although there are a handful of sparkling exceptions, typically the rule holds true that if you have a beautifully designed blog that’s (c) copyrighted, theres usually nothing at all to steal.

technoerotica.net is gorgeous, but perhaps should stick to speculating about james brown’s testicles, bitching about people who use cell phones while they drive, and providing handy links to coffee enemas, and leave serious issues like what the LA Times covers in their California Living section to me and my buddy welch.

insinuating that our gripes were largely narcissistic, technoerotica is conducting a cute little poll asking its readers if matt and i would have changed our tune if we had been mentioned in last week’s times feature on blogs.

truth is, as anyone who had bothered to read our posts would have surmised, we would have been happier if ANY los angeles blogger would have been mentioned, or interviewed, or photographed, or consulted.

apologists to the embarrassing article claim that the times approached academics purposely, arguing that there would have been greater benefit to interviewing the professors and former journalists than the actual bloggers who are actually living the trend.

may i respectfully type: poppycock.

in the wake of 9/11, real journalists were interviewing Taliban spokespeople. would the times instead choose to talk to a poli-sci prof at usc than a taliban prisoner, if, God forbid, one of osama’s buddies decided to do some more fucked up shit? maybe i shouldn’t ask such questions. im scared what their answer might be.

perhaps a better rhetorical question would be: do the times interview college softball coaches when they want to do a story about the dodgers?

technoerotica’s readers also make me scratch my head. ive gotten exactly three referals from yesterday’s post, yet over 100 people have voted in the poll. so either technoerotica is talking about old news that all of its readers have already researched and formed opinions, or its poll takers couldn’t care less about the long and detailed complaints that welch and i have.

finally, the poll should have been worded: “Would Pierce and Welch express a different view had any LA blogs been mentioned in Tawa’s article?” for as it is currently worded, i was inclined to press Yes along with the majority of voters, because the glaring fault with the story is they completely ignored all LA Bloggers, not just me and welch.

has this dead horse been beaten enough?

maybe i should create a poll.

instead of such nonsense, i posted a new photo essay instead, created by a special guest star.

welch hailed my car chase channel idea which is scary because that’s just the tip of the iceberg for that channel – i didn’t even get into the split screen, and drinking games for each time the perp breaks a law or bumps a car.

but the best idea i have for television is actually something that i hope Eric Neel or Welch have discussed in the last week or so (accept my apologies, i was buying jewels for my mom). but i want baseball to return to letting its division archrivals end the season by playing head-to-head games against each other.

by end, i mean schedule the Giants and Dodgers, Angels and A’s, Yankees and Red Sox, etc. to play the very last games of the season against themselves instead of this nonsense that’s going on right now.

not too long ago, i think right before Interleague began, you could always count on the Dodgers and the Giants playing against each other and one team playing spoiler against the other. Don’t you remember Joe Morgan hitting a homer for the Giants against the Dodgers to knock them out of playoff contention? That’s the stuff rivalries are all about. Think how wonderful these killer series’ that are going on right now would be if they were the last games of the year?

Don’t you remember the 78 Yankees and Red Sox and how they played against each other during the final run and it ended in a tie, and Bucky Dent hit a homer in Fenway? Isn’t that how it went?

Why would MLB want the Dodgers to end their season against the Padres? Sure they’re physically close, but there has never been a Dodger/Padre rivalry. The Giants/Dodgers thing has been going on since before Vin Scully– and that’s a long time, kids. Similarly, who thinks that the Mariners and Angels have any sort of rivalry?

College football always has the USC/UCLA, Oklahoma/Nebraska, Army/Navy matchup to conclude the regular season, and baseball had that too, until my old pal, Uncle Bill decided to tinker with the national pasttime again.

Best idea you’re going to read from this blog is the plea to the powers that be to bring back the final weeks of baseball to what they were: incredibly interesting.

In the meantime, feel free to use the comments section to tell me how smart i am and how much you’ve liked my blog the last few weeks.

on comedy central while eating my chinese leftovers at my desk for lunch when my boss’s boss, this super dooper hot black woman who looks like a young whitney crossed with a younger vanessa williams, tapped me on the shoulder.

sonny, come with me. she ordered.

trailed her as she made her way to the elevators. everyone knows her. looked like everyone had some business with her.

“we never got that approval from IT,” someone shouted at her.

“tell em to call Phil.” she’d yell back.

“the houston guy says that he doesnt want to do it for under a thousand,” some complete babe smiled at her.

