First voice lesson today with yet another teacher. While I was away I really felt into this other new teacher I had. Whenever I thought about her I felt bad. I did not feel good inside and I have learned to trust these feelings now. To follow the feelings always. If something feels good, if it feels clean and clear, and light and makes you feel happy, then it is a good thing. If something causes a disturbance in your body or mind, then have a look at it. Something is trying to tell you something. Easy enough. So, I just felt into it and decided that regardless of all of her awards and reputation and boasting and such I would prefer to experience my music in a much more joyful way. music for me is so important and such a reservoir for joy and happiness in my life. I hated the way that she made it seem so stern, desperate, and negative, telling me I couldn’t have a glass of water during my lessons and such. I really started to feel sorry for her and take it on myself like o.k. if I keep coming here I can make her feel better, make her happier as a person. and then I kind of let that go. Well today was a good lesson. Happy. Clear. Sang well.

So I'm in mikes cigars walking around and I look over across the room and I see this really hot girl and I think ‘wow, who is that?!’ I recognize that shirt. And then I realize that it is mirror on the other side of the room. It's me. I think I must look pretty feminine. Holy shit, I look like a chick.  

We are rehearsing every night now for this upcoming play. Every night till midnight or later. These are long days. Wake up, go to the office during the day, rush to the studio to record, then straight to play rehearsal, and then home to eat a late dinner. Maybe get to sleep by three or four, and then try to wake up by nine or ten to start over again. Crazy. But I am learning so much from these actors. They call it getting the bug. They are so much fun and wild and open and free. By Friday I feel like I just have to pass out. 

Watching this WWII documentary. Hours and hours. Amazing. Buy it if you can. its fantastic. So educational, illuminating. This is before the UN and NATO. Countries just attacked each other all the time. no one was really without blame. It was almost as if humanity had not yet discovered the difference between right and wrong. 

Germany wants to take over Poland so they cut a deal with Russia and they just split the whole country down the middle. Just take it over completely. Absolutely no respect or care about their people or traditions or culture. England decides that they will fight Germany but while they do it it would be a good idea to take over Norway because of their oil. Of course this mission of theirs failed but it just goes to show, even though they were supposedly allies, how allied were they really? And to whom? It is just unfathomable in this day and age. Or is it? the whole reason we invented the UN and NATO and other peace organizations was to enact rules and regulations to prevent exactly what Bush is proposing we do to Iraq right now. and the whole world is telling him that. and still he persists. It is rather frightening in the context of watching this history of world war II. Political scientists are saying that this could very well be the beginning of world war III if we go ahead with this. so I think we all have a vested interest in doing whatever it takes to stop Bush from this plan. This is pivotal time in our history regardless of how behind it the mainstream media seems to be. they do not matter. They never will. What matters is what we want. The people. this is our country. This is our land. This is our lives at stake. 

After the recent theatre hostage crisis in Moscow, I became curious about Chechnya; who they were and why were they holding people hostage and blowing things up all over Russia. The first red flag was of course when the media described the perpetrators of the incidences as “the rebels” or “rebel forces.” This usually means “the good guys” or “the people”, but don't try telling most people that. Because they’ll think you're crazy and call you a “rebel” too. So for the last week or so I have been studying the history of Chechnya.

As it turns out, my suspicions were right. As usual, Chechnya is a country of people who want sovereignty and their independence from the hands of a larger, more powerful and evil country, Russia. Russia has been trying to take over their country and people for over four-hundred years now. The rest of us sit and watch it happen. We don't help the Chechens, even though Russia has been committing ethnocide on their people for hundreds of years. Killing and deporting millions of them.  We the United States and other civilized countries around the world participate in Olympic games with Russia, have tea with them, etc etc. same thing with China, even though they have murdered millions of Tibetans and taken over their homeland as well. Same thing with England and just about every country on earth over the centuries, but specifically Northern Ireland.

Good weekend. On Friday we finally heard from the big time talent show organization. We auditioned for this thing months ago and they refused to give us any info until the official announcement. Well that was Friday night. And we won. So we are very happy. We weren't the only winners but we will receive the award for best unsigned artist of 2002. And we will perform live at the televised awards show. So that is very groovy. Last night went to see Elvis Costello at the Jackie Gleason theatre with Omine. Elvis’ voice is stronger than ever. He just has this amazing voice. Today I received an email that I will be able to go backstage and meet Caetano Veloso and present him with this song I wrote for him called Caetano when he performs here later this month. I am so excited, I can’t believe it. he is one of my biggest influences and inspirations. 

We have been working on getting our radio station up, Transcendent Radio, on our website. www.transcendence.com. A lot of fun. Playing all the music we love as well as a lot of tracks from various albums of our own.

Last Movie: Punch Drunk Love, by PT Anderson. Well Paul is a brilliant filmmaker. This one is small, very singular in scope but still has that other-worldly quirkiness that makes him such a visionary stylist. Adam Sandler finally shows that he is no longer simply a comic actor. He pulls off a fantastic performance.

Current read: set your voice free by roger Love

Current Spin: Josh Groban. Modern pop opera. An absolutely flawless voice.

