August 31st The weather here in New York is getting to everyone.

August 31st
The weather here in New York is getting to everyone. Still hot and humid and sticky. People are yelling at each other on the subway stairs and on the streets. I think its just getting the best of everyone. Don't get me wrong, I think everyone prefers this heat and sunshine compared to the cold of winter... but it definitely is starting to get the best of everyone...

-----Original Message-----
From: Tuesday [mailto:lilles@xxxx.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 9:02 AM
To: Fishy; remington steel
Subject: Libra’s

hey my fellow balancers-

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "If the Angel decides to come it will be
because you have convinced her, not by tears but by your humble resolve to be always beginning; to be a beginner." So said the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, as if speaking to your exact needs right now. Let me offer this addendum: The Angel wants to come very badly. She is passionate about offering you the novel assistance she has dreamed up just for you.

enjoy your beginning...

love to you both



Hey you guys/girls,
More thoughts on the passage below... (this is from today's diaires entry, but I am using you all to bounce it off of as I post... because it seems appropriate to where we are somehow...) please feel free to read or not to read at your leisure of course. :) love to you both too :)

From this passage below, and from the experiences I have had over the last few months... this major life transformative series of events, I have gathered this -- and might I add that Les/Abs you already seem to possess this knowledge miraculously for some reason -- I call it wisdom -- how the hell you got it at 22 and I'm just starting to see it at thirty-something... well, that's a whole other discussion -- but the point of this is that I am really starting to see that it is not in our tears or frustration or admitted confusion or begging of spirit/God/universe that divinity/providence/guidance/abundance flows to us, but it is through our BEING HERE NOW, SEEING WHAT IS, and MAKING OUR DECISIONS BASED ON THAT.

Even if we have to look ourselves in the face in the mirror and tell ourselves resolutely 'this is what I have learned from this,' or 'this is what I really want from this,' or 'this is what is really happening here,' then so be it. the big lesson is that divine intervention, or better put, experiencing bliss/abundance/being in the right place at the right time/having what we want is all about US making the right decisions... US taking action. US determining what's really happening and what needs to be done about it.

So easy for us to fall back on our Libran tendency to float and fly about in the cosmos with that happy go lucky kick in our step telling ourselves 'everything is going to be alright because I'm a good person and life is all about love. God will provide. All is well in the universe...' and all those other wonderful beautiful Libran truisms that we are so good at teaching to others... and yet... I have begun to understand that it is important to actually pay attention to what is really happening around us, to be vigilant, and to actually make decisions... wow... can you imagine... making a real decision? Rather than just waiting for IT to manifest. Whatever IT is in that moment for us... so many ITS we desire. Or that we are open for... indeed we are open to anything... that's our nature.

And that's not a bad thing of course...

Except of course when we wake up one day and someone who is better adept at seeing what is and making a decision slams us in the face with one of their decisions and we are like "WOOOO! What the hell is this?! Negativity in my space? confusion? Not all perfectness and harmony? But this can’t be! All is well in my world! Because I demand it, I dream it, I desire it, I live it, and write about it. I smile all the time... what the hell? no no no, this cannot be... universe do as I say, grant me peace and love and security and harmony and friendship and joy and bubbly laughter at all times..."

But in reality it's up to us to create that for ourselves. Which means at times, rolling up our own sleeves and making that happen, rather than simply expecting something we call 'the universe' to make it happen for us. sometimes that is going to have to happen from our own decision making and our own actions. (tears... oh God why does that have to be so... say it isn't so... let me always skip through the lush fields of the Garden of Eden as I did as a child... oh please oh please oh please...)

Someone called Joe or Josephine for instance is not a nice person, or perhaps is taking actions, or implying through new subtle actions... at least we can feel that perhaps they aren't about to be a nice person for some reason... there is something in the space that we can feel intuitively... but we ignore it. we tell ourselves 'well I will flow more love. I will be nicer. I will be more kind and loving and accepting and forgiving and understanding... and Joe/Josephine will be better. They too in turn will be kinder gentler more loving and understanding.... because after all, I'm me, I would never hurt anyone, all I want is peace and joy and love...

And that's the clincher right there... that's life in the Libran world in a nutshell. and so when Joe/Josephine does exactly what they were going to do in the first place, as we sensed it from the very beginning but we did nothing about it but flow love, we tell ourselves we are surprised. We are hurt, in fact, we are shocked, we are aghast, horrified, knocked on our ass... what is this? how could this happen? But we knew from the very beginning. Because we were gifted with this uncanny ability to sense things from 'before the very beginning,' but we would rather bask in the sun of our own idealistic world of love/peace/joy/kindness/bliss than stand in the reality of reality and 'what's real/what's really happening.'

So when the astrological message tells us that the angel wants to come but it is not through our tears but through our humble RESOLVE to be a beginner... oh yes, to be a beginner. To start again from this moment on... with RESOLVE. Hhhmmmppphh. I would have to look up that word, because it has been so far removed from my consciousness for so long... RESOLVE... you mean make a decision rather than just know that the universe knows and all will be well? wow... what a concept... totally new to me man. I gotta hit the dictionary. Print that definition out and hang it on my wall for a few days...

HUMBLE RESOLVE. I think I got the humble part down well enough now. finally. But it took a major series of humbling events to make that happen. there is nothing more egotistical and arrogant than your typical Libran-type who floats and dances around the world proclaiming all is well in the world because I demand it to be so. "world be a great place! I demand it to be so!"

And then we wake up.

You mean we have to work at it?

You mean we may have to actually do something?

You mean everything isn't all peachy keen just because we say it is?

And that's when the kicking and screaming comes in.... and when we meet people on the road who are cynical, that's where that comes from... they refuse to get real. They refuse to wake up. they refuse to get humble. And they refuse to get resolve. They are sure that all is well. but they will tell you that all is not well. they are stuck somewhere in between. And they bounce back and forth between. Never making a decision. Never taking action. And praying to God with all their might and all the tears in heaven to make the world and everything in it 'alright' because 'that's the way it should be.'

Kicked on my ass a few times over and over and over again the last few months so much so that some mornings I just lay there wondering... wow, what the hell is this all about? what can I even do? do I even get up? and if so, what for? if all is not well in the universe, what am I doing here? what business do I even have to be here in this 'all is not well world?' this isn't a place for me... I am certainly most well... why isn't the world?

But of course within minutes that infinite fountain of spirited optimism, grace perhaps, kicks in, and I begin thinking of all the amazing wonderful beautiful magical things there are to do that day and I jump up excited and happy to be alive...

By the time I hit the shower I am at once happy to be alive and yet at the same time still keenly aware of the new knowledge I have gathered from this cleansing and transformative experience I have gone through from being knocked on my ass. to be humble... wow, what a gift.

I look myself in the mirror and I say 'this is going to be up to us, isn't it?'
and I answer myself, 'Yep. It IS up to us.'
'we're going to have to get real aren't we?'
'Yep, it looks like it. lets give it a try.'
'we're going to have to make decisions aren't we?'
'yep.'
'we're going to have to actually schedule stuff aren't we?'
'yep.'
'we’re going to actually have to focus on stuff aren't we?'
'yep.'
'we're going to have to face that money doesn’t grow on trees aren't we?'
'not unless we own a logging forest..'
'yep. Hey you're funny.'
'thanks. So are you.'
'thanks. We're going to have to accept that just because we're awesome doesn’t make everyone else awesome aren't we?'
'yep.'
'well that sucks.'
'yep.'
'we're going to have to face that we aren't always awesome ourselves, aren't we?'
'yep.'
'that sucks too.'
'yep. Totally.'
'we're going to have to face that God/the universe isn't going to do it all for us, that we’re actually going to have to do it ourselves, aren't we?'
'yep.'
'wow. that kind of sucks too.'
'yep. Bigtime.'
'we're going to actually have to do stuff aren't we?'
'you mean besides make friends, talk to friends, hang out with friends, walk through the park with Tuesday talking about how great life is, or talk to our self in the mirror, play the guitar, sing, make love, drink wine, write, and dance, and all that?'
'Yeah.'
'I don't know. God I hope not. but I think so... I think that's what all this is coming down to...'
'wow. big stuff. you ready?'
'yep. I'm ready. you ready?'
'yep. I guess so.'
'Alright lets do it. I'll see you back here again tomorrow in the mirror.'
'Yep. same bat-channel. Same bat-time.'
'Man you're fucking funny.'
'Yeah, I know. you too. see you tomorrow.'
'Yep. You too.'
'hey,'
'what?'
'you look totally fucking hot today by the way.'
'you think you so? yeah, I think you're right. hey you too.'
'I know. But hey, thanks.'
'see ya.'
'yep.'


August 30th 2005
If you see the devastation of hurricane Katrina you will notice that its happening more and more. everyday we are inundated with reports of massive devastation and destruction all over the world... when I was a kid it wasn't this way. polar ice caps are melting. Global warming is a reality. A massive increase in unspeakable and shocking natural disasters is on the rise. Someone said to me today, ‘this is so weird... it seems like its happening more and more...’ and I replied, ‘yeah but they’ve been warning us about this since the seventies. We have no reason to be shocked or surprised. This is happening ad we were warned that this would happen...’ ‘you know you're right he said...’ ‘and its all because our governments of the world refuse to do anything about it because of the big corporate lobbyists that fill their pockets and contribute to their campaigns. That's it in a nutshell. we knew we were going to get to this point one day. we just didn't know it would happen so soon.”

On TV hundreds of people are being lifted off of their rooftops in these little baskets connected to chains from helicopters because their whole towns are flooded... tens of thousands of people have lost everything they ever owned. This fucking thing is so heartbreaking. People losing family members... I hate this fucking world right now.

I believe we are at that place in time known as “the end of the world” that we used to hear about when we were kids. We are smack dab in the middle of it. but I don't believe the world is going to end as the Christians do.... there may be an apocalypse and their may even be an antichrist (if there is an antichrist it is “corporate greed” itself, epitomized so brilliantly and effortlessly by the current white house administration... what we are seeing right here at home in those faces that seem to be able to lie and mislead and deceive so effortlessly right on TV right to our faces is that antichrist. Remember that the Christians were warned about their supposed antichrist seeming like he was a good guy right up until the very end.. remember that? he isn't going to be some horned devil like character with cloven hoofs and all that... he was going to seem like one of them. and you know what George bush senior does for a living now? he sells weapons of mass destruction. That's his actual job. he reps and is a spokesmen for the largest arms dealer in the world, the Carlyle group. that's his fucking job. and his son is attacking other smaller countries claming as his defense for his actions that “they may have weapons of mass destruction... and yet the only country in the history of humankind that has ever used weapons of mass destruction is America itself. And their claim that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons... besides turning out to be false and misleading and knowingly so... they had the suspicion of said weapons because the American government was the one who originally sold them those weapons... and then they turned around and started selling the same weapons to Iran. (Iran-contra affair) And guess who is next biggest enemy is on our list to go after? You guessed it. Iran. Now we’re coming after them. All along the antichrist is turning out to be our beloved America all along.

