Went to the Internet movie database, as one often does when needing a bit more data, to read what others have said about la dolce vita so I could perhaps gain a keener appreciation of the film. many people have it actually placed on their top ten or top five lists. [This site is brilliant and essential by the way if you do not know it. I've been digging it since ‘98. Go here and check it: www.imdb.com.] Best movie lists are impossible of course but always fun. its always interesting to read other peoples lists. you read about movies you’ve never even heard of before. You can then jump right over to netflix.com and order the DVDs to come sit in your player for a night.

My top five if I absolutely had to, but only in this moment, with very little thought and in absolutely no order; in fact they are all tied for first place:

raging bull, sound of music, my fair lady, schindlers list, 8 ½, the matrix, fight club, godfather 1 and 2, but 3 gets nowhere near the top 1000. royal tennenbaums, of course, and life aquatic of Steve zisou, star wars and empire strikes back are always fun, until the end of the world and the two angel movies Wim Wenders did, far away so close and that other one. and then give me any early Cary grant movie just to have him in there. I don't really care which one. take Philadelphia story. That's a good one. and would have to get eternal sunshine of the spotless mind in there because I think it may be one of the best screenplays ever written in humankind’s history. of course apocalypse now, since along with citizen Kane, it just may be actually in the top two of all time. oh yes and also the top two would have to include at least three of Woody's, say, Annie hall, deconstructing Harry, and stardust memories, off the top of my head. Solaris comes to mind for its tone and vibage, but prob not top fifty. But good flick because it speaks to US and not the common masses like most movies do these days.

For tonight that would be it and that would be a fine list for any desert island experience.  

For fun we took our IQ tests on this website, www.tickle.com. I missed 4 questions out of 40. Scored a 136. Not bad. Not as good as I expected but not bad. Top 5% overall percentile. Top 100 percentile in visual-spatial, logical, and linguistic intelligence, which means that out of the one-million people who have logged on and taken the test on this site, the score is higher than 100% of all of them – however they figure that??? Or that 0% have ever scored higher; so where did I fuck up? The glitch is that I flubbed some math; only top 95% in mathematical intelligence. All four of my wrong answers were math related. Princess Little Tree on the other hand was so good at the math problems that she didn't even need to see them. I would just call them out to her and she would answer them correctly in a few seconds. I was impressed. She is after all she reminds me an engineer. I have no idea what engineers do actually but I assume it must have something to do with being good at math.

Stats are as follows:
In fact, 95% of all people have IQs within the range 70 to 130. 68% of people score between 80 and 120. The following chart to your right, shows these percentages and where your IQ score is on that scale. You scored in the top 5% of all participants.

Fucking math. Always been my weakness. But not bad for a kid who was by all accounts a complete fucking idiot in school and never got a grade above a D in twelve years. [this is the truth. I'm not even making it up for dramatic purposes or poetic license. I just never could do school. Always felt lost in it.]

I have always believed, despite what experts claim, that our IQs are constantly changing. Or better, are constantly able to change, depending on our up-bringing and our desire and ability to change the results/outcome of that upbringing and of course our present circumstances play a minor role in it such as how much sleep we've had or how much caffeine or how we distracted we are in the moment etc...

I'm pleased with the results of today's test because I take good care to exercise which I think keeps you smart, I stay in a constant state of learning – for me its certainly prioritized higher on my list than any social concerns – I'm always going to choose reading or writing or working or studying to going out -- taking classes of any kind on a regular basis and always learning new languages and staying in this constant state of learning is not only going to keep you smart, but I believe, makes you smarter.

Recollections

We order a bottle of Shiraz. Shiraz is the new hot wine right now, coming from Australia as everyone knows. But what most people don't know is that Shiraz is the name of the town where the grape plants originally came from. this town is in Iran. Not in Australia. Some Australians found some amazingly special tasting grapes and brought a few plants back to Australia to create one of the hottest wines in the world today. the town of Shiraz is also where Princess Little Tree was born many years ago. God bless Shiraz.

We fall asleep watching la dolce vita, Fellini’s great entrance into superstardom from 1963, finally released on DVD. She mumbles with eyes closed, ‘why is it everytime we are together we are watching these funny fellini movies” “I don't know... its weird right? its pure coincidence though.” We laugh and joke about it, everytime we’re together there happen to be a few fellini films laying about in my studies... and this weekend it was no different... but we are not raving fans... neither of us... ‘I believe I may be too young for fellini still,’ I comment. ‘well nothing ever happens...” she says... “a few characters stand around looking sexy and being very philosophical about life... ‘I believe I have gone too far now.. life escapes me... it grips its clutches around my body till my last breath...’ “ we both laugh... I pretend I am Anita Ekberg. I lie back and pose like a woman who is ready to be made love to... ‘do you want to make love to me here?’ ‘yes, no? let me finish my cigarette first...’ laughs... ‘but leave your sunglasses on.’ More laughs. we make love on the couch for an hour or more. the whole time the Italian voices from the TV a few feet away trail in and out of my mind’s hearing of things... I kiss her, I hold her little body, I watch her body twist about on the couch, I hear Marcello Mastroioni speak in Italian about the absurdity of life and all that is... I reach for chocolate. I feed her chocolate. Can we eat chocolate and make love at the same time....

I sit up and take notes while she takes time to breathe in and out...

This is brilliant. this is the best I have ever done as a writer. Because I am not explaining. Its real. I am just letting it out as it happens. in the flow that was prophesized by the channeler many many years ago when he predicted that my infamy was inevitable because it would come from my life on a silver platter to the masses.... with no editing, from my writing,,, jotting it down instead of explaining. No more prose. I ban the fucking prose from these diaries from this point on, forever more. no more prose. Just taking notes.... life is poetry. Just take notes. Don't explain.

You cannot possibly write about everything you experience Fishy. it is impossible. When will it end? I don't know. I cannot help it. you can help it. just let go. be in the moment. be here with me. but I cannot be in the moment without trying to save the moment... you cannot save the moments Fishy. yes I can Little Tree. I can save the moments by writing them down. But you can’t write everything down. Then all you will be doing is writing... and not living. That is not true sweetie. Think about it.. how much do I live? I live. you know me. I live. my life is large. Larger than most. But I write so I can make sense of it all. so I can savor it all....

Are you afraid you will forget it all? I begin to cry. I explode with the understanding of why I have been writing everything down for twenty years now.... yes. I think I am frightened of this.... So I write. You won't forget it. yes I will. I know I will... I reflected for a moment to see if I could recall something that I had forgotten... there it was. the year before with Sam, the journalist from the Times. she was on her hands and knees on the bed, reading something on her laptop, I pulled up her skirt from behind her, she asked me what I was doing. I told her not to move. I revealed her panties. I reached for myself and began to do myself right there just looking at her from behind. She knew what I was doing and she played along, just kept reading her laptop... I climaxed right there just kneeling there behind her looking at her bottom in her panties... it was fantastic.... it was exhilarating... it was poetry. I almost forgot about that moment... because I never wrote it down... my God what a sin that would have been. She then lied down on the bed and did herself with me watching her... I do not tell Little Tree of this memory... but I got the message... we do forget things... writing is important...

You're making this less special by writing it down... no I'm not... I'm making it more special by preserving its memory...life is funny life is precious life is sacred... but life without recollection is meaningless... it does not exist. and therefore it never happened... you are crazy Fishy. I know. perhaps I am. But I love you. I love you too.

The Iranian Princess Little Tree came to stay for a brief 48 hours. One of our secret rendezvous. Just the two of us in this tiny New York city apartment.

There is something very special about our connection, even though there is a fifteen year difference in our ages, there is just something there that is sacred and karmic in it. we have never had a physically romantic relationship. It has always existed in platonic way. a very loving friendly ... God how do you describe that... like brother and sister except that you also love each other in the other way... But since our last meeting over the summer in Miami beach things have changed for us a bit... we are more accepting of our infatuation with one another. Still best friends... like children, more like college kids or something like that... but now we have begun to accept our mutual love for one another. With this strange unspoken underlying understanding that we will never be able to take it anywhere more than this... but still willing to explore it anyway.

We have to spend most of our time indoors as always, especially here now in New York, because of who she is and who I am. If we are seen it could be very dangerous for her, for me, and for some of her family who still live in Tehran. Imagine, the ex-Princess -- or should I say ‘the exiled-Princess’ I ask her -- being seen on the street, un-covered, and holding hands and kissing the American anti-God anti-government rebel and raconteur who calls himself Fishy. It would not be good.

Three days of getting inside, going deep, neurons firing, making love -- The embassy is closed she says. Lying there naked. Except to the ambassador... she laughs. only the ambassador can enter the embassy... and I enter her..., coffee in bed, bottles of wine and cognac, crackers and cheese, chocolate, long walks down frozen New York streets and sidewalks in the middle of the night when we think we can get away with it. Beautiful brownstones and fancy shops passing us by.  Puffs of smoke from my cigars walking with us. and she always with that eager curious enthusiastic smile about everything...

Walking around the apt naked, just covered in blankets all night... don't look at me... in between long romantic and short-burst love-making sessions... don't look at me... o.k. I won't. laughs... burying ourselves in the other’s kisses.... licking each other like ice cream, in between reading passages from this book of poetry by a friend of ours, Dan coppersmith, The Elusive Here and Now. more chocolate. More wine. More making love. Lots of laughter, orgasms intertwined with tears. Tears of joy. tears of longing for what we will soon miss. Once more. as always.

