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Month: May 2012

The Renaissance of American Television

May 31, 2012


     Tonight aired a special 2 hour season finale of the new hit television series TOUCH starring Kiefer Sutherland. What makes TOUCH special is not just that it hosts smart intelligent writing, or that it’s focus is on helping people to make the world a better place — definite rarities in the history of American television (there’s a reason why they called it “the boob tube” in days gone by), but more importantly TOUCH is special because it’s one of many recently new shows on American television that all share those same qualities. There aren’t many of them. At least not yet. In fact only a handful. One handful. Most TV today is still just as shallow stupid predictable mean spirited and intelligence-insulting as it’s always been, catering to the lowest common denominator of our great society.
     But things have been changing lately. For a few years. Some might say it started with the premier of CALIFORNICATION on Showtime, where among other things one can listen to some of the best writing on the small OR big screen in recent memory. Take away it’s pandering gratuitous over the top sexual content, and the blatant lack of spirit or spirituality in the show, as if there’s truly nothing deeper than skin, nor farther than the eye can see, and CALIFORNICATION is downright brilliant at times. Never mind that the show has now been on way too long and both the writers and the actors have become way too comfortable and proud of themselves. For a while CALIFORNICATION heralded a new age where American television was not just for the suburban 9 to 5 set.

     REALTIME WITH BILL MAHER, along with THE COLBERT REPORT, JON STEWART, DEMOCRACY NOW and even shows like HOMELAND and BOARDWALK EMPIRE on HBO, or DOWNTON ABBEY on PBS have shown real promise that sometimes TV CAN be better than good. And in fact it’s getting better and better. Some might call it a modern renaissance. One long hoped for. More than one arts and entertainment section has recognized that some of this generation’s greatest actors have made the leap to the small screen, and not only not doused their career with gasoline and flame, but have actually produced remarkably rewarding results for themselves and their careers, as well as for an ever growing viewing audience that for a while judged television as the nursing home for washed up actors, actresses and writers. Or at best, a truck stop in between work on the big screen.
     But not anymore. Television today is beginning to offer more and more high quality art and entertainment, getting better and better with each passing season. Coincidentally it is simultaneously also becoming increasingly worse. Other aspects of it at least. There are after all over 500 channels on some cable packages. So for every TOUCH there’s five to ten new JERSEY SHOREs or REAL HOUSEWIVES. Perhaps it’s no coincidence but rather a simple result of Newtonian physics playing out, through the expression of human consciousness — the underlying mechanism of television content after all. As some on earth evolve, creating more substantive intelligent content that cares and isn’t afraid to show it, others are allowing their more base desires to flow, creating increasingly more vulgar and shallow content. A yin and yang thing. Just like life itself. Where for every action there is an opposite reaction. 
     Either way, for those of us who shunned American television for the better part of our lives for just this reason, we can continue to do so for the rest of our lives if we so choose. But we can no longer lay claim to being the cool kids on the block for “not watching TV because it sucks and isn’t good for the health of our mind heart or spirit.” There’s actually some damn fine creative TV being made right now in our here-now history. A renaissance? Well, maybe not let’s go that far. At least not yet. But it does make one curious as to just how far this evolution is going to run and how good American television is going to get in the process. TOUCH is just one example of how evolved humankind — at least from what we can observe in the Western world — is becoming. Recognizing this, being a part of it, can only be described as being good for the heart and spirit. And like it or not, those who still refuse to partake on the simple grounds that regardless of how good it gets they are still just too good for it just might be missing out on something not only very good, but good for them as well.  

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The Renaissance of American Television

May 31, 2012



Tonight aired a special 2 hour season finale of the new hit television series TOUCH starring Kiefer Sutherland. What makes TOUCH special is not just that it hosts smart intelligent writing, or that it’s focus is on helping people to make the world a better place — definite rarities in the history of American television (there’s a reason why they called it “the boob tube” in days gone by), but more importantly TOUCH is special because it’s one of many recently new shows on American television that all share those same qualities. There aren’t many of them. At least not yet. In fact only a handful. One handful. Most TV today is still just as shallow stupid predictable mean spirited and intelligence-insulting as it’s always been, catering to the lowest common denominator of our great society.

But things have been changing lately. For a few years. Some might say it started with the premier of CALIFORNICATION on Showtime, where among other things one can listen to some of the best writing on the small OR big screen in recent memory. Take away it’s pandering gratuitous over the top sexual content, and the blatant lack of spirit or spirituality in the show, as if there’s truly nothing deeper than skin, nor farther than the eye can see, and CALIFORNICATION is downright brilliant at times. Never mind that the show has now been on way too long and both the writers and the actors have become way too comfortable and proud of themselves. For a while CALIFORNICATION heralded a new age where American television was not just for the suburban 9 to 5 set.


