today i have to go to the mechanic who screwed me
and basically convince him to get me a new engine for free
not exactly what i had planned to be doing this monday
i planned on being in minnesota drinking old style
instead im here going to bed early, not answering the phone
not allowing myself to be comforted by a clipper girl or her cousin

they just put it on YouTube and i thought i would share

always get fucked up beyond repair, i do my best to make casual outlines so that i will never be disappointed and so that Life can jump in an improvise with me.

when you think about the sweetest memories of your life, your greatest accomplishments, your fondest hookups, rarely did they start with a playbook diagram or even a to-do list.

the plan was to drive from one end of the country to the other. thats all.

when people started asking questions i started making shit up. oh i will go up Route 66. but even i knew that i wouldnt be going on the blue highways for much of this journey, its not like i was retired and had absolutely nothing going on in my life.

so then the plan was take route 66 to madpony’s house, then head to minnesota, then down to wrigley then under lake michigan and up through the motor city to see where motown was borned. then party with all the crazy canadians in toronto, then take in a red sox game with karisa’s brothers, then ny, then dc, then whatever until memphis and then eventually vegas and then back home.

part of the plan was to write the greatest novel ever about traveling around the country at 113 yrs old kissing girls, drinking, hearing tales, telling tales, and not saying no to anyone who asked anything. this is because i had a theory that i was bored of my dumb life because i stayed at home too much, fucked cheerleaders too much, and said no too much to new opportunities.

so if a peg legged moustachioed 80 yr old woman wanted me to make out with her inbetween diaper changes i was going to say yes if only because it would make good copy. i even warned karisa before i left that she might lose respect for me but she didnt know what i was saying and said i know who you are tony, i will always respect you.

but as much as this WASNT a spiritual journey to find out who i REALLY am, i had a faint idea that i am not the person who she thinks i am. and hopefully i wouldnt end up as lame as i was ending up.

so the first yes that i uttered was to the manager of the automotive repair shop in pomona. a man i had never met. i went in for a $15 oil change. he said i needed a transmission flush, some new spark plugs and wires, and an oil head thing – the shiny thing that says Nissan on it in your engine. $240 later i was behind schedule and well off my America on $69 a day budget, but i didnt say no and just like in the video games sometimes its good to use some of your wrenches on something other than Speed and Acceleration. someone somewhere gets that reference and now loves me.

if you remember, though, the mechanic who performed all those upgrades forgot to either screw the oil filter on tightly or forgot to put the oil pan plug on tightly and 8 hours later my oil light turned on and i found out that i had been driving with only a taste of oil in my shit.

no worries we thought, just fill that shit up, tighten everything and roll on.

this morning i checked under my car in phoenix where i had spent the night and there was no leaks. this afternoon outside of a wal*mart i checked under the car again and saw something dripping but alas it was only the A/C’s condensation. whew.

and six hours later after i had rested at the Burger King here in Flagstaff i checked the oil and wtf there wasnt any in there! so i went to the local Napa Auto Parts store where two women looked at my car and we put oil in there and they checked the oil and they said tony its a good thing that you never changed the name of that blog because this engine has had it – look the new oil that we just put in there has turned black which means the inside of your engine is tore up and the valves are fucked. you will need a new engine.

i said, but how did i drive it all the way up here? and they said someone loves you and She wanted you to be safe. our advice is to buy a case of oil and head back home and then sue the guy who forgot to tighten the oil stuff. but if the car locks up on the way it wouldnt surprise us. carry a lot of water and make sure your cell phone is charged because you very well might die in the desert like common scum.

they didnt say that last part but they should have because i was about to cry right there and i never cry. i tried to call the pomona shop but it was 5:50pm and they were closed and had no answering machine. they didnt want to hear about their fuckups.

so i drove around Flagstaff, a gorgeous town on top of a mountain, with the radio off, and i felt sorry for myself and i wanted to hate someone but i couldnt hate the manager for upselling me because i probably did need all that shit, and i couldnt hate the mechanic because i met him and he was nice and it was the end of the day and he was probably thinking about what he was going to make for dinner or something. he didnt mean to ruin everything in my life, namely my pulizter and nobel prize and rightful ascendency into the hall of fame of sex.

