reviewed my book “How To Blog” today.

because it’s so nice i have chosen to copy and paste it in it’s entirety here since he put it “below the fold” of his post damning the vice president’s trip to reno (“Good luck selling Reno on your make-believe Social Security fuckaround!”) and his props to Achewood’s new baby.

as you know ken and i have been friends for centuries and i have lived in the apartment that he once resided. some historian may say that the entire busblog was written in the closet of the apartment that layne wrote some of his greatest works, but in truth half of the busblog was written on various computers at the xbi during my government mandated fifteen minute breaks and at lunch.

I see my pal Tony Pierce is just about sold out of his “How To Blog” book. And this means I’ve failed to write a review in time to do any good. (I blame the baby.)

Still, it’s a helluva book. I had to put it down for a while due to being overwhelmed by non-book things, but I just picked it up again last week and it’s a world of its own. Of course I’ve been reading Tony’s Web sites since about 1995, when he started Lick Magazine (the real one), and I’ve read a lot of the stuff that eventually went inside the book. No matter. Without the photographs, 5,000 links, crazy BusBlog mastheads, comments, etc., you just get the writing. And it is very good, very real writing … filled with great characters both real & imagined, so much East Hollywood atmosphere that I can almost smell the zankou chicken, and the buck-up defiance & bravado that keeps a man alive despite a stupid soul-sucking job.

(It’s not just a chronological year’s worth of blog posts, as his last book was. And this is a real live perfect-bound glossy-covered trade paperback with nice pages and nice printing and a near-perfect selection of stuff that makes it much more of a short novel than a simple collection.)

Thankfully, “How To Blog” offers no instruction on how you might get or maintain a web-log. (Such a book would be a single page long, with the text: “Go to that www.blogger.com and sign up for a free account, then post a bunch of crap, or not.”) That Pierce’s honest-to-god poetic prose first appeared on his Web site is the blogging angle, I guess. Well good. Blogging is the Latest Craze, I hear, and if anyone’s going to cash in on the craze it might as well be Tony Pierce, who has through sheer stubborn willpower managed to not cash in on any of the other Internet crazes over these last dozen years.

Blogs are mentioned a few times, I guess. There is the character, “Bloggy,” and Tony often converses with this character. And there are mentions of the beloved closet off the living room of Tony’s East Hollywood one-bedroom apartment, the closet that gave birth not only to Tony’s BusBlog, but to my own bloggy. (I lived in that fine apartment in the year 2000. It really was the best apartment ever, except for the neighbor’s dogs and the crazy Scientologists doing construction all night on their horrible headquarters across the street.)

Anyway, the book might better be called “How To Live,” but that would be ridiculous. “How To Survive,” maybe. “How To Not Let The Bastards Crush Your Soul” would be a good title, too. Maybe for the mass-market reprint, when the word “blog” is as meaningless & forgotten as “home page” is today.

those of you interested in ordering a signed copy of How To Blog just email me

thanks for the love ken and congrats to you and laura on your adorable lil son

city flirting + alarming news + zulieka + i love it when flagrant has flootnotes

i think the Instapundit admitted that the republicans did the wrong thing.

i nearly fell off my fucking chair.

you’d think a man who claims to be a libertarian wouldnt have a hard time acknowledging when this administration fucks up, but as we know, if the worlds most popular blogger has a fault, it’s that.

sunday prof. reynolds claimed that he had no opinion regarding the controversial and curious meddling of congress and the president regarding the young woman in florida who has been living on life support for the last 15 years.

i think everyone realizes that it must be pretty hard for a law professor to scrounge up an opinion about something as unprecidented as a late night powerplay that the chicago tribune called “an extrodinary day of political drama“. and opinions are tough to elucidate when the only sensible one, particularily for a libertarian, who, one would assume, would be violently against the federal government sticking their little cocks into the lives of a legally married couple who have been suffering for so long.

today however he says that he thinks that fellow tennesseeian bill hobbs is right when he blogged today that he didnt know what the right decision was or if ms. schavio’s husband was trying to kill her “but I do know that the Congress did the wrong thing, intervened where it had no Constitutional right, and solved nothing.”

the professor writes: Read the whole thing. I think he’s right.

quite a stand, bro.

and this in light of the fact that an overwhelming majority of americans, and even some respected conservatives have no problem being crystal clear in their objection to BushCo getting involved in affairs of the brain damaged woman’s alleged wish to be allowed to die.

