super hot chicks surrounded me last night. a few started asking me about my future. i dont see any future. not in a sad way, just in an honest way.

one chick had all these great ideas for me but it was like how some dogs look good in hats and some dogs look stupid in hats. guess which dog i am.

one chick said how come you just dont write all these people and tell them that you want to write for them, and i thought cuz i would end up with the job and look like a dog in a sweater. id try to stick my tongue out and play it off but i would still be someones bitch in a sweater.

some dogs look good in capes. i wouldnt mind wearing a cape for the right place.

dear playboy,

please let me write a blog for you.

amen,

tony

all they show on tv here in LA are the fires. all this girl said last night was no. and sometimes she does that to be funny or coy or whatever, sometimes she means it. i can never figure out which one.

i wanted to just be there in the moment, forget about things like fires and futures and sweaters and hats.

i wanted to think about the lakers and how dominant they were against the super stacked mavericks from dallas but instead i thought about how super stacked this girl was and i asked her if i could do something and she said no and i said can i do something else and she said no and giggled and i felt slightly defeated and put my head back down on the pillow and listened to the bad boys two soundtrack and wondered when i was ever gonna grow up.

most dogs will just shake off the hat and run around with it dangling upsidedown from their collars.

they just want to be naked

n free.

n normal.

n loyal.

if anyone knows, dogs do, that time flies seven times faster than people really think.

and for the record, she didnt say no all night

or all morning.

melting dolls + low culture + mist + budgie

it was sweet.

major props to my man mc brown who called me to tell me that there was a 1am showing incase i was incompacitated and couldnt catch it at the 8pm deal

whatever, the sweetest girl is sex chatting with me and suddenly im not depressed any more.

shes calling me her hero.

some dude called me that the other day too.

how on earth am i anyones damn hero?

all i do is complain that i dont like my job, and write a bunch of crap on here, and steal pictures, and misssssplllll and talk shit about shit i dont know.

and dream.

i dont even rhyme any more.

once again: whatever. shes into me. thats all that matters. it might be a big bogus lie, but its a beautiful one. and i would much rather people lie by telling me that they love me and want me and will make sexy collegegirl sex with me than people who will lie and say they dont like my lies.

the skies are orange and dusty and coughy and bad today. the sun is trying to say hi to me but it cant see me.

here i am sun, im wearing my cubs away hat, the one my truest gave me.

tonight im going to watch the lakers with my buddy tom from way back in the day.

his band was called Rogue Cheddar

they used to suck but then over night they got better.

people compared them to the pixies, but they rocked harder than the pixies.

i miss rogue cheddar.

matt welch + bunsen + layne

the marquee game of the evening will be your LA Lakers against the young upstart Dallas Mavericks here at the Staples Center in downtown tinseltown.

My man Tim from end of the bench emails me asking whats going on with all the Shaq + Kobe mudslinging.

For those of you out of the loop Shaq the other day said that Kobe should probably work on his passing game and getting back into shape for the first few weeks of the season, to which Kobe took offense and said some nasty things about Shaq.

two things are at work here Tim.

first of which is Kobe has always been a troubled soul.

second of which is Shaq has always been a big baby.

third of which is Coach Phil has always given kobe + shaq free reign to be the young bucks that they are, which includes letting them be the flamboyant rockstars that they are.

fourth of which is kobe is facing a life term if he is convicted of ass raping that teenage white girl.

fifth of which is kobe is recovering from two pretty serious surgeries.

six six sixth of which is the Lakers are experiencing heavier-than-normal pressure to win it all because of the unprecedented moves by Karl Malone and Gary Payton to move to LA at super-reduced salaries so that they could get their rings before they retire.

seventh of which is Shaq and Kobe both probably dont like the idea that they couldnt win it all without the help of those two future hall of famers.

eighth of which is chick hearn is still dead and very much missed.

ninth of which is dallas might win it all now that they have antoine walker and tony delk.

tenth of which is minnesota has quietly assembled a pretty good team themselves with the addition of latrell sprewell.

eleventh of which is the defending champs san antonio spurs are only stronger since letting the admiral retire and signing Hedo Turkoglu from Sacramento and Ron Mercer from Indiana and Rasho Nesterovic from Minnie and Robert Horry from the Lakers.

so if the question is, am i surprised that kobe is cracking a little under the pressure of possibly not sliding through the regular season grind and making mincemeat of the West in the playoffs while possibly going to jail for life for a fling he had right before he was about to go under the knife?

uh, no.

im not surprised.

and im also not surprised that shaq isnt being super sensitive to the super sensitive kobe.

and i would also not be surprised, tim, if this was just a smoke screen to make people think that the lake show is ripping apart at the seams.

a distraction from the rape charges.

and a fakeout that the lakers are so damn deep that its scary.

watch karl, gary and shaq destroy the mavs tonight on tnt.

floor pie + popie + end of the bench

Goood Morning Tony,

This is my first cup of coffee of the day e-mail, so it could be scary.