i looked for the most expensive hotel in town and found it and when they told me how much i looked for the second most expensive hotel in town but it was booked up so i just looked for someplace next to a dairy queen and found like ten. and when i got into the room the beds werent made and there were soda cans everywhere and i said Lord if youre testing me im going to fail. i fail all tests. my gpa was like mel gibson’s blood alcohol level: 1.3, Job is the guy you should test not Tony, tony’s gonna do something very drastic and creative.

this is the road trip ive always wanted and it was over after one fucking night basically. heads need to roll even if its this bald one.

so when i told the hot chick at the front desk that id like a room whose beds were actually made she was all oh that will be ten dollars more. and i smiled and said let me take you to the best meal in all of where are we? and she said if i didnt just get engaged id say yes. and i didnt tell her this little tale because its not little i just said thats good i didnt want to eat anything anyways. and she said yeah me neither. and later i was all what the hell did she mean by that.

and i got my new room and i set up the laptop and i put my head down to cry but my body was all fuck that, negro, and i fell asleep instantly. i woke up twenty minutes later slightly refreshed but still bummed out, now more than ever determined to do something drastic so i went to a local chinese food store and i ordered the appitizer sampler, and five other dishes. to go. and the lady said ten minnie. so i went next door to the gas station and i filled my car up with gas to kill some time. after i paid the lady inside, i returned to my car and this kid in a beatles hat said hey can you get us an 18-pack of bud or coors?

and i wanted to say your taste in music is almost as bad as your taste in beer but technically i hadnt gone backwards to LA yet so the yes game had to be played. and when i got back to them i totally imagined getting busted by the cops in some fucking sting but i didnt care. everyone famous has a mug shot. and its not like coors has anything but water in it anyways. your honor there was no alcohol in those cans, who are we kidding,

but i wasnt arrested, infact i was given three dollars for my troubles which would have been fine if the kid didnt say what he said when he gave me the money.

he said, “thanks, you know it sucks to be twenty.”

and ive never hit a stranger in the mouth before and then swiped his illgotten beers.

but it was the right thing to do.

its not so hot here. mostly because its 6000 feet above sea level.

youd think being closer to the sun would make it warmer, but weirdly the reverse is true. i will never understand Science, unless its a way for God to have us TOTALLY believe in Him or be totally confused by this great experiment.

im in a Burger King. they gave me a free coke cuz their shake machine was broken. im using the EVDO card which is pretty fast for being in the middle of buttfuck.

i took a lot of pics that are on my Buzznet on a different gallery than the one on the left there. so click that buisness over there and hunt for the Summer 06 Gallery.

the car is good but its making me nervous. sometimes i will hit the gas and black smoke will come from the tailpipe. im about to go to a mechanic to ask if that means im burning oil. i dont recall it doing that in LA but who knows maybe i diddnt notice there because with all the smog its hard to tell what your car is doing.

my mom called and got off the phone when she realized i was actually driving.

i should talk to more people but im shy. secretely im very shy. id rather not talk to people when im on the road because theyre just going to tell me to go places that i have no time for. plus anything naturey just makes me want to eat shrooms and get naked and climb trees. so i keep to the roads.

being here is waaaaaaaaaaaay better than that cheapass Motel 6 in PHX. fuck that shit. next time i might spend the extra $10 not to have a dirty ass handicapable room where there are wide open spaces of sadness and dirty floors. i didnt walk on the floors i floated because of germs. then i used my sandals. then i wore my sandals in the shower for two reasons

one i didnt want my precious athlete-foot capable feet to get athletes foot – or worse in that shit. two i felt bad for my flip flops for having to walk on those floors.

usually i tip the maid but i didnt this time. also it was the shadiest place. people honking at night, people honking in the day time. people following me to my car to ask me for money at 2am. i gave the guy two bucks and when he introduced himself to me i said something that everyone should say when they want to freak out someone who is either about to mug them or break into their car at 2:45am

“dude if you knew who i was you’d keep walking.”

and when he said something else i said, “you’d keep walking.”

he took the money and kept walking.

basically i was driving down Route 66 listening to devil music with no gas no oil and no chance to make it to the gas station if it wasnt for the Lord.

i dont know why He takes care of me. i dont know why im so worthy of the good shit.

