the president called me

early this morning asking me what he should say in his big speech tonight.

i said, say youre resigning.

then he said, no, quit kidding around, seriously what should i say?

i said, say saddam is a liar liar and soon his pants will be on fire.

for some reason he didnt think i was kidding around on that one because he said thank you and hung up.

i went back to bed.

i listened to howard stern for a little while and passed out.

then the phone rang again. it was the president.

he said that he was told that he couldnt use my line.

so i said, who’s wearing the pants in that house?

he paused and asked, i am?

i said, thats right, and if you want to say saddam is a liar and soon his pants will be on fire, you can.

he agreed, but apparently who ever was listening in on the extension shook their head no and he said, please lets try another tact.

i said tact?

he said, yeah.

i said, ok, say that the reason that gas prices are way up right now is because Iraq is a much more powerful nation than they appear. say that just like they control oil prices in california, they control the tea prices in china, and they are hugely responsible for the activities surrounding the attacks of 9/11 just like the saudis.

i could hear him writing because he talked while he wrote.

… just like the saudis. ok good, now what? oh wait. we cant say anything about the saudis.

why not? i asked.

he said, i dont know, but theres a big note pinned to my jacket that says, dont talk about the saudis. i keep forgetting.

so i said, just say that iraq is bad and america is good and even though saddam said on 60 minutes that he wanted to talk live on tv that he’s really a liar and his nose is gonna grow and all he’s trying to do is stall so that we accidently shoot ourselves as we’re accumulating troops in the persian gulf. and he’s stalling so he can make new bombs to blow us all to hell.

there was a pause and he asked me for another word for hell.

and i said hell is exactly the place that the enemies of america want us to be blown to. the polls say that if you ran for re-election right now you’d lose, which makes sense cuz you lost the first time, and i wouldnt vote for a man who allowed himself to get talked out of saying hell when he meant hell.

the president seemed sad. he said, you wouldnt vote for me?

i said, a real president would say “blow us all to shit.” hell is a more reasonable alternative, and anyway if you say hell people will start believing the seriousness of this fucked up shit.

then the president said that it wasnt really all that fucked up because his business partners and his family were back to making a shitload of money selling oil with a little less competition. he said that gas prices havent been this high since right after he took office when he raised it to make good on election promises that he made with his kin.

then the phone was yanked from his hand and a woman said that they would paypal me $10 for the car fund, and they all hung up.

tim blair

mariah called me after the laker game

and told me that theyre going to do it again this year. she reported that with two ticks on the clock kobe hit a three point runner while being fouled for a swish, complete continuation play that the refs blew, shoulda been a four point play, instead it just ended up laker ball outta bounds.

then they kicked it around a few times real fast and it ended up in robert horry’s old hands and he nailed it from downtown with the three and the lakers barely squeaked out a win after blowing a 17 point lead to the indiana pacers.

“isiah thomas has the most ridiculous black leather sean john blazer,” mariah told me from her phone courtside and i told her that for the most part basketball coaches typically dress poorly if not embarrasingly, and she said, “then he must be a real coach.”

then she said she was coming over and i said no and she said please and i said i wanted to try writing purely stream of consciousness and she asked isnt that what you always do and i said no way, i must stop, i must pause, i must look things up, i must look at it at another angle, and she said it never seems like it and i said that that was the point.

cold as hell in the city of angels dear friends and that means that we must wear coats at night on our walks down sunset from the taqueria.

this afternoon i was warm in the midday sun while downing my koo koo roo at lunch with my buddy who stopped over to tell me that my old boss was working at a place out in the valley where many of my old compadres now earned a paycheck.

he asked me if i would consider working over there now that she is in charge of hiring and i said i didnt know. i said i liked the xbi. he said, nothing in here is true,right? i said i had no hard feelings towards her but she and i would have to have a really deep talk and she would have to be completely honest and if i sensed even a smidge of bs i would balk, cuz the truth is i trusted her with everything, and we had come a long way baby, and then poof it was over.

that year i lost my dream job and my girlfriend of 5 years and the thing that affected me the most of the two was the job because i didnt see it coming and because nobody could tell me what i did wrong. and im no victim, and when a door closes another one opens and some kick ass doors opened in that aftermath, but it made me grow up superfast. it made me learn that sometimes things just end and theres no reason and theres no bad guys and theres no victims, theres just a conclusion and a new begining.

and back then i went over the scenarios over and over trying to figure out what i coulda done differently, and im open minded like a mofo so of course i saw about, oh, a half trillion things i coulda done differently, but maybe i was just a piano player on the titanic and no matter what tune i was playing at the time, the shit was still gonna sink. sometimes things are bigger than our efforts, and in those moments you just have to conduct yourself with class and try to finish the song before the artic swallows you up.

the koo koo roo went down easy today and the conversation was all my bro’s because i was happy from nabbing some pretty terrible people early in the morning while they were sleeping, so the boss let me go home on time this evening, and tonight was a treat because i got to walk to the busstop while the sun was setting. and in those situations sometimes i take a deep breath to do an unscientific test on my health: perfect. i check my pockets for my housekeys: present. and then i walk east down wilshire looking over my shoulder for the bus as i head to the Rapid stop.

and tonight i didnt think bad thoughts about the cyclists who walked their bikes into the crowded subway cars even though theyre not allowed until after 7, i didnt read over the shoulder of the downtown business man who was flipping through the Economist way too fast, and i didnt stare at the bleached blonde korean woman who every time i see her has something see through, too tight, or in this case, too revealing, falling off her curvy frame.

i didnt read ball four which im loving. i didnt read the good book which im avoiding. i didnt write in my supersecret mini diary about my plans to do things way differently once the new Tsar record comes out.

i didnt think of work, or home, or tv, or even rosalita who would end up at my doorstep with brownies a few hours after i arrived home.

i just played breakout on my cell phone and spaced out as i was sped through the depths of los angeles.

15 + 16 + 17 + 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 23