Predictability

We received our first actual check from ASCAP this week. not for much, but a real honest to goodness check. For the last five years we usually just get a letter that says “no royalties were reported this quarter.” Between this and our selection at CMJ marathon and checks coming in from our distributors every month from CD sales, t-shirt sales, and iTunes download sales I am starting to see real progress with this endeavor. Granted, not enough to justify renting limos and staying at the waldorf, but we’re on our way. The dream life is starting to connect to the real life.

Thinking a lot about predictability patterns the last few days. someone falls, they immediately try to get up. reach out your hand to shake someone’s and they will automatically extend theirs in return. point up and most people will look up. touch someone's left shoulder they will look to their left. If you want to appear famous or important, wear sunglasses indoors. If you want people not to look at you, roll up in a wheelchair. Most people are either day showerers or night showerers. Most people have a set time frame that they are most comfortable going to sleep and waking up. Some people are night owls, and other people are what they call early risers. If you want to create controversy about something, simply tell others that it is ‘rather controversial at the moment’ whether it is or not, it will soon become so.

Pop culture has its patterns. Every generation is repulsed by the decade that preceded it. I assume from how it makes us feel old or worn out or yesterdays news. And then in turn, each generation is obsessed with the generation twenty to twenty five years before it. In the seventies, America was obsessed with the fifties (happy days and lavern and Shirley). In the eighties obsessed with the sixties (the height of the grateful dead mania and the brief return of the Woodstock hippie culture). In the nineties mainstream culture became obsessed with the seventies. All of a sudden disco was in again and the bee gees were cool again. In the two thousands we are just starting to see the resurgence of eighties culture returning to favor, whereas in the last fifteen years you couldn’t get a job if you had anything to do with New Wave or hair bands. Now new wave is making a grand return in bands such as Interpol and franze Ferdinand and modest mouse. Its cool again to sound like that. The Cure just hit the top ten at college radio again. And its going to keep going like this. Already 80’s clubs are becoming all the rage all over America. This will continue through till the late two-thousands when the nineties become the new flavor of the decade in the early twenty-teens.

Good news and views from an enlightened mind can be found here:
Now Age Interview
Progressive Views on the News 
www.NowAgePress.com   

In other not so good news check this out:

Hollywood man burns military vehicle after learning his son died in Iraq

BY AMY SHERMAN, HANNAH SAMPSON AND PHIL LONG

asherman@herald.com

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9494491.htm?1c 

Jazz just called me and told me the news. marines come to tell father that his son died in Iraq last night. the father goes into his house, gets a kerosene can and a torch, jumps in the marines jeep (how the hell did they let him do that?) and lights the jeep and himself on fire. Fucking crazy.
Jazz says,  God that is awful. This happened right around the corner from where I work. Do you think we are going to see more of that? I don't know. but I think so. I think people are really freaking out over this thing. its not like other wars. But didn't he understand his son was fighting a war? That's the risk. What are we going to do? the truth is we need these kids to go fight these wars. It sucks for the families but they're necessary. I disagree. 

Washington DC

Ever wondered about Washington DC? Who hasn’t? what the hell is it? few know. try googling for it and it could take hours to wade past the “sponsored sites.”. But here's some info:

History: http://www.narpac.org/ITXDCHIS.HTM
Its name: Meaning of Place Name: District of Columbia
District of Columbia: So named in honor of Christopher Columbus. Applied through poetical justice to Columbus, and first used by Dr. Timothy Dwight in a popular song written by him which began; Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, The queen of the world and the child of the skies." Now applied to the District containing the national capital, 

On the plane now. yesterday was glorious. Great weather all over the city. clear and breezy. Looked at many places. In the early morning bumped into Boo Boo Kitty by chance on the street. I thought she was still in Europe. she had just returned. She was just waking up and coming downstairs to get the paper. she came around with me all day looking at properties. We hired a car for a few hours and had him drive us through all these neighborhoods uptown that I had never seen. Morningside, Harlem, Washington heights, inwood, Bronx. It was fun and we learned a lot.

