say it loud

im weird and im proud

what do i look for in a wife

shes gotta love pop
shes gotta love television
shes gotta love movies
shes gotta think i look good with my shirt off
shes gotta realize i love a lot of weird and stupid shit
other than that
shes gotta be nice nice nice nice
or no dice

meanwhile, i will wheel our soda home from the circle k
cuz deep down im a gentleman

i have a secret phone in my house

hardly anyone knows the number. it’s a landline with no ringer and no answering machine.

the xbi taught us esp through a series of extremely painful exercises that we were forced to practice all the years that i was in santa barbara.

that phone is a baby step between esp and an actual phone because in order for it to work someone has to dial it and i have to somehow psychically know that it’s ringing with very few prompts.

last night our sweet, long lost friend Linda, the former barefoot runaway, former navy submarine pilot, and former utah prison guard was on the other end of the phone and she said “im in hollywood next to the capitol records building, which way to your house?”

i said follow the north star turn right and then make another right and then an immediate right and i will be the guy in the robe and the cubs hat. it should take you 10 minutes.

and there she was. with her teenage daughter Mako who has grown up so fast she has already graduated high school and is on her next steps of studying zoology in either san diego, berkley or santa cruz.

they had been at venice beach all day and were sun burned. they asked for aloe lotion but all i had was actual aloe but they refused it. we talked and talked and talked and mako is a delight and they both want to leave utah and move to LA and who can blame them. the only problem is you can buy a house in SLC for $120k and here that will barely buy you a Mercedes Jeep.

i was shocked (but not surprised) at how smart and wonderful mako is and how funny linda is especially about me sharing with her daughter what a firecracker linda was in college (see photo above) and how fascinating it has been to watch her mature into the greatest police officer and firearms expert in these 50 states.

linda is burned out though and wants to do something “peaceful and beautiful” which is sad because she would make the greatest private bodyguard for a famous actress because she fears nothing.

but she doesnt want that. she wants to grow flowers. so i suggested oxnard. and before i could tell her more about that the clock said it was time to go. so they got back into their rental car and drove to LAX where they were staying at a nearby motel and i was so sad that my esp was rusty and i hadnt known about their earlier calls during the weekend, as i would have given them my home and taken them to sushi and a movie.

next time they said! next time. mako is now on her way to Asia on a peace corps style good will mission for a month and then she will return. hopefully with Linda and we can do this right.

i am so blessed to have so many top notch friends who have turned into the greatest parents and people.

how did i get so lucky?

The Light that Drove Old Dixie Down

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God don’t like ugly

last week showed why you should never kill yrself

so much can happen in just a day, let alone a week.

unfortunately for politicians and others who like to drag their feet it also shows how lame excuses are.

when someone wants to make things happen they usually can.

for some reason i have let my apartment sorta lay dormant in the decorations department.

did i think i was going to move or something? no.

i only have one string of christmas lights, hardly and pictures on the walls.

it’s been years since the xbi tore everything down in an attempt to rattle my cage.

maybe my cage was rattled.

we are all sensitive poets to a certain degree.

we all react weirdly when weird things happen.

the politicians and justices who grew up 50 years ago when gays pretty much had to stay in the closet and confederate flags flew everywhere they wanted

probably never thought theyd see this day where equal rights for all really meant equal rights for all

except for symbols of hate.

so i sorta understand mike huckabee saying who cares what the supreme court says.

although thats not the thing youd expect from a presidential candidate or a preacher, especially when the good book says for us to follow the laws of the land.

and love our neighbor.

and not to judge.

but then again maybe huckabee is the lost sheep that we need to shepard over

and forgive.

and remind that we are all god’s creatures. every one of us.

who all deserve love. and are reflections of the Creator.

and just like we have grown and changed from the mud we once were in Genesis to the men and women we are today, God evolved in his thinking as well in the bible

and symbolized his new commitment to love us and protect us

with the rainbow.

