i was trying to prove God to this buddist at the baja fresh and i saw my old boss signalling me from the salsa station.

my old fbi boss.

i excused myself and met him in the men's room.

"long time, agent."

"not that long, really, seems like yesterday." i said.

"hows the xbi treating you?"

"the what?"

"ok, well, whatever. tony we want you back."

"im touched."

"we miss you and we need you."

"you cant afford me."

"what, are you suddenly materialist? has the xbi spoiled you?"

"it's not money that i want."

"figured as much, what do you want then?"

my old boss wasnt much of a negotiator, especially with me. all he would ever say is "no."

"i want my old flying car back and i want to be a superagent, and i want my old territory back."

"sorry kid, no can do. santa monica is taken."

"yeah, i know, by your son-in-law. is he still in the hospital?"

"hal is back, he's fine, thank you."

"well, those are my terms, my fish tacos are getting cold."

someone knocked on the door, my boss yelled, "one sec, buddy." then he said, "we could get you your car."

"and i want to pick my partner," i added.

"next you'll be telling me that you want to pick your boss."

"get me santa monica back, and let me pick my partner and i'll be happy with you as my boss."

"boy, that's a change."

my boss always liked to get close to me and whisper in my ear. that never sat well with me, but i understood his motives.

he said, "i'll see what i can do, agent. but your partner has to be someone from the bureau. none of those xbi hoodlums."

i washed my hands with hot water and soap. my boss looked at his male pattern baldness and primped. i dried off with the papertowels and threw all but one in the trash and used the remaining towel to protect my soon-to-be fishy fingers and opened the door.

like a gentleman i allowed my boss to exit first.

he said thank you and as he passed, i attached a bug to the collar of his suit coat.

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this is jim marshall, he is the inventor of the marshall amps that you see behind all the great rock stars from ac/dc to weezer, nirvana, and tsar.

he didnt die yesterday. today isnt his birthday. he didnt win any medal.

sometimes it's nice to spotlight good people for just being good people and adding their little coolness to the beef stew of love that i hope youre partaking in today.

just because my life seems to be pretty mundane and happy and normal doesnt mean that everyone's life is. some very good people are having some very hard times and trust me when i tell you that i think that sometimes im the luckiest person in the world.

im not talking about being named Blog of the Day, or getting $5 from TF a day after he gave me a buck for the SDV. Those things are totally unexpected and really nice.

i think im lucky because i have had some super close friends for 10 years, some for 15 years, and a couple for 20 years now and i dont know why the hell they dont teach you in school about how to do your taxes, or fix your car, but they really should stress the importance of real true friendships because those are what keeps you sane and what inspires you and what makes you superfuckingrad when you feel like you're supershittyshitty.

i also think they should make you read the Bible and teach you how to play guitar, but we'll save that for another day.

I have one request. And you dont have to do it. I have a friend who is having a tough time with her true love. She says that she is sick of hearing all these sticky sweet love songs on the radio and she would like for me to make her a cd of pop, rock, whatever, of songs that have nothing to do with love or war.

email me at heytony@hotmail.com with your song suggestions and perhaps it will make it on the cd.

I will post the list of songs on here in the next few days.

Pray for the Gauchos, tonight vs AZ, they're going to need it.

P.S. Blogger was down for most of today so sorry for the lack of posts.

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Sonny doesn't like the Baseball Blog either, but fuck Sonny.

"What ever happened to Babe Blog?" he chides, referring to the daily blog of several pictures of hot chicks that he dreamed up for me last month.

"Because there isn't enough porn on the web"

Oh, you mean the blog about Molli and Greg's unborn babe thats about minus 7 months old right now? Another grand idea I had. By the way, mad props to Greg for the ride home last night.

"No, the Chick Blog - hot chicks every day, with all the facts and all that!" he says.

I'm mad at Sonny cuz he's never pleased with what i do.

At first he wanted tons of pictures and stories about Ashley, then he said he didnt want any, now he wants tons again. I hate him cuz his logic is pretty hard to argue against, but it's always changing.

Plus he cheats a Scrabble.

He's memorized hundreds of two- and three-letter words, words he doesnt even know the definitions of.

And he teases me about my interest in Astrology - which is only a passing interest, people. He sends me my Brezney astrology in fucked up ways all the time.

This morning he wrote my astrology on a softball and left it on the passenger seat of my flying car. He knows I like Brezney, but I can never figure out what he was talking about... until it was too late.

LIBRA (Sept 23-Oct 22)

Week of March 14, 2002

Now and then there comes a time when you have to break the mold; when you can no longer afford to squeeze yourself into a one-size-fits-all pattern. On other occasions, you urgently need to renounce the images that people have projected onto you; when your ability to live as a free soul requires you to rebel against all the expectations you're surrounded by. And every once in a great while, Libra, you're called on to shatter the molds and purge the projections in the same mad, healing rush. Now is such a turning point.

