Today I got a call from Toronto Canada. This guy comes on the phone and tells me that I won this screenplay writing contest on a website. They’re giving me $2000 and shopping the script to Hollywood. If they sell it, they get to keep 10% of whatever they get for it. when I look at this I am just in such awe of it. we are so scrapping for funds right now to try to get this album out. And money is just coming in from the most unexpected places. Out of nowhere to help us complete it. its really quite miraculous. It really helps me feel justified in the utter insanity of emptying your life savings and maxing out your credit cards just to create a work of art that you really believe in. Its like the universe is in total flow with us. It makes me believe in magic again. When the guy called, I had to put him on hold for a second after he told me the news just so I could jump and down a few times and scream. Then of course I got back on the phone and acted all cool and calm.  

Reading this new book, peak evolution. Amazing stuff. transformational. Processing all night in my sleep, waking up feeling excited and eager. You know, jumping up and running around early in the morning type of an effect. You can actually feel the shifts taking place in you that she describes as you are reading the book. Its pretty wild. 

Band is in a quite period now. Waiting for the artwork for the CD so it can be released. Just sitting around. Rehearsing some, getting vocals tighter. Boring stuff. Really can’t wait to play more. 

Last great movie: Wingspan. Freaking over Paul and how good he is as a singer and songwriter. I love them so much Paul and Linda. Its weird, twisted maybe in a way but its like they were my surrogate parents growing up. A lot of his music in the seventies was kind of cheesy because he wasn’t working off of John or George anymore these cool guys, you know, he was working off of this girl instead, Linda, so he definitely took a turn for the cheese, but I still love the seventies Paul stuff more than anything else. He is one of the few artists really who really had his chance to be a career artist. One of the very few we know of. Most artists just never get that chance. They get one or two albums, you know, or one decade and that's it. He and Lou and Joni and Bob and Neil—there's been a few over the years. the trend now is against that, that allowing artists to have whole careers. I think that's why independence is taking off now so big in our business as well. Not only do artists need to have careers that last a lifetime for their own fulfillment, but we as consumers like following artists through their lifetime, getting to experience all the stuff they create over the years, good and bad, and the bottom dollar corporate mentality that dominates the record industry now doesn’t allow for that. (the fact that the record industry managed to almost completely squash Prince over the last ten years is just mind-boggling. One of the more prolific gifted and influential artists of the last half of the century and they just let him go, you know, its heartless really, and off he dangles out there in space, still creating his art but not many people really know about it.) Paul really rode it all the way, good and bad, he just kept flowing with his muse, and yes there was a lot of cheesy stuff along the way but I think that's part of it, being in the flow of your art, letting go of the judgment, because he also made some amazing stuff as well. And put on great shows. Reminds me of Picasso. You walk into peoples homes and they have a Picasso framed and maybe its just a sketch of a flower that took all of ten seconds for him to do. but people just want a piece of that. it goes beyond whether it’s a good drawing or whether its nice to look at or not. People don't even think about that anymore. Its just being able to be a part of that artistic flow that was Picasso---becomes more of the motivation. Owning a piece of it. I hope that the music business can eventually get back to this sincere appreciation of art rather than the greedy lust for commerce that it is currently known for. 

Current reads: peak evolution, food pets die for, inside the playboy mansion.

Just saw some of the artwork for the new CD. It looks awesome. I'm on fire from it. Need to come down. Some serious art. We thought about this one more. Put more time into it. I'm a junkie for art. Art and love man. What else is there? Art turns me on. Sex and love and art and passion and romance inspire me artistically. It's all a circle. When I'm in the midst of great art whether it's mine or someone else’s it turns me on.  

Out on South beach tonight with the friends, rather than the band. Nothing going on so I thought I would join them. They were like Fishy’s coming out? No way. Way. I figured what the hell, lets see what all this is about. CRAZY! Sobe has changed. Turned into kind of a ghetto. The seedy underworld. Hell on earth. For free for all who care to see first hand what that looks tastes and smells like. The music in the air is all about love these days. It seems that's what everyone is talking about. Looking for their true love, for their soulmate. But if they’re going out to bars and clubs, at least on South beach, for it, forget about it. I admit it's been a long time, but I was not prepared for what I experienced tonight. Love? Art? Joy? Beauty? Truth? Transcendence? None of that in bars and clubs man. Just a lot of drunk people stumbling around talking nonsense. Nothing of any substance. Saw a few violent fights on the streets. And a lot of very desperate looks in the eyes of humanity in it's rawest most primitive states. Finally cruised home about 4am. Put the top down, put the pedal down, and drove a hundred miles an hour down the interstate towards home, smiling. Happy to be me. Happy that isn't my life. It was a good reminder. Life is bigger than most people take it for.       

Studying history of Korea. Writing songs. Watching the documentary edreams about the rise and fall of Kosmo.com. Weather is cool and breezy in Miami. Low sixties. Haven't had anything like this forever. a welcome change. When the weather is so beautiful like this here it makes you think of the scarecrow in the wizard of oz. If only Miami had a brain....

