it’s the sound of one party trying to outsuck the other.

when the dems let their presidental victory get stolen away by the supremes in 2000 who would have thought that over the next five years they would turn out wimpier and less intersted in fighting back?

thats one way of sucking. other way include starting wars with people over phantom weapons, not raising any tax monies to pay for those wars, getting caught paying off writers to spread your propaganda, sneaking in a gay male hooker into the white house press conferences, not finding public enemy number one, preventing a minority group from getting married, allowing minorities to drown during a flood, and outting cia agents during a time of war.

its almost as if this was a poker game of hi-lo and both parties keep discarding their aces for those elusive 2s and 3s.

republicans are supposed to be about less government, smaller government, balanced budgets, strong military. but this administration is bloated and intrusive and spending like an identy theif with some elses credit cards. and somehow theyve made our military seem toothless.

however no one has been as toothless and girlie and femme as the dems. even with howard dean at the helm, even with the repubs shooting themselves in their feet at every step, not one democrat has risen above the mess BushCo has created with a giant WTF sign in one hand and a plan in the other.

instead they sit on the sidelines and mumble and sneer as if the american public will see that theyre the good children and reward them one day.

hey dems, you’ll be rewarded when you actually do something of value.

for example, karl rove is floundering infront of the grand jury today. if it turns out that he gets indicted and charged with obtruction of justice and perjury – show no mercy. connect the dots between he and the president. connect the dots between he and the GOP.

last week you had both the house and senate majority leaders embroiled in illegalities and this week you have the president’s approval ratings at their lowest ever:

use your death move.

explain to the american people that this is all a grand old fuckup which starts with rove, goes through delay and bush and ends up in the quagmire of iraq paid for by you and me.

and then demand support of an impeachment.

the old saying “strike while the iron is hot” should be whispered in the backyards of every democratic barbeque this weekend.

especially since theyre going to present a woman named hillary to the populace in a few years

and especially since the repubs, if theyre smart will present a woman named condeleza to the populace to run against her.

how do we know Rove is in trouble?

cuz the instapundit doesnt dare mention his name.

spolid + bunny just made the best photo essay + sandra

its been over a year since you moved away from me, and have our lives been any better?

i dont think so.

yes ive had some good times and youve had some good times, but were they as good of times since when we used to eat soup together on hot days on wilshire?

no.

heres what i want to do.

i want to help buzznet be the biggest thing ever so we can hire you and karisa.

i dont know what you guys would do but we only go around this mamajama once, might as well do it with good people around us.

i cant believe youre in san diego.

god i hate san diego.

do you know its my birthday in two weeks? do you know that mc brown is gonna throw me a party at the buzznet offices? do you know that this is your official invite?

do you know i went to palms thai with my coworkers last week? do you know we had like 14 people there and we all ate like crazy and it was awesome?

do you know it wasnt as awesome as it would have been with you?

i cant believe the padres are in the playoffs and youre not there.

i cant believe that our former employer had you and me and john woo and they pretended like we were nobodies.

life is the weirdest experiment ive ever seen: lets give power to those who dont know what the hell theyre doing and lets give the kool kids low wages no health insurance and headaches.

do you know i bought an SG yesterday?

do you know i dont know how to tune it?

do you know im afraid to break a string so even though i found these web sites that give you the tone to tune the string im too chickenshit to turn the knob too tight cuz im afraid im gonna break it?

do you know im a dumbass.

yes, i believe you know that.

do you know i bought a little amp for $125 that has all these built in sounds like flanger, chorus, phaser, and reverb, but the best feature is it has a headphone jack which is perfect for my wireless headphones. and any time i pass by the guitar i pick it up and play one string, cuz if i play a chord it sounds like hoobastank: crap.

do you know i have to hop in the shower now.

do you know this is my second to last friday working with the ladies who i will miss very much.

do you know i miss you this much

do you know my arms are stretched around the world.

you dont have gallstones you just miss me,

tony

the overflow + paige + paul + danielle k keeping it real

twins? no.

i went to an LA Press Club event.

a mixer.

a social soiree.

an outing.

a panel discussion.

a place not frequented by barely legal young ladies.

and i loved it.

i went because in my upcoming new gig with Buzznet, part of my duties, so i believe, will be to go out into the world and help hype the product.

i also went because i have had very nice experiences at the LA Press club events and i like their mixture of libertarian politics, intellectual conversations, polite debate, and free booze.

last night was sponsored by my favorite blog the ScienceBlog.com, run by my bro Ben Sullivan, who was not in attendence because he was in south america with his magnifying glass, or something.

but his spirit was there.

one of matt welch‘s cohorts from Reason moderated a three-person panel who debated the importance of Federal support of Science, and its impact on the development of scientific breakthroughs. completely fascinating because i had never even thought of the influence of politics on science.

