June 22nd, 2005

Subject: fathers day

Dear dad,

Beaver told me he talked to you, but I don't think he expressed it right. I honestly did appreciate your feedback about the vocals on the albums. I think its rather admirable that you can express your opinions about how you really feel about our work like that unlike mom who only has grand opinions of everything we do. Shocking as they were, I thought it was interesting to hear such frank feedback. Although I do think you should have bought the albums to hear what they really sounded like. I think if I had a son, I would probably be buying everything he puts out just to hear where he's at. To cop the whole vibe etc. but again, they aren't necessarily your kind of thing really, and the subject matter of the sleep with you CD I'm afraid would have horrified you for the most part. I told mom not to buy it either.



For me the hardest part about our connecting in real time is what happened when I was 20 and my mom was arrested and put in jail under false pretense by that ‘conveniently just retired’ judge on a Friday afternoon so she was forced to stay there till Monday when the judge could be found, the mistake discovered, and the charges could be dismissed. I reached out to everyone I knew to help mom and you were one of those people. I even called the Scourge, her ex-husband and my ex-step father, who had arranged the arrest as revenge against her for seeking divorce from him, and even his mother to try to talk sense to him, trying whatever I could to get mom out. Because I know how sick mom gets when she gets stressed. And just thinking about this makes my skin crawl and my heart beat fast when I think of mom getting sick.



Regardless of how you feel about St. Theresa in your life, and God knows I know how a man can feel about his ex’s; I know ex-wives and ex-girlfriends suck a lot of the time. And so do ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends, unless we are real lucky and can still manage to stay friends; and I understand your reluctance to want to hang with me and Beav through the years when we were growing up. I have heard that from so many men who didn't have relationships with their kids so I know that's a real thing... and I feel for you for having to go through that in your life. The Beast has a similar thing in his life where he never knew his own kids and it seems a lot of men from your generation do maybe just because they got married and had kids so young.



But my opinion was and still is that you should have thought about me as your son and how that was affecting me. your son’s mom was in jail and there's little worse I can think of a person going through than that. maybe the mom dying or getting raped or something would be worse, but your mom in jail, regardless of the circumstances being illegal or fraudulent – in fact, due to those circumstances being so nefarious and heinous it made it even worse knowing what a good person mom is. As a dad, as a man, you should have said ‘son, I know how you must feel. me and your mom aren't getting along too well for many years, but I know how this is affecting you. So I'm there for you. give me two hours kid. I'll arrange for the cash now to get her out. And I'm on my way for you.’ jumped in your car and driven down the two hours to help your son through that.



But you didn't. instead you offered me some philosophical and cavalier answer and went about your business that day. I was literally in shock during the whole experience and that made it all the weirder. It took me years to remember that because it was just suck a shocking experience that I had blocked it out till last year or the year before. I think it was deeply repressed. that's why I pulled back from our reconnection. Because I remembered it. when I think of that I just cannot see why you are reaching out to us now and why we would want to connect with you. what are we connecting with? How are we to ever trust that you are there for us in any way?



That was your shot to be the hero of the story. After so much pain and sorrow and confusion and weirdness and shame and trauma that we had to go through with not knowing our own father through our lives, this really could have set things straight and started us on a course of some good and some healing. All those guns you have and the fast car and the military training and all that would have made so much sense if you would have driven into town and been the Clint eastwood and saved the day for everyone. A two hour fucking drive is all it would have taken. But you didn't. you just acted like it was my problem and that was that and you didn't even call to find out how it went. She could have been in there for weeks for all you knew.



Everytime I think of that moment I play it over in my brain how it could have been different if you could have just told me those words instead of what really happened and driven down with a bag full of cash to bail mom out and brought me some dinner and sat at that jailhouse to wait with me and my girlfriend and we could have eaten some hot food together and felt safer by your presence. But instead it was a three day nightmare that I will never forget. Even now as a grown man it haunts me and makes my stomach hurt and my heart heavy. And that was years ago.



I always forget to tell you that. but I owe that much to you. this is why I don't reach out to you on fathers day. and honestly I don't know if I ever will in this lifetime.



I know you're on a good path now and that makes me feel better, gives me comfort. I trust that one day our paths will cross again.



Sincerely,

Fishy

And me the one suffering from a constant insecurity, though it has gotten better and better through the years, am now starting more and more to see that it is a creation that I am constantly recreating, a belief that I am living through, rather than a reality that I really do suck and that everyone hates me. of course its easier to feel that way, in a way. because then you can just walk around judging everything and everyone because after all you suck and everyone hates you, so you can take on that whole fuck them cynical attitude which a lot of people do. but that's not really what I'm talking about here. so anyway yes the feeling Manifests as something/anything similar to “I'm not good enough,” or “they don't like me,” “they don't want to hang with me” or “they don't like my work,” or “they don't want to work with us...” this type of thing. and any slight evidence in the physical universe of this will trigger it and I will kick and scream and struggle inside my head trying very hard to stomach it and pray it isn't so but know for a fact that it is so and feel very bad. And then ninety-nine times out of a hundred I find out that it was only my imagination playing tricks on me and that I just didn't know what was going on. when the person does contact me they were just busy or expected me to call or lost our contact info etc and then I realize that I had succumbed once again to an imaginary scenario that is being triggered by a series of beliefs I still hold that are negative and not serving me.

