Hi, Tony.

Wow. I have read your blog on and off since 2004, when I taught in Taiwan. Now I teach in Brooklyn & would like to use my blog to start a dialogue with other people about topics of importance to me. In order to do that I need more people to visit my blog. Will you link to my blog please? You will see I linked to you.
Thank you for writing every day. A simple thing, and yet truly inspiring.

Fondly, KB

Bonjour KB. it is my pleasure to write every day. and i literally mean that. i think its vital for people to get their creative juices going every day. and i just dont mean “creative” people. i mean all people, because everyone is creative.

sometimes creativity merely involves trying to figure out the way to describe the sickening sound of a car crash next to an elementary school. or the horror and then joy in finding that the cheeseburger you just made fell to the ground – but landed on the bun-side.

sometimes being creative is just explaining how when youre running at night you see varmints like baby possums who are even uglier than their parents. theyre whiter and grayer and even less afraid. other night i saw a baby possum cross Fountain Avenue toward my path.

me i have a wallet chain jangling, i have keys in my back pocket, im huffing and puffing like an olde man. things usually stop when they hear me and go the other way. dumb baby possum just skittered across the street Toward me, hid under a car and then jumped right in front of me like it drank some bad motor oil and needed an old slurpee to cleanse its disgusting mouth.

yes i think people should write every day. if only for 15 minutes. if only for 10 minutes. just tell us a tiny slice of what you saw or thought or felt. and your world and ours will be a better place.

beautiful Hollywood aside: when asked if she had any tips for aspiring starlets in hollywood, bette davis had the greatest line = “take Fountain“.

the magic touch of dylan callaghan

we tease cuz we love. but it sure looks like anything that dylan blows off turns to gold

first his xgirlfriends band Rocket got on tv, then got great, and now is doing some modeling

now his xguitarists band Mere Mortals just got picked up to open for Frank Black’s latest tour

mr welch says it a little nicer, as always, but maybe i should be dylans butler for a little while so when after he fires me i can get the nobel peace prize

anyway, feel like youve seen axel before? well he was at ken layne’s wedding a while back, last year the mortals opened for west indian girl at spaceland. he once told me that country music makes him laugh.

classic.

happy birthday the busblog, you are now Eight years old

the year was 2001. it was the fall. it was pre 9/11.

i was lonely.

i was broke.

i had a terrible job.

and i rode the bus.

i had been doing full screen web stories – a type of blogging if you ask me. but i wasnt able to do such things while on my 15 minute breaks at work.

it was then that i read an article about Blogger.com and about one of its founders Ev Williams who said how easy it was to start a blogger blog. so i whipped one up.

the next month i had over 1 million visitors who had come to my site because of my Afghanistan photo essay which spilled into the blog.

and after that the people never stopped coming.

the busblog has gone through a few different servers, it has dealt with my carpal tunnel, it has been updated around the world, and it has reached the homes of good people in pretty much every continent around the world.

my life would be seriously different if the busblog hadnt entered my life. i should probably capitalize that: Seriously.

maybe all caps.

anyways, happy birthday lil blog that could, and did.

world’s biggest cave found in vietnam

Steven Allen Adams: A lot of great bloggers have come and gone. Which blogger do you wish would start blogging again?

there are actually a few who have stopped who i miss. the two on the top of my mind are flagrant and the pants. not only was flagrants style and story totally unique and fascinating but it was so well done it could have been a novel. maybe it will be one day.

likewise the pants was also lyrical and tragic and sad but always funny and in a way hopeful. if she wrote every day, i wouldnt be surprised if she sold many books. whenever she wanted. movie deals too. if yoou havent noticed, hollywoods dying for original stories. hell they’ll even take not so original stories but told in original ways.

also, once the oakparkmastermind got married her deal was done too. i miss her blog as well.

Gage: Form or function? Is there anything to be learned from the Grateful Dead? If money can’t buy love, what can?

function. yes, so much. that community is valuable. that you can be a rock star and do it entirely your way. that theres something unique about live music and a group spirit on the stage in the crowd and even in the parking lot. an incredible baseball card collection.

Ashley: Are you bummed that you missed No Doubt’s tour?

no because i dont think i could go without thinking of you the whole time. which probably would be just as odd as going with you nowadays. plus gwen has clearly sold herself to the devil the way she got back her abs, and ive sworn off devil music until the fall.