#neverforget

the ever wise ashley rose once told me that im never satisfied

at the time she was 19 and i was in my 30s and some of my female friends would judgingly ask me

what could you two possibly talk about?

little did they know that we actually talked a lot about everything all the time

possibly because she was eerily insightful, particularly about the things she obsessed about

and for that little stretch of time it was me.

i thought of her last night as i was at the so-called N.W.A reunion

so-called because Dr. Dre chose not to attend

which made it an Ice Cube MC Ren DJ Yella reunion, which is nice but come on.

with Eazy resting in peace you really need Dre there even more and without him there,

well let’s just say that even with incredible seats, i was a pouty little disappointed man.

not even three huge beers helped.

it’s not wrong to want things. or expect what is being advertised.

but of the surviving members of Niggaz Wit Attitudes,

Dr. Dre is just as important as Ice Cube

and the fact that he took what he learned as their DJ and producer

and parlayed that into a legendary solo record and incredible post- NWA producing efforts

makes his fans want him to show up with the ganstas who got him there

that much more.

his buddy snoop dogg was the opener for Ice Cube and MC Ren and Yella

yes snoop dogg, who probably would NOT be on the stage if it wasnt for Dre

snoop dogg, dre’s sidekick immediately after leaving the worlds most dangerous group

Dre’s “The Chronic” is just as much Snoop’s coming out party as it is Dre’s.

the only person missing was Eminem, and guess what, he doesn’t like to leave the house neither.

so yes i was disappointed

just hours after being hugely satisfied and thrilled about marriage equality becoming law.

it was nice to feel that feeling of satisfaction because it’s nice to know that im capable of it.

but man was it sad to be let down by and decent rap show at the basketball stadium.

the girls were pretty

and the cookie tasted good.

im seeing N.W.A tonight, snoop dogg and kendrick lamar opening

picked up a pretty girl today while ubering and she wanted to hear hip hop

one thing led to another we start talking about how Ice Cube is headlining the BET Experience tonight

and he’s gonna rock out with DJ Yella and MC Ren

and maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe

Dr. Dre

(a dj on the mic, ask what its like its like we getting hyped tonight)

on one hand its Cube giving it up to the kids who love his music

but also in a month or two theres gonna be an n.w.a movie coming out

the one that suge knight was on the set of

when he got pissed at someone and ran him over with his escalade.

and will probably get life for murder.

so why not celebrate the worlds most dangerous group

in DTLA, killer seats,

on a saturday night in the

united

states of america

she said im flying to poland and i cant go.

i was all why are you doing that

she said im a model and i hardly ever get to go home.

i said how could i ever thank you

she said get me to the airport as fast as you can so i can get on the plane.

she told me the food in LA is terrible

too salty or two sweet.

i wanted to tell her about soul food, but she was on a roll.

ive seen ice cube once, maybe twice

snoop dogg once

kendrick once

and n.w.a never and i love them and they love you right back

and dr dre better get his black billionaire ass on that stage.

why am i so happy this morning?

the supreme court just legalized gay marriage across the land and i’m super stoked?

why?

i have no skin in this game.

i dont even know any gay people

:)

jk i know lots of gay people and i’m very happy for all of them.

but im happier for america and people who pay attention to america because this is exactly what this country is supposed to be about

AND SO RARELY DO WE ACTUALLY LIVE UP TO OUR POTENTIAL

today we have.

the cranky ass cranks on the right on the supreme court have outted themselves as being asswipes

calling people hippies

and turning their back on what this country was founded on: the pursuit of happiness, freedom, love, liberty, equality

not politics, not the bible, not conservative jibber jabber

and most of all, not big government.

so yes i am thrilled that restrictive, backwards, anti-american discrimination has lost yet another battle under Obama.

what a week it has been for the president: he busted with the N-word on a podcast, he passed his trade agreement, and now that he has “evolved” in his feelings about gay marriage – so has the court.

not bad for a half black lame duck with a republican congress.

let freedom ring, you beautiful hippies.

now that Britney is single again, would i date her?

what do i care?

sure. fine.

i would do it for all the wrong reasons though.

i would do it to hang out in Vegas more.

i would do it to secretly compete against K-Fed.

i would do it to help her write her autobiography, which has to be fascinating.

i would do it to help her lose that weird fog that seems to be in her head and bring back that Louisiana spark plug who we all thought would be our spirit animal.

i would do it to help her make that pop-opera that we all know is inside her.

i dont want to change her. ok maybe a little. but the weird thing about Britney is she’s gone through tons of changes herself.

there was a time i wouldnt even consider dating her. i was way more an Xtina person. but now she seems boring.

