overdue with this one thnx for the messages… so first i have a new hero in one Nick Tosches, writer and philosopher etc. by chance i picked up one of his new books: “In The Hand Of Dante” and was immediately converted, not ‘an easy read’ but just amazing as nick does his own version of the “divine comedy” in three levels of prose style… his tirades about the publishing world are universal, could apply to any of the arts in america, just great stuff all around… we went to poland and did a big tv gig, i think it was the last episode of polish idol… theres something of it at http://www.itvp.pl/sopot/ there might even be the show itself, i checked it out but got bored waiting for it to load the clip… then yesterday we played in washington square park for the big CBGB rally… it was quite fun, the last time i played a guitar in the park there was 1965 so very amusing, lots of the old crowd of maniacs etc, many like myself wielding offspring; Akira wearing her little CB’s shirt saying “ceegeebeegee” when she saw the logo all around… so fallout from the event should materialise here and there… not much else i’ll write again soon… still struggling continued from yesterday… at the CB’s thing i thought DH was very astute; when asked about the whole thing she said that it was more a matter of money than anything else “what do all those empty lots around the club tell you?” she queried, meaning that the whole deal about the homeless shelter is a crock and that the entire section of the block will likely be converted into expensive hi-rise apartments within a short time… but the new orleans situation is a fine example of american madness… what if there had been a weeks notice before 9-11? would the powers that be just left everyone there waiting for the event? maybe if they all were poor and mostly black… at least the NY Times addressed the cultural bias involved today on the front page… i have for years been saying that a recession would be good for the arts, maybe we’re about to find out if i’m as big an idiot as some might think… will the gas prices drop back or being the good capitalist greedy system it is just stay the same as if it always had cost fifty bucks to fill up your car… those posed pictures of bush staring out of the plane window are intense, is he just thinking that this is the apocalypse and fuck it nothing matters anyway… on a newscast the first day the gas prices started going up i saw just an ordinary guy say “only an american can screw another american this good” have gone on to Nick Tosches “King Of The Jews” which compares Arnold Rothstein and Jesus… nicks jabs at organized religion and monotheism are so eloquent! bravo NICK! later, after watching more reports about the situation in Louisiana i’m even more amazed at what this implies… for ex how the fuck do we intend to make the whole of Iraq into a peaceful democracy when we cant get a crummy water supply to one part of our own country in less than 4-5 days… also i am continually astonished at well meaning individuals who express their shock and dismay at rioting and looting; Tiger Woods saying he “doesnt understand the concept…” and why “they are not all pulling together…” was one of several i just saw… we have people in the supposed richest most powerful nation in the world who are living in the shittiest of meager conditions, maybe not full on third world poverty level but close, daily they are bombarded by images of what they are missing: the full-on greed media spectacle, and then when what little they have is pulled out from under them and they explode in frustration people act surpised, yes its a big fucking mystery at least we are seeing a lot of rage and frustration directed at the establishment about what’s going on… i’m sure many of you are having the same thoughts and observations

summer grinds on very hot here… i have been reading “haunted” by ‘ol chuck palahniuk, pretty much a fan tho i was disapointed in a few of the later ones like ‘lullaby’, pleased to say this is up to speed… my favorites still are ‘invisible monsters’ and ‘fight club’ of course, theres nothing like that first novel… let me reassure todd in florida who wonders if aliens had any effect on my liking ‘war of the worlds’… well of course it sucked, it aint “ZEBRAMAN” but i am taking it in context of what i expected/hollywood hash and re-hash, i mean damn you cant spend that much fucking money without getting a few decent shots out of it, you gotta give it to them for some of those huge mechanical scenes: the church splitting open and the boat overturning… unfortunately yes it was more of an exercise than any attempt at actually making a great film… AGAIN: requests for stuff; interviews, song rights, and ‘official’ type things like that should go thru the proper channels: our management co. 10th street entertainment, in L.A. and NYC, song rights for films have nothing to do with us as artists (unfortunately) they have to be procured thru our various publishing companies, mostly EMI/Chrysalis for the older stuff… the best way to GET AUTOGRAPHS is to send YOUR OWN BLONDIE PICTURE or blank piece of paper or cereal box or whatever to either our above mentioned management OR BETTER, TO ONE OF OUR GIGS with A SELF ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE… again A SELF ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE will almost guarantee results, at most gigs we have a pile of mail like that… lastly if you try the self addressed stamped route make sure that you use US postage for the US, UK for UK etc. we have gotten stuff from the UK here in the US with UK stamps which are not recognised by the US postal authorities… i’m sorry that we dont have any kind of autograph thing set up beyond this but thats life as they say its gonna rain again here, the spring and summer have been so damp giant mushrooms are growing on the other mushrooms, i’ve heard that its all related to the tsunami etc

