Dec 31, 03

Working madly all day and night editing the diaries, now up to 450 pages. The ones from the last two years that we took down. Ready to go up this week. Writing a few new songs. Mostly open D. It’s New Years Eve day and the new years calls and emails are coming in. I am so thankful for my friends. I used to get so weirded out by the friends thing. As we get older we start realizing how precious it is to have friends. If you end up with a handful of friends you can call your brothers or sisters in your lifetime you are very lucky indeed. Talked with Madelynne a long time tonight about this. and about her new baby she is expecting any day now. About how precious our lives are. we went over a few of the people we know who have died already. Car accidents and things like that. life really is so precious. And our connections to people are so special. As I was typing this she called me back to say ‘hey pups just to let you know its been really great spending another year with you.’ I told her hey Maddie I'm typing the same thing right now! we are both so lucky to have each other in our lives. How sweet. So while I was sitting here waiting for the new years activities to begin, I just started hitting new mail messages in Outlook and typed quick happy new years messages to all my friends. Just to let them know I care about them and was thinking about them. it was so much fun. Every time a person popped in my mind I would type a quick message to them. Fun. Man if I ever had to make a choice, and I don't believe that we do, I would choose friends and family over anything else. I feel so blessed today reflecting on this.

Also trying to stomach the Blue Mask. Been working on it now for a month or two after putting it down for some years. But who is he and why is he? He is a madman. He is a murderer. He is a prophet. He is a hero of sorts... but how? Still hard to understand and even harder to handle working on him for more than an hour... he is intense. He is voracious. He has no regret.

Current Read: more of the same. Still studying the Islam faith and its history. Had no idea that it was a spin off from Judaism/Christianity. Also reading little bits from the Tao Te ching as every year during this time. I think that it is the most holy of all books man has written so far. The most true and noble of all of our word collections. Most people just don't know it yet. Most people that live here on earth at this time still need God defined for them. They need all those rules and laws and pillars and sacraments and definitions and legends and myths that make up the major religions of today’s humanity. The Tao te ching offers very little of that. it defines God as we really know IT to be thus far, which is to say that we don't really know IT very well at all; but in our hearts we can feel IT---we get glimpses of IT. it is a bold testament to where we are and what we know. That is what makes it such an elusive and mysterious text to many, but at the same time, very sacred and holy and truthful to others. It is pure light without filters or mirrors.

Current Spin: Zach Zischin new CD. Real as the memory. Lots of good songs on here. Power pop. Catchy as all hell. He is mixing the new Transcendence album. so hopefully some of that power pop polish will rub off on what we laid down.

PS---had my final session of the year with my coach Gary. We always do this on the last day of the year. very special. We went over my list of goals/outcomes for the year of 2003 together. We both had copies. He is an Anthony Robbins coach so we use the Robbins RPM software to track goals. I had created 15 major goals last year on the 31^st of December 2002. what we noticed was that 2003 was a pretty crazy year. A lot of change and growth. More mental and emotional than purely physical things accomplished. We tracked the results pretty objectively. Noticed that I had achieved about half of the goals and outcomes I had listed one year prior. Seven out of 15. not bad. Mostly the ones that were more like I said mental or emotional, growth type goals, like the one about coming from my true heart, rather than doing what you think you're supposed to be doing, Also the one about not holding back power, rather than thinking or second guessing—just going for it all the time—being in the full on flow of your power. Both of those accomplished to the point where I couldn’t even relate to needing to have them written down now as goals anymore. Quit smoking. went to Italy to learn Italian and research my family. Made a lot more money. finished TTV. Finished and finally released the sleep with you album fifteen days before the year was over so that was cool. Figured out how to and completed the Diaries project. Etc. but other ones we just didn't even come close to. Def did not do any major tours which I really wanted to do. went on a few mini tours and they really just sucked. So that is something we really have to focus on. A few film and TV licensing deals. Things like that. So it was a chance at celebrating the accomplishments I did achieve and then recommitting and planning on how to achieve the ones I didn't yet reach. And then the fun part is to come up with all the new ones for the coming year. you transfer any of the old ones you still want and then add a bunch of new ones. I really like coaching. I think it’s a great way to stay focused. Having that outside source who is just there for you objectively to tell you like it is and help you achieve your dreams. most good coaches have coaches of their own too, to help them achieve their own goals. That's cool.

Dec 30^th.

Just spent three days snowboarding in Big Bear Mountain in Ca. way cool. By the third day I was just flying all over that mountain. Can barely move and can’t sleep from being in so much pain from a few fatal falls. I landed a few times on that cracked rib from last year and find it hard to inhale without horrible pain. I think I may have broken it again. my entire body is in the worst pain you can imagine. but it’s a good pain. I cannot even roll over in bed without ‘aaaaagggghhhh!’ The Beav took so many falls ---- it was his first time boarding. I couldn’t believe every time he would stand up again. I was so impressed by his willingness to learn and go on. I would scream “love the pain bro! Love the pain!” and then he would stand up again. I was so impressed because I know how much pain he was in. Just got a call from Brown Bear who has been in park city, Utah skiing. Evidently he ran right into a tree and broke three of his ribs. Definitely not risk free sports. But worth it I think. Some good powder on the mountain. Freezing as all hell. Like 9 degrees. Went with the artisan and with beaver. We all shared a room. Which was very interesting. Me and the artisan had an amazing time as always. We flew everywhere as a doctor and a dentist. Had it on all of our airline tickets and rental car. This lady at the airline looks at my ticket and says, “you're a doctor?” and I'm like, hair hanging in my eyes, combat boots, and earrings all over the place, “Uh yeah. Don't I look like a doctor?” “I guess...” she says. Classic. We just laughed and laughed the whole three days. Had a great chance to do some bro-bonding with the Beav. He is such an amazing person now. truly my hero. He is very selective about who he hangs out with because he is so busy. So he pretty much just has time for his wife and his two little girls. And of course for mom and me. he should go into politics, we tell him. Such an honest and honorable man.

Brainstormed non-stop with artisan about taking band’s concerts to a new level, like getting a headset mic and really letting loose and talking a lot more on stage. Like let me out of the closet and stop being so much the rock star which is pretty played out anyway, and just start totally being me, like the real life me. and then also of course taking that to include doing like a whole a talk show thing. this was her idea, which is so funny, since me and G2 have already been talking about it for the last few months. Me just interviewing people. trying to connect the dots. Me as the rock star is so serious, and only about one third or one tenth of the real me. fun but boring. ‘oh Fishy,’ she says in that high pitched little JAP voice of hers, ‘I know you want to be taken seriously, but you're so much more fun than just that singer guy you act like on stage. You should have your own little TV show.’ so the idea being just to let it rip. First interview I will do will be: God. Of course he is invisible. And only i can see him. or hear him. ‘God thank you so much for joining us today.’ I will ask him a bunch of questions for everyone. People can email them in. ‘what's that God? You have a message for Julia Roberts? Right here right now? on my show? Oh how exciting? what's that? she needs to marry me? are you sure? Isn't she married to someone else already? What? Oh yeah, of course. You're God. O.k. right. how dare I doubt you for a second. so Julia, if you’re listening... what's that God? another message? This one is for salma Hayek? O.k. cool. what is it? she needs to be with me too? She needs to share me with Julia? Wow! There is a God after all....

And now from the mailbag:

Dear Fishy (or whoever reads these mail can you forward to him please),

Unfortunately we consumed one year .When I look back, many events, effect to my life, happened in this year. I do not want to remember some of them but even there are some events that whenever I remember, I can not stop smiling. I have to say that one of them is the meeting of you. I hope you are sharing same feelings with me (aren't you????).I hope I did not make you uneasy because of my wordings in my last mail. I only want to share my feelings and ideas with you. I have no any aim to give a lesson about how you have to behave in order to make your life more meaningful. Really You must know that I like you being so humanistic type. Yes you are artist but this not important for me because there are so many artists in the world who are useless, only live for yourself and for the advertisement. However you are different from these persons who say they are artist. In my head you are good person and you are doing good social activities that help the world. I learn from your web-site. (also I received a mail about the G. Bush resume few weeks ago from your band. it is good work you are doing) Please do not ever give this up like so many people do!

So Happy, Lucky, Healthful years with your family and friends...

Liutin

Istanbul, Turkey

Slept next to the artisan for three nights. But we didn't fool around at all since now we are ‘just friends.’ Fun. And challenging. But easy. I can’t believe its over now and we did it. how cool. A three day ski vacation together as just friends. And it was no problem. o.k. well besides the fact that I was pretty much hard for three days straight. But that was the fun part. The artisan reminded me that “fishy, sexual tension can be a good thing babe.” Easier for her to say of course. My mind was racing at the thought of her pale white skin and more... so half the time I couldn’t even sleep. But I love her as a friend and she had just met this really great guy that she thought ‘just might be the one.’ So I resisted it, better put, I discreated the desire. Really respecting those boundaries and not going beyond them at all. and we had the time to just sit and talk all about sex and stuff, like girl talk. We took the time to test our friendship so to speak. To let loose with it and see if there was really friendship there.

We got to share with one another a lot of girl and guy secrets that you don't normally share with someone you are seeing, but only with a “girl friend.” I asked her, as a girl, which phrase she prefers the most from a guy, ‘beat off, jerk off, do yourself, play with yourself, masturbate, etc...’ definitely not ‘beat your meat’ she says. ‘that's just gross!’ HAHA. ‘masturbate or do yourself are perfectly fine if you must talk about those things’ the desert princess says. And then I answered questions for her from a guy’s perspective (“why do you guys have to ‘do yourselves’ so much?! I mean everyday?!!!” “Well I don't know really. If its there, do it....). very funny. It was cool. I told her just think of me now as one of your girlfriends. And don't hold back. We can share make up and stuff. tonight I helped her pick out her outfit her for a hot date tonight with a new boy. She told me that I am the poster-child for something that is now becoming mainstream called “a metro-sexual.” Basically the gay straight guy that I have always been is now becoming fashionable. Go figure. [go back in time and tell that to all the jocks in high school who used to always want to kick my ass for wearing eye makeup, LOL]

Current Spin: lots of Christmas CDs by Frank and Bing, Nat king Cole, Mariah Carey, Motown Christmas. And this new one from Sondra lerche or something. sounds like Ed Hale meets Donovan meets Beck. Hehe.

Current read: a brief history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. Great read!

[the artisan is one of those people who preheats the oven before she puts the food in it. “are you one of those pre-heaters?! I ask. Told me that I must explore these types of people more in an episode on my TV show, perhaps conduct some interviews to explore this personality type. I have also discovered from my research that she makes her bed every morning when she wakes up. She calls soda, “pop”, not soda. She has never peed in the shower or bath, which I find truly disturbing. She never yanks cords out of the socket but instead bends over and pulls them out. so she's not a cord puller. And I would bet that she's one of those people that when she gets into an elevator with other people she hits the button for the floor she wants to go to even if it is already pushed in by someone else. just to make sure.]

Dec 27^th,

The hardest part about coming home every year for the holidays is watching the slow aging of your parents. All of a sudden mom becomes so important. All of a sudden you realize that your mom just might be the most important treasure in your life. the most precious and valuable treasure you may ever have. When does this happen? I am trying desperately hard to not let go of that youthful attitude where we just totally take our parents for granted and we just act like we don't care. But its hard now. one minute we are just these kids or teenagers who don't care and in the next we find that we are becoming parents to our own parents. I hate that.

All of a sudden now the sight of my mom when I see her for the first time each year and notice that she has aged a bit more, it just crushes my soul. Breaks my heart in pieces and makes me dread the day she gets old, like really old, or passes on. Then what? My God the fucking horror of that. My heart suffers for anyone who has lost their mother already. Mom lost her own mother about five years ago and still cries when she speaks of it. maybe that's just something that you never quite get over.

I am reading people magazine. I know what you're thinking. Temporary insanity perhaps. But seriously. its really quite fun and sinfully enjoyable. Like eating potato chips or fast food or something, or sneaking away to smoke a cigarette. The thing that strikes me while reading people is how it is absolutely positively every bit as mainstream, inane, and irrelevant as you guess it would be, and yet at the same time it isn't. Granted, I'm reading the year-end recap issue, so maybe it offers a bit more meaning than most of the weeklies. This thing with queer eye for the straight guy is great. The idea that a few years ago, there was that whole Matthew Shepard horror and the whole don't ask don't tell shit in the American military, and now gay guys are on prime time TV giving straight guys make-overs. And of course Ellen has her own talk show and its rated number one. just a few short years ago, it was considered so taboo when she “came out” as being gay. Watching humanity evolve. This is a huge thing for us. And you also get to see all the hot actresses dressed up in people, which is nice too. and that guy surfer chick who lost her arm and is still out there going for #1. and that rock climber who cut his own arm off because he was trapped under a boulder for five days in Utah. How inspiring. I'm hooked on People.

[when I was a kid I used to love US and People magazine. When I got to my teens I reached this point where I wouldn’t be caught dead reading it. I mean, I would rather have been caught dead than even thinking about reading one of those magazines. Because after all, when you are a teenager... you know the drill. Switched over to soaking up all the philosophy I could for years, and then of course literature, making the rounds, then the sciences, and then the religions, its like we go on this search... for God... for meaning... for something deeper than Bennifer and Britney etc... [no seriously, bennifer and Britney truly have been around that long. for decades now, just their names change. I tried to think of examples from the eighties or nineties but I couldn’t. that's the thing... they just kind of disappear, get sucked up by the new Bennifers and the new Britneys... but I digress.] So scooting through your twenties and you're all about the sciences and the real world stuff, how electricity works and how to make money and save money and start empires and take over empires and all of that stuff. after a while you kind of give up on the whole religion thing because it becomes rather frustrating. you start to realize that God isn't actually in any of the religions, kind of still hiding in the Tao te ching really, but none of the religions want people to know that, so they keep it a secret. That's why they all align themselves with governments and armies and all that. because they realize, unlike most human civilizations yet, that religion isn't about God as much as about who has the most money and who has the most guns and might and influence. This could help explain why God is still hiding in the Tao te ching and so few people know it. the Taoists and the Buddhists don't have any guns. They never really bothered to attack and kill a lot of people or take over any countries so they never had a chance at making their religion one of the major ones. Unlike the big three. but the point is after a while you just kind of give up on all that stuff. you accept that its all kind of fucked up and wonky and maybe just best to leave it all alone. let other people swing with if they want to. as long as they aren't trying to ram it down your throat... so all of a sudden you pick up a People magazine again...]

Current read: The world of Islam. (LOL) Studying the Muslim religion now. Learning a lot. What a mess this whole thing is.

Dec. 26, 03

Today me and Beav spent all day helping mom move all this stuff she had stored in this warehouse she was paying for for the last ten years. Just a bunch of old stuff from various homes that she never found time to go through. We emptied the whole thing and helped her sort it all out. the whole warehouse now empty. it was great relief for her. In this one moment we were driving and I looked over at the Beav and asked, ‘dude, you know that the greatest feeling in the world is?’ ‘What dude?’ ‘Waking up one day and realizing that you accept yourself for who you are. That you're just happy to be yourself.’ ‘You can say that again man.’

More love letters from an angry anti-fan:

-----Original Message-----
From: Naughty Tom [mailto: xxxxxxx@xxxxxx.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 26, 2003 5:00 PM
To: Transcendence Television
Subject: Re: George W. Bush's Resume

Gosh, your clever resume really convinced me. I'll stop voting for Republicans and start voting for the socialist Democrats so they can tax away everything I earn and leave the country defenseless.

Yes, I'm going to vote for Dick "VOTE FOR ME BECAUSE I'LL GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU WANT AND MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PAY FOR IT" Gephardt, or maybe Howard "I WOULDN'T MIND IF SADAAM HUSSEIN WAS STILL IN POWER TORTURING WOMEN AND CHILDREN" Dean.

Fuck off you morons. And take me off your mailing list. I hate your band now.

Dear Naughty Tom,

You are funny. Consider yourself off the list. And hey for your own sake (or at least your family’s) lighten up a bit.

PS—the staff here at TTV is not all democrat. You are so funny, perhaps just naive, a bit short sighted to think that just because PEOPLE don't like Bush that they are democrats. Don't you see that you're just being scammed by the whole bi-partisan two party system? You think because Transcendence Television mailed this out that we are democrats? Seriously. Because we’re not. We’re a rock band. We are too rebellious and anarchistic to be a part of any party. We’re just concerned citizens. Which you should be too. It has nothing to do with democrats or republicans. It has to do with basic integrity and honesty and the dishonest drunk driving draft dodging druggie sell out war mongering imperialist creep that is pretending to be our president. Keep on voting republican if you want to. And keep on cursing and getting angry over nothing at people that have an opinion different than your own. And we’ll keep telling it like it is.

Sincerely,

U know who

In other news:

Played the rough tracks from nothing is cohesive to Beav. Beav is like, ‘dude give me something I can work with here. This album doesn’t rock like sleep with you. Where are all the guitars bro? What are you guys thinking? It sounds like piano music from the seventies. Or dance music from the late eighties. What's up with you guys? You're going to follow up sleep with you with this? oh man don't do it!’ later, flipping through spin magazine’s year end issue. Looking at all the scraggly-haired jangly-guitar 3-minute indie-rock-song bands that are all the critic’s rage this year thinking oh my God we’re going to release an album that sounds like piano music from the seventies? But we can’t help it. We love the album so much. Are we destined to be lambasted in the press and broke our whole life?! But then I got up and flushed and thought, you know what? Do what you love and love what you do. Let the critics go fuck themselves and if you have to, go on food stamps. But just keep doing what you love.

Last screening: Circle by Eddie Izzard. His newest DVD release. What happened to Eddie on this one? Was he just high on crack perhaps???

Dec. 25^th

Its Christmas. i just woke up. The house is filled with the joy of the day. the girls have opened half of their presents. Beav and T are in the kitchen making breakfast. Mom is playing with the girls and the Christmas day parade at Disney is on the television. I'm going around taking pictures of everyone. They said, Fishy now that we had to come home here to your moms, (after having moved to Kansas this year and not living close to mom anymore) we understand why you are so excited every year to come here. Everyone is so happy to be together. Our hearts are filled with joy.

[There was a moment this morning sitting on the floor by the Christmas tree opening our presents. We had the CD player on shuffle spinning various Christmas cds and a song came on from Elvis. T makes this comment, oh awesome, Elvis. Someone says oh honey does it remind you of your father? [T’s father is a boat captain and in his spare time is an Elvis impersonator. I'm not making this up. its true. and like mine and Beav’s father has just never been around.] And she says, this is probably the closest I'm going to get to talking to my father today. Everyone stopped for a moment. Just silence. Then I said, ‘you know what T? We probably won't talk to our father either. Those guys can just fuck off.’ And we went about our glorious morning. As much as it may hurt or make you angry as a person whose father never cared about you, and its certainly fun and somehow sinfully rewarding to take a jab at them whenever you can, underneath it all I have an understanding of it too. I mean a deeper understanding of what it must be like for the men whose wives just happened to get pregnant and all of a sudden at a very young and immature age found themselves fathers, even if perhaps they hadn't planned on it or didn't even feel ready for the experience. Back then it wasn't like it is today where people plan that kind of thing out more. people are waiting a lot longer to have children now. back then they were pushing them out by their early twenties as was the case with our parents. Me, I have purposely tried to avoid having children, trying to put if off as long as I can, because of this fear of not wanting to be the kind of run away dad that my own father was. I know how it affected me and Beav. And I wouldn’t want to do that to anyone. So I just keep trying to avoid it. chances are Beav and I will force ourselves to call the old man sometime today and wish him a merry Christmas and shoot the breeze a little. But that's a strange thing, your relationship with a father who you never really got to know growing up. you just can’t force that relationship. The connection is just not there. you start to realize that your family may not be your blood all the time. when it is it’s a great thing. but its not always that way for everyone. T and her sister were raised by their grandparents, and so that's who their real parental figures are. And that's o.k. with them. And for me and Beav it was our grandparents and our mom. Mom was our father and our mother. And the older I get the more I start to realize that me and Beav are extra lucky for that. for having a mom who was so awesome that she could be both like that for us. this year has really been amazing for me. last year I probably spent a few thousand dollars on Christmas presents for everyone in my world. That's where I was at financially and had been for a long time. This year I didn't have squat for cash so I barely gave presents to anyone. Just mom. And as much as it sucks being financially strapped like that, it has had a really profound effect on me. it kind of forces you into really appreciating the simple things about the holidays. Like just being able to afford to fly out here and be with your family. If I ever do have the blessing of having children I hope I can be as good of a parent as my own mom was.]

Dec 24^th, 03

The artisan came over this afternoon. Spent some time hanging with the fam and then the two of us snuck off to hang out and catch up at a nearby coffee shop. we were both so excited the last two months to see each other and spend time together this Christmas, as we had last year. but just a little over a week ago, the artisan met someone. Like really met someone. A someone she thinks she may really like and be with. She told me yesterday afternoon at about 5. when we got off the phone I was in such shock that I just fell asleep right where I was laying on the living room floor. I think my body or mind just needed to sleep it off, because I was so looking forward to being with her. I was kind of in shock a little. I hadn't even really taken any of the girls I was seeing in the last few weeks very seriously because I just didn't have the free attention. So much of it was on the artisan and how much fun we would have.

So today she came over. She went on a date with the guy we will call bachelor number two last night. when we saw each other it was very nice. and sweet. And tender. We got into the car and she asked me immediately, so how do you feel? About what? I feel good. about the situation silly. about us. how do you feel? well, I feel very happy for you, like one of your best girlfriends. and I feel very sad like my heart has been crushed. But its o.k. I'm big enough to hold both identities and not be mad or take it out on either of us.” She said, “I'm just so glad that we can be such good friends. And talk like this. and really be real and honest about it.” “well me too. I love you very much and I'm happy for you. but can I just say this. I leaned up in my seat to face her. “I was just really really longing to be with you. I was longing for you so much the last two months and I couldn’t wait to see you. so this will just take some getting used to.” a tear fell from beneath her sunglasses. “I was longing for you too. you just can’t plan things like this.” I know. you can’t. we’ll deal with it.

it is true that I longed for her for the last two months. We have the best time when we are together. We never stop laughing. And we share very tender moments together. She is not knowledgeable about the same kind of things. we aren't going to sit and discuss renaissance art or jean luc Goddard films or politics, that's just not her. She's a desert Princess. Loves shopping and makeup and going to the spa. but she is very intelligent and enlightened, so she can understand anything and partake in the most profound conversations about consciousness and truly not only ‘get it’ but add to ‘it.’ I was looking forward to lying for hours with her naked body holding her and hugging her and talking.

in the café we discussed this newest situation we have found ourselves suddenly faced with and laughed about it. she shared with me how hard it was for her last February at wizards when she realized after our glorious Christmas and new years together that she would have to share me with a few other girls from various countries who I was also very close to. how crushed she was. But how she got over it simply because we sat and talked about it. we talked about a potential future together and realized that it would just never work. She's an early bird, and I'm a night owl. She doesn’t want any more children and I know for sure that at least I want to have 2 or 3. not now, but someday. So right there for us that pretty much decided it for us. we just knew that as much as we liked each other it just wasn't something we should continue to explore.

But today in the coffee shop we stared into each other’s eyes ---she has very sparkly bright blue eyes----we talked about how that happens and how its just alright. You don't have to get upset about it. that maybe even though there might be someone that you have to let go of because of various different reasons, you can’t be together, that you can still love them and cherish them. that maybe that is just something that is there. you will always love them, but you just know that it wouldn’t be good if you were together, so you aren't together. But that's all intellectual. Its an intellectual understanding. And its good to be practical like that. But in your heart you still love the person very much and you may still want to be with them.

I know I have been in this position many times with many girls. With Maddie and with Cleopatra and la Princesa and then the Italian stallion and Little Tree. All of whom I love madly and passionately but just knew that it wasn't the right thing for any of us in the long run. I know that as I get older I become more and more o.k. with it. I don't let it affect me as much. Call it growing up. call it just being strong or mature or enlightened or being practical, but I'm alright with it. I could sit and talk with her about her new boy and be o.k. with it even though at the same time it was making me feel sad and a little bit jealous. But I can feel the understanding of it all inside of me. and be alright with it. my friends over the years have always asked me well if you love her then why aren't you with her? With all of these amazing girls I have been lucky enough to love and be loved by over the years. but I just know that when you know you know. just like when I met Cleo I knew. right then. I knew from the moment I met her. And then when it was over I knew that too. and I was able to deal with it and move on.

I have always had this feeling of my future wife inside of my being. Inside of my heart I keep a very special place for her. Even though we have not yet met I still write her love letters now and then and try to feel her and communicate with her through the ether of time and space. I know that if I ever don't listen to my heart and end up with a girl who I can feel is not ‘she’ then I may never get to meet her. And the same for the girl that I settle with. I in turn would be preventing them from meeting the true love of their lives too. Like with la Princesa. We broke up last November and by new years she had met the man of her dreams who she is now married to, even though last November when we broke up she thought I was crazy and a jerk and an asshole, I just knew in my heart that I was making the right decision. And I bet now as she sits next to her new husband by a cozy fire during Christmas that she is not thinking those things about me anymore. I know she knows now that I was right. Because we talk about it via email sometimes. So until I meet the love of my life I just have to deal with situations like this when they arise. I have been to more weddings of ex-girlfriends in the last ten years than any man should be lucky enough to attend. And I cherish every one of them.

When the artisan left today we kissed good bye and it was bitter sweet. But it was bitter sweet in a really really good way. I am out in the back yard now writing and smoking a delicious cigar. [I know, I quit nine months ago, but there is something about the holidays and smoking good cigars that I simply cannot resist.] Mom and T are inside baking cookies and I am very very happy; even though I am perhaps feeling a bit sad too. But it’s sad in a good way.

Last screening: It’s a wonderful life. first time in many years. don't you just love the holidays? God we just don't make movies like this anymore. There is this crass commercialism that has seeped into American art and entertainment that is so skin crawling and nauseating. It pervades everything around us. Everyone trying to sell to everyone else. Everything seems to just be begging for attention doesn’t it? rather than just doing its thing and minding its own business and just being good if its good. but it’s a wonderful life is such wonderful movie. Towards the end you cannot help be brought to tears. Makes you nostalgic. Why don't people seem polite and genuine like they did back then in the old movies? I wonder what is happening to us? The movie makes you want to go out and do good deeds for people everyday. Can you imagine that? doing at least one good deed everyday of your life? Maddie is like that. Like an angel. I want to be more like that.

Current Spin: American life, Madonna. I love the Hollywood song. But so far the album seems kind of forced doesn’t it.

Dec-23

Home now with the fam. The little nieces are so cute. So fresh and innocent. Mom is baking cookies. Beaver is under the sink trying to fix moms water filter. I'm playing the guitar by the fire and singing with the little nieces. Old Cary grant movies playing on the TV.

