12-30-02
Turns out that
Current Spin: tom petty new one, the last DJ. This is a really good album. he is at the top of his game as a songwriter. Not much sonic exploration, but just really good songwriting. More on cloning here:
12-28-02
Woke up this morning at the artisan’s house because we stayed up so late. She walked by as I was waking. ‘You’re the girl with the blond ponytail that the psychic told me about a few months ago.’ ‘What?’ ‘Yea. Really. She said it would be out west. And there you are with a blond ponytail. And here I am out west. Fucked up.’
Mom had a Christmas party. Lots of people. mostly new-agers. Today we heard it all. but it was so refreshing being around people that are on the cutting edge of brain mind spiritual research and practices, all coming together to hang out and explore and share, all different ages. Very different from a music party, where the talk is always music and pop culture and success and money and looks and your next gig. Real sincere genuine people talking about things like the messages from Michael books, the Abraham Hicks tapes, remote viewing, est, ESP, landmark forum, Avatar, scientology, reiki, channeling the other side, psychic healing, etc. brother Beav walks in and stays for about a half hour, says, ‘dude there's a bunch of freaks in there man...’ ‘I know bro, but just appreciate it. not everyone can eat white bread you know.’ Not your typical parents Christmas party though, that's for sure.
Thinking. Must we possess everything that we find beautiful? do we have to take a picture of everything we find captivating? Do we have to tape every show we like on TV or buy every movie we like on DVD? Or make love to every woman we find attractive? What is that?
What if one day you just decided to stop censoring yourself from that moment on? Decided to just accept that everything is o.k. just the way it is. To not be impatient or fed up or wanting more or always telling yourself that you shouldn’t think that, or be this way or that way. what if you just decided to be cool with the way that you are, like this feeling just started to overtake you that everything is alright, that you are alright just the way you are. And what if you caught yourself now and then when you second guessed yourself or got frustrated with a thought you had and just there in the moment in a matter of milliseconds thought, ‘you know on second thought, that's perfectly alright that you're that way or that you thought that. Don't even worry about it.’ for the last three days I have been feeling more and more of that. it feels like this really loving warm self acceptance. Like a moving away from resistance and wanting and moving towards acceptance and happiness. It feels like bliss. I don't know where it came from, I mean, aside from the fact that I have been diligently and consciously working on achieving that state for years. So yes. There it is. Lets hope it sticks around.
12-27-02
Splendid day with a good friend in Scottsdale.
Lunch at a French restaurant, pinot noir, parmesan crusted goat cheese
and arugala salad, potato onion soup, and hanger steak with shallots and
red wine sauce. New movie gangs of new York. Daniel day Lewis was fantastic.
Movie was a bit too long. And unnecessarily violent as is all of Scorsese’s films. Italians
are not known for their subtlety. The u2 close song was rather superfluous,
their ubiquity becoming an annoyance. Coffee, good conversation. Acorn squash
and baked apple soup and organic kale and
homemade pasta with Italian sausage
for dinner. More smiles from Arizonians than I received all year from Miamians.
the people here are really something special. I can feel my heart opening
up like it hasn’t in a long time. problems are starting to feel lighter.
Light is starting to show at the end of the tunnel. Attention is becoming
less stuck. Talked a lot about the new album and the rise and shine as well.
Decided to not feel so down about rise and shine not getting picked up by
about 60% of the stations who received it but instead feel good about the
fact that it got picked up by about 40% of them. It's all in the way you
look at it. Decided to stop with the diaries for a while and get back to
editing fishy. What's it going to take to get that thing finished... hot
chamomile tea and a little smoke while I write tonight.
Current Spin: Moby, play. System of the down, steal this album.
12-26-02
Are you there God?
Yes. I am here.
Who are you?
I am you. And much more. I am all that is. I am I.
How do I know it's you and not me?
If we were born on a desert island with no one else but our self around. Worked and lived and played all alone all our life on this desert island with no one else to be seen, would our mind conceive of the notion of God if no one ever told us of such a thing? How would we create it? If there were no books around, no bible, no religions, no voluminous tomes about heaven and hell and God this and God that, would we one day look up at the sky and just think the thought, “God is up there.” what would he/she/it be like? Would God talk to us? Reveal himself to us? Knowing that we have no way of knowing that he exists on our own? Would we still pray? Would we even consider it? Would we recreate the God concept all on our own? If so, what would we call him/it?
Are you there God?
Yes.
What do I call you?
What do you want to call me?
I don't care. I just want to know that you exist.
Well who are you talking to then?
What if it's just me?
What if it is?
Current Spin: phoenix, united. I love this CD so much. Hip fresh old school summer pop.
Last good movies: 13 conversations about nothing. Life or something like it.
Woke up tossing and turning to this agonizing fear of growing up too fast, being too grown up for my age; a phobia I know intimately. We go way back. Almost as good of a friend as my fear that I am not grown up enough. Couldn’t go back to sleep. Reminds me of that quote from that 21 year old girl who wrote that coming of age book I hung on my wall last year: “when will I feel like I am enough just the way I am?”
Talking about Microsoft Outlook with John. How it revolutionizes the way you think and work. Totally compatible with our pda’s. “Microsoft’s the bomb dude,” he says. “Shit man between grunge rock, Microsoft, and Starbucks they must have something pretty magical in their water there in Seattle.” I say. “Yea either that, or it's all that doobage man,” Beav says.
Reminiscing with Beav tonight about the old days when we were teenagers before he was married. We were totally on our own at a very young age. How he used to stay up all night getting high and playing video games and he would always sleep through his first day of a new job and I would wake him up at noon and he would scramble around the room trying to get dressed fast as he could only to be fired that same day. Or how he would register for college every semester and drop out by the fourth week for never going on time. Then he got married at the age of nineteen. I was the best man at his wedding. ‘dude you're not tripping are you?’ ‘dude, I think I still am man.’ ‘oh shit. Well look, just try to keep it cool till it's over, o.k. just look at the giant statues but don't get freaked out. please man... this is my wedding for God sakes....” crazy times.
He gets married and moves into the guest room of his in-law’s house. He goes to work at a video store during the day and a pizza hut at night while his eighteen year old high school sweetheart wife goes to college. He puts her through college. She graduates, starts working, he starts going to night school, works his way up the corporate ladder of an oil company. Twelve years later he’s an accounting manager of a whole floor of people twice his age, pulling in over a hundred thousand G’s a year, two cars in the garage, and two beautiful babies. It's the goddamn American dream if there ever was one. We’re sitting here tonight looking at each other like, ‘holy shit man you did it.’
Current read: the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci in Italian and English. A gift. He wrote left-handed, and from right to left. Painter, sculptor, scientist, writer, inventor--invented the first flying machine—in the fifteen hundreds no less. Inspires me to continue to say no when invited out to clubs parties or bars to hang out and stay home even more to work. My friends already call me a hermit. But I am most happiest when I am working. And when I am out I am always just thinking about working. But I don't want to lose my friends. Sometimes when they are all getting ready to go out and don't invite me I get mad and say ‘hey what the fuck?” They're like, “well we didn't think you would want to go anyway.” “yea I know. But still at least invite me so I can say no.”
12-25-02
It's Christmas day. The five nieces are opening up their presents like wild animals. Their eyes are glossy and I think I noticed them even drooling. They are all smiles. Jumping up and down and screaming oh my God oh my God. I'm kicked back with my guitar and my new cannon powershot. I woke up this morning, looked up to God and said good morning, merry Christmas. He said, ‘good morning to you. Go outside and let go of your fears and count your blessings.’ SO I took some time outside early in the morning and walked around reciting everything I feel blessed with in my life, enjoying the cold air and a very strong cup of java, I walked around the lake.
I am blessed with a sharp mind
I am blessed with a kind heart
I am blessed with an old soul
I am blessed with an adventurous spirit
I am blessed with a giving nature
I am blessed with a small loving family
I am blessed with a lot of friends
I am blessed with a mission
I am blessed with a good sense of who I am and what I want out of life
I am blessed with a strong and fulfilling if somewhat confusing connection with God
I am blessed with good health and a strong constitution, after years of this rock and roll life, I survived, I still have my brain and use of all my faculties, sort of... Now that's a fucking miracle.
I am blessed with financial abundance and a prosperous life
I went on and on. All day I have just been focusing on all the things that I and the rest of us are blessed with.
Spoke with Cleopatra’s family tonight. Really amazing conversation with her dad, who told me he loved me like a son, thanked me for staying in contact over the last year and half. Really meaningful moment of the day. God I pray I will someday find another like that.
Current read: An open heart, by the Dali Lama. Introduction to basic Buddhist principles. Very powerful but simple read.
12-24-02
Came home to a beautifully decorated house
with the smell of homemade cookies baking and the sights and sounds of
Christmas and family everywhere. Really cold in AZ right now for some reason.
People here are so friendly you think you’ve walked onto a movie set from the fifties. I
have heard so many ‘excuse me’s, merry Christmas,
happy holidays, pardon me, hello’s, how are you’s’ since
I have been here. it's been great. People actually smile and look you in
the eye. Like so many other places all over
Combination black sheep/prodigal son comes home. Whole family going to the Catholic Church for Christmas eve for mass. Asks, ‘are you coming to church with us?’ I tell them ‘I spend my whole life working my butt off to hopefully see that wretched den of greed, lies, and contradictions crumble to nothing before I die and you're asking me if I'm coming, like you don't even know me? C’mon.’ my sister in law looks down, tries desperately to bite her tongue. I sense the situation. My mom asks if I will just do it for her as a present. I feel into the whole thing. I don't want to hurt anyone I love. So I think about it more. If people continue to go then what will happen? Nothing will happen. The church will continue on like it always has, perpetuating lies and half truths, offering problems instead of honesty and solutions (not that it doesn’t do a lot of good helpful things for the community—but I don't think that's any reason to allow something to exist that is so confusingly dishonest and contradictory—we wouldn’t let our courts or our government exist like that; o.k. well maybe we would...), [reminds me of when I was sixteen and I asked my priest what would happen to all the people all over the world who were not Christians, who haven't been “saved”, would they go to hell? He said yes, they will go to hell for eternity according to the bible, but that “God knows best. that's not our concern.” That was when I realized that maybe I at the ignorant age of sixteen knew more about the domain of the human spirit than this middle aged priest did. and that was my final farewell to the church. I wasn't going to be a part of that kind of bigoted exclusionary idiotic grade school thinking, so I bailed on it and never looked back.] just as worse, by continuing to go to all these old fashioned religion’s churches it also makes it hard for new modern churches of a more humanistic spirituality to spring up and take root in our society. So as much as I want to be a part of the family and not rock the boat I have to be true to the mission. I think it is better to walk alone in truth than to walk with the group in lies, especially if you are fully aware of the reality of it. and the long term implications.
Reminds me of my world literature teacher in college, Dr. Grande. He got to a section called world religion in literature, and so we studied the bible as literature. On the first day he announced that he was aware that the bible was for the most part historical mythology and that was why we were studying it as literature, but that even though he knew this intellectually he was raised a Christian and felt like he was too old to change his ways. But for us in the class who were young, he told us that we had a million possibilities to ponder before us---this was some revolutionary talk we were hearing, some of us for the first time—-here was this respectable old man, this doctor no less, professing to us that even he felt that the bible wasn't necessarily the word of God, but a fascinating collection of myths and stories written by man. You know we just ate it up being the young cigarette smoking Sartre reading intellectuals we were at the time. But I remember looking at him in that moment in class when he made this announcement and it was one of those moments where everything slows down and gets real quite goes silent and I thought to myself there, isn't that funny this guy sharing with us how he is torn between what he thinks to be true and what he was raised to believe and how that conflict is set up in us as we grow up... I was too young at the time to be aware of any such conflicts in myself but I was just starting to recognize the possibility of this phenomenon.
Spent a lot of time thinking about this today. What is Christmas going to turn into once all the myths and untruths filter out of human consciousness? If it's not about the birth of Jesus, and the nativity scene, and the little drummer boy, and ye merry gentlemen, and the three kings, and all that other stuff, which it isn't already to a large portion of American people like the Jews and the Muslims and the Indians and the Hindus and the atheists and the Buddhists and the humanists, then what is it all about? What can the holiday be for? What can it represent to us? Can it still be about the forgiveness of our sins? Can we forgive ourselves of our own sins? Can we forgive others in our lives for their sins without the permission or acknowledgement of some unseen force or the validation of the Jesus story? Can it still be about the glory of God? Of however we decide to create that God in our own minds and hearts without a church or religion dictating it to us.
For thousands of years before the birth of Jesus we had been celebrating this holiday already, once called Yule, and other pagan holidays, as a time of renewal and contemplation. A time to reflect on and renew our values and a time to get together with family and celebrate that. The Christmas tree is still left over from that time. That is not a Jesus or a Christian tradition. Neither is the giving of presents to those you love. Or even Santa clause. And neither is the friendly and good hearted nature of everyone all over town. All of these great traditions can stay a part of this wonderful holiday. And so can getting together with family, and sledding, and skiing, and sleigh bells, and egg nog by the fire, and ‘walking in a winter wonderland,’ and ‘let it snow let it snow,’ and ‘jingle bells,’ and Bing Crosby Christmas specials, and it's a wonderful life with jimmy Stewart, and miracle on 34th street, and so much more.
Beav has a new baby, about four months old. I have five nieces now. Uncle Fishy the long haired freak in the videos on the TV who never goes to church with us is a big kick for them. It's really fun. I took all the girls to the toy store and told them o.k. lets buy whatever you want. We just went crazy grabbing stuff off the shelves and throwing everything into our Baskets, the whole time we were pouring giant pixie sticks full of colored sugar down our throats. I think that's what uncles are for. When we got home, I told them to go sneak the hot apple pie off the stove and bring it down on the floor in the living room. I showed them how to eat a pie with your fingers. The five of us had pie all over our faces, especially Ali, the three year old. We were laughing like crazy. When my sisters in law came downstairs they were fuming. That was the desert for after dinner. Oh well. I smiled. They looked at me like I was the devil. But again I think that’s what uncles are for.
I cannot help but imagine that the holiday is no less enjoyable and no less joyful or loving or heart-warming without the religious connotations. The joy in our hearts and the smiles on our faces and the love that suffuses this house the last two days has had nothing to do with religion, but rather it has come from all of us being together, sharing and caring about each other, eating good home-cooked meals, and sitting by the fire, and listening to the girls sing songs, and me and my bro sitting outside in the freezing cold sipping brandy and smoking stogies, and taking lots of pictures, and the looks on each others faces when we open up a present that someone who loved us very much saved up to buy for us, and it has to do with how on new years we all get together and share our hopes and aspirations for the new year, and our thankfulness for what a great year we had and how blessed we feel for everything we have in our lives. That's the reason for the season. And I dare say that anyone and everyone can experience that without any religion at all if they want to, and wouldn’t it be great if we could all do so without any fear of damnation to some imaginary world of fire and brimstone and some gargoyle like red beast who punishes you just for being human, or without worrying about some God in the sky who wants you to do it this way or that way, depending on what country you were born in, or forever be damned. ???? dare I think/say it ?????
Working on the song ‘everybody’s talking bout Asheville.’ Because after all, every one is right now.
Current Spin: Nora Jones, come away with me. I love this CD. Audioslave. Great rock record. Chris still sings like a motherfucker.
12-23-02
At the airport to fly home for the holidays.
Long lines to check your baggage. Another long line to obtain boarding
pass. Long lines at security. Empty your pockets. Open your laptop, turn
on your handheld, open your phone please sir. Take off your boots please
sir. by the time you are finished just checking in and going through security,
it's been over an hour if you're lucky, longer most of the time. No food
on the flights any more so you go hungry the whole time. couple in front
of me had a baby in a stroller. Going through security for them was a mess.
Empty your pockets please sir. Mam, we need to see inside your purse. Mam,
please take the baby out of the carriage. Sir you're going to have to pack
up the stroller and put it on the cart please. ten minutes later and we’re still waiting for
them to go through security and the man turns around to me and says, “sorry
about this.” I had already gone through twice myself due to having a butane
lighter and a retractable pen in my briefcase which I had to check. “no problem,” I
said, “we’re all in this together,” I mumbled to him and smiled. Later on
the long walk to the gate, he and I talk about how it doesn’t matter what
happens to the terrorists now in
I don't care though. It just feels good to be on the road again. I don't even care where I go. It just feels good to be back in the comfort of unfamiliar surroundings. There is nothing like traveling, the unfamiliar surroundings of it, to invigorate and get the creative juices flowing. I love to travel. I love being in unfamiliar places.
Christmas music playing everywhere. Pictures of snow
and families and cozy fires. People smiling more and saying hello more often.
we are an amazing people. we have created this fantastic time of joy and
renewal for ourselves here in
In Miami or anywhere in the South or Southwest it's pretty hard to tell it's Christmas time. you don't really catch the vibe of it until you are on a plane to somewhere else. Girl next to me talks about the mall yesterday and how crazy and overwhelming it was. I didn't bother to tell her that I always deliberately save some last minute shopping till the day before Christmas. I look forward to it. I like all the big crowds of people on Christmas eve. It's just part of what makes Christmas fun.
Today was a decisive day. Standing in line this morning with all of the other people, I looked over to my left and noticed that the first class line was empty. I thought about how my travel agent told me that if I wanted to book first class that it would cost me about $1600 but if I did it at the check in counter it would probably be about $150 extra. I looked at the fifty or so people in front of me in line and then again at the empty line to my left. I thought about my last flight a few weeks ago—-the unbearably small seat, my aching legs, the other person right on top of me, the utter agony of the whole experience, shifting back and forth in my seat till I felt like I was going to fucking go crazy, and then I thought about those big cushy seats in first class. Without another second passing by, I jumped over into the empty first class line. When I got to the ticket counter and said, “I would like to upgrade to first class please,” I felt the shift inside. I could never go back now. So there it was. Anthony Robbins talks about analyzing the musts in our lives. We make as much money as we must. Most people just don't realize it. what is a must to one person is a luxury to another and completely out of reach or unthinkable for another. Some people must drive a top of the line high performance sports car. Other people say that their Honda or Toyota serves them just fine. What they are really saying is that saving money, being prudent and practical is more of a must for them than a fancy sports car. Little do they know that they could in fact create both if they wanted to. Different musts. I remember when I first created “must having” a personal assistant. Over worked over tired and still feeling like I wasn't getting enough accomplished everyday—I wasn't feeling that total juice that I knew I was capable of, incomplete projects and papers piling up all around me. I just woke up one day and said that's it, I'm getting an assistant. How will we afford it? she asked. I don't know. but I know we will because this is just an absolute must at this point. That was about four years ago. And I've never looked back. My productivity increased tenfold overnight. And so did my earnings. But more importantly my inner feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment really started to take off because I was able to do more of what I love to do and more of what I am good at. And when that happens, you become a bubble of joy bouncing around your world inspiring people and spreading general happiness. Emotions and feelings are infectious. Simply put, when you feel good, other people feel good around you.
Now I am on the airplane sitting in first class writing this. I had contemplated making sitting in first class a must for a long time. but I would always listen to that voice in our heads that says, ‘I don't have enough money, I'm not there yet, It's not worth it, what’s so good about that anyway, it's just not practical,’ and all that other crap. Well I haven't stopped writing since I got on the plane two and half hours ago. Because I haven't had to--my laptop fits quite comfortably on my lap in my seat that is very soft and roomy and comfortable, plenty of leg room. No foul faced hag telling me that I can’t use portable electronics. The person sitting next to me is almost a yard away. nice big arm rests and glass holders. Not only am I comfortable, I am luxuriating. My briefcase fits great under the seat. As much beverage service as we want from the start. Free headsets for the in-flight movie—no five dollar fee for us. Pillows, blankets, and if all that weren't enough, some beautiful blond has come by to take our order for our hot meal, even though this is supposedly a ‘beverage only’ flight for the rest of the passengers. And at the end of the flight they serve us a hot towel to clean up and refresh yourself with.
O.k. so I'm sold on first class. From now on, first class becomes a must, like food, shelter, or clothing. An absolute must. Work harder? Naaaahhh. Work smarter.
Current Spin: fat boy slim, spins at Brighton Beach.
12-22-02
Trying to sort things out with the whole love/relationship thing lately. Spent the night with Madelynne and Mohdie and the Ferret and Bas doing the Christmas thing like always. Haven't spoken to Cleo since Friday which still just feels very weird. Haven't totally come to terms with our present situation yet. God, maybe I never will. But the theme of the month, really for the last year and a half has been love and romance and relationships.
Is there a way to appreciate beauty without feeling like you have to own it and possess it? And is there a way to spend really good quality time with someone without feeling like it has to own you? without feeling like it has to go on forever? I have always been of the mind and heart where once I love a girl, I don't necessarily stop loving them ever. The love may change a bit, but it doesn’t go away. That doesn’t mean that I want to be with them or marry them or get jealous of their new boyfriends or husbands, but it's like I am just really sentimental. So I do want to stay in touch with them and I notice myself think about them often and want to talk to them and buy them gifts as friends from time to time, and just be there for them. but some girls do not like this.
Late last night I discovered that la Princesa had left the present and Christmas card that I had left for her earlier that day on my doorstep. I guess she just didn't want it. she won't talk to me. and won't even take a Christmas present from me. I was shocked, but I understood. My friends were like ‘oh my God Fishy are you o.k.?’ but I was o.k. Because although for me once you cross that line with someone, once you make love and you share that intimacy, then for me it feels like you are bonded forever, like you become blood brother and sister or something. But for some girls they just feel like, look, you don't want to marry me, or you're not the one, so get the hell out of my life and don't come back. I appreciate that. I don't agree with it, but I can see that side of it. to me it's just not what love is all about. I still think of her so fondly and lovingly. I'm not going to stay in a relationship that I don't think is one hundred and ten percent optimal, and at the same time, I'm not going to cut someone out of my life just because they “weren't the one” either. Maybe there's a balance?
I'm not saying I am right in this—not that I believe that there is a right or wrong, but I am slowly starting to see that I am really in the minority on this one. for me, I don't care if they broke up with me or I broke up with them, I just think it's important to keep the connection itself open between us. to me it seems like when you break up, regardless of whose heart got broken if that was the outcome, it's important to just keep that communication alive, because after all you shared so much together and you invested so much, why just abandon all of that. to me that just devalues it all. To me that minimizes the sacred bond that you created when you were together, and all of the time you put into it getting to know each other. But I have noticed that a lot of girls just don't feel that way. they are like, ‘it's my way or the highway buddy. And if you don't want to get married, then why the hell are you still calling me.’ and I'm like, ‘well we did just spend two months together and I think that's worth something.’ I really honor and appreciate every single relationship I have had and I feel this longing to keep that connection with that girl open and alive. And I really don't care if they broke my heart or if they think I broke theirs. I just don't want to end it and then never talk to that person again. But again, I have noticed lately that that is just not the norm for a lot of people.
I have been single for about a year and a half now. and it has been a pretty crazy rollercoaster, having come out of a very long term relationship. It felt like learning how to ride a bike again. I opened my heart up and just started dating all these girls and yes I have had my heart broken and trampled upon a few times and that does hurt an awfully lot, and unfortunately I have found that I have hurt some girls along the way too, and that hurts even more, because you really try hard not to hurt anybody but sometimes it just happens no matter what you do. but that is just part of the dance. To me that doesn’t mean that you cant ever talk to that person again. It just means that your dynamic has changed. I really believe that you can be there for each other still, as a good friend and comrade along the way.
And another thing. Great love unfortunately does not necessarily mean great sex. And great sex does not always equate great love. These two reality checks though can certainly cause great pain and confusion for everyone involved in either affair.
Working on the song ‘I want it now.’
Just discovered the new Sony clie handheld, it's ultra thin, has a digital camera and a voice recorder built in, with palm OS inside. Now that's worth celebrating a holiday over.
Current Spin: queens of the stone age.
Last flick: two weeks notice with Hugh grant and Sandra bullock. Woke up and watched grass is greener this morning with Cary grant. Hugh grant, Cary grant????
12/17/02
It's
been very cold here in Miami. Made all the difference
in people's attitudes. Noticed more and more this year how much our focus
during this particular holiday is on buying things. As contrite as that
may sound, I just never thought about it. you always hear people talking
about that, but it really is true. There is this mad frenzy all around
shopping. I have had fun though buying presents for all my friends and
family. But notice myself with a certain longing deep inside for something
more profound and meaningful from this holiday season. I am spending countless
moments meditating at night and in the
morning, what it is known as praying with open hands. I told God last night, “look I know I may be one of your
problem students, always saying that I don't believe, and that you don't
exist, but I'm here anyway, you know, kind of sneaking in here late at
night to have a look around, you know. so…” what I am finding is that
this God force/voice is not as much independent of us as much as it
just is us. Like our higher selves listening to us and then speaking
back to us. And you don't necessarily have to sit there and plead or
praise as much as just listen. When you listen, you can hear and feel
this presence, this energy; granted, we may be creating that energy,
or the experience of thinking we are feeling/hearing something, in
one way or another, but it is there nonetheless. I have felt on top
of the world for so long and in the last six months felt like I hit
some sort of ceiling. Like, o.k. where to now... Strange.
In the studio this week recording piano man’s keyboard parts. So moved
by this new sigur Ross album, simply called ( ). I
cannot get over it. it is so beautiful. our new album, almost definitely
called sleep with you, is coming to me all the time now, taking shape.
flowers, sex, smells, bodies, romance, passion, unrequited love, the
pain of love, the joy of it, sex without love, love without sex, the
saving grace of music, hallucinations, pain, sadness, anguish, trying
to capture what it means to me, all of this. Starting to sound really
good. Starting to take on the depth that I am used to. Still rather
simple and straightforward though.
