I wrote the first 7 pages of this 2 weeks ago, 6-9-16. It is now 6-23-16
“I finished reading Lorna Doone and started reading Mansfield Park” is what I considered writing for the entire edition of this a few weeks ago. Some things happened to change my mind: in the classical media world I had been lingering on Lorna Doone, not wanting the fantasy I associated with it to end, then began racing through Mansfield Park to end that nightmare as soon as possible. I found some things enjoyable about it but was mostly knocked up by it. I guess I don’t want to get into the details of how it reflected my life. Then I started re-reading The Picture of Dorian Gray which I last read 20-some years ago. More about that later. In the TV media magic world so many things kept happening I started taking notes on index cards. In my own artistic world I had a flurry of fairy tales around the last time I wrote this, the fairy-love, and I want to get back to that, and always want to get back into love, and feel closer to it again with my lover after another awful, for me, period of separation. In the classic rock media magic world I went to see Bad Company and Joe Walsh at Red Rocks and was hoping to meet a girl there, at the height of that separation when my ex/lover was strongly encouraging me to meet someone else, and met an exceptionally beautiful girl there after the show which was itself a strange mystical experience. Meeting her was completely magical, her name is Chelsea and I was not sure if she was with her boyfriend or flirting with me or both. I like the memory of it and maybe just want to make the fantasy “more real” by writing about it since most likely nothing will come of it.
In this same recent time period there have been two major developments in the Gaga media magic world, too. One, most recently, it looks like her next Jazz album with Tony Bennett may come out before her 5th album, referred to as “LG5”.But most importantly for me at this moment is her support of Hillary Clinton when I was really hoping she would support Bernie Sanders. I kept trying to tie their causes together, well, they ARE the same cause, but to get people to realize it. Maybe posting directly to her comments COULD help more, I was hoping the idea would catch on among the public and happen naturally. Of course I was and am still disappointed in her supporting Hillary and still hopeful that it is not an official endorsement and for one reason or another she will be endorsing Bernie, officially, before it is all over. I have too much to say about this so I am planning to address it in the next edition, which I may write as soon as I finish this one. My approach is that I am lucky to be in a position where I can say “My Goddess is Wrong about something, my Goddess is making a mistake and I am here to help make it better.” Not many people, in modern times, get to think about things like that. I will say that my initial conclusion is that she has a questionable influence persuading her, or is even out of touch somehow despite having other creative, artistic, caring people around her. I’ve been assuming little monsters who are more passionate about the issues Bernie stands for would speak up and influence her, and maybe they have, but again I feel like I could have done more, “directly” (through social media) to set this example and give others ideas and support to bring up the issues. As I write this, expecting my next gagablog to be critical and examine the idea that she could be being misled, etc, it occurs to me that she might know more than I give her credit for and is just playing the game, revelling in the “victory-for-feminism” moment that it is SUPPOSED to be, but isn’t, just to get the positive side of that - because a GOOD woman president WOULD be a wonderful thing - but knowing, even more insiderly than I do (since “all I have” is magic), that Bernie will win, she can endorse him, etc, at an even more pivotal junction than CA or NY, just before the convention in Philly, or after the “bad news” finally comes out about Hillary.
Before I move on entirely to “what I was going to say” about media magic in this edition, I do want to mention that Obama is meeting with Bernie today. The media reports it will be an attempt to get Bernie to drop out, a promise of influencing the party structure or platform or some sort of buy-off like that, presumably. But of course they, NPR / media, would say that, being owned by Hillary - some of her biggest donors, I mean. Whatever. Trump is already making an issue of the fact that Hillary is only winning because of stealing primaries and caucuses and we all have first-hand experience of this, it happened so much. So we are all frustrated that the media is not reporting on it, but Trump is talking about it a lot so one way or another it will get out. I hope Bernie tells Obama this - and Obama should already know - but I hope he makes a point that there is NO reason for him to leave the race because of a cheater - she doesn’t even need our votes, just rig the machines some more. It completely destroys the faith in democracy of the people who are currently putting the most faith in democracy. It will certainly be the end of the Democratic Party, just as Trump will be the end of the Republican party. It will be the end of the career of every “Democrat” who supports her, because it will become the sole passion of Berners to primary them, to start a new party. I could be happy about how it COULD mean the Green Party becomes the ONLY viable party after this election. But I just wanted Democrats to not completely sell out for money and old-style power and actually change the system. It’s what we wanted with Obama. Now it has gotten so bad with Hillary stealing everything, and I truly fear her starting WW3 more than anything Trump could do, since he would be completely ineffective or just get impeached. It makes me want to call for Obama’s impeachment if he supports her. He knows, or should know, she is rigging the election. He should know how much money she is taking from foreign dictators. And he should know that she represents everything bad about what he has become while Bernie is everything we hoped he would be. And everything Obama himself hoped he would be, but wasn’t when the power structure took over. He might be jealous of Bernie, who could actually do what he couldn’t, including universal health care, and so much more. We have refined the mandate and given it to Bernie. Obama could be jealous, but that would be silly. Obama will always be historically cool as the first black president, but he will be a known as a sell-out if he supports Clinton and will always be a hero and more so if he supports Bernie.
Tulsi will be Vice President as well, if I have not said that enough. I have a lot of magical evidence of this, I will review it sometime but I think I wrote about it in the last edition.
