Monthly Archives: February 2008

Questions from the readers, answers from me

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Chris Carnaghi: Tony allow me to be the first to question. As a long time reader,fan and friend, I noticed for a long time you stayed away from Politics in the Blog. Over the last few years that has changed. Do you feel a bigger weight or greater challenge I should say, in writing, blogging in the clasical sense, as opposed to hard hitting journalism or even news reporting? How do you so uniquley and effectively blend all the different forms of writing? I would think it is dicotomous and not even really possible. And yet somehow you really have made it work. !

this year writing about politics was super easy because it was really just two things: ron paul and barack obama. everyone else was either George Bush or Not George Bush. i uniquely and effectively blend all types of blogging together perfectly because i have cheerleaders of all different sorts emailing me or IMing me daily telling me to write about this or that. im fortunate.

martin morgan: What are your thoughts on contacting old flames out of the blue?

i try not to contact old flames out of the blue, but i dont mind if they contact me. i was watching one of my favorite movies High Fidelity the other night, and you just dont wanna be *that* dude in the midst of a midlife crisis going backwards in time trying to relive the past or trying to excavate old treasures. move forward, walk fast, make out with new babes. if the past wants you, answer the call and do what you can, but it probably wont work out. with that said my “true love” comes back from africa this summer and i cant wait. but i have no hopes for things working out. at all.

The Holywriter Bill Clinton will be campaigning for Hillary in my area and I will be covering the event for my newspaper and as a radio journalist. Got any good questions I should ask him?

1. does he feel like he and his wife are cockblocking Blacks.
2. does he still eat greasy foods?
3. does he ever feel like he and hillary should have had more kids?

Ciavarro: Those arms look like they could reach into outer space.

True or false.

they were reaching into the inner space of the pleated skirts of the cheerleaders. so false.

Dan: What would it take to bring you to Canada permanently? (post-LAT of course)

global warming

d: if chicago were an alcohol, what kind of alcohol would it be?

i havent lived in Chicagoland for a very long time. when i lived there it was a delicious malt liquor – inexpensive, unpretentious, smooth with a little bite, but ultimately refreshing and intoxicating. now its Amstel Light.

jimh: Is that a three-hole belt you’re wearing in the photo? I had one of those and it was my favorite.

why yes it is! i believe it was also reversible.

keir: Name the 3 best bands in I.V. from when you were there.

in order:

1. The Wonderfuls
2. The Shawn White Band
3. Mons Pubis
4. Rogue Cheddar
5. Ugly Kid Joe
6. Bad Neighbor
7. Popsicko

timmay: who will be playing in this year’s NBA finals (besides the Celtics)?

Shaq needs one for his pinkie. Shaq will get one for his pinkie.

Matt Welch: Russ Stanton?

Yes he beat me out by one vote!

kali: what book are you holding?

my favorite of all books – a tiny empty notebook waiting to be doodled in

PatZ: fries or side salad?

<3 fries! Travis: Is Victoria Williams a drunk then? I don’t get why I’d love her.

you’d love her because shes unique, funky, beautiful, talented, odd, and can write and sing better than all the trashy little hos out there today combined. also cuz she was once married to Peter Case of the Plimsouls, and beat MS.

if you have ever had the chance to meet, or hear, or see victoria williams,

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you will love her

victoria williams
“you r loved”
loose

Man takes his cane to a waterfall
Has a vision
Starts talking baby talk
Understood by a girl in Peru
We read about it in the daily news
Lines of poetry
Revealing mysteries
Still some can’t swim
Jesus walked on the water
He turned the water into wine
He went down to the drunkards
To tell them everything is fine

You R loved
You R loved
You R really loved

I cannot decide
Who should die or live
I do my best to forgive
Falling backwards in the eventide
Listening at the riverside
Lines of poetry…

not all the women ive met were miss universe contestants

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but to me they were.

i first met miss spain universe, mar’a jesos ruiz garz-n, in a topless tapas joint in madrid in january 2000.

she didnt know the place was a topless tapas establishment either, but we both took off our shirts and cozied up to the bar.

i was there with two dozen of my closest friends to see rock group tsar.

there being spain, not the topless tapas place.

mar’a asked me if i was americano

i said, si.

she asked me if i liked my tapas

i said, si.

she asked me if i liked her cunt-

then she coughed

country

and i said

si.

she asked me if i knew more spanish than just yes and no and i said

si.

she asked me what other words i knew.

i said, burrito, taco, guacamole…

she said, we dont have those things here.

i said, si.

so we simply slowdanced to the spanish guitars and i sang her a little song that i made up there on the spot.

i sang

spanish girl
in all the world
i want a spanish girl

she doesnt know
how much i weigh in pounds
she doesnt care
that im 108, 108 years oooooold
oooooh my spanish girl.

