Monthly Archives: August 2020

dear tony, can you lose yr magic juice?

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johnson

no.

anything magic is a gift from above that we have zero control over.

not that control is not an illusion

but we have less control over gifts.

sometimes you get a tie

sometimes you get a sweater

and sometimes you get the exact same thing youve always wanted.

more attention should be made about

how will i use this incredible tool i hope to one day have

and will it help the most amount of people?

instead of omg i want i want.

i have been in situations where i was waiting and waiting for the ball

and then i dropped it.

fortunately there were few spectators.

but still.

and others i got it

and not only did the right thing

but added a little soul.

those things all were boosted by magic from above

but i was even ready for that.

dear reader you will never lose your magic juice

but sometimes like in exodus theres gonna be feast

and theres gonna be famine.

its great to be prepared for both.

but today i heard there were blackouts all over town because of the heat.

so i say, hey baby, lets make sure we know where all the flashlights and candles are

she said i threw out all your candles.

and i looked around and

she wasnt lying.

sure glad we had that discussion tonight

and not in the middle of a blackout.

 

im writing about uber, something that should come easy

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i did 5,000 rides over 6 years

it was the joy of my life for a little while.

i started this thing on Friday and here it is Monday night and i shoulda had it out sooner but i have something broken in me.

it’s why i think i need a break. a two week break.

its not that im lazy.

andy warhol used to tell lou reed all the time “write a song today. write two.” i can do this. i know i can. everythings a distraction. everythings bad.

the voices dont even know what to say. on this one theyre saying “this is wayyyy too long.” and “uber is gonna sue you!”

both of which are lame.

i cant concentrate.

maybe its the rona.

maybe its me.

but damn i could write about uber all day, who by the way, may be pulling out of CA this week which is why i want to write it before they do it.

then maybe i could do a follow up.

where would i even go on vacation?

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heres what id do.

id unplug.

no social media.

barely any computer. only to write.

actually no computer. no writing. just reading and watching movies.

no tv.

no phone except to call my mom.

email, fine. but no facebook, no twitter, no IG, no snapchat, no tiktok no youtube.

woah, i love youtube. ok fine. youtube.

but since we cant travel anywhere,

being stranded with just movies and books and

maybe audiobooks

podcasts.

two weeks of this is what i need.

i wonder if i could arrange this at the beginning of september.

i need a vacation

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thats what imma remember about 2020 the most.

there was nowhere to escape to.

for the longest i never understood the appeal of Palm Springs.

my mom got a time share there like 10 years ago and i was all whyyyyyyy

now i get it

it soothes the soul.

it recalibrates your time frame.

sometimes slow and low is the way to go.

but we cant go there even though theres a time share in the La Quinta Resort that i have fallen in love with.

fuckin Rona.

fuckin everything.

fuckin postmaster general taking sorting machines away and mail boxes away and mail away.

fuckin NCAA officials pulling their hair out because football cant exist in this

which means they cant profit from poor kids bashing their heads in.

thought i lost my computer this morning.

turned out it was in my underwear drawer.

i need a vacation like never before.

 

a lovely person asked me to remove her mentions from this blog

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of course i obliged, who wouldn’t? and it was not the first time this has happened.

this old thing is nearly 20 years old. something i have a hard time believing myself.

and the things that you might agree to back in the day or the pictures you may have snapped and sent may not be the ones you want up forever and ever amen.

that does not surprise me.

what surprised me was how often i wrote about her or linked to her blog.

she was very good at blogging and was an inspiration to me, in part because she was just

so damn cool.

even in my greatest moments i havent been that cool.

when people are like that i want to study it.

i want to find the ingredients.

i want to bottle the seven herbs and spices.

are there times when i think i should just get rid of this thing, shut it down, close up shop, erase all of this from the sight of the sun?

yes.

but that’s exactly what the devil would want.

and this is and has always been my joyful noise to the Lord.

today was hard

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didnt get a lot of sleep because i had a big meeting at 11:30am and i had been up until 5am putting together a box of baseball cards for this 10 year old kid who gives cards to other little kids

and i ask you, how do you not support that endeavor?

i buy super inexpensive cards buy the hundreds because currently there are a lot of people who are only interested in the most expensive cards and basically give away the rest of the set for pennies.

i have pennies. i will take the cards of the majority of the MLB off yr hands.

because of that i have boxes of doubles that may not be worth a lot on ebay today but you learn a lot from these cards. and one thing i have learned is its more fun to share than to horde.

so even though going to the post office is a chore and my tape never works and i struggle with addresses and the machines. today i went and learned some things and my favorite guy at the post office remembered me.

earlier in the day i had asked my mailman if any mail guy had ever been on a stamp. that stumped him. but when i asked my post office guy he said, yes in the mid 80s there was a generic stamp representing ALL postal workers.

i said, sounds like you people are overdue for a stamp.

when i got home i saw it wasnt the mid 80s when those stamps came out, it was the early 70s.

talk about over due.

back to my mailman. when i asked him why mailmen never get recognized he said there werent really any famous ones.