“tell him it’s three hundred or we’ll get it from mexico.”

i loved this woman. and she did it in heels!

we got on the elevator, she put her key in, turned it and pressed a button that ive pressed before. B2. second basement. property room. otherwise known as the evidence room. at the xbi we dont really have “evidence,” we dont really go to court as xbi agents. we just have stuff that we’ve collected over the years that we use to get either more stuff or people or use as bribes or blackmail, extortion, etc.

ding. door opened. she smiled at the two guys who opened the door for her. that led down a little hall with a thick door and a tiny window. we could hear a phone ring in there. then the door opened. two more guys opened the door and had us each sign a sheet that hadnt been signed in two days. names id never seen before. when i handed back the pen, i was given a pair of rubber gloves and i snickered.

“one joke, sonny, and these two gentlemen will hold you as i pummel you,” she said. thats when they snickered.

i thought to myself, “you dont have to have them hold me down, baby.”

“i heard that,” she said. and tapped her esp earpiece.

creeped out, i started humming “hot in herrre.” by nelly, bitch.

stepped into one of the many evidence rooms. was instructed not to touch anything, a beanie with a propellor on the top cuaght my eye and i put it on as i followed her down the aisle.

she turned around and i prentended everything was fine.

“take that off immediately, agent.” she said.

“take what off?”

“thats a Lying Hat.” she warned.

“then it’s worthless cuz ive never told a lie in my life.” i said.

and the propellor started to spin and a tiny toy monkey appeared from within the propellor’s center, did a little jig, and just as quickly, retreated back into the cap.

“im here to ask you your advice on this new item,” she said. i kept the cap on. i wanted her to love me.

“this,” she said, “is 2-minute Acid.”

“LSD?”

“yes.” she said. “it works for two minutes and wears off.”

“i dont think theres any use for that.” i said.

my propellor spun and the monkey appeared and began breakdancing, finished with a headspin and sunk back into the cap.

“you’re going to wear out the batteries.” she said.

i took off the cap and she said, “no, no, no. leave it on. you look cute in it.”

so i left it on.

“Seasame Street” in South Africa has finally introduced the much-speculated muppet with HIV.

Kami is 5 years old, likes nature, telling stories and collecting stuff, and if things weren’t rough enough for her, SS South Africa has also found it important to make her an orphan.

“We are living in a society that is very stigmatizing and discriminatory,” said Musa Njoko, an AIDS activist, to the Miami Herald. The introduction of Kami “is going to create a culture of acceptance.”

and as cheesy as it sounds, if i had a little kid, i would give it a stuffed Kami. why not? i would hug Magic Johnson. hell, we should all be hugging Magic Johnson, that guy’s HIV just seemed to make him healthier. ive never seen a more healthy sick person in my life.

4.7 million South Africans – one in nine – are HIV-positive, more people than in any other country in the world.

more from the Miami Herald story:

At the unveiling, Kami, who has a mop of brown hair and wears a vest, wanders onto Sesame Street and wonders nervously if residents will want to play with her.

She needn’t have worried. The other Muppets enthusiastically welcome Kami.

Kami, whose name means acceptance in the Tswana language, will teach viewers about coping with illness and loss. The character will be introduced to South African audiences when the second season of “Takalani Sesame” begins Sept. 30.

let’s hope one in nine americans dont have to come down with HIV before we start to teach our children about safe sex and other ways to avoid contracting this serious disease.

Mellow Gold

Geffen Records

“Beercan”

Alcohol on my hands

I got plans

To ditch myself and get outside

Dancing women

Throwing plates

Decapitating their laughing dates

Swirling chickens caught in flight

Out of focus

Much too bright

Coming down

Shiny teeth

Game show suckers trying to breath

But I got a drug and I got the bug

And I got something better than love

How you like me now

Pretty good

Going on, feeling strong

I quit my job blowing leaves

Telephone bills up my sleeves

Choking like a one man dustbowl

Freedom rock slimeball

Talking in code

We went down

Lit up the shack

Grab me a beer out of the sack

Everybody bent over twice

Painting the walls throwing some dice

Leaping up into the air getting juiced up beyond belief

And they were singing like this

Winos throwing Frisbees at the sun

Put my soul between a bun

Now I’m hungry now I’m drunk

Now I’m running like a flaming pig

Oh yeah

Scraping off the attitude

Old man eating all my food

Don’t be kind

Don’t be rude

Just shake your boots and let it all get loose

Oh yeah

My goodness

Fluffy clouds

Jumping rainbows

Fluffy clouds

I’m sad

Jumping rainbows

Asoft and snuggly place

Fluffy clouds

I’m sad and unhappy

Winos throwing Frisbees at the sun

Put my soul between a bun

Now I’m horny now I’m drunk

Now I’m running like a flaming pig

Oh yeah, I like it like that

Oh that is cold

Somebody put a flame-thrower on that

Oh my goodness

Take me down to the depot

Buddy put me down on the bus

Oh yeah

I like it like that

Somebody bring me a plate of sassafrass

who counts these things. finally they sent me a thank you card and offered me a free pay-per-view if i filled out a survey online. it’s about time, i have total choice, the local channels, the football, baseball, and basketball package, and hbo. plus for a few years i had my own company that specialized in hooking up directv satelite dishes.

