Just to fill you in: R's manager said no. R liked the idea and thought it was funny. I suggest he do a walk on and we meet in the street somewhere and go have coffee and go talk shop... I gave him a 'what can I do to sleep with you' shirt which he thought was awesome and funny again. His manager Barney, who I swear looks just like the real Barney, is a dick who I am finding trouble appreciating right now and said 'I don't think R will be doing a sitcom/reality show anytime soon no matter who's on it...' I then asked, 'well shouldn’t R decide what he's going to be on or off...' etc, and then we continued to argue for a while until finally agreeing that I would call and speak to some suit at his label who I have never heard of. Frankly I think I chickened out and did not present the idea as well and as strongly as I could have... I was not the full me in the present as I know I could have been.

I sulked back to my office kicking mud-puddles the whole way in a lot of anger and frustration and mumbling to myself. Our last song went higher than any of his recent songs I kept telling myself. Who does that fucking guy think he is etc [his manager, not Rufus who I adore]... [although he sells a shitload more cds than we do and I know that and I know I'm a non-famous compared to his famous and that made me even madder since he is so much younger... even worse...] but I still think the idea a brilliant one and feel that it could be great for his career since he's always publicly complaining about how few cds he sells etc... and of course great for ours as well... obviously.

Again, I was just frustrated with my inability to get my message across effectively enough... UGH!!! No need to respond. Just to fill you in. after a few minutes I decided to turn the anger into positive productive energy to use to go further, not to sink into a pit of despair, so that's what I did and had a very productive day.

Thanks for the sage advice again by the way for sleep. you are a real tea freak and a kind of natural-living guru I see. You have a lucky daughter Jules. She will be wealthy and wise. Just reading your advice made me feel better. Reminds me of the old me. Although I must admit that I did not take your advice yet. instead, I popped a half a valium, drank two beers, smoked a cigar, and went to a production meeting to give the bad news. Sometimes I have no idea who I am, I mean, I don't even drink, and yet since I've been here the pressure has been so intense that I find myself drinking more than once a week and I used to drink once a year if that... but I'm o.k. with all that. with just letting it all happen and being in the flow of it. you know what I mean? Exploiting the reality of it so to speak. This is it. this is the reality of it. and I'm living it. trying to throw your arms around the world. know that song? yeah, like that.

Thanks for letting me purge. Hope all is well in the snow.

Last screening: devils playground. Story of the Amish people. Interesting. I had no idea. what a novel approach they take to the world!

I had to go to a post office today. it smelled. You can smell people. lines are slow. Do not enjoy this aspect of being human. Its just not me. but I make the most of it and talk to everyone in the lines around me because it is such a novelty for me still. So its happening now. just like in the vision I had. the little cat is out of the bag and making its way around the world. People everywhere are listening to the new CD now. Some like it and some don't. makes me cry when they don't like it. Lol. Some local magazine reviewed sleep with you. This guy slammed us again. second time he gave us a bad review. first one I never read but I heard that it was out there. says we ripped off the lyrics to I'm not the only one from nirvana? Can you imagine? Only in fort Lauderdale would someone be so stupid not to know by listening to our music or just by our reputation that I don't even own a nirvana album. no one in the band does. Maybe I WAS the only one in that department, but I just never got into nirvana; at least not yet. Little does he know that I wrote the song in 91—when was nirvana around???? I don't even know. every album he slams us. he writes like he only listened to the first three songs. And blew it off. You can tell he never dove in past song 3. This guy is a real first pager—those cats who only read the first page of every book they own and think they fucking know something. Its one thing if they get it and just don't like it, or even hate it. You can respect that. Its another thing when you can tell that they just don't even get it. That they never bothered to check it out. Man that shit is never easy to swallow. Guys like that, with real limited taste in music, shouldn’t be reviewing music. Anyway, they gave us a huge picture and named the album one of the top ten of the year released by local artists. Go figure. So that's cool. More fans will know the new album is out.

