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Month: December 2014

Healthy Living

December 13, 2014

Went to visit the Coon’s mom, Aldine, today with Juliet. I felt that they would get a lot out of meeting. And I wanted to pay my respects. She now lives in Eugene, Oregon! Hadn’t seen her in about ten years. So beautiful and still so smart and curious about everything. she still has all the latest knowledge at her house as always in the form of books and tapes and cds and magazines. Totally up to date on EVERYTHING. and she is now 82 years old. Totally into raw foods now. for lunch we had peppermint tea, dates, raisins, walnuts, avocado, and hemp seeds with hemp oil and lemon paste. That was strange I must say, eating paste for a meal… but you could feel the nutrition seeping into you, which is what attracted me to the natural lifestyle in the beginning, all those years ago. You can feel nutrition. As it enters the body. Unfortunately we do not consume much nutrition in our lives in modern times. you can feel that when you are eating most days, how un-nutritious what you are eating is. and you can plainly see it in the fact that most of us die of cancer or some other horrible disease rather than from natural causes.

[I am not implying by this statement that we are any worse off than times past. I am not. I think we are healthier now as a species than we’ve ever been. I think most would agree with me. We are certainly living longer than we ever have. I truly believe that we know more about health and nutrition now than we ever have in our short human history. But in general it is not easy to eat healthfully in the modern era. We’re a fast food nation. And we are also a factory food nation. And a processed food nation. None of it bodes well for our health. So no one is too surprised when they learn of themselves or someone close to them having cancer or heart disease or needing bypass surgery or having Alzheimer’s or any other of the hundreds of ailments that stricken the human race still. saddened sure, but surprised no. we think of these diseases as if they are natural causes, because it is just so inbred in us to think this way, because we are all so used to everyone around us dying this way. But I don’t think it will be this way forever. I think we’re coming around. More and more, people are coming around. [I say this as I remember the woman in front of me on the airplane today giving her son and daughter a nestle crunch bar and then a plastic bag full of captain crunch… and these kids were no more than 4 and 9 years old. Or the girl sitting next to me swigging her coke and woofing down a half a can of Pringles. I mean, you cant go to the doctor and wonder why he just told you that you had cancer or heart disease or any other disease for that matter when you are filling your body with mostly non-food and thereby having very little room or desire for real food. Its all kind of right in front of our faces. We are still primarily obsessed with curing diseases than preventing them.]]

It was Coon’s mom who started me and our whole group on healthy living and eating back when we were in college. [for the record I am not a healthy eater currently. As any loyal reader of the diaries could easily attest to. being a child of the fast food nation, my taste buds, my being single, and my love of convenience all make it difficult for me to eat healthfully as often as I should or would like to.] But I was amazed when I reflected on how broad her influence was, on all of us, and how it has lasted. Just one person. because of that one health retreat I decided to go on at her house my whole life changed. I showed up and told her I needed to clean up and she said o.k. well you can come stay at my house but you have to do whatever I say. I will teach you about natural living. I was so strung out on everything and anything and was just a mess. I came into the house with just a little suitcase and she escorted me to this guestroom she had made up for me. there was nothing in the room except for a futon on the floor and a pillow, a side table and a lamp. Next to the bed was a towel and a washcloth, a natural fiber dry brush, and a stack of books she suggested I read while I was there. about ten books. Some on yoga, some on detoxing, one on the dangers of sugar, a book or two on fasting, and of course Harvey and Marilyn diamonds classic on health. Can’t remember the name but it revolutionized the way America looked at health and wellness. Fit for life, that’s what it was called. Great book. Changed my life. I must have given out twenty of them that year.