I may have found a place yesterday. Park avenue near grand central. I had this mantra going concerning my new apt: space light view elevator doorman roof deck. Say it fast three times. Well this place has it all except for the space. it can’t be more than 400 sq ft. but it has a 360 degree view of midtown Manhattan on the roof deck and everything else in my list. Huge windows with a southern view. Its good. both doorman and elevator man. BUT its small. About the size of a hotel room. and its midtown. What this means is that you don't get any of that old-school new York vibe that you crave when you go to new York. You get that new-school mid town vibe. All the fancy places, but none of the grungy places. You know I totally forgot to add neighborhood to my mantra. Now I realize I forgot something pretty important. Not that midtown park avenue is a bad address. Just not sure its right for me. will have to see.

But boy do I feel good there in that city.
   

Dreams were crazy. dreams being nothing more than symbols of our feelings desires hopes fears etc, I don't pay much attention to the facts or figures of dreams, just the underlying meaning. Last night we saw a boy in front of my supposed house, which at first I didn't even know, in the dream, was my house. he was loading a bunch of gear into a duffle bag. Whoever I was with, I don’t know him, yelled to me, look, he is stealing all of your stuff. I didn't pay any attention to this. we continue to talk. A few minutes later they tell me again. I realize maybe there is something to it. I chase the guy down. We run a few minutes. I catch him. it is true. he has this whole bag of my things. he starts pulling them out of the bag one by one. and what's weird he is doing it with total non-chalance, as if its no big deal that he was just stealing all of my things. in the dream, I was thinking, ‘this is so weird. This is just totally twilight zone.’ But when I awoke I knew what the dream was about. And I knew what I need to do about it. sometimes I think I allow too much lenience with people just to not rock the boat and keep things smooth. But you know, that's only one personality type. Other people are totally different than that. they are hardcore always looking out for number one types. I have to pay better attention to maintaining a good balance between the two.

Note to self: Breakfast in your room at the Waldorf Astoria costs a lot; don't eat it there. Breakfast was $36 in my room. and this was just coffee, carrot juice, and muffins. I still feel like I have to throw up from the shock. I have found it impossible to eat from my stomach being so upset. I think they call that sticker shock. I don't think I have ever had it, being as good as I am at over paying for things and not noticing, I am kind of an expert at it, so I never experienced sticker shock before, but this morning was different.

[last weekend Beav and I were discussing buying cars and he tells me how he went into the dealers and did all this negotiating till he got his last car for like 6,000 less than the list price. And I told him how I knew the sticker price and went in and just paid it, totally forgetting to negotiate price. I even knew the cost of each option because I had researched them and just added them all up and said o.k. this car should cost xxx, and paid them. The sales guy was shocked. Beav was like ‘you did what?! What are you crazy?!’ “Dude, I know it sounds crazy, but I totally forgot that we could bargain with those guys about the price. I just gave them what the sticker said on the window.” “Oh my God dude, you need help. Please don't do stuff like that on your own anymore without me or mom being there. please. fuckin A dude.”] 

Eating breakfast in the bathtub this morning, I turned over the silver fork and it says Waldorf Astoria on the back and then below that “made in Korea.” Now how the hell are we supposed to enjoy our meal if we see that on the back of the fork? Imagining all these people in these sweatshops churning out this cheap silver that they just stamp waldorf Astoria. I mean, what the hell does that even mean at this point? I mean why stamp your name on it at all? you obviously didn't make it. you had nothing to with it. its not fine sterling silver or anything you should even be proud of. Its not made in some meticulously hand crafted manner by respected artisans or anything that anyone would give a shit about. Its just a fork made in Korea. And that my friends is what's wrong with this whole outsourcing thing. I'm not expressing myself well here; not enunciating the exact problem with how distasteful the experience was... now granted, Hilton bought the waldorf, so it isn't even very waldorf anymore. Its more Hilton, which is bad enough, and probably why there was so much vacancy there that I was able to get two nights for next to nothing. The Plaza certainly feels like a finer hotel. But still, you expect a certain something there, and as much as I try to, I cannot force myself to enjoy eating on a fork that says made in Korea, if the establishment that is offering you the fork is attempting to put on the air of fineness and quality to everything it does. It just doesn’t click somehow.