But I write this before the meeting between Bernie and Barack because I want to predict a surprise for all, that Obama will come out of the meeting endorsing Bernie, even, or something that breaks the camel’s back or really shakes things up. It seemed like they were scared enough of Bernie they were talking about running Biden for a few weeks there - I truly think they are scared of him, of us, and the ones who feel the threat have immense power - in the old system. It shows what power you have in the new world to just overthrow that power’s hold over yourself. Our governor thinks he has a shot at VP if he endorses Hillary. What he needs to understand is he has a shot at remaining governor if he follows the will of the people and endorses Bernie. In fact, he can ensure his job for the rest of his life, since once he did that we would also hold him accountable to to other actual liberal things like expanding medical marijuana and “allowing” us to ban frakking when we voted to vote on it - both of which he has personally obstructed.
Really this edition is about TV, books, movies, art - media magic. I’ve had a lot to “escape” lately, stresswise, and I’m indebted to art for helping through this difficult time. I want to show how “easy” it is, even in extreme difficulties, but of course my difficulties have been mostly love-sickness, not like bombs dropping around me or being in a blockaded city. I imagine media magic, even prayer or singing yourself a song, could help in some ways, maybe the only kind of help there is in such situations, but of course it can’t help completely, it can’t make the bombs go away or food appear. But magic can make war and bombs go away, ultimately, and can solve all of our problems, if we really go with it. I was not faced with violence and destruction, physically, but emotionally I felt that kind of panic and fear due to changes in our relationship. I feel panic and fear when I feel we as people are up against the ruthlessness of the political machine, too. But the way out of it all is art. Art, what I often call magic, is the key to it all. I learned two cures for war from just last week from watching TV and netflix. Janet on Three’s Company said “if men gave up more easily there would be no more war” and the waitress in The Seven Year Itch said if men were naked there would be no more wars. That was 40 and 60 years ago but I saw them last week and we still haven’t tried those ideas.
I might give up on this for now, or I will be back in a few minutes with all the details, media magic examples, I noted in the last few weeks. If I don’t make it back soon I will go ahead and publish this one as is, to be before Bernie and Obama meet, and continue in the next one before making a whole edition about how Gaga is wrong if she endorses Hillary and why Bernie perfectly represents her ideals and all of us. After that I am reading the lyrics of Artpop and finishing my series talking about it.
I did not have a Sex Dream last night, that I know of, but I did meet a beautiful red haired girl. She was in my dream, I have no idea in what way, right now, and then I “woke up” and she was there in Real Life and I told her about how I had just had a dream about her and we talked about what that could mean. Now I see a notification by a fellow fairy-lover in #WitchesforBernie and I will take a little break from this, or save the details for next edition if I go ahead and publish it. But of course talking with the girl that time was a dream, too.
I had already resolved to get right into whatever the ACTUAL lyrics of Sexxx Dreams are, instead of any more of my “Getting it Wrong” series. Then I had that dream last night, after all this year expecting and hoping for some type of romance in dreams or meeting anyone.
She has shortish, curly bright red hair, I believe. She wore a hat. She came up after I woke up, I told her I was just dreaming about her. There was a very different feel to dreaming about her, in the dream, and Seeing her - in the dream, of course. I can’t think of anyone she is, looks like, or represents. But it reminded me, hopefully, in a way, of a girl I randomly met at the train station. If I don’t finish this now, know it is because my wish came true and I will finish it, continue it in the next edition, soon. Wish me luck!
Well, nothing worked out as I hoped, nine hours later. I didn’t post this but cut out part and put it on facebook. As it is I am disappointed Obama endorsed Hillary instead of Bernie but I am giving him a chance - I’m hoping he wants to participate in the excitement about the first woman to “win” a party’s nomination but knows she will be invalidated as a candidate before the convention. I feel like both Bernie and Obama must be aware of the election fraud she committed but aren’t addressing it, even covering it up - maybe just to avoid turning everyone off to the process, knowing something is about to happen to her and she will have to drop out. My whole focus now, politically, is for Obama, Superdelegates, and Gaga and more famous folks to see the light and feel the Bern, as all of this ultimately comes out, soon. In a way this theme fits the Dorian Grey theme, as well as Lorna Doone and even Mansfield Park in a way, but I will mention these as they come up, I just have a lot of movie and TV connections to mention.
About two weeks ago I was thinking about how I lost my job after 9 years and seemed to have lost my love of 18 years. It was like an extended “7-year” period, nine for some reason, at least as I was thinking of it, but it made me think of the phrase “7-year itch.” Later that day I mentioned to my dad on the phone that I was reading Dorian Gray. He said I should watch the 7 Year Itch and said he had seen it dozens of times. George Jefferson is on now talking about his dad or friend, dad’s friend, giving him money for movies and fun when he was a kid, now dressed as Santa. Anyway, my dad told me he loved that movie and saw themes of Dorian Gray in it. I had not seen it but decided to and now have watched the first half hour, including the restaurant scene he mentioned. He spoke of incidents at the vegetarian cafe, including the waitresses speech that she could not accept a tip but would donate it to the nudist colony, then that nudism would save the world, that no one could fight wars without uniforms, in the nude- which is historically untrue but the principle is sound and the same one Janet expressed on Three’s Company later that night or a few nights later - if men would give up, give in more easily, there would be no more wars. I don’t know the theme of Dorian Gray in the movie yet but I can see themes that connect with other media I have seen and the other books. Uncle Buddy turns out to be the same actor who goes to the Evans’ to die in Good Times. He just called Weezy a younger woman when she, the actress, was 20 years George’s senior. (Sorry for the Jefferson digressions, it was on. I finished the book and movie since then, more later - 6-23 edit)
Before I consult my notes, I will just say it is Love in different forms in Lorna Doone, Mansfield Park, and Dorian Gray. Lorna Doone is a classic fantasy adventure - like I said last time, it was like an entry to fairyland for me, as it was relating to events in my life, and I wanted to stay there and savor it, a favorite escape, and a magical one: the more closely I felt to Fairy the more I was writing fairy tales and other stories of my own. But other things in my life were a wreck, especially lovesickness, and I wanted to move past that. Now the actor who played Sanford's brother-in-law is telling Weezy that Buddy had a fling with George’s mom. So I finished the book and cleaned the fantasy out with Mansfield Park. At one time I was considering how a dream within a dream, waking up and waking up again, or any world-within-world theme could be used and re-used in a story, but you have to “stop” at some layer. In Mansfield Park there is a section where they are putting on a play that I read later that day after thinking about that. I guess in a way Mansfield Park, that era of my recent life, including indulging in video games and avoiding trying to “do” anything, was a way of moving out of the fantasy land I was in. And Dorian Gray was a different way back into Fairy, through Art and modernity and magic.
