as my man peter viles used to say “now thats what im talkin bout!”

and his recently high school graduated son.

my old college roommate chris threw a sweet bash for his son Justus last night to celebrate the boys graduation from the best private high school on the wesssside.

there was food, booze, dogs, kids, fresh fruit, a taco guy, everything.

but maybe the sweetest moment was listening to the high school kids singing “Eye of the Tiger” while playing Rock Band.

so so sweet actually.

they say graduation is more for the parents than the kids and i never understood that fully until last night. chris and his wife were super proud. it was nice.

and it gave all of us ucsb friends (rob, jeanine, mark, callie, carrie) a chance to reminisce about when we all met as college freshmen.

full circle.

time flies.

grab the gusto.

get yrs.

teach the children well.

and dont forget to spill a lil wine for the brothas who didnt make it.

2 Chronicles 14-16 – the story of Asa

i think one reason people dont read the bible from cover to cover is because it takes forever and your mind can wander pretty easily.

but one of the ten commandments is to take a break driver 8 on sundays.

some people say saturdays but it doesnt matter

one day a week you should just chill out.

that means let your mind chill out too. and a great way to practice that is by reading.

when we read and we are into it our daily internal yammering gets put on hold, which is so healthy.

today i read the bible for an hour. it wasnt easy. but when i finally gave in and rested the mind i was able to get into the story of Asa, and friends lemme tell you it was so worth it.

Asa starts off totally ruling. literally. he was in charge of the tribe of Judah which at the time wasnt the biggest one, Israel and others were bigger. but Asa and Judah were true believers in the Lord, and weirdly Israel wasnt- they were building golden calves and praying to them.

so Asa, before several big battles with the likes of Israel to the Ethiopians, prays to God and says look i know we are small but can you bro us out on this one? we love you. lets do this thing.

and God would totally deliver Asa enemies to his hand no matter how big or wily they were.

sidenote: apparently post-victory plundering, which doesnt seem very sporting, was totally en vogue and God didnt seem to have any problems with it either.

one day Asa sees that one of his enemies is building a super huge blockade preventing travel and trade between Judah and the rest of the world. it was called a “Ramah”. so Asa cut a deal with a neighbor nation saying yo heres all this silver and gold, join us, break your alliance with my enemy and lets tear down that damn Ramah and take over some lands together.

Asa’s neighbor accepted the deal, the enemy was the defeated, the Ramah was dismantled and everything was chill until…

until an OMG SEER cruised by and told Asa that actually he had effed up. that because he relied on mankind instead of just saying a prayer that the Lord was pissed. “Herein you have done foolishly;” the seer said, “for from henceforth you shall have wars.”

Asa wigged out, put the seer in stocks in the prison, and “inflicted cruelties on some of the people at the same time”. Asa flat out busted with the simultaneous cruelty card and the Lord busted with some old testament stuff hisself.

two sentences after the cruelty we read “in the 39th year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe; yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians. And then Asa slept with his ancestors.”

A MEN!

ps “and they made a very great fire in his honor.”

awwwww

asks a busblog formspring questioner

the day after my high school graduation i moved to california.

i too was 17.

that first summer was pretty lonely for me as i had no friends and the girls at the mcdonalds that i worked at were neither impressed by my grandmas cadillac nor my lack of breakdancing moves.

in the fall though i met michele, who would soon become my first california girlfriend.

today, incidentally, is her birthday. 6/6. and i miss her so.

im not sure what her parents advised her on her high school graduation, but whatever they said was perfect because this girl was interested in poetry and journalism, foreign lands, the environment, good music, interesting friends, politics, foreign films, and making out in the parking lot of zuma beach with me.

for some reason michele had it totally figured out.

oddly she acted like she had no grasp on anything. she was always questioning. and sometimes worrying. in three years we broke up three times, officially, but maybe 333 times unofficially.

it was a rollercoaster. an emotional one. but never boring. and so much of what she turned me on to from the Cures Pornography to the works of Robert Creeley and Emily Dickinson have stuck with me.

but the biggest thing she taught me is what id suggest to todays youth: always stay in the question.

whats really going on here? is this truly what i should be up to? whats the best possible solution for everyone? am i growing in this environment? am i pushing myself in this situation? is this good for the World? how can i improve here spiritually?

seriously 18 yr old michele was thinking and asking those things outloud at all times.