Sean Penn is visiting Baghdad. And many other humanitarian
both religious and secular organizations from
Yet, underneath all of this,
let’s call it the sludge at the top of our country, is this amazing place
with all these amazingly kind-hearted people taking their own time and
money to go over to
Michael Jackson is supposedly hanging out around 71st St. on Miami Beach. I get some weird premonitions about that boy. I get a feeling things might not work out so good for him as time moves on. This last week I met a girl named Breezy, and a few days later another girl named Sunshine. “A cruel joke by hippie parents, or a cool idea of your own,” I asked. Sunshine said her parents are total freaks and named her that, but her brother was named John, after their grandfather. Go figure. Reading leadership by Rudolph Giuliani. Band needs an agent desperately. Tour dates keep getting booked and then cancelled. Craziness.
Current spin: sigur ross
new one ( ). Beck new one. Mum.
Last movie: oceans eleven.
12-14-02
Today Al Gore announced he would not run for president
in 2004. Mission control I think we have a problem… it feels like a dark
cloud floated over
12-12-02
Christmas in Miami feels like… is it really Christmas time yet? Christmas all over the world, but so much harder to notice in the southern states, even though lots of cards are coming in from all over---that is the only reminder that it is Christmas. I stood outside today, had to take my shirt off, perspiring like crazy in the high 80’s maybe, low 90’s—-so unchristmas. I think they have put up some carnivals or something in certain parts of town I swear to God—--big flashing lights and rides begging for you to spend money, maybe that's Christmas to them... very weird. No one really decorates. I think I had a nervous breakdown sometime in the last 48 hours. I haven't heard “happy holidays” yet, or even a Christmas song. Listening to Y100 (top 40 radio) yesterday on the way home; in a daze, felt sick, my mouth hanging open. Looking all around me at the concrete and general ugliness that is Miami (except for the causeways). ‘do I really live here?’ I heard myself thinking. Am I dreaming? Did I just wake up? how long was I asleep? Do people really live here? do they not know any better? Is there something wrong with me? is it wrong to ache for beauty, culture, class, intelligence? I have awoken to a nightmare where I am a prisoner in a strange place where people do not smile; they consider hello how are you too complicated; unless they are begging you for money on the street or at the entrance of every store you enter; where people do not look you in the eye; where you deliberately try not to use big words for fear of seeming too intelligent, a cardinal sin, punishable by freakish laughter, or rude walk aways; where rock is dead, and your knowledge and love of Latin, dance, and hip hop are calling cards that can at best buy you a $13 drink; where no one speaks English; where women think class is how low and how tight their jeans are and how high their halter tops sit; where men think class is what kind of car you drive and no one cares how you bought it or stole it; mention spirituality here and they think you are talking about some new club opening up on South beach; I'm not kidding; I wish I was; zombies everywhere, walking across the street in the middle of traffic—are we supposed to stop for them, or are they secretly asking us to do them a favor and run right over them? we’re not in Kansas in anymore Toto.
Cleo gets nicer and nicer. Our working relationship gets more and more aligned. I keep getting these cards and gifts from an angel in Seattle. As if God has sent her in just at the right moment. Band is back in the big time talent show event in February. Studio yesterday. Crazy. guitar parts are done now.
Current Spin: Beck, sea changes. Beck took morphine, never came back up. Lonesome tears is a great track.
Current read: improvisations, the drawings of miles Davis.
12-10-02
Over one hundred TV and movie stars sent a letter on live TV to president bush asking him to stop the war talk. This may be enough to get more people to get off their ass and realize that it's o.k. to speak up. This could be a good thing. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/DailyNews/celebrity_activists021211.html So it's happening after all.
Just recently read a profile of ex-prez jimmy carter. Turns out that after his inaugural address he shunned the bulletproof limo and walked the 1.5 miles from the Capitol to the White House. Normally after they are sworn in they get in their limo for the first time and drive to the white house waving to supporters, and then they get out of the car about four blocks before the white house and walk the rest of the way, waving and shaking hands. Jimmy wanted to show people that he was one of them, so he walked the whole way. Now contrast this with George w. Bush twenty years later, who didn't even get out of the limo due to over 20,000 protesters lined up along Pennsylvania avenue throwing eggs and tomatoes at his car and screaming “hail to the thief.” They didn't show this on TV that day. We have come a long way in the last twenty years. This was a very close race. Gore only won by half a million votes. I bet a lot more of us will vote in the next election, that's for sure.
Current Spin: mum. Great sonic ambiance. And Audioslave. And new Pearl Jam.
12-09-02
Bas says to me tonight, “I wish there was a way to show the rest of the world that we weren't all blood thirsty war mongers like Bush, that dumb-ass cock-knocker.” We talk about a website where people can post their picture and a simple message to the rest of the world that we oppose any more wars or violence but that we are prisoners of our government. One such site is www.votenowar.org but I think we may need more. this site does not show the pictures and signatures of the tens of thousands who have signed it. this site would be a simple message to the rest of the world that regardless of what our president says or does that we aren't out to hurt you. and we trust that you aren't out to hurt us either. That we aren't half as interested in our rather twisted and brutish foreign policy as we are in just keeping the peace around our own borders and getting our economy back up to where we need it to be.
II
Tonight we watched an episode of The World at War called The Final Solution about the Nazi death and concentration camps during world war two. We listened as the survivors talked about the screams of the people being shoved into the gas chambers. About their constant prayers to their God. About the utter brutality and the insane game that went on for almost five years as over five million of them were murdered in mass numbers. We heard the stories of the women being stripped and shot with their screaming children still clinging to them. we watched as the bulldozers pushed hundreds of dead lifeless bodies into big pits in the ground. And as Jewish prisoners dragged their friend’s and relative’s skinny little chicken-like bodies through the dirt into mass graves that they themselves had to dig, only to be shot and thrown into when they were finished.
As we watched we talked about this concept of God that we carry so strongly within us. As many of the survivors talked of God and asked the question where was God when these people were screaming for him to help them, day after day and year after year. Many of them who were very devout orthodox Jews before they got to the camps could not understand why God was ignoring them and so they killed themselves when he did not eventually offer any help or means of salvation for their plight. They realized for the first time that perhaps we really are alone here on earth. Where strength and the will to live and not justice or God rule the land.
Ironically last night I spent a lot of time talking to God, asking for him/her/it to come into my life more. Tonight I watched this documentary. And it has forced me to wonder about many things. We tell ourselves that God is just. But we have never seen justice on the earth before. we tell ourselves that God is good. But the bad far outweighs the good on earth most of the time. we tell ourselves that God is all powerful and that he sees and controls all things here. and yet all we see is the opposite of this. we see a constant struggle for humanity to stay alive and out of trouble and only through our own strength and will to live do we survive, and many of us over the last few thousand years have not survived. Many races have disappeared. So where is this God during all of this? the Aztecs, the Mayans, the native Americans, the Greeks, the Romans, the pagans, all have had their own version of God. God changes; our idea of God is constantly changing as time passes.
Perhaps god is all powerful but then he is certainly not all good. Or perhaps the opposite is true, that he is all good but just not very powerful. This was an idea I heard Norman Mailer first propose in a symposium on the subject. Either way, we got something awfully wrong a long time ago.
I wonder if God is not more of just an ideal we hold in our own minds. That perhaps God is not more than our own ideal of what we want Man to be. Of what we can someday become ourselves. A comforting assuring bigger-picture inner voice, perhaps our higher self, our soul if you will, grasping at an ideal that we can be more than we are now. I think this may be a safer idea to hold for the time being. For if God does exist, and there is so much suffering all over the world, in every corner of the globe, then he is either very cruel, almost malicious I would say, or he has just been on vacation for the last six-thousand years, and hasn’t checked in to see what's been going on down here.
Where was God during the Jewish holocaust? And where was God during the mass genocide of millions of north and South American Indians? Or the genocide and enslavement of millions of Africans? Where was this God? Why were the prayers not answered? And why do we continue to pray? It is a big can of worms, that’s for sure.
It gets really tricky when you start looking
at it like this. During World War II, the Jewish people were very religious.
They believed wholeheartedly in their version of this God ideal—the Jewish God. And the
Germans were also religious believing in their own Christian version of God.
Now who was right? Where was God in all of that? now the Germans certainly
won that battle between the Jews and the Germans, even though they lost the
war—--they killed over six million of them, so was God on their side?—was
that German Christian God the winner? And what about when the Europeans came
over to the
And now we have a lot of fighting between the Christians and the Muslims and the Jews and the Muslims. All in the name of whose God is the right version. (at least that's what they tell themselves and the rest of the world—although if I were a betting man, I'd say it had a lot to do with money land and politics, but hey what do I know?) Hey, forget slim shady, will the real God please stand up?
It's one thing to argue with someone who is the better football team. You go to the game, you watch the teams play and in the end the better team wins. It's a whole other matter when there is no team and no actual game and every one just sits in the stands staring at an empty field and says, ‘did you see that? our team just threw a fifty yard touchdown.” “no they didn't! didn't you see our team tackle your quarterback on the forty yard line?” “well no, because we don't believe in the forty yard line. It says it right here in our rule book: there is no such thing as a forty yard line.” “well that's just ridiculous. It says right here in our rule book that not only is there a fifty yard line, but that when one of our players passes over it, their soul gets an extra five yards and gets to kill one of your players.” It's one thing to love the game and support your favorite team. But show us your team first.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/DailyNews/celebrity_activists021211.html
Last great movie: two can play that game. Very funny!
12-09-02
Every time we hook up with someone romantically our hearts our minds start racing towards this marriage idea. I notice it in myself all the time. it just starts thinking about it every few seconds whenever I meet someone new or start getting romantic with someone. It's like we’re in this race to get married and then of course once we are married it's like time just drags on forever, I mean you start to realize that now it is forever. With la Princesa she was always talking about that she didn't have time. ‘I don’t have time to waste if you’re not the one or I'm not the one for you. I don't have time.’ She was in a race. Her childhood was awful according to her own account, mother and dad never got along, should have never got married, he was always drunk screaming all the time, money was their love, and I always used to think when she would tell me that she didn't have the time, well what are we in such a race for? She had already been married once and divorced. So what are we trying to do, make me the number two divorce??? I mean why are we rushing to this marriage thing so fast, so we can have kids and be miserable and get divorced and never speak again? I think of the Italian stallion and her telling me how her parents never got along and her family life sucked. Me I never knew my dad, he left before I was old enough to really get to know him, my friend N who after nine years of marriage has reached the point where both of them are just stuck in a stalemate not in love but stuck with kids and a home. The cat and the Wolf now are separated, who would have ever thought that would happen, but you know it happens. He lives in his own little apartment by himself with his birds and his dog. Kids live with mom.
I mean, I'm sorry but I am not in a hurry to go through that. But here's the fucked up part. I totally believe in love. I mean I believe in love with all my heart. I believe in love at first site. I believe that somewhere out there is someone for everyone who we can love with all our heart and who will love us the same, madly passionately and unconditionally.
And I believe that when that feeling overtakes us then yea we want to get married we realize o.k. now well here it is. Here is that feeling I have waited for all my life. This is the one. And then it becomes easy to lose all rational and to just go for it no matter what may happen in the future. And nesting with another is certainly more enjoyable than going it alone. I’ll be the first to offer that.
I just don't know if that means forever. Yea once and a while it’ll happen, but to try to generalize about all humans, it just seems kind of silly. We don't do that about anything else in humanity except marriage. It's the only box we still try to jam ourselves into still. And I don't believe in the church so I don't care what they say about God and marriage and all of that. I mean, for me personally, God, he wants us to be happy. And to help others around us be happy. Period.
I'm not saying marriage isn’t a good thing. I think it can be. my brother and his wife are still married. Twelve years or something unimaginable as that. Still happy and in love. Two kids. But her sister on the other hand, a complete mess. Stayed married way beyond their time, had kids even though they weren’t in love anymore thinking the kids might help, and now on their way to divorce. You know, it's these rules and limits and laws we place on marriage because of the church that make people feel like they have to stay in these marriages forever and just try to endure the pain and the unhappiness even though it feels like a mistake and so then they have kids and it becomes even more of big fucking problem for everyone especially the people that those kids are going to eventually turn into.
And I love the idea of kids. I cannot wait to meet them and play with them. But I'm just saying that for me now I am starting to think we need to start thinking out of the box a bit. Break the mold and even throw it away. if we don't set ourselves up with all this fake marriage stuff, all these phony lies and half truths and un-natural vows that we know we can’t keep then maybe divorce wouldn’t seem like such a bad thing, it wouldn’t carry such a stigma, it wouldn’t be so traumatic. We could kind of ebb and flow more with our life relationships. You know, be more kinder gentler and appreciative of the natural state of love within us rather than trying to box it up and package it. I don't know if we can capture love and sell it to ourselves like that, you know wrap it all up in all that religious dogma and life or death stuff. After all it's love, we don't even know what it is yet. How can we define it, trap it, set rules to it?
I keep this postcard from Christopher Reeve (post accident) and his wife Dana on a shelf in my closet, for many reasons. One of them is to remind me that life is short, that every moment we are alive and breathing with all four limbs in working order is precious. Another reason is because his wife sitting next to him there smiling is such a beautiful reminder there of the ideal, the archetype, of what marriage should be all about. The man is paralyzed. Cannot move. So for the last how many years she has become the caretaker of the household and more, her once strong and able husband. And there she is smiling next to him. Granted, they are filthy rich so the work isn't really a factor, but still, one can only imagine the sacrifices and hardship of their predicament. But there she is. And it's precisely because of those vows that we make. It's that sickness and in health thing. And I would guess it is also true love. And it's pictures like that which remind me of the ideal, of the original intent of marriage, of that sacred bond between two people that can keep you searching and searching for ‘the one’ for a long time and when you find them can make you believe. Forget that most of the people you know are either divorced or on their way or twice and three times married, forget the stories of cheating and affairs and all that crap on the TV and in the movies. You know that the two of you will be different. You will be the ones to show the whole world that it can be done.
Me and Cleo thought we were that couple at one time, no different than anyone else who is newly and happily married or engaged. And now she and her new husband believe the same thing about themselves. She told me so today. That she believes that this time it is forever; that she and he will never get divorced. And I told her that I believed it too. and I meant it. And I hope it is true.
But to insist that it is a natural right, a natural ability, a natural tendency, a natural state, of all humanity to be able to mate for life is no more accurate a generalization than trying to say that all humans can play golf well or worship the same God or type fast or swim fast or sing in key. It's a gross generalization that causes a lot of pain and confusion for many people. People believe it. They rush to the altar and when they fail at it they wonder what is wrong with them. and when married couples fall around us like mosquitoes in a fumigation tent we say, ‘poor them, they were such a good couple, but I suppose it is for the best. They weren't happy anymore.’ And we meet a couple who have been together for twenty years or thirty years or more we act like it is a miracle, like they are some kind of rare phenomenon. We want to know their secret. And we whisper to ourselves, ‘maybe I can meet the right person one day and have that too…’ but it is a rare occurrence. We don't notice them very often because we are too busy consoling friends who are breaking up or getting divorced because that is far more common.
If we would just let ourselves off the hook a little. Just allowed ourselves to entertain the idea that perhaps mating for life isn't such a natural common state after all and that perhaps we should rethink it a bit, maybe then we could devise a system that was more easily attainable. Where disappointment wasn't the expected outcome for so many (over fifty percent divorce rate now). Or perhaps it's just me; perhaps a lot of people just go into it knowing that divorce could very well be the outcome eventually but it's worth the risk. That the good times that you do share while you are together are worth the divorce if that ever comes. A lot of people seem o.k. with having two or three marriages in their lifetime. Friends have told me that they expect to probably be married two or three times in their life. Which may not be such a bad thing. Social scientists have already predicted that that is the future of the human family. But what gets me is the use of the words “forever” or “till death due us part.” Especially if you are already thinking that it may not be...
Personally speaking I cannot say because I have never been married. I have never met anyone where I could look them in the eye and not lie and say ‘o.k. I will be with you forever.’ but I hope that it is possible. I keep that dream alive in my heart everyday. I look for her everyday in every corner of the world that I walk; in every moment.
And that's the amazing thing about it all. with all of this knowledge, with all of these ideas floating around upstairs, the heart still holds the ideal of it, and still longs to find that one someone that is going to shut off all those ideas in our head in a heartbeat and bring in peace and love and family and hominess into our life. Now, I don't know if that is marriage, as much as it is just pure love itself.
12-09-02
Good show last night. Band was very loose, out of control at times. A few fans showed up, small crowd though, but enthusiastic. New version of the journey was awesome. Love is you rocked. Oh you pretty things by Bowie is a nice addition to the set.
Sat with fernie from the band Humbert after the show talking about our new album. listening to the tracks. His band played before ours did that night. they were awe-inspiring. They were the music. They were rock and roll embodied. I told him what we were trying to make and what a challenge it has been. He listened to our rough tracks intently. His eyes closed. Every now and then he would say something. “what this song needs is something out of the measures, just totally fucked up, off of the rhythm of the rest of the instruments.” Or “this song is not sexy. You should scrap it.” he was right every time. it was good to talk shop with someone who was so aligned musically and philosophically.
A lot of reconciliation this week. With little Lisa, with Cleo, Jennifer, (God Jennifer, what a hottie) others. It really reconfirmed for me the importance of communication and persistence. You are either committed to cleaning up disagreements with others or not. Usually where there is a will there is way. and if you are willing to take a look at what responsibility you had in the conflict and forgive, then you can usually clean it up and get along again. That was the major win, and lesson, of the week.
12-06-02
Went to see new world school of the arts one person shows at a local theatre. Really good. Inspiring. So much talent all over the world. Thinking about a website that acts as a simple server where arts organizations can upload their shows, art exhibits, photo exhibits, film events, plays, concerts on their own so people can be in the know about what's going on. Yesterday two different people told me that Miami was a cultural vacuum, which is really hilarious because it is the opposite of that. Tonight I had to choose between an indi-film opening, a photo exhibit opening and this live theatre thing, a songwriter in the round concert at wallflower, and an anniversary concert at tobacco road which I may still hit later tonight. And of course countless other events. So it's just people don't know what's going on. Art is thriving in Miami. There is always too much to do.
Four minutes to cook your dinner in the microwave can seem like an eternity, while four hours in a dark room with someone you love can seem like four minutes.
Current Spin: phantom planet, the guest. Love it. Sigur ross, the new one. love it more.
Last Movie: Eddie izzard, dress to kill. Amazing brilliant funny amazing brilliant fucking amazing. And LaLee’s kin: the legacy of cotton. Moving study of education and current social and economical situation in rural Mississippi due to cotton industry enforced slavery.
12-05-02
Lots of emails from Muslim fans and friends re one of my last diary postings. Interesting. They are not all .... terrorists, obviously. Too bad the whole world cannot convert to Hinduism. We don't see them running around the world killing people like some other religions we know of. Nod nod wink wink and I don't necessarily mean the Muslims. Even Buddhism would be good. Of course we would have to change that awful first law that “life is suffering.” Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if we changed one word. Perhaps “life was suffering.” Saw Andréa Boccelli last night. Not quite Domingo or Pavarotti, but I don't think he aims to be. he has such a signature sound to his voice. It is all his own. so he doesn’t have to be anyone else. He is who he is. First half lots of classic opera and Neapolitan songs. Very romantic, beautiful stirring music. Then a moderate dose of his more contemporary pop-opera, a genre he didn't necessarily create but certainly defined in modern times. He even sang his own version of My Way by Paul Anka. He also played the flute and the piano. Wonderful. Amazing day today. spoke with Jennifer today for over an hour. Reconciled, resolved, worked through. We both left the conversation feeling more alive and refreshed. Met with friend of a friend who is a PR girl who offered to help the band get more press and publicity in north east. Really smart person from new York. Talked for hours about everything from business to politics to modern culture. Refreshing. Later tonight overheard a man talking about the film Koyaanisqatsi and others. We started talking about music and film. Turns out he is Jeffrey Lew, one of the producers of that film and many others. We had a real synergy. Mad fast-paced wide-eyed half-sentences about everything from film to music to religion to Indians. Spoke about a few upcoming film and music projects. Going crazy without an assistant. More interviews tomorrow. six weeks now. perhaps I am already crazy.
A cat will attack anything that it sees in it's space that is smaller than it is, except maybe for another cat. They will attack and play with until death a mouse, a bird, a Lizard, all insects, a frog. Objectively it's really strange instinct they have to just kill anything they see. They have no ethics about this. If it crosses their path, they will hunt it down until it is dead or plays dead or is unable to move. They do not seem to have any goal in doing this. They certainly would never eat any of the things they kill.
From a recent email from a friend: “But the truth is that some work to become a better person actually negates self, casts doubt within. Accepting and loving who I truly am, flaws and all, helps me more than I could ever have imagined. ”Fishy--- Well, this is so timely .... as I am finding many flaws with myself lately ... primary: I am happy to be me : )
Yes so where do you draw the fucking line between being at peace with yourself just the way you are and deliberately attempting to become a better person? Well, she's got me there… that's the million dollar question. Breath in. Breath out.
Working on The Transcendent Manifesto.
Last Movie: bedazzled, with the amazing Elizabeth Hurley.
12-03-02
Rehearsal tonight with the band. More news from the big time talent show people. they are asking that all bands sell tickets to the event at a price of $65 per ticket to our friends and fans. Of course the bands will not actually get paid. Funny. Doesn’t this sound familiar? We all had a good laugh and decided to not participate.
Last Movie: recently declassified war-time educational
movies about
12-02-02
So good to be home again. I got off the plane and wanted to hug Miamians. Why? I don't know. when you get off the plane in Miami, the first things you are immediately struck with is one, the hot and humid weather—it doesn’t matter where someone is from—this is one of the first things they comment on, and two, the sound of Spanish being spoken all around you. they say there is a lot of Spanish in phoenix and in Los Angeles as well. That just means they’ve never spent any time in Miami. I am sitting out on the back porch now smoking a very strong Cuban cigar and writing. I feel so good to be home. I walked in my home and felt such a sense of relief and comfort. They say home is where the heart is, and I just left my family and a big group of some of my best friends. So why do I feel so good coming back here? Went to the Grove for dinner and was immediately taken by the sheer number of beautiful people we encountered along the way.
Thinking more about the
art and music scene here and in New York and in LA. And I feel that we
have a pretty good scene after all. it's very centralized which is a good
thing. The music scene in LA seemed so cynical, almost kind of washed up.
the kids and musicians I talked to on the street and in the clubs in LA
had such a ‘it's impossible’ attitude about it. I don't necessarily think
it's any better here in Miami or in new York, but that it just depends
on where you are. You make your scene where you are. Now if you happen
to be in Iowa, yea maybe you should think about moving. But in any big
city
12-01-02
On the beach right now. Sitting in the sand of the Santa Monica beach watching the sunset. A mountain range to my right. The ocean and setting sun in front of me. Endless beach and more mountains to my left. And palm trees as tall as skyscrapers behind me lining a highway that winds on forever up and down the coast. Don't have sunsets on the east coast. Very cold here. dry and cold. Somehow it feels different. California is very big. Too expansive for words. Just the sprawling beach, the sand between the pacific coast highway and the ocean is longer than a New York City block. In fact, the average California palm tree is a longer than an average Miami block. Everything is big in California. Driving through Santa Monica, sunset strip, west Hollywood, pacific palisades, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, it feels like any minute some guy in a Baseball cap is going to come out from behind a wooden façade with palm trees painted on it and yell “cut!” everything looks like a movie here. we found out tonight that Larry David lives here in this neighborhood a few houses away, and his show curb your enthusiasm is filmed here in this neighborhood where mike and Beth live. You eat at your local Italian restaurant and two days later you see it on TV. That's California.
Also very beautiful. it offers amazing greenery, great beaches, mountain views all around you. And more than that, the people seem real, more real, sincere. A lot less bullshit than on the east coast, which is funny, because everyone I have spoken to here says that you have to watch out for the bullshit or the fake and phony people. Maybe they have just not ever been to Miami or fort Lauderhell. The problem is that there really isn't a city here. there is just little cities all over the place nestled amongst sprawling neighborhoods. Neighborhoods and more neighborhoods that go on forever. But no city really. That is California.
Not the same kind of exciting energetic magnetic energy in the air as in New York. More sunny happy relaxed vibe. It's like they are hippies without consciously trying to be hippies. It's just in the air. The granola vibe. This is the same California of Ronald Reagan, Sheryl Crow, the Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Steve Martin, Randy Newman, and the film Magnolia. This is the place. The list goes on forever. Definitely a happening place. And not that it's not glamorous. What's not glamorous about Hollywood? It's just that in New York the glamour seems backed up by a certain intelligence, a certain hipness, a certain wittiness. In California the glamour seems backed up by big money and shiny white teeth.
To me New York represents art and intellect and business. Everywhere you look you see something artistic or intellectual, on every street. It's in the blood of the city. The cab drivers are book critics. As soon as I get off the plane in New York I feel creative. I feel like creating something. Writing an essay. Starting a movement. Throwing up a mural on the side of a building a splattering it with my own blood. Writing songs every minute. It's electric. I've been here in California three days and I haven't even thought about our new album since I got off the plane. And Miami is just sex. Sex and beauty and style. God I haven't seen a beautiful girl since I got here. People talk about California girls. They just haven't been to South Beach. In Miami you're tripping over them. They're everywhere. beautiful people are as common as the palm trees.
The sun has now set. The sky is mammoth. It goes on forever. A dull pink and peach spreading itself all over the blue sky. people are walking home now. they are walking by me. it is not like in Miami where everyone looks at everyone else with this suspicious eye, glancing secretly, afraid they’ll look. No one here notices the strange long haired man sitting in the sand with the combat boots on, hunched over a laptop in the middle of the beach, a smoking cigar dangling out of his mouth. For all they know it could be a movie. Where are the hidden cameras? California is too big to notice such things. In the next 24 hours we will notice so much more than that. This is California after all.
Could I live without skyscrapers?
