Strange days indeed.  Yesterday, for example, by 9 in the morning, I had already found myself in a basement with an employee of the City of Seattle, a 6-foot-4-inch albino employee of the City of Seattle, who loudly and enthusiastically not so much recited as verbally bludgeoned me with several dozen lines of original verse having to do with a bunch of goddesses and a healthy dose of String Theory.  It was bizarre and surreal and I think responsible for my unquiet sleep last night. 

Earlier in the week, after the shittiest overpriced dinner at some stinking Spanish restaurant (a restaurant with a 5-page menu, each page a metal plate, making any perusal of the bill of fare a metallic cacophony the likes of which were previously heard only at a jousting championship), my group of friends found ourselves in a very small room listening to the very loud guitar heroics of Jules Hodgson from KMFDM.  It was an incredible experience, and rather made my week. 

And that kind of sums up my Seattle experience so far...psychotic municipal employees, absolute shit restaurants, and random members of KMFDM suddenly shredding brilliantly at you.  This place rocks. 

After several weeks of apparently false starts, real progress is starting to be made on the next book (let’s call it Chinese Democracy for now), and today I started working on this whole other thing in a whole other genre, which genre I’ve never even thought about dealing with.  Never mind. 

I need an assistant.