The ToeKnee Show

Freedom Tries!

2008-07-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

I gotta tell you, none of the things you believed you deserved probably ever mattered unless you expressed them by giving them away!

don't believe any of this...or do...it' s up to you.

but where did you (or I, or anyone) get the idea that we deserved "freedom" just by showing up?

or love...or mercy or patience or whatever...trust...honor.... anything...

check it out.

those are not nouns... they are all verbs.

they mean nothing, can't be found... unless you express them.

How can love be real unless you give some?

What good is faith if it's there when you say you need it? Isn't faith something that appears when you can't find it and you start praying like crazy for just a little.... when you lose all hope, isn't that when you find out what hope or faith actually is?

I ate all my ice cream...because it tasted great, and I wanted to...by doing so , I show myself how much money I can actually handle... you see, I got these vows that say I won't be buying and eating ice cream like that everyday...so I have less money than ever, if I eat it like this!...So, why do I say I deserve more ice cream, deserve to do that, just because I CAN? Where's the choice in that, except in the vows that suggest "never bring me any more of anything if it's going to do harm to myself or others by having it"... what a motivating thing towards developing " a true self discipline/a rationing reality where I can actually deserve to be able to buy ice cream , as much as I want, but won't do so because it's not such a good thing as a moment to moment reality? " ...but...check it out... if that's a reality for me, why do I have to judge the fat pigs who can't say no to themselves on any level...what they think, what they eat, how they live, whre they judge, what they expect FRO FREE... I say I am close to getting a handle on knowing how much ice cream I should eat a t a setting, but I can't make the choice, even about how I view those decisions in ANYBODY's HANDS HEARTS MINDS... so... that's actually what I study while I eat 3 plates of icecream until there is none left to consider NNOT to eat...I study those gymnastics mental, and understand I gotta see this process as more than a way to whip myself or others... But let's not get confused! It's not, by any means, FREEDOM.... Freedom...well...that's a whole different realm thatn this!

In my case... it's not a really safe healthy thing at all, for me to eat all this ice cream right now...! but, it sure is tasting great...and reminding me about food...and reminding me about what it might be like to be able to afford a decent pizza again someday...or maybe actually build that studio of my dreams from pop cans and recycled wood down the streeet from your mansion! Yeah...the Ice Cream is actually an incredible metaphor for getting my boradband finally working...maybe going out on a date again some day... enjoying the caress of a woamn maybe or jsut the last remnants of nature before it gets drilled to kingdom come for the greedy!

Ice Cream...Ice Cream...Ice Cream.... Money, Money Money...Beauty Beauty Beauty...food foood food.

So..i study this "high horse", where I think I know anything about freedom or anything at all, much less about ice cream and when or when not to eat it...

And I study all that while I savor the taste..and NO, I do not need it today...so I say...as I edit this blog a day later...I don't crave any, I haven't the least desire of scraping together the change that's near by and going right down the street for the World's Best Ice Cream made in 2 gallon batches and only findable whre I live!

But, while I have none... and little money I know full well this isn't courage or freedom or anything close to wealth...it's a sort of cowardly choice...check it out!... what kind of test is this, if I can't afford any today? The real test is having all the cash in the world for the world's best ice cream and a lear jet waiting to fly me anywhere I want to try some around the world...then putting someone else on that plane instead...and drinking wheat grass in a corner of my own kitchen because THAT"S WHAT IS ACTUALLY THE BEST MOVE OF MY DAY, on a day like this when I am shaking with worry for someone/many I love who are not near me right now...

but ...how can I say I love them or anyone if I can't stomach seeing them suffer right next to me?

See what I mean?

What's so great about wearing a Sanyasi robe and supposedly "serving" in your own way, if you shelved everything you desired to a distance too far to reach ANY of it on impulse???

Call that Freedome or service?

I call it a disaster.

IF WHENEVER I DO want to sit down and enjoy the world's greatest Ice cream, I suggest I EARNED it, DESERVE it WILL FULLY ENJOY EVERY BITE OF IT...then, why don't I prove it...why don't I just buy a pint... let it sit in the fridge , then offer it to share with a friend on a day that's special, loike... say, a day when I get surprised by a visit from someone who actually wants to visit with me!... that's a little closer to weaning myself of this idea that I have any self- discipline at all.... ! Or love to share... when it' sme naked by myself wiht no cash...what in the world is that? It's certainly not freedom, joy or love...

Let's say you get that special pint, you know it's great, but you refuse to touch it...you keep it in the freezer... A day comes when someone drops by, flies in, or rolls through and you say to them..."Jeez, I sure wish I knew you were coming, I'd a baked a cake....!" and then you remember you got that world's greatest ice cream tucked away in the fridge, and it's the very best and still fresh...and you say, how about some ice cream? Think that's a good idea? do yah? Yeah it is...and it hits both targets... Might be an expression close to bonding with a friend... takes the mystery out of lonelines when you get to savor great ice cream and see a smile on somebody's face at the very same time!

I know a millionaire, he walks around town and time and space in a disguise. He is nursing his identity on a chain, and I judge him...notice?! But here's the reason; He feeds the poor! woweewowowow, don't you think I am disturbed by this idea of judging him in any way?

I sure am... but I can't go blind, and here's what I see him doing; He set up these walls whereby no-one feels able to or capable of letting him know they know he is super wealthy in his disguise... He sense that people know, and he walks around in the disguise and feels thrilled for the background talk about the"good he does" feeding the poor everyday. what does he feed them? Food I would die eating if I ate it everyday... for certain... but does that matter?

good question.

But I can't go blind...I just can't I see that "know it all look on his face"..I watched him walk away from me 3 times when I was practically begging him to listen to me, while I tried to find a way to ask him to help me find a way to travel and see my son... He went conveniently "stupid"... ran like hell, pretended he couldn't see I was suffering...and I, even today, still feeling the desire to lecture him about the premise he can help anyone from the pedestal he carries wherever he goes?

Why?

I heard hm say , once...(proudly, in front of me) "I fed 30 homeless people today!"

Wow.

...did he understand he was dangling a carrot in front of me? My stomach was empty right then, I would have eaten garbage too... he asked me if I was going to be around the following monday...I said "Yes"...

he said,

"I'll see you then"

....But he wouldn't let me ask him for what I needed, what could have calmed me down..the breakthrough that could have launched me right inside my life forward past the suffering I was mired in, right in front of him, like a mirror, right then. And he thought I didn't notice how fast he ran from me in every way?

I went back there the following Monday.

He never showed up.

so it goes.

the last time I saw him, my son had found a miracle way to drive into town...

I saw the millionaire slithering, slding by on the sidewalk, as usual, trying not to be recognised... I said "Hey M****," and he almost ran from me,..again...then I said.."Meet my son"...

Then I introduced him, with full and complete positive respect to my son ...and I said in front of the millionaire, the highest truth that was sweetest...not to feed his ego, but because I wanted to showcase a person who was trying to use his wealth in a good way, I tried my best to remove my disappointments and honor another person's attempt to walk with integrity on their path...beleive the sweetest side of intent inside the sweetest things I could see on that day of miracle... I said "this guy will always ask you if you need another sandwich, or a beer...or how you're doing...that's what he is good at, serving others!"

And..yeah...I certainly meant it.

Except, it was like eating that ice cream the other day...

I was noticing that i can't be completely blind at will, I could see those choices laid out in front of me, of how to perceive a thin in goodness, about where to lift through speaking about it, about not wanting to ignore a lesson either..all at once attempting to be spontaneous and innocent with integrity..all at once... and not blind...

I was realizing that a whole other part of me wanted to say that "this guy likes to pretend he gets to choose who eats and who starves..and calls it doing GOOD WORK, but I never hear him talking about the joy of serving God! I think he just wants to die believing he earned his money in a good way, by pretending to do GOOD WORKS...being blind in his own mirror, but it sure looks like he's trying to outrun a memory or a regret, or the mirror of life itself, while saying he is serving God's Will".

Keep your opinions to yourself.

I see these people who can't say no to their hand with a shovel full of greasy food....they take up the whole sidewalk, they hurt their feet walking, their whole car sags and scrapes the road driving by.

Ouch.

Why in the world does ANY of it matter to me?

REALITY...I think I got a lopsided brain.

Then again... Yogananda said that "when you do the practice, you can't help the fact that your vision opens up...it's not about judging others, but learning from the choices others might make, blessing AND SEEING Their INNER divinity anyway, and praying that you do not fall prey to similar delusions...learn from what you see"

You ever preach to others about forgiveness? How can you say they have none if you can't see them in the light of clarity and truth beyond their shackles?

Whipping other people to "forgive, forgive, forgive... get up, get up , get up"...is pretty goofy when you understand THAT IF you saw the part inside them that is "already forgiven", they would re-find that more easily...

YOU might actually be helpful for a change!

I sometimes think it's all about what we bless and what we course with our thought... thoughts always are more powerful than action or speech...what you thinking right now????

You ever been able to find "peace" unless you shared it?

Who's idea was it to convince us we "have freedom"...

Ever use any of it in a non-harmful way?

Why are you so anxious to preach that we all have any?

Or that it even exists at all, if we haven't discovered a way for being atribute to any of it in our own lives?

Freedom, I am starting to think is just like the ice cream... you get better at using it if you eat less... savor it to share in a good way ...where the actual goals are something beyond being free...like maybe a completely different level of quality of life...worth sharing or savoring... a reason to try in the first place...something folks could say is a great reason to have choice at all!

Want a project to practice right now? How about finding one of these so called virtues and seeing if you can bring it to life in a moment right where you are!? Ever want to enjoy any of it...give any away, or share any...today?

I spent some time homelss...I was evicted 6 years ago... I had dear old friends run like hell or tell me I should think of it as being a camping trip...but I discovered some things I already knew...for example...if you give a person a chance, and really, really mean it while tuning to the part of htem that deserves that chnce, you cna change yourself, the world and them all at once... all anyone really needs is to believe in the part that few can see..the part worth believing in..that will always be free, and enver shackled...but..the same part seems so far, far away when you percieve them as diseased, or bound, or to be pitied...what in the heck are you reflecing in your world?

Good question... and the same one I wake up inside of every day.

If you get easily confused about who you really are, then you can easily be led from here to there by the greedy profit taking bastards (mostly empty headed cowardly men) that fuel the plastic Disneyland coke-laced version of life where there is only a facade...never true freedom or love and always another pound to gain, another pharmaceutical to dose your memory of anything more, another higher price to pay that builds them another home theater to watch you from a distance in a fantasy movie about what a life "well lived" supposedly is...

you can say that again!

Aren't we ALL sort of expected to believe we have freedom, and supposed to be grateful that we have it, but completely unable to use ANY of it wisely, if ever we do..... How many times you stepped away from a war you could create with your free speech gossip, in your own office, town or neighborhood???... ever said "no" to your shadow self and bit your tongue rather than take a pot shot to knock another person down????... Never call that free speech... How could it be..."free"...there's big prices everyone pays for every part of it!

The freedom not to talk a person DOWN, and rather to talk a person UP...

A decision not to speak unkindly is free speech TOO, you know...if you can find a way to be honest and learn from waht you see...and maybe be helpful towards solving that pain... if it really is anything more than your judgement.

Maybe, until then...if you or I are confused, the "free-est speech of all" is a vow of silence...how many wars did you prevent today, through a shift in choice? Know of any? Ever try?

"Freedom just another word, for nothing left to lose"

I sometimes thing we need to lose our "freedoms", just to practice the possibility that we never really deserved any, or ever really had any, and thereby to enjoy the possibiility inside the potential that we could earn the power to try some out....if we so choose...and by the way, what would it look like? ..."in the civilized world?"...to show we can honor what freedom is, by using as little as possible unnecessarily.... and aren't we always rewarded with peace if we express it to others, like a spice, here and there, in a quiet sort of way... instead of war?

About 15 years into walking the path, I realized that there's actually nothing like "choice" if you find surrender....

And that's a scary thing to consider ...that right when you feeel so sure you have some power, and you can get or have things "your way', the first thing you realize, is that there's little of anything you actually really would want to "have"... unless you could give it away... what good is it gathering dust in a corner or rotting in a bank...I mean...really....

if you ever got anything you said you deserved, delivered to you "your way" is it anywhere near what an experience is like if you get surprised by someone delivering it or something else to you "their way"?

What you really wanted was to deserve the blessing of others, in "their timing"..in other words... a surprise party that was really meaningful in other people's lives, on THEIR schedule...

Once you know that, you can actually give another person a "surprise party"..by doing so, you have to understand you have their heart in your hands... it's a tender thing...you can't mess with it...it's all for them, not for you...leave the medals outside.....

HOW even more amazing if you ever deserve a surprise party...where you are the focal point...it can be a huge reflector of your dream potential...you see flashes of light around yourself in the mirrors of other people's eyes... amazing...

I think I experienced that , maybe ONCE in my life...

Maybe it was with you...

But, somehow, anyhow... I figured out it existed, by the way sharing it opened the eyes in my heart to the world glowing around us.

I think it's happening everywhere, but we rarely can see it...but some folks somewhere on this planet are expereincing it, or the whole planet die..that's what I think...

So God/Goddess bless SOMEBODY...even if it's not me!

The birds..the bees..the trees..the wind...the earth ... do it like breath.

We might try to understand that something might be going on...EVEN if we never see it.

if you ever earn such a thing... as other people's idea... you have received a true blessing.

But you can't demand it, like king or queen so and so or like the new fake royalty invented along the curse of fame..

Doing so, demanding it with leverage of wealth or bullsh*t... or buyng it... is never quite the "real thing"...now is it?

What good would it be to be the president and get people to lick your shoes every time you walked by?

Such a lonely life.

And such a lonely world, to know that all you ever built was a re-processed version of all the stupiity, just so that it looks good in the presidential library, meanwhile..who's gonna visit that place when the whole planet is a desert ocean with on-life-giving anything??? See you at the library dude!

Wow... and folks actually believe the propaganda guy got ushered to the door! wow...meanwhile, right in front of you, in plain sight he is re-manufacturing the library brochures and research books, with re-manufactured reasons for selfish choices that served the wealthy...getting ready to build another house of sand for the next guy serving the fat greedy bastards who might be making you extra happy to stay asleep at the wheel while they steer you...all the while honoring your choice for them to refuse to let you know that you'd really TRULY RATHER enjoy walking somewhere instead of anything else you might have the freedom to choose today!

I'd quit the first day.

The courageous thing Jane fonda did on behalf of freedom was to let the Vietnam Vets spit in her face.. to surrender to them...to show her respect by "giving up her freedom to run from that experience"... such is courage... and true freedom was what she gave back, as well as got back along with peace, true peace......not what she felt she deserved...her route to freedom was surrender...to admit her self to that experience by admitting her mistakes of 40 years ago...and not to file charges against the spitting vets, but to thank them for being that honest with her regarding her youthful stupidity "in the name of freedom".

She figured out, after she got older, how dishonarble it was for her to place her "sex-kitten-luscious self" on that 50 caliber anti-aircraft North Vietnamese machine gun and laugh and joke with no bra, and perky nipples about the "fun of war"... with the North Vietnamese.... in theory, in spite of the unjust reality of that war, she was dishonoring the warriors who had given up their freedom, their lives, their legs and head and even families... to protect hers... funny how that goes... and there she was playing around on a gun that had killed warriors from our country... (just or unjust war, as it was, designed to make the rich guys richer... whatever... makes no difference, she was still doing the stupid by blaming the warriors). she understood, as she got older and aged and lost her beauty... what she really did back then to dishonor to the soldiers...

The vets, still alive...admit...they were ashamed they cared about her pubic hair..or whatever...in all those sex-kitten movies she'd starred in of their youth...before those days of dishonor...it dis-armed their admirations for woman/goddess...twisted their hearts... seeing her be sexy on those war guns like playing on some sort of big toy... forced them to spit and vomit in disgust, inside their own hearts...exactly what you DON'T want to have to experience when you are risking your life for an ideal, or facing terror, or while seeing a beautiful woman...twisting goddess in a sort of strange convoluted way... right or wrong, in favor of the war or against it, it still turned their stomachs... that war gun was not a toy...it was causing the warriors to bleed...they could not forget or forgive her...until she returned to them and asked for forgiveness, gave up her freedom and thereby gave them a chance to rest their hearts back to the balance where goddess was worth admiration, she gave that by putting herself at their mercy... no body guards...and she had no idea until she aged a little and felt the sharp pangs of life and loss, why such a choice would be her route to deeper peace and inner freedom...the loss of her own beauty and vibrancy and even those dear to her... then she understood the horrors she had participated in by playing on a gun like it was a sex toy....

Then...she did "freedom justice"...by going around the country and sitting in a circle and apologizing to the soldiers she'd offended and took their venom and rage and thanked them when they spit in her face.

That's freedom for you.

but I suggest she had no choice.

She surrendered to the unrest in her heart..and therefore gained peace by giving back honor...she got rebalanced, those old stains got cleared and cleaned and all the people sharing the process cried the right kinds fo tears..the ones that remembered the true losses of warriors for the stupidity of the greedy..same as ever..but that's another story...

that's true freedom.

She surrendered to truth..and accepted her need to find balance...she gave them the freedom to tell her exactly how they felt..and by doing so..she found true freedom, an inner peace...by expressing peace, through admitting to herself she had none... even if it took 40 years to do so.
Life is a circle.

it sounds like I know something.

But I am figuring out I probably missed all the best parts of it..already.

ce le vie.

Might be par for the course of living a genuine set of steps towards truth.

You can't do anything about what it takes to get wherever you got... "what it takes out of you"...What you have to give to get anything... the reality of sacrificing the last step for the next one...or the last breath for the next breath...you're gonna have to let go of something to get wherever you got!...but you do have to admit you aren't there yet, in order to keep moving..and once you get closer to getting wherever you suggest you are going, you just might get the vision that it was always everywhere you were, but you weren't, there yet...until you got to a place where it was all in focus...maybe... check it out...whatyoulonging for? where did you ever get the idea it existed and was worth the sacrifice of this journey...? hinit hinit...you can longfor something you never expereinced... maybe it's closer than yo u think... or not...I can't sy I know anything!

In any case so many of the goals I thought I deserved, I couldn't make happen in MY TIME...I wanted them to rise up to meet me while I also rose up to greet them..that's a tough premise... no grabbing...I am not quite fully at peace with any of it yet... I admit it...and it's not any that much easier to figure out that some of the "distance" what ws made any of it known...But, now I have a different view of why those old foks smile to themselves rocking on porches savoring a memory!

We just couldn't expereince it until you gained a litle distance,or lost it...now could we?...

And maybe we wouldn't have tried so hard to find anything worth while unless we could sense there was something WE KNEW, but couldn't quite savor or touch...while somehow knew that thing was missing...you can't know something missing unless you once knew it first... so there...funny how that works...Maybe we aren't supposed to actaully have anything, maybe we are on a journey of letting it travel through us... understanding it while we express it completely by being empty while it fills us...AND BY THE WAY...the motion of the journey, or the motion of the energy expressed...might be the biggest joke of all!

by the way, thy still haven't been able to figure out what "humour " is, or how it happens or where it can be found.

really.

There's always had to be steps towards something, a sense of emptiness, in order to have something like a wake-up call sooner or later and an admission by a person on a journey regarding what was either lost or dishonored or killed, so that a person can actually chart a thing out and show others what they ALREADY might have... and why it almost seems that a person doesn't really get anywhere except where they were already...and probably only after they already left...maybe...

if they are "lucky".

I love to watch other folks sharing love...peace... trust... a caress... these days.

Something I couldn't quite do before, though I proclaimed I was willing to give my life so others could have it...

I remember now, now that I can actually see it with some dignity... those caresses I had, that joy I shared, whatever it was I was trying to give...that's how it looked to others, when such things were in my life.

But not how it looked to me, until now.

Really.

Did I really know anything about these abstract things I thought were findable, love, freedom, peace...duty...honor...integrity... until now?

You want freedom?

Test and see what it feels like to understand that true freedom might actually mean not having any, or maybe MIGHT involve releasing the idea that anything anywhere ever was actually free.

TRYTHAT AS A FIRST STEP TO FREEDOM.

Leave your expectations out of it.

Maybe that's the first step towards noticing a surprise with your name on it.

Might just be something you never expected and far better than you'd have EVER asked for.

Might even include other folks... wow... maybe.

Hey...by the way... there's not really an economic collapse...all those riches that existed 30 years ago still exist today and in the future...they just changed hands...maybe out of ours and into the hands of the greedy...but...how much fun can that be for them...to watch other folks die while they just get fat and smelly???? They can't be enjoying much of anything if they have to drive through the lonely and forgotten and starving people on their way to their guilded cages... can they?

And ifthey never ere completely borke and hungry and smelly all at once and experienced a smile that set their hearts free adn soaring, then what have they actually experienced? Really!

If they never understood how happiness feels without a cent, or a dozen houses...or even a dozen Yes-men-friends....... I mean ...really... howcould they be ever described as RICH???

... I mean...Really....they are the POOR ones... aren't they?

....

Meanwhile: I can't be mentioning Jane Fonda (with all due respect) unless I point out something for HER... Tell her if you read this, the moral of the story, ...here goes:

She really slams "patriarchal society" in her book... that's interesting... I feel, for certain that she should be slamming Matirarchal society if she slams anything...

You have to understand, I always believe the women pull the most strings in this world... but I certainly can't prove it...

Let me put it this way,... if any woman or team of women decided this world could be better , they could shift it all in 6 months... top to bottom...exactly...top to bottom back to top... right the wrongs, re-direct everything towards harmony...such is the power of women...but it requires that mystery power women teach each other...

Jane, god/goddess bless her, never got trained...Her mother died of suicide while she was institutionalized... Jane was an upstart riding horses and sequestered away from her famous parents at a boarding school...she never knew her mother...never got trained...

I'm not making this up...it's in the book... but don't get me wrong, I don't judge her or denounce her or criticize her I simply showcase that there's that mystery goddess power she never got initiated into by her mother, who may never have been initiated into it either...thus the "insanity"... Ofocourse she wasn't insane..at lest I don't think so..but that's just my opinion.

Jane describe a time in her later years when she yearned to realize that her dad loved her... she yearned to hear him say " I love you, my daughter, ...I am proud of you" ...but he never quite did...

then one day, Jane had the chance to visit her dad while he ws being carted around in a wheel chair, disabled bylife... getting ready to die... sitting in front of a lnely window looking out at the world...Jane stopped in, and it ws only her and her dad... She said time went by and not a word was spoken for what seemed like hours...of course it was only moments.... indfinity had opened up...her dad was just in silence... she faced him and said..." Dad, I know you love me...I always knew you loved me...you never said you loved me but you can't keep it a secret, I know ".

He started weeping, hunched over...

And she left.

She said that ws "proof" that he was out to lunch...

I don't think so...

How can love experessed i words, as a REAL thing, if it was ever real, be a weapon?

Impossible.

Her Dand got it!

There he was weeping, alone facing his death... and his daughter walks out the door right when he needed her!

Check it out...

Put yourself in his position...wouldn't that be grace..GRACE?!

Wouldn't it?

To hear your daughter whom you felt so distant from, felt you really wished you could FINALLY meet in mutual love/respect... to hear her say such a thing you knew was true...that you never were able to share with her...

To hear that...

In your last days...

And then she walks out the door?

She writes a book about how "out to lunch you were" your whole life?

Uses that scene to "prove" how despicable the "patriarchal society" really is?

How could this be?

HOw impossible!

Silly, silly silly.

The daughter bridges that gap of despair...breaks open the heart so it can feel...and you get left alone in a room while she saunters away ?

Wow...jane, Jane...Jane.

You did it girl...you crossed the bridge.

that was your moemnt..sacred..and he ws there in it.

HIs tears were of gratitude as much as despair..as much as anything he felt the loss of all those years he never knew ya...

and you suggest it's the reason you are so f**ked up your whole life?

An out to lunch daddy that never loved you?

Wow.

I suggest otherwise.

The moment held both your hearts..angels filled the room.

And he could die in peace.

That's what really happened.

And...you...well..you got days ahead of you and you, in theory learned soemthing by not having.

Now...you gonna make a difference for us all and showcase what that was?

I surely do not for a second think it was arriving at the "real cause " of all our distress.

We are dis-united from each other... by this world... each soul is unique ...each situation holy...

But you gotta be able to expand to see where that holiness always was...

In order to know that it IS.

Yes you do.

And not because I say so...

Because it's the essence inside each of us.

But... th eonly way to realize it in this 3d world... beyond father daughter, son brother grandma, grandchild...is to cross the bridge.

And you did... we all do... whether we know it or not...it's better than gold.

© 2008 Tony Stenger/aka 'ToeKneeStanger'

Hard to take a Break!

2008-07-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

About 3 hours ago I finally cooked myself a meal.
The supplements kicked in... Einstein's Favorite, Cordeceps Mushrooms, Multi-Minerals, Milkweed Thistle, Colostrum, ...and the Green Tea....

I guess I was thinking clearer and calming down... Realizing that the earlier coffee and cigar with prayers were just not enough to power through this day.

I've been uneasy ever since I herd this news about one of my kids.
somehow I always knew there'd be days...weeks...years like these... you can't get around it...if you have kids...

some old friends, I know what they're thinking, ...they think that by leaving I was trying to get away from caring or having this reality hit my heart... but the opposite has always been true.... The people I am separate from by space and time are ten thousand miles closer and in my blood...inside me... beating my heart...it's the exact opposite of what most people would expect.... but none of it surprises me.

I get fired forward like out of a cannon by days like these.

I have to figure out a way to rise above and beyond all my expectations for this art into life journey...I have to start showing up and releasing a few more paintings than ever before wherever I go.

But I never expect anyone who hasn't walked steps like these to understand...and it just so happens that most fathers do not survive it.

At least that's what I have found.

In theory I got tools along the steps of this journey, so I have...which means it hurts, hurts hurts....

And the first thing I forget is keeping up the nutrition...because the reality is always that when you are going through the heavy stressful times, you use a thousand times more of whatever fuels you... and once the reserves are gone, you lose your memory of how you got so lost.

I think I amsupposed to be thanking mylucky stars that I have had a lifetime of training about when to wake up and walk to the fridge and gather the food that the best cells need, before they die off forever... and again...i just barely made it.

I can say for sure I did...becasue it's like that scene in the Jerry Lewis Movie...Nutty professor... not the one with Eddie Murphy, but the original.. and I am calm, after the worst phases ahve transpired... I can almost say I am back into focus.

The kicker was fixing the first and only meal for the day.

I did a great job... it hit all the bases... made sure the supplements I took would get delivered and infused efficiently... I cna tell it all worked becasue I am calmer now.

I even just finished playing 5 versions of myown songs and a few covers adn my voice hit al lthe notes...there was sweetness....
That fed the spirit.

Yeah...I must have made it... to notice I survived adn to be able to savor it in that way...to have the vision of carrying those to future stages, andnot to be in the dream of the past ones... but seeing the future stages on the horizen...and then I realized...I can actually book a music festival...maybe...if I word the e-mail right.

But the break I found myself taking was 2 hours or so ago...while I was in "theory" taking a rest....

but I knew I was actually being trained and studying ...while watching that film... studying the experiences I'll probably have to breathe myself through if one of my scripts gets to the screen, or gets chosen for a read on a stage somewhere, or re-made into even an internet tv series, something I know I could do myself..but this time I think I would rather take a back seat...... Understanding the "illusions inside the illusions" that make me think or consider that any kind of artistic journey is anything more than just a job... something I should be grateful if I have a chance to continue doing on some level.

I got confused more than once recently by counting on someone I had just met. In each case they were singing my praises and I didn't know what pat to agree with or to... Hence, the incredible journey inside a let-down when they ignored me or backtracked with a smile... and I got to understand I must have not been really ready for any of it... even if I knew it would have been all the package I'd need to create a foundation here and secure a wave to ride for 6 months, right out of this economic storm...the bottom fell out from under me...and I noticed that I was hearing th flip-side of the illusion stories that shoook me to the core...but none shook me as much as realizing I had given over THAT much trust.... or realizing that I was now the item being used for "gossip fodder" in other people's cannons ....

does it matter that any of it mattered at all.... today?

I really can't say.

Some part of me wants a person to search me out and find me and deliver the next big hug or gushy worded complement...but I'm not holding my breath.

I got to step back and see how ready I was thinking I was to be a star in this small pond...and I was already counting the days towards using this wave towards a series of waves to ride smooth to a newer future above the journeys of clouds and rain... but... reality... which one ws it? What was I thinking? have I really gotten to be that jaded... was I always such a sucker? ...who's side was I on...ANYWAY? ...did I remember to gather all my belongings before I was kicked out of those symbolic rooms?

By gosh , oh golly...I am sure amazed at the secrets people can keep!

Kinda makes me laughthat I got sucked in and spit out and ws even dried by the wind nd able to dust myself off.

but look at all that/those blank space it appears I left, even right here...in this blogsphere!

Yet...here's the secret...

The part you may not have guessed...

i actually wrote well over 200 blogs in other places since I left this room and returned today...yeah..i sure did!

And... woweeeee wow wow..... here I am standing in here again?>

I sorta knew it might happen when I got contacted by a person off in an RV in a park somewhere not too far from here... i sorta sawthe "signs" that I might be trying out blogger again and seeing if any of the bells and whistles were easier or had changed in any way... so...yeah...I'm gonna add a photo now.

And here was what I was thinking, for this whole day...while I negotiated and chased a few dreams flying around me on an empty stomach...here's what I was thinking....

How hard it was/is to take a break...

how can a person do it?

is it like "taking a leak"...I mean.... really?

Ever tryin actually "taking one" ?

It makes no sense... hard to figure out where to start...I think a person can't actually take a piss or a leak...they have to let it happen...and when they say they "give a sh*t" about something, I think they got that wrong too... it's gotta be something else..who would want to compliment a person or an ideal by giving a sh*t?

And when you "take a sh*t"? what's that?

Are you actually donating one to somewhere?

really?

So.

how about this take\ing a break concept...how does a person take a break...aren't they supposed to "get a break"... such as "give me a break!"..... except they shouldn't have to plan it or demand it..but folks should knock at each of our doors periodically and say, we re here to help you understand you "deserve a break today".... and "we re here to deliver one!"..... then , maybe they balance your checkbook... give you a ride on their learjet..... send you a bouquet of flowers and make sure they match your desire... stuff like that...and then clean your house or your world...maybe settle a few wars in your favor... grease your wheels..tow your car.... test to see if your armpits are smelly..wash them for you if they aren't..maybe let you feel the slick parts of something you miss.... set up your channel changer... sweep your kitchen...

then..as they are leaving maybe they all do a song called soemthing like "we came to help you see you deserve a break, then we gave you one...and we're not broke!... al lbecasue we give a sh*t!...hurraye!!!"

And then you doze off and find a big oversized Ed McMahon check inyour mailbox the next morning...

Save ONE

2007-04-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

SAVE ONE....

GET ready to feel offended if you think I might know what I am talking about in this blog....

GET ready to feel offended if you think I am completely full of s**t.

I am not trying to convince myself or you or anybody of anything I write here... and the truth is... especially today... I don't really want to write this.

But... I have to .

and it all comes down to this....

If you want to save the world... start by saving ONE person.

and if you are confused about who that might be... look in the mirror... and if you think it worked , to a degree, that first project....

then be careful how you practise your attempts to save others...but practise anyway, with disgression... and how about starting with a smile, an unconditional smile...in the mirror, then in the mirror of life...long distance?

If that worked, you may not know it... but without trying, almost without even a sacrifice...you may have saved ONE more... then try saving ONE more... after that... if you see, over time that it lasted..

what do I mean by "save"...How about shining a light on something somebody else has, unique to them, that they may forgotten, they can offer? How about not pretending or acting or dreaming up, but actually seeing a part of them they yearn to have reflected? Or...how about helping them feel the courage to discover such things, if you can't see them? a reason to go forward...How about that? I realize the word "save is a loaded word"... bettter for a person to feel as if they are of value than walking around in emptiness.

If you do succeed, it probably won't be for any of the process or the resuilts, or reasons, or the ideas of how, or the methods... or WHAT YOU idolize as the goal...it probablly WILL be because of the intent... EVEN if the RESULTS seem like failure... the intent will carry a life forward with hope...if it ever works. Something to look forward to, beyond the steel and gray.

and if you DO succeed in saving that one person, yourself... or another person, somebody else......

you may have easily saved as many as 33 people's lives in the process.

There won't be any badges. There won't be any award ceremonies...or stars in the sidewalk...you might not even know you make a difference... or how much of a difference you made...

It just so happens that the better you get at doing it, the less aware you or anyone else might be that you did anything.

and if they guess what your intent is, ALL the more reasons, you might want to discourage them from noticing any of it...

Call it the love of Jesus, or the path of renunciation, or healing process, or actualized human-care... call it anything you want...

If it ever works, whatever you do, for someone else... you finally start to see that you regain a part of yourself...you shed a light on your own value, as well as your won bulls**t...and you ultimately will benefit more.

Now that I've said that...

The first thing I can tell you for sure...is this... it's not about you.

That's not why I had to write this...Considering any part of this to be true, it is a conviction of myself... my own path, my last 40 years of of efforts, and my future efforts. And the quality of my intent.

And ONLY if any of it rings true for you...do you know the part inside yourself that also stands convicted and only you know... in that empty part you wished were filled up today... the part separated... wwe all have parts of ourselves and our lives we yearn to share with others... If you could ever try to do better, then face it... and breathe...But don't get all excited that you can be a better person. Only time will tell...the proof is in the pudding... Only lasting results count...More people have been killed in the path of "good" and in the name of religion, ...than anywhere else...

How about a wrench in the machine? A whistle blower... the person who suggests the world is round?

We are all walking on the FLAT of this world, ... I haven't flown far enough to see the earth's curve... No matter where you go, there you are... It has to start where you stand. With the next breath...

By now you have seen some of the video of that kid in Virginia.

The one who did the movie version, so similar to Swatzenegger, Willis, thousands of others... we've paraded and worhipped as role models.

All eulogizing the last remnants of success thrugh trying to fix the world with force... the same way we inundate, yes WE, inundate & teach all our children to the drama of physical force over problems, challenges, difficulties... as a method for muddling through failure... through media and our favored fictional role models.

Look into the eyes of that person in Virginia on that home video tape... notice the inner shame, the isolation... the loneliness...Wait a couple of years and you will see that the next generation will pcik him out as ahero, too... the same way some worship Manson...

We all know how it mimmicks what we have all agreed works, and has turned into the same solution this culture claims will get the prize...the oscar... the blockbuster awards....It has nothing to do with talent, it has to do with your PR firm... send out a lot of key video clips to key influential freinds and associates, and you too can claim your gold statue...The true visionary films or important documents, breakthroughs of this world exist, but they surface 20 to 30 years later... the film 2001, for example, the film "it's a wonderful life"... there's hundreds more examples, you can find them the day they are released, but you have to see beyond the illusion of fashion, pr, the game...

Our biggest blockbuster heros, the sameones who look silly when they can't evenhold a conversation on a talk show... the two fisted gun slingers, the ones our society parades to our children... we get to see them surface in lost souls, the same souls we walk past on the way to the post office...the lost of our society area all around us... we see them shoved in our face looking like the heros we agree we can train our children to be...how? by plopping the kids in front of a tv and dvd player and internet as baby sitters... Now..all over the media, a 20 year old kid, The two fisted gun... the blaze of glory. And daily in the street gangs, ...ongoing... a confusion of war everywhere...and we are gonna straighten out another country? ... really.

We are all going to see more and more of this, unless we get a handle on what it really is...

I sometimes wonder if these events can actually be seen by the people of our nation, for what they really mean.

