And a happy New Week to you all.

I write this from someone’s desk at Interscope’s New York office. The place is fucking huge, and very clean. There is a piano down the hall. Jeff has guitars in his office. There are are huge NiN posters everywhere. And somewhat less huge Lloyd Banks ones. It concerns me that I’ve heard less new music this month than at any time since I was a pre-teen, but not too much.

The kids are still up that beautiful mountain, and I hope they’re having fun, and haven’t found any more gay porn or dildos. I would be happier if they were enjoying the chipmunks, bears, trails, river, sauna… I am sure Birddogg is enjoying the latter. The short time I was up there, he spent… I’d say 82% of his waking hours sat in that sweat box in the nude. Bless his dextrous fingers and his bald head.

So, I am still very much in Limbo. I am very aware that everything could still fall to shit. But that is OK. I have written yet more words on paper, with music in my head. A rap song and a half, and a showtune.

“I only cry at the movies…”

And that’s what matters. If I were suddeny unable to do this thing, to make into sound what wiglges through the back of my face, that would be a couse for concern. But I know that I’m going to be OK forever now, whatever happens. I can do this.

Baby Bo emailed me today! That was pretty amazing. I guess a lot of people in englandland are under the impression I came back the other week, said goodbye to those that I wanted to, and buggered off for good. Not so! Understand - I was in the country for 20 hours and had top pack my flat up, amongst a number of other irksome tasks. I will come back and see you all properly just as soon as I can.

I’m crashing on Jeff’s luxury sofa this week. Jeff has the biggest TV in the world, and some newfangled system that allows one to watch numerous episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Simpsons and South Park and The Odd Couple at the touch of a button. The future sure is something.
,br> Jeff also has mikes and a piano and a funny keyboardy synth machine, and some recording box or other. Being a PC based musician (ah ha) a lot of this stuff looks daunting and alien to me, but I look forward to playing with it later. And I am told there is a PC on the way. This is news that fills my heart. I shall be able to bash out these songs that have built up, and get going on The M Ixtape Vol. 3…

Any of my people that have anything to add to the tape, mail me at this address. This one’s gonna be fucking MONSTER.

Caged animals, it dawns on me, cannot hunt.

I urge you to bomb all zoos.

Still, I am getting through an awful lot of good music, despite feeling like I might tear out my belly with my fingers.

Oh good lord.

Cat Stevens will not stop skipping.

This is what happened to Matt Johnston.

The The might well be the greatest band name of all time.

So, living in the future Internet Joy. I MP3d Moff these raps earlier, and he got them, and finished his album. “Too fucking dope,” he wrote in an email.

“Got it mixed in, added a bit of distortion on the screaming, dropped the beat out on ‘we really give a fuck’ and its perfect. The album is all done now that was the icing on the cake. ItÍs phat because it was a track me and Mick Harris made.”

Scorn are like, Moff’s favourite thing ever. Apart from ‘Check Your Head’.

Moff continues: “The lyrics are excellent, actually you sound like Steve Albini Big Black era when he talked more then shouted… sounds equally as pissed off.”

Thank you Moff, you have made me very happy in my Limbo!

Mothboy’s album comes out on ad noiseam in October. You should read this interview. It is enlightening.

Whoo! The phone is ringing!

Oh. It was someone looking for the Hit Factory, whatever that is. I was too overcome with disappointment to say anything funny.

So, I was booked to play the Placard Headphones Festival in London today.

I am not playing the Placard Headphones Festival in London today.

I am in Limbo, currently listening to this Sleepy Jackson album. I appreciate the scope of the man’s vision, but the only good bit came half way through track 11, when he ripped a Cat Stevens melody.

“Ooh, I think it’s gonna take a long long time…”

In Limbo I have $15 and have been wearing the same clothes for three days. But I had a fucking hardcore shower, and I smell nice. My clothes are less nice. But I am nice.

Yo.

I got my first food in 30-odd hours this morning at a meeting. That’s how we rappers roll, in Limbo. I nearly blew my cash on a movie, but that would have been too stupid even for me. I am going to get a bar job to tide me over these next few weeks or whatever it’s gonna take to make sure I don’t spend the next decade banging my head against a pebbledash wall screaming.

Just as soon as Jeff rings this landline, and I can drag my nigh on uncontactable mobile-less ass out to enjoy the sun, and walk the streets.

And get a job.

Ah ha!

Dizzee laugh.

Limbo at this exact second is Sioux Zee’s chamber on East 16th. It is full of brilliant records. She has Carter’s ‘1992′. I assumed no one in America had that.

Oh God. That was 12 years ago.

This Sleepy Jackson shit is doing my head in. They’re on some, ‘I wish I was Bob Dylan in The Waterboys’ right now. They cannot pull it off, for they have not the tunes.

Hang on.

Dizzee is on now.

