yesterday i tried to cut off all ties with a super hot chick. as ashley can tell you, im not good at that. im starting to think that i have no say when it comes to the ladies.

i hadnt been talking to her for a while and she would shoot off one volley of email after the next in such a tone that i thought she was planning on assinating me.

tell me what time i can come over tonight.

never, ho.

please, tony, what time can i come over.

sometimes you just want a few minutes to get your shit together, to build a case, to get your little speech ironed out.

for her i had decided i wasnt going to have any speech. it was just going to be over. forever. we had had this issue a few times before. there had been words. if the problem wasnt going to be fixed forever, then i was willing to cut my losses and get out of the drama.

i hate drama.

all week we had been bickering and you dont want to get me involved in an email fight because i have some stealth weapons that really shouldnt be allowed into the field of play. and i have an itchy trigger finger. and i have no patience. and i can be easilly pissed off in the heat of the moment.

because i respected her and promised after the last war that i wouldnt use those weapons, i didnt. and in retrospect i feel a little proud because she had been unapologetic during this skirmish and it would have been very easy to begin with the pandoras box of insults and diatribes.

i did love this girl. and i still do. and some of the scars from those past assaults are slow to heal. so i was extra careful this time.

big mistake because she came over looking better than id ever seen her. she was apologetic. she was perfect actually. i was beaten down by life and a six pack. she held my hand and told me how sorry she was. i tried to change the subject once the thai food had arrived, but she wanted to tell me how important i was in her life.

it made it hard for me to stay mad at her. but i was doing a good job.

she looked at me with her sparkling green eyes and i looked at the all star game instead.

she put her head on my lap and looked up at me.

i at the cracks in the fireplace.

i didnt do much talking. i didnt smile much. i was trying to harden my heart. i was succeeding. she said things and i listened and before i knew it i was back to being her little bitch and i wasnt sure if that was failure or not.

everything is failure.

and then she went home.

and i felt better, and i was able to finish my tsar photo essay, and i slept well, and i woke up well, and i got on the bus well, and we still havent found the missing xbi guy.

and if you cut a tree open you’ll see its rings.

this week has been a ring.

ive aged a whole year.

i need another beer.

new photo dealie

and visit every state. along the way i think i would like to go to a bowling alley in each state, and also go to a drive-in in each state. i would also like to dare each state to show me a better time than the previous one. i would also like to drink a local beer wherever i go. i would also like to spread goodwill towards men, and greatwill towards women.

i would also like to take a lot of pictures and show them to you.

i would also like to know what youd like to do.

i dated a nympho in frisco (not pictured) and we’d go to the skyline drive-in in daly city and shed attack me and barely let me up for air. i never knew nympos existed but they do. she was sorta ashamed but not really. she reminded me of an alien from another planet. i believe. she only wanted one thing. it was nuts. chinese. nice boobs. cutest eyes and best voice.

lived with her parents in south san francisco and we talked on the phone a lot at first and she would keep asking me to take her out and i would tell her that i dont date girls from aol and she would tell me the things she would do to me and i said hmmm and she would tell me the things i could do to her but all i wanted to do was meet her.

men always hope for control but rarely get it.

i believe she was twenty.

we didnt see jurassic park two we didnt see the cable guy we didnt see a lot of things.

strangely she didnt like being touched.

or kissed.

if i tried to get close she would giggle and stop and take a deep breath and giggle and say one or the other. and i would kiss her and she would say wrong other and put me inside her and say tony.

i cant say that i felt used after a while but i did.

i cant say that it was entirely enjoyable but it was interesting.

i cant say that i would want my sons to experience this phenomenon but yes i can. i would want them to see the extreme register on the vu meter because it shows you that you can eat too much cake for breakfast.

that you can go to the drive in too much.

but the drive in was always nice.

and i miss the ones theyve torn down around this town.

neens + taupe + la encantada

of single women who dont even know me for this blog. which is refreshing because i am not the stud in real life that my writing staff portrays me as in these pixels.