How more unsatisfying can a "moment of silence " be? To know that a "moment of silence" is no longer prayer..., no longer introspective thought...no longer long enough for anyone to feel anything... Why are the "moment's of silence" so short? So empty... so goofy? Close your eyes, shut the door, and listen... listen to what your mind chatters...that is the reason... People go crazy in "silence" these days... It's the first place you get to find out you have no peace. And you get to see what you built... You get to hear the constant noise of our society... You get to notice that none of it satisfies.

Oh , there is peace in silence... but it's only findable if you wash yourself clean... and that, nowadays requires a little effort...It used to be free and findable ... but now, it requires training. Calming the body, calms the mind... who knows how? If you fgind someone who does know how, you will see they are active in service, and they don't worry about it...they just do... walk or work along side them... call it volunteer work... study the peace you build in your heart by taking your mind and focus off of the problems and onto the doing...A perfect excersise class, in my view, wouldbe a group of folks who go and build things, clean things, resolve things, assemble groups for sharing and expressing LIFE together... the weight would evaporate... and the results in the heart, mind and soul would be seen...

20 years ago... a movie came out called "Grand Canyon"...

Rent it...

33 people died in virginia.

If you have studied Nelson Mandala, or Mother Theresa, or Princes Diana, or Bob Marley or anyone who learned their own lessons then took a few steps daily to try to make up for the previous ideas, byt searching to give a little more than they thought they had to give...you will find story after story after story of people in all postions who felt they never thought they deserved another chance.

Somehow, they figured it out...and recieved that next step.

Nelson Mandela said it "took him 20 years of daily torture to finally realize his own heart had to change and he started to DECIDE to feel compassion for the guard who brought him to daily torture". 7 more years of that, and he was finally the person we now know... and how do we know this?

His own testimony....

and what does he say? He says that he "did all the same things to his enemy, that his enemy did to him..."

He stood convicted, by his own words...and made it different. but he also passed it along... the lesson wasn't, isn't lost...

... and all those who point to the SAINT he now is, as if that's who he always was, are ALL part of the same circle of problems we all face daily.

It's not where we came from or who we were.

It's what we BECOME... that matters.

The inequity of this world is going to produce rage and anger.

Any study of our US history and you can find example after example of excellent HOLLYWOOD reasons for trying to settle things with a gun. Every ethnic group can find reasons...And, right alongside of thsoe reasons, you can find the modern day role models who show example sof how to make a 90 minute movie work, who also prove the stupidity of fame built on PR persona, rather than ACTIONS...

now I know why that smirk often visits the ones who still have a conscience, when they sit and discuss the next big thing, which is actually their next big joke on us, them... our future...while they describe a ROLE they played in snippets of 10 seconds or less... a character that mimmicks reality, but is not reality, on a talk show...they know they are not real heros...they know their own lives would never measure up to what the people reflect back through the illusion, the idolatry, the mimmickry...

Yet we all buy it...

And walk away from our own inner rage, our own inner isolation, while watching such versions of"reality"...or take a pill to disguise the truth we almost still can know inside our own heart... the difference we could have made, if we had used just one segment of that time...lost inside a pretend versioin of ourselves, with the courage of a pill to establish and support our fake smile...and get us more votes...with a fake smile...

From the leaders on down...nobody home. Haven't we had enough?

Mother Theresa never started out as Mother Theresa. She was a young egotistical nun, who got transformed looking into the eyes of peasants, when she was forced to sit among them on a train ride...exactly where she initially refused to sit...but there was no other place, so she had to be "among the people"... her fake version of service to Jesus got replaced with the real thing...but it took years of practise to become real...and it took 30 years for any of that to finally percolate towards who she became to be know to be...

You gotta go with what you got...you have to try and fail....you have to convince yourself you are making a difference year upon year until you see through your own ego about it, through your own efforts...and notice that inspite of alll your failures, the intention actually resulted in some things lasting... something you could see was good enough tohave been done... for her, it all came down to filling the bellies of the people. It got really basic.

You don't have to be MOther theresa to get results, you only have to show a little interest in another person, enough to see the real part of them they want to believe in , themselves... reflect the little flicker of that light...and then... maybe then... you will see that rage is a mask of a person in fear.

Then...maybe then... you will notice 32 people are grieved, one person is blamed... and nobody seems to see that one person was left out, start to finish. And that one person represents all of us, at one point or another in our lives...

who the f**k am I to say these things?

Ok... the truth...it took me losing everything precious and NOT PICKING UP A GUN to fix it... for the real study in my own heart to begin.

What do I get for continuing the walk, as it now stands, forward?

Every so often I get the feeling that my heart changed, andthe only time I notice how much it changed is when I find myself, yes... find myself...while I shed real tears of joy seeing somebody else get a "dream come true".

NO matter how huge or or small the steps, it's always the light that others shine when they feel that sense of accomplishment or sense that they deserved that dream...

So...these days, I see myself uploading videos of many folks I have researched, studied or appreciated, watching them do their Karoke in their shoe store, or sing on the street, or teaching a life lesson... pretty soon I started to notice that I HAD spent some time in wise ways these last 20 years... There's gonna be hundreds of these video clips, stuff I shot that has already been aired in the Bay area, finally seen world wide on YOUtube. I am almost noticing that MAYBE I was making a small difference... I was so busy trying to do something positive rather than find enemies, finding those worth saluting... I truly hadn't realized I was actaully doing it...

You know... the path is right where we stand...you don't have to get on a boat or a train then a plane then a bus then a donkey to ride to where you can find a 5 star hotel, take a taxi, get your personal assistants to give you the research prep-pep talk, then take a pill so you can smile...and dig a ditch...

Start. it's just one step from where you stand right now. It might be as simple as a real conversation with the person making your Latte.

NOT TOO LONG AGO. I stood out on a street in a new city, not long ago...smoking the cigar I had sheltered in my vest for weeks... and I was really ready to smoke that cigar. As I stood out there on that street alone, I noticed that storeowners were nervous about where I was standing... They'd peek their heads out and ask me to move down the block... nervous and frightened... I noticed they were.

I thought it was the smoke...or maybe it was because I ws a white guy... or a new unknown presence...or maybe it was the bright COLORS of my artistic clothes I was wearing...the colors.

Soon, a person of another race sauntered down the block and stood in front of me... "dude, you got a cigarette?"

my answer... "no..just another cigar... want it?"

"No...I was looking for a cigarette".

... "well", I said... " you are passing up an excellent smoke..this one is kicking my ass in a really good way right now...and I am loving it...you gotta try a cigar someday"

then he said... "Ok... I'll try it ".

I lit the cigar for him, and we talked about that city for about 30 seconds, and then he was more at ease... and our conversation became more real...then he pulled back his sweatshirt and showed me the GLOCK 9mm in his belt/pants....

He leaned over to me and motioned down the street, saying, "I am going to blow that guy's head off if he doesn't stop talking to my sister"

This is a true story, folks. I was standing on a strange street, in a strange city...I was a new comer. Later on, I pieced it all together that they all were protecting each other, onthat street... because they felt unprotected...and, for awhile, that guy thought I was part of the other guy's back up..until I shared the smoke and showed comfort.... treated him as an equal, and NO I was not afraid... in the least... amazing, aye?

Somebody else, in that same circumstance may have ended up in a pool of blood...

He and I shared our smoke, talked about how hard it is to survive... views we shared about wanting to see our family safe and to findcomfort in the world, somehow...someday...so many things we had in common. 3 different genetic structures, all in a triangle of energy that night... while he and I smoked the cigars, time went by, and that "enemy" of the other guy walked away from the sister... nobody died...no guns were drawn...

The impact of that shared smoke changed worlds in the future, for more than one person, and brings you this story today.

I have dozens of stories like this, all on the same theme of "guns", but that is not the realstory...the real story is good people recognising good people and reminding each other of that part

...unless you read deeper you are going to miss it.

10 years ago, I was searching for a gun to "jump in front of , to save another person's life", from a symbolic "enemy".

NOW...Not only do I find joy in seeing other people get their dream come true, but I also understood that I wasn't there to stop a war, that night... I was there to share some time... equal time... not higher to lower or lower to higher...not getting anything from it but the shared time...and a few laughs..yeah we eventually wereso releaxed together that we told each other a few jokes, too.

How many times do you reach out to people and bring your judgement along?

HOw many times do you reach out to people and try to change them?

How many times do you reach out to people and try to convert them, ???

When you go to sleep each night, do you get a rush believing that you are doing "the lord's work?" Meanwhile maintining that point of separation and that ego rush?

It's time to figure out something...

thoughts do EQUAL actions. If you think it, you are doing it.

If you play the part in the movie, and get paid to play the part in the movie...you are accepting an exchange for something you never earned, learned , survived, accomplished.... those eyes of idolized fans should make you feel empty.

If not... you may be dangerous to us all.

We teach youngsters to kill legally with no feeling or pangs of conscience.

They do so, through buisness, through judgement, through a whole range of ways untraceable and untrackable.

And are rewarded.

I know, I know, I know...

there's some who would consider this rant to be simlar to the one folks get to hear from that kid in Virginia.

It's a different rant.

I suggest that you walk past people who walk in his kind of shoes daily.

You ignore that person.

all it takes, sometimes, is a smile and an encouraging word.

We are all trained to distance ourselves and figure out who the enemy is...

Yes we are.

It's our society now.

And if we are living here, we play a part in every grievance.

You know... so many of us born since WW2 think that the USA was always a "super power". We were somewhere around 18th in ranking, until we detonated the atom bombs.

It's gonna take more than fear to keep this planet alive another hundred years.

By the way... it wasn't meant to last forever.

It's only been a stop off place at best.

We all came from somewhere else,a nd we are all gonna leave it.

One way or the other.

Every twist of fashion always looks ridiculous 10 years later.

How long willyour awards last shiny?

Will anybody give a s**t in tne years?

25 grand will get you a star on the walk of fame.

It's been proven a long time ago,that you can get more famous sooner by doing garbage...

So...

If you want to live high from plane to plane while folks keep you doped to smile... it's right in front of you and you could do it... easily ...justby making a few pieces of s**t like Quentin has.

What we allneed is redemption.

and you won't feel any in your heart until you step up to the plate and faceyour own truth.... and take it from there.

The only time you will know that anything real happened, is when you see a video of a lost soul...and you understand that.... if you could have made a difference in that person's life...it would have never been known... but 33 people might be walking around today.

Things change.

We have all been watching a fiasco... and letting it parade as reality.

we get to choose the realtiy we share...

what of your talents and gifts are you going to bring to the table to help those who have been lost and left behind to feel they have a chance at peace too?

You can't buy it in a store...

It's what's in your heart.

and it starts by noticing how much you love condemning a chosen example of evil...

............

NOT MEDICAL ADVICE

The human brain is 98% fat.

If you eat garbage food, the brain reconstructs itself over a period of time into a lessor version of what a brain can be.

If you take Omega oils, the ones that align with your unique genetic, you can rebuild a brain inside of 2-7 years.

If you decide to want to have your brain work great... but have expereinced trauma in you life, then you can nutritionally support the process of REAL memory and re-construct the brain simultaneously...

when trauma is experienced in the human life, it saps essential nutrients and forms a disfunctioning brain that no medication can fix...but recovered memory and proper guidance and nutrition can all combine to create a "problem solving" brain from a confused traumatized brain.

When society learns this, and you yourself can study it , it's all published data and proven...try it out...for yourself...
... when society learns this, then psychologists will stop being the top paid professionals, and the same goes for lawyers (by the way, lawyers, as a profession were beneath thelevel of grave diggers up until the times of the INquisition, whre family , friends, turned each other in as heretics...and the "church" martyred 25 million... ) ...

It takes YOU to try for yourself... FIRST.... to make a difference...And that means to pick up your God/Goddess given talents and use them for the good of yourself and others... bring color back to our world..... help walk us away from plastic, steel, garbage, greed....

And as far as traumatized children, they can and WILL be recovered early in their traumatic life chapters, sooner... through intervention... as soon as we all decide that parents could use a little training, ... couldn't they? Since they are building our next chapters for this earth process.

And that training might mean finding ways ot reach out to eachother, rather than betraying each other "with fashion"... sounds goofy, I know... but ... it's either gonna be "Mean Girls" and "Pulp Fiction" for us all...or it's gonna be something like closer to real life with a healthy dose of second chances.... for those who earn them.

Something Like a Valentine

2007-02-14T23:29:00.000-08:00

It was about 2 years ago... in the Spring.  I was hijacked on a premise.  In theory somebody I was helping, wanted to give me a vacation from strain, as well as offer me an apology for selling me down a river... in a handbasket... Something I had figured out, that embarassed them and made them get on their knees , crying and begging forgiveness... well...that was good enough for me..that along with the commitment to fix the goofy rumor they created out of fear...  My counter proposal suggested by me, was this; "Let me dive in deeper and help you more" So... they wanted to just wander around Hawaii and let folks carry luggage and spend money on massages... etc... food.. etc... I said..."fine"... but it wasn't necessary. I could have just settled for a few decent silent or tranquil walks together in a local park...that plus fixing my reputation, they had helped destroy...that was good enough... no money needed to be spent. But since they insisted on this "break from stress", I suggested, yeah... like I said...I suggested "hey, let me help you more!"  For me, this meant helping them to see and meet the REAL people.  To start seeing the baggage carriers and valets as something more than just items, or robots, who get tipped. Sure... they insisted on showcasing their world to me...the kind that Spielberg and others had walked inside of, just weeks before we'd arrived....but I countered that idea-plan and insisted on showcasing my world inside of theirs... meeting the real people....the ones who deliver the food, cook the food...trim the manicured lawns...perform the massages.  This is all a touchy subject now.  It's not that I don't appreciate the "vacation"...but it soon started to be a sort of "weight" for me to carry, unless I found another way...and I was so surprised that that other way was right there and ready to be experienced...Holy Moly! I didn't have to walk inside that as an artificial world, anymore.... Yeah... sure was that way for me, those days, artificial ... at first for a few minutes each day...so I filmed it... and somehow I was seeing new...through new art eyes...unbelievable...   At the very same time, I was realizing, I didn't curse it. Something had expanded in my heart from various losses over the years. ... yeah I enjoyed the idea of "time off"...but I also saw the artificial insulated world for what it was... a world of empty living unless we filled it further with life...unless we BROUGHT our full selves into it...complimented people, and really tried to bring something from our hearts to share along the way. ...I couldn't help but noticing that the part which was insulated from us, also exchanged reality with emptiness, and could fill it with life...  AND THE PART I had to let go of, in order to truly be there, was my own self-judgement.   so, on my cue, we gathered ourselves and really endeavored to meet everyone we could meet. Being wherever we were 100%... Truly showing up inside each day.   Seeing others not as backgrounds for our travel, but as participants. Folks who either shared our path...or carried the luggage for us, also shared our air, our vibration..., our time...as we shared ours with them...  You know what?   Those folks who parked the cars were always amazed that it mattered to me how the day was going for them... it wasn't some empty "how yah doing"...but a real conversation...and this surprised the person footing the bill... Because she was finding the part of herself she had prayed to find... We soon found out whether others had hopes or dreams they were building by doing that work, carrying or cooking for us. . And YES, it was super necesssary for me to carry the luggage, too, right beside them...and they always got a better tip as well. I would not allow it any other way.  I really don't want to start any wars over this...  or sound like a saint.  You have to notice I am sharing this for a reason...and the reason matters.  I have to say... I felt at peace this time around seeing inside the life I could have had if I had gone to war against my betraying business partner, of years before. I experienced , once again what it could have been like to be part of the "jet set"... How my version would have been far different than th edownfall I had feared...   For me, the folks carrying the bags and cooking the meals made more sense...felt more like potential friends, borthers, sisters, and family, than most... I also saw compatriots among the folks on the airport buses... among the "tourists" at the resaurants, in th emuseums, or on planes with us. . Something inside me was different.... .  The way most folks allow for the discrepancy between the "haves" and the "have nots" is 99% of the reason I had walked out of my early recording deals... Why I was almost glad that some opportunities had been stolen by folks who had been raised in wealth, all through out my life...the secret envious competitors who haven't the talent, the ones who took the credit.... Up till that Hawaii trip, I had found a certain peace in knowing that not having a vicious high powered attorney protecting my process , I had let folks hijack my ideas or steal my share of whatever was built in my life till now.But now I could truly see that it was not peace...it was a goofy kind of stupidity that my judgement had clouded.  I think a part of me never wanted to lose my connection with the earth... I chose for good reasons, to leave myself out of wht I had desreved. I let jokers steal my wife...yet...I saw I was a fool...in certain ways. The premise that kindness and compassoin cannot go hand in hand with reward, that was the goofy part. Silly me...to say the least. It's a hard thing to admit to. And why I can't allow folks to convince me, anymore...who the "enemy is".   With my judgement gone, I saw where I could have made a difference.   I would love to suggest to everyone, who reads this... That if you have a hit record, but you treat a valet like garbage you are a failure, in my world.  Yeah...and I mean it.  But me saying it all those years was me being stupid...in other words, I was at least 90% of the problem. Think of the difference I could have made if I had collected a Grammy and taken the common vision along with me to the podium... what a fool I was ...what a fool I was...  And if I step back up and do my thing, then meet you...I won't be shaking your hand if you are an egotistical bastard...but I won't be cursing you either...I will just be the one who already left. I'll have to assume, now , that my own visin is clouded...that I may not be correct about who you are...that everyone learns about life in their own way...that stepping away allows confusion to grow, if we have something to offer...but refuse to share it. Maybe it was just the wrong day to cross paths. My version of such an experience is not necessarily the truth...since I know we all have to bring the beauty with us...if we curse or reject others, we have brought dirt... a great reason to leave...but don't blame it on anybody but yourself.    Hey, check it out...I actually met some really good hearted people who were traveling on their retirement money and showing compassion everywhere they went, on the trip to Hawaii.  It surprised me.   I had to understand where and when I had actually dropped my judgement in the years leading to that... and guess what... it was when I was living on the street that I had fixed my vision.... somewhere in my plea to God for something better than an empty life in the grey world. Seeing that new part of me, helped me to understand that I knew myslef to be more than a person invented by God to crucify others.   I think I let myself off the hook and discovered I had become a contributor... I realized my new vision had let me off the hook... I didn't have to worry about losing my soul to money ...anymore.   In a sense I ws a little more clean...therefore anything I create from here on out, wellit won't be tainted by idiocy. Looking back, I realize there's ways to spread the wealth back among the people and build a world we can all love to live in.  In other words... I was wrong to judge...and maybe 20 years back I could have found a way to find a mentor who used the position to enhance people lives.  Yeah.   So. I admit it here.  Letting greedy folks cheat me out of money or credit or opportunity...that actually hurt the people I could have helped...  I am confused no more.   As the wheel turns around and the spin stops at my door again... if it does, I will step up and recieve it and multiply it and then give back...just like my true heros do.   I don't want to embarass them by mentioning them here. They are well known... Because they were born of earth, or had parents who were born of earth, they reflect decency that I know I can be someday, as long as I leave my judgement outside the door.   The only way I can honestly know that what I write here is true, is because I held on to my ideals all the way towards losing an indoor place to sleep. I lived in my truck in one of the wealthiest communities on earth... I got arrested eventually for being there and tossed out of there... It took all that for me to realize that putting my own life in danger in those industrial gang infested areas, ...well, that was just stupid.  Integrity has more to do with how you recieve rewards from what you build, and then what you build with THAT...allowing folks to reward you and vote for you with confidence.   Seeing it all as a responsibility and grabbing ahold of it and using it on behalf of the people ...that's Integrity...it is NOT living poor and letting someone steal from you and destroy your relationship with your own kids.  It took me living the life of a beggar to know that there is a difference.  I never begged, but I did feel completely deserted...by God.  Now I understand how folks who hit the streets and live in concrete go crazy.  All of us play a part...and it's not money they need.  Nor pity.  If you clear your head and see an equal, and believe in them for their potential...then smile and encourage them to continue...you can heal them, and notice that you also heal yourself.  You know, if I had some money to hand to somebody living in a cardboard box, ...these days, there's not really much to give them...a few dollars is all...but ALWAYS before it hits their hand, I raise it to the sky and I tell them, "let's ask Creator to help us see it multiply and for you to get comfort and become your dream come true".  When people brighten up , hearing those words...they get every cent I have... I search and find whatever there is and load it over to them... That light in their eyes shining is what does it... Cause I know they are going to do just that.  Last week , I saw a skit on Saturday Night live. It included all the objectified, demeaning versions of what society believes a homeless person is. Such despicable characterizations of our shared shame, basically showcase how far we all have fallen.  If I can rebuild my own foundation these next couple years, the vision I have is bringing folks back to what they can create with their own hands.  So many artisans out there, so many who can make our world brighter and more beautiful...mumbling to themselves.. on street corners, in gutters...   The ones who want to bring that spark forward, and create with it...will be expressing God/Goddess' gifts for us all. We will see our grey dirty world come back to color and harmony and sustenance... all the colors of race working together in relation to the creative flow; God/Goddess flow as expressed through them.  Aren't you ready to find a way out of noise, pollution, emptiness, and greed?  All around this world, are folks we all can feed...if we release ourselves from fear...and share.  I want anybody who reads this, who might see me begin to prosper again someday, to remind me. kick my ass if I forget. Talk is cheap ...and Judgement is worse.   It's taken me awhile, but when I wake up in the day ...or go out into the world, if I see holes everywhere, or confusion everywhere, that just might be, because I never offered what I had to the mix.  None of the really great people are known to us as REALLY GEAT, are known for walking around and condemning anything.   They walked into it... became part of it, dug their hands into it, and made a difference... and kept the promise of a real life, by offering or encouraging what was missing to grow.   There can be nothing other than this...or it's just a sad empty life with regret at the last breath.  And when I say that, I am not talking about YOU now, ... I am talking about ME.   Happy Valentine's day.... offer somebody a true heartfelt smile who has a slightly empty heart... let it be an old enemy or a stranger... and notice how the world starts to glow. ESPECIALLY YOURS.  Thanks.  -toe knee stanger

  

When the Fruit is Ripe

2007-02-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

The Right Painting...finished on the right day...I find great benefit in completing the right painting, on the right day... One great example of this concept is the Painting "Liberty Ride 2000" which actually was finally completed on July 4th Y2k...no shit. Above IS a picture of that painting, it's the one with the "Indian on the motorcycle doing a wheely in front of the teepees"... There's a story behind these images collaged in this painting, but I will save it for another day. Once the story is posted, I will provide a link to it...

anyway.

Sometimes , I cannot help but notice that a certain video, or drawing, or painting ripens, years after it was completed... I love it ... sort of feels like I get validated for the forward vision it took to film the stuff... in this case, back starting in 1995 all the way through about 2000... Concerts of a band that some say still exists? Well, in the footage, it will always exsit...now... but herre's the story;

I recently uploaded about 7 videos-songs of Pele Ju Ju & their lead singer Dana Hutson.. to YOUtube. And this past week, I have been esxploring Myspace, finally building a new outreach via Myspace...the freinds lists...and the switches Myspace contains...and...just yesterday, I added a person to my friend's list who is an old time Pele Ju Ju fan, who reported to me, that she discovered one of my many music vdeos of them. among the rough cuts... appearing on YOUtube... and google showcased my new Myspace address...so she found me there.

In honor of that journey completed...below is the Pele Ju Ju band with Dana Hutson performing "Eyes to the Sun".

You will see that this is a masterpiece song, and a sample of the kinds of moments you could count on happening at every..yes EVERY... Pele Ju Ju concert....a deceptively simple production, but I feel it is a sample of a few of my video paintings that also feel like masterpieces of mine, cinema verite' at it's best...

This video is strong...even in low resolution...Built around the premise of ...Allowing the song to breathe... being a witness and intuitive. By this time, I think I had filmed about 5 Pele Ju JU concerts... Dana and I could feel each other in a sort of tender shared goal of capturing the beauty of that song and this brilliant performance...which..by the way is cross edited here from 2 main concerts...both live audio... but favored one, part a- the other part b...you will see/hear.

I felt privelged, to say the least...for Dana's trust...and I knew, I was there to witness what was beautiful, fully through the camera, and make sure it was captured for the people... for all time...

Here it is. Ripe today...Just fell off the treee!

See if you agree...Did she deliver it, or not? Did I catch it so you could get your share? You tell me...Regardless.., I'm very proud of it, as it stands here, a simple concert film... pristine... good re-mastered audio... still holds up as ultra compressed youtube film.... while at the very same time....it still sort of represents the rough demo version of a full screeen feature doc, or a DVD boxed set sold online, or some other indy project... and if nothing else, word will get out to Dana who has since become a massage therapist-healer.... deep in the jungle... maybe to return once again for the Ple Ju JU Re-union concert this summer...maybe , maybe, maybe...which it may well be... someday.

But for today...the song...the video... were both completed 10 years ago...and technology finally caught up with that wave, so that I could feature it here, in a blog....and let you watch it from the myspace/youtube window below. So... I sort of saw that the wave rolled back in, and long with it, it brought a Pele Ju Ju fan... so ... all in a little neat package, a test run... double checking the switches, and the search engines... and the media players/streamers... And, as of this week, I have decided to stay, for awhile on Myspace, this time around...therefore, finally uploaded enough samples of my art here and elsewhere, to provide an overview...this is the official first media/blog insert test...Along with just enough of a profile on myspace...and youtube... it seems ripe and ready.

The right painting on the right day... Dana Hutson and Pele Ju JU sing "Eyes to the Sun" circa 1997 ... a stanger film.

P.S. I apologize to all the other musicians of our present day, because this is old footage, and I say something stupid about Pele Ju Ju being the "best band" or some such. It's me in 1997, still getting used to my access tv show hosting style... I make the standard error of over hyping, here...everybody does it at least once, I sound like fool, but I left it in...because it's that era...On the subject of "great bands" yah gotta cut me some slack... Like Louis Armstrong said..."There's only two kinds of music...good music and bad music"... regardless of all that, we gotta be greateful for this Pele Ju JU footage I filmed in 1997 and re- invite you to enjoy today, in 2007, today... In theory this is just to prime the pumps...so to speak... check the interconnectedness of it all...I guarantee you that it's gonna open doors for more current projects...and all the other great musicinas and writers I have filmed...Have a great tuesday!

"Eyes to the Sun" Dana Hutson & Pele Ju Ju

courtesy of the ToeKneeStanger Channel on YOUtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQxK00GO5kY

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

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www.ToeKneeStanger.com

"Broken Bowl"

2007-01-06T15:00:00.000-08:00

There's this set of bowls.

They were in this house when I arrived.

Perfect size and shape, for a huge cup of java... not quite fitting the hand... But they gave me a design idea for a set... a coffee-tea... tea pot set... Perfect shape... Perfect proportions... a memory.

I've been studying the zen of shapes for a couple years. How a tea pot can reflect a memory of what we love beyond loving.

Found it all reflected through the Teapot and bowl and cup collection at the Cantor Museum on Stanford campus, in 2000.

It took a little searching, but the tea pot I had envisioned, dreamed could be created, was actually made in the 3rd century b.c.

Sits in a glass case, one of many... Some carved from blocks of jade, pure quartz...Not all for tea, but close to the size and shapes I had cherished...Yet this one, ... This one was fired clay... Seemed plain and simple, I noticed to most people...They shuffled past me and favored the sparkly fancy colors of the others...This one was simple, plain, utility combined with beauty, perfect... It's proportions, at least to me, reflected that "golden rectangle" type of equation the Mason's and renaissance masters secretly guarded for centuries... It was like that, except it was the Taoists, and the Confucian style of equation, probably right down to the formulation of the clay...It's essence was light and beauty, but invisibly formed inside of shape for purpose.

"Yeah this is the on, I thought to myself"... And I began to draw it right there, I knew I didn't have to "re-invent the wheel... Someone else before me left the evidence and the validation and the formula for the style I could re-form as my centerpiece for a set.... Well, how do I describe it for you? ... It's not edges...It's the same sort of perfection of shapes we see around us, but closer to the shape of breast... a reminder of goddess, something we can all relate to... Those of us who were born of women.

I don't want to sound too cryptic... But the world seems to be run by folks that forgot the divine mother... So maybe it would be a good way to remind a person subliminally over a cup of tea.

Anyway. I never saw such proportions reflected in modern designs...Until I saw the bowls I have been drinking coffee and tea from in this mountain house, in 2006.

It will be a design I carry in my heart and head... as I get ready to leave for the unknown.

There is a certain type of hand-hold on the side that I know I will have to invent... One that only I know about. It's something I get to build because of the way I have had to hold these "too large bowls" that I use as coffee mugs...It'll be my vision alone, what I bring to the equation...The one I am definitely going to perfect... And maybe, maybe, maybe this will be one of those designs that carries forward for a few centuries.... Built out of need, and left for those who follow...

An easier way to drink a big cup of brew, easier than a modern day mug handle. If you can imagine that.

A month ago, as I squeezed myself around my painting table, one of the bowls fell.

... Crack!... In a zillion pieces.

I got grateful for a couple of reasons...

First, I can never forget those bowls now...

Second, it gave me a project, gluing it back together.... And through that, a chance to explore it's perfection.

I have this theory about broken bowls and tea cups... And anything ceramic...

"Glue it back together, and you get to do the meditation about it's significance while you do so".

I have many re-glued... And many stories for each one...They have merged with my traveling paint kit... My traveling editing office...

A few years ago, a friend offered me his driveway to use as an outdoor studio... Summertime in California, I was at first offended.

But I was living in my truck, and it became a landing place for hours of the day.

No more searching for an empty place on a hill in a park to paint. No more parking in the industrial zone and watching sh*t go down each night, and moreso on weekends...

I got sort of locked into a neighborhood by that driveway offer.

Now, I got to pray and paint under the shade of slow moving trees, all day long, with a relative quite and serenity.

I felt more in place than out of place. By default, folks stopped leering at me with suspicion.

One day, I had to tell him the truth about the down side in relation to his offer... I felt offended watching him lock his door every day as he left for work... I'd be out there early and with 8 hours ahead of me, I'd have to find a bush out back for a restroom... He'd wake up and get ready to leave...a nd for all the serenity, I felt as if he just had no trust...So why was I there on his property, if this was all he could see in my presence...Was it pity, was that the reason for his offer? I asked him if it ever occurred to him to make me a cup of tea, every once in awhile... He seemed to love to come and find time to visit while I painted... Getting free art lessons, and he'd come out and question techniques he saw me use, then show me what he had created with those techniques... I would have been respected or complimented in another setting, But I saw him use my presence as a certain kind of badge, and even tell people how great a teacher I was... But then locking his house as if I was a potential thief. I was smart enough to be honest about all that. Needless to say he never really enjoyed that feedback... Always with a fresh brew...But only one, never a cup of tea for me... Or an offer to use his bathroom...

There was a day when he sort of got heated about it... Because I was getting ready to leave... And I let him see how that looked to me... Almost as if I was in a position of unworthiness... I would rather exit and go back to the hillside in the park.

inadvertently, completely by accident, the tea cup he was drinking out of, broke ... He lost grip of it...And it broke.

He stood there, we each measured the silence, then he looked at me... He said "that was my Tai Chi masters' gift... I can never replace it... I loved that cup... it's lost forever, now"

He swept it up, tossed it in the garbage and left... Without a word.

By the time he came back that evening... Before I left for my parking spot, he found the cup glued back together, sitting on his doorstep.

He asked me...

"what am I supposed to do with this???"

My answer was simple...

"I have all these cups and saucers and bowls I have re-glued and each holds a memory now...Though it may never again hold tea"

...And then, I showed him a few... Brush holders now, storage places for small items, paper clips and such... Part of my art supplies as important "as a sable brush, to me"... "it's how I find things"... "They help keep my studio in order, and each holds a story"

"each has a story".

I went through a couple of them, and told the stories..What was learned, or what times were frozen in that moment of "breakage"... How each one reflected a gift of time, space and heart, momentum, dreams or future challenge.
..................

I haven't seen or talked to Rick in a couple years. That was late in 2003. I painted a huge painting which, among other items, holds a collage of leaves and branches swept up from his driveway...Painted as if they were/are "Monet waterlillies".

That painting is still hanging over his in door office. It was a canvas he had found on the garbage of a vacant high tech start up gone bust...One he gave to me that I painted over.

.....................

IN the next couple of days, I am going to upload some footage of a friend of both he and I... Somebody he introduced me to, while I painted in that back yard driveway. I overheard their dreams and plans to create a new kind of creative school. That person has since passed away.

He was a great musician who gave his life to present music of Jazz and blues and unity beyond race...In the name of art and music... In honor of his sister in law who is African-American... Because, growing up, he had seen the agony his brother and she would have to go through as a mixed race couple in rural Indiana. He wanted to help create a better world than that... So he did...With his life ...Through music, and acting, and voice-over acting...

I get to finally make sure that footage I edited of him, for the memorial service, presents the legacy of that man...; this time world wide via YOUtube...

Such will be a "great thing" that I get to do, simply because I can...But nothing can replace the look of joy filled eyes his sister in law and her daughter both gave me along with a hug at his funeral... They each hugged me, smiled and dropped a tear and thanked me for putting the footage together in a way that they could see what "Uncle Timothy" had done with his life in California, since leaving Indiana 30 years ago.

Rick had introduced me to Timothy... While I painted in that back yard.

But I didn't really know Timothy until I met his sister in law, and also saw all the brilliant world class musicians who came and jammed freely with each other at his memorial service, or until I had seen his many characters created in the video I edited after he died. He was as Belushi, or Akroyd or Chevy Chase... But he lived on the level he was born to live on...Never left the people he walked among. I saw the truth of his talent, I know whether as a musician, or a song writer or as a comedy character actor...He was always a kid from Indiana who just wanted to bring folks to unity through music... I saw it was true, All races and creeds... all sparkly eyed playing their favorite Timothy songs... Each had a story about how Timothy helped them get bookings or shared gigs.

I think , this past week... While I thought about the broken bowl I just glued... That meeting Timothy and getting a favor from Rick (the backyard open aired studio) was a certain pact made, that I could now finally get to fulfill. Nobody's gonna pay me for it...It's not gonna get a grammy or an Oscar... Few will even know I did it...But I am going to upload some Timothy footage, anyway.

And, while gluing the bowl that broke... I had to think of that tea cup... Rick's tea cup... That I had glued in that back yard... And I had to remember the look of suspicion, of mistrust, on Timothy's face when we first met...And the sense of purpose I got from helping memorialize the work of Timothy. Getting closer to him after he had died than ever being able to share a coffee with him or even play a song together... He had paid his dues... But he had weathered so many storms, he didn't know me Well enough to tell me his need to get some credit for being "Santa Claus". You see, beyond all those voice-overs and concerts and movie background parts and everything else he did, one way Timothy fed his family and also served was as Santa Claus for over 30 years. If he had auditioned as a Santa Claus for a major movie he could have beat any other competitor. He had a twinkle...He had mastered the roll...He had the deep soothing voice...And the heart to match...But the main reason he was Santa each year, was to help kids formulate their wishes and dreams.

Thank you Rick. For encouraging me about doing those edits. And letting me glue the tea cup... And for hearing me out... And for introducing me to the life of Timothy.
....................

A room full of people laughing joyful tears watching their friend do voice-overs and appear in Hollywood movies as a blurry background side-kick...Then play all those festivals and music events all around California with his friends...

Lives on ... Now as a YOUtube segment...

Nobody is paying me...

But I get to explore the meaning of the glued tea cup... And notice that I made it past some big storms...In theory.

It's the kind of thing, that if I do not do it... Nobody else will.

And we - each and every one of us, all have to see some work in front of us, around us, shared or alone...That maybe nobody else can see...And we need to do it, just because we can... as our offering, just because we can.

For me, it's re-gluing the tea cup...Sort of a duty that I have, just for being here... a way to make something out of something that seems forgotten or lose or broken...Something bigger. It's magic, bigger than I could even know... And there won't be a parade... But that's ok.

It's proof, if nothing else, ...That I learned something from YOU.

