There’s some dudes on scaffolding out my window messing with the glass or something. I am making a tune and they’re sort of bobbing about in time to the beat. It is sweet.

The tune is a thing called Dead Babies I half wrote a long time ago, when I was still in my old band. They didn’t like it much, as was the pattern. It is a difficult thing to do, to be honest. Its easy to write about the evils of others.

Like, I wrote this massive diatribe last night before I went to bed, but forgot to post it, and didn’t save. I never learn. The main point was this horror in New Orleans. And how, as with seemingly every vile thing to curse our people in recent years, we can blame Bush, and we can blame the Bankers.

It never ceases to amaze me how much money we pump into war, yet how little there ever seems to be for our people. And how this is never bought up in conversation. Bird Flu, as we have known for a long time, is on its way. And there is a vaccine. Red Ken’s people have it. Blair, and Bush’s people have it. The rest of us don’t. And won’t, until 2007, by which time many millions of us will be dead.

I can barely type right now, due to the rigorous upper boddy workout my man Taz put me and Jeff through at the gym earlier. Strapped up to all these metal machines, that looked like torture devices, yanking and tearing at the spoils of our vices. Skreeeeesh.

I couldn’t eat my meat afterwards, and could barely lift the ice cold glass to my quivering lips. I felt like I’d done too much drugs – that horrorful point where you know you went too far, and you have to just hang in there, and hope it fades.

Which it has, a little. I am still juddery, but the nausea has gone. Tomorrow will be more hardcore, I imagine, but if I am to tour and what have you, then I cannot be in the piss poor shape I have been pretty happy in for the majority of my life.

So it goes. Bankers is sounding fat. James has been prepping in his crib, and sent me an MP3. I keep changing that song, because it has to be right. It’s looking like it might get to the level I envisaged, however. It’s looking like this album is going to be of some worth. Which is all I can hope for, really.

Actually, its going to be fucking awesome.

Whoo!

By the way. You might want to read my man Jeff Wells’ take here. And read the comments, as ever illuminating and contrary in equal turn.

— Wednesday, August 31st, 2005

Oh Lord Save Me, I Sinned. What it is, and – sorry Jeres, but I am going to have to “go on” about my surroundings again, you slag – I moved into this apartment today. First I was in the studio with my boy James “James” Brown. No, first I was in a hotel. Then I was in that The Shed. Then I was here, which is, crazily, by the Virgin and the cinema in Union Square, which some of you may remember me falling for last year. Serious!

So I have been sat here on my sofa blowing smoke rings and listening to Felt and writing. Then I ordered a beef sandwitch and some vegetable juice (yum yum honey), and allowed the TV to beam forth. And from it, into my retinas burned Pat Robertson! Argh!

Argh!

Serious! Last week he was calling for the assassination of my boy Chavez, for giving the people some Skygoshdarned LAND that wasn’t being USED!

This week he is calling a twice democratically, OVERWHELMINGLY elected man a dictator and Saying he’s mates with Adam Hussein! Or equally ludicrous! And that – he says – GOD’S CHOICE, Bush, needs to run up on those heathens with some BOMBS!

Ugh!
Nah!

He wants to roll in a mountain of dead Venezuelan babies! HE IS A FREAK!

Oh help us!

He is a nutpole! He is a dingbat! He says he speaks for the Skygod! He says we should pray for George Bush to achieve his wicked despotian plan to further unbalance the Senate! If he believes himself he is certifiable! If he does not, he is maniacal! He says he is a Methodist. His method ist madness!

HAHAHAHAHA!

I SO FUNNY!

But serious! Don’t listen Skygod! Them’s trying to Cheat! Have you heard not the prayers of the fine and wise gentleman, my boy LaRouche? HE SEES A WAY OUT OF THIS AWFUL CRAZINESS!

LISTEN TO HIM, SKYGOD! NOT THE DOUCHES! He remembers what happened LAST WEEK! And in 1903! Do YOU?

(They just had an ad – “share the path, and share the glory” it said. Elitism! A pox on your crappy house!)

Those douches are gonna let untold thousands die in New Orleans! Come on you crazy swine, don’t be listening to them! Strike that Pat Buchanan! Smite that swine in the FACE! Or at least let your peoples know HE IS NOT SPEAKING FOR YOU, or if he is, THAT HE IS THEN, and that son of yours was a HIPPIE LIAR and you are a BIG MEANIE!

For a wise man was he, that boy of thine, of ours, of the earth, a wise man of many, silenced and stolen and twisted into that which it sought to lift us as a people above.

Serious!

Oh, Lord, the doucheyness. Save us from the doucheyness. Or else we might have to think about, like, doing it ourselves.

