mariah’s depressed.

i know i know it seems like mariah’s always depressed but she never promised me a rose garden.
Mariah Carey

this week mariah’s nervous because her record label wants to buy out her $85 million contract. she called and said she wanted to take me out for lunch i said, mariah, some of us work for a living so she said how about after work i said ok. i was feeling hyper as shit because my mom had gotten me (among tons of stuff) a totally great electric blanket and something about it – and having four days off – made me feel rested and rockin.

Mariah phoned when i got home from work and offered to pick me up and take me out. i said, i’m carsitting chris’s honda. she said dont be silly, i’ll have earl drive us. i said, no, really i’d like to pick you up for once.

when i got to her pad she had the Clippers game on. “Oh my god, I totally didn’t even know that the 76ers were still in town and they were playing the Clippers, let’s go! I can get us courtside seats!”

hmmm, i thought to myself, i happen to sorta be dating one of the Clipper Girls, and from what I remember, they happen to work right around the courtside.

“I know,” I said, “hows about we go to the game and eat dinner up in that restaurant and watch the game from up there?”

It was a plan.

The game was good, Iverson didnt heat up till the second half, and dinner was good, I had the shrimp boat. Mariah had the rib eye.

Around halftime the cosmo’s started kicking in and Mariah started getting into one of her negative rants.

“Life sucks so bad. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

“Sshh shhh baby, it’s ok. you’re here to watch Elton Brand and Lamar Odom play the defending East Coast Champs.”

“I mean in LIFE, Sonny, geeze! I try and I try but people want to diss me and make jokes and all I want to do is make them happy. And when I try to just not even care they call me a bitch.” She started crying. I ordered a ginger ale for her. “Fuck that, I want another Cosmopolitan!”

I held her hand as she dabbed at her mascara. “Fucking label, fucking people, fucking so-called friends, present company excepted. Fucking teen stars…”

“What about fucking J.Lo?”

Mariah glared at me. See, I’m the wrong person to cry to. I know I’m supposed to just allow people to vent, but after a while I have to either add a joke or pile-on or be sarcastic. I think it’s funny. No one else seems to. She yanked her hand away from mine and took a big gulp out of her plastic cup.

“What was your favorite record this year?”

I knew she was asking me a trick question, so I went for it.

“Glitter,” I said.

“Liar.”

“Okay, DMX, or Missy’s record. But then Glitter.” I meant it too, oddly.

Mariah said, “not the Dylan record?”

I said, “who?”

“And why can’t we smoke up in here? What country are we living in?” Mariah directed this at the usher, a pleasant young man who, fortunately couldnt hear her cuz he was too far away, and since he was smart, he kept his distance. I took her hand back.

“Baby, come on, it’s cool. Just take $45 million from EMI and call it even. Some one will pick you up, and then you’re that much ahead of the game. Who needs EMI anyhow, they’re not even Virgin anymore. It’s not like Richard Brannon is running the show any longer, just pretend you won the lottery, start your own label if you want and sell your shit on the Internet like Prince.”

Mariah whispered, “when was the last time you heard a new Prince song on the radio?”

That was my cue to shoot my 151.

Clippers called a timeout, The Answer had woken up, so I leaned over and whispered something naughty in Mariah’s ear. It brought a little smile to her totally gorgeous face.

“Really, you’d do that with me?” she giggled.

“Of course, baby. You know I’d do anything with you. Now let’s just watch the rest of this game, down these mudslides and think happy thoughts.”

Peace didnt even last the duration of the time out. Mariah was sobbing again and complaining.

“What about love? Why is there no love anymore. Everything is business or sex or games or maneuverings or politics. Where’s the LOVE?”

She was becoming loud now. Many people may not know this cuz hoops tickets are so damn expensive, but at real NBA games, unlike college ones, it can get pretty quiet in the stands. You can really hear the squeaks of the sneakers, the ball bouncing, the coaches yell out instructions, and a drunken singer yelling about how the world is a vampire. So I tried to interject.

“But..”

“People just want to bone you or use you or abuse you or… Love, where is all the Love that people.. It’s Christmas, I don’t see the Love…”

“Mariah…”

“Evil and ugliness, I see a lot of that. But Love… everyone said there was supposed to be Love!”

