I am so lucky in the family I have now. today I toasted everyone at breakfast, explaining that I live a very fast paced and crazy lifestyle, all flash and hype and sex and drugs and rock and roll and all that other stuff that we love to hate and hate to love so much, but that I appreciate everyone sooooo much for who they are and that I am so lucky to have them as my family. My life is not all bad, I admit; it could certainly be worse. But its stressful, and its very unreal. Not very substantive in a lot of ways. Beav and I talked about it last night in the car on the way home, how different our lifestyles are. He wondered how I looked at his life through my eyes. he thought that I must think its horrible and boring, but I told him I admired it. He told me how much he admired the life that I live. How he lives vicariously through me. “dude you’ve been all over the world. singing and playing concerts and studying and adding to that collection of girls...” “Dude this year I had Italian, Indian, Syrian, and Turkish and that's not counting the professionals.... ha ha...” ““You're sick man. You’re a freak. Don't tell mom that. you know how she hates that. But that's what I mean. You go liiiiiiive in these foreign countries and sit in classrooms and learn their languages just because you fucking feel like it. I don't think I have the balls for that but I envy it. A lot. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything but I wish that I was living that way sometimes....’
“Well I wish that I was living the way you live bro. You’ve been married to the same girl for what? ten years. and you still are in love with her. although I can’t see how...” “Shut up man.” “Dude I'm only kidding. But I love the way you live. I want that so much for myself. you have two beautiful daughters and you have an awesome corporate job with an endless expense account. Every time I call you you're eating steak and drinking expensive wine. That's the life. You're making six figures a year and you're the boss of how many people? a hundred or something crazy like that and most of those people are in their fifties? and you're barely thirty years old? Dude I fucking love that. You did it. that's the American dream. And you did it.” “I'm blessed bro,” Beav tells me. “and so are you man. You know how many people would love to live the life that you live? Your only responsibility is to write songs and record albums and write in those freaky diaries of yours. And you get paid to do it. you read anything you want to read and bag all those babes. I'm going to do that in my next life man.... I'm coming back as you.” “well I'm going to live your life in my next lifetime bro. I wish I was doing it now actually. I'm tired Beav. this lifestyle is hard. Its hard on the soul man. You know what I mean? The pressure, the loneliness, the stress, the schedule, the weird hours, the people who say one thing but mean another...” “I know. I can only imagine bro. I think about you a lot. You suffer me. I worry about you. too often. I don't know how you live so crazy. no family and no schedule and no routine. Don't you get lonely?” “yeah man. Why do you think I come hang out with you guys two or three times a year? I don't think a person could live the kind of life I live without having a homebase like I have with you guys without going insane. But I try to keep a schedule for myself. That's why I go to an office everyday when we aren't on the road. what kind of fucking singers have offices? Everyone always asks me that. But that's my way of trying to live a semi-normal life. you dig?” “Yeah I figured that...”
“You guys are my foundation. You're what keeps me alive and stops me from going crazy. you know how many people in my industry are fucking totally over the edge? I am so lucky I have you guys as a foundation to always come home to when I need to.” “I would guess a lot of people in your industry don't have that kind of thing to fall back on.” “They don't man. Some do. But a lot don't. and they're fucked up. and they still do a lot of drugs and drink a lot and you can see how unhealthy they are when you're hanging with them. not just in their body but also in their minds and hearts. You can see how they don't have that foundation underneath them. why do you think so many of them die or fade away at such a young age. They have this cynicism that is unbearable to be around if you are a happy person. not that I don't have it sometimes but you know, overall, I'm pretty happy...” “You are pretty cynical bro.” “Yeah I know, but not in that way. I'm just cynical about the things that we’re supposed to be cynical about. Like government and religion. Anyway, every year some rocker dies and those are just the famous ones that we hear about. probably a lot more die that we never hear about. that's rock and roll. that's why I come hang out with you guys every year. to remind me what its all about. and so I don't fucking die frankly. I may talk a lot about not believing in religion and the government and all that, but you notice that I don't mind going to church with you guys on Christmas.” “I notice it.” “yeah man. I dig it. I hate it because I long for us to get more truthful, you know?” “Yeah I dig what you're saying bro.” “But I want to believe. I see the benefit in it. I see how happy you guys are. I wish I could be more like that. I envy that kind of innocence. I wish I didn't know everything that I know sometimes honestly. It would be easier. When you live a worldly life you discover so much more. Its hard to come back down and just live the blind life.” “we’re not blind bro.” “You know what I mean man. You just choose not to pay attention to anything important.” “We choose to pay attention to things that are important to us... Like our family and our jobs. those things are important. You just don't know that yet, because you have neither.” “Ouch. O.k. whatever man. I have a job. And I have a family.” “But you know what I mean... you think because we aren't out in the streets protesting to save the fucking forests that we aren't smart... but we are. we keep track of what's going on in the world. maybe just not as much as you freaks. But I wouldn’t want to be so informed as you and the people in your world. I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I would just want to kill myself.” “My point exactly bro. that's what I'm saying... I'm not trying to offend you. I'm just saying you learn too much about the way things really are when you travel the world and that jades you... you see the way things really are and you can’t go back.”
“I know man. I'm with you bro. I know what you know. But I just choose not to think about it. I can’t. I have two babies to think about and my wife. I can’t think about those things.” “I know man. And you shouldn’t. because once you start learning this shit you can’t go back. you can never go back into the mainstream once you get to the other side and see how things really are. Its fucking impossible. I don't care how much you want to. You're always going to be on the outside looking in and wondering if you stepped out too far... wondering how to get back in without a lobotomy...” “You ever think you're going to get back in?” “No bro. not a chance. I'm too far gone now. way too far gone. But I don't mind. I like where I'm at.” “But you're not lonely?” “Dude you'd be surprised how many people are out on the edge of the mainstream now. its not just the lone freaks anymore. There's so many people now who are just fucking sick of the fake real world that the real world has turned into. So they’re out there on the edge of it all creating new worlds for themselves. Its awe inspiring.”
Friday, December 31, 2004
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Today it was announced that the death toll from the earthquakes and the tsunami in Asia has now reached over one hundred and ten thousand. 110,000 people dead in five minutes. Unbearable. Is there any meaning to our lives at all? is the only meaning that WE are alive and THEY are dead? Is that all there is to US? WE who are alive versus THOSE who are not? When I saw the headline on the newspaper I did not feel sad that these people were dead. Because I didn't know them. and I did not feel happy that I was still alive. I just stared at it numbly sipping a cup of Starbucks and wondered if all the meaning in the world came down to just ‘us the living’ versus ‘them the no longer living.’ If I was saddened by anything it was this thought. No higher power to console us or to help us understand or to explain the meaning of any of it to us. just day after day in a giant mystery while we are still alive. And absolutely nothing for those who are not alive. We bury the dead in boxes under the ground I thought. We remember them sometimes. But they no longer exist. Their bodies decay and turn to skeletons. And soon they turn to ashes. And soon they are forgotten entirely.
I thought of my own grandparents who have been dead for almost ten years now. they are both buried in boxes under the ground in a cemetery in Boca Raton, FL. why? we haven't visited them in years. although we have pictures of them when they were alive all over the house. but they, their actual bodies, are just skeletons lying in a box buried underground. Horrifying.
When I pass by cemeteries when on the road I look at all the hundreds of tombstones knowing that we don't have nearly enough land in our country or anywhere in the world to place all the dead bodies of people who have come before us in graveyards and cemeteries. America is a young country so we still have plenty of cemeteries. So its not something we think about. we just keep burying people. But even the idea of this – that our gravesite will last forever -- is a myth that we just talk ourselves into. eventually the dead will have to be moved in order to make space for the living. We can’t have a whole continent filled with graveyards full of dead people because people who are still living need places to live.
There is the story, the reality, that in Paris they encountered such a shortage of space due to so many graveyards and cemeteries, I believe this was in the 1900’s, that they just dug all the dead people up and threw their remains in some cavern underneath the city so they could make room to build more housing for living people. you can go underground still there and look at the skeletons and skulls just randomly thrown about. hundreds of thousands of forgotten dead people. the same thing will happen to us one day in America. We don't want to think about that but it is inevitable. It will happen here one day. But luckily we won't be around to see it happen to us. But it will happen. there is only so much space to bury dead people.
I thought of my own grandparents who have been dead for almost ten years now. they are both buried in boxes under the ground in a cemetery in Boca Raton, FL. why? we haven't visited them in years. although we have pictures of them when they were alive all over the house. but they, their actual bodies, are just skeletons lying in a box buried underground. Horrifying.
When I pass by cemeteries when on the road I look at all the hundreds of tombstones knowing that we don't have nearly enough land in our country or anywhere in the world to place all the dead bodies of people who have come before us in graveyards and cemeteries. America is a young country so we still have plenty of cemeteries. So its not something we think about. we just keep burying people. But even the idea of this – that our gravesite will last forever -- is a myth that we just talk ourselves into. eventually the dead will have to be moved in order to make space for the living. We can’t have a whole continent filled with graveyards full of dead people because people who are still living need places to live.
There is the story, the reality, that in Paris they encountered such a shortage of space due to so many graveyards and cemeteries, I believe this was in the 1900’s, that they just dug all the dead people up and threw their remains in some cavern underneath the city so they could make room to build more housing for living people. you can go underground still there and look at the skeletons and skulls just randomly thrown about. hundreds of thousands of forgotten dead people. the same thing will happen to us one day in America. We don't want to think about that but it is inevitable. It will happen here one day. But luckily we won't be around to see it happen to us. But it will happen. there is only so much space to bury dead people.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Still finding myself obsessed with a quiet secret subtle and almost constant gnawing at my insides about the unbearable sadness of how impermanent everything is. It creeps up on me throughout the day and I have to fight back the feeling of hopelessness when I start to think about how temporary everything in our lives is. Our lifetimes are short here. Our day to day experiences are memories before we even have the chance of taking each of them in. one minute we are having a good time and in the next moment it is a new day and we barely remember the events of the day before. It is a horrible and haunting understanding that sits in the back of my mind at all times.
I remind myself that it is up to me to find meaning while I am here. I try to live my life to its fullest and even then I cannot shake the deep underlying knowing that they are all just moments lived and then soon forgotten. Where is the meaning in that? Where is there meaning in anything if it is all just going to become a memory, never to exist again? Or worse even, soon not even a memory, because we tend to forget things so easily. I cannot shake the horror of it. why live at all? that's what always comes up for me. Why are we living in the first place if each day is just going to drift on into the non-existent past?
There is absolutely no way to retrieve the past. Each day of our lives is lost to the next, and if that weren't horrible enough, that day is also lost to the one that follows it. we are just floating inside of this thing called life. just riding in it like passengers in a stranger’s car; with very little control and even less control of how we process it or how much of it we are able to remember.
Now this does remind me of a few things. Beav’s wife and sister Lollie, two of the most mainstream good old American girls you'd ever want to meet have been scrapbooking all their lives. So they can pull out a book from just about any time in their lives and show you pictures of their former selves and their friends and family members. This is a nice attempt at salvaging our ever fleeting lives and memories. But a futile exercise. If there is ever a fire in their home or a flood or a war or any other disaster their scrapbooks will be destroyed in a heartbeat.
And worse even, in time the scrapbooks will be close to meaningless anyway. As they pass on and their children get older and then their children become older these scrapbooks will become less and less useful or important or meaningful. eventually they will be forgotten or tossed into a box or thrown away. and their lives, the lives of my two beautiful sisters in law will be entirely forgotten, like myself and my brother Beav and my mom and everyone else I know now. that's just life. and it suffers me greatly.
I have found myself less and less interested in day to day conversations because I have come to understand how utterly pointless they are. In less than a few hours they will be forgotten. When the family gathers around the table to bs and have fun and hang out and talk and all that, I find myself obsessing on how futile and pointless it is to be there talking shit and hanging out. after all, in a few years someone will get divorced and we won't be hanging out anymore, or someone else will die or even if that doesn’t happen, eventually we all will be dead and won't even be a memory to anyone at all. so instead I sit and stare at everyone laughing and listen to their ultimately meaningless diatribes and wonder why we all even bother to talk to each other at all.
I remember rummaging through some boxes at the goodwill and finding these boxes of all these families belongings. Baby clothes and framed pictures of people and photo albums and trinkets. And I felt so devastated by the experience. I sat there staring at the photo albums wondering who these people were and how all of their personal belongings ended up at a goodwill store. Were they all dead now? was there a divorce and one of the parents gave away all their stuff? were the people in the framed pictures still alive? Did they know that their stuff was being rummaged through by strangers everyday and was for sale? Where are these poor souls now who framed these meaningless photographs?
I remind myself that it is up to me to find meaning while I am here. I try to live my life to its fullest and even then I cannot shake the deep underlying knowing that they are all just moments lived and then soon forgotten. Where is the meaning in that? Where is there meaning in anything if it is all just going to become a memory, never to exist again? Or worse even, soon not even a memory, because we tend to forget things so easily. I cannot shake the horror of it. why live at all? that's what always comes up for me. Why are we living in the first place if each day is just going to drift on into the non-existent past?
There is absolutely no way to retrieve the past. Each day of our lives is lost to the next, and if that weren't horrible enough, that day is also lost to the one that follows it. we are just floating inside of this thing called life. just riding in it like passengers in a stranger’s car; with very little control and even less control of how we process it or how much of it we are able to remember.
Now this does remind me of a few things. Beav’s wife and sister Lollie, two of the most mainstream good old American girls you'd ever want to meet have been scrapbooking all their lives. So they can pull out a book from just about any time in their lives and show you pictures of their former selves and their friends and family members. This is a nice attempt at salvaging our ever fleeting lives and memories. But a futile exercise. If there is ever a fire in their home or a flood or a war or any other disaster their scrapbooks will be destroyed in a heartbeat.
And worse even, in time the scrapbooks will be close to meaningless anyway. As they pass on and their children get older and then their children become older these scrapbooks will become less and less useful or important or meaningful. eventually they will be forgotten or tossed into a box or thrown away. and their lives, the lives of my two beautiful sisters in law will be entirely forgotten, like myself and my brother Beav and my mom and everyone else I know now. that's just life. and it suffers me greatly.
I have found myself less and less interested in day to day conversations because I have come to understand how utterly pointless they are. In less than a few hours they will be forgotten. When the family gathers around the table to bs and have fun and hang out and talk and all that, I find myself obsessing on how futile and pointless it is to be there talking shit and hanging out. after all, in a few years someone will get divorced and we won't be hanging out anymore, or someone else will die or even if that doesn’t happen, eventually we all will be dead and won't even be a memory to anyone at all. so instead I sit and stare at everyone laughing and listen to their ultimately meaningless diatribes and wonder why we all even bother to talk to each other at all.
I remember rummaging through some boxes at the goodwill and finding these boxes of all these families belongings. Baby clothes and framed pictures of people and photo albums and trinkets. And I felt so devastated by the experience. I sat there staring at the photo albums wondering who these people were and how all of their personal belongings ended up at a goodwill store. Were they all dead now? was there a divorce and one of the parents gave away all their stuff? were the people in the framed pictures still alive? Did they know that their stuff was being rummaged through by strangers everyday and was for sale? Where are these poor souls now who framed these meaningless photographs?
Monday, December 27, 2004
God
We are in Taos, New Mexico now to try out the infamous slopes of Angelfire for a few days. The mountains here are huge, up to 13,000 feet in some places; the runs can take a half hour to go down because they are so long and rambling. The views of the mountains and valleys below are breathtaking.
Every time I would fall, or even when I would sit down to take a rest, I would take the opportunity to just look up at the clouds in the sky and listen to myself breathe, or to stare out at the beautiful vista of the snow covered towns far below us. you could see for miles from almost anywhere on the mountains. Snowboarding is not just a sport. It is a meditation.
I have not talked on the phone in about five days now nor checked email. I think it’s a record. And I feel great. It is very liberating and I find that I am still at the stage of the vacation where when I think of going home or talking on the phone or watching the news or checking email I start getting this feeling of dread swell up in me. so I am just totally hibernating. Trying not to think about anything at all actually. Just trying to stay afloat in each moment.
