im watching the two hour cubs yankees pregame show on espn classic. the audio is all messed up. theyll probably blame it on the rain.

fine. blame it on the rain.

it’s raining cuz the lord doesnt want sammy to play today cuz he doesnt deserve to, cuz cubs yankees regular season games are immoral. epecially at wrigley, the finest ballpark ever made.

and especially at night.

yesterday i got to hang out with alot of my old friends and today i get to watch a lot of my old heroes.

im seeing sandberg and suttcliff, santo and banks, they just did this thing on harry.

the cheesy broadcasters are getting rained on and the wind is blowing out just like the grand canyon, id do my laundry but i dont have a female companion.

hey ladies.

get. funky.

did a big ass photo essay of love for you, in honor of the birthday boy, mr. jeff solomon, who made this computer that created these words and pictures, and who is one of the greatest men to walk the earth.

it was a great party where i got to see long lost friends like debbie urlick and mr. todd francis, got to eat from the grill of steve coulter, and got to hang with the coolest people this side of the 101 freeway.

chris made guacamole and she should have made five times the amount because everyone raved.

everyone got along. jew and gentile. montague and bonaparte.

they had told jeff that coulters bar needed to be moved from kims house so he came right over and we said suprise!

got home drunk, fell asleep on the couch in a naked heap and woke up twelve hours later to high heels walking across the hardwood, a door open, and the same door slam shut.

then i figured i’d write you.

bing + jenny + trueboy + jaime + ymi + because of riley dog

but todays birthday boy jeff solomon might just be the nicest. and there is competition.

solomon, the bass player of tsar, turns ninety nine years old today. congratulations.

just like welch and amy and ben and whalen and dylan don and dan charlie and bonnie jen and czaben and scheer and dougiegyro and jeanine and aj and ali and joel and broome and denis and sandy and everyone, solomon wrote for the college paper with me. we even wrote a few stories together, including this one.

jeff was the county editor with max when i started and during the persian gulf war we were both associate editors.

although he has never been married, i did attend his bachelor party in santa barbara where many of us jammed into a porn shop video room and watched a few minutes of big mamma jamma which i highly recommend for any bachelor party.

even though he played in many bands in isla vista, he was never upset when i would say that the wonderfuls were my favorite band, even though he didnt play with the wonderfuls.

after spending time in prague in a band that didnt include whalen so they naturally called it whalen, solomon moved to frisco and joined greg from the wonderfuls to form san franciscos best rock band of the nineties, thee mystakes.

i managed thee mystakes. the only reason that nobody knows that thee mystakes were the best band in frisco at the time was because i was the manager and i was experimenting with reverse psychology and esp.

during this time i had my own installation business. i would go to peoples homes and hook up their audio/video systems, home theatres, satellite dishes, and computers.

i charged $50 an hour. i advertised through the salesmen at good guys and circuit city and sears. because i had trained every one of them as a rep for philips and webtv and microsoft they all knew me and trusted me. and i gave them a ten percent kickback. being in those stores i learned that the missing link was installation of the items. typically it took a week or two to get installation and rarely was it any good.

so when i found that i was working for microsoft, who i felt didnt need my help, no offense, i quit and sold peanuts at candlestick at night, and hooked up peoples shit in the day.

i had a good thing going until solomon asked if he could work for me.

at the time i had a great relationship with my girlfriend who i lived with, i was watching baseball almost every day, i was driving a brand new explorer, and i was the manager of my favorite band. and strangely all of that made me very lazy.

i was too content.

life wasnt hard enough.

so when solomon offered to split my income in half, at first i saw it as a bad thing, but soon i saw it as the opportunity to get motivated.

part of the laziness that i had before solomon (bs) was that i would turn down small jobs or jobs far away. one of the best things about my company is i would go to sacramento or reno or santa cruz, next day. i’d charge a little more, but i love those towns, why not go there, write off a sweet room, take my girl on a long weekend and meet some cool customers in reno? but bs i pushed those back a few more days than i should have.

when solomon showed up not only did i take those right away, but it was fun because solomon’s the best and it was great to have a second opinion on how to do things. and we got things done faster, especially the wiring, and we discovered something that i hadnt ever noticed before which solomon rectified immediately.

one time while crawling under a house in davis i found myself face to face with a dead rat and i screamed.