“I would Love it if you just SHUT UP!”

Mariah was shocked. Then she laughed. I laughed too. “Really though. Shut your little trap and watch this game and enjoy yourself and then you can cry all you want.”

And Mariah put her cup down and put her head on my shoulder and put her little hand on my chest and sobbed softly for a few minutes. And then went to sleep.

Just like the Clipper defense.

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nothing says Christmas like a good hockey fight,

and last night the Kings and the Senators racked up over 250 penalty minutes for the kids.

Now the NHL swore a few years ago that they were going to crack down on fighting in hockey but I’m glad to see that they are soberring up.

Best part about a hockey fight is when the goalies get involved. Usually what happens is some guy slams into one of the goalies on accident (or not on accident) and all hell breaks loose. Last night this one guy just started fucking with the goalie and the goalie fucked back and they slapped each other and then one of the goalies teammates started slapping the one guy and then the goalie of the other team skated all the way down the ice to the other end and started fighting the other goalie.

See, only goalies can fight each other. It’s an unwritten rule. If a non-goalie wants to start shit, and he tries it with a goalie, the whole damn other team will jump him. It’s crazy.

So both goalies were going at it and both teams were going at it and one of the goalies was trying to punch but he couldnt get his glove off. So he had the other goalie with one hand, holding him, and with his free hand he was trying to throw his glove off, but it wouldnt go. So he slowly made his way – opposing goalie in hand (beating him) – to his bench and reached his glove hand to his teammates who pulled his glove off to the cheers of all the kids.

Then both goalies went at it some more.

Fucking love puck.

Fucking love all of you.

Fucking Merry Christmas everyone.

P.S. Thanks Amy for the Wisdom Teeth Wisdom: she says drink a half gallon of pineapple juice before the yanking to prevent swelling!

PPS Thanks to CC for the buck for the Snoop DeVille!!! Right on, bro. We’re up to $322 – tell your friends.

PPPS: Thanks Gannon for getting the Winona Christmas cds, they should be there tomorrow – merci!

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clippergirl wanted more chili, who can blame her?

this situation doesn’t please ashley much, but what can you do.

in the few centuries that ive roamed this crust ive learned that life is mostly harrowing neverending misery mixed with mediocre pop music, so have whatever fun you can muster and try not to hang yourself.

clippergirl was a little under the weather from all the charity events that she’s involved with during the holidays and she came over with a nice longsleeve shirt and jeans and red christmas socks. no make up, a little knit snow cap.

gotta say it was a pretty cute getup with her nose red from blowing.

we finished our christmas cards while sipping on hot cocoa as a log burned in my hearth.

in a perfect world i woulda had the fur of a polar bear beneath my coffee table for us to warm our toes on,

but we made due.

afterwards ashley called and quizzed me about my day and she wasnt very happy with how it ended,

but really the way it ended was with a nice young girl wishing me a good night on the phone

as the clock struck three

and a thin long stream of smoke eased its way

from my glass

tobacco

device.

happy holidays sweet souls.

hope the monkey on your back saves you some pop.

no i didnt have a cavity.

i had four wisdom teeth that seem to all need to come out. had, have. i still have them. im no dentist, or doctor, or anything, really, but how do you blame three other innocent teeth for the Alleged deeds of a fourth?

i keep forgetting, every time i visit a new dentist, they see that i have survived 108 years of roaming this planet with all of my perfectly good wisdom teeth and they instantly have the immediate desire to yank them out. once, i swear to you, i was visiting my mother back home and i went to my old dentist and he didnt even look at my teeth, he just looked at ME and said, “you still have your wisdom teeth? they need to be taken out.”

bullshit.

i dont have many aunts, but one of them was married to a dentist. when i got back home my mom showed her my xrays. my aunt said, are your teeth hurting you? i said, no. she said, “then leave them alone.”

so a few days ago i felt some pain, i took two asprin. the next day i took two asprin. today i took nothing. i lie, i am smoking an american spirit.

