Everybody over there/get on up

Everybody right now/get into it

Everybody over here/get involved

Get involved/get involved

Anyone can be a part of the movement now. If you find the technology intimidating, we will help you with that. This is stuff anyone can do.

We'll need respectable people like Britt Balser, Doc Searls and Lawrence Lesseg to give this dean.com thing the extra hip techno juice it needs to really turn over. I personally feel more affiliated with the freak wing; I feel more etherial kinship with people like HST or rageboy or the feisteir days of Justin Hall. The latter two don't touch on politics directly all that often, but 'tis the season, my friends. The going has gotten very weird, and it's time for everyone to turn pro. Let's do this thing.

Fuckin' Bangin' It, that's how I'm doing. The workaholism is kicking in strong, as I'm finding myself more and more involved in grassroots stuff for the Howard Dean campaign. It feels good to have something to work at. I also have -- cross fingers -- some paying work in the pipeline too, which would be a boon and a half. In spite of the recent round of tax cuts, my finances are still looking pretty shaky. I'm sure some sort of check is in the mail. Yeah, right.

Last night we wished Andrew a happy birthday. I had some wine with Kate before and we talked about life and all that jazz. She wanted to make sure I'm ok wrt Sasha and everything. Like I said, I know I'm not through all of it, but the indicators are good. I'll live. I tried to obliquely encourage her to think about starting her own indie litereary mag. Maybe a more concrete proposal should be floated...

Easy E is now in the 24 club with the rest of us. It was a grand old time. Capodiche showed up and reminded me about the Gooseberry, the 2003 summer drink of choice; gin and grapefruit. Try it out. We went back to Eleni's house and had a little party on the roof. "Do you party, man?" It was quite something to just hang out and laugh and feel the warm night air just right. Biking in the city at night in these warm halcyon days feels like some kind of New York dream. Freedom, terrible terrible freedom.

I got a monkey call at about 1am; full support in these troubled times. It's nice to know my people are with me in spirit. It gives me the spunk to sit up and fight a little. Good thing, too.

As anyone who's seen All That Jazz knows, there are five stages to dying. I feel like a little death is happening in my life right now, so I thought it might be wise to go look them up and see where I'm at.

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

I'd say I'm bouncing between denial, anger and bargaining. Hopefully -- if this is really kaput (still with the denial and bargaining) -- the change of scenery for the summer will help the anger and depression be short lived and the acceptance come on strong.

Humor is key. Tonight's new Strong Bad Email over on homestarrunner.com is a peach. Though he didn't answer my request to make a new #1 summer jam, the Cheat came through in the clutch. Click on the beat-up boombox at the end for a special treat.

I tried searching Gnutella for Howard Dean and came up with nothing. So I put an MP3 of Dean's great Charlie Rose appearance in my shared media folder. You can also snag it here: 23 minutes of high-quality talk at only 3mb. You can stream it if you want too; this is coming off my free ISP web-space and not my home box, so feel free to hit it up and pass the link around.

I had this meeting last Friday with my old professor Steve, and while other events this weekend more or less monopolized my mind, the fallout from our marathon four-hour conversation is starting to coalesce.

We were ostensably talking about the book Steve wants to write about addiction and consumerism, but ranged far and wide into politics and the nature of power in American society. One of the big revelations uncovered was the way in which TV culture (and the attendant consumerism) has stripped America of its democratic tradition.

It used to be that our guaranteed freedom of speech was a means of distributing power among the people. Being able to stand up and speak in a public place was actually very empowering because that -- and town-centered newspapers -- was how you got the word out to people. Mass media changed this, and TV really sealed the deal. The freedom to speak is no longer a distributor of political power. Where I jump off, and I didn't really share this with Steve, is that the net is the answer to this problem.

The internet as a medium is one of the few real hopes for democracy in the 21st century. If you buy "The Medium is the Message" then you'll understand why.

Democracy is about empowerment and participation. Television as a medium is non-participatory and disempowering. As I said, the advent of mass broadcast media rendered our much vaunted freedom of speech politically insignificant. You can say whatever you want because it doesn't matter any more. What matters is what's on televsion. That's an unfriendly environment for real democracy.

Alternatively, the internet as a medium is about participation and empowerment for everyone who is connected. All of the best content on the web is independent. All of the best websites -- even those that are now corporate sponsored -- started as ideas that people had. The internet allows you to do and make things, and can connect you with other people.

This difference is very very important. It's not the beginning or end of the world, but it is very important. Should the internet become a mass media to rival television -- and some say it already has -- it will be a step towards restoring political significance to the freedom of speech. This is why it's important for the government to fund the internet, especially with regards to bridging the "digital divide." Everyone needs access because access is the key to empowerment and opportunity here in the 21st century.

