attention span, anyone?

THE TRUTH IS THAT... I'm a punk rocker. As soon as punk rock came into my life, it was obvious that everything had changed for me. It was like a lens through which the world made sense - that is, it taught me how to behave sensibly in a nonsensical world. This isn't what most people associate with punk rock, but to me, punk taught me first and foremost to drop all pretenses about making any sense whatsoever - to live for the MOMENT, for that moment when the guitar kicks in and just fucking LAUNCHES YOU INTO THE MOSHPIT. Punk didn't provide a soundtrack to my life, so much as it provides a soundtrack for my MEMORY of my life. I remember caroming off the roads of Poughkeepsie, screaming Black Flag at the windshield along with that quality Toyota tape deck. "I'M ABOUT TO HAVE A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN!!!!", I'd sneer, when it was probably more accurate to say that I was GIVING a nervous breakdown to my parents. I remember the moments of discovery of the bands that would change my life, reading about the Minutemen, hearing the Misfits in the car my hugest crush was driving, the Minor Threat records this girl near Rochester copied me. I remember working out to 7 Seconds, making out with my fundamentalist Christian first girlfriend to the eerie sounds of Sonic Youth in the middle of the night in the parking lot of a decaying shopping mall, picking out the chords to the Husker Du songs I so loved on a guitar I didn't yet understand. I was younger then, and everything felt new and the battles seemed worth fighting. Reagan and Bush (not the band) were in office, and ANYTHING that smacked of an ANTI-culture was down with me. Punk was a BIG word - I mean, we thought Public Enemy was the punkest thing we'd heard in YEARS - and strange hair configurations really BOTHERED people with less-than-open minds. (Years later, this BOTHERATION has REMAINED my FAVORITE cheap entertainment option.) Punk rock changed our lives, and if you're one of those people that share this background with me, there's no doubt I don't have to analyze this D. Boon quote any further. Punk sure fucked me up, as far as leading a "normal" life was concerned. Years later, after graduating from Stanford of all places (NOT the place to go if you've got any punk in you WHATSOEVER), I would remain nailed to this allegiance, so much so that no amount of education, no amount of need for money or whatever could ever make me ring true as, well, normal. Like most of us, I soon discovered that punk was about SO MUCH MORE than just music, that it really symbolized something MUCH DEEPER than that. An answer. There was INFORMATION in that music, the same quality of information that I find in a website or a touchdown, a way OUT of the prison that surrounds most lives in America. There was truth and beauty and energy and it was as if listening to this music, or even hanging out with other people informed by the message of punk, well, it was like BECOMING A GOD. It is punk rock that truly made me a religious man. This is a book that follows a format of my own devising. I just felt like writing, a lot, all the time in fact. I am now in the process of figuring out just what I *MEAN* by being religious. I'm certainly no Christian, or anything worth labeling. In fact, even the term "punk rock" has been compromised, as we who saw Green Day when they couldn't even tune their instruments knew it someday would be. My friend Vic said that if he could take STOCK in a band, it would be Green Day, and, well, maybe if he could've he'd be a millionaire too. In our own stupid way, we knew we were sort of sitting on a goldmine, a set of underground music SO SUPERIOR to the dreck of the evil corporate music interests that its success, and subsequent "sellout", was inevitable. I used to get a lot of mileage out of calling myself a Hindu, if only because it confused the fuck out of people. I think causing confusion is a religious mandate; I *enjoy* it, and therefore I believe in it. But I realized early on that I knew jack shit about hinduism, beyond my own ability to bullshit about what it meant. I also realized that this bullshit was getting more and more, well, MEANINGFUL. I *enjoyed* coming up with religious-sounding ideas outta my ass. Only recently did I realize that I was in the process of founding my own religion as I was going along. It was a religion based on superstition (every time I saw a license plate with a 666 in it, I would cross myself), based on stories of mythic proportions, based on things I just KNEW to be true. And you know what? THIS RELIGION FUCKING ROCKS. It is something that I've only heard hints of, something that has been taught to me by luminaries such as the Church of the SubGenius (run out and buy their first book after you read this one!), by my personal hero Abbie Hoffman, by every anonymous hardcore band that made it feel like you were witnessing an explosion. It is a set of TRUTH. It is based on a concept that is SO SIMPLE, yet so obvious, and it has the potential to truly CHANGE things and to piss your parents off to boot. (What fun!) I am going to steal Jesus - the REAL, RAW Jesus, the Jesus who fought so valiantly against empire and oppression - away from the shits who control him right now. While I'm at it, I'm going to steal Jimi back from the hippies, Apple back from the jeers of the marketplace, Buddha and Kerouac away from the pretentious. I am going to steal the GOOD STUFF and leave them with vapors, with control of NOTHING. Right now, while you read this, while you're hypnotized by my words, I am handing you THE KEY TO YOUR OWN LIBERATION - a key that, of course, you've had in your back pocket all along. The key to understanding this key, ironically, is understanding exactly where the lock is. Religion, to me, is simply the practice of observing what is TRUE and UNPROVABLE ANYWAY. We've got science to work on the provable, but where in science will it tell you obvious things like "oh my gawd, operation ivy is AMAZING!" or "you just WAKE UP when you're talking to the girl you like"? So what I'm saying, basically, is that I'm not afraid to use terms such as 'religion" to describe what I KNOW IN MY HEART. And apparently, I feel like I know a lot in my heart - much, much more than I know in my head. (Although I'm one of those freaks of nature who can recite pi to a hundred digits.) And I know that REAL religion is about creating that feeling that punk once promised us. *I* can create that feeling. YOU CAN TOO. It's not up to some being in the sky to provide us with the inspiration we need to smooth out the bumps in our lives and show us the direction - it is UP to ME and YOU. This is how I got the idea for this book - I decided to just SAY THINGS that I KNOW THAT ARE TRUE. Sometimes I'm wide of the mark, sometimes I say ridiculous and irrelevant things, although every effort has been made to remove these in the editing process. But what I'm left with, and what I'm proud to present you, is a TOTAL MESS OF A BOOK, a self-contradicting, rambling and quite potent testament to the fact that, HEY, I AM ALIVE AND SO ARE YOU. I didn't want to create a book; I wanted to formulate a DRUG. I want to make something that you will PICK UP and INHALE DEEPLY whenever you need something MORE in life. That's EXACTLY how the book was created. I type super super fast, without even looking, and I dragged a tiny computer around Europe with me this summer, and whenever I had an IDEA pop into my head I popped the damn thing open and started goin'. So sit back a spell and let me do all the work for a bit. It's a weird, rollercoaster ride, and along the way you'll find out more about me than you probably will find useful (i mean, who GIVES a fuck about my reciting pi? REALLY!) This book is not meant to be understood immediately - it is self-referential, it is egotistic, it is a waste of time unless you become sort of, uh, PSYCHOSEXUALLY INVOLVED with it. (I don't quite know what I mean by that, but maybe I just forgot to stick any sex in this introduction.) So hey, herewith I present my revision of the truth. I have called it "Jesus 2.0" because Jesus is an instantly recognizable brand name, and it is what I consider a MAJOR upgrade. Just remember that YOU are part of the development team. And I will leave you with a soundbite to sum up this book of soundbites. It's what I call my one-sentence religion, and it goes a little something like this: "If there's a God, YOU are an AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE." Once upon a time, there was a kid who had a lot on his mind. In 1995, the world was a much bleaker place than it is now. Maybe that's due to President Clinton's policies, maybe because of Moore's Law and the Web, who knows. I wouldn't know what the job market is like today, but the media sure makes this country sound like the Land of Opportunity once again. In 1995, most of the good jobs were already taken, and this kid had no idea how to get one anyway. It was a low point for this kid. He had nothing - no relationship, maybe two or three good friends, a truly insane landlord/housemate who would play Pink Floyd all the fucking time. He was broke, he hated the area where he lived, all the good bands had broken up or were on major labels, and he didn't do drugs. Although never suicidal, he spent his spare time in dank coffee shops scribbling questions too existential to repeat here. He was working at Kinko's after receiving a degree from Stanford, and he was wondering, "well, how did I get here?" He liked to think of himself as smart, affable, and supernice, but the market economy scared the shit out of him. The idea of wearing a suit and tie, the idea of lying to people in order to get a sale, the idea of trading one's imagination for a cubicle appalled him, and he just felt that he couldn't do it. He worked the late shift, in the computer section; because of a band he was in, he had learned how to use a Macintosh to design stuff. One night he was watching the monster photocopiers chugging away on some insipid addendum to some corporate annual report. The huge beasts created an almost techno-like rhythm as they created neat piles of dead tree, slain in the gallant march of human progress, almost certainly destined for landfill oblivion. The potential of a piece of paper, and this is what we make of it? he thought. He was a nice guy. (Hell, he's STILL a nice guy.) But he did have his influences. Perhaps his influences were the only things that gave him any peace at all. His influences had found him because he had a taste for the bizarre, a taste for the loud... and a taste for REVOLUTION. It had been decades since that word held any meaning, but he would read books from that very last time and his imagination would take him to the streets of Chicago with a Molotov cocktail in his hand and teargas biting into his skin. Earlier, when he was at Stanford, he found himself enrolled in the Stanford in Berlin program, and had soon found the squatter/anarchist community there. He took part in riots. He threw cobblestones at policemen - not very effectively, because he's a pacifist at heart, but the SPIRIT, the spirit was there and when he returned to the squat with his new friends, the only nonwhite at the afterparty, he would grab some liberated Beck's and stand in the front as the squatter band blazed through a set that would have been incomprehensible in ANY language, and he would think: THIS is revolution. This feeling that he had, this sense that the blood that boiled within him had some IMPORT, some consequence, posed a THREAT to the system. This was a feeling that went deeper than any drug, because it wasn't about who you were inside, but rather what you MEANT to the OUTSIDE. When you fucking MATTER for once, when people are really glad to have you aboard and you're not just another entry in someone's fucking Rolodex, you are CHANGED. I look at you - that's right, me the narrator, you the reader - and I see a person whose spark hasn't yet been extinguished, but trust me - the system wants your ass. You're smart, and you could make some Board of Directors a lot of money someday. You're on the auction block, your very potential is on sale, and if you're working right now the banks and the companies have you whipped, shackled in chains marked DIRECT DEPOSIT. I wonder if you've ever felt like that kid did when he was when he was pogoing to harsh German squatterpunk. I think you might have felt that way once - I think that's why you're reading this. And if that's the case, there's a good chance that what happened to the kid might happen to you someday as well. Because, as he was tranced out watching the photocopiers, wearing his stupid Kinko's apron and his stupid "I'm here to help" button, his mind flashed back to his little revolution. And something in his mind snapped. He had THE BIG IDEA. "If only I could make Americans feel like that," he said to himself, "I could make a difference." Time has passed. The kid is pretty much a man now, even though he often refuses to admit it. He's done his best to make that difference, and his efforts are starting to pay off - albeit in such strange and unmeasurable ways that no sensible person would call him a success by any means. And the core question is still gnawing at him - is he making a difference? When he was younger, he listened to the rhetoric of the times, passed along to him in song by bands with names like the Dead Kennedys, Filth and the Bad Brains. These voices still echo in his head from time to time, but he's found little solace in these voices from revolutions past. The world is still suffering, he thinks. Hell, I'm still suffering, all the great choruses and singalong slogans in the world haven't made him feel any more relevant, he's got a solid career and a relationship and a microbusiness that commodifies radicalism in a new way now but everything's still emptiness. Time has passed, that's all, and fuck if he doesn't crave inspiration. Addicted to moments and undergoing withdrawal, that's where he's at. And that core question still makes him shiver. Do I matter? Do I fucking MATTER? Any artist processes experience and expresses it in a way that's communicable beyond his immediate sphere of contact. A good artist can leave the consumer of her art with a sense of having MET her, of having somehow KNOWN an intimate part of her. And a great artist can leave that consumer CHANGED, in some way - as if a set of glasses has been handed to the consumer, and upon wearing the glasses, shit just gets more CLEAR, you know? He wants to be a great artist. He wants it so desperately. He wants to be memorable - indeed, he wants to be immortal. He scans the pages of history books, and realizes that he is reading The Book of Life Itself. Those who contribute to history are forever immortal, in a very, very tangible way, and HE WILL NOT MISS THE BOAT. He knows his very soul depends on it. Other people will live and die and fuck and love and be content. Occasionally he envies these people - more often, he tries to emulate these people, desperate for an identity that society understands. It's no fun being the reject, the square peg, the one who can't keep a job to save his life because his ideas torment him away from everything secure. Something in him is bitchslapping him to the ground. For his own good. He's thinking about his daily walk to the BART station, and imagining a mean motherfucker blocking his way, making his every step towards work resonate with DOOM DOOM DOOM. Mean motherfucker is going to make every... step... a... new... nightmare. Because that mean motherfucker is his own bloody potential, it's the path he's forsaking every second he sits inside those cubicle walls, it's every dream he's ever had, and it's mean because it is fighting for its very life and WILL NOT DIE. One of these days, the way to work will be blocked. He will break down. The doom will take him, envelop him, force him back home, sit him in front of a computer, and get him to call in sick. The mean motherfucker of DESTINY is undeniable, and it will own your ass regardless of your desires. Someday, this will happen to you. When you opened this book, you fucked up. I'm dead serious. You will never be free from the curse that plagues me. I have passed this curse onto you. You WILL drop out of square society. Squares are going to affect you like the very sight of the whip affects the slave. Anything can happen. From the statement "Anything can happen", man began its pursuit of spirituality. In a way, understanding that anything can happen is a precondition to desiring some way of, you know, PREDICTING, or feeling out, that which might happen next. When you take a situation and analyze it to see if you can determine what will come next, that's VISION you're using there. Vision is a combination of logic and instinct, a complex interaction between determinism and free will. This book is about inspiring you to respect and develop your capacity for VISION, in all its forms. If I get you thinking about your own capacity to visualize the future and your own instinct to PLACE YOURSELF within that picture of the future, well, my karmic debt will be satisfied. I propose that Vision is good in and of itself. This is due to the fact that whenever I speak with a sense of Vision, I'm on top of mount fucking Everest. I walk on water, I forget my limitations, I embody "God" for a bit. It feels good, I get attractive, and the luck just seems to flow forth from my fingers. It's ironic, because Vision makes me forget about my need to plan for the Future at all. In fact, I simply have Faith that my future will turn out okay, simply by token of the fact that the Vision is flowing through me. Divinity is a drug. Being intoxicated by "God" is the purest, cleanest high. It makes conventional drugs superfluous, irrelevant - it is you in tune with Your True Secret Self, and it FUCKING ROCKS. This book is meant to exhaust you, because, if you ever meet me, I'm a pretty damn exhausting person. If we meet and we click, man, I am so full of action I ought to be a verb, and I encourage this kind of behavior in the people I'm with. I am creating this book in my own image, and, perhaps, just like in real life, you might only be able to take a limited amount of me at any one time. I'm also creating this book as more of a FORMAT than a BOOK because I love the idea of a book that ISN'T OVER once you close the covers on its last page. Also, I love the idea of a book that gets YOU to write the sequel. Just because this book is printed on paper and bound at the spine, doesn't mean it's just a book. I had my LIFE changed by my favorite books, most notably the Book of the SubGenius and RE-Search Publications' Pranks!. The Book of the SubGenius was visionary enough to write that as much as you "read" their book, THEIR BOOK IS READING YOU. Both of these books defined a WAY OF LIFE that inspired me to aspire to live a life worthy of being documented as well. If you don't like this book, or any of the proverbs in it, WRITE YOUR OWN DAMN BOOK. That's what punk rock is all about. I'm not going to be able to edit this book myself. I can't even visualize editing this, because I want to present myself as I am - as a spontaneous explosion of ideas, as a gateway to the Truth itself. Double-click on ME, baby, and let your mind link through to the Truth. Some people have PORTALS behind their eyes. Imagine being able to move a spiritual mouse around the world, and double click on people who interest you, and find out what their take on the truth really is... imagine that.... well, it's REAL, you CAN make this happen.

I'm writing a book because I like the way it feels to write a book. I look back on the day with a sense of accomplishment. I have a great opening line to use with girls, and it's an opening line that lets me cut through the bullshit and get to the ultimate goal of my conversations with other creative people - not just what their OPINIONS are, but what their IDEAS are. I am overhearing this conversation at the table next to me at this café in Budapest, and I am SO TEMPTED to participate. Unlike almost any conversation you'll overhear, these two women are talking about IDEAS - what they have LEARNED in life, how their happiness can be configured and reconfigured. Listen, I could do worse in writing this book than to simply transcribe their words. They are driving me crazy, because they are SO COOL and they're very intense about things and THEY ARE MY PEOPLE. Wow. It is really when conversation turns past the mundane - past "facts" and "opinions" and into the realm of IDEAS and SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION - that a conversation takes on that feeling of HISTORY. I believe in the potential to CHANGE THE WORLD through my TRUE FRIENDSHIPS. It's too bad I'm such a freak of nature, though. Maybe that's why I'm so obsessed with ideas - because really, that's all I've got to give. I mean, it's lucky that that's what's IMPORTANT in life, but the life I've led so far has been one heartbreaking failure after another to matter in other fields. It is only when we're talking about real ideas, or EMBODYING them, that we are truly attractive. When we pull that off, we are The Darlings Of God, and we fucking ROCK. I fucking ROCK right now. I believe in the potential for these ideas to MOVE you, to make you aware of the potential you have for TRUE EXPERIENCE in this world. I urge you to give up all that which may be an obstacle to your potential. Potential is the very nature of life, for upon death, we lose it all. I have given up believing in ALL people. I have NO DESIRE to interact further with people who aren't turned on by ideas - I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to give them. Instead, I have decided to FOCUS my idealism. I don't believe in ALL people, but the people I believe in, I believe in INFINITELY, without limits. I am not sure if this faith in you (yep, you who actually is parsing what I have to say) will help you along in your quest to make your dreams real. But, once again, it's all I have to give you. I'm not your entertainment, and I'm after nothing less than RECRUITING YOU for an international conspiracy of world-movers and great kissers. JOIN US. It isn't always important to hook up with everyone you meet, and frankly, sometimes people (or you) aren't in the mood, or the time isn't right or whatever. But the sooner you can scope out the target's affinity for ideas, the sooner you know whether it's truly worth continuing. That's right, this is a philosophy that is about NOT WASTING YOUR TIME. If it isn't USEFUL, it isn't TRUTH - that's the way *I* am reinterpreting Occam's Razor for my own nefarious purposes. (Occam's Razor is a theory that the simples explanation for a phenomenon is likely the correct one.) I am presenting this to you as this gigantic sprawl, o which YOU are the editor. Seriously, YOU have a GOD-GIVEN DUTY to determine what is RELEVANT and IRRELEVANT to you, similarly to the way you determine that which INTERESTS you and that which BORES you. God Is That Which Is Interesting And/Or Relevant. Whether or not it's "good" or "evil", or even "true" or "false" - all of that's important, sure, but it depends on how you feel that day. If something REGISTERS in your mind, and I mean REALLY REGISTERS, it INFLUENCES you. I mean, that goes without saying, you know? And if you're INFLUENCED by something, it becomes part of your history, your PSYCHIC TOPOGRAPHY. And that Process is the Way to Truth. The Truth is a Process that is disguised as a series of Events. The individual Events seem infinitely important when they're happening - for instance, when you stumble on a new discovery, or a song riff hits you and you rock out to it disbelieving - but what is TRULY important is the FACT that EACH EVENT IS BUT THE LATEST IN A ***SERIES*** OF EVENTS. If your muse ever leaves you, if you lose the ability to become creative and to interact richly with others, you are DEVASTATED. For a period of a couple years, it seemed I could barely do ANYTHING right. I was just sitting there in my rut, working in my stupid wage-slave job, thinking, shit, HOW do I REIGNITE myself. And That Is Probably Why I'm In Budapest Right Now. You need Adversity in order to break out of the complacency that threatens to stymie your potential. A person is made richer through Adversity. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." "God" - that is to say, Ideas - sneak into this world like a thief in the night, and once you're hit with an Idea, you're no longer simply yourself as long as that Idea possesses you. Ideas make people quit their jobs, get divorced, and stake their life's savings on pursuits of high risk. Ideas can make you do the stupidest, craziest things on Faith Alone, and it is pretty fucking hard to control them when they take you over. Despite all of the mayhem an Idea can wreak in your settled life, it is impossible to want it any other way. We DEFINE ourselves by the ideas to which we contribute - without them, life becomes a dull screensaver instead of a Killer App. Our self-esteem is contingent on the Ideas that we promote, and at the end of our lives, that's how we are judged. Love, of course, is an idea as well. In fact, in some ways it is the Ultimate Idea. I want to fall in love. But it isn't real love unless ideas are flowing through the two (three? more? there are no rules) of you, and increasing and multiplying with every touch. Love can really charge you up, bring your esteem to peak levels, and be the Ultimate Drug as well. Like any drug, though, Love should be a Tool with which you whittle and shape your Life so as to ensure that you live forever. In other words, take the benefits of love and direct them toward some way of communicating that love outward, beyond your union and into a world that is full of loneliness and sorrow for the majority who do not have love in their world. If you are HAPPY, if you are EMPOWERED, you have a RESPONSIBILITY to your BROTHERS and SISTERS who are still lost! Your luck is not meant to be a solitary windfall, but rather to MAKE THINGS BETTER IN THE WORLD! DON'T BLOW YOUR CHANCE TO MAKE YOUR HAPPINESS A TOOL THAT OTHERS CAN USE TO HELP THEMSELVES OUT OF HELL!!! We are ALL lost in some way. The meaning of life is to KEEP SEARCHING. Sure, you can find, and you can be at peace, but you must continue the process of learning and doing until you are satisfied with yourself. Those who do not need to Search - who have it all handed to them on a silver platter - well, seriously, I fear for their souls. When you have it all, where is your motivation to make things better? Where is the PROCESS in such a static state? Devo: "I'll say it again - in the Land of the Free, USE YOUR FREEDOM OF CHOICE." That is to say, if you let the decisions be made for you, you lose your Free Will. You become a passive member of the Devouring Marshmallow that is America, rather than an active part of the Resistance. "Idle Hands Do The Devil's Work." Meaning, of course, that Idle Hands do NOTHING AT ALL, and the Devil is Oblivion Itself. If "God" is Ideas, the Devil is the Lack of Ideas. If "God" is contained within Tools that help you make your Dreams real, the Devil is contained in every OBSTACLE to those dreams. If "God" is Relevance, the Devil is that which is Irrelevant. The difference between "God" and the Devil is not the difference between "Good" and "Evil", but between "Interesting" and "Boring". If you are leading a Boring Life, and there is no Potential for you to ever transcend that Boredom, well, YOU MAY AS WELL BE DEAD. The only sin that matters is the sin of NEGLECTING YOUR OWN INFINITE POTENTIAL. All other so-called sins are mere Fuel For Gossip. I'm not going to fuck around with you any more. I have seen "God" inside myself and it has changed the way I perceive things. It's basically changed everything about me, made me much more deep, much more aware of the beauty that's available for the taking in this world I do NOT expect you to see "God" inside yourself in order to appreciate this book. But the point is that this book seriously is meant to induce a state of mind that's similar to the effects of the drug. I need to elaborate on these effects: "God" makes you see things around you as a child would see them. You know how I always talk about the dichotomy, the unbridgeable chasm between the forces of "interesting" and "boring"? Well, in "God", EVERYTHING IS INTERESTING. A child feels textures, smells smells, and hears sounds as if they are all BRAND NEW in this world, and all amazingly worthwhile. "God" strips away the spiritual glaucoma that occludes our vision to the beauty of the patterns that surround us. "God" is all about POTENTIAL. Simple tasks become immense epics, characters become symbolic figures suffused with joy and tragedy, and suddenly your life becomes a MOVIE, something worth replaying over and over again in the months - or years - that may pass until your next hit. People who have done "God" share this secret between us, and it's instantly communicable. It's like it augments our halo, and we are changed completely. I am no fucking hippie, but EVERYBODY has worthwhile tales to tell about what they've learned while tripping. I am very, very scared to include this chapter in my book. I don't want my parents or anyone even remotely connected to them to see it. "God" makes you a revolutionary, and as such, the people who have done it end up selecting themselves out of the mainstream. "God" does make you want to drop out, to experience the world we live in instead of just playing a role in someone else's movie. I'm thinking about my friend Eric right now, who has shown me so much even though I have never adequately thanked him or anything like that - it just wouldn't be appropriate to thank someone so "cool", yet so friendly at the same time. Eric Jenson, you'll go down in history. Eric taught me about how to recapture a sense of, well, JUVENILE DELINQUENCY really. To bust out with major mayhem, instead of just sitting still. The easiest way we can turn our lives into ideas is by having experiences that make GOOD STORIES. I love stories, I love collecting them and trading them and passing hem on. Lungfish: "Let me tell you about the time when something occurred." The fact that things are occurring all the time, that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, is still a secret set of knowledge. We don't' experience things "occurring" every day - I mean, we know that things are happening everywhere, but it's really hard to have faith that history is AFOOT AT THIS VERY INSTANT . I love history. I love the idea of playing a part in it myself. I always tell Christians "You know the Bible? The truth it holds, and the liberation you feel when reading it? Well, THERE'S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM." Jesus didn't want FOLLOWERS. He wanted people to turn themselves into his COMRADES, his partners in a grand scheme to overthrow the Empire by tapping the untold spiritual potentials within the hearts of Man. Jesus idiots (as opposed, I suppose, to "jesus good guys") rarely talk about anything that doesn't revolve around their little flawed masterpiece. As such, they come across as ridiculous. We've allowed small minds to take over the domain of religion because we are too fucking busy to take part in the revolution within our hearts. What will become of us? This is going to sound weird, but HAPPINESS and TRUTH are sort of, well, their sort of antagonistic urges, and sort of synergistic. I mean, I'm writing this right now in one of the most blissed-out states I've ever felt. I'm on a train to Prague, and I'm in a car all alone, and they never checked my Eurail pass so I'm basically a stowaway as of right now and I hope I don't get caught. Anyway, so I'm blissed out, because I got to buy a rose for someone really special (hi pixie) and I ran into my überfriend Helga completely at random there, and there was a lot of other stuff that I loved about Budapest, but I left when it was time to leave, just barely making the train and fucking, I've got my OWN COMPARTMENT right now so I'm set! I have no idea what I'm going to do if somehow I lose this eMate. Jesus and every other cool person that ever has or ever will exist - DUDE, PROTECT MY EMATE!!!! Anyway, everything is NOT interesting, but it is a great thing to experience every once in a while because, well, crap, if you don't See Everything at least Once, how do you Know it's There? What do I know about life and "God" and sex or anything else? Aaron Cometbus: "The best part of any party is on the porch." I know a lot of things that aren't "deep", and I'm going to write some of them down right now. Almost any type of music rocks as long as it's in a minor key. It's easy to degenerate into happy-face schlock in a major key. The female orgasm is basically one of the most important keys to truly healing the world. I'm jealous of girls for their orgasms. I mean, really, they seem to be pretty "God" damn intense. Sex has lessons to teach us that verge out into the astral plane. It's not easy to write about sex, but it sure is easy to SELL writing about it. American society is sex-obsessed, which is a pain in the ass because it makes ACTUAL sex that much more disappointing. I believe this sex-obsessiveness is a lot like cultural premature ejaculation. Seriously, it's about getting aroused SO FAR ahead of the actual act that you're already way to jaded to it by the time the actual stuff comes around. I have become the person I am because I am who I am. Unfortunately, that is also to say that I'm going to sell my ideas and my truths to all these cute, slim people, who are then going to be the ones who get laid off my ideas, cyrano-de-bergerac style. I like buying roses for girls. I think it's cute, it gets remembered, and the also give the giver of the flowers a temporary feeling of confidence that I think is super, super important. If I don't go to sleep now, I'll be so dog tired in the morning that I'll be going crazy. These slovakian border guards are looking at my eMate like I'm some kind of wealthy freak. This tool is ideal for this book, because all it does is word processing. As a designer, I know that I would have had a tendency to make it pretty and complete its pages and stare at those pages in wide wonder, like "oh i just created something and it rules o yes!!!" instead of drawing. Some people live their lives as if they're in cold storage. They are full of potential but they're waiting for some kind of external stimuli to tap their lives, to give them meaning. NOBODY goes out with you because they feel sorry for you. Pity is not a good opener with a girl. Guys, DROP this bullshit about meeting girls by accommodating their "motherhood instinct". They don't want a BABY, they want a MAN and it annoys me to see people with an overzealous sense of needing security. I'm out of here, I've got to sleep. Get to know me, and you've gotten to know at least a thousand people who have nodded to me, telling me that they're really excited about me. I'm sure it is the same case for you. If you are an interesting person, I trust you to the end of the earth. There are many traits that can be attractive in a woman, but her availability is probably the most practical of 'em all. I am not sure, but I don't think I have any friends good enough to advise me against embarrassing myself. Well, oh, yeah! there's anna. I love you anna! How funny to write a book that you hope someone doesn't read! I worry about my parents reading this raw manuscript so much that I'm going to edit a lot of the juicy parts out, dam. SO now you know. What you hold in your hands is an emasculated, depersonalized version of a very saucy and DANGEROUS book. Maybe someday, the truth will be out about me and what it is I'm so scared of sharing, but, lawd, i STILL hope mom and dad stay far away from this.... You can turn a mistake into something TOTALLY COOL if you make it look like you DID IT ON PURPOSE and IT WAS FUN!!!! It makes you feel stupid if you do something boring with an interesting tool. I have removed a lot of the more "personal" points form this book. The reason that is, is because people aren't going to buy this book to find out about my WEAKNESSES. I mean, shit, it's just like the fact that women don't go out with you just because they feel SORRY for you. What I believe is NOT hedonism, because there is a SHARP difference between "happiness" and JOY. Happiness is something you do on a pleasant Saturday and you're just lying around on the beach or whatnot, ust soaking things in. It's important to have happiness in life, but a life that is happy is still a SHALLOW life without JOY. Joy is more akin to RAPTURE. I mean, it's that MOMENTARY RUSH of holy CRRRRAP!!!! that was AWESOME! Joy is a bit of a roller-coaster ride, but it is this TRANSIENCE that reflects the true nature of God. "God" will pulse in and out of your life like a scent. (The Fixx used that simile before.) You can be happy for years on end, but joy you can only have in moments. Happiness is not readily available to those of us who are down-and-out, but JOY belongs to EVERYONE. Joy is DEMOCRATIC in this way. You can get the authorities to come down on your ass merely by fucking LOOKING like you're up to mayhem. I mean, that's their job, of course - to enforce that society looks and feels in order. I don't like this place. I don't like this TOWN, I mean. Even though I am hopefully going to do a lot of business, I don't like places where I can't feel like I'm one of the tastemakers, and for some reason I can see rocking out in Budapest in a way I couldn't here in Amsterdam. I am here to look for a sign. I *knew* this city was on my agenda, just as I did Budapest was on my agenda. I wonder if I've lost the path right now, because I'm completely directionless. Something is going to occur here that is going to be important for the writing of this book, and I'm either interested or afraid. I wonder what is more important - the changes I am documenting in myself as I write this book, or the changes that this book will wreak after it's published. In other words, at this point, is it more important for ME or the BOOK to live? Is this the last gasp of my potential? Somehow, I don't think so, but when I put this book out and it gets absolutely nowhere , do I stand or do I fall? "Never tell me the odds." - Han Solo. The second I start THINKING about the odds that this book will disappear off the planet, the more likely it seems. I mean, look at the probable future here - I go back to the USA, I fail at burning man, this book is hard to transfer onto the macintosh back at home, i have to get a job like IMMEDIATELY, this book sits in my computer for ages. Maybe I put it on the web, without embellishments, just for kicks, but it gets like one visitor a year (after my personal insistence.) Oh well. So I've visualized the worst-case scenario for this book. Okay, well, the WORST case scenario is that this computer gets stolen. In which case, aigh, i don't know what the fuck i'll do. I will start the book over in that case. I understand this risk, and I bless it as something I accept. There is a REASON i am in Europe, and that is to FINISH THIS "God" DAMNED BOOK. I cannot WAIT to be misunderstood by all the "official" arbiters of that which is valid and good. From Maximum Rocknroll to Wired, the christians and the satanists, i can't think of a single party I've PLEASED with this book. (Well, maybe the two magazines WILL get it. I'm hoping...) It is indicative of the advancement of our age that we understand enough about ideas to know that the people who are in charge of PROMOTING them should be well-paid and appreciated. If you ever want to see how LUDICROUS marketing can get, you should see how public relations companies woo the press. It's hysterical. Corporate America is a world that you probably do not understand. Even if you work there.

"The very rich are not like you and me." - F. Scott Fitzgerald Wealth doesn't PRECLUDE someone from being interesting, especially if the money was earned by oneself and not inherited. But too often people LEAD with their wealth. "Rich" is one of the most coveted adjectives in the world, and people will do a lot to create the impression that they are rich. I couldn't give a FUCK about someone being rich. If they're BORING, they're BORING. Although, if there are any rich dumbshits out there, HEY! send me $100! I am publishing this book because I am out and out SEEKING people who DISAGREE with anything I've got here. Seriously. Never trust a preacher who avoids questions. If one is a great teacher, one must ALSO be a great LEARNER. "It's always darkest before the dawn." - Gerd Zeigler, Tarot - Mirror Of The Soul. When America lost its frontier, it lost a major part of its character. If the people who live for ideas are given a chance to separate themselves voluntarily, they will. The secret of this book is that EVERYBODY likes to think that THEY are interesting, and that EVERYONE likes to feel SPECIAL. I would rather be called STUPID or be HATED than be called BORING. With the way television has destroyed our sense of community in the united states, it's amazing we don't collapse because of our own irrelevance. We have taught our people to be SATISFIED with being IRRELEVANT. "The thing most feared in secret always comes to pass." - from the movie Slacker. The thing I most fear is that my ideas don't get me laid. I've seriously got ALL i mean **ALL** of my eggs in one basket. They can say "motherfucker" on dutch MTV. The idea of sampling is a crucial innovation and a major pointer to the way things will be in the future. We are in a world that values both the CREATION of bits **AND** the manipulation and REmanipulation of these bits. In other words, putting together a PHAT beat with perhaps a doobie brothers sample is probably far more valuable than the doobie brothers themselves; in a way, you're sort of SALVAGING fucking the doobie brothers. HOW HIGH IS HELL? I love mishearing things like lyrics! You always come up with amazing fucking things that are actually YOUR PROPERTY because that wasn't ACTUALLY what was said! I need a beverage and then maybe some sleep. This is a dull hostel for me. Or maybe a HOSTILE HOSTEL. Ha ha. I'm sorry for whoever has to edit this badass. Probably it'll be me. I feel sorry for my future me for having to deal with this ridiculous mess. If you feel NO CONNECTION with human beings that surround you, the effect is FAR more devastating than being alone. It used to be that you could count on a punk-rock looking person to be someone worth talking to, but nowadays it means nothing to have colored hair or a NOFX t-shirt. Or maybe I'm just getting old. I was CONSTANTLY getting into cool conversations about this and that in Budapest. What is the PROBLEM with these people here? Maybe I'm just in a diferent space than I was when I was in Budapest. I also recall going OTHER PLACES to type back then. Hmmm. Also, I was riding high off of Jenny back then. You're only as cool as who you reject. Too thirsty to continue. I have begun to realize that even THIS, my friends, even this writing about what I believe is a form of denial. My life is fucked up, so instead of beginning the difficult process of change, I launch myself into yet another doomed creative enterprise. This is my version of an easy answer. Today is August 13, 1997. My name is Srini Kumar, and I am going to reinvent myself. I am not sure how long it will last, but I know how long it takes to accomplish this reinvention - . There, it's done. Tom Peters writes that "Change itself is simple. It is MAINTAINING that change that is difficult, that takes a lifetime." I forgive myself for being dirty, irresponsible, and self-abusive until now. I don't bear any grudges toward my former self, toward society, towards anyone. It is as if I have just been born again, however, and I am really starting from zero. It is as if I have just !!!KERPOW!!! landed into my body, into my situation. I am feeling my body, and it is unclean, and it has to get a haircut. I am sensing my problems at home, and they need to be dealt with. I am thinking further about my body, and it needs healthy food, exercise, and perhaps some medical attention. I am thinking about my career, and perhaps it needs major surgery, but I am interested in GETTING that surgery instead of limping along without it anymore. I guess I've let myself degenrate into a bit of a hippie. Directionless and proud of it, dirty (listen, I just got off a night train from Gdansk and boarded this one to Hamburg for no real reason, cut me some slack), and vaguely "artistic". Yuk. It's great that I'm going to Hamburg, because it is a modern Western city and I am going to become a modern Western kinda guy. New clothes, new hair, a new watch, whatever it takes - I am going to leave all that punk bullshit behind and fix myself up but good. I need to do whatever it is that keeps me motivated. If that means surrounding myself with people who will bring me up, so be it. I know such people in San Francisco, and I should be burning down any obstacles it takes to live with such people. I am not going to Budapest with my life, or anywhere else - I am going HOME, and I am determined to MAKE it my home come hell or high water. This all leaves the question of what I'm going to do with my book and my business. Well, my business is still going to be a source of income for me but I can see that it's going to take some time to get really rolling. I need to figure out a way to gain experience (or at LEAST some education) while I wait. I need to close my eyes and visualize what topics are out there to master, choose one, and master it. Perhaps it isn't my dream job or anything, but if I need to learn how to do something very quickly, a job is the way to go.

Jobs ARE good for learning skills that you'd like to reapply in your own interest eventually. For Unamerican, I need to learn how to run a clothing company. Therefore I should work at a clothing company. For Unamerican, I need to learn how to court the press as an internet project. Therefore, I should work with an internet company in their press department. Kids, NEVER take a job you're going to hate, unless you're desperate. I have been desperate in the past, but I am totally regretting wasting my time at such boring, corporate jobs. If my talent, my REAL talent, is turning conversations into magic moments, well, where can I apply that? Anywhere from a trade show to public relations. Public relations, public relations. I have to say that I am fully intrigued by the field of public relations. I could have been recharging my batteries on the train here, dammit. But you know, I have a more important task at hand. I have to recharge my LIFE. Typing about it and DOING IT are two different things. The thing about processes is that we sometimes don't notice them. It is difficult to grasp the ramifications and the endpoints of something that is going to take years to complete. How many times have you taken a job and gotten the runthrough about the 401K plan and how you're eligible after a year, and thought "as if I'm even going to BE HERE for a year!" It is impossible to squelch this thought, because learning how to visualize a year in the future is pretty damn tough, unless of course you've never had any potential for change at all. Today is going to be the best change day I've had in years. I am going to write down several resolutions and keep them with me everywhere I go. I promise that I will remember what it is I need at all times. Money doesn't matter. Ideas do. I am visualizing my return to America, wearing some pretty dashing fashions, bearing presents for mom and dad and sister. And I will walk down the terminal aisle with my head heald high. I am going to get in touch with those people whose help I will need to build my business IMMEDIATELY. I am EXCITED, for instance, to get my shirt designs to Rob Cosmic, as well as to show him what kinds of ideas I am interested in promoting with him. I would like to work at Cosmic, I sure would, even if it was just for peanuts, because of the fact that I need experience with such a firm in order to build my own. This means that when I get off that plane, I must be the kind of person Rob Cosmic would hire. I bet it'd be difficult to reach bob mould right now, but he's a gemini, and he's reached me. The message is that "God" has created us all for a reason, that we can see thorough the minds of thers, and that even the animals exist for a reason, that even the aminas l should be allowed to enjoy themselves, and that you and I are animls as well. WE are animals, but you seee, we have begun to finally realize that we can see God. Like, that we can BECOME ONE WITH GOD, that we can make history if that's what we want, that we can do whatever it is we want to do withourlives. i think i've found what i came to find. the real message, the real bible is the one you live every day. To ME this will remain art, this will remain a wonderful testament 'til I die of a time I had when I actually had FUN. And while I wouldn've liked this fun to be less Alone, i mean, well, we're ALL alone in a way. I mean, my story might be okay for you to pull off a shelf and buy, but it sin't necessirly going to get me laid. Ghe truth wants you to get laid, but the truth doesn't know how to make this happen TONIGHT. My mom, I love her, but my mom isn't like me and dad and sis. I certainly hope my sister is going to be who I should've been. I hope that my story hasn't damaged her, and I am glad gald glad that she is happy. "God" has done some sad things to me, but I forgive him because I am him. I am in the power of a mind that I will never quite understand. As long as there's a story involved, as long as it's worth inspiring, as long as I live, please remember that I am named srini, and srini is a silly name, and that's one silly body i've got, but it's all i have to offer. And the truth is, wow, the truth is i like to watch. "Jesus likes to watch". "God" is a DIRECTION, not an entity. Discontent is TAUGHT to a mass. The Beatles were probably more crucial revolutionaries than many of the student groups in the late '60's. Without pain, there could be no RELIEF. Without discomfort, the people continue on an inertial course. Revolution must be better marketed than the alternative. Anarchism remains vital only as long as it appeals to youth. WEED IS HIP PROZAC. Isn't there something that smells sort of funny about the marketing of marijuana in todays hipster culture? Companies are founded based on the coolness of this drug, this drug which really doesn't TEACH anything to you. I'm not into it. If you don't like your situation, you need to achieve a sufficient amount of discomfort to start really looking for change. Without this discomfort, inertia is inevitable, you know? The solution to hating your shitty job and your crappy love life isn't taking more weed. It's QUITTING YOUR FUCKING JOB and LEADING A COOL, ATTRACTIVE LIFE. People are attractive only insofar as their LIVES are attractive. All the things that you really WANT in life are actually SYMPTOMS, not GOALS. Money, sex, leisure, happiness, whatever it is, it's all unable to really be forced. Thinking too much about money, for instance, is the same as rubbing directly on a clitoris. You think it'll help, but it actually hurts. I want my foreskin back. I was talking with this guy from Norway, and he still has his, and he's like talking about sex like it's another dimension. America's obsession with the politics of male frustration might be traced to this circumcision thing. If guys don't come well enough or often enough, they could very well be fucking aggro. It is the CONSPIRACY, the fucking BAD GUYS, who keep trying to substitute violence for sex, and sex for love. Are you LOVED in your life? I mean, the truth is that you probably ARE loved, but if you don't FEEL loved it's easy to go all hate-stylee. This is good. You've got to hate, because this is a shitty world full of dumb people who are doing a lot better than you and me. But the fact that you're negative does indicate that you have a fucking BRAIN, a mind. And you're probably going to spend a bunch more time being negative and anti. But the thing is it is the depth of your darkness that is the true measure of your potential. Jesus is YOUR son, folks. I am not a Christian, more like a Srinian, but I acknowledge the power of the ideas that this dude hatched in the face of what apparently was one of the most vicious empires that ever plagued the earth. Better the barbarism of rule by Huns than the apparently rational fist of bureaucracy. Even going for a glass of water can be an EXPEDITION, if you turn it into one. There are so many worlds and possibilities that can be envisioned that don't EXIST at the time being. cf. Calvin and Hobbes, yes?

Who told you that you aren't a poet? Who told you that you AREN'T a doctor, a lawyer, a tour guide and an engineer all at once? I mean, you wear SO MANY HATS within your peeer group, and none of these hats may have societal sanction, but you have knowledge that is sort of unincorporated. All truth is unincorporated. The same right that gives ME the permission to write this boook, gives YOU the permission to dis it or love it as you see fit. I'm not making this book to be JUDGED. I frankly have judged MYSELF far harsher than I ever could be judged by YOU. Your criticism bounces off of me like rain off a turtle. I have failed as wee, as beautifully as I can. My failures make for fantastic stories, as do my successes. I don't choose to overdo my personal-life stuff because what the fuck, that's not the purpose of this book. This book is teaching you about who I am in a new way. All art is the science of saying, "Hi, this is me." I don't intend this to be an autobiography, but in reading this you now know me better than most of my friends do. It's sort of like I show through like lava peeking through from between the plates, and once in a while I erupt in a burst of personal revelation. But I am creating the earth itself, and my signature lies on every piece of its creation, and IT IS GOOD. This, to me, is a fantastic combination of leisure and work. I mean, I'm working CONSTANTLY, as if I've got this obsession to work out, and I do. If there is a career available in speaking the truth, I am interested in applying. I mean, that's what I DO for a living, if this book works out. Wow, what a great job - and it's a job no "placement center" could've ever found for me. I am at peace whenever I am carrrying out my purpose. I certainly hope there's a girl out there who could complement this purpose, because this goal of spreading truth is something I really will never be able to function without any longer. It's pretty cool being an incarnation of Vishnu. You know, feats such as those described in ancient myths wouldn't be more than news in brief on the front of the wall street journal these days. We have a world of bullet points in the form of memoranda that are flying all over the corporate world. It is the bullet point part of any memo that gets read first. THIS BOOK IS JUST A SUMMARY. i like this "code" idea. i don't know why, it adds to the mystique. now, what the fuck? how am I going to make this code happen? what's the story and why am I doing this? I envision this - this is the spec. you've got this document - the "truth" as it were - and you invite commentary on each and every single point in it. every bullet point has "add comment" and "read comments" hyperlinks. Ideally, the "read comments" hyperlinks also indicate how many comments have been added to that particular truth. For all this machine is magic, maybe the coolness would be to handwrite the damn thing. but my handwriting does suck, it must be admitted. We only want people who can be trusted to not fuck around to get access to the "write" portion. Not to mention that we also only want people who have read the damn book. Therefore, we need to have people register a la hotwired, but with a password that's printed within the book in some way. Maybe the goal is to have a secret URL hidden in the text somewhere, at which point a serial number inside the front cover is entered. The point is that individual emails are deep sometimes but are not lasting - witness the fact that I did some fucking amazing writing for the anarchy-list in the last year but none of it got remembered. The understanding is that we don't have any memory, anything beyond transcience on the internet yet. The goal of the truth is to somehow make a more permanent cyberplace for real honest-to-goodness deep thought. the online component does excite me. Jenny Holzer is damn close, but what she doesn't have is a branding strategy like mine ey? now is the time when we draw. The goal is to create an interactive document that you can actually get LOST in. Not unlike the web itself, but to truly document the lives of those of us within it. To try and get at the kernel of what makes life so sad, and so potentially interesting. We therefore need to keep the entries non-topical, entirely lacking in real-world context - because here is humanity's chance to create a document for the ages. I'm not sure, i'm not sure, i'm not sure. I'm not sure what I want to say, i'm afraid, i'm several things at once. OOOOOOF. as I get hornier, i think i'll write better. Ain't THAT the truth ey? :) Names are really important. I have this feeling you can really tell a whole fucking lot about a person, or a project, by looking at their name. I just met this girl named Jyoti, and she's really small and harmless and nice, but she's super super quiet and as such I'm not really her type. However, it's sort of like I can't quite let it go because it's like HER NAME is SO RAD!!! One of the RADDEST names I've ever heard is Jyoti, which means "Spiritual Light". I can't really help but be interested in such a girl, can I? Anyway, where am I, where am I in this book, where am I in life? I'm wondering pretty har these days, it's a tough row to hoe this bookwriting thing. Uhhhhh. How do you impress the girl that needs to be impressed? I think really the only valid answer is to not really give a fuck. The process of hooking up isn't about IMPRESSING people, not really. I mean, unfortunately, all the impressing that needs to get done gets done automatically. The thing about the whole romance process is that it is an ANIMAL process. So thinking about it is really using the brain to do something it really wasn't meant to do. It sometimes sucks that we have a brain. It gets in the way. We get so impressed that we are in possession of a brain that we let it make our decisions for us. We have a brain for specific reasons, including as a sexual organ. But the problem comes around when we grow DEPENDENT on the brain in order to interact with others - ESPECIALLY in matters where, let's face it, it's vital to think with your DICK. I wonder how it is possible to smoke pot in a way that is really cool and interesting. Yeah, I guess it's all been done before. Dopers have this term for a marijuana hit that has been milked completely dry - "cashed". Some media is impossible to work with, because it has been "cashed". It is very, very difficult, for instance, to really come up with anything totally "new" in museum art. Or "sport prints" or whatever. I mean, it's such a dull genre that it's really hard to come up with something new in it. No media is TRULY cashed - there is the possibility for an artist to truly break out of molds that have been created by too many failed attempts and too little initial potential.

Most media simply cannot attract the interest of everyone interesting, but a TRUE use of ANY media - from kitsch sculpture to "new country" to things that you'd usually associate with "really sucking badly" - well, a TRUE use of a medium CUTS ACROSS all of these separations between us. True art appeals to the fucking SOUL, and as long as you HAVE asoul, you'll be affected by it. What can make someone like U2, who SURELY know better, make such crappy, pretentious music? Once you have soul, you ALWAYS have soul. Once you have soul and you've PROVEN that you have soul, it is quite possible to get lazy. Also, it is natural forr people to want to contact those who they perceive as having soul, and therefore I'm sure answering all sorts of fan mail gets old, and seriously, though i'm interested, i'm not able to listen to every fucking demo tape that comes my way. I like the feeling of a book that writes itself. Not a book that's like It's amazing that no matter HOW BIG your CD collection is, or how much music you've got in your world, there's ALWAYS room for one more great fucking band to knock your socks off. Lungfish, oh my gawd, has done just that before I came out here. On the other hand, it's sort of like every band you used to like is STILL cool, despite all that has passed, despite all of the shame you sort of feel for having EVER liked such cheese. If a band comes in while you're still learning about music, you might end up regretting loving them the way you want to. But you really aren't able to help it. "God" save me, I'm getting into Rush again. Man once a thief always a thief. I suck, I just stole a rush videocassette. Yikes, I don't even WANT this shit. I'm nervous because I've got a stolen videocassette in my bag right now. Did that guy see us or not? One of the things that interests me most is the METAMEANING of a use of a medium. It's like, I'm watching this video right now about these three black women and the money they're golddigging off their rich, beautiful boyfriends. Well, without the actual music to this video, and with this deep techno stuff being played, well, it's almost like a METACOMMENT is being made upon the consumption practices of these women. It is the hallmark of a true artist to DISGUISE the TRUE art in a use of the medium to keep it a SECRET that is REVEALED. It is the very nature of truth itself that it is not immediately known, but REVEALED. You don't KNOW the truth, but from time to time you can BECOME the truth. It is the highest honor to be able to REPRESENT the truth, and it also fills you with such pointless, mindless joy that you can't help but live for it. All human activities can be done either consciously or unconsciously. Art is anything, ANYTHING, that is done "consciously". But unconsciously, we can often be MUCh more creative and expressive of the truth itself. This is a world of symbos, signs, maps, and legends. If you are living in an empty world, you might want to try doing LSD sometime. For some people, this isn't important and you can do without. I would switch this video off in a SECOND if I were really watching MTV, but with this amazing house music in the background providing the soundtrack, it's WAY PAST entertaining. There is a difference between being interesting in a "sociological" way and being interesting in a depth/soul kind of way. In other words, someone might be a fabulously wealthy transvestite, and be completely boring even though worthy of a case study of some sort. One can be the most vanilla-looking fucken DATABASE PROGRAMMER who dabbles in Magic Cards or some shit, and be brilliantly fascinating. Soul has no prediction, other than the fact that it shall remain. Believing in soul is super simple. All you have to believe is that possibility exists. Life itself teaches us that the future is unpredictable. Therefore, different POSSIBILITIES for that future exist, yes? Being a soulful person simply means acting out your own prediction of the future. In a way, being a soulful person actually means BEING FROM THE FUTURE. All invention is generated by the fact soul exists. Don't aim for the target - aim for where the target WILL BE. I can't believe how cookie-cutter people can be. What is cookie-cutter to me living by myself in San Francisco might be COMPLETELY ORIGINAL in Fort Wayne, IN. Soul is the only solution to the issue of how to walk the tightrope without a net. Soul is a CLEAR, COMPELLING VISION of what the future is going to be about. This vision is pure fantasy, but since it is so clear, it outlines actions that can potentially be taken by the soulful one, and because it is so compelling, the fact that the vision is still fantasy drives you INSANE until you DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT - that is to CREATE the FULFILLMENT of your OWN FANTASY. I thank "God" that I was given a good mind that I can now ruin at my leisure. I have a lot to be thankful for, and this is a beautiful world. But I'm also very mad, very very angry at the barriers that I have allowed to be built between myself and my heart's desire. It is one thing to fight, but it is another thing entirely to forgive. Maybe that's the ultimate message of this trip. I forgive you, mom. I will do my best not to mess up my kids. I am too cool right now, I don't think anyone in the netherlands has ever seen anyone like me. I wonder what it must have been like, to be a freak in an actual circus, to be laughed at and pointed at and stared at. Clutch your children close, friends, for the chosen one is here and he is ready to scare the shit out of you. He is ready to lead you on an adventure that you're not going to forget, which means that it'll be a pain in the ass. I can see the train. The concept behind unamerican activities is based on the theorem that in the '90's it isn't what you sell that makes your company popular, necessarily - it's more what you GIVE AWAY. So I've startede to give away some interesting things, and simply say, hey, if you wanna check out what it is that i have to sell, send in a buck. I am giving things away that make NO SENSE WHATSOEVER and maybe don't even have ANYTHING to do with the product I'm selling. I am just trying to get you interested in ME, okay? It's not an "ego" thing, and I certainly am not interested in trying to do any kind of cult or whatnot. But the truth is that an artist LIVES by his reputation, and I am hoping that if I can get a reputation for being "interesting" and doing "interesting stuff", ANYTHING I MAKE will be thought of as worth checking out by you hipsters.

' I am getting into this critical conversation with Heike about how much of my personal story to interlace into this truth telling. I personally think it's INTERESTING for you to sort of get to "know" me, iespecially since in a way NOBODY will know me better than the reader of this book - no friend, no parent, perhaps even no lover. I am interested in telling you my life story, but I also know that it isn't much a life story yet (although I dare say that I have had my share of experiences). I haven't related many of the STORIES of my life, only some of the situations I'm currently in. This is because I'm not here to tell stories. I have had it with plot, and I am living in a world of interesting characters that I can't really describe without sort of hurting their feelings. I would rather write about HOW STORIES ACT. Where do they come from, anyway? Some people leave you with more in twenty minutes than others do in five years. The problem is that some ideas are dangerous. They linger with you, they take up your room in your head and you don't allow better, healthier ideas to take their place. There is a fine line between an idea and a construct. I really really really really wish I could see Kai's sister, Celine, right now. I fell for her pretty hard on the night before, and I'm really sad about not having gotten anywhere with her. Sometimes you feel the seeds of a future encounter sown, but it is really hard to begin a process that you know might take years when you have to forestall (or be denied) pleasure while it develops. Processes are the only thing that really yield important events, but let's face it. In this go-go world, processes are a PAIN IN THE ASS. We like to think that we can bounce from situation to situation, getting everything right and feeling gratified immediately. But the thing about gratification is that it really does grow sweeter and more STORY-LIKE the more it IS forestalled. That is to say - sex is better than masturbation, even if you don't have it very often. Sometimes when I hear people talking to me about their love lives and their relationships, I detach myself from reality a little and imagine that I am their equal. I am not. I am pretty obviously undesirable, and I really ought to know my place. Oh god, save me. It's obvious that life goes in cycles. Some people have cycles that move slowly, perhaps even with the seasons; some people are like me, and are lucky if a stage of the cycle lasts for three days. I am assuming that you understand what I mean when I talk about having an "on day" or an "off day". If you only have on days, well, you probably don't need this book very much because you've obviously got a lot more control over your life than I could ever have. I'm just wasting your time. I apologize, but I ain't refunding nothing. For me, almost inevitably "on days" are CATALYZED by some event. You must look at your life and extrapolate it five years into the future. Do you like what you see? Can you see good AND bad scenarios? If you can't, you're either "taken care of" or are lying to yourself. It can be very helpful to lie to yourself. In fact, it can be ESSENTIAL to maintaining your balance. I live from day to day, and die from year to year. Your brain is both a help and a hindrance. It's as if there's a difference between your "mind" and your "brain", which is hard to explain in detail. I am easily distracted by things that are made by a mind that I respect. My friend Kai has a couple of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes books, and it's tough for me to concentrate knowing that I haven't finished them yet. It is easy to get led around in life, because that is the way our first several years are. "You've got to have a dream! If you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?" - from South Pacific Too many of my meetings with people are predictable. They wind up composed of small talk, some cliché pseudo-deep questions like "so what do you WANT to do", and maybe a shared joke or two. That's all right, but suffice it to say it isn't enough to keep me in Berlin. Sometimes I think men and women engage in a lot of the silly games they play just to have stories to tell each other. I think that's okay, and it certainly wakes you up when people are gossipping, but we have to think - is all that trouble worth it? I don't understand why I'm so freaking sleepy all the fucking time. I certainly hope it isn't because i'm not working or something, because I really would rather not find another shitty job. I will have to find another shitty job to tide me over until such time as my goals start seeing the finish line. Art is a symptom of life. It isn't something you do, it's something that NEEDS to get done in order to relieve the pressure of a full and chaotic and INTERESTING life. Never trust an artist with an expense account. This book is the inevitable result of something approximating genius filtered through deep despair and crippling low self-esteem. It is very easy to respond to the above by going "boo fucking hoo" or "look at Bangladesh, you call that suffering?" I'm not expecting pity or sympathy or whatever, and in fact neither of these things have really helped matters before anyway. But I'm clinging to the bottom of life because it's teaching me things that YOU will never know. If I had been a happier person, it's likely that my creative energy would have been expended in another format. That's not to say that it wouldn't have been GOOD, but that it might have been in a form that would be less worshpful to the "God" of Creation. If I had found success in music, I never would have written this book. If I had found success in the context of women, or corporate America, or in academics or whatever, there is a good chance that my life as an artist of words would never have happened. Success and happiness have this deleterous effect on the creativity of many people. That's not to say that you shouldn't ache for them with every bone in your body, but see, it's the ACHE that forces the art out of you, not the RELIEF. The goal of all creative people should be to DO WHAT OTHERS HAVEN'T. "I'm doing things that haven't got a name yet." - the Jefferson Airplane. If the goal in life is to reproduce, to achieve material success, to be a well-fed and well-oiled cog in the machine, then fine - I probably am pretty far behind the pack. But I have learned how to do and make things. I have conceptualized a plan to subvert a lot of minds and to make some money while I'm at it. I think that life is about what you CREATE, how effectively that creation is communicated, what that creation is trying to say, and how effectively it retains that message despite its spread. The more I consider the things that are wrong and the things that are right in my life, the more I feel like I'm an experiment. "God" has created this Petri dish called the world, and once in a while he shines a light on it that hits one person and transforms him. (Huh?) We are playing catch with God, and the ball is ideas. He throws ideas to us, we labor withour bodies to turn those ideas into reality, and for this work we get paid and get to enjoy life secure in the understanding that we've participated in something far greater than ourselves. I would be a very DANGEROUS perosn to stick in your marketing departent. :) It is as if we People of Ideas can hear frequencies higher than those without ideas. Well, let this book be a whistle with which to bother YOU that the sheep can't hear. You might think that all this talk about "sheep" and "people of ideas" is a bit élitist, and you'd be right. And frankly I don't give a fuck, because it's about TIME an élite existed that made some fucking SENSE. This society is BUILT for sheep. It is full of institutions and lifestyles that exist to limit our choices in life. It is full of culture that is meant to spread ideas through accepted and controlled channels to an unthinking public. It is averse to new ideas, and quick to co-opt them as soon as they reach a critical mass of popularity, and quicker to imitate previous successes.

If you wish to address sheep with your art, you need to come up with something super dumb and super obvious, and mostly you've got to spend a LOT of money. Sheep only accept that which they read about in Rolling Stone or MTV or whatever, and these media are NOT cheap. The problem with dollar democracy is that EVERYONE has a dollar and everyone has a vote. This leads to mass culture becoming lowest-common-denominator culture. If you have potential, it is impossible to avoid other people of potential. THere's some quality in us that is magnetic, and we almost magically attract the resources we'll need in order to exploit that potential. Potential that doesn't get actualized is like undigested food - it eventually makes you feel sick. I feel SO MUCH BETTER now that my batteries are charged and that I'm writing. It's as if my work with this book defines my mood, and that's good, because this book is an essential part of my personal history. At the end of this trip, as I say goodbye to this lovely continent, I will either have a book or I won't. If I don't, well, it doesn't matter what other good came of this trip, but I'll be crushed. If I somehow lose this machine, I don't know what the fuck I'll do. This outcome is possible, and I wish I had a way to print out what I've got so far, but I don't think I do. I can only pray to protect myself and to protect this computer. There will be a point at which I would rather die than lose the contents of this book. That is to say, there will be a point at which this project will come alive in a way that I never will be able to. My entire life has led up to this moment of communicating with you. I can't summarize the story of my life to you, but I can give you this sense that I HAVE LIVED. I can thereby communicate my soul to you, and this entire book in a way is a test to determine YOUR worthiness for this communication - not to mention a plea for your further participation in our communication. As America and its economy grows stronger, I'm unable to continue attacking it. Maybe you bought this book expecting some kind of treatise, some kind of position statement, some choice Chomsky-esque critiques of America at the twilight of the millenium. I mean, I might feel like bustin' some political later on, but for me, the crisis of America is a crisis of SOUL. I feel that too many people with interesting sensibilities have remained quiet and are content to be bit players on a cultural scene that is dominated by fucking idiots. Bad culture travels far faster than good culture. Come to Europe and see what American stuff is popular right now. There ISN'T anything good out of America - basically Howard Stern is the only person with any soul that's getting any kind of attention out here, other than that it's all bullshit. YOU MUST START CREATING AND PARTICIPATING IN CULTURE. You have a MANDATE to do or make things that will somehow REACH ME. And I have a mandate to do the same for you. And we must continue failing until we succeed, and once successful to not sell out our ideas to being boring. To "sell out" doesn't have much at all to do with how much a person is getting paid - it has to do with letting one's output suck in order to gain market share. In other words, the Replacements sold out in ways Green Day hasn't (and hopefully never will). The Replacements are a tragic phenomenon, because by the time the rock press REALLY got around to hyping them, their records fucking SUCKED. Their early records were life-changing, but I suppose they "grew artistically" or something because by the time, for instance, *I* heard of them, they were putting out dreck like Pleased To Meet Me and really, man, I almost always give a band ONE CHANCE and them I'm OUTTA there. Luckily, my sister and I were looking for a record one day and she liked the cover of their first record, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, and it kicked our little hindu heinies. Lucky them, and lucky us. The moral of the story - DON'T MAKE LAME RECORDS IF YOU KNOW HOW TO MAKE GOOD ONES!!! I am very glad to be alone right now, writing this to you. There is a time to create experiences, and then there is a time tecord them. If you don't have a life, how can you create art? Real art is about the DYNAMISM with which crisis must be attacked in order to survive it, and as I've noted earlier travel is one crisis after another. I can't wait to get to Amsterdam and do some fucking DRUGS. We'll see how resilient this format is to THAT set of energies, heh heh heh! When you read a great book, you completely forget about time, you let your body guide your needs to eat, drink, and piss, you are completely in a hypnotic trance, and you learn things into the deepest parts of your mind. I spent aout three hours reading Calvin and Hobbes strips yesterday and today, and I can barely remember a single one, but it is like some INTENSELY IMPORTANT INFORMATION was downloaded into my mind, to be recalled later at random moments in my history. Now THAT's what I call prayer!!! As I become comfortable with the writing process on this computer, I start to forget the computer itself. It becomes one with me. My eyes are closed, my head is tilted backward at the ceiling, and all I can see is the inside of my eyelids. I am at one with God, and at one with my tool at my fingertips. It's intense, it's a feeling I wish would never go away. It's like I don't neeed for anything in this world, like I am floating and my problems have ebbed awaay into the space below me. Creativity is the ULTIMATE prozac. As are other creative people. "God" bless me with thousands of encounters with people like you in the remainder of my years. "God" bless me with the ability to give people like you TOOLS and IDEAS with which to operate. The Minutemen were my favorite band for many many years. They had these songs which managed to send several different ideas down the pipeline to you within the span of a two-minute song. I often remarked that you could take a single Minutemen line and expand it into a three-page essay. Their song titles themselves composed an eerie poetry - "Sell Or Be Sold", "My Heart And The Real World", "God Bows To Math". I love the minutemen, may they live forever, may you go out and buy their records ("Double Nickels on the Dime" and all three of the re-released cd's). Learn from the minutemen, they were the original hypertext. Each idea in this book is actually something you can doubleclick into and visualize another fucking book entirely. This book is an invitation to you to WRITE YOUR OWN DAMN BOOK. The best thing punk rock ever did was to encourage this equality between the band and the audience. You don't have to sit in a closet and memorize Jimi Hendrix for three years before you can call yourself a guitarist. You just need to fucking ROCK. Do things, make things, without a budget if you need to. Make it possible that your existence will be IMPORTANT to others outside of your immediate circle of friends. Make something that's worthy of showing your kids, if nothing else. This is the ultimate way to really love yourself. I have two selves that are not at odds, but certainly don't particularly work together super well. I hate to use such cliché terms for them, but I am used to calling them my High Self and my Low Self. My Low Self is who I am in everyday life. It's generally unhappy and is full of doubt and pain. It is super "self-aware", in the sense that it's constantly telling me how fucking lame-ass I am, how unfit for human consmption I am, how boring my ideas are etc. It knows the exact parameters of my inadequacy, it knows my personality problems to ten decimal places. This self basically represents me Without Ideas, without any reason to be "on". My High Self I consider an avatar of "God" Itself. I talk with a smooth, hysterical clarity that wins over anyone around me. I write with a certain flair, a certain ability to Fuck Shit Up and take on History; I feel a beautiful uniqueness, and I'm filled with appreciation of the world around me as well. My senses are completely on and I am unaware of myself - I am a pure Mind in a world of Potential, and it's a cosmic turn-on. It knows my destiny, and has an unfettered Faith that I am Chosen to Make some Shit fucking Happen.