Brit has never been boring. she has always kept it real. which is why im distracted by the haze.

i feel she needs to go back to making live videos.

she needs to do some heavy metal covers, but popped out.

likewise, some acoustic numbers.

i want her to surprise people at 1am at Bonnaroo, Jazz Fest, Lollapalooza.

people Love her and are rooting for her. but so many would never buy a ticket to one of her shows. fine. just appear places then. do 20 minutes of hits that the kids can sing along to

and dance to

and then peace out.

Bonus Britney

the tour.

yr welcome.

the more we become educated the harder it is to be a dumbass

last night i watched the 1947 Academy Award winning movie “Gentlemen’s Agreement”.

the title comes from an unspoken rule in some communities in the Eastern part of the USA

back in the day

where one homeowner promised his other homeowners that if he ever sold his house

he wouldn’t sell it to a Jew.

this film was made not long after Americans went to war to defeat the Nazis

and yet returned home to a nation that wasn’t killing our Hebrew friends,

but they were still discriminating against them in various ways including

having places like country clubs and fine hotels being Restricted

meaning Jews were not welcome.

what’s interesting is if Jews weren’t allowed, then for sure Blacks weren’t accepted either

other than to clean up, shine shoes, and dance, of course

even though nearly 100 years before WWII, Abe Lincoln freed the slaves

because every man was  “equal” to every other man.

on paper.

etc.

which is to say nothing of women.

who to this day, are still not equal to men, in several ways.

too many to list here.

what fascinates me about all of this is when i drive new Americans around LA

they tell me that they love the USA so much.

Saudis, Kuwaitis, Germans, Jamaicans, Swedes, Chinese…

they all tell me that this place is really the country it’s advertised as being

it’s free.

you can do what you want.

you can be who you want.

you can smoke, drink, have sex, have dreams, be alive

you can spread your wings without fear of having them cut off.

and of course, everything is a matter of perspective.

and i wonder when that honeymoon period will wear off

and they realize that this beautiful country is

sometimes

just as backwards as where they fled from.

and in some ways, worse, because we should know better.

and we have seen firsthand that when you treat people different than you

like family

the results are typically wonderful.

the silver lake drug store is closing

and they didnt even ask me first.

its on the corner of silver lake blvd and sunset.

the Silversun Pickups named themselves after that corner right before they decided to copy Smashing Pumpkins.

Tsar played next door at the Silverlake Lounge, as did the Grates and Those Darlins on my birthday.

across the street there used to be a bad burger and pastrami joint which got bought by the dude who delivered a pizza at the Oscars

he of course turned it into a wood fire pizza place called Wood but ive never seen one person in it ever except for the employees

who look at each other and at the drug store and then at the ground.

to the west is Silver Lake Ramen because the rule of that corner is you have to have the most obvious and dull names for your ish

but the ramen place is good and packed and the hipsters cant get enough which is why sass and i were there the other day.

little known fact about Sass, when she cries, it’s little tears that taste just like ramen

tell her about a puppy who lost its way home and had to take a cab

but when he got home the cabbie wouldnt accept his american express card

so the puppy said oh my bad, and handed over a Visa

but the cabbie said my credit machine no work: broken!

and the puppy said i got no cash bro

so the cabbie turned around and drove the dog back to where he picked him up.

that’ll make sass cry.

and closing a drug store with a huge sign that says Drugs will make me weep.

but my tears taste like victory.

they say kids today have everything, i say they have nothing

first boob i touched was pretty much the first boob i ever saw.

sure i saw madonna’s in playboy, and maybe a few other in that mag, but that was basically it.

then all of a sudden in the back seat of my grandmas car, my gorgeous 16 year old girlfriend lifted her sweater

and my life changed.

kids today have pron on their damn phones for pete sake. and what they show on tv, regular tv, would have launched a thousand ships way back in my day.

ariana, taylor, nicki, charlie xcx – they make xtina and britney blush.

kids dont go to the record stores any more. they dont get in fights at the blockbuster.

it’s all delivered to them through their video game machines. like they earned it!

the reason theyve turned their backs on network tv is they dont realize what a lifeblood that was to humans over the last 65 years.

how important channels 2, 5, and 7 were.

now its all about the youtube. instant access. immediate satisfaction. spontaneous disruption.

