(Big Post; I Spell-Checked It And Everything)

Question. Is it a cop-out to believe in "the children," to think that a generation yet to be born has the answers to the world's problems? Yes and no.

In one sense, that this can be a transfer of power, a way of rationalizing away personal responsibility, it's clearly bogus. You can't wait on the kids to solve your problems; believing in them is no excuse for being inactive yourself.

On the other hand, the great ends of humanity are essentially multi-generational. Justice, shared prosperity, a totality of lives well-lived, these are things that span centuries in their scope, that are in some ways infinite. So on the level that you're willing to think big and take it seriously, it's quite a heavy thing to really believe in the potential children. It is an implicit call to action. Prepare the way!

I believe in our generation. My generation. What's that? Well, I believe that I and a minority of my peers in the 24 - 34 year old age range are on the leading edge of the post-gen-X birth wave that peaked in 1990, meaning it's crest is coming due to adulthood in 2008. We are chronologically closer to gen-x, but culturally closer to what is coming next. We are the forerunners.

It's important to realize that while the push for civil rights and gender equality were resounding steps forward for our country, everything else in the 60s largely failed. Rock n' Roll was thoroughly co-opted, permanently loosing a great portion of its mojo by being associated with selling things to adolescents. None of the really radical political or cultural stuff actually took off, though some of it took root. The sexual revolution begat porn, but this is really nothing new in terms of civilization, or even American culture.

By contrast, the Right-Wing things that weathered the 60s have grown up to become Wal*Mart, Big Oil and the Modern Republican Party and $3B associated network. In real terms, this is largely why they've been winning: their boomers are by in large more powerful and connected compared to ours.

But our time will be different. We have a powerful economic and cultural token with our embracing of Open Source. We are not seeking to construct an underground fantasy world, but rather a public utopia. This is a stronger endeavor. It is more bold and yet more achievable. Lots more to say about that down the line.

Otherwise it's been tough. I'm worn out from work NYC lifestyle, kind of lonely, and there are ominous rumblings around the status of the road trip. On the plus side I've been making some Art with Frank, and my straight-up physical condition is improving week by week.

Another bright point is that I'm reading Hunter's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 and loving it of course. I never read it before, if you can believe that. Another formative piece I was missing all along. Read on for my thoughts half-way through. Another 1,200 words.

Looking back, the parallels in terms of electoral dynamics between Dean and McGovern are clear, as are those between Kerry and Muskie. The anointed frontrunner was Big Ed Muskie, the Man from Maine. George McGovern was a dark horse from South Dakota -- a political nowhere -- who was running on a staunch anti-war platform and driven by a grassroots campaign of young professionals. On the far left was Gene McCarthy, a reasonable analogue for Kucinich. In the rest of the mishmash you can see faint parallels between Hube and Gephardt/Lieberman, Andrews and Edwards.

There are no real analogues for Clark. And such a political animal as George Wallace -- a right wing populist Democrat, former governor of Alabama and recent staunch opponent of de-segregation -- has no modern day equivalent, though you can see elements of his appeal in Bush/Cheney '04. The point though is that the lines between McGovern and Dean and Kerry and Muskie are strong, and the really interesting thing here is that in '72 the dark horse broke through, and was immediately stomped by Nixon. Comparatively, in '04 the Anointed Candidate (with most of the same problems as Muskie) prevailed thanks to a stupendously superior use of media.

This says something about the evolving relationship between the media and politics 1972 vs 20004.

It also totally destroys the common observation that a Dean nomination would have been just like a McGovern nomination when he went national; a prison-block stomping. In fact, a close examination begs speculation as to what Dean might really have done against Bush.

McGovern was stomped, yes, but not because he was a grassroots/outsider who was against the war. George went up against Nixon exhausted, broke and with no-one backing him. The AFL-CIO and many regional heavyweights essentially sat the election out. For a comparison as to what this would have meant in our modern times, imagine Kerry/Edwards '04 with no ACT or DFA of Internet Millions to draw on. That would have been a slaughter too.

There are two main things which I believe would have favored a national Dean candidacy which Kerry did not capitalize on:

1) The advent of Open Source and the internet, which would have really gone into a higher-order effect if he were actually the candidate. Kerry used what Dean's style of campaign created as a beachhead, but didn't extend the territory much. Joe Trippi would have had to have been replaced as campaign manager (a fact which even he acknowledges), but if his campaign were truly allowed to flourish, it would have been much more advanced than what we eventually ended up building.

