gagablog 69: "Please Retweet", Sex, Puke, Art and Pop (and how the universe is actually created, sorry Sheldon DeGrasse Tyson)

I'm about to write my "Getting it Wrong" series of my understanding of Gaga's "Artpop" lyrics before I watch her video explaining them. I said I would only delay it if I had any reason to write about "Please Retweet" for gagablog #69 and thought it would not be liklely - I don't understand how "Please Retweet" = "69", which is a clue Gaga gave about it, and I assume it has something to do with computer programming language, which I don't understand at all. But sure enough, Gaga and fate provided me with a reason to write it after all, in the form of her South by Southwest performance and the media it generated. She was playing "Swine" and a performance artist, a hot girl, was drinking a bright green liquid then gagged herself and puked on Gaga, then they made out. I heard about it from TMZ, then heard about some of the discussion of it that took place on social media. There is an artistic message in all of this, the performance and the response, and it all does fit nicely with the theme of retweeting. My first thought was to connect puking and retweeting, and the unforgettable story from the movie "Stand By Me" in which the whole audience is compelled to retweeting an original puke, making the most epic puke story in history. Until now. Gaga's performance was the puke felt around the world, and the statements she yelled while it was happening are important to consider the meaning: she said something like "I don't give a fuck what you think about me" and "I am not pop music!". Also, she made out with the girl, covered in puke. I still don't get the RT = 69 refrence, but there was certainly sexual activity between Gaga and the puking girl, I think her name was Milley. I have not seen the full performance, they might not have been in a 69 position, but they were rocking back and forth on a motorcycle, I think, which has that same implication of taking turns/simultaneously pleasing one another. Puke is a beautiful, green, good thing as a symbol as part a sex act, especially 69/retweeting. You take in something of your partner then return it to them in your own way and both of you enjoy it until you are completely messy. The green liquid could be like the energy of life, sexuality, and we consume each other's sexual energy when we make out - but we don't keep it, we return it to them with some of our own fluids added, our own sexual energy. But it is all like the fuel of sex, and it is a beautiful thing. Of course there are all sorts of different sexual tastes - Gaga's collaborator R. Kelly is famous for enjoying Golden Showers, for example. Even though we should be able to celebrate the wide variety of prefrences we can have there is still a lot of potential for scandal and gossip about people's sexuality. While most people would find it gross to be puked upon, some people surely actually like it, and just because it would be an especially rare fetish Gaga is making a statement about accepting all sorts of "weird" sexuality. But of course most people think of puke as gross, even if it is a really pretty shade of green. It can be informative to consider every aspect of art and in this case I think the green liquid has special significance. I'm sure there is much it could relate to that I can't guess, but my first impression is both a suggestion of natural life force, green energy throughout the world, because Life, as an element, is most often associated with green. But it also has a very unnatural look, glowing like a chemical. I think this is a comment on the natural and artificial nature of sexuality - that we all have natural tendencies but our desires are influenced, and sometimes polluted, by society and the material world. Gaga accepts it all, and it becomes part of the art of it all, as a mess on her costume and as an event that makes people talk about it. Also, especially with the context of what she yelled, Puke is a symbol for Pop music, with all sorts of negative connotations. The only comment I have heard Gaga make about it was something about how art makes people talk about stuff, and regardless of some people's negativity she felt it was successful art to get so much response. Section 1 is about sex/puke, how the puke is a symbol for sex, creative energy, art, and communication itself - mostly based on my own ideas and the mystery of "RT (= puke) = 69". I started writing this the day before the "G.U.Y" video came out, the song that contains the lyric "please Retweet" and I imagine the video will provide more insight but I will wait to watch it until after I have written my initial impressions of Aura, Venus, and G.U.Y., to reward myself. Section 2 is about puke/pop, how puke is a symbol of everything wrong and bad about pop music but also dealing with the irony of elevating pop to the level of art. I think this is closest to Gaga's intended message and her point was well proven by the "scandal" around the puke performance, especially the evloving "criticism" of it by Demi Lovato, who basically represents pop music and the problem that makes us so judgemental of art, that the mainstream culture does not encourage us to consider ourselves artists but instead chooses and raises puppet artists to uphold the status quo instead of challenging it. All the hype over Miley Cyrus is basically the result of the industry trying to reclaim a robot who left their control by trying to shame her but she is following Gaga's example of being true to her real self instead of just being a product. Gaga criticized the corporate influence on music in her keynote speech at SXSW so this is an easy theme to prove, but don't worry I will ramble excessively. Section 3 is about how puking is a better analogy for the "creation of the universe" than The Big Bang Theory, and this is mostly my idea inspired by the universe, especially some TV shows, and the fact that Gaga, or literally the other girl, brought it up. Since writing section one and most of two, I saw Johnny Weir's interview with Gaga, some of it, and she talks about this performance. I think her comments are in line with what I say here, and I learned the other girl is named Millie and is actually a vomit artist. Gaga says it is specific to the meaning of Swine, which is still mysterious to me, so I'm sure there is some stuff I'm missing out on, but I think the vomit really symbolizes Art more than anything, and Gaga is honoring Millie as an artist the same way she does with the other artists she collaborates with. I think the themes I bring up about puke/sex and puke/pop all apply and are subthemes of puke/Art, and hopefully I'll melt my wings on some of the Art themes in the ramblings of sections 1 and 2, though the best secrets may be in future feedback from "you", if any. Even if it was not at all intended in this way and it is "entirely" my idea (and Television's, to give full credit) the whole idea of Art as creation makes it apply to my Puke the Universe theory being better than the Big Bang Theory. Section 1. The thing is, there could be any number of ways to depict sex and sexual energy on stage, so why was puke involved? Everything I said about sharing someone's energy, returning it to them, the way puking is a metaphor for sex, could be said with any number of other metaphors. It is kind of a stretch to associate puking and sex in the first place, which is why it is controversial art, but the above connection is based