And for me...It's all about how I use the next 500 breaths... The next 3 hours of my life.

Do I glue it back together, in honor to the ones that were around when it sort of shattered?

Or do I leave it in pieces?

There's a sh*t load of metaphors here.

You can sink you teeth in them... Have at it.

Let me just say, Timothy and I never spent any quality time. Not back then.

But we can , now...

He'd put 25 years into Indy media and music, but I never knew why or anything about how amazing that all was, until I saw the footage...Just recognize that this is true for each of us...It's true for you...The only thing is that we may not have a record of it...Yet that record still exists etched into the hearts you shared it with...And it's more really real than YOUtube or MTV or VH1 could ever make it be. Sometimes, I actually thin k, that only the truly lost get to pretend they had a real life in a movie, you know, the truth such as Swatzenegger never saved or rescued anyone, nor did he ever even shoot anything but a plastic bs gun and pretend to care enough to risk his life for something. His own words, if you search, you will find..is that he loves "people worshiping him". Think about it, I am not making this up... That's all ego...What would happen if people started getting content about making a difference in each other's lives...Famous or not? There's no other hope for this planet. It's not a movie. I swear it's not fame.

Well, I tried to be a friend to Timothy while he was alive. He walked away. He told other folks he felt disrespected by people, because nobody understood that he was the master he was... Whatever. That's the reality of our modern times. All I know is that I saw a lot of beauty in Timothy and I kept offering...a nd I never really understood why he had gotten suspicious about such offers...Until I saw the range of his talent after he died, in the footage and concerts he had ALREADY done for 20+ years. Then I understood. Recognition never came...At least the kind he expected or needed. But, in truth, I saw in the footage that he could have been bigger than Swartzenegger, but instead chose to serve the folks he cared about, not an invisible audience of strangers. He wasn't hooked by his own ego or need for fame or power...He made the choice to be real, instead.

He died, sort of overnight.. a surprise to everybody.

The biggest reflector I ever saw of how real Timothy lived his life, was in the hearts of his many, many friends and the depth of glow of appreciation in his sister-in-law's (and her daughter's) eyes...And in the free laughter in that room at his memorial... all brought about, brought forward, by me sort of putting together pieces of his vast catalogue of footage spanning 25-30 years.

Just by showcasing a tiny portion of that value via edited footage.. Shared music... all over a tragic loss...Yet more than anything; bigger and fuller by the fact of what it indicated...What was real beyond video...

We lose something when the bowl breaks.

But we can gain something from the memory of it's meaning, if we take the time to use it as a meditation- gluing it all back together..

..................

I'm going to design a few bowls and teapots in my life. Yes I am... And they will someday be broken.... as all things someday have to be... On their way to dust.

It makes me think it was all worth it... If I dream about somebody gluing one or two together again... In memory of whatever they see around them that they have that day...To hold a few brushes...Or pencils or dreams.

......................

Last night... I had a dream vision. I was in a room, and it was after filming (or playing music) at a gig.

Everyone else was filtering out of the room. There was an echo of laughter and cheer... Fading to silence.

A younger woman who was hanging back, slowly came over, and I couldn't believe she was coming over to talk or visit me.

She asked to sit across from me...Somehow she had seen enough about me, or watched me enough there, that she had a reason to do so... She sat on a ledge right next to me, sparklng her eyes... Made a simple sincere joke about me not realizing she really wanted to be there...Then she leaned over ...And kissed me.

And then...Just so I would know and understand that she meant to do it, that there was no agenda than a shared kiss... She reached into my heart with a few more words, this time soothing... I felt that caress and the honor that came with it, ...And then she leaned over ...And kissed me again. And this time I savored it.

I could never have picked her out of the crowd... I could never have predicted it... I was only able to do one thing... Hold still and let it be.

http://www.myspace.com/originaltoeknee

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http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

Through the Gate: The ToeKnee Show

2006-12-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.myspace.com/originaltoeknee

The ToeKnee Show... "Through the Gate"

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

... has come back into my life,
Yes folks!, I have regained some territory!

UN f**k*nbel**v*able

The website address of ARTintoLIFE.com was the original website I founded in 1995, right after starting the Toe Knee Show access cable tv show in 1994...."to change the world".... or at least to contribute my share towards giving it an honest try... anyway... at least if anything to see if we could find a world change we could all be proud of.

Thanks to "emo" (mark Langbehn) , someone who I met while I was a volunteer at a meditation university 24 years ago... thanks to Mark, ARTintoLIFE.com is now mine again... as of this week.

Holy S**t... I still can't believe it.

anyway, you can get to know Mark Langebehn a little more, by seeing/hearing his work.

Like me, he has a catalogue of original music.
And similarly, he has also produced many others... helped to contribute to our planet by moving them a little closer to their dreams as musicians, specifially.

His website has many free MP3's of these various successful indy songwriters and performers.

www.EMOsonic.com

.........

Now, back to my creative expansion... ARTintoLIFE.com is symbolic of a full below the ground re-organizatioin of my priorities, projects, dreams, artisitc endeavors, and also finding new wasy to release the great stuff already created.

So...yes, it's true... I'm finding new ways to release the paintings, as prints mugs and t-shirts....

www.Zazzle.com/ToeKneeStanger*

and also

www.CafePress.com/ToeKneeStanger

And, as many are discovering, my ToeKneeShow TV segments are being released in small clips on YOUtube.

Yuucan clic on the windows below and get there, or us this(copy and past URL in your browser);

The Toe Knee Show

This is the website URL of my main playlist of original indy productions,

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7A8319073BABE579

and her's the direct play window, of that batch...

So... the bouncing ball has bounced back into my own court...

could this be?

I am standing on about 6 mountains of created work.

I think I am ready and have a better, wider vision... due to life's experience, I don't think I could mess things up if I actually made a living again.

So.

As goofy as that sounds.

You all get to decide if I was worth saving.

IN any case, I finally completed the painting;

"Through the Gate" (the first image of this blog entry).

It's a real place... a place where a person used to loft her dreams, for years, one after another.

She'd asked me to go there and do a ceremony to help release the house to sell.

Big changes... I guess everybody gets them... unique to each.... those were hers.

The painting was symbolic as well as a witness to reality.

That gate (gateway) in the paintng exists, still there ... and is now someone else's back patio...(the house sold)...

For her, it was the place where she made her wishes known to the Universe.

And while I visited with her there, then... to bless the house,

We sat in the back...Watched the sun set slowiy across the Valley.

In silence.

I couldn't help but notice that in another time and place, or if I had been totally alone, I would have been in tears... but with her that day, we both watched the sun set slowly... the air was thick with a sense of privacy... and retreat... too sacred to even notice... just enough to experience... becausse it was free... and may leave... you didn't want to stir it.

3 years later, I finally finished the painting I'd promised her, this one...the one that you see in the beginning of this blog entry.

And next week she gets that painting in her mailbox... because I found the ddress , yesterday.

So, you see it here...

sort of frozen in it's process.

the real art is in the surprise she has, when she gets the package...

And how it brings her to that place she showed me.

and that sunset...

glory be.

I sometimes feel an artwork has not one real purpose, unless it hits all these notes.

The more real if it is filled with life,or fills itself wiht life, each and every step...

The meaning in this piece is the full spectrum of where it symbolically resides, including here... seen by you.

For her, it's gonna be a bringer of memory...and a letter of gratitude.

........

A few weeks ago, I called my friend Lon, who is finishing a production of his next door neighbor's music.

Like me, he found a way to get it done on a shoe string of a shoe string, of a shoe string...

I think this is gonna be Lon's masterpice prodiuction.

already the neighborhood is abuzz with expectation ...back there in Portland.

When I called him, and he answered the phone, ...as is my specialty, on auspicious occasions... I get really metaphorical.... this means sometimes/usually, just rolling into a conversation...sometimes even forgetting to say hello.. in that gap before anyone speaks...saying that one subconscious idea thaat first pops into my head...so... yeah...one subconscious idea sprang out... yet so obvious... and exactly right on time.

"through the gate"

"?what?"

"through the gate"

... "oh , hi , tony" (toe Knee) .. how are you doing...?" he asks...

"I'm walking through the gate, Lon..." , I say

... and then, he patiently listened while I walked him through a line of thought... a long diatribe about "a clearing in the fog, and the distant views comkng back into focus"...

... in the psace between me catching my breath, Lon speaks;

"sounds just like what I am going through... working on this album for my next door neighbor... it's sounding so f**king beautiful, tony...Jesus...!"

............So...

I am revising this blog entry posted a couple weeks ago.

I found out , yesterday that all my YOUtube playlists, formerly included in this post, only look good on this loaned computer, with cable internet... most folks do not have enough bandwith... I'm told "the white squares never quite filled in"... by lots of folks struggling with "dial-up" connections...

So.

Once again, I have to go back, and revise what I have already done.. again... and slow it down a little while Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Larry Ellis and all those other folks find a way to perfect whats already here... who knows, maybe by next year, at this time, I will be able to add the links, viewing windows... etc... and not cause delays.

It's quite interesting to me to notice that a real clean HD style image played fluid through wone of the major sites I visited last night, researching a couple indy actors... the stuff was high resolution...played fuid, tight images and smooth...no gaps...

Meanwhile the average uploader can't seem to quite get close to that... without jumping thorugh a lot of hoops...

Don't worry... they are going to have to meet u more than halfway...us indy producers, artists, writers, directors... so they can actually keep up with the artist's creaive vision... the industry is starting to notice that there's huge money in it... so they'll have to upgrade us...

and, along with those sentiments... I also,

...have to say,

The only future for us 60's artists-musicians-writers-composers-film makers- guerilla media folks/ visionaries, clairvoyants, baristas/esses ....is to be part digital, part human....

At this point, I have to quote something one of my art instructors taught me, many years ago...

Which is this,
..."a real artist is not limited by the media, or materials or even circumstances... a real artist creates with what they have on hand... where they are standing...

...Therefore..."a real artist can create a masterpiece with sticks and mud...film a blockbuster movie with the cheapest super 8 or web cam, can write a symphony or tv series beyond "Friends" with a stolen bank pen or pencil.../post office pen... and a few scraps of paper found in any trash can....

But if you want to make a living fro that level... it's a different story.

The 21st century demans that if you intend to be able to SELL or show something created with raw real talent.... or throw a decent party about making it, you need to embrace technology.

"Ouch" says the human artist... "Ce le vie" say the wise. Every era has it's parameters... and those who get into "the flow of the era they inhabit"...they seem to get to eat... and live indoors. amazing.

So... if you want to sell it..you can do it a damn lot faster, easier and more efficiently through just 1% technology... 90% talent... the only real essential is the technology... I am sorry to say. The talent part is up to you... and a matter of conscience, for me...but how you approach it...well that's your path!

You don't have to be 100% technology.

a human heart is better.

If necessary, it's concievable tht you can beat Buddy Holly's best , even make the hit record on a bargain box 3.00 cassette recorder, with built in mike and some previously recorded cassettes @ 10 for a dollar.... if you had content to match, it wuld easily outdo the quality of recording...

I once heard a masterpice played off a back porch in Mississippi, an old black Master played a broomstick with one string of bailing wire... his own song, deeper and truer than anything Clapton'[s done, becasue it was REAL... and not for a recorder or a tv show...or anything but human ears.

The only problem with that, ...in my view, ...is that I can't cue up the recording so you can hear it.... It was live...one time only.... no technology was around...no evidence it even happened except in my story here. but I guarantee you that that guy would have been glad to share the song with you... and if he had, maybe he'd also have a new car and some great food.. .and medical care...

Meanwhile, it is also true that a certain amount of fame would destroy the authenticity, don't youthink?

Proven by they guys answer, ehn I suggested it ws a hit record..

He said..."already is a hit record... don't need to be played on no hit parade to be a hit record... the birds and the cars driving by...and this wind... they all know it's a hit record right here... me too"

anyway.

that wasn't easy to heear...

I still think that if you are a Celine Dion.... or if you are a Salina... or a John Lennon... or a Leonard cohen or a Muddy Waters or an Al Jarreau... etc. etc. etc..... you'd still have a masterpiece.... whether it were heard by one person or 10 million.

It's all about how well you can deal with any other place to play the thing, beyond your own back porch.

So... if you can't get to a production facility...work on the song more, anyway...and record it with whatever you have...your phone machine...or some cheap cassette recorder from a resale place.

Folks might say, "did you record this in the 50's?" and they might laugh at the first part of it...but if it's worth anything it's gonna reach right through the scratchy sounds...

...and they would hear the masterpiece...

...Meanwhile... that's the bottom of the barrel, you say?

Well, most folks have far more technology... as well as talent... and if they can't create anything...bu they want simon cowelll to do it or somebody else... then... maybe, maybe, maybe they actuallly should just be sellng groceries or something...

Most of our ideas aobut being famous doing anything are tv driven.

don't be confused.

don't waste your life iwht a dream.

Do it or move on. simple.

but let's say you accomplish some sort of basic recording or a decent song... That's helpful if you are breaking through to your potential... becasue we need to hear your song...the earth does...

Yet...you'd still need something like the internet to get it to the people.

Hence the formula...90% talent...or even 99% talent and hard work...1% technology...and you'd get heard.

Let the people decide if it's their cup of tea.

If nothing else, you would get the ideas of fame as a goal out of your system. Fame is a by-product...of a job well done...that folks enjoy ...

Choices of your past/ our past... they've all been revised.

You can get heard/seen right next to Eric Clapton or any other major player...

I think that's a good thing.

Your one string banjo.

Sometimes I get this feeling that we all haven't noticed that music is right here, right here in our back yards and our own kitchens... inside our own hearts, among our own families...

Isn't it time your voice is heard among your own tribe?
.........

Back when i was learning the various basic technigues in all these range of processes... basically when i was just a kid, I did have the skill to create a hit record... but... the truth is... I hadn't had the experience in the world, for any song I wrote to matter...

Luckily I backed away from the fame portion...but nnot away form life or music.

6000 songs later and probably 50,000 pages of lyric later... I look back through/listen back through... and notice that life is infused in the process... and the good songs ring with that.

but I can't deny it took all htese years to be able to see it right where it already was.
...........

When I called Lon.... a guy who had hlped me learn the basics of recording 20 years ago... also a guy I walked out of an indy contract with...I hear an expanded version of Lon... jus like me, he grew with it... or, maybe I should say that his life demanded he gorw with it...just like me...and just like everybody's life always will.....if you let it.

He also brought the music along...and now, he tells me about producing an album for his next door neighbor, and it makes complete sense.... complete sense... as a worthy expedition... bringing somebody's excellent fireside songs to the people...
First of all, we know it's gonna be real.
Secondly, Lon is a good producer who also grew deeper as a human...

What a team.

So... I have no problem believng Lon when he says, he feels like he is going "through the gate". I can hear it in his voice. And then, when I hear him say, "it sounds like you made it through another set of turns in the road, tony (toe knee)... "

...the tone of his voice, convinces me.... I hear reflected what I sensed was true....no bs... another phase has shifted...again.

...another bounce of the ball.
....................

The only part missing for me, thes e past few years...was solid footing, sinc ethe floor dropped out beneath me in Silly Con Valley.

That's what i say now...but i had plenty of rocks and dirt.

I coulda painted many masterpieces on the hill in Arastradero preserve.

I chose watercolor paper over the materials at hand...

so... it's a breakthrough to finally notice I will be able to slide a few treats on over to you.

ARTintoLIFE.com

no s**t.

I still can't believe it.

Treats in the form of jpgs of the paintings I did among the mountain lions and bald eagles up on skyline boulevard...

And, yes, some video of the various artworks built out of sticks and mud along trails, and creeksides in nature.

And a little of the stuff I had to deal with living out of my truck after the bottom fell through.

..................

It's Christmas EVE.

I accept where I am today.

And I have to feel blessed that I am warm indoors, at least.

Inside, with my 1% technology. I can't say that limitations hold me back.
Instead, I get to notice something I never expected... that hesitation you get to expereince when you aren't sure if you can actually trust anything working out this time.

Well, I said I wanted to learn about the reality... the reality of why suffering holds folks back... i guess I get to see that it's hard to put the shields down, when you had to survive as a daily expereince day in day out... on your own.

And i guess I get to understand why "on your own" is the biggest sign of the damage done.
.............

This Christmas time, while I am still here...

There are no parties, no shared time with friends and family...just enough warmth and safety and time... just enough and an internet connection...and a YOUtube site to upload to... and plenty of clips to upload...and ARTintoLIFE.com ...has come back...too!
so...
I am going to embrace it...
I am going to be uploading clips from the ToeKnee Show, and will be online... maybe with some rum and eggnog...
while the rest of USA celebrates.

It's sort of a Christmas present from me to the world.
Symbolically uploading some of what i created all these years...

Along the way,
I made all these promises to our creator, and to people... of doing my part with my talnet, reflecting it all back to the people. Hopefully with something at enriches..

You get to decide if it was worth it.

Anyway... my path seems to have brought me here...with the idea is to discover right use of creative thought and energy...right use.... to be helpful and to do no harm.

................

So... interestingly for me, I have this whole batch of stuff I'd aired on my TV show in the Bay area, from 94/95 to 2006.

This weekend, I am sending off (uploading) a few gifts to the ether (YOUtube); these are some you get to see...if you so choose. they explain a lot of what I believe in about people... and hold true to the reasons/intent I tried to explain here...,

"Dr Bronner's soap (the pope of soap) & Rosemarie Landry" parts 1 & 2 a Stanger film
"Lori Petty" interview cinequest 2001 a Stanger film
"Auntie Shirley's Nephew, Hawaiian performer "Key Aaloha KIh Hay Leh" in their back yard parts 1 & 2
a stanger film
"the Drifters" with Lori Scott, World Concerts for Humanity feauring Bobby Warren (RIP) a Stanger film
" Uncle Frank's BarB Q" with Leonard and featuring the Will Roc band a stanger film

And a few more, as well, by the time this Christmas day (tomorrow) , is over.

That reminds me, I didn't buy any treats for myself... while I am dong all this... oh well...the stores are gonna be closing early... maybe some raisan bran and a half gallon of milk... we'll see...

So.

Dreams can come true.

And sometimes they take years... so.

Hooray!

.....

This year wouldn't be a real year if we hadn't all did some sort of self-review, while figuring out a better way to do next year... so go off and do that...or if yo want to see inide of my view on it...read on... hasta la vista... babeeee.

..................
so...

1. don't say you are going to do something.

2. do it.

3. then show us you did.

a. Nothing else is real.

b. Make a difference.

4. Out perform all your expectations...

5. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!
a. It's no good unless you can share it!...
b. and it's no good unless, after you share it, you can see the folks you shared it with, adding themselves to it and sharing it with others...

... and if it's a song, it's music , you can hear fading as it rtavels the distance, performed to the same standards and beyond!

c. So, remeber... if it made you famous today...that isn't proof of anything... perfect it, perfect it perfect it and then let it proove itself... that it deserves to and lasts... through time... showcase it's lasting value... on it's own!

6. So INVITE , and Include others, showcase their talent... step back...

7. Follow through... stop pointing fingers and get busy!!! we need you!

a. if you don't bring us your full potential...who will ????
..............

The Toe Knee Show

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7A8319073BABE579

..........

So!....Make a difference!.

then let time go by , then taste it, and .... most of all! ... test it...

If it was ever worth a s**t... it will remain, the best part of it will be forever...

... yeah... I admit I used to say stuff like this off-hand...

...yeah I admit... each new bounce of the ball includes a phase of disbelief/struggle...

But we all know the ball rolls as it bounces...rolls in the air.

Each time it hits, it finds a new way to bounce, against a whole new edge... with a spin included. A world Champion wrestler taught me that being thrown isn't the REAL issue. It's teaching yourself a way, practising it and perfecting the ability; to always land in a better position, far better than you were before you were being thrown.

And when the other dogs won't let go... you dig deeper... deeper, deeper... until they run beggin for mercy.

........

And if you get to sail it like a parachute or a ship, then call it grace... and cherish the glide... let it be gaceful... go with the edges of the wind... you'll get plenty other times to debate it and to study it for the joureny it was/is.

Everybody gets their share...in a different order.

Just like you... I'll be surprised if I get there...

Meanwhile, I'm rolling with it,

studying the spin and the bounce.

happy New Year.

May it be all you deserve.

With less hardship, more glide.

.......................

www.ARTintoLIFE.com ... is just one of the many so called losses that have come back in focus

Feel free to consider these sites:
www.ToeKneeStanger.com
and the new Marketing sites; -t-shirts etc.: www.Zazzle.com/toekneestanger*
www.Cafepress.com/toekneestanger

...and of course, those of you who might be interested in watching some classic segments fo the Toe Knee Show, follow that link above...

I have the first Shana Morrison videos online (Van MOrrison's daughter...these are clips of my films of the past 8 years...) Also, I have some great excerpts of Willie Nelson visits/interviews, as well as a couple clips of Kris Kristoffeerson/Joan Baez interviews... as well as some of the groundbreaking Reality TV excerpts from the toe Knee sho while i was oepneing up phases of Indy Tv in the Bay area... 94-2006

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

Pilgrimage to Mountain of Sparks

2006-11-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

The Toe Knee Show meets Willie Nelson.... Official interview #2 parts one and two.... see it on the YOUtube links... or read..then click! National Treasure hunt of the week!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gceqtQYiJnQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0iOm0LAl7g

I'd volunteered at FarmAID 7 in 94... prior to that... back in 92, I drove over to his studio and gave him a Buffalo Skull for his golf house...that Christmas... earlier than that..visited real briefly when he played the Iowa State fair.

I think my Art School years, at the ART academy of cincinnati, in the late 70's were enriched and deepened by his outlaw phase... the album with Waylon... and Jessie Colter... adn Tom Paul Gasier... god... I know I am leaving soembody out... welll.just remember, this is not some CMA awards show.

It's the Toe Knee Show, of Palo Alto, translated to YOUtube.

It occurred to me around 97, that I could bring back an interview "for the people" as Joan Baez used to say... around that time, I was having a few lunchees with her... talking about the beauty around us... just relaxing in the California sun...

thinking back on those days, over the years... then feeling this intense inspiration to go and ask Willie a few questions...the kind few ever seemed to ask... just get that direct, over coffee and smoke, truth...

so... I rolled to Frisco..the Maritime Hall... sauntered backstage, and slipped my request through to his bus...he had me come onto the bus ahead of everyone else...and I was just taken aback... I felt I oculd have aksed deeper ...but I hadn't expected him to welcome me so easily... I guess it ws that Buffalo Skull gift... willie's part Indian...you know...

Anyway. I emphasized, in that interview his willingness to serve the people... especially the concerts he gives to benefit Farmers... and the one in Oakland, to honor the firefighters who had died putting out a tragic windswept blase...

I'm fallling asleep...people... I'll revise thistomorrow.

anyway...

I felt Ihad to ask him about his Raggae album, one that ws being worked on , at the time... and he also had a new record called "Spirit"... which I hadn't listened to yet...

After awhile...i finally apologized to him ...I felt I hadn't prepared myself for the interview...

But the real truth was... I was just stunned to be sititing across from him at the table.

Stunned..

so... I said, "Willie...I think I need to let those other folks have their time with you....." ..."but I wished Ihad been better preapred... I wished I had bought your new record and really listened to it!" ...he said... "tony... you can come and visit me again... some other time...and we can take it from there..." "Yeah... I guess I could ..Willie...I guess I could... Ok.. thanks.... see yah..." I stumbled out with my side kick Jean Michel... We drove home in silence, most of the way... then it hit me... "Holy s**t" "I can visit with him further down the road... where was he going???... Reno?... Jesus... Ithink I am going to be driving to Reno!" and there you have it.. I said my goodbyes... I drove all over town looking for a Fry's store that carried mini-dv footage.. that was open the next day... and finally found one, on the way to Sacramento... swung up on I 80... over Truckee...past Donner pass... I guess. ... all those ancient places.... filmed the various road stops... And pulled in next to his bus... When he stepped off the bus, headed n to the Casino whre he was gonna play, he was startled to see me... all the fans had left... it was later than I thought...I guess I'd lost track of time...

"Tony...let's do the interview...tomorrow... what do yousay?" "that's fine with me willie... but would you sign my shirt?"

"sure"

I was wearing my Chris Isaak signature shirt... which was actually a shirt Chris had signed on each sleeve...two different times... but which was also my Hopi meidicine shirt, custom made for me by a decendant of a lving 105 year old Hopie elder...

Willie signed it...

I wished them all a good night...

Droveoff in my art truck and found a spot in /near thefields to park and camp...away from the harsh casino lights. Road out the next day...to a mall...bought a set of "3 Stooges golf balls" for Willie... and his record, "Spirit"..the new one. Found a spot on a hill did a ceremony... then listened to the record on repeat all day long...

got myself in the right head space to ask the right questions.

It's a two part YOU tube expereince now.

Un edited...

REal as REAl can be. Willie... I love you, buddy... in a non-broke back kind of way... I love you , man! thanks. The drive to Sparks Nevada was a clankety clankety roar from my Jeep Cherokee, that I had to surf... My Jeep felt like a tiger, over enthusiastic cat, saying "here we go..here we go, we're gonna get there!".

My mechanic , Henry, once won a drag race against Elvis, down in texas in the 50's... and some of that spirit in the truck seemed super charged... I couldn't believe a vehicle with 3 odometer rolls and a straight six, leaking that much exhaust, could roll up Donner pass with such enthusiasm... but we made it.

I stopped at the rest stop at the top of the windy I-80... got out my camera.... the 8mm safety cam, gave it a wat to get the image stable... and announced "the mission".

A follow up interview, on Willie's invitation... in Sparks Nevada.

Go back and look at part one..if you haven't seen it.

This is part 2. of the official number 2 interview...

Camping in my truck, on the outskirts of the desrt, of Sparks... driving past the pawn shops and car dealerships and empty hearts, of the gamblers out of cash...it wasn't an easy ride for me.

When I go towards such places, I often feel the downside, inhabitable by humans, unless you have material backing.

I guess Willie is the bright light among the dice rolls and Silicon... I guess it's a good thing he comes and goes from these places... I sensed that the old spiritual songs and the new Raeggae, and the commeraderie on the road of life are all signal flares...but the choices folks make, is none of his (or our) concern...

Nevertheless... I was worried about becoming a troll liviing out of my rusted heap of a Jeep...which would happen sooner than later, if the engine blew... I have no safety nets... thee ain't anybody gonna come and rescue me... if this road trip excursion dive bombs.

so... I got together my medicine kit, and shuffled my way up to the top of the highest mountain on the edge of town... and I prayed for vision... for strength.. I surrenedered to the whole process...no matter how it turns out.

I knew I had to bring Willie some sort of gift, to show my respect... so I drove back down and asked a trucker where the nearest mall was...

Willie loves to golf... and play chess... but I don'tthink it's about winning... it's more about the challenge and the fun...

So I bought him some "3 stooges" golf balls... Each one had a printed black and white image of Larry, Curly, and Mo... I got an instant chuckle thinking about the look on his face, when I gave those to him...

...and that jacked me back to reality.

...Jesus... I made it. I'm in sparks, the batteries are still ggod...the cold of the outdoors was like a refrigerator... and they'd warm up and work fine in either camera... Jesus.. I found tape at the Fry's in Sacramento... I have enough to film whatever I want.... and cash for breakfast... everything's covered... in fact... I can see the casino from here, whre Willie will be playing later on!... so... I coudl walk there, and still interview him... if the truck breaks down... cheer up tony!

Thanks to the 3 Stooges...

I made it to the bus, they were all still resting... and playing chess... Willie was glad to see me, but he said... "let's do it after the show".

I'd heard folks laughing about the way Waylon had "left on time" while they had driven in... evidently there was some sort of competition to be on schedule and neither seemed to be ready to give up the challenge... a little growlin' was going on...too.

I understood that the full focus was on Willie delivering his trademarked speicialty; a consistent and excellent show.

so.. I made my way to give em all room..."I'll see you after the show, willie"

I wasn't there to gamble... I wasn't there to see the show... I couldn't afford a woman... I was confused by all the glitz... because it seemed that the only real thing goin on was the back to back Willie-Waylon series...

so... I admit I was feeling a little lost...

I accepted the full access pass, had a few beers, watche dthe beauty girls with their beauty bellies, evening gowns, tiaras, and rich guys in cowboy outfits back stage... the next new stars and the glitz and glamour...among them, evry so often a person like me...just friends of Willie... or believers in what he stood for... and the borthers-sisters-road crew... others, all gathered around , while the band played out front.

I'd walk in and out,,, drink in a song or two...go back... mull around...

It was all about getting ready to do a gentle wave of surfing over coffee...with willie...on his bus...and bring something back from that conversatin...for the people.

How do I keep the balance from the prayers I prayed on that mountain today?

that was all I could do...

See for your self...

Here's your chance.

This two part interview... this is the second excerpt,

I think I did my part... I know willie did his...

... and later that spring, I rolled down the the western town where willie and family all celebrate, sing all day, share food and stories... Yeah... if you like this interview... you may soon see Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale, The Bells of Joy... and a few others... and willie wink and smile and wave hello... Maybe.

You see,...the folks around Willie...and Willie..they are all just regular people.

some are like the warriors...they go out and they accomplish for the rest of the family... but each part of the tribe is important...and the focus is on being a better person today than you were yesterday...or at least giving it your best effort to do your best...

so... filming Joe Ely... and Jimmie Dale...and Willie and friends down there, well... it's a tender thing... it's a tender thing.

I admit I felt like I was meeting an equal when I met Willie... but isn't that what you feel when you are in the audience?

the best part of having entertainers like this, is that they do not remove themselves from you or me... they reflect the best part of ourselves right back to us... because they are us.

yeah.

On th ebus...with Willie.

(can you tell the coffee finally kicked in, this morning, while I wrote this???)

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

The Roll of Reversal includes rehearsal

2006-11-04T21:02:00.000-08:00

The wheels of a car, if they have those defined spokes, seem to roll backwards, at certain speeds.

I'm not talking about the optic explanation.

I'm talking about what we ALL see.

I'm not talking about what we THINK we know,

I'm talking about feet on the ground, don't have to check,
... Let's just buy a few beers and a pizza reality.

Nobody ever got a free lunch in this world, ever. And we all know it.

Just by breathing, you earned it.

I always said, Johnny Cash did it all with one song, "Big River" ...
... The way he sang that... that use of energy at that time,
... as complete as it was... Sailed that song forward.

And that song was just this;
an Eye witness account in 4 minutes,
of actually being somewhere,

and knowing you are there,

and telling about it while being in it. True.

He's dead, while those ideas inside that never-ending river
... In that song... Still lives.

Yet... There's hundreds of true stories... From similar positions, inside similar places,watching the wheels go round... And sometimes in reverse..., ...

Ray Charles... Einstein, Bucky Fuller,
Joan Baez, Cindy Lauper...Yeah even Donald Trump, on occasion,
and millions of others, all sexes, all races,
... If you were ever here, and showed up 100%, even if for just one milli-second in your life,
and wrote a song or invented a dream, or saw a truth, while in that place
...Which by the is in inevitable, because it's the true source of true power, presence, creativity,
charm, innovation... Inspiration...

and yes...Most times at the edge of a sword or a cliff,

you become just like millions of others before you.

and just barely moving us all forward by what evidence you leave and how wide it speaks.

...85% of our mothers...

Maybe even 40 to 60 % of our fathers......

maybe 5% OF OUR RICH LAWYER POLITICIANS.

Yeah... They ALL gave enough, just by showing up as 100%,
for a tiny, tiny...Speck of time,

And the rest is still sailing forward... Out of that... Infinite...

and there's really no work other than this...

there's what we all have to make peace with what we do to have money.

but then there is what really really so really do...

when we just show up 100%.

Complete, ongoing... Past all barriers and equations.

Nothing more...Nothing less...

and oh so obvious, walking through walls.

and oh so obvious,

traveling beyond time....

Like the spokes of a wheel, rolling backwards in slo mo.

Wipe your ideas from your brain, and your expectations.

The republicans, the democrats, the anarchists, the revolutionaries,

None of them has a formula close to the one you could get if you arrive where you sit or stand.

And notice what you notice while you hold that space.

...Fun to watch, but whether anyone sees it happen or not,
..It still is what it is,

no matter what you learned, what you think...

you still see it... I see it... We all see it...

The wheels rolling backwards, time separates from your edges,

and ...The world is flat.

If you decide to stay on one place.. And avoid the ocean.

And choose to not look too far.

and admit what you see...

You'll see where you're going and make a few steps,

across a small puddle, that exists only in your perception.

But in the end... Few ... Ever... Really ... Ever...
realize...That they do not ... Really ever ...Go very far...Go far at all...

And the world is flat.

as it should be;...

Time stands still,

as it always will.

otherwise... It would never make sense.

turning lead into gold.

Let's put it this way,
Everybody is choosing how far to see,
which horizon to measure their distances against... Or distance to,
...Which stars to guide their way.

But most do so automatically, and save no truth for the power....No power for the truth.

Yet... Miracles... The flash of intermittent light... Everywhere...And...
and if we are lucky, or unlucky... We cross each other's paths.
...And it's just about...How far, how wide, how important, or any other reason,
... To decide, to peace out with it... And discover, a reason to take the steps.
together...Or separate...
and from that moment of NEXT... What of your bigger self, comes along?

... Just ...How to decide if it's gonna be ok.
Is a thing you have to decide in your own cost-benefit equation.
... From one step to the next.

However far you got, whatever it was you did... Who you touched,
write it all down, sell a million copies...
Notice, that it actually lasts beyond your expectations...For as r it ever goes... That was only heart to heart... Almost nowhere.

the world is flat.

A peak reality... A stillness amidst the chaos.

you carry it with you.

...And just showing up... That's all it took.

Anytime anyone ever sat with THAT,
they brought back a witness to truth.

telling tales of metaphor,
that debate what you think is real.

breaking open a whole new foundation that eventually builds beneath it,
and explains why it is so...

then replicated, through the new laws deciphered.

Guess what... Such will always be the case.

Except...Why look to others for direction?

when you are already there.

If you stand, you stayed on the flat... The walk across... And it all matched up.

and guess what... Most folks just see ghosts at that last equation, from their distance,
and would rather applaud you or I or anyone else...Forward.

I heard it in Evil Kneivel's pride...his dance with that only route he could see,
to peak reality..

"I got the best surgeons in the world, they can fix anything,
I have broken every bone in my body, and I'm going to keep moving"

Well.

It would be great if he would allow himself to be wheeled among us,
to denounce those pronouncements... Because there's not enough painkillers available,
for him to be able to take a peaceful AWAKE walk through central park.

of complete one golf swing... Much less any kind of golf, or chess game.

Be careful what you declare at the top of your personal Mount Everest.

It's not your ideas that got you there.

You found something to represent an achievement,
... And then achieved it... And noticed that you might be close to 100% in the Moment.

But it wasn't what you achieved...

It was you showing up.

... And most who get interviewed, as if what they did to show up,
was so enormously great...

well... Maybe it was.. While they were 100%,
... And the simplicity of a simple kiss, ... Far more... Far more than the story.

They'll think they show up for the coffee, the sweet younger tits, and the ride home.
And they will seek to repeat the formula, any old day... Who wouldn't...

... But they will eventually end up getting wheeled through the park,
...Even if it's just to watch a young new family sharing it all,
... And they may not notice, that they are there 100%,
seeing from a distance, what they climbed Mount Everest to get...

and it was already there...From a distance.

... And then... If it's that day ...To die,
those ones that get to see it...They'll be glad they weren't alone.
... Along the way...., and maybe notice when they were there,
but forgot it while it was real...

and just gambled it all on a pole dancer.

Nothing more nothing less.

I've always thought that the whole " journey " part was just...
real enough, for developing the story line, for telling about it.
... If you survive.

And making it real.... Well that either was, or wasn't.

