Voice of the Beehive

I am having my life controlled by a deadly scourge... Yellowjackets have made a nest in my kitchen porthole and are looking to expand their empire into my already roasting apartment. The queen wants my open mouth for her throne while her drones go off and bully the other insects and people trying to keep cool. I want to buy pesticide and be very environmentally unfriendly. Yes, I want to kill some of God's precious little critters that are actually not doing me any harm yet. They just repulse me. If you look at the hive - you will see their pelvises rocking back and forth in an effort to mate or do something terrible. Very shades of Matthew Barney cremaster 2. Ewww.

However, let's skip those pesky bee's. I am sooo excited - I just got my friend Anna Oxygen's CD in the mail from Amazon!! Aside from being hella talented as well as my fave New Wave Mary Poppins by way of Neneh Cherry, this grrls gonna be a star - so grab em now!! ....

We are a Camera

I have been seduced by the image and drawn over to Fotolog.net to experiment what might be the coolest way to communicate since pictograms were considered crude grafitti. Fotoblogging promises to be a potential way for a 1000 Nan Goldin's to share their varying states of sexual dysfunction, longing empty pictures of foreign cities in exile, Cindy Sherman obsessed teens wanting to be someone else, or simply just pictures of your children or grandchildren. I decided to join this group for a time and see what happens. I'll continue to post the odd photo here, but daily - you are welcome to check out my fotolog...

Jewel of the North

Sometimes I wonder why I still live here, and sometimes I wonder why I'd want to leave. Days like this it's both terrible and amazing. Rage and Solace. You can't cut your teeth on scenery like this in New York, but then again, you can't chew up the scenery here either - it is what it is, an inlet which provides an accessible route for trading, a yuppie paradise, a quickly decaying dreampark and grand mall of Kennedy-Era enthusiasm, retrofitted to a once-booming electronics industry, now emerging with a hangover and concern for the future. Ahhh, S-Town.

NY-DC Photo's

Ok, ok - I walled up in my studio last night and worked on getting my vacation pictures up on Ofoto, or else it would have taken me months to do... But here they are in all their glory...

Ahem....You can click on the following in the order of the trip itself...

• D.C.
  
• New York
  
• Upstate New York
  

Apologies that I didn't get more of them. Admittedly - there are quite a few pictures and people that I should ahve got more of, but alas - did not. There were times when I wished I had my camera (Guggenhiem), but really didn't want to look like the obnoxious video camera wielding tourist freak that i can be, especially in NY, so I opted not to carry it much. In retrospect, I needed to get one of those teeny apex camera's or better yet - rig my phone to take pictures (but the latter is dangerous territory if anyone is around alcohol)...
Speaking of which, my man Momus has an interesting essay on "Photoblogging", which I've noticed that any tiny colorful thumbnail image against a white background immediately captures my heart... Perhaps I'll invest in a digital camera attatchment for my phone and start mob-blogging images that strike me daily? Hmmmmm...

Awwww - eeety bitty image.... In 'at cute?

Wonderful Town

I wanna do a quick shout out and thanks to all my homies in the big apple, upstate and DC for showing me a great time! Thanks to: Paula, Charlie, Ginger, Ian, Michael, Miraleft, Laura, Joey, Matthew Barney, Gerard Richter, Joseph Gordon Levitt, David Waine, the entire cast of Avenue Q, the fabulous people in the Village, Williamsburg, Park Slope, the Prada store, mr Mickey, Carol Channing, Sandra B, Amy Sedaris, the staff at the Abbey, Boxers, New World (except lose the guy in the cargo shorts), Juniors, CBGB's puppet slut theater, and countless other bars that I tripped, stripped, stumbled and spilled beer into... Thank you for keeping it real.
Pictures to be posted on Ofoto soon!!
JD

Voice like Honey

The only woman who sends shivers down my spine with her rendition of "I Loves You Porgy" passed away today at 70.

We shall miss you Nina Simone.

In the meantime - it's time to play:

What's Worse

Being stuck in Cancun with the icky coeds of priveledge or having to pay money to watch them on the big screen. Yes, I think I am truly going to be sick - they are filming a reality movie about guys and girls on break south of the border. If this were documentary - there would be those telling moments where these plastic people would break down on camera or witness some lifetime defeate and wince, blush or make the filmmaker turn off the camera. None of that will happen. These are people impermeable to real life and irony; they know how to act on television and show the crocodile crying jag for the last 4 minutes. They are not your real friends. They will never be your real friends no matter how much you identify with them. No matter how much they try to identify themselves as regular people. They are not regular people. They are industry. If you ever see any of them in normal social contexts outside of show biz, you should start yelling at them violently. Piggy, watch out - Seattle has your back.

