woulda been a high school boy’s fantasy, but it wasn’t. the ladies only had eyes for the man with the leather appointed tahoe and this is the busblog, as you know.

i kept quiet for most of the night, which might stun some of those of you who know me but i swear theres so many different tonys. and when im overlooking the city in a place like simone’s theres not much more a guy can add to a conversation that zips through topics faster than a woman speeding through the yellow pages while not having a good grasp on the alphabet. so me and chuck just chilled and like catholics stood when we were instructed, spoke when it said so and got on our knees when the music ended.

i wish.

as the night turned into day, meesh laid down on the couch and we talked and said that we’d miss each other. she’s moving to aspen to be with her true love: freedom. she’ll meet a rich young doctor and you might see her in first class and recognize her and if you do say hi for me too.

simone and chuck were in the laundry room taking advantage of the lack of competition for the machines so i asked meesh if she wanted me to put a blanket over her. she said no. then i asked her if i wanted me to put my mink coat on her and she had her eyes closed and smiled.

and when i closed the door she looked like an asian deb on her mummy’s couch with her grandmother’s fur, surrounded by flickering candles throwing shawdows on the bronze statues not at all affected by the opened french window.

some people might get nervous walking down wilshire in the mist in the wee hours looking over their shoulder for a cab and not finding one, but i don’t.

this, after all, is the city of angels.

and the streets and the sidewalks and the alleys and the condos are filled with beauty at all hours.

meesh

thank you stuart.

do some people get front row access to game seven who don’t deserve it, like our miss heidi who was removed from the game after she added insult to injury? yes, especially in LA.

for example, is John Travolta really an Angel fan? is he really a Mike Eisner fan? how much did Eisner pay him to sit next to him? and while we’re at it, is Travolta the biggest name that Eisner could find to sit by him?

me, i would want a chick to hug me when my team that i’m about to sell, wins the world series in the seventh game.

kirsten dunst? yes, i think she’d do.

certainly theres a hot chick in all of LA who wouldnt want to sit in the owner’s box for the climatic game.

invite hef, bro. maybe he knows where to find some ladies.

if i was disney there would be no way that i would sell the angels now.

i know a lot of people would say that this is the best time to sell a club, but i disagree.

the angels are all young, all under contract, the park is going to sell out over the next few years. they completely own the yankees. most of that team still has some of their baby teeth.

the angels, barring a terrible tragedy know exactly how much theyre going to pay the world champs, and practically how much they can make off them in the next few years.

plus youre gonna make a bundle on rally monkey nonsense next year and the year after.

thundersticks, collector thundersticks, designer thundersticks, special edition thundersticks.

and i know, disney thundersticks.

yeah, i guess theres no reason any one would want to have a few million people flooding the park buying all sorts of angels merch. disney doesnt know anything about merchandising.

they should probably sell.

plus that manager of their seems like a hothead and would probably do nothing but embarrass a squeaky clean corporation like the mouse.

and that eckstein character looks shifty.

i dont trust him.

but what do i know?

i think they’re a starter away from a real dynasty.

stuart!

the one who deserved the real mvp trophy? the littlest giant, three-year-old darren baker, son of dusty.

that little fella hustled, nearly got killed, kept everyone realizing that this whole who-ha is really a kids game, and then he cried like a baby on his poppa’s hip when the fireworks went off and the giants fell.

i love that.

if i didnt have completely ruined limbs, i would have done a photo essay of the tyke.

speaking of which, does anyone know where i can find a picture of him crying right after the game? it’s sad, but it’s cute.

i am also looking for a pic of that blonde woman in right field smacking reggie sanders in the back with her thunderstick.

classic images.

i promised a reader to the busblog that i wouldnt “rub it in”, this angels victory, and im a man of my word, but the coverage is important and tomorrow the angles will have their victory parade.

i wonder if anyone will attend?

as i drove around LA this weekend i saw only one angels car flag.

i see more mexican flags.

i have seen nobody wearing angels hats or tshirts or sweatshirts.

LA is very much a dodgers town.

still.

even though their little cousins down south just broke the hearts of their most hated rivals.

and i gotta say, if my buddy welch wasnt a fan, i probably would have instead pulled for my former employers, the gyros.

if you find those pictures, good people, email me the link and i will give you many props.

i say email me because my comments are not working so good all the time. :cough: i know i need to move to MT, i know :cough:

whump

everything changes. woke up early and ornery and things that rhyme with ornery and she said, what’s the occasion? and i said, game seven, bitch.

borrowed her car to do my laundry, chinese guy sees me there at 2:30pm and he says, ah Mr. tony why so early, i say, game seven, ho.

