Preferred Blur

From the way I was hearing it on the news, and from the way these guys are positioning this information, it’s as if Iran is the only place that manufactures explosively formed projectiles, otherwise known as EFPs. I did some internet research and learned what an explosively formed projectile is, it’s not all that hard to understand. I also found a site that had a soldier talking about how American Forces have been discovering EFPs in Iraq for years. I did not hear that on the news at all, although I did hear Randi Rhodes mention it a couple of days after I read about it online. I imagine a lot of people have done the same exact sequence of sleuthing and now know a bit more than they knew before. I think these motherfuckers are full of it.

I was listening to ex-Marine Scott Ritter on the radio the other day, he was saying some really intense shit about the consequences of invading Iran. Ritter is one heavy mofo, Fuckin’ Marine, UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq charged with finding WMDs, a Republican who is a very outspoken critic of the Bush administration. He said that he has little doubt that Bush wants to invade Iran. He also said that going into Iran will be nothing like going into Iraq. He said their military is strong and well equipped. Then he said, and I am paraphrasing here, “If you think Iran is going to passively allow a Christian country to bomb them, you’re wrong.”

I don’t know if I can explain this idea clearly to you but I will try. Sometimes America makes me feel like I am suffocating. I try to think of somewhere I can be in America where I won’t have to be in America. I don’t hate the place but when I see the news about how many troops died that day and what the White House is saying about the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the bullshit they’re starting about Iran, when I think about the Katrina disaster, and all the rest, I know I need to consider the world my home and not America. I need to see the entire planet as the place to be. I feel that I am not an American but a transient. That’s what I now consider myself. I am passing through. As often as I can, for as long as I can, I want to keep moving. I want to fly on planes, live in hotel rooms, walk streets in cities at night all over the world. America is being destroyed from the inside. It’s a great place that’s being ruined. If I attach to it too much, it will ruin me too. So now, more than ever, I want to go far and wide. In the years I have left, this is it for me. I will walk the streets of this world as it is destroyed. I am nearly fifty now. I don’t know how much longer I will be able to keep moving but I am going to give it all I have. There is nothing else for me to do. I have no one in my life. I am not attached to anyone and no one is attached to me. No one is under the slightest impression that I am all that much a part of their lives. This is something I have worked at and maintain. I don’t hate people and the few that I know, I care about a great deal but I gotta keep moving and not suffocate. When I am somewhere for too long, I feel like I have surrendered, that’s as best as I can put it. I feel like I am going along with someone else’s plan. When I come up with an idea, like going to Iran, then I feel alive again and it makes me want to keep coming up with things like that to do until I am dead. It’s a way to distract myself from myself, which is always a good thing.

The power is in the idea. There is nothing I like better than thinking something up, going out and executing the idea. To live life on your own terms you don’t have to be all that intelligent, you just have to think differently than they do. If that means being a bit crazy now and then, so be it. Looking back at that pass through Tehran, that was the right thing to do. It’s the only way I learn anything. I have to go into it. I read books but can’t retain much, I try to enjoy life living in one place and it just depresses me and makes me feel like I am dying. There is only one way for me to understand anything and that is to go into the territory. If you’re not going to be smart, you will have to be tough.

Back to what I was saying last night. I am still struggling with the idea I am trying to express. I try to pay attention to what’s happening in the news, Iraq, Iran, etc. If I didn’t, I would feel as if I was endorsing the criminal activity of this administration and being complicit with the slaughter and mutilation of all these people. By absorbing all the awful information that comes through, the thought of these kids coming back dead, amputated, guts ripped from their bodies, the smell of it, the horror these young people go through, what it does to them and that they will deal with it for the rest of their lives, it makes me sick. The only way for me to decrease the amount of toxicity all this truth fills me with is to keep moving and to get out of America when I can. When I leave America for another country these days, I feel as if I am leaving the earth itself. I feel alive again. I can’t get that feeling here anymore, at least not at this time. Leaving America feels like being pulled out of the water and discovering that there is life after drowning. When I am here, I find myself spending a lot of time just reacting to all the bad things happening these days. I don’t feel “home” anywhere, I never have and I don’t want to but I do feel less like a target when I am out in the world. If I spend too much time in America, I sometimes forget that there are other places to go.

