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.

Great day. amazing dreams. I had the most amazing dreams last night, this morning. I didn't want to wake up. felt like I was in heaven or something. They were all about love and romance and kisses and music. there were two girls with me all night in my dreams, really nice. one was more forward than the other. I couldn’t choose. I wanted to make them both happy.... I didn't want to wake up! really really nice. I even dreamed about going to church and that was even great. It is amazing how dreams can do that to you. Dreamed of happiness, never ending happiness, family, a girlfriend, I had two girls kissing me, one who was softer more elegant and one who was more cool and rocker chick-like, I wanted the rocker one but she was less aggressive, U2 had a new tour called Realology. Which they don't, so if I like the idea in a few days still, I'll take it for us.

And then later in the evening on the bus I met this girl on the subway. Great energy. Out there. great smile. And we are talking on the subway across the aisle. And it was going great, and then out of the blue this lady says to us ‘could you please sit closer if you want to talk. I don't want to hear all of your details...’ and we are like shocked by her behavior. And so then someone says ‘only in New York.’ and then this mad woman turns to me and says ‘I was born and raised in Miami you bastard!’ I was more than shocked. I was like, get me off this subway car before this woman pulls out a gun or something and goes postal on everyone. Everyone just sat there silent and looking at each other raising their eyebrows. Crazy. anyway, she proved my point about Miami. no manners. she was an animal. Anyway, off the train I dashed because we were at my stop and I didn't want to ruffle the feathers of this crazy lady anymore and I never got the number to the girl. But I did give her our band name. so maybe she will read this one day and realize holy shit that guy wanted to get my number. O.k. if you ever read this, girl in the hat with the great teeth, EMAIL ME.

Chicks always think that because you are in a band you have no business being shy, because you get so many girls. And that is true. we get a lot of girls throwing themselves at you. but that's a different scene. And a lot of times they aren't the girls you want to take home to mom. You know. and that's what sucks because the girls you do want to take home to mom don't ever approach you because they already know what kind of girls throw themselves at singers in rock bands and they don't want to have anything to do with it. so that sucks. So you never meet the kind of girls you want to. The truth is that on the street or the train, I am just shy as hell. I'm beyond shy. I'm like scared shitless when I'm talking to girls. I don't know why. maybe I was traumatized by a girl when I was a kid or something. when I met Cleopatra it took me over a month to ask her out, and even then I didn't really ask her out. I asked her to go help me find an animal my grandma thought she had in her garage. That was our first date. Low risk. In case she hated me. its like a curse I live with. Maybe all men do. constantly approached by women who are nice and all but that you don't want, and scared shitless to even look girls in the eye that you do want. And then there's the whole issue of saving yourself for a woman who you think is going to be good enough for you, but the whole time you're worried that you're not good enough for any woman who would be good enough for you. it’s a fucking nightmare.

But I can’t even ask girls for their number or any of that. this girl is shoving her hands in my face to smell her new hand cream and I'm still trying to pretend like I'm not interested so just in case she notices that I am interested she doesn’t like reject me or tell me to fuck off. Also I guess it’s the whole boyfriend thing. I hate that. when they have a boyfriend. then what? You're like, oh well he's a lucky guy, yuk yuk. And you slither away like some worm. I hate that. so I never approach girls or ask them out. I just wait for them to ask me out. Now I just ask to be put on the waiting list. Just here take my card anyway and add me to the waiting list if you guys ever break up. it could be two years ten years who knows. but just give me a ring and say hey remember me? I turned you down like ten years ago because I had a boyfriend. Well guess what? I'm free now. lets go out. and chances are, I'll still be single because I'm so fucking shy.

Current spin; the new Jim Camacho album, stalker songs. Fucking great heartfelt acoustic music. this guy is on fire now and TMG is going to do everything we can to get him more out there. I love his talent. Extremely admire it.