There was a movie Gilda on TV, I was watching it after another Bogart movie, Sahara, about a week ago. She sang the song about the Chicago Fire, Put the Blame on Me, and then later that night Colbert mentioned either the cow or the song or the fire in some way - I didn’t make a detailed note. Also in Gilda she was dancing with Bogart, maybe, or another man, anyway he said he could not dance and talk at the same time. Earlier that night or the day before Alex in Family Ties told his girlfriend he couldn’t dance and talk at the same time. I noted that I am also reading the Bhagavad Gita and (just got a facebook notification that someone, Brown Jones, posted in BERNIE SANDERS IS GOING TO WIN!) that there is a common theme of “being oneself” and fulfilling one’s role, but also of observing life and being dispassionate that is echoed, in a twisted way, in Dorian Gray. Whatever day this was is the same day that North Korea officially endorsed Donald Trump for president and a convoy of medical aid and baby food finally was allowed a suburb of Damascus where 600,000 people have been trapped for months. They didn’t allow any food in yet, just baby food and medicine, but it is a start, and seems to be uniting the world, or must, to address the humanitarian catastrophe. (Later on 6-9, after writing this, I heard an update on the news that food WAS being allowed in, starting that day, the news of the day was that, the day I wrote this, more breakthroughs were being made - 6-23 edit)
My other note card is dated 5-9-16, one month ago today. If I wrote these more often they could be shorter and more to the point, include more things because for every note I took there would be at least one more noteworthy serendipitous occurrence. Especially when many happen on the same day, but at least I wanted to note it. My next goal with this, after the “what to do when your goddess is wrong about something” edition next, is to finish exploring Artpop, with the help of the lyrics, and just “Getting On With It” from now on. But if I get into the habit of doing these frequently the dates and connections between things occurring will be more easy to make and hopefully trigger more frequent realizations in whatever strange audience this has. Thank you, by the way.
There was a rerun of the Simpsons where Homer quit drinking and goes on a date with Marge. It reflected my life at the time, but even tonight, we talked of going out for a drink tonight, something we never do, or haven’t in many years, but are deciding to go for ice cream tonight instead. But at the time this aired a month ago it struck me because I had just marked the calendar as a promise to change my behavior, for a week, then that night the episode aired and showed Homer marking the calendar for month without drinking to win Marge back. I guessed it was one of the only episodes in which it shows them marking a calendar and two weeks later I did the same thing, marking the calendar, and they showed the one where Bart meets Jessica Lovejoy and marks a calendar for a month of not thinking about her, I believe.
Later the same night, May 9th 2016, they showed a Dear John on Antenna TV. There was a woman politician whom Kate was endorsing and very fired up for. She got the 1 to 1 club to go to a campaign event and the married politician starts hitting on John. They really vilified her character for this, it must have been around the Gary Hart days. Kate was completely disillusioned. John consoles her in a bar and she says everywhere she looks are the same losers and looks at him, after he tells her he is “almost...positive” (I think) that she will meet a man who really loves and deserves her, meaning himself, and he leaves, disheartened, and she then calls out to him, after he shuts the door, “John?”, realizing he means himself, and you wish she realized a moment earlier, then he comes back in “yes?” - but it is the end of the episode so if it is continued in the next one I don’t know, the next one they showed was about Christmas eve. I guess the reason I connect this to the books I’ve been reading is the contrasts and similarities behind the theme of Getting a Man - in Lorna Doone it was part of escaping the evil clutches of the robber barons and the upper class, (but Mostly about Love - 6-23 edit) In Mansfield Park it was a way of achieving security and status. In Dorian Gray it is a few other things entirely. In the 1980’s it was not supposed to be about these same things but there was still some type of promotion of the idea, as there is today, and still some manufactured need for it, that continues today, as shown by the wage gap between men and women and various other oppressions and inequalities in our system based on gender.
My notes for the Christmas Eve Dear John is that all his friends were sad about being lonely for the holiday, he is excited his son is coming, but plans change and he will be alone but by the time he invites his friends they all have other plans. He is talking with his neighbor, an elderly Polish woman, and his ex-wife calls him for sex and he is eager to go to her but the neighbor comes over, he got her a record, they dance, she invites him to dinner and she says she is alone all the time and he should not be alone and he chooses to stay with her. I guess this was sweet to me for many reasons including their connection over music, but mostly it was the idea of different kinds of love and their powers.
