tour winds down but still some big gigs left… in the tour bubble wherein time is a sort of external event that doesnt affect waking sleeping etc… still very little daylight around… so we watch the news etc. if arnold has any brains he will let tookie off, we are waiting to see what happens… its funny cause as much as i like eminem i dont feel directly connected to his more youth oriented angst now i am quite moved by his latest offering in which he expresses his frustrations about leaving his kid… i miss the family a lot and dont know when i’m going to be able to undertake another long expedition like this again, we’e just gonna have to see what happens… one thing is about the british accent or dialect, theres something all the more horrible about tv advertisments when delivered in what we americans consider erudite anglo diction… in other words i always think of the british accent as fairly highbrow and when i hear words like ‘underarm detergent’ etc spoken so carefully its even more sickening than the brash u.s. equivalent of ‘barking dog’ dialog that we are familiar with back home the shows have been going well again thanks to Hugh and his pals for being such a great support act i have been really getting off on playing the Roxy song and people have been responding well to it although i dont think anybody gets that the opening instrumental is our version of ‘..warm jets’ by Eno at least no one has mentioned knowing what it is so far… here is Leigh Foxx live at albert hall

newcastle tonight… edinburgh was quite great, those guys really know how to get crazy… aberdeen was the third power outage in blondie history but like all the others it was very weird and i wonder how many actually noticed it, at the exact moment d said goodnight at the end of hog the house (the sound system) went out for just a second but in doing so all of the presets at the sound board went back to their default modes which made the sound totally change but since it was at the end in the frenzy finale part i dont think it was very apparent i am still getting requests for autographs, all i can say is that every night at the shows we do sign all the stuff thats been sent to the venue… as far as that goes it would be a great help if people would put their name on the back of things they want signed so that it can be matched to envelopes as sometimes it gets chaotic shows are quite fun now, it takes a while to get proper momentum going… thus far the cold and flu has been at a minimum though various people in the crew are succumbing… yeah i never mention the crew, the guys and few girls who work for us are really fantastic and are a huge part of what goes on every night, this particular bunch is very slick and we cant thank them enough for repeatedly saving us during the shows and otherwise again thanx for all your support and comments, its hard to write a lot i thought it’d be easier but i’ll get more stuff up eventually

tour continues in UK… thanks to everyone for the hall of fame congratulations and all of you at the shows here in England… thanx for all the comments about the shows… Hugh Cornwell ex of the Stranglers has been opening up for us here and he is a really great guy, has been going down really well with his three piece we are planning shows in the states around the hall of fame thing we finally got to play in Albert Hall in London which is the big prestige gig, is actually a very cool place to play… it has a primitive atmosphere like it should have a dirt floor, like some great medical amphitheatre… we only saw one review for that which said that i looked like Bernie Eccelstone (who is the beat up old millionaire race car dude who has similar hair and wears sunglasses) and that kevin was dressed like “everything that was wrong with the eighties” beyond that they liked the show, great! through this all we are being filmed for a documentary by the BBC… this should be ok as we have more control over it than over past endeavors… the other night in Southend was great for me as this was the first time Akira got to come to the show… so in the first song i looked up at the balcony and there was Akira and Barbara… Akira in her headphones was going fairly crazy cheering and waving her fists in the air… she knows what we do with the band but this was the first time she saw the show per se… later on they came to the side of the stage and Akira just wandered out and started talking to me in the middle of a song… that was the night before Albert Hall, the night after she went out before the show and danced around in front of the crowd a little bit… anyway now she’s a bigger fan than ever the fans are great at the gigs, thanx to all the devoted who are attending many concerts… i got one cranky e-mail from somone who was upset cause debbie walked past a bunch of fans who were waiting for autographs without signing… i think the kids who are coming to all the shows have some idea of how tiring it is to do what we are doing… doing three days in a row is fairly exhausting and we have a bunch of three day runs even though we try and avoid them i’ll write more later when we have more down time barry was out here with us too for a while, i hadnt seen the updated site look before we got here, well done louis and barry! once again please send requests for ‘official’ type stuff to the management

so Barbara got a message which contains a rumor thats floating around about the next ‘best of’ cover shot having frank and nigel cut out of the picture… i dont know where this stuff comes from, and am always amazed at the amount of weird negativity that is produced in the world of fan gossip… so let me assure you that this is in fact only a rumor… true fans will get that during the plastic letters period frank was involved only near the end (he did play on some tracks on plastic letters but wasnt ‘officially’ in the band till parallel lines) and we hadnt yet met nigel… nigel (i think) is thanked on plastic letters cause by the time we were doing the thank yous for the cover we did know we were gonna use him …but when the picture was taken those guys just werent there… its nice to get the pics out as they are taken at the old TROPICANA hotel which was the main center of rock wildness in L.A. at least as far as hotels go and now its long since torn down… we have been sitting on them (the pics) for years, debbie is wearing a pillow case wrapped with red gaffer tape… at the time Terry Ellis of Chrysalis was all worked up lest we be labeled “punk” and the session with the pillow case dress was nixed… beyond that the pictures were shot in a two and a quarter format, that’s square film, in other words thats the whole picture, theres no more to it thats not visible thnx everyone for suggesting songs for the upcoming shows… rehearsals soon, some of the stuff people wanted to hear is bound to be covered i gotta go, more soon