Sometimes my heart aches for a deep romantic love relationship and family of my own. but I see what Beav and T are dealing with now. its constant attention out. and me, I'm in a world that is constant attention in. That's funny, I get paid to spend a lot of time alone and write and sing about it. Last night I was showing everyone slide shows from my laptop of my various adventures from this last year—we had such a wonderful time---and while I'm doing that they are combination in awe of it all---“you did what at an all night sex club?! We didn't even know things like that were legal. Mom close your ears.” “Dudes, let me tell you something. everything is legal. Just depends on who you’re hanging with and how much money you have.” And then having to obsess over every move the two little nieces make every second. Don't touch that. don't put that in your mouth. Do you want your bottle? Its time for you to eat. no no no don't pull on that. and I'm like, there's just no way I'm there yet. Uncle Fishy do you want to make a parade with me now? and I'm like, oh what a great idea. And then after a minute I'm like o.k. enough. time for uncle fishy to go play his guitar honey. And they just sit there while I play and dance around. Loads of fun. Easy breezy being an uncle, but to be a father? Crazy. not yet.

Their cute faces are so adorable when they look up at you and smile. Children are so amazing. but mes wants to go hunt animals in wild safaris in Africa and work on a kibbutz in Israel for a few months and live in a quaint little one room chateau on the French Riviera by myself smoking and writing and composing and falling down drunk in my bed every night with my clothes still on. I know, such simple goals. And of course I am dying to get out and tour the states this year too. So the kids thing is not going to happen just yet.

But it does get me a little sentimental I must admit. Seeing Beav and T so happy and such a tight little unit. It sets my heart a soaring. Somewhere out there is the perfect one. perfect for me. perfect for her. Perfect for us where we both are now.

Current Read: Reverence for life, selected writings of Albert Schweitzer. Those to whom good things happen in their lives must feel called upon to give of their lives in order to alleviate misery of others.

Current Spin: lots of Christmas CDs by Johnny Mathis, Barbara, carpenters, Frank and Bing, Elvis, Mariah Carey, beach boys. Good times indeed.

Dec 22--

On plane bound for AZ to be with the fam. Tired. I am desperately looking forward to being pampered by mom, hanging with my bro, and playing with the five nieces. And dying to spend time in the snow. This year it'll be big Bear Mountain in California, which supposedly has five separate free-style trails, caters mostly to snow-boarders.

Last night I had this dream that I was able to fly up very high into the air with the aid of these large balloons that I would hold onto underneath each arm. I was running from people---who?---and then jump up. I would jump and up I'd go for miles into the air, this time It looked like perhaps I was in a mall type of a building. I would rise above everything. landing would be very scary, the coming down part, because I would fall down to the ground so quickly. I noticed that my heart beat very quickly as I would come back down, wondering what kind of an impact the landing would have on my legs and body just because I would soar so high. But each time the landing was o.k. and I managed to land on my feet and it didn't hurt so bad each time.

This is the third time this year from what I can remember that I have had this dream, the second one I can remember most vividly, and the first I only remember as i was sure in the second one that it was not the first. That I had already been there a few times before. in that second one as well as the first, there were no balloons involved that I needed to hang onto. I would just jump up and I would shoot up into the sky for miles and then come back down. I was subtly aware that it was all up to me the whole time. that I was the one who was controlling how high I went up into the air, how quickly, and how fast I shot back down. But for some reason I could not quite get control of it. I couldn’t get complete control of how high I would go. it made me feel kind of out of control, and a little frightened. I knew the higher I would go and the farther that I would go the better, but then I worried about how I would get back down. But everytime the landing was alright. I was fine. Interesting. [let yourself go man. Let go bro. Let go and fly bro. Just let it happen.]

I have noticed that as soon as I decided and declared my desire to make France/French my next country/language to conquer I notice it showing up everywhere in my world the last few weeks. Meeting all these people who are going there to live also.... interesting how that works.

Also have been thinking a lot about going to Africa. So much to do there. I assume one never finishes exploring Africa. Just an ongoing adventure lifetime after lifetime. I also have been thinking that it prob doesn’t get more genuine than that. that if you are looking for meaning, that would be it. Africa. Kind of the beginning and the end of it here on earth. Weren't we all born in Africa? Or have they since decided it was Asia now? I have forgotten. Will look it up. I did bring an entire suitcase full of books with me on this trip—most of them history. one for clothes, and the other for books and cds. [I complained to Bas the other day that jazz was saying that Vancouver and Bloopy are always talking about how weird I am. Dude I am so normal. I don't get why people always say I'm weird. He just looked at me with this stunned look on his face. You're bringing a fifty pound suitcase full of books with you on vacation!!! For God sakes Fishy! it doesn’t get much more weirder than you man. But that's why your friends like you. your weirdness, the insane way that you live and how you have set up your life is what enables you to be person you are and that's why people like you so much is because of how you are.” he said. ‘Well that's good.” “But don't go thinking that you're not weird Fishy. I don't know why you sit there and try to act like you're not weird. Both you and Cleo are insane. Look at that guitar your playing right there.’ “this is my new baby.’ I said as I stroked the new ’72 Alvarez artist. ‘you have a new guitar and we can’t even afford to buy groceries man!!! What's wrong with that picture?!’ ‘well dude I haven't really been eating lately anyway, just drinking espressos and orange juice mainly.” He stood up and started walking to the kitchen. He put his hand up to stop me, “You see? You see? I rest my fucking case man. You have been on this liquid diet of coffee and orange juice for six months. Just more evidence man. Please stop while you're ahead. Before someone locks you up.” he left the room. I stared down at the ground and then looked at my new baby guitar, snuggled it. ‘Well at least I write good songs.’ I said to myself. (When do we turn weird? Are we always that way? just born that way? Are some of us weirder than others? And who the hell are Bloopy and Vancouver to call me weird? They are like the weirdest guys in the world.)

Last few nights thinking about being in Africa and hunting. Being with the animals. Sleeping in the savanna with the animals. Shooting them and bringing them down and then cooking them over a fire and eating them. this is a must. I will do this within the next five years. when I am a bit older and more of a man. [you see what I mean about getting married? God I think of Beaver and his life now. or trophy wife’s. everytime you call there, its just pure madness with all these kids screaming in the background and they can’t even have a conversation with anyone for more than a minute. Their lives are not necessarily compromised one would say, but its just that they are trading in one kind of life for another. No African safaris for them.

[the more love I am able to get from myself and from the world and from being alive, mind you this is a new thing for me, the less I notice that I long to meet HER right now, and the less I desire to settle down and have kids. You know how a lot of people just seem really desperate for that? like they are in a race to get married or find the right one and then have a family? And what has always struck me as strange is they do this before they even travel or explore or accomplish a lot of other things in life. The more interpersonal work I do, the happier I get, the more blissful rather, and the more just totally satisfied I get within myself. Finding this lust for life continues to boil. A mad curiosity to explore and to live large. I would hope and I will create that I will be able to do that still within a marriage or relationship, but since I'm not in one now its all the better. I would still like to be making it with more girls, more often and more varieties, but still for some reason find it hard to force an interest in any one long enough to get to that point. I am just too much of a snob for the most part. So one you just need to have enough money so you can buy a different girl every night. or two, one thing I did realize is that I just need to be in better circles so the choices are better. I believe that then I would have more interest.

Played an average show at wallflower gallery. Good turn out from fans. Less nervous and shy. Joked more on stage. Felt comfortable. Cooper is not grooving on the drums as much as he is with his enthusiasm and energy which is great. But just not feeling the drums from him are tight or solid. Miss playing with Infinito.

Hung out with Jazz last night. I do find her very cute and smart. But man she is kind of crazy. she likes me. and I like her too. but I can tell it wouldn’t last a long time so i always just think why risk the potential pain. Do you pursue the attraction anyway? just because you are attracted and just enjoy the moments? Is the idea to just bang every girl who likes us because its there as Bas and Ferret remind me. Or do you hold back and try to be a gentleman and not do anything if you can tell that it prob won't go anywhere in the long run with the person? that's the million dollar question isn't it?

12-21½

A video producer that lives in china who I met in Florence over the summer actually is making a music video for the new sleep with you album. He is making it for the song sleep with you, which certainly has not been lack of its share of controversy since its release.

We are in constant communication about the details. I asked him recently what it is like now in china during this season. What holiday do they celebrate if any during this time of year I asked. Here is his response:

Hi Fishy:

Well, this in china should be just normal time coz the traditional Chinese spring festival, the biggest in a year, is still one month away... but now, young people living in cities spend Xmas, and they suppose that Christmas is the most important. And coz these people are the most potential consumers, so, the related goods get everywhere in street... well, u should come and have a look...u will be shocked.

And the spring festival, a time for reunification of the family, has a history of over 2000 years. People everywhere should come back home to celebrate it. They are supposed to come to the family where their oldest family member has survived and get together there. that the reason why the transportation is always the biggest problem this time coz there are about 300 million person/time during the 15 days...

Well, the story is to be continued if u are interested in. let u know more next time.

And happy Xmas friend!

Q

12-20

more responses to emails from impassioned anti-fans:

***Your Dudeness. See below for response to your most recent email...

I'd like to ask you Fishy what your solution is? Your perfect candidate, who has never lied, been caught in any scandal, the one who has led the life you would approve of to be your president of the US.

****Have you read the bios of all the candidates yet? by your email you seem to be saying that everyone is a failure at business, a pathological liar, and/or convicted felon like W. but i can’t seem to find any presidents in our history who were like him in that respect. Favorite candidate? For me, at this point, John Kerry. Check out that man's resume. That is really something to set our standards for, I mean just as men, I would love one day to be the kind of man he is. very special, honest, war hero, then war protestor, district attorney, senator, committed public servant. A good guy. not caught in any scandals as you imply...

ask yourself Fishy, has there ever been a president that you couldn't put together a resume like that for if you were against him? try to be honest....

***uh yeah bro plenty of them? W is the FIRST convicted felon in the office ever. He is also only the second not to actually "get elected". Many many of them never failed as much as W and MOST of them never swindled the people of the world as much as W has so many times. his presidency is the first real obvious example of the people losing complete control of the administration or any honesty or integrity in our history. Started with LBJ, and has just continued to downward spiral since then. [some will argue that it has always been this bad, but read that resume again] again, its truly shocking. And again, it has nothing to do with partisan politics...

do you have a favorite candidate that is so much better than our beloved Mr. bush?,

****yea. Kerry. Or Gephardt. Or for that matter Clark, although I don't think he is that good as a potential leader in the charisma dept, but his resume is superior and exemplary to anything I have ever read. truly a remarkable person in both his integrity as a man and his achievements in his career. Something W just doesn’t have. a kind of life we would all benefit from trying to emulate.

or are you just another guy that complains about everything this

country is about.

****Me? Na man, you just don't me. I am a radically pro-American patriot type. I love our country bro, and perhaps that is why I am so passionate about us staying committed to the same ideals we started with when we first developed this nation.

LET ME GUESS.. HOWARD DEAN RIGHT? that's your boy...

***[insert laugh here]

*****Howard Dean? Not a chance. Unfortunately I think he is kind of a future-dictator type. You are certainly seeming very republican these days--at least in this email.... it was almost as if you didn't read my last reply to you. too bad. You're a talent and could have a positive influence on your fans and friends.

you may consider moving.

your utopian paradise is not in this world, I hate to break the news to you Fishy.

****on the contrary, I hate to break the news to you, but OUR UTOPIAN PARADISE WILL BE IN THIS WORLD. With or without the help of all the old dinosaurs hanging around complaining that we are utopians or idealists and we can never have a utopian paradise here. Just you wait and see brother, we are well on our way to it. The people are getting smarter and smarter and life is getting better and better. Let the devil have his due (W and his henchmen) but it is only a matter of time before the Innocents (the current American people who still aren't doing anything to get rid of him) catch on, and when they do, he will most likely be the most hated and disrespected president this country has even had. WE the people will create an enlightened planet here on earth Chris. And it will be a civilization without lying, without swindling, and scandal or scams, and all these other things that those weaker than us consistently try to preach is just "the norm." Its happening. Right now. under our noses. Don't listen to those around you who tell you that "lies" and "cheating" and "untruths" and "scamming" are the norm and that its alright and its "just the way it is." you give in to that, its just cynicism. We all owe it to ourselves and everyone else who will come after us to not only try to be the best people we can but to demand the same out of everyone else.

lots of other places to go to if you don’t like it here Fishy.

later brother..

***I do like it here. but I will like it even more when things get back to normal.

Take care,

F

Dec 20^th,

Everything is changed. The whole mindset is changed. Cannot think of girls in that way anymore. Makes me feel weird. Like grossed out for some reason. Like I am violating something/someone, unless it is SHE. I am fascinated by this slow shift in viewpoint. Feels like preparation. Still have not called the Venezuelan girl back even though I said I would. Not sure why. don't know if it is because I think perhaps it might go somewhere or if I am just sure that it won't and therefore don't want to be bothered. Quite a quandary no? interesting to say the least.

Currently absolutely impossible to keep up with the workload. Now I am working full time at record company—up to 12 hours per day, but still trying to write full time—stay current in the diaries, and type in a certain amount of pages per day from older journals and pieces of note papers—there are boxes of them now. And trying to still write songs and practice guitar and piano and keep up with vocal exercises. Days seem to last forever. I am exhausted. Perhaps this is why I am not calling the girl. Maybe it is just that I am exhausted. By the time I get home I don't feel like hanging, just playing guitar and writing and relaxing. Right now it is 8 pm on Saturday night. I am in the office still. I am the only one. most of the lights are off. And we have a concert to perform tonight in about an hour and a half. Crazy I know. I will rush from the office, go get changed, and speed to the venue. next year cannot be like this. Cannot wait to get home for the holidays.

Current read: the 100 most influential people in History. Great book. Never knew that Shakespeare was not actually William shakspere. Most people think it is. but actually the Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere. He used it as a pseudonym. The newest theory on the most famous of all literary figures is that he was paid a very substantial annual pension by queen Elizabeth to keep his identity a secret and not reveal who he was or anyone else he wrote about in his plays. No one ever knew who the real Shakespeare was in his time. He was not as popular then as he is now so it was never an issue. I never knew this. This book has tons of facts like that in it. Good read.

G2 decided he wanted to not only post the recent Bush resume that was floating around the Internet lately, but send it out to our fan base as a kind of viral marketing test. The results were quite remarkable. It prompted hundreds of replies from fans. Passionate replies from both sides, both positive and negative. We will create a forum for TTV as soon as we figure out how to.

-----Original Message-----
From: Stewart [mailto:xxx@x.com]
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2023 10:53 PM
To: Transcendence_Television-Subject: RE: George W. Bush's Resume

The democratic candidates have such spotless resume's, right?

Stewart

----------------------------------

Hey there,

John Kerry has a remarkable resume actually. and I am sure there are many republicans who have better resumes than W. God who doesn’t? But I don't think this is partisan at all. It shouldn’t really be about democrats versus republicans, although both parties want you to believe that it is; but I think we are all smarter than that now. It should be about who is best suited for that toughest of all jobs.

-----Original Message-----
From: [mailto:hifi@xxx.com]
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2023 6:01 PM
To: Transcendence Television-
Subject: RE: George W. Bush's Resume

Dude, if you're going to be sending your fans your liberal agenda, i don't

want to be a part of it. take me off your list.

You may not agree with the president, and i respect that.

as a human being, which i assume you are, you should at the very least be happy and proud that this guy you hate so much got rid of a criminal who has killed and tortured thousands of innocent people.

do you support human rights? maybe not....

what if it was anyone in your family who suffered under his regime? would you feel different about getting rid of that guy?

you may want to ask yourself that...

Stick to music brother....

_________________________________________________________________

It’s our best dial-up Internet access offer: 6 months @$9.95/month. Get it

Now! http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup

Hey Hifi,

What's up brother? This is Fishy here. Webmaster forwarded your message to me.

About your message, i totally hear you. but I don't think the bush resume said anything bad about gw. It was just a resume of his life and career, from what I understand. Nothing really bad or good either way. just the facts. Bro, I have put a lot of time into studying the presidents of the United States in the last few years. it is a hobby of mine that I am very passionate about. and really, if you look at this guy objectively, it is truly unbelievable that he is a president of this great country. I don't think it had anything to do with a liberal agenda as much as just some basic American ideals like honesty, integrity, human rights... etc. just a very sad time for America right now; when we have a president with a resume like this in that office.

and by the way, though I do tend toward liberal ideas at times, I am also very conservative as well, somewhere in the middle because I think the whole bi-partisan set up is a scam--no one is either one way or the other--but just so you know I felt the same way about Clinton the first time he lied to the public about ML. That was it as far as I was concerned. Democrat or republican, you lie, you're outta there. that's the way it should be.

The fact is that WE will evolve--humanity will continue to evolve as a species, as we always have. But our evolution is slowed by all of our willingness to allow men like this to rule or even play a part in our lives. It is time that we all stepped up as a people, not just here in America, but all over the world, and demanded truth, justice, integrity, and a resolute commitment to human rights for all above all else, especially money. unfortunately we don't have that yet. not here and almost no where else. but we will. I can promise you that. we will have that one day.

The Bush resume speaks louder than anyone's "liberal agenda" ever will.

Respectfully,

Fishy

12-18

I see her everywhere now. In the face of so many girls on the street. In a passing face of a woman driving by on the highway. I will see the back of a girl, her hair, and something will make me stop and stare. It is unconscious now. I am doing my best to stop this. it is a puzzling dichotomy inside of me. I long to meet her but I am desperately hoping to put it off for as long as I can. I know this sounds insane. After I haven't even met her yet, it could be years before we meet. So who cares? Why worry. But still I think about her all the time. i can feel her. It has been so hard to date other women. Other women, as if I have already met HER. I know again. insane. I am resistant to dating other women other that HER. But I have not met HER yet. so how do you know who she is, people ask me. You just know. You can feel it. You know how you feel that? you know how you hear that voice in your head? It may say NO very loudly. LOL. Well that's what I mean.

I think I am just trying to hang on to my youth as long as I can, and the whole rock and roll thing. you can’t really go backwards. Never thought I would ever be one of those kind of guys. Actually trying not to be settled down. But now it has become a kind of obsession. Trying to avoid it. and yet peering around every corner when you see long legs and a beautiful mane of hair walking by.

You know what it is? its that now, I know. before, perhaps I didn't know. when were young, were young. The reality isn't in there yet. when I proposed to Cleopatra we we’re young. Just kids. Looking back I don't think we agreed to get married as much as just agreed to run away together from all of our inner demons we were battling. I think we were just trying to escape together, escape poverty, escape traumatic childhoods.

But now, its different. I'm on top of the world. There's nothing to escape. And you start to realize that marriage is a forever type of a thing. crazy. forever. can you imagine? You mean forever in a metaphorical sort of storybook way? or do you mean forever like for the rest of my whole life? and granted I don't think most people mean forever these days going into it. I think they say forever at the altar, but of course what they mean is I really love you right now in this moment and lets see what happens. because now people are getting divorced so often and getting remarried like its no big deal. So maybe that's the way I should just look at it too. just open up and let it rip. But instead I'm like trying to avoid even going out with girls for fear I will meet some girl I will really like. I just started to realize this lately when I found myself unable to call girls back once I went out with for the first time.

But my other theory, I was thinking about this in the bathroom at the office, I was just standing there thinking, that maybe that its right there. I mean maybe she is right there---I'm talking about time here--- I mean maybe she is right there in front of me like anyday, any hour. that's what it feels like. And so when I feel this feeling like NOOOO about calling other girls, its in order to prevent getting involved with any other girls at this time. I used to not listen to that voice. Now I listen to it. I trust it.

12-17

Not working enough. But trying to. Need to catch up before I leave for the holidays. For the record, this is the week where a whole row of keys on my laptop don't work. They go in and out. and it is truly hilarious trying to decipher what I type. See below. Band sounds great. Show on Saturday. Found out today that the sleep with you album is charting on a lot of different stations all over the country. In all these cites we have never even heard of. We are all so happy.

Listening to Wayne Dyer every night as i go to sleep. I Love him. Especially this tape he has called real magic. At this point i would rather work on being happy and fulfilled and just walk around le m floating rather than being cool. Thn perhaps that spent too much time worried about being cool. What s cool? Being happy and fulfilled. That's cool being Neo. So I listen to these tapes every night. Process n your sleep. You wake up feeling psyched and energized and confident and ready for another day of manifesting your dreams and those of others.

PS--- found The Adventures of Fishy. For real. Fifteen years of writing that I thought was lost forever. 2 huge boxes crammed with notebooks and journals. Thank God. Finally. [Later in the story I will lose this all again. and it will be found by someone else. I have no idea by who of course. But for now it is in my possession. I will do my best to get it edited and typed in. Why I don't know. What the hell is any of this about anyway???] I did not realize how much writing there was. I had no idea, no memory of how much I wrote. It is quite insane. There are books and books and books filled with notes about every conceivable subject imaginable. It is a brilliant idea for a story. Man wakes up one day, finds boxes. Realizes he is a writer. Never realized it before. [Now what exactly is a writer? Can you just be someone who writes and be a writer? Or do you have to be published writer? Do you have to have people that like your writing? Does the writing itself have to have some sort of social or artistic significance in order for one to be called a writer? Or if a person just writes a lot does that a writer make? Hhhmmmm. I have no time for any of that though. Because I am just too fucking busy writing all the time.] I guess I just always did it and never realized what that actually meant. Bas screams why the fuck don't you take your writing seriously?! I am man. You aren't man. I am too man. I write a few hours every fucking day; you know that. Yeah but what do you do with it all? You just write and then what??? Put it in some boxes so you can lose them and find them five years later???!!!! What kind of a fucking game is that? Look at this fucking box we have found here. This could be a gold mine! We could be living like kings and sipping Crystal right now for God sakes, with hot babes under each arm! Publish this shit man! Do something with it. I tell him, Dude, I gotta sing with the baaaaaand. That's my passion. I write because I have to. I was born doing it. its like my unfortunate mission. But I sing and write songs because I want to bro. That's what I love.” “Whatever man. Lets get rich first and then you can sing with the band. You wrote and submitted one fucking screen play in a week and you won a contest and got published. So that should tell you something. Maybe you can come up with a fake name or something if you want to. so it doesn’t effect your music career or effect the band at all. you know like a pen name... he says. Hhhmmm, I think. What an interesting idea.

Current spin: cesare cremonini, Bagus. I Love this album! and also, Louis Armstrong Christmas.

12-??

I went out on a date with the Brasilian last night. Again it was hard to ask her out. I don't know why. on my way there, I was not even excited to be going out with her. What the fuck is this? what has happened to me? the whole time we were together I felt like torturing myself. She was speaking and I would be sitting there imagining myself running really fast to smash my head into a building to splatter my brains everywhere. I was just so uninterested in her and so mad at myself for being there with anyone who I was not entirely intoxicated by. One would think I could just be appreciative to be going out with girls....

This game in my head. Back and forth. ‘you like her.’ ‘I don't like her.’ ‘you like her.’ ‘I don't fucking like her. If you like her so much you take her!’ ‘I am you! you idiot. lets like her!’ ‘No! I don't like her.’ ‘what's not to like? Look at her. She has eyes like Julia Roberts. She looks like Julia for God sakes mixed with a little bit of Penelope. She's fucking perfect!’ ‘I don't care. I don't like her. I want her.’ And then I would look over at some girl walking down Lincoln road or sitting across from us at another table. ‘now that's what I want. That girl is speaking Hebrew. I want that. or is she speaking French? either way, I want that.’ ‘dude you are such an idiot. that girl isn't even pretty. Look at this girl sitting in front of you talking. and for God sakes at least nod your head while is speaking so she thinks you are listening to her instead of carrying on a fucking conversation in your head.’ ‘I am nuts.’ ‘you’re not nuts.’ ‘ well then who are you talking to me.‘ ‘I'm you. and you're me. you're talking to yourself. Its perfectly normal. People do it all the time. don't sweat it. but just keep your nodding so she thinks you are listening.’ ‘God what language is she speaking in again?’ ‘Dude its Portuguese. you know it. c'mon say something back to her. Participate in the conversation. Get interested in her.’ ‘but I'm not interested in her. I don't know why. I'm just not. She bores me.’ I AM SO FUCKING BORED!!!!! get me out of here. I want to go now.’ ‘you can’t go now. you just got here. your food hasn’t even arrived yet. you have to be cool. Just be polite. Be a gentleman.’

‘God I want to whip myself. I want to cut myself and bleed. I hate this. I hate going on dates with girls like this. this is so boring and stupid. What if this girl thinks I like her. I have to be rude to her so she doesn’t think I like her. And then she won't get hurt. I have to make her think she doesn’t like me. I will eat without manners. I will make a pig of myself. She’ll hate me by the meal’s end.’ ‘you're such an idiot. look at her. She's hot man. She is really cute.’ ‘I don't care. I'm not going after hot or cute.’ ‘you’re not?! Then what the fuck are we doing?’ ‘we have to find someone who is smart. A girl who is SMART. For God fucking sakes. This is so boring I feel like stabbing myself with this knife right here at the table.’ ‘well I bet she wouldn’t go out with us again if you did that.’ ‘why are you saying us?’ I thought you said that you were me. and I was just talking to myself? What the fuck? God I am crazy’ ‘maybe I'm not crazy. maybe everyone thinks like this.... woe is me. look at her go on and on, talking in that broken English. I don't even feel like correcting her. I'll just pretend she is making sense and shake my head.’ ‘man she is pretty. Maybe she's the one and that's why you're so upset by her. Maybe were sitting with THE ONE right now.’ ‘whatever man. I'll know it when I meet the one. the one will be so exciting and smart and witty and charming that I will be scared shitless like a little child and want to go running around like an idiot. That will be the one. this is not that. although she is very nice. God why can’t I just hang out with her?’ ‘well what if the ONE walks by but you're too busy hanging out with this one. imagine that!’ ‘my God the horror.’ ‘what a mess this is. this whole thing. where is my love?! My Princess in her flowing white dress with that big beautiful shining smile who is so smart that I fall off my horse???!!!’ ‘when I get home I will throw myself under my car and run myself over. This is torture. I cannot bear to be alone anymore. And yet I cannot bear to be with anyone either. I must stab myself in the heart. or jump off a cliff. My life is too confusing like this. why can’t I just get it straight one way or the other?! What do I want?! And why don't I have it?!’

Tonight I went home with this pit in my stomach. i drove down the highway and started screaming as loudly as I could. Just screamed and screamed and screamed. Up into the air. both hands on the wheel. I feel more pain and anguish than I have ever felt before from this. i have no idea why. but there is something about this date that killed me inside. There is something horribly wrong with where I am and what I am doing. I have always been so good at being in the right place at the right time. What the hell is going on now?

12-16

Just got home from Zekes house. Working on background vocals with trophy wife and starting mixing for the new album. we achieved something very cool tonight. a CD skipping effect I have been working on for years. this album is going to have a lot more noise on it. just long passages of noise. I think I will be happier with this album than any other. I was in ecstasy in there tonight. Really loving it. slightly bored of course and just wishing all the long hours involved in making an album were over but still loving it. I will be much happier when we have the money to go around the clock always working on recording so we can get albums done a lot faster. One guy is recording us while another is making mixes while another guy is making remixes etc...