Spent a few hours at the macanudo club on 63rd street. A very darkly lit, richly wood paneled library looking bar where mostly men go to smoke cigars and read and work and hang out. I read an excellent article by financial advisor John Maulden there explaining that the reason why self-investors almost always fail is because they grab at the right investments at the wrong time, when they’re on their way up, rather than at the bottom. Ran into liv tyler who was hanging with you know who.

Idiot Fuckheads: a recent ad from Toyota reads: Our blue sky: more US manufacturing jobs, cleaner US manufacturing plants. .... and then ...” Toyota’s US operations account for more than 190,000 jobs...” and then in tiny little barely-legible print at the very bottom of the page, there is this disclaimer. *Toyota components and vehicles are made using many US sourced parts. Direct US employment: 31,040 jobs as of 12/03. Why does everybody have to be a bastard?

More good news today for the band. we found out that we were chosen to perform at the CMJ Music Marathon 2004 in New York in October. I have wanted to play at this festival since I was a kid so I am so psyched. Then our manager the Big Man in Black called and said that two more major record labels called him today about the group. that's five labels in a week who have called us. we've waited for this for a long time.

Last screening: radio. Boring movie cause you keep waiting for something to happen and nothing ever does but the story is good. I feel asleep last night thinking, ‘what am I doing to help? What more can I do to help more people?’ really makes you think about that. what is this inner yearning we feel to help others? I wonder if it is innate or if it is something that we learn or come to on our own.

You ever notice that when great things happen that you cannot help but close your eyes and thank God? and when you're feeling blue or when bad things happen that you cannot help close your eyes and ask for gods help or some guidance. Instinctual? Or indoctrination? I wonder.

August is already half over. I can write it but I can’t fathom it. work is the curse of life if you have to work. Death is its blessing. If you're lucky enough to not have to work then I would assume that death may be the curse rather than the blessing. But I've never been that lucky. so I just wait for death. Like bill Murray in groundhog day. on the plane, I think, oh I wonder if this will be it... perhaps we’ll crash and that will be that. or when I get a pain in my chest I think, maybe I'll get a heart attack right now and just keel over right here... pretty funny. I don't seem to possess any fear of death at all. in fact, the whole idea seems rather appetizing. You have to figure, if we get reincarnated, we can always come back. if there's a heaven then we can always chill up there with God and Allah and moses and all of that sort for eternity, and if there's nothing at all after we die, well then, we won't notice a thing at all. either way, it sounds like a win-win if you ask me.

I cannot shake the feelings of the sights and sounds I experienced at beavers house this past weekend. Two beautiful children. Sixteen months and four years old now. they have the perfect life. perfectly imperfect. But that's what makes it so perfect. its like an American TV show. Total Americana. I told Beav today, ‘man, you guys really have something special there. it really brought me home and reminded me of who I am and what I want out of life.’ watching him ride around on his new tractor riding lawn mower with his little girl on his lap, I was almost brought to tears. Five minutes later we heard our song superhero girl on their local radio station there in Oklahoma city. it was one of the most exciting moments of our lives as a family. Everyone was jumping up and down yelling turn it up. of course Beav was more laidback and cautious about it. I can tell he worries a lot now about how we will take it all the way and really find the means to see solid income come out of this. hearing your song on the radio is one thing. having money in the bank is another. I tell him, ‘I know man. I know.’

Been back in Miami for three days now. I try not to think about it, but I can feel it coming on like a slow death, like the humidity here. Hot, wet, heavy, sticky, unfriendly and unfeeling, ominous, and never ending humidity.

I've been working all day and then into the evening, twelve to sixteen hour days in an office till nine and ten o'clock every night. on the phone and behind the computer screen. Working day and night at the record label trying to take the band to the next level; where we can actually make a living at this rather than just work day jobs and play the odd gig here and there like most bands. The fans make it easier. But it isn't enough yet. When the last person leaves the office every night I'm still sitting there, by myself, typing or talking away. someone asked me once, when it is going to be enough. ‘when I'm not having to sit here and do this anymore and other people are doing it. that's when. Or a Grammy would be nice.’ laughs. ‘I've written well over a thousand songs in my life. that's enough for a good hundred albums or so. I've only recorded six. So talk to me when I've recorded twenty or thirty. Maybe that's when it’s enough. I don't know.’