Just followed some links from your coments to the SD fire by a guy who suddenly decided to get on the ball with his sucky SD Bloggers website. Takes a little crisis for people to figure out what they can do with their technology, huh?

Show them the way Tony.

After 9/11 I did a few stories for the Times about how the internet handled the event. And I ended up talking to Evan Williams who said whatever, but the main thing that shocked me was that i tried to engage him in a conversation (dear to my heart) along the lines of how he is better enabling the free press to be the nexus of a democracy. and was that a goal when he set out? and maybe he took a nap during my question, but he was all groggy and said something like he had only recently started to think about those types of implications and he felt humbled by it but that he wanted to think more about it, and he’s just a little programmer guy, and didn’t think about what this technology could really do.

There’s all this new technology right now Tony, but no great use of it yet. You are so clearly one of the few guys full of ideas. You can show, you can inspire, you can lead.

The thing about not getting paid is key, as well. A few years ago, all the companies big and small could have hired loads of people to experiment with the new stuff. But now no one has the money to do that, let alone the energy to expend.

But you do Tony. Because you have superpowers.

I’ve finished my coffee and must get more.

Love,

the free world

Good Morning the free world,

tony

Middle name?

hugh (ryhmes with poo), best magazine man ever has that name

2. WHAT kind of PANTS ARE YOU WEARING and what color?

Jeans from Target that i got in palm springs this summer for $8.

3. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?

Newscasters blabbering about the many fires. “hey theres a fire!”

4. WHAT ARE THE LAST 4 DIGITS OF YOUR PHONE NUMBER?

im not telling cuz i posted somewhere on here that the first three are 666.

5. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE:

chicken sandwich from Johnnies NY Pizza

6. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?

white. the most worthless of all the crayons.

7. HOW IS THE WEATHER RIGHT NOW?

hot, 90s

8. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?

my true love

9. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX?

heart

10. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT YOU THIS?

no one sent it, i found it off Pokey’s Friendster thing.

11. HOW ARE YOU TODAY?

depressed.

12. FAVORITE DRINK?

double baileys rocks

13. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK?

bacardi 151

14. FAVORITE SPORTS?

badmitten. however you spell it. i kick ass at it.

15. HAIR COLOR?

dumb

16. EYE COLOR?

black

17. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?

on my sleeve

18. SIBLINGS AND THEIR AGES?

angie younger than me, john really younger than me

19.FAVORITE MONTH?

june

20. FAVORITE FOOD?

kfc

21. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?

Lost in Translation

22. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR?

my birthday.

23. ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT?

shyness is nice, but shyness will stop you from doing all the things in life you want to.

24. DO YOU LIKE SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?

i like scary movies with tragic unexpected sad endings.

25. WHAT 3 FAMOUS PEOPLE WOULD YOU BANG IF YOU COULD?

christina aguelera, monica sweetheart, the princess of sweden (the younger one).

elise

they could tell i wasnt into it. but i told them fuck it. i would stay and work.

as much as i hate this job, i fight crime so much better when im depressed. bad guys like dogs can smell fear and not like im normally scared, but sometimes i do try to play things a little safer than normally.

not today.

knocked on this bad guys house today. right on the front door. he wasnt home. i knew he wasnt home. his girlfriend was home. knew that too. she had jean shorts on and was holding a diet coke. she saw me and knew and was startled. i told her to chill out. she invited me in. i looked around and sat down on his leather couch.

i told her that she was in great danger and her man was about to go down.

she said, be the first time in a long time.

was it a double entendre?

she smiled so i laughed, then she laughed.

then the dog barked and she yelled at him and he whimpered.

i told her no seriously, the xbi is like that fire we’re coming and we’re not going to stop until God himself stops us.

it came out right. she got it.

she lit a camel light. great tattoos all down her leg, gorgeously sculptured calf. sparkles on her blue toenail polish. couple of toe rings.

