Many of us got together tonight to go see the Fahrenheit 911 film, as did many groups all over the country. as was the case nationwide theatres were sold out and you had to wait in these enormous lines to get in once you bought your ticket ten hours earlier.

As we watched all these people sitting on the floor in line to see this film like it was some Hollywood blockbuster you really felt in awe of the whole thing. all of this for a documentary? What? And what's more, a documentary about politics? Well America is changing. You had to feel a real sense of joy and pride in who we are turning into as a people. the people are getting smarter. More knowledgeable and more interested in what's going on. you know what? This isn't going to be like our fathers Vietnam. We’re not going to let it.

Although, unlike many, there was nothing new in the movie for me---these were things I had been ranting about for years, and everyone was saying I was crazy talking about the whole bush and bin laden being business together and the Saudis owning more of America than any of we do---I still walked away sick and angry and sad. You couldn’t help it. our media has been so irresponsible in covering the other side of the invasion, refusing to show us any of the civilian casualties, or even tell us how many we have killed now. they just pretend that its about us and our goal to take over their country. they never bother to mention the billions of dollars that American companies are making for the takeover or that other multi-national companies stand to make or even the fact that the Saudis are bound to make more than any of us from it. they just keep right on with their cute little façade that we are liberators and some kind of heroes. But when everyone was sitting in that theater tonight, boy did we get an eyeful and an earful. People were just in shock.

I have received so many calls from friends all over the country telling me to go see the film. people really I think are just in shock right now. they are starting to realize that it isn't just the stuff of crazy liberal conspiracy theorists anymore. That something really crazy and horrible has happened to us here.

Allow me to be the first to say right along with the republicans, but as a big fan, that Michael Moore is a putz. No one is going to argue that. but he is one brave mother fucker. And thank God for him. all I can say is its about fucking time. 

The question that is begging to be asked of course is ‘o.k. now what?’ what are we actually going to do about this insanity? And even more frightening is this: “what can we actually do about it?” they stole the fucking election for gods sake. We all watched it happen right before our eyes. I think that at the time we were just so damn complacent from the Clinton golden years that we figured hey what the hell lets just ride it out. how bad can this guy be? well we certainly learned the hard way. That’s for sure.

The poet and Madeline and the king all calling me today asking me what the hell are we going to do Fishy? what do you think we can do about this? my answer? I don't know. I guess we just do our best to get him out of there.

But more than that, it would appear that the problem runs much deeper than that now for us. whether its George bush stealing the presidency and then lying to us to make us invade another country of innocent people, or bill Clinton selling our weapons secrets to china, or geare bush senior sitting on the board of directors of Saudi Arabian companies when they attacked us in numerous terrorist attacks, or even our beloved Ronald Reagan selling biological weapons to Iraq or other weapons to Iran behind our backs.... I mean, the list goes on and on. If we’re all not sincerely and alarmingly aware that we have a serious fucking problem on our hands at this point, then I don't know what its going to take.

If we have a problem in America, and most certainly we do, a glaring open wound of a fucking problem, its this underlying fear that we all must be feeling by now tugging at our souls that there probably isn't much we can do now about any of it. our lives are not so much in our control as much as they are just newsbites on our television screens at this point.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. What we need to do is just get tough like parents are to their children. One fuckup and you get a warning. Two fuckups and you are out of there. I don't care if we have to have ten presidents every four years instead of one. eventually the right man for the job will come up to the plate. I'll tell you this. if w. bush was the CEO of a company that we were all shareholders of he would have been gone years ago. We wouldn’t have batted an eye at asking him to leave. America is much more important than any corporation though. Its our fucking country. its our fucking lifeblood. And it’s the lifeblood of our children should we get lucky enough to ever have children someday. We don't tolerate lying or cheating from our kids or our friends or our lovers if we’re smart or enlightened individuals. Why would we possibly tolerate it from our elected leaders? That's something that I will just never understand.