one pay-per-view movie? youre too kind.

but its cool. im addicted. i dont ask my heroin dealer for a few free grams. i dont ask my arms dealer for a free machine gun. i dont ask my senators to put free condoms in the shopping malls of california. i consume, i pay, im satisfied.

this weekend courtney love is, reportedly, going to spend 24 hours on MTV-2, one of my favorite channels. if i know MTV-2, they’ll let coutrney play anything she wants. just other day they had the Jay-Z unplugged concert on. i love that station. they had a Hives concert that was amazing. they let that fat tattooed punk rocker deliver the news, beautifully. it’s almost like they took everything good that MTV isnt doing and stuck it on the sister station.

there are some networks that i would like to see on my directv, if theres any billionaires out there looking to form a channel. i want a live car chase channel. in LA theres always car chases. they break into local programming and the cops always get their man, but its really entertaining.

i would want them to give us details about the neighborhoods that theyre speeding through, details about the car that theyre chasing. comedians could make jokes. the cross promotion and ad potentials are boundless. then when there arent any live chases, you could show us some classic ones. then when theres none of those, you could just feed in some survielence cam stuff. who doesnt like to people watch? thats all it is.

right now i would like to have a shot of venice beach. then in 5 minutes show me miami beach, then show me waikiki beach. then show me the mexican border. reality tv network. just make me vp in charge of programming and we’ll call it even.

i was late to work today because they were spreading a red carpet on hollywood blvd in front of Mann’s Chinese Theatre and all the busses freak out. youd think it would be simple enough to just cruise around the block, but no, they completely freak out and everyone was late.

i think today on reality carchase tv we could all watch the red carpet get laid out. i watch stupider stuff on tv.

Voodoo Lounge

Rolling Stones Records/Virgin

“Blinded by Rainbows”

(M. Jagger/K. Richards, 1994)

Did you ever feel the pain

That he felt upon the cross

Did you ever feel the knife

Tearing flesh that’s oh so soft

Did you ever touch the night

Did you ever count the cost

Do you hide away the fear

Put down paradise as lost

Yeah you’re blinded by rainbows

Watching the wind blow

Blinded by rainbows

Do you dream at night

Do you sleep at night

I doubt it

Did you ever feel the blast

As the semtex bomb goes off

Do you ever hear the screams

As the limbs are all torn off

Did you ever kiss the child

Who just saw his father shot

Do you ever shed a tear

As the war drags on and on

Do you ever touch the night

Or is it just another job

Do you feel the final hours

Put down paradise as lost

Yeah you’re blinded by rainbows

And faces in windows

Blinded by rainbows

Do you dream at night

Do you sleep at night

I doubt it

Do you ever fear the night

Could it be the war is lost

Do you fear the final hour

Do you kneel before the cross

You’re blinded by rainbows

And watching the wind blow

Blinded by rainbows

Do you dream at night

Do you scream at night

Do you smell of fear

Is your conscience clear

Are you caked in sweat

Are your clothes all wet

Do you see the light

Is the end in sight

See the face of Christ

Enter paradise

I doubt it

by tony pierce

the reverse cowgirl was at the la press club drinkfest and wanted to ask me why i felt shunned that the LA Times didnt interview any LA bloggers for their California Living section feature on blogging. she says that she was afraid that if we didnt get along i wouldnta asked her to have lattes with us later. somehow i thought 6’2″ supervixens, who wrote very sexy things for a variety of publications wouldnt be intimidated by lil ole me and my friendly come-hither ‘fro. i guess we were both wrong.

a peppy blog called “day old bread store,” linked to me about something i wrote a few days ago. appropo.

fat nathan loved the fact that i linked him in a primo part of my blog. he said it was like the feeling he got hitting his first homer in little league. skinny guys like me never had that feeling, but im glad he was happy. im pretty big with fat guy readers, im starting to see.

