im still in minneapolis. yesterday i basically took the day off from driving around the world and instead drove around town.

i found myself on the freeway trying out my new camcorder thats also a pretty great still camera. everything was going well until i saw a copper in the median who looked at me as i passed, turned on his party lights and peeled out behind me.

as i said in the previous post, my emotions rarely make their way to the surface, but there they were again. what is it about this town? my heart started beating like mad, i tried to shove the camera in my bag and then hide it under the seat but i was driving and i started to swerve and i realized i was causing more reasons to arrest me.

clearly driving while filming is illegal and reckless and exhibit A would be the film of me alone in the car filming the gorgeous fields of corn and the amber waves of grain. so i wondered how i could quick erase the disc but i barely know the camera so i just slowed down to the speed limit and waited.

and there he approached in his car

and he went around me and he then cut in front of me and he pulled over the white minivan ahead of me.

and at that point i wondered how many times i could thank God in one sitting. and then i wondered how much the ticket would have been and i said God you saved me at least $300, so i will spend that on my momma when i get to IL tonight for her birthday.

needless to say i went straight to my motel room where it was safe.

there are three places where you can stay on the road a)with hot babes b)in corporate hotels c) in wild card independent weirdo motels

call me crazy but my favorite by far is c.

im in the best room in the strangest motel in town and i love it. it feels like im in someones converted attic. like where greg brady lived in the final season. like where youd say you’d put the exchange student from peru if you actually had such a dude.

there are not one but two murphy beds in this shit. the phone never rings. the tv has 60 channels, the little fridge makes very little noise, the shower is dirty but the stream is perfect and the water gets hot.

somehow i havent messed up the room at all which is bizarre because i can mess shit up in seconds.

i got a lot of LAist work handled today. some of it was actually killer behind the scenes shit with one super famous rock club that wants to work with us all the time. i was pacing while on the cell phone like a real mogul, it was funny. when i looked in the mirror when it was over i saw a sorta good looking dude and i was all wtf.

tomorrow i will be in my home state where some very nice people are trying to get me not just Cubs tickets but Bears tickets too.

yesterday i was thinking how i should have brought a joint or two with me for these late nights where i would like to fall asleep easier and write something trippy in my secret blog, but i ran past a “drug checkpoint” on the freeway and it was pretty nice to be able to tell the troopers that its sorta against the spirit of innocent until proven guilty when you just start pulling over people and seeing if theyre breaking the law. how about pull over people after they break the law.

people talk shit about castro, but america is so incredibly commie during these last few hundred days of bush its sorta creepy.

everything started out ok. i woke up, drank some apple juice and checked out of the comfort inn on time.

and then before i knew it i was in jail!

because my mother had the misfortune of having me as her first born, shes used to all of my antics, but in order to save her the heart attack: yes mom that is your boy in a utah jail, yes thats my profile mug shot, yes those are handcuffs.

but thats not the scary part. in fact, that was the fun part.

ok nothing in here is true, right? ok. the scary part was actually being in the general population with the inmates. after being given a tour of the amazingly clean and organized and modern facility, i was led down a hall with my old friend who works at the prison. she showed me the laundry room and the grate in the drunk tank where people puke and shit and piss. i got to talk with a lot of the really nice people who worked there.

and then i found myself in the actual room where the inmates live. its not really a room, its more like a shared space where the men watch tv and play checkers when they are let out of their cells. yes i was terrified. yes i was flanked by my friend and two other deputys. and yes the inmates were on their best behavior since it was the opening day of the NFL, but still i was totally afraid despite my xbi training and obvious superpowers.

it was explained to me that the gentlemen in the orange suits on one side were sorta low-risk inmates. in fact a few of them looked far too young to be in the adult prison but i was assured that they were all over 18. then i was shown a smaller area where the men had on gray uniforms. they had been seperated because they were in the clink for child molestation or other similar crimes that made them at risk if they were put in with the other inmates. for some reason i couldnt even look at those men in the eyes because it disgusted me so.

even though everyone obeyed the rules and kept themselves behind the tape on the floor they could have easilly rushed us as a group as we were outnumbered, but fortunately the outcome of the cowboy game interested them more than getting in a few cheap shots on a visitor and a few deputies before the retaliation would occur.

