at the world famous spaceland in silverlake reminding the record heads of their label who are the future and present kings of the school. and it was loud and it was furious and it was punk, and despite the fact that the sold out club cheered for more tsar refused because the damage had been done the butter had hardened the eggs had cooled and the jello was jiggling.

put it in the refrigerator, rock fans. tsar have arrived.

blasting a wall of sound thick and swirly and powerfully the LA quartet moved beautifully between their heavier new numbers and their familiar older tunes reminding their lazy label where they had come from, where they are now, and where they should be.

the crowd were mezmorized. they had arrived at 9pm sharp. they had purchased their super large draft beers. they stood in front of the stage and they got their minds blown as promised.

tsar jumped around and smiled and screamed and shredded and pounded and kicked down the door and sounded more like an tight solid arena rock band in their prime than a poppy-punk outfit from los feliz.

whalen and kern treated their guitars like red headed step children. they abused their tools and created shrieks and hums and squeals like masters.

solomon tried to duck for cover but he couldnt.

coulter laughed and laughed and the old men wet their drawers.

theres not only money to be made off these boys but theres music to be made. beautiful music for ugly undeserving people.

the best song of the night was my favorite off the upcoming disc, “wrong”, which should be the anthem of america as we continue to watch this unjust invasion that bad music has rallied against fm radio.

special guest star of the evening was my long lost pallie, kitty bukkake who shared several beers with me and looked smashing despite her coast to coast commutes.

it was just as much a pleasure to catch up with her as it was to be in the presence of majesty.

1313 silverlake blvd.

one day your kids will drag you there in hopes for seeing the stage where tsar once rocked.

george must go + treacher + souptree

im due for my review again at the xbi.

im not exactly sure how they’re going to beat me up this year because other than a few bumpy moments i’ve been a pretty damn good employee over the last year.

like many organizations, the xbi asks you to fill out a self-evaluation form before the actual review.

oddly i usually do very well on this portion of the deal and this year is no exception.

apparently i was an inspiration to others, i led by example, i was generally cheery and upbeat in pressure situations, i made fewer mistakes than ever before, i told better jokes than anyone in the department, and my new shaved hair-do was a welcome suprise.

my desk was always clean and bright and full of magazines for anyone to use.

i played good music when i was at my desk, and i sang funny songs when i was flying chopper one.

i brought in a shit-ton of cash to the agency and i took the minimum salary possible.

and for the third straight year i took the bus to work every day.

yes, i bitched about certain things a little, but not all that much, and i wished for death a few times more than one would consider funny

but usually the kids would laughed, and thats generally the point.

but probably the best thing that i did this year at work was

i didnt fuck up.

so many things can go wrong when youre flying a supersonic hifidelic basicallyinvisible part-ufo unregistered uninsured ridiculously dangerous black helicopter of seminucular doom for a vigilante group of losers and rejects called the xbi.

because i agreed to let them put the chip in my head in exchange for a date with the cuban and free directv for lyfe, theres a lot of things they can monitor about my brainwaves and heart rate and adrenaline amounts and several other things. i think they put in more than just a chip. i dont know. one of the drawbacks is my memory isnt as good as it once was.

anyways. lots of things can go wrong in my job. lots. so many that if you think about it youd probably freak out and screw up royally.

so yes, it is an accomplishment not to fuck up one full year.

so in that sense i guess i didnt have a perfect year. i had maybe five or six little ones. one sorta big, but didnt turn out that big, turned out fine, actually, but coulda been huge.

which shoulda taught them that my notfuckups were somehow huge too. just in reverse.

sad as it is, it is a big deal if the pilot never crashes the plane.

the shit was spun out of control for about an hour, but things worked out.

and even though i would give myself a ten percent raise, i swear to you, i will be lucky if i get two.

you dont join the xbi for the money. and if you do, youre a fool.

you dont join the xbi for the women

cuz in LA the women are everywhere.

you join the xbi

so you’ll have something decent to blog during your two, fifteen minute government mandated breaks

jason sutter’s blogger launch photo essay + some of the photos by lane + congrats, ev, jason, eric, kimbalina, graham, jason & biz

i blame the government.

i also blame the government for the shoddy play that my Cubbies put me through last night at Chavez Ravine.

the only cure is joining me in welcoming your favorite band and mine TSAR in their triumphant return to Spaceland, where they will be playing to-nite at 9PM Sharp.

friends, theres only one way to rock and Tsar knows the way. they are the truth the whey and the light.