she sighed and looked at me with eyes of a girl falling madly in love
as the twinkle lights of the disco ball rained possibilities
and the lines began to form outside the dunkin donuts shop across the pallazo.

she said, i know how much pounds you weigh.

i said, what about the metric system.

she said, yes, but i know.

i said, ah.

she said, si.

and i smiled.

and i tilted my head to the exito

and she said si.

and we vamoosed into the madrid night forgetting our shirts

and not giving a muchas gracias.

happy valentines day, busbloggers

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one of the benefits of being a gazillion years old is that you are bound to find yourself in love a few times. because the Lord loves me, i have ended up in love way more times than i deserved. i have been lucky enough to have been in the loving gaze of all types of girls and women, most of whom were way out of my league, in fact all of them were.

because of those amazing experiences, i did my best to write down the miracles that were befalling me so that if it was all a beautiful dream at least i would have practice writing before i woke up.

the only advice that i could offer a young man who finds himself currently single and looking for love… is to stop looking. every single longlasting relationship that i found myself in was the result of events that i had zero control over. i dont believe in luck, but every girlfriend, lover, hookup, fling was the happiest accident of that year. either they simply walked into my life or i into theirs. which doesnt mean that i didnt have to work a little magic once i became attracted, but the original meeting was completely unplanned and natural.

like i said, over the years ive written down stories and tales and yes friends, even poems, about my times with the weaker sex. i did this not to brag or bitch but to try to figure out how i ended up in such a wonderful situation so one day, if i were down on my “luck” i could recreate similar opportunities. but im here to tell you that no matter how many times i tried to plot a map around the mysteries island of Love, the coordinates changed and angels laughed at my folly.

today i will punish you all with some of my favorite stories and rhymes and photo essays that celebrated love, but for now, check out my favorite poem, one i wrote for one tracey degrazia, who i met while on a bus to iowa to check out colleges way back in the day. as you know i chose not to study in the midwest, but here in southern california, however one summer i went back home to illinois and had a fine month and a half with our girl while i was an ice cream man, and wrote a 13 page epic poem about her called The Stamp, which would help me get accepted into the college of creative studies at ucsb.

the stamp was supposed to be a story about a romance between a prince of one country who fell for the princess of a rival nation. because their love was doomed due to the politics of their families, and because they knew that their correspondences would be intercepted and censored, they contrived a signal that would defy the ignorance of their parents. they told each other that as long as the stamp on the envelope was upside-down, it meant that the sender was still in love with the recipient.

the poem was so long that it never got to that part of the story, but sometimes it really is the thought that counts.

best thing i saw in my inbox

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Jay-Z is gonna play at the Hollywood Bowl with Mary J!

worst thing i saw when i clicked the link: the prices

FIRST LEVEL GARDEN BOXES
US $350.75

SIDE BOXES RAMP AREA
US $250.75

SECOND LEVEL TERRACE BOXES
US $250.75

LOWER BOX LEVEL SIDE SEATING
US $150.75

FIRST LEVEL BENCH BEHIND BOXES
US $85.75 – US $150.75

BENCH SEATING BOX LEVEL
US $150.75

SECOND LEVEL BENCH BEHIND BOXES
US $55.75 – US $85.75

THIRD LEVEL BENCH BEHIND BOXES
US $55.75

FOURTH LEVEL BENCH BEHIND BOXES
US $39.75

so to sit in the back of the back of the hollywood bowl will still set a brotha back $40 a ticket plus ticketmassa fees? Jigga Please!

because im a zillion years old i remember when the SI swimsuit issue actually meant something

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the irony of sports illustrated for me and for many boys in those days was the subscription was usually a gift from our parents or grandparents. it was ironic because, just like several of the critical letters that appear in followup issues, the swimsuit issue was the most jerkable material in the house.

puberty is a weird thing for both sexes. its so weird that you dont realize youre going through it until decades later. as much as i love the Internet Age i do worry about the kids. especially the boys who are bombarded with so much pr0n before they even make it to puberty that i wonder what they make of it all.

seeing Cheryl Teigs in that wet fishnet suit was an image that was so rare and amazing and beautiful and fascinating that as a lad i memorized every millimeter of that photo. same goes for the following issues with christie brinkley.

i remember getting a swimsuit issue and slowly going from one page to the other as if it was christmas and i wanted to savor each gift.

with a gazillion internet pages of smut out there today, do the boys even know what savor means these days? do they think that Every woman is just waiting to get naked for them? do they think that theres no limit to the various amounts of poses, situations, and sexual acts that Any woman will find themselves into?

surely the kids must be confused as hell today. which is why i feel for them.