but the biggest problem is theyre not bored any more. how could they be? they have everything (and nothing).

back when i was at my grandmas house and i was bored i had to shoot pool in her garage or learn to putt or turn the entire downstairs into a pitch n putt golf course.

kids today just stick their phones down their pants and snapchat a picture to a cheerleader and it’s game on.

and those are the girls!

when youre bored you learn how to play the piano, or the guitar, or edit video, or write a poem.

when youre not bored you just do whatever the screen tells you.

this is why there are no teenage guitar gods any more.

this is why children by the millions dance to shallow robot sounds.

this is why cuba is opening their doors.

because they know no one will notice or care.

cuba is saying heres our boobies, have at it.

but theyre not doing it on youtube so they may as well be shouting it to the wind.

maybe zulieka has it all figured out

maybe the goal isnt to blog every day. maybe you should take all of may off and now most of june.

maybe bloggers should just be mommies and daddies and call it a day.

i know being a parent and a partner is hard and time consuming and it eats up your whole life – if youre doing it right. but you really dont have 20 minutes to write?

how did tolstoy do it? mark twain loved his daughter, still he wrote.

heather the rabbit reels off interesting tales.

why not zulieka? the blogospheres sleeping beauty.

last night i had ramen at silver lake ramen with sass. i took an uber over. uber pool. $4. i tipped the guy $2.

as he and i chatted i realized he didnt understand anything i was saying.

today when i emailed uber to see if they could start sending me my weekly summaries again – its been 8 months – i started to see that that guy didnt understand what i was saying either.

am i in some weird bubble? am i in a dream and i think im awake but im actually dozing on my couch while trying to watch a movie?

last night i was trying to watch Andy Griffith in the old film “A Face in the Crowd” but i kept falling asleep cuz it was midnight and im a very old person.

is this really my life? shouldnt i be doing something more interesting? more important? is that was z is doing? something of more value than blogging better than everyone else?

the cats are irritating me. actually only the boy. i used to like him better but now hes annoying. he puts his paw under my door at 4am so i throw a shoe at it. then a few minutes later he does it again so i storm to the door chase him around the living room and do the one thing i know he hates:

i trim a toe nail.

he struggles but i put a blanket over his head so he doesnt bite me.

its traumatizing and guess what – he knocks that shit off.

is that what ive evolved to? kitty trainer?

seems like it.

yesterday i had a really good day driving the people around the world

it started early. on fridays my real job has half days in the summer, so i was able to put in six hours of ubering and still have a decent personal life.

i went to bed before midnight which meant i was up at 6am on saturday.

also the cats were scratching at the door and some asswipe had his car alarm blaring.

as jesse jackson once said at ucsb “where there is oppression there is opportunity.”

so i ate a muffin, showered, read the paper and was out of the house at 7am.

the goal for ubering that early is airport trips. on uber plus the rides can be about $50 to LAX which is still cheaper than cabs, and the ppl get to cruise in a sweet ass benzo. the driver gets about $35 and everybody wins.

i like it also because theres no traffic and not a ton of competition because all the other dudes are snoozing because they drove all friday night.

also theres no pukers.

usually i drive up the sunset strip to pacific palisades in hopes of catching some of the hotel guests but ive rarely gotten any of those, weirdly, so i went down santa monica heading west.

around Hancock Park i got a ping from a big house. first comes a lady with some luggage and after a while her husband appears. he looks like a pro soccer player: dark skinned, incredible shape, tattoos on his arms. they had a range rover and a porsche in the driveway.

they talked to each other, i barely said anything during the 20 minute ride, which is rare, but early morning if a couple wants to talk to themselves, fine, i’ll just listen to the jazz i normally play on plus rides.

we get to the mouth of LAX the woman says “merde, the flight is delayed.”

they debate whether they want to sit in the terminal for two hours. here, for sure, im keeping my mouth shut.

