to help them make the games “more hip,” to attract the 18-34 demo, I put a list of musical groups on a sheet of paper that I said should be rocking out during the final ceremonies.

first performer i nominated was Prince. i said, he has international appeal, he’s funky, and the chances are good that he’d write an original tune for his slot that would be both parts thought-provoking and a wee bit…how you say…sex-saaaay.

since they’re a committee, they debated this suggestion and settled on Earth Wind and Fire.

next i said you need an American rock star, preferably one from the New York/New Jersey area who could sing an uplifting song about the everyday hero. I didnt write down the rock star’s name, so as to let the committee believe that it was thinking it up themselves, but i should have because instead of Bruce Springsteen singing “Born to Run,” the group chose Bon Jovi singing something, I’m not sure, I was pointing, my dog was barking, and the children were crying and screaming.

Way down the list I wrote in Christina Aguilera, KISS, and Donny and Marie, as a joke, and it’s nice that someone up there likes me because watching Kiss on the world stage, all fat and hairy on a platform that magically made its way around that icy infield is an Olympic moment that I’ll never ever ever forget.

Here are some other things that I told the Olympic committee when they called me last night to ask me what I thought of the 16 days:

I said, if the next games are being held in Italy, tell Bob Costas they’re going on in Iceland. That guy is the only person that I know that gives milquetoast a bad name.

Easy on the 12 minute soft-focus features on the US Olympic skiiers who live in a barn to save money and are supersweet only to be immediately followed with 2 minutes of taped coverage of them wiping out on their Big Olympic Day, losing, and being disqualified from the event. Let the fact that most of these events are taped-delayed to your advantage, geniuses.

Quit inviting the Russians to these things.

And finally, if Fox chooses to have another “Glutton Bowl” up against your women’s skating finals: show more skating than skiing that night. The goal is to distract people away from changing the channels, dont reward them for channel surfing.

If I ran the Olympics, I would also spotlight people who chipped in to my Snoop DeVille fund. I would have Dorothy Hamill say things like, “Thanks JC and TG for your bucks! You two are now honarary Soul Brothers, feel free to display your buttons and enjoy all the praise and honor attached to your new acheivement.” And then doves would be released and Prince would do a little jig.

after work on friday and they had lots of questions for me.

turns out they read this page, but not my main page and they kept asking things and i kept having to say nothing in here is true and theyd laugh and then say, “bullshit, tony. thats so bullshit.”

i am the luckiest man alive. im starting to learn that now. and i wanna use that for good, not for selfish things. but im starting to feel old. chris and i were trying to go to the home town buffet in burbank but the line was nearly around the building at 5pm on Saturday and i wanted to use my superpowers there to cut into line. i took some pictures of the people and then one of my self and i looked at the pictures and i saw that there was a gray hair coming in over my ear. this wasnt the first time i found one.

theres so much i wish could tell you, but more hot chicks than the happy hour girls read this thing and no one is satisfied by how theyre portrayed here, including myself. in no way is ashley as ridiculous as she might come across. and theres no way i could be an agent for an underground undercover vigilante group of misfits and castoffs who fight crime and pocket the contraband. in all actuality ashley is a full-scholarshipped med student at Irvine and im a left handed korean pitching phenom for the cubs with such a devistating screwball that it appears in some photographs that i am actually throwing underhanded.

underhanded, indeed.

im tongue tied and heart-tied and clumsy and pathetic about certain things that these lies disguised as fiction couldnt fool a child, which is why i have gravitated so easilly to the screwball, the most unnatural and deadly of all of baseball’s pitches.

and here it is the month of pisces and its a nutty month where one unemployed fortune teller told me on a grayhound many years ago is the month where the lord and the devil fight their biggest battles over souls and situations. this is their month long superbowl and you can try to baton the hatches or take a vacation, but theres nowhere to run thats touched by the sun, theres no place to look but away.

the curveball works because if a right handed pitcher throws it to a right handed batter, it looks like it’s going to hit you in the head and then it slides over the plate. but its slow in comparison to the fastball, and it spins and the batter can see it spinning and can adjust.