Could I live three hours behind the rest of
And looking out over the ocean here and realizing that I'm looking towards Asia and not Europe is a weird feeling. You don’t think about that until you are sitting here staring at the ocean. But it's a strange feeling not sensing and feeling Europe over the horizon. It's like you get kind of homesick for the motherland, unless of course you are from Asia, then I guess it would be kind of comforting being here.
11-03-02
A reunion between a small group of us who all live in different parts of the country. But we try to see each other a few times a year. Michael and Beth Ann just recently moved here to LA. So we all decided to meet here after thanksgiving. I really wanted to get to know LA a little better. My heart is pretty much sold on New York but just in case I thought I would check it out. So we all flew in today at different times. Very nice to be here together. Tonight we went to sunset strip to check out all the clubs and bands. Pretty scummy, dirty, raunchy for the most part. A very big fort Lauderdale. Nothing like beautiful fashionable New York or hip and stylish Miami. But being with this spiritual family that I have collected over the years has been very nice so far. We stay up late and talk about what we are all experiencing in our individual lives and then we advise each other, help guide each other, feed off of each other.
A lot of talking about what I was writing about last night. That the energy now around the world has accelerated so rapidly that it is apparent to everyone that IT is happening. Something has shifted. Things are moving so fast. Changes occurring so quickly around the planet. Things are rapidly shifting into place for everyone, or out of place, depending on how you look it. You are either prepared or not. Either way IT is still happening. Something big is happening. Something horribly incongruent and earth-shaking is happening all around the world. It's getting harder and harder just to find time to get a haircut or cuddle up with a good book.
11-02-02
Still in AZ. I just walked outside to relax and write a little. I was standing up, lighting a cigar, when I heard this super fast fluttering, like a bird on over drive. I flipped around and this bat was headed right at me. I ducked. It skimmed my head and hit my hair a little. I ran to the sliding glass door to take a breather for a moment. And then it came swooping around the corner to make another attempt at me. I ran inside. Crazy. today my brother told me this story that happened recently right here in phoenix. A kid was at the local strip mall down the street this summer. A swarm of African bees attacked him. came out of nowhere. He tried to get away from them. went into a panic. Ran out into the street and got run over by a car. Don't let anyone tell you it isn't happening right now. Whatever “it” is. It's happening. A man gets a call. His father is dead. He goes to the funeral. Leaves his wife at home to work. Comes home the next day, his wife is laying dead on the floor. He is stricken with extreme grief. He goes to the funeral. He gets a call on his cell phone. His general manager who works directly under him just got run over by a semi-truck on the highway. This man was my brother’s wife’s step father. The dead wife was my brother’s wife’s mother. The next day his wife has a baby. My youngest niece. Our lives are turning into movies.
I have often wondered if by constantly pushing the envelope and testing the limits in our art and entertainment if life would then soon start to imitate that. if we create more and more extreme violence in our entertainment would our lives become more and more violent? Would life as we know it become more and more sexually explicit? More and more ‘real?’ more and more extreme? More and more wild? Crazy? Out of control? Like our movies and books and television? Well it seems that the answer is yes. Is life seeming more and more crazy and wild and out of control to everyone these days?
I'm out here on the porch again now. My mom’s house. She has this beautiful house on a lake. And you can sit right outside the house on her back porch overlooking the lake. A cool breeze sweeps off the lake and it rustles through the six or seven wind chimes she has hanging up around her porch. They all chime at the same time, in various tones and timbres. It's very peaceful. Except for the potential for unexpected visits from bats that is.
Tomorrow morning I leave for LA. A little business, a little pleasure. I'll stay with some friends and drive around a lot. Saturday night check out all the clubs on sunset strip and soak in the original music scene. See what it's all about.
11-28-02
Thanksgiving with the family in Arizona. Am I outgrowing my family? Is that possible? Could there be a worse dream to wake up to? Is that what growing into an adult means? Click your heels. There's no place like home. There's no place like home.
Watched Paul McCartney on TV last night. What a great band he has assembled. Still carrying the torch. His vocals were awesome. Made me realize how we really need to start making a better living from our own music. Right now the general consensus is that bands don't make good money. One out of a thousand maybe make enough to get by. You’ve got your Eminems and your Madonnas. But most of us don't even make enough to live. And this belief is perpetuated and vehemently defended by everyone in the industry. ‘that's just the way it is,’ is the general feeling. We hear it all the time. every show we play, we’re told that we may have to play for free, or we’ll be lucky if we make five hundred bucks to split between all five of us plus pay the soundman, light person, flyers, transportation, etc. and a lot of times it's the bands that are at fault in the first place because they put up with it and so they set this precedent that all bands have to do it. They get so used to it that they never get out of it. It’s like, ‘I've fallen into this belief and I can’t get up.’ it's funny.
And so then all the club owners etc just assume that they can get this free entertainment all the time. Which they can as long as bands are willing to do it. We’re in this position now where we just absolutely refuse to play that game. We turn down more gigs than we accept. Our agent will call and say, ‘such and such called and wants to know if you’ll play such and such club for fifty bucks, no hotel, no drinks, etc.’ And I just look at the phone for a minute and then, ‘uh I don't think so. Maybe you can call such and such band.’ They’ll be charging 7 bucks at the door and we’re going to play for free? O.k. sure well do it. if the club lets everyone in for free that night and lets everyone drink for free. We’ll play for free. no problem. The cool thing though is that the gigs that we do play now feel a lot better. Interesting.
You know, it's just getting to that point where you start honoring who you are more. you start honoring and appreciating what you do and who you are. After a while you can easily sift out the people who don't honor and appreciate you and you just don't work with them. they start to go away because they know you don't want to play that game anymore. In the music business everyone just expects the musicians to work for free. It's really funny if you aren't in the biz and you are looking at it from the outside because there are literally tens of thousands of musicians who live and work this way. Everyone around them telling them that that's just the way it is. So they just fall for it. Clubs always want you to play for free. Festivals and conferences of course want you to play for free. You can sell thousands of CDs and still not make any money. Shit, ask any major label act from the last hundred years, you can sell millions of CDs and not make any money. You can hear yourself on the radio, see radio reports that you're being played on stations all over the country, and still not see any money from that. You can even be played on MTV and not get paid for that either if you want to.
There are people making money in the music business, just not most of the musicians. Again it's just really funny when you look at it objectively. I've been thinking a lot about this the last few days, exploring it, and I think about the last fifteen years I've been a professional musician and I can’t say I've made more than thirty or forty thousand dollars. And we’re just so hypnotized by the persistent beliefs that are so ingrained in everyone that we are kind of brainwashed into believing that this is just the way it is. I always laugh when fellow musicians work for like two years on their albums and then give them all away. Fellow musicians from the scene will give me their new CD for free and I will force them to take money from me for it. I tell them they're crazy. Charge every person you know for your newest CD and I guarantee you won't still be working at that gas station, or that newspaper, or that phone room, or that record store in six months. After all, you wouldn’t work there for free would you? Why is it that most people seem to believe that if they are working a job that they truly love that it's alright not to get paid for it? But if they are working at something that they don't really like then they should be paid for it. What is that? We are a funny people.
Last Movie: wizard of oz. That movie is whacked.
And also stayed up all night watching the biographies of the presidents
of the
11-27-02
I'm in the airport. There is this Latin girl with a tight shirt on and no bra. Her breasts are just popping out. She has received more than her fair share of secret looks from other passengers here waiting for the plane. A few minutes later I looked up and she was standing up talking on her phone. Her nipples were really sticking out. And there is this guy sitting down about four feet away from her. He had a book in his hand but he was staring at her standing there talking on the phone and his mouth was hanging open, and then about five feet away from him there was this other girl who was staring at the guy and at the girl observing how this guy was so absorbed by the girl on the phone with the tight shirt and no bra, and she was completely absorbed in watching the two of them. she had this look on her face like, ‘I can’t believe that guy. Why does he care about that slut with the big boobs. And then I'm sitting there watching all three of them doing their thing. And I'm thinking, ‘I wonder if there is anyone watching me?’ Look how we watch each other. Each of us making our own little judgments about each other based on our own different sets of beliefs.
O.k. I'm on the plane now—America
West—and they are playing all these country music videos. Man what is this?
I think I have been in Miami too long. I feel like culture shocked.
I'm sitting here looking at the TV and hearing this strange music and these
goofy looking people and my mouth is hanging open. I forget that
We’re in the air now. I'm
watching the in-flight movie sporadically while reading and writing. Bourne
identity baby!!! I love this movie. Great soundtrack. Reading time magazine—twelve
letters from readers from all over the country saying they do not support
Bush’s planned invasion of
The hardest part of all
of this for me has been how relatively quiet and resistance to speaking
up the American public has been. It is as if we don't have any leaders
and so we are numbed by our feelings of helplessness—as if no matter what
we feel, we don't really have a say and won't be able to do anything about
it anyway. People just keep watching their TV and these inane music videos,
eating their food, throwing their garbage and going to their jobs, hoping
that maybe one day we will wake up and it will all be over. But the fact
is that if the bigger bully governments don’t stop pushing around the smaller
weaker ones around the world, the terrorist attacks will not end. More
innocent lives will be lost. Bush will not be killed, but we will. His
daughters will not be killed but many of ours will be. And worse even.
On September 11th, we the people of
Our government has us by
the balls. We are supposed to be a government for the people by the people,
but our government has not offered a chance for us to vote on this issue.
We are supposed to just play along, no matter how we feel. But is that
really the way it is? Maybe not, the midterm elections just wrapped up
and the republican war monger brood swept the races. How? I don't fucking
know. But it happened. Maybe no one under the age of or with an IQ above
80 is voting these days. Who knows? But this certainly isn't what our founding
fathers had in mind when they so eloquently drafted the ideals that this
country is founded upon. But things are changing quickly. We have all but
lost our beloved republic. We have all but lost our democracy. In two hundred
years. Such a short time. We can march all we want, but it doesn’t seem
to help. It didn't help in
It's not like the old days
where these smaller countries are just going to sit back and take it and
forget about it. Things have changed in the new technological age we live
in. Anyone can band together, purchase weapons, face masks, explosives
and take over a theatre if they want to. The Chechen people who are now
trying to fight for their independence from Russia the way we did in the
revolutionary war against England were recently quoted as saying, “we promise you we
are more committed to dying for this cause than you are to living,” to
the Russian hostages in that theatre. The fact is that humanity is getting
too honest now to keep allowing this kind of bullshit—
Realizing more and more lately that the reason why governments around the world are able to carry on with all the law breaking and crazy horrible things they do everyday is because for the most part people just try to avoid thinking about it. every day if we want to we can log on to the Internet or turn on the TV or radio and see or hear about something even our own government has done that was deceptive or unethical or just downright evil—it just seems like it is a mass consciousness belief that that's just the business of government, always has been since we started governing ourselves, so we all know this, and again I think it just comes down to this feeling that, we can’t do anything about it, so lets just try not to think about it unless it affects us directly.
But looking forward I often imagine what a good, honest, efficient, truly integrous government would be like, and more importantly, how do we make that happen, and maintain it? I know that campaign finance reform would be the most logical place to start. And being so young and ignorant when it comes to politics and world affairs and government as I am, I often wonder why since we all know that this is a problem and it can easily be improved, why we haven't already done something about it. I look to the older generations, the baby boomers et al and I wonder why they have just continued to let things be the way they are when every one knows that campaign finance reform would be a great place start to clean up our country. Well I don't know.
But recently Jeb Bush won the seat of governor of the state of Florida—even though he was overheard by a reporter telling a group of concerned republican lawmakers that if a referendum to reduce class sizes so kids get a better education in the state goes through he “had a few devious plans in place already to thwart it's success.” So here we are with the data that not only is the guy kind of dumb, but also not half as concerned with helping the people as he is in filling his pockets or just reaping the rewards of the office. But someone voted him in there. It didn't happen by magic. But as it turns out only 20% of eligible voters voted in these mid-term elections. Well this is a big clue. How the hell can we expect them to reform campaign financing if they can’t even tell the right candidates from the charlatans. So the first step is just getting smarter people, more aware people, to the voting booths to cast their vote. What a mess. More later.
11-26-02
Tonight we went to see and hear Caetano Veloso sing at the Jackie Gleason theatre. After the concert we got to meet him. this was a huge event for me personally. I was awestruck. I gave him an autographed copy of Rise and Shine and showed him his name in the liner notes. Showed him how we covered a famous Brasilian song on the album. We spoke very briefly. Laughed some. It was a good feeling. He is much smaller in person than on stage. Older, greyer. Very soft and soft spoken. This was a dream of mine. This year I have had the opportunity to go see Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Boccelli, U2, and Caetano in concert. This has been a very good year.
The following is from an email by a man named John MaCenulty. It is good. Very good.
There are times when societal actions are extremely clearly wrong, outrages
that reach into us deeply. We feel a sense of hopelessness and despair that
things may be falling apart. A sense of wrong and dread pervades.
And there are times when things come to a focus and really are threatening.
It is not an illusion that will pass in the blink of a magical eye. Some
things are deep and structural, inherent in the way of things. They have been
going on for a long time.
Negative energies flare and wane. We are watching a flaring.
The history of humanity is the story of these risings and fallings. Ever has
it been so.
Yet within the structure of pain and suffering has been an awesome spiritual
beauty that has never been defeated by the awful things that have passed
through us. Hope seems to, indeed, spring eternal.
Beethoven and Mozart wrote in times of war. Enduring beauty was created.
Now I pray again, deeply, for peace, fairness, justice, love in my world,
this beautiful, betrayed, discouraging world.
It is through the very act of prayer that I am fulfilled, not in the
answering of my prayer, in the very act.
When I seek the divine I create the divine. I activate that energy in my
consciousness and it comes into me.
The sadness without prayer is overwhelming.
I focus on the stillness and it comes over me, into me. There is always my
very nature, beautiful beyond all failings, a light within me that will not
darken.
I rise and fall too.
New web site address:
Copyright © 2002 by John MacEnulty
11/22/2002, St. Louis, MO
11-25-02
Such a sense of peace in
the home tonight. I looked into the house through the windows tonight from
outside and felt so lucky and so blessed. It looked so warm and dimly lit
and cozy inside. Still thinking a lot about the marriage/relationship issue
today. too much to get into now. Watched the movie Bombay tonight. Controversial
film from the early nineties about the Muslim/Hindu riots in
Last great movie: Bombay. Good movie, slight cheese, but still good.
Current read: Life of Trotsky. And a photo book called Erotique, collection of historic erotic photography.
11-24-02
In the line at the movies and feeling so heavy from this relationship thing. My mind was spinning from the confusion of not exactly knowing what I was feeling. Recognized the signs; unable to focus, more attention on myself rather than on the outside, feelings of discomfort and resistance. I stood there and forced myself to feel whatever I was feeling, let it all slowly unravel and untangle inside of me so I could take a look at what was there. I could discreate the beliefs later. Lets just take a look at them and free up some attention. So what I started noticing as I looked around inside was this feeling that I just wasn't ready to settle down and get married. Even though a big part of me longs for it. I have no problem with the idea of marriage. I can’t wait. I just don't know about the forever part of it. that's the part that sticks me. I told la Princesa about this. I told her that maybe I could see marriage if instead of promising forever two people promised five years with an option to renew type of thing. Of course she was upset. I think she walked out actually. But I had to be honest. Forever? The rest of your life. Later she admitted that she sort of felt the same way but it was just too much to think about, and too out of the ordinary and crazy to entertain the idea. But I think that is a much more logical and practical way to go about it.
All I do know is that a lot of my friends are already divorced. And some of them are already in their second marriages. And most of us have parents who are divorced. Not all of them, but the majority of them. I notice a lot of my friends also getting married and admitting that they aren't totally madly in love like they thought they would be but just still really wanted to get married and really love their spouse. For me I just couldn’t imagine doing that. still others are in relationships or marriages that are strained and not so deliberate. A lot of fighting. A lot of wondering what it would be like to be on their own. but maybe they have children now and can’t get out. A lot of marriages seem more Bas Fishy on avoiding pain and loneliness than experiencing love and passion. Not all of them. A few of my married friends seem really really happy. So the possibility is there. I just haven't gotten to the point yet where I am willing to subject myself or anyone else to that.
I have been in some great relationships. Engaged once for years. And I love each of these girls more than anything. It's like I am collecting this amazing group of loving and supportive ex-girlfriends. And I feel lucky to have that. but honestly, it's not that great. Once an ex-girlfriend settles in to her own marriage or a serious relationship, you pretty much get tucked in the backseat of their life. which is totally understandable. But still, that is no reason to go off and get married if you still think you have your doubts about it as a whole. I don't have doubts about marriage itself; I just have doubts about myself and the idea of forever that goes along with marriage.
The cold hard fact of the matter is that no matter how lonely it gets sometimes, no matter how much a part of me longs to walk into the kitchen smelling of home cooked food or to see a beautiful smiling face under the tree at Christmas, I still don't feel ready to commit to ‘you and me till the day we die and no one and nothing else in between.’ And that's what marriage, in it's current incarnation, is all about. So if I'm going to commit to it, I want it to be for real. I would never commit to something that I thought from the get go that I couldn’t achieve.
When I was with Cleopatra, it would really bother her. Sometimes she would pick up on my thoughts, out of the blue, and just scream at me, “you jerk. I know what you're thinking. I hate you.” but I couldn’t help it. I really was feeling that. Same thing is happening now with la Princesa. It's kind of killing her, and I hate that. No matter how fruitful or enjoyable or passionate our relationship is for each of us, this marriage thing kind of hangs over our heads all the time subconsciously. It doesn’t mean that I don't love her, that I wouldn’t kill for her. I would. Same thing with Maddie, my first real long term girlfriend. One day we were driving and I said something about marriage and she said, ‘you're not going to marry me pups. I know that.’ at first I was so surprised, I tried to deny it, sort of. ‘Why would you say that,’ I asked. But I knew she knew. So there was no use in fighting it. We just kept driving silently. Didn't talk about it anymore. Till one day when it kind of reached the point of no return and we slowly ended it. That was ten years ago. She's married now. God, they're all married now. just not me.
I've been to a lot of ex-girlfriends’ weddings. One time I went to an ex-girlfriend’s wedding with another ex-girlfriend as my date. That was interesting. And I was dancing with the girl who just got married and she said to me, ‘you were the love of my life you bastard.’ And I looked over at the other girl who I came there with and felt such love for her still, like I would die for her, for both of them, and I was thinking about the bitter irony of it all. I took a big gulp of my drink and danced harder. Just how totally crazy life is sometimes. But I was so happy to see her up there with her new husband, knowing that she is loved and cared for now. it gave me a real sense of peace in my heart. Now the other one is married as well.
There are a lot of reasons to settle down and get married. Having children is a big one. Luckily it isn't such a ticking time bomb for men as it is for women. So I have found that I really have to be careful to not be selfish and take up a girl’s good years if I'm not totally feeling it. Because I don't think there is anything more reprehensible than that. There is a certain stigma associated with being single, and a certain instant respectability that comes with being married. You certainly get invited to more dinner parties and more social gatherings when you are in a “couple.” There are a lot of benefits to being married, especially for men. We get it easy. We live like kings when we’re married. When we are single often times we live like college kids, or at least like ‘bachelors.’
Now I work hard to keep the same kind of romance and passion and love and hominess and cleanliness in my life and in my home as you normally and naturally experience when you are married and have a family. I don't think that is something that you should have to give up just because you are single. But it isn't easy. The challenge to the single person is to create that feeling of love and tenderness, of home and support, of passion and romance in your life even without having a significant other in your life. to still wake up everyday and smell great smells in a clean home, to still have great sex, to experience great romance, to still walk around with that feeling of love and support and family within you, even though you aren't married. Again, it's not easy. But it's possible. Often times I feel this feeling inside like, ‘but what is the purpose? Where's the big purpose you feel, like when you are married?’ And that's a tough one. Isn't our own life enough? Does it have to be about someone else? Is that really what it's all about? Perhaps if you live your life filled to the rim with passion and purpose and love and romance within you, you can experience it. if you are in love with yourself, and the world, and with humanity as a whole, and with your life’s work… can we walk around with that same sense of purpose and joy and excitement about life in our hearts, even though we are alone, from just our connection with ourselves, and the world at large and our ‘creator?’ Is it possible? So there it is in a nutshell. It's one of the great dilemmas of modern times. And I am sure it won't be settled overnight.
Last Movie: Emperors club with Kevin Kline. Don't bother. Also, the Mickey ward/Arturo Gatti rematch fight, unbelievable. The two best boxers in the world. Real life Rocky movie.
11-23-02
Tonight was the last night of the play Decay. Several members of the cast and crew passed out cards to everyone. It was a packed house. Some people were standing. So we did it. We pulled it off. No money, no major production company. No big name producers or directors. No advertising budget. Just a bunch of artists dedicated to making it happen against all odds. A hot, no-air-conditioned warehouse filled to the rim with people watching live theatre by a group of poor actors and musicians making no money for performing every night for two weeks straight for no other reason than to turn people on to live theatre. This was the vision of the writer, Sasha, and the director, Nicole, and the producer, Enzu. We went along for the ride. And every night that place was near filled to capacity.
Last great movie: Brother can you spare a dime, documentary
about the great depression in
11-22-02
Someone asked me what the three best things about the Internet were. I replied: email, access to unlimited information, amazon.com, and eBay. O.k. so that's four things, I know. You could also add online stock trading, netflix.com, streamable and downloadable music, alternative news sources, Internet radio, and ecommerce in general… but I digress. And I still know people who don't have the Internet. Crazy. Tonight I found this: http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Bye.html Check it out. it is an alleged picture of an alien waving goodbye. Read the text. Intriguing. Got me thinking a bit about aliens and that whole subject. Still waiting for the moment when the mainstream media announces that “aliens now exist.” Funny how we wait for confirmation of things we already know until it hits the mainstream. I think we all kind of know that chances are there are other intelligent life forms here. Just waiting for it to be mainstream. I am as frightened by it as I am excited, I will admit. The implications are mind boggling. Quite probable, inevitable, that it will alter the entire construct of universal truth as we are currently creating it. Wink wink. And what about God? Does he know these “aliens” exist? Raised eyebrows.
Kick butt in the studio today. Vancouver laid down another great guitar track on the song beautiful one. Great performance in the play tonight. Packed house. Tomorrow is our last run. I will miss it when it is over. More dates being added to our tour starting in January—Orlando, Jacksonville, Atlanta, South Carolina. Very excited to get out there and meet fans in other parts of the country personally.
11-21-02
In the studio today working more on Vancouver’s guitar parts. Challenging. The vibe of Fred is ‘lets just get it done. It shouldn’t have to take forever.’ Normally the producer is on fire and inspired as much as the artists are. He keeps the flames burning when they wane which can often be the case when an album drags on and on; the musicians tend to lose interest after a while, lose their inspiration. I never do. But more and more lately I have been starting to think that I am not really a musician, maybe a painter who just never learned how to paint, or a film maker who makes albums instead. I am often just as ‘musically inspired’ by great films or great paintings than I am by great albums. In fact a lot of times I notice that great films or paintings seem to more closely resemble what I am trying to create in the studio than most albums that get released. I absolutely hate normal run of the mill guitar Bas s drum and vocal bands and albums. I just find them very boring and can’t get through them. But I will put on Nabukazu Takemura, which is really just electronic noise and be totally blown away. My musician friends comment that ‘anyone can do that. It’s just noise.’ But I like it, and find it refreshing and remarkably inspiring. For the most part I don’t even like “musician’s music.” Never have. Never really developed a liking for it. This is something that I have always butted heads with other musicians about. If you're listening to music for the perfection of the craft of it, then that is one thing, which a lot of musicians are into. how well someone can play an instrument or sing. But that has never been my thing. Always preferred music that set a tone, created a mood, no matter the actual musicianship. Loved my bloody valentine. Play it for a lot of musicians who just don't even understand why someone would make that. “where's the songs?” they ask. Or “that guy is just making noise on his guitar. He can’t even play.” But I never cared about that too much. So I don't care how long an album takes to make. I just know when we’re done. It could be a year. It could be three years. I tell Vancouver ‘less “trying to play a part” and more “trying to cop a vibe.” And the great thing is that he is totally capable of pulling it off. He is some kind of boy-genius on the guitar.
If we can just get Fred to get on board and realize that we aren't trying to just make some standard rock album, but something deeper, richer. He will pull out songs by Cracker, or queens of the stone age, and that stuff is great. But I am thinking more along the lines of Citizen Kane, or Oliver Stone. He just laughs at me a lot. Thinks I am crazy. I told him today that we may have to add another layer of drums. And he just thought I was out of my mind. “Two totally separate drum tracks?! What are you? On crack?” I know he didn't sign on for that and in a way it isn't fair to now demand it of him, after all, he has to make a living, and we can’t just keep him working on this album for the next ten years, but somewhere there is a middle ground we will have to find if we’re all going to be happy.
Current Spin: a taste of Asia. Ancient Chinese instrumental music.
11-20-02
Sitting with Bas , going through live shows on video trying to find cool moments to post on the website. We were talking about the Middle East, about why can’t humans just get along, and experience peace. He sighs, mumbles “it's just fucking Bush. What's wrong with him? He doesn’t give people an accurate idea of what the people are like. Every one just thinks that we are like these crazy war mongers. But we’re not.
al gore, shroud of Turin,
Picasso retrospective
11-19-02
Performed another night of the play tonight to a packed house. Everyone was over the top. In those brief moments I was my character. Audience was clapping and laughing and really liked it. afterwards the playwright Sasha gave this speech about how we needed to raise more money for the artists’ co op C-Roc and it was hilarious. People were rolling from laughter. He said things like, “look, here's the deal. We just want to be able to do this for our living and have people like you pay for it. so give us money. We need money. We need your money….we’re artists. We don't have to be rich. We just don't want to have to work, that's all.” Things like that. It was great.
