And they wanna declare us dead...

us dreamers.

But look at the world: the planet is broken, overpopulated; the most 'civilized' country in the world does torture, execution without trial and is seeminlgy always in war with someone or something.

I say the dream is our last refuge. The last home in the west.

For all our hopes and aspirations will come to nothing here. It's the end of the line for real this time. Being here in Jersey offers a unique perspective for me, seeing America from here it is no longer a theory that the US is dead. It is. It's just old habits that keep this country together, I feel like sitting on a barrel of dynamite. Hatred shines from their eyes when they talk about their redneck government, I don't participate in these discussions, I just listen. I cannot even approach the hatred they exhume, even my worst anti-american clishees will fall bluntly to the ground in this barrage.

But it's all business like usual. I wonder if it will blow, revolution here? What can defuse this?

Then again, Vietnam blew over and became a non-issue, perhaps this administration will too.

'I ran this bar' mr. J says, we're talking about coke,
'and they all did it -I'd know, they came there to buy it'
'all the cops and the politicos, even the mayor' -agitated now

'I guess they need it to live with themselves' I say

he grunts.

It all sounds pretty psychotic to me, a country run on a super-high don't care 'bout noone but me mentality.

But it makes you confident, over-confident.



America is truly deppressing to watch now. Even Manhatten, whose nightlife I thoroughly enjoyed last, is winded down. It is the quietest mega-city I've ever seen now. There's just no direction, they all look for another Dylan to show them the way, the way anywhere -anywhere but here and now.
There's even a physical lack of direction. Before, you could navigate using the twin towers downtown and Empire State midtown, now ofcourse, there's only Empire State -and what a sinister building that is.

The hole left behind from WTC is like a hole in the hearts here. And they're filling it with black oozing hatred. So the night-life is more akin to what I've grown used to in Oslo, poets and singer-songwriters with box guitars that play for nothing.

It is hysteria, it's in the air. I feel like I'm breathing it, it's building, I can't wait to get out here. One more month...

I took a walk up and down Canal street. Looking for old but useful technology, last time I was here they had it all; but I was broke. Now they got nothing, car-stereos seems to the only survivor here. An elderly japanese gentleman expresses my dismay as he asks for laser-disc players from the store clerk, he is shown their collection of cheap dvd players.

'No, I look for old stereo, antique...'

I find no such things, a single store at the bottom of the street, small but crammed; with circuit boards, old drives(8" floppies anyone) and loose bits and pieces, their collection of ancient video-cameras fascinate me but I have no use for them. The clerk is young, he stands nodding to the gangsta-rap track from the radio, he could have been in a William Gibson novel, he looks bright, he has a glimmer in his eye and it looks like his smile will break out any time. But it doesn't.

I rummage through old server boards and find nothing I want.

'...old stereo, antique...'


Technology-wise, america is left behind.

Like the pc-market, here it's all big brand huge stores that have 'everything' 'cept they don't.

I find myself looking through several stores for simple things, like a cpu-fan(no, we only have one, and it's for AMD socket A 'cause that's the only cpu anyone builds their own computer from)

Even that tiny store in Frosinone on the italian country-side was better than all of these megalomanic rip-off stores put together.

So buying online is the way to go, but, here they all use that horrible pay-pal system instead of Visa or something like that. So I can't buy anything online, 'cause I can't get paypal, 'cause I don't have an american bank-account and I can't get that 'cause and so on.

In the home of free enterprise the markets are really closed. Dominated by monopolistic players that dictate terms.

If this is the peak of the west then they can have it.

b