At one point while laying in the snow I thought about everything with Juliet and how after our meeting there seemed to be this strange kind letting go. an exhale. Again, still a little dumbfounded by the whole experience. I thought about the strange almost miraculous series of coincidences and synchronistic events that took place all around us and regarding us. Our parallel dreams, our dreaming in stereo, and so many more things and wondered how it could all mean nothing... I thought about that one night when I was praying and had said to God/spirit that I was going to drop the whole thing because the signs were not clear enough, and then the next day I get this email from Juliet saying she had dreamed that she was walking down the aisle getting married and it was me she was marrying... now in all honesty I took this to be a kind of sign from the universe if you will. but today or yesterday I don't remember I reflected on it more and realized that through my own thoughts that it could be highly probable that I had created that myself, that we co-created it together. that God was not so much a someone or a something that was in control of things as much as a power that we wield. All on our own. God must be something that we have the power to wield through our mind energy rather than some conscious being that exists outside of us.
Of course I wanted to believe that this strange synchronistic occurrence had a deep meaning and was a sign from a higher power. but lets be honest here, it wasn't. what it was instead was a sign that I was able to create this event from my own consciousness. And because Juliet was game, because we were so plugged into one another, it was an easy thing to have happen. concentrate enough on anything without secondaries and you can manifest all sorts of seemingly miraculous events.
As terrifying as the thought may have the potential to be – a godless God, a God not in control, but rather being controlled, by us, and who knows, perhaps by others as well --- I found comfort in the thought. It certainly makes more sense. Is easier to swallow. In fact, if you step far away enough away from the way we were and still are all raised here in earth in this kind of monotheistic ‘God exists and is the ruler of all mankind’ sort of ideology that has been so prevalent in our history for so many thousands of years, this other idea upon closer inspection seems much more probable ---- that God is not a God at all, but more of a unified force that is indeed responsible for life and death as we know it --- we got that part right, but it is a workable pliable force that we can breathe into and latch onto and can use at our own discretion. For good and evil. I mean that part at least seems much more likely. For certainly if there is anything close to a God or a force of any kind in the universe one would not be very successful in arguing the case that he/she/it is all good any more than he/she/it is inherently all bad.
Every time I would fall, or even when I would sit down to take a rest, I would take the opportunity to just look up at the clouds in the sky and listen to myself breathe, or to stare out at the beautiful vista of the snow covered towns far below us. you could see for miles from almost anywhere on the mountains. Snowboarding is not just a sport. It is a meditation.
I have not talked on the phone in about five days now nor checked email. I think it’s a record. And I feel great. It is very liberating and I find that I am still at the stage of the vacation where when I think of going home or talking on the phone or watching the news or checking email I start getting this feeling of dread swell up in me. so I am just totally hibernating. Trying not to think about anything at all actually. Just trying to stay afloat in each moment.
At one point while laying in the snow I thought about everything with Juliet and how after our meeting there seemed to be this strange kind letting go. an exhale. Again, still a little dumbfounded by the whole experience. I thought about the strange almost miraculous series of coincidences and synchronistic events that took place all around us and regarding us. Our parallel dreams, our dreaming in stereo, and so many more things and wondered how it could all mean nothing... I thought about that one night when I was praying and had said to God/spirit that I was going to drop the whole thing because the signs were not clear enough, and then the next day I get this email from Juliet saying she had dreamed that she was walking down the aisle getting married and it was me she was marrying... now in all honesty I took this to be a kind of sign from the universe if you will. but today or yesterday I don't remember I reflected on it more and realized that through my own thoughts that it could be highly probable that I had created that myself, that we co-created it together. that God was not so much a someone or a something that was in control of things as much as a power that we wield. All on our own. God must be something that we have the power to wield through our mind energy rather than some conscious being that exists outside of us.
Of course I wanted to believe that this strange synchronistic occurrence had a deep meaning and was a sign from a higher power. but lets be honest here, it wasn't. what it was instead was a sign that I was able to create this event from my own consciousness. And because Juliet was game, because we were so plugged into one another, it was an easy thing to have happen. concentrate enough on anything without secondaries and you can manifest all sorts of seemingly miraculous events.
As terrifying as the thought may have the potential to be – a godless God, a God not in control, but rather being controlled, by us, and who knows, perhaps by others as well --- I found comfort in the thought. It certainly makes more sense. Is easier to swallow. In fact, if you step far away enough away from the way we were and still are all raised here in earth in this kind of monotheistic ‘God exists and is the ruler of all mankind’ sort of ideology that has been so prevalent in our history for so many thousands of years, this other idea upon closer inspection seems much more probable ---- that God is not a God at all, but more of a unified force that is indeed responsible for life and death as we know it --- we got that part right, but it is a workable pliable force that we can breathe into and latch onto and can use at our own discretion. For good and evil. I mean that part at least seems much more likely. For certainly if there is anything close to a God or a force of any kind in the universe one would not be very successful in arguing the case that he/she/it is all good any more than he/she/it is inherently all bad.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
It is 4:30 AM mountain time. In Santa Fe, NM now for a few days of snowboarding with some of the family. Small slopes here but good times. Getting away from everything. re-charging.
Today on the slopes I met the most amazing girl. Her name is Sonia. I am in her hotel room now. She is asleep and I am typing in her bed. She is from the Ukraine. She is going to school at university of phoenix in Albuquerque of all places because she has family here. We spent all day boarding and talking about world politics. especially that election craziness going on right now. She is all porcelain white skin and beautiful blond hair. We fell in love from the first minute we started speaking to each other. there is absolutely nothing like making love to regenerate you and make you feel alive again and glad all over, to coin a phrase. I am so high right now from it that I can’t sleep. Just will sit here and type for a while.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Taos for bigger slopes, so I will leave Sonia in the wee hours unfortunately. But I will try to hook up with her later in Albuquerque in a few days. She is precious. And her accent makes it sooooo much more exciting. What a way to end the year. After finally conquering the middle east this year, I manage to invade Eastern Europe just barely before the year is out. So I am very happy indeed.
Last screening: And the band played on, the HBO documentary about the AIDS epidemic and how the government didn't pay any attention to it till it had killed over 25,000 people because they thought it was a ‘gay disease.’ So they didn't take it seriously and tried to ignore it. even when straight people started dying from it due to blood transfusions, they kept trying to brush it under the carpet. I had met this professor of ethics at NYU just before I left and he gave me a list of documentaries to rent before we met again if we were going to do an interview. This was one of them. the primary question he deals with in his class with his students is what causes people to act the way they do when they are in obvious ethical error, as was the case with the American governments refusal to acknowledge or help the aids crisis. Great movie. Really blows you away. when aids first hits you have these guys at the CDC (center for disease control), a governmental agency that is supposed to protect us from life threatening diseases running around screaming to the Reagan administration that they need money for research and warning how bad the disease could be, and the government refused to give them any money to even research it. they just blew it off and called it ‘the gay cancer.’ The first case showed up in 1980 and they didn't get money for it till 1985. I swear to God you can’t believe it. Christian ministers were getting on TV and saying that it was gods punishment to gay people for disobeying gods laws and all that. crazy stuff. real backwoods. It was finally the private sector that pitched in and started trying to raise money to help fight the disease. People like Elton John and Liz Taylor and Madonna raised awareness and millions of dollars while the Reagan admin sat on their asses and tried to pretend it wasn't happening. Meanwhile we were losing thousands of people a week to the disease.
Today on the slopes I met the most amazing girl. Her name is Sonia. I am in her hotel room now. She is asleep and I am typing in her bed. She is from the Ukraine. She is going to school at university of phoenix in Albuquerque of all places because she has family here. We spent all day boarding and talking about world politics. especially that election craziness going on right now. She is all porcelain white skin and beautiful blond hair. We fell in love from the first minute we started speaking to each other. there is absolutely nothing like making love to regenerate you and make you feel alive again and glad all over, to coin a phrase. I am so high right now from it that I can’t sleep. Just will sit here and type for a while.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Taos for bigger slopes, so I will leave Sonia in the wee hours unfortunately. But I will try to hook up with her later in Albuquerque in a few days. She is precious. And her accent makes it sooooo much more exciting. What a way to end the year. After finally conquering the middle east this year, I manage to invade Eastern Europe just barely before the year is out. So I am very happy indeed.
Last screening: And the band played on, the HBO documentary about the AIDS epidemic and how the government didn't pay any attention to it till it had killed over 25,000 people because they thought it was a ‘gay disease.’ So they didn't take it seriously and tried to ignore it. even when straight people started dying from it due to blood transfusions, they kept trying to brush it under the carpet. I had met this professor of ethics at NYU just before I left and he gave me a list of documentaries to rent before we met again if we were going to do an interview. This was one of them. the primary question he deals with in his class with his students is what causes people to act the way they do when they are in obvious ethical error, as was the case with the American governments refusal to acknowledge or help the aids crisis. Great movie. Really blows you away. when aids first hits you have these guys at the CDC (center for disease control), a governmental agency that is supposed to protect us from life threatening diseases running around screaming to the Reagan administration that they need money for research and warning how bad the disease could be, and the government refused to give them any money to even research it. they just blew it off and called it ‘the gay cancer.’ The first case showed up in 1980 and they didn't get money for it till 1985. I swear to God you can’t believe it. Christian ministers were getting on TV and saying that it was gods punishment to gay people for disobeying gods laws and all that. crazy stuff. real backwoods. It was finally the private sector that pitched in and started trying to raise money to help fight the disease. People like Elton John and Liz Taylor and Madonna raised awareness and millions of dollars while the Reagan admin sat on their asses and tried to pretend it wasn't happening. Meanwhile we were losing thousands of people a week to the disease.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
In Albuquerque, NM. Hanging with the fam for the holidays; everyone flew into Albuquerque because the Rat’s grandparents are getting older and they live here. so it was a huge family reunion for Beav’s wife’s family. For me, more of just a reminder of what I want my own family to be like when I get married and have kids and grandkids. Just from this one couple, these two people we call ‘the grandparents,’ there are four kids plus their spouses and second spouses, eight grand children, and five great grand children. So the house is just filled with people. I love that. I hope my future wife will be into having lots of kids. In a cool way of course, I mean, I don't know if everyone thinks this before they have kids, but we don't want to lose our coolness like a lot of people do. But it would be nice to have a big family gathered around you when you are older.
The five nieces have all gotten another year older. Because everyone wants to be together for Christmas we have managed to squeeze ten people into a little three bedroom two bath house. nice and cozy. Good family times.
Current read: the Urantia book. This is some crazy reading. 2000 pages allegedly all about God and the universe and about the early life of Jesus. No opinion yet. will dig in and take note.
Last screening: Oceans 12. lots of star power. but a story so devoid of plot or dialogue that you are left wondering if you really went to the movies or if you just sat through a two hour preview.
The five nieces have all gotten another year older. Because everyone wants to be together for Christmas we have managed to squeeze ten people into a little three bedroom two bath house. nice and cozy. Good family times.
Current read: the Urantia book. This is some crazy reading. 2000 pages allegedly all about God and the universe and about the early life of Jesus. No opinion yet. will dig in and take note.
Last screening: Oceans 12. lots of star power. but a story so devoid of plot or dialogue that you are left wondering if you really went to the movies or if you just sat through a two hour preview.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Wonderful day hanging with mom. And then later with the artisan for lunch where we polished off two bottles of Spanish cabernet. Met her boyfriend. Really nice guy. loves her a lot. He has three kids and though both of them are madly in love they are really coming to crossroads over her not wanting to be involved with raising three kids that are not her own, even if they were her own, she's just not as into it as the situation may need her to be. that is real life shit there. its amazing how real life can come in to spoil a perfectly good fantasy. But in the final analysis, I see them working it out and staying together. I must say the guy made a really good impression on me. she would be lucky to have him.
I found myself very inspired by seeing him with his children. Made me feel all yummy and homey inside. There is that aspect to life. I don't come in contact with it very often being in the circles that I am in, but its there and the older I get the more I dig it.
Last screening: watched Dogma with the Artisan tonight. this is his best movie. Classic. Hilarious.
Current read: still reading a little bit of the Richard Branson biography each day for inspiration. This week someone called to offer a hundred and five thousand dollars for one of my new business ventures and not two days before I was just thinking how great it would be if I could get more capital for that one; I was reading the Branson book and paused a moment to think about this new business idea I have been developing for the last few years and just focused on it for a few minutes, created that I had the capital and the right partner for it and then bam like magic I receive this call two days later. To be successful at business, you have to be good at what you do, but you also have to acknowledge the part that a little bit of luck plays in it as well.
Dreams
I have never done that before. perhaps only a few times, where I could wake up and then decide to deliberately go right back into the same dream again. that was fantastic. The first time I woke up was 830, and then I woke up a few times in between only to go back into it immediately until 10! That's an hour and a half in the same dream. I am awestruck and filled with wonder. I have always been told that the longest dream you can have is 90 seconds but I do not believe it.
Perhaps it was not a dream, but more of an astral travel... no, just my mind.... I have always been led to believe that dreams are just our minds playing tricks and games with our ideas, notions, hopes, desires, and fears; working things out while we are asleep trying to make sense of things so we don't go insane.... this theory still makes sense to me. so I never question the meaning of dreams or nightmares. I just enjoy them. let my mind do what it needs to. but what can be said about a dream that lasts for an hour and half? Where you are able to transport yourself to a place over and over again every few minutes and go right back into the same world. that was quite something.
And the feeling that I awoke with from the dream was magical. Quite magical. I feel a profound sense of sunny peace and joy within me from it.
I found myself very inspired by seeing him with his children. Made me feel all yummy and homey inside. There is that aspect to life. I don't come in contact with it very often being in the circles that I am in, but its there and the older I get the more I dig it.
Last screening: watched Dogma with the Artisan tonight. this is his best movie. Classic. Hilarious.
Current read: still reading a little bit of the Richard Branson biography each day for inspiration. This week someone called to offer a hundred and five thousand dollars for one of my new business ventures and not two days before I was just thinking how great it would be if I could get more capital for that one; I was reading the Branson book and paused a moment to think about this new business idea I have been developing for the last few years and just focused on it for a few minutes, created that I had the capital and the right partner for it and then bam like magic I receive this call two days later. To be successful at business, you have to be good at what you do, but you also have to acknowledge the part that a little bit of luck plays in it as well.
Dreams
I have never done that before. perhaps only a few times, where I could wake up and then decide to deliberately go right back into the same dream again. that was fantastic. The first time I woke up was 830, and then I woke up a few times in between only to go back into it immediately until 10! That's an hour and a half in the same dream. I am awestruck and filled with wonder. I have always been told that the longest dream you can have is 90 seconds but I do not believe it.
Perhaps it was not a dream, but more of an astral travel... no, just my mind.... I have always been led to believe that dreams are just our minds playing tricks and games with our ideas, notions, hopes, desires, and fears; working things out while we are asleep trying to make sense of things so we don't go insane.... this theory still makes sense to me. so I never question the meaning of dreams or nightmares. I just enjoy them. let my mind do what it needs to. but what can be said about a dream that lasts for an hour and half? Where you are able to transport yourself to a place over and over again every few minutes and go right back into the same world. that was quite something.
And the feeling that I awoke with from the dream was magical. Quite magical. I feel a profound sense of sunny peace and joy within me from it.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Today we woke up early and went to the Oregon coast to see a few clearcuts. Acres of ancient forests cut down and completely devastated. The girl who has been my guide on this journey, Polly, started to cry when we saw it. I had more of an intellectual response and just started brainstorming about what could actually be done about this craziness. The pacific northwest has less than 5% of its ancient trees left now. they take hundreds of years to grow. So there is no chance of them growing back in our lifetime even if they were to stop all cutting from this point on. It would still take four hundred years to get the forests back. and all these logging companies don't care. In January George bush came to Eugene for one night for a fundraiser. He was given a campaign check for one million dollars from the logging industry. A few months later they had carte blanche to cut down as many large trees as they wanted to in the name of ‘preventing forest fires.’ crazy.