This begs the question, “If you don’t like the place so much, then why don’t you just leave for good?” I can’t do that. America is the best idea on the planet and by just leaving altogether, the wrong people get what they want and the wrong people get destroyed. It’s nonstop conflict and genocide here, I understand that. The good is being killed off by the bad, I know and I’m up for fighting the good fight but being an American all the time will break you. I know that to be human is to be broken over and over, I just want to be broken by something more noble and honorable than cowardly men and their actions so I have to travel the world as much as I can until I die. I have to constantly combat my mediocrity, my apathy and slothful tendencies. I am quick to get angry at anything that distracts me from this struggle. I also struggle with that anger and I’m angry at that struggle.

Soon after Johnny passed away in September of 2004, Linda told me that Johnny had been working on an autobiography with a writer. She asked if I would look it over. I read it and for the most part, I thought it was good. It needed some work, the writer had written himself into the book quite a bit and I thought it was distracting but the Johnny parts were great, pure Johnny Ramone. Johnny was a straight talker, very blunt, always to the point and didn’t care what anyone thought of that. I got back to Linda and told her the book was good but needed some work done on it. She asked if I would work on it. I said I would even though I was already very busy. It would have been impossible for me to have said no. It’s a good way to say thanks to The Ramones for all that good music and it would be an interesting bit of work. The literary agent and her management looked it over and showed it to some publishers, they all passed and cited the writer’s additions as what they didn’t like. I was instructed to basically cleanse the manuscript of his input and make the book more Johnny.

I got a file of the manuscript and started reading and re-reading it, making notes, and getting an understanding of what the book was and what it could be. I went through the book chapter by chapter in February of 2005, when I was on the Trans Siberian Express. When I got back to America, I gave my version to Linda, she read it and liked it. I think the writer read it and didn’t like it so much. Linda said that the writer and Johnny had done a lot of interview stuff on tape and she was having trouble trying to get the tapes back from him. She asked me to call him and so I did and had a not-so-great, tension-filled and very long conversation with the man but didn’t manage to get the tapes from him. Linda’s agent tried and failed too. Linda wanted to get the tapes back so I could listen to them to see if there was anything else on the tapes that could be used.

Over the next few months, tension built as the writer wouldn’t release the tapes, nor was he ok with the changes I made to the manucript. Johnny had done some kind of 50-50 deal with the guy. Linda was now taking Johnny’s place as half owner of the book. She told the guy that unless I was involved with the book, there would be no book at all. He didn’t like that. I was hoping we could just get to work on the thing and finish it. It turned into a stalemate and I went back to other things and stopped thinking about it, figuring if something changed or if Linda needed me, she would call me. Around that time, I got a call from the owner of an independent publishing house who puts out some really interesting titles, several of which I have. He told me that he had been in contact with the writer and wanted to publish the book in its original form, he thought it was great. I told him that Linda had the ultimate say on what, when, and where. The publisher said I shouldn’t be too sure of that. I like the guy and in the friendliest possible way, I tried to explain to him that he was wrong and he really didn’t want to mess with Linda Ramone and her management and lawyers. He would indeed be in breach and Linda would have to unleash lawyer hell on him. She would, too. I don’t know whether he took me seriously or not. I called Linda and told her about it and she got pretty mad.

Anyway, fast forward several months to a few weeks ago. Linda calls and says she got the tapes back from the writer, he’s cooled off, and would I come get the tapes and check them out and finish the book. This is what lead Heidi and I to go over to her place and pick them up. There were about 9 micro cassettes. Also in the package the writer sent was another Johnny Ramone manuscript he wrote which I had not seen previously. It’s kind of a dramatized “fact-based” type of thing. I started reading it out loud to Linda and Heidi. It’s, well, it’s not for me to judge but I think it’s a good thing that it never came out. To paraphrase, “Johnny’s restless gaze searched the room, his hard eyes glinted in the dim light of the backstage...”

