i dont really want a cat, but soon i will have one

the main reason i will have a cat is because i caught a mouse and killed it the other day and i was reminded how much i hate mice. the mouse, i believe came through the open window next to my bed. i assume this because i saw some mouse droppings on the edge of the bed next to the window and i thought (hoped) that it was either dirt from the dirty window sill or extraneous poppy seeds from a subway sandwich or breakfast in bed bagel because the cougar likes to “surprise” me on the mornings that she wakes up here.

surprise me by cleaning my closets i tell her. but no one listens.

not even cats.

which brings us to todays dilema. i want to name the cat something that would be really offensive to most people, and really funny to lots of people.

i want to name it after my favorite gangsta rap group n.w.a

but i only want to name it after the first word in that name.

n-word, basically.

how funny would it be if you heard someone yell “n[word], get off my speakers!” or “n[word] you eat that food or im throwing it out!”

the best would be when we’d be at the vet and the doc has to pretend how much it loves animals and how special your fleabag is and how much he cares when he scratches the animal’s chin and says “who do we have here? how are you feeling Ni- wait what?”

lindsay, my coworker who is going to pick out my cat is not amused at all.

at ALL!

and karisa isnt so pleased with the prospect either.

but they’re girls, what do they know about anything.

especially cats.

so i told lindsay that i would ask the busblog readers what they would name this cat, who will probably be black, cuz i love black cats way more than any other type of cats.

and who knows, maybe i might even name it what ever you say i should.

photo of/by JaG who cant stop thinking about me even when shes thinking of two other men

by nature, humans learn by mimicking others. usually elders. its how we learn how to speak, its how we learn to dance, it’s how we learn to rock.

i have influences that im proud to wear on my sleeve: bukowski, hemingway, ee, royko, raymi, the daily nexus, ronald sukenick, warhol, ice cube.

what amazes me is when people are inspired by people who they know are horrible. people who they know history will not look at them positively.

for example, how is it that so many bands today sound like Panic at the Disco who in turn sound like a lamer version of Fall Out Boy? do you think that thats why the Lord invented the electric guitar – so you could whine over horrible music?

if youre going to ripoff someone, what about actual bands like Nirvana, Zeppelin, Motorhead, the Clash?

Rancid sold out a weeks worth of shows here in LA based on music heavilly influenced by the Clash. they took that music and style to a slightly different place, but whats key is it started in a Good place.

when you copy lame ass effers youre starting in a horrible place and even if you can take that to a higher level youre still not anywhere.

the level higher than crap is crud. which is where Panic is, which is where lots of music, writing, movies, and bloggers are.

its been 40 years since hendrix. where are todays new guitar heroes? dont say tom morello because thats a band that started over 15 years ago. that aint new.

im talking about you. what are you doing to be the next kurt in your own world? what are you doing to raise the bar – to be better than what was already great. not better than mediocre, but better than great?

during the dawn of Grunge there were a few bands that sounded like Nirvana or tried to sound like Nirvana but not as many as you’d think. most of copy catters were trying to sound like Pearl Jam or Phish.

aim high, slackers. its ok to be inspired and to mimic, but ask yourself am i really being inspired by the best or some faker who’s actually full of crap.

in blogging there are two people who i admire an awful lot, raymi and jen chung. to me they are the tops in their field in personal and pro blogging, respectfully. they’re constantly blogging, they’re constantly doling out info, they’re constantly letting you in on their worlds which happen to be in the largest city in canada and the largest in america.

they are detailed and furious and fast and right on the money. they have no peers.

it makes me happy when i see so many blogs that are clearly inspired by raymi. people call me the blogfather, but i bet you there are far more blogs that look and sound like raymi than look and sound like the busblog.

likewise im baffled by how few pro or semi-pro bloggers do not attempt to do what jen does, which is uber-blogging. hundreds of posts a month. several sources. seven days a week. borderline obsessive. but straight up genius. posts that are so condensed and meaty that once you read her take on something you pretty much dont need to read any thing else – youve got it and you have all the links to support her thesis right there in the post.

people get confused and think that is simply lots of posts, but no, every line matters, every link has juice in it. mark lisanti when he was at defamer was like that. and very few mimicked him very well either. instead they ripped off the lesser gawker hacks instead of focusing on the real deals like ana marie, ken layne, and choire.