on the idea of puking as a symbol of retweeting/sex. Retweeting is an interesting analogy for sex in the first place because while everyone has their own natural tastes you might not even know you like something until you are exposed to it - if you don't know that being tied up is even "a thing", for a really basic example, you might not know what you are craving until you discover it. Then you get the idea, from someone or something - the "original tweet" in the analogy - and if you like it you say "this represents me, too, I like to be tied up," and retweet it, both becoming an original example to people who have never heard of it before and an encouragement to people who were considering it: "well, if someone like Harry can enjoy that, there must not be anything 'wrong' with me trying it!" I've always said that sex is communication in a very basic sense and relates to all forms of communication. The most direct communication is sexual, the "look" that you know what it means and nothing needs to be said. Sex is also at the source of much more complex communication, too, from innuendo to seduction to art. Basically we use communication to attract people and filter them so that we can find the best people at the best time to share an experience with - it does not have to be a sexual experience but the way anything can follow the same model of gaining attention, making a statement, and then proceeding to some activity shows how the sexual analogy can be useful for understanding any communication. And when seen evolutionarily, it is no surprise: animals have all sorts of communication, including the complex interaction of hive insects who talk through chemical trails and dancing. Birdsong is one form of animal communication we most notice, and while birds probably say many things to each other the most common use of birdsong is to attract mates, and this is the foundation for all animal expression. It starts with the individual concern to find a mate, this is the original reason to sing or howl or dance or leave chemical trails, then the same expressions become more complex for greater survival of the whole community, which also helps ensure more and better sex for the individuals. I know I sound obsessed with sex, and I am pretty well "addicted to it" and believe in it as a central part of my mystical understanding of the world. But I also just think it is extremely useful as a template for considering any activity or situation. Sex is one of the great mysteries of life, like the fear of death, and elements of that mystery enter into any consideration, especially if we are thinking about things magically, looking for the mysterious aspects. The internet is also a great analogy for communication, a growing record of where the global conversation currently is. It is no wonder, as the internet, communication, and sex are all analogies for each other, that the internet (our collective mind) is so focused on sex. Dave Letterman told a joke the other night, to commemorate the invention of the internet, that the guy who invented it came up with the idea while looking at a Playboy magazine and got to the centerfold and said "there has got to be a better way of doing this." There is a massive amount of internet dedicated specifically to sex, or porn at least. Even on sites that aren't specifically designed for dating the internet is a good place to meet people. It reminds me of church, that even if there are other reasons to use it the one in the back of your mind is you might meet some new person with common interests to date. Even when people aren't looking for romance, sex, or any sort of relationship, or don't admit it, you can see how much people want to relate to each other, how strong that basic need is to be acknowledged and paid attention to, by the popularity of social media. All networks show the current state of mankind in some aspect or another and the internet is full of digital networks that model or run actual networks, systems for controlling business, electrical and transportation grids, governemnts, etc. The social network online stands in the same relation to the social network in the physical world, they evolve together and show us things about our collective consciousness. It is desirable to be retweeted because it shows that someone paid attetnion to you and agrees so much they want to be associated with your original statement. Why do we all seem to want that so badly? The same reason so many of us want sex so badly, because we don't get enough of it. The same forces are at work to make us feel sexually repressed and undervalued. While many people resort to porn or other hobbies to relieve sexual tension in the absence of other people, we really don't recognize how much we need each other, just for basic acknowledgement, and many of us use social media to make up for that lack of attention. We might really crave something deeper but tweeting, retweeting, posting statuses, commenting, and liking is relatively non-threatening and easy to handle. I heard a discussion of technology on the radio and a lady was giving a report of witnessing an elderly lady interacting with a new robotic pet and how impressed everyone was by the life-like interaction and how it pleased the old lady, but the narrator she said she was overcome with a profound depression that this was where we were headed, instead of more interaction between people, just having more simulations of interactions because we are less threatened by them and find them easier to control. Arianna Huffington was on The Daily Show tonight talking about the increasing problem of being addicted to technology. This is a long digression to talk about how retweeting and communication in general relate to sex, and it is not even the most important part of the message of the puking performance. But to me there is great magic and art in this depiction of sex and especially the feedback aspect of the 69 position and how that relates to communication and sex in general. And how it is a "happy accident/coincidence/magical clue" that "retweet = 69" in programming language, even if I don't understand it in those terms, the fact that Gaga made that comment, had Millie puke on her and made out with her in it made that connection and message to me: sex and art, the stuff we live on and for, can be made toxic by "chemicals", social judgement / the corporate influence, but in whatever state let's enjoy them and make the most of them. Accepting everything about sexuality (and art and communication itself), even if it is "puke", is the path to redeeming it. The reason "retweeting" is so important to us, the reason why that selfie from the Oscars made "The News" when it was the most retweeted phot ever is that, in our current state we consider a RT count to equal acceptance, and it does. The more people like, accept, or support an idea the more it gets retweeted - people feel compelled to retweet something, or join a statement being made through social media, when they encounter a message they feel needs to get out there, something that is not getting enough attention, like the Kony 2012 campaign. One tweet that made the news in response to fervor over Kim K and Kanye making the cover of Vogue was "you know what you should be complaining about? Lieterally everything else in the world but this!" This comment sums us up so well; now that we have the power to talk with everyone in the world, what will we use it for? To gossip, or to make great changes? The