“take us back home please,” the woman finally says.

we get back to their house, i take the bags out of the car, i think about giving them an offer to drive them back to LAX in an hour for a discounted rate, but theres no such option in Uber

plus i dont know where im gonna be. so we shook hands, i told them, “sometimes these delays are times for them to fix something important on the plane.”

they smiled. and i did too when i saw the fare was over $100.

i went to mcdonalds to eat an egg white delight meal. the cashier guy said, are you a Cubs fan?

i said, yes, are you?

he said, no but i really respect their youth movement.

is this real life?

as i ate i left the phone on in the rare case that i got a ping, and half way into the sandwich it beeped.

former supermodel heading to the mexican rivera and then europe.

so glad i didnt commit myself to the soccer star.

how i feel at least once a day

[embedded content]

the struggle is real plastic

jon stewart had no jokes today because racial violence

the best news comedian in the world today had a very somber opening monologue

he explained there would be no jokes because today wasnt a day he could joke

stewart had some biting lines that were ironic and total bulls eyes

but he was despondent because he knew they wouldnt change anything.

we’re all doomed. americans. we’re just gonna butcher each other and never grow.

for why? because some people are different than you. because perceived power.

because jealousy, fear, idiocracy, and bad parenting.

what sort of a man gives his son who owns an apartheid jacket at .45 for his birthday?

what does he think hes gonna do with that gun: save lives or end them?

God gave up on us once before. not because of sex, dont flatter yrselves

but because of senseless moronic dumbassery and violence.

he probably thought to himself, i made them in my image.

is that really me?

thats disgusting!

it is

disgusting.

and it’s never gonna end.

E3 is in town, which means a lot of foreign people are here

the good news is they tip when they get Ubers.

the bad news is they think it’s ok to say things like “my friend isnt here yet, would you mind waiting 5 minutes?”

why, yes, yes i would.

heres my question: what makes you think i have nothing better to do than wait for you and your friend to get it together?

heres my other question: why cant you wait for him THEN summon me?

confusing. it almost makes me think that some people are selfish with their time and yet think i should be totally generous with mine. do people really act that way?

finally, heres something they dont tell you much when you move from Uber X to Uber Plus: your rating is going to go down.

i think this is because some people dont realize when they order a Plus and then get sticker shock when the fare is 2.5x more than they expected.

even though they just took a ride in a super clean Mercedes Benz with water, cool jazz, and the greatest driver ever.

when it comes time to rate they give me a 1 or a 2 because theyre pissed at the price.

this week im at an all time low of 4.1

while driving all the drunk kids around a year ago on Uber X i’d average a 4.9 or 5.

needless to say this has not been the best Uber week for me.

ingmar bergman ftw

im super busy. no time to blog.

ive gotta edit this one transcription. then edit another. then interview a super famous person. then write this other thing.

one thing is due at the end of the day today.

other thing is due at the end of the day tomorrow.

the other thing has to be brilliant or else.

if any of these things would have happened by themself, then id have been fine, but theyre all happening at the same time and its driving me nuts.

meanwhile ppl are saying doesnt bryce dallas howard look JUST like jessica chastain?

and im like no, ive seen them both in person and jessica chastain looks like shes from some other world of beautifulness

and bryce dallas howard is just a pretty young ginger.

but then someone showed me a bunch of pics of them and im all omg yes BUT I DONT HAVE TIME FOR THIS

the truest mended my broken arms. so i ubered last night to great success thanks to E3. i even caught a Plus surge which never happens.

it was surging for like 30 seconds and i caught it and had to go across town: $80, which is nothing for cabs but quite a lot for Uber.

i suppose my stress, like that fare, is all relative. and i should just chill and eat my sandwich.

my sandwhich artist said to me: you looked stressed. did you pray this morning?

this morning, i asked? you pray in the morning?

he said, yes, I pray at night about yesterday i pray in the morning for today.

and i said, great, now im learning i dont even pray right.

he said yes, but you tip well so c’est d’accord.

truest is now back on the road. sigh.

it’s amazing how it feels when someone who really truly loves you for all the right reasons

and who is also an angel inside and out

and who knows you for you and not some weird made up image.

we parked a moving van on a busy street. we bought a box of 20 $5 sunglasses for $2 each.

my cats immediately fell for her in beautiful (and insulting) ways.

even jeanine seemed happier than normal which is tough because jeanine has caught the Spirit.

so i said truest, move in with me, fix up my place. repair my heart. love these kittens.

and she laughed and i said no seriously. and she said nah.

but you can come up to oregon whenever you want and see me some time.

and we watched john oliver last week tonight holding hands and laughing.

and in the morning we said goodbye and she cried and i cried.