2) The lack of an existing class of political burnouts. In effect, Dean would have been able to draw on the young professionals who drove McGovern, as well as the true radicals who got "Clean For Gene" (McGovern) in 1968 and forced Lyndon Johnson out of the race before getting stomped by the Hube/Daily Axis in Chicago, and thus pretty much lost as a source of energy for the square world.

The major Dean liabilities were conventional media illiteracy and organizational issues at the HQ level. Had he weathered the primaries -- which might have come down to having CNN not replay a 30-second sound clip 600 times in a 24 hour span -- these are problems that could have been solved.

You have to realize is that if Dean had won, he would have had establishment backing just as much as Kerry. ACT was going to happen. MoveOn was going to happen. MFA was going to happen, and the Democratic Party was going to fight for its political life no matter what. Unlike McGovern, Dean was going to lead a united party.

Did you know they were planning to have 200,000 people come to the convention!? Really take over the whole city and make it a grassroots networking bazaar rather than a cold bunch of vip-list cocktail parties and meaningless pap for TV... that shit would have been tight! It's a bit of fantastic indulgence, yeah, but when I think back on what might have been, it still gets me high.

Bush is much worse than Nixon -- a fact which Hunter wryly brought up on numerous occasions -- but there are electoral parallels there as well. Both faced sagging popularity in the midst of a festering war. Both aligned with cultural conservatives and big business. Both were willing to fight dirty.

On this count, Nixon went beyond Bush/Rove to a great degree. For instance, in 1972, Nixon's hatchet men actually burglarized people to steal secret documents. First they stole private medical records which they used to reveal that McGovern's running mate had received electro-shock therapy for depression. Then they stole the Democratic strategy guide from their Watergate offices, the crime (as opposed to, say, the carpet-bombing of cambodia) for which the whole house of cards would eventually tumble.

This is the other thing to realize about '72 vs '04; not only was McGovern left out to dry by the Democratic establishment, he was hit right off the mark with leaked press reports that his VP was insane. While Bush's message guys are absolutely brutal, medical reports proving your Veep is nuts is a damn sight more damaging to a campaign than an ad campaign attacking your service in Vietnam (e.g. the Swift Boat Veterans For (un)Truth).

Bush is much worse than Nixon, and looking back I think with Dean we could have beaten him. I believe Howard was a better candidate, personal weaknesses and all. I think primary-voting Democrats (urged on by talking heads, no doubt) cared more about his willingness to commit gaffes than the voters eventually would have. Bush screws up his speeches all the time, but you know what he means. This is something that people who are honestly engaging in the political process -- a.k.a. "trying to decide who to vote for" -- respond to, often positively. Our side needs to take to hart that our malapropos-happy present hasn't suffered a whit for his lack of silver tongue. He has a strong gut-level message and (usually) appears confident and unafraid. Kerry had a wishy-washy message and often appeared rambling, desperate, or orange.

Which is not to deny Kerry his due. I pushed for the man, and I believe he did the best he could. We all did, under the circumstances. It was close, but just wasn't enough.

I don't know where the Poltix train is running. I'm keeping semi-warm with leftovers and good-guy civic engagement, waiting for the road trip to clear the decks. The future says New York in the fall. Luke will be here, and so will work and I'll be pretty near dead broke when all's said and done.

I don't know what's coming next. The kids are still coming. If we hold the previous pattern on turnout, there should be between 8 to 10 million new voters (out of just less than 20 million people turning 18 between 2004 and 2008), and if we hold the line on popularity (let alone increase our edge) they'll break our way 3 to 2. That means a 2 to 3 million vote advantage next time around. That will have an impact.

But that's only if we can get it up. All I've heard any really excited talk about lately is taking out Joe Lieberman in 2006. Still no real idea what the call to arms will be. Will keep searching and let you know.

Here. Listen to this at least for the first riff. It'll set a mood.

After spending a day at Fix Cafe working on this and this and starting to feel a bit like a regular, I headed over to the Metropolitan Pool for a quick workout. I'm back on pace to hit it three times a week, and getting to the point now where I can diversify the routine a bit. In this instance, I added some lower-back stuff and re-arranged my order such that I hit the lats and shoulders before closing out on the chest and arms. Life is all about contrasts. The Met Pool has a nice little gym, and on a friday it's nearly empty, which is both nice because you can work at whatever pace you want, but also a drag... because you can work at whatever pace you want. No overall sense of pushing. I close out with 6.3 miles in 15 minutes on the stationary bike and a very brief cat sequence to keep my back loose, then head back to GPoint for a shower.