Working out tonight after a full fucking day I was just rocking like lightening. On fire. Ideas shooting out of my brain. Twenty minutes of cardio, then about a half hour of weights, and then I put on some gloves and hit the bag and practiced jabs and cross for a while till I was just totally fatigued. Boxing is very cool.

Last screening: me and Isaac Newton. This is a documentary about some of the most cutting edge scientists of our time. especially finding the cognitive psychology work of Steven pinker interesting. And michio kaku the physicist. “what I find the most fascinating is that as I am formulating these ideas of a unified field theory here at this time... that there is someone else, another man or woman or being thinking about the same thing a trillion miles away in another galaxy... formulating the same idea...”

Current spin: NEK, greatest hits. Italian pop star. Nothing I would recommend but cool. kind of a Enrique Iglesias of Italy. Never managed to pull me under.

It is now 8 degrees and it is nearly midday. My fingers are frozen. This is not going to be fun....

The biggest challenge I feel for myself presently is still feeling like I HAVE TO DO things that I don't want to. when do we get over this? is it possible to live a life where we don't have to do things that we don't want to? This is the goal. This is the primary. This is the desired outcome. Make it happen. I am tired of doing things I do not want to. period. This has got to do with making one giant leap forward.

The ultimate dream radio station you ask dear Jonathan?
For me, the answer is simple and obvious: I would do what I heard promised as "the future of radio" back in music school. A format known as 'full-spectrum radio.' Something always talked about but never yet pulled off.

Who the hell has only one style of music in their CD collection? Why is it so common for people to complain about the radio in their local area? Why is it so common for people to stop listening to commercial rock and pop radio entirely once they reach a certain age (30?) Why is satellite radio the big bad dog in the neighborhood ready to chew the hell out of the little commercial stations? Why are people paying their own money now to listen to Internet radio and satellite radio when they can get commercial radio for free???!!! Why do these commercial pop/rock stations depend so heavily on their "goofy funny morning shows?"

The answer to all of these questions and more is simple... sad but true... but for the most part, and this isn't every station in every market, but for the most part, modern commercial rock and pop radio sucks ass because it is too formatted. So most people grow up, eventually tune it out, and turn it off and move on to more expressive methods of getting their music fix.

The best radio station in the entire fucking universe will be the one that plays the best music in the entire fucking universe without attention to format or style. They'll jump from the butthole surfers to the Beatles to bread to limp bizcit to Beethoven in an hour and you will fucking love them for it. You will kiss the ground they walk on because for once you won't feel like someone is insulting your intelligence by catering to the lowest common denominator who can only stomach one style of music at a time. Good music is good music. Drop the effing formats already and just play great music of all kinds. The first person or station to do this right will become a God and slowly force the rest of the industry to follow with their tail between their legs.

Current spin: serge gainsebourg. An older French crooner. Everyone loves him and you can easily hear why. this is cool tunage. Intelligent.

It is 9 degrees here and feels absolutely freezing. The wind is roaring. It hits your face and actually stings. But it is sunny and refreshing. At night though your hands feel frozen solid and  it is hard to move your fingers...

O.k. I hope we can talk tonight. just hear me on this:

You said this:
“I can always tell when things are getting cleaned up and I am recovering my Sourceness, because I start getting invited to lots of different parties, events, etc. I am connected to the universe again.”

But I say this; I will tell you this because this is my own personal belief:

As wizards we do not go backwards. Not only do the tools get easier to use, but we get so damn clean that we do not need to ‘recover our sourceness’ nor do we ‘lose our connection to the universe...’ not as wizards.... it is not a back and forth thing once you become a wizard. You do not go back to being a ‘human,’ unless of course that is your primary... to fall back to being human... but I would say that is now the wizard’s intention.
Hope this helps
F

PS – Dearest Diane, The work is brilliant, please don't ever mistake my passion and perfectionist nature as a personal affront on your work or for being confrontational.... I'm just demanding the best because I feel that we are capable of it. I hope you understand what I mean by this.

I bought a pedometer last week in order to attempt to have more fun in the grueling amount of walking one is forced into living here in New York City. According to the pedometer so far, last week between Thursday, Friday, and half of Saturday I had walked 10.5 miles. I then reset it. Between Wednesday and Thursday I walked 4.5 miles, 9,634 steps. Good times. anything to make the grueling walking you are forced to do here more fun.

An absolutely full day. from morning till night.

I had made a comment about making love to every beautiful person one found, imbibing the most expensive and delicious wines and liquors, and eating the richest chocolates of the earth at one point I was speaking with someone who had made a comment about me still being very much a ‘man of the world’ for someone who ‘prided himself on his ‘transcendence.’ I responded, ‘But I am a man of the world. I wouldn’t know what else to be. here. in the world. that's where we are. we’re in the world. I have learned, as many before me have, that no amount of religion or spirituality can erase or negate the fact that we are entirely alone here, in the world, nearly dying from our longing for any evidence of others here with us or even a mere suggestion of why we are here or where we are going. all we know is this world. why not be a man of the world we live in? leave the afterlife for the afterlife.’

I realized this fact very clearly this holiday season hanging out with my brothers wife's grandparents. Yes I said grandparents. They are both are in their eighties... how much will knowledge mean to them? how much will everything they have collected in their lives mean at this point to them when all they are concerned with now is how many days they have left here on earth, in the world?

Thought about this again in the bestbuy store today. looking at all the people in line holding their various cds and DVDs they were buying... how useless I thought. Collecting things... this life is so short... why bother collecting things... when we die we will not be taking anything with us.

This may change one day. perhaps God will show up. perhaps passed on humans will show up. perhaps aliens, other intelligent life will show up. but for now, this is all we know. life without cause or intention. Death without desire.

Current spin: cat power, Free. I dig cat power a lot of the time. but a whole album of hers can drag on so long and monotonously that after a while you feel as though you are going to have to shoot the stereo if she doesn’t shut up. many good songs on this one though. It would be great if she just expanded her palette a bit more...

I talk to so many of my friends who struggle with the day to day. how to make it happen... it’s all about momentum I think. results create momentum and momentum leads to more results.

Johnny Carson died last night... Johnny Carson was the last of the old lions.

I must stop the diaries to simply take notes to use the material for plays and novels and screenplays etc. I spend countless hours journaling needlessly instead of writing. I am producing nothing except thousands of pages of my own life’s story, as purposeless as it is. It is utterly meaningless I am afraid. I must start taking the material and drawing on it to use for fictional works that I can profit from. How? When? The process? Just know I have to do it. But how...

Back in nyc. The city is covered in snowy white. How absolutely warm and cozy and comforting the snow is. two feet of it perched upon my window sills and piled high all around our city streets. winter has finally arrived and what a great feeling it is indeed. Snow is such a magical substance. If God ever does turn out to exist, then snow will most certainly turn out to be one of his most subtle but greatest gifts to us.

Last screening: the aviator. So Leo is growing up. and continues to be a fine actor. Totally in the zone on this one. he embodies Howard Hughes. But the film I found boring and uninspiring. I hate to be the one who’s volunteering to get snowballs thrown at him in the play yard but scorcese really seems to have lost his touch. This movie is just lifeless EXCEPT for the actors. The actors make this film. Leonardo and cate blanchett are great. [God would I love to spend a week with her]. But the film lags behind them. slow meandering predictable and oftentimes seemingly meaningless but for Leo’s fine performance.

First the good and then the bad.

I had an amazing 36 hours in Orlando with some wizard friends. We spent all day lying in the sun, using the wizards tools and processing. I had a chance to see many old friends from all over the world and give big bear hugs and cop the feel of all those wizards gathered in one place together. it was perfect.

observations:
The tools are getting easier and easier to use. AND I am noticing that they are feeling somehow more impactful (this word does not exist but I just added it to my dictionary because it should), even though they are getting easier to use. Becoming effortless. More: this new year’s annual psychic reading [this time with the infamous Echo Bodine] was very subtle, but very powerful. It has had a very strong effect on me. have been feeling like a butterfly lately. As if I have wings. More: spoke today over lunch how easy wizards and Avatar techniques are in general now that it has been ten years or so that we have been practicing the art/craft of it. whereas when we were younger Avatars first starting out and we processed it was always pretty dramatic and traumatic and scary sometimes, never knew what was lurking underneath, in our subconscious or however you want to term that. always a little scared of what we may discover about who we were or what we were all about or about past transgressions we had committed or whatever. But now after so many years most of that stuff has been cleared up so now its just really light and easy and there is no fear. Just fun to explore who we are with others... more: there is nothing more cleansing and clearing that I have found than these simple yet sublime tools that are all wrapped up in the Avatar materials. It is an amazing body of knowledge and set of techniques. Powerful stuff.

O.k. onto the bad. The course this year is being held at a place called the Coronado springs resort in Disney world. a totally man-made fake plastic place. how bad is it? well lets just say it must be over a thousand acres of just totally man made fake stuff. manmade lakes trees perfect landscaping pictures of Mickey mouse everywhere. absolutely dreadful. They serve cappuccino in plastic cups. They serve orange juice in paper soda cups that have a picture of Disney world on one side and the coca cola logo on the other. This is hell on earth.