then i cried some more.

it’s impossible for me to believe MTV cannot thrive again

you cannot tell me that the kids dont love music any more

or that the artists wouldnt love and be benefitted from being on tv dozens of times a day

on a real channel, not any of this bs they call music tv nowadays.

you need vjs, you need trl, you need unplugged. on one meaty channel.

and how on earth is replaying the new version of Candid Camera all day worthy of MTV

it clearly doesnt cost nothin but could it possibly be getting any ratings?

wasnt the lazy excuse of removing videos from MTV the theory that in order to get better ratings you needed original programming at a certain hour so the kids

would have to tune in at that hour.

how are four-hour blocks of Ridiculousness and reruns of My Super Sweet 16 appointment viewing?

and how is that any better for your brand and eyeballs than fresh new music videos from some of the biggest stars music has had in a long time:

Beyonce

Taylor Swift

One Direction

Foo Fighters

Rihanna

Katy Perry

these people were MADE to be on your tv.

how are there not a new Rolling Stones video leading into Miley and Ariana in unicorn pjs?

[embedded content]

does viacom hate success?

seriously how hard would it be to have  something like

Monday Open Mic

where every ten minutes or so one of the biggest stars in music plays a song or two

a parade of whoever feels like playing their hit.

all it is is a green screen that they walk in front of and either trippiness gets projected on it

or kittens playing with yarn.

because it’s a green screen these artists can be any where. so even though it’s live

it’s actually being shot all around the world.

and delivered to your tv.

your mtv

for three hours every monday night

and i bet you people will watch that shit.

we live in a Selfie World

[embedded content]

music videos were tv’s first selfies

theres no better time to bring them back.

truest will be here in a few hours and i dont know what to wear

truth is i look good in anything. but thats not the point.

my house is dirty, theres cat hair everywhere, and who knows where we’ll park the moving van

the good news is the truest is an angel from heaven and can only see peoples hearts.

it’s a trait, she tells me, that we can all muster, if we practice.

practice?

the general plan is to take her to see jeanine, break her out of the pen

eat some soul food and then go to the dinosaur movie.

this is why women want me.

but the biggest issue is she is very particular about beds.

when we lived in frisco she could tell if the slightest thing was wrong with the mattress pad.

currently my bed is broken and resting on about 18 card board boxes of various sizes

because im an amateur hoarder. and where else am i going to store my yearbooks

and baseball cards. and cassette tapes, and maxims, and power cords and baseballs.

and the mattress sinks in the center, and the headboard is unsafe.

theres no food in the house. and i should be doing laundry.

instead im watching the kittens lick each other

as orange is the new black plays

and i blog blog blog.

Sean Toon gets famous

Sean Toon is now one of the infamous McKinney residents who called 911 when he saw a bunch of black teens enjoying themselves in a suburban Texas pool last weekend.

When the Internet heard that Toon, who is white, considered their behavior “suspicious”, the web got the last laugh.

Behold:

made a big trade this week

besides the world famous busblog league, my favorite baseball league is LouisvilleSluggerville.

this is my seventh year playing in it. it’s a keeper league.

ive never placed higher than fourth place, but usually i get massacred.

my problem is i have no pitching.

my outfield is amazing: trout, braun, harper and now billy burns

meaning the dirty cardinal Matt Holliday was ripe to get his ass traded.

young Carlos Correa got called up from triple A on monday and i didnt learn about it until too late

fortunately the commish, mike, owner of Gold Balls, was willing to part with the unproven rookie

in exchange for Holliday, who’s batting .303, and Nats infielder Yunel Escobar who is hitting .319

as long as he gave me a decent starting pitcher to help out my horrible rotation.

so i got Ubaldo Jiménez who only has 3 wins (his last four starts were no decisions and the one before those was a loss).

why would i want him? because his era is just barely over 3, his whip is just 1.26

and with 60ks he’s suddenly my second best pitcher in regards to strikeouts.

the day after mike accepted the trade Correa hit a homer and stole a base and Holliday went on the DL.

which hopefully symbolizes how amazing a trade this will be for my team, papi*

why is there an asterisk after the name of my team?

i put that on there in 2009 once some of the results from the mitchell report came out

and my best player, who i named my team after, had allegedly failed a drug test.