At those times I always tell myself that I will learn from that and I will stop automatically creating and assuming this dire outcome with people and events and stop being so insecure. But if something happens that triggers it, well, it just triggers it. and oftentimes I just feel a victim of it and can’t even reach out to connect with the other person. it makes me close up into a shell. And not be able to even make a move in the right direction. Oftentimes I can’t even make a call to anyone. Instead I just walk around feeling sorry for myself. this is an honest state that many of us live in/through but just aren't aware of what's going on. for me now I'm starting to become of aware of the causality of it.

I'm getting better and that was what I intended by writing here. I am getting better. I'm starting to see more and more that I am creating that, I am assuming these negative things to be true before I even know the reality. And through that I am creating a reality and acting from that reality. So I oftentimes don't even give myself I chance. But step by step and year by year I get better. More able to say hey man its o.k. you're o.k. everyone doesn’t hate you. you're alright just the way you are man. its all cool. you can relax. Let go. be yourself. Be happy. just try it for now. its o.k. even if it is true, even if someone doesn’t dig you, plenty of people do, so just ease up on yourself and love yourself. You're alright.

I think I come off pretty confident most of the time, because at another level I am, so I know that when my peeps hear that I feel this way sometimes it helps them come closer to that being cool with themselves too, thinking shit man if Fishy feels this way then hell everyone probably does. And then hopefully they start to go easier on themselves too. and if I can help in that manner by sharing this, then good, some good is coming out of it.

Shit, when you think about it, that's probably half of what's wrong with the world, everyone so afraid that people are out to get them or are dissing them or not digging them or are secretly harboring negative feelings towards them... the resistance to this creates pretense and arrogance and defense and offensive moves. And it all just gets hellish and confused from there. this is what causes arguments and deceptive acts and wars. But hopefully, eventually we will get over that. we will all get over ourselves and start trusting more. and the world will be a better place for it. 

------------------------------------------------------

O.k. here's something else I'm still working with, exploring: the difference between “meant to be” and “we created it through our thoughts and actually its up to us and it isn't “meant to be”.” right? I mean, that's our choice when things coincidental or synchronistic happen.  in other words, is the hand of God/fate/the universe? Or is it just us manifesting reality through our thoughts?

In the subway station today and I just bowed my head to focus on my career. you know, to focus attention and intention on what I wanted from my career. but what came out of my mouth was “God help me treat people with more tolerance and respect.” funny I thought. Is that where I'm headed? Is that where it’s at for me now? It is said that when we pray, we are speaking. when we are quiet and listening, God is speaking. sometimes it seems God speaks through us in our prayers and even tells us what to pray for. I don't mind. Let God speak for me now. I need it. I am open and ready to hear what he has to say and what he wishes for me to say.

Last screening: Bad boys 2. I love this movie because I love will smith and martin Laurence in it. they are so effing funny. But you're not going to find that in Miami just in case you thought you would. Remember the villain in it? that creepy Cuban guy who killed everyone? There is a lot more of that in Miami than anyone dares to admit. and the cops there are not like will smith and martin Laurence at all. but that's not what I'm here to type. Right now I am watching all the old Humphrey Bogart films and really digging them. he's just such the man. and there is this scene in key largo when someone gets killed. They just get shot and you really feel it. I mean, you feel that very human sense of loss and sadness for someone getting killed. And it reminded me of seeing bad boys 2 recently when the bad Cuban guy kills this other bad guys partner and puts his bloody body in a container his bloody arms and legs sticking out. and I'm thinking about the contrast of where we are now in modern American film. there is such a sincere disregard for human life that we are all s used to seeing people killed and dismembered and mutilated and blown up. we take it for granted. In fact people really want that in their American movies. Hollywood has people called violence experts who watch films before they are released to see if there is enough violence in them in case they need to add more violence to do better at the box office. that's really fucking sick when you think about it. that is a very sad statement of where we are as a people right now, how twisted we have allowed our collective consciousness to get.

I wonder why we are there now? I mean, what is the American publics obsession with watching other people get killed? Why is that even happening in the mind of modern humans right now? and why do we allow it? when you think of martin Scorsese and the others and the kind of pictures he makes. I mean, why is he doing it? and why do people like it so much? I mean, we would never want that kind of thing to happen to any of us or to the people we love in reality. So why do we want to watch it in the movies? Makes me sad and scared for us. I cannot help but feel that it is one of the reasons why young kids seem so much more willing now to kill each other in schools and all that. say what you will. freedom of speech and expression and all that. but I have to side with the people that say that there is some sort of correlation there.

Current spin: autechre, warp180. this is electronica/drum and bass. Love this CD. the polar bear turned me onto it. it is bliss!!!! Buy it.