Walt Disney world is the supreme example of the fake plastic America that is so hideous to foreigners when they think of this great country. More than any other cheesy fake American corporation in the world today and God knows we have plenty of them, more than coca cola, more than McDonalds, more than Budweiser, Disney is the red horned devil of American corporate greed, idiocy, and fakeness. In every way they promote a sincere lack of concern for quality and authenticity.

The window that doesn’t open. seriously the windows in the room do not open here. the lady at the front desk who says ‘no we don't have that’ about a DVD player to loan you. over a thousand acres of property and she wouldn’t even make a few calls to get us a DVD player to let us rent because “I'm sorry sir, we don't have that.” The mini bar that is empty so you are forced to use their cheesy fake Disney world convenience store with over priced everything. the telephone that charges you for one phone call “AT&T operator assisted DAY rates PLUS 55% surcharge per minute...” The coffee in the room with only one sugar and one fake non-dairy creamer for a whole pot. the room service that stops at 11 o'clock at night so you cannot get any food past eleven because you are miles from any other store. It goes on and on. They have no problem being nice, the staff here... all very nice ‘employees.’ But their hands are completely tied by all these corporate rules that strictly limit their service to drop dead awful beyond comparison to anything in the real world.

They have this food court type restaurant here has all these little kiosks that sell food supposedly from different countries, just like their hideous artificial worlds in epcot center. and the food is all the same. Its like eating at a food court in the local mall. just really crappy soggy artificial non-life-sustaining garbage dressed up and pawned off as real food. And its all super Disney-expensive. From one day of eating this crap I have a stomach ache and diarrhea. I feel like scooping out my diarrhea from the toilet and throwing it on the floor of the hotel room with a little note on it that reads “this is how your food makes me feel. Really enjoyed it. thanks.”

The line at the food court. Asking for a vegetable. The guy behind the counter tells me that there are no vegetables... “I am not a sheep” I scream. “Get me out of this fucking line with all these sheep and get me a goddamned vegetable!”

I am at the airport. I have been at the airport for three hours now. I am on a small plane bound for Charleston South Carolina. I don't want to go to Charleston South Carolina. I don't know if I'll ever want to go to Charleston South Carolina. I'm just trying to get to Orlando Florida. [I don't want to go to Orlando Florida either really. But my friends are there...] Yesterday I had decided to spend the weekend down in Orlando to dine with friends this evening and spend Sunday relaxing on the lake getting some sun and doing Avatar processes with everyone who is down there for the wizards course that's going on and which I am not attending this year. fly back early morning Monday and not miss a beat. Besides there is full on fucking blizzard attacking New York I thought. Better to get out of here.

Well the only problem was that a little less than an hour after arriving at the airport they cancelled all the flights to anywhere. Literally just turned all the planes away and told them not to fly into New York. we were all told that the soonest anyone would be flying out of New York was Monday. Like the rest of the shocked and discouraged passengers I politely started to pack up my things and face the fact that I was going to be stuck in New York City for days holed up in my tiny little apartment in a blizzard... I've never been a blizzard... not a bad idea, except that its already looking pretty horrible outside and people are saying the chances of getting a cab from the airport back to Manhattan is going to be pretty slim.

I thought about that for a second. Stuck at the airport thirty minutes from my apartment for two days in a blizzard. Could be a lot worse. They have TV here. plugs for my phone and laptop. Plenty of restaurants. I could even go sleep in one of those lounges tonight I'm sure.

Truly, the idea didn't seem half as intimidating as being stuck in that little broom closet they call an apartment I live in for two or three days straight. I have no food to speak of in the house. its small as hell. and its always fucking freezing in there. so I could try living at the airport for a while. see what that's like. Why not. Another experience.

But then it just occurred to me that as an Avatar -- I mean here we are with all this knowledge that we have collected and all these tools we have spent so many years sharpening and perfecting -- why not use them, it occurred to me that I would just create around this nuisance. I decided in that moment that I would go to Orlando. Blizzard or no blizzard. It wasn't a one hundred percent knowing... not entirely... but it was damn close to it. call it a ninety percent certainty that even if I was the only one who would fly out of New York city today that that would be the case. I would create magic.

In Avatar this is what is known as ‘being primary.’ Meaning, your primary is you go to Orlando regardless of what the situation looks like and regardless of what anyone else tells you. period.

Uh oh. Standby. We are about to try taking off.... and there is ice all over the runway...

O.k. I'm back. we are in the air now. attempting to manipulate this small jet through fifty mile an hour winds with zero visibility. When I look out the windows all I see is pure white. We are flying through the storm.

So where was I? yes. primaries. So if you are not familiar with the Avatar knowledge or tools, real quick, a primary is anything that you create; anything that is created. Walking across the room is a primary. Having a baby is a primary. Making a million bucks is a primary. Flying from New York to Orlando is a primary.

And then there are secondaries. A simple definition of secondaries is ‘anything other than the primary.’ Easy enough. If you want a baby and you cannot make one, that is a secondary to your primary that you will make a baby. If you are still broke while trying to create your million bucks that is a secondary. If you get to the airport and are told that all flights are cancelled due to weather conditions when you are trying to fly to Orlando from New York, that too is just a secondary. [when you take a step back and think about it for a second, God still not showing up after all these years is a secondary for all the different people over the world who have been trying to create a God. they want a God. they imagine a God. they visualize a God. pray to a God. they’ve even gone to the extent of creating a God and a name for the God and numerous religions around this God throughout our history and in hundreds of thousands of religious texts. Statues of God. pictures of God. songs and hymns to God. But still no God has shown up. but this is just a secondary. I assure you that if enough people get rid of enough of their secondaries... one day this God is going to come into being. The people are going to create their primary. And God will exist. the people will create him/her/it.]

Kick boxing class today. totally kick ass. my instructor is a five foot Asian gen-y’r with  a good sense of humor and one powerful kick.

Juliet sent me a big old black scarf in the mail that she knitted herself!!! I don't think anyone has ever made me anything like that. I cannot explain how happy it made me. I am so happy I could just scream out loud. I am forever indebted to her and will always look out for her like a soulmate-brother. 

There is a blizzard coming this weekend. You can feel it in the air all over the city. New York is like no other place on earth when it comes to the cold weather because it is a place where no one drives. Unlike other places where it gets cold such as Minnesota or Vermont or Massachusetts etc, everyone walks everywhere here. So cold weather really means something different to New Yorkers than to other people around the country. No matter how fucking cold it gets you're still walking that ten blocks to work or the grocery store or to the nearest subway station.

Everyone is bundled up. you cannot even see anyone's face on the street. Just big bundled up blobs of dark warm clothing passing you by quickly. The only way you can tell these are actual people is because you can see everyone’s breath when they pass you by. The mood is anxious on the street. Everyone preparing for two or more feet of snow and freezing temperatures for two days. And you see, the thing of it is that we still have to walk through that to get to where ever we want to go. what a strange place. you still have to walk through it. you have to walk very carefully or else you will slip and fall on your ass on the hard sidewalk or on the subway stairs.

I found this in my private diaries from mid-December but it had not been posted:
“The other day getting out of the subway on 23rd St.. I was so depressed I decided to kill myself, but something stopped me. I don't remember what... something I saw or thought of made me forget... and here I am... still alive...”

Well that's good. I am glad I am still alive. If I would have killed myself then, I would probably be reborn by now and be a little baby somewhere, who knows where... yeah. I'm glad I'm still me in this life. there is plenty of time in this life to kill one’s self. I'll wait.

It is fucking freezing in New York right now. inside my apartment is freezing. Outside it is even colder. I cannot sleep because I am too cold...

CURRENT CONDITIONS
New York, NY
Updated 10:12 AM EST
Sunny
Temp: 12°F (-11 C)

I continue to work ten projects at a time... pounding... just fucking slamming... one project will pay off. Everything I touch turns to gold. And then bam!

A few weeks into French class here in the city. the teacher is very good. really cares about each person learning the language. I have noticed that I have started to hear this voice in my head singing the language like a song this week. For the first time since I started really studying the language, which began in earnest last march at that retched fucking school in Miami, I’ve noticed that I am now starting to subconsciously translate things I hear in English on the street throughout my day into French; just for fun. this is what we do when we are children, when we are learning our own native language (our own native language.... that's redundant isn't it?). And now my subconscious mind is doing it in French. this a good thing. I commented the other day in class that French is the Mt. Everest of languages. There is nothing logical or practical or that makes sense about this language phonetically. These people were just fucking crazy when they developed this language amongst themselves. Just off in left field all on their own... But I will master it. I can see that now. I am getting it.

It is so beautiful. if you could just hear what this number sounds like in French: “six-cent-soixante-seis.” 676. just fucking beautiful and its just a number. Its pure poetry.

You know what I hate? People who send Christmas cards with pictures of their kids on the front to everyone they know. what is that? its as if once people have children they just fall off the fucking face of the earth. I have all these cards all over my house from good friends and associates and half the cards are just pictures of kids’ faces that I have never even met... what is that? I get the point... people are proud of their kids... they want to show them off... but what is this tendency to just disappear like that? like you just erase yourself from existence.... as if they are living through their kids now... what happened to the good old fashioned holiday card? I hope I never do that.