I'm still staying with Wes and Jeremy up there in the old hood. They've been absolute champions about letting me sleep in their living room, truly above and beyond. It's easy to fall into staying with them (I have keys and everything), but I need to explore alternatives. No one likes having a bum on their couch for three weeks straight, even if he does occasionally provide some entertainment. He's also loud and makes a mess and stinks up the bathroom; I'm sure it gets tiring. Anyway, the point is I should spread the burden of my existence throughout my social network.

After getting back I scarf a cheeseburger from PFC, bathe and read a book review in Harpers about soem retrospectives on the Enlightenment ("The Enlightement Is Dead; Long Live The Enlightenment!") which got a few gears moving upstairs. Wes is cleaning up the place; parents coming to town this weekend. I take down the recycling and head out to the Lyric, which is just starting to fill up with a birthday party, including a band, and some of our crowd come to say final goodbyes to John and Noreen, who are moving to Boston today. I run into Phantom Phil (again, random), Frank and Laura, Alex and Laura, Capodice and Kate Kita. Everyone's a couple these days. Selah.

The bar is the bar. Our pal Cal -- the #1 toothless vagrant in my life -- shaved off his prodigious hobo-beard, 'cause people were calling him "Saddam Hussein," and his birthday is coming up and all. The band is playing and they're allright in an instrumental prog-moog way. Fortune smiles and I "win" a mini-bottle of Jameson's from Cass by correctly guessing which pocket she was holding it in. It was a "pick which hand" game, which you can often win with child psychology. See, I used to play this game with Bill all the time, and child-me was astounded at how often he would guess which hand was holding. Then he explained that I would unconsciously hold one hand a little more forward and the other a little back. The hand I was holding back was the one that held the prize. This still works with adults if they're not really watching it.

I also "win" two dollars, again from Cass, by being willing to slug down a Stoli Vanilla and Diet Coke she ordered but was then -- rightly -- disgusted by. I grimace and make wild proclamations about how this is the drink that we're going to spread coast-to-coast with Vagabender (a total lie; we're spreading the Hound-Ball and nothing else) and duck out back to nip down the mini-bottle. This on top of my own work with the right honerable John Powers starts to give me itchy feet, so when minister AlX called me up wanting to run around the Burg after being dissapointed by Sideways, I bopped out.

AlX and I ended up meeting down at a place with no sign. It was a fully converted spot; faux underground, but fun; part and parcel with the second wave of Bilzburg gentrification. On the bike ride down I could feel my lower back getting the throb as I projed down Meeker under the BQE, that's good. I'll need to build strength there to handle the move to fix-gear. We were supposed to rendezvous at Royal Oak, but just as I was pulling up he called and asked if I wanted to meet him at the bus stop, maybe poke a little smot before we hit the scene. Being a gentlemen, I accepted, fielding the phone call and making a great circle around the original destination without putting a foot on the ground.

We got high and ducked the law in McCarren park and wandered south, switching from our original destination to the no-sign place. There's a little difficulty with locking the bike, but once that's done we head in. It's humid and loud when we first enter, and we make for the little outdoor roof-deck area. like I said, fully converted spot. We're not there two minutes when a crazy drunk girl starts to "tell me a story," laying on large and unsolicited psychodrama, and we're driven back in on the pretense that I have to piss.

AlX and I talk politics, as we do, and also a little bit about women. He's married, so I respect his opinion there. His philosophy is a challenging blend of libertine free expression and high spiritual standards, which makes his message (on politics and on girls) refreshingly energetic. "You have to decide what you want, and then you have to take it." It's a kind of agressively capitalist message, but it's backed up with an earnest enlightenment spirit and a deep appreciation for community and social responsibility. There's a little nudging for me to play the field, a little vicarious living for the married man. I'm pretty well knackered though, so I'm not about to make any moves, even if there is a pretty hot Indian girl over my right shoulder. We eat a little bar pizza -- another feature of second-wave gentrification -- and enjoy the atmosphere.

The time rolls around and we walk out, and by and by I mount up and return to the Lyric for some good Bar time. A miller light, a glass of soda water with cranberry juice, some drunk talk with Jeremy behind the bar, some people-watching, and then off to sleep on the futon.

I get up and out as soon as I wake up so as not to crowd the place up for Wes and his folks, brush the teeth and head back to Fix for the wireless and the caffeine. It's no Cafe Commons, but it's allright. There are a lot of kids and dogs and the french roast is solid. There's a great (if sometimes annoying) drunk philosophizer who hangs around swilling Bud Light and talking about geodesic domes; lends to the amosthere of general artsy fartsyness -- you hear things like "The lecture said you have to have, like, a dialectic... goal or something." -- which is all more or less up my alley. Plus I like the way they make their toasted bagels.