Current read: still reading the Islam book, studying the Koran. learning about that holy book. You know, Islam, Muslimism is just Judaism and Christianity with a different twist. And those religions sprung out of Zoroastrianism. Literally the same religion Islam is. an alien from a different planet would never be able to tell the difference between the monotheism of Judeo-Christian and Islam. They believe in the same God and the same prophets and much of the same customs and all and even the same old testament. they just made it more accessible to the Arabic peoples. They appropriated it to make it more suitable to the heart and mind of the Arabic and middle eastern people. just goes to show. Its all pretty much the same thing, this desire man has to narrow everything we consider sacred and holy and good into a workable monotheistic system of morals and values and customs to help guide us in our search for peace of mind and a logical view of the mysteries of life in this vast lonely universe. I think if more Jews and Christians realized that Allah was actually the same God literally the same God from the old testament that they also believed in, then they wouldn’t feel so estranged from these people. when we hear the word Allah we think its like this totally different God that they believe in, as is the case with the Hindu religion where they worship different gods entirely like Krishna and shiva. But really we are a lot closer to our Muslim brothers and sisters than we realize. They're digging the same God as the other major religions are; they're just interpreting the messages and characteristics differently to suit their own culture. You can’t very well as a responsible human being in this day and age claim to believe that your religion is any more right or true than any other’s.

I just landed back in New York. I cannot describe the feeling of pleasure I get when I get back to nyc. You feel so blessed to come back and realize that you live here. what a joy. anyway, You ever notice that there are people who are into golf? I mean, they're really into it. like, they like it. On the plane today I noticed an older couple watching golf on the TV in front of them. a hundred channels and they are watching golf. For me golf is boring enough to play, let alone watch other people play it on a TV. Couldn’t imagine. I would love to get in the mind of people like that and see what's going on. find out what makes them tick.

[o.k. check this out, as fate would have it, I am sitting in my favorite little smoke shop on fiftieth and lex in a big old leather chair just happy to be back in the city; in a few minutes we will begin shooting for the TV show trailer, and so I'm just chilling and typing here and this special comes on TV explaining how the US open is so cool because its this championship where anyone can qualify to play in it. even regular joes like you and me and that's what makes it so special. That in fact this one guy who's is this total blue collar worker qualified this year and couldn’t afford to go so he put himself up on eBay for a sponsorship and a north Carolina health care company got the high bid and gave him $7600 to pay for his travel and lodging and other expenses. The most he ever made playing golf. Now that's a cool story. I'm not sold on golf necessarily but I appreciate it a lot more now. goes to show, information is the key. The more we learn about something the more we can get into it. I'm telling you, I think sometimes that God is just really focusing attention on me right now, as if sometimes he just lowers his hands down and lifts me up and places me into situations as if to show me things... I can’t say I mind so much.]
 
Today Tree called me. which is rare. He never calls any of us anymore. Weird because I was just writing about him. right? the invisible hand. anyway, he didn't call to chat. He called because it turns out a good friend of ours from high school died over in Iraq. Dan Binster. Everyone called him Binky back then. when I first heard the news I was angry and sad. I felt for his family, but my initial reaction was ‘well it serves him right. he knew what he was getting himself into. what the hell was he doing over there killing people anyway? I mean, you go invade a foreign country, yeah there's a risk that you're going to get killed. And here we are mourning for the 1600 Americans who have died and here they’ve killed more than 100,000 iraqis so far....’ I warned Tree that I wasn't the one who was going to be sympathetic about this situation. I said bro I'm not the one to call about this. you know how I feel about America invading Iraq or any other country that isn't attacking us. now I thought Tree was going to be pissed at me for saying this. but he wasn't. he said he agreed with me but found it hard because these guys have their president coming on TV all the time telling them that invading Iraq is the right thing to do and that they're helping to free the Iraqi people and save the Americans. We both just sat there talking about how fucked the whole thing is and now one of our friends is dead because of this. and how many more American guys are injured or wounded in some horrible way? fucking bastard government. And now its home for us. a good guy right from our own little private high school. From this forward on in the concept we call life here on earth this guy will exist no more. he is dead. He is a memory. And he was killed because he was invading another country because the president of this country told him to go there and do it. and now he's dead. And his family and friends will forever suffer and miss him and wonder the hell happened to Binky. And in the meantime tomorrow bush and his war monger administration will wake up and eat their breakfast, tell a few jokes, maybe even play a few rounds of golf. They’ll give a few speeches to the press about how we must keep going and complete our mission, whatever the hell that is, I think the whole fucking country at this point is wondering about that one. and day by day thousands more Iraqi people will die and hundreds more Americans will die. There will be a Binky from every town in America dead before this thing is through and bush and his administration and their families will be just fine because they aren't over there fighting. Nope. They’ll be just fine.

Lyrics this time. totally different. I haven't spent any time working on the lyrics of any specific songs this time. I have titles for each one, general themes, subject matter ideas but just haven't taken the time to work sitting down and writing them. as each guy adds his parts it gets closer and closer to time for me to get serious about discovering what the lyrics are going to be for these babies because eventually I'm going to have to sing all my final vocal takes.