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amy is concerned that my baseball blog will get in the way of me jumping on the Gaucho bandwagon and getting all crazy about us about to face #3 Arizona in the first round of the NCAA tourney that starts, for UCSB, tomorrow around 8pm.

Baseball Blog 2002 has nothing to do with my lack of attention to my alma mater: The Arizona Wildcats are what's making me do as Til Tuesday recommended and "hush hush" about the forthcoming onslaught.

My fear is we're going to be spanked harder than a fat kid caught stealing cookies from his fat mom's sock drawer.

My fear is we're going to get our asses handed to us in a way that will make little kids cry and old men scratch their heads.

I'm grateful that they're in the tourney, and very grateful that ESPN didnt consider this the most lopsided match of the bracket, but it's pretty close.

For those of you who wish to learn a little more about my beloved Gaucho's, the David, the Underdog, the Diamondbacks of this tournament, look no further than this breakdown of the Champs of the Big West.

Me, im just doing my best not to get my heart broke.

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careful with that cake, Eugene my ears have finally popped from attending a party hosted at home of one of the finest law professors in all of Los Angeles who lives in a gorgeous home so high in the Hollywood Hills that the stars begin to look like planets.

Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, the incredibly friendly and smart and warm-natured law professor from Tennessee was in town to lecture the drunkards at UCLA, and several LA Bloggers were invited to Mr. Volokh's casa high above the Sunset Strip to hang with him.

May I say that I am so happy to be invited to such bashes. Not only are these people devistatingly smart, but they're funny as hell and their interests stretch far beyond the silly politics that they write about every day, several times a day.

Conversations I was privvy to: Saudi Arabia vs. Brunei: Friends or Enemies?, Filesharing-- is it Theft?, Should Scientology Receive Tax-Exempt Status?, If a Man conducts Beastiality from a Male Animal, is it Gay?, Should You Date People Who Read Your Blog? Can A Guy Get Fired For Legal Things He Does Outside of Work: Like What He Writes On A Blog?, Tractor Punk and Nebraska: Is it The Next Grunge and Seattle?

Okay, those are the ones that I was involved in, I'm sure once I left the circle, everyone laughed and went back to talking about Candy Rice and her chance to be the first female vice president and other smart stuff way over my 'fro.

It was a delightful event where at first everyone gathered in the kitchen and got an eyeful of the guest of honor, and then split up into little circles of gab. im not sure how many people knew each other, but since everyone had read each other, it was almost like a meeting of old lost pals, i felt as if i had met brethren from my old hometown, the one i cant remember the name of, kindred spirits everywhere, free-flowing thoughts, funny antedotes, polite disagreements, and merryment.

My recollections are blurry because the booze flowed and the host made pizza and cookies and Laura and I ate chips and Guacamole and talked about how horrible the food in Spain was and I thought about opening a chain of Taquerias in Spain, to give back, and Emmannuelle and I discussed porn and I got to meet the totally talented and courageous Charles Johnson, and I even got a lift to the party from UPI's TV critic Catherine Seipp who had a lovely conversation with Welch on our ride about the trials of freelancing in LA.

Did I tell you I had fun?

I did.

I don't go out that much, and in reality I'm terribly shy, especially around fascinating strangers. But everyone was just so nice that after a few drinks I was back in my normal obnoxiously ignorant self, defending, of all things, the fact that I didnt vote in the recent elections.

My reasoning made the drunks around me laugh, so I went home happy.

I hope theres another Blog party soon, and I'm sure I'm not the only one with that wish.

Speaking of wishes: TF flowed me a buck to help out on my wish for the Snoop DeVille, gracias, good fella!

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the terrorists have won. i have seen many things in these well-polished xbi halls, but today i have seen it all.

two girl scouts come to the front door, they want to sell us girl scoout cookies. we're in a location that you would never expect an operation like ours to be in. one little girl has a Radio Flyer red wagon with her cookies. The other little girl has a damn baby stroller. she might look silly, but she's able to carry way more boxes.

Jamie at the front door doesnt want to let them in, but as soon as the word gets out that theres girl scout cookies everyone runs to the door and yells at him to let them in.

But before he does it he takes the metal detector wand to the sweet little uniformed angels, makes them lift their arms out and passes the wand around them!

of course it goes off and of course they have a variety of things that they have to leave behind: safety pins, a pocket knife, and an Exacto blade!

when Jamie asked the sweet little one why she had the blade, she said, crying, as if she had done something wrong, "I saw it on the street and I didnt want anyone walking barefoot to step on it."