That night’s Burns and Allen had a new cigarette girl and idea that Ronnie was going to elope with her or that Harry Morton was flirting with her. Of course George tried to troll Gracie by doing all the things Harry was doing, blowing cigarette smoke in her face, as she said she would never put up with someone like Harry. George’s monologue included this: “They say married couples fight because making up is so much fun. The Mortons have been fighting for twelve years and haven’t made up yet - when they get to it, it should be fantastic.” The end of my notes was that the next Monday Night the Marriage Retreat episode of the Simpsons aired where they try to fix their marriage with such classic lines as “Here’s your crown, your majesty!” etc. Then on Wednesday was a Family Ties where Alex Graduates and I believe breaks up with Monica, Courtney Cox, I forget her name on that show, and learns a lesson about love and himself which is another kind of Graduation. I think they grew apart, yes, and he fell for another girl, I believe it was that episode, but it seemed too close to my own life and I am glad I am out of it. (And out of school, too - or is there a reason so much of life is described as “just like high school all over again,” a media-magic reason? Wink or *wink* or ;) - 6-23-edit)
I guess one of the simplest ways I talk about media magic, an easy introduction, is to mention how when you fall in love you hear certain songs more, or differently. You feel everything more deeply, more magically, it’s true, but one way we notice it is when the radio seems to be just for us, etc. I guess I just want to point out that it is all Love, Art, ultimately - art we relate to and respond to, life that we process and make into art. The ideal and fun side, falling in love, is always an awakening to more magic. But there are other corners and sides of love, tough ones sometimes, and art continues to provide solutions to, reflections of, and escapes from these spaces if we believe in it and go with our trust in it. I want to be in love, I really value it, but some of my mistakes have not shown that, so I want to correct them. Some things take time and it helps to have something wonderful, magical, to do, some form of entertainment. But this will also naturally, magically, reflect what you need.
What I wanted to say about the Bad Company concert was many things about the feelings I had during the show, which I don’t have time to explore now. But mostly this beautiful girl was walking near me afterwards, with a guy I thought she seemed romantic with, and they were asking for cigarettes. I did not have any but offered weed and she called to him that she found “something better” and this along with her being completely beautiful was all it takes my heart to dreaming, especially since I was sent out that night with the idea to meet someone new. But I assumed they were together, she sang “Feel Like Making Love” then seemed to be saying something to me but I maybe misunderstood. I wish I could have lived up to that moment, in a way, what I thought might have happened had things turned differently, but it was a magical moment just as it was. It reminds me how just the hope and belief in love is enough to make magical things happen and believing in that magic is all it takes to make more.
Mostly as much as I enjoy all forms of beauty I love my lover most of all and am happy to be more together with her again after all of this year of difficulties between us. That is my real happiness, now, and I feel it again internally and between us instead of just as a wish and memory and belief, but it reminds me to nurture it in all times, in all ways.
In regards to the events of the day, it seems like All is Against us, with Bernie, but that is the time faith works the best. It has to work out this way, in a way, in order to prove magic and belief to people in the ways that we ultimately prevail, miraculously even. It is all about people waking up, realizing and coming around and it will happen, it does happen in all of us. Please enjoy yourselves, the art and society and media around us, and the stuff we make, too - we can use this magic to carry us through in all the other ways we heal the world!
We were talking the other day and seemed about to argue, turned on the TV and the 2 Broke girls (“of all people” was supposed to be here, not after “us” but interesting how I mess it up - 6-23 edit) had a message for us, of all people, that one thought the other was a rock to her balloon and they decided at the end they were both balloons. I think that is good for all of us, to realize as different as we all are we truly are the same with the same dreams and goals and can work best together if we just stop trying to blame anyone or demonize anyone. Bernie is the one who brings us all together without cheating or scaring us. I have to go but more soon, and thanks! Have fun!
6-23. Now, having reread all of this and preparing the completion of it - first, a bowl. My greatest concern is of course my own love life and magical, artistic life - that is always my main focus, really, but maybe not the easiest to talk about. The main thing “on my mind” that is easier to discuss is the political situation. I believe there is a magical parallel between these things, between everything, that can be explored. In this case I felt like the love illustrations of Lorna Doone, Mansfield Park, Dorian Gray, TV, the Seven Year Itch and everything were the best way of discussing all of this. I managed to transpose my notes but no real explanation of why when I wrote this in such a hurry two weeks ago - I hoped I could finish it, make a spell to result in Obama endorsing Bernie, which is why I copied that part to facebook even though I did not end up publishing this one immediately. I’m glad I didn’t, it could be fun to read like this. And I will explain it now.
I did end up watching the rest of “The Seven Year Itch. And finished Dorian Gray.
And began 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which I’ve never read before. I felt sure this would not be a love story but in this context it is - the hero at least is in love with learning, there is a kind of love or bond between him and his servant, and Nemo has a love-hate for mankind, so far. A bit of media magic that I started reading this because it was next to Wilde on my “shelf” of my DS game - I usually picked them randomly or alternated between a male and female author but now that I have read all the ones penned by women I decided on a new method and just read the whole shelf left to right. So this was the next book to read and I started it with minimal recollections of anything I knew about it, that it was a marine adventure that I thought involved a giant squid, from a commercial for classic books on TV when I was a kid. Not until I read his name did I remember the famous Captain Nemo, but I thought it “ironic” - magical - that I had begun reading this the same week that the sequel to Finding Nemo comes out. The other little media magic I remember was reading in the bath. I usually read in the bath but had actually showered previously so I hadn’t read in the bath yet while reading this book. But as I started the bath he was on the ship Abraham Lincoln and I had the feeling it would be wrecked or he would go overboard or at least get wet while I was reading in the water and sure enough he did a few pages later. I guess I wanted to mention this, and the Nemo name coincidence, as an example of magic echoes in life even from a “non-love” story, if such a thing exists. Nemo is special to me because I only knew it was about a fish, if I knew that, when I took my son to see it. It was the first movie we went to just the two of us. It was magical to be a story about a father and son, and other kinds of love, too. Family love of course ultimately traces back to a source in romantic love, but it is all love. I want to discuss how these stories and modern life intertwine but before I rewind pre-Nemo I just want to say that problems with Love, either in romantic love or in childhood, are the reasons we suffer or cause others to suffer. Finding Nemo is a story of healing, of overcoming problems and reuniting - this is what we hope for through our suffering, what makes the trials worthwhile, if we come through it into a good, healing story. I imagine the Nemo from 20,000 Leagues is the counter-example, the cautionary tale. You don’t want to end up like the bitter captain, no matter how rich and genius he might be. You want to address, quest, and heal any problems you have from lost love as a child or pain from romance later. If you don’t find the healing story for your life you end up cruising the depths, avowing hatred for humanity and all your acquaintances become your captives. It is how every tyrant, bully, and killer is made. And we can unmake them or make them along the ideal path, towards healing and reuniting, instead of the evil path of pain and murder.
