there was a time jordan did the editing of the audio, now i do it

i see why he wanted my interviews to be 45 minutes

this one was 3 hours.

it’s taken me forever to edit it down bc im so easily distracted

i’ll get on a little run and i’ll be so happy that i’ll do something else “real quick” like make a pic like the one above.

is it ADD or ADHD or procrastination?

i really wanted to do 3 episodes this month but i dont think it’ll happen.

now that i have my uber stories and setlist and actually driving uber im so busy and things that take a long time like the podcast get pushed to the back

not sure how i can fix that other than do something wild and limit my twitter to 1 hour a day instead of 23.

the other night i was soooo tired and soooo on empty and i hadnt eaten much and i hadnt dranken enough water and i was sooo sleepy but i still had more and more to do so after i took a leak i felt like i might not make it to the bed

so once i got in the hallway i took a step and flew into the bed

once i got there i was sweaty

i wanted to cry from exhaustion

and i sat there and laughed

toweled off

and got back to working.

it is a joy an honor and im learning soooo much every day

https://www.setlist.fm/news-contributions/busblog

i love it so much

i want to do it for ever

i get clogged on sundays because i never want to turn on church

but once i turn it on im happy and todays sermon was good.

then i turned on the cubs.

then i walked to the store talking to mom.

then i finally got to finishing up tomorrows podast.

i am the most ridiculous procrastinator ever for this right now.

i really need to do uber so i can do something productive with all this spare time im just killing doing nothing.

but i wouldnt drive on sundays.

Lord’s day.

i know it’s hard. i am in the middle of it right now and it’s super hard.

sometimes i have noticed that weird crazy magical shit happens when your back is up against the wall.

you do things you wouldnt normally do.

things your mind says Only Even Think About in case of an emergency

the emergency is approaching.

i find myself on Linked In applying for jobs i know im overqualified for but if this was sports, would the MVP of the league stop playing because he is clearly better than everyone else at that position?

then why do we do that IRL?

im gonna get out from under this cloud.

i always have.

things are gonna get better.

then things are gonna rock.

just like in olden times.

sheeeeeeeet

today i was interviewing one dude and when it was over i asked

do you have any neighbors i should interview?

he said, i have a neighbor who played bass with bob dylan

during the infidels tour

and also grew up with Andy Kaufman

i am busy and lucky and i love you and i hope you love whats coming up next

i accomplished so much this weekend.

i wrote an email, left it in draft to see if i needed to send it.

sent it.

did part one of a blog post that has to go out Monday, then finished it today.

as planned? what?

i scheduled FIVE hear in LA interviews for this upcoming week.

am i nuts?

and then i saved the Oscars

whats crazy about that one is i got a lot of really good feedback telling me they either

loved the idea

or it would be stolen (good!)

or there were some good points in it.

a lot of time i get zero feedback for my wild ideas, but this one hit home

AND it was published on a Sunday at 5pm – a time “experts” say

is a terrible time to put anything online because ppl are not at work goofing off.

i have always said, good content will get shared no matter when you publish it.

and i stand by it.

ok gotta go to the val tomorrow for two of my interviews.

in fairness it was a second invoice.

the first one was 71 days ago.

when you write an invoice on December 1 you think, ah what nice Christmas gifts I’ll be able to buy my family with that money.

a few weeks later I wrote a different invoice for 19 days of December and submitted that one as well.

that was 53 days ago.

neither have turned into monies.

2021 was not a great year for me financially and those two invoices were the 2nd and 3rd that have not been paid as of yet.

in total i am owed over $10,000 for work in 2021. hard to believe.

of the replies I have received when i inquired about remittance:

fuck you tony

and

you’re an asshole.

being raised in a community as a young man where i was the only Black kid in many situations, trust me when i tell you, name calling does not affect me.

i know who i am.

but those who i owe do not want to hear sob stories or “they called me an asshole and said it’s coming, what can i do?”

after 53 days is it really coming?

is it in one of those ships off long beach, polluting the air, waiting for a truck to get it at the dock and deliver it to my home.

the one i pay rent on.

who has a landlord who will say, “oh you’ll tell me when it comes? thank heavens.”

in the college of creative studies when they were teaching us how to write fiction they said, “when you write interesting characters think about their motivations. think about whats going in their heads. why do they say the things they do, why do they not say things.”

what could go through someone’s head when they know its been 53 days since the Second invoice?

and why aren’t they saying, “i’m sorry, tony. you’re not an asshole for asking. i am an asshole for not making this happen in a timely, professional way”?

54.

over the last few months ive been burning the candle at both ends.

working and working on two very different things, both hard, but rewarding.

yesterday on the subway i was told that i would have more time to work on the other thing

which is fine, but a lot of what i had been working on for them was figuring out how to figure it out.

we had an SEO guy at the Times come in for a while and he was fantastic and i think in the room of 50, i was one of the very few who totally understood what he was saying because i am a super nerd for that sort of thing.

so when i went to KPCC, he was the first guy i had them consult with.

it was there that i realized why everyone spaced out to him at the Times: no one wants to hear the magic doesnt work overnight.

the internet and search and social media, combined, is the most finicky, unpredictable wyld stallion who does not want to be figured out or gamed or mastered because once that happens

spamming will ruin it all.

even when you figure out something you’re probably better off not exploiting it in major ways because the other thing about the internet is theres scoreboards everywhere

you want a slow, steady, reasonable, understandable climb.

it took a good year at the Academy to get the ball rolling. and that was an extremely familiar and rightfully beloved brand. top of the heap. and still it was an aircraft carrier that resisted turning and speeding up.

time takes time, ringo.

if youre gonna play a pinball machine for a year, you should, for sure, tilt it in the first game to see where the sidelines are. but then people call you the tilter.

if i could go back in time, i would, so i could learn a few things

one: kpcc to find out what i coulda done there to make it work

because that scoreboard barely moved.

im dying to find out why.

21 years ago i was part of a very small team that hired over 400 people.

i did my best as that Recruiter to try to see into the hearts of prospective employees

to see if they would like the job, work well with the crew, and be good to the customer.

you really only had a few minutes to make this determination

the few minutes you scanned the resume, the 20 minutes on the phone call

and the 60 minutes in the interview.

some people judged people with how they followed up if the process was taking long

but i didn’t.

the process should not take long. that was on me.

still, some prospective employees dressed provocatively in the interview

which, interesting as it was, a negative checkmark

some people were almost overly prepared, spitting back info about the company that clearly PR put on some dusty corner of the website

and even though it should have been a negative checkmark, at least they were trying

this blog is twenty years of a writer writing in

his

dusty little corner of the web.

i am an open person. i wish more were.

i appreciate when i stumble across something that seems so personal and real.

and i am sad there are fewer of those out there because

i think people are wonderful and we dont have that long to be examples of that.

this blog was weirdly launched a month before 9/11. it saw the first Black president and every episode of Lost.

it documents me going from disgruntled bus rider in a job that didn’t love me to watching the Cubs win the World Series

one game in person.

sometimes i worry that portions will be taken out of context and give someone a reason to give me more than a few negative checkmarks but

what i learned from hiring all those people

was sometimes i made the wrong choice.

of course its bound to happen with that many hires in a short period of time

but nobody wants to make mistakes like that.

this job tomorrow im pretty sure id be great at

and im pretty sure it would allow me to use some of the things i learned

from my last job

and take it to a different level.

and that is exciting.

but i dont know how that crew is,

and that dynamic, i have seen, makes all the difference.

unimately, i just want to be a good element

a positive check mark

among others.