tony, i cant talk to you.

come on. just for a sec.

no. there are two people im being told not to talk to. michael moore and tony pierce.

dude, but im your bro.

no. and… what?

dude, remember how i gave you all those great tips and kept you from getting impeached.

i do tony, but…

and remember how i lived up to our deal that i wouldnt talk about your daughters.

yeah…

your twin daughters. come on man. ive got two posts a day ive gotta think shit up for, to turn my back on the drunken twin teenage daughters of the president of the united states isnt as easy as youd think.

well i appreciate that but no.

all i want to ask you about is why wont you talk to the brothas?

the who?

the brothas and sistahs of the naacp.

what band is that.

theyre not a band.

rap group? hip-hop outfit?

no mr. bush, the naacp is an organization that tries to help minorities get more educated, get good jobs, and fight racism. among other things.

never heard of em.

well, you actually spoke to them in 2000 when you were running for president.

see there, i DID talk to them. why do they want me to talk to them again?

for one reason, because every year since youve been elected youve declined their invitation to speak to them again. and if you blow them off this year you’ll be the first sitting president since hoover not to talk to the biggest minority orginazation.

hey wait, i thought you said you werent going to talk politics this month.

who said this was politics. this is one guy asking another guy why he wants to stiff black people.

i dont want to stiff anyone. besides, the darkies dont vote for me.

says who? you dont think that by hiring condi and colin that blacks sorta like you?

nah.

why dont you ask them?

they dont want to talk to me. they’ll be mean to me.

president bush. remember when you were in that classroom in florida on 9/11. were those little black kids, was that big fat black teacher mean to you?

no.

see. is condi and colin mean to you?

YES!

ok, bad example. anyway, i think you should reconsider. this is a close race. blacks will vote. maybe not as much as they should, but they do vote and every vote counts.

ok, i will think about it. but if i change my mind you didnt hear it from me.

mums the word

dick shagwell + all about george + rupaul

for your ass

mariah’s depressed. i know i know it seems like mariah’s always depressed but she never promised me a rose garden.

this week mariah’s nervous because her record label wants to buy out her $85 million contract. she called and said she wanted to take me out for lunch i said, mariah, some of us work for a living so she said how about after work i said ok. i was feeling hyper as shit because my mom had gotten me (among tons of stuff) a totally great electric blanket and something about it – and having four days off – made me feel rested and rockin.

Mariah phoned when i got home from work and offered to pick me up and take me out. i said, i’m carsitting chris’s honda. she said dont be silly, i’ll have earl drive us. i said, no, really i’d like to pick you up for once.

when i got to her pad she had the Clippers game on. “Oh my god, I totally didn’t even know that the 76ers were still in town and they were playing the Clippers, let’s go! I can get us courtside seats!”

hmmm, i thought to myself, i happen to sorta be dating one of the Clipper Girls, and from what I remember, they happen to work right around the courtside.

“I know,” I said, “hows about we go to the game and eat dinner up in that restaurant and watch the game from up there?”

It was a plan.

The game was good, Iverson didnt heat up till the second half, and dinner was good, I had the shrimp boat. Mariah had the rib eye.

Around halftime the cosmo’s started kicking in and Mariah started getting into one of her negative rants.

“Life sucks so bad. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

“Sshh shhh baby, it’s ok. you’re here to watch Elton Brand and Lamar Odom play the defending East Coast Champs.”

“I mean in LIFE, Sonny, geeze! I try and I try but people want to diss me and make jokes and all I want to do is make them happy. And when I try to just not even care they call me a bitch.” She started crying. I ordered a ginger ale for her. “Fuck that, I want another Cosmopolitan!”

I held her hand as she dabbed at her mascara. “Fucking label, fucking people, fucking so-called friends, present company excepted. Fucking teen stars…”

“What about fucking J.Lo?”

Mariah glared at me. See, I’m the wrong person to cry to. I know I’m supposed to just allow people to vent, but after a while I have to either add a joke or pile-on or be sarcastic. I think it’s funny. No one else seems to. She yanked her hand away from mine and took a big gulp out of her plastic cup.

“What was your favorite record this year?”

I knew she was asking me a trick question, so I went for it.

“Glitter,” I said.

“Liar.”

“Okay, DMX, or Missy’s record. But then Glitter.” I meant it too, oddly.

Mariah said, “not the Dylan record?”

I said, “who?”

“And why can’t we smoke up in here? What country are we living in?” Mariah directed this at the usher, a pleasant young man who, fortunately couldnt hear her cuz he was too far away, and since he was smart, he kept his distance. I took her hand back.

“Baby, come on, it’s cool. Just take $45 million from EMI and call it even. Some one will pick you up, and then you’re that much ahead of the game. Who needs EMI anyhow, they’re not even Virgin anymore. It’s not like Richard Brannon is running the show any longer, just pretend you won the lottery, start your own label if you want and sell your shit on the Internet like Prince.”

Mariah whispered, “when was the last time you heard a new Prince song on the radio?”

That was my cue to shoot my 151.

Clippers called a timeout, The Answer had woken up, so I leaned over and whispered something naughty in Mariah’s ear. It brought a little smile to her totally gorgeous face.

“Really, you’d do that with me?” she giggled.

“Of course, baby. You know I’d do anything with you. Now let’s just watch the rest of this game, down these mudslides and think happy thoughts.”

Peace didnt even last the duration of the time out. Mariah was sobbing again and complaining.

“What about love? Why is there no love anymore. Everything is business or sex or games or maneuverings or politics. Where’s the LOVE?”