In the meantime - you should catch this bootleg of the major media manipulator herself - Madonna, who's said to start re-tooling her anti-war video, American Life. Here's the original video in all it's shameless provacative glory... Hmmm, I seriously don't know what all the fuss is about - it's more fashionista than sandinista...

The Big Aural O

Ever liked a song so much it hurt? It happens occassionally, someone will compose the right hook that will stir memories, lust, spirits and the impulse to buy the next album. I'm listening to the 23 person Polyphonic Spree live on KEXP and i'm contemplating going to see them tonight. They hit those choral notes that both chill and excite you, despite the silly hippy lyrics.
Speaking of Aural Stimulation - looks like these folks have tapped into that very idea with the Audi-oh!, a pleasure device much like the Orgasmatron in Barbarella, rigged on nothing but music, music, music. I can only wonder what Wagner must feel like...
If you'd rather drink than listen to your pleasure or pleasure your listening, you can rent Who's afraid of Virginia Woolfe and engage in a very pyschotic, Albee-inspired drinking game! Fun for everyone!! Yes, even you Martha (GET ME DRINK GEORGIE!!!)...

Poets Progress

They don't make romantics like this anymore:

However, the world needs more romantics and people making beautiful melancholia without it dipping into gothy escapism or misplaced exoticism. Antony and the Johnsons is this amazing band and vocalist that does just that. He makes these Bryan Ferry like soul songs that are operatic and heartbreaking, singing like a soprano on a mission, dripping honey and a strange androgynous, alien air about him like a Keates for the 21st century.
But alas - I will miss him in New York and also when I return. His Tour with Laurie Anderson is nothing short of amazing, but alas - I have conflicting tickets to see the Notorious C.H.O... So the question is - do I want to a) laugh my ass off or b) spend the night listening to sublime music? Well, all I can say is - I'm not sure yet, but if I were you and missed out on the Cho presale, I'd take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to listen to Antony.

Fragments of A Dream

Today was an official spring day. The weather was temperate, the pollen count high, the sun not setting just yet before I entered the bus tunnel to take this whimsical photo. If birds were contracted to start singing, they probably would have, but due to noise ordinances, they can only play in certain stadiums before the hours of dusk and shortly after 7pm.
I was checking out the Whitney and wanting to see it when I get to NY, along w/Matthew Barney at the Gugg, and a score of other museums that I must see. So much to do, so little time. I also have to do taxes this weekend. Ugh. I have scads of other activity this and next week. Seems like there is a rush and blur about April - which is good. I need rush and blur right now. I don't need time to deliberate and agonize. Typically, April is the cruelest month, so sayeth Eliot:
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding  
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  
Memory and desire, stirring  
Dull roots with spring rain.  
Winter kept us warm, covering          
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding  
A little life with dried tubers.
I guess winter does keep us in a drunken oblivion, but then again - which month doesn't? April seems to be the month where you're working your ass off in a general direction. Let's hope the direction is going somewhere... In the meantime - have you ever created a Date Tape?, can you guess which one is mine?

What do I get?

I'm doing taxes. Actually - let me rephrase that - I'm struggling to get the tools to do taxes. I'm in a wrestling match with Quicken and TurboTax to install on my mac come hell or high glory. I know I'm probably going to owe, so this is why I've been puttering around the last three months and trying to not think about doing it. Instead, I've been devoting more time to learning more about my camera and do more pictures and interesting videos. Last weekend I started work on a project revolving slow shutter speeds and the Marilyn Monroe movie "Bus Stop". Check out the Marilyn treatment above - parts Warhol and bad camera work.
Speaking of camera's - dad's been going crrrrazy with the new digital camera! I think I've created a monster!!

We take a break from the usual war whines and po-mo indie irreverance to bring you a day in the life of a great man, my dad, born 57 years ago today!!

Happy Birthday, Pop!!

Actually, his birthday is tomorrow, I just had to get this up before he could see it. But see - he's celebrating already and he already has a day more to go!!! Rock on, old man!!! love, kid...

Fool for April

Hey - April Fool, did you read any good articles about the war lately?
Fool: No. Not really.

