WALK ON THE OCEAN: Hanging down on Sanibel Island, FL this week with the family. Our place is beautiful, with a great view of the Gulf. I'll post a pic or two at some point.

GOT TO KEEP ON KEEPING ON: Wrote this poem on the flight back from L.A. today. A friend of mine suggests it ought to be the title poem of a collection of airplane poetry. Anyway, here it is:

Going Nowhere

Why is it
only when I am
speeding above
the earth
my life
the land, passing
between places
that I can
finally
slow down

well
enough

to hear my heart
beating to feel
my being moving to no
destination no
place no
where?

Is there more
wisdom in the answer
or the question?

MODEL WORLD: Writing from a Starbucks in Manhattan. Columbus Avenue and 67th to be exact. It's really crowded in New York today. Must be a convention in town. Oh, and there are a lot of lovely women here, too. Maybe it's a model convention.

I'm seeing packs of nannies and dogwalkers, too. For some reason I feel sorry for the kids and the dogs.

I JUST WROTE A GREAT HEADLINE, SO I'M NOT SWEATIN' IT: I'm thinking that, for entertainment, I'm going to make all my headlines allusions to film, literature, or music for the time being. He or she who nails the cite (w/in the COMMENTS feature) wins the glory.

TRAVEL AHEAD, TRAVEL BEHIND: Big week ahead, with a major flight in the middle. Wednesday afternoon I present in Manhattan, then Thursday afternoon I present in Los Angeles. My home base is Chicago, so I'll be criss-crossing the country again this week.

CRAPRAMENTO: Morning flight to Sacramento today, focus groups tonight, and then back home. Should be a whirlwind. Coolin' my heels in Red Carpet right now, listening to my unruly stomach. Pray the Immodium is doing its job...

ANOTHER AIRPLANE POEM: Tapped out another poem on the flight home last night. I think it has some Pope and some Schiavo in it, as well as my own usual musing on mortality.

Tilting
You can
hear it,
the sound of your body
living
and
dying
in every moment.

Life is a labor
to breathe,
to
pull in
and push out;
it is grasping
and releasing
to be whole and still
tilting toward
nothing.

ORD 2 HPN: 7AM little-plane run up to White Plains, NY for a day's worth of meetings, followed by a 5PMish little-plane run back to Chicago. Cruising on just under four hours sleep, counting on adrenalin, Starbucks, and the energy of the universe to carry me through. Will be fun to see if this little Canadair jet offers enough elbow room for typing. Still have a little more scribbling to do on the plane.

Today's moment of gratitude: Despite lack of sleep and a tough deadline...no real extra stress. Feeling tired but solid. A touch sweaty, too, but you can't have it all.

POEM THERAPY: Tons of work today, first day back, stressed, tight shoulder, oy vey, ugh, etc., and so I wrote this poem:

MANIFESTS
Life is
learning how to
stand still
at the center

of the storm
or better still

how to be
the cloud

that is not really
there
to begin with.

(Note: It occurs that another nice title for this one might have been "Blow Me." Seriously.)

VIVA! Off to Vegas today through Sunday. Sitting in Red Carpet Club, waiting on a plane. Bloody Mary? Not yet.

BATTLE OF THE BIG CHEFS: Two of Chicago's superstar chefs are engaging in a highly personal war of words...over foie gras. Thing I can't understand: How can you defend the practice of force-feeding ducks? Gross.

Okay, I don't eat much meat these days. Only fish, actually, for like the past four years or so. Nonetheless I *do* get how some people -- most people -- can eat meat. I get it. It's just not for me.

But I *don't* get foie gras. I don't get veal. I don't get doing stuff that is so blatantly cruel, stuff where the cruelty is right out front in the debate. You can pretend not to know about how pigs and chickens are tortured from birth. But we've all seen the veal-fattening pens. We've all heard about how ducks become foie gras.

What excuse is there?

GERE ASTAIRE STRIKES AGAIN: This Richard Gere story is disturbingly close to something you would see in THE ONION. (Mom and Dad, the onion is a satirical newspaper, sort of like a smart MAD magazine.)

The first two paragraphs are awesome:

TOKYO (Reuters) - Expecting no more than light chit-chat about ballroom dancing, reporters in Tokyo were startled when actor Richard Gere launched into a condemnation of Europe's plans to lift an arms embargo against China.

After promoting his new film "Shall We Dance?," in which he co-stars with Jennifer Lopez, Gere grabbed a microphone to denounce plans by the European Union to lift the embargo imposed after China's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 1989.

Don't get me wrong. I find plenty to admire about Richard Gere. But there's no denying the comedy of it all. (And yes, comedy and tragedy are often seatmates.)

TURN IT UP: My wife and sons have been out of town this month, hunkered down in Florida with both sides of grandparents. I was with them for a week, then down for another weekend. But...

...for much of the month I've been in our house alone. And when I'm not feeling especially melancholy about their absence, there's one thing I've been doing a lot of...

Not that.

Playing music loud!

I hadn't really noticed it until they left, but it's been ages since I've been in the house alone with the stereo up loud. My God is it fun!

Most fun songs of the past few hours:

"Radio," by Rancid
"Dreaming," by Blondie
"God Tells Me To," by the Ass Ponys
"Down," by 311
"Keep It Clean," by Camera Obscura
"Snot," by Snot

UNREAL ENTERTAINMENT: Just watched an episode of Wayne Newton's THE ENTERTAINER on the E! channel. It's pretty much THE APPRENTICE does Vegas, with contestants vying for a big-money prize and a chance to become a star on The Strip. Yuck.

What can I say...it's one of the most bizarre, laughing at not with things I've ever seen. How to describe it...must...find...words. Look, let's just say that this episode centered on the heartbreak of a prop comic. Enough said.

Oh, and Sir Newton was wearing a bizarre camouflage ribbed muscle shirt and a dome of hair that resembled a bike helmet made of black cotton candy.

BIG THANKS: Just wanted to take a second to acknowledge how much I enjoy and appreciate all the smart, insightful, personal, funny, and great contributions y'all make in the COMMENTS section. It's really tremendous. Makes me proud, humble, and happy.

LAID-BACK, INDEED: Another truly great hip-hop cover.

YOU DOWN WITH POB? I've been hearing stories about Pat O'Brien excesses over the years. In my various travels in and around the media/entertainment space, it seems everyone's got a POB tale. Anyhow, this NY Daily News gossip piece is funny and sad. The guy sure sounds like a self-obsessed nut job!

WOW, TECHNOLOGY: Kinda neat that I'm able to look at the grim traffic ahead of me, jump off the expressway, hunker down wirelessly in a Starbucks, watch the traffic flow online, and eventually jump back on the highway when it abates sufficiently. Sort of a good metaphor for how 'Net connections can de-friction many aspects of life.

MORE INFO ABOUT SCHIAVO: Another really helpful article on the Schiavo case, this time arguing that the legal and medical questions are not in doubt at all (as Bart and Steve have argued in COMMENTS).

SAVE SCHIAVO? I don't recall which side of the political divide Fred Barnes sits on. And I realize there's likely a whole 'nother side to the Schiavo story than the one he writes here. Nonetheless, the article sure makes a lot of sense to me.