Category Archives: Uncategorized

sometimes you just drive

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and the weathers right

and your car is just floating a little

and you think, it’s good to have a good car.

sometimes the radio will play something good

and unexpected

like dinosaur jr or janes addiction

or an old metallica tune will remind you of where

shredding

peaked.

i was on the radio the other day and the person asked me

if the fcc destroys net neutrality

what do you think will happen?

i said, there was this character in the Firefly movie, Serenity, named Mr. Universe.  he was a reclusive tech nerd who lived on an empty moon with his smoking hot robot “wife”, Lenore.  he was maybe the smartest guy around. so when someone asked him about the bad guys trying to “stop the signal”,

Mr. Universe said, “you can’t stop the signal.”

when Uber started appearing in cities, people saw it’s glorious value and unlike many new things, politicians got out of the way because The People were not going to be without decent transportation at the right price.

The People will not be without fast Internet at a reasonable price.

the web is not a red blue thing. the web is for everyone.

not only will the offending ISPs and the politicians who support them go down, but new ISPs will sprout up and leapfrog today’s giants.

where there is darkness, comes the light.

and then we took calls.

happy thanksgiving to you and yours

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for the last several dozen decades i have looked at things that i am thankful for as things pertaining to *me*

things like job, cars, health, the cubs, are any hot babes loving me, all the things

but this morning i got a text from my mom and it nearly broke my heart.

she was happy to have a job but she didn’t want to have to go to work, she wanted to be cooking and watching football and doting on her grand kids.

but during the Great GOP Recession, just like tons of people, her retirement was wiped out and here she is working for The Man for peanuts on a day she would rather be watching the Macy’s Parade.

so i am not thankful. i am determined. i need to do something serious so my mom can finally retire.

and sadly it’s not drive more trips for Uber + Lyft.

or is it?

no, it’s not.

OR IS IT?

i need to write a script and sell it.

i gotta learn how to write a script.

and i know exactly the story i wanna tell: the time Joe got busted in Isla Vista

music by The Wonderfuls, The Ramones, Rogue Cheddar, Pink Floyd, Mons Pubis, PMS, and Janes Addiction.

it’ll be called Damn Those Shrooms Strong

danielle in san diego asks

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my love,

Why do churches have so many white vans? What are they for? Why white and completely non descript.

It’s suspect.

To say the least.

lovely danielle,

theres an office building on sunset near the beverly hills line in west hollywood. it overlooks bootsy bellows.

i got a ping today and the passenger was in front and i tried to make a u-turn but i ended up being forced to go into the parking structure, getting a little ticket but then making the u-turn and hoping that there would be no charge, there wasn’t, and finally exiting and seeing her there.

she was in her 60s, platinum hair. law professor out here on vacation.

as she talked i thought i heard something.

do i detect a midwest accent? i asked.

i’m from chicago, she said. i turned around my cap and said, did you see this?

she laughed. no, i missed that. and we were off.

i asked her if she went to the cubs victory parade, she said, not only that but my husband and i went to a world series game.

it was hot today. 85 or so. the AC was on and when she said that i turned it down one tick so i could hear her clearly.

he said, im gonna do it. i said if you do don’t tell me any of the details, she said.

i said, tickets were four thousand dollars. each.

she said, i told him and now i will tell you, do not tell me the details.

she laughed.

later i asked her something about her husband and she paused and said, he’s passed now.

but he had a long life and got to see the Cubs win the world series after all.

churches have white vans so they can go to baseball games undercover when they should be doing something dumb like buying wholesale incense.

is everything terrible

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will the sun come out ever again

will the moon rise?

do the birds even wanna chirp chirp chirp in the morning for us

do we even deserve it?

