gagablog 67: Getting it Wrong, Ragnarok

Saturday a week ago was Ragnarok, the day the ancient Vikings predicted the world would end when a wolf eats the sun and moon and a giant serpent rises from the sea. The sun and moon are still shining right on their Viking faces and they just have to stand there groving on it, to quote Homer. They "got it wrong" in a way, the danger of prophecy, and it is funny to compare such an epic event with an "average" Saturday - how could they know? Prophecy is an aspect of the magic of story-telling: prophecy is seeing how it will end, knowing where it all leads. All stories have truth to them, and the most meaningful stories are those that prove true as more experiences fulfill the ideas. Stories about the world ending are usually wrong, but it is interesting that they still have a certain power, including how they outlast the culture that predicts them - surely that is one reason Vikings or anyone predict thousands of years in the future: they expect to be around to see it fulfilled, at least they expect the culture that wrote the story to be around to see it end that way, that is kind of the secret magical goal of and reason for making end-of-the-world predicitons: you kind of fear that so much could change that even your way of life will disappear, but since you can't see beyond your own culture - maybe even forseeing the end of that culture but can't accept it - you come up with a story that preserves your "character" until the end then curtains close and "everything" ends. This is an example of having a belief that does not really work and trying to fix everything to make sense around it. But there is some kind of truth in any prediction, in any story, and magical benefit to looking for it. In the case of Ragnarok, the Vikings are not around to see last Saturday, yet the idea survived, someone figured out what the date was supposed to be, and we were talking about it, posting on facebook about it, and for at least a day or two we collectively thought about Vikings more than we have in centuries, so in a way they "lived again" to see it. "Coincidentally" I heard the last week on the radio about the most historically accurate collection of Viking artifacts on display in a museum in England, I think, right now. There is a prophecy from the Phillipines that hopefully is not coming true, a disease that has started there that was predicted to affect the whole world - hopefully this is also "wrong" but it does make me think of a serpent rising from the sea, in a metaphorical way, anyway. Every day is "the end of the world as we know it" (R.E.M.) because each new day has amazing potential. One current event connected to the idea of the end of the world is the revolution in Ukraine. On the one hand, in a single day events could take place that lead Russia and America into war, even nuclear holocaust that literally destroys humanity, "our" world. But also, and this is thankfully the path we seem to be on, the violence can be minimal or nonexistant, we can come up with new solutions to old problems, and have a Brave New World that is better than ever, starting each and every day. Religious ideas can usually be twisted - dieties have larger watches, etc - but there is truth in the reason for the story, and the fact that we keep predicting things, or telling stories with any spiritual and magical ideas at all, shows there is some truth to how this all works, even if we aren't that good at it. I should have known my prediction that the Broncos would win the Superbowl was "getting it wrong" - mainly because I have been considering this "getting it wrong" edition in my head for months and felt compelled to write that edition in the middle of it, but it IS part of my "getting it wrong" period. Still, I think a lot of the things I talked about in the prediction are true, they are useful considerations about magic, but in hindsight I can retell the story in a way that makes more sense: the two teams from states that legalized weed made it to the Superbowl, which is enough of a pro-pot sign in itself - all my speculation that Denver would win because we did this better was first, speculation, they may have done it better and second, not really related. All things are connected and the excitement of magic is in revealing a hidden connection, but the connection of legalizing weed/going to the Superbowl was magical enough and all there really is to it, applying to both teams. I do think we were better in Denve than Seattle about legalizing weed, I don't have a lot of concrete evidence for this but it is the impression I got as it was all going up, and I think we were recently honored by a study that says Denver is the best city in the country for stoners and also that Snoop Dogg is having his Wellness Festival in Seattle on 4/19 and in Denver on the more significant 4/20, which is also Easter this year, another coincidental sign of diety approving of weed. The "real" reason the Seahawks won is they played a much better game - I'm not ignoring reality and the most direct factors, but I do love talking about "other" factors, too, the magic of it all. Weed is not that especially connected to football in the first place - I'm sure many players smoke weed but it is much more associated with basketball and soccer players. Snowboarders are maybe the most weed-smoking athletes: my coworker told me that the first time snowboard was included in the Olympics they disqualified the top 30 performers and would have given the gold to the 31st because he was the first one who did not test positive for weed, but instead they decided to declare weed-smoking part of snowboard culture and just allow it. Weed will probably become more associated with the NFL, and more and more things, the more it becomes socially accepted. Around the time of the Suerbowl NFL commissioner Roger Goddell made a statement "out-of-the-blue" at a press conference about how the NFL "would" (will) welcome weed once doctors can point out some benefits. You CAN hold your breath for that because there are so many, and that kind of incentive will get some doctors to conduct and show some studies. But since both teams are from states that legalized weed, even if this has a magical effect, it can't be the determining factor in the story. The real majical factors are more related to the stories around the teams and the fan attitude: on one hand the story dynamic is the Veteran Quarterback versus the Young Superstar and that can go either way, magically: both are significant factors people relate to and inspiing stories, both have an underdog quality. I admit to pulling for Peyton for the veteran connection because we are the same age, which I don't like to think of as old but it is in NFL terms. And while we had some great stories in the way Peyton made the rest of the team better and Champ deserved a SUperbowl ring as a Bronco, they just had a better, even more inspiring story: the "why not me?" / "why not us?" story. Russel Wilson's dad asked him "why not you?" and he took it to heart and motivated his team with the phrase at the beginning of the season - "why not us?" - and it became a theme for them, and their fanbase. It would be their first Superbowl, and maybe if there is a weed connection it is that they did not feel quite as good about legalizing it as we did, were a little hesistant, basically not trusting themselves enough, and a Superbowl win makes you all feel really good about yourselves and the way things are going and it will help them get over that and go for progress with full positivity. Sports success has an effect on the mood of a community and fanbase, but the fanbase attitude has a magical effect on the team - everybody senses this and seems aware of it in a way and people act according to various degrees of seriousness in this, but since we don't really openly take it seriously we don't talk about it in a way that could really help us learn about magic. But it is more openly discussed all the time, it has always been implied in the way Sportscasters and newscasters talk, and the more excited the whole community is the more you hear regular local news anchors talk about destiny, end most everyone gets behind the campaign to Support the Team. All this support has a magical effect and I did not want to criticize the Broncos fanbase before the Superbowl but I did think to point out that even at the height of Broncos fever because we were going to the Superbowl and expecting to win, as much as this culture drummed up Broncos support, the height of excitement for the Broncos here felt like the level of excitement for the Bulldogs in Georgia during the off season or a losing streak. It's unfair to compare any other fanbase to Dawg fans when football, specifically the Bulldogs, are an absolute religion in Georgia, but it shows something about how all this works. For example, after the Broncos lost everyone on TV was noticeably sad, no one was even happy for the fantastic, record-breaking season at that point, and most people were making comments like "I still love the Broncos" and many said exactly that - as if it were a question! To me, as rabid as some members of Bronco Country can be, this just shows where we are lacking, a kind of entitled feeling that gets in the way of appreciating, and therefore making the most of greatness. I'm not saying a lackof faith made the Broncos botch the first snap or the rest of the game, but I am saying that while I did start some rituals to help them win but did not complete them and feel a little guilty for that, I also know I was still cheering for them and crazily hopeful even to the last minutes of the fourth quarter then heard about the bars downtown emptying out during the thrid quarter! I do think we, as a fanbase, have shown a disturing lack of faith, to quote Vader, and someone should make us agree. I mean, a month or two before the Superbowl a local station did a poll and found that when asked "Has Peyton Manning lived up to expectations or does he have more to prove?" only 72% said he had met or exceeded expectations and 28% said he had more to prove to them! WHat do they want? Oh, obviously a SUperbowl win but if we have the attitude that if we don't get it it makes the rest worthless, or makes us have to insist we still love them, because it's assumed we don't anymore, well we don't deserve to win with that ungrateful attitude. By contrast, they "why not us?" story was fueled by it being their first Superbowl win and not being seen as contenders at the beginning of the year. And the Seahawks fans are nototrious for being supportive. I was not in Denver when they won the Superbowl before, and it is a much bigger city now, so I might