And maybe YOU don't even know... While you're in it.

the...Then and the now... Both the same,

the time standing still infinity meets infinity.

and the world is flat.

you're sitting in the park.

"Yeah, that's what I did, that's how it went, that's what it means".

And now...

I get to sequey;
... For real... Because it's real , ...Right now...
cause... I really turn my head, and I meet one of my pet spiders.
Yeah...One of my pet spiders. A Wolf spider. I love them.

I haven't seen these in the daylight, in the while, not this big, ...In awhile.
But I feel them exploring me at night and I wake up knowing where they were.
and that they climbed me like a mountain, finding stuff to eat.

...And I have been sort of glad I slept through it.

I was getting tired of killing the huge ones, once every two months.
when they got big enough to challenge me, make a show and a parade.

I always wondered, what was it that caused me to turn my head, right then?

them seeing me?

Who says intelligence is based on brain size.

Most humans use 10% or less.

And... You know...There is such a thing as Hive Mind...

But that's another blog.

I love spiders, these days.

I've discovered a few Black Widows...
But not yet here, though I know they are around.

I'd talk to them, just like these, first...Being glad they were across the room.
but then, like clockwork they came closer and closer each new day,
and at the same timeframes, like clockwork.

That's when I started changing my mind.
"if you see one, there's fifty"... Well that applies to cockroaches.
I think for spiders it would be something like,
If you see one, there's 12 to 20.
...And for me... That's ok, until they get bold and show up on schedule.
With parade routes, and repelling shows, down towards my pillows.

I'd test them with thought... If I see them, in a big way, while still,
do they feel it?

Sure enough... A conversation ensues.

I don't mind if they are here. I am glad... In fact.
I just don't want to pet them... Or have lunch with them...
or have to take them to a movie... Too many times.

Tonight, I turn my head, and say "hello" to the one that creeps within a foot of me...
and I am truly glad to see it. I noticed it slowed down when I saluted.
I say... "There's my pet spider!" and I'm happy.
... Then I hear my own words, and I watch I it cower and stall...
...Pretending that I don't see it... At all.

And that gives me a chance to consider... Are we really enemies??
If THEY think so... Then maybe we are! And I get scared.

do they have some sort of plan.??

Is this gonna be Gulliver's travels all over again.???
I think back to the guy I saw earlier on TV today,
the one that killed an Elk on TV this morning, with a bow.
For once, it was a fair fight... So, I surprised myself when I heard his respect,
... I forgave it and now saw the beauty.
Ok... There's sometimes too many Elk. It's ok... If you appreciate it, and feed your friends.

And then I say..."Is that what I'm gonna do?"... NOW?
... Next thing, without thinking. It's down to being honest, and it's already done.
Squeezed between 6 of my unreleased CDR masters, and a DVD or two... Over.

and the bugle blows for the spider. He/she was a big one!

And I don't even have to look.

Just leave it to dry out.

Find it in a few days, throw it in the yard..

It's not really fair... Being here inside the idea and the solution,
I get a view of my self...For a few seconds.

And I'm fine with it.. Though I still said, and meant..."I'm sorry".

I always say the same things to flies or whatever...
"I'm Sorry".
... But I would rather push them out the door on a wind and a blessing and watch them soar and live to die another day.

but this time... I let this idea I find myself seeing be ok...

I thought about it. I thought about launching a rescue airlift.

Yeah... I thought I was going to catch the spider and take it to a new world.
show it the dark night air, and the grass.. And the crickets, and the wheels of cars.
...But this is the 12000th generation of this indoor family, I'm guessing,
since this house was built.

And I've only met the last 8 grandpas/grandmas.

I see the relatives in the shower... Replaced by great granpa,
grandpa, Mother then kids.... Small growing larger, just like us.
...All while I have been here.
A couple were accidental drownings, running up out of the drain when the water hit.
and I had my regrets... So ..

A couple were rescued and "airlifted to freedom",
...But I had to admit, I saw that someone else around here,
... Had them in the trash the next day.

And then, the other day...
glad to see junior "all growed up", I just let him climb there in the sink...
he had already crawled out once,
before I turned on the cold,
and he can achieve that again, I am sure...
"yeah...Once the sink dries he can crawl out again".

that was yesterday, upstairs and in the sink,
...a different spider.

tonight, however, was another funeral.

...In the land of the spiders.

just like the ones I helped create in this room 4x...

In the land of the spiders,

where, as far as they can see...
it's been carpet , no flowers, and no birds... Forever.

And certainly not flat... Mountains everywhere.

And I am honest when I say, I AM glad they ALL party in here...

But I just admitted, once again, that I don't want to watch the rope tricks or the adventures...

I'll be their mountains in my sleep.

In the land where the lands are tall and wide.

Hey folks... Think about it...

The only way to be sure you are headed anywhere, is the feeling of motion.

In God we trust, everyone else, pays cash.

Sometimes getting somewhere is a matter of what you leave behind,
not where you are headed.... Or where you are, ... Really. Movie or no movie to back it up...

Lecture series, or no lecture series... Or book signings,

...Most days you just gotta let it be what ever it is...

... And call it grace.

A walk in the park.

And if you are gonna conceive of yourself taking or making steps,
one foot has to reach out, the other has to push away.
and most times, it's a two way street, with folks just as anxious to go where you been,
as you are to get on a bus elsewhere.

and either side... Still supplies a belief it's gonna be ok.
no matter where they end up.

I like the energies invisible as an equation for experimenting with intent.
Send off a package to a few, chosen few...
Let the air ring with gratitude and surprise,
And while you are on that wave surfing,
call a couple folks and either make peace, or offer... Make an offer.

towards something new,

then follow it up like it's a fresh stop.
and a fresh start.
simultaneous.

and see how well you do with the walk and the climb,
get even more determined to do it better next time.

I study the "idea of a person is gonna call"
then I call and if I hear the words, "I was just thinking of you"
... Then I know I am on time... Appeared on the scene welcomed.

In such ways,
I kicked open a door,
by measuring up to who I really am,

The ones who believe in me,
got compared to the ones who've been surprised.

Some saw their world go right side up, for a change,
others saw it flip upside down.

Meanwhile, they were gauging me against a manikin,
... I watched from the camouflaged, I wasn't around.

That gap... That gap between those two parameters,
the reflection of what it is, and what it really is,
...Was actually the " gate " I was looking for.

A crack in the door.

... I...Threw my foot in.

walked on through.

made some toast... Said goodbye to my imposter ghost.

surprised myself.

some folks love it... Others ran like hell,

found their own reasons,
found their own reprises,
found their own ghosts

Yeah... I was pretty sure who would go in which direction.

And sure enough...

Exactly as I had hoped,

a few walked up to me beaming and grateful with open arms.

the whole scene got simplified.

on cue.

I studied martial arts a long, long time.

The concepts inside the arts, not the flying kicks or the fast spins... Anymore,
but the...Concepts beneath the method of infusing such energy,
... No matter the technique... Always similar in principle,
...No matter what they are, innovative and un expected,

all aligned within natural laws... Some known, others just out reach for most,
including ourselves, until needed, and we watch them glow forward through us..

until you drop through the floor and forget each equations,

to find the morphing real.

and see you never have to steel (steal).

there has to be a reason for gaining the knowledge.
... Of a thing, a place, an idea... a journey...

and for that series of steps on that particular winding path,
the idea was,
to protect the weak.
to be ready, always ready, just able enough , as well...
... And able to put my life n the line,
...If necessary, ... To protect the weak,

But I'd figured it out, on that path,
... Eventually I was only my own ghost,
unless I accept that I have to aspire towards,
and realize ...That we are never finished,
and until then...Until knowing at the end,
that it's just like anew beginning again...
...To learn and, ... Grow to be,

...And live too.

But most times throw out the whole book on what it's supposed to be about,
and just sit and draw the folks in the park...
... Knowing you are just looking in the mirror, while stopping time.

It all starts to make sense when you realize you are long past halfway towards wherever you thought you were going.

and your are still not there...

Same old same old.

Nobody invented anything.

I am revitalizing some footage I shot 10 years back,

I'd ended up in the sunset district, San Francisco.
Kept the camera rolling,

Met a guy standing outside the club where Van's daughter's band was playing, where I was headed.

Seemed like a lonely guy ... I could see my reflection.

I didn't tell anyone the way I really felt on those long sagas,
as if I had cut out a set of footsteps, carried it in my back pocket,
and tossed them in front of me, on faith walked them forward.

Years and years.

That night, I see empty hearts all around and one big one standing outside,
bewildered, and wondering what I was filming.

"life" I said... It was all pre-reality TV, as we know it.

in the moment... Zen.

I stopped and talked with the guy standing there,
asked him who he was, what was his passion,
he told me he was a playwright, had written a play called "Dude Cowboy".

and then, he told me about his inspiration,
a guy he chauffeured at the end of his life,
Groucho Marx.

They'd talk about all of Groucho's memories,
the years in Hollywood, traveling the world, the hit movies.
the fame...

He said,, .. One day he asked Groucho, "where is it?"
waving his hands , gesturing through the illusion we call life,

where is it, Groucho.. Where is the answer, where is the goal, what's it for?

... He told me, , and he grabbed my arm, like he was relaying an oracle,
a hidden key... "It's in the park, Pete... It's in the park"

and the transfer was complete.

One lost soul talking to another lost soul... Both of us trying our best,
talking about someone who had been there, done that, and found himself,
..."In the park".

simple.

Nobody invented anything it's all been done before.
The world is flat, until you get there, and then look back, and it's still flat.

I want to be an ant that crawls up on a tire, and ends up in Jamaica...
then does it again and finds Paris, and again and again.

Sometimes I am wondering, if , while we are all inventing reasons
... For the steps we take and the wars we fight,
if, maybe, all the while...There's a team of ants traveling
... The world climbing on the wheels of airplanes...

and after we're all done with whatever we were trying to do,
they been just keeping it in flow, all along,
headed to the park... And the next park... To the park.

It makes sense to me now that Groucho saw it all in the park.

It makes sense, because at that stage of his life , he was wheelchair bound,
and he got to see the joys in other people's eyes, sharing sunlight,
... At the park. Seeing way past the end of the world, with open eyes.

I always told folks, starting back in about 82 or so,
...That someday I want to have enough cash to do what Groucho did,
and hire a beautiful nurse, with tits that are real, somebody a third my age,
to walk me through the park...Wheel me around... Then give her half my money.
I told folks... If I could just finish it out like Groucho...

I'd have done ok.

Now... I was seeing inside the shadows of another artist's eyes,
the ricochet of the spark delivered from Groucho to him, now transferred to me.
... And I knew... I knew I had already known it... I was right...

it's in the park.

I just went on a web search for an old friend of mine from art school.
He had sold me his nice professional super 8 film camera.
and I'd made some decent films with it 30 years ago.

I always believed I'd be buying a ticket to a film he directed.

Now I realize, I must have been talking to his ghost,
each time I searched... The trail always ended in 1989.
He did stills for many a movie I enjoyed, he was on those sets,
as a still photographer.

But I know Jim Zenk made a difference,
he kept it light... He shot some great stills,
of films in process... Essential... And true.

Lauren Bacall just told a story about John Wayne,
on the set of the Shootist, where he played a gunslinger dying of cancer...
when he was really dying of cancer.

examine the stuff he said, and the way he said it. With deep meaning.

the crew used to say, "John, it sure is a beautiful day!"
... And John would say (Marion Morrison, that is), "Everyday you wake up is a beautiful day"

.....
George Harrison said, "The further I go, the less I know"

The further I went, the more it became about layers of the study,
...The less about getting anywhere..l I had started out wanting to win,
... But soon it became less that I wanted to WIN,

...Or even to lose.

You drive towards your dream,
and everybody discovers sooner or later,
It's a fine line between what you can accept, and what you demand.

On every street corner, these days, there seems to be some form of preying monster,
... Seems like the kindest faces, and a ticket to Jesus, ... End up hurting the most.

It's actually a badge, to be able to say you are easily fooled,
Why? ... Maybe because you are willing to accept enough to take a few steps forwards,
until you really learn to trust yourself,

A real warrior learns the depth of their own weaknesses.

This is the only way you can truly survive anything,

Understanding your won shortcomings is better than wielding a sword or a gun to perfection.

and everyone has the study...

whether you like it or not.

I stopped showing the way...
I stopped going on tour...
I started cooking my own meals, and calling it a metaphor

and looking in the mirror. Just like Janice,
to convince myself I could court another stage,
then came on back,
to burn the sage.

discovered, ... Sure enough,
there's more than ...Enough work for a lifetime, right here at home.

and... There's always the park.

What's the use in changing the world?
If you think it needs to be changed, you see only error.

What we might consider is developing the perception to really see,
to really, really, really, see.

Maybe, if we can find, what's worth saving inside ourselves,
if we learn how to share it, once shared, will help make the world worth loving.

I like the idea that a genuine gesture from depth of truth, can inspire, EVERYONE.

And you don't have to get the pope's approval...

or turn fake evangelical,

....I'm tired of commercials on TV.
So I watch 6 channels at once.

I love studying the lure of the argument called politics.
Not the study of politics, or study of the argument,
But the study of the LURE of the argument, called politics.

One thing's for sure,
they are keeping you on the edge of your seat.

the idea is to wear you out... And give you a sense of relief.

once you think it's over, the fox really gets to have some chickens in the hen house.

Folks get lured to believe anyone other that "ourselves" could make a difference.
Then they go back to the couch and another repeat of tool time.

Every thought you have, every idea/ideal you further, makes a difference,
not only in the physical world, but especially there...

the easiest S**t to let go, if you face your last breath, is the stuff out of your control,
just so happens, nothing really is.
every thought, every idea, every breath... is a vote for something..
check it out.

just cause I said it, doesn't mean I can do it...

but I'm trying...

...And the most meaningless.... is what you "thought" was real.

What good is fame, anyway... If you never share a smile without an agenda.

I just realized, a day or so ago... That it's legitimate for there to be those among us,
who get powered up by war.

It's not my idea, by the way.

But I had to admit it is reality.

And somehow, we all seem to like to watch.. Nothing really happened past the cave.

And notice that it's true.

Some, collapse as soon as they understand they are on the other end of a gun.

Some grab up their so called guts, and collect more evidence for a reason to fight,

while, for some, their courage, is just collapsing... In disbelief that so many would risk it all,
for everything but the park.

equally legitimate... Put the blinders on...

Between the two... Illusion everywhere, played out by the murder mystery of the week.

The hardest things to live with, are the realities examined when you gain enough wisdom,
to truly SEE when you look back.

So... Why do some say "never look back?"

I could never quite stand the movie "Pale Rider"... By Clint.
But it's rolling while I write this...
and I now understand it is brilliant. a big mirror.

I never understood, its a social commentary,

a tricky way for the audience to notice their allegiances, in the dark.
away from the park

Hard to face up to. In the light... But hand delivered with popcorn.
thanks Clint Eastwood!

What you really vote for, when not many can see or nobody's watching.
I think that's what really matters... And only you know... The part you hide.

The trick that gets played on everyone, eventually, is the trick of their own secrets.

Why you really buy the tickets to the freak shows... Who's pockets you are happy to line,

When can you be bought...

Somebody said to me, about 10 years ago... That "Everyone knows the truth"...

but "they may not want to know , they know the truth"...

there "really aren't any secrets... Really".

I thought about that.... Then I understood.

I think that it is definite.

No matter the political party,

somebody will see the reasons behind the reason...

and it is really about what you let go, or where you will blow the whistle.

but... Forgetting what you know?

it's definitely possible.

but that's how the world got plastic...

if plastic your world is.

and the last person who will ever know their world is plastic...

is the one/are the ones... Who have succeeded in forgetting what they already know.

there's a whole series of very simple moves in martial arts.

deadly... Simple... Fluid.. Almost invisible. Almost... Yet harmony complete...

the slightest , lightest touch across the eyes will blind.
like a light branch of a tree or a blade of grass in the park.

all that hard ass training most folks do,

can't save them from their worst fears..
from the lightest touch,
from the mirror of love... Lost.

Anyone can win anything,
...Holding peace and total harmony,
and the lightest touch
with compassion applied.

but few alive ever got close to it.

I once heard about a certain practitioner,
he was nugget on the streets of New York,
He turned and looked d the person in the eye, who had the gun,
reflected the truth, soul deep.
the mugger fell to his knees begging forgiveness.

it's just a story.

I wasn't there.

DiMaggio was broken, when his love died.

We got to see his upside down smile.

years upon years upon years.

and no one around him was allowed to speak her name.

and he never forgave the boisterous, wealthy politicians.

refused to shake Clinton's hand.

I figured out, a long time ago, that I won't have the harmony,
the peace, the flexibility, in hard war.
I want to keep what's left of my smile.

But it still comes and goes.

And I do not go to the park... Enough.

I admit it.

I knew, without such equanimity in the fiercest of battles.
because I seemed to always try to want to change the world in those days,
... And I'd go "ape s**t on anger and rage... And be unstoppable..

so I developed ways to walk away.

but it wasn't cowardice... Not in the least.

I was saving lives.

and looking back wondering if I was the ghost of Christmas past.

...So Invited myself away from all wars... as best I could.

Especially the ones in my own heart.

and learned it was/is a practice and you never really win it... Or lose it... You just continue.

and practice.

and..Then, sure enough... I learned, right away,
...When I try to just walk away I get the attacks.

...And even the most peaceful declarers, get confused that I became prey...

I really never liked the hard core politics of John Wayne,
Defending the war in Vietnam... He almost had me going there just to die...Just to die,
after everyone knew it was a war lost...

after the Buddhist monks succeeded in stopping it,
by lighting themselves calmly and with equanimity, on fire.

But... I still learned something from my favorite song growing up,
"The ballad of the Green Beret" and the way John Wayne played it,

That's why acting is the ideal path.
I have won many a street fight, acting like a deranged homeless guy.

Remembering what an old man told me on his porch one winter.
"you got to learn to blend in, dumb yourself down... Appear to be just like all the rest of the sheep... Otherwise, you will be forever picked out and made into a target. The slaves in the mine can't stand to be working alongside anything but another slave"

Springloaded, the air...
builds with tension...
...And all tension is eventually released.

I saw a warrior win a match in 15 seconds.
Already state champ headed for Pac 10.
He walked in, took his stance, one m move landed the other guy, pinned him... Done.

It took him the rest of a full half hour of running at top speed,
back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, over and over,

to balance out all the energy that had been ready for the long stretch of the battle,
that ended too soon.

I learned to take the walk around the block...
it was either do that, or stop feeling.

Feeling is necessary for art... And there are a lot of ways to win the war of the heart.

some take a lifetime.

I was glad to see the illustration of a basic natural law,
no matter how you fight your battles,
you'll always have to fin your way back to balance...

for him...Only after doing that,

could he take the full peace of victory,
already waiting.

the victory, we all could already see...Was waiting.

but he wasn't ready, hadn't made room,
instead took the balance back... And made a space,
for the celebration of victory.

for me... It's a cup of hot tea...

maybe finding that dancer, and having her pose,
knowing the day when I can do her justice with a masterpiece,

but not grabbing for a statue of a badge or a false title,
finding the one that walks just as confidently up to me,
while I take the steps forward.

arriving right where that balance point truly resides.

inside and out.

go out and get some exercise.

Visit the park,

watch the mothers and dads smiling with their kids,

notice you made it.

run then walk then run then walk then walk then run then run then walk.

study the way the wind moves.... Whether you can see it or not.

collect the echo.

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

Green Tomatoes & the ghost of the Brookdale Lodge

2006-10-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

A major snow was getting ready to hit, last week.
I hadn't watched the news or weather reports,
but I could feel the stir in the air.
Time to rake the leaves..
... and I still felt work to do,
...walked around the property,
...gathered the last flowers.

Put them on the dining room table,
... all in one vase...
Even the indoor house plants pined for attention,
I made cuttings of the philodendrons,
Arranged them in a large old yogurt container,
knowing they were gonna increase the indoor jungle.
build oxygen for the winter months.

Resting outside, with my pipe and some Captain Black,
tobacco I had been introduced to by one of my mentors,
... many years ago.

I thought of him, Charles Barnes, and the many years
which he had spent with his friends,
Georgia O'keefe, Imogene Cunningham, Ansel Adams,
and many of the Bohemian artists
of the 40's abstract and moderninst,
and California Impressionist communities.

Letting my thoughts travel back to those eras...
places I'd seen in his phtographs when I visited his studio,
and immersed myslef in his stories of those good old days
... around California and New Mexico,
and Brown County Indiana... and elsewhere,
in the 30's 40's 50'... early 60's

Where communities of artists gathered, Bhemian style,
shared ideas and ideals, the men who loved women,
and their friends who they accepted, no maater the swing...
their free form poetry, dance, music, art-all nighters,
sharing models, painting, cooking art food,
sharing free verse... those ancient balck and white photos,
and sepia tones with the sacredness of the human form,
memorialized beyond vanity or modesty... artistically
left behind in huge painitngs with thrown paint.

the photos of splattered colors everywhere,

the smiling faces of the immortal qualities of
artist pushing the edge of beauty...
beyond false judgement or lousy skepticsism,
towards the limits of imagination, featured in
beauty that still sort of lasts while it fades in memory,
unmistakable in the infinity of the shared
joy of creative fluidity...embracing the sacred,
while getting loaded, dancing,... painting everything in sight,
then sleeping on floors and cooking each other breakfast,
and going at it again... and more free music...
recited lyric and song,
posed for each other...
lived free and artfully...

It was/is easy to picture it.

Before TV.

The same unmistakable vast moments we all share,
when we know we have won the war against
despair, by sharing the beauty...

The times I visited Charles, were after he had had his stroke,
and about a week after I walked up to Mellencamp,
and bent his ear about the truth of real music beyond fame...
asked him to listen to mys tuff... he'd refused,
but stayed on the porch with me, anyway,
shared ideas for that half hour and looked at my art cards.

Later, it seemed he had answers for some of my questions,
showcasing his own route towards the painter he decided to be.

But I'd ended up about a mile from the "lil Bastard's" studio,
at Charles place, after being told about the old Bohemian,
he had had a stroke a couple years before,
but foks had told me of his world accalimmed friends,
the group he had traveled inside of ... in this world.
His days at Abiqu with Georgia...
times shared with Ansel.

That wasn't the reason, I went over there, well...
I went over there becasue I wanted to see, first hand,
a kind of artist who lived for the art of doing the art.
...and sure enough...it was instant recognition...
Most folks couldn't understand anything he said...
but I found a perfect use for my psychic skills,
we'd sit for hours and share perception about compositon,
color, and he'd give me a tour of his albums of photos,
arm in arm iwht these icons most folks could only dream
... of sharing a lunch with.
He'd show me letters from each of them...
a note they'd written, and invitation for a sketch trip
to the ghost ranch...

I understood every word.

But... more than that.

I understood the spirit beneath the words,
I sensed I was getting a view into a style of creative life,
that if I chose... I might get close to,
but could never quite match...
... tv... the news... the various machinations
of our recent advanced culture,
all but drowning out any possibility of anything close
to quiet rich, accoustically music filled natural living.

All the while, while I smoked the Captain Black,
remembering Charles and knowing for certian
...that he is on the other side, now.
Might be even mixed with the air that surrounded the
pipe tobacco...maybe ... might even be ,
...the reason for the richness of the memory,
right then...
and ... I couldn't help; but find myself,
noticing that I wondered if any such
communities of free flowing, big thought, idea moving
artists still exist, except in the deep jungles of Peru...
Iceland... or off the grid in Mauii...
or New Zealand...

and noticing... I was right then...
...dreaming about someday starting one.
Maybe on some other planet,
cause the idiots furthering war and spy everything,
had /have pretty much ruined every square inch of peace,
left on this sorry planet.

It was the Captain Black tobacco... and the promise
of transition and transformation....

that kep me from imploding right then.

and ... I guess realizing that,
as long as you and I... dear reader,
can combine long distance force through creative intent,
maybe.. maybe maybe...
some kind of art reality will re-emerge beyond quotas,
options, and investors.

Arriving again as purity of creative intent.

Available to be interpreted, in it's sacred austere self.

awards or no awards...

I tell you what... the other day, I tried to watch
.. an ice skater, a woman beauty, do her routine on tv,
and there was nothing except the commentator's evaluations.

Holy Jesus. Inbelievable.

Is there any chance such a piece of beautiful God Art,
could just dance free in beauty with music,
without some joker explaining that the triple axel
was incomplete?

we are lost.

the ship sank... folks.

this american, whatever it was supposed to be,
...ship sank.

It's turned into a media recuse unit for the imposters,
and the case workers for the lost.
Sorry.

I guess if I really meant that, I'd a sailed outa here.

... anyway.

Just a day or so ago,
I'd heard back from Peter Coyote.
A guy I'd hoped to meet, and had met in 2002, or 2001...

He had just thanked me for my mail,
but said he was busy
working on his own projects,
couldn't remember me...
... so between the yard work, and Captain Black,
... I returned to my computer
... and sent a jpg of how I looked back in those days,
of 2001...
when I had met him at sfmoma...
in Frisco,
knowing that he probably didn't realize I was on a wave of beauty,
wandering through
Gerhardt Richter's wide catalogue of art.
It was as close as I had ever been to the fredom of creative flow,
bearing witness to that full scale visual testimony
that the sacredness of art beyond evaluation,
is beauty impossbile to own or evaluate,
you have to swim insde it... immerse your self in it,
allow it to feed your soul...
and rise you to the real level you can bear witness,
that is your real pure power of being,
your potential...that we are all,
truly.

...if somehow we release from the
square head thoughts,and struggle
designed to bind/tie us to incompleteness,
so we can keep buying insurance and ski-doos,
and guns for shooting what we can't understand.

wouldn't it be interesting,
if art had been the chosen
shared entertainment...
...rather than tv police shows,
... and murder and war ???

Noticing the effect Richter's paintings
of his daughters with their kids,
breast feeding, showing that beauty, that sublime silence,
that treasure of stillness... perfect.
Noticing the effect of Richter's famous
"Ver Meer" painting... had had on me,
and still has... this winter,
and remembering the gallery of other solemn paintngs,
Richter had dedicated to the German activist martyrs,
watching the people walk past all that art, that beauty...
grabbing for the next image,
while Pete and his fiance contemplated each one deeply,
and even deeper...Just Like I was doing.

It was unmistakeable.

Three of us were there, among the hundreds.

It was bound to happen
that I would thank him for his work,
of similar velocity, through characters/parts
he had played in so many films...
... remembering that, ...on that day I met him there,
I'd not even understood how many voice overs
he had completed by then,
all beautiful, consciousness raising
and transformational work,
for our society and all our shared future.

IN a sense, he'd left his mark,
while so many of the imposters of that busness,
elbowed there way for awards..., for blockbusters,
for trinkets that mean nothing.
that guy had a legacy... still ongoing.

among the fools.

still leaving beauty for you!

and for me.

In the back yard again...
while watching the tomatoe plants and green peppers,
full of fruit... but knowing the time had come to pick them free,
... not realizing the snow REALLY was, really coming,
I reminisced about the week before meeting Peter,
3 years back...and knowing that he wouldn't believe me,
that I had actually seen him in a tv movie,
the week before he and his fiance, had walked near me at sfmoma,

and I had said, loud to the invisible air, these words;
"God, I want to meet that guy, someday...
and I want to thank him"

And noticing that those words had hung extra long in the air,
that they had glowed that day...
I had realized something insde the idea of it, ws ripe for the time.

And then, last week,
reminding myself how it had all happened,
within a week, I had found myself, Up in the city,
at the Richter exhibit...
and I had seen the world in front of me light up bright,
as I had walked into the first gallery,
seeing a clamouring cluster of people rushing everywhere,
grabbing for the art... but not seeing any of it,
it seemed, ... hectic, clamouring and chaotic,
around a painter I can believe in,
Gerhardt Richter,
yetr sensing more,
becaue the air was GLOWING folks!

I noticed that I had been stopped in my tracks.
I could feel an inside signal.
something I had trained myself, for years... to acknowledge.
... so I stopped. I held still... I sensed it... what was it?
I had stood silent, gathering myself,

I waited.

and I asked... "something important is happening,
...what is it?"

I'd held still, and found I had been drawn,
energized towards, these two people among the many,
about 50 feet from em,
in the far off corner, a man and a woman
with their backs to me...
they were deep into what they explored in Richter's wrok,
and then... they turned around.

I asked myself..."ok... so this is somebody...
and I am still...so... who is it?"

I walked away... to the next gallery.
then I turned back, and I looked again,
as I also looked at the paintings there,

I heard the words... in my inner ear,
..."Peter Coyote".

Silent, in my heart and mind.

....I was dumstruck.

Yes.

Holy shit.

Peter coyote.

The guy I said I wanted to meet.

No shit.

exactly as it happened, folks.
truth.

Then, I had remembered,
that the week before,
... like I wrote just now,
...I had "requested", to the invisioble air,
... to meet him.

It's against my policy to invade other people's lives.

No matter how many times I have had this expereince,
whether it ws the sensation that I would go and see Mellencamp,
and then...did...
or this time, where I sensed the "beyond"
... of co-incindence
beyond co-incidence,
it's always like the very first time,
and I always have to climb through my own ego,
and wrestle my doubting mind.... from interfere - ing.
I wasnt' there to get something, to lean on him,
or to invade.
but the moment was real...

To me... it's about honor.

... and respect.

Not about being a fan, or invasion.

My process along these lines,
is about allowing the distance,
and measuring the strides, or the journey.

especially my own breath.

and balance

Yet... my "guides" and perhaps my path,
reminded me that I was there to see Richter's paintings,
and ...I had also requested,
that moment I found myself inside of...
standing nest to Pete, sharing a view of a Richter masterpiece,
letting it be natural, holy and obviously meant to be,
yet huge... while no big deal,
all at once.

His idea, as well as mine,
even though I had requested it,
noticing that it had it's own life,
complete, and perfect,

Walking among that range of art,
I had felt completely in league with Richter,
yet...I have a wider range... than he,
it seems so absurd to say so,
even harder to explain, because... I know so,
and still ... to be anoonymous,
unknown by any of them... yet I KNEW them,
through their work!

What a ride...

I felt like I was among equals,
and let me tell you this,
this includes you,
yeah... you too.

we all have such potential,
the questions we all face on the path of survival,
while each of us share even more unlimited potential,
how cramped we all are,
no matter what we relase, create, participate in,
it could be so much bigger,
I am convinced,
if we lived... say... on the beaches of some far off islands
generatins ago,
long before so called industrial civilizations
replaced all such harmony with machine fed war based ego,
ripping and tearing...

there I was, among two known greats,
each sharing, unlimited style,
and knowing this too, is my world,
and now... right next to another who travels a simlar path,
.. a kind of role model, about 12 years ahead of me on this path,
Peter Coyote...

It was too big to "grock"....

I took the time it takes to settle down.

Seeing the huge walls covered in tapestry of color , huge wide and abstract,
and then the very next batch social commentary,
another gallery comprised of tender sublime grace,
and yet other paintings , painted in styles fluid and consistent,
looking like Van Gogh, Ver Meer,
the great impressionists..
... to see what it takes to allow such creativity,
between paying the landlords, and the kings and queens
their rent ... giving "cesear what is cesear's"... so to speak
I could sense the struggle,
that being Gerhardt Richter must be,
and to read, at the same time, in his writings on those walls,
that he bears witness to it,

I kept being "slayed" by the work.

So powerful, that I could barely move,
...barely contain myself.

Experiencing this,
then seeing Peter Coyote
and his fiance
in the same relationship to the art.

Also "slayed" by it's beauty.

Noticing that, and realizing that my own artistc range was similar.
Yet sensing the spiritual path we all walk,
in relatin to this creative process,
which in essence, only gets competed, if witnessed,
by the people it feeds.

Noticing that while I was there,
among those many masterpieces,
I had also met many,
some class mates, some fellow travelers on the path,
all straining at similar chains,
designed by the greedy and the machines,
so we would keep buying thier coffee, or cars,
or whatever,
... and all of us suffer for this disconnection.

so few get to rise above it,
and the few who do,
find few to do the dance with,

and finally... undesrtanding,
that I was there, inside that moment,
it wsn't the academy awards, or the grammy's or
even an artist's community with kids running barefoot,
I had somehow arrived in that moment...
must have desereved it...
and..the moment was bigger than I,
realizing that it was not up to me to hold back, then.
at first, I walked up to Peter and made it a short and sweet,
offered a respectiful greeting, my gratitude,
then pulled myself away to the memorial gallery,
the one that had been dedicated to the activist martyrs
who'd all died in suspicious ways in Germany,
paintings by Richter of obscene slayings...
... some in prison... some in the streets,
some splayed out.

Knowing the price of standing for such beliefs
... in my own life,
had also included ...the cost.

Somehow, I had survived.

Maybe because I learned to bend,
rather than change,
to duck.. and to instead remove myself...
... to instead learn about creative intent,
and decline war with the war makers.

Knowing it all too well...

the challenge represented by the greedy who walk ahead of us,
drill out of sight, and suck the earth dry,
leaving it baren.

I was leaving that gallery,
because I knew it too well,
as courage,
yet decdlined the rage...
then saw Pete's future wife,
deep in thought there... taking it all in...
as if it were, exactly what it was,
a funeral gallery,
a memorial to the courageous,
so willing to die for society's blindness,
... I stopped and went back...

Drank deeper, in silence, ...too.

right to the edge of tears.

for such inconsolable wounds.

Realizing that the honesty of Gerhardt Richter
... was empowerment,
and getting a fresher view,
... of the part all art can play, in bearing witness to truth,
and noticing that, thjough I had steeered away from certain imagery,
such power was also in my paintings,
media, songs...access tv shows,
... as well as in the sacred walks each of us makes,
away from such potential inside our creative power,
...and realizing that, art or no art,
...it also plays out in the lives of others.

Suddenly..I was inside a renewal, a rebirth.

Holy.

These are the thoughts, and more, which I was embracing,
while realizing that I had to pick the green tomatoes...
... last week, in my temporary back yard,
... and as all these slow and steady realizations hit me...
it was starting to snow.

Finding meaning in the moment,
I finished my pipe, then got up and started,
the art of picking the green tomatoes.
In the weeks since, they have provided many a tasty bite,
to combine sweetness with the hint of sour...
and knowing that there's still a bowl full,
still slowly ripening,
a couple of tasty moents each and every day,
ripening, like tomatoes do...
in the dark... away from the sun,

...as I write this.

I am editing footage I shot at the Brookdale lodge,
from 2 years back,
my idea to shoot it,
to create a step forward,
with no budget,
for a singer songwriter friend,
it's a big step topwards all the things I just mentioned.

Releasing the beauty to a wider audience,
as a sort of sacrifice of love and art.

Giving someone somehting they could never afford to buy,
a step forward. Because you deserve to be touched,
by her songs and music.

Even if she struggles to maintain her marriage,
and family and still do it for the sake of our betterment,
without backers, without awards, or a budget,
I use this as my art work.. again,
because we need to see it wider and soar towards it's destiny,
or the world will just get grayer, and darker...

I challenged myslef to notice barriers,
walls... that seemd to infiltrate the ease of how this could have gone,
explainations for the computer crashing...
for the struggle,
for the edge of loss that seems to invade this,

so... Yesterday I traveled into the internet,
and discovered there were ghosts in that place,
where i filmed...
no kidding,

no wonder,

so....I read more about the Brookdale Lodge ghost.

One I had sensed, yet never consciously knew about...

A symbol for the struggle,

a moral to the story,

a caution...in the wind.

and slowing,
...releasing the dead-lines,
surrendering to the beauty of looking into this reflection,
... I am coming to understand
why I could never play music there.
At the Brookdale Lodge,
In all these years...
Why it was even, hard to eat dinner there,
why I could never stop there for long,
sit around a beer... or take a tour...

