How Do We Know What We Know?

Yo dog, (welcome to the Transcendence Diaries by the way. I found the circumstance addressed below stimulating enough to warrant some further thought; and ink. Or bits as we would now say in these modern GEL times)

I'll tell ya, you and the fam have the most uncanny way of asking good questions. (Your father's "That's all great Ed, but how is your soul?" comes to mind...) In any case, post GEL i did notice a bit of stuck attention on how best to answer your question "But HOW did you know, these things? In what WAY did you know them?" in regards to the knowledge one gains from hallucinogens. It was a great question. And of course it is one that has been answered tens of thousands of times in books by aldous huxley, albert hoffman, tim leary ram dass, carlos castendea, pauo coelho, alan watts, thomas merton, etc... But in the moment i did find it a challenge in an elevator pitch to explain how do we know the knowledge that we gain is actually knowledge and not just "a thought/idea/vision/hallucination/wishful thinking etc" Yes of course we are stimulating other regions of the brain and therefore accessing knowledge stored there whenever we ingest or take anything that stimulates other areas of the brain that we do not normally have easy access to. But that really isnt an answer to "how do we know the knowledge." That may be the explanation as to "how do we gain this new knowledge" but it isn't an answer to "how do we know we actually are learning new knowledge.

It was a brilliant question. Due to the fact that it was such an honest, simple, and direct question. No bullshit academic posturing. Just a very simple and sincere and earnest question from curiosity. Which is we know (how do we know even this?) the place where much of our collective knowledge comes from. That healthy curiosity for truth, knowledge, and understanding that many possess. I realized that the question was bigger than the specific frame it was in and could be applied to knowledge itself. How DO we KNOW anything? I believe that in that brief moment you mentioned "empirical data" - something i struggled with for years in college as a philosophy major undergrad, and then later have had to deal with on an almost daily basis being in the health-sciences industry for so many years. In the arena of science it all comes down to empirical data...

Realizing this led me to spend some time on Sunday contemplating knowledge itself with your particular question as the backdrop. It brought up the age old quandary of 'how do we know that we know what we know?' Reflecting on the work of Loren Elsley, Descartes, Kant, and Aristotle to name a few and 20 years ago it would have been easy to answer the question from a more philosophical point of view that often ends up the final answer in philosophical debate after that last cup of coffee and the last cigarette has been put out (philosophical meaning "impossible to know for sure and therefore all sides can most likely be true. Or false. Depending on how you look at it...") in other words, we know simply because we know. This is what "i" believes and I am aware enough to recognize that some "you" may believe the opposite is true. But in the end, as with many things, "I" chooses to know this.

But we're not in college anymore. (Ok, well actually you are... once more) and we aren't sitting in a dark cafe after having to deliver this week's thesis on "free will versus determinism." So after all these years, and thought, and reading and studying, and consciousness exploration had we come any further in being able to answer the question, "But how did you know?" My mind kept escaping to the safe confines of the most obvious answer that minds do when confronted with such a question, that is: "because i just knew/know." But that won't fly half as convincingly as proving your knowledge of gravity simply by tossing someone off of a ten story building. "Now that's some empirical evidence for ya."

So how to make the leap from said ten story building to the ground without getting smashed to a thousand bloody pieces and still prove your knowledge of gravity is true and valid... Eventually i came upon the idea of sexual orientation. Don't ask me why. It is certainly better than the leap to "God" or "the soul" or "the after life" as these are still areas of knowledge up for grabs as to what we really know of them, if anything... but yes... sexual orientation was one that anyone would be hard pressed to argue with. Simply because most people are quite comfortable with their sexual orientation. Which is, when we break it down, nothing more than "knowledge that we possess or at least think we possess and believe is true" - and yet empirically speaking is entirely unprovable. You could ask a person till you are both blue in the face "but how do you KNOW that you are heterosexual?" and the answer is always going to inevitably be "because i just do. That's how." Which is, for the time being, until we are able to isolate the 'sexual orientation dna molecule' and have it imprinted on our own personal 'identity chip' along with thousands of other identifying datum and simply slip it into our hand-held computer and show the person, "there, you see? I am clearly heterosexual. Nuff said."

But such technology does not yet exist, at least not in the common world that we live in today. It indeed might already exist in a few labs around the planet. (Note to self: purchase one.) So what we are left with is what we have always been left with in terms of what we believe we "know," in the field of "knowledge." That is, "I simply know. Just as I know that I am sexually orientated toward being heterosexual.

In regards to the knowledge one gains from consciousness exploration using plants, herbs, seeds or even synthetic compounds such as MDMA or LSD, it comes to us much the same way that most of what we now "currently hold to be true" comes to rest in our individual reality spheres. We listen, we observe, we ingest the data, contemplate, ruminate, compare, contrast, combine with previously filed data... all in a matter of milliseconds of course.... and what we end up with are either questions or conclusions. In a healthy mind most likely a combination of both.

I believe that the first bit of knowledge that I shared with you that one might perceive from experimenting with hallucinogens is "my soul is immortal." (a conclusion, like much of what we claim to know, that in the world of philosophy we believe certainly begs the question, because it hasn't even answered the question as to whether a soul exists or not - one of the fundamental philosophical dilemmas.) But a foregone conclusion for many. For me it was a bit of data that somehow made the leap from 'intellectually curious idea to think about' to 'relatively certain.' Now mind you, I did not say "YOUR soul is immortal," nor "ALL souls are immortal." Because another bit of data/knowledge that one gains from exploring consciousness with hallucinogens is "What might be true for one person may not be true for another. Therefore I may indeed possess a soul that is immortal, and someone else may not. And the likelihood of that reality is directly correlated with what THAT PERSON believes." Which one could argue is actually TWO more bits of data, not one. Which then leads to another understanding, that is "Consciousness, hence the perception of reality, and therefore perhaps even reality itself, is NOT made up of absolutes; but rather a collection of many possibilities that very well might be absolutes, even contradicting ones, but that all seem to be able to coexist simultaneously." An alarming bit of knowledge when one first encounters it in their explorations. But actually comforting after one settles into it and begins to contemplate its implications.

Much of the bloodshed among humankind over the last ten-thousand years has been due to the assertion that one group's set of absolutes is more true or valid or right than another's. Whole civilizations have been wiped off the face of the earth because of this seemingly innate though primitive and evolutionarily declining need to "be right," or to believe that WHAT we believe so must others. Some people, many people actually still today, seem to believe that if they believe something then it is impossible for the opposite to also be true at the same time. But this is one of the first bits of knowledge one gains from intense or even playful consciousness exploration - whether through experimentation with hallucinogens or through other means such as meditation etc.

Indeed my own belief is that we live in a large and expansive enough universe that it has the capacity to hold many 'seemingly' conflicting or contradicting realities simultaneously. For example, I believe in a heaven – based on the idea that in the Super String Model of physics we may be looking at a universe with anywhere from ten to twelve dimensions, and therefore this idea of ‘heaven’ that we have created may indeed exist in one of these other dimensions. I also believe in reincarnation – depending on WHAT that particular person believes, so shall he/she experience at the time of the death of their body and the passing of their soul. I also believe that there are still others who still believe in “hell” though I myself do not believe in such a place, I do understand that there may be others who DO believe in such a place, and therefore may be creating it, that just like heaven it would exist in one of these other dimensions that we are still completely ignorant of, and yes, THEY might actually go to ‘hell’ simply because they are so convinced that such a place exists. This might be true for them. And therefore an absolute even in consciousness and in the universe. But it might not be true for me, or someone else.

I also hold it to be true that consciousness itself is capable of this as well. (whether one wants to reduce that down to mere 'human consciousness' or include 'all known and unknown consciousness in the known and unknown universe’ is up to them) But to me it is entirely plausible, and provable since I myself am able to do it, that a mind can believe in two apparently conflicting or contradicting absolutes simultaneously. (I believe that most people do not give consciousness enough credit. They believe it is smaller and more limited in power than it actually is, and most tend to believe that a person is only capable of believing one side of an idea at a time, i.e. one is either a theist or an atheist. Though it is entirely possible for a person to be both.) One can also believe in free will AND determinism at the same time, and many do and just don't realize it, even though the ideas blatantly contradict each other. Most people tend to believe in a subtle and convoluted combination of both theories, myself included, and would find it very difficult to explain empirically. Especially since ‘determinism’ itself implies and downright necessitates a ‘something’ doing the determining. Now whether this is an alive and aware “God,” or simply a Divine Force, or another force at play in the universe like gravity or electro-magnetism – such as ‘The Unified Field Theory’ that we have simply not yet discovered, or our “higher selves,” or something else entirely – such as angels, spirit guides, our own selves in a different dimension or a different place in space-time, “I” don't yet know. Which is to say that I currently hold many ideas/absolutes to be true simultaneously. Confusing for some. Outright blasphemy to others. Poppycock to still others. And the beauty of it is that WE ARE ALL RIGHT. AND WRONG.

That, there, in a nutshell, in regards to your question as to ‘what sort of knowledge does one get from doing hallucinogens, is perhaps one of the greatest bits of knowledge one acquires from the activity. The idea that there are many absolutes all possibly/probably occurring at once and that it is not only possible, but it’s also “o.k.,” or that there is no such thing as an absolute. The only one or two that I have been able to come up with so far in my own life is/are: “I am.” “I am here.” and “So are you and them.” And that's about it...

From there, the next that follow are “I do not know where I came from.” “I do not know who I am, except that “I” am “I.” “I do not know where I am,” or “where this is.” Of course we pretend that we do know the answers to these questions, because we have created words and labels and ideas behind them, in order to not all go mad. We call ourselves “human.” And we call “here” “the earth/the here-now/the milky way galaxy,” etc. But these are all man-made words, labels, theories, and ideas. The truth is that none of this is true. It is all man-made. We can call ourselves “human,” but we still have no idea who we are, what we are, where we came from, why we are here, where we are, or where we are going.

Though I can tell you that based on what I currently believe that I am “heterosexual.” Hope this answers your questions. Thank you for the food for thought. Enjoyed it. See ya later today. Fishy

Something IS Happening - Easter Notes...

What an absolutely perfect and glorious Easter day it was today, no? [Warning: we’re gonna free-flow here. Tonight. (or whatever time it is wherever you are NOW) Stream of frontal-lobe consciousness. Blog style. In other words, our objective here is to data-dump as much as possible before I become bored with the task -- NOT to “write in the artistic sense of the word.” (Yes we will use plenty of parentheses, and dashes, and a few semi-colons (which for the life of me I still just cannot get over my uneasy bias against for some reason) as always in order to attempt to maintain some semblance of order and readability. (which reminds me: a quest I have been on for years, perhaps decades... this fascination with WHICH – if one had to choose - is the best for of punctuation to use when attempting to free-style in no particular order. I mean, we do speak like this. some of us at least. And therefore this isn't exactly note-worthily innovative, new, or unique; at least not from a speaking voice sense. And yet when we sit down to write, even if we are attempting to quote one or another or an entire conversation, we do tend to dress it all up a bit and put it in a certain order... I mean, look at the way dialogue in films are... always one person speaking at a time, and always in full sentences... utter rubbish in the realism department. So no, this is not new, this style of writing. It’s just taking down as quickly as you can whatever happens to be on your mind either now, or a few minutes ago, or a few minutes from now, in order to get it all out – without worrying about how it will read as “writing.” The idea is simply BLOG. Don’t WRITE. Get the ideas out to the readers. Save writing for writing and some times, just let blogging be what it was originally intended to be: free-flowing thoughts, remnants of the day. At least until we are able to read each others’ minds, which I believe will be sooner than later, this will have to do.)

Doesn’t it strike you as interesting how there are so many FORMS of writing? All based on what their particular objective is one supposes... perhaps not something to get into now since it is already well past midnight, (and I with this new “new year’s resolution” to finally grow up and start paying attention to the things that “grown up people do” such as “getting to sleep at a decent hour” and “waking up at a decent hour” (I slept until 2:51 in the afternoon yesterday. I was quite proud of that one. Does that count?) So I will need to cut this is as short as possible. Hence my forewarning that it might be a bumpy road ahead, (but many of you are already used to the bumps and curves and back alleys aren't you? They’re not really as bad as some make them out to be, are they. Certain friends absolutely loathe them. You should read their comments and emails... accusing me of being far too divergent and tangential – to the point of implying that I am selfish for being so tangential in my writing... and yet it’s my writing... (figure that one out). Catherine is occasionally impressed but constantly yells at me “Can’t you just get to the point?!” And of course the point is that this is ALL the point. It’s like life in that sense. I mean, where exactly ARE you running off to? To death. Right? Ultimately? So why live your life “on point?” It’s a perceived point at best. A non-existent and ultimately meaningless point at worst. So why not just let it rip? Let it all hang out? And see what comes of it? (By this point, trust me, we’ve lost her. Three or four paragraphs up she was outta here. I'm sure of it. Her brain just can’t take it... it’s like some people really need “point” delivered like punchlines in jokes... like BAM! Other people prefer the whole joke to be one giant punchline. Life is more like that. So for me, that’s how I fly. Half naked, off the wing, stewardess in one hand and a bloody Mary in the other. Wind blowing through my hair, and if we crash, my God was that one hell of a fucking ride or what? Jokes with punchlines are a little passé’ Truth is, I bet that very few of the 15,000 subscribers to this blog actually go for it all the way to the finish line with me when I go off like this, in this manner. Personally I'd be one of those very few. But that's just me. Think Eddie Izzard. Half the time you have to ask yourself “where the fuck IS he right now? And HOW did he get there? (I bet he’s asking himself that question half that time as well. But people dig it. So it’s cool. What I don't like is comics who seem like they say down and “wrote” out their routine. I just absolutely loathe that shit. This is something I don't do when I blog. Shit I don't do it when I write anything. I just sit down to blog/write/dump. Whether it’s a song, or a blog, or a book, or a screenplay. I just sit down let it all pour out. Charlie Kaufman. What a fucking genius. Right? I wonder how much he writes versus how much he just “dumps...” Good question... )

So where we’re we? Yes. Due to my earnest desire to communicate and express as much as I possibly can – as much as there is to – nothing more nothing less – and yet not let it take me five hours – which is how long it usually takes me to write an average blog post in the Transcendence Diaries – when I really sit down to “write” and make it make sense – as opposed to what I'm doing now – which is just dump data out of my insanely warp-speeded carnival-like mind. Wild huh? Hard to believe. Hard to imagine that any person in their right mind, or at least pretending to be ( which at this point I would say I'm not even sure I'm doing too good a job at that one ) would dedicate three to five hours a day to writing ONE blog a day for seven straight years; let alone admit it publicly. From an economical point of view, it is an entirely worthless endeavor, (at least now – let us not fool ourselves for a moment that we are attempting to fool anyone else that we feel that this will not NOT pay off at some point in the future... for that would be dishonest, and transparently so. (Nothing wrong with dishonesty if you can get away with it... but don't make it totally honest...) (And yet, I am somehow reminded of US politics and US presidents... and from that perspective one doesn’t really even need to be concerned with our lies being transparent anymore, do we?. I mean, at this point, it’s more like latter day Rome. If you want the throne you just kill your mom, your dad, your brother, your wife, and pretty much do whatever the hell you want to and tell the rest of the world to shut the fuck up and go to hell. We’ve been living like that in the United States now for over fifty years... ever since Eisenhower warned us we were headed down that path. Oh well. Not the subject of tonight’s post. But still, something to remember. Note to self: don't worry about being honest. It’s totally not in anymore.)

I would never say it is a thankless task or one without merit or benefit though, blogging, writing. The truth of the matter is that I enjoy it immensely. It helps me relax. It feels like weight-lifting or cardio for my brain and emotional well-being. Both relaxing and energizing at the same time. Keeps me sane. And I also enjoy the occasional comments and notes from readers. Just to see – from a sociological standpoint – what stirs things up and what doesn’t.... Add to the Transcendence Diaries the six other blogs that I maintain and post to regularly, and well, one gets the picture. A life completely dedicated to work and not much of anything else...and yet my work is my play. So I am a very very lucky manchild.) Being one mother hell of a prolific writer (I have easily written tens of thousands of pages of printed material. At the very least. shit. just in the last ten years... Its unfathomable how much of my time I spend writing and how quickly I can do it... but at the same time knowing full well that I am not a writer, meaning that I didn't earn a degree in writing, (though I did major in it for a brief spell in college – along with just about everything else one could “major in” before I finally succumbed to that constant nagging whisper of a realization that I was one of those “major in life” types and the sooner I faced it and acknowledged it the sooner I would become successful at it – which happened remarkably soon after I am still surprised to reflect back on), and I also have never really had anything published – well that's not true actually, in fact there have been plenty of things, but nothing MAJOR, so I'm not in that place yet where I would ever call myself a “writer” but have absolutely no qualms about calling myself “a genuinely near-supernatural prolific writer (figure that one out) – so I bet, I just bet, that yes, there probably IS a table of sorts that lists what the best forms of punctuation are for this kind of mind-babble... call them inner-dialogues... Voltaire-like or Shakespearean soliloquies in the mind of a mad gone half mad during the third act. But alas, as a non-writer, I simply don't know what those “best forms of punctuation” are yet. So forgive the tug of war between them all as I struggle to make sense of what is shooting out of my head faster than I can get my fingers to follow. And this is after decades of training these damn fingers... but still... this mind always manages to pitch faster than these fingers can catch. Oh well. We’ll deal as best we can. Don't say I didn't warn you. END OF WARNING]

An absolutely glorious Easter day. Weather in New York was perfect for it. A cool brisk 41 degrees. Bright blue sky. Sunny. A calm over the entire city. Couldn’t sleep all night due to anticipation for this morning. Just couldn’t really fall asleep deeply. Felt like when we are little kids and we know that we are going to Disney world the next day. That’s what Easter Sunday always feels like for me... Kept waking up the whole time, which is fine because we are turning in the new solo album to the manufacturer tomorrow and I needed to approve the art director’s entire CD project, so the waking up helped. I'd fall asleep for an hour, not really asleep, rather lucid and vividly aware that I was “attempting to fall asleep,” (which has been going on for about five years now. Can’t say I really like this.... on the one hand I find it cool in the ‘super-natural” sense that I have this new unique ability to be both awake and asleep and dreaming at the same time; and on the other hand I don't ever feel as though I rested thoroughly enough. It’s during the day when I take a thirty minute nap or two that I really knock out and get “rest.)

Easter itself is very special if you are a practicing Christian or a well-studied and historically aware Jew. (no offense meant, just read your history.) But Easter is a day that follows 40 days of intense self examination and repentance if done properly with a sincere desire to improve oneself and make the most of it all. Easter is that giant exhale that you wait for after forty days of constant prayer and self examination and repentance and “I'm sorrys” and towards the end of this particular season I even found myself on my hands and knees praying... just begging, pleading... for forgiveness, for new life, for more self awareness, for more closeness to the Divine, for more understanding of Jesus and what he meant in the bigger picture, what he means now, and what he may mean in our future, and just a lot of “trying go deep.” Deep-deep. Not superficial deep. Like some people giving up chocolate or something, but DEEP. Like “I know who I am, but I want to know more. I know I want to help, but I want to help more. AND I want to help in the way that YOU want me to help AND in the way that I can help the most. AND God am I fucking sorry for what a fuck up I've been all year. Please forgive me and if you have to just smack me down lord because I long to be as good a person as I can be and for the life of me I still fuck up too much for my own good. But thank you for listening and thank you for understanding. And thank you for continuing to listen and seeming to understand and forgive and help when help is needed. So yes, Easter brings with it that trumpet call that echoes “Alright little buddy you can go a bit easier on yourself now... You did a damn good job of it. Let’s see if you can walk your talk for the rest of the year. Easter, to me, in that respect, is a sort of New Years really. more so than New Years is actually.

And besides all that, the personal aspect of Easter, Easter services at this particular church are very very special. Not a particularly old church by earthly standards. Rather new actually. Built in 1928. That would be considered a “new home” in England wouldn’t it? Well in any case, the sanctuary is breath-taking. Something like thirty-eight million tile mosaics were shipped over from Italy during the 20s and 30s to make the church. All marble and tile... giant ceilings. On top of it, Easter service there is well known world-wide for many reasons not the least of which is its prime real estate being smack dab in the middle of Manhattan on park Avenue in the most expensive zip code on planet earth. So what you end up with is several things there when one breaks it down. (if one feels so inclined to do.) For starters the church is in the heart of the tourist area of Manhattan and therefore draws all these non-regular-church-goers that just come out of fucking nowhere and all of a sudden seemed to have discovered their religion on that very day. So the place fills up like nobody’s business. One has to get their an hour early to even get a seat. And that's in your own fucking church. It’s a little on the “iffy” side in that manner. And the other thing is that the neighborhood itself forces this particular church to bring out the best of the best in everything that it does. The music director is a Dr. All the Pastors are Doctors. There are flowers galore, and the best musicians money can buy and the choir – half of which are paid (which still strikes me in a not-exactly-positive way to this day and I've been a member there for five years now) is the best damn “white choir” that you'd ever want to hear. (White choir so as to differentiate it from the “black choir” up at Abyssinian Baptist church in Harlem – the oldest and FIRST African American church in the United States. You just can’t compare the two. Its like VW to BMW. There is NOTHING in this world like the choir at Abyssinian. This is MUST SEE/HEAR for your bucket list) But still, the choir at our church is really quite something. Especially if you dig music from the “classic” period, Bach and Handel et al. horns, strings, woodwinds, brass, tympony... it is quite something.

And then of course there is the head pastor, Stephen Bauman. And his sermons from hell as I like to call them, pardon the sick irony in that. But they are just so over the top intelligent AND insightful AND futuristically enlightened that you’d swear that you stepped into Christianity as it might be practiced in forty to fifty years now once the majority of the so-called Christians out there grow the fuck up, stop taking bible literally, and realize the true nature of what this man Jesus was trying to get across. In a nutshell, Bauman preaches in a way that even an atheist would walk away inspired and thought-provoked. And one suspects that on Easter Sunday – knowing full well that that sanctuary is going to be filled to the brim with more people crammed into that space than at any other day of the year – that he is going to pull out all the stops.


So no, of course I couldn’t sleep. A brilliant Easter Service awaits in the morning, followed by a magnificent feast with hundreds of your closest friends... all in great spirits by hearing the good news... (whether or not that good news is true or not half of us smart and honest enough to admit that we still aren't quite sold on one way or the other – but still, the good news sounds and feels good and it promises many things that nothing else being offered on the fruit cart of modern earth offers at this time, so it just feels really really good.) New life. New beginnings. Love one another. Resurrection. Whether real or metaphorical. After all these years, does it even matter anymore? Now that might seem like blasphemy to a catholic or a born again Christian in middle America... but Stephen Bauman is a man on a mission that is so far ahead of the rest of the pack... so in tune with the Divine NOW. The Divine as it is NOW, as one can FEEL it is NOW (if one actually opens one heart up and STOPS just READING for knowledge and instead starts asking and feeling and praying for knowledge -- as opposed to what some book written six to two thousand years ago says about this ‘God character’ ... the man is on fire.

One gets the feeling every single freaking Sunday that he is the closest thing to a modern day Jesus or Gandhi or MLK that one can find these days on planet earth. And trust me, as most know, I've searched high and low for them. On Wednesday we’ll be meeting with Dr Cornell West himself... I've read or studied them all in this mad quest of mine to see what's out there... And I will admit that Ram Dass and Harry Palmer certainly tie for first place in the “knowledge plus enlightenment plus new information plus passion plus purity of heart ala Kierkegaard plus sincerity plus commitment and dedication equals a man who can easily be called the most inspirational and important man on earth in terms of what he has to offer in the way of spiritual enlightenment goes. Stephen Bauman - though he would humbly disagree and laugh his butt off if he heard me say it or heard that I wrote it - fits the bill to a tee. Or trust me, I wouldn’t be a member of a church. And there are tens of thousands of them out there. All doing the same thing. All beautiful people. Both religious and non-religious. From Bill Maher to Wayne Dyer to Marianne Williamson to John Shelby Spong to Deepak Chopra. But these are all second placers. What they offer is not new... it may seem new to mainstreamers. But it is old-hat to long-time seekers. Bauman is in the top tier. Consider him John Lennon if Ram Dass is Jimi Hendrix and Harry Palmer – being the most advanced thinker of the bunch -- is the Bob Dylan of the “new knowledge” bearers. [NOTE: You can listen to his sermons online at iTunes. Just search for Stephen Bauman at Christ church New York city. Listen to any of his sermons from 2009. You’ll see what I mean.]

Long story short? A gorgeous day. After service and feast I went home and just laid down in silence.... doing my best to connect and commune with the Divine one more time... till I drifted off to a short nap. Something is happening? Yes indeed. Something IS happening. Don't let anyone tell you any different. We all have plenty of friends who don't yet recognize it. They're more than willing to play the fool, or the cynic, or the wise-ass, or the logician, or the pragmatist. Just as we once did, or might do in the future... But this does not mean that they are still not our friends. And no this doesn’t mean that we need to preach to them nor convert them or any of that nonsense... because as I've said so many times before. It has nothing to do with religion. What is happening is NOT about religion. It just is an ISNESS that is happening. And it’s all about LOVE. Underneath that, a very rock solid foundation of honesty, sincerity, and a strong desire to HELP. But it IS happening. And it’s happening NOW. And goddamn if it’s not a beautiful thing to behold, let alone take part in. God bless us all as we journey forward.



PROLOGUE: Mom sent us all Easter baskets this year, as always. I sometimes wonder if we are the only grown men alive who still receive Easter baskets from our mother via express mail every year... either way, it is a very good feeling. Heart-warming and homey. Just makes one feel good all over. Hope she never stops. And then when she gets too old to send us Easter baskets we will send them to her. Pay it forward. I love that woman.

Fight Which the Good Fight?

Had this dream that I was helping an underground movement working for African American rights. Actually not sure if I was in the States or in another country. a lot of covert crawling through tunnels and jumping over barbwire fences to get to secret meetings... I was like “the white connection to the outside world” so to speak it seemed to be. All very hush hush and dangerous. The people in charge were all black from what i can remember and we were in a very impoverished environment. I was constantly sleeping amongst or jumping over homeless type people in rags or box-homes.

At a time when I am rethinking where to fuel my activist energies right now, a lot of prayer and meditation and observation about it... feeling the peace/anti-war movement is always going to be there but as a species we are essentially fucked in the face of these giant corporate-controlled entities that pose as governments on planet earth right now. ten million people marched to protest the United States' invasion of the country of Iraq and it did absolutely nothing. It had no effect. There are still over one million Iraqi civilians dead at the hands of the so called “coalition forces.” Meaning what? corporate controlled/Matrix Styled robot-soldiers who do whatever “force” tells them to do. And we the people of the planet truly just have no say in it.

Inspiring that that many people came out on one single day to protest all over the planet? sure. but is it going to stop newly elected US president Obama from attempting to occupy Afghanistan? No. Won't even be an issue. I don't think anything is going to wake Americans up to the horrors of war and what it actually means for foreign insurgents to enter your country, boss you around, put up blockades, kill innocent people, and arrest thousands of your neighbors until it actually happens in their own country. Then we may be able to muster enough understanding to build a real coalition of a large enough group of people to actually have an effect on these “selected officials” and their war-mongering ways. Until then, anyone anywhere in the world is a target for arrest, occupation, imprisonment, or death at the drop of a hat if the United States and other large nations decides that's what they want to do.

We not yet be living breathing batteries as suggested in the symbolic Matrix film series, but the people of earth for better or worse are clearly prisoners of powers much stronger than they are able to overcome. Only they're not machines. (perhaps they are?) But by all accounts they appear to be living breathing human beings no different than ourselves. We live in a comfortable prison for some to be sure. Say if one lives in Kansas or New York. Not so comfortable for many others... Zimbabwe, Liberia, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, China, on and on the list grows.... or shrinks, depending on how one views it.

So the last few months I have really begun praying and meditating frequently and intensely on “what next?” in terms of where I might be able to better serve more people in real tangible ways. After Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia and Grenada and Panama and Nicaragua and Iraq (and so many more I simply fail to mention out of being too lazy to want to look up right now) it is clear that any efforts put forth by “the people” of earth to stop war-mongers is moot and in essence a waste of valuable time effort and energy.

It does though explain two things: why people as powerful and influential as Bono and Al Gore and Bill and Melinda Gates take on other causes, rather than what one suspects they believe in their hearts to also be a worthy cause – peace on earth. AND it also helps explain the motives and actions of people such as the Weather Underground, Che Guevara, Osama Bin Laden, the IRA, or the leaders of the Iranian Revolution. Crazy? Sure. But what they were/are fighting against was/is equally crazy.

So like the Buddha i sit quietly and meditatively torn between two worlds: out and out underground revolutionary to the death, even if it means three weeks or months from today i breathe my last breath in this current form. Or a more elegant peaceful and orderly style of helping... albeit one that requires more patience and a more mature ability to endure the ludicrous and unnecessary atrocities and lies, death and destruction that surround us at every corner of the globe at the hands of people who live in our own backyards and neighborhoods. Decision not made yet. So I sit.

Worthy causes: poverty, AIDS in Africa, women’s rights around the world, human trafficking and slavery, every 3.9 seconds someone dies of hunger or thirst somewhere in the world. If we wanted to we could end it in a year or two. But again, if WE WANTED to. Equal education. Gay rights. Fair trade. Blacks and Latinos still have it pretty tough. And no one even bothers to dare broach the stomach churning plight of the Native Americans and the other indigenous peoples of the planet. But that is one I would love to see brought up and finally faced and reconciled in our lifetimes...

We ask and it shall be given... so every night I am thrown into these random dreams/nightmares involving some sort of revolutionary events I have found myself entangled in. Some more terrifying than others. Some tame and reasonable and more “court and circus oriented.” Some downright “action adventure movie” style craziness. Each morning I wake up and scribble down as much as i can remember of what I was doing, how I felt, if the goal seemed a noble one... how I truly feel about it... if I believe that it is my calling to take it on and try to help.... a transition phase to be sure. But one that I will soon have an answer for I am sure.

Still one-hundred and ten percent behind helping bridge peace with the country of Iran, bring Tibet back to the Tibetan peoples, freedom of the Chechens, feeding the hungry, housing the poor, fighting poverty, and general do-gooding. But there is plenty more we can do... that's for sure. In time we will know....

"We must be aware of the real problems of the world. Then, with mindfulness, we will know what to do and what not to do to be of help." - Thich Nhat Hanh

Visions on Third Avenue

Walking down Third Avenue with Derek and Little T during a photo shoot for the new album we just finished recording. Little T co-wrote the lyrics to five of the eleven songs that made it onto the final master. All of fifteen years old the kid is. Met him in the apartment building I lived in when I first moved to New York five years ago. He was just a little guy back then. We’d hang out. Eat cereal. Watch movies. Play guitar. Who knew he’d end up a freaking brilliant poet by age 12... At least I was smart enough to recognize it. We started co-writing songs together right around the time he turned 13. One day he's sitting there in my apartment fucking around on my guitar bothering the hell out of me while I was at my desk trying to write something. I can tell he's holding an Am chord and just shooting shit out of his mouth. I was used to it though. I let him hang out whenever he wanted to. Things at home weren't easy. I remembered being 12, 13, those years. Shit, I still felt 16, sometimes 18. On good days. I figured better he's hanging at my pad than out on the street getting into trouble. Out of the corner of the periphery of my hearing I hear him mumble something to the effect of “blood runs down pensylvania avenue/and I find myself unfortunately hating you...”
“Dude! What the hell did you just say?”
“I don't remember.... I don't know.”
“You said something like “blood runs down pensylvania avenue. Where is pensylvania avenue? That was cool.”
“Uh, are you serious? The White House?”
“No shit? Man that's cool.”
So I grab the guitar out of his hands and we proceed to write the song “White House Jihad.” Each of us adding lyrics along the way as I flesh out a melody and a chord progression. Five minutes, maybe ten, and we’re done. That was it. I knew. This kid’s got more talent at 12 than I had at 22. “Dude start writing poetry. You ever think about writing poetry?”
“I wanna be a rock star man, not a poet.”
“Yeah. Totally. I dig that. You can be both. But you have a gift for lyrics man. And I got songs coming out of my ears. They never stop. But after thousands and thousands of them, lyrics start to get harder and harder to come up with. But the songs keep coming and coming. Just never ending. It’s the lyrics that hold them back from becoming finished songs. Do me a favor. Just shoot me every poem you write, o.k.? cool?”

So Little T starts hitting the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sitting around all day while he should be in school, sitting there sipping coffee and writing poems. One, two, three, ten, twenty. Pretty soon he's shooting me five songs a day. I never had to do anything but print them out, put them up on a music stand in my room, stare at them for a while, and bam! The melody and chord progression would just flow out. Half the time I never even paid attention to what chords I was playing. It was like the song would just speak to me by looking at his poem sitting there. It wasn't work. It was more like magic. Channeling. I print one of his poems and five minutes later a completed song is out here in the world. Existing. Playing God. Instant manifestation. Just like that. I'd call him at all hours of the night. “O.k. man listen to this one....” Sometimes two or three a day. We easily wrote fifty songs in ’08 in that method. I had found something new. Someone else giving the songs a start by supplying a poem. “Keep them short brother. you're sending me poems that end up being ten minute long songs. Keep them to one page.”
“o.k. man. Sorry.”

And on and on it went. It was a much needed breath of fresh air. I was still writing my own lyrics too. But this really precipitated one of the most fruitful and productive songwriting periods of my life. Notebooks were filling up. And more importantly, the poems he was sending were inspiring some of the most honest and sincere songs I had ever composed, musically speaking. They had to come out that way. The lyrics were just so damn real. Not just throw away stuff. Real stuff. Last forever kind of stuff.

Only thing was that we weren't writing TRANSCENDENCE type material. I still was. But the kinds of poems T would send me weren't inspiring alternative rock or Brit pop styled songs. They were more like old school acoustic singer/songwriter kinds of songs. Simon and Garfunkel or Dylan type of things. What the hell was I going to do with these? I'm in a band. A rock band. What are we going to do with these songs? They're so good. We have to do something with them.

Bunny is hanging in my room. Listening to me play her some of these new songs... “Fishy you know you should cut an album of these songs. I love TRANSCENDENCE but this shit is deep man. It’s way hip. Mad deep. I can feel you more in these songs than in some of the TRANSCENDENCE stuff.” Weather Girl tells me the same thing. So does Britney. So does Catherine. So does Princess Little Tree. There was obvious flow. Always follow flow....

So we decided to make an album. A few investors hear the songs. Immediately step up and offer to sponsor a new album if we promise to keep it just like it sounds with just me on the guitar by myself. “none of that experimental noisy TRANSCENDENCE stuff o.k.? Just this. You and your guitar this time Fishy. Maybe some piano and strings. But keep it simple. Stay true to these songs.

I fly to Miami. Vancouver offers to produce. So its pretty much the same lineup. All the boys from TRANSCENDENCE join in plus a few other notables from the Miami music scene. People popping in to see what’s up. “I hear Fishy’s back in town cutting a new album... is it true? You need backup vocals bro? Just let me know. A real family affair. Ex Norwegian is in there everyday checking up on things, acting as a sort of executive producer. Gene Genie is around us constantly with her camera and video camera capturing the whole affair. The workload is grueling. Ridiculously grueling. We are on the clock like we’ve never been before. Usually we have anywhere from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars to make an album. This time we were told we had five thousand. It was an impossible proposition. To promise to record an entire album for so little. And in so little time. Four weeks. Couldn’t do it. So we got permission to extend it to five.

The schedule was simple. We work everyday seven days a week till we drop. Sick or not sick we work. No breaks. Eat in the studio. No leaving for any reason. Record eleven songs from start to finish AND mix them. No way to keep up that schedule without help. Artificial stimuli. Brutally abusive to the body and nervous system. But no other way to make it happen. Up all night, up all day. No stopping. We got sicker and sicker. Vancouver’s in the bathroom throwing up. I'm running outside to throw up in between vocal takes. We’re getting sicker and sicker everyday. We all have the flu we think. So more artificial sustenance. Push through the pain. Conquer whatever ails us. At least that's what we think is the answer. Use turns into abuse turns into “I don't think I can stand up anymore. we’re going to have to record with me laying down a lot of the time bro. I just can’t stand up anymore. I don't know what's wrong with me.”

I'm chugging eight to ten energy drinks a day and five to ten cups of coffee. Plus various other things. Anything we can do to stay awake and keep the project on schedule. Vancouver is shooting down quarts of Cuban coffee to stay awake. And worse, all we are eating is sugar and fried Cuban sandwiches because that's all we can get delivered to the studio without leaving so we can keep on working. We hadn't had a fruit or vegetable in over a month.

