THE GREAT GADFLY:

Gadfly Is Napping

These are, of course, wonderfully welcome modal switches. Hey - I'm going with it.

My Three Big Projects:

1. The Music Mix-Tape Chain Letter project: I have to get three care packages mailed out before I can start on this. I plan on having said care packages out of my periphery by the end of this weekend. Next week I go full-gear into mix-tape project madness, honest.

2. Write A Novel In A Month: I'm gonna do it. This may mean I'll be a little absent in Gadflyland next month, though I'm going to commit to at least writing, like, a haiku a day on here or something. And of course I'll be reading, always reading...

3. SuperCool DIY Publication Project: Without jinxing this embryonic project too much, let's just say this is why I'm in editor mode right now. Keep an eye on your local hipster independent bookstore/'zine pusher, and I'll keep yez posted in the meantime.

I'm also doing my best to wipe the sand out of my eyes and wake up to what's going on in our country right now. I spent an entire Clinton Administration safely cozied up in the idea that I could be cynical and casually "outspoken" as a cocktail party activist, but it never occurred to me that I'd ever have to Put Forth An Effort again, the way I did when Daddy Bush threw a similar poopy party ten years or so ago.

I don't wanna get into this stuff again. I don't like politics. I don't like reading about politics. I don't like demonstrations, rallies, activists or hippies. I don't like chanting anti-war slogans. It makes me feel like a boob. I don't like wearing sandwich boards with little radical rhymes written on them. I don't like carrying placards. I don't like being filmed by local television crews doing any of these things. I don't like the idea of cops touching me. Well, actually, I kinda do like that idea...

Honestly, I'd rather spend my time writing rants about music and pop culture and the gross nasty Midwest work ethic and answer questions on my little online journal while I figure out how I can use my writing to elevate me from the boring inadequacy of my surroundings and how I can finally afford to buy a laptop and take guitar lessons and visit my friends in New York at least once a month and feel connected with my creativity and feel that I'm putting what I do best out there in the world and nurturing the powerful stuff in my head and belly that's been hibernating far too soundly over the past couple of years.

But noooo. Prezzydint Nuculer has a hard-on for them there evildoers, and his hankerin' for a hunka cheese apparently trumps the threat of being bombed back into a state of nature...which, you know, might be for the best if you think about it from the right zen-like perspective, though I hardly see how such an outcome could help my writing career.

And then there's that goddamn Michael Moore and his goddamn heartbreakingly brilliant movie that illustrated all too well that there's just absolutely no excuse not to be aware and not to be active in what's happening around us right now, because the luxury of doing otherwise really doesn't exist.

Ugh.

Just one more nap. Five more minutes. Okay? I'm only going to hit the Snooze button one more time, and I'll, like, get up and do things. I promise...