Ferret has taken legal action against Cleopatra and I, and Cleo emailed this morning threatening to take legal action against me unless I finished mediating process, which I want to but I have just been so busy I haven't the chance to do so. I am driving home tonight, at one point I looked at the speedometer and I was doing well over 110 because my mind was just so lost in the music I had blaring, and I was so into the mixes we just did—they sound so crystal clear and phat and out there. and then I am reflecting on the last two days and both of these guys—two of my best friends in the world of my whole life seriously—both of them just totally freaking out like this. and its all over money. it’s the three of us, but I have been the only one who hasn’t freaked out. just trying to stay calm and not freak out. everyone wants their own little share of the pie but of course there is no pie right now so anyone taking any kind of legal action is ridiculous. Looking back I should have taken legal action about a year ago when I first tried to mediate with Cleopatra and she was just a total nut case. Screaming all the time, slamming doors, being so rude to everyone. I should have just been a man and laid down the law, but I loved her so much I didn't want to hurt her. But that would have prevented a lot of this insanity that we are in now. so now my job is to try to calm them both down so we can deal with the even larger issue at hand we are dealing with now, the IRS. Both of them threatening going on legal on each other and me and here we have this major beast to battle who could bring us all down. Man its like a Shakespeare play. If they don't see what's coming, how come I do?

The situation is so funny. They are freaking out over money. But there is no money to freak out over. There just isn't any money to get right now. Now me, I'm about the poorest I've been in many many years. I'm the one who is getting nothing from all of this and I'm the one who started the company and I'm the one who is going to prob get the least, one because I have spent so much of my money already making our band’s albums, and two because I just don't care enough to fight with people I love about it. But what I find really interesting is that I have continued to give away money like I always have even though I am flat broke. 35 a month to sponsor the kid in Brasil. 100 to amnesty. 100 to our local PBS station... Handing out tens and twenties to bums when I pass them on the street still. I just loaned Mara 350 today to pay some of her bills. And seriously I have no idea how I am supposed to pay my own. But she needed it and she has a child and all. You know the thing is that I am just not going to give into this bullshit lack mentality everyone is creating right now around me. If our goal is to be successful, I mean magnanimously, uproariously successful then people better start acting like it. and stop acting like they believe this reality, or pretty soon they are going to be in a reality they can’t get out of. You can only believe your shit for so long before it really does turn into your reality for real. Know what I mean?

12-15

The new song will be called ‘Last stand at the walls of Zion.’ I think. But it is one of the prettiest sweetest most beautiful sexiest songs I have ever had the privilege of working on. I am so in love with it. Don’t want to mess up the lyrics. So I'm not writing any of them. Just letting them one by one and line by line flow out of my mouth. Just play the song over and over as if I am transcribing it or translating an ancient text found deep within my subconscious.

I don't know what exactly is happening to me. it is a metamorphosis of some kind. Always working on these few very specific primaries. Every day. little by little. Just continuing to let go of any beliefs I feel or thoughts or ideas that I don't prefer. Some really old stuff. And slowly what I feel is that “it is o.k. to be me.” or really more like, “its amazing to be me.” that kind of sensation. It is a wonderful feeling. All of a sudden not being afraid anymore or worrying anymore or comparing anymore, but more like just really happy about who I am and where I am. It is a state of being I have always waited to experience.

And about the girls, I see so many beautiful girls all the time, my head just darts all over the place looking at them. and I just want to talk to them all and be with them all. but like I said, I'm not in that place anymore where I have this interest in faking things, so you kind of know from looking at them or talking to them for a few minutes what's up. it’s a crazy thing, and prob the main thing I still feel hung up a little bit about. because I am already in this “I'm looking for the one” stage. Just very easily and quickly passing girls up if they don't “fit the criteria for the long term.” Which I’ll tell you is really too bad because I really would like to enjoy some good old fashion gratuitous sex right about now. and my heart s very lonely for that connection. But the prob is my heart just won't let me fake even like a two minute conversation with girls anymore. So unless you can just get away with saying to a girl, o.k. look lets not talk, but whadoyou say we just take the next half hour and have mad passionate sex no strings attached ok? And the thing of it is that there are plenty of girls that are like that. but man for some reason I just can’t even do that anymore. They actually turn me off. IT makes me feel like am compromising myself or something. IT is fucking tragic. Its like I am fighting within myself. Like a schitzofuckingphraenic. Crazy. I said I would write about Saturday night’s party and I'll just say this: I just can’t fake it anymore. I can’t even last a round for five minutes trying to talk to a girl if she isn't the one. I don't have a problem talking to a girl just me to her, like friends, but when you're in that girl/guy thing when she's flirting and coming on real strong and I'm supposed to be flirting and all that, man I don't know but I just lost that over the summer in Italy---I know it was building up for a long time to that---and I just can’t get it back, so I'm not bagging babes now, even though I am really horny. That hasn’t changed. But I just can’t do it anymore.

This better be leading up to some really amazing fucking spiritual thing like you know pretty soon I start flying or being able to teleport or something like NEO because this is a serious sacrifice I'm making here I would say.

[a serious sacrifice you say? Uh yeah, giving up sex in order to be monogamous with a women you haven't even met yet? I would say... that's pretty fucking serious... its not just that you idiot. you aren't just doing it for her. Be real with yourself for once. You're doing it because you are finally growing up. you are doing it to honor yourself. You are becoming an honorable person, whether you like it or not.... well whatever. it still sucks. Giving up sex no matter what the reason is just sucks... for God sakes its sex. what could be more important than sex? O.k. lets see. Quick, most important things in the world. Oh that's easy. Sex. no seriously. I'm being serious. [my God I'm doing it again. a total fucking conversation with myself. And I have to listen to this conversation. So I'm listening to this conversation? Who then is me? if I'm having a conversation with myself and I'm listening to this same conversation at the same time... holy shit. Is this what they meant in college when we studied schizophrenia? So that's my fucking problem. Well that explains a lot. Holy shit I'm doing it again.... fucking Christ. I'm a fucking schitzo. Well at least we know now. who the fuck is we? Someone make a note. On this date, this year, this moment, Fishy finally realizes that he is fucking nutcase... I could have told you that all along. Can you please shut up so we can continue? ] O.k. so where we were we? Oh yeah the most important things in the world to humans.... that's easy: To men, its sex, to women its money. no go deeper. Don't be an asshole. Fine. Most important things: of all time? THE MOST important??? Yes. o.k. number one definitely freedom. Or love. Maybe they're tied for first place. would you rather be free and have no love in your life or be loved but like be in prison or something? me? neither. I'd rather die in either case... right. of course. Me too. of course you would. You are me. and I am you. Remember? Yeah I know but just play along. Its easier that way. just go with the flow bro... But if you had to choose. I would choose being free and trying to find a way to love myself. Brilliant answer. Thank you. You’re welcome. To me freedom by far would be the most important thing. Ah yes you say that. But you are freer now than you have ever been and you are dying as you say from a lack of love. Yes that is true I am seriously fucking dying. O.k. so what if you could have love in your life but you had to like work a regular nine to five job that you hated like everyone else? I don't know man, tough call. That would slowly kill me too. Total lack of freedom there. Or even worse, what if you had to be in prison for this love? Easy, I would rather have my freedom... o.k. so what's next. You got freedom and love. What else? Money. Second place is definitely money. And then what? Health. You're putting money above health? O.k. maybe not. Maybe money and health are tied for second place then. You and your fucking ties for everything. you never want to choose a favorite. I'm a Libra. What can I say? That's just the way that I am. Yeah you say that but think about Christopher reeve. Don't even tell me for a second that he would choose money over being able to walk again. o.k. fine, health second and then money third. O.k. so what's next? God who really cares after that. if you have freedom and love and money and health... who fucking cares after that...]

[God this Fishy character is making me go insane. When do I get to turn into Tobias Guess? Fishy is totally insane. You are fishy you idiot. Yeah I know, but still, when do we turn into Tobias. He's so much cooler... Fishy’s a total crackpot.]

I guess what it is is just that this whole search for meaning thing has really set itself deep inside of me, into all the different facets of my life, even into my heart and my sex life. the strange dichotomy still, where every girl you meet or you see you hope is the one, and yet at the same time I am finally after all these years just starting to fall in love with myself for the very first time. I am just starting to feel happy to be me, I mean really happy to be me. comfortable in my own skin. Really excited about touring with the band and seeing a lot of things and playing for people. And really happy to travel the world more than anything. I would like to live in different parts of the world every year, but not like some wealthy American tourist like everyone else, but do it the cool way, go to school early in the morning everyday and learn the language and really immerse into the culture. Become a part of the culture. Like in the old days where a man really becomes a man of the world. Can speak like fifty languages and has pygmies over to his house for a plate of ants and live worms. That type of thing. I think I'm on my way to that already. I just didn't know it because I was so into just being me that I never stopped to look at me from afar until recently.

Today I met this really cute girl named Flavia from Sao Paulo and I was speaking Portuguese with her and she was very happy because she has only been here four months and was so happy to find an American here who speaks Portuguese (not that I do because I am truly an idiot at it) but I was looking at it from afar. I've got good control over four languages now (English of course is the easy one). if I start going at French at the first of the year and end up in France by mid-summer for a few months... I will be one step closer to it. And then as I said go live in Africa and then Israel, or vice versa. And then go for an Asian language, most likely Chinese since that is the largest immerging market in the world and will continue to be for the few decades. You know, you keep studying stuff, you keep learning and before you know it, you are that ‘renaissance man/man’s man/man of the world’ that we always used to read about it and see in the old movies when we were kids. Or at least just a very happy and well read dilettante.

But that wasn't the point. The point is that now when I am finally at this stage when my heart is ready and willing and actually unable to allow myself to experience anything else but to meet and settle down with the woman of my dreams, I am starting to realize that now would be the least opportune time for me to meet her because I want to spend the next few years or decades roaming the earth and exploring mankind and the world and all of its treasures and that is no life to give to your Princess or to your children, right? [well then again, maybe she will be the same way on her own, and we can just meet up every now and then in some strange part of the world for a few days to refuel with each others love and then go our separate ways again. that would truly be ideal. [how thoroughly unromantic I know, but perhaps not—perhaps for a soul such as mine, that would be the ideal) Find a real adventurous super hero girl who is just as curious and ravenously adventurous and ambitious as I am. Now that would be a super-hero girl.]

[ok this actually happened two days afterwards—in the future—but I am inserting it here because it would make more sense here—so by reading this you are actually going forward in time (lucky you). I thought a lot about this last entry the last two days and it just didn’t vibe a hundred percent with me. man it is a challenge really really really being real with yourself all the time. even after you think you are totally real. Maybe this is an ongoing process. The thoughts just come so fast and furious all the time and I just always spit them out into this laptop so fast before I have a chance to think about them. Which i guess is the point of the diaries. They wouldn’t be diaries if i had a chance to think about them and then rewrite them afterwards would they? That would be more like a book or something. Which this isn’t. This is the transcendence diaries after all. o.k. in any case, quickly. I was walking back to my car, and as I was saying I was thinking about this girl thing. you know I can’t really help it, its just always on my mind, and this girl drives by and she looks so beautiful, but not really striking beautiful like we see down here everywhere as much as just really sweet looking. Like you know girl next door good upbringing kind of girl. She had this face like she was an angel. And I thought to myself you know what Fishy? What you wrote two nights is full of shit. All that stuff is important but what you are looking for more than anything else is a girl with a good heart. Someone who is already there. Her being, her soul, has already transcended. A good person. That’s what you're looking for bro. As I was saying this to myself I looked down and noticed this feather on the ground right underneath my feet. And I smiled. Picked it up. Took it as a sign. Looked up to the sky and said thanks god. Thanks for the reminder. But uh, anytime you want to send her my way would be fine with me...]

Current Spin: Louis Armstrong, Christmas album. this is a classic must have.

12-14

Went to see the matrix again. Cheesy but still great. Spent much of the film processing—the same primaries. Awesome! I feel very good and confident and free from a lot that I felt was bogging me down mentally. I had never sat and processed in a movie before. an interesting thing to do.

Today I went to my usual café on sobe:, “Hey Fishy how's it going man?” “good bro. The usual please.” “So what do you think about them finally catching Osama bin laden, huh?” “What? I thought they caught that other guy... sadaam Hussein?” “they did. I was just kidding.” “What did he do again?” “fuck if I know man? We’re out of carrots. You still want the veggie juice without carrots.” “yeah definitely. Thanks.”

a few hours later I am in a phone conference with G2 about the website and he says on the side to me “hey Fishy am I the only one who feels sorry for Saddam Hussein today? What do you think of all this? Do you really think their people are celebrating?” “G2. Bro. Would our people be celebrating if someone invaded our country and forced our leader to go into hiding and then we saw him come out of a hole frightened for his life because he was being chased by the largest most powerful army in the world and we couldn’t do anything about it? I don't fucking think so.” what else can you really say? Well of course a few hours later I received this from our good friend Mr. Michael Moore, who did somehow, as always, find more to say:

We Finally Got Our Frankenstein... and He Was In a Spider Hole! -- by Michael Moore
December 14, 2003
Thank God Saddam is finally back in American hands! He must have really missed us. Man, he sure looked bad! But, at least he got a free dental exam today. That's something most Americans can't get.

America used to like Saddam. We LOVED Saddam. We funded him. We armed him. We helped him gas Iranian troops.

But then he screwed up. He invaded the dictatorship of Kuwait and, in doing so, did the worst thing imaginable -- he threatened an even BETTER friend of ours: the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, and its vast oil reserves. The Bushes and the Saudi royal family were and are close business partners, and Saddam, back in 1990, committed a royal blunder by getting a little too close to their wealthy holdings. Things went downhill for Saddam from there.

But it wasn't always that way. Saddam was our good friend and ally. We supported his regime. It wasn’t the first time we had helped a murderer. We liked playing Dr. Frankenstein. We created a lot of monsters -- the Shah of Iran, Somoza of Nicaragua, Pinochet of Chile -- and then we expressed ignorance or shock when they ran amok and massacred people. We liked Saddam because he was willing to fight the Ayatollah. So we made sure that he got billions of dollars to purchase weapons. Weapons of mass destruction. That's right, he had them. We should know -- we gave them to him!

We allowed and encouraged American corporations to do business with Saddam in the 1980s. That's how he got chemical and biological agents so he could use them in chemical and biological weapons. Here's the list of some of the stuff we sent him (according to a 1994 U.S. Senate report):

* Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.

* Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.

* Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord, and heart.

* Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.

* Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness.

* Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.

And here are some of the American corporations who helped to prop Saddam up by doing business with him: AT&T, Bechtel, Caterpillar, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM (for a full list of companies and descriptions of how they helped Saddam, go here).

We were so cozy with dear old Saddam that we decided to feed him satellite images so he could locate where the Iranian troops were. We pretty much knew how he would use the information, and sure enough, as soon as we sent him the spy photos, he gassed those troops. And we kept quiet. Because he was our friend, and the Iranians were the "enemy." A year after he first gassed the Iranians, we reestablished full diplomatic relations with him!

Later he gassed his own people, the Kurds. You would think that would force us to disassociate ourselves from him. Congress tried to impose economic sanctions on Saddam, but the Reagan White House quickly rejected that idea -- they wouldn’t let anything derail their good buddy Saddam. We had a virtual love fest with this Frankenstein whom we (in part) created.

And, just like the mythical Frankenstein, Saddam eventually spun out of control. He would no longer do what he was told by his master. Saddam had to be caught. And now that he has been brought back from the wilderness, perhaps he will have something to say about his creators. Maybe we can learn something... interesting. Maybe Don Rumsfeld could smile and shake Saddam's hand again. Just like he did when he went to see him in 1983 (see the photo here).

Maybe we never would have been in the situation we're in if Rumsfeld, Bush, Sr., and company hadn't been so excited back in the 80s about their friendly monster in the desert.

Meanwhile, anybody know where the guy is who killed 3,000 people on 9/11? Our other Frankenstein?? Maybe he's in a mouse hole.

So many of our little monsters, so little time before the next election.

Stay strong, Democratic candidates. Quit sounding like a bunch of wusses. These bastards sent us to war on a lie, the killing will not stop, the Arab world hates us with a passion, and we will pay for this out of our pockets for years to come. Nothing that happened today (or in the past 9 months) has made us ONE BIT safer in our post-9/11 world. Saddam was never a threat to our national security.

Only our desire to play Dr. Frankenstein dooms us all.

Michael always knows how to sum it up best. even if he is kind of a whiney little bastard...

12-14

Date with the Venezuelan girl today. brunch. Nice. smart. Not much English. So communication was minimal, which is always a great thing. lol. I just need to say that I am so in love with this hofner acoustic guitar. It is a 1968. built in Germany. Smells so old and musty. I breathe it in and I start playing and pretty soon I feel as if I am in another world. Last night and then this morning I bought two more very old acoustic guitars. I am falling in love with this. the older the better. But they still have to be in great shape and very playable. One was a 72 Alverez, very fancy, lots of mother of pearl. Bought it from the original owner, an 85 year old man. The other is a 1965 Kay blues arch top. Cannot wait for them to arrive. I get a lot of music out of old guitars. Something comes into me when I am playing one. Something of the vibration of the guitar itself and the era it was made. And of course the sound and feel and smell of them. I have slept with this new Hofner guitar now for a week straight and almost completely forgotten about all the others.

The American military found saddam Hussein today in Iraq. In the morning. The spokesman for the dark side of the force that that took over America in the year 2000 claimed today that “a dark and painful era is over.” He didn’t actually write this but someone wrote it for him and told him to say it. We are not really sure yet who is running America, although we know that the men doing a lot of the dirty work are just as sinister and ill-intentioned as the ones who are secretly in control. We are sure that whoever wrote this understood the irony as much as many Americans and other people from all over the world do today. It is not that a dark and painful era is over so much as today was a very painful reminder of what a dark painful era we are in the middle of. The dark side will use all of its power in the media to control the feelings of the majority of the American people [known as the Innocents], to try to convince them that today is a day of celebration. Even though saddam Hussein didn't actually do anything to us here in America, even though he didn't actually possess weapons of mass destruction and pose a threat to us here in America, even though according to evidence he didn't have anything to with the attack on 9/11, and even though it has been announced over and over again all over the world that this invasion of Iraq was something planned out back in 1997 by the very same men who are in power now in the now infamous essay describing how it would be a very good idea for America to control the oil reserves in Iraq, the list goes on and on---but the Innocents have already been led very far astray, the smiling puppet faces on their TVs are doing their best to keep straight faces and tell them that this is a good thing that the dark forces that hold America captive have now captured this man of disrepute known as saddam Hussein.

It is not that the rebel forces and the freedom fighters and the American patriots and the political activists all over the world who see the evil in the dark forces who hold America hostage now think that saddam Hussein is a good man. No one does. It is very clear to see that he is also a bad person who has done much damage to his people and other nations. I don't think that anyone disputes this fact. But I think, I cannot speak for the tens of millions of others, but only for the small group that is here in America, I think that the really important thing to bear in mind is that America has now been completely duped; our once great but slightly flawed heritage entirely overshadowed by the dark forces that have taken over. The tables have been turned and the entire world is being lied to on a daily basis by this sinister crew that has taken over America’s grand old white house. Its not that people don't see that saddam was a bad person. its just that people also see that there are plenty of bad leaders all over the world, and that doesn’t give America or any other country the right to invade that country and take it over, unless of course there is an imminent threat to their peoples safety or security, which of course by now the whole world knows there was not. Especially not when it is done on false pretenses. Especially when it is used as a means to take away the peoples attention from the real intentions of the invasion, and especially when one of the most tragic events in our short history is used as its justification calling card.

Today is a day of mourning for many whose ambition is truth and justice, peace and sovereignty. For many Iraqis life will get better than it ever was. We believe this. but alas only if they are willing to do whatever we tell them to do from now on. That is just the way it is now for them, as it is and has been for many countries all over the world who have been bullied and tossed about by the all powerful dark forces that control the great country of America. their leader, their dictator is now gone. And in the long run that can only be a good thing. but he has been replaced with a new dictator. The same one that now occupies the country of America and many others. America is now in the midst of a very subtle but powerful war. It is war of words and of ideas. It is a war between the truth and many fictions. It is a war between those who know and those who don't. Unfortunately those who don't know far outnumber those who do. the innocent masses who don't know seem to be in a state of shock and denial. Everyday they hear little things about the growing matrix that encapsulates us all in lies and deceptions. Scams and scandals abound, but they do nothing about it. they just watch more and more TV and seem to buy more and more things. anything to try not to feel or think about the truth.

12-13

Late night talks last night with Little Tree. In the dark of the night. When the deepest and most secret thoughts are easily revealed. I tell her how it is almost as if I know that if I were in a relationship I would feel more fulfilled, because I am aware, deeply aware, of how much more meaning I could derive out of being in a relationship, rather than being single. It’s a great feeling to be in a relationship. Easy to get your attention sucked into it---the whole me, her, us, and then when you have kids, them thing.

Easy to create something that seems bigger than just yourself. But when you break up you realize that a lot of it was just illusion. The whole us thing, the home, the family, and all that. I think older married couples realize that too. once the kids move out, then all of a sudden they realize that it really is just them on their own after all. not all the time. just sometimes. But it is amazing once a couple breaks up how this whole image of ‘the home’ ‘the couple’ ‘the family’ and all the other institutions that are created when two or more people come together seem entirely meaningless and non-existent because now its just back down to two homes of one persons. So you're still back to just being you. When you're a couple you take all this pride and give all this attention to a lot of things you wouldn’t when you are single. Furniture or photos or your pets---many items you bought together or that you tell yourself have some special meaning.

But when you're single you have the opportunity to be more of a nomad. Those things aren't as important to you because you aren't using them as bonding items with another person I guess. When you are single the meaning that you derive out of life has got to come from somewhere else. It cannot come from your relationship or your marriage or your children because you don't have any of that. So that s where the challenge is, but that is also where there is much joy.

Telling her that sometimes when I go out with some girl and I think she's really awesome I just want to get away because I just don't think I'm ready for it. part of me is dying inside to meet some girl that is going to be every bit as beautiful and smart and wonderful as I would want, and then another part of me is like praying desperately that that isn't going to happen today. Because that isn't the type of thing that you can stop or put on hold or slow down once it starts. And there's just so much that I want to do that I don't want me to become an “us” right now. even though I always say that I do. And I know how it feels. This is what's so funny about it. I mean I have always had girlfriends. This is my first time being a single guy. And I know how wonderful it is and how easy it is for it to take over your life and become your everything. But the fact is that i don't want it to. not yet. I want to keep exploring. I want to be able to keep traveling as much as I can. and I don't want there to be an “us” who is traveling. I want it to be me. my thing. me doing my thing.

crazy. I know. and all this time I thought I was looking for the super hero girl. But now I think I'm looking for something deeper. I hashed it out last night over the phone and really came to terms with it and understood what I was feeling for the very first time. the thing is that I know that any time you want to you can meet the love of your life, fall in love, settle down, have children, buy a home, buy a lot of stuff, start collecting photo albums of everything, plan your little family trips every year, send out your photo Christmas cards and all that. and that is meaningful. I mean, hey let’s be honest, for most people, that is their meaning. That is the most meaningful part of their entire lives. That's what they live for. Ask anyone who has kids about it and that's what they say. They get that glimmer in their eye and they tell you that you just don't know until you have kids what its like and how much they love them and how much it means to them. so I know that's there. I know that's an option. all of this is so beautiful. And honestly I can’t wait to experience it. but not now.

But man I am hoping that there is more to life than that. I think that is why I travel and learn so much. I try to figure that out. Why I am so obsessed with learning new cultures and languages and subjects. And I guess its just that I am still searching for some kind of a deeper meaning than the usual wife house two cars and kids thing. I mean I had that for six year with Cleopatra; thank God we didn't have kids. But I have to tell you, I would have stayed in that forever if it would have worked out, but she let me travel all over the world and stay away as long as I wanted so that was great, but the point is that once it ended and I realized how impermanent that stuff is, I mean we see it all around us, every time a couple breaks up, its just so damn impermanent, so I just don't want to put all of my love there. all of my soul. I don't want to put all of my importance attention there. don't want to place all of meaning into just a relationship. I really want to believe that there is more to life than that. There’s gotta be. There has to be more to life than just your future family and you giving up a lot of your life to raise your kids and build their lives, which is what everyone I know now is doing.

I guess now that I am thinking about it I can see that it doesn’t have to be that way. you can live your life and really live it, finding meaning, and still have the husband or wife and the kids too, just don't put all your eggs into that basket as if that is your only source of meaning. I think once I've seen a lot of other places around the world. Lived there. breathed it in. Made it my own. then I will be ready one day to settle down and do the family thing. but for now I would really like to see and hear and experience something magnificent. Something godly and fantastic. I would really like to know that there was something really meaningful in this world besides just making more people, and creating more life. Imagine if that's it? I mean imagine if just being born, and then living a little, only to create some offspring, and then to raise them so they can do the same thing, is like the only real meaningful thing in this world?! Imagine that?! God the fucking horror. I mean if that's it, then I am going to be a very unsatisfied person in this life.

Very few people can understand you when you talk this way. people tell you that you're searching (duh..) that you can only find it within yourself (duh..) that one day you will stop searching (maybe; I don't necessarily believe this—maybe you just get older and lazier and tired of searching), and they say it from a place as if they once searched and now have stopped, and then you find out that they never even traveled out of their own state. As if they were on this big search and they found everything they were looking for in some religion. Which is really sad and scary to me. Because seriously if they were really searching and not just some muggle then if they ended up at Christianity or Islam as their grand meaning of life then man I am a fucking Martian then. I am so far removed from all of that crap at this point. I mean, honestly, no offense towards any of the humans but if religion is your end all be all for meaning in this life then hey more power to you, but for me it better fucking be more than that.

It better not have anything to do with religion. It better be a whole lot bigger greater sexier smarter and more profound than anything going on in man’s disastrous feeble ideas known as religions. God, forgive the pun, but can you imagine if God really did turn out to be as dumb shallow and close minded as man makes him out to be in his religions?

[I am not ruling out the God equation, but I look at religion like a lot of science over the years. I mean, if you have the whole world going around saying that the world is flat, but if one man, even one man, can see past the horizon and tells you hey I don't think its flat anymore guys, then we’re going to have reason to believe that you just may be able to see past the horizon that everyone thinks is there. And at this point we have millions of people on the planet who are seeing past the horizon that the major religions of the world are claiming we cant see past. So lets just get with the program and move on guys. I think that's all a lot of people are saying. Out with the old and in with the new so we can open ourselves up to some of the other possibilities.]

Yes exactly. What we should do, but won't yet, is keep all the churches and temples all over the world cause they definitely have a nice vibe. No one is going to argue with that. but go inside all of the churches and synagogues and temples around the world and take out all the statues of all the different gods. I'm not saying we have to burn them or throw them away or whatever, but maybe just lock them all up in a big warehouse for a few hundred years, just in case I was wrong and we change our minds... but we get rid of all the gods in all the churches and we replace them with statues of human beings who have existed throughout our history who have exemplified what God is to us. instead of honoring these gods that we don't aren't even sure exist, we make the churches and temples around the world places where we go to worship and have reverence for our fellow humans who have existed before us who have been almost God-like. There could be a church of John Lennon for instance. Liverpool would probably want that one. And Descartes. And Nietzsche of course. And Kant. And Plato. And for Galileo of course. Florence would love that wouldn’t they? Their church of the time actually put him in jail in his lifetime. Pity. [What’s ironic is that Florence already has Galileo’s tomb in a church as if now he is almost considered a God... fancy that.] France could have a few churches for Voltaire of course. We could have churches dedicated to Thomas Edison of course, and to Henry ford. And Ben Franklin, and Leonardo da Vinci. The list goes on and on. What an inspiration religion would become. We’d start to appreciate our own divinity. Hey I know Bob Dylan isn't dead yet, but just imagine him up there hanging on the cross. He’d look great.