REALTIME WITH BILL MAHER, along with THE COLBERT REPORT, JON STEWART, DEMOCRACY NOW and even shows like HOMELAND and BOARDWALK EMPIRE on HBO, or DOWNTON ABBEY on PBS have shown real promise that sometimes TV CAN be better than good. And in fact it’s getting better and better. Some might call it a modern renaissance. One long hoped for. More than one arts and entertainment section has recognized that some of this generation’s greatest actors have made the leap to the small screen, and not only not doused their career with gasoline and flame, but have actually produced remarkably rewarding results for themselves and their careers, as well as for an ever growing viewing audience that for a while judged television as the nursing home for washed up actors, actresses and writers. Or at best, a truck stop in between work on the big screen.

But not anymore. Television today is beginning to offer more and more high quality art and entertainment, getting better and better with each passing season. Coincidentally it is simultaneously also becoming increasingly worse. Other aspects of it at least. There are after all over 500 channels on some cable packages. So for every TOUCH there’s five to ten new JERSEY SHOREs or REAL HOUSEWIVES. Perhaps it’s no coincidence but rather a simple result of Newtonian physics playing out, through the expression of human consciousness — the underlying mechanism of television content after all. As some on earth evolve, creating more substantive intelligent content that cares and isn’t afraid to show it, others are allowing their more base desires to flow, creating increasingly more vulgar and shallow content. A yin and yang thing. Just like life itself. Where for every action there is an opposite reaction.

Either way, for those of us who shunned American television for the better part of our lives for just this reason, we can continue to do so for the rest of our lives if we so choose. But we can no longer lay claim to being the cool kids on the block for “not watching TV because it sucks and isn’t good for the health of our mind heart or spirit.” There’s actually some damn fine creative TV being made right now in our here-now history. A renaissance? Well, maybe not let’s go that far. At least not yet. But it does make one curious as to just how far this evolution is going to run and how good American television is going to get in the process. TOUCH is just one example of how evolved humankind — at least from what we can observe in the Western world — is becoming. Recognizing this, being a part of it, can only be described as being good for the heart and spirit. And like it or not, those who still refuse to partake on the simple grounds that regardless of how good it gets they are still just too good for it just might be missing out on something not only very good, but good for them as well.



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Uncategorized Californication, Democracy Now, Downton Abbey, Jersey Shore, Jon Stewart, Kiefer Sutherland