So, I wrote my first real time rap song last night. I was wandering New York, as I do, and I stumbled into Union Square, and sat my ass down and wrote for a couple of hours. Shit is crazy ass astounding down there. It’s like a big playground or something. I was interrupted by numerous cats, and I wrote them down too. In sequence at one point - kid, crackhead, dimebagsalesman, tramp, kid. And so on.

But, like I said, I am waiting on a call. So I’ve been mooching about the internet, listening to Brother Ali, Preemo beats on the excellent www.undergroundhiphop.com, meaning to answer my emails, daunting and lengthy as they are…

I bust out Mothboy’s raps yesterday. I wrote them sat on that firehydrant the other night, innit. Incredibly, they fit the beat (which I’d not heard) super fire. I go out on some screaming shit on that one.

Yo, they got a chapter from that house Of Bush, House Of Saud here. It is pretty funny. And chilling. Ice cold. michaelmooredotcom is on some next shit.

For some gay ass reason I can’t type this shit straight into my content manager system in my website on this computer. Or see my website. This shit is hating on flash. SO! I gotta find a way to get it uploaded. I think the boy Zef is away or some shit.

So I just noticed the extent of the stuff that was deleted from here. Loads! Shit! There was all that stuff about Maryland, where I allowed myself to be pulled along behind a rowboat for a mile and a half and was attacked by a fleet of jellyfish, who bit me thrice on the cock - once on the helmet, once on the shaft, once where the helmet meets the shaft. And all sorts of other stuff.

Oh well. I always said these silly online things were kind of pointless, because they don’t really exist.

Let me tell you this - I am a happy man today, and I love New York. I fucking do. Last night I had the best night I’ve had for weeks - I wandered the streets alone for many hours, in quiet contemplation, then I went to the cinema and saw Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, which nearly made me cry. I left the cinema at 1 or so, and wandered some more, pondering the fact that, mostly, I only ever cry at the movies. And how I wanted to cry. I really did. But Eternal Sunshine hadn’t quite got there. I was on the brink… and it as then that, waiting for a crippled man to flash up and let me cross, I accidentally stabbed my eyeball with the velcro on the sleeve of the jacket I was wearing. It was a big plastic jacket, belonging to Spiky. The tears refused to subside for a long time.

I was like, Ah ha!

So then I went back to the apartment, almost empty now, save for that lingering catshit smell, and that lingering cat. A note informed me that everybody had gone to the Tribecka, a posh ol’ hotel a friend of Amy and Phil’s runs or something. They’d been on about trying to blag a room there, to escape the cat shit. However, the tone of the note was not an inviting one, so I did not go. Instead, I wandered the streets some more, and ended up sat on a fire hydrant at the bottom of Orchard, where it meets Houston, and I so sat there, and I watched the world, and I wrote raps, of sadness, anger, lonliness, confusion… and as I did this, and the raps flew from my wet brain onto the paper, so the people around me did fill that wet brain with wonderment, and so the tone of the raps did elevate, and within an hour or so I had pages and pages of CLASSIC RAPS!

I also met a whole bunch of really cool people sat on that hydrant. Just sat there, outside this American Apparel store. Man, I really, really love this city. I have, being honest, been feeling very alone up in Woodstock. Alone, frustrated, trapped. Yadda yadda. Maybe if I could drive… but halfway up a mountain in a leaky ol’ house full of porn and spiders did not, in the end, feel like home.

This home thing… I figure, I’m home. Home is wherever I am. As long as I feel comfortable in me, that’s enough. And for that, I guess I need a certain ammount of humanity, and inspiration about me. New York is so alive. Up there in the mountains… it is a different thing. I guess I’m not ready to retire just yet.

I am in an internet cafe on the lower east side of New York, and there are some kids downstairs shouting Dizzee Rascal lyrics. Ah ha!

So, there were a bunch of updates and pictures and things, and they got wiped! Oh, the tragedy.

So, a recap. On my last day on Rivington Street I saw a white thug in an open-top Hummer drive by blasting out ‘I Want The One I Can’t Have’ and nodding along with a serious expression about his face.

Then we went.

Wade and I ended up on the coach, as there was no room in the van, or car. We got there early, and checked out the scene. The scene is small.

We don’t actually live in Woodstock. We live in Shandaken, outside. Well, just outside. Half way up a mountain, hidden away by forest, amongst bears and chipmunks and what have you. In a big old dusty house full of weird porn and broken stuff, with brown water and giant ants. Like, there’s a jacuzzi, but it doesn’t seem to work. There is the biggest TV you’ve ever seen, but it’s got a big black tear across the front and doesn’t tune properly. It’s a two hour walk to the nearest shop, whihc is a petrol station, and does a good line in biscuits. The local girl’s got a lot of guns.

It is very lovely to look at up in Shandaken. Mountains covered in trees, mainly. Streams. Clouds so low you can jump up and punch them.

I miss Wade, who is back in London sorting out affairs. All my stuff is in boxes.

Appologies but, there have been some techinical difficulties here! Should all be back running smoothly within a week!