basic idea is that twitter, social media, and the internet in general is so popular because there is so much that does need to be said, so much we need to address, but before we even get to "issues" we have the most commonplace issue that most people do not feel aknowledged or valued, by their community or even by anyone. "Please Retweet" is a plea to "please notice me, please share my idea with the world." When we retweet someone they know we noticed them but also that we agree, that someone else will associate us together. Why do we want that? It's a silly question because the most basic human need is to belong, but it goes even deeper: Why be the 6 millionth person to RT that selfie? It's not like anybody would miss it if you break the chain - but still, you are part of that huge group, and something about that feels good. Why RT something that is not already virally popular, or is just becoming popular? Because you feel you need to, because every little bit helps, because the secret to change is making people aware of issues and you know that "the powers that be" are not going to fix it, or even that they caused the problem, and it is up to us, the people, to make a grassroots change. This has always been the dynamics of the People vesus the Status Quo and the internet just makes it much easier to organize the actions of the people so we have more of a chance to create change than ever before. Evidence of this can be seen in the Occupy movements and the Arab Spring and other current revolutions. It's a new style and it reflects a power shift to the people as we join more awareness, and a tactical shift for the status quo as they increasingly rely on distraction, omission, and false debates to divide us as much as possible and keep us from progressing. The reason retweeting, or sharing an idea, is so important for certain ideas is not just because we want to belong to a group, but because we know the idea is being repressed and we know the best way to fix this is to join with others who share the idea and make it more well-known. This is the process by which mainstream society is finally accepting gay people and while we have made some of the most progress in America where people have had more freedom to gather and express themselves the same process has to happen in more places and continue until people become familiar enough with it that homophobia, and the oppression based upon it, cease to exist. Section 2. Puke is something almost everyone finds disgusting. As a metaphor for sex and sexual energy, Gaga is making a statement that sexuality in all it's forms, even those that some people find gross, is acceptable, and that sexuality itself is not "bad" or "gross" as so much of society treats it. It challenges our ideas about what is "sexy." In the controversy around her performance, a little monster posted a quote that read (I think "the purpose of art is..." or something like that) "...to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable." The specific quote was from a book written around 2000, but it was a rewording of a quote from 100 years ago. The green puke has significance in the sex/retweet context, but the more likely thing the puke symbolized was "Pop." Gaga is considered a pop star, a celebrity, and she is, but she is so much more. She said she never wanted to be famous, a celebrity, but she wanted to be "A Star." This might mean the same thing to many people, but to me she said it that way to brng up the magical aspects - she wants to inspire and guide people and make people fall in love, like the stars do. A star is so much more than just a celebrity or entertainer, with so many more magical implications including permanence and cosmic, heavenly power. In the SXSW perfromance Gaga declared that she was NOT pop music and does not give a fuck what people think. This is a very important message, especially coming from Gaga and especially in this context. Because by certain standards she is the "biggest pop star there is" but this is not the system she values and it is more important for her, personally, to be an artist. She said in a recent interview that she is not motivated by more money or fans but wants to enjoy the art and relationship with other artists and supporters, all supporting each other. Even though she is a Big Star and really famous in the maintream, they can't claim her for their own, for their ordinary world, she doesn't fit it, she is revolutionizing it. It's not even ironic that many artists supported Miley Cyrus's controversial perfomances, while every "media person" tried to shame her back into the fold. Gaga has never been one of their products, she never fit in and they've never known what to do with her, other than calling her weird. People love to say she does what she does and dresses how she dresses "just to get attention", like it is all just another pop gimmick, when it is actually the opposite, it is to become art. And pop can be art, it happens, but it is the special and rare example in an industry geared to un-art everything by controlling the message. For the entire history of the music industry there has been tension between the industry and the artists it manages, with artists fighting for more control over their own art. The pop music genre is the one that is mostly the industry's product and artists have to be extra clever to get meaningful messages across - one reason I was so impressed by Gaga, using the pop genre to subvert their rules. Pop music has become increasingly overtly sexual, and yet there are certain taboos and Gaga worked around them and set new standards with clever songwriting, such as sneaking "fuck her face" onto mainstream radio in "Poker Face." That was one of my early clues that she was special and different, but it only took a few weeks for me to realize what she was doing was more like the Grateful Dead and Rap, artists who were very popular and successful but as the essence of anti-pop, than Pop - creating a subculture that would transform the whole culture. Costuming, image control, and stage and video production have become more important as the music industry involved advancing media, from TV and the MTV era to the internet and social media and download culture. Artists have become more sensational, on and off stage, but Gaga takes this to a whole new level, elevating every aspect to the level of art. This is the whole idea of Artpop, elevating pop to art. And the reason pop needs to be elevated is that there is something wrong with it. Pop music has wide influence on society because it is so ubiquitous, but the messages most pop artists put out serve to re-inforce the status quo instead of challenging it and therefore contribute to holding us back instead of helping us progress. Even when artists like Gaga sneak in and put forth new and challenging messages the industry has ways to water them down with other offereings that seem similar but lack the magic of the original artist. This is how I see the Grateful Dead and Phish - the Dead were rebels, using the industry for their own goals but mostly existing and succeeding greater than any other band on their own, outside of the industry. The Grateful Dead themselves helped sponsor Phish by giving them equipment, in order to siphon off some of the huge crowds that were making their shows less idyllic than they could be. But I'm sure Phish also had more industry and media support because of the goal of the people in power to have a "substitute" super-popular hippie