Why we write

One of the shittiest days in recent memory to be sure. The Diaries are already causing a riot since I started posting them again and its been less than two weeks. Perhaps was not such a good idea. Problem with that conclusion is that they are already getting so popular again... the momentum building. The emails, the comments, the dialogues forming...

The YouTube experiment is now over and I believe I gathered a lot from it. A downright fascinating and engaging and educational and definitely a fun experiment. In one year I filmed roughly 350 movies, managed to edit and post about 90 of them, and just let them take off... I am now in the process of creating a summary report about what I learned from it. And everyday they still continue to teach me plenty, because they are still up and active and being actively viewed, rated, and commented on. So it IS a fascinating cultural experiment. The greatest joy – the secret giggle – coming from the fact that not only did I become almost instantly addicted to the process itself... which in itself says a lot about us as a society, but also in the irony in that they were ultimately a covert mass-cultural experiment. To see what was hot, what was not hot. What would take off, what would not take off. What people like, what they don't like. What they comment on, what they don't comment on. What gets viewed a lot, and what never gets viewed... all categorized and sorted based on keyword searches, comments, ratings, etc... again, fascinating.

But there was something about the art of WRITING – especially just blogging -- that I really missed. Especially since the writing that I am doing in the Transcendence Diaries is really just a massive book writing experiment in real time online for all the world to witness as it is being written... so one cannot really call it a “blog” – especially since we started posting them long before the word “blog” even existed and long before the first “blogging” website ever appeared... we had to create our own website and system for it... this was back in the year 2000.

“G2? I love your idea...
“Which one dog? I have so many,” he comments with this smirk on his face...
“The one about me posting my diaries online for fans, as I write my book in real time... it’s fucking brilliant... but how do we post all that? I mean what system are we going to use for this?”
“Good question my man. It is simple. You write them at night. Then email them to me before you go to bed. I then post them to this page I've created every morning. You see? It’s all in frames... It’s that easy. People log on to that page from a link on your band’s homepage.”
Just one twenty-mile long ass HTML page is how they started... day after day, month after month, and eventually year after year... what a long strange trip its been...

But now after a year and a half off from “posting” (I have still been writing – 250 pages written but not posted in the last year alone) we’re back and it feels great. Based on the immediate positive response I received when I started to post again I was excited by the new potential of it. that was until today...

What we WILL do is PUBLISH them as a book instead. Bunny is already grabbing large chunks of them in her off hours – what she calls “the nuggets” out of them – for certainly 2000 pages is just too much for a book... at least according to her. And what she plans on doing is just putting together one really exciting solid book with one or two main plots and themes and just focusing in on the major characters... And the irony is that this will end up being WORSE for those who are adamantly against them.... but at least create a small fortune for us all. So maybe all the fuss is for naught. Because I think in the end, people are willing to put up with some privacy exposed if they're profiting from it... who knows. Again, as with many things that I do, its an experiment. We will just have to wait and see...

We know this much though. Fishy does disappear suddenly. Whether he dies or not or how he dies or when he dies we may never know. Perhaps it is these very Diaries that kill him. Who knows...

So yes, the good old Transcendence Diaries are back... a source of never ending confusion, angst, and passionate arguments and heated debates since we started with the experiment way back in 2000 with the very first post. I don't know what's worse really... the Transcendence Diaries or the YouTube videos with me half clothed rambling incoherently for ten minutes about the most ridiculously controversial and irrelevant subjects. Both seem to cause problems...

So where to begin... after church today I was to have a strategy meeting with Catherine Darlington, mentor, advisor, patron of the arts, caretaker, dream creator, extremely disciplined and calculating business mind. One that Fishy needs desperately. I was to meet her exactly one block north of our church so no one would see me get in the car. Ever the prim, proper, elegant, well spoken, calm, demure, but demanding as all hell hostess, she lets me into the back of the limo as is her usual ride on our way to brunch to hammer a few things out and review my week’s activities and I casually mention to her that I have started posting to the Transcendence Diaries again and how I excited I was by the fact that we have hired illustrators to start illustrating all 179 characters and how amazingly cool that would be when it is all finished and up on the new site that Bloopy had created. A totally dynamic web2.0 near-graphic novel experience for the user. Fresh. Hot. New. Cool. Cutting edge.

