gagablog 57: Malala, Gaga, Buddha

I bought Artpop yesterday morning, as soon as I could, at the 3rd store I went to. I have only had time to listen to the first half so far and it fulfills my expectation of changing the world,making 11-11-13 a gate into paradise. I forgot to mention something, one of the main things, in my last edition, but this gagablog should form alink between the pastand future- like the new Zelda game, "A link Between Worlds", coming out in a few days. Listening to half the new album puts me in an interesting prophetic limbo: as I talked about in a much earlier gagablog, before "The Fame Monster" or "Born This Way" came out, a new Gaga album is like a garaunteed technological prophecy: as monsters we are listening to these songs months before the rest of the world, just our tight-knit little family of millions of monsters with a preview on the future, on what everyone will be hearing in the next year. Of course I thought and hoped that everyone would eventually hear "so Happy I could Die" but that represents our own secret paradise. But the other songs represent a pradise that te world is becoming: each song that is destined to be a single represents a phase the world will go through. Like, I really will prefer a world where everyone has heard "Aura" and "G.U.Y" and "Sex Dreams" - well, all of them, I wish, but I know that some won't be made into singles. Oh, and another wrinkle in this tension of not hearing the whole thing is I was excited and happy to find a copy nad hope it had the Golden Ticket - I got the impression they could only be found through Wal-Mart from the email, otherwise I would not ususally be in a Wal-Mart - so I got the "edited edition", though the explicit one is due in the mail. It;s funny in itself, how they blank out "sex" sometimes but not others, and "drugs" and even "cookie", I think. But yeah, I can't wait to hear the "real" versions and I can't wait to hear the rest of the album... ANd honestly I have had time to hear it, now, even as I am writing this, but I keep repeating the first half to explore this magical tension and get even more into these songs that are like a make-up-stained glass window into our soul. Even as I am writing this I started hearing the song "artpop" and I had to pause it and get my lover and puff a bowl to celerate: it's the "first" time I'm hearing the song. I did hear it once before, on the Swinefest, but was overwhelemed by hearing all of those songs for the first time and the agitation of having worked all night and having to download iTunes in order to watch the feed freeze every second. ...And now "Artpop" might be my favorite song, but so far they are all favorites with only "Manicure" the least bit less my style. But my lover asked me, why not listen to the rest fo the album? I told her I am writing this gagablog about it, that it has to do with a magical tension - or playing coy trying to meet Gaga. But it is what I have always done, saved a little for later, stretched out and savored a new experience over a few days, especially when it is an album by an artist who I've been waiting for for years, or a new discovery of an old album by a band. I love all the 7 songs I've heard more and more as I hear them, but I am saving the others for tomorrow at least, when my workweek is over and I'm better rested to enjoy it the fullest. But I'm also magically holding myself back from the second half, to build tension and shoot further ahead when I hear it, and the first half is so much its overwhelming already. I'd love to write a short gagablog for once, but as it plays I can't help but mention how much I love GUY, how perfect it is. Will this be what she sings from space? Oh, its cosmic love, for sure. But of course I came here to wrap the world up magically in this gagablog, to show how it all comes together and "she", love and art, is at the center of it. I forgot in my last one to mention the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy and how damning that was for Republican "ideology" that obstructed aid to all those people - and how that relates to all their other obstructions, from kicking the crutch out from justice with voter suppression, but blocking progress on giving health care, blocking progress towards peace, and blocking progress towards addressing global warming. Now we have had the worst typhoon in a century in the Phlllipines and we should learn at least a few things from this, and from Sandy: global warming is a problem and we need to do a lot about it, but not argue, it's a problem that affects everyone and can terribly effect anyone and it is immoral to argue that it doesn't exist, basically to ensure oil company and other profits, etc. The best thing about government, the best thing about our military, even, is our ability to help in such disasters. One lesson we should not forget is Kanye's words of wisdom that Bush doesn't care about black people, since we have the ability to help around the world in a few days but ignored and genocided New Orleans. And it's not just Bush, it's the whole menality of conservatives who blocked aid to victims of Sandy, and all the other hateful and greedy obstruction they are guilty of. Of course I personally think the military should be retooled into a emergency (and general, why not?)relief service and rescuer of persecuted people by bringing them here, if they want. But I can't go on about this, it should all be obvious, and some wonderful things happened in the same week as this tragedy in the Phillipines: Gaga released Artpop and all the world-changing implications of that, like a Pandora's Box of Goodness. But another "sign" of all this coming together into a new peaceful world, Gaga was at the Glamour Women of the Year awards and met Malala. Malala herself said something amazing that I love so much, "I believe that the gun has no power at all" - I love that. I wish I had the link to the article, I need to go to the store soon, I have to wrap this up, but Artpop for the second time in my life is too amazing and I want to repeat it all and write another half hour... but the point is all of this proves this point that "caring" is the measure of