I had not been to the house in awhile. This is the house that Johnny passed away in. One of the times I was there, we were going through boxes of stuff and came across a spiral notebook. I started turning the pages and saw that it contained Ramones lyrics and other writing. I asked Linda about it and she said that it was Joey’s. I turned to a page that had two different sets of writing and asked her about it. She pointed to one set of writing and said that was Joey’s and that the other set of writing was Lester Bangs’, who sometimes wrote songs with Joey. I have been thinking about that notebook ever since. I borrowed it and Carol scanned it into the computer today so now it’s backed up.

1710 hrs. About to head out of here. I spent the day working on radio, upcoming schedule stuff and the Johnny tapes. I am 8 hours into it, about half way done. My mood has changed from having listened to quite a bit of the tapes. The writer is now pissing me off. On the tapes, it’s easy to tell when Johnny is medicated, tired or in pain. This fuckin’ guy goes barreling right along and from the questions he’s asking, it sounds like he’s very unprepared, he switches topics, asks really stupid questions, chimes in, etc. It’s frustrating to listen to. I am not looking forward to plowing through all this stuff but I have to. I hope Linda doesn’t listen to the CDRs I am going to give her. There are moments when I can tell Johnny’s in pain. When he was hurting, his voice would raise in pitch. He gets along with the guy and I think this writer is doing the best he can but fuck that, he’s not a pro and it shows. We’re just lucky that Johnny was such a brick motherfucker and could be so lucid and direct under such conditions. I was being cool to this writer fuck but as you can tell, that’s over with. He’s getting his proper credit in the book as he obviously worked his ass off on the project but listening to the method he used, if there was one, it’s easy to see that the interviews could have been so much more or at least not so hard on Johnny.

02-23-07 LA CA: 2337 hrs. I didn’t get all the work done at the office I wanted to but I got enough done. I did an interview with a nice female from the New Republic. I went to the radio station and pre-taped the show for next Tuesday with Engineer X and then came back to the office. Heidi told me to call Janeane, who wrapped out of her show yesterday, to ask if she would to come over to the office to say hello. She came by awhile later and met Carol and Heidi and then she and I hung out for awhile and then she went back to her hotel and then off to the airport. It was great to have her in town. I don’t hang out with people all that much but I liked hanging out with her. She’s very funny and easy to be around.

I am packed and ready to go for the most part. I will go over it one more time on Sunday morning. Looking forward to getting out of here. What else? I got another hour of Johnny tape banged onto CDR today. I have about 7 more hours to go. I’ll get it done when I get back. I can’t think of anything else I want to write about at the moment. I didn’t get a chance to hear much news today. I know that we lost another soldier at least. It was hilarious to hear Cheney say that the fact that Blair pulled some of his soldiers out of Iraq is a sign of success in the region. If America does it, it’s cutting and running. I got it.

02-24-07 LA CA: 2236 hrs. I went to the Spirit Awards today. I did the press line and the photo line as well. The press line was interesting. I told a nice man from the BBC that I thought Tony Blair was a douche bag and asked him if he would please put that on the radio when he got back. I stood in the general hang out area for a little while and talked to the IFC people and some others I ran into. I met Sarah Silverman and told her I thought she was great and that I had seen her the other night at Largo. I spoke briefly with John Waters and then went into the theater space. I was at the same table as last year. Sarah was funny again like she was last year. Dennis Hopper came out and reprised the role of Frank Booth for a moment, “Don’t you fuckin’ look at me!” which warmed my heart. He was then joined by Laura Dern and they did a tribute to David Lynch. Loretta Switt and Robert Downey Jr. did a tribute to Robert Altman. At one point, Sharon Stone was up there for way too long. Minnie Driver sang very well as did Rosario Dawson. The whole thing lasted about two hours. After it was over, I was taken to the after party. There were a lot of people waiting outside wanting autographs and pictures. Many people had pictures of me on hand, they must have found out I was going to be there. I signed them, I know they are going on ebay. What these guys don’t know is that no one will buy them for more than a couple of bucks. I went inside the after party area for about ten minutes and then left and came back here. I was out the door at 1130 hrs. and back at 1700 hrs. It was all pretty painless, I guess. If the IFC people didn’t ask me to I would never go to something like that. I really like the IFC people and they ask very little of me so I don’t mind. I think those kind of things water you down. I don’t want to get used to things like that, I think if I go to too many events like that, hang around with people too much, it will soften me.