[I will say this about George w. Bush though, and I've said it before, lots of people do. he may be one of the worst things going in the history of mankind, but he doesn’t try to hide it. and remarkably he is rather forthright about it. as awful as he was in the debates, and he was truly awful in a remarkable way, as only he can be, he was very honest in his answers about things. when asked about the environment he never claimed to really care too much about it. he admits, not quite readily but damn close to it, that he is more in favor and concerned for business and jobs and the economy than he is about the environment. You gotta hand it to the guy, and everyone who was working for him at that time [most of them have now quit since his re-election – we can only guess why. God knows what insanity we are in for if his whole dame cabinet is quitting before his new term even begins.] He could have easily balked on the issue of the environment, but he didn't. he told it as he sees it. he thinks that environmentalists are extremists and that its just not that big of a deal. As much as I disagree with him and others like him, I like him for that.
He acted the same way when asked about America losing all of its jobs overseas. Unlike the democrats who tried to act like they were going to save the jobs and bring them all back home, Bush never once caved in. he looked right into the camera and told those people that their jobs were history and that he was going to try to help them get educated to get different jobs, that America needed to move on and keep up with globalization. Again, he never tried to pretend to people that he was going to try to help them keep their jobs from going overseas. The answers that were written for him in the debates were brilliant in how they managed to deliver a lot of the bad news of the republican agenda to the American people in a semi-digestible manner.
Same thing with his answers on same sex marriage. The justification for an idea as abominable as a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage on the grounds that it threatens family values or the ideal of marriage in any country in this day and age is ridiculous. And any thinking person can see that and knows it. You bring it up in any circle of semi-intelligent company anywhere in the world and it gets people laughing. This is a very clearly more a matter of evolution. Evolved citizens of the world versus minds just not as evolved yet. but again, what I loved about Bush and his administration’s answers during the debates and throughout his campaign was his willingness to put himself out there and tell it as he saw it. you have to be a complete loony to even come up with an idea as asinine as that one, but you have to have real courage and conviction as well. And I admire that.
[I will say this about George w. Bush though, and I've said it before, lots of people do. he may be one of the worst things going in the history of mankind, but he doesn’t try to hide it. and remarkably he is rather forthright about it. as awful as he was in the debates, and he was truly awful in a remarkable way, as only he can be, he was very honest in his answers about things. when asked about the environment he never claimed to really care too much about it. he admits, not quite readily but damn close to it, that he is more in favor and concerned for business and jobs and the economy than he is about the environment. You gotta hand it to the guy, and everyone who was working for him at that time [most of them have now quit since his re-election – we can only guess why. God knows what insanity we are in for if his whole dame cabinet is quitting before his new term even begins.] He could have easily balked on the issue of the environment, but he didn't. he told it as he sees it. he thinks that environmentalists are extremists and that its just not that big of a deal. As much as I disagree with him and others like him, I like him for that.
He acted the same way when asked about America losing all of its jobs overseas. Unlike the democrats who tried to act like they were going to save the jobs and bring them all back home, Bush never once caved in. he looked right into the camera and told those people that their jobs were history and that he was going to try to help them get educated to get different jobs, that America needed to move on and keep up with globalization. Again, he never tried to pretend to people that he was going to try to help them keep their jobs from going overseas. The answers that were written for him in the debates were brilliant in how they managed to deliver a lot of the bad news of the republican agenda to the American people in a semi-digestible manner.
Same thing with his answers on same sex marriage. The justification for an idea as abominable as a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage on the grounds that it threatens family values or the ideal of marriage in any country in this day and age is ridiculous. And any thinking person can see that and knows it. You bring it up in any circle of semi-intelligent company anywhere in the world and it gets people laughing. This is a very clearly more a matter of evolution. Evolved citizens of the world versus minds just not as evolved yet. but again, what I loved about Bush and his administration’s answers during the debates and throughout his campaign was his willingness to put himself out there and tell it as he saw it. you have to be a complete loony to even come up with an idea as asinine as that one, but you have to have real courage and conviction as well. And I admire that.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
I'm not sure what day it is. but what a day it was. in this strange place called Eugene, in a strange place called Oregon. we are surrounded by fog all around us. We shot all day today for the show. Went into the deep old forest at the top of the mountains to see huge 500 year old trees. Breathtaking.
I am tired and exhausted, if it is possible to be both at the same time then I embody the state this would create. Cannot think straight. Don't even feel like having a smoke. Just thinking about sleep. Need to process data. So much data. Saw Juliet tonight for a brief moment. Its so weird for us to have made such good friends over the airwaves but not in person and then to see each other in person for the first time in so long. we are guarded and cautious around one another and that is my fault. For I have done us a great service when I have sought to be respectful and quiet in my ruminations of ‘what could bees,’ but allowed myself too much liberty at times in the last year to spout off any idea or ideal I would have in the moment about who we were to one another and all of that. now that I am here and I see her in the flesh in her element... the ideal is not lost... but the truth is revealed. That I have spoken many times before in these random scribblings, so the information is not new to me, but because of my insistence that signs have meaning... I feel as though I put a lot of pressure on us that didn't have to be there. I have a deep and profound love for Juliet. Something I cannot put into words. for her soul. Don't know why. it is honest and real and forthright, her soul is. And maybe that's why. But I also have a deep and profound respect for who she is and where she is in her life. I remain waiting for the message as I phrase it, or waiting for the project as she describes it.
And perhaps getting me out here was/is the project. For me at least. And for her there is meaning in other aspects of our reconnection. I cannot express in words what it was like to meet these people here in Oregon. their purity of heart, their presence, their soul shining through so brilliantly without pretense. I find myself too moved to do anything but think of sleep. Being with Juliet and her dearest friend Polly today and hearing them speak so intelligently and openly and honestly had such a profound effect on me. cannot describe it. they are wholly integrated without the trappings of new age holey pokey mumbo jumbo. I fell in love with this girl Polly a few times just being in her presence and listening to her speak so well informed and real about life and everything else in between. And I mean this in a very transcended platonic way. I realized that there are women who are like that. we may not meet them in the big cities of the universe. And then again, maybe we do. and hopefully I will. but I have for so long been in the big cities with all the inherent bullshit that goes along with being in the world of the material that I had forgotten a major piece of life that I have now been heartily reminded of by hanging with these beautiful beings here today.
You see, beauty as it is portrayed today in our modern culture is so far removed from what I personally think of as real beauty. But I saw it today. what a real woman is. to me. I am only speaking of my own personal feelings and ideals. But I believe that it has a lot more to do with who a woman is inside than what she looks like on the outside. and I think for a long time I had forgotten that. I believe that my life has been a noble affair for the most part for the last ten years or so and for that I am proud. But I also believe that I have not paid attention to a lot of the more subtle shades of what humanity is and can be. and I have spent a lot of time wasting away in this shallow materialism that has seemed so important to me and yet holds not much at all in the bigger picture for who I am and what I want out of life. This is what this trip has held for me so far. many realizations about how much deeper it can all go, and how silly and superficial a lot of what the world offers us on a daily basis is. how I need to separate myself from it a bit. Allow for more realness to come into me and flow out of me. amen.
I am tired and exhausted, if it is possible to be both at the same time then I embody the state this would create. Cannot think straight. Don't even feel like having a smoke. Just thinking about sleep. Need to process data. So much data. Saw Juliet tonight for a brief moment. Its so weird for us to have made such good friends over the airwaves but not in person and then to see each other in person for the first time in so long. we are guarded and cautious around one another and that is my fault. For I have done us a great service when I have sought to be respectful and quiet in my ruminations of ‘what could bees,’ but allowed myself too much liberty at times in the last year to spout off any idea or ideal I would have in the moment about who we were to one another and all of that. now that I am here and I see her in the flesh in her element... the ideal is not lost... but the truth is revealed. That I have spoken many times before in these random scribblings, so the information is not new to me, but because of my insistence that signs have meaning... I feel as though I put a lot of pressure on us that didn't have to be there. I have a deep and profound love for Juliet. Something I cannot put into words. for her soul. Don't know why. it is honest and real and forthright, her soul is. And maybe that's why. But I also have a deep and profound respect for who she is and where she is in her life. I remain waiting for the message as I phrase it, or waiting for the project as she describes it.
And perhaps getting me out here was/is the project. For me at least. And for her there is meaning in other aspects of our reconnection. I cannot express in words what it was like to meet these people here in Oregon. their purity of heart, their presence, their soul shining through so brilliantly without pretense. I find myself too moved to do anything but think of sleep. Being with Juliet and her dearest friend Polly today and hearing them speak so intelligently and openly and honestly had such a profound effect on me. cannot describe it. they are wholly integrated without the trappings of new age holey pokey mumbo jumbo. I fell in love with this girl Polly a few times just being in her presence and listening to her speak so well informed and real about life and everything else in between. And I mean this in a very transcended platonic way. I realized that there are women who are like that. we may not meet them in the big cities of the universe. And then again, maybe we do. and hopefully I will. but I have for so long been in the big cities with all the inherent bullshit that goes along with being in the world of the material that I had forgotten a major piece of life that I have now been heartily reminded of by hanging with these beautiful beings here today.
You see, beauty as it is portrayed today in our modern culture is so far removed from what I personally think of as real beauty. But I saw it today. what a real woman is. to me. I am only speaking of my own personal feelings and ideals. But I believe that it has a lot more to do with who a woman is inside than what she looks like on the outside. and I think for a long time I had forgotten that. I believe that my life has been a noble affair for the most part for the last ten years or so and for that I am proud. But I also believe that I have not paid attention to a lot of the more subtle shades of what humanity is and can be. and I have spent a lot of time wasting away in this shallow materialism that has seemed so important to me and yet holds not much at all in the bigger picture for who I am and what I want out of life. This is what this trip has held for me so far. many realizations about how much deeper it can all go, and how silly and superficial a lot of what the world offers us on a daily basis is. how I need to separate myself from it a bit. Allow for more realness to come into me and flow out of me. amen.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
I went out on a date with the Brasilian last night. Again it was hard to ask her out. I don't know why. on my way there, I was not even excited to be going out with her. What the fuck is this? what has happened to me? the whole time we were together I felt like torturing myself. She was speaking and I would be sitting there imagining myself running really fast to smash my head into a building to splatter my brains everywhere. I was just so uninterested in her and so mad at myself for being there with anyone who I was not entirely intoxicated by. One would think I could just be appreciative to be going out with girls....
This game in my head. Back and forth. ‘you like her.’ ‘I don't like her.’ ‘you like her.’ ‘I don't fucking like her. If you like her so much you take her!’ ‘I am you! you idiot. lets like her!’ ‘No! I don't like her.’ ‘what's not to like? Look at her. She has eyes like Julia Roberts. She looks like Julia for God sakes mixed with a little bit of Penelope. She's fucking perfect!’ ‘I don't care. I don't like her. I want her.’ And then I would look over at some girl walking down Lincoln road or sitting across from us at another table. ‘now that's what I want. That girl is speaking Hebrew. I want that. or is she speaking French? either way, I want that.’ ‘dude you are such an idiot. that girl isn't even pretty. Look at this girl sitting in front of you talking. and for God sakes at least nod your head while is speaking so she thinks you are listening to her instead of carrying on a fucking conversation in your head.’ ‘I am nuts.’ ‘you’re not nuts.’ ‘ well then who are you talking to me.‘ ‘I'm you. and you're me. you're talking to yourself. Its perfectly normal. People do it all the time. don't sweat it. but just keep your nodding so she thinks you are listening.’ ‘God what language is she speaking in again?’ ‘Dude its Portuguese. you know it. c'mon say something back to her. Participate in the conversation. Get interested in her.’ ‘but I'm not interested in her. I don't know why. I'm just not. She bores me.’ I AM SO FUCKING BORED!!!!! get me out of here. I want to go now.’ ‘you can’t go now. you just got here. your food hasn’t even arrived yet. you have to be cool. Just be polite. Be a gentleman.’
It is 1:20 am pacific time, 4:20 am my time, and I have finally made it to Eugene Oregon. I am not sure what day it is. I left my office at 6pm yesterday evening and it is now almost 6 in the morning two days later. a full day and a half traveling around trying to get to this strange place. this morning I awoke very early in Las Vegas and just started on both phones trying to get a ticket out of there. had a hundred good leads but every time I would go to book something it would cancel out or turn out to be a prop plane or be overbooked. Literally from 830 till 230 just sat on the phone trying to get to Eugene. Finally found a way through delta. But had to fly back east to salt lake city Utah first. And then switch planes to Oregon. which would put me there about 930/1230est. approximately 30 hours after I left Manhattan the day before.
[For salt lake city let me say this: this is middle America at its most pure. All these connecting flights to cities I have only heard about. places like billings Montana, and Boise Idaho and Oklahoma city and Sacramento and Seattle Washington... you should have seen the people in slc. Total Americana. Mothers with messed up hair and with like three and four and five children. All the guys wearing baseball caps and baggy jeans. Totally different than Miami or New York. but this is another story.]
But unfortunately this trip didn't quite work out either. There is something called fog here in the northwest. So as we flew over Eugene tonight, we heard the ominous voice of the captain come over the radio and tell us that we would circle Eugene a few times to see if the fog lets up. so I did see Eugene. Three times in fact. We flew over it. But it didn't happen. we finally started running out of fuel and we had to go on to Portland. At that point I was told once again, for the second night in a row, that I would not be going to Eugene but rather stay overnight in a city called Portland this time and maybe I could get to Eugene in the morning. Where I stayed and how I got there was up to me.
Luckily I had befriended a really cool fifty year old gentleman who was seated next to me on the plane and he happened to be a self professed conservative republican who works in of all things the logging business. when he heard that I was flying into his hometown to interview anti-logging activists for a TV show he was very eager to give me the other side of the story from a third generation Oregonian. Which he did. for three hours. And we talked about everything else social and political and in between. And we had three or four aisles of people all caught up in our arguing back and forth. But it was all in good humor. Whenever anyone got too heated I would just turn up the appreciation and the tone would simmer down. Whenever one side would get too heated I would shift my understanding over to that side in order to calm them down a bit and we all learned a lot. Really recognized, all of us on the plane tonight did I believe, how polarized our country is right now.
So anyway, here we are in Portland Oregon not Eugene at midnight and I'm stuck again, but this guy tells me he is going to his company’s satellite office in Portland and grabbing a car and driving to Eugene. He asks me if I want to come along to keep him company and continue our conversation. So I thanked him profusely and went along for the ride. another two hours and I finally made it into Eugene. I'm actually here now. sitting outside of this beautiful little old Victorian house that has been turned into a bed and breakfast. It is 4;49am my time. just about 36 hours later than when I first hopped into a taxi in Manhattan to get here. I am to say the least exhausted. Fog is a bitch I guess in the great northwest. I was very lucky indeed to meet this guy or else I would be writing this from a hotel room in Portland and still not be in Eugene.
But allow me to talk about Las Vegas, for I was afforded a few hours there in my travels. Before I could leave for slc Utah, first I had to find a shoe repair shop in Las Vegas to get my briefcase strap fixed, which had broken last night. So I circled a bunch of shoe repair places in the phone book and went to go look for a cab. So I have my briefcase tucked under my right arm because the strap is broken, and I have this huge Las Vegas yellow page book tucked under my left arm and I'm walking down the streets of Las Vegas. Funny image right? thought so myself and so did everyone else I'm sure. All the more reason why I believe this TV or movie idea is a great idea. like Dasher says, ‘man I just don't know what it is with you Fishy, but crazy things just happen to you. I've lived in New York for three years and you're the only guy I know who’s gotten a ticket for how he throws out his trash or been approached by prostitutes while sitting minding his own business typing on his laptop. let alone twice. Let alone within one month of moving here. that's why you're gonna make good TV. If we can just get our arms around what it is exactly that this show is about and why we’re doing it....’ [of course I already had the answer for Dasher as always and assure him that a reality show or a movie about a rock singer who goes on a mission to learn more about the world and discover the meaning of life by traveling around interviewing people both famous and infamous and not so famous is a great idea in and of itself. And all we have to do is just have cameras follow me around.... he's getting there in understanding how easy it is actually going to be. unscripted and real life. just the way real life is.... I assure him that real life, not reality TV as it is today, is very very interesting...]
so yes I thought of these things as I made way through the Las Vegas streets searching for cabs to take me to some shoe repair place. Well I finally found a cab. And boy was she a pistol. A real talker. The funny thing is that the repairing of the strap on my briefcase was only two dollars but the cab ride cost me twenty-five to get there and back. Las Vegas cabs are even more expensive than New York. but I got to see Las Vegas a good deal and she showed me all around. What a strange place Las Vegas is. basically a big desert with a bunch of local folks who are not too unlike regular old American hicks, real nice folk, but there is this big strip of land in the middle of their town with all these huge hotels and casinos. On one block they have replicas of a pyramid, the Eiffel tower, and the statue of liberty. Its just that surreal. Its like a giant toy store or something. well I made it out of Las Vegas without even playing one slot machine. Call it what you will, but that stuff just doesn’t appeal to me yet.
now I will sleep. 36 hours and five cities later I made it to Eugene Oregon. tomorrow I spend all day hanging and interviewing deforestation activists to try to get to the bottom of this whole logging/lumber/environment issue. Should be interesting. And just wait till you see the footage of this quaint little bed and breakfast.