I heard them on Indie 103.1 FM last week and i nearly cried. I danced around my house in my underwear like the dude from risky business and when it was over i got on my knees and thanked the Lord Almighty.

I thanked Fate I thanked Destiny but most importantly I thanked chuckberryjanesaddictiontrexthepoohsticksteenagefanclubledzeppelinandislavista.

but i should have just called 1-877-4LA-1031 and thanked the damn dj for making my day.

or i should have emailed request@indie1031.fm

they played the title cut from the band’s second album “Band Girls Money” which will be in stores soon.

come have a beer with me tonight at spaceland in silverlake. there might be other bands there but none like Tsar.

there might be other music but none as easy on the heart and as mighty and loving as those penned by whalen-kern-solomon-coulter

the four bad brothers you know so well.

call the request line

email the email line

rock the live show

by beer for your bro.

in other news, Iggy Pop and his girlfriend (pictured) asked me to go back to Haloscan Comments until Blogger buffs out the rough spots of their comments and you know how we are with Iggy… anything he says, goes.

so rock me up with comments all you want.

and make sure to say nice things.

franny + sk smith has posted three days in a row! + anti

but my blog was down.

mary was my first true love. my first girlfriend. my first super great friend. i love

her and miss her and im so happy i get to see her last year as the fires

were surrounding her in san diego.

a super hero, a great mom, and a dynamite person.

happy birthday Mary, i couldn’t have picked a better first love if i tried.

which usually means that her roommate will cook for us and try to get me naked last night was no different. before i knew it i was full of stirfry and only wearing some blue cloud pajama bottoms. there were coors light bottles half empty on the crystal coffee table and lingerie draped over the plasma screen tv. i didnt even know that the timberwolves game had gone into overtime until too late.

and then before you could say who put that in my drink i was passed out on the overstuffed chenille couch only aware of the giggling and the flash bulbs going off.

this morning i woke up in a far too sunny bedroom with tori amos playing on the imac. why is it that theres never enough blankets on girls’ beds? too many pillows and not enough blankie. she read my mind and esp’ed

must you always complain.

outside the gardeners were already trimming the trees and i thought i was late but she assured me that i wasnt. then i realized that it wasnt the same she who esp’ed me. it was a different she. a taller she. who are these people i thought. why do i have a headache again.

then i realized that while i slept i had had two dreams.

why was i dreaming? the xbi had stopped me from dreaming years ago, but all of a sudden i had begun those nocturnal lies again and it made me pissed off.

i hate dreams so much you have no idea.

you cant run from them, you cant fight them, you cant ignore them. they flash in your head at your most vulnerable state and take over your mind.

so not cool.

so not cool.

they ro-sham-bo’ed for the shower and giggled out of the room apparently compromising to take it together and before i could ask for someone to get me some orange juice i turned to the alarm clock and saw that not only was it earlier than i thought but there was a slice of wheat toast, buttered, with a small bite taken out of it sitting next to a tall glass of apple juice, my favorite.

and yes i dreaded going into the office and yes its true that in two weeks i will be celebrating my third year at the xbi, and yes i am in some ways the luckiest and unluckiest man in the world

but at that moment i had everything i wanted, toast, juice, peace, and quiet.

little did i know that there were imminent plans for me including much louder music, hand restraints, and two chocolate flavored condoms whose aroma was far too strong for such a hungover and sensitive morn.