The new Hofner 1968 guitar sounds very special. Old style boxy sound to it. I'm playing it almost exclusively now, that and the Sheraton. Both tuned to the open G tuning. Working on a new song on it, which is just amazingly subtle and beautiful and sexy. back and forth between typing and playing and singing, a little typing, a little singing and playing and writing. It is a good way to spend the day. Sent out lots of Christmas cards this year. Finally finished.

Went to a party tonight. Before I comment I just want to say that I just played the new song in open G when I got home. no lyrics yet. And I am so in love with it. There is just nothing like this feeling. Of when you are in that first stage of capturing a new song and it hasn’t been worked out all the way yet, and you're still playing with it, listening to it, bending and shaping it. its just a wonderful sensation you get. it’s a feeling of excitement and wonder. And it stays with you all day and night. and you hear the song non stop in your mind 24 hours a day. I wanted to write about it, not like I haven't a million times before, because I just wish that it would stay with you. but it doesn’t. that feeling doesn’t stay around for a long time. After a few weeks after the song has been totally worked out the songs lose their ability to impact me on a deep level. The novelty of the song being new and mysterious wears off. Veronica or beautiful one are perfect examples. When I wrote those songs I was so in love with them I couldn’t stop playing them. Shira and Little Tree were the same way. just totally in love with them. God I love that. it makes me feel reconciled. Makes me feel content and happy being me for a brief moment. When I am in the depth of passion for a new song. Makes me feel alive. Kind of justified. But it is interesting how that novelty passes soon after. And then you wait for a new song to pop its head into your consciousness. Luckily I get them a lot. A few a week. Its an endless flow. But not all of them make you feel as good as the really special ones do. this new one...

So yeah, the word for the night has been meaning. Shit, the word of the month, of the year. but again, God fucking forbid if meaning turns out to be just love or romance. God help me if it is. like I said, I know that's there, and I know it’s a wonderful trip, but there has to be something more than just romantic love between two people, more than family, more than religions, something really meaningful that is pure and singular and doesn’t involve pro-creation or humanity in any way. or maybe even life as we know it. something that transcends life. [see? That's where you catch everybody, right there. even the science people, because at that point everyone is like ‘well he really is just a fucking madman then. Because what else is there besides life? I mean life is what its all about. that is the meaning of life. Its life itself.’ And so help me God if that's all there is to it then this is a real waste of fucking life. for all of us. life for the sake of more life? and that's it? I know it sounds crazy, but there has to be more to it. I think that would just suck if that was it.]

12-12-03

my keyboard on the laptop was fucked. Many letters don't wor all of a sudden... Try to follow along. No I, no K, and no ,.

Talking about sleep with you and some people might say when listen to the album don’t now how to feel because t goes up and down and back and forth le a roller coaster. On some songs t sounds le the singer s just some shallow mindless dot and then all of a sudden the next song s really deep and profound and beautiful an romantic so ts confusing. You don't now how to feel.

Yeah but... can’t type le ths....

12-11-03

Just saw the FMQB charts this week. Sleep with you made the top 25. In 23^rd place this week. That's awesome. DJs are spinning the album and the peeps are digging it.

Processing a lot. Had almost over an hour CHP today with one creation. A wild ride.

Current Spin: Justin Clayton, Limb. This is a great guitar pop record by a master songwriter and producer. Really good. Listening to this on the way over the causeway from the beach to the mainland extremely loud. Makes you wonder what more is left to create with music. that's how good it is. makes you not able to think of anything better to do on your own. so you just don't want to make music for a while.

I wonder, do you ever wonder, how would we ever make something really grand and wonderful? With any lasting value. Think of Rome for God sakes; it is filled with giant memorials to many men's quest for the same ambition. Or Egypt. [one has to wonder underneath this if the reason why we feel this way is just because we long to make something real and valuable and meaningful for ourselves. I mean this can’t just be for other people, for the fans, or whoever. In the long run who really cares about that? It has to be about what is of lasting value to us. I think that secretly that is who we are trying to please.] Listening to Justin’s CD here, thinking about how it went so un-noticed around the world. What is the difference between the famous and the not famous? How does p diddy get to be a millionaire but Justin is still just one of the many songwriters who put out an album? I wonder what else is at play there besides music? Underneath the surface of it? things cosmic or karmic? Or just the luck of the draw? Right place at the right time? I don't know. but listening more you can just hear it. you put on p diddy, and as base and shallow and inane as it is, it is really creative; it really gets you moving. It just has this “thing” about it. sounds and feels upbeat and contemporary. And you can tell that it is going to appeal to a broader demographic. You put on Justin's album or any number of other singer songwriters out there and its just guitar bass and drum pop rock music. a lot of times really smart and catchy and intelligent and sometimes even moving (like Justin's song Drag—download this track for sure). And sometimes, rarely, it can really be sublime like Robbie William’s Escapology, or Aimee Mann magnolia, or Jeff Buckley’s Grace. But that's it. its still guitar bass and drum music. Frankly I'm sick of music sounding like that. I hate it. Which is funny cause that's what we do stll. I always tried to avoid it. Until sleep with you, where we really tried to embrace the idea of sounding like a band of five guys. There were a lot of moments where I reached out and tried to do stuff that was out there but the producer didn't let me, he would scream and say I was crazy and remind me that I was broke and that we were trying to make an album where we all could make some money. so I held back on being experimental and just tried to sing and play really well. But before that I was always into trying to rise above that. on rise and shine we really tried. People thought we were all over the place. Which we were. But totally on purpose. There is no mold to making albums. Like all art. and every time you discover a mold, you should immediately break it. our new album is more of the same. Five guys making music on their instruments. Very natural and organic. You can hear the voices and the instruments. Whereas say on a p diddy or the new Justin Timberlake album, you can’t hear any instruments. Its all just music, because so much of it is made in a computer or on keyboards. So its just this combination of sounds---rhythm and melody and harmonies—that come together to create this sound. And I like that. and man I could go on and on, because my favorite stuff the last few years has been like that. ginger baby by father Bloopy is very raw at first listen but it is very experimental; the two Radiohead albums kid a and amnesiac are more mainstream examples of that. They almost got there. but cats like takemura Nabukazu or the silver mount Zion memorial orchestra or stars of the lid really go all the way out there, where there isn't even a song structure anymore. And I think that's the future. Been so busy trying to make it mainstream I haven't had time to create more music like this, but I would like to focus more on it. I think then I would feel as if I was contributing more value to myself as an artist. Because at this point I think that as an artist I have kind of superceded where I am in my music career. Still putting out three and four minute pop/rock songs with a five piece band, but my heart is longing for twenty minute one note drone music that goes somewhere else entirely.

Dear Fishy,

It is wonderful to hear from you!

During my "spiritual search," I had identified the essence of truth in all religions, but could not get at that "pure" word of God, and always had a part of me missing as a result. Just like most of us are, I was skeptical of Islam and shared the perception its "man-made-ism.” I didn't even bother with Islam, as to me, as a "Westerner," it was just too foreign. However, with an open heart and mind, it really didn't take much time at all for me to have the whole truth about life revealed to my mind, heart and spirit, as I am eternally grateful for the most precious gift of Islam, where I found myself and all the answers, where I finally feel liberated.

In actuality, Islam is not a "man-made" religion. As Islam means "submission to God," and all the prophets and messengers "submitted to God," they were "Muslims" (those who submit to God). (The Jews and Christians really hate to hear that Jesus and Moses and Abraham, etc. were Muslims!) It is man that deviated from God's word and misused the many messages to control and corrupt the people. 

Don't get me wrong, Muslims are by no means perfect, and their defeat and humiliation is due to the fact that they have deviated from their faith.  But there are still some "Islamists" who follow the word of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the Qur'an, as well as the example set forth by the Prophet. It does take some serious research and filtering to find the truth, as there are forces out there whose sole purpose is to misguide and keep us away from the straight path.  When you can, check out this excellent site: www.harunyahya.com. 

If you ever come across anything regarding Islam you have questions about, I'd be happy to do my best to answer.

My activism work continues. I am the webmaster and am learning a bit about digital movie production with some upcoming educational projects we have planned, similar to the Shock & Awe Gallery.

You cannot imagine how good it feels to be out of that country of materialism and immoral confusion.  It's great that you plan to live and study in Africa. There is just so much more to life and the world that only can be discovered and achieved without the pressure, stress and distraction of a country like the U.S.

Our phone number is XXXXXXXXX here in Cairo. We have a house here with my mother-in-law (quite the character!), who is always happy to have visitors, so give us a call if your ever in the area. Once we get settled and acclimated, I will be studying Arabic and Islam at Al-Azhar University, inshaallah (God willing).

I pray you find all that you are searching for. 

Best always,

Protest Girl

I know exactly what protest girl means. I remember how it feels whenever you travel outside of the US and you forget about all the materialistic pressures of life in the Matrix. It is just so totally full of shit in the United States. I am such a devout American, a big fan I am, that's for sure, but last night we were watching Sex and the City and I have to be honest, I just felt disgusted. Between sex and the city and the sopranos, the two most popular shows in America, one is about a bunch of idiot sluts and the other is about a bunch of murderers and thieves, and people wonder why every day we wake up to some more news about some serial killer or sniper or serial rapist or some mutual fund scam or large corporate stock scandal. I felt like my insides were being ripped out as I watched. Same thing when I watch the music channels too. they are just so completely dolled up and unreal. It is as if the point of being on them is to rip out all the humanity of the artists and create this totally fake plastic thing that no one can relate to so in turn every one tries to relate to it and can’t so instead they buy it. Something like that. kind of like McDonalds commercials. Insidious stuff. and the commercials on network television. You just don't realize how thoroughly fake and disgusting everything is here in the states until you get away from it for a while and then come back to it. it is just one big corporate sewer system trying to sell us something. and its not like “us” is innocent in this equation. For God sakes I'm the author of the ‘sleep with you’ album so who am I to be saying anything. I know that. I don't care. I am so wasted right now on this sangria that I can let this shit fly. Somewhere at some time something has to give. America has to come back to itself. It has to bring it all back home. Gotta take it back to the basics like good values, home, and family. And let all this other stuff go. Sheryl crow on the back of a horse riding through the fucking desert singing some old classic just so she can have another hit? Man this is some twisted manipulative shit.

Current Spin: Sondre Lerche, good pop. Sounds like a new Donovan.

12-10-

Dell Computer Corporation has decided to outsource its technical support to India. I like Dell. They are more expensive than other computers out there but they will custom build the computer you want, and the quality is better than most. But more than anything else, I liked the fact that I could pick up the phone and talk to them if I had a problem. Sometime since I purchased this newest baby a little under two years ago and about six months ago, Dell decided to move most of its technical support services to New Delhi, India. Every time I call them, the communication is very difficult. Number one, its just hard to understand what they are saying most of the time. and number two, they aren't over here in America, so I notice that no matter what I call them for, sure as hell, within five minutes they are telling me that “Mr. Fishy, we are going to have to reformat your hard drive. Do you have your install discs available?” I'm like, “You're what? You’re not going to reformat my hard drive. Are you high or something?” “Pardon me Mr. Fishy?” “Listen man, please stop with your re-format your hard drive talk and lets fix this problem. O.K.? If you cannot fix it, then I totally understand. Please just tell me that and lets talk to someone who can fix it... like someone in America... but no you're not going to delete everything off of my system just because you cannot get the wireless to work all of a sudden, unless you plan on coming here yourself and re-installing everything for me. and let me tell you, there's a lot installed on my system so be prepared to stay for a while.” sure enough, eventually they come back and find a way to solve the issue, or they get someone on the phone who can, and its always usually something pretty simple. Just goes to show.

Another problem is that you cannot just chat with the Indians about your issue. They just don't chat. Over here in the states you find a tech support person on the phone, you describe your problem, they look it up, they share with you their own experience with this issue, you share with them things that you know, you learn some, they learn some, and between the two of you, the problem is solved in no time flat. With the Indian tech support people, there is no chatting. They are like robots. They don't have any experience with what you are calling them about. they probably have been on the job for less than a week. they can’t talk to you about it because they don't know anything about it. They have to look everything up in their manual. Its just crazy. its not the kind of tech support we are used to here in the states.

As I type this I am on the phone with one of the Dell Indians just this very minute. Explaining to him how sometimes I cannot get the keys 8, I, k, and the comma to work properly. Now all of a sudden I can. its crazy. its like the keyboard on this thing is fucking haunted... Their style of communication is completely different from ours. they will take five minutes to say one sentence when we already know what they are going to say. In America we don't have time for that. in America we are all used to a certain communication style with one another that is very quick and fast paced and focused on results, stepping over each others sentences, jumping to the point, leaving behind all the formalities in order to just solve the problem and move on. These Indians don't understand this. I ask one question and he starts all the way back at the beginning of the story again. I try to interrupt him and tell him to just please get to the point. Just answer my question. Please don't explain this same thing to me again for the twentieth time. he doesn’t understand why I am acting this way towards him. he doesn’t realize that I am in America. I am an American in America. I am in an office. An American office. I can look on the timer on my Japanese made phone and plainly see that I have been on the phone with him for twenty three minutes already and he hasn’t accomplished a damn thing except frustrating me. the same thing happened to us last week when my accountant and I were trying to call customer service for American Express. What should have taken five minutes took almost five hours. They too have decided to start opening up customer service centers in India, this time in Bombay. Same thing. after talking to five different reps over a period of two hours my accountant was so agitated that he was literally screaming at the reps at this point. I'm talking screaming. I could hear his blood boiling through the phone line. “Look you, if you repeat yourself one more time I am going to fly to fucking Bombay and ring your fucking neck. Do you understand me? Now please! Transfer us to someone there that can give us the accurate information we are clearly asking for. Please!” total silence. And then this meek and fragile Indian accented voice slowly... “there is no need to get hostile Mr. Helfer. I am only trying to help you.” it was a mess. A mess because American Express has decided to try outsourcing its customer service to India. And its failing miserably. Still on the phone with Dell tech support and he still cannot help me with my issue. I am bored typing this. I want to do something else. Its now 44 minutes later and I have just hung up. I said thank you and I said goodbye but I didn't wait to hear what this babbling Indian was saying. I couldn’t bare the pain anymore. If I wanted that I would have bought an Indian computer. I called dell customer service and sales. Of course they are in America. I chatted with the lady there. I told her that I was taking time out of my own busy schedule to lodge this complaint with her so she could give it to whoever these things go to so dell moves tech support back to America. She told me that she gets these calls all day and that she believes they will do just that within six months. She shares with me that tech support in India, at least for Dell, is just not working. Especially now when so many Americans are out of work and complaining that all of our jobs are going to other countries. I just said that to be really really honest, as an American, I don't like calling tech support or customer service for something that I supposedly bought from an American company and then talking to someone in some other country half way around the world about it. I want to talk to someone in jersey or the Carolinas or in Wisconsin or Michigan or California. I don't know why. I'm not sure exactly why, but I would just feel better about it. Go figure. She agreed. we contemplated how long it would be before she herself would get the boot and be told that her job too was moving to Bombay or New Delhi. We laughed. We said goodbye and I was happy that I could still pick up the phone and speak with someone in America from one of these large companies. But for the last five minutes I have been looking out this seventh floor window at the tops of many people’s houses and condos and apartments and at the palm trees and a beautiful vista of the ocean and I've been thinking about the implications of what we’re seeing with all these companies continuing to lay people off and move hundreds of thousands and even millions of jobs to India or Mexico or some other country. and what I could see is a future that didn't look so bright for us here in America. a country where there were few people who were very very rich because they were owners or CEOs or presidents of large companies, and there were millions and millions of people who were very very poor because all the middle class jobs moved somewhere else where it was much cheaper to hire for them. we knew it was happening with manufacturing. We watched it happen. and we let it happen. but now that it is happening with service jobs, and with big companies like Sony and Dell and American Express (American) you ponder it for a few minutes and you start realizing that just about any job could go the way of some other country. and little by little, more and more Americans are suddenly out of work. Not only are they out of work, they are out of a profession. It could to them at any age, no matter where they are in their career. You start thinking that maybe they only kind of jobs that might hold any amount of job security would be professional jobs such as being a lawyer or an accountant or a doctor or a journalist or something. what scares me about it is what's going to happen to all these people who lose their jobs? I mean, right now, what is happening to them? what are they doing? I don't like thinking about it. it can make you sad. When I talk to other people about it, they assure me that as has always been the case, new industries will form and new jobs will develop out there in the Wild West that America has always been. So that's what people have to focus on. Be positive. Keep focusing on innovation and let the old tired used up jobs go to the poorer nations. Man wasn't it just yesterday that they were telling people that tech support was just that? the new hot job market. Fascinating stuff.

Current Spin: Volcano by Edie Brickel. Finally after ten years!

December 10

Last night I had many visions in my dreams. Visions in the fact that perhaps they were more than mere visual fantasy. The diaries are more important than you are giving them credit for. Put them back up now. Stop everything else and get the fucking diaries back up. it is all I could dream about. One singular message.

Current Spin: Elastica. An over-rated classic.

December 11

Dear Fishy,

Essentially last few days a voice in my head continuously repeat that I have to call you. but I not have your number. So When I dreamed you being bored, I worried about you. You were seemed so sad in my dream. It is difficult to explain you. How I could feel your emotional circumstance. May be you can remember When first of all we saw each other in bus of Siena, I felt that I have known you before I know that this is ridiculous. but I can feel such emotions of persons who are important for me.

When I look your life from my window, I see the man who is handsome, successful, intelligent, humanist, talented, in other words your life is seemed sooooo meaningful. Of course you know all things about yourself and your life. All things I said above, are true and my real thoughts about you and I am sure that persons who know you share same thoughts with me. However the most important thing what you feel because this is your life but only you can give more meaning to your life. What a pity there is any agreed solution to make more meaningful for our life.

Look I have a offer to you, let's you come to Turkey I will be so happy to put you up in my country.

Don't forget you are in my heart

Bye

How to make it to the crystal palace and make it out alive

[For creative junkies only: If you want to learn the art of little wonders, you study little wonders from someone who has done it so much that they have managed to turn the recreational use of pills into an art form. We are primarily discussing barbs, downers, pain killers, and opiates in this article. Today we learn that there are four or five absolutely essential guidelines to always bear in mind in your exploration:

Guideline number one, don't take pills whole for your initial dosage; this is not the best way to first enter into the crystal palace. [You will know when you are about to reach the crystal palace because you will first enter the land of forgetfulness. More on this later.] Break or bite them in half and even in quarters, and take them every half hour or so, rather than all at once. This allows a slower climb up, or down, as the case may be, depending on what you're taking.

Two, the key to maintaining any good pill buzz is to suck, not swallow. This guideline in particular is hard, pardon the pun here, for many people to swallow, but it is well worth mastering this one. Rather than swallowing your initial dose and any that follow, place a piece of the pill under your tongue, and allow it to dissolve slowly. Yes it tastes disgusting at first, but your body will quickly begin to associate this foul taste with the magnificently rewarding feelings that will soon follow. And soon you will welcome that taste. Similar to your very first taste of coffee. This method allows almost one-hundred percent absorption of the chemicals through the oral mucosa of the mouth lining, rather than allowing a lot of the active chemicals to get eaten up by the body’s stomach acids. In turn, it also takes you there a lot faster, almost instantly, rather than having to wait the usual fifteen to twenty minutes for the pill’s active ingredients to pass through the digestive track and enter the bloodstream to take effect.

Guideline number three: Don't OD. I know, sounds simple enough, but still, plenty of people forget this one every year, and end up asleep forever. That’s why the slow piece by piece method works best. Remember, you're goal is not to take pills just to get high for ten minutes, pass out, remembering nothing the next day. Your goal is to relax and enjoy the ride, enjoy the land of forgetfulness on your way to the crystal palace, where you can enjoy easy access to a seemingly infinite supply of creative flow and positive energies, accompanied by cool body sensations, an almost total ignorance of anything else going on around you except your own slowly meandering thoughts. This state can easily be achieved on one pill if it’s the right dosage, especially if the piece by piece method is used. You don't need to take a handful all at once. In fact, only novices do it that way. [or loser junkies: those that do it for no other reason than just to get off, rather than for creative exploration. Different group altogether.] A totally professional creative junkie type can stay high on painkillers all day without anyone ever knowing it and by the end of the day maybe only have taken one and a half to two and a half pills total throughout the day. Good pills will fuck you up. that's why you take them. there is a certain sense of confidence and invincibility and a fantasy mind set that sets in and that's what makes them so dangerous. Because there is always the potential that you will suppress either the central nervous system or the respiratory system so much that you could die and not know you're dying, guideline number three is an important one to remember. Be careful. Use, don't abuse.

Guideline number four: bad trips can happen. Doesn’t matter what your little wonder of choice is, now and then you may just encounter a bad trip. Paranoia or getting freaked out or feeling really depressed or sad or guilty. Two things here. Short term: just like with acid or other hallucinogens, remind yourself that you’re on drugs and none of this is real. That's why you took the pills in the first place; to forget reality temporarily, so remember that. This isn't reality. Think nice thoughts, don't feel bad, and maybe just go to sleep. [If this happens a few times this could mean that you’ve burned out the receptor sights in your brain that react to this particular chemical the way you want them to, i.e. total happiness or creative flow. Best thing to do here is either stop taking pills altogether for a while. a few months perhaps. Or change pills. In the perfect world, we could have access to any pill we wanted any time so we could switch all the time and we wouldn’t encounter this problem so much.]

A note on throwing up—not for the squeamish: every now and then you may find that you have to run and go throw up. Chances are you just took too much all at once and haven't mastered the slow climb as in guideline number one. granted that this isn't an overdose, which if it is you are fucked—I have heard from other unfortunate users who hadn't yet mastered guideline number four that getting your stomach pumped really sucks, then having to throw up is not necessarily a bad thing and you should definitely not let it throw you into a bad trip. Chances are, once you are done throwing up, you will be so high that you will feel the best you have ever felt. That's the crystal palace. Everything should look all glassy and sounds take on a very singular slow motion spoon hitting a champagne glass type of quality. That's why we call it the crystal palace.

Guideline number five: this used to be part of number four but due to its importance it has now been relegated to its own very special guideline number five: Don't feel guilty. Remember the Transcendence Manifesto. http://www.transcendence.com/army/army.html Never feel guilty. Waste of time. [This isn't to say you shouldn’t feel regret when you fuck up and transgress or hurt yourself or someone else. Cause you should. If you don't, then chances are you're socio-pathic and you should leave these diaries now. But just don't waste your time feeling guilty. Clean your shit up. Say your sorry. Make amends and try harder next time not to be such a douche bag.] but guilt is different than regret. You only have one life. live it and love yourself. A lot of people can give you a hard time for being a pill junkie if you share this info with them, which you shouldn’t unless you have an endless supply because then they're going to want some, unless of course it’s a hot chick, because seriously, I don't know why this is but hot chicks love pills, and there is nothing like steamy dreamy sex with a hot chick when you are floating down the crystal river on your way to la la land. Just try not to drool on her if you can. But back to the guilt thing, the point is that only you know if you are abusing or not. If you're cool and you're not abusing and you're just having fun and getting creative, letting off steam or easing stress, creating great works of revolutionary art, than by all means why shouldn’t you be able to use your drug of choice? Every crew cut jock and short haired suit in America is out there two to three nights a week getting hammered on booze---their drug of choice. So you like pills. If you let societies’ judgments get to you and you start feeling guilty it can have a real negative effect on you and can ruin a perfectly good high. So remember who you are. And be proud of it.

Guideline number six: For many people this can be the hardest one to remember, but it can be the most important one: remember that if you do take pills consistently for a few days or weeks at a time, they are going to build up in your system, and they are going to exert a certain effect on your mental and emotional state of being during that time even when you think you are sober, or not high. This is the part that really sucks about them. It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard, or what some doctor said, or what you read in the PDR, or any other reference book, the chemicals build up in your system, especially the good ones. Even if you haven't taken anything in two days, you still have some of that valium or xanax or X or delaudid or percocet or vicodin or mepergan (ahhh the wonders of modern medicine) floating around in there. The point? The point is just to remember that. If you find yourself getting depressed, don't start thinking that YOU are actually depressed. Because YOU are not. Remind yourself that you just have a shitload of this chemical in your system that has built up. If you find yourself getting forgetful, or clumsy, or irrational, or more easily irritated, don't start freaking out and taking it seriously. This is the worst thing you can do. Don't take it seriously, and don't think that its YOU. Its not YOU. Its you on drugs. Big difference. Instead just realize that this is a side effect of the chemicals that have built up in your bloodstream. Remind yourself of this and usually this is enough to bring you back down to earth.

At this point you have essentially two choices: stop completely and come down—come down effects don't usually last more than a week and can usually be relieved by moving to some herbal relaxants for a few days, or just being tough and dealing with it. Your other choice is to take more to stay high enough to not care that by now you are a lazy drooling babbling laughing or crying most of the time idiot who can no longer spell or speak coherently or drive or eat or type very well. These are the side effects of taking them for too long of stretches. (think liza Minnelli--- a classic pill junkie, or her mom, who mixed with booze—bad mix by the way. or Elvis, a classic pill junkie who forgot rule number three.) If you're smart you know what you're doing. Be smart and enjoy the ride. But remember its definitely better to take breaks from the little wonders now and then. It can really make the difference. This last guideline can probably best be summed up with the words ‘don't get hooked on anything.’ So enjoy the ride but do what you have to. go clean for a while which is always nice for a change. Or switch to booze which can always be fun in a kind of look at me I'm a stumbling around babbling idiot who doesn’t care about anything kind of way.

-----Original Message-----
From: Protest Girl [mailto:XXXXX@XXXXX.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 12:26 AM
To: Fishy
Subject: RE: where are you?

Dear Fishy,

I pray this finds you well.

Much has happened in my life since we last talked. I got divorced.  I became a Muslim. I got remarried. I moved to Egypt. (Nothing like a little change, huh!?)

My spiritual search was fulfilled when I discovered the truth about Islam. What we hear in the U.S. is far from the truth.  I have never felt such peace and comfort as I do with Islam, and living in Egypt is something I had always dreamed of.

Please let me know how you are doing. I pray you find the peace and fulfillment you are searching for.

Best always,

Protest Girl

Dear Protest girl,

Oh my God!

I mean, Oh my Allah!

What a joy to hear from you.

I am so glad you received this.

You were missed and needed here during the FTAA meeting protests.

Well please send me your contact info so we don't lose contact again.

I am very happy for you.

How wonderful!

Now you are just like Cat Stevens. Lol.

I hope you are happy happy happy!!!

