not in the slightest.

sometimes you meet the most unbelieveable girl in the world and she whispers, i dont like soul food

and i just got engaged.

and flashes you a ring so big that engraved in it are the words

the diamond is the hardest natural resource on earth

the good news is kristin pony, pictured, likes soul food.

thus ends the good news if you know what i mean.

and the only way i can accept such harsh realities is to say something like God must have really loved that boy

and really hated you.

just kidding.

kristin sent me her graduation picture today via the electronic mail system and wrote me a little message and with her permission i will share this bit with you

college graduation was surprisingly anticlimatic.

i expected to feel something significant – a great sense of accomplishment, relief, or excitement about selling back my books for the final time.

i didn’t know whether to blame my lack of enthusiasm on the whirlwind of academic hell leading up to the big day, (a combined 50-some pages of papers due the same day as two of my finals,) or the fact that this really was just a stepping stone in my life on to bigger things next fall, (law school.) but all i really felt was annoyed that one more day of my life was going to be spent doing something school-related.

that day, i threw on a casual skirt and a tank. my mother arrived at my house, and i was forced into a dress. my sister, dissatisfied with my lack of eyeliner, re-did my makeup. i was in a somewhat less than happy mood (see picture.)

but then at convocation, they had fireworks. one minute i was completely annoyed, and the next minute, i was completely elated. those one million pages i had written about social capital, (i hate you, robert putnam) hadn’t been in vain. i was a college graduate. and they were having a colorful, noisy celebration in the sky in honor of my accomplishment.

i think more of life’s big moments should have real, honest-to-god fireworks.

the cubs keep losing too.

dave navarro + c’est what? is one years old + zulieka

without even an email asking permission.

you have my permission, baby.

but if youre going to start over, start a new one quick.

i havent done a twenty minutes with tony in a while so lets do one now but lets change the rules a little and say that at every minute the topic has to change.

ok, ready, go!

214am fifth of july. im watching man vs beast on the reality channel or some shit. somehow i remember seeing some of this but not all of it which blows my mind cuz how cant you remember watching a man run against a zebra and a navy seal going through an obstical course with a monkey.

215a kobiashi won the hot dog eating contest last night. the nathans one. hes the japanese kid who can just pound those dogs. hes racing a bear in this show. the bear is hungry but kobiaski is kicking his ass. poor bear.

216a i found this plastic lighter adapter that works great. you put your disposable lighter in there and lock the top and when you pull the trigger a nice strong get of blue flame comes out. i lost this thing like five years ago and im stoked to have it back.

217a jd drew might be out for the season, which is bad news for the dodgers but good news for me because i had traded him in almost all of my leagues. thats the good news the bad news is in the league that i want to win the most i traded him for jim thome who i wish was out for the season.

218a tomorrow i will pay the rest of my car off. i will be the owner of a car. its very odd. its like having a child sorta. you have to worry now and then where you left it all night. fuck that noise.

219a if the dems cant take down karl rove they dont deserve to lead this country. this is the easiest thing there is. the ironies are crazy. everything about this is crazy. and just like in the record biz, if everyone can get behind one thing then it can fly.

220a new topic. ok. public execution. i think this is a good idea. i dont see how its cruel and unusual. if it happens quickly i dont see how it could be cruel. and since weve done it all throughout history i dont see how its unusual. for treason they should zap you in a public square.

221a heaven. i think about heaven a lot. more than hell. i want to go to heaven but i have an evil heart. i cant help it. i could help it probably but i dont help it. thats why i conclude its evil. when i die i will cry cuz i know where im going.

222a for some reason today feels like sunday. why should it even matter to me, i dont have to go to no stinking work tomorrow. im supposed to go to vegas tomorrow. i dont want to go. i dont want to do anything. thats how all this trouble started.

223a these little one minute deals are interesting. you have to get to the root of th matter and move on. you cant really establish anything. but you dont get tied up in bs either. i think i will do it again. plys you get all your ideas out. which is good. experimentation is the best. so the three topless chicks told me that one time in dans room in frisco

224a does anyone watch the sundance channel through their directv? for some reason when i watch the Al Franken show the sound is super low. has anyone else experienced that? al’s fine. i like the show. i dont like the comedy bits. super lame actually. and its really nice to hear jerry noodling before and after commercials.