I’ve always said magic is the key to everything because love is the solution to everything and everything we do to create and experience love is magic. I believe in words and art, even these less artful words have magic. I think there is more magic in music, poems, and stories, especially fairy tales, but I have to be in the mood for those and one way to work into it is to get all this “lesser” stuff out of my system in interminable gagablogs. Talking about magic, dancing about art, might not quite be an art in itself but it is better than arguing. I was just about to try to say something about criticism and art, compare Dorian Gray and the Seven Year Itch, but I can’t quite puzzle it out. There is a complementary relationship between the two stories. Dorian is free from shame, at least from the shame of his image showing the consequences of his actions. He lives “as art” in a way, Above criticism even when critique is valid. The man in The Seven Year Itch is overwhelmed by the same feelings of shame, of what will people think, and it prompts him to wild fantasies, the “art” of his life, imagined, while he lives the repressed life of the critic pointing out what is wrong with these fantasies. In the end wanting to be good redeems him - with the help of the influence of a good woman. He accepts that influence, that kind of love as well as the ideal love he is romanticising but comes to realize he already has, and it heals him and makes him more whole, more alive, a hope for us all. Dorian ends up scorning the love of the two women who might have saved his soul, and probably Basil and some other men, too. Dorian Gray might have been a different story in some ways the context was not a homophobic society but the same “story” could be written regardless of the gender of the characters. Dorian cannot escape his soul and keeps it hidden, isolated. The rest of us, it shows in our face and eyes and influences how we relate to the world, it is our relation to the world. And yet we see each other less and less, in some ways, and still make mean faces and hostile attitudes. We are all artists and critics and audience for each other, the other artists, critics, and audience - we are all three at the same time. We emphasise and become more one than the other in turns and phases. This is how we connect with each other. When we over-emphasise one and become too much of a critic or audience we disconnect and lose the sense of being the artist of our own lives and miss out on art we might make. I have some inklings about what the dangers of being “too much of an artist” are, too, but personally I know I need to put more emphasis there and don’t mind risks of becoming more pretentious or isolated, for a time, but I would not want to turn into an asshole who let narcissism disconnect me from the world.
I believe these words will have magical effect. All words do, but those with magical intention more so. When we have ideas, maybe they escape from someplace into our minds, or maybe they originate there. Once in our minds they escape through words, art, and other expression. Escape is manifesting, becoming, transforming, magic. I wanted to say all magic can be seen as a kind of escape, a trick out of something. It i is just a way of looking at things. When I was thinking about the idea of the 7-year itch and my dad recommended that movie, I knew it would be a magical clue for me. I had only seen the first half hour of it when I started this and I was eager to see the connection to Dorian Gray. WHen the man in the movie looks in the mirror and declares “The picture of Dorian Gray!” I said “well, there it is!” but the next moment was even more media magic, magic within the magic - his boss calls him in to tell him they will be publishing a new edition of the Picture of Dorian Gray. This is a simple example of this kind of “media magic” that can happen even when no media is involved, you just think something then someone says it.
When I wrote this two weeks ago I felt my magical timing was confirmed - I mentioned the news story I had recently heard about the Syrian war. A convoy of medicine and baby food was allowed into a blockaded suburb of Damascus, they said 600,000 people were there then they said it was 9,000, i think, in the next report - maybe I misheard. But the day I actually wrote this, June 9th, the news story came out that they just allowed a convoy of food, too. I’m not saying the words here caused further improvement - surely the main cause for that was the response to the initial story. Horrible things have been going on for years in Syria but it is like if the media is not reporting on it then people, most people, just won’t be aware of it. These words don’t convey the information to many more people, just a few, but they do set more magical intention out there, to believe in things working out. It is belief in the future and the future is an escape from the problems of today, and the path that leads there will be magical.
My lover- I love calling her that now that we are thankfully re-united - was talking to her brother the other day and asked if he thought anyone was named Jose Cuervo. She said later that night a reality TV show had someone named Tequila on it. This is an example of this kind of simple media magic but it was enough for her to comment on it. We came across Teen Witch on Netflix, an old movie from the 80’s. She had seen it on TV as a kid and even mentioned it to me once years ago. It was bad and super awesome in that cheesy way but it even had a powerful message for me, how magic just works without You doing anything. I’ve always believed in things like a future of peace and love and felt there are things I can do to usher it in, but I also believe in it and know it is true. I forget sometimes about how much magic works “on it’s own” or without any sign in advance. It is fun to look at all the signs but there is an escape from meaning and intention which is liberating and happy. There is doing, art, magic, beyond thinking about it, planning or analyzing it. There is a magical approach to living in which everything is good. You could assume that is the message of religions but there are things in them that have been misunderstood and we need the better interpretations of religion to prevail and new forms of religion, too. We need to escape from the problems of This World, as it has been for so long, and look for clues to how to do it in the promise of the new world. This is why I keep seeing some of these same themes, love striving to overcome perverse order, in all of the media I’ve enjoyed lately, from this century and the last few.