But running your own label and taking it to this level is a weird thing. its got its bonuses because you quickly grow out of your local scene. You watch yourself go from a local somebody to a national nobody. And that's a cool thing. sort of. But its got its drags like anything else. Most bands never get to this point. They pile into a van and tour their asses off for a few years and hope that something comes out of that. if nothing happens one by one they bail on the dream, get married, and start going back to school or getting day jobs. I've been there and seen it with a lot of guys.

The other choice is to get to work, make it a business, and take it from a different angle. You start selling more cds and merchandise than you ever imagined. But you wake up one day and you realize that you're spending most of your time in an office instead of on stages. That's a drag. A big time drag. And sometimes you gotta wonder if you're headed in the right direction.

Living your life with one big leap of faith after another, You keep waiting for that one break, for that one car company to buy your song, or for that one song to become a hit on the radio, or for that one booking agency to say sure we’ll take you on even though you're not with a major label, and of course there's that holy grail of the major label record deal that so many artists dream of but so few ever realize. They're yelling hits and you're yelling we've got great music! and they yell back we don't care. We need a fucking hit. Every now and then some good music hits the airwaves and that gives you hope. You think... well maybe...

So you keep going. the hardest part is trying to maintain that balance between the artist that you are innately, the man that you were born as since before time began, and the businessman that works his ass off trying to promote the artist so the both of you don't end up starving in a gutter somewhere.

Last screening: Dopamine. See it.

We are all very excited at the moment. More labels are calling. More radio stations are adding superhero girl to rotation around the country. And we may get a cover on a national music magazine. Word is that were getting a showcase at the CMJ music marathon. Since we've been turned down by every other festival around the country for the last five years this could be looked at as a good thing. if we’re so good, the universe has a strange way of showing it.

I was in a bar tonight to see some bands. A girl came up to me, she was all over me. she is an ex-girlfriend of a good friend of mine. She pressed her body to mine. She whispered in my ear. She made it difficult to think of anything else but her in the moment. I was polite and I escaped out the back door. I made my way to a local ‘men's club’ and drank the night away in the arms of women I will never see again to shake the raging hormones set off by my good friends ex-girl. A brother is a brother and you don't mess with your brother’s girl, even if she is an ex. I have learned this the hard way. 

Last screening: French film, Children of the century. The love affair between George Sand and Alfred de Musset. Dig it. there was a line that was subtle and brilliant. “You are driving your friends mad.” “I have no friends. Tattet’s the only person who ever told me the truth.” More than anything else perhaps this one thing may be what we prize the most from people we would choose to call our friends. Telling us the truth at all times. Whatever that truth is. I found a mild obsession with George Sand lately. 

Last screening: The barbarian invasions. French film. must see. Very good. one of the best I have seen in a long time.

There are so many bugs here in Oklahoma. And lots of sounds of animals all around me as I sit out here and type away. crickets and frogs mostly. Dogs barking in the distance. And bugs hitting the windows. Its so peaceful here that I feel like I am opening up inside a little again. Living in South beach, which is so soulless that it could very well be the lobby of hell itself and we just don't know it, has really taken its toll on me the last few weeks. I have closed up so much lately, not really myself. Finding it again though very quickly. Remembering.

Being out here in this beautiful clear weather. Watching the sunset every night over the huge open fields that stretch from one end of the world to the other; hanging with the family doing nothing. I woke up today on the couch at about three in the afternoon from a little catnap to the sounds and smells of the Rat in the kitchen baking cookies, mom was on the floor playing with the nieces, and Beav was lying on the couch working on his computer. How lucky I felt in that moment to have such a wonderful family to come home to.

Oklahoma. We drive by a sign in front of a house that read “FOR SALE WITH OWNER.”

A few minutes later we drive by a sign in front of a holiday inn that reads ‘56K MODEM WITH YOUR ROOM FOR ONLY $19.95!”

This place is classic. The heart of America.


Aliens
In 1991 I had a vision of some terrorists from the Middle East attacking us in the future. I've already written about it so I'll keep it brief. But I had this vision that there would come a time where we would always refer to before and after they attacked us. that they would attack our financial center. and it would be the beginning of a new era in our American history and in civilization. I wrote about it in one of my handwritten diaries of the time. When 9/11 happened I realized that I was seeing on TV what I had had the vision of ten years before. To be honest it was much less catastrophic than my vision. which leads me to believe that we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief or that as senator Gary hart recently warned that there will be more attacks. I cannot say for sure. But my gut instinct tells me that there will not be any more; even after our invasion of Iraq. 