Mike: Do you think this is FINALLY the year the Yankees make it back to the promised land? And what would you pay/amputate to see a Yanks/Cubs WS???

when you play in the bronx, anywhere could be considered the promised land, i suppose, but sadly they only moved to the old parking lot. there are very few things i hate worse than the yankees. which is why id rob a bank t go to a cubs yanks world series.

Chris Carnaghi: Have you every heard of your blogging equivalant in the world of finance Barry Ritholtz? If you have not, do check him out and his style. He is blatently honest about Wall St. the Fed Reserve, CEO salaries and Yankee Baseball. Also it seems the Cubs need what the Dodgers need. Middle relief. and Jimmy goes “Business man drink my wine”

the insiders know that the finest financial blogger online right now is tom petruno on the money & co. blog. latimes.com/money. the cubs need short middle and long relief. theyre probably the worst best team in baseball. injuries, f-ups, idiotic slumps by the highest salaried players, and still theyre a game outta first and in the midst of a wild card, if need be. it just tells me that this is the year.

g/d: +-=

*

Ali M: Do you think we’re gonna see commercial space flight in our lifetime? Watching that clip of Top Gear’s James May aboard that U2 spy plane combined with playing Mass Effect, I’m wondering if space exploration is a naturally occurring human obsession, much like a manifest destiny.

delving deep into the mysterious darkness of the unknown, some would say, is the main reason we’re given this dull dough in the first place

xTx: Dearest tony- Could you please write me a story for Elephant Summer? Thanks in advance. p.s. This question was totally my idea, and my idea alone.

id be happy to. your series is wonderful and vulgar and nsfw and creative and unlike most of whats happening in the blogosphere so of course id like to do it but because im under contract with busblog llc i will have to do it under a psuedonom like Heywood Jablome or something clever. but yes. this week. if not sooner.

timmay!!!!!: is john smoltz done?

the minute you start accepting checks from the american league youve begun yr decline. its barry bonds’ sole saving grace.

Vinny: Why does she only want me for my body and not my everything else?

hey man, she can talk with her friends.

Juliette: I saw Julie & Julia and now I want to do something for a year on a blog. But that’s lame, right?

anything that inspires people to blog more, or more generally to express themselves more, is the furthest thing from lame. whats lame is holding things in. whats lame is experiencing super cool things all the time and not sharing them with your brothers and sisters. we’re all reporters in a way. we’re all leaving the ant hill and coming back with a tale on return. and some sugar.

adriel: i asked it on facebook now i’m aksin it here. why do i attract shady people? i’m not shady.

first lets assume the most basic thing: women are usually smarter then men. overall. at the end of the day. in the grand scheme of things. after all the precincts are tallied.

yet most marriages fail.

the only conclusion is that women are saying yes to the wrong men.

its funny because men are the one with nothing up their sleeves. its the women with the makeup and hairdos and fancy clothes and high heels. the man you end up knowing is usually the man you met very early on. therefore women are to blame for thinking something positive could be done with the so called “shady” or “lazy” or “dull” man they find themselves in front of.

write down exactly everything that you want in a fellow and look at it every day. add and subtract from the details as you go along but stick to the plan. put things on the list you dont want too. under the “dont want” section. but take charge.

zona: do these new Polo factory outlet chinos make my butt look big?

omg so much.

4rilla: Amy Adams as Julie Powell… Who as Tony Pierce?

jodie foster.

Matt Welch: Which John Hughes movie should we still care about, and why?

planes trains and automobiles showed that hughes wasnt a one trick pony. that he could write something more than just sappy teen dramedys. he could make a sappy adult dramedy and give some real depth to an otherwise overlooked comedian like john candy. punch drunk love is the planes trains and automobiles that adam sandler wanted but didnt get from pt.

sweaty hermit: congratulations. who (besides chuck b!) of literary history fame do you wish had been a rabid avid (sorry, just liked the way that sounds, say it a few times… mmmm) blogger whose blog was somehow still with us (ignoring all that technology history timeline shit) so we could drool over it on a regular basis? or, less complicatedly, who do you wish blogged at least daily from the great beyond aka the grave aka heaven to you, mr. tony? and congratulations again this time with an exclamation mark!

when hank aaron was a boy he had no aspirations of being a major league baseball player, and especially not the man who would smash babe ruths major league home run record. even as he began playing baseball professionally in the negro leagues he never dreamed of playing in the majors, he was just happy to get paid to play.

but there he was in the middle of the 1950s playing for the Milwaukee Braves. he was skinny, he was black, and he was about to break a lot of racists’ hearts.