So this is my life; working away the days and wandering away the nights. I'm still seeking, but a bit listlessly so; really just waiting to get on the road. The other day I ran into a woman I know at the cafe. She was a freshman when I was a senior at ETW, very precocious. I think she's the only woman who's ever actually grabbed my head and kissed me, which didn't end up working out all that well, but I respect the move. Anyway, we're catching up at the cafe because we're both grown up people out of college living our lives and there's a flirtatious vibration and there's this really kind of charged and revealing moment where she asks, portentiously, "so you don't know what you want?" and I reply with a short pause and a heartfelt "I have no idea."

That's where I'm at on a saturday afternoon. Needing someone to love, getting by with a little help from my friends. It's pretty decent.

Here. Listen to this at least for the first riff. It'll set a mood.

After spending a day at Fix Cafe working on this and this and starting to feel a bit like a regular, I headed over to the Metropolitan Pool for a quick workout. I'm back on pace to hit it three times a week, and getting to the point now where I can diversify the routine a bit. In this instance, I added some lower-back stuff and re-arranged my order such that I hit the lats and shoulders before closing out on the chest and arms. Life is all about contrasts. The Met Pool has a nice little gym, and on a friday it's nearly empty, which is both nice because you can work at whatever pace you want, but also a drag... because you can work at whatever pace you want. No overall sense of pushing. I close out with 6.3 miles in 15 minutes on the stationary bike and a very brief cat sequence to keep my back loose, then head back to GPoint for a shower.

I'm still staying with Wes and Jeremy up there in the old hood. They've been absolute champions about letting me sleep in their living room, truly above and beyond. It's easy to fall into staying with them (I have keys and everything), but I need to explore alternatives. No one likes having a bum on their couch for three weeks straight, even if he does occasionally provide some entertainment. He's also loud and makes a mess and stinks up the bathroom; I'm sure it gets tiring. Anyway, the point is I should spread the burden of my existence throughout my social network.

After getting back I scarf a cheeseburger from PFC, bathe and read a book review in Harpers about soem retrospectives on the Enlightenment ("The Enlightement Is Dead; Long Live The Enlightenment!") which got a few gears moving upstairs. Wes is cleaning up the place; parents coming to town this weekend. I take down the recycling and head out to the Lyric, which is just starting to fill up with a birthday party, including a band, and some of our crowd come to say final goodbyes to John and Noreen, who are moving to Boston today. I run into Phantom Phil (again, random), Frank and Laura, Alex and Laura, Capodice and Kate Kita. Everyone's a couple these days. Selah.

The bar is the bar. Our pal Cal -- the #1 toothless vagrant in my life -- shaved off his prodigious hobo-beard, 'cause people were calling him "Saddam Hussein," and his birthday is coming up and all. The band is playing and they're allright in an instrumental prog-moog way. Fortune smiles and I "win" a mini-bottle of Jameson's from Cass by correctly guessing which pocket she was holding it in. It was a "pick which hand" game, which you can often win with child psychology. See, I used to play this game with Bill all the time, and child-me was astounded at how often he would guess which hand was holding. Then he explained that I would unconsciously hold one hand a little more forward and the other a little back. The hand I was holding back was the one that held the prize. This still works with adults if they're not really watching it.

I also "win" two dollars, again from Cass, by being willing to slug down a Stoli Vanilla and Diet Coke she ordered but was then -- rightly -- disgusted by. I grimace and make wild proclamations about how this is the drink that we're going to spread coast-to-coast with Vagabender (a total lie; we're spreading the Hound-Ball and nothing else) and duck out back to nip down the mini-bottle. This on top of my own work with the right honerable John Powers starts to give me itchy feet, so when minister AlX called me up wanting to run around the Burg after being dissapointed by Sideways, I bopped out.

AlX and I ended up meeting down at a place with no sign. It was a fully converted spot; faux underground, but fun; part and parcel with the second wave of Bilzburg gentrification. On the bike ride down I could feel my lower back getting the throb as I projed down Meeker under the BQE, that's good. I'll need to build strength there to handle the move to fix-gear. We were supposed to rendezvous at Royal Oak, but just as I was pulling up he called and asked if I wanted to meet him at the bus stop, maybe poke a little smot before we hit the scene. Being a gentlemen, I accepted, fielding the phone call and making a great circle around the original destination without putting a foot on the ground.

