gagablog 74: Behind the Aura: TV Magic, Bergdahl, Snowden, VA/IRS Scandals, Obama, "Playing Dumb," Denmark, Women, Iraq/Syria War and Pope Francis

As soon as I finished the last gagablog, three weeks ago, I read the lyrics, saw some things I had misinterpreted, and was eager to write some adjustments. In that time many things have happened in the world. I was ready to call it "Behind the Aura" and noticed that the Simpsons rerun that day was the "Behind the Music" episode. The Simpsons is intelligent and universal/ubiquitous enough that it works like a magical decoder ring: there have been some other Simpsons reruns recently that have magical connections to what is going on in the world, and a few that have been less magical than intentional, such as the ones with World Cup references. I wonder what the intention of two Sideshow Bob episodes on the same day, or the one I had never seen before with Gabriel - what did they mean to me? But every day since the last gagablog I've been thinking about writing the next one and it seems like almost each day there was a point being made, magically, by the Simspons but I can't recall them right now. I'm thinking about a perfect example (Just as Leslie on Masterchef said "I'm not perfect"), over a month ago my brother in law was celebrating his birthday with us and we had watched the first rerun episode of the Simpsons and before the second one came on I said "Are you excited to see your birthday episode of the Simpsons?" and the show opened with Homer at his birthday party, with a hat on and cake and a banner in the background that said "Happy Birthday!" - it was perfect. The "Vegas Season" music is apparently EDM according to the commercial. I missed the Simpsons today and I'm currently watching Master Chef - Leslie said "they nailed me to a cross on the beach now they are burning me at the stake." Maybe by the end of this the significance of this mixed Jesus-witch reference, made by the outkast, will make sense. It seems like everyone, on the show and the TV audience, wants him to go because he is an asshole. This is a good time to warn anyone that one intention of this edition of the gagablog is to remove asshole mentality. Sanford and Son are considering a 178-dollar TV, 21-inch, black and white, in like 1978 dollars!!! But it's not about "getting rid of the asshole" as represented by Leslie being unpopular - he won the challenge and will be on the show another week. But he also had the support of Big Willie out of most of the other competitors who seemed to dislike him. It's not like he is "the asshole" even though he comes across that way, and Willie seems sensitive and is caring for the one left out, and Leslie as a human being, by caring for him. I know this all sounds random but it all fits the theme of Behind the Aura - but I will save the "Aura"-specific commentary to the end if you just want to skip down to the bottom of this one. I've got a lot to say about the news of the last week as relates to "behiond (spelling I know but I like how it jersified) the aura", behind the veil, behind the curtain. And I feel like saying them will pull this curtain away in a new way, as never before - this week has been like a close-up on the curtain. But I will continue this from work in a few hours, I have to get ready - and I've seen this episode of Sanford and Son, where they get Grady's stolen set, many times recently, for some reason. (Maybe because I'm trying to "re-sell" ideas about Aura when I still have not gone to the source to establish it's true propriety... - late edit.) Now it's 3:44 AM and Jack Benny is on TV, not likely to interrupt me. But my TV interruption, as I was writing this 3 weeks ago, really turned into a magical event. I just happened to be, "randomly" or magically, writing this gagablog (with the TV on for extra clues) as Obama announced the liberation of Bowe Bergdahl - could anyone have expected it would be the start of the latest "scandal" of the Obama administration that is sweeping the nation? Could anyone have expected that the way some Americans seem to want to treat him will make the five-year imprisonment seem preferable by comparison? I could rant about this for a long time, but let me make it simple - if you even care whether or not Bergdahl is a "true American" then you aren't a true human being, case closed. Like my daughter's Animal Paw Club motto reads: "if you don't like animals, you don't like yourself." The sad thing is, if he did leave his post because of disenchantment with the lies told to take us to war in the first place, well he was in good company with the perceptive, caring people in the country, from the beginning, and is in the company of what has become most of America as more and more of us see through those lies, and see through everything those liars said and continue to say. As terrible as the violence in Syria and Iraq is and has been, it is the ultimate "I told you so" from the anti-war people, those of us who were opposed to the war since it began. I was protesting the first Iraq war when I was in high school, I was the only one. I protested the second one ever since Bush stole the 2000 election, yes, before it started because it is fucking obvious, if you elect Republicans you go to war, and I knew he wanted revenge. Yes, they lied about WMD's but even after everyone knew that, they tried to say "well, Saddam was a bad guy." I'm not saying he should have continued to rule, but really we never had much moral ground to criticize him if the very worst thing he did was gas the Kurds but "WE" - the US - were the ones who sold him the chemical weapons - I think it was Rumsfeld who brokered the deal, who was also a key player in W (or both? I forget) Bush's wars. I would not go into all of this except for idiots like Dick Cheney trying to blame it on Obama when the whole situation is so entirely Bush's, ie Cheney's, fault. But there is an important comparison to be made between how Bush ran the country and how Obama is doing a few specific things, as far as it relates to "behind the aura." Bush's whole gameplan was "play dumb." That's all he ever did, and let the evil be done in his name: he was "The Decider" but Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz etc were the puppet masters. But as long as he just kept looking stupid no one could really "blame" him for it - and of course we weren't going to be responsible and take the blame ourselves for allowing him to steal the election in the first place, or blame ourselves for lack of education and activism that has allowed the defunct mentalities that actually voted for him. I've remained a strong supporter of Obama throughout his presidency, partly because I was actually aware of a lot of the evil shit Bush did so I was prepared to reject the arguments that blamed Obama. I already blamed Bush for the NSA when to me it was obvious they were doing all of this and more ever since the Patriot Act, if not before - but they announced there was no more privacy with the Patriot Act, in my opinion, and no one should be shocked. Upset, willing to change things, yes, but not shocked. The fact that Snowden shocked the country, surprised anybody, or even made the news shows how unaware we are, how willfully ignorant we prefer to be. I'm not talking conspiracy, just the painfully obvious actions of the government and even more painfully apathetic response of the populace. Occupy Wall Street was the best example of a modern protest movement we could muster? It's a joke, right? I mean, I fully belive we can bring down the government with bongos, I believe the Yippies levitated the Pentagon in like 1968 - but they were actually trying shit like that. Ok, I'm gettig off track, but I changed to the news and that will give me some interruptions, media-magic style. Like an update on the IRS "scandal" - first of all, fuck the Tea Party, that costume of the KKK, who cares how we stifle them, they suck. I say that because they are rednecks whose interests are already in power. Republicans blocked legislation that would have allowed me and millions of other poorer student-loan borrowers to pay less, and this whole student loans program is such a scam to enrich banks and "schools". They keep passing voter-ID laws and other practices to disenfranchise people and always oppose social programs. They are in power and openly voting for more power, more profits for the few over relief for the many, and this stifles all of us. If someone had to be unfair to cause the Tea Party some grief and hassle, good for them, because totally fuck the Tea Party and all they represent. It's horrific - all republican ideas are - they are all based on bigotry, misogyny, greed, war, fear and hatred. Again, I won't go into the details, if you disagree leave a comment and I will prove it to you in discussion. But the point is that Bush did all of this by playing dumb - it was the only card he had. Obama has seemed to "play dumb" on some things, too, but in much smarter ways, to much more positive effect, and of course he has other cards, too, besides The Fool. But Obama does use that one, too, just towards much greater goals. The IRS scandal, and the computer crash that destroyed the supposedly incriminating emails, is a tech version of playing dumb - and I hope they get away with it. It would not be a bad thing if they got away with stifling the influence of these Tea Party hate groups. By comparison, when Bush played dumb, leading to the Iraq war, this was a terrible thing that he should not have gotten away with. Some said that the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, was designed to fail into socialized medicine - I would like this, don't know if it is true, but if it is, it is another example of "playing dumb": "I didn't know we would have to go to socialized medicine after this, but, well, here we are!" It's a way of sneaking it by people who will do all they can to stop it, even to the detriment of their own people, because letting them know what you are really up to just won't work. The VA scandal is another example of a current scandal which Obama is in the right but currently "looks bad" - because the history will prove that the Obama administration is finally working on a problem that is decades-old, that previous presidents of both parties ignored, or were afraid to challenge the military powers. The message, the lesson, of the VA scandal is similar to the message that is coming out surrounding Bergdahl: the military does not care about you once the only person you can kill for them is yourself - they would rather you kill yourself or let you die than pay for your care and promised benefits. They just don't care, they never have. And Obama is proving this, with the VA scandal but also with the Bergdahl release: he is showing that he cares, that America DOES care for it's people despite the actual, current applications of it's stated values. Because we claim that the military cares, so Obama is not trying to completely destroy the military by revealing that it does not care, rather he is transforming it by actually holding it accountable to live up to its promises. And making this statement in these ways actually sets us up to live up to them instead of just pretending. The VA scandal, the suffering it has caused, has been going on for decades but is only now making news. This is because the military has been all-powerful in America. Obama decreasing the militrary budget was an amazing feat, one that no previous president ever achieved, as far as I know, and I think he did it as part of ending the Republican-led government shutdown, or calling one of their bluffs, again using their own idiocy against them by playing just a little dumb himself. Of course we can only resolve all the problems when we get all the information, and to do that we will be knocking the military off its premier, untouchable status. My ancestors were in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, probably many others, too. I know my great-grandad lied about his age when he was 17 in order to fight in World War One and my grandads and great uncles fought in World War Two. But I never had blind faith in the military, so none of this is a surprise to me. Indeed, to really solve the problems we need to address the evil mentality that makes us so war-prone in the first place, that has led us to having a military larger than the next ten biggest militaries combined. The blind faith in the military, or in "America" as represented by our economic and power for violence instead of our creative, constructive talents, is the Aura. Seeing all of this negativity brought to light is seeing behind the Aura. But this stood out to me, when media commentators expressed this disbelief: how could Obama not have known about the criticism of Bowe Bergdahl? Well, he couldn't have not known, but he was acting like he did not know about it, or that even if he did there was no cause for concern. This is a very subtle version of the "playing dumb" game, because the only people it actually looks stupid to are the ones who wonder why. But if you know why, or from the future when all the repercussions play out, then you can see why he would "play dumb" here. It's like, Bush and the Gang knew there were no WMD's, knew they would look extra-stupid when this was proven. So why did they do it? To have an excuse for unending military spending in a hopeless cause as long as we could elect more republicans to sustain it? Did they really think they could get Iraq on track and everyone would love them? That is the kind of stupidity I compare with Obama acting like there was some sort of compromise with republicans possible for health care, or anything. At the time you knew they would obstruct everything, but the extent to which they have obstructed everything is even surprising to people like me who have the least respect for them and greatest suspicion that they are up to the worst possible things. Bush, etc. did know that invading Iraq would start a war that could last decades - that's what they wanted because they want war. By comparison, Obama