Geraldo is politely told to get the f outta Baltimore by a resident with the Spirit

today the orioles and white sox played a baseball game in baltimore

fans weren’t allowed to attend the game because nobody likes the white sox

and also because of the rioting in baltimore

but mostly because of the white sox

it was the first time in baseball history where there were no fans in the stands.

orioles first baseman had a little fun with the situation by tossing the third out of an inning to a lucky fan.

but deep down everyone was happy they didnt have to see the sox in person

call me old fashioned but i think riots are good for society

right now baltimore is burning. people are looting. the mayor and the governor are pissed at CNN. people are stealing shoes and diapers and tp for their bungholes.

bloods and crips are working together. people are setting fire to the soulless drug stores and then people are slitting the fire hoses with knives.

this is exactly what should happen when too many black men get killed by too many white cops

who, in this case, took a black dude, and threw him in the back of a police vehicle

and gave him a “rough ride” where he was driven around without a seatbelt

and died from the injuries.

believe me when i tell you that i approve of any riot that you hold in my name if cops murder me.

burn it all down. steal all the things. slash all the hoses.

at some point the powers that be figure it out and things change.

i type this because i saw it first hand in the 90s. the first viral video of my generation was rodney king getting beaten up by several cops.

as soon as it was released to KTLA we all assumed the cops would go to jail. but when they werent, LA rioted for 40 days and 40 nights (give or take).

and guess what, you dont hear about cops doing that much more any more. you see it from time to time but because no one wants riots, that ish gets stifled quick.

“see you at the riots” is my favorite thing to whisper to a liquor store owner who gives me attitude nowadays and trust me it puts them in their place.

everyone needs checks and balances and when things get unbalanced an angry mob usually wins.

so yes im glad that baltimore is standing up to the bs

and im also super glad that out of the haze little angels appear, like this little boy.

and i hope he charged that dude $2.

just like how they charged us all at Coachella

they called it the bates motel because it’s on sunset and bates

ive lived in hollywood a long time and as long as ive been here it’s been abandoned

in the early days of the abandonment hookers used it as their offices

later crackheads used it to do their business.

after a while they boarded it up and it became the home for ghosts and bad memories

the only time something pleasant happened near it was when the Sunset Junction Street Fair would rock out near it

but then one thing led to another and greed seeped it followed by a flood of ignorance

and the Sunset Junction Street Fair ended and the Bates Motel fell into absolute disrepair

until last week when an artist had a vision to paint it all white

even the trees. and now so many people have shown up to look at it in awe that theres bad traffic there

success

about a girl

cobain: montage of heck
hbo films
directed by Brett Morgen

i went to the movies this afternoon for a few reasons.

i saw on twitter that someone had retweeted Montage of Heck’s director Brett Morgen who said that he was gonna be at the 12:30p arclight screening and he would be giving away a few posters

even though the nirvana movie was going to be on hbo in two weeks, who doesn’t want a poster?

so i postponed my bible reading and got an uber ride to the show.

hardly anyone was there. its a beautiful sunday. anyone who would be into nirvana would be at brunch or would be at their kids’ little league game. or dead.

so those very few of us who are unclassified thusly were there and i gotta say the cinerama dome irritates me because the rounded screen really doesnt add much, and distracts often. however the sound was great, so i sat close to the screen and

that music.

that beautiful music.

theres some new interviews with courtney, krist, his mom, his dad, his step mom, and one of his old girlfriends. theres some beautiful home movie footage of the happy little family of courtney kurdt and baby frances bean.

but at the root of it is the tragic story that we all know too well: child of divorce lashes out against society and his family, gets in a band, sees the light, but terrible stomach pains leads him to heroin and later to suicide.

one doesnt need to see this in a movie theatre but the sound of it all is wonderful and probably better than the typical home speakers. and it’s nice to see certain things super large: like how courtney is never glamorous, and kurts blue eyes are magical and his notebooks are endless and intuitive and they’re nothing but a screaming S-O-S to the world.

just like his life it ends abruptly and sort of, wait, is that all there is.

but yes. 20 some years later. yes.

thats all there is.

the film gives us a great look at kurt as a kid, some of his dark tales, and shows us what a rock star lives like when he’s on top of the world with his pregnant wife while they’re both junkies. it’s not one bit like the myth of rock. if anything it’s more like Teen Mom.

i had two takeaways from the film:

1. never discount anyone. the troubled young lad you are giving up on and kicking out of your house might be angry because he can see the future and it has a bad bad ending.

