Had dinner with the crazy Spaniard tonight. First really intellectual conversation since I returned to America. Not that intellectual is what you’re always looking for in conversation. Sometimes its good to just to talk of course. Every group you hang with offers you something different. But it was very nice. Lots of wine and sushi and talk of world affairs, matters of the heart, politics, etc etc.

She spent her summer in Spain and India. We both just got back. We shared horror stories of how depressed we found ourselves returning to Miami. She for over a week. Me, I got over it pretty quickly, and now I am just a walking living breathing depressed person. A cultured person will die here. A slow painful agonizing death. Like the frog in water that slowly comes to a boil. Where you are never quite sure what is wrong with you. You just know that you ‘feel weird’ and that you are unhappy. 

I am actually sick today. Legs hurt. Stuffed up. I think from the news about Cleo. Of course I have assured myself that I am moving soon. I found out that Cleo is moving back to Boca Raton. After I threw up a few times, I realized that there truly is no reason now for me to stay here. But I have so many good friends here and the boys in the band who I love dearly. And she and I haven't hung out in more than a year. We talk on the phone. Now we just don't see each other. We avoid each other. It is a particular situation I am in. Ferret wants his money. Has no idea why I even speak with Cleo. Thinks I should do the right thing. Do whatever it takes. I looked him in eye. ‘Dude. I gotta do what I gotta do. You ever been in love man?’ I ask. ‘Yea once. And look what fucking happened! That fucking bitch broke my heart!’ he screamed. He got his heart broken once; the only time he ever fell in love with a girl. ‘So get over it! Fuck love!’ classic Ferret. Anyone else would be shocked sometimes by the way he speaks to you. But I am used to it. I know in his heart he is one of the truest-blue people I have ever known.

So Cleo bails and I wander around Miami feeling like I don't know what. Like where am I... and who am I? And what the hell am I doing here? At least wait till the new new album is done that we are working on. How wonderful it is. How fucking magnificent it sounds. Each guy is just adding a little bit of his own magic. It's fucking stellar. So I'll stick around for that. A few indie labels are calling us now to ask about us. See if we want to sign with them. We are holding them off till we hear from some of the bigger ones. We like our own label. The scene right now in the industry is so down. Evcat, our entertainment attorney—her blond hair blowing in the California sun as she cruises down the boulevards in her shiny Mercedes convertible--constantly emails me how awful the industry is and how I shouldn’t want to go with the majors. Just stay indie, she tells me. Fine then give me a fucking Mercedes, a butler, an assistant, a maid, and a cook. And enough money to record all day long, and make love all night long. And I'll stay indie. I would just stay in my own little bubble if I could. Mr. Optimism. I still believe, you know. I like what we do. and I just want to get it out there. I've never made a cent with my music. Its always just cost me money. And time. And girlfriends. And my education. So what do I have to lose. When people tell me their horror stories about their major record label deals, I think, fine, they can have those ten songs. Shit man I write songs every day. to me that's not even a fucking commodity. Songwriting comes too easy for me. just give me some fucking money so I can buy more time to do what I love doing. So we’ll see. The phone lines are hot right now about sleep with you. I think we made a sweet little album. We’ll soon see.

So the crazy Spaniard is telling me at dinner how all these guys want to marry her and she was married for so long she just wants to have fun. Asks me if I'm the same way. I tell her my story. Again. She knows already. Did she forget? Tell her I'm ready to settle down. But I have to prepare for the Princess. I think of meeting the Princess everyday I tell her. God, every minute. Meeting her and traveling around the world together making love and having children. I'm old enough. Past old enough. I'm ready for it. But you know, there are a few things I want to do before I meet the Princess, so I am kind of on this mission to complete all these little fantasies so I can settle down with the Princess when I find her. I don't want to still have these fantasies after I am married. “What if you don't want to stop after you meet her?” she asks me. “Then it isn't her.” I answer. She begs me to tell her some of my fantasies. She starts drooling as I take a sip from my wine. Stares at me. do tell Fishy do tell me your fantasies...’