[I can’t sleep. That review has me tossing and turning. Sleep with you was for me an exploration of love and sex and relationships and all that kind of really personal romance stuff that I never explored on earlier albums. I had always focused so much on philosophical and spiritual and socio-political matters, so this was another step, taking a chance lyrically. Some people have made mention of the fact that I am emotionless on the cover of the CD with some generic model naked on the cover. As if I'm not even there. Have no interest in her being there. as if there is something inherently wrong in that. But that was the idea. That is what it feels like when you embrace the rock star lifestyle expressed in the title song. It does feel shallow and removed and disconnected. You quickly lose the fun and the novelty of all that and your heart starts to long for something deeper and more profound. That is why the album progresses the way it does. Its not glamorizing it as much as its exploring all of it, both sides. All of it.

Some interviewer asked me the other day, “is the album about picking up chicks and sleeping with as many of them as you can? Is that how you would sum it up?” and I thought, ‘oh shit, I think we’re in trouble here.’ yeah the first song is about that. but that's why the singer is suicidal on the next song, I'm not the only one, cause that's just not enough for him, and he’s longing to find his partner in superhero girl and he thinks he finds her in veronica or Minnie driver or Shira or Little Tree and all the others he mentions in Girls, but in the end it’s a false alarm, like a lot of relationships are, so he Keeps moving on, and he is sad and frustrated by it, and so yeah he goes in and out of drug abuse, as in the songs vicodin and junkie and he does feel guilty by not being able to control his primitive sexual urges sometimes, and just not being there for his friends and God, hence Guilty, and ending with Little Tree and the idea of love being the most important and profound thing one can go after in this lifetime, and then of course the hidden track Free love goes one step beyond that and accepts the idea that love and sex and romance isn't or at least shouldn’t be exclusive to just the opposite sex. That these ideals transcend all that. and it should just be this wide open exploration of the heart and spirit and body.

I gotta do a quick data dump here. Thanksgiving night, it was late, the four of us sitting around the house. Cozy, intimate. I shared with Red and Mohdie and Madelyn what has been happening with Cleopatra for the last two years. just laid it out on the line. for the first time really. Combination shock sadness horror confusion.

This morning I have this deep realization while I was making an espresso. subtle. I spend the last 24 hours reflecting on the shock and horror that I saw in Maddie and Mohdie when I told them what was going on. Trying to figure out how I can let that happen. what have I been doing>? What was I thinking? this morning I started realizing that it is simple. It’s a love thing. for a lot of us. it is just a measure of how much we are willing to put up with for love. To have that feeling of love in our lives. Or any of the things that go with it. or even anything that approximates it. so for me I was willing to be lied to and deceived a lot and even kept it a secret from everyone else to protect Cleo and my own rep just so I could have her in my life. because somehow I was still equating her with love. But I hadn't gotten anything even close to real love, not even friendship love, from her in years. man that hurts. But its true. so I was just kind of letting all this stuff happen that shouldn’t be happening. Lies all over the place. half truths. Just totally not my scene and whenever I say anything about it, she always just says I am being self-righteous. To try to get me to just let her do whatever. and man the whole time I'm walking one walk but I'm allowing this whole other walk to be going on in my world just because of love. Man I think that has something to do when people are raised with a kind of dysfunctional or codependent love thing when they are kids. I think a normal person would have just walked away, done whatever they had to to get out years ago. now I know. in the tub I felt this really wonderful and powerful sense of peace and happiness. I have been floating in it ever since thanksgiving when I made this decision to let all this go.

I'm walking around the house screaming my lungs out just to let out steam about sleep with you not shooting right up to number one. I'm on the phone with the promo people everyday. What the fuck is up with this album? the head promoter tells me that it is their most controversial CD they promoted all year. they love when albums launch such polar extreme responses from people. he compares it to Eminem. He says that they have 125 stations playing it now who just love it. and then there are the ones who are just really turned off by it. by the artwork, by the crass lyrics. By the loud guitars. You name it. man I didn't expect this at all. I told the commercial rock radio promoter, listen Lisa, we weren't trying to be controversial. I look at that cover and I just think its beautiful. I don't even notice that she is naked. I was just trying to make a statement about love and sex and relationships basically. That was it. And what's so controversial about that? She thinks we should change the cover.

my keyboard on the laptop was fucked. Many letters don't wor all of a sudden... Try to follow along. No I, no K, and no ,. 