Today I wake up and my heart is full of hope. The dream lives on, though in somewhat mutant and amorphous form. Don't count anything out just yet, my buddies. Don't count anything out. As I noted somewhere down below, melancholy sometimes puts me in a fighting mood. Not in a mean sense, but in the sense of a pure and noble and truly righteous crusade. It's the irish in me for sure.

The difficulty is that I'm acutely aware that nothing can really be done alone. If it tought me nothing else, I learned that the hard way in college. As an island, man is ineffectual. I am a monkey, and monkeys are social animals. It's in our DNA to group up and collaborate. I'm done fucking around. I want the real deal now, and I'm not going to settle for anything less. It may be that this whole relationship thing will have to go on the back burner for a spell. But the bottom line is that I'm not interested in accepting any second-prizes.

So last night didn't go quite as well as I thought it might. Sasha more or less broke up with me. I'm still processing this and may or may not have actually accepted it. I'm equivocating fiercely here -- dreams die hard. There's been a lot of crying, which is probably a positive step up from my adolescent tendency to punch very inanimate things and drag my knuckles against brick walls when emotionally agitated. Seems healthier anyway; but it's a hard thing for me to cry. Havn't done it in years. Yes, I'm something of a mess.

There's nothing like shaving yr neck-beard to legitimize your other facial hair. I'm feeling good now. Cleaned house, prepped food for stir-fry, lit some candles, put on some music and I'm waiting for Sashashama to come over for dinner. Simple things are good.

I yack yack a lot about Howard Dean here. Maybe that's a bit boring, so for anyone who's been wondering what's up in my life lately, this is it.

I was talking last night with Frank about my website a little, and it was interesting for me to reflect on how it's changed over time. I originally was inspired by Justin Hall's links.net, and had the idea of telling life stories and promoting my ideals through the hyperlinked medium. That's what I did for about a year, coding by hand and generally avoiding the whole blogosphere.

Over time I succumbed to my geekish roots and got more and more interested in the implications of the personal publishing phenomena. I also succumbed to my political roots and started ranting about the oncoming war. Now I look back over the last few posts and I'm a little bit surprised at what I'm seeing. I've become a partisan for Dean on this blog, and that's ok, but I think I aught to do more Dean stuff in the real world and write about more real world stuff on the blog. Questing for balance, always.

Being in a relationship has definitely changed how I write in this space. My life has vastly fewer salacious details to report, and when something juicy does happen I'm more likely to feel that it's "personal," and maybe not put it out there for the world to see.

So how are things? Well, they're topsy-turvy as of late. It was a beautiful day yesterday. I had an amazing four hour conversation with my old teacher Steve Wangh about the book he wants to write and which I'm going to help him research, and about my Praxis essay. On the ride back the air was beautiful and people were smiling and life was full of possibility.

But when I got home the worm turned rather quickly. I discovered I'm being questioned by the IRS for my lack of a 2001 tax return. My girlfriend is having a life crisis and she canceled plans we had because she needed some time along. I haven't seen her much lately, and this is bothering me a lot. I try not to let on -- don't really want to bore people with my peevish insecurities and emotional needs or put any undue pressure on her -- but it's becoming an issue. I've also been talking with Mark and Luke out in California and it sounds like Mark and Shannon my not be around for as long as we all thought. The dream slipping away, fantasy collapsing.

I have an earache. My laptop monitor cable is coming loose. I don't have any ready cash and I'm pretty deep in debt. Things seem to be conspiring to bum me out. Last night I was full of frustration and dull thoughts. I wanted to punch something, and old adolescent vice. I was grinding my teeth and drinking heavily. The world was ugly and loud and boring and full of sour temptation. Josh Koenig was a nice guy. He didn't need this shit.

And so now I'm sad and angry and I have a wicked hangover, but it's put me in a fightin' mood. I'm not afraid of these punks from the IRS. They sent me duplicate forms, and addressed them to my mother's house. They're clueless whores, saggy-fleshed middle-manager clowns who's lives are failures and who can be bought off on the cheap. And it will be ok with Sasha; Julia tells me so; the critical thing is remembering to keep breathing. It would seem that the question facing me straight in my puffy squinting face is whether or not I'm going to do anything about all this bullshit, whether or not I have the energy and drive to take the steps that need to be taken, whether or not I'm going to let the power of my will flow through me and into the world.

For now there is coffee, and life will go on. As my man Sam points out, it's not as though this is the worst things have been. He even made me an egg sandwitch. Considering it's his birthday today, that's quite a gesture.