is it true what they say about women with toe rings i asked her.

she exhaled looked at the ashtray and then looked back at me.

it was true.

i wanted to ask her why she wasnt afraid to die but hardly anyone that i have to deal with on either side of the thin black line is afraid of anything except God and the girlfriend of the baddest mofo next to my bosses boss sure didnt show any fear even if she had a whisper of it.

she fiddled around on her white mac laptop and showed me the picture above and asked me where we were on that map and i said we’re in hollywood which is inbetween the top fire and the middle fire but closer to the top one.

she took a mental note of it and said why are you here.

i said im here to send a message.

she said whats the message.

i said the message is read the bible and quit being a fuck up.

she asked is that a message for me or for my man.

i said we teach what we most need to learn and i got out of there before a hundred motherfuckers appeared and turned me into a memory.

i always look like a dumbass. this one chick sent me some pictures this morning of she and i one drunken night getting down. shes a photographer. in one of the pictures shes capturing me climbing into bed with her. if it wasnt so embarrassing of a picture i would post it, but its terrible. it makes me wonder how on earth i get any.

but i guess women get lonely too sometimes.

and drunk.

tragically i couldnt get my first girlfriend ever drunk yesterday, she was distracted by the fires. i hadnt seen her in maybe 7-8 years and a lot has happened since then. she still looks spectacular, and is spectacular. she just got her hair cut and it looked like a rockergirl. i loved it. her pale belly button kept playing peekaboo with me as she would reach for things, etc.

there was a time when i obsessed over her. it was weird seeing if she still had that effect on me. she kept getting a phone call from some dude who apparently is tony hawks neighbor who is obsessed with her now. theres a lot to be obsessed with. shes super cool.

some would say that the reason i write stories and type every day is because i used to write her 2-3 times a day and mail the love letters to her. the last time i asked she said she still had a lot of those letters in a box. i wonder what theyre like. i was 16, 17.

her neighbors love her. they were coming over all the time kidding her about her super clean house. i kidded her that she wasnt letting her kids put posters on their walls. we ate rolled tacos and burritos and drank bud light. i know, piss beer, whatever. sitting next to her it tasted like champagne.

after we cruised around the neighborhoods we went to target in santee. it was empty. it was nice. i love shopping with nice people. especially hot chicks. she got some nice little “stocking stuffers” for her kids. who gets their kids stocking stuffers before halloween? great moms. thats who.

i had brought down my old playstation for the kids. but i forgot it in my trunk.

i failed those kids twice.

first i wanted to kiss their mom against her minivan, then i forgot to flow them the grand theft auto and the playstation cuz i was concerned about traffic.

tonight i have to return my rental car.

ive had it two weeks thanks to the bus strike. thats five hundred bucks to you and me.

but mostly to me.

gods lonely man + 5ilver + splink

i was sad cuz my computer was broken and my dreamweaver was corrupted and i was tired and i really didnt want to have to go to bed early to wake up and get into the xbi in the morning.

she said, come work for me.

i said, nah.

she said, you dont think you could work for me?

i said, no, i dont think i could work for you.

she sighed and agreed. then she asked what she could do to cheer me up and i told her that i always liked it when she would send me pictures of herself and then i remembered that i didnt even have my Outloook working to receive any damn pictures that she would take and i slammed my fist into the bed, dropping my phone accidentally, and, of course, breaking it.

she called me on my cell phone and she could tell that i had been crying.

i was falling apart.

busses were on strike, grocery stores on strike, fires everywhere, cubs…

she said why dont you just hang out with me on tour and write about it.

and i woke up.

it had been a terrible dream.

my phone however was on the floor, broken. my computer kept starting and restarting. and when my cell phone rang, the little display said Mariah.

and here i am at the xbi. dull and early.

my astrology says not to bitch this week, to be thankful.