Appropriate for April Fools day - I'm reading an interview in the latest issue of bomb about Tom Sachs. I love this guy! He created an entire minature car racetrack surrounding Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation and Mies van der Rohe's furniture, a McDonald's restaurant, and 10,000-watt boom box, a ghetto, a modernist art park, a DJ station and had participants do bong hits, drink beer and wager for money. Deeper political implications of driving, modernism and project housing aside, I can't think of a better way to spend a first thursday (in this case, it happened Tuesday nights)... I think this man is the MTV Marcel Duchamp Mac Daddy for the 21st century.

Radioactivity

Been taking digital and analog pics over the weekend. Digitial will be displayed somewhere sometime soon, but in the meantime, here's a gangreen picture of me. I've since shaved off the facial hair (yesterday) when I realized how silly it looked.
Speaking of radio-active, my fave DJ is in NY for all you Seattle Expats looking to represent. (And yes, Ian - he likes Coldplay too...)
Always the morning faithfull...
J.D.

blame

Everyone is queasy and wary of what will happen next. We're not fearful of what others might do - although it's alwyas a constant thought - but what we're about to do to ourselves and our civil liberties. Why no one has stood up and said "If you tolerate this today, your children will surely suffer" is disheartening and sad. Well I did. I faxed my state congrebots and told them I really don't approve of cutting taxes to pay for this mess. $74.4 billion is obscene and insulting, even if you were crazy enough to think this war was a good idea. If you have a moment, fax your congressperson and tell them this just aint right, And you can too...
Yet - maybe we'll need all the money once our foriegn cred slides and no one wants to eat big Macs and shop at Gap anymore. Guess living in America - you often feel like you are working at the bad fastfood resteraunt with poor management. People hate you, throw paint at your windows in global protest, and you can't say anything because the mgt might fire you... (Btw - Picture above by the late Mr David Wojnarowicz, someone who understood what stifling speech meant and how many lives it cost in the battle to find a cure for aids.)

Shock and Awe

I wonder if anyone dwells on pictures like this? They are certainly closer to the hellish war than news graphics. Do people who are pro or antiwar see this and ever think - people are burning, dying, hurting. (Or on the other side - were the people out of harm's way?) We'll never know. We're so distanced, and again, the ripple of horror and fear shivers across humanity like a horse shudder. Something is going on. Something horrible. Something we cannot comprehend. Something we cannot undo. Yet this is spectacle. It's noise. It's show. It's business. It's an action movie with deeper political meaning than you can concieve of (because it will have a ripple into the future so far reaching it comes back to us).
This eerie detatchment from shock, this remote hurt and amazement reminds me of Laurie Anderson's Song "Night In Baghdad", about a journalist stationed during the Gulf War. I think it's somewhat fitting since we're just getting bits and peices of the war and yet we're trained to look below surfaces... Here's the song.

Night in Baghdad - Laurie Anderson, Bright Red

And oh it's so beautiful
It's like the Fourth of July
It's lie a Christmas tree
It's like the fireflies on a summer night.

And I wish I could describe this to you better.
But I can't talk very well now
Cause I've got this damned gas mask on.
So I'm just going to stick this microphone out the window
And see if we can hear a little better. Hello California?
What's the weather like out there now?

And I only have one question: Did you ever really love me?
Only when we danced. And it was so beautiful.
It was like the Fourth of July.
It was like fireflies on a summer night.

"Ducking for apples - change one letter and it's the story of my life." Dorothy Parker

I should feel fortunate. At least I get an apple. Some people don't get any apples. Some people get less than apples, they get apples taken away from them. However, Mrs Parker's vicious assessment of life seems so true at the moment for alot of people. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Who is giving it to us (no pun intended)?
I think of talented people working their asses off and I think of me. Uninspired, daydreaming and distracted. How do I get back onto some creative track at the lost age of [edited out] without seeming like a dilatante? Or all we all just amatuers out there now? Has the bar been raised so incredibly high that people cannot attain true discipline or artistry? Are there no masters - only computers? Are we all just simulating something akin to emotion and parroting real life in a series of reality-based tv shows? Is irony truly dead and reanimated now as new sincerity and people thinking how clever when they see it, laid out on a table like an installation piece (or worse, science project). How do I take something real when I don't even know if I am real myself. (Whoa there - going into PK Dick territory).
Back to "ducking". I wonder about talented people versus lucky breaks. I wonder about people who had both and blew it. I wonder if I ever blew it? I wonder if I should go see a therapist to tell me if I blew it and where to seek atonement in blowing it and never blow it again. I have the rock in my stomach from inactivity and inability to digest my modern life at the metabolic rate that is suggested by marketing analysts and culture dieticians. I am sick from exposure to said reality based tv shows and the evils of booze (which lubricates my hatred of said reality based TV shows and people who choose to be on them). I want to Elima-date the 21st century. I want to choose the path of best resistance and go off and live a fucking pious life because I feel like an an amatuer amorlist, a bad sensualist and person who can't appreciate anything.
I am a dilatante.
I am a drunk.
I am a petty artist.
It's all about me. No. It's not. Mousey me won't upstage true talent. Please take over reading my lines. I should be the understudy in my life. You are truly the master. I am the computer. I haven't had an original idea since 1978 when I thought about the plastic brick idea and reversable rain jacket-long underwear.
Who am i talking to on this blog? I need a new apple.