totally knew that all these hick assholes would complain about the prisoner swap for Bergdahl. But I don't think I am being cynical when I say that if Obama was in charge when the man who was released from being a war prisoner, who is now in command of ISIS, then we would not stop hearing the end of it in from the same people who are currently complaining about the release of the five who were exchanged for Bergdahl. So I assume this release, the one that freed the current ISIS leader, was "Bush's fault" - but of course the whole situation is Bush's fault, regardless of Cheney's recent attempts to deflect blame to Obama for things decided during Bush's term. Jon Stewart had a good joke about this, that Cheney was acting like we were 20 seconds from victory when Obama came in with a cross (?) pass and ISIS headed it into the goal, replaying the end of the World Cup match between Portugal and the US. But the best joke about Bergdahl came from the host of "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" on NPR - I heard this section of the program two days in a row in my car and knew I would have to include it, the repetition was a sign/reminder. The host summed up the situation, that Bergdahl's hometown had cancelled a parade/festival for him after all the controversy, and then said "I don't see why they can't just compromise and hold the parade with a new banner that says "Welcome Home, Traitor!". To me, even if he is not a traitor at all, this really sums it all up: because if he was a traitor, would it still be terrible to welcome him home, to celebrate re-uniting him with his family and friends and country, or freeing someone from, uh, less good captivity for good old American prison? Even if he is a traitor, does that make him less of a human being? And if he is not a traitor we really owe him an apology for all the hatred and negativity towards him. The beauty of the humor of that suggested banner, to me, is the idea that he is human, that we saved a life or even that we reduced suffering. But instead he is faced with the evil hatred from Americans, especially by those blinded by a hatred for Obama and all he does, or blinded by the blind faith in the military which was "questioned" by Bergdahl initially when he was showing signs his fellow soldiers noticed, or the false faith in the military that is being exposed by their response to Obama securing his release. This is why I think Obama knew exactly what he was doing: he knew some Republican strategist would ferret out the people he served with and get the most negative one's opinions of him made into national news: one damning testimony was from a soldier who served with him who asked him if he had a girlfriend back home and he said "no" - and now that this soldier found out Bergdahl DID have a girlfriend, he is shocked and suspicious, "who does that?" he asked the TV journalist interviewing him - as if hiding a girlfriend is a good sign someone is an enemy agent. Maybe Bergdahl just did not want to talk with this soldier about his girlfriend? I wouldn't blame him, the guy seems like a total tool. And the whole company seems like tools, not just because so many have come out to denounce him, but reading between the lines of the things they say, especially that Bergdahl never seemed like "one of them". As an outkast who has been an outkast in every stage of my life, in every community I find myself in, I can relate to this. Even amongst the family of little monsters,which is kind of like a worldwide community of outkasts, I kind of stick out and don't connect because I am so much older than most of us. But as a thinking person, someone who was always suspicious of the war, to hear that when Bergdahl started questioning the mission - when he wised up, from my perspective - is when the rest of the soldiers started ostracising him. To me this is just the Aura of blind faith in the military, and the Aura of "belonging to a group" or "being in the in crowd", comes together. To me, as an outkast, and considering some of the people who act like they are too good to associate with me, this lesson is a reminder why it is better to NOT be "in the in crowd", especially in certain situations. There's a connection here with ISIS and a connection with Snowden, but I will still have some more to say about the other topics so I doubt I will finish this in this session (it is now 6 AM and kids at my work should start waking up fairly soon.) The connection with ISIS is that we know these are bad people, that even Al Quaeda (why can't I spell that, after all this time?) supposedly kicked them out for being too violent - and I'm sure they have done terrible things and will do more terrible things if they continue. But the clearest examples of terrible things they do is executing POWs. The reason this relates to Bergdahl is so many assholes have been talking about how McCarthy's Army would shoot deserters in the back, etc, saying this guy deserves to be killed for leaving his post. How is that "better" than killing enemy POWs who have surrendered - if anything, isn't it worse because it is "one of your own?" Or is it the crime of doubting war is punishable by death? Again, this brings up the whole hypocricy of "one of our own" mentality - because why is one life more important than another, regardless of whose group it belongs to? This is again the "clique" mentality on a national scale, and Bush's "you're with us (imperialistically/genocidally taking over the world) or you are against us." The truth is you don't want to be in that clique - you want to be careful about how you identify against it, too, so they don't kill you. It's like this asshole I was arguing with in an email group list, the organizer of the group who is on a power trip, who at one point said his gun ownership protected my free speech but at other points making offhand death threats against me and also threatening to ban me from the group just for making my observations - showing he has no real value of Free Speech other than a mythological excuse/"reason" to keep his gun. Last week there was a news article that said China had decided to execute "terrorists" and put that word in quotes I had to respond by saying why do we get to decide who is labelled a terrorist, how can we be suspicious of that label for anyone who terroristically kills people? They did it with knives and cars in China, because I bet guns are not in vending machines like they are here. But I had to say that gun-owners are all terrorists just for having guns: even the "best ones", hunters, are forest terrorists. My point is that labeling people terrorists is an excuse to kill them, but we really become the terrorists by taking any position that justifies murder. War is simply wrong, a mistake, and to be avoided. In the meantime, while we still have war and supposedly believe in "no one left behind". the debate over this really shows the nature of it all. "No one left behind" implies everyone - there is nothing you can do that makes you undeserving of this respect. The idea, from the right, is that being a traitor invalidates this trust, makes you no longer effectively a soldier or effectively American or even human - it takes away those priviliged statuses. My point is that no one actually has priveleged status over another, there is something wrong with any system based on privilege, and there is no excuse for killing people, but now we are faced with the hypocricy of the "killing certain people is okay" lie. Bergdahl is a person, and amidst all the hateful comments under a recent article about him I had to add this, from the "other side": "I am praying (read: doing my magic spells but I wrote it for public consumption) for his health and safety and I feel sorry for everything he went through, and wish for the health of the country so that we can respect each other again, as people" - something like that. It's not about who is the most American, but people complaining about saving Bergdahl are showing themselves to be "less-than-human" - it is like how Pope Francis just excommunicated the Mafia yesterday, actually saying they have excommunicated themselves from God - more on this later. When the in crowd is formed around evil foundations - status, power, racism or whatever - the morality, the truth, is with the Outkast. By honoring the one left behind, sacrificing "himself" and leaving behind the 99 safe sheep to save the one lost sheep, Obama is in this Good Shepherd role that Jesus told us is the Kingdom of Heaven. No matter how much they will portray Obama as "wrong", this Jesusness, Sheperd-hood, will prove him to be right in the end, this is the whole "right-side of history", doing what reveals the greatest truth. The Republican's are trying to nail Obama to the cross for siding with, saving, the outkast, but all this does is prove his divinity, proves that he is right to do so. They are trying to burn him at the stake, but this just shows his magic is real, that it connects to the brightest future, the truth that comes out in the end, that even the outkast should be included. So Bergdahl's actual personal well-being is the prime factor, as it should be, as the last American captive in these wars to the Commander in Chief who is ultimately, currently, responsible and as the Lost Sheep to the Good Shepherd - this is the Holy Spirit telling you, "don't be an asshole about this, or anything really - judge not lest you be judged'" - this is one expression of the judgement that comes down with having judged Bergdahl in this way: I'm playing Holy Spirit, not actively judging them and condemning them any more than pointing out how their comments themselves "doom" them. It's like what the Double-rainbow guy said in his explanation video: anyone's comments on the original video say more about the commentators than about him, because he was being divinely inspired at the time, it "works like that" where he serves as a mirror to people, just as the divine itself does. I of course though, felt sure, that he was on LSD, but after hearing the explanation I accepted he was not (but I think he had done it before and had those circuits in place to channel the divine, it WAS "like that") Gaga said her lyrics are divinely inspired, and I not only "believe" her, but I can come up with no other explanation why they are so mystically perfect as they are. And more on that later, too. First, to finish with the Obama-playing-dumb idea, how does the Bergdahl situation compare with Edward Snowden? The Obama administration has had some harsh words for Edward Snowden, but I suspect even this is "playing dumb": if they are saying he needs to face the lawful outcome of his actions, and the American people have sympathy and even appreciation for Snowden and see those laws as unduly harsh or wrong, then we will not only demand he be treated well, we will question the laws themselves and hopefully change them. I imagine if they just wanted to "get him" they would have: it all seems to be an act. "Letting him" get away and continue to share information seems like a plan: the current White House can't just say "we are letting this guy spill all the secrets of the NSA because we want to end the policies of the last White House" but they can pretend they are all mad about it while letting it happen, "playing dumb." Again, Bush was playing so dumb he was like "if we can't spy on everyone we just aren't gonna be smart enough to stop terrorists! I can't even get out of this room, see? Or this wet paper sack! I'm not smart enough!" Obama is playing dumb like "well, what can we do, Snowden's spilling the beans, I guess we have to cancel those programs, or make oversight at least, now that we know about it / everybody knows about it." WHen SNowden was interviewed on TV was the first time I really suspected this was as planned and orchestrated as the release of Bergdahl, knowing what the reaction would be and using it to reach another goal. The way he said that they downplayed his job description, that he was basically a spy, was one clue. But the main one was the way he said "I'm still working for the government." This just seemed like it had an even deeper layer of honesty, something in the quality of his voice. The Aura, the surface message, seems to be "because I am actually acting for the good of America, I am still 'working for the country'". But behind the aura he seemed to be saying, to anyone who was open to hearing it, "I'm still working for the government, don't worry about me, I'm doing exactly what Obama wants me to do." By comparison, everyone knew Osama Bin Laden was working for the government when the US was funding him and Reagan ("get it? 