the screwball curves the otherway: in on a righty, and works like a lefthanded curveball to a lefty.

trust me, but this is invaluaeble to a pitcher with a mediocre fastball like most. critics call this a junkball, but for those who master it, it’s everything.

it will, however, ruin your elbow. most screwball pitchers dont last even half the time as regular pitchers, and regular pitchers last on average only 4-5 years.

how many gray haired pitchers do you remember?

after they let the Blacks, and the Mexicians, and the Japanese and now, the Koreans, like me, do our thing.

today is sunday, the day of rest, set aside to remain holy and here i am talking about baseball.

but only cuz i want to talk about you.

and cant.

and never do convincingly, anyway.

just because im very happy and skipping down the street on a friday morning, early for work, eating muffins, doesnt mean that i got it on with my ex- last night, thank you!

not everyone needs that sort of action to feel like a million, perverts. loveable perverts. best perverts in the world.

chris and i are the best of friends, and im slowly getting the hint that she and i will never be together again, and that sort of realization isnt all so bad as long as we can continue to be the best of buddies. last night i got to her house before she did, and i hafta tell you, it’s pretty nice to be able to really make yourself feel at home when someone tells you to feel at home.

it was hot last night, even at the beach, so the first thing i did was take off my pants.

then i searched around her pajama drawer for some bottoms.

couldnt find any so i went into the bathroom, read half of a Jane magazine and stunk up that room pretty well.

then went to the fridge, nude, and cracked open a beer.

then turned on the tv and finally the stereo.

when she arrived i had found a clean shirt but no bottoms, all the lights of her house were on and was sitting on her new thousand dollar couch with a beer and a magazine about to light up, the tv had the laker/clipper game and the stereo had on this Chicago band called Menthol – who i love.

be careful who you invite to “make yourself at home.”

so why else am i happy? well, yesterday sara quoted me and kitty linked me, thats always great. but im disappointed that Genevieve’s Nerve personals dont allow HTML in their descriptions, as reported by KB. I’m sure theres a good reason for it.

why else smile? Large American Penis— obviously a nod to the Rabbit Blog’s url (www.tinylittlepenis.com) – wrote this on the 19th: Tony Pierce writes a bizarre, yet interesting blog. How he finds time to do all the HTML and find all the pictures is beyond me. Help him buy a car! He’s my newest link on the left.

Dear LAP,

As Sara quoted yesterday, in my humble opinion, if you have a great site thats updated all the time, you probably have a boring life. If your Blog is great, you probably have a dull job.

I try to break my own rule by having a sorta interesting life by HTMLing as fast as I can late at night – when I’m home.

The blog is done during my federally mandated 15 minute work breaks.

Thanks for the links,

Tony

Finally, some people have asked for the unedited transcript between myself and the 21-year-old Texan beauty, Jai. As you know, nothing in here is true, and the true parts are edited for entertainment and style. So even in a chat interview, I cleaned some stuff up and chopped out some chunks for presentation since the dialogue lasted a whopping 2 1/2 hours! Lucky for us, Jai posted the entire transcript and you can enjoy it yourself if you click this for part one and this for part two (we got disconnected).

Lunchtime!

about damn time, February nearly came and went.

got buzzed with a hot chick last night and didnt get to sleep until 3am. the beer was so good that i woke up at 7 and felt like teenager.

made my lunch, burned some cd’s for Axel, and got to the subway a little early.

a young guy reading the paper pressed the elevator button, as we waited an older guy with a toupee showed up. when the elevator arrived both the men rushed to the back so as not to be responsible for the complex controls and the uncomfortable chance to have to close the door on a tardy old lady.

i happilly accepted the assignment and firmly pressed the Down button.

made it to the train, rode it to the transfer station, walked down to the other platform, saw that the train had arrived and left early, cursed that driver and said a little prayer about his children picking up shingles for him to contract, rode the escalator to the street and caught the 720 bus.

people can be weird about aisle seats in busses, ive noticed. they’ll sit there and if you see that the window seat is available they wont slide over or stand up, they’ll just rotate their ass so you have to squeeze through. a fellow pulled this manuever this morning and fortunately the bus lurched forward as I was making my way to the window seat and my rear end met his face. i said i was sorry, but i wasn’t.

sat down and cracked open some Tolstoy.

the fellow looked at me and said, “don’t i know you?”

i said, “probably not.”

he said, “i swear i do.”

i said, “not unless you watch a lot of gay porn.”

he blinked.

i said, “i look like this one guy Tommy Teabag, he has these whopping large–“

“Tony Pierce!”