Suck Age

Things started to really suck early last week. Actually, let me rephrase that -- things started sucking 400 billion years ago and probably since the dawn of entropy was introduced. People (descended from well-meaning bacteria) put shit in motion and then it comes back to you. Middle East politics, nuclear weapons, bad presidents with inarticulate leadership strategies, social service bankrupting referrendums you had no clue were getting onto the state ballots, car exhaust spent going to Target so you can buy more crap, the task you messed up at work that day, bad faith, bad self-given haircuts, the cold you caught while drunk and jacketless outside in the rain, the extra piece of pizza you consumed at lunch, the time you wasted watching UPN, the money you pissed away on a bad movie... Bad choices, spiraling into worse consequences. Does it ever get better?

We're going to war. It's a disaster and looming like the other shoe preparing to fall. I can't imagine if there was a more bleak time, but then again, I started thinking about the early 80's and how it seemed to really suck. Reagan was in office and we were 12 minutes from nuclear midnight... but something happened (oh yeah, Russians blinked)... but for a time, it seemed like the end of the world. Perhaps it was my adolescent angst coupled with the fact that there wasn't much options out there... Now I feel like there aren't any options out there, we're again going into clumsy, bloodwashed history again without any hindsight ... Luckily the world isn't impressed.
However - I hear shit like this and I seriously want to move. Start over in another country and become an expat... (thanks Ginger for posting this article). Things are worse than the 80's. But moving won't solve anything. And the other shoe probably will fall anywhere at this point is anyones guess. Put in motion by our clumsiness 10 years ago (or 500 million years ago) however we want to see this...

Art Stars Forever: Chaos and Gonads

World standards seem to be set by surrealists lately. Sick, sad ironies dominate the news of a metal bands pyrotechnics gone bad, foriegn diplomacy seems to have regressed back to medieval times, and Matthew Barney is an Art Star, and not just an art-star, but THE ART STAR of the moment.
While I can't say I'd found the movies as gripping as their images (in fact, Laura and I got in trouble during Cremaster5 for talking too much), he is a cult unto himself. It seems timely that we've a former northwestern linebacker plumb the subconscious of the country and throw it back in a weird series of films, anthropormophic oddities and sculptures that basically revolve around the muscular function of the testicles. Probably because we're done with the old irony... found objects... we're now ready for the alien that looks at us and tells us what we really are - strange creatures with undeveloped desires, crawling over histories that are both magnificent and horrible.
If you're in New York - go see at the Gugg...

Belly of an Apologist

Today, I took my stomach for a walk. Yes, the return of the gut problems that plagued me 2 years ago have seemed to have returned. I've been feeling a heavy sunk feeling in my gut for the past 2 weeks, very reminiscient of my awful bout of bad digestion which seemed to last a year. I have no idea why this has returned other than stress, stress about the pending war, job, and a dismal future seem to be giving me reason to not digest my meals properly. It sits in my stomach like an acidic child hating me, hating my choices. I'm responsible for all the ills of human kind. A group of students from Central were doing documentary work on the bus today. They all had a camera and were asking me questions about the Japanese internment and institutional racism. I stuttered, gagged on words while trying to recount why the govt decided in the 40's to violate the constitutional rights of Japanese Americans. I felt like I was naked. I didn't like being filmed going through the bus tunnels and me trying to give my definition of 'institutional racism'. Great. Somewhere there will be a telling moment of me trying to define institutional racism and wording it badly. Again, I am responsible for all ills that have been wrought. I am the foreign policy that messes up lives, causes small tribes to kill each other, and later becomes a nasty world conflict that people do not want to engage in. My breath is the monopolizing breath of an ugly beast who consumes 3 tubs of cottage cheese a week, wastes about so much kg's of power a day, exerts nothing, learns nothing and ultimately falls asleep while watching past episodes of "6 Feet Under". If an asteroid hit earth and made us extinct, would they dig up my bones and bill me as a fearsome monster? The monsters in my stomach stir and look a day when, like that awful scene in Alien, they can pop out and start shopping.