jam-band that did not have the conscioussness-expanding messages that the Dead have. I "prove" this theory by the maintream media announcement that the Phish 1999 New Year's concert was the "concert of the century" but it is also evident in every offering of the music industry. There are many "Phishes" in modern pop music to Gaga's Grateful Dead. Altogether it shows what a good influence Gaga has had on the industry, but comparing them shows that Gaga is the Artist and the imitators are the industry response. Gaga is the most recent big stars to make bisexuality a prominent part of her image and Katy Perry's song "I kissed a girl" is the Pop response and shows where the industry was at that time - portraying lesbian experience as cute, something to try, and a fad, trying to capitalize on it in a way that is less than inspiring, and ignoring entirely how much people suffer for social stigma against it. And the song does help lessen that stigma in a way, as part of the trend to accept all sexuality, but where Gaga is ahead of the curve, setting the example to be followed, Katy Perry and others are industry attempts to "catch up" (make money on something similar) without really going there. Gaga's Born This Way was such a strong message of empowerment that on the one hand the media had to try to knock it with comparisons to Express Yourself and on the other tried to capitalize on the "new trend" with songs like "Firework" and other Girl Power anthems - but if the industry had their way "Girl Power" would have just been a 90's fad, they cheesed it out enough then. While they might think that making a bandwagon will make it easy to push the feminist idea off a cliff, it is actually just the beginning of a whole new era and will never go away. Respecting women, and sexuality, will be the major transition between the current society and the future one. Artists will always be the first ones to see the new era, visioanry-style, and show the rest of us the way, while the industry will always try to uphold the status quo and make us think we already have what the artists are arting for. Even in the midst of this revival of Girl Power, thanks to Gaga, one of the most popular songs was Beyonce's "If you like it then you better put a ring on it", with the message that a woman's value is still determined by whome she marries and the size of the rock. I saw Lisa (?) Vanderpump on Craig Ferguson and she showed off her ring and said she had "earned" it after 30 years of marriage - "Don't you think I earned it?" she asked. And this is the other day, in 2014, and from a very successful businesswoman, admittedly "older" but from an era when feminism was really getting going, but must have passed her by. (And I found out from Access Hllywood today that she is in the G.U.Y. video! ANother, uh, coincidence I guess) These ideas are so old Craig Ferguson did not know how to respond when she said that, you could tell he just felt bad for her or he might have made fun of the whole idea. Most people are progressive like that, really in every way Americans are growing more progressive, but there are enough backwards people to make "All the Single Ladies" popular and enough to voice those old opinions often enough that in many circles they are still deemed acceptable. This is the problem with Pop: we all want to be pacified, we want to just sit back or dance and enjoy, but more than that we crave meaning. When we hear a pop song that actually has meaning we get really excited. We get excited by any meaning we find in music, but most other genres we expect it more and expect other people who are fans of the genre to appreciate it, too. But with pop music, when we notice something new, artistic, creative, or important, we get even more excited because we know "everybody" will know the song and the message can really transform the world. By contrast, people are so suspicious of all art, including Pop, that when there is a message they can't accept that it comes from the artist but insist it is part of "marketing" - I come across this idea a lot when talking about Gaga as a Goddess to people who want to criticize, that she is just like a model who showcases, or steals, other people's art. Gaga herself commented on how people are reluctant to give female artists, especially, any credit but assume soemone else, a man, must be controlling them - and that was just a comment on how we think, culturally - basically revealing that society teaches us to fear art and fear the feminine. I'm guilty of it, too, suspecting JK Rowling to be a Front for a committee, for example. Any message in music gives us something to believe in, but a message in pop, rare as it is, gives us a message we can all believe in. Micheal Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" comes to mind as a work of art/pop that elevated human consciousness on a large scale and who knows what the total effect of it is. It takes a real artist, a genius, to use the pop music genre to consistently put out artistic messages, as Gaga does. Other people can do it, there is a whole industry to make it possible, but even a industry puppet can become a real artist in the process of emulating artists: I'm impressed by the way Katy Perry has grown as an artist, for example, as she has grown as a person. It seemed like she was still trying to gain her preacher-parents approval when she criticised Gaga's "Alejandro" video by saying she did not believe in using "blasphemy" as entertainment - I can realte to that since my dad is a preacher and my mom a priest, though thankfully mine are liberal and support me as a little monster buddhist witch. But Katy was basically disowned by her parents and I guess either saw through their bullshit or gave up on trying to please them (her first album was a christian album, so she had already come a long way just to be a sexy pop star - and they pushed her away for it) and her new song "Dark Horse" is all about the magical world she has gained by leaving behind the restrictions of oppressive religion. She has grown, and other artists grow too when they have such a Great Artist influencing the landscape. I think of how clever you have to be to really get a message out there in Pop music, and I'm reminded of the debate the American Idol judges had about someone's performance of "Pumped-Up Kicks" based on the tension between the happy sound of the song and disturbing nature of the lyrics. I guess it is like a modern version of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" and both are probably more popular than they would have been if they had not had a message people desperately wanted to hear, something to address the terrible era of "school shootings" we are in. Another song that is a decent enough pop song but got super-popular for a more artistic reason is Carly Rae Jepson's "Call Me Maybe". I had missed it and only listened to the song after reading an article about how popular it was. The clever idea, that made it art instead of just pop, came across in the video when the guy she is singing to and crushing on turns out to like boys and hits on her guitarist instead. It is this kind of twist that makes people notice, and in this case it is a powerful message that it is normal and cute to be gay and a relationship between two boys is as exciting and song-worthy as between a boy and girl. ANd the fact that it is such a typical pop song makes this twist even more powerful, a message both conscious and subliminal that all love is good. Of