Only she didn't think so at all. “What may I ask does this have to do with ANY of the other projects that you are dong right now darling?”
“Well it doesn’t exactly...”
“I didn't think so. So WHY are you doing it? Haven't you learned anything? How many times do I have to repeat the same things to you Fishy?! NO MORE NEW PROJECTS!”
“Well this isn't exactly a NEW project.... I mean, I've been doing it for a while now to be technically factual about it.... eight years to be precise.”
“You know EXACTLY what I mean Fishy. What does this have to do with your BOOK? What does this have to with your continuing Iran media campaign? What does it have to do with your consulting company or your band’s new albums coming out? What does it have to do with MAKING MONEY?! What is WRONG with you?”

I sat up in my seat and faced her. “Well Catherine, its just that this could be really big... you see.. not only are people really excited by the fact that I started posting to the Diaries again, but once we add the illustrations then we’re going to have this totally new thing happening that no one’s ever done before and....”

“We’ve been having this same conversation for a year and a half Fishy. I heard this same thing about the ebook. And about the barter company. And about the consulting company. And then about the pop-culture book and have you finished either of those projects? And then you're off to Iran! Out of the blue, you're off to IRAN! And then because of that trip you have to start two non-profit websites??!! And let’s not forget about the THREE albums that you have recorded and have still NOT released. And you're going to record another album with a fourteen year old kid now?

“Well actually he's fifteen... I mean, to be accurate...”
She turned to face me with one of the most stern looks I had ever seen coming my way before. “Fishy. I don't care how old he is. Don't be a smartass. The point is that you going off to record another album doesn’t make any logical sense when you have three already recorded and not on the market yet making you MONEY!
“Yeah that money thing is always a problem...” I mumbled.
“For whom? Perhaps that's the question we should be asking? And now you're back on this other book? Still haven't turned in the first chapter to your new book to the agent yet, no word on what’s happening with the Sundance Film Channel or Elle Magazine yet and I asked you that three times now, and you're spending how MUCH time BLOGGING???!!! Fishy you have to grow up and get it together or you're going to be living in the park.” She pointed out the window to Central park that was to our right as we were driving.

Catherine was right... again. I slumped in my plush leather seat and stared out the tinted window to my right... as usual... what was I going to say? On the one hand she was right. why WAS I starting a new project? Even though it is an old project? But still... why? Why NOW when I am right in the middle of another project that is worth so much more money? I mean, could it be true? Am I really retarded as Bunny and a few others tell me? Am I that dense and I just don't see it? I didn't know... all I knew was that I was really loving this whole new idea of the resuscitated Diaries and my whole life I always just followed whatever I was into in the moment based on whatever inspired me - knowing that I would always be successful with whatever I did... and my whole life smart and organized girls had always organized my life and my ideas in ways that always kept me safe and out of the streets and wealthy most of the time...

I looked over at Catherine. She was perfect. Totally out of my league. Her shoulders back, chest out, head up, nose in the air. My mind began to wander... I started imagining this commercial... the one we would use to advertise the third or fourth installment of my life-story... wherever we are now in this mammoth work, I'm not even sure... So I started commentating it out loud there in the back of the limo.... “Obligatory French-imported-chic-gay-guy stylist in New York City style haircut? Three-hundred and fifty dollars.” I looked down at her shoes... “Fifth Avenue Prada designed white snakeskin and bamboo mid heel platform slides? Six-hundred and ninety-five dollars. Imported Italian leather and gold Gucci handbag? One-thousand two-hundred and ninety-five dollars. Yelling at Fishy because you are a patron of the arts? Priceless.” I let out a big belly laugh. “Goddamn I'm funny.”

“Get out,” Catherine said quietly to me. “If you aren't going to take this seriously then get out.”

So I did what any normal sane thinking person does in a situation like that. I opened the car door at the next slow-down, jumped out of the car, lost my balance, fell down to the ground into a triple roll -- barreling down Fifth Avenue and 60th street and almost killed myself landing flat on my back in the middle of the street. “Well that was really smart,” I thought. “Way to go there pal.” I was lying flat out near the curb of Fifth Avenue out in the open for everyone in New York city to see. And just then my cell phone rang. People were staring at me from all four corners... probably wondering if I was alive or dead. I reached into my pocket and answered my phone. “Hello?”

“Fishy, its Sabine. How are you?”
“Oh hi Sabine. I'm fine. I'm good. how are you?”
“I'm o.k. I just got back. Where are you now? What are you doing?”
“Um well... not much really... I'm just sitting here... you know... working...”
“Fishy it sounds like you are outside... where are you?
“Uh yeah well I just stepped out to take a walk actually... I'm on the upper east side...”
“Good. Come over.” And she hung up the phone. That's Sabine in a nutshell.

