I've completed the task that's been consuming my life for the past month and a half. Go visit and tell me what you think. Pass it on!

Just back from a dynomite party in Brooklyn. A fellow ETW alumni who's actually making the theater thing happen, working around the world, living in downtown Brooklyn with a bunch of other people, an amazing network of friends and associates coming alive in the back yard. It was everything a Brooklyn party should be; reminded me of the good old days when we used to do it up there at the meek. All in the mix and all good times.

And then a ride home, stopping for eats in trendy billzburg, bouncing from all-nite because it wasn't a hip version of the Kellog anymore, getting pizza -- rockstar slice slinger like the greatest damn bartender in the world, eyeing the ladies and tossing up the good stuff -- and a little conversation with a girl decked in pink who wrote for a big magazine and was coming from working the door at Billionares for Bush's gala ball. I was gonna go, but I didn't get back from work in time to do my laundry. Couldn't show in dirty jeans and a stinky cut-off t-shirt; woulda been uncouth.

It's all going down. The life here makes me hopeful. It's all evolving, coming together. If we can learn to balance the necesity of ego with the peril of hubris, we'll be sitting pretty. Stay true to yourself and stay humble, oui?

And lately, I'm driven by the angelic virtue of Fela Kuti, and a moment of unity is found. Everything is ajar and imperminant these days, but the general motion is good, and obsessing about the details can only derail the works. So roll. Be real and be open and be adventurous and good things will happen.

So I made a few changes to the ol' website; should be kinder to old browsers. Other than that I've been pushing this over the top. After a month and a half of struggling, the grand combination is in process. It's all gravy.

And I'm pretty happy. I'm looking forward to having my own bed again, but I'm also looking further forward to coming back to New York.

It's been a stressful month, but I have a feeling like the good times are about to start rolling.

low culture: Rumsfeld's Rules: Donald's Photoblog, Vol. 2

I haven't wanted to comment on this... shit. It goes beyond my ability to reason. I don't know what to say. I wish this weren't happening.

But I can't say I'm really surprised. Nauseated, yes, but if you take a second, it's not hard to see how it all happened.

Maybe that's something worth illustrating. I can't really bring myself to talk directly about the torture, but I could do a little linky-essay on how the root causes are clear for anyone to see.

Yahoo! News - Andy Kaufman Returns After 20 Years

!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, you had to see that coming...

Drupal Powers Record-Breaking Progressive Political Victory in Portland OR | drupal.org

Yeah; this shit can work.

Looks like I'm staying in NYC another week.

Only thing is my friend JD is back in San Francisco on leave from the Air Force. I don't want to miss him. I may dip into my savings to fly back and spend a day or two there w/him. Luke is also getting his Masters, but he's in it for the long-haul, and we'll have time a-plenty to hang out in June.

Volunteer for the 2004 Republican National Convention NYC.

It'll do twice as much good as building a giant puppet. I promise. Pass it on.

I don't know if people have been picking up what I've been laying down over the past year and a half, of if I'm just along for the ride. It gives me a funny feeling when I hear people using the language I've been pushing. Freaks me the fuck out truth be told. I'm not quite sure whether it's really working or if we're all just repeating the same things, but it feels to me like something might actually be going on.

My friends in Brooklyn are organizing off-beat sports; kickball and cricket. Local pols are getting up and talking about social networks and the importance of meshing progressive ideals with political realities, about praxis. I'm thinking about how the next few years might look if I can manage to dial it all in, to focus and articulate again. The problem with being a Political Artist -- that's what I think I am, by the way; as opposed to practicing political science -- is that I'm subject to the whims and whiles of the muse. Since I'm also a professional now, this creates some tension.

I want to be able to deliver. I want to be able to come through in the clutch, but I'm too new to this game to have enough of a process to be reliable. I have a degree. I have performed reliably. But here I'm without any assurance that I can make it happen. I don't have any real training to fall back on. It's touchy. I don't know what to do to make the spirit emerge. Impotence of a much more devistating sort. I need some new shaman mojo, and quick. Maybe some dicipline too.

And since I'm watching Pump Up The Volume on cable, I'm thinking about how damn hot Samantha Mathis is. Oh man.

I can't write well lately. I don't know what to tell you. I'm too generally taxed and bound by professional obligation to cut loose. Gotta figure something out or else all that is vital and bouncing around will stagnate and die, and then I'll have terrible psychic gas.

So I came home late tonight after rambling around to various scenes and seeing what's up. Swingers is on Jeremy's cable, and seeing Jon Favreau skulking about in a wife-beater gives me some cause for reflection. I'm thinking a lot lately about how culture reverberates. It's something of a professional obsession, being that we're attempting to manufacture enough of a shudder in New York and California that we can tap and modulate the rattle, transmit it through music and websites into the heartland.

So knowing everything, coming back here now and seeing this film on the flicker box, it makes me think about how the whole picture gets formed, how in independent film poking fun at a scene that was mostly over in Los Angeles could be so impactful on my mind as a kid about to graduate high school in Oregon; enough to put me over top to creating fake IDs and started throwing cocktail parties. And though that's no longer who I am, it is an important element of where I come from, and now I'm in the mix trying to shove the whole mother-humping Leviathan in my own way. Freaky.

Shudder shudder pingback. Every little thing counts when you're trying to start an epidemic. Throughlines are important though; quality will still have it's fucking day...