But not the American people. but the government that sits in that white house and allows itself to be controlled by big money interests. That's the real enemy. And so here we sit as I say knee deep in the apocalypse. All we need now is a messiah and let the games begin.... let me tell you, this is not going to get any better. Its just going to keep getting worse unless the people really start to do something. unless we the people really start to do something about it. these natural disasters are going to keep getting worse and more frequent. And all these lies and misleading of the people by the mysterious dark forces at play behind the scenes are going to keep getting worse and more frequent. They stole the fucking presidential election for gods sake right in front of our eyes and we did nothing. And then they invaded a country when the entire world told us no this is not a good idea. don't do it. you have no reason to do it. and they did it. and still we sit and watch and do nothing. And again I repeat marching against this is not going to accomplish anything. It is a puppet show. We need real action. Its either impeach the bastards or sit with the bloody consequences. Marching and protesting isn't going to do shit.




Current read: Becoming like God, Kabalah and our ultimate destiny. This is such a great read. I didn't get it at first. I just didn't get it. but now I do. this is a must read. you see, the thing is that as soon as I started this book, I felt immediate repulsion. Telling me that the path to godliness was “ridiculous sharing” and do everything I had to eradicate the ego who is the opponent, and to stop ‘serving the self alone.’ I even put it down for a few weeks, just totally avoided it. but once I got my ass knocked down so many times in the last few weeks from this Cleo legal battle instead of getting pissed off and going victim and blaming I just kept putting pen to paper and really digging to see what was going on, what was all this? I began to see that what was happening was happening for a reason... I had begun this mission. I entered that church on park and asked my idea of God to cleanse me, and to ‘help me to become the man I have always known I could be,’ I used those exact words. ‘help me to become the man I have always wanted to be, that I have always known I could be... I started that personal integrity rundown, and I started reading that book called ‘becoming like God...’ I mean, this was my choice. I asked for it. I asked to head out on this journey. And BAM! Everytime my ego pops its head up now, I just get slapped down hard. Its not like it used to be, where I could just do/say whatever the hell I wanted to... things have changed. I can’t utter a fucking word that isn't in integrity without getting slapped down.

Its been really humbling. And humiliating. But according to this book, according to the ancient wisdom of the masters of this thing called kabala, this is what its all about, just demolishing the ego and getting into a place of ridiculous sharing....

For the record, that's where I'm at right now. I stand up. I look all around me, take a few steps, one step out of line and BAM! Slapped down.

But I'm cool with it, because I understand the process I am going through. I am asking for it. I am praying for it daily. One day I want to wake up and be so happy with who I turned out to be that I'm smiling from the inside out and I beam so brightly from the knowing of it that I disappear.


Current spin: Speedsters and dopers, 9 o’clock in the afternoon. Iggy, Lou reed style music. dig it.


August 29th
O.k. check it. you totally have me thinking. (your smiling mirror face has me making me thinking)
You know how sometimes you see beauty in people but its not enough? you WANT them to have that good heart, and I think sometimes there is this tendency for us to LOOK FOR that in people though we may not see it, but we WANT TO see it. you know? so we force ourselves to see it. we pretend it.

Thought a lot about what you asked about Cleopatra... REALLY had me thinking... and that's it. I really think we try to force ourselves sometimes to see things in people that may not be entirely there... we’re getting something, but we aren't getting everything, but we try to convince ourselves that we are.

You know?

And you know what's really important? a good heart. I paced and I paced and what I came to is that its that good heart... that's it. that's what we’re looking for. its different for everyone. But for me that's what it comes down to. the good heart. the pure heart. that's what we’re looking for. everything else is secondary...



Dear Fishy,
I've seen this before but it really does put things in perspective. I have all these things and feel very blessed but I feel the most blessed because YOU are in my life!
Maryann

>This puts things into perspective.
>
> If the population of the Earth was reduced to that of a small
town
> with 100 people, it would look something like
>this:
>
>57 Asians
> 21 Europeans
> 14 Americans (northern and southern)
> 8 Africans
> 52 women
> 48 men
> 70 colored-skins
> 30 Caucasians
> 89 heterosexuals
> 11 homosexuals
>6 people would own 59% of the whole world wealth and all of them will
be
>from the United States of America
>80 would have bad living conditions
>70 would be uneducated
>50 underfed
>1 would die
>2 would be born
>1 would have a computer
>1 (only one) will have higher education
>
>When you look at the world from this poin t of view, you can see there
is a real need for solidarity, understanding,
>patience and education.
>
Also think about the following
>This morning, if you woke up healthy, then you are happier than the 1
>million people that will not survive next week.
>
>If you never suffered a war, the loneliness of the jail cell, the
agony of
>torture, or hunger, you are happier than 500 million people in the
world.
>
>If you can enter into a church (mosque) without fear of jail or death,
you
>are happier then 3 million people in the world.
>
>If there is a food in your fridge, you have shoes and clothes, you
have
>bed and a roof, you are richer then 75% of the people in the world.
>
>If you have bank account, money in your wallet and some coins in the
>money-box, you belong to the 8% of the people on the
>world, who are well-to-do.
>
>If you read this you are three times blessed because:
>
>1. somebody just thought of you.
>2. you don't belong to the 200 million people that cannot read.
>3. and... you have a computer!
>
>As somebody once said:
>
>"- work as if you don't need money,
>- love as if you've never been hurt,
>- dance, as if nobody can see you,
>- sing, as if no one can hear,
>- live, as if the Earth was a heaven."


August 28th
Spent the weekend up at giant lake house in Connecticut. The summer home of Boo’s boyfriend Cliffy. Five bedroom/five bath house on an acre of woods right on a lake in upstate Connecticut. The artisan is in town from AZ and the four of us had an amazing time. reading, napping, cooking together, listening to lots music, sitting by the lake and smoking and drinking and talking.... shooting pool, a movie or two, just real solid good times. I spent a lot of time working in a new song which I LOVE. Real poeming. Totally into this new style of using poetic symbolism and imagery in song rather than just telling stories or expressing feelings. Its opened up a whole new world for me. I felt so burned out on lyric writing before I discovered this new way of doing it.

The artisan is reading it’s a guy thing – an man owners manual for women by David Deida. So we spent a lot of time talking about the differences between the masculine and feminine. A very revitalizing and heart warming experience indeed. really made me break out MS excel at one point and start spread-sheeting about where I am now and where I want to be. I love the city life and couldn’t see living anywhere else but a large city like this. doesn’t have to be New York necessarily, could perhaps be London or Paris or Rome or Berlin or Tokyo... where ever, but has to be a big city... but I also really understand now the need to get out of the city a few times per month and get into a small town with nature and country.

So the key has got to be number one buy a place here in the city. I've spent 24,000 on rent this year alone. Only a fool does that. but this was my first year and it was important for me to get to know the surroundings before I spent anything on buying... but now it is time to buy something... and then as soon as possible get something upstate somewhere or even in jersey that is 30 to 60 minutes outside the city where you can really experience nature and country and all that. so that's the plan.

Last screening: THE ARISTOCRATS. YOU MUST SEE THIS FILM. THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME. I BELIEVE THAT IT IS THE MOST HUMAN FILM OF ALL TIME. I would say that a person should probably be about thirty or older to see it.... because it is truly the most offensive and shocking thing I have ever heard or seen in my entire life. I think that maybe the older you are, the less offensive it might be. but trust me it’s the most you will ever laugh in your life in one hour and half session.

Current read: the Koran for dummies. Quite a massive tome actually. Learning a lot. seeing the differences between Islam and all the other faiths.



August 27th

Last screening: Iraq war: the truth uncovered. Had seen this before. Nothing new here for me but just a good collection of all the facts surrounding why the dark forces invaded the country of Iraq and the lies and cons they used to try to convince the rest of the world why they were doing it. Interviews with probably the single largest group of American luminaries dignitaries and service men and women we’ve ever seen in one collective documentary project, all saying the same thing: we’ve come to far for this. there was no reason for us to invade that country. they didn't have any weapons of mass destruction and the government knew it. they didn't have any chemical or biological weapons and our government knew it. they had already planned to invade Iraq long before they started talking about it. they lied to congress. They lied to the whole world. that's why Bush’s whole cabinet resigned. What they’ve done is treasonous and the powers that be aren't doing anything about it. and the rest of the is scared shitless because of the trend towards military might and imperialism America has shown since world war II. And that is why we are being attacked by so called terrorists – because of things like this invasion we just tried to pull of in Iraq.

O.k. So none of this is new. We’ve heard it all before. But to hear it from all the people actually involved in it. the ones who were right there in the thick of it, cia and fbi and weapons inspectors, and government employees and military men and women all saying the same thing... that's the thing about where America is now. America is way beyond the lie. Most countries live in the lie and he lie is never revealed. America is beyond the lie. We are now living in that final phase of a nation when the lie has been revealed and is out in the clear blue and the people numb themselves to pretend they don't see it...

Three days ago it was standing out in front of the Tibet house in the flatiron district talking about it, every few days its talking about it with some actor friends or musician friends or activist friends. Its on the tips of every evolved tongue on the planet...

But the point of all of it is what do we do? what can we do? marches aren't going to help. we need real action. We need to bring down the presidencies that lie to the people. that's what we need to do.

On September 24th there will be a big march in Washington DC, the nations capital. Which is silly to be sure because we can’t be promoting “pulling out of the “war”” now because we invaded that country and took down their government. So anyone who promotes the US from finishing this before its actually finished is just silly and not thinking... we can’t stop the ‘non-war’ now. we need to finish the job.

I know that sounds totally crazy for someone who spent the last two years attending anti-war marches but this is where I am now. we leave that country and we are asking for anarchy in that whole region of the world.



August 26th
Oh my God our whole apartment flooded last night in the middle of the night. it was insane! Everyone running around up and down the stairs. Water pouring out of the ceilings, out of the walls, people running around like lunatics in their bathrobes and pajamas, running screaming, meantime water is gushing out of the walls in the hallways and our ceilings were caving in all around us. it was totally awesome. I put on my miner’s light on my forehead and headed down into the basement to look for the main water-line. then the fire depat came over the used their axes to chop down the doors of the people who weren't home so they could look for where the leak was. booboo and the artisan were visiting at the time and I threw artisan the video camera and said “here take this and film everything!” what a fucking New York scene...