[On ‘I wanna know ya’ from NIC I didn't even bother writing lyrics. I just mumbled nonsense with an occasional word thrown in here or there because it sounded good like that on that dummy take and we didn't want to take the risk of effing it up by re-recording it. and truly I just didn't want to bother working out lyrics about a song about seeing a chick and wanting to hang with her. if you ever sit down and say to yourself ‘what the fuck is he saying in that song?’ don't go crazy trying to figure it out. I'm not saying anything. I'm just screaming stream of consciousness gibberish.]

so these babies for the new album are getting to that point and I haven't made that move yet to sitting down with paper and working out any lyrics. Just phrases are coming here and there. underneath it all is the whisper of the song telling me what it wants to be about, of what it’s truly saying at its core.
‘waiting for Godot’ – which we just finished tracking just now –- I recorded 6 different guitar parts that sound super-bad-ass --- Vancouver will probably lay down another 6 I would imagine --- is about how fucking miserable it is to live with all of life’s unanswerable questions and unfairness and how we’re just waiting to die to hopefully discover something/anything of real substance or truth besides all this pain suffering and mystery. This song is really out there. sonically. Slams.
‘Here it comes’ is my favorite if I had to choose. Or solaris. Here it comes is so romantic. A guy telling his girl we can make it. I know its hard and it seems so fucked and hopeless now, at this time, still, I know, it still sucks, life is still hard for us babe, but I swear to fucking God I can feel that its coming around. here it comes.

‘Solaris’ I wrote during watching that movie. I was so moved by that movie for some reason. So its like that. a guy is speaking to his girl who has passed on to the other side, out in solaris, now that she has found her new life, what's it like, who is she now. do you still think about me?
‘After tomorrow’ is a suicide letter. You’ve tried hard to do what you had to and what you needed to and what you should do and could do and still it didn't work out. there was always something that I couldn’t explain getting in my way. fate always working against me. so I'm out of here. after tomorrow I'll be able to breathe again. I'm checking out.

The most horrifying experience today. I was visiting Brown Bear to see his new little baby. yes the party all night and three days onward Brown Bear is now a father. God have mercy on his new daughter. I was on the back porch smoking a most delightful Cuban partagas series #4 the bear had just given me, and was interrupted by a phone call. Midway through the call Brown Bear calls to me, bro dinner is ready. I turn to him, bro not now. and I go back to my call. He tells me later at dinner ‘dude I don't know what you were speaking about but you had the most dire look of pain on your face I have ever seen.’

So I begin to tell him of one of the most harrowing telephone conversations I have ever had thus far in my short but adventurous life. I will not prose this because I have already spent too much time thinking about it. turns out that the Ferret recently spoke with Cleopatra about our little shared business venture, a fledgling spinoff of another company we had started a few years earlier. In our youth and inexperience we gave Ferret 5% ownership in the company, not understanding what 5% of a company could mean. a year or so later I told both of them that I changed my mind. I had been crunching numbers and it turned out that five percent of a large company could be quite a fortune. I could see from the current business model that we were soon going to become a large business. the problem with large businesses is that through you may be earning large bank on the books, in reality you may not be doing so well. all the money needs to be put back into the company. So you may show a profit of say half a mil. but you may have spent it all on capital reinvestment and loan payoffs. But that five percent owner may still want his five percent and that's twenty-five grand a year right there if you stay at the same place.

Well my decision to take the shares back didn't go over well with Ferret and Cleo at the time just didn't understand what I was saying. she now regrets that decision more than any other for so many reasons. Ferret has been most unpleasant to us over the years never lifting a finger to help in the business or even pay much attention to it except to ask every year, where's my money? and now that we are about to sell this little spinoff for a very small amount of money just so Cleo and I can get out of business with one another, Ferret is most concerned with his share of that pie. It turns out he is offering both of us to buy him out. but not for what his shares are worth but for double because he sees there is a premium for the shares that will yield the buyer with the majority shares in the company.

Now because Cleo and I cannot see eye to eye on things yet and still unfortunately we are constantly arguing and have even taken as I have written about earlier to taking up our own individual attorneys to battle each other to the despicable demise of all of our life’s earnings. Uncannily we still speak as friends on the phone all the time but over certain business matters we just cannot get it together. so I say to Ferret casually, well you wouldn’t sell your shares to her would you? “at this point I will sell them to whoever gives me the money first,” he tells me. “but if you sell your shares to her she will gain majority control of this company and could vote on all sorts of matters that I will have no say in. in fact you know as well as I that she has every intention of taking almost all of the proceeds of the impending sale and leaving me with very little.” “I know. so why don't you buy them.” “I've already told you, I don't want to buy them for double what they are worth if we are going to sell in two weeks. it would be foolish.” “well then she might.” “well if she buys those shares you know the scenario is going to be the company is going to sell, she's going to walk away with just under a million bucks, your going to walk with a hundred thou and I'm going to get next to nothing for a company I started. Bro you know I founded this company. This is my baby. you can’t sell me out. you would sell me out after fifteen years of friendship knowing what would happen?” “Look man, at one time we had a friendship, but this isn't about friendship. This is about money. and I have to start thinking about myself.”

