My mojo is coming back now that I'm in my environment. Charging around on the old steel horse -- now with huge knobby slow-down tires due to the vagaries of theft -- dreaming big and living large. There's something beautiful about this place; you can drop $50 and stay out 'till 5am and have nothing to show for it but a headache. In and of itself that's a wasteful thing, but there's a lot more to it than the signifiers of excess. Eveyone is listening to Outkast and gearing up for the next level; the friction, noise and entropy are easy distractions, but the beat is picking up. Paths of victory, we will walk.

I'm excited and hung over and caffeinated to the gills, powered by greasy pizza and the ambient energy of the capital of the world.

I'm fucking home! New York New York, and my senses are alive. The air is crisp but not frigid and the sights and smells and people spark amazing amounts of energy inside me. A few things have changed, some good, some bad -- a new bar for young locals down the block, a Supercuts where there used to be a craft center on St. Marks -- but this city remains a monument to human progress. Six months is too long to be away.

A googlebomb is when tons and tons of people link to a website with the same phrase. Because of the way google calculates page rankings, this will give it a high rating for this phrase. The top prize is to determine what comes up when the enigmatic "I'm Feeling Lucky" button is clicked (aka Google's #1 ranked page for the search term). With the latest tip from the GOP being that Karl Rove will try to paint Bush's term in office as wholly positive for 'Merica, and say that Dean's a whiny pessemist when he says that neverending budget shortfalls and a pariah diplomatic status are Big Problems.

I think Howard Dean is optimistic. If you do to, link that word to deanforamerica as often as you can. Rapid response this, fat boy.

So if you havn't looked and you have some bandwidth to spare, you should check out the holiday video my co-worker/roommate Dan and I posted over on the our musical political revolutionary website.

Been in Boston the past couple of days, doing as little as humanly possible. But slowness is not in my nature, so the mind is running overtime in spite of my best efforts.

On the positive side, my sister lives in perhaps the coolest house ever: a classic piece of 3-story (plus attic) Americana out in Alston, which could easily double as a small fraternity. Eight punk, anarchist, scenster and otherwise hip young kids live there normally, all with their own rooms, all decorated in the most enviable student-slum style. They have a basement which is a semi-regular venue for shows, and the whole place is very organic and alive, even when the only occupants are myself, my sister, and one of her remaining roommates; makes me all the more chagrined at the still-barren state of my living quarters out west.

Also on the plus side, she and my mom and I are staying in a nice hotel in downtown boston for two nights, taking a load off. There's a gas fireplace and a bathtub big enough for me to submerge my whole lanky self, and this morning I'm munching on a neapolitan from the North end and sipping a very decent cup of joe. Being with family is a uniquely rewarding and annoying experience. There no one else on earth who can understand your issues or push your buttons the way family can. It's good to get back in touch with that

On the down side, air travel continues to be an awful experience. It's not the LEVEL ORANGE that bothers me, it's the way airlines are so passive-aggressive in the way they tell you what to do. "Because your safety is our first concern, your seat belt should remain fastened whenever you are seated..." Parse that language; it makes so fucking sense whatsoever. The whole experience seems vaguely facistic to me, all the pre-written language. The reason they want you to keep your seat belt buckled is so on the off chance the plane hits a big air pocket and drops 40 or 50 feet, you drop with it instead of hitting your head on the celing and maybe filing a lawsuit. Yes, this happens. I would feel better about the whole thing if they started it off with "Because avoiding legal liability is our first concern..."

Also on the down side, I've been slogging around in the regular world (air travel, rather unsuccessful shopping excursions; not New York or San Francisco) and what I see makes me afraid. I now worry at night about whether or not the country is totally doomed or not, and have begun again to countinance figments of a pirate utopian backup plan. Madagascar, here I come? Well, not yet. I still think it's worth a shot to try and turn 300 million of the world's richest people -- posessed of the greatest arsinal of death-dealing instruments in human history -- into enlightenened, thoughtful, generous, world-conscious souls. I mean, how fucking cool would that be?

One of these years I'd like to do something alternate on Christmas, like go out to one of the big Jewish party events on Christmas eve, or camp out in the wilderness or something. Anyway; I hope wherever you are you're having a nice day. Don't forget to breathe.

Tomorrow I am in Boston. The 27th I'm back in New York City. The 10th I return to SF. See you all around.

I leave tomorrow night for holiday time, in spite of the fact that I've yet to purchase a single gift. It'll be ok. One of the things I'm gonna do on vacation is read some books. Can you think of any I should hit up? I'm down for great literature as well as anything I should know about for where my life is taking me over the next year. I'm certainly going to plow through Emergence and Code -- though I think I largely get it in terms of what they have to say -- but are there any others I should me acquainting myself with? Anything older (or newer) that I don't know about? Any blogs I should pay attention too, archives I might want to paruse?

It's a long way to the top if you want to Rock and Roll. I'm also down for music to turn on to. Leave me a comment here with your suggestions.

I got a camera again; here are the best of the first 100 photos I've taken.

It was a late one last night, what with all the law-student debauchery. Nick and his cohort were done with finals and busy culling any weak brain cells from the herd, so after I saw the latist Matrix with my friend Chris -- I actually liked it better than the 2nd one, but it was still kind of boring at times -- I joined up for the depressurization. I got to see some new parts of the city, and I think I now have an assignation to look forward to, so the lingering sense that my body is kind of crudded up doesn't bother me too much.

My last weekend before I split; should be fun. I was originally planning to see my man Mark up in Arcata, but that plan seems to be disintegrating. Maybe I'll rent a car tomorrow still. I'm looking forward to a little break, a little family time, and then some serious soul-charging in the dynamo city and bungalo Brooklyn. Did you see the plans for the new tower? Fuck yeah. Build our shit back, and build it twice as tall, three times brighter. Change that dufus name though. "Freedom Tower?" That's gonna sound even dumber after another two years.

And because now I check this every now and again, I saw this, and now have gift-giving on my mind. Making the women nod. And yes, it's a little wierd that my mom comments on this kind of thing. (love ya ma!)

A shout out to my man Nick, who's suffering his first round of finals in law school. He writes me:

nothing but finals for miles around,
the rats are closing in again,
they're all against me,
killemall, crucify all the dirty little legal whores

You can do it man

(click to view large image)

You know, I get a funny and odd feeling when I look at the Music for America traffic report, and I realize something I had a hand in making was seen by 1000 people yesterday, and probably by 10,000 by the end of the month. Whoa. Traffic on the old OJ is also up, after being pretty much in decline since the summer.

The only problem
        with making out with 21-year-old girls
  is that if you're playing
the Velvet Underground
  they may ask you
        "is this the Strokes?"

other than that
it's pretty nice