When I was young, I didn’t need to think that way but now I do. It’s like caloric intake. When you’re young and hungry you don’t have to count the calories because you’re not going to get enough to satisfy your hunger anyway but when you have resources, you have to watch your diet. It’s easy to become tamed and normalized. Where there is light and laughter there is danger for me. I don’t trust it and don’t want it. I don’t want it because I know anything I want can’t be all that good for me. I don’t mind seeing the few people I have known for many years, like in DC, but even that is difficult for me because I feel so bad when I have to leave, it’s almost easier not to see them and not feel so torn up later. I guess one could say that’s real life and you have to dive in and take all those emotional vicissitudes as part of the package. The party-event environment is like junk food to me, upon leaving, I feel like I have wasted time and overindulged. Do you remember that scene in Das Boot when the captain of the submarine has to leave vessel and go to that party with all the over-fed high ranking officers? Do you remember how feral he looks in comparison to all the soft men? When I first saw that film, that was the scene that stuck out. I never want to be one of those soft men at the party, that’s the bottom line.

I have been reading up on coalition troop levels in Iraq. I wanted to know the numbers because British Prime Minister Tony Blair pulled some of his soldiers out of Iraq and John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, said mean and nasty things about Barack Obama and I wanted to see how many of his brave Australian forces he had in the region. Perhaps John Howard should add the same percentage of soldiers to his troop force in Iraq that Bush will add to American troop forces with the surge. That is, unless he doesn’t have the stomach for war that Bush and Cheney have. Anyway, I found the numbers of troops that other countries have in Iraq, they should put that shit on the news. There’s hardly anyone there but American forces. America is fighting this thing on their own. Cheney and Bush are not vice president and president of the United States. They don’t represent America. They represent a few corporations, not even all that many, either. They should take those American flag pins off their jackets, they’re not in any way patriots nor do they love America or care about the American people. They just treat Americans like suckers. I wish some people weren’t so naïve.

02-25-07 LAX: 2045 hrs. I am out of here for a little under a week. Next stop, Sydney Australia. Last year when I was in Cannes, France at MIPCOM, the Australian company who is carrying the IFC show there asked if I would ever go to Australia for press. I said sure. Several weeks ago, when I found out that The Evens were going to play in Australia, I called management and asked if the Australians might be interested in me doing the press around The Evens shows in Sydney and they said yes. So, I am going to Australia to do press by day and hopefully see The Evens play two shows in Sydney. I didn’t tell Ian, I thought it might be more interesting if I just showed up. I wrote my agent down there and asked him to get me a ticket to each show to make sure I could still get in if the shows sold out.

I will get there Tuesday morning and start press a few hours later. The Evens are playing Wednesday and Thursday nights. I will do press by day and see the shows at night. Friday, I fly to Melbourne for press and then back to Sydney for more on Saturday and then I fly back here on Sunday. I wish I could stay longer but I have chores in LA all week. I am glad this worked out so I can get the work done and see the shows. Perhaps there’s a show to see in Melbourne on Saturday, I am looking forward to finding out if anyone’s playing.

I am hoping that a geographical change will help me knock myself out of the depression that has been chewing on me for the last few days. Today I could barely move. It woke me up early. Last night and this morning, I just wanted to be dead. I know it’s wrong to think that way but I feel like that a lot. I have figured out ways to get myself out of it. One of them is to plan to kill myself but only after I have properly taken care of all my affairs. I make lists of who I would give what to and what I would do to make things easy on anyone who would have to deal with anything I leave behind. It would take awhile. I would have to fulfill obligations, meet some deadlines, etc. Then I would have to figure out a way to dispose of myself without traumatizing anyone. By the time I have worked though that a few times, I am onto other thoughts and I find something to do with myself. It’s awful to think these things seeing what other people have to go through every day and I feel ashamed of myself when I am this way. I need to stay busy to keep depression at bay. It’s one of the reasons I go all the time, it’s the best way I have found to deal with it. In a way, it’s dodging the issue, dealing with it by not dealing with it. I know that’s no good but when I am still for too long, if there’s nothing challenging me or making me have to prove myself, I don’t know what to do with my life. Time to get on the plane. 2128 hrs.

