back in new york in one piece… anonymous rubber gloved hands reaching into saddams pathetic mouth… aren’t they looking for poison hidden in teeth?… the whole thing is so fucking pathetic its unreal… in europe i saw a news clip about one of the new opportunities for making a buck in iraq: kidnapping kids and selling them back to their parents, this apparently isn’t reserved for the rich or upper classes, just about anyone can get a kid swiped and then sold back for 5-10 grand, whatever… so the news dame is at the police station, she asks the top cop dude why they (the police) aren’t taking more action about this trend… the police gets genuinely pissed off, he looks really honestly angry, the camera follows his hand as he flicks on a light switch… nothing happens he says “we have no electricity, we have no guns!”… as i suspected little was made here in the states of the bush visit to London and the ensuing waves of British anti-war demonstrations the tour went well and we have the new set down… last show was in Dubai which is a strange place to say the least; the black robes with the veils that the girls wear are actually pretty sexy when you see them on prettier younger women than what one sees in the stereotypes… also fantastic was just going to a mall (late at night, everything goes late i guess to avoid the days heat) and seeing like half of the pedestrians wearing robes… but Dubai is a wealthy oil based country, sort of sin-less las vegas Belgrade also was an extreme, one of the best shows, biggest crowds, the city is still all scarred from the recent fighting and there is an atmosphere of tension and road rage all about but the more i travel around these days the more obvious it is to me that everyone is the same with just variations in background… in some countries, like France, there is a stronger sense of national identity than in others, but the human condition is really much more similar from place to place than one is led to believe by local propaganda… everything balances out, a great deal is lost as well as gained… its like in New York city where there used to be a distinct flavor from one neighborhood to another, now there is just one big homogeneous mass that is all the same… London reminds me of NYC more and more… but obviously there is no turning back now everyone is stuck in each others backyard ok what?… Monte Melnick of the RAMONES has spearheaded the absolute ultimate RAMONES text; a book called “On The Road With The RAMONES” that should be available everywhere… totally great! what a document! it’s pulled together from interviews with everyone involved (me too) and tells the story in a great funny personal way including details that i didnt even know, as a matter of fact i doubt that any one of the people who contributed to the book could possibly have known all of the crazy things contained therein… ‘on the road with the ramones’ should be a textbook for the study of rock and roll as well as used in psychology class… a monument, i cant imagine many people let alone musicians, celebrities with enough balls to actually tell it like it is like this… and ?… currently the big project is getting the baby to go to sleep, now that she’s been out on the road she doesn’t want to miss anything and resists going into dreamland quite vigorously… sooo ive gotten a lot of baby related messages from you all who’ve got em and would appreciate any tips on getting THEM (babies) to sleep with some kind of regular schedule… you know the drill she wont go to sleep by herself, wants to be held, can’t put her down or she starts to cry, takes an hour of walking around with till she drops off enough to be put down, goes to sleep in the car etc etc we havent tried putting her on the washing machine yet… barbara’s read a bunch of the books which of course all contradict each other, “let them cry it out” is one side the other is “pick them up over and over till they get to sleep”… she sleeps all night which is great but she doesnt take naps and gets over tired… so any suggestions… i probably have more stuff but cant think right now… do check out the Ramones book all 4 now love chris NY Dec. 16