on larry king last night her husband’s lawyer said that Terry Schiavo told her husband and two others, “I don’t want to be kept alive artificially. No tubes for me. I want to go when my time comes. If I ever had to be dependent upon anyone, I wouldn’t want to live that way.”

despite what issues I may have with other bloggers regarding their writing style, what they choose to cover and what they choose to ignore, if mr. reynolds was in a similiar tragic situation of having to explain to the world what he and his wife discussed regarding as serious a matter as this, i would be hard pressed not to believe his word.

and the last thing that a libertarian would want is the government holding special sessions and the president flying from texas to washington for the sole purpose of signing a bill and thus meddling into that couple’s beeswax.

speaking of trusting one man’s word, does the instapundit have an opinion on the president’s word? in his defense of signing the bill mr bush said, “This is a complex case with serious issues. But in extraordinary circumstances like this, it is wise to err on the side of life.”

the war in iraq wasnt a complex case with serious issues and extrodinary circumstances? was it not wise to err on the side of life in that matter instead of invade a country because of their alleged weapons of mass destruction which turned out not to be there?

or what about the time that Gov. Dubya Bush executed a mentally disabled man? is that erring on the side of life?

or how about the other 151 executions that he oversaw as governor (two deaths a month)? haven’t we seen that it’s far more likely for someone to be found not guilty of a capital crime in this age of DNA discovery than it is for a woman to snap out of a 15-year coma?

obviously the president is inconsistant when he chooses to err on the side of life, some would say hypocritically so.

the biggest blogger in the world *thinks* the president and the conservative congress did the wrong thing by poking their noses where it didnt belong?

i think he’s right.

matthew good + moxie + jennifer good

this week on the busblog

i was trying to prove God to this buddist at the baja fresh and i saw my old boss signalling me from the salsa station.

my old fbi boss.

i excused myself and met him in the men’s room.

“long time, agent.”

“not that long, really, seems like yesterday.” i said.

“hows the xbi treating you?”

“the what?”

“ok, well, whatever. tony we want you back.”

“im touched.”

“we miss you and we need you.”

“you cant afford me.”

“what, are you suddenly materialist? has the xbi spoiled you?”

“it’s not money that i want.”

“figured as much, what do you want then?”

my old boss wasnt much of a negotiator, especially with me. all he would ever say is “no.”

“i want my old flying car back and i want to be a superagent, and i want my old territory back.”

“sorry kid, no can do. santa monica is taken.”

“yeah, i know, by your son-in-law. is he still in the hospital?”

“hal is back, he’s fine, thank you.”

“well, those are my terms, my fish tacos are getting cold.”

someone knocked on the door, my boss yelled, “one sec, buddy.” then he said, “we could get you your car.”

“and i want to pick my partner,” i added.

“next you’ll be telling me that you want to pick your boss.”

“get me santa monica back, and let me pick my partner and i’ll be happy with you as my boss.”

“boy, that’s a change.”

my boss always liked to get close to me and whisper in my ear. that never sat well with me, but i understood his motives.

he said, “i’ll see what i can do, agent. but your partner has to be someone from the bureau. none of those xbi hoodlums.”

i washed my hands with hot water and soap. my boss looked at his male pattern baldness and primped. i dried off with the papertowels and threw all but one in the trash and used the remaining towel to protect my soon-to-be fishy fingers and opened the door.

like a gentleman i allowed my boss to exit first.

he said thank you and as he passed, i attached a bug to the collar of his suit coat.

ej flavors + pepper blog + one ring

you had some questions for us on our two year anniversary in iraq, here are my answers.

1) How come so many of your citizens thought that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11?

americans, like many people want to believe their leaders. we’re not used to a full court press of lying and lying and lying. and we’re really not used to lies about war. not to our face. not on tv. not without the tv announcers saying bullshit.

also we’re not used to the tv announcers not saying bullshit. theyre liberals, right? if they dont say bullshit to the republicans who lie then its not bullshit. is it?

you dont really expect us to think for ourselves. when it comes to politics we usually wait to see what someone like george will has to say.

also, lets get real, most americans dont know the difference between a guy named saddam compared to a guy named osama. and most of us dont ever want to have to figure out the difference. we’ve got pick up trucks to wax.