A reunion between a small group of us who all live in different parts of the country. But we try to see each other a few times a year. Michael and Beth Ann just recently moved here to LA. So we all decided to meet here after Thanksgiving. I really wanted to get to know LA a little better. My heart is pretty much sold on New York but just in case I thought I would check it out. So we all flew in today at different times. Very nice to be here together. Tonight we went to sunset strip to check out all the clubs and bands. Pretty scummy, dirty, raunchy for the most part. A very big Fort Lauderdale. Nothing like beautiful fashionable New York or hip and stylish Miami. But being with this spiritual family that I have collected over the years has been very nice so far. We stay up late and talk about what we are all experiencing in our individual lives and then we advise each other, help guide each other, feed off of each other.

A lot of talking about what I was writing about last night. That the energy now around the world has accelerated so rapidly that it is apparent to everyone that IT is happening. Something has shifted. Things are moving so fast. Changes occurring so quickly around the planet. Things are rapidly shifting into place for everyone, or out of place, depending on how you look it. You are either prepared or not. Either way IT is still happening. Something big is happening. Something horribly incongruent and earth shaking is happening all around the world. It's getting harder and harder just to find time to get a haircut or cuddle up with a good book.    

Still in AZ. I just walked outside to relax and write a little. I was standing up, lighting a cigar, when I heard this super fast fluttering, like a bird on over drive. I flipped around and this bat was headed right at me. I ducked. It skimmed my head and hit my hair a little. I ran to the sliding glass door to take a breather for a moment. And then it came swooping around the corner to make another attempt at me. I ran inside. Crazy. 

Today my brother told me this story that happened recently right here in phoenix. A kid was at the local strip mall down the street this summer. A swarm of African bees attacked him. Came out of nowhere. He tried to get away from them. Went into a panic. Ran out into the street and got run over by a car. Don't let anyone tell you it isn't happening right now. Whatever “it” is. It's happening. A man gets a call. His father is dead. He goes to the funeral. Leaves his wife at home to work. Comes home the next day, his wife is laying dead on the floor. He is stricken with extreme grief. He goes to the funeral. He gets a call on his cell phone. His general manager who works directly under him just got run over by a semi-truck on the highway. This man was my brother’s wife’s step father. The dead wife was my brother’s wife’s mother. The next day his wife has a baby. My youngest niece. Our lives are turning into movies.

Rehearsing every night for this play called Decay that I have stumbled into. Having a great time learning the art and craft of acting. The other cast members who are all trained actors in one way or another have been very nice, showing me the ropes and teaching me the technology of it, and the vocabulary. Scripting, blocking, crossing, off book, all this new nomenclature, a lot of fun. Fascinating really. I always took acting for granted till a few weeks ago. Now I am just in awe of people who can do it so well. It is so transparent when they are doing it, you don’t even know that they are acting. I get chills watching everyone rehearse. They must think I'm funny. I clap for everyone when they rehearse a scene, but I just get so impressed. Then I go up and try to do my part, you know, I still have the script in my hand, the rest of them have already memorized their lines. I'm digging it. I love getting to know them, these actor types. Totally different than the musician types I've been hanging out with forever. I mean these are the same people who were in drama class in high school, you know. And we never hung out with them. They were always the biggest geeks, and we were always really hip and cool. We played guitar, surfed, did drugs, smoked, and always dressed cool. And they just didn't. The drama kids were always God I don’t even remember; well for one thing they never dressed cool. They dressed like poor geeks. You know I'm stereotyping here, but for a reason.

Well here it is ten years later, at least for me, and the lines have all blurred. There are still these huge differences. I'm sitting in this den of inequity where we all rehearse every night, this artists’ work space, where I think maybe a thousand people live or something. You're working on something and people just crawl out of corners with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths and no shoes on. It's wild. And then in walk these actors and actresses. And it's just so wild compared to the musicians. They are so prepared. They have all these notes on their script and they are so reserved and then all of a sudden they burst into this scene like no body’s business. And you are like shocked. Also they are so friendly. Compared to musicians. Who are so caught up in themselves and worried about being taken seriously and all of that. Where as the actors are pretty open and friendly people. I mean really, the space will be half filled with musicians who live there and half filled with actors who are working out of there and you can really tell the difference between the two groups. And I can relate because for a long time I was one of those dark and moody serious musician types myself. But I gave that up. God I am so much happier now, having my attention out, rather than in. Well that's a different story, but I'm digging this acting thing. These people are real, which is really funny to say, because they are actors.   

Also Transcendent Radio is here. it is so cool.

Current Read: Tropical Truth, a story of music and revolution in Brasil by Caetano Veloso

Current Spin: Alone Again by Father Bloopy. Sort of an underground t. rex meets dinosaur jr., quirky trippy lo-fi. 