2157 hrs. I like that. The flight attendant remarked that he sees me on this flight pretty often. That’s pretty cool, I’m a local in the air. One of the best parts about travel is the points in between. On long flights like this one, I feel weightless and alive. I am on the way to somewhere. I am sitting still but in motion, I am going. It’s a relief. It allows me to sit next to my mind. You do what you want, think what you want, it’s all choices, I get that. I miss processing information without filtering it through current events. With things the way they are, it’s difficult for me to read fiction. It makes me think I am slacking off somehow. I purposely brought two works of fiction with me: Proust and a book by Dawn Powell that Janeane Garofalo gave me called Turn, Magic Wheel. I also have some magazines and articles I dragged off the internet about Iran, Iraq, and all the other usual, awful stuff. Since 9-11, it has been difficult for me to write much besides journal entries and travel writing. I feel the need to mark time, events and motion in writing. Never in my life have I wanted to stay on the move more often than in the last few years. I am trying to be a fugitive from the confines of my inherent mediocrity and amazing ability to stay in a state of comfortable torpidity for appalling amounts of time.

What occurs to me to do is to be a crazy man who doesn’t stop moving, doesn’t stop working. I want to wear myself out as often as possible in as many places as possible. Travel keeps me off balance and always reaching for it. I am trying to learn something here. Slamming myself into everything I can is the only way I can do it. I am not naturally curious, I work at it. I have to struggle to keep myself learning new things. Much of the time, everything in me tells me to sit in a small room and not move, to listen to a handful of records and not to read anything that is hard to understand or to just shoot myself in the head. I also know that most of my instincts are wrong. I am bad with names, directions, maps, or anything that requires common sense. In a way, this makes things easy. All I have to do is think about what I want to do and then do the opposite. Sometimes I get letters from people asking my advice. I do the best I can but always warn them that I am the last person they should be asking as I am as messed up as anyone.

When I woke up a few minutes ago and looked at my stopwatch, I realized that there’s only a little while before the plane lands and I felt the need to do something. I don’t know why but I started wondering if it ever occurs to an elderly person to get out of bed and get going that day because there may not be many days left. I wondered if being old gives a whole new meaning to the idea of sleeping your life away. Now and then, I get a letter from my mother and she tells me what she’s up to. She tells me about the last couple of books she has read. She reads voraciously and writes very well. She is a very intelligent person. I don’t know her very well so reading the letters are like getting book tips from an enthusiastic professor or something. Much of my early youth I have walled off so effectively I would probably need surgery to access it so I can’t remember if she and I ever discussed any topic to any great length or depth or much of anything she ever told me. She is the only living relative of mine I keep in contact with. I have not seen my father in about 20 years. I met his mother a couple of times, I met my mother’s mother a couple of times, I also spent a couple of Christmases with my mother’s sister and her kids. That was in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. It doesn’t matter to me, there’s nothing I want to know about those times or those people. Anyway, my mother is in her seventies and seems to kick much ass but I always remember her as being that way. I wonder if she gets up early and gets it going knowing there’s not decades to go.

There’s always a lot to think about when I am in Australia. I first went there in early 1989 when the band was just starting. We had just finished recording the Hard Volume album. Since then, I have toured there many times, recorded live albums with the band and on my own and produced an album for The Mark Of Cain, which is still one of my favorite records. I have been lucky to see some really great shows there, Beasts Of Bourbon, The Mark Of Cain, Kim Salmon And The Surrealists, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Mass Appeal, and even acts from outside of Australia like Nirvana and The Stooges. One of the only friendships I ever had was in Australia with Mick Geyer. I can’t even begin to say how much he taught me and how generous he was with his time. I learned so much about music, literature, film and history from him, he’s one of the bright lights in my life. He’s dead now and whenever I am in Melbourne, it hits me hard. When I am there on Saturday, I hope I don’t stay in St. Kilda, that’s where he and I used to hang out at the cafes on Fitzroy street. It’s hard to walk around there at night and think about him being gone. He died of cancer in his early ‘50s. I kept all his letters, he was a great letter writer. When I read them, I felt that I was the only thing on his mind at the time, that’s what a great letter is all about to me. You can take any one of those letters to a book or record store, get the titles he recommends and that’s your weekend, week, month, what have you. I have tried to list all the books, records and artists that he turned me onto and at this point it’s impossible. From 1989 to 2003, he recommended things for me to check out.

