it started early with the maintence man coming over to check out the mysterious leak in my walls. he was here at 8:30am bright and early. his english aint so good so there was no negotiating which is too bad as i normally hit the hay around 5am and last night was no exception. he inspected, we shook hands, and he laughed at my pajamas that had been turned into summer pajamas after a few snips of the scissors.

i then took to my closets and filled up bag after bag of ridiculous tshirts and fucked up pants and simultaneously converted my podcasts of matt welch and raymi de minx into bite sized mp3s and all was well until karisa j called me up for a suprise luncheon.

its funny how when youre really rocking the whole world can pick up on yr vibe and want to get in the way hang out with your black ass, or call you, or message you, or do you. karisa (pictured, left) just wanted lunch so she picked me up in her new car and we jetted down the block to fred 62 on vermont, the hipsters diner.

karisas car will be featured in the upcoming one minute short that i will be linking to tomorrow, and because i have no tact the second she picked me up in it, and not her recently traded-in Xterra, i sat in the seat, hugged her, and looked around the brand new nissan sedan and said, your pappy let you have the keys to his car? followed by about five more one-liners ending up with “are you married to a young doctor or some shit?” to which she punched me in the arm hard and i shut the hell up.

for as good of friends that we are we really dont see each other all that much so having sandwiches on a hot afternoon was superfun. i tried to podcast part of our conversation but trucks passed by at the wrong moments and the only other dude near us chimed in when we were talking about what music we were listening to, and then the battery died, a sign from above that we should just keep it between us, which is usually what we do, however i had to snap some pictures since it was such a beautiful day and rarely do we see each other in the daylight and only an idiot could fail at such a hot subject in natural light.

i will never be mistaken for a photographer.

almost as soon as i got home my xgirl ashley (pictured, below)called. we’d exchanged some snotty emails over the last few days and she wanted to set things straight and an hour later things were straight and we had completed our first polite conversation in over two years with plans of maybe seeing each other on thursday. i told her that this was the week of getting my shit together and she was definately on the list, but that thursday was when i was expecting to get my car back out of the shop so maybe i would have to dine with her next week. it was nice to talk with her and its weird how good feelings from the past can come back during the weirdest moments.

then my mom of all people called me and she hadnt been keeping up with the blog so she didnt know that i had quit smoking weed. so i told her. and she was shocked at how long it had been a habit for me. she was so happy it was sweet. but i didnt lie i told her that it was easy to quit and im not doing it for exactly the best reasons, and that i will smoke again one day, just not any time soon, and it wont be habitual, it will be occassional. she asked me why i couldnt get high off life and i said mrs reagan i get high off everything including life. i love my mom and i know i made her happy.

as i was doing my dishes the activist formerly known as my true love called me. we talked and she wanted to know if i had called my other xgirl jeanine and i hadnt so i called her, meaning in the span of two hours i had contacted three xgirlfriends with plans of having heart to hearts with all of them within the next two days. the plan chris wanted me to fulfil was for she, jeanine, and i to have dinner on friday and drink a bottle of wine that i brought home from spain in 2000. jeanine and i had a long cathartic conversation that included raised voices on her part and shhhh shhh on my part peppered with i love yous on both sides. and even though it was all good i was beat and grateful that i had warned you, my readers, that the busblog wouldnt be updated all that much this week because some serious shit was going down. good shit.

then matt good emailed me ready for a podcast, then raymi emailed asking wtf is up with our podcast, and i had to tell them both to gimme a day cuz i was emotionally drained, and being mellow cannucks they were cool.

at this point it was dinnertime but i wasnt hungry after the charles bukowski on rye that i downed at freddies. as karisa pointed out the ham and cheese sandwhich is advertised as being served on sourdough and she asked me, shouldnt it be on rye, and thats why i like her. not because of her hotness but because of her coolness.

i hit the sofa hard. the cubs were getting out of a rain delay and were about to chat with my favorite xcub mr bruce sutter. and before they could return from commercial to interview him i was out. i woke up and it was a tie going into the 8th, the game crept into extra frames and in the 11th they lost a heartbreaker due to a double play with derek lee standing in the on-deck circle and if i had a gun id had shot my tv.