There is a theme of oppressive society in all the works I read spanning the last few centuries. It is very clear in Lorna Doone, he is always talking about it, the oppression of the robbers and the oppression of the worse robbers, the government, and living and loving despite all of that. I also saw Zootopia twice in this month and the same theme is prominent there: we create governments to help deal with things we fear. The corruption of government is using fear to control people instead of proving your value by truly alleviating fear. Good government could ultimately end all causes of fear and suffering on earth, so one first step is to fix the government. I say One step because the first actions of any are truly within us and there are things we can do to change ourselves to make every other endeavor more successful. The nice thing about politics is it is like that process for everyone together and we can, potentially, know what the issues are and act on them to fix things.
True belief in a liberal utopian dream, encouraging of all people and of sexuality, promoting art and communication instead of violence and greed-based power, is the heart of my belief in democracy and reason for supporting Bernie Sanders. Trump is obviously the example of trying to rule by fear, the classic corruption and the fruit of all the evil the Republican party has always stood for but he is being open about it and reaping much of their praise and the scorn of the rest of the world. But Hillary is another version of ruling by fear, as if she is the only alternative to Trump and therefore we should be scared into voting for her. While Trump is the poseter child for the evils of Hate and pettiness, Hillary is the symbol of Lies and the evil that they bring. When you have the power to change things it is evil to give into forces that say to preserve the status quo, no matter how much you say you want to change. Bernie will actually change things which is why they are so scared of him they rigged the election at every turn to presumably nominate her. It has been completely undemocratic the way they kicked people off the registration and invalidated delegates at conventions or even technologically rigged voting machines to give her “wins” in many places, more and more of which are being overturned and decided in Bernie’s favor after all, but we still won’t ever get an actual count of all the people who wanted to support him. Winning by cheating isn’t really winning. Bush won by cheating and got to be president to the detriment of the entire world. It wasn’t right and it wouldn’t be right again. We can still avoid it, but it is mostly up to convincing the superdelegates to support Bernie and / or something happening to reveal she is not a viable candidate. It is important because her whole campaign has been about being afraid of Trump or afraid we can’t do what Bernie promises and trying to convince people to settle. Politics, the best politics, are for the idealists and dreamers who can see a much better future and a path to get there sooner.
I guess that is my lesson to trust in magic. I know that good future is there, calling to us. I know I can help blaze those paths but I also know it simply must be. I can have more faith in it coming to get me, to get all of us, instead of having to show people. So I can put my time and efforts into more magical ways I enjoy showing people even more: art, stories, and music. I had to get out of where I was stuck recently to be ready to do this. I had to complete this blog, for instance. And the days after I wrote the first half were all about the murderer in Miami who killed 50 people in a nightclub. I have a lot to say, and had a lot on my mind I wanted to say, while that was the conversation - I still do, and would go on about it, but simply I am completely against guns. I am proud of the Senate Democrats for having a filibuster, now a sit-in, to force a vote on some simple gun regulations. It does remind me of being online in the Bernie Sanders Activists facebook group while the Nevada State Caucus was going on, urging them to have a Sit-In if they continued disenfranchising about 64 delegates for Bernie, representing probably 100,000 voters - especially after all the long lines and other voter suppression in that state. And they did, but the delegates did not sit-in. I personally called the TV news in Vegas, and others did to, to try and get them to report on it, throughout the day. I felt sure the only way to make a story of how they were stealing the election was to have a sit-in, that it would surely make the news, even if it took until the next day. Removing hundreds of delegates would have made the news even if it was over the next day. But that is just one way I felt we missed a chance to save democracy. And I am proud of the Democrats for having a sit in. There are so many issues that came up for me around this attack. There was immediate focus on his religion and subsequent calls from the right that this is a reason for more war against “radical Islam.” I suspected something different as I heard about it being a gay club, that his dad said he had reacted to seeing two men kiss a month or so before, then the news that he had frequented the club and used dating apps to meet or flirt with men. I don’t know what happened to the story, what further investigation might have shown. It seemed like the connection to being terror-related was something he did for attention at the time but then again I did hear some stuff about him recently getting into terroristic materials. I am curious about what the conclusions will be. My own intuitive conclusion was that it had more to do with repressed sexuality. And of course access to guns. But the reason I think it is important is that some media people and politicians want to use the outrage over the attack to motivate people to support more war. Gun control is certainly a central issue that needs to be addressed and it is terrible that more and more of these events prompt people to claim to act but result in political gridlock. My concern with motives is that it is the fundamentalist, right-wing people in America who are more likely to support war and to demonize Islam in response to this. But if he became a murderer over repressed sexuality then whatever extent conservative/right-wing Islam played in that, for him, fundamentalist christianity does the same things to people. I saw a sign from a vigil that said “End Hate” and I had kind of a cynical, sarcastic response when I saw it, due to my emotion at the time. I totally believe in ending hate, I just felt like it goes so much deeper than just “don’t ever shoot people again” - though that is a wonderful start. It just made me think if we truly end hate then So much would change. If we end all hate the current financial system would collapse, for instance. There would be no excuse for war, we’d just have to always find another way. And we will and we will get better at it.