'Ray-gun'?" -what movie is that from, Revenge of the Nerds?) called him a freedom fighter. But was he still working for the government when he attacked the World Trade Center, or took the blame for it? Maybe, maybe not - but the fact that Bush did nothing to bring him to justice makes the suspicion seem more credible. It's kind of like no one did anything before to end the problems with the VA, really because the military had enough absolute power to keep it veiled. Bush completely over-used the military, and allowed a lot of theft, and I'm sure similar things were done in previous wars but never to the same extent. Ironically this is is what exposed all the flaws of the whole system and is finally allowing change to take place - the veil got stretched too thin, we saw through the Aura of "the military is so great and can do no wrong." I truly believe the Democrats have been the ones who have avoided war and helped people and Republicans are he ones who rushed into wars and whose policies hurt the most people, but I really expected both to do more to just get better and less violent. It seems like instead there is just greater strain in both directions, and just as there was more money and power behind war under Bush than ever before we need more power towards peace to make up for it. And if it rips apart from these increasing forces, or if one side has to win, I just hope and know it will be the good guys. But in the meantime I'm really disappointed with both sides, and admittedly still most impressed with Obama so far, but I don't see why we could not have gone all good a long time ago, completely ending war just by leading in a new direction, probably especially with women in the highest levels of power. It is better late than never, and hopefully not too late, but I am most impressed with Obama's work towards ending and avoiding war, and especially with actually making progress to reduce the military, reduce global warming (finally!), and reduce inequalities of social unfairness. Still, the fact that we go back and forth or can't seem to make more progress faster makes me sympathetic to those who have no faith in government, people who think no matter who is in power they have the same goals, more power, and just dress it up different ways. If that is true then the whole government is an Aura and that manipulative cadre is what is behind the Aura, if we saw through it. And there is an element of truth to this, but I intend to show how all this aura is pulled away and revealed that there actually are good people in government doing good things. They aren't just the women in government, but judging those in power by how their policies effect everyone and especially how they effect women is a good way to tell if they are really doing good or not. If we elect a woman to be president, and her policies reflect the best good for the most people, especially women, we could expect better results than ever before. And we may have the most progress so far in many of these ways under President Obama, but of course so much more needs to be done we can just accelerate the pace. What does Denmark have to do with all of this? This week there were two things that happened, one in the world and one on the Radio. The world event, and a lot of media events leading up to it, was a conference at the White House that focused on "Working Families." The radio event was a BBC discussion that included a futurist from Denmark, I'm sorry I did not get her name. I'll finish explaining how this is all about women then I will move onto how it connects with Gaga and Aura. The futurist said a few things that really stood out to me. First, she said that Denmark was statistically the happiest country in the world. She said they were certainly happier in the summer months than winter, because winters they spent huddled away but in summer they came out and enjoyed the community, so she suspected the poll was done in summer. There is just a natural effect, too, based on seasonal contrasts, which depends on where you are. Here in Colorado it seems kind of the same, though some people enjoy the winter sports so much that the prefer winter. But even if the summer was happier because there was more community, and people appreciated it more after cold winters, there were more reasons why they just seemed to have better community. Mainly because they had made efforts to support women and really promote women's influence. One way this was exhibited was paid maternity leave, and the new development there that the mandatory paid leave would be split between partners, or the mom and dad, eliminating any incentive to hire men over women. But of course it also allows the other parent to have time with their new baby, and this focus on a "women's" issue really builds a stronger community altogether. Compare this with the US, where they do have mandatory maternity leave, but no mandate for it to be paid leave. There is so much we are still fighting for equality that other countries have solved. I heard a union guy on the radio saying we are the only country that only pays a server wage, just over 2 dollars an hour, and expect people to live on tips. He said European countries can pay servers 17-20 dollars an hour and stay in business, but we have restaurant lobbies that keep the wage low. This is also a gender issue since he said 77% of servers in the US are women. The last thing the Danish futurist said is one reason they have more equality is because they had more women in government. She said they don't need them now, so they don't have them anymore, but in the 70's they had quotas to get more women into government. They met the quotas and better government, and happier people, seems to be the result. They are far ahead of us in that way, having quotas to get more women in government, doing that four decades ago. But she also mentioned that they just elected their first woman to be Prime Minister, or president or whatever their highest office is. So even though they had a quota system that worked well enough to get rid of it, they still took another 40 years to elect a woman to their highest office. I think President Obama could be the last male US president, or at least the last of the "all-male" era. We are ready to elect a woman and overdue for the influence of more women in all levels of government. I don't know if we will have to elect Hillary Clinton just because she seems so selected by the party, I personally kind of hope for Elizabeth Warren or someone more liberal. I want to give credit to Obama for policies that help women, that help everyone, and I even suspect that he is doing more for women than Hillary would have or even will, though of course there is so much to be done and all progress is good and builds upon past suceess. But I want to give him credit, and to talk about a couple of things he said in the media related to this conference. Just yesterday (and it has take me days to finish writing this, so it was Friday the 27th of June) I heard some clips from a speech Obama gave in which he talks about the suffering of his mom and grandmother due to medical issues, and the difficulties of starting a family and getting good medical care, then said "did you think I would forget?" or something like that. You could tell he was personally concerned because of his experiences, and by comparison with recent comments Hillary made that showed she was out of touch with Americans who were financially struggling, it made me really glad to have President Obama in office. I'm not trying to re-caucus the 2008 primaries, but just say that the personal concern for peoples' sufferings is what makes the genuine difference. I know Hillary grew up in tough circumstances, too, but she is not aware that there is the idea she could have forgotten some of it's lessons and seem out of touch when she thinks paying for estates is a relatable hardship. And maybe she is personally aware of that and just so trained to say things a certain way that she does not appear to be sensitive. The point is that policies affect people and so the most important characteristic for those in power is sensitivity to people's needs and how to meet them. But you also have to "sell" those policies to the general public, and the public might not be currently sensitive enough to understand. This is where Gaga and other artists come in, to shift perspectives and evolve the culture. The politicians can only sell people what there is a demand for, even if it is good for them. So this is another area where Obama has been "playing dumb" in a slight way. It was the media about this conference and he is talking about fair wages for women. He cites statistics about how many households have women as the primary or only source of income and how this makes it everyone's issue, a family and community issue, not "just" a women's issue. The whole pitch had that same flavor to it: in case you are scared these new policies will help women, they will really help everyone. Now I understand people are just stupid. It's not enough to say "hey, maybe you aren't a woman but you probably know one, so you can see how these are good ideas, right?" Even women in America, not the majority of them but way too many, have been brainwashed by various conservative powers and propaganda. So while in one speech Obama is like "come on, I'm a human being, of course I don't forget the suffering of people, especially the extra sufferings of women" and another speech he is like "well, you are only 'human' so i can't expect you to care about other people just because they are people, but let me explain how being fair to women ultimately benefits YOU." This is really the same argument being fought in every aspect of society, between people in power who want to make the most out of the workforce by treating us the best possible, and those who want to enable the powerful to squeeze everyone else dry. In the end, it would be a lot easier for leaders to sell people on new ideas if we all could agree that life was valuable and should be protected. We claim to believe this in many ways but our actions don't follow it. One reason is because we repress the feminine, we derogatorily call it a "nanny state" when the government tries to help people. And we need more of that, nore of the feminine influence. Once we have it at more levels, it will be easy to work together to make needed changes: to end war, disease, global warming, and poverty. But it has to grow from all directions, and while governments set new standards and other cultural institutions help progress or stifle the evolution of culture it is really up to artists to set new goals and ideals. So after a brief word about Pope Francis in all of this I will move onto the improved interpretation of Aura. Pope Francis has been really awesome in most everything he has done. He has worked to heal various serious divisions, bringing people together. One of his greatest challenges is in healing divisions in the church and the mistrust of the clergy due to systematic protection of child molesters. I don't know how that is going but I suspect one reason he is being so transformative for the whole church is because he does have to honestly address that, and there are other problems that cannot be ignored while being honest. One is the influence of money in the church, and I know he kicked out at least one bishop who was living lavishly. But he also had an audit of the Vatican Bank which probably did a number of things but one of them was to divest business with the mafia. It might have also been part of that interfaith alliance to end slavery that I heard about where in addition to lobbying and providing resources for other countries the churches, etc, were going to check their supply chains and rootout any slavery, and the Catholic Church was part of it. Then just last week he excommunicated the mafia, a really big deal. From the very beginning he made efforts to bridge the 1000-year schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church and still seems to be making progress there. He invited the presidents of Israel and Palestine to pray with him at the Vatican and made the news for referring to Palestine as it's own state. He softened the church's official stance on homosexuality, bringing more people in and setting the church in a positive direction. And he spoke about the evils of capitalism. All of these things make him especially liberal, as I predicted in a gagablog long ago, but as much as he has started the church towards the future, to be on the right side of history, there are still some things holding him back. Of course the acceptance of gay people could be much greater, and while anything is a step in the right direction the reason he did not go further is because of the issue still holding him back, which is a form of misogyny. On all of these issues Pope Francis has been more liberal than past popes, maybe even radically liberal. But he has been asked to include more women in the church, to allow women priests, but has declined. To me, this is just holding him back, and I really expect him to "evolve" the same way Obama's views on gay marriage "evolved." I use the quotes because that could just be playing dumb again, maybe both Obama and the pope fully accept gay people and always did, but had to wait for the culture to come around to be open about it. I suspect that more of Obama than the Pope, I think the Pope may have suffered from more homophobia and is getting over it but still has some progress to make. The same with women, it is just so deep in his culture that it is hard for him to make that change. But the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches is a big deal, too, but he seems eager to work through it. Maybe because they have beards. Kicking the mafia out is another great sign, to me, for a couple of reasons. One, though all the other examples are directly about bringing more people together, bridging divides, kicking out the mafia is like a form of division, exclusion. And of course I am all about inclusion, not exclusion. But first of all, the Pope said that their own actions and choices were excommunicating them from God - this is the very Oz idea that I can't wait to write in my new book about Gaga and Oz magic: the only exclusion is the way people can let fear and hatred exclude them from the community. As long as the mafia was connected with the Church, the Church could not really represent or be equally open to everyone, because that powerful and persuasive organization could demand priority and take precedence. And of course the use of violence is opposed to all that the Church should stand for, but maybe that is another flaw that had been justified when the church approved "just war" - and did many other violent things, I'm sure - and allowed that connection to continue, but now that the mafia was denounced for violence the Church will also be open to reversing any previous condoning of violence. Now that he has kicked out the gang it opens the church up to many more people - and of course it stays open to reformed gangsters and gives theman incentive to change their lives. To me, this is one form of inclusion, kicking out the bullies. But it also gives me hope for the future. One reason I am not a christian is because so many so-called christian groups are the ones who support injustice and war by supporting the right wing. One reason conservatives have had such a political force in America is because many Catholics vote with pro-life groups because