Your email will make me look more into the Islam faith. For me personally, I do not believe in manmade religions myself, as much as just having a very devout relationship with God/Goddess; but my heart is filled with joy when I hear my friends are so touched by the hand of God that they become religious. I think it is a beautiful thing and can create great passion and happiness to them and those around them. so I am deeply happy for you right now. and congratulations on your new marriage! You so lucky!

I plan on making a trip to Africa the year after next. To live and study. Perhaps I will see you then, or even before.

All my best wishes for your continued happiness and discovery. Keep fighting the good fight you little angel.

Fishy

12-08

today is the 13^th anniversary of John getting killed. Can’t believe that only Paul and ringo are alive now. hard to reconcile that. processing a lot. Getting to the outside of a lot of creations. I love coming to the office. I tried working at the house today till about 2. just can’t do it. I like the office environment. I can get more done. Saw the movie Chocolate. And decided that I definitely want to make that trip to Africa. Live there for a few months. Maybe spend a half a year or more. study the music, the animals, the cultures, and the languages. but first I want to do the France thing. speaking fluent French will make getting around in Africa much easier and more manageable. So plan on living in France for the summer. Paris for a month or two and then somewhere in the South to get that provincial vibe. Then plan for Africa the following year.

Played guitar all weekend. So into it right now. it is so visceral. You can feel it when it is loud and as much as I enjoy and focus a lot more attention on being a songwriter I could never go without guitar playing. It is just too important to me. I find myself thinking about it whenever I am not jamming. Peavey classic fifty is cool but just doesn’t compare to a good head and a 4x12. did a compare and contrast. Music man is still the king of TONE!! I love that baby. Too unwieldy for live usage, but the master of tone.

I get this email this morning from Antoinette, a friend from Sweden:

Dear Fishy,

Hello, I worry about you since I dreamed about you being bored. I hope everything is okay.

Bye

How does that happen? just this morning I was thinking about how thoroughly bored I am. How thoroughly lacking in meaning my life seems right now. how does someone I don't even know half way around the world have a dream about it? Our connections with other people are a funny thing. time and space don't have anything to do with these connections we have with people, do they? But alas dreams are funny. Can’t take them too seriously. but these connections that we have with people. Make life seem shorter and simpler... and yet life is long enough to enjoy, but sometimes I feel that life is just a blink of an eye in a long series of lives we are living, and I think perhaps that there is some kind of simultaneous life thing going on, an infinite number of lives being lived simultaneously. reflect back on the books Bridge across forever and One by Richard Bach. I don't think he is too far off. I think he is probably dead on there.

Current Spin: heard this bootleg of the Beatles rehearsing their vocals for the song think for yourself. Really cool. Also Emmy Lou Harris. Greatest hits. Haven't really been able to get into it too much yet.

Last screening: Happiness. This movie is not for the squeamish. But it’s a must see. Its sick and twisted and weird, but there is something about it that sticks with you. it is like the story of sad and sick people. and how evasive happiness is for them. I can’t shake it.

12-6

Played the Citylink music fest tonight. processed with Little Tree last night on the phone. What a show. Wow. Really good. Still have a tough time talking in between songs. I mean, here I am ten years into it and I'm still not barely half in reality what I have always envisioned in my mind when I close my eyes. But I think we’re getting there. I would really like to get to that point where Rufus is so naturally, where I can just sit down and talk and really be myself. Jim Camacho is that way. he is just so open and honest and real up on stage. I need to let go more. but what a great show. We had this whole bar almost mesmerized there for a bit. People were rushing us afterwards asking us where we were from as if we were from out of town. It was very nice. zeke played. Jim played. Rhett played. Humbert played. Mindy is looking hot. She lost weight and you just want to grab her and kiss her and do her. What a love fest it is. You see everyone you haven't seen all year.

Ferret had dental surgery I found out. I'm like “dude I didn't know. I would have come right over.” He's like ‘No dude I'm fine. Don't worry about it.” and I'm like “no dude. I didn't mean that. I mean, what did they give you for pain bro?” he's like “you dick.” So we scored a whole bottle of vics. We each took one and then went out and he was just wasted. And he's like high fiving me now saying “Dude now I know why you guys are so crazy for it. No wonder you write songs about it!” he was just insane out there in the public high on vics and vodka, saying whatever popped into his head to anyone. So we’re back in the crystal palace again. For the time being.

o.k, one thing is that even though you may or may not believe in God, sometimes its important to just get down on your knees and pray. Just heard from a friend that his wife left him and their child. And he is a Christian. And so i told him I will pray for him. and I mean that with all my heart. Tonight I will pray my heart out for him and for the whole situation. I think God is just one of those things that you believe in even though you don't believe in. Kind of like extraterrestrials or reincarnation. I mean, in the end, who really knows, but we have the belief anyway. and me, i just believe that God is a very personal thing. and so depending on who you’re hanging out with, the God is going to vary accordingly. A lot of people I know disagree with that because they really believe that God is just one form, one idea, namely the idea they were raised with or the one they currently subscribe to. and its hard for them to step out of that because they feel like if they do then they are somehow sinning. But I don't believe that anymore. If I'm with my Jewish friends then I'm going to worship the Jewish God with them and uphold the Jewish customs. and if I'm hanging with my Indian friends then I'm going to be praying to Krishna and Shiva and Ganesh. I mean if you're hanging with a bunch of witches then you're going to be dancing around a fire naked worshipping the goddess. You're not going to be on your knees praying to the catholic god. And vice versa. I'm not going to light a fire in my moms catholic church next time I'm home for the holidays and dance around naked with the priests; no matter how much they’d probably like it.

One more thing. it is really hard to resist when you like a girl but maybe you just don't think she is the one, so you kind of have an idea that it isn't going to last that long. that's not easy, holding back like that. You just want to be with her anyway. but I think that's having discipline. Building character. Not sure yet. Either that, or its just being a tight ass and you should just do whatever you want to in the moment. Still haven't quite figured it out.

Last screening: shocking video from all over the world. This is on HBO right now, and it truly is shocking.

Current Spin: Pulp’s greatest hits. Man what happened to them? Their last CD just sucked. I really expected more. [see, there, I just did it again. I just totally ripped on another artist. no thought for them. just let it rip. That's what I mean. We do it all the time. its no big deal. Its nothing personal. I mean, I don't know them personally, i just relayed how much I hate their last CD. and so that's my point. If you're going to sing man, you just gotta fucking sing and not worry about what the people are saying. Just hope you have more fans that love you than jealous critics that's all. But that one guy in fort Lauderhell, which is a city we have just never been able to crack, even when we lived there, sort of, close to it, broward at least, we never were able to crack it, we were always a Miami band. That's just the way it is there with bands like ours. but this critic from fort Lauderdale saying at the end of his ranting and raving about how awful our new CD is saying he was hoping for a quick overdose for the singer...” I mean that is kind of personal is it not? I mean, imagine if I did fucking overdose one day, not that that would be a bad way to go, because chances are that’s probably not a bad way to go at all, depending on what your overdosing on of course. But still, my poor mom. I hope she never reads that. [I don't know what it was, but something about the bad reviews really opened me up. just made me feel really good. and happy. almost like a welcome to the club type of vibe. Like o.k. now I'm in. Its not all kiss ass generic good reviews that don't really tell you anything now. I mean, this is some passionate hatred these guys have for us. I mean, some of these guys just fucking hate me and its kind of inspiring in a weird way.]

12-5

What I'm noticing more than anything now that the CD is really out there all over the place how emotionally attached I am to the CD and to the feedback we hear. We are constantly getting feedback now in print, and from radio, and from fans, and from retail stores, and from promoters etc etc. and I am noticing that my emotional state is constantly going up and down depending on what I hear. I need to just let it go. let it get out there and just be on its own. have a life of its own. and not be so worried about it. I can feel that. I know that's the right thing to do. but its easier said than done. But I'm trying.

Current Spin: skip James, hard time killing floor blues. Real blues. Old blues. Good blues.

12-04

O.k. temporary moment of insanity the last day. Got so down over reading the bad reviews that I didn't focus on all the good stuff going on. But something miraculous happened. In the last twelve hours we have been so deluged with emails and calls and review postings from fans saying how much they love the new CD that you easily forget about one or two people who don't yet get it. so I do want to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has called or emailed or posted great reviews about the band’s new CD. Please know that it means the world to us. it really means a lot when you share with us how you feel and how much our music means to you. I don't think people have any idea how much it really means to us as a band. Especially at this level when you're really still struggling to make ends meet and spending all of your free cash on guitar strings or just to buy more shirts or stickers to throw out to fans. it means a lot. Thanks you guys!

And to the guys that are dissing the new CD, thanks to them too. for me its been a really important lesson; today I was in the bookstore. I bought this gorgeous book on Frida kalo. And I started thinking about all the times when I diss on other artists. Man we do it all the time. and then something snaps in you. you realize holy shit, not everyone is going to get your shit. That's just the way it is. and yeah peeps are going to go crazy talking about how bad you are and how much you suck. That's just the way it goes. Zeke emails me and says, ‘hey bro welcome to the music biz. Haven't you ever had a bad review before?’ and I tell him, not really. Just mostly good ones and I guess I never paid much attention to that cause they were always good. so a lot of times I never even read them. Because after all I already like what we do.”

He tells me I'm lucky. man maybe I'm just lucky but for the last ten years I've never been very popular but I've always been kind of respected for just doing my own eclectic thing. Popular with the critics (except in fort Lauderhell) and not selling millions of albums. So in that respect I'm not used to this idea of getting bad reviews. My problem has always been more about how to make something accessible enough to reach more than ten people. Zeke responds, “well you are lucky then. Bad reviews are part of it. They come with the territory. Welcome to the club. Just up your dosage of medication.” He laughs. Cleo tells me ‘well Fishy you are extremely self absorbed and self obsessed so its not like he was making that part up in his review... but that's the way we like you. So don't change.’ ‘uh, o.k. then, thanks, I think.” then me remembering the Ferret the first time he heard the song Girls looking at me in the car a few months ago and saying “dude you are going to get so slammed for this. this is so sophomoric and egocentric and childish...” and he fucking co-wrote the song and was laughing about it the whole time. And yep. Sure enough. If we get more bad reviews than good ones then I'm seriously going to move to France. Like all good American artists and ex-pats do. We’ll still release the next one, cause its almost done, but I won't be here for that one. I'll be hiding out, away from evil critics. And we’re not putting our faces on the cover of the new one. Now I know why all the bands just put some stupid generic picture that has nothing to do with anything on their CD covers---so reviewers can’t make fun of them. Anyway, today we mailed out almost 200 t-shirts to radio stations who are currently spinning the disc. Thanks to them. May the fun continue. May this be only the beginning of a wonderful and wild ride for sleep with you. Our little baby.

Current Spin: Dolly Parton career retrospective. Digging it a bit.

12-03

I had to go to a post office today. it smelled. You can smell people. lines are slow. Do not enjoy this aspect of being human. Its just not me. but I make the most of it and talk to everyone in the lines around me because it is such a novelty for me still. So its happening now. just like in the vision I had. the little cat is out of the bag and making its way around the world. People everywhere are listening to the new CD now. Some like it and some don't. makes me cry when they don't like it. Lol. Some local magazine reviewed sleep with you. This guy slammed us again. second time he gave us a bad review. first one I never read but I heard that it was out there. says we ripped off the lyrics to I'm not the only one from nirvana? Can you imagine? Only in fort Lauderdale would someone be so stupid not to know by listening to our music or just by our reputation that I don't even own a nirvana album. no one in the band does. Maybe I WAS the only one in that department, but I just never got into nirvana; at least not yet. Little does he know that I wrote the song in 91—when was nirvana around???? I don't even know. every album he slams us. he writes like he only listened to the first three songs. And blew it off. You can tell he never dove in past song 3. This guy is a real first pager—those cats who only read the first page of every book they own and think they fucking know something. Its one thing if they get it and just don't like it, or even hate it. You can respect that. Its another thing when you can tell that they just don't even get it. That they never bothered to check it out. Man that shit is never easy to swallow. Guys like that, with real limited taste in music, shouldn’t be reviewing music. Anyway, they gave us a huge picture and named the album one of the top ten of the year released by local artists. Go figure. So that's cool. More fans will know the new album is out.

[I can’t sleep. That review has me tossing and turning. Sleep with you was for me an exploration of love and sex and relationships and all that kind of really personal romance stuff that I never explored on earlier albums. I had always focused so much on philosophical and spiritual and socio-political matters, so this was another step, taking a chance lyrically. Some people have made mention of the fact that I am emotionless on the cover of the CD with some generic model naked on the cover. As if I'm not even there. Have no interest in her being there. as if there is something inherently wrong in that. But that was the idea. That is what it feels like when you embrace the rock star lifestyle expressed in the title song. It does feel shallow and removed and disconnected. You quickly lose the fun and the novelty of all that and your heart starts to long for something deeper and more profound. That is why the album progresses the way it does. Its not glamorizing it as much as its exploring all of it, both sides. All of it.

Some interviewer asked me the other day, “is the album about picking up chicks and sleeping with as many of them as you can? Is that how you would sum it up?” and I thought, ‘oh shit, I think we’re in trouble here.’ yeah the first song is about that. but that's why the singer is suicidal on the next song, I'm not the only one, cause that's just not enough for him, and he’s longing to find his partner in superhero girl and he thinks he finds her in veronica or Minnie driver or Shira or Little Tree and all the others he mentions in Girls, but in the end it’s a false alarm, like a lot of relationships are, so he Keeps moving on, and he is sad and frustrated by it, and so yeah he goes in and out of drug abuse, as in the songs vicodin and junkie and he does feel guilty by not being able to control his primitive sexual urges sometimes, and just not being there for his friends and God, hence Guilty, and ending with Little Tree and the idea of love being the most important and profound thing one can go after in this lifetime, and then of course the hidden track Free love goes one step beyond that and accepts the idea that love and sex and romance isn't or at least shouldn’t be exclusive to just the opposite sex. That these ideals transcend all that. and it should just be this wide open exploration of the heart and spirit and body.

It’s a fucking story, a tone poem, an opera if you will, and its not just about those first three songs; a lot of people get that. some don't. but it still sucks to be misunderstood. Especially when you’re really working hard and giving it your all. some times I worry that we took such a risk with sleep with you; that it is too personal and too direct and blunt and too close to home. [Maddie told me today ‘Fishy look you have to understand that for the last two years we have looked up to you with this whole social and political activism and save the world and music from different countries type of vibe and well, how would you feel if U2 came out with their next album singing “all I wanna do is sleep with you...” You'd be a little freaked out too. Its kind of a shock for people. It was for me. But we are trying to get used to the new sound and the new themes because we like you guys.”] I thought I would roll the dice, dive in and make something really personal, like just say fuck it, throw caution to the wind, and make the most personal album I could. We didn't even use a studio for the photo shoots. We used my house, my bedroom. We recorded a lot of songs that were written about real people. The idea was to take it all off and just let go and get real and personal.

Some reviewer said that the CD was made by people with gobs of cash and no tact. Little does he know that we are flat broke. We spent every last dollar we had to make sleep with you as beautiful and moving a work of art as we could for our fans and ourselves. It was meant as a gift. Because so many people complain that few albums these days come with any great artwork. The elaborate artwork of our CD packaging is something we pride ourselves on. We all know perfectly well that its supposed to be really hip and cool to be all indie and lo-fi and have no pix of the band on the cover and to have really low budget artwork and all that, but we’re not falling for it, and neither is G2 our designer, who at this point is like a member of our band, and neither are a lot of other music fans, which we are big time. We want to go back to the old days when albums came with lots of great pictures and lyrics and all that. So yeah we’ll spend money on the CD packaging till we have nothing left to spend and we love that the fans get off on it as much as we do. He also bears witness to how little he knows me or my work by stating something so obvious to anyone who does know me or the band, as if it is his idea---that we have no tact. Tact is not one of my strong points. nor of any real artists. tact had nothing to do with it; it wasn’t about that. it never was and it never can be. it is always going to be about telling it like it is, whether everyone gets it or not. It has to be that way. one album at a time. just a constant process of telling it like it is, or at least like it feels in the moment when you are making it.]

Gave a ton of phone interviews this week. One with a newspaper from the University of Idaho for a story on Sleep with you. Cool guy. You know, you never know how to gauge these interviews when you get certain questions. He asks me if I ever slept with a man when I was younger like Pete Townsend circa 1973. I tell him that of course I did. yeah who hasn’t? haven't you? and then I'm like well I'm not really sure what Pete did with another guy in 1973 to be honest though. i guess the thing is that you just have to remember that when you're talking to them, they're writing, no matter what, you gotta try to remember that. that cool girl from the Miami herald and the article she wrote, man it was so personal. And me just talking a mile a minute, telling her everything. my hands moving all over the place, not watching myself. Just yapping. not understanding that anything I said would be put in the article. Crazy. I think everyone I'm talking to is my friend, you know. you forget the tape is rolling and that maybe sometimes they’re just pretending, so they can get the story. Sometimes its hard to know what the story they are trying to get is. You think that we’re all just these connected beings, so close and connected and in love with one another. and then I read these reviews that some of these guys write and they are almost vindictive, like they hate you or something, like they really are mad at you, even though you don't know each other, and then you start thinking ‘well maybe we aren't all as close and connected and in love as one would like to believe all the time.’ but hey, at least they’re writing about you.

Current Spin: nelly, nellyville. Man he invented a whole new sound.

12-01

Maddie and Mohdie’s baby shower. Saw so many wonderful old friends. A really wonderful time. Maddie is looking so beautiful now. like an angel. And Mohdie is growing into a very nice and noble husband type. Ornery, still a rebel, but softening up in his old age. girls and boys there. I am a very happy person now. I used to be so obsessed with finding the one, finding my wife and true love. And I still think about her all the time. I think we all kind of go in and out of this. But I realized that night when I was hanging out with all of our old friends who are now married with children that I am very happy being just who I am now. I am happy being me. its like you wake up one day and you realize that and it’s a wonderful feeling. You aren't looking for anyone anymore to make you happy or to make you feel whole. You're doing it all on your own. its nice.

Little Tree revealed to me tonight that she slept with someone last year, or this year rather. Cheated on her husband. She felt like she had to tell me. Felt like she cheated on me. I did. I let out a long loud scream. Felt violated. And cheated. And then another scream. Told her I hated her. And then I felt better. And then I could talk to her and be there for her as her friend. Strange. she's not my wife. But I guess I just held her as my surrogate wife until I met my wife. “are you a single man?” this grandmother asks me last night at the party. She was so soft and gentle. “Yes I am. But I'm looking for my wife. Have you seen her?” I ask her joking. “Well no I haven't,” she answers in all seriousness, “is she here?” “No of course not. I'm just kidding...” “but do your traveling now Fishy, while you're young and single. Its easier that way.” I had been telling her about my wanderlust. How I like to travel. I appreciated her advice. Mohdie’s grandma. Felt closer to Little Tree from her telling me that. Made her more real. And in a way, made it easier to let her go somehow.

Current Spin: still listening to justin’s justified. Love it. and also to Wayne dyers real magic tapes. I LOVE THEM!!!

Last screening: pretty baby with the 12 year old Brooke shields. A classic. Never saw it. Wow. Now I understand what all the fuss was about. Growing up I never did. Almost soft porn. Twisted film, but somehow intoxicating.

11-30

I gotta do a quick data dump here. Thanksgiving night, it was late, the four of us sitting around the house. Cozy, intimate. I shared with Red and Mohdie and Madelyn what has been happening with Cleopatra for the last two years. just laid it out on the line. for the first time really. Combination shock sadness horror confusion.

This morning I have this deep realization while I was making an espresso. subtle. I spend the last 24 hours reflecting on the shock and horror that I saw in Maddie and Mohdie when I told them what was going on. Trying to figure out how I can let that happen. what have I been doing>? What was I thinking? this morning I started realizing that it is simple. It’s a love thing. for a lot of us. it is just a measure of how much we are willing to put up with for love. To have that feeling of love in our lives. Or any of the things that go with it. or even anything that approximates it. so for me I was willing to be lied to and deceived a lot and even kept it a secret from everyone else to protect Cleo and my own rep just so I could have her in my life. because somehow I was still equating her with love. But I hadn't gotten anything even close to real love, not even friendship love, from her in years. man that hurts. But its true. so I was just kind of letting all this stuff happen that shouldn’t be happening. Lies all over the place. half truths. Just totally not my scene and whenever I say anything about it, she always just says I am being self-righteous. To try to get me to just let her do whatever. and man the whole time I'm walking one walk but I'm allowing this whole other walk to be going on in my world just because of love. Man I think that has something to do when people are raised with a kind of dysfunctional or codependent love thing when they are kids. I think a normal person would have just walked away, done whatever they had to to get out years ago. now I know. in the tub I felt this really wonderful and powerful sense of peace and happiness. I have been floating in it ever since thanksgiving when I made this decision to let all this go.

I'm walking around the house screaming my lungs out just to let out steam about sleep with you not shooting right up to number one. I'm on the phone with the promo people everyday. What the fuck is up with this album? the head promoter tells me that it is their most controversial CD they promoted all year. they love when albums launch such polar extreme responses from people. he compares it to Eminem. He says that they have 125 stations playing it now who just love it. and then there are the ones who are just really turned off by it. by the artwork, by the crass lyrics. By the loud guitars. You name it. man I didn't expect this at all. I told the commercial rock radio promoter, listen Lisa, we weren't trying to be controversial. I look at that cover and I just think its beautiful. I don't even notice that she is naked. I was just trying to make a statement about love and sex and relationships basically. That was it. And what's so controversial about that? She thinks we should change the cover.

So I'm letting off some steam screaming and yelling. I'm listening to the song vicodin and I'm screaming “fuck! I love this song. This song is fucking great. Listen to that guitar!” and Bas is like man mellow out. This is the business you chose. Why are you trying to act like you don't know this shit already dawg? We say it ourselves all the time. you think you're going to release an album and a month later its going to be in everyone’s house all over the world? Fishy how many years were we listening to coldplay now before anyone knew who they were? Four years for God sakes? Or Travis? Or Muse? Or Remy Zero? And these are big bands that tour all over the world. Just let it sink in man. It’s a gamble. You’re in a gambling business. But you chose it. Bas telling me about when Live came out with throwing copper and how he bought it the first day and everyone would make fun of them like who the fuck is live back in high school and then three years later throwing copper is like the number one record. “Fishy stop screaming man! Throwing copper took three fucking years to catch on. Don't worry. Just keep working it man. Be patient. Easy dog.”

O.k. that made me feel better. But I still feel impatient and pissed.

Last screening: master in command with Russell Crow. Good time. worth seeing. inspiring. “Might I trouble you for an anecdote?”

11-29

I think sometimes that you can reach a point in your life when you have grown beyond where you are. you look around you and it appears that everything and everyone is still the same. But somehow you feel beyond it. as if you are looking at it from afar. I think I have reached that point.

Last screening: the new matrix movie. There are times when the acting is so cheesy that you laugh. And the writing is at best purposefully incoherent. But what a ride. it was spellbinding and breathtaking at times. What an awesome movie. i loved it. I really cannot wait to see it again.

11-28

Talked to the Ferret today. we are always joking that he is clueless, even though he is a well respected county attorney (o.k. so maybe that means that he definitely is clueless... ) anyway he’s telling me to stop spending money on the band and on music. Talking about my current financial situation. He is passionate about nothing. Every now and then he will strike a passionate pose for a brownie Sunday, but even that only lasts a few seconds. And seventies music. But not enough to actually purchase it, only to steal a song or two from the Internet. So I know I cannot take it too seriously because I am extremely passionate about many things. and he is not. and this is a big difference between us, but it still affected me very deeply because he is a close friend. Reminded me of my grandparents always telling me to be a lawyer or a politician and not an artist, but I just always ignored them. Ferret was preaching to me about how I should finish school and become a lawyer or go get my MBA or something because I could be very successful but that presently I am “squandering my potential.” He is judging my present situation based on how much money I have, compared to how much money I used to have. I tried to explain to him that life is more than the sum of the dollars in your bank account but more about I think most importantly, how you feel inside—how happy and fulfilled you are, and two, your accomplishments. The things you accomplish day to day that get you juiced. I live for that juice. A lot more than I do for the money. He lives for a day to day grind at a job he doesn’t like so he can retire after thirty years in it.

Every weekend I watch him go out and get drunk every night so he can forget the day to day grind and then start all over again on Monday morning. I could not do this. And I cannot live my life judging success by the money you have. I tried to remind him of my experiences last week joining up with the rebel activists to defend humanity against the dark forces, and that my name and face are all over the news and papers this week for this accomplishment, or my summer living in Italy researching my heritage, or the homes or cars or guitars I have been able to collect, or the fun I have had when I have had money giving it to all my friends helping them make their own dreams come true; I explained to him that I have five albums out now that I love and that are loved all over the world, and that I am very happy, unlike a lot of other artists I know---whether musicians, painters, poets, writers, film makers, etc---who have never put anything out and don't seem very happy and are always complaining about how hard ‘the industry’ is and all that. but he would hear none of it. the only thing on his mind was money in the bank.

And he is right. The fact is that I have no money in the bank. I am flat fucking broke yet again. He is obsessed with it. But for me as an artist I am really happy, so no I'm not squandering my potential by pursuing a career in music and sacrificing a few good years that I could be a driven capitalist. [I didn't even bother to tell him that I am seriously considering selling everything I own, and going to join the revolution full time. living no where but just traveling from movement to movement.] But he pointed to how rich and successful I would be if I hadn't been pursuing this career in music for the last ten years. and asked when will it end? when are you going to stop? At which my answer was, I don't know yet. I'm happy with what I am creating now. I am not necessarily happy with the extreme lack of success I have achieved in my music career—for that surely there must be some kind of an award I have won by this time—perhaps lowest sales of all time or something like that---or perhaps most prolific and unsuccessful artist of all time---but I am very happy with the music I have made so far. it makes me smile when I think of it. like now I am smiling.

I am also very happy and proud of the fact that I still make music or create my art in general because a lot of people just kind of peter out after a while if they don't get success as if that is the measure of it, and also every album I put out sells more than the previous so as an artist most of the time I walk around feeling very fulfilled and proud, and truly I would say a lot of time a combo between confident and humbled by it all—it’s a weird mix, so all that's a good thing. Kind of like on a cloud. And seriously, in the studio the other day I told Zeke and Trophy Wife, this (the Nothing is Cohesive album) is the first great album I have ever made. After all these years I think I finally made a decent album. of course they laughed. Zeke just gave me a look like ‘dude you truly make no sense when you talk like that...’ but that kind of sums up how I feel about it---I like it that much, when I listen to it, it makes me feel like “wow, I cannot believe I finally am making a good album. After trying so hard for so many years.”

But Ferret did depress me a little and got me thinking. And so at the risk of ripping my flesh off and exposing the very bare bones that are the essence of me, I must say that it really had me thinking like, ‘what if I just really really suck at this?” this really isn't something you think about. I mean I think as an artist or any trade or sport or job you think like that but its just not something that you want to think about. put it that way. For me I have had that thought pass through my head hundreds of times over the years. But I have always just been so focused on producing my art/music at any costs that I have never taken those thoughts seriously. Because it seems hard to quantify. The idea of art being “good” or “bad.” But I mean, we all have seen good and/or bad art or music before. how many times have I been at a club or man even a fucking arena and watched a singer or a band and just been like God they really suck. And you kind of feel sorry for them. because they are up there singing and all but they just blow.

