Drove back to Miami and stayed in a cabin in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere Florida for the night. the place of a fan we met on the road. really really cool vibe. No TV or phones or anything. Very homey and old fashioned. Reminded me how nice the country is. have to get there more.

Show in Miami at senor frogs. A welcome home last minute pick up gig just because we didn't want it to end. Stage was way too small compared to what we were used to. we tripped all over each other. Microphone stands were falling down and I actually jumped up and landed on all 110 pounds of poor Bloopy. Then a few songs later our cables got tangled up and he couldn’t move so he kept yanking on his from the back and he yanked me half way across the stage during the soft part of beautiful one. a crazy night. we are growing out of these small stage clubs. Played our asses off and celebrated a few good shows in GA and a successful trip. Felt very awkward up there but managed to win a lot of new fans. None of this is anywhere near enough for me right now. I am drowning in the boredom and mediocrity of where we are compared to where we want to be.

Living and playing with Vancouver is killing me. perhaps all of us, but especially me. he is a genius yes. fine. But he is also insane. And it can be quite annoying. That was five days. I can only imagine in utter horror what five months would be like. He needs constant attention. Has to always be talking. can never be quiet. barely ever speaks truth or realness or things important. Just always bsing. Full of vile mouthed bs and pay attention to me type stuff.

Ps—my vocals are getting stronger and stronger the more I sing. Five nights in a row and no problems. Awesome.

Played the Citylink music fest tonight. processed with Little Tree last night on the phone. What a show. Wow. Really good. Still have a tough time talking in between songs. I mean, here I am ten years into it and I'm still not barely half in reality what I have always envisioned in my mind when I close my eyes. But I think we’re getting there. I would really like to get to that point where Rufus is so naturally, where I can just sit down and talk and really be myself. Jim Camacho is that way. he is just so open and honest and real up on stage. I need to let go more. but what a great show. We had this whole bar almost mesmerized there for a bit. People were rushing us afterwards asking us where we were from as if we were from out of town. It was very nice. zeke played. Jim played. Rhett played. Humbert played. Mindy is looking hot. She lost weight and you just want to grab her and kiss her and do her. What a love fest it is. You see everyone you haven't seen all year.

Ferret had dental surgery I found out. I'm like “dude I didn't know. I would have come right over.” He's like ‘No dude I'm fine. Don't worry about it.” and I'm like “no dude. I didn't mean that. I mean, what did they give you for pain bro?” he's like “you dick.” So we scored a whole bottle of vics. We each took one and then went out and he was just wasted. And he's like high fiving me now saying “Dude now I know why you guys are so crazy for it. No wonder you write songs about it!” he was just insane out there in the public high on vics and vodka, saying whatever popped into his head to anyone. So we’re back in the crystal palace again. For the time being.

o.k, one thing is that even though you may or may not believe in God, sometimes its important to just get down on your knees and pray. Just heard from a friend that his wife left him and their child. And he is a Christian. And so i told him I will pray for him. and I mean that with all my heart. Tonight I will pray my heart out for him and for the whole situation. I think God is just one of those things that you believe in even though you don't believe in. Kind of like extraterrestrials or reincarnation. I mean, in the end, who really knows, but we have the belief anyway. and me, i just believe that God is a very personal thing. and so depending on who you’re hanging out with, the God is going to vary accordingly. A lot of people I know disagree with that because they really believe that God is just one form, one idea, namely the idea they were raised with or the one they currently subscribe to. and its hard for them to step out of that because they feel like if they do then they are somehow sinning. But I don't believe that anymore. If I'm with my Jewish friends then I'm going to worship the Jewish God with them and uphold the Jewish customs. and if I'm  hanging with my Indian friends then I'm going to be praying to Krishna and Shiva and Ganesh. I mean if you're hanging with a bunch of witches then you're going to be dancing around a fire naked worshipping the goddess. You're not going to be on your knees praying to the catholic god. And vice versa. I'm not going to light a fire in my moms catholic church next time I'm home for the holidays and dance around naked with the priests; no matter how much they’d probably like it.

One more thing. it is really hard to resist when you like a girl but maybe you just don't think she is the one, so you kind of have an idea that it isn't going to last that long. that's not easy, holding back like that. You just want to be with her anyway. but I think that's having discipline. Building character. Not sure yet. Either that, or its just being a tight ass and you should just do whatever you want to in the moment. Still haven't quite figured it out.

Last screening: shocking video from all over the world. This is on HBO right now, and it truly is shocking. 