225a the grateful dead is something that i feel bad that the kids of today werent able to experience. in no way was i a dead head, but lots of my friends were and i probably heard every show the dead ever played since they were certain to play shows theyd never heard before, and i was there.

226a the best way to listen to music in college was while falling asleep buzzed drunk or stoned. i got high off life mostly, and a lot of second hand smoke. and i was poisoned a great deal. anyway i had a roommate who would put in a tape of something cool every night and wed fade away listening as the christmas lights twinkled

227a when did i start this nonesense. do i relaly have lots of things to say? of course. i had lunch with a cuban girl today. we bought her boyfriend a birthday gift at best buy and the dude was pretty cool to us. they have the Geek Squad there who were ok but could have improved.

228a yesterday renee and i ate at the santa monica fancy chinese restaurant. first we drank cuz it was crowded then we sat down. its fancy but for some reason they put up two flat panel tv screens in the “bar” area. there are no walls so sitting there i was distracted by the dodger game.

229a if i was the manager of a fancy restaurant in santa monica i would only turn the tv on if requested by a customer or if it was a killer game. an important game, that is. otherwise, put sintra in there and turn down the lights. must i do everyrhing?

230a ok four more to go. matt good asked me if i would review some records on his music blog. i said yes. the problem is i want everyrhing in the busblog. so this will be an exercise in sharing. something that i was taught as a child but ive obviously forgotten its value.

231a i must have the tv on at all times. with that said its amazing that my 35″ mitsubishi is not only hanging in there despite being 12 years old but it looks better than ever. back then japanese made tvs were very expensive but worth the money. this tv is proof of that.

232a one thing i expected more of when arnold became our governor was seeing him on tv more. i think ive seen him on tv twice since he became gov and both were last month. the first time was when he was being booed at smc and the other time was a few days later on jay leno talking about being booed. if i was arnold id get on tv a few more times.

233a speaking of santa monica, a place i spent many years. i still like it but im glad ive lived in hollywood the past four years. theres so much going on here and its so different than any other part of LA that i feel very grateful to have had the chance to be my age and in my situation here because its been killer.

234a ok last minute and we’re done. it wasnt that hard. it could be longer actually, like maybe spend two mintues per topic next time. whatever. it happened, it was decent, and now its done.

jane + bored housewife + kitty bukkake + i heart danielle

and i must say that when i read the headline and the first few paragraphs of his colum which was released about an hour ago i was all, sheesh, there goes rall again, but as i continued reading i was like, heh

so heres the whole thing in its entirety since its biggest theme is Patriotism instead of Partisanship, something that one party keeps talking about, so wtf, on the fourth of July, lets think about Patriotism today as we read ted rall explain

KARL ROVE: WORSE THAN OSAMA BIN LADEN

In war collaborators are more dangerous than enemy forces, for they betray with intimate knowledge in painful detail and demoralize by their cynical example. This explains why, at the end of occupations, the newly liberated exact vengeance upon their treasonous countrymen even they allow foreign troops to conduct an orderly withdrawal.

If, as state-controlled media insists, there is such a creature as a Global War on Terrorism, our enemies are underground Islamist organizations allied with or ideologically similar to those that attacked us on 9/11. But who are the collaborators?

The right points to critics like Michael Moore, yours truly, and Ward Churchill, the Colorado professor who points out the gaping chasm between America’s high-falooting rhetoric and its historical record. But these bête noires are guilty only of the all-American actions of criticism and dissent, not to mention speaking uncomfortable truths to liars and deniers. As far as we know, no one on what passes for the “left” (which would be the center-right anywhere else) has betrayed the United States in the GWOT. No anti-Bush progressive has made common cause with Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or any other officially designated “terrorist” group. No American liberal has handed over classified information or worked to undermine the CIA.

But it now appears that Karl Rove, GOP golden boy, has done exactly that.

Last week Time magazine turned over its reporter’s notes to a special prosecutor assigned to learn who told Republican columnist Bob Novak that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. The revelation, which effectively ended Plame’s CIA career and may have endangered her life, followed her husband Joe Wilson’s publication of a New York Times op-ed piece that embarrassed the Bush Administration by debunking its claims that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger. Time’s cowardly decision to break its promise to a confidential source has had one beneficial side effect: according to Newsweek, it indicates that Karl Rove himself made the call to Novak.

One might have expected Rove, the master White House political strategist who engineered Bush’s 2000 coup d’état and post-9/11 permanent war public relations campaign, to have ordered a flunky underling to carry out this act of high treason. But as the Arab saying goes, arrogance diminishes wisdom.