Burning the candle at both ends right now. Spend most of my days with a severe headache, like a vice squeezing my head. Feel like I have no time. can’t even think straight. Craziness. La Princesa is mad. Says that she can’t see me anymore because I don't have the time for anyone in my life. I say we just saw each other yesterday. She reminds me, “that was two days ago you jerk.” And then she hits me. Two or three days feels like one day to me. crazy.
Was in the studio today recording Vancouver’s guitar parts. Spent the first hour arguing with him and Fred the producer. Trying to get them to see that if we don't create something truly remarkable, truly innovative and fresh and magical that there isn't any sense in us doing it, I don't care how many people buy it. he says, “don't you just want to sell records? People don't buy CDs because they are innovative Fishy. Listen to the radio.” I said I didn't care. I explained to them another perspective… “look how fucking lucky we are, you are. Here you have this opportunity to come in here for free and Fred, we’re paying you to help us do it, and here we have this opportunity to come in here and show the world who you are, whatever you got. You have this opportunity to lay it down on tape, all of us together and create whatever we want. So what are we going to create? Radio music? Are you a guitar God? Or are you just some guy in Miami who plays the guitar? What do you want people to think when they put this CD on? Well I know what I want them to think. so lets fucking make it happen.” Well it worked. He played some amazing parts. Truly brilliant guitar playing, textural, exotic, wild, surreal stuff. it may kill us but we are making something very special with this one.
11-18-02
Just got the newest CD of the latest mixes of our new album with Vancouver’s newly added guitar work.
The need to band together
Last great movie: Magnolia, as always.
11-17-02
Today was a beautiful day. One of the best Sundays I have had in years. This morning we went to a Jewish baby naming ceremony for a friend of mine. Seven God fathers and three young pure godmothers bless the new born baby girl. One hundred and twenty-five people all gathered together to celebrate the birth of this baby. Very beautiful. it really confirmed for me my goal of having a big family one day. Later came home and spent the day writing, drawing, painting, sleeping, and making love, while listening to Indian trance dervish music from the fourteen hundreds. Living and breathing art. I so needed a day like today to reaffirm what is important to me. Freedom beauty truth love and art and all those other ideals that sometimes we get so busy to remember their importance in our lives. Later tonight we saw the movie Frida about the Mexican painter Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera. So inspired that I couldn’t stop my leg from shaking during the whole movie. My heart was filled with passion and my head was filled with ideas. I spent half the movie taking notes. It cemented for me the ideal that art is not so much about public opinion or accessibility as much as it is about originality. Creating something new. Something that has been hard to remember during the recording of this new album of ours. Because it feels like we are being so pressured to create something that is commercially accessible at the expense of creating something wholly original. Well not anymore. I can promise you that.
Current Spin: echoes of the forest: music of the central African pygmies.
Last great movie: Frida. Amazing. Beautiful. inspiring.
11-16-02
Just got done with the Saturday night performance of the play. The final one for this week. Really intense tonight. We were all on fire. The crowd really felt it. still feeling sick. So didn't hang around too long meeting and greeting.
Fighting a depression of some kind. A general malaise. Feelings of resistance. It's that feeling of waiting for something to happen and you're thinking, ‘now when that happens then I can be happy.’ And I am not exactly sure what that is. Just waiting. Bored. Sad. I know I'm not the only one. I see it in everyone. They go out and drink. Get drunk. Smoke pot, take pills, eat, watch TV till they fall asleep, whatever. Something, anything to fight the feelings, the pain. I have felt those desires crawling up in me lately. “o.k. well you know tonight, the play is over, I'm just sitting here. maybe I'll just do this….” but I am beyond that. it doesn’t even seem like an option now. now there is a strong desire for purity more than ever. So when the feelings do come up I would rather just feel them and explore them—if you have to cry you cry, or if you have to scream you scream, let it out—get to the core of them, find out where they are coming from. I have been here before. i know it is a short road between agony and relief; between grief and happiness. Although it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. But the key is in feeling the feelings, owning them, owning what's underneath them, and then letting them go, and then refocusing on your true self and your true desires.
I remember when me and Cleo broke up. we had moved down to Miami together and by the time we actually moved here, we were already broken up. so here we were in this brand new city that we worked so hard to make this big move to, but we were separated. Lived in separate houses. We told ourselves that it was only temporary. That we were doing it to get some space so we could work it out and get back together, but both of us knew I think inside that it was over, that we were going to be moving on. We both started dating other people. sharing our experiences over the phone or over dinner sometimes. And little by little it became more and more apparent that it was permanent. That it was really over. We never talked about getting back together. We talked about everything else. Her new house, my new house. The new city we lived in. Work. Money. Friends. But we never discussed getting back together. I would lie in my bed at night some times and feel so overwhelmed with sadness and with longing and maybe cry a little. I would call her sometimes and she wouldn’t answer. Then she would call and I wouldn’t answer. This went on for about a year. Back and forth, each of us staking claim to our boundaries. A little more each day.
But the point is that it was very sad. It was truly the saddest thing I have ever been through. I think it was for both of us. she had a different way of dealing with it. she just went completely crazy. Went out every night. didn't come to work for days at a time. I spent a lot of time alone. Went to work everyday like clock work. It was all I knew how to do. A lot of time writing and working on songs. A lot of time watching old black and white movies. But through being totally real with the sadness of it, I was able to come through it. it wasn't easy. But I knew that we were doing the right thing. That's why we never talked about getting back together. Because we both knew it was the right thing to do. it was just something we had to get through.
There was only once where it did come up. and perhaps this was the saddest moment out of all of it, or one of them. we were upstairs in my office and she was going off to get married soon. we had gotten into a huge fight, as always. I have never fought with anyone like we fought. daily almost. Very dramatic and passionate fights. Vicious. And we both were crying. Saying horrible things to each other. And she got up and walked towards the door to leave. Said something to the effect of ‘you’ve hurt me more than anyone has ever hurt me in my life.’ and I said, ‘well you’ve hurt me more than anyone has ever hurt me before.’ and we both just stared at each other. Waiting. Wondering what was next. I was slumped in a chair sobbing and I looked up at her and I said, ‘can’t you just marry me instead?’ she burst into tears and said, ‘that's not fair for you to say that. damn you.’ and that was that. I couldn’t say anything else. She was right. it wasn't fair because we had already been through years of pain together and were just coming out of it. and this was something that we both knew we had to do. but I had to say it. it just came out. It was my way of acknowledging that feeling that no matter how much we had been through, no matter how much pain and frustration and agony that we had put each other through, that I was still feeling that way somewhere inside. That love really is … what is it? I don't know. It just is the everything. Call it a last gasp. The final farewell. In that moment I meant it with all my heart. And yet I knew that somewhere inside although I meant it, I didn't mean it either. At least not for this lifetime. Not anymore. Our time was up.
After that it was just dealing with the sadness and with the longing for the way things used to be. day by day it got easier. There was comfort in knowing that although it hurt we were doing the right thing. Which is different than the sadness you feel from when you are doing the wrong thing and know it, but don't do anything about it. that is a worse sadness.
Current Spin: brand new album from New Order. Really good. Ten years later. Sounds like it could have come out in 1986. smiths, new order, cure type sound.
Last Movie: documentary about the making of magnolia. What a great film.
11-15-02
Tonight was the opening night of the play Decay. Good crowd. Relatively good performances from all of us. very exciting backstage. Totally dark except for a red light or two. For an hour before we go backstage to start the performance everyone kind of jumps around the room, paces, mumbles incoherently, makes funny sounds to themselves, practices their lines over and over again, puts on their makeup, stares at themselves in the mirror reciting their lines or talking themselves up. fun. Backstage everyone just paces till it's their turn to go on stage. Back and forth we pace throughout the first half of the play, trying not to bum into each other. Funny. Everyone goes from smiles to this intense look. Very different than putting on a rock concert, where everyone just kind of drinks and smokes and stands around and then maybe you let out a few screams and yells and then on you go up. actors are very intense. I have started to look at it like the difference between art and craft.
When you go up on stage to play a rock concert, at least for original music, it is like this spiritual artistic experience. Are you focused? I don't think so. It's more like you are lost at sea. In space. You are at one with the music and the audience and you are just part of the whole thing. Just flowing in the art of it. you have no lines to remember. Yea you have all these lyrics to remember but this isn't conscious. You already know them subconsciously. They are just a part of you. so you're not thinking about them. you're not thinking at all. you're just trying to play as well as you can and get into the art of it as much as you can, to capture some kind of impalpable, intangible, ecstasy for you and the crowd through your interpretation of the songs. And every night that interpretation can be totally different. The four of you may play each song totally different than you did the night before. you may stick within the same general guidelines or play roughly the same chords, but that's about it. the way you play, and the notes you play and the notes you sing and your phrasing and everything really is totally different. That's the fun of it. that's the rush. That's why we do it. that's why people go to live shows. To see and hear that experimentation.
Whereas with what I have noticed with acting, at least in live theatre, is that memorizing your lines is of the utmost importance. They don't want you to go up there and wing it. or experiment with your lines. You can experiment with phrasing a little, but you can’t just go up there and try something new for the art of it, like say with a guitar solo, where there might not be one note you play tonight that was the same as you played last night. who the hell plays a guitar solo or a drum fill the same way every night? but with acting each cast member is totally dependent on the others for them to get their lines right on, because your line triggers their next line so if you fuck it up they don't know where you are or where they are. They are still waiting to hear that line so they can come in. And there are a lot of lines to memorize. And even when you think you have them memorized they still fade from your brain right when you least expect it. so you have to be really focused. Just dead on focused in every moment when you are on that stage and I am not used to that.
When we are on stage with the band we leave a lot of room open for improv. There are a lot of sections of songs that are deliberately left open. Nothing written there as far as time goes. We may know that this guy’s going to solo for anywhere between half a minute and two minutes and that's it. or that Fishy is going to vamp on the end vocals for maybe a minute or two or three and during that time everyone is just free to play whatever they want to. And then when he turns around to face the drummer then we are going to end the song. But in acting, no way. there's this whole thing about keeping the pace of it tight. It is a new concept for me. it's funny because the Piano Man in our band is always trying to get us to pay more attention to that.
After the show we went out to eat, drank some wine. Good times.
Current Spin: Carmen consoli, confuso e felice.
11-14-02
I have been thinking more about the whole thing about lying and humans the last few days. It is said that everyone lies. That if you say you don't lie, then you’re a liar. Funny. Because chances are it's probably true. But I think there is a big difference between certain kinds of lies. Maybe. maybe not. That's another story. But for many a lie is not that big of a deal. But for certain there are some people who attempt at least never to lie. They are loyal to the truth as a cause. As the most holy cause we know of. And indeed I would say that the truth would be the most holy virtue we can attempt to uphold as human beings at least right now in our present state of evolution.
Religion is considered
holy, which is ironic at best, because it is a system founded on lies,
or at least half truths, and wannabe truths. People fight and kill for
their religious beliefs. we have all heard the phrase ‘holy war.’ Again,
ironic at best. if a person is being honest with themselves chances are
they probably aren't fighting a holy war. They are probably fighting for
land or for their country or for the protection of their home. But they
are tricked into believing they are fighting for their religion or for
their God, usually by their government. Governments are notorious liars.
That's their job. Military men are trained liars. That's part of their
job. You learn to become an expert liar, in case you get caught, in case
you are overheard by the enemy, or the people you serve. You have to lie.
Think Oliver north, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr. think Lyndon Johnson
and the Tonkin scandal during
Most of the documents associated with the murder of John f Kennedy are still classified and have not been revealed to the people. So they know all this information about what really happened and they refuse to tell us. They aren't necessarily lying; they just aren't telling us the truth. Is that a lie? Well chances are they are just covering up a bunch of lies. So yea they are lying. Is that wrong? I don't know.
And that's my point. How can you expect people at this point in time to be honest, to honor or respect the truth when most of what we are told as children about the most fundamental elements of our lives like government and religion are lies? Well you cant really. You hear about George Washington chopping down the cherry Tree and then saying ‘I cannot tell a lie’ when you are a child in elementary school. And then in college you learn that it was a made up tale. So what are you supposed to believe. We become hypnotized from a very young age to believe everything we are told until we learn that it is a lie and then to try to pretend it away, or make an excuse for it being a lie. We are told that yes most of the presidents have lied to us over and over again. That's just part of their job. It's national security. It's for the good of the country.
There is the classic John
f Kennedy sleeping with Marilyn Monroe affair and the support he received
from the mob etc. there is the Nixon Watergate affair. The Ronald Reagan ‘I
don't recall’
Take a look at some of our holidays for instance. Everyone loves Christmas and thanksgiving. I know I do. but it always me kind of sad too. just doesn’t sit right because it's like eating a virtual cake or making love to a virtual woman on a computer screen. You want to have a good time and celebrate but you have to suspend your disbelief and kind of hypnotize yourself into a kind of stupor in order to do so. Maybe that's why people eat and drink and shop so much during the holidays---to numb themselves from the reality of how phony it all is. Thanksgiving is a really sad affair as is Columbus day. We all know what happened to the native Americans that gave us all that food when our ancestors got off the mayflower and the other ships. We killed three million of them and forced them onto reservations so we could take their land. So that really isn't something to celebrate. Lately I have been researching the Native Americans movement that is still going very strong in this country. http://www.aimovement.org What they are asking for is that Columbus Day be rearranged to instead of being a national holiday celebrating the phony discovery of a land that was already discovered by them, that instead it be a national day of mourning dedicated to their genocide and almost total annihilation. And that we change the name to Native American day. Sounds logical enough. After all, if there were ‘native Americans’ then there really wasn't anything to discover, was there? But no ‘new Americans’ seem to really care about that too much.
Christmas is even worse. History tells us that Jesus was actually born in September (or March according to some), most agree it was around the ninth. O.k. so why December 25th then? Well number one, that's right around the time of Hanukah, and even more significantly, that time was already a holiday celebrated by everyone called Yule, which was a pagan holiday celebrating the return of the winter solstice and the darker, older aspect of the Goddess that most people believed in at the time, until the roman empire stole Jesus to use him as a means of controlling the people. what they did was not only steal Jesus but stole the pagan holiday as well and throw them together and made it mandatory that everyone stop celebrating Yule, stop worshipping the goddess, and start worshiping Jesus. And if you didn’t you were beaten or killed. This went on for centuries until after a thousand years or so people started getting the idea that they better just do what they say. So here we are celebrating Christmas and worshipping Jesus, who was a Jew by the way, and who preached Hellenistic Judaism as a way to unite the Jewish people to overthrow the Romans. That was his whole mission. How the hell the Romans ended up turning the whole thing around and claimed Jesus as their own when he gave up his life to try to save his people from the enslavement of them is really quite a testament to how willing people are to believe any lie they have to for their own survival. And worse yet, Jesus was or is today at least, someone who represents peace on earth.
Ironic at best. Millions of people were killed in the first thousand years in the name of Jesus. First the Romans killed thousands of people who believed in Jesus, because after all he was Jewish and the religion that came up around him was for the most part a Jewish one, a spin of Judaism. Then when they couldn’t beat them, they decided to take them for their own, and then they killed hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn’t say they believed in him. funny really.
That's what it's like right now to be a human being here on our planet. It's just a bunch of lies and half truths pieced together. No sense. No truth. Just a bunch of craziness. So yea Christmas is a pretty hard one to swallow. Add in the whole Santa clause thing and you’ve got a real clusterfuck for a holiday.
And I'm not even going to go into the whole God thing because that's a whole other matter entirely. But suffice it to say that to me if I was to imagine a human race in say one hundred or so years, a human species that survives modern times and moves on in it's evolution, I would say that it looks something like this: a people who celebrate truth above all else. A people who still have similar holidays, but rather than just be these chaotically arranged belief clusters of incongruent ideologies beaten into the people, they are instead days to celebrate our survival as a species, and the values and virtues that we hold most dear to us, such as family, honesty, loyalty, integrity, friendship, and peace. Now imagine that. That would truly be a holiday. Without lies, without fabrication, without a bloody regretful history of murder and deceit and treachery, without the need to suspend disbelief. But a true holiday. Something to celebrate.
So how do we get there? well I know for me the last ten years or so have been a slow up hill battle with it all. first trying to find a way to deal with the fact that I am stuck here at this time in history in a world full of lies that are taken as truth. That was the hardest part. When you first realize what’s going on you kind of go crazy. but then if you have the survival instinct, you start to become a passive revolutionary so to speak. You become a peaceful warrior for the new humanity. The humanity of truth and peace. You look around you and all you see is lies and war, but you can kind of tell that if we are to survive it will be through embracing those two ideals more than any others, truth and peace. So you make a silent pact with yourself that you will do everything in your power to uphold these virtues within yourself and with others, and more, you will do your best to humbly, and subtly promote these values to those around you whenever you can.
People will start to notice that you are a good peaceful honest decent person and that you aren't necessarily religious and they will start to wonder about things. They will see that you are a patriot, a believer in the highest ideals of freedom and democracy and the pursuit of happiness for all people, but that you aren't necessarily a blind sheep ready to believe whatever your government tells you, and again they will start to wonder about things. Maybe they will start to question their own beliefs a little, more importantly maybe they will start to question mass consciousness beliefs, the ones at the core, that keep the lies and half truths embedded in our day to day lives century after century. Maybe they will start to realize that humanity can be moral without necessarily worshipping gods. Or that a people can be free and democratic but that doesn’t necessarily imply not questioning or challenging their government from time to time.
Current Spin: nobukazu takemura, sign. A very rare 1999 release recorded in Chicago with a semi-live band.
11-13-02
You get to a point where you can sense when someone is lying. You can hear it in their voice. If you're not listening for it or conscious of this ability you may never notice this. you may just be aware of something weird in the space when you are talking to them, and may not know what it is. But once you start to realize this phenomenon then you get really good at picking up on when someone just lied to you. it's really amazing. They walk away or you walk away or maybe they are still talking and you are totally aware that they are lying. Or making stuff up. it's like their line doesn’t get delivered fully. That's what it feels like. You hear it but you don't feel it. you feel something else instead of what they just said. Even if they are looking at you right in your eye—especially if they are looking at you right in your eyes, lol, if it feels a little weird then there is something there other than what is being said. Some kind of incongruence.
I am thinking of this because it has presented a big lesson for me over the last few weeks. My assistant recently quit. This isn't the first time this has happened. From what I hear I am not the easiest person to work for. I have heard eccentric. I have heard just downright crazy. Some last for a week. Some last for a year or two. But normally when they leave, it is very clean. they sit down. We have a talk. They explain that they have to move on, or whatever, maybe shed a few tears and they give their two weeks notice and then over the next couple of weeks we sew everything up and find someone else and then usually the old one teaches the new one the ropes for a while and then moves on. Maybe they’ll call a few times a week to make sure everything is going smooth and be available for the new one to ask questions etc. that's the way it normally goes in the world. But this wasn't like that. she didn't quit as much as just disappeared one day. One day she just left and didn't come back. no call. No letter, no resignation. Just gone.
So the last few weeks for me and the band have been pretty frantic. We don't know where anything is. Databases are missing. Contact information is missing. My life is crazy. Paperwork is piling up everywhere. agents are calling asking for stuff and we don't know where it is or how to send it to them if we did. so that's the last few weeks. Pure madness. But that isn't the point. She had done this before about a month after she first started. Just left one day. Now I called her back and said hey what's up, and she was mad because she thought we were going to replace her. And I said, ‘look we aren't going to replace you, and even if we were thinking about it, we would have placed you somewhere else, into some other job.’ But because she thought this, she just felt like it would be better to just leave and not say anything. She thought that there was a certain dignity in that rather than being fired I guess. The way she did it was by lying to someone at the office. she said she was going to the bank and would be right back. and then she left for good.
Because I liked her, I saw that perhaps I was too closed off to her at first and that perhaps if she came back and I opened up more we could really make it work. so we both agreed to do that and she should come back the next week. She promised to talk to me about things more and she would never do that again. So it felt like there was this strong bond of solidarity between us. My partner was fuming. She was adamant about not rehiring someone who quit without giving notice and especially when they lied. If they lied once they will lie again, she would say. And when you are working with someone so intimately you depend on every word each other says. You just never think for a minute that anyone is lying. Like in a relationship. But I went against this logic and instinct and rehired her. And this is where it gets tricky, because throughout the time that she worked for me, I could sense other times when she would lie. But I wasn't necessarily aware of it. Or maybe I was but just brushed it off.
Little things like I would call her over the weekend and she wouldn’t call back until Monday late morning. And I would say why didn't you call back? I needed that information or whatever and she would say, ‘that's funny, I didn't get your voicemail until today.’ things like that. this would happen all the time. but I just kept trying to ignore it. because I thought that it wasn't as important as the things we were getting accomplished. But this is where I really fucked up. because I should have realized, honored the fact that the truth is the most important thing. It doesn’t matter what you are getting accomplished if things aren't as they seem in the first place. Who really knows what you are really accomplishing anyway if the truth isn't there as a foundation. I knew this. I chose to go against this instinct I was feeling. There is nothing I hate more that someone who lies. But I chose to ignore the feelings, the signs of it, because I kept making all these excuses like we were so busy or maybe I am just overreacting or whatever. And then when things would get fucked up because she said she did something but didn't, I would get mad but we were so busy, I would brush it off. And also she and I had made this pact when she was rehired so I didn't want to break that pact. I didn't want to let her go because I didn't feel it was right.
Well when I went away a few weeks ago, two days after I left, she left. No call, no letter, no resignation, no two weeks notice. Nothing. She just flaked out and disappeared. And worse. No communication since then to try to help out or clean things up or train the new person or tell us where stuff is filed or anything like that. and it gets worse. So then we’re in her office over the next couple of weeks trying to find stuff that we need to carry on day to day business and we start going through her desk and file cabinets and we find all this stuff misfiled and shoved away in the wrong place. And we start finding all these things that were supposedly done but instead were hidden somewhere in a drawer or a filing cabinet. Pictures that were supposed to be sent to people eight months ago were hidden, or press kits that were addressed to people but never sent were under a pile of papers. I'm thinking, ‘holy shit, now I know why for the last six months my life has felt so over the top crazy. Because it really was crazy. I just couldn’t figure out why. now I know.
At first I just had to deal with it personally. Just face the fact that I really fucked up by trusting someone who had already lied and went against my own instincts time and time again. Knowing that perhaps they weren't being honest a lot of time and I didn't do anything about it. and then on a deeper level trying to deal with the philosophical issue that arises when you realize that maybe you just can’t go around being the nice guy all the time, because there really are people out there who will take advantage of that. and maybe they aren't totally aware that they are that way. they just are. It's on automatic for them. And for me that has always been hard. I always give everyone the benefit of the doubt so to speak and just trust them all the way. this is one of those lessons I don't know if I want to learn. Because somewhere deep within me is this undying desire to believe that everyone is good and looks out for the next guy. But the fact is that this just isn't the way it is most of the time. in fact that's pretty rare. That's why when you do meet someone who is straight up and you can tell that they are an honest person you really appreciate them, because maybe it's rarer in this world than we care to admit to ourselves. Some of my friends are like, ‘bro what the hell is wrong with you?! You look at things too personally. Business is business, and everything is business. Whether it's your assistant or someone you hire to fix your car. If you can tell that they are lying to you, or you even think it for a moment, get them the fuck out of your life. you can’t afford to have some shit hit the fan in your own life because someone else fucked something up.’
So that's something I have really had to look at dead on in the last few weeks; really my whole life.
Current Spin: the hives, veni vindi vicious. Good solid fun raw non-alterna-rock n roll. That's why you don't hear it on the radio.
11-11-02
being in the play, learning acting has done something to me/for me. has opened me up in a way I had always wanted. On Saturday we played Churchill's hideaway in Miami. This place is a total dive but one of the few places left to play in the entire city for a rock band performing live music. Churchill's was the first club I ever played in my whole life many years ago with broken spectacles. We were 18 years old. Green little kids so eager to just be on stage. We would play three sets a night! for hours and hours. For little crowds of all of our friends. And we would drink on stage and be so drunk by the time we got off that we couldn’t even see straight. Back then I couldn’t even tune my guitars. Dave or Matt would do it for me. I didn't know how to get good tone from my amp and didn't know what good tone was. I couldn’t play the guitar to save my life. but we had fun. So it was great to be back there, where it all started. So many years ago.
Saturday night we—the transcendence—played the best show of our careers at Churchill's as a band. at least I did. I cannot help but feel that it has something to do with this acting thing and the subtle influence these crazy people have had on me. I felt so open and free and inspired and happy to be there on stage with my boys singing and playing. Throughout our concert people would walk out of the room, others would come in. It was late, past 1am. Normally I would obsess on that during our shows. Oh my God, why are they leaving? Don't they like us? are we too loud? Are we not loud enough? Are we not hard enough? Are we too hard? Do my vocals suck that bad? Do we not look cool enough? Something clicked on in me over the last few weeks. I decided to stop worrying. I don't know why. I just made a conscious decision to stop. Instead of focusing on the people who were leaving, I focused instead on the smiling faces who were singing along to every word and clapping and looking like they were having so much fun. I focused on the people dancing and jumping up and down. I focused on the great songs we were singing and how much I loved them and how much I loved being in this band with these guys who are so good and so talented and who give up so much of their lives to be up there with me playing. I would look over at the Piano Man or Vancouver and they would just be rocking it out so hard and sincere and I felt inspired and happy to be me. at one point after the show was over we got our money for the night. a total of fifty four dollars to split between 5 guys. Do the math. I was exhausted and still had to get my equipment off of the stage. i spoke to the God I keep in my head like many of us do, ‘God this sucks. I can’t believe I am still doing this. I have to load my own equipment. I am here in this grungy old bar in the worst part of town and I just spent hundreds of dollars to do this by the time I get done paying the guys and transportation etc. God I am just going to quit if you don't help me out here right now! I am tired and frustrated by this.’ and God said, ‘you can quit if you want to. It's totally up to you. You’ve quit before. Do you remember what it was like? You weren't very happy when you quit making music last time. do you remember? It's up to you. you'll come back though.’ So in that moment, I realized that he/she/it was right. I just enjoyed the hell out of that experience. So was it worth it? yes it was. We sang love is you and the people in the audience sang along with us. We sang oh you pretty things by David Bowie and it felt so great. This was a good show. I cannot wait till our next one.
