Dear Kwame Kilpatrick...

you cannot sue SkyTel for privacy issues regarding your CITY OF DETROIT communications device. What the F#*$ is your problem? Do you not understand that you were a public servant and we owned the things you took advantage of. You are such a tool.

I sat down with The Low Anthem one day and shot To the Ghosts Who Write
History Books during our PSYOP Psyessions for BestBandThisMinute.com, and then edited it with the newfangled Smoke-ish timeline in
Flame

The band had Rolling Stone use this video during an interview for the Breaking section of the website.

-Dan

Check it out at RollingStone.com

An account of an experiment conducted by The Washington Post newspaper:
A man stood at a metro station entrance in Washington, DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was music playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the violin case, and without stopping, continued to walk.A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.During the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats averaged $100.:
:
This is a true story.Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by The Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?:
:
Here's a video of the Joshua Bell subway performance.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOPu0_YWhw:
:

I hate colds. At least with the flu you know it's over in a day or so but just being bogged down with a cold is worse to me. I rarely get sick and I'm a huge baby when I am.

If I had a girlfriend I would be all "give me a backrub" every 20 minutes... maybe that's why I'm single..

I drove my car 3000 miles since leaving work. Now I am back in NYC and I must say I truly enjoyed every day to the max, there wasn't a single moment I wasn't trying to spend time with someone or doing something fun.

I didn't see a LOT of people, and to those I apologize.

We are friends because you know how flaky I am and can deal with it... so get your ass out to Manhattan and visit me here if you are so inclined.

John Lennon was shot and killed 28 years ago today. 28 years ago our lives were touched, each and every one of us living that day. 28 years ago today everything changed. Celebrities would never again trust a stranger on the street. One mad man changed it all, and for what? To retaliate for something made up.

It's very sad. I want to go to Strawberry Fields today, but I'm feeling a little ill. I hope it clears up and I can go stand in the freezing cold with hundreds of other Beatles fans in Central Park.

I want to get frostbite for John. He was truly an asshole, but he was also a hero of mine. His words changed my world, from the time I could put my own non-Fisher Price record on a platform I would spin the red and blue albums. My youth was molded by his words and visions. Even today I feel it, listening to the hours of tapes released since then. I know that his genius didn't happen every moment, sometimes he failed outright, but he never stopped believing in the message, he never stopped writing and creating.

We can all learn a lot from John Lennon.

December 2, 2008 marks the 25th anniverary of Phish.

I wish I had figured it out 10 years earlier but my first show wasn't until the late 1990s. I'm a poseur by phish phan standards, I'm not even in triple digits.

Phish gave the world many fine things, for me, it gave a sense of understanding that things change and i can pick up what I need and move forward with something new without a plan. I can just wing it and make up my mind for myself as I go.

Phish took me many places, some I have never been to before or since. Phish is the story of every smalltown I passed along the way on my journey to Gamehendge.

Thank you Fishman, Trey, Cactus and Page. Happy 25th!

It's now been over a year since I moved to New York. In 2 months I will be here longer than I was in Chicago.

Life is good, it's obviously up and down but I stay focused on my goals the best I can. I work in an amazing creative environment and I feel they are truly nurturing me to be the best of the best. I'm still hobbling along learning FX on the Flame, but each day gets easier. I was warned I would hate the plateaus of the learning process and I can see what they were talking about. One day you feel you are a fucking genius wizard and the next day you get frustrated by not understanding other toolsets. In about 6 months I should be pretty comfortable working almost any task, in the meantime I try not to piss any body off by my slowness or lack of understanding. I was hired to fix computers and maintain data and now they have me working on shots and training under an amazing FX artist, Jamie Scott. His most well known spot is that Travelers insurance commercial with the floating umbrellas everywhere. He's my same age but spread his wings at The Mill UK and came to America to open The Mill here in New York. He came to PSYOP / MassMarket a year before I did and he's been really patient and helpful in showing me the ropes.

