After a hot shower, tons of packing, and some cleaning, I'm finally beginning to get the very good feeling for the summer. I'm on a plane. I can't complain. As the stress recedes and the spirit begins to flow unbounded. I'm headed to California people! Land of opportunity and relaxation.

As a parting gift, here's a thought fragment I found on the ground while cleaning my room. It's dated 5/20/03:

Institutionalized power structures (e.g. "the industry" or "the establishment") serve to maintain themselves by perverting the destiny of the ambitious.

Which is odd, because though I forgot about what was written on the note completely until I found it just today, that general theme has been running through my mind for weeks and week; the link between entrepreneurialism, instigation, generosity and ambition; how to be ambitious and still be generous. The note is nearly a perfect encapsulation. So I have some brains after all. Ha!

I'll be back soon New York. Start some shit in my absence! It's always good to come home to excitement. I love you.

Man I need a massage. I've been driving hard and fast for the past five days and living a pretty two-fisted life for quite a while longer. The fatigue is beginning to concentrate into poisonous pockets, mass tension in my back and neck, the kind that gives an almost nausia-enducing sense of relief when explored. Not a lot of fun to move. Need real rest. Just 48 more hours to go and then a pause. Bear down, Koenig. Bear down.

Axiom went of in grand fashion last night. Truly a Saturday-worthy party. It was a bad grey rainy day and so I had Sam bring in some palm trees we'd made together up at DiCapo Opera about a month ago. As everyone trickled in, the flavor got to be just right and we rolled with it. All in all, the experience once again vindicated my long-held belief that Performance should be considered good until proven shitty, and not the other way around. Generosity abounded.

The atmosphere was friendly, but also had moments verging on the revolutionary. Frank and I set a tone early with our quasi-political pomo comedy routine which incorporated a little scene by Wonk Web Celeb Billmon. We were basically talking about our own amateur wonkishness vis-a-vis that of a true warrior, and we included a scene Billmon wrote that we thought was kind of fun. Billmon took video, so maybe some of that will surface. We were experimenting with getting into political territory without making anyone uncomfortable, making it something that people can then talk about, pioneering.

But as it turns out, we were probably a bit more timid than we had to be. Joe Felice brought some great guitar noodling to add to his high-energy activist rap and really lit up the air. Sam Tressler invoked the Boston Tea Party and trash-talked the IRS and the state of America to great effect. Frank Boudreaux read a powerful and thoughtful exploration of the pro-war mindset; almost chilling. On the whole I was a little surprised but mightily heartened to see that my art people were engaging with these kinds of Big Questions with such passion and grace. I was glad Emily's friend who's working on the Dean campaign could make it and see that there's some really good creative energy waiting to bust out.

Plus there was a lot of regular show that was just plain quality. Becky Poole and Noele played some really quirky comic songs (part of something they've got going for fringe) and Nick Capodice read two short and powerful poems. Fellow Meekerite Wes yukked it up with tales of being temp worker and Julia resurrected an old piece that talked about her relationship with Jesus as a child. Jeremy's cute co-worker Jessie read a poetic prose head-trip -- and drew on her hands with a magic marker -- and my friends Melissa and Casey read some letters from jail courtesy Eddie. Everything was quite lovely.

I made my closing remarks (good bye, I love you, keep working on the good stuff and don't be afraid to instigate) and we partied it out for another hour at the space, then moved it up to the Lyric for the afterparty. There were some problems with the DJs -- amateurs, it seemed -- but the crowd was right. Jessie showed up and we had two or three conversations and some good human fun. The drink flowed as we all talked politics and pool and summer plans. Before we knew it we were in real after-hours territory. As things came unravelled I walked home with the sky growing light and felt good about the possibilities.

Frank woke me at 8, forgot one of his bags so I ran it to him, and now I've just got the task of getting the apartment cleaned and my personal effects packed. There's a lot still to do, but I think I can handle it. Yes, I can handle it.

That AMAZING ROCK AND ROLL BAND Broken Social Scene is playing again tonight at 11. I'm thinking about going, and you should too.

Also, Frank and I are working on good art for Axiom, which is tomorrow. It's going to be wonky fun!

And a thought as I scarf down a big mac: fast food, like any other drug, is fine as long as you use sparingly. We'll see what happens when my guts react to the 65g of fat though. Instant gastro-hangover.

Here's the update on life stuff. I have gotten my health back more or less, and my head seems clearer than it's been in a long while. Tuesday I hung out with Sasha for a bit. It's still very hard to have a normal conversation, everything in limbo. But the resolution was good. It was kind of like closure, except that it left everything open, and there was a little huggin' and kissin'. I've got the internal gyroscopes back on line though; no longer casting about in despair.

Wednesday I spent almost all day in politics-related meetings of one stripe or another. See the above for more on that. Personally it's been an interesting ride, a good buzz. Feels heady and full and fun, like the right thing to do. Rolling around the humid pre-summer city on my bike, head bursting with purpose, it was a fulfiling day on many levels.

Wednesday night I stopped in at the Lyric on my way home, see Jeremy, I thought. Well, he had some of his co-workers from Shakespeare and Co. in, and one of them was pretty cute so I stuck around for a while. Until 3:30 am. Nothing came of it, but it was good to flirt again. I'm so far from having any "game" at all, it's almost comic, but it's nice to know I can still carry on a conversation.