worth, for governments and for the actions of individuals. I wrote about it in a chapter on caring in my book "All I Really Need to Know I learned from Smoking Weed" but that whole issue, with Miley lighting up and Gaga having some quotes in an interiew will be something I imagince I will address in the next edition. But Gaga's quotes at the Glamour awards were the best to make a specific point about caring: she said she wished she could give her Glamour cover to Malala, to have Malalaon the cover instead, Gaga was obviously inspired by her as apparently everyone who meets her or hears about her is. And Gaga said something else amazing, that I had to write this gagablog about: she said she does not think her greatest talent is in fashion or music, but that she thinks the thing she does best is to see what other people need - she is the best at caring, at caring for other people ("Goddess of Love!" in the background as I type, yeah, one more round, I LOVE this album!!!!! It IS the paradise future, NOW, that I was hoping for - the final mercury retrograde is over, as she said.) I don't know if Gaga knows this, that she is describing a crucial point and feature of the enlightenment of Buddha. I am writing "Oz Magic: From Radio to Gaga" to show how she fulfills this super-secret Oz prophecy that only I seem to know about: even Gaga herself seems to be inspired by the movi version and does not seem to know, consciously, the infinite depth of the Oz prophecy of which she is the central figure, the main characters - especially Ozma, okay, for those of you who know! But Gaga's quote reminds me of the Buddha's enlightment, after fasting for forty days and taking the rice milk from the fairy girl, sorry for butchering it, and remembering his past lives fully. I heard it said that then, from then on for the rest of his life, he always knew what everyone needed and the best way to help them achieve it. That is what he did in the world, put things to people in terms they could understand to make it work for them. Buddhism is a teaching that can harmonize with other religious beliefs as well as religions itself. The true core of all religions, despite the perversions they are more famous for, is caring - all religions hold loving and caring for each other as the central theme, they just have different emphasis to promote this in different cultural and eographical contexts. Islam is submission to God, and I think the best understanding of this is submission to Love and becoming an embodiment of love, emulating Love, or art, or Gaga, or whoever you want to call it that inspires you to love. I hope Gaga knows that she is liberating the world in her way just as Malala is liberating the world in her way. And I hope Malala knows that while Pakistan has placed some bans on her and said she is not respecting Islam enough, they are really only showing their own deviation from Islam - just as America deviates from what many consider a christian nature by engaging in war and descrimination, etc. Love itself is demanding that women and girls be treated with due respect as the embodiments of the Goddess - only then can we boys and men expect to live as we are intended instead of these mockeries of manhood. Love has always demanded this, but it is finally time for it to take over worldwide and change the world. I've been predicting this for years, decades, and recently been prediciting how significant the Artpop release, 11-11-13, would be as a turning point for this transformation finally, fully, taking place. Of course there will be resistance to change in some places, just as it will take a little while longer for gay marriage to be accepted all over the country. There is a tipping point where light shines on all, not just the idealists who have been looking for it, then there are holdouts still waiting to be enlightened, but it gets around eventually. This is a tipping point, worldwide, and good things will happen and come together at an alarming rate from now on, and previously "impossible" problems will become easier and easier to solve, then non-existent, whether they are war or the worst impacts of natural disaster. All we really need to do is accept this message of love to care for each other. By doing this we can live up to our full potentials and be our best and do the most good for the world. The most good often comes across in the form of art, but many artists have felt stifled, and this is one of the great messages of Artpop and that Gaga is focusing on now, how anyone can live up to the true artist in themselves. In one sense, the "hidden" common denominator between all beliefs that is being revealed and becoming fully honored is "caring". Caring is the most popular thing in the world, if we really get right down to admitting it. Maybe caring and sex, which is a form of caring. But caring is pop, and art is being the best of ourselves. By putting these together, Love and Art, or Love and the real Us, we restore something that has been broken. Gaga shows us how to do this in Artpop, I'm already getting a great feeling for it that is inspiring in this new, future way- and I've only heard the first half. I'm so glad to have finished this so I can allow myself to hear the rest of it! I'm also hoping for the most help to reach the people who are suffering around the world, especially now in the Phillipines, and hoping as always that from this, or man-made disasters, we learn some lessons that change our course, remember the importance of caring for each other all the time, everyone, and move the world in that direction and live the glorious future it will produce. Thanks, Gaga, so much for another window into the future, and how good it can be. I love you so much, we all do, and thank you so much for loving us so well and being so good, at your art that is pop and your true art, the art of being good itself, of knowing what people really need. I love you, all of you. *If anybody reads this, please let me know anyway you want - I have a feeling, no matter when it is, that it will have a positive magical effect to do so. A bonus, of sorts, as we should expect positive magical effects as much as we can imagine.