mlb refuses to tell papi what drugs were in his system, but

once someone as huge as Baseball puts a stain on your name

its super hard to remove it.

when bad things get better

this weekend we were all shocked as a little hyper white cop barrel rolled into a community in texas

where a white woman was having a fight with a black kid after the woman told the kid and other kids to “go back to their Section 8 neighborhoods” and swim in the pools there.

the cop is seen in the video handcuffing black kids left and right

and then forcing a 14-year-old black girl in a bikini face down into the grass as she cried to whoever was listening to call her momma.

the cop has since quit the force. for some reason he will get to keep his benefits and pension.

and now the news is that he has left town because he’s getting death threats, which is sad, because no one should be killed for having a bad day.

however no kid leaving a pool party should have a gun pointed at them either.

especially by someone who is supposed to protect and serve.

i’m critical of all the presidents of the united states because, simply put, they work for me. they work for you too. and i realize that President Obama is working on trade deals and Isis and a ton of other things

but as the first half black half white president, how about doing something that only a mixed race president can do: bring the discussion of race front-and-center to the American people.

im not saying Obama has to have any solutions, but he can be the one that starts a sober, organized chat that could lead to something that could improve race relations in a country that clearly still has a lot of work to be done.

people talk about presidents and their legacies all the time. Obamacare is great and all, but what have you done for us lately? let’s work on race while we still have a brother in the white house.

today is the truest’s birthday, shes 24

ive been around the block.

im pretty sure ive met the finest women alive.

ive omg even kissed some of them.

and many kissed me right damn back.

todays birthday girl is the one who has kissed me back the most.

from frisco to france.

right now shes driving across the country from the nations capitol

back to america via texas new mexico and arizona.

she’ll be in cali in a few days on her way home to mid central southern oregon

land of the free.

the truest has a masters now in saving the world.

so if you find yourself in need

just do as i did

say a little prayer, from yr heart

and there she’ll be.

lebron james is reminding us to forget about jordan

once MJ got some decent hall of famers around him the rings flowed.

Bron thought he had two all stars on his team but they got hurt

(didn’t matter.)

the Cavs are now leading the Warriors two games to one and it seems Cleveland is only getting better.

even their scrappy little Aussie is magically playing like an all-star.

meanwhile Golden State is crumbling

like a week old bundt cake that someone put in a bread basket in the fridge

after being specifically told

NOT to touch the bundt cake

it was perfectly good on the countertop

the cats were not at all interested in it.

it’s ok they’d sniff at it

they didnt want to eat it.

seriously, you ever see a cat eat a bundt cake?

no

they barely eat anything.

and what they eat they love:

kibble.

not cake.

and certainly not friggin

bundt cake.

you know who likes bundt cake?

ME!

but not after its been dried out in a fridge it had no business being in.

nine years ago today i took over LAist

we had a big introductory meeting at the good luck bar on hillhurst.

i had no idea what i was gonna do with that blog,

but i knew i didnt wanna screw it up for the next person.

i was able to succeed because my bosses jake and jen gave me free reign.

i think they talked to me like 5 times total about what their general ideas were

but for the majority of it all they were like, dude this is your puppy, just dont get us sued.

we broke all sorts of records, had lots of fun, and several people who trusted me and volunteered

ended up with paying writing and photography gigs all over.

again: when i started i had no idea what i was gonna do with that blog

i even went to vegas first to sort out my mind, but that was useless.

the only thing that works for me is to get in the middle of it all

surround myself with exciting, creative, good hearted people

and work together into trying to make something cool one day at a time.

did i care if they had experience? no. because life is experience.

did i care that they were good writers? no. because life makes you good at everything.

did i care that some of them misunderstood me at first?

yes, but i shouldnt have. LA is huge, and also

even the moon, far away as it is, has fans down here on earth.

just shine.

today is jeff solomons birthday, he’s 24

the reason you have today off is because of the bass player of Tsar

people complained there were too many federal holidays, but when Ronald Reagan

heard the soothing bass lines come from the teenage Jeff Solomon’s marshall half stack

he was all, “damn, lemme sit down for a second, mommy.”

and the president sat there and put his head in his hands and just wept for a little while.

because it was beautiful.

jeff had really long hair back then and he dabbed the tears from the president’s face with it.