the scene was very much like the tv show Oz except a much smaller version. glass doors, two floors of cells, cable tv. what was different though is these men had no weights to use, no real outdoor facility to walk in, and no magazine pictures or anything that i could see that resembled personal effects. also they slept in rooms that housed about 6-8 people.

at this point i thought the tour was over. and i was very relieved when we left what i considered being in the bear cage at the zoo – except on the wrong side of the moat. but oh no, linda had another space to show me, the high risk inmates. the gang members and real offenders. and the scariest of all was on the phone and lit up when he saw her and waved with a big smile. linda, of course, had met him when she was on the gang floor at the bigger, scarier prison.

so of course we went in there. what was different was the cells only held one or two men and those doors were not see-thru because, it was explained, these much harder prisoners would crack the plastic/glass, so their doors were made of very thick steel.

i was told that my superpowers would not probably work against them.

there were telephones everywhere but the only access to the Internet was with the guards and could only be used by them. to me that would be torture.

when we finally get out of there i was completely scared straight and no one had said a thing to me negative or frightening. just being there was enough. very little place to walk so men who wanted excersise paced 40-50 feet while they talked to their buddies.

then the beautiful nurse appeared. incredibly beautiful mind you. i asked her if these men ever said anything untoward to her and she said nope. that they know better. the entire thing was fascinating to me and i never ran out of questions.

infact they told me that Paris Hilton did not get preferential treatment as i had assumed when she was processed and released in an hour and a half for her DUI, that most people who only blow a .08 and are reasonable and have someone to drive them home can get out in an even shorter period of time if theres not a waiting list of other offenders ahead of them.

after a long lunch i left salt lake and drove through the mountains and across a lot of Wyoming and took a few breaks to close my eyes and attempt to nap at rest stops but couldnt so i kept driving, occassionally calling someone on the phone to stay awake. the goal was Cheyenne by midnight and thanks to the 75 mph speed limit (which meant 85 for most of us) i was able to get here by 12:15am.

i was starving and i drove up the main street but nothing was open as it was sunday night. but i kept driving and there i found the taco smell.

then i worked for four hours for LAist and now its 527am and i guess its time for bed. the lesson of the day: dont go to jail.

me me me me me

today i got more upset with right wing fake bloggers than i do now

fuck drudge, who knows less about music than he does about television or politics. fuck drudge for being the least talented and unfunniest fuck who ever tried to gank a style from a better age – a time when Blacks were more fucked than ever, and when television didn’t have cable, and when the Internet was a secret that the Good Lord had yet to pull from his sleeve. also a time when no paper in the free world would have allowed such a hack like drudge to do more than scream extra extra on its filthy corners.

there is an art to being a negative creep and practice all he wants, he’s a failure. like a crack baby taking its first steps, drudge falls on his face each and every time. i have yet to see him even come up with one original lead and it pains me that the kids look up to him, but like their love for Mickey Mouse and dirt pies, they’ll grow out of this passing fad soon enough, i’m sure. just watch.

among all the good things that went down last night on mtv, so many that N*Sync apologized each time they won, basically, was a killer rock group named Mudvane, dressed in white tuxedoes and bullet holes in the center of their foreheads. they won the MTV2 award – consistant with the fresh approach to the fledgling new channel.

but drudge is not a man, he’s a hole where you can rat-out your boss and he’ll post it and call it journalism. he’ll post it, that is, as long as it’s juicy, and as long as it aligns with his predictable and petty politics. if he’s gonna steal styles, why can’t he copy real writers like Cobain, Hemingway, or Plath? and i dont mean mimic how they wrote.

sure it makes for funny posts, but it gives them more attention than they deserve. sure the instapundit has replaced drudge as the king of comedy but ignoring both of them have seemed to produce the desired result since theyve both dropped substantially in places like the technorati top 100, which means that either i have incredible influence or im not the only one who has grown tired of their humorless propaganda and are no longer shocked by it.

besides, with every hit those guys get a saudi has earned a new virgin since they continue to help us keep our eyes off the prize. because if you recall, the saudis crashed planes into the wtc, not iraqis, not closeted gays, and not pajamas media.

if bush wants to take the focus off his friends the sauds, and if yes men on the payroll with blogs want to play politics with the safety of america, thats their sin they have to deal with. and lord knows ive got plenty of my own. pa-lenty.

justagirl + mike g + mark

warning, might be gross if menstruation upsets you