Even if you’ve known me a hundred years, odds are I will forget your name. I blame the hippies. They say second-hand smoke kills, but when I was in college I think I became victim to and outrageous amount of second-hand pot smoke. I never touched the stuff, of course, but I am now sufferring from the effects. My memory is the prime victim.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“Freddie Miletta, you dated my sister Therese.”

It was my turn to blink.

“You didnt date her for very long. But you took us to see the Replacements play at the Palimino.”

“Holy shit, little Freddie?”

The kid was now well over 6 feet tall.

“Yes, yes, damn Tony, that show changed my life.”

I wanted to say, “me too” but we were both on a bus in Koreatown at 7:45 in the morning.

“So what are you doing now?” Little Freddie asked.

“I’m FBI,” I said and showed him my badge.

He looked at it and laughed, and said, “Oh, God, you were always so funny. Therese loved you so much, you know. But really, what are you doing now?”

I said, “I sell sunglasses on Venice Beach.”

Freddie said, “Really?” he looked disappointed.

I said, “Yeah. At first I did it just to cover for my buddy, but you’d be surprised how much money you can make there.”

“I hear it’s the second most popular tourist spot in Southern California next to Disneyland,” Freddie said.

“You heard right. So, tell me, what’s Therese up to these days? Did she ever graduate from Santa Cruz?”

“Oh yeah, she married this software guy, this hippy,” he said.

The bus stopped for a young lady with a bicycle. The lady pulled down the bike holder on the front of the bus, placed the bike on the rail, locked it and boarded the bus. Soon we were rolling again.

“Any kids?” I asked.

“No, I don’t have any children,” Freddie said.

“No, Therese.”

“Yeah, she has twin 6 year old girls.”

“Well good for her,” I said. I never said “good for you,” type things I wondered why I was saying them now. Oh yes, that’s right, because my mind was recalling all the wonderfully dirty things that Therese and I did in the back of my Cadillac back in my junior college days, and how I was at a loss for words, because how do you share those memories with her little brother who probably thought I was the older brother that he never had simply because I took him to one lousy punk rock show.

“Oh, not really,” Freddie said, “her husband died a few years in a car accident.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, he was a drunk and, ironically, he was hit by a drunk driver on PCH near Monterey and she got a fortune in insurance money.” he told me.

“How about that.” I said. All of this was too much for me to handle on such a nice morning. I pulled the cord and got up.

“I thought you were going down to Venice Beach,” Freddie said.

“Not today, this is my day off,” I said.

Bad lie, it was a beautifully sunny day. First perfect day in a long while.

“Good seeing you Freddie, give Therese my love.”

“I’m sure she’d like to call you. Gimme your number.” he said.

“tonypierce.com – she can reach me through my web site,” I said.

And the bus stopped at the stop and I got off.

A few minutes later another bus arrived and I got on and made it to work a little early.

After bagels, I wrote on a little peice of paper, “no one believes our badges are real, make them more believable,” and stuffed it into the suggestion box.

PARK CITY, Utah — (AP) No one had really given Jill Bakken and Vonetta Flowers a chance. They weren’t even supposed to be the best U.S. team.

Jill Bakken, right, and Vonetta Flowers got themselves off to a good start to win the women’s bobsled.

“A lot of people saw us as the ‘other’ team,” Flowers said. “We came here to prove people wrong.”

That they did, winning the inaugural women’s bobsled Tuesday night by beating the favored Germans and the much-hyped Jean Racine in the other American sled.

The victory by USA-2 ended a 46-year drought for the United States. America had not won an Olympic bobsled medal since Arthur Tyler took the four-man bronze in 1956 and had not won gold since his brother, Francis, won the four-man in 1948.