Snow is falling all around us. everywhere you look it is white. Very beautiful. and actually much warmer feeling than when it was just cold without snow. I don't know why the snow seems to warm everything up a bit. Very happy feeling in the snow. brings joy and energy to the mind and body.

Hey Sunny,
Great work last night. thought I would pass on my nyr2005 list to you just for information/inspiration purposes.... for the day. I really want to offer to help you go from 90% searching/exploring/tuning into/listening/intuiting/hit-getting in this life to 90% “full-on-fucking-creating.”

The beginning of life is about searching, yes... the middle of life is about full-on fucking creating... and building... and the end of one’s life is about reflecting and celebrating... yes.

So now my friend... Just go crazy and dream big for what you want to “create” this year in and on all levels. From my perspective, It has little to do with the higher-self or the universe or God or fate or any of that. it just has to do with taking action in the world and watching the shit happen. We manifest. We don't wait for manifestations... its all up to us. The higher self? You know what? we are our higher self. No need to look for it or do anything. Just BE IT.

Sorry to be so ghetto...  but the man has to lay it out for ya... haha. anyway, go for it full on. And we will discreate more tonight. but the days are for CREATING..... think big. Take action. Make it happen. Word.

Woman falls to death trying balcony handstand

Can you imagine what that will look like in her long list of lifetimes? God says “Oh I see here that you just died again by falling off of a balcony while trying to do a handstand...” God chuckles. “Oh that's a good one,” he says, and passes her onto her next life.

Its 14 degrees outside today here in New York city. everyday it gets colder. Your legs hurt almost immediately. Your hands hurt. Your ears hurt and your nostrils hurt. I walk around looking at everyone all bundled up with these miserable looks on their faces and all this smoke/steam/(what is that actually?) coming out of their mouths and I have to say that as someone who grew up in the South the first thought that comes to your mind is ‘what the hell are these people doing here? Don't they know about the South? I mean, don't they know that there are places they can live that aren't superfuckingfreezing like this?’ Its natural to think like this. this weather is crazy. But I'll tell you, I don't mind it too much. Its not that bad. Its refreshing.

In the elevator I saw this Asian girl among us. and she had this amazing smile on her face. Just filled with kindness and joy and innocence. It made me very happy just staring at her. I like that. I think that may be the key to life. today at the gym the girls behind the counter comment to each other about me ‘he's always so happy... he's always in such a good mood. why is that?’ I'm always in a good mood? Now that's fucking funny. Hey who knows. maybe compared to most people there, I am.

We know the universe created itself/appeared between 15 to 17 billion years ago. Can we even imagine that? what does that mean?

Humankind (as we are known now) appeared roughly 600,000 years ago. So we are obviously a very recent entry in the universe in the grand scheme of things. so where the hell were ‘we’ for all these billions of years? Was God all by himself for all of this time? I wonder.

The feeling that one gets is that we, as humans, need to re-structure the new data... the old paradigms just don't work anymore. We need to get real... need to redefine and recreate our entire understanding of cosmology and divinity...

Can we one day come to appreciate and honor ourselves and our place in the universe without the God-concept? I wonder. I would hope so. unless the old boy shows up one day, then by all means, we’ll give him or her a grand welcome and restructure our cosmology once more.

I'm not against God coming out of hiding and showing us what its all about... but I'm not into all this God-creating that we've been doing the last few thousand years. I believe that at this point we should take all the holy books and sacred texts that humankind has ever written, the Koran and the bible and the Bhagavad-Gita and all the rest of them.... (all except the Tao te ching, since it doesn’t purport to be a holy book and doesn’t speak of any gods or goddesses...more just philosophy...) just take every piece of religious doctrine or dogma every penned by man on paper and throw it all onto a big wooden raft on the beach, have a big ceremony, light it on fire and push it out into the ocean and watch it burn... if God is out there, he’ll come. If not, it’ll still be alright. We’re going to be o.k. either way. I can promise you that.

In French class today I could feel my brain stretching and breathing in and out. Learning is important. it excites and inspires in other areas of our lives in a way that we cannot qualify. I have found that it is very important, learning new things. bending and stretching the brain. It affects all aspects of our lives.

I'm standing out in the cold right now having a smoke and tapping onto the trusty laptop who doesn’t seem to notice that it is 23 degrees out here. I'm not sure what this new trend in writing everything down is. I remember it starting back in junior high. I would keep notes on anything I thought was interesting, but not regularly. I don't think I possessed the organizational skills to understand what I was doing. Then it really kicked into high gear in high school. That's when I started keeping spiral notebooks that I would just write everything I thought of into all day and night. no dates or anything. Just idea books. Tons of them. But I never did anything with the books. I'm not sure what I was doing really. Just taking notes. I got the idea from Camus I think. after reading his diaries. At about the age of sixteen I officially started keeping dated journals in hardbound books. One every few months.

As soon as I got my first computer and realized how much time in retyping it would save me, I immediately abandoned handwriting entirely unless I had to. like if I was in the movie theatre or something. But then when PDAs came out I soon learned that I could just type my ideas into that when not near a computer and upload it all to my computer later. this was back when PDAs were black and white and held like 56k worth of data, but anything would be better than having to handwrite stuff and retype it later. I'm great on the first run but I'll be the first to admit I'm awful with the retype or the edit. I just hate those tasks and usually just never get around to them. this is going to sound totally impossible to believe but for every page that gets typed here there are a few more that are handwritten when I'm not near a computer. These handwritten pages sit all over my house and my office waiting to get typed in. I think maybe I'm like a writing addict if that's possible. I don't know if its dangerous... I heard that mark twain wrote about eight hours a day... so that makes me feel better. I'm not there yet. I more like at four hours a day at this point.

Tonight as I stand here freezing and everyone else is in bed asleep I'm thinking about this obsession I have with writing everything down. even on full days when my schedule is packed, mac-daddy full days from morning till late at night, I will still make time to write at the end of it all. just sneak away somewhere and write. Like when Craig said this morning while preparing our breakfast, ‘hey man, what if Martin Luther king wasn't a peace-activist but instead was like a natural hygienist? Would his name then have been martin loofa King?’ I even made a mental note to write that down because I thought it was funny.

It feels like a kind of fatalistic kind of thing. fear-based. Well, partly that, and I guess partly just pure ambition, a grand plan to it all that perhaps I just don't understand yet. But more just fear. As if... its as if I weren't writing everything down and instead I was just living everyday, that there wouldn’t be any reason for being here.

I must say I am so excited about this. We’re in upper-state New York now, Rockland county, the lower Hudson valley. Towns like Nyack, Piermont, Sneedins Landing, Grandview... (of Bill Murray, Al Pacino, Bjork fame) Less than an hour outside of NYC. Totally rural, beautiful country-like landscapes and views of the river and mountains and forests. Northeastern vibe... and the best part is that its an hour outside the city. so a person could live here and get this really nice country relaxed natural vibe, and then still drive into the thriving pulsing city everyday for work; take an office there somewhere. Or even take the train back and forth, which is what I'm doing now.

This is really exciting to me. Because honestly the living in the city thing is not working for me. it just doesn’t feel right. its all about the feel. and as excited and inspired I feel by the city, I still feel something deeper and more profound when I'm outside of it; inside of me I feel a deeper sense of peace and calm. The city just feels too... off the top of my head... dirty, noisy, grimey, grungy, anonymous, harsh... I could go on, but you get the point... again, I love the city. just love it. but man, it really takes it out of me living there. it really wears me out bigtime. By the end of the day I am exhausted. And plus, you just don't get that really nice cozy warm nature feeling that you get when you are more in the country. imagine being totally nestled in the woods in a big wooden house overlooking the river and being less than an hour outside the greatest city in the world? awesome.

On a train right now bound for Tarrytown. A little town in either upstate New York or Jersey where some friends live, not sure which state I'm actually going to now that I think about it. But that's what's great about trains isn't it? I like the idea of hopping on the train and just heading somewhere for a night. reminds me of Europe. riding public transportation in New York is weird. Interesting and fun, but challenging. A lot of strange people. it’s a very different experience for someone who was raised in the suburbs like myself. Its like overload sometimes with the amount of different people you encounter. From so many different backgrounds and classes and cultures.

What I do like about riding on trains though is that you just get to chill in your seat and see stuff out the window that you wouldn’t normally see if you were flying or driving; the cities and the towns just pass you by and you really get to take it all in. I don't know much about the new England states. there is a strange dichotomy that exists here. on the one hand the land is a dirty city, littered with industry and concrete and noise and grime. And then an hour outside of all that craziness are these quaint little suburbs nestled away in lush landscapes along rolling rivers with great views of forests and mountains. Like a different world. The north east is some very beautiful land.

[I am in and out of a half sleep, admiring the land that rolls by my eyes when I open them now and then. I think to myself, we are lucky that our ancestors were so much stronger and meaner and crueler and less fair and just and honest than the native Americans who lived here before we did so that we could kill them all and steal this great land from them. I am very grateful for this. without that, I would not be on this train. Without that, I would not be calling this great land ‘home.’ lucky indeed. We are also lucky that this God that people speak of does not seem to be partial to the good, or the just, or the honest, or the fair, or the kind, or the righteous among us, but rather prefers to take the side of whoever is strongest, richest, or more powerful in each battle. We are lucky for this for now, because in this lifetime, if American, we are on the right side. I want to explore this more. I will later. on a future date.]