Later on that night, the dove came over with her lovely friend Ms. Remington Steel. She is very contrary to me lately, the longer we spend time together... not sure what that is, but I know that I don't like it. I think she finds me egotistical which I am of course so she's always trying to put me in my place. I believe that she is very used to being the big chief. And of course so am I. so together there is this thing... a real potential for ego war there and I see that there is lots of learning that can be had from that, but just don't feel like I have the energy patience or time for it. nor the desire for the lesson of it. I've had enough ego wars for one lifetime.




The real lesson of all of this as of late... just everything... is that a person cannot depend upon a psychic or astrologer or a God or any outside force really... that is what I am getting out of it... that a person needs to look at reality and make their decisions based on what they are seeing themselves in reality... not depend on an outside source. Yes its maddening because you are dying to know NOW. but you just need to relax and look at what's really happening. and make your decisions from there...

I am in a place in my life right now where every decision I am making needs to be carefully thought out and each action well thought out before executed. I am not used to living this way. it is entirely foreign to me. unwieldy to be sure. But I feel it deeply that that is where I am at this time... sometimes we can just cruise. Other times we need to be very vigilant of every action we take... I am in one of those phases right now.

Last screening: Alexander, the new Oliver stone version. not bad. Not good. just not substantive enough for what it could have been. But jolie did a great job. val Kilmer did a great job. really good. the other guy he was fine. Not so believable but lets face it, that would be a hard role for anyone to pull off. Good enough flick though. Deserved better response from the audiences I believe.



And then:

> > To: YOU
> > Date: TODAY
> > From: THE BOSS
> > Subject: YOURSELF
> > Reference: LIFE

> > I am God. Today I will be handling all of your problems. Please
> > remember that I do not need your help.
> >
> > If life happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot
> > handle, do
> not attempt to resolve it. Kindly put it in the SFGTD (something for
> God to do) box. All situations will be resolved, but in My time, not yours.

> > Once the matter is placed into the box, do not hold onto it by worrying about it. Instead, focus on all the wonderful things that are
> > present in your life now.
> >
> > If you find yourself stuck in traffic; Don't despair. There are
> > people in this world for whom driving is an unheard of privilege.

> > Should you have a bad day at work; Think of the man who has been out of work for years.
> >
> > Should you despair over a relationship gone bad; Think of the person who has never known what it's like to love and be loved in return.

> > Should you grieve the passing of another weekend; Think of the
> > woman in dire straits, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week to feed her children.

> > Should your car break down, leaving you miles away from assistance;
Think of the paraplegic who would love the opportunity to take that walk.
> >
> > Should you notice a new gray hair in the mirror; Think of the cancer patient in chemo who wishes she had hair to examine.
> >
> > Should you find yourself at a loss and pondering what is life all
> > about, asking what is my purpose? Be thankful. There are those who
> > didn't live long enough to get the opportunity.
> >
> > Should you find yourself the victim of other people's bitterness,
ignorance, smallness or insecurities; Remember, things could be worse.
> You could be one of them.

last screening: Broken flowers with Bill Murray. Good. simple. But good enough for the moment. you know Jim jarmush has just never done it for me. but I am very happy that he is out there doing what he does.



August 24th
Madelyn O'Ryan's mom just called to say hello. Great conversation. Great talk with Juliet and Little Tree today. I cannot believe the number of people seemingly coming out of the woodwork to call and say hello or keep up the good fight. its been awesome.

The battle still rages with Cleopatra. day after day and lie after lie. I must say it has not been easy to keep a smile on my face and skip in my step. But I am doing my best to manage it all still.

Spent a few hours over at Tibet house helping them set up their email database because they didn't have one yet. I had heard about the org and wanted to become a member and then learned that they didn't have an email database. When they emailed me back and told me they didn't know how to set one up I offered to run over one day and help out. and today was that day. a wonderful organization that Bob Thurman, a real scholar and adventurer, (uma’s father) started about ten years ago to preserve and spread awareness about Tibetan culture. Richard gere and Philip glass and a bunch of other great people are all a apart of it. helping to preserve their culture and spread awareness about the plight of this lovely culture. and I'm just in there because they needed help and I knew how to help.

At one point Uma’s brother walked in and we all worked together to get their system set up. afterwards her other brother joined us and the three of us went downstairs to share some smokes and talk of Tibet and Cuba and Vietnam and Iraq and all things sacred and unsacred in the world of war and peace. They are very knowledgeable, like their father. And it was inspiring and refreshing to be able to go head to head with other like minded individuals about these things who were really informed and had the same beliefs and understanding of things... we must have talked for an hour or more the three of us. Couldn’t have been a cooler scene. At one point the event had a very profound effect on me personally when speaking about the whole America taking over other countries aspect of American policy ever since WWII. I had suggested that we are in the final chapters of the decline of the roman empire because the bad guys have now firmly won and the people of our once great country are now total victims of and at the mercy of these dark forces who control us. The older bro suggested that this is the last gasp of them rather, that we are not in the last chapter, but that we the people will win....

...that when people are like that, acting that way – pretending they are liars and thieves and murderers etc, you know, they are totally convinced of it, I mean, its like they are trapped in those identities, but that we need to continue to commit to non-violent means of winning and not succumb to anger or attacking or violence or lying or cheating or any of their regular day to day tactics (remember that today is the day that pat Robertson the leader of a very large Christian group of millions in America recommended that America now assassinate the president of Venezuela... these are the kind of people that we are now dealing with here in America... they are true barbarians dressed up as civilized people, walking around in normal people’s clothes, but with these very archaic and barbaric minds still controlling them). I shared with them what I was going through personally with Cleopatra and her crew and their deceptive and criminal bully tactics etc to take over and sell the business I had started many years ago and the guys stressed the importance of looking at it in the true light of how it really is, that when people are at that point of lying and cheating and deceiving, say as the bush admin is now in the bigger picture in regards to the war with Iraq, or Cleo is in regards to what she is trying to do, that we need to remember that they are the ones in the weaker position... as long as we stay honest and true to our highest ideals, to the highest human ideals of truth and goodness and kindness and peaceful outcomes, that we are the ones in the stronger position... why else would they be in the position they are, feeling forced to lie and cheat and deceive or even murder? That it is very important for us to remember not to take it personally.

It was a little epiphany for me on a personal level. Because it is easy to feel weak when you can’t trust anything someone is telling you and they are doing everything they can to lie or cheat or dominate you. and it is easy to take it personally.... and it is easy to feel like giving up and just say o.k. listen just go away you monster... fight your wars and kill all the people you want to etc but just leave us alone. And to a large extent that is what the majority of the people in America have done about Iraq or Tibet, and what they did during Vietnam... But eventually Tibet will be free so to speak. Eventually Cleo will fall because she is breaking laws and lying and cheating etc and eventually the truth will be revealed about the invasion of Iraq just as it now has about Vietnam....

Am I saying that justice is always served on earth? Nah. I'm just not there. I'm not in a place right now to even go there or contemplate that... I'm just feeling way too cynical... but I'm willing to pray to one day believe that.... I'll put it that way. I'm willing to use whatever tools I have available to me as a creator to do my best to co-create that belief...


One more thing: I had the opportunity to see the Buddhist altar/shrine at the Tibet house today. it is a little room about six by six with a giant Buddha statue and flowers and candles and all that. And I shit you not, as you approach this room you can literally feel the energy emanating from this room. It is a very powerful feeling. You could actually feel the peace and love energy of all the thoughts and feelings of all the people who have been in that room over the years. It was magnificent. It was very powerful.

As I always say, only in New York city. what a wonderful place indeed.


Last screening: “Bush family fortunes: democracy only money can buy.” This is a great documentary but just a horrible thing to watch if you know what I mean. the information contained in it is frightening and sickening. You know how Bush stole the election in 2000 but how there are still a lot of people in the middle states who say or think that that can’t be true, that there is no way it can be true, that if that were really true that we would know. well as you know the history of America is filled with true crimes covered up or never revealed till years later. it is the mark of any giant empire since humanity has graced the planet. America is no different. You know that in the final count, which was prematurely stopped by Katherin Harris (the supervisor of elections in the state of Florida BUT ALSO the campaign director of Bush’s presidency campaign heinously and ironically enough) bush won allegedly “won” the state of Florida by only 570 votes. And yet Katherin Harris stopped the ballot counting with still 194,000 votes left uncounted, primarily African Americans (don't you hate that term? What about black people who come from Jamaica or Haiti...) But you get the point. She stopped the vote counting as soon as it started looking as though gore was going to win. Not only that, but they totally stole the election with their whole convicted felon scam. They banned 94,000 people in the state of Florida from being able to vote out of the blue in the last few days before the election because they were supposedly convicted felons and out of those 94,000 only 14% were accurate. The other 86% were not convited felons. And guess what? they were primarily Black people. why? because black people in Florida were traditionally voting democrat and always have and in Florida especially. Even with that charade Gore still took the state which even surprised the republicans. Because they figured they had it in the bag after that scam. BUT gore still won. So they did the whole recount thing and as soon as it appeared that bush had more votes there for a second they stopped the counting and left almost 200,000 votes uncounted. In an effing democracy they left 200,000 votes uncounted. Unbelievable. All they had to do was do a full recount. Or as most Floridians wanted, a revote. But it didn't happen. I'm not going to say that bush didn't work hard to campaign for president because he did. But not only did he lose the popular vote in the United States, Gore won that, but he also lost the vote period. His camp and his brother and his father and Katherin Harris and many others stole the state of Florida to pull in those electoral votes. He just plain lost the race.

But these things are bigger than us. way bigger. And few of us know it. and of those that know it, even fewer ever speak of it. I'll tell you this. after watching this biography tonight and after everything we have studied and learned over the last few years and all the different information that has been leaking out all over the world over the last five years, I'm going to lay it out as I'm afraid to and saddened to understand it. the plan was this: steal the election for Bush no matter what. at all costs get bush in. plan the attack on America that would spark a metaphorical and literal war on terror. Invade the country of Iraq no matter what. say whatever you have to. use 9/11 as much as possible to do so. and lie as much as you have to about why we’re taking over their country. cover up the lies or get a few patsies to step down like the director of the fbi or cia or Colin Powel or whoever else needs to go – exactly as they did. But just say what you have to get into that country and take it over.