for the most part im a timid, unsure, skittish little man, barely able to put two words together without the aid of cue cards or smoke signals along the horizon. which has made the various blind dates that ive been on recently quite an adventure.

the benefit of dating women who read this journal is that they understand that i dont own a car, that i have a terrible memory, and that all of my faults should be ignored because im such a sensitive poet. faults like being nearly penniless despite the beach house in malibu and the hollywood hills villa.

and flying car.

and pirate’s booty.

the girls from friendster are picture-happy. they send me their pictures and i send them mine. i dont send any that marc brown has taken because he always catches my wrong side. all my sides are my wrong side which is why i will always love ashley even if i am avoiding her because she tells me that i am a handsome stud no matter what sorry ass picture she sees of me. and sometimes, especially in my case, flattery will get you everywhere.

to the left is a picture i took when i first moved away from frisco to LA back in 98 and broke up with my true love.

some neighbors had poisoned my salad with magic mushrooms on a hot summer day like today and i got back to jeanines apartment where i shared a futon with her and i looked at the mirror and i said damn im one hot tamale. and i took a picture. at the time i didnt know that my stomach would soon expand but at least i have this evidence that i once looked halfway decent.

now i look about one quarter decent and that quarter is from my knee down to my toes.

i have been told i have beautiful feet.

i have no idea where this post is going.

what was the point? oh yes, friendster girls.

hi friendster girls. thank you for being my friendster. thank you for adding me to your long lists of strangers. thank you for writing me. thank you for inviting me to your 21st birthdays.

i imagine that one day i will be too old to date 21 year old girls, but i see hef and tony randall doing it so maybe that day will be when i turn 125.

until then they will have to suffer with my tales of horseless carriages and they will make me live through Postal Service cds.

and one day my children will ask me why i married their mother and i will say

boredom and defeat.

and then i will ask him not to talk to me for the rest of the evening if its ok with them.

tossed and turned. fell asleep. woke up. my stomach was gurgling from too much diet dr. pepper and i just laid on my back and felt the breeze saunter in through the screen window. it reminded me of being a kid in illinois but even then i could sleep like a rock. last night was different. besides the full moon there was definately a disturbance in the force much worse than my beloved all star game falsely being held at comiskey.

fell asleep finally in the wee hours after focusing on thinking about anything other than i had been thinking about. had several dreams which is also rare since the xbi had snipped that part of my brain. drempt that i had called over a hottie to spend the night with me, someone who would ignore my gracelessly aging face, someone who would just lay there with me and protect me as the goblins and ghosts bukkaked all over my innocent thoughts. someone who would tell me that it would be ok. someone who said id be their first round draft pick. but in the dream she said she had to wake up early in the morning and would have to take a rain check.

then i had a dream that i was assigned to drive from one red lobster to another to taste the quality from property to propery. strange and dangerous duty but what good job isnt deadly in one way or another. lobster for lunch, shrimp for dinner. every day. every night. woke up and found that i still hadnt slept very much. thought about writing. thought about finishing my thing on tsar that i started the other night but that just made me sad.

fell asleep and had a third dream. again, trust me when i tell you i dont dream. i dont cheat on my girlfriends, i dont eat onions, i dont dream. had a dream that i was expecting an email that was going to change my life. and i clicked and clicked and found nothing. then it occured to me that maybe i had deleted it thinking it was spam. i get so many emails and many are spam disguised as real emails with subject headers that say Hey or Love Your Site or Add Inches Now and who doesnt want to be taller? but none of those emails are it. its just a bad dream for a bad person.

i fall asleep and wake up with howard stern talking to tori spelling and he asks her if she has ever had sex on a plane and she says yep. he asks if she was wearing a skirt and she says yep, he asks her if she wore panties and she says she hardly ever wears panties and youd think she could afford some but i guess some people want to be independent and not have to ask their parents for everything.