Last screening: COMEDIAN, documentary about Gerry Seinfeld trying to make it in standup again. I would never be a standup. That is a brutal business.

Friends in town from Miami and all over the states and South America to run in the nyc marathon tomorrow. had a great experience where I met up with Luis downstairs on the street. He was in town from Venezuela, and was shopping and called me and asked me where I lived. I told him, and then he exclaimed, ‘I'm downstairs on your street!’ I was like ‘no way! o.k., I'll be down in less than a minute.’ Crazy. so then he tells me that Ivonne this girl I dated about a year ago and a few friends were was also in town. and told me where she was eating in the west village. So I went there and pretended I just happened to be there and bumped into them... her face just dropped and she got all nervous was shocked and it was really funny. Then I told them the joke and we all laughed. Good times. so tomorrow I will go film them crossing the finish line. 26 miles. Wow.

Then off to the macanudo club for a smoke and a few drinks with Christopher and his girlfriend. Sinatra and Tony Bennet singing over the speakers over glasses of beer and port. Good times.

And then off to a debutante party for one of the secretaries of Mayor Bloomberg at some new hip club in the meat packing district. More Miami-vibe than I would have liked. You get to a certain class level, the level where they haven't quite made it yet, but really want to make it or are close to making it or work for people who have made it... and its all posing and bullshit. no substantive conversation. A lot of tight asses and turned up noses. You hang with people who are already there and everyone is laidback and easy going and cool as a fucking cucumber. Because they aren't worried about it anymore. So real things can get accomplished in that environment. Ideas generate and contacts are made. You can always tell someone who is still wanting it because all they do is ask you fucking questions about what you do or talk about what they do till you wake up ten minutes later realizing that you fell asleep midway during their diatribe and have dropped your drink and spilled it all over the floor. I'm usually good for about ten minutes in those scenes till I feel the world caving in around me and start feeling this nagging dread that if I don't go actually do an actual something that I'll be as big a loser as the rest of them. hence the arguably obsessive and unnatural workaholic ethic I so loyally abide by. Its past four am now and I'm still sitting here in the freezing cold madly typing away. I don't know if you can call writing, the kind of off the cuff stream of consciousness writing that I do, “doing something,” but I find comfort in the practice of it nonetheless.

Its nothing against people. its just that you reach a certain point where you realize that you are where you are. And putting on a show is not going to help you get anywhere. The people we admire are that way because they are just fucking cool. and that doesn’t have half as much to do with your status in life as it has to do with how you feel about who you are and what you are doing. Rich or poor. I learned that the hard way over the years. be cool. stop worrying. just be cool.

Something I thought of last night just before sleep, that there is this major difference between the regular working class people of society and the artists and that is that the artists to a certain degree are not as focused on the monetary rewards of working as much as just getting off and creating art. Whereas the working people are more focused on the rewards and the materialistic gain that can be had from working rather than the work itself. A lot of people don't even mind switching careers a bunch of times throughout their lives just to get to the top. Whereas the artists would never even consider that if it would spite or compromise their art. They're just really focused on making their art and getting it out and they don't even care if they are making money with it or not. I can easily relate to both sides of course. I mean, at a certain point you have to. unless you want to always be struggling. But still, the art is always going to come first, above all else.

Anyway, a busy fucking day and a busy crazy week. life here is much more difficult than living in other places where you drive. Everything here is twice as difficult as the rest of the country. New Yorkers just don't know it because they are used to it. but it is. you get so worn out being on the subways and having to walk all day and night. by 7 you feel wiped out and ready to lie down for a while.

Current spin; Caetano Veloso. His first album. Self titled. Brilliant. one of the best albums of all time.

Last screening: THX 1138. this is the first George Lucas film he ever made. it is fucking amazing. an absolute MUST SEE. You see glimpses of what would come later in star wars six years later. this is just an amazing work of art. If you work in film or in sound or music this is a classic and you prob know it already but if you don't, you will love it. it’s a library piece for sure.

