Song Of The Day: Automatique / Blackalicious
Word Of The Day: Dation / Giving that is not voluntary; Conferment

Whazzup, petals? I've been on the road for a week. I drove, like... 3,000 miles in seven days. Fihi ma fihi, as my Sufi Sheik was fond of saying. Prolly still is. Any fucking way. I'm a bit punchy today, not necessarily like I'm going to hit you, but you know the feeling when your body accumulates vibration from the frame of a car? Literally absorbing the pitches, the aggregate effect of being encapsulated in a humming, resonating metal cannister? How do you spell "cannister" ? I'm not going to bother looking.

Bottom line, I drove 14 hours the first day,and then four the next day, then six the next day, then six the next day, then six the next day, then four, then eleven. I liked the shows a lot. I loved the people at the shows (you all fucking rock. So loving. So lovable. Thank you for letting me have this amazing job!). I did not sleep much. Drive, try to sleep. Repeat. When I got home yesterday, I was like ...part wolf. I just felt like fucking up a Moose or some shit.

I realized the other day, now that I'm 35 years old, I've been on tour for 15 years. FIFTEEN YEARS. I've done over a thousand shows, in fact way more than that. I have seen a bit of the Western World. Random reflections...

Canada:

The only country I've ever been banned from. I believe I'm going to be allowed to come back this year (Montreal!) I will be flying in. Don't make me repeat the why-I-was-banned story here again. Two words: Gypsy Sexscandal. You can't really "tour" Canada in a car. The expanse between the few urban areas is so vast its akin to... well, remember when they used to teach you about atomic structure, and the distances between protons and electrons and the nucleus or whatever? And they'd be like, "if the nucleus was Boston, and you were the proton, you would be in San Francisco" That's like Canada to a songwriter. Five Cosmopolitan islands surrounded by tundra. There's Vancouver, then five thousand miles of wilderness, then Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec. I guess you could drive that part. I'm always amazed at how few people live in Canada. Seems like a great country to hide in. Hide from what? Kids In The Hall, I was obsessed with that show for quite some time. Vancouver is an absolutely beautiful city. I can't wait to go to Montreal, which I've heard is great. I think Quebec should secede and invade Newfoundland and Labrador. Bisous, Quebexoi!

Czech Republic:

Had sex on a train in Prague. That's fun. Prague is phonetically pleasing, atmosphere of slavic speech is hot. The castle is cool, that bridge with all the statues. Nice. Got on the wrong bus while there, and the driver literally let everyone off, then drove back to the bus depot -it was 4AM- and pulled into the garage, shut off the engine. He looked back at me and the girl I was with and shrugged like "uh, get off the bus now?" We were like "how do you say 'fuck' in Czech?" We had to walk like a million freaking miles. It was scary. No cabs, no trains, no buses. Walking, lost, in Prague's non-tourist sector in the wee hours of morning. It was hard to know what to be afraid of though, since they don't really have guns. We were like, maybe we'll get stabbed? Pushed around? Soiled?

Germany:

Playing my song Dresden in Dresden. While there I stayed with a woman who survived the fire bombing of Dresden, and her description of that event will haunt me forever. She was the only one to survive (she fled the city, crossed the bridge right before it was bombed out) in her family of seven. I loved Berlin! Reading articles about me written in German was fun, if inscrutable. It left me free to project lavish flattery onto the script. I found East Germany polluted, depressed, and ravaged by decades of languishing in socialist four-quadrant constriction. Erfurt, Jena, Halle, were very heavy places, people had hearts. I was also reading Hitler's Willing Executioner's while I was there, which was a fucking dark combination, visiting sites (including Buchanwald, where guards mistook me for a Nazi Punk because of my shaved head and black clothes my girlfriend explained in German-"nein, Buddhist leidermacher, keine Nazi...". Buchanwald made my soul feel broken.) I do love Germans.

Belgium:

So weird. Apparently my songs had been getting played on the radio in Belgium. In Brussels there was like a press conference after the show, and I did interviews with Radio One, Radio Two, Radio Three, plus newspapers, that kind of thing. It was some festival (Toogenblik?) and the audience even knew the words to Amsterdam. I remember a horrible traffic jam in Brussels.

Holland:

People, Holland fucking rocks. Amsterdam? I would live there. First of all, the Dutch are like the coolest people ever. They are decent, kind, intelligent, rational human beings. At this point I think I've played over a dozen cities in the Netherlands -Den Haag, Utrecht, Deventer, Apeldoorn, Breda, Roosendaal, Arnhem, Amersfoort, and I've loved it everywhere I've gone. My most recent show in Amsterdam was a luminous experience, playing the Bethanienklooster theater that used to be a nunnery, located right in the Red Light District. Funny enough, I've never used drugs in Holland (not even one toke of hash, ya'll. I'm just not into it) nor have I ever had sex with a prostitute. Something about seeing despondant, forlorn women displayed in enormous window boxes leaves me flaccid. So it is. However, I have to say on the whole -this is no joke- Holland is the most evolved population of people I've ever played for. They are going to be the first Integral culture on the planet, and they are going to be the first 2nd tier nation. I wish they would take over America.

Denmark:

Never been there. I'm Danish, and I've never been to Denmark. That's so sick. They've never invited me. I think they're afraid I might not leave.

England:

Doing my first show in England this September! Many of my musical heros (XTC, Elvis Costello) are from England. Rupert Hine (as English as they get, friends) was executive producer on my new album, and have you seen Nighty Night? KILLER show. Absolutely Fabulous? KILLER.

I also want to go Iceland, Italy, and Romania (Romanian women are hot. Italian women are hot too [my wife], but Romanian women have a tragic quality to their beauty, an extra dimension that says 'Economic instability. Obsolete industries. Ceausescu. Dracula.' That X factor in the eyes, born of hurt. Makes me want to cradle them tenderly, buy them gifts.