be wrong, but when I heard that 900,000 people showed up in Seattle to celebrate the returning champs I wondered if the celebration would have been as big in Dnever - probably, actually. But I also got the idea that if anybody showed up to cheer on the Broncos return after the lost the Superbowl but to honor their fantastic season, it was only like a few dozen people. If the Seahawks had lost I can imaginc hundreds if not thousands coming out to say "good try, we support and believe in you." You could say it is fanatical for Bulldog fans to "always" believe in our team but really the biggest obstacle we have is because we are so good our player go pro earlier and more often: I was pleased to hear Chris Collinsworth refer to the "NFL-caliber" program we have at UGA. Part of the reason we attract such good players from around the country and keep such good players in the state is this collective belief that the Bulldogs are the best, records notwithstanding. Any team with a supportive fanbase will keep improving, and support grows with belief and is hindered by entitlement - so you want to expect and hope to be the very best but never demand it or feel entitled. This magical principle appies to everything I just think it can be easy for many people to see in mass phenomena like football. Gaga has the most supportive "fanbase"/family ever, of any person or organization I can think of. We are supportive of her, of each other and of the rest of the world to improve. Her art is incredibly prophetic but she does not predict the end of the world, rather she predicts the more accurate "end of the world as we know it" - her perspective is visionary, from the future when the things we suffer from currently don't exist: no more greed, hatred, bigotry or war - I call it Oz because it was so well predicted in thos books and I will soon be writing my "Oz Magic" book to show how Oz predicts this world and Gaga represent the transition into it. The way little monsters will revolutionize the world artistically is the same way the internet has started revolutionizing the world technologically, and we are obviosly working together. The internet connects us, connects our thoughts, and can liberate us. We suffer from imposed divisions and imbalance, injustice, that keeps certain people "in power", in wealth and other people "powerless", in poverty. But while the economic system has been based on the ability of some people to exploit resources for their own profit, the new value system is emerging that will make profit meaningless, because the new standard will prioritize people's ability to make resources available with as little waste (profit) as possible - this is already happening thanks to the internet and how companies are transforming to provide as much for free as possible just to have your attention for further advertising or polling or whatever - the new value system is not based on how much of your money we can get, but how much of your attention and effort we can get, how much we can motivate you to join us in collectively contributing to the society. Once this really gets underway it will transform the world and we can already see the beginnings of it: petition and other campaigns to raise funds and awareness have proven that individuals can still pool our resources and efforts, even or especially the "poorest" of us, and create change. A recent boycott of McDonald's, one of our largest employers, has forced them to agree to pay their workers more, for instance, and many internet-based campaigns have brought issues to people's attention and gotten results or raised awareness to produce results in the future. People are blanking out their social media profiles to protest the killings in Syria, for instance. This could just be silly or it could catch on and really get people's attention and force action, and it seems like the more potentially silly/worldchanging events we can participate in the more we can realize how involved we can be, even with minor efforts, and how much effect we can have. It kin of relies on magic to make something go viral or be a trend and change things, and the magic happens naturally but can be much more powerful if we intend it. The internet has had the effect of actualizing people restoring a sense of worth and potential to people who have otherwise felt impotent or disconnected. As humans we are dvided by certain ideas, misrepresentations and misunderstanding of each others' cultures and experiences and the more we lear about each other the more we can get over any divisions. Some people in power want to keep divisions in place and even have us kill each other for them because they make money from it and this is wrong and will change from every angle as we transform the world. The most important part to me is art. Community has been repressed to keep us separate but the internet is connecting us and all it takes is some ideas to spread and people will demand better, overthrow ther governements and install ones that work better for everyone in the country and better with every other country. This is the hallmark of the new and future organizaional model. All (or most) past organizations, governments, businesses, and religions, all shared the same flaw: no matter howbenevolently they may have begun they are perverted by the influence of human greed so that they