It appears that with the votes of three Democrats (Landreau from oil-industry heavy Louisiana and two from Hawaii apparently because they support the rights of native people to determine how to use local resources) the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge will be opened to oil and natural gas development. Chafee, Snowe, McCain, Coleman, Smith, and Collins were Republicans who opposed.

The interesting thing about this is that the ANWR doesn't have nearly enough oil to make any substantial impact on prices or long-term sustainability of our energy policy. Everyone knows this. Everyone also knows that very very few Americans will ever visit the ANWR. This was a symbolic battle, one that has been going on a long time and it's really about the principle of conservation versus the principle of development. One of the problems in Washington DC is that a lot of the battles fought become similarly divorced from reality, politics operating in it's own ecosystem. The results of such fights don't amount to good governance no matter how they turn out.

How environmental groups react to this symbolic defeat is going to be interesting. There's a real opportunity for environmental advocacy groups to seize the mantle of pragmatism within the realm of energy policy. It will be interesting to see if they take it.

Apropops the "serious" stuff below, here's a grand tradition I'm proud to see is still in operation: free beef with your tires, at Les Schwab.

My own site update has fallen EVEN FURTHER by the wayside as I've been too busy and distracted. However, here are a few photos in the meantime to tide you over.

First, an update to the crash-log. The last couple of places I've slept:

Jeremy and Wes's futon, the closest thing I have to a home base since I can stay there whenever I want, they've got a set of spare keys, and it folds out big enough that I can sleep relatively comfortably on a diagonal.

Here we have rising young director Laura Cass's bed and the infamous Piggy Reese. I dog-sat for Laura this weekend, which was pretty awesome. A whole apartment and a real bed all to myself. Well, all to myself and Piggy.

Finally, two subway posters I saw side by side that made me laugh. Sometimes you can't beat the randomness of real life for irony value:

That's an add for Hardball and an upcoming NBC short-run series called Revelations, which is in latin and translates as "The End of All Things Is Near."

I'm dog-sitting a feisty little pup in the villiage. My own room with a view for a couple of days, but I'm all on my lonesome for a saturday night. Last night was a twister, a rendezvous with a girl who spars on my mental level and comes from the theater and who's pretty good lookin' to boot... but it didn't work out. My doing. I previously set the expectation that there would be bedroom fun too, but then I backed out.

Thing is, I knew I was backing out before I went in, but I wanted to see this person again and I'm not the type who can abide taking someone's phone number and not calling. Seems an affront to common decency. Still, it wasn't the right thing to do; but it wasn't the wrong thing either. Nothing amiss in asking someone to hang out and have a couple whiskeys and talk about life and at and what it all means. Seems an allright thing to do.

However, apropops my previous post, I don't think it's good for me to sleep with anyone at the moment, especially if I know I like talking to them too. It just adds layers to the confusion. So I never planned on going beyond talk.

Hopefully I'll sort out who I am and why I'm here soon, because going out and sparring and learning and feeling a tingle all down your spine is just a terrible prelude to going home alone and watching Big Trouble In Little China, fabulous piece of cinema thought it may be.

Having a great apartment to myself alone on a Saturday night seems like quite a waste indeed. Still, I'll enjoy having room for myself; eating ice cream in my underwear and not worrying about imposing on anyone else's morning ritual. Frank came over earlier in the afternoon and we killed my "cheap date" magnum of merlot. It had a screw top, cheap date that it was. It was nice. We talked about all things. We surveyd the world from the roof. We got Mamoun's falaffel and walked the dog, an adventure in and of itself. Later I ventured out for Grey's Papaya and to survey the action on these streets I used to frequent. They've changed and so have I, but the density and concentration remains. It's not quite my scene here on McDougal, but I can't deny that it's jumpin'.

Common threads, really. Romance, fitting in, places I've slept. I feel a bit like a broken record. Oh well. Now where's that ice cream...

