Well, even Rome required centuries to be made. Obviously I have no centuries in front of me.

Neither I have days, at least for the songs I still need to write for Martiria. Deadline expired long ago and I am still in the middle of it.

Too puzzled by the meaning of life to concentrate my mind on these songs.

Too sad, indeed, to write.

A dear friend has just gotten a very bad news.

It makes me think. A lot.

What is the sense of all this running, trying, doing, undoing?
Death is just beyond the corner. Waiting you are happy to come out.

I need to get the sense of all this. I really do.
I know that better people than me tried and failed. Still I have to do it.

At the end there is just ONE question worth of his name: what's after?

A prize for the first one that will give me an answer. In the meanwhile, I will keep searching.
Even if it is dangerous. Not because of what you could find... but because of what you could NOT find.

Many years ago I read a book i thought it could illuminate my life. It was Life after life of Raymond A.Moody. At the time I needed to give a bit of rest to my mind tormented by a heavy loss (could anyone tell me if there is a loss that isn't heavy?), and the book of Dr.Moody was exactly what I wanted. I wanted to believe, but my rational mind needed "proofs". If you know what I mean.

Now, so many years after, I feel as loonely as a man can feel. No protections are allowed in adult's life. Only remotion or facing the emptyness of truth. Before I wanted an answer. Now I desperately need it.

We have gone to the moon, to the abyss of the sea, we have computers that can calculate everything in a few seconds... why can't we give an answer to the only question that matters? I am scared to say... maybe because there isn't an answer. No, worse, maybe because the answer is very simple but it is NOT the one we would like.

Even Mr.Moody seems to believe so, according to what he wrote in his last book. What did he discover in the last years that he didn't know before. What made he change (even if only partially) his mind?
Another thing I need to know, but this is easier... I just have to ask him.

Of course, someone could say that the truth is there, I just have to die to know it.

A basically correct statement. But I prefer to delay that experiment, if I can. And trying to get an answer from an indirect way.

All the thoughts of a man, all his dreams, memories, hopes, they can't disappear just like this, in a final sigh.
That wouldn't be right.

I know, I know... that's not a great proof. Right or wring do not seem to matter too much for nature. But they matter to me and, hopefully, for God. So I still have a hope.

I keep searching.

I mean, it's almost logic. He dared too much. One time or another, it had to happen.

Still... it was easy to think he had some kinda of immunity.
That it couldn't happen to him what happens to anyone of us.

Obviously, it wasn't so.
And it's almost cruel (someway ironic) that the cause of his death was one of those animals he loved so much.

Anyway The rest is silence as Hamlet says.

Farewell, Steve Irving, without you the world will be a good bit more boring.

Not really a news.

Anyway, I took out from a box my pencils, and a rubber, and a piece of paper.
And an old photo of papa Hemingway.

A good old photo.

And I made a sketch of it.
Didn't come out too bad, just a little bit twisted.

I think I will use it for the essay about Hem that I am writing for Progetto Babele.
If I will ever manage to finish it.

I see a couple of things really urgent in the list.
I have to read and valuate three short stories and three poems for a prize where I am part of the jury. It had to be done before ... last week.

Then I have to write ten new songs for the third Martiria album that should come out in Autumn.
Three are done, one is almost there and the other six... I do not even know what to write about.

Well, so, maybe I should begin to work on it, no?

No.

No, because I have to go back to fix computers, since I am "on call".
Being "on call" means that I cannot go too far from home, no more than one hour driving or so, because multinationals oblige workers to work day and night, Saturday and Sundays, Christmas and New Year's Eve and if a server fails or a network gets stuck, someone has to run in the middle of the night to fix it so that the production (oh, production!!) won't stop even for a night. Not even for an hour.

So, I am “on call”. Someone rang from the states on my mobile phone, and I have to take the van again and drive for one hour, try to understand why a damn switch in a damn chemical plant in the middle of nowhere is not answering to a "ping" coming from somewhere in Colorado, then back to the car again, back home again, climb the six stairs (with no lift) and, finally... I will take a shower, switch off the PC and fall asleep on the sofa.

Just another ordinary day wasted.

I should get used to it, after all it has gone on for four years already. 1460 days, 1460 nights.
Four years spent to be a guard dog of a network.
To make rich people richer and poor people even more miserable.
Nothing to be proud about.

They were paying me the rights due for the last lyrics I wrote, the rights were related to the second half of year 2005.

It was the incredible sum of euros 111. Something like 130$, I guess.

Not that I complain.

I've heard that some of our songs have been played by a little independent radio transmitting in Chile, from the Ands.
Surely someting like that never happened, for example, to Britney Spears.

Still... definetely these money won't allow me to stop fixing computers (that's what I do to eat and pay the rent).

And, unfortunately, when I spend the day travelling on my van to fix computers I go back home too tired to write, but if I don't write I cannot publish, if I don't publish I can't make money, if I have no money, I have to go back on the road fixing computers.
Without mentioning the fact that, if I do not write regularly, my wrist gets stiff and the quality of what I write sucks.

Apparently there is no escape from this perfect, capitalistic, circle.
The need of regular meals kills the art.
But the lack of regular meals, would eventually kill the artist.

If someone has an idea, I will be glad to listen.
You'll find me at this PC by night and on the van during the day...

(For people wondering what am I talking about, here you can find some info about the group: www.martiria.com )