Bee Mine

Well, tomorrow is the day that reinforces all that was left of our idyllic, genteel and romantic notions of love, wrought from a pagan festival and then consumed by the greeting card industry in an attempt to help you reconcile all faults with your significant other for just one special night. Or perhaps it serves as a sore reminder to your current single status and the steady stream of surrogates you've had since the last big one broke your heart. Or perhaps it's a simple holiday to indoctrinate small children into the pains of relationships, symbolic exchanges and ultimately (gulp) rejection (sending every last one of us to some therapy session or talk show where we blindly look into the camera and say "I thought I had it all figured out"). Or perhaps it's just a simple holiday to celebrate simple love, if it exists...

Ralphie:'''Let's Bee Friends.' It says 'bee' and has a picture of a bee on it!''

Wall of Sound

Move over Michael Jackson, the original Mad King Ludwig of Pop - Phil Spector was arrested... People do not seem to be suprised, almost thinking this Sunset Blvd like descent one that was about 30 years in the making. Lest we forget that Be My Baby was a wonder moment in pop, it also was sung with songbird rage by Ronnie Spector, who would later find herself captive in his castle herself for quite a few years. This will be one interesting biopic if anyone chooses to make it.
In any case - gotta run, but before I do - I want to design my own librador...

Drive My Car Into the Ocean

Nightcharm's David K has some insightful things to say on his website about post-9/11 angst and existential crisis/opportunity. Read it now before it goes away... I will have to read the Paglia article if it's as good as he says - but he does certainly draw up a few interesting points about this culture making a huge paradigm shift. We are changed after something like that - but unfortunately I don't see us evolving or growing from this experience any time soon. And we can't get over it. As a culture - we're sick with worry and sick with want - 2 tastes that go great together... We want things to be all-right. We also feel a fleeting impermanence and so we want them fabulous. And yet - Irony is no longer cutting it - and at the same time, trying to adopt the new sincereity is a contradiction in terms. We want it all - yet, we don't. Things seem confusing, distorted, larger or smaller - unreal, hyperreal or just plain awful. So we shrink back into holly-hobby enthusiasm for gardening and watch reality-tv to validate our moral superiority. We laugh at our corner of the world - or someone elses corner (Ozzy Osbourne's), and go under some other medication (big escapist movies that feature music, lights and plenty o jazz hands)... And, and.... And. Uhhhhh... Uhhmmmm....


Where was I?


Oh yeah - nevermind that I heard rumor of a musical coming to the screen about the greatest band ever - THE PIXIES. Here's the dish by a correspondent for KEXP's John in the Morning: Will Bryant reports: This week's Entertainment Weekly reports that New York writer/producer Josh Frank is working on a musical based on the life of Frank Black. Frank has reportedly discussed the project with former Pixies Joey Santiago, David Lovering, and Black himself, who was initially quite amused at the prospect until he realized that Frank, who most recently assisted on a production of the Janis Joplin-inspired musical Love, Janis, was serious. The musical, entitled "Teenager of the Year," would follow the entire career trajectory of the Pixies and include songs both from that period and from Black's solo career. The article does not mention any involvement from
Pixies bassist Kim Deal (even though it would kill to see Lili Taylor portray the younger Mrs. John Murphy).
Josh Frank describes "Teenager of the Year" as "sort of a beat poem to the 80's [and] how alternative rock crashed the mainstream party." The project follows extremely successful musicals based on the output of ABBA ("Mamma Mia") and Culture Club ("Taboo"), but is apparently the first full-blown musical biography to take on a legend of alternative rock. Frank hopes to open the show next spring Off Broadway. And you thought you were so cool, singing along to Surfer Rosa with the windows down as you jammed down the freeway, when the whole time you were belting out showtunes!
Get those jazzhands going for "Tony's Theme"....

I just finished the beeb's Gormenghast series on DVD (rented from Netflix). Castle drama's and anachronisms usually don't interest me much (I grew up watching the smurfs, so Hamlet doesn't shock me in it's political intrigue), but this story (adapted from the book after the 2nd world war) was funny, absurdist and bizarre. Essentially a thin allusion to decaying aristocracy and the rise of fascism.
The acting was over the top - but probably in line with the fantasmic characters. The set design alone is worth seeing it - having equal parts pre-raphealite pretty and Jeunot-brothers creepiness.