sifry + tenorman + goldman has a new design

my old company, the one i was part of, the one where i was like the 8th employee is filing for their IPO today.

and yes i had tens of thousands of options.

and yes, as they were laying everyone off three years ago, bungling all the way, letting people do bizarre and outrageous things, keeping the wrong people, getting rid of the wrong people, saying the wrong words, doing the wrong deeds, rewarding the wrong losers, i, the biggest loser of them all, chose not to purchase any of those options.

thats right paris, none.

and so instead of looking at this day as a great day and watching the stock rise and subscribing to the paper so i could see my future grow and grow

and instead of fitting myself for a tux and tails and tophat and monocle, im writing you

on my blog

like a bitch.

i know money isnt everything, but…

well, i’ll put it this way, how many guys riding the bus have you boned lately ms. hilton?

and trust me when i tell you that the first thing i would do if i actually had options that went public and soared would be you.

cuz i may be an idiot but im better than aaron carter or nick carter or whoever that gino is.

ok well my boss is asking me to help him put new toner in the copy/fax/printer.

im sure i’ll get rich some other way.

like faking my own death or something cool.

although if i tried it today, with my luck, id fuck it up.

tragically.

sexy love,

tony

spartacus + makeout city + dc thornton

Blogger re-launched their new service today and of course i screwed my page up big time.

all i wanted to do was quit Haloscan comments (who served me pretty well, i must say) and go over to Blogger comments.

typically i dont fix whats not broken but I like and trust the good people of Blogger/Google and if they think that they have a comment system thats good, then i’m in.

of course i fucked up my site and as soon as i did I sent an email to blogger Help and the lovely kimbalina (pictured) saved my dumb ass.

again.

i have it on good authority that in heaven all the angels are as pleasant and beautiful as my favorite Blogger.com customer service rep, Ms. K., who redesigned her page recently with one of the colorful new Blogger templates which now come free of charge when you have a Blogger account.

I have had many offers to have professionals re-design the busblog and maintain it and edit it and make it sparkely and polished but there are many lifelessons that I want to share with the world and one of them is Even A Dumbass Like Me Can HTML a Blogger Blog which means You Can Too, Dummy.

of course there will be mistakes, and today i made a big one.

for some reason i decided that it would be a good idea to Re-Publish my entire blog, so i clicked on that button and as soon as i did i knew that my blog headers (the picture on the top of each of my blog pages) would get overwritten and become the picture that is currently on the top of this page (the one of MC Brown, karisa and myself).

that was the d’oh heard around the world that you may have experienced earlier today.

win some, lose some, and now ive lost all my old blog headers over the years and you know what, its no big deal.

i do my best not to become attatched to silly things, especially if their only purpose was to have people say, “tony, youre so cool.”

its a busy day today here at the xbi and i barely have time to post this, but i wanted to let you know that the slowness of this blog and the look in the archives were not Blogger’s fault, but mines, and if anything the good people at Blogger saved my ass again and im grateful.

maybe one day they will have a tip jar in the Help section of blogger and when they do i will paypal till it hurts.

i heart kimbalina

im not usually a fanboy. sometimes. but not over television.

my favorite show is the sopranos and i try not to get all gushy about that. but other than the simpsons, the show that ive watched every episode of without fail every damn thursday and occasional sunday is survivor.

i havent been completely thrilled with survivor over the last few years, but i must say that this all-star version was not only great because it was nice to see some of those old familiar faces again, but it was very interesting to see how experienced players would compete with each other.

but nothing would have prepared me for tonight’s double finale.

it was everything that the Friends finale lacked: excitement, drama, true love, surprises, tough decisions, and full-on watchability.

first of all rob and the skinny chick liked each other, we all knew that, but the question was how much? enough to go head to head in the final vote? apparently yes. and apparently they wanted to go in to that vote engaged which is precisely what all these dating shows try sooooo damn hard to create artificially but survivior got it naturally.