it has been sold to them as a spiritual priority. But in the same way that Pope Francis said that being gay does not cause a problem with God, or something like that, I think he could update the Church's view on contraception and abortion to reflect modern concerns and values. If he said "really, its not that big of a deal, ending poverty and peace are more important to vote for" then there would be a massive cultural change and politics would shift to the left in America, at least. And maybe he would allow women priests before he said that, maybe one would lead to the other. But it does seem like he is only missing a few pieces to really help usher in a liberal paradise and it really comes down to equality for boys and girls. Now for the corrections in what I wrote previously about Aura and believe it or not they will sum up all of what I've been talking about here. First I have to say that I was about to watch the G.U.Y. video the other day - we had turned on the internet to look for Do What You Want With My Body. My co-worker told me it was out and supposed to be really hot so I was going to skip my requirement to write my blog impressions about it before watching the videos, etc. But we couldn't find it so I almost watched G.U.Y. instead, just got as far as the opening scene and "An Artpop Film" then paused it, determined to write these first impressions first and reward myself with the videos and future commentary. I argued with my wife about it, about the principle of it, for an hour or more, and in a way my first impressions are like "playing dumb", or revealing how dumb I am, so I wanted to mention it here. And playing dumb can get things done, because one of the biggest obstacles to progress is Ego. Maybe Obama looks dumb that Eric Snowden is revealing secrets about the NSA, but if it gets us to change things, who cares? Maybe he looks dumb if Obamacare fails, but if we move into socialized medicine, more what really works and we really wanted and he campaigned on at first, who cares? Maybe he looks dumb that the VA scandal has been exposed during his term, but if it has been going on for decades and is just now finally being dealt with, who cares? I heard just today that the White House decided it was systemic mismanagement - and anyone could have told them that, but they could have told previous administrations, too, the difference is admitting it, facing it, and dealing with it. If Obama looks dumb for the IRS/Tea Party scandal, but it really just emboldens the Tea Partiers to finish wrecking the Republican Party, who cares? If Obama knew that the prisoner swap for Bowe Bergdahl would get certain people all upset, but in the end make them just look like real jackasses, and is using this to expose the hypocrisy of militarism and blind patriotism, setting us on a course to change those, who cares? These are the virtues of playing dumb. Except for the magical possibilities, the effect of this gagablog is not nearly as important as these big issues but the kind of playing dumb or exploring my misconceptions has done is allow something new to take place. I don't presume I will know all about these songs even after watching the videos, reading the commentary, and hearing what other monsters have to say about them, but I suspect I will know a great deal more, because there is so much to them. But there was so much to them even when I was missing so many pieces, and I want to both honor that, compare it with what I learn later, and allow even the errant paths to have some sort of magical life. What does this have to do with Aura? It is the whole idea of sacrificing "oneself", part of the ego, being willing to look stupid or play dumb or just take the blame, in order to transform life itself. This is expressed in the first line of Aura and I really got it wrong, like in a crazy way. Of course I realized this as soon as I read the lyrics and listened to the song again, but I actually transposed the censorship of the Wal-Mart version of the album to make it even more confusing. In the censored version, the first line is "I [edit smear] my former" and I somehow "heard" that sound they replaced the word "killed" with at the end of the line, so I thought there was another word there. "And...left her in the trunk on highway ten" is the next line and I thought the "And" was something like "Anne" or "friend", edited for some reason. And when I went back I thought, "how did my brain do that?" because I knew the first times I had listened to it I noticed that they ad edited out the word "killed." But mostly misheard this because I am oldish. I know people refer to their "former" and I've seen it on the internet, but I'm not that hip, so it is not really in my vocabulary like that. Now I guess it is just implied, but there is another implication, probably not what Gaga meant, but since I hear it that way, too, I wanted to play dumb and mention it. It is the idea that she left her former self behind, when she transformed to become the person she becomes, in "Hollywood." This is how it most ties in with the idea of sacrificing oneself. It has none of the sinister, murderous connotations of there being someone else, and may be way off-base, but since I don't really understand that version I kind of like the one that says she just left herself behind. The rest of my corrections for Aura really just amount to it being a lot simpler than I had made it out before, but that makes it even more universal. Basically, I did not understand the lyric "you want to pity me cuz was arranged one man to love" - and I still don't understand it even after reading the actual words. I don't know what that sentence means, I don't know what it is in the context of the song, and I still don't quite hear those words when I listen to it and wonder if what she sang is a little different. But here are my ideas. In the context of taking on the persona of women who wear the veil, it kind of has that challenge to the outsider, or western perspective, that we presume, or project upon a woman who is hidden behind a veil (the clouds covered the sun as I typed that) that she is the property of one man, or "even worse" that multiple women could "belong" to one man. These tangents I got more into in the previous gagablog, so I will leave it at that. But there is another interpretation, that has nothing to do with taking on the cultural burqa, but is referring to the veil as the aura of fame and celebrity. In this context, the idea is that a rock star can have many lovers, this is one of the appeals of being a rock star. Of course Gaga could have as many lovers as she wants, but has apparently been with the same guy, Taylor, for years. Again, I don't know all the gossip or details, if there is any, but that is the general perception, I think. So in reference to her actual life, and she did say all the Artpop lyrics were non-fantasy an all related to actual things in her life, the message could be "even though you might think I could have all these lovers and it is a shame that I do not, I really was only made to be with one person". This seems to be the same message she has in other songs, like "Fashion of His Love". So in this sense it is not like family or society has arranged her love, it is more destiny, in the stars, for her to just be with one man. And she's just saying she really likes him, especially for what she really wants him for, to make love. There may have been some other corrections or omissions from the last gagablog but this has gone on long enough I will try to wrap this up with what wraps it all up, the simple answer. I was getting caught up in the Aura myself and did not want to get the simplest message, like she is saying she is a one-man kind of girl, and I would still suggest that there is the contrary idea that this is an Aura but that, for the person underneath, there is not a set gender or number of people to fall in love with. And I know I say this partly for the philosophy and partly for the wish that if she has multiple lovers then I could be one of them: and this is the Aura, just like Homer Simpson's manager told him to hide his marriage because they wanted fans to think they could have sex with him. But the simplest interpretation is that, underneath all the Aura of fame and supersexuality there is a girl. And that is what the real message of all of this is: you can dress it up in different ways, or trick people into revealing why they are an asshole, but ultimately the goal is to get people to care about each other. You can play a role to get everyone's attention, and then say "I'm just like you", inspiring everyone else who has a message to get out there that they can do it, too. There are people that everybody loves, or everybody hates, or everybody loves then hates then hopefully loves again, but they are all just like us. The whole issue around saving Bergdahl, or the issue around veterans' health care, is people saying that some people, veterans for example, deserve the very best care, but when that does not come through in practice, or because thy have insulated their system so much that they get even worse care, it is shown to be hypocrisy. And there is hypocrisy in the very premise, because there really is no reason why any person should get better care than anyone else. The soldier from the battlefield and the junkie fighting her own battles with drugs should both get the best care we can give. There is no reason or cause to discriminate. But there is plenty of discrimination, systems of it. Since so much is in place against women, that is the first place to start to make progress. We don't absolutely have to have women leaders to do the best job, but it will probably help. It will help the most when, whoever says it, all our leaders have to say is "people are suffering" or "this is hurting women and girls" and we will do whatever it takes to fix it. Because in the end the simplest solution is the best, and behind all the hype and Aura there is one reality: there is a girl. Gaga is so sexy and of course there is all sorts of sexual suggestion and excitement in the song, it is a great pop song in that way, making love to the world. But the underlying message seems to be that beneath it all she is "just" a girl. The idea that, with all this hype, with all the fame and influence, of Gaga herself or of any of the forces that shape culture, there should be awareness of "the girl" at the center of it, the individual who actually lives with the consequences of what goes on in life. Gaga emphasizes being naked and it is not like she is saying we have to protect her, she seems very much in control throughout the song. But the whole idea of a naked girl underneath it all does give the audience the natural protective instinct, to care for the very basic humanity represented by a naked girl. It kind of suggests that underneath it all we are all just babies or naked kids, and it especially suggests that underneath all the politics, of gender but also of war and greed ("...shoot a gun on your soil...is it because of pleasure or toil?"), there are vulnerable girls to worry about. I guess, writing this, it seems cliche to keep talking about the "girls", representing kids and especially suffering kids, but it is true that girls end up suffering more and worse abuses, and abuse against girls is still culturally accepted in many ways and places. Despite the more hidden message of being the vulnerable girl, Aura mostly addresses Gaga's complete control of the Aura and therefore the whole world. This was accomplished in the beginning of the song, Gaga transforming herself (or sacrficing her lover) to go Hollywood, but it has a message for everyone. All of reality interfaces with you through the Aura and by transforming yourself to command more of the Aura you engage the world in a way that changes it. Basically, it empowers everyone to say that beneath it all we are all naked children but still within it all we have the power to change the world. Since girls and the feminine are still under-represented and disempowered, it is especially an important message to empower girls. That is, to let them know that beneath every powerful persona is a person just like them, to empower them to reach for their potential, and to call out the factors, from social judgement to war, that impede the empowerment of girls. So Aura is an appeal to girls themselves and to the world to change to allow the full empowerment of the feminine. And it is like magical instruction that we can change the world through ownership of the Aura, accepting all about the way reality has confronted us and transforming it by recognizing the inner child but using it as a source of strength to take the world itself, the Aura around you, as "you" and know you have the power to change it. The last thing I will say in this edition will be about the Syrian and Iraq war, what has now become the same war in many ways. My spells in this gagablog have certainly not resulted in a peaceful solution, and though I hope they have contributed to important progress such as the destruction of chemical weapons, I can't help but feel like the real progress that needs to be made is still in the future, hopefully soon. I don't have any new ideas,except to repeat the one I mentioned in a previous gagablog about the Women in Syria. Basically, the revolution started there as nonviolent protests, mostly of women. They need women in charge, someone who can be trusted to not use violence. And possibly, probably there will be violence to protect such a group, but if the group itself was committed to seeking nonviolent solutions that would be the best course. The problem is obviously a misplaced faith in violence. The reason the ISIS forces are so well equipped now is because of all the weapons and tanks and stuff we put there, supposedly for security. This gets back to my theory that having a weapon makes you a terrorist, implies a belief in violence that itself is a threat to the community. We have to be able to have faith in community, regardless of who is in it or where the borders are drawn. The secret ingredient to make this happen is truly valuing and encouraging everyone, especially women and girls. And that is the meaning of Aura for me, at this time: the recognition that at the heart of it all is a girl and we make the best decisions by honoring that and acting in a way that does the most to help every girl, and every person, as much as possible. This is the heart of Oz philosophy, too - the Goodness of the Girl Ruler at the center of Oz, that all that needs to be done can be done by a good-hearted girl and to honor the same, as the heart of the "country" and at the heart of all people, honoring the buddha within. I know I can't get the message to the Iraqi or Syrian people to let women take over, or even get that message to the American people, except magically. But I've been talking about these issues from all sorts of angles for years now and I know that I am still not doing enough in my own personal life. There are new attitudes I can learn and new depths of understanding I can reach to do the most to honor girls and the feminine in my own life, and I know that the best magic I can do for the world is in transforming myself, leaving my "former" behind and going Hollywood, or my version of that. Gaga keeps giving me examples of that, but as I said before I need to really speed up, to light speed, to truly honor what she is doing for the world and to do my part. I'll probably start writing faster, which means less, which hopefully means more songs, soon. Thanks!