the days are going by and mostly im absorbed in baby related issues… akira is really great and provides endless amounts of just everything, now shes up to three word sentances… i have been working a little on music but it may be another month or so before i get into it more intensely… debbie sends thanx for all of the birthday wishes… i’m gonna see if she will put up a message board herself as she is starting to get into doing more e-mailing and computing… actually got to the movies which is a big event now war of the worlds of course, it was unavoidable… thought the first act was really great, i really got caught up, it got a little weighty as it went on but it way surpassed my (low) expectations… should have seen batman though i just re-read ‘the bonfire of the vanities’ which is a great bit of writing… the film version just sucked so dont go by that…’bonfire’ came out in ’87, anyway there’s an amazing bit of prophetic psychic weirdness, or perhaps just astute premonition on the part of Tom Wolfe in the very first chapter; its a scene with the fictional mayor ‘Goldberg’ of NYC being shouted down at a ‘town meeting’ type event in harlem, anyway the head of his police bodyguards is named “Guliaggi”, very cool… im sure Rudy was around at the time Wolfe researched the book, i cant imagine its a coincidence… anyhow very worth reading also colin farrell looks so much like charles manson its nuts, could he be “pooh bear” manson? thanx ali for the letter finally i sort of hate computers, the frustration level is so high, if only i could have HAL around to argue with… i finally had to change my long standing e-mail address, everytime i logged on i was getting 80-90 messages about cock enlargement, teen black elderly and every other kind of slut imaginable, all the weekend vacations i-pods and playstations i’d won and the occasional suggestion that ‘freedom begins at home’ etc. in other words rat out your friends and neighbors… what a relief to be back to not using the spam filters, it got so it was easier to take names out of the spam things than to delete stuff oh i almost finished halo 1, just on the last stupid bit, hopefully the next one will be less monotonous pic is ‘night life in bangkok’

so we are here for one more day, i’ve got to say i thought the disallowed goal was a big drag even though portugal really played well, you have to admit that after Rooney left most of the match was spent with the UK at defense… (after the game i saw colin powell saying how well things were going in iraq and i thought he should be calling the football matches cause then he couldnt get away with such bullshit) we were all looking forward to england vs. france anyway, that would have been the best continuing thanx for all of the nice comments… again jimmy is having problems and i dont know when he’ll be back in the live shows though i certainly hope he will at least contribute to upcoming recordings… thanx to all the UK fans and crowds for another great time here… we all love you guys, what we do is quite difficult and you all make it worthwhile

i was on the phone with debbie watching “the verdict”… after watching most of the trial im pleased that michael didnt get screwed over at the hands of the media… watching some of the bloodthirsty court tv people was particularly grotesque… as i said before there was a witch hunt aspect that overshadowded jacksons deeds… somehow this is indicative of all the demented current ways of today… yeah sure the resources etc etc i spent a day at jury duty up state here… there was a trial of some poor gangbanger kid who may or may not have mugged somebody but he was shadowed by guards obviously not able to make bail and was stuck with the barely thirty public defender… the judge made a note that the trial would be ‘fast’… somehow i didnt get my name picked but i couldnt help make the connections… Noam Chomsky is the one who i think said “No black man can be guilty of a crime in America.” at the same time ive been re-reading my old battered copy of “the family” by ed sanders… now here we have a celebrity in california who didnt get off… seriously i cant recommend ‘the family’ enough to those of you not familiar… as i was finishing i kept thinking how the manson story is just begging for a big budget hollywood treatment a la oliver stone etc… maybe its just too sensitive still the new baby yells a lot, also sleeps

ok, i hadnt mentioned it, but now… we (mostly Barbara) had our second daughter Valentina (after my great friend and mentor the late Vali Myers)… on the 11th just after midnight… if you want to send anything Valentina collects switchblade knives especially Microtech products (see http://www.nicnac.net/ for examples) we dont need any baby stuff!!! repeat; we dont need any baby stuff we have tons… we do however need switchblade knives especially out the front models! they can be pink if you can find them send to: chris stein c/o Matt D’Amico Tenth Street Entertainment 700 San Vincente suite G410 W. Hollywood Ca. 90069 or to Barry on a topical note i just have to comment on Spielberg saying the new star wars effort is the best of the last ones… is that a fucking joke? i cant even remember one from the other, i do recall falling asleep during the ja ja binks one, for real