then i got up, poured myself a huge glass of water, worked on my soon-to-be completed book, then checked out the real world which was disappointing and Big Brother which made me stand up and clap several times and renew my faith in humanity and got back on the computer, told the lameass commentors on the buzzmachine that they are lameasses, learned so much as usual from metafilter, edited the photos that i had taken of karisa, uploaded the lil film i made embarrassing her, and then began this blogpost which i dedicate to good old number 42 whose wind-up and delivery i have mastered and will mimic if i ever get the chance to throw out the first pitch at wrigley field, which is one of my secret unattainable dreams of which i have many, several of which have come true over the years to my complete surprise.

and whoever invented naps, i kiss you.

the podcast interview of raymi the linux is up

swamp donkey + doonesbury’s been on fire lately + pitt

that i was at this weekend, but its hard to type while i listen to this podcast that i did with danielle last week, but i will try.

today i interviewed tomdog from buzznet and rogue cheddar fame, and raymi le minx from canadian herstory fame. these podcasts rule but im still waiting on the dudes who are going to host these mp3s to get their tool to work. shuttup. and later today i will upload the raymi one with them or without them.

but lets get to the questions the kids asked the other day:

q. What do you think about bloggers who don’t have the desire to be widely linked and aren’t interested in universal acclaim. I have had a blog for a couple of years (which I routinely delete in fits of pique and fear of too much self exposure) and I have developed a small group of readers and I like that. It scares me sometimes to think about strangers reading me, especially when I get intimate comments from unknown, unlogged visitors. – leigh

a. the sad truth is most bloggers will not be widely linked or achieve universal acclaim. if a blogger knocks out decent posts every week the odds are much higher that they will get a big audience, especially if they have friends who are popular and link them all the time, or if they post risque pictures, or if they comment a lot noting their homepage in the comment box, but most bloggers will not have huge popularity.

so the question really is, what do i think about average bloggers. i love all bloggers as long as they are interesting. if all you want is a small audience you’re doing the right thing by deleting posts and staying relatively low key. you can also do things like what sk smith does and not show any pictures, it also helps if you dont update very often. its quite easy to avoid hits.

what you may want to do for your small group of readers though is set up some sort of email notification system, which you can find for free around the web, or instruct them how to work blogreaders like Bloglines so that they will automatically get your words delivered to them whenever you update.

if you feel more comfortable with good people who know you, than with strangers and lurkers who comment anonymously, i can totally understand that. not everyone is an exhibitionist or an approval junkie or interested in more more more. and comments from strangers isnt for everyone. so more power to you.

if youre using blogger, you might also make sure to go to Settings > Basic > and click No on Add your Blog to our Listing as well as going to Settings > Publishing > click No on Notify Weblogs.com to better protect your privacy.

or you may consider a LiveJournal blog which has several other privacy settings where you can limit readership solely to people you invite.

Q.

1. Are there any bloggers that you would still like to meet?

2.If you have to cook a meal for someone what would it be?

3.Who would you most like to be stuck in an elevator with? – Amelia

a 1. im a weirdo. i sorta like for people to be in their little worlds and let me be in mine. i think i come across way better on my blog than i do in real life and i bet other people feel the same way. many people heard my podcasts and were all omg tony doesnt have a deep booming voice. id sorta like to have people imagine me as cooler than i am and meeting me would really ruin that. so i would have to say no to your question, not because i dont want to meet others i just dont feel so awesome about them meeting me.

2. the only thing that i make well is bbq chicken or grilled burgers. i went through a period of time when i was making stews in my crock pot but that time has passed. so if someone demanded that i made them something i would bbq for them.

3. ive been stuck in a few elevators and each time i started laughing hysterically. probably nervous laughter. so if i couldnt get stuck with pam anderson or someone hot who had always wanted to get it on in an elevator with a stranger, i would have to say id like to be stuck with people who panic easilly because it would only trigger my nervous laughter even more, cuz who doesnt love to laugh?

q. in regards to bloggers you would like to met…did you and matt meet strictly through blogging or were you friend prior??? – Smelly Danielly

a. matt found me, i believe, through raymi’s blog. i had heard of him through lists on canadian blogs of their favorite cds. he has a pretty easy to remember name and there are many good canadian blogs so when he wrote me i recognized his name.
one day he started chatting with me thru msn messenger. ive noticed canadians like msn way more than aol which is ashame because i like to lay low and im barely on aol however i dont know how to turn my msn off. so he caught me unawares. i think the second time we chatted he was getting tired of typing and asked what my phone number was and we talked on the phone and we really hit it off.