boy was i naive.

the two most debated examples were stem cell research and missle defense. one being pretty impossible to acheive (yet it is fully funded by the government) and one is far more likely to acheive (yet it is sparsley and reluctantly funded by this administration).

i sat comfortably between the ravishing Bonnie Bills and the always wonderful Mark Cridland. Bonnie whispered that she was afraid that i was being offended by the scientists’ criticsms of the american evangelicals who stifle science because it may destroy their faith, however i was worried that Crid might be offended because they were bashing Bush pretty hard.

i was not at all offended because when true Christians (and not these fake ones) finally take power, they will cease with this faux drug war and allow the natural herbs grow as the Lord intended and our elderly will be able to ingest medical mary jane as we californians voted that they should.

i had such a lovely time i promised that i would come back to another event sometime soon and i meant it.

as in certain situations like church or a baseball game, or a combonation: a springsteen concert, sometimes its just super cool to be surrounded by like minded intellegent people, in this case those who read books and remember what theyve read and write alot and are genuinely interested in the topic at hand – which last night was based in discoveries.

the woman panelist was asked why the LA Times, who she used to worked for doesnt put scientific breakthroughs on the front page any more, and everyone wondered allowed, yeah, why not.

and i thought, shit the busblog definately doesnt do that, even though sometimes thats the coolest news of the day.

so i promise to you that i will read ScienceBlog closer and more regularily so i can be better than my local rag and spread the good news of the day more freqently.

Update: Hear Matt Welch on the Radio in Calgary on The World Tonight with Rob Breakenridge on CHQR 770 AM, at 6:30 pm today, talking about Superdome fantasies and other Katrina-related stuff.

rove is about to fall on his sword + gray matters + gorilla mask + city rag

only the fool is king. ask puffy, ask korn, ask flava flav. the wind might howl, kicking up plastic grocery bags that once served mankind, but now only dance with the forgotten sports page in front of an east hollywood titty bar advertised to neighbors as Cherry’s but known to the undercover miscreant as home.

her name was lola, she was a show girl. see thru high heels up to there and blonde streaks all through her hair.

tony sat at the bar. alone.

normally the ladies’ favorite with a joke and a laugh and a welcoming lap, this afternoon he mindlessly stirred his rum punch with the tiny plastic flamingo and stared through his fake glasses and followed the trail of condensation down the dirty glass, down the curvy side, down into the puddle at the base slowly soaked up by the generic napkin that had the word “napkin” imprinted in cursive.

napkin tony thought to himself. napkin. what sort of name was that, what did it mean. where did it come from. latin?

lola lifted her g-string and released the hard earned dollar bills and counted them one by one. organizing them by denomination, lining them up neatly on the bar, folding them and rubberbanding them and placing them finally into the tiger print mini purse that hung close to her heel.

buy you a drink, stranger? she asked tony and winked at him.

he didnt even look up. just bit his bottom lip and traced his finger on the glass.

disco lights gave the illusion of motion on the ice that melted in the tumbler as kid rocks american badass blared in the nearly empty club. women’s pro beach volleyball, muted, gave color to the unwatched zenith big screens as the ceiling fans twirled lazily and rosalita slapped the first hand away from her cooch.

lola leaned over and put her heavily made up face on the xbi agent’s shoulder and tried to see the world from her hero’s perspective. what fascinating mystery was buried in the alcoholic refreshment she wondered, what was visually more interesting than a dozen latinas, four asian cuties, three barely legal blondes, and the nastiest black girl and her micromini catholic girl skirt as they all waited for the whistle to blow and for the construction to stop and for the party to get started proper.

he thought about baseball. specifically the looming strike. motely crue’s girls girls girls signaled the end of the round of two-for-one lap dances and lola spun around in her stool and scouted out the gentlemen to see who she would choose to enjoy her dancing next.

tony sipped from the skinny straw and lola whispered that she had a line of crystal meth if he wanted it and he told his napkin no thanks.

body shot?

gracias, mi bella senorita. no.

and she tapped her feet to the disco beat and the ladies of the house said ho.

ho ho.

finally the sadness was broken up when the bubbly korean teen called lei gently pulled back tony’s tshirt collar and dragged her tongue stud across his exposed collar bone up the base of his neck around his ear lobe and behind his head sending shivers and awakening the giant within.

there was an unusual silence.

and then the familiar three swats of a high hat

of ac/dc’s back in black.

and indeed he was back.

just like that.