He goes to the doctor. He's got walking pneumonia. He goes on antibiotics. His eyes are all closed up and swollen and he can’t stop coughing and sneezing and hiccupping and throwing up. I can barely stand up. can’t see straight. Can’t think straight. Can’t sleep either. Too tired to sleep. Too worried about the money this is costing. Too worried we aren't going to make the deadline and aren't going to be able to finish the album. So we step it up even further. By week five I'm flat out on the floor curled up on a blanket. Barely hanging on. I need to get to the hospital. First time in my life when I ever had that thought. Up until that point in my life I felt as though I were invincible. I could do anything I wanted to my body, ingest anything, lack anything, take anything, never mattered. I never felt it. Always woke up the next day or three days later and felt like me again. This time was different.

No more pretty little Eddie Darling. I'm starting to look like the old and fat Jim Morrison. Swolen and bloated. Tightened scrunched up face. Too much stress. I don't want anyone to see me. I tell everyone 'no more pictures. no more video taping. not until i get better.' This is pure madness. But we have to finish.

“Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital Fishy?” Vancouver asks me as I'm laying on the floor calling out mixing ideas to him.
“Dude, what the fuck? Are you freaking kidding me? And then what? And then we wait for me to get better? We don't even know what's wrong with me! It could take weeks. by then who knows what will become of this album. Nah man just keep going. Give me some of that Cuban coffee. Let’s just keep going.” I've been in situations where you start something and don't finish it before. There are many things I dislike. That is one of them. I have always pegged those sorts as weaker people. Not having or doing what it takes to complete a project. See it through. I don't want to hear about your book. I want to read it.

Felt like I had hit a wall. Literally. Only way I can describe it. Felt like my body had hit a wall and no matter what I tried, I just couldn't climb over it. It felt like an invisible wall. Bruised, battered, beat up, busted. I thought about Joe Gideon in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz. That moment when he realizes he's hit the proverbial wall and all the hard living has finally caught up with him. He's going to die. And there's nothing he can take for it. But i remained in complete denial and continued to attempt to take everything and anything to work my way through that wall. Or over that wall. Or around that wall. First time I was ever challenged like that. I was in shock. Where is my inner Dorian Gray? Have I truly lost my invincibility?

Misery is about the only word that comes to mind. But also joy. We knew we were making something special. Something beautiful.

In the long run I did end up in the hospital of course. And so did Vancouver. He on antibiotics for only God knows what kind of infection and me all curled up in the fetal position shaking, crying, moaning in agony for three weeks. Throwing up. In the bathroom every five minutes. Back to bed moaning, crying, writhing in pain. Exhaustion is what they call it. Among other things. There are things we never speak about in rock 'n' roll. That moment in Scorcese's The Last Waltz where Levon looks at Marti and says all seriously "I thought we we weren't going to talk about those kinds of things?" It's true. We never do. Not directly at least. Not until years later.

It wasn't pretty. It was an experience I hope never to repeat. Once is enough. But a funny thing happened. A few weeks into the recovery, my mom God bless her asks to hear the album. “If you got yourself into this bad of a condition let me at least hear why honey. I know you don't like playing your music for people before it comes out. But let me hear it.” She puts the CD on. I'm listening to it for the first time in two weeks after what seemed like an eternity of pain and agony and despair and many more horrible symptoms caused by irresponsible abuse of the human body. I can’t believe what I'm hearing. Vancouver has recovered and he has mixed the album. I start crying. No. More like sobbing. “We did it mom. We did it. Listen to that... wow. we did it. It was worth it... I'm gonna be o.k. eventually. But more importantly we did it... thank God. I was worried maybe that we were kidding ourselves... but we really did do it....” I pass out. I'm exhausted. But I'm happy and relieved.

Derek is all eyes ahead, scouting cool locations for the next batch of photos. Me and T holding back, shuffling along. More like strutting. As one tends to do when all dolled up and dressed to the nines for a photo shoot on a gorgeous though below freezing day such as this one. photo shoot strutting.
“Man I'm really worried,” T mumbles.
“Why what's up bro?”
“When I got the CD with the new songs I was so excited I listened to them everyday for weeks while you were sick. I was really worried about you. But I was so happy about how good of an album you made. And then my mom’s boyfriend heard the songs, and like, every song he had some critique to say. It kind of bummed me out. Why can’t people just like stuff without making some critique, without having to give their two cents?”

I look over at him and smile, “welcome to the art world dog. Get used to it.” You think listening to your mom’s boyfriend’s criticisms are bad? Wait till the album hits the press. It’s hit or miss bro. We could get smeared in the press. Do yourself a favor and never google yourself once this album comes out. If you can’t stomach it then just don't read the reviews... cause it’s a fucking toss up bro. They could crucify us. Easily. We took a big risk with this album. Fishy going all folky and shit. Who knows...”
“if that happens I'm going to get really depressed...” Little T says shuffling along staring at the ground beneath him.
“Listen. T. Seriously. Don't you have opinions about music? about other artists? You like Bob Dylan right?
“Yeah.”
“But you don't like Fifty Cent do you?”
“Hell no.”
“O.k. then. But plenty of people do. And I bet he likes his stuff. That's why he makes it. I bet he's even proud of it. Just like we’re proud of what we just created. you dig what I'm saying?”
“Yeah. But can’t we just hope that everyone likes it?”
“Yeah sure man. And we can hope that two beautiful girls fall from heaven right now and want to hang out with us and make love to us no strings attached. But chances are that's not going to happen.... hope all you want bro, but we aren't making music to be liked.”
“We’re not? I thought that’s what we WERE doing!”
“No bro. On the contrary. We’re making music because we love to make music. think about it. Think about how you feel when you put that album on in your iPod. How does it make you feel?”
“I feel better than I've ever felt in my life. I can’t believe we turned those poems into songs. I can’t believe we wrote them so fast. I can’t believe how good they sound. Really dude, when I listen to the album it makes my day. I wait all day to listen to it.... is that weird?”
“No little man. That's why we worked so hard to write those songs. And that's why I almost killed myself making the album. Dude we don't make art for other people. We make it for ourselves. We make it because we have a vision and passion and because we are inspired. There are plenty of other people who make music to be liked. Kanye West whines like a little bitch because he doesn’t win a Grammy for his album. As if that's why he makes music. Maybe guys like that make music to please other people, so other people like them. But artists, real artists don't do that. You feel what I'm saying?”
“Yeah. I know you're right. It would just be nice if all that work paid off....”
“Listen to me man. Maybe you don't know this. You met me now. only in the last five years. But the first concert I ever performed was for the Eddie album which came out when I was 18 years old. I played at the Fox Theatre for five thousand people. That year I never played a venue with less than five thousand people. that went on for about a year or two. Then my star died down a bit in the public eye. And its been up and down ever since. I haven't played a venue that large in years man. But that doesn’t stop me from continuing to make music. Why? Cause I fucking love making music. I love creating art. I feed off of it. My brain gets flooded with endorphins when I'm singing man. Whether its to five thousand people, or ten, or just to myself in my room at night. It doesn’t matter. And besides, there's the bigger picture bro....”
“What's the bigger picture?”
“We’re building something man. We’re creating a catalogue. A legacy. We’re creating a body of work. Think about that. A body of work. Of brilliant work that we love. Maybe only brilliant and special and beautiful to us. But still. It’s there forever.”
“I never thought about that...”
“Well think about it. What we do now bro will last forever. As long we keep doing it... the more we create the better the chances that something of it will last. Think Picasso. Think Mozart. Think Van Gogh. We aren't making music for the masses bro. Let Christina Agufuckinglera create music for the masses. We’re creating art for eternity. For our very souls. We’re creating art for our very survival. If we didn't make art what would we be doing?”
“I'd probably be back in a psych ward....”
“Yeah. Exactly. And I'd probably be dead or in jail for going mad and doing something stupid. You see? Our art sustains us. It gives us life and hope and joy and peace of mind.” Little T was smiling.
“You're really on today man,”
“Yeah, thanks. I'm starting to feel better and better everyday.... more like myself....”
“How sick were you anyway?”
“Sick bro. really sick."
"I sort of felt guilty about that. Like it was my fault for pushing you so hard to make the album..."
"Don't worry about that man. It wasn't you. I did it to myself bro. I needed to make the album as much as anything I'd ever done. And it was worth it. We did it. We really created something special. If I had it to do all over again naturally I would have taken better care of myself, but still, I wouldn’t have compromised my intention to get that album done with that ridiculously low budget and in that ridiculously short time frame. I would have done the same exact thing. Why?”
“Because you are insane?”
“Yeah. That's a given. But seriously... we had one shot. A lucky break. A chance to record an album in between deals with a distributor that hasn’t paid us in almost two years for our album sales. Fucking bastards. But you know how lucky we were to get this chance? We got the shot. In cases like that you do whatever the hell you have to to run with that ball and score that fucking TD. Period. If you die, even better. You die proud and happy and fulfilled.”
“You're insane. And morbid. But that's why I like you. You're the only person that understands things like this in my life Fishy.”
“Glad I can oblige little brother. Glad to oblige. But don't go chasing rainbows because of me dog. I've got some sort of voodoo angels protecting me or something. I've cheated life and death so many times... I don't know how I'm still alive. It’s like there’s some sort of magic bubble around me or something. But plenty of guys end up dead a lot younger or worse, they look like shit. All beat up from too much abuse, too much drinking, too many drugs, too much road. Not enough reality.... If I had the choice I'd rather die young and beautiful than live all fucked up looking... luckily I don't have to make that choice. At least not yet.”
“You're crazy! Do you mean what you say? Or do you just say it?”
“Both. I never mean what I say man. Unless I do. You know?”
“Unfortunately I think I do...”
“Good. Look dude. Just to recap so we don't lose track here. Look at it this way. You're a visionary. You're a gifted 15 year old poet with tons of talent. Visionaries create art because they have vision. They don't give a shit what people think. All they care about is fulfilling that vision. That's the goal. Fuck the people. Some are going to dig what you do. And some are going to think you're a total fucking talentless dweeb. Some are going to call you a sell out. And some are going to think you're the greatest thing since who knows what. And what's worse, most of the time you aren't ever even going to know who thinks what about you. And even worse than that, most people are not even going to ever know who you are. So you just hold your vision and stay a visionary. That's our job. That's what being an artist is all about. Success or no success. Money or no money. Sometimes sold out houses playing for five thousand people. Sometimes grungy old bars that stink of booze and cigarettes with no more than twenty people. Either way you're still a genius. A poet. A visionary. That's who you are. Stay true to that and you will never regret your life. Cause a life of regret is not a life worth living. Now let’s go strike some poses, look like the sexy bastards that we are, and take some pictures for this album cover.”

Learning About Che

Excerpted from this website: http://www.argentour.com/en/argentina_personalities/che_guevara.php

Nickname "Che" derived from Guevara's habit of punctuating his speech with the interjection che, a common Argentine expression for a friend or hey!

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born in Rosario, Argentina into a middle-class family of Spanish-Irish descent. Celia de la Serna y Llosa, his mother, had lost her parents while she was still a child. Celia was raised by her religious aunt and her older sister, Carmen de la Serna, who married in 1928 the Communist poet Cayetano Córdova Itúrburu. Guevara's family was liberal, anti-Nazi and anti-Peronist, and not very religious. With Celia's fortune, the family lived comfortably, although Ernerto Guevara Lynch, Ernesto's father, managed to spend much of it in his unlucky business ventures. In his youth Guevara read widely and among his reading list in the 1940s were Sartre, Pablo Neruda, Ciro Alegría, and Karl Marx's Das Kapital. He also kept a philosophical diary and in Africa 1965 Guevara planned to write a biography of Marx.

In 1953 Guevara graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, where he was trained as a doctor. During these years Guevara read Stalin and Mussolini but did not join radical student organizations. He made long travels in Argentina and in other Latin America countries. At the same time his critical views about the expanding economic influence of the United States deepened. In 1952 he made journey with his motor bike, an old Norton 500 single, around South America. The journey opened his eyes about the situation of the Indians and was crucial for the awakening of his social conscience. Like Jack Kerouac later in his book On the Road (1957), Guevara recorded his impressions in The Motorcycle Diaries. "The person who wrote these notes died the day he stepped back on Argentine soil," Guevara wrote in his diary. "Wandering around our 'America with a capital A' has changed me more than I thought."

After witnessing American intervention in Guatemala in 1954, Guevara radicalized and become convinced that the only way to bring about change was by violent revolution. He wrote in a letter to home: "Along the way, I had the opportunity to pass through the dominions of the United Fruit, convincing me once again of just how terrible these capitalist octopuses are. I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won’t rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated." In Guatemala Guevara met Hilda Gadea. They married 1955 and had one child. Guevara was arrested with Fidel Castro in Mexico for a short time. He had joined Castro's revolutionaries to overthrow the Batista government. In 1956 they loaded 38-feet long motor yacht Granma full of guerrillas and weapons and sailed to Cuba, landing near Cabo Cruz on December 2.


They made their base in the mountains of Sierra Maestra, attacking garrisons and recruiting peasants to the revolutionary army. In the areas controlled by the guerrillas, Guevara started land reform and socializing process. In spite of his chronic asthma, Guevara enjoyed the hard conditions and war. Land reform become the slogan, the "banner and primary spearhead of our movement" as Guevara described it in an interview, that made eventually peasants participate in the armed struggle. Guevara was respected by his men, although considered violent - he shot Eutimio Guerra who had cooperated with dictator Fulgencio Batista's army.

In the mountains Guevara met Aleida March in 1958, 24-year-old revolutionary fighter, and she became Guevara's second wife in 1959. He continued to write his diary and composed also articles for El Cubano Libre. A selection of Gurvara's articles, which he wrote between 1959 and 1964, was published in 1963 as PASAJES DE LA GUERRA REVOLUCIONARIA. For the media Cuba was a hot subject - New York Times, Paris Match and Latin American papers sent reporters to the mountains to make stories of the revolutionaries. At the same time when Guevara was in the mountains, his uncle was Ambassador to Cuba.

Guevara rose to the rank of major and led one of the forces that invaded central Cuba in the late 1958. After the conquest of power in January 1959 Guevara gained fame as the leading figure in Castro's government. He attracted much attention with his speeches against imperialism and US policy in the Third World. He argued strongly for centralized planning, and emphasized creation of the 'new socialist man'. In his famous article, 'Notes on Man and Socialism', he argued that "to build communism, you must build new men as well as the new economic base." The basis of revolutionary struggle is "the happiness of people," the the goal of socialism is the creation of more complete and more devoped human beings.

In a discussion on September 14, 1961 Guevara opposed the right of dissidents to make their views known even within the Communist Party itself. However, privately Guevara was critical of the Soviet bloc, but so was also Nikita Khruschev. When the executions of war criminals started Guevara acted as the highest prosecuting authority. The condemned were soldiers found guilty of murder, torture and other serious crimes. Because Guevara was a doctor, one of his friends once asked how he could work in such a position. Guevara's answer was like from Western movies: "Look, in this thing you have to kill before they kill you." In 1959 Guevara adopted formally the nickname Che and was granted honorary Cuban citizenship. He was visited by such intellectuals as de Beauvoir, and Sartre who saw in him the "most complete human being of our age". The most famous picture of Guevara was taken by Alberto Diaz Gutiérrez, known professionally as Korda. He declined to take royalties when the picture became worldwide icon. When a British advertising agency appropriated the image for a vodka ad Korda rejected the idea: he never drank himself," said the photographer, "and drink should not be associated with his immortal memory."

From 1961 to 1965 Guevara was minister for industries, and director of the national bank, signing the bank notes simply 'Che'. He traveled widely in Russia, India and Africa, meeting the leading figures of the world, among others Jawaharel Nehru and Nikita Khruschev. Guevara was also the architect of the close relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union. Although good relationships with Moscow become the cornerstone of Castro's foreign policy, Guevara followed the emergence of the Maoists. In 1965 Guevara made public his disappointments in Algiers and described the Kremlin as "an accomplice of imperialism". Guevara's dismissal from the ministry followed immediately on his return from Algiers.

To test his revolutionary theories Guevara resigned from his post as a politician. He had published highly influential manuals Guerrilla Warfare (1961) and Guerrilla Warfare: A Method (1963), which were based on his own experiences and partly chairman Mao Zedong's writings. President John F. Kennedy had Guerrilla Warfare rapidly translated for him by the CIA. Guevara stated that revolution in Latin America must come through insurgent forces developed in rural areas with peasant support. The is no need for right precondition for revolution - guerrilla warfare can begin the activities. In his last article, 'Vietnam and World Struggle', Guevara outlined his global perspectice for revolutionary struggle, and stressed the dual role of hate and love.

"And he did have a saving element of humor. I possess a tape of his appearance on an early episode of "Meet the Press" in December 1964, where he confronts a solemn panel of network pundits. When they address him about the "conditions" that Cuba must meet in order to be permitted the sunshine of American approval, he smiles as he proposes that there need be no preconditions: "After all, we do not demand that you abolish racial discrimination…." A person as professionally skeptical as I.F. Stone so far forgot himself as to write: "He was the first man I ever met who I thought not just handsome but beautiful. With his curly reddish beard, he looked like a cross between a faun and a Sunday-school print of Jesus…. He spoke with that utter sobriety which sometimes masks immense apocalyptic visions." (Christopher Hitchens in New York Review of Books, July 17, 1997) During his disappearance from public life Guevara spent some time in Africa organizing the Lumumba Battalion which took part in the Congo civil war. He was not happy how Laurent Kabila fought against Joseph Mobutu, although his first impression on Kabila was positive. "Africa has a long way to go before it reaches real revolutionary maturity," Guevara concluded in his diary.

In 1966 Guevara turned up incognito in Bolivia where he trained and led a guerrilla war in the Santa Cruz region. In his manual Guerrilla Warfare, Guevara had stressed that the guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area, it is an indispensable condition, but Guevara failed to win the support of the peasants and his group was surrounded near Vallegrande by American-trained Bolivian troops. "The decisive moment in a man's life is when he decides to confront death," Guevara once said. "If he confronts it, he will be a hero whether he succeeds or not. He can be a good or a bad politician, but if he does not confront death he will never be more than a politician." After Guevara was captured, Captain Gary Prado Salmón put a security around him to be sure that nothing happened. Guevara told him, "don't worry, captain, don't worry. This is the end. It's finished." (from the document film 'Red Chapters,' 1999) Guevara was shot in a schoolhouse in La Higuera on October 9, 1967, by Warrant Officer Mario Terán of the Bolivian Rangers at the request of Colonel Zenteno. Terán was half-drunk, celebrating his borthday. Guevara's last words were according to some sources: "Shoot, coward you are only going to kill a man." In order to make a positive fingerprint comparison with records in Argentina, Guevara's hand were sawed off and put into a flask of formaldehyde. They were later returned to Cuba. Guevara's corpse was buried in a ditch at the end of the runway site of Vallegrande's new airport. "Che considered himself a soldier of this revolution, with absolutely no concern about surviving it," said Fidel Castro later in Che: A Memoir.

Good Art Bad Art - Part II – Dancing in the Nude

So yes, here we were. Invited to welcome one of Iran’s most famous painters, Gizella Varga Sinai – married to the award winning and highly controversial filmmaker Khoshro Sinai – to the United States where she is facilitating a two week intensive on painting at a school in Connecticut. Best behavior. Eyes on the manners and etiquette. Revolutionary or not, she is still Muslim at heart. No insane ambassador shit Fishy. Mind yourself. Don't push it over the edge. Shit man, I flew over that edge twenty years ago. You know that. Yes, yes, I do. No truer words ever spoken. And everybody knows it. But she doesn’t. So at least pretend that you crash landed and survived and climbed back onto the ledge somewhere between here and eternity. That you are still halfway human, or at least semi-in-touch with reality. O.k. roger that. Will do. Will try at least. Good boy. Now go on and get. Let’s go play the game.

More than a mere welcoming committee we were to be, we were to accompany Mrs. Sinai to a live performance we were invited to by acclaimed choreographer Amy Greenfield that featured all-nude dancers performing in front of film and photography being flashed over them by Leonard Nimoy, while original music by Phillip Glass and John Zorn played in the background. Just another night in New York. And I mean that. At any given minute in New York City one has the opportunity to experience hundreds of such events. The city is raging with opportunity for these kinds of things. Every block is celebrity and spectacle. Perhaps we just get so accustomed to it that something really spectacular has to come in the mail to get us excited about attending. Reminds me of Oscar Wilde. Our lives in New York are one big Oscar Wilde dream. Cynicism invisibly walks beside us down our bustling crowded streets and jumps inside of us and possesses us in between sips of Starbucks and Jamba Juice. Not necessarily great, but certainly Gatsbys each and every one of us.

But this was different. I have long admired the work of Gizella Varga. Her painting is glorious. It is truly transcendent. And I looked forward to being in close contact with her, eye to eye, human breath to human breath, waxing philosophic about the arts. Poetry, painting, dance, theatre, literature, politics. I knew by studying her painting that she was a valid force to be reckoned with and this was one opportunity that I should not call in sick for and “work through” as I was accustomed to doing. My own work is more important to me now than it has ever been. So it is easy for me to rationalize not doing much of anything else other than spend as much time as possible to attempt to complete as much of it as I can while I am still alive. Art is, after all, life itself. Without art, there is no life. There is only living. And living is thoroughly boring. Unless of course it is lived artistically. Which brings us right back to the necessity to create as much art as possible while we are lucky enough to still be able to fog a mirror with our own breath.

Italian restaurant. Giant plates of antipasto. Huge. Radicchio, arugula, salami, Romano, mozzarella, duck sausage, olives, chicken stuffed with cheese and spinach. On and on. Bottle after bottle of wine. We spoke of many things. Compared the subtle beauty of the poetry of Hafez – Iran’s greatest claim to fame in that arena – to the complex intricacies of the wordplay of Vinicius De Moraes, perhaps Brasil’s most beloved 20th century poet. Iranian music. United States and Iranian relations was a big topic of discussion. Iranians are radical. They have to be. Death or prison is constantly knocking at their door. When it’s not, they know it will be soon enough.

In America we are a wee bit more secure. But only if we allow that all we hear is bullshit and propaganda and that nothing is real. We are awash in debt, sold out to China, out-sourced to India, and drugged up on prescription medicine too expensive for us to be able to actually afford, and hypnotized by celebrity. Reality television has become the new opiate for the masses. No more need for bread and puppets. And for good reason. Real life is just too damn sickening for most. Sit down. Stand up. Sit the fuck down. Pay your taxes. You don't have health insurance. Tsk tsk, shame on you. Don't worry, we’ll get around to that. One day. Not in your lifetime, but one day. Slap that back. Grease that pocket. Did you pay your taxes? Why don't you get married? Have some kids? Worship Britney. Now hate her. Now worship her again. Now laugh at her. Let’s kill Anna Nicole Smith. She's our bitch. She won't mind. We gave her fame and money and celebrity. She's ours for the taking. Read all about it. Get your very own copy of the New York Times today for only twenty dollars a week. Can’t afford it? Charge that shit man. Fuck it. Go ahead and CHARGE IT! Heath’s dead. Killed himself on prescription drugs. You're next. Don't worry. What’s that? That was Owen Wilson? Not Heath? But Owen only TRIED to kill himself. Heath was accidental. Oh that's right. No worries. He won every fucking award we could give him. It was worth it. Aint that America? You and me? Aint that America? Home of the free baby? Eat your Quarter Pounder. Drink your milk. Or your Budweiser. Or your “highest rated Vodka three years running.” Just do it! And don't forget to just do it in your sweat-shop-sewn Nikes so everyone knows you are one bad mothafucka.

How was the play Catherine? What's that? Ethan Hawke was sitting right behind you? Did you manage to snap a picture of him on your new 3 megapixel camera phone? Aw too bad. Maybe next time. Speaking of pictures, did you hear about all those poor people in Gaza? Yeah I know, what a shame. Too bad we can’t do anything about it. Hands are tied. We’re in up to our arses with Israel. Democracy be damned there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Another one bites the dust. And another one’s gone and another one’s gone. So buy that new CD, or magazine, or tabloid, or pack of gum, or new car, or refinance your over valued house so you can buy more stuff you don't need to relieve you of the burden of having to think about how truly fucking irrelevant and shallow our lives are here. And while you're at it, don't forget to donate to the ONE campaign to help those poor starving people in Africa. You'll get one of those cool rubber bracelets. Larry King wears one. You should too.

So yes. US Iranian relations. And painting and poetry and literature. The table confidently agreed that Italian was the most beautiful of all languages. I begged to differ, inviting everyone to actually listen to Portuguese one day. And despite their overt Frenchiness, French is still pretty freaking mellifluous as well. But German is the language of philosophy. Agreed. But still have no interest in becoming fluent in it. No reason why. Just don't like the way it sounds.

“It’s because you have seen too many propaganda films about Hitler. That's why,” she tells me. No. That's not it. Look, the guy was a murderous fuckhead bastard who killed millions of people. I'll give you that. But the American government killed over three million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and you don't see me refusing to speak English. Nah. I've been around long enough to be utterly immune to murdering fuckhead bastards. Even in my own country. Shit, we’ve killed over one million Iraqis in the last six years and Desperate Housewives is still the hottest show on TV beeyotch. Or 24, or Grey’s Anatomy, or Weeds, or 30 Rock. Truth be told as long as that wine, whiskey and song, and that TV and tabloid trash is still flowing we could give a shit. Hitler is nothing more to us than a good excuse to see Tom Cruise rake up another box office smash.

Good conversation. My head spinning. Too much wine too fast. Head to head with a sure footed and worthy fellow intellectual entirely confident from 60 plus years spent travelling the world as a respected and revered painter. My kind of gal. My kind of night. But what of this Leonard Nimoy in the nude tripping on acid performance art thing? We have to go now. Get your coat on. Let’s ditch this bitch and head out into the bright city lights of Manahatta.

We’re in the theatre. The lights have dimmed. It’s been minutes. Feels like hours. If I wasn't one of the guests of honor I would have bailed by now. I am going to fall asleep. Perhaps no one will notice if I pass out. You can’t bail bro. You know how rude that would be? Just sit here and act like a gentleman. Act like you are enjoying yourself. Act interested. Meditate with your eyes open if you have to. Never mind that I'm so bored I'm going to shoot my fucking head off and splatter my brains all over our guest from Iran. Easy for you to say. I'm the one who has to sit here.

The films are a blur of nakedness and boring light shows. I cannot believe this theatre is filled 213 people. I saw it on the sign when I walked in. Maximum capacity 213 persons. And for what? One of the dancers is running around the theatre dressed up as some sort of reject from the Star Wars franchise. All lit up like an android but naked. I feel like I am at Disney World. Bored. Tired. Slightly awed that people pay for this. That it even exists. I want to go home and write. I’d even take a bathroom stall. Just sit there with a pad and little pen and scribble ideas. Anything but another hour of this.

A naked woman writhes on the stage in front of us while another one reads from the Kabbalah into a microphone. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. It was that bad. Blurred images of more naked women running through the forest flash on the screen behind them while Dr. Spock himself mind-numbingly mumbles something about finding his spirituality through photographing naked women’s bodies. Well if that’s spirituality I must be a fucking saint or a Bishop by now.

This is New York at its worst. I glance over at Gizella and wonder what she is thinking. She has exhibited in every major gallery on earth over the last 40 years. What could she be thinking now. Her head nods. I knew it! She's going to fucking fall asleep. O.k. good. So can I then. But that repetitive music just keeps going and going. My God when will it end?

There is good art and bad art, I think to myself. But there is no way to qualify such ideas. It is truly all completely subjective. For all I know there are people in this theatre who think this is good art. I am no more right than they are. What is “right?” Exactly. Never been such a thing. Just idea-labels slapped onto things by consciousness fooling itself into thinking that it is awareness. No, art is art is art. Some you will like. Some you will not.

I contemplate Gizella’s paintings. All her different periods over the last fifty years. The fact that she is still so vibrant and alive and intellectually stimulating at her age. We agreed to start emailing in order to continue our dialogues, but only in Farsi. That way I learn faster. So I can better appreciate the poetry of Hafez, Sadi, and Rumi in their native language. I agree to turn her onto to all that is good and glorious about Brasilian and Italian song and culture. There is much to be learned. That was good. If anything came of this... plenty did... I now have a place to stay in Iran. Good respected people high enough on the totem pole that I am guaranteed to get in again. I tell her about my love for Esfahan. She shares it. But tells me that Yazd is actually prettier and quainter. I will go then.

At some point I blacked out. My body was there. My eyes still open. But I was adrift in another world entirely. Trying to justify what I deemed the rubbish being presented to our Iranian friend as art when she had combed the greatest museums in the world as an insider. Surely she must know that we are better than this. It was at this point that I realized the enormity of the contributions of America. Fully asleep in my own ruminations and entirely unaware of what was going on around me. I was reminded of Steven Spielberg. Of Woody Allen. Wes and P. T. Anderson. Of rock and roll. Jazz. Gospel. The automobile, the telephone, electricity, the fax machine, the CD, the personal computer, the first man to walk on the moon. This was America. We had contributed plenty. And perhaps one of our greatest contributions has just appeared over the horizon twinkling golden radiant light halfway around the globe.

Let all of the Bush bashing and fear mongering wash away like blood soaked sand on a deserted beach in the middle of the night. Let our cynicism and heartbreak of the last eight years slowly disappear into the recesses of our collective unconscious and forever be nothing more than a bad dream or a fading memory. Obama is our mama now and all the world watched as we proudly cheered our new leader smiling from ear to ear as he walked down that avenue to the new White House. A White House that will never be the same again. There was art aplenty in that day. His speech, the way he carried himself. His elegant and gracious wife. The centuries of reconciliation that the moment carried with it, the sighs of relief, and the promises fulfilled that may be lurking just around the corner. That was good art.

Good Art Bad Art – Part I - Agoraphobia

“Until recently, agoraphobia was defined as a fear of open spaces. It now also includes several other related fears, such as having a fear of entering shops, a fear of crowds and public places, or of anxiety associated with being unable to reach a place of safety (eg, home), in a quick enough time. In extreme cases, people with agoraphobia may be unable to leave their home.”

I know it well. Although considered and even berated by the elders in my prim and proper family growing up for being what they used to call “a social butterfly” I have long suffered from a severe resistance to leaving the confines of “wherever I happen to be.”

Now I know what you’re thinking. I travel more than most. Traveling is a big part of my living. Whether it be for music or research or activism I tend to be on the road more often than in town. That's true. Traveling is not my problem, though it used to be as the below will illustrate. Nah. It’s more of a reluctance to actually doing anything other than sitting alone and working.

It was 1 AM on Thursday night and all I felt was dread knowing that I had an engagement the evening of the following day. Not that I had anything remotely objectionable to do that evening. It was after all a social gathering that involved the most famous painter in Iran, the most infamous filmmaker in Iran, Leonard Nimoy of “Dr. Spock” fame, the composers Phillip Glass and John Zorn, and Choreographer Amy Greenfield. Along with a bevy of gorgeous dancers and models and the usual assortment of Manhattan socialites one expects to see at such affairs. But for the life of me I could feel nothing but dread with the knowing that I actually had to leave the house that evening. And here it was almost a full 24 hours before the scheduled event and I was lying in bed perspiring and tossing and turning just thinking about it.

Why? I have no idea. Been that way for years. Never even questioned it until recently.

There was the time I was booked to fly to Seattle from Miami and cancelled the day before. No need to name names, but it took almost a year for her to speak to me. Understandable. Just couldn’t bring myself to get the get up and go to actually get up and go. So I laughed in the face of an already booked airline ticket and just didn't bother to show up. Heartless. I know. On another occasion I was scheduled to speak at a friends wedding in Vermont and so dreaded the fact that I was supposed to pack a bag, hop on a plane and fly somewhere that I didn't sleep at all that night. I woke up and told my friend who was also flying out to the wedding that morning and who drove by to pick me up that “I wasn't going. I just don't feel like it.” Never quite got over that one. Took me years to get it into my bloodstream that I actually stood up the whole damn wedding party and respective family so I could “just stay home where it’s safe.” There was no excuse for it.

Perhaps it was laziness. Perhaps it was just the fact that I didn't care enough. Perhaps it was the associated hassle of having to do so much to get ready for the trip. I do find that when someone else is responsible for taking care of everything involved in booking the trip and getting me there, including accompanying me and making sure that I actually leave the house, that I'm usually fine. I am as plenty of my friends will readily assert an extremely social creature. Overtly social. So once I'm out I'm fine. (Except for the fact that all I can think about is leaving unless something truly spectacular is happening.) But the truth is that after one lives a few decades, and especially lives the way I have lived, and has pretty much seen and done it all, left no stone unturned, nor declined the offer to sample just about everything, that there just isn't much “truly spectacular” left to experience. And that's putting it about as honestly as I can. Now I grant you that I I have never actually witnessed a man copulating with a horse in real life, only on the internet. But that isn't going to get me dressed and out of the house. Perhaps aliens landing on the White House lawn would. If and only if I had a press or backstage pass.

There's just something about “having something to do” that bothers me. It gets under my skin and drives me crazy. I'll brood about it the whole day until I am forced to drag my sorry ass out. Late of course. As usual.

Had six appointments this week and canceled four of them. Well, not exactly. Going too easy on myself. Had six appointments this week and didn't even bother to call to cancel four of them. Now granted, I'm having a tough month. A tough year. Going through a rough patch so to speak. So I need to go easy on myself. That's what they say anyway. “They” always know. So I'm giving myself a break. But for how long? How long am I supposed to “give yourself a break” before it becomes enabling? Or just plain old and tired?

In 2007 I gave a party for a friend, invited a bunch of other friends, hosted it at another friend’s loft in Gramercy because at the time she had the most sprawling pad among us, and at the last minute I decided to bail on it. Little Dawn was furious. “Fishy get your lazy ass here now and help me prepare for this goddamn party now!” “Dawn how mad would you be if I didn't show? I'm tired.” “How the hell can you not show up for a party YOU are hosting? Fishy I love you. We’re friends. So I know you'll forgive me for saying this and appreciate my willingness to be radically honest with you. If you don't show up for your own party that you have conveniently decided to throw at my apartment I will never speak to you again! Got it buddy?!” “Yeah. Got it.” So eventually I reluctantly made my way there. And in the end it was fine. In fact, it was a damn good time and an important occasion to celebrate. It was the getting out of the house part that was hard for me.

The band has hated me for it for years. Every band I've ever been in actually. I was infamous for my tendency to be late to everything or cancel at the last minute. I used to cancel concert performances all the time simply because I didn't feel like leaving the house back in the college days when we were in the band Shattered. The drummer would be in his car on the way to the gig and I would call and tell him I wasn't going to show. A truly heinous action I know. The club owners used to hate us back in the college years. Problem was that we were one of the biggest draws in town when we did manage to play so they couldn’t say much except “don't ever do that again.” One club did ban us from ever playing there again. But that was a different story.

The “lateness” thing eventually came to a head on the fateful night of the official CD release party of our Sleep With You album. I was already in the city of Orlando, on an Avatar course. Mere minutes from the venue that we were to play that night. The band was driving up in a rented maxi-van from Miami. An almost five hour haul filled with our equipment. Short version, they got there with plenty of time to set up, eat, and relax before the gig and I was an hour late. And yet I was already in town and staying just a few minutes from the venue. Piano Man bitched me out so hard for that one that he threatened never to play with me again if I ever pulled a stunt like that. He pointed out that I was the only musician that he had ever played with, ever, that showed up to rehearsals late every time – even though the rehearsals were at my own house. True. Funny. Sad. But true. So I was forced to really take a look at it. What WAS happening? How the fuck could I be late to my own CD release party for a new album when I was already in the freaking town the concert was in? And the rest of the band got there in time with a five hour drive ahead of them?

Eventually I realized it had a lot to do with this whole reluctance to leave the safety of the house thing. Granted, I was staying at a hotel. Nothing feels safer to me than a hotel. Not my “house.” But hotels feel safer to me than just about anywhere else. Another mystery. I just like hotels. Everyone does everything for you. Your only job is to have a pulse. That I can do. Most nights anyway. Another mystery: Send me packing off 3000 miles away and I'm fine. Invite me to lunch half a mile away and thank Allah himself if I actually show up. But Piano Man’s insistence that I stop showing up late to everything really got me thinking. I finally came to realize that it just came down to motivating myself to actually get myself out of wherever I was... pure and simple. If I'm “here” wherever “here” is, I would rather stay “here.” Newton’s law of inertia or something.

“In New York we make plans so we can break them” we say. We have more to do in The Big Apple than anywhere else on earth. Our calendars are filled to the rim so escaping a prior engagement feels like a sunny day in January. There’s no explaining the feeling of relief when someone cancels on you at the last minute. It is as if one minute you weigh 300 pounds and in the next you feel as though you only weigh 150. Just because someone cancelled on you. Can’t explain it to someone who doesn’t live here. They wouldn’t do it. They would be shocked by it. We stand each other up for lunch, dinner, meetings, appointments, the ballet, symphonies, the Philharmonic, even weekend getaways. All so we can “just stay home and experience some quiet and get some peace.” New York does that to you.