course this is not a radical idea to most people today, but because it is still radical to the "status quo" people really responded to it and felt they were not just part of liking something, but taking part in an important change, by sharing it. One reason the "I am not pop music!" message is so strong is because of where it was delivered: SXSW. Growing up in Athens, Georgia, the true heart of alternative music, I would read our local coverage of SXSW year after year and it seemed like it started out a little bigger than our local Athens music festivals but got huge as the years went on until it became a requirement for altenative musicians to perform there and "everybody" did. But in recent years more and more established artists have perfromed there as well, prompting criticism that it is losing it's spirit. In this way I can get over my Athenian "jealousy" of Austin - at least our festivals did not go corporate, but then again one reason they did not grow was because the uniquely alternative nature of Athens meant that was just not a direction we would go, and this is the real difference between SXSW and Athfest or other Athens festivals - we are the "real" alternative capitol and stay true to that spirit, but of course all our bands play SXSW like the rest of the country. It is not a bad thing that SXSW got so huge, or even that bigger industry acts play there, this is part of why it is so huge and important and keeps growing. But the whole point of alternative music is to do it without the record industry influence. Gaga spoke specifically about this in her keynote speech, saying we don't need record companies and that they don't have any money - implying the reason people assume they need them is for support but we can support each other just by enjoying each other's art. In her keynote speech, Gaga advised us not to rely on the internet or talent shows to make our music, but to go about it the old-fashioned way, knocking on club doors to get gigs, like she did. She also said if the fame went away she would be happy doing that again. This is one reason she is not pop music, she was always an alternative act, even with popular-style dance music, and she paid her dues as her own artist, playing clubs and bars like rockers do who aren't just industry creations. Yes, she made it big, but she is still an artist on her own terms, the main reason bands are "alternative" and she had every right to play SXSW - as everyone does, really, but the complaint against mainstream acts applies more to Justin Beiber, etc. Gaga has been criticized as if it is all for fame and money, as if it is just pop, as if there is no message there because they don't want to hear it. This came out in two ways before and after her SXSW performance: a few hours before the show Jimmy Kimmel interviewed her and referred to one of the most over-used and boring cliches that people say about Gaga when talking from a non-artist perspective. Kimmel is an artist himself, a funny commedian, but in this case like other talk show hosts he represents the media view that has to criticize and poke fun of the revolutionary, to appeal to the "masses". I'm sure this is the same reason he scheduled Morrissey on the same night as Duck Dynasty, he thought it would be funny to the uncaring, insensitive "common" view that Morrissey is "weird" for being such an out-spoken animal-lover or so gay or sexually ambiguous or chaste or whatever. He asked her if she would ever just come out in jeans and a T-shirt and I've heard this so many times in different ways, even later that night on the TMZ piece about the puke show in which one of the usually-funny papparrazi says she just wants to be shocking and what would really be shocking would be to dress normally. First of all, she has worn more "regular" clothes on some occasions, it's not like she has never done it, so people who make these comments aren't really paying attention. She told Jimmy "wait until tonight" -and I think she was in jeans and a T-shirt, but more importantly I think she was hinting at the whole Puke/Pop message. Basically, they say she is all just pop, just trying to shock to get attention, and if you want to ignore the art you can say that all over again with the new puke example that really proves your point. The message of this is that Gaga is covered in Pop like she was covered in puke, and the bad things about it sh rejects, it's not "her." Then there is the positive interpetation of Puke/pop, the fact that puke it Millie's artistic medium, it was a beautiful shade of green on beautiful girls who won't stop turning us on regardless of what covers them, and that it got us all talking and "everybody saw it." These are good things about Pop, hot girls, pleasing visuals, influencing the world - and the more artistic it becomes, the more it becomes Artpop, the better. Pop is music and fashion and attitude, it is art underneath all the packaging, and the art can come out. The other thing that happened that showed Puke is a symbol for Pop is Demi Lovato got in on the act, twitter-stage. She got offended about the idea that the Swine performance could be related to bulemia and had struggled with it personally. I'm sensitive to this, but at the same time I feel like on a deeper level, without knowing it maybe, she felt offended that she is like, Pure Pop, straight from DIsney I think, and the idea of Puke/pop, or criticizing Pop, was criticizing her, like calling her puke. And it kind of is, Gaga is so strongly rejecting the idea of being Pop. But the truth is Demi, like Katy and Miley and others who didn't start out like Gaga but are influenced by her, can and will get better, the art will come out, and they will make Artpop instead of just Pop, too. But you can only do this if you admit that Pop is kind of puke, and needs to be made art, while it's all out there all over the place anyway. I think this has something to do with Andy Warhol, the art of the stuff that's already out there. But in reverse, as Gaga said: maybe instead of putting it all out there for us, she wants us all to put it out there, through us, to make everything art by making ourselves art, as she has. Or, in my terms, reconnecting us to the magic all over the world by restoring our magical natures. It's amazing how much Demi Lovato woke up in a few hours due to this discussion, and I'm sure she will learn more from it and it will influence her art in the future. One of her first comments was something like "you can't just call anything art and that makes it so/ok." Then of course she got feedback, responded, in the discussion mentioned how she did not want to promote the idea that there was anything good about bulemia, having suffered from it herself. I hope peopleare influenced by this discussion and it can help individuals and society deal with this and similar problems, and this is one advantage of having this discussion that Gaga's performance brought up. By the time Demi wrote a longer tweet explaining herself, I assume a few hours later after discussion with people, or what passes for it on twitter, she said something about how she wanted to explain it for people who did not understand the art of it. This is completely different than suggesting it is "not art" because some things are too gross or wrong to be art just because you call them that. She said it was art, but she felt compelled to explain something about it so people did not misinterpret it as endorsing bulemia. I think this is amazing, it shows