[For salt lake city let me say this: this is middle America at its most pure. All these connecting flights to cities I have only heard about. places like billings Montana, and Boise Idaho and Oklahoma city and Sacramento and Seattle Washington... you should have seen the people in slc. Total Americana. Mothers with messed up hair and with like three and four and five children. All the guys wearing baseball caps and baggy jeans. Totally different than Miami or New York. but this is another story.]
But unfortunately this trip didn't quite work out either. There is something called fog here in the northwest. So as we flew over Eugene tonight, we heard the ominous voice of the captain come over the radio and tell us that we would circle Eugene a few times to see if the fog lets up. so I did see Eugene. Three times in fact. We flew over it. But it didn't happen. we finally started running out of fuel and we had to go on to Portland. At that point I was told once again, for the second night in a row, that I would not be going to Eugene but rather stay overnight in a city called Portland this time and maybe I could get to Eugene in the morning. Where I stayed and how I got there was up to me.
Luckily I had befriended a really cool fifty year old gentleman who was seated next to me on the plane and he happened to be a self professed conservative republican who works in of all things the logging business. when he heard that I was flying into his hometown to interview anti-logging activists for a TV show he was very eager to give me the other side of the story from a third generation Oregonian. Which he did. for three hours. And we talked about everything else social and political and in between. And we had three or four aisles of people all caught up in our arguing back and forth. But it was all in good humor. Whenever anyone got too heated I would just turn up the appreciation and the tone would simmer down. Whenever one side would get too heated I would shift my understanding over to that side in order to calm them down a bit and we all learned a lot. Really recognized, all of us on the plane tonight did I believe, how polarized our country is right now.
So anyway, here we are in Portland Oregon not Eugene at midnight and I'm stuck again, but this guy tells me he is going to his company’s satellite office in Portland and grabbing a car and driving to Eugene. He asks me if I want to come along to keep him company and continue our conversation. So I thanked him profusely and went along for the ride. another two hours and I finally made it into Eugene. I'm actually here now. sitting outside of this beautiful little old Victorian house that has been turned into a bed and breakfast. It is 4;49am my time. just about 36 hours later than when I first hopped into a taxi in Manhattan to get here. I am to say the least exhausted. Fog is a bitch I guess in the great northwest. I was very lucky indeed to meet this guy or else I would be writing this from a hotel room in Portland and still not be in Eugene.
But allow me to talk about Las Vegas, for I was afforded a few hours there in my travels. Before I could leave for slc Utah, first I had to find a shoe repair shop in Las Vegas to get my briefcase strap fixed, which had broken last night. So I circled a bunch of shoe repair places in the phone book and went to go look for a cab. So I have my briefcase tucked under my right arm because the strap is broken, and I have this huge Las Vegas yellow page book tucked under my left arm and I'm walking down the streets of Las Vegas. Funny image right? thought so myself and so did everyone else I'm sure. All the more reason why I believe this TV or movie idea is a great idea. like Dasher says, ‘man I just don't know what it is with you Fishy, but crazy things just happen to you. I've lived in New York for three years and you're the only guy I know who’s gotten a ticket for how he throws out his trash or been approached by prostitutes while sitting minding his own business typing on his laptop. let alone twice. Let alone within one month of moving here. that's why you're gonna make good TV. If we can just get our arms around what it is exactly that this show is about and why we’re doing it....’ [of course I already had the answer for Dasher as always and assure him that a reality show or a movie about a rock singer who goes on a mission to learn more about the world and discover the meaning of life by traveling around interviewing people both famous and infamous and not so famous is a great idea in and of itself. And all we have to do is just have cameras follow me around.... he's getting there in understanding how easy it is actually going to be. unscripted and real life. just the way real life is.... I assure him that real life, not reality TV as it is today, is very very interesting...]
so yes I thought of these things as I made way through the Las Vegas streets searching for cabs to take me to some shoe repair place. Well I finally found a cab. And boy was she a pistol. A real talker. The funny thing is that the repairing of the strap on my briefcase was only two dollars but the cab ride cost me twenty-five to get there and back. Las Vegas cabs are even more expensive than New York. but I got to see Las Vegas a good deal and she showed me all around. What a strange place Las Vegas is. basically a big desert with a bunch of local folks who are not too unlike regular old American hicks, real nice folk, but there is this big strip of land in the middle of their town with all these huge hotels and casinos. On one block they have replicas of a pyramid, the Eiffel tower, and the statue of liberty. Its just that surreal. Its like a giant toy store or something. well I made it out of Las Vegas without even playing one slot machine. Call it what you will, but that stuff just doesn’t appeal to me yet.
now I will sleep. 36 hours and five cities later I made it to Eugene Oregon. tomorrow I spend all day hanging and interviewing deforestation activists to try to get to the bottom of this whole logging/lumber/environment issue. Should be interesting. And just wait till you see the footage of this quaint little bed and breakfast.
Friday, December 17, 2004
Believe it or not, I am now stuck in Las Vegas till who knows when. All flights to Oregon got cancelled due to bad weather. after a five hour flight from New York they made us wait in this line for two hours to inform each of us of our own little predicament. I may be here till Saturday! I am literally stuck in las Vegas, Nevada and have no way to fly out of here. of all places, I guess it could be much worse. Plenty to do here. Crazy. all shoots in Oregon tomorrow morning need to be cancelled. this is totally nuts. It is now 5:21 am my time. I am exhausted and cold and hungry.
The whole time I was in line I kept finding myself getting really angry and then I would pace around a bit there in line and ask myself ‘o.k. so this what's happening. Have to make the best of it. what is the message here? what can I do here? how can I make the most of my time here? I may have to spend two days and nights in a town I had no plans of even seeing let alone spending two days in. wow. O.k. have to make the best of it. where is the luck in this? how can I make this work for me?’ these are the thoughts that occupied my mind. I must say that I found this way of thinking about it exciting and inspiring rather than frustrating, which is what I could tell all the other hundreds of people waiting in line with me were feeling. Some people were literally screaming they were so upset. And its not as if I don't have plenty to lose. Our first shoot for the show was scheduled, still it, for ten am tomorrow morning and I am supposed to be in Eugene Oregon. so this is going to cost the production company thousands of dollars. And me as well. the airline does not pay for our hotel or food or transportation while we are stranded here because this is a weather situation and thus outside their control. But I could not get upset. I have just learned over the years that it will get me nowhere. Have to find the positive in this and make it work for me.
Also another thought, since I am sitting here enjoying a late night smoke, or early morning, depending on how you look at it. in this one book about business I am reading it details the benefits of good partnering. Asks you to make a list of all of your strengths and weaknesses. So you can get a good idea of who you are and who you need to partner with in all of your different projects. I had no intention of making this list. Thought it was a waste of my time. but....
Socializing with one of the secretaries at the office I rent in Manhattan earlier today I saw objectively how good I am at that. at socializing. Its like this gift for gab and for putting smiles on peoples faces. O.k., great. And a light bulb went off in my head. And so then I asked myself what are one of my weaknesses. And I immediately thought of how bad I am at completing tasks by deadline. I am a severe procrastinator when it comes to menial tasks. Anything that has to do with focus or long detailed work, I am just no good at. I looked at the stack of paperwork on my desk that has been sitting there literally for over a year. and then I found this folder that contained I swear to God over five hundred pieces of paper that I had taken with me to my family’s house LAST Christmas. And I am still not done with it. never even opened it all year. and so yes that is a weakness of mine. Have trouble completing things. not good. unless...
Next step? Have to delegate. Yes it is true, delegating anything in my current financial situation seems at this moment entirely impossible. But I must find a way to make it happen or I will surely drown in these minor details and never get to where I want to. never will have the time to accomplish the major tasks. So by Jan first I will have the solution to this temporary quandary.
Created a great primary the other day that feels better than any I had ever created before: ‘I have all the money and everything else I need to fulfill all of my dreams and those of many others.’ feels great.
Stuck in fucking Las Vegas though. Wow. What a fucking crazy thing this life is.
The whole time I was in line I kept finding myself getting really angry and then I would pace around a bit there in line and ask myself ‘o.k. so this what's happening. Have to make the best of it. what is the message here? what can I do here? how can I make the most of my time here? I may have to spend two days and nights in a town I had no plans of even seeing let alone spending two days in. wow. O.k. have to make the best of it. where is the luck in this? how can I make this work for me?’ these are the thoughts that occupied my mind. I must say that I found this way of thinking about it exciting and inspiring rather than frustrating, which is what I could tell all the other hundreds of people waiting in line with me were feeling. Some people were literally screaming they were so upset. And its not as if I don't have plenty to lose. Our first shoot for the show was scheduled, still it, for ten am tomorrow morning and I am supposed to be in Eugene Oregon. so this is going to cost the production company thousands of dollars. And me as well. the airline does not pay for our hotel or food or transportation while we are stranded here because this is a weather situation and thus outside their control. But I could not get upset. I have just learned over the years that it will get me nowhere. Have to find the positive in this and make it work for me.
Also another thought, since I am sitting here enjoying a late night smoke, or early morning, depending on how you look at it. in this one book about business I am reading it details the benefits of good partnering. Asks you to make a list of all of your strengths and weaknesses. So you can get a good idea of who you are and who you need to partner with in all of your different projects. I had no intention of making this list. Thought it was a waste of my time. but....
Socializing with one of the secretaries at the office I rent in Manhattan earlier today I saw objectively how good I am at that. at socializing. Its like this gift for gab and for putting smiles on peoples faces. O.k., great. And a light bulb went off in my head. And so then I asked myself what are one of my weaknesses. And I immediately thought of how bad I am at completing tasks by deadline. I am a severe procrastinator when it comes to menial tasks. Anything that has to do with focus or long detailed work, I am just no good at. I looked at the stack of paperwork on my desk that has been sitting there literally for over a year. and then I found this folder that contained I swear to God over five hundred pieces of paper that I had taken with me to my family’s house LAST Christmas. And I am still not done with it. never even opened it all year. and so yes that is a weakness of mine. Have trouble completing things. not good. unless...
Next step? Have to delegate. Yes it is true, delegating anything in my current financial situation seems at this moment entirely impossible. But I must find a way to make it happen or I will surely drown in these minor details and never get to where I want to. never will have the time to accomplish the major tasks. So by Jan first I will have the solution to this temporary quandary.
Created a great primary the other day that feels better than any I had ever created before: ‘I have all the money and everything else I need to fulfill all of my dreams and those of many others.’ feels great.
Stuck in fucking Las Vegas though. Wow. What a fucking crazy thing this life is.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Today it was 20 degrees here. so cold you can’t really walk outside without feeling very uncomfortable. No taxis to be found. That's when they make all their money. your legs feel it first. You notice that your legs are actually cold. Hence long johns, or long underwear. Then it hits your face. Your nose and your ears start hurting. Snowboarding in the cold every year for a few days is one thing. but living in this day after day for months straight is another. People assure me that this is nothing, very mild compared to what we are going to get in January and February and march. I am still in shock I think that people actually live this way. I keep finding myself asking myself if one can say that ‘why do people live like this? don't they know about warmer states?’ but the big apple is the big apple. As the Stallion reminds me all time, when we are speaking that is, ‘hey its Gotham. Where else are you going to live Fishy?’
Last screening: the jack Paar collection. This is the collection of the best of the old jack Paar show from the early sixties. Life was SO different. He was the host of the tonight show before Johnny Carson who was before Jay Leno. And you always hear these men who came after him speak of him with such reverence and esteem, like he's just this awesome person that they hoped one day to be like. And you really see it when you watch him. What an intelligent well mannered and well spoken man. I am studying him right now because of our own show. Studying anything I can get my hands on really. Getting in on the old and the behind the scenes stuff. I must say I have really enjoyed this series. Interviews with all of these wonderful old stars who have now long since passed on, the likes of Richard Burton, Bette Davis, bill cosby, Judy garland, and this amazing person by the name of Robert morley from the UK who has got to be one of the wittiest men I have seen or heard.
Watching jack Paar the last week has revealed to me how much our country has changed over the last forty years.
Last screening: the jack Paar collection. This is the collection of the best of the old jack Paar show from the early sixties. Life was SO different. He was the host of the tonight show before Johnny Carson who was before Jay Leno. And you always hear these men who came after him speak of him with such reverence and esteem, like he's just this awesome person that they hoped one day to be like. And you really see it when you watch him. What an intelligent well mannered and well spoken man. I am studying him right now because of our own show. Studying anything I can get my hands on really. Getting in on the old and the behind the scenes stuff. I must say I have really enjoyed this series. Interviews with all of these wonderful old stars who have now long since passed on, the likes of Richard Burton, Bette Davis, bill cosby, Judy garland, and this amazing person by the name of Robert morley from the UK who has got to be one of the wittiest men I have seen or heard.
Watching jack Paar the last week has revealed to me how much our country has changed over the last forty years.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
From CNN: “Jurors who decided that Scott Peterson deserves to die say his lack of emotion played a large role in their decision. "No emotion, no anything. That spoke a thousand words," juror Richelle Nice said of Peterson, convicted earlier of killing wife Laci and unborn son Conner. "Scott Peterson was Laci's husband, Conner's daddy -- the one person that should have protected them."
One of the things that I find the most ironically twisted and sad in the human psyche is how they will commit the same sin against one of their own as a form of punishment, inadvertently proving that two wrongs do in fact somehow make a right in the feeble human mind. Capital punishment. ‘he was wrong in killing. We shall punish him. how? By killing him.’ a puzzling phenomenon indeed. Do not ever try to convince me that we are all born equal or that we are all on the same level of evolution. There are some human minds that I can just not get a grasp of.
One of the things that I find the most ironically twisted and sad in the human psyche is how they will commit the same sin against one of their own as a form of punishment, inadvertently proving that two wrongs do in fact somehow make a right in the feeble human mind. Capital punishment. ‘he was wrong in killing. We shall punish him. how? By killing him.’ a puzzling phenomenon indeed. Do not ever try to convince me that we are all born equal or that we are all on the same level of evolution. There are some human minds that I can just not get a grasp of.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Drove to a little town in NJ to interview the famous Bishop John Shelby Spong for the TV show. By the time we reached his house an hour later it was snowing, which was beautiful. But I was sick as a dog. For the next four hours I attempted to conduct the interview but had to continually get up to go throw up in his guest bathroom. Quite possibly the most intellectually stimulating conversation I may ever have and I was so sick I could barely keep my head up for the camera. funny.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
At the cigar store this morning and I'm sitting next to this guy and he overhears me talking to Dasher about the show. And I'm screaming “dude you know what? you don't have to break this shit down anymore. Everyday it’s the same fucking thing. I know it doesn’t seem cohesive yet. that's because we haven't filmed enough yet. period. Once we have more footage, we’ll know what we have. It is inherently interesting. Real people ARE interesting! The Bishop? Al Sharpton? That's interesting!” “Yeah but how does that all fit together? what is the point of this?” he screams back at me. “Dude that's life. Life isn't cohesive. But somehow it all ties in together. The lesbian interview? Look man, what guy hasn’t thought about why a girl would one day decide she is gay?! Or do lesbians miss penises?! I mean how satisfying is just two girls having sex with each other? Don't you want to know about that? I do. That shit is interesting man!”