[remember that one time when Queenie told me she took like a year of singing lessons and was tone deaf and couldn’t sing and then finally let me hear a tape and I swear to God she was right---it was the worst singing I have ever heard] So for the last two hours I was thinking that. what if I am one of those singers or songwriters who just totally blows. What a fucking concept. I never really thought about it before because I just always felt so called by destiny to do the work, so I never questioned it. I always just did the work. Ferret and I were talking about it. we were reflecting back to when we were like 19 years old and he would come home from college and be like how's school? And I would be like “I had to make a choice, school or band, and I chose the band. He couldn’t believe that I dropped out of college to play in a band. And I'm still doing it.” And then he would notice that I had no electricity or no phone or something but I would just sit there on the floor in the dark by candle light plugging away writing and singing. I just never questioned it. This is what he calls ‘squandering my potential.’ But of course this is what I have always considered writing history. Perhaps it is a lonely and unsuccessful history at that. but its my history. And I know I like this history better writing it this way than if I were sitting in some job I didn't like everyday not doing music. now that would be squandering my potential...

Although I always understood that I was a very limited singer, with a quality that had a limited appeal perhaps, to say the least. I also understood that I had a very strong rebellious, iconoclastic, and experimental nature that never led to me even being close to the right place at the right time musically, as far as the mainstream goes. I think to a certain extent that has always worked against my desire to make money or success from making music. i cannot accurately recall how many producers or label reps have told me that I cannot have my cake and eat it too. And of course I have always responded, ‘we’ll see about that.’ I was right. So far. But it is a rather modest cake I eat. Without much fanfare. Without even any icing.

[I remember this one time when Davi was at my house and rise and shine just came out and better luck next time was climbing the charts and she thought the CD was awesome. She was a huge fan. But she told me cryptically “if you don't believe in it Fishy then you're not going to let it happen. this music is totally fucking awesome, but I can feel that maybe you don't think so, or that you don't think other people are going to think so, and if you’re feeling that you really need to let that go or you're going to sabotage this really good album from being successful.” And I was looking at her and wondering what I really did think about myself and my music. I couldn’t figure it out. I guess I just figured hey if it blows up then I guess people like it and if it doesn’t blow up then maybe I suck. But I still feel this inner compulsion to do it anyway. crazy right? yeah I know. totally crazy. but still, makes me wonder, man do I just totally suck?

And here's where it really gets kind of freaky if you think about it too long: if I really like it, I mean, if I just totally love it, but no one else does, then does that mean that you suck? Or can you not suck if you like what you do? Even if you're the only one. Or say like your few fans? And even deeper: can a person really tell if they suck? Can they tell? Can a person ever objectify enough away from themselves to hear what they sound like to others? I don't know. I mean, it might be easier for other professions like say a football player to watch a video and just plain see that they suck, but a singer? I don't know.

But I’ll say this. Cause it is what led me to start writing in the first place just now. As I was thinking about all this, feeling blue and slightly better than worthless, I got an email from a fan who said “Your new CD rocks! I have all your CDs and I love them. Keep up the good work you guys!” so just as I was sort of surrendering myself to this “I bet I really suck and just don't know it” idea, then I get this email right in that moment. So that can throw you. Make your eyes cross and confuse you. And then I remembered this one time where Vancouver said something about me in an interview and he said something like “Fishy is a genius in every sense of the word, both the good and the bad of it if you know what I mean, but we love him anyway...” that made me feel so good. Gave me this sense that I hadn't been wasting my time all these years. Getting appreciation from others is just an awesome thing to feel. and that's cool. I am just completely obsessive compulsive at the expense of everything else around me. About songwriting and music making. I mean I pretty much eat sleep breath it 24 hours a day, to the annoyance of everyone else. so maybe that's what a genius is, is someone who just focuses so much and works so hard at it that other people dig it so much and so deeply, to the point of saying its genius. But then you want to talk about a fuck up the ass? Vancouver is now going on tour with the Latin singer he readily admits sucks and leaving us behind because he can make more money with him. So if being a genius means that other singers who are not geniuses make a lot more money and can afford to hire great players and you can’t, then I would rather not be a genius at this point and just be popular and make more money. And in that respect perhaps Ferret is right.

11-27-03

Thanksgiving morning. Woke up to Justin’s new one, justified. KICK ASS! Brown Bear is getting married today. I am responsible for playing the different CDs during the ceremony. Which means I am supposed to be there by 10 am. I tell Brown Bear over the phone dude how the hell am I supposed to be there at 10AM? You know how fucking early that is? Are you crazy? anyway I scheduled three different wake up calls to make sure I woke up in time. I made it. Justin's new CD is slamming and deserved the attention it got. It’s a white guy making black music so its got that touch of both; sounds really groovy. Watched a little football to wake up. And got ready.

I was one of the few friends of brown bears invited to this his second wedding. So I decided not to go fly home to be with the fam this year so I could do his wedding. I felt very honored to be a part of a very intimate family affair. Man we go back a long time. the Wolf wasn't here. I don't know why. the cat either. Can’t get a hold of the cat. Miss her a lot. They are going through such changes now. divorce and selling the house and all that. who would have known? life really does kind of ebb and flow in a way that is unpredictable at times. And we keep flowing. We don't have a choice.

The wedding was very beautiful. in the back porch, under the cool sun. there was a moment when Brown Bear was saying his vows to his new bride, shall we call her little bear, and she had this look in her eye, staring up at him and you could just see this love and appreciation and joy in her eyes. it was something that I hope to see in my own bride’s eyes one day. it was heart-warming. A truly joyous affair. After the ceremony, a few people made a toast. So I said one myself, “on behalf of all of your friends that I am sure wish they could be here on this special day, I want to make this toast which has very profound connotations among men: a very long and high pitched “ddddduuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudddddddddddddde.” All the older people looked at me like ‘what did he just say?” it was very funny. But his mom gave me this look of ‘thank you’ with a glean in her eye. We all clinked glasses.

Ali Bear is here of course. I am sitting here typing and watching her out of the corner of my eye. She is holding a baby. She looks so beautiful and motherly in the cool sunlight. We used to date back in college. Spent a few months together. We had a nice time. I stare at her and wonder. She's going to make a wonderful wife. Happy to still be here. part of their family for so long. the kind of friends where you take each other for granted almost. You can be in the same house for a few hours and just hang out. I have that here with them. I like that. we’re lucky when we have that in our lives. not being with my own fam this holiday and yet so appreciative that I have two very special places to go, two kind of surrogate families. After this we’ll all meet up at Madelyn O'Ryan’s house for another dinner and desert.

Last night I went to Zeke’s to record trophy wife’s background vocals to our new album. we are finished at Vancouver's house. Just trying to finish some backgrounds on nothing is cohesive. Zeke volunteered to finish producing it and mix it. I found myself so happy working with trophy wife again. she has this amazing voice and it gets me very giddy singing with her. She glows. Like an angel. Similar to Madelyn O'Ryan. There's pix of her on the rise and shine album. She is a special person, kind of child-like, innocent, sweet natured, so it adds this touch of sweetness and joy to our projects. She is our secret weapon. It really felt good, working out the back ground vocals to a few songs, tomorrow and bored. I thought to myself, this is what Transcendence is all about. This is transcendence. This interaction between the three of us working on this great music.

Quickly. For I am sitting on the back porch of the Brown Bear’s house writing right now, maybe being a little bit of a loner. So last night at the very last minute I am all of a sudden asked to go pick up a pizza for everyone so trophy could finish cutting her tracks. Now they live in my old neighborhood of many many years ago. Not far from it anyway. I pull into this office park and I immediately recognize that I should recognize this building. At first I do not. But then I do. could it really be? I went in to pick up the food. And then walked around the different offices. And there it was. Dr. ???? Man I forget what I used to call him in the diaries from years ago. his name still on the gold plaque. I was standing in the plaza of the psychiatrist’s office I used to go to about ten years ago back when I was a teenager. I felt this amazing sense of pride and power. i thought about what I used to be like back then. How mysterious everything seemed, especially myself. How out of control I felt, how helpless, and how confused by everything. and now I always feel so happy and proud and confident and you know that feeling that you just kind of know. I couldn’t believe I was here. it was the hand of God. Again. I felt such a sense of power and pride and happiness and joy that I asked the hostess to come take a picture for me in front of the sign. Funny, I know. I could be the biggest geek in the world perhaps. “Pardon me, I wonder if you could walk down the hall here and take a picture of me in front of this doctor’s sign.” “Well aren't you here to pick up a take out order?” “Uh yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but this will only take a second.” But it was a moment for me. It was profound.

Some people will swear up and down that people don't change. That they can’t. But we can change. Its up to us. Some people have a kind of cynical attitude about themselves or others. The whole “That’s just the way it is” mentality. Sometimes people say you never know what hand you’re going to get dealt. Or which way life is going to take you. Last night after remembering what it was like for me back then as a scared and confused and depressed seventeen year old kid, I felt very happy to be the man I am today. I felt like God or an angel carried me there to show me that and then also to tell me to get the hell out of here for good and move on with my life. it was like, ‘o.k. bro, your time here is done. Look where you are now? Right back where you started all those years ago. just to show you where you’ve been. Time to move on now.’

[footnote: as we get older we start noticing all sorts of things about our friends. Some of them are depressed. Some of them drink too much. Guys think all girls are bitches and girls think all men cheat. Other friends will tell you they have ADD, or dyslexia, or can’t ever seem to make a good living for themselves. Some of them can’t ever get over a failed relationship. Or a lost job. Some can’t quit doing drugs or can’t stop smoking or can’t ever seem to lose weight. It goes on and on. When we’re young this stuff is easier to cover up. its easier to play it cool, but as we get older this stuff gets more apparent. I'm always the one ringing people up saying c'mon man check out this course or listen to this tape or read this book. And some people are open to that while others are just really against it. The whole ‘things can’t change’ mentality... I can’t change thing sets in for them. [Remember hooking up with Queenie for the first time in eight years and seeing that everything was pretty much the same in her life. same apartment. Same attitudes about life. still seeing the same therapist. Man if your fucking therapist hasn’t fixed you in eight years, I'd say its time to move on to something else.] I guess this moment for me was one of those moments when you realize that ten years can pass and holy shit things did change. You realize, wow we've come a long way baby. Stuff can really work if you work it. if you are really focused on creating positive change in your universe, and you work at it, you can wake up one day and actually measure all the positive change you’ve created. It was an epiphany.]

Intermission..... get up. Stretch legs. Buy popcorn. Use the restrooms...

Great football game. Fell asleep on brown bears couch. His whole family around. Fun hanging out with their family. So happy for Brown Bear. He's blessed with this new girl. She loves him so much. And besides that she is cool as they get. after their house I went and picked up Red from Seattle who is still in town. Took him up to Madelyn’s families house. Always go there for thanksgiving if I am in town. I have for maybe fifteen years now. Madelyn is VERY pregnant. And very beautiful. she is glowing right now from it. looks like an angel. The more I get to know Mohdie and its going on ten years now the more I get to like him. the only thing I don't like is how he makes fun of Maddie sometimes, she is the butt of many of his jokes which I think makes me and others slightly uncomfortable at times because we know how sensitive she is, but maybe this is just one of those things that you have to accept. I don't know yet how exactly to feel. I mean I guess he is just telling like he sees it, and it doesn’t seem to affect the way he feels about her or her in a bad way. he seems to love her and be so there for her that its very nice and inspiring. But yeah I noticed that last night I had this feeling about him that he is just so smooth. The guy is kind of like one of those superheroes. You know, motocross champion, teacher of the year, coach of the year, surfer, award winning cyclist, marathon runner, etc etc. but when you hang with him he is just this really mellow humble but confident guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly and who cares about everybody. You like him easily. O.k. but I have to say this: (actually I cannot even believe that I am writing this due to Madelyn O'Ryan being pregnant—its truly fucking uncanny—I can still remember hiding under her bed when her dorm room mother would come in when we were in college) but Mohdie won't let them name their baby Fishy because its my name and he said he would have to kill me if that happened (and seriously who would want to be named Fishy? for me it has always presented quite the challenge actually) but now they might name their baby after his old girlfriend. So how fair is that? Granted, she is no longer with us anymore, and I still am, at least today still, so perhaps that gives her the extra edge in the name department, but I mean, c'mon, throw a brother a bone. I'm sure as hell not going to name my own children Fishy. lol.

Anyway, finally told them honestly what has been happening between me and Cleo. Said I shouldn’t talk to her for a while. and just since I made that decision, I feel a lot better. drove home very full and happy with Red at about 4 in the morning. Felt so happy that I have these friends. It was a true thanksgiving. Really memorable.

-----Original Message-----
From: little tree [mailto:littletree@xxxx.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 9:13 PM
To: fishy@transcendence.com
Subject: Fwd: ok here it is--the link

Hey there,

I scrolled down on that link you sent me, and quickly looked through the material; very interesting stuff to read and learn : ) When you said "maybe we can think of this next yr", what did you mean exactly? did you mean saying the prayer below or do I need to read it all to understand?

http://www.transcendence.com/channels/ia/ia_articles/history-thanksgiving.html

Hey there, No. I meant making sure that your kiddies know the real history of thanksgiving etc so they don't grow up and freak out like most of us Americans when they discover the truth...its good for them to know the real story rather than just the myths that everyone celebrates at thanksgiving. I remember one time you told me that your kids were dressing up like Indians for thanksgiving and I thought ‘uh oh.’ Because a lot of Indians don't really appreciate that too much as I am sure you can understand. Because I was raised in a very traditional family (like yours seems now) I was never told about a lot of the real origins and stories about American holidays and so when I grew up and started learning about them I felt very confused and betrayed by my parents and of course the government for telling me so many lies when I was a child. To a growing number of people all around the world now, especially in the Americas, thanksgiving is becoming an International Day of Mourning for the millions of people who were killed and who this land was stolen from---As well as a wonderful day to celebrate our thankfulness for our family, health, and friends. Just info.

No big deal, just interesting stuff to know.

11-26-03

Last screening: the John Denver story. this Christmas I will go to Colorado to spend some time in the snow and board. Remember that astrologer telling me that astro-cartography indicates that Colorado is the place in the continental United States where I will feel the most comfortable and happy and inspired. There was a lot of footage of Colorado in the film. Vermont and new Hampshire are still my winter home, but after seeing this film Colorado could be it. and I need that because when I think of Vermont I think of Cleopatra and when I think of Cleo I feel sad. And I don't want to feel sad anymore. [note—in the building found all of our photo albums of our whole relationship. She had stored them all there in various boxes. The boxes weren't even sealed anymore. I looked through them with some friends. You could see this slow transition from the beginning of the albums when we were so young and happy and innocent and in love and then though the middle years and then towards the end neither of us look happy. [I want to write about this later—what precipitated that—and what can make you stay in something like that? I guess for me – I can’t speak for her --- but I just felt so in love all the time even though I was unhappy I just kept telling myself that it would get better. I felt like if I left it then I wouldn’t be a real man. I'm sure some of that came from me and Beaver’s father leaving us when we were young. I didn't want to do that or be that. So I just kind of hunkered down and said I'm going to stick this out no matter how hard it gets and plus I never really fell out of love with Cleo.

Even though I was unhappy with a lot of what was going on, I think I just was always in love with her. My eyes wandered sure, but she was still the number one to me. I'm sure she told herself the same thing. But boy did we look unhappy in the last few pages of pictures though.] so yes Colorado this year. and yes you can be declined by every major record label in the world for years and be John fucking Denver. And so that helped me seeing that. Having to constantly remind myself who I am at this point in my career. Cause when you're not making huge bank its easy to forget who you are and what you’re all about. Its easy to lose sight of your own belief in yourself. It takes a lot of strength and courage and will. Will man. Fucking will. And what I am doing and what I am about. Hey have I got my fill of being an underground/indie/cult hero/icon yet? [God who am I kidding. I have like three fucking fans. What is that? That’s not even an underground indie cult hero. More like an under-underground unhero.] Am I ready to move on to the next level? Hey if it comes with a little more money and security then hell yeah, and I know the other guys in the band feel the same way.

11-25-03

I am back in the real world now, for the first time in over a week. Plugged back into the matrix. Going to the usual places to get my veggie juice and cappuccino. Pick up the mail and packages from the last week. Going back to the office. Talking to the average people on the street. Asking them how we did over the last six days. This is more of an anecdotal analysis. Which I think is important. Although in a few days we will all be briefed by Pyle with a very detailed media analysis which will tell us how we faired in the eyes of the people on a global scale. But from what I have gathered so far here in Miami from your average person is this: we succeeded in so far as we got the message across that “free trade or the FTAA” was a bad thing to some people and that people were protesting it. people also seemed to understand why it could be bad, danger to the environment, taking advantage of workers in poorer countries, and a potential of losing jobs in America. but people also walked away with the following perceptions that “it is a good thing that the protestors did not cause a lot of violence and disrupt the talks” [this is amazing when you break it down and think about it---aprox 35 to 50 men get together in a private, no-public-access meeting to discuss the future of over 800 million people and the average person on the street feels like it’s a good thing that “the protestors” weren't successful in shutting down the city and breaking the meeting up. this goes to show how easy it is to control people to feel exactly how you want them to feel but how they don't want to feel but they just don't know it—keep them uninformed and they won't know that they aren't on your side. And also continue to control the media to focus on the ideas of “protestors” and “demonstrations” rather than “the people” and also ideas like “violence” and “riots” and “anarchists” rather than “our rights” or “human rights” or “civil liberties” or “keeping our jobs” or “protecting our environment.”

Here is an example: a recent email I received from a friend on holiday:

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxxx@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 xx:xx PM
To: xxxxxxxx@transcendence.com
Subject: Ola!

“>My dearest Fishy,

From Ixtapa ... relaxing and really enjoying being lazy and laid back ... hope all is well with you and that the riots have calmed down. I fly out to Orlando on Friday........”

And my response:

HI Love,

I am glad you are having fun in Ixtapa! Good times indeed. They were not riots. They were "the people" taking to the streets to try to defend all of our rights against the evil empire that is destroying the planet. Just so you know:) Same thing that happened in your beautiful city of Seattle back in '99.

Have fun in Mexico (where all the American jobs are going faster than you can say margarita!)

Love Me

Back in the office people are like “hey what happened to you? I saw you on the news? Are you o.k.?” I asked an associate in my office building “so Luis tell me honestly, did you get the perception from the last week that “the American people” were out there fighting for all of our rights against the evil empire? Or did you get an impression that there were just anarchists in the streets trying to cause riots and being trouble makers?” his answer? “Both. I think that it appears that there are some people that were there who cared about poor people and the environment. But the general perception is that they are freaks or hippies or anarchists and there isn't anything we can do anyway to stop what is inevitably happening.”

He is also telling me as I type that if we go your way and we don't have free trade structures around the world that we’d have to pretty much take back everything we own because most of it is made in some third world South American or Pacific Rim country slave labor factory already. Of course my answer is o.k. then fine, lets return most of the shit we have, or better yet, lets just demand decent labor laws in other countries as a pre-requisite for doing business with them, rather than what we do now, which is the opposite---we do business with them precisely because they don't have decent labor laws yet so we can take advantage of their people... something worth fighting for certainly. I just don't know as Luis and I keep talking if its something that we will ever win. Even Luis who is a pretty cool and kind and caring person is so hardcore capitalist that his attitude is hey man fuck it. if those people are willing to work for thirty cents an hour let them. and if that means I can buy this pen for 30 cents rather than 3 dollars then fuckin A. That's a good thing. let them smarten up on their own.

He continues. “The analysis is pretty profound. And I don't think to the average viewer that that complexity comes across. Protesting injustices is easy. Finding solutions to these injustices is not so easy. Protecting a kid who only makes 5 dollars a day is a great cause I have kids myself. But what does it mean? That means I have to take this shirt off. Return this computer, empty almost everything out of my house and my office, because it was made in china or Mexico by a twelve year old who is dead now.... Protecting free trade, making it fair, is a very complex issue. You start paying these people a normal wage, something commiserate with what we make here in America, we’d have a consumer crisis here in America that would be apocalyptic. We’d have to return everything we own. because that is how we are able to afford to live the lifestyles we have now in America. is because some woman works in a factory and makes only fifty cents an hour doing it. so it’s a very complex issue... America makes up 5% of the world’s population and yet it consumes over 30% of the world’s resources. So that has to come from somewhere...”

It is a few days away. now more than ever this movement, all the movements, that together create this kind of liberation revolution that is happening now, need strong, stable, mainstream voices to come forward and speak up. the perception is that its just hippies and freaks that are fighting it right now. you know that's the way it was a year ago when we were marching against the invasion of Iraq. And now all of a sudden it’s a mainstream thing to want to bring the troops back home. that's the way it always is. A lot of the causes that these activists are fighting for are just normal logical causes that anyone in their right mind would fight for if they knew what was going on. Its just that most people don't. so that's the immediate cause: to bring the causes to the average person on the street. To help your parents and your neighbors and your co-workers become aware of what's going on around them so they can have a chance to speak up and defend themselves as well.

Its not easy right now. you speak up and there's this feeling in the air as if you're doing something illegal. As if you're somehow not part of the pack. Especially now when on the cover of the new times they reported that the FBI is now starting to profile and compile information on peace protestors as potential terrorists. Its quite alarming. Peace protestors are potential terrorists, but guys who invade entire countries and kill thousands of people are the “good guys.” This is a crazy world.

On a more personal note, I still haven't been able to eat properly in months now. lucky to finish one meal a day. really, I never do. I just always feel full. Still recovering from the week’s events. Also seeing all those cops beating people up really makes you feel weird about them. normally you look at cops like they are such cool guys, like they are on our side. You know normally we tip them and give them gifts during the holidays in our neighborhoods, just as our way of saying thanks for being there. and looking out for us. But I guess its all in the way you look at it. when I saw these guys spraying peoples faces with pepper spray from like a foot away and shooting them in the face with rubber bullets at point blank range just because they could and thought it was fun, it really makes you wonder who these people are and how safe we really are as a people when the cops can just gang up like that and start attacking people. Like, whose side are they really on?

The funniest part about this is that I'm a singer. I mean its not like I'm going to lose my job to some South American country. So who am I to be championing a cause like Americans losing jobs? But thinking about tonight a little, you know, its just that when I was a kid I totally fell for that all American freedom and land of liberty stuff. I just really loved that stuff and still do. for a few years there, man maybe its been a decade all I did was read books about American history. I got so sucked into it. so for me I just want to see America become what it always claimed it was. You get to that certain age, college for a lot, high school for some, for others never unfortunately, and you have that huge realization that most everything they teach you in school about America is a lie, and if you’re lucky and maybe you went to some special school or had some radical teacher then about one tenth of it was a half-truth. And yeah that sucks, but it happens to all of us. this is our wake up call. Realizing that America’s ideal of itself is a lot better than it actually is. so maybe people work so hard at political and social activism in order to try to get America to be as great as it promises that it is.

Anyway just for the history books today it looks like the republicans got this supposedly unholy and abominable Medicare bill passed that just sold the rest of our health care to big corporations. So that was pretty much the last of it. America is one giant slave to a bunch of invisible masters. Hey at least that's what the democrats say. Who the hell really knows? I need more sex and more money, to get my mind off of politics and social reform.

Last screening: private parts, story of Howard stern. The guy is a pig but the movie is truly hilarious. And inspiring.

11-24

Today we received an email from Vancouver. Saying he was going on tour with this Latin singer that he doesn’t like or listen to but just so he could make $2500. he didn't ask us or call a meeting to brainstorm it or anything. Just this few sentences basically saying “I'm a whore and I know it and I know I'm fucking you guys over and it sucks and I have to do it anyway blah blah blah....” after what I just went through, I don't know, it just didn't feel that bad. The bad news is that this means the band will have to cancel many of its December concerts. So for the clubs and the club owners and for the people who were coming to see us in those towns and for us who really love and need to play, that sucks. You guessed it. happy fucking thanksgiving to me and the boys. So I cancelled rehearsal and just went to pick up my gear from his house. I felt it coming for a long time anyway. You feel that stuff. you just know. and if you're smart you flow with it. and if you’re stupid you fight it. I could just feel that he wasn't all there, wasn't for real. You can tell when you meet a brother and you can tell when you have met something else than that. I wasn't going to rehearse the band with him. the band is called transcendence for God sakes. And right now that wouldn’t feel too transcendent. We’re big boys. I've been through this before. many times. You flow with it. but when you're on the battle field and a member turns his back on you, or you’re on the field, and a team mate walks off, you never forget it. Its not like you start disliking them or anything, its just that you never go out with them again. you just don't let them play in the game anymore. And Vancouver plays on so many teams, as Infinito says, “he wants to play in all the games but he doesn’t want to put on the jersey...” or vice versa. Its in Spanish so I'm not sure, but it’s a beautiful saying.

Anyway, I was depressed at first. Slightly depressed I guess. The album climbing the charts, three mortgages on my house to fund the marketing and promotion of the new album so we could be indie and not sell out and still try to make big success as an indie band. The producer spending tons of time and his own money on the band. And we’re spending thousands of dollars making T-shirts and stickers with his face on it along with ours and everything. and he's telling everyone ‘I really love this band but this is about money. whoever pays me the most I just have to go with them, even though I may like this band more....” o.k. I gotta be honest, its just disgusting. Its not what music is about. Its not what art is about. But that's not what this is about. That's his story. Not ours.

So I get home and the whole way home I'm just thinking of this predicament he put us in. And I'm just bumming hardcore about having to call all these clubs and all that. and worse than that, I'm bumming about myself and how it was my fault because I'm a fool for not having him under contract. But when you're in a band and you're all friends you just don't think like that. you don't think you have to put guys under contracts. You think you're all artists and brothers. But the truth is that one bad apple can sour the whole fucking cart for all the other apples. And that's one of the curses of being in a band. Unless you get contracts with all the members. And even then, between girlfriends, drugs, kids, day jobs, emotional roller coasters, its not an easy thing to manage. I had to get some gear out of my trunk when I got home. and I looked down and there it was. United by Phoenix. One of my all time favs. And I just decided in that moment that I would put that CD on super loud and just rock out and shake the shit off. So that's what I did. I cranked it up. and just shook the whole thing off. Song after song. Just danced around and rocked out and remembered the magic and beauty and joy that music and my life and transcendence was all about. And that was that. you just kind of know there's a solution out there.

