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

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.