Current Spin: Pulp’s greatest hits. Man what happened to them? Their last CD just sucked. I really expected more. [see, there, I just did it again. I just totally ripped on another artist. no thought for them. just let it rip. That's what I mean. We do it all the time. its no big deal. Its nothing personal. I mean, I don't know them personally, i just relayed how much I hate their last CD. and so that's my point. If you're going to sing man, you just gotta fucking sing and not worry about what the people are saying. Just hope you have more fans that love you than jealous critics that's all. But that one guy in fort Lauderhell, which is a city we have just never been able to crack, even when we lived there, sort of, close to it, broward at least, we never were able to crack it, we were always a Miami band. That's just the way it is there with bands like ours. but this critic from fort Lauderdale saying at the end of his ranting and raving about how awful our new CD is saying he was hoping for a quick overdose for the singer...” I mean that is kind of personal is it not? I mean, imagine if I did fucking overdose one day, not that that would be a bad way to go, because chances are that’s probably not a bad way to go at all, depending on what your overdosing on of course. But still, my poor mom. I hope she never reads that. [I don't know what it was, but something about the bad reviews really opened me up. just made me feel really good. and happy. almost like a welcome to the club type of vibe. Like o.k. now I'm in. Its not all kiss ass generic good reviews that don't really tell you anything now. I mean, this is some passionate hatred these guys have for us. I mean, some of these guys just fucking hate me and its kind of inspiring in a weird way.]

Played an amazing show tonight. This was a warm-up gig before our showcase next week. Took some ginseng before the show. No seriously. It worked. I was on fire. Vocals were great. I could have gone all night. Now its 3:03 and I can’t even think about sleep. Tonight I finally performed for maybe the second time ever the way I always wanted to all my life. Vancouver was great. A little sloppy but he is a master in training. Its like working with the Edge when he was a kid or something. He's a sonic genius. Melodic innovative experimental. Barely controllable though which is a little scary. But worth it. And without the Piano Man we would be just a garage band. 

Really getting into metallica right now. Seriously. These guys are so powerful. I just always avoided it because I never liked heavy metal. Now I'm listening to them with fresh ears. Wow. 

Good show tonight at smiths old bar in in Atlanta, Georgia. The band was on fire. We played fantastically. Learning a lot about what we need to do and not do on the road. Dues paying. Exhausted by the second show. Out of breath from singing and jumping around so much, but by the end of the set we were way up and could have gone on for another hour. 

Good show last night. Band was very loose, out of control at times. A few fans showed up, small crowd though, but enthusiastic. New version of the journey was awesome. Love is you rocked. Oh you pretty things by Bowie is a nice addition to the set.

Sat with fernie from the band Humbert after the show talking about our new album. Listening to the tracks. His band played before ours did that night. They were awe-inspiring. They were the music. They were rock and roll embodied. I told him what we were trying to make and what a challenge it has been. He listened to our rough tracks intently. His eyes closed. Every now and then he would say something. “What this song needs is something out of the measures, just totally fucked up, off of the rhythm of the rest of the instruments.” Or “this song is not sexy. You should scrap it.” He was right every time. It was good to talk shop with someone who was so aligned musically and philosophically.

A lot of reconciliation this week. With little Lisa, with Cleo, Jennifer, (God Jennifer, what a hottie) others. It really reconfirmed for me the importance of communication and persistence. You are either committed to cleaning up disagreements with others or not. Usually where there is a will there is way. And if you are willing to take a look at what responsibility you had in the conflict and forgive, then you can usually clean it up and get along again. That was the major win, and lesson, of the week.

Someone asked me what the three best things about the Internet were. I replied: email, access to unlimited information, amazon.com, and eBay. O.k. so that's four things, I know. You could also add online stock trading, netflix.com, streamable and downloadable music, alternative news sources, Internet radio, and ecommerce in general… but I digress. And I still know people who don't have the Internet. Crazy. Tonight I found this: http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Bye.html Check it out. it is an alleged picture of an alien waving goodbye. Read the text. Intriguing. Got me thinking a bit about aliens and that whole subject. Still waiting for the moment when the mainstream media announces that “aliens now exist.” Funny how we wait for confirmation of things we already know until it hits the mainstream. I think we all kind of know that chances are there are other intelligent life forms here. Just waiting for it to be mainstream. I am as frightened by it as I am excited, I will admit. The implications are mind boggling. Quite probable, inevitable, that it will alter the entire construct of universal truth as we are currently creating it. Wink wink. And what about God? Does he know these “aliens” exist? Raised eyebrows.