i fall asleep for a few more minutes and wake up, strangely rested because the gurgling in the stomach had stopped, the radio had stopped, the breeze had stopped and all the thinking in the mind had stopped and nelly gets put into the boombox its girlfriend the duet with justin timberlake and i step into the shower and think about how long its been since ive had a girlfriend and i dont know if thats a good thing or a bad thing and then the phone rings and its the girl i had dreampt about who told me no thanks and she says that she wants to see me tomorrow night but i tell her that i have plans and she says what about thursday night and i say what about your boyfriend and she says what about friday night and i say i have to drink a lot on friday night and she said i might be able to get a fake id by friday and i think maybe i am better off without a girlfriend. and when i get to the train, a hot chick with a victoria secrets gift bag is reading bukowski and im so stunned i dont say a word.

jason + jason + jason + jason + jason + jason + jason

ichiro suzuki and albert pujols (pictured) are the two best players in baseball. this year they were the top vote-getters in their respective leagues. tomorrow they will play against each other in the annual major league baseball all star game which will be held in what could be the worst stadium in baseball, bank one us cellular field, formerly the new comiskey in the south side of chicago.

if i traveled around the country i would want to get one day jobs. id like to be a short order cook one day, a waiter the next, a bartender the next, an airport luggage handler, a mcdonalds drive thru cashier, a swanky hotel conceirge, a waterboy, a chauffer, a bell hop, a caberet barker, a seven eleven graveyard shift cashier, a long shoreman, a wedding dj, a girls gone wild cameraman, a technical director of a tv show, a bailiff, the reader of the gospel at a southern baptist church, an organ grinder, a candlestick maker, a baker, a butcher, a pizza man, a 911 operator, a singer of the national anthem, the guy who plays the cds of anthem rock at the basketball game, a substitute teacher, a hot dog vender at a bus stop, a blackjack dealer on an indian reservation, a home plate umpire, a taxi cab driver, a herse driver, a subway sandwich artist, a subway car driver, talk show host, coal miner, fine diner.

voice over talent.

i would also like to do some volunteering.

like at the playboy mansion.

for the winter.

i could sleep above the garage.

walk around with my laptop and blog inconspiculously.

maybe the chefs can teach me to cook.

and hef can teach me to rock.

and the gardeners can teach me to garden.

and the ladies can teach me about the ladies.

tomorrow you should watch ichiro suzuki and albert pujols who you how baseball should be played.

its my favorite.

its the all star game.

noah glass + kate sullivan + 6urn7 10v3

and dip into the mailbag. lets see what the kids are saying today.

Subject: i linked you

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003

hey there, i was reading through some posts etc. on your site and found it really enjoyable.

there isn’t many sites are just based on pure content and i admire that, my site used to be but since then its more of a whorey operation, looking for the big hits the cheaper way (though absolutely failing to succeed – I’ll go back to it once there’s an audience).

I found your link on a link of lameking.net, who is another site that has great posts.

so anyway i noticed you wanted to be told if you were linked so i thought i’d send you this, i’m not expecting any payback for it, just have a lot of free time.

Mike

——

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 22:44:15 GMT+01:00

Subject: my adoration…

Hi Tony,

I love your blog. I found the busblog a few months ago – I was directed your way by JimmyT (The Joint), so you can blame him for my tony-lurve!

I check out your blog everday. Your photo essays rock, too. You’re the man, tony! Unfortunately I can’t come and stalk you as I live in England, but it’s the thought that counts, right? 😉

Just wanted to let you know that I’m reading and lovin’.

Kate

XXXX

——–

From: “the lost one”

Subject: great site. thank you.

To: blog@tonypierce.com

hey – while i am not linking to you, i want you to know i thoroughly enjoy your site. it looks like you enjoy the hell out of doing it. it shows.

my blog is in transition. but when it grows up, it wants to be like yours.

right now, it just plain sucks.

take care,

the lost one

http://vita.blogeye.com

———

From: nice girl

To: bloggy@tonypierce.com

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 13:48:29 -0600

I don’t know why I feel inclined to tell you this, but I had a dream about you last night. I can’t really remember it all that well, but I know that I talked to you, heard your voice. Your voice was very clear, and had a very fine resolution to it (for lack of a better way to describe it.)

