not because of personalities or anything like that but because of technology.
and i was sick as a dog.
the biggest problem is im a poetry major and sometimes the blog editor needs to be something other than a motivator or an editor or a marketer or an SEO master, he has to be able to roll up his sleeves and fix complicated technical problems.
believe it or not, but sometimes i can actually do that stuff too, but last week i was checkmated by technology that i can’t even see. and i was coughing up my lungs.
so it was frustration atop frustration and it was hard to tell if it was my failings or my illness that was making me want to just curl up and die.
when people are put in a pressure situation there are usually two options: fight or flight. growing up as the only black kid in school in a pretty small community, flight was never an answer because the next day you were still black and now you were known as a coward, so fighting through problems was what i learned to do.
any of you who read the busblog back in the olden days, or read the comment threads of LAist saw that i never backed down from a fight. id attack anyone for any reason. sometimes foolishly, but rarely would i not confront what i perceived as an attack.
last week there was no one or nothing to fight. it was this faceless entity that was seemingly owned by no one, and there was no one to call, nothing to adjust, no one to ask for help.
and thats where prayer comes in. cuz youre never alone if you are a Christian. you always have someone to lean on. you always have a wildcard hidden in your shirt sleeve. you always have an ace.
the problem still isnt solved. but today i have peace of mind, mostly because i am no longer hacking and sneezing and feeling like a hundred bucks any more, which has helped me think clearer. and it reminded me that there is someone upstairs who loves me. dumb old me. and he wants my crap to work too.
it was gorgeous today in LA and i wish you were here.
featuring some of his latest short stories, the author of Tund and the critically acclaimed Smell has breached the interwebs – perhaps inspired by obamas trip to Prague?
there is joy in mudville, as stories like “Dagger” can now find a worldwide audience. an excerpt:
The sun fell down on California. Inside a large beach villa, lights flared. The place belonged to Pete Dagger, all-star American writer.
Dagger was among the biggest of the writers, perhaps the largest of the era. He was a top multi-millionaire popular artist who was loved by the critics. He was huge with the academics, who sucked from his marrow, and with the underground, which was hot and bothered by his slashing, ripping style and bottomless defiance.
Like many of the greats, Dagger was no genius-come-lately. He had been recognized only after years and years of surviving on ketchup soup and kool-aid, after years and years of struggle up mountains of scorn and indifference. He had survived the painful years of short-story writing; the dabbling in “journalism”; the job stints as dishwasher, data-input man, and motel clerk. He had overcome the harrowing years of hostility and suspicion from friends, colleagues and family. He had prevailed despite his stabbing bouts of doubt; his frightening drunk sprees; a general case of self-loathing.
Few critics had initially discerned Dagger’s particular epochalness. His first book, Copper’s Gold, had received vague, if somewhat polite, notices in the small number of journals that chose to review it (many a career was in fact badly tarnished by the early failure of critics and editors to identify the breadth of Dagger and his achievement). The public response to this sterling volume was similarly rather sluggish, and initial hardback sales of Copper’s Gold petered out at about 910,000 copies.
However, Dagger’s second book, the cutting, bittersweet masterpiece The Sun, Hey, Strawberries, was an instant global paperback best-seller, prompting a renewed wave of interest in Copper’s Gold. The first book had mounted a keen comeback, soon overtaking the second on the sales charts – and to the amazement of Dagger and many others, Pete Dagger had become all the proverbial worldwide rage. With critics from Maine to Madagascar suddenly struggling to say enough good things about these two textual jewels, Dagger was inexorably propelled to the summit of literary regard, a position he maintained to the present day.
read all the rest here on Thor’s little nook on the web. welcome aboard, sailor.
Peter: Any advice for a blogger who wrote a book and now wants to pimp it a bit?
have it printed on hemp.
BobD: Your predictions for Cubs record this year? Post season? World Series? World Series win?
101-61, they’ll sweep the dodgers in the first round, and then sweep the phillies for the pennant. then they’ll beat the yankees in seven games. but only after president obama renounces the white sox for good luck.
dshan: sorry, two this time. what are your thoughts on cutler and the bears? and, how do you decide which personal blogs to read?
as happy as everyone is to get a 25 yr old pro bowler, did the bears really need a quarterback? wasnt orton passable? with two number ones couldnt we get some help at WR? but now that the deal is done and we have orlando pace (which is fine because the bears havent had the best luck with their own #1 picks, so why not try someone elses) i look forward to the season starting. i would still love to trade for someone to catch the damn ball.
i like personal blogs that are trying something new, taking risks, exposing themselves emotionally, and living on the edge. because of that i really miss the pants, flagrant, danielle, and the oak park mastermind.