2) How come so many of your citizens know so little about other places? I’ve met a lot of Americans and only three of them knew that Ottawa was the capital of Canada, and most of them had college degrees.

they dont teach us world capitals in college. they teach us how to drink, how to get financial aid, how to roll joints, how to understand pink floyd and led zeppelin, and how to study for a test on crystal at three in the morning.

we dont know about other places because we dont have to. straight up. everything we need is here in this huge country. ski surf steak shrimp accents architecture art tastes smells and diversity. and thats just in vegas. we want to go other places but most of you people dont speak english and even though its fun to learn how to say two big macs please it gets tiresome when youre on vacation because youre supposed to be on vacation!

3) How come so many of your citizens know nothing about the history of US foreign and covert policy? Why aren’t they taught about American involvement in places like El Salvador, Chile, Columbia, Guatemala, Iraq, Iran, and a very long list of other places around the world?

if it were taught it wouldnt still be called covert. and notice you keep throwing these cities and towns around like you think we know where they are or you think we care. you just said it, we dont know about ottowa and you fools are our neighbors to the north. our white neighbors. if we dont give a shit about our white neighbors, guess how we feel about our brown ones. this is a country who held back brown people for close to 400 years. your list there is full of brown people. so fuck those places.

and by the way, where is this edjumacation gonna be taught? high school? american history in high schools is one part european history, one part 18th century history, one part civil war history, and one part post-civil war history. we barely scratch the surface in talking about slavery and you think we’re going to get into guatemala?

unless someone takes a class in college called “dirty shit of america’s past” we’ll have to rely on the hippies and canadians like you to educate us in these matters.

4) How come most of your citizens supported the invasion of Iraq? Is it because they didn’t have all the facts or because they just wanted to see someone pay for 9/11 and were open to suggestions?

they supported the invasion because they were told that iraq had weapons of mass destruction. also they supported it because sometimes it feels better to be wrong and alive than wrong and dead. it’s a weird theory, but i think many americans share that subconcious mantra.

5) After the world found out that there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and President Bush announced that he was calling off the search for them, why didn’t your citizens demand that President Bush be impeached? After all, they tried to impeach Bill Clinton for lying about getting a blow job – and no one was even killed because of that.

now who’s naive? we in america are very hung up about sex. perhaps you didnt see the superbowl a few years ago. when the tiny pixel claiming to be janet jackson’s nipple was exposed it was so earthshattering that we are still feeling its effects. currently if you say tit on the radio you could be fined a half million dollars. meanwhile if a company was caught dumping a barrel of nuclear waste into lake michigan they would only get fined sixty thousand dollars.

therefore what bill clinton did was basically unforgiveable. how dare he.

btw, clinton was impeached, and aquitted.

but the real reason why president bush wasnt impeached was because there werent many senators or congresspeople who asked for his impeachment. why? because many of them supported his march to war. if he were to get impeached, in part they deserved it too. so they shut up.

6) How come some Americans think these sorts of questions are bad?

because it has nothing to do with nascar or britney spears.

7) How come your citizens don’t care that the CIA and the Department of Defense don’t have to disclose information to them, even though the Constitution says that they do?

when someone from the cia or the dod knocks on our door we will be sure to ask them to disclose us information, thank you.

8) You make more weapons than anyone else in the world. How come America?

all kidding aside, you must admit that we make pretty good boom sticks. the question should be, “do you know that if you made cars as well as you made stealth bombers, people would buy american cars again?”

9) How come it’s legal to own an assault rifle but two men or two women can’t get married?

this country was built on the shoulders of men and women and rifles. all this gay shit is new to us.

10) Why do you spend more money on defense than education and healthcare?

as the world police its our belief that without safety the other two things are irrelevant. it’s also the american way to tell someone who works at wal*mart to quit bitching and get a real job if they complain that wal*mart doesnt offer health care.

and as for education, what does it say about the state of education when george w. bush went to yale and got an mba at harvard and he’s no smarter than most junior college dropouts?

thanks for caring,

tony

matt good + jossip + terra + paige

and people are linking to me from here in los angeles. and all of it is very nice. and someone in texas asked me if it caused me a little pressure to keep on with the good shit and i said baby ive never written any good shit so wheres the pressure.

so today starts selfish sunday where i can write anything i want. and by that i mean i can write about all the things that the demons in my head tell me that i cant write. and by that i mean i can also write in the styles that the little negative voices in my head say i shouldnt write.

the negative voices in your head, my recently xgirlfriend has taught me, are indeed little demons and not from the Lord and not Good and not Helpful and not Loving and not Productive and not American.

telling someone that they cant do something or that they shouldnt do something or that they’re better off Not doing something especially on something as fleeting and dumbass and faddish as blogs are not only ridiculous but worthy of being ignored.