I had an amazing day yesterday. I fell asleep the night before with the awe inspiring realization that if I reneged on a few promises to call some people back to “get together” that I didn't have one engagement that was absolutely necessary that day. It would take flying off the radar but I could pull it off if I really wanted to. I wouldn’t even have to change out of my bathrobe. Woke up early. 7:30 AM is early for me. By noon I needed some more coffee and to drop off some mail. Ever increasing clarity of thought coming at me from all angles over the last two months, I started getting the notion that I really didn't need to change out of my bathrobe if I didn't want to. We were in New York after all. Which roughly translates to “no one gives a shit what you do. Just keep moving or step aside.” Which is why so many of us live here I think. How else do you explain eight million people crammed onto an island 12 miles long by 2 miles wide? Living in our little shoeboxes that sell for roughly $1300 a square foot if “you got a good deal.” Yes. There is true peace and tranquility in a city that never sleeps and where the only thing that is demanded of you is that you mind your own business and stay anonymous no matter how well known you happen to be.

So downstairs and out into the loud raucous world of midday Manhattan I trekked in nothing but a woolly blue bathrobe, a pair of well-worn furry Hammacher Schlemmer slippers, and a pair of sunglasses to retrieve said coffee and drop off the mail. As suspected no one even blinked. “I could take this Gonzo effect seriously if I allowed myself to” I thought. How far could I take it? That was the question. We will see over the next few decades. One thing I have learned is that once you cultivate a certain proclivity for eccentricity there is no limit to what people are willing to accept from you. You could be stark raving mad, as I often suspect I am, and people will get used to it.

When I ordered my coffee the lady behind the counter, who happens to have a soft spot for me because unlike most of the rushed and hurried English speaking “just give me my fucking coffee and bagel” Manhattanites that she is used to dealing with, I speak Spanish with her and take the time to at least say hello, makes a comment about the fact that I am still dressed in a bathrobe and slippers and I'm in a coffee shop on Broadway at 12 o'clock in the afternoon. “I've got nothing going on today. So what the hell?” I replied and smiled. “It’s still a free world, sort of, right?” And she just laughed. That was that. Nothing. Chalk that up to one of the multitude of greatest things about Gotham City.


So what about the aforementioned grand affair that I was expected to show up promptly for this evening you ask? Well, truth be told, and I hate to admit it, it did indeed cause an influx of panic and dread so palpable in my entire being that by 3 PM I had to lay down and just breathe, knowing that I was expected to actually show up somewhere by 6 PM, and worse, show up “on time.” Why? I have no freaking clue. But at least I'm onto it. at least I know that this malady exists now. Rather than enabling it by not bothering to even acknowledge it or recognize it and rather just rationalizing it all the time using wit and charm, I am now fully cognizant of it and more importantly ready to tackle it.

I am reminded that most people I know do not seem to suffer from anything remotely similar. In fact, they normally feel honored when invited to such things. A friend says to me a few months back, “Fishy we know you aren't going to come and we feel guilty for inviting you to things knowing how uncomfortable it makes you to have to decline everyone so we just don't bother to invite you out anymore.” Well for fucks sake, don't do that I yell. At least allow me the courtesy to politely decline your invitations.

Catherine Darlington works her ass off all day, often times 12 hour days and still manages to see a Broadway play, a ballet, or have drinks or dinner with a friend almost every night of the week. Princess Little Tree will do just about anything if you just ask her. She's up for it. Weather Girl too. Has one of the busiest social calendars I've ever heard of. And perhaps that's all there is to it. Social events just don't do it for me anymore. Is Zeus himself going to appear in the sky and pull a laser light show out of his ass? Probably not. So why bother? Reminded of the late Hunter Thompson in the latter few decades of his life. Everyone knew he wouldn’t leave the comfort of his beloved Owl Farm. There was always a party happening at Hunter’s place. It’s just that you had to come to him. He never left. And for most people that was just fine with them. Hugh Hefner had and still has a similar ethic. Not only did he never leave his home, he made his home his office, running the entire empire out of his living room, demanded that everyone work out of HIS house, and hasn't changed out of his bathrobe in decades. Smart men. Good ideas. Life as art.

Remember. Try to remember. It's only wrong if you make it wrong. Choose to make it right. Love it and live it. One life. Live it as art. Every moment. You are an artist. Be an artist. Make love to the entire world from the comfort of your own private world if you have to, but whatever you do just don't forget to make love. There is art in it.

iPhone, Blackberry, or Palm? - or Why We Love the iPhone but Don't Use One

A lot of talk lately about the new Palm Pre PDA/Handheld. Stuff Magazine claims it might be THE phone to kill the iPhone. Not that one cares or should care about such things... except that Apple dominates right now in so many areas and still manages to suck ass in a lot of the areas they dominate in. Case in point: our dead iPods that DO NOT come with replaceable batteries. (I have a 60 gig iPod that will not even turn on anymore that is only 2 years old.... sad little thing.) Once an ipod hits the 2 or 3 year mark they just stop working and won't recharge. Buy a new battery you say? Yeah, great idea. Except that Apple doesn’t offer that. So you either throw it away or call Apple to see what you CAN do. They tell you that for $168 they will “fix it” or send you a “refurbished and reformatted” ipod. They DO NOT guarantee that they will send you YOUR ipod back. So that's that. Your ipod is history.

ipod pricing has come down so much that you can now buy the same ipod that you paid $500 for two or three years ago for $200. That's not a bad thing. But it does make their $168 fee to fix your dead battery or give you a refurbished replacement a negligible solution. Now you might as well buy a new one. And get used to it. Because you'll be doing that every 2 or 3 years. Great idea guys. Now that's innovation.

A buddy says to me the other day, “dude can I use your charger for my ipod again?” I'm like “what? you just used it last night...” He’s like “yeah I know but it only holds a charge for an hour or less now... do they have a new battery I can get for this?” “Nah man. You send it in for $168 for them to send you some used one...” “But I only paid $150 for this new,” he says. “yeah, welcome to the world of the ipod.”

And that's just the grand finale rape scene that leaves you weeping when you exit the theatre. Forget about all the kicking biting scratching punching and beating you take before that trying to use the damn thing.

A friend says to me a few weeks ago while looking for a song, “God I hate scrolling like this! It drives me crazy. Isn't there any other way to find a song or an artist?” “Nope. Nice huh?” Looks cool, but they cost three times as much as they should and will drive you absolutely crazy if you try to use it. Hey wait a minute! That sounds like something else... what is it??? oh that's it. Apple computers themselves. But let’s not even go there yet.

So I call Apple one day. “Hey there. I probably loaded about ten new albums into iTunes this weekend and I want to be able to see those new albums on my ipod after I synch. How do I do that? “I'm sorry sir. You can’t.” “What?!!! You're telling me that there is no way to sort according to most recently added so I can see the newest music that I have on my ipod???!” “No sir. Good idea though. We haven't come up with it yet.” “O.k. well then take it. It’s yours. Consider it a freebie.” Crazy fucks. Have they never used an ipod themselves? Do they keep a list of the newest music they loaded in on their iPhone or something? Or perhaps scrawled on a piece of paper in their pocket?

[truth be told we did create a solution, a lame one, but this will do till they let you sort your music on the ipod in a variety of ways AND even let you create customized sorting configs as they SHOULD. Here’s the fix: You will have to create ENDLESS playlists in iTunes on your computer called “New Music 1, 2, 3,” etc and then drag your newest music over there. That's the best they got. But even that sucks because the ipod DOESN’T LET YOU SEE WHAT THE NAME OF THE FREAKING ALBUMS OR ARTISTS ARE IN PLAYLISTS!!! All you see is the name of a song!!! So you just have to scroll and scroll and scroll through these freaking playlists clicking on each song every few seconds to see who it’s by or what album its from... it is truly an abomination in functional engineering, despite its technological advances.

So the iPhone... yes oh yes oh yes. just typing the name of it gets me drooling. Sure I want one. Is it not the coolest thing since a convertible BMW with Techtronic transmission and turbo power? Hell yeah it is. But its fraught with problems in functionality for power users. So they end up with Blackberries or Palm devices still. Wannabe hipsters and newbies to the handheld world are flocking to get their hands on iPhones. And for good reason. They’re cool as shit and have tons of nifty features. Now granted, most of them are just tricked out innovations taken from Palm (see forum dialogues below) but still, there is nothing like your first double-fingered view-expand on an iPhone. A truly chill-producing experience.

So what's the problem? Why do the majority of longtime handheld power-users still use Palm devices or their beloved Crackberries? Well mainly because they actually do practical things with their handhelds besides talk on the phone, surf the net, or show their friends how cool their phone is. In fact you almost never see people holding the most powerful Palm out there, the TREO, showing it off. Because they're too freaking BUSY -- USING it. They don't have time to show you photos from their trip to Disney last week or a blurry photo they snapped that day they spotted Al Pacino in the park. Though the Treo holds and records thousands of photos and videos and mp3s too, it just isn't the main use for the device. [mine also currently holds 16 bi-level dictionaries for 8 different languages, a voice recorder to capture new songs I hear in my head, a world atlas and maps, a metronome, amortization calculators, the internet, Facebook, texting, endless storage using portable and swappable SD cards, a GPS, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, and 168 file folders about just about everything I need access to when on the go.] [Note: iPhone’s feature plenty of these and more. for the record.]

Here’s the glitch: For most power-users of handhelds, they need real-world, business-related, practical tools to surf through their baddass entrepreneurial life. Not a fancy looking gadget. Though blackberries now look as cool as anyone could possibly want. (I wish the Treo looked as cool as Blackberries do now... sigh). But alas there is a reason why the Treo still remains the most expensive Palm-based handheld on the market these days, coming in at a steal for $500. Twice the cost of an iPhone. But worth every penny.

And that's because one can basically do anything they’ll ever need with the Treo. Of course it looks like the new Pre discussed below is going to shoot it out of the water. But it appears that Sprint has a lock on it for now, which means that those of us with other services are SOL for the time being.

Speaking of SOL, that reminds me of when a good friend went out and bought his new iPhone and got all excited only to learn that he was then stuck with ATT phone service forever and got transferred to Europe for his job and now cannot actually use his iPhone... That's Apple in a nutshell. Nothing wrong with ANY company dominating a market if they're awesome and deliver the goods. But deliver the freaking goods already.

A caveat for diehard Apple lovers: this is not a diss on Apple. I used to LOVE Apple. My very first three computers were Apples. And I will be the first to admit that Gates and crew stole Windows from Apple. Windows is just a cheaper less stable version of Job’s and Wozniak’s brilliant software ideas. Gates and company were shrewd and some might even say very intelligent businessmen. Jobs and Wozniak were brilliant visionaries who didn't see these shysters coming and got a royal screwing out of many of their brilliant ideas. Duly noted. I also freely admit that for music and graphics and design and video and most other professional applications I would never and don't ever go PC. They also just offer a more stable environment without all the crashes and hiccups that Windows is so famous for. Granted. [Windows WAS getting better until the disaster they currently call “Vista.”]

BUT I will say this and then back to the Handheld issue: I often find myself in the position of being hired to help people choose and purchase new computer systems for their home or office. And besides the triple the cost price point of Apple computers, the machine has two other major drawbacks: one, all the software is proprietary and expensive and by the time aforesaid client has pimped out their computer with everything they’ll need to actually use it, they're looking at dropping at least 4 G’s. Which is about 3 times the cost of a Windows based machine.

The other major drawback is this little issue: what happens if there is something wrong with your Apple computer? Will a tech come out to your home or office and fix it? Nope. Not a chance. YOU will have to go to them. Can you imagine? In 2009? Taking your computer in to get looked at and waiting for a few hours or days to get it back? I'd rather have hot lava poured down my throat and swallow than lose a whole day of work. Or five as the case might be. Imagine all these poor innocent people trekking their computers to a store to get it fixed and leaving it there and not being able to work... when with a Dell PC for example you can actually just give them a ring and a guy shows up in a van the next day and completely fixes your computer for you no matter what's wrong with it. That's what life in the 21st century SHOLD look like. I will trade all the bells and whistles and cool looking interfaces in the world ala Apple for the ability to KEEP WORKING on my computer and not have to drag my ass off to some store because Apple hasn’t managed to master the art of customer support.

A good friend of mine has a “power” problem with her Apple notebook right now. The Apple geeks can’t fix it without her spending hundreds of dollars. And now they are telling her she will need a whole new motherboard or something crazy. So she's resigned to dealing with it or buying a whole new laptop. So the machine keeps crashing all the time or just shutting down right in the middle of her work and she loses it all... I feel bad for her – what can one even say to console someone in this predicament?... I had a similar issue last year and a Dell technician came out to my apartment and had the entire power section of the motherboard replaced before I was even out of my bathrobe. For free. I offered him a bagel and a cup of Joe to go. The least I could do.

We live in a hard-working multi-tasking gone-mobile world and we need our computers 24/7. Not just when Apple can get around to fixing them. A room full of so-called “Apple Geniuses” is absolutely no use if one cannot get access to them without wasting their whole day. That means COME TO US. Period. Or go back to watching your Star Trek reruns and shut the fuck up about offering good customer service.

Poor little Boo Boo Kitty, another friend of mine, made the switch to an Apple and the first day she was so excited by “how cool” it looked. But in order to actually use the machine, she was at the Apple Store on Fifth avenue in NYC everyday for months... she finally gave up and went back to a turbo-charged Dual Processer Quad-Screen PC that covers half her wall and has been happy ever since. Primarily for two reasons: one, because there was just too much that the Apple couldn’t do that she was already used to. Like run Outlook effectively as a power-user. And two, the “Geniuses” at the Apple Store couldn’t figure out how to help her. So they regretfully but gladly refunded her just so they could get rid of her.

Some of us, in fact most highly effective ambitious ass-kickers, work live and breathe out of a little something called Microsoft Outlook. Not that we think it’s the shit. (Because it’s not. There are plenty of fixes they need to make in Outlook! And often times we the users seem to know more about running the app than the technicians in India you get on the phone...) It’s just that Outlook happens to be the best out there right now. And Apple has so many known glitches with being able to run Outlook properly that it’s only a matter of time before someone either goes postal in some Apple store or they simply switch back if they are accustomed to using Outlook to manage their busy schedules.

I would be lost without my Palm. I'm out of town more than in town and even when in town I would have no clue what the day expected me to do without Outlook running on my Treo. Nor would I be able to have access to an ever growing database of thousands of contacts and respective files associated with those contacts. One day I will retire to a big ranch out west... my heart longs for the day when I will no longer live out of a little metal electric device in my hand all the time.... but that day has not yet arrived. So I live in and out of something called Outlook run on a Palm handheld.

(Apple will try to get you to switch to Entourage to replace Outlook, but google that nightmare app and you’ll see that people hate it so much that it’s a wonder that they still bother to make it.)

Which brings us back to the iPhone and handhelds in general. Google the phrase “Apple iPhone does not sync with Outlook” and you'll get the picture fast enough. The iPhone is just not quite setup well enough yet to truly sync with Outlook seamlessly. And without being able to sync your handheld with your computer you're screwed. You CAN JUST use your handheld as your main scheduling and database tool... as many do... but what if you have a major database task that requires a few hours of work? Are you going to do all of that on your iPhone? No. You're going to do that on your computer and then want to sync your phone to it. And what about scheduling? What if you have ten twenty thirty forty scheduled events, to dos, appointments, repeated events, etc each week? Are you going to do all that scheduling on your little iPhone? Nope. You're going to want to do it on your computer OR your handheld -- and do it interchangeably -- and then sync it to your handheld and have it all seamlessly appear there. With NO duplication (that takes a smart program – Palm has it mastered. Apple doesn’t.)

What if you want to take a look at someone's file you’ve been working on for a week while you're on the phone with them up on some mountain top? Did you do all that on your handheld? Hell no you didn't. You did it on your computer. A lot of typing, a lot of copying and pasting, and note-taking while on the phone perhaps etc... and you did all of this on your computer. And THEN you sync it to your handheld device and voila their entire file is right there next to their name on your phone while you're standing on some beautiful mountain. Go ahead, email it to them wirelessly from that same handheld from 4000 miles away so they can review it and get back to you while you climb another peak. It’s possible. But without Outlook none of that is possible. Not seamlessly at least. Not yet...

And lets not forget the most important issue. BACK THAT SHIT UP. In other words, if you're doing all your scheduling, event planning, database management, etc on your phone only and you lose it on said mountaintop, then what? You didn't sync to Outlook on your computer because you own an iPhone. So you lose it all... “oh well” seems to be the answer I hear from most people after they’ve gone bald from puling all their hair out.

Personally I hope it is sooner than later that the iPhone either becomes as functional for business users or Palm gets as kick ass and cool as the iphone. I love the look of the iPhone. Though I can’t tell you how many people abhor that weak excuse of a touchscreen thing they call a qwerty keyboard. That's going to have to change too. Touchscreen qwerty keyboards just don't do the trick if you text and type all day on your handheld. Unless you are a dwarf and have really small fingers. I hear dwarfs love typing on the iPhone. They're the only ones though, so far.

Bottom line, if you sit behind a desk all day and primarily work from a computer, you can probably do just fine with an iPhone when you're occasionally out on the town. It looks cool. It’s a fine phone, plays mp3s like an iPod, even offers you maps, the internet, email, texting, photos, and video. But if you're running all over the world and need to be reminded what your next appointment is and don't want a giant laptop hanging on your back, then Palm or Crackberry is still the way to go. For better or worse. Functionality my friends is still the key. One day Apple will get that.

Perhaps all of this is for naught and the iPhone will one day come together and be the baddass kick-butt device that newbies, techies, business people, and power-users all collectively dream of... I hope so.

Or perhaps the new Palm Pre will take a bite out of the iPhone so they aren't so nauseatingly ubiquitous. See some forum posts below from YouTube regarding the iPhone versus the Palm Pre. Interesting stuff....



otterboxiphone (10 hours ago) Show Hide
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Hmm, I love my iphone and itouch but they are not simple to use. It's good for tons of stuffs except for business-related activities (calendar, to do,...). Palm is better from this standpoint, I have to admit.

TOTALLY agree! iPhone is cool. that's for sure. But for business apps --real life stuff -- PALM is still the way to go. Too bad because i would love to have all the practical application of PALM with the cool features of iPhone in ONE PHONE!!!! Why can't ONE company comprehend this?

wyguy1209 (15 hours ago) Show Hide
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i have an iphone and i LOVE it. but im happy for plam. FINALLY i phone to keep up!!! or even beat the iphone. the reason im happy because now apple will have to create the next iphone to be better than the pre. so...the next iphone will be a great upgrade and then palm will create something better. Consumers win!
p3t3b2 (16 hours ago) Show Hide
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Look at it this way, if Apples patent is certified Palm can simply change the name pinch/zoom to squeeze, Although I am not sure what Palm calls theirs. That is how narrow Apples claim is, that is one example. Basically Apple was not given a patent on multi-touch, they were give a very narrow patent on a certain swipe not swiping and zooming in general.
zsmorr92 (17 hours ago) Show Hide
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I did see that, Palm could literally do tiny little tweaks to the Pre and avoid most of Apple's arguments. Apple however cannot escape palm's. I'm gunna buy some palm stock in hopes that Palm does win this.
p3t3b2 (17 hours ago) Show Hide
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Go over to engadgetDOTCOM and read their in-depth analysis, Apple has been overstating what their patent(s) actually cover. Upon further review of the engadget article it is clear that Apples multi-touch claim is very narrow and that Apple infringed on many of Palms patents with the iphone. IF Apple decides (no indication yet only speculation) to press forward with a lawsuit they have much more to lose.
zsmorr92 (18 hours ago) Show Hide
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Its not over yet my friend, iphone infringes on many of palm's patents as well, this will be a war of epic proportions lol. Only one problem being that palm is so close to extinction that apple MIGHT be able to drive them to the grave... I wish palm luck, I too will be buying this phone.
igor86SRB (21 hours ago) Show Hide
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omg i must buy this phone ! xD
Wankerlito (1 day ago) Show Hide
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it's official folks the patent has been awarded as of January 26 2009 and wow I'm really amaze how palm dared to copy most of the features the iphone has. Hahahaha. So what will happen now?

The Origin of BED PEACE 2008

The problem was how to celebrate New Years Eve respectfully with all of the recent violence, turmoil, and humanitarian crises happening around the world, especially the brutal battle going on in Gaza and Palestine. To do the usual party to party scene all night just didn't seem appropriate at the time... considering... the idea just grew from there... from that original thought... Then it just came down to if we had the energy and the commitment to really do something. That's what it always comes down to isn't it? The idea was how much can we do if we focus 110% on peace in the world for four solid days and nights? That was the question.


Luckily I was with someone who, though she thought I was slightly mad, was willing to go along for the ride. That night of the day when we first talked about it I didn't sleep a wink. I tossed and turned all night long. I kept getting up and leaning over onto this night table and scribbling notes onto scraps of paper all night because I was dreaming of this thing the whole time I was lying there trying to sleep, sort of half awake half asleep. It was rolling through my mind like a movie. All I could think about was ‘what if we do nothing? I mean, what if we just sit here and talk and do nothing and all these people are getting killed every minute of every hour?’

The next morning I was exhausted from not sleeping but also energized. Princess Little Tree made a comment over coffee “Boy when you do stuff you really do stuff, huh?”

“Well, uh, yeah, I mean, that's how stuff gets done.”

“But this was just an idea you had and now it’s turned into this giant thing... and you're really going to go for it?”

“Yeah I know. Sorry about that. But look, it’s either this, or we’re jumping on a plane and heading to Israel today to see what we can do. Cause I don't think we can just sit here. I think I'll go freaking mad if we do.”

Miraculously she agreed. She was actually the one who had made the comment “I just don't think it’s appropriate to go to parties and celebrate on a night just because that's what we’re supposed to do and try to pretend that this isn't happening in Gaza. It feels wrong.” That comment shook me to my core. It was like someone was calling me to walk my talk.

Next thing we’re guzzling coffee and heading out into the city to go shopping and I'm carrying this giant shopping list I made that night in my sleep of all these things we would need. Posters, markers, balloons, flowers, candles, pajamas, flags of all the countries where there was conflict, food to keep us alive for four days... wine, tea, chocolate, extra batteries, film, it went on forever.





As with all things that seem providential or fated, it is hard to even remember the original impetus for the project, that singular moment of discovery... Looking at it now, seeing the footage, and remembering that we spent four solid days and nights doing nothing but working on this project to create peace in the world in whatever little way we could, that seems like an odd thing to say. But it’s true. It was certainly not planned.

There was the moment when we both had this realization that a night spent party hopping just didn't seem right. And then another moment when we both discovered that recently we had seen something about the 40th anniversary of John and Yoko’s infamous first Bed-In for Peace. We were in a car or something. “WE could do a Bed-In you know,” I casually mumbled without looking over. Just staring straight ahead watching the hills and giant fir trees pass us by. “I mean, not invite the press or anything, it’s your home and all, but just make a shit load of calls, voice our concern, film it, learn as much as we can, share it with the world...” My mind began ticking from there... “We could pray a lot. We could meditate on peace a lot. We could take every action that we take for peace for a few days. Even celebrate peace... It’s better than not doing anything...”


What we did know was that the world was already starting to go a bit mad from these sudden attacks on the people of Gaza and we could see both sides. Smack dab in the middle. Plenty of Jewish friends who lived in Israel and plenty of Muslim friends who live in what will one day be called Palestine. There was no SIDES except the human side... and there was a lot of bloodletting happening on the human side. And people were going to get pissed. That was a given.

This was going to manifest as hundreds of angry tirades on YouTube and GoogleVideo and Facebook and MySpace and the news. Angry tirades never got anyone anywhere. It usually just leads to more death and violence. As angry as I was there was going to be no angry monologue into that YouTube camera. Not this year. We needed to rise above the whole thing. Attempt to transcend it without losing sight of the fact that it was really happening. That was the key. Oftentimes when we feel helpless around something, we do nothing. That's too bad.

But the times they are ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changing.... more and more of us are doing things now. Taking action. Whatever it is. Young and old. The world has changed. People have changed. Humanity has changed. Busy or free, rich or poor, people are taking action. Barack and Michelle worked their asses off. But the people got them into the White House. I think that was a pivotal moment for much of the planet. I've got a whole roll of film I took of the freaking TV screen the night he won the election. I was in the recording studio. I didn't know what else to do but just snap pictures of the TV as if aliens had just come down to earth from Mars or something. So I just took a ton of pictures of the television. Yes. That was a moment.

Things had been bubbling up for years from the underground. Activism had become hip again. Volunteering had become cool. Giving had become cool. It’s funny. This was the nature of a blog post I had written back in 2002. In fact it was the very first blog post I ever wrote here. It was about precisely that. http://www.tuneinturnonhelpout.org/about-us/

The theme of it, the reason I wrote it in the first place, was to say that we must find a way to make giving and volunteering and activism cool and to make people in the public eye feel foolish or ashamed if they didn't partake. It isn't enough just to live here anymore. We need to attempt at least to make it hip to do good things and to encourage -- especially people of note and celebrity -- everyone to do it. Regardless of what they have going on in their personal lives. I was tired of people coming on TV pitching their newest product. The magazines and tabloids all about what so and so was wearing to some gala or event. For what?

Well I obviously wasn't the only one. Bono turned pitching products into an actual way of giving back with his RED campaign. One elegant bastard with that move. Bill Gates tells the story of witnessing Bono receive this epiphany over ten too many pints in a bar one night. And he then turns around and donates 20 billion dollars to various charities with his Gates Foundation. A few years later, in fact quite recently, Warren Buffet promised the Gates Foundation an additional thirty billion dollars of his own personal stock pile. Being rich and successful is no longer enough. In fact its downright dishonorable if practiced solely for fame and fortune. Giving has now become the in thing. The impetus for that original blog post back in early 2002 was my reading about Ted Turner giving away ONE BILLION dollars to the UN for humanitarian aid. One billion dollars. That seemed like a lot back then. Ted is a crazy old coot. But he's a good hearted one. That was seven years ago. I'm still blogging in the same place. Same URL. And Ted Turner has now given away literally billions more dollars to charitable causes.

And yes things have changed. Immensely. As I was about to close, for whatever reason, the Bush-Cheney administration came to mind. “So where exactly do these buggers come into the picture if things have changed so much?” was the thought. I mean they don't exactly fit with the picture we’re talking about do they? They seem almost shadows of an old world that most hope to forget about for a long, long time. But it reminded me of this theory that floats around in consciousness... it is something about the need for the opposite extreme to play itself out before we can boomerang back to a more balanced enlightened middle. Sort of that old adage “You’ve got to make a slight mess if you're really going to clean things up.” This is just about the only thought that kept me sane the last eight years.

The idea that there were still a few people who actually needed to see some people really foul things up before they got on the bandwagon and we set about to really making the world a better place. So that takes care of that. It can’t get much worse than it is now. They certainly did their job. We’re left with one foul mess. But we have hope. Real hope. And we have a world, however tattered and torn and frayed and battered, that for once appears to be ready to unite to create real positive change for everyone from every nation. BED PEACE 2008 was nothing in a larger scope. We know that. But it was an action. Perhaps at this point that is all we can ask of ourselves... just to do something.... anything. Little by little we’ll get there.

The God Delusion Illusion

IN the last few years there has been a small uproar in the religious and scientific communities, and the suburbs, throughout America over the publication of many books about whether or not a “God” exists. It is a very old, though newly dusted off and refreshed for the modern masses version 2.0 argument brought about by books such as “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins and “The Language of God” by Francis S. Collins. Consider these the umpteenth remakes of old Hollywood Classic arguments. Some of these authors attempt to disprove the existence of a God. And some of them try to prove it. Neither successfully.

I find the whole trend as fascinating as I do annoying. I can’t get my head around why anyone in their right mind would dedicate the necessary time required to read a few hundred pages written by a man they don't know about why he doesn’t believe in “the God concept.” If a girl down the block wrote a book about why she doesn’t believe in big foot, would we care? We have been talking and writing about why we do or don't believe in the God concept for thousands of years. We have also invented thousands of names for this God, whether real or imagined. And through the millennia we have invented hundreds of religions and religious and ceremonial practices around these various Gods. None of which have ever helped us in our pursuit to prove or disprove these Gods’ existence.

We can no more debate with any degree of success the existence or non-existence of a “God” than we can the equally evasive concepts of “the ego” or “the id” or “the sub-conscious” or “the afterlife” or “the soul.” They are all intriguing concepts but neither provable nor disprovable. Ideas such as reincarnation, human beings having “souls,” astral projection, near death experiences, a spirit world, the list goes on and on. The minds of human beings are filled with ideas and concepts that remain no more than that: ideas. Ideas are not necessarily bad things. But they certainly are not real except in the fact that we may or may not be able to one day measure their existence with brain scans or more advanced technology. Even when we are able to prove the existence of ideas themselves, which we inevitably will at some point in the future, that does not imply that we will be able to do much more with them other than to know that so and so has one. It certainly will not mean that we or he or she will be able to prove their idea has any merit or truth to it.

It always annoys me a tad when someone tells me that they are feeling a little unbalanced and are thinking that they “might need to get their chakras aligned.” A good friend told me a few months ago that a psychic told her that if she worked really hard and mediated everyday she could have her “fifth chakra” balanced and empowered within five years. I was aghast. She made the comment so casually, with such certainty and conviction, as if chakras were as well-researched and proven a commodity as bread or milk or cheese.

Of course there are also vampires, ghosts, werewolves, and angels too. Brilliant ideas. Interesting ideas. But hard to prove or disprove. So most simply don't go there. Though some do. Vampires have been all the rage for hundreds of years. And angels for thousands of years. Though no one has yet to capture one with their cell phone and post it to YouTube. That will certainly be the day for us all. Talk about “millions of views.” Think of the instant celebrity for that lucky bastard.

The idea of a Loch Ness Monster captivated my attention for at least a day or two when I was a youngster, but I certainly wouldn’t read a book by someone now trying to prove or disprove the existence of a Loch Ness Monster. Now if someone manages to yank one up out of the deep one day, I'll be the first to forward that news link to friends and family the world over, but until that fateful day, I just have no interest in listening to someone pontificate about it.

By the end of my sophomore year in college as a budding young philosophy major I resolutely decided I was done being a philosopher. Or better put, I would be a philosopher for life, but I was done majoring in the art of debating the improvable. Much to my professors’ disappointment. They thought I would make a fine philosopher. But I switched majors to World Literature which I felt offered me a little more in the “real” department ironically enough. In those first two years we were introduced to many fine concepts. “Freewill versus determinism, the understanding of fallacies, the proper use of a killer syllogism. It was valuable learning. But I still did not think the study of things improvable was a worthy pursuit for a life well lived. At least not my own.

One of the assignments I remember that really nailed the coffin shut for me was when we were studying the philosophical dilemma of trying to prove whether or not WE existed or not. This is in academic circles a very real and seriously taken philosophical dilemma and one that hundreds of thousands of books and papers have been written about; both trying to prove and disprove the theory. Descartes attempted to prove this ancient dilemma by proclaiming “Cogito, ergo sum,” “I think, therefore I am.” One of the most famous philosophical utterances of all time. And one that many a man has used to prove to himself that he does indeed exist. (Which is of course inherently a joke in and of itself. If you are trying to prove anything to yourself, chances are YOU probably fucking exist. So leave it alone already.)

If I had stayed a philosophy major I would have proven my own existence to my professor by simply walking up to him and slapping him in the face a few times and asking him in the process if I existed or not. We can safely assume that eventually he would have had to give in, proclaim my existence to get me to stop slapping him, and given me an A in the process.

When people ask me, both religious and non-religious alike, how I can feel this way and still claim to be “spiritual,” have faith in a God, and regularly practice a religious faith tradition – currently a Christian-Buddhist fusion – I respond by saying “How can you practice being an honest, moral, good decent person without knowing or being able to prove with certainty that it’s necessary to be this way? You ARE an honest, decent, good, moral person aren't you?” Many attempt to live this way. One would wish that more did... But still, many do, and for what reasons specifically other than that it simply feels like the right thing to do? What more can they say? We have no proof that there is any real need to be honest or moral or kind or decent or ethical. Nor can anyone for that matter give a real proof regarding why they might be spiritual, religious, or attempt in their daily lives to connect with a higher power in the universe.

Of course I also tell them that I love, cherish, and have a very close and special connection and relationship with a God. Or at least I BELIEVE I do. And therefore I believe in the “God concept.” But that connection and the inherent belief in it that follows is very hard to even fully fathom, let alone put into words. And it is certainly not something I can prove to anyone other than to relay certain stories or anecdotes from throughout my life that have seemed to be slightly peculiar or coincidental, serendipitous, transcendent, synchronistic, providential or Divine in some way.

One day a few years ago a pastor that I admire and look up to very much commented that “One does not find God. God finds us.” He asked us to stop and think of the ramifications of this idea in our own lives for a moment. Besides the fact that I nearly idolize this man, for his insight, his brilliant mind, his passion for the Divine in all things, his tender open heart, and his example as a human being, I still found his statement and question very apropos to my own personal experience of “God finding me.” It was, in essence, exactly what happened to me. Something I have already spoken about in the past. It wasn't that I was not seeking, it was just rather unexpected and sublimely more impactful and transcendent an experience than I expected it to be when “God found me.” Something I will never forget. And quite probably something that will keep me a believer in the God concept for the rest of my life. And also keep me attempting to connect more deeply with He/She/It as much as I can as well.

When friends in my business ask me how I can possibly believe in a God – for there is no more secular nor liberal place in the world today than in the arts and entertainment business – I always respond that I completely understand and relate to the atheist and agnostic identity. I wore it for years. I dig it. It’s a very cool, practical, logical, and intelligent place to live. But for better or worse it is not a luxury I am able to afford now. God simply wouldn’t allow it. He found me alright. Yanked me up by my hair and dragged my ass into being “a believer.” The Divine showed itself to me in a way that I simply could no longer deny. There wasn’t really a lot of choice in the matter at first for me. Eventually I came around and deliberately decided it wasn't such a bad idea to take it on. (Still doesn’t mean I can prove this “Divinity’s” existence though.)

Some have asked me over the years if I don't feel a moral imperative to share my belief in a God with others – much like Mr. Dawkins or Mr. Collins have done -- so that others might be “saved” or live better lives. But I tend to shy away from such actions unless specifically requested by someone to tell a story or two or to relate to them why I have found a relationship with a God beneficial to me. I don't necessarily believe that all humans need to be “saved,” and even if some do, I certainly don't believe that there is only one way to save them.

I must admit I get a little hot and bothered under the collar by some of my peers’ insistence that we need to “save” the “souls” of people for the sake of their existence in the “afterlife.” Since we haven't as of yet been able to prove the concept of this “saving,” nor the “soul” idea, and neither the “afterlife” concept, why go there at all? I prefer to save people here now who need actual saving here now. If someone loses a home and all of their belongings I do feel some unexplainable need to help save them the hardship by lending a hand to rebuild their home for them. Or in times of good money I like sponsoring kids in dire need when a mere $30 a month feeds them that entire month and that amount is far less than I spend on Frapucinos anyway. If we can afford Starbucks, Jamba Juice, or Netflix, or even cable or satellite TV, then certainly we can afford to keep at least one other human being eating enough food to stay alive month to month. That’s “saving” to me. We’ll leave the “afterlife” to those IN the afterlife. They’ll let us know if they need saving. So far they haven't spoken up.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind sharing. In fact I enjoy doing it; in those situations when asked to do so. It is after all an amazing experience to live life with a sort of conscious and unconscious understanding, knowing, and feeling that we have a direct line with something awe-inspiring and powerful that is forgiving, all-good, and deeply understanding of our fate in life. I find the belief to be a healthy one. But just because that applies to me, I would never presume to believe that would apply to everyone else who shares the planet or solar system with us. I know plenty of people who have no such belief system in their conscious mind or thought processes and who lead admirably moral and exemplary lives. More so than myself, some of them. So...

That is another aspect to this ongoing debate that is irksome. Humankind’s relationship with a Divine power is a very personal thing. Something only each and every individual themselves can relate to or understand. And that includes those who choose to NOT have a relationship with any Divine power as well. For surely that is as much of a relationship as one who prays everyday to something. An atheist is still a theist. Not intelligent enough to be agnostic. Not wise enough to shut the hell up; very similar to evangelicals or extremists who give more thought-out Christians or Muslims a bad name by their blind ambition to convert those who do not agree with them.

We could go on and on of course, which is the nature of philosophy, and theology. A never ending dialogue about things guessed and conjectured but essentially, by their very essence, and inherently man-made and improvable. Fun and intellectually enticing and titillating, but rather wasteful of precious human energy if indulged in too much – especially if we are going to eventually get down to the real tasks at hand like using the best of what we have to make the world a better place in the short time we are here together.

It is not that “The God Delusion” is an illusion per se. It is simply an idea that has been around for tens of thousands of years. Nor is the pursuit of “The Language of God.” Both concepts and pursuits are as real as the inventors of the ideas, the authors of the books, and their respective readers care to make them in their personal lives. Sort of like “life after death.” Not a bad idea at all. In fact, I would submit that it is quite the comforting thought. But certainly not something one can prove or disprove, and certainly not something to spend a lot of time writing or reading about as if from some secret knowledge or impassioned faith. Better to get on with the living of the “life before death” and leave life after death in its proper place – AFTER death.