Why Memorial Day is Not a Holiday

May 29, 2012

     Today is Memorial Day. I know this because the local and national news is all abuzz this weekend about it. It’s turned into one of the most popular holidays of the year for most Americans. Photographs and video footage of sun bathers and suburban family barbeques abound and for days we’ve been bombarded by traffic updates and weather predictions. Every now and then someone might make mention of “our brave men and women in uniform”, but for the most part we hear about the great relief it is to Americans coast to coast to have finally made it yet again to this most coveted three day weekend.
     Like many Americans I grew up not knowing what a Memorial Day was. I didn’t actually learn the true meaning of “Memorial Day” until I was well into my late twenties. And quite by accident. But I’ll never forget the day that I did finally discover its meaning. The holiday magically appeared out of nowhere as it always did. I wasn’t prepared for it, not ever having children nor “a normal job” and thus never needing to know when “three-day weekends” arise in our shared annual calendar. It wasn’t until I woke up that morning that I discovered that it was Memorial Day. Sure I’d celebrated plenty of Memorial Day weekends with the fam and various groups of friends through the years. But frankly I always got all those three day weekends confused, they always took me by surprise, and frankly I never saw much reason in fixing that. President’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Labor Day. They came and went, all anonymously blended into the social fabric of the plebeian mainstream society I was trying desperately not to fit into since I could remember. 
     I can’t speak for anyone else, but three day weekends were three day weekends at best and that was that. Excuses to get out of school when we were younger. And after that, well, most of the time I usually missed them entirely. Rockers, artists, entertainers live in worlds that are so isolated, unique and far removed from normal that most people I have known throughout my life think I’m joking when I tell them things like that. I first started to encounter the odd looks and laughs regarding how alien our lifestyle was at some point during the college years. Someone in the normal world would ask “Hey man what are you doing for Memorial Day Weekend?” To which I’d reply “Oh yeah? When’s that?”
     I must confess that I still don’t actually know “when” Memorial Day weekend is. I just happen to know that it’s “this” weekend. And for the others… Forget about it. People say “you can’t wear white after Labor Day”, which in itself is a helpful tip surely. Except one has to know when Labor Day is to make use of it. And I haven’t got a clue. St. Patrick’s Day is another one. You figure those are the kinds of things people learn when they get old and have nothing better to do. When you’re riding the beast, living full tilt, surfing in the zone and making the most out of each moment you’re alive, why the fuck would you care when these silly holidays for the masses are? Now that’s just some hardcore truth flying out of the mouth of babes there. And perhaps I’m as innocent in my lack of understanding the importance people attach to these holidays as I am ignorant about it. But truth be told it’s not like I’m ever going to head out to some barbeque to drink a few beers and talk baseball with the guys while the ladies do whatever ladies do at such things any time soon in this life just because “it’s a three day weekend”. It’s just not the kind of life we live in the world of art and entertainment.
     But on said day, in late twenties as mentioned before, I woke up to discover that it was indeed one of those “Memorial Days”, I hadn’t missed it, and lo and behold I actually felt a desire to do something about it. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but I was curious as to what people did on these days. So I rang Ferret. As usual he wasn’t doing anything. Just sitting around watching TV and playing his drums. I cruised over to his house on the premise that we would eventually “do something”. When I walked in I made myself comfortable and proceeded to just sit and watch the TV that he had on. I I didn’t actually have TV. I hadn’t had what people call TV since I had left home for college ten years earlier. Like I said, it was a different world we lived in. Out of the loop would be an understatement if attempting to describe the kind of lifestyle we lived. The first thing I noticed was that the television was filled with images of old men in military uniforms at what appeared to be special public galas. Even the president was at some of them.
     I remember getting a real palpable feeling of emotion starting to swell up inside of me. I was feeling surprisingly moved and patriotic. After a thirty minutes or so Ferret started complaining. “Come on man, turn this shit off. Fuck! Why do you always want to watch this serious crap?!” But I was deeply engrossed in what I was seeing and hearing. It turned out that Memorial Day was a serious holiday, if that’s what you want to call it. I wouldn’t. It’s more of a day of mourning and remembrance for our military soldiers who have died in battle. And there’s a truckload of them. More than a million. Unfortunately most people don’t treat it that way these days. Which is odd. And sad. Considering that our country is currently at war right now in at least four different countries overseas. But times have changed a lot since the days of 1868 when the Day was first created. Back then people went to the grave sites of loved ones who died in battle to lay down flowers to honor and remember them. Solemn would be the word I would choose to describe the occasion. Heartbreaking would be another. I was forever changed from that day with Ferret. He never quite got into it the way I did, but after a few more shows about it, even he started to feel the patriotic bug. At least in the moment.
     Ever since that moment of learning what it was all about, I have had a tough time with Memorial Day. It originated during the Civil War. A way to honor men we’d lost on both sides. But the tradition continued. The United States has started or participated in over fifty additional wars, battles or military operations since the Civil War. In total over 1,400,000 men and women have been killed. Another 1,500,000 have been maimed, wounded or seriously injured. That’s almost three-million Americans killed or injured. Celebrating the lives and deaths of our men and women in the military who served in World War I or II seems a no-brainer. It feels obligatory if you live and love here. And downright blasphemous if you don’t do it in some way. The problem is  what happened before and after. That’s when it gets tricky.
     Truth is I never gave much attention to thinking about things like wars or the military. Even though I grew up in a military family on my father’s side, i.e. my father, grandfather, and great grandfather all served in the military and fought in at least one war, I always leaned towards music and the arts since I was born. The family’s dark horse. Through the combination of influences from the world of music and the world of arts and letters, I got the peace bug at an early age. Between Thoreau, Bob Dylan and John Lennon my fate as a peacenik was pretty much sealed before I could walk. The older I got, the closer it came to my time to register for selective service. For years I resisted. Just didn’t do it. Swore I would never. And that worked for a long time. I wasn’t raised in the post World War II generation. I was raised in the post Vietnam War generation. And if there was one thing that separated our generations fundamentally, it was what we learned about the United States and war.
     Unlike our parents and grandparents, we were taught that the United States government was a greedy imperialist invading nation. Had been ever since our victory in World War II. Something went wrong in our hearts and minds. President Eisenhower, a war General himself, even warned us about it in his farewell speech. Told us that we were in jeopardy of losing control of the country to a giant conglomerate of money and power hungry weapons manufacturers and a blood thirsty military. [the origin of the term “military industrial complex”] That together they were starting to seize control of the mechanisms that run our very government.
     Of course this is all old news to most. Yet one gets the feeling that people still don’t realize how far gone it is. A few do. But most still seem to be drinking the Kool-Aid. The Vietnam War was a symptomatic evolution of Eisenhower’s warning. The people of the United States were brought into it based on a piggish greed by a select few who we as a people will probably never know, the entire war based on lies and false pretenses. In the twenty plus years the US government and military either openly or secretly fought that war, despite mass protests by the American people, they killed millions and millions of innocent people in countries that most Americans had never even heard of. They also tragically were responsible for the deaths and wounding of over 200,000 young Americans. Young Americans we will never see again and can never get back.
     On and on it went. Right up into the present day. One country after another invaded or bombed or both if they didn’t agree to play ball with the big bad nuclear bomb dropping United States of America. The largest global protests and demonstrations in human history took place in the year 2003. All over the earth Countries of all faiths backgrounds races and nationalities came together in solidarity to accomplish one thing: try to stop the United States government, then under the leadership of the Cheney/Bush regime, from viciously invading the small country of Iraq. But to no avail. The country was attacked, over a million people killed in total, the government was overthrown and an American-friendly government was installed. A system that has continued to be repeated time and time again since the 1940s. U.S. troops are still there and will be for years to come.
     The same is unfortunately true for Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Yemen. Not to mention covert opps that are happening all over the globe without the knowledge of the American people yet. My friends and I have personally lost a few buddies from high school and college who were fighting over in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s a hard pill to swallow. Especially when thinking of their parents and wives and children. I’ve got a few friends and family members who are in both countries now. One of them confided in me a few months ago that he felt disgusted doing what they’re doing over there. That many of them do. When I asked him what they’re doing, he told me “building oil wells or pipelines. Military bases over oil wells and pipelines running from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf. That’s our main job. Build them and keep the people away from them.” Of course I knew this was true. We all did. But thinking it’s true is different than hearing it’s true firsthand from someone who’s over there doing it.
     In days gone by it was easy to honor our military and the men who led them. When we think of the Revolutionary War. we think of the so-called Founding Fathers, courageous visionaries who led brave men into battle to fight for our freedom against tyranny. In most of the wars the United States has fought since World War II, we’ve been the tyranny, and the enemies have been the brave men and women fighting for their freedom. We call the people we shoot at and bomb “insurgents” and yet the people we shoot at and bomb call us the “insurgents”. It’s a contradiction we have to live with everyday as American citizens. Made all the more painful, like an infection that is only getting worse, every time we hear of yet another soldier killed. Made even worse when we hear politicians who have never fought in a war and never plan to talk openly about their potential plans to invade or attack yet another country for one reason or another. They talk a good talk. But they won’t be doing any fighting or seeing any battles. They’ll send young kids over to do it for them. And if they die, “well, that’s the breaks. You should have kept your kids out of the military like I did,” you can hear Mitt Romney saying. “My kids are helping serve their country by helping get me elected as president,” he said. That’s a direct quote. Eisenhower is probably doing 360s in his grave.    
     Like I said, Memorial Day is a tough one. On the one hand, we are trapped in a country with a government addicted to starting wars with other countries and we can’t do anything about it. On the other hand, as compassionate people we feel a deep sense of loss for our fellow brothers and sisters who have been killed in these wars. We don’t blame them. How can we? They don’t knowingly march off to war knowing these things. I’ve never met one who has. If they knew these things they wouldn’t be marching off to war. For if there’s one thing we can honestly say about American soldiers in the military it’s that they’re some of the most patriotic people in the country. They truly believe they are serving the best interests of their country and their fellow citizens, fighting heroically for freedom and democracy and liberty. It’s only after they get there, some of them, that they begin to see the bigger picture. After that, either blood-lust or insanity over takes them. Or they simply never bother to put the pieces together, instead they just follow orders from the next up in the chain of command. But these are the innocents. They may be responsible for killing other innocents in far away countries the United States has no business being in, but they’re just as innocent as the people they’re killing.

