gagablog 110: Aura/Artpop/Applause: Magic Versus Manipulation, "Keep-Away"

I decided to write about Aura, Artpop, and Applause a few days ago. The DNC begins tonight so it is the last time to influence the outcome, to get the delegates and superdelegates to save democracy, to save their party and the two-party system, for whatever that is worth to them, too, and ultimately save everything by nominating Bernie. I knew I wanted to write, even though I just published the last one yesterday, but thought I might not have time, since my brother is in town visiting and I rarely get to see him. But some magic this morning convinced me to go ahead and type this up.

       The idea behing Aura-Artpop-Applause is media manipulation versus magic. Manipulation is what te media is doing to us, trying to make Hillary the inevitable candidate. Magic is what will happen, Bernie becoming the candidate, miraculously. The cynic in me says the Real "power" players planned it this way all along, to make us think Democracy won out when Bernie wins the nomination, but it all plays into their scheme. I don't mind that scheme, I think it is up to us to demand Bernie so they know we won't accept anything less, then will be up to us to make sure he can reach the agenda he laid out. But they tried to see if they could get away with scamming us, again, I suppose, and found out they couldn't  -assuming they are now switching gears to support Bernie instead. Or it's just fate, the way it was meant to be, and no one is controlling it. The important thing is to realize that manipulation is some kind of force, some kind of violence or threat. Magic is, by nature, the opposite of that. Magic is the "last resort" to dealing with hopeless problems, but also the best way to overcome when worldly powers are against you, in major or minor ways.

       Worldy powers rely on manipulation, on a basic threat of violence or force. A much better way to influence people is with coercion, a promise of better things. That is because magic is essentially to make things better, to oppose mean forces that are making things bad in the first place. I realize I don't have much insight into Gaga, anything about her love life, or nearly as much as many monsters about her artistic process. But I remembered one thing and it came to mind the other day. She said Aura was her choice for the first single for Artpop but at the record company behest she let them release Applause first, instead. I have an idea that I know the statement that Gaga was going to make with Aura, then Artpop, and finally Applause, with other singles between, possible, but those three in that order, but that message, that magic, was jinxed by manipulation and the lesser, non-ceative forces that use manipulation, fear, instead of magic, hopefulness.

       I will say as much as I can about that message at the end, just want to include all the little magical events that happened since posting the last gagablog yesterday and get one more spell in to say we will select Bernie as the nominee. The initial seed of this gagablog was a note I did not include in the last one. I heard a story about Alexandria Virginia on NPR. They are one of the richest areas in the country but still 75% of the school kids are on reduced or free lunch. I lived there when I was just a little kid, I have a few memories, I think we lived in public housing, lots of kids around. Anyway I was going to add this to all I have been saying about inequality and I don't have specific tie-ins except that I planned to mention it. Then yesterday in the pool we were playing Keep-Away and I realized something about that game, versus just throwing the firsbee around, and it made me question how at young ages we play these games that set up thinking patters we never or rarely fully escape, such as "someone" will inevitably be left out. The non-competition of "catch" where everyone is included has a magical dimension, compared  to Keep-Away, especially as an early life model of the way things can be. I'm not saying we should ban certain games. I'm saying if we think about how the behavior of adults and institutions can be compared to "Keep-Away" and how that contrasts with the shared mentality symbolized by "Catch" you can see how this analogy can be applied to many things. It's very basic.

       I wrote down some notes this morning from Leave it to Beaver. Beaver was reading Ivanhoe and learning about the idea of chivalry. He had taken up for some girls. I wasn't paying close attention. Apparently he got beaten up by a bigger boy he challenged, trying to be chivalrous. His dad reminded him that "Discretion is the better part of Valor." Wally interpretted this for him - "Don't mess with fellas bigger than you." This connected to what I was talking about last edition and stood out as a basic "foundation" for the way too many of us accept "The Way Things Are" when they don't have to be that way. Ward told the Beaver to not take the law into his own hands, to leave it up to the Authorities. Wally establishes that you just don't mess with someone "bigger" than you, meaning more capable of violence. So the basic idea is, since some people can act outside of rules of decorum but may be more powerful than those who would challenge them, you need a system in place to weild power resposibly to stop the bad actors. This is all based on the idea that ultimately, in some situations, violence is the only answer. I don't accept that this is true, but even if it is, the only way to set up that system is if the authorities are Just. The problem is a system where the authorities are not held accountable and become increasingly unjust. That is the problem we are faced with now.