reagan decided there and then that today, june 8th would be a federal holiday

but his vice president

GEORGE BUSH

said, dude we can’t do this. Solomon is a jew and we cant make the first federal holiday honoring a jew

be for a teenage boy: people will talk!

but one thing nice about Dutch Reagan that people loved was, he didn’t really give a shit what people thought.

ironic. but true. and on his death bed Nancy tried to rip up the executive order making today a holiday

but Jeff had made a Xerox copy and mailed it to the library of Congress

where it sits today

and that is why we all get today off. so thank you Jeff

and thank you Ronald “Lion of Judah” Reagan for honoring our very dear friend.

diversity

matt welch has a solid, unhysterical interview with Rand Paul

[embedded content]

my man matt welch should have his own tv show.

maybe just call it

matt.

on it he can talk to politicians, musicians, and baseball people.

it should be on msnbc and it should follow Maddow.

why? because when matt talks with people he isn’t trying to be showbiz and crazy

and omg.

he just wants to get to the bottom of things in an intellectual and normal way.

because of that, his guests dont have to – if they dont wanna – put on all of their weirdo little affectations.

in this week’s interview with the republican frontrunner, they talk about drugs, snowden, and the NSA

as if they were simply sending and replying text messages

in lowercase.

this is what some of us want, american tv programmers.

we dont need phony baloney hosts getting all cray.

maybe some of the simpleminded do, but many of us dont.

we can find our entertainment elsewhere.

picked up a big black dude yesterday

smelled of weed, had a sweet pad, showed me pics of all these women he’s “dating”

he made me wait as he did a wire transfer and when people do that i always assume its a bank robbery

not a bank robbery, instead we drove over to the wesssside

went to my favorite hotel to powder my nose then as i was pulling out got pinged

three nice canadians wanted to go to the airport

third airport run of the day

first was a lawyer from caa flying to seattle

second was a 17 year old german lass who when i asked

whats your favorite part of LA

she said, everything.

i said danke and she giggled.

what did i even do yesterday

oh yeah: everything.

my real work has been busy, which is great. i love my job especially when theres lots to do.

in college i had four jobs, in frisco i had three, i guess because im elderly now i only have two.

it’s not the money im seeking, otherwise i would just go into real estate, it’s the experiences, the people you meet, the things you learn.

money is the biggest fakeout. most of us make the same amount, relatively, so the question is what did you even do yesterday and usually most of that has to do with what you did at work.

one thing i did yesterday was go to our incredible library to research something im writing.

i was so overwhelmed with how much good stuff is there i nearly fell asleep. which was weird. particularly because i had just had a coke. then i took a quick walk around the library and i was back.

a lesson i learned researching three really good movies was how brutal some of the negative criticisms can be. mixed reviews are common

but mama mia some very big newspapers can just tear apart something that later is considered great

while at the same time some other very big papers praise it.

i guess the takeaway is never read the reviews.

afterwards i listened to the nba finals on the radio while ubering. all i wanted was a trip to the airport.

at 8:30pm i gave up and as i was driving home got a ping from a huge fancy condo off wilshire in westwood

down came someone who looked like a supermodel heading to the airport.

she discovered her flight was being delayed an hour and decided not to turn around. as we headed to the airport i was trying to figure out how to say

“hey how about you and i have some quick sushi at kanpai for a half hour” but uber drivers are creepy enough.

i did tell her about it, but she wasnt interested.

then we passed In N Out and I said, i can drive you through there if you want.

and she said the saddest thing, “in a different life, i’d love to eat dinner there.”

when i see clever art

my first reaction usually is:

you’ve done nothing in your life.

but then i remember all the taxes i’ve paid.

and i feel better.

met two dudes who had never seen true romance

picked them up in hollywood, late, and they wanted to go to burbank.

one of them had been in LA for a few years the other one only a few months.

as we passed the Safari Inn in north hollywood i was all, hey thats where they filmed some of true romance.

they were all what?

i was like the tarantino movie with patricia arquette.

never heard of it.

brad pitt’s in it too, briefly, hes stoned.

one of em goes theres a tarantino movie i havent seen?

i go, well he wrote it, but it does feel like one of his.

they were very excited and even though it was like 12:30 at night the one guy says

now i know what we’re doing tonight.

i was almost jealous.