but she knows everything, so i tell her everything. usually about chicks. today i was telling her something and she said, oh, can you do me a favor and go through one day without talking about girls or women or sex or anything like that? ok. thanks.

she said it bitchy like that dude in office space. it was funny. whenever people try to be mean to me and are being sarcastic or whatever i just laugh. sometimes i will just go on doing what they ask me not to go on doing. its almost a dare to me.

then she said youre not even talking about the girl that i want you to talk about and i was all who do you want me to talk about and she said the girl on the top of your blog thing.

its always freaky when people from work read this because i pretend that nobody reads this and i dont have to pretend about that at work cuz pretty much nobody from work does read it. and i told her that me and karisa are friends and we’re keeping it that way. plus shes the wrong sign, so hush. and she said well dont talk about girls today unless youre gonna talk about her. i like her. i said i like her too, but this other one this morning, whoa….

this chick is hot. theyre all hot. everything is hot in LA today except me and the weather. 51 degrees this morning and i know i have no room to bitch cuz the country is shivvering but excuse me, LA should not be 51 degrees in january. it should be 71. didnt we discuss this recently when it wasnt 80?

took the escalator down the platform to the subway this morning and i saw a guy in a huge lakers parka sleeping on the slat where people usually sit. they make them hard and uncomfortable on purpose so as to keep people from sleeping on them and i thought about how when i was at uc isla vista they told us that we didnt know what real life was that we would get out of the fantasy land of santa barbara soon and the sooner the better and when i saw that guy this morning i was thinking fuck the real world. send me back to fantasy land.

and then i sat next to my sleeping los angelino and opened my book to where my m&ms wrapper was holding my place and continued reading pimp by iceberg slim.

bettiegirl + jackbog + kitty bukakke

i missed you. then why do i feel like not writing any more for a long long time. i think the world is doing one of those lets see if we can spin completely upside down right now. the pope witnessed breakdancing, clint got on stage and said i know i dont look like sean penn… but i am, and the hot babe in average joe made out with the good looking guy who didnt even know what a romance novel is.

i put up the first few pages of lick today and parts of it make me very very happy and parts scare the shit out of me. my natural reaction is to just say fuckit and not do it but i did that with blook 2 and some people wanted my ass. there was this study a while back about perfectionists and winners and most winners it turned out were not perfectionists and the study was done on quarterbacks in the nfl and many of them won because they werent afraid to fuck up, they just went for it, warts and all, they didnt allow the little (or big) things stop them from going forward.

and when you look at guys like our current president (not pictured, sadly) who if he was any other decent person would look at the state the planet was in when he stole the election and look at the state of the planet today, and the decent person would probably apologize and step down gracefully. a perfectionist woulda probably shot hisself right in the head. but winners, and i hate to say it, but dumbshit sure does find a way to win, winners hang in there and keep slugging away even if the only person who benefits from their bs is them.

so lick will launch at halftime of the superbowl for your asses, as planned. even if it isnt exactly what i want it to be.

how could it be more like i want it to be? you could write for it, for starters. and by you, i mean you.

you know who you are.

work wasnt so bad but i wasnt feeling it all day. im not sick, i can feel the disturbance in the force, maybe tomorrow we’ll figure out what it is, was, whatever, but my truest called tonight and she told me to go for it, clipper girls cousin called tonight and told me to go for it, and raspil iverson the designer of the lick blog wrote something so normal and so perfect for lick and i put it on the page and it didnt look perfect but it will do for today but it was the writing.

sometimes its nice just to read normal words from a normal person about normal things

and thats better than people trying to be all flowery and writer-y or any of that.

she told the story and got out of the way and it was great.

and if theres one thing i want to do from lick is help people understand that theres lots of ways to write well and the best way is their way as cheesy as that sounds its the truth and another thing i want people to learn is that even though we call it a world wide web, we are completely separated in most cases. and now is the time to have a greater cohesiveness if we want.

its like a playground with a thousand basketballs and a thousand hoops and everyone is shooting freethrows,

my invitation to you is to play together

just a few times a month.

ladies first.

women of the web, if you’d like to write something for lick, now is the time. wednesday at 10pm pacific time is the deadline for the first edition of this new thing. if i didnt contact you personally please dont be put off, i contacted very few people personally. i wanted Lick to be something mostly wordofmouth like buzznet and friendster and that super visual x that was going around last weekend in hollywood.

you can fictionalize things, you can factualize things, you can write about things that youd never think youd ever write down let alone email to someone, and you can also write about normal things that interest you.

whatever you do, write. write like its ok to write. write like todays the day and if you want write like whatever it is that you write will touch someone, even an undercover vigilante helicopter pilot who secretly just wants to direct.

porn.

i love you faceless rockstars of the worldwideweb. im glad to be back and if anything inside my head whispers to me that i should stop i will just think about my hero ray rayner who was there for me every morning growing up.

the mc has a new cam + this girl turns me on + i love brians video

in order to honor and mourn one of my all-time favorite tv heroes, there will be no new updates to the busblog until Tuesday, January 27.

we’ve never stopped the bus before. not when ive gotten carpal tunnel, not when i was on vacation, not even when the cubs lost in the playoffs after being up 3-1 with the two best pitchers in baseball throwing for them.

but this is far different.

ray rayner was and is my idol.

