On the road to Atlanta for a few shows. Total chaos as always. Four guys locked up in a van for 12 hours, all of us screaming at each other at the same time, passing the bottles around, and arguing for the rights to play the next CD. Can’t live like this forever. Have to break big soon to afford this kind of hedonistic lifestyle.

I was either dreaming or football season has started. I think I saw some game on TV at a restaurant we stopped at tonight. thank God. life feels weird when there's no football. I just bought a new Wilson nfl official size football and I carry it everywhere with me now, like a teddy bear.

At a restaurant in Ocala Florida we pick up a beautiful young waitress who was eager for a little rock and roll adventure. She has a very cute southern accent and is now in the van with us. back seat with Bloopy. By the end of these four brief days and wild nights all of us will make love with her in our own unique way, which is among many other things what being in a band is all about; we will make love to each other in numerous ways as well through hundreds of high fives and hysterical laughs, sharing of everything, endless arguments over seemingly nothing a hundred times over, through our common understandings of art, pop culture, and music, through our intense bonding for the brief moments we are under the collective microscope on stage, in the rehearsal studios before the shows, in the wild and unspeakable antics that are an inevitable byproduct of the boring hotel life during the days, and in the radio station interviews each morning we give to entertain the adoring masses and get more people to come to our shows and buy our cds.

And then just as explosively and unanimously as we have come together we will part and all go our separate ways; the poet will stay in Atlanta, where he now lives, Bloopy to Paris, me to New York, rockaway to Miami, and Vancouver will be off to Mexico. Three weeks later we will meet up again in Boston for a few shows and then a few shows in NYC. It is a strange and beautiful thing to be in band.

You develop a deep love for earplugs, sunglasses, and hats in an attempt to salvage as much privacy from.

Current spins: road trip rotation included the following: righteous boy, from Sweden. Bootleg outtakes from McCartney's Ram, and then back to the egg albums, transcendence nothing is cohesive, father Bloopy compilation, Lou reed Coney island baby, Morrissey kill uncle, jet’s latest which was surprisingly great, rarely heard 70’s prog rockers Flash, Ben folds five whatever and ever amen, which was a huge wonderful surprise how good they are, grateful dead live in winterland ’72,

It is now 4;25 am as we pull into Atlanta. Bloopy is in the back of the van with the waitress; rockaway is watching the Simpson's with headphones on his laptop, Vancouver is driving the van and on the phone with his third girl of the night telling her how much he loves her and how awesome she is. he is in love with love. And music of course. When he gets off the phone we high five about how wonderful love and music are. I am typing this and feel completely exhausted. I cannot speak anymore and can barely open my eyes. I did score a new cowboy hat and feel very good about that. at the last stop a couple of real back wood American hicks thought I was a genuine country superstar and asked if they could snap a few pictures. We didn't let em down and posed accordingly. Boy are they going to get a wake up call when they visit our website.

In a few minutes my exhaustion will change of course because once we arrive to the hotel we miraculously wake up and start throwing the football around the huge marble lobby as rockaway starts playing boogie woogie on the grand piano that's conveniently placed there, as if only for our welcome. In less than an hour we are wreaking more havoc on this hotel staff and guests than is fair. Valiums are passed around to get everyone to calm down and sleep just as twelve hours before ephedra and caffeine and booze were passed around to keep everyone awake.

Mad mad mad rehearsal schedule with the guys for three days straight. The poet has now moved back down to Miami from Atlanta to rehearse with us full time. constant phone and email and fax to confirm dates for Europe tour. Non-stop business. great rehearsals. Band sounds awesome. Diane spent three days here filming us for a documentary. focused on the history of the band and the albums we've released to date as well as focusing on the upcoming tours. She got the good the bad and the ugly. Camera constantly on me for three days. I was left with a feeling of how hard and stressful my life is right now and me in reaction to that, how exhausted and irritable I come across. But it was real. It was where we are now. I can’t wait to see the film.

Last screening: Bruce almighty. Jim Carrey is such a talent. I love this movie. It always makes me feel great. Someone up there is trying to tell us something.... nod nod wink wink.

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About Schmidt was the most torturous event I have sat through in years. I am not saying it wasn't a good movie, maybe it was. But it is just disgusting and horrifyingly too real. Really makes you squirm. 

Then off to the opera to see Salome. Forget that it was based on a play by the brightest of them all Mr. Oscar Wilde, even that couldn’t save this miserable wretched bore with no melody. But I did get about an hour of solid sleep in. And I got a chance to mess around with my new handheld a bit more, much to the disdain of the other attendees. 

This just in from our good friends over at Now Age Press:

“Saturday, January 11 - Nyack, NY - Death died today. With a simple signature, Illinois Governor George Ryan spared the lives of 167 men and women that had been sentenced to die. With that act, the governor has elevated the consciousness of American politics. According to a story from the NY Times: >>Gov. George Ryan commuted all Illinois death sentences today to prison terms of life or less, the largest such emptying of death row in history. With a single sweep, Governor Ryan, a Republican, spared the lives of 164 men and 3 women who have served a collective 2,000 years for the murders of more than 250.<<
As I watched Governor Ryan's speech today on  C-Span, I was with my seven year-old daughter. Bored with the show, she asked me what we were watching. I told her we were witnessing history being made before our eyes. While the point was lost on her as to what was happening, I hung on the governor's every word. It's been a long time since I felt proud to be an American. And it took the actions of a Republican to generate that feeling. Was I tripping? Al the Snore's refusal to take a stand against the death penalty was one of the main reasons I could not support him in 2000, against the superstar of executions, Dubya of Texas, the Compassionate Conservative. According the Death Penalty Information Center, Texas leads the nation in executions, with a hefty 289 state-sponsored murders since 1976. Runner up in Virginia, with 87. Compassion, apparently, has a slightly different flavor in Texas.” 

Spent all night last night working on the band’s rider for the upcoming tour. Working a lot on transcendent radio. All day today. adding a lot more ambient and experimental music, as well as more modern rock and brit pop.

Current Spin: nobukazu, sign. Philip glass, the hours soundtrack. Genesis, duke.