i’m still enamored of ‘kung fu hustle’ dont blow your shot to see it on a big screen (i got a note from Koey in singapore who says as i suspected the title is just ‘kung fu’ in chinese)… im sorry i only have seen ‘ghost in the shell 2’ on dvd i missed it in the theaters… so the big TV PARTY opening at the tribeca festival in NYC, seemed to be a success in spite of a very partisan audience… another turn out of the old ‘gang’, various people i havent seen in a while, great to see graffiti great old pal ‘LEE’ (Quinones), Freddy, Charlie Rocket etc. best though was D and i were sitting right next to Jerry Stiller! debbie hit him in the head in ‘Hairspray’ but i never met him so i was pretty thrilled to shmooze with him, he said he loved the TV P film, during the q&a he said it should be in the smithsonian! we heard that Bobby D’N saw the thing but who knows… so after there was a party that the TV Party orchestra played at, the TV Party orchestra consisted this time of me, Walter Steding, Lennie Ferrari, James Chance, Robert Aaron and the bass player from ‘Crazy Mary’ a band that walter plays in whose name i dont know, sorry… so these days i go to sleep around 8-9 pm, so by 11 i was pretty fried and suddenly i’m thrust into your basic rock and roll club intensity, i was soaked in this hot enviornment in about two minutes, i thought i might explode, but we jammed for maybe a half hour and i left walter still up there sawing away on his violin… i have noticed that there are all these new ways of garnering income in our great society these days; the finger in the chili of course, though we see that one has to cook the finger in chili first for the sake of authenticity… 5-6 whatever guys in some middle eastern drag getting thrown out of dennys: “we dont serve bin ladens here!” they are told, suing for 27 million… lastly, though theres likely lots of stuff im not mentioning, ratting out your friends and school mates; i saw an article about the system now in place of rewarding those who ‘tell’ on people in school with food coupons, cash (100-500$ if its about firearms) and parking spaces… one might think this was all fiction, but…

more film reviews… KUNG FU HUSTLE is gonna be one of my all time favorite movies… just great, not dumb like kung pow and the ilk, hustle has no western influences its just brilliant… my only problem is the title as i’m fairly certain that the idiomatic use of ‘hustle’ probably is not a literal translation but you never know… i’d apppreciate anyone who can read chinese would report in… now whats funny is on the posters and ads for it ‘kung fu hustle’ is favorably compared to a tarantino film and this is dumb since its the other way around… yeah sure ‘bill’ was great but its a lift isnt it? saying this ‘kung fu hustle’ is “like” a quentin film is like saying Herzogs ‘Nosferatu’ is “like” Murnaus… i only recently found out that “Reservoir Dogs ” is a remake of an asian, maybe a John Woo film ‘hustle’ most reminded me of a fantastic Korean fim called “Volcano High” which so far hasnt gotten a US release i was also pleased to see a preview for a US release of “Night Watch”… a russian film i may have mentioned earlier, also really great lots of questions about blondie and related projects and i dont have any answers at present