Ray Rayner, Star Of “Ray Rayner and his Friends,” on WGN-TV In The 1960s And ’70s, Dies

Chicago Tribune

January 21, 2004

Ray Rayner, the actor who played Oliver O. Oliver on “Bozo’s Circus” for a decade and who hosted his own kids’ show ‘Ray Rayner and His Friends” for 19 years on WGN-TV, passed away on January 21 following complications from pneumonia. He was 84 years old.

Mr. Rayner retired from WGN-TV in December 1980. Fans can visit wgntv.com to share their favorite Ray Rayner memories. The message board will be up until next Friday, January 30, 2004.

“Ray was a good guy. That’s the one thing that everybody remembers about him. When he was on the air – that’s the impression you got. He was a very friendly, warm person. That’s one of the reasons his morning show was so tremendously successful,” commented Allen Hall, a former colleague and the longtime producer of “The Bozo Show” on WGN-TV.

“Ray Rayner was most definitely one of Chicago’s Very Own. Ray’s work was enjoyed by everyone who grew up in Chicago,” commented John Vitanovec, VP/General Manager of WGN-TV. “His tenure here at WGN is still a time recalled fondly by our viewers. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. He will be missed.”

WGN-TV hired Ray Rayner to portray Sergeant Henry Pettibone as host of the “Dick Tracy” show in 1961. He joined “Bozo’s Circus” as Oliver O. Oliver that same year and continued in that role until 1971. In 1962, Ray replaced Dick Coughlan as host of “Breakfast with Bugs Bunny.” In 1964, the show was renamed “Ray Rayner and His Friends,” and quickly became a staple to thousands of Chicagoland grade school children. “Ray Rayner and His Friends” ran until January, 1981. In 1966, the “Dick Tracy” show ended a five-year run and Ray hosted “Rocket to Adventure” for two-seasons.

“Ray Rayner and His Friends,” which aired weekday mornings, featured cartoons, songs, pantomime antics, jokes, riddles, mock newscasts and daily weather forecasts geared to the younger set, as well as traffic, sports and news information for parents. Ray’s canine puppet friend Cuddly Dudley visited the program twice a week, and one day a week was set aside for a “do-it-yourself project.” Ray showed his young viewers how to make everything from pup pencil holders, to mushroom pincushions, to stocking mice. Once a week Dr. Lester Fisher, director of the Lincoln Park Zoo, and Ray took viewers behind-the-scenes at the zoo. Chelveston the duck was also a regular visitor to the show. Any off-camera staff or crew was referred to as “Chauncy.”

Ray left Chicago television in 1981 and became a weather forecaster and fill-in news anchor for the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque, New Mexico until 1989. In his “spare time,” Rayner hosted the nationally syndicated “PM Magazine,” and wrote three original plays. In 1984, he returned to Chicago to join the cast of “Guys and Dolls.” He made several guest appearances as himself on “The Bozo Show” and in WGN-TV anniversary specials.

Born in New York City, Ray was a navigator on a B-17 in the United States Air Force and spent two years in a German military prison camp. He picked up a taste for acting during his POW days and pursued the profession during his college years following the war.

After the war, Rayner returned to a Long Island radio station, and he started to work his way west to Dayton, Ohio, then Grand Rapids, Michigan. He hosted music and quiz programs and wrote some news. In 1953 he found himself in Chicago, auditioning at WBBM-TV. There, Rayner worked for eight years on a variety of children’s shows including “Rayner Shine,” “The Little Show” with a duck named Havelock, and in “Popeye’s Firehouse,” as Chief Abernathy. He had an active career as a commercial announcer and as an MC on a teenage dance party program. He was also one of the first Ronald McDonalds to appear in network television commercials.

Throughout much of his career, Ray Rayner also acted on the serious side of theater, playing demanding roles in such productions as Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” “Assassination, 1865,” “The Rainmaker,”and “The Caine Mutiny.” He also appeared in lighter productions such as “The Odd Couple” and “Fiddler on the Roof.” Reaching out to younger actors, Rayner directed students in Loyola Academy productions.