Rove, whose gaping maw recently vomited forth that Democrats didn’t care about 9/11, is atypically silent. He did talk to the Time reporter but “never knowingly disclosed classified information,” claims his attorney. But there’s circumstantial evidence to go along with Time’s leaked notes. Ari Fleischer abruptly resigned as Bush’s press secretary on May 16, 2003, about the same time the White House became aware of Ambassador Wilson’s plans to go public. (Wilson’s article appeared July 6.) Did Fleischer quit because he didn’t want to act as spokesman for Rove’s plan to betray CIA agent Plame? Another interesting coincidence: Novak published his Plame column on July 14, Fleischer’s last day on the job.

If Newsweek’s report is accurate, Karl Rove is more morally repugnant and more anti-American than Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, after all, has no affiliation with, and therefore no presumed loyalty to, the United States. Rove, on the other hand, is a U.S. citizen and, as deputy White House chief of staff, a high-ranking official of the U.S. government sworn to uphold and defend our nation, its laws and its interests. Yet he sold out America just to get even with Joe Wilson.

Osama bin Laden, conversely, is loyal to his cause. He has never exposed an Al Qaeda agent’s identity to the media.

“[Knowingly revealing Plame’s name and undercover status to the media]…is a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and is punishable by as much as ten years in prison,” notes the Washington Post. Unmasking an intelligent agent during a time of war, however, surely rises to giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies–treason. Treason is punishable by execution under the United States Code.

How far up the White House food chain does the rot of treason go? “Bush has always known how to keep Rove in his place,” wrote Time in 2002 about a “symbiotic relationship” that dates to 1973. This isn’t some rogue “plumbers” operation. Rove would never go it alone on a high-stakes action like Valerie Plame. It’s a safe bet that other, higher-ranking figures in the Bush cabal–almost certainly Dick Cheney and possibly Bush himself–signed off before Rove called Novak. For the sake of national security, those involved should be removed from office at once.

Rove and his collaborators should quickly resign and face prosecution for betraying their country, but given their sense of personal entitlement impeachment is probably the best we can hope for. Congress, and all Americans, should place patriotism ahead of party loyalty.

photo dude + buzzmachine + krista + radiohumper

of all Time
by tony pierce

1. abraham lincoln, freed the slaves
2. chuck berry, invented rock and roll
3. elvis presley, embodied rock and roll
4. bob dylan, legitimized rock and roll
5. hugh hefner, embodied the american dream
6. martin luther king jr., legitimized america
7. muhammed ali, greatest of all times
8. benjamin franklin, did it all
9. jackie robinson, legitamized baseball
10. michael jordan, set the standard of excellence
11. j.d. salinger
12. charles bukowski
13. frank sinatra
14. les paul
15. jimi hendrix
16. philo t. farnsworth
17. henry ford
18. bill gates
19. fdr
20. larry flynt
21. norman lear
22. harry caray
23. bill veeck
24. willie mays
25. mark twain
26. howard stern
27. hank williams sr.
28. johnny cash
29. john coltrane
30. john f kennedy
31. louis armstrong
32. magic johnson
33. charles mingus
34. charles r. drew
35. ted turner
36. jack daniels
37. eli whitney
38. pete rose
39. edward r. murrow
40. george hallas
41. william t. sherman
42. thomas jefferson
43. thomas edison
44. henry aaron
45. fredrick douglass
46. the wright bros
47. steven speilberg
48. benjamin banneker
49. timothy leary
50. jesse owens
51. matt groening
52. lenny bruce
53. richard pryor
54. sammy davis jr.
55. evil knievel
56. ron popeil
57. tiger woods
58. spike lee
59. kurt vonnegut
60. ernest hemingway
61. jerry garcia
62. steve dahl
63. tom dowd
64. walter payton
65. johnny carson
66. howard cosell
67. bill murray
68. n.w.a
69. bill clinton
70. babe ruth
71. miles davis
72. chris berman
73. lewis & clark
74. chick hearn
75. rick rubin
76. robert oppenheimer
77. the sugar hill gang
78. john belushi
79. col. harland sanders
80. charlie parker
81. thelonious monk
82. kurt cobain
83. berry gordy
84. mike royko
85. tom waits
86. quentin tarantino
87. al davis
88. pt barnum
89. duke ellington
90. andy warhol
91. buster keaton
92. doc ellis
93. mel blanc
94. hunter s. thompson
95. branch rickey
96. steve jobs
97. ev williams
98. eddie rickenbacher
99. william carlos williams
100. rodney bingheimer

anti + last year’s fourth of july photo essay + sean vaine + annika salutes the milbloggers

first of all i love you and may i wish you a happy birthday.