Michael Moore finally lets the cat out of the bag about the Bush and Osama bin laden connection that many except the mainstreamers have known about since the beginning of this whole charade three years ago. this morning the news reports that bin laden has supposedly “released a tape” calling for the murder of several US officials (but no one in Bush’s administration). The news which one would expect to be devastating and huge to Americans, was given no more than ten seconds and was treated very casually. As if it wasn't that big of a deal. Why? don't know yet. no one does. What we do know is that the bin laden and the bush families have been friends for thirty years and that both of them have made millions in several joint business ventures together through the years, including the companies the Carlisle Group and Bechtel (curiously weapons manufactures?) that they are both shareholders in, the two companies ironically that along with Halliburton, are profiting the most from the invasion of Iraq. Now if that isn't tricky, I don't know what is...

We also know that the day after 9/11, the American government secretly helped all the relatives of the bin ladens leave America where they had been living so they could “be safe.” Again, tricky as all hell. Why would we be doing that if Osama had just attacked us? again, I don't know. but logic would indicate that we would have kept them all here in order to get to Osama if we really wanted to catch him... which is what for a very brief time we were told was happening... but the attention quickly turned away from capturing Osama bin laden and turned to Hussein instead. Why? We don't know. And now it doesn’t even seem like they are looking for bin laden... who knows. but it did seem strange that this alleged tape that pops up from bin laden is targeting some general and a UN member???? And not gw bush or his administration??? Again, I just don't know. there is something very very weird going on here. and it has nothing to do with what we are being told. It just doesn’t match up. nothing matches up in their stories... but the scary part of this is that the rest of the world nor the media have really been able to pinpoint what really is going on.

Like the Matrix. Every now and then we hear these little tidbits of the truth that no one speaks of. The behind the scenes. We see pictures. We see a president who seems not to believe himself when he speaks. Who stutters a lot and has twitchy eyes and who crinkles his mouth a lot when he speaks, like little kids when they are telling a lie. And of course they have told a lot of lies in the last three years. and there are a lot of people coming out all the time in books and on TV and in the newspapers who seem upset by it. but in general the media itself don't talk about it much. About the inner secrets. And the people of the country don't talk about it much. No one seems to notice the degree to which we have been and are being lied to or manipulated. Why? I don't know. Honestly. I just cannot put my finger on it. most of the time I am stunned by all of it.

Could it be as simple as we used to think back in the day? when we were younger and more naive? That America is being secretly controlled by a few very rich people? that all countries in fact are all being secretly controlled by a very small select group of wealthy individuals...  thoughts pour in. Thought about myself over the last few years. the more money we have gotten over the years, the more we ourselves have noticed that we can get whatever we want when we want it and if we can’t we just force people to give it to us anyway. I'm saying this for no other reason than to understand.... I mean, really, its right in front of our eyes. if at our small level we can almost do anything we want to as long as we have enough money... imagine what it must be like when you just have tons of money and you're controlling whole countries and the politicians that run them...

And now it comes in...

USA Today has all these headlines about the continuing Iraq saga. And each headline says something like: ‘Rebels are also active in the north...’ or ‘Rebels are shooting at aircraft’ or ‘At times guerrillas fire from the back of trucks...’ Lets get this straight. We told the whole world we want to attack and invade this country. The whole world voted on it and said almost unanimously “No, don't do it. Those days are over. We stopped the whole invasion thing back in the forties you guys. You will just have to find another way to accomplish your goals.” But we did it anyway. So now the whole world is mad at us and thinks we have been taken over and are being controlled by these not so smart and evil madmen and they watch as we struggle to bring down an entire country and its people as the whole world watches. So now we are in their country as invaders and foreigners and strangers shooting everything up and changing everything around, and they are trying whatever they can with all these tactics everyday to defend their country to get us out of there. But in the American papers they are being called “rebels” or “guerillas?” They're not being called what they are, “the Iraqis” or “the Iraqi people.” 

It is truly fucking hilarious. Twisted and sad. You can live forever and still be completely shocked by the audacious idiocy of some of the people around you. The front page of USA Today, it seriously says “Rebels fire at aircraft... some of the guerillas used assault weapons...” They aren't reporting that the Iraqi people are trying to defend themselves against the foreign invaders by firing at them with whatever they have left from the backs of a few trucks... they are seriously calling these Iraqi people rebels... amazing really. The whole world told us not to invade their country, and we did it anyway. Who are the rebels here? Who are the guerillas? No offense against our American brothers and sisters in arms over there, cause God knows they're just doing their job, but last time I checked, people dressed up in full military garb, carrying guns and going around shooting things, and attempting to take over a sitting government of a country, these people were called guerillas. That's what the word means. It doesn’t refer to the government who is being taken over. And these papers know this. Every thinking person in the world knows this. But have we changed the meaning of this word now? Does this word guerilla now just mean “anyone who is against the United States” regardless of what side they are actually on? Right before our eyes, all of us, each one of us, is being deceived and manipulated; watching total revisionist history being written day by day. History is not being recorded by our TV or newspapers. It is being rewritten and changed to reflect a completely different and false story than what is really happening. [but bear in mind that this only happening in America. not the in the rest of the world...]

