but first, a selfie

Posted on June 30, 2016 by tony

selfie

some days i dont wanna drive.

some days i dont wanna write.

some days i just wanna go home, collect my dirty laundry and go to the coin laundry.

i wrote my landlady at the beginning of the year to see if i can get a washer dryer. she never responded.

probably because she knows she cant legally say no and it will break her heart to say yes because im paying maybe 1/2 what the going rate is for this apartment and she wants me out.

on the other hand a washer dryer, a good one, costs about a grand.

my trips to the coin laundry costs maybe $8. which means i would have to do laundry 125 times to break even.

currently i go to the laundry about once a month. maybe every three weeks.

so maybe i go 18 times a year.

so i wouldnt break even for 7 years.

on one hand its a royal pain to go to the coin laundry but on the other hand you see things there you wouldnt see in the back of your apartment.

yesterday i saw a man sitting on a bench enjoying his chicken and a tall bud light.

a nice mexican man wearing a cowboy hat.

was he doing his laundry? who knows.

i was, and i put a brown towel in with my whites, i poured some bleach in there

and now i have a peach towel.

upgrade.

the cubs are going to win the world series

Posted on June 29, 2016 by tony

strop the Cubs did something yesterday that ive never seen before, which is saying something because ive watched baseball every day for several decades now.

it was the 14th inning. game was tied. their pitcher was getting tired so Joe Maddon the genius manager of the Cubs, and my hero, put in a relief pitcher

but he didnt put him on the mound, he put him in left field.

he let an out get recorded and then he brought that “left fielder” in to pitch and put the original pitcher in left field.

another out was recorded and he did the left field / pitcher switch again.

that way he could do the Lefty/Righty thing

it totally worked.

then in the next inning he did a similar thing with a new pitcher. he put Pedro Strop (pictured, above) in LF so he could be used as a pitcher, if needed.

there was no need because not only were the Reds flabbergasted by this, but their hitters kept trying to push the ball to left field instead of pulling it and their superpowers were taken away.

it was the most brilliant bit of managing i have ever seen in my life.

here’s how the professionals wrote about it on MLB.com

this game was proof that the Cubs will win the World Series because often champs win games like this. tough games. close games. games that losers lose. even though the Cubs are only about .500 in 1-run games i feel like this is a turning point. they believe even more in their skipper now than ever because they too have now seen him do something that most of us have never seen.

and it worked. and no one challenged it. and the umps even let the pitcher/LF warm up properly and it was entertaining

and it was solidified by a G-D grand slam by Javy Baez our secret power hitting utility man

i love this team so much i cant wait to see what happens next.

update: how some dude on reddit laid it out

cusb

Matt Welch is stepping down from being Editor in Chief of Reason

Posted on June 28, 2016 by tony

matt emmanuelle mayor The man has a wife and two lovely daughters to support. So what will he do next?

Because the typically transparent Lakewoodian has been unusually tight lipped, one can only assume he already has something in the works.

Here are the Busblog Speculations:

1. he will be the Campaign Manager for the Tony Villar for Governor campaign

2. he will replace Albert Pujols at first base for the Angels (cant do any worse)

3. he will play rhythm guitar in the Ringo Starr All Starr Band

4. he will return to UCSB to finish his degree, become sports editor of the Nexus, and bring back the Good Morning Goleta radio show on KCSB.

5. he will replace the outgoing Skip Bayless and square off against Stephen A. Smith every morning on a new ESPN show called “Loudmouth and Whitey”.

6. he will return to his beloved Eastern Europe, along with his pal Tony Pierce, where they will roll out a chain of taco joints called Del Playa Taqueria.

7. he will be a producer on the next Morgan J. Freeman MTV series called Strapped about teen NRA members who love hip hop.

8. he will go into business helping gentrification-focused real estate flippers install Conversation Pits into Craftsman homes.