he sent me some cds and i listen to them and i like a few songs but in no way am i a fanatic like i see lots of canadian bloggers are. but i really like his blog and when he came to LA he was pretty much exactly like he was on the phone, very normal and nice and funny. im sure if i had grown up in canada id be a huge fan of his music. but sometimes its hard to go backwards. he wrote about the Replacements yesterday and ive tried to turn people onto them who had never heard them but some bands are hard to get into when you have no history with them and no shared experiences with friends like singing the song in the car on the way home from a party or something.

but i think our conversations and upcoming podcasts might actually be better that i didnt grow up on his music because i have a total objective point of view with him when we talk, and especially when we talk about music cuz im not all omg remember that one song omg let me tell you how it deeply effected me when i broke up with my true love. if bruce springsteen or elvis costello or paul westerberg started calling me on the phone my podcasts with them would be horrible and people would puke, and how would i have the nerve to tell someone like springsteen that his shit hasnt been very good since tunnel of love?

q. People can take the blogging thing way too seriously, no? – Mimi

a. yes they can. some of the biggest bloggers are completely dishonest with their readers intentionally ignoring huge stories regarding human rights and morals and life and death that they wouldnt ignore if they had only a handful of readers or private blogs. but in public, and in front of large audiences they turn into, sometimes, idiotic tools. the point of blogging is to give your take. on everything. when you self-edit, i believe, youre taking yourself too seriously and youre taking blogging too seriously. no matter how many hits you get or dont get at the end of the day its just a blog, the gayest thing ever.

q. has anyone ever told you that you look like vin deisel? – carrie

a. only strippers, but i thought they were simply after my money.

q. can i get any nudes of karissa? – some jagoff

a. karisa (pictured, above) is one of my closest friends and my best advisor. ive written about her dozens of times and ive never misspelled her name. if you cant spell her name right while asking that question you are an idiot who doesnt even deserve the porn thats overflowing on the web.

currently she has a boyfriend who she has been with for a long time, and even if she didnt have one, i doubt she would have ever agreed to pose nude for me, the only friend she has with a popular website. shes a smart cookie and knows that accidents can happen. plus its hard to look at her clothed without passing out, i cant imagine what she’d look like in her birthday suit. it’d probably ruin everything.

but no you cannot have nude pics of karissa cuz i dont know anyone named karissa. dumbass.

but you can listen to danielle (pictured, middle) and i talk about her tumor which is part one of our interview

so if your expectations for this blog are that im going to write 2-3 times a day and everythings gonna be what they were before, then i am politely warning you that it might not end up that way.

physically, emotionally, logically, mentally, everything is going to be a-ok for my new job that starts august 1.

yes it was supposed to start this week but i got some amazing advice from a long lost friend to go and do some things before i started the new chapter in my life and even though it was scary and risky to renegotiate with the new gig i did it first thing this morning and disappointed them but hopefully they trust me enough to know that they will be far better off with the new improved super souped up edition of tony pierce than the well-meaning but slightly flawed version.

what does that mean? it means i have to finish my book, my podcast blog, i have to clean my house, i have to fix the leaky pipes in the walls and drippy sink, it means i have to fix my porch light and align my satelitte dish, it means i have to pay all my bills and change the belts of my car, pay all my bills, buy some new clothes, clean out my fridge, find some secret documents, figure out a work out schedule, pray, read the bible, get rid of my video tapes, send back this computer monitor that i paid for, buy a new monitor, get my printer working, get my scanner out of here, throw out all the garbage that is laying around my house, give most of my clothes to the poor on skid row directly, throw out all my bongs to the poor, go curtain shopping with karisa, decide if im never going to talk to ashley ever again, figure out how im going to handle the two bloggers who have gripes with me – one who might be seriously retarded and one who might just have his feelings hurt, start a week of eating right, give all these pulp fiction books of the 50s to old folks homes, give my box of sunglasses to the childrens hospital, get all the dust out of my bedroom, ebay my sheets because theyre historic, give my dodger tickets to the ronald mcdonald house, buy a serious new camera, back up my giant hard drives and then take 80% out of them, rewire my speaker system, and talk to the boys of odeo and get this podcasting shit together and rocking.

for starters.

and then figure out where im going to have a party in two weeks to celebrate the end of this incredible summer and the begining of the new thing.