“o.k. wow so this is going to be one of those days...” I'm thinking to myself. I sat up on the sidewalk so I wouldn’t get run over... And I did end up sitting there for a while contemplating whether or not to go to Sabine’s house or not... She had been on the road for a few days and we had not seen each other in weeks. Maybe months. I finally decided I might as well. I was in her neighborhood. But as soon as I got there I knew something was wrong.

Polite, uneasy hug. Less than a minute of small talk and then “Follow me please,” she motions to me with her finger and turns and starts walking into the office of her apartment and I followed her. She points to her computer screen and what do I see? Seventeen inches of full screen Transcendence Diaries up on her computer.... I swear to God I almost ran out of there... this just wasn't going to be my lucky day.

“Fishy what the FUCK is THIS?!” she screams.
“Holy shit! You're reading my diaries?!!!! You said you would never read my diaries!
“I never said such a thing! And besides I don't WANT to read your diaries!
“So why are you reading them? Woman you make no sense!”
“But everyone else DOES read them. How do you think I FEEL Fishy? With this shit up here?” “Poor Sabine? Poor Sabine?!!!” This is what you're doing with your life? Writing “poor Sabine”? Fuck you Fishy!” I was dumbfounded. I mean, I was really in shock. Felt like I got hit in the stomach by a two by four. Two in one day. Just too much. And all because of the Diaries and they'd been back up for what? A week? I mean, this was just too much...

“Sabine I don't know what to say. I'm back in the flow now... I'm writing again...
“I thought you had a book deal for some non-fiction book?
“Yeah that too... its coming along... but the Diaries are my life. You know that...”
“And evidently my life too! Bastard! How could you?!”
“Look Sabine! Just stop! I'm sorry. I cannot sit here and argue with you about every detail in my fucking book!
“It’s not a book! It’s a blog! And it’s online and everyone can read it! I don't want people reading about my personal life Fishy!
“Hold on... are you saying that if this WERE a book that you would feel differently?
“Well it would just be different...
“How?! How would that be different?
“Well for one thing you would be making more money from it... and...
“And what?
“And maybe then people wouldn’t log online to read it!”

“You don't think a book is gong to be read by people or be just as personal? It’s the same thing. Sabine! This IS a book. But you know me... I'm just coming at it from a different angle... from an unconventional angle... I'm writing a REAL BOOK but in real time online.... fifteen-hundred-fucking pages... gosh, now more like two thousand pages really...

“yes I know, you and your fifteen hundred fucking pages!” by now she was
crying... not crying as much as tearing... and that's the worst thing for me. Like, I would pretty much do anything to get a girl to stop crying. Especially a girl I love. And the thing about me is that I love every girl I've ever been with. You know, its some sort of glitch in my system... I never stop loving them.
“Sabine you know that Bunny has already started to grab chunks of the Diaries and she is now in the process of turning it INTO a book! O.k.? I already told you that a few weeks ago on the phone when you were in Omaha or whatever.
“It was Idaho you bastard!”
“O.k. Idaho. Whatever. You know what I mean though? I mean how are you going to deal with that? You KNEW this when we met! You knew all about the Diaries!”
“And I told you that I WOULD NOT BE in your BOOK! Or in your Diaries! Remember that? Remember that? I told you that. Period. Sabine not in the Diaries!”
“And I kept my freaking promise to you didn't I?! I haven't blogged in almost two years! I have left almost two freaking years out of Fishy’s life now in the Diaries, and why?! Because of YOU. Because you asked me not to write publicly about you. But YOU were in my life during those two years and YOU were all I wrote about mostly so it put me in a position where i couldn't post ANYTHING that i was writing! Take a look at those years... I post a few music videos and that's all... And as a writer I can tell you that it sucks...
"Well as a writer you can write about other things besides Sabine!"
"Sabine, no I can't. You see. That's the thing. I HAVE to write about you. It's already a mess... no one even knows you exist. Now if you do show up in the Diaries out of nowhere everyone is going to be so confused. And people want to read that stuff. They want to know what the hell happened during that time. I can’t just leave out two full years of his life!”
“You can’t blame that on me! That's because you were busy youtubing and filming yourself all the time you egomaniac!”
“O.k. I know.” I sort of laughed here. “ O.k. so that's true. But it was also for YOU. Because I told you that I wouldn’t write about you. And I didn't. Not a freaking word. It was like you never existed!"
“What do you call what I just read Fishy?! What do you call that? That WAS ABOUT ME!”
“Well that's because you told me that you would never read the Diaries! And plus we've been broken up for over a year. Almost two now. So I thought it was o.k. I really didn't think you'd mind.”
“Do you think I want to read about you and your other girlfriends?! How do you think that makes me feel? Huh?!”