Kick butt in the studio today. Vancouver laid down another great guitar track on the song beautiful one. Great performance in the play tonight. Packed house. Tomorrow is our last run. I will miss it when it is over. More dates being added to our tour starting in January—Orlando, Jacksonville, Atlanta, South Carolina. Very excited to get out there and meet fans in other parts of the country personally. 

Performed another night of the play tonight to a packed house. Everyone was over the top. In those brief moments I was my character. Audience was clapping and laughing and really liked it. Afterwards the playwright Sasha gave this speech about how we needed to raise more money for the artists’ co op  C-Roc and it was hilarious. People were rolling from laughter. He said things like, “look, here's the deal. We just want to be able to do this for our living and have people like you pay for it. so give us money. We need money. We need your money….we’re artists. We don't have to be rich. We just don't want to have to work, that's all.” Things like that. It was great.

Burning the candle at both ends right now. Spend most of my days with a severe headache, like a vice squeezing my head. Feel like I have no time. can’t even think straight. Craziness. La Princesa is mad. Says that she can’t see me anymore because I don't have the time for anyone in my life. I say we just saw each other yesterday. She reminds me, “that was two days ago you jerk.” And then she hits me. Two or three days feels like one day to me. crazy.

Was in the studio today recording Vancouver’s guitar parts. Spent the first hour arguing with him and Fred the producer. Trying to get them to see that if we don't create something truly remarkable, truly innovative and fresh and magical that there isn't any sense in us doing it, I don't care how many people buy it. he says, “don't you just want to sell records? People don't buy CDs because they are innovative Fishy. Listen to the radio.” I said I didn't care. I explained to them another perspective… “look how fucking lucky we are, you are. Here you have this opportunity to come in here for free and Fred, we’re paying you to help us do it, and here we have this opportunity to come in here and show the world who you are, whatever you got. You have this opportunity to lay it down on tape, all of us together and create whatever we want. So what are we going to create? Radio music? Are you a guitar God? Or are you just some guy in Miami who plays the guitar? What do you want people to think when they put this CD on? Well I know what I want them to think. so lets fucking make it happen.” Well it worked. He played some amazing parts. Truly brilliant guitar playing, textural, exotic, wild, surreal stuff. it may kill us but we are making something very special with this one. 

Just got done with the Saturday night performance of the play. The final one for this week. Really intense tonight. We were all on fire. The crowd really felt it. Still feeling sick. So didn't hang around too long meeting and greeting. Fighting a depression of some kind. A general malaise. Feelings of resistance. It's that feeling of waiting for something to happen and you're thinking, "now when that happens then I can be happy." And I am not exactly sure what that is. Just waiting. Bored. Sad. I know I'm not the only one. I see it in everyone. They go out and drink. Get drunk. Smoke pot, take pills, eat, watch TV till they fall asleep, whatever. Something, anything to fight the feelings, the pain. 

I have felt those desires crawling up in me lately. “O.K. well you know tonight, the play is over, I'm just sitting here. maybe I'll just do this….” but I am beyond that. It doesn’t even seem like an option now. Now there is a strong desire for purity more than ever. So when the feelings do come up I would rather just feel them and explore them—if you have to cry, you cry, or if you have to scream, you scream, let it out—get to the core of them, find out where they are coming from. I have been here before. I know it is a short road between agony and relief; between grief and happiness. Although it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. But the key is in feeling the feelings, owning them, owning what's underneath them, and then letting them go, and then refocusing on your true self and your true desires. 

I remember when me and Cleo broke up. We had moved down to Miami together and by the time we actually moved here, we were already broken up. So here we were in this brand new city that we worked so hard to make this big move to, but we were separated. Lived in separate houses. We told ourselves that it was only temporary. That we were doing it to get some space so we could work it out and get back together, but both of us knew I think inside that it was over, that we were going to be moving on. We both started dating other people. Sharing our experiences over the phone or over dinner sometimes. And little by little it became more and more apparent that it was permanent. That it was really over. We never talked about getting back together. We talked about everything else. Her new house, my new house. The new city we lived in. Work. Money. Friends. But we never discussed getting back together. I would lie in my bed at night some times and feel so overwhelmed with sadness and with longing and maybe cry a little. I would call her sometimes and she wouldn’t answer. Then she would call and I wouldn’t answer. This went on for about a year. Back and forth, each of us staking claim to our boundaries. A little more each day.