the power of art, and people's response to it, to educate us, to bring up difficult issues and emotions so we can all work them out together. It is not ironic to me that Demi's comment was so similar to Katy's comment years ago about Alejandro, that she did not approve of using blasphemy and calling it art. It's the same comment, based on different difficult issues. Both Katy and Demi have become more like Gaga through her artistic influence on them and the life experiences it gave them -they've learned and grown, and honestly this is the direction we all grow. I certainly did not intend to take this tangent but now that I'm here, and since no one reads this anyway, right?, I can tell a "secret" that this is all witchcraft, magic, and it is right and good. Magic is growth, it is coming together and witches make things happen, make stories come true. It's all about awakening magic - once you start it, it happens, an the more you do it, the more it happens. This is why I worship Gaga, because she does it the most, but I know even she gets better and better, has room to grow, and that is the same for all of us. The higher examples we can find and respond to the better we will become. Following Gaga has not let me down for 6 years now, and I don't expect it ever will, but I do realize I will become more myself, and can go for more of that, thanks to her being my Mother Monster, giving me this spiritual birth, and I can see it happening in other people, too. Before I got suspended from Twitter I used to tweet the Pope. I would ask for him to sanction gay marriage, especially in order to help orphans who need families since that is who i work for, and I would ask him to start having women priets again. He didn't delete my tweets like the inappropriate ones people sent him. Last night Jimmy Carter told Stephen Colbert he would join the Catholic Church as long as the current Pope was in place and if a woman priest asked him. My mom is a priest, Episcopal, and it makes me tear up to type this. The Pope was a little quicker than Jimmy Carter, even - I forgot where I heard it but earlier last night someone mentioned that the Pope said the next pope should be a woman! It should not be so revolutionary, but it is, since the last female pope, or papess, they had was centuries ago and they killed her when she had a baby and they found out she was a woman then they invalidated what she had said and done. And there is still resistance to women priests, but hopefully this is a sign that, like resistance to global warming or peace, this will be the end of it and we will move on into a new age. Do I give Gaga all the credit for this? Well, yes, in my way - I don't think it was my tweets to the Pope that did it, or predicting such things in previous gagablogs, except magically. That's the kind of witchcraft I do, working with the ideas you expect to come true to fulfill some fantastic story. And I think Gaga has an influence on the world consciousness that does lead to these developments, she has direct influence on issues she addresses, and she has the most amazing magical, artitic influence. And now that it is really getting going, now that Artpop has arrived and more of us who are influenced by her are making more art and music ourselves, it's really going to move quickly. This is the magical future for all of us, calling us forward. We're all going there, anyway, but becoming our best selves as eagerly as possible lets us help more people, faster. Gaga gives us the example of how to do it and shows us how exciting and fun it will be - she's a glimpse of the future when we will all be more like her, in ways, and mostly more like our real selves. She said the puke performance was fitting for the song "Swine" and when I first heard Swine was at the first Artrave, and the speech she gave before it made it sound like it dealt with being abused, but I could not hear it all thanks to the terrible, constantly freezing iTunes feed. The lyrics make me think of the record industry, too, so I know I will have to learn some things to divine it's real meaning. When the TMZ guys were breaking the story to most of the world they were making fun of how ironic it was that Gaga was criticizing Pop/industry and right afterwards the camera panned to the Doritos logo, sponsors of the show. The truth is there is no such thing as irony or coincidence, this is just what we call magic when we encounter it and want to emphasise the accidental nature of the event so we can keep not believing in it. Gaga talked about Doritos and how they had been supportive of her and her vision, and how they had donated to our Born This Way Foundation. This reminded me of her deal with Target, that fell through. As far as I remember, she was going to grant them exlusive distrubution, or first distribution, of her new album or single, but on condition that they stop donating to right-wing politians. They agreed, but then backed out of it, and did not get the album. I don't know how much it hurt them, but I still hold it against them that they make those donations, and many people would not have known about it were it not for the way Gaga tried to change them. I think I did hear about it, but have a much stronger memory and better impression of Target when the deal was still in place. By calling out Pop, rejecting it and saying she is not just a product and no one should be, Gaga is bringing out the art in pop, making it Artpop. By using her amazing talent to gain vast influence, and use it for good purposes, she is using Artpop to change the world from a usiness standpoint, bringing out the heart in industry. She's taking everything and making it better, expanding Millie's theme of artistic expression. Making puke into art shows how everything can be made into art, even Pop. When Gaga puts that on a stage that everyone will hear about, along with her comments, her whole message, tells us that we can be art, no matter how bad we have felt about ourselves. I guess this is the message of Swine, too, whether it is about people trying to take advantage of each other artistically or sexually, whether it is about Pop or rape-culture, is that we don't have to be fucking pigs, we can let that out, and become ourselves instead. In buddhism the Pig represents greed, which applies to forcing people into sex or forcing artists into pop - just making money instead of art. In the Bible Jesus dispells the demons from the possessed man and sends theminto the pigs. I have nothing against pigs, they the wonderful, magical animal Homer could not believe, but the reason we use them to depict negative things about our natures is the same with Swine as it is in these religious examples, but I suspect it is because Gaga is taking it to a whole new level that I don't fully get it. My guess is that it does have to do with casting off baser nature and becoming better, but also doing that by admitting how we are all subject to it, even giving into it in ways. To me, this is just like redeeming Pop - you gotta do it, why not? I always call it "fixing the radio" - I don't like what I hear and want to make it better by making better music. But I only really listen to pop stations since Gaga, and it is etting better, just not enough. So I'll make some music soon, and reveal all this magic faster and better that way. Section 3: I've never believed in the Big Bang and had some Television-magic confirmation of my suspicions the other day, maybe the same day as Gaga at SXSW, or the day before