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got some work done, but not enough

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i have blockage.

i know it will clear up soon.

had a good talk with my brother. that wasn’t blocked.

i stare at this laptop so much my eyes and my head get sick.

for years i did a good job focusing on good, but i think im blocked and sick and stuck because im focusing on problems

not solutions.

tomorrow i have a good interview set up.

i did my research. i have a few good questions. i have an angle.

i dont usually like any of those. i like things to be natural, organic, gluten free.

but i want to try something different tomorrow.

i really wanna take the bus there even though it would be an hour each way.

but i dont wanna risk being late.

i guess i could always hop off and take an uber if things run behind.

but i need to get back home quick

so i can struggle

i will get out of this hole.

i always do.

this has been a long, deep one though.

with unexpected foes.

damn am i happy with how eagle rock is turning out

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the first one was joe armstrong, great guy, so smart, so well spoken

and he turned me on to a woman who is a friend of his girlfriend

and she was so great too but different because unlike joe who grew up in IL

rebecca grew up in Eagle Rock and had all these amazing stories about taking the bus east to Pasadena to volunteer at KROQ in the early 1980s

and then at night take the bus west to Hollywood and Santa Monica

TO DANCE AT THE SAME DAMN CLUBS I WAS DANCING IN.

even though im trying not to be as obsessed with the blog posts at hearinLA.com

because theyre slowing my roll, she talked about all these great pics she had

and she sent me like 9-10 that were fine, but nothing popped

today as we were texting i said now or never do you have any more

and she said i have one where im making out with the singer of INXS

i was all michael hutchence? what? prob one of the sexiest singers of that era

who tragically died young

i said, you dont wanna humble brag?

and she said yeah where is it.

she found it and it was the one above which was soooooo goooooood

i was all yes thats it omg omg

i still cant believe how good it was and our convo and how eagle rock is falling in place.

i was on Twitter allllll day and while talking about movies, the last video store left in LA

vidiots, who is moving to eagle rock, liked something i wrote about film preservation

so i DMed them and said PLEASE BE ON HEAR IN LA AS I AM WRAPPING UP EAGLE ROCK

and they said hows about thursday

so yes it sucks that my pay is being delayed because that is whats supposed to keep me afloat as i do this podcast

but thank the stars above for hooking me up with all these great guests

because thats really what matters right now

the money will come

and every month that MF doesn’t pay me i make another $1k or more in late fees and interest

which is more than what id be making if i was Ubering ppl around LA right now once you deduct gas

had an old pal from chicago email me

said, when you’re ready for that fool to pay, get back at me.

heres a secret: there are some great restaurants in hollywood

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i dont know why ali and i would call Jitlada

Breakup Thai

but i think at some point we realized it was so good that even if we broke up with someone, they wouldn’t mind because the food was delicious.

mark johnson and his wife were in town and they invited os and i to break some bread with them

plus i owed him some cash that i thought id have by now – and dont –

and paid him anyways because im no rat.

and it was so incredible this food

we asked for a medium sized three flavored fish and they gave us a large because theyre lovely people too

Jazz came out and introduced herself to everyone

i told her she was so good in the jenn harris video right around the time her dear brother died

she said jenn was with her that whole time

jenn is a food writer of the la times and her mentor jonathan gold loved jitlada

i mean breakup thai too.

so much

afterwards we had drinks at Ye Rustic like in olden times

super beautiful waitress served me double baileys

os ordered cheescake

i asked the waitress where she was from and she said

schaumburg, illinois

i said lets make out at woodfield

she said meet you in front of the Claires

 

they say when bill murray hops behind bars

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as he sometimes does to the joy of everyone there

he will make screwdrivers no matter what the people order

and they will laugh and drink their screwdrivers and tell all their friends

i want to be like that.

i want to be so lovable and quietly funny that everythings a joke and light hearted

and loving and beautiful and when i die everyone will have a sweet story about me.

and sure, theres not so sweet stories about bill murray too.

like how he behaved on groundhog day.

but that shows that hes human. and if we accept his flaws and forgive them

maybe we should forget and forgive the flaws of others.

for example today i might be getting a check for a lot of money

or i might be getting what i have had for the last three months: nothing.

and i cannot believe i am finding myself in this position Again.

early last year a guy stiffed me for payment of my services

and then his buddy promised to settle up

and neither happened.

then at the end of the year a totally different guy decided to rob me of my earnings.

who am i presenting myself as being to the world that they think they can just do this to me?

i hate hate hate coming across as a victim, but sometimes we are victimized.

in both cases i dont see how i did anything wrong.

and yet here we are.

these people know i can sometimes become a powerful writer

and they know we have many mutual friends.

surely they know all i have to do is tell the story and no one will trust either of them ever again.

but they probably also know that

i don’t want to use my super powers for vengeance or for destroying people

or ruining friendships

i just want to pay my rent.

so i was watching the new batman tonight and just like in all the other batmans

he’s torn between beating the crap out of people

and showing mercy

it’s one of the more human traits of this very human super hero.

and this batman is sooooo emo its actually funny.

anyways i could relate.

i was not put on this earth to fuck shit up.

especially at my age.

maybe i was a ‘disruptor’ in theory when i was younger

but even when i was at the paper, i tried to show them that they too could use their well honed skills to beat the young bucks online.

and they wouldn’t have to do anything unethical.

some of them took me up on it and soared.

others watched.

