It's coming through a hole in the air, from those nights in Tiananmen Square. It's coming from the feel that this ain't exactly real, or it's real, but it ain't exactly there. From the wars against disorder, from the sirens night and day, from the fires of the homeless, from the ashes of the gay: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. It's coming through a crack in the wall; on a visionary flood of alcohol from the staggering account of the Sermon on the Mount which I don't pretend to understand at all. It's coming from the silence on the dock of the bay, from the brave, the bold, the battered heart of Chevrolet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. It's coming from the sorrow in the street, the holy places where the races meet; from the homicidal bitchin' that goes down in every kitchen to determine who will serve and who will eat. From the wells of disappointment where the women kneel to pray for the grace of God in the desert here and the desert far away: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. Sail on, sail on O mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need Past the Reefs of Greed Through the Squalls of Hate Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on. It's coming to America first, the cradle of the best and of the worst. It's here they got the range and the machinery for change and it's here they got the spiritual thirst. It's here the family's broken and it's here the lonely say that the heart has got to open in a fundamental way: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. It's coming from the women and the men. O baby, we'll be making love again. We'll be going down so deep the river's going to weep, and the mountain's going to shout Amen! It's coming like the tidal flood beneath the lunar sway, imperial, mysterious, in amorous array: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. Sail on, sail on ... I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can't stand the scene. And I'm neither left or right I'm just staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen. But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that Time cannot decay, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

but i wasn't on the phone all the time. and that was what was hard. i've been going days at a stretch lately without seeing a single soul besides the people at the local supermarket (and here in west l.a., they might as well be automatons, as they don't talk to you, except to make passes at you), and one might say i'm depressed, especially as i haven't called my psychologist in weeks, and i was supposed to, just to chat. gosh, it sounds different once i say it. but to me, i've been letting weeks shrink into days. three weeks? it's been three days. my friends have been slowly floating away. the summer has been hard enough. now to process this, this event meant to demoralize and terrorize, which must be made into an event which strengthens and resolves, all on my own, it is just very hard.

"I was doing better today, until a short while ago when I was at a cafe for breakfast. As I stood in line, someone (very loudly and in a very accusing tone) asked: 'Are you from Afghanistan??' All eyes turned upon me, burning, each one accompanied with accusatory frowns. Needless to say, I very sheepishly said: 'I am not from Afghanistan.', then I quietly left ... with an empty stomach and almost crying."

to see the world trade towers collapse... the world trade towers. i learned about them in elementary school. they were symbols of our nation's affluence, our engineering ability. our commerce. they no longer exist.

los angeles city hall shut down.

i think every news web site is down. even the guardian and bbc servers in england are glutted. and what a strange night it had been for me already. we'd just had two earthquakes in a day, on a fault line running through downtown that had never been active before. i'd been wound tighter than anything, and it seems cosmic, as if there were already a whirl of chaos whipping the world round, and that los angeles was caught in it too. now each event comes with greater and greater surreality. here we are, and what words are there to describe the feeling of this morning? these are things we've only read of in novels, only seen in movies.