Monthly Archives: June 2019

my favorite magazine, black webmaster, dm’ed me

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jacarandawait, are you really looking for a job?

yes, are you all hiring there?

no.

thats ok.

how did you lose your job?

when the xbi wants you, things happen in their favor.

arent you a little old for the xbi?

i wish.

so what are you gonna do?

the way i see it, i have three options. sell out and go back to them, give up and move into my moms basement in chicago, or become a youtube star.

i hear it’s so cold in chicago that even the summers are cold now.

fool i aint going to my mommas basement.

so you’re going to rejoin the xbi?

no, im gonna be a youtube star.

do you know anything about video production, audio production, or video graphics? 

no. no. and no.

arent you a little too old to be a youtube star? 

nah, people of all ages do perfectly on youtube.

what’s gonna be your angle?

i’m going to walk around and talk to the people of LA.

you think people would want to watch that on youtube? aren’t podcasts the thing right now?

do i think people would want to see video of the most beautiful city in the world? is that what you asked me? and instead of letting them see it, all they get is my pretty voice?

there’s a lot of competition on youtube.

i fucking love competition.

who are you up against?

there’s three people who i wouldn’t say im up against, but people who i really like and i would know that i am successful if i am mentioned in the same breath as them

kevin nealon who goes hiking with celebs
179k subscribers

the hood russian who interviews people in the poorest parts of LA
190k subscribers

and alex from as it lays
2k subscribers

how are you gonna beat them?

pure luck, this time. it’s all gonna be based in luck.

 

 

sorry, we’re open

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i know whats going on.

i do.

but im not gonna crack.

im gonna open.

back in the olden days when you messed with Job to see if he would denounce the good Lord, you gave him warts, you killed his animals, you ruined his good reputation, you slowed down his internet

you made him doubt himself and his friends and his place in the world.

all to see what he was made of in his creamy nougat center.

but at my center is the eternal joy of the 2016 world series.

in my soul is the love of people and love of the healing powers of creativity. i am a hippie i am a punk i am the little kid at summer camp reading the bible. i am a bleacher bum and a college reporter. i am studying poetry in a school with no grades. i am the black boy who looks mexican italian cuban puerto rican. i am everything and nothing and just another face in the crowd.

sure i can get depressed and scared and hurt and shocked and freaked out a bit but at my age, at this age, with all the tales of peaks and valleys, i know that the sun will come out tomorrow, the devil,

bet your bottom dollar i’ll find a cool new way to make a dollar, but best of all i know that we should be rendering unto caesar whats caeasar

bc our treasure is in the kingdom of wrigley north.

the devil, you can play games with my heart you can take away this and that and the other but we are the children of the special one. we are made in his image. he too has emotions. he too freaks out at evil. and we too can turn the simplest things into the most exquisite.

if you had the faith of a mustard seed you might be able to break me. but im a twix twin bar, the devil. i was made for this shit.

so this one doesnt wanna hire me and that other doesnt wanna work with me but only cuz they dont know me. only cuz they havent been able to see the beautiful music that we made under storke tower and la cumbre plaza and atwater and frisco and westwood and e street and first street. and i know hearts have been hardened and i know we have just begun the beguine and i know that i just dont know

but i just wanna say i see you, just like i saw you in cleveland in game seven doing whatever you could to break the hearts of cub fans

but our hearts are piñatas, the devil.

filled with the sweetest love.

thats who i am.

24/6

Happy 30th birthday, Bleach

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30 years ago today Nirvana’s “Bleach” was released, thanks in part to the mysterious figure on the right hand side of the album cover named Jason Everman.

Listed as the second guitarist of the band, Everman actually never played on the recording that sold nearly 2 million copies. The Alaskan native joined the group in 1989 and toured with them after being in Stonecrow, a band that included drummer Chad Channing, a childhood friend who would also eventually join and subsequently leave Nirvana.

But back to Bleach… despite the fact that none of his guitar parts were used on the band’s debut LP, Everman loved the album so much that he paid the $606.17 producer Jack Endino billed Nirvana for the 30 hours of recording.

As a thank you, Kurt Cobain used the now-iconic photo of he and Everman for the cover of Bleach and listed him as a guitarist on the Sub Pop Records album sleeve. That credit would be removed when Geffen re-released the record in the wake of the success of “Nevermind.”

Everman can be heard in several bootlegs and seen playing with the group during their Rhino Records in-store performance, but he soon left the group and joined Soundgarden briefly as their bassist and appears on “Loudest Love” and “Louder than Love”.

In 1994 he joined the Army and did tours in Afghanistan and Iraq in the Special Forces.