Rayner attended Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass, and then went on to Fordham University in New York where he graduated with a B.A. degree in literature and philosophy. He also received an M.A. in Humanities from the University of Chicago. Ray was the recipient of many awards including local Emmy Awards, and most recently, in 2000, Rayner was inducted into the Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Silver Circle.

Mr. Rayner was most recently enjoying his retirement in Fort Meyers, Florida. He is survived by his second wife Marie Rayner, daughter Christina Miller, son Mark Rayner, and four grandchildren: Troy, Hilary, Sean and Patrick.

ive set up this blog is that sometimes i have a cool picture that i want to post so i have to write enough of godknowswhat that will sorta match up with the picture, but what if i only have a few lines to say about it, then what, then do i just drone on and on so that the text can make it around the picture and “look good”, or do i change the subject to something completely unrelated to the first few paragraphs and try to play it off as punk rock.

everyone knows you cant be punk rock in a blog.

sally was a pretty girl but hid it. i didnt even see it till she unzipped her army jacket unbuttoned her flannel and pulled up her stooges shirt. i unsnaped her three clasped fredricks number like that and suddenly i was surrounded. before midnight i was alone again and thinking of what to write to you cuz if i wrote about it right away i was afraid that she’d think that she couldnt trust me, that shed think that everything we did together would get recorded photographed documented and posted, immediately.

she was a writer from back east. flew out here and rented a motorcyle. i said nice canvas bag, she said its hemp, i said i love you. she said yes but i love you. she said whats punk about tsar i said the pink one stars she said isnt it gay i said gay is ten percent punk is one percent and tsar are the kings of the school.

she said what about the corvids, i said the corvids were not only last years best album but the most interesting surprise next to the polyspronic spree or whatever theyre called.

she asked why do men like plaid miniskirts so much do you think and she recrossed her legs and i caught a glimpse of her tartan and she said is there a reason and i said plaid has a lot of things going on in it. youve got a thick stripe going that way and a see thru line going this way and a thin line going going through all of them. and then of course you get that sweet territory known as the thigh

she said do you like pale girls

i said i love pale girls

she said whats the coolest thing youve seen this week and uncrossed her legs and leaned closer to me

and i said the peanuts gang dancing and singing to outkast.

for one, i know who captain kangaroo is, and i know what a loss it is for him to have died today.

adios, captain kangaroo. tell mr. greenjeans hi for me.

i have several dream jobs. one of them is to tour around the usa and blog and meet all of you.

another dream job would be to win the lottery and put it all on black in vegas and with the winnings buy the chicago cubs baseball team and be their manager and lead them to an overdue world series victory. duh.

but my most secret of all dreams is to have a morning chidrens tv show similar to what the good captain had except it would feature live bands.

so i would so something like show a cartoon, come back from it and say, oh man deputy dog, god i love that cartoon, ok kids and now behind curtain number 8 is … GREEN DAY!

and they would rock out for a few minutes and we’d break for commercial.

im thinking the show would be the Cartoon Network’s answer to the Today show.

thats what im thinking.

over my little chair would hang three photographs of childrens programming

mr. ray rayner, my idol

mr. fred rogers, rest in peace

and captain kangaroo

who i hope is listening to some new hendrix tunes tonight.

as you know, i know people of all walks of life.

i even know some Market Researchers.

recently one of them asked if i had any young toronto, nyc, or mtl readers, and i was all, duh.

so she asked if she could put this proposition in my blog and i was all, of course

so here it is

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I am looking for people to let me and some researcher/co-workers TAG ALONG with them.

We are looking for the following people:

* Someone to TAG ALONG with on a night out with friends (you get $175 and one of your friends will get $50!)

* Someone to TAG Along with before and after a sporting event � for example, maybe you have a soccer game that we can talk to you before and after (you get $175!)

* Someone to TAG ALONG with during a study group or club meeting � for example, with you and your study buddies the night before an exam, or maybe a book club meeting (you get $175 and one friend gets $50!)

* Someone to TAG ALONG with on a date � don�t worry, not a FIRST date! But how about something relatively new, something in the first month of a relationship (your date will get $50!)

In order to qualify, you must live in New York City or Toronto and you must be between the ages of 16 and 22 (unless you live in Toronto- you can be as old as 25).

Please keep in mind that we would like each of these TAG ALONGS to take place during the last week of January.

We are also looking for one person in Montreal between the ages of 16 and 21 to make a 25 minute unedited documentary for us! This documentary is due to us by Tuesday, January 27th, so let me know if you are interested ASAP! This job pays $150!!!

If you or anyone you know fits any of the descriptions above, please email me at this secret email addy.

Thanks!