this morning i went to the dentist, they took the xrays, blamed All Four wisdom teeth and were bent on rushing me over to an oral surgeon because two of my teeth are below the gums – and guess what theyre doing there? MINDING THEIR OWN DAMN BUSINESS. but because they’re underground, the dentist cant pull those so he figured since they have to put me under!!! to pull teeth that are under the gum, may as well have them yank the other two while im down.

my insurance pays 80%, but for some brilliant reason, it doesn’t cover the anesthesia!!! anesthesia costs $300, naturally. and on top of it i have to get someone to drive me back out of the SURGERY because legally they cant let me go home alone because the three hundred dollar drugs fuck you up so much that it’s a crime to let them stumble home.

so basically theyre saying that they’ll get me wasted for $300 if they get to yank out my four teeth.

my dentist had to let me know that the surgeon is hot.

still, no, fuck you.

if they’d let me brown bag my drugs, then maybe, but something tells me that at $300 a squirt, someone is making a profit somewhere on the food chain, and fuck you for not being able to lobby Blue Cross into figuring out a way to pay for most of it. No way am I paying for all that shit. and just like any drug dealer that ive ever seen on tv, they want all the money up front and then you can get loaded.

how many hits of Ecstacy could I get for $300? uhm, tons, like maybe 50.

the dude said, “wait a minute, you’re tony pierce. i read your blog. you’ve raised $300 for your car. use that.”

i said, “that money was given so that i could get a Snoop DeVille Cadillac. that fund is holy.”

best part about the whole wasted morning was that i got to spend about two hours reading Tund. im a very slow reader and this is the type of book that rewards slow readers because every sentence has it’s own particular aroma – it’s own personality – a certain nuance. and he uses a lot of big words and fancy phrases, and you dont want to just zip right past those like they were ordinary. theyre special.

tomorrow is my boss’s last day. he’s worked at our company for almost 6 years. im sorry to see him go because he was easilly the most laid-back boss that i’ve ever had and i appreciate that so much. plus he hired me and i appreciate that too.

like most of the higher-ups in the agency, he couldnt tell us where he was moving on to, but he was sooooooooo hush-hush about it, it has made everyone really curious.

he says it’s his dream job, so i immediately thought anime porn, but like most things, im probably wrong.

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i think i have a cavity

when you ride the red express bus down wilshire and you know you want to get on an orange regular bus at la brea, you start hoping for the screen.

the screen is a yellow light, a slow moving car in the far-right hand lane, pedestrians crossing on the right – anything to slow the momentum of the orange bus before your red bus passes it.

if your karma is in disarray like mine is, the red bus will stop at la brea the same time that two orange busses just pull away from the curb. but karma, just like anything, can be adjusted at any moment. this morning about 5 blocks before la brea, i spotted a slow moving orange bus a block ahead of us. by us i mean me and the passengers of the express red bus, including one tall skinny girl who’s email address i had received a mere five minutes previous.

yes, The tall skinny girl.

at highland i saw the screen, it was a passenger who had hailed the orange bus which meant it had to pull over and pick the nice lady up. our red bus sped by.

earlier i had tapped the arm of TSG and i said, “i see you nearly every morning and i dont even know your name.”

it’s evelyn.

hi, my name is tony.

the problem with screens is, sometimes you get screened, there was a UPS truck in our lane that wanted to get over. when my red express bus dropped me off at labrea the orange bus had caught up and was arriving across the street, just dying to see me make a run for it so it could take off like a hot rod. so i played it cool and walked west as though i had forfeited this morning’s challenge. the orange bus had won. congratulations, public servant.

i did look over my shoulder to see if the bus driver had popped open a bottle of champagne, but instead i saw that it had lowered its handicap step, a man in a wheelchair wished entrance. i had two options: try to run east across the intersection once the light had changed to green, or run 3 1/12 blocks west and try to beat it to its next stop.

i chose the latter. there was no way it could beat me three blocks.

it was at that moment that i noticed my cavity.

i havent had a cavity since i was in grade school. i knew the bus couldnt beat me so i walked. ahead i saw that an old man was sitting at the next busstop, a perfect screen for me and i knew that if i ran a little and walked a little i would be able to catch my little orange bus and ride the half mile like a human being.