There is also a sense of finality I get when I am in Australia. I bet I will never do band shows in Australia again. I remember last year, when it looked like the band was going pretty good, I asked management to see if there was any interest in any other countries as I wanted to tour the world with the band. If it had worked out, I would like nothing more than to be training for a tour this coming summer. Anyway, management asked our Australian agent if there might be any interest and he said he doubted it and added that ticket sales for the talking shows go down every year, so I don’t know how many times I will be coming back. At least one more round of talking shows and then that will probably be it. One of the hardest parts of touring is the numbers. Always the numbers. I know what they mean when they say numbers don’t lie. In this business, you live and die by them. I have to work hard to deal with the numbers but at the same time not let them affect what I do. It’s one of the reasons I throw myself into whatever work is at hand with all I’ve got, you never know if it’s the last time around the track. Nothing that I do is a sure thing for longer than it takes to do it. I’m shooting the IFC show now, that’s work until summer, then it’s over. Will there be another season? Who knows? I’ll tour this fall, will anyone show up? I can’t spend too much time thinking in that way but it’s bad battle strategy not to think that way part of the time. I wish things were different. When I see bands go out every year and do great, a comedian type pack it out year after year, do I want a piece that? It’s probably a great thing but it also seems like a perfect way to take things for granted and get soft. Success isn’t what makes you successful. Instability, discomfort, dissatisfaction and uncertainty are the ingredients. Success is a tricky quantity. If you’re only working for it, that’s pretty boring in my opinion, like a band who only makes a record in order to sell a million copies, if that’s the motivation, how good will it really be? If you achieve success, it can potentially ruin everything you do even more than failure can. The bottom line is I would rather do what I think is right and be considered a failure than do what I think is wrong and be considered a success. From reading the short history of the writer Dawn Powell located on the inside of the book of hers I am reading, it says that even though she had fans like Hemingway, she never achieved much success with her writing. I am about 50 pages into Turn, Magic Wheel and already know I will be reading more of her work, she is a fantastic writer. We will be landing soon.

02-27-07 Sydney Australia: 2011 hrs. I landed in the morning and met up with Fiona, who will be taking me through all the press chores here in Sydney. She dropped me off here at the hotel. I had about an hour off and then had to meet up with some of the people who run Movie Extra, who will be airing the IFC show here. I met with them for awhile, they’re good folks, they like the show and seem to be behind it. After that, Fiona and I went to shoot some interview stuff for Optus Austar Magazine and Movie Network. We shot the interviews at the Summit Restaurant 1 Orbit Lounge, it’s like the restaurant at LAX, it rotates slowly. I didn’t really notice it turning, I was jet lagging so everything was spinning a little anyway. After that, Fiona and I got back together with the Movie Extra people and we ate dinner. I just got back.

I want to go out and walk around but I am fried and have a long day of press that starts early in the morning and when finished I will go right to the venue with Tim Pittman. Somehow, I have to get all the stuff written for next week’s IFC shoots. I have to do four Teeing Offs and two letters. I have the radio broadcast notes done for the upcoming show but am not ready for the next one that I have to do a couple of days after I get back from here. I’ll just have to hope jet lag gets me up before the press starts so I can get a lot of it done.

Jet lag always depresses me. I have strange dreams and sometimes I feel in two places at once. Being in Australia usually fills me with relief and lowers my overall stress because it feels so far away from everything, which doesn’t make any sense at all but that is how it feels. It’s warm and moist outside and it makes me want to stay up late but I have to get my head down. The schedule is very ambitious. I am very excited to be seeing The Evens tomorrow night. The other day when I was in DC, I knew I was going to be making this trip and it was funny to ask Ian if he was looking forward to coming here, knowing the whole time I was going to see him. I hope it all works out tomorrow so I get the drop on him!