9. he will return to a life of crime, by which I mean letting his hair grow out and panhandling Euros from tourists on the Charles Bridge

10. Two words: Tronc VP

ten years ago today i was about two weeks into my reign at LAist

Posted on June 27, 2016 by tony

anna i was up all night, i was trying new things, i was writing my booty off

i was trying to recruit people to write for us for free

i was trying to get photographers and even copy editors

but one thing i was having no problem getting and that was bad reviews.

on Wednesday, HBO debuted a new weekly series hosted by Bill Simmons where he talks to a sports person and an entertainment person. a few days later the LA Times ran a review about the first episode and was super harsh about it.

i found it strange that they would go after a guy who had never hosted a show before and pounce on his first night out of the blocks.

i remember how the Food Desk would never review a restaurant the day it opened. instead they would let it get the kinks out, and then go 3-4 times during different parts of the day. theyd go on a weekend and then a weekday. that way their findings would be, in a way, scientific.

on this day ten years ago i was about ten days into my rule over LAist and i can tell you, things were far from ironed out

but still i posted some of the harshest comments that were being left by people who did not like my style.

behind the scenes i would write emails to the staff, sometimes daily, telling them that its ok, to hang in there.

keep writing, i would say, it’s the only way we can make it to where we want to go.

i felt like i was a captain of a ship that had to go through a huge terrible storm to get to the paradise on the other side, and there was no other route that could get us there quickly

either the ship would be sunk trying or it would sink not trying so we had to try

and i was going to yell at the storm as we did it and curse it out and give it the finger and moon it and dare it all along the way

but i needed the writers sooooo sooooo badly. without them i couldnt do it alone. so i begged them to be patient

and they were.

and of course i put the negative comments on the world famous, because f the haters. if anything they are the hot air in our sails.

blow, fuckers, blow.

and i hope Bill Simmons and his crew do likewise.

so thats what i was doing ten years ago today.

today im walking down robertson in beverly hills about to eat some sushi with anna kournikova because she cant stop loving me. and maybe i feel the same.

drove noine hours yesterday

Posted on June 26, 2016 by tony

xbi mobile in dtla next to mike tyson

did what i had to do and even took a picture for you

some of us were meant to stand out

Posted on June 25, 2016 by tony

stand out and when we dont we spit in the face of destiny

some of us were meant to fit in

ive never met any of those people.

everyone ive ever met was unique and interesting and flawed and superb and

just as fucked up as me.

yesterday i met this beautiful young lady who grew up around people who were so different than she was

that she never learned the beauty in herself

because all of her friends growing up

either didnt see the beauty in her or felt uncomfortable admitting how much they were into her.

no one ever told her when she was a little girl

that some of us were meant to stand out

which is good and bad

for one, you cant hide.

for two, all eyes are on you

for three all the girls are gonna stare and all the boys are gonna make fun.

except for those who also stand out

too.

embrace your uniqueness

it’s how the angels above can point you out

from waaaaaaaaaay

up there.

even though nothing in here is true, this is true

Posted on June 24, 2016 by tony

lindsay lohan as you know, on the side i drive a little for Uber, the ride sharing company who continually claims they are not a transportation company but instead they are a technology company.

from time to time they have bonuses for the drivers if we hit certain goals.

the most common bonus they have is one that says if a driver picks up 30 trips over a three day period of time the driver will get a $150 bonus. there is also a fare guarantee that says if you pick up 1 1/2 rides (on average) a day during peak hours of that day then you will be guaranteed $30/hr gross,

which even for Uber Select drivers (those of us with luxury cars) is typically better than our regular hourly gross.

three weeks ago i participated in the bonus and achieved the goals. i have done this several times and each time i have received my bonuses. every now and then i will hit a snag with the customer service email person who says i didnt hit my goal, but after emailing them back and asking them to check their records again they admit they were wrong and i got my bonuses.

two weeks ago i hit my bonus but got an email saying i didn’t hit it. after a few back and forths they admitted they were wrong and gave me half of my bonus. i wrote back and said, dudes you admitted, properly, that you were wrong, wheres the other half. to that they did not respond AT ALL.

so i wrote back the next day, and the next day and the next day. this has now been going on for 11 days.

this technology company, valued at several tens of billions of dollars, seems hell bent on keeping the $135 that is owed to me. in a way they know they have me over a barrel because who sues for $135 and as a driver of a mercedes, i dont have any other ride sharing companies i can jump to very easily because Lyft doesnt offer the Select platform YET in LA.

but they will. and i will never forget how uber has treated me, someone who has driven for them for years, who has maintained a 4.9 rating out of (the impossible) 5.0 score, signed up passengers AND fellow drivers.

it makes me think if this is part of their profit plan: rip off 10,000 drivers on average of $150 and boom youve made $1.5 million dollars. and all you have to do is not answer their emails.

it couldnt be more frustrating and going into another weekend with an identical bonus dangling in front of my face it makes me wonder if im a jackass for going for it again. (yes i am a jackass if i go for it again).

yesterday i went to the LA office where they handle all sorts of Uber business. i dont know if they handle pay disputes. it was my lunch hour. i noticed how packed it was in there. when i signed in the machine told me the wait would be approximately one hour and twenty minutes. so obviously i didnt want to be late for my actual real job, so i stewed and wrote another letter to uber saying how unprofessional this is to freeze out a man who has driven for years for you.

and of course, received zero response.

today my real job is giving us a half day so i will venture into the HQ again. hopefully the line will be less than an hour’s wait.

tony what would you do if you could do anything?