And here's the amazing part. They did it. I mean, the amazing thing is that they actually pulled it off. Bush is president. And we just took over the second largest oil producing country in the world. in these same pages I have often said that all the conspiracy theories will never come to light and Bush will be revered as the president who won the war on Islamic terror for America and the rest of the world. But I'm going to change my tune. I predict that one day in our future, you and I may not be alive to see it, but American history will come clean and look back on this and recall what really happened. History will one day rewrite itself. There is just too much evidence that we have been taken over by greedy monsters who secretly run our government and in reality gw has very little to do with it. an able bodied pawn at best. there is just too much evidence now to prove anything else. i wouldn’t even be surprised if one day it is revealed that all the 9/11 conspiracy theorists aren't right and that there was some American cooperation in it as horrible as it is to think such a thought. Not America, but American government or conspirators... there's just too much of a connection to the bush family and the bin laden family. they're in business together for gods sake. The president let his entire family fly out of America right after the attack when all the airports were supposedly shut down... its right out of the roman history books. I'll tell you this. this is one for Oliver stone one day. he will make a great movie out of this one day.

Anyway, rent this DVD “Bush family fortune, all the democracy money can buy” if you want to feel sick and frightened. if not, then just wait it out and hope it doesn’t get too much worse.



August 23rd
I would say that although this is a highly evolved state we have found ourselves in to be sure, it is also one of the most confusing states I have ever had the displeasure of being in as of late. it is one of those what the fuck is going on kind of day to day where the fuck am I right now kind of states.... just certain situations... I cannot put my finger on certain things that I cannot discuss publicly and it is driving me crazy. I need to move on and let be what is. I know that is the message but my mind gets so obsessive compulsive... it just reels twists and turns constantly... I am as Mr. Darcy in pride and prejudice when he is fencing and after he beats his playmate he mumbles to himself, ‘I must conquer this.’ or ‘I will conquer this.’ that is where I am at right now. I walk so tall and boldly as if to walk over anyone who dares get in my way. I am just filled with rage to a certain degree over these two very separate situations.

Movies in Bryant park every Monday night here in the city during the summer. tonight a group of us went to see Jaws with thousands of others. Picture five thousand people all sitting on blankets on the grass in a giant open-air park drinking wine and beer and eating and laughing and talking and then watching a movie together on a giant screen suspend up in the air. I love this city so much. What a marvelous place.


Some guy just walked by picking his nose. And I thought to myself, what is this taboo we humans have about nose picking? You know what a private matter it seems to be. like people are like ‘oh my God we just caught you picking your nose!’ like its this big horrible thing. but you know, everyone does it. that's what so funny about it...


August 22nd
I dreamed of her last night. I mean I really saw her. felt her. I felt IT. she was amazing. she was fantastic. She was directing me in a movie. I was a brad pitt type of character in this giant epic. We were riding horses around a large polo fields, with this other girl. There were these slippers made of rubies in a bag. But that was later. Her name was Rebecca or Beka. She was wealthy. She came from a wealthy family. There was this adventure movie that we were filming. fighting scenes hundreds of men. It was to be a three part series. But I was shooting this scene with her directing and this other women and all of these hundreds of extras and then we go through this whole fighting scene where she disappears and goes to do something else and then she comes back and all of a sudden she is back in the movie. As if the movie isn't about me shooting all these men at all but rather about her coming back in and directing the movie. I actually woke up from it and thought, my fucking God this was a brilliant idea. I cannot believe I didn't think about it... assuming the dream was real and that the movie was real.... but then I fell back asleep... She rides back in onto the camera and I'm just elated. Like it’s the most brilliant thing I had ever seen in my life. it was like she had created two movies in one. I was completely taken by her. it was like she took my breath away with her brilliance. and I remember looking at her riding away thinking YES that's the one! that's it. that is fucking brilliant. that is what I've been talking about all these years. With her writing and her direction of the film we were shooting I was entirely captivated by her brilliance. Her horseback riding skills didn't hurt either. We went back to find her but we could not.

I then had a very strange and disturbing erotic dream about my mother which woke me up immediately. It wasn't my mom in real life, but a pretty hot older woman who in the dream was clearly my mom in that moment... there were lots of dogs that while this scene was happening I just sat there staring at the dogs who were making me happy and giving me relief while this woman in the movie was acting like a freak and very much disturbing me. it was like out of a movie. I jumped up just in the nick of time screaming “aaaghhh!!!! What the fuck was that???!!!” talk about Oedipus complex. I jumped up in bed, realizing it was a dream, relieved, but of course made it all the more disturbing. Its one thing to fantasize about ones mother when you're awake. Everyone should as often as time will allow, no? But to do it in a dream unconsciously. I find it sick and revolting and inexcusable.



August 21st
Thoughts: you know that Israeli girl. Which one, right? Yes exactly. this was huge. What if it has nothing to do with ‘the one’ or the ‘right one.’ what if it is just about being in the moment and experiencing each experience because we want to? Now, humans hate that idea. they feed off of the ‘meant to be’ concept. We all do. everyone always talking about ‘the one.’ the ‘meant to be.’ we pray to gods for help and guidance. We seek assistance and knowledge from science and psychics and astrologers and tarot cards and the IChing and neighbors and friends and family members and the newest self-help book on the New York times best seller list. We look for meaning and inside information from the bible and the Koran and the Kabala and the Bagavad Gita and the Dalai Lama. And we look for signs. Signs and clues and messages.

A logical pragmatist looks at what is real. At what is really happening in the moment. could it be that easy? to see what is real in the moment and make your decisions based on that and nothing more? must we always be looking deeper into things, looking for clues. Surely this is something I need to learn more than anything else. that there are no clues, only reality. As it is in the moment.

Last screening: Written on the wind with rock Hudson and Lauren bacal. This is another Douglas sirk classic. No wonder so much has been written about him by other directors. Bear in mind that this is real Hollywood cheese. These aren't art films. But he has this way of creating stories both heart breaking and life affirming at the same time. he deserved the accolades.



Still in quiet awe and amazement at the results of the personal work I had been doing the last few weeks. when I look back at my spiritual life I can see the milestones, the different major events/moments, the sacraments if you will that led me to this place of peace knowing insight and calm. I reflect back on that bizarre meeting with Ramstein in the park that day a few weeks ago when he insisted that we weren't enlightened, that enlightenment for most was near impossible, that in order to become enlightened one needed to not eat meat and drink only warm water and be a monk on a mountain in Tibet and study Vedic astrology and all of that other mumbo jumbo. And yet if this isn't enlightenment then what is? indeed what is enlightenment?

As an exercise I meditated on and contemplated the different major events that led to this new found glory as I fell asleep last night...

Prologue: Having been raised a catholic; I never felt the presence or the spirit of God or godliness growing up. You just don't feel that God presence anywhere near the Catholic Church. If you study human history I don't think God has ever come close to that world. its always been a rather sinister evil world filled with murder and deception; grandiose gestures of hatred intolerance threats lies bullying murder and broad strokes of greed selfishness and punishment of others. that's the catholic church in a nutshell. So to me growing up that's what religion and God meant because that's how I saw it in catholic school and from studying the history of the church and at church in those dark little confession booths and those mean and nasty little nuns and priests running around in aprons and nightgowns. No God was evident there.

So that was how we began. I started off in this life with a devout obsession with spirituality, but headed in the wrong direction, but not by my own accord. Walking backwards, not because I chose to, but because I was born into it. So the first step was just to recognize that how I was being raised, and what I was being told was spiritual, was in fact a hoax, a sham.