and soon-to-be 18 yr old tony was saying things like “fine, lets consider panties. i bet yours are cute. and yet what good is their cuteness if the boy in the car never sees them? lets imagine the amount of worldwide goodwill if more panties were able to see the light of day – or better the glow of the moonlight through the backseat windah.”

so my advice to a 17 yr old female high school grad would be: always have condoms, dont ever feel bad about saying no to anything, you dont owe anyone anything except yr momma who you owe everything, and over the next ten years meet as many interesting people you can because these are the people who will subtly shape the way you’ll be forevers.

happy 25th birthday michele!

ali had just come back from china and hong kong where she drank heartily, danced

and drank the blood of a snake.

she said it made her feel refreshed.

revitalized.

alive.

so when she poured shots of jd for us before the show, i couldnt really say no.

i say no enough during the day. wanna see lcd? fine. wanna do pre show shots? fine.

wanna eat bacon wrapped hot dogs on sunset blvd. if we must.

wanna chill at the newly reopened club lingerie after the show.

twist my arm.

midnite tacos at 230am?

its noon thirty. hi hangover.

strangely no headache.

maybe it was the 330am diet coke and refrigerator raid of seafood pasta

and strangely keeping up with the kardashians is making me feel better about my dull life.

movie club in an hour.

but before that, let me give you my review of the show last night.

i liked it. it was better than i expected which was a poor mans king missile.

instead i got a middle class mans electro talking heads avec disco ball.

and as good as it was, and let me report ive never seen a palladium crowd so locked in to a band before,

the best song i heard all night was in my shower in preparation for the eve

not only are the lyrics great
but when was the last time in a rock guitar solo you heard an electric guitar

give way to an acoustic guitar. such a nice little dash of color to that sound.

may your night come so you can forget about the day that brought you here.

despite the fact that i live here in LA

but i gotta say his focus yesterday in light of Chris Rock yapping in his ear

is awesome

whats really weird about this video? i wouldnt have known about it if it wasnt for a TWEET from Roger Ebert.

this life, this world, this odd journey only gets weirder and weirder.

next thing you know the Cubs will start hitting, traffic in LA will lighten up

and i’ll get taller.

until then at least we have the daily show and glenn beck to LOL at

whoops, i mean LOL with

kristin formerly of Toronto shared some video of herself struggling through some insecurities

these are things you generally dont see on tv or magazines or newspapers or radio

just a quickie lil “hi im a freak in this lil way. ok im out.”

blogs can do this better than anywhere else. and i respect and admire kris for doing it.

just a few hours ago i was trying to explain how insecure i feel throughout the day

and the person listening wouldnt have any of it.

she was all, but you do this and that and this and that. i was like so, its a huge fakeout.

she was all, well fine, but if you wanna see some complete losers, people who cant even speak up for themselves when it matters, then i will show you some insecurity.

which, yes, touche, but when i compare myself to standards, i dismiss the losers.

i think about cool people, successful people, people like my friends and heroes.

when i think im shy or insecure or faulty i dont think about the people whos ass i kicked, i think about the people whose as ive yet to kick

i wonder, what did they do to get there that i need to do or learn about.

whats stopping me from excellence.

and of course thats when the lists could be made because oddly when you think about negative things you can keep thinking forever, but when it comes time to the reverse its harder.

why have you been successful in the past? what did you do right in that one tough situation? and ultimately: do you really think youve been That lucky youre entire life?

my buckets got a hole in it. i know. but everyones does.

you just have to run with it.

and keep reading canadians

cuz they are closer to nirvana

than they think.

sometimes there is crying in baseball, and those times are very sweet

yesterday was one of those times

i did like four comments blog posts yesterday the saddest being

Quote of the day: ‘I don’t want to be traumatized right now’

the older i get the more impatient i get and i seriously have zero tolerance for people who continually say “i cant” mixed with “i’ll try” especially when someone is clearly in pain and danger.

listen up: you CAN do it, you WILL do it. do not “try” just do it!!

but who knows, maybe Gary Colemans ex wife was in some serious shock.

i also did “Los Angeles County to boycott Arizona in protest over new immigration law”

the equally frustrating “Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga robbed of a perfect game. What should be done?“

and “Has the ‘Elliott Smith wall’ ceased being a tribute?”

that last one is a little close to home for me, literally. i passed by and saw that wall almost totally covered with HGTV posters and it just looks horrible right now.