Category Archives: Uncategorized

being praised by Henry Fuhrmann is better than winning a Pulitzer

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Henry has seen it all in his decades at the LA Times. He worked in various offices around LA and saw it all from the inside out.

If he had not embraced The Web the way he had, there would have been no way our success would have happened.

I knew I was in trouble when I landed at KPCC and asked where the copy editors were. As Henry tweeted, when I was first at the LAT there were 100 of them. At KPCC there were zero. That never changed. Finances. They considered it a luxury.

When you drive your car do you consider your brakes a luxury?

The man who would successfully push me out at the Times also didn’t believe in the copy desk. He created a blog that would publish first and have copy come in afterwards. I said why would you do that? He said he wanted to be at the cutting edge of Google Trends. I said great you get your headline on the top of Google News and what’s gonna happen when people click and it’s a mess? He said, no one will notice.

But that’s the funny thing about big time digital news from a big time news org: they notice the errors way more than the successes.

I am glad that guy is no longer in my universe.

Likewise, I feel blessed that Henry even knows my name.

had a good chat with the therapist

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she told me she liked my idea for the podcast but was worried about its ability to make money

i said you and me both, gurl.

but then i said, ive been in jobs where the companies were in financial peril and i hung in there

the entire time i was at the LA Times they were in bankruptcy plus Chicago was trying to destroy it plus all these other entities were trying to hurt it.

this is nothing new.

whats new is i will have a smidge more control over the outcome

i wont have to have things approved

do you know how insulting i took it to have certain things approved in my life?

i was all, didnt you hire me because im the expert of this shit?

havent you seen me turn loaves and fishes into mcribs?

we got this.

and then when i did it, months later i had to do the whole approval process over again.

maybe its how i show up in the world.

maybe its because i dont speak the way they want or say the things they want

or ESP the things they wanna silently hear.

doesnt matter any more.

they’re doing their thing and i wish them well, i honestly do.

but as soon as i get this damn tape recorder which is in DTLA right now waiting for the UPS man to bring it to me

imma start living my life.

got my car outta the shop (not pictured)

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i dont have a lot of money. i dont even have a job. but sometimes you have to invest in your car.

for a year i have been broke and for a year my car has needed to get work done on it.

brakes, oil, you know: little things

but i met a guy by the river and i did a little favor for him, so i paid off a chunk of my apple card

and then put a grand back on it fixing my car up.

youve gotta be careful going into a shop and just omg paying for what they say is wrong

but this place is different. ive known the son for two years and his dad who has owned it for nearly 40 years. he’s going to be retiring soon. it’s a small place that usually works on very expensive Benzes like the $80k classic in the picture above.

apparently someone accidentally put diesel in that one.

when i asked how many miles that 57 year old car had

the guy said, no one knows because the odometers back then were only 5 digits.

when i got in my car it drove like it was brand new.

i can drive it to you.

 

it was a good day already at 10am

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woke up on time. got the car to the shop. the dude was great.

walked over to the jack in the box. sat down in there. ate an egg and bacon croissant

drank juice.

watched two people parked in their tesla watch netflix on the car’s giant ipad.

listened to a man talk on the phone in spanish.

listened to how twitter went through one rough patch after another

like an expensive plane trying to get through the turbulence and into the clear air above the clouds

it was warm but not too.

got over to hollywood n highland and walked around dave and busters

why not

theyve got some wild machines i may have to try out one day.

poked my head into hot topic because thats my boo

remembered there was a kobe mural

then i noticed there were these little signs on the ground to show you how to get there

got up to the fourth floor and there was these

two barriers stopping you from getting to where the mural was

i also saw a kid in a wheel chair with his mom

they were waiting for the elevator to take them back down

there was nothing else up there on the fourth floor

and this kid had a lakers jersey, lakers flags

and his chair was purple and gold

i said, if i move those barriers would you want to go see the mural?

his mom said we came so far to see this

yes!

so i moved the barrier

looked around

motioned them in

and they got their picture

and i got mine

may was really good, blogging wise

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my goal each month is to post at least one thing a day and in may i went over.

i think part of the reason i was productive is because i wasn’t worried about the Medium blog any more, and i was sorta working for this thing, and it filled me with creative ideas, of which i gave to the thing, but i also gave to this thing.

and now that energy is spilling over to the forthcoming podcast which i will start working on this week.

today i have to wake up before 10am to go to the benz repair shop to get some things worked on that i shoulda gotten done a year(!) ago but covid.

hopefully he doesnt find a million things. and also hopefully i can fall asleep soon so i can wake up early.

i am eating creamed spinach and generic minestrone soup.

for all of 2021 i have cooked for myself. it’s a little bit of a miracle. the creamed spinach is probably a ripoff because it was $6 for two bags. you put a bag in the microwave for five minutes and out comes a good sized serving of Popeye’s favorite.

do you know i love you? i do.

the last time i had a colonoscopy the dude was all, for a guy who eats fast food as much as you claim, you are super clean in there, but one thing youve gotta do: more green leafy vegetables. and i asked, is creamed spinach ok? he said yes but take it easy on the cream.

the soup is generic low salt like old men eat. i get low salt because they say the only reason people like certain soups is because it has lots of salt in it. so this is how i judge canned soups. if it can taste good without cheating, then cool. sometimes i’ll add chicken or peas or beans to make it a real meal. sometimes i’ll air fry a thick slice of bread.

but tonight i just nuked that spinach and called it a night.

this has been a very weird first half of a year.

things have already happened that i did not expect at all.

im very curious if this podcast will make things even weirder but weird good, for the back half of this

please let it be so, God.

today is kyla’s birthday, i think shes 19?