The way my life is working, I simply have a switch in back of my mind that lets me turn on or off. But my High Self is a funny self - it steals into my head at unpredictable moments. In a way, I can't reach my own switch - it always helps to have someone cool that I really want to relate to flip it for me. I create projects like this one so as to give me an excuse for flipping the switch on myself. Like for instance, now, I'm deeply into my High Self, and there's nobody I know for miles around. But there's YOU, see. I *only* can get into this High Self mode when the Potential for communicating or learning is present. I surround myself with objects that can instigate the Learning process, such as books and records and other things created by the creative, and I live for the moments when I'm hanging out with others that can really jack into my energy and help us take off together. Since I can't ALWAYS be around others, and since my potential for love has proven pretty skimpy, I have been forced to create a medium for communication with others that doesn't require the presence of actual OTHERS to be around. This book is that medium. I am (and YOU are, as well) in microcosm what "God" is in macrocosm. That is to say, "God made Man in his own image". Recall, of course, that I don't think of all of species Homo Sapiens as being truly "man"; also, I don't mean PHYSICAL image, but SPIRITUAL image. Therefore, it makes sense that "God" also has TWO SELVES as well. These two selves of "God" are the world of Facts and the world of Ideas. There are two worlds, overlaid on top of one another. It's as if you can see the IDEA behind every object in a room. Each object has some level of depth that is worth a chapter in a book, if ou were that anal about it. I could take this fork, and describe its function, its composition, its history, the way it reflects the evolution of forks over the last several thousand ideas, the dishes it has fed, the stories of the meals that it had helped impart to people, on and on and on. Man shapes his environment like no other beast. Every last little thing was MANUFACTURED somewhere, that's MANufactured. The Pyramids took GENERATIONS to build, and it's amazing to go to Europe and see cathedrals that loom over towns as testaments to the existence of SO MANY PEOPLE. With the right technology, one man can build a fucking pyramid. It is up to you to discover the technology you will need to deploy your vision. When you have a vision, you will learn ANYTHING YOU NEED in order to make it real. If you see a computer program in your head, you will FIGURE OUT how to program (or at least how to hire a programmer). If you have a strong enough vision, money and time is no object. Over time, resource issues fade in the face of the TRUTH that is rolled up into a potential product. Have faith. Your time too shall come. One of the beautiful things about America is the fact that it's so young. It feels like Europeans are surrounded by monuments; how can you compete with a cathedral when it comes to luring visitors to your town? Hmm, what I mean to say is that America has this intense need to be IMPROVED UPON, and that it is far easier to imagine actually MAKING A DIFFERENCE in history in the United States than in Europe. There are tons of facts about you that you'd really rather not be judged by. Look at yourself. Your ethnicity. Your gender. Your weight, your height, your occupation. When someone comes up to you at a party and starts commenting on one of these aspects of you, doesn't that suck? We are only truly responsive to the judgement of our IDEAS. If someone gives you an honest sizing up, and engages you in a heated discussion about something that you'd actually like to discuss, your facts pretty much MELT AWAY except in the context of the discussion at hand. (In other words, if you're discussing the issue of race relations, your experience as a Mexican American certainly is relevant.) These facts are inextricable parts of our selves, but they're only significant as FLAVORING on top of the fact that you've GOT ideas. In other words, this book would be different if I were Black or White, but it would still FUCKING ROCK, and THAT is the only fact that REALLY matters in the mind of God. Ideas steal into your mind like a thief in the night. (I think I recall reading this in a Dick book once). "God" is a simple concept. It's a shorter word for the Universe Itself. It is the means by which the Universe communicates its collective Will to us. It's got no power over us, and of course, it's so compelling because it FEELS SO GOOD. Don't trust a religion that doesn't FEEL GOOD. Our ability and desire to feel good is ALSO a component of God's Creation, and it's there for a reason. The best feelings in the world occur when Ideas are involved, and when Potential melts down into the world of the Actual. "God" WANTS YOU TO GET LAID, AND GET LAID ***RIGHT***. It's that second clause that is possibly why you aren't getting laid right NOW - because you've got something to learn first. Or, as the Smiths sang once, "You just haven't earned it yet, baby." I have more cool in my fucking thumbnail than many people will ever see in their lives. And so do you. You and I are a CONSPIRACY, man, to replace the dullness that envelops American Corporate Culture with a day-glo motherfucking JUGGERNAUT that will launch us into fucking orbit, and land us atop Mount Fucking Everest. You don't have to believe in "God" to make use of the Truth. I find the word entertaining to use, because it makes almost anything that I say instantly blasphemous to those who would pretend to have access to divinity. The Truth is not to be found in one book. The Truth is to be found in ALL books. The Truth is found in the fact that Books themselves Exist. Pursuit of the Truth is like a video game. You run into objects and people and collect as many coins as you can before you die. Every time you run into another person, BOTH of you collect more coins. As you live, you too gain the capacity to manufacture your OWN coins, thereby making yourself a more attractive target for other players to hit. After you've collected enough coins (also known as "ideas" or "stories" or "experiences") FUCK YOU. There is NEVER a point when you've collected "enough" coins. There is ALWAYS room for more Truth, more Experience in your life. I was totally thrilled to hear about George Bush, a stupid fucking president if there ever was one, skydiving at age 64 or whatever. The guy's a Gemini, you should never count him out (same goes for Newt Gingrich - watch yer backs, because you can NEVER summarize a Gemini). Neil Young is so rad. The next apartment over is blasting "Heart of Gold", and I find it quite beautiful and moving. Its chorus of "Keep me searching for a heart of gold/And I'm gettin' old" is such a beautiful document of the process of any traveller, any true searcher for the Truth. The story of Jesus is quite an interesting one, because the guy wasn't sure of himself until his time in the desert against temptation. Dude, you KNOW the guy was in the realm of spiritual bliss or something because this searching process is one intense trip. Jesus had some AWESOME lines, some totally REVOLUTIONARY ones, things like "turn the other cheek" and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and the whole bit about throwing the moneylenders out of the temple. It is a pity and a tragedy that his name has been blasphemed for so long by a controlling and domineering slice of humanity, but there are STILL worthwhile people who are Christians and it is not a good idea to cut them entirely out of your life on the basis of their beliefs. In some ways, the Church simply existed to give a spiritual framework to basic community-building activities that every true religion must encompass. Shit, it would be my dream come true if this book truly creates a community That's the most important goal of this book, to make that community happen. Without such a community, this book is a blip on the radar, but with it... I have NO IDEA what I want from this book. I do want it to survive, but I know that I will not be able to control that once it's published. For all I know it'll get co-opted just like Christ's words, but I think I'm doing a better job of WRITING THE DAMN THING MYSELF unlike jesus did. The goal of a creative person is to SHAPE CHAOS IN ONE'S OWN IMAGE, if only for a minute. It's as if you can reach into a Mendelev set with a new set of variables, or change the color scheme or something. You can never predict the impact of your actions. The stupidest things can have the most interesting and valuable influences on people. I want you to take over America. I think it'd be in good hands. In songwriting, when you hear a riff or a melody line or a harmony or a beat that you like, you can always take it, fuck with it, and turn it into another beautiful song. It's great, it's like play-doh. That's the way ideas work - if something works, often if you just toy with it for a bit, there's ANOTHER idea to be discovered. The key to SUCCESSFUL pliaigarism - that is to say, the difference between pliaigarism and "influence" - is the FUCKING WITH THE ORIGINAL IDEA that you do before sending it out.

I know that I don't mean anything to you. This is why I write this book, however, because as I write this I know that you have some qualities that I need to have in my life. Without seeing how "God" reflects through other people, I grow sad, depressed, alienated and alone. "God" is like the Light, it's as opposed to the Darkness of Nothingness. The Light is neither Good nor Evil, but when you're possessed by an idea, it's as if everything is clear. There are no questions when you're in the possession of the Divine, when YOU ARE THE FUTURE. Most people are opaque. That is, the light may shine UPON them, but they do nothing but BLOCK the light, and reflect only themselves. But you and I, we reflect the light in a million angles, and thereby reflect onto others. I invent a new self for every person I meet. This is why I love to meet new and diverse people - it forces me to invent yet MORE selves inside myself, in order to accommodate the needs of these new people. It helps me discover hidden potentials within myself, basically, in addition to learning about how the Light is reflected through them. There is more inside my mind than I will ever know, but through meeting with you, let me tap this hidden potential within me. Perhaps "God" resides in the hidden brain capacity that we're always being told about by science. "God" works with this capacity, and what we experience as ideas are actually just synapses being made to function between the mind we're used to and the mind that we are promised. You were promised relief from the world of pain and pettiness, liberation from the material world, sublimation into something beautiful and eternal. This was promised to you upon your birth, and I am here to remind you of this promise. I cannot make this promise real, but YOU CAN. If I were the head of an organized religion, I would make it tenet number one to write a 'zine about yourself and your own life and give it to the next member of the church to read, to pass them around and get good at communicating in this way. The idea of 'zines - that is, self-publishing - is one of the ideas that is inspiring this book. It is somehow fitting that the two major elements in the spread of this medium are science fiction and punk rock, two sources of inspiration for this document. If it weren't for the knowledge that what I write today WILL someday see the light of day, if only in an edition of fifty for my friends, it could safely be said that this text would never be written. I would rather have a life than a living. You should not eat your SOUL to fill your belly. If your day-to-day life is not in keeping with your Potential (remember the equation between Soul and Potential), you have a DIVINE MANDATE to fix this situation. To me, to act against your own potential is a SIN. The only sin I acknowledge is to WASTE YOUR OWN TIME. In other words, if this book is not reaching you, if my words are doing nothing for you, PUT THIS BOOK DOWN NOW. Go outside, it's probably a great day, ask that guy or girl out, pop a tape in the VCR, whatever. Actually, there's another sin - that is to WASTE SOMEONE ELSE'S TIME. So if you're BOTHERING that guy or girl, well, stop it. This is extensible into the golden rule in a way, because to do evil unto others is certainly wasting their time. Watch out if you've developed an easy answer to a recurring problem. For instance, I used to have a problem with shoplifting - well, that is to say, i never really had a problem with shoplifting. It was easy, and exciting, and a great way to avoid doing hard work to get what I wanted. But the problem is that because of it, I never really developed a work ethic, and as a result I'm unable to hold down a real job for very long. So take that into consideration when determining your own moral stance. If you're used to getting things easily, eventually you will be unable to get them the hard way if necessary. It's important to keep your spiritual muscles in tone. You should not lose potentials that you once had because of disuse. Some atrophy is inevitable, because as you age you focus on your true destiny in life, but it is important to stay flexible enough to take on any opportunity that interests you. "God" gives you a certain amount of opportunities up front. If you say, "eh, i'm not interested" too many times, well, He sort of decides that this is the kind of person who doesn't LIKE opportunities, and lo and behold they start to shrivel up. I have lost my mind totally. I will have a very difficult time getting a job this time around, and I am unfit for graduate studies and I'm totally messed up in the head and I'm super super worried about my financial situation. I think I'm too fucking creative for my own good. The sad and wicked nature of this world is that it tries to force us to HATE WHAT WE SHOULD LOVE about ourselves. In other words, I should CHERISH my creative energy - instead, I hold it to BLAME for my inability to get a foothold in this world of materialism and fakery. Crying is a lot like orgasm. I feel like it's the same set of brain cells that gets used. I think this format for a book is ideally suited for a generation that grew up without a fucking attention span. I have no attention span whatsoever, as you've probably noticed, and I doubt for some reason that you're uncomfortable with this format. I am totally shocked to report that V.I. Lenin, the hero of the former Soviet Union, wrote so much stuff that it has resulted in a FORTY VOLUME HARDBOUND LEATHER SET that sits in my host's living room. Fucking something like 250 pages x 40 volumes = 10000 pages of text. This is completely fucking shocking, because I know basically ZERO of what he's written, and I'm sure the fucker had soul because, shit, you KNOW he had the ladies if you know what I mean! The so-called "revolution of the proletariat" was really the "revolution of the INTELLIGENTSIA", but of course you know all that. I'm full of doubt as to the potential for political revolution in the USA. Not only to the extent that it'll happen, but that it'll somehow help. I think the problems in this country extend MUCH FURTHER than the reach of government, even though the government is complicit in the decay. I advocate secession from america, but on an individual basis. I mean, just don't buy anything made from wage-slave labor! YOUR DOLLAR IS YOUR ONLY VOTE. Nobody GIVES a fuck who's president, but EVERYONE GIVES A FUCK WHERE YOU SPEND THAT DOLLAR. If you spend your money at Taco Bell, you're simply creating more Taco Bell style jobs. And that is FUCKED, because there is quite likely a better tacqueria in your town (especially if you live in California). Spend your money where it'll create cool jobs. In general, this means spend your money in places where hierarchy does not exist, or is genially accepted (that is to say, at small businesses and self-proprietorships). If you spend your money on companies with asshole bosses, you BECOME an asshole boss. I mean, there hardly are any DIY punk automobile companies, but that's why da punx usually buy used. DIY people can sometimes (often?) rip you off WAY HARDER than authentic corporate bad guys. Caveat emptor. In my religion, it's okay to say "FUCK YOU, GOD". "That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse." - Calvin & Hobbes As important as it is to be comfortable and happy in life, it is vital that we feel like we're spending our efforts on something that is truly worthwhile. Bolsheviks in 1917 loved to drink vodka and sit around in parks on warm summer days just like the rest of the people, but they also were infused with a fire called destiny and with ideas to debate and ponder. This, to me, is an ideal lifestyle - a world of joy and camaraderie with a sense that the conversations that are afoot have the potential to change the world. Changing the world is easy. (Repeat to yourself until you believe it in your guts.) Whatever you do, do it in the service of rescuing our species and our planet from the grips of the bad guys who control it. I am going to take for granted that we both know who the "bad guys" are. All power to the Five Percent Nation! They've got this fantastic theory, something like 10% of people are evildoers out to destroy and control, 5% are divine and enlightened and need to join forces to fix things up, and 85% are simply clay to be molded by whoever has the initiative. I think they're some offshoot of the Black Power movement, and you should find out more about them. The wordes and actions of the Black Power movement have influenced me deeply. I just would love to substitute the word "Black" for the word "Idea".

The fact that we are People of Ideas transcends all of our other characteristics - race, gender, orientation, music taste, whatever. As long as you lead with ideas, you can be accepted into any non-prejudicial gathering. With an idea in your heart, you are the Ideal Human. No genius is greater than any other genius. For all that Mahatma Gandhi has accomplished, you and I are his equal - in fact, we ARE him. Mahatma Gandhi = Matt Groening = Hüsker Dü = Joseph Heller = YOU = ME. Our positioning in life, our interests, our historical moment define what we end up doing with our lives, but you can rest assure that ideas will literally BLEED from the edges of what we do. The way our society's pace keeps logarithmically accelerating, we're in a historical moment that demands TONS of ideas CRAMMED TOGETHER in our art. We've got little patience with a single idea developed artistically within many of our mediums, outside of gallery art for instance. I love the medium of stickers because the context in which you place the sticker immediately becomes part of the art itself. It is to me the purest form of art-as-virus, and that's why I got involved in the game. "Being born is power." - the Minutemen. We begin life full of potential but having accomplished nothing. We end life without potential but having accomplished all that we could. If you die before that potential is executed completely (and we all do!), WHERE DOES THAT POTENTIAL GO? The physics law of CONSERVATION OF ENERGY surely apply to our spiritual lives - and POTENTIAL energy is energy nonetheless! This is the STRONGEST argument for reincarnation, in my opinion. Even if you're not the one to EXECUTE the idea, you can take joy in having CREATED it. I am giving all of my ideas away, constantly, because I will not have TIME to make them real. So if you're a game programmer, I've come up with "Sesame Street Fighter", where the characters in Sesame Street fight each other with special moves, just like the video game Street Fighter. If you execute it, I'd love to see a footnote referring to me in your credits page, but I don't expect it. Ideas are free. In a way, despite all my gushing about them, they're utterly WORTHLESS. And this is why, even though capitalism harnesses ideas, ideas do NOT need capitalism in order to continue to flow in their natural state. Capitalism fixes on certain ideas (such as mass production) and then just SITS THERE, contentedly. While once it might have been a great format through which to execute ideas into reality, now it acts as a stumbling block to real artistic achievement. DESTROY CAPITALISM from your life. Find out the ways that money is acting, not as a tool, but as a BARRIER between you and your desires. Abolish - not money - but OBSESSION WITH MONEY. Money is JUST A TOOL. It is NOT a way of life, any more than nuclear energy is. If you spend your life obsessing on your tools, you end up misusing them. Obsess on LIFE instead, and the right tools for your purpose will automatically find you. FREE ENTERPRISE WILL DESTROY CAPITALISM. Free enterprise implies that you or I could go out and start a business today, if we want to. Well, that's great! I mean, that's part and parcel of freedom itself. But CAPITALISM is a societal construct whereby CAPITAL makes the decisions on what is made or produced in this world. Fuck that. Free Enterprise depends on Humans, Capitalism depends on human RESOURCES. You are not a goddam RESOURCE, a box in an organizational chart. You are a rich and alive human being, and you must BEGIN TO ACT LIKE ONE. You might be DEFEATED if you're looking at the ground too much. Look at the fucking SKY more often. It wants you to join it. You can fucking FLY. Looking to the sky improves your posture. It reminds you of the air that you're breathing RIGHT NOW, and it is more important to breathe than it is to function in a framework. Sometimes having a boss can be liberating. Being a boss is an art form - a MEDIUM - as well, and it can be done with brilliance and style or it can be done, well, badly. I've been very lucky to have good bosses in life, and it's too bad I'm just about the shittiest employee you could imagine (unless, of course, I love my job.) "Don't just eat a hamburger, eat the HELL out of it." - The Church of the SubGenius. Yeah, if you're gonna be a bastard capitalist whatever, at least be a GENIUS at it. The guy who owns Virgin is doing a pretty fine job, he's just like inventing these companies, pulling them out of his ass... i mean, it started as a record company, then a chain of record stores, and then it goes out into left universe with a fucking AIRLINE?!? and a COLA!??!?! I mean, how much more surreal can you get? I expect to see Virgin condoms before long, if only because the name makes it a NATURAL! Advertising is a medium that can be executed with brilliance as well. For instance, a slogan for Virgin Airlines is "More experience than our name would suggest." Now THAT is fucking funny. The problem with advertising and capitalism and other "mediums" (as defined above) that involve money as the major motivation is that FUCKING IDIOT BORING SHITS can win at this game too, by dint of their cutthroat tactics, inane ability to reach other boring shits, white-maleness etc. And the success of boring people within these mediums makes the world a shittier place. Because they could give a FUCK about ideas, they're into large mass productions, huge advertising blitzes saying nothing at all, psychic manipulation of children, etc. etc. etc. Advertising is fucking POLLUTION. Your senses are bombarded with the stuff in almost every major city in the globe, and it's the way that it allows mere DOLLARS to control the psychic impulses of this nation that makes it the most evil force in society today. There was a REASON advertising was invented, and ads that go BACK to that reason are still okay by me - introducing a new product, saying something funny, whatever. But it's all shite at this point anyway. Unless it's inflatable, then it's still sort of cool. If there's one thing that travelling has taught me, it is that the only correct response to crisis situations is to believe thag somehow "God" will take care of you. You don't really have faith unless you constantly put it to the test. If your faith doesn't waver, maybe there's some Galahad prize waiting for you somewhere, but really, I don't wanna hear it. Faith is made to be lost and then regained. It's the regaining of faith that leads to people FORTIFYING their faith. If you've never really had adversity and pulled through it, how can you be sure that your faith has been, well, OPERATIONAL? ª I propose that these "spiritual" bits of us that I keep talking about - things like "soul" and "faith" and "potential" and "destiny and whatnot - are actually a lot like organs in your body, or parts in a car. If your carburetor isn't functioning right, well,... you know, I'm not even SURE what happens if your carburetor isn't functioning correctly. Heh. But I do know that if you don't have faith in things, well, how are you going to actually TEST yourself? Man, parents can be quite a drag. I hate parents yelling at their kids, and if I ever see a parent HITTING a kid, I'm sorry, I've just GOT to intervene. I am no prophet. I am not in the business of describing what you SHOULD believe. I'm more like a mechanic. I am trying to DESCRIBE the inner mind, MAP OUT the motivations of humankind. It's not a doctor's position I crave, but rather, a scientists. YEAH BABY I AM THE SCIENTIST OF ***SOUL*** OOOHOWAGA@!!! I'm going to run out of batteries today, but I'm on a boat and I feel at peace and it's a good time to write. I don't want to reiterate things, bu I am running out of "new" things to write about. I am the kid of person who will travel at great time and money expense to a place called "hel" just so I can pick up the PERFECT fucking postcards. The nearest town to Hel, that is MAJOR town, is named "Gdansk", which in german translates out to DANZIG. OOOh, scary, ey? I guess my thought about Hel being symbolic for that more universally-known plane called HELL is a bit off the mark. I mean, other than the cop car with the license plate containing the cipher 666, well, it seemed like a dinky little nowhere town where everyone was trying to sell the tourists fish or soething. Frankly, I cleave to Jurati (down the coast about 20km) much more. I have built a LOT of chaos into this litle visit of Gdansk. It will be a miracle if I get on that train to Berlin... but, of course, I ***need*** to make that train. It's as if I believe that my NEED alone will justify any failures I make... and in a way, that's about right. If you REALLY NEED something, like, to survive, well, uh, either it will come to you or it won't. If it doesn't, well, maybe next life you'll try and figure out a way not to need that which didn't make it to you. Uh, I must be pretty tired because this really isn't very impressive as far as truth goes. Damn it, some little kid is throwing rocks at me and I am firing my eye of shiva at him. I am in a meditative trance of sorts right now. I resemble hiva in his trance and I am not someone to be fucked with I will open my third eye and gaze down with immense power and fury on any that dareth disturb my meditation. Please, llittle kid, go away. You know, when I say "most people are boring", hmmmm. I'm starting to get worried about htis statement. I am looking around me on tis ferry, looking at all the grandmothers and happy children and sullen teenagers and men with ridiculous handlebar mustaches, and I'm like, well... yes, they're totally boring, yes, they're not worth the time for me to talk to them, but is that so bad? Sure the earth is straining under the burden of too many fucking humans (literally!), but I need to reiterate that I ***DEFINITELY*** am NOT saying that I advocate the ELIMINATION of these superfluous ones. Dear God, no, that is not at ALL what I mean. Please don't even think that for a second. Right now the guy with the handlebar mustache is tickling the hell out of his overweight little son. The kid is laughing hysterically. It's really cute, and it's sad that I can't see the potential in these people, too.

Perhaps it's more indicative of MY limitations, that I ***must*** classify these nice- and harmless-seeming people into the "not worth approaching" category. I cannot be expected to say "hello" to everyone that I meet anymore. I tried doing this when I was younger. My first year at Stanford, well, for some reason I BELIEVED the bullshit that stanford kids were somehow worth a shit, so I made it a point to say "hello" to almost everyone. Bad concept. The point is to CONCENTRATE on the ones that YOU feel are SPECIAL, and not just let the wheat separate out from the chaff automatically. The key is to CARE INFINITELY about those you're going to care about. I mean, why bother caring if you're not going to go ALL THE WAY? Maybe Jesus had the special ability to convert someone from boring to interesting for them. I am not Jesus. Diane Arbus is a photographer that you should check out if you're interested in a topography of the territory that is the American Irrelevant. It's a scary, scary side of humanity that she has chosen to document with her work, and maybe that's why she's my absolute favorite photographer ever. Even sheep can be inspired. I am passing this lovely monument to the SOlidarity movement, and, well, monuments and patriotism and all that jazz is the language we use to force boring people to acknowledge the historical importance of those who have felt it necessary to move history with their work. I think it's neat that, while just any idiot can become president, it takes someone really special to wind up truly being REMEMBERED, memorialized, placed on the one-dollar-bill. It's like, there are Kingss, and then there are King-Saints - ones who used their rule to accomplish something beautiful, lasting, and important, as opposed to just screwing a bunch of women and drinking a lot and generally acting like an asshole to the people. It is true, sadly, that I see right THROUGH these people. And I must admit that I dress and act in a way that FORCES them to ignore me or embrace me, one or the other. I want to be NOTICED by anyone interesting and IGNORED by anyone boring. When I was younger, I sort of wanted to REPEL anyone boring, but even this was too much interaction from them. Unfortunately, I have let my appearance wither into something that just plain old seems like disrepair. Fortunately, if people are REALLY interesting and open, well, it doesn't fucking MATTER what you look like. I've stopped wearing band t-shirts as a way to meet people because I've found that you end up with TOO MANY fucking conversations these days. For all that I love interesting people and all that, sometimes I just want to be alone. SO I apologize if I'm short with you or something at times. And I understand that just because you don't feel like talking to me, well, that doesn't mean you're an asshole or uninteresting or whatever. I might grumble, but there is always another chance. Some people, however, are just wastes of time. I hate having my time wasted. Just because someone can lead a revolution, doesn't mean he's necessarily fit to rule. We all need to find our places in this life, and we shouldn't overextend ourselves because of our egos. It is important to know where you're incompetent, and yield to those who have the expertise you're lacking. I need a team. GOd, more than anything else in the world, give me a TEAM. Give me a TEAM for unamerican, for this book, for finding meaning in life. Give me real people with who I can fuck REAL shit up. That's what I pray for pray for pray for right now as I return to San Francisco. You realize, of course, that every time I open this computer, I am praying. I want to thank Apple, once again, for creating a tool so conducive to my particular form of worship. (I actually typed "workship" there. That, I find very cute.) If you ever go to poland, skip everything except for Gdask. If you go to Warsaw, you're wasting your time. Krakow, of course, I remember as being great, as was the Auschwitz experience (shudder), but Gdansk is one hell of a fantastic city. I am at peace. I am not sure if peace is the ideal state in which to create ideas, but perhaps peace is the REWARD. I feel peace because I know that I am praying pretty fucking well, and that my life feels complete as long as I am writing. I don't even worry about what's going to happen to this book at the end of this vacation. Maybe it sits in this computer for like fucking ever. Maybe it goes places I can't imagine and I have a brand new career as a philosopher of sorts. Who the hell knows. All I want is for there to be ONE indian name - one PUNK name - in the history of modern philosophy. I don't think that's tooo much to ask. Bab Ram Dass is this guy who just started calling himself that and acting all holy in the sixties. He made a career out of it. I think that's pretty fucking rad. I would do anything to stay in Gdansk longer, but that's unfortunately not true. Now that I have a perfect view of this city, it wouldbe wrong for me to sully it by staying longer tahan "God" apparently intends me to. Which is the total of one and a half hours. Jesus, did the time fly. I have a train to catch. They just struck up a nice traditional polsh song, and everyone knows it and is singing along and doing funny dances. Gdansk is paradise. It's cool to escape from Hel in order to experience... THIS. GOd is quite obviously a PARTNERSHIP between Man and Ideas. I mean, if "God" created Man in his own image, well, I am Srini, and I am a Man, and I am Here to create "God" in MY OWN FUCKING IMAGE. And That settles it. I mean, "God" is the ULTIMATE of human constructs, and we ought to be proud of this philosophical construct - PROUD ENOUGH TO MESS WITH IT OFTEN, as our perception of human nature changes. Oh, yeah, and teenage girls rock my world. Good night for now. Funny how the entrance of a girl in your scopes can totally wake you up. It's interesting to see just HOW MUCH of the potential that we experience in life is centered around relationships with other people - "love" relationships, that is. Girls to me are awesome, they're totally enough to wake me up in any situation. The power of other interesting people is that when you're even close to them, you can sense their field. Around other people I imperceptibly change. Around the RIGHT people, I feel just SLIGHTLY more empowered, aware, and impressive. I am a DIFFERENT PERSON for every single person I meet. For some reason, I try to match onto the personalities that are around me, perhaps in order to please them in some way. I don't see this as being hypocritical or weak, however. I *enjoy* morphing to accommodate the needs of different people. Meeting different ramifications of the universal Soul is exactly the same as meeting different ramifications of Srini. In other words, I'm reflected through other people, just as "the light" is, but I remain the same. One negative consequence of this morphing, however, is that nobody really knows me. But isn't that the way we live life, after all? "We live as we dream, alone." - the Gang of Four YOu can be in heaven right now, if you want. If you feel a kind of rapture when you're reading this book, or when you're listening to your favorite album or when you're running into a gorgeous potential soulmate for the first time, GO WITH IT. The thing about religion is that it needs to continually FEEL GOOD in order for you to truly believe in it. I am about making everyday life FEEL GOOD by contextualizing these powerful moments in our life as HOLY moments. I define what is holy for me, and you define what is holy for you. So I like the Descendents, Unwound, and the Mission of Burma. Maybe these are just arcane names you've never heard before, but you've got other material that brings YOU out of your lower self and into the Cosmic You. Whatever that is, be it substance, art, or person, IT IS HOLY. Truth is one, but many are the ways. Despite my seeming adversity to the religions that have plagued... err, cast light upon the earth until now, I am not a foe of any religion that exists today outside of my judgement of their practices. I acknowledge that there are many christians, for instance, who remain christian because of their desire to see truly that which Jesus had promised. Unfortunately, it is impossible to see clearly out of an institution - you must use your own eyes. Sometimes I think the ideal human being is all eyes, mouth, hands, heart, and mind.

I hate the feeling of BLOWIN' IT with a girl more than anything else. Yeah, so if love is so great, why do I keepblowing it? Ultimately, the only answers to the problems of how to find love rest in zen and phil collins, phil fucken collins, a smooth operator if there ever was one o yes! It is very satisfying to kill insects sometimes. When you have a moral mandate to absolve all living creatures, how come killing ants is fun? The key to understanding girls is to not pin your hopes on one event, but to focus on a larger PROCESS that will sort of EVENTUALLY whisk her into your arms. Actually, I can't think of anything to say to this girl right now. "Wanna fuck?" isn't usually the best opening line. "Uh, so you wanna take off your clothes or what?" When we are born, our potential is crazy high, as high as it's ever going to be in life. When you hold a baby, you can feel the magic, the glow of its potential, and the vulnerability of that potential as well. When we die, we've run out of potential. Once physical death hits us, there we are, in a grave or an urn or a tomb, and there we will stay. Our birth is like the placement of a rock on the top of a hill. We begin with all the potential we will ever have, and as we begin rolling down the hill, we gain speed. Perhaps we speed the descent of other rocks as we go down it. The goal is to live fast enough to reach escape velocity - that is, to transcend the mountain entirely. The obstacle, of course, is FRICTION - the friction that society and culture place against us, IMMORTALITY IS POSSIBLE, however, if we are remembered for our ideas. Socrates, Plato, Hammurabi et al are more alive to us than most people we're likely to run across today. Spawn or take part in a totally great idea, and boom, your impact just might be felt through the millenia. John Lennon, in death, is much more significant than Whitesnake was in life. Did you know Milli Vanilli had SIX NUMBER ONE HITS on their album? Can you name TWO of them? And how will they REALLY be remembered - as pop stars, or as pop stars who lip-synched their way to number one? This book is hopefully encoding information into you. The way art works, see, is it has a trace of inspiration to it - the good stuff, anyway - and this is ALIVE. This inspiration is GODLIKE in its capacity to POSSESS you and inspire you to FURHER your OWN damn art, whatever that might be. Art is like the containers that we humans can put "God" in. We trap a little bit o divinity, but obviously, there's an infinite amount so this doesn't really present a problem. When you're living in the world of ideas - WHILE, at least - reality is completely irrelevant. You walk around as if in a daze, your body immaterial, your mind as fast as light. It's pretty poetic, how you feel when you're infected like this. Writing a novel is the same as painting a picture is the same as writing a book. It is all about NOT BEING BORING. Anything that I *really* want you to see, I will do my best to make sure it's worth your time. "Perhaps in every writer's life there needs to be that moment when some other writer is attacked as unworthy of the job." - from The World According to Garp. Incompetence, when held up to society's praise, looks fucking ridiculous. It exposes the stupidity of society, and - more importantly - it makes you go "I could've written that!" And even MORE importantly, well, you go ahead and DO IT BETTER. 0 I'm worried that my body is taking over my brain. \ Bodies. If your body is fucked up, it interferes with your potential. Remember what potential is? It is your SOUL!!! And, wlel, interfere with your soul and you are SINNING. My friend hans - more than a friend, actually, more like a LIFE INFLUENCE - well, he tells me that your body is like the glass that holds the beer. (we're at a bar right now. if you're ever in berlin, go to the Madonnna bar on Weiner Strasse, find Karsten, and say that srini says hi - anyway, we're drinking and he says that your body is like the glass that holds the beer and if anything happens to the glass, well, no more beer for you. Great anaogy. The thing is that so many of the great moments in life are about FORGETTING YOUR BODY. Evne great, religious SEX ITSELF - the most BODYLIKE OF ACTIVITIES - MAKES YOU FORGET YOUR BODY IETNIRELY AS YOU INFLUSS WITH THE UNIVERSAL SOUL. Well, the problem is that life is about moments, but is not LIMITED to moments. You've gotta not fuck up your potential with your problems, you've got to see where your problems are CDONSTRICTING your potential and FIX THOSE "God" DAMNED PROBLEMS. Thsoe problems, you see, are SATAN. Remind other people that A FUTURE EXISTS AT ALL. This is my dream. I'm with "God" and I'm at the beach. And everything that I see is good, and everything that I'm experiencing is new and pure and beautiful and I'm in heaven. Such a funny dream, compared with that of most people. Then again, that's probably why I"m alone right now. It's fun to watch everything from this sitzplatz I've found, but it's a bit distracting and I think that I'm being watched in a way that other people aren't. This is not my beautiful beach. I am not here for the same reason that other people are here. I am here because I've got a message for you, a message for all humankind. That message is that "God" is Now Alive, and Wants Your Body. Such an interesting book I'm writing, and on such an interesting machine, and with such an interesting set of circumstances that have constructed it. I'm completely on drugs right now, and it's okay, and everything is okay. It's like a wonderful feeling of relief to be here after such a long desert of turmoil. You've followed me for a long long time, and in a way this is the climax of this entire trip. This is not a plot. This plot is my life. This is not the "truth" or whatever interesting and cute line I've been using to try and get girls to kiss me. This is real. In a way this page is shit, and in a way this page is eerythign I've been trying to say for so fucking long. Man, I must look weird to these netherlands people. I haven't really come up with what to call them. And I LOOK weird that means that I actually AM WAY WEIRDER> What I look like is just the tip of themotherfucking iceberg. I am SO COSMICALLY WEIRD that well, I've just got to apologize to you, because I can't really let you go that deep into me. Sorry, even I have limits. Apparently. The funniest thing about where I am in life is that it is PERFECTLY LEGAL> I have found a sort of peace that I can only hope to communicate to future Srini's (how's my battery? how's my status?) I remember some story, some kind ofvague story or puzzle or something that I read when I was a litle kid. ANyway, this idea was that you could end yourself, a mesage to yourself, way back in time. Sort of like in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure".

Anyway, that wasn't what I remembered, but it'll suffice, anyway, I wish I could tell the Srini that was alone in the basement at age ten or eleven, well, I wish I could tell him that I love him. I love that person and I will always be that person. wow. We are all the same person that we were twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, perhaps, before society really knew what to do with us, we were alone in the basement and feeling scared and sad. Well, I guess what I'm saying is that there are moments in all of our lives that a little real love could've made a difference. And my God, I love my mother, but in a way she never quite loved me in the right way. She didn't really interact with me, she didn't take me to the beach, she just spent all her time in the kitchen. And it was in this time, it was really in this time while she was in the kitchen that Sriini got truly fucked up. in a way i'm on a mission to discover what bullet could have brought someone as great as me down. And I think what happened was I ate and ate and ate because that to me was the way mom showed me that she loved me. Her food was about the best thing you'd ever know, it was her truth, it was all she knew in life was her fucking food. Mom, I love you. If my parents ever see this book, it will make them very, very, very sad. They will wonder what kind of son is this that they have created? I have given them so many questions, only questions, when is our son going to grow up, when is he going to get a job that matters, when is he going to become a mean, when is he going to find a girl that will really love him. And to these questions I have only been able to shrug my shoulders and tell them it is going to be there, someday. As you can tell, I am a fighter. I am a freedom fighter against ... well... the worst thing about the late nineties is that the enemy HAS no name.. It is the spirit of darkness, of oblivion. of not being remembered A Srini that was sure of himself would have graduated from Stanford, joined a normal company, found a great wife and turned into someone that would have been a pillar of his commmunity. There is magic in finding a market to exploit. It's a lot of fun, and it's potentially quite lucrative. In fact, the act of FINDING a NEW market, or creating one from nothing, is one of the most important tasks that interesting people can embark upon. In other words, before beginning this book, I had to think, well, who's actually going to pay MONEY for this thing? I might be WRONG, but if you're reading this, you're included in that demographic. I think there's a market for sort of spiritual self-help for people of ideas, and so, well, here I am, writing. In this world, it is important to CHOOSE YOUR WORK WISELY. Make sure that the end product of whatever work you do is, you know, something you can be proud of. If you think an ability is POSSIBLE, and nobody else can do it, well, this just might beyour opportunity to DO WHAT OTHERS CAN'T. The poroblem with having a special ability (such as, for instance, being able to type without looking) is you end up having the same goddamn conversation over and over again, about "so how hard is it to type with out looking"> This is a situation sort of to be avoided, unless the party who's asking the question is cute. Keeping this book someowhat FUNNY is pretty important in order to maintain the attention of these people, because what good is the truth if it is boring you? It's tough to be creative when people are pointing at you and making funny faces. Yeah that's right baby, I'm a model. The secret to getting laid is being horny. The hornier you are, the less able you are to survive without someone to fuck. The angrier you are at your life's emptiness, the the more you'll need to change it in order to survive. Humans don't do ANYTHING unless they're told that they need it to survive or that they wiill somehow prosper from it. Every product is a drug. It is hard to see the imperfections of people who you imagine to be better than yourself. The key to landing a truly pretty girl is to NEVER CALL THEM PRETTY. The second you tell someone that they're beautiful, you've sort of lost them - especially if the compliment is not returned. I am a moron when it comes to love and relationships, and I have no business writing about anything in this book. It's all going to be taken away, removed from this book, kept secret. I know this. I'm going to san francisco again in a week or two, and I don't quite know how I should handle this. I need to think - what is going to change? In what ways have I changed? I think becuse of the writing of this book, I have changed significantly because I'm more willing and able to engage people on a territory with which I'm familiar - that is to say, deep conversations. I need to go to parties and engage people thusly. I'd love to have this computer at my side and watch emo bands play, and write poetry and song fragments down while they're playing. Ohm,an, imagine if I could be the light show for the vSS or something, that while they're playing I write stuff that comes on a screen in real time above their heads. That'd be pretty fucking cool. I play this thing like an instrument, don't I. I am remembering the last great kissing I had. It was totally wonderful, oh man, it was great Kissing fucking ROCKS. Imagine a rock album that's actually a puzzle. I like the concept of puzzles. This, to me, is the ultimate in interaction. The prize itself is irrelevant, it's the figuring out of the puzzle that rucking rocks. What bullshit I am spewing right now. I think I want to read what I wrote while I was on mushroooms again. If the words that I write right now aren't mving you, well, it was nice to know you. Maybe this is the world's weirdest, most artistic suicide note. no, that was Anne Frank, it's already been done. The secret is that all people of any soul are actually the SAME PERSON and recognize each other despite our other outward traits or faults. ut in a way, it is. It is what I make It is what I am born to do, and you'll buy it because you've got nothing better to do with your life. And I don't have to have a job or worrry about anything at all, because i am alive. I've just decided to do something different with my life, that's all. And I want to document my encounters with "God" in a way that unfortunately my brother Christ never really could himself. That's one thing that he missed out on - the chance to DOCUMENT HIMSELF. Because the truth is that you or I or ANYONE are as alive as the next person, and we all need each other badly. And you shouldn't afollow christ, you should BECOME christ. You should SEE HIM on that cross, see him up there, thinking, oh man, whatever. Whatever, you fascist fucks, go on and kill me, you don't deserve me anyway. Thanks for nothing. The key to good romance is CONFUSION. It is that spine-tingling moment of not knowing whether it's kosher to grab her hand. It is that feeling of having to catch a plane tomorrow morning and leave the continent for at least a while. It's wondering if this is the kind of girl who likes to be taken to a movie or to a bridge, or whether you're going to drink enough, or whether her boyfriend could beat you up. It's that dropping of the barriers that usually sit in front of people - the feeling that only exists on the back of someone else's neck. It's that wondering if the fact that you masturbated last night is going to have any effect on things, and it is the universal question of "Could you be the one?". ROMANCE is NOT KNOWING. Some ideas are like unpopped kernels of corn that I can pop at any time. I feel like I don't *HAVE* to go into something for much longer, because I could write a BOOK on the damn subject if I had the time, and I don't and you don't either. So they're best left unpopped, the better to encourage YOU to pop 'em. The love of music asks you no questions. It is based on PURE INSTINCT, and therefore it's assumed a HOLY place in this religion I'm putting together. If you're not a real fan of music (hey, you can substitute music with any art-type medium), uh, well, GO AWAY, thanks. Well, that isnt fair, because EVERYTHING is a medium, even if you're into sex or drugs or people or whatever, but still.

Anyway, nobody has to ASK you to care about music - you just WIND UP with your favorite bands, and really, nobody has any right to tell you you're wrong - only to SHOW YOU OTHER MUSIC that you might like better. There is a VERY INTRIGUING RELATIONSHIP between the way you learn about music and your relationship to God. It's like, if music WORKS for you, you'll remember it forever and keep going back to it. If the concept of God, however, doesn't ROCK for you, you're going to not give a fuck. NOBODY can convince you that your favorite band is full of shit. You can't pave over a good connection with a shitty feeling. Then again, well, I've never found out that a girl I loved was cheating on me, but still, you get my drift. If someone loves the Grateful Dead or Phish or something, well, the most I can say is that "I'm not the hugest fan", that is if I care about their opinion at all. Then, maybe, I can pop some Lungfish or the Mission of Burma into the tape deck and hope for the magic words - "Wow, what is this music you're playing? It's GREAT!!!" There's this concept that if it's art, it isn't going to make money. Or it SHOULDN'T. This is sort of bullshit. I'm talking to these great people who are making a presentation to some cultural board to get some cash, and as it turns out, they've got to present their idea in such a way as that, I don't know, like it's throwing the government money down a hole. This sucks. It's REALLY FUCKING HARD to promote your OWN idea. That's why there are agents and industries and stuff like that. But remember, you make more money on an independent label selling 10,000 records than you do on a major label selling 200,000 records. irony is SUPER IMPORTANT. We're discussing the name of this artist's group here, and the name of the club (which is brand new) is called the "good friends club". This name sucks - UNLESS!!! it's IRONIC! I mean, picture two people pointing guns at each other in a tense situation, such as in Reservoir Dogs, with the logo "good friends club". Suddenly, wow, it's an INTERESTING, IRONIC NAME. Choosing the right name for your projuect is maybe the most important part of it. If you don't have a name that encourages someone to give your project a FIRST chance, how can you ask for a SECOND chance? When your life changes, it's obvious. It isn't unsure, it's something really fantastic and/or cataclysmic, and your old ways of thinking just melt the fuck away. Man, imagine a gangsta version of Sesame Street. Sesame Ghetto. "THIS MUTHAFUCKA IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LETTERS FUCK AND U!!!" Oh, ha ha ha ha!!!! That's not just one idea, it's a fucking PARADIGM - like you could come up with a whole BUNCH of sub-ideas about what all of the characters in Sesame Street would be doing, like "Elmo Da Pimp". See? A good idea is FRACTAL - it gets you into this mindset where FURTHER ideas just sort of SPIRAL OFF INTO THE SUNSET. And enough thought about this (or any other great) idea, and well YOUR HAND IS FORCED. You HAVE to make it reality, if only because YOU WANT TO SEE IT YOURSELF!!!! I am writing this book mostly because ***I*** want a couple copies. I want one for myself, and several to give to my friends, and several more to give to girls I like. Heh heh heh. Laughter follows all great religious moments, at least at some point. you're totally hypnotized while it builds up, and then suddenly the LAUGHTER BREAKS OVER YOU LIKE THE TIDE. Suddenly you're drowning in your own laughter. There's NO way to 'plan" this kind of hysterical moment, not really, because even a joke or schtick or whatever only works for the person who is HEARING the joke. There is a contact high that is created when someone is making someone else laugh. But I always love making people laugh when *I* don't know what I'm about to say to consummate the moment mySELF. There is nothing like the feeling of having interested someone who's worth interesting. It is intoxicating and beautiful and it is like poetry to me. You come away from a great converstion with the girl you like by sort of going "YESSS!!! YESSSS!!!" to yourself, punching the air with gratitude, like you've just scored a touchdown. Of course, girls are a LOT more complicated than that, but still, SAVOR THE MOMENT ANYWAY. (After all, you might not get her!) Ach, I remember this place from last time I was here - it's like finally this radical coffeeplace that I remember pretty fondly from last time I was here. It pretty much rocks, but JESUS, 3 marks 50 for a fucking NORMAL cuppa joe! The Germans just DON'T understand coffee the same way you and I do in America, that is the TRUTH my friends!!! Cheap and strong coffee is THIS NATION'S SAVING GRACE. Although, shit, mostly americans drink fucking Tasters' Choice and fucking MAXWELL HOUSE. Typical, typical. Actually, quality coffee is the classic example of the exploitation of great ideas and the mass-marketing of these ideas into something, well, semi-disgusting. I am of course talking about the Starbucks story. Starbucks is taking the idea of "fancy" coffee drinks and quality coffee, and marketing its inferior beans to a large audience as a luxury item that most people can still afford even in these crappy economic times. Quality coffee was once a shared secret, a secret that only the few and the needy and the deserving were privy to. You came across quality coffee, it saved your life, and you were a different person after that. Nowadays it's like, oh, "starbucks" is in everytown fucking iowa, and they've got this marketing juggernaut that at the same time is fucking genius and fucking disgusting. Well, that's the way it goes with ideas. "God" save us when the idiots discover LSD. They've already taken the Cannabis plant and turned it into fucking coca cola. In fact, the marketing for hemp-related items and accessories makes me fucking ILL, especially since marijuana is the CLASSIC american drug - it turns you into a tv-watching, overeating fucking nimrod who couldn't have a conversation to save his/her life but who FEELS good all the fucking time. I hate marijuana, you know. I mean, it's only good for having sex on, and once in a while on social occasions, but I feel like the peer pressure with this drug is fucking stupid and it melts you r brain. That's my opinion right now. It might change. If you're going to have a drug experience, choose a drug that will actually fucking CHANGE THINGS AROUND for you. That is, unless all you're looking for is to be comfortable. If you haven't guessed, I'm not so into "comfortable". I like how I'm getting really USED to typing really freaking fast. It's quite a talent and I'm getting really into it. I love having talents that nobody in my immediate peer group has, it makes me feel specialized. I love how great peer groups have this innate diversity, as if everyone is totally different but plays a different function that is essential when the group comes together. Peer groups, friends that is, can be ESSENTIAL in giving us that feeling of relevance that we so sorely need in life. Boring people still want to be relevant in some way. That's why so many of them turn EVIL. EVIL is a way for a boring person to "make a difference" in a simple, stupid way. When someone has a gun pointed at you, they are the most INTERESTING person in the fucking world. They've ALWAYS had, for instance, tribal conflicts in Africa. The Rwanda and Biafra massacres occured because they've never had them with AK-47's before. I don't want to see boring people die for EXACTLY the same reason I believe in vegetarianism. (I'm not a vegetarian anymore, I guess. I was for five years and I might turn into one again, but while I've been in Berlin it's been anything goes.) The way I'm living, I swear I've got a deathwish. I feel almost like I'm wrapping up my affairs in anticipation of dying, and that's sort of fucking SCARYING ME. There are NO free refills to be found in Berlin. Fuck. Some boring people are cute. This causes countless levels of unhappiness when you're young, but hopefully by the time you get out of childhood your priorities will become a LITTLE more realistic. The cardinal rule of dating in your twenties is "all the good ones are taken". I am obviously not a "good one". It is a bummer, but I feel that if I represent anyone at all it's the UGLY. Being cute has got to do weird things to a person, you know? I mean not that being UGLY hasn't done weird things to me, but being cute must make for SUCH an easy answer when it comes to so many of the basic questions in life. There CERTAINLY is "cute discriminiation" in this world, and I'd love to have a "people of ugliness" empowerment movement to get us some fuckin say in this world. The thing that makes me SO MAD about cliques within punk circles is the way I feel like I've been rejected by the so-called "rejected". I mean, Punk was ABOUT being unwanted by normal society, but what do you do when the normal societarians, i guess i can call them that, when THEY show up? Punk in the Bay Area has become FAR MORE MELROSE PLACE and become less and less about music than about cuteness, whiteness, and usually maleness. I am SO FUCKING ANNOYED by punk rock's inability to address an audience outside of that cutesy-alternative demographic. I mean, some of my best friends are cute, bu dammit, that means they're BETTER than me in some way and it's REALLY FUCKING DRAGGING ME DOWN.

You're going to say that it's all in my head. I say, in response, fuck you. I mean, sure it's a construct that I labor under bu there's no doubt that in punk as in any other subculture there are games of STATUS and HIERARCHY and people who have set themselves up as tastemakers and FUCK THAT. Punk has lost the sense of "think for yourself" that I used to love about it. The average punk rocker these days is just that - AVERAGE. It's totally annoying going to shows with the understanding that you're not going to meet anyone with guts and originality, and that everyone's just there to have a good time like they would at a fucking Blur show. I don't give a fuck, however. PUnk rock is in my blood, and I will carry this cross to the grave. "I ain't no "God" damned son of a bitch. You bedda think about it, baby." - the Misfits. "Let's go where eagles dare - we'll GO WHERE EAGLES DARE!!!!" - same song. There is something SO MAGICAL about the sound of a great guitar amp playing a simple Barre chord. It doesn't matter which one, it just fucking mesmerizes you. It's the sound of PURE ROCK POWER and I live for it. I'm in the mood for beer after all this fucking caffeine I've drank today. I told yoou, the way I'm living, I don't give a fuck about ANYTHING anymore. It's terrible, but I think the story of my life might well be complete by age 33. Oh fucking well. I love the idea of REINVENTING MYSELF, and I think I'm in the process of doing so on this trip. I AM A NEW MAN, I am once again in touch with my destiny and I ***KNOW*** WHAT I NEED TO ***STAY*** THAT WAY THIS TIME!!!! Basically I need YOU!!! Dammit, if I don't have an audience, I am quiet and miserable and I DON'T WANT TO HAVE IDEAS IF THEY AREN'T COMMUNICATED RIGHT!!!! Ideas sitting around in your head are like poison in your body that you haven't pissed out yet. My potential has not been achieved yet. I'm a fucking lame-ass so far, and that's why I'm out to write a book even though I don't have the slightest idea how to do so. I've seen what has come before, and I resolve to KICK ITS ASS. Dude, I'm TOTALLY SUPERSTITIOUS. I don't believe in coincidence - I believe in a HIGHER POWER that guides my every step (at least, when I'm in my "high self" mode). When I'm in my high self, I fear NOTHING and I attract that which I need. The key to living is to figure out WHAT makes you enter your HIGH SELF mode and STICK CLOSE BY IT. Unfortunately, that leads to addiction in many cases, so do be careful, but remember: INTERESTING PEOPLE ARE THE ULTIMATE DRUG. No side effects, no negative consequences, only pure experience and pure fucking ROCK POWER!!!! Let me be as powerful as I need to be in order to get what needs to get done done. I am here to FIX THINGS and to reshape history in the image of "God" Himself. Oh yeah, FUCK YEAH, I am able to use "God" HIMSELF as a tool to achieve that which I want to achieve, because it's actually the other way around! I am a tool through which ideas flow and turn into reality. Only through ideas am I going to get laid RIGHT. I depend on ideas to achieve that GLINT IN THE EYE that makes me able to hypnotize anyone or anything into being interested in me if I so choose. Without ideas, I'm an overweight idiot who can't hold down a steady job. The goal for me is to stay as PURE and FOCUSED on ideas as possible. It is CRITICAL to make yourself an ATTRACTIVE LANDING PAD for the ideas that are floating around in our atmosphere. Ideas are beings that are SUPERIOR to us, but without us, they have NO voice and no chance of actually making their impact felt in history. Without them, we are similarly helpless. Don't be just another face in the crowd; find a crowd where YOU can STICK OUT and start CREATING STORIES. PARODY EVERYTHING. NO IDEA IS SACRED ENOUGH TO HALT FURTHER IDEAS. COPYRIGHT BE DAMNED. DON'T GET CAUGHT. You are able to place HEXES on things that you would like to condemn. YOu can create a negative buzz strong enough to bring any major multinational to its KNEES. "I believe in MOMENTS/transcendent moments/moments in grace when you've GOT TO STAKE YOUR FAITH!!!" - the Rites of Spring. If there's no struggle involved, you're not LEARNING. If there's no struggle involved, you MIGHT JUST BE DOING IT RIGHT. If you can DO ANYTHING, anything at ALL, and do it WELL, society will figure out a way to pay you. Build enough profit into any project to ensure that it'll last. That is, if you WANT it to last. There is an advantage to burning brightly and quickly. "Every action is a positive action, even if it has a negative result." - from the movie Slacker. "It's not building a wall, but MAKING A BRICK." - from a set of "oblique Strategy Cards" made by Brian Eno in the seventies. LET "God" HIMSELF BE YOUR AMPHETAMINE, even as many people let religion be their opium. YOU SHOULD BE MOVING YOUR ASS **RIGHT NOW**!!!! I hate my body so much, I wanna kill it. Just like the games we play with war and death and all of that stuff, we play games between men and women simply to have something to say. I think it's shit. I mean, not that sometimes these games can't be fun, but please don't mistake your army of suitors for an actual PLACE in this world. I'm in the mood to make some MAGIC happen in my love life, and so let's see what "God" can do for me today.

Let me tell you, the reason so many men get such a big thrill out of seeing two women make love to each other is that we know that the women's orgasm is why there's sex at all. I mean, sure, the female orgasm isn't REQUIRED by nature in order to create children, but see, that's why it's better - it's actually sort of an afterthought. Like all the nerves in the penis are contained in the far smaller clitoris, and jesus, that must feel good. I know women who will stay with the most shitty guys in the world because the orgasms are great. I think this is bullshit, but what can I fucking do? These women aren't stupid, but they choose their partners stupidly, and, well, I wish them luck. I am really appreciative of this computer right now. It's a fucking GREAT companion for me on this trip, and the circumstances under which I bought theis computer are just fucking MAGIC. At this point in history, this computer - the eMate - is NOT available to anyone who isn't enrolled in school. Well, I wanted it so bad that I stood in White Plaza at Stanford screaming "does anyone want to make a quick $20?" and got this student type to buy me one. It was totally cheap, compared to many other newton products (including the now-hot MessagePad 2000) and it's turned out to be the IDEAL device to tap this book out on. I hope I don't run out of memory before this trip is over! I hope I have no problems bringing this text into my desktop Mac for editing, etc.! It's so easy for drunk people to go from friendly to threatening. I love alcohol, but I am very afraid of its effects on people I don't trust. You know, there's an INSTANT TRUST between people of ideas the first time they run into each other. It's not the kind of trust that's like "hey, hold on to my wallet for me wouldja?", but it's more like the kind of trust that's like "I promise I will NOT waste your time!" Germany is a scary country still. I am nervous about this train I'm on because I'm pretty much going into deepest East BErlin all by myself, and nobody knows where I am. Ooooh, scary. People with baseball bats aimed at my head can fuck off. I don't give a SHIT if i die, and especially once this book is published (even if it's just a couple copies!) i am going to have a sort of spiritual life insurance. This spiritual life insurance concept is SUPER IMPORTANT. Think about it. You want a HOLE to be left by your absence, and the only way to leave one is to DIG ONE. Get fucking started, RIGHT NOW SOLDIER!!! Some ideas are immediate in their completion; some take forEVER to turn into reality. Neither is better than the other. An idea is an idea is an idea. The thing is, with an idea that is complete as long as it is mentioned - say, a great new joke - well, it sort of dissipates in value. The person who is engaged in a PROCESS of making a life out of one of his ideas possesses a sort of SPIRITUAL RADIENCE about them. It turns them into the attractive people they once wanted to be. Oh yes. "If I die today, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation." - Indira Gandhi. She's no particular hero of mine, but this is a good line. "It takes a nation of millions to hold us back." - Public Enemy, who are definitely one of the heroes of interestingness in my book. I could do a line-by-line analysis of their best songs and write an entire book about THAT. It's so important to make whatever you do SO UNIQUE that it can't HELP but be seen as weird for its time. If it isn't fucking completely so crazy unique that it SCARES THE SQUARES, it isn't really an idea. When I have to explain my philosophy with only a little bit of ENglish, I find that I must break it down into more atomic chunks that are actually far more universal than say, these words you're reading right now. The truth, as I've said before, is simple. It should be easily condensible into a short sheet which you can use to cheat on the test. (Yes, there will be a test. Ha ha ha.) Jesus was in many ways a political radical. He was fighting the Empire, you know, and this fact alone should be respected, you know? I don't think my set of ideas conflicts necessarily with Christianity or any of the other major religions. I actually think it dovetails quite nicely - sort of REVITALIZING them, a bit, for the new millenium. (Ha, ha, I love myself, don't I.) Communication between people is an opportunity to experience God. I really groove off of people of ideas. It really does take two to tango. Here I am, walking down a pier, when BOOM!!! I run into this guy (Gregory) with this t-shirt that says "GEMINI" across the front of it! I mean, SHIT, is that a sign from "God" or WHAT?!?! i mean, here I am, the ULTIMATE gemini, so much so that I am starting a COMPANY based around being a Gemini, and what more of a sign do I need that I am on my way to TRULY UNDERSTANDING HEL!!!?! Running into people to whom I must SIMPLIFY my ideas is a great reminder of the simplicity and beauty of the ideas I'm believing in. Thanks, Mariusz. I guess the question is how to motivate our youth to somehow get OFF their asses and GIVE a fuck about their country once again. Apathy? it's been DONE. It is time we had a generation that tried GIVING A FUCK for a change. The question of how to get kids interested in their communitites and the lives that they affect is something that Poland's experience can help us with. Poland has kids who are now tasting true economic freedom in new ways. While we all know the dangers that Capitalism has for a culture, it is exciting to me to see the kids of Poland taking on the challenges of a new era. They are beginning to see that by really CARING about their OWN potential, they are perforiming a very patriotic deed. You help your country best by becoming the best person you can be. This is something American youth are really starting to suck at. Come on, kids, WAKE THE FUCK UP to what you were born to be. The most important function of work - ESPECIALLY the shitty summer jobs you get when you're young and in school - is to teach you WHAT BULLSHIT a life that is only work is. I mean, it is important in life to learn how to work like an idiot. But, you should wind up working very hard FOR YOURSELF, in the service of a GOOD IDEA you have. There are many ideas that nobody has had before that I call "million-dollar ideas". That is, things that WOULD sell like fucking crazy if someone just MADE them. Even if you CAN'T think of a million-dollar idea, you can always STEAL one and take it to another country. I could start a million-dollar Internet business here in Poland, for instance, or steal other people's ideas and begin a million-dollar advertising agency in Warsaw. It isn't hard to make money - UNLESS you're working for someone else, in which case, it is IMPOSSIBLE to make money. The key, my friends, is to NOT WORK FOR IDIOTS ANYMORE. You can work for someone else, but make sure THEY AREN'T IDIOTS. Of course, if they aren't idiots, they won't pay you very well. Whatever, it's still worth it! I fall in love with girls because it sure makes fucking a lot more fun. It's MUCH easier to make people laugh in languages you don't understand. Really. Making people laugh is the best way to meet people. Therefore, HONE YOUR TECHNIQUE. The better you are at making peope laugh without thinking, the better you are at, well, EVERYTHING interpersonal. To say "I like you" in Polish, say "Ussuwacch dammski maiikee." To make your hobby your "job" is paradise. It means your work is what you love. I'll take coincidence over planning any day. You're a lot more likely to follow the bidding of the coincidences that take place in your life than you are any "plans" you make. Plans exist for a reason. You might want something to take place, and you work and you work in order to make it happen, but it doesn't happen. No matter. It is the WORK, not the goal. that is the purpose of planning. If you work really really hard in one direction, perhaps the final result will be an ACCIDENT that leads you in a different direction. So it was with me and this book. I am naturally a musician, but here I am writing a fucking BOOK for god's sake. I mean, that isn't what I thought I am a different srini for every person I encounter. I feed off the energies that are being presented to me. The potential that arises BETWEEN two people is GREATER than the sum of its parts. I don't know, it's hard to describe, but in a great conversation, there is a feeling of SPIRITS BEING INVOKED. I dare label this spirit as "God" thy God, and I worship the creation of these moments where He seems to come into my life and rearrange it to his liking. For instance, here I am, just taking in a mellow country scene in the morning here, and suddenly whaddoIgoddado? Pull out this doohickey and start writing. In every argument, both people are actually right. An "argument" is NOT a simple disagreement. That's because disagreeing is a TERRIBLE technique to use to actually WIN SOMEONE OVER. You can't change someone's opinion by going "No, you're wrong," or worse, "you're EVIL to think that." I remember, I was in an anti-Nazi demonstration on this town near the Baltic Sea five years ago, this town Rostock. The local Nazis had just torched this huge foreigner apartment building, and all us anti-fascist types showed up to express our dismayal. Fine as far as it goes, but I was unhappy to report that ABSOULTELY NO ATTEMPT was made (in my worm's eye view) to actually ENGAGE the local population in a dialogue about what had happened. It was all "ROSTOCK, YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!!!" and screaming and fights and teargas. It was seriously a scene out of a science fiction movie. It was a lot of fun, and sort of scary too (me not being white and all), but was it progress? Was it TRUE anti-racist-action, or just a vulgar display of power? Think about it - if you're an East German parent who's just lost his job, and the Nazis in your town are, like, your neighbor's sone and your middle daughter's boyfriend, would you be willing to ditch those allegiances in favor of ANY view promoted by a bunch of pink- and green-haired idiots with Maoist banners and blasting CRASS records out of mobile sound systems? IS THAT GOOD ANTI-RACISM, or is it just an anarchist street party on the road?