or after. Here is my problem with it, it is just such a boring and unbelievable example of the limits of male-dominated, linear thinking. Seriously, a Big Bang? Like that is not some metaphor for ejaculation that just makes the Male the center of the universe? Based on a male-light feminine-void association this implies, the Explosion is the start of everything....but there was a void for it to expolde into, right? Which came first? I'm not saying the male is light and the female void, I'm just saying that those associatons are all part of that male, linear, non-magical mentality and even on it's own terms it is easy to see the phallusy. I think the universe is more entangled than linear thinking can oomprehend, but if we insist on linear thinking we have to do it assuming there is an end of the line somewhere, a break in the thread of time and an end to the universe, an edge. This is great kind of thinking to build a table or something when there is an edge you want to get to, but for building a model of the iniverse it is silly. I can prove it in different ways, I think I've known the secret to this stuff, unified field theory, etc, for decades but I don't want to talk about it so no ninnies try to make a weapon out of it or some such nonsense. But I feel like I was given a signal to at leats start talking about it, to give some clues, at least enough to refute the silly Big Bang theory. So my magical cue came from TV: Craig Ferguson reported that someone found some lost papers of Einstein's in which he talks about his suspicions of the Big Bang theory - since we did not know this before, thought he was one of our smartest guys and thought if he accepted it, we should too, well, how many questions could have been stifled by people who did not quite get it, questioned it, but figured "Einstein is smarter than me, and he believed it, so...". I did not feel any inferiority to Einsteain, and I just trusted my instincts that it was bullshit, and formed more ideas based on my own "model" instead, which I think is much better. So hearing Feruson mention that, that Einsteain questioned the Big Bang Theory, made me feel validated to doubt it myself. And thinking that he did not have enough of a alternative idea to really put forward, enough to be more open about questioning it, makes me feel pretty smart. I've had the basic ideas for decades now, as I said, but I was really considering bringing it up recently because of all the hype for the new FOX version of the show "Cosmos", which came out earlier that week. How "ironic" that all that hype led up to the big premier, the Big Bang edition, ****, and was all about how certain the scientists were that the universe began that way, then a few days later a discovery is made and Einstein, one of our best scientists, may have opened the door to a new, better understanding that makes that theory quite uncertain. How embarassing for FOX! Ha ha, I know they are beyond embarrassment, but to me it was like a sign to go ahead and talkabout it. Then I got another sign, at the moment i typed ****, that made me feel magically certified to question science: the light in my room started flickering and popped and went out. It's one of those swine-tailed ones that are supposed to last years. Anyway, could be a sign to go to bed before the sun comes up, but no one will read this anyway, right? Seriously, leave a comment if you want. It could have been a rerun, the Einstein papers could have been discovered months ago and the FOX people just did not decide it was enough to change the certain way they presented the theory. But it was the first time I saw it - maybe CBS played it to poke fun at FOX, I don't know. Anyway, later that night they showed a definite rerun of Burns and Allen I'd never seen on another station, and Gracie gets hypnotized to be the smartest woman in the world. She is talking about Einstein and how she does not agree with his theories: she has a superior view. I feel like this relates exactly to things like the Big Bang Theory that must have been becoming known and popularly discussed at the time, in the dawn of the Atomic Age. Gracie, or whoever wrote the script, either magically or intuitively knew that the Big Bang Theory was bullshit. They suggested that Einstein believed it but Gracie was smarter by not beliveing it, and anyone who was not the VERY smartest would not be likely to understand how it really was if Einstein didn't get it. Again, I say it was magical or intuitive that Gracie sensed this, but maybe she had her own theory about the universe, like me, and knew Einstein was wrong or wasn't quite smart enough to get it, though 50 years later we might have discovered that he was. This has a strange parallel to Artpop that I did not plan to write but just noticed: the problem with thinking only one person is a genius, accepting his conclusions, is it gets in the way of discovering your own genius. This is how the Big Bang theory lasted so long, we all thought Einstein believed it, it turned out he didn't really, but in the years we thought he did we did too, and no one felt smart enough to really challenge the idea. Pop music has been the same for decades, with the most powerful messages having to sneak through, all because people assume only certain people are truly talented so they resort to letting the industry make them into something and kind of try to emulate real artists. The truth is we are all real artists, we all have talents, but the industries often prey on people's fears of what we don't have instead of nourishing what we do have and use that to convince people they have to be someone else. If we feel like other people are over us we won't seek to outdo them. That's one reason I worship Gaga, not to feel oppressed by her amazingness but to feel challenged by her to make my art and be as amazing as I can. What does it all have to do with the Big Bang Theory and how the universe was really created? I've just read The Moonstone and should be asleep. Well, I was ready to write my theory based on the magical connection of two Tv shows, from fifty years apart, coming on the same night to refrence questioning Einstein's ideas, including a fifty-year secret revelation that Einstein himself was questioning the Big Bang theory. And I guess I always knew he was cooler than to believe that because of all the cool things he said. But it was also significant, and magical, that this was coming out just days after the most major effort in a long time to popularize science, specifically the Big Bang theory, and also at the height of popularity of that show about psuedo-nerds of the same name. This whole phenomenon of believing people because they are supposedly smart, instead of trying ideas for yourself and adding your own, is the problem with pop. See where I'm going with this, bringing it all together around retweeting/puking? I was pleased to hear Bill Walton announcing a March Madness game and he worked "it all rolls into one, and nothing comes for free" into the banter and another Dead lyric that was either from Loose Lucy or Lazy Lightning, I think. While I've had my own ideas about the unified field theory and universe, I will still be shy about them, save them for my Oz Magic book, and just give some clues here. I decided I would say something about it, though, since I knew the Cosmos show would make the idea more pop than ever, and bring out the art, finally, the magical understanding of it all that makes the Big Bang theory silly. And when