so first my mind is blown! Michael B from boston wrote informing that Nick Tosches did the Creem magazine story interview with DH… as soon as Akira wakes up we will go dig through the old files and get it out… really this fucking guy is my new hero!, now maybe i can get hold of him, he keeps saying he’s dropping dead in all his books hopefully he’ll hang on long enough John Jacovina our very close friend called from N.O. where hes with some other NYC firefighters helping out… he said it is just like being in ‘some other world, like mad max’ but he’s doing ok in spite of three hours sleep per night, said he’s making a lot of friends… thnx Johnathan for the letter, most everyone is on the same page with whats going on, of course the white house turned down funding for fixing the levees two years ago now its gonna cost a shitload more to correct… do we all know that three days into the storm condaleeza rice was in NYC shopping for shoes? that she went to see spamalot and when the lights came up after the show the audience hissed and booed at her? so Amy, again someone well meaning sent me a brief critique and long article which includes this staement :”What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state.” Amy, this is propaganda, what the fuck is the ‘welfare state’? in my opinion it doesnt exist, so now its ok to collect billions of dollars to send to people in need provided they have had their homes and lives destroyed, but distributing funds to under paid poverty stricken people without the context of disaster is somehow an evil liberal plot… again Chomsky says ‘no black man can be guilty of a crime in America.’ its just still so sad to me how the lines here are drawn separating people by ideology, that people are so fucking cranky about labels, about viewpoints etc etc… America could fix itself in a couple of months without any disasters as motivations if people would just do the right thing and help each other… pretty fucking naive huh?

on a non topical note i am pleased to see more great asian films getting released here notably 2046 and especially “sympathy for mr. vengeance” which i thought was fantastic in a way almost superior to “old boy” both directed by Chan Wook Park… baby Vali keeps asking for someone named ‘Al Gold’, i guess its her agent or something but what? i have some free time… need to take a nap, the baby thing is really tiring, how do single women do it? men are bogus, women should run the show… thanks for all the messages from poland, i dont think the polish gig is up on the net any more… we are going to start figuring out the show for nov. open to suggestions

a bit more, this is like bringing back all the emotion that went on during the election that i tried to let go of and hope for the best… today a couple of bits; i saw some fucking asshole on CNN, i’m not gonna bother to say what his name was, this fuck had the audacity to blame “the looters” for the delay in rescue and support operations, and the punchline is he was a black man… i hope he enjoys being a lacky stooge… but people are of course seeing it this way without encouragment… nikki writes: “That’s just like a democrat always pointing fingers away from their own corrupt ‘selves. The thing is, New Orleans management has been corrupt since the earliest days. Lawlessness thrives in that chaotic city.” democrat?!!?? moi? you must be fucking kidding, when it comes to politics i am a strict bipartisan deathmetal voodoo adherent with leaning towards gnostic paganism, witchcraft etc etc… somehow i think nikki probably lives in like Anaheim? hmmm? give me those lawless chaotic cities anyday, i always had a great time in N.O… then i saw rumsfeld at the big press conference… just amazing, some guy asked if he thought the relief efforts had indeed been late and his answer was just a textbook non-answer, i couldnt find it verbatim (i looked and looked but no one seems to have found it worthy of printing the text) it was to say the least, evasive, cluttered with catch phrases and just plain gobble de gook… then he just stopped in mid sentence to let general whatsis take over with a longer more convoluted version… and you know what? none of the suckers in the press core had the balls to say “oh, hmm thats really clear!”… they’re all so fucking scared they wont be let back in next time, bunch of cowering bugs… no, bugs are braver… meanwhile Akiras godfather John Jacovina who is a NYC firefighter volunteered and went down to help out, he left sunday at three a.m. on a military aircraft, we are all hoping he is ok and salute his courage…

watching the news we were pleased to see that this blondie fan got to say her short bit on CNN despite her being unnamed…she was in N.O. waiting to get into the stadium, just talked about the lines being long… when bush was elected to the second term i saw a lot of media people who were down on him saying that every pres who did a second term had some major fuck up happen… if the hurricane had hit the hamptons there would have been ten battleships off shore pulling rich white people off as soon as it was possible… none of those black people down there voted for him maybe thats why they were left to swim for it… finally seeing the lady carrying the pile of ‘huggies’ out of a swamped store while the gung ho fucking newscaster yells “LOOTER!!” is maddening good ‘ol fox new tells you how to help…

