this is my favorite house in the world

all glass house in isla vista

it sits at the edge of isla vista

it overlooks the ocean

it’s pretty much all windows.

it needs a pool and or hot tub

and me.

any time the lottery jackpot gets over $300 million i think this is the first thing i would buy

id like my mom to retire there

but i think the noise in Isla Vista would be too much for her.

so i suppose id have to live there and walk around topless.

how do i have cats?

every day i think they’re just going to put on their top hats, light a cigar

and say, well, it was fun old chap. see ya around.

how are they even alive?

how is anything alive?

today on 60 minutes they showed UFOs and former military dudes saying

yep for a while we would see them every day over the pacific ocean

how did one of those dudes not accidentally shoot a missile at it

miss, and take out a few blocks of Santa Monica?

life is so short and now i guess its shorter because intelligent life is among us

and too intelligent to get close enough to us

so we could kill them.

because lord knows thats the only thing we do well here

that and make good tik toks.

anyways we’re all gonna die

dont wait for the second date to make out.

Isla Vista in the News

car drives off the cliff on the 6800 block of DP + Isla Vista Boat Boys Clarify: “It was completely sailable”

happy thanksgiving to you and yours

for the last several dozen decades i have looked at things that i am thankful for as things pertaining to *me*

things like job, cars, health, the cubs, are any hot babes loving me, all the things

but this morning i got a text from my mom and it nearly broke my heart.

she was happy to have a job but she didn’t want to have to go to work, she wanted to be cooking and watching football and doting on her grand kids.

but during the Great GOP Recession, just like tons of people, her retirement was wiped out and here she is working for The Man for peanuts on a day she would rather be watching the Macy’s Parade.

so i am not thankful. i am determined. i need to do something serious so my mom can finally retire.

and sadly it’s not drive more trips for Uber + Lyft.

or is it?

no, it’s not.

OR IS IT?

i need to write a script and sell it.

i gotta learn how to write a script.

and i know exactly the story i wanna tell: the time Joe got busted in Isla Vista

music by The Wonderfuls, The Ramones, Rogue Cheddar, Pink Floyd, Mons Pubis, PMS, and Janes Addiction.

it’ll be called Damn Those Shrooms Strong

on april 23, 1992 soundgarden played Rob Gym at UCSB

tickets were $5.

even though i had graduated already, i had stuck around isla vista because i was in love with jeanine and we were living together as she finished her senior year.

soundgardens badmotorfinger was in heavy rotation in my sony 100 cd changer and i still remember hearing it blasted as i played NHLPA on my sega genesis.

not only were they heavy but they were melodic and cornell’s vocals soared.

he was capable of doing things with his voice that even kurdt couldnt do. in fact of all the grunge stars, he was the rock star.

sure weiland was freakier and flashier and glammier, but chris had the long hair and tore off his shirt and strapped on the guitar and literally thrashed around the stage at the small gym

and i laughed as the fold up chairs that were zip tied together were tossed aside two songs into the show. poor Associated Students tried to make the Soundgarden show a seated show but the kids weren’t having that. and neither was the band. it was glorious.

pretty sure i saw them again at Lollapalooza but that was a giant show. Rob Gym is maybe 300 seats. crumpled and discarded. it was a rock show in a loud old gym. and Cornell was perfect the entire time.

i cannot believe he is dead. what a perfect voice. what great style. what love of music. he did a tour where all he did was covers. thats love. he will always be loved.

there should be a plaque at Rob Gym that says

Soundgarden Rocked Here

im in chicago and how about this, im about to hang with aj

jeanine ajwhen i was in college aj and i wrote together, rocked out together, we even had a rock and roll radio show together.

the only thing we didnt do is get it on together. i shoulda told her, look at me, i have my hair, i look great in the cubs shirt that i will later wear in vegas. and i weight 125 lbs. whats not to love?

she loved me but not *that* way. which was a bit sad in a way but it led to great diary entries in my creative studies diaries class and poems and short stories.

one thing led to another and jeanine and i started dating and then we moved in together. we were super in love. maybe in a sick way. we got these friendship bracelets which are painfully visible in this photo and i think i wore mine for a year or two. i think i also had one on my ankle. i was nuts. we were all nuts. all three of us shoulda probably gotten it on right after this picture was taken but we were sweet kids not wearing any makeup, not putting any product in our hair, probably not even wearing underwears.

i love this picture because you can just see all the love we had and have for each other beaming through. it was taken right outside of AJs pad affectionally dubbed “the playpen”. mons pubis or the wonderfuls were about to play. some jungle juice was being prepared in a nearby garbage can. and the neighbors were for sure peeking through their curtains at the parade of beauty and freaky. i think the year was 1990. either that or 91. def one of my all time favorite pictures.

millions of years ago dinosaurs rocked the earth

daily nexusi was recently told that things are different for the kids today who get to put out the news at what once was the greatest party school in america.

and it’s true things are different than when i was there.

first of all there was no internet.

imagine that. imagine having to communicate, research, write, record, and arrange

everything

pretty much by hand

with the help of some very slow and expensive computers and photography equipment.