“Sabine look around your apartment!!! You're a freaking artist yourself! Look at these books all over your house!!! Half this stuff is REAL!!!! Do you like these books????!!!” I picked up a giant hardcover coffee table book on the life of Picasso... “Do you LIKE Picasso? Because his life was REAL. o.k.? This stuff in this book is REAL. His various wives and mistresses and girlfriends and the phases of his art that were all inspired by these different women in his life... that is all REAL. Just like YOU are real. And you know what? You LOVE reading about the life of Picasso! So what am I supposed to do? Stop living my life?!”
“No! Just stop writing about it so the whole world can read it! Why don't you try that?!”
“But this is my life! Right here. This book! And you, and me, and everyone else, this is it!!! And you're asking me not to do my art and not to do my life. This is freaking crazy! You can’t ask that of me. I already have a year and half missing because of you and I just can’t take it anymore. I have to do it Sabine.”
“You WANT to do it. You don't HAVE to.” She was sniffling. Had stopped crying... “You could easily turn the last year and a half into a book that wasn't so personal and change everything around and not post them online and then I wouldn’t have to be in it.”
“Sabine there are things that I have written about us that I HAVE to post. They are just TOO good. Really good scenes. I've been reading them... really really good scenes...
“Like what? What have you written about?"
“Pretty much everything... I guess,” I confessed.
“And now you're going to post them?! What are you going to post? Our sex life?
“Well yeah, some of it. I mean there's some really good stuff in there from the last two years...”
“You are NOT going to post anything about our sex life Fishy! I forbid you! Like what? What are you thinking? Are you even thinking?! I'm a professional dancer Fishy! I am a public figure in the arts! And so are you! You cannot post shit about me and my sex life in your Diaries!”
“You know, o.k. look, just us, you know... and our dynamic and our attraction to each other and our sexual chemistry – I mean that's all really important stuff. You know... its revolutionary in the life of Fishy. It's big stuff.”
“You WILL NOT post anything about me online in regards to our sex life!” she stood up and lit a cigarette. I hate the smell of cigarettes. Especially in a closed room.
“How the fuck can you smoke and be a dancer?
“Baryshnikov smoked and he is the greatest dancer of all time! I can smoke! Fuck you! And you aren't going to write about our sex life online. Nor in a book. Period.”
“Well maybe just the virgin islands then... I mean that was an amazing moment in time... Do you remember that weekend?" [I closed my eyes for a moment and allowed myself to just look back at that weekend in my memory... it was one of those moments that you never forget... there was the night on the chaise lounge under the stars and moonlight... half awake, half asleep... time stopped.... two as one... how could i NOT write about it? I reopened my eyes and looked back at Sabine who was still sniffling...]
“I remember that we spent the whole weekend drinking and making love. And that it was beautiful. That's what I remember. And I remember that that is PERSONAL AND PRIVATE information. Not something for you to write about!” She sat back down and continued to tear and sniffle and to smoke her cigarette.

In that moment I just looked at her sitting there across the room from me... her tall thin frame twisted into a ball on the chair. So elegant and graceful still even though she was so angry with me. When girls get sad its kind of a turn on. I don't know why. Her olive skin. Her long dark curly hair. Her eyes all wet with tears... On the one hand I still find myself madly in love with her. It takes everything for me not to reach out to her, caress her, hold her, kiss her, and spend all night making love with her... how easy it would be... falling asleep... argument over... But I'm also just looking at her thinking I cannot believe we are having this conversation.

Not more than a month previously she had told me that the biggest money I was going to make was going to be when my memoirs finally came out in book form. That she was reading Eat Pray Love and that it made her think of me and how big my story would be, based on the Diaries... which is one of the reasons why I started in on this project again in the first place. From her advice!!!! From something that she said! It was just too ironic and twisted that we were sitting here arguing over something I wrote a week ago... and I was doing it based on her suggestion. A casual comment she had made. And now she was upset that I had taken her comment seriously and had started writing again.

I felt so exposed... how strange... you can have your diaries online and have that many subscribers and you're fine with it... because you don't know any of them, and if you do, they don't really talk to you about it anyway... they’re strangers...

But then when someone you know is sitting there reading your personal diaries right up there on their computer screen, you feel so exposed. Like it is this major invasion of privacy... It was something that just struck me as extremely odd. And funny. So I just let out this laugh – right in the middle of this very uncomfortable silence in the room...

