i wrote because i had a sports illustrated subscription

i read both papers every day in the library at school

not because  i was smart – if i was smart i would have read my homework.

i read them because of mike royko and because sports on tv was pretty much nonexistent.

i wrote because when i sent little stories to the girls,

they smiled and

took my hand and

i wrote because there was a typewriter in the house.

when i was little a fancy car rolled past my house and stopped.

a man got out and said tony pierce?

i was 13.

i said jd salinger?

he said, here is the secret to writing,

it’s called the baseball hat.

i said, n word please.

he said, no, this is a magical one.

i said i will accept it but i would prefer one someday that will match all the Cubs crap i wear all the time.

he said im sorry thats not how it works

and tossed me a weird green one.

i haven’t washed my hands since.

the real reason i no longer work for the xbi is because you cannot lie to the lie detector

every now and then the xbi will poison their agents, one by one,

and give them a thorough mental evaluation.

sometimes the poison is laced with LSD or magic mushrooms or ecstasy or combinations of all three

they’ll sleep deprive us, starve us, torture us, and then give us more poison in the jugs of water

which we foolishly chug down from thirst

and then, voila, the truth comes out.

the last 9 out of 10 trips to the lie detector revealed one thing that scared the xbi to their bones

at my heart i am a Christian minister.

because when stripped down to my essence, i was told, i would invite my superiors, my torturers, my bosses, to

look for the spirit of Good, and Creativity, and Sexiness

and let it come out in tiny ways.

indeed, right there, tied up, with a light shining in my eyes, and eye drops being dropped in my eyes

i would say things like, “ours is the kingdom of Heaven. what will be your dance steps once the Pearly gates are parted?”

for a while the xbi let this go on because i was fantastic in the field, and the bible is filled with tales of war and destruction, but somehow they failed to realize that the holy trinity was equal parts father, son

AND

holy spirit.

and when i was chopped down to the knees, i would teach them about the spirit

about their souls

and about how when a fastball is thrown perfectly

it moves

and that funkiness keeps it from being hit

that funkiness defies science

because that funkiness

is funk.

the thing the fearful fear.

but its the thing that is closest to God than anything you could write down on paper.

or slide into a spreadsheet.

or pin onto a wall.

and its essence, in modern day human form,

was Prince.

so, I concluded, reportedly, repeatedly, was

how are you gonna be funky today babies

and what color cape will you wear?

and they let me go.

took the cats in yesterday to get their annual check up and the lady said

these are the most behaved cats ive seen in here in a long time.

which is true, they’re good animals and ive taught them to be chill.

we have this little ESP that they clearly learned from the xbi

and im in the same wave length

today i was over by the beach getting ready to drive a whole lotta

4th of July Uber and Lyft rides when i got a message

yo, you should come back home

even though Prince and Michael can deal with rectal exams and weird offices

the booming of the fireworks in Hollywood apparently made them

uneasy.

as i drove through LA fireworks blossomed to the left and the right of me

like a coronation

it made me a little emotional because i love this city so much

and the weather was perfect and seriously every block there were little groups of people

just launching surface to air missiles with beautiful results.

for my entire half hour drive

boom boom ahhhhhhh

got home and the cats first pretended like it was all nbd

but soon they were both in my room,

high up by the tvs

and alert.

im not sure if youve noticed but i am a devout follower of Jesus Christ.

we can hem and haw about some of the so-called rules in the bible, but it’s hard to call bullshit on something that was literally

written in stone.

and Take A Damn Day Off Once A Week

is written in stone right along with dont fucking murder any one and dont steal anyones shit.

you know, the list of no-brainers.

whats beautiful about why God tells us to take a day off every week is because

HE took a day off and when he looked back at it

it dawned on him that it was so good that everyone should take it off.

basically: sure you could work every day, but it is better if you don’t, and because you are probably like me and wont remember to take a day off, im gonna write it down for both of us so that we both remember

do not work every day.

indeed, on your day off, try to do as nothing as you can.

just chill til the next episode.

whats interesting is even at the xbi my bosses eventually stopped asking me to do things on weekends because i would start to get a little aggro if i wasn’t given the space to just

super unplug for two days straight.

like nothing having to do with work. no gameplans. no screenshots. no motivations.

nothing.

no xbi nothing.

and then monday id come in there hot as a rocket.

im old enough to remember the Tony Express.

back in olden times people tried to ride their horse from St Louis to Californee but about 1/3 of the way there, their horse would just sit down

and never get up.

the indians would be all, bro you have to give them rest. and water. and then rest.

but the cowboys would be like, but we have somewhere we gotta be.