We went to the Glebe Town Hall and waited for Ian and Amy to show up. Tim had been in touch with the woman who was putting on the show and she had been keeping Tim up to date on where Ian was. A few minutes after we got there, Tim called her and found out they were only a couple of minutes away. We went around the back where they would be pulling in and when I heard a car pull in and heard Ian’s voice, I walked out there and yelled, “Are you guys going to play Waiting Room or what?!” I will never forget the looks on Ian’s and Amy’s faces when they saw me. They were both completely blank for a second and then they looked surprised and then happy. It was very funny.

The place was pretty full when they went on and the audience was very happy to see the band. One of the things I like about The Evens is that the low volume of the music and the low key nature of their set up makes for a casual mood and gives Ian a chance to talk between songs without a lot of volume and drama like a Fugazi show used to have. The stuff he says is almost, if not as cool as the songs themselves. He has a great way with an audience because he isn’t there to bullshit them and they can tell. Also, he’s a very funny man and that’s not always the conclusion someone would come away with at a Fugazi or Minor Threat show. His sense of humor is one of the things that I have always liked about Ian and something that people find surprising when I describe him. There are some great sing-along moments in their music and tonight, the whole place was into it. This was the first time I had heard a lot of the new songs done live and they were great. I have listened to the first album so many times. I kinda burned out on it but it was great to hear some of those songs tonight. I can’t wait to see them play again tomorrow night.

03-01-07 Sydney Australia: Late. I am up in a few hours to fly to Melbourne. I did press and photos all the way to the end of the day. The last stop was a radio station and Ian was there doing an interview in the studio next to the one I was in! He was pre-taping and I was live. The walls between us were glass so we were fucking with each other as we were doing the work. It was so great to see him there. It’s such a trip seeing Ian in Australia. I went right from the interview to load in at the Glebe Town Hall. The Evens were great again tonight. Only a couple of songs from the night before. It’s so great that they have so many songs and can do two nights in a place and make it worth going to both. Tonight’s crowd seemed to be a little more just checking it out where last night’s show was full of people who were perhaps more ready for what they were going to get. There were a few of those cheerful Australian drunks at the show. They are fairly unique to Australia I have found. Not belligerent really, just annoying, responding to everything said from the stage like they’re having a direct conversation. With The Evens show being on the quiet side, this can become wearing quickly. There was one guy who was non-stop, so after several times of him talking to Ian and Ian being very gracious but getting slightly frustrated at this guy disturbing the evening, I told myself that if he yelled out three more times, I was going to have a quiet word with the guy. He did his three times and that was it. I slipped into the crowd and went looking for him. I found him quickly as he yelled out again. I kind of stood on him so my body was leaning against his. He didn’t understand at first but he got it soon enough. I just told him to be quiet and he said ok. He then went and told his friend and his friend came over and looked at me. I just looked back, he said something, I told him to be quiet and stared at him. They were quiet after that and I stayed with them for the rest of the show. I fuckin’ hate lightweights. The show was really good and I met a lot of people afterwards who were the typical cool Australian. I loaded out with Ian and Amy, said goodbye to them and came back here. I have been operating on a very low level of sleep for a few days now and it’s getting to me but it was worth it to see the band play these last two nights.

There was a moment earlier in the evening that took me quite by surprise. We had just finished loading in. I was standing in the back of the hall, Ian was onstage. The sun was almost gone and the air was very warm and moist. All of a sudden it felt like we were in DC and there was a show that night and there was Ian and there I was and it was like being at a Teen Idles show or something. Here we were, all these years later in a venue with a show happening that night. I can’t count how many times I have been in a venue with Ian in a situation just like this, in weather just like this, over so many years. For a moment, I was standing in the past and the present at the same time. It made me think that I was very happy to be born when I was, where I was, and that everything worked out the way it has for the most part. I live for moments like those because no one else can have them exactly that same way, there’s no way those things can occur to anyone the same way and it’s one of the few things in life that are truly yours and they can never be taken away. That moment may be one of the best times I have ever had in Australia. I have to get some sleep. Tomorrow starts soon and it will be a long one.

