SHE AGREED THAT I COULD HAVE A WASHER DRYER IN MY APARTMENT!
THIS IS THE YEAR!
THE CUBS WILL WIN THE WORLD SERIES!
I WONT HAVE TO GO TO THE COIN LAUNDRY ANY MORE!
I CAN G.T.L. IN PEACE!
THANK YOU LORD!
THANKS OBAMA!
AND GOD BLESS THE GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH!
(sweden)
and i have no idea why i didnt do the thing but every night i would come home and think about it
and every friday i would say to myself, this weekend im gonna do it, but i never did.
i never even got close to doing it.
then the other day, your east cost fairy princess blogger from somewhere
told me, just try harder, and if its crappy its crappy, but push
and yesterday after work i really wanted to uber but i promised myself
that i would come home and do it.
but first i need to watch the end of the cubs game
and then i had to read every page on the internet
and then i had to play with my cats. both of them.
and then i had to open the window. and then i had to pee.
and then i had to close one window at a time on my laptop.
and then i started.
and it was good.
and then it was halfway done.
and it wasnt so good.
so i made it good.
and then it was done.
and i nearly had a heart attack.
i had to stand up.
i wanted to walk to the park and play pokemon but it was 12:30am and you really shouldnt be roaming around hollywood that late
after you just figured something out majorly.
you should stay inside and blog.
born in a rowboat in Lake Los Angeles during the stock market crash, charles bukowski, americas greatest poet, never saw riches until he was in his 50s and never cared about them once he had them.
what he loved he did, be he broke or wealthy: the drink, the dance, the fight, the fuck.
he had a higher voice than youd expect and he sang when he spoke.
how do you doooooo, he’d say as his horse rounded the home stretch with the lead.
he loved to gamble on the ponies so much that he’d often drop off his wife at the huntington library in pasadena even if the horses were running in hollywood park. afterwards he would pick her up. was he drunk? probably. did he ever get a DUI?
did mark twain?
did hemingway?
did Moses?
if you were talking to Tom Petty right now would you ask him such a question?
Charles “Henry” Bukowski loved cats and classical music. he didnt care for your questions unless you were a pretty girl at a poetry reading at a college where he was invited to speak. and then he would just watch their lips move and eyes crinkle and hair gently flow.
did he ever cheat on any of his girlfriends or wives? WHERE DID YOU GET THESE QUESTIONS? DID ROOSEVELT? DID MONROE? DID LASORDA?
he smoked when he drank and drank when he wrote and wrote in a rocking chair in front of a typewriter until the year 19 hundred and 90, the year punk broke when he switched over to an Apple Quadra. the step brother of the Mac. a very young Steve Jobs himself poured sand in Bukowski’s keyboard so the clicking sounds would be louder.
once Jobs offered Bukowski LSD but the poet didn’t want any of that nonsense. he wasn’t a Beat! he’d bellow. give that hippie crap to Ferlinghetti or Proust or Philben! he just wanted a cold bottle of something bubbly
and your undying love.
you, the one with the ruby red lip colors
you with the barrette
you with the notepad half filled with scribbles.
hop into my rowboat.
and you know i love howard but im not sure his shrink is working.
howard has one of the greatest jobs in the world, he gets to talk to people. on the radio. for millions of dollars a year. tens of millions.
but howard hates his job so much that he only goes in three times a week and then has to take a week off.
it’s sort of a dream job in that sense but he swears he’s tortured. he swears he hates going outside. he swears he hates traveling during his vacations. he just wants to sit around and paint or play chess or watch tv.
im not sure that shrink is working because im pretty sure thats not what we as humans are supposed to enjoy the most.
especially humans who have met hundreds of humans over a lifetime and gotten them to talk about the most fascinating parts of their lives.
i bring up shrinks because i have had writers block on something for the last few months that i cannot unblock. i told beautiful zulieka about it and she advised that i should just write it and if it comes out bad, fine, just rewrite it but it will be easier the second time.