gagablog 73: "Aura": Puffimpression

I woke this morning and turned on the news an remembered that tonight is the televised interview with Edward Snowden, making this the perfect day to write about "Aura". The cosmic gagamagical connection is of course looking behind the veil, and this is one reason Aura was quickly one of my favorite songs because I absolutely love the divinely inspired way Gaga presents this idea in the song. It's one of music's greatest superpowers to use double-meaning in songs. It probably has much older roots, but in the rock, rap, blues and pop music world, double-meaning goes back to the spiritual songs that people sang during slavery that they actually used as codes to pass messages and help each other escape slavery. I go into a little more detail about this in my book "All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Smoking Weed", dedicated to Gaga and all who liberate weed, and available here: http://www.amazon.com/Really-Need-Know-Learned-Smoking/dp/1481228749 and on Kindle - please pass it around! I was predisposed to focus on the double-meaning because of how Aura was introduced. Everyone was calling it Burqa. Just now as I googled 'burqa' for spelling the results were "burqa, burqa ban, burqa lady gaga, burqa avenger, burqa history of" - this in itself says a lot about the intense nature of the burqa idea right now and Gaga's success in connecting with it, becoming an icon for it. And all from using the word burqa twice in the song, and sometimes in fashion, but mostly for building the song Aura upon this idea, introducing it in the first verse and introducing the song to us as "Burqa" or "Aura/Burqa". It's more than "just" double-meaning, too, though this is one of the most powerrful aspects of music, because of the mystical nature of the idea of a Veil and the Feminine, Girl or Goddess, underneath. Gaga plays this to perfect, powerful effect, the song is awesome, and I know I don't quite get it all but I want to say what I can, now, before learning more about it. All I really know from other little monsters is that it was called "Burqa", I have not heard anything else that might be being said about it. So this is all going to be based on how I hear the lyrics, I'll probably redo it after reading them and researching what Gaga says about the song, but I wanted to get my "puffimpressions" documented. I did not go with calling it my "Getting it Wrong" series, though that was what I was thinking, and certainly fit my disastrous prediction of a Broncos Superbowl win, but now that I've actually gotten around to writing it I decided any interpretation is "good" because "artpop could mean anything", and even misunderstandings are interesting and provide quirky clues. Like I thought she said "artformacological" and who knows what else until just a week ago when someone posted the actual lyric, of Bloody Mary. But I still want to go back and try to make some expression of what it could have meant, the way i misheard it. Maybe this is clinging to the bliss of ignorance, resisting something that is about to wake me up, but let me get it out of my system. I still don't know what she says in the very first verse of Aura, this is how I hear it: I killed my former Anne or "farmer and" or "former something I don't understand" - but in my edited copy they blur the end of this verse and I can't imagine what it could be that they censored it out. I always "thought" it said "former friend" and maybe this is my mind filling in an idea, or relates to something I heard about Gaga which would be a way of addressing it, but when I listen closely I just don't hear her saying "friend" - and can't figure out why Wal-Mart would not allow her to say that on their version, or what they are censoring here. Left her in the trunk on Highway 10 - I assume a California Highway, and a quick search made me think what became interstate 10, the most southernmost interstate, running from CA to FL. That road has lots of desert toward the California side, implying a car, her car, left out in a remote area with her victim's body in the trunk. Put the knife under the hood I guess saying she hid the knife in the engine, but could have some code-like meaning. The car itself could be a metaphor, too, as well as the victim - a vehicle to get her where she is and a connection or helper (or tyrant - I don't know the word andwhat it might imply here) who was sacrificed to get there. If you find it, send it straight to Hollywoood This says she can be found in Hollywood, either implying as a result of killing her friend, or just that she expects to be there. The former is again filling in from the idea I assumed was a myth about Gaga that she killed her friend and stole her style or something and that is how she got so famous. If this is a clever way to address that myth then this makes perfect sense, but it might have nothing to do with that. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa a a a a a a Aura, Aura, Aura, Aura, aura, Aura This maniacal laughter suggests she got away with it, like a crime-boss, she is above the law and you might just send the knife to Hollywood to get it back to her to connect with her and earn her favor, not to the police as evidence - either way she does not seem worried about it. And then she let's the percussive "A"'spin off the electronic/fake voice quality, like a cinematic device to both end that whole "story-line" or myth, and to wrap it all into the "Aura" chant. This suggests, to someone like me (who loves Gaga, senses her originality and does not really believe she killed anyone and certainly don't think she has to steal anything, as genius and divinely-inspired as she so obviously is, that can't be stolen, only like borrowed and channeled from the divine anyway) that this whole myth is part of the Aura of becoming famous, the celebrity image. She already, immediately, introduces this mystical juxtaposition of two meanings of Aura, just in the lead-up to saying the word. It's like she is saying the Fame Image is an Aura, but the usual use of the word aura is something everyone has, like a glow of their life-energy. Even without saying anything about it, just introducing the word this way, Gaga does this amazing thing of reconciling the micro-macro paradox. In a way it is inviting you, the listener, who has her own aura, to make the most of it, make it some sort of Fame Image, live up to the best energy you have, live up to your dreams. This is implied by associating Fame Image with the word "Aura" but the strongest message is the idea that Gaga's presentation of herself is like an aura surrounding her. This starts to take on the mystical meaning of the veil over the nature of reality and magic and also the fame-personal meaning of the aura hiding the real girl underneath. These themes get even more complex throughout the song, and it has so much more than double-meaning but becomes multifaceted like a gem, as any good mystical writing is. The whole effect of taking off the electronic sound of the voice, and bringing it from the background into the foreground by the time Aura is chanted, is like a version of peeling off the layer, removing the veil, in an audio way. I took a break writing this and was listening to Morrissey and the Smiths, and "A Rush and a Push and the Land That we Stand on Is Ours" came on and the intro, like coming out of a dream or back from the dead, is the same effect, a tweaked vocal that becomes clearer and closer, then changes to real. So the rest of the lyrics, with a couple of exceptions, are in the most vibrant voice of almost singing directly to you, without any of the Aura, and of course the song itself is about the Aura, and in this way it presents another mystical idea about the aura, of everyone, but taken to its full bloom - it becomes a irresistible trap or escape route, where you can't help but want to discover the most about the realest person underneath. I'm not a wandering slave This seems to be a reference to stereotypes about women who wear burqas, defending against the idea that they are wearing it out of subjugation to a man, or a comment that Gaga herself is not a pop star, tour/wandering for someone else's benefit and profit, but in control of herself, her destiny, and her fashion. Or that, just as Islamic women and others are not submitting to a man, but to the divine (My Islamic Literature professor, Alan Godlas, told us the literal meaning of "Islam" was this submission to the divine will), Gaga's passions for fashion are not the whims of other humans, society, or "men", except artists, representing the divine. They are divine revelations through divine inspiration directly to Gaga and through other artists channeling it. I am a woman of choice This emphasizes the same point, and focuses on the fact that she is a woman. This is again to defy the mentality that does treat people and especially women as slaves and to say that no one should accept this, we should all work for justice, the free choice of all women and all people. My veil is protection for the gorgeousness of my face This explains the purpose of the burqa. At first you might think it means to protect her face, to keep it gorgeous. It does do that, but that meaning would best be conveyed "to protect the gorgeousness" or "to protect my face" and saying "protection for the gorgeousness" implies protecting someone else, you, from the gorgeousness of her face. The idea of the burqa as a symbol, and it's function to hide a woman's face, call into question the ideas that lead to sexism. If a man is attracted to a woman's face, for example, is it "her fault" or "his fault"? You could say there is nothing wrong with it, so it is no one's fault, but certainly men have done bad things as a result of being attracted to women. Of course it's not all bad, but one way to avoid bad outcomes is to avoid it as much as possible altogether. We seem eager, the western mentality seems eager, to say a burqa is a burden or oppression of women, like blaming them for being beautiful and having to hide it. I've heard interviews with women who wear burqas and they say it makes them feel liberated, not judged for their appearance or attracting unwanted attention. From this perspective it seems like the burqa protects men from he power of women's allure and therefore protects women from the unwanted attraction. This seems like it is not really blaming women for being beautiful, more like it blames men for being less in control of their lust, but in a way just removes the blame by removing the whole issues in a way, like acknowledging that it is natural for men to get too attracted, not excusing the excesses of that, but dealing with it at a basic, fundamental level. I don't know how much of the pro-burqa argument, or which elements of it, Gaga might be trying to promote, but there is so much meaning in the way she presents these ideas. All of the same factors about a woman being veiled from the over-excitement of men could also apply to the Mystery being veiled from the aggressive grasp of all humanity. The real power and beauty of Aura, to me, is how Gaga makes the most of this multiple-meaning, and how simply she does it with a few changes in a few words. The reason "Burqa" is such a powerful symbol, the reason there is so much conflict over it, for instance in Europe where there are burqa bans and protests to wear them, is because of the nature of the veil between east and west and the veil between men and women. The western mentality that is basically afraid of the burqa has a very hpocritical stance on women's beauty. On the one hand, Western societies show women in sexy and alluring ways as much as possible, but on the other hand they have some extreme puritanical and moralistic elements that basically try to suppress all sexuality. Especially in America it is like we have exchanged actual sexuality for super-presentational, Billboard sexuality. We then say to beautiful women "you are dressed too sexy" and to girls who are too young to be sexy "wear this word on your butt". It's like we are scared of actual women and actual sexuality, so we try to turn it all into images, etc, we can consume and control. The burqa scares us (western, sexist mentality) because it returns the element of mystery to women, establishes that they are like the divine, all powerful, unfathomable, even untouchable - except that the veil can be removed, at the divine feminine will. The west resents the burqa because it defies their "advertising-only" idea of sexuality, in fact it shifts all of sexuality to a more private affair, not public at all, or