@#$%ing astrology.

always being right n shit.

david janes + everything is wrong + mallory

mary called me to tell me that her house there in santee california was surrounded by fire.

when i got there some of the freeways had been closed for about twenty minutes and yep, there was a slow moving lazy ass line of fire munching its way like a search party arm in arm along the ugly brown desert of san diego.

you could only respect it for its potential. but out there a good 300 yards out, a slave to the santa anas and a whole freeway away from any real danger, it was more of a spectacle than a threat.

but then i got closer to her house and i saw the fire had a brother.

a much bigger brother.

of the 14 deaths created by the 10 fires across california yesterday, 12 died in san diego, and i saw why first hand. it was because that shit was everywhere. long lines. lots of little fires that became bigger and then little again like some crazy amoeba crawling across the sagebrush and weeds and clumps of green crap in the midst of a huge sandbox.

the locals were on their roofs, on their motorhomes, on their car hoods, even on top of soon-to-be burning ridges so they could see this slow moving living walking licking hell coming over the mountain for their dirty asses.

the smoke was thick miles and miles away from the flames. the sun at 1pm was high and red as a danger button. pictures are shabby lies that shouldnt be trusted. the sun was red as a bloodshot eyeball across a smokey room. the wind blew without mercy, advertising the inevitable with ash and soot and flopping bits of paper.

people were told to pack their shit up but they dallied. people were told to get out of the forest preserve but they were curious. people were told to drive out of town and they said who asked you.

some met up in grocery store parking lots, or schools. the rodeo was packed with animals.

the rural towns of lakeside and santee are rarely talked about in a positive light when compared to some of the more expensive beachside san diego hamlets but present was a sense of resolve and community in these foothills that sadly only tragedies highlight.

everyone was outside even though 5-6 tv stations showed nothing but fire coverage relegating the sunday afternoon football games to a tiny picture-in-picture box in the corner.

and once they were out of their homes, they were talking to neighbors, answering their phones which rang non stop, cell phones, home phones, two way pagers.

people in cars arrived to spread the news. apparently the little brother did jump the highway. the 15 was now closed.

paper nose and mouth masks appeared on people. simple white ones that you’d see on a painter, or a manicurist. some kids wore bandanas. goggles were a good idea.

soon people found that their neighborhoods were without power.

the sprinkling of the roofs continued. people were told to fill their tubs with water, and their sinks, in the case of loss of water pressure. some people put lawn sprinklers right there on their roofs. i loved those people the best.

everyone was talking to each other.

some people were crying.

some people would say i know someone who lives over there pointing to where a series of houses were on fire in the distance.

people had places that they could go, but they didnt want to go, still some packed things in boxes. most people either sat in lawn chairs or on their roofs and watched with their neighbors.

it was all very very quiet.

welch + sd homies + lago + dancing

im nervous. im procrastinating.

a date on sunday day? well the bears suck and the raiders are off today, so why not.

plus i still have that rentacar till tuesday.

so yeah, taurus, only other taurus that i get along with well is karisa and we get along spectacularilly.

yesterday she took me out to lunch at the farmers market, one of my all time favorite places. i had gumbo, greens and cornbread from the gumbo pot. i drank black cherry soda. karisa had a ham and cheese crepe. then we went shopping.

shopping with karisa is always fun. i think she tries to see how much she can embarrass me. so first she took us to body works. she put some lotion on her arm and made me smell it.

does that smell good tony?

nope.

she also tries to get me to look at her. so we walked past victoria secrets and she was all, mind popping in here with me for a minute and i got my camera out and said not as long as you dont mind if i document you trying things on for me.

she kept calling these booty panties “little boys underwear” which erases pretty much all the sexiness that the sexy undies had. the ones she wanted cost a lot. i asked her if someone bought them for her from a wishlist if she would wear them. she said as long as they were shipped directly from victoria secrets.

later i wondered if she was afraid that some creepy guy would buy the undergarments, wear them, and then send them to her? chicks. always nuts.

then we went to see if the school of rock was playing. it was, but not till 5 and it was 4:20, so we got the heck out of there and decided to get chocolate shakes.

in-n-out was close by so we went there and walked across the street to the biggest shoe store in the entire world. we took lots of pictures for kristin and karisa even tried on some stripper shoes for me. it was fun. i shoulda bought some shoes.

then we went back to my house, but on the way karisa remembered that she saw my new car. i said what about the hummer and there was an uncomfortable silence and she said, well, it is your birthday. and i said, no, the one we took the picture (pictured) in front of. and she said, no, i found a better car for you.

and we drove down franklin avenue and there it was, a 1979 trans am with an american flag sticker on the bumper.

$3,600.

and we took pictures, got to my place, played grand theft auto 2 and vice city and thought about t-tops.

and now i have to take a shower, drive down to san diego and hang out with a girl i havent kissed in nearly 20 years.

wish me luck!

kitty b + jake + moxie