There was also an Olympic landmark: The 28-year-old Flowers became the first African-American ever to win a gold medal at a Winter Games.

“Hopefully, this will encourage other African-American boys and girls to give winter sports a try because you don’t see too many of them out there,” she said.

The former college track star once had other Olympic dreams, but two knee operations and ankle surgery dashed those hopes.

“I have truly been blessed to come into this sport and pick it up so fast,” said Flowers said, unable to stop crying. “My goal was to make the Summer Olympics. God had a different plan for me.”

Sandra Prokoff and Ulrike Holzner won the silver in Germany-1 while compatriots Susi Erdmann and Nicole Herschmann took the bronze. Racine and Gea Johnson finished fifth.

“I think I’m going to be looking back at this for a long time,” Racine said.

In December, Bakken and Racine faced the same quandary: Both needed a new brakewoman to push their sleds.

Racine dumped her best friend and chose Johnson, a muscular former heptathlete from Arizona; Bakken took Flowers, who once ran track at UAB and didn’t try bobsledding until after she failed to qualify for the U.S. team headed for the 2000 Summer Olympics.

“I don’t even know what to feel,” Bakken said. “It’s amazing.”

Even more amazing were the 11th-hour antics of Racine after Johnson injured her left hamstring Saturday night. After the race, Racine said she had asked Flowers over the weekend to consider changing sleds. Flowers declined.

The race was gripping from the start. Dressed in matching bodysuits, Bakken and Flowers stood behind their bright red bobsled ready to begin their push to history.

They seemed to forget the two German teams had won every World Cup race in the 2001-02 season. Standing in the start house, they stared through the visors of their black helmets and pounded each other’s fists.

They flew down the track twice at 80 mph, winning with a two-run time of 1 minute, 37.76 seconds. Prokoff and Holzner were second in 1:38.06, with Erdmann and Herschmann at 1:38.29.

Racine and Johnson were timed in 1:38.73. Johnson was in severe pain and crying as she hobbled off the track.

“America was on the podium today, and that was the goal,” a tearful Racine said. “We didn’t win, but America did.”

i said, let it out, baby.

Anna got her ass beat in Dubai today, by the number one tennis player in the galaxy, Ms. Venus Williams.

“i hate my life. i hate it. oh, God!” Anna wept.

Dubai is just like any place in the world when it comes to women’s tennis. They come to look at Anna, but come to watch Venus and believe it or not, but this has started to bother the white Russian.

“i am going to quit. i fucking hate this all. these people look at me, and God only knows what theyre really thinking. and i show up and they criticize and they gawk and they boo and they cheer and they point and they oh, tony.”

and i sit on the phone in the wee hours trying to listen, trying to be a good friend, but im no different. what can i tell her?

as bad as Russia was for the blonde bombshell, nothing could be worse than trying to be a young Black teen tennis player in Compton. the Williams sisters are stronger, meaner, leaner, and more focused than any girl named Anna will ever be.

“what did you say?” she asked.

apparently i had been thinking out loud.

and the tears flowed harder.

Anna is one of those girls who could cry all night if you let her. various shades of grief and tears. she’d wail for a while, sob for a bit, bawl for some time.

near the end of the conversation she was just snorting and whimpering a bit and then she asked me how my day was.

i said it was pretty good, i got an interview with the lovely and talented Jai from nubienne.net, got some sweet emails from some nice people. and a Cub fan from Chicago, I reckon, gave me $40 and became the first Stone Pimp, oh, and some other guy who thinks he knows me gave me a buck, a VP of some tv thing, i dont know.

she said, “people are really giving you money?”

i said, “well, yeah. of course. they want to see me riding in a Snoop DeVille.

Anna laughed and you could hear a buggar bubble pop in her nose, and then she blew it really cutely.

“You’re not going to get any Snoopy Ville.” she laughed.

“It’s a Snoop DeVille, and yes, I will get it,” I said.

“Do you have any idea how many people are going to have to give you dollars here and there for you to get that crazy car?” she said.