1. In high school after being expelled from my catholic high school thank god, I had the opportunity to attend a Christian high school (after a year at a military academy, but that's a whole other book in and of itself). This was my first association with what we call the born again Christian types. I would say that this was the first major moment in my spiritual life – meeting these Christian people with that grace of God so present inside of them that you could see it and feel it emanating from them. [even though many including my dear mum Sister Mary Theresa would argue that my first major spiritual moment was my baptism and then my communion and then confirmation, these events meant absolutely nothing to me. they offered nothing holy nor sacred nor godly nor inspirational to me. just a lot of memorization of meaningless words and manmade rituals.] But being in a small school full of loving kind personable and spiritual people who called themselves Christian had a tremendous impact on me. I fell in love instantly with these people and with this thing called Christianity. It was the first time I ever felt real ‘godness.’ And I loved it. ate it up. basked in it. these were good people. honest people. these weren't the hatred filled tyrants and bullies and delinquents that fill catholic schools, teachers and students alike. These were real live living breathing kind hearted people. and for the first few months I couldn’t believe that I never knew that these kind of people existed in the world my whole life. I became a born again Christian and enjoyed the experience very much. But eventually my mind got the best of me, or perhaps the best of the religion itself. I asked my preacher what would happen to all the people in china and Africa who had never heard of Jesus when they died and he replied that they would all go to hell because only through Jesus can you get to heaven. That was it for me. it was obvious that he was wrong. that there was something off in his thinking. even though he was a nice enough guy. but even at my young age I could see that that just didn't make any sense. I was sixteen. And I was done with Christianity. I left the church and the faith.
2. for a long time I called myself an atheist or an agnostic. It wasn't that I didn't believe in God. but I just wanted to really believe in God. I wanted to know God. if at sixteen years old I could already imagine a God greater than the one of Christianity and Judaism then something was off. God was obviously much bigger than they were giving him credit for with their limited imagination and insight. So I took off on a course of intense religious studies. Tellard de chardin and Thomas Aquinas and Thomas akempis and Kierkegaard and Alan watts and Merton and Lewis and you name it. I read it all. and the more I read the further I got from believing in God. But I did discover the Tao te Ching. And though this has nothing to do with God, it taught me that spirituality, the kind that I was searching for did in fact exist. that true human spirituality in fact existed without a God concept at all. and this was huge for me. there was hope. This was the second most important major event in my spiritual life I would say. Spiritual people existed and wrote about true good hearted spiritual ideas before the God concept ever existed. This was human spirituality with an attempt at understanding life in the universe. And since humans were and still are all we know in the universe this was an amazing thing that this old monk was able to pull off. The true bible if there ever was one or has to be one.
3. around this time I discovered unlimited power by Anthony Robbins. A classic introduction to NLP – neuro linguistic programming. At this time I was about nineteen years old. In desperate need of some assistance in how to get my life on track. Tony’s reassuring confidence gave me a sense that spirituality could also be practical. It wasn't just sitting and reading and meditating and praying and BEING. But one could actually do something to create real change in ones life for the positive. My life turned around in many positive ways. My depression and self imposed exile from the world and my desperation began to subside. I was no longer the teenage monk alone in the world wondering what it was all about. it was o.k. to come out into the world and actually make conscious effort to be happy, successful, and to live spiritually, while at the same time honoring ones need and desire for money and materialism. NLP worked for me. it got me off my ass and out into the world. I started my first real successful business at age twenty and enjoyed years of material gain and monetary success, and dare I say my first glimpse at something I had heard was called happiness.
4. satisfied after years of studying Taoism and Buddhism without needing a God concept at all, I began intense studies of the sciences in college. I was a philosophy major and enjoyed it enough but thought it fun though rather useless. No sense in dedicating ones life to trying to figure out things that can’t be figured out. but there was real sense and logic in the sciences. I became a humanist and attended regular humanist meetings in town. no God there. good logical sensible things but no God. just good people trying to make sense of the world. but the sciences led me to an inner understanding that a God just may exist after all. it was the whole concept of the way matter works with the forces of the universe. The idea that science knew that there were these forces such as gravity and electro magnetism but they couldn’t find this fifth force that they were searching for that governed the other forces. I continued to pray to an idea of a God that I held that was that fifth force. Science as crazy as it sounds brought me back to God. But now I was in totally uncharted territory. This God was my own construct. I was alone in it. but this was event number three. I began to become spiritual again, only this time through and because of the very secular world of science.
5. Krishna consciousness. I then discovered Krishna consciousness and all that jazz from the east. The whole Hindu/Buddhist thing. chanting and vegetarianism and abstinence from sex and all that. I was in love with this God for a few years. I didn't eat meat for years, abstained from sex for months at a time, practiced yoga everyday and chanted endlessly. I felt very good from being a Krishna devotee. Once again I felt that special something that comes from that sense of godness in humanity. This was a major event for me. I discovered Ram Dass and his monumental Be Here Now and swami propupada and Krishnamurti and the maharishi and paramansa yogananda and ravi shankar and that whole lot and it made me feel very good. I felt God’s grace in it. and God was good. there is real godness in that world. and one could bask in it forever I believe and be perfectly content if one had the discipline. It worked fine for George Harrison and plenty of others. but of course I couldn’t put my finger around all the rules and rituals and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why true grace had to come from all this abstinence and sacrifice. The idea that the world around us is illusion and the after life is what is real made no more sense than when the Christians or the Jews or the Muslims claimed the same thing. after all, here we are, and here we always have been and this here/now is what is really real. I know that sucks and you don't want to hear it so we create religions that create glorious after-lifes for us, but the truth is that the here/now is real and all else is illusion and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why all the eastern, and western religions for that matter, couldn’t see that, or didn't want to.... Why create that this is illusion? Seems pretty real to me. I do not believe that what we are experiencing here on earth is illusion. In fact I believe the opposite. It is as real as real can be. if there was a God, he was smarter than that. God and spirituality has to come easier. Anyone who tells you any different just hasn’t reached that lifetime yet that they eventually will when they realize that enlightenment and spirituality is easy. very easy. it does not take work or sacrifice or ritual or abstinence. It takes being born. Anyone who has looked into the eyes of a baby knows this. But dare I say, don't ever get into an argument with a religious person about these things. like I said, its all about what lifetime they are in in their own travels of their soul. Hundreds and hundreds of lifetimes probably.... Its their journey and if they aren't there yet, you aren't going to convince them of anything in this lifetime. But yes, for me, the discovery of this God, Krishna, was a big one. still today I cannot help but smile when I think of him or chant the hare Krishna... it is a beautiful feeling and leads to an almost instant state of enlightenment and grace. This was major event number four and I will be forever grateful for the discovery of that world and still return to chanting and Krishna and Buddha and Shiva and Ganesh at times for comfort and inspiration.
6. I then discovered witchcraft and magic and the idea of the Goddess. I had never heard of the Goddess before. I had only heard of God. that God was male and all that. but it turned out that the Goddess concept was much older than the God concept. We had been creating and worshiping the Goddess for thousands of years. I will never forget my initiation into the coven where I pledged my belief in the Goddess and in protecting nature. I became the nature boy. And for years I was busy enjoying casting spells and dancing in covens naked around fires and having fun with oils and incense and herbs and brews and potions with my big canes of fresh oak or my athame (essentially a magic knife.) the only problem was that as I got older I noticed two things. one was that a lot of the people who were also witches lived pretty crazy lives. Not exactly spiritual. And two, couldn’t enlightenment and manifestation come easier than all this ritual and hullabaloo? I mean, couldn’t we just create out of thin air if we were really witches and magicians? Why all the dancing and ritual? Had to be an easier path from a to z. but again, this was a huge moment on my spiritual path. From that point forward I never put down the Goddess concept and even today when I pray I always pray to God/Goddess and never just to God. for without one the other can not exist.
7. there was a brief moment there when I began finding feathers. Tons of them. everywhere all around me. and I was called at one point to return to the Christian church from all around me it seemed.... I must say that it came at the right time in my life. it felt pure and beautiful and absolutely heavenly. By then I didn't care about the myths purported to be truth in the bible. I was there for the God feeling. And I really felt Gods presence all around me during that time. it was as if sometimes I was being guided and carried by angels. And it was there and it carried me through both good times and bad once more. I began to understand that God was something that transcended religion. It could be in any church in any religion. It was something that humanity brought or didn't bring. It had nothing to do with books or religions or bibles or creeds or rituals. It was all about the people present in the community. And for me in that moment I felt a big beautiful strong God presence there. you wouldn’t believe what that church has turned into now. it is gigantic and takes up five city blocks. Its called Calvary chapel and is now one of the most famous churches in America. people come from all over the country to attend just one service at Calvary chapel. I was right. God was there. and I wasn't the only one that could feel it. this is the moment when I committed to always believing in God/Goddess. No matter how many times my mind argued against the notion because of how illogical it seemed I never stopped praying from that moment on. God had made his/her presence very clearly known to me and I would never forget it.
8. one day God whispered for me to take the Avatar course. and then screamed for me to do so until I could avoid it no longer. I had avoided it because I thought it was too expensive. Two thousand dollars at the time. and I was a young broke struggling musician. But there was no doubt about it. no matter where I turned there was gods whisper, study Avatar. Take the courses. Learn it live it be it. and so I did. I had read living deliberately by Harry palmer and along with the Tao te ching and Ram Dass’s BE HERE NOW I thought it was the most important and enlightened collection of ideas I had ever read. I read it in one sitting. In the bathtub. For three hours. I devoured it. I had no idea that there was another who understood the possibilities, the truth of what was really going on... I just couldn’t believe that this book, with these ideas was out there... I was homeless, carless, penniless, going through a much needed karmic transformative cleansing at the time --- but I took my last money in the world and ventured off to the great red rocks of Sedona Arizona and had the most enlightening and transcendent experience of my entire life there for ten days. I had found God alright, but I had found him/her/it within my own being. I have written enough about avatar. So suffice it to say that it is IT. it is the IT that everyone searches for and hopes is out there somewhere and it should be and hopefully one day will be required study for all of us. its just that good. and true. it isn't for everyone. The basic idea behind it, the foundation of it, is that we are creating our experiences from our own beliefs. this was hard for me to swallow at first but through the exercises I soon learned that it was in fact the truth behind it all. we were the creators. if you want to change an experience you change the belief that is creating it. and the good news is that we have the power to do so at our fingertips. Like I said it isn't for everyone. A lot of people have a problem with that idea. they need to believe that a God or a Goddess creates their reality. But Avatar leaves room for God. though it never mentions it even once. It would never pretend to know anything about God. the sacred is sacred because it is sacred. And what is sacred to one may not be sacred to another. It is up to each of us to decide for ourselves on these things. Avatar gave me life. for the first time in twenty years I felt real enlightenment. I was reborn. My life spiraled up so high for the next ten years that I never thought that kind of happiness was possible. This was perhaps the seventh major event of my spiritual life but by far the most important one. real spiritually existed right here. inside each of us. no God. no bible or holy book. Just us being us. being happy. being free. Being happy to be us in the eternal moment.
9. it was at this time that I also began to revisit be here now by ram Dass and discovered that you could rent and trade and purchase his lectures that he had been giving all over the world for twenty years on tape and CD. I won't say much except that I think that he's the closest the world has ever come to Jesus since Jesus. He is a just man after all, and that is half is appeal. He is willing to sit with you and cry and laugh at the great mysteries of life as a human in the vast universe. And he's o.k. with our not knowing. And through that, he helps us all feel o.k. with our not knowing. I would fall asleep every night to his lectures for a few years. he is more than a mentor to me. he is more like a father. A saint of some kind.
10. one brief but powerful event was in finding anthroposophy, the philosophy that sprung up around the works of Rudolph Steiner. [at one time he worked together with Madame blavatsky but they soon parted ways. She formed theosophy and the theosophical society and he formed the anthroposophical movement.] A beautiful sacred little community of people all over the world now exist in every country of the world living in their own little communes and they are the most soft light beautiful people you would ever want to meet. If you have heard of waldorf schools or Steiner schools or camp hill communes, this is all anthroposophy. It is something to behold. It is living breathing human spirituality at its finest. Without all the myths and dogma of the major religions. Without all the ritual and icky feeling gibberish of magic or the craft, without all the sacrifice and rules and asceticism of Hinduism or krishnaism or Buddhism. Just pure beings living the best most honest lives they can live. being kind to others, eating organic. Giving back to the land. Worshiping in whatever tradition feels best... its just a beautiful thing to behold. I would say that along with Avatar that anthroposophical communities are the most sacred and holy and enlightened happy feeling ideas that exist on the earth today. my prediction and my hope is that one day one will annex the other, that they will combine into one movement, one force... the way I see it is that since Avatar does not have a community and is much more focused on just getting the message and the materials and the tools out to consciousness and anthroposophy already has a pretty strong network of communities all over the world, that Avatar consciousness as it continues to spread around the planet will begin to get absorbed into the anthro world. together they could be a powerful force for peace and goodness and light and joy. ask an Avatar or an anthroposophist about “God” and chances are they will just smile, either of them, and you will see and know all you need to about God right in that smile. Rudolph Steiner and anthroposophy was a major moment for me. a major event. it showed me that true human goodness and spirituality really did exist. and it didn't need anything but good people being good people. if I am ever lucky enough to have children, they will be raised as Avatars, but they will be raised in an anthroposophical community so they can feel what that feeling is like from the moment they are born.
11. Finding Christ church on 60th street and Park Avenue in New York City. – a spiritual experience? Sure. A major event on the path to be sure. I have already written about it in the diaries recently. I was called to enter that church for no reason on an afternoon shopping excursion. it was a Wednesday. in the afternoon. But upon entering I felt by far the most powerful feeling of comfort security joy God presence I had ever felt up to that point in my life. just sitting there in the pew. The message was clear and simple. God exists. angels exist. here we are. we are real. something exists that that we can call God if we want to. it is kind loving perhaps all-knowing. Loves us deeply and unconditionally and understands all. and in the end and in the present, all is well. I walked out of there changed forever. So suffice it to say that I now understand that the most important thing at this point in regards to spirituality and humankind is how does it make us feel? does it feel enlightened and transcendent and soft and warm and fuzzy and sweet and serious-but-light at the same time? does it make us better people? kinder towards others? more loving and accepting of ourselves and others? that's the thing there in a nutshell. can you feel the presence of godness in it? Are religions still bad? Sure they are. plenty bad. But not all bad. Is the religion of Islam bad? You bet it is when it condones suicide bombers and murdering people.... just as bad as the Christian religion has been in the last two thousand years as they’ve killed hundreds of millions for whatever reason-of-the-month they’ve come up with. Are they also stupid? sure if people go around thinking that the reason they are living a good life in this lifetime is just so they can get into a good afterlife (one that includes 12 virgins...) or because they will go to some afterlife that will last an eternity and they will live in gold mansions with God and Jesus and all that other crap. so yeah, sure, as with everything else human, religion can be wicked and evil and just plain laughable and stupid. But I've been reading this book that Rev Bauman gave me a few weeks ago and it speaks of what he calls the “emerging paradigm of Christianity” and I gotta say I have been intrigued by the leaders of the Christian movement’s willingness to accept and promote this new way of looking at the religion... check it out: new paradigm = sacred metaphor versus fundamentalism, living for this lifetime instead of for reward in some “afterlife,” inspired by God rather than written by God, even the basic ideas such as the virgin birth and the resurrection are able to be questioned and pondered rather than blindly accepted, and in fact, facts such as these aren't even what's important in the emerging/new paradigm that is developing. What is important is how a person lives = are they attempting to live the Christian life here-now for the benefits to themselves and others in this lifetime, or are they just waiting to die for some reward in an imagined and hoped for after-life? anyway, I love it. a totally new and inviting way of looking at religions.... if all the religions start to accept this evolvement the world will be a better place and churches the world over will find themselves filled to capacity once again... I am now in a place where my intellect’s desire for logical understanding is overridden by my heart’s desire for spiritual fulfillment; in whatever form that takes.
12. Last on the list, but certainly not least, was this most recent monumental exercise that I began six weeks ago with a simple ten page manual called the personal integrity rundown, a deceptively simple little exercise developed by Harry palmer, the inventor of the Avatar materials. I had heard about it for about a year. I was receiving regular emails from people all over the world literally raving about it. every few weeks someone from some different country would write to me very personally hewing and hawing about how miraculous it was for them and how it transformed their lives. Eventually I did it because I just had too many damn people telling me too many damn great things about its power. I've already said enough about my experiences with it. as I said, I believe it is the final step in the Jedi training. You need to be an Avatar master at the very least to take it and its recommended that you are a wizard really. Again, as simple as it is it takes real boldness and courage and a strong will to venture into those deep dark caverns of the past to rid yourself of it once and for all. but after a while it feels effortless. It just comes down to the doing of it. and so in regards to spirituality could it be as simple as just cleaning up our own shit? taking responsibility of who we are and who we are being? Taking a total stock of our life from beginning to end and acknowledging our past mistakes and errors and misjudgments, making amends to others and to ourselves as well. truly forgiving others and ourselves and letting it all go? could be. I know that for me it was miraculous.