I regret that I did not write this in sections, in a way, as the events occurred, but then again I am glad I was not writing it during this last week between turmoil in my personal life and all the news of violence and frustration trying to address it. There were some things about the books, movies, and TV I wanted to explore in more detail - like what it meant, to me, at the time, to “not be able to walk and dance at the same time”. Looking back in it now I think it has to do with not analyzing all the time, ending the critic role, and being an artist, going for it, dancing, not talking about it. Maybe that is what it meant at the time, for me, too - but I felt it had to mean something or I would not have seen it echoed twice in the same day, in the midst of the month I’ve been composing this blog all about these connections in media and life. But I don’t know, now, if it had more specific meaning for me then when I made a note of it. And I am glad I don’t feel that way anymore and I don’t want to, I am glad I escaped that. I know we will reach a future where we are free from violence, guns, war and fear in general. I believe in it. I know all these conversations along the way are part of reaching that.
I truly believe we will elect Bernie Sanders to be our next president and Tulsi Gabbard will be vice president and our next president, our first president who is a woman. When Obama endorsed Hillary I was upset at first, hoping someone who truly hates her, a Republican, would even impeach him for supporting treason, bringing up her ties to foreign dictators, or based on her stealing the primaries and bringing all of that to light. Then I thought I would give him a week to change his mind before wishing for anything extreme. It has been two weeks, now, and Gaga has supported Hillary, too. I will focus on that in my next edition, coming very soon, about What to Do When Your Goddess is Wrong. For now I just want to say that I give them both credit for being more connected than I am and I assume they both know she is cheating. Why support her? Maybe they also know something will be coming up which changes everything and makes it obvious for everyone to support Bernie with no shame for hesitation or changing their minds. If so, they could enjoy the moment of pride that a woman would be nominated as President then come around to the true progressive, Bernie, when The Event takes place. We still have a month to rally and exert our influence, make our voices heard, in so many ways before the convention, and at the convention and outside of it. But I don’t pin my hopes on protest. Now, more than ever, art and magic can save us, can help us escape a fate that seems “inevitable.” I must be more effective than talking “about” it, I need to create things that themselves become part of the conversation - not just better memes but art, music, and stories inspired by it all. I do wish I had tried more directly to converse with Gaga about the way Bernie perfectly exemplifies our loving, open-minded ideals. I never had any luck getting in touch with her before but hoped it would be something that got around the community. I don’t regret it since I had no delusions that I “could” talk with her, even though that is possible. As it is, I feel like the discussion it will start will be more enlightening to more people, about more issues, than if she had said “Support Bernie” and all the Little Monsters got on the Bernwagon. Even if that had happened, we would have had some discussion, not as much since there aren’t many Hillary supporters, and people would have found out more about Bernie as they discovered him. As it is, it will have to be a discussion and hopefully many more people will get involved and Gaga herself will change her mind. But the next edition will be all about this and other issues about divinity and truth.
When I was reading Dorian Gray I was struck by the word “escape” since this entire month of June I have had this “escape tricks” blog on my mind. The first time I noticed it was before the descriptions of all the Finer Things that he was enjoying, the fabrics and jewels, etc, and the stories about legendary examples throughout history. These were his media escapes at the time. Later I think it mentions that he could not escape the conscience that oppressed him. A traditional refuge, the church, is not an option or not a satisfying one - I don’t recall if it is mentioned. But my idea is the redemption he seeks, that anyone seeks, can only come from someone else which is part of the tragedy of the curse of youthful looks and not having a “true” form with which to relate to people. This is the problem with not being yourself or being fake. Colbert showed the clip last night of Hillary laughing at one of her own jokes. He provided inner dialog for her like “My staff tells me mirth makes me appear relatable and human.” It was just a fake laugh, a fake face, carried on far too long. The problem is it isn’t human to lie - in a way it is since we are the only animals to do it, but it is not that relatable human thing we connect with, just something we recognize we have all done and seen too much of. We accept lies as part of the system but we can make it better and expect more.
We can all sense the truth, deep down, we all know it. We can be fooled, even for decades, by something that just isn’t true. Usually this happens because someone is trying very hard to fool us. Often, maybe always, it is to fool us into something they don’t believe themselves. When they do this they have an impassioned way of talking, kind of hopeful but mostly strained - Ted Cruz is probably the most prominent example. But they are all like this, getting worked up about stuff to talk about, not because they really want to fix it. If anything, they want problems to continue so they still seem necessary to deal with them. Bernie isn’t like that, though, and his supporters won’t accept that anymore. We know there are real problems, from saving the environment to avoiding nuclear war to ending poverty and disease. And we know we can fix them but not by being scared of the industries and systems we will have to revolutioniz to do it.
The truth, the future free from fear, is the Big Escape for all of us from all the problems we have made for ourselves by making the world this way. We will remake the world, not with guns and bombs, but with paint and words and music. It is not us against them because there is no Them, we are all in it together. It is all of us against It - an evil troll, accumulated from all our mistakes, fears, and selling-out. But we can remake it at the source, within ourselves, by living true to our hearts and not accepting lies or facades anymore.
I feel like “I” pulled of the greatest escape trick of my life by getting out of our relationship going down in flames. The idea was to get out of it, it’s over, but I was lucky to receive the miracle that we both got out of it, and the relationship, too, and hopefully we won’t have to go through any more crashes, let the crashes fall away. I know it was my belief in love, in the Goddess of Love, and mostly in my lover, that the miracle happened. I also feel like it will keep getting better and be better than ever since we got through it. I feel like I had to fix some misperceptions of me, but the thing that helped me most was getting out of some of my own ideas about who I am or have to be, overcoming fear and insecurity. Love is always possible and always the solution, it just might not take the form we are focused on. I realize my own desire to meet someone else, to feel that excitement, can also be the excitement of a new story, song, or picture. But it can also be the excitement my lover and I have had before, and more. If you are really in love, even if it has been a long time and some things have gone awry, the reasons you fell in love were always better than reasons for falling apart, if you can just get back to them and let them work their magic. And sometimes there is nothing you can do, directly, and can just take a break, enjoy some art or doing things in the world and for others, and let the magic bring you back together as it will. Art, enjoying it and the lessons it inspires in us, or making it and magically transforming the world, is the universal means of making love when we can’t be “making love”. And the more we do of each the more we can do of both.