03-02-07 Melbourne Australia: 2032 hrs. I was tired enough to get lost walking out of the restaurant to the hotel even though the hotel is directly above it. My alarm clock is set for 0500 hrs. and I have to be up and out of here at 0615 hrs. This is the hotel I was staying at the last time I saw Mick Geyer. Mick was one of the few people I would go out of my way to see. I had many great nights of conversation with Mick from 1989 until 2003. It’s been so long now, there’s no way I can even start to list all the musicians, artists, directors, writers and other things he turned me onto. There are so many things I learned from him that I probably think I found them myself. I really want to walk down Fitzroy past some of the place we used to hang out in and think about him but I have to get some sleep. I only slept a few hours last night and today was flat out all day until quitting time. I have a lot of memories tied to St. Kilda, where I am now. I guess it’s a suburb of Melbourne. I can walk to the first place I ever played here and past venues where I have done so many shows. I don’t think I will be coming back here again for music and I don’t know how many more times for talking shows. It’s always with a bit of sadness I walk around here. I have been to this neighborhood frequently for 18 years, it’s a part of me. Being familiar with a place like this is a very big part of what I am all about and why I travel. It’s the idea I was trying to explain before, about needing a place the size of the world to breathe in. I like it that I can walk the streets of countries all over the world and know where I am. It’s something you have to earn by putting the time and the miles in. That’s what it’s all about for me, the time, the miles. Over time, I am field stripping myself into the world. America is great but it’s full of sadness and pain and death and liars and weaklings. I am a stranger wherever I go so the world is my home. Walking on streets in cities at night and returning alone to small rented rooms is one of the best things I have ever done. I feel more at home in a hotel room than in my own. I believe more in the temporary part of a hotel room. It’s great to get your bag and walk out of the thing and leave it behind you and get onto the next one.

Below me, the streets are full people, it’s the start of Mardi Gras, which here is a gay oriented thing I have been lead to believe. I think there was a parade earlier today, I didn’t see any of it. This is a good room, I am listening to a mix of tunes on my small stereo system I brought along. I don’t have to get up so early tomorrow so I will hang out with my mind for a little while longer before I try and fall out. This trip was a blur punctuated by the two Evens shows. That’s how I live my life. I prefer the blur and running semi-wrecked from one thing to the next, it’s easier for me to deal with life this way. I would rather serve or protect than befriend. Now and then I go to DC and spend a couple of days there just walking around. I walk by houses where I know the people inside but I don’t bother to visit. I just like to see that the lights are on. I look at the house for a minute and walk on. It makes more sense to conduct myself in this manner because a lot of the time, I feel like I’m dead anyway.

03-04-07 Sydney Australia: 1550 hrs. Sitting on the plane, waiting to take off. About 15 hours from now I will be back at my office getting ready for the next thing. This was a good trip that allowed me to get away from myself for awhile. I have a very busy week coming up and now my sights are set on quitting time this coming Friday. Heidi says that all I do is try to get through things and never stop to enjoy them. I guess that’s true. As soon as I get somewhere and do what there is to be done I want to get onto the next thing and then get that thing done, aways trying to lose myself in the moment of it and then at the end, find myself in a small room, alone with some time to mend and prepare for whatever comes next.

I got a phone call from Inger, the gal from The Nymphs, I have known her about 20 years. She told me that Rodney Bingenheimer is getting a star on Hollywood Blvd. on Friday and Rodney wanted to know if I was going to go. I told her I would be there. I have never been to one of those things but I definitely want to be there to cheer on Rodney, he has done so much for music in Los Angeles and everywhere else. I remember when I first came out here in 1981 and went to KROQ with the other guys in Black Flag to be on his show. I was really happy to meet him. I see him now and then, usually at a Ramones function and I always make sure to say hello to him. He’s been on the air for so many years, it has to be at least 30 or close to it. There is a lot of sadness and death and pain in this town.