If it ever is to occur that one of the millions of us who die each year should ever find a way to communicate with those of us still “living” certainly they will be so kind as to let us know that “life after death” does indeed exist. While they're at it, they can also confirm or deny for us the idea of the soul, reincarnation, chakras, free-will versus determinism, the astral plane, the spirit world, and even vampires, angels, and big foots.

In the meantime, current statistics tell us that every 3.9 seconds of every single day someone who is living among us dies from either starvation or thirst on our small planet. For those who have a God, by all means PRAY. But let us also not forget to roll up our sleeves and take action. Mother Theresa, a celibate, dedicated, penniless, female-priest of the Catholic faith tradition taught us that valuable lesson. For all the prayers to a God in the world that we can muster, we still need real-world action if we are to make real progress as the fledgling Gods that we are ourselves in THIS world. But a little prayer here and there certainly won't hurt either.

Hank Moody

Still mildly obsessed with this slight though acute Californication addiction. Catching up on all the episodes I missed of season 2 on On Demand. We all have our demons. And Hank Moody is one my many. His character hits a little too close to home sometimes. Not necessarily the thing a man needs when he's on the straight and narrow. That influence. But we’ve all had our fair share of being the bad influence on others. So it’s a bittersweet love affair we have. We used to live mirrored lives of one another. But the new me now is scared shitless that one day I will unwittingly glance in the mirror and see the reflection of our once shared lifestyles staring back at me once more. But one day at a time. And I've never been one to run and hide from anything regardless of the potential danger. Life isn't worth living without it.

There is of course the matter of 16 year old Mia stealing the manuscript for the first book he's managed to write in almost five years and publishing it as if it were her own and it taking off and becoming a best seller. Only he can’t actually come out and tell the world that it is actually his new book, not hers, because he's formerly had sexual relations with the hot little pubescent and if he does out her she's threatened to tell the world about their secret. When the reviews start pouring in and the book appears that it is going to be a smash, I couldn’t help but wonder if the writers of the show hadn't somehow managed to find a way to spy on the life of yours truly and the odd and cataclysmic series of events that have befallen me over the last few years.

At one point when Hank reads the New York Times review of his new novel that the rest of the world thinks is actually the work of this crafty young wench without scruples Mia, he exclaims “Holy fuck. Well I'll be dipped in dogshit.” "Oh yes. I can relate to that," I thought. Proud that he finally got a new book out. Proud that it is actually getting good reviews. And probably twisted up torn up and tattered on the inside about the wicked irony of his fate. He still broke. Her giddily receiving all the money and glory for his five years worth of hard labor. And he unable to do a damn thing about it.

I had to hit pause on the Tivo. “What the fuck? Are they following me?” I couldn’t help but see the resemblance. But as much as it stung it also somehow made me smile. “You aint the only cowboy beaten up by the young and the restless beeyotches of the world Fishy,” it seemed to say to me.

It reminded me of a recent event that brought the pain and tragedy all back to haunt my ass one more time. About a week ago I went to the local vitamin shop innocently enough to purchase a few bottles of Resveratrol – my newest anti-aging supplement obsession – when I noticed sitting on a shelf staring right in front of me a beautiful box of UltraMax Gold, one of the most cutting edge anti-aging supplements on the market today. I can safely say this because I developed, formulated, and designed this very product eight years ago. Three years ago the company I founded to sell millions of aforementioned boxes of the pure holy ghost of youth in a bottle called UltraMax Gold was sold out from under me by none other than Cleopatra Ecstasy, the once young beautiful and innocent girl of mythic grace but wicked potential lurking within that I once called “fiancé.” The same girl glorified in countless songs on many of my finest albums over the past ten years before I discovered just how deadly that poison of blind love can be.

One day I had more money collected than I knew what to do with. Real estate worth millions, and five smooth sailing companies. One, a solid multi-national that when sold would guarantee that I would never have to work another day in my life. My family would be taken care of. My future children would be taken care of. Life was good. Moving to New York and leaving the business in the hands of the ex was a gamble I knew. But six inches of signed contracts and agreements later, I felt that we were both protected enough that we could go our separate ways and still manage to run our vast little empire from two different locales.

Two years into moving to the big apple I was about to get an ass full of sour grapes when I learned that every bank account that I had had been changed, my name taken off, my American Express gold card maxed out and unpaid, and worst of all our company sold to a larger publicly traded company in the same industry, Naturade. I didn't even learn of the sale of my own company till three months after it happened truth be told. Infinito told me over an MSN chat congratulating me on the great news. “DUDE! Congratulations man! You sold Ageless Foundation Laboratories! You are truly a rich man now! How does it feel?”

“Uh, well, it feels like shit bro because I have no idea what you are talking about.” He shot me over the link to the SEC filing and sure enough the tight-hearted little wench had somehow managed to physically sell the company behind my back, without my signature, authority, or even knowledge. All the while we spoke everyday and she continued to assure me that everything was going fine at HQ and that it would only be weeks, maybe even days, before we closed on the biggest deal of our shared business collaboration. This went on for nine months. Three months after she had sold the damn thing already. Why she kept up the front for so long after the dastardly deed had been done I have no idea. When I finally learned of her folly I immediately called her. “I knew you'd be mad,” is all she could say. She blamed it on her husband Flyboy and her attorney. Ahe said that they coerced her into doing it. She was speechless for a while and then eventually just became defensive and tried to defend her action, promising to make good on her “mistake” and pay me. Naturade as it would turn out later didn't even know I existed anymore. They were under the assumption that I had sold out years before. I was speechless. Dumbfounded. In shock.

The term for it is "white collar crime." Fraud. Grand larceny. Embezzlement of corporate funds and assets. And there's not a damn thing the police can do when someone steals that much money from you unless you have hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire a law firm. That's an ironic twist to American capitalism. Steal a TV and you go to jail. Steal a few million dollars and you have a good chance of walking away free as a bird.

It was a blow to my clueless head so hard and shocking that I fell into a downward spiral of denial, disbelief, and utter stupification. There was simply no way that anyone would do that to someone they were so close to for so long. Or so I thought. But I began to understand another meaning of the old adage “different strokes for different folks.” What might seem unthinkable to one person may seem perfectly acceptable for another if the situation presents itself and they think they can get away with it.

So the once wealthy Ambassador known as Fishy who sped around South Beach in his turbo fueled BMW 330 icc convertible smoking ten dollar cigars found himself dead flat broke overnight and locked out of all possible means of getting access to any of his hard earned cash because the bitch had changed all his bank accounts, maxed out his cards, sold their business, and was holding his real estate hostage. Crisis? Hell yeah. Someone call 911. I've fallen and I can't get up.

I learned a lot from the experience, I'll confess. I learned how dishonest I was myself. By having to deal with someone giving me an ass fucking so heinous and cruel and heartless I was forced to face my own transgressions and indiscretions and moments of dishonesty towards others. It was my only way out of the pain I was in. I needed to cleanse myself, my own inner demons, first to better deal with the battle I was now facing against a group of ethically challenged foes that I was never prepared in life prior to ever do battle with. And the only way I could do it was to clean myself out first.

I also learned the value and meaning of true friendship. Friends came to my aid like I had just spontaneously combusted and burst into flames, came running from all four corners of the globe. Some gave me money to keep going. Some gave me daily moral support. My brother, mother, college friends and roommates, and numerous former-girlfriends of the past called on a daily basis just to check up on me and see how I was doing. This was something that I will never forget. Eighty years old in a rocking chair on my front porch I will still look back on that year and the friends and family that came to my rescue in awe and with gratitude. I was born with a lucky star over my head man.

One day while walking in the rain down a wet Manhattan street I was cursing God, “Why have you done this to me? What am I meant to learn from this?” A voice whispered in my ear. “God didn't do this to you Fishy. People hurt other people. That's life. God has graced you with more friends than you know what to do with to get you through this. That's God. you have it reversed.” I got it. I understood. God was grace.

More lessons than I could ever write about in one blog post at 3:30 in the morning. But more than anything I learned that one day life can seem utterly perfect and stable and in a matter of weeks it can turn to utter shit turmoil and chaos and downright desperation sometimes. People are not always what they seem. And no matter what someone is telling you to your face it doesn’t necessarily mean that that is what is actually happening. I can honestly say that if you would have told me that three years ago I would have told you that you had it all wrong. That if we are good, then only good things would happen to us. Because that is all I had ever experienced before in my life. I walked around in a blind hippy ynew age daydream of a life. Felt like an angel skipping through the world spreading love and light and peace and joy and inspiration and receiving nothing but the same in return. I never imagined that something bad could happen to me, especially not by another person. And especially not by someone I had been so close to for so many years.

But life is long. Goddamn is life long. And we live it if we’re lucky enough. And we learn. One of the most important things I learned was to come back down to earth and realize that I was just another raindrop in a sea of humanity. I had been rich for too long. I was lost in sea of materialism and felt separate from most of the people around me. Everyone was either poorer than I was or wealthier. I had lost perspective. In the last three years I often joke with my friends that I again feel “at one with the people.” I can feel them. Smell them. Feel like one of them. I can smile with them. Joke with them. Talk with them. Laugh with them. It feels good. I am happy. I am starting over again financially at a time when I thought I would be living in a townhouse of my own in Soho half the year and a villa in Tuscany the other half the year. But I am still happy. I may have lost the empire. But I didn't lose the brain and guts and heart that built it to begin with. Which means i can do it again.

That was until a week ago when aforesaid box of UltraMax Gold stared me right in the eye at this particular health food store. I asked the sales clerk how the product was selling. He said “pretty good.” I told him who I was. He couldn’t believe it. He had never met any of the owners of a vitamin manufacturing company before. He only sold our products. He wanted to learn as much as possible about the industry as I could tell him. It was fun revisiting the old school so to speak. I picked up the box. Right there on the side of the box was our 800 number. The same toll-free 800 number I had ordered from AT&T back in my bedroom of my small rented little apartment way back when I first started the company. And here it was still on the box being sold by another company and I wasn't receiving a dime for the sales. The bitter pill made me choke a little but I attempted to keep my cool and kept examining the box, revisiting the memories of what created such an amazing fortune and life for me and so many others.

I turned the box over and looked at the back. There on the back was our mission statement. My mission statement. The one that took me three weeks to write, perfect, and finally release to our marketing department. “At Ageless Foundation Laboratories we believe that anti-aging is more than just extending the final years of our lives...” I read the whole thing. “God that is fucking good,” I thought. And here it is. Still on the box. My logo. My formula. My box design. It was all too much.

I rushed out of the store to get some fresh air. I called G2 who has worked for me for over ten years now. He started working at our company when it was just a fledgling little sapling of a tree. Back when there were only three or four of us. By the time we peaked we were doing 4 million a year and had 35 employees. He still works for Naturade and still works on the UltraMax product line that I created way back when. He could relate.

“G2 I'm looking at the box and the damn thing even has my original promotional ad copy still on it!” He responded: “Dog, not just that. They’ve got your formula, your logo, your name, its all you on that box man. They got it all.” “Dude I'm so sad... how am I supposed to feel bro? I'm torn up inside. This is fucked up.” “Yes it is my brother. Yes it is. Just try to be patient and diplomatic. Perhaps one day it will work out man. But keep taking the high road. It will work out.”

Wise words. And in a few hours I was back into the new life of The Ambassador. Doing my thing. Actually I was smack dab in the middle of filming a Bed-In for Peace 2008 style to learn more about and support peace all over the world and especially in the suffering Middle East. This is my new life. And it felt good. I soon forgot about my pain and resentment and realized that somehow over the last three years though I lost it all at the drop of a hat simply by trusting too much and not looking ahead enough I had somehow managed to create an entirely new life that was bigger and better and more exciting than I ever imagined it was going to be. Africa, Iran, meetings at the UN, TV shows, new albums, new loves and old loves, good friends and supportive family, and a deeper connection with The Divine than I ever thought possible.

So I'm watching Californication. Hank Moody is getting his heart ripped out by reading a stellar review of his first new novel in five years but its authorship is credited to a heartless young nymphet who takes a devilish pleasure and pride in the fact that she ripped him off and got away with it. Sounds familiar. He's left with a bottle of vodka, a cigarette, and countless romps in the hay with strange nameless women to drown his sorrows and bitterness. And in that moment I realized that I wasn't Hank Moody anymore. My days of bottle drinking, cigarette smoking, and romps with nameless women to numb my pain are behind me. Somehow I have managed to free myself from most, but not all, of the ache and resentment. “Keep moving forward” I tell myself. “Even when you feel like you can’t move a muscle, move one anyway. Just take another step. It’s only getting better from here. Truth is we never know what’s right around the corner.”

Goodbye Hank Moody. At least until next season. Let us hope for both of us that Season three offers us both a better script. And if it doesn’t, we’ll rewrite the fucker ourselves. Amen.

What the F is wrong with CNN?

CNN was at one time a news station. I remember this. I am not that senile; nor that brain damaged from a life of a debauched and reckless rock and roll lifestyle. It cannot all be in my imagination that CNN at one time in the distant past fashioned itself “a news station.”

But times have changed. I am not sure WHAT exactly CNN is now, but it certainly does not deliver much news. And even worse for wear we all are when we begin to wonder where exactly should we go to get the latest news of the world?

I have kept CNN on for the last six hours while working in my office. Currently a hot little minx they call Campbell Brown is on the screen offering a something she calls “No Bull. No Bias.” Her top headlines?
“Burris Blocked From the Senate.”
“Gaza Humanitarian Crisis.”
“Al Franken announces victory but not sworn in.” and
“CNN’s own Sanjay Gupta possible Surgeon General?”
and
“Obama’s Stimulus Package.”

Problem? At 7PM the ever increasingly blustering Lou Dobbs, whose show preceded Ms. Brown’s, reported the same five stories. Two hours before that at 5PM Pussy Cat Blitzer reported those same five stories in his “Vomitorium Room” not once but TWICE each. Before that Don Lemon also came on a few dozen times telling the world about those same five stories. Later tonight at 9PM Larry King will tell us how “Oprah” is planning on losing weight yet again. Now that’s some important world news for sure. Tivo that shit. After that Anderson Pooper promises to do what? Tell us all about “the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Burris getting blocked by the Senate, Al Franken declaring victory but not getting sworn in, and the potential pitfalls of President Elect Obama’s new 800 billion stimulus package.”

The pure guts of that man’s journalistic integrity. Such boldness. Stepping out on a limb like that to report on such rarely reported stories. NOT! He just repeats what we’ve already heard all day long from other CNN reporters. And he's not going to do it once. He's going to do it twice. Once in his first hour and once in his second. I cannot honestly understand how he can do it. And I mean that. For all the money in the world I wouldn’t myself personally do it. Unless I was drunk as hell, didn't give a fuck, and pretended that I was someone else 24 hours a day. The man has got to be brain-dead. No offense to brain dead people. I know he’s “just doing his job.” Ever heard of Edward R Murrow? So was he. Everyone at CNN can “just do their job” and still report the freaking news if they would simply stand up to the suits who run CNN who are telling them to run the same damn narrowly focused five stories ad nauseum all day long.

Speaking of nausea by the way, if bulimia is your thing, then CNN has got you covered because at midnight just in case you haven't barfed up EVERYTHNG you ate today they will replay the SAME Larry King show from earlier AND the SAME Anderson Pooper Scooper show. Doing what? Yep. Reporting the same damn five news stories they’ve shoved down our throats all day long.

So what’s up with “the most rusted name in news?” What caused CNN to jump the shark and run with celebrity wannabe puppet heads dressed up in different costumes repeating the same five stories all day instead of reporting news stories from all over the world? There certainly isn't a lack of news worthy events happening on planet earth. Life in today’s times is anything but boring or uneventful.

So what gives? Fuck if I know. And fuck if I care at this point. None should. We’ve given CNN enough time and attention and like the Bush-Cheney regime that illegally invaded Iraq and the White House it is simply time to pull the plug. CNN is a giant overstuffed corporate behemoth that talks too much, carries way too much weight, tries to pass its news anchors off as celebrities, and doesn’t deliver much except loud mouths, and questionable opinions rather than objective news reporting.

But let it be said that the people of the world would love to be able to have one place to go to gain access to comprehensive and objective news reporting from all over the world across a broad spectrum of subject matter. We have 193 countries on planet earth today if we count Palestine, which we should. So chances are there are more news worthy events happening each day in our world than one station could possibly deliver to the people even if they didn't repeat one news item more than once in a 24 hour period. That's a lot of news. And there are plenty of people who would love to hear it.

So that's the vision: One TV news station serving the people of planet earth 24 hours a day with the latest, greatest, and most up to date news items from around the world leaving no stone unturned, and preferably offering nary an opinion, but simply objective news reporting. Hey, you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

Ambassador over and out.

Implementing Plan B -- Maintaining Relationships 21st Century Style

A few days ago I hit the Send/Receive button to download email, a task that has become so ubiquitous in our lives, so obligatory, that one would assume that by now someone would have come up with some way to profit from it. After all if everyone and their brother is doing it, why not make some money from it. For all the would be entrepreneurs out there, the idea is yours. Take it and run with it. I'm too fucking busy. Which is the primary theme of today's rant. Indeed, anyone with half a brain should be able to think of some way to generate a decent and regular revenue stream just from attaching a product or service to anything that people do on a regular basis. Right before our eyes, sending and receiving email has turned into one of those tasks. Think of the possibilities in regards to other activities that we currently do on a regular basis. There's toilet paper. Someone is making money there. There is food in general. Not to mention the boundless collection of accoutrement that accompanies human beings' need to eat daily. Tissue paper is one of those "if only I would have thought of it products. Simple, brainless, cheap and easy to make. And yet something that will never go out of style; unless of course we eventually evolve to a point where we no longer require noses to breathe with. Shoes are another. Human beings leave their places of shelter on occasion and when they do they are accustomed to not walking around barefoot anymore as in times past. Make shoes, make money. Human beings walk on a daily basis. Create a cheap and simple product or service that attaches itself to human beings newest daily obsession -- sending and receiving email -- and a rich man you will soon be.

But alas that is not the point of this ramble. Consider it a freebie in case you are right at this very moment plum ripe and ready for a new idea to make millions with and let us move on. Spam be damned, there are at least on most occasions a few hundred emails that pour into our lives relentlessly, unceasingly, and without mercy each day, for some of us each and every God for saken hour, that are actually important and require our attention. When did it happen? Truth be told I don't think anyone really knows. Long gone are the days when email was a novelty. That was quickly replaced by email being a luxury. And then that was soon replaced by email being a downright necessity. And I may be slightly ahead of the curve on this one, or perhaps just as always three steps past eccentric and downright off the chart crazy. But I am done with email. I dug email when it was a novelty. It gave me a sense of belonging to a special elite that could get things done faster and more efficiently than most. And I relished the ease at which I could communicate with more people at a faster rate than one ever could with traditional phone, fax, and letter writing.

When it became less novelty and more of a luxury I still enjoyed it. Even appreciated it. It gave me the freedom to not have to answer the phone nor make calls anymore, nor even write letters or send and receive faxes. And we still accomplished more than ever before. But something changed. Pretty soon the whole world had email and our lives have turned into one giant button pushing nightmare. Worse yet, we have added yet another "thing to collect" to our already over-crowded lives. Thousands and thousands and more thousands of emails. Now that email has become a necessity, an annoying bastard of a necessity at that, right up there taxes and presidents and the United States Post Office, I am thoroughly entirely and adamantly over it.

My friends laughed when I first announced that I was through with email. They thought I was joking. A few days ago I hit that send/receive button just for the sheer fuck all of it -- I had no intention of actually doing anything after I did so. After all, I hadn't actually read an email since August 5th and here it was September 2nd. Don't get me wrong. I still download them into my inbox. I might glance at them. But with over 5000 unattended and unreplied to and 1300 of them still unread, there just isn't much I can do at this point about it. One thing I did happen to notice as I watched the little demons speedily pour into my inbox like rats into a half rotted corpse was the subject line of an email from one of my employees. It said something to the effect of "If you are not going to answer my emails!!!"

"Uh oh" I thought. Better click on that one and see what's up. He was mad as hell. Turned out that he was the author of at least two or three of those 1300 unread emails that had already invaded my overcrowded and overwhelmed life. I read his email. The majority of it comprised of his personal feelings regarding how dare I not even bother to reply to him. Truth was I explained to him I just wasn't doing email anymore. It wasn't a personal reflection of how I felt about him. It wasn't a conscious decision mind you. It was just sort of something that happened. I travel too much. Work too much. Play too much. And after some reflection on the matter I realized that at some point in the last few months I had already made this subtle transition to texting being my preferred method of communication. Again it wasn't intentional. It just sort of happened. Upon further reflection I came to realize as reported above that I had not actually read an email since august 5th. I might give them a glance now and then. But I just cannot bring myself to do anything with them. There are just too many of them, and how do you decide whose to reply to or not? It is all so overwhelmingly unfair seeming. So one day I just stopped.

I explained to my friend and fellow conspirator that if he needed to reach me for something that he could either text me, or Facebook message me. He already knew I didn't answer my phone, check my voicemail, or return calls. That had stopped just about one year ago to this day. So it was useless to suggest that. He knew better. So after really thinking about it long and hard I decided that if he had to email me, he could always Skype, Facebook message or IM, or text me to alert me to the fact that he had indeed sent an email that I needed to attend to. In the real world what else can we really do at this point? Email is just so 2006. And there is no way that one person can sort, handle, and reply to all the email they receive everyday. At this point each of us need at least two to three people to be doing this task for us. And then what would THOSE people helping us do about their own email? A challenging dilemma for sure.

Well the old boy got the message and chose to Skype my phone with a text message relaying the content of his concerns. It worked like a charm. I was able to then Facebook message him the information he needed and all was well that ended well.

But it did get me thinking. I had been formulating a little something I had been referring to as "Plan B" over the last few months and just had not as of yet had a chance to officially implement it. What I had noticed was the following: There were more people I loved and cared about on the planet than I had time to engage with on a regular basis. Blogging certainly helps with that. So does YouTubing. Both vehicles allow us the opportunity to communicate with large numbers of our friends and fans in one go, at least just to say hello and fill them in on our latest goings on.

Texting is also a good way to do this. I have found that after a long day I might sit for ten to fifteen minutes and text ten to twenty people a hello and anything else that might be relevant to our respective relationship. Just to touch base or to pass on needed information. Facebook -- thank God and pray that he saves and preserves the sacredness of this beloved miracle app -- is also another great way to keep tabs on and stay in close proximity to our closest friends no matter how many miles separate us. The reason that the clean, pure, simple, and elegant Facebook so quickly gobbled up the cluttered, heavily commercialized, dragged down, messy, sloppy nuisance once called MySpace was that Facebook -- at least as of this writing -- actually helps us accomplish something -- quick, efficient, authentic and sincere communication with those we work with or love or care about. The interface is simple and clean and they keep the advertisements to a minimum. There is also the tendency for those of us who live and die within the confines of that beloved app to only make friends with those who we are actually friends with. No competition for who has the most friends nor the obligation to accept friend requests from people we don't know. Facebook is not about a popularity contest. It is about real communication with real people that we actually know AND care about. Let us pray it stays that way, or I can guarantee that the whole lot of us will be off that bandwagon as quickly as we jumped off of MySpace.

But still I did notice that in the last year my life had become so busy so quickly that I was letting my life get in the way of my living so to speak -- so much so that there were many, many people who I just was not finding the time to communicate with as much as I would have preferred.
They would call and I just always felt that I never had the time to answer. They would leave messages and again I just never had the time to check voicemail, let alone actually return calls. They would email, and by the time I saw the email months had passed. I found that I was missing out on one too many invitations to things and even more disturbing I was no longer connected to the outside world much at all. Not even to my own family or closest friends. Life had become more of a marathon. A mad dash so fast-paced that it turned weeks into feeling like days, and days that seemed to only last hours.

I first observed this when a close friend mentioned to me that she and the crew didn't bother inviting me to things anymore because I was so busy that they felt guilty inviting me out because they didn't want to make me uncomfortable by always having to decline the offers which she said I almost always invariably did. This made me sad. A few days later I learned that another friend was due to be married in less than a month and that I had completely missed the announcement and invitation. (I had stopped reading regular post mail about six months prior, choosing instead to just let it pile up in gigantic stacks all over the floor around me. So people already knew not to bother to send me anything by post.) A few days after this, one of my favorite friends -- a man I refer to as a brother and feel truly honored to do so -- gave me a real bitch slapping over the phone about how many times he had called me and not received a call back. He actually went so far as to warn that if I didn't make more effort in regular communication with him that he was going to write me off. I was obviously aghast. Shaken AND stirred. I loved The King. There wasn't much use in being The Ambassador without The King by my side. And lest we forget my mom's assertion that she felt that there was simply "no sense in calling you anymore. You never answer or call back. I just assume you are too busy and I just hope that you will still come home for Christmas." Sad really.

But the truth was and still is that I, being (at least in name) the so-called Ambassador, absolutely love people. Especially my close friends and family, of which I am lucky to have many. But I was quickly recognizing that if I didn't do something about this information and communication overload that had led me to this state of tuning out from the civilized world, that pretty soon there wasn't going to be anybody in my life to tune out.

I also noticed something else. I wasn't the only one in this disturbing predicament. I noticed that there were plenty of people in my life who were also feeling the time crunch and not taking calls or replying to emails anymore. As much as I wanted to be mad and lay down some guilt speech on them, I simply could not because I was probably the worst of all of us. And for good reason. We are all just too damn busy these days. Especially those of us who live in big metropolitan cities with too much to do and not enough money to clone ourselves yet.

After some quiet and sincere contemplation of the situation, and a few discussions with others about the matter I came to understand that one of the driving forces behind this new found isolation and lack of feeling free enough to even be able to take a phone call from a good friend was this subconscious feeling we were harboring that stated that "it has been so damn long since I have talked to so and so that when we DO finally talk it will have to take a long time and I just simply don't have the time to catch up with them right now. So I won't take their call right now, but I will call them "when I have the time."" The problem with this belief is that "when I have the time" never comes around. So we simply avoid reaching out because we are afraid that we "don't have the time." Before we know it, a year passes by. We wake up one day and realize "My God, I haven't talked to so and so in over a year. How could that be? Where did the time go?"

Well once I got clear on what the real problem was I decided that something needed to be done about it. This was the impetus of what I began to refer to as Plan B. Seeing that Plan A -- regular and consistent communication with our friends and loved ones through traditional means -- just wasn't working anymore. A few weeks ago I was deep in the mountains and forests of the Great Northwest taking some much needed time off from my regularly hectic life in a literal oasis of a destination spot overlooking a giant hundred story waterfall and river. That place is called Snoquami falls by the way and I recommend it to anyone who needs a week to shut down and recharge. I received a call from our good friend and sister whom we call Tuesday here in the Diaries. She was in shock that I answered the phone. "I can't believe you answered the phone! I thought I was just going to leave a message! If you're mailbox wasn't full that is..."

"Well Tuesday, welcome to Plan B," I replied. "What's Plan B?" she asked. "Simply put Tuesday Plan B states that we are all way too busy, overwhelmed, and overbooked these days and none of us are taking enough time in our days to even say hello to those most dear to us anymore. And this is a problem. Life is moving faster than it ever has it seems and one day I'm just afraid we are going to wake up and realize that we haven't spent enough time with those we love."

She agreed and we both had a good laugh acknowledging the strange tendency, for New Yorkers especially, to take pleasure in making plans to lunch, dine, see a movie, or just hang out with each other and then cancel at the last minute. If one doesn't live in New York they might find this hard to understand. But it is a very common trend amongst New Yorkers and one that many of us take for granted. Absolutely nothing is off limits in this game we all play with one another. Tuesday and I talked about the reasons for this new trend and decided that making the plan was enough to still give one that sense of security and friendship but that due to our hectic lifestyles that we actually gained more pleasure and satisfaction from being able to cancel and just get some quiet time than we would if we trekked off to some meeting or dinner with someone. Odd yes. But very common here in the big apple. It is not uncommon to book one's entire week both day and night with one thing or another to the point of jam-packed and overflowing and then cancel more than half of the things you agreed to attend. It's just the nature of life in the big city where there is always more to do than one can possibly fit in unless one has at least one to three clones to stand in for them for various different activities. (Note to the scientists out there: get working on cloning will ya! We need it!)

After our near hysterical laughing subsided, I proceeded to explain to Tuesday the details of Plan B and invited her to share it with others, spread it virally as quickly as possible, and also to actually partake in it with me so we could in fact see each other more than once a year. Remember this is Manhattan. None of us live more than a mile or two from each other. And yet it is very easy to go an entire year without actually hooking up. My hot and sexy, smart, cool and sassy pseudo-cousin Samantha and I were just Facebook IMing today and to our horror came to discover that we have not actually seen other face to face in three years and yet we live exactly 1.3 miles from each other. That is just so New York. If it weren't so goddamned typical it would be downright tragic. But neither of us reacted at all negatively, but rather just found it hilarious. We made plans of course to have dinner next Sunday but I'd be a fool to assert that I truly believe that either of us will actually make it to that dinner. "Next Sunday" might as well be 2010 as far as New York living goes. God knows what will happen between now and then. But it sure was good making the plan. That in and of itself is a big step. Just committing to an actual day and time (which we didn't actually do).

But living breathing life forms on planet earth must inevitably adapt and evolve in order to survive. And this is where Plan B comes into play. It is an evolvement in order to do nothing less than secure our very survival. Remember the old adage yours truly once one-offed in a loud, noisy, crowded bar to an uproarious response of high fives and laughter from his friends and lovers: "Your net-worth is equal to your network." Meaning, the more people you regularly communicate with the more successful and wealthy you will be. It is a simple matter of mathematics and one of the foundational principles of networking and success. Plan B is a desperately needed emergency strategy to guarantee not only our continued wealth, happiness, and success, but also our very survival. Without friendship, love, the care of others, and real sincere human contact, we have nothing.

Simply put Plan B states this: Life is too short not to spend time and regularly communicate with the people in our lives that we love. But as we have already covered we are all just too busy and deathly afraid that if we take the time to reach out that it will require too much time that we feel we don't have in any one moment to "catch up." So we subconsciously avoid reaching out or even answering the phone and worse yet we are now reaching a stage where even email has become too burdensome and time-consuming. So it is time to implement Plan B. If you think of someone, call them, or at the very least text them. Don't put it off. It doesn't have to be a long conversation. Let go of the need to feel that we need to "catch up." Catching up is yesterday's fashion. Give it away to Goodwill. Those of us who are living life to its fullest just don't live in a world where we have time to "catch up" anymore. Just pick up that phone and say "hello, I was just thinking about you. Listen, I don't have a lot of time. But how are you? I miss you."

And the same goes for when that phone rings. If you don't recognize the number, let it go to voicemail. There is no harm in that. But if you look down and it's someone that you know and love, or someone that you work with, or someone who would be good for your career, take the call. Let them know you're busy as all hell but you love them and miss them, or that their call is important to you, and you just didn't want them going to voicemail. Spend a minute or two touching base and let that be that. No need to harbor the illusory belief that you two need to spend an hour on the phone. Just chat for a minute or two, support each other, positive talk each other, sincerely communicate together, and let it be. When Tuesday and I were hammering out this plan we both wholeheartedly agreed that we would rather talk three times a week for five minutes each than once a month for an hour. And I feel that way about so many people. We both agreed that email just doesn't cut it. Email has now been relegated to where letter writing and receiving used to be. It's a necessary evil. Not a place where our friends belong. Nope. The sweet voice heart and soul of our friends belong in our ear, if not in front of us face to face. Or at least in a text message at the least.

So far it has worked like a charm. Since implementing Plan B in my life over the last two to three weeks I have noticed my "missed call" log reduce by hundreds of calls. I just simply pick up the damn phone. Today I spoke with Weather Girl for all of three minutes. But that was fine. We talked. She got the message that I was busy, but she also got the message that I cared about her. That her calling was important to me. Today I sent a two-line email to a dear elderly woman who has acted as a mentor and godmother to me for decades now. Didn't have a lot of time but I made the time to just write "Hi there, I've been thinking a lot about you lately. How are you? I hope well. Please always feel free to call me if you ever want to talk or if you need anything. Ok. I love you." And that was that. That's Plan B in a nutshell.

You know I bet after some time that many people will come up with more ideas to add to this new method for staying connected to our friends and loved ones 21st century style. If you are one of those people, please feel free to post a comment with your idea(s). Don't expect me to comment back of course. LOL! But please know that at some point I actually do read all comments. It just might take me a few years. But let's all make this a new habit. A New Years resolution right smack dab in the middle of the year. Then again, knowing how busy YOU are, you might not actually be reading this till New Years anyway. Well regardless, let's do it. We owe it to ourselves. Life is good. It's a blessing and then some if there ever was such a thing. But life is even better when it's filled with friends and family and lovers and real honest to god sincere and authentic communication with the people we love.

Here's to Plan B. Let's do it.

When in Doubt, We Remember These Words by Martin Luther King Jr.

When in doubt as to whether or not I should stand up for or defend something I believe in when it appears it may pose a threat or a challenge or be controversial, I remind myself of the words below by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who wrote this speech at the same age I am now. I am humbled by his willingness to act and press forward compared to my own tendencies to retreat and take no action even though there are times when I know I should.

For better or worse our lives here on earth at this time in our history are filled with examples of injustice and inequities. They are all around us; though I do not believe it will always be this way. The measure of each of us, of the very lives we were blessed with, is whether or not we make the most of what we were given to make things that much better for all while we are here. Sometimes this is as easy as a smile, a hug, a phone call, a thank you note, a donation, a sponsorship, or a helping hand to someone in need. Other times standing up for what we believe in can appear much more daunting and challenging, even frightening or life threatening.

There is not one of us who is not faced with this dilemma on an almost daily basis. But let us all as friends and lovers and associates and coworkers be inspired that the path has already been forged for us by others as the speech below reminds. And let us each commit to one another in our hearts in silence or aloud that before we pass that we will each do our absolute best. Together there will be no stopping us from creating a truly enlightened world for ourselves and for those who will come after us. --Ed Hale

“I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

"You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

"You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

"Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

"And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

"You died when you refused to stand up for right.

"You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

"You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the sermon “But, If Not” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967

FUCK THE OLYMPICS

Fuck the Olympics? What? C’mon man. Why would you say that? The Olympics are important. As important as life itself! Oh, hold on, scratch that. Actually the Olympics are MORE important than life itself. Evidently. At least according to the powers that be who approved the clusterfuck of a decision to allow Communist China to host the 2008 Summer Olympics in light of the atrocities they continue to commit on an almsot daily basis in the peaceful country of Tibet. In preparation for the festivities the banner that China is currently hanging all over Bejing by the hundreds reads “Human life is not nearly as important as some of you are want to believe.” They are proud of their banners. That is why they are hanging them everywhere. Its a sort of welcoming sign to all the millions of visitors hey expect this year for that whore called The Olympics. (They might also add to it: “At least not unless your “human life” happens to be attached to big money or a means to get your hands on some.”)

A sleepy Sunday morning. What DID we do last night? Wrote a beautiful song… my god what a gorgeous melody. Stayed up till dawn madly scribbling notes as fast as i could… transcribing the dialogue of a forum between Arthur C. Clark, Stephen Hawking, and Carl Sagan about physics and cosmology till i couldn’t keep my eyes open. Pen dangling. Dropping to the floor. Woke up in time to catch battered and war torn Tom Brokaw, so sold out and bought in to the system that when he commented on NBC’s Meet the Press “…at least we hope that everyone will be tuned in to watch the Summer Olympics here on NBC next week,” he didn’t even blink an eye at the irony of the statement. Perhaps there might be a reason for people NOT tuning in Tom?

The lunacy. The hypocrisy. The spoils made possible by the idiocracy. Mansions and Mercedes bought on credits earned for not telling the truth. Just say what we tell you to. That’s a god boy. Read the prompter. No no. No need to check out the facts. That’s a good boy. Yep. There you go. “Olympics start next week! Catch them right here on NBC!” Tom relaxes into his chair. “Can I get that drink you promised me now?” No need to mention that China is cited as one of the biggest violators of human rights abuse issues on planet earth today, not to mention their ongoing cruel, inhumane, and illegal occupation of Tibet - which for the life of most thinking people everywhere no one can figure out why there is no Operation Tibetan Freedom coming out of the White House or anywhere else for that matter. Ssssshhhhh. Pretend Tibet doesn’t exist and run that Budweiser commercial again! The people will laugh. They’ll forget. Tibet doesn’t matter and neither do the Tibetan people. Nor do the tens of thousands tortured, imprisoned, or murdered by the Chinese government in their own country.