A few years later, in an unrelated incident, I had read that there were other planets in our solar system that scientists had not yet discovered. I didn't know what to believe so did nothing but log the data into my memory and never thought about it again. Every now and then I thought to myself, I wonder if we’ll ever find those secret planets that are supposedly out there... Earlier this year scientists indeed found another planet in our solar system, sort of. Quaoar. No one is really sure yet if they are going to officially call it a planet or not. If they don't call it a planet, scientists say, then they will also take Pluto off the list of planets as well. so there will be eight instead of the nine we normally attribute are out there. weird. The times they are a changing.

Throughout the last ten years or so I have had an unshakable intuitive feeling that in our lifetimes that the existence of other intelligent life forms in the universe will make themselves known to us in some kind of very overt irrefutable manner. Whereas now it is still theory to most, that sometime in our lifetime it will become commonplace fact. I take note of it here so there is a record of it.

My feeling is that they are already visiting us, and continue to do so quite regularly. I have no personal experience of any kind that would make me say this. its just a feeling. It’s a knowing. I also have the feeling that it will not be necessarily a bad thing as many people fear. But their existence will rip open our current philosophical and theological views of the universe so wide that we will never be the same after it. Our current constructs of life and the universe will be forever changed. And I believe that after the initial shock we will be better for it.

I spent a considerable amount of time in 95 and 96 studying alien theories; a few years totally obsessed with current knowledge of the subjects. Some rational; some over the top crazy. everything from the theory that we humans were created as a slave race by aliens from Sirius B, which is actually a very popular and well known concept, to the theory that many of the world governments already know about alien life forms and are in constant communication with them, even the idea that many of our current military and technological advances come from this communication we have with alien life forms.

I am not sure what to believe honestly. I have no idea if our government already has this knowledge. A lot of people claim to know, but who knows really? For sure? All I do know is that I have a feeling that in our lifetimes we will see these alien life forms in the flesh. So to speak. Right on our very own TVs. For some reason the idea does not frighten me and I don't know why. 

I'm in Oklahoma for the weekend visiting the family. Beav and his whole family were relocated out here a year ago and mom’s out here for a few weeks. I thought I'd come check it out. twelve hours in the arms of family and I feel better than I've felt in months. Its refreshing being in the warm confines of the family. The love that is here is exhilarating and relaxing at the same time. as Beav says, its palatable. But I think he meant palpable. I realize now that the last year or so I have been in the wrong place at the right time all along. Things aren't so bad. But where I've been living has been pretty bad. There's something to be said about family. And there's something to be said about America. And Americans. I miss America. And I miss Americans. I have to move back as soon as possible.

Beav’s next door neighbor walks up to us getting out of the car in his driveway and says ‘so this must be the famous Fishy that we’ve heard so much about. How ya doing?” turns out he's the pastor at their local church. Beav is the accountant at the church and his wife the Rat is the Sunday school teacher. God has a brilliant sense of humor.

Oklahoma. Wow. Wide open country as far as the eye can see. All the girls are blond and have skinny butts. Not like the Latin chicks back in Miami. All the men are big guys with crew cuts. Lotta guys walking around in army fatigues. Big open fields everywhere. all the men are out mowing their lawns on a Saturday. Or washing their cars. This is down home America. Beav is making a fence as I type. Making a fence for his dog with his bare hands, using power tools. Can you even imagine? Classic. This is not the city life I am used to. This was a well called and much needed get-away.

Both Epic and Geffen records calling our manager the last few weeks.

Later tonight the pastor and his wife came over for dinner. I'm spending half the night every night hunched over my laptop ranting and raving against organized religion, questioning the very existence of God, at the very least his purpose or motives, and these two founders of the towns only Presbyterian church and their two children are sitting at the dinner table. ‘So Fishy, what’s it like being a rock star,’ pastor Jim asks over barbeque ribs. “Preachers, politicians, and rock stars. We’re all in the same business,’ I answer. Beav gives me this look like ‘no dude please don't go there. These are my neighbors.’