This guy sitting next to me at the store is looking at me like I'm crazy. after I get off the phone we start talking and sharing what we do with one another. He tells me that he's a retired investor. He is only 44 years old. I look at him a few minutes later, and I'm like, ‘so you're retired huh? Like, you're home free?’ And he's like ‘economically yes.’ so I was fascinated. I told him about my plan to settle with 3.8 million and asked him if that were enough. He asked me how much I wanted to live on per year. I told him I would be comfortable with 180,000. He said ‘no way.’ said that ‘a good rule of thumb is six times what you want to draw a year. you want to pull a hundred and eighty thousand a year comfortably and not worry about running out, you're going to need about six mill.” Wow. Good info.
Tells me that the guys on Wall Street live by the 10 by 40 rule. I ask him what that is. he tells me its simple. They want to have ten mill in the bank by the time they hit 40 to retire on. Wow. Tells me that half the guys I'm sitting in the store with today are billionaires. That he knows most of them. says that five mill was ‘one deal’ if you know what you're doing. That's one deal. Its nothing once you get started. He then asks me if I plan to have a wife and children. ‘yep,’ I answer. ‘well then you better raise that figure if that hundred and eighty is just for you alone.’ Tells me that I should count on $240,000 per child just for education from k through 12 without putting any food in their mouths if I want them in good schools like his kids had. and what about the wife? If you're living on a hundred and eighty a year what's she living on? You thought about that?”
Again, wow. I have a lot to learn. Good stuff.
This guy sitting next to me at the store is looking at me like I'm crazy. after I get off the phone we start talking and sharing what we do with one another. He tells me that he's a retired investor. He is only 44 years old. I look at him a few minutes later, and I'm like, ‘so you're retired huh? Like, you're home free?’ And he's like ‘economically yes.’ so I was fascinated. I told him about my plan to settle with 3.8 million and asked him if that were enough. He asked me how much I wanted to live on per year. I told him I would be comfortable with 180,000. He said ‘no way.’ said that ‘a good rule of thumb is six times what you want to draw a year. you want to pull a hundred and eighty thousand a year comfortably and not worry about running out, you're going to need about six mill.” Wow. Good info.
Tells me that the guys on Wall Street live by the 10 by 40 rule. I ask him what that is. he tells me its simple. They want to have ten mill in the bank by the time they hit 40 to retire on. Wow. Tells me that half the guys I'm sitting in the store with today are billionaires. That he knows most of them. says that five mill was ‘one deal’ if you know what you're doing. That's one deal. Its nothing once you get started. He then asks me if I plan to have a wife and children. ‘yep,’ I answer. ‘well then you better raise that figure if that hundred and eighty is just for you alone.’ Tells me that I should count on $240,000 per child just for education from k through 12 without putting any food in their mouths if I want them in good schools like his kids had. and what about the wife? If you're living on a hundred and eighty a year what's she living on? You thought about that?”
Again, wow. I have a lot to learn. Good stuff.
If you are your ego, then you cannot refer to “your ego” as “my ego” as if it has a mind of its own separate from YOU. you see?
I feel the same way about this thing you call “my higher self.”
I know I always say this, but I think it an important distinction that can lead to great easiness in being an effective creator. They were one of the first things I discreated upon the discovery. The idea of an ego, an id, the subconscious, a higher self. I let go of all of these beliefs and decided instead to become one with them all, to completely integrate myself as one being, as opposed to bunch of little smaller selves so there was no separation. At least that way I am in control of I completely.
I feel the same way about this thing you call “my higher self.”
I know I always say this, but I think it an important distinction that can lead to great easiness in being an effective creator. They were one of the first things I discreated upon the discovery. The idea of an ego, an id, the subconscious, a higher self. I let go of all of these beliefs and decided instead to become one with them all, to completely integrate myself as one being, as opposed to bunch of little smaller selves so there was no separation. At least that way I am in control of I completely.
Healthy Living
Went to visit the Coon’s mom, Aldine, today with Juliet. I felt that they would get a lot out of meeting. And I wanted to pay my respects. She now lives in Eugene, Oregon! Hadn't seen her in about ten years. So beautiful and still so smart and curious about everything. she still has all the latest knowledge at her house as always in the form of books and tapes and cds and magazines. Totally up to date on EVERYTHING. and she is now 82 years old. Totally into raw foods now. for lunch we had peppermint tea, dates, raisins, walnuts, avocado, and hemp seeds with hemp oil and lemon paste. That was strange I must say, eating paste for a meal... but you could feel the nutrition seeping into you, which is what attracted me to the natural lifestyle in the beginning, all those years ago. You can feel nutrition. As it enters the body. Unfortunately we do not consume much nutrition in our lives in modern times. you can feel that when you are eating most days, how un-nutritious what you are eating is. and you can plainly see it in the fact that most of us die of cancer or some other horrible disease rather than from natural causes.
[I am not implying by this statement that we are any worse off than times past. I am not. I think we are healthier now as a species than we've ever been. I think most would agree with me. We are certainly living longer than we ever have. I truly believe that we know more about health and nutrition now than we ever have in our short human history. But in general it is not easy to eat healthfully in the modern era. We’re a fast food nation. And we are also a factory food nation. And a processed food nation. None of it bodes well for our health. So no one is too surprised when they learn of themselves or someone close to them having cancer or heart disease or needing bypass surgery or having Alzheimer’s or any other of the hundreds of ailments that stricken the human race still. saddened sure, but surprised no. we think of these diseases as if they are natural causes, because it is just so inbred in us to think this way, because we are all so used to everyone around us dying this way. But I don't think it will be this way forever. I think we’re coming around. More and more, people are coming around. [I say this as I remember the woman in front of me on the airplane today giving her son and daughter a nestle crunch bar and then a plastic bag full of captain crunch... and these kids were no more than 4 and 9 years old. Or the girl sitting next to me swigging her coke and woofing down a half a can of Pringles. I mean, you cant go to the doctor and wonder why he just told you that you had cancer or heart disease or any other disease for that matter when you are filling your body with mostly non-food and thereby having very little room or desire for real food. Its all kind of right in front of our faces. We are still primarily obsessed with curing diseases than preventing them.]]
It was Coon’s mom who started me and our whole group on healthy living and eating back when we were in college. [for the record I am not a healthy eater currently. As any loyal reader of the diaries could easily attest to. being a child of the fast food nation, my taste buds, my being single, and my love of convenience all make it difficult for me to eat healthfully as often as I should or would like to.] But I was amazed when I reflected on how broad her influence was, on all of us, and how it has lasted. Just one person. because of that one health retreat I decided to go on at her house my whole life changed. I showed up and told her I needed to clean up and she said o.k. well you can come stay at my house but you have to do whatever I say. I will teach you about natural living. I was so strung out on everything and anything and was just a mess. I came into the house with just a little suitcase and she escorted me to this guestroom she had made up for me. there was nothing in the room except for a futon on the floor and a pillow, a side table and a lamp. Next to the bed was a towel and a washcloth, a natural fiber dry brush, and a stack of books she suggested I read while I was there. about ten books. Some on yoga, some on detoxing, one on the dangers of sugar, a book or two on fasting, and of course Harvey and Marilyn diamonds classic on health. Can’t remember the name but it revolutionized the way America looked at health and wellness. Fit for life, that's what it was called. Great book. Changed my life. I must have given out twenty of them that year.
For ten days I stayed at her house. didn't do much but sleep, cry, dry brush my body a lot, drank a lot of tea, and some soup. but all it took was a week or so to start feeling the effects of being clean for the first time since I was in my early teens. I had quit smoking cigs, drugs, alcohol, and processed foods and felt better than I had in years. and through that my whole crew started living the natural lifestyle. Madelynne O'Ryan and Mohdie still live that way ten years later. They are still vegans. Precisely because of the influence that Aldine had had on me. that's an amazing thought. I went in and out of it over the years. never went back to drugs or alcohol or cigarettes actually from that point on because I felt so damn good. but my eating habits have been pretty bad the last year or two since not having Cleopatra around. But because of that change in lifestyle and moving over to the natural lifestyle I frequented health food stores a lot and that is where I met Cleo. Again, if it weren't for that health retreat with coons mom I never would have gotten healthy and gotten so into health food stores and I never would have wandered into that health food store all those years ago and met one of the most important people of my life. that's an unbelievable thought. What power we have as individuals to manifest reality for others through our simple day to day actions.
Last screening: and the band played on. More later. too tired.
Current read: losing my virginity, autobiography of Richard Branson. Great inspiration just reading a few pages each day.
[I am not implying by this statement that we are any worse off than times past. I am not. I think we are healthier now as a species than we've ever been. I think most would agree with me. We are certainly living longer than we ever have. I truly believe that we know more about health and nutrition now than we ever have in our short human history. But in general it is not easy to eat healthfully in the modern era. We’re a fast food nation. And we are also a factory food nation. And a processed food nation. None of it bodes well for our health. So no one is too surprised when they learn of themselves or someone close to them having cancer or heart disease or needing bypass surgery or having Alzheimer’s or any other of the hundreds of ailments that stricken the human race still. saddened sure, but surprised no. we think of these diseases as if they are natural causes, because it is just so inbred in us to think this way, because we are all so used to everyone around us dying this way. But I don't think it will be this way forever. I think we’re coming around. More and more, people are coming around. [I say this as I remember the woman in front of me on the airplane today giving her son and daughter a nestle crunch bar and then a plastic bag full of captain crunch... and these kids were no more than 4 and 9 years old. Or the girl sitting next to me swigging her coke and woofing down a half a can of Pringles. I mean, you cant go to the doctor and wonder why he just told you that you had cancer or heart disease or any other disease for that matter when you are filling your body with mostly non-food and thereby having very little room or desire for real food. Its all kind of right in front of our faces. We are still primarily obsessed with curing diseases than preventing them.]]
It was Coon’s mom who started me and our whole group on healthy living and eating back when we were in college. [for the record I am not a healthy eater currently. As any loyal reader of the diaries could easily attest to. being a child of the fast food nation, my taste buds, my being single, and my love of convenience all make it difficult for me to eat healthfully as often as I should or would like to.] But I was amazed when I reflected on how broad her influence was, on all of us, and how it has lasted. Just one person. because of that one health retreat I decided to go on at her house my whole life changed. I showed up and told her I needed to clean up and she said o.k. well you can come stay at my house but you have to do whatever I say. I will teach you about natural living. I was so strung out on everything and anything and was just a mess. I came into the house with just a little suitcase and she escorted me to this guestroom she had made up for me. there was nothing in the room except for a futon on the floor and a pillow, a side table and a lamp. Next to the bed was a towel and a washcloth, a natural fiber dry brush, and a stack of books she suggested I read while I was there. about ten books. Some on yoga, some on detoxing, one on the dangers of sugar, a book or two on fasting, and of course Harvey and Marilyn diamonds classic on health. Can’t remember the name but it revolutionized the way America looked at health and wellness. Fit for life, that's what it was called. Great book. Changed my life. I must have given out twenty of them that year.
For ten days I stayed at her house. didn't do much but sleep, cry, dry brush my body a lot, drank a lot of tea, and some soup. but all it took was a week or so to start feeling the effects of being clean for the first time since I was in my early teens. I had quit smoking cigs, drugs, alcohol, and processed foods and felt better than I had in years. and through that my whole crew started living the natural lifestyle. Madelynne O'Ryan and Mohdie still live that way ten years later. They are still vegans. Precisely because of the influence that Aldine had had on me. that's an amazing thought. I went in and out of it over the years. never went back to drugs or alcohol or cigarettes actually from that point on because I felt so damn good. but my eating habits have been pretty bad the last year or two since not having Cleopatra around. But because of that change in lifestyle and moving over to the natural lifestyle I frequented health food stores a lot and that is where I met Cleo. Again, if it weren't for that health retreat with coons mom I never would have gotten healthy and gotten so into health food stores and I never would have wandered into that health food store all those years ago and met one of the most important people of my life. that's an unbelievable thought. What power we have as individuals to manifest reality for others through our simple day to day actions.
Last screening: and the band played on. More later. too tired.
Current read: losing my virginity, autobiography of Richard Branson. Great inspiration just reading a few pages each day.
Still sore as hell. Can’t move without being in the worst pain all over my body. I couldn’t get out of bed today without moaning. Couldn’t even see straight. I was up a lot more than down the last few days but still took some gnarly spills. One point yesterday I was riding toe side like a bat out of hell down a black diamond which I hit by mistake and started going too fast. I got scared, jerked the board heel side too quickly, got snagged on something in the snow and went straight down on my back and hit the back of my head so hard that I blacked out. I saw my whole life flash before my eyes and then a few minutes later I woke up with my hands behind my head holding my skull and two people standing over me with these big eyes like I was dead or something. ‘are you alright man?’ they were asking me. I couldn’t speak. I just laid there holding the back of my head in my hands. I was seeing stars. My brain felt like it was shaking inside my skull or something. it hurt like a mother. My whole body hurt. I felt blood swelling under my eyes. i looked up at my companion El Luce who is the son of my brother’s wife’s uncle whatever the hell that makes him but we call each other cousins and I asked him ‘dude is there blood on the ice?’ I couldn’t move. He looked all around me. ‘No man, how do you feel?’ I leaned over and spit a big spoonful of blood out of my mouth onto the white powder next to me. ‘There is now,’ I said and laughed. ‘holy shit, dude you're bleeding inside. I'm going to go get ski patrol to carry you down the mountain. Wait here.’ ‘No way man. Then I won't be able to board anymore. Fuck that. just let me lie here a while.’ we sat there for a while and eventually I got up. I took a few more Advil, guzzled an energy drink and we continued on in our day. But I'm still spitting up blood today unfortunately. crazy.
Be it known from here on out I'm going to start wearing a helmet. Makes sense. Last year I cracked two ribs and except for slight breathing difficulty and extreme pain it didn't really bother me. and all the soreness in the world is worth the thrill of the ride down those mountains. But when I fell on my head yesterday and felt like I had split my skull wide open I had this realization how lucky I have been the last few years. if I'm going to get the most out of the sport and really go for it I need to protect the old noggin. I don't care if I break my arms or legs or fingers in a million places, but my head... no way. fuck that. I could have been fucked up forever from that spill. Chances are I have a concussion. In fact, I definitely have a concussion. After we learned what that is. Supposedly its when you damage your brain so badly that it bleeds and swells inside of your skull. That's probably what the blood is that I am spitting out. But in all honesty I feel great. I was lucky. Just sore as hell.
---------------------------------
My oldest niece, Jadine, is 13 years old now. she is sprouting like crazy. wears all this make up and all of a sudden is very well endowed. I'm talking like a 25 year old woman endowed. Beav and I took her out with us today and every guy we pass is looking at her like she's this hot piece of meat. Its crazy and gross. They have no idea she's only 13 so we pardon their stares. But it really freaks us out. so we told her mom tonight that we need to have a talk with her. the old ‘don't let them drink the milk if they don't buy the cow talk. She agreed to let us have the talk with her. I told her how when my little cousin Rosie got to about 15 I had that same talk with her and now she's like 22 years old and still hasn’t had sex. I warned her about every thing guys would say to her to get her to have sex and how important it was for her to hold out for her husband. over the years all through high school and college she would write me letters and tell me how right I was with all the different tactics the boys would use to get her to sleep with them but how she always held out and how happy she is now that she played it that way. that always made me feel good.
Me and Beav were joking around tonight about it. I told him that I cannot believe I spent all my junior high and high school years doing anything I could to get into girls shirts and into their pants, and now as an adult I am doing anything I can to stop boys of that same age from doing that exact thing with my cousins and nieces. How ironic. But I know every move in the book so there's no way any kid is going to try something I didn't already try when I was their age. So if the girls listen to me they will be very well prepared. They will grow up good respectable women by the time they get old enough to meet a good man that they want to marry.
I know that may sound crazy coming from a singer in a rock band, but I think its important. At least for the girls in my life that I care about. I will still never forget the time I told the Stallion that I was saving myself for my future wife and she laughed her ass off and thought it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. she still teases me about it now. But I still think its awesome when you meet a girl that you really like and she hasn’t slept with a hundred guys before you.