i heard the orange bus take off from la brea, i started running the first block and i felt good. i passed the homeless man who slept in front of the Office Depot and i didnt even notice him. i didnt notice how black he was, how big he was, how cold he must have been last night when temperatures dipped below freezing, i didnt notice the empty bottles of rubbing alcohol he had lined up neatly next to him, i didnt notice that his one thin blanket had failed to cover his callused naked left foot, i had my eye on the old man at the busstop with the cane who obviously wished to be picked up by the speeding #20 orange bus that was about to pass me, the young man running down wilshire.

me and the bus approached the busstop at approximately the exact time and the old man just stared ahead. no signal to the driver who makes $50k, no wave of his cane, no gesture from his non-cane hand, which meant no screen. the bus accellerated and sped off.

so i walked the remaining half mile. as i should. as i do every morning. i knew my boss would frown at me as i entered the agency a few minutes late. i knew he would assume i was continuing to be the rebellous young hotshot superstar agent, probably hungover, probably smelling of perfumes from women met at a new bar in hollywood. but what is there to do other than walk and pass another homeless man, this one lying on his back in front of a Blockbuster video store, seemingly dead from afar but obviously snoozing when you get close.

pigeons bathed in our fountains only a block from the video store in question, and as i turned the corner i saw the lineup of well-dressed fellow tenants in our office complex. seems the building throws a nice Christmas breakfast a week before the holiday to give thanks. a four peice jazz band played a mellow version of “Jingle Bell Rock” as i slid through the metal detectors next to the doors of our anonymous luxury hollywood skyscraper.

and i realized, yes, i really do have a cavity.

home | Buy your friends t-shirts, for Christmas | Tom Files For Divorce | email

two things happen in life

fucked up shit,
and really nice shit.

the last time the Bears made it into the playoffs was 85, the Super Bowl Shuffle. the Fridge, Sweetness, McMahon, Ditka, Willie Gault, Singletary, Fencik. Hampton: how do I know all these names off the top of my head?

Because it’s some of the nicest moments that I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing.

Easily my favorite football team.

But I have to tell you, during it all I disbelieved everything. Even while watching the massacre during the Super Bowl I was waiting and anticipating the tragic downfall that never came.

Growing up a Bears fan you dont expect too much nice shit.

What’s going on with the Bears right now is so nice, I tape it. Nobody I know tapes sports, something about it gets lost when you tape live events, but as the Bears waltz their way into post-season with two knuckleheaded quarterbacks I am documenting it like one would when trying to prove the existence of ghosts.

This whole season has been one happy apparition and I can’t even name ten percent of the team. My mom calls and she says, “I’m getting on the A Train.” Clippergirl calls and she says, “All the Packers have to do is lose and the Bears have clinched it.” Welcome to the bandwagon, ladies. There’s plenty of room.

Of course I ignore the inevitable doom the Bears will be forced endure when they face off against teams like St. Louis or Oakland or Pittsburgh, but that will be so far in the future that it wont matter, and who knows, maybe lady luck will continue to dance with the monsters of the midway and we can just laugh like dot com millionaires through January. Fuck, Nebraska knows that nice shit sometimes appears when you least deserve it and so does our President, so let’s just roll with it while we have it.

There’s a teen girl in Las Vegas sniffling from the onset of an allergy attack due to kicking up dust in my Hollywood Hills cabana all weekend. I cannot remember a time when I would have discounted or poo-pooed the good fortune of having such a peppy, positive, happy, sexy, giving young girl adore me the way that Ashley has, and yet, just like this Bears run for the Super Bowl, I look at the evidence presented before me and I scoff. Actual scoffing!

All my adult life I have said that the reason that there aren’t more Christians is becuase people have a hard time accepting Good in their lives. How could someone be able to imagine Heaven, or the Son of God coming down here to pay for our sins if we can’t even show a nice blowjob in a movie or on tv? I used to say that all the time to prove the point that humans have a need to want, and a discomfort of receiving. You want Vanilla Sky to be the Erotic Thriller that Rolling Stone claims it to be: have Penelope give Tom Cruise head for 4 minutes. Fucking film is well past 2 hours long, let her do stuff to his knob in such a way that we know that he’s alive in there. Or something. I dont know what I’m saying half the time. but I know what i’m meaning.