subject to public scrutiny or judgement. The west is so obsessed with shame about sexuality, a public opinion, that it is literally threatened by mystery and the idea that people can do whatever they want that doesn't hurt anybody in private. The veil is also between the public and private worlds, and this is really such a powerful symbol I could write a whole book about this song, but I want to just make some more major points here. I can't really speak certainly, only imagine, about the eastern mentality, but the western one is not all bad, just the hypocricy of it. I have no problem with advertising sex, as long as you aren't also trying to shame people for enjoying it, selling it, or giving it away. This is really only beginning to lift the veil on this one mystery, between men and women, east and west, public and private, and mant other things, but all of it is based on the association of veil with burqa and all it's implications. But the way I usually respond to the word veil, since I think more about nature and reality than fashion, is the veil between worlds, and all this means. As The Goddess, as this whole gagablog is trying to focus on seeing Gaga, any talk about a veil implies the veil of/between the world and ultimate reality. The ultimate reality is obvious to those who focus on experiencing it, but a mystery to all - the ultimate reality is the Mystery that all mystical and spiritual endeavors strive for, the religious and mystical are the ones who talk about the veil over or of reality, nature, the divine, different names depending on what you call secret and what you call obvious. The answer is Love, but it can sound cliche or hurtful to those who feel outside of it, though the mystery is that Love is everything, including the pain of feeling the loss of it or understanding it too narrowly. It's easier to talk about since Gaga identified herself as the Goddess of Love, but even before she did that, and even if you weren't focused on her for years beforehand as a goddess, making a song about a / "the" veil has those kinds of implications. More about this later, though. INTERLUDE: I started this a few days ago, then came back to it, today, on May 31st. Just before typing this I turned on the TV, just to see if anything was on, and happened to tune in at the moment of the live broadcast about the release of an American taken hostage by the Taliban 5 years ago. I guess it was a big surprise, and of course it was a surprise to me to happen to turn on the TV at the moment of a live broadcast, and one of such significance, since the situation and maybe even negotiations have been taking place for possibly the entire Obama presidency, though they are saying it was all mediated by Qatar. I won't get sidetracked into the implications of all of this, except to say there are implications for "media magic", which this gagablog is mostly concerned with, and the magical connections between our inner experience and the media we create or encounter. I will just add that one other magical message came in the form of a commercial, from the government, encouraging kids to go to other worlds by reading. I noticed it because of a reference to Oz, among references to Harry Potter and Alice and Wonderland, etc. Then there were more Oz refrences, like the Emerald City, and it really got me excited. The fact that the Oz BOOKS are being promoted by the government, now, a century later and after years of suppression, means so much to me, a turning point towards the glorious future I've been expecting. Especially now, as I keep saying and will soon write my book about how Gaga fulfills the Oz prophecy. Also there was news of a volcano, I don't know where, but always impressive and significant, and anther story about protests in India over rape and police not serving justice. It is hopeful to me that people are protesting and it is making the news, and while there may have been improvements in ending misogyny in India, here, and everywhere, there is still a long way to go. This is one reason the divine feminine is veiled, protected. We need to be protected from her gorgeousness, it overpowers us and is always drawing us in, but we cannot enter with force or violence, the veil keeps all that away. The only kind of "violence" allowed beyond the veil is the welcome struggle of love, sex. Once we overcome all violence, as a species, and are focused on eradicating all vestiges of it, we will be fit to be in the direct presence of the Goddess and all that means, with all the "powers" in the cosmos, not at our command, but in grace and harmony with them and helping even them to heal and reach their dreams. You want to pity me cuz you want a woman in love or "one man love" or "underpinning me" or "you wonder if it's because"- okay, I have to admit I have no idea what this line is and only a feeling what it means. I've known it would trip me up, then when I stopped writing this for a couple of days I've listened to it over and over but can't figure it out. I'll be glad to finish this and look it up, but I had to include my interpretation of Aura even while this is a mystery to me, because it is one of my favorite songs and means so much to me, even when I know I don't know it all. But I also feel like I have been keeping myself intentionally stupid, behind, slow, in the past - I've known that keeping up with Gaga would require getting up to light speed, which transforms you into an artist, and I'm ready to do that now, an hold nothing back. But not knowing this line exemplifies my intentional stupidity, holding myself back, holding the world back - just like smoking cigarettes, which I quit again a week ago. Expect the collapse of the military-industrial-bankingclan-oil companies-right-wing-complex any day or night now. Anyway, my impression of this line is basically something about other people's, the public's, impression of one's status or availability. I guess I get this idea based on the following line, too. I think it's kind of about belonging to your lover, not in the negative sense as a possession, but in the positive, "in love with each other" sense that you want to have that one person to belong with. The idea is possibly that wearing a veil indicates you are seeking to attract others stricty on your own terms or not at all, but not to seem available. I don't know what cultures are like where women wear veils, it does seem unjust to me that some places force everyone through laws or custom to wear them, but even more unjust that people would outlaw them, as if they are trying to outlaw that culture itself. But I know one western argument against the veil is that it is men treating women like property by covering them. To me this seems like projection, since we have terrible examples in the west of treating women like property, and maybe they do in those cultures too, but if we take into account many women's own positive ideas about the veil there must be many good things about it. I see a parallel to the west trying to force the east, China, to accept our internet culture, including porn, when they want to, and apparently succeed, in blocking it. I come down on both sides of this debate in different ways. Anyway, this is further digression because this line is beyond so many veils, to me, and I will return to it when I learn what it really is. But for now, I basically think if it as "public judgement of the singer's relationship status, or any sort of status or identity marker, possibly represented by the veil." But in the bedroom the size of hims more than enough This is the only line I have "research" on because Gaga once answered the interview question "what do you look for in a man?" or boyfriend by saying "a big dick". The whole idea of "him" being big in the bedroom implies having a big cock (as I write this, the baseball announcer says "he's not afraid to come inside, and he'll come inside, then come inside again, then come inside again.") I think this is just to say he's an ideal or good enough guy for Gaga, a guy who has what she wants. This also makes me think about the previous line, since I don't know what it means, but it could be about women wearing a burqa and outsiders' judgments of them, which might include that women in burqas might by polygamous, in which case the size of him could be more than enough for more than one woman. But this is one reason to find out the actual previous lyric, because I have no idea, really. But somewhere in there a man is introduced in the song, or implied, because there is no mention of a man previously, unless we assume that she is not a slave to a man. I'm way behind in actually knowing things about Gaga's personal life, and I might sound really silly, but I guess the last thing i heard was that she and Taylor were monogamous and together for years now. I don't know if I believed it, with disappointment, ha ha, or just decided to take her word for it, but there would not be much reason to expect she is singing about him being more than enough for more than one person if she is singing about herself and she's really that monogamous. Also, someone recently asked me if being polyamorous was like a pre-requisite for being a little monster, if that many of us identify that way there is probably something to it in the example of our mother monster. But she did say all the lyrics on all of Artpop are literal and autobiographical, I think, and there seems to be some flirting around and making out and having sex with other people in the other songs of the album, so that could be the case here, too. And I'm sure other little monsters know much more about this, as much as Gaga expressed wanting to keep her private life private, but I'm too old, age-wise, I guess, to talk with many of them so I'll just write it here and hope people talk with me. I guess the reason I am obsessed with it is because it fits my new sexual revolution idea, the one we will win this time instead of retreating. Much respect to the hippies and others, but we need to renew that revolution to honor all they did, and win it this time because we can, thanks to their efforts, continued efforts since then, an improving magic and technology. And we really need to, to save the world. It basically makes me sad that people can still be so lonely, even with so much more connectivity with the internet. And even with increasing sex facilitated by the internet, there still seems to be s sleazy, shameness about it. And I can't help but mostly blame boys, initially, for being generally gross and girls evolved responses to that. So I guess my solution is not that everyone should just hook up with everyone else as much as possible, but if you are with a good person share them around some and raise the standard, and availability, for everyone. If more and more good people get to have better and better sex, and get better at it, good things will happen. What else could this mean? Maybe from a cosmic perspective the bedroom is the world of dreams so he is a big dreamer - tat sounds even sillier but I guess it all depends on the previous line to solve the mystery. Do you wanna see me naked lover? Oh Jesus, it's a fire, this line is so hot. This line both establishes and teases to peel away the whole angelic host of veils. First of all, of course you want to see her naked, she's the hottest woman there is. Or from a mystical perspective, you want to see the naked reality, pure love, you don't want to mess with all the bullshit and non-love any more. It's a rhetorical question but it is also like a magic spell, the answer is yes, what can I do to make that happen, I'll do anything for you, etc. Then there is the whole meaning of the word "lover". If you are her one and only true lover, then this is an invitation to make love, but of course it shows her ultimate power over me, that I wait for her to ask, I'm helpless to my overwhelming desire for her, to make love with her whenever she wants. But even I, or you, or Taylor, envied the most by the most people because he is with Gaga and is therefore the hottest guy on the planet, he still has to wait for her to lift the veil, all that "power" of hotness is nothing compared to her power and hotness. And that goes for all women, it is just the feminine difference for ya'll as embodiments of the Goddess, sorry boys (at least boys like me who don't dress up). Now if this is just a general "lover" like your waitress might call you, and you and I could be anyone, well, it is kind of extra hot and slutty in a way that she is asking "anyone" or us that. And if it is specifically directed towards the people actually listening, little monsters and fans and the curious, etc, then it is something in between asking her one true love and the whole world. And from the mystical perspective it is the Love Heart of reality asking us, either all of us or the special ones who love her, if we want to see her naked, if we want to be even closer to her or in touch with her, or even make love with her. Do you wanna peek underneath the cover This is another amazing line, echoing and reinforcing the whole veil image but also making it both more sexual and more mystical. The cover implies the veil over ultimate reality, the covering, like a blanket, or curtain - it's just another common motif for talking about that, probably because of how it can be pulled aside, pulled off, uncovered, but how it lays comfortably still. Also that it protects against "wind" or communication - it's hard to describe in words, the reason for poetry and song. But mostly that it protects whats inside, underneath, keeps it warm and safe. So peeking under the cover implies joining that absolute safety, or at least getting a glimpse of it. Sexually it implies seeing her naked, again, but also seeing her in bed, being invited into her bed, and it just intensifies the eroticism and intimacy of it, whether you are hearing it as her personal, only lover, or one of millions of her lovers. Do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the Aura? behind the Aura? This line both brings it all together, full circle, and takes it to a new level. First, it's