ok . . . i will actually write tomorrow . . . i’m still tired!!

the moon over mississippi, which i could not wait to get out of

now ten hours after i set out from tennessee this afternoon, i am in new orleans

i will write more tomorrow . . . i’m so tired i could cry

☆ STARSAILOR ☆
WORLD TOUR 2025

It is nearly one in the morning and I am writing to you live from the command center of my fortified satellite compound in an undisclosed location around the Tri-Cities area of East Tennessee. The secrecy surrounding my whereabouts is necessary to protect my staff and me from my harshest critics and most blood-thirsty enemies . . . such is the importance of my life’s work that they would destroy its author were I caught unawares. Dollars damn me, and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. . . .

Really I ought to be in the high castle spire getting as much sleep as I can manage on account of I have to wake my ass up at nine and pick up a rental car from the next town over. As you can see from the image at the top, which I spent an embarrassing amount of time on, I have a lot of places to go between now and December, don’t you know. Too many, really! and too quickly. I have planned this long dark trip poorly, as is my custom. But that’s also what’s so fun about this whole foolish endeavor, this wheel of fire I am bound upon once again, and by my own hand no less! For God’s sake!

Though yes, for those who came in late:

Wow! That’s a lot of cities. And I have to blow through the first four to beeline to the Bay Area by October 10th. That is the hard cutoff . . . McCune and our spirit guide and I leave for Montana in a backfiring hesher van that very morning. If the authorities don’t take us into custody at the Idaho-Montana border, our plan is to meander around the place and see what it’s all about. It’s one of the few states I’ve never been to, and they tell me it’s full of hot springs. I love those things. I am all about going to a place where there are hot springs aplenty. I packed my bathing suit and everything.

As far as tomorrow goes, my favorite intern has informed me I am driving 670 miles south from Tennessee through Alabama and Mississippi to get to the southernmost tip of Louisiana where I have about a 95% chance of finding its most beautiful city, which is New Orleans, and home to one of my best and oldest friends, being Leila Wylie. For a God-fearing middle-class American with no police record driving a neutral-colored four-door Japanese sedan at the posted speed limit, that’s about ten solid hours of driving . . . but I’m gonna do it in seven, or die trying. I’ll know I’ve made it to Crescent City when I once again cross the I-10 Twin Span Bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. When you get to that bridge, you feel a sort of weightlessness . . . that mystical place you have traveled so far to get to is just on the other side. But you must also keep that loaded pistol cocked between your legs. You never know for sure what sort of twisted freaks the city has let loose from its ancient catacombs till you’re staring down a whole shambling squad of them at the first red light off the interstate. And even then, you’d better hope those bullets in the chamber are made of pure silver or else it’s “Goodnight Irene” . . .

Of all the cities I am passing through between now and October 10th, I am staying in New Orleans the longest. Apparently Leila owns a whole entire house there, and it has a swimming pool. It seems as though this bathing suit of mine is going to get a lot of mileage. And I reckon we will do a whole lot of the thing I do every time I’m in New Orleans, which is my favorite thing to do anywhere, and that is to straight up Hang Out. As far as Hanging Out goes, New Orleans has got to be in the running for first place. I’ve always liked that place. It’s 2025, and I’ve been visiting New Orleans since 2011 when I helped Leila move there. Back then I was living on borrowed time, and assumed my life was over. I drove a sixteen-foot moving truck containing all her earthly possessions (which took up about two feet of the truck) from Baltimore to New Orleans with Leila having a nervous breakdown in the passenger seat the entire time. It was great! I was last in New Orleans in September 2023. It was a brief visit and it had to be that way for reasons I ought not say here. And now I’m back again . . . again!

Other than swimming and eating red beans and rice and sitting in weird bars that in lesser cities would be condemned by bureaucrats and overzealous food and safety inspectors, Leila has promised to reintroduce me into the social world of New Orleans. A long time ago I made myself a villain there, and thus I became a sort of stranger to it . . . but now that I’ve heard the word and seen the light, they are bound to let me once again board the riverboat casinos and gamble with the best of them. I don’t think my reputation is so sterling that I could link arms with the daughter of a captain of industry or nothing like that, not anymore anyway . . . though word round the campfire is Leila received safe passage for me to attend an all-girls movie night, which is just fine with me:

After Leila and I weep at our parting on the morning of October 2nd, I will fly to Austin and stay with my friend Colette for two days. I have known Colette for a very long time but have not seen her in a very long time. I don’t know that we’ve done something as simple as sit down at a restaurant and talk to one another across the table since at least 2012. I have to say: sad though I will be to leave Leila and New Orleans, I am real excited to see Colette again. After I left Texas for California, we fell out of touch for one reason or another. I regret this. Colette is such a good person and I have missed her a lot, so I figured I ought to make time to see her this time around. And in the city where we both used to live, no less! I love it.