Whatever, all I ask all of you to do these next few weeks is appreciate some of the good shit that has come your way. Lord knows it might not be around forever. And when it’s gone, you damn sure will miss it. I know I will.

as if it wasnt nice enough

that the Raidahs take care of me and win on a nice Saturday game, but afterwards i check my email and see that one KH sent in $5.00 for the Snoop DeVille fund. That means you nice people have sent in $314 so that I can get the pimpmobile of my dreams.

KH, thank you. Thank you for clicking my button and spreading the love.

By the way, all monies raised by selling the Winona Christmas CD go to the Buy me a Snoop DeVille fund. CDs are shipped Priority Mail to ensure a pre-Christmas arrival and Ashley gives it three outta four stars, which is pretty good. Especially since it features two of her favorite tunes, “Sleigh Ride” by Johnny Mathis and “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas” by Perry Como. Believe it or not but she had never heard “I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas” – well you can if you order now. $8 for the Christmas CD, $12 for the Christmas CD plus Winona’s Christmas Comedy CD – free priority shipping until 12/20, my gift to you.

Here’s another gift, for my man KH. Recently I got an email from a nice boy who said Ashley is a fox. So since KH flowed $5, here’s 4 more pictures { 1 2 3 4 } of Ashley as a thanks to you.

if you only knew how lame i am, you’d stop reading right now

japanese girl came over last night. it was fine. first dates are always fine. little does she know im an idiot, poor girl.

good part about having a hot girl over is that afterwards i have a clean house and a decent buzz.

but fuck that, let’s talk about Oprah and Dr. Phil.

i’ve never seen two bigger fakers than Oprah and Dr. Phil.

just the other day i was talking to a really good friend and we were reminiscing about what we were doing when we were 19. when i was 19 i quit my job at the record store and started selling computers. this was like in 1888 so computers were pretty expensive and they were like soooooo slow you wouldnt believe it. so it took a pretty decent salesperson to pull it off.

one reason that i was able to pull it off was cuz i took this awareness course called Lifespring, which, people tell me, was a lot like this other course called EST.

i dont know much about EST but I know a ton about Lifespring cuz i got pretty involved with it a few times in my late teens and twenties and Oprah’s Dr. Phil has decided to take every day in these courses and put it on television. Only problem is he doesnt give any credit to John Hanley, who invented the courses, and he runs around pretending like it’s his thing.

He even changed the name of it to the “Get Real” course.

lying fuck.

Biggest problem that I have with this is that Lifespring was never intended to be shown on TV. it was intended for people to experience themselves without others telling them what it’s all about.

Imagine, for instance that you were a space traveler and you found yourself trying to explain kissing. Would you show video of two people kissing? Would you have the aliens read pamphlets? Would you just talk about it? Hell no, you’d have the aliens kiss each other.

The reason being is that sometimes you cannot explain certain things, you have to experience them. Some things, the more you explain them the more fucked up they sound and the more you ruin them. For example, have you ever tried to explain Star Wars to someone who hadnt seen it? You sound like a moron.

So Dr. Phil has decided to take it unto himself to ruin this great course and what happens is guys like my hero Howard Stern gets 30 second blurbs of Dr. Phil yelling at people and Howard makes fun of it and guess what, it winds up looking ridiculous and Oprah gets another bag of money and Dr. Phil ends up getting his own show and gets to write a book and sell a bunch of worthless tapes.

Fuck both of you.

As lame as I am I will never tell you the ending of a movie, I will never ruin cool things that DURING THE COURSE drill into you how important it is not to ruin the thing, I will never plagarize, and I will never pretend to be someone who i am.

now excuse me while i return to my job at the fbi and prepare for my lunch with the clippergirl.

but before i leave this is what i hope: i hope Oprah and Dr. Phil are on the beach one day counting their money and I hope an airplane loses control and needs to make a crash landing and lands right on Oprah and Dr. Phil and their bodies get sucked up in the turbines and for the next 10 minutes it just rains Oprah and Dr. Phil spray all over the white sand.

wanna know what i want, Dr. Phil? that’s what I want.

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