Current Spin: franco Batiato, café paix. Great contemporary Italian singer/visionary.
11-09-02
Another rehearsal tonight for the play. We are having so much fun in this. there are only seven of us in the play. Every night before we start to rehearse we do all these really fun exercises to warm up. this builds a certain camaraderie between us so we feel like one. and then we get into it. I am so impressed by all of them. they are so warm and open and friendly and willing to be vulnerable. Totally different vibe than the musicians set. No chip on their shoulder and very little attitude. Sure they are a little moody but it's pretty stressful to suck yourself into some character that isn't you and really try to be that. You're totally putting yourself on the line. I have just been in awe of them since we started working together.
The director is named Nikki. She is a total pro. Only 27 years old. So impressive. They really take it seriously. If bands took their work as seriously as actors and theatre people do, instead of sitting around smoking pot and talking all the time, they would be a lot more successful. I have learned a lot from these theatre people. they are very serious about their craft.
Current Spin: midnight oil, 20,000 watt RSL.
11-08-02
An email from a friend: this topic is everywhere these days, for good reason,
“Is it legal (as far as copyright laws go) to burn CDs at home and distribute to your friends as gifts? An item on Haley's Christmas list is a CD burner; she wants to make CDs for her favorite music and give it to her friends as gifts ... I am not sure but think gifting is OK but
selling these type of CDs may be illegal - thought you could shed some light ..... “
O.k. literally it is not legal unless they are for yourself only because then those other people will not have to buy the cds for themselves, so the artists lose money and concert tickets go up even higher because it is the only way that we can make our money now. But some people argue that if people like the CD they will go buy it anyway to get the artwork etc, so I don't know the answer for you. I personally don't even like burned cds for myself because you don't get the real thing—you don't get the true artist’s vision---and half the time they don't even work, but a lot of people her age do like them cause they don't have much money, so I kind of think it is the wave of the future unfortunately. So we will see. I think it is inevitable that, A, people will keep doing it, and that B, we will start adding royalties to CD burners and blank CDs to pay the artists that are creating the content that warrants their existence in the marketplace in the first place, and la princessa , that if it does continue, that concert tickets will continue to go up because musical artists will have no other way to support themselves or their families except from live appearances as more and more unique ways of obtaining recorded music for free become available to the consumer.
I think of it much the same way as store-brand generic products in the drug store or grocery store. You walk into a drug store or grocery store and you see Advil, or Cheerios, or Visine, and then right next to it is that store’s own brand of the same product, an exact replica in fact, trying desperately to look and feel the same to the consumer at half the price. You don't want to buy it—you don't want to be a part of something so insidious and blatantly uncool, but then you compare the prices and you realize that you're going to save so much money and after all it's the same damn thing, so you end up buying it in the end. And before you know it, many of the items in your medicine cabinet and your kitchen are generic store brand products. One can see the similarities in the analogy, but with burning CDs or downloading mp3’s it's even worse because it's just out and out stealing, and it's not even legal. It's a loophole at best. It's just us telling ourselves, ‘well I’ll just do it and why should I care—those rock stars they make so much money anyway…’ or whatever people tell themselves.
The fact is though that most musicians don't make nearly enough money to even support themselves. Think of bands like the Dixie Chicks or TLC filing for bankruptcy in the last few years. Whereas when you’re buying a store-brand or generic product you're condoning this other company stealing the intellectual property—the formula, the ingredients profile—from another company. Tricky business. Either way, we’re all screwed, because we’re all screwing each other. Getting by on technicalities. And telling ourselves that somehow it is all o.k.
For me, I won't take a burned CD if someone offers it to me. I think it's funny when they do, because that's how I make my living, form selling my own cds, so when a person offers me a burned CD of another band or singer, I think it's kind of ignorant and short sighted of them—especially when it's other musicians that do it—that is just retarded—I mean most of them are already so broke they live like bums, barely able to get by, so now they're willing to give away one of the last chances at earning an income they have left—recorded music—that is too funny. I have heard all the excuses in the book to justify burning cds of other peoples’ music and I still don't think any of them fly unless you can find a way to guarantee that the artists are going to paid for that CD you just burned.
People say that they burn it to see if they like it, and if they like a CD by an artist they will always go out and buy it. So that's why when you open up a CD case by anyone under the age of forty, it's filled with burned cds in it. And another thing, you don't walk into your local grocery store and say, ‘hey I've never tried that cereal before. Can I take this out of the store for free? I’ll just shove it under my coat. No one will mind. And if I like it, well then I’ll come back and buy another box. Or next time you go into a restaurant tell them you want to eat all the food free, and if you like it, you'll come back some other time and pay for your next meal.
I have always maintained this notion for as long as I can remember, and that is that if everyone stopped stealing or trying to steal from everybody else, none of us would have to worry about not having enough money. But everyone has to take responsibility for this. You don't sit around and wait for everyone else to make the change. You make the change yourself first. And then if you are bothered by those around you who are still ripping us all off, then do something about it. speak up. write some letters, start a march, a protest, a boycott, an embargo, just do it. But stop with your bullshit that everyone else is doing it, so I'm going to as well.
I have a friend, God bless him, who wanted to send me a broken guitar through UPS so he could insure it for a lot and then open the box and lo and behold the guitar would be broken and UPS would have to pay to fix the guitar. Smart right? what a great way to save money. We’ll never have to pay to fix our guitars again with his plan. This is insurance fraud. His justification is of course that those fucking insurance companies charge so much, I’ll never get all my money back from them that I've paid over the years. “Those fuckers.” That's the old projection game. I’ll project on you so I can rip you off and then you project on me so you can continue to rip me off and we’ll just keep doing that to each other forever. And the people who really lose this game are the poor people who are scared shitless that they will go to jail if they ever get caught, or just the good people of the world who try to pay their bills and do the right thing their whole life and when they least expect it they get fucked up the ass by some large multi-national corporation that considers ripping people off business as usual. This is the same persistent reality that we all live by that keeps our prisons filled with petty criminals who got caught shoplifting, while rich white guys who steal millions and billions are left off the hook, like these fucks from Enron.
Think of Winona Ryder. Sure Winona is cute. I like her as much as the next guy. I grew up having a crush on her. But she knew what she was doing when she did it. She got caught. O.k. so pay your price. Be a man (so to speak). Stand up for what is right. Don’t waste our fucking time and money in court trying to get off while other people go to jail for doing what she did. She should volunteer to go to jail. Just to make the point that she's one of the good guys, that she knows she did wrong and she believes in our system, and she's willing to pay the price. If someone broke into her house and stole her clothes I guarantee she would want them to go to jail for it.
I have another friend who
really enjoys sneaking into every place he can without paying. Clubs, movies,
parties. He will even sneak into a charity event if he can. And he makes
a lot of money. He’s an attorney. But he just likes to save money whenever
he can. I can’t take it when he does that. It's like he doesn’t see the
big picture. He doesn’t appreciate what we have here. this free enterprise
system that we all take for granted. We’re all trying to do our best to
respect each other’s right to earn our living by offering each other goods
and services that the other person wants. So what it does is just perpetuate
this lack mentality that is so prevalent in our society. This ‘I have nothing
and all these big companies have so much’ and all that ‘I hate rich people’ crap.
Hello???!!! You're in
So no I don't want you to give me the newest Strokes album on a burned CD. And no I don't want you to tell me that your friend burned you my last album and you listen to it everyday and you really love it. That doesn’t help me or honor me or respect me.
Current Spin: Radiohead, o.k. computer (bought it J )
11-07-02
Absolutely beautiful day
today. it finally got below 80 degrees in Miami, a miracle perhaps… today
I went to pick up an Italian suit I had had custom made at Zegna, one of
the top three Italian suit makers in the world today (Brioni, Armani, Cannalli, Zegna).
That's what they tell me anyway. This was my first time doing this. They
take your measurements and help you choose the fabric and the style of
the suit and they send it off to
In the studio again all day today to finish up my guitars. We finished. Now it's time for Vancouver to do his guitars, then piano man’s keyboards, lead vocals, background vocals, handclaps, percussion and various other little things here and there, and then were done. The tracks sound great. I hope we can finish it fast enough so by the time it comes out we still like what we made. maybe by January, we can be done.
11-06-02
First voice lesson today with yet another teacher. While I was away I really felt into this other new teacher I had. whenever I thought about her I felt bad. I did not feel good inside and I have learned to trust these feelings now. to follow the feelings always. If something feels good, if it feels clean and clear, and light and makes you feel happy, then it is a good thing. If something causes a disturbance in your body or mind, then have a look at it. Something is trying to tell you something. Easy enough. So, I just felt into it and decided that regardless of all of her awards and reputation and boasting and such I would prefer to experience my music in a much more joyful way. music for me is so important and such a reservoir for joy and happiness in my life./ I hated the way that she made it seem so stern, desperate, and negative, telling me I couldn’t have a glass of water during my lessons and such. I really started to feel sorry for her and take it on myself like o.k. if I keep coming here I can make her feel better, make her happier as a person. and then I kind of let that go. Well today was a good lesson. Happy. Clear. Sang well.
So I'm in mikes cigars walking around and I look over across the room and I see this really hot girl and I think ‘wow, who is that?!’ I recognize that shirt. And then I realize that it is mirror on the other side of the room. It's me. I think I must look pretty feminine. Holy shit, I look like a chick.
11-05-02
We are rehearsing every night now for this upcoming play. Every night till midnight or later. These are long days. Wake up, go to the office during the day, rush to the studio to record, then straight to play rehearsal, and then home to eat a late dinner. Maybe get to sleep by three or four, and then try to wake up by nine or ten to start over again. Crazy. But I am learning so much from these actors. They call it getting the bug. They are so much fun and wild and open and free. By Friday I feel like I just have to pass out.
11-04-02
After the recent theatre
hostage crisis in Moscow, I became curious about
As it turns out, my suspicions were
right. As usual,
What's amazing to a person when they
first start to study all of this—what hits you first-- is the complete
ignorance that most of us live in about world affairs, and how in the dark
we are about what is really going on. We hear ‘rebels held people hostage,’ and
we think the bad guys. But in fact it is absolutely no different than the
1700’s when the
The next thing that hits you, when
you come at the reality of all of this with a brand new fresh perspective
is why in the hell does the rest of the world sit and watch while one major
country tortures brutalizes rapes pillages and murders another smaller
country? That is the real question. This is something really that just
sits in the back of the mind constantly, without end… and
Are we supposed to feel sorry for the
recent victims in the theatre in Moscow? Are we supposed to feel sorry
for the victims of attacks in
I think that eventually humanity will
wake up. I have faith in this. I have faith that one day the people will
wake up and get real and get honest. That power hungry war mongers will
no longer control the people and the media that feeds the people the garbage
they wash their fast food down with. I have faith that one day, maybe in
this lifetime, maybe in my next, that I will wake up and read in the paper
that
To learn more about
· Ancient
Ethnic History of Chechnya
·Article
- The history and politics of Chechen Oil
·BBC
NEWS | World | Europe | History of hijackings in Chechen conflict
·Real
Cities.com | 10/25/2002 | Graphic | History of Chechen attacks
·CHECHNYA
FREE.RU Chechen Republic: news, history, traditions
·BBC
NEWS | World | Europe | History of hijackings in Chechen conflict
·World
History Archives: History of the Chechen Republic (Checheno-Ingushetya,
Ichkeriya)
·Unpo -
Chechen
·chechen republic online - history of chechnya -
from past to present
·Who are the Chechen?
11-04-02
watching this world war two documentary.
Hours and hours. Amazing. Buy it if you can. its fantastic. So educational,
illuminating. This is before the UN and NATO. Countries just attacked each
other all the time. no one was really without blame. It was almost as if
humanity had not yet discovered the difference between right and wrong.
Also discovered that the highest casualties
of World War II were not the Jews, but
11-03-02
Good weekend. On Friday we finally heard from the big time talent show organization. We auditioned for this thing months ago and they refused to give us any info until the official announcement. Well that was Friday night. And we won. So we are very happy. We weren't the only winners but we will receive the award for best unsigned artist of 2002. And we will perform live at the televised awards show. So that is very groovy. Last night went to see Elvis Costello at the Jackie Gleason theatre with Omine. Elvis’ voice is stronger than ever. He just has this amazing voice. Today I received an email that I will be able to go backstage and meet Caetano Veloso and present him with this song I wrote for him called Caetano when he performs here later this month. I am so excited, I can’t believe it. he is one of my biggest influences and inspirations.
We have been working on getting our radio station up, Transcendent Radio, on our website. www.transcendence.com. A lot of fun. Playing all the music we love as well as a lot of tracks from various albums of our own.
Last Movie: punch drunk love, by pt Anderson. Well Paul is a brilliant filmmaker. This one is small, very singular in scope but still has that other-worldly quirkiness that makes him such a visionary stylist. Adam Sandler finally shows that he is no longer simply a comic actor. He pulls off a fantastic performance.
Current read: set your voice free by roger Love
Current Spin: Josh Groban. Modern pop opera. An absolutely flawless voice.
11-01-02
Rehearsing every night for this play called Decay that I have stumbled into. Having a great time learning the art and craft of acting. The other cast members who are all trained actors in one way or another have been very nice, showing me the ropes and teaching me the technology of it, and the vocabulary. Scripting, blocking, crossing, off book, all this new nomenclature, a lot of fun. Fascinating really. I always took acting for granted till a few weeks ago. Now I am just in awe of people who can do it so well. It is so transparent when they are doing it, you don’t even know that they are acting. I get chills watching everyone rehearse. They must think I'm funny. I clap for everyone when they rehearse a scene, but I just get so impressed. Then I go up and try to do my part, you know, I still have the script in my hand, the rest of them have already memorized their lines. I'm digging it. I love getting to know them, these actor types. Totally different than the musician types I've been hanging out with forever. I mean these are the same people who were in drama class in high school, you know. And we never hung out with them. They were always the biggest geeks, and we were always really hip and cool. We played guitar, surfed, did drugs, smoked, and always dressed cool. And they just didn't. The drama kids were always God I don’t even remember; well for one thing they never dressed cool. They dressed like poor geeks. You know I'm stereotyping here, but for a reason.
Well here it is ten years later, at least for me, and the lines have all blurred. There are still these huge differences. I'm sitting in this den of inequity where we all rehearse every night, this artists’ work space, where I think maybe a thousand people live or something. You're working on something and people just crawl out of corners with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths and no shoes on. It's wild. And then in walk these actors and actresses. And it's just so wild compared to the musicians. They are so prepared. They have all these notes on their script and they are so reserved and then all of a sudden they burst into this scene like no body’s business. And you are like shocked. Also they are so friendly. Compared to musicians. Who are so caught up in themselves and worried about being taken seriously and all of that. Where as the actors are pretty open and friendly people. I mean really, the space will be half filled with musicians who live there and half filled with actors who are working out of there and you can really tell the difference between the two groups. And I can relate because for a long time I was one of those dark and moody serious musician types myself. But I gave that up. God I am so much happier now, having my attention out, rather than in. Well that's a different story, but I'm digging this acting thing. These people are real, which is really funny to say, because they are actors.
Also Transcendent Radio is here. it is so cool.
Current read: tropical truth, a story of music and revolution in Brasil by Caetano Veloso
Current Spin: alone again by Father Bloopy. Sort of an underground t. rex meets dinosaur jr., quirky trippy lo-fi.
Last Movie: the world at war, the 26 hour documentary about world war II
10-27-02
Hotel doesn’t even have shampoo. In the mad rush to get here I forgot to bring any toiletries, so I'll be looking very pretty today. Woke up working on a new song, ‘Caetano,’ this morning. Still trying to capture the lyrics for this one. Thinking a lot about The Adventures of Fishy which is close to being finished, but has been put aside because so much work now on the last two albums and the website and the diaries etc. I hate politics, and reform talk and all that. I went to sleep last night just drained and overwhelmed and thought, you know, I'm an artist. I like to sing and write songs and write stories and stuff. That's my thing. I don’t like the fact that things are so messed up that I feel like I have to do something about it. I don’t want to. I just want to do my thing. If artists are supposed to be the entertainers say and enlighteners, at best, and politicians are supposed to be the guys taking care of everything social, economic, and political, I don’t think things are working out so well for us. You don’t see Clinton up on stage teaching Aerosmith how to play ‘Dream on.’ Why should we have to teach them how to do their jobs right?
O.k. enough of that. I'm back now. On the cab ride to the airport I saw the headline in the Washington Post that yesterday was the biggest protest march since the sixties. Imagine that. So in a way we did it. lets hope it accomplishes something. Spent the day seeing the city and some of the monuments and attractions of the District. DC is a beautiful city. The weather is gorgeous. All the trees are changing color. A crispness in the air that we never get in Miami. After today I feel so inspired to be an American. You can’t help but be inspired after coming here. of course you can’t help but be disgusted as well when you think of the lowly heights we have stooped over the last fifty years. You know, people tell you it's always been this corrupt, that history always has a way of covering up the worst and weakest moves of our leaders. So who knows. Try to remember that when our ‘forefathers’ first drafted the bill of Rights and the Constitution that it was only for white men; it didn't include women or black people, or indigenous people, etc. So just that is pretty gross, and shows how far we've come as a nation. But boy the ideals that this country is founded on are so fantastic. It is inspiring.
10-26-02
Wow. What an exciting day! Went to
the anti-war rally and march today held at the
Once we took to the street I was so moved by how many of us there were and how we all just walked together in unity for this cause and so many others. I had my guitar with me and I strummed ‘Give peace a chance’ while various groups would start chanting things over bullhorns. Eventually a man with a bullhorn joined me and then a man with a drum and then a man with a tambourine and we started singing ‘give peace a chance’ and pretty soon the whole crowd was singing with us and I was strumming and singing and this man next to me was shouting over the bullhorn, “we can stop it if we want to” “we have a choice” in between verses. I got chills. It was a groovy scene. People were hanging out of all the buildings waving to us and cheering us on. 200,000 people marching in Washington DC is a powerful sight.
Check out photos here: http://www.tmgservers.net/photo_albums/BAND/peacemarch1002/
Now this is truly amazing. I am sitting
in my hotel room now taking some notes and watching CNN. And in the last
hour they have dedicated ten minutes to rap group bone thugs and harmony
and another ten minutes to singer faith hill and maybe a half hour worth
of news to various different George bush pieces about his war on Iraq and
all this stuff, and they showed all of one minute to this huge peace march
today in the Nations capital. 200,000 people marched together to the white
house to protest not just the potential war on Iraq but many other issues
that real Americans are fighting everyday, like health care reform and
the fact that George bush stole the presidency in the first place. Protests
and marches also took place in San Francisco, Berlin,
Also curious is once you start studying
all this stuff you start hearing a lot of different things that the media
doesn’t tell us about at all, like the fact that this new war that Bush
proposes will cost us, the American tax-payers 200 billion dollars and
we are already in a disastrous recession. They also never bother to tell
us how close he and the Enron CEO were, that Enron contributed tens of
millions of dollars to the Bush campaign, that he warned Bush six months
before it happened that Enron was in bad financial trouble from inside
dirty business and that Bush never warned the American people. One would
assume that they just thought they could cover it up or fix it. There is
so much more. My mind is over-whelmed with so much that I learned today.
So now all we hear about is this war that Bush wants to get us into. He
is saying that he doesn’t care if the UN backs us or not. He is willing
to break the international law if he has to. He doesn’t care if anyone
backs us or not, he just wants to do it. And it's just so amazing that
the media really hasn’t focused on the fact that most people in and out
of the
Part two
Went to dinner tonight at a French
restaurant to celebrate. French onion soup, flank steak with shallot and
red wine sauce, profiletores for desert, a double espresso and a cigar.
The meal was delicious. Everyone at the various tables at the restaurant
we’re talking about what they saw today in the streets of their city. I
soaked in this wonderful feeling of what I experienced today with so many
beautiful intelligent people. While I was eating and smoking and enjoying
this great feast I was ruminating about how many more people could have
been there today. What a small percentage of
People who are sick of the government
doing whatever they want to at the expense of morality or ethics or concern
for the majority. At the expense of what may happen to us in the future
if we make more people angry and resentful towards us. September 11th wasn't
an accident. And it wasn't for nothing. It was real. It was an attack on
our people as a way to get back at things our government has done to other
countries people. We need to remember that. if we don’t want another September
11th, we need to keep a better eye on our government and maybe
it's time we started ruling them a little tighter as is our right. After
all, they work for us. We don’t work for them. I hope today accomplished
something. If we woke up tomorrow and the news was starting to talk about
real issues rather than this war on
Improving health care in
10-25-02
Arrived in Dc tonight for the anti-war march. Sick, tired. Nauseas from the plane ride and shuttle ride. Going to sleep now; I'm not even going eat. Energy in the air all over the city. Everyone is talking about it. The hotel is filled with people from many different organizations who are attending the march tomorrow. But this hotel is a rat trap. Pretty gross. We’re not in South Beach anymore.
Last Movie: Father Goose with Cary Grant. Thank God for Cary Grant.
10-19-02
Just returned from the Avatar pro course in Orlando. Took some notes. 475 people from 18 different countries speaking 18 different languages but all converged together in the same room to do the same thing. Create an enlightened planet through making ourselves better people and happier people. you just can’t believe what it is like to sit in that space for seven days with all these people who are together for the same reason and just be so free to work on yourself and help others do the same thing.
[this is some hardcore trippy new age stuff here so be forewarned...]
For a long time I didn't talk about Avatar to the public or to anyone. I just figured it was better kept quiet. That maybe people would think it was some kind of a cult or something. Now that it has gotten so big we joke, maybe it is a cult. But who cares. Lol. After all there are only 90,000 Avatars in the world today. And look what happened to Shirley McClain when she started talking about her spiritual journey with people. But you know a lot of Christian artists don’t have a problem thanking God or whatever when they are on stage. Avatar isn't a religion by any means. It really isn't even spiritual. It touches on a lot of spiritual matters. But it's more of a philosophy if anything. Really more just a set of tools that people use to make themselves better people, make themselves happier. Like therapy really, but instead of one hour a week you go for twelve hours a day for seven to fourteen days straight so you are able to really push beyond any limits that are inevitable in current therapeutic modalities. The miracle stories you hear every day from people from all over the world are amazing. Now Avatar courses are being taken every day of the year in every country in the world. So everyday more and more people are using the tools and waking up to the fact that we are all creating our own realities, rather than the ‘creator/fate/destiny/unseen forces’ theory that has existed for so many millennia in human consciousness. And the Avatar tools don’t necessarily negate or oppose or interfere with the ‘creator’ belief system if someone holds that one. It's just a nice added bonus.
So many amazing results. At one point I was on my hands and knees in the sand just feeling everything like I never have before. So grateful. So free. So happy. Laughing and laughing after discovering something I had in me since I was very young and then discreated it. Feels like walking on clouds. Processing all day and then all night. Only breaking for lunch and dinner. Maybe sit down and read something from a book.
Amazing. We are flying. Can feel everything like I never have before. When people get near me I can feel what is in their space for real. I can feel for yards and yards beyond my own personal space. When I feel other Avatars in the room, they feel empty and clear. We sit and smile at each other like little kids in an ashram in the East. Pure bliss.
The students help each other sometimes for five minutes sometimes for an hour or more work on whatever it is and then they get even more clean and clear. We smile more.
With Dave from
One thing I am noticing is my own natural tendency to want to create in the future rather than in the here now. I will create things that I want, but not address things that I am really currently experiencing right here in the moment. This is something I have been doing for a long time. so this whole course have found myself very eager and willing to take what I am experiencing in the moment and really go at it. Intensify attention on it and find out what is really going on inside myself. It's amazing. Realizing that primaries can help and really manifest if the space is clean underneath first. It's a lot easier to create a reality when you know who you are creating it for so to speak. When you understand what identity wants that and get rid of a lot of the other secondaries all over the place and in the way of it.
We are noticing that in our communication with others on phone or in email or in person or even with ourselves that we are being so honest that we are laughing. We have found this amazing honesty and realness in our communication and in our willingness that is almost not human. No pretense or desires or hidden agendas or fears or concerns of delivery. Just honesty and realness. It's dreamy and fuzzy and light and funny.
Another thing we are realizing is about resistance and creations. Resistance is that feeling that is in your space that tells you that something is not right. And it plays in your head or in your body like every couple of minutes. Like a repeating record or a movie. And for me personally I am realizing more and more that I am very used to living in that. But now I am discovering the value in intensifying attention on creations from the get go. just starting to get real curious about them and start really feeling what you really feel and then what is there and looking for unknowns about it, looking for the core. So maybe you have got stuff to do that morning but you still walk around in the intensifying attention mode on that creation and then all of a sudden you are in the bathroom and you are like “holy cow! I got it! I had no idea I felt that way.” you know? And then it clears the space. And then you are free to create what you prefer or just discreate that priorly created reality… really cool.
With Beth from Los Angeles and Nahal from Seattle. This is what the Avatar Course looks/feels like. It is definitely that whole love is in the air touchy feely good times vibe. But it’s a groovy scene and you make friends from all over the world.