I dig itunes for a lot of reasons, but it also sucks because it transforms your songs into this unique format called mp4 instead of mp3s. so then you can’t send them to other people. but besides that, itunes is groovy because besides music, you can also use it to upload whole audio books and then put them into your ipod and listen to a book while you are traveling or exercising. That's cool.

Right now I'm going through the whole Verbal Advantage program. About 24 cds in all. twenty words per CD. good stuff. I'm at level six, by level six you are in the top thirty percent the instructor announces. But I don't believe him. at this very moment we are learning the word ‘legerdemain.’ This word means ‘a slight of hand,’ something akin to that. other words at level six include ‘abstruse,’ ‘ supercilious,’ and ‘capacious.’  I don't believe that thirty percent of our population knows these words. but I enjoy studying the language. By the time one finishes this program they will have the vocabulary of the top one percent of the population. The problem of course is that once you know these words you may want to use them. and of course then no one will understand a word you're fucking saying. As if I need it to be any more difficult for me to communicate with people. LOL.

For me its not about using the words. I have always held a mild disdain for people who use big words that no one ever hears in day to day conversation. I always look at them rather suspiciously; as if they are missing a few marbles because they don't seem to notice that no one around them understands a damn thing they are saying. there are hundreds of words that we all know that we just don't use everyday but when we read them we understand their meaning. But that doesn’t mean we use them everyday. I think its nice when you can speak and other people actually understand what you are saying. I mean, in the end, that's what its all about really.

So no, I'm not going to start using words like pedantic and prodigious and desultory as if I were back in college again. When you first hit college I think there is some sort of unwritten and secret law that states that you have to go through a few years where you use all these big words all the time and think that everyone around you is an idiot because they don't use these same words. but then you grow out of that because you begin to realize that understanding and good communication are much more important skills to posses than having a big vocabulary.

It is said that most people (in America) have a vocabulary of approximately 30,000 words; while linguists could have a vocabulary nearing 250,000 words. for more info see this page: http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/anthropology/anthro-l/archive/august-1996/0436.html

For me I have always found that it’s all up to the company I am with at the moment. Having a large vocabulary should be like owning a handgun. You own one, you know how to use it, you have been trained in its care and use and its benefit if one day you need it to protect your home and your family. But you keep it hidden away, under the bed, or in the drawer of the nightstand. You don't whip it out all the time showing it off to your friends. So yeah, like that. Now I know what circuitous and plethora and bucolic mean. So if I ever encounter these oddities in passing while reading something or listening to someone speak, then I will understand their intention. But I don't think I'm going to be one of those guys who uses these words in day to day conversation. Not yet. Perhaps I'm just too young. Or perhaps I hang around in the wrong crowds.

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

O.k. its later in the night and I am hanging with Craig and his nine year old daughter Rachel. I have known her since she was born, but haven't seen her in years. She is very dramatic and dynamic and hyperactive. So innocent. I am reminded how innocent we are when we are younger. She is all smiles and eager to do and say anything. I wonder what happens to our innocence as we get older?

Slept 11 hours straight last night. slept right through the phone ringing and alarm going off. Didn't even hear them. The gradient is high here. the pulse is fast. the day to day grind is very difficult at this level. The walking everywhere, the cold, the expensiveness of everything, the subways; the no car scene is truly grinding if you are not used to it. the fast talking, no bullshit, no time for small talk mentality is stimulating and inspiring, but it still takes some time to get used to if you are just getting into it. can tire you out quickly. Last night I just dropped by midnight. Fell asleep with my clothes on. And woke up and realized that I had slept eleven hours straight. Don't think I ever did that before.

went to the gym tonight. awesome. last year I went to the gym a total of three times probably. Just slammed it working so hard all year. but not this year. I have to make the time to exercise. It feels great. Good vibes being there. sparks flying out of my brain with ideas.

Then to this cool and cozy club called Carnegie bar and books in midtown that is like half library and half jazz bar. Good times.

Current spin: serge gainsebourg, du exterior. Back on the French music tip. Try to make the learning of the language easier and sink in faster. This is cool laid back French tunage. Good for early morning or late night.

Everyone in America is outsourcing to India now. there is only one thing to do and that is to invest in Indian companies and start moving money out of American companies, into up and coming overseas companies; except the ones who are doing the outsourcing, perhaps they will find a way, through the outsourcing, to keep costs down. The biggest prob is that the American consumer is going to be disappearing as more and more American jobs disappear. This isn't going to last forever. I believe we are a resilient people and we will find a way to kick back, but for now, and the next few years, once the credit bubbles burst, and then the over inflated real estate bubble pops, and then even the rental market dives, retail sales will plunge for a while as consumer spending continues to take a turn toward the downside. If we’re lucky and smart we will take every red cent we have and invest in overseas pan-Asian telephone, customer service, and tech companies that are just starting to kick ass now. their gain is through our loss unfortunately.

Its funny how most people talk about it, they make jokes about it, but they have no idea what it means, don't see how its affecting us or our economy, and have no idea how to profit or even prevent themselves from losing because of it. its like they don't take it to the next level. To them its enough to just crack jokes about the Indian on the other end of the line when they called AT&T the other day. anyway, for me, I think it sucks still and when I get one on the phone I always just ask to be transferred to America. I just can’t deal with how they can’t understand what I'm saying. they never get the real point I'm making. Its fucking crazy. I'm just like, ‘o.k. look, I know this isn't your fault, but you didn't answer my question at all. Can you just please transfer me to America? Please?’ that's where I'm at with it at this point. I just don't even want to deal with a company that is transferring their calls to India. I don't have time to deal with the thirty minute call trying to get them to understand basic shit. their nice and all, just not efficient. If we all did that, we’d get our American customer service reps back.

I'm in French class the other day and their language is seriously fucked up. just in dire need of modernizing and logicalizing. I mean, so is our beloved English language. Allow me for a moment here in case we need a reminder: “rough, bluff, dough, tow, go, toe, plough, wow.” This is my own little invention to remind me of how fucking insane English is. nothing phonetic about it. at some point if you are learning English its just going to come down to learning and memorization.

Anyway, I had this vision in class that soon, at some point, eventually there is going to be a massive cultural revolution human-wide, this won't be all of humanity of course. places like third world countries will not be included in the same kinds of revolutions and changes that first world countries will be, but their own shifts.... But the majority of modern civilization will go through this kind of cultural revolution. Already seeing it with the EU and the Euro. We will see human society becoming more politically correct, more secular, more gender-neutral, more inter-racial, more same-sex, more protective of human rights.

Languages will start to change. Become more logical and more phonetic. Finance will become more streamlined.

Think of the word doughnut. That word has all but disappeared, having been replaced by the more logical and phonetic ‘donut.’ This will continue to happen little by little.

Think of things such as the following: the increase in same sex and inter-racial marriages we have seen in the last thirty years. the change from stewardess to flight attendant, the change from mankind to humankind, the change from actress to actor for both sexes. etc.... this is only the beginning of what we will see in coming decades. At one point we will see one giant shift towards the doing away of a lot of the old world traditions that don't make much sense in our languages and in our cultures through specific mandates and large projects. America should certainly shift towards the more logical metric system. that's for sure. What the fuck are we doing still on this weird system we use now that makes no actual sense? I don't know but it won't last forever. and hopefully France will start modernizing its language a bit so the rest of the world can understand what the hell they are saying.

This is a new book, Welcome to the personal expression age.

What strikes me most about this new ‘I will approach girls instead of waiting for them to approach me’ resolution of mine is how difficult it is. I must say I have not found it easy. I mean, its easy to see a really knock out girl at the store or on the train and stare at her, but its another thing entirely to start up a conversation with her. for me it is not coming easy.

Check out this cool timeline of the history of the universe:
http://www.pbs.org/deepspace/timeline/index.html

Last screening: pentagon papers. This is a good enough movie but a great story. We need more renegades in America today. more people willing to go against the grain and defend our suffering democracy. Let the revolution begin again. we are too asleep right now. well perhaps, “we” aren't, but plenty of people still are.

An amazing day with Mitch. brunch in the union square area. Then walking all around the downtown area of the city, just meandering with no intention, catching up. hadn't seen each other in almost two years. he's lived here forever so he showed me around. all the cool places. We strolled through noho, soho, nolita, the village, west village, Chinatown, little Italy. Walked for hours. Literally all day. what a beautiful varied cultured city this is. no place like it in the entire world.

And then I trained up to what I thought was going to be this cool church uptown that advertised a full gospel choir at a 6pm service. But no gospel choir at all.

I decided to stay anyway just to cop the God vibe. But what I got instead was, well, the usual perverted and distorted view of reality that the Christian religion offers as its usual fare. I mean, I went there really wanting to dig in, you know. I mean, I was raised Christian so its easy to sort of try to overlook all the untruths and half truths in their beliefs and just cop the positive vibage, in spite of all the holes and problems in the fundamentals of what's underneath it all. sometimes I can do it and sometimes I cannot. When its more open minded and just good positive vibes I can do it. like the Unity Church. I can dig that. and when there is kicking Pentecostal preaching and grooving gospel music going on and tambourines shaking I can get into it and forgive them for all the other misgivings inherent in their limited understanding of life on earth.