the phones were landlines and i dont recall there even being an answering machine in the office.

all the lines you see on that page were pasted up by hand. each one has a size.

we used rulers and pens and pencils and paper and we always got the paper out. on time. the photographers used film that they had to develop and then print, and yet if there was a large gathering on DP after a big basketball game, where couches were lit on fire and the fire was lit on fire, the story was reported, edited, and published, and the photos were too.

you bet your ass things are different today.

today, if they worked together, the college community along with the paper could take the pictures and report and opine and review and video and sneak over some tips and share it on facebook and and and

but just like the 100th monkey said, you gotta lead by example

if i was back in IV writing for the paper, id set up IV Hall Monitors. a few people on each block whose “job” it was to do simple things like take pictures of the block each week, and be available when and if anything went down of note. id have them all share a group twitter account. you wouldnt have to pay these kind souls.

if you love IV it should be an honor to simply report back on your magical block.

id also be all over periscope in a huge way.

not to mention snapchat.

dear tony, could you date rihanna?

rihannait would be tough to date rihanna, not because i’m pretty bad at handling high maintenance ppl,

but because my mom doesnt like her.

which is sad because there arent all that many black super dooper pop super stars in the world

and youd think shed be rooting for her

but the day my little niece around the monopoly table started singing

bitch better have my money

was pretty much the last straw.

riri’s travel wouldnt bother me, i’m self sufficient and sometimes the xbi… well lets just say sometimes the busblog is written by committee.

deep down we understand why rihanna is the way she is. if i was one of the prettiest women in the world and every year or so my records just blew up, and every tom dick and harry was trying to get their dick in me, and i was rocking the courtside seats and just getting prettier and prettier magically and kanye and paul mccartney and lord knows who else wanted to perform with me, and i was getting grammys and co-starring in Battleship

it would either turn me very humble, or the opposite of that.

especially if i looked smoking hot in a rain coat.

could i date her? yes. should she date a blogger? no. would we be a match made in heaven? probs. would i take her to isla vista? no. thats my little special place. would i let rihanna help me build a Motel California on del playa?

hmmmmmmmmm

its three fourty seven am

and since nothing in here is true lets rock

lately ive been telling people i know a little secret that i am equally proud of and a little ashamed of

for the last ten years i have been a daily pot smoker, and four days ago i quit, and im telling you because id be a hypocrite if i layed into people like the good professor for being a hypocrite more interested in image than truth and transparency if i was not totally transparent with you.

it all started on haight street in san francisco. i lived with a variety of young men, one of whom could always get his hands on the sticky green bud which i had smoked occassionally in college but never on a daily basis. but with him living right there any time i ran out i just walked over to his room and asked if he had any and if he was he’d sell me some and if he didnt hed get some for me when he got some for himself.

frisco was so lenient that often times we’d pass a joint as we walked down the street. we’d smoke in cars. we’d smoke in the park. we even smoked on couches of the warfield during a concert. in fact i volunteered as a doorman at the filmore and after the show they poured us beers and everyone lit up, which is san francisco at its best if you ask me.

over the years pot just became part of my daily life, like beer is to frat boys, or like makeup is to girls. its something i was constantly maintaining, always aware of.

the funny thing was, because of my experiences with the xbi starting in college, weed stopped getting me totally stoned after the first two years of use. meaning, the high was never all that high for more than an hour. and over the last five years it rarely lasted more than 15 minutes. but it had turned into a habit. something i definately did right after work during the weekdays and as soon as i woke up on weekends and holidays.

i also smoked out right before meals because if i smoked after a meal i wouldnt be affected at all. i smoked before i wrote, i smoked before i fucked, i smoked before i watched a movie or a tv show. i smoked before i started a task and i smoked as a reward after a task. one reason i didnt mind not having a car was because it was nice to smoke and get on a bus and not have to worry about anything. but the problem was, by the time i got off the bus my little high was gone, which was fine. that high was never anything i needed it was just always a little spice to whatever was going on.

there were times when i quit for a few days to see if i could. those were never big deals even though i thought about it constantly. when i went out of the country or visited my mom or went on road trips for work, or flew, i never took it with me because a)i never wanted to go to jail even for 15 minutes for something as lame as a 15 minute high, b)it would break my mothers heart if she ever got a phone call from me in jail and c)i considered trips good excuses to take little breaks.

also, and this is something that i totally relate with flagrant about, when i was on the road there was no “habit” as everything was new. therefore there was no ritual so there was no need for that bongload.

plus if i ever needed a substitute on the road there was always beer or rum.

dont get me wrong. im not writing this to secretly boast how cool i am that ive stopped this habit. and im certainly not saying that im ashamed of what ive done. i still love weed and i totally think that it should be legal because its a walk in the park compared to some of the wild shit that we allow in the hands of people: booze, cigarrettes, guns, cars, love affairs. and no way am i telling anyone to quit. im just telling you whats on my mind right now which is its 4:16am and in four minutes guess what id be doing.