I wanted to tell her that I would get that car way before she would ever beat one of the Williams sisters and win a tournament, but I knew one of those rich oil guys would be trying to paw her as soon as I hung up with her, so I kept it to myself.

“I can wait, Anna. Just let me ask you this.” I said. “When I get my Snoopy Ville, will you take a ride with me in it?”

“Tony Pierce, I will be proud to take a ride in that car if you get it.” Anna Kournikova said from Dubai.

“Well, good. Now you go work on your backhand and stay away from those Arab discos in the basement of some young tycoon’s palace. And change that blue outfit, it’s bad luck.”

“OK, I will, bye love,” Anna said and hung up.

And as soon as I hung up the phone rang again, and I picked it up and I said, “Anna?”

And it was Ashley and she said, “what did you just say?”

“I said, ‘And how are you Ashley Sunshine?'”

And Ashley huffed and slammed down the phone.

Have no fear, though. She called back again. And she had a few things to say to me as well.

has made the big time, FOXNEWS.com. He didn’t have to get on tv and yell at people, he didnt have to get an eye-lift, he didnt have to get traded for millions of dollars and several high draft choices, he simply had to be himself (and provide more insights in a teeney little column than Fox has on half of it’s huge site.)

Yes, they present him like he’s a witty highschooler typing away on his pappy’s 486 above the garage after class, but what did you expect from the fourth network?

All I have to say is I’m glad that he is getting some of the recognition that he deserves, and once the channel realizes that he can speak nearly as well as he can type and he has an irresistable drawl-like thing which would make him perfect for television, then we can all really rejoice in the splendor, but let’s first click the front page of FoxNews.com’s Views and see the wonder, and then click the little box buddy and read the words and click the links.

Ah, and you can say that you all knew him when he was just a drunk with a smelly suit jacket.

Nice work, compadre.

But what’s this, a Ken Layne archive of FoxNews.com stories? This is not the first story that he has written for them?

Alas, I am the drunk, and not even a classy enough one to don a suit coat!

Where have I been during all of this progress? Lord help us, I couldnt have been working!

Anyway, good to see your bro’s making a name for themselves where they belong: on the Internet pointing fingers at the idiots and spotting the marks. But what I really love is his obvious ommission of his ever working for the Online Journalism Review in his bio at the bottom of his columns. Guess they wont be getting any hits from his column, but gratefully I am. Thanks, bro.

it was only supposed to be a few days for Valentine’s day, but she couldn’t find a ride home.

People write in and ask, “what on Earth do you have in common with a 20 year old girl? Like, what do you talk about?”

Like most girls, Ashley doesn’t like to talk about “gross things,” so that rules out a lot of my interests.

She doesn’t have any love for sports, so that rules out any of my real knowledge.

And I really don’t like any of the same music that she likes, so driving with the radio on can be challenging.

But the other day we had a fairly interesting dialogue on the topic of blonde pussy hairs.

Strangely, she didn’t consider this “gross.”

I don’t know how the coversation began, but Ashely came up with the theory that all “blonde” pussy hairs were fake.

“Bullshit,” I said, “I’ve seen one up-close-and-personal, if you know what I mean.” She was holding my hand and squeezed tightly and gave me a dirty look.

“It was fake, poohead.”

“No no, it was real. I even wrote a poem about it. I said that it was like a cloud floating above heaven. It was published in several magazines.”

“She dyed it,” Ashley insisted.

I was dumbstruck. I was quiet. Bad music played on the radio and I didnt even notice. My world was being shattered by a girl who had spent several years in an all-girls Catholic school – breathe – obviously she had seen her share of lockerrooms and blondes and …

“Well, what about all the redheads,” I said, “I have seen two of them whose…”

“Carpet matched the drapes?”

“Collars matched the cuffs.”

“Redheads are real,” Ashley confirmend. “That’s why they’re such freaks. They’re rare, but real.”

“And not blondes?”

“Tony, I was blonde at birth – incredibly rare. My eyebrows are blonde, by arm hairs, but not those hairs. So what does that tell you?”

“It tells me I have now found a new purpose. A new quest.”

My hand was being squeezed again. It hurt.

But at least I knew why I was still alive.