God Giveth God Taketh Away

For some reason I still don't feel that lying around the house crying sadness. But rather, a very intense painful and boiling rage; a looking forward to biting the head off of anyone who crosses my path kind of rage. Looking forward to it. Welcoming disagreement for a chance to take a swing or burst another into the kind of tears I should be shedding by now. Normally the gentle gregarious and oh so very social Ambassador. Now I seethe. Ready to pounce. This event has brought out the worst in me. Someone I know well, but have not seen in many years. When I was a boy, we knew each other very well. Best friends. Brothers in arms. We used to fight every chance we got. I tore the faces off of every kid I had the chance to with my fists back in school. I was the king of cynicism, vandalism, self destruction, and tearing people down. A rebel with many causes. The angry young man, but not the Billy Joel type (who the hell sings high soaring melodies when truly angry?), but more of the Clash, Sex Pistols, Iggy and the Stooges type. Decades have passed since those fiery days and that aspect of self had seemed to pass along with them. Or so I thought. Every now and then, he returns.

And so once again he is here. I am. So he is. So I am. United once again. Breathing and seething together as one. We need each other now. During moments like this. For sometimes life is wicked and cruel. Slaps us down like the pathetically arrogant while still unknowingly ignorant tree climbing bug eating home destroying parasites we are. Such is life for the lost baggage that we truly are. Left to live or die, fend for ourselves, suffer, groan, cry, scream, kill or be killed. Left for dead on a giant rock that floats in the middle of nowhere in what appears to be empty space. When I contemplate our fate, I welcome my new-found old friend.

Princess Little Tree falls into a puddle of tears, face soaking wet, sobbing, a few times every hour. But I don't. I am a desert. I am a weed-covered hauntingly deserted wall of no emotion. Red brick turned black from soot. Angry acerbic biting vicious cutthroat and cynical. Waiting to pounce. Hence I write. There is not much more I can do. Yesterday I was walking down the sidewalk with both shoulders held wide and broad to protect the pregnant Princess from all the thousands of people we share the city with; she who was holding my hand and walking just behind me. She who was holding our two newest members of our family in her beautiful little belly. Today there is no need for this protection we are told. It is a sudden shocking realization. Just like that. In simple terms, we are no longer pregnant. Some people call it miscarriage. Though this early on.... who knows what to call it. What I do know is that I have a printout of a microscopic photograph of our two precious twin embryos and they were living inside of her perfect body. Now they are not. She has not miscarried yet. In typical fashion. No blood. No pain. Just no more HCG, the hormone which indicates pregnancy.

And of course life still goes on...

Regardless of the prep work and press talk and studying and learning involved in a trip such as this, one is reminded hourly that life as it is for each delegate still goes on. Our normal day to day lives do not stop because of this trip or any other. Money still needs to be made. Errands run. Friends or family members still sick or in need or just want to talk, etc.

I cannot speak for the other delegates on this trip but i guess they are in similar positions. For me personally it is a balancing act that takes tremendous focus. My bandmates and our manager are constantly on the phone. In the last few weeks we have been negotiating two different contracts regarding the release of the two new albums we want to release this year. At any other time that would be the BOMB. It would be the all that i was thinking about. And indeed according to the guys in the band it should be all i am thinking about. "Frankly i think you have too much on your plate and i wish you would just focus on these record deals man," Fernando our guitarist tells me openly and honestly.

"So Mr. ambassador where are you today? Afganistan?" Our baritoned-voiced manager the Big Man in Black shouts at me over the phone. "How am i supposed to get a hold of you if you're always off on one of these effing peace trips? Jacobi is calling me nonstop. I would like to be able to tell him something,"

I'm listening to him and sincerely interested and at the same time I'm trying to soak in the complexities of the Suni-Shia conflict in a State Department Report in my left hand out of the corner of my eye...

Crazy times indeed. So how does this fit in with the band? Are my bandmates right? "It doesn't man. This is you. It has nothing to do with the band or with music." Or is there something bigger that we aren't seeing yet with all of this? How does it fit in with my love of all loves -- music? I don't know yet. But i'm willing to keep on with the balancing act. I know this: people are balancing much more than this quite sucessfully all over the world.

This last year I have written the best songs of my life. I know I always say that. I think I would be worried if I didn't always think that. It depends on what mission I'm on at the time. Back in 89' to 93' I felt that way. Our mission was to write the trippiest, deepest, most intellectual and spiritual songs we could. It was always a contest between the toad and I, and the other guys around. That whole deep trippy sound.

And then again in 95' and 96', the mission was to write the most majestic, long-lush orchestral, open-tuned magnum opuses I could. And then in 98' and 99' it was all about planet music and how many languages I could write in and how many different types of styles I could fuse into one song or one album. You just get on a roll and you ride it. I wrote maybe thirty or forty songs in the last year. Not a lot. But a good number of them were classics, you know, meaning I really dig them still. They're holding up. "Keep Moving On," "Sleep with You," "The Ambassador," "Where is My Love," "Beautiful One."