Well, I finished “Ender’s Game” and I definitely have some questions and ponderings about it. I left it at home for Whitney to start and took off for Blake’s, my musical coed fraternity, aka “Songwriter’s Symposium”. Joe had missed the bus and his sports team lost, but he had fun beatboxing to our version of “Virtual Insanity” and singing harmony to my piano version of “Follow You Into the Dark”. It was the first time I had played all covers there, in an attempt to get them super ready for our two shows Thursday and Friday and everyone started singing and dancing. Jacob and Joe gave numerous hugs, Keith shared his current plans, Shiloh and his manager discussed their music video dreams and I got my first podcast interview with Steve Laciak, guitarist extraordinaire. That’ll be up as soon as he sends me an mp3 of a single off his upcoming EP. I felt like I was with family. And after a couple years back home wandering, I know these are my people and I am very very grateful. Know what I mean?

Thanks to the band “Rattail Butler” and Mateveza for a fabulous costume party this past weekend and a great musical experience. As many of you know, we play Joe’s of Lafayette this Thursday and if people come out, we will have ourselves a monthly residency there. The same goes for our show this Friday at Bella Bru Cafe in Sacramento. Both shows are just us for two extended sets, using our own sound system and playing 3 songs you haven’t heard. See GIGS for details. Our mixing deadline for the album is December 1st, so it will be here before you know it. And T-shirts are hot off the silk screen and will be uploaded to buy in the next couple weeks.

On a side note, the rent check before our most recent check bounced, and our landlady is evil. She has never cashed a rent check less than a month and a half after she recieves it and we’ve been there over a year. I started mailing her cashier’s checks now, but she wants to charge me a late fee for the bounced check, when, if she cashed it when she got it would not have happened, and even if it had, I could have gotten her a cashier’s check that day. She also refuses to speak to me about it, as she refused to speak to me when our ceiling caved in and we had no electricity. Thanks for letting me vent. Moving on…

From a more personal perspective, I’m reading “Ender’s Game” right now, and just bought a digital camera to photograph you and the people I interview for our podcast. I am thinking to myself as I stare at the beautiful view from this financial district skyscraper, that those who demonize the suits of the working world are merely those who do not understand. I think I was raised for a dayjob like this, and dared to pursue a job like what music is becoming. My dayjob is in investment and these people are kind and have families. What I lack in counterculture sentiment I make up for in empathy. Today I salute the suits and the dreamers alike (I will not be a suit in the end and dislike the priveledge that enables them to ignore injustice, poverty and environmental waste, but I see the feeling and truth in their position). We all have our upbringings and reasons. To quote the book Jacob gave me that so many of us have read, Ender says to destroy his enemy he must first understand him, which means he comes to love him by the time he has figured out how they can be killed. I hope this is true in the sense that we do not live in such a fantastical world of urgency as Ender does, meaning that we can come to know our enemy so well that the need to destroy them evaporates. (Sadly at this point in the book he hasn’t learned how to communicate with them yet which is why they are all killing each other). Life forbid I write a song about all this. It would probably be to an industrial beat. Any thoughts? But don’t tell me what happens! (I’m at his final command school battle and he’s about to get killed by 5000 ships..)