Looks Like ZD's Cranky Storm Front (Tsunami) Has Passed. (Back to just regular crankiness!)

Well, it's 11:30pm, and I've been up since 3:30am when it was too cold to sleep outside and I figured I would take a nap at 9am, when it gets warm enough and the dew burns off the grass at the park. BUT, it turned out to be a busy day, in a good way, as it turned out someone is stepping up to help ZD get some projects going, like the return of "The Zuma Dogg Show" on cable in the Malibu area. This time as a commercial show (not public access) and I can promote my website and LIVE gigs and sell DVDs, and Tshirts. Plus, I'll have the seed money to get Zuma Dogg shirts made for the first time since the ZD "City Hall Era." AND, will have some seed money left over to try and do whatever else I can to keep momentum going as long as I can keep bringing in money from the initial investment. So I'll start with the TV and take out some ads in the local area newspapers and take it from there.

Hopefully, there will be an opportunity to do an activist based event, because there IS a lot of outrage as City Hall continues to become more outrageous. (Don't make me start with the list.)

And although this past weekend was like passing a kidney stone as HULK Zuma Dogg detoxified back to "regular" Pre-City Hall, round the clock activist "Zuma Dogg," like any classic rock artist (cause that's what I wish I was, so that's what I compare myself to, not elected officials), now I have the past three years of "city hall activist" related material, along with all the constant touring across the city, so there's a lot of new material in the overall Zuma Dogg Act -- and will forever be on the politically minded activist tip, and ZD will be that agent of change and bamboozle busting, shady exposing, corruption light shining and awareness awakener...

But now I will hopefully be reaching some of my old audience (who is aware of my activism, anyway, I have found), but can get a real update on my show, and it WILL be typical Zuma Dogg mix of music, fun and city hall politics, but I have to come out of the frying pan to be able to do all the stuff people think and wish I were doing.

So basically, I FEEL like I'm back to regular Zuma Dogg, pre-round the clock activism. And we all know how intense it has been because you've read about it here. And it feels like the nightmare is over, even though the challenge starts now.

I said recently that I felt a "season finale" conclusion to the "City Hall Era" of Zuma Dogg after the city council election that I was REALLY hanging in for and trying to stay calm and in the suit and clean shaven and play the role of an exemplary city council candidate, and it was worth it and it was a FANTASTIC final scene for the season finale.

And once I pulled the plug and the energy started to dissipate, the wave of memories over the past nine years came flooding back as I was never worse off on the streets and the "bittersweet memories" were the way I was able to get through the MISERABLE past weekend.

And now it feels like I'm on the other end of the McClure Tunnel (the tunnel to Malibu between the 10 and PCH) -- and have my mojo back.

SORRY IT ISN'T GOING TO BE 100% CITY HALL ACTIVISM BY ATTENDING ALL THE COUNCIL MEETINGS.

THAT CHAPTER IS CLOSED...YES, I COULD go on forever, but if I am ever to stop, like Forrest Gump who started running one day, for whatever reason...he ran and ran and ran and his beard grew like mine...and one day, for whatever reason...he just stopped. And that was that.

So again, I just want to let the people who think this is just a post-election break/vacation: NO...The Eagles broke up and Bruce walked away from the E Street Band (two references I've used recently.) But, yes...there tend to be a reunion. But it's in such a distant future, that it will be my own version of something that big. It will have to be that long before I go back.

WHY?

I AM JUST SO NAUSEATINGLY SICK OF THE TRIPS TO CITY HALL AND THE WHOLE PROCESS AND ALL THE ENERGY. It's not just about the meetings. I'M TOAST!

So I just want to say now that I am back to "normal" again after wrapping up the intense 3 and a half year intense mission (most of the time on the street, NOT RECUPERATING, and THAT is/was the problem, mostly), I'm over all the proving of everything and just accept that for whatever reason, I'm a walking, show-stopping, entertainment parade on the political activist awareness tip, in the way I always wanted to be and it just took a while for it to sink in, recently, BECAUSE I'VE BEEN OUT OF MY MIND, BROKE AND SLEEP DEPRIVED ON THE STREET!

AND I'M JUST AS BAD TONIGHT AS IT IS NOW 12 MIDNIGHT AND I'M STILL SLEEPING OUTSIDE TONIGHT. But at least I feel like I have returned to myself and am going to accept that I'm that public persona that I can't walk away from and just embrace it and appreciate it and have fun with it, walking around in my own "Truman Show" on a daily basis where all the world is my stage and the whole city are playing along, which they do every time they laugh along with ZD at the way I make fun of the councilosers by turning the tables on them, or laughing AT me for being the shameless public spectacle in places like elevators and libraries (OR CHAMBERS); and hopefully making you outraged enough to do something about this little political mess we have in the city, state and country.