In the recording studio in Miami to continue working on tracks for the new albums with the guys. still working on two albums at once. The official new one, now being called ‘all your heroes always become villains,’ and ‘Girls.’ About twenty-five songs in all. we are completing drums and bass and my rhythm guitars. Then the files will be copied to DVDs to give to Rockaway and  Vancouver and they will be free to add as many guitar and keyboard tracks as they want to in their spare time at their home studios or wherever they are in the world. the way we are doing it now is everyone is free to go crazy and lay down as much as they want to however they want to. they will layer the shit out of the tracks with ideas. They will send the new DVDs to me. I will listen and make notes. Then the new new DVDs will be sent to Fred at the dungeon to edit and choose  the tracks that he likes out of everything they laid down. I will begin completing my lyrics for the songs and fleshing out all of the different vocal parts I want to add. I will then fly back down here to work out the vocals with trophy wife and zeke who will sing backups with me and the other guys and we will work in zekes studio on vocals because he is great at tracking vocals. And then those new dvds go back to Fred to clean up more and edit more and begin mixing. Then the new edited DVDs will go out to Kamran in San fran and pouchon in New York to grab bits and pieces that they like and start fucking with the sound of everything that has been laid down. Then back to Fred to mix some more. We have never recorded this way before but it is not only possible but preferable now in this new age of recording technology. A very free and creative approach to creating music. very different than the ‘five guys in a garage’ approach we took for nothing is cohesive. eventually someone will be chosen to mix it all together and make finished product out of it. the tracks will then fly to G2 in Chile to chill with for a few weeks to begin designing artwork ideas for the CD, and then onto someone else in a different city to master and then a different city to manufacture. Eventually the distributor in Colorado gets the finished cds in big crates at their warehouse and then begins shipping them all over the country to stores and the Internet to sell. This is the way music is being created and sold in the year 2005. for now I can chill and just wait to hear what the other guys lay down.

Quick because I’m tired. and I'm working on other stuff. its midnight. Movie with Tuesday. Lil Sis changed her name to Tuesday. I like the new one better too. Kamran from San Fran is making the most killer remixes of our shit from the NIC album. They are effing awesome. will post to the homepage. The war still rages with Cleopatra. spoke with Bas today for the first time in weeks. good talk. A little bit distant but hopefully we are getting there. I have learned that friendships along with family and our relationship with some higher power could just be the most important thing in the universe, at least to us, here, now. I have learned that we have to cherish our friendships and that means watching what we say and do in regards to our relationships. We can’t just go shooting our mouth off whenever and however we want to. as a man that's a hard lesson to get with my temper, but I got it loud and clear. if I do ever win back my friendships with Bas and Ferret I will be blessed and thankful and will have learned some very important world lessons.

I went to that church again today. spent an hour or so talking to the minister there. just he and I. intimate. Personal. Good stuff. I love Sundays for this. just communing with our idea of God and with friends and family. quiet time. nap time. relaxing and regrouping time. can’t describe in words what this new found relationship with this higher power feels like. Really came out of the blue. Feels like heaven. Came at the perfect time. I've been going to sleep every night in this deep state of oneness with this sense of God, firmly rooted in it and bonding with it, embracing the mystery, loving the alien as bowie says,

So many girls I wanna make love with all the time all around me but still maintaining the status quo and trying to act like a gentleman.  man that's a strange one, let me tell you. two voices at play in the brain at all times. There's the ‘man I would love to kiss her, make love with her...’ and then there's that other one.... like Mel Gibson in Braveheart... “wait. Wait. Wait....” only I'm still waiting for the “NOW!!!” so I just hold back and don't do anything, knowing already from the past what the consequences could be. so I wait. But as a man it isn't easy. the woman upstairs is always falling in front of me so I can catch her. or reaching up high for things to offer a sneak preview, you know, but I play it cool. women when they’re that age, early fifties, forget about it, they know all the moves, know what they want, and know how to please. That's a Ferrari right there, made to be driven fast.  Only thing is that I've already bonded with her kids. I'm like an older brother to them.

More hours spent viewing and time-logging footage for the show. Endless and overwhelming task but getting through it. a few hours spent talking to Lil Sis and boo boo. About how hard it is to feel centered and grounded in New York. so hard to feel comfort and secure and nurtured here. because the energy is so high all time. hard to get together with friends. Everyone so caught up in their quest to make their dream a reality. Everyone always working so hard and striving so hard you can live five blocks from someone and not see them for a month. Surrounded by people and still be very much alone most of the time. I had always heard this about New York but never knew it really till I moved here. but yes it is true. a week flies by so fast it feels like a day or two because you are working so hard and such long hours.