– from my first blog book “Blook” (no longer in print), my third blook “Stiff” will be available on 10/13

raspil + deadly unicorn + krista + ciavarro

in having canadas #1 rocker matthew good having your home number.

the good news is hes a great guy and totally into all the things im into: rock, blogging, web design, politics, computers, hanggliding, etc

the bad news is when he calls you a homosexual it’s not like you can call him one back on account of his super cool knockout wife. fucker.

last night i went out on a date but i was an hour early so i did some window shopping at the famous sunset strip guitar center because im seriously considering getting a guitar in the very near future.

while i was there i was pricing gibson sg’s, my favorite guitar on account of it is angus young’s guitar.

little did i know that there would be such a wide variety of prices for beautiful guitars.

as someone who knows very little about these musical instruments other than yeah thats a flying V or yeah thats a les paul and yeah thats a rickenbacher,

the knockoffs look pretty cool. unfortunately these are musical devices and not statues, so looks shouldnt matter so much.

one thing i didnt want was an Epiphone. i knew if i bought a cheapy korean-made guitar i probably wouldnt play it as much as if i had a full blown gibson sg staring at me from across the room.

seriously who can resist picking up a sweet ass american made axe when its sitting in a corner?

so the guitar dude at the guitar center saw me cheaping out and picking up the $200 knock-offs and he said, you know if you buy a $1,000 real guitar, in 5 years it will hold its value, and in 10 years it actually might be worth more money, which didnt make sense to me until i talked with mr. good who agreed.

in fact he took it one step further and suggested that i consider older guitars whose value was already on the upswing and whose tone would be even better than these newfangled doohickeys.

plus if i invested that much freaking money on a fiddle – more than i even spent on my car – i damn well would be inspired to learn how to play the frickin thing.

so now im thinking about getting two guitars. one that will tempt me from the shadows and will sound good and will increase in value as the sands slip through the hourglass, and one that i can put stickers on and shred on and ding on the corners of my apartment as i walk around noodling on it in the wee hours after drinking with college girls.

but what i truly need to do is call up my bro greg vaine who is an expert in these situations and who shares my love of ac/dc and therefore gibson sgs.

as for the date… eh.

i think 22 might be too old for me, we werent jibing.

or maybe matts right to assume that i heart penis. if he saw this chick he would have certainly called me elton john for not banging her.

maybe im just getting olderly.

science blog + jes and nick: newlydeads + how hot are matt’s archives

today on the busblog

please hold for the president

tony pierce?

president?

tony, how are you, i dont think ive spoken with you for a while?

i’m doing pretty good, sir, i just got back from aruba.

aruba? where’s that, in the tropics?

yep.

sounds expensive.

it is. but the readers to my site all chipped in and got me out there.

wow.

yeah, then my brother in law flowed me with first class upgrades.

aruba. do they still have those little grass umbrella huts inches from the water, where theres enough room for two young lovers, one who looks hauntingly similar to anna kournikova, the other who looks remarkably unworthy. where the waiter asks you if you’d like anything to drink and you say yes a mai tai for the lady and liter of coke and a bottle of rum for me. and the sandpipers peck at a coconut tree, and theres music coming from the resort and you wonder, how on earth do i deserve this?

yes, they still have those huts.

because that’s funny because someone told me that you were saying bad things about me, and i said, i thought pierce just got back from “aruba”. i wouldnt think a guy who just got back from there would be running his mouth so soon after being treated to such luxury.

sir, nothing in here is true.

you didnt just call me a liar yesterday?

calling the president a liar goes all the way back to calling the king a liar. and no offense, but picking on you, mr. bush, is like throwing water balloons at the traffic, punching a woman, robbing a grave. it’s too easy, and completely unrewarding. why would any one want to do it?

because i’m not a liar.

come on, everybody lies. especially people who have to be in front of cameras and reporters all the time. it becomes flourishes in a new language. it’s accepted. it’s okay.

seriously, ask me anything.

have you ever seen an adult movie?

of course.

can you name a porn star?

yes.

name one.

kelly o’dell.

is that really one?

yep.

did you know about 9/11?

nope.

do you know about 9/11 now?

nope.

that’s funny.

we’re a great team, tony. but you have to be nice for it to work.

okay.

nixon and sammy davis did a lot for each other. sammy told nixon to sign the farm bill.

food stamps? really?

of course. not everyone is as bad as they appear. and some arent as good. do you lie, tony?

no.

impossible.

no, always telling the truth has its disadvantages. girls cry. feelings can be hurt. things are much more complicated. but im too lazy to lie. i barely remember the truth. only reason i’d even make something up would be to make a cute girl in the corner smile when im trying to ask her to the fair.

i love fairs.

im sorry for the things i said, george bush.

do you have any idea how hard of a job i have?

you have all these smart people around you, though.

still, it’s like, hard.