Liana

is that most of us dont know which part of africa our forefathers are from.

me, i’m hoping i am a descendant of the country of Ghana who have recently been known for their creative approaches to coffins (pictured).

you only get buried once, hopefully, and when my time comes i definitely want to get put in something other than a plain olde pine box.

when i was a kid i used to draw coffins. different coffins. the one i decided that i wanted was a big red one that had a white bow around it. as if it was a present to the good Lord, in hopes that he would accept me into the promised land.

i was an odd child.

i have seen Kiss introduce their coffins, and folks from new zealand design colorful caskets, but nothing matches the ingenuity and whimsy of my brethren from the mothaland.

karisa came over last night but before she did she called and said she was at the package store and asked me what sort of beer she wanted to bring over.

i told her it all depended on what we were gonna have for supper.

she said she was thinking about kfc.

after i told her that i loved her

deeply

i thought of the great good luck i had that such a good friend was coming to my house with a twelve pack of the high life and a bucket of extra crispy for my undeserving ass.

and this morning i realized that i want to be buried in a giant kfc bucket.

made by the hands of my brothers in ghana.

we watched re-runs of surreal life and talked about the super bowl.

it was magical.

she ate a ton of chicken

and somehow she keeps a very nice shape.

so ive been told.

i didnt look at her all night.

happy one year blog birthday BUNNIE!

hi tony.

whatcha doin?

growing.

yeah.

what cha doing?

trying to think of something to write.

why dont you tell us how great it is to live in hollywood california

nah

youre a nice young single man. healthy. smart. funny. rich. brave. handsome. hung. im sure you have some stories to tell.

god i love you Internet.

come on, tell us how warm it is there today!

i did wear a flannel. but yeah, i guess it was warm.

see! now tell us about something fun that happened there today. in hollywood. land of celebrities and rock stars.

hmmm.

surely something fantastically glamorous happened that you would want to share with the blogosphere. come now.

stars.. hmm. i dont want to say nothing happened great. maybe it did. i have a terrible memory…

you’re letting me down, bro.

i almost got hit by a jaguar this morning.

see, thats good! what year?

it was new. dealers plates.

oh… the ones that look like tauruses?

no no, this was from beverly hills jaguar, it was big and fancy.

Perfect tony Perfect!

yeah.

although, maybe you should have let him hit you.

it was a woman driving.

whatever, you woulda gotten rich!

dont they just pay for your broken legs or whatever?

pain and suffering, bro. pain and suffering!

shit.

i know!

shit.

i know

my fortune today said you will be rich and famous. fucker. pretty girl smiled at me. work was hard. lunch was fast. barely had any time even to take one fifteen minute break and i have this thing in my head that says that if i cant finish the work that somehow it was my fault. people have capacities too. dont we? you cant put a gallon and a half of milk into a gallon jug. and if you do you dont blame the jug.

sick thing is i love the fact that this job is so impossibly hard, so thankless, and so low paying.

i love it because the whole time my fro is as big as it can be, im wearing my corvids tshirt, im getting smiled at by the pretty girls, and my savings account just gets larger and larger, slowly, and the people who dont want me happy can only shrug while under their breath call me a fucking dumbass.

they watch me climb on the bus and i whisper who’s the dumbass now and i show the driver my monthly pass.

and old death is whistling at me from down a super long dark hallway with his come hither finger saying youre only getting older when are you going to grow up sellout and be mine and the oriental rugged floor sprinkled with opened condom wrappers athletic socks and newspapers says was someone speaking i swear i coulda heard someone say something ridiculously ignorant

lets change the world says the lamp

on the maxims

next to the greasy

knocked over

bucket

of extra crispy kfc

chickens

mike ro soft + mike rowe soft + pooh

theres been some disturbances in the hollywood metro area that the xbi may or may not have been involved in. so i havent had a chance to write and say hi.

hi.

and as we were breaking for a late lunch my buddy back at the home base patched me into my favorite channel E! who was doing a live breaking news thing telling the world that Ben and Jen have officially called it quits.

excuse me, fuck ben and jen

hes no actor hes a pretty boy east coast welch wanna-be masshole sally who is only getting some of the sweetest ass in film because of his girlfriend matt damon.

and she got dirty with puffy and eminem and that dancer dude and now this guy?

come.on j.lo

w.t.f.girl

jennifer lopez has the world in the palm of her hand. she can sing she can dance she can act well enough to be an actor. shes hot. she can do it all.

she might even be bilingual.

she can do far better than benlo who goes to strip shows before his socalled wedding.

and he might be gay.

which theres nothing wrong with, but im just saying.

why is he gay? cuz he had j and he didnt say yes when he coulda. like hes gonna get anything better. like he deserves anything bettter. like he gets uptight that his woman has a bigger pair than he does.

i got two words for you bengay,

daredevil.

im glad they broke up.

i just hope it isnt a huge fakeout so they can go get married in bermuda when nobodys lookin.

mc brown is ready for his closeup + welch + eonline