Fishy says:
holy cow! laurence and i are speaking about you right now!!! how weird
Rosie  says:
!!!
Rosie  says:
hey
Fishy says:
i jsut asked him where the heck is ro?
Fishy says:
standby i will copy and paste some good news for you so i dont have to retype
Fishy says:
your brother is in the middle of preaching jesus to me right now. as always.  standby...
Fishy says:
Fishy says:
i finally found a home-church here in manhattan after a nine month search.
Laurence-  says:
wow, and what does that exactly mean?
Rosie says:
great!!!!! im so pleased for u! so hows the serach going....like spiritually?
 Fishy says:
its ok. i feel a strong god presence all the time now. he led me to go into this church one day when i was walking by and i was filled with the most spiritually fulfilling feeling of euphoria i had ever felt before
Rosie  says:
so you are feeling closer to the truth!!   that's great!
Fishy says:
Well perhaps. or just blind hypnosis... religion is hypnosis... haha... but perhaps its ok 
Fishy says:
of euphoria i had ever felt before. a sens of peace and joy and love and comfort and feeling that he is there for us and with us all the time. so i got the message and went back to the church that sunday
Rosie  says:
what ahhpend next
Rosie  says:
happend
Fishy says:
good stuff.
Rosie  says:
elaborate
Fishy says:
i went back to the church and felt immediately at home after going to different churches ever sunday for about nine months i knew i was home. couldnt explain it. felt like home. felt like old times. god spoke to me sort of like that and all of a sudden i felt this surge of him being very close to me and very close to this church.
Fishy says:
as if its a special place....
Rosie  says:
cool
Rosie  says:
what kind of church was it?
Fishy says:
christ church, united methodist
Rosie  says:
ok...so do you think that the God they worship is true?
Rosie  says:
based on the experience you had?
Fishy says:
the god? yes i guess. i know that i feel god, gods love, presence in our lives...
Fishy says:
i feel that we are all feeling someting akin to godness who are at that church...
Rosie  says:
that is wonderful
Rosie  says:
so...do you believe in the concept of salvation?
Fishy says:
i grew up in the church and went to christian schools so the community aspect is very importnat to me
Fishy says:
the spiritual community aspect of being with like minded people who walk the walk is importnat to me
Fishy says:
im jsut not sure about the details of the dogma...
Fishy says:
i do not beleive that humanity needs salvation from outside of itself...
Fishy says:
i beleive we can supply our own salvation.
Fishy says:
i know this to be true becasue it was me who supplied my own salvation in '95 and onward... through discvoering the avatar tools and other tools that we can use to free ourselves of guilt and pain and regret and resentment and all that... it didnt come from outside of me. it came from me forgiving myself.... and then voila! i was happy and refreshed and filled with joy again
Fishy says:
i am sure god has something to do with it. i am sure of it. i pray to him eveyday and always have.
Rosie  says:
you know what Jesus taught about salvation right?
Fishy says:
tell me in your words
Rosie  says:
we cannot save our selves.  god requires complete purity/holiness from us and we cannot achieve that our selves.  jesus died for us so that we cam be completely forgiven and saved from our own sin
Rosie  says:
we just need to trust in him, surrender our sins to him (aknowledging we cannot save our selves and need him and his sacrifice).
Fishy says:
i did this many times when i was a teenager and became so to speak born again. but im jsut not there anymore in my heart or mind. but i am sure god understands... to be perfectly honest, i beleive that god if we dare utter the word cares alot more about who we are and how we are and how we act than he does about what we say we beleive or not.
Fishy says:
walk the walk. talking the talk is pretty insignificant. this is my beleif.
Rosie  says:
i get what you mean
Rosie  says:
but it says in the bible that
Rosie  says:
it is through Faith we are saved
Rosie  says:
not by works
Rosie  says:
lest any man should boast
Rosie  says:
(Romans)
Fishy says:
when god speaks to me i listen. when he asks me to do something i do it. i listen.
Fishy says:
remember, that im not such a holy book beleiver.
Fishy says:
its nothing against the christian bible or the koran or any of them. i really dont beleive in any of them... not the bagavad gita or the upanishads or the koran or or the torah or any of them... i do not beleive that man can know god well enough to write his words or ideas down.
Fishy says:
this is my own personal beleif. god is in our hearts perhaps and can come through in our actions and how we appear to the world but not through written words that try to represent what god is thinking or saying.
Rosie  says:
but if god is Jesus, then much of the new testement is just a history account about an encounter with god on earth
Fishy says:
fascinating ideas in the above sentence rosie...
Fishy says:
and one can go on forever pondering these ideas... unfortunaly we will never know. humankind will prob never know...
Fishy says:
for 2000 years we have pondered those ideas and millions of people have been killed because of them. everyone fighting over things like this.
Fishy says:
its best for us to move beyond all that and to jsut live by a human code of love and peace and morality and ethics and respect...
Rosie  says:
that's well and good in principle
Rosie  says:
but try it
Rosie  says:
it's impossible
Rosie  says:
if we really could live by a human code of love and peace and morality and ethics and respect...
Fishy says:
i find it easy. especially if i pray everyday.
Rosie  says:
we would not need god to save us
Fishy says:
i pray to god to help me be true to my heart of hearts. i think holy books -- no matter which religion they are from -- only confuse humans.
Fishy says:
osama bin laden and george w bush are two great examples of religious people confused by holy books....
Rosie  says:
yeah...but if the Bible is true...it changes everything
Rosie  says:
if it is just a false religious book then of course you are right
Rosie  says:
but if it is tru
Rosie  says:
e
Fishy says:
well every religion could say that. and they do. so who are we humans supposed to beleive?
Rosie  says:
then it changes our definition of truth
Rosie  says:
exactly
Rosie  says:
only God can show us
Fishy says:
that isnt even fair to think about.... really. its exclusionary to humanity.
Rosie  says:
and he will
Fishy says:
well i hope he does eventually show us because im sick of reading the history of humankind killing each other over these very silly arguments...
Fishy says:
its nice that we created a god concept. its an awesome idea. now lets live up to it. lets make god proud.
Rosie  says:
of course
Rosie  says:
interesting
Fishy says:
yes....
Rosie  says:
but what if the only way we can make him proud is to surrender to him and let him cleanse and save us
Fishy says:
thought youd like that chickie
Fishy says:
i know....
Fishy says:
jsut gonna have to wait till god comes down and tells us what the hell is going on!
Fishy says:
cause none of us know...
Fishy says:
until then we still have music and movies and dancing and lovemaking and romance and all that....
Rosie  says:
well he came once and the next time it comes it will be too late
Fishy says:
I don’t agree
Rosie  says:
then it says Every Knee Shall Bow, Every Tounge Confess that Jesus Chrict is Lord
Fishy says:
do you think maybe that i am the second coming?
Fishy says:
i look like jesus....
Fishy says:
do you remember when i was sporting that beard?
Fishy says:
hahahaha!!!
Rosie  says:
well...i think you can answer that for your self my dear Fishy!!
Rosie  says:
but you are cool!!!
Fishy says:
hahahah
Fishy says:
that would be funny if i were the messiah and didnt know it...
Fishy says:
at least you could get into clubs for free...
Rosie  says:
well the messiah will and does no it
Rosie  says:
well u can do that anyway already because you are such a rock star
Fishy says:
lol
Rosie  says:
gotta go
Rosie  says:
have an exam tommorow
Rosie  says:
have not revised
Fishy says:
kick butt!
Rosie  says:
thanks
Rosie  says:
xxxxxxxx

