i woke up a half hour ago, took a shit, went through some email. and now im about to write to you.

i give you these details, especially the times, because i know that im not going to be able to sleep till noon for much longer. which is ok. really. if i wanted to sleep till noon i would never have left frisco.

when i worked for the dot com i was the first guy to work the graveyard shift, and i also worked the 6am shift. sleepings for suckers.

tomorrow is my true loves birthday. (pictured). shes in africa saving the world. im pretty sure she isnt doing any sleeping till noon but what do i know. i dont even know what the time difference is over there which is why im putting her picture up today just incase its tomorrow already over there.

if theres one person who would be stoked at my new job it would have been chris. i say the reason we broke up was because i never wanted to go out. i didnt because i was totally satisfied with her there. and my computer. and my television. but if i had had a job where i had to be out in the city every day i think she would have loved to have been out there with me.

heres one thing that i will be instituting: i will be inviting the dude from laobserved, the dude from los anjealous, sean dave koga and all the kids of bloggingla, welch, franklin ave, laobserved, and various special guests to all go have a drink together once a month. if bloggingla doesnt show we’re gonna talk shit about them. jk. there will be no more bullshit drama within the la blog community. and if there is any, i will make fun of it. i have a very high post-quota, so i dare you to give me something to make fun of.

but what id rather have is a friendly monthly drinking night where we learn to love each other and use bots to cheat at online poker.

here are the enemies of the laist: dumb stories, bad stories, boring stories, bad pictures, dumb pictures, boring pictures, dial up, george steinbrenner, any member of the soul patrol.

no matter what blogging.la does, they will never be on that list. theyve been too good to me over the years, i like them too much, and it would be, as the kids say so politically incorrectly, gay.

some of my best friends are politically incorrect.

so in honor of my best friend whose in africa, whose birthday is tomorrow but it might be today, lets follow the advice given to us from her favorite movie: be excellent to each other.

im off to vegas to review the hooters hotel and casino.

sploid + blogging.la linked to me yesterday + la voice said some very nice things

but my mom told me she never clicks the links or even clicks the embedded video

so heres the best thing that i read about my new gig today

from the good people at the martini republic:

June 8th, 2006

We thought just a few days ago that LAist might be well-served by becoming “a real blog” and turning away from bulletin-boarding and publicity.

Turns out that’s exactly what they’ve done:

Tony Pierce to edit LAist

Pierce’s busblog is a letters-at-3 a.m. styled ramble that often excavates deep within the author’s consciousness. In fact, the less conscious Pierce is, the more willing to report on his own consciousness he seems to be.

He’s also appreciably progressive in political outlook and is not afraid to mix it up with the rightwingers.

He doesn’t seem controllable, which may piss off the Gothamist Home Office but admittedly works well for blogging. In fact, his whole blogging raison d’être, recently examined in LAWeekly, seems less an attempt to attract attention than a need to locate a psychic flood channel for his uncontrollable blogging surges.

The thought of him toiling as editor is a delightfully messy one. It’s like asking the firebug to become the fire chief. We’re going to watch this blog. Changes are coming immediately after Tuesday, when Pierce takes them helm.

there was also a metafilter thread + la observed wished me well + some comments on laist were very sweet

as tonight at an undisclosed tavern, carolyn kellogg, editor of the laist is going to whisper the alarm code of la to me and i will take over the fine website.

i actually accepted on tuesday, 6/6, and it still hasnt sunk in.

quite possibly the most perfect job i could be asked to do. cover la. completely. ridiculously. relentlessly. humorously. in a way no one could have ever conceived.

while giving great new writers photographers and artists a chance to have their killer work seen.

while putting los angeles back on the map.

what does this mean for the busblog? well, it means there will be way fewer posts. like maybe only one a day. thats because im going to be posting like a mad man over at laist. like theres no tomorrow. because, there really isnt a tomorrow. so live for the day. or the light change. or something. fine, dont live. i dont care. but there will be fewer busblogging.

laist doesnt really have an office, so i will be working from my hollywood bachelor pad, and i will start accepting offers to blog from pools and hottubs around los angeles. harry caray is my hero and the days when he would work from the bleachers were the best days ever.

i will be reporting from the pit and vip sections of great rock shows. i will be photographing from every beach and flashpoint that i can find. i will be interviewing owners and operators of roach coaches, boutiques, and 98 cent stores from all over this fine city.