She was becoming loud now. Many people may not know this cuz hoops tickets are so damn expensive, but at real NBA games, unlike college ones, it can get pretty quiet in the stands. You can really hear the squeaks of the sneakers, the ball bouncing, the coaches yell out instructions, and a drunken singer yelling about how the world is a vampire. So I tried to interject.

“But..”

“People just want to bone you or use you or abuse you or… Love, where is all the Love that people.. It’s Christmas, I don’t see the Love…”

“Mariah…”

“Evil and ugliness, I see a lot of that. But Love… everyone said there was supposed to be Love!”

“I would Love it if you just SHUT UP!”

Mariah was shocked. Then she laughed. I laughed too. “Really though. Shut your little trap and watch this game and enjoy yourself and then you can cry all you want.”

And Mariah put her cup down and put her head on my shoulder and put her little hand on my chest and sobbed softly for a few minutes. And then went to sleep.

Just like the Clipper defense.

a dog named clipper + walk with fire + utter wonder

dumb game

1. what should i write more about in july

2. what shouldn’t i write about in july

search for utopia + jaime + danielle

heres hoping yours dont make the front page of the paper.

hardest thing about working at the xbi is that theres no room for mistakes. it reminds me of marching band in high school.

like a dumbass i tried out for the band as a senior. they gave me the biggest bass drum there was.

the band director told me that there might be times when i would think that i could hide behind my instrument but that i should know, straight up, that there were judges everywhere, including at the top of the stands, who could see that huge drum and they could say, “why is that fool out of step,” “why is he hitting his drum out of sequence,” “why isnt he spinning on his head with the others?”

marching band in high school was the first time that i learned about how to be at 100% 100% of the time. i learned that it was impossible.

i also learned that you didnt really have to be at 100% 100% of the time, that sometimes you only had to be there, really, for about 12-14 minutes.

at the end of the football season our marching band was awarded second best in the state and our drumline was voted best in all of illinois.

since then ive been at 100% 100% of the time only a handful of other times: at the daily nexus at ucsb, selling hot dogs at candlestick park, at the dot com in westwood during the dot com boom, and now at the xbi. each time was a ballet of teamwork that resulted in wonderful rewards.

the troubling part about all of this, of course, is the morons of the world who wouldnt know 100% if it slapped them across the face 100% of the time got to enjoy the ride right along with those of us who hustled. and in many cases they ended up with far greater rewards.

even the good book says that this will be the case, which is soothing.

a little.

sucks, but whatev.

steve + zulieka + sk smith

cuz im such a fucking stud.

i heard the telephone ring inside and i thought who could be calling at this hour.

i heard my voice announce caller i-d say “trouble” which i attribute to a few of the women who know my phone number particularilly those who are either not of legal drinking age or not of legal talking on the phone age or the daughter of someone who — well, you get the picture.

the caller id said “trouble” and it startled me and i stretched the garden hose forgetting that there was a hole in it about ten feet from where the nozzle is and the spray from the hole bounced off a stepping stone, squirting me on the side of the pajama dousing me and getting the stairs all wet.

at first the rush was shocking and disturbing but i faught the hose, lost, while eventually shutting off the water.

i climbed the stairs and went into my pajama closet and found a new set of tops and bottoms. stripped. towel dried. laughed. put on the dry clothes and retrieved my message.

it was that one girl.

the tall one.

lots were tall. fine. the tall young un.

giggling as they always do. with her friend as they always are.

the message sounded happy but urgent. dude you better pick up your phone she said.

dude.

so i called her back and within minutes they were at my house drinking looking around the place eating and then finally sitting down.

they said they wanted to read my mind.

oh no you dont.

oh yes we do.

and while one lit candles the other found the remote and turned off the tv and then asked me to put something good into the stereo

sonny rollins. blue 7.

and one got on one side of me

and the other got on the other side.

and they both looked at me.

i had just shaved my head real good.

my face was smooth too.

one said what are those bumps on your face

sometimes when i havent shaved in a while that will happen

and then they started to read.

and then they started to cry.

and soon one shook the other out of it.

then they sat on my porch and had a smoke

not even realizing that the stair was still wet.

xtracyx + muscle68 + art lung

i think sometimes people dont think that i do but i do. i love america not just because of the topless beaches, but also because of the autobahn and the sushi.

i love the “coffee” houses, the free universal health care, and the quality of public schools.

i love all the titties on tv, the rational defense of the second amendment, and the liberal use of the first cuz i love to hear the word fuck on my tv.

we were driving west down wilshire. top down. dmx up. what these bitches want from a nigga. that one.

since im black i can sing along to the sweet jam.

because clipper girls cousin is not black, she cannot sing along to it.

she protested but i told her to keep her eye on the road.

im looking forward to seeing the trio special, “the n word“, because i want to find out how long it takes them to get to the simple rule

black people can say it.

nobody else can.

period.

it baffles me that bill cosby gets his suspenders in a bunch when african americans make the language their own: continually twisting meanings, constantly adding new slang to the vocabulary, pushing language not being ig’nant to it.

it baffles me because i know how much bill cosby loves jazz, which does exactly the same thing to music.

and at the root of the defiance to the kings english is the n word and how african americans use it in speech.

and at the root of moving the language right now is the world of hip hop

and the best at rapping about it, as far as im concerned, is the deep voiced gritty pissed off new yorker dmx who i hope to see in the special.

i love america because i love black people.

and black people’s best work next to the pyramids

has been america.

and if clipper girls cousin said that to my face id slap the ho.

that ashley girl + defamer + america is not the world