2. nirvana was the last really great rock band in the world, and like the other greats, there will never be another like them.

im the most boring man in america

i wont be married three times. i wont win a decathalon. i wont raise the kardashian sisters

and then kendall and kylie.

and i dont run around in the shadows wearing womens clothes.

my needs and desires are simple. i am simple. bruce jenner is 65 and looks better than i do and is more punk rock than i’ll ever be.

last night i ubered a little after work and as i was on my way to venice ali called me to see if i would uber her from venice to dtla

for she was going to take in The Game at club nokia.

got over there and she and her bff claire were prepartying and i hadnt seen claire in a while and when she asked me what i had been doing lately i drew a blank.

had i been doing anything lately?

then she told me how she just got back from belize or cabo or somewhere with pyramids which she climbed. and i aint climbed no pyramids.

i was so tired that after i dropped them off i went home and curled up with a good book.

today i didnt go out neither. now im watching madonna’s mdna concert on epix

because the one thing i did do was i switched from Uverse to Time Warner Cable

bc i can get 300 mb of internet and the dodgers for $90 a month.

expressurselfdontrepressyrself

weirdest song ive heard in a while

“The Poor Side of Town”
written by Johnny Rivers and Lou Adler
1966

Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be
Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be

How can you tell me how much you miss me
When the last time I saw you, you wouldn’t even kiss me
That rich guy you’ve been seein’
Must have put you down
So welcome back baby
To the poor side of town

To him you were nothin’ but a little plaything
Not much more than an overnight fling
To me you were the greatest thing this boy had ever found
And girl it’s hard to find nice things
On the poor side of town

I can’t blame you for tryin’
I’m tryin’ to make it too
I’ve got one little hang up baby
I just can’t make it without you

So tell me, are you gonna stay now
Will you stand by me girl all the way now
With you by my side
They can’t keep us down
Together we can make it baby
From the poor side of town

(So tell me how much you love me)
(Come be near to me and say you need me now)

Oh, with you by my side
This world can’t keep us down
Together we can make it baby
From the poor side of town

Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be
Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be
Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be

Nick Lowe covered it a few years ago
[embedded content]

but this is the Rivers original
[embedded content]

Rivers also wrote “Secret Agent Man”
[embedded content]

and Adler, among other things, sits courtside with Jack at Lakers games

don draper wished he made commercials like this one

[embedded content]

genius

funny thing happened in the desert

in the middle of the tornado of drinking rocking eating not sleeping came a still soft voice in the wilderness

it said tony you may not realize this but there are lots of people who love you

(i did not know this)

and you should take care of yourself because we want you around for the duration.

in one hand was a deep fried jack in the box taco

in the other was a super big gulp of coke.

and below that was my bulging belly.

it was eerie how the voice knew that i had given up on my health.

somehow it knew i hadn’t been hiking any more, hadnt been dating since the blonde.

and sorta chucked everything except for my job and a half.

but desert voices know all, which is why they’re so valuable.

and why we miss out when we dont go out there to retune our heartstrings.

so yesterday i went to whole foods and made a salad.

and only drank a quarter can of pop.

drove less and slept more.

you know, all the things you promise yrself on new years.

i dont know what i was rebelling against other than the xbi.

i didnt want myself to be recruitable.

also i wanted the ladies to love me for my heart, not my abs.

even though my heart was being corroded by corn syrup and mediocrity.

its funny how we can be our own worst enemy.

not funny ha ha but funny oh crap i cant even fit into my pj pants.

this week ive been unsubscribing from junk mails

which isnt exactly the same as hiking, but its baby steps.

but sunday i’ll see you at runyon, terrible big hill.

thinking about writing a new book

about all the girls i made out with.

the first time i made out with them.

but i’ll change all their names.

and change all the places.

but keep the music we were listening to.

or the music that was going through my head.

bestseller, bitch.

she says she has writers block, but thats a crock

you know who has writers block? the ugh percent.

the over fed and over thinking.

bukowski never had no damn writers block.

the poor and hungry can write and write and write.

ever kiss a girl who hasnt been kissed properly in a long time? she’ll kiss you all night. you’ll wake up and she’s kissing you. you leave for work and she needs to give you one two three four more kisses so you’ll miss yr bus.

the words want to come out of you. you know you have stories to tell thoughts to express feelings to emote blushes to gush. africans dont get eating disorders or peanut allergies.