Yesterday was hangover-hangover late-late train-train Westchester, meet, eat, meet, land life-sustaining work (yes! rent will be paid!) and train-train meet-meet (with Steve about the addiction book), then AMAZING ROCK AND ROLL SHOW. Broken Social Scene. See them. Hear them. I felt like I was seeing Pink Floyd and the Pixies before they were superstars. Amazing music, the stuff that gives hope. Then it was back to brooklyn and a few drinks at my old hunting grounds The Williamsburg Publik House: network-network loud-loud oogle-oogle, bike home sleep.

I've been running hard and fast the past 48 hours. A ton of stuff to report and a billion buzzing things to blurt. For now it's 1:16am and despite being pretty horny, I just need to crash. It's all going to happen. I'm balanced on a thin edge personally, but I think the world is spinning in the right directions. Now if only we can get these damn hipsters to uncross their arms and shake their hips a bit, we might have a movement on our hands.

At the insistance of my friend Jessica, here's a picture and a letter from her puppy:

Deaw Unkul Joshua,
It was vewy nice to see you again. I liked being in your back yard. but I was sad you did not have on the big fluffy hat you wore when you came to my house this past winter. That is ok. To make up for this terrible travisty I suggest you rapidly place the picture of my mommy sent you on your website IMMEDIATLY.

Love,
baby Missy

Well, she is one cute puppy, though I must confess I've always been more of a cat man myself. So there you are; 15 kilobytes of fame.

Ugh, I need another weekend to recover from my weekend. I made the executive decision to sleep in until 10:30 although I was up at 7. There was some very suspect noise coming from my sour BBQ and beer-soaked gutbag. There's a ton of work to be done this week, and I will need to be in much better mental and physical shape than I am today if I'm to get all the shit taken care of. Time to start some sort of regimen. This summer is going to be a make-or-break on a lot of levels.

I feel persecuted by my dreams at times. Awareness is a double-edged sword for sure. Right now I would that I were unaware of my head and my kidneys, but that's just wishful thinking. I'm stressed -- weight of the world and all -- and I can't relax. It's time to motivate, time to get back into the business of getting shit done. Let's get serious. Are you with me for the goose?

Lengthy spates of partytime lately. The backyard is the perfect place to hang out with a G&T and do the wireless thing. Last night we hit up a trendy trendy thai place in W-burg. Sea. It was ambitious: big, designed, cheap food and expensive drinks, both pretty delicious. It's the place 20-somethings take their parents when they visit, so it's really not quite "the beautiful people," although there were definitely a few. It felt a little bit midtown, but it's hard to argue with a reflecting pool.

After that there was a party. I saw Julia again, and she was drunk and beligerent and funny. We talked a little about the girl situation, and she at least made me laugh some. My friends are pretty fiercely loyal to me, which is nice. It's been a little lonely to tell the truth. I'm missing a pretty big outlet.

But I'm hard at work on life, the universe and everything. I still get hopeful rushes and thrills. Things will work out.

Saw some fucking art last night. Mixed bag but it felt good. I'm not and never have been into the "scene" -- and that goes for every other "scene" out there -- but I do like the sometime sense of community that accompanies really good performance. I know some talented people.

Frank the Enabler struck hard before hand and we showed up to the show very very very high, as well as being wet from biking in the rain. I'm still not entirely comfortable being stoned in public, but I do like showing up places dripping wet and lightly sweating. Helps me tap into the man-juice.

While I didn't expect to be as high as I was, I also -- as HST writes -- need to learn how to deal with smoking marijuana in polite company. However you cut it, I was too stoned to network, which was a setback. It's ok, but I would have liked to more affably commune with some of the people there. Make plans. Promote axiom a bit.

The show itself was a lesson in how to be a good perfomace artist: work hard and have a point which you can communicate. Art is for the audience, not for the performer. At least, that's what I believe. I saw my old classmates Kieth Biesack and Maggie McBrian do something that could have been so much more than it was. I also saw a work of sheer genius pomo storytelling by Zack Steel and Adam Carpenter; two men who I deeply respect as performers.

Then there was some film and some dancing that had a lot of senseless pussy, which was something of a drag. I detest pointless nudity. If you just want to show your cunt or your tits off that's fine but please either treat it as a fun/beautiful thing or have some context around it. This is art, not a nudist colony, and if you take off your clothes it should mean something.

It all culminated in an extremely unsafe and loud solo dance piece by some stranger. It had potential (some really interesting bits of humor and rhythm) but it was also abusive to the audience (aggressive cooch-in-face action) and frankly dangerous (almost hit audience with swinging microphone cord). I'm all for danger, but it needs to be the kind of fantastic danger that the stage makes possible, not real physical danger, and it needs to be used carefully.

I'm hard on these people because they should know better. The don't have my training, but so what? They're older than me, and they made the choice to get up on stage. They should know better. Hopefully they will learn.

But Zack and Adam were so brilliant it made the whole evening well worth it. I ran into Zack back in May at Ren Fayre of all places. Just made a little small talk, but he mentioned that he and Adam were working on stuff. It was quite something. A testament to hard work and talent. Some of us, at least, are professionals.