i asked, “maybe you gotta save an old lady one day”?

he said, “we save people all the time.”

and then told me that the postman is the first to notice when people dont get their mail.

walked to the store tonight because my car is broke

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a couple things about my car. in april its paid off.

thats the good news.

the bad is it just went over 100k and it wont start.

the other good news is i have an excellent mechanic and when i called him he said

oh well you have two batteries. sounds like the little one is broke.

so tuesday we go get that fixed.

thus tonight amber and i walked to the store to get food.

you wouldnt think that two people who know they were gonna have to carry their food home would spend $75 when the mission was just to get some mexicokes and some ground turkey

but the salmon also looked good

as did the beyond burger meat

and the chocolate croissants

and the soup.

on the way there we ran past this homeless guy who i gave my winter coat to back when it was starting to get cold. and so we said hi as we went past and asked if he wanted anything from the store.

he said water.

afterwards he told amber he should have asked for baby wipes because he really wants a bath.

she talks to him all the time too, so they have their own relationship.

when we got home and she told me about the wipes i said,

there should be showers for the homeless.

why are we so weird about letting people take showers?

then it dawned on me. one of our neighbors JUST moved out.

and i have his key.

she said, he once told me he never wants to ever go inside an apartment

ever again.

i wonder what the story behind all of that is.

people say Tom Morello reminds them of me

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i wish.

all youve gotta do is listen to this guy for like 5 minutes and you’ll see he’s like no one in the world

is more to the Left than Bernie.

his mom is a communist.

his music in rage is Noise + punk rock + metal in a quasi rap band.

Bruce Springsteen has 4 guitar players on stage and yet asked Tom to go on tour with him.

i’d also like to know how many black dudes from Libertyville, IL graduated with honors from Harvard.

Me? I organize baseball cards on Sundays after watching church on YouTube.

but would i love to interview Tom Morello one day?

oh hell yes.

one thing from this interview id like to ask him about is

if his mom is half italian and half irish, why did she identify her family as

A Black family?

the dad means everything?

the way the child looks is the determinate feature?

tomorrow, i believe, i will have a Q&A up on Los Angeleno with an incredible woman and we talk about race for most of it.

i am cautious about calling people or things racist, but she’s not, and neither is Tom.

maybe i am being too politically correct?

or maybe i just have a much higher standard for what i deem to be racism.

and flat out racist, that, to me, means that they have acted in that manner for more than a short period of time, or in more than just short bursts.

I went to 80+ SF Giants games when i sold beers there in 1997. before that i went to a few games when i was there in the summer.

but am I a Giants fan? nope.

is it wrong to think that way when quickly rushing to judgement about who is a racist and who isn’t?

Circumstances should be considered. Situations.

fortunately i have the ability to look into people’s hearts to see what they’re really up to.

which is maybe why i should return to HR and Recruiting.

one field i have an incredibly good track record,

i believe is due to that super power.

 

arrest the cops who killed breonna taylor

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i interviewed someone who was so easy to talk with. sooooo easy.

in fact any time she was all, did you see this, did you see that?

i was all, yes. of course! and i had.

she is a shrink and the last question i asked was did she think everyone should be in therapy.

she said yes.

and i keep wondering what i would talk about in there because im good

but usually im thinking things like that when im procrastinating.

thats would i would want to work on with a shrink

how i could be more productive about work

so i could be lazier at rest.

it took me days and days to transcribe that interview.

it kills me to hear my questions and annoying laugh and weird voice

sentence by sentence over and over.

but when its over i feel so good.

its like being constipated for days, sometimes weeks, and then

ahhhhhh

imagine if i could just do it in hours, knock it out, and then spend the next two days

eyes closed, beautiful music playing from a different room

bathtub filling with mr bubble

all while trying to float into a

smoother plane.

im gonna try this next week.

im working. im always working. but i have a hobby.

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this pandemic has really got me into baseball cards in a big way.

not super expensive ones that id be sad if they got damaged or stolen or lost. but just cards in general.

after a long day of this and that it’s nice to just relax, alphabetize, sort, and organize.

putting order to things in a quiet way is calming.

and in turn to learn a little about baseball history is good for the soul.

oh Orel Hershiser spent some time with the SF Giants? Willie Randolph was a Brewer?

i buy these three ring binders from the Dollar General and get 9 pocket card protectors and at first i was organizing them one way, but now i have buying huge lots off ebay for pennies and im evolving into every team gets their own binder.

is it a time-suck? yes. but so is reading a book and i dont see any of you dissing that charming hobby.

last week i bought this Medium Sized USPS box of cards spanning the last two decades. the ebay listing just had a picture of the box. including shipping it is $20. 2,700 cards.

could it be a waste of money? odds are low.

heres how i justify it.

back when i lived in Westwood, on Sundays the truest would say lets go to Dolores’ for breakfast.

they had muffins the size of your head and the interior was vintage. too good to last. and alas it didnt.

you couldn’t get out of there for less than $20.

and yet these cards will be in my binders forever.

mitt romney’s dream come true.