i have no attention span so its good for me to dedicate one full week to doing all the things ive put off doing for all these years. and whats so interesting is all of this started when i got fired and all of it peaked when i drove through the desert at night to vegas and talked until the sun rose with all those strippers because i came back home such a changed man that i had stopped my addictive habit with the greatest of ease.

my friend who recommended that i finish that peak said that she wasnt suprised that that trip had caused that change and she said that another trip would do even more good but i dont need another drive to know what i have to do and what i have to do is cleanse myself and rid my body and soul of all the damage that i had done to it over all these years especially the last ones where i was unloved by those in power and totally loved by my peers. that friction created what you know as the busblog but unlike others i dont like to created diamonds from pressure and friction, i like to snap my fingers and have them appear out of thin air and if you dont believe that they can materialize both ways then you havent been watching the world like i have.

not everything needs to be hard.

and the busblog will get updated every day but maybe not until super late in the day, and for those of you who will be affected by this i apologize in advance and i hope that you click some of the other links on this blog when you get tired of being patient but i promise you it will be worth your wait.

i interviewed raymi in the middle of my deep cleaning today and i will upload it throughout this week starting tomorrow so maybe that will give you a reason to come back.

xoxoxoxo
tony

p.s. after i get back from the goodwill i will answer the good questions that were left in this post so if you have more either ask them here or there and i will get to them tonight.

time for living + zulieka + riley dog + nay turns nineteen this week

to do some much needed drinking and dancing and picture-taking

and since people ask me questions all the time, i figured id answer some here.

if you have any either put them in the comments or email them to me.

q. who won the Goldspot Contest???~!!!!

a. im so glad you asked ……….. smashing lady, congrats! and smashing lady, if you dont have a date, maybe you could invite Chris Gomez, he came in second place. thanks to everyone who submitted. i might have to do that again sometime.

q. how old are you really?

a. so olde its scary

q. youve mentioned the year that you graduated university and some of your friends have too, just doing the math it’s pretty easy to calculate how old you are, why dont you fess up?

a. keep in mind that i did some xbi training before i got to ucsb and i went to junior college, so im older than all of those people. im telling you, i look fucking rad for my age. not that i look rad, but line me up to people my age and i look like im doing everything right.

q. what tv shows do you have a tivo season pass for?

a. real world, big brother, hells kitchen, regis and kelly, daily show, meet the press, this week, face the nation, best week ever, being bobby brown, pardon the interruption, futurama, howard stern, al franken, 60 minutes, bill maher, sopranos reruns, simpsons, three stooges, banana splits, countdown with keith olberman, soul train

q. what are your top four

a. big brother, best week ever, being bobby brown, pti.

q. why are you so into reality shows?

a. same reason i like blogs, i like real people being real. the best dramas are actors pretending to be real people and writers trying to be believable, why not avoid the middle men and just edit reality shows real well?

q. is it true that you smoked pot every day for ten years and now you’ve stopped?

a. for the exception of vacations and rare occassional dry spells of a day or three, yes, every day, ten years. and yes i stopped right before i went to vegas and ive been tempted to light up but i havent done it. the temptations have run the gamut from “hey you cleaned your room today, you deserve a hit” to “hey you got a job today, lets celebrate!” all good reasons, but somehow ive resisted.

q. will you ever smoke again?

a. oh hells yeah. id like to just take a really long break first.

q. do you have a girlfriend right now?

a. no.

q. dating?

a. no.

q. no?

a. my last girlfriend was awesome. awesome awesome. and i broke up with her and then we got back together even though i knew we probably shouldnt and then we broke up again. and i feel rotten about that last time we were together because i didnt act like the man that id like to be known as, lets say. and i dont want to do that to another young lady any time soon. so until i can convince myself that all the evil has left my soul – or most of it – then im sorta putting myself on timeout. which is fine. ive gotten far more tail than a man of my disposition deserves. im good for right now.

q. you seem like youve changed once you started putting ads on your blog. seems like you are trying harder to get more hits so you can make more money.

a. id disagree. if i was interested in more hits i wouldnt insult big bloggers like the instapundit and give them reasons not to link to me, i would link highly trafficked blogs more often than the ones i do link which arent well-trafficked, i would guest blog on popular blogs, i would kiss peoples asses who i love who deserve to be kissed like the good people at boing boing, and i wouldnt have called out those blogs that mimic me to put my link up high on their blog roll. and i certainly wouldnt have made a seperate podcast blog. all those things make you lose hits, not gain them and some of those things make you look like a dumbshit, not help your popularity. if theres any differences in my blog from the begining of may until now it was more due to the fact that i was unemployed and going through great change, than it was because of my dumb ads.