Last Movie: The World at War, the 26 hour documentary about world war II

Hotel doesn’t even have shampoo. In the mad rush to get here I forgot to bring any toiletries, so I'll be looking very pretty today. Woke up working on a new song, ‘Caetano,’ this morning. Still trying to capture the lyrics for this one. Thinking a lot about The Adventures of Fishy which is close to being finished, but has been put aside because so much work now on the last two albums and the website and the diaries etc. I hate politics, and reform talk and all that. I went to sleep last night just drained and overwhelmed and thought, you know, I'm an artist. I like to sing and write songs and write stories and stuff. That's my thing. I don’t like the fact that things are so messed up that I feel like I have to do something about it. I don’t want to. I just want to do my thing. If artists are supposed to be the entertainers say and enlighteners, at best, and politicians are supposed to be the guys taking care of everything social, economic, and political, I don’t think things are working out so well for us. You don’t see Clinton up on stage teaching Aerosmith how to play ‘Dream on.’ Why should we have to teach them how to do their jobs right?

O.k. enough of that. I'm back now. On the cab ride to the airport I saw the headline in the Washington Post that yesterday was the biggest protest march since the sixties. Imagine that. So in a way we did it. lets hope it accomplishes something. Spent the day seeing the city and some of the monuments and attractions of the District. DC is a beautiful city. The weather is gorgeous. All the trees are changing color. A crispness in the air that we never get in Miami. After today I feel so inspired to be an American. You can’t help but be inspired after coming here. of course you can’t help but be disgusted as well when you think of the lowly heights we have stooped over the last fifty years. You know, people tell you it's always been this corrupt, that history always has a way of covering up the worst and weakest moves of our leaders. So who knows. Try to remember that when our ‘forefathers’ first drafted the Bill of Rights and the Constitution that it was only for white men; it didn't include women or black people, or indigenous people, etc. So just that is pretty gross, and shows how far we've come as a nation. But boy the ideals that this country is founded on are so fantastic. It is inspiring.  

Wow. What an exciting day! Went to the anti-war rally and march today held at the Vietnam veterans memorial. Over 200,000 were there. It was very inspirational because no one I knew was going. Like I said most people feel content with just watching stuff like that on TV, staying home and doing their own thing. So I had this lonely feeling flying up, like, “man what are you doing now…” But then I woke up this morning and started walking towards the rally spot and before I knew it I am surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country who feel the same way that I do about things. I met up with the bus that came from Florida. There were about fifty of them. 


We all hung out together and listened to the speeches at the rally. Busses were arriving throughout the day from every state in the nation. Susan Sarandon spoke very passionately; patty smith sang the song ‘the people have the power.’ Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson spoke. One of the best speeches was by Ramsey Clark, the ex-United States Attorney General. He blasted Bush and what he calls the real axis of evil that is made up of Bush, Colin Powel, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney. All oil and big business war mongers ready to take down as many American lives and Iraqi lives as they want to in their little war for oil. And of course they won't fight. Plenty of young poor Americans will. Al Sharpton used the bogie-man analogy and said that George Bush was just trying to use this war as a means to get the public’s attention off of what was really important to us right now, like the falling economy, horrible education problems, the federal deficit, the recession, disastrous health care—this is something I can relate to because almost all of the musician friends I have all over the country do not have any health insurance—they are just  ‘winging it’, the Enron scandal, a company that he and Cheney were both very close to, and many other real problems. And of course the fact that we haven't made any progress in catching anyone responsible for the September 11^th attacks, including Osama Bin Laden.

  

Arrived in DC tonight for the anti-war march. Sick-tired-nauseas, from the plane ride and shuttle ride. Going to sleep now; I'm not even going eat. Energy in the air all over the city. Everyone is talking about it. The hotel is filled with people from many different organizations who are attending the march tomorrow. But this hotel is a rat trap. Pretty gross. We’re not in South Beach anymore.

Last Movie: Father Goose with Cary Grant. Thank God for Cary Grant. 

Getting ready to go to Washington DC for the anti-war march. Over half a million people expected in DC and 250,000 expected in the San Francisco area march on the same day. Last month over 400,000 thousand people marched in London against this war and in Italy it was about 150,000. times have changed. Perhaps people aren't as asleep as one would guess. 

But wait… earlier this week I emailed my intentions to go and an invitation to a bunch of my friends and associates not just here in Miami but all over the States. I have been so surprised at the small number of responses I have received back. No one I know is going. In fact no one even knows about it. I received a lot of “you go Ed,” type replies. But nothing of any real substance. Everyone seems more interested in this weekend’s Halloween festivities rather than anything else. Derek Cintron did reply back, with a very passionate but convoluted letter promoting total annihilation to Iraq due to some connection at least in his mind between Iraq and the September 11^th attacks. I love Derek. And I love his passion. I cannot wait for him to make that subtle switch in his thinking that takes place just before a person joins the light side of the Force. He and many others continue to fail to realize year after year and century after century that fighting force with force and violence with violence will only lead to more death and more murder of all of us. 

That on September 11^th, we lost some 4000 of our people. In 1991 Iraq lost over 200,000 of theirs at our hands. Over the next ten years they lost an additional 1,000,000 people (that is one million) due to our economic sanctions and this maniac that is in power Saddam Hussein. My feeling is that before we go to war with anyone else, we really need to decide as a people if we want these figures on our heads and if we are willing to continue to let them build up. not just on our side but their side too.