     That’s why no matter how against unilateral unprovoked military invasions of other countries I am, I still feel a deep sense of respect and admiration and appreciation for the soldiers who get called into active duty and risk their very lives to do so. It is why on Memorial Day I don’t feel too much like celebrating or barbequing or sunbathing. And it’s why I don’t say things like “Happy Memorial Day” or “Have a great Memorial day Weekend”. Perhaps if we spent less time vacationing and partying and going to the beach during these three days, and more time memorializing all our dead and contemplating why they’re dead, maybe we’d figure out a way to stop any more from dying, and maybe we’d figure out a way to stop our government from going to war whenever they want to whether we the people want them to or not. It may sound far fetched. But we have to at least try.

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The Importance of Being Nice

May 27, 2012


          Watching the film ANOTHER YEAR by Mike Leigh. Such a simple film. And through this simplicity so deep, moving and impactful. I dare say I don’t think I’ll forget these characters. At least not anytime soon. About midway through the movie, the simplest thought occurred to me. How important it is to be a nice person. Sounds simple enough, I know. But  how often do we forget to stop focusing on ourselves and our own needs, longings and desires to remember to be nice to others?
          There are plenty of nice people in the world. We meet them now and then. For me personally I find that whenever I meet someone who seems truly kind hearted, sincere and genuine it has an uncanny ability to stop time for a minute or two and rattle me up. There’s just something special about them. They don’t come off all preoccupied with themselves. They look you in the eye. They’re soft. They seem genuinely interested in you and how you are doing. My mom is actually one of those people. I feel lucky to be able to feel comfortable saying that. But she really is. No matter how hard things get in her life, and God bless her, things have just almost always been hard for her in this life, she still has time for people. She still comes off sincerely interested in how they’re doing. She stops and listens. She offers advice that is real advice rather than simply an excuse to be heard speaking. She’s a therapist by trade who seems to do more work for free for her clients than for her usual fees. She claims she just can’t help it.  That she can’t very well “push people away just because they can’t pay.” Well I know plenty of therapists who can. And do. Everyday of the week.