I am taking these notes not at once but over the last seven days just little bits here and there. I just had this huge breakthrough about my band while just walking around and stuff and it was by doing intensify attention and then I came to another student in the final stretch of it and he smiled and guided me while I was just standing up and I was actually smiling the whole time while I was discovering all these unknowns I had and we both were smiling and then laughing and it really is like a trip. That's what it seems like. Just two beings like gods or something laughing at ourselves, laughing at humanity, just really enjoying ourselves and our creations and our silliness and funniness and uniqueness as we unravel the mysteries of who we are and why we are this way. We are at the table now as I am typing and he is writing and we are laughing so loud. Like big bowls of fruity laughter like little kids, like in the living deliberately book when everyone is just standing around laughing all the time. This is what it's like for us now. we could be talking about being abused as a child or people making fun of us, being a failure, not having money, or failing at a business, or a loser, or a bad kid, or being ugly, or any other “horrible creation” you can imagine and yea there are some tears but then they turn into laughter and then release and relief and then joy and then real funniness. Like oh my God are we amazing beings or what? Like Harry Palmer said “consciousness is funny.” It really is.
We may be working on some creation like ‘I am jealous of people who are really rich’ or ‘I never feel like I have enough time’ or something and then we will discreate it, then all of a sudden the room will clear up and almost seem to get more silent and open and spacious because the person just cleared that creation from their consciousness.
We have gotten so excited by what we are doing. We are out in the real world too during all of this. I got an email from a friend after my birthday brunch and it said, keep smiling Ed, because your smile heals.’ And me and my friend laughed realizing that the Avatar presence is real. That people notice it as a “healing smile.” They don’t know we are doing anything. They just know that “everything is great” when we are around.
On day nine I created “I am inspired and I inspire others.” And then my drummer came over and said “that's what's great about you, you are so inspired and that's inspiring to people…” and I didn't even notice it. So Agustin says to me did you hear what your drummer said? And I was like ‘no, but yea now I remember.’ And we both laughed. Cause our primaries are landing around us. you create it and then start to see the evidence of it around you.
So now we are starting to create primaries about spreading Avatar all over the world, all over our neighborhoods and our circles so things get easier in general for everyone. Realizing that it is happening. That every course that gets delivered in the world is easier than the last one for the students because more people in consciousness have already experienced it and are living it and breathing it.
Have found that when you maintain this open space that anything is possible. Where normally you get defensive you just keep the space open and just create what you want. It's up to us to create what we want in every moment. It isn't some random series of events that create our life experiences. It's us. in every moment. And our willingness to appreciate what we are creating and our courage to accept it, discreate it if we prefer and stay on course with creating what we really want.
Amazing to sit and be talking and then all of a sudden one of us starts to get into something, describing a feeling or a creation that we don’t prefer to be experiencing and before you know it we are already in an exercise right there, no matter where we are. The other student knows automatically to just start appreciating the other while the other one just opens up and starts talking it out, talking it through and pretty soon they are right in the middle of it finding unknowns and core creations that they have been resisting for years or even decades. Then they discreate it and wham. More freedom. More happiness.
To watch people so eager to really clean it up. It’s amazing because this can take place anywhere or anytime. We are living breathing creating machines. Living what we read about in the living deliberately book. Living the future of what humanity will be like when enough of us tip the scales and the whole of us are living like this. Clean and clear and totally ready and willing to take responsibility for our experiences. And on the other side, totally willing and eager to help the “others” of us to do this. In service to ourselves and to the other. We naturally take turns.
Often times during the day one of us will utter—usually between tears or laughter—“this is going to totally change my life” or something like that because of the magnitude of the creations that we are working on. Things that were so repressed or blocked that we had no idea that we were living through these creations. But there they were we just had to look a little. And you feel so much joy for them and so much appreciation that they have the courage and the strength to work on themselves and be honest with themselves because they are helping to create a better planet. More real. More happy. More honest.
I cannot speak for the others in the room but I feel lighter and happier than I have felt since when I first took Avatar seven years ago. More so though because now after all these years I am no longer scared of myself. I no longer have that blocked feeling or that apprehension of what I may find around the corner in my consciousness like I have lived with all my life. Now I am eager to see what is there and to let it go if I decide to. I walk around staring at everything and feeling everything. A little puddled. Need to reintegrate now a bit obviously.
No matter what feeling I get inside or resistance I have this realization that it is only resistance and like we know now it is because of the difference between the way things are and the way we think they should be and this is what sticks creations and the way out of that is to re-experience them to become source of them. Wow. O.k. so what was that you were saying you were feeling? Haha. Like a loser? A failure? A weak person who gets taken for granted? A bad person? An arrogant person? A jealous person? You know you just start to laugh because you begin to see how easy it is. The way out. Pretty much everything I feel I realize we covered in the last 7 days. So then I quickly discreate it in the moment and I am clear again.
Today we were really challenged by “the real world” starting to come into our lives again. And we realized how important it is to apply these tools to our real world everyday lives. If you are feeling something, go for what is really there in the moment. Rather than creating these primaries that are so far into the future that they don’t really affect your life as it is today. So yea. There it is. If you feel something, don’t get a drink of something or eat something or walk away or read something or call somebody or do something but instead just start to look at it and process it and then wham more free attention more freedom. More lightness of being. More primary.
Wow. So that was my time the last week. Really great. I think the closest I have ever come to being with God full time. With knowing that that really exists. With that knowingness that all is well and we are all Gods and it is o.k. to be us just as we are. J
10-24-02
Getting ready to go to Washington DC for the anti-war march. Over half
a million people expected in DC and 250,000 expected in the San Francisco area
march on the same day. Last month over 400,000 thousand people marched
in London against this war and in
So yea I'm going to march for that. I am going to march for peace. I am going to march to say ‘no I don’t know what the answer is, but I know now, after 6,000 years of human beings being here that killing isn't the answer anymore.’ Down with old ways, and in with the new. In with the new humanity. In with the new civilization. An enlightened planetary civilization.
| Subject: Help prevent a war on |
10-09-02
From Nightline: “TONIGHT'S SUBJECT: A sniper is terrorizing the Washington area. Six people are dead, two wounded. No one knows where, or when, he or she will strike again. This is terrorism in the most literal sense: people are scared and don't know quite what to do.”
Amazing sign of our times that things
are so crazy with bush and his mysterious new war on
Getting ready to go on a spiritual
sabbatical next week. Agents called from Atlanta about setting up dates
for upcoming tour for the east coast. Band is excited. Still sick with
a cold. went to the doctor’s office—a new doctor due to new insurance—a regular md doctor.
Hadn't been to one in a long time. I couldn’t believe it. not only did
he not know anything about health. He didn't even look healthy. He was
fat, had psoriasis, bloated. Walked with kind of a limp. Had a donut in
his mouth while he spoke. It was as funny as it was traumatizing. A whole
room full of helpless sheep in the waiting room who were his patients.
Little did they know. Because they are so used to it. they don’t know any
better. He told me it didn't look like a bacterial infection and then prescribed
an anti-biotic anyway. I told him his practice reminded me of the quackery
you read about in Time and Newsweek. He got real scared. I told him to
close his door because I was about to yell and I didn't want his staff
to hear. He closed the door. And I yelled. Then we talked for a while.
I told him my DHT levels were regularly high
and we should test for it. He asked me what that was. It was sad. He just
didn't know much. All he knew was to prescribe pills. Scary. I told him
I needed to see an ENT specialist for my throat
to see why I am losing my voice. He said, well if you aren't going to take
anti-biotics then what good is he going to do
for you? I replied, ‘are you trying to say that's all a throat doctor is
going to be able to do for me or anyone else? Prescribe some fucking pills
for someone who is losing their voice?!’ he says, “well that and prescribe
other medicine like steroids…” I was like, ‘so that's what it comes down
to now for you guys is just prescribing drugs? You don’t do anything else?” he
just stared at me. had no idea what I was getting at. And of course not.
I looked at the way his big stomach protruded out of his body. He didn’t
have a clue about health. Hadn't been healthy in decades himself obviously.
So of course he didn't know what I was talking about. His face was swollen.
He looked at me with a sad look on his face and he asked, “What do you
want? What can I do for you?” he just wanted me out. Seriously. I said, “Look,
just give me the referral for the throat doctor and I'll handle it from
here, o.k.?” His poor patients I thought. All these people think that this
is what health and medicine is all about. They think this man is a doctor.
I walked away feeling really bad for this guy and his patients. I felt
happy and relived that I knew the difference. That I have climbed out of
that barrel. Imagine a doctor who sees a patient for the first time and
doesn’t ask about exercise, food, or vitamins. a doctor who doesn’t demand
that his patients exercise and take vitamins. Unbelievable. It reminded
me of that feeling I used to get in elementary school when you are just
being told what to do all the time being led around like a prisoner. Regardless
of what you want or what your gut tells you. when you would hear ‘grownups’ making
spelling or grammatical mistakes but you weren't allowed to say anything
because you were only a child. But when you grow up, it's all up to you.
you can do what you want. You're free. That's one of the great things about
living here in
Current Spin: flaming lips, yoshimi battles…, rolling stones, between the buttons.
Last Movie: il mostro with Roberto Begnini.
10-07-02
I am in love. With my laptop and my Sony clie. I have always slept with a guitar and a cat since I can remember. Lately my guitar is getting jealous of the laptop. The cat doesn’t seem to mind at all. preparing for Transcendent Radio. More on that soon. IN the studio today to do more guitars.
Just announced that 15 million people
in
10/04/02
Woke
up sniffling today. Band is in the studio today recording bass guitar parts.
Check this out. John Edward is amazing. Watch and listen to
videos of him talking to the dead relatives of celebrities on the Internet—this
is awesome. Watch the Sebastian Bach one. Welcome to the future baby. We're
living it. everything we ever dreamed. Saw DC3 play again last night. watched
as pieces of broken drum sticks flew all over the stage because Derek hits
the drums so hard. The guy is sick. If DC3 does not make it, then there truly
is no justice in this world. Of course if DC3 does make it, we're out of
a guitarist. Tricky scene down here in Miami due to so few
good musicians.
The end of every
month is an exciting time at TMG Records, our little
record company. That's when the checks come in from our distributors and
various websites from the previous month's sales of our CDs. (PS—thanks
to everyone who buys our cds!!!) Here is a picture of Jennifer from TMG
holding a check that came in from amazon.com sales of our CDs. She came
up and said: 'boy oh boy no one can say we don't make any money here now,'
rather sarcastically. So we said 'o.k. well hold that baby up so everyone
can see what you look like.' Jennifer does a lot at TMG. She pretty much
is TMG along with a few other gracious and beautiful people. Isn't she
cute?
So I turned to G2 (he is the graphics guy and Internet guru for TMG, Transcendence, and TTV—if you like our album covers and website, that's his handy-work) and I say 'dude, call BMW, because with all this money rolling in, you might as well order that X5 you want.' So here he is ordering his X5 at TMG Records Headquarters. Well not really. But isn't he cute?
10-05-02
What is it about tarot cards? How do they work? Fascinating and exciting how science and parapsychology have been coming together the last twenty years or so. Science has taken a very open approach as of late to researching and trying to help explain Parapsychological phenomena. Tarot cards are amazing really in their ability to give real insight. It's kind of like your higher self or some higher form of consciousness is speaking to you. kind of like a ‘look, you know this already if you really think about it…’ similar to meditating. So what's really happening there?
Last Movie: A star is born, the Judy garland James mason version. There’s this must see scene towards the end. James mason is great. heartbreaking.
10-06-02
in the studio all day today recording my guitar parts. Tried a lot of different guitars for the song I'm not the only one. Finally ended up using this Gibson les Paul that was laying around the studio. Hadn't played one in about ten years. Always had a problem with the neck being too fat. But the sound was incredible. Just really rock and roll. I could get totally addicted to les Pauls. The sound was amazing. It put my PRS to shame. We didn't even bother to use that one. Will sell it and hunt some les Pauls down on eBay. But after three hours my hand was killing me. Felt like arthritis or something. Just really stiff and in pain. Kept popping Advil to be able to cut the rest of the songs. Also laid some cool tracks for junkie.
A lot of work and time spent just trying to get good sounds. Me and Fred argued a lot about sounds and about how many tracks I could lay down. I am used to laying a lot of guitar tracks down. Just going for it. Maybe five to ten per song if I am feeling different parts. And then in the mix, picking and choosing. He is so old school he wants you to get your one or two parts down and that's it. at one point we were shouting at each other. He kept having me do my parts over so he didn't have to do a lot of cutting and pasting later. He says “it's my time… just do it again.” and I scream back “no man it's my time too. you know, I'm here with you and my fingers are fucking killing me and I don’t want to play it over again just because you don’t want too many guitar tracks to work with in the mix!” [the problem is that I have always just sucked at guitar, I mean my execution really just blows, because I never practice the guitar as an instrument and never play the same parts more than once, I just use the guitars to write songs, so that's going to be frustrating to any producer who is used to guys being able to actually play their parts right. granted] You know the other thing is that I like creating big walls of sound, that's what I want to do. but he is so old school he just likes one or two guitars. I'm more into the my bloody valentine or velvet underground or sonic youth. He is going for more of a modern or classic rock guitar approach, so we are butting heads a little. He really wants the album to sound good and sell well and of course I am more interested in just getting off when I listen to it. but that was the problem we had on rise and shine too, you know, Fishy just wanted to do whatever he wanted to, and thank God for every fan who has bought rise and shine so far but a lot of people felt like we could have/should have listened to our producer more, so this time I am trying to be more open to that. we can always make our next album more just for us if we want to, but why not give this guy a chance.
Later tonight I went to C-Roc. I went
by to kick back with a beer and a cigar after a long day in the studio
and watch these auditions for a play, just soak in the whole actors at
work vibe, but then they talked me into auditioning. So I did. and that
was cool, because I'm not an actor, but they ended up asking me to play
this part. I ask them ‘am I really supposed to memorize all these sheets
of paper? How the hell do you do that?’ So I am postponing my trip to
Last Movie: not really a movie. the young ones, every stoopid episode. This just came out on DVD. Really funny. If you remember it. classic.
Current Spin: Radiohead, the bends. This album shows why Radiohead got so big. What a great record to go back and spin.
10-02-02
Just received the starter set of the Abraham Hicks series. Esther Hicks is a channeler who channels a group of spirits or non physical beings known as Abraham. Interesting stuff. spreading like wild fire by word of mouth only amongst people into this type of thing. There are so many of these types of things happening now all over the world from Seth to John Edward. Watch and listen I am sure a lot of people still don’t know that the other side is regularly communicating with us. I am sure there are others who hear it but don’t believe it. But it is happening right now. It is the future we have always waited for. Personally I cannot wait for it to get more and more common place. I believe we have a lot to learn and our evolution will accelerate rapidly once the majority of our species becomes aware of and tunes in to the other side. It will help dispel a lot of the myths and limiting beliefs many of us still take for granted.
Just received all 95 episodes of welcome back kotter from a purchase on Ebay. Some guy recorded every single episode in order on 7 video tapes. And of course people bid like crazy to own them. Ahhh ebay…
9-25-02
Intensely studying Italian and
Even if we travel all over the world like some people make it their goal in life to do, what the fuck is that going to accomplish? I have seen enough of my family die now in the last ten years and how we just are stuck with all their stuff they have collected over their life and we don't know what to do with it. I mean half of it just gets left behind or sold and then the family takes some of it and it gets passed down but for the most part we are just collecting this stuff for no real reason. We are traveling for no real reason, and learning stuff for no real reason. Once you start throwing away your grandparents or your aunts or your parent’s clothes or giving them away to goodwill or whatever you really gain a new perspective on life. You see all this useless stuff sitting in an empty house. And that person, the person who collected it all, the person who protected it all, who purchased it, and insured it, and moved it from house to house, well they’re dead, and it doesn’t really matter what you do to it. When my grandmother died a few years ago I sat in her house alone for about a month. Just hung out there. Played the piano, made myself breakfast everyday using their dishes and kitchen slept in various beds around the house. It was so weird. Even though they were gone, all the same house rules seemed to apply. Take your shoes off when you enter the house. Don't put the ac too low. Never smoke in the house. (You could get killed for an offense that heinous) only eat at the dining room table. No sex or violence on the TV. All these rules.
But then I started staring at stuff and realizing that it didn't matter anymore. I would look at a vase which was so precious to them or a table and realize that I could smash it if I wanted to and what was really going to happen? nothing. They were dead. I was there alone with all this stuff of theirs and there was no one who was going to tell me not to. What if I turned the stereo up really loud, put on a Pavarotti record of theirs and then went into their closet, put on one of my grandfathers big old fancy suits and one of my grandmothers scarves and then ran around the house smashing stuff? Jumped up on the dining room table and hurled objects de art into the china cabinet. What if I ran around the house naked in nothing but a silk scarf and tried to act so crazy that I scared myself while puffing on fat smelly cigars?. Opened all the windows so the neighbors could see. (my grandparents were absolutely terrified of not being seeing as dignified, polite, and proper, I mean, brutally magnanimously, vehemently, strict about being quiet, discreet, proper, elegant, “high class” (just to get the right picture try to understand that “high class” meant you were rich and educated and Italian, and nothing else. (And not from Sicily). You get the picture.) We were not allowed out of the house without a shower and a shave and being fully dressed and all, something like leave it to Beaver, but worse---you know they were born in 1908 and 9 so that was their trip—I would drive them crazy because I spent the majority of my childhood looking like a freak.
There were many many occasions when I would show up and not be allowed in their house unless I made all these changes to my appearance immediately---tie my hair up, wash off the makeup (boys don't wear makeup Fishy, they would say, are you a girl or a boy?) take off all the jewelry, take out the earrings, put on pants without holes in them, etc etc…. so some times I would do it and other times I would just leave and not see them for a while. Whatever. So I'm thinking now that they are dead I mean what if I just get naked right now and run out into the front yard of their house and run around the house a few times maybe stand there and water the lawn and smoke a cigar naked? My god can you imagine if they saw that? Well something like that could kill them. They would have to move. But now that they were dead, what would it really matter? They were dead. They were gone. Their stuff meant nothing. Their rules meant nothing. It was just me the freak sitting around their house, smoking and writing and playing the piano. But none of that happened. I still took my shoes off when I entered the house. I still made my bed everyday. And I still threw the garbage everyday and didn't let it pile up like I would at my own house. So there I was keeping to their ‘rules of engagement’ so to speak. Not putting my feet on the furniture, not making loud noises, not burping, not cursing, not putting a hat on the bed, or not opening an umbrella in the house, because it was bad luck, not whistling in the house because it was uncouth, etc.
What I noticed is that they stayed with me. And now I have a lot of their stuff in my own home. And I take good care of it. I didn't lose who I was. But I kind of took on some of who they were. The parts that I liked. The parts that I thought were alright had some value to me and to my future family. I went through their house and I collected a lot of stuff for future use. I got all my grandmas candles she had collected and now on Christmas we set one up on the table and we light it and watch the flame burn, but only for a short time so we never run out of them in our own lifetime. Some of these candles are probably thirty forty years old maybe more. So that way they are with us on Christmas. But that's not really the point. So what is the point? I mean what is the point to being who we are, to learning or growing or collecting stuff. What is the point to learning Italian? I'm such a dick to all my friends who watch TV, and really I only have a few of them, but I'm pretty hard on them, always telling them how they have more important things to be doing, and now I realize that really that's just my grandparents talking. They grew up with out TV didn't even see it till they were in their forties, so to them it was just this new thing, not something to live through but maybe just something to marvel at once in a while, for the news or something.. But now I look at my friends who want to sit and watch TV every night and I think well maybe that's o.k.. I mean in the big picture, what if that's good enough for them. Shit. What if there really isn't such a thing as good enough. I mean in the big picture they are going to die and that's it so who cares what they do.
Pause
But wait. This isn't right. In my gut I can feel it. This isn't right. In fact it's bullshit. Because the fact is that as a people, and as a species, we have a lot of work to do. Yes they can sit around and watch TV every night, but then nothing improves in the world. Nothing gets better. No changes are made. These are the same people you see sitting around their house at holiday dinners talking about what they think the president should do about this or that, like they even have a clue what's really going on, like any of us do, and then they go sit in front of the TV and watch it. But they don't actually do anything to help. So yea maybe learning all these languages is not really doing anything, at this point I don't know what to think, I mean unless it really does something. Helps out in some way. I mean maybe I am slowly cocooning into a communist, but the fact is that who we are and what we do can really make a big difference long after were gone, especially if we really do stuff. Colonel sanders comes to mind. Just kidding. But really in every moment we have a choice of what were doing, and how were feeling and what we are actually accomplishing. And here's the wrap up right here. In the last six months I went to two different funerals for friend’s relatives who had passed on. One was an aunt. And one was two months ago when I went to the tree’s dad’s funeral. Man to lose a dad at such a young age was fucking tragic.
And we’re there and there must have been a hundred people there from all over the country for him. At least. And they were all getting up and sharing about him. And you would not believe the things we were hearing. People coming from the hospital talking about how he made the rounds at the hospital everyday to visit and pray with the sick. People from children's homes talking about how he would dress like Santa every year to raise money for the kids. Officers from the marines talking about his duties in world war two and what a hero and friend he was. People from his church talking about all of his charity work and how he helped out the church and all these families. It was really really inspiring. And then at this other lady’s funeral, for the aunt of another friend. People just talked about how she was a nice person and that was about it. I mean no one really had much to say about her. But for the tree’s dad, it was like out of a movie. You had to keep asking yourself where did he get all time to run around and do all this stuff all the time for people? I mean he was like this secret agent man fighting the good fight for all of us. One of the good guys.
So I think that's where it's at. I mean I have struggled with trying to find meaning all my life. I spent most of my teens and twenties so depressed because I just didn't see any meaning to life because so much of what we take for granted is made up and pretend, and in the end we don't even know who we are or why we’re here or where we’re going, and man that just sucks. That can really sting if you let it get to you, but as I get older I just start to accept it more and realize that yea it may be some sick and cruel joke or accident that we have found ourselves in, but in the end we really can make a difference to the world, depending on what we do while we’re alive. I'm going to keep learning Italian. And I'm going to stick to my commitment to learn French and Hebrew too. And if for no other reason that it makes me happy. I mean it juices me. It keeps me psyched and juiced and when I'm psyched and juiced and happy then I feel energized and I feel like helping more. I feel like doing more to reach out and help people out and try to make changes for the better in the world. But when I'm feeling down and lethargic and just kind of normal like I'm just living day to day, then I don't really feel like doing anything.
Current Spin: Live36.com. Internet radio. What a fucking revolution this thing is.
Current Spin: Live365.com. Internet radio.
9-20-02
Band rehearsal today. Getting great tones out of this line 6 vetta amp. Slowly but surely. Infinito says he doesn’t want to redo all his drum tracks. Band agreed. Were moving on. Bas says we should charge admission to our rehearsals because they are so much better there than at our shows lately. Thanks. We have to get it more consistent.
Felt relief for the first time in
weeks tonight. Can’t say why yet. Driving down 195 a hundred and ten mph
with the top open smoking a cigar and listening to Lou Reed sing street
hassle. Looking at the beautiful sights of Miami Beach and the skyline
of Miami. O.k. so maybe Miami is the poorest city in
Current Spin: Lou Reed, street hassle. The best song ever written? Maybe. That and the entire born to run album.
9-28-02
Fred (producer) just called. Wants Infinito to come in and redo all the rest of the drum tracks now for the new album. Now that we redid six of them, the other six songs aren't as good, he feels. He is really dedicated to making this a great record. I was in the shower when he called. I was screaming over the water noise, ‘Fred you are kick ass man! Do you know that?!” he laughs and says, “I just like good music.” That's why he got the job and the money. Poor Infinito. Just when he thinks he is done, he gets called back again. But I think he is as dedicated to making it the best thing he has ever done as everyone else is. We all are. Vancouver says ‘why try to polish a turd? Let’s just do them all over.’
Sometimes you have to make a choice between what looks right and what feels right. Sometimes it’s not easy to do. But most of the time I try to go for what feels right. When I don’t I feel sick inside. Even though things might look perfectly fine from the outside. But now I have learned to just follow the way I feel.
Walking around South beach with a superman cape all day.
Current Spin: ambient electronica on Internet radio—spinner.com.
9-27-02
Stuff got stolen from my car today.
Must have not locked it. An old leather bag Cleopatra bought in
9-26-02
Fred called us in to the studio again to redo drum tracks from six of the songs from new album. He feels drums could be a lot better, stronger, tighter, more cohesive. He is working hard for the record. Everyone is. I still can’t sing. Voice is completely gone now. somewhere between the old method of belting it out from the chest and the throat and this new bel canto method of letting it come from the third eye and reverberate in the brain so to speak. Lost as a singer right now. It’s like being castrated but worse even. Never knew I was so dependent emotionally on having a voice till I lost it. Walk around in a frightened daze most of the time, afraid to even speak or even hum for fear of making it worse. If I can’t sing, who am I? It's one of those things you just take for granted.
9-24-02
Show at senor frogs last night. As always at this venue, sound sucked. Infinito got into a fight with the soundman because he wouldn’t mic his toms or snare drum and then he conveniently found a way to mic the next band’s. Told him next time we take the guy out. I think I am stuck between two identities. Can’t quite get into one completely. One wants to rock fuck scream and spit and another wants to be Caetano Veloso or peter Gabriel and put on a big multi-media show, bossa nova and all. Fans come to the show expecting to hear that type of planet-music style songs from the rise and shine album like we used to do and we are already on to the new heavier rock tunes from new album we are recording, not even out yet. They don't even know the songs. Getting lots of emails from fans asking why we’re not playing songs they know from our album. Sorry about that guys. Better luck next time is the only one left that still gets played.
9-22-02
In the studio cutting guitars. Then the Zach Zischin CD release party at c -roc. c -roc is the place for what's happening in art and music right now. I don't know if there is anything else like it in anywhere. Enzu and the rest of the crew there are visionaries. Art for arts sake… can you imagine? Huge space. Come do what you want. They’ll support it. help foster it, promote it. They do it in spite of themselves. Then Pop-life. One of the coolest scenes.