It really is Love Versus War, but we are all on the same side. It is just a matter of recognizing each other, reminding each other, and coming together. We are all “wrong” in different ways, and all divine in ways, too. If we accept each other, remembering the magic we all share, we can overcome all of our wrongs. Our truest selves are all in love with each other and it's an exciting and even scary journey to discover that. But all the bad things we encounter we do so to make the fall away, to get to the true love we all share beneath the false layers. For me Gaga as the Goddess of Love has been inspired, divine, and showed how to lead others into the heart of magic. Bernie has become the political example of this and even surpassed Gaga in this kind of influence, currently, because he is more active at the heart of this world-transformation. As close is she is and has been to the heart of it all, her support for Hillary shows you can still be mistaken, even as a Goddess. Bernie is just living the truth he has been living for a long time and it has taken this long for this magic to come around, to come out of all of us, to make this revolution happen.
A couple editions ago I wrote some of my Oz-themed understanding, that for years I have associated Gaga with Dorothy and Ozma of Oz, and the Good Witches and others, too- but mostly Ozma and Dorothy. I realized that Bernie is like the WIzard but had to include a spoiler, for those who have not read the books, that the Wizard gets real magic powers in the later books. The analogy did not break down when Gaga supported Hillary, it just made me realize we are still in the midst of the story, in this analogy. It’s not like Bernie sent Gaga to Hillary for her broom, it’s not quite that close, either. Or like Bernie is ever a humbug. He has been standing for the same things, saying the same things, for years - the difference is that he will be empowered. The Wizard we saw in the movie never got his power. Read the books and you will see. When Bernie is President it will be like the Wizard with his Power - with Ozma on the throne - and all things harmonious. This is an analogy of even when Bernie is president he will be serving the greater good. I’ve always associated Gaga with Ozma, since 2008, due to her origin story and the whole Goddess of Love aspect - just everything about her representing, to me, the path of art and magic to the fairy world of Oz, our Peaceful Future. But I also always associated her with Dorothy, the girl we can all relate to, who we all are on this same magical journey. Dorothy has to come to realize her own power, the power of her love and family but mostly her own power that connects with that “home”, and we all have that journey. When we are realizing our power, expressing it to rule the world, to transform magically, we are Ozma, like Gaga, when she is like that. But we are on that journey, and we do it again in new ways, to discover ourselves. Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, always knew Dorothy had the power but the journey is so she can learn it for herself, so she can believe in herself. It is the same for all of us. Right now, thinking it will take a miracle to make Bernie the nominee and president, we can believe in it and believe in whatever we think to do to help it come true. But as long as we don’t believe in us, don’t believe we can all do it together, we might be convinced - by “the System” - that our only chance is the broom of a Wicked Witch. We might go to her only for good things, hoping to work together and not have to destroy her but if her own wickedness prompts a bucket of truth to be thrown and melt her,so be it. So Gaga, and all of us, are approaching the witch’s castle, in the forest, now. We’re dealing with the minions and obstacles she is putting in our way - the primaries, the media, etc, take your pick who are the bees and who the flying monkeys, etc. Soon there will be a confrontation at the castle, possibly the convention, maybe before, in which she is melted and all her wonderful wickedness destroyed. The people previously under her sway will cheer their liberation. Then we will take the broom back to the Wizard, Bernie. I guess the broom represents the nomination. The point is that we realize after all of this that we have the power, in us. The Wizard flying off in the balloon represents the end of the old, fake, All-Talk presidency. The Return of the Wizard, with magic, is a symbol of what he will be like as president. The Rule of Ozma and Glinda at that time will represent the way Bernie has respect for Mother Nature and will be in her service, but also will represent female leaders in the future. Glinda knows that Ozma is coming back someday which is why she is not worried when the Wizard flies away. False power is based on fear and bluster, true power can only come from an accord with nature, an accord with the truth we can all sense inside of us. That is what makes Bernie so empowering and uniting a figure, because it is not about him but about all of us, together, and in respect of nature and truth. That is what makes the story, the journey, of self-discovery so important, so we learn it for ourselves. That is why it is important to make mistakes and have others there to help us along. Gaga has gone through Dorothy’s Journey before, to get to her stardom, and in other ways. She is going through it again now, in this political cycle. We are all going through the same journey, in this way, when the whole world thinks this is our only hope. But we will discover, as we come to believe in ourselves, that magic is real, all our best dreams are real. All it takes to make them come true is to escape the things that hold us back, to really believe in them and go for them. The irony of magic is that when everything, anything is possible we are the limits on ourselves, just holding ourselves back because we’ve learned to be that way, in this world. But we all sense the other world calling us to be our true selves and there are those out there who see it and help us along the way, only as is best for us learning it “on our own”, truly taking it to heart. And we find our heart best with others, and realizing we are not alone. We can’t rely on government, on someone else, to save us. But won’t it be nice when we have institutions and communities based upon the idea of making salvation, happiness, and peace available to all? We can, we just have to believe in it, in us, in our home in that place, and we will be there. We all have roles to play and the best dreamers in those roles will take us to the world of our dreams the best ways, especially when we include ourselves to be our best, too, and play the best roles we can play.
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