Today a sad day for Democrats, for good government, and for my wife. Paul Wellstone died in a plane accident this morning along with his wife, daughter and some other staff. Liz has been out there a work, helping with the campaign. She'd put a lot of herself in getting out there to help, overcoming various stresses at work, and general exhaustion from travelling so much this year. She'd developed a personal connection with him, having driven him and his wife to a fundraiser earlier this year, and always like to be in the thick of intense political campaigns -- and this one was going to be close. Yesterday she'd been driving him around again, and had met other people who were on that plane. It must be hard to see all that end, and it is sad to see a good man, one of the better politicians, not to mention the other peopl on the plane, come to such an untimely end.

Saturday night I dragged myself to a Burning Man decompression party. It was a huge block party a couple blocks of 3rd street in the DogPatch neighborhood. The music bounced through the buildings reaching me as I turned up 18th on my trusty old bike.

It was a bit of a stretch for me that night, I was tired and was in a somber and solitary mood, but I figured that this would be a good thing to check out if I want to go to burning man next year. I was happy to see that many people had ridden their bikes to the event, I had to seek for a while to find a pole to attach my bike to -- a much too rare experience I feel.

My first impression was that I wished I had dressed up more, my second was that I wish I had come with someone, and third that I would have been ecstatic had I been single. The main event was dancing, there was at least 6 different DJs/stages at various points along the 2 block party. There was a shocking lack of naked people (but i guess this because it is San Francisco weather rather than playa weather ), but a good percentage of the crowd was wearing some get up (or get down if you know what I mean).

The art, was well, the art that I had seen pictures of, and nothing new or particularly interesting struck my fancy, though I'm sure drugs would have made a difference there. The best was the plaster strobe swimming animation. But I'd heard about that before, so it was nothing new.

The crowd reminded me of a mixture of the Castro Halloween festivities and a Dot-com party, somewhat extravagant hedonism, in other words. My particular set of burning man friends had their karaoke glam clam firing up a small crowd of people, particularly when someone was willing to ham it up (the best being a queen song, "i'm just a poor boy from a poor family" can't remember the name ) usually the crowd responded. But I wasn't really in the mood to go there.

Neither was a woman standing near and she starting talking to me in a way that I knew was trouble (for me). It was a nice feeling to be hit upon again, and I admit to some dissappointment when the question of my status as a married man came up.

Yes, it would have been great if I was a single person again. Which makes me sad I did not invite any of my single guy friends (or girls for that matter) not already there.

There was certainly a lot of phermones flying -- not a few people making out and/or doing other things (there were plenty of dark corners).

But all in all, I have to admit, that I was bored. Not having participated or being attached to anything there (outside of my friends who hoved close to the clam), there was no sense of the famed community of burning man (well outside of the girl who gave me hummous crackers, and the one dressed in lots of foam who gave me a hug). I felt a bit sad judging the event so. But there you go.

review CULTURE JAM, with a couple of adbusters' head honchos whose names escape me.

I was excited about this event, because I think Adbusters is pretty amazing. They've done this amazing work turning advertising on its head, exposing some of the underpinnings of our capital driven lives.

But I came away from this lecture more than a little dissappointed.

The first reason is that some of the TV spots they showed were just not all that good. They came out as Political attack ads, very heavy handed, very little subtelty (with a couple exceptions), but nothing really I don't think that would counter the messages of hundreds of commerical ads.

The 2nd reason is that the message is fundamentally a negative one: don't do this, don't do that, things are bad, you're bad. it's not that I think that that message doesn't need to be heard -- I just think it won't be heard. There is no idea of what can be done differently -- or how that can be acheived. No hope, just anger.

I think this stems from the fact that a lot of my peeps, the left, are doomsayers -- and in some ways I think, want to see things fall apart, with this romantic and/or idealistic notion that they can pick up the pieces and put them back better than they were before.

I see myself doing this and I think this is a vision we have to give up.

I realize it is also an attempt to stir things up, to make people uncomfortable. In some ways the worst enemy of positive change is comfort. If people are comfortable, they are not going to get out of their chairs and fight. this is the genius of late 20th century capitalism. This is the true moral of "Monster's Inc" when you think about it -- if you make someone laugh, they are not going to fight you. Keep the people happy, give them what they want, and they will likely follow you like docile sheep.

The other final comment i have is that someone asked a question: "What happens when you're message or ideas get co-opted?" and railed against all the "corrupt environmental clubs" (I assume she meant the sierra club here). When your message gets co-opted, I think you've one. if corporations are taking you're ideas and running with them, rejoice! They have heard your message, they are taking it as far to heart as they ever will. If they start making more enviro friendly products, this is a good thing, no? I don't get the attitude.

One thing did strike true, "it takes many levels of action" to get things done -- from the conservative corrupt clubs, to the sign swinging activists.

I just don't think we can rely on anger to sustain anything - "Yay princess mononoke!"