a los angeles gay guy agreed with me about the l.a. times sucking. he has a cat called Big Puss and Little Puss which reminds me of Karisa’s Bad Kitty and Good Kitty. Good Kitty, she tells me, is acting mighty gay, humping his brother and all. i told her, maybe he’ s just pussy-whipped. and i laughed and laughed. but she didnt laugh. ashley tells me my jokes suck. i caught her covering her ears the other night.

laughing boy straight outta massachusettes, predicts that i will be dating Apple spokesperson ellen feiss by thanksgiving. although it’s true that i do have an attraction to the pasty, stoney, blue eyed dreamy types, meesh and moxie can tell you that due to my terrible ego, i get very competitive to hot babes who not only have better websites than i, but who also have own fan sites! fall from grace a little, ellen and then maybe i’ll change my mind. with that said, i am quite popular among the massholes. gratefully.

this superhot 23 yr old from austin has me in her links section and i have no idea why.

these superhot goth twins from san antonio still hate me, but keep my writings in their archives, and i really cant understand why either of those things are true. maybe texans are loco. hopefully sara will conclude something along those lines after she has settled down a spell.

her nickname is fat sarah but you can tell by her photo essay that she doesnt live up to her name. but sarah says hi to me vurtually, over at the dub side. right back at you, spartan girl. told you i do well with fat folks.

xfoo thinks im amazing. what i think is amazing are those blue periods.

and finally i learned that im this guy’s number one referal. even when he’s not putting up pictures of hot babes next to his posts, he still whips my ass. and i love how he has a real-time referall log that seems to publish (also in real-time) right to his page. magic!

p.s. anyone who wants to pick me up at my house tonight after work and drive me across the street from zancau chicken to pick up my laundry should email me. cuz then i’ll be their best friend.

for most of my life i remember Bob Greene as the nostalgiac-infested milquetoasty columnist for the Trib, and not surprisingly i never liked him as a writer.

until saturday.

saturday squeaky-clean bob green, so much a goody-two-shoes that he makes the narrator of The Wonder Years sound like Marilyn Manson, handed in his resignation to the Tribune after an anonymous email (that did not mention Greene’s name) led management to believe that the columnist had an “inappropriate” sexual relationship with a teen girl of legal consentable age several years ago.

bob greene, who makes bob costas look like ozzy osbourne, allegedly met the girl while doing a story, took her out to dinner, and engaged in sex, the Trib reports today. everything was cool until the woman tried to reach greene twice this year, according to the Trib, who in retaliation sicked the FBI on her!

that prompted the email, most would suggest, which prompted the investigation by Trib Corp’s HR dept. and the Trib’s managing editor, and very quickly Greene’s resignation.

but my question is, what are they not telling us?

since when is a columnist having sex with a barely legal girl reason enough to step down from a artistically mediocre but wildly successful syndicated career that included reporting for “Nightline,” “Oprah,” and AP? didnt our last President have sex with a young woman of legal age and got to still be President? is writing for the Tempo section of the Trib a more honorable and refined profession applicable only to the highest echelon of chicago society– or at least those without sin?

Greene was, ironically, hailed for several columns and a series that he wrote for the Trib denouncing child abuse which made him a great guest for Oprah whenever she wanted to talk about tortured and exploited children or child abuse. With a gigantic career based upon an aw-shucks tone of blue collar tales of midwestern values, couldn’t one little fling many years ago get absolved after a teary apology and a heartfelt acceptance by his huge, loyal, forgiving following?

or was it more than just a little fling?

i smell something curious in chicago.

so we head over to the Tribune’s arch-rivals, the Murdoch-owned Sun-Times, who today reports that Greene’s 1984 book “Good Morning, Merry Sunshine,” about his daughter’s first year was released to the surprise of many of his colleagues who, the Sun-Times claims, didn’t know he was married or a father. say what?

equally mysterious comes from the NYT which writes, “The dismissal of a journalist for personal conduct, as opposed to professional lapses, is uncommon,” and they include a snippet from the Tribune spokesperson, who suddenly doesn’t want to speak.

“Gary Weitman, a spokesman for the Tribune Company, which publishes the newspaper, said yesterday: ‘We’re not going to say anything more than what the statement is. He is no longer an employee,'” reports the paper of record.

some spokesman.

my favorite quote from this midwestern meltdown comes from my favorite shock jock, steve dahl, who paved the way for howard stern so smoothly that dahl is the only active dj who stern doesn’t diss.

from the Sun-Time: “Popular radio host Steve Dahl, who, with Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg, made comic fodder of Greene’s often-sentimental columns in a weekly ‘Bob Greene Watch’ segment on WCKG-FM (105.9), said he was surprised by Sunday’s announcement.