there will be traditional stories, audio interviews, video, and holograms. not only will we change the way people group blog, but you will see our so called competition stealing from our innovations.

i say “so called” not out of disrespect but because we are all neighbors and comrades and this city is big enough for all of us. and by this city i mean the valley, the rest is laists.

but seriously i want to thank all the people who offered me condolences. i want to thank all the people who rooted me on and said positive things that never sank in. so many of you said that something great would happen for me and i didnt believe it. but you were right.

i want to thank all the people who offered me jobs, especially mr canter. and all the people who tried to hook me up with other people, especially dr searls.

but i totally want to thank carolyn kellogg who had the faith in me to put in a good word for me to my new boss jake dobkin and of course i want to thank jake for taking a chance on me.

i have great respect for carolyn, and jason toney who was the editor before carolyn. i will be leaning on both of them for advice and guidance to help me make the laist the greatest blog about a city ever.

and im going to need a little help from my friends. of course.

and i might need some help from you, like be patient with me for a few months as i figure out what the hell is going on.

after my meeting tonight im going to drive to vegas and buy a macbook, then im going to drink and tan, then i believe my first day at laist is on tuesday.

pray for me. pray for all of us.

but especially say a prayer for the unpaid college interns

of whom i will begin accepting resumes from shortly.

bloggingla was nice to me this summer too + fishbowl la is looking for an editor + it’s still jeffs birthday

who ya got?

metafilter discussion + crooks and liars + science blog

hes now a man.

born to mountain goats in the south of france, jeff learned at an early age the value of friends when a grizzly bear found their humble goathouse. right before jeff and his family were about to be ripped to shreads and eaten a pack of gardener snakes jumped from a plane freaking out the bear and saving the lives of the solomons.

jeff has been repaying his friends endlessly over the years, from deliving our children, to gentle yet firm backrubs, to even fixing our computers as they break down from overuse and bottomless strands of dna.

i first met jeff at the daily nexus in santa barbara when i was running into the office to drop off a story and run out as quickly as i could. jeff was sitting on a couch playing the acoustic guitar. he had no shoes on. his long hair reached down to his ass and tried to tickle his hole.

he winked at me as we acheived eye contact. he was kidding. but was he? i didnt want to know. but i did. but i didnt. of course i didnt.

years later i still dont know what he meant by that wink and ive seen jeff in dresses and skirts and in wigs and bikinis. ive seen jeff play bass for my favorite rock group tsar dressed as a european soccer fan, if seen him play bass for san franciscos mighty thee mystakes in a tuxedo, and i saw him play for the brothers steve in isla vista but not for very long because there were drunk girls in need of a quickie makeout session.

without jeff solomon there would be a lot of unwritten blog posts from not just this blog but from welch, layne, ben sullivan, and so many others. most of LA probably.

right now hes putting together a supercomputer for me so i can do some sweet shit that you aint never seen before. and i will reward him handsomely with baseball cards. since they pay the rent.

i dee jayed at jeffs wedding a few years ago which lead to me dee jaying two weddings this year. i played exactly the same songs and nobody noticed. which is why jeffs the greatest. he has one and a half children, several dogs, a beautiful house, a wife thats far too good for him, and a bass that has his name on it for the day that i get married and need a twenty minute bass solo in the middle of a cover of big bottom.

jeff and i covered the news together a few times in santa barbara, we crawled under houses in frisco, and here in la i let him sift through my porn every six months as he upgrades my shit and laughs and laughs at my hairy ass.

he may be the nicest man in LA since i saw ben sullivan swat a gnat in palm springs.

i hope he likes my bar mitvah gift.

jeff and erin’s wedding + jeff in tsar + in the victorians + marrying steve and heather

the first of course being mr john wayne anti of the redondo beach antis.

anti epitomizes pretty much everything that i like about native californians. theyre mellow. they rock. and they have their priorities straight enough to appreciate the right things – a nice sunset, a good guitar jam, the wonders of nature.

it’s also prince’s birthday.

greatest rock entertainer of all time.

its also allen iverson’s birthday. karisas favorite baller.

as well as thurman munson’s birthday. captain of the yankees during the bronx zoo era. artie lange’s favorite yankee. one of the last real baseball players and not just because he looked like john belushi.