Monday 6pm
‘Fishy?’
‘yo dude, what's up?’
“just wondering what's going on tonight.’
‘not much man. I just am trying to get to sleep before the show tonight. what are you doing?’
‘oh nothing man. I'm just having breakfast.
‘you just woke up?’
‘yeah man. So what time are we playing tonight?’
“I think like midnight. Or maybe one. So I'm going to try to go to bed now and get some sleep. I think we’re rehearsing at nine.’
“oh yeah. Did you talk to the other guys?’
“yeah rockaway is asleep now. and I think Infinito just crashed. He's picking me up later, when he wakes up.’
“Yeah. o.k. cool.’

Tuesday morning 4:32 am

We played this show at a local club on South beach called jazid which we had never played before. hadn't played much locally much lately. it was an acoustic show and maybe it was just that we were on acoustics I don't know. but we were just awesome tonight. it was so electric. We were swarmed at the end by people blown away and we were all so excited by it because you don't get that in Miami when you're a rock band. the people down here that's just not their thing. but we’re learning that there are still these little pockets of cool people here who are still into rock like in the rest of the country. at the party the other night the guys from jet were talking about how Miami is the only city right now where they can walk down the street and not worry about anyone bothering them or even knowing who they are. But Christina Aguilera, forget about it. or Gloria Estefan. Artists like that are huge here. but for a brief moment tonight, for that one hour, it was fucking stellar. The room was all ours and it was an amazingly magical moment for everyone.

We rehearsed twice for this show which we all learned is important for us. we have to do that. we’re much better when we rehearse. At this level you spend so much time questioning your validity as an artist. Always wondering if you're good or not. But after nights like tonight, really after our last ten shows or so, they’ve all been so good, you just start to feel bad for the labels who aren't going to sign you. because they're just going to look back and feel like idiots if we keep going like we’re going now. we just have to get out of this town. that's it. we just need to play the rest of the country and we’re going to do fine. We’re there now. for the last few months I have had this overwhelming feeling, this intuitive knowing, that we’re there now. we finally are where we always wanted to be as a group, where we always knew we could be if we kept at it.

Popping valium like candy to try to come down from the rush of it or else wed be up for three days straight.

Went to dinner with Ducky who is down to hang with her parents for a few days. Caught up. talked all about all of our old friends from high school and what everyone is doing now. everyone is married with children now. hearing about all these people that you went to high school with and their marriages and children and divorces really made me appreciate how lucky I am that I hadn't got married yet. I know I wasn't supposed to feel that way. looking at all these pictures of people with their kids, on the boat or at Disney world or whatever. I think your supposed to feel really happy for them and like want that for your own life. but for me it just made me so happy that I've been able to live the crazy nomadic lifestyle I have over the years and very relieved that I don't have all that yet.

Hadn’t seen her parents in like twenty years. Her mom is telling me I'll never get married. Your just the perennial bachelor. You’ll be sixty and still think you're in college. I plead with her no Mrs. Ducky its absolutely not true. I would love to get married. Maybe.... Hehe. I just haven't met my wife yet... but if you see her, will you please let her know I'm looking for her and tell her to call me on my cell phone....’ she didn't know if I was kidding or what. Just looked at me like oh my God this kid is still totally insane...

The older you get the more you really start to appreciate the friends you have. the really old long standing been there forever kind of brothers and sisters we collect through the years. its such a nice feeling. Hadn't seen each other in years and there we were drinking and eating and joking; commented that we felt as if we had not spent any time a part at all. that's what old friends feel like.
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The whole time warp thing is still happening. I pull over on the side of the road all the time now to write on my laptop; I'm doing this thing where ever I am I just pull out my laptop or a pad or my guitar and I just start working. Take notes or work on a song. I'm on this date the other night and we’re at this gas station and I'm pumping gas but then I whipped out this pad and started taking notes and I forget that I'm pumping gas and there's this girl in the passenger’s seat waiting for me. She gets out and says what the hell is happening? What are you doing? Oh you know just taking some notes here on the trunk. Sorry. It's like a time warp.