Anyway, I also wanted to thank you for commenting the other day. It’s flattering to know that you’ve even seen my site. A lot of times I come to your site first for inspiration before I post. You definitely have a unique voice, and a unique way of expressing your views. So thanks for being my muse from time to time.

D–

——

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 06:30:31 -0700 (PDT)

From: “Pam”

Subject: your blog, what else

To: blog@tonypierce.com

hey, tony 🙂

your blog still manages to overwhelm me everyday.

i work in a newspaper and a couple of weeks ago, i printed out “just words” and posted it on my computer table. i don’t know if that’s okay with you, i’ve been feeling guilty about it and that’s why i wrote to tell you. if you want me to take it down, i will. anyway, as a result of that, other people from my office have started reading your blog too 🙂

you seemed to be down in your last post – but i know that won’t last. because if it did, you wouldn’t be tony pierce, you would just be like the rest of us.

take care.

keep knocking us down with your powerful words.

🙂

pam

with anyone. but especially with my friends. probably cuz im no good at it. and probably cuz we never do it.

but sometimes someone has to call bullshit and often times its me. and often times the other party says my bad, but sometimes they dont and it makes me so mad i want to cry. but i dont know how to cry any more. the xbi took care of that years ago.

i feel feminine when i fight. i hate that. im not a victim but when im upset its usually because i feel victimized or i feel like theres something that i want that was implied or down right promised that didnt come true and when i get the reason why and its bullshit i get all twisted inside because i smell a rat and i hate smelling rats.

but worst of all i hate feeling lesserthan cuz i always feel lesserthan. i just dont like it in my face and so obvious.

i kick ass at pinball though, so back off.

the other day someone said that the greatest living short story writer was in the house and the greatest living poet was talking to him. the fellow was talking about me and pat whalen. which is true. but being the greatest living poet, in my opinion is like being the greatest living hairdresser. its like a thanks, but no thanks.

ashley says that i cant ever be pleased, and shes right, but shes wrong.

its easy to please me.

just follow my dreams, be my friend.

dont make me feel less than.

drink with me when im out.

dont make me feel like a girl.

tell me nice things.

and break up with your boyfriends and molest me with your hot girlfriends as slayer cranks.

raymi + buffoonery + azarok

kids usually have the right ideas. i have to keep remembering that.

i think as time goes on i will start putting in here excerpts of my high school diary. back then we needed a chisel and a hammer to write down our ideas, and sometimes we had to use the skulls of past meals, but the words were laid down, the thoughts were documented.

i find that i follow a lot of the morals today that i promised myself to do back in the day. back when i had star wars stickers staring at me from my bunk bed. one thing i promised was that i wouldnt have sex with anyone who i didnt love. ive strayed from that a tad, but for the most part i understand why i said that and i still agree with it.

strangely i thought that i would lose my virginity to a prostitute. this is where idealism fucks shit up. it was my teenage belief that prostitutes knew more about the love-making process and as long as i made sure that they showered first, then they would be the correct teacher to send me on my way into manhood.

fortunately i didnt follow up on that idea.

i also didnt become the baseball player or baseball manager that i thought i would be.

and today as i got off the bus and back into the office, i wondered if i really wanted to be a superhero any more.

i questioned a lot of things on the bus as i read Moneyball and watched two very affectionate mexican people hold each other and kiss and hug and kiss and hug.

the man was shorter than the woman and he had one arm around her and the other arm on her leg. she was making a cellular phone call. they both had a lot of gold jewlery on. they both appeared to be in their late thirties. the passion they had for each other made me think the worst things:

is she his mistress? is this forbidden love? are they always like this? are they newlyweds?

he had a gold wedding band, and she had a ring on the right finger too, and a diamond on it.

they hugged all the way down wilshire and he never touched her in an innappropriate place and for the most part she looked forward and smiled while he worked on her neck and spoke spanish oh so quietly in her ear.

it was true lust, possibly love. it was early in the morning. they were riding the bus together to work. i couldnt think of anything more romantic. i hated that i had to go to work. i hated that i had to worry about work. i hated that we still havent found the missing xbi agent and that all of our secrets were about to be revelead or had probably already been revealed.