          Genuinely nice people are some of the most valuable commodities we have on planet earth. Of course, “nice” is a subjective term. a descriptive adjective that can potentially mean many different things to many people. But in general, most people have at least a broad understanding of what it means. The poster above does a decent job of explaining it. Honest, trustworthy, innocent due to a rare absence of guilt. Capable of admitting their mistakes, and further, ready and able to apologize and make amends for them. Admitting we are wrong, letting go of the need to be right in the moment of disagreement is no easy task. I can vouch for that. It hurts. It actually hurts your insides. But the pain fades quickly once the mistake is acknowledged and apologized for. This is something I have learned time and time again and something I consider a mini-miracle. Nice people remember who you are. They are grateful for your friendship. They are grateful for a lot of things. They stay close to their family and friends. They go out of their way to do kind things for others. It shows on their face, nice people.
          You know that grimace that seems permanently plastered on the countenance of Donald Trump? That’s kind of like the opposite of being a nice person showing on someone’s face. It’s as if our consciousness shines through the eyes, and more profoundly shapes the looks our faces make. Over time these looks, if repeated enough, remain. Forever imprinted like water-scarred gorges and valleys at the bottom of dried up riverbeds. You know you are in the presence of a nice person almost from the moment you meet. In fact you don’t even have to meet them in person. You can tell on the phone or on the internet, just through your interactions with them. It’s not rocket science. Nice is nice and anything else is everything else but.
          Nice people remind me what a sod I am. I am lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it) to be in an industry where almost no matter what we do we are constantly being accused of being way nicer than we actually are. Don’t get me wrong. I try. I try hard. I am in a constant state of stopping and resetting. But I feel terribly humbled when people over-thank me for doing something nice, as if it’s some kind of a rare occurrence. As if it’s an unnatural state of humankind, to do nice things. In a way it makes me a tad uncomfortable. I wish being nice was such a normal state for us here that we didn’t have to feel obliged to thank people when they did something nice for us. Of course we still would, because that’s the nice thing to do.
          One of the most significant things we can observe about this subject in modern times is that it isn’t usually easy to be nice in today’s world. In fact I would venture to say it never has been. It’s a dog eat dog world as they say. Nice guys finish last. One assumes nice girls finish last too. Or so they say. Being nice can get you in a lot of trouble. Especially when dealing with not so nice people. I remember one time someone very close to me, a not so nice person, was glancing at a set of photos i brought back from a trip to Brasil that I had just returned from, and when she got to one particular photo of me with my arm around a new friend I had made there, she stared at it longer than she had stared at any of the other photographs. I asked her what she was looking at. “You’re a nice person aren’t you?” she asked. I didn’t know how to reply. “I don’t know… Why do you ask?” “Well just from the look on your face… I mean, you’re serious here. You really mean it…” “Mean what?” “Your smile. You’re really smiling. That’s you. That’s really you. You’re really a nice person.” Well I didn’t know what else to do but thank her. I understood what she was saying. And it made me feel good, yet it also made me feel a bit uncomfortable too. Why did she harp on that? Aren’t we all nice? Don’t we all mean it when we smile?
          Well obviously not. A few days later, this person, Cleopatra Ecstasy to be exact, began a slow well thought out strategy that left me broke and penniless and her wealthy and owning every cent I had ever earned and saved in my entire life less than a year later. Her method was easy and quite transparent looking back on it now. All she had to do was trust in my being nice. She knew I would never do anything “not nice”. Even if she did. She also knew that I wouldn’t tell her any untruths. Nor deceive her in any way. Even if she did. She also knew that no matter how many times she lied to me or did me harm that all she had to do was apologize and I would forgive her. If she promised not to do it again, she knew I would believe her. It took less than six months for her to abscond with everything I owned. Bank accounts, credit cards, cash accounts, real estate, stock and other equities, and even a multi-million dollar multi-national business that she then sold for a small fortune. In the end I could do nothing about it except take my medicine like a man and begin again.
          Which is where I sit today. Five years into beginning again. The funny thing is that instead of jading me or making me cynical and hard, if anything it made me an even nicer person. I don’t know why exactly. I suppose that’s a topic for another story of exploration. Through that experience I learned many things. One of them being that there are some truly not-nice people in the world. Regardless of whether or not you’re nice or not. I also learned that there is no true justice in the universe in relation to any kind of karmic return on your niceness when dealing with others who are not nice. If you’re a nice person, don’t look for a payoff for it from people who aren’t like you. Your payoff is how you feel inside. Nothing more. The not nice people of the world aren’t going to turn over a new leaf from your example like in some Hollywood movie and start being nice to you. They are who they are. And we can’t change them.  
          What we can do though is mix a bit of brains with our niceness and use discernment to protect ourselves from these kinds of predators who prey on the kindness and good nature of genuinely nice people. We can still be nice to them. But from a distance. We cannot make the mistake of believing that just because we are nice we are somehow protected; nor can we allow ourselves to self sabotage by placing ourselves in harm’s way through associating with people who are not nice hoping it may rub off on them. It usually doesn’t. In fact, it usually just gets us hurt or taken advantage of. And for that, we are guilty of being foolhardy. Nice, but just not very smart. 
          But I learned something else from the experience too. Going from rich to poor, from a lavish lifestyle to homeless wasn’t easy. It was downright scary. But I was never without help. In fact if I ever wanted proof that being nice pays off in a multitude of ways that we can never imagine, I got that proof ten times over through experiencing so much help during those first few years of going back up to hero from zero that I myself was even able to help others at the same time. And from a position of being flat broke and homeless. It showed me that nice guys don’t always finish last. They may fall into last place every now and then, maybe even more than other people, just through the inherent vulnerability of being nice. But as miraculous as it may seem, we’re back on top in no time. Call it God, angels, the flow of the universe, good karma, or simply the practical result of what you do comes back to you – a physical action-reaction mechanism.
          But being nice does pay off. Not just in how good we feel when we wake up everyday, but also in how our lives tend to play out. Of course this means that we have to keep on our toes and keep remembering to focus our attention on deliberately being a nice person. Luckily for all of us, as with most things, practice make perfect. The more we do it the easier it gets. And soon it’s just our natural state. But there is always room for improvement. Like I said, encountering nice people in the world usually just makes me feel remember how much nice I still can be. And I think that’s a good thing. I get the feeling there’s probably no limit to how nice we can be.  