from what i understand it was a risky situation to declare independence from britan back in those days due to the fact that they had a very strong military and a rich history of gaining empires, not losing them.

because location is everything, america benefited from being a good fortnight’s sail away and england had no idea really what they were missing out on.

fourth of july i get a lot of international readers here so maybe i should say hello to them and let them know that a lot of time i might adress the reader as america and today i will explain why.

sometimes i might say something like, damn its hot outside, america, the sorta hot that reminds you of those summers by the nude lake in the forest where the kids werent really into being nudists, we were just poor, and hot, and drunk from the mysterious keg that would appear each afternoon

realize that im not excluding you, international readers, and im not dissing our neighbors in central or south america who arent as bold as to refer to themselves simply as america. im just being lazy, and secretly admitting to being an ugly american who really does go to foreign lands and eat at mcdonalds as much as possible.

fourth of july i think youd agree that the united states is still benefitting from being at the right place at the right time. and we know we’re lucky. hell, im an unemployed black man who had to make payments on a nine hundred dollar car and i know im in a better situation than a lot of the planet.

so when all these people go around today talking about how proud they are to be an american, i will say how fortunate i am to be an american.

yeah we cant say fuck on tv and the chicks cant show their nipples, but other than that in most cases the average american has a greater chance of dying from being too fat or from a car wreck in a $20k automobile than dying from disease crime or famine. its fucked up that in 2005 we should still have to be able to compare things to such low standards but i do believe that in a generation or two we as a society will rid ourselves of allowing the most greedy and conivving to run our nations.

if mc hammer was president five years ago africa woulda been fed. you can believe that.

so anyway fourth of july i hope you have a great birthday today and know that you will be celebrated in so many different ways, and diversity, as you know is part of the magic of america.

there will be sparklers in car ports, m80s atop garbage cans, whistling willies in cul de sacs and million dollar pro shit fired off barges just a little bit south of tj which is technically america if im there, which i am

sometimes i’ll come down here to get it all together, to take a breather, to miss america just a little bit, or to say things like, damn you know how much this land would go for if this was south san diego?

fourth of july i dont know where this country is headed but all i gotta say is if the democrats cant turn this karl rove fiasco into a way to balance the scales in regards to the supreme court nominations then the democrats are the pussy ass bitches that everyone keeps saying they are and they deserve to go the way of the whigs. which they shoulda done after losing last year anyway. instead the lord had mercy on them and gave them a boy named emmanuelle from illinois and a woman named sarai from park ridge. He did this out of love for the nation, and thus the world.

as an independent i like the intermingling of church and state. im not ashamed to call myself a Christian. why should we bullshit each other? Jesus is definatley on my mind every day and even though i know a lot of people who pretty much hate american Christianity, i also know a lot who are into it even though they really dont know why. i have no problem with that.

fourth of july i ordered the thing i need to start doing podcasting. i know i said that “those who cant blog podcast” but i was being funny. its still funny.

but one thing that i would like to do in a podcast is post someone singing the entire national anthem of the united states. including the original verses that included in God we Trust.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Bles’t with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

p.s. please help the cubs stop losing

fook the people gives the tsar record 8/10 + this dude saw tsar in york + bible gateway

but what about other people who aren’t friends with them?

lets take a little look at what the critics and bloggers are saying about Tsar…

rabsteen:

At first i thought, what the eff am i doing–making an impulse buy based on some guy’s blog recommendation? He talks it up like it’s the second coming. Then i found out why.

TSAR is the reason no one can take bands like The Darkness seriously. When you listen to this album, you feel safe in knowing that you’re not being lied to–or that this isn’t an experiment based on some studio exec’s formula for producing the next big thing. TSAR’s charm lies in their authenticity. They are probably similar to The Darkness in terms of what they set out to do; but TSAR exhibits a comfortable familiarity with their music, they keep their sound raw enough to avoid the hookish post-punk-pop over-production which has now become frighteningly common place, and manage to avoid sounding manufactured like they were spit out of the same machine that asks us to buy Good Charlotte or Simple Plan…

(read the rest)

hartford advocate:

These guys play fast, wicked-clean, are Typhoid Mary, infectiously hooky, do Bay City Rollers meet Iggy Pop choruses and are just plain stupidly good and good fun. With a real lead guitarist who’s thrumming just past warp-speed, obviously a stoked Gameboy adept, and, also, clearly a minion of Satan.