Sssshhhh. Cue the prompter. Roll the tape. “Bob let me get a close up of that young white gymnast smiling and then zoom out and pan over to anyone black or asian! No i don’t care who. Just do it! Now! Oh it’s Olympic Gold old buddy! A great shot. Everyone will make money! My God man! Will somebody get rid of this dead rotting corpse I keep tripping over in the control room?! I don’t care if this IS China, i can’t work around piles of dead bodies! They’re starting to smell. “

The truth. Money. The truth. Money is what keeps the dictatorship of China alive and kicking. And it’s what brought the Olympics to China. Slave labor, sweat shops, midnight murders in dark back alleys for speaking your mind or telling the truth. The athletes are human man. What about the athletes? We have to respect the athletes. But human life means nothing in the bigger picture analysis of it — including to the athletes. If human life or basic human rights DID mean something to them, they would have all strategized a giant boycot of the event itself. The athletes might as well be robots at this point.

One day humanity will look back, as it always does, and ask itself the question, “Is it true that we really let Communist China host the Olympics in 2008 when we KNEW about all of their human rights abuses?” And we will tell ourselves that that was THEN, and this is NOW, and we would never be so ignorant or inhumane NOW. But wait. Now IS NOW! We don’t have to look back and feel confusion and remorse for the error of our past as we always do. That future-past is actually our here-right-now. We just forget sometimes.

Because they try their damndest to make us forget. And they do a good job of it. Speaking of which, did you catch that latest episode of Mad Men the other night?

Nah, sorry man, I was out killing some Chinese political activists… A few Tibetans too. But i Tivo’d it, so it’s all good.

Oh too bad. It was fucking great.

Hey when in Rome…

But isn’t it up to each and every one of us on the planet to make that decision? I mean, the Olympics in Nazi fucking Germany and the whole world just played along… And now again. Right here. Right now. What does that mean? Well, when the USA and France and Germany and Spain and the UK and all the other big countries of the world stand up in those giant stadiums with all their pomp and spectacle, how about a few thousand rotten eggs, tomatoes, apples, watermelons, and jackhammers hit them all in the face on live TV? That would be a good place to start… a new twist on a rather tired routine. Not the end all be all but a damn nice place to start.

“Holy Mary mother of God! Did you see that? Quick cut to a commercial!”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States of America!” BAM! A big shit pie in his face in front of millions. His face covered in brown runny feces. It’s in his mouth. In his ears. In his nose. He can taste it. “Ladies and genetlemen, last year’s gold medal winner in fuck-all from Germany!” BAM! A giant watermelon smashed over his head. What a thing of beauty it could be if the humans woke up one day and realized that they were all actually the same…. Each one a living breathing minute particle of the bigger whole. “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Goo goo goo joob.”

We’ve already been told countless times in the last twelve months: “Despite promises to improve its human rights record, China has become increasingly repressive in the run up to the Olympics. Human rights activists are detained without trial, journalists are harassed and imprisoned, “re-education through labor” programs continue unabated and China remains the world’s leading executioner.”

To pretend that you don’t care about the torture or abuse of one is to admit that you don’t care about being tortured or abused yourself. But they don’t get it yet. That’s the thing. They don’t realize it until it actually happens to them personally. Wanna know why it is so easy to manipulate and control the humans by the billions when they are clearly the majority? Re-read this paragraph again.

Crazy? Childish? Sophmoric? Desultory? Silly? Radical? Anarchistic? Sure. The dictionary is filled with adjectives. But the question still remains naked and yet to be answered: when is the human race going to step up and actually walk its talk rather than just talk it? For me personally, I’m tired of talking about “helping to send a message to stop human rights violations.” I’m gonna start walking.

There’s a bridge from one side to the other mind you. Careful not to walk too far onto it. Nah, it’s not unstable, but once on the other side, you will notice that you can’t and don’t want to go back to that other side from whence you came. I crossed that bridge. then burned it down. The matches are still in my pocket as a reminder of why the hell I’m still here. We’ve got work to do. Plenty of it too. And choices to make.

The long-standing historical significance of the Olympics? Or basic human rights and dignity towards ALL HUMAN BEINGS regardless of money to be made? Respect for the athletes who worked so hard to get to the Olympics? Or standing up to save the lives of our fellow brothers and sisters innocently slaughtered and imprisoned needlessly and wrecklessly by a savage nation so wealthy that everyone is a wee bit scared to speak up? These are real choices. These are the choices we are being asked to make at this time in human history.

A few billion of us now. Roaming around from here to there on a relatively small sphere floating out in the middle of god knows where in outer space. It’s a grim picture at times. We don’t even know where the fuck we are. But we give it all a name anyway. But in reality we’re not some intelligent extraterrestrial life forms from another galaxy with special powers able to read each other’s minds or anything. Just a bunch of ape-like bipeds eating, drinking, shitting, reading, writing, praying, raping, murdering, plundering, thieving, canniving, imprisoning each other and then covering it all up as best we can. We have a name for that too. Humans love naming. Revisionist history. Loosely translates to “he who has the money writes the history no matter how heinous their actions, and everyone else pretends they agree with that history for fear of being attacked or killed.”

In the name of freedom and democracy is a good one. In the name of commerce is another good one. For the good of the economy. Brilliant. For the good of the nation and the people. They’re all good. Human’s are good like that. They can watch another human just like them be burned alive and hang from a tree grasping for his last breath and be alright with it if they’re told that it’s for God, Country, or fuck-all. ”Tibetans are being killed? What? Holy shit did you see that triple twist that guy just pulled off? Man I LOVE the Olympics!”

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Those wild rebels with shovels, pitchforks, pick axes, pots and pans of the French Revolution showed us that. Try fucking with the French people now. Their government doesn’t even dare think it.

Don’t have the money to fly to China and throw a few dozen eggs at the Prime Minister of England when he stands up and pretends that he’s ok with China’s blatant disregard for basic human values and ethics? Well let’s hope someone else does. But in the meantime, then take another action. At the very least, whoever you are, wherever you are, if you’re human and not entirely bought in to the point that you can’t even see the insanity of the charade, then TUNE OUT the Olympics. Do it in solidarity for every single innocent life tortured, kidnapped, murdered, or imprisoned in the unholy land where the world will finally wake up and say “Fuck the Olympics.” Don’t watch. Don’t listen. Don’t read about them in the paper. “What Olympics?” you ask. Exactly. Now you get the point. There are no Olympics this year. Revisionist history.
The Olympics is about sport. At some point surely this was true. But it is more about money. Money is everywhere. Every pocket gets a little. Everyone is looking forward to making money over the next few months from the sport now called “the Olympics.” Human life be damned, everyone is out to make a bloody fortune. Bloody being the operating word. China itself will make a killing. An angelic pun. Each of the countries represented who will win Gold. The TV stations, the vendors, the newspapers with all those fancy high-priced ads with the Olympic rings around that brand new plasma screen TV you just gotta have from Best Buy…. It’s all about money.

But there’s that voice in the back of our minds… in the back of our throats wanting to scream “Fuck them all. Human life and human dignity is not something to disregard and make money in spite of.”

The hard cold facts of the reality of the situation hit our faces like a 30 degrees below zero wind chill in a Chicago winter. Can you feel it? It stings. It burns. It smells of rotting flesh. It smells of sweat shops and men and women behind bars in prisons with no lawyer, no phone call, no sense of security or justice, no basic human rights, no civil liberties. It smells like China. And if you ask most people it smells like shit. The American president can still taste it. God bless the heroic young activist who took aim and fired his homemade shit pie and had the courage to show the world what courage really is.

If you want to “send a message to U.S. president Bush and the rest of the world with your voice of dissent against china’s human rights abuses” as our esteemed colleague, friend, and mentor Larry Cox of Amnesty International suggests below, don’t just write a letter. DO SOMETHING MORE. Sure Larry makes a good point below. And he is doing it from a truly heartfelt and compassionate space. Diplomacy. But diplomacy isn’t all its cracked up to be sometimes. Sometimes it takes more. Times have changed. Leave the letter writing to the old ladies who aren’t able to do much else. At this time in human history, even the elderly are standing up and taking action. They’ll write plenty of letters. Leave it to them. Amnesty International shold be asking for more than letter writing at this time in human history if they are seriously concerned about the mission they claim to be.

Get out and spread the FUCK THE OLYMPICS AND FUCK CHINA message out in your local community. Scream it, shout it, talk about it at the bar as you turn a blind eye to the TV attempting to titilate you with so and so’s historic 100 yard dash in between commercials trying to woo you into buying that new Ford truck. Spray paint it on every wall you walk by on your way home from work. FUCK CHINA. FUCK THE OLYMPICS. In fact, spray paint it any damn where you choose. If someone even mentions “the Olympics” to you in the next 30 days, respectfully and politely but resolutely respond “Fuck the Olympics.” Sure they might think you’re crazy.

But what’s crazy? How long will we as a collective species endure lies, errors of judgment, inhumane schemes of money and economics, overt deceptions, and be forced into pretending we don’t see the giant pink elephant in the room called “fucking a! They’re torturing and imprisoning people up the arse over there! What can we do??? Oh? nothing??? Sit down and shut up and watch the Olympics because they say so?” Rather, when will we create and demand that WE ALL get treated equally well? With equal respect. With equal rights. And with equal civil liberties for all regardless of how ruthless, wealthy, or powerful the governing body of the moment happens to be?

The answer to that question is this: we don’t need to wait anymore. Imagine day one of the 2008 Olympics. Chinese president Hu Jintao is introduced to a stadium of 100,000 people. He steps up to the podium and the stadium goes quiet. Instead of applause, just total and utter silence. There will not be one soul in that stadium audience who is not guilty of being fully or at least partially aware of how inhumane and unjust the Chinese government is and has been towards Tibet AND its own people as well, right here right now.

Will they heed the call to defend themselves and all of humanity by remaining silent in one giant act of unified civil dissobediance? Or will they jump up and down and applaud like ignorant little monkeys because that’s what they think they’re supposed to do? Telling their intuition or higher self - that voice in the mind of each of us, our sixth sense - to please be quiet… “SHHHH can you please be quiet?! Yes yes i know that China is a cruel and inhumane dictatorship who have killed tens of thousands of Tibetans and destroyed thousands of temples and all that horrible imprisonment stuff… but I’m trying to watch the Olympics!”

Point made. Most WILL play along. Sad but true. They’ll jump, dance, shout, scream, yeehaw, yahoo, grin, laugh, cry, spin around in circles… each one of them being careful not to step on one of the tens of thousands of dead bodies piled all over the fucking place. “No mam, that’s not blood. That’s just paint. Our flag is red you know.”

The 2008 Olympics did NOT have to be held in China. The Olympic Committee made this choice. And they did so knowing full well of what heinous crimes China has committed to the people of Tibet and to their own people as well. Remember, this was their choice. No mercy. So no mercy in return. This year they made a conscious decision to turn the Olympics into a canniving manipulating beat up old dirty needle marked whore with the look of decades of guilt and shame in her tired sagging blooshot eyes. So when someone says FUCK THE OLYMPICS this year, well, I’d think twice about taking it literally. I wouldn’t get my clean machine within a thousand miles of the wench.

There are a few of us out there roaming the small planet along with the others who see the blood, not the paint. In fact there are more than most of us realize at this point. Millions. There is a Facebook Group you can join called FUCK YOUR OLYMPICS CHINA. Yes… that’s more like it. The times have indeed changed. When they light that torch in a few days there are those who will understand what it really means. They will be horrifed and more than a bit nauseated. Inspiration and awe will not enter their minds.

In the meantime, Amnesty International IS asking us to sign a petition below. A noble goal. Just not a very bold action. So sign the petition. But don’t let it stop there. Step up. Take more action.
Sincerely,

The Raconteur

With the Olympics just around the corner, act now and hold China to its word.Tell President Bush to speak out against China’s human rights violations before the Games begin.


Dear TuneInTurnOnHelpOut.org members,
Torture. Long-term detentions without charge or trial. Censorship of the internet and media. Does this sound like a country that’s trying to improve its human rights record?
Ye Guozhu, a human rights defender in Beijing, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for taking action against forced evictions related to the Olympics. Amnesty International fears he has been tortured while in detention. He was due to be released on Saturday, July 26 but will now remain imprisoned until October, after the end of the 2008 Olympic Games.Chinese authorities have stepped up their repression of human rights defenders in order to “clean up” Beijing. With the Olympics only 10 days away, take action and urge China to create a positive human rights legacy.

In 2001 China made a promise to improve its human rights record if given the honor of hosting the Olympic Games. Instead, China has become increasingly repressive with crackdowns on dissent and the rounding up and arrest of human rights defenders. Citing “security”, China has imprisoned individuals for doing nothing more than drawing international attention to ongoing human rights violations.

President Bush will attend the opening ceremonies of the Games on August 8. Before he leaves for Beijing, tell President Bush to make a public statement condemning the human rights violations perpetrated in preparation for the Olympics.
He went to prison and was tortured for defending human rights.

Intuition, Visions, the God Particle, and Gravity-Free environments

Fascinating... Allow me to explain. I first started getting visions of free-gravity environments in 1995. It was January to be precise. I will never forget the moment. I was in the living room of my mother's house, visiting. I just all of a sudden saw this vision that things in the room at some point in the near future would start "floating" -- that we would invent a new anti-gravity device or system and that it would enable us to make much better use of vertical space. For example desks could be placed mid-level in the room above another desk etc - and there would be no need for what we now use as "stairs." I have by now actually so worked it into one particular novel because i have been taking it for granted for so many years now -- just assuming it was bound to happen soon, but not knowing the specific science behind how we would do it. Just knew it. Saw it. Think about it now and then. And voila, here it is. As in Meet Joe Black, "Yes."

I will go further regarding the idea of "visions" or what we might refer to as tapping into the intuitive mode of consciousness or our intuition - and then paste the specific science notes regarding the "God Particle" below that help to explain this rant.

Visions... yes, a big subject. But simply put, how to tell if we are indeed having "visions" of the future or "premonitions" - or, if we are simply mad or insane? Yep. That's the big question. But remember that Arthur C. Clark envisioned satellites, laptop computers, email, and many other things long before they existed and he was not a scientist. But rather a writer of pulp science fiction from a postal employee family. But nonetheless, he envisioned many of the things that we take for granted today. The space station even. Etc.

In 1992 while writing in the journals that would eventually become the novel The Adventures of Fishy, I wrote these words, "This of course transpires just after the Middle East attacks the financial district of New York City in the United States at the turn of the century which precipitates the economic collapse and this great holy war that our hero and the rest of humanity is now engulfed in."

Well less than eight years hence we all watched it happen. Was that a vision? Or just a lucky guess? Either way, what i wrote was so damn "on" that it scared the hell out of me when i saw it live on TV - and yet as i watched, i also was keenly aware that i had already seen it hundreds of times in my mind because i had already "seen" it and knew it was going to happen eight years prior... and was already working on a giant novel series where it really does happen so I was already taking it for granted. Eerie. Sure. At first.

Over the last fifteen years since, the envisioning process has become easier and easier for me. Now i take "visions" for granted. Meaning simply that I trust my intuition. I have so many of them about so many things that I do not question it anymore.

The most difficult aspect of this paradigm? After all, what are we really speaking of? Tapping into an aspect of our own consciousness that already exists, our intuition. Just as we tap into "love" - which is another aspect of consciousness, or "hate" or any of the other things that we now call "our senses."

I firmly posit that intuition is what we now loosely refer to as "the sixth sense." That "seeing" or "having visions" is nothing more than simply being aware of the fact that we DO NOT HAVE FIVE SENSES, but in fact AT LEAST SIX. I would guess we have many more than that. WE just haven't labeled them as such yet.

Just as we were once taught that there were NINE PLANETS. Well at this point, who really knows... some say Pluto is no longer a planet. And then there were those two others they found a few years ago... so at this point there is no general consensus about it. So we were taught WRONG. Just as once people were taught that the Sun revolved around the Earth because Aristotle told us it did. But unfortunately for human scientific advancement, we were all just plain wrong. And for hundreds of years. Thousands really.

I believe the same thing will eventually be common knowledge with this whole silly notion of teaching "ourselves as children" that "we have five senses." It is silly when the sense of intuition so obviously exists. To some people it comes in visions that they see. In other people it comes more in voices that they hear. In still others it comes in something that they FEEL. It is a phenomenon at this point that we are still just feeling our way into and still discovering. Or "creating." Depending on how you look at it...

Anyway, people ask me all the time, "how can i tell the difference between my intuition and "an impulse." And my answer is always that for me personally i just "know." I can tell the difference. Sometimes. Operative word there. I believe it is still something that we need to do much work on still - we need to practice using it. We need to cultivate it. A good start would be officially acknowledging it scientifically in what we refer to as the "medical community" - so we can stop telling ourselves that we only have "five senses." That would be a good place to start.

Philosopher/author Harry Palmer, the man who created the Avatar courses and knowledge base which is now becoming so popular in mainstream society, (and who much of the above is greatly indebted to) once remarked that when we step into a room we can "feel" the energy of the room... we can FEEL if there was an argument or fight that just took place in the room... etc. Or we can feel if there is a lot of "love" in the room. Makes sense. No need to go into it, for we have all had that experience... So there it is in a nutshell. It is something we take for granted as a real experience for us as human beings... but we just don't label it medically or biologically yet... but we will. And soon.

Let us begin to cultivate this sixth sense of ours and perfect it just as we take seeing or hearing or tasting or smelling for granted... and then soon enough we shall see.

Now here below is an excellent summary of the God Particle work that prompted this particular post. It was written by Simdul Bala Shagaya and called Finding the God Particle:

inding the God Particle
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Friday, April 25, 2008 at 4:52am
A few friends asked about the God Particle. It is notoriously difficult to explain this facet of physics but here's my stab at it.

The God Particle (aka the Higg's Boson) was proposed over 40 years ago. Its existence explains why everything has mass in the universe. Without allowing for this particle, everything should be "weightless" (if you can imagine that) and gravity would be non-existent and there would be no life in the universe.

The God Particle existed a few moments into the creation of the universe when things were very very very hot. But as the Universe cooled down, mass was conferred on everything by the Higg's Field (although some stuff - like photons/light - escaped the effect of Higg's and are thus weightless).

Anyhow, CERN is a cutting edge research institute that is building a large machine that will replicate the first few moments of the universe. This machine - the LHC - took about 25 years and $16 billion to build. It is undoubtedly the largest and most ambitious experiment ever carried out by humanity. It will be turned on at some point this summer.

Its aim is to ascertain the existence of the God particle. If the particle is found, it will answer some very deep questions about the universe and open the door to some pretty profound applications. Some of those applications may be:

1. Humanity will be on the way to being able to manipulate gravity by in turn manipulating the Higg's Field. In English: levitation may be possible.

2. It would mean that the traveling faster than the speed of light may be possible as the confines of the famous E=MC^2 will not apply any longer. Within the confines of this law, it would require infinite energy to move a mass towards the speed of light. But what if we could get rid of mass altogether? Then you could accelerate matter to and past the speed of light. Meaning Inter-Stellar travel to other galaxies may be possible some day.

Why we write

One of the shittiest days in recent memory to be sure. The Diaries are already causing a riot since I started posting them again and its been less than two weeks. Perhaps was not such a good idea. Problem with that conclusion is that they are already getting so popular again... the momentum building. The emails, the comments, the dialogues forming...

The YouTube experiment is now over and I believe I gathered a lot from it. A downright fascinating and engaging and educational and definitely a fun experiment. In one year I filmed roughly 350 movies, managed to edit and post about 90 of them, and just let them take off... I am now in the process of creating a summary report about what I learned from it. And everyday they still continue to teach me plenty, because they are still up and active and being actively viewed, rated, and commented on. So it IS a fascinating cultural experiment. The greatest joy – the secret giggle – coming from the fact that not only did I become almost instantly addicted to the process itself... which in itself says a lot about us as a society, but also in the irony in that they were ultimately a covert mass-cultural experiment. To see what was hot, what was not hot. What would take off, what would not take off. What people like, what they don't like. What they comment on, what they don't comment on. What gets viewed a lot, and what never gets viewed... all categorized and sorted based on keyword searches, comments, ratings, etc... again, fascinating.

But there was something about the art of WRITING – especially just blogging -- that I really missed. Especially since the writing that I am doing in the Transcendence Diaries is really just a massive book writing experiment in real time online for all the world to witness as it is being written... so one cannot really call it a “blog” – especially since we started posting them long before the word “blog” even existed and long before the first “blogging” website ever appeared... we had to create our own website and system for it... this was back in the year 2000.

“G2? I love your idea...
“Which one dog? I have so many,” he comments with this smirk on his face...
“The one about me posting my diaries online for fans, as I write my book in real time... it’s fucking brilliant... but how do we post all that? I mean what system are we going to use for this?”
“Good question my man. It is simple. You write them at night. Then email them to me before you go to bed. I then post them to this page I've created every morning. You see? It’s all in frames... It’s that easy. People log on to that page from a link on your band’s homepage.”
Just one twenty-mile long ass HTML page is how they started... day after day, month after month, and eventually year after year... what a long strange trip its been...

But now after a year and a half off from “posting” (I have still been writing – 250 pages written but not posted in the last year alone) we’re back and it feels great. Based on the immediate positive response I received when I started to post again I was excited by the new potential of it. that was until today...

What we WILL do is PUBLISH them as a book instead. Bunny is already grabbing large chunks of them in her off hours – what she calls “the nuggets” out of them – for certainly 2000 pages is just too much for a book... at least according to her. And what she plans on doing is just putting together one really exciting solid book with one or two main plots and themes and just focusing in on the major characters... And the irony is that this will end up being WORSE for those who are adamantly against them.... but at least create a small fortune for us all. So maybe all the fuss is for naught. Because I think in the end, people are willing to put up with some privacy exposed if they're profiting from it... who knows. Again, as with many things that I do, its an experiment. We will just have to wait and see...

We know this much though. Fishy does disappear suddenly. Whether he dies or not or how he dies or when he dies we may never know. Perhaps it is these very Diaries that kill him. Who knows...

So yes, the good old Transcendence Diaries are back... a source of never ending confusion, angst, and passionate arguments and heated debates since we started with the experiment way back in 2000 with the very first post. I don't know what's worse really... the Transcendence Diaries or the YouTube videos with me half clothed rambling incoherently for ten minutes about the most ridiculously controversial and irrelevant subjects. Both seem to cause problems...

So where to begin... after church today I was to have a strategy meeting with Catherine Darlington, mentor, advisor, patron of the arts, caretaker, dream creator, extremely disciplined and calculating business mind. One that Fishy needs desperately. I was to meet her exactly one block north of our church so no one would see me get in the car. Ever the prim, proper, elegant, well spoken, calm, demure, but demanding as all hell hostess, she lets me into the back of the limo as is her usual ride on our way to brunch to hammer a few things out and review my week’s activities and I casually mention to her that I have started posting to the Transcendence Diaries again and how I excited I was by the fact that we have hired illustrators to start illustrating all 179 characters and how amazingly cool that would be when it is all finished and up on the new site that Bloopy had created. A totally dynamic web2.0 near-graphic novel experience for the user. Fresh. Hot. New. Cool. Cutting edge.

Only she didn't think so at all. “What may I ask does this have to do with ANY of the other projects that you are dong right now darling?”
“Well it doesn’t exactly...”
“I didn't think so. So WHY are you doing it? Haven't you learned anything? How many times do I have to repeat the same things to you Fishy?! NO MORE NEW PROJECTS!”
“Well this isn't exactly a NEW project.... I mean, I've been doing it for a while now to be technically factual about it.... eight years to be precise.”
“You know EXACTLY what I mean Fishy. What does this have to do with your BOOK? What does this have to with your continuing Iran media campaign? What does it have to do with your consulting company or your band’s new albums coming out? What does it have to do with MAKING MONEY?! What is WRONG with you?”

I sat up in my seat and faced her. “Well Catherine, its just that this could be really big... you see.. not only are people really excited by the fact that I started posting to the Diaries again, but once we add the illustrations then we’re going to have this totally new thing happening that no one’s ever done before and....”

“We’ve been having this same conversation for a year and a half Fishy. I heard this same thing about the ebook. And about the barter company. And about the consulting company. And then about the pop-culture book and have you finished either of those projects? And then you're off to Iran! Out of the blue, you're off to IRAN! And then because of that trip you have to start two non-profit websites??!! And let’s not forget about the THREE albums that you have recorded and have still NOT released. And you're going to record another album with a fourteen year old kid now?

“Well actually he's fifteen... I mean, to be accurate...”
She turned to face me with one of the most stern looks I had ever seen coming my way before. “Fishy. I don't care how old he is. Don't be a smartass. The point is that you going off to record another album doesn’t make any logical sense when you have three already recorded and not on the market yet making you MONEY!
“Yeah that money thing is always a problem...” I mumbled.
“For whom? Perhaps that's the question we should be asking? And now you're back on this other book? Still haven't turned in the first chapter to your new book to the agent yet, no word on what’s happening with the Sundance Film Channel or Elle Magazine yet and I asked you that three times now, and you're spending how MUCH time BLOGGING???!!! Fishy you have to grow up and get it together or you're going to be living in the park.” She pointed out the window to Central park that was to our right as we were driving.

Catherine was right... again. I slumped in my plush leather seat and stared out the tinted window to my right... as usual... what was I going to say? On the one hand she was right. why WAS I starting a new project? Even though it is an old project? But still... why? Why NOW when I am right in the middle of another project that is worth so much more money? I mean, could it be true? Am I really retarded as Bunny and a few others tell me? Am I that dense and I just don't see it? I didn't know... all I knew was that I was really loving this whole new idea of the resuscitated Diaries and my whole life I always just followed whatever I was into in the moment based on whatever inspired me - knowing that I would always be successful with whatever I did... and my whole life smart and organized girls had always organized my life and my ideas in ways that always kept me safe and out of the streets and wealthy most of the time...

I looked over at Catherine. She was perfect. Totally out of my league. Her shoulders back, chest out, head up, nose in the air. My mind began to wander... I started imagining this commercial... the one we would use to advertise the third or fourth installment of my life-story... wherever we are now in this mammoth work, I'm not even sure... So I started commentating it out loud there in the back of the limo.... “Obligatory French-imported-chic-gay-guy stylist in New York City style haircut? Three-hundred and fifty dollars.” I looked down at her shoes... “Fifth Avenue Prada designed white snakeskin and bamboo mid heel platform slides? Six-hundred and ninety-five dollars. Imported Italian leather and gold Gucci handbag? One-thousand two-hundred and ninety-five dollars. Yelling at Fishy because you are a patron of the arts? Priceless.” I let out a big belly laugh. “Goddamn I'm funny.”

“Get out,” Catherine said quietly to me. “If you aren't going to take this seriously then get out.”

So I did what any normal sane thinking person does in a situation like that. I opened the car door at the next slow-down, jumped out of the car, lost my balance, fell down to the ground into a triple roll -- barreling down Fifth Avenue and 60th street and almost killed myself landing flat on my back in the middle of the street. “Well that was really smart,” I thought. “Way to go there pal.” I was lying flat out near the curb of Fifth Avenue out in the open for everyone in New York city to see. And just then my cell phone rang. People were staring at me from all four corners... probably wondering if I was alive or dead. I reached into my pocket and answered my phone. “Hello?”

“Fishy, its Sabine. How are you?”
“Oh hi Sabine. I'm fine. I'm good. how are you?”
“I'm o.k. I just got back. Where are you now? What are you doing?”
“Um well... not much really... I'm just sitting here... you know... working...”
“Fishy it sounds like you are outside... where are you?
“Uh yeah well I just stepped out to take a walk actually... I'm on the upper east side...”
“Good. Come over.” And she hung up the phone. That's Sabine in a nutshell.

“o.k. wow so this is going to be one of those days...” I'm thinking to myself. I sat up on the sidewalk so I wouldn’t get run over... And I did end up sitting there for a while contemplating whether or not to go to Sabine’s house or not... She had been on the road for a few days and we had not seen each other in weeks. Maybe months. I finally decided I might as well. I was in her neighborhood. But as soon as I got there I knew something was wrong.

Polite, uneasy hug. Less than a minute of small talk and then “Follow me please,” she motions to me with her finger and turns and starts walking into the office of her apartment and I followed her. She points to her computer screen and what do I see? Seventeen inches of full screen Transcendence Diaries up on her computer.... I swear to God I almost ran out of there... this just wasn't going to be my lucky day.

“Fishy what the FUCK is THIS?!” she screams.
“Holy shit! You're reading my diaries?!!!! You said you would never read my diaries!
“I never said such a thing! And besides I don't WANT to read your diaries!
“So why are you reading them? Woman you make no sense!”
“But everyone else DOES read them. How do you think I FEEL Fishy? With this shit up here?” “Poor Sabine? Poor Sabine?!!!” This is what you're doing with your life? Writing “poor Sabine”? Fuck you Fishy!” I was dumbfounded. I mean, I was really in shock. Felt like I got hit in the stomach by a two by four. Two in one day. Just too much. And all because of the Diaries and they'd been back up for what? A week? I mean, this was just too much...

“Sabine I don't know what to say. I'm back in the flow now... I'm writing again...
“I thought you had a book deal for some non-fiction book?
“Yeah that too... its coming along... but the Diaries are my life. You know that...”
“And evidently my life too! Bastard! How could you?!”
“Look Sabine! Just stop! I'm sorry. I cannot sit here and argue with you about every detail in my fucking book!
“It’s not a book! It’s a blog! And it’s online and everyone can read it! I don't want people reading about my personal life Fishy!
“Hold on... are you saying that if this WERE a book that you would feel differently?
“Well it would just be different...
“How?! How would that be different?
“Well for one thing you would be making more money from it... and...
“And what?
“And maybe then people wouldn’t log online to read it!”

“You don't think a book is gong to be read by people or be just as personal? It’s the same thing. Sabine! This IS a book. But you know me... I'm just coming at it from a different angle... from an unconventional angle... I'm writing a REAL BOOK but in real time online.... fifteen-hundred-fucking pages... gosh, now more like two thousand pages really...

“yes I know, you and your fifteen hundred fucking pages!” by now she was
crying... not crying as much as tearing... and that's the worst thing for me. Like, I would pretty much do anything to get a girl to stop crying. Especially a girl I love. And the thing about me is that I love every girl I've ever been with. You know, its some sort of glitch in my system... I never stop loving them.
“Sabine you know that Bunny has already started to grab chunks of the Diaries and she is now in the process of turning it INTO a book! O.k.? I already told you that a few weeks ago on the phone when you were in Omaha or whatever.
“It was Idaho you bastard!”
“O.k. Idaho. Whatever. You know what I mean though? I mean how are you going to deal with that? You KNEW this when we met! You knew all about the Diaries!”
“And I told you that I WOULD NOT BE in your BOOK! Or in your Diaries! Remember that? Remember that? I told you that. Period. Sabine not in the Diaries!”
“And I kept my freaking promise to you didn't I?! I haven't blogged in almost two years! I have left almost two freaking years out of Fishy’s life now in the Diaries, and why?! Because of YOU. Because you asked me not to write publicly about you. But YOU were in my life during those two years and YOU were all I wrote about mostly so it put me in a position where i couldn't post ANYTHING that i was writing! Take a look at those years... I post a few music videos and that's all... And as a writer I can tell you that it sucks...
"Well as a writer you can write about other things besides Sabine!"
"Sabine, no I can't. You see. That's the thing. I HAVE to write about you. It's already a mess... no one even knows you exist. Now if you do show up in the Diaries out of nowhere everyone is going to be so confused. And people want to read that stuff. They want to know what the hell happened during that time. I can’t just leave out two full years of his life!”
“You can’t blame that on me! That's because you were busy youtubing and filming yourself all the time you egomaniac!”
“O.k. I know.” I sort of laughed here. “ O.k. so that's true. But it was also for YOU. Because I told you that I wouldn’t write about you. And I didn't. Not a freaking word. It was like you never existed!"
“What do you call what I just read Fishy?! What do you call that? That WAS ABOUT ME!”
“Well that's because you told me that you would never read the Diaries! And plus we've been broken up for over a year. Almost two now. So I thought it was o.k. I really didn't think you'd mind.”
“Do you think I want to read about you and your other girlfriends?! How do you think that makes me feel? Huh?!”

“Sabine look around your apartment!!! You're a freaking artist yourself! Look at these books all over your house!!! Half this stuff is REAL!!!! Do you like these books????!!!” I picked up a giant hardcover coffee table book on the life of Picasso... “Do you LIKE Picasso? Because his life was REAL. o.k.? This stuff in this book is REAL. His various wives and mistresses and girlfriends and the phases of his art that were all inspired by these different women in his life... that is all REAL. Just like YOU are real. And you know what? You LOVE reading about the life of Picasso! So what am I supposed to do? Stop living my life?!”
“No! Just stop writing about it so the whole world can read it! Why don't you try that?!”
“But this is my life! Right here. This book! And you, and me, and everyone else, this is it!!! And you're asking me not to do my art and not to do my life. This is freaking crazy! You can’t ask that of me. I already have a year and half missing because of you and I just can’t take it anymore. I have to do it Sabine.”
“You WANT to do it. You don't HAVE to.” She was sniffling. Had stopped crying... “You could easily turn the last year and a half into a book that wasn't so personal and change everything around and not post them online and then I wouldn’t have to be in it.”
“Sabine there are things that I have written about us that I HAVE to post. They are just TOO good. Really good scenes. I've been reading them... really really good scenes...
“Like what? What have you written about?"
“Pretty much everything... I guess,” I confessed.
“And now you're going to post them?! What are you going to post? Our sex life?
“Well yeah, some of it. I mean there's some really good stuff in there from the last two years...”
“You are NOT going to post anything about our sex life Fishy! I forbid you! Like what? What are you thinking? Are you even thinking?! I'm a professional dancer Fishy! I am a public figure in the arts! And so are you! You cannot post shit about me and my sex life in your Diaries!”
“You know, o.k. look, just us, you know... and our dynamic and our attraction to each other and our sexual chemistry – I mean that's all really important stuff. You know... its revolutionary in the life of Fishy. It's big stuff.”
“You WILL NOT post anything about me online in regards to our sex life!” she stood up and lit a cigarette. I hate the smell of cigarettes. Especially in a closed room.
“How the fuck can you smoke and be a dancer?
“Baryshnikov smoked and he is the greatest dancer of all time! I can smoke! Fuck you! And you aren't going to write about our sex life online. Nor in a book. Period.”
“Well maybe just the virgin islands then... I mean that was an amazing moment in time... Do you remember that weekend?" [I closed my eyes for a moment and allowed myself to just look back at that weekend in my memory... it was one of those moments that you never forget... there was the night on the chaise lounge under the stars and moonlight... half awake, half asleep... time stopped.... two as one... how could i NOT write about it? I reopened my eyes and looked back at Sabine who was still sniffling...]
“I remember that we spent the whole weekend drinking and making love. And that it was beautiful. That's what I remember. And I remember that that is PERSONAL AND PRIVATE information. Not something for you to write about!” She sat back down and continued to tear and sniffle and to smoke her cigarette.

In that moment I just looked at her sitting there across the room from me... her tall thin frame twisted into a ball on the chair. So elegant and graceful still even though she was so angry with me. When girls get sad its kind of a turn on. I don't know why. Her olive skin. Her long dark curly hair. Her eyes all wet with tears... On the one hand I still find myself madly in love with her. It takes everything for me not to reach out to her, caress her, hold her, kiss her, and spend all night making love with her... how easy it would be... falling asleep... argument over... But I'm also just looking at her thinking I cannot believe we are having this conversation.

Not more than a month previously she had told me that the biggest money I was going to make was going to be when my memoirs finally came out in book form. That she was reading Eat Pray Love and that it made her think of me and how big my story would be, based on the Diaries... which is one of the reasons why I started in on this project again in the first place. From her advice!!!! From something that she said! It was just too ironic and twisted that we were sitting here arguing over something I wrote a week ago... and I was doing it based on her suggestion. A casual comment she had made. And now she was upset that I had taken her comment seriously and had started writing again.

I felt so exposed... how strange... you can have your diaries online and have that many subscribers and you're fine with it... because you don't know any of them, and if you do, they don't really talk to you about it anyway... they’re strangers...

But then when someone you know is sitting there reading your personal diaries right up there on their computer screen, you feel so exposed. Like it is this major invasion of privacy... It was something that just struck me as extremely odd. And funny. So I just let out this laugh – right in the middle of this very uncomfortable silence in the room...

“Why are you laughing?! Your such an asshole!”
“Sabine, can you please not use language like that? Why do you have to speak that way?”
“Why are you so self righteous that you are allowed to say whatever the hell you want to and I can’t? Why is that Fishy? Why aren't girls allowed to curse in front of you? Why can’t I say asshole? Huh? Asshole!” One has to remember that she still speaks with this Israeli accent so almost everything she says sounds cute and funny... even when she is serious...
“Sabine. Please. I'm serious. It's just gross. Trust me. English is not your native language so to you these are just words. But to me they strike a certain chord within me and it is not pleasing to my ears nor to my heart or stomach... Please. Just stop.”
“God, you're such an asshole Fishy. A dramatic asshole. Everything you do and say is such a contradiction!” I just sat there staring at her yelling at me. Time seemed to stop. The room got silent even though I could still see that she was still yelling at me... But I was reaching my breaking point by this time... I just wanted to leave. I couldn’t take another second of it. My insides felt so sick.