Okay, okay, I was kidding earlier. You say "I like you" in Polish by saying - "Lubeeyeh cheh." What I told you to say before was "remove panties". Actually, I'd LOVE the idea of an anarchist street party on the road. I think that sounds AWESOME, to have a street party that goes on tour. But I mean RACISM and ANTI-NAZISM is SERIOUS STUFF, and to actively deal with the issue, you've got to forge real links with the community and truly win them over to your side. Suffice it to say that I don't feel like heading to Rostock alone right about now. In a world that revolves around the commmodities we produce and consume, it's only natural that we'd turn LEISURE into a four-star commodity. After all, what is it that we REALLY WANT in life? We want to spend time with people we love, drink a little, travel a little, listen to some tunes. I think it would be deliciously ironic for a game show to offer as a prize what we actually want - A FEW EXTRA WEEKS OFF. Imagine winning a round of Wheel of Fortune and choosing "Higher Pay" or "Dental Benefits" as prizes, instead of cheezy furniture and third-rate electronic gear? Capitalism turns LEISURE into ENTERTAINMENT. You don't "consume" leisure, you experience it, you share it, and it happens when it happens. But ENTERTAINMENT is something that can be bought, sold, packaged, marketed. It's been pointed out before, but our homes are crammed full of "time-saving devices", but why is it that none of us have any time? I'll tell you - even more fun than ACTUALLY praying is PRETENDING to pray while weird old people look at you funny. Cheap thrills are the best, as they say, you know? Well, here I am on the train to Hel. Wow. I certainly hope they let me keep my ticket. I'm pretty sure this is the only laptop on this train. Kind of a funny feeling. I wonder what my idols, as it were, are going to think about this book. I'm not quite sure. Aaron Cometbus, for instance, is liable to hate it just because I'm doing this on a laptop and with a budget, for instance. That kind of gets me angry. It's like, I really can't HELP that I've figured out how to salt a little dough away, and you wouldn't want me to lie, would you? This is what it means to be a writer - to be able to write without even thinking. If someone were to steal this computer right now, it would be exactly the same as kicking a pregnant mother in the stomach really fucking hard. Okay, well, maybe that's stretching it a bit, but the analogy still applies. Please don't kick any pregnant mothers in the stomach to test this theory, thanks. :P Think about all of the people who have walked the earth and died. Most of them have passed on from our memory completely. I hate to say it, but I feel it is important in this life to distinguish oneself from the mass. That is not to say that we don't all survive on, as part and parcel of a collective species. But I know the key to living forever is to BE WORTH REMEMBERING, that's all. It's as if there's some kind of collective POOL of ENERGY. Do you add to it or take from it? What is your relationship to ENERGY? - that is, do you MAKE PEOPLE THINK, react, live HARDER than they would have before they met you? Or do you SLOW THEM DOWN? "How do other's see me?" - D. Boon. It is an old cliché to say that the opinions of others shouldn't matter to you, that you should go forth and do your own thing without regard to their opinions. But I'm not so sure. i'm AFFECTED by the opinions of others. If people are WITH me, I feel like WORKING HARDER. And every blow - whether dealt by people you know or by strangers - is like a foot on the brake pedal. Ultimately, yes, you acquire a thick enough skin to let these negative influences bounce off of you, but is that a good thing? It takes ENERGY and EFFORT to hate and to insult. It is important to understand how to take even negative commentary as a compliment. If I piss off many people, it simply enhances the amount to which I please the people I please. We create CUSTOM experiences for each other. That is, if you react in a plastic way to every single person - such as, for instance, talking about yourself or something - well, you're just not going to REALLY MEET new people. Learning how to reject people is an important art, because some of these people own guns. WhenI am low energy, this is reflected in what I create. People don't need yet nother influence to bring them DOWN. Some art created when you're down winds up making others really APPRECIATE THE BEAUTY OF DOWN, but depressing art and petry is a pretty damn hard sell. I like to disguise my depression with humor. I have a bleak outlook on the world and my place in it, but I *sell* that outlook with as much flair as I possibly can. People respect the things they pay for. Even if it's just a Coke, yes, you are paying a bit of TRIBUTE to the minds and histories to those behind Coke whenever you buy one. If you buy something, you want it to ENHANCE your life in some way. Your dollar is your only vote. Money is something that is best treated as a symptom. In other words, if the disease is success, one of the symptoms of this success is society's slow approval in the form of money. Money is like food. It is necessary to a degree, but beyond that degree, it SLOWS YOU DOWN. It can even kill you, in excess. It is really tough not to be jealous of those who have already gotall the success they need. But the thing is, every band's first album is EXTREMELY SIGNIFICANT, if it isn't their best. You still have your best work ahead of you, but few who have achieved success in their medium are going to be able to revolutionize THEMSELVES and THEIR ART (whatever it is) beyond what they've already done. Success only comes to revolutionaries. Some potential revolutions fail, but ONLY REVOLUTIONARIES TRY. I am also consumed with lust. We are constantly wishing we were limitless, but it is the very LIMITS in our lives - the things we CAN'T do - that help us FOCUS ourselves on doing what we CAN do WELL. Our effort is like water in a plumbing system; if all the faucets were turned on constantly, the PRESSURE out of any one of them would drop. And as we all know, it is the PRESSURE that makes for a great shower, not just the heat. In any competition, there are two ways to succeed - to simply be the best at what you do, or to BEND THE RULES. All innovation is actually CHEATING. But in life, there really ARE no rules; in fact, all revolution is about SMASHING RULES and proving that THOSE RULES DESERVED TO DIE through YOUR SUCCESS. Hierarchy is secure but inefficient. Anti-hierarchy, however, is something that requires absolute trust in the individuals that you wish to organize. NEVER BLOW SOMEONE'S TRUST. We all tell little lies, and we all think that maybe they're harmless, and we all find out that they're not harmless after all, and some of us fail to lie ever again and some of us get addicted to the stuff because it leads to interesting situations. Lying, unfortunately, is NOT "good" or "evil" - but it IS indicative. Are you the kind of person who takes SHORTCUTS, or the kind of person who learns how to SAVOR THE WORK involved in TELLING THE TRUTH? I am bumming rel hard that I don't have my power cord. It is not just cutting this book short, it is making me wonder what the fuck I'm doing here. We are EQUALS, but right now, I CONTROL OUR SITUATION. And I have decided that in order to reinvent myself in REAL LIFE, maybe it's best for me to learn how to control how I look on PAPER. Therefore, I am going to EDIT THIS MOTHERFUCKER until it's all gleaming, not the mess that's symbolic of my life as it stands at present, but as the controlled chaos that I *want* it to be in the *future*. I am going to write this book as if it is written by the person I was BORN to be, rather than the person I'm dallying as right now. Close your eyes and feel the power of the ideas that are motivating you right NOW. Think about your influences, think about your heroes, think about your favorite band. Think about what keeps you going when you're down, whether it's sports or whether it's a certain book that you keep coming back to. THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO PRAY. Simply that. Jesus wouldn't want you to sit around and waste your life working for someone else's idea-free profit. There are those who engineer ideas, and there are those whose "art" is in bringing those ideas into profitable, dominating status. ORIGINALITY IS A GOOD HABIT. It's not really something you can turn on or off - it's something you DEVELOP as you cherish other people's - and your own heart's - reaction to new ideas. The first time you told a joke and made a lot of people laugh, or told a story and made someone react, is the moment you really began to become a part of OUR community. It makes you feel good, and you keep doing it, and pretty soon, you're out living a life that CREATES stories, that is NEWS. But each individual story that you were a part of is actually just a RAMIFICATION of the process of really BECOMING YOURSELF. Well, thank "God" you made it. I want to tell all the sheep in this world that the end of their dominion is in the offing. I want to tell them that they had better get the FUCK out of the way, because WE SHALL RISE and OVERCOME the obstacles that threaten to block us, and I am hoping that because of this book (and others) we will learn to RECOGNIZE EACH OTHER ON SIGHT. The mark of the beast is the look in your eyes. The beast, of course, is one of the good guys. I advocate the SEPARATION of our lives from those of boring people. I DON'T EVER WANT TO SEE ANOTHER BORING PERSON TALK TO ME AS LONG AS I LIVE. Nobody really wants to "shop on the web" - but a compelling enough product can make it happen. Like Cainer's Gemini book - ripoff though it was, i HAD to have it. Surprise is an essential element of web commerce, I think. Amazon can create the moment that says "holy fuck, they've got THAT?" or "Wow, that actually sounds quite neat!" But people are still intimately - religiously - tied to their money, and.... I just met this woman here in London. She's fantastic, she's eight years older than me and she's an angel and I just might never see her again after Friday, but oh, man, she has really really healed me. I was going through some personal hell (of my own choosing, of course), and she shows up somewhere like, really, oh, she's beautiful. And I am putting out this single to honor her. She has, in a very real way, saved my life. Two nights ago I sat down in a field in the middle of the night, crying. Yeah, it's that bad - I don't cry, you know, not really EVER. I was thinking about the shambles my life has become. You know, twenty-five hit me at the strangest fucking time. I've started a small business to basically promote my art, uh, sorta, except i'm not much of an artist. I have no job, no insurance, and a precious few friends who I have been sorely neglecting in the last year. In San Francisco, this amounts to SHIT; I was at the bottom of my career, and I sat in this field thinking about how BADLY I needed someone to talk to, to be with, whatever. And this woman, who, you know, I just don't have THAT much in common with - shit, she's got TWO KIDS, she's spent the last decade in ACADEMIA fer chrissakes - well, she has just ROCKED MY WORLD, and Jenny, I will ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU. I don't want to say those three overused words, but you know, right now I do. I can't wait 'til 6:00 when I get to see you again. We have no future, but we have the present and there is NO WAY I am wasting a single moment of that. And as I woke up this morning, my lips still sore from some of the best kisses the world has ever seen, wow, I realized that this song had finally found a home.

I wrote this song a really, really, REALLY long time ago (by my standards, at least). Let me think, it was, shit, 1992 I believe! FUCK! I sat in this dorm room and wrote it out, and I instantly knew it was a thing of beauty of course. (The pseudo-metal bridge came a bit later, when I brought it to the band.) So, I had written my first genius pop-punk number or whatever, and it fucked up my life. I spent the next couple years of my life writing new songs - songs, in generally, completely UNLIKE the pop-punk of this song, mostly sounding like Unwound or early Hüsker Dü or something. In fact, I didn't WANT to play "Jennifer" anymore, it was too incongruous with the rest of our set. But it never quite died. It has followed me, just as surely as my loneliness has. Years later, after we changed our band's name, people still came up and requested it. Ramsey at AK Press loved it so much that it helped him get through the breakup of his marriage - and he later got it placed prominently on a comp that AK put out through Epitaph. I put a lot of hope into that placement, but of course, that didn't result in tons of people giving a fuck about us or anything - although thanks for the several cool postcards that I got as a result, I really appreciate that kind of thing. And, of course, that's the version that's on this single, and it sounds really good, so thank you Epitaph. This song is still with me, and it has not lived out its potential yet. Almost as if it has been longing for a home, for someone to belong to in some way. Just like me. Because, see, the secret is that I never wrote "Jennifer" ABOUT any girl. I wrote it about MYSELF. I created a character that had all of my problems, never belonging, being strong and hurting myself, all of that. I created it about a dream that I wasn't alone, that somehow, somewhere, was the girl that i was a lot like, and that given the chance, I could, you know, TALK to her. Here i am in a coffeeshop in Amsterdam. I have just ingested a "space cake" and I'm here to document the effects of this cake as reflected through a book I picked up in a used shop in Berlin called "The Bible, the Qur'an and Science", oddly enough published by an organization called The Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah in Tripoli. What people commonly know as the Bible is one of the most impure, added-onto documents in history. Good religion is both REVEALED and EVOLVED. Inasmuch as I aim to create a new religion, I aim to make sure that the process of its evolution is made PUBLIC and OBVIOUS. To me, it is NOT RELIGION unless YOU HELP WRITE IT. There is no point in specifying rules for the followers of a religion. A religion is meant to extend TRUST to the followers, to create a community whereby we can measure our faith and to discover new vistas to explore together. Like it or not, you're already a devotee of my new religion. Simply by token of reading these ideas, and taking them into your life thereby, you have been infected by a Positive Plague of Ideas and can't help but transmit it far and wide. Good religion creates strange situations that force us to react to other people's input. In such a way, a great mosh pit, a fantastic coffeeshop debate, a correspondence between two young lovers, and a totally fucked-up kid on a portable computer in Amsterdam all constitute religious moments. True religion enables us to connect these disparate moments into a framework that helps us view the Greater Process that is Life. Atheists might argue that every coincidence has its own separate logic, that a framework cannot thereby be constructed. To which I must admit that they're correct - but constructing such a framework ANYWAY is FUN. And shouldn't religion itself be FUN? Never trust a religion that doesn't leave you with the sense that you are LOVED and TRUSTED yourself. You are as important as ANY set of words. Besides, the words can take care of themselves - they don't need your permission to be as they are, why should you need theirs? Good religion is merely an efficient way of creating an interface between yourself and an idea. As long as something is NOT known, it remains an IDEA. As soon as enough research is conducted to convert the hypothesis into fact, and that fact is undisputed, it is NO LONGER an IDEA except inasmuch as it is taught to new people. The speed of light was once an interesting idea to scientists who had never before THOUGHT of light as having a "speed". Now that we know the stuff travels at 186,000 miles/second or whatever, it's no longer an IDEA in the scientific world. However, if you DISPUTE the speed of light, or if you create some CHAOS around what until now has been thought of as a STATIC FACT in such a way as to actually create some CONTROVERSY, well, THAT is an idea. Also, the speed of light IS an idea to every ten-year-old who learns that light has a speed. As we go through our learning process, we are continually enlightened by facts that have been taken by granted. A teacher of facts must take care to make sure that the facts are communicated within the context of IDEAS to her/his scholars. If they are presented as dumb facts, well, how can you paint THOSE as interesting? It's far more important to create a BAD OR WRONG idea than to simply constrain the debate to facts alone. The solution for bad ideas is NOT censorship. It's BETTER IDEAS, more ideas. Let's take one of the worst ideas of the 20th century, the idea Hitler formed that the Jews were responsible for every single woe of the German people after the first world war. What the fuck. It's IMPOSSIBLE to understand the state of mind that the Germans must have been in to let such an IDIOTIC idea take over their national debate. I've recently been studyin the rise of Hitler, and it's obvious that the guy had fantastic marketing and better style than any competition. It's also obvious that the liberal opposition to Hitler was too wussy and too IRRELEVANT to enough Germans to put up any kind of real resistance to his ideas. My point is that the rise of Hitler was enabled - ENHANCED, even - NOT by the strength of Hitler's ideas, but the failure for his opposition to come up with ideas of any kind of strength at all! If there were a simpler, more logical, and more correct solution to the problems of the German people, Hitler would have been shot down early in his career! DEMOCRACY IS A LUXURY. A people on the brink of starvation are often unable to vote themselves out of their little corners, especially since VOTING IS HELL OF SLOW. Democracy depends on a viable economic context in order to function. It is quite likely that in the Germany of the 1930's, a COMMAND ECONOMY was certainly called for. Also, through patriotism, it is easy to make a people neglect their own inconveniences in favor of what's taught to them as the common good. Hitler was able to DISTRACT the Germans into laying the blame on a group of people who WERE empowered and doing well within the context of a difficult economy. The Jews have ALWAYS been an extremely industrious and individualistic element in society, for which they ought to be commended, but in an increasingly desperate Germany they unfortunately stuck out like sore thumbs. "Any idiot can CONDEMN and thereby fail to learn from his enemies. That's what makes them IDIOTS." - the Book of the SubGenius. A society of sheep, such as ours, is easily manipulated by evil genius. Evil genius is alive and well in America. We can see the results of its manipulation in constructed events, such as the Oklahoma City bombing and the Comet Cult, but also in everyday life. America has been transformed by its media into one MANIPULABLE MASS. One of Hitler's first moves was to destroy the free press.. One of capitalism's most important moves is to buy the free press. The press is unconditionally for sale through advertising, and can only be trusted to report EVENTS as opposed to outlining PROCESSES. The goal of ANY revolutionary movement in these media-regulated times, then, is to create SO MANY ***EVENTS***, so widely spaced, that only a DUMBSHIT could fail to see that there is a PROCESS at work here. After anough events have happened, spaced far apart in geography, the media starts to realize that a TREND has been taking place. In a larger sense, TRENDS are far more important and indicative than any single event. Take a look at the PROCESSES that are defining modern society, and note that there's no real movement to indicate that these processes are taking place to the media. We read everywhere about the widening of the gap between rich and poor, but why is this NEWS? What makes NEWS out of this process, or WHOM? If a process is carried out without events to mark it, it is the most effective way of clandestine action to shape history. Clandestine actions to shape history are quite fucking fascinating, but I have little doubt that the only forces to enact such agitation are bad guys that are in FAVOR of a conditioned, sheeplike society. Looking across America, I have no qualms about noting that our people are being CONDITIONED, brainwashed to accept simple brand suggestions as being hallowed trends that aren't to be fucked with. (The popularity of "Tommy Hilfiger"-branded clothing comes to mind.) If we are becoming an easily-conditioned country, there is probably a way for a hipster like YOU or ME to figure out how to manipulate this country subtly in the OTHER WAY. It's obvious that the conditioning so far has acted in the interests of capitalists who seek to keep us dissatisfied enough with our lives to keep us consuming as quickly as possible. As I sit here, I am in viewing range of twenty-eight encouragements to eat or drink or otherwise consume anything. In fact, just to sit my tired tuckus down at this table I had to spend about four dollars. We are surrounded with reminders to consume, but where is the ad budget encouraging us to MAKE SOMETHING OF OUR LIVES? It is my job to create reminders that living is still possible in these difficult ages. Uh, that's what I think is my job. Eating, drinking, attracting each other, sleeping, and feeling good are all things that animals do as well. If you are motivated to do any of these things, your best advice is to let your animal instincts take over. It is the realm of HUMANS ALONE to communicate real ideas to each other. Humans are basically the newest species on this planet (with mutations due to our activities excepted). Or so that's what THEY want you to think. Humanity is still subjected to the laws of evolution. Better minds and spirits WILL PREVAIL in the true battle, that of the evolution of the Human Species Itself. If humanity is going to evolve in any way that leaves us worth preserving, we, the People of Ideas, must find each other and breed like rabbits. Of course, being able to accept ideas is NOT necessarily genetically passed down. However, it is PSUEDO-GENETIC, in the sense that two parents who find each other through love for one another's ideas will tend to raise their offspring in a household that values ideas.

Conditioning is a form of evolution. It might not be genetically enforced, but it changes our species and its potential nonetheless. The average seven-year-old today has an attention span that would be considered RIDICULOUS forty years ago. (I won't EVEN go INTO that of the TWENTY-seven-year-olds.) If the CONDITIONED changes that living in today's society could be genetically enforced, humanity would never be able to survive WITHOUT television. This is EXACTLY what the television industry WANTS you to think. We think of a television as being a basic necessity. Ownership of a television is one of the criteria for determining poverty in today's USA. Upon reaching the age of twelve, a child raised in today's First World society would have extreme difficulty dealing with a month in a third-world nation, even if food and other basic necessities are provided for. The media forms one obvious network that connects us to each other, the Internet another. But to the extent that both networks deal with ideas themselves, they are ACTUALLY sub-networks of the TRUE network that we all jack into. Some computers on a network are servers, and contain information. Other computers are personal computers, and can take information off the network and be manipulated into creating MORE information by the controllers of their machines. Still other computers are TERMINALS that are only able to read information from the server. Most computers are simply not connected to the network at all. In this analogy, any library system or media or whatever is the server, you and I are pc's connected to the server inasmuch as we have creative potential, children and other as-yet-unempowered people who are still able to actually learn are terminals, and MOST PEOPLE, the masses that is, are really not connected, only able to learn information by processes outside the NETWORK ITSELF. As we acquire more tools in life, we sort of GRADUATE in network status from TERMINAL status to PC status. We acquire these tools by a combination of two factors - our own interest in getting things done (which is our VISION) and the server's ability to teach us. Once we become PC's - in other words, once we have tools with which to create our own information - we must figure out a way to load information up to the server. This is called "fame" or "renown" or "communication". Meanwhile, we are able to send and receive information directly from and to other computers on the network - but only upon request. If you're responsible for creating an actual APPLICATION - that is, redefining a MEDIA ITSELF - you're sort of a programmer at that point, and it could even be said that different "Servers" are different media and that you have been the person to initiate that server onto the network. Ideas that are on the network can be published via other non-interactive media, but, oh, whatever. Okay, I'm high and I"m getting higher. I'm here in this café and I fell like a fucking freak of nature now. I'm not sure what I"m trying to prove. Man, I feel like the ultimate fucking geek here. I think it's natural to think you're a freak. I also think it's natural to do things in order to be seen as a freak. In fact, a long time ago I came up with a phrase that I'm sure has also been thought of by so many other people - "THE FREAKS SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH". It's one of those phrases that's so simple that it's obvious - there's no use trying to take credit for it. (Although I haven't yet seen it on a t-shirt). Anyway, the thing is, it's true. That's right, the freaks WILL take over the earth, but not the true earth but rather the PSYCHIC earth. That is to say, the earth that really matters; that is to say the WORLD of IDEAS. There's actually NOTHING TO TAKE OVER in the world of ideas - we already owned it all. Boring people don't even register asa BLIP on the fucking machine. I hope they allow me to shut up and keep writing. OOH! Green day on the t.v. How fucking rad! Bet these people don't even know that Green Day is named after pot. I'm really satisfied to be a fucking lone right now. Think of the next world. No, I"m not being mystical or any such shit. Think about the world that will occur a SPLIT SECOND after you first think. The truth is that the world changes in a million imperceptible ways every second. Since there are so many differences between the world as it is now and the world as it was a second ago, there EXISTS a next world. And a next, and a next, and a next. ª It is our ability to figure out what will happen next, that makes us people of IDEAS. Because the fact that you can IMAGINEthe next world without it being real - well, THAT is an IDEA> I really believe that people who don't live for ideas can't even understand THAT. If you aren't able to dig on ideas, to really get down with them, well, how can you PRETEND you do in order to be thought of as relevant? Well, steal the ideas of OTHER PEOPLE, of course. The traditional media is all about replacing the nice, blank spots in the mind with THEIR IDEAS. Many of these ideas are OPINIONS. In any democracy, it is actually the MEDIA which rule. A land ruled by media is not a Mediocracy. It is a Mediocrity. Man, yon fucking TELL that I'm flying. This place is pretty comfortable, but I don't like the lowlife looks of most of the other people here. I like these two kids at the window, because they seem like classic American types and nice guys, even if they're boring. I have lost my taste for looking cool and all that stuff. I mean, I want to look DIFFERENT, not cool. Maybe that's why I can't get laid. You've got to be somehow different in order to figure out how to do something in this world. If you don't generate difference within yourself, in this day and age, difference will find you. It is the unconscious gestures that make the difference in how you perceive a person. That is to say, you can memorize the exact right lines for any situation, but you can't fake it - either you're enthused or you aren't. A person who looks exactly like me, smells like me, listens to the same music and whatever can be conceptualized that lacked my taste for ideas. Remember that when I say "people of ideas", i don't mean something intellectualized. I'm not a fucking bolshevik, trying to turn my intellectual life into a way to control society. I'm talking about the sights and sounds that make life worthwhile. I'm talking about the orgasm, not the physical one but the one that happens in your MIND. I'm talking about anything that keeps you up at night with its sheer beauty and complexity. I'm talking about great television, even; I"m talking about graffiti that goes beyond just "jolene loves chris" shit you see all over (unless of course it's written on a desk in a first grade classroom). I'm talking about the crazy costume at the gay parade, I'm talking about putting your right leg up on the stage monitor - raising your guitar - and screaming "IS EVERYBODY HAVING A GOOD TIME TONIGHT?!" at the wildly partying crowd, I'm talking about the spinniest dj, I'm talking about the first van halen record. i'm talking about the video for "buddy holly" by weezer. When I say the word "idea", i want you to think of the thing that brings you the most joy in the world. The thing that makes you feel - if even for an instant, the instant you first see the bosom of the girl you're going to marry jiggle - the thing that makes you feel fucking IMMORTAL. Not just "happy", not just "at peace", but IMMORTAL. That is the thing that I want your religion to provide to you. Ideas are the only thing that can be CREATED in this universe. Everything else - life, matter, even energy - is eventually disiipating, returning to the grave as less than when it began. This trade-off - MATTER for IDEAS - is a great fucking bargain. This universe will be composed of nothing but pure ideas in the end. And since ALL ideas are simply incomplete (yet oh so complete!) parts of the ONE IDEAL IDEA, all that will be left is PURE IDEA. Plato talks about "forms" - that is, the form of a "plate" is "that plate from which all other plates are a mere reflection". In other words, plato is talking about all plates being referred to when I say the word "plate", without any adjectives. If I say "sunglasses", every single unique pair of sunglasses is being referred to. In other words, "yeah, sunglasses rock." If there are "forms" of every noun, what is the platonic form of an "idea"? The Platonic Ideal of the word "idea" - or "the idea from which all other ideas are but mere reflections - is God. In other words, "God" is the most IDEA-EST IDEA. And EVERY IDEA is a REFLECTION of GOD. There is humor in EPITOMIZING a cliché as well as in AVOIDING one. In other words, how cliché is this situation, flying high on marijuana and hypothesizing about God? Love is a lot of fun. It's tons of fun - ideally, a CONSTANT source of fun - and LOVE is what it feels like to be in contact with a pure idea 24/fucken/7. Love alone will not make you immortal. I mean, unless it's INTERESTING love. But it's potentially rocketfuel with which to ignite your life. They say that "opposites attract", but those opposites better not be "interesting" and "boring". Fucking a boring person is like bestiality. That's just the way it goes. If you are disgusted by that last statement - or any other in this book - as opposed to intelligently able to digest it and determine whether or not you disagree - you mightwant to reconsider your purchase of this book. Don't make an idol of me. Or if you do make an idol of me, uh, could you sculpt me with maybe twenty fewer pounds and a ton of fucking muscles? Perhaps if the kids of the late nineties can be proud of one thing, it is how they dance. Never has a generation danced SO WELL. Myths are powerful because they create a common reference point for a lot of people. If someone isn't in the party, it's important to make a little gesture to them that acknowledges their existence. They test music videos in front of people who do drugs. Don't think any differently.

I got ripped off a little because there's no way this battery is lasting for 24 hours. The bible is one corrupted book, and following it word for word is sinful. Following the words of just one book, to the negligence of all others, is a sin. And of course I include this book as well. It is your mission in life to discover and "tag" as many ideas as you can before you die. Never say never, I guess. If you hold your legs up for too long when you're stoned, the blood will eventually rush back up into your body. Pain exists to create the beautiful sensation of RELIEF. All pain ends somehow. If there is one image I cannot stand, it is that of chisdren in need. Can sex replace death in your nation's ideology? Voilence never really appealed to me, which is a pain in the ass for other people I UESS. ONSTAGE, PERFORMANCE IS AS IMPORTANT AS SONG. THE WORLD DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU OR ME. BUT THERE ARE WAYS TO FORCE IT TO. Your idea-self, or your higher self, is not totally concerned with your lowerself (9r tiyr sekf nubys udeas). That is not to say your MIND and your BODY are separate, although almost. It DOES mean to say that IDEAS strike independently from your body. Your body, while fantastic, is ALSO only a tool whereby your ideas can express themselves. I'm not going to be around when this book becomes a religion, if it does. Starting a religion for the ages takes a lot more than one lifetime. It's not going to be all right. Ooof, is Marilyn Manson ever stealing my thunder. Doesn't that fucking suck? Doesn't that turn rebellion into a parody of rebellion? That's the problem with the concept of revolution. It's either so cliche that it's just suitable for a line of merchandise or something, or it's based on some crazy ideological dream that's outdated and impossible. If your lower self is strong, it will help you out a lot but I think you might need your higer self less. That is to say, you'll still HAVE a higher self, but it's going to have to be strong independently. I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know. That's the thing about this book - the TRUTH ITSELF is something you ALREADY KNOW. Real truth is accompanied with the thought "i wish **I** had thought of that!" This feeling (or its close relatives, "i could've thought of that!" and "HEY, I THOUGHT OF THAT FIRST!", is an indication of the truth of a truth. It's ALL true. YOU ARE REVOLUTION. I am NOT going to throw this computer into the lage. Aliens are here, and they infect you with everything you're going to come to love. You must love the alien. You are certainly encouraged to hate the fad of loving aliens as you wish. It is so annoying not having a girl sometimes. All girls are an imperfect reflection of THAT ONE GIRL. WHy are girls quiter than boys? WHy is this one girl alone here? Hmmmmmm.... She looks like a future housewife, a hip one, but destined for two kids. Nothing's wrong with that. I'm out of opening lines. I don't know what's with all of this stuff that's designed us to believe that we're all okay, we're all having fun, whatever. I mean, drugs help me get a small vacation from that inner self. If everything's a medium, then sitting in the red light district in Amsterdam with a laptop with an "end is near" sticker on the back of it in order to sail copies of such stickers is pretty fucking amazing as far as a use of that medium. Platonic forms represent the IDEAS rrom which each object is created. When you set up a plate factory, you're going to see differences from plate to plate, no matter how slight. But there IS an ideal from which all plates are carved - almost as if "God" made a mold for us all, and is slightly screwing up any time he pours one of us - just to keep things interesting. So then what is the platonic form of an Idea? The Idea from which all other ideas are but mere reflections - the Idea of Ideas itself - is GOD. When we look into each other's eyes, we need a complex set of permissions. Sometimes people who just meet each other can do this, but sometimes it takes YEARS. When you deeply look into the eyes of someone else, the real shock is the shock of RECOGNITION. You are staring at YOURSELF. All eyes of all interesting people are windows into the same soul, and it is HUGE. That is not to say that all of us have the same soul, but it is that we are all REFLECTIONS of the same soul. Which is God's creation. Think of soul - THE BIG soul - think of it as a great jewel. And think of idea - THE BIG idea - think of it as a beam of light upon that jewel. And think of YOU - and me - and your best friend, etc. - think of us as FACETS on that jewel. We each point in mathematically different directions, but we all reflect the SAME LIGHT. We are all the same, and it is our sheer difference that must teach us this lesson. For "God" works in opposites, in IRONIES. The way to the truth is not directly, but to attack the surrounding area. The key to the female orgasm is not the clitoris, but the surrounding area. The clues are obvious - but why does it feel like these words are new? I am going home now. The Beastie Boys: "I've got money in the bank, I can still get high/That's why your girlfriend thinks that I'm so fly". I'm sort of thankful for this chance to reinvent myself. Happiness, for me, depends on some DYNAMISM in my life. I'm only really happy when I sense myself changing, and I get the feeling I can only change when I'm in the range of an Idea. An Idea or a person who appreciates Ideas. People are my favorite catalysts for me to enter my Idea-oriented state. I'm full of shit, aren't I? Today, especially, my signal to noise ratio is at a low state, and I'm not really full of the fire I had while I was in Budapest. There's a huge rave this weekend here, and I'm inclined to take off for it. I've got this sense of LET US FUCKING PARTY and I think it's not going to be as easy as it is right now in my life. When I look at the life I've led, the years I've wasted especially, I have to think that there's a WHOLE LOT that I haven't DONE yet, and it's a pain in the ass living with these regrets when you're only 25. I'm looking forward to being drunk and walking across the bridge again. What am I doing with my life? Nobody's going to give a FUCK about this rambling, idiotic tome. I can see the reviews right now, and I can fuckin tell that most journals or places to get this place reviewed are going to see me as full of shit. I wonder when I'm going to get my voice back. Whenever I have a good time I lose my voice. I had a great time in Budapest. I have a feeling that Prague can't help but be disappointing after that, but then again, it's a worthy city and I"m intrigued by the expatriate scene here. This computer was NOT designed to have a book written on it, but OI love using things for other than their original design. I love squeezing more potential out of a tool than most users of it would. I love to take a medium and use it to accomplis goals that have little to do with the medium's orignal purpose. As a medium becomes cheaper to use, more exotic uses of the medium become possible. I point at the 'zine revolution, a revolution in self-publishing that has led to some fucking AMAZING and talented writing that in the days of expensive printing never would have seen the light of day. Photocopying changed the world. It made it easy to get your ideas mass produced, and it is impossible to concentrate when your waitress has a body like that. Wow. sorry, folks. Being truly unique is much more curse than blessing. Some university, I think, did a study once that had very interesting results. In their college entry examinations, they asked, "If you could name an adjective to describe yourself, what would it be?" With all the adjectives available, you know, in tis wonderful and diverse language of english, what do you think was the leading answer? Well, more than 6% of all respondents answered with "UNIQUE" or "ORIGINAL". HOW FUCKING UNIQUE CAN THESE PEOPLE BE, if all they can think of is "unique"?????? IT FUCKING SUCKS TO BE UNIQUE. True uniqueness means that there's nobody really LIKE you, that you don't really HAVE an equal. And if you don't really have an equal, how do you escape being alone?!?!? People who are a lot like each other, well, I would DIE to trade problems with them because it's like they're fucking... well, they're easily able to find others like them. If you're TRULY unique, you really literally have NO HOPE of finding someone like you. YOu're DEAD MEAT in the romance game, that's for sure. But see, it's secretly POWERFUL to be unique. THE SYSTEM MAKES YOU HATE WHAT YOU SHOULD LOVE ABOUT YOURSELF. That is the biggest weapon the System has to deploy against you. The System makes you wish that you were NOT unique, that you could somehow GIVE UP the powers that are yours as a creative individual. PLEASE DON'T COMPROMISE YOUR CREATIVITY JUST TO GET LAID. Or, well, if you do, then make sure YOU GET LAID RIGHT!!!!

What I'm looking for in a girl is someone who's truly unique, and in pain because of it. I'm looking for someone who the system has sort of rejected because it could never find a place for her. I'm lookng for true romance and I'm looking to ANNOY THE FUCK OUT OF BORING PEOPLE withour love. That's what I want in life, and in love - I want a love that has a cshot - and just a SHOT is enough - to make HISTORY. TRUE FUCKING HISTORY. I once told my former (i miss you steve) my former best friend that this was a friendship that woud hopefully end up making history. As it turns out, assuming this book actually gets somewhere in the world, it did. Steve was my soulmate for a while, he really helpe me get my philosophical shit together and I truly miss him. It's none of your business what's wrong with steve, but let me just say that you should NEVER call the cops on a fellow hipster unless absolutely necessary. The Nation of Ulysses: "A Kid Who Tells On ANother Kid Is A Dead Kid". When you're going through hell, it's really fucking hard to be thankful. It doesn't really matter where you spend your time, as long as you REMEMBER it!!! Public Image LImited: "This person's had enough of useless memories/Always remembering/NO personality/Dragging on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on..." Memories and history and interrelated. An event strong enough to create a memory has a chance of creating HISTORY. History is our collective memory. THat goes without saying, but it's also much moresignificant than it might sound because history is a great way to meet people - that is, other people who are making history. I bet this irish waitress who is being quite beautiful in the middle of prague fancies that she's part of some historical trend to bring free enterprise to prague. I bet because of that she's getting a lot of good sex out of her situation. Please pardon my sexism because I'm fucking drunk and remember, men are for shit. Let me elaborate on that - men are TOTALLY EVIL BAD, all of them, even the ones that seem innocent see women as nothing more than objects, goals for their potential affection. I will let you ladies in on a secret -= ALL MEN ARE TOTALLY SEXIST, no matter what their supposed allegienaces, no matter how heavily they identify with feminism. I identify with feminism and I am a sexist. I expect less out of women. I don't expect them to be as fucking vital and good at creativity than men are. Ironic that some of my biggest rivals (that is to say, influences) are people like Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger and the bands Sleater-Kinney and Team Dresch. It's cool to see my reflection in the screen that I'm typing in, it makes it all seem so SYMBOLIC. Remember, I'm creating this document as a testament to the fact that I ONCE LIVED. In the book "Life, The Universe and Everything", Douglas Adams posits a man who is told to tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth. He is administered a drug to ensure that he does so, and for the next several years he drives everyone near him CRAY as he does exactly that. Well, that is Me. I am infuesed with this need to NOT FUCK AROUND with things like plot and characterization (as much as I love both of them) - I never was granted the ability to come up with either of those eements, but I must, I MUST FUCKING WRITE what comes to my mind in the hopes of not being fogeotten somehow. Oh man, those beers had QUITE an impact on me. You always remember that which has had an impact on you. It's important to forget yourself and go with the fucking flow. A good title for this book would probably be "Drunken Rambling". I have no idea where I'm going to go next with this, but the truth is all about riding the Wave of Zen to wherever it might take you. ª Here I am in fucking Prague, taking a trip that most people can only DREAM about, and I'm SO GRATEFUL. I am SO FUCKING SUPERSTITIOUS. Nirvana was really a good band. I keep seeing bootleg nirvana t-shirts and thinking, man, hhat was a good band. I am ALL about UNITY. I don't think there's THAT much difference between, say, a hipster emo kid and a hipster techno kid. If someone is TOTALLY INTO something, that is enough indication to me that the kid is able to get totally into something that i write. THe soul is fractured and separated and that is OKAY, that is the way it was meant to be. I'm about DRINKIN'. I am to blame for nothing that is devastating to the environment or to the world. I feel good that I haven't fucked up anyones life except my own, other than in the manipulations of love. I am in love with this waitress, and I hope she doesn't hate me for it. It is funny that our need for love cancause su to become pretty FUCKING annoying to the opposie sex. I am frustrated, but shit, that's what our twenties are for. It's funny to see punk rockers who have kids. It's quite new to me. I think it's actually BEAUTIFUL to see punk rockers with kids because you KNOW they're going to take good care of them. At least, you KIND of know. Maybe if the world were a btettela;sjdf;lawroiyta;ohslkja;lskeurapoidsjg;laksdjc,mv.dasmc/.z,jgtpoiwata[piosdgka;lsdmra.,wejlk; i a m making NOOOO sense, and I am aware of this fact. It's sor tof weird how beer detaches you from your sense of reality, and it's sort of sort of sort of annoying how unhip you realize you are when you see something cool that you weren't aware of before. Oh my I hate hipsters. Minor Threat: "God damn it!!! We were born to stay young!/NOw it's over - it's finished and done." We as a society fetishize youth. Why? BEcause we associate youth with ENERGY. A movement that fails to capture theminds of youth is moribund, and that's just the way it goes. But amovement that does capture youth is not necessariyl going to truly get anywhere because what the fuck? I mean, youth have NOTHING? The youth is the only truly disenfranchised class, and I will fuck you yuup if you're going to fuck with me. I don't give a shit about anybody outside of my own familyt, and I am mad that all the good ones are taken. O h jesus am I ever drunk. It's not like anyone else hasn't fucking taken a powerbook and started typing in public while they've been drunk, but you know WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT PARTYING OR ANYTIHNG ELSE??!??!?!? I'm sitting in my friend Kai's house in Berlin, and it is dark and I am listening to Joy Division's Closer album. The lead singer of Joy Division comitted suicide on the eve of their first tour of the United States. This is making me think about suicide, and about depression as well. Joy division is one depressing fucking band. Depression, too, is beautiful and serves a function. You should be proud of the terror you've seen in life. In life, you must give up without giving in. Without perseverance, we're not going to get anywhere in this life, and we're not going to be able to withstand the failures that will lead our species to the ultimate victory. I believe you should be able to create your own Heaven. Let me explain. In Heaven, in the heaven that *I* want to live in, I'll never be bored. I will be constantly surrounded with those whe interest me, and some of them will be cute, and some of them will be interested in me. I will have the voices of my heroes to keep me company, and most of all, I will be able to create. Without any of the above, ANY of them, I will not accept a scenario as being "heaven". Fuck the idea of the little angels and st. peter and harps and shit - if I can't have the vibrancy of life... The only church I respect is the free, open world. Life itself has the potential to be heavenly. Life itself meets all of the above criteria, and I do not need to wait until death to speak with those beyond the grave. Hell, right now, Ian whatshisface from Joy Division and I are communing, and it's fucking rad, and he's sort of here with me, and I'm imagining I could somehow make a difference for him. Oh, it always ends the same way, but this doesn't atter. Eazy-E is immortal in a way that many, many "good" people never will be. Unfortunately, so is Hitler. These are despicable characters, but it cannot be denied that they made their mark on history through their art and their actions. Basically they hated so fucking well that they, oh this is an evil thing to say, but they turned even HATE into an art form. 8 Eazy-E died of AIDS after giving it to as many women as he could. The guy's a fucking murderer of women, don't ever let anyone deny this. But the point is that nobody's going to remember this fact, at least compared to his legacy as one of the poeple behind one of the best hip-hop records in its formative period - arguably of all time. Even though Ice Cube wrote almost all of the great songs on Straight Outta Compton, Eazy-E was there, and hegets a ride into imortality as well. It isn't fair, this game we're playing with history. From The Princess Bride (the book): "Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all." In many cases, the "bad" guys are playing the game of ideas much more effectively than we are. That's perhaps the reason I'm writing this book, to exhort you to drop your fucking joint and your indie-rock record collection and get the FUCK out there and GET YOUR IDEAS KNOWN. The more good people that attain some kind of success in this society, while still maintainin their "species consciousness" (that is, they're aware of the difference between people like us and poeple who are actually sheep, and act accordingly) well the better we can heal society. I envision a total fucking TAKEOVER from the inside of empowered fucking individuals who have gained success on their own terms but have interesting, left-influeced ideas and treat their wokrers like thy would want to be treated. This reminds me of the Golden Rule, which is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is not a prescription, but a description. This shouldn't be a "should" statement, in other words: You do unto others as you want others to do unto you. It's a FACT that you do this. It's the whole thing where at Christmas, you tend to buy people what YOU want instead of what THEY want. Any idiot can see that women's orgasms are just BETTER than men's. Ours are like, wow, neat, fun. Theirs are like THERMONUCLEAR. The female orgasm is the sexual crown of creation. It is THE goal, the pt of gold at the end of the rainbow. I mean, it sucks not being able to HAVE one myself, but just to WITNESS one is enough to fill me with awe. I'm going somewhere with this.

The point is that in my opinion this difference, and the anticipation thereof, is the source of so many of the issues that exist between men and women. And from THESE differences, society has extrapolated further - often bullshit - differences. There IS a difference between sexy and sexist. I love the former and hate the latter (even in myself). The problem with the whole issue of "am I being sexist?" is that it constrains the gender debate. I'm going to try and speak my mind about this stuff right now. I think men's orgasms are much more mechanical and dependable. The male orgasm isn't this wondrous, who-put-THAT-there kind of thing, but it does have the adantage of being dependable. Since men don't have the same potential for seeing-God-through-sex, we have become comfortable with commodifying it. We turn it into numbers, or turn it into a game you play against friends, or whatever. For a man, taking on a new girl is not as great of a risk. Sure, embarrassments can occur, but generally speaking we will get off with a much higher success rate than women. But the key is that the orgasms of women, especially with new partners, is NOT something that can be depended on. Sex without orgasm can be okay, but it's disappointing, messy, and pointless in some ways. I enjoy foreplay for its own sake, but if it has been determined that sex is the dish du jour (or nuit, i guess), welll, orgasms are pretty much essential. Therefore, women MUST be choosy about who they decide to sleep with, where men (who are in the market for sex, as opposed to something more deep) can basically bed down with anyone who doesn't actually REPULSE them (and sometimes even THAT is an advantage). The male of the species is burdened with a need to PROVE that he is worthy of a female's time - that he won't waste it through being incompetent. There must be little that I dislike as much in life as bad sex. And, to paraphrase RUN-DMC, "Not bad meaning GOOD, but bad meaning BAD." In other words, sex that doesn't WORK. This dislike of bad sex must be amplified tremendously for women. I mean, physically, it's like, there are connotations with the penetrative act that, if no enjoyment is derived thereby, must make a women feel pretty yucky. Sex is a yucky act, let's face it, and that's why religious idiots love to condemn it. It is the ultimate irony, and a gateway to the ultimate truth, that something SO YUCKY can be the gateway to our most INTENSE physical - and emotional - feelings. "God" LOVES irony. For men, there IS bad sex, but for women, I believe it's worse. Not only because of that physical thing, but also because bad sex doesn't WORK - that is, it doesn't achieve the female orgasm, and therefore is generally a bunch of wasted time. Therefore, if you're going to waste a woman's time, if you plan on subjecting them to bad sex, well, women can detect this and in the long run you'll get nowhere. The Hare Krishnas believe that all technology has been created for the enhancement of animal pleasures - eating, sleeping, fucking and fighting. I'm inclined to go "RIGHT ON!!!" but I have to point out that a goal of technology - of science - is to enhance the CREATIVE potential in man. To me that's an aspect of life that animals don't have available to them, and therefore is one of those things that define us as human beings. If the will of "God" is carried out through evolution - that is to say, changes are implemented so as to give the appearance of time passing - well, it makes sense that we create in a similar way. ART IS A ****SYMPTOM*** OF LIFE. You can't really go out to create art the same way you can, say, go bowling. Art HAPPENS. It occurs after your life becomes very complex, very painful, very interesting. When you see a confusing piece of art, it's an invitation to get into the creator's mind - what was she THINKING? What could she POSSIBLY have been going through in order to create a piece so stunning? - and it thereby stands as a MEMORIAL and a TESTAMENT to the fact that that person's life WAS interesting. I am an art collector. I'm not talking about paintings, but more like records, posters, books, whatever. I try to bring as many things that speak of the lives of other creative individuals into my life, because I want to constantly be reminded about the existence of other creative people. I want to be reassured that I"m not alone. The goal of art - which is to say, the goal of life - is to somehow be RELEVANT. To somehow MATTER, to make a DIFFERENCE in the lives of the people around you or the people who are witnessing the art. Unfortunately, most people don't give a fuck about ANYTHING artistic because they're fucking SHEEP. I can't sleep at all, so i'm going to reinvent anarchism in my own fucking image tonight. To me, the most appealing part of anarchism deals with its emphasis on our - on my - FREEDOM. Not necessarily the kind of freedom to yell "FIRE!!!" in a crowded theater, but definitely the kind that lets me yell "THEATER!!!" in a crowded fire. I'm about the demolition of HIERARCHY, not necessarily the demolition of the "government" or the "system" or whatnot. I mean, the government and the system and all that stuff is wrong and should be resisted wherever they impose a sense of hierarchy on, especially when they place you somewhere YOU don't want to be. It's pretty easy to sell "smash the government" to people who like to break laws, but how do we market anarchism to people who just want to lead peaceful, happy, productive lives? We can't be all talking about how useful anarchism is unless we can implement it today, individually. As heretical as this may strike you, I don't think of anarchism as a political philosophy contrary to socialism, for instance, at all. I like some strains of socialism very much, because they deal with things like providing basic healthcare and poverty support to all people. Without being able to be healthy, and without food in your belly, you've got to admit that it's fucking near impossible to respect your own potential beyond that of somehow earning enough for a Big Mac. Anarchism isn't an IDEOLOGY, it's a POLICY. I believe that the only social organization that is EFFICIENT as far as preserving and forwarding the potential of human beings is one that doesn't impose needless hierarchy. There is use for valid hierarchy. Anarchism isn't anti-ORGANIZATION, and organization means people who lead and people who follow. But if you aren't COMFORTABLE following, or following that particular leader, you have a responsibility to yourself to find a better place within that hierarchy, or basically get the fuck out of the situation somehow. Anarchism sure isn't rocket science; in fact, I don't believe it's something that's too hard to agree with, in its raw state. Anarchism has both good and bad marketing tendencies. It is taught by punk rockers, for instance, as a gateway to freedom and no compromise, which I think was the appeal that got a lot of us younger-generation anarchists into the discussion. However, it's also got connotations of over-intellectualism and the mainstream media has painted perverts like terrorists etc. as anarchists as well, leading to a certain revulsion that we're going to have to get people over if this movement is going to continue. FUCK EXPERTS. I mean if someone knows how to do something that you don't, fine, especially if it needs to get done (e.g. fix your car). But if someone's trying to tell you that HE's right because HE has read this-and-such book or something, well, account for his position on his own merits,not on who he quotes. I bet this book would be a lot easier to get published if it were on some trite anarchist subject like "Bakunin Revisited" or something (Bakunin being this big honcho anarchist thinker that I'll admit I've never read). Even within the "business" of anarchism, there IS a system, there ARE tastemakers and conferrers of status. To the degree that this is a natural development, all right, it serves a function to have people recommend books to other people, for sure. But to the extent that it's a system, allow me to bite the hand that feeds me. That's why, for all that I'm influenced by anarchism, it is a dangerous and ultimately LIMITING thing to call myself an ANARCHIST. I LOVE the feel of the term, and I do feel like one, but I would HATE to have my wisdom (such as it is) be so limited in its market. I think this book has something for EVERYONE who's "worth-a-shit", and I wouldn't want it any other way. I want to create a body of ideas that's both DEEP and BROAD. The simplest ideas are the ones that go BROAD, for instance, Nike's "Just Do It" campaign - it may not say very much, but it holds appeal for, well, basically, uh, EVERYBODY. Nike: Great marketing, shady tactics, fucking terrible and evil business practices. Learn from your enemies. More complex bodies of ideas, such as those advocated by the band CRASS who were an anarchist band that put out a LOT of words on the subject), well, these tend to strike DEEP within people, but are hard to get very far. If I can reach just ONE of you with the words I'm writing tonight, it will make this whole exercise worth it. But I can't help but dream of making a lasting impression on a whole lot of people with my life. That said, I don't want the kind of "broad" audience that, say, a Stone Temple Pilots has. I don't want a SINGLE BORING PERSON reading this book ever. This book is constructed the way it is because it will EXASPERATE the closed-minded reader. I've chosen this format because it's COMFORTABLE for me to be MYSELF while I'm writing it, and isn't that why we partake in art, after all? To experience the IDEAS that ANOTHER LIVING HUMAN once had? This book is meant for people who are attracted to the stuff I've put out with my company, which manufactures things based on BROAD-based appeal. I love bumper stickers - they're cheap, they're expressive, and I can make them as well or better than anyone else on the market. I'm going to eat a bowl of Muesli now. Yum! This is a world full of decisions, of potential paths and paths not taken, of desires and regrets. All I want to do is to add a couple of criteria to your already-full=i'm-sure list of criteria that lets you get through the decisions that make your day. I'm not trying to say you SHOULD judge things according to whether they're interesting or boring. I'm saying that you already DO. There is a difference between PRESCRIPTIVE and DESCRIPTIVE philosophy. Prescriptive philosophy is full of advice, such as "you should this" and "you shouldn't that." Descriptive philosophy is about describing the way the world is put together. If you haven't figured out that I'm of the latter school, well, here I am telling you that I am. I am about CHANGING YOUR LIFE, not just TELLING YOU WHAT TO DO. I have NO fucking interest in telling you what to do, I mean, what the hell do I care? But I find it fascinating - and challenging - to DESCRIBE the way *I* think you do the things you do. It's almost like I'm trying to define a new SPECIES within the human race, which of course is a pretty fucking scary thing to do given the history of that race-selection bullshit that killed so, oh my God, so many people over the millennia.

We must learn from our enemies. And if our enemies are, say, neo-Nazis, we must learn how such an IDIOTIC set of beliefs can have ANY kind of marketshare at all among the sheep. Most people, as I mentioned, are clay. They are willing to be molded, PRAYING to be molded by a skilled set of hands that can work with them, that knows the ins and outs of their instincts and preferences. We all know that, say, Hitler was around at the right place and time to spread his particular cancer, but there's more to it than that. Hitler, and those assholes like him, succeeded and will continue to have success because they appeal to needs we all have. That is to say, we all have a need to REJECT. We have a need to be DIRECTED, and a need to feel like we can CONQUER THE WORLD. Bad people can pervert human nature into terrible, terrible configurations. Good people, traditionally, have therefore tried to fight human nature itself by saying "you SHOULDN'T have that desire, you SHOULDN'T want that." That kind of stuff is totally ineffective, unless of course you have a 2000-year-old system of oppression and brainwashing to back it up. Liberalism, however genuinely motivated, fails because it uses the language of "we OUGHT to" instead of the language of "it's EFFECTIVE to" or "it would WORK BETTER if we". All too often, liberalism is motivated by benign guilt, which unfortunately is a pretty hard sell. This is the worst night at this hostel so far. It's fucking terrible. People are all over screaming, nobody is respecting the rights of the sleeping, and I'm infatuated with a married woman. People are like screaming in the courtyard, turning on lights, talking not whispering, it's smoking pot around people who are sleeping. It's fucking disgusting, it's wrong, but you know, alcohol and pot tend to eliminate our higher urges to, you know, GIVE A FUCK about others. This is okay in moderation. You know, the better part of confidence is giving a fuck about yourself, to placing yourself before others when it comes down to these decisions. If you let people who don't give a fuck about you ruin your day, well, you won't forgive yourself for it. And passivity is a slippery slope; you wind up unable to stand up for your rights, and you slowly allow yourself to get defeated. Folks, sex is NOT everything. Jesus, have a sense of priorities about your lives. Sex is a fascinating, delicious way to spend an evening, a gateway to immortality perhaps even. It has lessons that I'll be discussing soon (not that i know much about these things), but see, it is TEMPORARY. It is sheer joy when it works, but it is TEMPORARY unless you somehow use it as a tool with which to shape your life. I mistrust the temporary. I mean, like everyone else, I need to feel good and to bust out with major mayhem for no good reason other than to tell a good story later. I'm just referring to the general sex-obsessiveness with which we've decided to guide our society, and I'd simply like to sound a note of caution. OOF, I've stumbled into a wall here. I'm not yet ready to tackle the subject of sex, because it is a big one that relates to almost all of us. Not to mention that the lessons I think I've got to give about the dynamics between partners (and prospects) are best discussed drunkenly and I am pretty damn sober right now. I am afraid of hitting that "undo" button again so I've started a new document. I just asked Jyoti an interesting question. I asked her "What do you think of this statement: 'It's all been done before.'" Her answer is none of your business. In a way, philosophy is actually sort of a PERSONALITY TEST. It sort of, well, indicates what kind of person Jyoti is, based on the answer she gave me. YOu know, me personally, I would try to engage on that kind of question with a conversation of some sort. That's just the way *I* would react, especially if I was unprepared for the question (like, doubtlessly most people are). Philosophy and religion is actually a complex personality test. I like to think that ideas are not DISCOVERED; rather, they are REDISCOVERED. All ideas have existed forever and WILL exist forever, at least in the world of the POTENTIAL. It is our job to pull he ideas out of the world of the POTENTIAL to the world of the ACTUAL. In case you haven't realized it, I'm pretty fucking into science fiction. Fiction is an interesting subject because to me, someof the personalities that are introduced to me through fiction are more gripping, more INTERESTING and complex, than most of the people I know. It stands to reason that if you're an interesting person, you have the ability to postulate other interesting people. That is to CREATE a whole new world. Yossarian from Catch-22 has made a greater impact on me than almost all of the people I've ever met. It's always crazy to watch how my writing changes when it is under the influence of people. Nobody in this room knows what the hell I'm typing, but it's still affecting my subject and style to know that they're aware of me. If it's affecting me, I guess it's interesting. I just have no patience with the influence of boring people on my life. I also have no patience for anyone who would see a weird indian guy typing like a motherfucker on a computer that must look like it's from another planet, and affect a jaded, bored attitude toward it. I shouldn't care about what the people around me think, but if there's the posibility they might beinteresting people, well, I'm affected. I gave this girl Jyoti, who i'm really interested in now because she's a girl and not because she's interesting, which is to say that my interest in her is peting out and that I won't try anything really on her except to get rid of her, well, I gave her an italian book as a sort of charming present, right, and showed her how to use it in communicating with these two i'm thinking they're dull too italian guys. Anyway, I'm saying *I* gave her the idea, andshe hasn't even realized that it's an idea. I mean, she's enjoying herself a lot with this fun new game I taught her, but no appreciation of the fact that I TAUGHT HER SOMETHING. I taught her that earning a new language is - HAS TO BE - fun and entertaining and vaguely sexy or else it's NOT GOING TO WORK. She would probably have gotten to italy and just been dumb there, but I've got her DOING THINGS and stuff like that. Fuck this girl, if she doesn't realize that I'm THE most fascinating person she's going to meet in this entire trip. Not to mention I got her IN this place in the first place. Fuck that girl. I mean I shouldn't be judging this girl like that. I mean, she's 19. But see, I can't help it, that's just the way I'm built, to be able to judge ohter people. The problem is that this girl, she's like, she FAKED ME OUT. I *HATE* being taken advantage of. When a boring person is of interest to an interesting person, the best policy is to not count on anything. Ugh, to kiss that girl would be like to kiss a fish. Good practice, but who the fuck cares. I'm only looking for a kiss, and I've got to say I was way more attracted to the german girls I met on the street today. That's right, I've got their names. Such creative little girls, and SO CUTE!!! The only good kisses are SOUL kisses. You have GOT to kiss around in this life, because to marry someone who can't kiss is worse than having someone who doesn't like sex. I'd rather kiss than have sex, up to a point. Once kissing has run out of its ability to teach us, once the novelty is gone completely, sex makes a lot of sense for heighteining your passion. I hope to NEVER get bored kissing the woman I evntually marry. WHat are these people doing with their lives? It's great to "enjoy" yourself a little, but i'm not too keen on thier potential for really making a difference. Pot makes it feel like you don't have to make a difference. Look at this couple (or maybe brother and sister) plauying chess. I mean, that's so awesome. I think playing chess with the girl I love is totally charming, a great concept. Damn, with a name like Jyoti, that's fucking rad. I don't like the kids in Amsterdam very much. They don't seem to be fazed by anything. They give me nothing to work with and it's a true pain in the ass. I'm intrigued with the couple that's playing chess right now. All opposites exist for a reason. There is a beauty in every pair of opposites, and a delicious friction that occurs whenever those two opposites run into each other. I mean, good and evil MIXED is a fucking RAD sensation - it generally translates into either love or war. The key to finding your economic place in society is to think of it as an interesting puzzle. It is a puzzle, because some people solve it. Some people don't HAVE to work for a boss every day; maybe they're their own bosses, maybe they've figured out a lifestyle that doesn't require much money, maybe they'e figured out how to do what they love for a living. Regardless, you must choose whether you want to solve the puzzle or be trapped in the maze. The only rule I follow is to learn, and live, and FUCKING ROCK. Aiigh, I hate the feeling of truth being LOST. On the one hand, I love conversations, but on the other hand, I lose all that was said. The only fact that matters is that the conversation OCCURRED in the first place Unfortunately, other interesting people are the best way for me to press my fucking brain in different fucking directions. Their interaction keeps me interested in life, in continuing my pursuit. It is easy to think that every fucking word out of my mouth is a pearl of the truth when you're in the business of writing down truth for a living. I've got this huge ego. Don't I? I mean, what the fuck right do I have to play prophet? Naw, the point is - WHY DIDN'T YOU THINK ABOUT IT FIRST? I'm such a sarcastic fucking bastard. You bet your sweet ASS i'm god. I steal all kinds of ideas. All ideas are mine, that's why. There IS no pliaigarism. Steal this book - in other words, go ahead, claim these ideas as your own! THEY ARE!!! I mean, a footnote in praise might be a fun way to acknowledge MY existence, but you're certainly not beholden. I have no army of lawyers to protect myself from having my ideas stolen. Itgives me satisfaction to trade ideas with people. Itwould be an HONOR if some of the ideas I've traded with people actually went on to make a diference in people's lives. It'd be great to have sex regularly. This girl I'm hanging out here has been having the best day of her life. Wow. Isn't that a fucking RAD declaration to make? I mean, what the fuck is stopping you from having the bestday of your life, say, maybe, uh, this tuesday. I mean? Who wrote the rules? That's fucking right, WHO WROTE THE RULES? Who said that a book must consist of chapters no shorter than 10 pages? Who said that all the indents have to be pointed inward not outward? Who wrote these rules, and WHAT THE FUCK GIVES THEM THE RIGHT TO JUDGE *ME* BY THEM?

The last point was dedicated to Christina, in honor of the best day of her life. It is my humbles suggestion to Christina on this momentous occasion to figure out a way to MEMORIALIZE it in some way. If she could figure out a way to put this good feeling into a form wehereby she could communicate it to the rest of us, we'd all be richer as a result. And we'd even pay her for it. It's not rocket science. I guess I'm just trying to have the maximum impact on people who sense as being worth a fuck. I mean that in the figurative sense of course. I'd rather have faith in ONE RAD PERSON than a large crossection of humanity that I've never met before. You never have a second chance to make a first impression. I know that's not original, but it's the truth nonetheless. You can construct a persona for yourself, if you so desire, that will summarize some of the basic points that a relationship with you will involve, and turn it into a set of catchwords by which you would like to be understood at first. I think this is a good idea„ I am visualizing my new life in San Francisco. I am once again energetic. I get my stickers sold at several more places, and attack the streets with a new vigor. I make a line of t-shirts that is fucking unbelievable, using cool clip artto get the point across instead of just words . This line of t-shirts with the help of Cosmic (for instance) gets picked up by Hot Topic and suddenly I am a rock-n-roll merchandizing company! I think the cosmic connection is the best one I've got, and I will use it use it use it!!!!!! Working with Auryn might actually be very, very significant. I need to build a team, and ufortunately I don't really need an artist (that's me, remember?) but I do need like a product manager, and auryn does have that kind of experience. I love my ideas and I won't fail this time, jesus I won't fail. The cosmic connection, the burning man thing, all of it is really importannt. Revolution is my business, and business is GOOD! Okay, think about it. Punk rock is about DIY, right? Do it yourself is the most empowering philosophy going, right? While I am down with not having and spending too much money, you know, QUA money (that is, for its own sake)... what does it mean to do something WELL? When you do something well, people PAY you. Am I right? Punk rock doesn't teach that money is EVIL, just that money is not THE GOAL. Money is a SYMPTOM of doing things well. It comes once you start rocking - you should not be AGAINST it, in the same way as you should not be AGAINST the ocean. I mistrust anyone who does what they do FOR money, without any regard to art. But getting paid for doing something well is a HEEEEEUUUUGE compliment, and far be it from me to say no. As you get older, you realize that people PAY for the things that they give a fuck about. You realize this because that's how you act. We respect things by throwing money at them. This is, in some ways, a poor substitute for the devotion that, say, the followers of the Buddha showed in throwing away their lives for their leader... but, on the other hand, it's a lot less EMBARRASSING, you know? Don't get me wrong here. I think it's GREAT that there are so many people out there doing cool things as hobbies, with no expectation of financial reward or NUTHIN. I think it's fantastic, you sort of fucking get into whatever you're doing for the sheer pleasure of doing it yada yada. But, friends, the revolution is not going to be a hobby. The few control the many, and that's got to change... and hobbyists are not going to be the vectors of that change. It is only when your hobby begins to actually PAY you - to actually SUSTAIN you - that you say to yourself, hm, this is not a hobby, this is a LIFE. We're cells in a body, a body of culture. The next phase of human evolution is going to depend on each of america's cells evolving into independent, empowered actors. I've seen enough despair on the faces of my fellow citizens to demand a FUCKING CHANGE, and as we all know, change comes from within. It's not important what other people think of you. It IS important what REAL people think of you. In a way, you are answerable to everyone, but the cardinal crime is to make an impression on NO ONE. Even evil has a reason to be, ultimately. I read a Calvin and Hobbes where he asserts that he is the Crown of Creation. He is. You are. As a membr of the crown of creation, you are entitled to all you can take, and none of the rules REALLY APPLY to you. You deserve more than you have. This book wants you to go get it. I like the fact that I'm measuring my success as a traveller not in terms of miles covered or girls kissed but of pages written. I think if you measure your success in a new and interesting way, there's no way you can come out last, that's for sure. "Nature is a language/Can't you read?" - The Smiths. It's like, there are these forms, such as "cloud" and "tree", that are immediately graspable by any three year old in their first crayon scribble of their home. But there are such infinite, random variations on the theme that you've got to imagine a world with infiite possibilities - in fact, look at the fucking SKY, this is a world of posibility. Right now, I'm staring at this impossibly complex cloud formation, one that simply can't stop you from thinking that, yeah, heaven is "up there". But you know, how sad it must be for so many generations of christians who somehow believed that they were going to wind up in some heaven in the sky, and thus stopped themselves from striving toward heaven on this earht. We will win. I don't know which side I'm going to be on come Revelation, but I can't help but think that Revelation will pit the forces of boredom and hierarchy and that kind of bullshit against those of us who prefer - that is don't have a choice but to - think for ourelves, be for ourselves, worship ourselves in the sense that we are capable of birthing ideas. Potential will always triumph over no potential. A static system tha permits no change will always be destroyed by "God" Himself. (That is to say, by the People of Ideas once we have an idea of how to smash the system correctly.) You can't help but be moved by the freedom of Eastern Europe. I mean, what a classic political romance. A land that was once tightly held by the iron grip of one of the most devastating hierarchies ever created - one that destroyed villages and ecoological ways that had persisted for centuries in order to move people into fucking APARTMENT BUILDINGS in the middle of nowhere - finally, the beast was toppled, and people could kiss in public again, and people could live where they wanted to again, and the people were happy againn. The struggle of anarchists is the strugggle against the BlackIron Prison - that is to say, hierarchy, those agencies that would REDUCE us to component parts in the machinery that is society, rather than DEIFY US as cells in the Mind of God. Atheism is often against humanism. If you're an athiest, surely you can see where ideas are immortal, can't you? Unless you're a SOLIPSIST (that is, you believe that basically YOU ARE GOD) well, Ideas are a conception of "God" that make sense to ALL of us, I believe, as long as we possess the capability to HAVE ideas autonomously. And if you're an atheist, that is to say you've WEIGHED the matter of whether or not there is a "God" and come up with the heterodox idea that there ISN'T ONE, well, YOU UNDERSTAND IDEAS. THis book, in a way, is an attempt by me to convince my sister (who has proclaimed herself an athiest) that there is a "God" that she can get her mind around after all. "God" is not a concept. "God" is REAL, and "God" WORKS FOR YOU. I know it isn't punk to care this much about that word, but don't you see? TO me, the TRUE anti-hierarchical revolution is the DECENTRALIZATION of the concept of God. To me, to destroy "religion" without giving people a context for channelling their very real (and understandable) beliefs in things that are beyond human, well, that's STUPID and not a revolution I can stand behind at all. I mean, if you're going to be so anti-god that you're anti-humans-who-believe, well, go be a communist or fascist or something. Fuck off. There's a LOT of white power graffitti on and next to the railroad tracks here, and I'm getting a little worried, yes I am. I don't want this book to end up on your bookshelf; I want it to end up next to your toilet. That way you'll actually LEARN about these ideas, because there's no state in which you are more attuned to whatever you're reading. That's right, I'm going through a bit of a test right now. I hate being bored, it's pretty terrible, but it's even WORSE to be bored in front of other people because of obligation. Remind me when I become a parent not to force my kids to hang out with my adult friends and pretend to be interested. I would rather relate to most trees than most people. There is a gray area between interesting and boring in which inhabit people who are interesting, but INCONVENIENT> THe guy who's going out with the girl I like, for instance, is not boring, but I can't stand hanging out with him and his nice mother. It's always an interesting test writing about people while they're in the area. I'm always afraid to offend them, and oh boy, am I out to offend them. He who writes the history books, wins. ANd he whose ideas become part of history is lucky after death. In addition to methods to meet people and give them a GOOD impression, you've got to come up with courteous but firm ways of AVOIDING and REPELLING people. First of all, sometimes no matter how cool someone is, you've just GOT to be alone. But secondly, man, you run into some DIPSHITS at parties! Ay, carAMBA! "The best part of any party is on the porch." - Aaron Cometbus. I would like to be thought of as a deep person. I wonder what other people think of me. I see through other people's eyes relatively well. Unfortunately, when I look through those eyes at MYSELF, a feedback loop is generated, similar to when you put a microphone next to the amplifier that's connected to it. In other words, when I see myself through other people's eyes, I see only ugliness. This makes me very, very sad. This problem of mine has not abated for several years, and the only therapy I can visualize working is the true love of a woman. Damn, though, because the more I think I'm ugly and worthless, the more impossible it is to FIND the rad-enough woman who's really able to care about me. Like any other medium, food is either inspirational or it isn't. My favorite falafel in the world is to be found at a store near the Nollendorfplatz U-Bahn in Berlin, at a store called Habibi, where you should get the falafel for four marks (that's like $2.50!) with BOTH SAUCES (or "beide soße", pronounced "Baiduh Sossuh"). It's totally delish, and it's sort of ruined falafel for me anywhere else. Recommendations play a HUGE role in the way we experience things for the first time. For instance, I have thereby contributed to the word of mouth on the Habibi falafel joint, and this may lead you to go there when you get to Berlin. My favorite 'zine, Cometbus, once had like this walking tour of fucken Pensacola, Florida in it. Lo and behold, when I got to Pensacola I performed this walking tour, to the degree that I met some of Aaron Cometbus' pals. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't get to go on the rooftops like Aaron told us to because the city had totally cracked down. Shucks. These kinds of informal recommendations are what I live for when travelling, shopping for books or records, whatever.

