A wonderful day today... I guess I say that now, though it took me hours to really get in gear after driving back from Santa Barbara after Wednesday's gig and digging into my pint of Butter Pecan Häagen-Dazs at 2 a.m. It was strange trip, kind of floating without a plan to two gigs in one night and dubious sound equipment in both houses. But met great people. And hopefully turned a few people on. It was great to hear Teresa again.

So I just got in from seeing my friend Jarreth in Brecht's Drums in the Night at The Actors' Gang theater here in the neighborhood. He wrote it when he was 20 so I guess it's no wonder that I was just about to riff on how Brecht always brings me back to the passion of transformative art that was every day when I was 20, wandering around Europe with a guitar, a tape recorder and a few paperbacks. What's even funnier is that this morning I heard from my former fiancee who now lives in Berlin and a friend whom I met and gave my paperback of the Razor's Edge during those travels. Other favorites from that trip were the Stranger, Down and Out in Paris and London, Autobiography of Malcolm X, and I think it was War All the Time, by Charles Bukowski. Not too much romance in that bunch, yet it is a very easy period for me to romanticize. I guess that's what I really like about the language and ideas in Brecht's plays. They're not romantic in any safe way, yet they're passionate, outrageous, and dry. But this is a late night blog and I'm no expert... What I really liked about this one was the idea of sex, love, and the clash of circumstance. In such complexity there's no chance for romance if romance is the cherry on top of a sundae. If you romanticize dissonance you might be alright (not that I want to sound like Joni's, Richard--I'm a far cry from that). But he just brings out the ideas that make you struggle and force decisions beyond idealism. Anyway...late night creeping in. But there's something in his language that inspires active thoughtfulness.

And that's pretty much the opposite of what went down Tuesday night. I feel like the language of W's speeches try to inspire numb abdication of opinion. I got caught up in a game after it, looking at the words used in his State of the Union speeches on the New York Times. Check out the difference in his use of the words Kill, War, and Terror, versus Love, Peace and Protect. It's kind of striking.

OK now it's bedtime. Hope to see you tonight.