been meaning to write but doing stuff… still about movies… i liked ‘SIN CITY’ but it didnt blow me away, i wish the Raymond Chandler/ Phil Marlowe dialogs were a little smarter, i wish the girls costumes were more up to date etc etc overall i just felt like it “tried too hard” if you know what i mean… ‘Old Boy’ is a way superior film as are many of the asian imports i’ve been raving about lately… for example ‘Casshern’ is the same green screen technique but more complex… oh yeah some of the melodramatic deliveries left me cold (like Brittany Murphy’s whose work i generally really like) why emulate a crappy style of acting, it just made it campy… i thought Elijah Wood was great (actually i have one of the ring things on tv now without the sound thats what reminded me to write) great to see him so un wholesome and of course Mickey Rourke was very loveable, i hope he does more stuff than he has been lately beyond that i’ve been watching Sesame Street a lot with Akira and am kind of amazed what goes on there… i was way too old for it growing up so i never payed much attention to it… its sort of a Freudian dream… all the monsters run the entire gamut of human weird emotional states and mental conditions big bird is some sort of depressive, ernie and bert share a sado-masochistic relationship while ernie himself is a total control freak passive aggressive, elmo is pretty psychotic, he reminds me of the person who you run into who when you say “whats happening” screams back “YOU ARE! YOU! YOU” oscar is completely negative grover has dreams of grandeur and grovels a lot (hence his name) zoe is just plain annoying and controlling the count is obsessive compulsive etc etc all in all the cookie monster seems to be the best adjusted and has the only genuine sense of humor… now even more weird the “people” all are almost bereft of any psychological traits, they could all be the same person… as far as childrens programming goes Sesame is the only fucking tolerable thing though i do sometimes get off on “Bear in the Big Blue House” mostly cause of the strange celtic witch stuff that goes on with the shadow… some shows make me want to kill we have Zaboomafoo… now you all are aware of my stances on human sexuality and its difficult for me to discuss the two guys on the show without using politically incorrect terminology BUT DAMN MARY! any how on EVERY FUCKING SHOW there is a bit where the two ‘heros’ (the Kratt brothers) go “on a trip” okay, so they ‘go in to the closet’ now i swear this is real, see, the monkey sings this “they’re going to the closet, they’re going on a trip” then all of their crap falls on them ha ha and the monkey sings: “they’re coming from the closet, they’re going out the door!” on top of this there is a real monkey/lemur with an abused puppet stand-in… if you dont believe me check it, to think poor sponge bob is being maligned with this going on … Akira gets to watch Zaboomafoo cause of the cool animal… what she CANT WATCH is the miserable wiggles… i’m not even gonna go into it its too horrible for words, suffice it to say ‘the wiggles’, australians, used to be a band called the cockroaches or cockroach, at least thats what i heard in Aus., if thats true i cant even begin to imagine… any way although we may not know any of the cockroaches big hits the fucking wiggles are now raking in the bucks… oh yeah i was gonna quit but i forgot “Oobie”… oobie is a very inexpensive show to produce as its just hands with eyeballs stuck on them… something grimly fascinating about oobie, this is not just me i’ve heard this from others that they were sort of horrified but fascinated by oobie and friends… their dialog is primitive leaving out various adjectives and other aspects of proper speech this gives a really strange cast to the whole deal; “Oobie loves Grampoo…” etc etc oh yeah the other childrens show i have been watching faithfully is “THE MICHAEL JACKSON TRIAL”… mostly on court tv and the re-inactments on E… i stil really dont know what i really think about it all just that there is a fucked up witch hunt aspect to the whole thing regardless of his guilt or innocence… plus being in show-biz and knowing the bullshit that goes on i cant really write off the whole conspiracy deal… no matter how odd this may sound to the layman, the stuff that goes on behind the scenes in the recording industry is every bit as crazy as the publics perception of poor Michael might be

so i am grimly awaiting the first onslaught of 9-11 films from hollywood… i think that recent travolta hero firefighter movie was sort of testing the waters… be prepared as soon as enough time goes by so that the films arent lumped in with the 9-11 hats t-shirts and commemorative belt buckles made out of genuine steel from the trade center theres gonna be a ton of em… what better combination of hollywood sentimentality combined with a great national disaster… this is better than the one about the volcano in los angeles, or ‘earthquake’ etc etc so expect the story covered from every possible angle; from the terrorists to the firemen to the working people, add an orgy of special effects CGI explosions, the p.o.v of people jumping from the 60th floor etc if hollywood had any taste or dignity they’d leave it alone completely… by the way i dont suppose that many are aware that we were living right down the block from the whole event when it happened and for me the horror of it was matched by the fucking circus that quickly surrounded the event/area… every day seeing hordes of story hungry newscasters camped out bored and half asleep sitting around drinking coffee and then coming to life in front of the cameras where they were filled with false emotion etc etc… the tourist trade that sprung up was equally bizzare, people with cameras around their necks would stop me and ask where “ground zero” was… well i digress, in a similar vein i’ve been watching the michael jackson trial mostly cause theres nothing else on regular tv that i can stand and it really does appear that there is a lot of vindictiveness in the whole case regardless of what the poor guy was up to, another circus ‘wow’ he had seventeen hundred pictures of naked chicks on his computer, c’mon i’ll bet half the men in america who own computers etc etc and ‘wow!’ a whole briefcase filled with sex mags… gimmie a fucking break and that film i’d raved about “OLD BOY” has gotten a US release, at least the best asian films are being picked up here picture is “fake new york in las vegas”