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i am not a good uncle. i probs would have been a bad dad.

my shrink asked me why i never had kids,

i said because condoms work.

she said but why didn’t you want kids?

i said, i think it was because the ladies i was getting naked with didn’t want them.

she asked, if you met someone who wanted kids would you have them?

i said, if i was in love, madly in love,

which is code for stupid, sure.

she said, you think love is stupid?

i said no, i think love is the greatest, but when you are in it you do super dumb things, and i am telling you this out of experience.

so you think having children is dumb? she asked.

i think me having kids is a risky move because of course i would love them and try to be cool to them, but i overshare and i dont see a lot of parents do that, so maybe it’s not a good thing, and if i was around little kids i would want to do the good thing, not the idealistic thing, and i have no clue what the good thing is

and maybe the good thing is to just lead by example and not be an asshole

that way if a kid, like say, my niece, sees me doing things, she will say “oh that seems not ass holey. i think i’ll do that too.”

which isnt to say i havent been an asshole to people, in fact i think about the times i have been so cruel, all the time. but i think the reason we are still breathing is to grow and learn from those sins.

kyla this year helped me transcribe some of the things ive been writing and that was an unexpected joy. and i paid her and she said you poor. i said doesnt matter, you should always ask for payment when you work.

she said, ok but how about you put it in my college fund.

which i did. totally forgetting that college for her starts soon.

in my head shes still a little kid putting on way too much sunscreen.

got pretty much no sleep last night

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not sure why. maybe i drank a Coke too late?

just couldnt get to sleep, so i wrote some deep dark secrets and sent it to someone.

maybe as a replacement for the missed therapy session from this week?

i wanted to get it off my chest because it was something i both worried about and something that i have zero control over.

for example, you could get in shape, buy the coolest clothes, steal the best car, read all the current best sellers and then go on 100 dates

there is no guarantee you’ll have chemistry with any of them.

likewise you could go outside because you hear theres a guy jacking off in the middle of the street and meet your future wife.

life is bizarre, which is fine.

today i saw an IG story where this girl went to Lobster Village with her parents and I DMed her and said wait the Mexican border is open? she was all yep.

and even though no one knows its open its still a two hour wait, she told me to cross the border back to the US

theres nothing i need at the border.

i can get lobster here and i dont.

i just like the concept of being free.

is social media bad for us? yes.

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would it be great if i can really sustain myself through podcasting
so i wouldnt have to be on social for hours and hours studying it
so if i do get a gig that includes promoting things on Twitter FB and Instagram,
i’d know what to do?

yes.

yesterday i was looking through IG and saw these models at a White Party

it was a birthday party for someone who rented a mansion and spared no expense, they even had mostly nude women who you could eat sushi rolls off

across town the Lakers are playing to a mostly empty arena because we’re doing our best to end this covid nonsense

in a few weeks we wont have to wear masks anywhere

but obviously a lot of people just cannot wait a few more weeks

and do this instead

and yes it makes me irritated.

but when you think about who these people are at this party

these are people who have made small fortunes being beautiful and flaunting their wealth and cheekbones

one of the women eating the california roll allegedly bilked her sugar daddy out of $1.3 million, and worse, broke his heart by saying no to him after he proposed over the phone.

some of us need to be outside, at parties, dressed to impress, and in the feeds of nobodies like me,

and then placed in world famous blogs.

so i cant be mad at them for long.

indeed, we should take pity.

today was national burger day

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in n out taught me a lot about life.

typically i shy away from the hype. when i moved here in the early 12th century, i was all about Fatburger because of the Beastie Boys.

but back then i had terrible stomach issues and spending that much money on a giant hamburger that i couldnt finish was sorta stupid, although i did like that back then they had jukeboxes in all of their stores.

eventually amateur doctors taught me about the benefits of mary jane and i started eating different foods. one of them was in n out. which at first i hated but after time i started

EATING

the lettuce and tomatoes.

it took years.

but the freshness of those items is, to me, what makes the in n out burger so good.

as someone who once worked at mcdonalds i can tell you that the lettuce and tomato there wilts super fast. somehow in n out are able to keep everything crispy and juicy.

pretty sure witchcraft is involved, but dont quote me.

today my mom asked me for the fifth time if i would go to hawaii with the family.

i said fine because i havent seen my mom in forever and they tell me weed is now legal overbythere

the culture is lit and i had a ball

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i listen to LDR every night as i float into that frightful dark dimension

i took a nap this afternoon which is tempting fate 2x

i dont like sleeping bc i dont like dreams bc i dont like lies

if theres one thing that will ruin our relationship is when untruths appear

and i know, you’ll say, but tony, dreams don’t pretend to be anything

other than

dirty fibs told to us while we’re powerless

but still.

why even have them.

i get so mad after a dream. good or bad.

good because it was fiction

bad because now im stressed for no good reason?

i day dream plenty, trust me.

this college dean said if youre gonna nap, just dont make them longer than 40 minutes

and that works

but still i feel like there was monkey business going on when i was down

which is not cool

but this song sure is.