Restructuring

I allow myself the freedom to be the artist I have always known I could be. I want to open up more. Expand more. and allow more.

Restructuring:
I am processing now everyday in the early morning in the bathtub. It becomes a sanctuary. I focus on a primary and then I allow any and all secondaries to come up and then I discreate them. I have been doing it for about a month now. it has been amazing. it feels like restructuring. Wayne dyer calls it shifting paradigms. Yes. exactly. It is restructuring. I have realized that it is almost impossible to create a reality if there are numerous beliefs that oppose that reality. So the key is in the discreate. The key is not in trying to resist those beliefs or hide them or ignore them or avoid them or try to work around them or trying to use your will to create over them, etc.... all of that can work, and sometimes does. But what I've noticed is that you can get to this amazing state of clarity where beliefs that we do not prefer to have—realities that are being created automatically based on the beliefs that are creating them underneath---can be completely let go of, can just totally disappear, and you end up feeling so clean and clear and happy and light. It is truly unbelievable.

Maddie and Mohdie had their baby today. she had to have a c section, due to slight complications in labor. She labored for 48 hours or something crazy like that. I just talked to her. She promised to share the drugs she is on with me. She told me that there is nothing to compare the pain to. it was excruciating she says. Maybe only a really bad toothache in intensity, she says.

All of my ex-girlfriends are having babies. I want to have babies. Why? Why do we want to have children?

This is Maddie with her new baby. She is my best friend. When I look at her it as if I am looking at myself. Like she is my twin or something...

Many beautiful pix of Mohdie with the baby too, but if I post a pic of him he will kill me. he loves Tool. So he is scary...

At a café on Miami beach. Determined to keep the cool vibage of Italy even here. typing on my laptop drinking glasses of a new Italian wine known as vermintina. 

Today I went to the office and started packing all my things. wow. This was slightly heavy although not that big of a deal. I am so filled with these feelings of excitement and 

Reconnected with the stallion although it is too difficult for her. Still feels bad that we never made a run for it. although it was so nice to reconnect with her. She has found a new boyfriend now. 

When you are a single man and you get a lot of it, people think that life is so good. but I told Maddie last night, I would give it all up if I met the one. some girl who just totally blew me away and made my heart sing. is it like Manfred the mad German lawyer said one day at lunch, “don't wait too long young man, because the longer you wait the harder it gets to settle with anyone’s idiosyncrasies....” I don't know. I'm slightly drunk right now I think. me and my laptop on my lap literally while I shove huge forkfuls of salad and goat cheese into my mouth for the entire world to see. I can hear Maddie now, ‘you are such a  fucking freak....’ 

But it is the life of the artist. one can easily see how easy it would be to go insane. Living this lifestyle. 

So last night I talked to Madelyn for about two hours and it was so nice. she is pregnant now. having a baby. All my ex girls are either married or pregnant. Tells you something. Although what it tells you I don't know. I have reached this point—it is as funny as it is frustrating  and peculiar—where I just can’t fake it anymore. Look Rosie sex is natural desire in men, it’s a basic need as strong maybe stronger as the need for food or shelter—o.k. much stronger than the need for shelter—so yes there is this need to have sex and touch and affection and passion and all of that. but man I've just totally lost my ability to bullshit with the girls. I don't know what it is. but if I perceive that a girl isn't the one for me, isn't someone I can be with for real—I mean seriously, if it isn't her, I just don't even want to talk to her. So for sex you just use the professional women. I told this to my little cuzzie wuzzie and she just freaked out. “You have never been with one of THOSE WOMEN have you?” “No of course not. I'm just kidding.” oh god it was funny. I just couldn’t go through with telling her about it. 