while in texas at a show someone approached me and shook my hand and praised my blog and handed me what looked to be a lit peace pipe. never one to decline a generous offer i took the pipe and pulled a long drag. very little came out. the gentleman saw my dilema and reached into his pocket for a thin long metal device. it looked like the tip of a metal hanger. he took the device and declogged the pipe. and when i tried it again i recevied a full helping of aromatic smoke.

i want to be that declogger for you.

for all of you.

but mostly me.

pushing all that crap out that perhaps started off as wellintentioned “tobbacco” but turned into something that made you strain and pause and suck.

clean your mind of all the crud thats collected there, light the resin on fire, draw in the bad and type out the bad.

the Libras are represented by the scales. some say its because we want fairness, which we do, but for me it means that although we cause change and cull change and welcome change, when it actually happens we need a few minutes to collect our thoughts and get our shit together.

its a lot like if you have a bag full of money on one side of the scales and a goat on the other and you yank that goat off and put a lemur on there. the scales will get all rattled but eventually it will level off and chill and finally end up cool as ice.

i really needed to mellow out yesterday and i got that and it was so nice to crawl over to the computer and see all the nice people who have said nice things about this blog and me, and i appreciate it.

eida shomah mobarak + fat free milk + frozen toothpaste + fil

so nice. until of course the little angel girl marched over and told me how i hurt her and how she could never get naked with me again and how its now really truly over as in the end and how she cant even french kiss me no more. and then she fell asleep on my chest and no letting me hold her ass.

who knows. she might be right. it might really be over. i hope not though. i liked her.

id forgotten that i wisely left my plants outside the whole time so it could get some sun. id forgotten that id set aside some porn for myself. id forgotten how cute all the girls i date are. obviously the gravy train has begun to dry up making me yearn for an invention that i presented in my still unfinished xxx novel where this pizza boy gets hit in a head with a microwave and his brain is radiated just enough that he can see into the future.

but only a little bit in the future and only about weird sex stuff, like he went down on this cheerleader and knew that he would only get to eat that shit until the fourth of july. etc.

its not a good book. theres a reason its unfinished.

id forgotten how much apple juice i’d stored in the fridge and this morning i woke and mixed in a little armeretto and sprite and here i am ready to do a fantasy live baseball draft.

have i told you that i was at sxsw?

sk smith is the greatest. forget all this blah blah, shes what a real writer is.

calm cool collected. smart as hell. knows how to spell. has npr on. thinks about junk. perfect.

she made me think, “how on earth could *you* apply for one of the most selective grad programs in the country with a straight face?”

but as the armeretto keeps getting poured into my raiders big gulp cup nice thoughts like

people who dont belong always make their way into cool places,

look at the white house.

look at jerry o’connell

look at sammy hagar

or jay leno

all thats important in life is how much money you make anyway

and i still cant believe that robert blake is gonna walk and nobody is outraged.

fascinating.

cello jenn + chaos theory + janice marie + faucet

next year i’ll do everything as a journalist. other than a cop, how many other professions will allow you access to go into pretty much anywhere and ask other people questions and then take pictures of them.

count me in.

still drunk, fyi. drank in the plane, drank during the layover, drank on the other plane. everything was awesome. being home is awesome too. look ma no typeos.

the delivery hold mail situation worked out perfect. the ride home from ms rene spunikova worked out perfecto, the hope that the twenty three year old veergin would want to sniff me up and down to see how much of this blog is true is working out perfect cuz shes on the way whcich means ive gotta soak in the tub.

you know what friends are, friends are people who break into your howse lay out your slippers, robe and favorite pipe and rearange your furniture for your triumphjant return.

a box of pears were on my doorstoop from a pal who attatched a card that sayd congratulations on your award winning blogpost, does this mean youre rich?

i flew next to a very nice woman from austin who is in town to buy clothes for her boutique. at some point xshe handed me her card and alot of the kids at the convention had cards for each other. but we dont have any at the xbi for some reason.

and i should get some cards or make some up or something although it was nice to say just type tony into google and im not the tony awards and im not tony bennet and im not tony hawk.

earlier in the flight i was very happily reading wil wheatons “just a geek” which was kismet or something because apparently at that time he was on msnbc giving me a shoutout.

at the time i believe i was enjoying the chapter about wil at the star trek convention at the hilton in las vegas. very funny. count on me to actually finish this book, which is something i rarely do these days.

ok i must shower.

i cant believe i got to meet wonkette!

bluejake + flagrant + david duchovny’s blog