end up serving one dominant desire over all others. It's the patriarchal model and has everything to do with this cycle of civilization developing with unnatural, violence-enforced male dominance and repression of the feminine. The new organizational model will be one that restores the feminine ideal to prominance: instead of serving a dominant desire the value of organizations will be in howmuch they benefit everyone. Little monsters are an example of an organization built on the new value system: Gaga makes a lot of money and uses it to improve her show and art, the collective experience, and to promote meaningful social initiatives that can improve people's lives even beyond the scope of art, in more concrete and social ways. The same forces that repress the feminine repress art, and the same monetary structure that says "yuo can't make a living off art" is being transformed. In the same way the internet activates and connects people and makes transformation and revolution possible by spreading information that was hidden, art connects people and can lead to the same transformations, but artists have felt repressed. Gaga's major message is to eliev in yourself, value yourself, and express you talent. She is directly encouraging as an example and says flat out that the "new" emerging economy is actually a greaty place to make a living as an artist, and I think one reason many of us little monsters feel like she is such a good mother monster is because our biological moms were either unsupportive or thought they were being supportive by encouraging us to do other things than art to "ensure a good living" while the support we most need is not for stable finances but for strong and creative spirits. By telling us to make art and showing us the reward- love and the ability to transform oneself and the world - Gaga is awakening a spirit that will change the world. It will be the artistic revival, a new renaissance as significant as the last one and even more powerful: that renaissance was the confluence of art and industry including architecture and the modern technologies of the time, all with goverment support instead of suppression, and when that confluence happens again, soon, with the current state of technology it will be evn more powerful. The "end of the world" is always the beginning of a new one. I heard a guy on the radio talking about developments that changed the world, and if you ask people what the major ones were they might point to religious, political, or philosophical milestones but that if you crunch the numbers, statistically, there was only one thing that made a major difference in human behavior, that really put us on a new trajectory, and that it was the creation of steam power. He described this as the first time we could move so far beyond the limitations of our muscles and compared it to the internet, saying this represents and even more tranfromative development, overcoming he limitations of our minds. Just two night ago "the world's first cyborg" was on a TED talk saying that since our senses are how we gain knowledge, enhancing our senses gave us new kinds of knowledge. This is already true for the internet, so many of us are lucky enough to be able to look anything up on our phone at a moments notice. But he has antennae that allow him to see the colors of sounds, and can even see into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum. To me this is an obvious opening of doors to a whole new world, and different people will be able to develop different senses. In years of conversing with people in the magical community I am well aware that many people already have and develop extra-sensory skills naturally, but when they are being developed technologically for anyone's use people will gain a new understanding and relationship to the world and each other - the "discoveries" and uses of magic in such a situation are inevitable. It's kind of like legalizing magic to make technology that does it. The same way legalizing weed allows for actual testing and expiramnets that really prove its miraculous powers and (re)discovers more, "legalizing" magic, making it something common people can experience and is not taboo to discuss opens up whole new possibilities. Many people can naturally see auras, read minds, remote view, heal people - really evey magical function you can imagine is being performed by someone naturally but more and more of them are becoming available to everyone through technology. I easily envision a day in the near future where we can scan for DNA from our phones and know the ancestry of anyone in a second, which could just be interesting to people or useful for mating or something but to me it is just intriguing to find out who has fairy blood or who Jesus's great-grandkids are, etc. So many things could be developed this way, and the magical people who do it naturally could either help develop it or if they resented it becoming commonplace would hopefully develop themselves even futher, staying out of science's reach, but therefore giving it more mystery to try and solve and abilities to emulate. I go into all the detail about the internet changing the world, and ourselves, because it is the same model of giving the power back to organizations of inclusion from organizations of division, through intellect, that Gaga is doing through art