We got high and ducked the law in McCarren park and wandered south, switching from our original destination to the no-sign place. There's a little difficulty with locking the bike, but once that's done we head in. It's humid and loud when we first enter, and we make for the little outdoor roof-deck area. like I said, fully converted spot. We're not there two minutes when a crazy drunk girl starts to "tell me a story," laying on large and unsolicited psychodrama, and we're driven back in on the pretense that I have to piss.

AlX and I talk politics, as we do, and also a little bit about women. He's married, so I respect his opinion there. His philosophy is a challenging blend of libertine free expression and high spiritual standards, which makes his message (on politics and on girls) refreshingly energetic. "You have to decide what you want, and then you have to take it." It's a kind of agressively capitalist message, but it's backed up with an earnest enlightenment spirit and a deep appreciation for community and social responsibility. There's a little nudging for me to play the field, a little vicarious living for the married man. I'm pretty well knackered though, so I'm not about to make any moves, even if there is a pretty hot Indian girl over my right shoulder. We eat a little bar pizza -- another feature of second-wave gentrification -- and enjoy the atmosphere.

The time rolls around and we walk out, and by and by I mount up and return to the Lyric for some good Bar time. A miller light, a glass of soda water with cranberry juice, some drunk talk with Jeremy behind the bar, some people-watching, and then off to sleep on the futon.

I get up and out as soon as I wake up so as not to crowd the place up for Wes and his folks, brush the teeth and head back to Fix for the wireless and the caffeine. It's no Cafe Commons, but it's allright. There are a lot of kids and dogs and the french roast is solid. There's a great (if sometimes annoying) drunk philosophizer who hangs around swilling Bud Light and talking about geodesic domes; lends to the amosthere of general artsy fartsyness -- you hear things like "The lecture said you have to have, like, a dialectic... goal or something." -- which is all more or less up my alley. Plus I like the way they make their toasted bagels.

So this is my life; working away the days and wandering away the nights. I'm still seeking, but a bit listlessly so; really just waiting to get on the road. The other day I ran into a woman I know at the cafe. She was a freshman when I was a senior at ETW, very precocious. I think she's the only woman who's ever actually grabbed my head and kissed me, which didn't end up working out all that well, but I respect the move. Anyway, we're catching up at the cafe because we're both grown up people out of college living our lives and there's a flirtatious vibration and there's this really kind of charged and revealing moment where she asks, portentiously, "so you don't know what you want?" and I reply with a short pause and a heartfelt "I have no idea."

That's where I'm at on a saturday afternoon. Needing someone to love, getting by with a little help from my friends. It's pretty decent.

Here's a quick recipe for a possible offensive, courtesy my man Wes Connley: start keeping it real. Start talking about the real impacts in SSI reform. It means a society no longer makes it it's business to take care of its most vulnerable people. That's the Market's job now. You know that 40 year old mentally disabled kid who's mother is pushing 70? Yeah, he's moving back in with grandma, because we can't keep livable group homes and assisted-living facilities together to service adults who are on disability. It means no more help to get your child with downs syndrome through school, and no special programs for him if you even make the effort. The Market will find a solution.

Then if that's not pushing it far enough, start asking: should privatize the military? How about we downsize and outsource our national security apparatus? Lets let the market handle all that. And why not? That's what we're fucking effectively doing with our current energy policy.

The continued stability of this nation rests on the weakening foundation of cheap oil, but that's not what the future portents, and everyone knows it. Yet this nation has done nothing to address the growing danger -- that we may find ourselves economically undermined by this mismatch. Such a collapse would be on the order of a great depression. It's not happening now, but it very well may unless something changes soon. There's a good chance we may be undone by the very market forces we're supposed to have faith in. In other words, it's about time we did something like the Apollo Project, for our own national security. For real.

Look, the invisible hand is no benevolent spirit, and the market's justice is the law of the jungle. It's the war of all against all. Trusting it for everything is essentially arguing for a kind of anarchy, or some sort of leviathan. Now, you and I might understand that there are healthy and virtuous concepts buried in both those beliefs, but to the average American audience, these are politically (if understood at all) merely terms of derision, like "bitch" or "asshole."

Now, there are those on the right who understand the absolute value of freedom, or at least its real virtue, too; but to be honest, the great portion of Americans are people who are comfortable with institutions, In fact, we're in fact desirous. We want to trust in our institutions, to trust in one another. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just a little public/civic spirit. Granted, most folks deserve a higher level of performance than they're currently getting out of their institutions and communities, but this by no means they don't still want to have them. People want good government, they want it to be something they're proud of, that they take pride in. We can bring that back.