i think it would have been pretty amazing if blogging had been around during that part of life so we could read someone like Hanks insights as well as Chuck Berry and James Brown.

monkey: a) once a player always a player? b) favorite female character in a john hughes film?

a) it depends on why the player became a player. lets pretend for a minute youre talking about a man – if he became a player because suddenly he saw that women were saying yes to him, and if he never got over that, then he’ll always be a player. but if he became one because he was merely investigating his options, then all should be well.

b) cousin vicki, had such a dirty look in her eye, she had a shoebox full of weed, and her daddy told her she was the best french kisser. how do you top that? in fact her family gave us all very important context to prevent us from seeing the griswolds as anything other than average and middle class, because cousin vicki’s fam was definitely not.

molly ringwald was cute. but who didnt have molly ringwalds all around them? i wanted a cousin vicki to hang out with. a wish that sorta came true as vicki was played by 30 Rock’s jane krakowski

John Wayne Maioriello: w00t! My Puffy Ami Yumi Pic! describe your fondest highschool memory, and your most loathed.

for some reason we had the states best marching band. the reason was because of our band director mr snoeck who was the first genius i ever met, but the odds of us attracting such a person is odd because there was nothing very unique about our part of the northwest suburbs for the exception of the golf courses at the medinah country club which shared roselle road with us.

i had been on all of these sports teams in high school (baseball, basketball) but i was terrible. so i wanted to do something fun that i might actually be good at. so being part of the states best drumline in the states best marching band was my first taste of giving 100% at something and seeing that reward.

and probably the worst moment in high school was when one day in art class this cute girl started playing footsies with me. such a thing had never even been fantasized about. but there it was. after school i kissed her right before her school bus took her away. the next day there she was playing footsies in art class with me again. but when i looked at jeff wright next to me, he was smiling too. she was using her other foot on him.

these fridays race towards us like theyre answering a beckoning call

and since its friday, please join in on the best part of the busblog, your questions

then watch them get answered and watch yr dreams come true.

heck its working for me. last month at work we had five blogs that went over 1 million pageviews.

when i started we had zero blogs over a million and now look at us. not saying i had anything to do with it, but i sure had a nice seat to watch it happen.

long time ago the goal at LAist was a half million. then the goal was 1 million. when i left we had quadrupled the times’ best blog. so yes 1 million a month has always been a milestone.

in fact when i started i promised lindsay my office mate, that i would wear dress pants every day at work until we had two blogs over 1 million. i think with 5 blogs over the top i should be allowed to wear shorts now.

photo by John Wayne Maioriello

is a group of people from LA “Los Angelenos” or just “Angelenos”?

yes there are more urgent issues in our times, but this one is important to a few. and since i sit right next to the Copy desk, i find it interesting. as did Jamie our Readers Rep who wrote a post about a reader who wrote in to complain that we are calling our citizens here “Los Angelenos” in a particular new story’s headline.

By the time Henry Fuhrmann saw that e-mail forwarded from the letters department, he’d already fielded some internal complaints along the same lines. Fuhrmann is the assistant managing editor who oversees the copy editors, those responsible for writing the headlines.

To answer several people’s questions: Yes, the editor who wrote the headline is from Los Angeles, not another town, say, Chicago.

(For what it’s worth, the discussion isn’t new, and there isn’t necessarily consensus. Back in 1985, another beloved institution, Jack Smith, wrote in his column, “I am an Angeleno. You are an Angeleno. We are Angelenos, not Los Angelenos.” That was in response to a reader indignant that a headline said “Angelenos,” rather than “Los Angelenos.”)

As for reader Rutenberg’s complaint, Fuhrmann said in an e-mail: “I also found the use of ‘Los Angeleno’ odd, as did a few newsroom colleagues and friends outside The Times. In fairness to our headline writer, I will note that our dictionary lists ‘Los Angeleno’ as an acceptable term. A search of our clips shows that 225 other stories have used the term or its plural since 1985, so in that regard our writer — a native Venturan, for the record — was not alone. Nevertheless, ‘Angeleno’ wins out over “Los Angeleno” by a ratio of 35 to 1 in past stories, and I’m all for the wisdom of the crowd prevailing here. I will caution our copy desk to avoid ‘Los Angeleno’ except in direct quotations, the names of works of art or other contexts in which we typically do not change someone else’s wording.”