Spent some good quality time with the twin nieces who are now 10 years old showing them how to do their hair. We went to the salon and I bought them gloss and wax and gel and leave in conditioner and showed them how to use it to look like movie stars. My sisters were telling the nieces ‘listen to uncle Fishy. he spends more time on his hair than a girl so you're in good hands. He knows what he's talking about. they are only ten but I made them repeat the rules for me out loud. Rule number one: only brush your hair when its wet. If you brush it when its dry you will end up with big frizzy bushy hair. Rule number two: after you shampoo, don't use conditioner or you may end up with flat head. Rule number three: always use a leave-in conditioner or a gloss. Then comb through and style and leave it alone. Rule number four: use gel or wax or clay as a styling tool to shape and form. But don't use it all over your head or you will look like you have plastic hair. Just use it sparingly to give shape to certain areas. We spent hours in the bathroom playing with our hair together, each of them copying whatever I did to my own hair. What are uncles for? Good times.
Beav and I then took the girls to Borders to buy Lollie the new Train album that she wanted and right next to the Train section was a Transcendence section with a few of our Nothing is cohesive CDs in there. I lifted up a CD and showed the girls the back of the CD and asked ‘who’s that girls?’ ‘That's you uncle Fishy!’ they yelled. ‘Why yes it is. Look at that. what a surprise. How did they get me on there?’ I joked. I must say, that was a proud moment.
Last screening: meet Joe black with a brilliant brad pitt and Anthony Hopkins and a stunning Claire Folani. I loved this movie. Even more the second time.
Be it known from here on out I'm going to start wearing a helmet. Makes sense. Last year I cracked two ribs and except for slight breathing difficulty and extreme pain it didn't really bother me. and all the soreness in the world is worth the thrill of the ride down those mountains. But when I fell on my head yesterday and felt like I had split my skull wide open I had this realization how lucky I have been the last few years. if I'm going to get the most out of the sport and really go for it I need to protect the old noggin. I don't care if I break my arms or legs or fingers in a million places, but my head... no way. fuck that. I could have been fucked up forever from that spill. Chances are I have a concussion. In fact, I definitely have a concussion. After we learned what that is. Supposedly its when you damage your brain so badly that it bleeds and swells inside of your skull. That's probably what the blood is that I am spitting out. But in all honesty I feel great. I was lucky. Just sore as hell.
---------------------------------
My oldest niece, Jadine, is 13 years old now. she is sprouting like crazy. wears all this make up and all of a sudden is very well endowed. I'm talking like a 25 year old woman endowed. Beav and I took her out with us today and every guy we pass is looking at her like she's this hot piece of meat. Its crazy and gross. They have no idea she's only 13 so we pardon their stares. But it really freaks us out. so we told her mom tonight that we need to have a talk with her. the old ‘don't let them drink the milk if they don't buy the cow talk. She agreed to let us have the talk with her. I told her how when my little cousin Rosie got to about 15 I had that same talk with her and now she's like 22 years old and still hasn’t had sex. I warned her about every thing guys would say to her to get her to have sex and how important it was for her to hold out for her husband. over the years all through high school and college she would write me letters and tell me how right I was with all the different tactics the boys would use to get her to sleep with them but how she always held out and how happy she is now that she played it that way. that always made me feel good.
Me and Beav were joking around tonight about it. I told him that I cannot believe I spent all my junior high and high school years doing anything I could to get into girls shirts and into their pants, and now as an adult I am doing anything I can to stop boys of that same age from doing that exact thing with my cousins and nieces. How ironic. But I know every move in the book so there's no way any kid is going to try something I didn't already try when I was their age. So if the girls listen to me they will be very well prepared. They will grow up good respectable women by the time they get old enough to meet a good man that they want to marry.
I know that may sound crazy coming from a singer in a rock band, but I think its important. At least for the girls in my life that I care about. I will still never forget the time I told the Stallion that I was saving myself for my future wife and she laughed her ass off and thought it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. she still teases me about it now. But I still think its awesome when you meet a girl that you really like and she hasn’t slept with a hundred guys before you.
Spent some good quality time with the twin nieces who are now 10 years old showing them how to do their hair. We went to the salon and I bought them gloss and wax and gel and leave in conditioner and showed them how to use it to look like movie stars. My sisters were telling the nieces ‘listen to uncle Fishy. he spends more time on his hair than a girl so you're in good hands. He knows what he's talking about. they are only ten but I made them repeat the rules for me out loud. Rule number one: only brush your hair when its wet. If you brush it when its dry you will end up with big frizzy bushy hair. Rule number two: after you shampoo, don't use conditioner or you may end up with flat head. Rule number three: always use a leave-in conditioner or a gloss. Then comb through and style and leave it alone. Rule number four: use gel or wax or clay as a styling tool to shape and form. But don't use it all over your head or you will look like you have plastic hair. Just use it sparingly to give shape to certain areas. We spent hours in the bathroom playing with our hair together, each of them copying whatever I did to my own hair. What are uncles for? Good times.
Beav and I then took the girls to Borders to buy Lollie the new Train album that she wanted and right next to the Train section was a Transcendence section with a few of our Nothing is cohesive CDs in there. I lifted up a CD and showed the girls the back of the CD and asked ‘who’s that girls?’ ‘That's you uncle Fishy!’ they yelled. ‘Why yes it is. Look at that. what a surprise. How did they get me on there?’ I joked. I must say, that was a proud moment.
Last screening: meet Joe black with a brilliant brad pitt and Anthony Hopkins and a stunning Claire Folani. I loved this movie. Even more the second time.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Dinner with Beka tonight, this activist girl I met down in Miami protesting the FTAA meetings last year. she is starting an art gallery that focuses on art for activism. Great idea. I have been so pleasantly surprised how much fuller my social calendar is here in New York after only living here for three months, when I had lived in Miami for three years. But I find that the city is so aligned with who I am and what I represent. So much going on here you can never be bored. so culturally and intellectually expanded. The city has its downsides, to be sure. But they will never outweigh the pluses. You immediately find yourself a New York snob, feeling almost subconsciously obligated to believe that if anyone or anything is happening outside of New York or L.A. then it really isn't worth knowing about. True? nah. But you still cannot help but feeling that way.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Evidently I sent this crazy email to Craig yesterday that had him a bit worried, so he calls me this morning, dog what's wrong with you? you alright. Yeah why? well you know that email, I was worried. You're working too much. Take some deep breaths man... anyway, so he recommends that I make a list of the top ten things that I am grateful for right now. wow how very Anthony Robbins. O.k. I assure him I will. o.k. gotta go. I'm headed down into the subway. Bro thanks. Later.
And I do make that list. About ten hours later. I sat down tonight and tried to make it. and I almost got to ten. I made it to nine actually. But I didn't get a lot out of it honestly. A little. Not a lot. Just too worried.
So I'm sitting trying to make it through this film I am studying called full frontal. As a viewer I'm just hating it. as an audience member. But from an industry perspective I am learning from it. gaining from it. its not a people movie. Its an industry movie. It’s a filmmakers movie. He admits it in the interview that comes as bonus material. He made the movie because he felt like he had to because he had just made oceans 11. so as big and mainstream and Hollywood as that was he felt like he had to balance it out with this film. o.k. fine. Anyway, I'm suffering through it. but still learning a bit here and there. gathering ideas.
And I'm laying there and I'm thinking that I feel as though I am just waiting to die. should I smoke? Drink more tea? More cognac? Take another valium? Should I eat? pick up the guitar? Grab the laptop and write? What should I do? man this is boring. Its like I'm just waiting for something to happen and I don't know what it is. I mean, I'm just sitting there feeling not even depressed, unless that is what depression feels like and I just don't know it, more like apathy. Like a supreme apathy towards life itself. Towards my life. which is so unlike me, but has been so like me the last nine to twelve months or so. I mean, I read the diaries too. I fucking live them. I know that I'm not myself lately. At least not the myself that I used to be or prefer to be.
So I decide to think about the ten things that I grateful for. and I'm standing there peeing and thinking about my life and how easy it is. how absolutely fucking perfect it is in so many ways but how all I do is worry about it and complain about it. and how totally effing lucky I have it compared to so many people that I know and who know me. and here I am always just in a constant state of worry and panic and almost numbness to it. totally without the vigor that I used to walk around with in my life.
So as I'm finishing peeing I ask myself so Fishy what the fuck are you upset about? and this was such a novel idea. I thought ‘wow, yeah, what am I so upset about or worried about that I can’t even be grateful for the things that I have written down that I know I should be grateful about.
And there it was. I needed to make a list of the things that I was worried about. I needed to make a list of what I am happy about. the top ten things I am unhappy about. and so that's where I am now. making this list. And the thing about it is this. as we have discovered a hundred fucking times before, its all about free attention. if we don't have free attention, if our attention is so caught up on all the things that we are worried about and unhappy about then we don't even have enough free attention to acknowledge and appreciate all the good things in our life that we should be grateful for. I'm three days away from sitting down and interviewing one of the most infamous and respected religious reformers in the western world. and this is something I have been trying to nail down for over a year and I finally got the chance to sit with this man and talk with him and do it on film, and here I am feeling like life is boring and meaningless and nothing is going on in my life. Unfuckingbeleivable.
So I'm headed back to my list of things I am unhappy and worried about. and I have to release this shit. through acknowledgement and then through taking action I will release these things. that should free up more attention. we’ll see. Already feel better just from releasing the feelings on paper.
And I do make that list. About ten hours later. I sat down tonight and tried to make it. and I almost got to ten. I made it to nine actually. But I didn't get a lot out of it honestly. A little. Not a lot. Just too worried.
So I'm sitting trying to make it through this film I am studying called full frontal. As a viewer I'm just hating it. as an audience member. But from an industry perspective I am learning from it. gaining from it. its not a people movie. Its an industry movie. It’s a filmmakers movie. He admits it in the interview that comes as bonus material. He made the movie because he felt like he had to because he had just made oceans 11. so as big and mainstream and Hollywood as that was he felt like he had to balance it out with this film. o.k. fine. Anyway, I'm suffering through it. but still learning a bit here and there. gathering ideas.
And I'm laying there and I'm thinking that I feel as though I am just waiting to die. should I smoke? Drink more tea? More cognac? Take another valium? Should I eat? pick up the guitar? Grab the laptop and write? What should I do? man this is boring. Its like I'm just waiting for something to happen and I don't know what it is. I mean, I'm just sitting there feeling not even depressed, unless that is what depression feels like and I just don't know it, more like apathy. Like a supreme apathy towards life itself. Towards my life. which is so unlike me, but has been so like me the last nine to twelve months or so. I mean, I read the diaries too. I fucking live them. I know that I'm not myself lately. At least not the myself that I used to be or prefer to be.
So I decide to think about the ten things that I grateful for. and I'm standing there peeing and thinking about my life and how easy it is. how absolutely fucking perfect it is in so many ways but how all I do is worry about it and complain about it. and how totally effing lucky I have it compared to so many people that I know and who know me. and here I am always just in a constant state of worry and panic and almost numbness to it. totally without the vigor that I used to walk around with in my life.
So as I'm finishing peeing I ask myself so Fishy what the fuck are you upset about? and this was such a novel idea. I thought ‘wow, yeah, what am I so upset about or worried about that I can’t even be grateful for the things that I have written down that I know I should be grateful about.
And there it was. I needed to make a list of the things that I was worried about. I needed to make a list of what I am happy about. the top ten things I am unhappy about. and so that's where I am now. making this list. And the thing about it is this. as we have discovered a hundred fucking times before, its all about free attention. if we don't have free attention, if our attention is so caught up on all the things that we are worried about and unhappy about then we don't even have enough free attention to acknowledge and appreciate all the good things in our life that we should be grateful for. I'm three days away from sitting down and interviewing one of the most infamous and respected religious reformers in the western world. and this is something I have been trying to nail down for over a year and I finally got the chance to sit with this man and talk with him and do it on film, and here I am feeling like life is boring and meaningless and nothing is going on in my life. Unfuckingbeleivable.
So I'm headed back to my list of things I am unhappy and worried about. and I have to release this shit. through acknowledgement and then through taking action I will release these things. that should free up more attention. we’ll see. Already feel better just from releasing the feelings on paper.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Just to fill you in: R's manager said no. R liked the idea and thought it was funny. I suggest he do a walk on and we meet in the street somewhere and go have coffee and go talk shop... I gave him a 'what can I do to sleep with you' shirt which he thought was awesome and funny again. His manager Barney, who I swear looks just like the real Barney, is a dick who I am finding trouble appreciating right now and said 'I don't think R will be doing a sitcom/reality show anytime soon no matter who's on it...' I then asked, 'well shouldn’t R decide what he's going to be on or off...' etc, and then we continued to argue for a while until finally agreeing that I would call and speak to some suit at his label who I have never heard of. Frankly I think I chickened out and did not present the idea as well and as strongly as I could have... I was not the full me in the present as I know I could have been.
I sulked back to my office kicking mud-puddles the whole way in a lot of anger and frustration and mumbling to myself. Our last song went higher than any of his recent songs I kept telling myself. Who does that fucking guy think he is etc [his manager, not Rufus who I adore]... [although he sells a shitload more cds than we do and I know that and I know I'm a non-famous compared to his famous and that made me even madder since he is so much younger... even worse...] but I still think the idea a brilliant one and feel that it could be great for his career since he's always publicly complaining about how few cds he sells etc... and of course great for ours as well... obviously.
Again, I was just frustrated with my inability to get my message across effectively enough... UGH!!! No need to respond. Just to fill you in. after a few minutes I decided to turn the anger into positive productive energy to use to go further, not to sink into a pit of despair, so that's what I did and had a very productive day.
Thanks for the sage advice again by the way for sleep. you are a real tea freak and a kind of natural-living guru I see. You have a lucky daughter Jules. She will be wealthy and wise. Just reading your advice made me feel better. Reminds me of the old me. Although I must admit that I did not take your advice yet. instead, I popped a half a valium, drank two beers, smoked a cigar, and went to a production meeting to give the bad news. Sometimes I have no idea who I am, I mean, I don't even drink, and yet since I've been here the pressure has been so intense that I find myself drinking more than once a week and I used to drink once a year if that... but I'm o.k. with all that. with just letting it all happen and being in the flow of it. you know what I mean? Exploiting the reality of it so to speak. This is it. this is the reality of it. and I'm living it. trying to throw your arms around the world. know that song? yeah, like that.
Thanks for letting me purge. Hope all is well in the snow.
Last screening: devils playground. Story of the Amish people. Interesting. I had no idea. what a novel approach they take to the world!
I sulked back to my office kicking mud-puddles the whole way in a lot of anger and frustration and mumbling to myself. Our last song went higher than any of his recent songs I kept telling myself. Who does that fucking guy think he is etc [his manager, not Rufus who I adore]... [although he sells a shitload more cds than we do and I know that and I know I'm a non-famous compared to his famous and that made me even madder since he is so much younger... even worse...] but I still think the idea a brilliant one and feel that it could be great for his career since he's always publicly complaining about how few cds he sells etc... and of course great for ours as well... obviously.
Again, I was just frustrated with my inability to get my message across effectively enough... UGH!!! No need to respond. Just to fill you in. after a few minutes I decided to turn the anger into positive productive energy to use to go further, not to sink into a pit of despair, so that's what I did and had a very productive day.
Thanks for the sage advice again by the way for sleep. you are a real tea freak and a kind of natural-living guru I see. You have a lucky daughter Jules. She will be wealthy and wise. Just reading your advice made me feel better. Reminds me of the old me. Although I must admit that I did not take your advice yet. instead, I popped a half a valium, drank two beers, smoked a cigar, and went to a production meeting to give the bad news. Sometimes I have no idea who I am, I mean, I don't even drink, and yet since I've been here the pressure has been so intense that I find myself drinking more than once a week and I used to drink once a year if that... but I'm o.k. with all that. with just letting it all happen and being in the flow of it. you know what I mean? Exploiting the reality of it so to speak. This is it. this is the reality of it. and I'm living it. trying to throw your arms around the world. know that song? yeah, like that.
Thanks for letting me purge. Hope all is well in the snow.
Last screening: devils playground. Story of the Amish people. Interesting. I had no idea. what a novel approach they take to the world!
