here is what life would be like if Diamond Dave was on American Idol
to celebrate that this is post #5,005 of the busblog
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Monthly Archives: March 2008
today my friend is running for congress in austin
– and he’ll probably win
many moons ago i was lucky enough to meet mr dan grant. he was interviewing for a job and i happened to be the guy who was hiring. dan was a dashing, funny, incredibly sharp gentleman who seemed like a throwback to a better time when men were well-rounded and intelligent and worldly and bright.
for some reason dan reminded me sort of like a sober dean martin – handsome, suave, witty, and completely personable.
of course i hired him and he worked for us for about a year i think and right as the internet boom was begining to collapse and it became my job to lay people off, dan volunteered to part ways with us so that we could save one job of someone who wanted to stay on board.
dan, you see, had arranged to move to Kosovo to help ensure fair democratic voting procedures. Dan later went to Bosnia to help usher in democracy, and a few years later went to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Remember all of those pictures of people in Iraq voting and then dipping their finger in purple ink? Dan Grant was part of that.
Grant has an unusually strong grounding in small-d democracy and foreign affairs. In Iraq, his duties included helping the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq prepare and conduct the historic elections of 2005. He consulted with international military forces and local leaders in Basra, Fallujah, and Mosul.
As deputy director of Iraq’s largest out-of-country voting program, Grant oversaw an unprecedented effort to give democracy a chance in the Middle East by registering eligible voters in major U.S. cities for Iraq’s Transitional National Assembly election. He oversaw a staff of more than a thousand and a budget of millions of dollars and ran the day-to-day operations of all senior personnel.
In Afghanistan, Grant helped coordinate security and policy planning for that nation’s post-Taliban constitutional convention on the behalf of USAID, and previously served as an operations officer for the massive effort to re-establish Afghanistan’s Central Bank. – Dan Grant for Congress: About
Today he is running for the Democrat nominee for congress in Austin, Texas. he has gotten the support of pretty much every important group in town from the local papers (Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle, The Austin Chronicle, Daily Texan) to the unions to the people who ran for congress before him.
this is how the Austin-Statesman described him when they endorsed him:
Grant Best Choice for Democrats
The 10th Congressional District is a gerrymandered jumble rambling from Austin’s western edge to the Houston suburbs. The design is a creation of the Legislature’s 2003 redistricting, ordered by then U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to remake Texas and the 10th District as a Republican redoubt.
But Democrats have been making inroads in recent elections, and there are two strong Democrats running in the March 4 primary for the 10th District seat. Dan Grant, 34, an astute and prepared young man from Austin, and Larry Joe Doherty, 61, a Houston lawyer who plays a judge on a television courtroom show, have mounted solid campaigns.
Though either Grant or Doherty will give Republican incumbent Michael McCaul a good fight, Grant brings more to the primary election contest. He has youth, vigor and deep experience serving in some of the world’s most dangerous places, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo. Grant has received virtually all of the endorsements from Democratic constituencies in the meandering district.
Grant is a graduate of McCallum High School and Georgetown University, where he received a degree in foreign service. He also has a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and served as a civilian in various positions overseas.
it’s terribly exciting to see someone you actually know continue to rule and do it solely for the benefit of others. as you watch the results trickle in tonight, keep an eye on the 10th district in Texas and see if our boy beats the actor best known for his role in the tv show Texas Justice.
looks like he will win. and when i make it to austin later this week it will be pretty awesome if i get to shake the hand of a nominee for congress and be able to say, i knew that guy way back when only hundreds of people knew he was awesome. now tens of thousands know it and will probably vote for him. stay tuned.
yesterday there was a dude in the street
drooling, asking people for help, and wearing a hospital gown
he didnt have any shoes on and he stood in the middle of Vermont Ave. which is pretty busy, even on a sunday
he would look over at the hospital that he was just being treated in, but the security guards and fire dudes and ambulance dudes just looked right back
cars sped by, some honking some swerving
he would just say to people “can you please help me?”
so i called 411 on my cell phone to get the Hollywood division of the LAPD but 411 didnt have such a thing, they had a GENERAL cop number and the lady asked, “is that ok?” i said “no thats not ok, youre telling me that AT&T information who probably knows what email i have before i do, doesn’t have a phone number for the hollywood LAPD?” and she said, no we dont have it, heres the general LAPD number.