Tonight was the opening night of the play Decay. Good crowd. Relatively good performances from all of us. Very exciting backstage. Totally dark except for a red light or two. For an hour before we go backstage to start the performance everyone kind of jumps around the room, paces, mumbles incoherently, makes funny sounds to themselves, practices their lines over and over again, puts on their makeup, stares at themselves in the mirror reciting their lines or talking themselves up. fun. Backstage everyone just paces till it's their turn to go on stage. Back and forth we pace throughout the first half of the play, trying not to bum into each other. Funny. Everyone goes from smiles to this intense look. Very different than putting on a rock concert, where everyone just kind of drinks and smokes and stands around and then maybe you let out a few screams and yells and then on you go up. actors are very intense. I have started to look at it like the difference between art and craft.

When you go up on stage to play a rock concert, at least for original music, it is like this spiritual artistic experience. Are you focused? I don't think so. It's more like you are lost at sea. In space. You are at one with the music and the audience and you are just part of the whole thing. Just flowing in the art of it. you have no lines to remember. Yea you have all these lyrics to remember but this isn't conscious. You already know them subconsciously. They are just a part of you. so you're not thinking about them. you're not thinking at all. you're just trying to play as well as you can and get into the art of it as much as you can, to capture some kind of impalpable, intangible, ecstasy for you and the crowd through your interpretation of the songs. And every night that interpretation can be totally different. The four of you may play each song totally different than you did the night before. you may stick within the same general guidelines or play roughly the same chords, but that's about it. the way you play, and the notes you play and the notes you sing and your phrasing and everything really is totally different. That's the fun of it. that's the rush. That's why we do it. that's why people go to live shows. To see and hear that experimentation.

Show at Senor Frogs last night. As always at this venue, sound sucked. Infinito got into a fight with the soundman because he wouldn’t mic his toms or snare drum and then he conveniently found a way to mic the next band’s. Told him next time we take the guy out. 

I think I am stuck between two identities. Can’t quite get into one completely. One wants to rock, fuck, scream and spit. 

The other wants to be Caetano Veloso or Peter Gabriel and put on a big multi-media show, bossa nova and all. Fans come to the show expecting to hear that type of planet-music style songs from the Rise and Shine album, like we used to do, and we are already on to the new heavier rock tunes from new album we are recording (not even out yet). They don't even know the songs. Getting lots of emails from fans asking why we’re not playing songs they know from our album. Sorry about that guys. Better luck next time is the only one left that still gets played.  

We played the worst show of our careers last night on one of the biggest stages of our careers. A lot of people said it was good and that they liked it, which is really funny, because all we know is that we really sucked. We went backstage and hid for a while and then I ducked out fast and went and walked around South Beach by myself for a while. I just got home. Sat out in the back porch with my cat and smoked a cigar and just thought for a while. Not really thinking as much as watching my mind race from one thought to another. Bas saying it was the worst he ever heard us. the Ferret saying that it sounded like a big chunk of our music was ripped out. 

My voice cracking the whole time. Totally confused on how to sing now. When before lessons I just sang, never thought about it. We didn't put anything into our monitors so we couldn’t really hear ourselves at all on stage. Really bad. Francis  saying that I need to loosen up more and don't worry so much about the social and political conscious stuff and just run with the animal in me. la Princesa  saying that we just need to learn from the show, know what we did wrong so we know what we have to do right. That we didn't even belong there anyway, that we must rise up to where we belong and take ourselves more seriously. Well that was nice to say and you can always count on friends for that. our fans were great last night as always—a lot of pats on the back and hoots and hollers and calls till all hours saying how great it was, but we knew, I know, that we didn't play even close to what we normally do.    

We went and saw Zach Zischin perform tonight at the wall flower gallery in downtown Miami. The guys from DC3 were backing him up. The sound was amazing in there. Zach was so good. I spent half the show moved and inspired and the other half depressed out of my mind that he isn't yet famous and for that matter the rest of us aren't yet either. I swear to God he was playing for ten people. And he was putting on a world class concert. Crystal clear. Gorgeous pop craftsmanship. So me and la Princesa

Played a show last night in Gainesville, FL. fans drove in from Miami, Daytona, Orlando, Naples, and Fort Lauderdale. The house was not packed but it was well filled. The crowd dug us. At the end of the set the crowd was chanting ‘one more song, one more song.’ Those friends and fans made that night for us. I lost my voice again during the set. This is new. It started at the hard rock a few weeks ago. I'm going to a throat specialist to see what the hell is going on. Later that night everyone went their separate ways to various parties. The next morning me and Vancouver woke up and realized that we didn't know where Infinito and the Piano Man were. The Piano Man finally called and said, ‘Fishy, I'm in some apartment and I'm all alone and I don't know where I am. I don't know how or where to tell you to pick me up.’ It was classic.  

Current Spin: Ram by Paul McCartney

Last Good Flick: Black Hawk Down