Current Spin: guns and fucking roses, use your illusion I.
9-23-02
deliberately stayed in bed late today. I just refused to get up. Tossed and turned for hours. Drifting in and out of semi-sleep for hours. Trying to relax for the show tonight. Meditate on everything I wanted for the day and for the week. I haven't done that for a long time. Band sounded amazing yesterday in rehearsal. Everyone walked away all smiles and high fives. One of those sexual dreams this morning where you look at the person for the next few days and you can’t help but look at them funny. I look down at my assistant who is lying on a bed (?) and she says do you want to work or do you want to make love. And I bend over her and say well can you get another job because I've already been there. and she says you know I love my job. So I say, o.k. well lets work. But you know now I won't be looking at her in the eyes for like three days. We’ll be working together and I'll just look down at the ground all day. Funny.
I don't know if as a man you ever let go of this strong sexual attraction you have towards women. It's not like it's any kind of woman in particular. It's just women in general. It could be the waitress or your best friends mom or any girl you see on the street. You just kind of lust after every girl you see. You try to explain it to girls and they think you are joking or exaggerating. They just have no clue how serious we are. It's not like you want to necessarily make it with every girl you see, maybe just every other one. and that doesn’t mean that you don't love your wife or your girlfriend or whatever, because you do. It's two totally separate things. You’ve got that love going there and that loyalty and commitment and all and then at the same time you also have this inner drive to just make it with every girl you can. Wild.
I've been pretty good at taming it over the last few years. Especially when I was in a serious relationship. It's just that sometimes I ask myself well why tame it? you get that strong sexual desire coming up inside of you so strong sometimes that it feels like you are going to go crazy. You almost start to feel violent. Sometimes when I was in a serious relationship I would feel trapped. Almost like a caged animal. So then I started feeling like it was kind of unnatural to try to calm it all the time. I mean why not just go for it. Just go crazy for a while. I mean just go totally crazy with it. give in to the beast and ride it hard into the great night. Going for every last fantasy whim and desire you have ever had. So I tried it for a while. In the last year I think I was with about 27 girls. I didn't make it with all of them. A lot of them I just dated and whatever goes along with that. but I did whatever I wanted to. Fulfilled a lot of fantasies. Took it to the limit. And what I noticed is that you can do it, but it's not the easiest thing to make love with someone if you don't have a relationship with them. You can do it. but it doesn’t necessarily come easy or natural. When that love vibe is not in the air you can have a tough time making it happen if you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong. You can do it. but it's not like fireworks are going off.
Where as if you do have those fireworks going off, and you have that butterfly feeling inside your chest and your stomach then it really makes a difference. It doesn’t necessarily take away from the excitement of some of those fantasies when you don't know the person or whatever, but I think that having that with someone that you have a real bond with, a relationship with, your dream lover, your soulmate… that really makes a difference. It really makes all the difference in the world. I think that if the leaders of the world the kings and queens and bush’s and Hussein’s and Sharon’s made love more often, then the world would be a much more peaceful place. Last year bush and his wife and this is funny but really kind of sad too, had all the sex parts of all the movies they show on air-force one, the presidential jet so he and his wife wouldn’t see any sex scenes in any of the Hollywood movies. Now you wonder why this guy is so gung-ho to go to war. I mean he really just needs to let loose a little. You know, I respect him so much for what he is going through so I'm not going to go off on him but man, that's pretty scary. I'm not saying he should be doing 21 year old interns in the oval office, (but can you imagine? I mean God bless bill, really from all of us, for every man who has ever lived, you look back on that now and wow… ) There’s a fine line obviously. If sex is the whole trip that can get pretty boring, but when you’re just enjoying it as part of the over all big picture, then that's the balanced diet that’ll keep you fit and trim and happy healthy wealthy and wise.
Current Spin: best of sugarhill records. A hip hop you don't stop a rockin….. Lou reed, metal machine music, nothing better to wake up to.
9-19-02
Sometimes girls will tell you that you can sleep together and you can just be friends afterwards. That they won't go psycho, it's platonic and nothing more. Think Samantha on sex in the city. That's the dream. Guys can do that. I don't know how or why but we can. Girls seem to have a problem with it even if they say everything is cool. Then they show up at your house at three in the morning. And you start worrying that you're going to find your cat boiling on the stove.
Another singing lesson with the monster today. After our lesson where she screamed at me for an hour, she made me sit through two hours of other student’s lessons to see that I'm not the only one who gets yelled at. Whatever. I have met a lot of students at her studio. There are sixty of them who come from all over once a week to visit her and learn from her. All kinds of singers, all styles of music. Most of them having had some trouble with their voice from over use or not using it properly come to her. I told her it was like one of those homes for abused animals. But all the different students I have spoken to assured me that now they are singing better than ever. So I'm going to put up with it for a while and see if it works.
Current Spin: Ensimi, kafbatamusik.
Cool band out of
Last Movie: Cleopatra.
Current read: no book, just Archie Comics, tons of them.
9-15-02
Goddess nightclub on South beach for the fetish factory party. Fetish parties are awesome. People are dressed totally crazy. Leather and latex and naked. People being whipped. We walk upstairs and there is this guy lying on the couch naked stroking himself with his head in some girl’s lap. A few feet away there was this girl sitting on this guys lap with her skirt up just riding him in front of everybody. The music pounding. Techno, gothic, 80’s retro. Everyone is relaxed and looking good and just going off. Taking it to the extreme. Had a few drinks went to the dance floor to let loose with the freaks. Guys dressed up in diapers and sucking pacifiers. Black leather bikinis. Chicks bent over leather benches getting whipped in front of everyone. Just totally getting off. By three thirty we were in this upstairs back room, dark, lost, hidden away from the rest of humanity. I sat slouched on a long couch drinking my drink and occasionally taking notes. Next to me a man had his hand up his girls skirt and was getting her off. Her leg was rubbing up against mine as she writhed in ecstasy. A naked man was walking around with a blanket over his shoulder, rubbing up against people. A guy and girl were on the other side of me rubbing on each other. Some faceless ass was bent over a table while a masked man dressed in a beautiful black leather corset poured hot wax over her as she writhed around ecstatically. While the music pumped and the people zombied around us, dancing away the week’s horrors and stresses. I felt my own calm euphoria from being there, observing it all. I soaked it in. Just laid there half awake half drunk, content to spend the rest of the night with these strangers lying on this strange couch.
V cannot stand any kind of deviance away from the norm. If she sees me even talking to a guy she gets worried I am flirting with the guy… that I am gay. I don't see anything wrong with flirting with other guys. I'm pretty sure of myself as a man and as a man who likes women. I don't really see a difference between a beautiful man or a beautiful woman. I mean beauty is beauty and I love beauty, no, I worship beauty. I think I am obsessed with all things beautiful, man woman child animal movie song painting babbling brook or magnificent sunrise over the ocean. So if you see something beautiful and you are a lover of beauty you don't really edit how you experience it. You don't even think about it, if you’re a man you’re not supposed to be attracted to a beautiful man. You just don't think that way. but sometimes you do. And I don't think that's necessarily bad or wrong. Just a lot of homophobic Christian crap. You just know that that is a beautiful man or woman or what have you. I don't even know if I see much of a difference between kissing a man or a woman. A kiss or even making love is an expression of attraction of admiration. In Miami, the city of beauty, you see a lot of beautiful people. It's only natural to want to kiss them make love with them, once you let loose with all your indoctrination that your parents and the TV and magazines and government and media pounded into you as a child. I mean once all that stuff is gone and you are an open vessel free to choose who you are and what you believe, then, well then….. you can do whatever you want to. And there it is. Welcome to the future baby.
Last Movie: Three tenors live, original concert
Current Spin: David Bowie, heathen. Still. His best work since Scary monsters. Great great album.
9-16-02
Queenie always used to make fun of me for being too much of a girl. She opens my drawers and sees a lot of hair care products and makeup and that makes me a girl. Which to her is weird… Which is funny because that is what other girls always say they like about men who are feminine. so I knew she wasn't the one. she would always say that I am a lesbian in a man’s body because I am really a girl but I like girls so I am just trapped. That's funny. She has no problem saying that now as a friend but as a girlfriend she hated that about me. But I always liked it. I like who I am. I feel very balanced as a human. Complete. Whole. In Brasil whenever you mention Caetano someone will always mention that they “think” that he is gay, even though he has a wife and four kids. They whisper it. That is their big ‘secret’ about Caetano the secret that everyone knows. They think that because he is so feminine that he is gay. Which he isn't. He has just transcended to the point of not being too male or too female. I mean that’s the appeal of a Caetano. Or a Pavarotti. Or a Davinci. And you know even if he was gay, what would be wrong with that? Man I am so sick of this thing people have against being gay. You don't really notice it in New York or Miami. We take gay people for granted in those cities because there are so many of them, San Fran, Atlanta, etc, but in most other towns people always use the idea that someone is gay as a bad thing, like “he's such a good singer, but he is so gay…” like there is a “but” to it.
There is no “but” to it. He’s a good singer. They did the same thing with Ricky Martin two years ago. What does he being gay have to do with it? I remember talking to my dad when I was like 21 for the first time in over ten years. He said he didn't approve of a lot of things about my profession, the drug use, and the people being gay. I asked him why, and he rambled on something about God and the bible and then something about being gay is counter productive to our instinct to pro-create to further our species…’ perhaps he just doesn’t give God enough credit, perhaps She has a bigger picture in mind. Perhaps She/He/It/We know exactly what we are doing and that is why so many people are turning up gay right now. anyone ever heard of population worries? Perhaps our species has a collective unconscious knowing of exactly what to do and we are just too near sighted to spot it. Just a hunch. I think Americans need to just give in to it. The fact that this country elected a president that is not pro gay rights and gay marriage is really really terrifying. Who are these people voting anyway? Where do they live? You think you live in one world and then you read things like George w Bush doesn’t approve of gay marriage and gay partner rights and it can really rock your world. It's hard to imagine people are still stuck back there in their thinking. As if same sex partner rights has anything to do with politics in the first place. O.k. so where am I? Rambling.
Back when we were in high school and even today a lot of guys suffer from this looksism disease, similar to their sexism and chauvinism and racism. Guys with long hair with earrings with makeup or overly expressive are labeled as queer, as fags, as freaks. I told this guy the other night who was coming off all tough and macho and trying to defend some non existent ‘normalcy code’, the ‘all American thing’ that he should mellow out. That if he enjoys music and movies and art that some of the freakiest people roaming around the planet usually are the ones who came up with it. That is the nature of the artist. “You like music? Well then you could be making fun of your next favorite singer and not even know it. Ozzie wears makeup. So why don't you cool it.” We high-fived, said a couple of ‘dudes’ and he was cool after that.
Current Spin: coldplay new one. Still digging it.
Last Movie: seeking asylum with Roberto Begnini.
9-19-02
Sitting typing on my laptop, “do you ever enjoy the day?” she's says. So do you ever go outside and just appreciate it or do you always have to be doing something?’ just because I like to work, get things done. You know. That's funny. Yea I enjoy the day. Just because I'm sitting here writing doesn’t mean I am not enjoying the day.
Weird things now. Francis and la Princesa and G2 all saying the same thing after the show last week. In different ways. Don't worry so much. Don't try so hard. Don't be so concerned if your voice cracks or if the band plays well or if you make a huge success or about trying to change the world. I think that from this point on I will do that. I'm tired. Man am I tired. I am tired of working so hard. I am tired of worrying about every little thing with the band and the music and my career. But the fact is that I love making music. I love singing and performing and recording. I really love recording albums. Creating something from nothing. You know, albums, good ones, can be like movies, like big paintings. Little worlds. This last year since the release of rise and shine has been very exciting but very traumatic as well. Rise and shine has been out for about nine months now and we get CD reviews from strangers and emails and letters from all over the world. That's a good thing. It's just taken me some time to adjust to it, to get used to turning off. For the majority of my career I had to get used to being ignored. Since rise and shine I have had to get used to all the attention and all the opinions that come with all the attention. The major record labels, the few we have approached have been so totally idiotic about the album that it is no wonder that current albums are not these magnificent magnum opuses that they used to be in the seventies and sixties (except for a few by Radiohead, u2 and sigur ross).
This guy Kaplan from Sony records up in New York has turned us down three separate times, maybe four. Our manager approached him jumping up and down about rise and shine. His answer? It's too much music. Too many different styles on their album. I love those first four songs. Tell them to make a whole album of modern rock and then we can talk. O.k. that's truly hilarious because that was exactly what we didn't want to do on rise and shine. I mean we worked very hard not to do that. I love what we created. Our fans love rise and shine exactly for that reason, how it careens from style to style so effortlessly. Like taking you on different trips, but these record executives have so lost touch with the music listening public. They are letting their decisions be dictated by little kids. Its really funny. I mean we think it's funny because we are still selling tons of cds on our own without their help. And we know how much people love the music on our album. O.k. so then the vp of promotion at Sony gets the CD and falls in love with it for the same reason, so she goes and gives it to kaplan’s assistant and she falls in love with it and so they go to kaplan together and tell him you gotta hear this band out of Miami and their new album rise and shine and he says to them oh yea I already heard that and turned it down.. fucked up.
So he wants us to make an album full of songs that all have the same vibe that all sound the same. So we can be like all these other modern rock bands out now where you get to the fourth song on the CD and you want to change it because you're bored?????? God that is really funny. And stupid and hideous. So no we’re not going to do it. No way. We like our album. The same thing happened with Electra records. The regional rep who heard it in New York when our manager took it to him loved it so much supposedly that he was jumping up and down his office about it. He really thought he found something fantastic but he had to get it by the president of the company. Some woman high up. lot of respect out to her for all of her accomplishments. I don't know her but the talk of the town is that she is good at what she does. Her answer? They’re not hard enough. Hard is what's happening. All the more reason to sign us. Hello? I'm the one who has to break it to the band. We got turned down again. We’re not hard enough. Creed staind nickel back disturbed system of a down. All those bands are hard and yea they are all making it. But we don't want to sound like that. There's already a hundred bands trying to sound like that. And you know, wilco, travis and coldplay et al are all doing just fine without that generic heavy-guitar angst-ridden-singer sound that modern rock radio is so filled with.
The record execs are always the last to know. That's why radio has sucked for so long. We like the way we sound and so do our fans. So we’re just going to keep on doing it. I would rather make a whole album of noise and feedback which would actually be very cool rather then try to make an album that sounded like modern rock radio right now which I don't even like.
I told the producer who is working our new album right now, listen, I know we all want a hit out of this and God knows we need the money, but we’re going for something artistic and innovative first and then a hit after that. o.k.? he rolled his eyes. oh fuck Fishy why are you telling me this now?! Yes I want to sell records but more than that I want us to walk away feeling like we created a fucking masterpiece something fresh and new and exciting. And these record execs have the exact opposite viewpoint. They tell our manger that the transcendence are in too many different directions… too many styles. They cant categorize us or focus us to one demographic. And they're whole trip is making hits. Can you imagine? Look there are no fucking rules when it comes to art. no offense cause a lot of these guys making these decisions are cool people and would probably make great dinner guests because of their wealth of knowledge and love of music. But they can shove it up their ass. There are no rules and there is no such thing as too musical or not hard enough or needs to sound more modern (the strokes?) or needs to sound more consistent (the white album?). You either hit or you don't hit. Period. [Its attitudes like this that make great artists like Aimee Mann or Prince or Edie Brickel invisible to most of the world even though they are still making great music] Making hits is their number-one goal. And you know that's fine. If you are a football team your goal is to win, and I guess playing the game enjoying the game comes second to that when you go pro, but for me I just get off on the art of it, on the possibility for innovation and invention. And if you can get a hit out of it, then fuckin a, that would be great. But lets not all sit around and worry about what people are going to think about our art. Man if an artist goes there, any kind of artist, that's the beginning of the end. People panned AI by Steven Spielberg. But if you look at it as an artistic statement, you know, a piece of art, then you can really enjoy it. Same with amnesiac by Radiohead. Even fans hated it. but they really made something mind-blowingly refreshing there and that's what art should be. to me. of course, I'm no more right than wrong about this, like anyone else. It's just my opinion. But for me that's what works. Great art is even better when it achieves commercial accessibility and a good measure of innovation and invention and originality. Something beautiful and innovative and commercially accessible. But if I had to choose I would always choose the commercial accessibility last. And I guess that's why I have never achieved it. rise and shine was the first time I thought about it. In Shattered we absolutely refused to even think about it. we were just trying to get off. And I think now I want to go back to that. just making music and art and getting off on it and not worrying about the business of it so much. Because the fact is that most of the time you can really smell that. the whole industry is filled with it, radio and magazines and MTV. All that eminem pdiddy nsynch Britney jlo and all that shit and the primary motivating force to that whole scene the big vibe they give off is ‘I want a hit I want to be popular do you still love me am I still cool I'm Mr. Cool badass number one right?’ well that's not music or art. I don't even know if it's entertainment. I don't know what it is. It reminds me of high school and that's why I quit as soon as I was old enough to.
Current Spin: Caetano Veloso, Live in Bahia. Non stop, three days. That and Wilco’s summer teeth, and the Vines new one is fun.
Last Movie: Shang Hai noon with Owen Wilson. God that guy is funny.
9-13-02
We played the worst show of our careers last night on one of the biggest stages of our careers. A lot of people said it was good and that they liked it, which is really funny, because all we know is that we really sucked. We went backstage and hid for a while and then I ducked out fast and went and walked around South beach by myself for a while. I just got home. Sat out in the back porch with my cat and smoked a cigar and just thought for a while. Not really thinking as much as watching my mind race from one thought to another. Bas saying it was the worst he ever heard us. the Ferret saying that it sounded like a big chunk of our music was ripped out. My voice cracking the whole time. totally confused on how to sing now. when before lessons I just sang, never thought about it. we didn't put anything into our monitors so we couldn’t really hear ourselves at all on stage. Really bad. Francis saying that I need to loosen up more and don't worry so much about the social and political conscious stuff and just run with the animal in me. la Princesa saying that we just need to learn from the show, know what we did wrong so we know what we have to do right. That we didn't even belong there anyway, that we must rise up to where we belong and take ourselves more seriously. Well that was nice to say and you can always count on friends for that. our fans were great last night as always—a lot of pats on the back and hoots and hollers and calls till all hours saying how great it was, but we knew, I know, that we didn't play even close to what we normally do.
Didn't sleep much. Dreams were frantic last night. dreamed I couldn’t drive. I was trying but the car kept going off the road no matter what I did. I couldn’t steer. And then Cleopatra and I were trying to work something out, but she is getting it on with the therapist right in front of me and I am supposed to just watch and accept it. I run down the stairs with a sword in attempts to start killing people from so much pain and anger. I end up being stuck at a party I didn't want to be at. Someone offered me a plate of food I didn't want. Crazy, ‘being out of control’ dreams. the stallion told me that she sometimes hangs onto stuff for way too long. I think I know what she means.
Tons of emails came in about the Rebuild America song we released. Some good some bad. Just trying to make time to read them all and respond to them. More CD reviews coming in. Some good some bad. “the worst thing about their new CD rise and shine is Fishy’s voice. I cannot describe how much it annoys me. he has this annoying way he stretches the notes out really long…” trying to get used to people ragging on you. Exciting stuff.
Current Spin: Caetano Veloso, Live in Bahia.
9-11-02
woke up early today. Tons of planes flying over head. Knowing what day it was, I jumped up and rushed to the television to see if there were any attacks. So far so good. Just a lot of sadness. today is a sad day. Everyone is sad. People are emailing saying they are sad. I am thinking about when I went to ground zero last year. I still cant fathom the loss that I saw and felt. All those lives cut off so suddenly. And then I started reflecting on all the innocent lives that are lost everyday in wars and terrorist attacks like this one all over the world. I mean so many of us die everyday from things like this. I forget about being American for a moment and just look at the human condition.
With all of us still fighting
all the time. humans killing each other all over the world still. Most
of it due to people just being greedy, unfair, deceptive. Not wanting to
be real with themselves and with others. Well if I can’t have my way I'll
just kill you. really immature stuff. and the people of most countries
accept it because they feel like they don't have a choice. Their governments
have the army. What are we the people really going to do? In
It means being smarter
than the rest, creating peaceful solutions. I'm not saying I know what
to do. I'm a singer. I don't know shit. But I know that I don't want to
spend the rest of my life reading about people dying all the time. My grandfather
fought in
Current Spin: David Bowie, Heathen—Bowie’s best album since lets dance! It's what Bowie fans have waited for for a long time. Finally!
9-08-02
Attended a Rosh Hashanah
lunch today with Gina’s family. Her father is the famous tenor from
A few more CD reviews popped up in the press. This time they weren't all good. Bas has always told me to never read them. And if I do, never take them seriously. When we get good reviews we all get so excited every one walks around with a big smile on their face. But when a bad one comes in, sometimes it can sting a bit. Often times you just laugh. But sometimes they write with such venom as if you killed someone in their family or something like that, they just absolutely despise you just for this album you made. And yea in a way that is funny, and of course it’s better than being ignored. After I read this one review I had to get up and jump around a little bit, shake it off. What a thing to wake up to. I thought about it a little, kind of went deep into it in my own mind, and I just felt like man, you know, I really like what we did there on the record. I mean, good or bad reviews, Bas is right. What's really important is how we feel about it, and I still really like that album. regardless of what people say about it, I can measure my life by before and after we made that work, because it did make that kind of an impact on me. I think that for an artist that is what is important, just to keep going regardless of what is popular or if what you are doing is vibing with the current mainstream or anyone for that matter. The important thing is to just keep creating your art. Especially if you are getting off on it as an artist. I mean if it is feeding you, then you just keep doing it. On fire.
Last movie: la vitta e’ bella (life
is beautiful). Watched it again. One of all time favorites. Also, Roxy
Music and T. Rex live in the early seventies at Music Laden Club in
9-08-02
Walking around the Gables today. Running errands. I stopped for some lunch
and opened up this book on the history of
Reading that, seeing it right there on a timeline in front of my eyes really
made me realize how precarious of a position we are in as a country ourselves
here in
Our generation just takes it all for granted. I mean we did until September
11th. Now who knows what to believe? After September 11th this
professor at Evergreen State College, Larry Mosqueda, Ph.D. wrote a paper
called Shocked and Horrified. We
posted it to the intelligence archives on our site. It detailed how over
the last fifty years the
Now this fact is not something we see on TV too much. It's not something
talked about here in the states, but if you ask anyone else around the world,
they will know all about these figures and all these innocent lives lost,
what we call here in
The underlying sentiment of his piece was maybe if we
stopped our own little terrorist attacks we wouldn’t have to be so worried
all the time about being attacked ourselves. Over the last year, since
September 11th,
I have talked with many of my friends in Europe about this. and I ask them
point blank, well what is the sentiment of England or
I'm not saying I know what to believe about all this because I don't. And frankly I wish it was something I didn't have to think about. I wish it was more like when we were kids, you know, George Washington and the old red white and blue and all that. God do I miss that. Like it is on TV or in the middle of the country, states like Kansas and Missouri, you know, apple pie and Baseball and old glory. I remember growing up and being so proud to be an American. So proud just to live here. And still today I am. Especially after September 11th. the way everyone came together as a people was so awe inspiring and validating that we really are a great great country of people. So yes I am proud to be an American, and proud of the American people. I just don’t know if I am proud of the American government like I was when I was a kid. I mean it doesn’t seem like all these other people in all these other countries are mad at us or hate us so much as they hate our government. Chances are they realize that we are as innocent as they are. But it's not like we did anything wrong.
It just seems like it's a select few in our government who are making some bad judgment calls. and unfortunately we are having to pay for their wrong doings. Like maybe their priorities are not all together the same as our own. They talk about peace and democracy but they think that war and killing is the only way to accomplish it. That has always struck me as a strange way of looking at things.
But like most Americans I have always been willing to turn away and let
them do whatever they wanted because as my good friend J always says, we
have our freedom to do whatever the hell we want to as Americans. We can
order a pizza to be delivered right to our door or go out all night and be
safe and free and happy and meet some chicks and eat pizza with them and
man that's what makes
But September 11th changed all that. Now it
doesn’t feel so safe
anymore. I mean now they're starting to retaliate against us. It's brought
to light some serious questions. How willing are we the American people to
let our government just do whatever the hell they want to? And then it's
we who will take the heat and pay the price. I think we are all pretty much
in shock still and don't want to think about any of this. We think, ‘God
if I could just watch a movie instead or go out with my friends.’ But this
is real. It's happening right now. decisions are being made in our name.
for each and every one of us. Like this new war on
I think we are all being too soft about this. I am scared for us as a people.
I mean it seems like for the most part the American people have lost their
strength to stand up and protest like they used to. Everyone seems to have
this attitude that things are just going to keep on going they have been
going no matter what. The fact is they haven't. we just lost over three thousand
people last September 11th. Now we are going to war to lose more people and
to kill more people. With the Taliban? Nah. With
Prayers for peace pray for peace.
9-04-02
Last night Cleo had her baby. About 11PM. I was driving home, I-95. she hasn’t felt like it is a good idea to introduce me and the white knight yet. We don't even acknowledge our friendship to him yet. So I didn't go to the hospital. I drove fast down i-95. I thought of the fate of this, the irony of it. I thought of me driving down this lonely stretch of highway alone and her in this hospital room a few minutes away screaming and in pain having a baby and we have just spent the majority of our twenties together, thinking that was going to be us in there some day. When I would see a car stranded on the side of the highway, part of me fantasized about turning the wheel slightly and slamming into it, just smashing things up a bit. Would I die in the crash? Could I? Would it all be over? I put both hands on the wheel. Turned up the music. Drove faster. Smiled. The mind is a big thing. Lots of thoughts. Not all of them we have to take seriously. Cleo is happy. I was happy for Cleo. I wasn't sad, just dealing with a strange feeling, a big life changing event feeling. This was Cleo’s life changing event, not mine. “I'm still waiting…for my super hero girl.”