overdue with this one thnx for the messages… so first i have a new hero in one Nick Tosches, writer and philosopher etc. by chance i picked up one of his new books: “In The Hand Of Dante” and was immediately converted, not ‘an easy read’ but just amazing as nick does his own version of the “divine comedy” in three levels of prose style… his tirades about the publishing world are universal, could apply to any of the arts in america, just great stuff all around… we went to poland and did a big tv gig, i think it was the last episode of polish idol… theres something of it at http://www.itvp.pl/sopot/ there might even be the show itself, i checked it out but got bored waiting for it to load the clip… then yesterday we played in washington square park for the big CBGB rally… it was quite fun, the last time i played a guitar in the park there was 1965 so very amusing, lots of the old crowd of maniacs etc, many like myself wielding offspring; Akira wearing her little CB’s shirt saying “ceegeebeegee” when she saw the logo all around… so fallout from the event should materialise here and there… not much else i’ll write again soon… still struggling continued from yesterday… at the CB’s thing i thought DH was very astute; when asked about the whole thing she said that it was more a matter of money than anything else “what do all those empty lots around the club tell you?” she queried, meaning that the whole deal about the homeless shelter is a crock and that the entire section of the block will likely be converted into expensive hi-rise apartments within a short time… but the new orleans situation is a fine example of american madness… what if there had been a weeks notice before 9-11? would the powers that be just left everyone there waiting for the event? maybe if they all were poor and mostly black… at least the NY Times addressed the cultural bias involved today on the front page… i have for years been saying that a recession would be good for the arts, maybe we’re about to find out if i’m as big an idiot as some might think… will the gas prices drop back or being the good capitalist greedy system it is just stay the same as if it always had cost fifty bucks to fill up your car… those posed pictures of bush staring out of the plane window are intense, is he just thinking that this is the apocalypse and fuck it nothing matters anyway… on a newscast the first day the gas prices started going up i saw just an ordinary guy say “only an american can screw another american this good” have gone on to Nick Tosches “King Of The Jews” which compares Arnold Rothstein and Jesus… nicks jabs at organized religion and monotheism are so eloquent! bravo NICK! later, after watching more reports about the situation in Louisiana i’m even more amazed at what this implies… for ex how the fuck do we intend to make the whole of Iraq into a peaceful democracy when we cant get a crummy water supply to one part of our own country in less than 4-5 days… also i am continually astonished at well meaning individuals who express their shock and dismay at rioting and looting; Tiger Woods saying he “doesnt understand the concept…” and why “they are not all pulling together…” was one of several i just saw… we have people in the supposed richest most powerful nation in the world who are living in the shittiest of meager conditions, maybe not full on third world poverty level but close, daily they are bombarded by images of what they are missing: the full-on greed media spectacle, and then when what little they have is pulled out from under them and they explode in frustration people act surpised, yes its a big fucking mystery at least we are seeing a lot of rage and frustration directed at the establishment about what’s going on… i’m sure many of you are having the same thoughts and observations

summer grinds on very hot here… i have been reading “haunted” by ‘ol chuck palahniuk, pretty much a fan tho i was disapointed in a few of the later ones like ‘lullaby’, pleased to say this is up to speed… my favorites still are ‘invisible monsters’ and ‘fight club’ of course, theres nothing like that first novel… let me reassure todd in florida who wonders if aliens had any effect on my liking ‘war of the worlds’… well of course it sucked, it aint “ZEBRAMAN” but i am taking it in context of what i expected/hollywood hash and re-hash, i mean damn you cant spend that much fucking money without getting a few decent shots out of it, you gotta give it to them for some of those huge mechanical scenes: the church splitting open and the boat overturning… unfortunately yes it was more of an exercise than any attempt at actually making a great film… AGAIN: requests for stuff; interviews, song rights, and ‘official’ type things like that should go thru the proper channels: our management co. 10th street entertainment, in L.A. and NYC, song rights for films have nothing to do with us as artists (unfortunately) they have to be procured thru our various publishing companies, mostly EMI/Chrysalis for the older stuff… the best way to GET AUTOGRAPHS is to send YOUR OWN BLONDIE PICTURE or blank piece of paper or cereal box or whatever to either our above mentioned management OR BETTER, TO ONE OF OUR GIGS with A SELF ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE… again A SELF ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE will almost guarantee results, at most gigs we have a pile of mail like that… lastly if you try the self addressed stamped route make sure that you use US postage for the US, UK for UK etc. we have gotten stuff from the UK here in the US with UK stamps which are not recognised by the US postal authorities… i’m sorry that we dont have any kind of autograph thing set up beyond this but thats life as they say its gonna rain again here, the spring and summer have been so damp giant mushrooms are growing on the other mushrooms, i’ve heard that its all related to the tsunami etc