im quitting because it doesnt work on me any more and all it has done for me over the last few years was eat at my memory which was fine with me, and eat at my wallet a little which again i couldnt care less about because money grows on trees, and put a haze around me which also was fine because i had grown used to feeling mildly retarded and i had found some weird comfort in that self-induced stupidity.

it had also helped my creativity. i truly believe that. yes im one creative fuck and a good rip of weed at the right time sent my thought flowing so fast at times that if i could harness it i could get into some great places that i probably couldnt get to sober. however sometimes those evelations were unmanageable and coupled with my a.d.d. prevented me from the initial task of writing shit down and describing the wave i was riding.

in order to reign that in i created twenty minutes with tony so that i could steer myself down the rushing rapids without getting lost looking at the sparkley things all around me.

these last few days have been equally bizarre and wonderful. wonderful in that im happier, more focused, and far more aware. and i feel great. it was common to get headaches after too much smoking and the fog that would get in my head sometimes felt like a selfimposed flu minus the barfing.

and also i have no appetite because i have trained my body to wait for weed before the meal so today for example i ate like four wheat thins and two peanut m&ms all day and didnt leave the house to get a burrito until 6pm, and i only did that because i have a sensitive stomach and i didnt want to eat way too late and fuck it up.

ten years of weed has meant ten years of munchies and late night eating and later night gorging. i have a belly that the girls call cute but has never made me all that happy and when i see pictures of myself or try on tshirts and see that fucking gut im not at all pleased. so not being hungry all the time has been a pleasant suprise that i hadnt expected.

and to be honest, i never thought that itd be this easy to turn my back on my second favorite habit, the first of course being writing.

so yes over the last few days i have experienced writers block. a while back i wrote a post about blogger burnout which is just an extended form of writers block. one of the solutions of writers block and blogger burnout, i wrote was to write something that youve been hold back. it is my belief that when youre blocked its because theres an elephant in the room and you keep trying to write about anything other than the elephant. that struggle stifles creativity and clogs the flow. which is why i keep telling you to quit telling your friends and family about your blog, or being not giving a fuck about them. same goes for your employer.

i had the greatest interview with my soon-to-be employer last week, as you know, and their general theme to me was they dont give a fuck about anyone. they just dont want to be bored. they want to constantly try new things, constantly evolve and constantly be punk rock in keeping it real. we laughed and talked for a half hour and people were shocked because apparently they eat candidates up in interviews.

am i nervous that they might read this and say shit we dont want some dude who was a pot smoker for so long and dumb enough to admit it on his blog? yes im a little nervous but im more nervous about turning into a pussy ass sellout bitch whose fears run him instead of his ideals.

the older i get the more i sell out and i fucking hate that and i fight it and i beat it at every turn. i keep telling you how much i admire anti and flagrant and raymi and its because theyre not afraid to be punk rock and show you that they dont give a fuck what you think. theyre going to take off their clothes and smoke weed and cut themselves and write about it for everyone to see. not just for the sake of being an exhibitionist but to add their take on life on earth. and when you edit who you are out of fear you have stopped telling your story and you have lost your edge.

the instapundit is so easy to take apart because his fear to show both sides overwhelms him and makes him completely vulnerable for criticism. hes my favorite blogger because i see myself in him. in that fear. i see myself in his mania to write write write, and to do it in a public way. i feel bad that hes trapped by his own success because i know that if he wasnt making six figures off his ads he would probably be more willing to change shit up, but how can you turn your back on all that lucre when you have a family a mortgage and all the trappings. but the truth is if he was as balanced as he probably wants to be he wouldnt lose that many readers cuz the truth is his readers are such sheep that theyd stay.

drudge is far more balanced than he was years ago and his popularity has not diminished despite the throngs of competition that has come along with the boom of blogging. and kos, although plainly partisan has the most popular political blog despite being critical of his own party when that is indeed the story of the day.

most writers would say at this point “but i digress”, but i havent. we all have our bad habits. and im here to say that some are easier to kick than others. we all know that we should be healthier with our minds bodies and actions and im here to say that im trying to lead by example. and im also here to say that this monkey is not only off my back but now its gone to heaven.

the key to it all, believe it or not, was the blogging that i did at work. remember my two biggest habits were weed and writing. i never got high before work or at work. therefore all the posts that i wrote there was done sober. and many of your favorite posts were done during those 15 minute breaks or during my lunch hour.

as i kept struggling with the demons who whispered that i needed a nice bong rip in order to write well these last few days, i kept reminding myself that i wrote great things without the weed, i can still write without it. its all in the head. mind over chatter.

but i was still stuck until i realized i was super pissed off at my favorite blogger for being a pandering myopic tool playing a very small supereasy game that’s beneath him

and that i had to come clean about the easiest thing that ive had to do this summer which was kick the habit

both were tough to write because glenns a human being with feelings and cuz some people might take what i write about weed the wrong way

but sometimes joel you have to just say wtf

and if you cant say it in a gayass blog then youre worthless

greatest press conference of all + the quotes that lead up to it + alecia has a photoessay + wildbell has two