q. sometimes you come across as mean in your blog.

a. sometimes i am mean.

q. dont you think its in your best interest to edit yourself when youre looking like an asshole?

a. if i did that then youd call me a sellout only interested in selling more ads. see i cant win, so i may as well be honest. nobody is sweet 24/7, and sometimes the right thing to do is show your teeth and growl. i am fully aware of all my emotions, even the not-so-attractive ones. and im not ashamed of any of them. ive never pretended to be anything in my blog other than human. except for the time i pretended to be an escalator. but even then i was a pissed off escalator. this isnt the miss america pagent, if i want to call bullshit on something im gonna. if people find that unattractive, i can understand that. but ultimately this blog isnt for them. its for people interested in the entire picture of one person named sonny i. la vista. aka tony. and tony dont play.

q. in the interview that you did with matt welch you called yourself a pacifist, isnt that latin for pussy ass bitch?

a. no, i think that there are only three small portions of humanity who cannot be negotiated with. some are just straight up insane, some are in the republican party, and some are terrorists. everyone else you can pretty much sit down with and reach some sort of middle ground that they will stick with instead of choosing to blow your ass up. people assume that every single suicide bomber, for example, was someone who you couldnt negotiate with, i disagree. i think the mind is a very powerful and nimble thing, and i think the right person talking to the right person can stop Some of the evil that others have given up on.

q. youre nuts.

a. guilty, but let me put it this way. i love Super Nanny and that other nanny show. i dont know anything about raising kids. so every show id see these horrible kids climbing up entertainment systems, throwing cat food all over, lying, hitting, basically terrorizing their suburban mcmansion. my first reaction every time is “holy crap beat the shit out of those fucking kids!” but supernanny never hits the kids, she works with them and makes it happen EVEN WHEN the parents are fighting against her. mind over matter my friend. to me pacifism is saying, im so much smarter than you that i dont have to whip out my boomstick, i can control you with my head. also, if violence worked, we’d had been out of iraq a long time ago, we have the bigger guns, the best equipment, and the most violent accessories. not every kid behaves because of violence and not every conflict can be settled with war.

q. why was it so important for you that the blogs who copy you put your name up on the top of their lists? you realize that makes you look egotistical and trite.

a. if people want to misunderstand it that way theres not much i can do. what i saw were several blogs that were plainly ganking my overall style and portions of specific staples of the busblog. i had said repeatedly that i was flattered that of all the bloggers, they chose to mimic me. in fact i didnt even know that i had a particular style until those blogs popped up. i linked to them over the months, and answered their questions when they wrote in. a few of them, i noticed, werent even linking to me at all. thats when i said, ok, now i think youve crossed the line.

q. what line?

a. the coolness line. its not cool to pretend that youre responsible for everything on your shit when its obvious that youre not. it would be like a tribute band taking props for the songs that they play. i didnt tell them to stop, i didnt tell them to take down their shit, i just said, IF you are paying tribute, then fucking pay tribute, and this is how i think the tribute should be paid, not with money, but with a link in a place of respect. thats it.

q. but what about the messy aftermath?

a. well, thats just people not understanding the original point. and other people sticking their noses where it didnt belong. and others just being pussies. and with technorati, if someone types in my name or links to me and says something fucked up, i would be doing myself and my blog a diservice if i didnt address it. because lets say someone is just discovering the busblog and they type it into technorati and they see someone saying something totally stupid, if the new reader doesnt see me either address it in the comments or see where ive addressed it on a post then they might get the impression that im admitting guilt, and asking people who obviously respect my work to follow up with a respectful link is nothing that i feel guilty about. and if someone wants to write a post calling me a jackass for wanting that link, theyre going to get a comment of me saying that theyre wrong.

q. often you say that you are leading by example. wtf does that mean?

a. ah yes. ok, i never thought that my gayass blog would ever reach this sort of popularity. and on paper it shouldnt be this popular. this girl the other day was all omg omg tony pierce emailed me back! for an old, bald, sloppy fuckup to get that sort of reaction to answering an email is amazing to me. therefore i feel a weird sense of responsibility to either set precidents when weird shit happens or document how i handled a certain situation so that When some other blogger gains popularity they might have an example of how dumbass pierce did it. because trust me, in many ways im very much like the blogs that i link to who arent getting the attention that i get, so as they get more popular, hopefully they can learn from my mistakes and sucesses. and also, maybe i can show other popular blogs that they dont have to worry about being transparent and honest.