this is all american bs that we thrust on ourselves to stop ourselves from being vulnerable and deep and interesting and magical. imagine if tolstoy and shakespeare and hemingway and twain said aw no one wants to hear any more stories about the mighty mississippi or fingering anna karenina or drinking in DTLA. imagine if van gogh listened to that little voice in his ear saying no one wants any more fucked up fields of weeds growing beneath the twisty blue sky.

vincent van did the exact right thing, he cut off that voice in his ear and mailed it to his gay lover.

part of the job of being creative is jumping over the obstacles that appear in our way to the goal: and the goal is to write down the dreams the angels are whispering. sure they could write it themselves but its better when it comes through us.

its like when someone covers dylan. or when springsteen sings an old 60s tune during the fifth encore.

it’s our jobs to write write write dance drink party write kiss rock fuck rinse and repeat.

never forget.

we’re back in palm desert

these digs are so much better than my rancid air bnb from last week.

in fact thats a sony xbr above the fireplace and a denon bose sound system

we’re blasting nirvana through my bluetooth speaker because theres no mini to RCA cord

design flaw

rarely do i get to drink because im ubering

but this weekend im not driving.

thus, say hi to my delicious friends

saw the replacements last night

so many feelings

took a train yesterday to ucsb to say hey to the daily nexus

in the middle of the greatest school in the world is the greatest college paper in the world

and yesterday i was invited to speak to them after their first year being primarily digital

i took the train because the thesis of the hour was do shit differently

and id never taken the train to ucsb before

when it was all over, they cracked up a special bottle of scotch, we drank for a little while

and then i was sped off to the train station by the beautiful outgoing EIC and her personal driver

then i took the train home as the sun set over the pacific

and i wondered if i hit all the themes i wanted to hit

i told them to work twice as hard as they did last year for the next four years.

i told them the truth, which is, most of the people they are peers with are easily beat if they did one thing:

produce twice as much stuff, master social media, and if you can’t do that: just use social media, omg.

somehow the details as to how i got fired and banned from the daily nexus were divulged

which provided some nice comic relief

but the main point i had was just work your ass off for the years youre in college

and the first couple years out of college and you’ll be shot out of a cannon.

i think that sunk in.

it was very nice to be in that magical office again

and strangely, super nice to hang out downtown santa barbara for an hour.

might have to do it again sometime.

the cubs are in first place for the first time since 2009

sure the season just started but who cares, it’s the season.

but more importantly it blows away all the critics whines about the team not putting phenom kris bryant on the opening day roster.

the 20 yr old third baseman crushed 45 homers last year in the minors and blasted nine in spring training. of course he should be playing in the big leagues, but because of the rules of baseball, the Cubs will gain an extra year of “control” over bryant if they simply wait till the end of the month to call him up.

so of course they sent him to Iowa after breaking camp. do you just give away millions of dollars?

whiners like curt schilling were all, but what if the cubs miss the playoffs by a game or two and bryant could have been the difference in those early april games?

well guess what, the cubs are in first place

the plan is working.

bryant will be called up when he’s supposed to and the cubs will still probably miss the playoffs.

they are the cubs.

this is not the year.

next year, we’ve been telling you forever, is.

challenge accepted

the more difficult things are, the better. it’s the only way to learn.

last year i drove out to coachella weekend one and barely made $100. the place was swarming with uber drivers, all the most important roads were closed. i was staying in a beautiful house with cool people near the rock fest. and i went to sleep too early.

and on top of it, i got there too late.

so i left frustrated.

this year i got a decent hotel the first night out in the boonies, and the lowest priced air bnb near palm springs (and, yep, you get what you pay for) for the other few days.

i was completely focused on driving.

no distractions.

because of the law of murphy, when you’re set on that path

obstacles will come out of the woodwork

for the sole purpose in which to distract you.

there was a time when i woulda jumped at the shiny flashy fun thing

but you know what else is fun?

science.

creating a hypothesis, trying new things through experimentation

and seeing it through to a conclusion

one of my theories was that if you drove in the day and took a good nap around dinner time

youd be able to drive until 5am, when most of the newbie drivers were sleeping.

that plan worked perfectly.

but because im human, i got cocky and thought i might give the picking up of the ppl at the show a shot

and of course it didnt and i wasted three hours of what could have been a nice dinner followed by a peaceful sleep.

lesson learned

my hands hurt the first two days but i lathered them in icy hot and paid attention to how i was holding the wheel.

just thumbs after a while on the long stretches of the 10 freeway going back and forth

back and forth

from palm springs to indio and back.