[as I was unloading my car I was thinking of the whole thing with Vancouver and even with Infinito too, both of them loving the band and wanting to be in the band but not playing with us as much as they could because of having to make money from playing other shows. But then I just started to look at it from this other angle, like how great I personally feel from the music we make, and how happy I am that I have been able to record so many of my songs over the years with such great players. Just as I was thinking this thought I looked down and I saw something shiny on the ground. I bent down to check it out and it was this crystal clear gem of some kind. Like a quartz crystal. Seriously. just lying there in the grass in my front yard. How did it get there? I don't know. I didn't care. I knew what it meant. I was seeing things clearly now about this situation. I looked up at the sky and smiled and said thanks. O.k. so Vancouver is gonna go out and play for the Latin singer. who cares? Chris martin and Thom York and Julian casablancas are all very lucky because not only have they made it all the way to the top of their game, they have managed to find a group of guys who want to jam with them and play their songs. But for every one of them I know a hundred other singer/songwriters who can’t get a band together and just sit at home by themselves waiting to meet the right group of guys or go out and try to play acoustic shows on their own. so many of my friends who are singers are in that predicament now all over the country. and they are so cynical. just think its such a pain in the ass to try to keep a group together. And that made me feel so fucking lucky to be in a band like transcendence. and have this great group of guys who love jamming my tunes and making albums. I looked at the crystal in my hand and felt so happy. i put it in my pocket just decided to hang onto it or a while as a token of what it meant to me.]

I was proud. I was happy. I overcame the normal tendency to get all bummed out. Good times. I can’t help it. I'm just so happy to have all these great guitars and amps and I'm finally getting good tone after so many years of trying and now that I have discovered that the whole social political activism thing is so big now in America that really excites me too. its not like its just a few freaks anymore. There’s literally millions of people all over America and the world of all different ages who are obsessed with making the world a better place. it’s a great feeling.

And the worst and funniest part of it all? This thing with the IRS. I mean something like $100,000 we owe them. Can you imagine? No me either. But somehow through all of it, I am managing to keep my sanity and just tell myself that I am me and I will pull out of this like a phoenix rising from the fucking flames.

11-?

I think my dates are all fucked up, but I went to brunch this morning at my usual hang. by myself. I just needed some time by myself to sort things out and read the paper and relax. About an hour into my time there, I look up and who is walking in? Kelly Clarkston from the channel 11 news team. The same reporter who had interviewed me a few nights earlier. I think she was shocked to see me there so calm and peacefully minding my own business at such a mainstream place. ‘well if it isn't Mr. Fair Trade himself. Postponing the revolution to eat brunch of all things are you?! Isn’t this a bit risky? Aren't you worried that someone might see you in such a swank eatery? Mistake you for one of us...” “Revolutionaries do eat Kelly. And if I were you, I'd be more worried that someone might see you talking to one of the “evil-doer protestors.” Wouldn’t want to soil that perfectly contrived white bread American girl reputation would you.” “It certainly was an exciting week. What have you all got planned next? Where's the next battle? Republican national convention?” I laughed. “Funny you should say that. I guess you’ll just have to be on your toes and wait and see. But I'm glad we could be of some amusement to your viewers.” “Do you think that you all accomplished anything? Honestly?” “Well, look at this way. The talks ended when? Thursday? The old dinosaurs went their separate ways with a watered down agreement. And that was that. But your news team and many more from all over the world are still writing stories about the protests and the dire impact this will have on the world around us, and not the actual talks themselves, and here it is Sunday. So yeah I think we did something.” “Fair enough. It was good meeting you Fishy.” I stood up and we shook hands. “Enjoy your brunch. Good luck to you,” she said. “You too Kelly. Thanks for everything,” I said. And she walked off to her table.

11-23

We are in the last days of the media arm of this movement. People working around the clock. The week has been so profound for me on so many levels. I have met one or more people from just about every social or environmental or political cause or charity or NGO (non-governmental organization) that anyone has ever heard of or not heard of. Oftentimes the situation is just so tense or fast paced (think Matrix but the cast not all dressed in black but instead dressed like Deadheads and you get the vibe of what the movement looks and feels like, it’s the Matrix movies super-fast-paced-working-for-the-cause-against-the-evil-empire-type-non-stop-action around here---other thoughts: obviously some people don't even realize that the matrix movies were actually (or are being used by some as) metaphors for what is going on right now in the people’s fight against corporate global totalitarianism in the real world now, but today I realized that it wasn't so much a metaphor as much as that is what the movies are about—its like a real world Matrix thing is happening now in the world—maybe it always has been---often referred to in social activism) Often times the days are so fast paced and insane that you may be working next to someone for a few days and not even know who they are, barely their first name, and then a few days later they give you their card and you're like ‘oh, you're from Public Citizen? Or United for Peace? Or the Steel Workers Union?” etc etc. so yeah that's cool. Because you get to connect all these organizations to faces and vice versa. You feel at once this grand sense of purpose and honor to be among this elite group of activists. One word to sum it all up? and this is the part that is so revolutionary about the revolution: humility. Everyone very respectful and humble and just tries to focus on the jobs at hand.

You got freespeech.org people filming interviews with people, Indymedia people editing protesting footage, groups talking food irradiation, members of the American Indian Movement pow wowing in another room, non-GMO food people eating organic carrots talking about communes, protestors against environmental degradation sitting on the floor writing press releases, demonstrators against slave labor in Mexico and Columbia designing postcards in another office, it just goes on and on....sometimes its hard for me cause I haven't been in the hippie scene in so long (not that activism equals hippies cause it doesn’t); I left it years ago; so I could make some fucking money, but now I understand why. you have to be in the world that suits you best so you're in top shape in order to do your best to help. I see the role that each of us plays. And you don't have to be a hippie to be an activist and vice versa. Lots of ‘causes.’

Its interesting in matrix terms because if you think about it you start to realize that if the world wasn't being controlled by people that didn't care about these issues, then the issues wouldn’t exist. There wouldn’t be any ‘causes.’ And of course then there wouldn’t be such a struggle, and this need for all these charities and protests and demonstrations. The people in control would just make sure that the basics, like human rights, and labor laws, and environmental protection, etc were all taken care of before they concerned themselves with money making. But right now its in total reverse to that. so it takes all these other people to pay attention to all these causes for us. this idea that these people are somehow subversive couldn’t be further from the truth. These are just the really plugged in and smart people from all the different demographics from our society. And for some reason they are selfless enough and caring enough to actually do something about it.

Thoreau and the Camel and I have been talking for the last two hours. I am very moved by this experience of talking so openly and intelligently with people. there is no real boundaries in our conversation because we are all so knowledgeable on all the different subjects that we choose. It is refreshing not to have to fake dumb or fake interest in matters that are entirely irrelevant or mundane in order to have communication with another being.

You look over at some girl and her leg is just filled with hair. Some of these girls have as much hair as I do on their legs. Man that takes some opening up. not all of them, just some. Also, you call someone a he and they correct you “she.” And you're like o.k. I can do that. Just a lot of opening up.

Today was historic for another reason: I got a few of the people together that we all had been working together for the last four days I just say come on, lets run upstairs and lets talk and we’ll have Scott video tape it because I think a lot of fans are going to be really interested in all of this. So this was great because G2 had been saying to me for the last four years, Fishy the site is called Transcendent television. We need to have more television on it. so tonight we made the very first episode if you will for TTV.

Spent hours and hours lying around talking while the poor video team still works around the clock compiling footage of the four days events to upload to various news services around the world. We were all lying around in the dark and just talking. everything from the IMF, GATT, capitalism, WTO, AIDS in Africa and how bono is unknowingly being used as a ploy to spread free trade in the form of passing NAFTA in Africa, catholic church, etc... Pyle sang us a song, van demeans land. Very beautiful. discovered that my idea that once people make a certain amount of money they should be coerced into giving the rest of it away to other people in need, is actually a working meme now already called maximum global wage, just like minimum wage is. Very socialist/communist of course, and in the long run probably not something that we should make law as much as just demand more on a social level from our fellow citizens, something akin to peer pressure is the way I would like to see it, rather than communism. And the other thing of course is to make that maximum wage pretty high, maybe something like 100 million a year. That would be nice. Hehe. Maybe fifty. The rest, ciao ciao. Goes off to other people. and the beauty of something like that would be that the people who give the most, I mean the ones who are cool and smart enough to make the most money are going to be the ones giving the most away every year and it could be almost a contest, like, who gave the most away this year... that type of thing,. and those people could be looked at as heroes and celebrated in society; maybe that would make them feel better because in some cases certain people would be giving a lot more away than they would actually be keeping for themselves. Another way to do it would be to just graduate the income tax even higher like even up to sixty or seventy percent like in some European countries when you hit certain income brackets. Crazy me talking like this I know because I have been such a fucking capitalist for so long. But Red makes a good point, how is there a healthcare crisis or all this national debt and starving people and all this in a country where there are so many billionaires? And no he's not saying take all the rich people and put them up against walls and shoot them and steal their money like in Cuba or Russia---but rather just reward people with a good sense of community spirit by contributing what they have. for me I have to be honest, it is very hard to imagine someone having billions and still seeing homelessness exist in his or her own country and not have already devised a plan and set aside the resources to stop it and better yet, prevent it. [the point of this being by the way that I didn't invent this idea---someone had also thought of it---and the same thing with turning Columbus day and thanksgiving day into international days of mourning already exists as well. as Thoreau said, Fishy you did invent these ideas because you never heard of them before and you thought them up, but the truth is that they are already out there floating around. Its just now they need to be manifested into reality. Integrated into the mainstream. Really solidify. We talked about keeping thanksgiving a nice day to take off spending time with and being thankful for your family, but definitely get rid of all the lies around the pilgrims and the Indians and their harvest feast and all that and rather every household in America burning a candle to mourn the almost one hundred million native people who were killed so we could all live on this land. Man that's sad just writing that. but it’s a truth we just need to come to grips with. [ps—I am thinking so much faster than I am writing, but yes I do believe that ideas like this will manifest and I do believe that they will happen in our life time. I think that for the most part people are ready for truth in their lives. I think it is one of the most pressing desires people have in their hearts and minds right now. this uncontrollable but perhaps unspoken hunger for truth. I want to make note that in my lifetime I can remember when video games just began. When they were in about ten people’s homes and you never in a million years thought it would turn into such a mainstream phenom. The same thing with online diaries—now they call them blogs—getting very popular; the list goes on and on. Who would have known that swingers clubs—people having group sex and orgies in public places would ever turn so out in the open; or escort services; or fetish parties; or activism for that matter. But all this stuff is like mainstream now. Even activism is soon on its way to becoming very mainstream as much as the government is trying to make it seem like activism is somehow wrong or subversive. My point though is that we need to reconcile the false nature of all these holidays but not dissolve them. They have a lot of meaning to a lot of people, but just slowly over the years and decades start to add more of their real meaning back to them, and where there's just out and out evil in them, as in the case of Columbus day or thanksgiving, just try to eradicate as much of that as we can from them.

-----Original Message-----
From: xxx@xxxx.edu [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:19 AM
To: Fishy
Subject: RE: dog, pooch, whatever

Fishy,

Good speaking with you and catching up.

Thanks for the advice. I need to do something.

What do you think is the best?

Later,

Slim

Slim,

O.k. listen dog. I thought more about it our talk yest.

Wayne Dyer is great stuff. Good to open up your eyes and stay on the path so to speak, like Ram Dass, brilliant, but not a lot of actual tools. Just great insightful messages and meditations from someone who really KNOWS.

Where as Tony's programs are actually filled with great tools. Exercises and worksheets and a lot of stuff that rally opens you up and can shift you.

[the best thing out there right now I think is Avatar as far as initiating real change in consciousness, and taking the load off. You have first hand experience with how I used to be in my late teens/early twenties, and compared to who I am now its just an astounding difference. As you know, I had pretty much tried/tasted everything I could to try to help myself figure out 'what is going on here???' all the drugs and therapy and doctors money could buy, and so much reading and studying and research etc... but just couldn’t get control of myself, or couldn’t get control of who I was being, rather than who I wanted to be. Taking the Avatar course did that for me. it is so powerful that you find yourself crying at some points from just pure gratitude that "oh my God, I'm back" you start finding yourself again. its just awesome. It depends on where you are in your life and what you're looking for. For me when I took it, it was 1995, I felt like really I had no choice, I just had to do something. life wasn't working for me in the way I knew in my heart that it could. You can check it out at www.avatarepc.com]

But for something that you can just do at your house on your own time, I would say go for a Tony program. www.tonyrobbins.com Over the years I have recommended them to many people who always call me back later and say "DUDE I HAD NO IDEA HOW ROCKING THIS STUFF WAS! MAN I FEEL SO GOOD!" and now they're fans and have all of his stuff. so just go for it. cause the thing is that the position you are in is pretty normal. You know. we get there. but the thing is that a lot of people don't ever get to the point where you are. where they know they are there. they just keep plugging away. 'enduring life' rather than enjoying life. Whereas you are getting some insight into that things could be better and you want them to be better. So that's cool.

You're a great guy. And if I can help it would be an honor. You helped me a lot when we were younger men back in the college days.

Peace

F

11-23

Went to an indie/art/experimental film screening with Agrippa, the Greek activist from NYC. All of the artsy shorts I hated and they just made me even more agitated than I already felt from the last three days. But the feature film was the infamous “we interrupt this empire.” An underground activist video film. Told the story of how the enlightened rebel forces (read ‘American citizens’) shut down almost the entire city of San Francisco the day that the evil empire (read ‘puppet regime pretending to be American government’) started their invasion of (read ‘war on’) Iraq. Over twenty thousand people went to the streets and just shut that city down in a non violent direct action that was seen and heard all over the world. At one point I felt like crying because I was so moved. There are so many people now that are fighting all these different causes all over the world. After the film, several people spoke. Some one said that they get confused because there seems to be so many causes. And what exactly is “the cause?” one by one many people stood up to explain it to him. It was a thing of beauty. Cleopatra called. We spoke briefly. I told her it was a rough four days. Have you not seen the news this week, I ask. Yes she says. I am disgusted by it all. By the police brutality? I ask sleepily. No, she says. By the protestors. I hang up. I don't know what else to do. it is too late at night and I am too ragged and tired and outraged to hear that or to argue with her. Obviously the media movement that we attempted this week didn't work as well as we wanted or needed it to. Most of the citizens of South Florida and the world were fed so much false information over the TV news that they have no idea what really transpired. When people as smart and informed and pro-active as Cleopatra (she was born into a very politically active and socially conscious family both her parents total hippies, she born and raised for the first half of her life in communes around Europe and Canada) think that there were violent protestors who needed to be controlled by the police in order to save a city, when in fact there were none, then you know things are really being spun out of control. As if there are two realities. There is reality, and then there is the reality that the corporate controlled governments force-feed the media; and when we say force feed the media now I have a feeling that it really is just that. I don't think they have a choice now in what they run. from what the reporters from TV and the newspapers have told me over the last four days it appears that the situation is that the media “feels between a rock and hard place. even though we are on your side and agree with you about the FTAA and most of the other causes that activists fight for, our newspapers and TV networks are owned by the same companies that you are often fighting against. So if we write an article that is too biased towards the activists or towards the causes, no matter true or accurate a portrayal it may be, it always somehow gets canned or shelved or ends up on the cutting room floor. That's just the way it is.” I heard this time and time again from many of them.

Luckily there is now this huge movement in the world bubbling up in cities across the globe called ‘Independent Media.’ We can access it by going to www.indymedia.org. and many other sites. It is a revolutionary idea. Independent media. Think about it. the truth being reported with absolutely no corporate spin or sponsorship or commercials or boards of directors or governments or network censors or owners to answer to. just truth in reporting for the sake of good journalism. How do you make money at it? well that's what makes it so brilliant. If you don't sell advertising like regular media does then you can’t really make money at it. so its just normal everyday people hooked up all over the world with cameras and editing equipment who just go around filming everything and posting it to this huge global network of websites just for the sake of getting the truth out there to the rest of us. they don't make money at it. they're just sick of the matrix. A brilliant idea. I have been to this other space here in Miami where there are members of the IndyMedia from several different cities around America who are working around the clock in these ten hour shifts where they take turns some of them sleeping while others of them edit all the hundreds of hours of film that they captured of the police beating people over the last three days. Everyone trying to finish before they have to leave town. Then the tapes will get disseminated to all the national and international mainstream media who from what I heard will not air much of it, not an ounce, but it will also go to all the different indie media outlets around the world. As an example of how powerful and popular indie media is getting, during the last six months of the Iraq invasion by American forces the various IndyMedia websites have been neck and neck with cnn.com as far as how many people are visiting per hour or per day. Everyday more and more people are turning off the corporate controlled media and getting their news from these independent news sites. Its very cool. For the last four days I have watched them in action. Although I have gotten none of their names.

11-22-03

It is or was rather 4am on Friday night. at my house now. We have been beaten, lied to, pepper sprayed, arrested, chased, and interviewed to near exhaustion for the last two days. All just because we were peacefully protesting the FTAA. We are sitting around my dining room table. In the wee hours of the morning Too tired to open our eyes all they way but too wired to go to bed yet. so we are talking three of us from three different cities in America. Obsessed with activism and obsessed with social change. We all share in between yawns. Red from XXXXXXX is some kind of mad genius who goes to all these different events and enables and coordinates all the different people coming together from all over the country and working the media to tell the people’s side of the story, rather than the corporate bought mainstream medias’ side that we normally hear about. I tell him in exchange for what I have provided in the last four days all I ask is that I am able to video an interview of he and I and Thoreau (from Connecticut) discussing this revolution that is brewing in America. We agree that in the morning when we are all awake and semi-refreshed we will make a video to share with my fans and friends on Transcendent Television. More people in our generation need to know that this is happening. He quietly and passionately tells us that he got involved in activism because he could just feel many years ago that there was going to be a massive shift, some kind of revolution in our generation. What the activists in the sixties were not able to accomplish we will in the coming years. Thoreau and I both agree. All three of us could feel the same thing in our own private corners of America over the last few years and here we were sitting in the dark of my dining room never having met before three days ago. but united in this one quest: to break all the world’s citizens free from the brainwashing of the Matrix and the clutches of corporate run governments all over the world.

Later today. It’s the afternoon now. Saturday. We are all meeting. All the different leaders from all the different groups to fill everyone in on what's going on. Sharing all the different things we have heard. And what needs to happen. Evidently some of the 394 people who are now in jail from protesting are being tortured. Mainly the ones who refuse to give their names, nationalities, or cities they came from. there are hundreds of injuries. Many in the hospital. People being denied access to food. Some of the people who are in jail now are attorneys from the ACLU, or from legal observers, or retirees who were protesting, or union labor leaders, people from all walks of life.

one of the people with us is a Cannes film festival award winning director. he is documenting this whole week for an political activism film. He is not just a documenter, but one of us. just like at this point I am not just a singer, but one of us. [I continue to silently question this within myself: how much am I just a singer and wish to be outside of all of this, and how much am I actually completely a part of it now?] We are all starving and no one has any money for food. There are about thirty of us, from every city in America. This is amazing how no one knows each other, just from different orgs and events around the country over the last ten years. when you read about acres of rainforests getting saved or oil rigs getting blocked, or the WTO meetings in Seattle getting stopped, or innocent human rights activists getting freed from jail, it is because of many of the people who are gathered in this room here today, and many others. I am honored to be a witness to this. I am not arrogant enough to consider myself part of it. but more of an admiring observer. all just activists from different cities who have two major goals to accomplish in the next two days before everyone leaves town for their respective homes: one, to try to free the people who are in jail now and make sure they have adequate legal counsel; and two, to try to control the media spin here in Miami and with the national and international media to make sure that the people are made aware of the issues: The importance of stopping the FTAA from going through and its dangers, and how what we have evidenced in Miami in the last two days is a sign of the police state that America is turning into.

I must admit I am still in shock by all of it. I have spent the last three years voraciously studying American history. And so I have learned that our country was founded on this kind of activism. The very foundation of our constitution was created because of this kind of peaceful and sometimes forceful opposition to the status quo by the people in order to defend and protect our rights as people. so it is true, that I am in shock by seeing peaceful protestors and demonstrators attacked so brutally, and also by the kind of bias slant in the media that I have seen in the last three days. I really had no idea that there was going to be such a flagrant cover up of the truth. Is real American patriotism possible anymore in America? or is America really a secret dictatorship like many Europeans say it is? I wonder now.

We now have video footage interviewing locals around Miami who were paid by the police before the meetings began to rob anyone they saw in the streets in their neighborhoods who had cameras or video equipment. There are five video cameras in total missing now from the independent media team. Stolen by locals. [does one believe this? out of a movie right? I'm watching the footage myself. Some of the cameras have been returned now because the locals feel bad after seeing the police beating people up on TV last night.]

The meetings continue. After ten minutes I leave. I am too emotionally boggled by this. I am not an out and out activist per se and I am not used to activism. Half of the things that they talk about I don't even understand. I don't know the lingo well enough yet and I am not well versed enough in the legal jargon to participate fully. I tell Red that I need to take some time to myself and just write in my diaries for a few hours. I am freaked out and paranoid and feel weird. I am sure that writing will bring me back. but right now all I can think of is getting away from all of this. I find myself thinking about playing my guitar, or the soft touch and smile of a beautiful girl. So I sit down on the floor by myself and just start writing. for hours. I write. And for hours upstairs they meet. They email the world press. They talk on the phone to prisoners, to attorneys, to police captains, to activist groups around the world, and to members of the press. And I just keep writing. I am a singer and a songwriter and I have to keep reminding myself that. of what my own role in all of this is. part of me feels guilty for not just jumping in the moment and joining in but again I just need to remind myself of who I am and what I do best. Throughout the day the guys from my band keep calling me to make sure that I am o.k. and to just talk shop---telling me about the last guitar they bought on eBay. This makes me feel really good. evidently I was on the eleven clock news on every TV station last night in Miami. I gave so many interviews that now I don't even remember it. but I stayed calm and just told it like it was. But now I just tell myself to remember who I am and what I do. I'm a writer. I'm a singer. and man some of those news reporter ladies were really beautiful. I hope I got their phone numbers because it would be really cool to make it with a news reporter. O.k. that's more like it. I'm coming back to myself.

The Journey

We're going on a journey

We all know what time it is

We're going on a journey

We all know the time has come

Take it back

As told by Nostrodamus

Take it back

Like the writings on the wall

we're going on a journey

we'll be making history

we're going on a journey’

on which side of the Matrix, will you be?

take it back

take back all our freedom

take it back

to a state of liberty

this is a wake up call mother-fuckers

we're not going to take it anymore

Break: “you don't build a bridge

that you can't drive your car on.

How am I supposed to support a

government that don't support me?”

Do it do it do it……

I’ve heard it said that rock and roll is dead

And man I think I read it some magazine

But rock and roll will never die

as long as you and I keep buying

It will always fit in somewhere in between.

We can take our music anywhere

Revolution's in the air

I hope you’ll evolutionize with me

Just as music changes rearranges

So can our minds

And then society

They can take their royalty their CIA and FBI and shove them up their a-s-s

A new generation is rising up baby and here we come

We're rising up fast

If you're like me

You're sick of all this lunacy hypocrisy

And all the lies that we've been told

I ain't saying it is easy

But to really change the world

Our actions must be bold

Give love…

Do it do it do it….

First they killed Kennedy and covered it up

Then they killed the King and they covered it up

Killed a million in Nam and they covered it up

Then they framed Nixon and they covered it up

Buying guns for the Contras and they covered it up

Burning down Waco and they covered it up

Setting up Saddam and they covered it up

Shaking hands with China and they covered it up

Who’s next?

What’s next?

11-21-03

It is 7:11 PM on Friday. I am in shock at what I saw. I am back in the media center space that is now officially known as Transcendence. every room is filled with people. on laptops and computers and telephones, editing videos of police brutality, or sending press releases via email to the international press, and talking with press. I cannot believe this is the same building that just three months ago before I left for Italy I used to come to everyday and call my office and second home. it has quickly transformed into a full blown political activist media and working center. 24 hours a day people selflessly working to spread the word of human rights. [based on this experience, I have decided to start an organization called the angels network, that does exactly this: provides office and working space and housing to activist groups all over the country when ever and where ever they go to gather or demonstrate in order to defend social or political causes.] I will write fast and furious as I have not written in two days and have seen more in these two days than I can even believe let alone process. So this may or may not make sense. Went to the county jail here in Miami to work the press that was there to remember to spin the story about what this is really about: the people of the America’s against the FTAA, and the growing militarization of America, city by city. my mind is whizzing. I am not thinking clearly. I have not slept in days. No food all day. no one has eaten or slept in days. It is just about the movement. And this particular movement is just one of many movements that are part of the revolution that is happening now. little did we know. but more on that later.

We went to the jail to protest the 150 people who have been arrested so far. their only crime is that they peacefully protested the FTAA meeting yesterday. We show up at the jail. I am with the same group, the mobilization to stop the FTAA media group. We go to the jail and there are about 75 people protesting already. Our group starts holding various press conferences showing plastic bags containing all the tear gas containers and giant beanbag bullets the size of coke cans that the police fired at the protestors during the peaceful permitted demonstrations. The media seems to be on our side throughout this. and yet when you watch the TV, they portray things sometimes as if the protestors are vandals or violent in some way and the police are just there to stop them. of course this couldn’t be further from the truth. The media’s presence is definitely helping to keep the peace though so we are happy to see them following us around wherever we go. It is mid-day. more and more protestors show up. soon the parking lot is full of protestors. the chanting is just “let our people go, let out people go.” or “free the prisoners, not free trade. Free out prisoners not free trade.” and various other political rallying cries. they hadn't done anything. I was there. I have been embedded with the various groups for four days. And just watched police shoot at us for no reason.

We are scared. But we are strong. No better put, as a sign I saw a girl holding yesterday read, ‘I am sad, but I am not scared.’ Better. Pretty soon we see the streets fill up with about a hundred storm trooper looking guys that are called riot police. But there is no riot going on. Just a lot pf protestors peacefully demonstrating. All of a sudden I find myself as one of three people directly negotiating with the police sergeant of the riot squad on behalf of all of us who are protesting. I don't look anything like a protestor so I think the police find it easy to talk to me. I am with the Archer from the media team I am working directly with (she is a transgender—more on that later—but I think this means that she used to be a he, but is now a she---but regardless of that, she is very brave and calm) and there is another girl with us we will call Sinead who is an attorney from Oregon and who is part of a group of people known as ‘legal observers’---their job is to go to these social activist events and to just observe from a legal standpoint, watching for violations of civil liberties, and then later to work on teams to get people out of jail and to defend them. so now we are acting as a liaison between the people and the police. Pretty soon we are surrounded by these one hundred men dressed in black riot gear. Shin and knee pads, helmets and facemasks, big plastic shields, bullet proof vests, guns, and batons, etc. it is a scary site. but I am not scared. But I keep telling myself that I should be scared.

Lots of negotiations. A few interviews here and there with several people from the press. It is nonstop chaos and the protestors chant and the police get closer and closer to us beating their batons on their shields to intimidate. we go back and forth between the police and the other hundreds of protestors passing messages. Part of me wants to just join the crowd and chant and jump up and down and yell at the riot police. They are literally ten feet from us now. you cannot even see their faces because they are covered by helmets and masks. They are ready to beat us all to death and you can feel it. but instead of joining the group I somehow manage to stay part of the negotiating team instead. So I am able to cross “the line” that has been set up that we are unable to cross. In between us the protestors and the riot police are all the press people. I go back and forth between all the different groups communicating different messages. So we tell the police look we cannot speak for these people. we will tell them what you say and they will decide from themselves what they want to do. then he mumbles something about we better be successful because he cannot stop any violence if anyone gets out of line.