maybe people feel like they cant paint like michelangelo so they dont even try. and instead they try to paint like someone lesser. i say try. i say try and try. then i say try to find what little part in yr heroes seems most like you. forget about the superpowers you admire, think about the subtleties.

what people overlook with rancid is what they overlooked in the clash. they saw the punk on top and the reggae underneath but they missed out on the tenderness. thats where the magic of both of those bands live, and their secret power.

plug in, stomp down on the distortion pedal of life, and rock.

stop doing all that crap that the fakers are faking with. its annoying.

about the rudeness of the Dodger fans to Cub fans at Dodger Stadium on Saturday

i included this video which is ok until the middle where you can hear the Dodger fans angrilly chant while a guy is getting a beer. not what youd expect from fans who should be thrilled to even be in the playoffs, let alone about to sweep the NL team with the best record.

devil winds were in the air, i suppose.

anyways heres the post Stay Classy, LA Dodger Fans, only one person has commented so far, in agreement with me, thankfully, but who cares, i was there, i saw it, they were outta line. they should be better.

raising ticket prices isnt the answer. it was $60 a seat where we were. sure you get all the food you can eat, but stil..

with over 40 blogs, there are scores of writers to meet with, copy editors, editors, photographers, lawyers, and even occasionally possible subjects of stories who find their way on my calendar.

you might not have noticed, but after the cubs got swept by the dodgers, the finale of which i attended, my mind was rocked. nothing made any sense to me. nothing mattered any more. i was a rudderless ship. one that didnt even care if it got bashed against the rocks.

so when i got an email early this morning from one of my favorite writers and bloggers asking me if i would like to accompany him for a lunch meeting at the playboy mansion i said

fine, yeah, whatever

and then i snapped out of it, moved the one conflicting meeting to a different day, and said, hell yeahs, lets do this. and bro said, one catch, you’ve gotta drive

so we drove to the greatest mansion in LA in my old beater, eventually found the sorta hidden front gate, spoke to the voice in the rock, and drove up the famous driveway to probably the coolest house in the world.

we talked business the whole time and sat down to lunch in the dining room and was served by attentive waitstaff like as youd see in a old timey movie. all the different utensils that the three stooges fumbled with, all the politeness and grace that your mother instilled on you, little did she know that you’d have to use it one day in an actual mansion, if not the most notorious one.

near the end of the meal, almost as if it was scripted, one of hef’s girlfriends, kendra, walked into greet us with her playmate-worthy friend on their way to a tv interview show and she talked football beautifully and flipped through the new issue of the magazine to show our host (not hef, but his long time cohort) a thing or two.

afterwards we were given a generous tour of the grounds including the famous pool and grotto.

we fed grapes to some of the newest members of the house – the monkeys

toured my favorite room – the game room

and drove home even more confused by life, and how random it all is

and yet at the same time, far more focused, optimistic, and refreshed.

i know that sometimes its hard to believe in the midst of darkness that there very well might be light right around the corner

but i just saw it first hand, and it was stunning.

and now everything matters again.

then someone was offered to go to a swanky place for lunch

so someone said, i dont care. so someone is going a swanky place for lunch. in beverly hills.

inviter said, “i hear they have good food.”

again i repeated, dont care.

bro said, can you drive.

i said, dont care.

whats interesting about this one is it feels like a commercial for some of it, but then its all oh no this is about hookin up thanks to the financial crisis. wow, these really are modern timez.

check out more ICUs by katy newton here.

i said sure i do. she said then you wouldnt mind if i came over. i said i never minded when you came over. she said what if i stayed over. and again i said i never cared if you stayed over.

she said then what if i asked you to come over here. i was all, fine. she was like really? i said, what do i care. she said, what if i asked you to stay over here? i said, fine. who cares.

she said what if i asked you to be my boyfriend? i said, id be a lousy boyfriend right now. she said, but youd say yes cuz you say you dont care about anything. i said yes but id also be more likely to cheat cuz i dont care.

she said oh.

then she said, you wouldnt cheat on me. id give you everything you want.

i said, i want a world series champ. and i want you to dress like a ho 24/7.

she said 24/7?