hard? just say, pull me up the live feed of the spy satelitte north north west of kabul. and one in pakistan somewhere.

okay, first, youre talking out of your ass. second, dont you think channel k isnt on every monitor in the building. fuckers hiding. uv cameras, heat sensitive cams, one purple spot in a cave looks just like another. we might have blown him up on the first night of bombings and they took away his body. he could be anywhere. you dont think that frustrates me. dont you think i see the irony of once owning the texas rangers, who are also big time losers despite having money, a new stadium, the best catcher and the mvp in the league and still finishing last place. dont you think i know that im the sherrif in town and i have a wanted man who i cant find?

once again, im sorry sir.

dont you think when i look at the new york skyline, i dont feel completely responsible?

well, you shouldnt. you sorta should but not 100%. dont be so hard on yourself.

please just leave alone on this. i’ll give you money.

i cant take your money.

i’ll get you a pretty girlfriend.

im surrounded by pretty girls.

yeah, where do you think they came from?

heaven.

ehnnn, guess again.

i dont want any of those ill-gotten girls. im getting old. i think im ready for true love now, please.

well i cant help you there.

ok, help get tsar to play for my birthday then.

only if you promise not to start selling the “bush knew” tshirts.

deal!

well, actually the only person who i know who has pull with Tsar is you.

i know, its cool.

good cuz i think its suppertime now.

thats cool. ok bye president bush.

by tony pierce. the busblog is my favorite blog.

i know. i see your IP at all fucking hours.

you do?

dude whitehouse.gov is pretty obvious on my shit.

oh. oh.

kbye

lower east side stories + etienne + peter interviews smelly

the problem is i dont really sleep.

thats not a problem if you always have projects to do and my latest current project was making the best book i ever made ever Stiff.

i also have a worthiness problem.

namely i dont think im worthy to produce the best book ive ever made and put it out there for people to buy and fawn over.

that problem is millions times more lame than the first problem but it feeds into another problem of mine, my procrastination problem.

often im called prolific and dedicated and lots of other generous terms in relation to my productivity, but the truth is for every half-hour that i spend blogging i waste five hours reading all of your blogs.

in many cases waste isnt the correct word, but in some cases its just.

jk.

the truth is, if i actually cut that ratio down by even a little i would be posting 4-5 times a day like a real blogger and i could probably just set up shop somewhere in the tropics and live a comfortable life solely as a blogger who drinks fruity cocktails and has his dick sucked twice a day by hula girls.

but that of course wouldnt jibe with my worthiness problem very well, which is probably why i sabotage pretty much everything im any good at.

which leads us back to Stiff.

Stiff is a collection of my Kurt Kobain stories about the time that i died and got judged and had to pay for my sins.

it was written years ago after i had been transferred from the closed captioning department at E! Networks to the Scheduling Dept.

symbolically i felt like i was going to hell because my boss’s boss told me that the Scheduling Dept was the hardest and busiest place in the whole network and no way would i survive it and no way would i ever have time to think let alone blog and frankly, he said, he didnt think i could hack it.

so i was scared.

within the week i took a walk across the street and i wept because it looked like he was right and it looked like a co-worker was right when he predicted that my new job would “wipe the smile” from my face.

when i was done crying i came back and killed myself in my blog.

and for the better part of that month every entry i made in the busblog was my journey in the afterlife.

i included parts of those stories in How To Blog but in researching that book i realized that i might be able to compile those stories into a little book that could stand on its own.

when i was released from my duties at E! this spring i considered putting out those stories as a way to earn money during my layoff. but a funny thing happened and ii didnt need to come out with the book because some small stock deals worked out in my favor and a particular adult magazine agreed to purchase a very short story under one of my many fake names. so my summer was set.

before i knew it i was employed again, so there was no reason to come out with Stiff since i originally only wanted to publish it for the money. but because i had talked about it people asked questions about it.

and now that i have had a cover contest and all, and because after making a copy to check out, i have fallen back in love with the stories.

however at only 120 pages i felt like it was too thin of a book to go forward with.

so instead of ruining it by tacking on additional stories, i beefed it up with a variety of the poems that i had written during my youthful days at uc santa barbara. these were poems that i also loved but were far too few to ever make it in a collection alone.

so the combo of my best novella and my favorite poems equals Stiff.

because i am constantly making things difficult for myself, last night i made SEVEN different versions of the book. seven different covers and different insides to denote on the title page the artist responsible for the cover art.

when i get the samples back from the printer (probably by the end of this week) i will put them on sale for you.

and yes there will be a limited number of autographed copies that you can order directly from me.

we’ll go into detail about that more next week, but i figured i owed you an update.

p.s. the secret goal is to sell 666 copies, so get ready

flagrant + just one bite + joe mael + eric case