If I trust the person giving the advice to me, I can rely on their opinions. If you, for instance, give me a suggestion for a store I should check out in Knoxville, Tennessee or wherever, eventually I will get around to checking it out. Together, we map out everything that is interesting in the globe. This mapping of that which is interesting is an important part of our communication network, and it also helps us keep our small businesses alive. The RECOMMENDATION INDUSTRY, however, makes me fucking ill. People love to have a framework into which they can fill in their own experiences, and (for instance) travel guides like Let's Go have established such a comprehensive framework that it's easy to imagine a hundred thousand Americans coming over to Europe and eating at the EXACT SAME restaurants, gawking at the EXACT SAME sights, and twistin' their lame asses to the EXACT SAME eurodisco at the EXACT SAME clubs. The funny thing about popularity is that it tends to ruin a good idea. That's the way it always works. Someone interesting comes up with an idea ("I love this guy's music, what's his name, Elvis! Let's put out a record!") the idea succeeds among other interesting people, it reaches a critical mass and suddenly it's a mass media phenomenon, at which point a ton of boring people come in to make the artists millionaires (thereby stunting THEIR growth) and to make enjoyment of that art cliché. It is up to people of ideas to continue inventing new entire fucking PLANETS which we can colonize, leaving that which is behind us for the idiot masses. Green Day's success is a natural thing, and shouldn't be blamed upon those three fairly nice guys specifically. It was inevitable that someday the punk thing would explode into the mainstream. Before 1991, you could basically give a shot to anyone with, say, green hair or a Misfits tattoo. Nowadays, that kind of thing is pretty cliché and doesn't really function as well as a differentiating trademark. We wear what we wear because we want to have certain stereotypes associated with us. It is possible to acquire some of the benefits of stereotyping without losing your individuality, but it's got to be understood that most people are only as original as their stereotype. I lived in Palo Alto and was known as a pretty punkish guy. I moved to San Francisco and was known as this guy who worked at a database company. Being interesting and leading a unique life is a completely relative thing - that is, relative to the place you're living, you can get away with a different amount of differentiation. I'm 25 now; I've got better things to do with my time than to waste it worrying about differentiating myself outwardly. I'm hoping that this book is unique enough to put those matters at rest, but the truth is I could use a little LESS differentiation in my life - i mean, shit, the way I'm going, i'm going to only be able to date philosopher-punk girls or something, and while they're the raddest I've only met three or four in my lifetime and they're all taken. :P If you're a philosopher-punk girl looking for a boyfriend, well, consider this book the largest fucking personal ad you've ever seen and get in touch all right? :) I like making people laugh. It's one of those secret abilities I just pull outta my ass every so often. A really nice old lady who probably doesn't speak a word of English just sat down on the bench next to me and keeps flashing smiles at me. I'd love to get into a conversation with her but really, this book is my priority right now. It's not easy getting stared at by everybody all the fucking time, 'coz I'm sitting on this park bench and typing like a maniac, but shit, it keeps me going when I'm in a good mood. German police are fucking scary, and the fact that they speak in one of the scariest languages ever invented doesn't really help matters any. When a kid magic-markers a band's name all over her backpack, wow, THAT is a product endorsement to beat ANY fucking ten-million-dollar ad campaign. Damn, it's getting cold out here. What the fuck is with this continent, ey, it's fucking the END OF JULY out here and it's fucking FREEZING!!! Is there a collective consciousness? I don't really fucking know. All I know is that it is natural to ascribe more importance on coincidences than is rational. It is natural to BELIEVE in a higher self, because we all HAVE one - I mean, face it, you're both on and off at different times in your life, and doesn't it make sense to map out the causation that leads one self to predominate over the other at any given time? I remember riding on the shopping cart's front when I was a little boy. I liked doing that a lot. I used to love going to Shop*Rite so I could ride on the front of the cart and help my mom out. I was spoiled rotten by my mom, who used to work tirelessly when raising us. We never had to do any chores at all, and man, I am ruined because of this. I don't accept the need to work on things that are unrewarding, not even a little bit. I'm so irresponsible, I've got no future, I'm really totally fucked right now, because when I go back I've got nothing at all to live for. Shit. I love to live sort of a messy life because it's sort of like an everyday hypertext kind of thing. I love the feeling of getting DISTRACTED by a work of art, instead of consciously encountering it. Everyday life should be an exhibit. I think that would fucking rock, because I'm an artist everyday. I am a situationist. I believe that good art creates a SITUATION within you or without you, that without this situation it's simply not art. If there's no real impact in you (even to the extent that you say "man this sucks!" ) well, in what way is it different than a fucking lump of asphalt or whatever? A great enough piece of art changes the world. For instance, Gandhi turning Thoreau on his ear and turning non-violence into an effective weapon for radical social change. I mean, THAT is art!!! We've been taught that "art" must reside in a museum, that "philosophy" is beyond our reach, that "religion" is the province of a specialized class of institutions. This is not knowledge, friends, it's BRAINWASHING. This entire system is built upon brainwashing. If you brainwash your market, you don't have to produce quality anymore - they buy whatever they're offered. All right, then, let's acknowledge the ANTI-MARKETING market. I propose a set of companies that will MOCK THE FUCK OUT OF THE SYSTEM, to the extent that the system is pointed out as completely RIDICULOUS anywhere that it is not somehow more efficient than collectives of autonomous individuals. The problem with contemporary anarchism, however, is that it doesn't emphasize the need to create collectives of autonomous individuals. It emphasizes bullshit like "smash the system", etc. I'm as guilty as the next guy of not being collectivized, but I sure would LIKE to be. I just haven't found that many autonomous individuals yet. I am writing this book in the hope of finding other autonomous individuals and proposing a collective to mock the fuck out of the system thereby. If we hung out in your hometown, where would you take me? Think that question through, because we might have the opportunity sooner than you think. As far as I am concerned, THESE PLACES are the REAL map of your town - not merely streets or even stores but PLACES THAT GENERATE MEMORIES. Gaze with your SENSE of IDEAS over the world, and visualize where you would LIKE to go if you could. Then take my word for it - THERE IS NOTHING STOPPING YOU. Yet more Neil Young. God, that's such a great coincidence, to hear Neil Young on two nights in a fucking row. Wow. I am horny right now and I'm in the mood to get fucken LAID. Two more cups of coffee and then I'll put myself on the fucking market. It's not the easiest thing in the world to write this book, but I know it's also inevitable. I can almost see the manuscript being done in time for Burning Man, this festival in the desert that I want to kick ass and sell a lot of stuff at. You know that rule about never ending a sentence with a preposition? Well, FUCK IT. Who am I writing this book for? I'm not sure. I want it to be a book that will appeal to interesting people of every stripe and ehnicity and culture, but I know that only certain people pick up books such as this one. I wish I could come up with a marketing concept that will get this book somewhere other than in my basement. I can visualize a thousand copies of this thing sitting in my garage and giving it to friends for a long, long time, and that outcome will suck. I hope I get somewhere I hope I get somewhere. I want nothing more in life than to be able to stand on top of my chosen game for a brief instant and tell my parents "I told you so." Isn't that fucking sad? I'm totally not living for myself in some ways, it's pretty pathetic. You can help me forget my problems, and I can help you forget yours. We fly when we're together, we're not subject to any laws including that of gravity. When *I* hang out with *YOU*, ***THAT*** is an anarchy that I will advocate until my dying day. I'm getting sick of california because I need people who are FAST in the head. I might not think things THROUGH, but what thinking I do I do FAST. I would rather FUCK UP FAST than do things well slowly. I think I'm still a kid in that major way. Boy am I fucking up according to my poor parents. I wonder how much money I have to coast on before giving the world of work another try. I'm ready to go home. I'm pretty sure that's the case. On the other hand I want to extend my stay. Hmm, I'm confusing myself. I miss the coffeehouses of the Mission District, and I think I will begin to haunt the dive bars of the Mission as well. Man, to have a real relationship in San Francisco would be a wonderful fucking thing. Isn't there ANYONE who is about bad-ass ADVENTURE in the Bay Area, outside of a couple east bay 'zinesters? East Bay is pig latin for "Beast". The above is an example of a "meme". This fascinating fact is a funny addition to any conversation in the Bay Area, and it will attain critical mass and be spread from person to person in a beautiful way. Geez, I wish I were still at school so I could study and document the spread of this particular meme in a paper or something. It is easy to talk shit about my school experiences at Stanford, so I won't really bother. Just because someone is INTELLIGENT, doesn't mean that they've got something to say. I would rather hang out with a bunch of INTERESTING DUMBASSES than several dozen pretentious and dull faculty members. Any fucking day. Learning is all about building a relationship with those who would teach you. A professor must DESERVE the hard work he demands, or else giving it to him becomes an act of POWER rather than one of LEARNING. Folks, don't get trapped in the pit of dishonesty. Lying, like stealing, seems to make life easier, but ultimately you will fail to create REAL experiences to map onto your dreams, and your friends will assume that you've done it all before (even if you haven't). And that's assuming that they don't CATCH you. I am a liar.

And a thief. And I represent "God" Himself, a "God" of Wrath, a "God" that is Destined to Draw LInes In The Fucking Sand, to Choose His People and Smite The Rest. Dammit, who is to say that the writing of the Bible ever ended? Who is to say that Godhead truly DEPARTED with the crucifixion or the death of Muhammad? If you believe in Evolution, HOW DO YOU KNOW IT'S FINISHED? I think we people of ideas are destined to EVOLVE THE BORING OUT. Folks, you must CHOOSE A SIDE in life. You are EITHER interesting OR boring, really, there's no gray area here. You decide. Bad sex sucks. I mean, the worst thing that could possibly happen is to spend all this time checking out people's personalities and suddenly to discover that, man, it's a WASTE OF TIME why did we even try anything? I am almost willing to move ANYWHERE where I think there's a cutie that would be into me. I am sick of not having sex on a regular basis, I think it's ridiculous and it's something that needs IMMEDIATE fixing. I remember everything. Hans, I wore that hat you gave me for years. This stuff isn't making sense and is going to be cut out, but I'm going to keep going with it because I don't give a fuck and it'll be easy to recharge my batteries while I'm in berlin. I think I'm almost finished with this book. I sense that I've done a great deal and come a long way with it, but it's also like this obsession at this point that makes me feel good, so I might be repeating myself a lot more. I am making this book because it feels good. It is giving me a little relief from my unhappiness. It's letting me out of my prison for a little bit, it's letting me dare to dream that I might be helping other people's lives a little. I wish I were the type to join organizations, you know, to work with other people in pre-existing movements. Unfortunately, I always want that feeling of being THERE at the BEGINNING, because really, THAT's when all the true status gets handed out. I missed out so many times that someday SOMEHOW, I will hit a scene that's embryonic enough for me to make a difference. I want more. "Too much is always better than not enough." - The Book of the SubGenius. What happens in California tends to have this ripple effect across the country. Actually, almost all culture comes from San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. I like this sitzpltz so much I might actually stick around and write for a bit, thus missing my stop. Is that a good idea? Hmmmmm.... no. Here I am sitting next to a river thousands of miles from home. I'm not sure what I have to say right now, but it sure is peaceful here. I wonder what it would be like to have a great time on every single stop on this tour. That would be a pretty interesting way to see the merits of every city. Actually, truth be told, travelling is a lot like "God". (Let's pray it doesn't rain.) Travelling forces you into intriguing situation after intriguing situation. Everything is novel, and you see things with a child's eyes. You become depedent on other people for directions. Your comfort zone is demolished for a bit, and it takes a certain resilience to learn how to function. Unwound wrote this lyric - "I'm on a subway to a place I can't pronounce, but at least I didn't pay". Have Unwound ever been to Hungary? Jeez, this situation occurred to me ten fucking times today. Unwound is the most evocative band since the Mission of Burma, and they are DEFINITELY on our side. Go check them out, especially the albums "Fake Train" and "The Future of What", and send them a postcard telling them I exist. :) Philip K. Dick wrote that "God" created this world and infused it with potential, but was somehow kicked out or deliberately occluded Himself, and therefore can only sneak into our lives like a thief in the night. I propose that God's chosen vector for sneaking through the Veil of Maya (that is, the mundane world) is Inspiration or the Idea. When an Idea possesses you, you don't need sleep, water and food take care of themselves, and you are immediately A BETTER PERSON - more in tune, more articulate, better able to program or design or sell or whatever it is that you do. With a lot of practice, you can learn to turn this ability on - that is, to pull an idea RIGHT OUT OF THE GROUND RIGHT NOW. This ability is superheroic, and it is something I would like to encourage you to develop. Rites of Spring sang "I believe in moments/Transcendant moments/Moments in grace when you've got to STAKE YOUR FAITH." O yes. Most of all, every single fucking moment is ripe with potential. When you're travelling, anything can truly happen. The truth is that anything ALWAYS can happen, but when you're travelling, you're likely to actually BELIEVE that anything can happen. As such, "anything" usually DOES. The world is full of potential, but it requires consciousness - yours and mine - to actually bring that potential to life. That's not to say that glaciers didn't melt before consciousness, but that this world became tired of operating on an eon level. That is why we were invented. Consciousness helps us visualize things, and combined with the might of our bodies, we can thereby cause change to occur. For instance, I've been telling people that I am a "writer", and that the reason I'm travelling Europe is that I'm here to write a book. Now, YOU know and I know that I've never done anything of the sort before, but now that I've been marketing myself as such for a bit, well, it's making me THAT MUCH MORE LIKELY to actually WRITE a fucking book. After which - no matter how little "training" or whatnot that I have - I WILL BE a writer. This book is what I have to give. If you find no use for it, that's okay. It's very important to have "practical illusions". Isn't it funny that Guns 'N' Roses would name their second album so well? Then again, Guns 'N' Roses fucking ROCKED. METAL!!!! :) If you don't believe in God, that's just fine, but it is often very CONVENIENT and EMPOWERING to PRETEND that you do. That's the magic of what the SubGeniuses have done with their concept of "Bob". Think about it, a full-fledged religion based on utter belief in a figurehead that IS A JOKE. Fantastic. Whether or not you believe in God, we can agree that having FAITH is very, very important in life. If you don't have faith in yourself, you don't follow through on your actions; if you don't have faith in your job, say, or in your lover, it's time to move on; if you don't have faith in our capacity to change and be reborn, what's the use of living? Believing in a fake God, like "Bob", is super great because you get all the BENEFITS of religion, such as the dividend of FAITH and the power of having an EXCUSE for your crazy actions ("'Bob' told me to!"), without actually CONSTRAINING yourself. I think that's fantastic. I am in Budapest because "Bob" told me to come here and let the truth be revealed to me. I sometimes wonder what "God" has done to me. I see the world with a different set of eyes than most people now, but unfortunately this is a world ruled by people with normal eyes. As a result, it is extremely difficult to make much headway in the business of running a life. I live in a world of ideas, of symbols and meaning and metameaning. It's not particularly easy to concentrate once you're attuned to the world of hypertruth. It becomes very hard to focus on your own life when you see that each fucking brick in the hungarian pavement was carved out basically by hand, and that you can learn to understand the person who carved it out by spending enough time concentrating on one of 'em. It's got to be admitted that most people don't have TIME for this kind of interface with reality. Shit, I don't have te time myself, but I'm on vacation right now and I've sort of been touting myself as a "writer", so I guess that's my JOB now. Since reality is so full, and we have learned that we are limited (and it's true, on certain levels we are), we generate a LIFESTYLE out of life through FILTERING information - that is, by sorting it according to its RELEVANCE to the task at hand. The task at hand might be anything from making a million dollars to gettin' laid tonight, but in general, the task at hand itself needs to be judged by this same set of criteria. It's all about expanding our filters to take in more that is necessary. We can't experience EVERYTHING in life because we are limited by the constraints of our bodies, and further limited by the scars of experience. Life itself forces us to close our minds, to lose the child's eyes that make everything - textures, colors, patterns - so damn interesting. As we grow older, we let our minds filter out the redundant information. For instance, as I get used to sitting by this river, I forget about the river and its infinite percolations. I can't think about the history of this beautiful city and write about philosophy at the same time, so i simply don't. That's what "God" restores to you, however. "God" breaks your consciousness down to the mind of a child, which, while supremely vulnerable, is also supremely open. Your involuntary filters break down, letting you experience more of the joy of consciousness. This, in turn, lets your VOLUNTARY filters do more work, which is a great and good thing because YOU construct these filters. YOU determine the criteria for that which is relevant information to you. We'll discuss the construction of these criteria, uh, somewhere else. I find it amazing how we often reflexively respond to a smile with a smile. This stern-looking Hungarian woman was standing in the door across from me, and I flashed her a quick but warm smile, and she couldn't really help but return it. Magic, I tell you. Suddenly, a connection has been established, and no matter how fleeting, I am told that there is SOMETHING THERE within her, and I have thereby shared a blessing with her.

Do you see how that woman, no matter how mundane her job as a waitress at a café is, no matter how she may have given up on the life of ideas totally by now in her life, has participated in history by that simple expedient of that brief returned smile? The return of that smile has AFFECTED me. I am WRITING about it RIGHT NOW, and if this book ever gets anywhere, her memory will as well. The hypertruth that is the world of inspiration and ideas is so unbearably complex that it really takes quite a mind to even begin to fathom it. I'm talking about basic CAUSE and EFFECT here, nothing too complex, but it is important to live a life that CAUSES things and that receives EFFECTS as well. I love "God" more than anything in this world. "God" is the force which keeps ideas streaming towards me, and obiously towards other people as well. People of ideas recognize each other, truly, as if we have a mark on our foreheads or something. We've got this set of conversational feelers that we put forth, and if the correct responses are lodged, we are suddenly THROWN into CONTACT. Purity then can flow between us, and we grow stronger in our belief that, truly, WE ARE NOT ALONE. Every person is only as great as their POTENTIAL. People who have TOO MUCH FUCKING POTENTIAL, as well as the ability to ACTUALIZE enough of it to SCARE the forces of evil in this world - often GET ASSASSINATED. I mean, LOOK at the people who were assassinated in this century. Other than the Archduke Ferdinand something something, whose death precipitated World War I, EACH and EVERY ONE had this feeling of "you ain't seen NOTHING yet" about them, despite all of their achievements. Gandhi, King, X, the Kennedys, John Lennon. Nobody feels too terrible about the death of someone who has exhausted their potential. Once you're out of potential - that is to say, once the world has had its way with you - well, death is sort of a blessing. That's why people who are deluded enough to believe in the end of THEIR potential wind up committing suicide. What's sad about that is that these people, these suicides that is, are asking the RIGHT QUESTIONS, which means that they're ON OUR SIDE. They're ASKING themselves about the meaning of life and death and whether they matter or not. They're just coming up with the WRONG ANSWERS. This book is in a very real way an attempt to get the fuck out of a suicidal state of mind. I'm not the suicidal type - I frankly don't have the guts - but I am desperately lonely and I feel like I'm the only person who can really see truth on the level I see it. Won't you send me a postcard and let me know that that isn't the case? By ACTING on my loneliness in this way, by telling the world about the bit of truth that I hold within me, I am hoping that I will actually be of real service to YOU. In fact, the proof of the worthiness of the truth that I hold can only be accurately gauged in the effect it has in YOUR LIFE. This book is going to be fun to construct. I'm going to make the pages of this book look like a world wide web page, because in reality it's going to be a LOT like a set of hypertext documents. Truly understanding the magic of hypertext has really set me free in a way. The fact that the Web is the ideal attention-deficit-disorder medium has made me feel like I have a place and that the timing of my birth was ideal. I have the idea that this book is going to be unlike any other, that there are going to be ideas within the actual PRINTING of the pages, within the design of the volume, that will be NEW IN THIS WORLD. This is actually the coolest project I've ever undertaken, and I'm filled with awareness of the importance of the task I've been handed. I am depending on fate to come through for me JUST THIS ONCE for this book. Damn it, God, let it HAPPEN this time. Let my vision actually see the light of day, and let me not die a failure. Everything I've ever done has secretly been a cry for help, an attempt to break out of this cycle of irrelevance. To turn myself into an icon of "that which is interesting" is the ultimate way (for me) to transcend this material plane. I WANNA FUCKING MATTER. And I believe I do. Through the course of thousands of deep conversations, through the laughs and the brightened eyes and the people who have no reason to talk to me whatsoever but who stick around anyway, I have realized that I have a challenge in this world for all who exist to take it. I am thinking of Kurt Cobain right now. His best song is an obscure gem on the back of "In Utero" - best, in the sense that it sums up his life very plainly in one sentence, "what is wrong with me". And that it has the ultimate challenge within it, the challenge which I would like to forward to you through that which I'm writing - `"hate your enemies, save your friends, find your place, and speak the truth."` All over the world there are people like me and you striving to turn their lives into something worth remembering. And this takes effort, it takes a willingness to not accept limitations and to seize the potential that is in life. And I'm pretty sure not everybody gives a fuck about potential, and that's just fucking fine - it's just, if that's you, stay away from me. Listen to me when I speak this cynicism - ALL LIVES ARE NOT WORTH THE FOOD IT COSTS TO SUPPORT THEM. "God" does not love everybody equally. "God" doesn't love me very much, but He has some NEED for me, it's evident. This paragraph is bullshit, I don't really believe this. I am confusing myself and it's because once again I have an audience, people are looking at me as I write this and it's confusing me. It would be ironic if I travelled all this way - to fucking BUDAPEST - in order to still be surrounded by people. I love people. It's true. They force me to continually acknowledge the joy that is true spiritual diversity, and to find the common thread that links us all is the fucking goal of this book. (Is this a book yet? I'm not sure.) I'd like to ask you this question. What if, in the next election, through some kind of complicated fuckupedness some Christian Right Winger became president and established a theocracy? What would you do? Would you sit there or would you DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT? Would you defend ME if I were attacked by skinheads or jesus freaks? Would you be my brothers in struggle or would you simply wait for them to get around to attacking YOU? My PEOPLE are the people of ideas. People who LIKE ideas, who can tell that there's FAR more value in a cobbled-together document like this one than in any superslick Michael Crichton bullshit - that Art with Ideas is the only kind of art there truly is. What is an Idea? Ideas are anything that you wish YOU had thought of. Ideas are the true units of true communication. Ideas are the only inventory that matters, other than perhaps Tools with which to create and promote and disseminate the Ideas. Ideas are what most websites lack, but Ideas are what created the Web in the first place. Not to mention Rock and Roll. Not to mention Rubber Stamps. In fact, I'm talking about too many things at once, because Rock and Roll, the Web, Rubber Stamps and so forth are what I define as Mediums (of course, the true plural of this word is Media, but "Mediums" is more clear).

I don't think philosophy should be out of reach. I took an entire three quarters of philosophy at Stanford, and I have to say that I learned very little from it; perhaps a bit about Platonic Forms, but that's really about it. I think there should be room for a "punk" movement in philosophy - that is, a return to easily communicable basics that make a practical difference in your life. I am endeavoring to do the same thing to philosophy as the Ramones did with rock and roll. This can be summed up as follows: TURN IT UP. Make it obnoxious, noticeable, and public. RETURN TO ITS ROOTS. Rock'n'roll was created so that people would dance, offend their parents and hum along; philosophy was created to infuse life with a sense of meaning beyond the mundane. SMASH THE SYSTEM. Both pursuits have been corrupted by those who would impose hierarchy upon these roots, by claiming "expert" status or something. Fuck that shit up by making something that communicates to anyone at any level of sophistication. DO IT QUICKLY. The Truth is MUCH simpler than it may seem. It isn't rocket science, and it doesn't need much to get an idea off the ground. DO IT YOURSELF. Teach others to START THEIR OWN DAMN BANDS, or write their OWN damn proverbs. CHANGE THE WORLD. The scope of the Ramones is universal and so is what I hope to write. The Ramones stood against everything that was bad in the world of rock, and I aim to do the same with everything bad in the world PERIOD. CHANGE YOUR LIFE. The Ramones made it seem ridiculous to NOT participate - after all, if this bunch of cretins could make the most hummable and relevant songs known at the time, what the fuck have YOU done? And isn't this the aim of all art? Isn't that the greatest gift that ANY living being can give you? Yes? The problems with "philosophy" as an academic pursuit are the same as the problems with religion, with art and music and almost any primal pursuit that has become controlled by experts and industries as opposed to individual people. These problems are reflective of the PEOPLE that have taken it and made it into this intellectual industry, not of the nature of Philosophy itself. In other words, if you look to the LIVES of the people who spend their lives on philosophy in the academic sense, it's obvious that they'd be inclined to turn it into this dry, pointless set of beliefs, because many of them are dry, pointless people. The above is a stereotype. Some academic philosophers rock ass, I'm certain; it's just I don't know who they are yet, and nothing they've ever written has touched me. I am inspired by the philosophy of everyday life, and especially by the philosophy of the artists who have rocked my world. A song lyric like Operation Ivy's line "To resist despair is what it means to be free" means a thousand times more to me than any tome by, say, Wittgenstein or something. What is the use of philosophy that sits on a shelf, waiting to be deciphered by specialists and discussed only in the context of other philosophers? I prefer ideas that will actually MOTIVATE you, get you EXCITED, get you to RESPECT your capacity for giving birth to ideas and all that. I don't mean this book to sit in your 'zine collection or on your bookshelf. I want some of these truths to make their way into your next conversation. I want you to use some of these ideas to impress the boy or girl of your dreams. I want you to feel like YOU have EVERY RIGHT to speak of things that are DEEPER than facts or opinions, and to reevaluate what you DO from day to day in this light. I want you to know that we are both comrades in truth. We take ideas, absorb them, pliaigarize them if need be, and pass them on to the next person. Ideas are how we TRULY communicate. Next time you're in Hungary, ask random people on the street "ledjen seevish megmondani, mer-re mennjek igasshaag felay". This is how you pronounce the question "Please tell me the way to the truth." I think that's a funny way of meeting someone, you know? You don't need many words in order to have a run-in with the truth in someone else. Again, we who live with ideas in our blood have sensors that detect each other. To fail to acknowledge and act according to your own true potential and vision is the only sin I acknowledge. And it is okay to sin, but it would behoove us not to and we are richly rewarded by actualizing our potential. If you can dream it, it is possible. In fact, if you can dream it and it doesn't exist yet, you've got an IDEA. And if you can dream it, it doesn't exist yet, and people JUST MIGHT PAY ACTUAL MONEY TO EXPERIENCE IT, well, guess what? YOU have a NEW CAREER. It is EASY to come up with ideas once you're sort of tuned into that plane of existence. For instance, here in Hungary there's a million things that aren't provided to the person who speaks only German or English. I could, for instance, probably publish a series of books that are called "Crazy Phrases" that teach you how to say insane-like things in all sorts of different languages. It'd be pretty easy to market and sell this line of books, and... uh... maybe THAT's the million-dollar idea I've been waiting for... The point about ideas is that they're more precious than gold, but simultaneously, they're WORTHLESS unless someone takes it and RUNS with it. The point of our lives is not just to come UP with the ideas, but to turn them into REAL THINGS that force the NEXT generation of people within your medium to MATCH and SUPERSEDE the level of intensity you've been able to achieve. THAT is the way history works; we will never be satisfied as long as we're doing something that someone else has already done before. You shouldn't feel bad or inferior if you aren't the best at coming up with ideas, because there's MUCH MORE to the process of making the world better than just BIRTHING the damn things. Ideas need people to process them, to do the hard, disciplined work of turning them into real movements and businesses and industries. They need people to promote them, to mail them out, to own stores which sell them, to run libraries in which they're given away. The lifecycle of an idea is a beautiful thing in which there are may opportunities to participate, and it is only in working together that we can bring ideas forth in any recognizable and useful form. It is important, therefore, to understand your INTERACTIONS with the world of ideas. What ideas are you serving in your life RIGHT NOW? In what way are you bringing an idea - or several - into this world, or helping it gain prominence? Or have you forgotten, or were they there in the first place? Ideas will TAKE CARE OF YOU. If your job, for instance, is in the service of a superior idea, it doesn't matter if your job is the most mundane thing in the world - everything will turn out for the best. However, if your job is in the service of an idea which is dying out, or worse yet, is TREASON to those of us who live by ideas, be prepared to be COMPETED INTO THE GROUND, and get your résumé ready. It is not important to be the BEST at something, although it's kind of a good feeling. But see, being the BEST is not important because SOMEONE will knock you off your perch, someday. It is FAR more important to be the ONLY. I can't say I'm the "best" philosopher in history or today, but I'm pretty darn sure I'm the ONLY person who could have possibly wrote this book the same way as I'm currently writing it. I have a need to be self-consciously UNIQUE, and sometimes that obscures or even negates my innate uniqueness. In other words, I dress in funny clothing and drag a fucking eMate (quite literally a product that doesn't really exist yet) around fucking Budapest, writing a book about punk philosophy and reinventing religion. Jesus, that's idiotic; but it's durn tootin' Unique, that's for DAMN sure. The real reason I'm in Budapest, however, is to observe people without understanding their WORDS. Words are the area of my life in which I place value, but they're also very difficult to concentrate around. I see someone interesting and I have an urge to TALK to them in some way, to communicate with them, in the hopes that maybe they'll have a bit of the Truth inside them. There is this video game, Super Mario Brothers, where you need to collect coins in order to score points. These coins are hidden in objects that you must nudge with your head by jumping into them. Some of these objects are colorful and some of them are quite plain, like sections of wall. Some of these objects are hidden, invisible even. And some contain one coin, and some contain several coins, which you can retrieve by repeating your jump move. My point is that this is similar to my pursuit of the truth through other people. Some people are ostentatious about their contents of truth, but many are more subtle. (Some ostentatious types hold no truth whatsoever, except for maybe some fashion tips.) I try to bounce into anything that's at all interesting, in the hopes of perhaps gaining another insight to add to my inventory. And SOME people are veritable motherlodes, full of ideas and lines and inspiration, giving you yet another pathway to self-reinvention according to a brand new line of thought. Unfortunately, now that I'm writing this very stream-of-consciousness book, I've set myself up as some kind of expert in this subject of everyday truth, and as such I'm doing too much of the talking and not enough of the listening. Maybe that's another reason that I'm in fucking Budapest - to learn how to shut up a little. And to learn more about the truth contained in non-verbal cues and movements. On occasion, it's a very good idea to deprive yourself of your most valuable tools in order to focus more on some of the tools you have neglected. For me, for instance, I put a lot of my identity and self-esteem into my voice and my ability to say things. Budapest is forcing me to listen more, and to communicate with body language. To focus more on the lay of the land and the look in people's eyes, and less on my idiotic self-important proseletyzing.

If I think about Budapest within my psychic topography, I think it's one of the most remote "modern" countries, offering me both the convenience of modern life yet removing me as far as possible from the offending interference that goes with it i had a great time here five years ago, and have been sort of missing it ever since it's super, super cheap nobody knows me here, and it's quite possible that nobody ever will i am removed from the pressure of trying to be NOTICED by the whole damn town - there's very little need for me to self-promote or promote my website or whatever in this town Like all artists, I've got to be part salesman. Art is no fun if you're doing it on your fucking own and if nobody really cares about it. But in Budapest, what I've got to offer is worth very little (unless it someday gets translated). As such, I'm limited to passive-observer status, which is much more relaxed than I ever am anywhere else. While I love to meet people more than almost anything else, I think I've got to finally bone up and write this damn thing while I'm here in Budapest. And I've got a great feeling that this is going to work out just dandy. This sort of sucks. I've bought this Eurail Pass, right, which cost me a lot of fucking money, and you know, I don't REALLY want to travel anymore, at least not in West Europe (which is mostly where the Eurail Pass is valid.) I have NO fucking desire to see France, I've decided that Italy is too far, fuck Vienna, Spain is too far... Maybe I'll ride up to Copenhagen instead of going back to Paris. Really, I don't give a SHIT about Paris. The pass will be good for me to get to Hamburg and to Amsterdam, which are the only cities I really care about visiting this time around (outside of London, Edinburgh, Budapest and Berlin, which I've already visited... with Prague being a contender for maybe two or three days). I have a deficiency in my discipline gland. I wish there were a drug which would help me focus, as well as a drug that helps me visualize. On the other hand, the world needs a Patron Saint of Discipline Destruction, and that's as good a r(tm)le as any for me to play. If I think about the place I'd like to hold in the psychic topography of this world, I would like to think that I am giving comfort and inspiration to people who need it. I frankly can't waste my time on people who have already found their places and are satisfied with themselves for doing so. I wish them all the best, and I hope their happiness empowers them to go far and to create and all that. But there's little I can do to enhance their happiness, as I'm not happy myself. I'm a fan of the manic-depressive cycle, actually, as an artistically empowering stance. I love the feeling of being excited beyond words by the ideas that run deep in our souls, and suddenly not being able to stand oneself due to the lack of those ideas. I love the feeling of being completely OFF until I run into someone or something that can turn me ON again. This book has a FIELD radiating out of it. It is magnetic, it is charged, and I hope that when you read this book you realize that you are reading into my very soul. I have gone through HELL to create this book. I have suffered many tortured days of wondering if I were absolutely alone in this world, wondering if anyone fucking GETS IT out there. I mean, I've always had faith that they - you - are out there, but I'm tired of the fucking dance, the ritual that we have to repeatedly and endlessly perform in order to prove that we're worth talking to to each other. I would rather look nondescript but wordlessly hand you a copy of this book (or a summary thereof). To me, that would be an efficient way of downloading to me what I'm all about. I am identifying with this book very, very deeply. This book is turning out to be a metaphor for myself. The possible insults that you (or anyone) might level at this book are equal to the possible insults that you (or anyone) could fairly level at me. And if you like this book, you will like me, I'm pretty sure. Isn't that what art is all about? I think that art is like a time capsule, a collection of interesting objects that are reflective of the time you live in that you bury so that future generations can unearth what you're going through. This book is meant to communicate my plight, and the truth that I've found through it. All art - all ideas - are time capsules that communicate that someone of value once walked the earth. I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle, yeah. I am addicted to the friction that lies between happiness and sadness, between inspiration and none at all. These two sides of my personality symbolize in a microcosm what exists in this world as a macrocosm. This world is divided in two. There is a cosmic battle between the forces of RELEVANCE and IRRELEVANCE, between that which is INTERESTING and that which is BORING. Between SIGNAL and NOISE, between DYNAMIC and STATIC states, between music that FUCKING ROCKS and music that SUCKS ASS. You must choose a side. Or rather, you have already chosen. And if you've read this far, it is very likely that you're on my side. And if you are on my side, that is, on the side of the TRUTH, I would like to remind you of your responsibility to participate in the truth whenever possible - to ADD potential to this world, to ACTUALIZE it, and to DESTROY the darkness that comes with boredom and irrelevance. My darkest moments revolve around my fear of irrelevance. Perhaps that is why Budapest forces me to type this manifesto like a madman. The truth is that Budapest - a town where I could probably not FUCKING MATTER in a MILLION YEARS because of the language barrier - well, it's forcing me to be compulsive about my only interaction with my people, this book. I am forced to cling to this communication with you because it's the only way I can feel like I matter to anyone at all, even if the publication of this book is going to take a fucking lifetime. I have become Philip K. Dick, laboring away on his Exegesis, trying to pin down the nature of "God" as it has been revealed to him. I have the additional benefit of being able to make fucking sense, and not getting hung up on the Codex found at Nag Hammadi or whatever. I love his ideas, and perhaps this book is simply an expedient way of translating them into simple English without the crutch of communicating it in fiction. This is my LIFE, man, this is not bullshit at all. I love pretending that I am a man with a destiny. In fact, as I crouch here with doubleplusungood posture, well, fucking, I feel like I can still bring the whole fucking system down under its own weight through the power of my words. And since I am desperate to break out of this loneliness, I will write desperately. If you ever sense that you have the chance to make history by your actions, well, my simple message is that I encourage you to TAKE IT. That, to me, is the Way to Eternal Life. The True History Book is the Book of Life in which St. Peter inscribes your name upon the salvation of your soul. If soul is the same as potential, salvation is equal to the preservation of your potential. In other words, if you build a MONUMENT of some kind to the fact that you HAD potential, you will NEVER DIE. Get it? Industries and capitalism have corrupted our natural thirst for ideas into a commodity fetish for that which is "new". Fashion designers continually devise "new" lines, and "new" is the most overused catchphrase in any product marketing or advertising. However, customers know what is TRULY new, and it is natural to want these things within our lives. DREAMS ARE FREE, MOTHERFUCKER! The BEST types of new things are your OWN creations, and I encourage you to value your OWN ideas extremely highly. Your ideas are like a spiritual bank account, and if you fail to gain interest on them, you will find the original capital withering away. Even bootleggers exist for a reason. Think of them as talent scouts that determine on their own which ideas are worth capitalizing upon. That they don't pay the original payers of the ideas is relevant only inasmuch as we value fair play within this society, but it's sort of an HONOR to be bootlegged or copied or covered or whatever. It is true that bootleggers are the scum of the earth, however, because they rob the original creators and purveyors of an idea of some of the profits that are derived thereby. But remember, ideas will take care of you in some way. If you generate an idea, and it is stolen, there will be karma on your side that will still have you rememebered. There is this band called the Gin Blossoms, however, who should have their toenails pulled out in a torture chamber for what they did to a man who obviously was ONE OF US. This is the story. This guy, who knows what his name was, but this guy came up with two amazing pop ditties. One of them, "Hey Jealousy", is often in my head when I think about certain girls; it's got awesome lines like "You know it might not be that bad/You were the best I've ever had" and "We can drive around this town/Let the cops chase us around"... it's such a romantic song, it's so wistful, and it deals with lost love like few other songs I've ever heard. The instrumentation and production are generic alternative pap, but the song itself fairly rules considering the limitations of the alt-rock genre. Well, apparently, the band was fed up with the writer of these songs, and kicked him out of the band AFTER the songs became hits. The songwriter then killed himself. Doesn't this story just break your heart? Dying will be easy once you play your part in history. Please, God, preserve us until we manage to pull this off in some way or another. Give me enough peace to finish what I feel like I've started, and enough presence of mind to edit it until it fucking ROCKS. This vacation will be worth every penny, pence, pfennig, forint, guilder and maybe franc if this sentence is read by you. Really. There is no amount of money that I wouldn't spend if I could somehow register my presence on your radar. Of course, though funding is an essential component of the dissemination of an idea, I am determined to prove that truth does not need a large budget. All it takes is the correct tools, a sense of destiny, some elbow grease and the love of a few other people so that you don't collapse in despair. From there, I am hoping that the ideas will take on a life of their own.

Publishing this book will be, to me, like a launching ceremony for the most important rocket in my life to date. I can't even visualize what I will do in life after this book has run its course, because I'm hoping that this book will NEVER run its course. To me, heaven is the completion and maintenance of this project. I will dare to visualize my ideal job. It goes a little something like this: Publish this book, get it distributed, market it, get it sold. Spend most of my days pruning the related website, sculpting it into an interactive thing of beauty by taking the truths that YOU come up with and fitting them within the framework of the truths that I came up with; all the while continuing to generate my own new truths. Talking to people, meeting the press, travelling the world and basically spreading the gospel to all with ears to hear. Continually making things that help people feel cool about their understanding of our communal doom, until such point as we actually DO something about it. Getting paid somehow, enough to survive comfortably (or un-, depending on what I prefer at the time). As interesting (i hope!) as THIS book is, I can't WAIT for the sequel, which will include a lot of the thoughts that YOU folks add into this cauldron of ideas. Even if we aren't doomed, it is empowering to PRETEND that we are. It forces us to get our affairs in order at the very least, and at the most it gets our asses in gear to try and rectify the situation to the best of our abilities. I am not your entertainment. I'm here to sort of WAKE YOU UP, make you realize that you're not alone in this world, and make you realize that, basically, *I* am worth remembereing. BECOME WORTH REMEMBERING. I'm not sure if that's the purpose of life - perhaps it isn't, perhaps "happiness" or "doing good deeds" is - but I can honestly say that the future hipsters of the world will care more about, say, Eazy-E than they will about you or me, unless we DO something that's wroth fucking remembering. This book is going to be a pretty strange experience for me. I'm on the Charles Bridge in prague right now, a pedestrian shopping mall (sort of) that's on this bridge of all things, it's really something to see. For some reason it was a lot cooler several years ago when I visited it, but maybe that was because there were fewer tourists or something. As it is, I feel like I ought to be collecting change or something. I am sort of getting off on getting noticed. It's obvious to a lot of the girls I go out with that I'm totally attention-starved, and that's leading to me doing all sort of crazy things to impress other people. I'm not sure if any of this will be of any help to any of you, but I just sort of want to create a memorial to myself that maybe I can live on or something. I would like this bee to go the fuck away. This is a great bridge for peoplewatching. Deadheads, tourists, more tourists, locals, tourists, locals trying to sell things to tourists, people snapping pictures everywhere. The existence of this bridge is going to be well-recorded. In Dresden, so many buildings got totalled by the bombing during world war two that the rebuilding process has had to depend on things like photos etc. and living memories. Some weird story like that, it's not important. I wonder if I am going to be all right. I know things like those that have happened to me have happened before. But I wonder how those people made out. Will I find love? Will I find my place in society? Will people like you actually give a fuck about me? I'm confused and afraidand I"m far, far away from home. It is strange for me to be an adult. I've always contextualized myself as the ultimate kid, the kind of person who is a freshman for all four years of college, the kind of person filled with mindless, directionless energy. The only drug that I can always count on is other people. This isn't the highest quality truth I can write. I am sort of tired and I"m not sure if this public setting is the best thing in the world for that writing. The point is that you can absolve even physical unattractiveness by having a rich enough SPIRIT. Suffering makes you develop abilities that help you transcend that suffering. When will I learn to be motivated by my own true desires, like I keep emphasizing to others? Unfortunately, my true desires often involve other people. I'm a romantic, and I am sick of romancing myself. Sometimes I feel like there are TWO of me sitting here, typing by the river on a bridge in the lotus position. I evoke all kinds of feelings in people, but I deeply fear the reaction of UTTER PHYSICAL REVULSION. This is the reaction that I *assume* others will find in me unless I can - quickly - distract them with wit, or with ideas, or with something else. Once I get another person to concentrate more on my spiritual or mental capacities than on my body, I have reached comfort within our interaction. But at the same time, I'm totally attention starved. This leads to me going at life with an insaneslant and a desire to do crazy fucking things with myself. I want attention, but I DON'T want people LOOKING at me. What other answer is there to this dilemma except for art? It feels like I'm the first person to ever sit on tihs bridge, typing a book up. I think that's a good feeling. I have no desire to be the BEST, because, seriously, that doesn't last. You can be the best, and be knocked off the top perch by the next day. Also, you're never in control of the criteria by which being the "best" is judged - for instance, who is the "best" designer in the world? The "best" author? Striving to be the best SOUNDS noble, but really, it's just an ego trip that has little import in the world of art. What matters - nay, what lasts FOREVER - is to be the ONLY. To be the only implies that nobody else can do what you do. To be the only means that if you die, the world LOSES something, and will psychically MOURN for that loss. The SUYSTEM has a way of turning the "only" into merely the "first". Being the first is very, very important, but it implies that the feat can be duplicated. N irvana once was the ONLY great band to break through into mainstream sales and acceptance - now they are simply the FIRST "grunge" band in a long, supposedly equal series, the latest iteration of that success being the band Bush. Bush is not even a fly on Nirvana's dick. Bush is the classic example of the SYSTEM co-opting a great idea to make it into a product. The mass-manufactured marshmallow that is american mainstream culture has this way of turning "art" into "product". THis is all right, but it forces us artistic types to be constantly moving, constantly trying to turn our lives into more than just blips on the radar. Sometimes it feels like independent art is simply a farm team for the industrial production of art. If Time-Warner can't buy you, they can easily pay someone to IMITATE you. Fugazi: "What could a businessman ever want more/Than to have us sucking in his store?" It's important to realize that there will always be an interest in turning art into money. As far as capitalism is concerned, art is ONLY valid inasmuch as it can generate cash. What a fucking drag. We should not hate the TOOL, but we have every right to hate the USERS of that tool if they blaspheme with it. Money is a tool. Just like fire, or atomic power, it can be used for GOOD or for EVIL, to promote INTERESTINGNESS or DULLNESS. It just so happens that most of the money in this world is controlled by people with NO SOUL at all. What the hell? I mean, money ought to follow where SOUL goes - which is to say money and potential MUST find each other for new things to happen. Money is a nearly essential component of ANY new idea; i mean, WHO is going to buy those vintage amps without money? TOo much money is like too much food. It turns you LAZY AND SOFT. It's important to have a balanced diet of cash, a balanced flow of money into and out of your life. Security is the hope that life might become predictable. While it is good to have a bit of security in your life, real creativity thrives on CHAOS ALONE. CHAOS is not something that you are used to, but rather something that YOU BECOME. By creating CHAOS, by FUCKIN' SHIT UP, you create STORIES. STORIES reflect our chances at being IMMORTAL. It isn't a good story unless it's somehow got that scent of "newness", because, after all, who gives a fuck about a story that they've heard before?

Stories, in addition to art, are great ways for us to communicate the existence of our souls to each other across wide distances. I climbed a bridge in budapest recently, and all I got was this stupid t-shirt... but no, actually i didn't get this stupid t-shirt, but I've got a story that I can tell to others, and a sense that I am SPECIAL among tourists somehow. Stories are great agents of subverting corporate control of our media etc. because WE CONTROL THEM. We relate them to each other, trade them, make them our own. We are everywhere. People with interesting mindsets exist even into the highest echelons of government, of the media, of even the Christian Right. Everywhere there is potential to REACH others with the potential of true artistic unity, with the oneness that comes out of creativity. It's even possible to convince Paul McCartney to join a punk band. He's a cool guy who's done some really dumb music recently, and with the right combination of actually getting THROUGH to him (money tends to lead to the formation of barriers) and getting him wooed by the potential impact of such an idea, well, it's conceivable. Michael Bolton or Kenny G. can't even be IMAGINED in a punk band, but McCartney once was half-ass cool and therefore isn't beyond reaching. By sitting on this bridge, I'm a great advertisement for fucking Macintosh aren't I? I oughta get paid to do this, to sit here with an apple product and simply create. I'm making all of these kids who see me and who start gawkin want to go home and pester their parents for one of these things... The key to great product placement or great advertising is to do THAT WHICH HAS NOT BEEN DONE BEFORE. For instance, some agency just won an award for an ad campaign for a homelessness charity that went like this: As people came into a movie theater, a homeless guy panhandles for change. Nobody gives him any, most probably. The first preview in the movie, then, is an actual ad involving THE SAME HOMELESS GUY, who's all like "you can't ignore me NOW!!!" It's important to stretch the media out to involve people's REAL LIFE EXPERIENCES. Good advertising INVENTS A NEW MEDIA. Advertising is an art form as well. It just happens to pay a lot better, and its failures are fucking cultural POLLUTION. Our eyeballs are under too much pressure in any modern city. It is the goal of unamerican to add to this pressure by pointing it out. We trade the awareness of each other's existence, as well as our ideas, in packet form to each other. These packets are known as "stories" or "art" or whatnot, and they're very easily communicable and future pliaigarism is IMPLIED within this communication. A good enough idea escapes its creators very fast. Just because someone invents, say, the PowerBook or the slogan "Mean People Suck", doesn't mean that they will reap the full commercial benefits of the invention. Even though those who steal the ideas of others can be among the scum of the earth, they DO play an essential part in the process of the communication of ideas. Carlos Santana, on playing behind the Iron Curtain: "You can't build a wall against the bop." In other words, ideas TRANSCEND politics, even if they are political. People of ideas are inextricably aligned, even when their allegiances are at odds. Holy Wars, such as pro and anti abortion, or Mac vs. PC, or death penalty vs. life sentence... well, as important as these issues are, it is impossible to really change the opinion of anybody in these regards. I'd rather zen people around to my point of view through getting them to see eye to eye with me on other fronts and THEN gently nudging them over to my viewpoint. You never convince anyone of anything by SCREAMING at them. You can only look ridiculous by getting angry. Never waste your energy. Energy is precious and it is only renewable by other people with energy. I feel like I charge up my batteries every time I meet a rad person or stay in close contact with a person of ideas (like when I'm reading their book). This book is meant to give you a bit of a charge every time you pick it up. I would like to take my ability to trade energy with people of soul, and turn it into an industry in its own right. I deliberately design my products to resist co-optation by boring people or commercial interests. There's a little too much uniqueness in the stuff I've done to be seen as "marketable" - therefore, if any markets arise out of my work, those markets are mine and mine ALONE to exploit. I *hate* competition - so much so that I would rather stand my ground in a unique but tiny market than try to control a huge one through destroying my competition. In art, there isn't really this sense of competition that you see in commercial life. Bands always wear t-shirts of other bands, and it's all seen as raising the consciousness of a community together. Some of the best things in the world are in-jokes. It is a cool ability to be able to come into a town and find the parties where the hipsters'll be at in a couple of hours, even if you don't speak the language. Luckily, that's an ability I've got. I can't STAND tourists, and the sooner it's understood that I'm not one of them, the better I do in a town. It's typical that Americans tend to hang out exclusively with other Americans when they're in towns like Prague and Budapest. Typical, truly. If you take a look at how exactly you discovered your favorite bands, you can learn a whole lot about the science of the communication of ideas. I got turned on to my favorite author ever, Philip K. Dick, because one of my favorite albums ever, Sonic Youth's Sister, has tons of references to him. I get the feeling that nobody has ever written a book like this before, and that fills me with a great sense of peace and joy. I can't help it. Children are great because they've got no problems with looking directly at things that stick out from the normal. Like me, sitting here with a year-2010-looking computer on the Charles Bridge in Prague, typing faster than probably 98% of the population. Dick: "Here, time turns into space." I do feel a bit like a time traveller, and the feeling would have been much more intense if I had gone down to Bulgaria or Romania. I would like my next trip to go even deeper East. For some reason, I really relate to the people out here and would like to have a chance at making sure the process of reinvention and rebirth after being behind the Curtain for so long has a bit of me in it somewhere. If you hate me, fuck you�. The concept of a "third world war" has to be taken back. I want to see out and out psychic WAR against the conspiracies of capitalism and mass media, against authoritarianism and hierarchy, against YOUR CRAPPY JOB and against BORINGNESS IN ALL ITS FORMS. My enemy is INERTIA. I can't sit idly by and let the world slowly decay into a mass of pollution and despair - I have this compulsive need to insert my opinions into the collective stream of consciousness, and thereby attempt to bring some peace back to the world. I'm not really writing at my best right now, and I blame it on having my energy sapped by a semi-dull travelling companion. It sucks to spend your energy and not be appreciated. If I spend time on someone, I expect to have time spent on me in return. If not, well, I just stop. I'm going to try and figure out a way to avoid that guy for a bit, and to try and meet people on my own for a while. Unfortunately, to tell the truth I don't FEEL like meeting people right now. I'm low energy and there's no amount of caffeiene that can bring me out of this right now. I think I need to fucking dance, and that's the only way out of this that I can see. I'm tired of writing on tis bridge and I think if I go about finding somecool people to relate to I'll feel a lot more empowered and remember what it was I was trying to say. A woman with NO MEAT on her bones is asking for money on this train and it's very sad, perhaps she has AIDS or something. I've had some really weird adventures here on the road - witnessed a pursesnatcher getting beaten down by the cops, seen an old woman and an old man punching a middle-aged man on the budapest metro... it's chaos, man, the end is near. Even if the end isn't near, it is very EMPOWERING to PRETEND that it is. It makes everything seem so much more... well... vital, in a weird way. I can't help but relate to those madmen you sometimes see scribbling their obscure thoughts out in public. In fact, that is what I am, for a digital age. I am having an anxiety attack, of sorts. It's a fine line between genius and complete mental breakdown, and in fact complete mental breakdown is one ARTISTIC event in one's life, you must admit. WHat is wrong with me? If this book never sees the light of day, I'll be very, very unhappy and defeated. I don't know what the fuck I can do with myself at this point in my life, and it's really scaring me. I mean, there are a thousand jobs I could get, but after having spent the greater portion of my early twenties encouraging people to hate their jobs etc., how can I give up so easily? Please, God, let me rock at Burning Man. Listen, I can go home and design a catalog in a day, send it to print and have 10,000 of them done in a JIFFY. It's either money well spent or money down the drain, but either way, life will go on. I will survive. I think I need to get a job just to keep my mind together. I need to be forced to deal with people, and jobs are great contexts with which to keep one's mind. I'd say a good prerequisite for starting your own business should be having one's marbles intact. Sometimes I stick myself in "interesting situations" even if the likely outcomes of these situations are not exactly the most appealing ones. I am so into failing and making mistakes that I'd rather make a mistake than be bored. Life has this annoying tendency to kill you. If I only had $50,000, I could be world famous, I tell you. I'm a madman. Don't listen to a word I'm saying, it's like I'm losing my mind and I'm trying to take as many of you down with me as I can.

It's as if there's this STENCH in my head, of synapses burning and twisting and trying to halt the damage. I think I'm going to get the fuck out of Berlin tonight. I'll take the last train out, which I believe will leave at midnight, or maybe I'll take the first one tomorrow or something. I think it does leave at midnight, which might be a pain but if I'm around I'll be able to deal with it. I think if Kai is going to be home by six o'clock, that'll be around now, and maybe I can say goodbye to him at that point. Who gives a fuck about what I've got to say, anyway. What am I writing this for. Why am I going to Amsterdam, even? Why not go right home. I think I've gotten a lot of what I had to say out, and I'm in danger of repeating myself. I won't know until I do some kind of bad-ass drug in Amsterdam, but I"m pretty sure I've got my piece all said. Anna. I am in trouble, in real jeopardy of losing my mind. I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but I'm losing my mind once again. This time I think it's for real. You deserve a postcard or something that details the situation, because I am really fucking brittle right now and I'm ery afraid of going home. To see my parents right now would reallly fucking suck. I hope that when I get home I don't have to deal with Kevin too badly. I mean, he's a nice guy but I don't want to share a room with him in preparation for burning man. Do I even know his email address? It's something@infoflow.com. Good luck srini. I'd rather be lucky than good anyday. (Is that true?) I could fill this book with fucking platitudes. Remember that book "All I Ever Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten"? Man, what a waste of paper. Idiotic reminders to "respect one's fellow man" and "share". That's the kind of book that gives liberals a bad name; it's like they're SO INTO just FEELING GOOD that they look RIDICULOUS to anyone living in the REAL world, where there's barely anyone you can trust and people without legs beg fruitlessly in the subway. Poor and middle class people give far more to charity than do the rich. Even when the rich give, it's often more for tax purposes than for anything else. There are exceptions to this rule, however. In fact, there are exceptions to EVERY stereotype. Stereotypes often exist because they relate to the experience of the person holding it. If you want to eliminate stereotyping, make sure that people who either are exceptions to the stereotype or who TRANSCEND the stereotype - well make sure these people enter your world. Negative stereotyping, however, can really fuck a kid up. I would rather hang out with a Person of Ideas who has nothing in common with me demographically, than to hang out with someone a lot like me who doesn't have ideas. I'd rather hang out with a sixty-two year old Hungarian librarian who speaks little English but who has an appreciation of me and a lucky glint in her eyes, than an Indian punk rock kid who can quote all the right books but doesn't have a respect for ideas. I'm willing to put up with almost any personality flaws from a person as long as I sense there's an IDEA somewhere in there. If a person isn't about ideas, we have NOTHING IN COMMON and I'd really rather be alone. Yesterday night, a fellow resident of my hostel here in Budapest came up to me at this cheezy dance club. He sat down next to me and told me he overhead a deep conversation I had earlier that day, and that I had him thinking because of it. I was complimented enough to let him continue. And then he told me: I was too young to be trying to figure all this stuff out (as if there were any "figuring" involved here! As you know by now, this book resembles a SPASM, not an EQUATION!!! How to REALLY pronounce "anarcheerist" Why Bill Clinton is better than Bob Dole (like I even GIVE A FUCK!?) How much Christianity is totally worthless (as if I were CHRISTIAN?!) Blah Blah Blah. Of course, as a result, I've got another person to avoid. Believe me, I *COURT* dissent and criticism. I look forward to intelligent opposition, because opposition makes me THINK, and I *like* to THINK about this sort of stuff. I like to come up with reasoned, ad-libbed responses to difficult fucking questions. Another hosteller asked me the question of where the Christian Creation Myth might map onto my philosophy here. THIS, you see, is an INTERESTING QUESTION. You are indistinct from everything you say and everything you do, especially within the first twenty seconds of meeting someone. Make sure that the first twenty seconds of interaction with anyone is loaded with secret triggers and invitations to get deeper than the general level of idle chit-chat. A couple cool lines or a smoky, intriguing look in the eyes indicating "I AM ALIVE; ARE YOU?" ought to do the trick. The way people of ideas interact is similar to the way the Internet is built. There is a computer networking technique called PING that sends a simple message out to a theoretical other computer on the network. You send a PING across the network, which basically means simply "ARE YOU THERE?" and the other computer responds, upon which messages (or packets) can be transferred. If I receive no indications that a PING is being sent or received by a person who I'm talking to, I try to keep the conversation as short as possible. If I receive an indication, however, that the PING has been successful, I have this tendency to give the other person my fucking life story. I'm a bit annoying to hang out with sometimes, but I'm a nice guy and I think most people are happier with themselves after having talked to me. Jeez, I hope I never have to talk to another BORING person as long as I live. This world is MADE for boring people; it is configured as such because they are the VAST MAJORITY and therefore wield the most economic clout. We all come from different backgrounds, and even though WE (that is to say, people of ideas) all are reflections of the same Truth, it is very important that we are separate in actuality. The Minutemen: "You lie here naked/I lie here naked/Both on the pavement/Why are we different?" The reason we're different is so that Truth needs to be viewed from an insane number of perspectives so that humanity's cumulative experience is able to grasp it completely. I sound like a fucking hippie talking about the "Universal Mind" or that "We All Are One", but seriously, by ourselves we often end up at a loss for how to continue in life. It's important not to simply look at the WORDS i'm writing right now, but at HOW YOU FEEL WHILE READING THEM. I am writing this book in the hope that you will feel Enlightened while you read it. Feeling Enlightened is a fucking AMAZING feeling, and I encourage you to take notes while you read because it's while you're enlightened by ideas that you yourself may come up with your own best ideas. A good book makes you completely FORGET YOURSELF. That is because you are in contact with the IDEAS it contains, and are in a state of Rapture as long as you read it. It's very, very difficult to pull yourself away from a good book, no matter WHAT your other responsibilities may be. Other people of ideas remind us that ideas are the only thing that's worth living for. Every band starts out, virtually, as a COVER BAND. A band begins by taking a poll of its cumulative influences, and blending them together into a fresh (hopefully) pastiche of influences through which new ideas and riffs potentially can peek. Go on, write your own proverbs down RIGHT NOW. (This is known as the "DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY, SOLDIER!!!!" technique of creativity.) In case it wasn't clear earlier, I include "love", "experience", "conversation", "affinity", "inspiration" in the term IDEA. All I can say is that YOU KNOW AN IDEA WHEN YOU ***FEEL*** IT. The Truth is not something you "know", but something you "become"... something you EMBODY. While embodying the Truth, get as much done as possible, because unless you're Jesus 2.0 or the Buddha or whatever, it won't last forever. The Truth is found in POTENTIAL. POTENTIAL is what is meant whenever people talk about SOUL. I prefer the term POTENTIAL because, shit, we all know what Potential is, but the concept of SOUL escapes people. I mean, point at your Potential and you know what I'm talking about, but point at your SOUL, and it's like, uhh...... Potential is anything that points at the world of WHAT COULD BE, as opposed to simply reflecting the WORLD THAT IS. It is very important to SMILE while you're explaining your religion, and to riddle your teachings with JOKES. If it's TRUE RELIGION, it fucking FEELS GOOD!!! Ideas are the gateway into the future. Once an Idea is hatched, it HAS TO HAPPEN, eventually. It's inevitable, for instance, that someday Mankind will reach the stars somehow, if only because Humanity will not rest until this prophecy is carried out. Any Idea within the realm of the possible - in other words, that simply depends on our own ingenuity rather than silliness like "bending the laws of physics" or "contacting alien species" - is destined to be carried out, unless of course we bomb ourselves into oblivion or something. I'm not saying that "contacting alien species" is impossible, but just that there is no certainty that there exist any, is all. If Alien Species encounter us tomorrow, more powerful ones, how do you think they would judge us? ACCORDING TO OUR IDEAS AND OUR POTENTIAL. When life begins, that is to say when you are born, you are PURE POTENTIAL. Anything can happen, which is what makes babies so magical, so valuable and precious. When life ends, the potential dissipates. We must look at death in the light of our productivity - what is it that we want to leave behind? When I die, I want to leave behind things - objects, works of art, a family of rockin' individuals - that will continue to give inspiration to those who will need it in the future. A good prayer is "Let Me Create, That I May Live Forever Through My Ideas". Ideas are immortal. Plato, for instance, is more alive in my heart and in my mind than most people I will encounter today. You have every right to construct the Heaven in which you would like to end up. Don't believe the bullshit about strumming baby angels - believe in THAT WHICH TRULY ***IS*** IMMORTAL, that is to say, IDEAS.