i was all, hey LAPD theres a dude in the street in a hospital gown and no one is helping him, not the hospital security people, not the abulance guys – oh wait heres an ambulance – but wait – the security people are waiving the ambulance away from him – LAPD what is the deal?!? they are seeing with their own eyes a man in a hospital gown walking in the middle of a busy street and they arent helping him!”
the cops said, we will send someone out. thanks.
and i went to mcdonalds because it was 10:29am and breakfast was gonna stop being served any second. when i came back the dude was still in the street and i drove into where the hospital guys were and i said wtf thats your patient out there causing people to swerve. and they said, he was discharged. i said you let people run around with no clothes on when you discharge em? he said, he didnt wanna put on his clothes, but we called the cops. i said, bros just go get him – when he gets hit you will get him. fuckers gotta get hit these days?
and i sped off cuz my bacon egg biscuit was getting soggy from the lameness of the security dudes et al
today is lauren pony’s birthday
she is now 21.
when we first met lauren she was blogging with her sister kristin on the sweet blog madpony.
if memory serves, the busblog was their first permalink which is how we found the fifteen year old and her barely legal sister.
as time has passed the girls have won awards, gone to college, gone to law school, and have turned into fine young ladies. total southern belles and beautiful examples of oklahomas finest.
according to laurens facebook, last night she purchased her first legal lite beer.
megan and i went to a gas station and purchased one budzilla after midnight. unfortunately, he did not ID me, but i offered him my ID anyway. i then did the birthday dance and flounced out of the gas station. megan took a photo with me and my budzilla. truly a memorable moment in history right here.
In this photo: product that i can buy because i am 21 (photos), Lauren
how time flies since the first time she was interviewed on the busblog.
happy birthday blonde pony! kiss yr sister for us!
*if you missed the madpony experience, you can catch some of it via the Wayback Machine (hint June 17, 2004 was their last post)
every sunday i read the bible.
i do it because in the ten commandments it says to keep the sabbath holy. and you can say oh saturday is the sabbath or oh sunday is the sabbath, but i once talked to this rabbi who said just pick one and stick with it. so sundays my sabbath.
so on sunday i cant keep all of it holy but i can keep the part of the day when im reading the bible holy.
anyways i was reading it and out of the freakin blue this animal starts talking in the middle of the bible story. how could i not remember this story? its so completely random!:
So Balaam rose in the morning and saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. But God’s anger was kindled because he went, and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as his adversary. Now he was riding on the donkey, and his two servants were with him. And the donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand. And the donkey turned aside out of the road and went into the field. And Balaam struck the donkey, to turn her into the road.
Then the angel of the LORD stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on either side. And when the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she pushed against the wall and pressed Balaam’s foot against the wall. So he struck her again. Then the angel of the LORD went ahead and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she lay down under Balaam. And Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff.
Then the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” And Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand, for then I would kill you.” And the donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Is it my habit to treat you this way?” And he said, “No.”
Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand. And he bowed down and fell on his face. And the angel of the LORD said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out to oppose you because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me and turned aside before me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, surely just now I would have killed you and let her live.” Then Balaam said to the angel of the LORD, “I have sinned, for I did not know that you stood in the road against me. Now therefore, if it is evil in your sight, I will turn back.” And the angel of the LORD said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but speak only the word that I tell you.” So Balaam went on with the princes of Balak.
When Balak heard that Balaam had come, he went out to meet him at the city of Moab, on the border formed by the Arnon, at the extremity of the border. And Balak said to Balaam, “Did I not send to you to call you? Why did you not come to me? Am I not able to honor you?” 38Balaam said to Balak, “Behold, I have come to you! Have I now any power of my own to speak anything? The word that God puts in my mouth, that must I speak.” – Numbers 22 21-38
dissed by yr ass. if youre not reading the bible youre missin out.
hopefully this isnt the first place that you are hearing about this
but if you are, theres some new Nine Inch Nails music for your ass
and its free.
or you can pay $300
or you can pay $10
or you can call me ray
or you can call me jay
or you can call me ray jay
LAist has some of the scoop
Metafilter has some more of the scoop
or you can just go to the NIN web site and try to figure it all out yrself
or you can go to the Pirate Bay and download the free version
or you can go to Amazon for the $5 version
me, i just want some new tom waits music
i gotta say, i sorta got over NiN about a year after all those crazy videos came out. to me it all seemed like the same song. dude screaming about some shit. keyboards getting knocked over. black hair black clothes black noise.
then it became sorta electronic and shit. i didnt get it. still dont get it. whats the big deal. cuz hes hot? how is he hot with short hair?