we finished the job and as was the norm, returned when the customer realized that they wanted to wire more rooms and give us more of their endless amounts of money and home cooked food and teenage daughters and incredible stories.

so we returned and jeff said that he would crawl under the house and i never had to crawl under that shit again.

we found out that that was the best way to do things because i would be talking to the customers and explaining what we were doing and teaching them how to use their new equipment and calling their salesmen and ordering more stuff for them to get which i would in turn install.

while jeff dealt with the rats.

my hero.

you’d think that would have been enough right there for me to not put up the gayest picture of him that i have.

and it is.

this isnt the gayest picture i have of jeff.

we installed for a nice little run there for awhile. always together. rarely would we do an install without the other person.

some jobs took forever cuz im a dumbass and some jobs took a matter of minutes and we felt guilty for charging our fifty dollar minimum but not only would people pay us, but many times theyd give us fat tips.

and yes they did introduce me to their daughters, who were all beautiful, and rich, and amazed by my handimanliness.

sometimes it would be late and jeff would drive the explorer back to the mission and he’d light up a smoke and we’d listen to the radio and talk and talk and talk.

one day whalen called.

solomon played with greg from the wonderfuls, and whalen was playing with coulter and dan from the wonderfuls.

whalen wanted to know if it would be ok if he asked solomon to join tsar and replace welch who was stealing too much of the limelight.

whalen knew that he was not only breaking up my business, but also my favorite band.

i remembered one of the conversations that solomon and i had had when i asked him what life he would lead if he could do anything.

he said he would travel around playing in a rock band with his friends.

not soon after solomon moved to la i also moved to la and then pretty much everyone moved to la which was great because we have gotten to see tsar from day one, or day two.

and here it is day five and its sounding better than ever and rock’s gaping wanting hole is about to be filled and satisfied.

jeff solomon is not only responsible for being the secret weapon of la’s finest rock group, but he is also the architect and engineer of the home computer that i type this very entry from.

he not only repairs and improves it, but he does it for free, and he does it for all of our friends, all the time. with a smile.

the only way the busblog and tonypierce.com could be coming to your asses and the ships at sea from a 400mhz p2 running both win2k and win me is because its totally taken care of by solomon, the lion of judah, the valley’s own, and the only member of tsar with his own shrine webpage.

one day tsar will put out four simultaneous solo albums.

dont be suprised if solomons outsells them all.

ok, be very suprised, but dont be suprised if you play his more than you expected.

22 fillmore + jeff s. rocks + tsar

nVIDIA’s E3 Party

(not safe for work)

and ran and ran.

sound barriers being broken everywhere.

every hot chick at the xbi said nice things to me today.

and the hottest of all looked at me a few times.

and i may have even looked back.

there was a plane crash in la today pretty close to where i was at the moment.

kept running.

got on the bus there was a traffic jam. we crept along. i read my new favorite magazine, the week. passed a man on the corner, firetruck, stretcher, looked dead.

there are kids on the bus suddenly because schools out. the kids are loud. they have a lot of hair. i don’t envy their youth i envy their hair.

all you kids who read this. dye your hair more.

two fat punk rock girls got to the top of the escalator and said to the first person they saw, which way is wilshire. free. loud. stinky fresh.

hot dog man now wears safety goggles because theres nothing that fucker does wrong.

if i had a cable access talk show called bloggers with raymi as my sidekick i would have lisa marie presley on every single time as a guest. im watching her on howard stern. again. tell me whats better.

there is no finer interviewer than howard stern. he’s fearless.

fuck the media for not acknowledging his dominance, influence, talent, and on-going success.

when rush limbaugh was hot everyone talked about him and referenced him and there were features after features about him.

they actually wanted us to admire an obese, narrow minded, one sided, bald headed, wrong ass playa hata.

you know why nobody listens to rush limbaugh anymore?

because he told us that clinton was bad and bush was good.

ran a block as fast as i could.

then stopped and didn’t move an inch

red. green.

then ran as fast as i could down the next block.

hauled ass down the sidewalk because its friday and you cant get me

unless you catch me

but my shadow wont even get me tonight.

madpony on vacation + i can blog + red sugar muse + ev

Associated Press

CHICAGO — Sammy Sosa was suspended for eight games by Major League Baseball on Friday for using a corked bat.