       I wanted to include this just because of the media magic idea of Beaver trying to live out the book he was reading, in a way. They even made a comment I wish I had noted about books being the only way for people to experience many things in the past.But what really stood out was when June says, at the end, that she used to imagine she was the heroine of books she read. Then she lists them, "Lorna Doone, Little Women, Becky Sharp..." Readers of the gagablog will know how important Lorna Doone was, to me, as the last book I finished, about a month ago. I perked up to hear her discussing this, just imagining being a character, because I think of this simple, commonplace actiity a being a pure kind of magic and certainly a way magic reminds us to notice it, by putting characters and ideas in art we encounter to clue us in, just as June Cleaver and family were giving me clues, today. Ward asks her "did the teachers understand?" (her daydreaming in class. Her response: "No, they just gave me cod liver oil." To me this is another example of the world of manipulation versus the world of magic.

       The most magical thing happened to me after that. I mentioned David Sherry in my last gagablog. I wrote that part about a week ago, maybe two. I published it yesterday and went on facebook today to share it around but never got around to that. I commented on a post in a Bernie group, about Donna Brazile. Someone left a reply to my comment and I noticed it was him, David Sherry! I told him I had just written about him the day before, had only met him once, by "chance", over a year ago. There were many related connections when we first met that made the meeting seem magical and a good omen for our band, Foxzen, which we had just started. One was he mentioned a "small island country" and I had a feeling he meant Malta. I asked and he said it was Malta and I said I could see how he would expect many people to be unfamiliar with it but I had done a geography report on Malta in the 7th grade. But this meeting was like meeting Snoop the day after posting a meme associating him with Bernie. I wrote about David Sherry and we met again, online, the next day after I posted it, just by continued magic.

       I was telling my friend about this, and about a meme I shared today where Winnie the Pooh asks Piglet "What Day is it Today?" and Piglet says "It's the day we BERN this motherfucker to the ground" and Pooh responds "My favorite kind of day." She said that was funny because she had just said those words in a joke earlier, let's burn this place to the ground.

       As soon as I posted the last Gagablog I had an idea that I was missing something. One hint that came to mind was the meaning of the name "Snoop." I realized it relates to sluething, to secretly spying and revealing something. I realized it related to all the email releases that are ending #hillawho's campaign and handing the nomination to Bernie. It's the core of what we are doing here, just as legalizing weed is one of the things at the core of the Bernie movement and Snoop represent weed. But he, his name, also represents ninja-like revelation of secrets. That is what we are experiencing, now. The recent emails have shown Debbie Wasserman Shultz and the DNC were biased against Bernie and tried to rig the primaries for #hillawho. She has been forced to resign, at first, this morning, they said she would resign after the convention but I think she resigned today, or will. They've replaced her with Donna Brazile in the interim but other emails have been released showing Brazile was totally biased against Sanders, too, saying she would cuss out the Sanders camp if the issue of rigged elections came up - that's the thread where I re-met David Sherry.

       My lover just told me there is weed store here in Denver that offers a five percent discount to Pokemon Go players. It reminds me of last night when my sister told us there is a dog shelter that offers to Pokemon Go players if they don't want to look "silly" or whatever just walking around they can rent a shelter dog to walk for five dollars an hour. They ran out of dogs and have a waiting list and I imagine many of them get adopted that way. My lover just said, about the whole Pokemon Go phenomenon, that "Growing up when things were not this way its just like WIzard of Oz land, like "is this real?" ". Since Oz is the basis of my magical belief I feel this is a sign I am on the right track, baby, even if I'm rushing, now, late to meet my family for a cook-out.