but the dearest to the busblog would have to be the fact that today is miss anna kournikovas twenty-fifth birthday. as many of you know anna and i have had a long and dramatic relationship.

many people assumed that when she left me to be with that latin boybander that i would move my affections over to maria sharpanova and her long legs and short skirt but if you noticed i didnt. i dont think i even posted one picture of ms sharpanova. nor have i covered any womens tennis.

and in return, anna hasnt gotten married.

have your fun little girl

you’ll know where to find me.

anna kournikova nude? + anti + patrick

a year ago today
get behind me satan
V2 Records

the new york times got this cd the same time i did.

somehow theyre declaring this a masterpiece because it has some addt’l instruments on it than just drums and jack white.

not so fast baby.

the white stripes have, what five records now? they better put something more on there than just drums on jack white.

wheres my calculator. im such an old man. i have this great calculator thats big and has big buttons and can take a good punch and has big numbers and is solar powered and i never knew id be calculating so much but i calculate like a bitch.

i also find myself using a flashlight quite a bit.

so ive heard this cd for weeks now, which ive decided is really what i should do before i take a serious stab at reviewing a record because i felt bad the second i posted that weezer review.

the chick asked if i ever felt bad about 2,000 people possibly getting “hurt” that i wrote something and fuck no, how on earth could i even post one word if i was worried about hurting anyone.

but i did feel bad busting on rivers because it is a small world, and he does know some of my friends, and he does use the internet, and he did allegedly did get freaked out about pinkerton, and hes just a fragile little dude who very well could have done a little technorati search on his cd and there i was one of his biggest fans who had made a friggin photo essay for maladroit is now talking shit about make believe.

thats gotta suck.

especially since ive listened to make believe every day for the last two weeks.

on the firt day of having Get Behind Me Satan i loved it. on the second day i thought it was just more of the same old white stripes gimmickrey. on the third day i thought it was totally cool again. on the fourth day it helped me write a dirty letter to anna kournikova.

jack white knows what he wants to do with the white stripes and that is this: not rock the boat. this record is not very different than any of the others, maribas be damned. thats the bad news. the good news is everyones got another white stripes cd to love especially on random with about twenty totally different cds.

the problem that i have with Get Behind Me Satan is that theres not enough Satan. anyone who’s seen the White Stripes live knows that Mr. White made a deal involving his soul at the crossroads, but as is usual Satan usually pays up in spades. (see: Zep, Sabbath, R. Johnson, Abba).

if i could find that blasted calculator i would say that the Deceiver is definately in the house on track one, the single, the power chord havin Blue Orchid which has nothing to do with the rest of the collection, sadly. (video)

Be’el’zebub was present on track three ringing My Doorbell asking me what are you going to do about it?

Forever For Her, track four, is so gorgeous that it hints to the sweet rays of lightness from the angel side of the former number two man in Heaven.

Yes, before he fell, Lucifer was an angel, a high ranking one at that.

This is a song he would have written back in those days.

Ugly As I Seem track five made me pull out led zep’s Going To California to see how close it got (not that close) and one of the few times that we get to actually hear the genius of Mr. White on this record as everything is even more stripped down than normal with just his wife/mom/sister on a bongo while he plays acoustic and sings a song that sounds like something robert plant would have paid millions to have been able to record on one of his solo records. half way through you say hi satan and he winks.

somebody is in there with them in the firey furnace during Instinct Blues and Take Take Take but i think its neil peart, not the Fallen One. those are far too intellectual tunes for the devil. give us fire fuckers. fire.

red rain sounds like a white stripes parody with so many effects that its almost like they know theres not a song in there just a good excuse for jack to run around the stage live. which is fine. but not worthy of hellfire. just regularfire.

Little Ghost track 12 is a visit from Lorretta Lynn who is also an angel and would have been perfect on her solo record that White produced and he was smart to steal it from her and put it here, which is naughty, but not satanic.