Yet, to help someone else,
because she is world class,
as good as Annie DiFranco,
...I have since filmed there, more than once,

but, now understanding that the only parameters
such doors were worth walking through,
for me,
were...on behalf of others...

Yeah I have felt roadblocks,
the walls and barriers around that footage I have filmed,
ever since,
and I needed to know why.

For me... it was a work of art,
to develop the courage and release my ideas,
so I could see the barriers at all,
rather than failure,
to understand the barriers were real,
and then to see the sorrow,
which those reasons called barriers had shielded me from.

And today I am editing one of those performances for DVD.
Becasue I had gathered enough courage to look deep enough,
so that I could retrieve the footage,
from a sort of limbo,
I found a sad story of a life lost,
a little girl who was just playing,
and the wounds of her death.. which still hover there.

today.

Gradually, understanding why it took almost 2 years to face the footage.

The girl who drowned there in the 40's has been seen by several people,
... searching for her mother,
...and some say her mother wanders the halls in tears,
in a search of her too.

she had been playing by the indoor creek,
fell in, and was found drowned...

Years later, another girl had drowned in the pool,
...closed to the public since,

Many gangsters stopped over there, back in those days gone by,
as well as movie stars... and the elite... of society.

Whatever transpired there, by the gangsters,
...required passageways,
hidden rooms... secrets.

Whenever I stopped to visit the Brookdale lodge,
... over the 14 years I was in the Bay area,
it always felt like a dark graveyard.

Not only because of the ghosts,
but...possibly also because of the range of fears and despair,
such losses continue to resurrect,
as well as the activity of gangsters that went on there,
during other times,
while the other tragedies happened.

Some say bodies are buried under the dining room.

But it is/was also a fact that the city Boulder Creek,
where the Brookdale Lodge was built,
...is also a site, that was a burial ground for the Ohlone Indians,
and they say those tribes always stayed clear for such reasons,
...the burial sites, there, ... are more than one...

The secret passages built under the Brookdale lodge and secret rooms,
were built for the famous and the gangsters...
...and were used in ways we will never fully know.

all I can say, is there has always been a definite unsettled quality,
to the place, for me... also the town.
It was , at first, the obvious landing spot I could never accept,
Lots of trendy shops,
great restaurants,
possible good galleries to show my work...
but for me... never could be home, or feel welcoming,
even though I tried that one too,
20 years ago...
and then again over the past 14 years...

The Brookdale Lodge, has morphed, many times,
... the place has existed for over a hundred years,
and many parties, concerts, gatherings, have occurred in all eras.

Two drownings.

Neither experience seems to have been fully cleared.

And both, as well as others... witnessed as ghosts
... hauntings ... witnessed by many people, .

Yet... I found myself filming there 2 years ago,
...then filming again a week afterwards.

I can easily and very clearly sense the place,
after being inside there,
which is unigue and points to something more,
I remember the dining room, the bar room... the indoor creek,
the garden, the parking lot... the bathroom,
the pond and the balcony.
...All too clearly,
...and still can sense the energy,
...the sort of fog...just as clear,
as the day I filmed there...

I felt those places singed into my memory,
too deep.

Reading about them yesterday,
and on the internet, these past few days,

I have come to understand the road blocks
I had felt around completing these projects filmed there,

My spiritual vows overlapped the need to create media.

And I bow to the vows... no matter how much
... the money I might have gotten, could have been necessary.

Whatever I did there was "on spec"... in a sense... for free.
...anyway...

How this all releates to Peter Coyote,
... and this footage I am editing,
is this...

I've also been working on a script of the times I shared around Jessica Dubroff,
the 9 year old girl who died in a plane crash, flying across country.
and her family...

Somebody I knew as a family of friends,
who I had filmed for my access tv show,
and whom I had visited...many times...

Yeah.

another child that had passed over, "early".

When I wrote out the various parts for the script,
I know that at least 3 of them could easily be played by Peter,
...for example, he'd be a shoe-in for the role of Jess' father...
...and others could be played by Kris Kristoofferson,
... for example, as the flying instructor...

...Kris is another person I recently re-connected with...

Just to thank , for how he has walked his life path.

But neither of these guys has much time... these days...
,,, they are keeping closer to their families,
and it seems absurd to try to get such folks involved in playing
roles about kids that lost lives while adults seemed to be asleep at the wheel,
it sort of makes little sense to further any part of such equations.

So.. meeting these guys,
and then not doing the rest, not getting an agent and pushing a script araound,
seems far easier, than the silliness of another tv movie.

I mean, wouldn't I rather those guys just didn't get interfered with?

...both he and Pete have inspired me.

and that's gotta be good enough.

yet...to understand the overlap of all this,
you have to know that I intend to go and see a concert, finally,
that an old friend, Joan Baez will be playing in a wek or so,
... maybe I will hand deliver this Brookdale concert demo to her,
because i'd like to film a Joan concert someday...
and... besides, I think she would love sharon's music.

... Yeah... I want to see Joan again,
it's been along time since we had lunches.
Ease of conversation,away form the trappings of fame.
I miss it.

I may be able to film one of her concerts someday,
or interview her, in the way that only I can,
but it won't be about doing it to get somehwere on Joan's fame.
It will be about having lunch with a friend.
And bringing back some of that for the world,
to pass it along a few generations by filming it,
but not with some top heavy crew.
my simple solitary style.
easy.
simple.
non-invasive.
sincere.

not like Scorsese, who did a great job, last year,
but like I would do, a completely different view,
and one requiring a guy like me,
somebody unknown with no agenda.

but...
listento this,
... I mean...
...check it out,
Joan had used to live at a place up the hill in the Bay area,
.. a place called "Struggle Mountain".

There was a little girl who had also drowned in the pool there,
when it was a commune, in the early 70's,
not an incident that had involved Joan,
but others who lived there...
A tragedy of a certain day...

Feeling any chills up and down your spine yet?

These past few days, and this past week...
I started to piece this all together,
as a certain view that i was seeing,
...in relation to the Brookdale ghosts.

There are many symbols inside of these tragedies.

I have been releasing my judgement,
... on the parts played by the parents.

...and it has helped me trash my first script ideas,
in favor of a better version, with regards to my friend Jessica,
and Lisa, ... her mother.

At least for me,
hearing these stories...
knowing about the Brookdale lodge ghost,
it's all no good,
unless it includes a type of redemption.

the question has got to be,
if knwoing aboutthese things matters so much to me,
then what part of the equation can I play,
could there be a certain type of creative project,
that steers us all, who hear about these things,
towards a lesson learned,
towards beauty...?

This past summer,
to get ready to complete the Brookdale concert editing,
I have had to deal with all the times I have heard about,
or what I have seen,
... of these kinds of experiences,
... and how/why I feel so deeply affected,
...in my own life, first hand.

i remember the time I painted a portrait,
back in Iowa, for parents of a kid that died ina corn filed,
lost on acid...
abandoned by his friends.

Diving into the challenge, for his parents,
I was blown away by the image my brush creeated,
by ...The holiness inside his eyes,

His friends had left him out there... alone,
...it took 3 weeks to find his body,
yet...
the painting that came through my brush ws redemption,
the brush did it... not me,
and I was blwon away.

Just like these other "tragic accidents",
where the parents, the care takers,
seem to have been lost or confused, or blind,
... on a certain day, yet have to l;ive with such knowledge,
...the days the kids went to the other side,
seems to also have inside it,
a potential for beauty,and learning.

Realizing that this was part of a path I have,
which is about making a difference,
if I can... where I can... if possible...
to help find that beuaty... and convey it somehow.

Sometiems a creative path can help us,
by relaying a message back form the other side,
through the eyes/souls of the presence inside the paintings
Isn't this similar to being able to understand the language
used by a stroke victim, such as Charles Barnes?

Others couldn't understand his words, I could.

For many years, I have painted of native americans,
and have chosen the various subjects,
by asense I have, for what they want to reveal from where they are NOW,
though their lives had been cut down by the greedy,
I found compassion pouring out of my bruch,
and out of their painted eyes.

and it took my breath away.

I was always humbled.
because I knew I held blame on those who had cut them down,
and I was instead "slayed by the spirit" of peace, empathy,
and brotherhood...

and these kids that seem to have fallen,
becasue of our upside down society,
are souls such as these.

Brookdale lodge in the 40's , was not a safe place for kids.

Friends I know who live up on skyline,
at that place called Struggle Mountain,
recently transformed that spot where the little girl Sierra had died,
...into a beautiful peaceful garden.

For too many years... it seemed, they have a shared wound,
of a that memory of a drowning tragedy, in the 70's.

NOW they are slowly replentishing the energy of the dreams
... upon which it was founded,
and which had brought them all together there,
...in the first place. And kids that contribute to the building they do,
... are kids the same age that Sieerra would have been if she had lived.

A commune of close freinds seeking to create a new,
a better world... in spite of the shared wound...
demonstrating they can also live for the future,
while honoring the dreams of the past... and the joy shared.
...these ideals did not shield the child...then,
bu the lesson, and the rebirth of the ideals,
can shiled the future kids.

Don't get me wrong,

I am not casting judgement or blame.

don't get me wrong...

I am not trying to convey simplicity or fantasy.

I am explaining, first of all,
.. that the residual grief I found around these varous spots,
... knocked me to my knees,
... caused me to be frozen... in grief.

But the tears, though necessary and good,
...have had their day.

...Yes, this week,
while contemplating the green tomatoes,
the coming snow...
...I finally found out about the Brookdale ghost,

and I understand more about why that hovering energy
surrounding this project, as well as my script
... about the times I spent around Jessica Dubroff,
had to get witnessed, honored, grieved again..
and finally released,
again....

These people, living and passed,
in my world, in my belief,
...are all part of our world.

We live among them, and they live among us.

and the lessons, all share similar cross-over paths.

...similar ideals for a better world,
perhaps found on the other side,
perhaps left here for us to find again,
and in need to be/seen completed through us,
who still have courage to try again...

I feel like I am in the center of it all,
this recent batch of stories...
... sort of bound to it... but not in a bad way,
... understanding why,

I stand ready to do my part with the art at hand,
the stpes in front of me,
in a sense, the work assigned...

but I do not go into it now, blind.

seeing can hinder, before it empowers.

not with blame and rage,

but with courage.

Whatever is worth creating,is worth doing with beauty,
and it's a commitment to this,
which is Why I have had to take my time.

It's not about making money with tragedies,
converted to a TV movie...

Unless such a movie could help us all create a better world,
where can there be peace... for any of us?
So... this equates, for me...
to... stop... stop and find a better reason, and a better focus...
or just go fishing ...instead.

Over the eyars,
... when I went ot various battlegrounds,
... to pray for the confused dead,
... in some cases, now state parks,
I did so, in secret... not as show....
I felt obligated,
to honor the urge to do those things,
which had come thorugh the expereince of touching
a life like the one lived by
a person , a soul like Chief Joseph... and others.

It was a necessary part of such a painting,
to step on such paths.

In this case, too,
there was also a sense of bearing witness.

Noticing that the veils between worlds we all need,
for living a real life,
are very thin... very thin... indeed.

We each walk the tight rope betwene the worlds.

.We can be the intention inside out.
We can be the steps we consciously take,
with the living.

while we also know we wlak on the backs fo those before us.

Not fantasy, or confusion.

and if in temporary confusion,
then lving thorugh it, while unraveling to beauty.

We cannot stop short of the beauty.

Notice,
many souls each and every day are traveling over,
it would seem to be early for some,
due to the imbalance of wealth, and the greed...
they die in despair,
feeling lost,
though trapped in a mansion,

Others, lost outside those warm mansions,
... for example, can not find the resources to embrace the beauty,
which could feed the desparate locked in materialism,
... and meanwhile,
we all know,
... that too many starved right as I wrote this,
and we will lose,
because none of us,
will ever see their beauty, their potential,
which would create peace for us all,
if shared.... if only shared like the hidden grain stored,
could have been shared with them.

to see it,
you have to be storng and courageous about your own potential,
then understand that if you can develop it,
you will have to helop deliver the ones who are locked away from it.

.. and to see it , you have to be ready,
and to be ready,
you have to practice... and get ready.
then practice, practice, practice again.

and finally... after all that,
all you have to do is arrive , 100%.
just show up.

One way is finding beauty right where you stand... sit...right now.

Another way, is to go out into the last of nature,
and practice seeing it where it was once harmony... fulfilled.
While you hear it cry.

And... for me...
this means,
just so happens also means.
noticing the beauty left ready and waiting,
right at that creek edge,
inside the Brookdale Lodge,
right where that kid played,
before she fell in,
and still waits to be brought forwards,
...as beauty,
...ever since that kid drowned at Brookdale.

Today... while I finish editing the first set,
of the conert I filmed there,
I have to look into the reflection,
of that pool while I walked by that very spot,
and uncerstand,
i saw the beauty..

... and now .. .if I choose it,
I can bring it back out of such a reflection,
through the editing I do ... perhaps between tears,

replaced with beauty.

IN my friend's stellar Brookdale Lodge performance,
I take special note of her song "Holy Water",
which she sang there, that night.

... and whether she knows it or not,
I think she had an audience of "one" hovering nearby...

Until I could understand , well,
I had to stop and explore why that song rang so golden.

Wrestled, "so to speak" out of the jaws of tragedy.

What I told Willie Nelson,

...about this prayer I've had,
for "Brick Walls", he said he understood fully.

and he has his own version.

No surprise.

anyone who wants to walk forward and be where you are 100%,
is bound to see what you are passing along the way.

what you see, you see for a reason.

so... work on letting yourself see.

What some call success,
... is not always the goal....
I know, I need to pray to see the unseen goal,
something more like fulfillment at the right time.

Not fulfillment grabbed from a second ahead,
but the kind that walks up to you,
and greets you,
while you walk towards it.

I could have been on that plane, that day,
with Jessica Dubroff.
I would have had to insist on it.

Then again,

I think I was more about,
NOT getting in the plane that day... ,
so...in the case of Jessica's plane crash,
though hundreds of miles away,
I had to see that I stayed clear fo the whole deal,
for my reasons.

I can't evaluate the choice of others,
just becasue I would have my choice...
They hadn't taken me along,
to document the flight,
as they had said they would.
So... I never got the chance to be the stubborn hol out,
...saying "F**k the interviews,
"F**k the press,
F**k the media...
"F**k the world record",
... or "F**k the breakthroughs,
the money... the t-shirts and hats",
let's Get there first!"

It took years to realize this,
necessary years.

but doing so, helped me hear the ghost of Brookdale sooner,
release the shadow of an idea of a lesson,
and get the REAL idea of the real lesson,meant for me.

It's a style of success most would refuse.

For me, maybe not for you, for me. my path.

Yet I get to see these so called "mistakes of others"

Or to assemble ideas about what mistakes our leaders make today.

All shadows of reality,
not reality.

Reality is what I can create today, that is honoring my potential,
and what can you create today, that can honor yours,
and how will it inspire others to rise to theirs?

So..Even now,
I know i have to be very, very, very careful,
about any script I may want to write about anything.
Becasue, for me it matters what such things encourage in others.

....some things are more important than
a TV movie of the week,
or a show as SFMOMA.
Or sharing a movie project with
Peter Coyote, Willie Nelson, Joan Baez, or Kris,
... or Tarantino.

Personally, I would be very embarrassed, if I were Quentin.

He's written some classic scenes...
... moved the world in a hip sort of way,
... but just like Swartzenegger,
... he's got a lot of dues to pay for the folks he influenced to do harm to others.... through what he created.

I would nto want to bear such burdens.

I could never live with myself, if I were either of them.

What kind of progress could a soul make,
which would help repair the damage it creates on the road to an Oscar?

I prayed for Brick Walls, and watched folks grab my share of the loot,
then watched them do stupid things drunk on power.

They taught me about my own rage, when they tricked me,
... and I get grateful today...
because, in a sense, they helped me find a semblance of peace.

... Yet, while I give it a try to step forward, on behalf of someone else, again, editing this incredible Brookdale show...

I have these other views, simultaneous... I have to find peace in.

...because I got these souls around me, on the other side,
... and some just so happen to be kids...
... some agree that the protection of kids is more important than success.

A few years back, I helped a great Yogini get into a Disney movie.
One of her premiere heart slaying songs was a song she wrote called,
"Eyes to the Sun", words her grandmother said to her, that helped her soar.

Showcasing the brilliant performances she did of that song and others,
...and the packed houses,
my footage was instrumental in getting her into that Disney film.

then, on that set...
She met a really egotistically obnoxious famous star,
and that road, for her, brought her to choices,
away from ever wanting to be one, her self....

I felt bad... because I had filmed her uniting whole auditoriums,
of highly motivated people.... women dancing so safe, with their tops off. ...and reminding all of them aobut innocence, and about community,
... and safety for the kids, ... and working together.

She was one of the few I stepped forward to help, completely.

If anybody could have made that step work, it was her,
... except I wasn't next to her while she was picked clean by the vultures.

Now , she is a massage therapist/healer ...
healing folks, instead of ingroups,
one on one,
living in the outbacks of Mexico.
... and I have hours and hours of her kick-as performances
... filmed like no other can film...

the unknown Tarantino, the unknown Rodriquez...

... but at least I don't have to live with a fiasco like "From Dusk til Dawn".

I guess I will have to eat these words, if I ever work with Tarantino,
which... by the way... is actually a possiblitity someday,
... yeah.. through obscure connections, I share a sort of back alley with him.

Ce le Vie...

we are all connected.

30 years ago,
I made a pledge to use media wisely.

A spiritual vow along other lines overlaps that.

so... few have seen my work,
... but those who have, are just as affected by it,
...as they are affected by my paintings and my songs.

... and it is entirely possible that stuff I filmed,
... will last longer than any of us.

Gerhardt Richter makes sense to me, he is/was a mirror...

Same goes for Peter Coyote.

Kris...Willie... Johnny... Joan... June Carter...and others.

If these, among those. liviing, and souls on the other side
meet each other, through us...
around you... around me,
... it would make sense to me,
why it's taken 2 years to complete this current project,
the Brookdale Lodge concert...
... that's too more years that living kids got to grow
... in relation to their living parents.

If I had done my work in a week, back then,
surely the person I filmed, would be doing world tours...
away from her kids... more often...
And the kids , aren't they more important than that?

It makes sense, at least, for me,
that I also had to grow enough to get beyond the tragedy of Jessica,
... or Sierra... or Sarah... or Marsden, and others...
...those kids of other parents, who jumped out of this world,
...seemingly too early.

I realize I am getting out of my own way,
by noticing, that I notice this...
while still having my work to do today,
I cannot do the work, unless I offer this,
my testimony.

I am not a regular mechanic...
I am not a regular film maker,
artist... or song-writer... producer.

I am closer to the kinds of artists like Gerhardt Richter.

Do a few beautiful things just for the beauty,
doing a few beautiful things to make a difference.

and living to know the difference.

and paying the price for the sacrifice.

Understanding that sensing, feeling, knowing...
these things are only one thing,
feeling responsible for them, by feeling them, is another.

Between the two,
I got to refresh my memory of the many great souls,
more than I mentioned here,
...who used their time wisely and console my gratitude,
...and gradual awakening,
to the vows for living in harmony,
and the price that can feel like is necessary to be paid for such vigilance,
as I rise to the level I can live with, and be known for,
...and which will surely translate to comfrot and peace..

Between the two, there's always a green tomatoe, on the edge of ripe,
I get to rip in to and savor,
noticing that tasty is tasty... and damn tasty it is!!!!
... and the snow was necessary...

yeah... the snow was... necessary!

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

The Prize of Surprize

2006-10-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

I think I found a place to land,
but between where I fly,
and the ground,
the wind has a say in that.

One of my favorite stories to tell and retell,
over the years,
is a true one circ a1974.

A woman, about 30 years old,
had had enough of her life struggle,
trying to make a living as a secretary in New York...
Maybe, ...perhaps, some of her personal challenges,
... in her world,
beyond the job...
influenced her thinking,
or circumstances at home...
or a haunting past...
a dismal future...
... that day.

So,
Instead of going to work,
if my memory serves me,
IN THE SAME BUILDING,
she rode to the roof,
peeled off all her clothes,
Empire State building.

A long way to the ground,
the world's tallest building in those days.

She had completely emptied herself
along with all the baggage of perception
when she took off all her clothes,
every stitch,
jumped free of it all.
and flew...

...and doorways opened
... or so it seems.

She had asked God for forgiveness,
in the process of releasing everything,
for her lack of ability to make it work all out...
for not seeing beauty anymore,
... or other options,
...as she jumped free,

In other words,
...She really let it ALL go.

10 seconds later, during the flashbacks,

...she found herself,
asking for a second chance.

Alone in that wild,wild, void,
... soon falling at terminal speed,

...Other vision had opened,
and deep in her heart,
she found herself seeeing
with fresher eyes,

...beyond the weights left behind,
the weight of earth,
while falling free...
with those freedom eyes,

...it was all a prayer,

evolving,
...first she had begged God to forgive her
for not seeing other routes,

then the release to freedom, the further emptying,
and as she flew,
while overviewing life's path,
she found herself asking,
...for another chance... somehow.
wishing she had had such clarity,
...more present free vision,
...30 seconds ago...
... before she had jumped.

and then the wind blew.

gently.

... blew her onto a balcony,

about 12 stories down...

not a bruise,
... not a scratch
... buck naked.

all true.

... yes, folks... this really happened,
it's a true story.
circa 1974
New York.

Look it up.

You'll see.

I didn't exagerate.

...as best I could,

I brought it to you here.

exactly as best, I have retold it,
probably 1000 times since then.

I can't help but tell a joke right about now,
and say that maybe the guy in that office
on the balcony where she landed,
...was on his knees right at that very moment,
praying for a naked woman to appear....

sorry...that part is imagination.
Anyway. I guess if it had been me in that office,
seeing her land on my balcony,
I'd a offered her a cup of coffee,
and my jacket.

in any case,

...the story hit the press.
I read it halfway through lunch,
mid day, Cincinnati Art Academy,
yeah... art school cafeteria,
.

Right about that same time,
I was getting ready to bail from my life.
The first idea was to join the military,
I had this urge to go to Vietnam,
and win it for all of us,

I'd taken the physical, done all hte tests
for the various branches of service.
the guys in the navy told me I could get laid in every port,
the guy in the army,
explained between coffee and his flabby belly,
that I could learn anything I chose,
and retire with a great pension, and full medical.
retire and take it easy,
just like he seemed to be,
coffee and donuts.

I opted for the Air force,
though they had no category for me,
they proposed journalism school,
for some strange reeason,
but wanted a fast tract to being John Huston,
or Wayne theibod...

Working on the roof of our house,
with my brothers and dad,
I told them and everyone I was going to Vietnam.

Nobody commented, affirmative or negative.
I was confused.
Nobody noticed, my death urge,
not even me.

When the recruiter called me at 5:30 am to get on the bus,
I told him I had changed my mind.
What I didn't tell him was that I had sensed,
in my heart a need for a glory route to being a hero,
...and I was trying to figure out where I got the idea,
...because, I really wanted to just go and die for my country.
I was starting to realize that wasn't such a solid plan
...for a solid future.
And it was time to sort out where that idea
...came from.

Fighting for my country is one thing,
but noticing you wanted to die a hero,
... as a premise for joining,
right when we were losing, big time, in Vietnam,
and while neighbor kids were returning in two pieces,
or a coffin,
well, well, well...

...that was something else.

So.. reading about the woman in New York,
had sort of shifted me.
one of many, beyond many times since then,
but this is about then.

I went to work the next day,
Richard Wuest florist and greenhouses,
I told them I needed a break,
and without knowing where I was going,
I got on my Honda Dream motorcycle,
and took off,
... solo,
with my camping gear and 150 bucks.

Hoping to be taken to another planet,
... by the space brothers.
...what happened on that road trip,
... is for a science fiction movie.
and doesn't really apply here...
except to say, I lost 5 hours of time,
and I have been searching for it ever since.

anyway,
later on that year I also started skydiving,
the idea was to face death,
a necessary step,
i felt.
and I did...
that's also for a later blog.

Along that route, there were a couple of mishaps.
One was mine.
Another, was one I saw while standing on the ground
and watching an experienced jumper
wrestle with his tangled lines,
and , meanwhile,
on the ground next to me,
hearing his friends laugh aobut his faulty chute,
in a matter of fact sort of way,
while he struggled.

They all told this story that offered no consolation to me,
but it was the flipside of that New York secretary story.

Evidently, a master jump instructor
who was also an aerial acrobatic jump master,
had taken a team up for practice jumps,
like so many other times,
as an instructor.
And, often, he would jump with them,
but on this day he had decided not to, before getting in the plane.
...
But that day, he forgot asbout the earlier decision,
in the heightened moment of the thrill,
...he found himself deciding to jump also,
after they all had already safely jumped,
...he followed them out the door...

You hear stories like this, no matter what the
endeavor or trade, or job,
you hear stories about the down side.
Like the guy who died from touching a spray nozzle,
on a house painting job,
at the wrong time,
injecting air into his blood stream,
causing heart failure,
a result of an open wound, and a speck of concrete dust.

Here's the kicker,
the world skydive acrobatic master jumper,
he was doing his acrobatics,
same as usual, on ever jump he did.
not shwoing off... but purely in joy.

... then, halfway through his manuevers,
he realized he had forgotten
his earlier decsion , not to jump, on that ride.
...he had no chute on, that day.

also a true story.

10,000 feet.

No chute.

Falling fast.

Master acrobatic world champion skydiver.

Folks watching from the ground said that what followed his surprize,

First, they saw him freak out,
search for the chute,
flipping chaotic,
bizarre,
crazy.

but that was only a few seconds.

then there was instant peace and acceptance.
... he performed his peak mannuevers there after,
...world class,
smooth... graceful,
...the best routine, all the way down, they had ever seen him do.

Perfection.

His last jump.

No chute.

until he collided with earth.

like dying on stage mid-song,
...if you are a performer,
or mid - routine for a stand up comedian,

Like some say Andy Kaufman fooled everyone,
until his last breath...

best performance ever.

the very last.

but no choice.

yet heroic.

... don't you think?

I heard that one, while I watched a seasoned skydiver,
wrestling with his tangled cords,
listening to his friends yell,
"cut away!"
"cut away"

at the last moment, the tangles were sorted out,
and he eased his landing a few feet away.
............

Back to the New York Secretary story,

All we know is that the story was reported.
That it was true,
and that it was her testimony of her experience,
inside and out.
...as she flew, ands she fell.

and for me, it became a testimony about faith.

the importance of HAVING faith,

...but maybe also the importance of LOSING faith.

and possibly, also about being truthful with oneself,

...and those ideas, will be another blog... I guess.

this one is about the PRIZE OF SURPRIZE.

...sometimes the thing you least expect,
from the intention you release through action and thought.

or maybe this is about playing the cards you are dealt.

but finding out halfway through the game,
that it's not in your control, at all...

...and you will be as surprized as I am,
because this blog is not about what you think it's about.
as usual...

nor what I expected to write, either.

as usual.

...but back to the story.

she said that as soon as she requested forgiveness,
...peace filled her heart.

the kind of peace where you need nothing more.
... the fullest of peace,

you are fulfilled.

along with that peace came clarity of vision,

and with that vision, problems unsolve-able, became transparent,
and reformed themselves as challenges,
and not problems, at all.

along with her self awareness,
came awareness of renewed inner strength,
...showing her that she was beyond the limits of such challenges.

all this occurred instantly,
while she was hitting terminal velocity,
...within 10 to 12 seconds...

tapping that new source of strength,
... beyond the limits of any challenge.
...she saw renewal from inside out,
and along with that,
new ways to make another try.

Instantly, she requested the right,
the ability,
the chance to do so.

Her response to the renewed vision was to no longer curse her life,
or herself for falling prey to the limitations.

She bonded with a stronger identity.

a sign for how deep the vision went,
directly to the depth of her soul.

Maybe this woman is alive today,
and she could tell us about her last 32 years,
since that day in 1974, or 75.

that would be a great documentary, wouldn't it?

use your imagination...
we may never know if her fresh start
would match the theme of what we all want this to mean.

But it's exactly the samekind of turn around
... that created a Mandela inside Mandela,
a Mother Theresa inside Mother Theresa,
a Cesar Chavez inside a Cesar Chavez.

You know, if you research it, you find this is true.

there is alwasy that turn around point inside the lives,
... of those we see as great lives lived.

inside those from which our society benefits,
we can find reasons,
inside of reasons,
and always a turn around point.
always just like this woman's awakening,

always.

sometimes secret,
sometimes known.

but always real.
that paradigm shift that goes with it,
co-incides with the rotue they took,
the language of their life,
their soul signature.

check it out...

She saw no route to ask for another chance until she was floating above New York, absolutely free...

And that was her route,
perfect.
I am not saying this route is a necessary step for you.

But it worked for her.

Or she would have jumped again from that balcony, that very day...

...in theory.

but death wasn't the goal,
obviously.

she may have thought it the goal,
until vision opened.

then perception shifted.

I am always intrigued about how life tests us beyond whatever
decisions we make,... and our true intentions seem to haunt us,
until we sort out the confgusion,
and the surprize of life,
gives us what we need,
not what we think we need, or want,
that hidden key awaits you,
for a door only you can see.

It might be a lot simpler,
like looking into the eyes of a homeless person,
and facing your own fears.

Folks seek these junctures in standard ways,
within certain heightened moments,
inside sports or other challenges,
and sometimes there, they find a REAL junction,
realer than they could ever dream.

Running used to be to get some where.

Walking too.

Boats weren't just for fishing and for weekends,
or to win races...
cars running incrcles and polluting cities,
aren't the only reason to drive,
sponsorhip or no sponsorship,
... are you having fun?

meanwhile,
...why do so few run or boat to work each day?

Since when are selective tasks, performed to perfection,
in isolated circumstances,
with now wind..
no wind,
or switchbacks,
so to speak,
considered so great?

I am not talking about judging a sport,
just becasue it is a sport,
... for example...

mastership is mastership...in Golf, by the way.
Tiger Woods is a master.

I am not talking about Tyson, in his prime,
He made it out of those circumstances of confused youth.
That was a method for shifiting his status,
Easy for an enraged youngster to roll over opponenets,
when you come from such an empty world and you
know you deserve better.

Boxing, for tyson was a train to status.

These days, he's praising life's lessons met along the way,
...when many could say he shows evidence of a loser,
Far bigger rewards, than a world championship title.
...he's winning according to the life lessons he's learning through.
and it's still in process.
still in process.
for us all.

exactly just , exactly similar to our own lives.

My current challenges are extreme,
no doubt.

I'm hunting for an exit one minute,
then forced back to the work at hand, the next.
... and every challenge along the way,
tailor made to touch a nerve,
connected to a lesson either in process,
or one I have learned, and now get to prove was real.

either way,

just like you,
I am called to master my own life,
sometimes it's really , exactly,
like a "do or die scenario".

If it weren't , I daresay,
I would be wasting my effort.

It can only be real, if it is real.

You can't learn through tv sets,
or movies...
but you can learn direct, then write good movies and tv.

If nothing else, you will insprie others to live true and real,
but not how....
their won soul and path, will teach them,
every time.

Huntiing for a future,
Hunting for an exit,
Hunting for sustenace.
Hunting for love.
Hunting for something worth believing in.

Some hunters hunt to live, not for sport,
Some hunt to share time along the way, in the process...
to share the time with friends,
and some get chided if they aren't there for trophies,
or show little motivation to kill along the way...
for any reason.

but we all have to step on the grass,
as we walk upon it, in our search,
we all have to breathe the air,
and it all came from somewhere,
before we found it,
reborn from extinction,
just like courage in the human heart.
re-invented in the hour of need.

Some stay back and keep lunch ready,
and the fires warm,
while the journiers accomplish the impossible,
so the whole tribe can live.

as soon as there is a break in the action,
and the real reasons for being together re-surface,
along with celebration.
...or are all too apparent by their absence.
prompting us, as we start to wonder,
why we are here.

fulfillment of oneself seems to not ever be enough.

a shared outcome with all the families dancing in joy
... and starts for newer futures,
beyond those we held or had,
these are the reasons...

How well we have done with these simple truths,
..these seem to be the only real reasons to bless a life
as we let it go.

I love shooting guns,
once I shot a friend's rifle at every target in sight
... for days on end.
.. ran it out of amunition... and I noticed,
that I still... wasn't satisfied.
...then I wondered about owning a gun,
how much the bullets cost,
what could I hunt and kill ,
how much is a hunting licnese, wht are the seasons!

And I realized a part of me had gone "hog wild",
yet, another part of me noticed,
that I like to notice time going by between decisions.
Like the slow ebbs and flows of decisions inside of a painting,
or a movie, or a song... I am making...

So I went back to the sport of writing songs, painting paintings.
developing media, to move other hearts,
and the slow motion of it all felt far more safe,
not only for me,
but for all concerned.
...but I always knew that I had seen
a part of me love the thrill
...of the instant changes, found inside that connection,
found inside of instant power,
... the pull of a trigger or the flip of a switch.

and that's when I realized I may not want to be a hunter,
or a politician,
or a lawyer.

Yeah,
the creative path of painting,
Slower, more contemplative action suits
a part of my temperament,
which is yearning to go beyond the limited outcome,
of impulsive actions or snap decisions.
... or unbridled use of power.

It feels/felt like a truer motion towards a
future I could live with,
...in a more positive way...
at least for me.

Yet, from time ot time,
I still eat meat...
Every once in awhile,
and I notice...
that I admit it and I know,
somebody somewhere,
killed something so I could live.

whether I like it or not,
I participate.

just like stockholders participate in the business deals
of their CEO's.
Greedy or not.

results equal intention.
intention equals results.

etc.

yet..Grey areas do exist.

the only difference I can make,
is to bless the food,
and notice what I am eating.

bless the thoughts,
and notice what I am thinking.

and never buy stocks...
unless I can afford asking the questions,
amnd stomach the answers I get,
about what I am furthering.

and if I ever do action,
notice what portion of it I do with eyes open,
and choose accordingly.

and when it comes to hunting,
we are all hunting for something,

I know conservation is necessary,
and in this modern world of separation from nature,
...most folks are afraid of Lions and Wolves and Bears.
So... we have very few wolves, bears, lions,
in the animal kingdom.

but plenty of theives and killers among us who do so via legal business,
and politics...
and lawyering,
and fame... or power.

So... when it comes to the imbalance of the deer herds,
we have to send out a few hunters,
sent out there to glean the herds in the woods,
because the animals that frighten us, or which might kill us,
aren't there maintaining the blance,
meanwhile most folks who are not hunters,
do not see it,
the killing still is necessary...

So be it.

But, for me, this is why I watch the shows on tv,
sometimes,
the ones where they stalk the animals and you see the killing shot,
... and I admit, that it's a little difficult to watch a beautiful,
... magnificent animal get cut down,
... live on tv,
and hear the shooters praising each other
while standing in that sacred place,
of the last breath of some wild, free thing...
ignoring it's sacredness.

I hate to say it...

but maybe we should be seeing every world war killing event live on tv, as well.

perhaps no process on this planet can be shared for a shift,
one way or the other,
unless we all see with clarity
what is really going on...

perhaps this was only meant to be a killing field,
after all.

and not a peaceful garden.

the peaceful stand on the shoulders of killers,
whether they like it or not.
it's just a fact.

the same as a hamburger,
as tasty as it is,
came from the raising of an animal
solely for slaughter.

Sometimes I wonder if the human family is being gred,
fully and soley tocnosume,
for the corporate tigers.

I once met a guy who had to try to re-convince me about Jesus.
He felt he knew what was in my heart...
He thought he was seeing me true, through his eyes as a veteran of war,
...but he did not know what was in my heart as he spoke,
that part of the reason I did not go to war, is becasue I knew I would be too good at it,
and I realized I had to have more of a reason,
than just dying a hero.

so... I guess i was young...
and maybe neither did I,
though I claimed I did,
know who I was,
or if courage exited at all inside me,
...long ago.