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Who Can You Trust?

May 25, 2012

     A member of a Facebook Page I started for Independent Voters asked us to Share an article he wrote. At first read, it seemed obvious that it would make no sense to post it because it has a hard-right, conservative agenda and therefore would not be relevant to a Page dedicated to Independent-minded American voters. But we are posting it as he requested. Why? Because it illustrates exactly what is wrong with the “two-party system” way of thinking in America today. If you ever find yourself asking “can I trust the accuracy of what this person is saying when it comes to government or socio-political ideas?” ask yourself a simple question: are they a Democrat or Republican? If so, if either, then the answer is “no”.
     Someone who has deliberately chosen to place themselves in one box that is ideologically illogical over another box that is equally ideologically illogical always has an agenda that is not being voiced, a very specific agenda: i.e. to see “their Party” win. Therefore their ideas are filtered through and skewed by this desire to win. They may believe that “their way” is the right way for the country, so no one can doubt their claim to sincerely love their country and want what’s best for it. No one should take that away from them. But their agenda, their desire to see their party win, is what drives their thought processes. Any viewpoints or ideas they share will inherently lean either heavily or at best slightly more in the direction of the propaganda and dogma of their chosen political party — rather than in the direction of logical pragmatic and rational thought for “what is best”. It is no different than if someone voluntarily claimed to be a Communist or a Fascist for that matter. They are all boxes with agendas to win. Not to “do what is best.”

     Their loyalty will always be to their desire to be on the winning side, to be right, rather than to what is best for the country they are a citizen of. An Independent Voter is someone who has found their way out of the box. If they freely claim to have no loyalty to any political party but to only desire what is best for their country, then they have a much better chance of sharing information that is unbiased, factual and accurate, as well as offering ideas and viewpoints that are free from indoctrination and therefore perhaps valuable.
     In a very short time, more Americans will register as Independents than either of the two historically traditional political parties in the United States. Soon after that, the Independents will out-number both Parties combined. Of course, what the Independents will do with that majority is still an unknown and up for grabs. But I dare say it will not look like what we have today. And for a variety of reasons that will be a very good thing for the United States of America.

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Germany Joins the Personal Expression Revolution