But at the same time I didn't want to abandon her either... I mean, just leave her there alone in her anguish and discomfort... it felt so unfair. So ungentlemanly-like. But the thing is I could never say anything like that to her because she is such a feminist she will think it is a chauvinist thing to say. And then she would just kick me out screaming at me. A strange situation. So I just tried to be with her and keep calming the situation down... what to do...

She was right though. My actions WERE affecting other people. I had never thought about that... well that's not true actually... I had thought about it... back in ’03 when we had to pull the Diaries down entirely for almost a full year. That was back when I was still writing with real names. My real name, Fishy, but also everyone else’s real name... it had turned into a nightmare. I couldn’t go anywhere anymore without people referring to what I was writing in the Diaries... At the time we only had 650 pages online. But we pulled them all down... Because the truth of the matter was they were affecting other people negatively... It was a real invasion of their privacy...

It took me almost a year to figure out what to do... I kept writing privately but not publicly... and for some strange reason it was killing me... I needed a solution... I had to figure out some new plan for them.... after almost a year of contemplating the matter we finally came up with the idea to incorporate the real life Transcendence Diaries into the semi-fictional book The Adventures of Fishy and make them one singular gigantic entity. I will never forget the moment I got the idea... it was dusk. The sun was setting... I was standing out in a parking lot on my phone with Princess Little Tree pacing in the parking lot back and forth trying to come up with some solution to the Transcendence Diaries dilemma... it finally occurred to me right there on the phone with Princess Little Tree...

The plan was that I would sit down for two solid weeks at my parent’s house over the Christmas holidays – I must have smoked 30 cigars out there on their back porch -- and edit all 650 pages - changing everyone’s name and image and face and personality to protect their identity. What a task. But I finished it in less than two weeks and the Diaries were back online.

So yes... I HAD experienced this before. I just forgot... But what Sabine didn't realize and even Catherine didn't understand is that the Diaries are my therapy. Sabine was busy reading each and every entry... analyzing who was who, what was said about who and all that... like she really believes they are real... but by the time I post them I totally forget about what I even wrote. It just flies out of my head. For me its over then. It means nothing. Its like some sort of voodoo therapy for me.... Some true. Some not true. Who knows.... To me it’s just writing... it’s a drug. It just has absolutely nothing to do with anything that you can sit down and analyze from a personal perspective anymore than anything else that happens in life... because in the end it is all just the human condition... the human experience... and we can’t spend our lives analyzing every detail that happens in our lives. We have to move forward. For me, writing the Diaries has been my way of getting beyond the past and constantly stay moving forward.

I could never imagine going back and reading any of it. I already told my agent “Look, I am really psyched that you are so into the Transcendence Diaries and The Adventures of Fishy projects, but you know that project isn't really going to be something I'm gonna be into... I would love if you guys take it and edit it all down and turn it into one big story with a narrative ark and all that... but that's not going to be my thing. Four or five thousand pages of memoir? No way. I'm just not interested. I'll keep writing and you just grab whatever you want and take it and publish what you want out of it and I'll trust you. And hey if we make some money even better. But for me its all about the NOW when I am writing and then baby the thrill is gone.”

And you know, that's the way good therapy should be really. In the end, if you forget what you are writing about, then that means you did your job. You exorcised those demons. They're gone. You never go back and look for demons...

Maybe one day Sabine will realize that. She didn't that night. I left her apartment a heaping mess of tangled flesh and emotion and angst and sadness and self loathing... Her too. But the following day we sort of worked it out... texting each other back and forth what we had learned about ourselves from thinking about it... I learned. She learned. That's life. I mean, why write? That's why we write isn't it?

The wealth of unconventionality

Now I may have been the last person in the free world to realize that I am as close to being functionally mentally challenged as you can get, but still, I get that. So I'm always careful now when I do anything. Exactly for that reason. Because enough people that care about me have warned me that for all my great ideas and glimpses of genius that seem to come out of nowhere at the drop of a hat, there are still other areas in this thing called life where I am so damn innocent and naive and ignorant that I need help crossing the street half the time. And indeed there has been more than one occasion where Madelynne O'Ryan or Catherine or Cleopatra or Princess Little Tree have saved my life from just simple dumb mistakes like not looking before I cross the street. I'll be typing in my PDA or talking on the phone or something....

I mean, truth be told, I wouldn’t even be here, now, doing what I do, whatever the hell that is, in all of its various forms, without the kindness foresight organizational skills and generosity of people like Catherine Darlington, Princess Little Tree, Madelynne, Mohdie, St. Theresa, or Beaver. It is almost as if I am an expert at certain things, and just plain tone-deaf at others. Luckily music is not one of those things - this is debatable I guess. But when it comes to life, it is almost as if I'm not reading the eye-chart correctly even though I don't appear to have any obvious vision problems. But given any extended length of time in my company and just about anyone will usually come to the same contradictory and vexing conclusion: that I am at once both damn near genius and damn near retarded.

Luckily most people don't seem to mind. Bunny is one of those people. She says my retardation is bearable because I make up for it by constantly turning her onto to so many cool things that she would never know about otherwise. She also holds a contract which gives her 10 or 15 % (I can’t remember – which perfectly illustrates just how dumb I truly am) of everything I make or will ever make from my next published book. So she could just be blue-skying me. Who knows. I doubt it though. We’re close. She's good people. Just finds me an enigma and doesn’t mind telling me sometimes. Especially when it happens to affect her or her life in a negative way. But the thing is that half the time she's fucking nuts. So it’s like who is the kettle and who is the pot? And what is that but life itself?

Catherine Darlington is even worse. She, having all the grace and more than any well mannered good natured girl from the South would be expected to have, but a demanding downright fearfully intimidating willfulness that anyone has who plays at the level she plays in the Fortune 500. At that level you have to be as diligent, disciplined, vigilant, brutally honest, cut-throat, and yet politically correct all at the same time as she is or else you just aren't going to last at that high of a level in the corporate world. She is an expert at it. I would say I am just about her polar opposite. No need to go into the details of the differences.

But let us not forget that for all of my numerous successes in the corporate world, we must be reminded that it has always been MY corporate world. I have never swam in anyone else's company pool. It’s just not my thing. You can promise me ten million a year and I still wouldn’t take it if it demanded that I have to actually do anything according to anyone else's schedule but my own. that's just the way that I am. Throw in the fact that I don't like the idea of political correctness, am as truthful, sometimes painfully so, as one can get, too frank, too blunt, and just too damn naive and lost in my own world to ever make it in the corporate world unless I am running that world. Which is what I've been doing now for the last twenty years. Ms. Darlington is the exact opposite. She has jumped from one firm to another over the last twenty years of her life and with each move doubled her salary to the point where she lives a life only dreamt about by most people. It makes the American dream look like something out of mother goose or little house on the prairie. But she's done it at a great expense. She works just about harder than anyone you'll ever meet.

But none of this is really the point. The point is that she being so practical and down to earth and logical and demanding finds no end to things that I do or say that drive her absolutely crazy. why on earth she still remains one of my dearest friends is beyond me. Certainly a fan of my work, but that doesn’t mean that she has to call me friend. Over the last twenty years I've had all sorts of investors, many of whom I've never even met. They just see a good thing when they see a good thing and if they can make money from it they're smart enough to throw money in its direction so they can reap the rewards of it. Many I've never been friends with. But I've always been lucky in that. Money flying at me from all over the place based on my ideas.... it’s gotta be something in the stars and planets... you know, something astrological. I was just born that way. And many people are. And many aren't. And that is that.

But Catherine Darlington doesn’t give a shit if she ever makes a dime from her investments in my various ventures. And quite frankly neither does Princess Little Tree or the Big Man in Black or Madelynne O'Ryan or that investor down in Guatemala, God what is her name? Vida de Paz – what a sweet soul. And neither does Eunice Fortunada, a long time investor in my projects since 1995 from Brasil. Years now. And more than that, they really want to be friends with me, and I don't think its ever been about money. At least for some. Catherine said to me the other day in regards to all of these different projects that I have going on right now, “I couldn’t care less about how much I make from them. I just want you to prosper as you always have. Ill be fine watching that.” Princess Little Tree said the same thing two days prior. And the Big Man in Black said to me, I'll have to paraphrase here, but it was something to the effect of “Fishy, I've made very little from you and I've managed you for almost twenty years my friend. But I swear to God that before I diiiiiieeeeeee,” and he really did stress this last word out like that, as he always does when trying to prove a point that he believes is very important “the world will know about you and your musical genius if it’s the last thing that I do my friend.”

“Well thank you man,” I said. “you know how much me and the boys appreciate all your work over the years. I mean, we try hard. You know. and its nice how much you like our music.”

“But this isn't just about your music Fishy. There are plenty of artists out there who are fucking great. Not necessarily in the same vein that you are, but I'm talking about because you are a good person. You are an honest person. and you are a man of integrity. If you don't mind me calling you a man,” he laughs. “I know how sensitive you are about your age Mr. peter fucking pan over there.” He knows it’s a touchy subject.

“Nah, you can call me whatever you want. That's what managers do. look. I know I'm not a man. at least not yet. So that's all that matters.” We both laughed our asses off for a few seconds. “But seriously, thanks for all your kind words Big Man. I'm serious. Thank you.”

“I'm serious Fishy. I have a good feeling about this next month or two. We are going to see you rise in a way that we have only dreamed of.... and I don't even care that I don't have a contract with you guys. This project I am doing for God and for justice.”

He was referring to the fact that as our band is about to release three albums this year, and it looks like it may be on three different labels, our contract with him expired years ago, and he has never even bothered to ask to renew it. Now that's trust. That is something that you cannot buy. You simply have turned into that kind of a person over the years or you haven't. And I can honestly say that I didn't even wince while he was speaking. it didn't boost my ego. But it also didn't make me feel all goose-pimply of uncomfortable either. if anything it just made me feel proud. Cause quite honestly I have worked my ass off on trying to be a good person. I mean, I wasn't born a good person. So I really had to work at. Some people, like Little Tree or Catherine Darlington, they're just born good people. Me, I was born with demons flying out of my ass and all sorts of problems. It took me years to settle into myself and gain control over who I was showing up as... so it was nice to hear that the big guy was that committed to our success, not just because he loves our music but more from just a place of wanting to do right by us because he liked us as people. That was a good feeling.

So yes. Ms. Darlington on the other hand is just always seeming on the verge of going mad from one thing or another that I do. And I am indebted to her for so many things as a friend. I mean one time a few years ago she said something to me like “Well sweetie, I'm the closest family you’ve got in this town so yeah you better care what I say and listen when I give you advice.” I think this was in response to some smart ass comment I made to the effect that she treated me like my mom or something and why was she always giving me advice all the time. that I could handle shit on my own. Thing is, she was right. I was reaching a point where I couldn’t handle it all on my own, and she was right there to help pick me up and see that I got back on my feet. Just like family does for each other.

So yeah she's pretty hard on me. People are always surprised to learn that my day to day work is actually taken directly form spreadsheets that she designs each week and passes out to me so I stay on task and achieve all the dreams I want to achieve in my life. again, that's not something you can buy. Someone that special in your life. That's just plain dumb luck, or perhaps its just working real hard at being a good person. But either way, I pretty much always do what she says. Cause she hasn’t let me down yet. But I sure seem to let her down plenty. The other day for example when I yelled at her at dinner with my mouth full of food which she hates “who the hell else do you know that goes to bed at five am when the sun is rising and the birds are chirping and then sets his alarm clock for 8am and wakes up three hours later?! How much harder can I work Catherine?”

“Well sweetie no one is doubting that you aren't working hard. But I just don't think that you are working smart. Answer me this, since you're so smart. Who the hell else as you say works as hard as you do on two non-profit projects and a million other projects that don't actually make him any money but does it for the “sake of art” and can’t even afford to buy food for themselves?”
“yeah, good point. I guess I do sort of go off on my tangents don't I?”
“And they're all noble goals Fishy. No one can take that away from you. But you need to bring it down a notch, let go of some of the fifty projects that you are working on right now and focus on the ones that are going to bring in actual money. Can you see that? how do you expect to ever get married and have children if you can’t even afford to do your own laundry?”
“Well I figure my wife will just do my laundry...” I replied but I was joking.
“With WHAT money sweetheart?” she asked in that sexy Southern drawl of hers.
“Yeah good point. Look, Catherine I hear you. Everyone’s been saying the same thing to me... so I hear you. I'm going to ease up on stuff here and focus in on just money making projects now. I promise.”
“Well you better. Because I don't know how much longer anyone can stand watching you live this way. I don't know how YOU can stand it honestly.”

Now to be honest and set the record straight here for newer readers we have to point out that at this point in our saga Fishy has been for a number of years already and is still actually a wealthy man who just happened to have been jilted our of his fortune by his former fiancé, Cleopatra Ecstasy, and her new husband, a shady character at best who goes by the name of Flyboy and practices criminal defense law as his occupation. Talk about Cleo jumping from one extreme to the other... but back on point. So despite all the “struggling artist talk” it is important to note that Fishy is actually sitting on a considerable sum of money being temporarily held in a court system battle that's dragged on for three long miserable years for the old boy.

He doesn’t mind living in the gutter so to speak because he is well aware of his considerable fortune and considers this part of his life an important if not essential learning and growing phase. Which indeed it has been. We have watched him slowly transform from an almost blindly materialistic, international traveling, jet-setting, big spending playboy, to a downright humble, relatively manageable, spiritually centered, honest to goodness do-gooder for the sake of do-gooding man of integrity in less than three years. And one could easily argue that we may have never been fortunate enough to witness this sublime transformation in our hero had it not been for Cleopatra and her wicked deceptions – as heinous as they may have been. There is purpose in all things if we care to sit quietly and observe all things.

The point is that for all his crying wolf, Fishy isn't lawfully impoverished – he's just temporarily flat broke with not more than a penny to his name (as of today that is. He does in fact have ONE penny in his pocket and that is really it) And for the reasons noted above and below he seems not to care at all most of the time but just keeps on working day to day with what many consider an illogical carefree and chipper attitude about life in general despite his apparently impoverished circumstances.

What else would explain a man who while walking down Broadway is approached by a beggar who asks him for a dollar and then reaches into his pocket, mumbles "well let's see what we've got..." pulls out two bills – a twenty and a one and says to the beggar “Here, this is all I have to my name. You take the twenty. I'll keep the one. You need it more than I do.” “May God bless you son,” the beggar says and they both mosey along in opposite directions into the New York night. More enigmatically, our hero literally with now only having one dollar to his name seems legitimately more happy than he was two minutes prior to giving away all he had left in the world but one dollar bill.... There is no explaining this. Trust me, I've tried. I unfortunately have to live with Fishy. And i can tell you that sometimes it just isn't easy sometimes to understand his motives or his m.o.

Except for the fact that he is in fact quite well-off. That is, if Cleopatra eventually wakes up, gets honest, follows the law, plays by the rules and gives him his money back. Point made. But an important one. Because there ARE artists out there in the world, hundreds of thousands of them, who truly are flat broke and really truly flat broke. And it isn't fair to play Fishy off as being in that same coveted category of geniuses, madmen, magicians, artists, wizards, nuns, priests, humanitarians, do-gooders, activists, et al... at least not yet anyway.

But let us also bear in mind that Cleopatra Ecstasy is every bit as evil and unpredictable as she is beautiful. So at this point in the story we aren't sure what will happen between the two of them.

We do know this much though. Cleopatra owns three homes, several of which are still in Fishy’s name, drives around in a Mercedes convertible, spending his money freely and with wild abandon while pawning herself off as a successful business person, while Fishy shuffles through the streets and subways of New York City flat broke doing his best to pawn himself off as a struggling artist. Both of them are in reality pretending to a certain degree to be what they are not. An odd contradiction. And an interesting sub-plot that speaks volumes about the anomalies inherent in the human condition.

“You see Catherine, the thing that I need you to understand, and I'm not trying to undermine what you are saying at all, I mean, I hear what you're saying, and I agree, but the thing is that I've always been this way. And as you know, I've always made it. I mean, I've always been successful. I just have a different way of going about it. Like if I were an army general. I just don't attack the enemy from the front line. I sort of take all my men and we all split up and head in different directions and for a few days or weeks or months even we may not see each other, and we may even feel like we are lost.

“But one day we all come charging into the center towards the enemy and surprise the hell out of them and we meet back in the middle completely victorious having surprised and slaughtered the enemy while they were asleep. And that's how I do life too. It might take me two months to write this damn first chapter of the new book, but I also happen to be writing three or four other books at the same time. Same thing with our music... I know it sounds crazy to you that we have three albums coming out this year, and another half finished at a studio down in Miami, and here I am talking about starting to record another one here in New York. But that's just the way I work. And then one day we wake up and one of our little projects takes off and then bam! It takes all the other projects with it and pretty soon we’re rolling in money. that's the way I've always done it. “
“Is it working?”
“Well not yet. but it will.”
“Well is it working now?”
“Well not right now it isn't, but I'll tell you this. I can feel it in the pit off my stomach... we’re damn close. I'm telling you right now. one day in the next month or two we are going to wake up to a Fishy explosion that will make the last twenty years of success seem like child’s play. I know what I'm doing. Trust me. I know what I'm doing.”
“Well let’s hope so. Cause I don't see any plan of action at all. all I see is a man with a lot of good ideas working himself into poor health and an early grave and not finishing anything he starts.”
“Well don't you worry. I'm real close to finishing a few different projects. and we’re going to be popping so many corks on so many Champaign bottles that you'll be sick of Champaign by the time we’re done celebrating.
“I'm not thinking about celebrating and Champaign Fishy. I'm thinking about you being able to live the life you are used to living again. And that's going to take you finishing at least one of these projects.”

Catherine wasn't saying anything I hadn't heard at least ten times in the last month truth be told. Even G2 had been recently sending me similar emails.... so I know my strategy seems a bit askew... but what choice do I have? I follow my muse. I just run with a lot of different projects at once till one hits and then I use that one’s success to carry the others and pretty soon we are in a place called “how the hell did he do all that?” My life has always been like that.

But to be fair, I have also had my share of losses too from just procrastinating too long on certain projects too. So I am aware of a real need to change my tactics a little bit. And thank God for all these amazing people in my life who care enough and are courageous enough to tell me how they see it from the outsiders perspective. Even my friends who are literary agents are going nuts. “Who the hell takes three months to finish one sample chapter? Do you have any idea what a privileged position you are in? Why can’t you just set a deadline and meet it?! For once? Just finish the freaking sample chapter and stop telling me you're writing some other book or you're too busy working on your band or some new non-profit project. I don't give a shit what else you are doing. I need you to turn in that sample chapter Fishy. Period. Got it?”

“Yeah. I got it.” So I've really been trying. Like here I am doing what? Three am in the morning and am I finishing that sample chapter? Nope. I'm just typing away in the Transcendence Diaries. why? I don't know. Maybe because its easy. Maybe because there is a glitch in my neural programming. Maybe because it feels good. Maybe because it’s the way I relax. Maybe because I think the ideas that are in my head need to be jotted down for posterity. Important stuff to remember. And maybe its because in the bigger picture I see it as an important element to our master plan.... probably a little bit of all of it.

So where we were? Yes. Right. The jury has made their decision and they have determined that I am guilty for being functional on the surface but entirely retarded and mentally challenged underneath it all and I am risking dragging a whole team of others down with me into a bottomless pit of half-finished projects and utter poverty and non-famousness. But what they don't understand, my ace in the hole, is that I am damn close to finishing many of these projects.... and then its all downhill from there.

Like Bunny tells me “Fishy when I look at your life I think two things: goddamn is that guy one lucky bastard. And two, from the outside it looks like you are this little snowball at the top of a mountain and once you get a slight push from anywhere up there, you are just going to come rolling off and continue to snowball downhill racing down that mountainside faster and faster and growing bigger and bigger. And fuck yeah if I'm not coming along for the ride!”

And my gut instinct tells me the same thing. That we will all be fine. I'm just going about things in an odd, eccentric, and confusing manner... an unconventional manner. That's all. In one fell swoop I will have finished close to twenty or more projects all at the same time. Rather than one at a time. That's just the way I do things right now.

Making the switch, Finding Character, and Uncaging the tiger

Ashland, So sorry. I couldn’t finish writing to you last night.

Last night Weather Girl spent the night. I know that must sound so loaded to start off an email right? But yes it is true. I was already asleep and she called and asked if she could spend the night (she lives in NJ now so it was too late to go home and she had an appnt in the city this morning). So I made a bed for her on the couch. I was tired and she was tired so I just wrote a bit (hence my late night email last night) and then went to sleep. She woke me up this morning to say good bye and we talked for a few minutes. She is leaving tomorrow for Miami and several other biz trips. I must say, (or else why else would I be emailing you) that it WAS weird.

And YOU are absolutely right. She DOES have other girls she can talk to about that kind of stuff. So why bother talking about it with me? You know? I mean, hey I know I'm supposed to be an enlightened person... but I am also human... and I also know that I am the one who broke up... but again, I am still human... and frankly that IS a weird experience...

But I know how it is when we meet someone that we just totally LIKE or think we do. So they are all we want to talk about. AND honestly I'm glad to see her act this way. Cause I was afraid that maybe she was a robot and didn't possess those feelings. So it’s good to see her crushing like a normal human being in a way... but still...for some reason it does make my chest hurt a little. Which makes no sense cause it’s not like I look at her and think “XYZ.” Wish I did honestly. Cause I'd love for the chase to be over. But I just don't. And I can’t fake it. So why would i be bothered at all by it? Like we discussed, i don't know. Must be something primordial... because it certainly isn't conscious.

You know? So yeah it made me think about what you said. One = the time thing. Needing space away where you can let the thing totally go... meaning your feelings for the person. and 2 = it is important to know that your friends are seeing someone but you don't want to just sit there and talk about it... and she's not even seeing anyone. God, I think about poor Sabine... how she must have felt... what was she doing???? Being friends with ME during that time??? I mean, that must have just been pure pain for her... what a saint.

Honestly Ash, I just think when we like someone, you see, we would rather talk to them or be with them than not. So even if they ARE seeing someone else... we still sit there and listen to them talk about the other person... which is totally masochistic. Really. So yeah that was kind of masochistic for Sabine. What she should have done is just STOP talking to me for a while so she didn't have to be reminded of it...

(but I bet that hurts too... that “wondering what they're doing now” thing” – have you ever been there? I have. that sucks too. It’s a catch 22.)

Well this is good practice for me. Weather Girl says to me “Fishy, I'm really glad you took the time to work on your whole Cary Grant thing...” (an inside joke...) Meaning that she was glad that I was such a gentleman when we first dated... (I wait like six to eight weeks before I even kiss a girl. Crazy right? I know. But I can’t help it. That's just how I was raised.) And then now. How I just act like her friend/brother and don't say any negative stuff and I try to be a good guy and sit and listen to her talk about how she likes this guy X... Which I might add = thank God – because I would always rather have it that way rather than the opposite way, where the girl is just going nuts for you but you don't like her, because that sucks. You know?

Hey welcome to the Transcendence Diaries btw! If I've written this much to you via email that means that chances are this will end up somewhere shoved in between some pages... or else I wouldn’t be writing this much to you cause I'm too FREAKING BUSY right now with other books!

Point is that when she left I thought to myself, “good job old boy. You're a good kid. You did well. You're a good friend. And you handled yourself alright too.” and I even checked with myself and I felt fine.

Ashland, so then I got up and was walking around. Waiting for coffee to arrive actually... Bunny is bringing me some. And I thought about you. I wonder if perhaps because you come off so much older than your age if that's it... you know? I mean, you must have had tons of guys going nuts over you in school. One would assume. (these are all questions I wondered while knowing you the last few years.) But you have this air of properness that is so off-putting to most guys that I bet they were just always too scared to make a move on you.... and I bet your standards are really high.

(well don't we all have high standards? But some of us more than others.) You see, what you DON'T yet know is that I was raised the same way YOU were... but I was the rebel of the bunch and took off to live the wild bohemian life and did my best to attempt to strip all that off of me throughout my wild college years and twenties... So I give off this air of being this crazy wild guy but I have these really high standards and only go out with girls from “the best” families etc... a very off-putting contradiction to most girls. Trust me. And frankly it CAN foul things up because I've been with some of the finest girls there are in the world, but I have this ridiculous yardstick I measure them with... and often times have to let them go simply because I am waiting for Mrs. Right. And she has to be absolutely perfect...

One of the most beautiful girls I ever dated is known as the Italian Stallion. Now remember we are in the Diaries already here. But she is “forget about it gorgeous.” And she was cool. But she said a bad word and I broke up with her. And she couldn’t believe that I was breaking up with her for that... she still doesn’t actually. But I just had to... I mean, I could never bring a potty mouth home to mom if you know what I mean... it just made my stomach church... too bad. But because of the way I was raised I have these crazy high standards....

You see, that may answer a question as to why out of all the girls, I ended up with Weather Girl for a brief spell there... I know people were like “what the hell? He’s going out with WHO??!!!” But truth is, those are the kind of girls I go out with. I just feel more comfortable with them...

But I learned a lot from that experience. A LOT. I learned that I have to ease up on that whole prim and proper thing and let the right girl come in regardless of how she was raised... hence my slight and short lived attraction to Red if you remember that one... you see normally I would never go out with a girl like that. Simply because she doesn’t come from the same side of the tracks. Regardless of how snobby that sounds. It was actually a real stage of growth for me as a person. I realized that you can’t just date a girl cause she DOES come from the right side - like Weather Girl, and then not have much in common and make all these compromises in your head and heart... So I got that. And hence decided that I would open my mind to other girls... and instead of looking for the right side of the tracks I would look for the right heart...

And then I just realized that I am really just waiting for REAL LOVE to strike... like everyone else. Regardless of who the girl is.... the kind that we see in the movies... and well, some people tell you that you’re a dreamer and that's just the movies... but I for one actually believe otherwise... perhaps there is that ONE person for each of us, and I just haven't met her yet. Or else I'd be married already.

Perhaps the same thing with you. You just haven't found Mr. Right. Assuming there is such a thing...

But I'll give you some thoughts for you. From the objective sidelines as a guy. You ready for this?
Say yes. Or stop reading now. Your choice. Red pill or blue pill. It’s your choice Neo.

For one thing, because you do act in “that certain way.” (I recognize it because I grew up in Palm Beach and Naples so all the girls act that way from those upper-class waspy American towns) So for most guys it’s a little off putting because they didn't grow up that way and don't know how to act around girls like that. it’s intimidating if you don't really have something BIG to fall back on and give you major confidence. I mean, hell, if you didn't meet the guy HERE in NYC where there is 14 million people.... but then again I don't know you so I don't know what was really going on... or what you were looking for... But the point is, you have to actually be open enough to give that guy room to make his move in... or else he's going to be too intimidated to do so...

But I will tell you this, once a guy gets to know you, he realizes that you are actually a COOL CHICK. But you would never know it at first because you come off so straight edge at first. Got it? So then a guy’s like what? You're eating at McDonalds? How cool! (not if its everyday. But if it’s once in a while, that is totally COOL.) And other things too. So Ashland Meadows turns out to be a cool girl after all. But she just doesn’t come across that way at first because she is still living through that filter of “the way I was raised...” (wow is that o.k. to even say that to a person? well if Fishy cannot say it then who can, right?)

But you know, a guy does want a cool girl. Someone he can actually talk to and hang with and be loose with and get deep with...

Yeah. Well for what's its worth, that's my two cents. I didn't get to know Ashland Meadows too well. Only a little. And it was really only towards the end that I got to spend enough quality time with her that she opened up – her actual person and soul opened enough and I saw through all the etiquette and protocol -- and saw this super cool fun deep chick underneath that was there all the time. It was actually on the plane in Tangier that I really got to see it. She opened up a few times and I was very surprised. I was like “wooo. Alright. Not only is she cool and fun, but she actually does have these thoughts... I mean, like, real thoughts. It’s not just about tea and cake. Good for her.”

Does that help? well probably not. you didn't ask for help. But still. I think the world of you. I've often spent time in prayer for you. And I've often spent time contemplating just who might be the best guy for you and frankly I think there are THOUSANDS of them out there. But you just have to open up and let them know its o.k. for them to make a move. Show them that you aren't “off limits” so to speak.


So where does that leave us? Well, that was certainly a strange experience. Having Weather Girl wake me up in the middle of the night to crash for the night and then wake me up in the morning to talk about how she should handle this thing with this guy. But it actually just made me feel stronger. More mature. Like, o.k. old boy you really want to grow up and walk your talk? Here's a great one for you. Watch this: BAM!

Can you keep your cool? Can you remain selfless? Can you let go of your “guyness” – that wildcat who just lives for the moment? AND your ego? And can you really be the gentlemen that you were not only raised to be but that your friends, especially your girlfriends, want and expect you to be? And just be there for another person AND act on your true feelings rather than act on some imaginary evolutionary feelings that crop up here and there non-deliberately?

Well it turns out that I can. And I did.


That would have actually been a great ending to a chapter. But just allow me this as a prologue. Here's the thing that I realized from it. We’re there on the bed. She's talking. And I'm still lying there half asleep. I'm not even bothering to open my eyes. And I realized that somewhere there is a switch that takes place. Where we switch from still having feelings for someone to not having those feelings anymore. And even though we might reach that place called “I already know I don't want to be with this person in the long run anymore,” we can still have FEELINGS for them... that attraction is still there. Those underlying curious feelings of “what ifs?”

So we have to allow ourselves time to make that total switch. Or else, as you said, it WILL drag on, even though in the bigger picture we don't want it to... So moments like this morning are sort of dangerous... because if that switch is not totally made yet, then we are still taking the risk of everyone getting hurt or being confused. But if you are strong enough to stay true to how you really feel and what you really believe is best for both of you, then regardless of what might be happening, then you CAN remain TRUE and FAITHFUL to your highest goals for that situation. It just takes strength of character. Yeah. Something like that.


The final chapter – That moment of epiphany strikes:

I just got this major hit! Wow. I was in the kitchen adding protein powder to my coffee. (you didn't know this but alas it is true) I know. It sounds gross. It’s actually a great way to save two birds with one net. And doesn’t taste half bad either. Bachelors without a full-time housekeeper and cook are a dangerous thing. I know this fact intimately. We fall victim to the most dreadful solutions when confronted with such a fate, however temporary.

So -- not to jump back and forth but hey what fun is there in being the composer of a giant five thousand plus page magnum opus such as this one if you can’t just do whatever the hell you want to?

So yes I was stirring this powder into the coffee and I was thinking to myself, "just what the hell am I even doing writing to Ashland Meadows in the first place." And then deeper, “what is it? What IS the message you have for her?” And then it came to me....

Ashland Meadows my suggestion to you is to open up more. Let guys know that you actually are fun and cool and free and actually a bit wild underneath all that. Cause here's my guess about you. (And since I am after all creating you in the first place, sort of, I should know.) But here it is: YOU really want to go off more. Like you sort of are longing to go off the beaten path a bit more.

But the guys that are attracted to you or who feel comfortable enough to ask you out are all super straight edge. But you have this wild side that is longing for something wilder, some real action. Some adventure. Or else let’s face it, as most girls from your group, you would have already settled into something. But you haven't. And why? Because while yes there is this whole “Stepford Wife/Brie from Desperate Housewives” thing going... underneath that is this wild girl who wants to jump into a convertible and drive a hundred and fifty miles an hour down some wide causeway on a small island with water on both sides screaming and singing out loud at the top of your lungs to the music playing. And that's just the start of it.

I mean, my true guess would be that you just haven't met any guys who are totally insane enough to totally capture that wild side of you. Even though you have probably met plenty of guys who fit in other ways. But especially if they always let you call all the shots. Then yeah you're fine in the moment but you aren't being swept off your feet. You need someone like Richard Branson. Someone who is really going to take you on a ride. And I'm not just talking physically. Like “where are we going?” “I have no idea, but lets go!” That kind of stuff, sure. But also someone who is going to take you on a ride mentally and emotionally too. Someone who is really going to be a trip for you and intoxicate your mind and your heart and your soul in a way that is totally unconventional. Because underneath all that fine china is this tiger who is waiting to be tamed. But you can’t tame a tiger if the tiger never even comes out from its cage. So yes, Ashland Meadows is in fact a tiger waiting to be loosed from her cage. But she needs to meet a man who is going to bring that out in her.

More but my fingers are tired.

Find that tiger within Ashland. And let guys know its there. Let out a few growls now and then. Ha! Why wait forever? Half the reason why you are so afraid of settling down is because you are afraid of trapping the tiger within. The tiger doesn’t want to be caged. So marriage scares the hell out of you. (yeah I know) And why wouldn’t it? Because if you really are a tiger then no you aren't going to want to be tied down “forever” to anyone or anything or anywhere. But you have to let that tiger out NOW. Now that I am thinking about it... my intuition tells me that you are fighting inside against this mild but still totally crazy tiger wild woman who isn't going to let you tie yourself down... but at the same time you haven't met anyone who has brought out that wild woman in the first place... So it sort of sits dormant. Waiting. But at the same time it also doesn’t let you settle down either. So you're always on the move.

But the sort of sad truth is that a woman as amazing as you, and I am creating Ashland Meadows to be one of the most dazzling heroines of this entire series, - in fact you have no idea of her fate as I do... - should not be waiting, nor should she be always on the move either... she needs to be RAGING. She needs to be totally living life to its absolute fullest! She needs to be uncaged and let loose on the world.

I will await to hear the news from the frontlines. Good luck.

And hey, welcome to the Diaries.

Lost in the Matrix

Hey Brit,
Was this the show????

So this kid is just like totally into you right? So fun.

I like the skirt.

Wish I could have been there. Next time yes.

The Sweed and I should do a show together. We’ll pack the place. Charge ten bucks per head at the door and spend the cash on drugs and prostitutes later that night.

Did I just say that? Whoops. LOL!

Enjoy this beautiful weather till we get a chance to hook up.


O.k. from here on out we’re in the Transcendence Diaries world so read on or just hit delete cause you know that you-as-Britney are like a character and thus almost more of a tool than a real person.... not that you aren't real, because you quite obviously are, and yet at the same time you are also a character, just as I am... people don't understand that. But some do. They think I am Fishy. They get confused. But you get it.

Yeah, so here are those lyrics. I really like this song. melody and lyrics. Been on a real kick. Little T and I have written 10 songs in the last five weeks. He pounds out lyrics like there’s no more tomorrow and I put them to music. So we are going into the studio to record a new solo album with these songs and a few others I told you about... not that we have a need for a new solo album. But there are no rules regarding any of this anyway. So the more the merrier.

But this song (my song by the way, before I started collaborating with T) means/meant a lot to me cause I wasn't just writing a song. I was actually trying to say something, but wanted to say it in a song... rather than just “write a song” (which is what we do a lot of the time...) But I actually sat down with this intention... I believe I was more like pacing actually like with that in my heart... and was lucky enough to actually be able to sit down and create something really pretty from that intention. Which is just so awesome when that can happen.

Of course, we also have to realize that with all things in the arts there is this fine line between what is truth and what is beauty or art for the sake of beauty or art.... and I think that now, we, meaning WE, have come to that, we get where that fine line is... you know, with you, I'm sort of sitting on the fence just watching from the sidelines... a smile on my face. A proud fan, a loving admirer, a protective brother, a noble knight in waiting in case there’s any action or trouble. A piece of hay-straw in my mouth and a smooth looking cowboy hat tipped just right... Just watching the mayhem from the sidelines. Quite a show.

In the song, it’s a vulnerable place to come from, to write it, and then to admit it, but I mean every word of it, and yet I'm also aware that I don't necessarily, because I'm also a professional writer. I mean, that's what I do. More than anything else. I write. So part of it is just writing a song... which is that fine line that even we the writers can never quite figure out where it is, let alone the people who happen to cross our paths...

I'm not dying inside or anything... I wonder if you have any idea what I'm talking about here? I think if there is anyone in the world who would know what I mean, it would be you. So yeah, I'm going to assume that you do. Like, hey, here's another song. But don't worry. I'm not in pain or anything. I just felt this once and sat down and said “I'm going to turn this feeling into a song.” and out it came. (it was actually more like “I NEED to turn this into a song!” Which is where all the great songs come from... that absolutely dire NEED to put something into song form.... that's where the best songs come from.)

I think it came from that feeling of frustration that I was feeling a few months back when I felt like we weren't communicating as much as I wanted us to. (which is totally selfish I know)... but I was just like “God, I would do anything to be closer to her...” like that... you know. But then you have to ask yourself “well why?” I mean “why? What IS your motivation?” and I'm like, I don't know. Just because. I guess. Wow. Good question. I guess I never thought about that... I just feel it. Maybe just to see what's there. Maybe because I know that you understand everything that I say. That you actually have the capacity to understand what I'm talking about. and that's rare. I mean, it was right there. From that very first moment we met. It was in the space that surrounded us. It was understood. It was in our eyes. It was laughable. I believe we laughed a lot that day. From the knowing. From the absurdity of the circumstances.