So here we are. that was the journey... from what I can tell... so far.... The end of the story? I don't think so. I would say we are more at the very beginning of it....

Mellow weekend

August 20th
Mellow weekend with the fun and busy summer social calendar still primarily and unfortunately accented by the last straining gasps of the Cleopatra fiasco. There was a moment at church this morning... I was in a blurry eyed daze through most of it after staying up all night. I never open up the hymnal – I'm not quite there yet – I just stand there staring at all the girls while everyone sings, or sometimes I bow my head and pray, using the singing as beautiful background music to my meditations. But today I was even a bit more dazed, deep in contemplation of this mess with Cleo. It is never easy when we are being deceived or attacked or bullied or mislead. There is a tendency surely to take it personally, which one shouldn’t, but one does sometimes. And certainly this occupied my heart and mind, but I continued to feel into the real creation. What was I missing? This isn't like me, to be caught up in this kind of drama... what was I not seeing? ‘God/Goddess help me to fully integrate this creation,” I prayed, begged, moaned, pleaded. ‘Do I let it go? or do I fight to the bitter end? do I crush them out of principle no matter what the cost? Or do I grab the lessons and move on? Help me to know the answers.’

There was a moment there when I would get glimpses of things I had done during the ten years I had been associated with Cleopatra either as her lover or in business. little things. seemingly insignificant things. but things which still stuck my attention. primarily little thoughts or memories would come up about my spending. God am I a spender. No need to go into the details. But suffice it to say that I own just about everything a person can own, enormous collections of things. and the truth is that Cleo never cared about those kinds of things. In fact she cared a lot more about just your basic putting food on the table type of stuff while I was out buying antique ottoman empire pottery or bearskin rugs or building up our library. ‘we will never be able to read all the books we already own in our entire lifetimes, nor listen to all the cds we own. can’t you stop?!’ she would scream. And I would respond that it wasn't about that. it was about building a collection. Yes... me and my collections. But at what cost? What is the use in a collection of thirty something guitars if you can’t pay your bills on time? she was right, and I knew it, but I would repress the feelings because I can see now that I was kind of, well not kind of, I was just plain addicted to spending and buying and collecting.

So today I would feel these little swells of guilt pop up inside of me about that as I prayed... normally I am very used to pushing that shit back down. But I felt it today and listened to it. and I heard that voice, and it said, this is a small price to pay for what you have learned. There is more to this than you have allowed yourself to see Fishy. there is more to Cleo’s actions than you are allowing her credit for. you are so busy blaming and attacking and feeling victimized and yet you are asking to see the bigger picture here, so allow yourself to see the bigger picture.... I just kept my head down and my eyes closed and kept listening and feeling.

‘This is a small price to pay to learn these lessons’ seemed to be the lesson... let it be. let it go. settle now. let go of your need for revenge or righteousness or what you are telling yourself is justice. I realized that this wasn't about Cleopatra at all. this was about me. this was about learning about me. about who I was and who I had been. There was a time in Italy, pretty much the entire last month, where I would buy a new shirt and new underwear everyday because I refused to do my own laundry. And because of where I was staying, on via condotti (sp?) -- the rodeo drive of Rome, I was spending about 20 bucks a piece on underwear and about two hundred dollars a shirt. and this was only the beginning, only the tip of the iceberg. I found my ways to justify it all. there's nothing wrong with that kind of living if you have the means for it. absolutely not. in fact it should be encouraged. Right? I mean life is to be lived. But if you're just on automatic and you're risking it all just for the pure sybaritic pleasure of life in the moment.... well that's a different story altogether... and that's pretty much been the story of my life thus far. What I found is that when you are acting irresponsibly you tend to feel guilty and when you feel guilty and you aren't too wise you tend to take actions to try to make yourself feel better no matter what the cost. These actions make you feel guiltier still and one day you wake up, if you're lucky, and realize that you are trapped in some kind of a death trap of the spirit so to speak, a never ending downward spiral of guilt and pleasure seeking to try to cover up the guilt.... welcome to my nightmare. An eye opening series of realizations. Does that justify or give rational to the recent onslaught of lies cons and deceptions by Cleopatra the last few years? certainly not. But it does make it make more sense. And it does help me to understand her rational. And more than anything it does help me understand myself and my sense of confusion about this situation and my own part in it.


At the coffee hour later that morning, I complimented the reverend on his prayer at the end of the service. it was brilliant, well worded, heart felt, deep, encompassed a lot in a few words. He shared that he had me in mind specifically when he wrote his sermon. I was honored and intrigued. Told me that he knew about my last minute abdication from becoming a new member due to certain problems I had with the faith and creeds and all that. that I chose instead to swim along side of the boat rather than get in the boat as he puts it.

Its true and I make it no secret. I have a lot of problems with the Christian faith and they know it. the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, his alleged death on the cross, the resurrection concept, the usurping of what was a Jewish religion by the roman empire for their own devices and to eventually use against those people, the distortions and flat out lies the church has fabricated over the years, the atrocities committed by the church on all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, slave trading camps and prisons in the courtyards of churches, European Christian “missionaries” (death-squads) forcing their beliefs on native American peoples at the threat of “convert or be killed,” just the general blight on humanity that organized religion has been throughout history. Up until recent years, religion has been the biggest organized terrorist group the world has ever known. and lets not even contemplate Christianity’s more recent attacks on the Muslim world or on homosexuals. Indeed the Christian boat, or any religions sea vessel has never been a very sacred or holy place to find oneself traveling in if one is a thinking person.

So I thanked the reverend and we had a great chat. A real heart to heart. [here's one for you. The shroud of Turin lays out great evidence that whoever was wrapped up in it was not dead and did not die. plenty of different Scientists and universities from many countries claimed it was the shroud of Jesus when he came down from the cross. The Vatican vehemently denied the science, not based on their own science, but just on “holy authority.” They then snatched up the shroud and refuse to give it back to its rightful owners, claming that “its now church property.” But of course the question that is begged here is that if this mysterious shroud does not belong to Jesus or anyone important to the church, as they now claim, then why are they keeping it? what do they care? well that answer is simple. Eventually after we all die and hundreds more years have passed, the church will then claim that the shroud is indeed the burial shroud of Jesus, hoping that by then they can snuff out all the evidence and science that says that the man in the shroud didn't die on the cross, and they will then make it a “holy relic” and millions of people will flock to the Vatican to see it every year. that's it in a nutshell. that's the science of religion.

So I'm here for the community. And one can truly feel the “spirit of God concept” in the air at this place. and that transcends dogma or creeds. That's something that happens when like minded people come together in one place and in one spirit and attempt to do good things and think good thoughts. I was raised a Christian and feel most comfortable in the Christian setting. As Bishop Spong once told me, it doesn’t matter what faith you come from. its what you do with it while you are alive. I've been a lot of things over the years. tried my hand at atheism, agnosticism, witchcraft, Judaism, Krishna consciousness, Hinduism, Buddhism, and they all have great things to offer the seeking heart and the human spirit.