May 24, 2012

     Last night Princess Little Tree and I were speaking about the incredible shifts we have seen in global democratization over the last two years. Specifically in the context of the book I have been working on along with a few others for the last five years entitled We Are The Revolution – Welcome to the Age of Personal Expression, [we refer to it as PE for short when discussing it]. Years and years of research has been poured into the work, with a host of brilliant minds contributing to it’s content.
     We were talking about the last chapter, entitled Dream On, which discusses the ramifications of the Personal Expression Age and what it might bring forth in the near future. How just a few short years ago in late 2007 when we were really pounding out the research (and the hours) I had proposed that the Personal Expression Age has the potential to not just bring people closer together and transform every industry on planet earth in order to make the world a more people-friendly environment, rather than greed, government or corporate friendly, but that in the near future we would see full on peoples’ revolutions of entire governments around the world. Bear in mind this was 2007 and the idea seemed absolutely outlandish. A dream. An ideal. A vision of something that could happen, inevitably would happen, but in the “future”. We did not attach a date to when this potentiality might come into being. But I was sure that once the PEA swung into full gear that it was an inevitable ramification of the age.
     Of course we were thrilled at the thought of it, but were sure it was something that we would see in the “far away” future. Ten years. Twenty years. It was very much an ideal, as opposed to a formidable reality, at that point. Needless to say, when we saw the first country, Tunisia, go down in what has now become known as the Arab Spring, all of us involved in the project just stood there with our mouths hanging open. We must have spoken about this exact event for hundreds of hours while we paced the room back and forth contemplating and discussing the ramifications of things to come in what we term the Personal Expression Revolution. We knew it would happen, or at least hoped it would; but we didn’t know when. That’s why we titled the chapter Dream On. The rest of the book is filled with the research about the shifts and changes we were either already seeing take place all over the world in various different industries, or that we proposed would soon take place. But the idea that the Personal Expression Age once in overdrive would transform entire nations from fascist oligarchies into people’s democratic republics still seemed like a dream at best.

     And yet there it was. Right in front of our eyes. And a mere three and four years after predicting it. Not ten to twenty. Then came Egypt. And Libya. Etc. Over the last few months I have been reworking the last chapter to take into account what has transpired over the last two years in order to incorporate the profound changes we have seen take place around the world now that the Personal Expression Age has swung into full motion, or overdrive. The basic premise of the last chapter now is predicated on the fact that as far back as 2007 the Age was already presenting clues that full on peoples’ revolutions of entire countries would soon be possible. And further, the question we now have to ask is not whether or not the Age of Personal Expression will make full scale revolutions of entire nation states by the people for the people possible, nor when that might happen. Because we have already witnessed this happen. Numerous times over the last two years. Years before we proposed it possible. Instead the question we should be asking ourselves now is how MUCH potential does the Age really possess in terms of overcoming any grand scale limitations our global society’s collective consciousness might still be holding onto.
     In other words, what are the larger obstacles we see as a people that are still in our way to making the world an entirely people-friendly place to live that seem absolutely insurmountable? Five years ago we believed that as bold beautiful and idealistic a dream as it was, full on revolutions of countries by the people was still a pretty far fetched notion. We even feared that the mere mention of it as a probability might endanger the more concrete theories proposed in the rest of the book. Now we know that we were right on. In fact, if anything we were behind schedule and underestimated the power and potential of the Age. But now that we have seen it bring about tremendous change in the Middle East and Africa, what about North Korea? Iran? The United States? China? Russia?
     See? The idea seems ludicrous. NOW. How on earth will the American people or the Chinese or Russian people ever be able to harness enough power to take back control of THEIR countries? A little country like Tunisia? Sure. But Iran? The U.S.? North Korea? A new American revolution? Really? In our lifetime? And yet we held the same belief about any people from any country being able to overthrow their government just a mere five years ago when first outlining the last chapter of the book. So now we have a new dream. We now know that if people, any people, come together for an aligned cause and take full advantage of the tools and technologies of the Personal Expression Age that ANYTHING is possible. We’ve seen it first hand in numerous industries and areas of our lives across the globe, all of which are discussed in detail in the book. And we’ve now seen it affect entire governments in a way we only dreamed about a short time ago.
     The photograph above was taken on May 19th, 2012 in Frankfurt, Germany. It came with some captioning that I will paste below as is. A big congratulations is due to the German people. They’ve got a seemingly tough road ahead of them, as do many of Earth’s countries it would appear. The bigger the country the tougher it seems it may be for the people to affect major change. But this photograph speaks more about where we are headed in the Personal Expression Revolution — whether it’s Occupy or the Tea Party, Germany, Canada, Greece or Finland — than any words could. Hats off to the German police. Let us hope that the rest of the world is watching.

Caption to the photograph above: From Occupy Frankfurt. May 19, 2012.
The German police took off their helmets and marched with the protest clearing the way for them. The police coming over to serve and protect the people… Blockupy Frankfurt. Police are escorting, not participating. Reports of an estimated 20,000+ protesters. Nice to see their faces…. and their humanity coming through… WATCH THIS VIDEO: #blockupy. Frankfurt
http://youtu.be/5ebC8_q0zCM German police officers escort an anti-capitalism protest march with some 20,000 people in Frankfurt, Germany, Saturday, May 19, 2012. Protesters peacefully filled the city center of continental Europe’s biggest financial hub in their protest against the dominance of banks and what they perceive to be untamed capitalism, Frankfurt police spokesman Ruediger Regis said. The protest group calling itself Blockupy has called for blocking the access to the European Central Bank, which is located in Frankfurt’s business district. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
source: http://www.globalwinnipeg.com/world/20000+people+march+at+a+frankfurt+occupy+protest+german+police/6442644693/story.html