MAN, I'm really sorry the wheels fell off at the end, just at the finish line. (I've been maddening cranky), BUT -- for understandable reasons and it wasn't like I was undercover at Disneyland and it was a lot of energy and a lot of bad energy. (Just trying to get those shady losers to call the f-ing cards on the items is enough to unleash cranky ZD.) Then, I'm constantly being bombarded with all the frustrating problems in everyone area, and going deep with it, round the clock, including Weekends and Holiday -- AND not eating and sleeping in a bed...YEAH, it caught up with me.

AND SO YEAH, I WAS EXTRA CRANKY AT THE END OF AN INTENSE, UNDER-FUNDED MISSION...but even regarding the "regular" behavior that you thought was too loud or too (whatever) in chambers and my overall tone at times:

TOO BAD! DO YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF PERSON IT TAKES TO SHOW UP FOR ONE CITY COUNCIL MEETING AND END UP PUNISHING THEM FOR THREE AND A HALF, RELENTLESS, INTENSE, ROUND THE CLOCK YEARS, IN THE WAY YOU KNOW I HAVE?

Sorry! There's always side effects and I have a motto, "It WOULD be nice." (To be like Dr. Clyde Williams in presentation and manner, or some of the other speakers.)

AGAIN, SORRY! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Everything has it's ying and yang. It takes the cranky juice to make me compelled to fire up the locomotive for all those trips to City Hall while on VERY little sleep and hungry. But there was a leak in the value and cranky juice was splashing all over the place.

SO I ONLY APOLOGIZE FOR THAT EXTRA SPILLAGE AT THE END OF THE LONG TREK, MOST OF IT IN 100 DEGREE HEAT.

But unfortunately, that's what it takes to produce the results people liked (continuous attendance of the meetings in the way that I did it, exposing stuff throughout the meetings and the blogging and interviewing staff.) I KNOW YOU THINK I SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO IT BUT LIKE SOLEDAD GARCIA AND RON KAYE.

SORRY...my motto, again, "It would be nice." So at least let's hope I can keep it the way it was when you first met me in the early years, right up to the Casa Princesa era, that was exactly one year ago this month.

AND MAN, besides all the knowledge on city operations that I learned from the community (because you are the ones who taught me this stuff and tutored me and exposed EVERYTHING by making sure I KNEW everything (hence my round the clock crankiness)...

I REALLY LEARNED SO MUCH ABOUT THE CITY AND PEOPLE OF LOS ANGELES IN A WAY I NEVER DID. I was NEVER even Downtown except to Staples Center once for the Rolling Stones concert. I was never over to East L.A., Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, El Sereno. I LOVED it and even ended up living there for few months over the past year. And you know when I like something, I have to tell the world and I told EVERYONE how much I LOVED getting to know THAT side of town -- and can't wait for Eagle Rock Music Fest. My favorite City event of the year.

Oh yeah, had never HEARD of Sunland-Tujunga, let alone been there. And I would love to take a vacation or extended stay to live there now that I don't have to be at city hall all the time.

And I've always prided myself as being a street level market researcher. And man, the amount of diversity that I have been immersed with in council chambers and throughout the city has CHANGED me forever. I am SUCH a better and more compassionate person. And it IS the lesson I needed, in this two way intervention I have blogged about.

I LOVE THE PEOPLE OF LOS ANGELES AS A WHOLE AND AS INDIVIDUALS. It's easy to get mad at other people in other groups or areas or backgrounds and there are a lot of dumb, lazy people in this city that make me sick. BUT I CAN'T QUALIFY ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE OVER THE OTHER IN THAT CATEGORY. ALL I know is, as a whole, it's been a very diverse rainbow of smiles that I have been treated to. And the best part of this experience is what all of us are always trying to do in our own way...reach out and cross over to that other culture that looks like they are having more fun than you, even though you can't understand why?

So that's it for the transition blogging...the process is complete. Cause I'm as bad off as ever, but still feel blessed and the spirit of the community is sustaining me again at this hour. And I have someone who will help get my marketing machine rolling. It's gonna be a LOOOOOOOONG night, cause I just felt the temperature drop and I don't have my blanket with me tonight.

BUT, at least I'm Big ZD in the 213, and was walking down the street today singing "Man In The Mirror" and when some people started walking past me, I didn't bother to stop or even miss a beat...and they were smiling and laughing and when they got into their cars they rolled down the window to continue and they were smiling pretty good, so I busted out the "Hooo! Hooo! Hoooos!" for em, to make their day, cause they looked like tourists.

Now THAT'S HOW YOU KNOW ZUMA IS BACK, Y'ALL...but for some of you, it's gonna mean I'm a little too gone. FREE WILLY=FREE ZUMA! See most of you around, but not as much. Will still be talking to most of you, but not as much. And hopefully I'll be talking to a lot of new people a whole lot more. Cause at the end of the day...looks like I need to meet all new people, at least regarding any paid anything. I'll let you know.