He said, he used to be well known as a "kick -ass" hunter,
and grabbed all the glory there, that he could.
He became the kind of hunting guide that gets flown in,
to help the ones who can't shoot straight,
to get their guaranteed trophy.

Eventually, he was taking novices in their brand new gear on hunts,
just to guarantee them a trophy,
and he found himself existing,
inside the world of corporate game farms,
Luring the prize to a feed,
then gunning as many down as possible in a gauntlet,
a splatter of blood,
...shooting everything that tried to run.
... and Everybody happy...
Everybody found a trophy they could claim they had a right to.

Except him,
...in his heart...
because,
... he had seen no honor in the hunt,
no challenge in it.
just a paycheck.
... and the money could not shut his eyes to his clarity.

... and eventually he was strong enough to admit it.

When I remember his story, it was just as beautiful then as it is today.
He said he sort of time traveled, during a hunt,
...back to a memory of a time in his childhood,
when he was first learning to hunt,
along with his father,
...hunting ducks with his dad.

It was 5am, a place like a huge lake in wisconson
and after camping at the blind in camo gear,
they woke to see the sun was rising,
a magnificent array of color spread out as far as the eyes could see.
glorious.

and a whole flock of ducks, with more coming in,
... behind the blind at the edge of the lake.

as the new ducks came in along with the sun rise,
and the the sky was full with brilliant color,

He raised his gun,
just as he had been toaught,
ready to kill whatever he could.
...just doing it as exactly as his father had taught him...
... and they both wiated for the exact right time,
... as they both aimed,

... then something changed.

a point of shift.

...the father motioned that they put their guns down,
and the son didn't understand,
it was the best hunting opportunity of a life time,

they stood silent and watched the beauty.

while the sunrise, and the sky full of birds overhead was a sight beyond a blockbuster movie... something never to be repeated,
distinct and full of wonder,
...and it seemed to go on, and on,
... forever.

...they watched in silence.

...then, as the ducks started to fly away again,
and the sunset faded,

... the dad turned to the son, and said,

"son,
...somethings are just too beautiful to shoot"

.........

the guy telling me that childhood story was 40 years old,
he was preaching to me about somehting I already knew.
But I heard it in a deeper way.

He said, later in life he had become that hunter that helped idiots get trophies,
then go back to their offices and dens with trophies to impress other idiots.

and he couldn't stomach killing the beauty that was sacred without a thought.

so... he gravitated to bow hunting and stalking the game.

and he got good at that.

so good, that he could creep up on many a magnificent animal,
and sit secluded, watching it in it's element,
fulfilling it's destiny.

He could choose which animal would be his winter food.
He had stopped hunting for the trophies... and gave a lot of good meat to neighbors.

But the process sank in deeper in his heart.

till one day, he put the bow back in his truck,
and instead brought along his cameras.

Now...

He does all the hunting, and shows his skills perfected,
but the rewards are showcased in slideshows...

Nature photographs ... that few can get.

I cherish this story.

and I listened to each chapter of it,
until I felt I could write it someday, later,
on a day like today.

there you go.

I had to make all these turns in this road without hearing such stories.
until it was almost too late.

Doing martial arts,
I had to grab deep to withstand the unfinished boxing skills of a Navy Fighter.

Eventually he tapped my survival urge,
and I backed him up agaionst a wall,
over and over.

but I didn't like the sensation in my gut, while I was winning that one.
... nor did I like my disconnected baby toe...

that had me hobbling around the dojo for weeks afterwards.

I could have busted out of my corner and went at him the same way he went at me,
disrespectful from the start.

But I had art in my heart.

And it took his lack of control,
to expose mine.

So... I guess I won,

But I saw something in my heart... deeper.

and it was art.

I hadn't been able to put the art in the martial art, back then.

Of course, you can find all you need to know, by studying where Chuck Norris is today.

He was one of my heroes growing up...

He, and Joe Lewis, and Bill Walsh, and the ones featured on Texas Ranger,
... all aging world champion full contact karate and kickboxers...

...they were my heroes growing up

and it's great to see how they can still kick and punch and walk and talk...

but even better to see the smiles on their faces when they share a truer reward than a medal,

their mutual repsect, and a sense of honor... and compassion.

allo represented by the kinds of scripts and productions and "morals to the stories" of that tv show which is geared to the kids of today, just like Kung Fu with David Caradine was geared to kids of my day.

the art inside the story telling,
replaced the art inside the battles.

but the battles just for trophies have no comparisons,
to the battles you win each day by living your life artfully, as best you can.

No trophy on the wall can come slose.

And I can see that awareness inside Chuck Norris as he ages...

He is figuring that out...

But that's not what this blog is about.

Nor is it about the time I took a stand for the art in my heart, at the gym.

when I knew that I could reply to a woman's beautiful kicks with one or two punches to her face, matching her I could have disfigured her... so I showcased it to the referee and slowing down the punches, stopping them a fraction of an inch from her face.... which drew his riducule, and caused him to stop that match, and then he said, "ok, just you and me, now"

All us blackbelts were the only ones there,
a symposium the the master at the far end of the gym, overseeing the whole deal, like it was there plan.

they were going to showcase the folly of the art part... I could see it.

and they knew I had crossed over to the art...

it was not a reclamation or rescue mission to bring me back.

it was a way to showcase the folly of the art compared to the martial part.

... the guy I was fighting was 6 feet 4, I was 5 feet 11
he was a detective on the cincinnat police force, 235 pounds
I was an art school student, and a meditator... 165 pounds.

Time after tiem, he did his trick foot sweeps,
everytime I was on the way down, I launched a punch into his gut.
everytime.

He couldn't stop me.... I couldn't stop him.

On and on it went, while I was hobbling with a dislocated little toe, and he claimed I was faking that,..

I never went back to that gym again.

I never respected the master in the shadows who called the shots from a distance.

I held a grudge for too long.

Sometiems i wish I could go visit Ray, and see where his life took him.

He'd sure see that everytime I was in such similar battles, over these many years,
...whether with friends, or in business, or other arenas, or other territories, or using other tools or methods,

I ofrten left the arena,

right on the verge of winning.

I could see, then, as I see... now,

that the very same skills for a symbolic fight, can save your life when it's real,

but if it's not real enough...

it means nothing to win.

...

the surpize of life is going to show up for everybody.

something is going to sweep you off your feet.

maybe a vision of beauty,

maybe a challeng in the street.

maybe the truth in your heart.

If it is real,

you get to see with new eyes.

No matter the size of your oponent,
one well placed punch in the breadbasket will take him down.

No matter how beautiful something is,
you mikght have to shoot it for your winter sustenance, to keep your family fed.

then there are those times,you get to see it all in slow motion,
or to slow it down,

and you won't know why you left early,

or went back for a requested second chance...

or stoppe r stopped in your tracks.

and your friends might call you crazy for choosing a camera instead of a gun,

or paddling your kayak to work in your business suit.

but eventually... you'll get to tell the story ...

and how you met up with the invisible wind.. one day...

and it blew you to a balcony.

stretch out... make peace with the journey from here to there.

and get ready to figure out a way to maintain the balance.

so you can help walk and talk others through the illusion of doubt,

and back to the art in their heart.

you ART Heart... you!

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

Risk and Reward

2006-10-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

The ToeKnee Show

I heard a quote the other day... and it became an instant poster, one I made immediately, and now is used as my mouse pad.
"Be glad you are not a genius, it makes for a very lonely life"

I'm not sure if I can fully get it under my skin, this slogan's meaning, and let it sink down deep.

I love doing nothing. More than anything, active mental meditation while walking through nature, camping in the winter... riding horseback with a few friends... exploring the wild rides of deserts and oceans.

I do very few of these things, however... becasue of the risks inherent in leading a creative life, I have to keep moving in other realms.... and such as this pulls me forwards, moment to moment...

Instead, I am writing songs, now a few scripts in process... still finishing a dozen more paintings, and constantly moving forward creatively with each and every breath... most days, most hours, most minutes spent completely in total silence and alone... not communicating or interacting with anyone... isolated in the creative ride of spiritual path as creative expression...

It's not something I could change or decide about... it's just the way it has always been.

Meanwhile...show me concrete that needs to be worked or carpentry or tile work that needs to be done and I love working it out and finishing ti all the way through like art... solo.... but could never charge for those hours since those hours are geared to the artful approach... silly and hard to explain... and not easily understood by anyone but me.

These days, after hundreds of paintings, and a few thousand hours of video still waiting to be finished into DVDs, tv shows... movies...and after writing somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 pages of prose and poetry, and over 5000 songs... close to 15 self produced albums on which I play 90% of the music... I am starting to realize, maybe I should at least consider... as I get older, including some other folks... if for no other reason than passing it along...as well as the pragmatic reality of life, has got to include realizing that some of it should be turned into serious dollars or I will just be a gutter living bum.

Then there's the gradual shift towards hands on healing and ceremony again...something I have resisted, becasue years ago, though I was very good at these things, I never felt worthy at such minimal life expereince... what has been gained in the past 15 years has been that necessary expanded view... a beginning of such a view, anyway...

and I realize I should consider not holding back because of some sense of fear that the power of such work is too large a responsibility.

whatever we have which could benefit, we must pass along, must express, must not hold back.

Learning and practice is necessary, for sure...

I was glad I slowly ripened over time, I needed to grow further... 15 years later, it's starting to any be an interest to contribute in a wider range.

None of the creative process was geared for money or fame or reward...

so... it's no surprise I haven't any high rise offices or widely known production companies, or hand prints on the walk of fame, or huge catologue of officially released work.

But I do have the work complied to a degree, documented and prtected from the rain.

Living while creatively walking this path had been a tight rope act that blows my newly advanced pragmatic thinking-mind... in other words... more risk than you would believe...

and almost terrifies me to overview in retrospect.

somebody somewhere had to be watching out for me.

to still be in one piece.

I know enough about the risks and have met the many who haven't made it this far... to be able to say this.

Relying very little on material reward, I can't tell stories like Willie Nelson can, about selling a song for a bag of grocereis...I heard he had to buy that one back for a couple million 30 years later.

A bag of groceries that fed his family, eventually made others probably 10 million in royalties in all those years.. just a guess.

I never made those kinds of deals.

Folks never knew I could.

I always knew it.

I have a few gems, sitting idle, that no one has seen, heard or read...

It's a rather difficult thing to stomach the concept that if I werre to be hit by a flash flood right now, it would all be for naught.

I have watched, and noticed, that ... over the years, the various folks I have interacted with around me have profited if they listen close.

a few years back I helped invent-re-invent a direct marketing info-mercial... it made those folks millions upon millions.

and I wasn't astute enough to get my portion for the part played, in time...or to have an agreement on paper. though I documented it in other ways, getting my share would require a legal war, these days... and though I do have some residual trauma from surviving such ordeals of awareness... and several incredibly intense years of painful scars that will walk with me now, from here on out....
I was able to steady myself just enough and almost stand back up completely enough to recognise that it was good not to go to war over money... so far...I have come to understand is directly in opposition to the fuel for inspiration that helps me create all future art, music... and many other outcomes... beyond money.

Most of which, as I have already said, may not ever get seen by the real intended audiences, if a big tsunami hits...

I study survival and martial art and other skill in realms that most would not recognise as such art forms.

for example, If I ever did survival, it was really survival. Like the kind that happens in the mission district at 3 am on a moonless night, while gangs blast luxury cars windows up and down the streets around me... I was there... I survived that... I got a few hundred stories like this... absurd in their detail because I was alone in those deserts with no safety nets... none...
If I ever had to fire walk, it was real fire... if I had to survive in a situation, and the fact is that I survived, because I am alive today, I had to find those routes with no room for error... none... it was way beyond fear factor... and it makes me feel really crazy to have been there in that deep without any idea I was going to end up in such equations.

In fact... looking back on some of these just now, I wish I had been offered a way to "sell out" at such times... and I never could chastise anyone for saving their own asses in some creative negotiation with the devil, like Rober Johnson at those crossroads.

I don't seek out such risks.

and I have come to tell folks, "don't be me"... "dont' follow me"... "take the easier roads".

Needless to say, I also finally came to understand that everyone gets their versions of risk/reward equations and challenges to solve in their life. And each life has a certain number of close escapes which require instant flexibility with no fear...

or they'd be dead.

and as we know , folks die each and ever day.

in fact..

I ahve even come to believe that the flashback sequence on the road to dropping the body is a certain style of ride that could actually become a redemptive process, and a healing all in one. Most folks see it as the last movie and then drop into peace... but many, upon many, each and every day more, speak about making a choice, then recovery with no disease apaarent afterwards... baffling for the doctors... but when you hear the story, it was the request of the soul for "more time", or "another chance"

To me...

it's all the same as the creative process...

If you go into it with open eyes, and really interact with it, by the time you are finished you may see you survived the ride of death... and came back different from what you saw.

these expereinces... well...they come with the territory.

I guess I have been successful so far, because i have survived.

The heart stopped beating, but then it started again.

And I saw a movie.

But solo, is solo...

and no matter the art, music, or whatever else I leave behind... it will benefit others, not me... at least that is how it has been so far.

and we all know that , no matter the extensions we all seem to get,

nothing will last forever... not even us..

that is...

not forever in the physical.

all things eventually transform.

Some say all things change.

True.

But notice, they do not just change...

They transform..

as do we.

each and every day, different than the day before.

Either being born, or busy dying.

Notice I never described any of this as rebirth.

. ..Yet, if you study the equations of the process of creative growth, or creative life, or creative anything... such as painting, you are different at the end of the phase, than you were in the beginning.

And if you do a good job, everyone who sees what you create, hears what you create, breathes what you created, is also different, transformed by it.

the more you do it.. the better you get at it.. and some call it mastering the process.

but every master knows this:

Once you master it, you actually are just a little closer to beginning do it for REAL.

So... I do what I can to keep the ourtcomes safe.

But the tight roape, fire walk of it... is just part of it.

no other routes could be as successful.

and surely these efforts will bear fruit.

Will you someday be walking past one of my paintings in a museum of moderrn art?

Will this writing be posted next to it, or avaliable on a DVD?

Seems like adestiny of sorts, that is already 80% finishsed... because I am transcribing it all and digitizing it all as we speak.

..........

In my world, it will all be a failed process, unless it inspires you to reveal your bveauty through your creative process...

Which surely exists, becasue you are breathing and living , too.

The process of living, however, under these circumstances is beyond climbing mount everest.

but it's a walk in the park compared to some.
...........

I have come to understand that many of the early successes of our modern era, some of the people we see as role models, can't find it so easy as they get older to live with themselves... knowng what they compromised, becasue of overwhelming desire or fear, to get a quicker route or a safer route... when the heat got hot.

Those are the people we walk and live among.

And the ones we can reclaim if we inspire them to notice the good they still can create from reflected within.

in some cases, they may have helped us have a better world... in others, they have convinced/tricked a majority into believing along with them, that cheating your way forward is a better way towards success, as long as no one knows.

yet they know... they know... in their hearts they know... how they got wherever they got.

and why it was never really worth it.

I used to point such folks out, to others, 15... 20 years ago.

But I was pointing right back at myself.

going forward sneaking your way around the risk... you get to find your own scary ghosts and the house is haunted.

and resentment... follows all around...

and the worlds goes grayer.

It's not a path, or a rotue to envy.

and what folks who chose such routes need more than anything is compassion.

unless they feel that, they won't feel safe enough to notice you coul dhelp them.

yes you.

recognise the part of someone that;s worth belieivng in again, and watch it grow again.

try it and see.

it really works..

like a charm.

no matter the damage they left behind them, it all will fall away eventually,

but converting a path of darkness and emptiness to light and love, it's actually the best art of all to see... and experience.

there would be no stories to teach anyone, unless someone was there and survived to tell the tale.

This installment has no solutions.

Nor explanations.

I'm going to start presenting some of my catalogue.... finally... soon.

But it's not going to be hyped or targetted for a mass audience, like I thought it would be 15 years ago.

I am a believer that the fruit which is sweet will draw the partakers.

It's a way to rely on the innner glow.

and to get away from the expected result is the only way to give the process more spring, more fly power... such arrows fly farther...

when they are released with les sloppy tension..

I guess it's what a person develops if they survive enough..

just a premise.

the proof is always in the pudding.
.........

As far as my own creature comfort -needs and wants- I trrust my catalogue- It's going to build a certain amount of basic simple lifestyle.

comfort is not the goal.

it's the by-product.

yeah , that's what I want to say...

the objective is not to find, create or seek comfort... a comfortable life.

The real goal is to stop holding back... and let the audience /viewers decide what gets voted further, and to listen as they drink it in....

also known as;

Removing the cover from the lighted lamp...

...letting the folks who are seeking these kinds of flavors, be able to find them... getting out of the way.

Since it all came from God/Goddess anyway...

It behooves me to step out of the way of it's flow back to God/Goddess through you.

yeah.

I can't believe it... the spell check says there are not any mistakes here....

impossible. impossible. impossible...

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

The Saga of lost hope

2006-10-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

The ToeKnee Show

I walked away from some people I love very dearly... just last night.

and my soul cries while I wrtie this.

I feel like a complete idiot... And a hopeless unhealable shambles...

but grateful that I am strong enough to admit what I feel right this moment.. and even stronger to understand that perception is not always truth...

Hope is not forever.

Hope is never forever.

Hope doesn't create safety or give inspiration.

sometimes, shared hope sustains the journey.

and I suppose this is where the soul tears cry like torrential rain this very moment.

noticing that I left some who shred such shared hope.

Probably more than I ever loved a group of people, in recent history, I love these folks...

Trying to break down the barriers too soon was the reason I left them standing there..

I recognised the pace was too swift.

we were not quite in sync.

a shift of time, place, moments...

I "hope" will bring the syncronicity back again.

But it's what we deserve already.

and it will either return, or not... as it is meant to be.

My wound took me down, took us down, took this down... or such is my perception.

God/Goddess, I get so glad I didn't blame anyone, but blamed
"my own wound".

I feel like I am dying, right now... a part of my needs to be hled and just told to keep silent.

I felt almost this same depth of seep loss once recently, (a couple of years ago), slept on it, then woke up the next day and read about a Czech immigrant who was found dead in his hotel room. ..They found an airport baggage claim ticket in his pocket, he was dressed like a bride's groom. He had been in this country only a few days.

They went to the airport and found the bag revolving for 3 days with no one claiming it... it smelled really bad... Really bad...

Inside the bag, they found his wife... in her bridal gown, She had ridden in the freezing baggage compartment of the airplane.. The only way that she could get to America with her husband... They didn't realize it would be freezing cold.

He had committed suicide... Because he had seen that she was dead in the suitcase...

And he couldn't bear the responsibility , as he said in the note... for having helped kill their dream... their new life.

she had frozen to death.

a photo of them was found among the clothes and other belongings...

they looked like angels in love...

they were.

Angels in Love.

.........

When we share hope wiht someone, we get to be angels in love.

If we get teh chance to build such hopes into tangible shared dreams come true, then we participate in miracle.

there is no other reality to what we share.

it even includes a simple process of buying a cup of coffee... if you are 100% awake inthe process, it's a dream come true... in itself.

...........

the day after I feel a wound like this...

I want to rush forward and sweep the dbris from between all those I trusted with our shared hope.

Practical matters interfere.

Like stopping a lesson that needs to be learned, inside time and space.

And of course, we are all pieces of God/Goddess/creator,

But we need the time and space to separate us , so we can find our way back.

or we would have no where to go.

What lost gets found gets lost gets found.

Then you find yourself walking some lonely beach, again noticing the beauty of the waves and the roar of the ocean, and find youorself seeking the familiar... a new stone, yet a one that matches what I was known or lost...

.........
I have to live without...Now.

Again... and greet time and space... and within it find a need for a prize to yearn for, to hope for...

and eventually another dance with others, in shared hope walking hand in hand in the journey towards more dreams come true.

or so it seems.

until it walks up to me reflected back in so many beautiful happy faces.

I suggest I do not deserve to see it... or know it is real... or may never actually be able to trust it existed up 'til now, ever...

anybody who knows about true survival , understands this...

the ebbs and flows of time and space... of loss and gain.

you may have survived, but depending what you lost... You might , rather hold a secret knowledge that a part of you had died.

until you can believe it is worht sharing again.

sits on a carousel somewhere at some surreal amusement park... At an airport with folks just walking past it.

While it st6inks, and draws attention.

and deep inside it all... a quest for beauty and shared hope.

......................

I wish I were whole... But I am not even half.

Maybe will never be whole...always in process

such was good enough yesterday, when hope was shared and a goal was seen in front of all this beaty along the way.

the holes in my heart are real.

more real now, than such hope.

but it's only time... it's only space.

it's Swiss cheese, folks...

but it's only time... it's only space.

and it's been so long since it was anything but that...

I finally admit it.

I finally admit it.

but it's only time.... it's only space.

an it's only perception.

...........

a shared view of the beauty that is growing solved it all.

and the quest for hope to walk towards, through the darkness, and a boost of courage with the armour of love.

that was yesterday.

and maybe more deep tomorrow than it ever could have been,

becasue of the embracement of the time... and the space...

and noticing that my own feet still have steps to walk.

the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

this is true.

but each part has to bring the hole in it's heart.

overlapped, the hearts see more beauty than holes.

and more hope and love than fear.

but it's a choice of reflected perception,

on the parts that have yearned to grow.

replacing the holes with whole.

and more to share results beyond perception, or even hope.

Since, as theBuddha has said,

Hope is an empty emotion.

but I would also like the world to know that shared hope isn't hope at all.

it is a decision to LOVE.

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

Hollow Victory

2006-10-17T23:25:00.000-07:00

The ToeKnee Show

I had a great friend once. One of many.

Or so it seems.

Let's call him "Stan".

This is all true.

Listen.

We'd met at a meditation university, both of us on staff.

Both of us shared many friends around the music, the meditation, the exploration of realms of consciousness.

We all used to stay up late at night and discuss warrior ways, the honor of warrior, the path towards enlightenment.. Our various views on life, modern society, how most folks got lost in the "illusions".

we'd talked about our woman troubles, successes, the search for life in balance,

the role spiritual path could take as we grew towards our envisioned "enlightenment", levitation all day long, traveling to other planets and still being here... walking through walls...

While sharing our stories of home towns and upbringing, we'd talk about teachers of our grade school era... How we were raised, our quest to see everyone have a more balanced upbringing... Sometimes saluting our childhood innocence,, which was the case for me, raised among the Midwest wild country, I had what seemed to be a more serene upbringing... Sometimes I felt it was miles away from the modern style of childhood.

Eventually, Stan told us about his childhood.

When Stan was a kid,
... His mother used to tie him to the coffee table.
according to Stan... And he used to laugh while he explained the craziness of it.

That was her easy way to keep him where she wanted.
Instant Baby sitting.

If he raised hell, she'd lock him in the closet....
...Go out and see a movie.

"That's motherhood for you", said Stan...

I heard this a few times before it finally sunk in...

Between such stories,
We used to discuss the vedas,
politics... Buddha, the Rishis, prayer, ....Meditation...
life, science, creating a better world.

Hovering around those ideas and ideals,
every passionate discussion relied on shared perception, I started to notice...

with discomfort,
of who the "real"... "Enemies are".

Stan took a lot of pleasure in tearing away the veils of illusion.
sometimes with force, in conversation.

among our small group, we didn't always agree... But it was usually light hearted, with laughs.

sometimes sneaking off to the train tracks and smoking a tiny speck of a joint,
just to compare it with our surreal serene meditation enhanced minds.

we would laugh at it's inadequate delivery...

Those long Midwest, quiet days and walks along the tracks,
We'd always come back to our shared vision of a better world, what it would look like.

and when we were in agreement, I noticed, with silent "unease/dis-ease", I noticed how much we both needed to believe in the "enemy",
as much as our friendship.

The reason I specifically speak about this one friendship in this way, is because eventually there came a day to acknowledge this, ...our division.

Striving to devote ourselves to a better world, we had met on that path,
a path of building from inside out...

Expereincing the "God within" and expecting it was all going to be automatically easy after that.

The shared meditation practice, with about 10,000 people, always guaranteed agreement on many things....
Easy and simple... yet not quite as simple...

Because I could feel the flaws in myself...

The work still ahead, no matter what.

...And I knew, agreement about the "silly humans out there" who did not share our agreements/path was the same as finding external enemies, and I had found enough internal flaws myself, that I sensed, I "knew" it wouldn't satisfy forever.

Stan and I could agree to disagree about the science of perceptions,
Yet.. his upbringing and mine were radically different. It seemed to be a deeper desparity than that...
I'd known my father. I had a great and devoted mother.
My family was conservative, but compassionate.

I'd seen my family sacrifice for strangers, friends, and family.

I saw devotion to our Catholic faith.
I had bought it hook line and sinker , until I had walked out of being an Altar Boy.
all it took was sensing something was amiss while helping the priest get ready for Mass... the eerie silence lasted too long...And I was out of there. Even though Sister Christopher got angry with me... I walked anyway.

I must have already had a sense of my own inner voice...

I knew that someday I had to find a more personal path, rather than listen to anyone's interpretation of God, I wanted to know the God within.

I'd been raised in a large family.
We got along for the most part.
I'd never been chained in the dark.... Ever.

I had no clue what it felt like to have been raised like Stan.

...to be raised by a single mother, tied to a coffee table, not knowing his father...

Somehow I knew we would find our differences in that gap of perception and expereince...

Even though we seemed to mostly find agreement in all our philosophic discussions...

and, among our shared group of friends,
we all had many laughs about those various divisions...
That didn't seem to matter at all!

We liked the same kind of women.

We stayed out of each other's territory.

We seemed to respect and support each other in the quest to find a mate.

But always, all of us filtered it all back down to being "buddies"...

a loyalty equation.

... at the ver heart of our friendship.

then... The distinct difference in our divergent views was accented
by challenges I found in my life that would never mirror challenges in his.
I'd hit my own special Cross/"crossroads'..Choices... Ones that only I could make.

In a sense, I knew I had to figure it all out on my own.

But I couldn't.

I wanted that validation... That support, that loyalty while I decided.

Yet... It was not meant to be.

I could only rely on what I had known of the peace and adventure in my childhood,
the way I had been raised... The simplicity, the humility... The regularness of it.

Which I hadn't understood was also rare in the person I tried building a future with.

...Trying to remake it for my own new family, where equally divergent childhood experience could find no compromise.

Consulting with all my friends, all of them, and finding no solutions,
I often discussed the dilemma, unsolvable ... over and over again, with Stan,

until one day it was over-heated...

We'd both reached out , and both found that different harsh separate view.

I got upset with Stan,
It was a serious time in my life,
and the "buddy buddy" wasn't going to work.
...He was a great friend...
...But I sensed our disagreement represented a wider gap, and maybe a worldwide gap,
one symbolic of all our lives...

with no solutions... Or compromises possible.

and I couldn't digest it...

At point of friendship, he told me I had to just save myself,
from a situation/lost marriage that had gone more than bad.

His method was harsh, and it was a reflection of the world he knew...

He insisted I agree him, and let it all go... Never look back.
He wouldn't budge.

and my upbringing caused me to stand for family beyond my own self, beyond the pain of everything....
so...I disagreed. I was going to make it work, or go down with the ship.
I showed him the door, instead.

I showed him the door , for good.

Haven't seen him since.

"ce le vie.... To that friendship"...

recently I noticed, it was also "ce le vie to those styles of friendship".

Many folks perceive they are making forward motion,
but all they are really doing is sticking with "friends" who never disagree wwith them...
"through thick or thin"

As a ntaion, notice the ones who say, "my political party, right or wrong... or my country right or wrong".

How can we, any of us... get anywhere, if we claim we have no where to go, no way to grow, nothing needed from anyone more than what we say is "how it is...how it should be... love it or leave it"?

...These days,
I know I was too hard on Stan.

I've seen a few miles on my machine, by now.

and I know why he took pleasure in that escape clause he demanded I use...

why he urged me to stop the sacrifice mentality,

and why he inssited that I chain my dreams to a cage somewhere... then with no thought, or remorse,, Walk away.

He was speaking from where he had been.

I wonder if he has ever been able to sort out that maze of his childhood.

I sure hope so.

but , whether he did or not,
or how it all turned out...

proves nothing about his side or my side.

that either was righter or wronger...

Still...Without our shared friendship growing ... What are the chances?

For him... Me... Or anyone? FOR YOU?

And if love/friendship/shared goals never includes passionate disagreement,
then aren't all of us lost... ???
I mean , really?

no matter which views we favor?
nothing to share????

Maybe other friends, replaced me, for Stan....

If I met Stan again, these days,
which I surely and definitely will,
now that I bring him from my past memory into present day vision,
...I won't be surprised to see the weight gain,
the new unrecognizable person,

or the near-Saint ... If he found other routes to find redemption, enlightenment...

I am sure he would see similar strain in my world... and the weight I have carried since.

As we all seem to have to do... whether we like it or not.

I can tell you this, he'd probably point out that where I now am, is far different from the trajectories I had set to accomplish.

I might be amazed by what he'd reflect of the space between us,
as much as what I'd reflect back for his path.

Maybe service to the world saved each of our asses... Who knows.

because that was the only part to which we truly ever shared or agreed.

Separate versions of how to accomplish the same goals,

I now understand this is actually the reality of this world.

we all find a way to get to the same place,,, eventually,

or we never meet anywhere.

EVER.

This is all beside the point;

Stan was ex-military...

Back when wee were still friends,
He told me a story once about a recruit, and an incident
he witnessed as a Drill sergeant, ...In Bootcamp.

One of the other drill sergeants was riding a certain new recruit , really hard. really hard.
probably, as usual, "for his own good".

one day, when they were practicing /teaching grenade toss,
things went rough, and ridicule ensued...
again... For the good of the company, the mission, the shared vision...
an impasse occurred which soon turned into .... A deal breaker.

When they got to throwing the live grenades,

The recruit looked at the drill sergeant,
and did his last maneuver, ... and it probably felt like a great idea at the time,
How to "win"... against authority, and that new recruit
... just dropped the grenade between them.

Neither moved,

Kabloooooeeeeyyy!

...All anyone ever found, after the blast,
... Were two sets of boots...

and splatter.

Stan would laugh when he told me that story.
His eyes would sparkle.
... andf I admit it... so would I.

Back when we "knew who the enemy was",
and shared a view about a person who won.... and what the "problems of authority were"
and when I was an idiot agreer.

Just so happens that time froze...

even in the shared laugh.

a big gap.

winners and losers.

yet, never another step forward ever again for the dead guys....

Stan was there,

He saw the whole thing.

but he was also there, in his own past, still chained to the coffee table,
while he told me about it with glee...an extra amount of glee, for what the recruit had balls to do....

and I guess I got spanked too hard ONCE or twice as a kid......

so , a part of me could see that vision too.... just enough to get the joke of it...

How to win, and also how to say,
F**k the world...F**k life... F**k love...
all in the same motion.

Admit it... You got some of the same disease.
Yes you do.

If not from growing up, then from a boss, a teacher, a lawyer... a former spouse...

Knowing how to teach anybody a thing or two always emerges from the experience.

...it's a wound, a curse, not an answer worth living.. is it???

Or how would you be here, on this planet, in this world, watchingit all go by just like it is a tv show you invested energy in, agreeing with what we all share????

But , even more,

When Stan told that story, Stan got the joke of the victory which went nowhere,
in a way I took note, ...was far deeper than I could conceive then...

the lesson that taught nothing,

except "immovable" as a premise.

I took note.

I said nothing. I laughed about it too.

A decision... disquised as forward motion.

disquised as a lesson taught and learned.

Would you be surprised that from Stan's childhood, it was easy for him, later in life, to become a prison guard?

and by now, he may have gone back to that.

The caged youth watching over other caged youth...

I showed Stan the door.

But I found my own ghosts, anyeay.
I haven't heard about him ... Seen him... Or thought about him much,
...until today.

It all makes sense doesn't it?

Yet, I see beauty in all of it...Today...

Because, like it or not, I still have a fondness for our friendship whcih went beyond what we agreed or disagreed about.

or the losses he had then... or I have now.

where I had formally, formerly judged and despised it all,
I now see the world you and I create with each second that goes by.

Yeah... You....

Yeah... Me.

Isn't it this the mathematical equation of perfect balance, the
reality of our present days???

Can you see it?

Just so happens, some people blame it all, what's wrong with this world, on folks like me,

other folks, like I used to be,

blame it on others... LIKE YOU.

I see it is , has always been US.

Us that create what we all wake up inside of each and every day.

We create it together.

and I offer no solution.

not here.

except, that if there is one... It's inside you,

as well as inside me.

or it's never gonna change.

EVER.

you can't kill the differences.

we all share the journey.

or we go nowhere believing we got somewhere.

end up Hollow.

with dead folks and statues representing nothing....

and just building more cages for those we call enemy.

.........

People ...watch as we see folks face each other down.
People ...cheer the contestant on,
until the last empty suitcase is opened.

Kids sent off to war to find enemies that all look like people.

Winning at all costs.

Gunning down the opposition.

The whole world seems to be at the mercy of such formulas.

NOT created by others,

but voted forward with each of our moment to moment thought, we endure.

A person expressed to me, the other day, how the "evil ones" need to be treated.

ostracized...

and I was instant in my reply.

"I used to believe in evil people", I said.

and "Now when I see an "evil"person, one I used to hate or judge or want to destroy,
...I just see an injured person".

So says I.

Yet today, for unknown reasons, in this case the cover story is my family name and reputation,

I hold my ground... Rather than move forward and find something
that springs back, peaceful luscious and ...Better.

At this rate, I won't be finding a cabin studio dream art life for years, years, years,years, years, years, to come.

Instead, I get to rub somebody's nose in their own stupidity, which scarred me permanently 15 years ago.

If you have a chance to develop any skills for rising above your anger,
don't even think they have any validity,
unless you can demonstrate them when you lost what was truly precious.

Otherwise, you will be as fake as I am today.

Then again,
I am a believer that truth expressed is ALWAYS a step towards peace,
just as valid as a

...Walk around the block,

or sleeping on a decision...

and then, at least, maybe the consequences of actions won't be such a surprise.

I must say I have clarity, after expressing my truth.

But it seems like such a hollow practice, and definitely not as good as caressing her skin, or feeling her touch on mine.

.

oh well.

this is where I get to go out and wail to the trees.

a necessary step, also.. as necessary as any.

And after all, especially after all those portraits of the ones who lost family, friends, and children in disagreements/wars long forgotten.

Every culture, ever generation seems to pay a price in blood.

and every other generation takes the lessons for granted, leaving the reasons and the methods behind,

to learn through suffering again?

loss?

I simply discovered that winners and losers are what this world craves.

and maybe all that ever got made here, after all...

maybe it's all going to continue to find balance for us all.
... maybe... someday...

TODAY we get to see how our leaders posture and threaten each other, day in , day out...

and the commentators measure the winners against the losers, by the quotas, and the poles.

seemingly no one with an original idea left..

... We expect any kids to see much more than a contest from here on out?

we all vote for what the future is.

Just know that you create your share for all who bear witness, by how you use your energy and breath.
NOW.

you know it's true.
..............

We live on a planet among children who were whipped into shape.

and every so often somebody drops a grenade, just to watch the fear in each other's eyes.

Make it into a scene for a movie, and bring the whole world to the same cliff's edge.

Sell tickets.

bank the hidden profit,

break for a commercial...

then power up folks driven in to fix it,

while you sit behind the screen and laugh.

It's all gonna be fine.

don't worry.

don't be fooled.

Victory that slices a space between you and me.

Whether it's showing each other the door,

or passing along a rumor and an extra laugh at another's expense,

It's victory,

yeah... It's victory... It wins awards.

but see what we are creating.

grabbing for the better pussy... Over and over and over.

never deepening the sense of truth or peace, or life, or breath?

we can have it if we want it.

and don't forget the visions of enemies we teach, endure, entertain, build...

