when new technology will baffle us too
and we will look silly in front of the world
and all of our teenage interns will be out scoring weed instead of making sure we dont look bad in front of our endearing audience.
and people will point and laugh and laugh and laugh
and no matter what i am doing then, andy rooney will still be able to say
“yes but i have had the easiest job of all time”
good!
i ate a lot. as is my nature. i watched tv alot, as is my wont.
theres not a lot of things i want in life.
the more i think about it the more i think im a gemini.
theres parts of me that wants to kick so much ass, then theres parts that wants to watch tv forever.
you get spoiled sometimes and everything comes to you and you lay there and click and its so nice.
then sometimes you go out into the cold cruel world with your bat and you hit people over the head and you drag back your treasure and you say yeah that was worth it.
each thing is boring after a while. super boring. and each thing is wonderful.
other day i went to this hipster hang and ordered a shepards pie.
the shepards pie was so not boring. it looked like a bowl of cheese, for starters.
but as you shoved your spoon in there you dug into ground beef. so not lean beef.
there were spices in there because shepard isnt in season right now and i had an apple juice and i was there with a beautiful girl.
i was hungover and feeling every day of my 104 years and she had a healthy sensible brunch.
later that night we ate himalayan food.
last time i drank Yeti beer but it was too hairy. so this time i had Karma which went down smooth.
the waitress said thats cuz you must have good karma.
i said how can you tell?
she said if you have bad karma it tastes like backwash.
as we waited for our check we overheard this couple talking. the boy sounded like it was their first date, my date said.
and that next morning i woke up and went to the grocery store for OJ and i saw the same couple we sat next to at himalyan food and the girl had the same dress on.
and i was all omg how cute slash scandalous.
and i had the same clothes on too đ
In reference to Wednesday’s lecture + Q&A session at El Camino College, Cathleen Yampolsky wrote in to say:
Your presentation was very good. You could take it on the road. We didn’t even say anything snarky about you after you left the room! A couple of co-eds thought you were kinds cute, and the professor blushed. Thanks for you time, it was definitely my pleasure. This is coming form someone who gets up at 5 a.m.
id call that a passing grade.
i was in vancouver canada soaking it all in
Sat. Nov. 6 — Tucson, AZ @ Rialto Theatre
Sun. Nov. 7 — Phoenix AZ @ Orpheum Theatre
Wed. Nov. 10 — Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
Thu. Nov. 11 — Austin, TX @ The Paramount Theatre
Sat. Nov. 13 — New Orleans, LA @ Tipitina’s
Mon. Nov. 15 — Tallahassee, FL @ The Moon
Tue. Nov. 16 — Tampa, FL @ The Ritz Ybor
Thu. Nov. 18 — Athens, GA @ 40 Watt Club
Fri. Nov. 19 — Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel
Sat. Nov. 20 — Richmond, VA @ The National
Sun. Nov. 21 — Baltimore, MD @ Ram’s Head Live
Tue. Nov. 23 — New York, NY @ Carnegie Hall
busblog man of the year 2010
why?
because the rent is too damn high
and he was the funniest part of the funniest election we had.
may freedom reign.
i ask early how many of you have blogs
and rarely does half the class raise their hands, not even a quarter of them do
which makes me happy and sad. happy because i dont wanna do something everyone does
and sad because i love to read good blogs and there are fewer and fewer of them each day
and im sure these kids living by the beach
in southern california
have a few stories to tell.
it was 95 degrees today in november in los angeles.
pretty girl with dimples told me it was about that by the beach in santa monica.
and still i thought of the lines theyd write if they had blogs:
it was sweaty out when i leaned into her beneath the half burned palm tree…
sand fleas danced on our bare legs when his ringtone blared on her phone…
metallica played my dads airplane hangar when i turned 18…
stuff like that.
now come the uncomfortable holidays.
the ones riddled with pressure and emotion and all the things theyre not supposed to be.
i want to just take a sailboat and be the oldest man to circumference the world in my boat.
i want to shoot any and all pirates who may want to pirate me.
and i want to shoot any storms that may get in the way.
i also wanna redesign the busblog.
then on new years eve i wanna return and party down.
adios fun holidays.
when theyre out of Sawara, the most delicious magical fish in the sea.
karisa and i dined there last night after i chatted with the college kids.
lemme tell you a few things about the youth of america – theyre alright.
this class was at a junior college, and i never pass up a chance to talk to the kids at JC because i am a product of the community college of southern california
and i always want to let them know that although it might seem like an extension of high school its really closer to what college is like minus the beer bongs.
they asked me some hard questions and some of them were really interesting.
“what is the best blog post that you are your most proud of?” i was asked.
ive written close to 10,000 blog posts when you think of the busblog, LAist, and the LA Times.
but the one i was most proud of was when i started what would end up being Stiff. it was the blog post that started “i knew i was in trouble when i saw kurt cobain at my door.“
i told them i was proud of it because i was really being creative and trying to tap into my biggest fears and horrors.
“how old are you and when did you move to california?” was a question that everyone laughed when the guy said it.
im 104 years old and i moved to california the day after high school with a banjo on my knee, i said.
but the best question was from a very sweet asian young lady who said “i would like to be a journalist, but i heard from a friend that they would prefer americans born in america to be journalists. so do you think a Chinese person could be a journalist here in America?”
i said i would prefer girls to always come to my house with baked goods. but life doesnt always give you what you’d prefer. and sometimes you learn that what you thought you wanted was wrong. maybe the best person for a journalism job is a shy chinese girl. so yes, even you my chinese friend, has just as good of a chance of being a journalist as anyone. so ignore your friend and go for what you want.
: nervous, natch
not sure what im gonna talk to them about. which is probably for the better. dont wanna use up all your good lines on an audience of zip.
i will try to remember to tell them the golden rule of good reporting: go places most people cant go, and then come back with what you saw and tell us in an interesting way.
im going to tell them that anythings possible in this world and it works best when you decide to go for exactly you want.
be yourself like Arcade Fire i’ll probably tell em.
hoping the kids of today even listen to arcade fire.
be creative, try new things, express joy, sweat when you work, dabble in spirituality.
be yourself like Monotonix i’ll probably say.
knowing full well the kids of today have no idea who they are.
rewrite the rules, tear down the 4th 5th and 6th walls, sweat when you work, dabble in anarchy.
be yourself like Prince
knowing that all generations love the Minneapolis soul from the purple one.
be creative, try new things and dive head first into the sexy.
because love is everything.
second only to blogging.