Henry rules, and his rules always make sense.

why twitter matters

one thing that makes me giddy about the future are the books that will be written by veteran journalists who were lucky enough to go from typewriters to computers to the web.

look at this insane collection of tweets by LA Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke.

regardless of whether you love or hate his columns, look at him tell the story of the climatic ending of tonights dodger game.

twitter makes you get to the point. twitter brings out the poet in you.

and unlike blogging, twitter makes you think about every. single. word.

pro journalists are the best writers in town. which has always bewildered me as to why so many of them have been so late to blogging and tweeting.

they should roam those enviorns like Godzillas stomping through Tokyos.

today i was busy doing something so important ive forgotten what it was and i had something lame on tv, definately not the dodgers.

but for some reason i stumbled across Plaschkes twitter page.

and for some other reason i kept refreshing it.

and just like some poor sap stuck working the night shift, i followed the game through his tweets, and it was so nice.

“sorry folks, the park’s closed.

the moose out front should have told ya.”

because of my perfect age, the last date i had in high school was at the movies to see “Sixteen Candles”. i was 17.

then when i got to LA i had one of my first dates at the movies and we went to see The Breakfast Club. later id see Ferris Bueller and it made me a little less homesick for my sweet home of (suburban) Chicago.

back in those days there werent a lot of films made in or about the midwest and for that reason alone all mid westerners adore john hughes and mourn his early and sudden death. but i can understand why his popularity was world-wide.

bro knew how to write about teens without condescension, he understood how to portray the days styles without being too trendy (conveniently ignoring Ducky at this point), and clearly had an ear for new wave music that would stand the test of time.

working in a newsroom is a weird and wonderful experience. but it gets real sad when you learn that someone so tied to your youth has gone. it was definitely not the email i wanted to read. but when my boss asked me to write up a post for the Comments Blog, i obeyed, gladly, especially when she asked me to include a bit of a personal note in there.

i have a terrible problem

it’s a problem with time. and it’s pretty much the only thing i dont like about whatever small percentage of Scorpio is in my system.

but for some reason i am late to the things i most want to be at.

sometimes super late, like an hour or more.

sometimes im so late i wont even go.

other day all these hot babes, fresh outta college, were having a hot babe party at their huge house they share in the hollywood hills. booze, music, freewheelin like bob dylan. i had attended one of their bashes before and loved it, and all night i prepared and loved preparing for it: i showered, shaved, figured out what to wear.

the whole time i was sipping on my favorite flavor of bartles and james and listening to all my latest jams.

10pm said the invite. 10pm i wasnt even close. 11, midnight. nothing. nearing 1am i started to get sleepy and decided not to go! WTF!

then the other day i had tickets to a rock show. my truest and i were to attend. very excited about both things. and still – late as f.

when i worked at E! we had a rule about “talent”. never tell them the correct call time. and whenever in doubt, dont tell them anything, tell their handlers. to that point, any time one of us did something dumb or spacey we’d call each other Talent.

if you saw my car, youd know im so far from being talent. although at this point in my life i could definately use a handler. but i digress.

other night i had a lovely dinner planned with a beautiful woman of exquisite taste. we had planned an eve out in venice at a restaurant that’s open till midnight. even though i had been thinking about the dinner all night, when i got home i worked on my fantasy baseball, i answered some lust letters, i even changed the sheets of my bed. then i thought to myself that it was too nice not to take in a few miles jog. so i went running. then i saw the gate to the track at the new high school was ajar.

so i went in. i always wanted to run there and for some reason it was open and filled with people using the field. it was beautiful, and proof that i should run at a more decent hour, instead of after midnight like clapton like i usually do.

i ran once around the track but wanted to run twice around there cuz i was feeling so good so strong and the anticipation of hanging with this lovely person fueled me that much more.

when i got off the track i texted her a new time. she called when i had just gotten home and was about to jump in the shower. she was all you suck busblog. and canceled.

i wanted to be mad at her, but how could i, it was my fault. completely. and part of a self destructive pattern. one i had full control of.

a long time ago i learned that being late for things is the most selfish thing one could do. and we all have perfect control over it.

then the irony of ironies, with my sudden free time, i clicked on Real World and the punk rock dude got kicked off the show, thrown out of Cancun, because of excessive tardiness for his “job” there at the resort.

unlike the pierced drummer, my issue is i really love the pre-. i dont mind the actual event, indeed, usually what actually happens is as good, if not better, than i expect. i just get super caught up in the anticipation. its almost as if getting in the car and making it on time *ends* something, which is crazy because it actually is the beginning of the thing i am excited about.

trust me, when i die, i wont be missed.