Just by the way we walk through this as if it's all ok, as long as we get ours!

...Don't forget your enemies...They might even deserve what you give them.

but , who can live with a hollow heart?

Victory Hollow...

these words, and this idea...is starting to make sense to me now.

I never knew what it meant.

Seeing angry leaders who will never find a way to find another way.

And never seeing the power women emerge, becasue they had no mothers, after all...
...if they never exist again... then who can include us, after all?

Let's hope the real future can come rising from among us... bringing us all back to the nurturing we crave, desire, can believe in...

maybe even from inside us...

it's a desperate planet... Desperate, and soon disappearing with all our agreement and compliance, otherwise....

I can't seem to preach about peace today.

I guess the enemy ... HAS won.

for now.

let's test it and see if it's a box office hit...

forget about what it means...

how many dollars can we make...

you know ... For most... And maybe even us...

it's all that matters.

these sentences smack of idiot simplicity and judgment.

I don't pretend this article is leading anywhere.

But what reflects in your own heart...

well... That just might be what we need... Really.

so... Take my hand when you see me in my next gutter.

and I will be satisfied with some chicken soup.

no statuettes, or gold plated plaques.

Just realize...

My vows of poverty left me in the dust and at the mercy of the greedy and the real rapers.

and their label on me as a loser, was correct, because I found out I couldn't stomach sacrifice forever.

Who could?

who ever did?

I need to win something too someday!

so... I guess I am headed to the graveyard of the warriors who died winning hollow victories.. Too.

Just like you.

We can all find a way to bury our chosen enemies.

We can all find a way to decide who to show the door forever.

We can each define which closet we locked ourselves in , and why.

But I swear to God... as best I can believe in Her/Him ... I'd settle for something far simpler now.. This very second.

I sure wish I had a fresh REAL breast to nurse, NOW, and Superman or WONDERwoman would show up soon , and sort out our disaster.

Otherwise, I think we may be watching the whole thing sink for good pretty soon.

And you never know...

It might actually be a great destiny we should never have tried to hold back.

And once we see it sinking, shouldn't we all get out the guns and make noise and cheer?

we all participated, it was our laugh, our joke on ourselves.

and we each get to believe we wanted it, truly,

and secretly know we won.

Jesus... I gotta turn on the Craig Ferguson show.

something to laugh about and another beer.

as good as Nirvana.

Hollow Victory!

hip... Hip... Hooray...... KaBlooeeey!!!!

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

Craig Ferguson

2006-10-16T22:50:00.000-07:00

It's an incredible thing to see a guy hit the target over and over so
perfectly.

Late night with Craig Ferguson.

Try it out... the next time living a "normal life" gets you down.

It's a perfect way to finish a day.

saved my ass many times.

no kidding.

"...another interesting test adventure into the ART of the magic of
intention.... while maintaining relaxed-rock-steady- balance .... inside the
wild rides on the WAVEs of this ocean called LIFE in the 'material' plane" -
toe knee

"ARTintoLIFE is LIFEintoART" ... yeah!

Art into Life
-Toe knee Stanger
INnovative, CREATive, Envision.

TheToeKneeShow.Blogspot.com
ToeKNeeStanger.com
http://www.myspace.com/originaltoeknee

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

ART into LIFE

2006-07-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

what it takes to live through tomorrow

Some days I sit to write a lyric or a song or this blog... or a letter...

And I write a word like "tommorow" and I forget how it's spelled.

All of a sudden, the word looks new... like I invented it... like a foreign language shuffle... a brand new reality associated with that perception ... leaks in.

Remember , have you ever heard folks used to say "You couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag?"

We need to invent such a saying in regards to facing our perceptions of life's equations....

With each new day, truly we are new.

Yet, like the illusions of yesterday, our current realities and perceptions slide us into a groove...

A groove we haven't even noticed became a rut long ago.

...what it takes to live through facing our worn out illusions...
... might just be what it also takes to not look so close , so often...

Maybe these realities, grooves, and perceptions will eventually save our ass.

If you look up famous quotes on the creative moment, you will notice the wisdom of the ones who made their creative life a workable arrangement.

...somehow they fed their families... found a semblance of peace, and soemthing close to joy... every so often.

Read their quotes... read their commentaries on the practise that took them from day to day.

Within a certain number of years of struggle, they were expressing their gratitude for their limitations.

Notice that they have often said, over and over again in amny upon many ways that without their struggles and limitations, the art would never have been truly great.

They found themselves risinig above past performance.. because, often it was either do that and do it adaptively, or die... die of starvatioon either of nutritional starvation or inner peace starvation.

Inner peace Starvation is walking death.

Yet, unless an artist brushes up against it... they will never know the true range of their creative flow...

They see themselves rising above, going beyond all past limitations...

And the only reason was because they felt a "gun" to their heads.

the gun of loneliness, while doingn the art in isolation... or the gun of loss, whgile they watch themselves called a loser while they are building in their world, something the often released after all abandoned them... redeemed the whole scenario...

Yet...

No matter how many times an artist survives these triumphs... it only makes the next time all the more excruciating.

Seeing folks casting their doubts and leaving, when you know they will soon return and say it was all a joke... makes it all the harder to watch them walk away... as if you have a social disease.

I love to study the way some who have integrity, live through these ebbs and flows.

One day they are saluted... the next day they are despised...

I woke up this morning, inside an incredible dream.

It was like I never lost her...

She was knocking on my door... when she walked through, I wanted to hold each other... the way she always demanded.

The love in my heart was just as strong and as fresh as the day I first met her... when she was a zombie.

Years later, she finally says she honors my spirit and wished it hadn't gone that way.

Yet she sunk my ship... traded me out for a rich guy... one of many times in my life this has happened.

The ones who can't tap the creative flow... they hover and steal using money as the lure. They wait for a guy like me... and artist ike me to develop a glowing relationship with someone they overlooked... they wait till she and I glow... then they swoop in and steal... waving money and security.

They lure death and deception and struggle into my world, right when I am in the flow of a wave that's still being ridden, the board tips and I am under the water.

Studyingin human relations around the true artists, male and female of this world... whether they are actors, writers, poets, film makers... artists, mothers, fathers... whatever..... the artists of life...

They all experienced this at one time.

The despise of the press... the false rumours... the judgements.

IN truth it is always war.

Same things happen to countries... to classes of people... to the peaceful ones all through out history.

The peripheral people are never happy to watch someone, or a nation in peace and solemnity...

And when you take your eyes off of the creative flow... it's like they won... You become them, having to face the decision of protecting what you may have already earned... from idiots.

If you release a response, you are worse then the atttacker.

When I knew this was happening in my heart, I took the 3000 miles... the buffer zone was for THEIR dafety, not mine.

I still carry the deeper love...

Yet a memory of the insidious rejections... while I was completing a series of art shows... the devisive judgemnts built to justify tradingme out with a slimey rich guy... I had to know it was all happening and know I hadn't the resources , then, to defend my own family. Money ruled.

Yet... money never won.

Whatever tactics folks used to steal from me...

They eventually will die of.

Here I am this morning waking up to the incredibly life giving , living love in my heart... for a person who really sold me out in a thousand ways.

Just last week, I found a box of voicemails and letters from her... all charting her course to dump me... all with ultimatums and conclusions built by idiot "marriage couselors"... back then I couldn't tell who I was anymore... she had me sized up and running incircles.

So I left.

But these days... I see it was all just tactics of war, waged by those who wanted into her pants...

And without any cash, or a decent attorney... I was dog meat.

consider what it might take to allow for others to mow down your world... and know that survival , for now... is all you can do.

consider the amount of strenght it takes to hear folks, years later do their lame apologies... and to see the idiots falling on their own weapons...

to know that you knew it back then...

But it would have put yer ass i njail to do anything to attempt to stop that...

so.

Day in ...

Day out...

Now...

You have to wake up and see, that through the last 15 years, you came to an understanding and clarity which have all revealed youhad been ripped off... back then... and now carry a permanent scar...

Yet the love is still real.

I must admit,

I don't think many exist on this planet who would even try to sacrifice, truly sacrifice anything for love.

...when she said she needed what she needed,

I stepped away... and allowed for her to have it.

Just so happens that , in my gut, I knew she was wrong.

...years later, I really see it... how goofy I must have been to allow such lame stuff to destroy me..

Yet.

In these years, current years and moments...

....whatever I pick up to express the creative flow through, glows...

...and I only create worth while art... with sparkle and power.

Back then... such was not the case..

So.

I must say I am grateful.

How else would I have blossomed.... except through pruning my most precious parts back so far that only flowers of today could grow these years later.

And that dream of her walking in my door.

Oh so sweet...

Yet..

Reality says I may never know that day again, not with her or anyone.

Meanhile the art invenjts itself towards immortality.

I know this is the end game.

And there is no doubt that it takes strnght and courage to wake up each and every day.

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

The RESISTANCE FACTOR

2006-07-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

The ToeKnee Showthe resistance factor
The following letter to an old friend seemed more like a Blog entry.

so... I offer it here, since it may be worth a read...

DEAR ___.

I just wanted you to know that everything you write, I read more than
once. I study my replies before I write... but sometimes they may seem eclectic...

The secret is not to read them for the specific details, but to expereince them in totality... like stepping into waves of a Monterey Beach.

I realize, if read as a personal letter, they seem to dance around ideas... and seem less like a reply to speicifics.... this is what I noticed I may have to
work on, a bit.... when it comes to writing personal letters...

Maybe I have to learn, re-learn that knack for the personal writing...

In any case...sometimes jumping between ideas- thought forms may seem confusing... I
realize that.

......

Even though you aren't asking for it... I still try to honor my path, by offering the ideas the invisible presents...
If they float in... I let them hit the page.

I've learned not ot judge whaty I write... maybe I could edit myself a little better... but for me this style of writing is a creative process into outer reaches of hte unknown... similar to the way I approach creating a song... a film... painting... a performance... for me it all comes from the same ocean of creativity.

Same as hands on...

Same as allowing the (so called) ... psychic realms to speak...

...a series of concepts will appear in a certain order.

I feel a responsibility to honor that order.

... I have come to understand this process as a certain kind of
energetic dance, one that works well for me, that touches certain brainwaves, like a waves on the
ocean.... peripheral ideas spring up...

I've come to see it as a sort of accupuncture via thought forms.

Honoring this process often reveals ideas along the way.

some have changed me for the better... others I have urged myself to let go... but always I am a different person by the expereince.

all that matters is that there is an expansion... a betterment... a resutl that shows it was responsible for future time.

Stirring up ideas, eventually creates a sort of shift...

A Paradigm shift.

...but I never assume that my interpretation of the shift is that actual purpose, or the reality.

Time and space, and exploration and testing....

I have seen that these are the routes that help me see the procession towards future goals.

As I have explained before, often such phenomenon has lead me forward, and I have seen complete
changes beyond co-incidence... or been drawn towards a certain process that
eventually processes itself...

When I look back and see that the invisible required my
co-operation... or such processes would never have occurred, I get grateful that I embraced the process this way.

anyway.

It is, for me a very similar energy to creating a painting, writing a song... singing a
certain way... same flow... same as hands on...

The written word is only part of the process... what I expereince while it flows through sort of helps me gauge my effectiveness in honoring it.

Lot's of time and testing has brought me this far.

but it's all still a process.

Separate from results I might actually wish or hope for... in myself and others.

If it's just me giving speeches... then i would rather quit.

If it is just me in delusion, then I would rather quit... and just work in a garden.

Instead, over time I have heard feedback that leads me to suggest to myself that there is a purpose to this.

the same kind of feedback keeps me painting, keeps me singing, keeps me writing songs... keeps me creating video for tv- film... some future release.

All just a different routes to similar outcomes... all sponsored by similar use of the machinery of the brain and our intuitive nature...

In any case.

I have been sort of tossing you some stuff that I know would hit the
"resistance factor" .

Not intending harm... But knowing that the vibration between ideas, beliefs, expectations, expereince will create a sort of shake-up... like tossing wheat up into the wind, in hopes of separating the wheat from the chaff... the meaningful from the obsolete.

Realizing that it would bounce up against your
internal doubts... might seem a little cruel.

But I know you beyond the limitations you suggest you are working your way through. I know that the strong part of you will sift wisely. I just hope you do not take the ideas that come as a personal attack.

I love you beyond what any of this means.

Any of it.

Yet I have to acknowledge that you never asked for this.

I am not sure you would want me this deep in your process.

What I have seen, known and understood about my own process of refinement- re-findment, is that I tned to fight the process I am in, when I am in it... at certain stages... I call this fight the origin of dis-ease. At least for me, this is so.

It showcases my "resistance factors".

Every healer knows that there are essential components for true healing.

Most importantly, belief that healing is possible, managing the balance through-out the whole process... and showcasing the capacity to sustain new platforms... to sustain the healing as it fiinds us... and it always finds us right where we are waiting for it... slowing alignment with false identities, false expectations, false interpretations... so that a foothold for new growth and expansion take a deeper hold and furthe expands to replace the false with a more pure identity.

Many years of practise have relevealed this to me... but... it is also true that this is simply my route.

Dealing directly with finding the resistance and dancing with it... as friend.

Outdated though it may be, it showcases areas to explore, greet... and then release for a higher good.

So... in summary, the underlying causes get discovered beneath the discomforts... and the
only way I have ever been able to see deeper in my own process was to allow
my brain to have free reign... and in some cases it was as if I felt aligned with a side of my self that was like an unbridled
raging idiot, perhaps what i was afraid that I might have become.

A more tender, gentle side of me was just beneath this... and the "release" of the masked overlay helped me reveal portions of the puzzle.

Reasons why fear had caused me to accept an imposter identity ... sometimes not realizing the reality would be witing for me to recover what was lost later.

Rather than curse this, I have come to understand that all are footseps to the present moemnt... all steps necessary... and understanding that grace caused me to grow and see the idfference I can make TODAY.

And to what degree the present moment can reveal a pathway, I have learned to accept.

Luckily I was smart enough to process these things in private...

That's what I mean about the "luxury" of internal investigation.

Not many people, in our modern world ever have the chance, or the tools,
or the opportunities to get a good look inside themselves... or to experience (by doing so) that a realm of self exists beyond personality or past choices.

In your case, I already know YOU know yourself...

but just becasue i say this, does not mean that you know that YOU know yourself as who you are...

Most expereince their internal beuaty expressed, without realizing it is evidence of soul.

Lately your letters have pointed to your current processes through which you are in process of refinding pathwasy towards points of a refinement necessary...

These are for you to recognise... and indeed only you can know what you see.

This is where I differ from other "so called" healers.

I no longer believe that anyone outside of us can fully know where we need to go. Our soul knows... and others can reflect... but the identity we bring is ours alone and th epurpose is divine. No commentary process from the outside of us can do good beyond a certain point.

A guide is only a guide.

The journey is ours.... and it is sacred.

all outside reflectors can become tools for our own resolution... but it is up to us to pick and choose... and we always do... we always do.

Best to refine, and then expedite, but also to test... and then to allow the useless to drop away, or to be put on hold while find a truer context for the tools.

We all have to do our own process... No ONE can do our process for us... and this is always so... whether we consciously step in and take hold of portions to expand intentionally or do so on "automatic pilot" it is always our own responsibility.

Sometimes, when the going gets rough on my path, I admit that hate knowing this...

And , at those times I have hated my own process, which was/is fair under the pain of the strain involved...

It never mattered...

the process waited for me to re-embrace it... and forward motion happened in it's own way, anyway.

So... I realized I had to love the pain and the strain, for waht it showed me... but not for it's harsh revelations.

either way... all the good came when I embraced it...

and I got grateful I survived the doubts, the fears... the limiters... to see my true unlimited foundations.

same as yours.

unlimited beneath all this process.

I guess that means I allowed myself to see that I was hating my life during those times.

But I would not be in one piece today if that's as far as it ever went.

Such relaities are as they are, and only become known when they ARE. It's how we respond to the reality that such could be possible... that makes the difference...

How we use it.

Anyway.

I dont' suggest that any of this could be useful for you. Right now it's for you to choose what's useful. All around you, you have signals only you can see... meanings and symbols and reflectors in your life near and far... what they represent is encoded, like a code only your soul can recognise.

All I suggest is that you embrace the obvious...

but I apologize for how this sounds... because i already know...That's just me.

I used to think a similar process was necessary for all humans...

But I got straightened out, regarding this assumption, these past few years.

Every person unique... every soul uniQue... every process unique...

...and all of it sacred, no matter how it turns out.

Meanwhile, we can help each other....

And the only way, it seems to me... is loving each other beyond what we each go through.

.......

In regards to my own physical, and ongoing healing (yes, we either are getting born each second or busy dying), the methods I have used have been ones that first stabilized various
conditions thorugh intense herbal remedies... you name it, I have used
them.

I discovered that If I can accomplish a stabilization... which means less pain, physically, evidenced also through a better mind
set... with less resistance... (by the way, physical pain that continues is , in my interpretation expression of resistance... lack of flow).

Then I next go to the emotional processes... I do a review and a series of
straight talks soul to soul with myself... Examining the Beliefs that brought me to where I was in such pain.

Some of the masks I have put on and taken off through these sessions would
have completely terrified anyone close to me. So I learned to be grateful for the distance folks took to me while i was in this process.... I learned it was all mercy.

I guess that's why I no longer curse the times I was solo at those times in my life...

Looking back on those processes, I wouldn't advise anyone doing anything
close to them without a therapist. But the choice in so called therapist is a very vital one. Few so called therapists can truly deal with illusions and pharmaceuticals only mask the routes.

But then again...

I know of know school of therapy that covers the ground I covered in
relation to myself-soul...

Which lead me to study so many routes I can't count them... and in each school of thought there are expnents who healed deeper than can be imagined...

Again showcasing how the resistance factors, if dropped away... or any route, can be sacred when it's time has come ... and how sacred for the unique healing for that unique soul.

Finding a so called practitiner or healer thourhg seminars or workshops can be useful for the practise... But I learned to pick and chyoose what felt right for me at the time... and the most sacred journeys came start to finish through the invisible... that was in my case.... Still, I haven't met a practitioner who hasn't gotten lost in details of certain kinds of
scenarios. No phd or medical school can prepare a person for the deeper work... the best get themselves close enough to the work to let it happen... get out of it's way.

As we all know, it used to be against the rules of hospitals and other institutions to even have preachers ome in and do hands-on work...nowadays it's even part of what most hospitals encourage. showcasing that they recognise the receptivity to healing can be enhanced through prayer and other practises, even if they call the practitioners quacks.

In my own case,
I don't go by what the various age old scholars interpreted from their
similar journeys...

Since I have found that their process was unique and not a guaranteed route.

If a person ssumes the trust factor and release through faith to a certain style, seems to me it will always work.

But may not wo0rk because of the actual process, but because of the receptivity and trust.

Which, as we have seen, has been proven time and again through placebos.

Belief and trust seem to be the main compnenet for sustained healing.

so... even though I haven't tried to explain my speicfic processes, I can still
say that I am very amazed that I got through them.

Yet I do not assume they could ever work for others or even be taught.

Someday I hope to find out...

But with many disclaimers.

And never as a rejection of so called western medicine.

It seems that combinations of strategies can sustain a process until it refines and takes hold.

Buyin time is a real option.

And worth the wait.

........

As far as herbal remedies go...

If I needed to know something, I would pray to know it... offer the right query as best I coudl refine it... and soon a practitioner who had studied a solution for that process, that step...would walk across my path
and describe it...

Other times, through prayer, I would find myslef walking through a section of a bookstore that covered styles of practice... and a book glowed and I would take it off the shelf and open
to the right page.

Just becasue I have stories and objective witnesses to this process....

E-mails and letters, or voicemails before and after... showcasing these "miracles"... and the herbal and the massage and the other practises, does not mean that any of this is ultimate, or that it would work again for others, or even that it worked for me.

Unless... yes... unless I could show to myslef via long term results and reflectors in my world/life... that a difference in process ahd truly emerged.

Meanwhile... all I know is that certain symptoms that were so severe I could barely function,

Seem to have subsided.

And I soon discovered that when this was the case, I had to , at some point stop examining the results and trust that they had found a home.

And yes, it is also true that I allowed myself to consider that perhaps...
I just raised my thresh hold for pain.

From inside a process, it's truly hard to know.

And time... space... testing... and self discovery can reveal , to a degree, present reality.

.......

So , I developed methods for testing my process, and progress...

If it matters, I can go into detail, some other letter...

.....

Back to the range of remedy.

for example;

For about 6 years of my recent life, I would drink about quart of fresh
wheatgrass juice a week.

sometimes a pint a day...

Because I had studied how closely fresh wheatgrass juice is similar to Hemoglobin. The essential minerals, vitality of "plant blood" also easily assimilated and easily refreshing healthy cells.

Purification of the blood... taking time to rest the digestive system...gaining time to see whcih parts of my physical system could utilize the pure food of wheatgrass...

Saved my life then... just long enough to figure out how to deal with other causes for the physical pain of those days.

While at the same time taking massive doses of of a certain herbal remedy suggested by an herbal shaman in the southwest. A remedy that is proven to kill the liver, if taken wrongly or in too large doses.

Yet, my symptoms were so severe I had to do this... and I took the other portions of supplements designed to safegurad the liver simultaneously.

As you know, I have had a diminished liver function due to sankebite at age 14, so... I knew that I was in a modality that was "no messing around".

There I was doing all these
massive doses of what is basically chemo.

anyway.

That was then.

I must have found the right balance points.

Most of the time, I do not have the pain or the tumour like lumps, or the
discomforts...

I found I have had to balance my life in all it's facets, in order to go for long stretches,
not falling back into the same throws of death...

I have had a cable access tv show for close to 15 years.

I have the video from these various stages. Anyone who wants to see the stages in my physical form can see that this is no joke. I just looked at some footage from the time I now speak of... and see the sparkle in my eyes then , almost gone... lights were going out. enough said.

People see me now, and their jaw drops.

If they knew me during one of these severe times, then hardly recognise me
now. Soem say I have de-aged... some ask me over and agin if it is really me... they can't seem to reconcile the difference.

Because of the severity of some of the processes I (guess) survived... ,
I often reflected to people around me that those times back then were peak times... many
folks didn't realize I felt I was doing everything I was doing for the LAST
time...

I made my intent count... I made my actions count...

They realized they were getting far more "bang for their
buck" when I worked with them on anything. And they used what I offered for all it was worth...

Huge projects, lots of money, fame, happened FOR THEM... all that stuff sprang out of the
projects I worked on... in some cases, they actually stole the shares they could have given me...

Mostly I was working on trust...

but I also never recognised that I might actually live long enough for any share of the outcomes (my shares) to make a difference.

Being healed is one thing... healed and broke another.

Yet...

Actually, most cases, I didn't expect to be around for the
harvest... and actually left myself out of that part...

It's a pecualiar thing...

Big mountains got moved.

Projects and ideas went world wide...

Here I am, and still not much of my own creative expression has
gotten to it's true audeince...

Barely the money to be able to even eat.

anyway...

sort of showcases my lack of gratitude...

Because... rather than being dead, I am alive...

And it seems like I still can do whatever I choose with my own intellectual
property...

and so... I see the perfect route for additional soul healing,

through soul expression...

Also through honoring the physical needs of the future, which only love expressed through money can sustain.

appplying the same 11th hour attitude to everything...

Enveloping life's equations with Soul Purpose... caring about intention...

These are essential to true deeper ehaling.

A purpose for living, how to use any estra time.

Otherwise, for me... life is useless if I am only going to consume... fart and take up other people's time.

Creating what will expand as benefit for whole groups of
people, not just myself....

Has become essential to life's purpose.

Has merged me to my spiritual path.

Not leaving myself out. The only part I left out... now becoming as essential as what I intend for others.

The resistance factor is always my first friend on the path to getting
closer to being fully healed.

the resistance factor shows me my spiritual need.

by introducing me first to my rage and doubt and disbelief.

It's never been a barrier...

Instead...

it has always been the gate.

-toe

ToeKneeStanger.com

"...another interesting test adventure into the ART of the magic of
intention.... while maintaining relaxed-rocky-steady- balance .... inside
the wild rides on the WAVE of this ocean called LIFE in the so-called
'material' plane" - toe knee

"ARTintoLIFE is LIFEintoART" ... yeah!

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

The ToeKnee Show - The FATHER of SPIN

2006-06-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

The ToeKnee Show.... The Father of Spin
There's a book, recently released, called the "Father of Spin". In it, are described the many campaigns engineered by the nephew of Freud. So much of the downfall of the so called "civilized world" can be tracked through this book, and this family.
The techniques of using mass publicity campaigns to systematically release people from their ability to choose.
The evil intent of selling cigarettes as a fashion statement, a health-aid, a quaranteed way to lose weight.... Appealing to women to jump on board.
All built intentionally through the mind of Freud's nephew.

In his long walks with his uncle, he would hear about the inner workings of the mind...
and he would speculate to his uncle about how the same tools for healing a locked mind, could be used for controlling many minds, through use of signs and symbols intentionally...

These talks frightened Freud, they angered him. "No such things were possible".

But after a few early failures in legitimate business, Freud's nephew was eventually able to manneuver himself into a few meetings where he made the same outlandish claims... he "could move the masses, get them to believe or buy anything, if others would trust him to build the publicity campaigns he envisioned"
And so... With his audacious youth as fuel he even went further, just in case and the results were so astounding to the tobacco merchants and other manufacturers, that they came to almost worship Freud's nephew as a god... singlehandedly producing sales no one would ever thought possible...
... even moreso, producing the perceptual shifts neccessary to feed and fuel the consumer machine into a self-perpetual cycle of need/buy/need more....

This is historical fact.

The Nazi propaganda machine of world war two was patterned on his techniques.

Historical fact.

People engineering voter turn-out, and the techniques of getting you to vote through fear... These have all been built by students of the same schools of thought.

It has just fully been accomplished , and fully proven, that no matter the deed... No matter the intent... The power of the people to object has been successfully frozen.

All through spin.

We can watch the leaders declare full fledged lies to be the truth... And we all get to discover that they already knew the truths before they lied...
We can watch them retaliate against each other and destroy the whistle blowers... One by one.

Whether it's thefts of huge amounts of supplies from 911 aid, or Katrina resold via government contractors and the small factions of dishonest aid workers-law enforcement... Or if it's routing dollars from the ones who are in true need, to the ones who vote you back into office.

The big king who loves to follow the "father of spin" and can't wait to be known as the new inheritor of those genius manipulative skills, everyone already knows him... Is Karl Rove.

I never made any of this up.

I write it here as a very last political statement before the next few years.

I have already studied and seen that there are deeper underlying truths... but the only way the world's populations will ever embrace such truths which last longer than spin- is if they re-investigate their true origins... starting with their deeper inner heart. It may take years... but you soon will see that every opinion you have ever had was socialized into you. while at the very same time, beyond opinion is love... and the human heart will teach you from there... but you may have to drop all your trappings of value to see clear enough to get taught.

Here's what's going to happen if you do not give it an honest try to second guess what you think you believe.

Read this... and make your own decision what is true based on what you can prove for yourself... about yourself... but don't blame me if you discover this is all far more real and neccessary than I state here.

If the next few elections are decided by voters who vote the game of fear based sheep... then there will cease to be a debateable dialogue to be known by all and debated.

I am saying what is true, and you don't have to believe me.

In fact... I released myself from caring how this all turns out, because I discovered that the world's sheep will call the plays from here on out. It's a mass vote for our future... Sadly very few know they are voting with their breathe, their minds, and their daily action... Simply... Do you live through fear... Are you on the end of someone else's chain? Do you know if you are?

The mystery gets solved if you can study your own emotions... If you can research your own beliefs.

Truth can withstand debate.

Always could... Always will.

There's is no reason to shoot or kill or torture someone into agreeing with you.

Many of the foundations of our current "democratic process" no longer apply... And we all know it. Simply because the debate gets engineered away from the folks who need to hear it. Fools with opinions always get showcased in honest real time debates. Fool's who can't think on their feet... Who therefore should be watched closely... Always look great when they read their answers from a pre-written script.

Unless you do media, or know the machinery of PR... You will think you are seeing reality.

Watch reality TV.

I mean... Really... Watch it.

I was one of the pioneers of reality TV... I intentionally put 14 years into it, starting in 1994, to influence media towards true, real people.

But look what got created by the media machinery... They have shown you that the masses always prefers to just watch a good fight... Over anything else.

This , at first... I considered a huge failure.

To see some of my ideas and script concepts converted via the media machinery into the worst case scenarios...

But I realized there is a Gold Mine out there and you can study it and if you want to grab some Gold it's right there for you. Obvious.

....but it's not going to be what you "think" it is.

You'd have to test your own barometer, cleanse and clean it enough so that you could walk yourself through the illusions enough to notice one thing; you are walking through illusion.

This is almost all you need to prove to yourself... in order to sense the ringing truths all around you that may not be precievable at this time...
an essential reality to face is this; "it's one thing to see... it's another to know what you are seeing".

...and to know what you are seeing, you hvar to clean your own filters... or remain blind and follow a ture leader... one you may not even recognise... unless you knew/know yourself first.

God/Goddess - creator in all His/Her names , if such exists would never put us into this quagmire, or allow us to build it for ourselves if we also hadn't been supplied all the resources for peaceful solutions.

We see no speaceful solutions becuase selected God-Goddess given gifts in the form of energy solutions, political solutions, dialogues waitiing to happen have all been slectively engineered from view.

We choose about things that haven't full choices available.

such disasters as the ones which now continue are the result.

anything debated in public forum has been spoon fed through Spin Doctors... right at your feet.

You need to know youcan ask for a different plate of food...

...but first you need to be able to see what's missing.

And that you can find in your own heart... if you clean it first,

A person who studied the way Freud's nephew studied would see there are waves to this public opinion machinery. They woud see the genius of mass hynosis at play.

And the same waves that so many use for political gain, power.... to build more weapons, to amke more money...are all still available for the ones who truly want to build peace.

...there will come a day when no last minute efforts can work.

...but it is not I who choose this... you do... we all do.

For example, I resisted writing this for a year , now... finally I realized I had to obey the impulse.

...but I refuse to condemn anyone, no matter what this sounds like.

I do not march at peace rallies because I see veins popping and frothing mouths and loud obnoxious taunts against enemies just as much or more than the rallies by the other sides.

After 911, if we had done any true work by now, we would have gathered the world's peacemakers at a round table live and watched the citizens of this planet debate our future.
That huge round table of peace makers would simply have been a tool for getting the whole world on the same page.
None of us seemed to understand that it was the women, the mothers and the wives-elders who's voices we really needed to hear then.

I am not idealistic about this.

We all rolled over and faced the most bizarre series of waves of terror enflicted by the spinners, with the topic always revolving around killing off the enemy. this time, and enemy,y no one could find if they even chose to.

In reality... It's a war between the deciders and the ones who would rather distribute peaceful intention and allow the powerless to also have a voice.

In the next few years, you will see... the world's population will just roll over while folks will lead them towards more money (higher slave wages), promises built around an alternative of fear... and watch while the most upstanding cower as soon as they lose a few jobs for speaking their opinions. I am not talking about debates on the internet. I am talking about debates with lights on, and no one shoved out, that also include the world's leaders in peace building.

Such debates, if they ever existed, will cease over the next few years.

The reason is simple... people would never travel to that place to debate in the open... and folks who watch it on tv will just evaluate it's conflict quotient and then turn to the newest installment of Simple Life... Or Survivor. they will feel more content to be having a brain occupied by the simple question of "who's going to win".

The wrestling and sports franchises showcased for all of us, all these years that it was the battles that drew the crowds and satisfied that "opinion" part of the brain, far more than an y idea of "who should win".

We are all going to be faced with the reality that we have allowed our leaders to feed the primal mind that watches battles, hangings, crimes, for the entertainment value... and the crowd will be the majority as usual. If you only convince them the right person won... then they will file back in line and give it no more thought... while they are tied up in the battle, all kinds of other new things are launced out of peripheral vision.

Like I said... it's a mass choice.

Not anything to do with me.

I made my own choices 30 years ago.

I held the ABC style cameras and I was damn good at newgathering... I decided to give it a try for awhile as a professional query. I soon found out I could make huge amounts of money, if I just aimed the camera at the action and left my conscience out of the process.

What I saw was irrefutable.
"People will do almost anything to get on tv".

If I were to have gone overseas and filmed the various wars... the same reality other journalists spoke of would have been my daily experience. I would have seen the people dancing with their guns wherever I aimed the cameras... when there was peace in the streets, and instant riot for a Newsweek type photo would be created simply because of the press tags around my neck.

I said "no" to the opportunity.

That decision cost me a huge amount of wealth... But it brought me to where I am today, still able to almost think for myself.

Then...In 1994. I backed up that decision and the thousands more of crossroads it brought me everywhere I went, by spending my full (small) inheritance through creating my own Access Cable Tv show, intentionally launching it from the Silicon Valley where the whole industry would get to pick it for ideas.

It was an incredible success. The free-thinking women healers, the male healers who deferred to the matriarchal, the warriors who fought in the wars who had questioned for themselves and decided their mother chose best... And they still could be warriors while that truth was truest... , the parents... These are some of the many who walked up to me, since they recognized me through the show... And they thanked me.

and they often told me how someone they knew in the "media business" loved my show...

I would see TV series after TV series that , in the initial stages looked an awful lot like a few of the scenes I filmed over the years.

It wasn't easy seeing that the money grabbers could bastardize my intent...

But, in reality, as I overlook it now, I see that the humanity I referenced and showcased on my show DID inspire and influence so many who actually figured out how to replicate that part of the shows I produced. And they found, just like I found out, that there are so many subjects out there... all you need is a basic budget and a committed crew. The people are everywhere.

If you split them from their mass-opinion rallies... if you meet them one on one, you will find that there still is a majority who honor so many simple principles that keep this silly culture afloat.

they won't be the ones dedicated to profit over people.

Yet... You gather them together, instill them with fear and you can get them to do anything as a mass-mind.

If you watch closely you can vote from right where you are sitting.

You can reclaim what is truest if you have the truest truths in your life.

the only way such could be present is that it was built on the backs and hearts of our elders.

But today's equations require that you either showcase that you honor the precious enough to protect it by freeing your mind of implanted fear... Or you engineer early brain-death through junk food and prescription drugs.

there really isn't much more of a choice available to you.

Everything you think you believe, beyond that, was an acquired socialized belief.

Belief and truth are two different things.

I have immense compassion for the jobs our leaders face.
I have understood that a person gets into such positions of power these days through forced compromise.

anyone who knows anything knows that Kennedy was engineered into office. And that wasn't the first... But it will never be the last.
NO matter how much good a person wants to do, if they choose to go their own way they will be defeated. If not by their own stupid deeds, simply by creating the perception that they behaved a certain way, and all their talents get flushed along with one silly mistake. Now you can have an honest-war monger... rather than a dishonest converter for peace...

Everybody has learned from their mistakes... who has had to face them... we now have machinery whereby mistakes can be cleaned from view... they never existed if the masses no longer see them... they never happened. Memory has been engineered to last no more than 12 seconds.

It's easy to hypnotics a crowd into not believing what they see.

It's easy.

the ones who pick up these tools intentionally use them to do "God's Will"... and just by hearing that, no one debates it.

The only change is going to be eradication of reality of a debate about anything... .which means search for lasting truth will soon be officially over.

Unless you choose to walk away from the show...

And make "a better show" in the actions you choose, in the relationships around you... inside you ... where the real war, only war is being fought.

Go and buy "the father of spin"... and read how happy Frued's Nephew's ego grew to be, to see that his campaigns which continue to cause an epidemic of lung and other cancers world wide, were so successful.

Notice that many people in power today, are driven right up to the door of their offices on the same fuels.

Realize that we live in a culture where the only reason most people go to a movie or buy a product is because "it's the top of the charts".