As a human we can do that. in fact one should do that. it’s a big life. life is huge. And long. for most of us if we are lucky. we should take the time to explore and research and traverse the maze of human thought far and wide in order to seek out what is out there and what satisfies the constant craving of the soul the most profoundly. For me now I am back again. I have come full circle. But it doesn’t mean that I'm taking any dogma or half truths or beliefs on faith or creeds for granted. Wherever there is that feeling of the spirit of God in the air is where I shall be.

Talking with the Dove the other day, who is still a happy-to-be agnostic, I shared my stories and my current view on things. I mean in the end its all just stories. So what's the harm in any of it, if indeed there isn't any harm being done? can you still be a Christian and be against the war in Iraq? Sure. Can you still be a Muslim and be against suicide bombers? Sure. Can you still be a Hindu and not necessarily believe that Shiva had ten arms and legs or whatever? Sure.

In the end, its all just humans making stuff up as they go along to entertain themselves. A smart person knows this. century after century the stories change slightly. Even the God concept itself continues to change and evolve over time. the human life span is so short and most people never study human history completely enough to ever become aware of that. so they just assume that everything now is the way that everything is and should be just because that's the way it is now. that's a funny thing that humans do isn't it? assuming because we believe something today that that's the way it is? that it’s the truth. Never using hindsight to look back and see how wrong we've been in the past when we thought everything back then was just the way it was and that it was true, and so never questioning what we know or believe to be true today? they just assume that because we believe it today, it must be true. most don't even ever change their religion even once, let alone countless times. they never bother to notice that they're country is not THE country, but just ANOTHER country. they never bother to notice that they are a man or woman for no other reason than the obligation of necessity, or an American or a Russian or an Iraqi for that matter. These things are no more than the mere need of having to be one or the other. no better or worse, no more right or wrong than the other. They are just technicalities.

The spirit transcends all of these minor details. a transcendent human, a transcendentalist as it’s once been called, will swing from far left to far right in their lifetime, from the top to the bottom, from religious to atheist, from conservative to liberal, from good to evil and everywhere in between, [some even go so far as to go from man to woman or from woman to man] all in the name of experience and exploration. As long as one remains human throughout the adventure, then all is well in the soul as it passes from one lifetime to the next.

But allow me to add that this church experience has been important to me. whether I'm in the boat or swimming along side of it. It has meant the world to me.

August 19th
I finally completed the mammoth personal integrity rundown project. Granted my own personal version of it. I sort of broke away from the pack and headed out into uncharted territory with it that's for sure. With the actual exercise you are meant to write down three answers to four different questions and that's it. that's the exercise. But I decided to do my entire life and not stop until I had tackled every single memory I could find. Today. in the afternoon, I worked out the last one I had jotted down. What a feeling. A great feeling. I went through four full notebooks and legal pads, one of them with 250 pages, and two full pens of ink till they went dry. About three to four different situations on each page from my past. I must have written down and sorted out a few thousand different experiences from over thirty years of living. Everything I could think of that had ever happened in my entire life that caused me or another person upset or harm or discomfort. Every lie con deception abuse crime or misconduct I could ever remember ever committing. Big things and little things. everything from stealing pocket money out of a friend’s mom’s purse when we were little kids in order to play video games, to looking at people on the street with that ‘snobby nose up in the air I'm better than you look.’ You know the one. at least if you know me you do. I just went for it and six weeks later I have finally finished.

When I finished the last one I felt such a feeling of freedom and liberation and accomplishment. To finally let all that go. to be free of it. to acknowledge it, work it out as to what made you do it, where it was coming from, who you were being when you did it, why you did it, why you told yourself you were doing it, who you hurt and how you hurt them, and how you hurt yourself in the process, and how it has affected you since... and after each one the recognition that that's not you. that was your creation. But its not you. not you now. that you can be free of it. that you don't live like that now and that you have to live like that, you don't have to do those things anymore, and you don't have to live through the guilt of those things anymore. You don't have to worry about them and you don't have to worry about repressing them anymore. They're over. They're in the past. You are you in the now. free from the past. Aware in the present moment of who you are now and you who you want to be.

As I finished the very last one, I heard this voice that whispered that it was the most important thing I had ever done in my life. God was smiling. This was the climax and final chapter in the Jedi training that I started so many years ago. This was big guys stuff. warrior’s stuff. not for the faint of heart. Not for the beginner. the sheer act of it can weigh heavy on the heart and mind. For the ego is used to being defensive. Used to defending our every act, no matter how heinous or injurious to others or ourselves, the tendency is for the ego to always try to build up a defense to it, justify it, rationalize it. so it isn't an easy task, and once in it, its hard to stay in it and to really face it all.

Every night it has been important to spend some quiet time before sleep letting everything I had discovered release from my heart and mind. Every person that I thought of that I might have affected in a negative way or who I had projected had affected me in a negative I would bless as I fell asleep. ‘Coon may you be happy and well. Mr. Sharock (third grade teacher) may you be happy and well. Bas may you be happy and well.’ One by one releasing the stuck attention and energy for good. out into the cosmos to disappear with all the other thought and feeling atoms that have ever existed...

When I was complete I felt relief and exhaustion all at the same time. I went up to my apartment, laid down on the couch and fell asleep within minutes. Felt almost hypnotized. As I was drifting off, God/higher self whispered ‘Fishy you did it. this is the most important thing you have ever done. you can rest easy now. do what you want to from this point forward and harm none. You don't have to worry now. you don't have to be afraid anymore because you aren't afraid of yourself anymore. You are free.



August 18th
Me and mom on the phone .and she telling me to flow love to Cleo regarding the current matter. Of course we are on the front lines up here and all just focusing the energy on strategy and law and turning this thing around a bit and getting a little justice and all of that. the last thing on anyone's mind is flowing love to anyone. The truth is that for the last four years I flowed truckloads of love to Cleopatra and didn't do much else but trust every word she said as I went along my merry way. Thinking the whole time that I was protected because not only were we ex-lovers but also best friends the way only ex-lovers can be. I guess the way I was looking at it was that yes she was slightly psychopathic and lied a lot, but at the bottom of it all she still loved me. [note: just because someone cries a lot, pleas that they are innocent and a victim of a hard life and sad and desperate and all that, and begs you to help them and acts really nice to you and calls you all the time etc does not mean that they are your friend and that you should help them or trust them or be their friend. this was a huge lesson for me. Cleo cries a lot. she is petite, cute, graceful and elegant in her manners and style, and she will call everyday, tell you about her family, ask you about your own family, cry up a storm and scream that she was victimized by yet another person and if you just help her this time she will learn her lesson and “never do it again.”

So that was the game. I did whatever I could to help her and take it in the ass on occasion from her newest cons and deceptions as a sick kind of codependent trade for having her and her family kind of as my own surrogate family (why I don't know consciously for I have a great family of my own), and also for having this false sense of friendship with her. I believe now in hindsight that I was so obsessed with the idea/concept of being friends with all my ex’s that I was willing to pretend to myself that that's what was happening even though it wasn't really just so I could feel complete by it in some weird twisted way. But to her defense I will also say that there was more to it than that. like that line from the movie velvet goldmine where Iggy pop says to David bowie, ‘are you gonna be my mainman now?’ (referencing marc bolan of course). and you know that was my thing. always have to have a mainman. Or a mainwoman so to speak. Someone to look after me, take care of me while I did my thing. And even though we were broken up, I was cool with Cleo being that for me if she was. and she seemed fine with it. well now we know why. so she took care of our businesses and real estate and tax filings and all of that while I traveled around the country playing with my band or traveled around the world getting juice and inspiration or just sat at home getting juiced and writing songs. Just generally doing my artist on permanent holiday thing and trusting that all was well in the world of Fishy.

Of course the whole time I was getting screwed and just didn't know it. and the thing that I find the hardest to deal with is that I sensed it intuitively. Intuitively I can’t recall how many times I heard that whisper in my ears that we hear telling me ‘don't trust her, stop talking to her, and take legal action now about all of these acts of misconduct that you keep finding out about before it is too late.’ but I didn't listen to this voice in my head. I chose instead to hang out in that comfortable artist space I live in where everyone is cool and all the world is a happy go lucky place and everyone has everyone else’s best intention in mind. I've learned my lessons. The last few weeks with pen and pad in hand I've sat down every night and contemplated and made note of the mistakes I made and the misjudgments. I wasn't perfect. I fucked up a lot. I wasn't an angel. I know that.

She and I have spent a lot of time on the phone the last few days trying to settle this thing before it gets totally out of hand. if we end up battling it out in court we’re going to both end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers fees and this thing could drag on for years. will justice eventually be served? Who knows. this is America. And American justice is not justice. It is a battle of money and wits and a contest between who can hold a straighter face while lying to deceiving and manipulating judges and juries on technicalities. That's the cold hard truth of American justice in a capitalist society. So we both know that. And me, all I want is to get back into the studio and record more songs, get back on the road and play for more people, travel more, see more of the world, learn more languages, write more, drink more good coffee and cognac and wine and beer, smoke better cigars, and make love to more beautiful women.

Cleopatra knows this. she is counting on it. she's literally banking on it in the truest sense of the word. she knows who I am at heart. she knows I don't have the heart for another four years of this shit. So I'm cool with the lessons learned. I've spent a lot of time apologizing to Cleo whenever we have the opportunity to speak. Acknowledging my mistakes and my own misconduct. When I walk away from this, whether justice is served or not, I want to walk away with a clean slate and clean state of mind and a lighter heart. and I've learned my lessons. I know how I could have prevented all of it. like I said, its all about a persons actions, not their words. and no matter what I saw, I just couldn’t convince myself of this simple fact. I know I sound like the most gullible man in the universe but you couldn’t convince me no matter what that your ex-lover/girlfriend/ fiancé/or wife for that matter would ever deliberately fuck you. I just didn't see the world like that. but I was wrong. almost-dead wrong.

So God-loving peaceful loving precious mom tells me to keep flowing love to Cleo, that inside she's a good person, and to remember that love is the most powerful force in the universe. I responded, ‘no mom, its not. Money is the most powerful force in the universe. A hard lesson to learn, but unfortunately the truth.’ at least in this universe.