When I go to "heaven" or wherever, I want to be surrounded by people of ideas ONLY. I want to interact with the ideas that have been generated over the millennia; I want to be able to debate with Napoleon, decimate Goebbels, listen to Gandhi and drink with Bukowski. And I can do all of these things within my mind already. In other words, the ideas and techniques of ALL people of ideas who have succeeded in being recorded by the history books, well, they are part of my world as long as I derive value from them. Living with an understanding of your place within the world of Ideas is tantamount to living in Heaven on Earth. Living WITHOUT these ideas, living in lonely isolation without any indication that Ideas exist out there at all, is Hell on Earth. "God" Damn those who have persecuted our People through the ages. Every single Witch who has ever been burned at the stake did NOT die in Vain. Humanity's campaign against witchcraft is symbolic of our persecution and general limitation of the freedom of Women of Ideas to assume their rightful places within the History books. This is Totally Fucked. Of course, POTENTIAL includes the potential for DESTRUCTION and LOSS, Let's say I'm at a cheezy dance club, and I'm in the market for a relationship. Under the right circumstances, the correct girls for me to pitch my schtick to simply, well, they SHINE. You can see POTENTIAL in the eyes of the right ones, and simply dullness in the others. It's as if there's a CLOAK of Ideas that you just put on and all of a sudden you shine, all of a sudden you are a BETTER PERSON, a person with things to say and ways to impress the most jaded of people as to THEIR own potential to don this cloak. You can never force or predict Ideas directly. They've got their OWN agenda, and they frankly could give a rat's ass about your schedule, your commitments, etc. Only organizations that truly believe in the beauty and fragility of a nascent Idea deserve to employ People of Ideas. Ideas are like babies, and need care and feeding in order to grow into something of value. Most people are like the Static on the radio dial. A very few people are like actual Radio Stations, like beacons sighted through fog that light the way for us all. And while every Radio Station deserves a listen, it's inevitable that there will be only a very few that will be of direct interest to YOU. When we break our lives down according to our INTERESTS and ALLEGIANCES, we are MORE LIKELY to attain a better SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO than we would depending on, say, our geographic location, or our race or gender or ethnicity or whatnot. You're more likely to meet people you like through the kind of music you like, rather than what record stores you live near. Money (and Good Sex and Everything You Truly Desire) is only earned honestly as a SYMPTOM of a good idea. In other words, having an Idea is like a MEDICAL CONDITION, a positive plague (unless it's a CONSTRUCT as opposed to an idea) that infects you that FORCES you to create things, and if the Idea is followed through into Reality, it will bear rich dividends. You can't hurry love, and you can't FORCE a lucrative idea into existence simply to meet your own needs. Better to focus on making your soul a FUN LANDING PAD FOR IDEAS, and staking your faith in the ones you've already had. I'm not the hugest fan of "physical beauty" when it comes to scoping out a potential mate. It's something that I'm naturally ATTRACTED to, but it's also something beyond the CONTROL of the person who possesses it. Furthermore, since it automatically accords STATUS to the person, it makes them think that they don't need to have anything else to offer. That said, I've been lucky enough to have several relationships with girls that I consider beautiful, and it's mostly because I learned how to discount this attribute when dealing with them. I am only TRULY attracted to the IDEAS a person possesses. Without these ideas, physical beauty is a mere shell, and a depressing one at that because it indicates a forsaken potential. Obviously, I am attracted to "inner beauty". It has taken wisdom to get this far within my preferences in women, but I'm looking forward to being better off in love as a result. Actually, I could go for a little INNER BEAUTY right now, baby. How about it, woman? :) I know, I know, it sounds like a "line", and it IS, that's true. But shit, I mean, we NEED lines in order to find each other, and seriously, go out with ME and I will VALUE you for what REALLY MATTERS about you. Physical beauty is transient, but Inner Beauty grows and changes and shifts and hypnotizes the older you get. Will you trade your POTENTIAL for a MESS OF POTTAGE? I urge you never to forsake your potential in order to be closer to things that this society values as beautiful, because I don't trust society as far as I can throw it, and I will never be able to throw society. Have you ever gone out with someone who BORES you? WHY?!? It's probably because of that physical attraction factor, but really, it ends up being a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS. You cannot change a boring person into an interesting one. It just doesn't work that way. PEOPLE DON'T CHANGE. They only Grow. Therefore, if you've got an idea to convert them to, you need to prove to them that they will be BETTER OFF living a life with YOUR IDEA in their lives. And it is VERY DIFFICULT to remove existing ideas from them, even if they're BAD ones. BAD IDEAS are more like ***CONSTRUCTS*** than Ideas. A Construct (also known as an Idée Fixé) is something that feels like an Idea but that actually LIMITS one's potential. (This is as opposed to an Idea that Focuses one's Potential, such as "I TRULY want to be a doctor".) LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO BE BORED. DON'T POSTPONE JOY. There is a big difference between being BORED and being RELAXED. Philip K. Dick - "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." In other words, Ideas, well, unfortunately, as immortal as an Idea truly is, YOU might screw up and FORGET one once in a while. By turning your Ideas into Reality, you ensure their COMMUNICATION and you ensure that they don't die a quick crib death. You are more likely to get PAID for a PROTOTYPE than for an Idea. While Ideas are valuable in their raw form, it is the IMPLEMENTATION of these ideas that can really MAKE YOU RICH, FAMOUS and ATTRACTIVE. CRASS were brilliant in marketing strategy; they spraypainted their logo on every fucking tube station in the London Underground (their subway), thereby ensuring that they would pique curiosity for their band (not to mention inspire countless other projects to embark on similar guerilla marketing.) There are a lot of closed-minded Crass fans who would beat my ass down for putting the words Crass and marketing in the same sentence, especially without the inclusion of the word "against". It's TOTALLY IMPORTANT to RECORD YOURSELF, to keep a journal of your ideas, to make sure that SOMEWHERE it's ALL WRITTEN DOWN. There is SO MUCH to talk about in the context of this book that my mind is fucking FRIED right now. I ought to leave it for the SEQUEL or something, but I've got this feeling that I'm only going to get ONE SHOT at being picked up at this point. Besides, every band's FIRST record is generally the one to pick up if you're just browsing their discography. I have this romantic notion that I can sum up everything that I've learned in one slim volume, but it's becoming obvious to me that I'm going to be doing a lot of "journal-mining" (all those notes to myself that I've been keeping over the years), thereby expanding this book even FURTHER. It's hard for me to gauge whether this book is going to be very important to anyone, but I'd like to think that it'll be one of the better, more interesting books that comes out in 1997/1998. I like the idea of a book that is conscious of the limitations that other books have, and that aims consciously to transcend these limitations. I don't want my book to end up on your shelf after a three-day read; I want my book to end up on your coffee table or in your bathroom, where you can always get a quick hit of inspiration before going on with your day. I'm just warning you - fail to MAKE or DO something in your life and you will be FULL OF REGRETS. There are some fascinating people who are eagerly anticipating the evaluation of anything you care enough to create. When you love someone , you don't need to think about yourself quite as much. I miss my old friends, but there's very little I can do except to bear with the distance and send them postcards from places I can't pronounce. Anyone who has made an impact on me in a personal way, ESPECIALLY by bouncing ideas back and forth with me, is basically ME. I am inspired by the people who have inspired me, and I owe all of this to them. The human voice is RICH in context and subcontext. This is why we so easily get addicted to talking to each other on the telephone. You'll NEVER speak a language like a native if you don't TALK to them, and they won't TALK to you unless there's a REAL REASON to talk to them. It's super important to be able to say "underwear" in any foreign language you encounter. You can always make someone LAUGH in a foreign language, even if you barely know any of it. We drop hints to those who we hope to relate to. I tend to drop hints haphazardly, without any focus or predetermination, because I like to be surprised by who answers. I love meeting different types of people for a reason - I want to discover what has been learned about Truth from pairs of eyes that differ widely from my own, so that I can comprehend it from a different angle and learn more about it. Meeting people is a form of worship, as well as the creative process. I can respect Truth all the more when I see how it's been scattered and how endless are the permutations of it - it reminds me of how Infinite the stuff really is. We all invent subpersonae in order to match better onto each given situation. I'm a bit of an advanced case of this; I am fully aware that my entire persona shifts, chameleonlike, to match the hopes and expectations of those who I'm talking to. I am a different person when I'm at a job interview than when I'm at a punk rock show. I will touch on a different set of references in front of an emo kid than in front of a disco fan, and I will swear less in front of a conservative or Christian or something than I would, say, on my website. In front of a deep person I am deep and silly, in front of a silly person I am silly and deep. And I cherish each one of these different personae as different ASPECTS of the same ME. I love meeting disparate people because I love inventing new subpersonae. To me, this feels like I'm discovering new people that have been latent in me because thay haven't yet been needed. Like all of us, I feel this constant need to REINVENT myself in order to feel less lived-in, more fresh and new. I was actually thinking seriously about changing my name or changing my hair, and I might go ahead and do that in the future, but the point is that these are merely cosmetic changes and therefore not valuable in and of themselves.

You'd be surprised, however, and how much impact a cosmetic change may really make. If you have the opportunity and the desire to change something small about yourself, it might be a good idea to take it. Change involves Energy, and Energy is that which attracts others to us (indeed, it is a pretty good shorthand definition of being ALIVE itself.) Therefore, it is healthy and attractive to change minor things in your life frequently, and to advertise the fact that these changes are taking place. BEWARE EASY ANSWERS, even the ones that are in this book. TRUE CHANGE IS A ***PROCESS***, NOT AN EVENT. Processes take time and involve BECOMING different; Events, however, are quick stabs at change. Events are easier to mark and to market, but Processes are much more important to take into account when trying to evaluate and become part of the future. In a Dictatorship, things change rapidly but without depth; the changes are likely to reverse in a generation or two. In a Democracy, things change very slowly, but when they do change, they generally STAY changed, and the changes are much more momentous and effective because they are given this implication of a POPULAR MANDATE. On the other hand, in feudal times rulers ruled through the mandate of Divine Right, which was obviously an artificial construct that only gained relevance through brainwashing the people into pledging allegiance to even the most WACKY of kings. These days, leaders rule through the authority of the "WILL OF THE PEOPLE", which, though it might not seem so, is just as easy to manipulate. The tools for manipulating society to enhance your own wealth have changed from the era of "kings", but the goal is the same. Instead of preachers' robes and crowns, we give authority to those with capital and access to the media. Manipulating society should be the goal of every teenage and twenties punk rocker. Some ways are FUN!!! Learn from what the Sex Pistols did during 1976-1977. In addition to being a fantastic, revolutionary band, they reminded people that the purpose of Rock and Roll was to give HOPE to those of us who can't afford to be bored. Hey that rhymed. :) Democracy is a luxury that depends on a stable economy filled with individual households who understand the benefits of personal freedom and the freedom to determine their own destiny and leaders. Democratic Poland is far, far behind the race compared to Authoritarian China, who is enduring insane regluation,but that's okay becase the economy is growing and people are getting paid. There comes a time in a persons life that one must think, okay, I have had all of this damage done to me, and I am completely different from other people, now what? I mean, I want to tell YOU, my PEOPLE, that there is a reason to keep fighting. That "God" is now alive. Is this not a more important product than anything else. To be noticed in life? I want my parents to be proud of me, despite of some of the damage my mom has done on me, I want them to know that I will always hae money and be happy. I mean, I want them to know that I will build something with my creation that I will always remember, . I hae shut them out of a lot of places in my life imagine being the owner of an empire. love being alive. I will ALWAYS be alive. After my death, I shall live on in someone else. I live on in the eyes and in the sparations between all ofu us. The production of this book has ben a lot of fun. And that's the point of my use of this media, to show that you can publish whatever you want. You don't have to have any rules, in fact, the more rules that you break, the better. I mean, ogo at life with the intentioon of being remembered, and you will be. my dad rocks. He has saved my life. i love him dearly and i want you to remember him too, dear reader. This is not just a book. It's much more. It hopes to confuse the FUCK out of you, because it is only through UTTER CONFUSION that the truth can be known. I trust confusion in a way that I trust a territory with which I'm familiar. I enjoy being confused, because it indicates that something LARGER THAN ME is telling me what to do, which moves to make. The conscious self eradicated, the cosmic dance engaged upon, and fuck no I'm not a hippy. Anyway, there's a puzzle in this book. It's not a tough puzzle, but it's there, and when you find it, you'll know. It's basically a puzzle that sort of makes sure you've taken the time to read this book. The puzzle will reveal a password into a world wide website. I know this doesn't seem super rewarding, but hey, as i told you, it isn't a tough puzzle. The website will be a community of people who hopefully will be in the business of discoering more statements that are, you know, TRUE. Funny, cosmic, telling, beautiful, immortal... TRUE. As a self-proclaimed philosopher, the Truth is My Business, and consider this book a fire sale. YOU, YOU'RE ELECTED. This life is a movie that is about YOU. You are the star, you're the director, you are the chairman of the fucking board, YOU! And so it wouldn't really be a book about the truth if it didn't take advantage of whatever technology was available at the time, and use it in a new way. So! I have no idea if you have access to a web browser, but it is your mission to GO FIND ONE. Because this book, ultimately, is a SUMMONS. JOIN US. Let's engage ourselves on a mission to make ourselves greater than human. Do discover the Comet Within, and to realize the cosmic Yes. (Not the band.) I am writing about these children too, and about the games they're playing. I love words, and it is the medium I've chosen with which to try and make a difference. I write about suffering and joy, I write and write and write and hopefully have the batteries to continue. Life itself is a puzzle. It's something that is there to figure ou. And certain people are the answers in the back of the book. It is the eyes of another that really allow you to see God. "God" is punk rock. Really. Jesus was indeed a punk rocker, and if you don't know that, well, you're not a Christian (or you're not Punk Rock.) This book is probably reaching YOU at an interesting point in YOUR life. I am imagining you as a teenager in maybe Detroit or the Yukon or something. I'm imagining you as knowing there's SOMETHING OUT THERE that's beyond the everyday reality of wageslavery and giveupnitude. This book is about me. It's a giant classified ad, by which I hope to meet you, to become one with you. To sit around, and not be charged, and not bother with hierarchy or tradition, and to understand love and truth and immortality. Certain conversations evoke a mysterious entity that is larger than ourselves. It's weird, but it's my business to evoke this entity. Some call it Bob. And sure, that's its name. I have chosen to write about "God" because I'm trying to address an audience with a bunch of words that we probably have in common. I'm trying to indicate that we've all got a potential that remains yet unrealized. I mean, you ought to be paid more, you ought to be happier, it's true. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to be immortal - in fact, duh, if you're immortal, you have been for a while, ey? If you aren't immortal NOW, you never were. this is one funny artistic moment. I wish I had a cmera. I mean, I'm typing on this computer that says "the end is near" while I'm sitting on my back, fully clothed, and the computer is over my pelvis and it's weird, it's a kind of masturbation, isn't it? I mean, masturbation has always been a problem for me, at least after I learned that it was possible, and this is in a way the ultimate in intellectual masturbation. In fact, I'm talking to "God" right now and all I can think about is sex. I mean, I close my ideas wait, i mean i close my eyes and all I see is sex. People fucking That's right, people fucking. There's an understanding that exists between those of us that have decided to do psychedelics. All life is precious, but for some of us, it's like the life that lets us communicate with one another is the most sacred of all. I'm pretty psyched that I've got this talent of typing on my back with my eyes closed. It's sort of like riding a bike. It's a talent I have that I don't think anyone else has, and it's letting mne be pretty fucking relaxed and concentrating on the eye of God. Which at the moment is concentrating on throwing pornographic images MY way. Jesus, look at her. I am happy. I am comfortable. I am the "God" of all street maniac philosophers. Joe Euclid has nothing on me, because they don't have marketing anything LIKE i've got. I mean, look out honey 'coz i'm using TECHNOLOGY. Having a talent that can be talked about is a good way to get laid, i hope. At least, that's the way I WANT to think. You know, you never get laid by thinking about getting laid. The best relationships always happen by accident, or at least against all odds. Watching children play at the beach is a lot of fun. I never got to go to the beach very much when i was a gkid. Well, maybe i did, but for some reason I never really ENJOYED myself like I should've. I was reading all these science fiction books while other kids were playing. I was getting my vocabulary (and my mind) stretched by all of these notions of faraway worlds and empires and things like that. Rush provided the soundtrack, and oh man how i'm babbling. It's hysterical but here I am on a boat. Outside of the ebach. I'm on a boat and that's pretty fucking funny. It's like I'm just trying t mil all that I can out of life and it's pretty cool. It's a great feeling that I'm influencing these people to think more about the tuth simply by token of writing this. This entire boat ride bcomes something, well, something DEEPER, more symbolic, more worth the seven guilders fifty that it cost to get out here. It's sort of broken the ice among these people, turned this enitire rondvaart into something more. I could almost ee TEACHING from a boat out here. In fact, that's what that guy thinks he's doing right now. He imagines that he's not just sailing a boat, he imagines that he's TEACHING people something. That is the truth. The truth is this guy UNDERSTANDS this boat, he underswtands the see and he is worth chronicling. He's lived, and he's affected others by making this Rondvaart possible. And I'm in a funny mood, I feel at peace and at conflict, full of life and ready for death. It's quite, well, bodhisattvic, to coin a term. Man, what it must be like to live this life, to live here at Zaandvort am Zee, and to seee the people of your nation at their happiest. At their most beautiful. It's got to do great things for your personality. I mean, I wish I were a creature of such natural ability, but no, I must hide myself within cities and scenes and in apartments and stuff like that. I have decided to have an identity that is more in touch with man than with nature. And I'm proud. I'm proud of the decisions I've made, and it's fucking pure and it's great to kmake people laugh. If there's a meaning in life, for ime, it is witnessed within the smile of people who don't speak a word of english.

I have lived my entire life so in love with words, and with english, but to really share a moment you've got to transcend words somehow. Words just forma framework, but it is the TURE DESIRE of humans to reach eachh other, that is what creates the conversation. SO as such, you can communicate more with a few grunts and a couple barre chords than most conversations in most office bureaucracies. But, you know, those exist too for a reason. Anna passed on to me a tenet of her religion, which was to keep on saying "I bless this situation". And it's true. The true path around adversity is to figure out how to love it. No matter how bad the situation you can work it and solve the puzzle. Imagine a CD that is a puzzzle. In fact, I like the feeling of being something to figure out. Like, I love the idea of peole thinking "what is that guy writing" Creating confusion, that's what living is all about. Because confusion it is that is that most enlightening of states. Man, this is all hallucinogenic bullshit and not immortal nonsense at all. It's all been done before, as Jyoti pointed out. I think the truth has always been around and we're just re-experiencing it, as if it was somehow lost and has now bbeen found again through our own experience. It's good to spend some time hating yourself, just to know how it feels. I mean, it's part of the human experience. But you shouldn't let that get in the way of having a good time. The dutch really know how tolive. I guess i've decided to send messages to my future. It's like, every day, you have the decision to make, do I live for today? or do I talk to the future. You can have it both ways. You always can. It's not impossible to see yourself as both totally alone and totally together. You don't have to wait. YOU HAVE ALL YOU NEED, o yes. My point is that to the lindas and the kais and the jennies and all of these people, and also to the kurts and the annes and the mahatmas of this world that WE ARE ALL SSEEING EACH OTHER ALL THE TIME. And it's great to make other people smile and think and learn and the best kind of writing, of course, is the kind of learning that you wind up teaching to others, right? It's like a disease, this truth thing, and it's NEVER REALLY OVER The praise of idiots has this deleterous effect on artists. Look at U2. Look at Jawbreaker. I mean, these are talented, talented groups who have had TOO MANY people tell them "wow, dude, your music has changed my life!" Pretty soon, they start believing that they shit vanilla iceream cones. They start writing inferior songs, because they're not TRYING as hard, and it's all over for them as artists. I am hoping that nobody boring even comes close to GETTING this book. Really, I'm trying to make it like POISON for boring people. If you're boring and you're reading this, it'll hopefully MELT YOUR BRAIN and you won't be able to funciton as you have been ever again. Well, that's the IDEA at least. You create art out of need. You don't create it out of "oh, I'm so cool. everybody needs to know what I feel." You create it by accident, and when you're too confident, well, how can accidents happen? This guy I'm talking to, Dennis, is CRAZY about French hip-hop. Of all things. And he went to Paris, and got some Cds direction from the fucking source (the bands are Iam, pronounced "eeeyum" muthafuckaz") He's talking about the shared secret thing that is music. He knows music that nobody else in his town knows, and oh boy, does he feel like a bad-ass now! And it is TRUE. He is showing me the pimpass sounds of paris (not the rapper but the TOWN) and it's pretty rocken. The truth is really a RELATIONSHIP between YOU and an idea. The song is not just on the disc or tape, but in YOUR RECOGNITION THAT THE SONG ROCKS. Without YOU, the idea sits there, doesn't get spread. Because of Dennis, French hip-hop has a chance in this town - AND in san francisco, because he played some for me and I am down, and through this book and other press that he manages to attract for it, maybe even further afield. You can't be concentrating on one girl in your attack. You've got to care about SEVERAL, play the field. "Never put a 'ho before a bro." - Eric Jenson, the guy who taught me about being an intelligent juvenile delinquent, about fucken shit up as a way of life, and a lot of other stupid lessons. Cheers, Eric. I am thinking about cycles right now, because it is high time I went home and tried to deal with my life from a point of security. "When you're sick of sittin' around, you wanna travel/Get tired of travelling, you wanna settle down." - The Grateful Dead, "Truckin'". Dude, I totally HATE the Grateful Dead, I find them totally dull, but the fact is they're STILL on our side, whether we want them or not. Why do I dislike hippies so much? Well, so much of America is about mellow complacency, about happy oblivion, and I simply HATE this part of America because it's what lets the right run riot over our freedoms. Drugs are a STABILIZING FORCE in this society, because they represent an "easy answer" to the problems of living in a stratified country. "They're capitalizing on our feelings/Of powerlessness/Stringing us along/With their easy answers." - Crimpshrine, "Easy Answers". Stability is such a goal in our society, but the most stable state their IS is DEATH. It is an easy answer to DESTROY your own potential, for instance, by choosing a career too early or by laming out on drugs. Unfortunately, this is a sin. To destroy your own potential is to destroy your own soul. Potential has a way of coming back to haunt us, however. Everything that happens is inevitable, and we are free to choose to do God's will or not. It really doesn't make a difference in the world of ideas, because once hatched, an idea that is destined to bear fruit WILL bear fruit, at one point or another. It's as if we have this glowing egg within us, an egg that murmurs reassuring things to us and makes us feel like the ideas we come across are unique enough to change our lives. In 1984 by George Orwell, the author posits this world which is totally controlled and where the slightest dissent is punished by torture. Wouldn't it be EVEN MORE SINISTER if the strong societal control was used to take dissidents into prison.... where suddenly they were told Hey! You're actually the rulers! In other words, the more strenuous the rules a society's laws become, the more creative and higher-quality the PRISONERS of such society are. You can tell a lot about a society by the way its prisoners are treated. Let's imagine you're Jesus and you've just been summoned back to the Earth. Let's call you Jesus 2.0beta. What's your story? If the world is in such bad shape, isn't it a good deed to describe this world? Is it better to make things better or worse? I wonder when i'll be inspired to really start writing this baby. It's a good policy to forget everything for a bit and just fucking relax, but I'm having my usual self-esteem problems right now and it's tough to concentrate. Everything is really working out fantastic so far, even though it might seem screwy on the surface. i am purifying myself. hold on and meditate. i know that "the streets are my fucking 'zine" is going to be a hit, and easy to produce to boot. James had the killer idea with the velo binding. I ought to call him from Chicago, ask him what's up and how things are going. i certainly hope any battery issues kevin seemed to think i was having are a total thing of the past. let's check it out for a second: battery still looks fully charged, whoo-hoo. When i'm lonely, i feel compelled to write mere sentimental bullshit, which is sort of universal but also sort of inconsequential. Ideas are much more important than emotions, because ideas are gateways to history. Too many 'zines talk about feelings, but not many about ideas. And I have DAMN good ideas about media manipulation, about the importance of fucking shit up, and about the distribution of empowerment to elements of society that aren't empowered right now. The mandate is to create so much intellectual, idea-style wealth that I become an industry, that I teach people how to fucking create good jobs instead of create yucky ones. Humanity is about transcending the oppression of this world. Am I a libertarian? I'm being forced to consider my views a little bit more carefully. Anarchism is much cooler-sounding, but is it really what motivates me? I know inherently now that money is actually a form of respect. We pay for that which we respect, at least in the artistic world. In fact, it's difficult to look at an artist without thinking "but how will it make money? What's the BUSINESS MODEL?" And I know that's wrong, but at this point in my life i've got something to prove, something that will only be proven once i'm self-sufficient as a philosopher. Yes, we vote with our dollars, and it's a pain in the ass to not have any to vote with. I want to encourage punk rockers to figure out ways to become empowered by any means fucking necessary. The question then becomes - in what way is a wealthy punk rocker different from a wealthy anyone else? I think that punk rock is in a person's blood. Once a punk, always a punk, and if a punk, one is inextricably against the braindeath that goes with normalcy. The aim of the book is to get people to put down the book and get them to DO SOMETHING. To that extent, it's not unique. But to TRULY LEARN is to DO. And to DO is to BECOME. My critique of contemporary America stems from self-satisfaction. I want to encourage people to think in terms of loneliness. But I myself am greedy. I myself don't volunteer shit to anyone. It's a good thing i'm communicative, but it's a bad thing that my communication simply screams ME! ME! ME! it's ironic, but i have an ego because nobody really gives a fuck about me. And because I have an ego, people are repelled by me - it's a fucking vicious cycle and i'm really, really, REALLY tired of it all. What does unamerican.com seek to do? I mean, REALLY, is it about liberation? It's definitely about MY liberation, about colonizing a new medium (people's bumpers, guitars, etc.) as a voice for political and social agitation. But agitation towards what? On an obvious level, it's agitation to destroy the last vestiges of nationalism and patriotic flag-waving. But what I really want to see - I can't explain why this is, but I want to see it - is TOTAL WAR between those with any sort of artistic sentiment whatsoever and those who are SHEEP and LAME. Why? Because WAR IS EXCITING. I'd like the war to be without bloodshed of course. In fact, the WAR is going ON WITHOUT US BEING AWARE OF IT. AND I AM NAPOLEON. Globally, we're getting less and less patient. We want things to go faster and faster and faster, we bore easier and we're training our kids to learn this kind of speed. But the consequences of this mean less time to do many of the good things in life, like get to know one another. Lives dedicated to getting to know each other are considered boring or something. Maybe that's just me. I don't count. I am mostly wrong on things, i've got no idea what i'm talking about, i've got no right to write a book or anything else. I wish there were someone i wanted to impress with my ideas, but i know there's nobody. Because the truth about my art - and Jenny Holzer's (who is my short-term HERO right now) - is that the WORDS are just one portion of the art - it's the PRESENTATION that matters even more. I want to create things that are DUPLICATED. Because DUPLICATION is a form of RESPECT.

Steal these ideas, that I may live forever. Link to me. The revolutionary of the 90's can't be anything like the revolutionaries of past eras. We need to radically rethink radialis if it's going to be fitted to our time. The modern revolution must take place in ways that are as clandestine and sustainable. We're not interested in the creation of mass demonstrations - one too many of those has graced the cover of Time. In a previous time, media-savvy events could cut through the complacent nodding of the news media, using that media as a tool. Today, it'sbest to ignore the news completely while you set about the task at hand. It's great to attempt to get press, but the best press of all is Word of Mouth. Word of mouth is TRULY the "peope's press". Therefore, a new oral tradition has to be eulogized, and revolutionary messaging must fit into - not a press release - but the format of a STORY, an interesting story that can be communicated from one cultural vector (e.g. interesting person) to another. The modern revolutionary is only interested in events inasmuch as they lend shape to a greater process. Revolution is about shaping a process that will CULMINATE in societal change - and in order for this prcess to come to completion, it must be SUSTAINABLE. This sustainability is often disguised as the "profit motive" - e.g. if it's paying your bills, you're much more likely to devote valuable time and resources in its pursuit. Would you rather influence society by disseminating your ideas, or by attempting to impose your WILL? Ideas have a will of their own, and once disseminated, become PART of the PSYCHES of your target. At some point, your mere WILL will collapse within others, and it requires constant concentration on your targets in order to keep it going. "So I aaid good-bye to government, annd I gave my reason; That a really good religion, is a form of treason." - Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle. Book idea - "The Worst Book I Ever Read and other aikido marketing moves" It is not possible to make a mistake. Not really. You may err in terms of one or another situation, bbut that closed situation merely opens up the potential for a new situation to emerge. Failure is an inducement to rekindlye your energy, and frustration is merely your psyche's way of laying fallow, coiling for the next great idea to trigger you. There are no mistakes, not in the world of the idea, and there is always recovery from sadnesss. What is happiness other than recovery from sadness, after all ultimately, it is like we've all go t something to sell, in order to live as well or as badly as we want, right? I mean, the point is that what I would like ois to get MONEY for a conversation that'll change your life. In other words, I wish I could make a sign that siad "Life changing conversations - five guilders." this is the final chance I can realaly make to mak e a difference. This is my final message to a scene that doen't really seem to need me. The tragedy of the world is that it doesn't really NEED anyone who's creative. Creativity is sort of an afterthought, isn't it You take a drug to achieve clarity, and that's what you get. I mean, oh if you could see the beauty that is revealed to me right now, you would But it's beautiful, but other peple have it. What's my real mission, lord, and how am I going to make MONEY off of it? and how am I going to be remembered, and how am I u h where was I? Well, tthe ppoint is that I was never really invited to a lot of the pleasures that go in with being human, such as fucking and fighting and whatever. I was never invited, even as a kid, and as a result, I have built myself a bad this is bullshit what does it rally mean to bee alive? To it is taking a looot to keep memorializiing this moment to you. IT'S A TRUE TALENT I HAVE, AND IT IS WHY I WAS BORN, TO MEMORIALIZE THE HOLY SPIRIT. AND THIS IS A GOAL THAT IS VERY FAR AWAY FROM WHAT THE SYSTEM WOULD LIKE TO THINK OF AS The goal of life is to fucking MATTER. To have experiences, to touch each other with honesty and feeling, and to live forever through our ideas. Right now, I've got to be frank and say that I don't really matter very much. Or, more precisely, I don't really matter very WELL. I've been neglecting the potential I have to make this world a better place, and I've been doing a less-than-ideal job of reaching out to my fellow human beings. This section of the site is about the truth. I have decided to write down what I know, because I am afraid that I may die without speaking my mind. I leave to you the task of agreeing or disagreeing, because, see, that's part of the truth as well. Making strong statements that force you to EVALUATE rather than to merely accept - THAT is a way of using words to fucking MATTER. Therefore, I want to write a book that isn't just a book. I want to write a book that is an evolving document, an invitation to PARTICIPATE in the generation of yet more truth. This book is yours. I want you to write in the margins. I want you to email additions to me. I want you to get lost in this document, and to add your thoughts where you find it appropriate. Somewhere in this document is a secret code, a code which proves to me that you've read what I have to say. This word is a password that will allow you to participate in the online generation of this document. I visualize a document that will grow like a ball instead of like a stack. I might need therapy. I'm very lonely and I'm unable to change certain things about my personality that are threatening my life. I promise that I will go to actual therapy before killing myself or anything like that. But the idea of suicide has been introduced into my brain and it might take a surgeon to get the damn thing out. What would I tell a therapist? Probably that I'm lonely and that I've lost a lot of the abilities I used to have, or else I've let them fall into disuse. He might be like, oh, well, obviously those abilities weren't that great in the first place if they got you onto that couch, ey? I used to be able to function without a purpose, but now I'm yearning for one. My purpose was always something sweeping and fake-historical, like "prophet of doom" or something. I looked to Public Enemy as heroes, not to, for instance, my uncle who's a doctor. And that's OK, but I have yet to really visualize my success doing it, pulling it off as a person who deserves success. I'm very, very unconfident. I'm no businessman. I'm barely an artist. I am, quite frankly, good for nothing. I pretend to care about people but I would never volunteer my services or time or money for them. I make a big show of being an anarchist, but seriously, I don't give a rat's ass. I also think of myself as somehow "deep" or "worthy" or something, but in reality I'm just a wanker. I don't know what's important in life. I do know one thing. I don't prioritize happiness. I think it's BORING. Happiness is highly regarded by almost everyone as the endpoint of any religion at all, but I think it's crap, good only in measured doses or it ruins your "edge" or something. And that is a bad, bad idea, a construct that has led me to respect periods of my life like this one, when I'm miserable and alone Typing in the dark, as if THAT will change anything at fucking all. It is true that I share an affinity with all who have suffered. I'm probably being too harsh on myself because I DO care about those who are suffering, but I used to be able to become charged up with joy and "pull Slack out of the ground", like the SubGenius suggest. I used to be able to charge up and then zap other people into joy with my fucking smile. Where has that ability gone? Or did I realize that making other people happy wasn't any good? "Falsely realize", that is - it IS a world of good to make people smile. Nobody's going to fucking care about your pain, they all want to know what you can do for THEM ey? This book is certainly my therapy. It forces me into my own mind, breaking past the walls I've got in my head, forcing me to talk, forcing my ideas to flow. I NEED this book to happen, or else, I need to pretend that it will. Because see, that's why I'm writing at all. It obviously isn't because of money, and it's not because of fame. It is because I am lonely and I know that there are many of you out there who are lonely as well. Society has not given us an answer for our isolation - it's only stepped in with products and more products. We only interact with each other based on the context of one's INTERESTS, and too many of us are too timid about our interests (or haven't developed them enough) to defend themselves against the onslaught of mainstream marketing. In other words, if society detects that you've got a vacuum in terms of your concern for music, it'll rush in and sell you Oasis and the whole pro-Oasis ideology, and suddenly, hey! boom! you've got a favorite band just like REAL music fans! And I caution you against this. It is impossible to sustain the energy to have an opinion on everything. With the advent of "emo", for instance, I simply could not keep up with the bewildering and kind of interesting new strands in the brand of punk rock that I like. I used to be an authority in the stuff, but that authority ends precipitously around 1993 or so. What does it mean to be ann authority on something anyway? You're just setting yourself up to be knocked down or something. Trust me. I never got ANYTHING out of learning about all these different fucking bands or whatever, not a damn thing outside of enjoying the music itself. I used to think that I'd be talked to for knowing things, but fuck that, it ain't the way it works. I've long labored under false impressions of how people judge each other. I remember quizzzing myself on the back porch about the discography of the band Rush, quizzing myself quite thoroughly, before entering seventh grade. I thought if I knew a lot about Rush and Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin, the kids would accept me as one of them. I thought it would set me apart. Nothing can set you apart if you're ugly like me. If you're ugly, it doesn't matter if you're a rocket scientist or a neurosurgeon. Nothing matters. You will never be accepted into the club. ª Girls only lay boys that are cute. This is as it should be, but it forces ugly boys to vainly try to impress girls in some way outside of looks. There IS no other way. Girls are only impressed with one thing - how a boy looks. Anything beyond that only serves to repel them. A beautiful boy can have the entire world open up to him by shutting up - being intelligent is a "plus" but it isn't required. (Being STUPID, on the other hand, is bad - better to be nothing at all, if you're cute.) Punk used to be for ugly people. Now it's fulll of cute people on the front of Rolling Stone. This annoys me quite a bit. It used to be that I could feel comfortable talking to someone as long as we bothhad funny hair, but now, I don't have funny hair because funny hair is like on MTV. It's a very strange world. As a consequence, I've tried vainly to attract attention through my other projects, but this is putting too much pressure on these projects and so I fail. The only recognition I can hope to get is money. I don't GIVE a fuck about "indie cred", because without being cute it's worth nothing to me - the idea that I'll get laid as a result of this book, for instance, is patently absurd. The absolute WORST crime of all with girls, of course, is to TALK about being ugly. Well fuck them. This is MY book, here to ruin MY life, and that's what I WANT to talk about. I frankly don't CARE if you think I"m actually ugly or not, because that s the way I have shaped MY life. I do want a girl who will want me for other reasons than my looks, and that is because I am UGLY. And frankly, I don't think such girls exist. I think a girl can appreciate your other qualities ONLY AFTER determining that you're attractive. I think they will ignore me forever because of how I look, and frankly, fuck them then. ` I could write a book called "On Being Ugly". I think that would be a fucking HIT, because I'm pretty damn sure I'm not a fucking lone. Not on this one.

You truly become an adult when you learn to fear death. When you learn to fear death, you start to wonder about immortality, and how to perhaps attain it. It is at that time when you truly choose your religion - i mean, TRULY. You either determine that you're going to pursue something tangible, such as a family or money or land or whatever , or you want to leave ehind a legacy that reflects the ideas you want your soul to be remembered as having rerpesented. (You, sorry about that sentence). That "All I Ever Needed To Know I Learned in Kindergarden" book is fucking bullshit. It consists of platitudes that make grandmas sigh and chuckle about how important it is to be honest and play fair and shit. FUCK THAT. Immortality is the true goal of life, and for those of us who care , it's not even a goal - it's a WAY OF LIFE. Don't just worship Christ - BECOME Christ. Visualize what it must feel like to have successfully lived a life that would go on to give inspiration to millions of souls seeking something deeper than the pleasures of the day to day. Visualize how good that must feel, how ACCOMPLIHED that must feel, and then... MAKE IT SO. Belif in "God" gets you laid. If you are in the service of an idea, you are at the height of your attractivenesss. Once you mesmerize someone with ideas, they are willing to give themselves up to you in ways whichdarn near verge on illegal. Ideas are completely humbling because they foce you to FORGE YOURSELF. Han Solo: "Don't tell me the odds. NEVER telll me the odds." Thinking about whether you're going to succeed just fucks you up. The first goal is to feel inspired to make something happen - that's why "God" gave us adrenaline, so that in a crunch our reflexes FORCE that readinesss. In more relaxed situations, we generally have to wait, though there are ways of speeding that along as well. American culture is like a giant marshmallow that eventually overtakes alll that is aluable and turns it into more of the same commercialized crapola only suitable for tourists and other assorted squares. Try to envision art that will never be absorbable. I sincerely hope that this book will provide inspiration to every single one of the interesting people in this world, and will be completely ignored by everyone else. Actually, I hope to slightly annnoy them with this. I"m trying in life to build UMBRELLAS, because if there's a God, he's got to be something that's useful to ALL KINDS of different seekers - including those who have found a path to Truth that they've already accepted. What I'm talking about is coming up with sentences that appeal - and have direct meaning to - groups that traditionally have been seen as antagonistic, such as, say, Christians and Atheists, or Conservatives and Liberals and so fucking forth. If it's TRUTH, it's USEFUL for ALL people who need use within their lives. There are two opposites contending for the world, but they aren't "Good" and "Evil" or any iteration thereof. Life isn't about being "Good" and avoiding "Evil" - it's about being able to look around you on your deathbed, satisfied that you have given it enough of a go to be PROUD of what you've accomplished and ready to have your potential memorialized by that which you've created - whether it be a family, a book, a company, whatever. Adulthood is about attempting to become WORTH REMEMBERING. Every consequence that we cause that outlasts us is a testament, a MEMORIAL to our having lived. By living a creative life, you're hoping that you play a part in the tapestry of ideas that has stretched back to primal man rubbing two sticks together to make a spark, and stretching out beyond mankind's ultimate colonization of the galaxies. If Man is going to be able to live out any kind of POSITIVE science fiction scenario, a LOT of reconceptualization needs to take place as to how we live and how we structure society. That said, we as a race have ENVISIONED this colonization, and unless we fuck it up, it is therefore INEVITABLE. It might take 10,000 years, but assuming we don't bomb ourselves into oblivion, this species is worth preserving and extending outside of the bounds of what we commonly know as our limits. It is the JOB of "religion" and "philosophy" to remind you that you are part of a LIMITLESS BEING that is called "sentient life", and as such, you have every right to act in a way that represents your TRUE DESIRES. God would not have given us desires if he didn't wish us to act them out. Arjuna: "Why, then, did "God" create Evil?" Lord Krishna: "To thicken the plot." Folks, you KNOW what complacency does to us. Our certainty that america is the best nation to ever exist on this earth has made us LAZY, FAT, AND STUPID. Not to mention unhappy. It is the fires of competition - in all its forms, in business as well as in art - that actually DRIVES america to be something worth mentioning in the history books. If we don't figure out a way to truly REINVENT ourselves, our nation is certainly going to fall short of its potential. I personally would really rather not see that happen. Admit it, even you white people out there are and were intrigued by the concept of the Black Panthers and Black Power from the heady days of the Sixties. There also is continued appeal for white separatist groups, and the fact is that we ALL prejudge each other, no matter how liberal our attitudes might be. So if there is this madate for separatism and prejudice, there's a need within us to which these groups and ideologies are appealing. Isn't it wise to take a deeper look at this appeal? I believe that "if it's within us, there's a way to figure out how to bless it". That is to say, I believe that even this need to prejudge and to separate can be recontextualized into something worth fighting for. The point is that wihin the first thirty seconds of meeting someone or beginning a conversation, you can tell what that conversation is going to lead to - whether it's going to lead to something worthwhile, or if the person you'r talking to is worth the time it takes to talk to them. You can just... TELL, and it doesn't take very long - you look for bothverbal and non-verbal cues that indicate that this person either has something to share or doesn't. This, my friends, is JUDGEMENT. Which is different from "prejudice", because the criteria you've set for the other person to match are determined through your experience of what works and what doesn't, and you're giving the other person a chance to prove their worth through their PERFORMANCE. It's human nature to attempt to shorten that 30 seconds of fair testing even further, to shorten it to a mere moment while you look them over. That's the beginning of PREJUDICE - the second you say to yourself, "Oh, he's gay, I hate him" you've destroyed HIS chance to prove that he's interesting. If you are prejudiced, it's truly YOUR LOSS. If you, for instance, never talk to homeless people (due to some reason other than your own fear, which may or may not be justified - see SEXISM) - well, you're probably missing out on some of the most INSANE stories and BEAUTIFUL SMILES you have ever seen. By the way, I *love* your smile. :) The key to getting away with something is utter uncosnciousnesss. It's a matter of turning off the mid completely and simply forgetting that the transgression occurred - forgeting with such force and purity that others forget it along with you. Stop "getting away with things" and start fixing up your life in ordre to achieve what you want. Getting away with things is something you can do up to a point, but eventually you will lose the courage you once attacked your transgressions with. Shoplifting is like beauty or athletic stamina - you can't depend on it forever. Do you want to be fifty and still shoving cheese down your pants at Safeway? I didn't think so. I believe that evil is a subset of good. I believe that if you steal my money or hurt my friends and family, well, I believe that the shit is going to happen to you to the best of my ability, but that you are FREE to MAKE THAT DECISION. Argument is a drug. Itt can really make us feel ALIVE. It is this "alive" feeling with respect to arguing that's the most important bit, NOT the idea that anyone's mind will change. I've got a pretty handy system here, don't I? I mean, the second someone contradicts my little paradigm, I call them "boring" or something. This is not my intention. IN fact, someone who can disagree with me and TEACH ME SOMETHING THEREBY is like a "God" to me! The problem, of course, is marketing. These people are in it for THEMSELVES, for their egotistical idea that they're proving me WRONG or something. REally, argument is not about proving one person wrong and the other right. It's for understanding the intersection btween the two sets of beliefs. I am doing what I'm doing because I believe it has relevance ti ALL people who continue to seek. If you aren't seeking the truth, if you feel like you've already ACHIEVED the truth, well, there's really little for us to be talking about, isn't there? Why are you READING if you know the truth already? I don't pretend to "know" the truth - just that I (((embody*** it from time to time. So do you, so do you. When you're having one of those great conversations and your true self kicks in - when you're reading a book, or writing one - you are suddenly infused with the truth, and that which you say rings true and forth for all eternity. Of course, it's the same truth everyone (interesting) has at similar moments, but don't you see this is BEAUTIFUL? The ONLY valid basis for UNITY is unity n IDEAS. Through IDEAS, through communication thereof, lies the secret to all of mankin's ills. Much respect to those who have something to say AND have a voice with which to say it. You good Moslems out there have a RESPONSIBILITY to REVISE mainstream thought about what Islam is and what it stands for. If you fail, your religion is DOOMED to suffer the fate of being thought of as a radical religion instead of one that has potential and truth to offer ALL people. It's over. This trip is over, and Ive done the best I can to tell you some stuff that's on ,my mind. I've endeavored to do it with depression and humor, with gentleness and energy. I am hoping that you aren't taking this the wrong wy. It's not just the idea, of course. It is YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE IDEA. Take a look at how different christians worship in different ways, and within each church there are yet MORE distinctions, etc. etc. See, YOU are a VITAL PART OF THE EQUATION in this earth. Without humans to host them, ideas would never see this world. A piece of paper that is meaningless to me might be the difference between life and death for another. I might rip the thing up, or tape over the tape I think is stupid, and I would PISS THE OTHER PERSON OFF as a result. This, too, is indicative of the fact that ideas are different for all people, and that each of us has a set of ideas that we find personally relevant that might not apply to others. As long as ALL IDEAS ARE TAKEN CARE OF, though, as long as they all have homes, well, that's all right and that's okay. We see things differently. All religions should have something to say about the way we all are affected by things like sex and death and joy and pain. I think without referring to this kind of stuff, a religion might be RELEVANT, but in NO WAY can it truly be considered "complete". It is difficult for me to regard anyone who hasn't really had adversity in their lives as fully human. This is why people have problems wit so-called "cute white males" - because people of ethnic backgrounds in western countries (ethnic meaning non-white) have a more outward indication of having gone through some adversity , if only be token of being out of the majority in a country that for most of its history has been regarded as white. If a white male has some outward indication of having gone through some bullshit, well, it's a lot easier to take this person as a valid and fucking REAL human being. O yes.

I was talking about stories before, and I'd like to expand that into a Networked Model of Collective Human Consciousness. Basically, my point is that when you're in touch with That Spirit Which Gives Us Ideas, well, you're much more than a single atomic human. You are REPRESENTING the collective human mind. You are actually FAR more important, and your moves are amplified by this importance. Certain nights, certain acts of mayhem and pure rebellion, have this EPIC feeling about them. It feels like you're living a movie, and the casting and plot become very, very significant. I love experiences that lead to STORIES. Stories help you turn memories into something communicable - sort of like a PACKET in the network - and they always give hope to people that there's potential in life that they haven't tapped yet. For instance, I just met this guy who met this wonderful girl in Munich. He invited her along to the concentration camp at Dachau, which he had planned on visiting, and on the train back from the camp, well, they sort of hooked up. It was only when he was relating this to me that I was like, "dud, you took her for a first date at a CONCENTRATION CAMP?!?" Wow, how fucking crazy - as far as I know, that's the WACKIEST place to fucking take someone on a date... Basically, this led to a small discussion of a "top ten least promising first dates", but jeez, that one took the cake! I mean, that's so TASTELESS, it's insane!!! The above anecdote means to illustrate that never before have I totally thought about "first dates" as an ART FORM, you know. Not just that, but it's also turned into an ART FORM with a PUNK movement - that is, it's now interesting to come up with BAD first dates!!! You see, ANYTHING can be an ART FORM, or a "MEDIUM" as Marshall McLuhan put it. If approached with an artistic perspective, a party or a train or an umbrella or a purchase encounter are all ripe with potential to FUCKING ROCK. An "Artistic Perspective" sounds pretty fucking pretentious, but you know, it isn't rocket scinece. All you have to do is have the attitude that "I want to be able to REMEMBER this". In a way, all that is remembered is ART. Before getting on this train, me and these two Finnish girls deliberately ate a lot of garlic soup. The reason we did this was because the soup tasted very very good (it was definitely ART), but also so that we could smell badly enough that we'd get our own compartment in this train. Even though it didn't work, that is one Artistic use of soup, wouldn't you agree? It can't be denied that PEOPLE are the ULTIMATE ART. I can't say why it is important to be an "Artist", even in this ohmygawd EXTREMELY loose sense. I just know it is HELL of more fun. That's the problem with religion today. Very litle of it could possibly be construed as "fun". I am confused about the motivations of so many so-called "religious" people. I'm happy that a lot of them have somehow found peace through their faiths, and I believe in the importance of faith in order to continue living on a level that transcends our death. But in so many cases, the limitations of being religious strike me as absurd crosses to bear. Remember, the only sin that I acknowledge is to somehow deliberately ignore or otherwise injure your own POTENTIAL. Life has a way of limiting our potential as we get older, but ideally we will live lives that REPLENISH that potential in different ways. Paul McCartney is a sinner as a musician. Maybe he's just decided to focus his gemini talents on, say, cooking, or computer games or something instead of music, because he's released some pretty UNTALENTED musical dreck since the breakup of his only real band. There is a lot of beauty (and POTENTIAL) to be gained through DISCIPLINE, however. I'm not saying that Muslims are wrong to strike pork from their diets; such a (relatively) minor concession to one's faith is useful for strengthening your commitment to it, and I am down. I'm not the most disciplined person in the world, however, but I sense that I *am* very religious, so it's important for me to choose a faith that I won't get kicked out of! The only faith that could tolerate a whippersnapper and hell-raiser like me is the Church of Srini - that is to say, the Do It Yourself Religion that I'm trying to propose to you in this document. Dick: "The church of my choice is the free, open world." There are functions of organized religion that make a lot of sense, such as the community aspect, the emphasis on some kind of discipline, the respect for one's elders and for ancient wisdom, and the continual reminder of the importance of the quest for Truth. I'll acknowledge these functions, adn I'd like to stick them into the Church of Srini (or whatever it ends up being). For most people, however, RELIGION IS SIMPLY AN EASY ANSWER. Religion makes many of life's important decisions for you, which is a royal pain in the ass and which doesn't allow for circumstancial decionmaking. This decisionmaking is a large component of the free will component of what I love about life! I mean, shit, why should I let some 2000-year-old bastardized faith tell me who I can and can't fuck? Again, I want to punkify religion, to turn it into a do-it-yourself cottage industry that allows any of us to make our own decisions about what we believe or don't believe. That said, I don't extend this trust to EVERYBODY. After all, fucking Manson and Jim Jones had their "own religions", which largely revolved around gaining power over their followers and proving that power by inciting them into insane acts. Fuck that shit! The more control you have over other people, the less you have over yourself. I might have mentioned that people who I don't view as particularly interesting are like animals to me. You just might not like the way I worded that, but you know, I have mistakenly wasted SO MUCH TIME with these people that I'd really like to avoid such mistakes in the future. I understand that such a hardline perspective is inevitably going to alienate some very interesting people, but please let me explain. It is so important to set criteria about what it means to be a Human Being. I know that sounds potentially pretty sick, but I believe that we're mammals as well as humans, and it's only by dint of our higher abilities that we truly transcend the animal kingdom and become, you know, real. It is these opportunities to prove our HUMANITY that actually prove our IMMORTALITY. Ionesco: "Humans are born to be immortal, and yet we die. It's stupid, it can't be taken seriously." Stories bind us together. They are the currency of any relationship - not just the relating of these stories, but the CREATION of these stories. That's what romance is all about - it's about ADVENTURE, about this thing happened and then this thing and then BOOM! If you get very, very good at creating stories with someone, well, you're going to stick around. This is how the best relationships begin and keep going - when THINGS OCCUR, when things aren't totally static. I've seen relationships without romance, and I've been all like, well, what's the fucking POINT? I mean, sex is a great way to meet people, but why meet these people if they aren't going to, well, potentially CHANGE YOUR LIFE? You know, I'm not going to overdo the love/romance angle in this book. There are some truths that are relevant for this book within that whole scene, but it's also like, jeez, what is this, "srini's tips on how to get laid"? Because, friends, you can FERGET it, i've got no clue and I frankly don't think you care. Which is as it should be. That said, there are many lessons that good sex can teach us - many lessons that can be extrapolated from the sex act to encompass the total human experience. Good sex is in microcosm what the universe of ideas is in macrocosm. THere is a sense of timelessness to an idea, you see - a sense that if the idea is good enough, that it was ALWAYS there, lying in wait, biding its time until it's appreciated thoroughly. Sex is also like that - the whole idea of floating in space, thinking about nothing bu the joy of being together, all of that good stuff. Sex is a SYMBOL for an idea. Sex can be a MEDIUM - in other words, great sex is REMEMBERED, creates a great story, and reminds others about how important it is to have great sex. Great sex, like a great idea, keeps you up all night. And ultimately, just like ideas, the natural goal of great sex is to bear fruit. It is so important to have the experience in life of nursing an idea all the way through conception to birth through to success and its independence. The life cycle of an idea resembles the human life cycle, with the exception of death. Once an idea is visualized, it EXISTS and there's no winking it back into non-existence. An idea can certainly be based on a false statement. Often this leads to the formation of a CONSTRUCT - something that looks like an idea but isn't useful. An example is the idea that the moon is made of green cheese. Actually, the old idea that the moon is made of green cheese did serve the function of temporarily closing up an uncomfortable hole in mankind's knowledge base. Since it was inadequately closed up (i mean, what kind of ridiculous notion is THAT for the composition of a heavenly body!), mankind sort of was vaguely motivated to figure out the veracity of the idea as quickly as the technology was available. Bad luck is not the opposite of good luck. Bad luck is better than no luck at all. At least bad luck indicates that "fate" or "god" or whatever is TALKING to you. Not to sound like a hippy but it's important to bless any situation, to acknowledge it and to survive it to the best of one's ability. I'm a bit fan of the "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" philosophy, especially since I have come to value the very difficult periods of my life as growing experiences par excellence. Pain is a necessary component of growth. If the Big Bang began with a Cosmic Egg, was there also a Cosmic Sperm? I'm amazed at the richness of biology, and the apparent coincidences and very rational developments that have led to our existence as sentient human beings (well, at least SOME of us). I am a Humanist. This means that I believe that Humans have been given all of their facilities and emotions - even ones that seem like negative ones - for a REASON, and that it is up to philosophy and science to determine the proper function for these developments. Whether you believe in "God" or not is determined by whether you believe things happen for a reason or not. If you don't believe in God, you don't really believe in cause and effect. Looking on my life, things that have happened for apparently no reason have wound up being some of the most important decision points for me. It is VITAL to RESPECT and CHERISH your FAILURES. So if everything is given to us for a reason, why do we have this terrible need to TRY? Zen and many Eastern religions are based around the elimination of effort from life. They revolve around finding spiritual peace, finding a way to lose the focus on individual EVENTS that happen in our lies and focus more on the PROCESS that is living.

Actual Zen is about the ELIMINATION of Events entirely. It's the most radical of all Process-based Eastern philosophies because it relates stories of enlightened people barely moving for two hours and calling that a lesson. We are challenged to drop our "worm's eye view" every time we glimpse the larger PATTERN behind the lives we live. In other words, sometimes it feels as though individual events are actually CHOREOGRAPHED, like we're part of some kind of (i hate this word) cosmic dance, and the right partners will find each other. I highly recommend your getting the Crowley-Thoth Tarot Deck and spending some time with it and the book Tarot: Mirror of the Soul by Gerd Ziegler. The magic of things like the Tarot is that they RANDOMIZE the truth for you. You know, there's something in that randomization process that makes it SEEM much more magical. The thrill of worrying whether the girl you like draws the "love" card or the "lust" card... well, what it is is that you need this sense of DANGER when learning the Truth. This book and its random lurching from topic to topic is trying to do the same thing to you - it gets you tired, but on the other hand it lets you draw from it at your own pace. I love the idea of communicating the Truth in a brand new way. I was told by an expert on a subject (a professor who just happens to be a great kisser) that books of proverbs were big in the 17th century, and she gave me this idea to call these individual bullet points "proverbs". I thought that was really cool. I mean, that's one of the better books in the Bible, you know, Proverbs - they're short, to the point, and illustrative. Just like the Ramones, O Yes. Don't you wish you had had a chance to shape history sometimes? Don't you wish you could teleport your lame band back to, say, 1962 or something, and reinvent rock and roll in your own image? The point of being a person of ideas is not to wax nostalgic for bygone eras, but take the input given us by the past (both distant and recent) and turn it into a vision for the NEXT PHASE of a medium's development. One of my many visions is to visualize a company as a medium. I like the idea of building a company around giving people tools to espouse their anti-mainstream values in such a way as to annoy the fuck out of these mainstreamers. So each individual product of the business is a piece of simple art (say, a bumper sticker or a t-shirt), but if a particular sticker succeeds, well, that's cultural manipulation on a far higher plane than just one sticker or whatever! And the WAY we're going to go about marketing the company is going to be very diferent from what I've seen before - I like the idea so much, obviously, that I'm writing a book about it!!! The Finnish girl across from me has a beauty to her that is very quiet and obscure, but it's ery inspiring. It's difficult for me to stop thinking about possibilities between us. Great people inspire possibilities. Even if only a fraction of these possibilities are carried out, it's the fact that those possibilities are THERE that make us remember that life is truly without limits and that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. I *live* to be reminded of possibilities that I've forgotten. It's very very important to FOCUS on possibilities that are realistic or according to your interests, but see, when it comes to gaining more possibilities, the sky should be the limit. We decide individually on what possibilities to exploit and to turn into reality, but the more choices we have to choose from, the stronger those choices will be. When you offer possibilities to others, you receive more in return. Possibilities expand logarithmically when two people truly click. Every twist and turn in circumstance starts to fucking ROCK. I am wearing a shirt that I made tgat has an upside-down US flag on it and says "fuck the USA". This shirt seems SO SIMPLE, but it really asks perhaps THE most fundamental question that a semiotic about america can ask: DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE *FLAG* OR THE *CONSTITUTION*????? There are two contending sides in the definition of what patriotism really means in a supposedly free land such as ours. Only in America is it really and truly possible to start a company that (in theory) is out to mock the shit out of the country itself. Well, OK, maybe not "only" in America, but such a degree of freedom is an entirely American concept. The concept goes hand-in-hand with the idea that a FREE PEOPLE will prosper and trade ideas and grow at a better, more democratic, and more stable rate than one that is subject to any kind of oppression. It is this ideal, this ideal of FREEDOM, that makes me a self-described "anarchist". Not because I swant to destroy the government or any such thing (mock, well that's all well and good because it sparks debate, but "destroy" a single human life and you're no longer HUMAN yourSELF< fucker). To me, anarchism means that I will tolerate NO constraints on my freedom that I don't myself impose. I am a DESCRIPTING anarchist, rather than a PRESCRIPTIVE one. I don't say "there OUGHTN'T be a government", I say "there IS no government outside of that which we (that is you and I and others I trust) consent to." There is a kind of trust between people of ideas that is immediate and binding. It is not the kind of trust that's like "here, could you look after my wallet while I go take a piss?" or "let me smooch your girlfriend, OK?" But it IS the kind of trust that can be summed up in the sentence: "I TRUST YOU NOT TO WASTE YOUR OWN TIME". This is why when you run into ONE interesting person, you actually will run into SEVERAL. We run in packs. And we don't waste time, so anyone who is worth the friendship of one of YOUR friends is definitely friend material (or, at least, entertaining enemy material). You are reading this book RIGHT NOW because you are GETTING something out of it. If you aren't getting something out of it, well, shit, SELL IT or something. GIve it away as a gift. Burn the damn thing if you hate it so much. JUST DON'T BE INDIFFERENT TO IT. "REal freedom SCARES you - it means RESPONSIBILITY!" - the Dead Kennedys. It isn't freedom until you truly test it. It is the JOB of every interesting person to push the fucking ENVELOPE of the human experience in some way. It is more than a job - it is an adventure. No, what I MEANT TO SAY IS - IT IS MORE THAN A JOB - IT IS OUR RELIGION. It is the job of society and this world to PAY US WELL for pushing the nvelope. Or at least adequately. FUCK wage-slavery. Wage-slavery serves only ONE purpose - you don't know how valuable your own time is until you WASTE it making money for SOMEONE ELSE. Some jobs are cool. SOme jobs let you learn, empower you, prepare you to become your OWN boss, either inside the same company or in the context of your own. Hey, I *bless* these jobs. If you've got one, and it's available, and it's in the field of marketing or public relations or EVANGELISM, well, hey call me up!!! But I like to think I'm going nuts right now in creative, fantastic ways. In a very unique way, I am being driven crazy by the strength and the strangeness ofmy ideas, which I believe are UNIQUELY COMMUNICABLE. I am playing a GAME with you, you see, with CULTURE ITSELF> Visualize culture as a human body - I am trying to manufacture these viral agents - or ideas - that will hopefully infect the fuck out of it and bear fruit that I simply cannot preduict. The cool thing about crisis situations such as travelling is that you can function on VERY little sleep. Also, you become SO ATTUNED to the lay of the land and the symbols therein that you almost can understand languages that you've never heard before. Man, depeche mode has some strange fucking fans. Graffiti is such a funny art form. It's like this spreading viral cancer across the previously clean surfaces of the land that's probably, oh i don't know, reached all the way out to fucking mongolia by now. I wish graffiti had something more to say than "I was here". There have been some very, very interesting "I was here's" that I've seen, but I don't wan t to think that that's the only potential of this superb medium. I want graffiti to become content, because it's one of the coolest mediums out there - it's even better than stickers, in a way (except for the speed with which stickers can be disseminated as opposed to graffiti (which seems to be pretty painstaking)). It It would be the hugest honor to have something I said or wrote or whatever graffittied somewhere. Or even the website or something, with maybe an upside-down flag. Hm. I think I've found my next crime. :) "When I get lonely and I feel I've had enough/She sends a comfort comin' in from above." - Golden Earring, "radar Love". The psychic connections between people are really beautiful, you know. It's like, in a very real way I'm connected to my last girl in a way I am not with the other people riding in this booth in this train. Not to say that there isn't potential in these people in this booth - they all seem cool, well the depeche mode fans are abot as weird as I am probably. But the point is that I'm right now NOT alone. Oh, but in other ways, of course I am. Still, it is a comfort to know that if something happened to me in Amsterdam, for instance, someone would take notice and miss me. What made me love the last person I loved? It was something more important thanher raw interestingness. See, this is where the theory might just fall apart. Love must have chaos involved in it or else it really doesn't work. YOu've got to not know what the fuck you're doing, and you've got to pretend that it doesn't matter anyway. All people of ideas are infinitely better than all sheep. NO person of ideas is ANY BETTER than any other person of ideas. There is NO MEASURE of "how" idea-oriented osmeone is. It is BINARY - you either ARE or you AREN'T. That UNDO button REALLY HAS TO GO. Whew. That was close. No matter how much oney someone else with ideaas has made, no matter how famous, no matter how fucking RAD their banad was or their art is or whatever, the point is that YOU have the potential to EQUAL OR BETTER IT. All music that's worth a fuck has a sense of INVENTION rolled up into it. YOu can just FEEL the members of Blue Oyster CUlt sitting around and smoking joints in the studio and listening to the mixes for "Don't Fear THe REaper" and going, holy shit, boys, we've just made some HISTORY! Obviously, th etwo Milli Vanilli boys doidn't have this happen to them. But you CAN see their MANAGER going, "Well, you boys sure are pretty, but you can't sing for shit... HOLD IT, I've got an idea! we'll LIP-SYNCH!!!" To me, THAT is the moment when the idea comes into it. When you go to a museum to see an exhibit, you've got torealize that the real art is more than JUST the artwork that's on exhibit. The real art is also in the arrangement and preparation of the fucking exhibit itself. Like who makes the decisions to put Nam June Paik's works on the subject f television next to Jeffery Koon's sculptures of Michael Jackson? That is a CONSCIOUS decision if you're at a good museum, and it's almost like a puzzle to figure out. Life IS a puzzle to figure out, at least the good bits are. The good bits give you a feeling that THERE IS AN ANSWER OUT THERE SOMEWHERE> That ther IS a REASON for the crazy things you've done and that you feel. That's something that's really important to me, a feeling of understanding the INNER LOGIC with which ideas flow.