she said, how about we just go to pinkberry.

i said, i dont care.

and thats why you saw me there.

photo by bgmaster via flickr

but maybe that means ive still got it.

or she an old soul.

anyways the pretenders were on letterman in the wee hours and i was shocked by how great this new song is. sorta like elvis costello lyrics with white stripes music.

the pretenders
“boots of chinese plastic”
from Break up the Concrete
which drops today

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo Buddha please
can you help a little peasant that’s begging on her knees
illusion fills my head like an empty can
spent a million lifetimes loving the same man

Whoa! Every drop that run through the vein
always makes it’s way back to the heart again
and by the way you look fantastic in your boots of chinese plastic

Hare Krishna, Hare Rama too,
Govinda I am still in love with you
I see you in the birds and in the trees
that’s why they call me Krishna Mayee

Whoa! Every drop that run through the vein
always makes it’s way back to the heart again
and by the way you look fantastic in your boots of chinese plastic

Hofra told us we should tolerate the people and the things that make me wanna hate
oh have a little mixed mercy on me, this seasoned beauty in this human pageantry
Jesus Christ came down here as a living man
if he can live a life of virtue then I hope I can
do unto others as you would have a turn
come back here and repeat until you learn, learn, learn

Whoa! Every drop that run through the vein
always makes it’s way back to the heart again
every dog that lived his life on a chain knows what it’s like WAITING FOR NOTHING!

talked with a lovely beauty contestant on the phone yesterday as i was speeding along a freeway and we were discussing what else blogging and she was saying how its difficult for her to write every day.

i told her what i tell everyone, you just have to get it into your daily ritual. im sure if excercise could get into my daily ritual my six pack abs would return and so would the taps of the teens on my window pane.

but it seems to me that blogging should be even easier than runnign or weight lifting because you can do it from the friendly confines of your desk at home or at work or even via your phone if youre that technologicially advanced. but still one should be able to find 10 or in this case 8 minutes to write something about their day.

for example yesterday i was talking to a beautiful beauty queen about how she has a hard time finding men of like interests, so i suggested that she create a Group in Facebook for bloggers in her state (she lives in a small state). And even if the dudes who show up are horrible bloggers and have boring blogs, who cares, youre there to meet and drink and hang out and commiserate. and later, makeout.

seems to me that these days with facebook and twitter and blogs and IM and all these other free and easy ways to connect, people STILL arent connecting the way youd expect. hotties are still single and the men dont know how to find them.

the here i am here i am beacon still cant figure out a way to do more than get the losers dates and the hos diseases.

which is why i keep hammering home blogging.

as old and as fugly and as poorly dressed as i am, i have never been less lonely than with this silly url. the phone rings, the emails flow, the comments trickle, but the women line up. maybe not like they did when this blog was actually good, but the here i am s-o-s seems to be working on the busblog fairly well and it cost pretty much nothing while only takes minutes a day.

8 minutes, in this example.

ding.

they were fourth row seats in the all u can eat section. but because life isnt fair no such game took place, so karisa called and said lets go to club sushi instead.

i was all, fine. who cares. i dont care any more. she said, one small thing, its in hermosa. i was all fine. she was like, wow you really dont care do you?

hermosa btw is yuppie central. which does have a few advantages, not many, but a few, namely the ladies are outta control, especially on a summer day in october.

the sushi was good, the company of course was great, and they had a gazillion flat screens but none, alas, were showing the patriots. so karisa and i drank and ate and drank and ate – for two hours! time flies with karisa though, somehow, and she looked pretty good despite having just completing Another triathlon. id be dead after such a thing. hell, i feel like dying after walking up 5 flights of stairs.

today i have such a crazy schedule. i have no idea why i set up my mondays in such a way, i have like 5 meetings and i have to do a training. im an idiot.

after sushi i drove back across LA and caught up on Terminator: the sarah conner chronicles. one of my favorite shows. i also gave Tim another chance but its terrible. i also saw True Blood which is my favorite show.

then i ignored the phone ringing about 5 times. 4 were the same person who doesnt seem to get the hint.

youd think that after it rained, the smog would clear, and certain women would also clear their heads of nuttiness. but no.

you know what i hope they invent one day – a device that will keep your bananas from turning brown.