Almost totally lost now. a complete stranger in a strange land here in South beach. Like a walking ghost in an alternate reality. Moved out of the apt. and now living out of a suitcase in a friends spare bedroom. But this isn't even a spare bedroom. This is someone's bedroom who happens to be out of town. sleeping in their bed amongst all of their things. Brought my own bed sheets of course. No car and no house. friends think I'm crazy but I am having fun. somehow really enjoying it right now. I feel so free and happy. Beaver asks me tonight when hearing of my plight, ‘dude do you ever get scared? Scared that it won't work out and that you will end up with nothing?” “Dude, I almost have nothing now.” “yeah, but you know what I mean. You're in someone else's bedroom now. no home, no car. no savings. What happens if you call me in three months and you are on the street?” “Dude, I'm living my dreams. in less than two weeks we will be backstage, not in front of the stage. But back stage and on the stage. Playing for thousands of people. I've gotten to record six albums instead of just wishing for it. And those albums are in stores that people buy. This is what we always used to talk about when we were kids. Remember? I'm happy man. Don't worry about me.” “O.k. bro. I'm going to keep worrying about you no matter what you say. But I hear ya man. Just make it happen.”
What I find actually is that this freedom from house and home has brought me a new sense of artistic passion that I haven't felt in years. [o.k. I know I say that every few weeks regardless of my circumstances... but that can only be viewed as a good thing... lol. Remember when we were young and only dreaming of being great artists one day ourselves? Reading and studying the great creators of history... that is always the start of it. and now to wake up one day and realize that you are living and breathing it. that you really did it. you turned into it. you are a living breathing biography of the life you were always meant to live. That's an unbelievable feeling.

Current spin: Marilyn Manson, this is the new shit. What a great song this is. I have always considered Brian and myself the polar opposites of one another. Me the good witch doing my best to explore and display the best of what the world has to offer, and he the wicked witch happy to profit from exploiting the worst in everything. perhaps it is because we grew up in the same town, or because he has achieved superstardom in the real world, and me only in my imagination, haha. But either way, I dig what he does sometimes. It has great power when its good, and of course its great shit when its not good, like all of us. But now,,, how to harness that same level of power with something beautiful and wonderful and helpful... that is the goal. So I keep at it.

Current screening: Frida. Again. Better the second time around. That scene of the accident. Wow. Again, the movie is heartbreaking, moving, inspiring. I am reminded to live fuller and richer and deeper and to ignore everything else around me that beckons normalcy, mainstream, or mediocrity in the name of society or status quo. It is one of the aligned companions along the way this film. “If you're a real painter you'll paint because you can’t live without painting. You'll paint till you die,” he says. Yes indeed my friends.

I feel that I am only at the beginning of everything that I am here for, everything I am meant to create as an artist, as a revolutionary, and as a man. I feel a constant sense of frustration with how slowly everyone else is around me in achieving our shared goals; and with the constant lack of money and resources we have to work with. It will only take one big hit or payoff and my work will take off in the way that I have always envisioned. I will then have the resources to live completely in and for the work in the way that the artist needs to if he is to achieve the vision beyond the hype of the moment. My greatest work is still in front of me.

So no, I am not bothered by spending every cent I have and more on the work to the point of being homeless again, and again, and again. In fact, I am honored to be inhabiting this great mind and body that is called Fishy. Even when I have been at my poorest and most destitute I have always had a strong sense of pride because I have always managed to stay in the creating mode. So I can always smile, there is always that secret there behind the smile, of the grand work just completed and the even better one that is on its way.

Yes, and one more thing. where is my Frida? Again, I find myself more in love with this characterization of Frida khalo depicted in the film more than any other woman I have seen or heard of in my entire life. She is the ultimate archetype for me. Where is the woman who is as romantic dynamic creative artistic intelligent curious adventurous insightful liberal open-minded and revolutionary as I desire and need? where is this super woman that I feel in the blood of my soul? Even without knowing her yet in real time I am still entirely inspired by her and take her in with each breath, if only in my heart and in my mind’s eye.

Had to move out of the house of Opus because his roommate has five family members coming in from Spain tomorrow. so I went and booked the cheapest hotel I could find. $33 a night. lets put it that way. this place is a dump. Normally I would never, but I figure the more uncomfortable I am the better. That way I will compel myself to make the move even faster.