I am too tired now to write but I will keep going. so all the groups sit down----this was amazing to me, to meet and to decide what the demands were of the police and the jail from all the different groups. This is something you have to understand. Not all the protestors are one big group but rather many many small groups who have come together from all over the country for a group of causes they all believe in. Some people are here for labor, some for animal rights, some for the environment, but almost everyone is here through a common desire to fight for people’s rights, for democracy, to fight globalization, and to fight the police state that America is turning into, and to defend civil liberties and human rights of Americans and people all over the world.

Pause...

[Just got off the phone with a reporter from channel 4, CBS. He was there today. saw it. they all saw it today. we are making more and more media contacts. They tell us they are on our side. They saw the police brutality. They call us constantly. They tell us that there is a conspiracy high up in the media here in Miami, that much of what they film and write and photograph about what is really happening is getting left on the cutting room floor and all these other more police biased and city biased stories keep getting written instead. They are actually apologizing to us for not being able to get more of the truth out to the people as they are calling in here to the media center. could this be true? this is like the fucking movies. o.k. on with the story.]

So I sit down for a minute on the curb and look at the row of riot police staring at me. I thought to myself, what the hell am I doing in all of this mess? This is just a funny memory: my cell phone rings. It’s a lady from the Florida grand opera association. I can barely hear her. There are hundreds of people chanting all around me, and there are police beating their batons on their shields like wild dogs. This lady tells me that she needs my credit card number in order to charge $1.50 to process my request to change my tickets for tonight’s opera to another date. I scream over the noise to her very quickly that it won't be possible, that I am about to be trampled and clubbed by hundreds of riot police. I swear to God that she starts arguing with me and telling me that I need to take out my credit card and read it to her over the phone so she can charge a dollar fifty. I know. Its hilarious. But a true story.

Minutes later I get up and go back to the Archer who is talking to the sergeant. We are told by the police captain that we have two minutes to make our announcement to the group that we have fifteen minutes to disperse. Many journalists got this on tape. We went and told the large group of protestors the message, that we had fifteen minutes to disperse. Within about sixty seconds the large group of riot police started moving towards us. we looked behind us and it looked like something out of star wars. Hundreds of these storm troopers marching towards us. we were standing with the crowd shouting to everyone with a bullhorn. “what the fuck is going on?” we yell to each other. “they told us we had fifteen minutes to disperse! What the hell are they doing? They're moving in on us now!!!!” “I don't know but lets just go now you guys! C’mon!” another guy and I and the Archer started running in the opposite direction of the rest of the protestors. Thank God or else I wouldn’t be writing this right now probably. we actually ran right towards another whole group of riot police who started moving in. We flanked them. But I knew that if we flanked them sideways rather than run away from them directly we would get away. I was right. we got away to hide behind one of the media vans. The rest of the protestors were not so lucky. They were soon surrounded and trampled upon by the riot squad. About a hundred of them were attacked in all. they were held down, pepper sprayed in the face, beaten with clubs and then handcuffed. And they were actually running away. it was for no reason. Luckily all the vans of media captured this on tape. pretty soon the entire event was being reported on live TV. The reporters were in just as much as shock as the rest of us were as they reported what they just saw. We did some interviews and then left to join our team.

A reporter from channel 7 announced on live television that this was just like the protests against the Vietnam war and for civil rights with martin Luther king in the sixties. That he couldn’t believe what he was seeing here. that a new war was starting and we were witnessing it right here on live TV in Miami as an example of it. He was a brave reporter. When he stepped down I shook his hand and thanked him for being so brave and telling it like it was. He had madness in his eyes. “You fucking kidding me? Look, we know damn well that most of what we try to report is going to end up on the floor of this van. Decisions made by powers way above even our own network station managers. But when we go live like that, that's what we live for. There’s no lying in live TV. Everyone in Miami who was watching just saw those riot police attack those innocent kids. That's a fact. And we got it on live television...” I walked away so impressed by this guy. he was hardcore old school journalist style guy.

In the sun sentinel today the police chief actually announced his intention to “arrest as many people as we can.” He has continued to lie day after day to the papers and TV. Check this out from Wired magazine. This is a reporter we know: http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=801074&tw=wn_wire_story but I'll tell you, I was there. this police chief Timoney wasn't even there, so he has no right reporting on what happened. Its just made up. This is one of the first times that I actually see right in my own universe an example of someone in power like this police chief just totally lying to everyone. You see this in the movies and on TV. You don't realize that it really happens in our day to day lives here in America. But I'm seeing that it does. People in control lie. And they do it a lot. A lot of the TV reporters tell me this over the last few days. They tell me that it is the way the game is played. It is a constant battle to get any amount of truth out of them. I am shocked at the news and I am shocked by who I am hearing it from.

We come back to the media space. People are in a controlled panic. Everyone trying to focus on getting a count of all the missing people and figure out who was beaten up, who is in the hospital, and who was arrested.

People are in different rooms with video cameras and TV monitors or on the phone or on the Internet. I am asked to go on live TV and talk about what I witnessed. I agree but I sneak away to a restaurant next door to prepare myself with one of the secret weapons of rock and roll. They recognize me. “Hey fishy how are you!” they ask me jovially. “Oh I'm alright. How are you all doing?” I answer not wanting to go into any details of the day. “do you have any alcohol?” I ask casually. “Beer or wine?” they say. “No. I mean do you have any alcohol!?” I say again. “Only the owner’s private stock of vodka here” and they pull out a bottle from a cabinet and show it to me. “Give me two of them please.” I say and quickly slammed down two large glasses of vodka on the rocks. O.k. that's better. I calmed down. Now lets go talk to the cameras.

11-20-03

Jail solidarity, convergence space, workers rights, globalization, totalitarianism, the consensus process, a very democratic, not republican procedure, affinity groups, posting memes --- a self-replicating idea, violations of civil rights, lexicons, press releases, spin, riot police, spokes council. This is the lingo of the movements. The nomenclature. I am learning fast. There is a revolution happening in America now. I will relay it all by reviewing the events of last night. the day of the actual march.

It was 2am. We were meeting at Transcendence to brief each other on the day’s events and to plan the next days events. It is almost completely dark in the room and we are all lying around very exhausted. Many people cry. many people just let out big sobs and sighs at what they have seen. So many of us gassed or shot at for no reason. Running running running from these monsters in riot gear who probably don't even know what the FTAA is or why we are protesting. The police who are here just are doing their jobs.

[Little do they know that we are here to fight for their rights as much as anyone’s else's. But this is an irony of being human. We are not just fighting for the plugged in and aware people of the earth, we are fighting for the ignorant people too. we are demonstrating and protesting for HUMAN RIGHTS. All humans, even the rights of the ones who are chasing and shooting at us. they just don't know it yet. maybe they never will. They have no idea that the reason why they have overtime pay, minimum wages, salary increases every few years, retirement packages, etc etc is because at some time and some where in the last century people went to the streets to demonstrate and protest and earned us all these rights. This is an irony that is not lost on me. I am amazed that the police, who so often complain about low wages and poor benefits, are not on the protestors side, but rather fighting against the protestors. How many of them have friends here in Miami or in other cities around America who have lost their jobs because “the job went South” to some other country. a lot of these cops have no idea that that is precisely why all these unions and labor groups are protesting the FTAA [for many other reasons as well obviously.]]

We are the lucky ones to have made it out without getting beaten up or arrested. Each one of us goes round the room and shares for a minute just to be able to process. For a moment I feel like breaking down. So I let out a few sobs. I cannot believe that I saw all these innocent people getting shot and gassed for no reason. But on a deeper level than that I share with these people that for three years now, ever since demonstrators stopped the WTO meeting in Seattle I started to veer more and more away from personal and philosophical matters and I started to madly study and research social and political issues. These were things I pretty much ignored for the most of my life, focusing more on matters of the spirit and heart. But for the last few years I could tell that there was something happening in America that was very very big. This is when I wrote the song the journey from rise and shine. There was a revolution happening in America and it was happening not just in my generation. But in younger and older ones too. my whole life changed and I wrote and created the album Rise and Shine inspired somewhat by this revolution that I felt coming. I shared with everyone how moved I was that I have met them all. that I wasn't crazy after all. that this is really happening. And that there were tons of people between the ages of twenty to forty who were actually here doing all th is work for social and political change. I really couldn’t believe it. but felt very relieved and excited.

[It is a strange dichotomy that is at work. I have bonded with these people. We have become one. group. One coalition. But I am still a capitalist. And because of that I am separate from them. And sometimes I get the feeling that some of them are kind of anti-capitalist.] Many of the girls that work with us have hair under the arms. And many have hair on their legs. This is very strange I think to myself. I wonder what that is all about.]

11-20

“”From our friends at Nightline:

November 20, 2003

TONIGHT'S FOCUS: Thousands of demonstrators are in the streets of London, as President Bush meets with Prime Minister Tony Blair. But the cost of supporting the U.S. has been brought home to England today as the British consulate in Istanbul and a London-based bank were bombed, with more than two dozen killed and hundreds wounded.””

And while this was going on in England and in Istanbul, tens of thousands of protestors marched in the streets of Miami Florida to protest the FTAA meeting going on in the Intercontinental Hotel. I am in the media center now. A lot of action. A lot of dedicated people who haven't slept or showered in days just working around the clock to spread the word. They are making no money from any of this, but doing it simply because they believe. It is an amazing thing.

11-19

just got home from the convergence center for direct action and the media center, which they have appropriately named Transcendence. the whole building. It is quite a brilliant thing that is going on there. too tired to type in what I learned and saw tonight. Big protests and demonstrations tomorrow. all day long. it has the potential to be quite an interesting day.

I walked away from the so-called transcendence media center feeling alive and inspired like I had not in many years. talking to one of the main guys from the orgs and we kind of marveled at the coming together of their hardcore grassroots activism and my more capitalist revolutionary ideas. It could be a good team. A good combination. And it has been so far.

They gave me $200 for the phone lines. That is all they had. after all their other expenses. it will probably cost me about five or six hundred dollars in total, not counting electric and cleanup etc.. I know that, but I don't say anything. They have no idea that I am about to go bankrupt. But I don't mind donating. What they have given to me is so much more profound and meaningful than money. the dots connected tonight. I mean besides the basics which is just that two weeks I could barely walk into that building because of such negative energy because of Cleo and everything. and now the energy in the building is shifting. The building is filled with beautiful shiny happy smart hippie activists. Eating their health food and making their banners and writing spin for the press and media and on their laptops all hooked up wirelessly communicating with media all over the world all night and day. It is a brilliant thing. beautiful.

But even more than that, cause that's my own selfish little thing I get out of having their energy in their shift a major aspect of my life. and that's nice. but deeper than that. tonight I realized that we are there now. we are knee deep in the revolution. This isn't grassroots anymore. This isn't the sixties when the people were just going to be shut down and shut up. this is just me saying this, but I think that the major turning point was in 2000 when at the same time that we were all starting to realize that Bush and the oil companies stole the white house by rigging Florida and through other nefarious acts of deceit, we also saw the WTO protests in Seattle. We saw what we could do, the people. and a lot of us for the first time in our generation saw that there were all these other people out there from our generation who not only knew all this stuff that we didn't but they were brave and smart enough to do something about it. for a bigger cause.

For me that's when things changed. I noticed a measurable shift in my studies and thoughts from matters more personal and more social, less of the heart and spirit and more political. And for the last three years I have just been soaking socio-political thought as much as I possibly can and still stay a productive singer songwriter musician. For me I believe that is where my real strengths are. But the movement for real change has captured me now. and I think it has captured a lot of people. that Seattle event, that violent spectacle was the catalyst I think for a lot of people. we talked about it tonight. for a lot of people just seeing it made them all of a sudden take notice to the word WTO. How many people didn't even know what that meant before those Seattle protests. And then what percentage went and looked it up and checked out what all the fuss was about. It was major awareness raising. And then from there thousands of organizations popped up all the world. It was like overnight. Somehow it became cool and acceptable to be honest about wanting to make the world a better place and not just try to act like you don't care or be all cynical because you think there's nothing you can do about it anyway.

And then the demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq took place in every major city in the world. Truly global historical events. Just in numbers alone. All of a sudden the entire world saw each others reflections in the televised mirror. Every country holding their own marches against that American invasion. And we realized that we weren't such a big mysterious world after all. we were and are so damn close that we can just email and be a few seconds away from each other. Bonded through our common desires for honesty and decency and peace and honor among men/women. This is something that we don't honestly have in the world today. as humans, we are just not even close to it. life for humanity still is made up of a lot of lies and untruths and half truths and legends and myths and things that don't make sense that we just try to forget about.

But these shared visions that we all have that are in spirit part of this new revolution, they are universal. They transcend language or national boundaries. These are just the basics that the smart and enlightened can see as our future. And then there are still some leftover cavemen (mostly men unfortunately) who just don't give a shit and are just trying to get away with as much as they can before the massive shift in consciousness takes place. So tomorrow there is going to be some more major awareness raising again. and I think that now there is this whole group of people developing from all over the world, but tied together through technology, and their whole connection point is just social change on a global level—making the world a better place for everyone. It is a war now. It truly has come down to the enlightened versus the barbarians.

Met a girl tonight. a journalist from the herald. Interviewing me about the whole thing. but I was kind of taken by her. She was so smart. She knows so much. It was very nice. breathtaking. Having these conversations about words and philosophy and politics etc. how refreshing here in Miami. we just don't find that here. I think I am more taken by smarts in a girl than looks. I am learning this. and I think I am more taken by heart/kindness/truth/honor in a girl than smarts.

Today this girl said that her father was bad. A bad man. That's why she doesn’t talk to him. Commented that that was an oxymoron. A bad man. I shifted in my seat. Told her I see it in myself all the time. Something I have to constantly battle. I said, there are two types of men in the world. Those that are bad and don't know it so they go on being bad all their lives. And those that are bad but they discover it at some point and they spend the rest of their lives trying to improve it.” which one are you she asks on cue. Hehe. That's an easy one. I'm trying babe. I'm trying.

Earlier that day....

I'm on the phone with this lady from the Florida grand opera trying to postpone my tickets to la traviata for Friday night. I tell her I can’t even think about the opera with all this FTAA stuff going on. She starts asking me a few questions. Pretty soon she is going off. Saying “don't get me started.... I wish we could do more. I am so against this. we are losing so many jobs and we are going to lose more and more if this goes through.” Then she starts in on the Iraq war. I am so against our government in other ways too. the way they make our men go fight wars that aren't even our wars...” she starts to cry. “My husband and I just lost our cousin in Iraq last month. And it was after the war supposedly ended.” And she starts sobbing.... “God I'm sorry.” I said. “I know we’re losing a lot of guys now.” “Yes and we don't have any right to be there so I just feel so sorry for these soldiers that are dying and for what? They just wasted his life.” I'm sitting in my desk. I'm staring at the wall in front of me at a picture I tore out of the paper of Minnie driver. I'm thinking of the irony of all this. I am on the phone with some receptionist to change the dates of my opera tickets and she just lost her cousin in the Iraq war. Its weird. What do I say? “well you know, I'll tell you , we’re doing our best here to try to fight the good fight... a lot of people are.” I say, referring to the stop the FTAA action and so many of us trying to stop the war in Iraq. “I know you are. I wish I could be there with you down there. But I have an eight month old child. I cannot be in jail.” “Yea people know that. Its good that you are just keeping yourself aware.” I said. “And your family. That's enough. Teach your friends.”

What strikes me is I had the same kind of conversations with the women last night at the phone company up in North Carolina, and with the Internet tech people in Florida. Its becoming a mainstream thing. People know how bad free trade is to “the people.” at least how it is being operated now. I'm still a bit up in the air. My radical days are behind me (funny right? cause I sometimes think that some times people think I'm radical) but God knows I'm pretty hardcore capitalist most of the time. But only if its done in a cool way, where it doesn’t hurt other people or affect the environment in negative ways.

Earlier still...

theworldisgettingsmaller says:

our building has turned into the media convergence center to stop the FTAA

theworldisgettingsmaller says:

all these people all over the building working hard together. i am in awe.

theworldisgettingsmaller says:

my office upstairs is being used as a meeting room right now between the peoples united for peace org and the steelworkers union leaders.

G2 says:

Dude you're making history.

G2 says:

Seriously

theworldisgettingsmaller says:

I don't know about that. but I hope that I'm helping to make progress

G2 says:

You must be proud. I wish I was there to help

theworldisgettingsmaller says:

no dude. Stay there. you are helping by being where you are taking care of the band stuff. cause I I've been so busy here with the protests. you need to watch the transcendence stuff and ttv. Take care of biz...

G2 says:

Don't worry man. U can count on me

11-18, later that night, much later....

o.k. it turns out who we are working with is a compendium of a few different non-profit direct action orgs working together under the name of ‘stoptheftaa.org.’ one of them is the peoples united for peace org who organized the largest peace march in American history allegedly the one that just went down in new York city and the other one on DC last October along with ANSWER. About twenty members strong, each person is from a different city in America. Basically just a big media arm. Called ‘the media center’ for the stop the FTAA movement. There’s Red from Seattle, Lou from New York, Pyle from New Hampshire, LK from Chicago, and many many more, each of them just as smelly tired and dedicated as the next. Their job is to monitor, alert, and communicate with the news and press organizations from all over the world around the clock twenty four hours a day to fill them in on the cause itself and why so many people are trying to stop the FTAA from going through and then also to keep the communication open with the world media as to the hour by hour events that are transpiring here. as I type there are vans parked out in front of the building from nbc, cnn, abc, ap, etc etc. they sit outside and interview people all the time. Which makes everyone feel safe because as long as they are there the police aren't going to come beat people up or firebomb the building.

I have been working on the project all day with the phone and Internet companies getting lines installed etc etc. trying to get them all moved into our building. It has been quite a challenge. It has taken a lot of diplomacy in person and on the phone. Which is something I have plenty of luckily.

I went to meet with the CTC (the citizens trade campaign) today about their housing crisis and the band playing this big peoples gala they are having tomorrow --- because tom morello from rage against the machine/Audioslave is playing. Cool right? so we want to play of course. the CTC is asking me to provide all this space for housing. But I ask them about the band playing the gala they keep trying to put me off. Then the lady is telling me it’s a lot of red tape and bureaucracy and every member of our band has to be a member of the AFU, some musician’s trade union. Bas watches silently as I plead the case for Transcendence to play. Noting that we are one of the more socially and politically pro-active bands anywhere and yes we happen to be here in Miami and would love to offer our services and rock our asses off for the kids---we will even film it and put it up on Transcendent Television. her telling me that no musicians can perform unless they are part of some union. Bas yells at the lady, “you're speaking to the goddamn ambassador for God sakes woman. From transcendence. they post all your stuff on all these channels on their website for their fans to raise awareness to your causes! And if any band is going to be expected to be playing at this thing, its them!” he gets up and walks out.

I explain to the lady that no we’re not going to join some fucking union because that will greatly limit the kind of gigs we get and the kind of work we can do as a band and as solo musicians. We just can’t join a union because she wants us to. We get out of there and Bas is really pissed. Bas is hardcore midnight oil, rage against the machine, system of the down, pro-activist fight the powers that be type. He's like ‘they’re doing to you guys exactly what they are saying they are trying to stop, and why all you guys are working so hard. So you guys can play a song with Tom they are going to force you to join some big corporate union you don't even want to join.’ So he was pissed, I was pissed, the band is pissed, and we decided to head back to the convergence center to offer our housing there instead to all the other more grassroots orgs. So much for the CTC/citizens trade campaign. And so much for us playing on stage with Tom Morello. For now.

Its about midnight now. I am on hold with the phone company trying to figure out why we don't have the dsl hooked up. I am so ready to go to sleep right now.

I emailed the Wolf: ” I met Starhawk today. I am hanging out with her here in Miami this week. Tomorrow she teaches magic gardening. You should come down.”

Love, The lion

I did meet Starhawk. Back in the day she wrote a very famous book, the spiral dance. I won't talk much about it because like ten years ago I wrote extensively about it in the diaries. Her book introduced the idea of goddess worship and the wican religion to a whole generation. Me and the Wolf became instant fans. It really transformed our lives. There was a time of course that I was known as the lion. We would stand naked under the full moon light and raise our daggers up high and howl. Giving thanks to the God and goddess. The wolf is still heavily into it. last I heard he was a very respected high priest in a very prominent coven. Me, not so much anymore, since discovering many new and exciting things since then—I have become more of a human worshipper myself---but you don't lose your insight and that relationship you develop with the many female forms of the godhead concept. You form this amazing loving bond with the goddess/goddesses and it never really leaves you. So to meet her and hug her today was nice.

Leaving the building tonight, I got to meet a lot of new people from all over the country who have come down here on their own accord and at their own expense just to try to spread the word and raise awareness about the cause.

I ask this girl from Vermont who she is and she tells me something about justice in ecology and stopping the gmo foods and all that which she says is basically just crisis management at this point and that the big corporations have already won and we will all be eating genetically modified food in the next few years and not even be knowing. We will start dropping dead like flies and no one will be able to figure out why. Well at least that's the fear. Anyway she tells me she is here through some org I cannot remember the name of and that we are here in the media center to help spread the word, because we cannot win the battle in the streets, they have tanks and shields and guns out there, but we can win the argument because we just have to tell the truth. The problem is that all the big governments who are for the ftaa have a lot more money to contribute to buying the press and media so it’s a gamble to see how much we will actually get the truth across to the world about the dangers of this. but we will try. we will win in the ideas arena because we are right. but they will beat us in the politics and in the demonstrations in the streets on Thursday and Friday. Our job here is just to keep pushing the truth out to the world media to raise awareness and spread the word. I felt quite honored to be listening to her.

Everyone was very nice and sweet to me for donating the building and the phones and Internet etc for all these different groups to use for the five days. Someone says “Oh you’re Fishy. Well God thank you so much for this.” and I respond, “well thank you all for being the few in our age group who pay attention to all this stuff and actually do something about it, because most of us don't.” we all had a laugh. It was true though. They're like what? One percent of our generation who even have a clue about any of the causes that people are fighting our there? the rest of us are just so busy with our TV and football and rock and roll and our families and our love life etc etc that we don't even pay attention to it. People just figure that “someone else is handling all that” and tonight I got to meet about twenty of those “someone elses.” I felt honored and humbled. Half of these thousands and thousands of people will be sleeping in tents outside. I’ll tell you one thing; I drove away from there realizing that for the most part I am one selfish mother compared to a lot of these other people. They don't even get paid for this work. They just do it cause they believe in it. Without people like that throughout our history, humanity would be in a sad and sorry state.

11-18-03

Me and Bas went to the convergence center today to see what's up with housing etc. I met this Greek girl. Glasses librarian type. Social activist from New York. I was taken in a heartbeat for some reason. Met with a guy from smartmeme who is handling all the media from all over the world to connect the world media to all the different orgs that are there. There are hundreds of activist groups there. Direct action committees etc. public citizen, CTC, AFICIO, ANSWER, independent media. All very organized and yet completely unorganized, and a mess at the same time. it is something to see. Something out of the sixties documentaries we grew up watching. But with technology the way it is today, its so much more advanced. All these little groups of thousands of kids mobilizing in this warehouse space to do different things. I went there to confirm housing and to meet with one of the main coordinators of the media communication team. They got a leak from the police that the building might be raided and everyone thrown in jail—of course this would be illegal because they aren't doing anything against the law, but they are just totally doing whatever they can to try to stop or hamper the protestors—which when you think about it is really weird and lame because not only is it the rights of the citizens of the United States, its what the great country was founded on---protest, demonstrations, civil disobedience and a little bit of both violent and non-violent resistance to oppressive powers (namely the King of England, and then later in strikes against labor, big corporate powers, fighting for human rights, civil rights, women's rights, most recently gay rights. Why anyone would try to stop others from protesting or demonstrating in America is beyond me since our entire country is founded on it. Strange. So we are secretly planning on moving the whole media organization over to our building, the TMG Records headquarters in an entirely different neighborhood.

Also the governor of the state of Florida Jeb bush has secretly shut down all the homeless shelters in the entire county so people cannot crash there. Also issued some sort of declaration that the churches cannot house people either. So now there are thousands of people who have come and have no place to stay. Crazy. again, why he would do this when it is only going to cause complete pandemonium is a mystery. When does that happen? when does a civil servant just totally lose sight of the America that we all grew up learning about and loving and decide to sell out to business? and more than that, in the end is it worth it to them? I wonder. When is enough money enough money?

11-17-03

crazy day. one or two more days and counting. Miami is going to be a zoo. And so is my house and yard. I went to the convergence center today. Thousands of mostly college age kids, gloriously long scraggly hair and very smelly standing around and talking and making signs and banners. Had a meeting to discuss the how many people we could have crash at our house. We prob house about 11 of them inside and about twelve outside in the yard in tents. Yes I know, insane. But I am learning a lot about the whole free trade issue. It is like the sixties now in America. When there were all the protests happening all the time... its just that now we are a lot more connected through technology. To be honest I think the protestors and demonstrating orgs are more organized and more well equipped than the police. I don think they have any idea what is converging on our town right now. it is not like the old days....

Then went to the studio to record vocals all night with trophy wife. She also sang all the back ups on the rise and shine album. she is amazing. beautiful, sweet, funny, smart, and a great voice. Didn't need girl vox on the sleep with you album for some reason. But this new one definitely.

Just got home and received this in the inbox from James twyman. He is like one of these spiritual sort of traveling salesman of the soul so to speak. I copied and pasted this for a specific reason. There is a very big spiritual community that has been building in the world the last twenty to thirty years. maybe since the late eighteen hundreds with Madame blavatsky and theosophy and Rudolph Steiner and anthroposophy and Krishnamurti and on and on. And I've been studying it, God more like obsessed with it for years. God and money. what else is there? o.k. sex and music. And love and family. Right? I mean that pretty much covers it. so check it. but no matter how much you study it or be it or do it and all that, I still have this doubt you know, but this very devout belief. I'm kind of stuck somewhere between Thomas Merton and Carl Sagan. Between Kierkegaard and woody Allen. Its crazy. so o.k. here is jimmy twyman saying that Jesus came and spoke to him and dictated to him. and you just wonder about things like this. I mean lets say it were true, well this would be quite something wouldn’t it? and if it were true and the church heard about it, I mean the various Christian churches around the world, that James was now speaking with Jesus and getting messages from him, well, one would think that that would be quite the miracle and people would be swarming around him, the media and such.

So it just sort of puzzles the mind when you receive these things or read about them. and we do a lot. Every few months right? some statue is bleeding or drinking milk from a straw or some apparition is seen floating in someone's back yard. Its crazy. and now James is taking dictation from Jesus. But you know, people say this all the time now and no one pays attention. It’s the nature of our times. People say oh yeah I'm talking to Jesus now and everyone’s like oh o.k. cool but did you hear about the new show with the Hilton sisters? So I just want to copy it here and just I don't know let it sink in. It would be nice to think this is really happening wouldn’t it? I mean, truly, it would be nice to even believe for a moment that Jesus or something like that even exists, you know? the older I get the less I believe in God, and yet at the same time the older I get the more I just accept that I just do believe in God. Call that what you will. The mind of a madman. But that's how it feels.

Here is his message:

“Where did the "Art of Spiritual Peacemaking" course

come from?

“Earlier this year, over 60,000 people participated in