Posted on June 23, 2016 by tony

nikki minaj you mean like if i won the lottery? because if i won the lottery id buy mom mom a house with a giant garden

in the garden would be incredible bubbling ponds and tiny volcanoes.

the volcanoes would errupt right before winter so the soil would be the richest it could be right before the snow

all around the garden would be peach trees and pecan trees and banana trees.

no tony what would you do if you could do anything, not buy anything.

i would be a fantastic photographer. but not one with a lot of equipment.

i would want to be known as the guy who has like three lenses and one camera, who never uses flash

but best of all, who never uses photoshop.

maybe my assistants behind my back touch things up but im off to the next thing.

i would go to school for it if i ever had any free time.

dont you know great photographers?

yes but i would never ask them.

but arent some of your friends great photographers?

yes but i would want to be – didnt you hear me – i would want to be the greatest photographer ever. which would mean that i would be better than they are. i dont wanna learn from them and then beat them. thats rude.

is that what happened with writing? did you learn from your friends and then beat them?

no. some of my friends are better writers than me.

but theyre not better bloggers.

ahahaha true. but only because they all grew up and got married and had kids and junk.

its basically impossible to be a good parent and an everyday blogger. you gotta pick one.

and for some reason the future of america is more important than the http

shout out to the inventors of periscope

Posted on June 23, 2016 by tony

when kayvon beykpour and joe bernstein invented periscope, the simple way to record and stream video through a mobile device,

they probably never thought that their little app would find its way in the Well of the House of Representatives so lawmakers could document their peaceful protest after that brave Republican Paul Ryan shut down the C-SPAN cameras

because he’s such a great leader

and should probably be president of the united states.

a few years ago periscope was acquired by Twitter which was a match made in digital Heaven because periscope piggybacks perfectly on twitter, alerting all of your twitter followers that you are broadcasting

which is what happened yesterday when a few of the Congresspeople realized that they could bypass the Speaker Ryan bravery by simply broadcasting themselves

from their phones.

i dont know why kayvon beykpour and joe bernstein arent doing a victory lap around tv shows right now

their invention helped make the #holdthefloor protest something that people around the world could see

even the courageous Paul Ryan who probably watched it on CSPAN

(who, once their cameras were shut off by the GOP, linked up to the periscope feed and broadcasted that).

bros deserve some props today.

the busblog salutes them.

im going to miss a deadline tomorrow at work

Posted on June 21, 2016 by tony

safe in hell

it makes me sad because i always hit my deadlines.

but this is a different type of assignment. it’s long and involved. and even though we knew about it a month ago, i had three other assignments between then and now, plus i had to work far longer on those than i expected.

and worse of all, this one, like i said, is long and involved. and i know nothing about it.

and my stomach was in knots all day today and a little yesterday because of it.

sometimes a situation appears in front of you and you know how to work with it. 99% of the time i drive i know several different routes to where we need to go if disaster strikes. thats why im always cool behind the wheel.

in this scenario, i knew everything was against me. most of all, time.

with me, there is often a little spark of magic that strikes when i write things

sometimes.

from day one on this thing, a month ago, there was no magic, ever. it was all work.

dig dig dig, polish, place.

one sentence after another. it literally would take hours for a sentence.

mostly because it has to be true. and accurate. and well written. and with proof.

so you read read read. talk talk. google read google. then you have a sentence.

i even talked to experts but they were on a different plane.

our planes never intertwined.

last week my plane and the other dudes planes were doing loop di loos together.

any question i had there was an answer. anywhere i wanted to go, he was there too.

it was different because he had little two sentence answers, which is quotable but i wanted to get deep.

so i realized i needed several followups.

this was harder. still is. i have tonight and i have tomorrow to see what last minute miracle happens.

and hopefully i got over the tough transition today, but im still not sure.

heres my biggest fear about it: i dont want kids looking at it while doing research if its not fucking great.

as someone who dealt with less than fucking great materials when i was a kid,

i dont wanna be that guy to them.