So when you rock out to “Negative Creep,” “School,” and “Molly’s Lips” today, as you should, the guitar-work that you don’t hear is coming from that other guy on the Bleach cover not wearing a jean jacket. He is Jason Everman, the war hero who financed one of the greatest records in rock.

thought i was gonna get called up to the pros this week

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i was wrong.

i’ve been wrong a lot this year.

are my spidey senses outta wack? have i lost my mojo?

the only place i seem to be connecting with lately is Reddit. everything i post there does well.

yesterday i went to bed early. woke up. walked around the block and jeanine called.

she has been off her game too. she lied to me the other day and i caught her in it.

when you lie to your so called guardian angel (me), you should reevaluate things.

we all find ourselves with some broken strings on our guitar sometimes.

normal people get new strings, tune em, and play on.

but when we are listening to the demons in our head we think,

is it me? am i the one who is out of tune? did i do something to insult the guitar? did i strum wrong? am i a terrible person?

no fool, you need some new strings, they’re cheap, get some.

only humans act this way.

monkeys always have nice strings.

i have a gas smell in my kitchen.

called the gas man.

hope he comes soon.

my mom gets nervous when i dont update this blog

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and its true, for years i would write 2-3 times a day, youd think that now that im lazing about the house i’d be writing twice as much but what do you say when you are constantly job hunting or working out on your soul and your six pack abs?

the cubs are doing well, thats all that matters, really.

this week they signed the closer that they need, an all star who for some reason wasn’t getting signed by anyone this spring. was he asking too much? was he nuts? was he too old at 31? was his agent a dope? if this guy was so good why had no one snatched him up?

all fascinating questions. the cubs still paid him $43 million for three years. which is in the neighborhood that im looking to earn in my next gig, btw.

last night i went to bed in not the best shape. i was nervous about the future, something the bible advises against. consider the lilies of the field, it says, they dont have agents, they belong to no unions, they dont have a sinking fastball and still they live great lives because God loves them, so think how much more he loves us, who have amazing changeups and circle curves.

but i couldnt sleep so i turned my phone on and clicked over to linkedin… maybe there was a job i hadnt noticed that i should apply for. and there it was. right next to the job i am still waiting to hear from. yes at the very bottom they are asking for some space age futuristic things, but the bulk of the job is right up my alley.

then i couldnt fall asleep for all the right reasons. i had visions of sugar plums dancing through my head. all the ideas came rushing though. color returned to my cheeks. my heart started beating and mama mia was my brain going into overdrive.

one idea tapdanced in front of another. boom boom boom. and all brilliant ones. then, lurking in the background, arose the greatest of all ideas ever. it’s ambitious, it’s glorious, it would be a game changer, a sweeping force if ever there was one, and this company could pull it off better’n any of them. theyd have to believe in me though.

but the crazy thing is, it wouldn’t cost much to pull off. i mean they could invest *money* into it, but it’s not necessary. the lilies don’t buy facebook ads and people drive out to the superbloom in droves. this would be a super dooper bloom of love.

4am, 5am. finally i ate a croissant and drank a glass of juice. another idea. an old one from the past, but with a new hat. oh and another idea. what about this. MY COVER LETTER IS GOING TO BE A NOVELLA!

so then i thought, should i go in great detail one some of these ideas so they can take a glimpse of my genius, or should i just list the code names of the concepts as teases?

First in Line
The Perfect Room
Disturbing the Piece
Somebody Walks in LA
Press Conference, Jr.

OK enough procrastination. On to the application.

heres what i dont wanna be

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i dont wanna be a sell out loser phony baloney two face nonsense maker

i dont wanna do things that anyone else can do

in a fancy cheese store in the south of france i dont wanna be sliced american

i wanna be brie but not any old cheapass dumbshit hey target has brie? brie.

i wanna have a little kick to it.

i want to make that ritz cracker say dude this would be so much better on a baguette

in a bakery tucked away in nowheresville i wanna be a skinny baguette your true love tucks under their arm

or puts in a basket on a bike and ring ring as they pedal down the cobblestone

i wanna be something thats not like the other things but not in a showoff way but in a

fuck yeah way.

i’ll probably frighten those prone to being frightened.

not because im reckless or dangerous or wild or scary.

but because im free.

i wanna be me.

the cats are asleep, the girl is asleep

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it’s 4:06am and I’ve gotta be up at a reasonable hour.

whoops one of the cats is awake. Prince.

dry heaving.

i fed them wet food as a treat because the cubs broke out of their losing streak.

he probably ate too much, cuz i never give them that.

id switched over recently from a non name brand to something more moist, let’s say.

they both loved it.

amber dared me to get all the crap out of my apartment thats been piling up over 20 years.

she did not say it in a fairy tale voice, i’ll tell you that.

so today i began because i have a hard time resisting dares.

i found my first press pass, my high school ID, and a baseball i got signed by Baba Booey when i interviewed him for the Times. what a good guy.

i also found my diary from college on a 5 1/4 floppy.

in order to read it i will have to buy an Apple IIc, which i just may because I would love to know what i wrote.

i have had a super weird and wonderful life.

this part right now feels like a free fall.

but there is this ride at Disney World that they used to call the Twilight Zone. it’s an elevator drop ride. the truest and i rode it like 10 times because it’s amazing.

you go in an elevator and they dick around for a while then they drop you

and you think youre gonna die.

every time you think that’s it, the thing is broken.

and then Disney steps in and slows it down to a smooth end.

and you’re so relieved that you didn’t die that you get right back in line and do it again.

i’m not going to die. nor does it feel like it. maybe this is the dicking around part, who knows.

but i know how it ends.

with smiles and relief.