But not tonight. within five minutes I was realizing we weren't in Kansas anymore, or better put, we weren't in nyc anymore; it was more like we were in Kansas. The preacher starts reading from the book of Samuel in what they call the bible about how this God that they created and still find a way to believe in after all these years had instructed Saul to completely exterminate the entire city and all of the people of amalicyte. The whole sermon was about how Saul didn't do this completely and wanted to save the king and save the best of the sheep and lamb and how much of a sin that was, to disobey this God.. And I'm sitting there thinking ‘who the fuck believes in a God who instructs people to kill whole cities and whole nationalities of people?’ I mean, who in this day and age is still so ignorant and unevolved to still believe in a God this base and impure and un-transcendent? And yet I was sitting in a room filled with these people.

To imagine that these people take the bible as something holy... I was filled with fear for the human race for about thirty minutes while I was sitting in there. ‘these people are hundreds of years less evolved than we are’ I was thinking. they are taking this crap as some kind of holy word of God, real eye for an eye stuff. real low-minded unevolved stuff. and I was really saddened by it. the preacher is screaming that when God tells us to destroy a whole city and all of its people then we better listen no matter what. and I'm thinking ‘you have got to be kidding. This has got to be a joke. There is no way these people believe this shit. and yet clearly they do. they believe that God is a spiteful vengeful God, that he wishes to kill people. that he wishes us to kill people. and yet one of their ten commandments is thou shall not kill. Crazy stuff. absolutely insane asylum stuff. the only thing that stops us form locking all the Christians up in insane asylums is that the majority of the country are still Christians. But by all logical accounts their beliefs are so unfounded and so dangerous that they would all be proved entirely insane in any court of law. But because the whole country was founded on these Christian beliefs we let it all fly and hang out no matter how ridiculous it is.

Wow what a day. non stop phone all day long for twelve hours. A little business; a little pleasure. Has to be because it’s the new year and everyone is getting back from vaca. Lots of cool talks with friends. Which I love. A totally full day on the phone which was great because I just got back to the city and have so few friends here so the days can get lonely, all work and no play type of thing and I'm so not used to that back in Miami. even spoke with the lovely Juliet. I must say my heart overflows with love for her. at this point I have no idea what kind, but I'm happy loving her just like this without definition. Our conversations are like roller coasters, just really fun and joyful, bouncy rides filled with laughter and the occasional deep thought thrown in for fun. she shared with me where when we were together there were a few times when we would look at each other, when our eyes would meet, and it felt to her like we were looking into the eyes of someone we knew for millenniums (millennia?), she says; as if we knew each other since we were protozoan. [Gotta be one of those science terms I missed out in high school skipping classes to go smoke cigs.] But what a beautiful thing to say. Some people you just love in this lifetime because you love them. and with other people its like you're feeling something deeper, something older happening, something lifetimes older.... following the scent as she says. Looking for clues...  some people follow us through lifetime after lifetime I believe.

But things are flowing in the universe since I've been back. today was fucking action-packed. and it’s a wonderful feeling to be back in my life.

A new one: “when the bong goes, the money flows.”
Not to be confused with last month’s classic, “The bigger your network, the bigger your net worth.”

What's the fucking deal with the way people pronounce cities and states in America? The people down in Texas call their city spelled Houston ‘huseton’ for some reason. And no one knows why. now we have a very famous street here in New York called Houston. Its in the village. Everybody knows it. and everybody knows its pronounced Houseton. Not Huseton. If you come to New York and you pronounce Houston street huseton they are going to look at you like you're from another planet. Its clearly spelled Houseton. But these people in Texas. What is that? and then I heard that in Oklahoma there's a city called Miami. why? who knows? but they pronounce it ‘Miama.’ Seriously. Why? who the fuck knows. and then there's Missouri. Some people pronounce it Missouri as its spelled and then others in the same damn state pronounce it ‘Missoura.’ Why? who the fuck knows. but the worst one of all is Arkansal. Now I know what you're thinking. there is no state in America called arkansal. O.k. fine. Then why the fuck do they call it arkansal if its spelled Arkansas? I mean, who were these fucking morons who came up with this crap? I think we should have a new constitutional amendment added, right along side that stupid banning of same sex marriage one. from now on, pronounce your fucking city or state the way its spelled or change the fucking spelling.

Reminds me of what they call ‘football’ here. How in gods name did these people invent a new sport, which is a great sport by the way, my favorite for sure, and then decide to give it the same name as an entirely different sport that already existed? football already exists. fine. Why the hell did they call their new sport football? Especially since it isn't even played with the feet. And then they have the nerve when they realize their blunder to rename the already existing sport ‘soccer.’ So the whole rest of the rest of the fucking free world is calling football football, but Americans are supposed to call it soccer and look like assholes to the rest of the world. And then when they say football they are referring to this new sport that's only played in America and doesn’t have anything to do the real football and isn't even played with the feet? We are a sad lot of rejects and outcasts sometimes.

One more thing. baseball. stop calling it ‘the world series’ when only American teams are playing in it. its not the world series; it’s the American series, or better put, the American finals or championships or something like that. you can imagine some baseball player telling someone, “man that was back when we won the world series...” “Holy shit man. You won the world series?! That's fucking great! Wow. Who were you playing? Manchester United? Brasil?” “Oh no man. we were playing Philadelphia...” “Philadelphia? What country is that in?” fucking crazy. America has a lot of growing up to do.

[and ps – Bloopy all of a sudden doesn’t want to be in the band now. if its not one thing its another. Always something. things are moving so fast at this point I can’t even think about things like that anymore. Guys are in or their not. You do your best to be a good mate. But you can’t take it personally. Even though you can’t help it. this shit fucking kills me. rips my heart open. We’re supposed to tour the northeast in Feb. and our agent emails the venues and dates to us and Bloopy says he doesn’t want to go. I love this kid like a brother. Seriously, like a little brother. So I'm crushed. I'm not even telling the other guys yet. But I'm thinking, ‘hold on, were going to take off and play a bunch of gigs all over the northeast for a few months to peeps who love us and get paid to do it, but you're going to sit in your bedroom at your moms house in Miami Beach and do what?’ sometimes you just have to let people go. Just have to keep moving on. But I'm sad for sure. Ripped up. But I'm just hoping it all works out for the best for everyone.]

The new U2 “hit?” on CNN there was a news piece down in the marquis that read “Rock group U2 released their new hit song, blah blah, today...” o.k. now lets get this straight. The song was released today. but is a hit song already? No better example of the bullshit propaganda machine in full swing.

Isn't it amazing how we sometimes form really close bonds with people who are not related to us, as if they were part of our family, and sometimes with those that we are directly related to, our biological family as it were, we may speak with very infrequently or almost never at all.

Current spin: The complete recordings of Skip James from 1930. Old old old blues. Killer. Amazing. wonderful.

Last screening: Life aquatic with Steve zisou. This is the new Wes Anderson film, the man who brought us Rushmore and the Royal tennenbaums. I had read some reviews and was quite concerned before attending. Seems that peeps either love it or hate it. see some reviews:

More like the life BLAHquatic!

Reviewed by khsdofwhyoeyrh 01/05/05
This movie is so tragically un-funny it makes an epsisode of Full House look like comedy gold. Bill Murray is at the end of his career when he signs up for drivel like this. I literally vomited with rage into my popcorn! There were a couple people actually laughing at the lame jokes so I decided to kick them in the head and walk out. This was the worst movie in my whole life and because of its terribleness I can no longer function and feel like I may just snap unless Star Wars is finally good. 
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Great

Reviewed by hujadaddy 01/05/05
Anderson is a genius - I was worried that he had somehow slipped up when I read some of the reviews, but The Life Aquatic was, true to form, brilliant and beautiful. Andersen does tend to rely on his signature methods, but that doesn't mean they've stopped working.

Well I was not disappointed at all. in fact I would agree that it was one of the best movies I have seen in years. all of his signature style is there but improved on. All the brilliant use of subtle humor and color galore! Deadpan wit and sarcasm and out of the blue conversation. This movie had a tremendous impact on me I must say. The whole time I was watching it I felt as though I was receiving secret messages from the universe about our new little TV show project actually. Just was that important to me. I will go see it again in a week or so before it leaves theatres. Artists can learn a lot from this subtle masterpiece. That is, if you dig his style. If you don't, you're prob going to hate this movie.

Eggs: What the hell are they?

Was thinking tonight about eggs. We eat eggs. But what the hell are they? I couldn’t sleep from thinking about it. so I had to get up in bed and make a note. it is such a gross thought when you really just start thinking about it. an egg... isn't that the fetus of an animal? So where the hell is the animal? I think its like the unfertilized egg of an animal, something like that. totally gross when you think about it. The worse part is that I love eggs. But who the hell thought of this crazy idea? and why don't we eat the eggs of other animals as well? other birds like turkeys or other birds? Man that would be weird. Why just the chicken? Face it, the idea of us eating the eggs of other animals is just plain fucking weird.

Consciousness

Went to the dinosaur museum today for a few hours. There is something there we are not getting yet. the earth without man? Or man’s consciousness? The entire world and whole universe without intelligent consciousness? Frankly I don't believe it. call me anthropomorphic, or whatever that word is that defines when people project humanity onto everything, but I do not believe that there was a time when WE, human consciousness, were never on the earth, or in the universe. Period. I just don't believe it.