While this country dwells on Football and War, let's take a moment to ponder a service that attempts to send telegrams in the afterlife. Either the most visionary or novel scam, they do back up their service with no guarantees, other than their terminally ill messenger will do their best. Even more intriguing - their FAQ reads as a surreal primer for the afterlife, their advice for their messengers even more surreal: Make contact with the first intelligent person you find and request advice as how best to complete your task. By "person" we mean not only people such as you, who once lived on earth as humans, but anyone else who might be helpful. There might be other entities, such as angels, spirits, demigods or fairies, that are indigenous to the afterlife and who might be willing to help you. Animals, such as dogs, dolphins, apes, etc... might be inclined to help as well.
The agnostic in me finds the realm of possibility fascinating - but I don't think I'd want to entrust my afterlife messages to anything lower on the food chain. I'm sure there's alot of karmic resentment and thus, it would be pretty awkward.

No Nude Body Stockings Here

John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig fame has started this interesting project... He's going for this cinema verite, dogme style of filmmaking featuring real couples having sex on camera.
Ok. I'll stop smirking for a minute and say that while I thoroughly applaud the efforts - he's missing the point of raw sexuality. It's raw, as in natural... Unstaged. And... A very unassuming part of the plotline. Like films "Happy Together" and "Pola X" - the sex isn't the mainstay, the constant or even the climax (no pun intended) of the plot. Thus - You don't make a quirky relationship film with real sex unless there's something deeper at the core. Those cutting edge films he name checks certainly did take risks - but they had heavy handed themes to go along with the titilating scenes.
Think of the "raw scenes" as the salt on the rim of the movie's tequila shot. Porn is just "salt". Lars Von Trier is just "tequila".
Whatever.

Rather than sit complacently and not do anything about this war, I think I'll join this group... Afterall, they're protesting in prada and recognize the power of a good soundbite when you get one (i.e., "Do - smile for the camera", "Don't - be a silly bare-titted hippy in nothing but body paints and butterfly wings in a misguided effort to try to break the dominant paradigm. The dominant paradigm doesn't want to be broken just yet.")

Labrynth

In january, things seem to shift, change and fall into place. For most people, this sorting out happens in fall. But being in an industry that reshuffles every 4th quarter, you get used to the tsunami that is January. It also lends itself to a Pynchonian grid of conspiracies and secret societies that you never dreamed existed, and yet you are excited and terrified at their existence. I walk down the street and wonder what map my own secrets might make, or other's who have secrets over me. I am doubtful of conspiracies, though - no one is that organized i figure. There is no cigarette smoking man, no 4th gunman, no alien autopsies. At the end of the day - there's just us, dazed and wondering.
I am not out of the labrynth yet.
Speaking of politics...

And in the "if you tolerate this today..." Dept

Concerned about Reproductive Rights in America?
Then attend the ProChoice Rally. Right now!

Happy New Year.

Now the fun really begins. 2002 sucked for quite a few people... You mention the enthusiasm for the new Year and most people give a shellshocked groan. They've gotten past the horrific 2001 year, 2002 was just a constant low point. Politically, Socially, Economically and Culturally (proof = "The Bachelor" on TV). For me personally, 2002 wasn't so bad. I managed to stick to some of my resolutions and had some personal gains this year. Not to say it was a perfect year, but it turned out ok. So this is starting point zero, and like last year - 2003 has some deliverables for yours truly. Here they are:

• Determine what Education I Need and Fully Pursue it By End of the Year.
  
• I know this is going to annoy some of you - but Be a better person - give back to the community - Volunteer to do something... anything!
  
• Get back on the health kick, not the vanity trip
  
• Read More books, less periodicals (A book every 2-3 weeks)
  
• Cook more, improve my limited culinary skills into something tangible.
  
• Save Money.
  
• Be Less Cynical.
  
• Go through closets, storage and shed excess crap. Give to Charity.
  
• Enhance Website and Mac: Learn Midi and develop Mac tools more.
  
• Call old friends and relations more (another carryover from last year).
  

Basically, I'm carrying over about half of the resolutions from last year. I did pretty well in terms of the first one to go to the gym about every freakin day. I did stick with a strict regimen until June when I got lazy and it got hot. However, this year is all education, baby - I gotta get back into school somehow...
hmmm - on with the show...