So, an hour ago I started this update, wrote, like, 800 words, and I sent it,and somehow that fucked up, so I shall write it again. I am in Maryland rightnow, and we just feasted on burgers and hot dogs and beetroot and potato salad,and I am showered and fresh. Phill and I stank of sea shit earlier, because I managed to drop my glasses in the sea slash lake slash river. I swam and dived,
or attempted to, but the water is so thick with algae you can’t see shit. Or you can see shit, but little else. My feet sank and stank in mud pie, and were eaten by weird sea animals, but that is OK. We had fun in our quest, and even if we never found the glasses, and I left my contacts in Englandland, that is OK. Stuff is OK.

Stuff is fucking lovely, really, here. The Dogg and I returned to Englandland for 24 hours on Thursday, to pack out flats up and to tie loose ends. The sight of the place, blanketed in cloud, depressing… but worse was the sight of the faces of my country folk, stony, grey, spiteful. I had gotten used to smiling at people and them smiling back, and vice versa, which is what people do in U!S!A!… in Englandland they look like they are about to twat you. Or call the police. The English are a strange, sad, self defeating breed, in some great part, but I am fortunate to be able to count a handful of inspiring and beautiful Britishers as my friends. I was also foolish to waste a great deal of my time on ninnies, narks, narcissists… And assholes, but we all suffer fools in our youth. I shall endeavor to avoid such swine in future. There are a few truly beautiful people in my life, and I’ll hang on to those. The rest can hang.

Ah, ha!

As Dizzy would say. >

So, yes. We flew to Miami on Virgin on Friday, with tiny sleep, and it was the fucking shit. We had three seats each, and an incredible amount of excellent entertainment to choose from, from a dope Woody Allen movie with Christina Ricki and that div out of American Pie, who was surprisingly excellent, to an animation about an “unlucky” Polish man, that made me cry. I fancied most of the staff. The plane was roomy and well lit, and arrived on time. They gave everybody a bag with socks and toothbrushes and paper and pens and stuff. That was amazing. American Airlines are fucking shit.

Birddogg lost his drivers license, and we had no insurance, so our plan to pick up Robert’s silver Buick and aim it up to Baltimore was scuppered. And so we had a bonus 24 hour holiday in Mimai, and this time I got to spend a whole day on the beach, swimming, tanning, caning, copping cellulite and silicone. Birdd didn’t burn, and I got an approximation of my old style on, with a cream cowboy hat and some Flyboy throwback shades, tiny white shorts, porno vests, platforms.

That night we flew back to New York on Spirit Air, the US Ryan Air equivalent that shits on American Airlines, and it felt like coming home. Smiles tore apart our weary faces, and the lights warmed my soul and my ass to the core. Wade and Spiky were thrown off their own night, but being professionals saved what became that AIDS carrying dude from Kids’ night, turning up the volume like, duh) and inspiring the usual hysteria and dancefloor turbulence. Meanwhile Birddogg continued to prove my “for every good is a bad” theory when he got his bag robbed outside the apartment on Rivington Street at 5am. He lost his passport, cards, money, clothes, my Flyboy Throwbacks, all the music he’s made, and all the underpants he owns in the whole world. But he is a Ninja so he didn’t even stress that shit. Two hours later we were on a coach to Baltimore, home of Cex, with hilarious evidence of Daniel O Dwyer’s genius and a load of dirt poor black people. You don’t seem to see many black people on planes. I haven’t. Maybe three? Four? The bus, a sorrier vehicle I had yet to witness, reeked of poverty and creaked along the highway like some great stinking hearse. Bill Cosby says it’s their fault. James Brown thinks Colon Powel would make “a great president”. Every time I catch a minute or two of CNN, or Fox, or ABC, or whatever, I choke and scream out in disbelief, and fat people eye me with hate and fear. The Christians are still winning. It fucking baffles me. But when people like Pat Buchanan are calling for the Administration’s resignations, you know something is up.

I didn’t see Cex in Baltimore, but Amy picked us up in a big red van car, and drive us the delightful and flat hour long drive to her parents’ wonderful home in Queen’s Town, on the east side of the Chesope Bay. Tomorrow we return to New York to pack Spiky and Amy’s flat. I will see if I approve of this paperwork, and Tuesday we move into our fortress in Woodstock. I shall get some glasses too, eh?

Hi this is Zef, Just writing to tell you there is now a Media Section here at akirathedon dot com! there are going to be many wonderous things there, but currently there are two screensavers, which you can download! Go and check it out!

Peace

Akira The Don and Birddogg Vol. 2, The Mixtape is ONLINE NOW! Thank you Melissa and Jozef, you have kept my virtual self alive, while my real self remains unreal. The Mixtape is amazing, anyway, and features, amongst other things, Meth VS Billy Idol Vs Chris De Burgh. And Birddogg’s ‘Wheels On The Bus’. And fresh rubbish freestyles from me and Carpet and Kool Kid, plus INCREDIBLE freestyle power from 6 year old genius The King Of Rock. And more. Full tracklisting is on the music page!!