The heart longs for love and will play tricks on us. Is there a ‘meant to be.’ or are we creating it all in each moment? Could it be a subtle combination of both? A vectoring paradigm. 

The passion and the friendship. Can you have both? Thank you for opening my eyes. As an artist, I am so vulnerable to just going with the passion. And sometimes I think we should just go for the COMPATIBILITY. I have tried both. But that doesn’t work either. 

It has to be both. 

I have realized this year: It is not just the chemistry. It is not just the compatibility. OR THINGS IN COMMON. Instead it has to be the KNOWING. Look for the knowing. Wait for the knowing. Forget about the rest. Maybe you're true love is in India and doesn’t even speak English. You have nothing in common. But she makes your heart go crazy just from looking at her.  

Where are you my love? How long must I wait to see you? How long must I wait to look into your eyes and hear you laugh? How many miles separate us? How many roads must I travel till our hearts finally meet? I think of you every hour. I long to be with you. To begin our life together. I will not smile until I am with you. I will not sleep right until you are sleeping beside me. I will continue to wait for you. I will continue to look for you in every corner of the world and in every face that passes me by on every street. 

Saw Al Green in concert tonight. He didn't sing much but he put on quite a performance. Everyone said he was high. He certainly acted like it. But it made me realize, how much of it is about sounding good and how much more of it is just about putting on a great show. 

I am receiving some hate mail for my mad public political ranting and modest expression of desire for peace on earth and goodwill among us all. Ad hominem attacks with no real points but filled with good ole American patriotic hatred towards anything which questions authority or does not conform entirely to the greedy corporate hogs called Country or Religion. I do not want to think of this war anymore. It is a lost cause. The propaganda machines of the New Roman Empire are at full speed. The best we can do is try to live with honor and dignity amongst the murder lies and deceit that pretend they are the way of this world. I am tired of trying to convince people that the sky is blue. If they cannot see it from just looking up at the sky, if they do not know it in their hearts, then we have no choice but to ride gallantly through our lives secretly and joyously glancing up at the blue sky every now and then and if we pass one another on the street, one of us with the knowing, then perhaps then we will wink at one another. And raise our glass to toast ourselves and the vision that we keep in our hearts for a right and just and noble future for humanity. One day it will be ours.

The world will always have it's wars, it's famines, poverty, plagues, and pestilence; it's wicked rulers wearing masks of able leaders and brave heroes. The masses will always have their American Idol, their generic alterna-schlock, and their newest action adventure heroes and box-office blockbusters, brought to you courtesy of McDonalds and the great American heart attack. But we will always have art, beauty, truth, and love. If we’re willing to look for it. 

For every eminem, we still have Shakespeare, and for every p-diddy, we still have Radiohead or Sigur Ross or Rufus Wainright or Caetano. For every Michael Jackson, some where there is Prince. Every time we must endure a Mel Brooks, we can take refuge in that there is a Woody Allen. For every Oz or Married with children or ‘who wants to be a zillionaire’ we still have opera and real theatre. For every prescription drug that is rammed down our throats by heartless corporate thugs there is a natural herb waiting to be plucked from the earth, ready to heal us with out side effects. For every acre of rainforest that is cut down by big men with little minds we shall plant a seed and hope that the evil men that lurk among us die before they find the little trees we have planted. For every mindless foul mouthed nitwitted comedian, out comes an Eddie Izzard. For every brainless fake breasted bombshell flavor of the month parading across the covers of our magazines or television screens, there are plenty of women with real beauty and substance in the world. For every rapper on MTV profiting from dropping names and labels and promoting that life begins and ends with drinking fucking and how nice his cars and shoes are, we still have real art being created all around us. For every pencil-dick Martin Bashir care of the Barbara Walters special that create their wealth by deceiving and exploiting the Michael Jacksons of the world, we can take solace in that there really are honest and trust worthy people out there. For every hyperbolic and asinine infomercial, there are still great things of value that we actually want to buy being made. We may just need to look deeper. Substance does exist.

"$75B (seventy five billion) America spends on the Iraq war could provide fifty million Americans with free health care, or six million young men with university education."

Still working on the artwork for the new CD. We've used the same designer for our last three CDs before sleep with you. He and I have similar natures and almost similar tastes. One thing we do have in common is an undying passion for art. Although he leans more modern than I do. We loath the CD covers and packages of most major label bands. This is the biggest rip off going right now in the music biz. People spend $18 in a store for a brand new CD and they get a stupid cover which is usually a drawing that has nothing to do with the band or the music inside. And maybe you get one picture of the band. You're lucky if you get lyrics these days. Not all—-Radiohead always has great CD artwork but they’re the exception. So for us making great CD packages is our way of taking that back, the days of great album cover art. But he is much slower and methodical and I am much more throw it up and lets move on. The rise and shine artwork took two or three months. At least. And that's straight all day working at it. This new one is fast approaching that same time-line already. By the time it is finished he and I will be screaming at each other. He will quit the project or I will fire him. Then we’ll finish. Only this time its very funny because he is in Chile now. so the whole time we are communicating through MSN messenger rather than in person. so now were arguing as I'm typing this and actually he just promised that this is the last CD he will ever do for our band. I'm laughing but I'm typing rude remarks back to him through instant message. I've never had an argument over MSN before. its cool. But the good thing is that now that he's quit that means that we should finish pretty soon. that's the way it always plays out. Some of our best work will come out of this.  