i heard he has a super hot girlfriend who’s deaf. thats hot. that i can live with.
maybe i will download the record when everyone has it and the bittorent is faster than it is now because who doesnt love passionate crazed fuckthelabels music?
although i didnt get In Rainbows either.
on paper radiohead is fine but im too old for fine. i want great. if God gave you the ability to play guitar then play the fucking guitar. if God gave you a face like Thom Yorke then fucking sing like you have a face for radio.
sing like you mean it. dont wimper. dont mumble. dont not look the camera right in its unblinking eye.
make that fuckr blink.
more Ask Tony:
cd asks, What’s Wheaton’s problem w ith u?
dear cd,
i dont think wil has so much a problem with me as he has a problem with his friends over at blogging.la. in the example that you are linking to Wil is trying to throw out some props to me, but he knows he can’t unless he throws in a diss because it will piss off his bros bonner, markland, et al whose undies are (still) in a bunch because i mopped the floor with them via LAist.
they wanna pretend that our success at LAist was due to covering things outside LA (something we did less than 2% of the time), LA Observed wants to pretend that we blew doors because we covered medical marijuana and omg sex (something we did far less than 1% of the time) or that we had easy-to-find Digg icons (you call those icons easy to find?)
and now Wil wants to say that we lapped our competition because i “trolled” my own comments (as if thats even possible – if markets are a converastion, ala Cluetrain, then comment threads are for sure conversations). Wil just wants attention. he’s been on the busblog for years and he knows that one of the things that i was known for years and years before i ever got paid to blog was mixing it up with commentors in the threads of the comments and in the posts.
the fact that i did it at LAist too was just one of the many many reasons why that blog was more interesting than the others. when i was hired in june of ’06 there were several blogs that covered LA. two of them even had slight leads during stretches before my arrival. after i recruited people and got the machinery in order and the game plan set, our TEAM pummeled them and not only did the other blogs fail to adjust so as to compete against us but they stood there and began to *lose* traffic, a trend that appears to continue today.
when i got hired by the Times to run all of their blogs, as a token of good will i allowed an exclusive interview with blogging.la where they could ask me any question in any way that they wanted. tragically instead of being a gentleman about it (and basically shaking hands after the end of a hard fought game) their editor in concert with their publisher chose to take the opportunity to spread lies about LAist in their comments (is that “trolling your own comments”, wil?) and then chicken out when called out.
very sad, very lame, amazingly childish; but thus is blogging – a glorified high school playground populated by so-called adults.
but wil is right to point to my how to defeat blogger burnout post of almost four years ago – it’s a classic – an excerpt:
heres when you will experience “blogger burnout”:
1. when your internal dialogue gets hijacked by your concerns about what your readers will think.
2. when you are afraid to write down what you are truly thinking about at that moment.
3. when you believe the lie that some people just arent capable of good writing.
4. when you believe the lie that there is a certain way that you “should” write anything.
5. when you get more involved in punctuation, spelling, or aestetics than saying what you want to say.
6. when you get caught up in traffic, hits, popularity, readers, and/or fame.
7. when you believe the lie that what you think doesnt matter.
8. when you believe the lie that what youre about to say has been said before and/or written down better.
9. when you forget that most ideas can be expressed in less than 15 minutes.
10. when you dont set aside a little bit of time each day to update your blog.
i was always willing to explain to anyone, even our competition, how i was able to attract and retain more readers than them. and im still willing. i have always been one to give out free tips in the busblog, and i still am. if you put “how to blog” into google, my olde post comes up first, because those concepts still hold true (most of em). and i am still using those principles while coaching great writers at the LA Times,
which were the exact same principles that i used while coaching great writers at LAist. and all of their scoreboards tell happy stories. it’s not my fault if our competition’s scoreboards can’t say the same.
so Wil, if you wanna take me to task in an interview at WWiE or over at Suicide Girls, get your facts together, have all your little friends dig up all the little dirt you think you have on me, and we can do an unedited IM interview.
or take it back.
or you can continue to carry the water of your friends who seem to want to continue to whine over sour grapes. i have never been the one in exile, i have never been one to back down from a challenge, i have never been one to puss out in an IM chat. i have always been an in-your-face blogger who knew how to get hits through writing shit down. my successes were built on teamwork, love of blogging, and hard work. you can try to diss me or my cohorts any way you wish, but the truth and facts and scoreboards are on our side.
hey tony, you seem likable enough, why are you single?
because lately ive seemed to meet an inordinate amount of ladies like this