all about "the girl". I can't separate feminism from anything, it is the central thing we need to accept to save the world, along with environmentalism, social justice (human and animal rights), pacifism and non-economy. It's all part of the same thing, the Glory of the Goddess, but nothing really happens if we don't restore utmost respect to girls and the feminine. That's why, as terrible as the kidnapping of hundreds of girls is, if it leads to awareness of how constant this problem is, and other problems connected to it, we can fix this world - just as the awareness and new solutions coming out of the Ukraine situation could get us all off of the evil of the influence of oil companies. The Girl, the real person who is represented by "Lady Gaga", or in the case of anyone singing this song, the real person beneath whoever their persona or image is, is asking if you want to make love, to see her naked. Because that is not part of the image, that is our most personal experience, who we have sex with and the sex we have. But it is just like if you see a beautiful sunset, or watch a great movie, or eat a delicious meal - you would rather share it with someone, those moments that lift our souls. Even reading a book that touches us, we might not want someone reading over our shoulder, but we want to share it with someone who read it before or reads it after us. Regardless of all the trappings, of all the Aura, the realest and best things are our experiences, the inner things, beneath the coverings. This is where all of us truly live, behind the aura. The irony is we use the aura to get each other's attention, then want to get through it with that person who can love us for who we truly are. Gaga has the most fabulous aura and image on the planet, and yet she is saying that even all that grandiosity is not "her", the real her is behind all that. As an example to us, we can see how if even Gaga who has the greatest aura has to make this powerful song to get us beneath it, we, whose auras might seem pale, are still stuck behind them and keep people at bay with them. If our Auras seem like flimsy things compared to Gaga's, they should be super-easy to break through, right, to lift those veils? I know that is not entirely so, I'm being sarcastic, but the other option is to see the relative grandiosity of Gaga's image, hearing her call it an Aura, and knowing you also have an aura, and maybe if you just bedazzle it then it will have the same glorious effect as Gaga's. If we aren't going to just break through and be real with each other, or in the meantime, let's at least make these images and games as fabulous as possible, filled with glitter and hope and sparkliness. And we can all lift the veils and be closer to each other at different times in different ways, and all together, the more the merrier, on this universal love. And from the mystical perspective this line just reminds us that when we lift the veil of reality, the divinity we discover beneath it is a girl. Do you wanna touch me cosmic lover? I just love the experience I had the first time i heard this song, and still have every time I hear it. Each line is so powerful, I'm like "damn, girl, you can't say anything more badass than that!" then the next line she does it - and this happens again and again in this chorus. At this point, it gets meta-mega epic, and the percussion and bass kick in - and it goes all cosmic. This is intense. The music takes it to the next level, you can feel it, just as she takes it to a whole new level, too. She asks if you want to touch her, implying greater or even total intimacy. It gets really hot, and at the same time gets really spacey as she qualifies what kind of lover she's addressing: a cosmic lover. Again, this could be her true love, a love written in the stars. Or it could be the mystery lover, even the lover she has never met, who is cosmically destined to meet her (me? Please?) That sneaky part of my brain that wants Aura to be a lovesong to me, personally, mystically, whether or not she knows I exist, wants to be named "Cosmic Lover", at this point. But I'm sure it has that effect on everyone: everyone could be her cosmic lover. This is why we need an artist like Gaga to show us the future, this is why call her the Goddess, a liberator deity, why I sang my song "Savior Mom (Lady Gaga)" www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxAgloeSF64 for her - she is awesome enough, a wide enough channel of divine inspiration, that she can make this love/sex song that is so perfect for the human physical and spiritual condition but also reflects the mystery of the Goddess playing coy with humanity, and challenging us to live up to our potential and overcome our flaws to be worthy of her. Do you wanna peek underneath the cover? This is not just a repeat of the line before because the lines between change the meaning some: first, maybe cosmic lover is just more description for the same lover, or maybe these lines could apply to different people or ways of looking at someone. But it is the cosmic lover who is invited to touch, again deepening this idea that our spirits experience things together, and while our bodies may yearn for each other the real experience of sex is not physical but a magical, spiritual union. As physically attractive as we are to each other, our spirits are even more eager to be united with each other, in so many ways, but we don't focus on it like that, usually. But to touch the ultimate reality, the Goddess of Love, gives us a spiritual, trippy experience, it brings out the spirit in us and makes us more vibrant. Also, the idea of being "cosmic" already kind of implies being everywhere or omnipresent, so asking the cosmic lover if he or she wants a peek under the cover kind of implies Gaga, or any "the girl" or "the lover-to-be", has a power even greater than the cosmos, the power to lift the veil. Do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the aura, behind the aura, behind the aura, behind the aura-------? This again repeats the first time in the chorus, but carrying it out to an echo and then like a machine sound is like ripping off the matrix, or going to another side of the veil. The first half of the chorus is more intimate, personal, because there is light, harpsichordy music and some gentle squiggles and the vocal sounds heavenly. Then when the music kicks in for the second half of the chorus it sounds that much more powerful in contrast with the quietness accompanying many of the same words a moment before. When she first repeats the word "aura" at the end of the intro verse, it is just the music that does a sort of alarm-sounding sequence to rip that layer away, when it terminates in the beginning of the first verse. But at the end of the chorus, a snare rush sneaks up behind the vocal, gaining volume even as the vocal "Aura"-echo is becoming more punctuated, until they merge into that same kind of perforation to rip the aura/veil away in preparation to go even deeper, or to another side of the veil, in the second verse. Enigma popstar is fun she wear burqa for fashion This verse starts a whole different tone, like another perspective or side of the veil. But it also just goes deeper into some of the themes already introduced. Who is the enigma popstar, who is "she"?. In a way I suspect Gaga is talking about herself, as the "enigma" popstar versus the other, regular ones, or referring to herself in the third person as the Enigma Popstar she portrays, though this is how that is really her Aura, really her, a natural part of her - just, there is an inner core girl beneath it all. Even the fact that she is adopting the veil/burqa motif as an outsider - though i feel certain Gaga put a lot of thought into it, or felt the divine inspiration of the words to know the poetry and magic of them would carry through any possible conflict or misunderstanding about them. I suspect this is the truth, and what she means by a "move of passion" in the following line. I suspect she is criticizing herself, but then again she might not be. She might know that while she has been criticised by others for appropriating cultural fashions, she has done so in more respectful ways than other/actual "pop" stars who have been criticized for the same thing, but did much worse. I'm thinking about Katy Perry as a Geisha or Katy Perry as a Witch, burning herself, or even Ke$ha as an "Indian" in Timber, unless I'm getting some confused or I just nightmared that. Or Madonna burning crosses - the ASL sign for Pepsi is a cross on the forehead, which I assume is a remembrance of that video/commercial. But my impression, while only partially "getting it", is that the first verse is about how the burqa is perceived by outsiders to the cultures who wear the burqa, and how the person behind the burqa, from that culture, might really feel - their perspective, even though Gaga is just adopting or assuming it to make an artistic point. The second verse, however, is about an outsider using the same device, the burqa, adopting it. This is a whole different perspective, again, another side of a veil, and it still applies on different levels. If the Goddess of Love is an Enigma Popstar, she isn't even serious about hiding from us, it is just a mood or fad, a game. Even as I type this I think of a more Indian, longer idea of time. There is all this tension in tens of thousands of years of oppressing the feminine, symbolized and realized by real tension between men and women, etc, that makes the veil a powerful symbol, etc. But from a broader perspective, knowing we are in a brief flaw, a skip in time, where we aren't respecting the feminine, but will soon return to eons of balance, we will look back on this as silliness, and to the Goddess with that perspective the veil is just something to play with. Gaga is saying it is "just fashion" but also that, even without knowing all the history, struggle, and conflict over the burqa, when the popstar puts it on she brings all of that up to the world, an magically for herself, for everyone. In the most basic sense, it's incredibly ironic how everyone is so upset we are being spied on, weren't upset a dozen years ago when they said they were gonna do it, is obsessed with celebrity in general and generally guilty of celeb-hating like on the Kardashians as if there is anything wrong with celebrity for its own sake when we all obviously dig it, pretend we care about our privacy and advertise all sorts of stuff about ourselves on social media, like we are pretending we are our own little versions of celebrities. The truth is we shouldn't just tease this stuff, we should get out and do what only we can do. I'm the worst offender, I'm wrapping up this rambling-writing soon, unless people respond- anyone can write this. But I gotta write songs and stories that only I can write. Thanks for reading though, if anyone got this far! I just use words for fashion, sorry I don't have the respect for the long history of struggle it took to make words available to everyone...oh, that;s right, they aren't yet. Let's get on that! Maybe wear something with a literacy logo? Or a campaign to connect everyone for free, etc. Free food and water, too. And no guns. Its not a statement as much as just a move of passion As I said above, it's not intended as a statement, but it kind of becomes one, it brings it up. There is a lot of real life, serious bullshit stuff going on in the world around burqas, cultural oppression and people protesting, gender oppression I guess and people in some countries being forced to wear them when they would rather not. There is a lot of serious shit. But when you google it, Burqa, the third result after burqa and burqa ban is burqa lady gaga. It might have just been a whim, but she got that far into the heart of the conversation. To me this is magic, an example of how this "media" magic, or Oz magic, Gagamagic, works. Simply, it is knowing everything is magic, anything can be used for magic, and using it with good and the best intentions will make good and the best things happen. It's kind of crazy, but try it, it works. Magic does not have to be complicated, at all, and is more powerful the simpler it is, with the right attitude. All that complication is like math, science, medicine, or any other study, just to scare you away and stifle the creativity of all but the most brilliant - an unfortunate clique mentality. Also "passion" implies ecstasy, either sexual,divine, or both. A move of passion sounds like the whim that comes with an ecstatic experience, you are just inspired to wear a burqa, or whatever it is. But whether Gaga researched this stuff and considered it all carefully, belabored the lyrics like I am (sorry!), or just let them come to her and was completely amazing as she has a knack for doing, it all comes down to an inspiration, a magical force on the world. I'm sure there is so much more to it, I expect to be enlightened when I resolve some things I'm missing and hear things that Gaga and others have to say about it. I think this is the last time I can just wear a veil, or more like a blindfold, and just put off seeking out all this information. I might try to record more lyrics the way I hear them, for fun, but ASAP, and then read the real lyrics, catch up on all the videos and commentary. It won't be long before I will see Gaga at the Ball for the first time, the first time I've seen her outside of a dream or a screen, and I just need to stop being such an idiot. Also, I wouldn't mind attracting some knowing people and being able to converse with them. I may not walk on your street or shoot a gun on your soil This seems to be Gaga talking to the people of the Middle East, as much as I hate to say that because the line "shoot a gun on your soil" so clearly indicates, to me, American military in Iraq, etc. But of course it could imply any occupying or foreign military force, it certainly seems to imply a hostile aggressor. But she also says she may not walk their streets. On the one hand it implies she might walk on the streets, probably has not or even won't, but