Tonight we are going into the studio to cut a track for the anniversary of September 11th, which we will release that day to the fans only via email. We are going to try to cut the whole song in a day.
Current Spin: Kid rock, cocky. I love this album.
9-03-02
Our record company has run out of money to produce the new album we are working on. People say the economy is bouncing back. I don't know if many have really experienced that yet. Fred the engineer and producer has offered to cut us a deal on the album, help fund it at a flat rate. A no counting hours rate, because he believes in it so much. He told us that he feels it could be the best album he has ever produced. So that felt good for us. But we still are coming up short with the money. Today I started selling stocks and other investments to fund the new album. Before this album is finished I will have emptied my retirement accounts. It is a big day, a momentous day, a grand day, a day to remember. I haven't been a struggling artist in a long time. I am one of the lucky ones. But I believe in this new album of ours. So I am willing to take the risk that later in life there’s not going to be any money sitting waiting. I worked hard to save that money. Now were working hard to spend it. Today is the day where I had to lay it on the line and look myself in the eye and ask, you really want to do this? Are you a man? Are you an idiot? Do you know what you are doing?
Current Spin: Trick Daddy, thugs are us. Dig it. take it to da house.
9-02-02
Went to pick up a bunch of books on
Spent all day on South beach today. A juice and smoothie bar inside of the Polo Sport store, a Mexican mariachi band outside of Senor Frogs, big guitars, big hats, horns and all. Beautiful girls and boys everywhere. People on roller blades and scooters. The beach, the sun, the fashion, the cars, Ahhhh, Miami. I love it. if Miami could discover rock and roll, if we could inject some rock and roll into Miami, it would be paradise. No matter where you go on South beach, club, bar, clothing store, every one is playing the same music, the same fucking song almost, it's either hip hop, house or techno. It's as if they get hypnotized there and they think that it's the only music being made right now. as if just by the mere act of playing it they will be cool, as if being cool means being like every one else. I have never really seen a city with people so unwilling to go against the norm. It's almost like there is a dress code there, like a private school. This is the ugly kid sister to the goddess that is South beach. Every girl thinks she has to wear faded low cut hip hugger jeans and last year’s J Lo sun glasses and they’ll be cool. Every guy thinks he has to wear sandals and sleeveless T shirts and he’ll be cool. And everybody has to listen to that music. Today in a shop a guy asked if I was going to wear these pants I was buying with a sleeveless t shirt. I just looked at him, gave him the old ‘whachyou talking bout Willis?’ People think Miami is culturally diverse. But still, it's a very exciting place to call home. If I do ever put on one of those fucking sleeveless T-shirts, I hope the boys in the band shoot me before I leave the house.
Last Movie: The Wild One, with Marlon Brando. The origin of the BRMC.
Watching the wild one circa mid-fifties really makes you realize how each generation has gotten successively more extreme than the previous one. the music they considered wild back then, the really crazy stuff, was jazz. It frightened the older generations. Then came rock and roll, stuff like bill haley and chuck berry and Elvis. That was considered so threatening and crazy. It went on from there. acid rock, and then punk, metal, and then grunge. Each generation more extreme, more seemingly wild and threatening than the next. Not just in it's music but in it's language, it's desire and threshold for violence and gratuitous exploitation of sex. I think every generation thinks it's the shit. Thinks they’ve seen it all seen how far it will go. I mean who can imagine anything harder than metallica system of a down or rage against the machine. But time tells that it's just another rung on the ladder. Things will continue to get more extreme on both sides of it. The music will get harder, but it will also continue to get softer and more beautiful. People will get uglier, meaner, and more deceptive. In the last ten years we saw on live TV, them kill over a hundred people at Waco, then the Oklahoma city bombing, and those kids killing other students in Arkansas and then the trade center attacks. But we keep going. everyday we keep living on in spite of how extreme it's getting. “good morning Mr. Smith. Terrible about those dead people in Omaha huh?” “oh yea Charlie, did you hear about that mother in California? Bit off the head of all four of her children? Crazy huh?” “yep crazy. O.k. well have a good day.” “o.k. you too.” And we keep moving on.
You know, but at the same time, we’re seeing things get more extreme in
the opposite direction also. All over the world people are discovering God
in things. In everyday life, people are starting to recognize the force of
God all around us. Psychics are starting to be taken less as a phenomenon
and more as an accepted reality. Angels are popping up all over the place.
Visions of the virgin mother appearing. The green party in
9-01-02
On the bright side, we went to see the movie full frontal tonight. Great great movie. Different, unique, fresh, Deep. Art. created by an artist. Indi films have really upped the ante now in the movie world. Music is going through the same revolution now. it's just that the music biz doesn’t know it yet—or maybe they do but they just don't want to admit it to anyone.
On the darker side, taped the video music awards a few
days ago and had a chance to fast forward through it tonight. Look at what
happened to TLC—they
tried to honor them at the awards show—the same fucking record company who
raped them and robbed from them—they talked about their millions of records
they sold and awards they won and two years ago they filed for bankruptcy
and sued their record company. Now that Lisa is dead they are trying to pretend
like everything is alright. But what happened to those girls is a symptom
of how insidious a lot of the biz is right now and has been since it's inception.
The brave ones bail out on their own like Prince and Aimee Mann. But most
of them stay in, even if they have to file for bankruptcy, or sing insipid
crap like Hey Baby like No Doubt did. poor schmuks.
They may have gained some more twelve year old fans, but they lost their
street cred with every righteous music lover in
Strange… but it's only a matter of time. Things are changing. Indi is coming.
Seeing diamond Dave and Sammy together was weird. Dave has lost his mind truly. They gave Michael Jackson some artist of the millennium award. For what??? No one was really sure. Even host jimmy fallon commented. I wonder how much he had to pay for that… no sign of the real artist of the millennium, Prince. Eventually he is going to get his. After they kill him or bankrupt him they will turn around and honor him. Fucking Bastards. Over three fucking hours of contrived over worked over played prefabricated absolute non-art. a real testament to how fucking foul the current music biz is right now. But luckily there is tons of great music being made all over the world—really more than any other time in history. In fact the rock and roll revolution is swinging full tilt right now. Music is just coming out of everywhere and real rock and roll is coming back. It just wasn't apparent from this year’s video music awards show. It looked more like a bad Vegas nightmare. But there was a hint of real music at the show, the vines Linkin park system of a down hives coldplay cake white stripes and the mighty mighty strokes all got a mention or an award. Axl played. That was cool. But that was about it. but in general it was such a trashy event. Every chick selling sex every moment they could. As if that's all they have to offer. No girls with enough intelligence or courage to stand up and not slut themselves and sell something else, you know, like their brains or their talents. Sheryl crow did though.
But things are changing. Indi is taking over just like it did in film. The key is to make sure the people know that they/we are the revolution. Don't listen to regular radio—only college or very cool stations. Stop shopping the big record store chains, only the mom and pops again. Stop buying music shoved down your throat from the major record labels just because they tell you to. And stop getting robbed for sky-high ticket prices. Concert attendance continues to drop every year and they can’t figure it out. They blame it on the economy. Just don't pay those ticket prices. Ever. Eventually they will get it. Just start to boycott all this mundane bullshit that is contemporary popular music. Just because someone’s face and name is plastered all over the fucking place doesn’t mean they’re good and worthy of your attention. In fact it usually means the opposite. I believe in the revolution that was started in the sixties by our parents. Just because they got a little sidetracked in the seventies and eighties doesn’t mean that it isn't still going on. I think our generation feels it. maybe we just don't know what to do about it. I think a lot of people are scared. So they hypnotize themselves by shopping and booze and too much TV and movies. When you see your government kill anyone who opens their mouth against them you’re going to be scared. That makes sense. But it's still no excuse not to keep up the good fight. The music business, most major religions, and most of the world’s major governments need complete overhauls by the people for the people. the entire world needsa fucking revolution.
Current Spin: Frank Sinatra, songs for swinging lovers. Classic. Aimee Mann’s new one. Coldplay’s new one, a rush of blood to the head.
8-31-02
In the studio all day today. Just me and Infinito and bloopy. Laying down the Basic tracks for six more tunes. Guitar vocals Bass and drums. Building the foundations for the rest of the tunes on the new album. Worked more than ten hours. Lots of singing and playing. Voice hoarse. Feels good. Hialeah fest last night at Churchill's. Humbert played. DC3 also. Humbert is great. They are way out there now. experimenting. Really good.
Current Spin: The Vines, Highly Evolved. Good old fashioned r&r in the modern world. PsiloPolisp live DJ set from www.paxahau.com great electronica from Detroit.
Last Movie: Mulholland Drive. David Lynch. Amazing movie. A masterpiece. Life as a house. Great feel good movie.
8-27-02
It's been three days since la Princesa and I broke up. Three long days. Confused. Dazed. It wasn't like this huge explosion or anything. Just this knowing that we aren't going to make as good of lovers as we did friends. Normally you just ride these things out anyway; till their fateful angry climactic conclusion. You don't just break up right in the beginning. But man I looked at her and she was so upset and so beautiful and innocent and pure and I loved her so much and this voice in my head just said man you gotta let her go. You can’t just be with her because you love her. You have to be a man and do what's right. And so three days I have thought of nothing but her. But I won't call or email. She's already told me not to. And she won't. I would love to talk with her and share with her and try to absorb some of that energy at least of the friendship that we developed, but this is best right now. we go so close so fast because of this chemistry that we have.
But I just think that if you know it may not work and your already struggling with it, then why keep going. We both agreed on that. I want to stay friends. She isn't sure. I understand. I feel like I am withdrawing from drugs. Or fasting. I wake up late. Sad, confused. Not sure if I made the right decision. Stand in the shower and cry a little when I think of her. At least I'm showering. I walk in the middle of the street without looking, just challenging life. It's strange how you act when you are depressed. You take on this fuck all attitude. Not shaving, or shampooing the old locks for a while. Not until I feel better. I don't care how I look. In fact, I want to look as bad as I feel. But I'm honoring how I feel. I'm not in resist or in pretend. I am honoring the mourning of her. Beautiful her. I am honoring the great time we had together and everything she meant to me and everything she did for me and that I did for her. I mean we kicked some butt together. Both of us artists, both of us Venus. Created a little artistic dreamy romance together. My heart longs to find the one. to get married and start the family. And she feels the same way about her life. And for a brief moment there… But in your heart you know. And we knew. So we walked away before it got any deeper. I just hope that we will be able to be friends again.
Current Spin: Smooth 70’s compilation. A lot of sad slow love songs.
Last Movie: Rufus Wainright Live at the Rehearsal Hall on Trio. Not really a movie, but real good.
8-26-02
We had practice tonight and then we went to see Nil Lara perform at the Road. Nil. So brilliant but so poor and unknown. Britney spears. So retched and yet so rich and well known. Is there a secret formula to obtaining great success with the lowest common crap? Or is it just the law of the land? Are we destined for the bottom of the barrel when we are at the top of our game here? Is there a universal imperative at play that demands mediocrity rules the roost here on earth? Nil Lara. Mathew Sabatella. Diane Ward. Zach Zischin. Jim Camacho. Omine eager. Rene Alverez. Arlan feiles. Derek Cintron. And of course Rhett, no last name necessary. Good lyrics, great voice, awesome delivery. No one knows these names around the world. And yet they are all great singer songwriters putting out brilliant albums year after year. And these are just the best, the super-heroes. A notch or two below them are tens of others who are almost equally as gifted and entertaining. But you see, they are from Miami, the city left behind. The lost city. The city with no tomorrow for rock and roll.
Athens broke out. Minneapolis broke out once. Seattle
sure did. New York has more than once. Detroit, Phili, LA. The difference
is that these cities have audiences that love their music. People in Miami
love it's music too—but Miami’s music
is now House, Techno, and all sorts of other dance music and of course what
Miami is even more famous for, Gloria, Ricky Martin, and the Iglesias men.
Miami lost it's audience for rock and roll years ago. Maybe ten years or
more. Maybe it never had a rock and roll audience. I don't know. So the question
remains, year after year, with so much raw talent in Miami, can Miami break
out? Even if there is no audience here in Miami? Can Miami break out all
over
Last Movie: The Man who wasn't there, by the Coen Brothers. Great vibe. They're great at it. Again billy Bob is a genius.
Current Spin: Mathew Sabatella, walk in the park. Pure, raw, soulful, passion. Think strokes meets Elliot smith meets lost and found John Lennon music.
8-25-02
I think the reason why we get so excited when something really good gets popular with the masses is because most of the time the masses only enjoy crap. Think Vin Diesel or most rap or alternaschlock. So when a U2 or a Woody Allen or a Robert Redford gets famous with the general public we go crazy because it's such a rare occurrence when the sophisticated and selective tastes of the few agree with those of the tasteless masses.
Last Movie: Fight Club, again. Fucking classic.
Current Spin: Toog, Easy Toog for beginners.
8-24-02
In the studio all day today. Working on lead vocal tracks. six songs almost completed. Just need sweetening. On Monday we start pre-production on the six more that will make the new CD. I played the guys a lot of new and old songs before these last six were chosen. It was interesting to watch how the process works, choosing the songs for the record. I made a list of about forty or so songs I wanted to put on the album. The first six were easy to choose. We just went for the songs that we were dying to lay down. But trying to narrow it down from there was getting to be a struggle. So every night I would sit in the studio by myself and just play a bunch of tunes, new and old, some of them ten or more years old, just to hear them again, see if the sparks were still flying, trying to feel which ones meant the most to me. I had it down to about ten to twelve. I would play them for the guys and sometimes when I was done singing them they would just stand there staring off into space or reading like I didn't even play a song, and then other times they just flat out refused to consider other ones. And then I would play one and as I was playing it they would start to play along and then we would play it again and then again and we all would kind of agree, ‘o.k. that one can stay in.’
The process feels very much like sacrificing babies. You kill three to save one. You just keep telling yourself, ‘I'll live long enough to record them, don't worry. It’ll happen.’ So many songs and just so little time and money to get to all of them. That is the worst part about it. It's not the lack of money or fame or the struggle. It's not the old clothes or the beat up car that barely drives or the missing teeth, although none of those things are very much fun and certainly add to the general malaise that is being a struggling musician. But the evil, the real killer, is the constant nagging thought that you may never get to record the majority of your life’s work. That's where the pain comes in. That's the pills and the booze and the bad attitude and the chip on your shoulder… can you imagine writing non-stop all your life, every waking hour when you aren’t working at something else is spent writing songs, twenty to fifty songs a year, maybe more, as most songwriters do, and only being able to record a handful of them in your lifetime. It is the fucking horror. Only hearing a small minority make it to the finished state you hear in your mind. That's the fucking curse.
Some chick told me last week over dinner when she heard that I wrote songs all the time, you know, that it wasn't that big a deal to me, that it was just part of my life or whatever, she had this look of excitement on her face, like wow, you can’t take that for granted.’ I just looked at her. I didn't answer her, played it off. I mean what was I going to tell her? Start telling her how I've sold everything I've owned and started over five times over to record albums and tour, to try to honor the fucking ‘gift,’ and how many relationships I've lost because after a while a girl can only take so much of the struggling and starving artist lifestyle. Maybe the songwriting singer musician thing is a gift. Maybe it is a great thing. But it is just as much a curse. When you are an artist you are in constant pain. And sometimes it is important to shift out of the artist mindset to remember how the other half lives, just to keep your sanity.
But it's always there in the back of your mind, waiting to come back with a vengeance. I will never forget the day that Cleo told me over the phone that one of the reasons from her perspective that we were breaking up is because she couldn’t take the artist lifestyle anymore. The pain that ran through my body. I had heard that enough already in my life. And I had worked harder at that relationship than anything before. I was also working just as hard on my music career at the time. working all night, coming home when she was already asleep. Sleeping till noon everyday. Spending all of our money on my music. I knew where she was coming from. But I am an artist. I mean I felt so cheated in that moment because i can’t do anything about it. I can’t just wake up one day and say o.k. now I'm not going to be an artist anymore. Honey, I've decided I'm no longer an artist. I'm going to cut my hair off and sell all of my gear. I'll be back in an hour. guys do that, but I would guess they were never really artists, more just musicians. And there is a difference.
I mean, you can’t just stop it. Being an artist is like being addicted to a drug, or having children. If you're good anyway. It steals all of your time attention and money. It is something you are obsessed with. You wake up everyday and fall asleep every night thinking about it. About the mission. About the new boundaries you will cross or the new frontiers you will explore. You live for that passion and romance and joy that only comes from being a creator. Girls always think when they see you from the outside that it is such a great thing. And they can’t wait to be with you. I mean that's half the lure of it when you're young, because chicks do dig singers, but they just have no idea what it's like once they are on the inside. An artist, if he is worth a shit, sleeps eats and breaths his art. His life’s work is his life. Everything else comes second. It's not that we don't care about the other stuff, the house the car the eventual family the friends the parties etc. we do. It's just that there is a much bigger picture there, and that's the art.
Man is the master of his destiny always, but an artist is a slave to his art. So far I have found that most girls can take about five years of it tops. After that they start to lose it. The last relationship I was in lasted about four months. Pretty soon she started to feel like the studio time, the photo shoots, the guitar always around my neck, the gigs, the traveling, and the laptop were getting between us. And I know she absolutely loves me. All of them did, still do. And I love them, but I think it kind of makes them crazy. She said, ‘it's like you can never just relax and have fun, because you are always attached to that guitar or running to your laptop to write something down. It's like you are obsessed. But I want you to be obsessed with meeeee. I need someone who values meeeee more.’ I looked at her and couldn’t say anything. It felt like she was talking to me and to God at the same time. it was like God came in the room for a moment and held my hand during that moment and it was like we both smiled at each other because we had heard that so many times before in my life and it hurt and he knew it and it sucked and it made me mad and sad and frustrated but I just sat there not saying anything because as much as I wanted to try to work it out I knew it was a bigger picture thing going on.
I mean I'm not an asshole. I'm not going to pretend or lie or act like everything is going to change and one day we will be able to have this normal life together. I have a lot of respect for her and the kind of life she wants to have and I don't want to take good time away from any girl when she could be finding her Mr. Right. So I let her go. After Cleo and I broke up, she went out and found some attorney in less than six months and now she's married to him. I mean girls just reach this point. You're big dream is this conquering the world, writing the next moonlight sonata, or creating some small revolution or movement, and their big dream is, well you know… marriage and a house and babies. These girls, they don't realize how much you do value them. How they are everything to you. They are the inspiration for a lot of the art in the world. I would do anything for the girls I have been with. Without love and romance I would dry up. I just think that most girls would rather appreciate their art from the outside rather than be so close to the artists. They can turn it on and off if it's on the stereo or hanging on the wall.
A lot of girls resent when every word they say to you could end up in a song or a story. I just keep looking towards the future and to one day meeting a girl who is as busy and motivated and passionate as I am with her own life’s work and the two of us perhaps can have this deep passionate undying love and respect for each other as people and for each others work. But not necessarily need to be together every waking hour. That way we both can stay focused on our life’s work and not feel like we are compromising anything. But still hold the safe warm loving space for each other as a couple. Still have kids and big beautiful homes and all that, but keep it in perspective. A super-hero-girl. You know, that's the dream.
Last Movie: Man of the Century. Twenties type thing set in modern-day Manhattan. Cool flick. Dug it.
Current Spin: Anthony Robbins, get the edge.
8-21-02
This last year I have written the best songs of my life. I know I always say that. I think I would be worried if I didn't always think that. it depends on what mission I'm on at the time. Back in 89 to 93 I felt that way. our mission was to write the trippiest deepest most intellectual and spiritual songs we could. It was always a contest between the toad and I and the other guys around. That whole deep trippy sound. And then again in 95 and 96, the mission was to write the most majestic long lush orchestral open-tuned magnum opuses I could. And then in 98 and 99 it was all about planet music and how many languages I could write in and how many different types of styles I could fuse into one song or one album. You just get on a roll and you ride it. I wrote maybe thirty or forty songs in the last year. Not a lot. But a good number of them were classics, you know, meaning I really dig them still. They're holding up. Keep moving on, sleep with you, the ambassador, where is my love, beautiful one.
This last year my focus subconsciously but deliberate was to write good catchy pop/rock songs under four minutes long. Try to make them as simple and mundane as possible. I had never tried to do that before always so focused on being a songwriting genius, or an innovator, something tremendous that has never been done before—the art of it, never focused on just letting go and trying to write really simple catchy tunes with lyrics from the heart about things we all could relate to. I ended up writing a lot of songs about girls and love and drugs and being a loser or a winner. And that's what the new album is going to sound like. Writing songs makes me happier than anything else. It makes me feel like my life has meaning. I have been writing since I can remember. I don't know what I would do if I didn't write songs. I think I would write them anyway. I would just pretend to. I'd be one of those guys with a wife and kids and a dog and a nine to five job and a receding hair line who goes up to guys like me and says, “you know, I write songs myself in my spare time… I'm working on a CD…” the horror. Kill me first.
Current Spin: Iggy Pop, the idiot.
Last Great Movie: Sex and Lucia—amazing.
Inspiring. Vivid. Erotic. Thought provoking, moving, emotional experience.
If only
8-23-02
We went and saw Zach Zischin perform tonight at the wall flower gallery in downtown Miami. The guys from DC3 were backing him up. The sound was amazing in there. Zach was so good. I spent half the show moved and inspired and the other half depressed out of my mind that he isn't yet famous and for that matter the rest of us aren't yet either. I swear to God he was playing for ten people. And he was putting on a world class concert. Crystal clear. Gorgeous pop craftsmanship. So me and la Princesa driving home and she is screaming at me, and hitting me, asking me why I haven't “made it” yet. And I'm telling her I don't know. And she is saying we don't want it bad enough. I look at her for a minute with this look, and she takes it back. o.k., so you do want it bad enough. And you do work hard at it. and you have worked hard at it for fifteen years. So yea I'm not going to get into this conversation now as were driving home. I'm going to go home and drink and write and just stay focused on the art itself. Just stay focused on the art and the work of it and the passion of it and the romance of it and the joy that springs forth when you are creating something pure and fresh and original. Try not to focus on the other stuff so much. Just enjoy the art of making this new album, and celebrate the gift and the joy.
Current Spin: the strokes, is this it? again.
Last Movie: Eddie Izzard, dressed to kill. Brilliant. What comedians should be like.
7-03-02
On the road we passed by a sign in front of a church that read ‘you can depend on Jesus.’ We kept driving. I felt some anger swell up within me. how long are we going to continue to perpetuate these religious myths projecting our own power and responsibility onto some man who has been dead for some two-thousand years. ‘How irresponsible that church is and those people are,’ I thought. ‘that sign should read ‘you can depend on yourself.’
Current Spin: Fashion Nugget by Cake. I'm really getting into these guys now.
7-28-02
Played a show last night in Gainesville, FL. fans drove in from Miami, Daytona, Orlando, Naples, fort Lauderdale. The house was not packed but it was well-filled. The crowd dug us. At the end of the set the crowd was chanting ‘one more song, one more song.’ Those friends and fans made that night for us. I lost my voice again during the set. This is new. It started at the hard rock a few weeks ago. I'm going to a throat specialist to see what the hell is going on. Later that night everyone went their separate ways to various parties. The next morning me and Vancouver woke up and realized that we didn't know where Infinito and the Piano Man were. The Piano Man finally called and said, ‘Fishy, I'm in some apartment and I'm all alone and I don't know where I am. I don't know how or where to tell you to pick me up.’ It was classic.
Current Spin: Ram by Paul McCartney
Last Good Flick: black hawk down
07-10-02
In order to get stronger you have to continuously lift weights that are heavier than what you normally are accustomed to lifting. One week you cannot even think about curling fifty pounds. Two weeks later you are curling fifty-five. You just got stronger baby. And more toned. Lucky you. Deep realizations lately on this concept of challenging myself to do things that I don't want to do. Once you force yourself to do something that you at one point could not because you are afraid or because you just don't feel up to it then you really start to flex and test your strength and character. The key is to force yourself to do it. just dive in and make it happen. this can become addictive—becoming the master of yourself. Becoming a warrior. Someone who refuses to say no. this is the difference between the strong and the normal person. We hear about strong people everyday. They are strong because they are able to do things that themselves and others don't want to.
Current Spin: high llamas—Gideon Gaye.
Current Read: Stupid White Men by Michael Moore. Really funny.
Last Good Flick: Bourne Identity. Cool, very cool. What James bond movies wish they were.
7-20-02
I cannot believe how much great unknown music
is out there. Everywhere I turn there is some great band or artist that
I had never heard of somewhere on the planet making some great music.
Current Read: Fast Food Nation,
Current Spin: PHOENIX, a French band, their 2000 release entitled UNITED. I love this CD I think more than anything else I have heard this year so far. Also AIR, another French group, more electronica meets Brit-Pop.
Last Good flick: Monsters Ball. Halle berry got the role of a lifetime and took it to the limit. Billy bob Thornton was amazing. I cannot believe he didn't get the Oscar. He has a gift for character exploration. This is one of the saddest disturbing movies I have ever seen. I hope I never see it again.
7/12/02
Ted Turner announced plans to donate $1 billion to the United Nations for humanitarian (i.e., not administrative) programs in a move he hoped would encourage philanthropy in other wealthy individuals. This went down in 1997, but I just read about it today again. Now this is a New-Transcendentalist move. If every one with a little money did this, we would well be on our way to curing the pains that are ailing us.
Current Read: Power versus force. Study of muscle testing---kinesiology---if you're interested it is fascinating.
Current Spin: amnesiac by Radiohead---one day this will be looked as their most underrated masterpiece. I can’t get enough of it.
<This is the beginning of the Transcendence Diaries section of The Adventures of Fishy.>