Gaga and Millie did the puke performance I was like Eureka! This is the key, the symbol, the sign it is time to talk about it. A few months ago that super-dork Stephen Hawking said black holes don't really exist, "not the way we thought they did." Of course he is the one who gave us the first way we thought about black holes, maybe 30 years ago, and he was supposed to be so smart that once again people think they could not come up with a better idea, but here we are thirty years later and he has decided the idea isn't good enough, that something else is going on. All these scientific ideas are interdependent and understanding one differently can change everything. I've always felt the same way about black holes, that we were overdramatizing them based on basically the same thing we did with Gods, personifying them in a way that makes them "incomprehensible", beyond us, when in fact we are all part of everything and it is all a lesson to us. The new understanding of black holes is that they don't suck something away for good - well, duh! that is so "how big is the universe?" kind of thinking. How big is the universe? How big is it supposed to be? Is mine big enough, is it as big as yours? As we get more feminine influence in the direction of science it will get better. The multiverse is the compensation for the ridiculousness of a shaped universe, but both ideas are ridiculous and show the silly nature of science so long as it remains Pop instead of becoming Artpop. So my clue to how the universe is really created, the clue given to me by the TV and TMZ, thanks guys, the Clue that Gaga's mystical art inspired, is that the universe was not created at some point, either by a Father God or by some Big Boy Bang, both of these ideas just show something about the limitations of a certain mentality - both of these ideas are pop. I knew Cosmos was wrong because they strongly suggested that global warming was a natural phenomenon, even this time, and that the polar bears would have to just deal, adapt, or die. That's just wrong, FOX wrong. Pop wrong. But we can get some art out of the same TV, and other kids like me will hear that Big Bang theory, and the certainty behind it, and just know it is bullshit in their hearts and help formulate the new theories once we move past the oppression of the boring, popular one. It's the same way with Pop music, or any art, but Pop is the worst for suggesting only certain, special people can do it. As long as we think only certain people were born to be the best artists or scientists and those people arn't us, we won't make it better but just drag it down. We have to realize that we are the best, by whatever inspires us, but if it's people make it ones who bring that out in you, who bring the you out in you. Because your talent might not be music or art but it is something and discovering it and using it will make the world magical. So how is the world created, if it "was" not created since it didn't ever not exist? How is it continally created? Like puking, honestly, the whole taking something in, letting it out with some of you mixed in. Light creates the world of matter and the spectrum of vibration in between. We've been baffled by the void and the idea of dark matter and black holes but they all come to the same thing, and Stephen Hawking's new revelation is a clue to it, though mystics have probably always understood it way better. He says a black hole does not permanently suck in light, for example, but that it could hold it for a long time then release it. And there is this idead of mini-black holes, I guess they are scinetifically accpted, but I wonder how long it will be before we notice micro-holes, too. I guess my idea is that you can see the universe as intewoven meshes of light and darkness but only as in illusion for a greater truth of wholeness, just as youcan lookfor the smallest and largest but the secrets are in how they are the same. The mind ponders things in certain ways but we can know in other, more profound ways. The limits of science are the limits of the mind and even greater connectivity between minds and a collective supermind of the internet and improving instruments broadens our spheres of consideration and gives us so many more clues, but putting it all together has always been something we can do in any mentality. Zen considers how all phenomena are products of the mind and this is true for us in analogies of the cosmos as it was for them in analogies of the natural world. The problem the scientific mentality has with discovering the unified field theory is the flaw of science itself, of mind-based knowing. Science even proved to itself decades ago that it can't be an objective observer, that the act of observing itself influences phenomena,but it can't accept that conclusion enough to actually progress past uts foundational insistence on peer review - the truth is no two people can observe the same thing, and also that we are all always observing the same thing. I mean, science has worked for certain things, it has great value, but if it wants to live up to its artistic and magical potential, which it must to understand the unified field or do interstellar travel, it has to let go of the limitations that make it Pop and become Artpop - not accepting that anything so mystical as the nature of the universe has been proven but looking at the new discoveries as clues to a great mystery we already know and are a part of. In the analogy of art beng like light, the creative force, and black holes and the void being the receptive force, we all take turns as the artist and audience, as creator and retainer. Everything is always growing, emerging from light, from creativity itself. Destruction is an illusion, nothing ever really goes away we are just held and returned. Things just disapear and reappear later, but we always create more appearance. If we don't get tricked by linear thinking that there must have been a beginning with absolute nothing before we won't assume there would ever be an end with nothing after - and we need to transcend that thinking because it is the kind of thing that makes us put undo importance on things in life to the point of committing awful crimes and war against each other. It's all the secret of not being afraid of each other any more, not being afraid to get close to each other, not even being afraid of each other's puke or taste in pop music. Not being held back as the masses who only look up to the great lights, but realizing how "we are all superstars" and becoming that by believing it and acting that way. we create the universe all the time, and the unified field theory is in us, obviously, we are it. The more clues we have the easier this will be to see, and technological advancements are miracles and will be even more so when we expect magic from them and that is not just a phrase. But ourselves even more so, because more clues make it easier but we have always had enough, for every variety of human mentality. We are all always in the unified field. Mystics have shared the direct experience and lovers and artists share it with each other and everyone by example. We are all of us all of these things, and even when we can get robots to replace our jobs there will always be that thing that only we can do, the things that make us who we really are. We can always get into this even in our spare time after work while waiting for the robots, and the more we do the more that magical path opens and stretches for us.