Equal parts Cheap Trick and T-Rex, Tsar are the antithesis of mawkish, navel-lint pickers like Keene or Coldplay; they blithely conjure the sheer esprit and puckishness of the glam-rock/tranny-mascara era: Tsar assuredly does not tsuck.

– bob renstrom

Spin, Band of the Day 6/30/05

Maybe the next best thing to a band that wears its heart on its sleeve is one that declares its priorities through its album title. For L.A. rockers Tsar, it’s a simple triumvirate: Band-Girls-Money. This actually plays out more like a formula: By crafting an ambitiously diverse array of concise, fast, rock’n’roll expressions as a band, Tsar aims to appease the largest number of girls who will, in turn, fork over their hard-earned money on Tsar CDs, concert tickets, and girlie tees. Let’s do the math.

If she sports a mullet and prefers ratty black concert t-shirts, she’s likely to dig the bratty, speedy “Straight”; its punchy power chords and blazing guitar riffs recall latter day rockers like Murder City Devils. Does she crave new wave? Try “The Love Explosion,” with its percolating build-up and keyboard-laced sing-along chorus. Is she a glam princess? “Superdeformed” or “Startime” should do the trick. Frontman Jeff Whalen displays agility throughout, managing to sound very much at home in these varied arrangements, although the album could do without a few wimpy forays towards whiny pop punk predictability. But the real airplane glue holding it all together is guitarist Daniel Kern; his solos lend a swift, defibrillator-like charge at several crucial moments.

So how does the equation work out? Did you show your work? Tsar has certainly been patient for solutions; after releasing their debut on Hollywood Records in 2000, the band was stuck in limbo for some time before signing with TVT in 2004. Answers will certainly come this summer now that Band-Girls-Money is in stores and the band is out on the road. Girls and money: beware!

the critic (reviewing the single):

Rock’n’Roll! Screaming intro by guitar and vocalist! They hail from Los Angeles, but have all the energy and gumption of New York. This is the title track of their second album filled with lyrics by their vocalist Jeff Whalen and guitar histrionics by Dan Kern backed by drummer Chuck Byler and bass player Derrick Forget to explosive effects. This party political broadcast by Tsar lays down their priorities fair and square: Band – Girls – Money. The right order, the right attitude, the right music.

Based on this single track I urge you to listen to their new album and seek out their self titled first album on Hollywood Records from 2000.

– Wolfgang Steuer

Upcoming Tsar Shows

7/8 Spaceland, Silverlake
7/12 Bricktown Live, Oklahoma City
7/16 WKRL Radio Festival, Syracuse
7/20 Springwater Supper Club & Lounge, Nashville
7/23 TT the Bear’s, Boston
7/26 Grand Rapids, MI (10 Bells)
7/31, Buffalo, NY (WEDG-Edgefest)

get the cd + whalen conducts an interview with a british radio dude

the heat blows through my bedroom window and makes itself comfortable. i have no heater and no a/c in this hollywood bungalow and sometimes i need a little fan.

and sometimes i need a little space heater but im about to rent a beater and drive around tonight with the windows down and count the shooting stars and think about ice cream bars, theres drumsticks and popsicles and bomb pops and push ups and strawberry shortcakes and chocolate eclairs, mickey mouses, choco tacos

the ones with the gumballs on the bottom, the ones with the quarters in the middle, the ones with the peanuts on the top.

ice cream sandwiches and eskimo pies. soft serve. triple scoop.

when i was a kid and this is how long ago ive been walking around, they used to have at baskin robbins this thing called the super heater, three scoops of ice cream, hot chocolate, nuts and whipped cream in a cup for ninety nine cents and it seemed like a lot of money and it seemed like a lot of ice cream, but it was four video games so i would always think about the super heater but i would always pass.

except once when my mom bought me one after grocery shopping. and i couldnt believe my amazing luck.

i need a new pair of shorts. all i have are swim trunks which are fun to wear as shorts in the summer but chris always rolls her eyes when i wear em.

its hot, hi summer. if i was smart i would shut the windows and turn this thing back into a cave. a cool dark cave where the lovely ladies in their summer dresses will sit down and cross their legs and try to act all demure but my demure detector doesnt overheat

like my candy bag on top of the microwave

next to the window.