I have had the chance to get out of the city once in the last 2 months, I went up to Portland, Maine and visited a few friends in Boston and Providence on the same trip. Leaving the city is a key point in being happy in the city, especially for someone that grew up in Michigan. The most beautiful flat state in the union, the water-winter wonderland of the Mitten. I do see a lot of New York via bicycle since I leave my car in Brooklyn for weeks on end at times. The bike makes me feel alive as I zip through the city, in sync with the traffic for the most part, although I do have a problem with "bike rage" I get mad at honking taxis and impatient drivers. I almost got in a fight twice in one day once, which is odd for me but some jerk was honking and yelling that I was too slow and I belong on a sidewalk. If I get honked at I slow down and get MORE in the way of the car, I imagine keeping a squirt gun full of chocolate syrup or having ripe avacado on hand to hit cars at. It's the only time I ever have violent feelings.. LOL When I drive in Manhattan I listen to Beethoven, that keeps my road rage at bay as you deal with idiot drivers all over. I like to drive but I prefer to do it far far out of Manhattan

It's now fall and I haven't seen any fall colors. I need to get upstate or up to Vermont or Maine again before the leaves fall. It's crucial to my closure of the year, before the cold winter sets in, I need that last bit of beautiful nature to recharge me.

Next weekend I will be going slightly upstate for a day to Sleepy Hollow so that will be a teaser but I really need a weekend out and about.

Phish tickets went on sale with a lottery system this past week and I should know by Friday if I got tickets. This will be show number 50 and 51 for me at Hampton Collesium in Virginia.

This weekend has been a lot of fun. I didn't even spend money to have it, just some good friends and interesting conversation. All my money is for food these days, the recreation I spend money on the car and leaving when I can. I don't drink in public unless it's a company event or a vendor is taking me out. I'll have a beer here and there to be social but for the most part I am staying sober and watching others have fun, which is fine for me, cause I was never a big drinker to begin with.

Living in Williamsburg Brooklyn was fun, but I didn't want to stay there. Eventualy I need a loft in Brooklyn to fit all the stuff I have in storage in Chicago and Detroit, but I wanted the Manhattan experience while I was still in a position where I don't have many of my possessions in New York.

I left Brooklyn at the beginning of September for a little spot on the back side of Park Row in the Financial District. I am a block East of the World Trade Center just on the other side of Broadway. The rest of Manhattan feels like a zoo at night, but it is pretty chill down here after 5pm when the suits go home. The South Street Seaport is a gorgeous area, the only glimpse of old New York we will ever see again. Sometimes I hang out at the Paris Cafe where Thomas Edison would spend time in while creating the Pearl Street Power Station in 1882, and everytime I walk around my hood I am tracing Edgar Allan Poes footsteps, he worked across the street from me when he wrote The Balloon Hoax for The Sun back in 1844.

My backyard, Theatre Alley is New York's original one way street. It wasn't wide enough for 2 horse drawn carriages to pass each other while picking up and dropping off patrons to the theatres, so they made it a one way road.

The next few months I am going to focus on my goals more, stop going out as much, and just focus while I am in the city and take little trips to see my friends in Boston, Philadelphia and hopefully get out to Washington DC as well. Whether or not I have a job booked I am going to be hanging out at work a lot more, making things just to practice using the Autodesk tools.

I've been entertaining the idea of purging myself of the internet for a while. It's extremely difficult for me, I've been online almost constantly since 1987 and only step away from the technology when I go camping or something. Now that I have internet in my pocket everywhere I go it's a bit overwhelming.

I really don't use MySpace like I used to, not sure if it's lost its flair for me, or if I just enjoy Facebook mobile more. Whenever I am around I can instantly snap a photo and tag my friends with the facebook iPhone app. The MySpace one is OK but its just not as fun to use.

I need to start writing again. I didn't have internet at home for about 6 months and it was pretty sweet. I would just read or write the old fashioned way. I should do that more, pick up some of the 1800s creative vibes from my neighborhood and let go of some of this modern way of life for a while. Sometimes I feel as if I am treading water in ones and zeroes, so much technology at work, so much technology at home, too much on my person at all times... I need to disconnect but not really sure how to go about it. I don't even try to find shops or restaurants on my own, I just search on the iPhone and the GPS tells me how far away I am.I watch the blue dot get closer and one of these days I am going to get hit by a car by looking at a stupid gadget. I've got to be smarter than that and just be a person in the real world, I try to remember that, but sometimes I fade out in the noise and hustle and bustle of the city. I never wear headphones while biking or really even walking around the city, I've always been afraid of taking away my senses in a place where I need to be aware of my surroundings. The overstimulation of technology could be dampening my senses in ways of conversation in social environments. I've caught myself checking for text messages or searching online when I should be hanging out more with the people I am with.