O.k. so we were told this growing up if we had intelligent parents. We already knew this. but watching it in action is another story. I feel sick inside. But the deeper question is of course, if they are doing this about the Iraq invasion, what else are they doing this about? What else are they not telling us? What other arenas are being totally changed for someone’s own devices? What other histories are being rewritten to reflect not the truth but some private group’s secret or not so secret agenda? As the people begin to realize their own powerlessness against their government and its wickedness, lies, and deceit, a despondency grows in them. They take refuge in more opiates and alcohol, in fanciful reality television shows, in the mindless and purposelessness world of celebrity, and in more and more increasingly insane stimulants... 

The media who are doing it, shoving the manure down the throats of the masses who they think want it, they just don't know any better. They’re making money. So they aren't thinking. 

Went to the opera tonight. The marriage of Figaro by Mozart.  This was one of the best operas I have ever seen. It helped understanding of why Mozart is such a longstanding beloved composer. It was magnificent. 

Although everything seems so tainted right now by the bombardment of Iraq, and the media’s insistence on turning it into the action/adventure movie of the week.  

Thank God for people like Michael Moore or bill Maher. Tim Robbins appeared on bill Maher tonight and courageously spoke up against many aspects of this slaughter and got several thunderous applauses from the studio audience. bill made a funny but potent comment he heard in a bar the other day. “No matter what the outcome whether we win or lose, it can still be summed up with four words: ‘he didn't do it.’ meaning Sadaam. He may be thinking of doing it. He may want to do it. He may one day be capable of doing something. But he didn't do it.” So that's what bothers the rest of the world so much.

We’re all of a sudden back to the ‘well I'm scared you might hurt me so I'm going to hurt you first’ mentality of the middle ages. A dark time indeed for mankind if you know your history. And I have to say, it isn't that easy to know how you're supposed to feel about all of this, I think for any of us. We are experiencing one of the worst economic times in recent memory. People being laid off by the hundreds of thousands. The whole world seems to be mad at us all of a sudden. Even our own neighbors Canada and Mexico are against in this. We have a president in office who we aren't even sure if we really voted him in or not, who’s trying to burn down our forests and drill for oil in our national wildlife preserves. He comes off on TV like he is just about as dumb as dumb can be. it was just released this week that our social security and our Medicare will be bankrupt and out of funds by 2043, which is when a lot of us my age will retire. And worse than any of that, we’re back in a music meltdown like we haven't seen since the late eighties where alternative music which is so worn out and entirely nauseating is now the mainstream and anything even remotely actually alternative or cool or artistic is completely ignored by our radio and TV. Where is God when you need her?   

Started the message to the world site to voice our simple views about this attack to the rest of the world, the gen x view. Should be up in a day or two.

On the back porch writing. About 1:03am. A whole family of raccoons just walked by me. Slowly turned to face me and we all just kind of froze staring at each other. Like ‘who will move first.’ So I moved a little and they all ran up different trees and stared down at me for a while. Cool. I told them, “o.k. look, I'm just as freaked out as you guys are. So I'm not going to hurt you or anything but just don't think you're going to jump down on me or anything o.k.? I'm just going to turn around now and keep writing now.” crazy.  

Master of Self

In order to get stronger you have to continuously lift weights that are heavier than what you normally are accustomed to lifting. One week you cannot even think about curling fifty pounds. Two weeks later you are curling fifty-five. You just got stronger baby. And more toned. Lucky you. Deep realizations lately on this concept of challenging myself to do things that I don't want to do. Once you force yourself to do something that you at one point could not because you are afraid or because you just don't feel up to it then you really start to flex and test your strength and character.