Luke: What are your Final Four predictions? Mine (only semi-related): the girls in this town are going to be drunk Saturday, and I am going to be happy.
i predict that as long as the ncaa continues to exploit young, mostly black athletes by making millions and spreading that money to everyone except to the young, mostly black athletes, i wont be watching. i did lots of things as a college student that benefited the college and i got paid for it. that same courtesy should extend to the jocks.
raymi: why do cats meow why is the sky blue why is water wet why is most gum pink
because theyre annoying, thats an optical illusion, because god wanted you to know when you were in the ocean, and because its made out of fingers.
once again america does it all so much better, eh?
g/d: If Vin Diesel is back with violence can J.D. Salinger back out of silence?
jd is the original punk rocker. he hated pictures on his book cover. he wanted people to read them just as they were. no art. no hype. he probably isnt even crazy that catcher in the rye is maroon with yellow letters. and best of all hes too punk to die or call it a comeback.
vin diesels only claim to fame is he looks just like me if i lifted anything heavier than a longneck.
zona: who was that blogger who asked about when/if Da Bears were gonna get a quarterback in the off season? who was that guy?
oh that would be you mr taco stand. didnt they used to burn witches back in the good ole days?
vinny: have you ever seen Tracy Morgan do stand up live?
even though ive lived in LA for longer than some of you have been alive, ive never seen a comedy show here. just here in hollywood there are a half dozen places to take in all the best stand up comics around. but since i hate to laugh i sit in my dark cave and paint on the walls instead. tracy was amazing on his appearance on howard though – gurgle gurgle gurgle.
FakeName: OK, this is kind of serious. After just dabbling with it socially, I’ve developed something of a taste for the cocaine. It hasn’t interfered with my work/life/relationships (yet), and has become a favorite way to relieve stress in these very stressful times. Is this the beginning of the end, or is it possible to enjoy a few lines the same way others enjoy a few glasses of wine or a few bowls of weed?
addictions are a personal thing. some cant handle any booze, some eat way too much, some watch hours and hours of tv, or play video games forever. some are addicted by work or making money. some chicken eating hall of fame baseball players are sex addicts. i wish i could tell you something about cocaine but when i was a lad there were two really awesome college athletes who died from od’ing on coke and i said “hell if that could happen to those freaking specimens of masculinity, a wimpy dude like me doesnt stand a chance.”
so i say if you can go a week, or a month, or even a year without coke then you probably have a handle on it. but id still be careful because i dont know too many people who can tapdance on those types of land mines and come out on top. might wanna just stick the things that dont kill people. for example ive been playing a lot of chess recently.
meredith r. mistletoe: tony! I realize it’s saturday now. BUT: So, I’m considering coming off babe-break. What are the top 5 characteristics I should be looking for in a Major Babe/Babe-of-life?? (xo)
older, balder, americaner, sicklier, and disgustinglier. think joe the plumber with soul.
because im so old i can say from experience that there are plusses and minuses to both. i can also say that ive had better times with brunettes, but that might just be because theyre wilder.
bloopy: why is your flickr name xxsosaxx?. . . i think i get the sosa bit, but what are the “x”s for?. . . and why not use your real name?. . .
everything i do, just like raymi, is a ripoff of orange county girls on the web. there was a time when they all had x’s around their handles. and just like them, i prefer using aliases – its more fun and cuts back on the narcissism.
Sam: How would you save newspapers?
Girls Scouts have cookies to sell but even if their average customer buys 4 boxes, it’s hard to believe that the end profit for the girls off that average sale would equal $10, and those cookies are ultimately bad for you. Boy Scouts don’t have anything interesting to sell but would benefit a great deal from the act of salesmanship. Most daily newspapers have deals where you could get a year subscription to a newspaper for $75. If newspapers teamed up with the Boy Scouts and had them sell subscriptions for $99, Americans could not only save newspapers but they’d help scouting by buying something that’s good for them, good for the community, and educational. If in a city like LA the scouts could get a mere 250,000 new subscribers it would mean millions for both the scouts and the paper.
its always too late. time and money are the first two excuses the devil puts in our head whenever theres work to be done, so ignore those immediately. the question you should ask your self is, is this the right thing to do? is this best in the long run? if time and money werent considerations what would i be doing? although the answer is usually tony, your results may vary.
after the cubs – yankees game i heard joe girardi interviewed and he was asked if he has a rule against players tweeting during the game, he said he isnt on twitter, doesnt know why anyone would want those sorts of details about others, but doesnt have a rule against it. apparently there are two yankees who use twitter during games.
last night on the late late show the scottish host asked zooey dachenel if she used twitter, she too said she didnt (proof) but lots of her friends do.
then today im reading our vegas blog and patrick stump the singer of fall out boy was asked about twitter and he had this to say:
Everyone is connected, but in this very impersonal way. No one has any mystery to their lives. They are electing not to have any secrets, because everyone goes onto whatever social networking thing. I never did any of it. All my friends are on it. I was something of a Luddite before I had my laptop. And, by modern terms I am not particularly computer savvy. I am on Wikipedia all the time. But I don’t know if this makes people less lonely or more lonely. You have a couple hundred MySpace friends. But you don’t know any of them personally. There is an idea of connection but it is a flimsy connection between yourself in the rest of the world when you are just Twittering people. I am not saying those things aren’t cool. But you can’t rely exclusively on that.
every day at work we try to figure out better ways to reach people would would love what we’ve got, and twitter is definately a part of making that happen.
so i looked in wikipedia to see what it was all about.