Feeling very happy right now. I think the more honest you get, the more honest of a space you get into, the more happiness you feel bubbling up inside you. 

Today the power and the insanity of the new technological age that we live in really hit home. On an MSN IM meeting with our art director who is currently residing in Chile. He was emailing me posters for an upcoming show and dictating the printing specifics to me through instant message. I had Kinko's on my cell phone and he's on speaker phone sitting on my desk and I'm in this other MSN IM with this girl in Holland and she's asking me to sing her a song over instant message. So I'm typing these lyrics of a song to this girl in Holland and I'm repeating to this guy on the speaker phone from Kinko’s everything that that the art director is typing to me from Chile about the posters. All of sudden I'm like what the hell? Now this really is the technological revolution they promised all those years ago. Oh yea!

Watch TV for even five minutes now (I'm not recommending this except as a very brief socio-political experiment only) and you will soon see that things have slowly shifted in American media since this strange group called the Republicans landed on American soil. Tonight we saw one of those anti-drug commercials that showed a couple consoling their young teenage daughter who just found out she was pregnant. The culprit? You guessed it. Pot. O.k. so we were rolling on the ground laughing. Because you know, just last week they showed us how pot is also responsible for terrorism as well. But seriously, a few minutes later Barbara Walters comes on TV and introduces her next skit. A team of “undercover” ABC reporters, not cops, framed this air force academy cadet who was hosting these group sex orgies with his cadet buddies and posting them to the Internet. They weren't breaking any laws. But they just totally set this guy up two months before he was due to graduate and made him look like a criminal. Why? Who the hell knows why. This is journalism today. All of a sudden sex is a crime. What else are these guys supposed to be doing in their spare time in their early twenties? This country is getting twisted. It feels just like it did in the eighties. 

Sex is a crime. Homosexuality is an abomination. Pot, not alcohol, is responsible for everything wrong in our society. And invading other countries and taking over the world is good. These people are twisted. Hang on. Its going to be an ugly decade. 

This is an email forward I received from a friend today that enraged me. 

-----Original Message-----
From: hf
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 2:26 PM
To: undisclosed
Subject: from my friend Donna

As some of you may already know, my cousin Dennis is a Major serving in the Army. He is a commander in the 101st Airborne group from Ft. Campbell, KY. He is currently in Iraq with his Brigade. He e-mails his wife and mother frequently and this is a quote from an e-mail that he sent last night. I thought it was interesting enough to share with you all.

"Did you know that this was once the most educated country in the world, with more PhDs per capita than any other country?  The last 03 years have taken their toll.  I have seen my share of what fascism and communism can do to a country and to a people.  The so-called "intellectuals" back home protesting the war are, in reality, some of the most ignorant people I can think of, and the fact that they live such cushy, sheltered lives under the blanket of freedom provided by the blood and sweat of 18 year-old American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines disgusts me. They need to travel here for a couple of days and see the real deal."

So I responded:

This guy is an idiot slave. He thinks that it is only “intellectuals” that are protesting the fucking invasion/not war???? Has he no idea that the whole fucking world is protesting this atrocity? This isn't the fifties anymore. Since when have you seen an intellectual protesting a war? I have been to plenty of peace marches and anti-war rallies this year and I can tell you that it's a wide spectrum of all Americans who are against this invasion. 

We need to travel to Iraq to see the real deal? Why? We live in America idiot. So what? Then we will want to invade their country? Are we going to invade Venezuela next? Look at their plight. Cuba? Chechnya? For God sakes look at what they’ve been going through for two hundred years. It’s fucking genocide over there. And what about Palestine? Taking over other countries is not our business. Taking care of our country is our business. He is brainwashed. And fine let him be, in case we ever really need him for what he is supposed to be for—defending America. Not taking over some one else’s country. 

I am posting this bullshit to our website to show just what kind of brainwashed idiots bomb other people’s cities. And now I have a better understanding of why they are able to justify that in their minds. What he said made no actual sense. I read it ten times trying to decipher what he was really trying to say. Are we to blame that we chose cushy lives and he chose to join the army? I don't think so. Tell me that my country and my people are being attacked and I will be right next to him with a fucking bazooka and a pocket full of beef jerky fighting till my death or victory to defend this country. I love this country and I would fight till I died to defend it. I would live no where else in the world.