Even though as time passes you freak me out sometimes and surprise the hell out of me. But I still get that when we DO connect that it’s as deep as we care to go... there is no limit to the potential for depth. Which again, is just so freaking rare in this world because lets face it we still live in a world where most people live their entire lives caught in the Matrix and aren't even aware of it. Most people are sheep. Just totally deaf dumb and blind. They just don't have a freaking clue. And this isn't being negative. Sometimes people ask me “why are you so negative?” But I'm not being negative by simply saying out loud what a few know and most don't. I'm not out in the streets yelling it from a soapbox. I'm just passing it in a note in the middle of the night to a close and trusted compatriot.

I sat in a room the other day with a small group of ten or so and there were people there in their twenties, thirties, forties, even fifties, and not one of them knew what “organic” meant. Not one of them knew how absolutely horrendous factory farming is or how dangerous or how inhumane or how unhealthy it is... none of them. They spoke about it as if it were some sort of secret knowledge. And this is pretty common stuff. We weren't discussing the Illuminati or the Freemasons or anything esoteric. You know? And these are all college educated and graduated people. People with “degrees.” [Which from an artists perspective, from the wizard’s perspective, you know, is another one of those first signs of someone not “Knowing” capital K knowing. When they are the type that fall into the “need to get that degree” group – which is an amazing paradigm in and of itself – to actually deliberately indoctrinate oneself in order to receive something that you can then use to join the herd – what Timothy Ferris calls the “slave, save, retire too old to enjoy it” crowd.

So I'm sitting there dumbfounded because these are all great people. And super good at what they do. But they just don't have a clue about the most important things in life... there was another event where I came to realize they didn't even know who Ram Dass was... can you imagine? One of the most important figures in the history of the evolution of human thought and no one in the room knows who he is. And then they all start talking about how important can “organic” really be? since “none of it has really been proved” and “there's no science behind it” and “well if it were really important “then the government would tell us something about it...”

At this point I go into slight shock but try not to show it. Right? I mean. These are all friends.... But I'm thinking to myself, have these people never read a book about history? Ever? Do they know absolutely nothing about human history? Do they not realize that “governments” of the world have NEVER told the “people” anything remotely helpful or informative in ten thousand years of human history. In fact that it is just the opposite? That they consider it part of their job to do just the opposite – to tell the people the exact opposite of the truth or what's really going on? (reminds one of that famous quote by Hitler – something to the effect of “It is easier to lie to the people than to tell them the truth. They will believe you more easily if you lie to them.” That's why you only hear about “asbestos” or “DDT poisoning” or “lead paint” or “Phen Phen” after it has already killed millions of people. That's how you can assassinate a president with ten bullets and blame a guy who only shot two and then immediately assassinate him too - so he can’t speak up for himself - and “the people” still believe you.

Precisely because they are so indoctrinated to only believe what they are told. Since we were children, that is how we were indoctrinated. From infancy. All humans. No matter where you are born. If you are human. That's how you can tell those same people that JER killed MLK even though the forensic evidence showed that the bullets IN MLK that killed him didn't actually come from the same kind of gun that JER had -- but the people don't even notice this... by then they are already onto the next story because they got their answer and they’ve moved on to talking about Gwen’s new baby or whatever... and because “well that's what the government said....” You know in that particular case, even MLK’s own wife and family SUED the US government to get JER freed from prison because they knew he didn't kill MLK? I mean, that's about as obvious as you can get. And then just before he died one of the men who actually was on that team hired to assassinate MLK actually came out and admitted to the press that he was "one of the men who did it" and that it was a CIA job and that JER didn't do it but was only “set up” just as he claimed.

And yet if you walk up to ten people tonight and ask them “who killed martin Luther King?” all ten will tell you “James Earl Ray.” And not one of them will realize that they are lying. Cause the truth is that they aren't lying. They just aren't telling the truth. And that's because they’ve been taught from a very early age to speak what they're told to, not what is true.

And so I was aghast this particular night. But not obviously so. Cause you gotta keep your cool when you're with people like that because insulting them by pointing out what they don't know never helps a soul. So I was just playing it cool, trying to appreciate them for who they are and what they mean in my life.... and from a cultural-study perspective I just found it absolutely fascinating. And I started asking myself “So what DO these people know about? You know? We all have the same number of hours in the day. So you have to spend that time doing something... and these are all relatively “smart” people – meaning that there is nothing genetically abnormal with their brains, so they do have the same amount of time and the same intelligence capacity as those few that are on the outside of the Matrix...

So if they don't know about all the important things in life, then what DO they know about? I was fascinated by this thought for some time as I sat there listening to them. But then I get on the subway and I pass by one of those little bodega type newsstands and I see all the covers of the hundreds of newspapers and magazines that the masses gobble up each week and there it was again, you know, the same answer... it wasn't as if I hadn't already come to the same conclusion before. I mean, we all have. At least those of us who have thought about such things.

You see stories about so and so’s new baby, or so and so’s new boy-toy and such and such team just won such and such championship... and you realize that people can actually name you all the names of the college basketball teams in the country and yet they don't know about organic food or factory farming or who killed their own president... and with basketball in particular we’re talking about human lab-rats or laboratory experiment subjects running back in forth hundreds of times in a row on a little square in order to throw a little ball into a small hoop, just like rodents in a lab experiment. I mean this is about as primitive and caveman-like as it gets... this is precisely how one million Iraqi people can be murdered in five years and the “people” of the government doing the murdering can be totally in the dark about it. They watch the lab rats running back and forth and picking up the cheese and putting it into the hoop hundreds of times while hundreds of thousands of their fellow humans are murdered and they tell themselves "don't think about. just try not to think about it. there's nothing we can do about it anyway, so just watch the rats running back and forth... it's safer that way."

Same thing with eastern Asia and the whole Vietnam mass murder. Three and half million people murdered by this same small group of people. And not only are most of “the people” hypnotized into believing that “this is o.k. There must be a reason for it. It is too horrifying to think about so I will watch something else on television,” but the ones that do recognize that there is something terribly wrong with it are unable to do anything about it because they can never get enough of the masses on their side to take any action.

And now we have the poor soul trapped in the body known as "Robert McNamara" - who was one of the masterminds behind the whole thing - finally coming out of the closet over the last ten years because he realizes he is getting old and is going to die soon and wants to clear his conscience and so he has written this book and made all these documentaries and movies and does all these lectures all over the world trying to explain to the people how illegal and inhumane the whole act was and how many lies the government told and how totally utterly heinous the whole thing was and how sorry he was for doing it.... and for the most part "the people” don't even want to hear about it, let alone learn anything from it in regards to how that same thing is happening again right now in our own time...

People ask me sometimes how come one of my best friends in the city is a 15 year old kid - (who btw has been one of my best friends since he was 11) But the answer is obvious. Cause the guy is a freaking genius. There is nothing he doesn’t understand or have the capacity to understand. You know? I mean, he's that smart. So it’s easy. I don't have to dumb down to talk to him. He's a mile or two ahead of me in some cases already.... already teaching me things... its amazing really. I don't know if I've met anyone so smart before in real life. He's just that smart, intelligent, educated, informed, ahead of the pack. The poor kid. He has to show up for “school” each Monday and listen to all the kids talk about this team or that team and how they won or lost some “game” or how they talk about playstation or Xbox or guitar hero or the newest Hollywood blockbuster or whatever and he's just sitting there dumbfounded because he just spent the weekend reading “confessions of an economic hitman” or Cornell West or Noam Chomsky and he can’t communicate with his own peers at all. And of course they can tell... so he isn't that popular. He's a total outcast. He calls me everyday. He has to. He tells me I'm his lifeline to the real world because there is no one else out there that he has access to yet that is on his level except for me. I assure him that as he gets older he will meet more like us. There are people in the world who “Know.” It will just take you time to meet them....”

And trust me, it isn't easy to be friends with a 15 year old. So I've gone to prayer before and asked “lord if its cool I'd be just as happy not having to talk to him all the time. I humbly await your reply.” And each time I hear this voice back in my head very clearly say “You were put in his life for a purpose. Imagine if you would have been so lucky yourself... to have someone such as yourself as a guide and mentor when you were his age?” because I had the same problem growing up. “So Fishy if you don't mind I would appreciate if you remain in his life and do your best to be a positive role model and a guide for him. One day he will not need you. He will find a girlfriend and friends his own age, and you my friend just might be surprised how much you miss him... but for now I ask that you stay in his life until that time comes.” So I stick around and I let him call me everyday and try to be there for him and frankly I learn a lot from him anyway so it’s cool. I mean, imagine that, “I learn a lot from him anyway...” Funny. But it’s true. He's that smart. Just way over the top smart compared to the rest of us.

So what does that have to do with you dear Britney? Well I guess really what it comes down to is that there are very few of us out there. You know, Bunny told me the other day, “You're my only real friend that I can really communicate with in New York. I have friends here. But you're the only person that I've met so far who is on my level and so I pine for you when you're not around.” And that sucks for her. You know. I'm glad things worked out the way they did and we had a chance to meet cause she is totally one of us. She really KNOWS. She's young. But she KNOWS. She's a Buddha already. I'm lucky in that I am now old enough where I have a lot of aligned companions all over the earth who are on our level.... so I don't feel like Bunny does. I have you and Tuesday and the Flow Coach and so many even right here in New York City. And so many more all over the earth now that I'm fine. I have a very strong team of aligned companions. But yeah, so because you and I do share that, of course I was jonesing to be closer to you. Always have. Always will.

Truth be told I get more out of one “Hey” from you on the phone than I can get out of a half hour conversation with many others. Just in the depth of your “hey” and the reminder it gives that “there are more of us out there...” When things seem weird... go off a bit, I think of you. And it brings me comfort that you are out there. That we are out there.

Something like that. So I think that's where the song came from. Glad you like it.

Stay you so I can keep writing more.

me


I would do most anything to get/be closer to you
Yeah I would do most anything to get/be closer to you

I’ll try to be strong for you
I'll keep on writing songs for you
Don't know where I'd belong in this world
It’s true, without you

Repeat chorus

I'll stop by the church for you
Try to heal your pains and hurts for you
Lord knows I've tried to flirt with you
It’s true. I'd do anything for you.

Repeat chorus

I'd give up all my kicks for you
Stop turning midnight tricks for you
If I could get one kiss from you
I'd be happy. It’s true.

Repeat chorus

I'll hammer at the gods for you
Try to make friends with your pa for you
I'll get down on my knees and pray
Everyday for you.

Fade out on chorus


Classic. Love it! Very happy with this one.

And indeed happy that you allowed me to use you as a sort of a racquetball court back wall to shoot out a few quick pages. I am happy to be back in the Transcendence Diaries again. It’s been a while. But it feels good.

Lord Increase My Faith

Well I think its good sometimes to be kept up to date and notified now and then how those little actions we take effect those around us... to lift a thought from one of your long but not lost past sermons... made all the more ironic (or more coincidental) since this particular update is to you and about you and for you.

“My aren't we being evasive Fishy...” he comments and smiles that smile that so many have come to love. “Is there a point might I ask?”

“Yes there is. And no, no sir not at all. I'm sorry. It’s just because I'm knee deep in this ‘book writing mode’ as you know... so even my day to day conversation has turned into this weird sort of... well, book writing style, a novelistic approach... right down to my daily speech and even in my emails! It’s crazy I know. So let me get to the point. Because I do think it is important and actually interesting. At least to some it might be,” I answer. “And it might actually be helpful and inspiring to some.... Or so I thought as I was walking home this afternoon and reminded myself to email you about it.”

“O.k. I'm game. Fire away,” he replies. And I do.

O.k. so to get to the point, what I decided to do after that one sermon where you encouraged everyone to pray to ask God “lord increase my faith” I decided to add it to my own personal morning “recurring alarm” in my pda – you know, the one that wakes me up each day. Now of course I can add to it or take things away from it whenever I please but every morning these are the first words I see... so I fill this particular recurring alarm with very powerful words and images of faith or inspiration usually.

At one point in the last six months I added to the very top of this particular alarm in all caps “LORD INCREASE MY FAITH.” based on this sermon.

And then what I decided to do was start my day like that, immediately go into prayer – that prayer. And then jump up. Within a very short time I decided to start snoozing it for exactly two hours. and each time it went off, no matter where I was or what I was doing I go right back into that prayer. No matter what or where. Important. and then I snooze it again for another two hours. and I continue to do that all day long till I go to sleep. The last one might go off at 5am depending on how late I stay up or what I time I finally hit that bed. So in your average day I have prayed that prayer anywhere from 8 to 12 times.

So this began a few months ago... sometimes I might be on the phone when it goes off. In fact, oftentimes I am on the phone when it goes off, or in a meeting, so I have no more time in that moment than a few seconds to close my eyes and feel the Divine within me and around me and whisper “Lord increase my faith. Lord help me to increase my faith. Thank you, thank you. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”

What is interesting is that the more you do it the easier it becomes and the more you look forward to it and of course the closer you feel to God/the Divine. After some time of it you might start to find that you are really feeling God or “God’s presence” in your life all the time... as if you are living in It, as if you and he/she/it are connected... as if you have this special bond... as if he/she/it is looking forward to it as much as you are... as if he/she/it is right there in you and all around you/us all the time anyway and thus all you are doing is reminding yourself to open up to that and become aware of it once again in each new moment...

Another thing you might notice is that as you pray this same prayer repeatedly like this – essentially turning it into a mantra – something that not only becomes part of you, but actually has a tangible and palpable effect on you mentally and physically – as mantras often do, and should – that the words, the ideas behind the words begin to bring questions up... questions such as “what am I praying for exactly? Am I asking this “God idea” to increase my faith for me? Or am I simply asking he/she/it to ‘help me’ increase my faith? And more, “increase my faith in what? What am I really asking for? Increase my faith in what? In God? In myself? In “faith” itself?” And on and on it goes... eventually you begin to realize that those four words pack a pretty powerful punch because they can take you on quite a ride if you let them. If you just flow with that mantra and allow whatever words to flow out of your mouth that happen to want to come out, you really can get carried away. It can if you let it become an easy path to an enlightened state.

Because I am now doing this 8 to 10 times a day, there are some times luckily where I might be free in that moment so I will stand up and raise my arms and hands up into the air and give it some time and really pray it “Lord increase my faith. Lord increase my faith. Increase my faith in you. Increase my faith in general. Increase my faith in myself. Help me to increase my faith in the path that I am on. Lord help me to increase my faith in magic. In everything that we read about and are led to believe. Lord take me beyond believing and into pure knowing. Increase my faith that you are here, right here, all around us, inside of us...”

And on and on it goes. Truly no end to it. A few minutes with each session is enough to get you reconnected, put a smile on your face, and a sense of calm and power, certainty and centeredness in your heart. Snooze it for another two hours. And off I go with my day.

Just thought I would share. I have no idea if that particular sermon holds or held any significance to you. Nor where it came from or where it is leading you or others. But this is where it has led me over the course of the last six months. I have had a lot of fun with it. And by God it just may be working.

As always thank you for what you do.

See you soon,
Fishy

Easy to say, easier to know, but hard to feel sometimes

What a day. Granted that after yesterday’s unexpected visitation from no less than Tobias Guess himself – after how many years now? -- not much could overshadow that puzzling and yet exhilarating event to be sure. But still... a few things to ruminate on perhaps and nothing more.

To begin with, we are still totally up in the air regarding which record company or companies are going to release the three albums we have coming out this year. My entire day is spent on the phone at this point with our manager the Big Man in Black and the guys in the band and with various radio promoters to gauge their opinion of “potential singles” and with various record company execs. It is total insanity. And I'm starting to feel the pressure from it all caving in on me...

In other news, we have spoken about this before. So not much need to dig very deep in the setup. But just to catch up where we are with it. Still struggling over a sort of underlying jealousy regarding Sabine and her new found freedom since we broke up. Which I might add was over a year ago... but there is still this thing between us when we do on occasion get a chance to see each other... which isn't often due to her travel schedule. As a professional ballet dancer it just wasn't something she was willing to give up... and me being a professional God only knows, I too didn't want to give up my own traveling... So we had no choice but to end it. Because what kind of relationship are we going to be able to cultivate from that. But I still find myself sometimes entirely transfixed by her beauty, her exotic nature, her mysteriousness, her quick wittedness, and quite frankly, the most sensual love affair I have ever had in my life with a woman. And that says a lot. Because up until that point I thought I had pretty much seen and done it all. But ours was way beyond anything that either of us had ever experienced. We could orgasm just from making out. Crazy. But true. Just from touching each other. It was insane like that. But that Israeli temper of hers, mixed with my half Italian temper... there was just no hope. We were bound to destroy each other. I am glad we were able to get out alive quite frankly. But it still doesn’t stop the pain sometimes.

Knowing that Ashland Meadows had also recently experienced something similar, I texted her something short like: “Question, when you have a free minute.” She texted back. “whatever you need.” So I gave her a call. She was of all places at a McDonalds getting a McFlurry. Talk about turn-ons. It doesn’t really get better than that. Ashland Meadows and a McFlurry in the same sentence. In the SAME ROOM no less! Too much for words. Well that's besides the point. I just wanted to get her take on the whole thing. And true to form, she was dead on in her analysis of the situation. We both concluded that if anything, it is something primitive, something evolutionary in our DNA. Though we might KNOW a person is right for us, that still doesn’t stop us from still wanting that person, or even if we no longer even want them, we still find it hard to think about them with another person. It is only natural. It sucks but its just plain true. I believe that in time it goes away.

In fact I know so. Because I have so many ex-girlfriends that I am now lucky enough to call best friends. And truth is many of them are now married to someone else and I can no longer even think of them in that respect anymore. Even Cleopatra who I was the closest to and stayed with the longest... I just couldn’t imagine being with her in that way. But with other girls, it’s slightly different still.... Still hard for me to think of them with other people. Even though one, I don't want to be with them like that anymore, and two, in reality I hope and pray in my heart of hearts for their true happiness in love and everything else and really want them to find someone who is better suited for them than I. But you know, that still doesn’t stop the pain when you are listening to a recent “ex” talking about being with some other guy or girl... it’s perplexing. And quite frustrating. It is like a battle between the heart and the mind.

At one point Ashland said something to the effect of “Sabine is smart enough to know intellectually what to say. And I think she really believes what she said to you and wants the best for you, which in this case is for you to find someone who is more suited to you and that doesn’t travel as much and who you really can have lots of babies with if that's what you want. We know from the left side of our brain what the right thing is Fishy, and we can even say it, but to get ourselves to actually feel it, that takes time. I think she’ll get there.”

I don't think it could be said any better. So we’ll leave it at that. But I hope she's right. The last thing in the world I would want is for either of us in pain.

You could have heard a pin drop

From: Bloopy
To: Infinito; G2; Fishy;
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 7:14 PM
Subject: RE: in defense of the USA

Guys check this out:
When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building' by George Bush.
He answered by saying, 'Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.

You could have heard a pin drop.



WELL GENTLEMEN, THAT’S CERTAINLY A LOAD OF BOLLOCKS ISN'T IT?

EVER HEARD OF GUANTANAMO BAY??? WHERE IS THAT AGAIN? OH THAT'S RIGHT. CUBA. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU CALL THAT? A GIANT GRAVEYARD? HOW MANY AMERICAN SOLDIERS ARE BURIED THERE AGAIN?

FUCK ALL THESE PATRIOTIC-TALKING TWO-FACED GREEDY LYING MURDEROUS ASSHOLES. INCLUDING COLIN “SURE BOSS I'll SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT ME TOO” POWELL AND THE DONKEY HE RODE IN ON. YOU COULD HAVE HEARD A PIN DROP BECAUSE NO ONE KNEW WHAT TO SAY TO SUCH A LOAD OF SHIT.


BUT THANK YOU FOR THE INSPIRATION FOR YET ANOTHER SHORT BUT BRILLIANT BLOG POST BLOOPY!

:)

Obama or McCain - Who would you vote for?

"Fishy, just curious, who would you vote for? Obama or McCain? ES"

ES,

To elaborate further in regards to your question -- but regarding a different issue, I will reply to you with this and use it for a future blog post:

A loaded question. And certainly not one where my opinion matters too much. But in regards to the issues, I believe that it is obvious that I am much more aligned with what Obama claims to stand for than McCain. That's clear. But with Senator McCain we know he is telling the American people the truth about Iraq. And that takes a lot of courage. Especially in this climate when the occupation of Iraq is so unpopular with so many American people. Whereas with Hilary and Obama they are both either totally ignorant of our reality there (which is frightening) or they are just flat-out lying to everyone as a way to win favor with the voters in their party.

Both are promising that "when elected president I promise you that our troops will be out of Iraq within 60 days..." or "six months..." which is just utter bollocks. Firstly, they cannot make promises like that because they have no idea what the situation in Iraq is going to be like by the time they get into office. It could be better. It could be worse. It is an absolutely ridiculous and ignorant promise to make. Especially in light of the cluster-fuck that our invasion has created over there.

The invasion of Iraq and ousting of Hussein created an open vacuum there -- to the point where it is now almost an open invitation to create chaos and breed more terror all over the world. Saddam had things under control. And now he doesn’t. And the US is going to need years and years and perhaps decades to bring things under control in that region. Senator McCain is smart enough and honest enough to speak this truth to the people, despite how unpopular that message might be.

Secondly, regardless of who we hire for this "job," "presidents" just don't have that kind of power to make those kind of decisions. Anyone who knows what's going on in America knows that. Those decisions are made from much higher up. They will never have that kind of power. To pull troops from an occupied country? Or to stop a war? No. They will either be told to make that decision or not. As has been the case since Eisenhower warned us in his final speech as president, "the United States is on the brink of losing control of its governance to a multi-national military-industrial complex." It's been sixty years since that speech and the days when "presidents" of "countries" could make those kind of decisions are long gone.

Thirdly, if anyone googles "color coded map of the world's oil supplies" they will clearly see why Iraq is essential to the United States of America. Besides the safety and security issues we face if we were to leave now for ourselves and our allies in that region, we also have to face the fact that as a very large country with 300 million people who use more of the world's oil than any other country in the world today -- a whopping 25% of it -- we absolutely need control over the oil that is sitting directly underneath that "country" if we are to maintain the lifestyle and the economy that we have here now.

If we think things are bad now - with the sinking economy, housing market collapse, and rising oil prices -- wait to see what happens if we "leave Iraq" like Hilary and Obama are recommending and Iran steps into Iraq backed by the very eager countries of Russia and China - who also need that oil. We will be at the mercy of them for the next twenty to thirty years and life as we know it today will be only a memory until we can foster our resources and get to figuring out how to really create true alternative energy sources. Saudi oil alone is not enough to sustain our population.

That is why despite his almost Orwellian rightwing agenda, one can at least admire McCain for his foresight and honesty regarding Iraq. He is right - we will be in Iraq for at least the next fifty years. Period. This is what I LIKE about John McCain. He is an honest man. He is also not an entirely partisan politician, which he has proven a few times. Obama we simply just don't know well enough yet to know where he stands. And I would say that if you listen to what he has openly admitted to everyone over the last six months, he himself has confessed the same idea. He understands his weaknesses. He is very well aware of his lack of experience and track record compared to someone like John McCain.

Just about everything else about Senator John McCain's stance on policies and "the issues" I unfortunately vehemently just happen to disagree with. He's a total "righty" and I'm neither right nor left but would just prefer whoever sits in that chair to be honest and not tell fairytales to people about things they know nothing about like "pulling our troops out of Iraq." When Obama speaks like that I seriously question his knowledge and understanding of the underlying issues, or I start to wonder if he isn't just "playing politics" just like the rest of them. At least McCain has the nerve to tell it like it is.

So right now, my vote is NEITHER -- until we learn more about both of them and see what these men are truly made of.



As an aside, I will add this: while in Iran this year I had the opportunity to attend an IAEA conference (International Atomic Energy Agency). I sat at a table and ate dinner and shared drinks and conversation for hours with heads of state and members of parliament from Indonesia, Pakistan, Bahrain, and Qatar. At my table. Just us. We talked for hours. Though I mostly just listened. (After all, I'm just a singer. And the whole time I had to keep asking myself "what the fuck am I doing here?")

Now remember we were in fucking TEHRAN. In IRAN. The United States was not even INVITED. Though over 30 other countries were. And this was a freaking IAEA conference! The topic of the two day discussion was "Iran's Nuclear Energy Program." Something that all of these other countries now back. And I will tell you this, as ominous and frightening as it may be to hear: the United States is just not a popular country right now. This was no secret that night. Everyone in the room was very open about how they feel about the United States of America now. They love our people. But they absolutely loath our government. And they have for some time now. Decades really.

It appeared that these men at various different levels of power in their respective countries' governments are just "waiting it out" as American troops tire out more and more in Iraq, and Iran becomes stronger and stronger and China and Russia become more and more interested in Iran and Iraq. It was almost as if there was this 'secret' floating around the room like a butterfly that everyone could clearly see except us few Americans who were there... that region of the world is just patiently waiting for the US to fuck up in one small way or another and Iran, China, Russia, and the rest of them are going to literally turn their backs on us and give us the finger. I must say that it was one of the most haunting and frightening nights of my entire life here on planet earth.

I left that mansion on a hill in Tehran that night shaken and scared. It took me weeks to get out of bed upon my return. This is something I haven't written about yet because I just don't know how to do it.... how to present it... I don't think the American people, let alone my few friends and fans, have any idea what is happening in regards to the reputation of the United States of America. I had no idea there was such strong anti-American-government sentiment in the world today. But boy did I experience it first-hand. And it wasn't coming from rock-throwing thugs dressed in rags in third-world countries. It was coming right out of the mouths of government officials of real world Nation-States who are sick to death of what they call "American imperialism and bullying."

I'm telling you, we either need to get the hell out of Iraq and make our apologies in order to try to save our reputation -- but before we do make sure we have some solid and binding contracts with Russia, China, and Iran in regards to oil, or we need to buckle down and realize we are going to be in Iraq for the long haul. Oil my friends is the new gold and it is much much much more valuable than anyone realizes yet. To all of us.

So just what color is Barack Obama?

From: xxxxx xxxxx [mailto:xxxxxx@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 8:50 AM
To: Fishy
Subject: obama & iran

Hi Fishy,

I found this in the NYT online this morning... this must come as a shock to you... and how does your friend who works for Obama feel about that?? R things changing now that he has the nomination? (haven't had time to go investigate exactly what he said further yet, but wanted to ask you about it and if u knew, and your thoughts)

"Mr. Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where, tacking to the right, he described a far tougher series of sanctions he would be willing to impose on Iran than he had outlined heretofore."

-X-

Dear X,
So in less than 24 hours after seemingly - though not officially - winning the democratic nomination for president of the United States of America, Barack Obama stands in front of the largest pro-Israel lobby (read “bribery, extortion, and blackmail experts” for the Cliff Notes definition of “lobby” -- at least as it is practiced in the US) in the world today, AIPAC, and tells the crowd that he will impose tougher and even more stringent sanctions against Iran if they continue to enrich uranium as a means to create nuclear energy to fuel their fast-growing country. Says the New York Times, "Mr. Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where, tacking to the right, he described a far tougher series of sanctions he would be willing to impose on Iran than he had outlined heretofore."

Already starting to change colors right before our eyes? Well one isn't quite sure yet. But how utterly and typically “political” this most recent stunt has made Obama appear. He failed to have either the knowledge or the courage – right now we aren't sure which - to remind the crowd that Iran is legally entitled under international law to be working on researching nuclear energy under the Nuclear Proliferation Act – they currently have approximately one-hundred and twenty-thousand citizens employed and working at various plants around their country in this program – nor did he mention that they were given authorization from and originally purchased their nuclear energy knowledge and many materials to do so from the United States as far back as the Eisenhower administration.

How on earth can this man be talking about more sanctions against Iran and trying to stop them from enriching uranium when it is absolutely none of his business is the question that is begged to be answered here.

And also, even more questionable, is how can a man who clearly owes his rise to power to the peace-card carrying doves of the left already be making right-wing hawkish threats against a country who are clearly only growing in strength and power and in political unions all over the globe every year as the United States continues to grow weaker and less threatening to a world who is waking up to some obvious cracks in the once-great nation’s armor? Windbag rhetorical threats are the last thing any candidate needs to be showing us as we continue to interview the applicants for the job. We've already had plenty of that from the last assholes that we hired to fill the position.

Either 1, Barack is just kowtowing to AIPAC to win Jewish votes (which means he lacks integrity by not just being honest with how he really feels), or 2, he is ignorant about how ignorant it is for him to be making such statements that it is somehow the US Government’s right to try to stop another country from harnessing nuclear energy, or 3, he is just ignorant as to how arrogant and erroneous it is for one country to attempt to stop another country from harnessing nuclear energy for the betterment of their own people -- especially when all American Intelligence reports clearly show that they STOPPED working on nuclear WEAPONS research 4 years ago.

So which is it?

I have said from the beginning and I will say it again here: I lean neither left nor right but straight down the middle – I am a member of the “human being” party. You might have heard of it. It means that I care not to be placed in a box and slapped on the back with any labels but purely and simply care about all human beings on planet earth. Period. I'm too old now to believe that either party gives a shit about what they promise, nor has the power to do anything about it, before they get into office. What I am concerned with is how humane that particular job applicant appears to be. After all, the most important aspect of his job is in essence to secure another few years of our survival as a species – in this case collected under the banner of the United States. If we were in France, it would be under the banner of France. Etc ad nauseum.

Again, lest we forget the endless replies I have already given to the thousands of comments on YouTube and various other social networking sites around the world over the years accusing me of not being a “proud enough American,” one could have just as easily barraged me with such accusations during Hitler’s Germany, during Napoleon’s France, during Great Britain’s brutal fight against “colonial” India, during Nero’s Rome, or even during America’s attempted occupation of Vietnam. People still even do it today under Bush’s America, which is to say the least just plain sad.

But again for the record I will state that “nationalistic pride” is something I gave up, or grew out of, long, long ago -- as far back as my teenage years. It only took a few years of studying history to realize that it was a useless, short-sighted, and often dangerous stance. Instead, I pledge allegiance to the united state of HUMANITY. And to the safety and security of every human being on the planet today and tomorrow.

Regarding our current dilemma as to which of the two men we should hire in the short term for what in the most ideal case should be a very noble position – that being the president of our beloved company, or country, however you want to look at it, as always we are faced with the same tough issues. Neither of them we know well enough. And no single human being should be expected to fill that role perfectly. Over the last 200 years we have clearly been shown this fact, if nothing else.

At least with Senator John McCain we know he is a patriotic man. We also know that he is not entirely partisan. And we know who he is and what he stands for. He is clearly an honest man who tells us what he really believes. In the case of Iran, Mr. McCain suffers from both maladies number 2 and number 3 above. Both ignorance and arrogance. A little something called “too much nationalistic pride and jingoism” and not enough knowledge (or wisdom gained) from studying history – not quite yet realizing that number one, the USA has only been a world super-power for a few short 60 years at best, and number two, that we are very close to losing this dubious title because the rest of the world has caught up to and are well ahead of us economically, the American dollar doesn’t carry much leverage anymore, threatening to blow someone up with a nuclear weapon as a means of frightening them into submission (which used to be the USA’s big “ace in the hole” for the last fifty years) has flown out the window since we now have NINE countries with nuclear weapons including China and Russia, and the US military is stretched so thin that it is obvious that Iran isn't even frightened of the US government anymore since they continue to fund groups fighting directly against us such as Hezbollah.

The question that we should all be asking ourselves at this point is when are we going to hire someone to sit in that coveted chair (remember WE the people HIRE the president – he is nothing – absolutely nothing – but our EMPLOYEE) who is smart enough to realize that the days of stomping around the earth like giant idiot-minded dinosaurs threatening other countries to “do what they’re told” are OVER?

Obama? McCain? It all sounds the same to me if they are going to keep on making ignorant and arrogant threats against other nation-states around the world and poking their noses around where they don't belong. What we need is an applicant for this JOB that we are offering who is smart enough and understands history well enough to realize that it is DIPLOMACY not THREATS that we need in the case of Iran, and in regards to many other countries around the world at this tenuous time in our nation’s history.

As for the historical significance of Obama being the first black person to ever come this far in the race to be president of the United States, let us celebrate it surely as it is indeed a major winning event in our history and in our efforts on behalf of civil rights through the years; but once we get the celebrating out of our systems let us not forget that what we were fighting for in regards to civil rights all these years was to see BEYOND color. So the fact that Barack Obama happens to be a man of color is a non-issue now. That part of the play is over. The applause has died down and we should get back to our seats and prepare for Act II. Let us now move beyond that issue and see who the man really is. Just as we will need to do with Senator McCain.

Obama can be black, brown, white, yellow, red, or even purple as far as I'm concerned and it matters not. (He actually appears to be more of a “tan” if you ask me.) What matters is what's on the inside. Lest we forget this important fact, all we need to do is look to our fellow brothers and sisters in Africa to see plenty of black men who have failed miserably as “presidents” just as we have seen plenty of white and yellow ones do the same through the years.

Hope? Sure. I've got hope. I've got hope that one day we will meet a man, or a woman, who wants this job and actually walks their talk and doesn’t just talk it. I've got hope that one day a man such as Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. or Nelson Mandela or even a woman such as Mother Theresa or Oprah will walk in one day and say something like “about that job application I noticed in the paper the other day.... you know, I might be interested if the price was right...” That person, if one exists at all in this day and age, is not going to THREATEN – as Obama did the other day at his speech before AIPAC – but they are going to ENLIGHTEN.

That person, should they exist.... They are going to be above threatening. Above imperialism. Above bullying. Above “spin.” Above kowtowing and above lobbying. They are even, dare I say, going to be above “God and country” -- and instead be joyously and wholeheartedly on the side of Humanity itself and nothing more nor less. For in the end, we are human beings knowingly or unknowingly disguising ourselves beneath various different masks of religions and nationalities.

What we need to do now is begin to slowly and cautiously pull down our masks and reveal what is really underneath – human faces. Gorgeous and beautiful living breathing human faces of all different colors and ethnicities. If we are going to bring religion into this matter at all, and time has already told that it is a place where it simply does not belong, but if we are, then let us pray that one day this person will grace us with their humble presence at the doorsteps of our office and say “hey, maybe I'll give it a whirl if you’ll have me.” And for THIS I will pray everyday. THIS is my hope.

Amazing Grace

It is now 2PM on Wednesday. I have not gone to sleep yet. meaning that I have worked right through Tuesday, Tuesday night, and here it is the middle of the day on Wednesday and I have still not slept. There is way too much work with all the different projects that I have taken on and simply not enough time. The irony is that it isn't just me working. I am involved in many, many projects and each has its own little group of partners, employees, mentors, investors, and patrons attached to it and we are all working on them full-tilt.

Infinito refers to it as the “rebuilding the Ambassador’s Empire" project. Everything from negotiating the various record deals the band is currently involved in, to the constant post-Iran-Trip press activities, to all of the different cyber-pr and viral marketing we are doing to build a stronger brand and product – i.e. the Fishy/Transcendence product, to the new book we are writing, to the new Optum Consulting company – that now features three completely different divisions, to the two new non-profit companies and websites that I started this year, to the daily blogging in the Transcendence Diaries that keeps me sane and keeps fans and friends updated as to what I'm up to and thinking, to the three new albums we are releasing this year, to the entirely overhauled and new official Transcendence website that is still being brainstormed and built 24/7 around the clock, to giving guitar lessons, business coaching, and nutritional consulting as a way to make ends meet, to this strange new miraculous and magical songwriting collaboration with Little T where we have literally written an entire album’s worth of material in less than a month and now are desperate to find a studio and the time for me to record it as a new solo album (how are we to find the $ or the time for this when it doesn’t fit in anywhere in my schedule?), to the more than full-time job of trying to respond to the onslaught of emails, fan mail, hate mail, and ridiculous amount of various YouTube and website(s) comments that warrant replies of some kind – which is at least two full time jobs in and of itself... not to mention the two or three weekly or monthly volunteer activities that I am officially assigned and committed to, and an almost full time job of mentoring two young boys that I have adopted as little brothers over the last four years who have been going through rough times at home.

Yes we are busy. So busy in fact that I find myself on the phone literally all day in conference calls with one group or another till my voice gets hoarse, switching from one call to another, conferencing different people in throughout or calling them right back, and then at night I find myself on a different set of conference calls with a different group of partners... and somewhere in between it all I still have to actually work at all this stuff – do the work -- by just sitting in front of the computer all night - and still find time to eat, exercise, and sleep. Which as of late have been the things that I have just let go of completely to the point where I feel like death most of the time – as if I am walking around in a confused daze. Every week or so I reach a point where my eyes start to cross and I cannot see straight, I get dizzy, and then I start throwing up a few times from just total exhaustion, then find myself clogged up and congested as if I have a cold, near death fall down pass out and sleep for twelve to fourteen hours straight – dead asleep even while a very loud alarm clock is going off for hours right on top of me. The thing that strikes me the most peculiar is that when I reach this point of exhaustion I don't even hear the alarm clock. My roommate actually comes in and turns it off because she can hear it all over the house and it is driving her crazy and she says I don't even move a muscle when she comes in. it is almost as if I just go dead. Just BAM. Out for the count.