i did enough watching as a teen.

which brings us back to what do i do?

in the new batman in the very first scene theres a great tune off nevermind

it fits so perfectly into the movie.

because im a million years old i was lucky enough to see nirvana at the forum,

when kurdt was at his most vulnerable he sat on a stool and played a few tunes on acoustic guitar.

he was wasted. but still the spirit was with him.

halfway through the first song someone threw a shoe at him.

which is equal parts rude and punk rock 101. but since it was the Forum i’d call it rude.

kurdt just let it soar over him.

he didnt acknowledge it.

the show went on.

i think in a lot of ways the best people don’t continue the cycle of hurt.

the buck stops with them.

and even though i really, truly, need all of this money thats owed to me

and even though i think these people really want me to give them back the energy that they know they deserve.

maybe the worst thing i could do is

cobain that shit and keep strumming my

dark

fucking

hippie

love songs

of death.

tunes they could never write in a million years.

got to see a bunch of friends tonight

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it was super nice.

as always a lot of their kids were there, which is beautiful.

the kids are mostly in high school now, a few are younger, one is in college

but together they are their own adorable mini extended family.

for the most part the adults were outside in the cold around the fire pit while the kids were inside playing video games and yapping it up

they came outside when they got hungry.

while food was arranged, i asked a group of them if they were watching Euphoria

they lit UP, i asked some other questions and they were soooo into it.

none of the parents, my friends, had seen any of the show, they said they were scared.

i asked them which boys they thought were the hottest. i guessed. i was wrong.

then they all agreed the super soft spoken drug dealer was their fave

not the pretty boy.

i thought that was unusual and honorable.

they didnt like the pretty boy because he was a druggie who cheated on zendaya.

wow. good for these kids!

my friends called me the Teen Whisperer and suggested i do a podcast called

Tony Talks to Teens.

i said, do teens wanna be called teens? and also, isnt that creepy if a guy like me had a show like that?

so they said Tony Talks With People.

perhaps they are not aware I HAVE A PODCAST WHERE I DO THAT

but they were complimenting me, so thank you.

but for me the best part was when i revealed i didnt know any of the kids’ names

the kids were shocked, insulted, not sure if i was kidding.

they grilled me hard. it was so funny.

but i kept saying, no of course i dont know your name. i barely know which ones of you belong to my friends.

it was shocking to them.

hilarious to me a bit.

and the best part of the night.

russia attacked ukraine

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so shits fucked.

people are dying over there.

no one knows what to do over here.

sanctions, threats, words, tears.

in russia, all over, people are taking to the streets protesting because they dont want war.

and yet here you got the last president calling putin a genius, you got one of his sr advisors saying ukraine aint even a country, you got tucker carlson saying he wants russia to win

what?

“white people crazy” is what the line is, but everyones crazy

we are so politicized right now, so many people want to keep us divided by looking at the world through either What Do Liberals Want or What Does Trump Want

that these “patriots” struggle to call insurrectionists traitors, can’t seem to bury the confederate flag, and refuse to watch our enemy Russia invade a sovereign land and say yep thats fucked.

it becomes distracting to say the least.

the other day i got back on the horse and interviewed a mountain climbing atheist guitarist.

today i got an Armenian refugee to agree to an interview in a few weeks

an old college friend who is now a realtor in one of the best parts of town wants to do it next month

and on monday a woman who grew up in Eagle Rock is ready to rock.

so maybe i just need to keep my head down and do the thing i need to do for the next 14 years

 

the experts say dont tweet on super bowl sunday

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hell, some of them say dont tweet on sundays at all

but especially not super bowl sunday because

“everyones watching TV!”

so how did my little video get 143,300 views?

and why do people, sorry, experts, always seem to have theories about when

not

to publish on social media?

do they ever tell you days you shouldnt tell your girlfriend you love her?

do they ever tell you which parts of the day you dont wanna be told youre incredible?

do they ever say which hours you shouldnt breathe?

a, b, c: always be (in the) conversation

always tell your girl she’s smokin hot

always tell yourself you da man

always be trying new ways to connect to that insatiable maw out there.

right now im trying to write a piece about cops.

ironically, im telling them that they should stop tweeting entirely

them, their deputy friends, and the entire force as a whole

why? because they suck at it and it’s embarrassing, and they only look foolish doing it.

but for some reason i am still stuck in this terrible writers block

something that was temporarily relieved when i went to a library a few weeks ago.

ive never dealt with this before and im sure its due to my lack of weed

how did that become my popeyes spinach?

but it did. it was a crutch. it was a habit that i thought i had under control

but if i cant write or dont wanna write or whatever you call this

then how was it not a liability?

i do feel healthier. i breathe easier. i dont wheeze. but i also dont sleep.

today is presidents day and the leaf blower guy didnt get the day off so i was up after just a few hours of sleep

and i dreampt i was tweeting

maybe thats a bad habit i gotta kick too

since clearly i have hit the high score.

fucked up and didnt check my memory card

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did a perfect podcast with my man Joe

i dont even wanna see how little of it got recorded.

he was a super good sport about it and doesnt mind doing it again on tuesday

but still

ive got 1,500 of these to do before i die

i cant be doing two of the same dude in the same few days

the good news is at least its joe, who produces podcasts for a living

as well as being a musician

so he knows this shit happens

and it was really good to do it with him

i know the best people

dudes a gd mountain climber

and busted with the biggest words

arggggg