– busblog, 7/3/03

raymi + zulieka unstrung + the mighty doc searls + sean bonner

the queen of hearts, karl rove, is about to do a belly flop into history. my children will never know him as the evil genius that he sorta was if it wasnt for always getting caught, which he apparently did yesterday when laurence o’donnell announced on one of my favorite shows, the mclaughlin group.

long story short former US Ambassador to Iraq (and UCSB alumn) Joseph Wilson was sent to Niger in 2002 to see if Iraq was really buying nuclear material from the african nation. Wilson found no business being done between to the two countries. In 2003 during Pres Bush’s rush to war with Iraq, the president in his state of the union address said that Iraq was getting nuclear materials from Niger, and Wilson was so upset that the wrote a column in the New York Times called “What I Didn’t Find In Niger” saying that that nothing of that kind had happened and that the president knew it.

BushCo was so mad that to retaliate, someone high up in the white house staff leaked information that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative. the information was leaked to rightwing columnist Bob Novak who immediately outted Plame in his column denoucing Wilson. Two other reporters know which white house staffer leaked the info, which is a federal offense, and the court gave them an ultimatium that they either tell who the source is or go to jail.

one of the reporters, Matt Cooper, works for Time. he said that he wouldnt tell but when the Supreme Court refused to force the reporter to cough up the info it got bumped back down to the court that originally demanded the name. at that point Time magazine said that it would tell the court, and show how they can prove it via a series of emails.

O’Donnell says that he knows that the source is Karl Rove. If it is Rove, he might be sent to jail for Perjury if he previously lied under oath to the Grand Jury by denying that he was the leak.

Rove, by the way, was fired in 92 from Bush Sr’s campaign for… leaking things to Novak

the obvious question is why isnt Novak being brought to court and pressured into revealing his source like the other two reporters? on today’s mcglaughlin group o’donnell speculated that it was probably because Novak has already told the court on the grounds that he not have to testify or go on the record if one of the other two reporters spills the beans.

the juicy chocolate center could be if Rove is tried for Treason since he outted a CIA agent during a time of war. and even though Plame herself might not have been in immediate danger by the revelation, her cohorts, informants, and business associates very well could have been.

because of the complexity of this case it might be hard for it to capture the imagination of the american public, and it couldnt have come at a worse time for the President who received what was tantamount to a Christmas gift this week when supreme court judge sandra day oconner announced her retirement. but now with his best bud, his brain, his puppet master, looking at hard time in the pokey for serious federal offenses what we might be witnessing here is the begining of the end of the bush dynasty.

live by the reckless unlawful immoral abuse of power, die by the reckless unlawful immoral abuse of power.

the democrats couldnt have been pitched an easier underhand soft toss to knock over the fence.

tied to that the fact that journalists are caught in the middle of this means that theres no excuse for the media to ignore this, plus it involves the mastermind of BushCo who many thought was the most untouchable of a teflon administration.

pay very close attention to how the right wing bloggers and their commentors will squirm and try to find an angle out of this corner. theyve already tried to denounce odonnell, which is sad because hes not even a player in this greek tragedy, and watch how they will try to denounce every person who actually is a player

except for bob novak for writing the treason

and karl rove for being a fat bastard traitor

these people go on and on about patriotism and citizen journalism, but they dont mean it. their dude got caught

red

handed involving someones wife, the lowest attack a gentleman could make.

and then he lied about it under oath, and then he sat back and watched as two journalists played chicken with the supreme court by saying theyd go to jail before theyd reveal their source even though their source was someone who nobody should go to jail to protect.

difference is, these people were willing to go to jail to protect their profession, not to protect a person.

and in a world where commentators are constantly trying to determine the difference between a blogger and a journalist, may i suggest that a journalist is a professional willing to go to jail for their profession.

i made a photo essay + rabsteen gets it + tsar will attend cmj in sept

MTV’s commercial-filled coverage: Horrible

and obviously he had more on his mind than photography which is odd because he normally takes very good pictures

but today when he went to ameoba to buy his tsar cd he documented that there was only one cd left and failed to see that on the front of the row to the left of tsar was trex’s electric warrior which was on my short list of records that were better than band girls money, which also happens to have cover art that tsar is obviously borrowing from which i can only imagine is jeff tipping the hat to one of his most overwhelming influences.

