02.08.01 - 9:53 a.m.

thurs: work, then popscene. this is a brit-pop club where veronica & i have been meaning to go since the beginning of time, but one or the other of us always finds some lame excuse not to go. "i'm in new york, i have to do laundry, i have a hangnail". We roped in John Tucker & his friend ? who is a boy, and off we went. it was mostly fun, although at times reminded me of a bad 80's party filled with freshmen at uni. probably cos club was 18+. i had a moment of sheer radiohead love. 2 or 3 cheesy songs had just played and i was slumped in a chair looking balefully at the 19 years olds dancing away. then 'idioteque' came on and everyone was still dancing and i thought, man, even if they only like it because it's radiohead, it's cool that they (radiohead) can get people dancing to semi-abrasive early AFX style beats. huzzah!

i also approved of blur, coldplay, new order, smiths. there was a live performance from I Am The World Trade center but massive wimprock just got on my nerves. like a crap version of st. etienne. It was funny that their music was so gentle & tepid yet it made me feel so violent. I wanted to shake the girl by her shoulders and force her to MOVE instead of just standing there looking disinterested. and i wanted to shave the guy's head and send him to boot camp. The only thing i liked was their pin, which said simply, "I am the world trade center", but then I lost mine on the dancefloor. tender mercies

fri: work, then critical mass! it was still fun but not as cool as first time. maybe cos the weather was gloomier? or the path more out of the way? or the crowd more subdued? i tell you though, it's such a wonderful feeling to temporarily not worry about traffic and just ride, ride, ride like you own the city. we passed the hell's angels club and ended up in an obscure corner of town by dockyards i'd never seen before. experienced dream-like moment when i was riding behind this guy towing a soundsystem, pumping enya-like music, while another guy was towing a girl on a couch with wheels and she was blowing bubbles that floated towards me and popped on my nose. one of those times when i believe in magic.

sat: brunch in berkeley. a. and i got in fight over issues of judgment. i felt very irritated & probably was not nice. i hate fighting & find it strange that the things we've fought about are so abstract- postmodernism, just war, judgment. but really they're not abstract, they relate to things in our relationship. i'm sure it's all very metaphorical.

in the afternoon, elio's housewarming party. he now officially lives in the middle of nowhere, but nice apt. complex- featuring pool (swimming) and pool (billiards) and he has a nice deck on which to barbeque. lots of interesting people there,a including stirling (who i had not seen since moma party), sage (real name sarah, looked like goth girl from rosanne), sage's cute but spacey friend who sailed & thought 'globalization' was dumb word & whose name i forget, sage's other friend who liked silent movies, ktru girl & her archi husband (who'd bought hat with owner's manual, what was type of hat... supposed to be best hat in the world... man my memory sucks), others. david lives with elio now. i really like david, that is a cool boy, and not just because his hair is crazy. i like the way he talks. he lent me a zippy book.

we packed lots of alcohol and warm clothes and headed north on highway 1 for a renegade.

DISCLAIMER: i feel pretentious and stupid for using that word, but it was technically a renegade: i.e. illegal outdoor party. let's just say 'party' from here on out, although 'renegade' is cooler and makes you think of the illustration inside music for the jilted generation where the hippy guy is giving finger to cops on the darkside and cutting bridge across. ok that's a pretty stupid picture, but still, you know that mode of thought? where you feel all righteous and you're like "fuck THEIR law!" etc. etc. (and then you go back to work on monday. doh.)

[me & triet [he wasn't high, but damn]]

it was awesome. the info line directions were spazzy and the only reason we made our way to the site is that when we stopped at the path head, sandeep was there. location was somewhere in the woods near stimson beach. we walked through near total darkness, ducking underneath trees and stepping over bushes and generally trying not to get killed. after about 5 minutes you started to hear that familiar thumping. my heart starts beating faster. and then we emerged into the christmas light festooned clearing. into the promised land...

ended up being a good mix of people-- in addition to baycrew, i called shrey, and he called some of his friends, and it chained from there. sandeep played usual impeccable techno (haha, we used to try to think up new words he could use on flyers to describe djs... "dj phlid comes correct... the erudite selecta...") jay did nice d&b set (first time i'd heard him spin, you go jay) and jeff played some *tight* stuff as well. he played an adam beyer drumcode that i literally heard in my dreams that night. it was in my head when i woke up the next morning. even the guy after that who played breaks wasn't so bad. shrey's friend had some chr0n so we ended up smoking. after a few hours of dancing, very appropriate. there are few feelings better than the one you get lying on a blanket in the open night, stoned, looking up at stars and feeling bass rumble through you while someone with taste mans the 1s and 2s. i haven't been that happy in a while.

[jeff on the decks]

more of triet's pictures, some of which are quite good i think

we finished up around 4:30. emerged onto the highway and it was eerily silent. not a sound. i took a piss in the pitch black darkness and couldn't see a damn thing. stumble back to the cars, left jay & co. to deal with the generator & equipment. by the time we got back to PA it was almost 6. which gave me a full hour of sleep before the globalization(s) conference!