Talking about sleep with you and some people might say when   listen to the album don’t now how to feel because t goes up and down and back and forth le a roller coaster. On some songs t sounds le the singer s just some shallow mindless dot and then all of a sudden the next song s really deep and profound and beautiful an romantic so ts confusing. You don't now how to feel. 

Yeah but... can’t type le ths.... 

I just received this. Cool. We can house some protestors at our place for sure. I don't understand this whole thing fully. Nor do I fully understand why “we” should be against the WTO or the World Bank or the IMF or any of the other things that really cool people in the know are supposed to be against. I don't mind admitting it. try as I might, and I spend hours a day researching and studying things in general, its hard to get to know all the issues that are affecting us. the war on Iraq was an easy one. [Or was it?] this FTAA meeting coming right into our own backyard has made it very hard to ignore. All the better. Everyday I think about it. what the bigger picture is, what are we really here for. Besides just the fun and the money and the glamour and the friends and the art and of course our own survival—even say just family--- what are we really here for? (think of people like Gandhi or mother Theresa or ram Dass and then I start to get a better understanding of what resonates with me in answer to this question---I think people like bono and sting and peter Gabriel and Neil young are also onto it—kind of a combination of non-apologetic self service and gratification and service to others (the people that are running stars edge, the admin arm of Avatar, really took it in a direction that I didn't agree with or couldn’t relate to fully in the last few years with the introduction of the whole ‘selfless service to others’ concept. For me, I believe that it has to be a healthy combination of both. YOU have to be happy first, like just totally fucking selfishly happy, and I swear to God what starts happening is that you just automatically start reaching out all around you helping people.) Most recently....

Subject: urgent needs - housing/floors, young (and old) FTAA protestors
>Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 18:46:28 EST
>
>HELLO! Can you please forward this to your email lists -- very important and
>EXTREMELY TIMELY. -
>*****
>Hello. The FTAA meeting is coming to town -- and so are the "protestors" --
>who are here to protect worker's rights, the environment, our water (which is
>up for sale), and helping make sure people have a say in their own destiny.
>(They are not ALL here to "break windows!!" ). They envision a world of "fair
>trade" not just unaccountable-for "free trade." The city has done a great job
>of making it difficult for CHURCHES who normally open their doors to these
>mostly young folks to have a place to sleep. As such, there is a MAJOR housing
>crisis. If you can help with a floor, a backyard - anything, seriously
>anything.... one night will even do... please call citizens trade at
>
>ALSO, so you are comfortable, you can choose what kind of activist you want--
>there are kids coming down from college in Vermont, Texas, Portland - and
>even older activists, union workers, farmers.... You can even specify
>boy/girl/yoga-life/vegetarian/peaceful/gay/lesbian/etc! .... PLEASE help if you can.
>This is a SERIOUS, urgent need. (And could be fun for you too! - plus a way to
>take part, take action.) I have met many of these young activists and have been
>completely moved and inspired.
>
>(You can see some of the postings on http://stopftaa.org/housing.php but
>PLEASE also call citizens trade (I am not sure how updated that site it). But you
>can see the range of folks looking for places, and speaking from their
>hearts.)
>
>If you are not already informed about the FTAA (which you may be!), please do
>like I am and learn more about these vital issues - at mobilizemiamiftaa.org
>or ftaaimc.org.

Receiving more and more emails and calls for free stuff from radio stations. Sleep with you is starting to bubble. They want posters, cds for on air giveaways, T-shirts, stickers. And they're playing the hell out of the new CD. some of them. Its awesome. I am starting to understand something about it. I think that a lot of people in the indie side of the music biz don't understand how it works so there are a lot of myths that are perpetuated about the ‘local’ or ‘indie’ level. And they are perpetuated by a lot of the major players too. Its not just the indies that think all this. there is this idea that a band needs to break out of their town or ‘create a big buzz’ in their hometown and then branch out regionally and then eventually will get national attention or better yet attract the interest of a major who will then be able to give them national attention. So there is this whole creed and then methodology to how to do this. this is what we can call the Dave Matthews or the Marylyn Manson or even good charlotte approach. And this approach does work.