From then on it is a mad dash to Northern California . . . I have to drive from Austin to Albuquerque:

. . . which is about eleven hours and 715 miles behind the wheel to get to my friend Mikaylah’s house. I have driven from Austin to Los Angeles once before, which was in 2013 when I moved to California. I was with my cousin and our friend Jason, and we took turns driving. As I recall, it took us ten whole hours just to get out of Texas from Austin to El Paso . . . we’d taken a longer route just so we could see Marfa, which was worth the extra mileage. That was one of the best days of my entire life. And from there we drove through the night into New Mexico and Arizona and finally slept at a motel in Tucson (which, by the way, is a hugely underrated city). This time I am of course the lone driver and am taking a different and more northerly route . . . I’m going to pass through Roswell at night, for God’s sake! That alone is worth the back pain.

Anyway: I’ll spend a day or so with Mikaylah in Albuquerque (which I can never remember how to spell), then white-knuckle rocket straight on through Arizona and the Mojave Desert and Barstow and all that other bullshit to get to my satellite office in Los Angeles. This ain’t no short ride neither:

Listen: it’s going to be a lot, but I can do it. Thing is, I’m already dead. And you can’t kill what is already dead. Or didn’t you know?

One of my interns has just informed me that it’s nearly five in the morning (I promptly fired him), and thus the godforsaken sun shall soon come to reveal my only weakness. I can hear Some Dogs barking in the fields over yonder, and the lonesome whistle blow of a night train farther beyond. I really ought to sleep. Granted, I will make up an hour in the car on account of the timezone change, but my body won’t know that. Hey, it’s OK with me. I’ll sleep in the pool when I get in.

The rest of the trip I will talk about later. I can’t even begin to think about all the driving and bussing and flying I have to do to get back to New York City by mid-November. NYC is a sort of Polaris to me . . . maybe I’ll explain more some other time. Maybe not!

I should mention here that I have dictated the entirety of this communique to my little sister Abby, who is a cat, and who typed the whole thing up in no time:

Looking over it now, she did a fine job. I will miss her when I drive off tomorrow in the back of my armored limousine. So for now the two of us will go to sleep and dream next to one another while we still can. Doesn’t that sound nice? ☆彡

taken at the behest of an inquiring party

controlling elements in johnson city, tennessee

When we first start hanging out with Ishmael in MOBY-DICK, we see that he, like everyone cursed to walk this earth, has preexisting notions or prejudices regarding people and concepts and things that he has yet only a shallow understanding of. This is most evident when he meets his future best friend, the harpooneer Queequeg, who is (at least initially to Ishmael) a bizarre savage from a faraway land. After spending time with him, and sharing a bed with him, and being spooned by him, and smoking a pipe with him, and communicating with him in a way that transcends mere language, Ishmael’s skepticisms of Queequeg’s culture and strange religious practices melt away. Even if he does not fully understand them, Ishmael nonetheless respects their obvious importance in Queequeg’s life.

All throughout MOBY-DICK there are moments like this, where Ishmael’s snap judgments are soon replaced with a sort of gentle humanistic view. It’s inspiring. I think Melville sums this up well in the chapter where Ishmael and Queequeg become bedfellows:

See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.

I bring this up because this is how I try to come at the whole world and everyone in it. Sorry! Maybe that sounds too idealistic or reductive to you, but it is true. I don’t hate anyone, not a single person, and I try very hard not to pass judgment on things that I do not understand. I want to understand them . . . am curious about them! I am, after all, an Aquarius . . . it is WRIT UPON THE STARS that I espouse peace and brotherly love. All people are my brothers and sisters.

AND WHAT OF RELIGION?

