Was way cool.

On the way to the restaurant, I get to meet Kevin Kelly too, whose book "New Rules for the New Economy" was a top-tenner for me in the 1990s, so that was very nice. He and Eno were both very complimentary about my (and slidebuilder Bradd Hayes') use of PPT, commenting that the blend of sound and motion and content and delivery and humor was really unique (Eno especially liked the humor), so that was like my ego stroke for all of 2006 (and if you that's cool, wait and see the one Steve DeAngelis gets in about 20 days). Now to discuss PPT with late-in-life convert David Byrne...

Actually, Brian and I discussed the Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Little Richard, the Beatles, Roxy Music (whom he produced), David Bowie (ditto), the Heads (also), U2 (also also), Franz Ferdinand, Artic Monkeys, and the Tom Tom Club (natch).

Of course, Brian could say things like "one time Paul (Simon) told me ..." whereas I had no specific gems like that, but we also talked the Middle East, the Long War, al Qaeda and U.S. Military change, so I got to drop some very cool lines too.

All in all, a very pleasant and charming guy. Very unaffected or vain. I could have spent the whole day conversing. He was my Pop!Tech dream date. His toss-off storied were like golden nuggets, given my fascination with the Heads (my big band from my college years).

So, when I said goodbye and jumped in the waiting hybrid Lexus for the drive to Portland (a Pop!Tech perq), I did something I have never done--not even with Jerry Kramer--I asked him to autograph my badge, claiming it was for my wife.

But really, I will frame it for myself.

And yes, I will tease my little brother over it someday.

Ted, my brother, had his famous confab with Laurie Anderson at a Madison radio station in the 1980s, which beat my physically bumping into Joe Strummer in a Chicago bar just before The Clash's "Combat Rock" show a few years earlier. and that one really hurt, because, truth be told, Anderson is a seminal influence on my stage style.

But lunch with Eno, I believe, finally vaunts me back into the lead.

In car to airport, I did 20 mins on a radio show out of Pittsburgh and a quick interview with a Harper's journalist working a story on climate change.

Then I got to Portland and began the long horrible odyssey that is my trip home.

Heads up to Mass. readers: I will be speaking at the Kennedy School at Harvard on the morning of 9 Nov. Not sure how open it is, but it will be a big show (2 hours). Got talked into it by the military fellows class, but it's getting bigger by the day as the buzz builds, or so Jenn Posda has been told. Now students and faculty want a breakfast and lunch too.

I'm looking forward to that plenty. Save one career-advice stint I did in the late 90s, I haven't really ever spoken at Harvard since I left (although the Harvard mil fellows did come to Newport to hear me there, I believe, more than once). So this will be a nice stroke to finally make this happen.

Now if Wisconsin would ever invite me...