the good mc in his haste probably to walk across the street to chan darae for some pad thai missed out on a great photo, but brown delivers in so many other ways that we’ll give him a pass this time. this time.

im watching one of the last howard stern shows on e! this one is of a foot fetish chick who isnt very hot. just because youre petite and wearing a cheerleader outfite doesnt automatically make you hot. 11 years howard was on e! and todays radio show was super sad as he chatted with all the e! crew whose last day is today.

i called my buddy stuart who called me on my last day and his voicemail said that he was going to be away until the middle of next month but in the meantime i could call al. which is good news cuz i guess that means that LA e! is going to absorb stu and al which is nice because theyre great guys.

my favorite part of working at e! was going into the online room where al was fine tuning the show that was to air that night. sometimes he was figuring out what b-roll theyd slow mo when howard was talking about someone who wasnt in the studio, sometimes al was trying to figure out if the nipple that they blurred was blurry enough, and sometimes theyd call me in to gross me out with some old lady nudity or something right before they blurred it.

i didnt have very much power in the Scheduling department and i often had to do whatever the hell anyone asked me to do, which was funny that when stu or al would show up and say yo tony we need a favor, id reply with Anything, because i woulda had to do what they said anyway. still, they appreciated the effort and sometimes there was a little something i could do to help them out, even if it was not give them a hard time if they had to ask for something out of the ordinary.

sometimes for example there would be an episode that had lots and lots of nipples. like if there was a porn star or stripper contest and there were four girls topless on the screen.

we had a guy in the Paintbox room who would blur out the nudity. but normally it would take 8 hours to get the nipples blurred of one or two girls. but if there was twice as many nipples it would take a second 8 hour shift. sometimes they didnt predict that much time so in the waning hours right before air we had to rearrange the schedule, boot out shows who had previously booked time, squeeze the time out of the news that was to air live that evening, all so howard could air the shenanigans when he had told his radio audience it was going to air.

what i loved about stu and al was there was never any, “we’re the stern show, we’re number one in this place, therefore bow to us and get out of our way.” they are both two very soft spoken gentlemen who get the job done and dont pass the buck. if howard wants the show to air that night its going to air that night – not because howard is some tyrant – but just because no one wants to say something lame like “we ran out of paintbox time” or “there were just too many nipples”. and every single show that was supposed to air actually aired on time and properly mosaiced.

since today is one of the last stern shows on e!, next week will be the last week of new show, let me give you few stern fans a brief description of how the show gets from the radio to tv. first the show is taped live in new york. howard starts at 6am and usually runs till 10:30am. if its an awwwwesome show that everyone wants to see aired soon it gets edited in new york and spliced together before the end of the day. then the tapes gets sent either overnight delivery or via satelite to LA. in LA stu and al put the names under people’s faces, edit in the b-roll using e’s huge library of actors on the red carpet and being interviewed, and they blur out any nipple slip or offending tshirt. if its a topless show it gets mosaiced usually that night or the next night. therefore a show where someone gets naked will usually take 3-4 days to get on the air.

theres much speculation as to where howard is headed to next to air his tv show. if i was him i would go to an hbo or a showtime because a lot of the delay in airing his shows has to do with nudity. unless he has a paintbox operator on call as they edit the show (which still wont get you same-day results) theres no way that they can do day-of tv shows unless theyre on a channel that allows nudity.

and because he’s doing the radio show on Sirius, we can only imagine that the language will be more salty than ever. unless he wants his tv show to be filled with bleeps, i cant see why he wouldnt take this oppportunity to jump to a real cable channel while he has it.

my idea, as discussed before is he makes a deal with Cinemax or Showtime to allow him 4 hours uncut every weekday. nobody watches either of those channels daily. this would be their chance to have a low-budget show (since there’d be no editing or post-production costs) that could prove to be a viable option for their viewers unsatisfied with the primetime lineup on the major channels. already seen that episode of CSI? flip over to Cinemax and see who howard’s got naked.

seems like a no brainer to me.

today they were asking everyone what their favorite e show moment was.

mine is when they got that chick with the silver bikini to walk around the streets of new york with tampons up her nose.

i had finally been shocked.

mc brown + buzznet + my buzznet + tomdog