i thought i was doing the right thing in Pomona by getting an oil change and then allowing myself to get traded up to $250 worth of other shit. but i had the cash and i would rather pay them then than have to pay a tow truck driver in the middle of nowhere AND his mechanic. and you know that would have cost more than two fiddy.

anyways it appears that the Pomona people either didnt screw the oil plug in tight or didnt put any oil in my car after they drained the old shit out because right as i was coasting into the Mobile in Zona, my oil light flickered and when i checked the oil the dipstick just laughed and laughed and laughed.

i asked for a little help from the mini market guys and one of them, a young guy who claimed to be the top ranked HS quarterback in AZ crawled under my car, checked the seal, got into his truck and jacked my shit up and did this and did that and told me to buy some oil from inside the store and then filled it up and sent me on my way, scoffing at my $20 bill.

you have a long road trip to go, tony. he said. but did accept my myspace email address so i could Add him.

as i drove off i kept thinking of all the different things that could have happened if i hadnt gone into that particular gas station, if i hadnt totally done all the things that i did.

but then i was all, who am i kidding, the angels had my back the entire time. i wasnt even in the formulae. i was meant to be on that road, one whose gas stations are few and far between during certain stretches, and whose shoulders are lined with stories dating all the way back to the 20s.

i nearly got kicked by Route 66, but instead i was kissed from above.

and here it is 447am, im at a Super 8 that is frequented by truckers, and the truckers have been frequented by hookers all night. tempting, but sleep is even more tempting. and you bet tonight i wont fall asleep without saying my prayers.

laist interviewed tonight’s hero

Neil

no my entire life is a series of choices that i make based on my own needs, desires, and wants.

i wish.

yes, sometimes i feel like i Should blog, or i Have to, but the difference between me and a lot of other bloggers is i will actually blog despite the moaning teen on the waterbed, or the fleeing criminal on the run.

so many times ive preached that no matter what you should blog. or write or whatever. and now that i have contributers at LAist that its my job to sort of shepard, i have to be an example that yes you can knock out five posts on one blog and thats no excuse not to write on your own personal blog.

to me blogging is about writing emails. most people write a half dozen or so emails a day, i see no difference in hitting send in Gmail and hitting publish in Blogger. the only difference is that i have to find a picture to put along with my post when its a blog entry. but if youre being honest with your reader it shouldnt take very long to tell your tale and move on with your life.

my plan today is to hit the road by 2:30p and make it to arizona sometime by nightfall. im not sure if i will make it to Phoenix in time to have drinks with anyone because i will be blogging along the way for LAist, but the hard part for me has always been getting out of the house.

since theres no real time table, i can leave tomorrow but here it is noon and ive already written three things for the j.o.b. so thats a good head start and it will give me a chance to get out of LA before rush hour hits.

i will miss my comfortable bachelor pad and my porn star life. but this trip fell in my lap for a reason, its time to actually rock with it.

and im soooo happy that it didnt involve any air travel.

i wrote a little something about Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, which i saw last night. its the first bad review i gave to a film that made me cry.

ask a question in the next hour, i will answer it on LAist by 4:20p
readdddyyyy….. go!

at the shortstop with defamer.

my stomach is like a girlfriend. a really bad girlfriend. always there. always noticing. always judging. never fully happy.

at first you try to pretend that her dislikes are cute. but because you love her you pamper her whims. after a while you start believing the old axiom, no news is good news. as long as the ho keeps her trap shut everyones happy.

but then you roll the dice when things are going good. a slice of extra cheese pizza perhaps, or a forbidden bowl of chili and rice, or as in tonight’s bad choice – a coleman cooler tamale from a hustlin random mexican dude at the echo park divebar.

and she says you know i fucking hate tamales.

and she says you dont fucking know me AT ALL

then she says ALL THESE YEARS AND YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME ALL YOU DO IS USE ME ALL YOU DO IS ABUSE ME I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU

and you speed home to the bathroom and read some of this months maxim and you wash your hands and make some peas. but even a plastic knife full of peas only makes things worse. as if the girlfriend says I TOLD YOU I DONT WANT TO TALK TO YOU OR ANYONE.

so you run back to the head and read some ny observer. and you wash your hands and drink some water and she says MOTHERFUCKR I SAID FUCK YOU

and fuck you means fuck you so you read some fhm and its 2am you lay on your belly and watch rockstar super nova and almost automatically you open up a can of diet dr pepper and she says you really have no concept of what NO means do you?