certainly won't be shooting a gun there. The meaning of the whole thing to me is admitting that she does not have the personal experience, or even the experience of visiting, countries where people regularly wear burqas, but such a person might be or become sypathetic to their perspective. A soldier might become sympathetic by living around the populace, too, but a soldier represents another order being imposed. So I think she is saying "I may be American, I may have only secondary exposure to this, but I'm not trying to impose my ideas on you, but more make a connection and see if I can help." The next verse seems to prove this. I hear you screaming is it because of pleasure or toil? I'm still hearing this in the context of the outsider, who hasn't even visited, but who hears the cries of the people. Why are they crying? She hears crying, is it cries of pleasure or pain? Behind the closed doors, the roles people play, especially sexually, which they have every right to keep secret in some respects, well there is also a lot of abuse that goes on in private, and a lot of people intimidated out of admitting it or seeking help. So people can say they feel more respected under a veil, but if a veil hides bruises, etc, can we always believe them? It is when they cry out, when we can hear them outside the private world - is that from pleasure? If so, good for you. But if it is from pain, we want to know, the public wants to step in and do something to help people who can't help themselves. Again, so much of this is focused on the "burqa/veil" connection and all these cultural implications. I haven's said anything about if the Aura/veil is something else entirely, like more specifically the Ego or a funeral or bridal veil or who knows. The song certainly does not necessarily have anything to do with cultures where people where burqas - that is to say, I might be making a really big deal about something that is really a small part of the meaning. Certainly there is enough meaning to the song that much of this I'm talking about here is not necessary to feeling and getting the meaning of it. But even without any cross-cultural implications, hearing anyone scream, on any street, is a cause for concern. We want all screams to be for fun,and anything that causes a bad scream we want to stop. I've always heard this line with this kind of mental image, hearing a scream, like in the street, coming from a house or alley. But I see that like a dream, like a metaphor for hearing screams of a country, of being a deity floating over a country, war-torn, and hearing the screams. Asking, wishing, they were screams of pleasure - but, at least to my current mind, knowing the odds are, pain. Think about that, for a second, though. There have been lands, cities, countries, where wailing and lamenting went up to the air from every voice. If the same symphony of cries played, but all the voices were of pleasure, across a nation or community - wouldn't that have to catch on and be the wave of the future? Isn't that the future, when this line will make people think "well, of course, pleasure! But how awful that would be to hear screams of hard work and pain!" Oh, let me not forget that: It's not exactly "pain", it's "toil" - I interpret that as pain as the opposite of pleasure, but literally it is like "work". Work is what you do, not for pleasure. The work we are lucky enough to love, we would and do for free, we do for pleasure and to please one another. This is Oz-style. No money, all work is for pleasure. This is what I believe in as the future - no toil, no money, no greed because there is no way or reason to hoard vast resources. One other way i thought to interpret this is not so impersonal, but addressed to the one you are having sex with. How all our sex faces can be pretty bad, I hear you screaming is that because it is really good or you are really working hard to get off? That kind of question. Which is kind of too blunt to be "it", in a way, but then again, not a bad way to look at it, especially when reflected mystically. As the Goddess Mystery Lover beckoning us on, if we struggle and cry out in life, because it is so damn hard, but the real secret is to re-unite with the hidden goddess, love, then all of our cries are the same, cries of discovery at getting closer, cries of pain at feeling pushed away or hurt - but all things teach us how to do it better. So when the Goddess hears our cries, and says "is that pleasure or pain?", it is not like she does not care or there is not difference, just they sound the same, and we can have or develop a perspective where more of our cries come from pleasure. Knowing we are always getting closer, even in the times when it hurts, but especially as we learn from those, avoid them and fix them and help others avoid them, we can feel the pleasure in all of it, and nothing will be toil, work. All experience, even our jobs, will be filled with pleasure as we improve them and improve ourselves doing them. The Goddess cares and knows that asking us like this is like saying "are you focused on pleasure and comfort, for yourself and others? Or are you focused on 'working' for some 'other' reason, when there really is nothing else but care for each other?" Because the difference is perspective and focus, and focusing on helping others, or even helping yourself to help others better, focusing on pleasure instead of toiling for, like, a car (that cool old man huntin' a Quattro, the new version, of the commercial, and a memory of that hippie telling Principal Skinner "sounds like you're working for your car, man" just came on as I typed that, ha ha) is what makes the magical transformation so that more and more of our cries become of pleasure. Dance sex art pop dance sex art pop This is like a mantra, like the world going on even though we have reached the beneath the veil infinite space-time with Gaga. This is the world going on like it always does, this is like the sound of the aura itself, of all the auras together in a big beautiful mesh. It reminds me of how Papus explained the Tarot in his "Tarot of the Bohemians", like a spell of the rotating letters "r" "o" "t" "a". But it also reminds me of a ray of creation. Dance is like the dance of the divine, sex is like our imitation of that, one level below, then art is a level below that, art might be what we want to do when we have had enough great sex and want to express that bliss, or when we want more sex and want to do something awesome to attract people, but an imitation or spell to attract sex. And pop is a level below that, when people try to imitate art or use it for lesser purposes. Then again it is like a upward development,as well. Dance is like a natural, open, physical response, shared publicly, etc. Sex is a dimension above that, more intimate, with more love and magical power, art is like a distillation of that love and magic into a form that can be shared publicly and pop is how that art, brought from the future or the divine through the artist, improves us all, gradually, and lifts the whole mentality of culture, progresses us towards that idea future of liberation, safety, and comfort. INTERLUDE 2: It's now a couple of days later, I've been meeting more people via facebook and certainly some of them are making me certain that the veil is, currently, lifting. Thanks, everyone. Do you wanna see me naked lover? Once again, this is not just a repeat of the meaning the first time she says it, there are some different implications from the second verse. As I thought of this in my head I realized the first verse is not that different than the second, it is not really, necessarily, two sides. I do think there is sympathy for women who "really" wear burqa throughout it, in different ways. But the second verse has all the popstar and fashion references, which makes it easier to consider as Gaga's, or an enigma popstar's, relationship to her fans and the expression of sexuality enticing us and connecting with us. Media magic, again, as I write this and on TV is "The Solid Gold Cadillac" had a scene playing where advertising execs are like, discovering using sexy girls in ads, pioneering that. "Why don't we show a steam shovel?" "No one wants to look at a steamshovel!" Gaga is so personal with her fans, meeting with them and tweeting about them and sending them pizza, I think, when they wait for her, and so many of the pictures you see with her lucky little monsters who get to meet her are so affectionate and hot. It's not all about sexuality, it's about intimacy and communication and love and acceptance, but expressing that sexuality is healthy is a way to bring all this together into a hug or kiss, a song and other art, magic or any form of making love. Do you wanna peek underneath the cover? Again, the popstar context makes me think of pictures of little monsters backstage in bed with Gaga, literally "want to peek under the covers?". As much as I enjoy the idea of actually being in bed with Gaga, I must comment on a metaphorical meaning directed at the audience who are not monsters, yet anyway. The criticism from people who don't really know Gaga, just know of her, and this is why I wouldn't even want to bring it up, but their criticism is that she is all for show. So the idea of looking under the covers, the coverings and trappings of fame and media, is that there is More beneath all of that - there's always more beneath. It's a lot deeper than people who fear diving want to consider or imagine. Do you wanna see the girl who loves behind the aura, behind the aura? I guess not much to add here except the arc of the movie playing in the background just now, "The Solid Gold Cadillac", where the heroine discovers she was just hired to keep her quiet, then quits, then returns to play tough, takes shit over and is running things. Do you wanna touch me cosmic lover? I'll just say I look forward to redoing this after getting more information, and also relating it to other messages in Gaga songs, such as "Venus". But along the lines that this is directed at little monsters, this line is saying we are all cosmic lovers, or Her cosmic lovers, who could be her lovers, each others, or just love her and each other and all the art we all make. Do you wanna peek underneath the cover? To me, as an artist, Gaga is the Essence of Inspiration - not like she is my personal muse as much as she is like the Goddess of Muses. Her art shows me under the cover of reality, it shows me the divine, encouragiung me, beckoning me, to make my own art and touch her in my own way. As a witch she does the same thing for me, magically. All my magical beliefs have come to fruition in my own life, but the whole gardening of it versus hoping it crops up wildly is thanks to Gaga showing what I think are the same magical principles on a grand scale, accessible to everyone and apparent to all who look. George Burns is the narrator of this movie and I love his voice, he just said "Prince Charming." Do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the Aura, behind the aura, behind the curtain, behind the burqa - - - - - This is the punchline, the big reveal, when she gathers it all back in together, like cinching a magic bag. "Sure, you're scared of girls" the heroine just said, wow, I love this. "I didn't pan to use one sinle solitary wile on you!" Wow, I gotta watch this for real sometime. "You're here to give me a haircut!" he said, I don't even know what that means, now she kissed him "There, I tampered with your ethics, okay?" -I'm sorry, this is too good, watch it, I shouldn't be spoiling it. But yeah, the big reveal is that you can see the girl behind the aura, and adding the other layers of meaning and reference, the other kinds of veils, the curtain, the burqa, just makes that multi-facted jewel of awareness. The Curtain is one of my favorite references, just a magical delight for me to hear - because of the prase "pay no attention to the man behind that curtain!" from the Wizard of Oz movie (and book? now I'm ashamed I don't know for sure) and used very commonly in reference to any unveiling. But it is not just clever, it is prohetic. For three years now I have been composing in my head and occasionally writing my book about Gaga fulfilling the century-old prophecy of Oz, and it is a whole book so I won't rewrite it here, but this reference is Gaga as The Wizard, and she has already said we can all be all of these characters, and our own, and shows being Dorothy, Glinda, and the Wizard, at least, in her "Gaga of Oz" performance, but teh real secret is the one she "really" is, but the character is unknown to people who haven't read the books. I can't wait to write mine and "reveal" it,and he effect that will have on the world - maybe no more Gagablogs unless someone wants them! seriously this time, I'm ready to do this for real, no more no more veils, just making my Aura go all borealis, Gaga-style. I've gotta get to light speed to catch up with her, before August when she returns to Denver, the Emerging Emerald City of Oz. Artpop Apex alarm clock on screen. So this is the announcement of what this is all about. Just as the intro is like a veil that is peeled away to get to the heart of it, the song Aura, the song itself is like a veil that is removed to initiate us into the greater reality and truth of the rest of the album. Now that we've moved beyond the veil, it is time for Artpop. This is like a spell on the album, we experience this transition by listening to it, and maybe this is one reason I think I heard Gaga say the Artrave was intended to be the whole album played in order. But the effect of the spell o the whole world is to remove the aura, remove the barrier, and move us beyond this superficial era and into the era of Artpop. What that means will be explored in the rest of the songs, and what is discovered there might reveal more about Aura. But it's already so rich and inspiring, I'm going to live up to my nature and be an artist and star, it's already working on me. Thanks for reading, please share if you like, and let me know what you think, okay? Paws up!