i hated a lot of things on this beautiful morning in the city of angels but i didnt hate that moment.

and i dont hate you.

gweilo diaries + the mighty doc searls + rabbit blog

and amy and leibowitz and others will write books about the daily nexus, the mesopotania of modern writing. and when they do they will point to patrick w. whalen (pictured) who i believe was sports editor his freshman year and then editor-in-cheif his sophomore year.

it was during pat’s sophomore year that i got the courage to write to him and tell him how much i loved reading my college paper and how i wanted to write for it. i included a terrible record review, some poems, and an opinion column.

i believe pat used it to sop up a knocked over milwaukee’s best and he never called me back. i believe i ended up coming into the nexus to meet him weeks later and he said, oh yes, yes, i was just about to call you. i love what you wrote.

all hogwash. but it doesnt matter. destiny has its own timetable and all of us were meant to be together and all of us will be together forever.

the educated will tell the real stories and include the facts and figures. but all i know is pat was my hero. he was the figure and the figurehead. the example and the exception. the eye and the hurricane.

amy followed him and had the impossible job of replacing him, but she did it. despite all the childish behavoir around it, sexism and whatnot. being the ringleader of adolescent genius isnt a task id assign even the brightest people, but amy still steered the ship to victory and while i raise my glass to pat today, please dont anyone think that i dont raise my other glass to amy as well.

i have many heroes from that era and they couldnt be more different and they are all beautiful and pure and have hearts of gold.

the other day at spaceland pat told me the most wonderful things. he praised me for my writing. he told me secret things, personal things that made me beam because i respect him so. in a perfect world we would all get back together and reshape american journalism and reintroduce the concept of rocking out with ones cock out. we would expose the evil doers and love the lovely.

when i tell people about pat i tell them that at the time he was the best writer in a office of best writers. and they ask is he still the best writer and i dont know because he doesnt have a blog, which is good because if he did none of you would be reading this.

pat was the singer of the first isla vista band that i was ever in, the reluctant surgeons. you had jeff whalen on guitar, max on guitar, welch on bass, me on drums, and i think someone was playing trumpet or some shit. we practiced one day in someones living room and a drunk guy came in and took off his shirt and danced for us as we played jumping jack flash.

pat was there with me when his best friend fired me at 3 in the morning after i had busted my ass.

pat was there with me when his best friend banned me during the persian gulf war when i said that i couldnt be responsible for editing any more damn war stories, because that war was killing me. that i wanted to fall in love with jeanine, who i was totally in love with.

pat was there when i rose from the dead and interviewed the chancellor of the university for the nexus’s fake competition in a three part exclusive where i was able to ask all the things that the nexus would have loved to ask but they were the nexus and she wasnt talking to us, but she would talk to me, and answered every damn question i had… whatever.

pat was there when i won the award for best art’s section despite not being entered by the guy who fired and banned me, pat entered me, pat picked out the sections for me, and it was pat who smiled big (like all of us) when i got my award, dressed in a dress, and it was pat who repeatedly yelled “irony of ironies!” as i brought home our first award for that section ever.

he has raised probably the happiest young son that ive ever seen who pat claims is now even happier.

he is single-handedly responsible for the czech republic being one of the newer members of the UN.

he inspires not only me, but his brother jeff, who fronts the rock group tsar, who idolizes pat even more than i do.

pat was the first one to put his tounge down my ear at my first nexus office party, to which i pushed him away in disgust, but then realized later that the wet willie only meant that i was baptised into the family.

people ask why all of us are so close and why we will always be so close and all i can do is say that somethings are meant to be and theres nothing you can do to fight it or change it or alter it.

you cant move away to foreign lands, you cant go off and get married, you cant go off and have real lives, you cant escape it. its there. we’re all blood brothers and blood sisters joined by spit, sealed with a kiss. the gods at mt. olympus look up to something and its called the nexus.

and thor stands above them all.

and may i say, it was a pleasure and an honor to hang out with him these past two weekends.

my best to you, my friend.

i’ll see you at the guns n roses reunion tour at the collesium.

marc brown is always there + amy + dougie