This "fuck the USA" shirt is really funny to wear, it gives me a kind of rush that I've really never experienced before. I usually don't like wearing my own shirts, because it's like, what am I trying to prove? But this time I've let that rule slide and I'm pretty happy with it. There IS a puzzle in this book. YOu have to find it, and figure it out, and if you do you will win something very, very interesting and valuable. Good luck. I am sitting here wondering at the depeche mode fan across from me "Are you a boy or are you a girl?" It's REALLY about as ambiguauos as I've ever seen it. I think this is a bona fide transsexual we've got here - a girl who got herefucking tits lpped off. I hate being overlooked, especially when i'm writing disparaging remarks about my fellow travellers. Ha ha. Yeah, that's right motherfuckers, I'm JUDGING YOU as well as your judging jme. This is degenerating, I'd better quit while I"m ahead. It's weird how you only need one hit and you're taken care of for life. YOu know, one REAL hit. I'd like to figure that out instead of working for a living, I think that's a ride I'd like to check out. Sleater-Kinney must be having fun somewhere right now. Well, the thing about interesting people is that I'm even sort of inspired when they CHEAT me. A conductor just ripped me off of 50 zloty, which is about $18. Thank god, that's no big fucking deal. It might've been a mistake, too, but the guy sort of gave me the runaround aboutbeing a gemini and all that stuff - apparently we're the same age, same birthday, everything! So, hell, if ***I*** were Polish, with MY morality being such shit, well hell, I might be in the ripoff circuit too. I fairly threw my money at him, that's the big problem. It is wise to never THROW money at someone because they're likely to think it's a fucking football and take off for the goal line with it, instead of giving you want you just paid for. I hate these polish trains. I don't know, there's something SEEDY, untrustworthy about them. I am like a pregnant mother with this baby, and if I lose it i am liable to, oh, shut up, i won't lose it. I got to ride on my favorite carnival ride today. It's the one that goes all the way upside down, you know, like twin hammers sort of. I held my bag down with my knees and I was very, very happy. I hope I can sleep on this train. I am worried about it, bu I think I might be able to manage it. Really, the other three guys in this compartment seem honest enough. But they might be the kind of weird dockworker types that rip you off and it sort of scares me sometimes that this attracts too much attention. In fact I just attracted the attention of one of the guys here, and he sort of asked me what the fuck I'm doing in his stilted english. I am now going to be pretty damn paranoid because I don't sense that our little exchange went very well. I am going to put this away now, but what the fuck am I going to do until I fall asleep? Now that it's out, maybe I'm better off leaving it out. Hmmmmmm. I usually use the bag as my pillow but this time I might have to get even more serious and twine it around my neck or something. Vulnerability is a drag. The guy is acting like an asshole. He's scaring the fuck out of me. I think he's pissed that I don't know Polish. He just tapped me on the head a couple times. I have the worst feeling about losing this machine that I've had the whole trip. I hope he starts to leave me alone. In this world there are good risks and bad risks. And there are also "goood" risks and "bad" risks. I'm not talking about ODDS in the second sentence. I'm talking about the consequences of the risk themselves. In other words, go ahead and tell me all about your scheme for making a million bucks. (Better yet, DO IT.) But don't try to impresss me with the fact that you've done heroin. I mean, JESUS. It's hard to be attracted to a pain in the ass. You can judge a person by the risks he takes. Life is never without risk, but it's the way we APPROACH risk that is indicative. I sometimes appear (especially to my parents) to be ADDICTED to ADDING risk and uncertainty to my life. Things that are "certain" rarely have that rock'n'roll flair that our generation craves. Is this a good policy, or is it conditioning? You've got to make a choice with the seat of your pants. You've either got to sit on it or FLY BY IT. The polish countryside is flashing past me. If you're ever going to pay real money for tickets in Eastern European countries, ALWAYS PAY ON BOARD and ALWAYS PAY IN THE LOCAL CURRENCY. You can save up to 200% this way! Why isn't there a coupon book for punk rockers? Or maybe a Farmer's Almanac of wisdom, anecdotes, "I'm tired of being told/What to think./I'm tired of being told/What to do./I'm tired of fucking phonies/That's right I'm sick of you." - Wire, "Mr. Suit". It is hard for me to continue writing at this point without doing at least a bit of review, but I'm afraid to lose my forward motion thereby. Although, what would be wrong with hitting the ground in the USA with an actual, finished, complete, edited document? In the end, nobody gives a FUCK what you think, and your opinion counts for SHIT. It is only what you DO and who you ARE that matters. There's a girl in Berlin that I don't know what to do with, because I have the sneaky suspicion she actually likes me for the right reasons. I mean, she's really INTO the idea of this book, and I am actually WAY WAY into the fact that she seems to be into it! PLUS, SHE GAVE ME GOOD ANSWERS TO MY STANDARD QUESTIONS, SUCH AS, "ARE YOU REALLYY LOOKING FOR MORE ADVENTURE IN YOUR LIFE?" HEY, IF THER IS ONE THING I CAN PROMISE A GIRL WHO LIKES ME, IT IS ADVENTURE. Romance = adventure. Romance is different from love, but you know, it's the part that gets you through the ookiness of the first two years in the love process. Wow, do I love romance. I love kisses that last for three days. I love being a teenager again. I saw these two teenagers on the Ubahn before I got on this train, and oh man were they going at it, and they were hysterical and equal and sexy as all fuck, and I threw change at them before I got off the train. It was really cool. Real education makes you HUMBLE. Therefore, FUCK STANFORD, or at least, most of the kids that go there and think they're the shit because of it. It is such a beautiful day. Thank "God" this train has a windown to open, and I've got a window seat. My contact lenses are holy bothering me, so they're off right now, pluss after this allnigheter I pulled I need some sleep, but travelling the Eastern Bloc is truly an adventure to me. I mean, all travel is adventure, but in the Wild East it's like, DANGER is possible, as well as true love. I dig the East quite a bit. The woman next to me is knitting. Six hours worth of knitting, versus six hours worth of typing. Knitting probably makes a lot more sense. I like the feeling that I'm getting MORE out ofthis trip than the other slummers around Europe. What a souvenir this book will be if nothing else, ey? I can't wait for my kids to read it. I called my sister today, and boy am I happy about that. Jeez, I love that little girlzzzz My posture on this train isn't really working because my joints are getting stiff. I'm going to stop bnow. The function of coincidence is to make us believe in a higher power. It doesn't really matter whether a higher power exists or not. Really, it doesn't. That said, belief in a higher power has the potential to be an EFFECTIVE and HELPFUL way to live life. The problem with religion is that people have let institutions teach that religion is something other than FUN and PERSONALLY EMPOWERING. I aim to change that. First of all, belief in "God" is a great way to meet girls. :) By staking my beliefs in an interesting format, I have something to talk about that speaks to people in a deeper way than just talking about, oh, fashion or whatnot. God might not exist, but He certainly gives us fun stuff to talk about. I cannot believe the coincidences I have lived through, especially while undertaking this project. I feel as though I'm being controlled by satellite along with a select few fellow spiritual movers and shakers, and our interactions form a complex conspiracy that is destined to... um... I don't CARE what my destiny is, I just like to be reminded that it's THERE. Certain days - certain conversations - have an air of PURE DESTINY to them. Like the moves you make are SO SMOOTH that they just HAD to happen. Destiny follows in my footsteps. My sense of a relevant, interesting future informs every empowered action that I make. I am sooooo happy right now, for some reason. It's like I can see myself acting and writing and speaking as if I were informed by a higher power. Philip K. Dick posited that there was a satellite up there, named VALIS, that fired essential information at us in order to be able to overthrow the legacy of the Roman Empire. The legacy of the Roman Empire is seen to be authoritarianism in all its forms. After Christ died, Christ who was such an enemy of the Empire, the Empire realized that the Church, if co-opted, could become a powerful tool with which to keep its peoples in order. Though the Empire at last fell, it was that bastardization of pure religion into a tool for controlling people that has directed us to the spiritual void in which we lie today. The world inflicts damage on us in the form of friction. To live one's dreams is to achieve one's natural state, but the ruth is things get in the way, from bills to kids to relationships gone sour to current events. We need to relish the chaos, the CHURN which turns our world upside down. The reason travel is so great is that we are constantly forced into one chaos situation after another. Learning to respect and to manipulate chaos is the key to truly growing in life. Only when our conscious mind is distracted with such "trivial" matters as where you're going to sleep that night, do you get exhausted enough to just have faith in the fact that things are going to turn out okay. Ideas do not come from the conscious mind. They might come from God, or they might come from that whole "we only use 10% of our brain capacity" thing. Or they might come from aliens, or elvis, or whatever. But the conscious mind can't come up with them - because, if you ever just sit there trying to think of an idea, well, that isn't the way it works. It is better to pliaigarize a great idea, than to create a work with no ideas at all involved in it. Then again, it's better to create a work with a BAD idea, than to copy someone else's idea. If you're not going to be original, at least copy from great sources.

Some wiseass once said "Your work is both good and original. Unfortunately, the part that is good is not original, and the part which is original is not good." That's the way I feel about almost EVERYTHING that, say, passes for music these days. I think "God" is just a shorthand for the collective potential and cumulative ideas of humanity. Just as each human has a given potential, humanity itself might be somewhere else in a moment or a year or a millenium. Who can say what will happen to Humanity? It is possible to reinvent yourself as a person with infinite potential. When you act in accordance with your POTENTIAL, you truly fucking ROCK. When people say "that cat's really got SOUL", it means that the person is giving it truly all they've got and with fantastic results. I'm thinking about a girl right now, and it's easy for me to be distracted by that kind of thin. Sadly, the girl is kind of (not really) standing me up. I had kind of an adventure last night, which was really stupid of course, and I have to say that it's likely that "God" willed it because he doesn't think I'm ready for a trul lovelife yet. I am going to sleep on the train to prague tonight. I can't believe I'm leaving this town, but it will be good to sit on the Charles Bridge and just write. I am addicted to feeling good, at the expense of worshipping myself enough to keep in shape or whatever. I think that's pathetic. Being born is power! (D. Boon) I can tell that you're a quality human being, even if there are blockages in your life. The most important aspect of God, of course, and this set of ideas that I dare to call a religion is to MAKE THINGS BETTER. I long to be with the woman of my dreams, whoever she may be. I guess I am as vulnerable as any other guy, but I am sort of lucky because I am simply not obsessed with sex. Kissing, now THAT i'm obsessed with, but I don't have any need to go too crazy with people in order to really see them as they really are. Sex is such an easy answer to the pursuit of happiness. Happiness, on a total, balanced, When I was younger I used to wonder what it was that made women the listeners and men the talkers in most conversations. I found that men were generally placed in the role of proving something to women, as opposed to the other way around. I was not clear why this should be. I've got ten minutes to describe why I'm going to miss Budapest, and I'm finding that it is tough to really pin down. Budapest is like a place where washups like me come and escape the pressures that are placed on us in more competitive areas . I've notieced a trend among the people here, a sense of aimlessness and a shrugged realization that we've truly given up on success within the normal context of the word. It's sort of wistful, and the people who wind up here wind up smoking a whole lot and angling for sex whenever they fucking can. I looked a bit of the weirdo with my little book project, but I have to say that this, oh my god, was a TRUE VACATION. I thought about NOTHING but thinking aitself, and I truly recaptured a bit of my spirit that I had lost a long, long time in the past. I'm not even putting this very welll, in fact, there's no reason tis should be in the book at all. But I'm coming back here, someday. I can tell that this city has really made its mark on me, and I'm full of gratitude. I will soon get to talk about "what's wrong with America", and also, surprisingly enough, what's RIGHT about that. Stay tuned. NExt stop - Prague for a couple of days... Travel is good. Travel forces you into situations where you're not really able to deal without solving problems you've never had to solve before. Travel forces you to meet people, to ask questions, to be confused. Within travel is potential, even for the most jaded of individuals. Travel, unfortunately, has also been converted into an "industry". If enough people want to do something, it turns into an industry, and is thereby subverted by capitalism. Capitalism thrives on converting experience into commodity. That is to say, the implication that emotions like pleasure and joy and stuff like that can be bought and sold is a capitalist innovation. The Truth is a shifting, fluid reality that pierces through a cloak of irreality. The Truth is where Potential and Actual meet. You know the Truth when it happens, and it's always happening somewhere. The Truth is not something you "know" - it is something you BECOME from time to time. The Truth is indivisible from the Self. We exist in order to give expression to the Truth. This gives rise to the question - WHY? Why does the Truth flit in and out with each day? Why can't we be constantly enlightened? Well, the answer is that perhaps THE essential property of the Truth is that it FUCKING MATTERS. It cannot just blend in with the everyday diorama of being - if it did, we wouldn't be INSPIRED by it. The word "Inspire" comes from the same Latin root as "breathe". What is life but to live with the potential of inspiration? Giving birth to an idea - that is, REALIZING it from its CONCEPTION to its REALITY - is a painful, strenuous process. Funny isn't it, how our species' maternity cycle maps so closely onto the process through which Truth realizes itself. It is more important to DEVELOP than to BE. "It's a process, not an event." The Truth moves. As X once sang, cryptically, "This is the game that moves as you play." Even negative movement is much more indicative of the presence of Truth - or, at least, the POTENTIAL for Truth - than stasis on a more-or-less comfortable state. If we view things holistically, we realize that Truth is fucking Difficult. The impact of Truth within our lives is enough to cause major shifts in the way we've been living. People see the light, abandon their careers and turn to gardening or teaching. It's easy to be deceived into pursuing Truth by WANTING it to penetrate your life. Don't do it. To wit - the Truth can suck. It can take you from a normal, happy plane of existence and plunge you to the lowest depths - all because, suddenly, instead of simply living, you have a Dream. And once you have a Dream, once you fall in Love, there's really nothing you can do about it. The Truth is compulsive, or at least it forces us to be compulsive about it. While you wait for Truth to impact you, however, it's sort of a good idea to figure out how to get paid. If you're going to be waiting around for inspiration to strike you, don't dilly-dally about - figure out a way to collect the universal tools for the success of any idea. Accumulate a bit of capital (whether it be economic, s0cial or cultural capital) and be patient. Don't die. That is, please don't ruin your potential in ways that you can avoid. As I type this, the man across from me just gobbled down two huge personal pizzas from pizza hut. He looks like an intelligent fellow, but if that's his commuting habit, uh, that's really bad news for him over the long run. I should talk. I die every day. I am pretty "God" damned unhappy with the course my life has been taking, and I can really only blame it on the effect the Truth has had on me. I know that I feel what I feel for a purpose - namely, the only joy I have in life is in being in contact with the Truth in some way (generally by communicating it). Since it's the only joy I really have, I am compelled to keep following it, to keep getting better and better at digging on it. It's the only thing I seem to be any good at, and fuck you if you disagree - you bought the damn book. Why does living on the edge in some way make us feel like we're pursuing the truth? Could there be some interrelationship between Truth and Death that I'm not superclear on? There is, there must be. There is a definite correlation between Truth and Orgasm, and there are abundant references to Orgasm as being like a little Death. There are obviously positive aspects of Death. Death means the surrender of our bodies, of our "containers" as the idiot comet cult put it. Ideas, also, enable us to forget our bodies. And in a strange way, so does Orgasm - even though it's the ultimate realization of the Body, it is actually in a way the SUBLIMATION of the Body. If the Body is akin to the solid phase of matter, the sexual cycle is the liquification and thereupon the vaporization of the Body. Sex and Death are related, also, because they're the two forces that are universally viewed as "obscene" by squares. Perhaps one tactic of the Conspiracy is to make us feel INURED to these most private of experiences. Movies, pornography etc. make us feel like Death and Sex are no big deal - they are constantly being used to get a rise out of us, but on the other hand, it's like, DUH, of COURSE they're going to get a rise out of us. Unfortunately, the psychic fallout of this media fuck-upedness is that we become USED to these shocking events. It sounds like I am advocating social conservatism. I am not. I just think that we, as thinking people, should transcend the Conspiracy's media bullshit. We need to counterconspire to make Sex and Death DANGEROUS again, to make them exciting and compelling in a way that the Conspiracy Media could never follow. I would like us to concentrate on creating things that would STILL be good, even IF they were sold out. That's why I think I like my "Fuck Work" sticker best of all. I always explain that even if fucking TIME-WARNER decided to steal the idea for FUCK WORK, well, jeez, that would be a GOOD THING! It would be a good, subversive thing to promote the replication of a meme as DEVASTATING to mainstream capitalist thinking as "FUCK WORK" by none other than the very consumer bullshit company that so depends on wage-slavery (both on the supply and the demand side. People with Soul recognize each other. There's like a glimmer in the eye, or a catch in the voice, that indicates that "this person HAS potential. this person is NOT to be ignored." Once in a while we may try to disguise this, but we do so to our own peril, and eventually we are found out. Best to leave our potential dangling out, enormous psychic appendages that let others know that YOU EXIST!!! If it weren't for this immediate recognition thing, I would never have stumbled upon truth. Truth is like a drug, and also, it is the antidote to any drug. Well, perhaps not the PHYSICALLY addictive type, but as I write I am drunk off my ASS on British beer in a strange bed, and I really fucking ought to be sleeping it off ey? but the point is that all of that's immaterial, isn't it, when confronted with the Vastness of Realization. Uh, maybe that ain't so, 'coz i'm about to crash again. Good night to yuz. I wrote this book because I might die tomorrow, and because i can't sleep today. The Beastie Boys have done cultural manipulation with great skill. Their first hit, "You've Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party", was a brilliant thing because - think about it, this is remarkable for 1986 - it's not about "love" or about anything associated with the dynamic between men and women, but it still hit number one. Wow. In fact, it's a complex dialectic whose fundamental message is an anarchist one - "Your parents, your school, and whatever other institutions under whose control you are HOLD YOU BACK. Drop your allegiance to that which holds you back. LIVE." Yes, the Beastie Boys are defintely down as all git-out. "Do you think that you can front when Revelation comes?" They have this knack for constructing songs that have subversive intent that fucking SELL. Remember, you can be the most anarchist or whatever motherfucker in town, but it ain't SHIT unless you can make people BUY it. People pay for that which they respect.

I make no advocacy and take no responsibiity for the tactics and methods presented herein. All of this information has been presented to me in ways that would take me yet ANOTHER ill-structured book to explain, and we CERTAINLY don't need that right now. This information is yours to do with what you will. There is Anarchism, and then there is Not Giving A Rat's Ass What Becomes Of One. I may feint towards the former, but it's obvious that the latter is a more powerful philosophy with more universal appeal. Waking up suddenly in the middle of a DEEP sleep in order to travel half rules and half sucks. I certainly am "In The Land" right now, as surely as I have been on any drug. A business can be an art form. Organizations can certainly be lasting testaments to one's existence, just as surely as oil and canvas can be. Plus, they actually pay the bills once in a while. Art is certainly usually a business form. Even so-called non-professional art is actually a fantastic business decision on the part of the artist, because non-pro art is generally of higher quality (cf. indie rock). Unless you go looking in garage sales for paintings of extraordinary amateurness, (is that a word?), you're not going to find art that is truly anti-business. Even kitsch has value on a business level. On this train to Edinburgh my thoughts are really airborne. I am at peace, and it is a consequence of this peace that leads me to believe that something interesting will come out of this writing. Truth finds fertile ground in dynamism, but it needs peace in order to bloom into actual product. I am worried that this is a bit too philosophical for you. That is, I can't afford to lose you here, because this book is only effective inasmuch as the communication is two-way. Should I not say things such as "inasmuch"? As much as I think I know why I'm in Europe, heading towards Scotland of all places, I don't have a clue. I am really without function here. I came to Europe to sell stickers, and I don't know how likely that is in hindsight. This book is more an excuse to get my mind at ease with myself than anythin else, and I'm worried that it won't be taken very seriously by you, the reader. I'm worried that you'll think that this is all merely a product of a deranged imagination, or, worse, that you think I'm completely untalented and unworthy of being deemed interesting. A lot of my life is defined by this constant need to be INTERESTING. I often say that I'd rather be in pain than be bored. If you've ever been on an adventure with a group of worthashit people, on a journey or something, you get fascinated with people's r(tm)les and how they dovetail. It's astonishing how many skills and abilities and perspectives that humanity is able to offer "God" in His service. But it's very sad how the world can block our communion with our r(tm)les in life. This is one reason to hate most media. The point of media originally was to communicate, right? To let each other know of our existence, and the existence of the products we've created for each other. Unfortunately, it seems to have become an enormous directing hand for our psyches, constantly trying to rearrange our thought processes away from that which we know to be important. We structure our true desires in order to map better on the advertisements offered us, because we understand the lifestyles portrayed in those advertisements far better than we understand any alternative lifestyles. In this world, it is getting harder and harder to concentrate. I am lonely and I miss my love. I have not met my love yet, but there is a hole in my life where I pray she will someday live. I think I would be a good love for her, and I feel incomplete without her. She is my darling and my delight, and I long to be near her. I see her reflection in every woman I meet, but it isn't enough, and so I stay mute. I am in fear that once I meet her, I won't be up to her standards. This is probably to be the case, because I'm not really up to anyone's standards at all. I think maybe that's all in my head, but it's leading me to question my own divinity, and that's no good. Never question your own divinity - that way lies madness. You're destined to play an important part in the unfolding of events up to and through the millenium - you have been CHOSEN, you are ONE OF US. If you are isolated, please get in touch with me as soon as possible at srini@unmerican.com - RIGHT NOW, in fact. The problem with this world of facts is the way it breeds isolation. Isolation is the ultimate enemy of the soul, and yet, it's the ultimate prod for us to resume and multiply our actions. Unfortunately, it is not named as such, and we have learned to accept our isolation. This must stop. Being alone is not the same as being lonely. You can be alone and be happy - shit, that's pretty much what I am right now. (Although I'm not sure if the state I'm in qualifies as "happy" - more like "beatific". I am blessed, swept up in the magic of typing while the countryside whizzes past me... but get me thinking about my life and oh will I ever complain). At any rate, you can be totally lonely within a crowd. Aloneness is healthy in measured doses, but loneliness is that which can cause suicide if let to run unchecked. A lonely person does not truly believe that there's anyone out there who is worth being with, worth living for, at all. Or if there is, that there's no particular need for HER or HIM within that other person's world. A lonely person constructs for her/himself a UNIVERSE OF ONE, and as such, all mistakes and triumphs are amplified, reverberating within oneself rather than radiating outward to be absorbed by a community. It could be the fundamental WILL TO LONELINESS of Amerikan society that has urged me into beginning Unamerican Activities. We all serve a purpose here, all of us with potential. The meaning of life is to KEEP SEARCHING, to stay dynamic and to pray for a better way to exploit our potentials, right? Joy. Wonder. Dreams, and their fulfillment. These are the things that I long for most dearly, these are the things that I need to find love to truly achieve. "God" grant me the energy to FUCK SHIT UP, you know? And to visibly add energy to any stagnant situation. I want to be known as a battery, as a flame that lights a million wicks. I'm doing a poor job of it up thill now, but I'm trying. I have a vague idea of what I was born to do, and that desire has to manifest itself with reater strength if I'm going to manifest my promise, ey? I am running out of things to say right now. It is important to see yourself from outside yourself. Without being self-conscious, take a look at how you must appear to others. Much of what we need as people of SOUL is to be recognized as such by other people of SOUL. Without that all-important recognition, it's tough to maintain our energy, which is often, yes, derived from our egos. "God" is a collective that is composed of the potential that resides within all of us. "God" needs to recognize us as well - which is the same as saying that other people of SOUL need to recognize us. On our own, we can get a lot done, but we rarely take the time to acknowledge those others who keep us engaged enough to stay alive. I am writing this book for all of us, and I am writing it for myself, but I have a few people specifically in mind when I'm writing this. And I thank them. It is a good thing to strive to impress people with your work. Failure to do so leads to an ignorance of what it is to communicate. Each person of SOUL is like a brain cell in the Mind of God. It is through Art, that is to say, through our conscious and voluntary product, that these cells are able to work together as one. It is only through working together as one like this that we will be able to graduate to the next stage of our species' evolution. What will the next stage look like? Well, if you have the right set of eyes in place, we're ALREADY THERE. When you see the world through a filter that excludes that which is BORING, well, there is truly so much to see! The problem is that we are constantly distracted from this beauty and purity by the BULLSHIT that has come along with an accelerated culture. I am no luddite, but it is obvious to me that with every advance that the Interesting have made, the Boring have followed closely behind. Noise follows Signal. It is inevitable that any new media's finest days are its first ones. But I'm defining "new media" in very, very vague terms - in other words, though film has been around forever, "Slacker" was the first film with its particular adjectives in front of it (plotless, do-it-yourself, in Austin). For instance, to my knowledge this is the first book to be written on a PDA while travelling through Europe. I know that what I'm doing might be stupid, and I know this book may be seen as valueless by many of you, but the point is that I don't think anyone has done anything quite like it before. I have my influences, books that just talk about ideas in vague format instead of trying to forward a plot or whatnot, but if I felt like anyone had addressed the matter of Truth from a generation-whatever perspective and in plain English, I probably would not be bothered with lugging this silly thing around Europe. Did I mention that through Art you can escape Death? A good enough work of Art is not of its time, it is of the Ages. Especially in these days of recordable media, you can send bits of yourself through to forever, in much the same way as did Socrates. I am writing this with certain cultural references in it that will date it, but I am also writing it with the hope that it will remain as relevant in a thousand years as it is today. One can also escape Death through Love. In fact, that's the most common way to pull it off, and since Love seems to be such a remote prospect for me, that is why I have only Art to turn to. But the Love gambit is indeed a beautiful one, and the orgasms are terrific. For more information, please look up the best classic rock song in the entire world - "Don't Fear The Reaper" by Blüe ...yster Cült. In which they posit that Romeo and Juliet won. I need to reinvent myself. I need to ditch some of the trappings that make me Srini right now, and take on a new set of adjectives. Perhaps a new set of clothes, or cologne even. Maybe I need to start wearing ties or something. I need to jumpstart my excitement level in myself, because I'm floundering in my hopes of advocating for myself. I look at myself through God's eyes - that is, YOURS - and I'm simply not impressed. I look like a twit who sells stickers, and that is NOT the first impression I want to make. How does one look DEEP and FUNNY? Or maybe I should ditch the Deep part and go for merely Funny? It's the same principle that guides my business, or at least, that SHOULD guide my business except I keep fucking up. It's important to love what you've created, but it is NO FUN unless it SELLS! If you create something that nobody wants, it will BREAK YOUR FUCKING HEART. I must admit that I am setting myself up for the brink of doom with this book, because it may end up a long, serpentine thing that nobody's going to give a rat's ass about. Shopping this around is going to be a nightmare, but since I'm planning on doing the first edition myself anyway, it doesn't matter that much, I guess. Vanity press is still press, and at least I'll have something that I finally feel truly represents myself to give away as a fancy fucking calling card. I can always put this on the World Wide Web to be ignored by the greatest new media in centuries blah blah blah. It's time for me to leave Edinburgh. There isn't too much for me here - it's a beautiful landscape filled with beautiful people leading smallish, satisfied lives. I've got nothing to add to their lives, not really, not here in person at least. I know when I'm not needed, and I'm not particularly collecting useful experience here. I need to hit the media centers of Europe, to promote my website and to make like I matter on a larger scale than I have previously. Being in the media is why I came, not to sell fucking stickers. I don't give a rat's ass about the product I'm selling so far. Okay, it's sort of funny and entertaining, but the exciting thing is that IT SELLS. Which means that there is a bit of a link with people that I've never had before, and especially when stuff is purchased through my website, I feel like, wow, this site has been CONSUMMATED. The link has been officially cemented between myself and someone else.

I must admit that I haven't been taking that too seriously yet, and I need to start. It is a GREAT FUCKING HONOR to be sent money, and I haven't respected it and I need to start taking it seriously and deciding what it is for which I stand. I need to tell these people what I believe, and not just fuck around with three word slogans. I need to see what potential there is for positive change through the web. I need to get the fuck out of Edinburgh. Come on, Srini, let's pack up. We are all constantly being recruited for conspiracies that we may never understand. If you stereotype people too harshly, be prepared to miss out on some of the more interesting people in this world. It is important to only - CAREFULLY - practice "retroactive stereotyping". That is to say, after you're sure that you'd really like never to speak to a certain person again, you can go ahead and rashly ascribe any adjective you want to the person in question. For instance, most hippies annoy the fuck out of me, but the occasional one will rock the motherfuckin house, and I know several specific examples thereof. Sure, I cringe whenever they may bust out with the Dead, but fuck it, all my hippie friends are rich computer programmers anyway, and the beer is usually on them. Stereotypes are useful, however; they wouldn't exist if they weren't in some way. It is up to YOU to figure out how to use them as a positive too. I think I use them as sort of a shortcut to opening people up. If you're familiar, say, with the names and the sounds of several rave DJs that are prominent right now, you just might be able to hang out with a group of fun people for a night that you might never have met otherwise. Likewise, if you know a bit about how one dresses in Italy or whatever, or how one SHOULDN'T dress for that matter, well, you can probably rock a free night's stay at someone's house if you're slick. It's useless to attempt to judge someone entirely by their stereotype, or according to their self-classifcation. In other words, i have met several fucking boring punk rockers, and a couple (not many, admittedly, but still) pretty funky and funny Marilyn Manson fans. I mentioned Marilyn Manson because they're playing this MM song at this camp I'm at, and I find it pretty fucking dumb. I mean, that's the way it fucking goes, but it's as if creatures like that are vying with me and several others in the Pre-Millenium Marketing Stakes. Like, who's going to play Antichrist, who's going to play Christ whatever. It's funny, I haven't yet decided which side of the Revelation game I'm on yet. I keep seeing the sequence "666" in license plates and so forth, and it's fucking annoying. I feel like a twit for thinking this, but I feel (even with this strong clintonian economy) that things are going to be pretty fucking crazy as we near and go through the millenium, and I WANT TO BE A PART OF IT. It's probably ego, but really, it's more than that. It's more like the feeling that if these visions that have been plaguing me and forcing me away from "normalcy" (a very lucrative normalcy at that) don't have ANY grounding in reality, I will likely go to my grave hating God. And, oh man, I *really* don't want to be in that position. John Lennon once sang that "God is a concept by which we measure our pain". I'm still not quite sure what he meant by this, because he seemed to mean it. "God" doesn't mean the same thing as it did in the late 60's - probably back then it was much more shock value than anything else. It's for damn sure, however, that I don't worship the same gd as all of those idiots with the fucking... crucifixes, and the fucking chip on their shoulder like they're totally non-sinful and shit. Fuck that. Most religion makes me ill, except for the ones that I have defined, except for the pieces of religion that I have selected out of the general mess to represent what I have in mind. I guess that makes me no better than those self-righteous fucks, but hey, at least I'm making shit up as I go along. They've got the truth, in their limited wee way, but it's static and stagnant and all based on lies that sprouted from Christ's dead body as the Roman Empire stole Christianity away from the truth it once represented. It's all damaged out of organization, out of HIERARCHY just like any state - maybe even more fucking insidious because it deals with the potential for POLICING ONE'S OWN MIND, and that way madness and sadness and despair lies. I am typng in complete and utter darkness right now, and can't read what I'm writing. That's why I'm making all of these silly run-on sentences. Be aware that Unamerican Activities means FAR MORE than simply fucking vinyl stickers and t-shirts. If you only look at my product and see commodity, well, i am sorry my friend. Please come back again when you've achieved a more open mind. Businesses are a medium just like canvas and paint. Businesses can be punk, or made of solid lines with expensive paint. They can be watercolors made by kindergardeners, aiming only for a mother's kind word, or they can be a brilliant masterpiece designed to be treasured for the ages. They are ART, and it is my resolve to put the ART back into the process of running a business. Every business tells a story, as well. The best businesses are not made self-consciously by "businessman"; in fact, the typical Suits who we so revile are rarely cool enough or lexible enough of mind to pull off an actual start-up business. Business, like art, comes about ACCIDENTALLY. It comes about as a SYMPTOM OF LIFE. If you live an interesting life, you will create art about it - it is inevitable, it's the only recourse you have to the loneliness you will likely feel on such a unique path. One of the art forms your uniqueness may result in is a business. Sure, I've got ideas about how to evaluate a business, but before we start tearing into all "capitalism", let's pause a minute in respect for the effort it has surely taken to build each and every last one of them. Pause ended. That said, business in the USA in these last days of the millenium is ripe for a, shall we say, HARVESTING. It is almost upon us. We will see the general meltdown of all that is static, of almost all that is hierarchic. We will see the effects of the general (though secret) strike that has been carried out for the last decades by the disaffected. The meek will begin to inherit the reins. How will this come about? THis is called Free Enterprise - the ability and the natural talent and right that each and every one of us has to start our own enterprises, to grow our own hobbies to such degree that eventually they become fucking INSTITUTIONS. Sure, a certain percentage of these institutions will wind up like the institutions I so detest in today's America. Thats fine, but let's take that as a possible consequence for the explosion in free enterprise that I see about to hit the streets in the next few years. What I want is for each and every new business created by hipsters to LEARN FROM THE MISTSAKES OF OUR ELDERS, even as we seek to replace them. There will be no more fucking around, we want to create NON-HIERARCHIC FUN AND CREATIVE JOBS with the fruits of our innovation. And we want to hire our FRIENDS and other assorted NIFTIES. And together, eventually, we will see the crumbling of the dinosaurs as their money fails to assault our raw nerve and originality. There is no way a chain can stand up to the intelligent marketing of a local company - what we need to see is more local companies RUN BY INTERESTING PEOPLE. And we will fail, again and again, but eventually we will triumph and be free, and the economic tide of the day will be to create a world of social and economic justice - for all those INTERESTING enough to play their part. How can the boring compete with the interesting, once we start to disregard their capital and conquer the fear of building from the ground up? My fingers are getting cold so I'm going to stash this baby. God damn it, I couldn't sleep at all last fucking night. You know how the tongue only detects four different types of tastes? Salty, sweet, sour, bitter? Well, that's the way most of the world experiences life. It takes coordination with the nose to truly experience the entire palate of taste, and THAT, my friends, is how to live!!! It's SO important to fucking open that nose up and BREATHE in the FLAVOR. In fact, that is what separates us from the sheep. Charles Bukowski, drunken misogynist prole that he was, will certainly live forever. Unlike most of the people you will meet today. I still stand behind all of my failures. They were glorious, shambling things that never quite died and I still dream of resurrecting them. All of this is horseshit and I can't concentrate all of the time. This is going to need some major editing. No, frankly I just don't care about anything right now. SOrry. There are many things wrong with the USA, but I've got to be realistic about the time and the place where I live. If it were beyond all hope, I wouldn't endeavor to CHANGE it, you see. I don't belong anywhere else - I belong in America, criticizing it to the fucking limit, because CRITICISM - indeed, all adversity - MAKES THINGS STRONGER, not weaker. This is the exact problem with religion as it is practiced. Where are the spiritual leaders who are truly up for criticism? Where are the fearless leaders who have so much fucking FAITH in their craft and calling that they can put up with the most intense questioning? I have been known to fold in the presence of excessive questioning. But when I say "fold", I mean "fold IN" - that is to say, I take what I have learned (and to fail is to learn!) and ADD it into my existing philosophy. My religion is SO CONDENSIBLE that I'm wondering why I'm writing a whole book in order to express it. It can be summed up as follows: "God" is IDEAS. Ideas are IMMORTAL, and they possess us as surely as any divinity ever could. SOUL is POTENTIAL. Any reference to "SOUL" in this work can be replaced with the word "potential" - and a person without potential has no soul. Therefore, evangelism is a function of awakening people's POTENTIAL. That means that anyone who teaches you anything has made themselves part of your potential - and thereby proved theirs. DON'T SIN AGAINST YOUR POTENTIAL BY NEGLECTING IT. RESPECT FAILURE AND SUCCESS EQUALLY. YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE. It is your task to find others like you somehow and FIX THINGS and BREAK THINGS as you see fit. BEWARE IDEAS THAT HAVE BECOME INSTITUTIONS. Any institution is only worth the potential it still has for beauty and change - beyond that, it is excessive and wasteful. OPPOSE HIERARCHY, WAGE-SLAVERY and ANY OBSTACLES TO YOUR POTENTIAL. You should live a life that is WITHOUT LIMITS, for the simple reason that your time on this earth IS limited. WE ARE ALL CONNECTED - and each of us, by turning our POTENTIAL into ACTUAL things - objects, work, whatever - can communicate the fact that we EXIST. Ideally, our potential will BURN SO BRIGHT that it will OUTLIVE us. THERE is the secret of ETERNAL LIFE. Play a part in the TAPESTRY OF HISTORY and YOU SHALL NEVER DIE - in a very real way. REPRESENT YOUR IDEAS AS WELL AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. You will not be given the luxury of giving up - ideas don't work that way - but still, as you question your faith and wonder what the fuck you're DOING with your life, remember that you are at your most beautiful when you are MOVING. Oh, shit, now THAT is why I'm making this a book - I actually have a LOT more to talk about than just those above points. But I'm sort of low-energy right now, and perhaps what I believe isn't so condensable after all.

Most people are sheep. I might have talked about this elsewhere in this manuscript, but... whatever. Time to read and go inside, or drink or something. I'm going to stay at this place - Tent City - it's a complex of tents and it is very cold but it's about the cheapest place in London to stay by FAR and I have a lot of fucking ground to cover before I get home. Oh, man, I'm really giving up the farm on this one, aren't I. I'm out here with no fucking clue what I'm going to do when I get home, and I'm fucking NERVOUS. I'm running out of steam and I'm running out of money, and I'm going to experience my midlife crisis early. What will become of me? Should I get a job? I want to become the Amazon.com of treason, I want to be huger than huge, I want to bring in so many orders through my website that it's science fucking fiction. Do you really think it's going to happen, srini? Can you visualize it? I'[m typing with my eyes closed right now because it's basically dark out here and I can't see a damn thing. What is my goal? God, what am I doing with my life? I don't know why, but it is vital that I become famous somehow but I can't visualize being famous. I mean, a short, fat, balding indian guy is hardly anyone's concept of a rockstar - but I cannot STOP myself from creating all this stuff, from dedicating my life to pursuits of art that are for you. Hmmmmm. I wonder if those foreigners will share some of their vodka. I have a burning desire to complete my fucking pursuit of history and make it somehow cemented, a sure thing. I want to be written about so that I can feel better about myself. It is soooooo true that "God" has thrown my way a series of INCREDIBLE coincidences that I'm not quite equipped to understand. Here in london I"m willing to take chances that I'm not willing to take in San Francisco, or leastwise ones that took me forever to work up to back home. The great thing about the World WQide Web is that it gives me somewhere to point people in order to get them to acknowledge my radness in more full fashion than they can after just seeing a sticker or something. It really is a glorious idea, unamerican activities, but will it SHIFT PRODUCT? I need to have more product to shift, but I can't imagine what more I can do oher than make MORE shirts, boards, and this book. But that Mambo line was pretty fucking inspirational, and it'd be really hell of cool to get in touch with some of those guys to promote myself in Australia a litt.e Damn it, I have ONE WEEK to become HUGER THAN HUGE IN LONDON. I had better not blow it. I need to be wheatpasting things up in the streets, and I think I've got to figure out how to wheatpaste first. I'm going to talk to some Irish guys about figureing this shit out. Maybe we can work something out - I sure wish I could compensate them better.... My fingers (and ears, for that matter) are freezing. I go stop now.) I'm shocked sometimes with the diversity of the people out there who ARE on our side. It's like some kind of Marvel Universe Superhero Team conceived in the PC early nineties - they come from all races, from all orientations and genders and whatnot, yet they are fucking SUPERHEROS and they EACH have DIFFERENT, yet equally essential, POWERS. Like the hall of justice, we immortals need to work together. It is that feeling, that knowledge of a certain IMMORTALITY, that comes hand in hand with having ideas. Trust that feeling and never forget it (not like you could). THAT is the true pursuit of happiness - to ACT as if you are immortal. It's much more empowering that way; ACTUALLY being immortal could be kind of a drag, but achieving immortality through respect for your ideas, your art, your magic influence - WOW! Choose instinct over logic EVERY TIME. Remember - FAILURE is something to be CHERISHED. Failure means you TRIED, and you know, that means you've worked that EFFORT thing out of your system. As any bad-ass knows, trying gets you nowhere. As Yoda said as Luke whines about not being able to levitate his X-Wing out of the swamp, "TRY?! There IS no 'try'! Do, or DO NOT. There IS no 'TRY'!!!!!" As any artist knows, though, you've GOT to go through your trying "phase". Failure is inevitable, or at least disappointment, but remember - you don't LEARN through SUCCESS. You only develop a unique enough ANGLE on art through differentiating - and that usually means BLOWIN' IT. We do not get paid for doing that which ALREADY is successful. There are an infinite number of copycats that are better positioned to profit on already-established formulae than you are, and friend, you have a MORE IMPORTANT task at hand. Leave the "slight modifications" to a successful formula behind, and GO INVENT SOMETHING NEW IN THE WORLD. I have always lived in envy - and occasional hatred - of people who match the traditional definition of "cute". Because, see, if you're "cute", you are ALLOWED to copy, to not try enough for success - at least in popularity terms. But really, it is ADVERSITY from which springs most TRUE art. Of course, there is always the potential for a prodigy to spring up. And innocence does lead to a lot of good art - I mean, look at the first albums of bands like the Lemonheads, the Feelies, Social Distortion, the Descendents. Yeah, the diversity of Soul, O yes. I would rather hang out with a sixty-year-old librarian who has never heard of the Misfits and probably would rather not, than with someone EXACTLY like me but lacking soul. ANYONE can be boring. Sometimes, the most INTRIGUING-LOOKING people are boring in fact. Maybe they got their look out of some book or off a friend, but the only ideas that ever hit boring people are USED. Beware the boring. And WHATEVER you do, DON'T MARRY THEM. I'm sort of not so good at my "emotional" life, as it were. I'm not even sure what "emotional" means, and it's sort of embarrassing for me to talk about. I'm trying to keep this document as "universal" as possible, and for me to do that, I mustn't make too many specific references to myself or my way of life. Good Truth is universal. That is to say, I'm trying to create proverbs that would be as timely and useful, say, in the 12th or 28th century as they are now. I am SERIOUSLY gunning for immortality within the confines of my life. Immortality is quite easy to visualize if you believe that the world itself will exist after you die. Oof. This train sucks. I am glad I got a couple beers for this trip, that's going to help me quite a bit. Ugh. Yuck, i hate half=baked conversations. I am getting tired of travelling, and I'm looking forward to going home. You can tell a lot about a people by the drugs that addict them. I guess. Well, not really. For twelve years, I was brought up to hate patriotism. I was subjected to the Reagan and Bush administrations, and they really had a significant impact on my life. With such terrible presidents, what was left other than hating everything? But nowadays, things are different. I guess I am outdated, like that guy Lawrence implied. I am fighting a battle that nobody cares about anymore. America is strong and great again, it's actually in a good mood and it seems ready to do well on the national stage. It's important for me nd all of us to figure out our places i n the new order, which sucks. All my skills are out of date. I wonder what kind of work I'm suited for? I am still interested in business school. I really am, i really am. I had hoped that one of my projects would have really panned out, and I've achieved something I guess with this unamerican thing, but really I'm all alone and it sucks. It sucks. "God" I am so lonely, help me out of this somehow. The truth is that I care more about having a girlfriend than I do about anything else in the world. I really would travel across Europe for a kiss, and that's a truly misearable place to be in life ey? There IS a "they". I believe that. I believe that there is a system, and that there will always be this system, a system that continually reminds us that we are trapped within a small r(tm)le within a big land, that we can't be everything we dream. The thing is that the "system" differs from person to person. The "system" is ANYTHING WHICH HOLDS YOU BACK. I know that for me the system includes my parents, who I love dearly, because of their expectations of me and their continual lack of encouragement for my way of life. For me, it has been my own inability to get a job I care about, or to lower my standards sufficiently to care about more jobs. The system, in MY head, was once an unrealistic hope that any breaks were going to happen for me at all, especially in the realm of music. None came, and I was devastated. The system was, and obviously continues to be, a faith in the ideas which I love so dearly - that somehow, one of them will stick, rescuing me from my life. The jury's still out on that one. I have written that society makes us hate what we should love about ourselves, and it's true. But my dreams have too often become headaches, and I feel like I'm caught up in this ridiculous and pointless dance of creativity that's leaving me exhausted and broke. My parents are right to think there's something wrong with me. I wrote this book to help give you hope. I wanted to prove that in some way, the people of ideas are RESPONSIBLE for each other. And we are, and I guess I'm trying to say that up 'til now, you folks have let me down. Kids, this is my LIFE I'm trying to express to you. I'd like to think that hidden in you is the secret to my release, and vice versa. But I also know that we're too "hip" to let others know what we've discovered. We're way too cool for fan mail, way too detached from each others enterprises to actually help out once in a while. Don't you see that THIS, this apathy towards EACH OTHER, is the system too? I am here to tell you that it has NOT all been done before. I mean, the collective mind sees everything, including the future, but part of that mind is YOU, and your JOB is to see A PART of that future, and to MAKE IT SO. If you believe that the future is going to be bleak, HELP MAKE IT WORSE. I need your blessing on this enterprise that I call my life. I need you to understand me in a spirit of brotherhood, I need you to tell me that I'm not a dumbshit imbecile moron for believing what I do. I have earlier noted that this could be the most complex and convoluted suicide note ever contrived, with the possible exception of John Kennedy O'Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. I don't want that to happen, though. But you don't see. I'm lonely. I've never felt welcome; I've always given more to the people around me than I've gotten back, with a misguided sense of spiritual selflessness. Maybe that's not the way you see it - maybe what you see is an egotistical bastard with a groovy computer or something - but you see, I AM **NOT** MY IDEAS. I am HAPPY when I *AM* ideas, but most of the time, I am bereft of them. And it is ONLY love that can get you through these stranded parts of your life, and I don't have much of that. I know something you don't know. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Wheneever I read an interview with someone who's doing something interesting, I feel like writing again. It's amazing. I know that reading is a one-way experience - the writer sends messages to you, and only with a great deal of effort can you contact them. That said, I think that in a way all INTERESTING information is kept in a database somewhere, and I feel like when something interesting is said to me, it's being, you know, PEELED OFF OF that database by the author. And by writing, even in my own journal, I feel like I'm uploading MY reactions to that information. Information, true information, makes you dance, makes you move, makes you rock the fucking house. TO me, the greatest source of information is in the body of the woman I love. I feel like there is SO MUCH TO LEARN from the reactions, from the pauses, from the hurts and helps that I can perform on such a vital instrument. There is little difference between making love and making music. If you watch the interaction of a band that's been around for a while, it's like their married. Performance, of course, is the same as performance in the other sense. But their relationship changes, mutates, and assumes individual roles. True partnership implies respect and collective enhancement. Nobody goes out with you because they feel SORRY for you. They go out with you, actually, because in a way you're COOLER than THEY are. Everybody wants to date a myth, not just a person. If you can summon a MYTH around yourself, you can date almost anyone you want. But you can't keep a myth going forever, that's the problem. The best, healthiest relationship I ever had lasted four days. I don't understand why smart and intelligent women often go out with men who treat them like shit. I can't imagine any reason other than some sexual thing, and, speaking as a guy, there isn't anything sexual that could keep me with a woman that would hold me back. So women, stop dating idiots, because it's making you look foolish. I wonder when my heart will be at peace. I wonder how I will look on this book after a year, or ten years. Will this be another failure to be "proud" of and mourn for? I hope this becomes a success. The spirit of hierarchy exists in my soul. I feel that other people are better than me, simply because they have potentials that are closed off to me. For instance, any man who has a girlfriend is instantly superior to me. This is a terrible, wrong way to feel, and it is the SYSTEM and I must fight against it. The girl I used to like a lot is having sex with this semi-idiot inthe next room, and it souunds like they're having fun. Damn. And yet, I'm the asshole here, because, jesus, she's happy! I ought to shut my big yap. If you are down with revlution and with change, figure out a way to make it part o your life. TRhat is, make some component of your life DEPENDENT on this desire to make some kind of adifference. Begin a relationship through joining a radical group, or figure out a way to get paid for selling slogans or words or something. Don't just be a CONSUMER of rebellion, because pretty soon the "consumer" art wins out over the "rebellion" part and you're buying Pepsi because it's what they call "the choice of generation next" and thinking Oasis is a truly new sound and idea. Yuk. For all that you might thinkk music is revolutionary, well, music never changes things, only people and situations. Tha's going a long way, but it isn't revolution. I'm very moved by the literature written by many of the sixties' radicals, especially by the Yippies and the Black Panthers. Abbie Hoffman, for instandce, is my personal patron saint. His bold moves and daring use of the media as his own sword with which to inspire people to his vision of a free amerika are transcendent, immortal. f bands play cover songs, this book is a long cover song of abbie's books. Inasmuch asyouth rebelion goes, it's hard to NOT wish that one were alive in the sixties and taking part in one of the many counterculture sceness that sprang up in that era. The thing is that we've allowed the dialectic of rebelion to be taken over by ad agencies and major labels. Rock and roll is the only religion that relates to most kids. In the genre of rock and roll, I mean of course all youth music, form techno toska to hiphopto dub reggae. Anyway, just like any religion, rock and roll has two prongs - a way to seek true release and learning and community, and a way to be controlled by the corporate interests of the time. I leave t as an exercise for the studen to se in what ways rock and roll CONTROLS the lives of its devotees and keeps them in lne. sometimes I am instructed to be happy, sometimes I am instructed to be sad. I feel no longer in control of my own emotions, as I tune myself to what my environment wants of me. We are part of nature, an integrated whole with our environment, and we serve a species that is linked together. Apparently, our species (that is to say, the People of Ideas) needs the voice of a social critic and spiritual person who is not at peace with his life, so that's the role I seek to fill. I meet the kids every day I sell stickers, and I'm always in this position of counselor for some reason. Most of these kids have it WAY more together than I ever have, but it still makes me feel GOOD to give advice and to get it. Someone, give me some advice, because my world is cold and without hope. What is the use of living a life where all of your days are static? To me, this is likea computer that can only run a screensaver. I know people who are so in love with screensavers that they collect them. This is okay, because a screensaver is a medium just like any other, but so many of them are SO INSIPID that you've got to think - man, this person NEEDS a LIFE, doesn't he/she? Remember that all of this talk about boys and girls that so fascinates us is REALLY NOT THAT IMPORTANT. Your true misssion in life is to figure out how to be REMEMBERED, how to reach a destiny that will last with mankind when he eventually forays out to the stars. IT isn't to worry about this guy or that guy and what his girlfriend thiks and how they never really broke up blah blah blah. I take in inspiration and add my own spin on it and poop it back out. I am saying nothing you don't already know, but that is because all real truth is REdiscovered. I can only make it sound like it should out of MY fingers - you could write this book as well, of course. Free enterprise will destroy capitalism. In other words, I envision a range of small businesses that understands its mission is to outcompete the dinosaurs that would treat us as human resources rather than as HUMANS, who view us as nothing more than positions in an org chart or line items ona payroll. Ideas will defeat resources in the long run. Eventually the ideas will include CHEAP ideas that don't NEED as many resources, and THEN where will the sheep be? The evolution I envision is taking place on an economic level, as the sheep are finding their boring skills less and less coveted by smaller, more dynamic and more idea-oriented firms. Be there at the BEGINNING of the scene and be rewarded by witnessing the birth of something beautiful. Get there too late and you can oly piece together history; get there at the beginning and WITNESS it and PLAY A PART IN IT. I got into punk rock just a little too late. I didn't move to Berkeley when I had the chance to be part of an interesting scene, and it ruined my life. It broke my heart. It really did. "I wanna conquer the world. Give all the idiots a brand new religion." - Bad Religion. Only, I could give a fuck about the idiots. I care about YOU and how YOU transcend the idiots. Therefore, I call this stuff "religion". I mean, I figure by calling it as such, I'm going to weed out all kinds of people. By calling oneself "religious", that is a great way to create a generational rift, don't you think? I mean, hippies probably associate religion with all thebad points like "organization" and "rules" and things, but I'm saying that "religion" means choosing your own morality and sticking by your ideas. "Religion" should be a drug that whips you into a typing frenzy, not some stupid service that your parents make you go to so you can meet that nice Vanderhoev boy from the nice part of town. Jesus was a punk rocker. Church is about stultification and the preservationof the "holier-than-thou" attitude and lifestyle. Don't you think that would make Jesus a bit ill? I don't want to talk shit about all churches because that's TOO EASY but I believe that by separating our lives into compartments - for instance, i take care of my religious needs at church, then I go to Safeway to shop, etc. - I believe we miss out on what religion is all about, which is living a free life that is blesed by the immortal in the everyday. "God" has hidden some things in tis world that are iimmortal, and that bless us when we find them. I am blessed with the ability to type unconsciously as I lie on my back without making TOO many mistakes. This is a blessing and I need to make use of it. To write something that is too conscious, or too over-edited, would be blasphemy, given the fact that this ability is mine. Great art is like falling, like letting go. It is the art of letting ACCIDENTS happen. I believe in art which documents its own creation, which if you pull on a little string will come apart andshow you how it was made. That way, the ultimate message of the art is MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN ART. JOIN US. There is something very reassuring about little pieces of metal on strings around our necks. Every act of creation opens a door to a world that doesn't exist yet. Whteher that door is deemed USEFUL by our collective and individual minds, that's another question, but all hail the openers of these doors! Some people create tools with which htese doors can be opened. All hailthe tool forgers, may they have immense good fortuane and be put to good use. The magic that you summon up in a great conversation or in the communication of a joke is a great magic, equal to any trick of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The art of finding ideas is a matter of making your mind and environment conducive to them. This means an environment with just enough chaos to be interesting, but not enough chaos to turn into a distraction. I find that there's as much feng shuiin a dirty room as in a clean one. It's just knowing how to navigate within such an environment that makes you able to really MINE the chaos that a messy room provides. I am still healthy. I wonder what my philosophy of life will be like after I find out that something's wrong with me. How do you want to be remembered? The problem with most descriptions of people, is that they necessarily must be composed mostly of adjectives. Adjectives are pretty dull, actually. They don't really capture the richness and intensity with which most interactions between People of Ideas, and so they're inadequate. We automatically are not sable to be broken down into a group of adjectives. We are more than that. That is why, however, it is important to DO THINGS because that gives people a CONCRETE remembrance of us and our lives. This way, they don't have to depend on adjectives to really remember what we were about. Laughter is also an easy answer. WHen you're faced with a difficult or complex situation in your life, it's very tiempting to crack a joke or something to break the tension. Sometimes, however, the tension doesn't go away, and hey, you just might be in love.

Televisionis a dictatorship. It is owned by evil forces, but it hires creative people who are here to distract the sheep ((and occasional interesting people)) into a mellow, "entertained" complacency. Advertising is the same way. It's these industries that attract so many of the interesting people in society, but we creative people must realize that we're just tools in the greater plan of evil within our nation. The way MTV works is that every interesting video that they play will make you watch 20 boring ones. "Man, the last ten videos sucked. Maybe the next one will be cool." This is the American way - showing you the potential of a medium and then failing you for profit. It's like a RELEASE of sorts when the radio plays something with any quality to int. In a way it's like a lottery. Do people really like these shitty songs? The remote control miight be the greatest triump of moden technology since the television itself. It adds a dimension of interactivity that television was not made to encompass. When your favorite song is played on the radio, it is MUCH more significant than when you simply play it on the CD. Frst there's this weird sense of communion with the theoretically millions of people who are forced to listen to YOUR favorite song. But then there's also the feeling that YOU ARE NOT ALONE in loving this song - that there's someone else - maybe ieven MANY someone elses, who are validating your love for this particular song. THe key to hitting on a cute girl who is scantily dressed is to make them forget that they're cute and that they're scantily dressed. You can only do this by hypnotising them with your ideas, or else they stay pretty, ulnerable, and out of reach basically. The key to remembering is to forget. I know nothing about girls, but that's what I'm hoping will be the charm for me to find one really GREAT girl. Some guys can play the field like it's nobody's buisness, and I need to learn what it is that's helping them rock girls' worlds, but I just assume it's because i' m ugly and refuse to treat them like shit when possible. I know my thyroid gland is fucked up or something. I have all the symptoms of a lowered tyroid whatever production. I need to get another job, and yet I am super afraid of getting another job. I need to apply to business schools, and yet I don't have good recommendations for it. I am worried, worried, worried about my future and it's a pain in the ass. I think I'd rather write postcards than this book right now. "I am the world's forgotten boy/The one who searches and destroys." Iggy and the Stooges, "Search and Destroy". Why is the thought of destruction so ATTRACTIVE? Why do we feel like destroying holds a solution for our lives? I have to admit, I labor under the premise that an America in trouble is more interesting than an America during times of prosperity. I respect and admire places like this, Warsaw, where times have never been very easy. Maybe we desire destruction because we know that the period of REBUILDING, after the calamity, is one that has a place for us, that requires REAL work to help REAL people. So much of rock and roll is ruled by the gods of negativity and despair. It's sort of funny, a joke we share, something to bug hippies and parents with, sure. But underneath that, don't you think there's something DEEPER to be reckoned with? Wow, the millenium is looming and I've got no particular plans. I have a feeling that it'll be a good year for anarchism, but I'm worried more that it'll just be a big ol' jubilee like the corporate state would like us to believe. I hate war, because it takes all of this "destruction" chic and takes it fuckin LITERALLY. I don't want blood in my revolution, if it can be helped. I'd want a revolution of IDEAS, of a massive general strike paralyzing economic whatsitcalleds, not of stupid bombs and guns and bullshit like that. Killing people for your cause is fucking cliché. I want to go to this small town on the Baltic, "Hel". I want to go there, because I like the idea of visiting hell. The only hell that makes any sense at all is "oblivion". Just as Satan is the patron saint of "that which is boring", Hell is his domain. Think about how many people have walked the earth and left NO REAL FOOTPRINTS. Sad, isn't it? In a real way, except inasmuch as these individuals played a part in some kind of "society", well, THESE PEOPLE NEVER EXISTED. I know this is a terrible thing to think, but it is true. We are blessed in these days with recordable media, with global computer networks, with ways of memorializing our existence that would have been beyond comprehension a century ago. We have a duty - to ourselves, to our future - to create expressions of our existence that will have RELEVANCE with these media. Never before has immortality been so easy. Unfortunately, most uses of these media are SO BAD as to defy comprehension. As a medium becomes cheaper, you do get a democratization of this media. This is not to say, however, that the media becomes BETTER - simply more representative of society at large. And, of course, in society at large, only about 10% at MOST of the people in it have anything at all to say or that's worth remembering. Lenin is now a brand name. When I last lived in Berlin, I sublet a flat from this guy who also let me borrow his bicycle. It was a "LENIN" brand bicycle, made in East Germany, and it was I swear the worst piece of shit you'd ever seen. I think it had some kind of "stopping apparatus" instead of real brakes, or was it a "stopping POSTURE"? Even if you do something GLORIOUSLY BADLY, you can achieve immortality. I mean, the Edsel will ALWAYS be with us, as will be the movie ZONTAR - THING FROM VENUS. One's health is very, very important, and I've never really taken care of mine. Don't be like me, kids. NEVER believe the batter-life claims of anyone who wants to sell you a laptop. I want to form a cover band to re-memorialize the songs of the early 80's that I once loved. A lot of these songs were AMAZINGLY written pop numbers, bu their PERFORMANCES were flaccid at best. I'm thinking especially of songs like "Separate Ways" by Journey and "Take On Me" by a-ha. "99 Red Balloons" was totally transformed by the hardcore band 7 Seconds. Without their version of it, it would've been just a tiny footnote in my personal hagiography of 80's pop. With that version, it's a song that I want to cover. I accidentally wrote "wating for a trap" when I was titling this chunk. Hmm. I feel like I'm carrying a baby around with this thing. It's seriously THAT fragile, that liable to be stolen or hurt or whatever. The creative process mirrors the life process. Ideas are conceived, kept in the womb, born, and grow, just like people do. Ideas are living beings. We are like host mothers for them. "God" Himself, to me, is the father of EVERY idea. When you are in touch with an idea, it's as if your probblem in life are far, far behind you. While you are in THRALL to an idea, you can't work, you don't worry about getting laid, you eat and drink whenever you feel like it. It's just like being pregnant, and you're on leave. Except, of course, just like being pregnant, it's a sonofabitch of a lot of work. I can feel this one kicking. It hasn't been born yet, but it's certainly alive. I don't love people as much as I love their POTENTIAL. Human beings have the capacity to do so many things that society is simply not structured to accomplish. Why is this? The great thing about free enterprise is that it DEPENDS on a diversity of organizational structures in order to function. You've got everything from the technofascism of Microsoft's "metaprogrammer" model (where Gates defines singly the tasks of every other programmer in the company) to anarchic, strange combinations such as those of many start-ups and cooperative grocery stores. Hierarchy and strict contorl may get things done FASTER, but never BETTER. A dictator can get a lot done in a very short period of time, but his activities don't necessarily last unless they're reflections of what the larger society wants. When the dictator dies, he throws a nation into chaos. Guh blah blah blah. I could observe on politics all I want but I'd really rather watch this couple kissing. Wow. Three minutes and going strong. I believe in the politics of the perfect kiss. I just ran into this party that stood for free market reforms and the death penalty for murderers. The former makes a lot of sense but the latter... hmm... they must be trying to differentiate themselves from the positions of the Party and the Catholic Church, and as such, well, that sorta makes sense. It's good they're not, like, hypernationalist. It's always like the stupidest thing in the world to see nazis in places like Poland and Hungary and Amsterdam. I mean, jesus, get some fucking CLUE. In Germany, there's this weird thing where it's almost like history began in AD 1945. As if the Nazis represented a temporary suspension of reality or something. Weird weird weird. I'm in the square, the Old Town, and I'm watching kids and surreptitiously making eye contact with them. It's this game I play with kids, like, look them deeply in the eyes and things like that. It's addictive. Funny how kids more easily grant you permission to stare deeply into their eyes. You know, it's so tough to get to a point in any relationship - let alone FRIENDSHIP - where you actually grant each other permission to do that. Damn it, rain clouds, thunder. It might rain today. I spent most of today trying to get change for my stupid travellers checks. I'd advise anyone going over into europe to not bring too much cash, but instead concentrate on figuring out how to get money out of your Visa cards. This isn't philosophy, it's dreck. I won't be surprised if I only use a tenth of what I'm writing these days. It's as if I've finished with the book and am now just letting this format serve as my journal. Which is okay as well, but it's still, well, disappointing. A waste of resources, of time and space. I wonder what else there is to come up with. Most people, if you gave them a stage from which they could address the entire world, would probably not do very much with it. I mean, look at all of the pop stars who have fame enough and reach enough to really send a true message of hope to the world or something. All they do is sing about their desire to get laid, or some kind of idiotic conceptual nonsense like U2 is doing. It's truly sad. If I have one message I want to declaim to all mankind, it's these two words - SURVIVE SOMEHOW. I get this sense that there's some cataclysm in the air, and that we've got to figure out how to live without a lot of the things we're used to in order to survive it. It is EMPOWERING to pretend that the end of the world is nigh, but only if it makes YOU more productive. The end of the world and the end of your life are one and the same.