Monday, December 06, 2004
Saturday, December 04, 2004
The 4th of December. Unbelievable. Feels like such a race against time at this point. I just woke up. I had to pee so bad, it felt like I was going to burst but I was so OUT of it, and so COLD. I think its like 30 degrees in here. I left the window open. I always sleep with the window open. Cleo used to hate it. we would wake up in the middle of the night in Vermont and there would be three feet of snow outside and I would have the window open and we would be frozen. Funny. O.k. so yes, trying this new thing the last few weeks where as soon as you wake up you start to write, which everyone says is so amazing, and I have found it to be easy, flowing, and inspiring; as I woke up I had this realization that the last few months have been so forced. Like I'm forcing everything. and then I realized that I am just in major resistance to so many things. that is that forced horrible painful dreading feeling I have been living with lately. It has been over two years since I have been to an Avatar course of any kind. And you wouldn’t believe how easy it is to slip back into “normal people” thinking and living, if you don't go to a course at least once a year; at least for me. I just always start to forget the basics. and then of course because everyone around you is not an Avatar and still pushes and pulls and struggles and climbs and moans and groans etc up the hills and ladders and through the woods etc you just end up finding yourself with the same beliefs again and finding everything such a challenge rather than being easy like they normally are in my world... anyway, at the least I woke up with the realization of it.
Now the fun part. Relax, let go, one by one, start observing things in my consciousness that are bothering me, and then process them. find out what I am actually in resistance to. each thing. feel through the resistance, the fear, the guilt or frustration, or whatever else is there, and then let it go. be left with ‘to create or not to create,’ and decide in the moment of clarity. Today will be that day for me. Now it is time to get into more of a flow.
Sort of. Actually I have a pretty busy day, but I will find time for the work.
just got off the phone. very excited. I will get to interview bishop John Shelby spong. I have been working on this for about a year. Tomorrow I will go see him speak in lower Manhattan. Very close to nailing down the interview with reverend Al Sharpton and will know this week if that is going down. I am achieving this dream of being able to connect all the dots of the meaning of it all through hanging out with interviewing people, slowly, but it is happening. This whole show thing has ended up being much better than I thought it would be by the way it is combining so many different aspects of who I am into one creative thing. it may be the missing piece.
I am in this restaurant I always go to now. around the corner from the apt. that's funny, when you read you have no idea that the writer keeps switching places where he is writing on you. funny when you think about it. amazed that I live here now. everyone walking into these quaint little restaurants with their winter coats and scarves on. How lucky indeed I am.
In my inbox I find this hilarious email advertising an online pharmacy:
“100 Assorted Life Fixers”
http://www.someone8avenue.info/?9nzP/f=2/Aau/LhNo/XxdQ”
If only it were that easy! Haha!
I am going to see Juliet in Oregon in a week or two. I am excited to see her face to face after all these years. And I will make good practical use of the time by conducting some interviews with anti-logging activists and attorneys as well. I will stay at a bed and breakfast that makes its own home made granola, which will be cool. will film the whole thing.
I continue to write this ongoing letter whenever I feel like it called ‘to my wife whenever I may find you.’ Good therapy. I think it keeps me more centered and in reality. I started it in early 2001, and just add to it every now and then with whatever I'm thinking about at the time. one day after we are married I will give it to her as a wedding present. I think it will be a present that will be very meaningful. something that no amount of money could buy.
What a funny practice. But it helps placate the romantic in me so I'm not off with every cute bunny that crosses my path and instead stay focused and not go off on some tangent that wouldn’t be optimal for me or my future family. When you're a guy, it is easy to get distracted by whatever happens to just cross your path. So keeping the letter going to her helps me hold a place in my heart for her and continue to carry myself in a manner befitting who I hope she is and would want me to be, however strange that may sound.
A classic musicians/engineers joke sent in by my good friend Zeke Zaschin:
A musician who's spent his entire life trying to get a record deal is feeling extremely depressed. He's been turned-down by every record company he's ever contacted. No one seems to recognize his unique genius. So, he decides to top himself and comes up with an ingenuous plan to get back at all the record companies who've rejected him all of his life. He books time at a recording studio, and instructs the sound engineer to record everything he says, and every sound he hears, and then copy it all onto 1000 CDs, and send a CD to every record company executive on the list that he hands the engineer. The guy walks into the vocal booth; the red light is on, and he begins..."This is a message for all you sycophantic, talentless, stupid record company ass-holes who've ignored me for all these years. I've dedicated my life to writing beautiful, emotive, soul-searching music, and all you bastards do is discard my tapes, never return my 'phone calls, and sign these horrible, no-talent, ridiculous, dumb bands, and these filthy, dirty rappers! Well, you bunch of morons, you parasites, you dumb pricks; I've taken all I can of your puerile, shallow industry, and it's you who have driven me to this! Goodbye you fuckin' murderers of art!" With that, he pulls out a gun, puts it to his head and blows his brains out. The sound engineer glances up and says, "Okay. That's fine. I've got a good level. Wanna go for a take?"
Last screening: Mansfield park, another Jane Austen. O.k.
Current spin: Matthew Sabatella, ballad of America. Americana music. I am thinking about putting this baby out on our label. Fascinating stuff. and of course Matt is brilliant.
Now the fun part. Relax, let go, one by one, start observing things in my consciousness that are bothering me, and then process them. find out what I am actually in resistance to. each thing. feel through the resistance, the fear, the guilt or frustration, or whatever else is there, and then let it go. be left with ‘to create or not to create,’ and decide in the moment of clarity. Today will be that day for me. Now it is time to get into more of a flow.
Sort of. Actually I have a pretty busy day, but I will find time for the work.
just got off the phone. very excited. I will get to interview bishop John Shelby spong. I have been working on this for about a year. Tomorrow I will go see him speak in lower Manhattan. Very close to nailing down the interview with reverend Al Sharpton and will know this week if that is going down. I am achieving this dream of being able to connect all the dots of the meaning of it all through hanging out with interviewing people, slowly, but it is happening. This whole show thing has ended up being much better than I thought it would be by the way it is combining so many different aspects of who I am into one creative thing. it may be the missing piece.
I am in this restaurant I always go to now. around the corner from the apt. that's funny, when you read you have no idea that the writer keeps switching places where he is writing on you. funny when you think about it. amazed that I live here now. everyone walking into these quaint little restaurants with their winter coats and scarves on. How lucky indeed I am.
In my inbox I find this hilarious email advertising an online pharmacy:
“100 Assorted Life Fixers”
http://www.someone8avenue.info/?9nzP/f=2/Aau/LhNo/XxdQ”
If only it were that easy! Haha!
I am going to see Juliet in Oregon in a week or two. I am excited to see her face to face after all these years. And I will make good practical use of the time by conducting some interviews with anti-logging activists and attorneys as well. I will stay at a bed and breakfast that makes its own home made granola, which will be cool. will film the whole thing.
I continue to write this ongoing letter whenever I feel like it called ‘to my wife whenever I may find you.’ Good therapy. I think it keeps me more centered and in reality. I started it in early 2001, and just add to it every now and then with whatever I'm thinking about at the time. one day after we are married I will give it to her as a wedding present. I think it will be a present that will be very meaningful. something that no amount of money could buy.
What a funny practice. But it helps placate the romantic in me so I'm not off with every cute bunny that crosses my path and instead stay focused and not go off on some tangent that wouldn’t be optimal for me or my future family. When you're a guy, it is easy to get distracted by whatever happens to just cross your path. So keeping the letter going to her helps me hold a place in my heart for her and continue to carry myself in a manner befitting who I hope she is and would want me to be, however strange that may sound.
A classic musicians/engineers joke sent in by my good friend Zeke Zaschin:
A musician who's spent his entire life trying to get a record deal is feeling extremely depressed. He's been turned-down by every record company he's ever contacted. No one seems to recognize his unique genius. So, he decides to top himself and comes up with an ingenuous plan to get back at all the record companies who've rejected him all of his life. He books time at a recording studio, and instructs the sound engineer to record everything he says, and every sound he hears, and then copy it all onto 1000 CDs, and send a CD to every record company executive on the list that he hands the engineer. The guy walks into the vocal booth; the red light is on, and he begins..."This is a message for all you sycophantic, talentless, stupid record company ass-holes who've ignored me for all these years. I've dedicated my life to writing beautiful, emotive, soul-searching music, and all you bastards do is discard my tapes, never return my 'phone calls, and sign these horrible, no-talent, ridiculous, dumb bands, and these filthy, dirty rappers! Well, you bunch of morons, you parasites, you dumb pricks; I've taken all I can of your puerile, shallow industry, and it's you who have driven me to this! Goodbye you fuckin' murderers of art!" With that, he pulls out a gun, puts it to his head and blows his brains out. The sound engineer glances up and says, "Okay. That's fine. I've got a good level. Wanna go for a take?"
Last screening: Mansfield park, another Jane Austen. O.k.
Current spin: Matthew Sabatella, ballad of America. Americana music. I am thinking about putting this baby out on our label. Fascinating stuff. and of course Matt is brilliant.
Friday, December 03, 2004
Went to an art gallery exhibit opening in the lower east side tonight a little earlier. I was shocked how out of place I felt there. all the punks with their piercings all over their bodies and the graffiti all over everyfuckingthing. Hung out for a while and spent my time in the cab wondering if I had just gotten too old for the lower east side artist thing, but from what I could remember I never felt comfortable in those seedy kind of struggling artist environments. Even when I was one of those struggling artists myself. was it just that it brings up money issues for me? am I that much of a snob now? I'm a singer in a rock band and I swear to God I have always had a fucking hard time in the east village. I don't know. maybe its not the lower east side as much as its just dirt and grime and poverty and graffiti that turns me off. I just like when shit is going on. Real shit. not beginning shit. and the vibe I get there is that people are just starting out in their careers rather than kicking ass in them. even though all the clubs we play are there, so who the fuck am I to say anything.
Anyway I cruised uptown where I instantly feel more comfortable. Upper east side. The polar opposite of the lower east side. it is 10 pm on a Friday night. I am in a place called merchants. A New York landmark restaurant, that has a wood paneled bar and cigar lounge downstairs with a fireplace. Nice scene. There are only five effing places in the entire city where cigar smokers can smoke now since some character called mayor Bloomberg took over, and manhattanites are pissed. This place is packed. Must be a hundred people packed into a four hundred square foot bar. Everyone is screaming about Bloomberg like he's a Nazi.
For me I could care less; I'm here, out of the cold, in front of the fire, smoking a delicious cigar and drinking a brandy, God is there anything better than cognac and a cigar? and amongst all of these Friday night parties and revelers I have the fucking laptop on my lap madly typing at ten o'clock at night. hilarious. People must think I am such a freak. But there is just so much work that I can never keep up! I am really freaking out. I think actually what I am feeling is that I am having a nervous breakdown from the pressure of trying to get it all done and keep up. but I only need one thing to break and then I'm home-free.
Trying to wake up earlier everyday. Forcing myself. Having been used to waking up between 10 and noon for the last ten years or so, I have just found it so hard here with all the work there is to do now. in the middle of so many different projects, never feeling as though I have enough time to accomplish everything that I need to in order to achieve my goals. I have taken it upon myself to force myself awake by eight-thirty no matter what. No matter what time I go to sleep. Which is difficult because I am still on a very late schedule. My body doesn’t fall asleep till 3 or 4.
But this is ridiculous. This is just too much work for any one person. Right now I am trying to juggle five major projects: running the bands record company – and at this I am every department right now, pres, shipping, secretary, thank God I am not in graphics or web design or press, for those departments we have other people, but everything else I run, then of course there is the TV show that came out of nowhere, then there is this infomercial project for the vitamin company, which could lead to huge money, still trading stocks in my “spare time” to get more cash coming in, also trying to record the two new albums with the band – and saying two new albums is just me falling into the limited reality that seems so real to me at this time when in reality it is more like four that I have been working on, full complete albums with songs and titles etc, but again just always so used to working within these limitations.... of what people say you can and cannot do and what is possible and what is not possible and what is normal and what is not normal; still doing the real estate investment project with Sam, Boo, and Raphael – if I don't do the real estate investment I am going to wake up and find myself still renting here a year later and quite frankly to go from owning five homes to none is fucking driving me crazy --- every month that you write a rent check to someone else it sends shivers right through your whole body – the most maddening part is that I have spent every cent of my profit on all these different artistic projects and none of them have paid off as big as if I would have just reinvested the money into other areas like more real estate or what have you.
Anyway I cruised uptown where I instantly feel more comfortable. Upper east side. The polar opposite of the lower east side. it is 10 pm on a Friday night. I am in a place called merchants. A New York landmark restaurant, that has a wood paneled bar and cigar lounge downstairs with a fireplace. Nice scene. There are only five effing places in the entire city where cigar smokers can smoke now since some character called mayor Bloomberg took over, and manhattanites are pissed. This place is packed. Must be a hundred people packed into a four hundred square foot bar. Everyone is screaming about Bloomberg like he's a Nazi.
For me I could care less; I'm here, out of the cold, in front of the fire, smoking a delicious cigar and drinking a brandy, God is there anything better than cognac and a cigar? and amongst all of these Friday night parties and revelers I have the fucking laptop on my lap madly typing at ten o'clock at night. hilarious. People must think I am such a freak. But there is just so much work that I can never keep up! I am really freaking out. I think actually what I am feeling is that I am having a nervous breakdown from the pressure of trying to get it all done and keep up. but I only need one thing to break and then I'm home-free.
Trying to wake up earlier everyday. Forcing myself. Having been used to waking up between 10 and noon for the last ten years or so, I have just found it so hard here with all the work there is to do now. in the middle of so many different projects, never feeling as though I have enough time to accomplish everything that I need to in order to achieve my goals. I have taken it upon myself to force myself awake by eight-thirty no matter what. No matter what time I go to sleep. Which is difficult because I am still on a very late schedule. My body doesn’t fall asleep till 3 or 4.
But this is ridiculous. This is just too much work for any one person. Right now I am trying to juggle five major projects: running the bands record company – and at this I am every department right now, pres, shipping, secretary, thank God I am not in graphics or web design or press, for those departments we have other people, but everything else I run, then of course there is the TV show that came out of nowhere, then there is this infomercial project for the vitamin company, which could lead to huge money, still trading stocks in my “spare time” to get more cash coming in, also trying to record the two new albums with the band – and saying two new albums is just me falling into the limited reality that seems so real to me at this time when in reality it is more like four that I have been working on, full complete albums with songs and titles etc, but again just always so used to working within these limitations.... of what people say you can and cannot do and what is possible and what is not possible and what is normal and what is not normal; still doing the real estate investment project with Sam, Boo, and Raphael – if I don't do the real estate investment I am going to wake up and find myself still renting here a year later and quite frankly to go from owning five homes to none is fucking driving me crazy --- every month that you write a rent check to someone else it sends shivers right through your whole body – the most maddening part is that I have spent every cent of my profit on all these different artistic projects and none of them have paid off as big as if I would have just reinvested the money into other areas like more real estate or what have you.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
I wake up. madly typing away, taking notes on scenes for the show, chugging cups of coffee. mom calls early to ask how to do something on eBay. An hour later I call the pups to tell her how lucky she and her baby are that she is home with him everyday, raising him, helping him raise himself. If all children could be so lucky. the world would indeed be a better place. a few minutes later rockaway calls to ask me to play him a bunch of world music songs over the phone for a new project he is working on. ‘dude just real quick play me like your top ten.’; dude I'm too busy. ‘ ‘ o.k. your top five then. send me a list of instruments I should use. I have combine world music with techno.’ Dude that's easy. take Paul Simon peter Gabriel, jarabe de palo, Cesare Cremonini Ali farka toure Caetano Veloso and mix it with aphex twin art of noise and the Bourne identity soundtrack. It’ll sound killer.’ ‘o.k. thanks man. Hey by the way I met a chick.’ No way realy? Dude that's awesome. what's she like?’ dude I always thought I wanted Pamela Anderson but she's more like ally sheedy. Holy cow man that's great. Finally. That's what I've been telling you. dude you can always go buy a Pamela Anderson in the middle of the night if you want one. but what you need at home is a good woman with a sharp wit and a good heart who’s going to take care of the family. You know what I mean man?’ ‘yeah I do now man. O.k. gotta run brother.’ And then I call Beaver to get a tip on how to make a paragraph on Microsoft excel. Yo bro what's up man? Listen I'm in a meeting so I'm going to say this real fast,’ he whispers, highlight your cell, go to format, click on the alignment tab, and check the box marked wrap text. O.k.? o.k. man I gotta go. talk at you later.
Technology has changed everything for us now.
A shooting day. production meeting. Good progress.