The Cubs slugger will appeal the suspension, said Jim Hendry, the team’s general manager. The appeal will make Sosa available for a four-game series against the New York Yankees.

“We support him in his appeal,” Hendry said. “We have no reason to believe it was anything more than a one-time incident. We will support him and his right to exercise and appeal.”

The appeal had to be filed before Friday’s game so Sosa could play.

A piece of cork was found just above the handle in Sosa’s bat Tuesday night when it shattered after he grounded out in the first inning of the Cubs’ 3-2 victory. Sosa didn’t deny the corked bat was his, but he said it was a batting practice bat he had grabbed by accident.

“Some punishment is in order. Hopefully, it can be reduced,” Hendry said.

He noted that Sosa “has been shattering bats his whole career” and no other corked bats had been found.

Bob Watson, baseball’s vice president in charge of discipline, met with Cubs manager Dusty Baker and Hendry at Wrigley Field on Thursday, then returned to New York. Watson did not talk to Sosa.

Other players who have used corked bats have been suspended for up to 10 games. The Cubs had hoped that Sosa’s cooperation, as well as the fact that no cork was found in any of his 81 bats that were checked, would work in his favor.

The Hall of Fame said Thursday that X-rays or CT scans of its five Sosa bats showed no cork or anything else that would violate baseball rules. Baseball officials didn’t find anything in 76 bats confiscated from Sosa’s locker after he was ejected from Tuesday night’s game, either.

“The sad part about the whole thing is that he had 70-some bats and it’s like you still don’t believe it. That’s what’s unfair,” Baker said. “He was wrong with that one bat. It was a bad decision.”

Boston Red Sox ace Boston pitching ace Pedro Martinez came to his Dominican countryman’s defense, saying the incident was being blown out of proportion because of racial bias by the media.

“If it was (Mark) McGwire, it would still be a big deal, but not like this,” Martinez said. “We might be Latin and minorities, but we’re not dumb. We see everything that happens.”

Several other players have been caught or have admitted using a corked bat. But none has had the gaudy resum� of Sosa.

In a five-year stretch from 1998-02, Sosa hit 292 home runs. He’s the only player to hit 60 or more homers in three seasons, hitting 66 in 1998, 63 in 1999 and 64 in 2001.

He’s No. 17 on the career list with 505 homers. And at just 34, many believe he’ll have a chance at Hank Aaron’s record of 755 homers.

Sosa insists he’s never done anything illegal.

“I feel very bad for having used that bat, but my conscience is clean,” Sosa said Thursday. “I’m not a criminal nor someone who intended to deceive or take advantage of others.”

Watson spent about two hours at Wrigley, meeting with Baker, Hendry, Cubs president Andy MacPhail and clubhouse manager Tom Hellmann, then went back to New York.

Baker said his meeting with Watson wasn’t an interview so much as an explanation of what Watson was doing.

“I called him Judge Dread. He thought it was pretty funny,” Baker said. “He just wanted to let me know that they’re going to try to come up with a quick decision, a fair decision. Whatever happens after that it’s up to Sammy and the organization, if we want to appeal it.”

Not only is this weekend the teams’ first meeting at Wrigley since the 1938 World Series, but Roger Clemens goes for his 300th career win Saturday against fellow Texan Kerry Wood. The games Saturday and Sunday will be broadcast nationally, with 90 percent of the country seeing the Clemens-Wood matchup on Fox.

espn + cubs.com

i have the greatest friends.

have i told you?

we had the shrimp special at casita del campo. i had baileys, he had a marguerita, i think.

we had been drinking, talking about baseball, nick cave, prauge, cuba, newspapers, blogging, and of course, miss universe.

he was supposed to take me to the laundromat but i got lazy after we had our first beer and we watched tv – like i make everyone do – and then we ate.

matt welch doesnt like conan o’brien. how can this be?

over tortillas we agree that since the longest suspension for a corked bat was a week (only to be negotiated down to four days) by the pouty albert belle, sammy should have to be suspended for thirty games.

my arguement was more than even that because sammy is on pace to be the home run king, and he’s not a young man any more. and if he were suspended for say most of the season and when he gets to be 41, 42 he finds himself 30-35 homers short of 755, everyone will know that the suspension in ’03 sparked by the corked bat stopped him from breaking the record.

fine. its the most precious record in baseball.

a sport that loves its records more than any other sport.

