They pulled the resolution. There will be no vote. Diplomacy over. Stay tuned for the president tonight at 8, and then for war.

Update: The fallout has begun in Britan, with the former Foreign Secretary and Labor party leader of the House of Commons resigning. Things look bad for ol' Tony. I don't agree with his position, but I do respect him for having the guts to face all the opposition he has in the UK. All those video clips of him taking painful questions from average brits on TV and then facing stony silence (or worse, that slow, synchanized clapping) at the end. That takes balls.

By the way, if you're reading this, you have time to complain by phone or email to the white house and your elected officials:

White House Comment Line: (202) 456.1111
White House Email: president@whitehouse.gov, vice.president@whitehouse.gov.

http://www.house.gov/writerep/
http://www.senate.gov

Pass it on.

First he's gonna BOMB, then he's gonna ROLL... Bush gonna give it to ya...

My god-dammed irritable and petulant head of state addressed the world today, cutting off Henry Kissenger giving his analysis -- cold, insightful, the kind only a war criminal can proffer -- in the CNN pregame show. The most quoted line is the "moment of truth" soundbyte, but to me the really interesting stuff was the candid responses on the margins, like when he jumped in on top of Jose Maria Aznar (the Spanisn PM), eventually apologizing, or when he uttered the phrases "the wars of the 21st Century are going to require a lot of international cooperaion," and "it's important for the U.N. to be able to function well if we're
going to keep the peace," in consecutive breaths.

"The wars of the 21st Century," and "if we're going to keep the peace." I think I'm going to pop a blood vessel. Notice the plural on wars. Wars. This really is prepetual war for prepetual peace.

If you want a reaction for a Portugese blogger, it's here. God bless the internet. She also give a link to the complete transcript of the affair, if you're interested.

As I said to Frank, there's nothing worse than a fucking spoiled rich kid from fucking Connecticut, flunks his way through Yale on some gentlemen's Cs, then takes his trust fund out to Texas and decides he's a damn cowboy, comes back East and is tryin' to tell y'all what it's all about. He didn't learn shit about being a cowboy out there; he learned how to be a failed oilman, a baseball team owner, and backroom dealmaker. These people have got to go! They're a pack of cheaters who've been taken in by some very delusional academics, are blatantly using fear to achieve their ends, are comfortable making public statements that can't be trusted any further than they can be thrown, and they're got my future in their hands. Let me tell you, I don't like their brand of business. They're people who are valuable because they can "make things happen," not because they have any real bright ideas about the world. It's frightening.

Sometime this week, we will have officially failed to prevent a war. The question now is where are we directing our energy next?

Trying a new format here... one lifenote post, one political ramble (see below). The adjustments to new tools continue.

Last night we drank copious amounts of nearly free beer at the Brooklyn Brewery. They debuted their seasonal beer, a dry Irish stout just in time for St. Paddy's. It's quite good. Frank, Andrew, A-Stock and I had a good time sitting on sacks of barley and malt, watching the crowd, letting a tasty cheap buzz wash over us. I really liked the atmosphere at the tasting party: there were a lot of little kids running around, dervish bohemian hellions, children of the beautiful people, a true and honest family vibe. There's something intrinsically earthy about a brewery, something that speaks of salty breeze and woolen caps, long days watching clouds and oceans, of soil and spirit and human-scale connections. It's a kind of home.

Andrew is just now back in the city, getting his feet under him, living with our old friend Sam out in queens, an apparently spacious apartment full of things he procured from Pottery Barn on Long Island. He was very drunk, but full of energy, glad to be back in action I think. It's good to see him again. After the brewery we all (sans A-Stock) went over to Julia's, a bona-fide reunion, the Rubin Hall crew together again. It's good to keep up with people. Andrew passes out almost instantly and we sat about in various states of dazedness just shooting the shit. On the way home Frank and I bought pints of Ice Cream and swapped bikes: me feeling the promise of a finely tuned gear system and a 10-pund frame. The seat was too low and the balance-points made it feel slightly rickety in comparison to my old warhorse, but the thrill of speed was unmistakable tearing up Nassau Ave at 1am.

Today is looking good. The weather is unadulterated beauty. I have a meeting for the next big art show and then a date to cook dinner with Sasha and then into the great wide open.

Maximum Pedagogical Value
It's 3.14 and Einstein's birthday. Do something for science. Christopher of Back to Iraq has been written up in Wired. I encourage you to donate to his fund if you can spare $5. We can buy our own damn corispondent. Also, here's yet another good collection of arguments against war, as if it really matters at this point, but still. Sometimes it all clutches up around my throat, the most bitter satire seems naive, and I feel like this, but today life is too full of truth and beauty for me to be brought down by the ugly misinformation we call the news.

It was an evening and a night and a morning. I went out for dinner with Christine -- ever full of sparkling conversation and good-hearted inquisitiveness -- at delictable cafe gigi. Four cheese pizza with fresh basil, salad with olive oil and balsamic, bottle of wine. It was a good time, in spite of strangely diffident foreigners and the fact that people kept coming halfway in to the over-crowded restaurant, letting in acres of cold wind to wash over us. We talk of philosophy and ethics and war and relationships, only the high points. She gave me some key insight on morality in a way which I want to weave into what I've been writing lately. I let slip my new (and now official) crush, which causes some excitement.

From there, we hit up the Cherry Tavern and various conversations. There was a lot of girl talk, and I started zeroing in on the conversation behind me; a fairly drunk, slighly lisping man making some kind of slipshod pro-war argument -- essentially boiling down to the divinity of American power and might equating with right. I was near to turning around and collapsing his rhetorical house of cards when one of his cohorts vomited all over the floor and they were all obliged to leave. I felt it to be a kind of karmic justice. We put tunes on the juke, talked a bit with a native New Yorker musician and another Portland transplant, small world connections and agreements abounding about the importance of not trying to be someone or thing other than yourself.

Eventually I got the call from the afformentioned crush -- sweet divinity carrying me further south and into the lower east side. How that neighborhood has changed as well... it's not nearly as standardized as the East Village, but in some ways it's even more upscale, reminds me of where SoHo was at before it became a designer shopping mall. I met up with Sasha and we saw a friend of hers perform: Baby Dayliner. It's one man singing along with his own synthesized pre-recorded back-up band. I really dug it, a sound like Modern English, a style and performance as intentional and specific as David Bowie, and a surprising amount of heart. This kid conjures imagery and has a fantastic voice. The whole thing gave me the resonating urge to create.

So now I'm getting all lubricated with my coffee, listening to Bob Dylan in the sunshine and feeling perversely optimistic about the world. It's a dark time in many ways, but I sense an edge of opportunity rising amidsts murk. It's cool to think about things and it's cool to work hard and it's cool to be live and real and true. Now more than ever. Monkey emails are flying in preparation for this years OCF. I'm smitten with a girl who seems to be smitten right back -- I want to make art with her and do crossword puzzles and cook food and furiously engage in all the vagarious business of living. It's an incredilbe time to be a human being, and in my minds eye I can already see and smell the fresh-cut grass of summer, the dust of progress, the candle-lit dinners of revolutionary consciousness, a rickety wooden house on a hill with lanterns and candles and banjo-pickin' moonshine-driven storytellin' escapades. All this and more in a great wide open future, the pace and pitch of which sings in my bones and makes sweet midnight promises to my blood. I'm a lunatic and my spelling sucks and I'm in love with everything.