Talking to the artisan who assures me that I need to settle down...

“You know, guy stuff. Just very primitive hedonistic stuff. o.k. fine so I don't have HER yet so I'm going to do all that stuff that you always think about but won't be able to do once you are married. That way I get it out of the way. So it's fun. Maybe it's not all it's cracked up to be. That's what I walk away with sometimes. I thought of you cause the other night I went to this sex club way out west in the middle of nowhere. And I swear it was like something like 4 in the morning and I'm in this big hot tub room and it's almost completely dark and there are all these couples in there doing each other. And I'm lying there in this towel watching this girl I brought with me going down on this other girl with like two other girls and it was just a massive orgy. And me and this guy were sitting there smoking and talking and drinking... and he looks at me and casually says, “Man, normally my wife isn't such a carpet-muncher, but she's really going off on your wife...” I almost spit my drink out all over him. My wife? Oh yeah, my wife. I look over and it's just crazy, all these girls doing each other. Then later in the tub. Drunk, insane. Bodies everywhere. I don't even know who I was doing.... and it was cool and I'm glad I saw it, but it just made my heart long more... for a very strong pure true solid relationship. Interesting really... the way that happens. But yes I still have a few fantasies left. There are a few countries I haven't had sex with so I want to go ahead and do that. You know I don't want to be sitting in my garage someday when I'm married and older and think man I never made it with a Russian chick or a Chinese chick. So I need to do all those countries still. I think I only have like ten or so left really. I never did an Indian girl yet and I think that would be pretty interesting. What about you? You ever do an Indian?” “No Fishy, I haven't...”
 

Last screening: Igby Goes Down. Cool flick. Typical indie film where the young writer/director tries to be cool by glamorizing gratuitous sex, drug use, being a loser and a rebel, and hating your parents. But it almost works.

Current Spin: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. The last DJ. This could be his best album. his voice is weak but soulful. First six tracks are great. Really good songwriting. Can’t believe an album like this just got completely ignored. Unfucking believable sign of the fucked up state of the music scene. Right now we are experiencing the same thing we had back in early nineties when grunge ate the hair bands. Pop and rap are just too dominant now. Nelly, Eminem and 50 cent, God love ‘em are like the warrant winger and ratt of this generation. All the rage now and in a few years, giving interviews on vh1’s where are they now. 

Here's the deal. If everyone is saying they hate pop and rap so much, then why are they so popular in our culture? Eventually the seams will burst, the cup will overflow and people will get totally sick of it and something else will come along and change everything. it always happens. and that something will be rock and roll. That always happens. that's what rock is for. It’ll happen again. people thought it was going to happen with the whole Strokes, Hives, Vines, White Stripes thing. And it did a little. Didn't make a big dent. In fact, Coldplay made a much bigger impact. Wasn't enough to capture the mainstream. No. the new rock is going to have to be more than that. like the Beatles when they came out. Or the Sex Pistols. Or Led Zeppelin. Or Nirvana. And then rock will reign again. and save us all from these horribly embarrassing awards shows we have to watch the last few years that make our country look like we are a bunch of mindless materialistic sex crazed idiots. Someone sometime soon is going to bring some brains and soul back into the music world. Listening to tom’s new album tonight, you can hear how as an artist he just stays within the same style, doesn’t branch out much. And why this may be a big problem of his and other old time rockers’ to keep the attention of the mainstream. Amazing songwriting still. I love the album. no question. But he's playing that seventies rock style in the year 2003. like a bunch of one trick ponies. Still writing on a guitar in a regular tuning. Guitars soloing in pentatonic scales. Using pianos and organs. Kind of silly and predictable when you are up against other rock bands like u2 or the beck or the eels or Radiohead who are writing good songs too but really out there on the edge exploring sound. Someone like Elvis Costello who is in the same generation as Tom but who is always exploring and experimenting for better or worse. So rock is kind of dying because of this. it needs to get out and explore more.