Later on:
I closed it out watching Almost Famous with a pint of Chunky Monkey. It's a great movie for anyone interested in rock'n'roll and writing and love and truth and the way things aught to be. It makes me wonder about certain big philosophical things -- like anything good aught to -- and it makes me a little whistful and nostalgic for more innocent times, back when I was a more pure and shining being. Specifically, and in keeping with my theme of late, that has to do with romance.

It's an old saw, but I've gotten a little sad and jaded about the whole thing. It's always a possiblity (anything's possible), but my mind just isn't in that realm when it comes to my own personal transpirings. I can vividly remember a different era; hiding a rose under my jacket in the cold of Northampten, a quilted blanket and candlelight. Or maybe Bill Withers in the morning, or mangos on a roof, or hot tea and rain on a skylight. These are all things I can still feel powerfully if I recall them, but seem pretty fucking far off from where I roll in reality these days. More importantly, I don't have a grip on the ideals. I have no philosophy of love; no book; no inspiration. This is crippling.

There are other things I think are germane which are sparked by the movie -- things about information and access and trust and transparency -- but they don't much fit in with this bit of writing, so they'll wait for another day. I did get really nostalgic with all the post-hippy stuff. "Everything's happening" and all that jazz; the way the world can be enchanted. I miss that. I miss the everyday romance. Not necessarilt the stuff related to the sexes, but the way in which normal life, or heightened party life, can be a thing full of truth and beauty and challenge and wonder. It's never just about kissing or sleeping with someone. It's about the promise.

Now I'm getting incoherant. Time for water and then time for sleep. Tomorrow another thing happpens.

I liked the visual pun there: Dont Stop. Stopped. Anyway it's allright music if your taste ranges into the loungy end of electronic. I like it, and I like the band name. I also like what myspace music is doing quite a lot. It seems very empowering to artists.

That's it for me. I'm off into the night and the city.

Out at the fundraiser for Frank and friends' production of Eric Bogosian's Suburbia tonight. It was good fun with good people for a good script. I think GirlPosse.com does it justice when they say:

Suburbia is a great play, gritty, real, packed full of issues, and coated with fun. It addresses Third world poltics (Globalisation), racism, sexuality, AIDS, femmism, gun control, drugs, alcholism, depression/mental illness/youth suicide, sex, pornography, mateship, leaving home, art, and delivers a strong and powerfully positive message about the potential of the individual. I can't imagine another play ever so acurately capturing the void and confusing faced by todays youth as they drift out of school and into an uncertain future.

They had a raffle at the fundraiser. I won a prize, the "cheap date." That's a magnum of merlot and a box of condoms. Oh boy; just what I need.

All snark aside, I'm looking forward to the show. It's a great piece of writing and still pretty relevant if not quite as edgy as it was first produced. The party was fun; good to be back in that mix of folks. It makes me think that great things might be possible with community support. As they say in the commercials, "Where you at? The whole city behind us."

I used to consider myself a Romantic person. In some respects -- grand worldly and spirtual -- I still am, but in my own life's sphere this light has grown dim. I suppose my character remains the same, but without personal prospects its easy enough to become something of a sad old case about it. I could quickly become the kind of person who's susceptible to well-crafted commercials and low-quality romantic comedy. Perish the thought, but I feel it happening.

This page is now almost a year and a half out of date. What's the deal there, Koenig? I dunno. I supose I'm confused about what I want these days; don't really have any desire to be a guy who takes home girls he just kissed for the first time, but I'm no good at not kissing girls and sometimes they want me to follow them home, and at that point who am I to refuse them? At the same time, I'm in no position to be in a "real" relationship of any sort, scattered and flighty as I am. Yet part and parcel with that disillusionment with hookups, I long for substance. It's a catch 22.

Which is why I'm more or less convinced that Reason will not save me here. This is, in the end, a matter of the heart; that demands Romance, sputtering though my own engines of fancy may be. Trick of it is, I'm not really sure what that means in the context of my life. Time was I felt the tingle of possibility in every smoldering gaze, the power of all the universe in my sweaty bike-riding body as I stalked about the finer quarters of manhattan. Lately I'm restricted, cowed, hesitant. The spirit has no pasture in which to run free, even as I seek to unleash it.