I leave you with some words from Pat:

“A young Christian friend of mine, Al Thyberg, owned a rough campsite up near New Preston, Connecticut, where he took boys from the New York area for summer retreats. He had just purchased an abandoned farm adjoining the camp, and we asked if we could take our sleeping bags, drive up, and spend a few days seeking the face of the Lord in the empty farmhouse. He graciously consented.

He fairly pulled us down a small path. Running through the underbrush, we suddenly came to a tiny clearing in the middle of which was a stone monument. I ran around to the front and read the inscription: BIRTHPLACE OF CHARLES G. FINNEY 1792 Attorney, Evangelist, College President Man of God It was as though we were on holy ground, and we kicked off our shoes and began laughing and praising God. I knew the Holy Spirit had allowed us to come to this place for a sign. He was about to pour Himself out on us even as He did on Finney.”

ARGH!

Serious!

Doesn’t that just make your BLOOD RUN COLD and your STOMACH tear up inside your ASS is sheer, lip-bursting, eye-gouging TERROR?! Or WHAT?

Gosh darn it, I must stop this gibberish right away.
OFF with the television.

Phew.

— Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

Holly and three of her friends are here to watch the MTV Awards.

Kanye West just shouted, “say WE WANT FREEDOM!”

And the crowd shouted, “WE WANT FREEDOM!”

As the roar peaked, the space was illuminated as an explosion of cash tore the pink air asunder.

And I was blown back into my chair, as if by cannonball, and was filled with a deep and powerful dread, and awe.

We are watching the MTV Awards. It’s fucking, nuts, people. NO WAY! Dane Cook is telling a terrible peedo joke and Johnny Knoxville was shown in the crowd comforting a visibly distraught six year old girl. WOW.

UGH! Those rotten Killers just won something! The mormon is gurning with grotesque glee and saying they have made history! Bishop Magic Mong is on! Ugh! Rotters!

Mariah Carey is freaking us out because you never get to see the left side of her face. SERIOUS! EVER! It is weird. At least Beavis And Butt Head are sort of funny.

So, they cut Shakira’s nose off. It is sad. I still love you baby, but I miss your nose, it was an ace nose.

You know what the best thing I’ve seen tonight is? An advert for a Hummer, with a big robot and a big dinosaur mashing up a city then falling in love to beautiful music. It said so much.

Everybody’s like, “oh my God, 50 is so gay.”

“Fag wifebeater,” shouted one of the ladies.

I like his belt buckle, personally. Anyway, My Chemical Romance are gayer. That porky singer looks like Adam West in Michael Keaton’s batsuit. Cradle Of Filth must be livid. This is shocking.

And Puffy won’t shut up about his friends in high places. And Bow Wow and Paris Hilton are bickering about who’s jewelry is the most expensive. He is a handsome lad, but his bragging about wearing $200,000 around his neack is ugly. This – is aspiration.

And no one, not even Green Day, has taken the opportunity to say anything about Iraq, Iran, Guantanamo, actually, anything of use to anybody. Apart from Jacob The Jeweler, he’s got more airtime than Pepsi, and they’re sponsoring it.

“If we can make it,” says one of Destiny’s Child, “any of you can make it.” Green Day are thanking Warner Brothers. And they mention Iraq. “Let’s bring our troops home safely.”

And then.

They big up Live 8.

WHOO!

“What’s live 8?” asks one of Holly’s peoples.

Well, quite.

Hey! Puffy’s wearing a “God is the greatest” T Shirt!

Wow.

— Monday, August 29th, 2005

Not only is my hotel room incredibly posh, and equipped with a fax machine. Not only does it have super fast wifi and a video and a DVD player and Bose ampspeakerything that my laptop is currently jammed into, spraying forth the mighty GLC into the ether. Not only is there hair conditioner in the bathroom, which gets replaced every day. Not only is there a telly in the bathroom. Not only is there a rack of CDs for me to listen to, and a very comfortable dressing gown and a swively chair. Not only does not only start to stop making sense when you’ve typed it out too many times. But I have developed super powers.

Serious! I think they’re connected to my moustache in some way, but I also think I might be able to mentally detach them as t’were, and maybe still have them when the tache is unwaxed. I shall pop down to the bar after this and check.

So, I have been out, which is unlike me. Holly took me up a building on Friday, and we stood atop a roof and heard dual drummers fail to drown out a hipster (I love that word!) take on death metal. What were they called? Burmese, I think. Yes.

I spent Saturday atop another roof, this one in the middle of Manhattan, filled with poshers and free booze and food and boobs and babies. Babies are so dope in the context of a day party. Anyway. I had good hummus and met a bunch of safe clarts and saw Spiky and went on a mission. Bannana’s brother, a fine southern gentleman called Charles and an animated and razor-spectacled chap called Kyle (who was raised a Mormon, but has only hung onto the Bigamist angle) and I dined on tiered mini Burgers downstairs, you know. It was there I noticed the super powers. We were all entirely amazed at our super powers. Then we went out, via another roof. And danced. And today I have a hangover. And tomorrow I start my working out stuff. I wonder if that will enhance these super powers. And I wonder if they’ll work in the UK. I don’t get hay fever over here you know.