Here's a quick recipe for a possible offensive, courtesy my man Wes Connley: start keeping it real. Start talking about the real impacts in SSI reform. It means a society no longer makes it it's business to take care of its most vulnerable people. That's the Market's job now. You know that 40 year old mentally disabled kid who's mother is pushing 70? Yeah, he's moving back in with grandma, because we can't keep livable group homes and assisted-living facilities together to service adults who are on disability. It means no more help to get your child with downs syndrome through school, and no special programs for him if you even make the effort. The Market will find a solution.

Then if that's not pushing it far enough, start asking: should privatize the military? How about we downsize and outsource our national security apparatus? Lets let the market handle all that. And why not? That's what we're fucking effectively doing with our current energy policy.

The continued stability of this nation rests on the weakening foundation of cheap oil, but that's not what the future portents, and everyone knows it. Yet this nation has done nothing to address the growing danger -- that we may find ourselves economically undermined by this mismatch. Such a collapse would be on the order of a great depression. It's not happening now, but it very well may unless something changes soon. There's a good chance we may be undone by the very market forces we're supposed to have faith in. In other words, it's about time we did something like the Apollo Project, for our own national security. For real.

Look, the invisible hand is no benevolent spirit, and the market's justice is the law of the jungle. It's the war of all against all. Trusting it for everything is essentially arguing for a kind of anarchy, or some sort of leviathan. Now, you and I might understand that there are healthy and virtuous concepts buried in both those beliefs, but to the average American audience, these are politically (if understood at all) merely terms of derision, like "bitch" or "asshole."

Now, there are those on the right who understand the absolute value of freedom, or at least its real virtue, too; but to be honest, the great portion of Americans are people who are comfortable with institutions, In fact, we're in fact desirous. We want to trust in our institutions, to trust in one another. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just a little public/civic spirit. Granted, most folks deserve a higher level of performance than they're currently getting out of their institutions and communities, but this by no means they don't still want to have them. People want good government, they want it to be something they're proud of, that they take pride in. We can bring that back.

I'm a hustler, baby. I want you to know. Here's my latest grand plan: a bike cruising strip, or maybe just a cruise. Something like the vibe on the Halloween Critical Mass ride, but more leisurly and on quieter Brooklyn streets. I think it would be a sexy hit and local merchants could prosper. It might do something to bring people together; kind of like a street fair. Of course, in my fantasies it would be kind of like New Orleans on bikes. Well, put that idea aside for a while. See if it still makes sense in a realistic frame of mind.

Anyway, what prompted this was getting real good and high and going trucking off around North Brooklyn for some manly urban cycling, the thrill of speed and all that jazz. I was kind of tapped out, because this was after going to the gym, cardio included. But I got a little itchy in my feet. Had to get out and run.

The streets are allright out here. Not as loose as I remember them being when I was a younger man, but still bustling. There was a real live hipster tuesday night street scene on South Bedford -- people just hanging out on the sidewalks. And there are Polish teenagers playing two on two soccer under a streetlisht at the end of Franklin St. Things are alive. See, it's the first really nice evening after a solid spring day. There have been a few decent afternoons, but this is the first time I can recall it feeling like this (temperature wise) after dark. If it holds through the weekend, lookout!

I outran a few people, sprinted through a few lights, dawdled in the places I like and buzzed through the stretches in between. It was a nice mix of sightseeing and power-cycling. I would have gone longer if I hadn't started getting dehydrated after about 20 minutes.

Usually these city rides help me clear my head, or at least dig around in it for something. Didn't come up with much this time -- other than that Bike Cruise idea, but I think that was actually just a remembered idea from a few days ago, not even original -- but I did burn off some steam and scrub a little grime off the doors of my perception.

What if we turned "vagabender" into a platform for the people we meet to express themselves? Like pick up feeds if they have them, or give them their own civicspace blogs. Maybe a few of them would post something once a month or so. It could be exciting.

When was the last time you let it all go and thought on the planetary scale? It's big, this world, and full of life. Sometimes it's too much, but sometimes it can be a liberating perspective. On the other end of the spectrum, when was the last time you let it all go and thought on the spiritual scale? Not about the minutae that are stressing you out, but about the personal state that your mind is in, where your soul is at, what your heart is feeling?

I'm not arguing for global consciousness or self-actualization, but I am advocating for depth on some level. For humanity and passion and if you feel up to it even a little wisdom.