And so it goes. In the area of love my life tends to be unconventional. The broad strokes are recognizable -- we're all human, thank goodness -- but the social minutae and specific bits are outside the mainstream. This is tough because I don't really have a model to follow; just groping my way along in the darkness like every other wannabe bohemian, hoping to strike something solid or rich or at least temporarily rewarding.

Cue up "Heart of Gold" and pour another bourbon, allright? I'll catch the rest of you tomorrow.

Where to make a fit? It was a long long weekend. Conferencing and shmoozing and plotting and scheming and parties and the L-train was out so I've done about 50 miles on the bike too. Heavyweight reggae Texas Hold 'Em -- Draft Posner -- several blasts from the past. Girls, girls, girls (in an exhausting way). My nails are bitten down to the quick and I really just want to get 18 hours of sleep, maybe play some videogames and eat some Chineese food.

But what I need to do is plan. Plan the week, the month, the year. What needs to be ground out? What's the next big move? Maybe head to a park and lie in the Grass because it's almost 60 degrees outside and it's going to try to snow at least once more before Winter is finally broken. Maybe it's a lot of phone calls. Maybe it's both. I want that vision though. Something to tie it all together.

What do you think of the title "Alternative Media Mogul?" I kind of like it. Possible conflicts with Folk Hero? I dunno.

Democrats are going to be in trouble on this consumption tax idea. I'm sitting in a cafe in Williamsburg Brooklyn and the 1st-wave hipsters (the ones who may actually be artists and have gotten their shit together to start a cafe, for instance) are lovin' it. "Gets rid of the IRS. Gets rid of accountants. They do it like that in Canada..." So they think.

The only counterarguments I've heard are hopelessly wonky and complex. I get why it's a bad idea. Here's what I would say.

• A consumption tax is regressive. Working people spend more of their income on "consumption" than the wealthy. Even with large exemptions, this will shift the burdin of taxes off of rich people who can afford to put their income in investments and onto middle class and blue collar people who put their income into clothes, food, car, and other products.
• Do you really trust George W. Bush and the Republicans to rewrite your tax code? Do you really think they will close all the corporate loopholes? Do you really think they're going to set up a system that's fair to working and middle-class people? They're a party of millionares who don't believe in social responsibility.

That's all I've got, and it's really not that good. Need graphs and shit to really sell it. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

So the question before me, again, is what I want to do with my life. What are the things I want? I want happiness; happiness without remorse. That means, love, community, purpose. That means challenge. I don't know why I have this kind of insatiable, depraved drive for challenge. At various times I've felt near these things I say will give me happiness in my life, but it's never enough. It's never Everything.

Why do I chase Everything? It is my own death-wish perverse five-x brand of the American Dream? I'm not seeking dominion or fame or even fortune per se, just a sane place for myself in a community of peers in a civilization that's not going to collapse under the weight of its own thermodynamic excess. Is that too much to ask?

I'd like to see the world. I'd like to regain my self-respect. I'd like to be amazed again, to be agape at the world. I'd like to get my mind off the doomsday cycle, get into the divine fantastic again. I can imagine a great feathered future where romance is still the kind of thing that goes with a quick pulse and dizzy-quick flashes of human brilliance. The highest achievement of existence.

All these things swirl around my head on a windy, frigid thursday evening in New York. They're like ghosts, my memories of my dreams. You hear that, future? We're coming. That's what I thought, anyway.

It's true that I'm tired and worn out, that I'm still coping with feelings of failure and betrayal on something of a spiritual level. I'd just like something to believe in again. The crisis of meaning is huge. I still know how to do good things for other people, for causes and lovers and friends who need a hand, but I'm flummoxed at what to do on my own account. It's a dangerous situation, being without personal desire. Despair, depression and depravity are looming.

I revisit Praxis, this lengthy bit of writing I did two years ago when I was in a similar position. It all seems right still, and I'm not sure whether to be happy for the truth of my course or concerned that I'm spinning my wheels. I feel I aughtta get some more perspective. I still believe I can do just about anything I set my sights on. The question is where can I set those sights sharp and true. It remains an open issue.