Photo/news source: http://www.660news.com/news/world/article/364434–german-police-says-some-10-000-are-marching-at-a-frankfurt-occupy-protest-rally

Associated Press Photo verified: http://www.globalwinnipeg.com/world/20000+people+march+at+a+frankfurt+occupy+protest+german+police/6442644693/story.html

(Photographer AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Wall Street journal Verified
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303360504577414370915099252.html

Washington Post verified
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/german-police-says-some-10000-are-marching-at-a-frankfurt-occupy-protest-rally/2012/05/19/gIQA3uTfaU_story.html

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Good Company

May 20, 2012

“My idea of good company is the company of clever, well informed people who have a great deal of conversation.”
— Jane Austen

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Piers Morgan Panders

May 16, 2012

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Take Two Aspirins and Call Yourself in the Morning

May 16, 2012

Took wife to Naturopath (ND) to seek additional help in treating 1 particular issue we were being challenged with. Took wife off of her custom designed nutritional supplement protocol I had created for her back in ’02 and been tweaking ever since to place her on ND’s recommended supplements. Wife quickly tailspins into what appears to be a nervous breakdown. ND claims it’s “just the natural result of normal aging, not much we can do about it”. Put wife back on her usual supplements, slightly tweaked, within three days wife is back and feels better. Within one month wife looks and feels better than ever, shining happy glowing radiant. Lessons learned. Like · Virginia Trujillo, Peggy Amer and 16 others like this. Jennifer Allison Maybe being a doctor is your true calling! 9 hours ago · Unlike · 1 Jennifer Allison A rock star doctor. 9 hours ago · Unlike · 1 Christen McGinnes Oh thank God you found something that works for Nahal! I’m so happy for you both. Each body needs different nutritional and other requirements in order to thrive. My dad is a diabetic from childhood, I have chemical depression. Finding the right medication for us is a necessity. I’m so glad that you both persevered to find that right balance instead of accepting “natural aging” bs. Prayers for you that you keep on it! Elizabeth Levine Rigie Oh yeah! The “aging” excuse.. that’s what they say when resignation is easier.. glad to hear you went back to what works.. the body never lies! 7 hours ago · Unlike · 2 Ed Hale No it doesn’t. We found it to be a powerful exercise in remembering how important it is to take responsibility for your own health, God help those who really do have to rely solely on the advice of others. 6 hours ago · Like · 2 Ed Hale And also in trusting your intuition. We “wanted” the ND to “know more than Ed”. As we always do. She’s super nice and we’ve actually become friends with her now. It was a relief, a new “nice and safe” feeling to think that we had found someone kickbutt and knowledgable who we could go to for health and wellness questions or issues for the whole family. But in those last few conf calls, I intuitively knew she was lost. It took me some time to let go of that desire for her to be right, to be the doctor, to handle it. I finally scribbled a note to PLT, on our last call, “just be nice. I know what to do. We can hang up.” Sometimes it’s not easy to trust ourselves or our intuition. But every day I seem to get better and better at it. It might be the most powerful thing I got from HP so far (and that says a lot).

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Bowing to the Tao

May 16, 2012

Mourning the death of friends grndmthr + other friend’s moms 1 and 5 yrs ago while celebrating the birth of another friend’s new baby + my nieces’ graduation + numerous birthdays all in the same day… the maddening awe of the circle of life. And of course that barely scratches the surface. No logic no reason no rationality. No justice no fairness no that makes senseness. Just up and down isness. Our job seems to be just to accept and deal with it as elegantly and compassionately as humanly possible. Beneath every new birth or graduation there is the memory of a lost loved one, and vice versa. Congratulations and condolences remind us how precious and valuable, near miraculous, each moment of life is here now. Chris Price Zach Ziskin Fernando Perdomo Eduardo Silva Jackie Peek Laura Peek Patricia A. Wheeler Jones Christen McGinnes Beautifully said, Ed. Save these words to comfort or congratulate – I think you have summed up the ebbs and flows of life perfectly. “…the maddening awe of the circle of life.” 8 hours ago · Unlike · 1 Hope Alane Very well said…i too am in that mythical swirl of life..celebration and remembrance…waves go in and the waves go out as my little son sings to me sometimes 7 hours ago · Unlike · 1 Suzanne Dempski the perfect, and painful beauty of balance… 6 hours ago · Unlike · 1 Patricia A. Wheeler Jones Ed, this is beautiful. Thanks. 6 hours ago via mobile · Unlike · 1 Harry Palmer ‎…and will you bow to time? 6 hours ago · Unlike · 3 Ed Hale Like bamboo… 6 hours ago · Like · 2

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A private little world for me… a private little world for you. The online journals and musings of singer-songwriter author and activist Ed Hale. The Transcendence Diaries have been posting regularly online since 2001. Comments are always welcomed. And so are YOU.

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