risky because if i just went half way i could possibly have gotten more rides or more rides west with passengers,

but this year the experiment was to be ok with driving back empty.

be patient.

trust the system.

because my air bnb was nothing to write home about, i was out of the bed early

just the right time to pick up the people who were off to brunch

or on their way to pick up makeup or hot dogs

or chokers

or flowers.

i was there to pick them up. i was there to soak in their energy

i was there to listen as they told me about their globetrotting lives which even if they werent from LA always seemed to have a story about LA, like this young lady who had never been there before so went to Venice and Beverly Hills and drank at the Chateau

and then met me

it was a long drive from indio to the ace hotel, pretty much the most westerly part of palm springs

but that meant if you got someone, there was a good chance that they wanted to go to the most easterly part of the valley, coachella

making for a $60 or more fare.

something, even in the uber plus, i rarely would get.

there was no uber plus at coachella, but that was fine, the rates were higher and the runs were longer. even if they just wanted to go halfway to pre-party it was still a bigger fare than youd get on a friday in one ride in LA

then on saturday night, my last night, i took a nap from 7pm to 11pm, way longer than you should they say, but i was so tired.

i woke up groggy, dicked around on my phone for an hour and finally motivated.

drove over to the ace and picked up a latino man with a british accent and two very hot black girls.

i hoped they wanted to go to the neon carnival which had started at 11pm and went till 5am, and they did. a very long drive.

i asked the ladies what kind of music they wanted to hear.

“urban”

uh

“hip hop!”

ahhhh. old school or new school, i asked.

new! they requested and i said, shade 45 and we were off.

we talked about food, LA, how everything was behind gates in Palm Springs.

it was a little difficult because the man was in the back with a very soft spoken woman

and up front with me was the other woman who was less shy. or did the two in the back just want some alone time?

it was hard to read.

nearly an hour later we were there but the line to get in was long and the gentleman had received a text that the carnival was no longer fun.

our plan was to pick up wristbands from them in the parking lot but the ladies were tired and just wanted to go back to palm springs. so we did. but first a stop at the del taco. and then to the AM/PM. and then back to their hotel where, to my surprise, he got the backseat girl’s number and asked me to drive him back to indio where his motel was.

but first another stop at Del Taco because the fish tacos were so good.

i knew the fare would be a record setter for me, so i bought the tacos for both of us.

got to the bnb at 5am fully energized from breaking my record on such an interesting ride of mostly highway driving, packed my two bags, wrote a note on the fridge, and headed to LA.

but first i pulled over about a half hour into the return, found a shady spot, and slept in the benz for the first time. for about three hours.

right when it started to get hot.

if you get a chance to soak in the winds of coachella

and top it off with a whirlpool of healing hot waters

i recommend it.

im in a town in desert springs halfway between the soulfulness of joshua tree and the inevitable peacefulness of palm springs

its the west part of the coachella valley and a good half hour away from the campgrounds of the music fest

tonight i will be closer to the action.

but last night i was in it.

what there was.

two people told me the Culture Collide party was an empty room with people in it.

they left before the band dressed like Chewbacca was about to rock

these two ladies Periscoped in the back of my car.

first time thats ever happened.

they had lots of people watching and they’d say “helllo instabul!” “hi san paulo!”

they even let me give a little shout out to the world when we arrived at the ace,

their destination.

i think Tumblr had a party there or something.

were there dbags? oh yeah.

you forget how many people live in san diego.

but there were also grateful and weary travelers.

got to bed at 4am, my work alarm woke me up at 7am, threw the phone all the way to LA

got back to sleep, woke up three hours later and called the front desk

whens checkout time?

nooon?

omg.

sat in the mineral water hot tub and was struck by the spirit

so i said a little prayer.

she said i feel like the desert just sucked all the bad LA

out of me

and turned it into windy sand.

wide parking spaces, pigeons, and artificial grass.

they got charlie parker is playing over the PA trying to be classy

but it’s too loud, too forced.

we get it.

vacation.

theres very little to find bad about kids laughing splashing in the pool

they do this concert this time of year because it’s not yet super hot

but its nice enough to take your shirt off.

this place is like going to your grandmas house.

everything is just so.

nothings just so in hollywood

im feeling terrific. the music sounds good.

days off.

and i get to drive.

my wrists hurt, i smell like icy hot. i bought giant bananas

obscenely

and the struggle will be between having time to chill

and grinding.

the rates are higher out here and the blocks are longer.

theres a kfc within walking distance of this poolside recliner.

im so glad im here.

im so lucky.

so