Meanwhile, the products or services, or people who really can benefit us towards communion through each other... Are shoveled to the side because the profits in such things do not justify the pr bought.

Some of the most meaningful art, movies, TV... Inventions... Are therefore never seen or known.

And we have these fat greasy hamburger eaters who can't say no to the next fix.

You really have to wonder ...

Yeah...

Wonder.

the beginning of questioning.

Build peace in simple ways... Where you can... And if you can't ... Then study what you could do to get better at it....

Now... For all those paid to keep watch on this. Just realize this is my only political statement.

I have discovered that one great artwork... One great moment, can outlast every engineered disaster... Every fool's game will ultimately get revealed for the truths it has attempted to kill.

Everyone who was ever born either knows the love a true mother or father... Or what it feels like to have a hole in the heart..

We can either walk among the holes and fill others to see ours get filled.

Or we can bank the convenient pay-offs for turning off the switches that help us hear the heart's call.

Go ahead, brag about the people you can fool daily..... Or offer peace to a neighbor by hearing them out for a change.

....for a change.

The best truth for all is right here in front of you. right here.
It's not me...

It's that still voice these words bounce off of...

www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

The ToeKnee Show... Symbols & Signs

2006-06-16T23:23:00.000-07:00

The ToeKnee ShowSymbols & Signs

These past 3 to 4 weeks I have been exploring remnants of the path.
It all started when I felt, once again drawn to a certain box of archives...
The first old letter I open , is from a dear friend... still deep in my heart....
and in that letter, she describes that she was wishing for a certain thing...
...then thanking me for the package she had gotten that very day,
...and explaining that it contained what she was wishing for.

Then saying, that she wasn't surprised by this... that she had noticed this about our connection...

How I would just bring up a few topic in a letter... stuff that she was working on...

anyway...

I studied the fact that each and every box I was drawn to explore, also had a similar letter... that I would find... simply becuase that part of the box.. glowed... that letter glowed...

finally...

there I was in tears....

Realizing I had been , sort of tricked ... once again... and I guess ready once again to let the invisible trick me...into exploring these stacks of footprints on the path.

Knwoing there is a responsibility regarding this...

What it was showing me ... that is...

Noticing I was realizing I was getting re-introduced to a certain style of talent.

One all of us has, if we choose to study it and explore it...

Which I have, above all things chosen to study.

something about the writing...

something about connecting long distance...

something about knowing one's true purpose.

something about showing others how important they are to us...

seeing in retrospect that it was there... just like I thought... all along... what I was studying and expressing and exchanging
and how the best of times were always refelcted as the best of times becsue of these intentions poured through the molds of action.

Noticing that I could intend to express that , in the tangible world, a little more....again... if I so choose.

Needing to see it verified by the letters... noticing I ws finding the right ones... seeing that it was nothing other than what already was... reflected back...
beyond space, distance.... and time.

Understanding that a part of me connected to that realm... engineered these archives to bring power back into this moment.

Knowing that this was no mistake.

Realizing that I couldn't track it all... it was beyond coincidene... and also beyond complete understanding... that it's essence was mystery...

Except , there I was... feeling directed... being shown to me, like someone invisible sorting the boxes that I needed to look into... and putting the items essential inside those boxes in front of me.

Of course... I had to be ready to co-operate with the impulse.
And I knew I was.... becasue it's what casued the time to flow... and the doors to open... I watched/witnessed this all as if it was assigned as the project for those days...

And nowadays, I have learned that it's agood idea to drop the tangible world for a few minutes out of such days,
and honor/accept the flow... then even more... something about follow through.

so... I found these key letters... several different people deep connections... in some cases I was reading what I hadn't been able to read years ago... but in each and every case there was the eso called "miracle" of whatever I was referring to, being a big part of some shared healing... and there I was seeing the various developments that were shared, the progress that was made... the dreams fulfilled... the hopes and aspirations that werelater left behind in favor of somehting better...

And one distinct fseries of letters from a friend jumped out as necessary for this timeframe... so distinct and pronounced the impulse... that I had to reponsibly search her out and phone her.

I called and left her a message.

It's been over 10 years.

the e-mail came later that evening.

happy to realize I still was alive... figured i had slid off the planet on one of my expeditions down this path.

double checking with her... it turns out that my first telepathic connection got to her instantly, as usual.... just like so many times so many years ago.

I've re-arranged the timeframe , somewhat to shorten this story.

but this is one of a hundred similar stories... and if you had documented your life, I am sure you woul d have more than a few of these synconicities, too....
... all the same.

I had read a letter, sat back... envisioned her and immediately I heard her precious laugh... saw the smile.... remembered the deep respect... all present moment... none of it was memory.

and I just released the thought to the ether... a wave of love powered it ... and the echo was like a slight breeze.... instant.

That was the day she was sitting back on the porch swing and decided to think of me... a thousand miles away.

she got it.
and so did I.

and her first thought was....

"Geez, I wonder if he is still alive?"

Exactly.

I have often shielded people who traveled different paths... sometimes with psuedo disconnect (impossible if you are connected)... just so they wouldn't worry ...

When I phoned her... I left the timeline, so she could compare notes... and to let her know it's as fresh as the day we met.

Now...

Most people would think this all refers to a love affair.

that's not the point.

It's not why I bring this up here.

Maybe I want to remind you that there is something faster and more accurate than telepathy.

It's heart connection.

and everybody has the gift.

Yet we see the tangible and reverse it's importance on the invisible... all too often.

2 weeks ago was the right time for me to phone her... that took over 10 years.

but I was only wanting to see the right time.

If we get lucky to be in the right time frame with others, we often don't recognise the miracle of it.

We all have our separate worlds... our separate paths...

Most think it's only the numbers, the awards, the dollar that show success...

It's an accepted fantasy that nothing is more powerful or important than love.

The reason I call it a fantasy here, is becasue YOU have to decide if you're gonna make it real or not.

And it's usually in light of the hurt and the pain, that we know we have deeply loved someone.

No matter what, even with people who are in physical proximity as in "married" , it's a fact that years can go by without real communion.

Distance... space... Time...

We all decide to show back up here, each moment... where such limiters can be the only reason so many will want to "work things out".

But the reasons and motivations and effort every one says are necessary for peace... all those things are a cake walk if the expereinces of true communion are present, no work is involved. Only acceptance.

Just because I can write this doesn't it's always easy for me.

I have my mountains to climb.

I put this here, letting anyone comment ... anytime they choose...

Just earlier this evening a person read my blog... and they left me a message that seems to say they have fear for me... worry about me... they advise a path... a way of living.

Yet...

Inside it is a prayer... one that includes a path for them aas well.

I can see this.

And who would refuse such a prayer?

the ego says... " some joker who reads my blog thinks they know me... they think they can give a report, an overview... a recommendation... but all I really see is their fear... I touched a nerve in them and they had to preach... a reaction..." this is what the ego says.

But that would only matter t me if I were foolish enough to believe I had gotten somewhere.

I go from walking bridges to nowhere in the dark while blindfolded... to riding waves so high and wide I can't jump free....

and some times it's all expereinced inside two seconds.

I always remember the way it hits me... when I am working 3 things at once.

And...

Many years ago... my angel guides came to me and explained the coming days... the ones we are now in...

where everything is always seen world wide by somebody.

We are now there/here.

Yes...

the world is watching.

but also the invisible worlds.

It's been quite sometime since I accepted a woman close enough to tough or to hold.

I spent all those years trying to get back to smalltown Iowa... but the solid stell walls hit me every time I had to jumpt ship. Wasn't meant to be.

Yet, I always did the speech about healing with the first wife... the fantasy of what we had already shared, coming back again...

could take a lifetime...

finally I had to just accept that I was killing myself re-creating a future that would / could only fail... simply because it wasn't meant to be... not in this time frame.

I already know that I could write her... and after 3 to 5 years of letters shared, eventually she would be in the same perspective in relation to me (and I her) that I have already established in my life with others.

In each and every case.... in all these cases.... I was able to allow the person to go towards what they said they needed, and wanted.

And in each case, they had gotten where they needed to be.

The only difference is through-out all these years, not all of these who are deep in my heart know that I carry a candle for their dreams still, ever glowing strong...and always will.

And they probably don't realize there were days or weeks on end when I would feel as if I had been hit with a shadow.... finally, I would sit down and say out loud "somebody, somewhere... who I know, who I am connected to... is hurting today... and I can sense them... I can almost taste their energy... I can feel the depth of the shadow"...

And I gradually came to understand, after hearing feedback.... that this was all real.

Some invisible connections... and in some cases it was actually me who was being nurtured from the distance.

These days have been hard... I sometimes got very upset that I was signed up for such a path.

Then , I get a view of the overview.. and notice how many incredible parts of the puzzle were worked out for the best interests of all concerned.

I would lament that I had so much wanted other people's safety and dreams to come true that I wasn't praying for my own... that I had little energy left to make my projects ready for frution.

But now I notice, that all along I never wavered.

And just this past week, the energy of the goddess is all around me... and I just do not know what to say.

Maybe I shouldn't idolize this above the respect I have built with trusted hand-picked male friends.

Imean, right now, I am getting to know a whole new batch of people. and I never thought I would meet so many that could understand a word I said.

Then there are others who decided we can share music... we can smoke cigars... study our plans together, but they don't have to undrstand the "Art talk".

But for me, all this is contained inside of the the reality that it is the grace of goddess that fuels us all.

I am still amazed about the power struggles the power hungry rich display, as they get the poor to fight each other for points.

It's a nasty predator world, as nasty as it ever was, times ten trillion.

Yet... those participants are never gonna shre a meal with me. It just won't happen. I won't have to spend time trying to convert them to help the stranger, the one with no voice.

I have a lot of people who love to study me now.

It's great.

I'm talknig about the ones who have walked with me 2.. 3... 4... miles or steps on this road.

It's wonderful.

I can sense when they look in.

Then there are others who remain at a distance, but it's part of their "job" to just keep in touch... and they don't realize I see them , too.

There's only a few times I have shown up in their realm. they think it was some huge plan... that there was no other way I could have been there, right then...

But it was just the fact that the steps lead me there.

It's always an amazing thing to me.

I never tried to convert this to money.

Maybe in 20 years... if I am still around, I will practice officially.

Otherwise... in reality it's just the waves of creative beauty on this plane we need to ride. then boucning up against our walls... then getting back on the board and rding some more.

So.

I connect the dots a few times... reconnect a few others... step out and challenge the horizen...

to my amazement, I open my eyes between songs and see angels of light smiling back at me.

Signs and symbols.

Now is not the time to even consider anything but a slow, graceful step and merging with the wind.www.ARTintoLIFE.com

http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*

Mixed Realities

2006-05-10T02:22:00.000-07:00

The ToeKnee Show: The ToeKnee ShowLiving the life of the Hey Dey Hoo doo... the HayDay Who Do....

As if those words mean anything...
God... why do I love to toss a few curve balls first...

I'll tell you why ... to see how quickly you get ready to jump ship... or flinch.

Check your fears at the door...

Mixed Realities.

I get accused of being different.
30 years of creative living ...
and the largest saacrifice of living it unfunded
is hearing , around every corner another stilted human,
at the mercy of machines saying I'm just another artist, crazy...

... these things... pointing at me, as if this creative style is a disease.

When the heart connections go so deep, inside me... inside this I watch them with their leashes.

....to see their eyes half shut, zombie style...
and to hear the cold ... to hear the abrupt tones...
And know I can't drive my car on that road...
for long...
I can't make those kinds of appontments for too long while the beauty of nature and our world still cries.

Getting my attention,
I hear a Goddess friend edgy to put across such wasted ideas like a stream of words,
...about the separations between us,
rather than the unifiers that still bind us.

All these years of journeying because it's the Shaman Warriors Journey,
I learned over and over I had no chooice... it was destiny.

...not because of fear or failure... or any other reason except Learning ...
gradually seeing myself surrenduring to this path
...It is...
what it is...
...
and nothing more.
nothing more ... except Necessary...
choice stopped having a say 15 surrenders ago.

Waking up as if on an old battlefield kneeling... weeping and waiitng for that last arrow that never came.

realizing that I somehow won...

again...

UnfuckingBelievable.

then making whatever I can out of the walk through the disaster still smoldering.

Now that I stopped cursing the blind...
Why do I have to be lumped in with all those other dead and dying still slingin to their swords?

....losers who claimed it, and lived it just as a lazy man/woman's excuse.... a thousand miles away from their truer fruition?

Since I have been here on this road trip through Sweeden, I have written close to 50 new lyrics for great songs.

I've been re-mastering my performances and recordings from 1982 forward... one at a time...
and for some, singing new lead vocals ...

I have 4 one hour mini-documentaries in process,
.. all footage from recent tv shows combined for release via the web... and DVD in tandem with performances.

And right now, while writing this, I am studying an album I wrote and produced 2002-2003
It's called Mysterious Stranger. REalizing 80% is ready for the world.

20% would pull the rug out.

so... I just yanked those songs.

now.. I get to decide whether I instead use these songs to finish another record in process.

'Blood From Turnips"

It's one of 9 that I have on the launch pad,
I am critiquing and re-ordering the songs... seleting a few and testng the rest.

Along with all this, I am fixing the bathroom...
...mowing the lawn,
and trimming the trees...

But, right now,
if I were to pay attention to the fear around me coming from those
.....who call themselves my close friends... I'd be in a looney bin.

so... as soon as I can afford to cut ties, they will all be getting traded out.
-transferred to a further distance from me.

I'm searching for another Ashram where I can live by working in a kitchen and a garden next to natural women and friends.

....or a friend's art studio floor wheere I can sleep,
....while I build a barn to my personal taste out of scrap wood.

The only way out of this skeptic's world ...
... that has nearly invaded all my near world..
.... is to switch change myself or it...
...or convert it.

.....the easiset

... and fastest way to convert it,
... is to teach it a lesson
...by proving it wrong.

so...

I'm jump starting each and every project I can get my hands on...

...today I called the past. Just to be sure I am still here.
....14 years ago I was in need of the healing life force of the goddess.

One perky nippled beauty with the biggest heart I have ever seen,
.... walked into my world and I couldn't help it...
....I had to give her 200 hundred orgasms...
....she brought the best out of me.
..while I studied it and took it down the road to explode a few more.

Madam E

...said it was because of me.

Nah... madam E

if anything it was you and me

Madam E

I guess I shouldn't have praised you to my divorced wife.

Maybe I wouldn't have been put on all these crosses 2000 miles away.
Being burned from the bottom up... sliced and diced ...
in her dreams.

I'd have succumbed to her screams if it hadn't been for you.
Madam E.

Great to hear you laugh Madam E.

Laughing and remembering...
Well that could be some other day.
When you are alone and safe...
...for a week or whatever it takes,
Maybe rocking in a chair in old age...
You get to weep the same tears you wept for joy when we shared the bed for hours.
And you will see yourself reflected in the pool that I already cried;
the ocean that would never seem to subside...
while I lived on the mountain out in the back of your house.

MadamE.

I had to get ready for you back then.
I had to get that Goddess praise.
I get to be the one who carries it CURRENT
... like a stream of fire and beauty.

And I get to remember how well
I did the shamanWarriors duty.

It's more than 6,000 breakfasts
since I got to see your eyes light up,
and hear you cooing in bed
while I take you across another stretch.

It wasn't against you...

But I could never be another one of societies' good dogs and fetch...

I found a few gates...
Fell to my knees to wretch...

And soon discovered that doing what I could,
not to die without you,
was my full time job.

Until I died anyway... then I got to rebirth me,
grab me up and bring me along 10 years later...
just tto call and comapre our voices.
... and see we need a translator.

...nothing other than that with me now... keeping me strong,
and, yeah, while I dust mysel foff... a little empty.
...while I climb down this tree...
and just letting you be... Madam E

And for the rest of the alphabet... they'll just have to wait a few more days
as I get the calls and letters squared away,
and count just how long this one stays...

Let's get this little ball of a world back to being great big and round.
And let's hear yer heart pound
... while this tcircle of life circles both you and me

madam E

..........

epilogue

....this just happened today.

I called madam E. today.

And she says... wow .. I just thought of you... this is so strange.

Not for me... it's not.

Yesterday she took down my painting.

Frst call in 10 years ... first conversation...in ten years.

"Toe Knee... I just thought about you"

Nothing strange at all... madam E.

My paintings are connected to me.
And... yes... it's ok to pack that beautiful one
into your attic.

In fact.

Let's team up and sell it.

but let's share the profit.

I need to make a downpayment on the coporate jet.

............
Do you know I coulda gotten a million doallars for such a call?

There's a foundation called Sketics America or some such.

They have a standing invitation for anyone who can prove so called "6th sense--- esp" - is real.

A million bucks.

I made and lost a million bucks today.

Easy.

The ToeKnee Show

2006-01-22T22:48:00.000-08:00

The ToeKnee Show. The space between.
I've spent 13 years re-proving mmyself to myself. The long search for depth of still ness inside of the flow... in the direction it goes. Theory is that the tests have been true, deep and by now thorough. A wide range of circumstance shows me that it may have been just fine to allow the foundations past to bear financial fruit. Adhering to the equation of artistic outcome in spite of the premise of selling out a dream or two. The times I tried to release any idea for creative flow bit me in the ass.... The times I embraced creative flow at all costs bit me in the ass. So... I finally realized that enither proved right or wrong effort... simply that I had to get bit in the ass one way or the other. Now that I proved that, I guess I admit I'd a rather got bit in the ass in the back of a limo or on a private jet... But today, do I have a range of choices? Yeah... and the foremost is to have the sense of learning from being bit in the ass... this should minimize the number of future times I'd otherwise repeat a lesson. Learn once in each category and apply efficiency in the process... foresight... vision... see the curves in the road and brake with discretion...yeah.... the space between.... oh how I love the space between. Sweet and Juicy.

The ToeKnee Show

2006-01-22T22:39:00.000-08:00

The ToeKnee Show
the space between

the NATURE of the beast

2006-01-07T18:36:00.000-08:00

Living a lie.

be careful.... it's gonna creep up on you!

My new current belief is the hell we all face in our empty existence (if we exist empty) can be compressed down to one item.

ONE item only.

One equation.

One equation only.

and it is this.

How far would we go to save our own ass while those we love are slaughtered.

Maybe you don't understand it is terrifically more legal than ever to kill.

Killing through legal business.

Folks go to the clock in clock out, and they justify actions they'd never stomach if it were just blowing somebody's head off.

Yet, the results of their actions is the very same thing... and deep in their heart and soul, they know it.

THEY KNOW IT!

... and their wives, husbands, families, kids... frineds ... know it too.

I recently met the son of one of our greatest Blues musicians...

...that guy had folks eating out of his hand... except me.

Grammy or no grammy... it's not for me.

He must have sensed me.

Meanwhile, his dad has to be rolling over in his grave.

I walk away.

What a fool I am!

...there went another hundred grand.

Maybe the son that no longer talks to me will understand me in heaven, or hell or limbo whereever I eventually go.

I can't justify this.

I am what I AM.

NO COMPROMISE.

Almost dead at the end of my trail.

...thank you very much, american dream!

...white guys ahve to pay someday!

My family never did any of it...

...might as well start with me!

If I had a do0llar for every person who offered me cash to sell out, round trip tickets to hwerever and back becasue I inspired them.

Still wating for the tickets... meanwhile they got me to deliver on their behalf... and they made millions.

Oh well.

Par for the course,

Par for the curse.

Being born here among the incompleters...

Ouch ... it hurts to look like the disaster walking.

Haven't met one person yet who won't slobber and cower for a dime.

.......

Hey, I am not talking about our leaders or any tangible, findable warfare.

I am talking ABOUT FOLKS WHO PREACH PEACE, but actively destroy each other's safety, peace, path, homelife.

Go to a peace march with your beautiful wife or husband, get all gushie in yer heart, then get ready to see the next fake rasta pry his way into your home, disquized as a saint.

Ouch.

I learned it from expereince.

My eyes see different now.

But I still haven't gotten them to refocus.,.. no known goal seems worthwhile.

I get less gas mileage in my art truck than any Humvee, any day. I am a big fool... I admit it.

Driving down the road to a Toyota hybrid won't explain why each mile I drive justifies crucifying folks in this dangerous third world reality right around the corner from the nearest Silly kone software fix-it equation.

I looked Johnny Cash in the eye. he shook my hand. We congratulated each other for trying to get somewhere and make a better day. But we each saw in each other's eyes that the black and white, good and bad equations were foolish dreams, and we both seemed lost. He got to admit it in his last songs... Mine are still on theri way. I think he was a hero for admitting it...

For every person who says they have survived another day, without compromise, there are 285 sleeping next to newspaper machines in the cold... not in Iraq, but in America. And some write better songs than any of us could ever dream of. No wonder Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and so many of my past role models lock their gates.

Just like me and you (probably), they walk past it.

Turns your stomach?

Turns mine too.

It ain't W's fault.

...........

Let me tell you about today. I drive my art truck where ever I can afford to... and sometimes its still chasing the illusion of being active against idiocy.

Concepts like a Peaceful oasis, a headquarters, meeting places where folks who believe in peace and dying for peace is a premise.... used as a foundation for community.

One of the main spots? I was there today.

And I heard cynicsism unlike I have ever heard at Buck's in woodside, where I now sit (in peace) writing this... where the sometimes predator business elite dine. Surrounded by millionaires, and CEO's. Overhearing folly... but at least honest. No disguise.

Formerly, before arriving here, I was among the rastas, the cowboys, the natives, the activists.

Among the justifiers, the rage filled hangers-on types who grab onto each others coat tails and who have found a way to pretend.

Same old, same old.

There I was, tuning up my video camera, filming an excellent irish band singing songs about times 500 years ago that were just as filled with predators as today. same old , same old... yet the underying point of each song was LEARNING FROM PAST MISTAKES AND MAKING LIVES BETTER, HONORING FAMILIES AND EACH OTHER... SALUTING LIFE WITH GRATITUDE.

Beautiful.

Can't get enough of it.

You'd think the folks would see similar values in a guy who films , like me, among them... for such a band FOR FREE, for future generations...

Yet, I sense the same old envy.

... as usual, the more unique and self directed you are, the more it can piss off the status quo... no matter where you are samae old folly... humanity is what it is... flawed... there I was, surrounded by the fakes.

90% equations of fakes in every strata.

Calling out aginst me... a canary in the gold mine.

I have to endure it.

Hell no.

I pack up my gear and go.

........

Coastal Preservation.

right.

....the only store within 30 miles, with that range of allowances from the county, gets to be the headquarters against all future development, in the name of coastal preservation... does this make you suspicious?

Me too.

Faulty premise, unless it serves everyone.. not just the homeboys who exclude newcomers.

I really don't care.

maybe it's hypocrisy , maybe not....

What mattered/matters to me is this;

the REAL PEOPLE musicians.

Including the musician friends of the cynic who chased me away. They sang to a packed house of 20 people, maybe 30 if I missed a few. Today their total income had to be about 15 dollars each, on tips. They been doing it 15 years.

They need a guy like me... yet they appeal to folks who detract from truth... so what gives? What takes?

They compromise their dream each and every day, doing everything /anything for a dollar in favor of their family and keeping their kids warm, alive and safe. they can't risk any of it like I do. They resent me, but I don;'t resent them.

Like a joke I still don't quite get, I concieved I was there to bring my 30 years of media skills to pack the place beyond th parking lot... I am there to free them, to build an audience for them, to use my media skills to help them book jobs whereby they can pay each other something different, something realistic for the time and effort of arriving and playing.

Obviously, I am trying to build a dream they can't protect, for them... instead of being famous oon my own creativity, playing my own gigs all these years, I grieve for them.... and pony up time, energy, money out of my own pocket..

...and I wonder what the F**K is wrong with me.
...
because they resent my input.

What else could it be, when iIdeas fall on deaf ears.

No direct uploads to the internet can happen on their watch, even though this is the heart of the world invention technology space...because they don't even concieve of how to get there... all these eyars, still lagging and watching the audiences dwindle... not caring while the musicians give up one by one... or split apart.

... Meanwhile, even today, I keep offering and they allow a few of their cynical friends to prod me with derision.

I can pack up and leave... and I do.

The little children among them, the ones they hold and care for, they tell me they don't care if anyone knows this day of music ever happened through my camera's eye 20 years from now.

Great,

YOU convinced me.

I bail.

I have 14 years of footage, all filmed on my own dime. Observing their beauty and they let some jack ass piss me off,,, they feed him the sideways look and power him further.

Don't want my help.

Meanwhile Dana weeps in her songs, on my videos for the future, and they did too.. years ago..I have that in 15 concerts... yet she bailed from the music 6 years ago after she used my footage to get into a Tim Allen film. "Jungle to Jungle".

Right about the time when Tim Allen refused other people on his team's requests fro shared compensation and said, "let the ship sink"... and now he realizes what "Tool Time" really was for the people. Ego Ego Ego.

Dana in a movie with him, looks like she is trying to be Britney Spears... gave up music forever , right after that.

I used to watch with amazement how she made it all so safe for 600 to 1000 people to dance in shared dreams of true deep freedom, and dance their dream to life. Sometimes the women felt so free they would peel off their bras and tops and showcase natures flopping beauty in all it's glory.; they were free intheir safety and back to nature's purity beyond the confines of Howard Hughes of GE Silicon.

I filmed away from it, I knew it was too pure for regular folks...One time, I had my camear rolling and walking with the crowd to the main stage, a precious pure golden girl fo 14 peeled her top off showing those new little tities just blossoming. I turned the camera off. I know who I am. I looked deep, but not with camera for YOU! No video can film such beauty. I know... so... I turned it off.

Did she see the camera?

Yes...

...did she cover herself?

NO, it was a non-issue. I protected her.

I know who's side I am on!

....

Back to Dana, the lead singer for Pele JU JU, who used to phone me and leave guitar playing on my voicemail, "pelase don't let me down"... I never will. I let her use my footage, go for it Dana! I said...
...let her use it for free... she tells me back then she will compensate me someday, but never asks for insight... gets booked into a Tim Allen movie on that footage, sees the bellly of the beast, then bails from the music, this country and is now a massage therapist somewhere else... anonymous.

Was it my fault?

Maybe... I am still wondering.

Whole audiences collapsed their egos and dreamnt together and danced in freedom...

On the other hand, I found out that her band was at odds with each other.

Same ole, same ole.

singing about peace, and fighting amonst themselves.

I remember how she expressed her sorrow about the egos of band members conflicting with each other, how she tried to make it work, but their envy of her put them all at odds.

Peace acitivist believers every last one, in a personal war with each other.

The ship sank.

And who, on God/Goddess's green earth is still fanning the spark they were fueling for us?

Me...

My footage, 15 concerts of theirs, safeguarded and protected all these years is being uploaded in little spurts to my humble website by Emo.

Thank Emo, not me.

Without somebody working for free for me, I'd be deader than dead.

as you can tell, I am damn close right here , right now.

You can see the fottage, if you can endure the download wait.... it will be worth it folks, and soon I will create a smaller version that is easier on those of you who haven't the bandwidth.

By the way, the inhternet equation is intentionally tuned down to super slow (even the fast is 1000% slower than it needs to be), becasue the poweer brokers want to keep you under control.

and I don't blame them.

I mean, give people a little freedom and they produce 10,000 disasters.
....for the life of me, I still can't believe we each get to drive our own cars.
Idiots everywhere.

........

There Dana was, trying to appeal to the audience in Jungle to Jungle as the next Britney. What a disaster. All gussied up. Ouch it hurts to watch it... singing a song long dead. meaningless music... "It's my life and I"ll do what I want" , who could be responsible enough to back that up???

Download Dana's real music, "Eye's to the Sun", "Magic"... you will see what I mean. if you can ehar in your heart, still ... you will grieve for a planet that destroys musical carreers in favor of Neil or Bruce, or whomever. there are more brilliant people ou there than you can concieve... most die of footprints by the famous caving in their heads... competing for th elast diem.

Ouch.

I wish I didn't know.

Far superior to Britney, I proclaim that Dana's music will endure long after we all die... showcased for the world out of my blood sweat and tears.

....meanwhile, today,... I see I caved in... I let myself be chased away by a cynic, by one or two envious judgemental people, simply becasue I AM A GERMAN PIT BULL GENETIC and fearful I will salugheter them with words, I pack up and go.... For the beneift of all, I let the bombs implode in my heart as I drive AWAY.

Now, I sit here among folks who, (if you believe what I overhear) don't give a rat's ass about anything except whether they are getting laid tonight, and how much money they made this week. Honesty inside that, I find refuge.

When I park in front of this place, I get no subversive comments... just one "anal retentive woman" in this this week's past 3 visits here, who thinks I live "in a pig stye" if I drive an art truck like mine. She's right, by the way. She sees my home, that is it.... the art truck. She's just a natural psychic... I salute her!... please give her some power... !

I AM THE HYPOCRIT! I get FAR Less gas mileage than a humvee 1, 2, or 3... but can I justify it by saying it's my motel/hotel room on wheels? I think not... but do, just to get through till tomorrow.

SUMMARY:

Folks will kill to protect their family... they do so each and every day, legally they destroy each other through legal business. I sit among them.

No one here has disrespected me, yet...or as made me feel less human here.

...or maybe they notice I am one of them.

Don't fool yourself with beliefs unless you are willling to sacrifice to live them.

Most folks are unable.

And I am admitting I am probably unable to do so too... just by the fact that I still breathe and have psuedo freedom, I must have hurt so many, walked on top of so many to survive.
...
such is planet earth.

Is it time for me to finally make it all official and sell out for a dollar?

Maybe I already have.

All I know is this, I will never march for peace among cowards.

Living the dixie land surprise

2005-12-20T19:16:00.000-08:00

So.

....did they really bomb the dikes in New Orleans?

And when we say "they".... who are "they" ?

first off, reality is this;
....folks used the cover of chaos and havoc to "off" their worst enemies.

(this is fact, not fiction).

... the people cleaning up the mess know they will never catch those folks, or find out why or if the good guys won.

secondly,
anybody who was out in the weather (out in the whether) was too busy saving their own skin when the winds went
.....really wild.
... really wild.

.... really wild.

and thirdly,

if "they" did bomb the dikes, nobody will ever catch them, whoever they are.

Now , let's see what gets rebuilt where the shanty towns once were. Money will rule the day and anything to bring back that city will be welcomed, since we all know that no jobs equals deserted.

so, would you really bre surprised if casinos by the mile, as far as the eyes can see is all we ever see down there?

I was there, riding the trolley car in 94. I looked around at the folks inpoverty and I really wondered if I was in the same country.

It's gotta be a better day than the days we locked up neighborhoods in poverty and crime. Nothing can justify intentional loss of life, limb, dwelling place or homestate.

but, if I could pray for anything good to come out of that debacle.... I was praying for it whil e watching it all happen from a distance and knowing folks who should have cared more were asleep at the wheel.

and it's this;

before we ever try to save the wrold for another oil tycoon friend of what's hisname, I would really, really love to see this country take care of it's own and feed it's own and embrace it's shame saluting the dollar above all else.

long ago we had technology that is only recently being released and still held back while folks in platinum plated limos crank out another newsreel about how we should be grateful for 3 dollar a gallon gas.

oooops I said too much.

nothing here is new.

watch the leaders who do that dance fade into their lost empty zombie glares.

be greatfully grateful you aren't them... and notice they couldn't turn the tide from where they stand like you can nif you decide not to go to that movie.

press play and listen to the soundtrack 20 years later.

you never missed a thing.

,

pay no attention to the love spells

2005-12-12T12:23:00.000-08:00

consider this....

I have recently posted a disclaimer against bloggerspam.... and now I have a whole new crop of bloggerspam... this time, folks pretending to be real people, using machines to sell their love spells.

If you see none in the previous comment sections, it's because I erased them by the time you read this.

If you see some there today, DO NOT GO TO THEIR SITES.

....first of all, let's consider the reality of "spells".

If you have to use any formula or trick or method to get something you could not get through God's grace, could it ever be good for you... I mean, actually GOOD for you or whomever you involve in such schemes?

Notice how many real estate, stock trade, and /or internet "getting rich" formulas are for sale to the masses on late night tv. A long time ago, I gave a strong notice against these kinds of programs.

If you think you can live free by tricking people out of a percentage of their money, or their love, or by feeding off the pillaging of earth... then think again.

In the next couple of years we are going to see the unraveling of the lives of some of our famous role models. We'll get to see inside their daily affairs and have one they were all pretending they were the "priviledged few", they raped everything around them and were left with emptiness.... just as we shall be left with emptiness the day we face whatever contraptions we create to keep people enslaved to us (if we do such things).

The power of thought is incredible, but prayers will always crunch amassed thought force. The ideal, in the heart of the greedy is to keep you and I and everyone glued to their formulas rather than on our knees to creator seeking to be a benefit.

You get to keep the smiles in your heart, when they are real.

Nothing beats the caress of a lover who actually chooses to caress you while you feel unworthy.

anyone who tricks a person into being a warm body next to them is a vampire.

Life created out of that always goes sour, revels in it's bitterness and gets wheeled room to room strapped into it's own prison eventually.

I met a guy a week ago who was 84.

He asked me to guess how old he was, and I guessed 74.

The truth was, I was trying to outwit him, since he never looked a day over 60.

What he told me is that SEX is always good for you, if it is built around love. He said, "we men need the smell, the touch, the love, the sound of women around us. And when there is a willing giving woman, it is in our own best interest to seek for her happiness as much as ours.

My only mistake in life was to push excellent women beyond their means to recieve. they'd been "messed with" by elements before I arrived in their world. I see clearly now that we always redeemede each other, adn over time I get the feedback that I was their blessing, as they were also mine. We hit the brick walls of how they had been tricked by people before we became "US". I never realized how deep thosescars could go, until I got the intensity from unjust rejection.

You wanna puch someone who can't trust love yet? You wanna trick them into trusting you, just long enough to feel their p***y around you? Well, you get to feel the reality that those tricks created a momentum towards your own personal brick wall.

Love spells are for cowards.

Tricks learned from tv soap operas are for cowards.

Everyone needs some alone times between deep love. A resting time, to discover just how we'd let out needs confuse us into lying or cheating our way towards another roll in the sack.

In my mind, heart, I now believe it's obviously ok for people to get that kind of love from the newspapers. Go ahead, get all you can, until you relaize that the one who watches you from afar and waits for you will never come if you say your love trick bring love that's "good enough".

Love will never be good enough, until it's good enough and you hardly ever see that kind of love until you get challenged by disease, loss, life.

The False love, the tricky love always runs.... It will always sell you out. It will never endure paikn for you.

The real love stick like glue through time.

I choose not to wish a person evil if they run from me. I choose not to take them back into my life, unless they admit to the tricks they pulled to keep me enslaved to them.

Anyone who is worth sharing life force with us, will show themselves to have grown through such sacrifice... as we shall also show such growth.

Notice how revenge lurks inside the trickster, and how readily it exerts agains those not bending to it's will. See that for what it is, and say no to the slip and slide.... make a silent retreat. You chose wrong ... and thank your lucky stars if you haven't bonded to them through the karma of a magic spell. Just think of how hard it will be to take your signature off them, once you try to leave!

There is only ONE love, and that is the one p;rovided by creator, if we walk in the path of mercy we deserve such love and will only shine in that walk if we have cleared ourselves of strategies exerting force over another's choices.

I think I've said this enough.

Every time I lost love, I was only being faced with the illusion of rejection. I was always offered formulas to take control over that other person's choices.

I am really, really , really grateful I never got lost in that equation.

I'll take an "empty" life any day of the week, rather than turn another peerson into a robot. I have plenty of work just to free my own robot self to live the ultimate potential with which I was gifted.

Make your own choice.... but don't be going to these love spell sites as if I recommended them!!

I surely do not.

...they are liars, theives, and predators.

....nothing more to say on this subject.

....have a great day.