q. is it true you just got a new job?

a. yes and im stoked.

q. how long were you unemployed?

a. almost exactly three months. it was a great summer, but im ready for my reassignment in the xbi and i like where theyre putting me.

q. and wheres that?

a. its classified.

q. meaning?

a. meaning only karl rove and bob novak know.

the holy writer + kitty bukkake + the farmer in the deli + untitled blog

part one is about eighteen minutes and we talk a little politics

part two is a little over a half hour and we talk about blogging and crazy shit

right click > save for easiest use – or you can just click the links, i suppose

starring johnny depp, helen bonham carter, and some kid as charlie
directed by tim burton

tim burtons new film is unnecessary, imperfect, uninspired, and yet magically entertaining.

its dark, its colorful, its funny, and its an excellent re-make of a classic that didnt need to be remade.

the set design is creative and inventive, you definately get a sense of a differnt land, and once youre inside the chocolate factory you’re happy that burton was behind it all because he’s never had a problem mixing childlike fantasies with nightmarish twists.

johnny depp is weird enough to play wonka and does a fair job of his love/hate relationship for children and actually accomplishes the daunting task of owning the role despite the masterful job gene wilder did in the original.

but probably the best part of this, and perhaps the reason for the remake is the theme of family, best represented by charlie’s close-knit and loveable clan of three generations all living under one seussian roof.

there are several hurdles a director must clear when remaking a beloved tale, the tallest of all being how do you tell a story that everyone knows? and in this case knows quite well. we know charlie is going to get the golden ticket, we know the kids are going to fuck up on the tour, and even though it’s tim burton at the wheel once we meet the charlie character we’re pretty sure that he’s going to win the surprise prize cooler than what your wildest imagination could fathom.

not only does burton take us down the familiar ground, but he includes enough new touches, namely the 21st century oompa-loompahs, to keep us on our toes.

so thats the good stuff. and there were enough good stuff to keep this blogger satisfied on a sunny weekday in a mostly full airconditioned theater in the summertime. in fact many in the matinee crowd clapped at the end.

despite the fact that…

you cant replace gene wilder’s trippy eyes and haunting singing voice, you cant improve on the spooky original loompahs deep voices and pyschedelic outfits, all of the characters are flat as pancakes either angelic clueless or evil,

and inspite of the fact that depp isnt all that funny even when trying to be funny.

and why the hell would you put helen bonham carter in this film if all youre going to have her do is say oh charlie and stir cabbage soup?

the music is forgettable, there were more novel details in pee wee herman’s bachelor pad than there were in the entire chocolate factory, and some of the backstory of wonkas history is utterly ridiculous the worst being his first bite of chocolate.

if youre going to make children evil, make them really evil, just because a kid is destructive and likes video games doesnt make him bad. have him walk down the street pulling fire alarms, letting air out of tires, and putting bottle rockets up animals’ asses.

but then tell us why hes so bad. people arent born viscious, they learn it somehow, and since you have their pu-pu-puh parents right there blame them if you must. but these kids werent nearly as bad as i wanted them to be – and not nearly as wicked as their predecessors.

my guess is that in order to get a PG rating Burton had to tone down his typical schtick. huge mistake. currently im watching the original Bad News Bears to prepare to screen that remake and when Tatum O’Neil gets introduced to the team one of the kids complains “Jews, Niggers, Spics, and now a girl?” thank God filmmakers and studios didnt pander to review boards in the 70s as much as they apparently do now.

willie wonka and his chocolate factory are freaky dark icons perfectly matched with tim burton and johnny depp. and even though this movie doesnt reach its full potential, its entertaining and light despite its unnecessary moral.

i could sum this up with some cheesy allusion to candy or nuts or bubble gum, but i’ll leave that to pretty much every single film critic hack who considers themselves clever. predictable is never clever. which is why charlie shoulda been black and willie shoulda been robin williams. but in an era where remakes are shitty standard summer fare, this one didnt suck.