Things have been jammed-up for me on that level. I've been focusing again on working, on grinding it all out. It hasn't been an easy time. I miss the comforts and luxuries of my past and I'm anticipating the adventures of my future. The present is getting a little shorted; not so "in the moment" lately.

It's not exactly writers block or anything, just a paucity of connection. I'm adrift on the skym, just sort of gliding along. There's plenty of labors to accomplish in the mean time.

So I'm going to chalk the lack of depth up to the times, and they're a-changin', so that should pretty much work itself out. In the mean time, I'll let you know if anything really exciting happens to me. I'm off to take a shower.

It's rough; I'm the lone authentic drunk person. Wish I could do more.

The above was written last night. This and below in the aftermath.

Learning the lessons of Friday night, I engaged myself with strong drink early, and at a retail price. I'd played host and East Village guide to my friend Jessica -- a rich tradtion that I pass on with relish from my Aunt's first welcoming me to New York. Jess is engaged to my friend Dave. Sometime in October they'll cease to be living in sin. We ate a great meal at Acme and ended up at a newish Jazz joint somewhere in alphabet city where they charged around $10 for a glass of whisky, which is what they're allowed to do now I suppose.

The city is changing. There are lots of new building around, most quite ugly and out of place. There are police barriers around the Astor Place Cube. The trajectory was clear when I left, but the arc has continued high and long.

Learning the lessons of Friday night I braced myself with a few large bottles of Pabst to go with my Greenpoint Chinese food, and purchased a half-pint of Beam en route to the bar; guzzled brown-bag style on the walk and finished off seruptitously in a back booth. It was my friend Kristi's birthday, so the crowd was good and friendly. People I'd not seen who I pestered with whisky quesitons and oogled on the sly. I oogle now. It's another thing I've picked up.

And when I got bored I called good old Julia who was a few blocks away at a Lawerly apartment party. I came a-calling and spent too long talking to some girl before going up on the roof to get some air, where I somehow spilled my party cup of wine all over my white thermal shirt, which sort of put an end to that conversation. Destroyed my credibilty I believe. It was a frustrating affair anyway. Better time talking with Henning in any case; I attempted to give a piggyback ride on the way to the L-train and collapsed, skinning my knee and bruising my left eye a bit.

The subway and walk home are a bit of a blur, but I'm confident it included Palace Fried Chicken because I can still pick it out of my teeth now. And I now know for a fact that there's a leak in my Thermarest.

What have we learned? That the patterns of behavior you remember still exist, but are potentially more expensive. That people you know are in medical school or getting married or working real jobs. That your friends may or may not still be in touch all that much over the years. That the feeling you had of wanting to grow up a bit when you left was held pretty much in common and everyone still wants to change their lives. That it hasn't happened yet and that it doesn't feel like it's in a hurry to.

If you are sad and lonely, and have no place to go
call me up, sweet baby, and bring along some dough
and we'll go honky tonkin'...

It's rough; I'm the lone authentic drunk person. Wish I could do more.

The above was written last night. This and below in the aftermath.

Learning the lessons of Friday night, I engaged myself with strong drink early, and at a retail price. I'd played host and East Village guide to my friend Jessica -- a rich tradtion that I pass on with relish from my Aunt's first welcoming me to New York. Jess is engaged to my friend Dave. Sometime in October they'll cease to be living in sin. We ate a great meal at Acme and ended up at a newish Jazz joint somewhere in alphabet city where they charged around $10 for a glass of whisky, which is what they're allowed to do now I suppose.

The city is changing. There are lots of new building around, most quite ugly and out of place. There are police barriers around the Astor Place Cube. The trajectory was clear when I left, but the arc has continued high and long.

Learning the lessons of Friday night I braced myself with a few large bottles of Pabst to go with my Greenpoint Chinese food, and purchased a half-pint of Beam en route to the bar; guzzled brown-bag style on the walk and finished off seruptitously in a back booth. It was my friend Kristi's birthday, so the crowd was good and friendly. People I'd not seen who I pestered with whisky quesitons and oogled on the sly. I oogle now. It's another thing I've picked up.

And when I got bored I called good old Julia who was a few blocks away at a Lawerly apartment party. I came a-calling and spent too long talking to some girl before going up on the roof to get some air, where I somehow spilled my party cup of wine all over my white thermal shirt, which sort of put an end to that conversation. Destroyed my credibilty I believe. It was a frustrating affair anyway. Better time talking with Henning in any case; I attempted to give a piggyback ride on the way to the L-train and collapsed, skinning my knee and bruising my left eye a bit.

