Bowie was acutely aware of the intricacies that made up the lot of man. He wrote psalms that pierced the intellect, ego, heart and soul, sometimes at the molecular level. "I'm sinking in the quicksand of my thoughts/And I ain't got the power anymore." Barely a post-teen, the future duke scripted kindred comfort for a generation to come. Hunky Dory ranks in the 70s pantheon of visionary long plays. How did he know? The authentic ones always know.

I had to turn off the television this evening. The montage Keith Olberman ran at the end of the most important program (news or otherwise) on the tube these days was too much to bear. I am miles from the flames in this odd, flawed, fucked up, magnificent hometown they named after the winged creatures that do Heaven's bidding here on Earth. But I can smell the loss, the pain, the despair and the destruction. 'My city's in ruins' sang the immortal Boss after 9/11. There was no geographical or biological ownership implied his heartbreaking lament. Asbury Park is as far from Manhattan as Hollywood is from what used to be Lake Arrowhead. But you see, there are two cities in America – and only two – that belong to everyone. New York and Los Angeles.

I have personally experienced the yin/yang miracles born of leaving here and going there. For perspective, for excitement, inspiration, for exile…New York City is the other half of the equation that fosters balance, bravery and benevolent literature. I walked Ground Zero three times after 9/11 and waxed accordingly. Being an empath is absolutely exhausting. Especially when the world and its presumably most evolved species just keeps falling and falling and falling in space.

Now please understand, I have been feeling pretty good lately. Which if you've followed my My Space blog the past year and a half, you'll realize is a huge statement. Ryan Adams' "Shadowlands" has been my hang for quite some time. But the shift is on. We're at the tipping point. Stick your tongue out and you can feel and taste the ash as it sprinkles in the air. Everything is metaphor. Nothing is real because reality is fantasy.

Angel City's back draft is (to borrow from Truffuat's professor in Close Encounters), 'an event sociological.' We knew we were going to burn. Three inches of rain has fallen on this desert in the past year. The winds are as dependable as the cashew vendors on the streets of Midtown. Growing up in the San Fernando Valley in the 60s, I waited for baited breath each year for the Santa Ana's. October meant two things as a kid: Halloween and those magnificent gusts that would blow the crappy hot summer energy south, out of our 'hood. Good riddance. Bring on the hoops and pigskin.

Ingrid the Ashram bred New Jersey born mystical masseuse called yesterday. "Dude, the Elders foretold of the fires last year," she vibrated. "The test has begun. If we don't wake up and start moving in the right direction, there will be a giant quake in San Francisco. And if that doesn't do it, a Tsunami will hit the southern California coast."

Let people think you're strange. Smile when they react to your statements about consciousness and awareness with rolled eyes and tepid empathy. Do not be taken in by the terror-publicans. Nothing is right with anything right now. Not our commander in thief, our precious environment, our financial infrastructure, our diet, our belief systems or our popular culture. The End Times are not just defined by man's inhumanity to man. Dancing with the Stars is the number one rated network show in America. Phil Spector committed murder and walked thanks to the smoke created by his celebrity. Why did 'they' take down the Towers? Why the body blow to the immigrant's eternal port o' call, Manhattan island? We know why. But the answer will fuck up the economy, so the illusion continues, unabated.

Jeffrey Lebowski just wanted to be The Dude. Simple and stoned, peaceful and poetic. Those smoggy 70s was when I began using that moniker. In the late 80s, I was the spitting image of Jeff Bridges' dynamic Dude. The term still rolls off my lips daily but I can't divert my eyes anymore from the passion play. Larry Sellers was a brat but he didn't have the money. How could he? He was flunking social studies, for God's sake? How did everything get messed up? What did I do to deserve a rug pissing?

Same reason Los Angeles is burning. Hatred, greed, lack of compassion, and a desperately short supply of unconditional love. The truth has been beaten to a bloody pulp and the Universe just won't have it anymore. There is a revolution taking place. It's just not sexy enough to get play in the mainstream media. Not one candidate running for the office that will be tasked with leading us to the doorstep of 2012, not one single individual has the courage to lay it out in black and white just how close to Jon Anderson's edge we truly are. The soothsayers are all on the same page. Have been since day one, whenever that was.

Strung out in Heaven's High, mankind has hit an all time low. But the ashes hold promise, the symbol of rebirth, the link between this mortal coil and the infinite beyond. Left coast, right coast, we're all toast; 'til we stop revving the engine, kick back for a spell, and coast. Least that's how I see it. That's my report. And the times they are a raging. But dig this: No matter what happens, the music survives and the dude... abides.