And then off to the dentist because my friend Boo Boo Kitty was getting a tooth extracted. She had no idea what she is in for so I told her I was going to meet her there. and also that she couldn’t do it with just Novocain no matter what the dentist said. This was a massive molar with three big roots. So anyway I show up. dentist says its going to be five minutes so I call a car to come wait outside for us. We hang in the waiting room for a the first few minutes till me and the camera man hear her screaming. So we run in there and this guy is trying to yank her tooth out with a pliers basically, like they do, and she is all tensed up and screaming. I had already given her a valium. And half a vicodin; and she had probably five shots of Novocain but to no avail.
I introduce myself as her brother so they let me stay in there. this went on and on for another half hour. every few minutes he would try to pull the tooth and she would start screaming and the dentist would rip off his gloves and walk out of the room frustrated. I would go out into the hallway and try to talk him back into giving it another go. I whip out this little bottle from my pocket filled with different colored pills and give her another valium, Just suck on it under your tongue I tell her. The surgeon tells me, ‘you can’t just give her a pill like that. that's a controlled substance.’ ‘Look man do you want to finish this job or not? She's a Princess. She's not used to this,’ I would tell him and he would just look at me funny, like I was crazy. ‘now come on lets try it again. c'mon doc, she can do it.’ and then he would put new gloves on and try again. and the whole time the camera guy is trying discreetly to shoot the scene. We go on like this for another half hour. one root at a time. she's squeezing my hand like crazy and screaming. The dentist is shooting more Novocain into her than I have ever seen. maybe another five vials full into her mouth. He is swearing there is no way she can be feeling any pain and she is screaming that she is still feeling pain. she's getting upset. He's more than upset. The patients in the waiting room are freaking out because she is screaming so loud. I'm trying to explain to him ‘look she's not like a normal person. she's a little kitten. She's Boo Boo Kitty!’ He's just looking at me like I'm a freak. Of course for every valium I give her I take a half myself because by now I'm freaking out. She gets up again and says ‘I just can’t do this’ and by this time most of the tooth was out. so I reach into my pocket and pull out another valium and this time the dentist is like ‘yes give her another valium.” Now he doesn’t care what I give her. he just wants to be done with it. its been over an hour and a half. Now c'mon boo boo he's telling her, you can do this. I just have to get one more root out. please try to relax. By this time she is so relaxed that she's like drooling. This guy keeps asking me, what are you some producer or film maker or something? all you entertainment people are the same. You all carry pills in your pocket. What is that about?” hey thank God for it doc in this instance huh? He must have thought we were a bunch of crazy peeps. but it worked. The tooth finally pulled and of course Boo Boo Kitty was zonked out. What a crazy scene indeed.
Technology has changed everything for us now.
A shooting day. production meeting. Good progress.
And then off to the dentist because my friend Boo Boo Kitty was getting a tooth extracted. She had no idea what she is in for so I told her I was going to meet her there. and also that she couldn’t do it with just Novocain no matter what the dentist said. This was a massive molar with three big roots. So anyway I show up. dentist says its going to be five minutes so I call a car to come wait outside for us. We hang in the waiting room for a the first few minutes till me and the camera man hear her screaming. So we run in there and this guy is trying to yank her tooth out with a pliers basically, like they do, and she is all tensed up and screaming. I had already given her a valium. And half a vicodin; and she had probably five shots of Novocain but to no avail.
I introduce myself as her brother so they let me stay in there. this went on and on for another half hour. every few minutes he would try to pull the tooth and she would start screaming and the dentist would rip off his gloves and walk out of the room frustrated. I would go out into the hallway and try to talk him back into giving it another go. I whip out this little bottle from my pocket filled with different colored pills and give her another valium, Just suck on it under your tongue I tell her. The surgeon tells me, ‘you can’t just give her a pill like that. that's a controlled substance.’ ‘Look man do you want to finish this job or not? She's a Princess. She's not used to this,’ I would tell him and he would just look at me funny, like I was crazy. ‘now come on lets try it again. c'mon doc, she can do it.’ and then he would put new gloves on and try again. and the whole time the camera guy is trying discreetly to shoot the scene. We go on like this for another half hour. one root at a time. she's squeezing my hand like crazy and screaming. The dentist is shooting more Novocain into her than I have ever seen. maybe another five vials full into her mouth. He is swearing there is no way she can be feeling any pain and she is screaming that she is still feeling pain. she's getting upset. He's more than upset. The patients in the waiting room are freaking out because she is screaming so loud. I'm trying to explain to him ‘look she's not like a normal person. she's a little kitten. She's Boo Boo Kitty!’ He's just looking at me like I'm a freak. Of course for every valium I give her I take a half myself because by now I'm freaking out. She gets up again and says ‘I just can’t do this’ and by this time most of the tooth was out. so I reach into my pocket and pull out another valium and this time the dentist is like ‘yes give her another valium.” Now he doesn’t care what I give her. he just wants to be done with it. its been over an hour and a half. Now c'mon boo boo he's telling her, you can do this. I just have to get one more root out. please try to relax. By this time she is so relaxed that she's like drooling. This guy keeps asking me, what are you some producer or film maker or something? all you entertainment people are the same. You all carry pills in your pocket. What is that about?” hey thank God for it doc in this instance huh? He must have thought we were a bunch of crazy peeps. but it worked. The tooth finally pulled and of course Boo Boo Kitty was zonked out. What a crazy scene indeed.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Well its official. The year is over. What???!!!! Are you fucking serious???!!! Uh, yeah, unfortunately so. So the tables have turned on us finally. When we were kids it seemed like it took forever for Christmas to roll around or for the school year to end. But once we reach a certain age, and I am certainly not going to admit to what age that is, but suffice it to say it is somewhere between 21 and 31, time just starts flying. I'm talking flying. I'm talking flyyyyyyyyyyyying. Like what???! The year is over???! No man, the year just started! Sorry bro. the year is over. Holy shit.
Anyway, got a lot going on, still not much money. but a lot going on. What does that mean in the bigger picture? I'm not sure exactly. but we will see.
The tree in Rockefeller center? I'm serious, it really does exist. last night we went to the annual lighting of it. this town is so funny. every night there is some new thing that you've heard of all your life but you just didn't realize took place here. all in one small city. on this tiny island. crazy.
Current spin: jay z 99 problems and the whole black album which is effing brilliant, Usher, confessions, and of course that Anthony Hamilton song Charlene. The cool thing about iTunes is that you can just go on there and download tons of stuff, one song at a time. so I just always check out the top forty of the urban music and R&B charts and download all the songs. I am so into the R&B, hip hop, and urban music. I just can never get enough of it. I know I say it a lot, but I find it so much more creative and inspiring than rock music, which I just always find so boring and predictable. I wish I didn't make rock music. I am so bored with it. I want to make black music. I wish I was black.
Anyway, got a lot going on, still not much money. but a lot going on. What does that mean in the bigger picture? I'm not sure exactly. but we will see.
The tree in Rockefeller center? I'm serious, it really does exist. last night we went to the annual lighting of it. this town is so funny. every night there is some new thing that you've heard of all your life but you just didn't realize took place here. all in one small city. on this tiny island. crazy.
Current spin: jay z 99 problems and the whole black album which is effing brilliant, Usher, confessions, and of course that Anthony Hamilton song Charlene. The cool thing about iTunes is that you can just go on there and download tons of stuff, one song at a time. so I just always check out the top forty of the urban music and R&B charts and download all the songs. I am so into the R&B, hip hop, and urban music. I just can never get enough of it. I know I say it a lot, but I find it so much more creative and inspiring than rock music, which I just always find so boring and predictable. I wish I didn't make rock music. I am so bored with it. I want to make black music. I wish I was black.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
O.k. I checked it out. the number was correct. An average of 30,273 people die of hunger everyday in the world, most of them children. I went to a bunch of different sites, and all the figures were the same. Crazy. unfuckingfathomable. Here is one of the cooler sites to check out: http://www.starvation.net/
Check it:
by Mark R. Elsis, Lovearth.net, February 9, 2002
I don't feel like commenting on this because it is too big to think about frankly.
Check it:
by Mark R. Elsis, Lovearth.net, February 9, 2002
”On Tuesday September 11, 2001, at least 35,615 of our brother and sisters died from the worst possible death, starvation. Somewhere around 85% of these starvation deaths occur in children 5 years of age or younger. Why are we letting at least 30,273 of the most beautiful children die the worst possible death everyday? Every 2.43 seconds another one of our fellow brothers and sisters dies of starvation. Starvation doesn't just happen on Tuesday September 11, 2001, it happens everyday, 365 days per year, 24 hours per day, it never stops.
The number 35,615 is a conservatively low number for the barbarically needless daily deaths the poorest of the poor die. If we were to add the next two leading ways the poorest of the poor die, water borne diseases and AIDS, we would be approaching a daily body count of 50,000 deaths. Yes, upwards of 50,000 people per day are needlessly dying on Earth. These deaths are dictated by the greed of a very few, and the rest of us are not changing it -- or this ultimate sin wouldn't be happening, now would it?”
I don't feel like commenting on this because it is too big to think about frankly.
Monday, November 29, 2004
I was awakened tonight at 3:37 am by two things: extreme hunger, which I could have easily cured by getting up, getting dressed, and heading out into the freezing weather to find myself something to eat. I must say that I have not gotten used to my current circumstances of not having a housekeeper. So not only do I not have anyone to make me food when I get hungry, there is also no one to shop for food. So there is never anything to eat in the house. I have gotten to the point where I can manage sometimes to have sprite, cookies, and coffee in the house sometimes, the bare essentials, but that's about it. that's all I can fit in my hands at one time at the local drug store.
New York is extreme in so many ways. Grocery shopping is one of them. now not having grocery shopped by myself in nearly ten years, I couldn’t imagine doing it with any fair amount of success in Miami, let alone here in New York city. you don't have a car so how the hell do you get the damn bags into your house after you make your purchases? And how do you know if you aren't getting totally ripped off with everything you buy? The last time I went to buy sugar here in the city, for my coffee, the guy said it was $2.39 for this little box. And I asked if he was sure, and he said yes. now maybe its just been so long since I had been in a store to buy something like sugar, that prices have just skyrocketed. But he did give me a shrug of the shoulders and say “hey it’s the neighborhood.’ Which led me to believe that the prices are just really high here. So that means what? Going to some other neighborhood to grocery shop? So indeed a quandary. I mean, that's what housekeepers are for. along with so many other important things. like my laundry. God don't even get me started. Lets just say that for the first two months here I bought a lot of new pairs of underwear because I just didn't feel like even thinking about how one goes about getting ones laundry done. I have finally figured out that what one does as horrible as this sounds is puts it all into big bags and hauls it to Chinese people who weigh it and then do it for you and charge you by the pound.
It’s not the worst thing in the world but certainly not good either. I would have to say that among all the changes and adjustments that I have had to make in moving here, it is this that has been the most severe, the fact that living here is so much more expensive than I am used to or can afford, that I must at present forgo my beloved Rosanna. One can live in so many other places here in the states and especially in Europe and South America and pay the same I am paying now to live or even less and have so much more, including of course a full live in staff to take care of all of the little things that make life so tedious and unbearable. But I am determined to make it work here and to rise to the occasion and make enough money to have the same luxuries that I had before but have them here. In this city. I even make my own coffee now, or at least try to. And I spend countless hours starving and thinking about food, which is actually quite horrible. Not because I'm that broke, because I'm not. Not yet anyway. But because I am lazy. And too cold to leave my apartment at night. so once I'm in, I'm in. hungry or not.
But none of that is what got me out of bed to sit here and write, as humorous as it all is. no, speaking about the extremities of nyc living, remember the mouse that crawled over me a few nights ago... well tonight I was awoken as I said by two things. one was hunger. The other was this mouse had finally crawled into this trap that the landlord had set. He told me that he would and he did. he told me that he would crawl in there and die. what he didn't tell me is that he would crawl in there and wiggle around for hours, making all this noise. So in the moment I had an idea. Half asleep I got up, got a dustpan and scooped the whole dame mouse hotel thing up in the dustpan, opened the window and just chucked the whole damn thing out the window, mouse and all. I just figured when that thing hit the ground down below it would probably break open and the mouse could crawl away to safety. But either way, at least it wouldn’t be making all that noise in my apartment. Of course now I don't have a mouse trap in my apartment so I am bound to see more of them scurrying around. Luckily one of the few things I brought with me is my 357 and a CO2 cartridge BB gun. A man is nothing without his guns. So if I do see another one I will just start firing until I hit it or get carted off to jail in the middle of the night for firing guns off in an apartment building. Crazy indeed.
One more thing since I was so rudely interrupted and am too hungry to sleep. I have discovered something called slippers. Growing up in the South you always hear about slippers but you never see them and you don't know exactly what they are for. now I realize that they are for keeping your feet from freezing. And bathrobes. I have one of those now too. crazy.
Current spin: Alicia keys, if I aint got you. I love this song.
New York is extreme in so many ways. Grocery shopping is one of them. now not having grocery shopped by myself in nearly ten years, I couldn’t imagine doing it with any fair amount of success in Miami, let alone here in New York city. you don't have a car so how the hell do you get the damn bags into your house after you make your purchases? And how do you know if you aren't getting totally ripped off with everything you buy? The last time I went to buy sugar here in the city, for my coffee, the guy said it was $2.39 for this little box. And I asked if he was sure, and he said yes. now maybe its just been so long since I had been in a store to buy something like sugar, that prices have just skyrocketed. But he did give me a shrug of the shoulders and say “hey it’s the neighborhood.’ Which led me to believe that the prices are just really high here. So that means what? Going to some other neighborhood to grocery shop? So indeed a quandary. I mean, that's what housekeepers are for. along with so many other important things. like my laundry. God don't even get me started. Lets just say that for the first two months here I bought a lot of new pairs of underwear because I just didn't feel like even thinking about how one goes about getting ones laundry done. I have finally figured out that what one does as horrible as this sounds is puts it all into big bags and hauls it to Chinese people who weigh it and then do it for you and charge you by the pound.
It’s not the worst thing in the world but certainly not good either. I would have to say that among all the changes and adjustments that I have had to make in moving here, it is this that has been the most severe, the fact that living here is so much more expensive than I am used to or can afford, that I must at present forgo my beloved Rosanna. One can live in so many other places here in the states and especially in Europe and South America and pay the same I am paying now to live or even less and have so much more, including of course a full live in staff to take care of all of the little things that make life so tedious and unbearable. But I am determined to make it work here and to rise to the occasion and make enough money to have the same luxuries that I had before but have them here. In this city. I even make my own coffee now, or at least try to. And I spend countless hours starving and thinking about food, which is actually quite horrible. Not because I'm that broke, because I'm not. Not yet anyway. But because I am lazy. And too cold to leave my apartment at night. so once I'm in, I'm in. hungry or not.
But none of that is what got me out of bed to sit here and write, as humorous as it all is. no, speaking about the extremities of nyc living, remember the mouse that crawled over me a few nights ago... well tonight I was awoken as I said by two things. one was hunger. The other was this mouse had finally crawled into this trap that the landlord had set. He told me that he would and he did. he told me that he would crawl in there and die. what he didn't tell me is that he would crawl in there and wiggle around for hours, making all this noise. So in the moment I had an idea. Half asleep I got up, got a dustpan and scooped the whole dame mouse hotel thing up in the dustpan, opened the window and just chucked the whole damn thing out the window, mouse and all. I just figured when that thing hit the ground down below it would probably break open and the mouse could crawl away to safety. But either way, at least it wouldn’t be making all that noise in my apartment. Of course now I don't have a mouse trap in my apartment so I am bound to see more of them scurrying around. Luckily one of the few things I brought with me is my 357 and a CO2 cartridge BB gun. A man is nothing without his guns. So if I do see another one I will just start firing until I hit it or get carted off to jail in the middle of the night for firing guns off in an apartment building. Crazy indeed.
One more thing since I was so rudely interrupted and am too hungry to sleep. I have discovered something called slippers. Growing up in the South you always hear about slippers but you never see them and you don't know exactly what they are for. now I realize that they are for keeping your feet from freezing. And bathrobes. I have one of those now too. crazy.
Current spin: Alicia keys, if I aint got you. I love this song.
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