JaG + pitt + koganuts kicking ass in blogging.la + candy blog

and im in my hollywood bungalow trying to get my podcast shit working for you. if you only knew the brilliant minds that are trying to help me youd be hella impressed.

we’ve got steven j hawkings on speakerphone, weve got carl sagans head in a jar, ive got hopi indians chanting infront of my home, we’re looking for virgins to sacrifice, and ive got abe vigoda on his way back from the grocery store with twelve packs of Orange Crush cuz meg ryan and tom hanks are on the way over to jump into the big woo

and yes im tempted to roll up a j and get the ghost of jerry garcia to noodle some good vibes my way.

think damnit Think! i keep saying to my computer monitor.

but im a Christian, maybe i should pray.

Lord, i know you probably dont care about podcasting or the Interweb, and maybe this is just this generation’s Tower of Babel, and yes my voice appears much higher than id like, but could you please just help me get this thing on the air because you’ve blessed me with knowing the coolest people in the world and i want to share that with everyone else.

Thanks for everything youve done for me and please let Nomah come back healthy and ready for the home stretch. Amen.

ok and with that im going to make like a tree and get the hell outta here.

i dont have AC but i have five state of the art movie theatres just dying to show me some quality films.

at first i was going to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as it was one of my favorite books and movies as a kid, but sk smith wasnt thrilled and i trust her taste. so i will go to the archlight and catch Wedding Crashers.

people keep emailing me about my Weed issue.

aint no issue. yes it would be nice to smoke a bowl before hopping on the bus and seeing the movie but i would really like to see if i can behave for the rest of the summer before i even allow myself to entertain that practice. and when i do i dont want it to be a practice ever again, like threesomes at the playboy mansion, i want to keep those episodes special occassions. everything in moderation.

i believe its the theory behind McDonalds only letting the McRib out there every now and then,

but i could be wrong.

when i get back home i will put up the first two parts of my chat with Mr. Matt Welch. we spoke in his backyard and not over the phone so hopefully the sound quality will be noticeably better.

while i was trying to get my Feeds fixed i had Stand By Me running in the background and i hadnt seen that movie in a decade and it was pretty cool to see Wil and River and Jerry and Crazydude as kids again. and how could i forget that Wil had that leech down his pants.

trust me, when, and if he grants me a podcast interview i will be sure to ask him a little about that movie cuz i love it and it still holds up beautifully today.

in other news, i got an email telling me that i have an offer letter in the mail, so this summer might just be winding down, which is fine with me, as i havent really done much with it.

Big Brother is on tonight!

sigh club‘s cat can read! + read raymi today + leah has a good man a very good man

ken and i faught together in the war to end all wars, thats right, the little known battle of lil big ass.

once there we decided that ice cube was right and life wasnt nothing but bitches and money. since at the time we had neither, we ventured into the world of computers and music. for ken that led to Tabloid.net which has now been morphed in a general way into Sploid.com, part of the Gawker empire.

ken was gracious enough to chat with me last night on the phone and even though he thought he would merely spend 15 minutes with me, i told him that time flies in these podcasts that he might consider planning on a half hour. well, an hour later i reminded him of our initial deal and let him go back to his lovely family.

i write this post not to kiss ken’s ass for allowing me to interview him, and not to ease Matt Welch’s concern that ive forgotten about our epic conversations that have yet to hit the web, or to brag about my fortunate relationships but to educate you on two things:

the first is, this interview with Ken is really funny and even if you dont know about him, or Sploid, or the Corvids, or Tabloid, or Prognosis, or Nick Denton, or Hitler, or ET, or Reno, or Hunter Thompson, or alt-country of the early 80s, you really should do yourself a flavor and listen to this chat.

the second is, i want to provide a few links that will help you as far as Making Yr Own Podcasts, and Subscribing to Podcast Feeds.

now even though i have a pretty good tech background it doesnt mean that i am excited about new technologies. infact i am getting up there in age and i sorta like things easy and uncomplicated and intuitive as i start slowing down.

where i am tonight, at 9:30pm on Wednesday 7/20 is where i wanted to be at noon Friday 7/15 when i started this nonsense of talking into a recorder and uploading it on the web for your collective asses.

yes i learned pretty quickly but i couldnt have done it without the help of one mr antidisestablishment of redondo beach cali and one mr jason vertucio of bristol PA.

anti taught me that the quickest way to get a feed of my podcasting blog was to use Feedburner. thru Feedburner i clicked some things and that made it compatible with iTunes.

all an RSS feed is, is a broadcast in a way that says here-i-am here-i-am.