I spend all day and night at the office or the studio now anyway so what does it matter. But I'll tell you, it isn't as easy as you think it is to live this way. three months ago I was driving my convertible down the causeway to a 3000 sq ft house every night with my own private music room. Now I'm living out of a suitcase in a tiny little dive motel. I filled the hotel form out today when I checked in and in that part there where you put your address, I had to pause for a second... what address? Wow. I have no actual address right now besides my office. so I put that on there. Why did I do this again? oh yeah. To move to New York. O.k. fine. I can deal with it. but sometimes I just can’t believe that I'm really doing it. uprooting my whole life like this and moving someplace else all on my own. just me; and two huge warehouses full of stuff. haha.

What I am amazed by is how when people find out how much stuff you have, so many people have this attitude like ‘don't you/can’t you get rid of a lot of that stuff?’ I'm like ‘why would you wanna do that?’ I mean you don't spend your whole life collecting all this great stuff just to throw it away. at least I don't. I guess a lot of people end up having a lot of stuff that they don't really like or need. I can see that. but I have these two warehouses and I don't even have any furniture. A few good pieces. Nothing I'd throw away or sell. That's for sure. Its mainly just collections of stuff. clothes cds books art. Things like that. I think the idea of owning your own library is very foreign to a lot of people in my generation. They just don't get it --- that a man has a library full of valuable collections that he spends his entire life collecting and he passes it down to his children. I think maybe I come from a different age or something.

Anyway, just because its funny, when the movers arrived today at my storage units to give their estimate they looked at these two warehouses filled with boxes and no furniture except my bed and they are like what's in all these boxes? And I'm like, ‘books and vinyl and cds, media mostly. And lots of clothes’ and they gave me this look like I was crazy. like they were looking at a crazy man. It was very funny. Then they start talking they have to charge me more because they are used to moving furniture not boxes full of books.

When you think about it, now, looking forward, I guess we don't really need to carry around all these books and cds anymore. We can fit it all in our laptops now. I know that. but there is something very special still about collecting media in its hard copy version. I'll tell you this though, if we ever have children we can bet they aren't going to be collecting media of any kind in its hardcopy form. They're just going to be downloading everything into their ‘personal-who-knows-what's.’ but for me, I like sitting amongst a bunch of books and reading a little bit of each one on a Sunday afternoon while listening to a bunch of cds. I dig it. we stare at the computer monitor enough already.

I'm rambling because I'm homeless and careless and girlfriendless at the moment and just don't feel like going upstairs to this shitty little motel room I rented. Haha. but this is a huge change. One of those things I will always look back at. The time between worlds. not bad really. I have been surprised how easily I have adapted each day to the uncertainty of it all. I always took so much pride and gave such importance to my house and how beautiful it was and my car and my studio and my cats and the home I had there. and now when you have none of that, when you are between that, just living out of a suitcase like this with no place to call your own, you really need to look inside to find your happiness and to find your home. I have been really amazed and proud of myself at how well I have been doing it. I've found me through it. I'm me. and here I am. No matter where I live or where I'm staying for the night. its cool.

I was on the Internet tonight for hours doing more research on my ancestry. Working on my father’s father’s father’s father’s side; still trying to trace it back farther. To where they first arrived in America. Cannot get out of the US. every time I go back ten years to another census, something has changed with this guy, his age or his children. I don't know if they were just really dumb or just lied or the census researcher was making mistakes or what. But I am dumbfounded how the little things change. Maybe they just always told different info everytime for the fun of it. maybe they weren't sure so always made stuff up.

Anyway, I cannot believe that on my father’s side I come from such lowly roots. It is quite humbling. Having only been raised by my mother’s side of the family and hence only hearing about our aristocratic heritage etc... and then to be sitting in here in front of the computer screen and seeing generation after generation listing ‘farmer’ as their occupation on my fathers side, its quite humbling. In 1870 he is a farmer with a wife who cannot read or write and has six kids, soon to have a total of 8. his wife Sarah anne had their first when she was 14. He lists his real estate valued at $400 and his personal estate at $350. Not bad actually when you think of it. for the times I guess. states like Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Virginia pop up... the kind of states I never think about. these are states that other people come from... not me I always figured. You just never consider that part of you and then one day you start seeing it there in your family tree... those kind of states, those kind of occupations. Wow. I spent hours tonight hunched over the screen looking for clues... I search and I search and I search and I cannot find him any further back. it is so frustrating. To not know where you fully come from.