at the same time. Art always has come from everywhere, artists are influenced and inspied by other art and this is a mgical thing that happens but also relies on communication,being exposed to more art. The internet itself allows people more exposure to everything, but Gaga's special role is really focusing on art, bringing it out of people and bringing artists together, exposing us to more of each other. In "Aura" she says "do you want to see me naked Lover?" and in Artpop she says "come to me, in all your glamour and cruelty, just do that thing that you do, and I'll undress you" and "the melody that you choose, can rescue you" and "we could belong together - Artpop." The theme of seeing each other naked has the same message in two forms, making love. Being physically naked with Gaga, or anyone, implies making love, a supreme motivation and magical experience. But the same supreme motivation and experience is to reveal ourselves, spiritually and creatively, to make love by making art. In one way Gaga implies "make your art, I will notice you and we will get it on", and this is true: make your art and Gaga, or some hot guy or girl, will discover how much they want to make out with you- it happened for Rick Okasec and Roy Orbison and countless others who might not have had a chance without rock. The spiritual interpretation is that our spirits are clothed in glamour and cruelty, but these are not really "us", we are the pure spirit underneath, and if we come to her, join her in Artpop, we can strip that away and be our true artistic selves. I know not everyone thinks they are an artist but this is still for everyone, it benefits the whole world and everyone in it. Making art involves an artists beliefs, personality, and society and it is the best way to educate each other. Not everyone is creative in an artistic sense, but we all have the natural, magical ability to respond and relate to art. The more we know about it, the more we are exposed to art, the better we get at this, but it is inherent in everyone, we have just been starved for art and too few of us have discovered our taste for it, and those who already love it can only be turned on by more. In the same way the cyborg enters a whole new awareness for seeing colors and spectrums ordinary humans can's experience, we all get new awareness with exposure to more art and the more we learn about it the more of the spectrum we can see, through learning about the spirituality, culture, society and personality of the artist. Art is the forum that can bring all people together and include all varieties of religion and personality and culture and it is the best way to learn about anything. Too much raditional religous and secular education are based upon the fear of getting something wrong, but the message of Art is everything is right, you can't go wrong just do it, let your artistic spirit thrive, as an artist or anaudience, and good things will happen and everything will improve. The internet is powerful in helping us overcome the limitations of our minds by making a record of the collective mind that we can all, potentially, access and benefit from. Gaga is powerful for focusing this collective mind on art - this is the nature and magic of art that it is all connected, but Gaga as the supremely influential Artist is serving as the Goddess at the center of it, fully bringing it out in society to it's rightful central position, even as she plays a central role in the transformation of the world. "Everyone" recognizes how influentail she is in artistic circles and her little monsters, and as an social and economic phenomonon, but that is still only an image of her full significance. Someone posted a Kurt Vonnegut quote: "If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts." This phrase is frought with negativity and judgement but stands against it, says it is to be opposed, that being gay or an artist is a good thing, He goes on to talk about what I've mentioned here, that the idea is developing your soul not "a living" because he says it won't do that. But now art is a more viable living, and being gay is more accepted. But we still have a long way to go and that quote still resonates, and there is a reason these ideas are connected. Being gay, and love in general, has been repressed by the same forces that oppress women and sexuality and art in general, and all of these things are being liberated together. Gaga is the perfect example of this. In the same way the internet lets us overcome the limits of our minds, Art helps us overcome the limitations of our spirits, of our belifs, and enriches both beliefs and spirits with new ideas, connections, and encouragement. This transformation, which will eventually bring all religions and cultures together harmoniously through art, is going on in accord with the transformation made possible by technology, and all will lead to a new world where we live based on sharing overabundance instead of counting and charging and worrying and fighting over limitations. We are overcoming all limitations in order to become more fully ourselves and more fully together and Gaga is the perfect example of this. There can be no real truth to a prediction of the end of the world in a bad or violent way, that is focusing on the negative aspects of humanity that we simply must overcome. The truth is in a