People put so much faith in democracy as the answer to all of the problems of building a modenr nation, but you know, China is progressing much faster by emphasizing its ECONOMIC world and being slow to implement democratic reforms. I am sure a ot of reat sex still occurred while the asshole Germans were occupying Warsaw. The simple joys in life are always going to be with us, no matter if humans are living in caves after the bombs fall or what. What I want to know about the world war three thing is are the bombs still there or what? I mean, seriously, what's to stop those bombs, once built, from someday being USED? I left my caffeine pills at home, dammit. I am definitely addicted to coffee, which is very sad. If someone only has one leg, i will give them money. I am glad I have both of my legs and arms and hands and feet and things. I am glad that I am whole. Religion serves many purposes in lands that don't have a cultural superstructure. It serves fewer purposes in lands with one, so respect for the church and its functions falls in cadvanced cultures. I don't believe in a religion that requires a lot of work. But I do believe that worr in the service of God's love is very noble and beautiful work indeed. Man needs things to think about beyond the simple pleasures of eating, sleeping, fucking and fighting. Religion is the traditional way of achieving this higher sensibility, and as such, I accept that religion - even fascist ones - can bring about a lot of interesting situations in this world. Religion stopsserving its purpose when it becomes a force AGAINST new ideas. Instead of fitting new ideas into the paradigm of service to "God", religion tends to sa, like, "oh, well that goes against church doctrine, it's therefore a lie" - which ismply doens't help things at alll. To me, I believe in whatever "God" it is that is compelling me to complete this book. I think that's the only "God" that really matters, and it is the "God" that I am hoping will bring me my little piece of immortality. Immortality is here with us today. Every moment contains a jillion freakin' submoments - in fact, even the term "moment" is meaningless beyond a subjective sense. We have infinity every day, and yet we live finite lives on purpose. There IS a lost potential in our minds. This lost potential sometimes speaks to us in the form of ideas, and it is that lost potential that is secretly linked with alll of the other lost potentials out there. Maybe that's a good name for a church - "The Church of the Lost Potential." And the sermons can focus on how to regain that lost potential - how to become, that is to say, a better, more POSSIBLE human through the use of Church techniques. Aren't you curious as to what keeps Scientology in business? THe only thing I can imagine is the fact that most of its followers are LOOKING for something. It is very easy to exploit the human need to LOOK for things, to SEARCH for truth beyond these ridiculous, incomplete days. It is sad that most of Christ's followers are some pretty STUIC individuals. I am at peace with my religion. I feel comfortable that it isn't rocket science, and that I've got a solid WORKING relationship with God. I mean, this is silly to say, but I am a BETTER PERSON because of what I believe, and I think that's totally meaningful. Why believe in a religon that holds you back? I respect the need for discipline, but am not so sure of the place of discipline within the context of devotion to "God". I mean, what is with nuns not being allowed to have sex? THat simply DOESN'T make sense to me. THis world depends on a variety of lifestyles, so it is important not to make personal judgements on people's lifestyles. I mean, there are some EXTREMELY interesting people who are, say, Islamic Fundamentalists or whatever fascist religion you can think of. That said, it is important to learn from the techniques that hese religions have used to keep people in their thrall. Every religion needs a way to elt off the steam created by its more, shall we say, individualistic members. History itself is the continual story of people who are too loud or too individualistic for their own good. THey end up making waves, and once in a while these waves end up causing history itself to occur. Martin Luther simply wanted to criticize the Catholic Church when he wrote his testament against it. He had no intention of creating a brand new religion or schism or whatever with his beliefs. History sort of did it for him. It is impossible not to love a past that could have created a street as beautiful as this. It must be hard to escape the influence of a Church that has created so many great buildings and stories in a country such as Poland. Don't be enslaved by the heroes of the past. If they could talk to you, they would tell you not to worship but to LEAD. The spirits don't rest when we are rested. It is often during the periods in ourlives that we most need rest that the spirits come and take our lives over for a while. I want my love to be a tool to make me more able to commit history. I don't want a girlfriend or an addiction or ANYTHING that will hold me back. The more spectacular our failures, the more spectacular still our further efforts will become. I tried before to get across a couple points about the way melodies should be constructed. Now, here I am trying to reinvent fucking "God" Himself for the next century. This manuscript is in bad need of editing. Kids'll look at whatever they damn well please. I think that's pretty cool. You have every right to look, as long as you're not being annoying about it. Some fantastic legs here in Poland. Yow! It's not okay to waste your life. I'm going to say that that is a sin, and please don't sin or else you're going to wind up in oblivion. I would rather be in Hell than be unremembered. Even sinning can be done in a way that's interesting and a way that's boring. I respect all these old ladies with crosses around their necks. I want to die with a smile on my face. Mean people exist as obstacles aroudn which we must channel our efforts. Mean people play a part in the cosmos as well. That's not to say they don't suck; they DO suck, btu SOMEWAYS ARE FUN! Given the exact right circumstances, and perhaps a bit too little sleep, it is possile to evoke and be possessed by the spirit of one of the dead. I am trying to be Philip K. Dick right now. In the ook Valis, hwhich is semi-autobiographical (a tough book to get through, but a fine one - actually, if you REALLY want to get into Dick, try reading A Scanner Darkly) Anyway, Dick is working on something he calls his "Exegesis". I was thinking about calling this book "an Exegesis", but then it wouldn't sell. If this book doesn't ssell, it would be a disservice to all of those who have influenced me and for all of those I hope to infliuence. If a book is true, or an idea is true, people want to come nearer to it . Great ideas, and great performances, are what rock and roll is all about. I can't believe I just lost all of those bullet points, it must have been, what, eighty of em or something!!!! Dick is working on his Exegesis in the book VALIS because he has had an experience with seeing God, and feels forsaken because "God" has apparently not come back into his life since. I don't think I have seen God. I don't think it's important to "see God", except but it's certainly an interesting marketing technique to ACT like you have. To me, "God" is something you BECOME. Truth is not about "knowing" things, but about BEING things, and actually more like about "BECOMING" things - like becoming suffused with a voice and an eye contact that really communicates ideas instead of leaves them behind. I make fun of Americans for a living. People ask me what I do for a living, and I love to respond with "I make fun of Americans for a living". Anti-american sentiment is a huge growth industry. I am trying to teach the world how to dislike America in a non-violent way. I also want to represent those of us Americans who are AWARE that we live in the belly of the Beast, and perhaps galvanize us as a force of social change. (It's a potential that I see that's out there, and I would like to make it real somehow.) I am bad in groups. I am probably bad in groups because I talk too fucking much. I am pretty good in small partnerships, like a band for instance. I feel that over the years I have earned the RIGHT to run off at the mouth, unlike many others who are "talking a lot, but you're not saying anything" (from the Talking Heads' "Psycho-Killer") I wish there were a way to save on this thing. It seems very arbitrary to me how much text fucking "undo" can take out, and I'd really rather disable the fucking button. I can type like fucking steview wonder now that I've gotten this thing. It's like I can't really beleive how fast I can type Trying to be interesting all the time gets fucking DULL. This is me writing in fucking Czech. To say "Fuck Work" in Czech, say "zkurvena prache". I don't trust anyone who doesn't have honest eyes or an honest laugh. I am going to call us "people of ideas", because ideas are so essential to my true engagement with others. I think it is a label that fits only the right people, letting none of the wrong people through. People of ideas must have something that is magnetic within them, because I can't describe how random my meetings with them have been. If you think about the WAYS you met the people you now know as friends, it's amazing how random these meetings were. It's also important to understand why you met THESE people and not others. The goal of good religion (that is to say, the goal of this book" is to help you meet people who are actually worth a fuck - and that means, to meet people of Ideas. The best ideas, artistically, actually have this sense that makes you think both "wow, how unbelievably coool" and "I could do that!!!" Imitation is ESSENTIAL to becoming your own artist. You are playing a r(tm)le in the furthering of an idea when you pliaigarize, copy, steal, or whatever. This role isn't the most NOBLE one, but it's important nonetheless. People are animals, but we have the potential to transcend this plane into a synthesis of animal and spiritual. Almost all human activity centers around shelter, food, sex, clothing,and diversion. Animals do all of these things as well, with the possible exception of "diversion" - do animals really have fun? hmmm. What I'm saying is - use your higher potential, or get EVOLVED OUT when the new economic downfall truly hits. It's about CREATING and sharing in the joy that things were once created that makes humans truly greater than animals. Whatever drug you do, do it for a real reason. Drugs make you artistic and that way, but if you aren't an artist, you're going to wind up cliché in less than a second. You must ask yourself whether you're at work or in jail. It is important to understand the prison you're in, in order to escape it. Today I bought some very, very overpriced postage stamps from a guy at the train station post office. I was about to complain, when one of the trains came rumbling through, and I saw him wice for what MUST have been the four hundredth time that day, and I realized that THIS MAN IS IN PRISON. I left then without complaint.

Work is very difficult to understand. I've done my share of having jobs, but I must posit that having a "job" and doing "work" are completely different. You must figure out what you want to leave behind as a testament to your having lived. It might just be a family or something, it might be some kind of finished project, but things that last after your death do not happen in a day. It's important to begin PROCESSES that will EVENTUALLY result in what you would like to leave behind. Today I sat on the subway and I realized that I was really, really worried about death. I am eventually going to die, and the way I'm living, I will probably die at least slightly ahead of my potential lifespan. I can already feel my energy ebbing away, and I'm nowhere near immortal at this point in time. ("Immortal" in the sense that my ideas have travelled and taken real root.) It might be empowering to act as if you've only got a year left to live. In the days before I left on this trip, I got things done that I never imagined would get done. I handed my business over to another human being, I got my room cleaned to an astonishing degree, I fixed my car up, I basically took care of my affairs. In a way, this trip is sort of an afterlife for me. I love the lifestyle I'm leading on this trip, because it's anti-materialistic (i don't want anything else to carry around!), includes a lot of crisis and constant learning (how the hell do you say "i couldn't give a rat's ass" auf deutsche?), and I meet interesting and alive people wherever I go. This afterlife is great. I'm starting to wonder how to put this book together. I mean, I would really love to have this thing be chronological, a tour diary of sorts, but I just read like the first couple entries and - while totally worth inclusion - they're also pretty depressing, which is CERTAINLY no way to begin this book. I have a best friend, Anna, to whom I think I will give the results of this manic typing spree. Maybe she can help me sort it out. I wonder what leads brilliant people to accept less than they deserve inlife. I am writing this book to encourage you to drop your constructs of what your place is, just for this instant, and visualize yourself ATOP MOUNT FUCKING EVEREST. (that's a VSS lyric.) Tonight, you know what I did? THere's this pretty major (not TOO major) bridge that crosses the Danube here in Budapest, and I fucking CLIMBED UP TO THE SUMMIT ON IT. It was Wild@@@ It was way up there, maybe three hundred feet, and it was a gentle slope so it was climbable even by unathletic me. I just sat there and watched the moon, it was full, and let the wind wash over me. It was intense, I almost want to do it again, but I'm sick of embarking on all of this adventure by myself. I don't need a girlfriend, I need a partner in crime. (Or did I say that already?) It's important to have good lines prepared for conversations; at least, I find it fun and important. I love coming up with mottos and slogans and catchphrases and proverbs and outlooks and perspectives on things that everybody experiences but nobody talks about because it's all taken for granted even if it shouldn't be. (Hey, I've been typing all night, indulge me in ONE run-on sentence!) SOmehow of other, I've figured out what I want to d with my life, and I need to figure out a way to make sure it pays. Really, I'm PROUD of my work so far, even if it is a bit penny-ante. It feels simultaneously foolish and SOOOOO IMPORTANT. I would like every single sticker I sell to be a gateway to this document. I want this document to stand as my testament to my having lived, but I want the stickers I sell to be hits that attack a broad base in society. "WE WANT THE WORLD AND WE WANT IT NOW!!!!" - jim morrison (whose name is an anagram for "mr. mojo risin'" - hence his obsession with that phrase...) Ah yes, there's a LOT to be gleaned from Classic Rock. Unfortunately so many of the CR stations are obsessed with, you know, shit like Bad Company and Foreigner and fucking the DOOOBIE BROTHERS, ugh. I'm talking about the REAL stuff, the soundtrack to the counterculter.. DAMMIT, DO WE ***HAVE*** A COUNTERCULTURE ANYMORE!??!? I mean, seriously, when was the last time you've heard ANYONE use that term when referring to what we do? I mean, maybe WHAT WE DO IS SECRET, but shit, I love the idea of having a clandestine culture with basement shows and underground 'zines and secrets being passed back and forth in like notes in the world's biggest classroom. To me, that's what it means to be "underground" - to be hooked into all of these going ons that require searching to find. Getting there is half the fun. It isn't TRUTH unless you've had to SEARCH for it. The meaning of life is to keep SEARCHING. That's how I know that Jesus had something, probably - it was VITALLY IMPORTANT that he spend time SEARCHING, ASKING "God" for something (i can't remember the story). JEsus was probably an all right guy with a great sense of humor and a smile that made girls swoon. At the very least, Jesus was a political radical that got crucified by the largest kEmpire the world had ever seen at that point. Jesus was anti-state, and he advocated a SPIRITUAL release from captivity that the romans, rightly, saw as a threat to their system. As such, he was crucified. DON'T GET CAUGHT!!!! I'd like to give you a status report. Right now, I am sitting in a table in Budapest, it's maybe three or four a.m. and I'm in a kitchen. I've got a full belly, and I have enough money to complete my trip, and I am working - actually, it doesn't feel like work, it feels more like a mellow drift - to finish this book, or at least to give me tons of raw material out of which a book will hopefully coalesce. Dude, NOBODY has power over me at this point. That's what meditation is... it's the elimination of all ties to the world, the removal of all hierarchy and the free-floating state of bliss that alone can be trusted to be true freedom. I don't care if nobody wants to publish this thing - in fact, I'm not even going to subject it to the whole "agent" process. I am going to publish this thing MYSELF, and I am going to do a good job of it, and i am going to design it, and it's going to be fantastic. I've always wanted to design a book, and now is a fine opportunity. I have given up epending on people for creative enterprises that are revolving around MY creativity. I mean, Vic I can still count on, but I was really hurt recently by the weirding-out of a very close friend, and I now realize that it is going to take a LOT for me to trust someone like I want to. I am one innocent, naive boy. On the other hand, I kick LOADS of ass. Ass is sufferin' all up and down the Balkans, quakin' in its knickers waiting for my impending arrival... heh Respect is EARNED. It isn't something that you "deserve", it's something that comes to you after proving yourself time and again. I can be trusted to be an interesting conversationalist. In fact, perhaps in a way this whole book is one giant personal ad. "I believe in me. I make my dreams real." (The Avengers.) "I'll e-mail ya" is THE kiss-off line of the nineties You've gotta kiss around when you're young. It's the only chance you really have to hone your technique. I mean, sex you shouldn't get used to too young, maybe, or whatever, But I am a fierce advocate of kissiong. A secret - the deeply devout religious girls, that is to say "nice girls", kiss best. As much as life is always about your personal history, there are moments when you realize that hey, this moment is ACTUALLY going to be written up in the history books. There are also people who evoke this kind of feeling, and I'd sorta like to be one of them. Unfortunately, this sometimes gets in the way of having an actual life. You know, if you run around proclaiming the truth everyfuckingwhere, that isn't much of a fucking lifestyle. There is more truth within making someone laugh than there is in a whole BOOK of truisms. Laughter creates chaos within people. This chaos forces the mind open. Great truth makes you laugh, shake your head, and go, "shit, wow, that is soooo crazy..." Real truth makes you think. And you think clearest after you laugh. Laughter is not a rest state - it is the sound of barriers breaking. Friendships formed through laughter lead to friendships that can survive any tragedy. I have no idea how to endure a situation where laughter is impossible for years and years, but, well, that's the funny quality of How to fuck work through loving yourself. I'm not a hippy. Okay? I just am not. The very title of this book betrays it (as does the fact that we sell tons of "shut up hippy" stickers and shirts). "Never trust a hippy", said Malcomlm McLaren, and punk has been on the correct road ever since. The problem, though, is that it is punk to want to know the Truth. It is BADASS to be able to live a life in accordance with the truth about yourself. You've got to love yourself in order to truly fuck work. That sounds like a hippy statement, but it's just true. Only thorugh loving yourself can you see the damage done to you by your boss, by your lame-ass responsibilities, through fascist "training" and "retraining". You've got a SOUL. That is to say, you've got a POTENTIAL to uphold, and anything that interferes with that potential is terrible and fucked up. Anything that interfreres with that potential is the SYSTEM. (fuck the system.) And therefore, if you are oppressed and are not seeing your oppression, the system's got the better of you. Lack of self-love is one of the biggest vulnerabilities that the system exploits. It is like giving the enemy a direct line of attack to create checkmate. You must cover that vulnerability until, like a cut, it heals up. If you love yourself, how come you're working in a shitty job? If you love yourself, how come you only-sorta like your job, how come you fear being unemployed more than you fear DYING EVERY DAY? How come you love your job but you don't have the energy to get OTHERS to love THEIR jobs, or at least leave? It's not like unamerican is a MOVEMENT or anything. I'm just this guy. I have difficulty seeing to my own spiritual welfare - how can I presume to speak for other people any more eloquently than they can for themselves? The reason we're all so different is that "God" loves to perceive His reality from a multitude of perspectives. This creation is indeed His delight, and He chose us to represent that reality as we do. I am in love with the Self that we are all derived from, and I seek those moments where Truth becomes present - transliminated - within THIS plane. I love you. I love you my readers, I love you all. I feel your isolation, because in reading a book, we are at our most vulnerable state - open, ready for a new idea to blossom within us. i want to come again and again and again. i want to come in deep spasms, coating the world with my spew and the evidence of my joy. i know the way of the truth, won't you join me? my love, where are you at this moment? What promise that I have made have I not kept? I love you, why I I alone? Oh, i'd love to be naked in the sunlight right now. i'm horny again!!!! such joy.

i cannot wait until i am again in europe. my work is much more important than stupid t-shirts. okay? i try to create objects that resonate with a certain truthfulness. a lot of times i decided to make that truth as basic and silly as possible, and sometimes i created a sticker as the beginning to a heated thread about this or that ramification of my economic whatever. \ I am 25 now!!!! :) and I declare myself to be at the TOP OF MY GAME!!! I am the EPITOME of that what it is to be SRINI and I FUCKING ROCK!!!!!! in my own, sweet way. i've had it with wishing for this or for that, or wishing that i was this or that, or whatever. I FUCKING NEED YOU RIGHT NOW. Unamerican Activities is a series of art experiments by me, Srini Kumar, that hope to blast our silly asses out of the prisons that have crept into the American Dream. I feel that the chains so overwhelm the promise, that it is time to renounce what we have lost, with the hope that hope itself can rise anew among the ashes. Yeah, that's fucking right i'm an artist. i'm actually sort of ashamed about it, because i've always associated art with effete new york city style snobs who were at all the right sonic youth shows back in '86, or at least dress like they were. that was my stereotype of what an artist was, and i was mortified of falling into that particular pit. the moshpit was doing just fine. "artist", to me, was a word as devastating as "hippy". much, much more so than "fag" or something banal like that. "Artist" is what the COOL kids, the kids I actually like to hang out with, that's what we'd use to insult someone. Like calling a band "artists" - that was like saying they played D&D and listened to emerson lake and palmer or something! O yes, "artist" is a bad word - SO bad, that it takes instinct to KNOW that it's EVEN A BAD WORD AT ALL. In fact, squares would think it'd be a COMPLIMENT!!!! So I intend this space to drive everyone completely nuts. In fact, I demand nothing less of it, because it has succeeded in driving ME completely SHIZZBOT. Delusions of grandeur, infantile incompetence, and I DECLARE UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY (DECLARO BAJO PENA DE PERJURIO) that i'm generally in a lot of trouble because of it. I've pretty much hung up the telephone on the normal career path by now, and my resume, that hymen of one's career, lies broken and bleeding in some obscure corner of this website. At any rate, as it turns out i've got no use for canvases nor oils, nor expensive wine & cheese receptions nor the sponsorship of absolut. i've got no use for any of that. what i do give a fuck about is YOU. and what I would like to propose as our collective enemy, or a symbol thereof at least, is, well, the good ol' US Flag. That symbol so admired by the rush limbaughs, the phony liberals, the my-what-a-great-worlders; that is the symbol of complacency and dishonesty against which i throw my entire artistic weight. I just turned 25, it's a good year for broad gestures and for firm idealistic commitments. I am an artist of considerable talent and, and... , and, america, J'ACCUSE. and of course america i love you. of course. All change is actually recovery. Mankind started from this golden height of perfection, and then suddenly was plunged into the abyss. We may think that we're making progress by improving, by developing, by other creative activities. No. We are striving to recover that golden plain of holiness that we once lost. Ideas are like reminders, zapped in from our primordial consciousness from time to time. We all were once one with the God, and it sucks that now we've been dropped from that perfection. But, we strive to fix it. "To cling to capitalism and Marxism and all other "isms" is simply to remain within European culture. There is no avoiding this basic fact. As a fact, this constitutes a choice. Understand that the choice is based on culture, not race. Understand that to choose European culture and industrialism is to choose to be my enemy. And understand that the choice is yours, not mine." - Russell Means Plato was okay. It was a simpler world, and he was very, very fortunate to be living in a society that could AFFORD philosophers back then. Life requires "work" in some form or another; we all know this... no anarchist would disagree. It's the SYSTEM in which we work, and the fact that we're ALIENATED from our work (e.g. could give a shit for it) that anarchy strives to remedy. And most anarchism (in my opinion, all REALISTIC anarchism) strives for PERSONAL solutions, not society-wide ones. As you know, most people aren't particularly WORTH rescuing from wage-slavery; well, as long as they do no harm, LET 'EM!!! Just YOU figure out a way to be free. You can create your anarchist fantasy for your own world all you want, until you break a law or die or "sell out" to the world of work or win the lottery or figure out how to make a million dollars doing absolutely nothing like those late-night t.v. ads say you can. You need no "permission". The beauty of anarchy is that it's not a PRESCRIPTION, it's a DESCRIPTION. Anarchy is the way the world IS NATURALLY; human society, however, has imposed rules over that natural state. Anarchy doesn't even say that all of those rules are wrong, either! It just says that INDIVIDUALS *CHOOSE* TO FOLLOW THEM... or not! Staying legal is a decision... and just like flossing, or not doing homework, failing to do so can have consequences. Life is about weighing consequences, and one of those consequences is the law, and it just so happens that the law is empowered by society to fuck your life up if you break their laws. If you hate this, you have every right to fight it, within or without the system. It's a hallmark of this bastard system, however, to fuck up those who try to fight for justice within it. They end up being coopted, comfortable with the way things are, etc. This is not a choice I will make (that's why Unamerican is no division of anything thank you very much!) but allows them to keep snorting the greenbacks in peace blah blah. So, much anarchy RECOMMENDS avoiding the system, and propagandizes against it etc. But it's not trying to affect the MASSES with this propaganda. Anarchy, real anarchy, is based on love and respect for people who choose to act as individuals. So we are trying to save YOU, not society. Fuck society, only the independent will survive, etc. But we're not going to make any decisions for you, or tell you what is logical. We will band together to defend you, or purchase your stuff or whatever, if what you DO with your freedom is worth defending, if it is brave and from the heart. But other than that, you're mostly on your own (anarchists *do* like to travel, though, so it's a good way to hook up with crashpads). University is for shit, but it does help you get a better-paying job. This sucks, but the truth is most people need to have jobs at some point in their life (unless they're rich - which sucks harder - or are ultra-resourceful - which can get a bit dangerous but is a pathway to anarchist sainthood indeed... although does it really change anything? well, yes, by example. Anyway, if this is what you want to do with your life, live totally outside of the system etc., go for it and good luck...). I, for instance, needed to have a job to get the money to start unamerican (talked about this last time). The more money I earn in a shorter period of time, the sooner unamerican gets off the ground. (It's definitely not yet off the ground, by the way.) So college was a good choice for me; it let me get started on this earlier.... ...or did it? it wasted four full years of my life, years in which I perhaps could have gained practical experience instead of earning a piece of paper. Whatever. Plato taught me little, except for his idea of FORMS, or "platonic ideals" - you know, "the ginseng pill from which all other ginseng pills are but mere reflections" and whatnot. What am I talking about? I have the attention span of a duck. Anyway, so fuck university mostly, but hey, it's a great way to meet people sometimes, and it's a big segment of my market ha ha. I am the only unamerican. I have friends who sell my stickers etc. but every single little bit of it I created myself. hence the ego. (i'm kidding, i'm but a frail puddle of nothingness-irrelevance trying to make something happen. my self-esteem sucks ass.) I get some email FAR more ignorant than yours. Yours had enough intelligence (or perhaps interesting ignorance - in fact, I could GIVE a fuck for intelligence if it's welded onto a boring personality, right?) to merit a reply. Big honor, huh. thanks also for directing people to the site. word of mouth is what makes a slogan worth more than just a chuckle and into a symbol used by society to cast off its yoke. or something. Seriously, reading over the email before your last one, you ought to go join a commune somewhere in the outback if you want "a peaceful loving society with no leaders, no followers, no currency, and no traces of the system that we now have." Or start one yourself. I mean, I personally find such an idea distasteful and oddly greedy (it seems to be saying "fuck you" to the problems of the world, instead of helping communicate solutions... and pardon me but it's hell of bourgeois and usually degenerates into a power-based cult or dissolves within a year). But it might work for you. It would let you keep writing poetry etc. Of course, it would take money to publish these in any format. Or, you could publish on the Web. A currency-generated enabling technology if ever there was one. I like Gandhi. He chose asceticism, but still chose to lead mankind. With his words, and IDEAS, not with a sword or gun. I like that; I am not that pure, but I hell of respect it and strive to emulate it. The more email like yours I get, the more I'm fascinated by this hold that Christianity has on you northamericans. It's like this disease that your past has flung upon you, of which I am totally free. I mean, to me, Christians are just ridiculous, small-minded turds who think they matter for no good reason at all; they're fun to prod, but definitely a waste of time to hate. But you guys all take such personal offense to it, like they scarred you for life or something (and maybe they did!) and I just feel sorry, man, because I'm pretty sure jesus would be pretty disgusted with the damage his name has apparently created. Keep taking long peaceful walks. Write in a journal. Be yourself. Mock that which needs mocking, or ignore it, whatever. Just be willing to step outside of your little soul and acknowledge the greatness that lies in the occasional other person, you know? I mean, don't go prancing about judging other people for microscopic decisions, self-righteously trying to start a pissing contest between people who agree 90% and don't budge on the rest. As if I am the enemy for trying to sell you or your friends a t-shirt. Jeez, give it a rest. Exxon is a much greater societal ill than the Offspring for pete's sake. If you're so free, why please your mommy? You're speaking the truth when you say you contradict yourself more than you blink. I think it's fun, but I'm having a tough time taking it overly seriously. However, I'd totally LIKE to take it seriously because you do have some ideas in there rattling around somewhere, and I am an ADDICT for ideas. A fucking addict. Unamerican is a study in IRONY, not HYPOCRISY. :) I aim to CONFUSE man, and I follow *NO* rules. Especially not from some punk elite that thinks that anyone making money off good ideas is the enemy. It comes down to "capitalism" vs. "free enterprise". Free enterprise is much more idea-oriented, but capitalism is like CAPITAL WILL CRUSH YOU, tell you what to do, make you do stupid things to pay the fucken rent, etc. Money is not my god; IDEAS are. It just so happens that to follow the holy life of implementing my ideas, I will need money. It's just a tool I'll need, so I create my ideas with the concept of making money off them in mind. I'm trying to make a living off my ideas, instead of having to deal with shackles all my life. Most people aren't much for creating ideas, i'm afraid.... Hence people suck. And it is really fucken tough *creating* something of value once you *do* luck out with a good idea. And *then* you have to sell it, because you have to get paid back for the money you put into it in the first place, and maybe you have the audacity to dream of not having to "work" for a "living"... And *then* you get shit from 'da punx' or whatever. You know, it's so "God" damned CONSERVATIVE to be all, 'nyah nyah, it's for shit because it costs money' blah blah. 'you mean you're not GIVING it away? fuck you!' etc. etc. Listen, is it better to do something or to do nothing? Huh? Which one do you choose? Okay. And is it better to do something you WANT to do, that is art according to YOUR vision, or something that other people think follows their rules? In other words, I want to make "fuck school" stickers, and I want them not to be cheap photocopies but nice vinyl stickers. Do I compromise because it's "punk" to do so? Huh? Which one do you choose? Other people have chosen differently from me. That's great! They can make their own stickers! But see, they *don't*. They do, but nobody gives a rat's ass for anything that's free. Maybe that's why almost EVERY 'zine that's a freebie or whatever lasts for like an issue or two. Maybe that's why we "anarchists" attract precious little respect - we never do anything with much staying power. You purchase art as a ritual symbolizing your respect for that art. Even when you tape an album you like off (or for) a friend, you spend money to buy the tape. Even if you bootleg me, you spend money to do it. Even if you steal it, you're taking the risk of getting caught, which has financial implications as well. You do whatever it takes to make it part of your world. You act according to what inspires you. And EVERY action is a positive action; it is a lottery ticket in the pursuit of history. And history is what matters. How you're remembered, or if you are. How you develop, or if you just don't. (Like most people.)

If anarchy will reign in your mind forever, what does it cause you to do? How is it RELEVANT? Is it a set of rules - like "i will steal this instead of buying it" or is it just another way of you saying "I think this world totally sucks"? And if that's all there is (don't get me wrong, it's a great start) then WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT IT???? Besides, unamerican activities is the most complex MOCKERY of money/society etc. I've ever heard of. And if "capitalizing on the screw the system fad" (as you call it) gets MY stickers on bumperstickers around america and the world, well, you know, no matter how lame the person who bought it, it's still ME talking. And I trust myself to have something to say. Who knows, someone cool might see it and buy it too. And who am I to say who's cool or who isn't? Who are you? As long as people who DISAGREE see my stickers, and are ANNOYED TO FUCK by them, I am performing my sacred duty. I am affecting shitheads. Not everyone who disagrees is a shithead, but EVERYONE who disagrees with MY (your) RIGHT TO SAY IT is indeed a shithead. I am not selling pieces of sticky vinyl. I am selling a chance to FORCE MEANING DOWN THE THROATS OF SHITHEADS. The shitheads don't deserve the meaning, but YOU deserve the JOY that comes with this activity. Unlike pop-punk, there is NO FUCKING WAY to sell out a "fuck work" sticker. None. If I sell ten million fuck work stickers, if I become some fat rich fuck with a yacht... it is STILL a REVOLUTIONARY STATEMENT. It is still a fundamental affirmation of one's humanity, a statement of refusal to cooperate with a system whose major profit-center is your conversion to utter irrelevance. This is my life's work, and I deserve to be paid for it. All that aside, if you *do* want free stuff, I've got ideas for getting it to you. For instance, i give away shirts to people who send me photos of the slogans spraypainted somewhere public. (I've temporarily almost run out of shirts though.) But you didn't ask.... and PLEASE remember that real anarchy is always motivated by love. Oddly enough, I created unamerican because I love what this country could be, but ISN'T, and I am enraged at the fact that nobody else seems to have a voice, so I'm doing something CREATIVE about it. don't do anything stupid that'll fuck someone's life up (especially not yours)... that's why anarchy has such a bad name, when in reality it's a perfectly logical way of conducting a happy, fruitful, relevant life. When you hear of violent bullshit done in the name of the black flag, please call it as bullshit. Every action is a positive action, even if it has a negative consequence; you can help turn a negative into a positive by HAVING A VOICE. I am alone. I am unloved in this world. The people I associate with don't know me. My life is going nowhere. This job is fucking terrible, it's a waste of my time. I have nothing to be proud of. People get along fine without me. I can't meet girls/boys, and even when I do, I'm ugly and not worth a second look. What I can do is worthless, or at least, doesn't get me the things I need to survive. I need things that I will never get. There is no hope for me in love/money/life. There is no chance of me ever finding love. I hate the lessons I have learned. All I have is nothing compared to what he/she's got. I am going completely insane from loneliness. Well, that is how I feel. I am helpless and stupefied by my situation. And I have decided not to get depressed anymore, but to fight it. To fight these demons that keep terrorizing me. I haven't seen any light at the end of the tunnel for years. I have every expectation that I'm going to feel the same way next year, the year after that, and so on. I have been down for so long that I *hate* glimmers of hope; they break the unhappy but stable monotony of my pain, they remind me about what happiness was like, and they never seem to work out. I once believed that the world walked in my footsteps. I have perhaps been humbled for this hubris. I hate hope. Isn't that fucking terrible? I hate girls that are cute, because I don't trust them. I don't trust anyone who isn't wracked by the same hate and pain I feel. The cute do not share these problems. They are free, but I am enslaved, constantly reminded by my body that I do not deserve that which my mind and libido - and my heart, unfortunately my heart remains intact - crave. I'm at a bit of a dead end tonight. I am not sure why I'm writing this at all. I get the distinct feeling that I'm writing this for somebody, but I have nobody in mind. This seems like a letter, but there's nobody I trust to send it to. There are people to whom I'd *like* to send it, but that's because I care about them. And because I care about them, I don't want to see them confronted with my confusing pain, a pain I've never adequately been able to tell anyone about before. Maybe I'm writing this to a doctor. This is my story. I am writing this, I think, for posterity. I am writing this because my mind is telling me to. And my heart. I'm writing this because I want to cry. I want to write words that express what I feel SO WELL that they let me release my "God" damned anger and shame, the battery of hate I've stored in me all these years. I'm writing this because if I am never to experience love, I'm damned well going to master this hate. But it doesn't happen, and even when it happens, it doesn't help. There's a slippery slope that I'm done navigating... the more you allow failure to strike you down, the more failure is set up for you. The fact is that I am a cipher. I am nobody to you, which, hey, I can accept. But that I am nobody to anyone, nor will ever be, is causing me to lash out. the ways out of this construct elude me. i have an instinct to find some air to breathe, but i am unsure as to whether this instinct will defeat the suffocation that surrounds me. I obviously will exhaust all possible resources before I claim defeat. I wish I could somehow find a community of people who feel the same way. I am told that this feeling isn't unique, but untrusting people rarely network. All I know is who I hate. The happy, the in-love, the rich, the "wired", the hip, the "punk", anyone with real friendship, anyone with anything to live for at all. I like not having anything to live for. It seems so *dangerous*, so wrong. It seems so on the edge of suicide. Maybe that was where I was born to live, for some reason. I was born to explore that twilight, between pain and death. This makes sense to me. If that was what I was born to experience, here is a journal of my experiences. Kids, don't end up like me, if you know what's best for you. Not that you do, but all I can say is exercise and maintain a good diet. Fat has killed me as a human being. I could slit my wrists right now, and it's all (in my perception) because I'm fat. fuck you. the pseudo-businessman angle observation is interesting as well, but not really... more an indication of close-mindedness on your part, non? just because there is product defined on the page (which I truly believe *rules* and is very well-priced), there is so much to be gained vis-a-vis "information, ideas and images" on my site that even were you penniless, it'd still be worth reading. Sure, that's my opinion, but it has been reinforced by many others (both customers and non-customers). And those ideas *are* given away for free. (or is someone charging a subscription rate that I'm not aware of?)(and are *you* getting free online time?) If you think I should do it differently, why don't you send me a free "not bored" t-shirt (i'd wear it): srini kumar, po box 410663, san francisco, ca 94141-0663. my guess is i'll receive zero, because it costs *money* to make shirts, in addition to mere lovely ideas that sit on people's browsers and can only affect them when passively clicking around. which means I ought to contribute, financially, to your efforts in getting me one. the shirts, the merchandise, all that stuff is an *excuse* to get my *ideas* out there. The ideas are far more important than my product or profit... in fact, if you feel like bootlegging anything, feel free! As long as themes of "fuck work" filter out into society, i'm happy. Most workers, especially in the private sector, have no such protections. Unless their contract says otherwise, they can be fired "for any reason or no reason"--except when the firing can be shown to be discriminatory on the basis of race, sex or religion. In addition, a few forms of "speech," such as displaying a union logo, are protected by the National Labor Relations Act, and the courts may decide this makes Caterpillar's crackdown illegal. But the general assumption is, any expansion of workers' rights would infringe on the apparently far more precious right of the employer to fire "at will." So the lesson for America's working people is: If you want to talk, be prepared to walk. Obviously there are reasonable restrictions on an employee's freedom of speech. A switchboard operator should not break into Tourette's-like torrents of profanity; likewise, professors probably should be discouraged from screaming at students or presenting their loopier notions as historical fact. But it's hard to see how a Green Bay Packers T shirt could interfere with the stocking of Pop-Tarts or how a union sticker would slow the tightening of a tractor's axle. When employers are free to make arbitrary and humiliating restrictions, we're saying democracy ends, and dictatorship begins, at the factory gate. So we seem to have a cynical paradox at the heart of our political culture: "Freedom" is our official national rallying cry, but unfreedom is, for many people, the price of economic survival. At best this is deeply confusing. In school we're taught that liberty is more precious than life itself--then we're expected to go out and sell that liberty, in eight-hour chunks, in exchange for a livelihood. But if you'd sell your freedom of speech for a few dollars an hour, what else would you sell? Think where we'd be now, as a nation, if Patrick Henry had said, "Give me liberty or give me, uh, how about a few hundred pounds sterling?" Surely no one really believes productivity would nose-dive if employees were free to wear team logos of their choice or, for that matter, to raise the occasional question about management priorities. In fact, the economy could only benefit from an increase in democracy--and enthusiasm and creativity--on the shop floor. Or does the "free" in "free market" apply just to people on top? When employers have rights and employees don't, democracy itself is at risk. It isn't easy to spend the day in a state of servile subjugation and then emerge, at 5 p.m., as Mr. or Ms. Citizen-Activist. Unfreedom undermines the critical spirit, and suck-ups make lousy citizens. I was not given a mind so that I could play dumb to the manipulations of others. Were you? This is a world full of coercion. It's a world filled with people who would rather you didn't think for yourself. These people go by many names, from "boss" to "asshole customer", from "political contributor" to "financial analyst", from "marketing director for The Gap, Inc." to "obnoxious sexist panhandler", from "dull-as-dirt professor" to "that guy who stole my car". Together, they cast their vote for an asphyxiated world, a world that promises you freedom and then destroys it while you're not looking, a world that SUCKS. The instances where your life is impacted by these characters seem unrelated. But collectively, they chip away at your dreams, at your mission, at your WILL to remain alive. It is logical to postulate that this damage, this slow winding-down of the human spirit, is indeed coordinated. My gut feeling is that there is a power at work behind all the negative you've been fed, a power that's larger than any one exponent of this coercion. It's a force that would teach you to fail to act against those who mean you harm. This force will punish you for wishing for outcomes that would threaten it. This force is all about sapping you dry, robbing you of money, robbing you of peace, robbing you of dignity, robbing your potential. And this force has a name. Its name is "The System". And I hereby dedicate every single atom of my body to the struggle for its demise. I will pray, I will work, I will create and I will die for this struggle. I will recognize all of my comrades in this struggle, and I will know them as sisters and brothers. I will close my eyes, scan history itself, and note that the only history that matters at all is that of this struggle. From Gandhi to Kurt Cobain, from Jesus to my girlfriend, from Thomas Jefferson to Abbie Hoffman, we are all engaged in a defiant scream. Dig this big crux: FUCK THE SYSTEM. i have decided that it's pointless for you to go on reading this book without a firm, actualized goal in mind. Look, why waste my time and yours?

Why MY time, you ask? Let me tell you - it took MONTHS to write this thing. And the reason I wrote this thing was to change your life. If this event doesn't take place, the book (and therefore my time) was a failure. And the time when this book will most likely aid you is when you DO have a dream to work on. So if you don't have a dream, don't waste this first encounter - put this book down and go read something else until you're ready to use this book like it was meant to be used. Now I don't want to talk about dream "lifestyoles", I want to talk about dream JOBS. What I mean is don't give me a fantasy of being a movie star if you don't really dream that shit. If you're an actor, and have already taken steps toward a career in acting, then this is a perfectly valid dream. Think of something that you honestly wouldn't mind doing for the rest of your life. Chances are, someone gets paid by doing just that! If you love playing video games, dude, if you seriousify that dream, people get CRAZY paid by sega, nintendo, sony et al. to test games. If you like music, but can't play a lick, there are SO MANY ways to break into the industry if that's what you want to do. I can work with those dreams, but not dreams of the "i'd like to take a bath in liquid hydrogen" or "i want to be surrounded by a castle and two beautiful girls" caliber. Okay, really, put the book down if you aren't serious yet. Ready? Great. You are immmediately, as of right now, a thoroughly changed person. You are brand new. All of your struggles and failures are behind you. You might be left with cleaning up someo f the mess your former self created, and that's certailny task number one, but let's take a moment to reflect on our good fortune as people who actually CAN dream. Remember this - your new life, your ability to dream, is more precious than any amount of wealth or happiness. Don't EVER trade your capacity to dream. Hold on to that gift of imagination, and you will never falter from your unerring Destiny. Is everyone out there having a good time? Okay, now look around you. Before we even start planning our trajectory towards this dream of yours, we need to survey the current situation. Close your eyes once again, and open them, and look at all the mess that surrounds you. Look at that room, look at your overweight belly, look at your ragged relationships and lack of funds and stupid day job. That is the situation that a complete stranger gave you - that complete stranger being YOUR OLD SELF. Don't have your old self, but don't hesitatie to toss out his/her junk! You need to operate from a blank slate if you're ever going to make any progress towards your dreams. Clean off the situations, one by one. Before you can effectively plan for your dreams, you need to be a FREE PERSON. Some of these situation repairs - such as cleaning your room - can be solved immediately, and I command you to solve them before you proceed. Some of these tasks (for instance, credit card debt) will take time to solve, and are projects in and of themselves. The gap between rich and poor has been expanding since world war two. It's common knowledge that it takes two incomes to accumulate the buying power that one income had in 1975. In fact, it's become so well-known that we're taking it for granted, and as a society, we've started to accept that there are those who will benefit from advances in technology and those that will be left behind, as well as the conservative argument that this is nothing to worry about. It's obvious that people become rich because of PROFIT. There is a gap between supply and demand that allows the price of an item to be set higher than its cost to the seller. Competition destroys profit. There is actually a level of *patriotism* in what I'm doing, that *I* think you'd have to be blind to miss... in other words, it IS a testament to our freedoms that I can start this kind of a business, an openly "unamerican" company, within this nation's borders. It's also a bit of an acid test for this putative free expression. The marketplace is buying my ideas; will this nation allow it? Will your PTA? The other thing I'd like to mention is that most of the protest I lodge against america is culturally based. I would actually sort of like to see a return to certain Revolutionary-era values, where the disgruntled would just be able to go get land somewhere else, where there was a sense of unity and potential that I challenge you to find these days. (Man, I'm turning into Jesse Jackson, hey?) What I'm trying to say is that it's important that we see the Constitution and *especially* the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence as CULTURAL documents as well as political ones. Back in those eras, these documents were products of a chaotic, freewheeling and tenuous time, and there is a lot of beauty in these documents and bravery to be found in those times. It was a rare moment in history and we're lucky our forefathers handled the times with genius and bravery and a respect for future generations. Unfortunately, in many ways things have gone downhill from there. I believe, and a lot of my customers believe, that it's gone *so far downhill* that perhaps the times are ripe for a system-wide reboot. I'd really rather *not* see a "revolution" - people like me, frankly, are the first to go - but I intend to fully document and even EXACERBATE the steady decline I see, that it might perhaps peak faster, that it might be seen and CLEARLY LABELED as a PROBLEM instead of a mere "issue". I have no answers to these problems. I can't stop kids from using drugs at younger and younger ages; I can't get thousands more people to vote, or to care about the candidates; I *certainly* don't wield any power to reform the "system" in any significant way, either from within or without. I have a meaningless vote, but no candidacy, no stage from which to speak, no bags of cash, no gun. I am just a man. I have a voice. I have no microphone. So I made some stickers, some t-shirts, some coffee mugs, and suddenly I have one now. And I have not yet begun to speak. I perceive a feeling of PERSONAL IRRELEVANCE taking hold of this nation, mind by mind. I want to stamp that out. I make products that boldly say what you didn't think could be said. Have you been taught that the only voices that matter come from a television screen or from an alternative rock station? well, FUCK that man, your voice matters and it will be summoned when you wear an unamerican shirt and you're first forced to defend it. And the next time you'll be more practiced, and the time after that it'll rock, and so on until you're suddenly the voice of your generation and I'm ground into dust in an anonymous grave somewhere. I have had a lot of coffee today. Anyway, certainly you see the humor in the slogan, hey? "Quality Rebellion at Affordable Prices", indeed! I mean, it's pretty cool parody I think. It makes fun of both WalMart and all those companies trying to pump bland product at you, and it also makes fun of self-described revolutionists who want to tell you exactly how the "revolution" is going to play out. How To Hack The System: It amazes me that for all these years of anti-"System" rhetoric, revolutionaries have not been able to see across a small cultural barricade to find a model of revolution that can actually BRING a digital nation to its knees. HACKING AND ITS DISCONTENTS Computers, as you probably know, are run by "systems" as well. Without these systems in place, the computer doesn't function; reprogramming these systems can lead to some very interesting results. Learn the "system" that operates a computer, and you can bring that system to its knees, or force it into behavior that runs counter to the demands of its owners. Hackers have brought down banks, caused chaos with phone companies, melted hard drives around the globe, fucked with the government and gotten away with it. On the other hand, these acts have done little to change society. Most of the stuff perpretrated by a society of "hackers" barely quivers the revolutionary Richter scale. Hacking has simply played into the marketing plans of antivirus software companies and the sensationalist media. This behavior isn't necessarily going to precipitate revolution - at least not as far as oppression with regard to our relationship to the Systems that control most of us. Of course, this never was the intent of most hackers. Hackers are motivated by much simpler goals than what we're trying to accomplish - recognition, the thrill of solving tough puzzles, the challenge of not getting caught. These goals speak to all of us, but don't really encompass the desire to change the world, you know. However, the nature of hacking has LESSONS that we revolutionaries can learn. In the stories I've read, a sense of true rebellion emerges, a FEELING that these people have made themselves POWERFUL without resorting to anything beyond their skills. It underlines revolutionary acts undertaken by individuals with class consciousness - in other words, they act alone or in groups, but they're totally aware of their community. Still, if you can merge what they've learned about "systems" with our stated desire to REBOOT AMERICA, it's plain as day how to bring the Hacker Ethic a relevance greater than nuisance value. Society, too, is run by a "system". So instead of blindly waving some forgotten flag of rebellion in the hopes that the masses will rise, why not make a couple pre-emptive strikes of your own? WHAT ***IS*** THE SYSTEM? So then, what is this system we're fighting? I think it's important to ANALYZE the "system" that we want to change in order to get closer to the nub of this question. In other words, it's all too easy to say "fuck the system" or "revolution now", but the semantic content of words like "system" and "revolution" are close to nil unless we specify what our terms are. Let's attempt to deconstruct this "system" by attacking one aspect of amerikan culture at a time. With any luck, we can help generate this sense that the "system" is far more pervasive and diverse than something as simplistic as the government. Furthermore, we want to express that all people who stand against ANY aspect of this system should be UNITED. the "system" partially consists of: the fact that 98% of small businesses fail the banking system and its conservative biases mind-numbing, mechanistic jobs in irresponsible, inefficient corporations who wield immense power due to their chokehold on supply and demand the fact that relatively attractive white males still control EVERYTHING, from indie rock to feminine hygeine products the fact that everyone else buys this the media setting the agenda for social stratification through marketing different products to different demographics america's tendency to believe everything that they read or watch an advertising industry that saps many talented, creative people capitalism's tendency to destroy the class-consciousness of anyone with success the destruction of community in favor of mass-community religion as industry music as industry, tobacco as industry, meat as industry etc. institutionalized poverty unions as integrated components of the wage-slave system rather than critical, radical attempts at autonomous organization failure of the market to self-regulate w/r/t so-called "externalities" such as pollution, monopoly etc. advanced techniques designed to take the "free" out of the free market, such as marketing/advertising/branding etc. the relative irrelevance of political discussion - congress wasting time debating abortion rights, for instance, or committees dedicated to bashing marilyn manson instead of determining how best to regulate alcohol fake moralism in all its forms, distracting people from real issues a legal system in disrepair, with police wielding far too much power over individuals in day-to-day situations capital and investment concentrated in the hands of very, very few people - who are skilled at evading taxes to boot a foreign policy that is heavy on militarism and light on diplomacy high barriers to entry for businesses, making monopoly control of markets inevitable a general arrogance of executives as regards the needs and desires of their workers violence=PG, sex=R the fantastic marketing of so-called "freedom" in this country, to the extent that people deny their own oppression the selective persecution of anyone with any imagination at all from a very, very young age through 'til death - unless, of course, they sell out and harness that imagination to capitalism I'm sure you could come up with tons more, but the point is that the "system" consists of many different issues that must be brought up INDIVIDUALLY, not as some vague blanket statements. This blanket treatment of the system makes us radicals look like fools who haven't done our homework. NOW THAT WE KNOW WHAT THE "SYSTEM" IS, HOW DO WE HACK IT? Traditionally, social change has followed two models - a "reform" path whereby institutions that It's up to you, then, to look at the above bullet points and ask yourself whether "reform" or "revolution" will make more of a dent in these individual aspects of the "system". Remember that all previous attempts at "shooting the boss" have led, historically, to new bosses with higher immunity to shooting. Might I propose a third path? I feel that there is a large MARKET for people who oppose each bullet point. How about serving those markets by figuring out products and services that they would find worth paying for? How about turning "reform" - that is, grassroots agitation - into a way of making a living? Trust me - the field is WIDE OPEN...

One Fewer Indie Band, One More Nursery School The key to tactics is to squander as little energy as possible on battles that you're probably not going to win. Therefore, don't squander your youth pursuing things that already have attracted a ton of creative people. Focus your creativity on industries that NEED REVOLUTIONIZING. Create a good story, and then PUSH THE OLD GUARD INTO THE RIVER. This is why I started writing this chapter in the first place, but then I got really into the whole "hack" theory thing. I'm a first-hand witness of the Internet Revolution that took place between 1994 and the present. Unfortunately, I was just a witness, not a participant. I'm trying to burn off my bad karma of having missed out on that opportunity by telling you to FIND WHERE THE GOLD IS AND GRAB SOME. I trust that you'll be able to do better things with it than will the asshole capitalists who... blah blah blah. I fucked up. I had the chance to change the world, to seize the day as it were, and instead I thought about job security, about pleasing my parents, about fitting into a "punk" establishment that didn't really need or want me. But I've learned from this failure and I now know tin my heart that people want to see things done differently - they want to see EVERYTHING done differently. And if that means starting a class-consciousness sodapop, may you go forth and defeat Coke and Pepsi someday, or at least do well enough to keep going and prospering. If you want higher pay and better working conditions, it's a sure bet that you're not alone. Through class consciousness, it's possible. Just find several other people who feel the same as you do, scrape together what resources you can, and create jobs with higher pay and better working conditions. It's not rocket science. America is almost done. I really believe that, I think a lot of people do. There isn't going to be a revolution or anything cheezy and cliche like that. It's just going to stop. People are gonna say, aw, the hell with this 1040 form, and just throw it away. There'll be no burning flags; just an impotent Congress, an unbelievable President, an untrusted media, an injust justice system. Wealth will draw back in horror; gloom shall descend. There will be crime, and unemployment, and theft, and the occasional bout of terror. Madness will eat our youth, and the rich shall continue to break our bodies and ideas into marketable chunks. Spirit shall be "releveraged" into product, and the drugs will get harder, the diseases more virulent, the anguish more palpable. There will be a retreat from science, and a new Dark Age will descend upon man. Or something. Don't be sad. We shouldn't mourn. (Not that we do anything anymore without TV telling us to.) America has fulfilled its purpose, and its purpose was indeed a noble one. "You can say whatever you want!" this nation once screamed. "Wear whatever you want, fuck whoever you want, make the most of your limited life while you still have it!" And therein lies its contribution to the Truth. Liberty STILL gets me excited, hyped up. It's always been with us, a divine undercurrent to the human condition. A beaten-down-but-never-extinguished flame of desire. Let the legacy of America be that we once had the BALLS to put it in writing. Let it not be the cowardly manner with which most Americans have used their freedom. Let it not be the way we have been trained to accept gladly the yoke that once was forced upon us. Let it not be the customized mousepads of the uninspired, the television shopping channels, the mad failure of education and religion and truth itself in the face of this liberty. The noble experiment is drawing to a close with this millenium. We all know it. We feel the summers getting hotter, we feel the smog in our lungs and the shackles of our debt clanking behind every purchase. We have abused our freedoms, and "God" (or Fate or Whatever) is coming to tell us something we'd prefer not to hear. Our skyscrapers stand as testament to a failed dream turned into a real-estate nightmare. Our medicine into an excuse to breed until we eat everything. Like a fungus, we grow and grow and grow until all the food is gone. And then we die. And then we begin again. A community can be judged not by the amount of COMMEerates, but by the amount of METACOMMENTS it generates. In other words, tell the people that they can say whatever they want on the LISTSERV, but there will be a second guestbook where you write about DIRECT IMPRESSIONS of what other people said on the LISTSERV. What you do, then, is encourage people to WRITE in the SECOND guestbook, and have that be publicly viewed. The person who generates the highest-quality and highest-frequency METACOMMENTS is REWARDED with a free t-shirt, to provide additional incentive to play the game. Therefore, METACOMMENTS are what makes for a great community because they indicate that everyone is READING WHAT EACH OTHER SAYS. For instance, all magazines LEAD OFF with the LETTERS section, because that means that not only is the magazine good, but its READERS are better because of it! And what magazine is most famous for the most crazy, community-based and LONG letters? MAXIMUM ROCK AND ROLL! Punk is the ULTIMATE COMMUNITY because of the free expression guaranteed by all to METACOMMENT, and METAMETACOMMENT, and so on. An easier way of implementing this: Announce that you will be giving away one free t-shirt a month to a member of the listserv. The story is that it's an ELECTION. The people decide who wins the t-shirt. That will get people doing more quality posts, listening to others, etc. This is such a good idea it's criminal. What if instead of being rewarded with POWER (this weird intangible), we had an election for the most WEALTH? In other words, we choose ten people at RANDOM to WIN THE MOST VOTES ONLINE for, not power, but for $10,000 in CASH. These people are just elected by the general public - "vote for me! Why?... um..." and they'd THINK OF THINGS! They would campaign BRILLIANTLY, and much HARDER than for the ACTUAL ELECTION! And the campaign would be far more honest - they can't pay other people for the votes, but they can pay them with GREAT IDEAS ON HOW TO SPEND THE MONEY! And what is the BEST idea? The idea that will make that person win the election? FUCKING HAVE A PARTY!!!! :) What I mean is that when WEALTH is ELECTED DEMOCRATICALLY, that wealth must NATURALLY be SHARED! And what better way of allowing wealth to elect what a person does with his/her life than FREE ENTERPRISE? Wealth MAKES that decision for you - not just money wealth, either, but WELL-BEING WEALTH. You are but a PAWN of your desire for WELL-BEING, yea, verily the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. And you campaign for it every day, and check it out - the only way to win the election for the jackpot of well-being is to promise to share it once you win. :) :) :) You know, I always chide myself that I think of myself as being so "radical" or whatever, but I'm not involved with my community AT ALL. Like, I have all free time, but I'm not volunteering or teaching kids or anything. I guess I'm hoping that unamerican will grow into a way to reach the kids who really matter, to tell them that it's POSSIBLE to turn your dreams into reality, or at least into a sticker. :) But that's EXACTLY the nature of the revolution that *I* want to foment. I love those moments of SECRET COMMUNICATION of the POSSIBILITIES of FREEDOM. When Brie wrote about taking that little girl aside and telling her that she is RIGHT to fight for what she believes, I was like, YES. I am hoping that every sticker I sell serves as that kind of REMINDER that the ONLY RULES are the RULES IN OUR HEADS - as long, of course, as we don't get caught. I sometimes feel like we non-sheep are like CONSPIRATORS in this world, keeping the dream of freedom alive in a country that likes to THINK of itself as free but blanches at the slightest disturbance of its slumber. Call me ambitious, but I am ADDICTED to the possibilities that I feel whenever I run into others like us. It's the only drug that matters, in my opinion - that ELECTRIC SPARK that runs between people that FUCKING MATTER. One solid goal of this listserv is to imagine TEN PEOPLE in your local area that you'd like to recruit for, say, an interstellar rocketship to begin a brand new earth. Maybe these people aren't even people you KNOW very well, maybe they're your best friends. Now, understand this - THESE TEN PEOPLE are YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. They are your FAMILY, and you've got to figure a way out to INCLUDE them in your life. I mean, think about it from my perspective - if I can either give a THOUSAND catalogs out randomly, or FIFTY to people I give a fuck about, I'd DEFINITELY choose the latter. And the cool thing is that when you meet ONE interesting person, you've REALLY met a representative for a group-of-ten. Our peer groups are like nodes in a network of interestingness, and all interesting people are linked to this network (no matter how tenuously). This network, in a very real way, keeps us ALIVE. Respect it, and help it grow, whatever you do. That eight-year-old that Brie mentions is MY EQUAL, and yours. It's all about RESPECT, folks, and the joy that we feel in helping each other grow and ROCK THE FUCK OUT. Remember that movie "Night of the Comet"? It was that sorta new-wave flick from the eighties where all the adults disappeared (or was it "died"?) leaving only teenagers and kids to run the apparatus of society. Now, if we take a look at this in economic terms, it's an interesting twist on the "state of nature" theory that ran through nineteenth-century liberal philosophy. It doesn't postulate society returning to a pure saveage state, but rather that the productive apparatus of society remains while the SOCIAL apparatuses disappear. In other words, the kids remaining wouldn't be in any crisis situation immediatly, because there'd be plenty of food to tide them over for a couple years. There might be some trade, but it's propbable that modern economic systems such as banks and "paper" capital (you know, wills, deeds, probably even cash itself) won't exist until they're re-developed. Society's infrastructure would also take years to rebuild; there'd be no electricity outside of that which batteries could provide, unless someone learned how to operate the power plants - an assumption that could take years to materialize. Eventuaally, the kids will run out of canned food and stale beer and have to start running things themselves. How would they accomplish this? A capitalist would hold that things would continue same as before, with kids owning what their parents left behind; however, I feel that ownership doesn't always coincide with understanding of how something works. In such a society, who should "own" a dairy farm - a person who holds a piece of paper calling them the owner, or someone who can actually make that farm produce? If the societal basis (e.g. money, legal title) for ownership disappears, society will most likely dictate "ownership" of a means of production by merit. In other words, she/he who knows how to USE an electric lathe should "own" it, not someone who has an outdated deed to the factory in which it sits. That ain't capitalism, no sirree.

Furthermore, so many trappings of contemporary capitalism would be demolished by society's revalution of goods and services. Whe arts of marketing and advertising would be rebooted completely, the media would no longer be there to manipulate our attitudes towards work, love, sex and politics, and who's going to need "management consulting" or "financial services" in a society where the dollar just doesn't exist? A socialist, however, would postulate that society would organize itself much tighter than determining ownershipo - it would create collectives to run the capital, tied together by a central committee which would plan the economic growth of the young society. All property would be owned by the state and administered by these experts, and coercive measures would be used to maintain this hegemony. Now, to the socialist's credit, that "collective" idea isn't so bad.- it postulates groups of people teaming together to collectively enjoy the fruit of their multiplied labor. But as far as that coercion and centralization thesis, I certainly hope that the kids involved here would be freedom-oriented enough to kick back against centralization of any sort for several generations. Centralized socialism is a revolutionary response to a highly mechanized, highly exploitative mode of production, but that's not what we have in this world-without-adults. So what do ***I*** think would happen? Well, I feel that the kids WOULD organize labor around collectives, in order to make the best use of the unused tools society has left them. Most likely, kids would gather their friends, go seize some unused means of production, and learn how to make goods with it. You'd also have a small service economy, car mechanics, kids who've learned plumbing, maybe even hairdressers and (considering that CULTURE hasn't been wiped out by the comet) musicians. But it would take them a very long time for these kids to form anything like a "government" beyond, perhaps, a council of some sort. Hopefully people will feel like banding together to create actual value in sthe yong society, rather than trying to scam off of these collectives, rob them, etc. I mean, maybe that's not realistic, but I'm enough of a humanist to postulate assholes are culturally rather than genetically conceived. However, despite the apparent socialist flavor of these young collectives, I feel that it'll be a trade system that will link them and eventually form the basis for a new economy. Sure, stuff like gold will still be held as valuable, and guns would certainly still work against other people as opposed to against animals, and all of that would skew our little anarchist paradise. But all in all, with an excess of productive capital, these new collectives will form the basis of an economy that considers labor to be the most valuable commodity, and rewards it accordingly. Guess what, kids? This solution - a vision of voluntary collectives freely trading with each other outside the capitalist system - is available to us today. If you're one of those who capitalism is treating fairly, if you've got little to complain about, good for you. But please, understand that you're no majority. However, if you agree that staying attached to capitalism is getting you nowhere, if you feel like you're wasting the best years of your life as a cog in a machine that defies comprehension, maybe it's time to detach for a while. Maybe it's time to pretend a comet has taken all of it away, and that it's time to reboot this country starting with YOUR LIFE. ---------------------------------------------- If you're like me, you own stuff and you sort of like it. For me, I've got this computer, and I like owning it. I like being able to get up in the middle of the night and start hacking away at it, and I like being able to rock out to Scared of Chaka or Unwound or Galaxie 500 on the old setero I also own. I like playing in my band, with a guitar and amp that I own, and occasionally I like to own food that a restaurant has sold me. Ownership isn't "evil". EXCESSIVE ownership, however, can fuck a person up, making them believe in their inherent superiority because they drive a Lexus or whatever. I feel that I make real use of everything in this apartment. I admit that there are some things I'd like to own that I don't own right now, but I'm doing just fine without them and, see, I've got a new addiction now. Forget being addicted to stuff, folks. I'm addicted to my small business. In other words, I'm addicted to SELF-INVESTMENT. THe great thing about free neterprise is that when you get into it, when you feel it working and you've gotten past the initial doubts, you experience the feeling of investing in your own potential for FREEDOM. YOur piggy bank becomes a symbol, not of another book or record or car payment, but of LIBERATION from the need to have a boss EVER AGAIN. It is better to BE tha man, than to WORK for the man. And you can start a small business with so little money it'll shock you. I am a man of hope and hate, of wit and frenzy. I'm sick of my own inaction. I look around at a world that I didn't shape, at problems that I can't even comprehend. Invisible poisons rot our air, and products products products define the lines within which we live. All I have is this instinct. This primal urge to be free. It isn't much to go on, but it's all I have. And, like a cornered animal, I will fight against any encroachment on that freedom 'til the bitter end. My enemy is this culture. My enemy is a conspiracy of boredom, bad jobs, shitty t.v., crap music, mind-numbing boredom designed to anaesthesize us from the horrors of the working week and the truth about our exploitative economic empire. Why are rich people rich? Is it because they are better than we are? Or is it maybe just a case of squatters' rights - "we got here first"? Is getting there first the answer? Is that all there is? This is a land with no more land, a space bounded by our painful history, a pissed-away potential that reeks to high heaven. And ownership, ownership, ownership. Every bit of which is stolen, stolen, stolen - from the raw power and ingenuity of those who designed it, built it, maintained it, and cleaned up after it. Capital breeds capital. We have a virus amongst us, its name is money, and it shall be cast from the temple once again. Except this time, we burn the temple. It's all over, America. Your worst nightmare has risen. As companies have been your triumph, a company shall be your demise. This company sees the future. It sees the awful feelings in the stomachs of millions as they watch their nation disintegrate in a slow-motion race riot. It sees the thankless sweat on the brows of the immigrant millions as they toil to put grapes on YOUR bourgeois tables. It sees the college graduates without clues to match their degrees, without jobs that mean jack, but with great (and so very ALTERNATIVE) CD collections. It sees the rich bastards and the wanna-be rich bastards, all conspiring to be the first to force the future to its knees. It sees you, in all your naked shame, in all your faded glory, your unrecognized genius - YOU, buddy. And it wants to help. It wants to articulate that scream of rage and perceived failure into national momentum. It knows your rage, and it speaks the truth about what you feel. You know the cards have been stacked against you - we demand a fair shuffle. This company exists for one reason - to overturn, overturn, overturn. Join us and matter. Forsake us and, hey, it's cool, but you will never be able to forsake the truth, as your lungs breathe the dust of the new millenium. Fight us, and feel the brunt of the momentum we have tapped. For we have the technology. We have the truth on our side, and in the end, our brand of chaos shall defeat your pathetic structure. Hide your kids, folks, this is the REAL THING. Unamerican Activities is about POWER. YOUR power. We are about you, a million different you's, allied in one quest - to RECAPTURE the power that has been stolen from us, as individuals. Fuck the kind of power that emanates from the corporate ladder, from the television screen, from the Office of the President. YOUR POWER IS MORE IMPORTANT. We are about enhancing your lifestyle, by making people NOTICE you and LISTEN to what you think. We build stages, because we believe that YOU deserve an audience. That's our job, and it's important, but it's stupid to build stages unless people like you take advantage of them. YOU ARE THE REVOLUTION, and this is why: YOU INFLUENCE PEOPLE. By being alive, by being exciting, by attracting and repelling people. You telling your friends about our website, or wearing this t-shirt, is more important than any ads we could EVER take out. Your decisions affect your friends, and they go on to influence theirs, and pretty soon EVERYONE WORTH A SHIT IS CONNECTED. Make no mistake - this influence is POWER. This influence is what a democracy is all about - and it is the goal of Unamerican Activities to REMIND you of this power, and how to use it to CHANGE THE WORLD. YOU ARE A LEADER. If nothing else, YOU are leading YOURSELF, yes? You may TRADE influence with others, but if you're reading this, you aren't the sheep that capitalism feeds on. We're natural allies, you and I. By token of the ideas you have, and the energy you radiate, you can lead me any day of the week. YOU KNOW THE SCORE. You can see this world for what it is - both a wasteland and a paradise, a land of deathculture and a land of freedom. You can escape the former and enter the latter SIMPLY BY BEING ALIVE AND DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT. And in YOUR escape, you sow the seeds of the revolution itself. By showing people your power to fuck shit up, you are extending them an INVITATION to JOIN US. YOU FUCKING MATTER. Everything you do is POTENTIALLY a revolutionary act - whether it's a paper you have to hand in, a date you need to have, a 'zine you visualize, or a cup of coffee with a newspaper - if you GROW, if you DREAM, if you SEE THE FUTURE, you are POWERFUL. Unamerican wants to remind you to FUCK YOUR FAILURES - to ACT before you're DEAD, to WAKE THE HELL UP to the POWER WITHIN YOU. To that end, Unamerican Activities creates TOOLS to help you FUCKING MATTER. Our products are about underlining your ability to influence and affect the people around you. Your getting and using this influence - intelligently, responsibly, and, yes, POWERFULLY - is the revolution we want to see. We want Unamerican to be a brand name associated with this sort of personal power; the power that WE have is a power that is YOURS AS WELL. The stronger we get, the stronger YOU get, and vice versa. We're nothing without you. We are EVERYTHING with you. Fuck the system - it is YOU that matters, and THAT is what Unamerican is all about. POWER. I don't detest capitalism simply because of its economics. I detest capitalism because, by definition, it values our lives according to the capital we control rather than the ideas and commitment that we exhibit. I detest capitalism because I detest those who profit on the trained and coerced labor of others without distributing the reward equitably, but also because capitalist CULTURE encourages the workers to GO ALONG WITH THIS. I detest capitalism because it seeks to monopolize our senses through its advertising - the cultural monopoly of the verbs "to buy" and "to sell", rather than other, more fun and life-affirming verbs. I detest capitalism because it is similar to alcoholism in so many ways. I detest capitalism because it is a default that leads so many lives to the slaughterhouse of meaningless employment. I detest capitalism because it is a CONSTRAINT on our opportunities - it encourages us to fear competing with interests that are far wealthier or connected than we are, instead of feeling like we are as good as the next person (or enterprise) when it comes to starting up our own enterprise.