I am glad to speak to my friends and family about these things. I am glad that I have friends and family who are still so religious. It’s a good discourse where we all can learn a little. Not into the ritual of religion so much myself. Believing now that God is actually more of an extension of us... or we an extension of him. that one day we will realize the secret that has been there all along for us to discover. That that which we seek is actually just a larger extension of ourselves. So even the rituals to me seem insignificant and meaningless in the bigger picture. It is our actions that are what's important. the rituals change and shift according to what time in our history it is and what country we are living in. But our actions are timeless. They are beyond national boundaries.

In the “white house sucks ass department” from our friends at CNN:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A White House official, who previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute, has repeatedly edited government climate reports in a way that downplays links between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, made changes to descriptions of climate research that had already been approved by government scientists and their supervisors, the newspaper said, citing internal documents.
The White House declined comment on the report.
Well of course they did.

Current spin: husseine alizadeh, the art of improvisation. Persian classical music played on the dumbek and the taar. Beautiful. really effing beautiful. 

In the most hilarious bit of irony I've experienced in a very long time, I had ordered that Brian Eno book from some chap on Amazon and instead I received something called ‘everything there is to know about Disneyland.’ I swear I would never guess that there is even such a book. But there is. and its on my desk instead of the irreverent and brilliant musings of the most interesting minds alive today. funny. So the question is of course, what the hell do I do with this book now?

Current spin: beta band, heroes to zeroes. Only if you have to or if you know someone in the band. this really just sucks and I can’t believe that a major label paid for this to be made. and I liked their first CD a lot. just goes to show.

Well you know perhaps there is such a thing as miracles after all. not that we ever had our doubts mind you. [chuckle] the neighborhood is bustling. Spring has finally arrived. At least for today it seems. Sunny cool and breezy. Everyone walking around with the air that they are on their way to somewhere. Me I sit on the steps of the little brownstone I call home here temporarily, having an afternoon smoke and typing on the old laptop. As always. An almost constant fixture here in this neighborhood, so much so that residents on this block are so used to seeing me sitting here when they're walking in our out of their respective apartments or walking their dogs that they feel at ease enough to stop and chat, ask me what I'm writing or what cigar I happen to be smoking. New York is like that. think sesame street. Remember sesame street? Well that's what living in New York is like.

So about miracles. This morning I actually woke up before 11am on Sunday. Had enough time to sit in the bath for a while. As always I felt great; as we often do in the morning before our mind takes over with its incessant chatter of worries and concerns and fears and judgments and criticisms. I noticed these thoughts popping in and being that it was Sunday I decided that instead of running with any one particular thought that I was just going to give each one to God. turn them into prayer requests and then primaries. ‘God help me to become free of judgment of others.’ ‘God help me live the life of my dreams and fulfill my own personal legacy.’ ‘God help me to be a positive influence on others and a good role model.’ ‘ God help me to fully integrate this whole friends thing I have been struggling with and to open my heart again so I can recognize how blessed I am.’ ‘God help me to finally completely integrate my struggle with the God concept and that whole Jesus thing... help me to know you and to have a deep and meaningful connection with you...’ so on and on it went like that throughout my droopy-eyed bath.

Up and out and fast-walked to that giant church on the corner of park and 60th St. where I had first had that spiritual epiphany of an experience a few weeks back. plenty of time to get there this week. only seven minutes late. that's certainly a miracle. for me at least. I'm bored now so I'll quick note instead of prose it: overwhelming feeling of comfort and joy at this church. Been church-hopping/shopping for nine months now here. every week I force myself up at the ungodly hour of ‘sometime before 11am’ on Sundays and head to a new church hoping to find an hour of spiritual community for the week and not much more, being that I'm extremely unreligious to say the least, but still caught between worlds so that I cannot seem to shake the need to search out comfort and respite from the harsh and cruel world of the entertainment business in a church of some kind at leas tonce a week.