CBS the Morning was my jam, it woke me up.

i loved it because there wasn’t any fucking bullshit in there.

it was gale and nora and old man charlie rose

and charlie had seen it all so he sat there a little slumped over, smiling , cute little southern drawl slipping out

and nora and gayle pretended to flirt with him every now and then

sometimes theyd bring in the new kids from different CBS news shows but no one wanted them around.

i loved how only now and then all three were there.

i loved how one of them was always on vacation.

i loved it because it made me thing, i wanna be super famous one day.

so famous that i get to take vacations every six weeks.

yesterday charlie wasn’t there and that was ok with me.

but last night we learned why. we learned that Charlie liked to invite female staffers to his home in long island

and then casually walk around naked. allegedly.

one woman said he reached down in her dress and she cried the whole time.

allegedly.

will the stars ever twinkle again?

are me and my friends the only gentlemen alive?

are we from a faraway land where we feel slightly ashamed of our not 20yearold bodies

and thus we would never invite a super model we barely know to watch us shower

and we would be heartbroken if we made anyone cry.

at our house.

in long island.

allegedly.

and allegedly.

and all

aged

ly.

toughest question I was asked all week

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A very well meaning gentleman was tasked to help me on a project

he said can you draw it up for me.

I said no problem and in minutes I had it sketched out on a yellow legal pad using a blue pen

then he said the most curious thing. He said can you show me an example somewhere where someone else had done it?

I said have you ever met anyone like me?

I asked in your whole life how many xbi agents have you met?

even among uber drivers how many uber drivers do you know like me?

I said I am here to do

New Things

Big things

Cool things.

Things that if they had been done already, I wouldn’t be interested in.

No this hasn’t existed before and that’s why people are going to love it.

He asked well what about that saying that there’s nothing new under the sun?

I said I want you to listen to Pink Floyd’s greatest hits.

Yes there were guitars and bass and drums and vocals and saxophones before Pink Floyd

But there wasn’t Pink Floyd before or since.

And that’s what we should all strive for: to express our own unique freakiness that never was before we got here.

And one way to get there is to find the gaps where no ones ever been before.

And trust me, the audience will follow us there.

bon, who hadnt seen malcolm since 1980, gave him a hug

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a nice long one.

malcolm had been suffering for years of dementia

which is torture for a creative soul.

bon was all, i wanna introduce you to someone

and there he was, jimi hendrix

who handed him a thick 1949 Gibson ES-175, the first Gibson electric guitar to feature a Florentine cutaway beneath the neck, giving easy access to all 20 frets.

it also had a carved rosewood bridge.

the men plugged into three story high marshall stacks.

john bonham sat down behind the drums

and lemmy strapped on his bass.

bon counted it out and they broke into Highway to Hell

sarcastically, since they were in Heaven. surrounded by all the greats, many of whom always loved AC/DC and malcolm’s contribution to music, not just rock or hard rock, but damn good music you sing along to in the car

or scream at the football game.

shy little malcolm young, long hair over his eyes, peeks up every now and then watching the angels and saints

tap their feet

and welcome one of their own,

home.

this is a real place on a real day now, here

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you are a real person, living in this real place, and just as beautiful.

your mom carried you around in her belly, she fed you before you were born.

she took care of you after and after and after and after

all the wise men traveled to see you, the cows mooed and the donkeys said hi

above the angels cooed, the stars twinkled and the clouds parted so we could all see better

not because you were capable of magic

but because you just being here, all by itself is a reflection of the best magic of all

the miracle of life.

when your jeans rip or you slip on ice or lose your phone on a snowy day

it’s ok

because those wise men are still bearing gifts, the angels are still in awe

and the good Lord is still bragging, quietly to himself, saying

look what I made.

and smiling.

thank you Rise, wherever you are

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when i was in high school i took an Iowan college up on an offer to visit their school.

a bus drove around suburban Illinois picking up kids like us who had signed up to spend the night in Cornell College. on the bus i saw two beautiful young ladies, Rise (pictured, left) and her best friend Tracy (not pictured). i enjoyed the college but i knew i was probably going to come to LA for my studies.

so before we got on the bus for the long ride back to Illinois i made sure that i sat near the two pretty girls, and i succeeded. not only that but we all hit it off. Tracy and Rise didn’t go to Cornell either, they chose, instead a school in Wisconsin. Since these were the days before the internet (!), we wrote letters back and forth and occasionally i called Tracy because i had, what the kids called, the hot for her, which i no disrespect to Rise who had the bluest eyes ive ever seen.

