Vienna.

What a beautiful evening here in gorgeous Berlin Mitte. I can't believe how great the weather has been since my arrival. I've been trying to enjoy as much of it as I can, though. 'Cause once the cool weather hits, it'll hit hard.

Played in Vienna last night. Small club, but, wow, were the people into it. It was my first time ever in Vienna and the people seemed well-primed for my arrival. I think it was my tightest set in a long time. The sound system was nice, the monitors were good and close. Mixer was an Allen & Heath 16-track board pressed into service for DJ use. The set was recorded for Play.fm Vienna and I hope to get a copy for myself to put up on puresonikrecords.net so everyone can enjoy it. Thanks to Flo and Chris for organizing the event, hopefully the first in a series.

Not much going on now. I'm down for a couple of weeks 'till I hit again in Tel Aviv. Never thought I'd be rocking the Holy Land. Really looking forward to that. First Bobby and Whitney last summer chillin' with Ariel Sharon, now me. =) My friends have been concerned about my going to Israel, but it seems like it's safer there than the USA at the moment.

I was watching CNN in my hotel room and this was the first time I'd seen the full effect of Katrina on New Orleans (I'd been consumed with moving and hadn't seen a TV in a few days). It's horrible, not only the people, but the city itself won't be the same again. It'll be like one of those ancient, submerged cities that they find off the coasts of Greece or Italy.

President Bush's complete indifference towards the mostly-black and working-class white victims still trapped in the city almost a week after the hurricane itself should come as no surprise to those familiar with the Right. If it had been corporate CEOs and Republican politicians trapped on rooftops and in the Convention Center, NASA would have invented a way to get to them right that second.

Oh, and I learned this week from Yahoo photos that white victims were plucky survivors, while black victims were bottom-feeding looters. Even under twenty feet of water, it's still the deep south.

Seems like the USA is taking some hard knocks these days. Add to that the death of Chief Justice Bill Rehnquist yesterday, a real Conservative icon, and most recently, the man who coronated George W. Bush into power after his loss of the 2000 election to Al Gore. No great loss there, as far as I'm concerned. Second only to the passing of noted racist (with a secret black daughter, mind you) Strom Thurmond on my hit parade of indifference. Too bad New Orleans wasn't full of Republicans last week, as a matter of fact. Like some kind of convention or something. Maybe they would have all washed out to sea.

That would have been nice.