“Moxifloxacin was first patented in 1997 by Bayer A.G. and subsequently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the United States in 1999 to treat severe and life threatening bacterial infections. The licensed uses for moxifloxacin are quite limited as moxifloxacin is to be considered a drug of last resort when all other antibiotics have failed.”
“Moxifloxacin inhibits bacterial topoisomerase II (DNA gyrase) and topoisomerase IV. Topoisomerases are essential enzymes which play a crucial role in the replication and repair of bacterial DNA. This mechanism is lethal to susceptible bacteria. Moxifloxacin is often referred to as a chemotherapeutic drug because its mode of action has so far not been noted in any naturally occurring or semi-synthetic antibiotic.”
From a source familiar with Mr. D-O-double-G heres how you get a wristband tomorrow for Tuesday night’s Snoop Dogg show:
Apparently, they’re going to be giving away wristbands for this event TOMORROW, Sat Apr 4th at THREE “dogg parks” in L.A. — Runyan Canyon, Griffith Park and Silver Lake parks. NO contest entry, NO “give us your email so we can spam you” Just show up at 3pm at one of those parks and from what I’m told it should be obvious where they’re being distributed.
In completely unrelated news, I just wrote a post on the Top of the Ticket blog about Carlos Santana disagreeing with Obama about the legalization of pot and while he was at it he dissed the Governator.
It was so bad that i wanted to quit for the first time. I really enjoy working at the apple store but today nothing went right and everyone I spoke with had really hard questions and they weren’t very nice about anything. I know that you’re a pc, but maybe you can help out a Busblog reader who works at the Genius Bar.
Dear Genius,
while its true that i have a few windows machines, and my work computer is a dell, i have been using a MacBook pro a lot recently and ive been pleasantly surprised by its reliability and ease of use. i had a macbook before a few years ago but maybe there was something wrong with it because i freakin love this newer one.
anyways everybody has bad days at work. and i know i talk a lot of crap about E! but it was there that i experienced a pretty awesome work ethic. people got paid crap there when i was there but still there was a motto that youve probably heard before in the entertainment world “the show must go on”.
on one level it meant that no matter what happened early in the day or what was happening up to the live broadcast, you had to complete the task, you had to put on the show. that meant maybe youd be down a camera man, or maybe your audio guy was sick but you couldnt fixate on it because ultimately it didnt matter: you had to make television.
we had a lot of live shows at E! and most of them were really important to the network. things like golden globe red carpet, oscars, grammys… one one hand of course somethings going to go wrong, but on the other hand who cares muscle through it.
it taught me that when there are no timeouts or chicken exits, people can actually create mini miracles. and not only does the show go on, but often times it comes out just as good as when everyones having a good day.
hopefully you wont have too many trying days at the genius bar. i realize that people are really attached to their computers and they might flare up on guys like you who might have bad news for them. but trust me, whatever skillz youre learning at the apple store, you’re also learning things that you’ll probably use later in your life. handling pressure situations is a valuable skill. so when your back is up against it the only really bad thing you can do is quit.
if it feels like the devil is right there in your presence it might be cuz he really is: giving you a pop final exam.
just like in video games, if you can succeed at that level, the scary monster dies, you graduate to a new level and everything will be mellow again for a little while. the show goes on.
from a piece called “The Grates win hearts in US”, ABC news in aussieland wrote about their local band’s trip out to america, an excerpt:
The Grates are three-time SXSW veterans, and their live show, which features ribbon-twirling and colourful costumes, ensures they stand out among the crowd.
Their 2006 debut album, Gravity Won’t Get You Down, was released in the US, but last year’s sophomore album, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won, is yet to secure a US deal.
After their past disappointments, the band returned to the US with no expectations, and has been thrilled with the response.
The LA Times declared: “The Grates no doubt will soon be laughing their way to the bank, for if the world embraced the Ting Tings last year, Patience & Co are sure to be everyone’s new darlings any day now”.
“It’s been super encouraging actually, because we worked so hard with the first album that we put out over here, and that didn’t really work out with our record label, so that was a little bit of a kick in the guts,” Hodgson said.
patience told me that she broke guitarist john patterson’s iphone, so i didnt expect to see their disneyland pics so soon. in their tumblr blog they have pics from their trip out here. including a visit to Poquito Mas, and the video above of Burn Bridges, which was their last tune at the spaceland show on monday. amateur video directors out there take note of the vid – when in doubt ignore the zoom feature.
not because of personalities or anything like that but because of technology.
