bitter is an ice cream best unscooped

we sat on a monument that looked like a gravestone
in downtown los angeles next to city hall
it was hot and we were eating chicken kabobs
in the shade.
it was a thursday, it was farmers market, it was the first day of summer
untechnically but pretty much.
she was young and beautiful and idealistic and dipping her kabob into her small dallop of humus
as i went on about this or that in the nastiest bitterest most heartbreaking way
what have i become i thought to myself as it dawned to me under the fumbling fingertips from a thai girls massage
who is this creature speaking from inside?
why have i cashed out any hope of hope any joy in love any belief that the future is uncertain
when did i become a knowitall
and sad?
i spewed and rambled and brought nothing good to anything
i wasnt listening or helping or adding or encouraging
but i did notice this little boy playing on the monument
headstone, gravemarker we all shared
hed poke his head around hers and smile at me
as i dissed childbirth and creating mini me’s
fucker couldnta been cuter
and thankfully didnt know english.

guess who else got interviewed? Katy Newton from ICU

but first the latest installment!


last week i told you about our new video feature ICU that takes people who post Missed Connections on Craiglist and gives them some video love.

Today Fishbowl LA interviewed Katy, the brains behind it all. A sample:

1. What is the overall idea behind the feature? Basically, the idea is to meet the people behind the posts of Craigslist’s “missed connections,” open up that dialogue to our readers and learn a bit about the different ways Angelenos are trying to connect with each other.

2. Where did the idea come from? Several months ago, I went out to dinner with some girlfriends of mine. One of my friends was laughing about her obsession with a fellow Trader Joe’s shopper. She jokingly described how she was sure by the way he picked out his veggies he would be a perfect mate. Another woman at the table suggested to my friend that she post her story on Craigslist “missed connections.”

I hadn’t checked it out before, so I went online that night and fell in love with it. I immediately wanted to meet the people behind the posts. “Light bulb!”

Read the whole enchilada here

hey rockers, guess who got interviewed the other day?

kristen beam, who i believe is from western mass, had a fireside chat with me. we did it through facebook in order to keep it real. heres an excerpt of our chat.

Me: Did you go to your senior prom? What do you remember about it?

Tony: I did go to the senior prom. Even though it was a long time ago, I remember everything, in vivid detail. I went with a junior named Claudia who had dated one of my closest friends, Mike, but he broke up with her a month or two before prom. I wanted to go with my quasi-girlfriend Mary but she had moved and her parents wouldn’t let her fly back to me because they had found out that my mom was going to be out of town that weekend.

I remember clearly how I asked her to prom. I was very superstitious back then and I said to myself, if a good song comes on the radio I will ask Claudia to prom, if not I will beg Mary to go with me one last time. The Kinks’ “Come Dancing” came on and I asked her, she said yes, we kissed, and I thought all would be well.

When Prom came, she looked great (she eventually was Homecoming Queen the next year), I put the corsage on her, etc., but when we got to the dance she didn’t wanna dance. She said she was “sick”. She didn’t seem sick to me, so I was pissed and me and all of my friends, like Mike all danced together in front of the band. I didn’t even kiss her goodnight when I dropped her off.

Turned out it was that time of the month for Claudia, but because she was 16 she didn’t really know how to share that info with me, since we really didn’t know each other all that well. I felt awful. So what I learned was, if a woman says she’s sick, be super cool, cuz it might mean something that men couldn’t fathom.

read the whole thing on kristen’s long-running blog, the sigh club

photo of me and karisa at the kate nash show last night via karisa