I'm here in New York, I need to take full advantage of the environment here, that includes not just the history and architecture but the people that I interact with. I've got to figure out a way to let the noise fade out and let myself shine through, reaching out to be what I need to be in the here and now.

I can't ignore the things that matter, I want to experience this city how it ought to be, not get lost in the madness of tourists and technology. I want to ensure I feel completely alive in a city that inspires me daily to be a greater person than I was yesterday, to explore the history of persons from yesterday and reach my goals of all tomorrows.

I took a walk around my new neighborhood last night. It was 3:30am and I decided to go out, something you can only do in New York, Vegas, Montreal or Amsterdam. Contrary to popular belief there are 4am bars in Lower Manhattan besides the LES, SoHo and Tribeca. Theres about 4 in FiDi and 2 around South Street Seaport.

I walked to Dakota Roadhouse and then over to Greenwich, just south of the World Trade Center, which is 2 blocks east of my apartment, an 1872 skyscraper on Fulton st.


My building is the one with the rounded corners, the shiny one is the new World Trade Center 7.



WTC7 has been rebuilt, it's shiny, with edges like a razor blade. The moon was reflecting nicely as I walked past.

I started up in to the space where the Twin Towers once stood. I walked around thew hole block, from the north side on Church St to Greenwich down near The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.

I couldn't look away. I just looked up a the gaping hole in the sky. Wondering why I am doing it over and over, yet I could not look away. So many people died that day, how can you not stare and imagine them jumping to their own deaths to avoid a sure death by fire. The image of them dying will haunt me forever, it is unimaginable what they suffered.

It was the most amount of time I've spent near the WTC site since 2001. I have been avoiding it, it's just a depressing hole in the ground... I wish they wouldn't have come up with a new design, I wish they had used the old one again, they were so gorgeous, nothing else will ever match up to it.

RIP all 2000 of you. We won't forget what happened, yet I wish we won't let our elected officials use the events of that day for political gain, i still see it over and over, 9-11 is a catchword for them, it lets them pull our heartstrings for anything they want. I'm still not convinced it wasn't an inside job, it wouldn't be the first time our government blew up our own stuff. Only time will tell I guess, one day we may know all the facts.

It's strange, sometimes, cause I tend to work long hours. I dive into the zone at work and I don't come out, if we're really busy producers bring us lunch to our computers and sometimes I never see daylight.

Well the animation studio is located in a pretty hip part of town for bars and clubs. So theres time when I've worked 18 hours straight and I am about dying and I step outside and it's a flipping party. My first week here in New York, I opened the front door to go home and someone threw up right in front of me and almost got hit by a taxi..

So I am working midnights this week running a Flame, which means I start work at 7pm and I go home at like 5am or whenever I feel really.

I took a walk around the Lower East Side and of course, I was among the partiers. Everyone just assumes everyone else on the street it out for some fun night, so I don't get grumpy I just smile and laugh at total strangers.

Long ass intro.. anyways... heres the latest thing I heard.. which made me laugh so very hard, perhaps you need a smile today as well.


Guy 1: (Moaning)
Guy 2: What the fuck is up with him?
Guy 3: Hey, Tony, Don't fucking puke there man.
Guy 1: (Moaning)
Guy 2: Yeah, he's right, don't fucking puke, let's take the train to the Chinese restaurant.
Guy 3: Yea man, let's go fucking eat Chinese food and THEN puke.
Guy 1: (stands up like nothing was ever wrong) Yea, I wanna puke Chinese food, let's go!

And they went down to the subway...

I was thinking of someones Mom today and thought of a funny anecdote. I put it in the back of my mind as "when she dies I would say that as a eulogy"

is that weird?   pre-preparing the death of a loved one?