The subway and walk home are a bit of a blur, but I'm confident it included Palace Fried Chicken because I can still pick it out of my teeth now. And I now know for a fact that there's a leak in my Thermarest.

What have we learned? That the patterns of behavior you remember still exist, but are potentially more expensive. That people you know are in medical school or getting married or working real jobs. That your friends may or may not still be in touch all that much over the years. That the feeling you had of wanting to grow up a bit when you left was held pretty much in common and everyone still wants to change their lives. That it hasn't happened yet and that it doesn't feel like it's in a hurry to.

If you are sad and lonely, and have no place to go
call me up, sweet baby, and bring along some dough
and we'll go honky tonkin'...

Picking up on my last post:

You do what you do because you like doing it. Because you like doing it you do it well. Because you do it well, it's valuable to other people.

In a clinical analysis, there's no real need for thankless labor anymore, though with our industreal-era habit of massive over-consumption quite a bit of it still exists. As a society we're trapped in a dead-end way of thinking, but the current People In Charge are deadly afraid of allowing different ideas to be taken seriously. Such an undertaking, while perhaps getting closer to the truth, might jeopardize their position.

An example: in my previous post on health care, my friend A-Stock (also named Alex, but another friend named Alex already commented) wonders how a better system might come into being. My other friend Nick responds in girthly fashion and is, I think, essentially correct. But I want to kind of elaborate on what's going on here.

First of all, the question of paradigm. In response to the observation that Americans spent more than twice per-citizen on health care as any other nation in the world, yet still manage to have middling life expectancy and close to 50 million citizens with no coverage, Alex asks "How do you pay for [health care for more people]?"

The answer is we're already paying for it. In fact, we're paying double. The question is not how does one pay to get quality health care for all citizens. The question is who do you pay.

Now, what do I suggest? I suggest we not be shy about picking up a good idea and implement a standard single-payer system for all general coverage: preventative care, dental, and anything you need to stay alive at a minimum. We can haggle over "quality of life" costs (hip replacement, viagra, etc) all day long, but covering the basics is a no-brainer and there's no reason not to do it.

I suggest we call health insurence what it is: a trickle-up system of extracting wealth from working/middle-class families and seniors. Insurance companies are out to make money, and the market doesn't have any problem using human suffering and weakness to drive profits. Remember the market doesn't give a shit about people or society. Is it right for health insurance profits to skyrocket as medical coverage declines?

I suggest we remove inefficient and corrupt profit-taking beureaucracies from health care administration as well. Medicare runs about 3% in administrative overhead. HMOs are somewhere between 4 to 15 times as wasteful. Why are we tolerating this drain on our economy?

I also suggest we allow collective bargaining with pharmaceutical companies on drug prices. To make up for any lost profits, we can prohibit marketing and doctor-lobbying for prescription medications. Free speech is not a right to advertise, and prescription medications should be recommended by doctors, not hyped directly to consumers. The US and New Zeland are the only countries that allow this practice; maybe we should rethink it. Cutting the ad budget will remove about $2.5B in costs for the pharmaceutical industry, which should provide a healthy boost to their bottom line.

To sum up, I suggest we give businesses an effective tax break and provide workers with a bigger paycheck and more peace of mind by making health care efficient and decoupling it from employment. Our immigrant population won't wreck the single-payer equation. This problem can be solved. Even if we're not as efficient as the Germans or Japanese, we can still give workers and businesses a boost to their bottom line while simultaniously providing coverage to the millions of uninsured.

In today's political environment, this is a somewhat radical ideas, but it shouldn't be. It's just the truth.

Update: J-Chow (Gotta Drop A Blog), the voice of reason:

yes, something needs to be done, but the solution is not simple because it involves a large number of people giving up power, perks, control, and money. it also involves people (the general population) becoming less apathetic and focused on others (instead of our own selves). this will be the hardest part of the process.

I too don't think the solution is simple. I think there are ways to innovate. For instance, why not have single-payer coverage for general health care with private coverage (maybe even "Health Savings Accounts") for elective and quality-of-life costs. Couple that with a redoubled investment in R&D, total transparency in accounting, and a system of oversight and governence that doesn't put CEOs, bureaucrats (corporate or government), politicians or union bosses in the drivers seat, and that's getting to sound pretty sweet. I'd settle in the short term for not having health care tied to a job, bringing down costs so give small businesses a break, and covering people who are really in pretty desperate need.