Boy, I keep meeting young Bankers too.
“What do you do?” asked one.
“I make stuff,” I said. “You?”
“Stocks and bonds,” he replied.
“How’s that working out?” I enquired.
“How the fuck d’you think?!” he grinned, thickly. “WHOO HOO! TOP OF THE FUCKIN’ WORLD!”

Mothboy sent me this, then. I laughed at it. And it is true. I am glad I am not a baban in Kansas. Intelligent design is about the least intelligent thing I can think of right now. Apart from Pat Buchanan.

— Sunday, August 28th, 2005

I write to you from the external stirwell of one of New York’s gothic monoliths. Below my feel I see people, walking, cars, thusting. I am on the 8th floor. I I fell I mightn’t make a sound.

The flight from LA to New York went by in no time, thanks to the company of a safe and entertaining Australian lady (and Jeff). I didn’t even watch a film or nuffink. New York arrived in a blaze of light, then we waited for a cab for an hour or so and I DJed at the airport off of my laptop. A cabbie was totally feeling Bruza. Then I checked into my hotel, which was just like that place in that David Lynch movie where there’s, like, three or four stories set in one hotel over the course of, like, a hunnerd years or suttin. Only smaller. Hotels make me lonesome, which is sometimes nice, in a bittersweet fashion, but it gives me too much room to think. I took a walk about the locale, which I know so well now – visited my old internet cafe on Ludlow, my old pizza place near Rivington. Met a safe old dread who used to be in BAD. Met some rotten soriety (is that the right word?) girls. Read about murder in the local paper. Walked New York, as I used to, full of wonder and joy and sweet sadness.

I was lonesome in my hotel that night, and the TV made me very sad. I saw four girls competing for the attention of some douche, vowing to get surgery to please him, slagging each other off mercilessly for the cameras, while Oprah rejoiced at “equality” on the other channel.

I got The Fear, you know. The TV was full of my enemies. When it was off, the room was too. Swirling around like vicious ghosts. A man missing, I’d heard, last heard from fleeing through a canyon in LA with a pack of dogs after him, their masters baying for his blood. He’d lost his glasses, and someone said a shoe. Never heard from again. Police searching his hard drive for clues. Nothing but an answerphone message filled with screams and barking.

So I slept, and I dreamed lucidly, and with clarity, and I dreamed somebody loved me. And we held each other, and the walls bled, and the universe turned, and the sky roared with static.

When her hair turned black in my hands I didn’t even blink. As the blood rose to our shoulders, all I knew was she wanted a Ribena, so I swam to a shop and got her one.

I awoke bathed in reality, and it smelt like my dream.

We had lunch with James, and I am moving into a new hotel today, because my little Lynchian nightmare has no wifi. So to the Tribeka, and poshness.

Manyana.

— Friday, August 26th, 2005

So, my little brother Ally has set up some personality test, wherein you find out which of his gay demons you are most like. I, apparently, am most like Yoink.

You are most like Yoink. At first you seem like the ideal companion, bright,
cute, cheery, patient and humble. However, there really is a limited use for you. You haven’t as many talents as others and although
you are intelligent enough, your capacity for
thought is hindered by your willingness to
believe and/or agree with anything people tell
you. You are not only gullible, but also malleable as
putty. You are not very good at standing up for yourself
and it is quite likely that when you are upset
nobody cares, because nobody knows. Problems aside, you are a welcome addition to any
party and at least you have ideas of things you
would like to do with your life, even if you
are unlikely to ever achieve them.

Which demon are you?

Bollocks, in fact. Well, sort of. YOU didn’t notice when I was upset, did you? But never mind that. Today was beautiful again in LA. I went into Interscope to meet folks, and that was most enjoyable and informative. (I notice Gavin Rosdale has ripped of that Guiness ad for his new band’s artwork. Good one lad!)

Oh, but it is hardcore and mean at the top. Keep your head up Marshall.

After that I did a photoshoot with an immensely talented gentleman, which involved his studio and a lush brown background, then to the beach, where I splashed about in the sea in Santa shorts with a surfboard, and played Lego in the sand in a wetsuit. HOW DOPE IS THAT?! I love Lego. And never have I done any of that. So many firsts! Truly this is a place of wonder.

I am back up at Danny Saber’s now, finishing some shit off, before I fly to New York on the morrow. But I will be back. There is much more of this La La business explore.

Hey! Who’d have thunk the origins of Mormon were so well hidden? To the scores of you that mailed today confessing no prior knowledge, I urge you to investigate further. These people are Skygoddamn hilarious.

— Thursday, August 25th, 2005