one day Rise told me she was going to spend a semester in Switzerland and i should visit her. i laughed it off because i was 20. who goes to Europe when they’re 20 simply because they were invited? i was selling TVs in west LA and i was doing pretty well at it. one thing led to another and i found myself not going to UCSB right away. i had 4 months to think about the bad job i had done at Santa Monica College.

so i wrote Rise and said, see you at the Swiss Army Knife Store! and i went to Europe for the first time and it changed my life. one thing i learned was travel is relatively inexpensive. another thing was that people around the world understand American politics better than most Americans. “Foreigners” are able to see past the racism that is intertwined within US politics and question it. miraculously. it made me feel guilty that i wasn’t as educated in politics as much as i should be.

from that trip i started subscribing to newspapers because all the smart people i met read at least one paper and often three. subsequently, each time i have visited europe i found that my first trip wasn’t unusual: europeans not only know US politics inside and out, but they also know their own, brilliantly. they also know several languages, how to drink, and how dangerous guns are in society.

looking back at this, now 30 years later, i feel so blessed that i went on that bus to a college i knew i was never going to attend, and had the courage to chat up the two hottest babes on that bus, and was in the position to be able to visit Rise (and her super cool friend Ae) in Switzerland, a trip that led me to visit several other countries on that journey… because it deeply shaped me as an adult. and i am so grateful. sooooo grateful.

last night we had a wake for LAist

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i love this picture. these are five of the Editors spanning 2005-2017.

without Carolyn (far left), I wouldn’t have had the gig. she knew of this blog and sat in the front row at SXSW as i spoke on a panel with the first(?) LAist editor, Jason Toney, and others on the Blogging While Black discussion and she told me I would be great for the gig. she championed me to Jake and Jen and got it.

without Emma (center) i wouldn’t have been able to write under a pen name there. which would turn out to be my last writing for the blog. last night i told her that of the 10+ that i did, I was sorry that only 2 were any good. she looked at my like i was crazy and said that i was the only one who felt that way. so nice of her.

next to her is Carmen Tse who is a Giants fan.

and on the far right is Julia Wick who was the last LAist Editor. she wrote a good piece on City Lab explaining what that last day was like.

it was great to see everyone. i got a bit drunk. woke up in the middle of the night with nightmares. and i guess that was the proper reaction to what happens when a clueless billionaire takes this great thing that a huge group of people made out of nothing and wipes his old ass with it and flushes.

but something tells me we aint going out like that.

are you good at anything? im not

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imagine you were good at something. like really good.

imagine you found out you were and someone who mattered said holy crap look at you.

then imagine you got to do it.

thats how i feel about uber and lyft.

i used to think that if i was a great guitar player id be the biggest dick.

id wear flashy clothes and adopt a british accent and surround myself with weirdos.

so when i couldnt barely play any chords i was happy.

because i would never want to be a dick to someone.

even when people are being mean to me i try to chill for a while

put myself in their shoes, think about it, look at all the angles.

when i was a kid i loved art. loved it. every semester of high school i took an art class.

one of the teachers showed us cubism one day and she said here picassos trying to show you all the sides at the same time. the front the back the left side the right side.

then in college i had a teacher showing us Tolstoy and she said here he is showing you the fight from the wife’s point of view, then the husbands, then the maids and then God’s

so i enjoy seeing all the sides and when i drive i try to think, if i was in the backseat of the Benz of the worlds greatest uber driver what would i want?

the answer usually starts with a clean car that smells fresh, not perfumed, but faintly of orange peels.

miles davis should be playing softly and the route should be quick and confident.

if the passengers wanna know some facts about the neighborhoods we are passing by, the driver should not only be able to tell you whats there

but what used to be there.

there should be water, mints, napkins, phone chargers, cup holders,

and wisdom.

fucking wisdom for days.

the other day i got my first 3-star rating (out of 5) in over 500 trips. i couldn’t believe it.

because life isn’t fair i don’t know who gave it to me or why.

which is sad because im dying to know. not because i wanna fight. but because if there is some feedback that would truly make me the worlds greatest uber driver, i would love to know.

for example, perhaps they wanted mozart.