i dont know how i dont know why and frankly i could give a shit. but if you look at the bottom of my podcast blog you will see this image which means that im hooked up with feedburner.

we’ll get to that lil buddy later.

once i had my podcast mp3s i submitted my blog to iTunes but they never confirmed me. jason said it might be due to the fact that i had never embedded my code with tags. wtf are tags i asked him through AIM, and he helped a brotha out and now that i have tags in my shit and all my code is correct iTunes will probably okay me and in about a week you will be able to go to iTunes, click Podcasts, type in “tony” or “busblog” and there will be a good chance that my podcasts will be on their list for you to subscribe to.

but a funny thing happened after i posted my ken layne podcast – friggin anti put down his 5 footer and messaged me with “bro i just got your podcast, im suscribed thru iTunes”

again i was all wtf because i thought that iTunes had to know about me and shit.

anti educated me that it was i who was stoned, that once i had set up the feedburner RSS malarkey that what he did was drag and fuckin dropped that little icon buddy into his iTunes and now any time i updated my Podcast blog it automatically downloaded into his iTunes

i nearly knocked the cheerleader off my lap as i got up to do the happy dance.

and then i messaged him back with TELL ME EXACTLY HOW YOU DID THAT YOU FREAKING GENIUS. to which he said, ah maybe i will make a film. to which i said DO IT DO IT, DONT THINK ABOUT IT DO IT DOITDOITDOITDOIT. rollins. to which he said oh look, this dude already made a film and its brilliant

and yes that film is for mac users but it also works if you use Mozilla/Firefox on a PC so watch it and be amazed!

and then – just to friggin show off like a mad man Jason made a new blog that explains all the steps necessary as to how to podcast. it includes the bits that he taught me this afternoon.

these gentlemen deserve a round of applause or apple sauce and/or tips into their paypal accounts. as soon as i get my Fatburger im going to hit up anti and wait for jason to create an account because seriously gentlemen i couldnt have done this without you. [update i dont see a PayPal deal on Anti’s blog either, wtf, i repeate wtf!]

as i have said, i have the greatest friends.

p.s. whoever paypalled me the $5 last week, thanks!

[Update 11pm 7/20 for some reason only my Matt Good feed is going thru Feedburner > iTunes, so if you have followed all the instructions here and youre not getting updates, neither am i, im working on it, and if anyone has the answer, lemme know ]

upcoming podcasts: the Matt Welch mini series, Danielle K. Berkley, and many more

jay v’s podcast blog + anti + ben allbright + bro apologized today

as the busblog and blogging gains popularity there are increasing opportunities for me, and therefore you.

the last contest we had was a secret one that even the contestants didnt know they were involved in and Chokey Chicken won a giftbox of goodies that included the Blacksmith’s cd that they gave me specifically for the purposes of a contest. when i decide to stop filling up chad’s gift box and mail it i think he will get on his blog and be shocked at what he has received.

today i present to you a new contest to see and hear the up-and-coming band Goldspot perform at the world famous west hollywood Troubador next Tuesday July 26.

as you heard yesterday in my podcast with matt good, there seems to be a dirth of original, creative music out there, and originality is rarely rewarded with radio play or love on mtv.

recently i was approached by Goldspot’s label to provide a pair of concert tickets for next Tuesday’s show and after listening to them on their Myspace page i agreed to host a small contest on my blog. i am not getting paid for this, this is not an ad, and the label isnt co-opting this post like some bloggers have allowed other companys on their blogs. i am doing this at my own will, because as you have come to expect, nobody calls the shots here about anything except for me.

which isnt to say that i could not be convinced to sell space on this blog, as is evident from pauly shore’s goofy mug to the left of this post.

but thats not the case here.

i think Goldspot is an interesting band with a varied collection of influences, i think theyre trying to do something new, i think that their label is trying to do something new, and i think that whoever wins the pair of tickets will enjoy their night on the town. and not only do i want to encourage and support new music but i want to encourage and support the power of blogs to turn people on to things that they might not be exposed to through the traditional channels.

so therefore the contest is now open and its so easy i cant even believe it. if you live in LA or you will be in LA on the 26th and you would like to check out Goldspot, simply leave a comment below with why you’d like to go.

heres the simple catch
i will only read hiakus
so write carefully

you can write as many as you like and the winners post will appear on the busblog Friday afternoon. the winner will get their name plus one on the VIP guestlist.

bonne chance!

Goldspot Myspace page + official website + union records