[For the benefit of all working women the world over. Rosie acts like it’s a sin. Just completely alarmed at the thought of it. and I guess if you are a 21 year old born again Christian, then prostitution probably is a sin to you, but if you're a thirty year old man who hasn’t had sex in a month or two then I would call it a blessing. Prostitutes are Gods gift to all men everywhere. What an amazing thing a professional girl is when you think about it. the fact that they are willing to do that for us. and vice versa for the guys that do it too. I know some girls that have called men over... they loved it. The first time I was with a pro, I was so fucking nervous I couldn’t even talk straight. But by the time it was over I was holding her and thanking her. I gave her extra money. I felt re-energized and relieved and just so happy. and she was like look here's my house number, call me anytime. It’s a win win. I see what my guy friends go through out there. How they want to stay out all night at the clubs just because they want or need to have sex so badly. So they stay in these smoky clubs all night not doing anything remotely productive. Listening to bad music, talking to tons of uninteresting girls one after the other, just trying to get laid. And if they get lucky they end up bringing some stank stupid two bit back to their house to sleep with them. and they still aren't happy. little do they know they could just pick up the phone and call one over in the comfort of their own home. no clubs. No staying out all night with that stupid drunken desperate look on all their faces hoping to get lucky. I mean, that's what the pros are for. They’re there for us. and in return we are there for them. they need money. that's how they make their living. And they're alright with it. and we need sex and they're alright with that too. say what you will about doing it the old fashioned way. and spend all night in some stupid club that is beneath you just so you can try to get laid. And by the time you bring your nasty drunken two bit back to your pad and waste even more time having to talk to them about nothing in order to get in, I'm already fast asleep after a good nights lovemaking and I got a lot of work done as well.]

This morning I woke up and the first thought that came in that I noticed when I was stumbling to the bathroom was that I was truly happy about my music. I had spent the better part of all night tossing and turning because I was so psyched about this new album we are making. No pressures just getting together making music that we like. I realized that for the last fifteen years—has it been that long?!---since I have been making music semi-professionally that success to me had always been about making a lot of money and being famous for making music and then in the last year or two something had changed—really in the last six months more like it; all of a sudden I was realizing more and more that I was experiencing real genuine happiness from just being me making my music, just living my art, whether it be the music or the writing or the photo shoots or whatever. But that I have just been on this high like you read about, a kind of enlightenment or bliss inside of me just because I am peaking with my art. and you know this is regardless of the fact that I am still totally broke and not only do we not make any money from it but actually are still spending every free cent we make from other things to fund it. but that it somehow feels worth it. 

I'm not saying that we don't want to make success with it, cause I think we do. we've been working so hard at it for so long. The piano man works as a real piano man almost seven nights a week straight to make his living. Bars clubs parties weddings. And he still finds a way to play with us and do little tours and make albums. Its fucking crazy. we would all love for him to be able to stop doing that and to just do this full time. each of us with our little things on the side to try to make ends meet. I think Father Bloopy is a gigolo on the side—he makes good money. G2, our Internet and graphics guru, who is literally like a member of our band has these depression break-downs every few weeks about our lack of financial success or the lack of actual “fans or customers” we have. and I understand his frustration because we all work so hard at it, but I tell him hey man don't sweat about the fans and money we don't have, lets celebrate the fans and money that we do have. ‘the bad news is that we only sold fifty Cds last month? Yes but the good news is that we sold fifty CDs last month.” So maybe I'm a madman and everyone knows it but me. But I am, finally, and gratefully, a happy madman. 