“Why are you laughing?! Your such an asshole!”
“Sabine, can you please not use language like that? Why do you have to speak that way?”
“Why are you so self righteous that you are allowed to say whatever the hell you want to and I can’t? Why is that Fishy? Why aren't girls allowed to curse in front of you? Why can’t I say asshole? Huh? Asshole!” One has to remember that she still speaks with this Israeli accent so almost everything she says sounds cute and funny... even when she is serious...
“Sabine. Please. I'm serious. It's just gross. Trust me. English is not your native language so to you these are just words. But to me they strike a certain chord within me and it is not pleasing to my ears nor to my heart or stomach... Please. Just stop.”
“God, you're such an asshole Fishy. A dramatic asshole. Everything you do and say is such a contradiction!” I just sat there staring at her yelling at me. Time seemed to stop. The room got silent even though I could still see that she was still yelling at me... But I was reaching my breaking point by this time... I just wanted to leave. I couldn’t take another second of it. My insides felt so sick.

But at the same time I didn't want to abandon her either... I mean, just leave her there alone in her anguish and discomfort... it felt so unfair. So ungentlemanly-like. But the thing is I could never say anything like that to her because she is such a feminist she will think it is a chauvinist thing to say. And then she would just kick me out screaming at me. A strange situation. So I just tried to be with her and keep calming the situation down... what to do...

She was right though. My actions WERE affecting other people. I had never thought about that... well that's not true actually... I had thought about it... back in ’03 when we had to pull the Diaries down entirely for almost a full year. That was back when I was still writing with real names. My real name, Fishy, but also everyone else’s real name... it had turned into a nightmare. I couldn’t go anywhere anymore without people referring to what I was writing in the Diaries... At the time we only had 650 pages online. But we pulled them all down... Because the truth of the matter was they were affecting other people negatively... It was a real invasion of their privacy...

It took me almost a year to figure out what to do... I kept writing privately but not publicly... and for some strange reason it was killing me... I needed a solution... I had to figure out some new plan for them.... after almost a year of contemplating the matter we finally came up with the idea to incorporate the real life Transcendence Diaries into the semi-fictional book The Adventures of Fishy and make them one singular gigantic entity. I will never forget the moment I got the idea... it was dusk. The sun was setting... I was standing out in a parking lot on my phone with Princess Little Tree pacing in the parking lot back and forth trying to come up with some solution to the Transcendence Diaries dilemma... it finally occurred to me right there on the phone with Princess Little Tree...

The plan was that I would sit down for two solid weeks at my parent’s house over the Christmas holidays – I must have smoked 30 cigars out there on their back porch -- and edit all 650 pages - changing everyone’s name and image and face and personality to protect their identity. What a task. But I finished it in less than two weeks and the Diaries were back online.

So yes... I HAD experienced this before. I just forgot... But what Sabine didn't realize and even Catherine didn't understand is that the Diaries are my therapy. Sabine was busy reading each and every entry... analyzing who was who, what was said about who and all that... like she really believes they are real... but by the time I post them I totally forget about what I even wrote. It just flies out of my head. For me its over then. It means nothing. Its like some sort of voodoo therapy for me.... Some true. Some not true. Who knows.... To me it’s just writing... it’s a drug. It just has absolutely nothing to do with anything that you can sit down and analyze from a personal perspective anymore than anything else that happens in life... because in the end it is all just the human condition... the human experience... and we can’t spend our lives analyzing every detail that happens in our lives. We have to move forward. For me, writing the Diaries has been my way of getting beyond the past and constantly stay moving forward.

I could never imagine going back and reading any of it. I already told my agent “Look, I am really psyched that you are so into the Transcendence Diaries and The Adventures of Fishy projects, but you know that project isn't really going to be something I'm gonna be into... I would love if you guys take it and edit it all down and turn it into one big story with a narrative ark and all that... but that's not going to be my thing. Four or five thousand pages of memoir? No way. I'm just not interested. I'll keep writing and you just grab whatever you want and take it and publish what you want out of it and I'll trust you. And hey if we make some money even better. But for me its all about the NOW when I am writing and then baby the thrill is gone.”

And you know, that's the way good therapy should be really. In the end, if you forget what you are writing about, then that means you did your job. You exorcised those demons. They're gone. You never go back and look for demons...

Maybe one day Sabine will realize that. She didn't that night. I left her apartment a heaping mess of tangled flesh and emotion and angst and sadness and self loathing... Her too. But the following day we sort of worked it out... texting each other back and forth what we had learned about ourselves from thinking about it... I learned. She learned. That's life. I mean, why write? That's why we write isn't it?