hopeful end of the world as we know it in favor of a better one, without the problems that make the world we know now so horrible. We have to have faith in ourselves and each other and act on it, focus on that great future and what we need to do to achive it, and act with trust and eager desire to unite with all people because we know we are all good and get better the more we focus on and respond to goodness. I'm so thankful to Gaga for showing the way, leading by example, making such great art that inspires so many artists and budding artists, and growing increasingly positive and loving as the natural example of what happens when we reveal our artistic spirits and live for the Applause, the way our art can make people respond and especially make happiness. Just touching on the Artpop lyrics reminds me how much I need to write the Getting it Wrong series. This will be my exposition of the Artpop lyrics, and I call it getting it wrong because I want to get my impressions of the Artpop lyrics down before I learn the truth. Months ago Gaga posted a link to her own explanation of the songs' meanings and said there was "no fantasy" in the songs other than how they magically connected to the music, implying that every word is intentional and relates to actual events in her life. I can't imagine what these things can be and I can't wait to hear it except that ever since I heard this video exists I have wanted to write down my impressions first, even before reading the actual lyrics, and "get it wrong" by giving my ideas before I know "the truth." I want to do this for two reasons: One, I think the messages are so mystical that if I can't relate to the moreliteral meaning I am still getting a related meaning out of each line and I would love to compare that impression to the one I get once I know more. Two, I just want to have that to remember how I understood it assuming that understanding will change with more direct information, and I remember how much I loved Bauhaus when I first heard them as a young teenager, and how much I loved the lyrics I thought they said that I was sad after I read the actual lyrics and found some differences - and loved them still - but could not remember how I had mis-interpreted them. I think our beliefs and understanding, or misunderstandings, of a song can have profound effects on us, especially profound and magical songs. The clear example for me is Terrapin Station, one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs. For all the years that I felt lonely and unlucky in love, and even for a few years after I found love, I misheard a crucial lyric in the song. Just listen to it if you don't know it, it is awesome and magical, but the line "the lady fairly lept at him" I had always misheard as "laughed at him" - giving the whole song a completely different meaning. He actually gets the girl but I always thought she rejected him. It took a few years living with a girl who actually "gets me" before I was ready to hear the real message and all that it implies - again, listen to the song. But the message becomes, certainly, "go for it" instead of "you can try, but she might just laugh at you and pick the guy who just plays it safe." I don't expect to get a completely different message from Artpop once I actually read the lyrics and hear the backstory behind them, but from a magical perspective I can't wait any longer. One of my explainations of "evil" is willfull stupidity, how people have to deny global warming to remain right-wing, etc. I want people to overcome the willfull stupidity, the desire to remain ignorant so you don't have t grow and change, and yet I am guilty of it by procrastinating and not writing my exposition quickly, if I must, and then listening to Gaga's explaination and enlightneing myself, which I believe will also coincide with a major enlightenment in the world. With more wars threatening to break out we need as many enlightening forces as soon as possible so I'm "ready to do my-sen part" to quote Boss Nass. Gaga is doing her part, a major role as Goddess of Love, and encouraging us all to reach for our potentials and reach just as high. She is a perfect role model for artists - and as Daniel Ash sings "It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does" - but she also is giving art back to everyone, to "audiences" too. Artpop is all about making art popular through all methods, art, music, fashion, makeup, radio/net shows, design, technology - everything is coming together to serve the greatest purpose of Art and we rightfully have a sexually, spiritually, artisitically empowering Goddess representing and leading this transformation. All love for Gaga and the Gaga within us all - Applause! Let' finsih getting it wrong and we can get everything right, make everything art, in the new era. "It's the end of the world as we know it" and with the bright future of the much better world opening through its ruins we can all easily sing along with Michael Stipe to the end of the line "and I feel fine." Because of the Glory Rainbow on Venus I will write one more little, actually little, gagablog soon before moving on to the Getting it Wrong series - unless anything else fantastic happens that must be mentioned! Thanks for reading, and please comment if you want to. Everything is good when we immerse ourselves in the magic of art!