And then he continued to pass the wand over her!

Artie's shirt is now up to $275.

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people say i have crazy auctions, dont miss your chance to get your hands on this amazing shirt worn in the fine film "Dirty Work," starring Norm MacDonald and Howard Stern's own Artie Lange. In fact Artie's shirt from the film is on auction and as of 4:12 PST it's up to $82.

Not bad for a dirty sweaty stinky polo shirt with horizontal stripes, best suited for a fat dude like Artie (who is much trimmer now).

I can't imagine why anyone would want such a rag, but I have plenty of worthless items in my home that I paid much more than $82 for, like my two DVD players that showed me about 5 movies each.

Anyhow, bid away, and whoever wins the auction, I really hope they dont plan on wearing that thing.

P.S. The Bidding History is always fun to look at for odd auctions like this one.

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weird thing about lies is that the truth is so crazier. and my truths are crazier than most but last night i saw that 9/11 documentary by those two french dudes and i was pretty rivited, i must say.

there's very little that will take me out of my computer closet, the sanctuary where i write this blog each morning. six months ago i was in that closet when i saw the second tower go down. to have a film crew not only in the tower that day but recording the movements of the fire department closest to the towers was mighty unbelieveable.

for so long we've been focusing on those two buildings and the firemen and new york and new yorkers, but to see them Right There was fascinating. it made me leave my closet and sit on my couch.

i didnt want to see it. i was taping it for Chris who didnt want to be bummed out on such a nice Spring evening.

i kept wanting to retreat to my computer but i couldnt, i kept thinking, how did these guys get out? how did they survive?

and of course i had thought about the Jumpers. how couldnt you? utter desperation and panic, and so many times i tired to rationalize them by thinking that they wanted to take control of their lives up until the last moment. but seeing how much noise they made and how powerful their bodies were slamming on cars and trucks and other people -- they seemed like bombs or meteors. they prevented the people trying to escape the building from certain exists. so im now convinced not to jump.

but ultimately, the fact that every single firefighter from that station came back alive was a total miracle. and i love miracles. theres a lot of tragedy in this story but many miracles.

the 9/11 story that they showed on tv wasnt something that was really comfortable to watch the entire way through, but this morning im really gald that i saw.

and im glad i taped it.

and im glad i have this web site.

sometimes im sad that i dont use this page to really document what really happens to me in my life. but i respect people's privacy, especially my good friends who's secrets would be revealed if i told the truth. anyway, at about 2am on 9/11 before i went to sleep, i read a little article that said that Michael Jordan was going to come back to the NBA, so right before i fell asleep i wrote the truth about a part of my day, the day of 9/10. when i woke up and saw what was happening in nyc, i took the jordan page down. it just didnt seem right to have up there that day.

it seems pretty amazing, to me, at least, to see now.

i hope you feel the same way.

major shout outs to JC who flowed me today, the 14th day in the row! and to my pal Noah who got me and my chauffer drunk as hell after the Gorillaz show Saturday night.

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Gorillaz: Hollywood Palladium, 3/9 in these Britney days where performers unapologetically lip-sync, use pre-recorded music, and rely on video to entertain their live crowd, the British pop group Gorillaz have added a new dimension to this miserable trend by refusing to show themselves at all.

Cowering behind a dirty sheet where a variety of art school images are projected from the front, the band's colorfully lit shadows and silhouettes are barely seen from the rear. Almost acknowledging that this isnt enough eye candy, a video screen above the stage attempts to dazzle the crowd with animated bits from the group's singles, as well as a miss-mosh of computer generated "art" and graphics.

The music seemed identical to the cd, which is a big mistake when you're playing "live" but can not be seen.

People will think the whole thing is a rip off.

They will say things like, "rip-off, you ripped me off of $35."

People will leave the place and think, "I just paid $35 to look at a sheet while they showed videos and played their cd."

The scalpers outside, before the show were begging people to buy their extra tickets a reduced price, and now you know why.

The singer of Blur is behind this nonsense and that doesn't surprise me, the Brits have been doing their best to ruin rock music ever since the Beatles, so what else is new? What's next, an Oasis/Spice Girls supergroup with no microphones? Sign me up.

I'm just kidding, though, some of my favorite bands are from Britan. No, really.

I swear.

Anyways, the show blew. It was an interesting concept poorly produced leaving the public deciding that they actually do want to see the band, after all. No one thinks that the cartoon wrote the songs. Del the Funkyhomosapian raps on the single, for Pete sake. The whole thing is the worst kept secret in popular music, so keep the upper screen, but lose the gimmick. It's bogus.

I did buy a longsleeve tshirt from a bootlegger in the parking lot for ten bucks, though.

it's nice.

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