Later, I tell her, in a brief moment of calm and humor that I'll have you know that I will spend all day in my underwear and not be able to leave the house because I can’t decide what to wear. It is now 2:35 in the afternoon and I haven't gotten dressed yet because I can’t decide what to wear so I can’t even go out to eat and I'm fucking starving. This really sucks. Mom says she noticed that I was this way since I was a little kid. she would always let Beaver pick his own clothes out but with me she would go pick my outfits for me or I would never come downstairs because I would never be able to decide on what to wear. I would be standing there in my underwear as a little kid with all these clothes thrown all over the room. Not much has changed.

Today finally I just said fuck it. I was starving. I was finally able to pick out shoes after about an hour. I laced on some boots, stayed in my underwear, and walked out of the apartment. Striding down the street in my underwear and my black boots to get something to eat. madness? maybe. But to me it was just another day in the life of Fishy in New York City.

Last screening: imitation of life with lana turner. This is the classic Douglas sirk film from the fifties. I am watching all of his films now. this is a really good movie and if you're into the old ones this is a good one.


August 17th
Candle light vigil for mother of dead Iraq soldier cindy Sheehan who is out in Crawford Texas at the bush ranch tonight at union square and 1300 other places around the country. America is waking up. in Manhattan alone there must have been about 20 different vigil sites; I sent the General to go march around and show some solidarity.

thoughts: protests are good. demonstrations are good. but they do not help that much. They help bring us together. good. they help generate ideas. They help bridge different groups and create memes. They lend support. They get the issues in the press and media to a certain extent. But not enough.

Real change socially and politically happens from the inside, not from the people on the outside. if a government is going to change something whether it is a war or a policy or its entire structure it happens because the people on the inside want it to. not because of the people on the outside. the sixties in America proved that to us. it was the most extreme and volatile action the American people ever took; there was literally full on war in the streets of America for years and that war raged on in Vietnam because those people in the American government wanted it to be so. the American people could do nothing about it. bush will still finish his war in Iraq. He will go down in history as the “president who liberated Iraq.” Period. That's just the way it is. our vigils tonight will be shortly forgotten. Waco is a good example. The murder of most of the leaders of the black panther movement by the government in the late sixties proved it. politics are corrupt. Governments by their very nature are corrupt. Corporations by their design are corrupt.

What can we do? that is the question. What can the people really do?


Current read: the history of the land called Palestine/Israel. Check this interactive site out. good quick overview FYI. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/mideast/

Last screening: all that heaven allows. With Jane wyman and rock Hudson. A Douglas Sirk fifties classic. A quote: “he's able to stay true to what's important to him, because he knows what's not important to him.” good old fashioned flick.


August 16th
For the record further regarding the Cleopatra saga:

I see wedding crashers. Again. Think it’s a great flick. It reminds me of the old days less than a year ago when me and Bas and tortoise and Sneed/formerly Ferret would all hang out together, getting drunk and picking up girls and have fun guy times. later that night I'm on a rooftop of this poser bar in the meat packing district with all these mainstreamers and short-hairs and desperate single sluts. I crawl into a cab sometime in the middle of the night or the early morning. I call sneed/formerly Ferret to tell him that he is a dick if he sells me out to Cleopatra for fifty thousand dollars. I'm a little drunk. I mumble into the phone that friendship is too important to sell someone out for fifty gs.

The next day we talk. It turns out he informs me that he had already sold me out over two weeks prior. He was surprised and and happy to hear from me because he thought I already knew about it. I didn't. I figured he would have called me if he really was going to sell me out. he didn't. he was elated that he walked away with double what his shares in our company were worth. He had just scored one hundred thousand dollars of free money from a company that he didn't start, work at, invest in, or participate in in anyway by playing me against Cleopatra, using our battle to his own benefit and extorting from one of us double the value of the shares we had given him as a gift when we were all just kids and didn't know any better. As soon as I found out I hung up.

I call Cleo. I get her to admit that she bought his shares two weeks ago even though she had still been telling me that she would never do it and even drafted a contract saying such. For six weeks she had put me off of suing her because we had both agreed that neither of us would buy out Sneed because he was a greedy little devil playing us against each other in order to extort more free money from our company. For six weeks she and her attorneys continued to send me and my attorneys letters saying that they would not bargain or negotiate with Sneed, and that they were almost done with their agreement that Cleo and I would sign in order to make peace between us and set things right. but the whole time they were lying.

for six weeks Cleo called me daily to ask me how I was. how was my mom. To tell me about her daughter, about her husband, about how eventually we would be selling the company and make tons of money. and the whole time she was pretending that she would never buy out Sneed and that everything was fine between us. I found out later that night that Cleo was lying much more than I had even realized that weekend. It turned out that not only had she bought out Sneed’s shares paying a double premium for them in order to try to gain majority control of our company, that she also had already sold the company behind my back. for six weeks she had been talking about this impending sale that may happen one day and the importance of us coming to an agreement. Whenever my law firm would address their concerns of me seeing the books of the company from the last two years and seeing the purchase offer, her attorneys would say that there was no offer and that there was no pending sale. They were lying. They had already sold the company. Broken numerous laws and Florida statutes. Taken the money. and were stalling me. for as long as they could.

My attorney, a hot young super-sharp Virginian with a genius IQ and a body to match, who’s husband happens also to be a director for the CIA, is fuming and incensed. She is outraged. She tells me that at the level that her firm is at (they are one of the biggest) and Cleo’s attorney’s is at (they are small but reputable) that they don't normally see this kind of thing. they don't see company's break the law so flagrantly or so blatantly. And she says she has never seen another attorney do it to this degree.

she calls the Florida bar ethics commission and checks a few things out and sure enough he has broken so many laws that they can’t even believe what they are hearing. He is the head of litigation at his firm. There has to be a reason he has participated in such blatant criminal acts. Cleopatra, not a mystery, its understandable. She has been lying and cheating and deceiving since the day I met her. call it nature or nurture with her. Who knows. but that's just who she is.

Her husband, a short and stubby little fighter pilot for the marines who goes by the name of Ace, had been advising and counseling her for months to pull off this grand fraud, or so Cleo tells me. Her job was to talk to me on the phone everyday as if we were still ex-lovers and best friends and be as sweet as she could, lie about everything that was going on behind my back and to repeat the words “I just want this to be over and go back to school.” The whole time they were forging my name to documents, perpetrating innumerable frauds and deceptions, and negotiating a sale of the company that I founded back in my bedroom when I was a young idealistic lad to a large publicly traded multi-national. She said whatever she had to each day to keep me thinking that nothing was going on while they sold the company behind my back while I was up here in New York working on my music and the TV show.

Its obvious why ace would attempt to pull it off. The proceeds from the sale would not be huge but they would be considerable. If they could take all the money before I knew, i would have no way of getting my hands on the money that was legally mine unless I sued. Which would cost money. lots of money. no matter how many laws they had to break to pull it off, they knew that once they pulled it off and had the money, it would be very difficult to ever get it. I would have to sue to get it and even if I did get a judgment against them, they could claim that they spent the money or lost it or whatever and there was a chance I would never get it. in the meantime, my company had already been sold and I never even knew it.

When I heard the news I was in a state of physical emotional and mental shock. My arms had chills all over them. my heart was racing. There was lump in my throat the size of mount Rushmore. I couldn’t believe that you could live with someone for six years, be engaged to them, share a life with them, work side by side with them for so many years, and be best friends with their entire family, and they could still do something like this to you. to me it was unheard of and entirely unbelievable. But as my mom reminded me, ‘honey you like to walk around as if you live in Disney world. as if everyone is kind and good and happy go lucky like you. perhaps its time you grew up and became a man...’

Mom was crushed and crying of course. Cleo was a daughter to her. and as much as she knew Cleo had given way to the darkside years ago, she still had faith in her. she was devastated. So was Beaver. He was so angry that he couldn’t contain himself. ‘I knew she was fucking lying to you. she was using you because she knew that you still loved her. she was counting on the fact that she could wrap you around her finger because you were together for so long. that is unforgivable. But why did you trust her when she had already fucked you and lied to you so many times already?’ ‘I don't know man. I just believed her. she was being so nice” ‘well hopefully now you will learn from this and never trust anyone again who has already lied to you...’ we both go silent on the phone. we have nothing to say. Everything I had worked for for the last ten years was gone. I had just been had by my ex fiancé and her new husband. if she got away with it, I would be dead broke as if I was still a teenager or just out of college. in order to fight for what was mine my family and I would need to come up with about a hundred thousand dollars to sue and prepare for a bitter battle with liars and thieves and still not be guaranteed to get anything back from it. certainly they would go to jail, but if they hid the money, they could always claim that they didn't have it. another possibility would be that the public company that purchased our fledgling little venture would find out about the suit and reverse their purchase. It could destroy the sale and destroy the reputation of our company forever. I would still be starting from scratch.

To make matters worse, I email Bas about the incident and tell him that it looks like I am going to have to sue and he may get dragged into it but that I would do everything in my power to keep him out of it because I loved him like a brother. his answer was a big fuck you. leave me out of it. Bas is out to get some cash out of the deal and brother or not he refuses to even speak with me. yes the same Bas I lived with for four years. yes the same Bas I put through college with every penny I had because I wanted to afford him the opportunity that I never got to have when I was his age. Yes the same Bas I thought would one day stand right next to my brother beaver at my wedding. I don't know if I can’t say if I had ever felt such pain. I paced the floor as I read his email over and over again. I lifted weights all day to quench my anger. I could not leave the house. I paced and i paced and I paced.

Money is a powerful force. I had to finally come to terms with this horrendous fact. It appears that it is more powerful than anything else in the universe. Certainly more powerful than love. I had shown and shared more love with Cleo Bas and Sneed than anyone else in my world over the last ten years and the diaries certainly attest to that, and collectively and individually they had each sold me out for money. hoping that in the end it would be too late when I eventually found out.

One of the things that has made the deepest impact on me throughout all of this though is the amount of friends I have, and family members, and their willingness to come forward in support during this drama. I have been overwhelmed with support and encouragement from friends and family. everyday, every hour someone calls to tell me to be strong to be courageous to be brave and not to forget who I am. To not give in to anger or sadness or despair. Mom Beaver Little Tree boo boo Infinito the poet Madelynne O'Ryan Juliet polar bear Brown Bear the cat and many more all coming to call almost hourly to remind me to be a good person and to stand strong. for this I am truly blessed. It has given me strength and encouragement and has enabled me to tread on in the face of such heinous acts the likes of which I had only seen or heard about in the movies.

I am tired. I will continue with the saga later.

Current spin: Akufen, My way. great music. just buy it.