Pushing my memes in San Diego. Some of them are catching. It's exciting. A lot of good stuff.

Word. Seattle is nice; full of classy brick buildings and pretty women. I cracked the front page of The Daily Kos with the graph I reproduced for an upcoming MfA issue card. Our ad went up on links.net. One more concert tonight -- Del! -- and then I've got Saturday to sleep and then down to San Diego for the Digital Democracy Teach-In. Should be fun. Franz and I are going to tag team it to make a splash.

This will be my second weekend working in a row, and the rest of February is only going to be more intense it seems. I probably miss you, so tell me how you're doing.

On Friday MfA is having an event in Seattle with Del the Funkee Homosapien aka Deltron3030. I'm going to do the on-stage song and dance for the organization. Oh man. Pumped. Gotta prep.

Working hard. Tomorrow I'm off to Seattle, then down to San Diego for the O'Reilly Digital Democracy Teach-In. This may turn out to be the year that the participation meme tipped. If so, I'll be proud to say I was a part of it.

I'm in Minneapolis for the great MfA winter mind-meld, and last night we had a lot of fun partying and meeting the amazing volunteer group here at 1st avenue. I stayed later to dance and relax. And, it seems, now I'm having my first bonafide Justin Hall moment. Oh man. It's all there in lively detail; humanity, or its closest textual approxomation. Lucky for me she came in after my karaoke act.

The best part is that someone discovered this while we were all meeting the next day, and it was read aloud in front of me and my coworkers. Truly a great moment in blogging. The public and private are shifting, and while it made me blush for a while, I also think its a great thing. All our lives are rich, full of truth and beauty; it's just that most of us don't realize or communicate this on a frequent basis. I've been getting numb over the past six months. It's good to have a clear articulation of a real moment.

It's been quite an experience being here in Minneapolis. There's a ton of cool stuff happening, and lot more energy just waiting to be liberated. I hope to come back soon.

I've digtialized the tape I did at Burning Man this past summer. I'm gonna cut it into a few snippets. There are two main segments: interviews I did with people at recycle camp, and then some dispatches from the front on Saturday night. I'll try and cut them up and write a little context tonight, but it might have to wait. I'm taking off for a weekend in Minnesota doing all things MfA. What's cooler than being Cool? ICE COLD!

Actually, I'll be something of a ramblin' man these coming days. Next week I'll be in Seattle Wednesday through Sunday, then down to San Diego for the O'Reilly Digital Democracy Teach-In, which should be kinda fun. Posting may be intermittant for a bit. I'll take my camera.

Looking for something to hold on to tonight, I dug out the 10 minutes worth of audio tape I took at Burning Man this summer and finally gave it a listen. So good. So very good. I will digitalize and post it here soon.

When one hits the bottle, the bottle hits back. This is a fact, and people tend to either enjoy it or slink away. Last night I did my best Hank Williams impersonation, inhaling half a bottle of bourbon -- left overs from caucus watching -- in about two hours; fell blind asleep on Luke's couch at 11pm after getting sick twice. Chasing the blackness again. Reminds me of college, the time when I was working on my show, drinking from a flask and taking generic caffeine pills.

Today was more relaxing. I stuck around Berkeley and played video games for about 7 hours. Reminds me of high school, the time when I was innocent.

Things are moving and changing a lot it seems. I'm missing something, but I don't know what it is. I haven't spoken to my man Mark in nigh on a month. I haven't really been able to let my hair down since the end of August. I miss making art and thinking philosophically and being more lustful for life.

Sometimes I think I'm trying to cram too much in too early. Hunter S. Thompson didn't become Hunter S. Thompson until he was in his late twenties. Sometimes I think I've not gone fast enough. It's hard to gague speed these days. Velocity is a principle life theme of mine, but somewhere in my maturation over the past few months I seem to have lost touch with that. More honest physical exercise is probably needed. More riding up and down hills.

An actual dream I had last night.

In Iraq, the secret plan for cultural domination is to have some massive military operation to freak people out sexually. There's a big building in this town in Iraq. Solders, like me, who are willing to go the extra mile for our country are brought in to fight on the front lines. Apparently, randy Iraqis are also being recruited to help loosen up square American troopers. Someone's got a plan for a revolution.

I arrive and climb up many flights of stairs. There are screening stations, control desks (everything is taped and monitored) and couches all along one side of the building. The other side has been divided into small rooms. My control desk operator (the peson who checks me in and out, and watches what goes on in the room) is Molly's fasionist friend Caramia. I'd heard before that I would be working with her -- we have some kind of prior relationship -- and there's a little joking flirtation about what someone might mistake "working together" to mean in this context.

So the place is pretty busy. There are uptight girls coming out of the room kind of freaked out. Stereotypical schoolgirl porno dialogue. "His *thing* was all hard, and then it squirted..." And there are some tall, lanky, confidant-looking arab women; sophisticated types; walking out of rooms with an air of satisfaction, soon to be followed by nervously grinning GIs from the Bible Belt.

The dream shifts before I see any action. A marketplace in the same town. Someone asking for directions to a steakhouse. Some guy telling me about back in the '80s when there was a budding surfing industry in Iraq. The scenery looks like the Playa, feels like a very run-down version of Miami.

Would that this were true. We can all dream, can't we?

We streamed Al Franken tonight o'er on Music for America. Worked out pretty good. I'll be catching the 11:10pm train back home. No sleeping pad in the office and I've got my bike here so that means I can be in bed by 12:30; normal time for me.

Wondering if Hunter S Thompson was right about politics being better than sex. I've been not the most libidinous creature lately, despite fairly ample opportunity. I still get pulled into a cuddle now and again, but I'm not jazzed and hungry about things the way I remember being a year ago. Maybe it's just not my time. Maybe I want something more. Maybe I have too much external stress.

In any event, after the past few days and this evening, I'm glad I had a couple Pabsts in the fridge at the office. Back to the grindstone tomorrow and every day after. This weekend I'm hoping to get nuts and let my hair down some. Next weekend I'll be in Minneapolis and the weekend after, Seattle. Duty calls. This youth politics thing ain't gonna come together on it's own.