For ten days I stayed at her house. didn’t do much but sleep, cry, dry brush my body a lot, drank a lot of tea, and some soup. but all it took was a week or so to start feeling the effects of being clean for the first time since I was in my early teens. I had quit smoking cigs, drugs, alcohol, and processed foods and felt better than I had in years. and through that my whole crew started living the natural lifestyle. Madelynne O’Ryan and Mohdie still live that way ten years later. They are still vegans. Precisely because of the influence that Aldine had had on me. that’s an amazing thought. I went in and out of it over the years. never went back to drugs or alcohol or cigarettes actually from that point on because I felt so damn good. but my eating habits have been pretty bad the last year or two since not having Cleopatra around. But because of that change in lifestyle and moving over to the natural lifestyle I frequented health food stores a lot and that is where I met Cleo. Again, if it weren’t for that health retreat with coons mom I never would have gotten healthy and gotten so into health food stores and I never would have wandered into that health food store all those years ago and met one of the most important people of my life. that’s an unbelievable thought. What power we have as individuals to manifest reality for others through our simple day to day actions.  

Last screening: and the band played on. More later. too tired.

Current read: losing my virginity, autobiography of Richard Branson. Great inspiration just reading a few pages each day.



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Uncategorized eating healthy, healthy living

Aaron Sorkin Hits Another Grandslam with New Newsroom

December 1, 2014

HBO’s original series NEWSROOM is far and away the most intelligent program on television. Anywhere. Perhaps of all time. Several thoughts come to mind.

Number one: Granted, this used to be a rather easy thing to say of course — if one ever had the opportunity (rare) to encounter an intelligent program on TV in days past, because TV used to be infamous for its sole role as the premier purveyor of the worst the world had to dump on itself. But all that changed over the last ten years exactly as I predicted when explaining one of the primary Signatures of the Age of Personal Expression (which we are at least waist deep in by now, at least), i.e. “We are about to enter a new golden age of American television, a renaissance of great television the likes of which we have never experienced before, where it may as a medium even surpass film, most likely never literature or journalism one would assume, in it’s brilliance to captivate engage move inspire educate and entertain.” “The Great American Television Renaissance” is what the Signature is still referred to as when we work on the project. And we, like anyone else paying attention as of late, are in awe of it.

Not only have B and occasional A list Hollywood celebs hopped on the TV train, but more importantly (much more importantly) so have big name Hollywood film writers and directors. Though we haven’t peaked quite yet in the Personal Expression Age itself, in terms of what it has the potential to do — what it has the directive and mandate and obligation to do — this particular Signature, of TV, is flying high; it’s hit it’s zenith. Television today is as good as any other form of entertainment in the world today. If you know where to look that is.

A second thought: think about what you just said old boy…. NEWSROOM IS good…but the MOST intelligent program on television?!? The Transcendence Diaries by their very nature are prone to hyperbolic claims and exclamations. No one would read them if they weren’t. So is this nothing but a quick fix, a one off jolt of hyperbolic frenzy instigated by the emotions this particular show so elegantly elicits in all of its viewers, one that you may regret come morning once you come down off this high and have the opportunity to think more clearly about the substance of such a statement?

Surely there are other shows on American television that are good. Great even. But we aren’t talking about good or great TV. We are talking about intelligent. In the not too distant past one could point to Sunday Morning News shows as being intelligent television; but besides the aging yet ever youthful McLaughlin Group and GPS with Fareed Zakaria, our beloved once reliable traditional staples known as Sunday morning news shows as a whole have gone the way of all TV news (and the general direction of the American political system, just as an aside, albeit a heartbreaking one) — hype pomp shock schlock rumors gossip gotchas and gimmes, with very little in the way of trustworthy news reporting, let alone anything remotely resembling intelligence.

One could of course fall back on any number of the programming still being aired by the PBS network regularly, and to be fair as a whole PBS still stands tallest when it comes to “most intelligent television programming” overall. They hit it out of the park with their rabbit out of the hat resuscitation of Masterpiece Theatre by way of Downton Abbey — not only reviving a long thought barely breathing franchise, but were so successful in it that they’ve now managed to spin it off into three separate programs: the classic Masterpiece, then Masterpiece Mystery and now their latest Masterpiece Contemporary — all pretty decent programming IF that’s your thing. Not bad for a long running show that no one even knew still existed ten years ago.