so here it is 343am. and someone has established herself queen bitch but someone else has reminded everyone that although stomach pains can make people doubt everything including whether or not a road trip is a good idea in a 110k mile car – that theres only one person who wears the flannel pajamas in this house and its not the shreiking bitch or the belly.

its the blogger.

who is no longer full of shit.

and sadly sometimes they do them around people who also have blogs. and then those stupid things end up on the blogs and all their friends find out, or worse, the people who they care about find out through the blog and all shit hits all the fans.

its interesting when people defend the blogging but dont defend the original stupid thing. to me they’re both unfortunate. i am around people who do stupid things all the times. in fact some of my favorite people in the world do fucked up stupid mean retarded horrible things over and over and over. then they lie about why they did it then they promise not to do it again and then they just keep fucking up.

but i dont write about it.

not because im cooler than thou, but because some things might not be flushed out yet, because sometimes some things can be worked out, because sometimes people fuck up then find out what theyve done and then shake it off and get back to the good path again.

but sometimes i dont write about them even if they Never get on the good path again because it’s not my job to bring embarrassment and dirty laundry on people who are my so-called friends through my blog. thats what the telephone is for, or the google chat or the AOL chat or any number of ways to express myself that tons of people who have no business knowing about shit wont find out.

sometimes i wonder if i should really stop hanging out with teenagers. sure theyre easy on the eyes but i graduated high school a long time ago. and back in those days if you had a problem with someone you got them on the phone or you looked them in the eye and you had it out and either it was settled, or you arranged for a way for it to get settled.

writing about it on a blog though wouldnt have been the ideal choice because that one seems like simply a way to make things worse, not better. sure the author might feel better getting the drama off his chest but thats almost borderline selfishness because what about all the other parties involved?

trust me, theres a lot of things id love to get off my chest. far more serious things than the fuckups of some of my drug-addled friends. but if i write them i dont hit Publish, i write it in an old fashioned journal or diary or on the creative white space in one of those perfume ads you see in rollingstone.

i love all my fucked up friends even those who act selfish even those who act selfish in response to the original selfishness even those who fuck me over repeatedly and promise to stop doing it. even on a site that says nothing in here is true there is a sense of privacy, not necessarily to protect the innocent, but also to protect the guilty, a club we all belong to.

every morning i listen and every evening i watch. i love howard stern and i love robin quivers.

when i first saw howard on tv and i saw robin there, i didn’t get it. but now i couldn’t imagine it any different. robin balances out the show real nice.

sometimes when she is sick or out or whatever, the howard stern show is really too much of a frat house. robin keeps it in order, she laughs, she often has better jokes than most of the fellas, she knows who the stars are, she watches all the movies and tv shows, she knows the current events, she’s perfect.

in her book, “Quivers: A Life” she describes being molested as a child and all the pain that it brought her and all the anger she once had. and what i love about her and the show, whenever the gang has a chance to kid robin about it, they do. it’s brutal. but it’s almost fair since they grill their guests just as hard. robin is not only a survivor, she’s a role model now because she has been able to take such a heinous inexcusable act and now looks it in the face and laughs at it.

unreal.

what’s also awesome about robin is her relationship with howard. these are two people who truly love each other. im sure they have a difference of opinions at times, but you’d never know it. ive never heard or seen them fight, ive never heard or seen them talk badly of each other, and they’ve certainly never argued with each other. its crazy. they’ve been together for almost 20 years and never a fight? howard fights with everyone: his mom, wife, boss, coworkers, kids, sister, friends, listeners, guests, but never robin. he adores her and listens to her.

they also have a great little ploy going that is subtle and beautiful. if howard has a guest on who is a little apprehensive about something, howard will say something like, “tell robin your story.” or “lift your shirt and show robin what you’re talking about.” classic.

so here’s to you, robin quivers. you really don’t look 50, and you’re a hero to many. including me.

quick facts about robin that you might not know:

she was in the army, she was a nurse, she’s never been married, her hero is muhammad ali, she met howard in washington dc when she was assigned to do the news for him, she has a condo in manhattan, he loves animals and owns a horse!