— told the crowd that we’re thinking of ending Gotpoetry Live. needless to say, we got a lot of sudden offers of help to keep it running. ( “don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” )

for now, we’re going forward with it, cautiously. we will be cutting back on features to focus on building some funds and working on the quality of the open mike, so it’ll be just one a month starting in November. drop me a line if you’re coming through and we’ll see if it fits.

— i’m exhausted. built the final layout of the book and Faro designed the CD label this afternoon. i have freelance work to do but i’m going to bed early and getting up to work on it all.

— stopped on the way home to pick up some hair gel and splurged slightly on myself: picked up the new Springsteen album on the day of release. i’ve done this for every Bruce album since “The River” in 1980, so it’s an unbroken streak for 27 years running. i hadn’t planned to do it this time what with money so tight, but i’m glad i did — i’m playing it now. terrific. the Professor’s playing piano again, not keyboards, and Clarence is back in force; also the glockenspiel is in effect. writing is superb, reflecting the growth he’s evidenced over the last couple of releases and the impact of the Seeger Sessions.

(and for you Bruce haters out there: don’t. Bruce has kept me alive, literally, at various points of my life. i needed this, and i’m not going to entertain arguments about it, him, his work, or anything else right now. life has been hard, and this is important to me as it has been since the first time i saw him play. he’s been a constant through punk, through all my phases and through my general disenchantment with corporate rock — proof that the absolute prejudices i hold against things are as foolish as any absolute enchantment i hold, because it’s not that i don’t see some bad shit in his repertoire — i do — or love everything he does unconditionally — i don’t — but i always have faith that the good stuff’s still there. i feel rewarded and blessed tonight.)

— while we’re on the subject, the song i’m listening to right now, “the devil’s arcade,” is an amazing anti war song. AMAZING.

— i heard a radio interview this afternoon that explained to me beautifully why i hate the idea behind pandora and pretty much dislike iPods: it spoke of the difference between “convenient music” and “inconvenient music” and the idea that you no longer need be surprised by anything on the radio. i like surprises, even the ones that are occasionally unpleasant, when it comes to music. i tried pandora and gave it up almost immediately because i could be damn near guaranteed i’d like anything it offered me. it was boring, even if i’d never heard the individual songs before, because there were so few surprises in the offerings.

gimme that radio dial, let me twist it up and piss myself off. i need that sometimes.

(i think sometimes of the slam world as a place without surprises, too. maybe that’s my problem.)

night all.