” ‘I always thought he’d get fired just for being a bad columnist,’ Dahl said.”

Exactly. But now Greene is suddenly interesting. His resignation has left those at Romenesko’s letters section scratching their heads and me wondering why Murdoch hasn’t scooped up this good-boy gone bad.

The main reason i disliked Greene was because he always seemed so sticky sweet and fake writing about the wonderfulness of this checker game in the park, with this story about a woman who has made americana bunting for 35 years. Greene is a guy who went on the road with Alice Cooper in ’75, why would he bore us with middle of the road snooze fodder despite walking the same halls with the dean of chicago columnists Mike Royko? hadnt he learned anything?

well now i want Greene to come clean. i want him to show the world that he is a writer. writers cover both sides of the human experience, good and bad, and columnists are given the wonderful benefit of including their own personalities into their narrative. warts and all. Finally Opie has a wart, a huge one, apparently, and i want to see it.

Squeeze that mother and tell us all about it, bob greene, just like your forefathers would have done, just like you probably are dying to do, just like everyone wants you to.

finally you have found something worthwhile to write about.

you think a middle aged man getting all worked up over a 18 or 19 year old girl isnt something that happens from time to time in the midwest? you dont think that the guilt that must have followed this veteran writer wasnt unbelievable? you dont think theres any modern day drama that includes phone calls and emails from the young woman which culminates in the FBI and an anonymous email to the tribune’s website tip line?

bob, if you dont write this down and submit it right now, then you really dont know much about what is newsworthy or interesting, or timely and my man steve dahl is right, you probably should have been fired a long time ago.

i know it might be embarrassing. but that never stopped you from writing all those bad columns and appearing on oprah.

{update: Instapundit, who is always on top of these things, has a link to Boomer-bashing column about this matter. Scalzi also agrees with me that Greene talents were minimal, and adds that the writer “telegraphed” his daliance in a novel he wrote about several men leaving their families to hit the road and find themselves… and hot babes.

i say that will earn you another night’s stay at the casa del vista.

the daisy princess brought both the bears and the raiders good luck this weekend and i told her that her reward would be a milk shake at johnny rockets on melrose and a sweet blog entry all about her.

ashley is a superhero of her own. all the cool kids love her. as you might know, we have a pretty special relationship. i let her date other dudes and i only get sorta jealous, she lets me date and when she gets in my house she goes straight to the caller ID and says “who’s this? who’s this! OMG get enough calls from this girl?” i think it’s funny.

on saturday me and jeanine went down to the historic jewelry district of downtown LA and we picked up some jewels to make my mom a necklace for her 60th birthday, which is coming up. as a beverly hills jeweler, jeanine travels downtown once a week and knows her way through the maze of bizarre bazaars. everyone has codes on their merchandise. when we found something and asked the lady how much, she looked at the three letter code and came up with a number. it was fascinating.

i think we got a pretty decent deal, and great quality and then jeanine made it that night. and on the side she made ashley a necklace which we surprised her with on sunday afternoon. unfortunately my camera is still in the shop, but i will be happy to post a picture or two later this week when ashley uploads pics from her cam.

sunday morning we had breakfast and watched the bears eek out a win over the falcons. then we picked up her necklace and zoomed over to drew barrymore’s favorite burrito place and made it back to my house to watch the new anna nicole episode (have i mentioned that i think her lawyer, howard k. stern is a massive dweeb? almost ruins the whole show.) and then we watched the incredible Sopranos season premiere. then we watched the chris rock “bigger and blacker” show from ’99 which ashley had never seen somehow and she loved.

we adjourned to the boudoir as we both had to wake up early this morn. ashley is a perfect angel at dawn. such a natural beauty. she chirps good morning. she sings little melodies. she clears the tables of wine bottles and taco shells before i can even get out of the shower. its sorta like dreaming. she pulls a brush through her hair and the glitter is activated. we drove to my office this morning and first i wanted to fill her tank with some gas and i swear to you, this hooker is in the mini market at the gas station, and she says, “honey, would you mind driving me down just a few blocks?” and i said that i wouldn’t mind, but the girl who checks my caller ID might.

she laughed. the armenian behind the cash register laughed. the two mexican girls purchasing frappuchinos in their plaid skirts laughed.

then the armenian said that my pay pal credit card was denied. then everyone laughed again. except for the hooker.

and me.

the armenian said, “for you, tony pierce, i give you $12 gas on the house because you make me laugh so much.” the girls gave me one of their frappuchinos and the hooker showed me her g string.

aren’t you happy nothing in here is true?