i agree.
but what if what i want to write is a proposal to change everything. what if what i am writing is my essay for why i should go to mars and die there. what if what i am afraid of is the same thing howard is avoiding which is if we put it all out there then we are lost then we are not us. we will have no control. we will be forever changed.
when howard holds back from his audience he may not be thrilled with the results but at least he knows he affected something. that weird sad element of control has been enabled and he can see it.
likewise when i dont do something i can see the lack of growth and i know i did it. i know. i know.
its a small, dumb, foolish game. and all i have to do is say to myself, no i wont uber tonight, i will drive straight home after work and i will write the thing that will only take two hours to write and i will send it to nasa and that will be that and then they will read it and say duh of course why didnt we think of that and i can go on my merry way and my life will be forever changed.
but best of all, i will have helped others. which, howard, i think is the point of us being on this planet.
and we should stop being selfish with our crazy magic.
but it wasnt the phone, it was the text messenger.
tony, i am in LA, lets make love.
but thats not at all what it said. but thats what i read.
thats what i read every time she writes anything.
for twelve years i have been following every word americas favorite half japanese half naughty nurse has written in americas favorite mommy blog.
and surprise surprise she was in LA and was wanting to hang out. with who? with me?
so i switched over to speaker phone and dialed her up. i was in malibu. deep in malibu. but no matter where she said she was, i was ready to go there.
hi tony! im in a car. its a convertible. so i cant hear very well. can i call you back tonight?
of course!
she called me back. that night. she was in santa monica at the home of a famous writer director. we made plans to meet the next afternoon for a late lunch. when i arrived she was playing the french horn so i took a picture. i learned in our high school marching band that if a girl enjoyed sticking her hand up a french horn she probably liked lots of things. so i said zulieka, how are you prettier than the last time i saw you many years ago. two children ago?
it was no line. she was prettier and somehow shorter and lovelier. her dress was a size small but still not tight enough for LA standards, nor short enough. but the truth was written all over her face. she loved me. and missed me and was happy to see me. and likewise. im sure.
the writer director was a wonderful man. zulieka has good tastes as you can imagine. we talked about LA punk rock, lone justice, X, elvis, tom waits. then i took your girl to sushi and she was all, im half japanese youre gonna have to do a whole lot better than this.
so i said, americas sweetheart heather “the rabbit” havrilesky is having a party far far up in her mountain retreat. lets all go in the writer director producers porsche. and we did. and they were both loved by our friends. it was a joyous night. new friends were made and new schemes were plotted.
i tried to convince your girl that if she really loved LA she should move from mass, a place she doesnt love. FOR THE KIDS. i told her that children need to learn at an early age that if they dont like somewhere or someone that time is short. life is precious. and fleeting! vamoose! turn the page bob seger! she said but money?! i said it grows on trees. look at it growing over there.
she said tony. i said fine, i’ll marry you and pay for everything. she said but i want another child. i said i’ll go on youtube and learn how they are made. she said but the children love their father. i said who doesnt love their father? who doesnt want somewhere fun to spend their summer vacations while their new father gets some alone time with his wife?
she said you have everything figured out. i said i do. she said yes you do. i said i do.
then she said did you ever put that left over lobster in your fridge?
i said, see how desperately i need a thoughtful wife?
this is Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg.
just look at him.
his whole life he has seen people smoke weed.
he knows people who have smoked weed.
but one thing we know for sure: he has never ever ever seen someone smoke weed and die.
he hasn’t even read about it.
but yesterday he got on the mic and said that, indeed, marijuana should be considered just as dangerous as LSD and heroin.
heroin, of course, is a drug where if someone takes too much of it they will die.
but Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg doesn’t want to do the right thing today.
he doesn’t want to say, weed has never killed anyone. it’s easy to stop doing. and it’s easy to regulate.
it’s as easy to deal with as booze or cigarettes, and in fact we could make a ton of money off sales tax and other sorts of taxes if we wanted.
but instead of that we want to lock people in jails, and take their shit, and take their money and ruin their lives.
Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg basically said yesterday that the laws surrounding marijuana are more dangerous than the plant itself
and thats ok with him
because he’s a fucking tool
on the take
just like his predecessor
and the one before that one.
this is the biggest thing im disappointed in obama about.
because he fucking knows too.
the reason everyone should blog is maybe if everyone blogged we would know when more people are battling things.
and we’re all battling things.
some are fighting more serious things than others and need a little more help.
robin williams was so beloved can you imagine the outpouring of support that he would have had if we had known?
pretty sure lots of people would have also gotten that love.
but the first part of it is we have to know.
life is so very complicated
it’s better that it’s complicated but it can make it so hard.
superstars are just like us. they should be more like us. they should write in public. they should use instagram. they should tweet. we should give them a break once in a while though.
not everyone can afford a social media wunderkind.
life shouldnt ever be determined by money.
and it should never be ruined by fame.
i can’t help thinking if robin williams was a mid level manager he would have gotten the treatment he needed.
but because he was super famous he thought he had to do something different than everyone else.
but as sting once said, if only you knew how fragile we are.
thanks for reminding me Andrea!
“remember who you are”
learn yr strengths and dig in to them.
while youre young accept new challenges, and remember if youre breathing youre young.
do a few things that force you to be patient, which might require you to not do a damn thing.
if you havent learned something valuable for your job, dont go home yet.
have a hero and mimic them privately, have them be your fantasy mirror.
trust people. love people. and if you must hate them, do it quickly and then find something admirable and make that your new secret nickname for them.
remember who you are. remember who you used to be. and remind yourself who you wanna be.
its never too late to be great. its never to soon to shoot for the moon.
now is as good as later,
in fact its a little better.
when andy warhol would talk to Lou Reed he’d ask, have you written any songs today?
Lou would say something like “I wrote Heroin yesterday”.
Andy would say, “that was yesterday. this is now 1:42pm, you should have written a song this morning and one at lunch already.”
and Lou would take the needle out of his arm and say, fine, and write Andy’s Chest or Waiting on the Man.
a week later theyd have a similar conversation and before Lou knew it the Velvet Underground had an entire album of songs ready to go.
Andy was just as prolific and his critics could argue that he was using the printing press or interns to help him, he would say work doesnt mean you have to stretch a canvas, mix your paints, treat the canvas, have a glass of wine and meditate and then start painting to create work. all that was required to work is that you start working.
i can go through major lazy periods where i dont do anything but lay in my bed and whisper sweet nothings to the cheerleaders and before i know it it’s Sunday afternoon and time to read the bible and do laundry. because i know how lazy i can get i often find myself with more than one job.
in frisco i had three jobs because that place did not inspire me one bit to make art. or write. or rule. it was pretty but that was it. im glad im gone and i rarely go back. LA is my lady because this place has an underground railroad of hits rumbling under the surface.
even though the mainstream media would have you believe that the only places of interest are either along the coast or from santa monica through downtown, theres massive amounts of energy in the valley, in the hood and East of LA.
why dont they cover those areas?
because theyre lazy.
and if andy warhol was their boss he’d hit em with a flower.
dear tony,
i’m interested to learn more about the xbi. namely, why LA? aren’t the skies filled with helicopters anyway?
first of all theres no such thing as the xbi.
secondly, yes there are some helicopters in LA but most of them are cops or for the news or traffic. but id say they only account for a dozen or so. then there are the tourist ones that fly visitors over the city.
if there was an undercover group of super heroes who actually didnt have any super skills, they were just trained really well, there might be a job or two for someone who flew a helicopter.
specifically a black helicopter.
and if he was really good at it, the agency, if one existed, would probably set him up in a swanky mansion somewhere up in the hills where no one would expect a sloppy dressed dude in a cubs hat.
why a mansion?
where else would you land the copter?