And that my friends is what I mean when I talk about “If you want it, you CAN get it. But you WILL have to work at it.” The question is “how badly do you want IT?” Whatever “IT” happens to be for you.

There is such a thing as balance of course... there is not necessarily wisdom in being involved in so many projects all at once... how we got here I don't know. But I know it started sometime last summer when I was so completely overwhelmed that more than one person – and I am lucky to have all of these people in my life helping me to rebuild – suggested that I make a list of every “current active project” that I was involved in. We assumed the list would come to about 15 based on our conversations. We were surprised to say the least that we discovered instead that when we really looked at the list it came to 49 “current active projects.” 49. No wonder. Well there it is... that was the problem. Princess Little Tree asked me if I could try to really focus my intuition on what were the 10 most important and try to stick with those. Catherine suggested I focus on only the ones that would yield actual cash flow and leave all else behind for a time... both suggested that I promise to stop YouTubing as a “current active project” and hence that is why I haven't posted anything to YouTube in a few months. Every now and then I manage to squeeze one in because I just really enjoy the process.... but to be fair to them and the amount of time and energy they are focusing on helping me, I have almost completely stopped. I miss it. But in time I will come back to it.

What we did is we created these spreadsheets that I update at the beginning of each new week that outline exactly what the top level priorities are each day or week so I can stay focused on just those tasks... but with life not necessarily fitting into a spreadsheet as neatly as we want it to, there is always something – many things – that appear out of nowhere and jump in to throw everything off.... it is quite challenging because of course with so many projects open at once and so many people involved and having to work around everyone's schedules.... to me it all just seems like a mad whirlwind of activity that leaves me breathless and exhausted... and yet, it is I who is creating it... I am at least clear on that. No one forced me to do any of it. And as Ms. Darlington or Little Tree remind me weekly, it is after all my choice. it’s my life. I could always choose to slow down if I wanted to, or even go the route of “getting a regular job” and just foregoing all of the projects entirely and live a normal life and forget the whole rebuilding the empire concept...

But alas, after my fist official New York presentation this past Sunday regarding my peace delegation trip to Iran, I realized that I had finally come full circle and landed smack-dab where I always knew I wanted to be and dreamt of being in my life – I believe that I have finally and fully rid myself of any of the remnants of the old “ambassador” – selfish, materialistic, feeling that my glory lay in glitz, money, power, or glamor, and instead discovered a new me underneath it all that is finally ready to show up, be real, sincere, authentic, and completely selflessly dedicated to serving humanity in the best and most authentic way that I am able to by simply being me.

It was a very moving and revelatory experience. This subtle but magical day... It was something that I had always envisioned but never knew exactly how I was going to get to, nor believed that I had it in me to really get rid of my selfish materialism enough to ever get to.... but since I was forced into that by unforeseen trickery at the hands of another - Cleopatra and her merry gang of thieving attorneys, and at the exact same time the music business imploding the way it has and our distributor going bankrupt – thus leaving us from being accustomed to regular monthly royalty checks to now not having received a check in 25 straight months, I have had no choice in the matter. In three years I watched a small fortune shrink into a large debt.

I cannot help but feel that there is a bit of Divine Guidance in all of it. That had I not gone through this “cleansing by fire” if you will, that I may never have been able to release myself from the shackles of riches and excess because I had just settled so damn comfortably into it, that I never would have discovered this new more authentic me underneath that realized that there was so much more to life, so much more to me, than my car, my hair, my money, my belongings, or the looks of the girl on my arm. I was literally trapped, partly knew it, didn't wholly know it. Had an idea of it. Didn't think I could get out of it though. Always thought that the likes of persons such as MLK or Nelson Mandela or Gandhi were beyond me, not because I wasn't a smart or dedicated man, but because I was too much a selfish and materialistic man. I had no idea that something divine and miraculous would enter my life to change all that – poverty.

I have been both ridiculously wealthy and miserably poor several times in my short life and I can freely, confidently, and readily submit that being wealthy is by far easier and more enjoyable. But I have become sharpened, emboldened, and inflamed by the events of the last two years. And I dare say that despite the fact that we are indeed quickly rebuilding “the ambassador’s empire” that the ambassador himself will never be the same. Money or no money. For all the struggling, suffering, nervousness, worrying, and insanity that accompanies a life of poverty, it has added a touch of grace to my life that I always knew existed but never really experienced firsthand. When you are living in a life of perceived poverty, you have absolutely no choice but to depend solely on WHO YOU ARE to stand you up rather than WHAT YOU HAVE. I didn't know this before. I had no firsthand experience of it.

That's because I was born rich, then became poor as a young struggling musician who bucked the family’s expected tradition of becoming a college grad-school attorney and ventured out on my own to become a professional musician. As a hungry young man – months at a time without electricity, years without a phone or car, homeless for almost a year in the worst years, all I wanted to be was rich again. I have to say that I was lucky in that I did it pretty fast. I struggled through my twenties and before I reached thirty years I had already made my first “million” – meaning simply that I had companies grossing over a million dollars a year who's revenues I could then use to start other companies with.

It wasn't all luck. It came pretty much from what I'm doing again now. I literally didn't do anything else in life but work. If I wasn't working, I was thinking of working. And when I say work I don't mean “working a job for someone to earn an hourly wage” because you just aren't ever going to become wealthy that way. No, when I say working I mean “working at becoming rich.” Which means trying one or a few different projects on your own till you make it rich. Until that, you're poorer than all the middle class people who are working for an hourly, and then one day they turn around and ask “How the hell did you get so rich so fast?” And of course you're response is “Uh, well it wasn't so fast, it took me freaking ten years, and I did it by working my ass off.”

Now once I achieved wealth, I grew a lot in every direction. Money was good for me. In a lot of ways. It gave me a sense of self and purpose that I needed as a hard working ambitious young man. I certainly didn't become a bad person from it. I was lucky there too. Money didn't ruin me like it does a lot of people. it didn't taint me. It didn't make me evil or selfish or greedy. But I did become someone addicted to money, and also someone who saw money as sort of the ticket to everything... including one’s self worth. A measure of one’s value.

So as a wealthy man I longed for sincerity and authenticity. Very much so. I felt that I had already achieved earthly enlightenment. Having worked on it for years and years. I was not lacking in that department. My connection with the Divine and with my Higher Self was strong and I was aware that I had a very positive influence on those around me. But inside I knew that I was being something on the outside that was only about half of who I was meant to be. Only I just couldn’t figure out what it was... or what I was meant to do about it.

You know it isn't until you are forced to stand up like a man and represent yourself and who you are based on nothing but who you are that you really come to realize that you have indeed achieved that state of realness and sincerity and authenticity that some of our finest fellow human examples have shown can be achieved. It didn't happen to me overnight. And it is still not complete. I take refuge in the fact that I am at least wise enough to understand that it will never be complete. I will always be working on becoming more real, more sincere, more authentic, more caring of others, more selfless. I am a work in progress at best. A messy one at that.

So yes, where were we. Well now it is two hours later in the middle of a hot New York spring day and I haven't slept in over 48 hours. I just continue to work till I drop. Then I pick myself back up and do it again. The point of this little entry was really meant to be more of a record of this moment in time – for a I feel that we just crossed that really bad “down in the dumps slow music” part of the movie and we are about to reach that glorious “cue the music Hollywood happy ending” any week now – I can just feel it... so I just wanted to record what we’re all going through right now in order to make it happen.

Remembering this is going to be important for me. It has been a rough ride. But it has also been a strengthening one. And a graceful one. More than anything it has taught me the value of true friendship. Without friends, I don't know where I'd be. Like the guys in my band, Bloopy and Rockaway and Vancouver and Infinito and The Poet. Guys like G2 who’s worked for me for ten years straight now and let me rack up a bill for the last six months the size of a small fortune and still calls me at midnight to brainstorm or conference on the progress we are all making in “rebuilding the ambassador’s empire.” He emails me one day about two months ago and explains his quandary: “Dude on the one hand I have a wife and baby due in august and I'm putting off paying clients to spend days and night on your work and you can’t afford to pay me. But then I'm laying there at night when I'm trying to fall asleep and I'm saying to myself “I can’t leave my brother just hanging like that... I have to help him, money or not.” Now that's a friend.

Mohdie and Madelynne O'Ryan are still there, as they’ve always been. Mohdie loaned me eight grand three years back for a court case and said “Brother, you better be right on this one cause this is my boat money and I've been saving it for twenty years...” Well luckily I was right and was able to give it right back to him a month later. Brother Beav paypaling me when I need it. Mom God bless her. Western fucking Unioning me in the worst of times with a little memo at the bottom that says “only to be spent on groceries.” Anyone who is lucky enough to have a mother...

And then there is the story of Catherine Darlington and Princess Little Tree who literally believed in me when for a while there I didn't even believe in myself. Wrapped up in a little ball on a bed for weeks afraid to move, immobilized by fear, they just swooped in and caressed me, propped me back up, and said “back out into the world you go young man. You're still the ambassador. You’ve got work to do. Now go get ‘em!” I will never forget that. I would kill for either of them. They’ve shown me love that I never knew existed in the world among ‘not blood family.’

Even Weather Girl and Bunny, who in a very short period of time have both just gotten to know me so well, better than I know myself, that they’ve been able to take my chunks of coal and see diamonds in them long before I did. Weather Girl with her cold and calculating, disciplined and organized way of thinking, can literally pinpoint the exact problem I have with working through certain things can shift me into overdrive with one call just by pointing certain things out in such an uncannily robotic almost computer-like fashion – she just thinks in a way that I don't have the capacity to think like. Without her there’d be no “new book.” Oh there’d be thousands of pages of writing as there always has been, but there’d be no actual book.

Shooting me over text after midnight text “you’ve got to write this book now! You are so much more than a rocker. You are a visionary. Why are you limiting yourself to just a rocker? Why don't you actually write the book? Why don't you take notes and then dictate them to me and I will organize them into chapters? Why don't you send me all your theses and I will do the statistical research to see if you are actually right with all your ideas and predictions? And two weeks later, “Guess what Fishy?! Every single thing you say is happening is actually happening! Lets write this book now!” She's taught me a lot about who I am. Pointing out certain character traits and suggesting ways to improve them using these strange methodical practices of discipline... funny things like that.

And Bunny. She came out of nowhere. Listens to me when I'm down. Listens to me when I'm up. Corrects me when I'm wrong. Commends me when I inspire. What with her “Goddamn you Fishy. You lucky bastard. You just luck into it all don't you? All you do is just walk around enjoying life, exploring shit, having adventures, doing your thing and you live this life that is so fucking interesting that it’s like your whole life is one giant TV show or book and you don't even know it. Let me edit your shit man."

She took that proposal and worked for a solid month on it endlessly day after day for a promise of ten percent on a giant leap of faith and not even a dollar. Now before we’re even done with the first book she's taking the Transcendence Diaries and turning them into a book. “You have how many pages of memoir typed already?!!!” “About four thousand pages now...” I casually mention. “Fishy do you realize memoir is the hottest genre in literature right now? Fuck man, just send me a few hundred pages and I'll start editing it and get all your rambling out and we’ll put out the first of the series. Who the hell writes four thousand pages of memoir and doesn’t do anything with it?!!!” “Well what am I supposed to do with it???” “You're supposed to publish it you idiot.” “oh. Yeah well i figured I'd get around to that eventually.” She says I'm retarded, but like in a good way, and that's why she loves me. So I guess that's a good thing. We shall soon see. That's for sure.

In any case, I'm about three words away from throwing up and passing out. But let it be said here in case I don't ever get a chance to mention it again -- that I'm not doing it alone. None of it. Cleopatra Ecstasy did her best to bring me down – [I don't think that was her intention – it was just the side effect of her doing her best to prop herself up at the expense of anything or anyone that got in her way, and that included me unfortunately.] But I will relate this story in case I never have in print before. If I have, surely Bunny will notice and edit it out.

I was walking to see that movie Amazing Grace a few years ago and I was right on the brink of realizing that I had just about lost everything. I was still eating $60 plates of truffle pasta for dinner at Brio on the Upper East Side but I was going broke fast and still kind of in denial.... I was walking along in the cold New York winter on my way to this movie and I was sort of cursing God. Like “Why is this happening to me? What the hell did I do to deserve this? Why are you doing this to me God? What IS the lesson?”

And I hear this voice as clear as day in my head, just as I always do when it sounds like an angel or my higher self is speaking to me and it said “God isn't doing this to you Fishy. Cleopatra did this to you. And some decisions you yourself made did this to you. Human beings do these things to each other. But God is grace. God only does good things for you. God is going to pull you through this. God has brought Catherine Darlington and Princess Little Tree into your life, and so many others. God is what's going to help you through this. Do you understand?”

And then right in that moment as I was listening to this voice in my head I look down at my feet and just like always there is this perfectly beautiful and beautifully perfect white feather on the ground right in front of me. I bent down and picked it up and twirled it between my fingers. “God is grace,” I whispered to myself. “I get it.” It is truly an amazing grace if you open up to it.

Stepping out of the two-party box

"Yes," he answered to no one in particular when the question appeared in the room; staring off into the open space that connects us all, "it is a challenge. But it is also extremely entertaining. Perhaps because it is just so damn interesting."

He was referring to the question, more of a statement it was really, regarding how difficult and challenging it must be to handle the constant influx of comments and mail both good and bad, both slobberlingly gracious and downright nasty, that one receives or reads online about oneself when one places himself out THERE in the public domain. Especially in such a personal and potentially vulnerable manner in which our hero has made a habit of over the last fifteen years. The internet has made it all the more overwhelming now of course because to give an interview in the Times is one thing. To post your latest rant on the internet as fair bait for everyone and anyone takes a brave soul, or perhaps just an insane one. But truly, and this just might be the greatest benefit of it, it eventually reaches a point where there is no conceivable way to actually read all of it, let alone personally answer it.

But every now and then I do. Truth is, for better or worse, thoughtfully complimentary or insanely rude and hateful, I enjoy scanning through Youtube comments especially. Real human dialogue is almost always instantly and immediately created. And again it is not a practice for the faint of heart. Not only am I just as addicted to the revolution we call YouTube as the next guy, I see it as a very exciting harbinger of what's to come. In essence, that which we now call YouTube is the future, our future.

When I can find the time, which is becoming less and less available and more and more valuable these days, I will sit down and shoot off as many replies as I can when a community has cropped up around a particular video. It always amazes me how regardless of what the actual video is about people will still find a way to turn the dialogue that begins to mushroom around a particular video into these little bickering arguments amongst themselves. How quickly one or more will jump to ad hominem attacks of perfect strangers right there online for all the world to read - rather than simply staying on point or on message. When the video in question is one of my own I will on occasion attempt to jump in and add my own two cents in order to quench a few fires and get people back on track...

Such is the case often in relation to the political or social commentary vidoes that I post. And remember the whole Transcendent Television on YouTube project started out as a social experiment that i was only meant to conduct for a year. A way to explore and monitor what got people's attention, what motivated them, what excited them, what keywords they typed in the most, what would attract the most views, and what would attract the most comments. The results were predictable and at the same time surprising at times.

To answer another question, no, I do not take the comments or emails personally. I learn what I can from a business and artistic perspective and move on. If I can't help myself I will chime in if for anything to either say "thank you" or to just lend a bit of light to the ongoing debates...

Such was the case with the comment below. Unfortunately I do not remember what specific video nor which comment this reply belongs to. I just felt it important enough to copy and paste to use in later work, which we are now doing this very minute. This, in effect, is just one of the many powerful benefits that YouTube and the vibrant community that has sprung up around it has given us all. A good laugh most of the time, and every once in a while true inspiration.

Dear Rev1,
That was actually funny. dude. funny! Ok so i beg to differ with your somber and frightfully hateful appraisal of me, especially seeing that we have not even had the pleasure of meeting face to face yet. But seriously do you really acknowledge 'liberals' versus 'conservatives?' I mean, are you just kidding? -- playing into the whole charade for the sake of humor? Or are you really that brainwashed that you believe that there is a difference between the two parties? Do you not realize that both parties are in the end slaves to the same few who control the system? Now that you're a raving fan (LOL) see my video series entitled FIGHT THE POWER which addresses this scam in more detail.

Same thing to you my friend: It has nothing to do with republicans or democrats. Nor with whites or blacks. Please wake up and start studying what has really happened and what is happening and stop attacking each other. It is simple: good or smart or ethical people versus lame racist imperialist assholes. They come in all shapes and sizes and colors and political affiliations. Please stop attacking each other and start fighting for humane causes that TRANSCEND political party lines. Some republicans have been assholes. Some democrats have been assholes. Conservatives are nice as hell sometimes. Other times they're murdering thieves. Liberals are great when it comes to caring about others sometimes - at least that's what they want us to believe. But they are just as greedy as anyone else -- depending on WHO it is. Get out of the two-party box that they have you jammed into. You don't deserve "five thumbs down" because your comment was freaking hilarious by the way. But if you're serious, bro, you have to spend some good quality time studying some history books. Turn off the TV for good and learn what's really going on. It has nothing to do with liberals versus conservatives. It has a lot more to do with US versus THEM.

Yours,
The Raconteur

Fishy announces a new non-profit project -- PeaceWithIran.com

A personal message from Fishy

Thank you for visiting www.PeaceWithIran.com for those of you have already written to me about it. Your presence there is welcomed and appreciated just as much as it is here. I want to caveat by saying that though “war is imminent” or “military strikes are imminent” may be an idea or thought or belief that many are carrying around today in regards to the United States and Iran and even Israel, I do not personally hold this thought or idea or belief myself.

Yes I certainly see the news being released everyday about the various issues, and I recognize that parties on all sides feel very passionate about these issues; whether it is the threat of a “nuclear Iran” on one side, or a ”bullying America” on the other side, or a “fearful and hostile Israel” on yet another side. I also certainly understand the potential dangers that all three countries pose against the others and truly against all living beings on the planet today. But I believe that what we think about, what we give energy to, is what we create. We have seen it time and time again. As soon as a country starts beating its war drum, it is only a matter of time until it decides it’s time to “go to war.” Regardless of the loss of life, liberty, respect in the world community, or the burden it places upon the rest of the world. Throughout human history, there has always been one country or another “ready to attack” another country.

The truth of the matter is that this is bound to continue until mass human consciousness changes to the point of what might be called “critical mass” in a way that these people who see “war” as the only answer for “peace” simply no longer exist. In time this will be our reality. It might take our total annihilation and extinction and subsequent reincarnation in yet another form for this to happen, but let us hope not. Let us hope that those of us who see “peaceful means” as the only means available to us to achieve “peace” win this historical battle of wits that is being played out on the world stage.

With that said, let us take it for granted that for the next few months or years even we will have ample opportunity to read about “war” and the “threat of war” in regards to Iran and the United States and Israel if we so choose to. There are plenty of people who find the time and enjoy searching for the latest article or report on what “so and so” said bad about “so and so” and of course in the end it is really nothing but talk leading up to more “war” – even if their intentions are good – meaning that they don't want “war” – but in fact that is exactly what they will create. Some people have just not evolved to the level of understanding of the “mechanisms of consciousness” yet to the degree that they realize that if they spend all their time thinking and reading about it, they will indeed create it. Whether they claim to want it or not. They are creating it simply by focusing so much attention on it.

But that is not what this particular website is concerned with. Our goals with the www.PeaceWithIran.com website is to show an entirely different side of US/Iran relations and to the country of Iran itself, and the Iranian people. The idea is to literally ignore that pink elephant in the room that at various times is called “war” or “threats of war” or worries or concerns about nuclear energy programs or WMDs or any of that lower-mode primitive-minded nonsense. Because God knows we have plenty of people already giving plenty of energy to those ideas in today’s world.

Remember elementary school? There were always those one or two kids in each class who were the bullies, who picked fights for the slightest reason or for no reason at all, who made fun of other kids, who tried to make us laugh at the expense of others, who tried to pit one classmate against another for the sheer wicked enjoyment they got out of it. Though this isn't elementary school anymore, it sure seems like it sometimes. Those kids have now grown up. And if we aren't careful and vigilant to our cause - the safety and survival of our species - these grown up kids could blow us all up simply because they haven't fully matured yet as most of us have, and also because we haven't done enough to speak up and tell them to back the fuck down.

It’s too bad we weren't able to do that in regards to the United States Government’s invasion of the sovereign country of Iraq. Lord knows plenty of people from all over the world tried. But no one was brave enough to really stand up and say “no.” And so in the last five years we have watched in horror over one million innocent people die. It is also equally regrettable that we have thus far been unable to stand up against the Chinese government in regards to how they are slowly but steadily killing hundreds of thousands of Sudanese people right before our eyes.

Of course, the issue of Iran is a bit more complex than Iraq or the Sudan. Both countries were radically unstable and not much of a threat nor a strong foe to begin with. But Iran is a very different matter. The people of the United States of America should feel very lucky that the Iranian people are such a strong, proud, and resilient people that up until this time they have not taken the constant beating of the American war drum by the few barbarians in Washington who do not understand the basic principles of diplomacy too seriously. Instead they choose to just continue on with their lives and hope that eventually America finds someone else to bully. For unlike Iraq or the Sudan or Tibet for that matter, Iran does have the potential to pose a serious threat as a formidable enemy if they ever felt so inclined to. Not only do they have a very proud and loyal populace since their own revolution, they also have the backing and allegiance of many other countries around the world. Luckily for all of us, they instead choose to do their best to just keep on trying to move forward with their day to day lives.

So instead of focusing on war and threats of war and who has the biggest army or the biggest guns or who said what about whom each day in the international press, those of us on the light side need to start focusing our energy on Peace and on People. After all, Iran is a country full of people. So is the United States. And in a nutshell, war isn't good for people. Nor has it ever done much good for “peace”.

It is easy to find ourselves upset at the US government, just as it is easy to find ourselves upset with the Iranian government or the Israeli government or the various factions within the Palestinian government. But it isn't going to do us much good to focus on these feelings of upset. Let us instead choose to focus on Peace itself. Let us instead focus on discovering how many millions of Iranian/Americans we already have living here in the United States who still have family “back home” in beautiful Iran. Let us instead develop a curiosity for this rich and ancient and historic land once called Persia, now called Iran.

Let us instead develop a place online and in our hearts where we who care can share photos, films, books, movies, art, and music from the fascinating cultural exchange that is taking place right this very minute between our two great countries. Iranians love Americans. There is much to like about us. And they can see that. And though many don't yet know it, Americans love many famous Iranians. Iran has contributed much to the planet in its five thousand year history. Our very own Constitution is said to be inspired by the Persian King Cyrus the Great and his drafting of what many believe to be the very first “constitution.”

PeaceWithIran.com is a story of hope. It is a place to learn and to share. The goal being to add some balance to the already nauseating clutter of war-related stories coming out from the hawks and bullies of the world - and the hapless media lapdogs who follow their every step. We made a grave mistake with Iraq. We never bothered to even look these poor people in the eye before we attacked them; because our hearts were heavy from the events of September 11th, and our minds were confused by falsified “intelligence reports” coming out of Washington. But we will not make that same mistake again.

Let us take a look at the face of Iran – since after all, Iran is a country full of 70 million faces. And our goal is that not one of them is touched, hurt, injured, attacked, maimed, deformed, put out of their homes, or killed by anyone. Just as I am sure most would agree that we have the same goal for ourselves. Let us hold it for our Iranian neighbors as well.

In the meantime, there is much to learn about this truly fascinating people and country. Take your time and look around the site if you get a chance to visit. And if you have something to share, please feel free. This site is open to all who have something to contribute.
Thank you again for stopping by.

Sincerely,
Fishy

The Benefits of Astrology Chart Reading

Hey T,
I am glad you asked me about Karen. I am often asked for referrals for astrological chart readers and the like, (perhaps the nature of the industry I am in? Or the circles I tend to travel in?) and even more often asked my general opinion of the whole paradigm, as if one persons opinion whether positive or negative might confirm their own ideas concerning the matter. Which is of course, what we do.... though it really doesn’t do much in the end but usually give them more evidence to support a belief that they themselves already hold.

But nonetheless, I am more than happy to refer you to Ms. Pavlus because I believe she is very, very good, I think you have nothing to lose, much to gain, and I'm sure she doesn’t mind as long as I keep it to good friends.

When you call, let her know you were referred by Fishy. So she knows who you are and why you are calling her and how you got her information. She is very well-known but now semi-retired and only does one or two readings per week so she is going to wonder how you got her name and number. It may take a week or two to get an appointment but it is very much worth it.

From a testimonial perspective I can offer you this: approximating, throughout my life I have had at least one hundred or more “readings” with psychics, chi gong masters, tarot card readers, Vedic astrologers, Chinese astrologers, mystics, gurus, shamans, past life readers or regression therapists, clairvoyants, mediums, channelers, palm readers, akashic-records/soul readers, and astrologers. At the least a hundred or more. ESP, or “the sixth sense” is a subject that I have always been fascinated by since I was a young child. But I no longer believe that “astrology” in its pure form – as in reading one’s natal birth chart – falls into this category. I now see it more as a science altogether on its own.

I have had readings at one time or another with any and all of the “big names” and the most “famous names” from here to Timbuktu over the last twenty-five years. Since money was never an object, and at the most it was always just putting your name on a waiting list, I was always willing to wait, and as a diehard “seeker” I was determined to find and discover the absolute BEST of them out there. Not only was I interested in what they might have to say to me or teach me or what guidance they might hold for my own personal life, I also considered it all part of my ongoing research into the whole paradigm as a whole.

At the least it satisfied for me a deep yearning for the “truth” – if there is such a thing -- and a fascination to learn more about that whole world of “the sixth sense” as well; and at the same time I felt that at some point down the road I will be able to accumulate all of my different notes of all of these readings into book form and create a book that details some of the conclusions I have come to understand about this work. There is no need to go into all that here.

Suffice it to say that out of all the “astrology chart readers” that I have ever spoken to, Ms. Pavlus is by far one of the best in the world today. She is not psychic, nor does she claim to be. Which I actually like. (many of them claim to be) What this means is that she uses her 40+ years of experience and the skills she has gathered to simply be very good at “reading charts.” Which is a real science and takes years to master to be good. Especially when speaking to someone such as myself who already is very well-versed in my own Natal Chart and knows just about everything there is to know about it already.

So if someone isn't good, I can tell within the fist five minutes or so. And sometimes just due to how busy I am, I have been known to cut them off and say “Thank you. I think that answers my questions. Thank you so much for your time...” But I simply just don't have the time to waste if I can tell the person just isn't excellent at it. Ms. Pavlus is absolutely excellent at reading charts. She will never bullshit you. She will never tell you something just because she thinks “that's what you want to hear.” And she will never hold back on telling you something that may not be such good news. She just tells it like it is. Which is her job and if she really cares about the client, and about her own reputation which at this point is sterling, that is exactly what she should do.


Give her a call and tell her you have NEVER had a reading done before. So she will need to run a “natal chart” for you. You will need to give her the exact time you were born, the date, and the exact place. This means the chart of exactly what the stars and planets looked like when you were born so you can understand who you are better. This goes way beyond your “horoscope sign.” It is much much deeper.

And then ask her also to run what is called a “progressive chart” = that is what the stars and planets look like today and how they are affecting you, because remember – after all this time that has passed, everything has SLOWLY moved in the universe just a little so things look different now than they did back when we were born.

The natal chart tells you who you are, as you were born, tells you your strengths, which gives you strength and courage and confidence because it confirms what you intuitively know about your self already but maybe are just afraid to fully acknowledge... and the natal chart also tells you your weaknesses or your challenges – which is also very helpful because again it confirms for you negative aspects about yourself that you may be aware of but might be in denial of... so she can help you with tips on how to OVERCOME those challenges or weaknesses. And trust me, we ALL have both strengths and weaknesses when we are born.

But there is a term for this: It is called “evolved.” Such as a person if they have not yet “evolved their natal chart” will have “the tendency to be too self critical” perhaps. You see how perfect that is? In other words, you have the power to evolve OUT of the strengths and weaknesses you were born with... it is YOUR choice. A reading might say something like “This person if fully evolved out of the negative characteristics of their natal birth chart could be very powerful in the way of speaking the truth and bringing fairness and justice to all matters around them.” Or it might be something as simple as “If fully evolved, this person could be an excellent doctor, or very good working with children, or working in the field of engineering.”

I'm just making these examples up... but it is a very powerful way to self-discovery, and then to self-development, which then leads to self-empowerment. It is the foundation where you start from in order to really become a master of your universe and use the best of what you were born with, totally maximize your natural born gifts; and then to deliberately attempt to discreate, “release,” or just say “stop” to your negative attributes.

Hence – self-discovery, then development as you work on yourself, and then empowerment as you become more and more powerful – which really just means more “in tune with” or “in the flow of your real self” and more self-aware and more able to harness your true gifts, and then eventually total self-evolvement.” Meaning that you have fully “evolved out of your natal birth chart” and you are a fully living breathing Buddha walking the earth and deliberately making the world a better place for all. That is the goal.

Powerful stuff if you open up to it and use it. What I mean by open up to it is this: whether you are open to it or not – that will not change your chart, nor will it change your reading. But it could change how you act based on what you are told. If you just take it with a grain of salt and don't do much with it because you are skeptical, well I'm a great example of that. I took all the good stuff and let it boost my ego and felt great about it all, but I didn't take seriously the warnings of potential harmful things about to happen to me that were right there in my chart – as clear as light in the nighttime sky – because honestly I wasn't too sure how seriously to take the stuff. I didn't realize that “do this or DON'T do this RIGHT NOW” really meant that.

In other words, do exactly what they say because they are actually seeing something that is real in that chart. So I learned the hard way from not heeding the advice of a very famous and respected reader. I would be in a much different place in my life right now had I listened to her advice from my 2005 reading with Karen. But I didn't, and well, I learned the hard way.

In general, the beauty is that you don't actually have to do anything in the way of study or learning - other than work at transcending your weaknesses and maximizing your strengths and heeding warnings or taking advantage of potential big wins that they might see in your future. If you speak with a really good astrologer, someone who is older and has decades of experience reading charts and really approaches it from a scientific place (this woman is 64 so she has about 40 years of experience), then you don't need to study and learn all this stuff. It’s just not necessary, because truly it is an overwhelmingly complicated science and field of study and that isn't everyone’s thing – to learn about all these things... But this IS THIER specialty. This is what they do. And if they're good, they're usually damn good at it. And Karen Pavlus is one of the best I've ever spoken to.

If you really listen, and take some notes, and then listen to the tape that she sends to you afterwards a few times, you will start to open up to the realness of the things she is saying that you might intuitively feel are accurate appraisals of who you are. And then from there, what I did personally, and recommend to others is that you take a highlighter and highlight all of the things she points to that are “potentially negative characteristics” of your “self.” Or simply make a list of them. This takes self-awareness, self-honesty, courage, and integrity. It isn't easy to admit to ourselves or to anyone our weaknesses. Then use whatever tools you have at your disposal in order to try to rid yourself of these negative character flaws. That could mean telling yourself “from this point forward I will stay very vigilant and look for moments when I find myself doing X. Then I will acknowledge that I am doing it, catch myself doing it, and then deliberately stop doing it. In time, as with any habit, you will begin to notice that you no longer are prone to it.

Next, you do the same thing with all of the different “potentially positive aspects of self” that she points out to you. This will give you tons of information about all the different gifts you came into the world with and it will help you to capitalize and maximize all of your various positive attributes. And trust me, though some of us are born “luckier” than others, we all have plenty of positive characteristics that we are born with and if told in advance, then you can really use these to your full advantage and to the full advantage of those around you. You will in essence, by getting to know yourself better, by becoming more self-aware, notice that a lot of “self-questioning” begins to dissipate, because you now are very clearly aware of “who you are.” At least in “this lifetime.”

A note from “higher self:” From the Higher Self or from the “all that is” perspective, yes, I agree that clearly these strengths and weaknesses, these positive or negative attributes of “self” are not “us, meaning not “me” or “you” – for what are “we” in reality if not mere reflections of “all-that-isness” or “the Divine” in an “organic spacesuit” if you will. Granted. And touché for catching that.

So with that in mind, when we refer to “self” in any discussion, let us remind ourselves, or better put, let us just assume that it is most likely and most often from the earthly plane of consciousness, and therefore we are not referring to “the whole self” but rather, the “self” that we incarnated with in this particular lifetime that just happens to exude certain characteristics on a regular basis that define “us.” Hence “self.” But again, not our “real self” nor our “whole self” nor our “soul” or “spirit” but simply just our most basic “earthly self” that happens to walk around representing “us” in this “lifetime.”

When we look at it this way, it is easier number one, to be able to look at “ourselves” a bit more objectively, meaning from “higher self” mode – and therefore be able to really become more self-aware. And from there, what the end result can be is that we are able to minimize or completely eliminate our potential weaknesses or challenges, maximize or fully utilize our natural born personal powers and strengths, (again, of this current life that we find ourselves incarnated in, not our whole selves) and in the end transcend our Natal Birth Chart entirely. In essence what we are really saying by that statement is complete transcendence; or enlightenment. Transcending to that place we might call “pure awareness” or “higher self” or “Buddhahood” or “Buddha consciousness” or even “someone who is in touch at all times with “the divine” or “all-that-isness.”

At the end of the day, when asked, that is the answer for why one might want to call on the services of an expert astrologer or chart reader. It isn't “tell me my future” as much as “tell me what you see in my chart,” let me check with my intuition and let me see if any of it feels accurate to me, and thank you for the confirmation. Then begin your work of setting about to become the absolute best “person” you can be, and a side-effect of that is that by simply “being” you make the world a better place all around you.


What they call “the progressive chart” is more along the lines of “what is happening now or what may tend to happen in the coming year as the planets, stars, and moon, continue to slowly move and cycle. This can also reap huge rewards in pointing out certain potentialities that may affect us or exert an affect on our lives. This is where some of the real perceived magic of astrological chart reading comes into play because if the reader is good they will literally “see” other people in your chart that are actual people in your life at that time. As was the case in both the readings I had from Karen in the last three years. It was astounding to hear her point out very specifically real people in my life to a tee jut because she “saw them in the chart” and also to hear her describe to me real life events that I was experiencing in present time just because, again, she “sees them in the chart.”

From this experience one can learn if one is on a good path or a potentially dangerous one, and all of it of course should be checked by just going inside and checking your intuition to see if it rings true. It is hard to deny when a reader asks you “who is the Pisces woman you are in business with who is trying to harm you?’ when you are indeed in the middle of a legal battle with a Pisces woman that you were formally in business with. (which was the case in my first reading with her three years ago.) Or as was the case with my reading last week “In the last six months three different Virgos came into your life and you are all now working on a project together in either books or publishing. Is this true?” And of course, for me it was true, and I almost fell out of my chair because it is still just so damn shocking when they nail it so accurately. That's how good a “good” astrologer can be. And that is the potential power of having them do your “progressive chart” as well. To see where you are now and where you might be headed.

Responding to recent mail...

This is from a recent piece of mail I received regarding a video I posted to YouTube concerning the Nappy Headed Ho incident about year ago - if you do a search for it, you can find which video he is referring to... not exactly a kind hearted sort of ambassador work of art. I will confess to that right now. It takes me a long time to get to all the mail. But every now and then one of them is just really good or thought provoking. So I took the time to read it and respond. I am reprinting here word for word:

To:
Subject:	remarks regarding hip hop and the black people in your video
Date:	May 22, 2008
	Dear TranscendentTV, This e-mail come later of the media has down played. I am concern about the remarks you made regarding jay z and rap, and the black community. First let me say that this country was founded on being gangster you kicked Native American ass, you (whites) kicked Mexican ass and black ass to organize what’s called the U.S.A... In your gangster endeavor your stripped a humble, peaceful people and turned them into N.W.A. (nigga with attitude). It is two hundred years later and you don’t like what you made. This is only a reflection of you and the world you have made. You mention the word hoe, and it s had something to do with black people. How does the work. How is the work hoe sunomus to black people, this is very ignorant on your part. When Europeans came in contact with African, Africans did not know what hoes were, these is American European culture. Dude the more I look at your clip the more I see the drugs involved...lol. I not going to say black people don’t have issues in our culture. Where did porn come from, whites victimize there people. Child porn, come on dude you are speaking on a small portion of black people. You are justifying imus's rude racist comments about intelligent hard working women who happen to be African American. I understand you feel little victimized because it seems like a white man is being attack and your a white man. To some extent you are a victim, but you are a victim of white male injustice in this country. Now that the world is changing and you have to be accountable for your actions, you don’t like it. What comes around goes around the universal law. The nation of Islam tries to raise the rappers up and teaches them a new way and a more constructive way of getting there message across. Some women are hoes, black, white, Asian, Mexican what ever the case may be, they will sleep with a man for money or because he drives a nice car. Why don’t you attack those hoes, I doubt you will, and yes white people