Is there anything more contentious? Well: Ishmael (and Herman Melville) has a lot to say about religion. I agree with every word. These passages from MOBY-DICK have and continue to encapsulate my feelings regarding organized religion and personal spirituality, whatever they may happen to be:

I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth—pagans and all included—can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship—to do the will of God? that is worship. And what is the will of God?—to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me—that is the will of God.

Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.

I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name.

I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;— but what of that? Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content; and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans alike— for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.

just so happened to watch GREY GARDENS on the 50th anniversary of its release

Near as I can tell, just about every friend of mine who is single is currently experiencing Dude Woes. Which is to say: they keep meeting and, to their dismay, briefly dating these sniveling losers who bail or ghost after a few dates . . . the operative word being “briefly” on account of they (the women) would have liked for the budding relationship to sail on to that secret place only lovers know. In a few cases, the dude breaks it off after several months of dating apropos of nothing . . . after having lulled them into a false sense of security, when things were going well for both parties! Some tumorous thing has emerged in people on The Apps in this post-virus world where they are absolutely terrified of building something with a kind stranger who is open to loving them. It is endemic. Seems these creeps would rather stay home and look at their phones and feel depressed than see something through just for the sake of the song.

Every week a friend will send me a screenshot of a Breakup Text and ask me for my Dude Perspective. In essentially all cases, the dude admits that, while he enjoyed getting to know my friend, he feels it is best they stop seeing each other for one of the following cliche cop-outs:

• “I’m depressed”
• “I’m not over my ex”
• “I’m afraid of commitment”
• “I need to focus on myself”
• “I have a lot going on at work”
• “I don’t think I’m ready to be in a serious relationship”

. . . and so on. Cowardly stuff!

Listen: these friends of mine are top-shelf high-caliber individuals. They are rarefied . . . truly some of the best people walking the earth. I am fortunate to know them. My friend Emi once said to my brother Kerwin: “Ryan knows all the best people.” It’s true!

The other night my friend Cecelia came to me and asked if something was wrong with her on account of all these scrubs kicking her to the curb after one or two dates, and I told her the truth, which was “Cecelia, absolutely not”. I told her also that in the last two weeks, many of my friends had, like her, lamented The State of Things, had shown me screenshots of messages with these dudes and their weak-ass excuses for splitting, had the asked me the same questions about themselves. And then Cecelia said one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me:

. . . wow! She’s right.

I have spoken of this many times, but I believe there is a point of no return with a dude in his thirties where, if he does not get it together, which is to say GET OVER HIMSELF, then he will be permanently frozen in that state till the Reaper beckons them into the abyss where even Time does not exist. It seems as though a lot of dudes just putz around shrieking and wailing, not having any sense of themselves or the world they inhabit . . . and have let the three decades of their life render them a jaded, selfish, aloof, cheap, indecisive, and spiritually bankrupt pile of protoplasm.

If this sort of life continues on without being rectified, the dude may as well be strapped into a rollercoaster ride straight to hell. I myself was in danger of crystalizing into this thing. Somehow during the pandemic I was able to overcome it. I know now that operating out of fear is never the true path. A decision made in fear is always wrong. It is better to make something than to wallow in an inert state until the clock runs out. It is, of course, better to love someone else than to hate yourself. Live while you still can! Otherwise you will always wonder at what could have been. TAKE IT FROM ME: in a decade, you will not think “I’m glad I did nothing” . . . you will be tortured by your stupidity and inaction now that this person and this time in your life are fucking ghostly fragments!

It seems to me that, nice though some of these guys may have been to my friends, they still fled out of fear. Must I quote DUNE??

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

LISTEN:

Stop fucking around and BE somebody, baby! Just start flying . . . it’s that easy! The illusion of choice—forfeiting a chance at true romance because you think there might be some better thing on the horizon—is just that: an illusion. Even if it doesn’t work out, it was not wasted time. As I told my friend Leila the other night . . . when the nukes start dropping, would you rather be hugging yourself or someone who loves you? Now that we live in the Dark World here at the end of all things, it is foolish to turn away from a good thing. If you’ve got a good thing going . . . keep it going! “I’m depressed” is, quite frankly, an extremely pathetic excuse not to hang out with a beautiful and intelligent woman who wants you there. Jesus wept!

OK?

I shall end this post thusly:

. . . OK?