At the risk of sounding too mundane-revealing too much-becoming redundant... I'm uploading this icon, banner. I first invented this company/studio name in '83. I built a few video projects back then, on the side, while filming and editing a batch of work in NY.... we'll leave the musical talent anonymous for now. Doesn't really matter. The stuff's dated, anyway... but, we went back and forth to toronto, filmed in ABC studios where Billy Holiday, Bing and others recorded famous songs.... the fast pace of NY was alluring, to say the least. Some part of me misses it, though it seems like another lifetime that connects whenever I am there. Anyway, I was becoming ART into LIFE, because it was ll distilling down to that. These days, 20 years later, a lot of folks have adopted this saying. But I am still the only ART into LIfe Studio... the cable access show has been released/launched from that standpoint for over 10 years... just in case, as public as you can get. Projects that have come through in the form of media have gone as far as media could ever hope to go... into the realm of blockbuster numbers... but my slice was not forthcoming and I'm probably not going to contest those items you can find airing somewhere in the world this eve. Doesn't matter, I was with the idea behind the idea of what became a seed that grew that big. Last word I heard about the folks who walked with my share is that they are raw, drained and burned out. Would I want to trade my clarity today, or my walk towards my clarity, for what they got to spend? How could I trade anything... in a sense, they helped me by showing me where I might be, if they had honored our terms. In the mean-time, my recent alignment with this local friend who faced the police brutality... well, that has made it so I have appeared on the radar. the state of California wonders where my millions are... and so do I. But do I owe them taxes really? I ain't running, I ain't hiding... I have no off-shore accounts. I really do live in my truck... I really do dream avbout being able to afford a hot meal, and a pretty waitress.... but folks who saw my former associates' declarations have a right to request where are mine... especially since I boldly label my local community service tv roductions/shows, "ART into LIFE studio productons". You see, there is always a mystery formed in the minds of the suspicious... they can't comprehend this yogic lifestyle. They don't believe in it... they aren't impressed. At the very least, they used to send the fire department to my place, my illegal studio-apartment zoned business where I slept secretly on the floor all those years, to try to figure out whre my "lab" was. They just had to believe I had a secret source of income... no way. I was hand to mouth, waiting for the ship to come back and rescue me. Yeah, I got my former biz partners declarations on tape, with his permission. All the cash he was gonna sink into my launch, as a gesture for the ideas/mentooriong I offered- the service I performed, to get the empowerment info-mercial where it is today. But he never returned... I road that horse until it dropped in it's tracks... And now folks think I owe this or that. I am just glad I can still walk and talk and think and paint. Now... here I am, rising up again and I feel the target range is where I surfaced. No sooner do I make public appearances to assure justice for a friend,and I am getting hounded. Just by survivng, I am expected to give over whatever it is they think I hid... who'd be this crazy , folks... who would live this raw to fool anyone. I dream of the day I can pay taxes. I dream of the day I can pay past due utilities... why , even if I got a place indoors out of this rain and cold, I'd not be able to turn on the heat. They'd be riffling me for past dues.... Kind of hilarious, if you ask me. You want to read tis and pity me? Go somewhere else, please. this is a proud warrior standing, and I got a message to all you citizens, it's about the foks who can't rise back up, for fear of being driven back into the pavement. I rode the train up to the city awhile back, get ready to hear this, and I'll tell you what... the place I was headed required me to ride my bike through hobo town. In the rain. I hear a voice, a compelling plea... the closer I got to it, the more heart rending it was. I followed it to an alley, a dark lonely place, where raw ***t lurks and chases you. I found the source of the voice... there were these feet, hanging out of a small little cheap pup tnet... only the upper torso of the guy was inside the dry. He was screaming these words "god d**n you!" in the most pitiful plainntive screaching yell of a voice... over, and over, and over again. I had nothing to offer that guy. No consolation, no money, no quick solution, no protection form the biting cold rain...we were both drenched... he, slightly less than me..... I had nothing, nothing but a silent prayer... He continued, screamed, and I slowly rode on... on my way back, after my visit with Fritz, the guy was still going at it. As far as I'm concerned, he was yelling at the whole world, God and everything. He had landed in that place where there was no where else to go. Can you believe I deeply understand that I could not have heard the meaning of that sound, had I not walked in his shoes? And this, believe it or not holds my blessings for all future time. I watch folks I help walk down theire roads, and they don't know , haven't a clue what I have seen from HIS position. there is a meaning, and a lreward waiting alongside of living close to this edge. When Charlie Rose asked Sophia Loren how it must feel for her, to have been nborn of the soil.. to have lived poor as poor can be, then to rise to the level where she has known, met, danced with kings, presidents, all the learned people... When he asked her how deeply that must be form her eyes and life expereince, that wonder of a presnece of a woman wept silent tears right then and there. though she has never shed the scars of her childhood, she would not change it for the world... her eyes see what few can understand. that is art into life. And that requires the ritual of reality we all face at one time or the other. I feel most blessed today, simply because the state of California thinks I am still worth their inquiry. I got conversations in me for the future friends I'll meet as I rise back again with this new vison enhanced. Similar to the ocnversations that worked with Johnny Cash... a guy who really did grow up picking cotton. Yeah.