so the smart people said, step right up, step right up, have we got something for you

it’s called the Tony Express

we’ve got horses, rested and watered horses, every hundred miles. you get on one, ride it fast and hard 100 miles, get off, and hop on a new happy one who’s had its two days of rest.

and it will run like youve never seen run ‘afore.

and then you get on the next-un and so on till youre in the Golden State faster’n youd ever believed.

then a giant conglomerate bought a bunch of horses too, called it the Pony Express

and history forgot about the inventor of it all

everyone, that is,

except the xbi.

later we passed by this closed down pot shop

seemed a little nothing in here is true:

clean, nice, decent selection.

everyone was female,

even the gun totin security lady.

there was a mexican woman there,

a bud tender,

she told me about how much she liked country music.

also rock, si, but country music.

i wanted to get back there one day and give her a cd of lone justice songs but just like that you’ll never see that person again.

which is why xbi agents usually wear something distinctive

just in case you need us.

would i even know?

do terrible people even care after a while?

i dont think so which is troubling because i sure as hell dont care.

but i dont want to be a nuisance or a bummer.

i dont go out any more and i dont stay in.

either i ESP with people or i use braille.

ive turned into an extremely aggressive driver.

but i do use my signals.

i wrote someone an invitation to the greatest offer in the world the other day

and i know she read it because it says so

but she did not reply.

which tells me,

maybe im a terrible person

which makes her think no way could this be what it appears to be

even though its an invitation to something

so great. so cool. so what is needed right now.

but if the wrong messenger sends it

it gets forgotten.

what would a not terrible person do or say in this situation?

probably nothing.

the terribles are always so loud.

it’s because once xbi always xbi

and at the xbi we knew everything

which means if you lie, we know youre lying.

at first i put it on there when i broke up with the xbi to remind them that they should stop lying to me

but then i left it on there to remind others.

and it’s interesting that even when people know that you know

they still do it.

and on and on

until the break of dawn.

i take so many things personally, but for some reason i dont find it insulting when people lie to me.

i feel sad for them

because theyre clearly in a pattern that they learned way back a long time ago

where they got off the hook, or it bought them a little time or it got people to leave them alone

if they twisted the facts.

and theres a burden when you know all the facts to keep them close to you

when people are wiping their ass with the facts.

to your face.

it makes you wanna get a hat that says xbi.

but that’s too many letters.

so i wear a different one.

yes i can do it

do i wanna do it

no

then why do it

cuz everythings a dare

and i must win every dare

once upon a time i had the most simple life

and then it got simpler.

i judge the simplicity of life by two things

how many keys you have

and how many things you

have

to do every day.

one reason i left the xbi was because it became a

have to

instead of a get to.

i’ll be honest sometimes this very blog feels like a have to sometimes

and i know how to get out of that slide easily.

usually it’s tell the truth more.

ended up in urgent care bent over that very table there

theres a window with some venetian blinds to the right

but theyre a rip off because when you part them

it’s a view of nothing.

not nothing nothing, but not what you wanna see when youre looking for something good in the world

when you need to see something good in the world.

you know it’s there somewhere and it sure would be nice for it to be right out there past the garbage somewhere

i didnt drive cuz i was all dopey on all the Benadryl and rum i was using to make my cough and headache STFU

when the driver found himself in a little traffic i noticed that i was gonna be about 10 minutes tardy so i called the doctors office to alert them

“oh tony no one called you?”

called me?

“yes the doctor had to go to home around lunchtime.”

apparently he was sick too.

“we can reschedule you for friday if you like.”

this is the thing about the xbi. they dont want you to get well. and for sure they dont want you using non-xbi doctors.

the REASON you’re sick is because either they poisoned you

or they are experimenting with sound waves or mites

or food allergies or lsd microdoses.

will they tell you they are using you as a guinea pig?

no.

will they apologize? or send you a remedy via sexy delivery service?

ha!

they make YOU figure it out. they make YOU suffer. they give you the worst headaches youve ever had in your life. because it is their belief that if you think you are going to die, you, their pride and joy, YOU will find the cure and when you do they will in turn benefit.

so theres one of two things you can do: die or fight.

ive seen agents just give up and jump off the rocks into the mexican riviera. and all the xbi will ever say is well he proved he was no longer worth our time and effort.

and then theres morons like me who curl up with blankets and capt morgan and let the poison do its magic which those bastards love because they can see and they can learn and they can scribble their notes and even though I havent been one of theirs for years suddenly i am working for them in this capacity and its disgusting.

but i do know some things that they dont like. they dont like me fat. which is why i only eat at drive thrus and never work out. they dont like me single, which is why i havent dated seriously in a long time. and they dont like me writing about them which is why the busblog is my favorite f you.

who will have the last laugh?

mcdonalds, probs.

until then i hope my doc recovers because hes a good man and doesnt deserve this.