i always say i’m amazed and astonished about stuff although i’m really not, its just a figure of speech indicating my reactions to the absurdity of modern life… so i’m amazed by all the bullshit surrounding the ‘million little pieces’ debacle… my main reason for surprise is that through it all no one has mentioned what a godawful miserable bit of writing this book is… i tried believe me but i just couldnt get too far into it… i skipped around and read the gruesome bits which to me seemed like blatant fabrications… there are two things to consider when one reads an account of somebody being denied anesthetic while having root canals done one is that it isnt medically advisable, it just doesnt sound like a safe thing to do and two as even the dumbest coke freak knows novocaine just doesnt get you even close to high all it does is make parts of your face disappear… so that was about as far as i got… a million little pieces reads like a really crappy village voice article which is ok for a few thousand words but just plain sucks when you’re talking about three hundred pages… as i understand it the guy tried to get it published several times as a novel without success, finally dubbing it a memoir got it in print… and we sure need oprah to tell us what constitutes literature i’ve been spending more time in the tragedy that is or more accurately was new york city, if it wasnt for chinatown there’d be really almost nothing left… a lot of the reflections i have while driving in taxis etc get lost quickly but generally its a great loss… oh ok so in chinatown fireworks arent allowed anymore, we went to the new years year of the dog celebrations for a few days running, the weather was warm and akira was very enthused about the dragons… there was a firecracker display surrounded by barracades and fire department representatives… so at the same time we have our friends and relatives being blown up overseas for dubious reasons we are being so protected from ourselves here at home that we cant light a firecracker… do any of you older folks remember when it was easy to open packages? not requiring major cutting tools to get into a buzz lightyear toy? … more to come

three items in no special order; the first and most awful is the government attempts to subpoena lists of searches from google… i have a lot of respect for google and their standards apparently they are resisting these attempts… anyone who isn’t up on what’s going on here and values their computer freedom should get into the act… i believe that anyone interested in keeping the internet as free as it is should note what’s going on with this case… again the usual fear tactics… fine, prevent child abuse, there are some really gross things out there in cyberspace, but i just don’t believe that is the administrations main reason for attempting to harvest this info then we have the absurd in the form of the remake of the pink panther… I’m waiting for the remake of ‘elephant man’ or ‘apocalypse now’ perhaps… Brad pitt as merrick but the absolute best story is about the upcoming showtime ‘masters of horror’ series… this is being pitched as “no holds barred” freedom of expression for the directors etc etc… in spite of these bullshit noble intentions (we likely will see the same re-hashed crap from the usual bunch: craven, romero etc) the episode that was produced by Takashi Miike “imprint” was just tooo freaky deaky for even those liberal folks at showtime and they fucking dropped it from the series… hopefully it’ll be available soon since i am certain it will soar miles above the junk that makes it onto the series; that is more watered down pap horror yesterday in NYC I had an unusual cab driver, an old white guy, a dying breed, he said “i came here from italy in 1962, i’ve been driving a taxi for thirty five years, those good days won’t come again, these people with the phones in their ears they’re like robots.” and indeed we are becoming a nation of robots without enough guts to stick up for ourselves even in the name of a good horror flick