As I write the U.S. is waging a war for peace and murdering people to secure their freedom. I am an American. It is my fault. We have a system in place that puts checks and balances on our leaders, but we've all been too coddled and lazy and now look what's happened. You, me, your mother is responsible for killing Iraqi men, women, children, terrorists, cats, cows, culture. The machine has grown monstrous. It's all-but unstoppable. Bush is outta control Hitler-style and yeah I'm too busy trying to pay my gas bill in this Third-Reich-like economy to even give a shit. What Operation Iraqi Freedom is actually doing is finally laying to waste any notion that we U.S. citizens are living in a democracy. The usual maxims of war-is-wrong and war-kills have been skewered of any meaning by the new notion that war-is-unbelievably-dumb. Fuck you your brother is over there fighting....so's mine! It's time to turn our guns, dollars, FREEDOMS OF SPEECH against these motherfuckers. There are people with backgrounds in law, economics, protest who know how best to fuck the system. Talk to them. Then fuck!!!

It's the ultimate reality TV. War is good for ratings, right? Just once I'd like to see one of CNN's wartime correspondents get blown up LIVE. Last time I saw Paul Stojanovich at the Magic Gardens a week before he left us he said as much. He practically invented reality TV. Maybe the war is his fault. He seemed pretty sure this war would be The End of It All. Then he took me to Satyricon and let me cry on his shoulder all night over a broken heart, blah-blah-blah. Paul steered me gently through three broken hearts in the last three years with his infectious optimism, patience and genuine love for every person he encountered in every walk of life. He was a wonderful angel of a man. And he was a wonderful friend of mine and of the Magic Gardens. After September 11th, 2001, one of my NYC barflies sadly mused that perhaps God had summoned Aaliyah (remember her? killed in a Bahamas plane crash in 8/01?) home to be an angel to welcome all those souls on 9/11. Well, I thought it was cheesy then, but I feel that way about Paul now. He is missed. Really, really missed.

For those of us still enduring these endtimes, there's some good stuff to suck on in April. On April 3rd, (Miss) Mona Superhero is having an opening at the Aalto Lounge, 3356 SE Belmont, from 6-9PM. Mona works with duct tape, making classically fabulous artworks that are vaguely Warholian and totally pantiesque. And FOR SALE. Get 'em now before she's worldfamouser than she already is. After the art show there is of course PORTLAND ORGANIC WRESTLING at the Satyricon, with booze enough for any broken heart.

Finally, April 19th, NYC heartthrob JESSE MALIN is singing his rockin' broken-heart-on-his-sleeve songs at Dante's. Jesse is the Crown Prince of the Lower East Side. He does this sorta Asbury Park-era Bruce stuff, very Ryan Adams, which makes girls cross-eyed. Cross-eyed girls are easy as pie to get your fingers into, so I want all you pretty boys and girls down there to welcome him to Pornland. Turn off the goddamn TV and see some live music. You'll feel younger, look sexier and have better orgasms. I promise.