not only should sammy get a long suspension, but he should instigate it, and while he’s serving his term he needs to go back to the dominican, set up a bench press in the center of town and work out on those dusty streets with the kids looking on and bench all morning.

then he needs to run all around town until its lunch time.

then he needs to eat grapes and melons and then go to the batting cage. the fucked up dominican batting cage.

then he needs to run a little more. then he needs to go back to that town square and apologize to his people.

it wouldnt hurt him if he cried some.

and then he needs to say that he brought shame to his mother and that brings him his deepest shame.

i dont ask you to forgive me, sammy should say in spanish, i only ask that you continue to pray for me.

and then run a few more miles around the town. and then go home and sleep and do it all again the next day.

and after thirty days or more of this sammy should come back to the cubs, my favorite team, leaner, meaner, refreshed, renewed, and ready to win a damn pennant.

thats what sammy sosa needs to do to get this shit forgotten.

and then we ate the plantains, finished off the beans and rice, and then we didnt gossip once about our friends.

splink + jennyyeah + alecia

i dont blame them.

xbi is a cool place. theyve taken care of me. i cant complain.

i could but i wouldnt. i never bitch about the people who pay me. not even on the job.

i have a weird belief that whatever you think or say comes out and multiplies so i try to keep things positive.

recently they moved us all around. took our desks and mixed them up. i think the gunfight had something to do with it.

typically a gunfight is a good red flag to management that the fellas need a new change of scenery. and since i was involved in the gunplay and because i am generally considered one of the most even-keeled members of the agency, when they saw that i had completely emptied my sidearm they knew that things should change.

so this is my new desk. maybe. we’re seriously not supposed to talk about anything surrounding the xbi anywhere, especially not on a web site. especially not on an occassionally busy web site.

i like my new desk. which might be mine. im hardly ever at it because im usually flying chopper one, and thats why my area is fairly clean, but its nice on rainy days or mondays to sit there and look out at the people eating and smoking and think about what else i could be doing in my life and usually the list includes either flipping burgers or selling oranges on the medians next to the 10.

i dont have a lot of toys on my desk, but to the right of my computer you can see my sammy bobblehead, which really isnt a bobblehead its just a figurine.

if anyone wants to send me a sammy bobble head (or more importantly, a harry caray bobblehead) you can send it to: Pierce, 4845 Fountain Ave. #15, Hollywood, CA 90029.

if what you send me is super cool i will take a picture, cuz they last longer.

the best gift that you can give me is your loyal readership, and your sworn secrecy that you wont run around and blab to the world that you have stumbled across what might be the only photographic evidence of the inside of xbi hq.

now please let me get back to corking my keyboard.

xoxoxox

tony

one day in the us + kool keith + sarah crabtree + the ward

you wicked witch from the west.

look what youve done to my beautiful wife. look what youve done to my beautiful house.

some bad guys wanted to send a message to some other bad guys this morning so they took a crane and tipped it over onto a bank.

people thought the bank was empty but there was something in the bank.

i cant tell you exactly what was in the bank because maybe the xbi was involved. indirectly.

maybe it was an accident. if you believe in accidents.

we dont.

which is why we dont believe that sammy sosa in the middle of his home run slump picked the only bat out of 75 bats with his name on it that had cork in it.

which is why if i was commissioner of baseball i would defrock him, expose him, and draw the line of offensive behavior in this, our national pastime.

judge landis and happy chandler are drinking in their graves.

meanwhile where is the commissioner of baseball? the king of black eyes. why isnt he xraying all the bats in baseball right now. or cutting them in half or drilling into them.

baseball has finally come back after years of suffering and over the last few years there has just been one disgrace after another. and yes it bothers me and it hurts me as much as a crane falling upon my heart.

the commissioner needs to resign right now.

the new york times upon discovering that they had two rotten apples, got rid of the apples and today got rid of some of their top editors.

this year my man is corking his bat and roberto alomar is getting a hair cut in the bullpen while his manager is looking around the bench to have him pinch hit.

and chip caray is still broadcasting.

and the yankees are still getting away with murder.

and the commissioner’s daughter is still running a team.

things are falling apart and you have no idea how i wish that i could get away with doing such a crappy job at my place of employment the way bud selig gets to just cruise around at his.

i’d suspend sammy for three months and fine him millions.

madmathias + steve czaben + bettie girl