I detest capitalism because the fundamental answer to "the poverty question" is not a minimum wage, but a MAXIMUM wage. I detest capitalism because it is a hypocritical morass of LIES. The truth is is that it is CORPORATIONS that receive the most welfare. Under capitalism, the state exists not to protect people, but to protect property. Capitalism fosters the co-optation of free enterprise and the free media through public relations and advertising and the recruitment of our best minds for these purposes. Capitalism turns craftsmanship into commodity, and bribery into democracy. Capitalism encourages practices that are cooking our earth and causing our individual decisionmaking to reflect, more and more, that Money is now our God. Fundamentally, I detest what capitalism is doing to our HUMANITY. conspiracy theory: if you tell everyone that it's going to happen, it's going to happen I am the last in a line of saints and revolutionaries that have been cut short by The Black Iron Prison of which Dick spoke. It's as if anyone who really breaks through into THREAT TO SOCIETY is killed in some way. Cobain, Gandhi, Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, the Beatles, Dylan, Keith Moon, John Bonham, King, X, Lincoln, Kennedies, Dead Kennedies, Lennon, Gurevara, Trotsky , Goldman, Public Enemy, the Bad Brains, the Minutemen, Husker Du, punk rock itself In all cases, the System could only act REACTIVELY - the system could only kill them AFTER they had done their great work. As a result, the message gets handed down to the next carrier of the Torch, but the journey remains incomplete. I'm the last, man. I am the LAST of these revolutionaries to die; the System will effectively be defeated as a result of this project. It will be made SO OBVIOUS that there's a conspiracy, a polot to Steal the Soul. People react to stimuli that they can't control; someone will assassinate me. Bulworth had the last clue; the Senator caused so many people to believe that he was going to die, that it came true in the end. Beatty and I are obviously tuned into the same satellite. As is every interesting person who's dedicated their lives to Fucking the System. Beatty is like the other band that becomes famous instead of the one Brady was backing. t-shirt = "i want to live before i die" with graphics of hands breaking through handcuffs Send a press release just to Steve Silberman. He will love that shit. The first web-predicted death, to truly illustrate the haunting power of memes. I want to create a meme so strong that it reaches everyone, and collectively the belief that I'm going to be shot will be so intense that someone will actually rise to the occasion and put a bullet in my head. I am a member of an elite group of revolutionaries in this strife-torn century. I am the last, the last of these prophets. My death will symbolize the final death of the System. It will be the instance the System went TOO FAR. The people will not take it anymore. Christ has risen, and he is I. CHRIST HAS RISEN - a campaign to freak square christians out. a campaign to be that which they most want, and to repudiate them for being spawn of the Devil after all. It's often been said that Christ would hate most Christians. As the reincarnation of Christ Jesus, I can verify that truth. I hate most Christians. It is possible that Jesus is a cryptogram for Srini or vice versa. I am Jesus reincarnated and I condemn false christians to the lowest rung of hell. I AM CHRIST JESUS. the press and the people at large act as a tin-can telephone through which "God" and the Devil (or assasinated and assassin) communicate. i'd be killing myself as effectively as if I had mailed the assassin a letter that says "shoot me on this date". There's a lot of line noise, but eventually the assassin hears the message unencrypted. Just like the Kennedy assassination, they're going to get the wrong guy. more than one guman will show up at the scene, and the real assassin will get away. Isn't it obvious that Jack Ruby was SUPPOSED to kill Kennedy, but Oswald got the jump on him and killed him first? using the press as our way of communicating. it's like a mom saying, "srini come home" to a TV camera instead over the phone to me directly; eventually, the word gets out through the media and i come home, just as i would over a direct phone contact. it is my intention to bother religious people out of their fucking GOURD. This is going to take some fancy steppin'. They've HEARD the whole "satan" thing, they're used to rock music, etc. The annoying thing about marilyn manson (other than the yucko music) is the fact that all of the shock tactics he uses are SO 1983. Friends, I am proposing a new level of botheration - a level that will disturb their dreams, that will make them quiver in abject confusion... that, i daresay, has a shot at converting a couple of them BACK. Any fans of the Church of the SubGenius are going to think they've seen this technique before, and they'd have a good point. Except, see, this time we don't putz around with cartoony in-joke cuteness. This time we go for the jugular. This time we're going to scrimmage, and christ himself is the ball, and we're a-gonna force a fumble. That's right, folks, we're going to steal jesus back from the assholes. And we're going to reinvent "God" in OUR fucking image, as opposed to vice versa. A *useful* god. A "God" that'll carry our groceries for us, that gives a damn good footrub. And all of this will bother the FUCK out of the religious, especially when we get to tell them "oh, yes, i'm 'religious' too". And the joke, the real PUNCHLINE, is that we WILL be. We will speak with FAITH, with assurance, with KNOWLEDGE that "religion" has CHANGED OUR LIVES FOREVER. Someone mentioned that until now, religious people seem to have no sense of humor. But what when WE write the commandments? and perhaps one of them, maybe in the top five, is "thou shalt laugh heartily on occasion, and in the character of thine laugh shall the world know that you fucking MEAN IT." and maybe next would be "thou shallst not laugh at that which just ISN'T VERY FUNNY, even though thine boss utterst it"? :) this religion, the one i am proposing, the one i have not yet proposed - is not about rules. it is not about COMMANDMENTS. it is about descriptions. it is about observing the world and making statements based on the observation. Not stories, simple statements - simple truths such as "most people are boring". Those four words could spawn a book. I like that. okay, a LOT of people are talking about school, about education and how worthless it is etc. Golly, how I agree with that. See, though, the problem is that the more I start to understand how to GET AROUND the bullshit of society, the more I start seeing that there is NO way that ANY kind of "education" or "ideology" or whatever can help a person who lacks VISION - or STOP a person who HAS it. i want unamerican to encourage people to RISE ABOVE their shitty educations and to turn their dreams into reality. How the hell I can accomplish this goal with t-shirts and stickers, I have no idea. :) but still, what I'm about is EMPOWERING ***YOU***. And not just empowering you to write a 'zine or a song or whatever - although of course that's a start - but to TAKE ON THE CONSPIRACY SINGLEHANDED. To COMPETE MICROSOFT INTO THE GROUND, to make a televangelist WEEP, to cause actual CHAOS and surf it like no other. I'm unfortunately attuned to the SPIRITUAL damage that america wreaks on us all. Actually, THAT is the "why school sucks" angle in my opinion - you're TOLD when you ENTER school how NIFTY it's going to be, how much you're supposed to learn and whatever - but the fact of the matter, it is simply DEADWEIGHT, not a real learning experience at all. See, though, there's NO WAY a person who really GIVES a fuck about learning will let that STOP them. The truth is that we learn from everything we actually PARTICIPATE in, and those of us who are meant to participate cannot be STOPPED from doing so. So if you hate school, shit, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Read books, start a company, program your computer at home, learn how to play guitar. START YOUR ***OWN*** DAMN SCHOOL. Nobody needs to tell you to learn the lyrics to your favorite song. And nobody will need to tell you to learn how to perform the job of your dreams. All there is to say is to KNOW YOUR FUTURE and to MAKE SURE YOU'RE READY FOR IT. I agree that school has rarely taught me anything, at least not since high school, but I am afraid that is mostly my fault for not really giving a FUCK about anything that was taught in school. If there is ONE thing that I wish someone had told me when I was in school, it is that I should NOT have waited to start a business of some sort. I could have started Unamerican when I was nineteen years old instead of when I was twenty-three, and if I had, well, I frankly think it would have turned out better. When you're young, you've got that CRAZY CONFIDENCE, that mix of ego and energy that you NEED in order to bust out of the way things have been before. Plus, you can still afford to BLOW IT, which means you get to work without a net. Any success I have with this company is linked with the fact that I am still young. A great idea makes you feel TIMELESS. It can make a teenager feel like the most experienced and confident forty-year-old; it can make an elderly woman babble excitedly and motivate endlessly like she's in her early twenties. The crisis of education is linked directly with our nation's crisis of IDEAS. We aren't learning things in our schools because THERE'S NOTHING THERE TO LEARN. This is sad, of course, but the only way we can overcome it is to accelerate our culture. And sadder still, the only acceleration we can see is found on our television screens and in the hectic pace of events we read about in the paper. I say FUCK the larger culture - LEARN to LEARN for YOURSELF. I say, kids, LEARN HOW TO DO SOMETHING OF VALUE TO EACH OTHER. Learn how to write things that OTHER PEOPLE ACTUALLY READ. Learn how to visualize ideas in tangible, "somebody oughta do that" ways. Learn how to use tools to create things without a boss telling you to. Shit, learning how to read tarot cards for yourself is more empowering - and therefore more RELEVANT - than learning fucking brain surgery for your parents. Anarchy has nothing to do with blowing things up. Fuck, that's FASCISM,the opposite of anarchism. Anarchy is about FREEDOM, and how free canwe be in a society that has explosions all the time? I'm always intrigued by stories of assassination and violence, but I don't believe that we can create a free society (or even change people's minds for the better) by killing people. Destroying property can be valuable, but MY opinion is that all violence is absorbed and turned into yet more sensationalist marketing for newspapers and tabloid TV. but back to the point, positive ideas, yes. but how do we get people thinking "rationally"? open them up to "new" ideas? You know, let me put it this way - TERRORISM IS CLICHE. It still shocks people, but it doesn't really make people rethink things in any way - if anything, it makes them MORE fearful of new ideas, not less. As you've probably recognized, unamerican is about creating MINDBOMBS. The idea is that you can communicate IDEAS that are more explosive than any bomb, and the fact that people get to LIKE these ideas (even to the extent of PAYING FOR THEM) indicates that the explosion gets communicated even further. For instance, we're doing this major "FUCK WORK" campaign where we're giving away five million FW stickers. I think that's got the potential to shock Americans in a new way - and without a drop of blood shed. I just think the idea of millions of americans scratching their heads and going "fuck work? hmmmm..." is a pretty cool idea, so that's what I'm pursuing. The antidote to bad ideas isn't censorship or violence. It's MORE ideas, better ideas, communicated effectively. YEAH! :) close your eyes and look out with your mind across america. chances are you'll see a mix of good and bad, a mix of bored and interested people. You'll see kids in overcrowded classrooms, sure, and pollution and greed and all that... but you'll also see kids logging on, communicating about live issues and breaking down traditions.

As much as a name like "unamerican activities" sounds like it represents some bunch of whiners who only see the shitty side of life in the USA, that ain't the case. Unamerican Activities is about recognizing traditional boundaries on our free speech and expression and SMASHING THESE BOUNDARIES TO BITS. We feel that communication - ESPECIALLY communication about PROBLEMS - is the ONLY way for this society to progress. Unamerican is about giving you tools with which to tell your world how you feel. Unamerican is about power - YOUR power, your power to have a voice that cuts through the rubbish pumped out by the industries that shut us the fuck up. A great band makes you sway in time to the music, or jump up and down or sing along to the choruses. But above all, a great band can boil your mind over with possibilities. A great band makes you want to start your OWN damn band. I am hoping that this website will have the same influence on all of you. Anyone can make a thousand stickers and sell 'em or give them away or whatever. I am hoping that the success of unamerican activities inspires you to take YOUR dreams seriously, and not to give up beyond the point where giving up is a learning experience. We sell things. We sell things because we are professional revolutionaries. In order to be a "professional" anything, you must figure out how to get paid. We feel that by taking our unconventional message to the people, in the form of products that kick ass, that we're kept HONEST. We must keep making things that appeal to you folks out there, or else we're out of business. After all, what good are ideas if nobody gives a fuck? We're in the business of MATTERING to YOU, and we think that no revolution is worth supporting without that fundamental premise. Almost ALL long-term human action is indicative of one's "faith". I think faith is good - it's important to have faith in your work, or faith in your friends or family or whatever. Once, I might have even wanted to have faith in my country. Unamerican is about teaching people to question that particular brand of faith - PATRIOTISM. In the world of 2100, there WON'T be room for nationalism. There just WON'T. Our world will be so crowded, so generally fucked up, that ANY sort of nationalism beyond a certain ethnic pride will be seen as greedy and fascist. Unamerican, ironically then, is about putting america back in the driver's seat. I want this country - specifically, I want THIS GENERATION - to be the first one in history to proudly say WE REJECT NATIONALISM. The thing is that I also have things that I consider holy. My opinjion is that humans have, like, this "holiness gland" that secretes this need to hold things as immortal and beautiful, and we can't help it. But there is a REASON this gland exists, just like there's a reason that our teeth exist. And just like one's teeth, they can be used well or used poorly. I am holy about ideas. I am NUTS about people who have ideas. I only feel good when I'm talking ideas, when I'm creating ideas, when I encounter ideas. A great post, for instance, can light up my day, flip my switch from "man, i'm unemployed and my company is a catastrophe" to "DUDE, I ROCK, THAT GUY ROCKS TOO." That is why this listserv was created - so that moments like that are POSSIBLE. A good idea never dies. Shit, all ideas have a kernel of oldness to them - for instance, Unamerican's ideas can be prefigured in the works of that one greek philosopher guy who just bitterly mocked everything in greek society (i think it was diogenes)... and, more recently, by work from three of my favorite artists - jenny holzer, barbara kruger, and raymond pettibon, all of which combine words and images to express bleak truths. Good art has this ring of FAMILIARITY to it, a feeling that I consider holy. But great art also ought to attack LESSER forms of holiness, such as those that praxis outlines in his sermon. Attacking idiocy is a priority for unamerican, as a lot of you have been able to decipher. So stop having blind faith in your job, in your education, in the flag, in advertisements, in anything but your own ability to live by your ideas and your ability to meet others with ideas. Redistributing wealth is simply not my job. I am absolutely down with redistributing wealth, but I'm also unable to visualize a way to do it. I have the feeling, however, if Unamerican attracts a good number of bright people, that one of these bright people will have a great idea for doing so, and then I'd support that. In other words, I'm simply not the one to have all answers to all problems, as wise as I may portray myself. I do believe in SEPARATISM. By that I mean that people like us - people of real ideas, that is - should BOYCOTT all spiritually deadening industries and products to the best of our ability, and should begin new alternatives to "normal" patterns of consumption. For instance, if we feel that Safeway or Mobil is a shitty company to give money to, we should support local groceries and public transportation initiatives. In other words, the little guys DO have a vote in what kinds of jobs this society creates, and stupidly we're choosing to vote for Taco Bell instead of for quality, authentic burrito joints. Dig my meaning? So with that goal in mind, unamerican is trying to be a t-shirt company with a real message to disseminate. As you've probably gathered, it's about a LOT more than sloganeering - it's about retaking life itself from the morons who have defined it in such a stultifying, disengaging way. I'm sure you know this, but "anarchy" is NOT NOT NOT simply "no more laws, no more government". An anarchist community could well decide that it was in their best interests to create a body of law. Anyone who tells you different has no idea what the fuck they're talking about. No, I don't want a world where might makes right - but I do want FREEDOM, totally, FREEDOM above everything for myself. If I feel freer to do what I need to do with a law, I will support that law. For instance, there are laws against theft and murder and rape, and as a consequence of these laws, I don't have to WORRY about these issues as much as I would without those laws. Therefore, I support those laws. Anarchism is simply a perspective which says that society exists to enhance individual choices, insofar as those choices do not limit those of others. Anarchists hate coercion and the support freedom of individual expression. Hope that sets the record straight for you. I just want to let you know that although there are levels on which we totally disagree, I respect your (personal!) intelligence and general guts-level. I'm not even white, but I can sense that what you believe is the truth as you see it, and I acknowledge your unflinching commitment to it. I would not say that I'm a racialist by any means, but there are problems that are addressed by your position that do demand solutions, problems that simply are ignored by the agenda of this nation's ridiculous excuse for a press corps. As a smart organization, however, you must understand that your message gets drowned out by the actions and occasional pure idiocy of some members of your audience. I'm not saying that you should flinch from what you perceive as your mission - far be it for me to say that! All I'm saying is that you've got a huge p.r. issue to overcome before getting your ideas a national voice - namely, your current following seems to be (in the public perception) much more adept in getting drunk and causing dumb trouble than at advocating a genuine "white pride". If bootboys and beating blacks is your idea of white pride, well... it just won't wash with the mass of white people. Maybe it sells records, but does it *really* further your agenda? think about it... I'm proposing that you be a bit savvy with your views. There's truth to them, somewhere in there, and I don't *ever* flinch from the truth either, even if I'm told by the media that the speaker of that truth would like to see me exiled or even killed because of the color of my skin. You see, I could personally *give* a fuck about that color; I care about *ideas*. I'm hoping that your priorities bear *some* resemblance to mine - I'm certain that you, like me, have contempt of people without ideas. In fact, it is safe to say that almost all of the language you use to speak of members of non-white races maps onto my feelings about BORING PEOPLE. Boring people, people without ideas and intelligence - of ALL races - THEY are the ones who breed like rabbits, control the media (which *loves* getting their attention for some reason - well, we both $$$ know the reason $$$ don't we??$??), and generally take things that interesting people built up with loving care and turn them into inefficient, anti-innovative and all-around stupid monoliths. Even the government, which we both hold in contempt, was exciting in the early years; it's just that as time went on, boring people found it and through sheer numbers made it their own. That, my friend, is history, the way it works. We, the interesting, are gifted with ideas which basically FORCE us to create things. Then, as we step back to admire our work and take a well-deserved rest, shocked at the money rolling right in, we lower our guard. We get all idealistic. "Oh, anyone can do *anything*, all they need is a *chance*." So we hire them. We drop our filters, the filters that keep boring people out of our lives and away from our projects. We let the boring in, and they bring with them their rot. This rot either stagnates our projects or destroys them. We end up either bitter or angry, until we can't take any more, so we create something new. And then it starts over again. This is why everything that was once so revolutionary and interesting, once its contribution to history is complete, ends up GETTING IN THE WAY of progress. The boring find it, make it famous, see it in stadiums, put it on TV, and ask for it to heal them and bless them, (which it never does - there is *no* conversion from boring to interesting)(though i have occasionally, to my chagrin, witnessed the converse). I cite as examples Rod Stewart and Jesus Christ, as well as almost everything worth a shit I have ever experienced; it ends up getting in the way, clung to and defeated by the leeches of boredom. Anyway, Western Civilization (let's call it "white" civilization, as a nod to your views) has brought about an interesting, dynamic world into existence, a world of communication and shared struggle. Liberals (not a bad word) do tend to accentuate the negative, the consequences of pollution, imperialism, oppression of other races, etc. etc. and they do have their points, in my opinion. However, I agree that it's important not to let this negative hindsight eclipse the achievements of this brand of civilization. *This*, I think, would be a pretty positive light in which to portray your views. Furthermore, if the breeding of non-white people around the world at a faster rate is an issue for you, why not get involved in shipping birth control around the world? Shit, that is something even a liberal could get excited about; they'd even send you money to do it! Seriously, I agree 100% that this world is breeding itself into ruin; why not fucken do something about it? Race-mixing is a tough one for us to see eye-to-eye on; i'll acknowledge that. You do have allies in the strangest places (take my mom, for instance - if I don't marry into my race, she'd freak out); anti-race-mixing is certainly not an attitude exclusive to whites, not in the least. I guess racial purity isn't my particular jihad; I just hate boring people, i could CARE who fucked to make 'em. Anyway, I've gone on too long. I'd be interested in hearing your perspective, and, um, please don't beat me up. :)

actually, this could be a lot of fun, because you're someone I believe will disagree intelligently with certain ideas I have. Maybe even teach me something. which is *much* more gratifying personally than another teenage "right-on", even if that has its place as well. When you put ideas out on the web, it's like, you get more excited sometimes about the flames than you do about the agreements. Ultimately, I believe that there exist universal truths. This is a postulate for me because it encourages me to find good disagreeing debate-type partners. What is needed is two or more people who can acknowledge each other's valid points and hash out some simple statements that everyone can agree on, even while they disagree on other aspects blah blah blah. This is why most tv debates are pure shit - nobody's giving in, even an inch. I gotta say that the republicans i've seen are some pretty heinous offenders from this reporter's perspective. I'll tell you my standard rant about conservatism etc. I believe that conservatism is a valid perspective that has a whole lot of bum marketing. I've found that I agree with a lot of points that are brought about by libertarian conservatives. In theory. I do believe that they also make certain assumptions, for instance about things like level playing fields, informed consumers, honest competition etc. that make their theories fun, but no more useful than many socialist theories out there. At any rate, though, this perspective deserves champions, it deserves a place at the national (and my personal) table of debate. Unfortunately, republicans have got so many overtones of hate and intolerance that people are just so turned off. Also, think about it - do you eat at Taco Bell? shop at A&P or Barnes & Noble or Walmart? listen to corporate radio? you're implicit in the creation of the shitty jobs just by your (probable) consumption patterns. That's fine as far as it goes, but it sucks that MOST PEOPLE are UNCONSCIOUS of the fact that their consumption ENDORSES the creation of crappy jobs. Kapiche? A conservative perspective, fiscally, is one that favors a small, non-intrusive public sector. Sound idea, to some degree. i attended stanford university, where republican basically meant "unrepentant rich fuck" and democrat/liberal meant "whiny, spineless rich fuck". As the son of gas-station-attendants-turned-owners, who has hard-won scholarships to thank for his degree, I have a holy alliance with all things "free-enterprise", right. I just know enough about my situation to know that LUCK factored into it, that just a notch lower test-taking ability or meaner-spirited schooling would have FUCKED ME ROYALLY. Luck does not figure into the opportunity pool for those who were born rich. In fact, they don't even have to be smart - and very often, they don't need to be interesting. Hence, I'm no fan of the kowtowing republicans do to those who already have money. I view their championing of small business to be rhetoric, especially when I see things like their opposition to mobile healthcare and their encouragement of private schooling. (I'm a product of a public school. Subsidies would not have done me any good.) I am a true fan of small business, who constantly turn out the most interesting, delicious and exciting products (take a look at our vibrant computer industry). Republicans seem to be fans of "industry". Industries such as tobacco, alcohol and guns, not to mention power and paper and meat and all the groups screaming for "deregulation" so they can continue fucking things up in the name of progress (which means their profit). People have a right to choose what they consume, unless it's air and water, but they forfeit that right to marketing (which is education's dysfunctional often-lying cousin). I should know - I make my living doing marketing. I don't like "industry". Industry is BORING. I choose to avoid a lot of things provided by it, because, generally, they're bad for me. I'm not going to let that belief stop me from having a good time (you betcha I drink) but the truth is that INDUSTRY HATES SMALL BUSINESS and would like to see it die! Take a look at what Wal-Mart does to any town it enters, and you'll see my point. I should know - I grew up in Poughkeepsie. Republican RHETORIC is sound, but all politicians are in industry's back pocket, and republicans simply seem to be much more so. (Then again, they aren't hypocrites about it like most Democrats.) As if deregulating tobacco will "create jobs" that deserve to be created. This society *needs* people who dedicate their lives to preserving cool scenery and alternative fuels, who fucking scrub Valdez-coated ducks, teach welfare moms how to read and write, and make sure our sausages aren't made of rat-meat. I am not one of those people, because I'm sort of a greedy bastard too. But I'm damn grateful that we have these people. And it's oh-so-groovy that the NUMBER ONE TARGET OF SUBSIDY IN THIS COUNTRY is to friggin' FARMERS, not to 'inner city welfare moms'. The heartland is a WELFARE STATE. They're SAFE, though, because they vote Republican. Also, don't forget all those ridiculous military-defense complex companies, the construction companies taking FOREVER to build desperately overdue highways, and the towtruck companies that get to tow your car out of the red zone. Where would they be without government subsidy? Without billions of dollars of pork-barrel legislation to jump for like mangy dogs at a bone? NOWHERE!!! Reagan did a brilliant job of fooling people that he was governing when he was actually just spending like Imelda in a shoe store. ANY IDIOT could have spurred on the US economy by writing $3 trillion in BAD CHECKS. Reagan was the idiot who did. I *love* the free market (obviously; it's what I'm doing), but I pretty much hate "capitalism". I don't believe dollars should make the decisions; I believe GOOD IDEAS should make the decisions. This country and its economy are JUST FREE ENOUGH to let people start their own businesses and get loans after bending over backwards etc. and in that sense, the country is still great and full of potential. But when you have dollars, your tendency is to hoard the dollars invest conservatively or illegally build a monopoly buy expensive foreign goods none of which are very good things (other than perhaps b) for America. I *know* rich people, I went to school with them, they are nobody in whom I have much faith - in fact, they rank among the most boring people I have ever met. (Not *all* of them, of course. Some decide or are gifted to transcend the stereotype. As we know about stereotypes, though, the reason they exist is because they apply to many members of the stereotyped group.) As you seem to have instinctually known, I LOATHE so-called "social conservatives". You sound like you're more on the libertarian tip - your pro-gun values sound like you're for personal freedoms more than "Christian values". As if the Christians wouldn't like to see us both in prison for using the word "fuck" - they're the most pro-big-government shitheads around!!!! How libertarian moderate Republicans can bear to share the same party with these idiots is disgusting. Now I'm no fan of guns or the gun industry, i'm actually sort of pro-regulation, but I'm willing to listen to a contrary argument seeing as it's not my issue. You seem to be, I can agree to disagree on that for now. If you can argue for gun-freedom/gun-anarchy without your argument boiling down to "i've got a gun, it's neat!" I will definitely cock an ear your way. Because there are certain values we obviously do have in common, other than just a questioning, skeptical attitude and a willingness to communicate. One of the most important values is a disgust with the lumpen idiocy of most americans (probably most *humans*, but criticism has to begin at home). I believe that it is this fundamental idiocy - this willingness (nay, EAGERNESS) to be manipulated, fooled and betrayed over and over again - that lies at the heart of our nation's malaise. This "democracy" serves as a kind of valium, to keep people feeling like they have a say in what amounts to very little. We give a huge portion of our paychecks to a government that does very few much good, and when we see someone ELSE getting some, we call 'em cheatin' scum. A lot of people are treading water in today's workplace. On some levels, we've got more freedoms than we know what do with; but strip away the democratic rhetoric, and most of us live lives of solitary desperation, from paycheck to paycheck in a cathode ray coma. If you want to read how bad things are, this isn't the book for you. However, I've got a couple of good ideas on what to do about it. First and foremost, we must somehow rescue the word "revolution" from the scrap heap of history. how do we know the "revolution" when we see it? to what extent do we need to agitate and organize for sweeping, societal change, and to what extent should we simply enable individual acts of rebellion? one more time, folks - what Unamerican is fighting is NOT the GOVERNMENT. Listen: i've got a strong, strong bias against republicans, okay? but if you're going to go all "fuck the government" and say that that's all the revolution is, well, the republicans are the ones who seem to advocate cutting all the government's services etc. etc. etc. Go vote for Newt if that's all you wanna see, but if you've got two brain cells, you see that the government often cuts AGAINST the values and goals of Big Business, and in a weird way is allied with our cause of anti-hierarchy and anti-coercion. The tools that Big Business has to wield against freedom far outclass anything the Government can muster in a semi-democracy like this. Therefore, to me at least, overthrowing the government ranks really fucking low on the list of priorities as far as "revolution" goes. Also, i am sick of "punk" that only addresses the concerns of "punks" - self-referenced and self-satisfied indie-rock cliques that have given up activism for lifestyleism. I am into the kind of punk that once dreamed of taking over the world, or at least made ME dream of it. (I mean that in the figurative sense, of course - i can't even seem to take over my room correctly...) Stickers - well, EVERYONE seems to like stickers, and they're about pure expression that confronts squares on a daily basis, like mohawks once did but don't anymore, you know? Fuck weaponry. Fuck war. Tonight, I am a raving lunatic for peace. What the fuck do people kill other people for? What the fuck good do they think it will do? Motivations for this kind of thing - for MURDER - are diverse, and perverse and wrong, but I'm not going to try to heal humanity of its motivation to kill itself. But, "God" damn it, I AM NOT GOING TO SIT IDLY BY while this so-called "strong economy" is proud to employ (x) people in the MANUFACTURE of TOOLS that are about DEATH. I am going to scream my head off tonight, on this stupid computer, doesn't even work right, and tell you what I've learned. You probably got this at a show. You're not thinking about blood, you're probably thinking about a snack right about now. You're somewhat sure that the society you're being fed is lying to you. You see the lives of adults around you, wasted by capitalism into performing jobs that suck ass, and you want something better for yourself. This is why you're worth speaking to. I want to confirm your suspicions. Society is a trap. It feeds on death, it teaches you to be polled but never heard. I want you to want something better than that for yourself. I want you to channel that feeling, that pent-up rage against boredom, into something positive, something that speaks the truth. I want you to help me do something about death. War is an ugly fucking way to go, and that's what the USA sells. War is about people being dismembered. Fathers being tied and quartered in public before their suns. Bodies being boiled with battery acid, to prove the point that you don't FUCK with a Liberian looter. Women - ten-year-olds - raped, assembly-line-style by boys under the command of men under the amphetamine influence of weaponry that WE SOLD THEM, "God" damn it, THE FUCKING U.S. of fucking A. Because, to Reagan, those sales meant a healthy economy. An economy powered by a demand that he knew - that he KNOWS, lying on his palatial deathbed - would never falter. The will to kill is human nature. It is also something that GOVERNMENTS spend $1 TRILLION on EVERY YEAR. 48% of which "creates jobs" in THESE HERE U.S. of A. It could be argued - shit, it's common sense - that without this steady demand, the entire fucking machinery collapses. It's these defense workers - and the military they support - who spend money at McDonald's, who take their kids to Disney movies, who subscribe to Barely Legal, who log on to America Online. There are millions of defense workers in this great nation. Committed to "quality", to "excellence"... committed to the "customer". Churning out weapons, ammo, munitions. Dreaming up sophisticated computer systems that will fire lasers into crowds, blind children, napalm entire ecosystems. To pockmark nations with mines, to smash open heads at a distance, to ram shrapnel into people's private parts. Can weaponry be seen as kind? People in Rwanda paid their killers handsomely for the privilege of being killed with an AK instead of hacked to death with a machete. This fact ruins me.

Weaponry teaches us that blood isn't a big deal. That there's a huge industry standing behind you, smiling, as you shoulder your Kalishnikov and murder boy scouts - they're waiting to sell you more ammo, actually, and they dropped some coupons for them back at base. Machetes, at least, are ugly. It's a lot of work killing a man with a machete. You need to be filled with a certain high level of hate (or testosterone?) before you can pull a stunt like that, no matter to what tribe you belong. But a US fighter pilot sees humans as less than blips on a radar. WE KILLED TWO MILLION PEOPLE IN IRAQ. Two million humans. That is a big number. Have you ever counted to two million? Count to twenty, right now. Imagine a different person for each number. It is hard to make it to twenty. Count to two million, and your mind will begin to go. War is an industry, a huge collective effort by an innovative nation for promises of great reward. Have you ever sold something for a buck? It's cool, isn't it? It feels great, it feels validating and beautiful, that you have created something that is worth a buck to someone else. Free enterprise is a great way to meet people and have fun. I'm all for it... but then, capitalism kicks in. The buck becomes the reason you create. And then what you create isn't as pure anymore, isn't as wonderful, but you could give a fuck, because you've learned to sell it anyway. And it still feels good. And you've managed to actually do well enough that you can HIRE people! Talk about the ego boost! And you don't just want "some" bucks; you want them ALL, all flowing through you, all bearing YOUR fingerprints as if they can somehow make you immortal. You are at war. At war with your "competition", no matter how pure and good their ideas are. You imagine that you're somehow relevant now, I mean, shit, you've got LAWYERS. And maybe you realize, then, that they have you. It doesn't matter what you create; it's whether or not it sells. You feel good as long as the bucks feel good about you. And you discover a vast market of people trying to get others killed. Hundreds of millions of Americans own considerable stock - that is, a tangible financial stake - in the machinery of death. And a couple hundred, perhaps, have gotten so good at buck-gathering, that we don't even know what they do or make anymore - it's all disguised in a morass of tax loopholes and holding companies and publicists telling the media that they're safe as milk. Republicans look up to these people. Congress listens to their lobbyists. As a result, we have a world-class military, and a world-laughingstock school and healthcare system, but who gives a fuck, right? As long as what we sells SELLS, we feel good about ourselves, we feel like we serve a purpose, we feel alive. And on Friday, you get paid. US weapons were sold, in mass quantities (and often with US$ provided for anti-communist "stabilization"), to Somalia, Liberia, Haiti. Bosnia, Iran, Iraq. El Salvador, Columbia, Rwanda. Israel and its many enemies. These weapons prompted the Soviets to sell weapons to North Korea, China (which has gone on to create its own booming weapons industry), Angola (try living in Angola during *peacetime*), and basically everywhere we missed. This doesn't even take into account the so-called "consumer" weapons industry, the one that funds the NRA, the one responsible for Waco, the Freemen, Los Angeles, the tension you feel walking through any urban area, metal detectors at inner-city schools, the insanity of kids killing kids as if it were another quarter popped into Street Fighter. World War III is all around us. It is a decentralized Internet of murder, terror, and rape. It is our nation as a slow-motion race riot. It is children learning how to kill before they learn how to read. It is a booming brothel industry in Moscow. It is deforestation in Brazil and Oregon, and how the summers are slowly getting hella hot. It is the DMV being paid off by the Mafia, the NFL in the pockets of the CIA. It is tributes to King, X and the Kennedys instead of the genuine article. It is a white man conning a Native American into building a casino on sacred land. It is a nail driven through the head of a Burmese pro-democracy demonstrator - she's only fifteen. It is Wired-inspired snobbery, Details-mandated lack of fashion sense, a Sassy converted from engaging to way beyond boring for a certain undisclosed sum. It is a fourteen-year-old girl being told she is too fat, a young father flipping channels because GM just laid him off, a black man turning to alcohol in San Francisco's Tenderloin because he's got nothing else, and a white woman, feeling bad, but still scared to respond at all to his request for spare change. It is aging hippies fighting for marijuana legalization, hand-in-hand with RJR Nabisco. It is naziism reborn on the World Wide Web. It is 7-11 pushing a small Korean grocer out of business, Wal-Mart buying billions of dollars worth of Chinese slave-labor goods, gangsta rap turning murderers into icons. It is a billion wasted evenings and weekends of being spoonfed the latest and most "infotaining" lies and half-truths on television worldwide - every night. Which also means a billion 'zines or journal entries that never got written tonight, a billion conversations averted, a billion lies reinforced in separate heads. It is a nation of temps, a computer industry plotting the next hit wargame, a suicide bomber in Sri Lanka. It is punk rockers who have discovered heroin, punk rockers who clamber onto MTV and are satisfied, punk rockers who have totally forgotten that disgust with society and its norms, not Manic Panic, was what got it all started. World War III is YOU, with your lonely, irrelevant, isolated life. The fact that no matter what you do, you're alone. No matter how well the politicians whisper sweet nothings to you for your vote, you mean fuck all to this government and its society, as long as you keep paying those taxes and "consuming". Until you begin creating, begin mattering - that's right, prove your reason to exist, DO something, make someone laugh, provoke a reaction, start a small business, spread SOME kind of awareness that things are horribly wrong and that it's up to you to set it right - well FUCK YOU!!!! Fuck you and your privilege of sitting around and eating ten times the world's daily calorie ration if that's what you want to do today. Fuck you and the almighty Dollar in your pocket that the world is bending over backwards to try and nab. Punk rockers like to say "fuck the world". We are part of a proud American heritage, my friends. Fucking the world is about as establishment as you can get. I will tell you this much - I know what the enemy is. I stand against World War III. I stand against death, and the devaluation of human life that it brings. Against the packaging and export of death, the death we eat for our bourgeois dinner, the toenails being pulled from dissidents tonight in Tehran. And the fact that our great nation made it all possible, and continues to do so, fills me with revulsion and shame. The United States of America is homicidally deranged and must be stopped. This just may mean YOU. You don't NEED money - YOU DESERVE IT!!!!! Don't go looking for money when you are all fucked up inside. Go looking for money when you're feeling totally rad. If you wait until you NEED the money, you will cut a lousy deal. People are always willing to invest in a person who believes in himself. I believe in myself, thatt's how this book is in your hands today. What about you? Where's that sense that money is ATTRACTED to you? Think of attracting money as attracting a girl. You don't think the girl wants you to TRY too hard and look lik e a dork, do you? But on the other hand, the girl doesn't want you to FAIL to try. The girl wants something in between - coupled with timing and sweet persistence, she's YOURS and once she smiles on you, she will NEVER close her legs to you. Money is a woman, ain't it. You DESERVE money, you just need to believe it yourself. You should claim that you've been looking for investment with big venture banks. Or that you have a rich uncle who wants to invest in you, but you'd rather work with your friends. money isn't a problem, as you've always knew, to the man of ideas. I have never been able to save a penny in my life, but I get along okay because I know how to demand enough to live offa . If you don't go into negotiatns with a strong suit, you've got no advnatages and they'll eat you alive. Do they owe you a living? Of course they do of course they do! I can see that if Unamerican fails, it's the last try I will ever have at getting back at the system. Future generations will either be inspired or oppressed by us. If we fail, we'll be depressing for people a century to come - just as the '60s are looked back at wistfully by many of today's young. We wish we could've been part of the '60s, well I'll create a movement that makes kids wish they were there forEVER!!!! You are going to WISH you were alive during my period of life. I will make you feel free, just thinking about me. one of my influences is a book that came out in maybe 1989 called THREAT BY EXAMPLE. I think more than anything, those three words symbolize what we should strive to be. In other words, by creating lifestyles and communities and projects that are not beholden to systemic control, that spring from the heart, we personally experience liberation on a day-to-day level. the way i see it, the role of anti-mainstream culture is to build a network to promote revolutionary ideas. the ideas don't go far without the network, and in a way, THE NETWORK ***IS*** THE IDEA. I wouldn't be going so crazy trying to keep unamerican going if I didn't feel that we need togain more and more cool people to promote our ideas, and remember - nothing I'm saying is that original, i'm a child of my influences just like we all are. overlaid on top of the "boring/evil" america we all know and hate is the potential (and occasionally the reality) of a joyous, energetic, and driven America that promotes freedom and equality and true progress. unamerican activities is striving to make that TRUE america MANIFEST, to make it EXIST.

the government isn't even the enemy, not really. I'm much more afraid of institutions that don't even APPEAR to have any real power - such as NBC, Microsoft, the Promise Keepers, etc. None of these forces have armies or guns or anything, but they influence minds AWAY from this do-it-yourself network that I believe in. The enemy is MUCH broader than the "government". there are certain "issues" that have been used to divide people of radical minds for many years, and I'd love to see that NOT happening in MY community. I'm talking about HOLY WARS. Holy wars are debates where both sides are deeply entrenched in either an ideology or an anti-ideology, and such conflicts invariably lead to raised voices and the splintering of the group. some examples of holy wars: omnivore vs. vegetarian vegetarian vs. vegan (I've seen it!) sXe vs. gimme-drugs sXe vs. vegan sXe (yup, seen that too!) mac vs. ibm pro-choice vs. pro-life atheist vs. agnostic vs. christian vs. some other religion vs. pantheist blah blah work in the system vs. fuck the system etc. I am looking for a forum where I can discuss the possible impending doom of the yucko culture that runs these united states, and what to do to bring it about sooner. If I can find others who have the same opinion of the future of the USA, we will have strategy, positioning, news and planning to discuss. But we will also be susceptible to the common social diseases that plague such groups. I would like to figure out ways of avoiding such common problems up-front. One common issue that breaks radical groups into splinters is the meat vs. no-meat debate. In my opinion, I'm inclined to side with the no-meat crew because what they're suggesting is anti-status-quo. Any anti-status-quo perspectives deserve a VOICE in our culture. Vegans and vegetarians want to make the consumption of meat an issue. Fine. What this group should be doing is giving the vegetarians ideas on how to raise their issue to the spotlight IN NEW WAYS. (Try sticking political labels on meat at a grocery store! What better way of making meat seem yucky than by pointing out that meat LOOKS yucky?) That said, EVERYONE MUST MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS about the issue that's raised. And vegetarians, face this fact - NOBODY IS GOING TO STOP EATING MEAT BECAUSE OF AN EMAIL FLAMEFEST. Or any other kind of confrontational activism. Got it? It's counterproductive, ineffective and besides the point. There are more effective ways of spreading this gospel, and let's discover them! Unamerican's role is the empowerment of "unpopular" points of view. We put that word in quotes, because we feel that given the right level of media intensity, many of these points of view are FAR more popular than they seem now. For instance, the "fuck work" campaign is meant to destroy the stupid idea that people don't mind working for the man. It might SEEM like they don't mind, because they don't TALK about it, but who among you wouldn't react with delight upon being given one of these stickers? That said, even if you're the Ultimate Carnivore, if you're down with revolution, you gotta love the idea of people bothering squares about their meat-eating habits. ANY BOTHERING OF SQUARES IS COOL. And as long as you go along with that thesis, you're unamerican to me. i guess my problem with school choice isthat there are concerns that don't necessarily prioritizequality-of-education in this country, namely race. what happens when parents want their kids to be, say, with only kids of a certain ethnic group? more than they want their kids to have a good education? you'vegot the whole segregation issue all over again, and there's a strong chancefor the idiotic biases of the parents will be reinforced in yet another way. also, the issue i have with libertarians is not necessarily with their visions of "ideal" situations. In a perfect world, school choice would inject a much-needed dose of competition into our stagnating school system. But we've got to remember that as much as we dig free enterprise, the flipside of the coin is capitalism - e.g. systems engineered to TILT the game one way or another. One voucher proposal is that parents be given a tax break - e.g. cash - to pay for schooling for their kids. This would be a pretty bad idea, non? Basically if you've got "good" parents that really have your best interests in mind, that's great. But if you've got crap (or even negligent/overworked) parents, here's yet another chance for them to screw you over in a big way. As important as parents are, the whole institution of parenthood often takes on elements of hierarchy and coercion, and as an anarchist, i regard that as a threat to freedom. i hate to be so binary about it, but just like any tool, drugs can be used in "good" and "bad" ways - or, more appropriately, "interesting and life-affirming" and"boring and death-enabling" ways. anyone out there who's dabbled in pharmaceuticals knows what i'm getting at. "drugs" is too broad an umbrella - saying "ALL DRUGS ARE BAD" is the same as saying "ALL RELIGIONS ARE GOOD", and NOBODY says that. Since that's the case, we need to evaluate not the drug, but the person. "Drugs don't fry brains. PEOPLE fry brains." We've got a culture that is SO BORING that people are grasping at straws trying to stay engaged in life. This is bullshit, but it's a larger issue than just "are drugs good?" Drugs aren't meant to be a REASON to live, but they do allow for interesting perspectives on your life. Unfortunately, if your life isn't that interesting, being on drugs is an easy answer for that problem. i mistrust easy answers. your protest inspires me and inspired an entire country of people who read the news... now the idea is that maybe 5% of the people checking it out in the paper will dig your message, but THAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FIVE PERCENT THERE IS. The idea of unamerican is to locate and inspire and ORGANIZE the five percent of people who are inclined to take action upon being inspired. Most people get inspired and do jack shit with that energy, but I feel that Unamerican people want to change this society and we change things through ACTION and ORGANIZATION, not just words. I've got no illusions about changing anyone's life. I know there's art and projects that have changed mine, and I'm grateful, and the best way of expressing my gratitude is to redouble their efforts. The art that inspired me gave me a bullshit filter, and now I know what feels like TRUTH and what simply doesn't. It is my job to get that truth as far as possible, to replicate it over and over and over and over until it's everywhere. Think about what we're selling, guys. We sell stuff that says things like FUCK WORK, END THE USA, COPS SMELL FUNNY, JESUS HATES ME. I am of the opinion that it is impossible to sell out such sentiment. These stickers are salt with which we can plow into the earth so that the weeds of Wageslavery, Empire, Fascism, and Organized Religion die and never come back. If we can get twelve-year-olds thinking such things are hip, thinking those ideas resonate with them, well isn't that a lot more important than chatting away on this listserv? Hot Topic or Urban Outfitters can't sell out "fuck work". Hell, Time/Warner couldn't sell out "Fuck Work". These companies depend on people WORKING so that they can CONSUME from them. The more we believe in getting rid of the System within OUR OWN LIVES, the more papercuts we can inflict on the System. And the more people thinking like that, the more lemon we squeeze into those cuts. It is my goal to get this nation to THINK TREASON. Ever see that movie "Oh "God" Part II", where the little girl comes up with the ad campaign "Think God"? Well, that's the idea. I don't care if I have to ***give*** the stickers to stores - I need RECRUITS, I need BODIES, I need PEOPLE who will think with passion, individuality and justice and VIEW THIS NATION WITH CLEAR EYES. If it helps me reach even ONE MORE member of that Five Percent, I'll die satisfied. Because we've got a lot going for us right now, here on this listserv and in the other aspects of the UA community, but it OBVIOUSLY AIN'T ENOUGH. If we can get so many people acting that it makes people feel STUPID unless they get off their asses - THEN, to me, THAT'S REVOLUTION. That's MY version of changing the world, ladies and gentlemen. I made many mistakes when I was younger, and I make them still, but I know that through communication the People of Flavor can collectively TRANSCEND those mistakes and DESTROY WHAT BORES US ON SIGHT. agreement on the concept of "God" is one that's torn radical groups apart in the past. whereas groups that AGREE on the flavor of "God" (e.g. religious bastards) have instant unity, often across class/race/gender lines, we radicals wind up splitting ourselves apart on matters of little import. let's all agree that IF there's a God, He/She/It wants this death-culture to go DOWN. and that, in that case, we've got a sacred duty to make that shit occur. and if there ISN'T a God, it's in OUR self-interests to make the same end come to pass. and that therefore, there's no functional difference between the two camps at all, as far as the actions of this group are concerned. I guess my only mission is to find more and more and more people who already agree with me, in the hope of building a network of like-minded people. Why? Well, I'm not sure. Perhaps I'm not the one to figure out what purpose this network is meant to serve - all I know is that building it FEELS GOOD. I think if this network is what I hope it'll be - which is, chock full of engaged, vibrant people - someone on it is going to have a generationally-sweeping idea and turn it into a historical force. That's my hope, and I think it's the best shot at "moments of existential communal ecstasy" I can imagine. About losing my youth energy - I'm not sure it's about "burning out". I think the more accustomed you get to living a life of energy, the more you'll kick and scream against losing it. I think working for the man sort of makes us LAZY, makes us view work as an obstacle to joy instead of a potential means toward making history. That's one message I'd like to get out to the kids that I can reach.

The ultimate weapon of mass destruction is the dollar bill. My dad worked for IBM for twenty years, and I interned there summers through college. It's socialism, man, plain and simple. My dad now works at this chip company here in silicon valley, Applied Materials, which is FAR more entrepreneurial and he says he's gotten stuff done at a pace four times as fast as he ever did at IBM. Two words - CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS. People who form businesses need to be hooked up with a community of OTHER people who are forming/have formed businesses. This network already exists, of course, in the form of mentor programs etc. - but it's my intention to make this network far more exciting. This movement towards small business is nothing short of a revolution, and any revolution should attempt an ideology. I'd like this new generation of businesses to forego the mistakes and the evils that the existing champions have made and caused. Simple. there's a big difference between "following" someone and being INFLUENCED by someone. all people with any interestingness at all about them are influenced by each other. Or, in other words, "every band starts out as a tribute band". I feel that it's the first of the crazy-way-out-weirdo sites that have scared so many parents in Paducah to be TURNING A PROFIT VIA A MERCHANDISING MODEL. There are other mailorder companies, sure, and there's the whole adult-site thing, but we think we're special, and I think that merits attention. We have CREATED our product line and model based purely on the world wide web's ability to reach our customers, and it's starting to pay off. The web blurs the line about what is really the PRODUCT at a merchandise-oriented site. Is it the stuff you're pushing or is it the site itself? Just like in the hit-music industry, people first have to hear your music for free before they pony up the dough. It's the same with our site and our product. (Press is important too, and maybe that's why i'm asking for your advice...) I've been supporting myself off the proceeds of this site since March, and I think the website affords me a unique stage with which to reach a lot of creative, plugged-in kids (and adults). the promotional model has been strictly word-of-mouth, although we ARE giving away five million "fuck work" stickers this year. And we've got a compelling brand and logo, one that conveys who we are with a minimum of fuss, and that's important on the internet too. But isn't it crazy how DIVERSE the web has become? I mean, think of the niche that we're able to work on profitably (and thereby expand) - REVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT! Abbie Hoffman would SHIT! :) And the beauty of the web isn't that anyone can be CNN - they can't - but that anyone can be Saatchi and Saatchi. Because S&S have to create for a MASS MEDIA; they fundamentally need to appeal to the lowest common denominator (depending on the product). On the Web, we can build a business that REPELS as well as ATTRACTS, thereby making the attraction that much stronger. I knew I was doing something right when I first got hatemail. Hate mail means that people REALLY CARE. :) I just want to emphasize that people STILL can use the internet to make a good living with a combination of design, products that are unique and easily conveyed in 72 dpi, community, and - this is important - PERSONALITY. Ours are perhaps the only bumperstickers direct-marketed with the sense that an individual, rather than a bunch of "creatives", sat there and thought of them. People will pay for that. And that's where so many corporate content sites could learn a lesson or two, in my humble opinion. i'm doing this to get in touch with other people, and form a loose network that hopefully will be able to create a low-tech mechanism for disseminating counter-cultural thought. the idea is that only a couple words can be all that's necessary for a full-fledged idea-set to blossom in the minds of the people we're reaching. hence, we follow a keep-it-simple-stupid method of propaganda. When we reach someone like us, we don't need to send them a forty-page screed on the evils of the workplace - all we have to do is set the topic with a "FUCK WORK" sticker and let THEM do the thinking for THEMSELVES. generally, i mean to be both. as you might imagine, i hardly give a crap for labels, y'know? i've got far bigger fish to fry, and i've never had any desire to join any organized designation. i reach out to anarchists, mostly, because I feel that their pursuit of liberty is for real (as opposed to the "cut taxes now" motivations of libertarians). my critique of the society hardly touches the realm of government. my enemies are corporations like disney, wal*mart, taco bell, etc. as well as anyone who favors censorship or seeks to impugn on my liberty to be who I want to be (so long as I don't harm others). that means I fight communists and capitalists equally... but it certainly doesn't make me a conservative, that I don't like communism. Communism (any kind of centralized control over labor and/or personal freedoms) is stupid, actually. i'm a scavenger, definitely. yes yes yes, it isn't exactly copy-paste but i so feel one with a certain tradition, one that you and I are keyed into but is actually a lot more exclusive than we thought. i've got a lot to add, but it's like i've gotta educate before i do so the idea is to outline the "demographic of critique", and then working with that demographic to substantiate real activism change. over the years I have come to believe that the creation of intense, agonizing boredom for thinking people is only a small part of a giant plot to enslave all of mankind forever. the worst thing is that there doesn't even need to be a smoke-filled room for this to take place - all you need is media-driven capitalism, and suddenly events in life that once held true meaning are rendered obsolete. ever notice how the most creative kids in college end up going into advertising and marketing? makes sense, yes, on an atomic level - the kids in question are happy with their career - but think about it, they're harnessing their collective brainpower behind endorsing this shitty, shitty system. sad but true! We're doing this in hopes of MARKETING free speech, making free speech exciting and cool and new again. It's important to me to catalogue the breaches of justice that the System imposes on us, but I feel that other sites are doing a good job of that. What we're about is INTERACTIVITY. Our punk ethics tell us that we're FAILING unless we get people to START THEIR ***OWN*** DAMN STICKER COMPANIES or whatever. Unless we inspire action, we're just going to contribute to the problem - smart people just bitching about what's gone wrong. the sad sad thing is that my idealism gets put to the test every day as I struggle to make rent off this crazy thing. it's one of those things crazy people do in their twenties, and there are two outcomes for this particular brand of fuck-shit-up madness, in my estimation - cynicism or sellout. the web is full of so much shit, and it's turning into COMMERCIAL shit with great velocity... it is, however, a young enough medium where there's a chance for a steadfastly lone wolf to create something of real value for people, and that's my hope. i had a weird time this last weekend. this is going to sound kooky, but i freaked my girlfriend out because of a strange vision that i was going to die in a year. talk about motivation to get shit done, to get ideas out there, to get the world changed as quickly as possible. it's weird, i certainly hope it was a false alarm, but i am finding myself weirdly empowered (not even morbidly so) to continue to fucking rock out, both on and offline. it's true, we could be dead tomorrow, there's no supposed "justice" in death, in fact if I do die it'd be quite fortunate that I was able to savor the last year of my life extrahard b/c of the foreknowledge. Anyway, I am doing this project for some extremely important reasons, some personal, some political, most of all it's actually a RELIGIOUS endeavor. I don't affiliate with any existing religion, that is - I want to be part of HISTORY, the positive history of "man's desire to create a better world". If I can lend some definition to this historical movement, if I can add a sense of group awareness to the individuals so inclined, then I will rest easy knowing I've made my contribution. I work my ass off on my art and slack on my job, because i care about my art and i could give a rat's ass about my job (even though it pays the bills). Marx is intense, but misguided - centralization is a TERRIBLE answer for how to help turn work into a positive thing. The reason I work my ass off is because I own this business - it lives and dies on my efforts, and I've come to treat it like my child. I *love* unamerican, I take care of it like I would a baby. Really, no shit. I don't want people to work at jobs that will get them nothing but older. I want them to do GREAT work, work that will change their lives and ours. MOST JOBS ARE BULLSHIT, and I want to encourage people with the soul to hear to not settle for bullshit. I'm sure you understand. sure, there are a LOT of people out there who are just destined to be janitors or unemployed stoners or whatever. I guess my point is that they've got to figure out how to do it with STYLE GUTS AND ORIGINALITY or else it's like, why do they even exist at all? a lot of the point is that just by actually hunting my website down, anyone who visits is in a cut above. There are plenty of things boring style-challenged folks can do on the web - they don't have to come to me, and I sorta don't want them because I can't change ANYTHING for them. Merely by token of being interestED enough to tracuk UA down means that (I think) they're worth a shit. the people of Baja aren't really supplying Nathan anything; they're making no upfront offer to assuage his "guilt". The guilt, as well as the recipe for its abatement, are products of Nathan's civilization. If Nathan did this for any kind of validation at all, it's a consequence of his existence in the First World. I've got little idea what he did, and I too applaud his desire to turn a chunk of his life into something useful for others, but since those motivations are derived from a culture I'm against, they're sadly suspect. What Nathan did in Baja was a noble way of making the people of Baja a little more like US. And as well-fed Americans, we must concede that that's not so bad, but we've gotta be critical and think through the implications of this kinder, gentler imperialism. That said, again, this isn't Nathan's fault but the energy that he had towards making things better is sort of redirected away from actions that could directly pose a threat to his own society. As a result, Nathan comes back a better man, but is left without context with which to apply any awareness of his learning, and he gets a job and slowly that learning ebbs away. well, i do feel like there is a SUBSET of humanity that's worth a shit. it's a small subset, but my answer to it is separatism. fuck the boring idiots, let's figure out a way for them to have their world and us to have our own. and that's what creating a radical subculture is all about....until of course the mainstream inevitably exploits us, at which time the older ones get disillusioned but hopefully the younger ones are appointed to carry on the struggle. i've just had a customer of mine point out your impression of our site in your MicroTimes article (http://www.microtimes.com/162/gulchgossip.html), and i've got some pretty strong opinions of you as a result. please prove me wrong and reply to this email. jonathan, i run a website and small hobby-turned-company called Unamerican Activities, which I feel you unfairly lambasted in your column. I'm completely baffled as to why you would spend your precious column inches on kicking the shit out of a guy like me, in some pretty unenlightened ways. you quote me out of context, you call me a machiavellian upgrade to Bill Gates (?), and all because i give you a sticker at a party? HUH? i understand that you've got issues with some of the ideas that we print. i also respect your right to express this contempt from the highest mountaintop, if that's your desire. however, my friend, there are bigger fish to fry than me. I am honored to have merited such a response, but can you look in yourself and explain why? You take issue with my intolerance for boring people, which I admit is real - but through your oh-so-cyber my-aren't-we-wired judgement of sites and projects, aren't you expressing the same thing? You also seem to take offense at the fact that we actually SELL THINGS - derisively noted as "absurd, dead-end, negative, and retrograde" in your "all-knowing" gaze. It fills me with deep regret that you feel this way, and upon your request, I will forward your evaluation of these products to the 12,000 customers we have served thus far; I'm sure they'd be able to shed some light on their appeal.

I wear what I like, as do most people in this town, and dragging that into your "evaluation" of our site is simply pathetic. In fact, the temptation to reply point-by-point to your tirade is great. However, I want to help you see the larger picture about what Unamerican is. I think that's a better use of your time and mine. Listen to me closely, Jonathan. I am EXTREMELY proud of what our website has achieved, and I ***know*** that it kicks much ass over the typical-white-boy college-educated artsy projects you regularly tout. I'm living proof that a content-oriented webzine can turn a profit without advertising. That bothers you? I make things that reflect who I am and what I believe, and you have no IDEA the joy this generates in both my customers and myself. Your abrupt revulsion to who I am and what I stand for... well, it stinks of prejudice to me, prejudice against anything that doesn't "behave" the way you'd like it to. I suspect it reflects deeper prejudices as well. If we'd been more formally introduced, perhaps i could've had a chance to invite you to an online community that actually, pardon my french, GIVES A FUCK about the sorry state of culture in America. Look at you. You've got a cush gig as the resident weirdo at some IPO-loving corporate magazine. Maybe you've worked hard to get there, maybe you just lucked out, but either way what you wrote about us indicates to me that you're a simple-minded elitist asshole. Please let me know that that isn't the case, if only for the sake of my own piece of mind. Yes, I care what you wrote. I'm sensitive to that, and I would like to improve my approach in such a way that it appeals to you and others like you. Here's your shot, buddy boy, to give me some actual constructive feedback. My project will go on without your endorsement - shit, we are PROFITABLE, very much so, and why quit now? - but underneath all your weird rage I detect that you've got something to say. i thank you for your time, because it's obvious to me now that you're a reader as well as a writer. I'm pretty sure we could have an interesting coffee about the politics of selling things through the web and through alternative marketeering. I toe the line between hypocrisy and irony every day, as you might imagine, and I can see the critique underlying what I'm doing as clear as a bell. Since I SEE that critique, I sure know how to help assuage it, given the chance to do so. i agree that even hating our site is better than ignoring it, and you *did* get the fucking URL right. :) That said, I know it deserves better, and I wrote to you because I sense that you and I have a lot in common - if something gets your goat, you kick the shit out of it, and I respect that. Hypocrisy certainly must be fought against tooth and nail, but it was the implication in your piece that I'm the hypocrite that really hurt. As I explain on the site, I'm just a kid who's figured out how to do something cool online and get paid for it in REAL DOLLARS (not through some "angel investor" or what-have-you). I share with you your anger at web hype. Last night, I was at the press conference after O'Reilly and Associates' first-ever Freeware Conference, and all that the stupid reporters could talk about was money. (Okay, maybe it wasn't ALL of the reporters - it was the alpha-male reporters from corporate magazines - but for their part, they went well past journalism into the realm of attack.) It's like, here's Linus Torvalds and half the Apache Group and Phil Zimmerman - and other people without whom the internet simply wouldn't exist - and these reporters could only say "where's the money? where's the money? how will you beat Microsoft?" I agree that so very often, money and inspiration are mutually repellent. But! People PAY for things that they really like. How many people would pay to read ANY webzine? Shit, last I heard Suck.com was on the chopping block and their book was selling pretty miserably - and they actually are semitalented. At least their book reflects that advertising is simply inadequate to keep a good thing going online - which is one of our tenets, an opposition to advertising that stretches beyond simple awareness-building into the realm of mind control. People GIVE a fuck about us, and it isn't just because we push product - it's because, in their minds and ours, we STAND for something. People - not investors, not advertisers, but REAL HONEST TO "God" BOYS AND GIRLS AND MEN AND WOMEN - are funding our growth, because we have a good model (merchandising), we come across as honest believers in what we make, and we're timely. People want to be more political, but politics has been turned into a shortcut to boredom, and the media does all of our "rational thinking" anyway. We want people - individuals, not just reporters - to BE more interested in politics, and therefore we endeavor to be INTERESTING AND POLITICAL AT THE SAME TIME. Don't you think THAT is a good use of the web to change history? I do, and I want to get paid for doing it, because frankly I want to do it full time (and more). I think the stumbling block is partially caused by our name. People put us in the same boat as, say, the Unabomber or whatever. Fuck that. We are about REBOOTING AMERICA, not destroying it. As you may recall, the House Unamerican Activities Committee of the 50's and 60's was as close to a fascist wet dream as this country had ever seen (until reagan, that is... but that's another rant). Our name is intended as a commentary that fascism has many disguises - and we will forever be opposed to ALL of them. It's so crazy that you paired us up with Cyberslice.com in your column, also. I wonder how they're doing compared to their expectations. I'm sure the biz-school type in charge of THAT fiasco knows all about the venture circuit, knows how to do a balance sheet that makes him look like an avatar of lakshmi, etc. But I don't think he has a viable model, and the site he runs is simply lacking in personality, "God" bless 'im. For what it's worth, I know we're doing far better than OUR expectations - shit, we're two punk rockers, you know? I started Unamerican Activities with FORTY BUCKS. I would love the press to throw THAT raspberry in the face of the VC-addled nitwits in the 415/650/510/408... but of course, they won't, because we aren't worth several million dollars and/or headed for our IPO. Shit, we don't even have a "board of directors" - just two kids, two apartments, and a girlfriend with a car. When I read your article, it sure did feel like you saw something WRONG with that. But if there's people the web (and web commerce) needs to enable, it isn't Michael Dell - it's kids like us. "We The People." Y'know? the whole of unamerican is a semi-religious process, and i don't really have a name for the religion i feel, but i know it's bubbling through me at this instant. That's why i try to spend as much time speaking the truth as I can - it's PRAYER to me, and it's hell of fun. :) the book that i've excerpted at http://www.unamerican.com/core/truth/ is a pretty interesting expression of my faith. it's like, undefined, constantly evolving as people add to it, and comes to you in unpredictable moments. buddhism is rad, yes, and all eastern religions have the advantage of being (largely) DESCRIPTIVE (describing the world) rather than PRESCRIPTIVE (telling you what to do). One of the things Unamerican is about is "speaking the truth in five words or less", and I feel that that very act is the core of our liberation from the system of this world, the system that tries to drag us down through its institutions and its boredom. my religion - it ain't about good and evil. It's about INTERESTING and BORING - signal and noise, inspiring and dull, whatever. Not 1 or -1, but zero and infinity. Western religions have some evidence of this philosophy, but it's all buried in the practice of bullshit hierarchy that they call worship. it's weird - that abortion thing was sort of a moral issue, but I felt that I could see the TRUTH in the matter, which is that we'd have been crap parents at this stage in our lives. A crappy parent is something no kid deserves, because crappy parents lead to crappy kids, which reinforces the system I hate. So ironically, yeah, it was a moral decision to make sure that doesn't happen, at least not with my fingerprints. yeah, you really, REALLY hit the nail on the head here. we're far from stereotypical, and it's sort of weird - we're unable to categorize ourselves very successfully, so it holds us back sometimes. But we are trying to encourage dissent without resorting to the typical "fuck the system" tedium that most "radical" groups tend to embrace. We would rather be wrong than boring. :) Of course, we hope we aren't TOO wrong!