Cannot really explain the joy I felt there today. I even went down to the coffee hour afterwards. I swear to whatever the hell is out there that I really did this. walked around. talked with people. now of course I didn't go so far as to wear the visitor badge but I sure came close. But I walked out of there with such a feeling of joy and peace and comfort that I've spent the last hour or so sitting here feeling as though I was breathing new life into my lungs with each breath. As if there may or may not be a God still, we’ll leave that to him/her/it to settle, but at the least there is a damn good community of fine people gathering not two blocks from my apartment in this place called Christ church and I feel slightly reborn at the discovery of it. had that feeling of ‘I am home; I have found my church.’ That's the feeling that everyone gets when they are church-shopping and they finally find a place they feel that they can attend more than once or twice in a lifetime.

Last screening: Cinderella man. Great movie. Not amazing. but just good on the edge of your seat entertainment.

Current spin: al green. Green is blues. Starts off great. Can’t beat Al’s voice. Slides into extreme mediocrity towards the end.

Also, 50 cent, the massacre. A guilty pleasure.

I'm eating these jelly bellys right now. omg, these are so good. did you know they add caffeine to these to force you to just keep eating and eating them? its true. once you start, you can’t stop. They do this shit to kids, with no warning. Load candy and soda up with caffeine so they get super into it and can’t stop. It’s right there on the box. Its one thing to do that to us once we’re old and too stupid to know any better, but doing that to kids. Heinous. There is that chemical they add to most over the counter cereals (the ones you buy in “mainstream” grocery stores, not in health food stores) that creates a feeling of not being full in the person who is eating it; the chemical’s sole purpose is to offset the appestat in the human body that tells the body when it feels full so the person eating the cereal keeps eating more even though they are full, but they never feel full. Ever notice that with store bought cereals? This is true. You can look it up. its totally allowed.

What a strange society America has created itself as. kind of this anything goes as long as it makes you money kind of thing. even when we know the dangers, its as if we have this agreement that we’re just going to overlook this stuff because we know our whole society is dependent on being this way. everyone has been talking about the weather this year. how spring hasn’t really arrived yet. its either really hot one day or really cold the next day. things have been kind of effed up ever since that storm ‘el nino.’ Environmentalists will tell us how bad the eco-system is right now because of all the damage we have done to the environment in the last fifty years or so but our politicians, especially the republican side, will just keep on claiming that we have nothing to worry about and that the environmentalists and eco-scientists are just being pansies. Like everyone, I don't know who to believe, but I'll tell ya, it’s a few weeks away from summer here, and we haven't even had a spring yet. its still in the fifties and we’re all wearing our winter coats most of the week. so go figure.

But yes, fuck the environment as long as we have jelly bellys. They are godlike.

Today I spoke with Vicki D, my first major girlfriend from high school, freshman year. we used to spend hours on various beds and couches around town making out and giving each other hickis. Truly memorable times. it was very nice to reconnect to someone who was once so important to you way back when. Almost bitter-sweet. felt like yesterday. which of course it was since I'm only twenty-five now... lol, but it had this ‘bitter-sweet standing in the rain middle section of a John Hughes movie’ feeling about it... kind of a ‘what if’ feeling. Which I guess is to be expected. Good stuff.

Yesterday I had my first meeting with my new stylist coach. We’ll call him JB. A true image consultant to the stars. Worked with Beyonce and will smith and usher, etc etc. and his whole thing is getting you to really discover or create who you really are at your essence and then go all out with that, put it out there for all the world to see. So you don't dilute your image. So you don't disappear amongst all the flash and hype that is your competition. It was challenging. But I must say I liked it. who is Fishy? hhhmmm.

We did this exercise where he asked me who my rockstars were. And then I had to tell him why I liked those people. while I free-associated he jotted things down in this notebook. I mentioned Tony Robbins, oprah winfrey, David Byrne, bob Dylan, bono, Caetano, Rufus, John Lennon, Eddie izzard... and then he hands me this piece of paper and tells me its my mantra for the week. ‘look at this list often and meditate on how you are being and how you fit into these words, how they fit in with who you are. This is who you are, who you want to be...’ and it’s this list of the words I used to describe the people that I look up to as my heroes: Superhuman, artist’s artist, big hearted, change the world, achiever, breaking boundaries, revolutionary, stylish, sexy, mysterious, funny, irreverent, great voice... like that. these were just words I used to describe the people that I dig. Cool huh? Tells me, ‘this is what we’re going to be going after for you. This is you. This is who you want to be.’ Good stuff. look forward to more.

Why does everyone pronounce Bret favre “farv?” I mean why? why not just pronounce it correctly? And what about everyone pronouncing Worchester “worster?” I mean, lets face it, this shit has been going on for a long time. all of us who are reading this are too young to remember the actual starting point for these things. we just woke up one day and were confronted with the realization that everyone seemed to pronounce favre “farv” and Worchester “worster” and Houston “huseton.” We knew it didn't make any sense. Why were they doing that? We didn't know, but we didn't want to come off stupid either so we just played right along and started pronouncing everything wrong right along with everyone else. But I think there’s some danger in that.

I think from this point forward if you hear people pronouncing something incorrectly, no matter how many people do it in the world, number one, we should correct them, and number two make it a real point to pronounce it correctly. Just go for it. if someone tells you they're from huseton, tell them they're mistaken, that they're from Houston. If someone hands you something and says ‘wa-la’ to you, tell them the word begins with a ‘v.’ It’s ‘voila.’

Man these jelly bellys are fucking driving me crazy. I can’t stop eating them. I'm going to blow up.