And PBS still delivers the most reliable respectful trustworthy intelligent and hype-free nightly news show on TV. They don’t pander nor patronize their projected audience. They aren’t too busy trying to “make news” to report on actual real news events transpiring in today’s world. Something the other four networks seem to have completely forgotten how to do. In fact let’s face it: the other four networks, ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX, have been so busy chasing the slutty foul smelling tail of cable news — quite possibly the most wretched invention of the latter half of the 20th century, right up there with the atomic bomb, Al Qaeda and The Kardashians — that it fully appears that network news divisions have even forgotten that THAT’S precisely what they were supposed to be doing, reporting the news, not trying to make it on their own, nor make it up as they go along.

Honorable Mention goes to The Charlie Rose Show — for if it weren’t for NEWSROOM, then surely Most Intelligent Show on Television would still be all his, as it has been for a decade at least. The Charlie Rose Show is still the one safe harbor any educated person of intellect can pull into for an hour and not only not be insulted but be seriously and sincerely intrigued and stimulated intellectually. Charlie Rose too is a PBS property.

So yes PBS certainly deserves First Place for Most Intelligent Television Network. But this isn’t about networks. It’s about single programs. And as anyone alive or awake in the last three years has noticed, nothing comes even close to the jaw dropping death defying dialog audiences are afforded each week when NEWSROOM airs on HBO. The scripts, or as he likes to call them the Teleplays, are penned by the inimitable Aaron Sorkin, (A Few Good Men, The Social Network). For many many years Sorkin has been infamous for many things: a hard leaning liberal who throws too much of his own personal politics into his art, a maddening person to work with, a drug fiend, an obsessive compulsive who admittedly showers five to six times a day, but more than anything else, a brilliant writer.

And indeed IF his style is something you enjoy or can bare then there isn’t much in this world that feels better than bathing in a sea of his words and sentences. Rapid fire dialogues between intensely interesting characters about actual matters of substance. Rare stuff indeed for television. And yet he pulls it off. One might tag that last line with “only on HBO…” And that may have been true at one point. Game of Thrones, Veep, Silicon Valley, True Detective… All HBO commodities. (Lest we forget they’re also responsible for bringing us the truly wretched GIRLS, nuff said…) But plenty of other brilliant shows now float about on other equally noteworthy and deserving networks such as AMC. So that mantle holds more than just one trophy with more than just one network name on it. And I predict that it is only going to continue to get more and more crowded up there as more creatives and audiences alike begin to discover the merits and potential of television as the new and exciting medium it has become.

In the meantime we still have — unfortunately — at least four more mind tingling, heart stopping episodes of NEWSROOM to view this season. Come Emmy time — if one subscribes to the idea of picking “favorites” or “number ones” (which I personally don’t, as everyone knows — (I believe there is and can be no such thing) then no one in that room will deserve that statue more than Aaron Sorkin for what he manages to do with NEWSROOM. That mind of his is a rare breed and a national treasure. For all the attention our society focuses on soulless technology and empty celebrity, it is people like Aaron Sorkin who illuminate just how powerful the simple written word can be still. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of watching NEWSROOM, I envy you. Do so as soon as possible.

Honorable Mentions need to be handed out to Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and occasionally The Good Wife. (Though their story is another one entirely — one we simply don’t have the time nor desire to get into at this moment, though not one not worth telling, for it is consistently a better than most television show with occasionally brilliant writing and a stellar often times all-star cast. But it far too often succumbs to the limitations of network TV. Again, another post we’ll address that subject).

– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone 8s Custom



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Uncategorized Aaron Sorkin, bad news, Charlie Rose, golden age of television, HBO, intelligent TV, McLaughlin Group, newsroom, PBS, the Good Wife, the great American television renaissance, the personal expression age

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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