Get Behind Me Satan ends in the bluesy piano of I’m Lonely (But I’m Not That Lonely Yet) which hints if not comes straight out by saying that he has the hots for his sister, since after all he’s lonely, but alas not that lonely yet. It’s an odd song because you want to feel sorry for him because he obviously wants to get it on with her but, dude, it’s your sister!

which would have been way creepier of a song if Meg White wasnt outted earlier this year as having been Jack’s wife, and not his sister. regardless Satan is all up in this song. which might not be good for your soul, but is great for rock music.

i still havent found my calculator so lets say Satan is on half of this cd, angels are on two tracks, and the rest of it is plain old white stripes. therefore six thumbs up, but no masterpiece.

the boston globe says it’s just ok + boston herald liked it + canada.com reports that jack calls is a truth record + philly.com calls it brilliant, gives it 3.5 stars and says it has lots of guitar which it doesnt + detroit news calls it “possibly their best“, its good but its not even their second best + the new yorker wished that jack wrote a chorus for blue orchid and duetted with xtina + newsweek has an incredibly sober feature on them aka dull as hell + fake dyi has the best review though

Bastards of Young: The Best of The Replacements
Sire/Reprise/Rhino Records
available 6/13/06

1. Takin A Ride
2. Shiftless When I Die
3. Kids Don’t Follow
4. Color Me Impressed
5. Within Your Reach
6. I Will Dare
7. Answering Machine
8. Unsatisfied
9. Here Comes A Regular
10. Kiss Me On The Bus
11. Bastards Of Young
12. Left Of The Dial
13. Alex Chilton
14. Skyway
15. Can’t Hardly Wait
16. Achin’ To Be
17. I’ll Be You
18. Merry Go Round
19. Message To The Boys (New Recording)
20. Pool & Dive (New Recording)

i would have replaced #18 with “i hate music”

Rhino is currently streaming it for free WIN + QT

newsweek interviewed paul and the results are predictable and softballish in nature and allows mr westerberg off the hook at every chance. no wonder bush is still in office.

Newsweek: Is there a magic [dollar] number that would get you guys on the road again?

Westerberg: Well, that would be the magic question. No, it’s more the willingness. I don’t know what it would take for us to actually rehearse these old songs … Also, in the course of the last six years I’ve gone from being completely sober to one inch from death to completely sober again. Right now I’m very healthy, but I know secretly, in the back of my mind, that when you go on tour, that’s when you tend to weaken when it comes to whatever vices you might have. I know Tommy’s aware of that, too. So a little part of the reunion thing is us being afraid of getting back together and falling into our old ways and not making it home.

Newsweek: You and your wife have a son now.

Westerberg: Yeah, Johnny. He’ll be 8 in a couple days. I coach his baseball team. We played last night, and the third baseman from the other team said they’d lost their last game by 43 to nothing. So I started stopping our guys on third base and holding ’em up, but we murdered them anyway.

sorry, not softballish, little leagueish.

i cant explain it either.

it was really late and i didnt want to blow it so when i leaned over to turn on the music the pogues playlist clicked in and i was all well its not prince but i dont think this babe will mind.

and sure enough the same girl who last week swore she couldnt care less about music suddenly was all, what is this gaelick hour? and then went back to pretending she wanted to go home.

some chicks in hollywood are terrible actresses.

i bought a playstation game the day after i was fired. i figured id drink a lot and master a game. i chose Major League Baseball 2K6. i could find any others. this one had the mlb insignia on it and derek jeter on the cover. seemed legit.

worst game ive ever gotten.

right now shes laying on the couch chuckling to last comic standing. im chuckling too. i like the really fat black lady who screams, and the hippie with cerebal paulsy.

ive always liked last comic standing except for the host, old whatshisname, the dick

but they have a new guy now so the show is perfect.

i had a chance to housesit in new york for a month so i called this girl up who lived nearby if she would be my one-month summer girlfriend. she said it sounded like an escort and i didnt have a good comeback. why is it that im never prepared for people to say no to me, even though they say it way more than id prefer.

ill tell you this, if that chick was gonna housesit in la for a month id totally be her one month summer boyfriend, id be that girls one hour boyfriend. no jokes fellas.

someone asked me last month about Howard Stern. the question was do i listen to more or less howard now that hes on satelite.

the answer is because of the constant replays on Howard 100 i listen to about 2-3 hours of the 5 hour show. and i missed him a lot last week.

i listen to about 4 minutes of bubba the lovesponge, and about an hour of ferral a week, which is so wrong since i love ferral. i have one sirius unit in the car and i will get one in the house very soon.

speaking of major leage baseball, today was 6/6/6 day and those jokesters at the mlb scheduled the Anaheim Angels to play the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. the angels versus the devils.

angels won.

and now at this point i need to attend to my guest. i leave you with a video of prince live in japan.

the pants + jessica + tina + gus greeper