My father knows next to nothing about his background. I am now well beyond his knowledge base of his ancestry. I don't know if I will ever know where they really came from. this much I do know: I am 50% Italian, 25% polish, and 25% ???American??? farmer. Wow. No wonder I'm so confused. The Italian part I've traced back for centuries and feel satisfied that I've gone back far enough for the meantime. I mean I visited all the little towns where they were born and raised for generations. That was great. Don't know anything about the polish side yet. that's really crazy. polish. Wow. But this last quarter... I just have to get all the way back. I have to know who I am. Or better, who we were. How did I get to be me? how did I come into being? What is in my blood? There has to be a way to find out.

My father always says ‘England or maybe Wales or Ireland or Scotland.’ Well hey man those are all different countries. It would be nice to know. [actually come to think of it, looking as far back as its going to be when they arrived on the shores of America those were all under British rule, so maybe they weren’t all different countries at the time...] I certainly look more Great Britain than anything else, so maybe that's why I'm so into discovering this last little bit. Either way, I just want to know.

Last screening: the forgotten. Good movie. And still studying Churchill every night before bed.

Last night a vision. no not that first. This first. More important.
 
Last night in a dream I met you again my love. There was this moment where we met and I immediately started kissing your shoulders and neck playfully. Do you remember? I wonder? I dream of you every night now. do you dream of me? how happy and natural I was kissing you, as if I had known you forever. the dreams come so often now that sometimes I forget until a few minutes into my waking hours. Where ever you are, now I know you are close. I know that you exist now. and I cannot wait to meet you.

Careless and homeless now. temporarily renting a room at some friends’ house, living out of a suitcase, just me and my laptop and my guitar. Everything else I own stored in this giant warehouse. Much fun. great feeling of liberation. I basically just spend all my time at the office now. fourteen to sixteen hours a day. go back to the little room and watch a DVD on my laptop for a few minutes and then fall asleep. Wake up and head back in to make it all happen. phone Internet phone Internet phone Internet phone Internet phone Internet.

My current host Opus is from Spain. A small village there called Huesca. lives here now part time. he works in the wine business.  everyone from the executive office / shared office space that I have met is cool, self employed entrepreneur types. Such a difference between these people and normal nine to five people. many of them, like myself, are in that office seven days a week, working till eleven o'clock at night every night, building their businesses. Each of us knows what the other does and inspires the other. Opus is building his wine business. Marc is building his graphic design business. Ted builds his law firm. I'm building our record company. Its very cool. if someone goes home early, say, at nine pm instead of eleven, we give him a hard time. ‘man, you're going home pretty early, what's up?’ its funny. Anyway, I'm staying with opus for a few weeks till I move to New York.

This morning at breakfast talking with Opus about inventions. I whip out my black book and tell him, ‘thank you, I just remembered I had this vision last night right before sleep.’ ‘oh man, do tell. What was it?’ I explain how in the future we already know that our computer monitors will be projected up into the air rather than on a screen or monitor. We agree. And also, that they will be three dimensional, holographic. Yes, agreed. But last night I had this vision that I was able to move my screen image around the room with a pen control or a remote of some kind. That it wouldn’t be obligated to be stationary. In other words, if you were in the other room and I was looking at something cool, I could just drag and drop my whole screen over to you in the other room. This three dimensional holographic image would appear in front of you just by me dragging it over to your direction. Wow. O.k. now we’re onto something. yes this will happen. i saw it last night...

Flashback: 1997, I am in the shower and I have this vision of us all being tapped into this infinite web of consciousness through our own personal servers that are somehow in every room of our house. even there in the shower. we have the possibility of seeing the content – with permissions – of everyone else's personal servers. So when we wake up and ‘plug in’ or ‘tap in’ we have the option of seeing an infinite amount of content from millions of other users all over the world while we are bathing or eating breakfast for instance... millions will have their own blogs. Their own voyeur cameras hooked up at their houses filming their every move. And we will have the ability to view all of this, focusing only on what we want to in that moment.