Mr. ho left the ice skating on the tv. it’s all good. ho.

little kids were riding their little scooters through the rows of washers and one particularily annoying seven year old clomped around the laundry mat as loudly as any little girl ever could and everyone rolled their eyes and they looked at me, i was smiling, getting my quarters out of the machine and they asked me in spanish and vietnamese and chinese, why you so peppy? life blows. and i said, ladies, it’s game seven and the angels are going to win.

a russian woman dumped her change on the top of a dryer and said, “five bucks on giants.”

i looked at the hair poking out of her mole and i said, twenty or nothing.

the woman looked at me, hurt.

i said, game seven, bizitches. no more fucking around.

did the laundry in record time. i was focused. even ran over to the ninety nine cents store during the whole dance (soy milk for ashley, candy for the week, a new plant for the house, canned vegetables, a cheese slicer, gum, etc.) picked up a pizza from Mr. pizza man.

got home and there was ashley with a warm smile and a cold beer.

happy game seven, she said.

threw her on the couch.

she said, its 4:50 isn’t the game on?

i said, not till 5pm.

finished up in time to hear melissa ethridge sing the national anthem, squeezing out every syllable like a show off. but it’s game seven. even melissa was gonna leave it all on the field.

phone rang sometime in the 4th inning.

ashley, trying to bitch out whatever young lady was calling, picked up.

i gave her the dirty look.

she gave back a look that said, what, what are you ashamed of?

i shot back a look that said, game seven, ho.

turned out it was my buddy dan.

i love dan, but this is what it sounds like when you call me during game seven.

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

i cant tell you what ashley was wearing. i cant tell you what ashley wasn’t wearing. for once in my life i didn’t know where the remote was.

once in a while she would say blah blah blah?

and i said, uh huh.

she said, no, what inning is it? angel comes on at nine.

i said, the angels are on now.

game seven.

she said, no the tv show, angel. buffy ….

i was all, baby, other than your ass on my hand right now and this tv, there isn’t anything else in the world going on, and if that ass got off and turned into a butterfly and flew off into the heavens, i wouldn’t notice, as long as it didn’t get in the way of the broadcast.

then anna kournikova called, ashley didn’t pick up, anna left the dirrtiest message that quickly was deleted by the daisy princess and when i didn’t care, i think thats when it finally sunk in to her what day it was.

matt welch

we live pretty close to each other. but our work schedules are a little different otherwise i bet we would carpool or some shit.

anyhow on friday he saw me walking to the busstop and offered me a ride. i gladly accepted. everyone loves ben.

he asked me how old i was, really, i said, 30. he said, wow, for some reason i though you were younger than me. i said nope.

i said, ben, it sucks getting older cuz i feel like im a failure, i don’t have the car, the wife, the cool job like you, i don’t really have anything.

he said, you’re famous. you linked me today and my hits skyrocketed. what’s better than fame?

i said, um, actually being famous.

we laughed at that one.

then i said barry bonds isnt gay and we both laughed like crazy.

the sign says “have what you have” so i’ll take the thousand hits i get a day to the busblog. don’t ever think i don’t appreciate you.

i’ll take the snoozing twenty year old blonde girl in my waterbed who i don’t appreciate nearly as much as i should.

i’ll take the raiders on one channel and the bears on the other.

i think my tv is the only thing i truly appreciate.

it’s never given me carpal.

i’ll take my friends who i completely blow off, who will one day turn on me, im sure.

and i’ll even take all the good people out there like the 22 yr old nurses who send me their pictures, or the hose monsters who send me birthday gifts, and the bonnies and charlies who send me pancake makers. thank you everyone, i received your presents and they’re all much loved.

the sign of libra is the scales and we’re constantly weighing things: wants vs. haves. satisfaction vs desire. push vs pull. naughty vs. nice.

theres very little that i really want.

i want to blog for a living. i want a wife and kids and house and mini van. i want an old english sheepdog named angus. i want to write a novel in november.

i want these fucking raiders to get it together.

i want the angels to destroy the giants.

i want for people, who when they gank my shit, to let me know because i do find it flattering.

i don’t see people stealing anyone else’s style anywhere in the blogosphere the way people steal mine and i love it.

jason chin