I will never forget the moment when I first discovered it. I was in deep meditation, or tripping on acid, can’t remember, about fifteen years ago. Sitting on the floor of my bedroom as a teenager. Scattered about my room were many books. Mostly on science and religions at the time. in my meditative state I had opened my eyes for a moment and happened upon a picture in one of the books of some dinosaurs. I went back into meditation and had this realization that there was no way that the world was spinning on without our consciousness, as we are told about times during the dinosaur periods. There was only one logical explanation for the quandary: that we were actually dinosaurs, in dinosaur form, before we were in human form. Our consciousness was at least. I just sat in this understanding for a while and tried to imagine what life was like back then for us.

Since we invented the concept of God, then the theory that we weren't around for hundreds of millions of years and yet other living beings were, like the dinosaurs, is like admitting that God wasn't around, and therefore didn't create the universe at all. unless we are to believe that the dinosaurs were intelligent life. which most people don't. But I would argue with them on that point. I've said before and I will say it again and one day it will probably come to pass that a very smart scientist living God knows where will get the credit for “discovering” or “inventing” the theory that we, human consciousness, were actually dinosaurs for hundreds of millions of years before we became extinct and then re-evolved as humans in our current form.

After all, try to imagine a universe without our ‘consciousness’ existing in it, without ‘intelligent life’ in it. impossible yes? exactly. precisely. Indubitably. The truth is that we at one point came to exist on earth, were birthed in the great universe at that point in time, as dinosaurs, because that is the form we needed to take at that time because of the environment of the earth. We could not have existed as humans at that time. So are we to believe that intelligent life did not exist at all in the entire universe? Hardly. We just didn't exist in our human form that we now exist as. But we certainly did exist. Intelligent life must have certainly existed, since time began I would assert, and since we are the only intelligent life we know of on the earth and throughout the history of the universe, at least we tell ourselves that we are at this point, then why not assume that we took the most practical physical form necessary for our survival at that time? I am surprised that no psychics have ever gone into trance to vibe into the whole dinosaur consciousness to get a better feel for what we thought and felt during those times. and I am even more surprised that no scientists have discovered or postulated this theory as of yet.

Spoke with the psychic by the name of Echo Bodine, a rather famous woman who lives in Minneapolis, MN. Good stuff.

Current read: Studying history of Tibet.

With an average elevation of 4,900 m (16,000 ft), Tibet is the highest region on earth. For this reason, it is sometimes called the Roof of the World. Most of the people in Tibet live at elevations ranging from 1,200 m (3,900 ft) to 5,100 m (16,700 ft). Tibet is also one of the world’s most isolated regions, surrounded by the Himalayas on the south, the Karakoram Range on the west, and the Kunlun Mountains on the north.

Holy shit. I watched some TV tonight at moms house. back in phoenix now. just relaxed and watched a bunch of reality TV. What a crazy world we live in right now in America. Reminds me of that old Arnold movie, Running Man. Like that. things are crazy on TV these days. a perfect time to enter. Who crazier than thou? Haha.

New Years Resolutions

A fabulous new years eve spent quietly at home with the fam for the first time in many years. But as much as I was apprehensive about my decision earlier today to stay, I must say that I had a great time. I was supposed to fly to L.A. to hang with the sir Michael and lady Beth Ann, but I have been digging hanging with my family so much while I've been out here that I just didn't want to leave them. so I stayed and never flew. May head to L.A. on Sunday instead. I cannot explain how much being with the fam this holiday meant to me. I feel a lot happier and grounded; recharged and refueled. Something changed in me as well in the last few weeks. I really got into this whole kids groove and for the first time could see myself getting married and having kids one day. Not just in an imaginary way like in your mind or in a video or something, but actually saw that I could do it and enjoy it, would welcome it now. crazy. I'm not saying leave the business and become a mainstreamer, not at all. I'm saying do it in spite of still being in the business and staying outside the mainstream. Do it in my own cool way. if I can find a cool non-mainstream wife who digs the idea of having a big family. [but I'm also not saying going totally overboard and naming my kids Dweezil and Moon Unit either. Has to be a subtle in between kind of a thing).

Anyway, we rang in the new year right. lots of Champaign and all of us singing and dancing and all the kids around and I must say that it was very merry and homey and fun. I am very lucky to have such a close tight knit family. It just took me a fucking long time to dig how cool family was. if you would have told me ten years ago that I'd be taking in the new year with my mom and brother and sisters and nieces and cousins at my parents house rather than being at some party somewhere with a bunch of friends, I would have told you that you were fucking nuts. But it was good times indeed. My heart feels warm and smiley and I will fall asleep tonight with a big smile on my face feeling very cozy and full of joy. As Mindy would say, family rocks.

O.k. time for some new years resolutions:

1. Clean out stuff from the last twenty years. All things items AND habits and thoughts that are no longer serving me. Free up space and time and energy to allow new things to come in and feel a fresh start for the New Year and a new life from now on. 2005 is your year of creativity and fulfillment.
2. Practice more and master the art of extending the least amount of effort to achieve the biggest and most rewarding results. This is definitely the highest priority behind clearing clutter and freeing up space this year.   
3. Figure out and find where the fuck I am supposed to live and actually move into a place rather than living out of boxes. I've been living out of boxes since July and I have had enough of it. 
4. I will sign up for French class here in America again and get through the first two levels where I can actually speak French and then... 
5. I will go to France and study French for a few months in Paris. Spring or summer time would be good.
6. Speaking of which, I will register for sign language classes when I get back to the city. there is no reason not to speak sign language. Makes me feel like a loser. That would be cool to be able to communicate with people in that language.
7. From the get go, the most important thing is this: Focus the most free attention on whatever is going to bring in the most money the fastest so I can start delegating more again. delegating is key. Delegating is power. and right now my most immediate need is to have more money available to delegate more.  
8. Be more artistic. Allow/open myself to be more artistic more of the time. have to get mooooooooooooore into the flow of pure art, flowing art, all the time.
9. Me and the boys will finish the new album we started in October and it will be our best album ever. I want it to be the best album I have ever been a part of and I am willing to get totally out of the way of it to make that happen. if that makes sense. I know what it means. 
10. Develop more partnerships. This is really cool and interesting that in the last three days three separate friends of mine have shared with me this same resolution for themselves: acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses in everything that they are doing and develop partnerships with other people that can help fill their needs so their projects are more flowing, and I have been working on developing the same habit. stop trying to do it all yourself and get other like minded people on board. There's a great book I read last year called mentored by a millionaire that says that this is the number one thing successful people do. 
11. Along the same lines is the importance of delegating more. this is easier said than done sometimes. I have always been good delegating. But lately I haven't been doing it as much because of money, or the lack thereof really. There's tons of stuff we delegate already obviously. If we’re lucky we delegate our laundry and dry cleaning, our massages facials and nails of course, our food preparation when we eat out, etc... but I just want to kick it into overdrive and take it to a higher level. Delegate a shitload more so I can free up more time to do what I'm really good at and what I enjoy doing. True that.  
12. The TV show we started filming the last quarter of this year will get picked up by a major network. Everyone has worked so hard on it and we deserve to see it through. Plus, I got a chance this holiday while vacationing to catch a bunch of other reality shows on TV now and we have something really cool. Don't hate me, but I actually watched about five minutes of the nick and Jessica show a few days ago for the first time and for political reasons I won't say anything except ... we need to get our show on the air. And FAST. I'm not going to say it was every bit as stupid and inane and asinine as I thought it was going to be. I'm going to say it was ten times that. times infinity. 
13. I want to create a way to promote and celebrate GEEKNESS. I'm not sure exactly what I mean by this or how one would do it. But I can feel it. I think that our culture has gotten so totally out of hand with glitz and style and non-substance and hype and crap that we need more substance and authenticity thrown in there to balance things out a bit. [I think ashly simpson and her sister kind of sum it up pretty well... say no more...] We need to honor and celebrate our brains a bit more. and since I am so over the top stupid most of the time I may be the perfect candidate to try to bring some of that out into the mainstream. In other people of course. like if I can just be my cool self and interview smart people that would be cool. I can learn while other people learn watching me learn. That would be cool.
14. I will not use so many explanation points when I write from now on! Whoops. I mean, I wll not use so many explanation points when I write.  
15. Of course I will join a gym in nyc when I get back. haven't been working out the last six months or so and frankly I feel like shit. I live on coffee, sugar, and pizza and that's no way to live. so I will also make a conscious effort to get through this new anti-aging book by Gary null and really try my best to follow his advice. You should read this book and what he says about sugar and caffeine and processed foods. Its some scary shit. if I wasn't suffering from all the symptoms he says we do if we eat like that, I would quickly write him off. The problem is that everything he says we experience when we eat like shit is exactly how I feel. go figure. 
16. I will eat a lot more healthily. More organic, more free range, more whole foods, more natural foods.
17. I will focus less on being cool and more on being human. Whatever the hell that means, I can feel it and I will try. 
18. But on the other side of the equation, I will focus less on being so self conscious and allow myself to start dressing as creatively as I want to again. Like I used to. I think I got such a backlash for the sleep with you album from everyone that I went in to reaction from it and started getting really self conscious about how I was being perceived. Kind of closed up too much and wasn't allowing myself to be the full me for a while. too bad. But not anymore. I'm going to start getting back to dressing as gay and wild and freaky as I want to everyday again. 
19. I would say I will stop smoking so much, but just writing it makes me nervous. So I won't. 
20. I'm going to start a charity of some kind. Some kind of non-profit that gives back. the problem with this idea is that we already have enough non-profits in the world, so there doesn’t seem to really be a need for any more. But maybe I can find a void that needs filling and help fill it. I must say that recently finding out that over 30,000 people die of hunger a day really fucked me up. maybe I can help with that one...
21. I will resolve and finish all business with Cleopatra and get back to a balanced place with that situation.
22. As in one of the top ten tips of success by Donald Trump I will “get even” with all the people who fucked me or the band or any of my businesses this year. I have to say that when I first heard Donald recite his ten tips of success at a lecture I attended a few years ago, I cringed when he said that number seven was “get even” with people who fuck you over. I thought that was so unenlightened. Like revenge was only for mainstream idiots. But now after living such a fast paced lifestyle the last few years and seeing how easy it is for some people to fuck other people over if they think they can get away with it, I have come to a deeper understanding of why he has this as one of his top ten tips for success. He's not saying fuck them over; he's saying “get even.” Meaning, get back to an even playing field with them. So if that means suing them and taking it all the way to the bank to stand your ground and show them that they can’t take advantage of people just because life is fast paced and they figure you won't take the time to go after them... well then, that's worth it. just to “get even” and teach them a lesson. I think it also teaches us a lesson too. that we are bigger than that and won't take shit. makes us a bigger person and makes us more proud of who we are. So this will be the year we get even with a few folks. And I must say my body tingles at the thought of it. 
23. I would say that I will find my wife and get married because I would love to have a family, but that seems more like a fate thing, doesn’t it? and besides, is marriage really a goal in this day and age? I mean, this isn't the old days where you needed to find a wife and start having kids immediately for practical reasons... isn't the goal more to just connect with people and if you do happen to fall in love with someone then perhaps you decide then what to do about it. and really, in the bigger picture, I should be more concerned with just not being so shy and actually talking to girls rather than just talking back to the ones who approach me. that would be a better goal. To just not be so shy. That's a big joke amongst my friends, that I never talk to girls. I just wait for them to talk to me. But this is going to be the year that I start opening up more and actually approaching them as well. cross your fingers on this one. but on a deeper note, still have the goal of not goofing off too much. I don't want this new approach just to turn into a fuckfest like in times past. Still keep the light on for the one and not get too distracted. [o.k. I cheated, I've been sitting on these resolutions a few days now before sending them in to post, and I have thought more about this one. the truth is that my mom is right, God bless her. I should focus more on sowing my wild oats completely before I settle down to get married so I can really be there one hundred percent for my wife and family. Once you go for it, that's it. there's no going back in marriage. its not like school or work, where you can take a vacation for a few weeks. Imagine going up to your wife and asking her for time off to go fuck around with a Swedish cheerleading squad or for a few nights in a brothel in Amsterdam stoned off your ass on hash brownies in various positions in a few mad orgies. I mean, that would be one hell of a wife who would allow that. No, truth be told, these things need to happen first, before I get married. O.k. so I need to reset this resolution. The real resolution has to be something about taking the year to finish sowing the old wild oats. Just fuck like a madman. Just go crazy and fuck everything that moves. That should do it.]   
24. I will start signing more and more other artists to my record label. That is a feel good goal. Really juices me. how will we afford it? how will we make success with it? don't know. But it inspires me. In some cases I will take acts that I am passionate about, sign them to a shopping agreement and shop them to larger labels that can better meet their needs as artists if I feel that I can’t.
25. There is the infomercial project I am currently working on that has the potential to turn into millions. Will finish this project to completion and realize buku dinero from it. this work I don't like so much but its good money.
26. There is also the new business of playersearch.com that recently resurfaced out of the blue just from me thinking about it. will explore this puppy and see if there is some good action that can come out of it. I used to feel really weird about being a rock singer/artist AND a business man/entrepreneur at the same time. as if by being one or the other minimized the authenticity of the other identity. But now I feel that I have integrated both aspects of who I am and can make them both rock and get inspiration out of both. spent some time watching ‘where are they now’ and one thing I don't want is to be twenty years down the road and be a broke singer from a once not so famous or successful band. a person can open up to their true potential, can become big enough to encompass many aspects of who they are, not just one or two.  
27. And last but not least, we have a new album coming out in January. I would like it to do better than any other album we have ever released. More radio airplay, more positive press, more sales at retail and iTunes, more live shows and bigger live shows, and more money in every area coming our way. amen to this one. Fo schizzel. 
28. Also, something about experiencing more depth in my daily life, more godness, more soul, more ritual and more feel-goodness. This is important. How do I do it? hard to get close to nature in nyc. But there are the parks. Hard in winter to go in the parks. Its so fucking cold. Will find a way to get all this and more. need more soul and godness in my daily life. workaholic or not. Need to feel more fulfilled spiritually on a daily basis. 
29. Also, something about opening up even more and not living in fear or being guided by fear or hesitation as much. There is a fine line between being really open and free and just being an idiot who acts before he thinks things through. Have to find that balance so I can do and experience even more out of life but not be an idiot who doesn’t plan ahead. Allow, and this is the key word here, allow myself to open up more and not be so tight-assed. Let myself go a little bit more. Something like that. 
30. O.k. a few more I have thought about the last few days (I am writing from the future so this is actually possible – to add notes to new years resolutions of the past... heh heh.) I will spend less time focusing on social things, on friends and family things, during potential ‘business hours,’ during working time, and more time focusing on business, career advancing, and money making tasks. Too focused on friends and family all the time I am I believe. Need to hone in more on making shit happen. save the social stuff for night time.
31. Same thing with learning, studying, and research. I spend far too much time “working” when in fact what I am really doing is reading or studying or researching different things that interest me. I would be laughing now instead of just smiling if this weren't so damn true. But I have noticed for years that I could be right in the middle of some all important business task like reviewing proposed artwork for a new CD or new PR for a press release or something or even reviewing dates for a upcoming tour, and I'll just stop in the middle and start reading about Genghis Kahn on msn Encarta. an hour will go by and then it will be late and I'll be tired and be like “o.k. well that's enough for today. lets come back tomorrow.” and lo and behold I never got done what I told someone I was going to get done. So what should only take an hour or two usually takes me days or weeks. Cleopatra used to hate this. used to scream about it all the time. I'd be up in my office studying stocks or real estate or cloud formations when I was supposed to be doing the most simple of tasks instead. o.k. well at least I am on the outside of it now. at least I see that this is happening. I don't think I ever even noticed it before. I just could never figure out why I never got things done as fast as I wanted to. But I sure developed a large knowledge base about a lot of worthless things for better or worse. haha. 
32. I will not get ‘caught up’ on things as much and then delay the doing of them. this is about not thinking about things more and just doing them. hard to explain this one. but I can feel what it means. I will see something that needs to be done, and tackle it right then and there. the old ‘email inbox’ is a good metaphor for this tendency. I have messages in there that have things that I need to do in them that are from January 2002 still in my inbox. Crazy but true. from now on: see it, plan it or do it. delete it. period.
33. O.k. one more I thought of: be more watchful of spending money on different things, mainly business promotions or other offers that come in. So you don't get ripped off. Have contracts in place first. Have NDAs and CAs. Have agreements in place first that protect you. everyone talks a great talk when the deal is being made, but then if the shit hits the fan, which it always seems to after the money has changed hands, that way your ass is covered. 
34. Develop more partnerships. This is really cool and interesting that in the last three days three separate friends of mine have shared with me this same resolution for themselves: acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses in everything that they are doing anddevelop partnerships with other people that can help fill their needs so their projects are more flowing, and I have been working on developing the same habit. stop trying to do it all yourself and get other like minded people on board. There's a great book I read last year called mentored by a millionaire that says that this is the number one thing successful people do. 
35. Along the same lines: Delegate more. Delegate a shitload more so I can free up more time to do what I'm really good at and what I enjoy doing. True that.
36. O.k. one more. I will not be so needy. What does that mean? Well, I have an inbox and a voicemail filled with unanswered business proposals and messages from associates, family members, and friends and I feel no juice on this. that's just life. but if I don't get a timely response from someone when I reach out to them I freak out like a motherfucker. Always have. I take it really personally. Rather than just honoring the flow of life. I will accept and honor the flow of life more. that's it. 
37. Work more standing up, less sitting down, in front of the computer. More in the flow.
38. By the end of this year I will own enough positive-cashflow-producing properties that I will be able to support myself solely from the passive income.
39. Finish the Cult Brands and Overnight Celebrity: Welcome to the Personal Expression Age book main key-points (outline it only) and pass on to a ghost writer to finish. Sell the book to a publisher.   
40. Sell The Tribe goes to London script to a Hollywood studio. Outsource the writing now or once it’s sold, or just let them have it.

That should do it. Happy New Year everyone! 2005 will be the schizzel.

Last screening: Mean girls. This is my new favorite movie of all time. At least for tonight. mainly because I love Tina fey for some strange reason, I'm sure it’s the glasses. And Lindsey lohan... well...