I can relate to how G2 feels. Cause over the last fifteen years I used to feel that way. I couldn’t let myself enjoy the music making experience because it was all so tied to the idea of success being about fame and money. But now, I don't know, I just feel so happy to be in the flow of creating great art—like where there's a will there's a way—you know you're going to do it no matter what—and all of a sudden all the other bullshit stops mattering. [this is kind of gross but quite telling but it reminds me of the whole dental thing. Dentistry is not an inexpensive investment for anyone. And most musicians or artists don't have insurance or anything. So the dentist gives the artist an estimate for all this dental work he needs and it comes to like 10 or 20 thousand dollars to get it all done, but he is also trying to create his next album or film or whatever and the budget for that comes in at just under fifty thousand if he’s lucky, so of course the teeth are the first thing to go.] I guess I had/have been so caught up inside of this lifestyle for so long that I was never able to view it from the outside until recently. I just always WAS IT. and so I just always felt sorry for myself that I had to struggle and live that kind of struggling lifestyle. But now I look at it and I feel a kind of amazement and an honor to be me. Like ‘wow, I've been doing THAT for the last fifteen years??!!! And didn't even know it??!!” well I guess I am kind of lucky to wake up one day and realize that. It was like at that show when I told God ‘hey I'm just going to quit’ in my mind, and he said, ‘great go ahead. No problem. You don't have to do this.’ and all of a sudden I realized ‘I don't have to do this?’ That I AM CHOOSING TO DO THIS. Wow. O.k. now I understand. I am choosing to do this.

Up all night tossing and turning. We have had to cancel seven shows in total for the upcoming tour due to Infinito’s decision to stay in town to keep his cover gig. We didn't have enough time to get a sub. So we are only playing a few of the shows. I finally got out of bed and looked at the clock . it was 6:36am. I hadn't slept all night. just tossed and turned worried about the clubs, our agents, the fans. Our reputation, everyone’s hard work. I took half a valium and finally passed out about 7am. Slept till 10. The guys came and picked me up. I told the guys if I have to ride in the van with Infinito right now we would come to blows because I am so mad. Vancouver acted as a middle-man, helping calm me and Infinito’s tempers. I wanted to fly instead. They convinced me to stay on board and take the ride. I am glad I did. we have had a blast so far. Me and Infinito blew up at each other for a while, screamed and shouted, and then it was all over. We decided to come up with a band agreement and all sign it so everyone is clear about what our commitments are to each other. All of that is pretty unclear right now and now is when we really need it the most. The thing about being in a band versus a normal job is you are so dependent on other guys. One minute you can be going along doing your job and in the next you can become totally unable to do that same job just because of one guy in the band. So that aspect of this whole thing totally sucks. But when you do come together and make great music there is nothing more euphoric. 

We wrecked the van already, not even out of South Florida. Smashed into a cement pole. Picked up the newest song order--version 4---of the new CD from Fred’s house. It's almost there, not quite. Lot of songs on this new album. some very hard songs and some very soft ones. Drove all the way up to Brunswick, GA. Stopped for the night. we take turns playing stuff from our own CD collections. Every guy brings his own bag of cds. I made everyone listen to Phoenix of course. Father Bloopy played 2 cds of Beatles recording session bootlegs. Listening to ‘because” from abbey road. It was so beautiful. I thought, how can you write this? I closed my eyes and created that I will write songs this beautiful one day. that I write songs this beautiful. I tried to feel it. Vancouver ended the trip by playing the most horrible thing I have heard. Utopia’s third album. I felt like a rat in a cage being slowly poisoned. We all shared with one another where we were when we first met or when we first saw the others for the very first time out in the scene, on what stage at what club, and reminisced how we all came together to form the band that we are now in. 

My day was awesome but challenging!!!

Just got back from dinner with Fred and friends who engineered and produced the new album. we went out and celebrated the completion of the project. 

Had a great photo shoot during the day. Brilliant. Cannot wait to see the photos. 

But things with the band are totally out of hand. Drummer is spazzing out all the time. buying a house for the first time. Very nervous. Not himself. Gigs getting dropped left and right. agents not faxing us the contracts. Crazy. 

Tomorrow we leave early for the mini tour. Tonight I just want to sleep. I hate long drives.