and it makes me wonder, am i sometimes a royal prick?

sometimes i feel like im so nice and other times i think god was i born in the depths of hades itself?

like i’ll be at a bar minding my own business and some dude will look at me with a stupid look on his fat face and say something dumb and all will be great until he claps.

and that clap will just make me wanna fight him. and im not 18 years old, i might actually lose the fight. plus i dont really want to fight BUT I DO some nimrod will clap with that stupid look on his face and theres nothing more i wanna do but fight.

and his buddy is there staring too and clapping and it makes me wonder about automation

and reflexes. and jungian philosphies.

like are the spirits of hundreds of years of tony pierces inside my soul waiting to come out? did those spirits have to fight their way to the 21st century and there they are right on the edge, knowing something i dont know, seeing into the future, there to defend something that doesnt need to be protected but is totally willing to bust with the preemptive strike.

which is so unlike me because if you knew me youd know that all i want to do is wear funny clothes that have no business being coordinated a certain way, be tangled with a pretty girl on the couch and watch ridiculous tv until someone knocks on the door to deliver food.

and then i wanna go to a rock show in hopes that my mind will be blown.

last thing i wanna do is strike a stranger.

for clapping.

but i get insane when i watch football.

girls should say yes to every request that i deliver
rock should return to rock n roll radio
books should cost ten dollars or less
sick people should be allowed to take any medication their doctor prescribes
monopolies should be outlawed meaning if Weezer tickets go on sale i should have a choice where i buy those tix online
third parties should be embraced
keg parties should be fully embraced
the internet should be free
love should be really free
people should be allowed to pay for anything, even love
a man should be allowed to paint his house any color he wants
children should be given guitars and laptops when they turn fourteen
cigarettes should be outlawed, except for the candy ones
condoms should be free
like smiles
and blogging

most people think its february but most people are wrong. (duh)

its not the change of seasons, the cooling off of the sweltering temps, or the excitement about christmas being just two months away.

october is the month of love because of the stars. venus, specifically.

libra = october and libra is ruled by venus the goddess of love.

love is different from sex (which is november, so get ready)

love is warm and fuzzy and comfy and beautiful and romantical and sweet.

its floating in a warm pool on your back on a partly cloudy day

just enough clouds to block the sun and look interesting as you doze off

knowing that the nanny is tucking the kids off to their naps

and the phone is successfully out of juice.

love is the piano on the jackson 5s abc

love is playing with your nephew and niece when they wake up and holding them upside down over the pool

love is eating philly cheese steaks in philly on a semi upset stomach and it doesnt kill you as you ride a two hour bus back to manhattan

love is knowing you get to write to the sweetest audience in the world

love is just enough humidity that it moisturizes the hair of the girl youre making out with in the bleachers of wrigley field unsure if what youre feeling is lust or an old style beer buzz

its the smell of bacon wrapped hotdogs after a zztop show

but mostly love is knowing that you ruined everything for the san diego padres

who ruined everything for you twentysix years ago.

love is a crazyass bicycle ride through a trippy freak show

enjoy the breeze.

jerseys and tshirts of Ted Lilly and Derek Lee were drastically reduced because they had been traded this summer

but also on the discount rack were jerseys of Carlos Zambrano

who is still with the team, and doing much better after a horrible season and a half.

does Target know something that i dont know?

first we had a sr. editors meeting and my boss said bro do you wanna make yr announcement?

and bro said what he had to say and all eyes were on me and i was all, if this is a dream imma be so pissed off.

people laughed but i said again, dreams are lies told to you at yr most vulnerable and its effed up.

but that turned out to be not a dream.

then lunch was great, then this training i gave was perfect, and this meeting i was in, and this sports meeting i was in

then we had this mixer at 4:30 that went on for two hours and there was booze.

then at 7 i went home. and at 8 there was a hot babe waiting for me at my abode

but bust of all she had a bottle of jamison. which i learned was imported.

we toasted and all was well.

have you noticed that some people, after the glass has been clinked, tap the table with the glass? im not that person.

we drank once, twice, three times a lady.

toook the subway to the hollywood bowl

just in time for Sonic Youth

then pavement

awesome seats. great girl. perfect weather: 79 degrees at 9pm?!!?~

then drinks. then blog it all up reminding the audience that nothing in here is true

except this: if i wasnt going to tom petty on fri and yoko ono with thurston moore kim gordon and yoko ono on sat id totally go see rocket, because they rock it

not because theyre all super hot and loud and rockin – cuz theyr that too

im drnk

i had a little kids electric toothbrush back in the day.

it was a Fat Albert electric toothbrush where there was fat albert being fat and he had a tooth brush sticking out of his head.

but my favorite show was Happy Days, and of course Fonzie was the best.

so i, in my mind, invented a Fonzie electric tooth brush.

instead of the brush jutting out of his head, i wanted it to come out of his thumb.

and i wanted him to say his famous “hey” when you flicked on the tooth brush

but because it was an electric tooth brush it would say

“heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
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hey its an animated dealie thing.

hey billy corgan why isnt hole opening for the pumpkins?

today is his last day. hes moving to cnn

i have written about mark before. he came to us a few summers ago as a college intern and was so great we kept him around. i got blasted with him on monday as a farewell.

on the right is mr johannes from germany. he was here for a few months in an exchange program of sorts. this is what he wrote to the staff today in his farewell email. although it’s not typical inverted pyramid style, the best part of his note is as the end.

Hey everybody,

today is my last day at the Times.

The two months at the Times have been great. It was an honor and also a lot of fun to work at your outstanding newspaper. I want to thank every one of you for helping me and making this experience so great. I learned a lot and wrote a lot of stories for my newspaper in Munich. I would love to stay here for a longer time, but unfortunately time flew and I have to go back to Germany. My boss wants me to work on Monday.

I’ll definitely miss The Times and also the way you work. There is a far more investigative approach in every story you write than in an average German newspaper. In my first day I saw Angela Spaccia in Maywood’s City Hall. In my last week here I’ve seen her on TV as a defendant.

So, thanks again, I would love to hear from you.

Stay in touch.
Best,
Johannes

For as large of a paper as we are we have very few critics. one reason might be because of what our german friend alluded to: people who have actually worked here this century know that the high level of journalism that made the paper what it is is still very much alive and well here and being practiced every day.

which may be one reason our people keep being poached by those who want what we’ve got.