as naturally as a 40 day starve on an island while getting rained on and lied to can be.

i love the show because it’s real. because its nuts and because im generally surprised with each episode.

in tonights finale episode i learned that even survivor all stars can fall for the old “i’m with you till the end, bro” trick and get their feelings hurt when they’re betrayed even though they’ve plotted to betray others with exactly the same line of bull pucky.

today lex, mr. punk rock, stood up and tried to bash boston rob for lying to him and ruining their “friendship” while knowing full well that the game of survivor, if nothing else, is one gigantic Trust Me contest where the best liar wins.

this season amber won because she rode in boston rob’s wake as he won immunities and lied to people and took all the heat.

after they came back from both being awarded cars there was no way that rob and amber should have both made the final four but thats the beauty of survivor, where strategy sometimes dictates that you Not vote off the most vile player, but keep them so you, perhaps, could stand next to that person in the final two in hopes that the jury will vote against the meanie, and give you the cool mil.

whatever. i loved it. i loved their romance. i loved their relationshop. im glad they got to go on that date in the jungle drive in. im glad they got to be on the island alone at the end.

and im glad that boston rob upstaged the show by proposing seconds before jeff probst was going to tell the world that either amber or rob was the winner of the game, and thus taking all the wind out of the sails of the game since obviously they were both going to share the money regardless of who won.

im glad drama queen jerry got booed when she started talking shit about how the game was also about real people. because once you enter a game show like survivor you are no longer a real person, chickie. playboy, for example, didnt put jerry on the cover of their magazine because she was just a regular person.

and im glad that after she got booed, she walked off the stage like a little diva.

but most of all im glad that rupert has another chance to win a million bucks.

rupert is my favorite survivor. he wasnt perfect. he didnt make all the right decisions. he is probably a nutcase in the real world, but on survivor he was strong and loud and crazy and wonderful.

i am disappointed in amber for giving the extra car to the she-devil when big tom was more deserving for being dicked the hardest by her fiancee.

but like i remind you on this blog over and over, life isnt fair. not even on tv.

but sometimes some interesting shit goes down, and sometimes it ends very sweetly.

melting dolls + raspil + leah

with about three minutes left to go before halftime.

it was an adventure riding the subway on a sunday because even thought the metro gets a million dollars a day in tax revenues they refuse to believe that people actually ride on the weekends, but they do. she and i were, at least.

the seats were great. everyone was there, including affleck (pictured, dork.)

i used to have a belief in isla vista that if i was at a party that marc brown was at, then i was probably at the cool spot to be at.

in LA i get nervous if im ever at the same place that affleck is at because its instantly not cool if he’s there. for example, somehow it was more cool to be rubbing up against j.lo’s side when puffy was doing it, but not when ben ben was.

didnt matter, lakers won by 21 and i got to hang with my pal karisa alone for a few hours on a gorgeous day in LA, which is rare. we barely kick it on the weekends. god only knows why.

so clipper girls cousin called while we were coming home and she was all, what are you doing when you get home. and i said just drinking with karisa.

and she was all, how long do you think you’ll be doing that for.

and i was all, maybe an hour.

she was like, i was thinking about coming over

i was like, i like how you think.

she was like, i want to bring my roommate and we can hang out.

and i was like, uh

she was like, dont get any dirty thoughts, its not going to be like that.

and i wanted to be like, we have the best thing going, we watch a little tv and drink some shots and make out and get it on and spend the night, why would you want to ruin that good thing.

but instead i said, are you guys going to be coming over in seperate cars

and she laughed

and i said are you trying to bring us into the world of exhibitionism?

and she laughed even harder

like i was the crazy one.

i havent had sex in like 27 hours. im not the crazy one to want some

am i?

anyways, two super hot girls are coming over to my house and im pissed off about it.

only in my world.

freeway slowdance + glowstick + mouthy