oh for the days of a smiling supermodel walking down an exotic beach in a one-piece.

oh for the days when the mail man would deliver the one magazine that you’d store safely under your bed and carry with you for decades as you moved from your mothers house to the dorm room to your first second third and tenth apartments.

marisa miller is no slouch but i wonder if she wouldn’t have been the Biggest Thing Ever if she was born 20 years earlier when she would have had far less competition for the swimsuit connoisseur.

do these models even have posters any more? do outraged librarians even write hilarious letters claiming to cancel SI for the rest of the year due to the swimsuit issue any more?

do the kids even read magazines like this any more?

life has passed us by, and with it an innocence lost,

and a boner popped for all the wrong reasons.

write down the things in life that you want

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well before i got this dream job at the Times, i used to “write to” my local paper in this very blog. i used to say that they should hire me and welch, i used to say that they should have blogs, i used to say that they should utilize the fact that they were this huge respected paper in LA therefore why not let the celebs write about their lives in first person.

because im not (that) insane, i never really thought that all of those things would come true, let alone come true pretty quickly. but thus is the miracle of life.

steven tyler of aerosmith talks about affirmations, and even though you probably should listen to old rockers who still have it, im not sure i believe wholly in the magical power of such things… but i do believe that if you really want things you should write them down, mostly because if you dont even have the guts to enunciate them then you probably dont even believe in them yourself. and you are the start of any magic trick.

super bowl friday i was late to work. because i have the best boss in the universe there really isnt such a concept. she wants me to feel comfortable so she told me to come in whenever, leave whenever, just produce and create and manage the best blogs ever. therefore i usually get in around 10am-11am, and usually go home between 8p-9p. that doesnt mean i dont have phones ringing in the early morn or emails going back n forth in the wee hours, but this is a love more than a job. so whatevs… to the max.

anyways two fridays ago my mom was nagging me to go to the post office to pick up a package she sent. every day she kept asking if i had picked it up or reminded me that it was there so even though i was running a tad late i went, murphys law i got in a long line, but got the gift. thanx ma!

rolled into the office around 11 (embarrassed) and started going thru the emails. about 20 minutes in i see an email chain from the sports editor and my boss about the fact that kareem abdul jabbar was interested in writing every day for us. the emails started at 9am.

now most bosses would have called me frantically as soon as the talks started and screamed “why the hell arent you here yet!” but not mine. she totally has a gazillion plates spinning, as i do, and she omg trusted that i would handle this project that was clearly my responsibility. trust professionalism and honest communication. do you see why i love this woman?

so i contacted kareems manager, deborah morales, and we chatted for a few minutes, we agreed to meet on the monday after the super bowl at the times, and sure enough there was kareem on monday afternoon.

now over the super bowl weekend i picked up kareems latest book, on the shoulders of giants, which is a history of harlem during the harlem renaissance. totally fascinating, totally well written book. his sixth! in it he talked about jazz, and real estate politics, and race and culture, and, well, america. but in it he also talked about how he was once Lew Alcindor and how he is now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – that he had transformed. but what caught my eye the most was how he proclaimed that he was once a basketball player and now he is a writer.

i asked him about that line when we met and he confirmed it and i said, well theres no better place for a writer than behind a computer blogging every day. and with that me and isabel and josh (both pictured) began to show him how to blog. it was an extremely interesting afternoon where we talked about jazz and sports and politics and history and writing, among other things.

it was plainly obvious that this great man, one of my childhood heroes, was just as well rounded in real life as he came across in his book, so i recommended that if all he wanted to write about some weeks was jazz, then he should write about jazz, same for politics, same for.. football if he wanted. and since we were all still in the glow of that great superbowl, our first blog post was about how much he loved the super bowl and how his famous basketball number was inspired by his childhood hero who was the blocking back for the ny football giants back in the day. like many of my friends hear me say, i told kareem “write it down!”

and unlike you and i, after he wrote it down, he just happened to have a photo of himself with the manning brothers. it was then that i knew that this would be a very very special blog.

when it launched yesterday i was relieved, amazed, proud, but mostly thrilled that this great man was starting something that very few celebrities and/or athletes do: tell their tales on the daily in public without a net. this is a man who has met pretty much everyone you can imagine. he has had unprecedented successes (after his freshman year at UCLA he never lost a game in college). and as a pro he scored more points than everyone, yes even more than jordan.

he has full license to write about anything that he wants, in any way. it’s a real blog, it just happens to be under a famous newspaper’s masthead. im pretty sure nothing like this has ever happened before – a hall of famer writing about a wide variety of topics, not just sports. which should make this fascinating for anyone.

so yeah, start writing down your dreams, and write down what you expect to do when they come true… because they just may.