rehersals are almost done,
soo i wake up in the morning usually very early sometimes like today at around 5 o'clock am... this is really fucking weird as most of my life was spent waking at like 1pm like a normal person after walking the dog and attending to various other ritualistic behavior i got to the computr in the crowded front room here, we're on the ground floor and the front door is always open to the street beyond the loading dock, just keep the gate closed to prevent animal exodus or intrusion, though the latter is unlikely as the dog looks threatening though he is a great wimp... today as a result of not having checked up in a while i weeded through some 70 messages from you all... this took a while... thankx again for all the words of support this whole deal with the site has become a genuine source of inspiration for me and i printed out a few letters for debbie to check out like the one from the kid who said we helped him when he was struggling with his gay orientation as a teenager, this stuff is always really moving and real and doing what we do its very easy to feel 'unreal' about ones self
   as to the record im amused and amazed by the occasional note of outrage by someone who wants to know 'what the fuck youve been doing working on it for so long etc.' ... i do recall thinking the same stuff when i was younger, i distinctly remember wondering why mick taylor (the stones guitarist after Brian Jones) would take a year or more to make his solo record ... its really pretty simple i mean damn, does anyone actually think that im sitting around in some recording studio for months on end like 'oh lets take three days to play this note' the time actually spent on the recording gets interrupted for whatever reason and the lack of rhythm as a result is frustrating as hell... ive heard stories of people actually being in a studio situation for long periods but in our case we've never spent more than maybe three months total working on an album
   i dont know why i feel compelled to report this as i am fairly sure just about everyone gets the idea (as a matter of fact on checking i see that its just the one dude who i must admit did get my attention by bitching and whining but we aim to please and i'd never stoop so low as to tell this guy to fuck off and blow me as that would be ungentlemanly)
   this is probably the last time ill write from new york before the touring starts, i hope to keep it up from the road with my shitty slow lap top...
    yesterday i walked down the west side hiway with debbie as she went to get her car... all around the city is just overloaded with the signs of prosperity and growth, everywhere little fancy galleries and cafes all hi tech and modern where there used to be just empty space and areas that people never went to... and i had a flash that its taken all the time since world war two for the global economy to fine tune itself to where its at now that there wont be another depression in the west that everyone is set up... but this is a fucking horrible thing because the world is now more than ever one single place and the prosperity of the west is directly connected to the misery of the rest of the third world and the death and starvation of countless people, the destruction of vast areas of environment and the mass killing of animals...i know that this may come off as just a bunch of rhetoric but i am regularly confronted with the idea that immersing my self in the material world of american pop culture just isnt enough... so all of you when you come to see us just remember that it just is no joke how lucky we are and maybe that our relationship with the world is a lot more fragile than we think, that maybe we have no right to live these easy lives at the expense of others, and that youre not going to see these ideas on the 6 o'clock news and as a matter of fact the establishment is always going to take the line that you deserve what you have at any cost...
   so again this stuff though perhaps disturbing is what i have on my mind and laying it on you guys is about all i can do right now as far as "doing something" goes
    thanks for bearing with me, i hope to get to speak to some of you this summer, dont be shy about saying you have read the site stuff... im really sorry to come off so grim but hey im right down the block from "ground zero" and thats as real as one can get...
we all will miss Dee Dee too, theres this great poem he wrote about Joey being a dragon that should be somewhere on their official site ill check and if its not there put it here eventually
      love to you all
          chris