       What I wanted to say about Aura - Artpop - Applause is what I want to say about all of this, to sum up. Magic is uniting, the true power which overcomes all lesser powers, the powers of manipulation. There are times when things do go wrong but the more we believe in magic and act in that the more we can fix. I should not say anything about Gaga's love relations, as I gave into last edition. I don't know anything about it, I shouldn't just ponder without at least trying to find out more about her and how she feels. But I do know something about the marketing versus the artistic vision for Artpop. I know she wanted something else, I believe Aura, to be the first single but the record company chose Applause. It spoils the message to have that song, first, is all I am saying. If Aura had come out first, the introduction to the Artpop era, it is like the High Priestess Tarot card, the veil being displayed, a mystery to reveal. Artpop is the magic, the potential of what can happen as we get into it. Applause makes it clear, in this context, that What Is Going on is the magic of connection between art and artist, the magic that is Art itself, a celebration of Art. But outside of that context, or as the iniial impression of what all of Artpop will be, Applause could be seen as self-glorification, for those who don't have ears to hear. Aura - Artpop, first, before Applause, would have given people those ears. It would have been magic, more magical. Instead, in that one dimension, "Order", Time, song-release dates, manipulation, marketing, won over Magic and Art.

       This is a symbol of how Gaga can be Trapped, even with all the divine powers she has, she can even be trapped in herself. I was going to say "if she truly, in her heart, supports Hillary I presume it can only be the result of this kind fo trap." But no one, in their heart, supports Hillary. It's not possible, it's a hearltess position to take. So I will say she is being kept from her true heart, and true purpose as the Goddess of Love, just as we all are, by some kind of Trap we've fallen into. Usually we fall into these traps because we accept some idea that we are undeserving, unworthy. We have felt like the outsider in a game of Keep Away, and we all have been, in different ways. But we just need to change the game. We need to overcome competition and violence as a standard and make the new foundation caring and helpfulness. We need Bernie and we will #bringthesuperdelegatestoheel and win this convention, for Democracy to win and show it can still be possible, and to save the world from all our devestation. And we will do it, together, and all improve by overcoming the personal fears and hurts that hold us back from love. Thanks, everyone, please share!

gagablog 109: Meeting Snoop

I met Snoop Dogg about a week ago. It was awesome, one of the coolest moments of my life, and the next day I realized how media magic played into it. This event and others in my personal life have made life wonderful, for me, in the past two weeks since I last wrote this. But there have been terrible events in the news in this same time period and of course strong magical connections between all the things that are going on. Bernie “endorsed” Hillary, as required by Democratic rules to stay in the race, but he is still in it and will win it though we only have a week to do everything we can do to bring the Party around in time for the convention next Tuesday. There were two high profile murders of non-threatening black civilians by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, and unfortunately there were probably dozens more around the country that did not make the news in that same time period. There were also two incidents where cops were killed, five were shot by a war veteran sniper in Dallas during a #blacklivesmatter protest against police brutality  and then a few days ago another war veteran killed three cops with an assault rifle. At another protest in Phoenix the cops pepper-sprayed the crowd and much of the news has been about law enforcement, recently. But my big news was meeting Snoop so I will first tell that story then try to catch up with all the events of July.

It was Saturday, July 9th when I got a text from the weed store I go to, LivWell on Evans, that Snoop would be visiting the store if we wanted to meet him. He has a line of marijuana and weed products called Leafs By Snoop that I believe they have an exclusive deal with him. I grabbed a copy of our Foxzen album to give him, wrote a note on it thanking him and inviting him to Bern with me, and went down to the store. It was fun meeting people in line and one of them loaned me his phone to get a picture.  It took about half an hour waiting in line to get to see him, someone estimated a few hundred people came down on a half hour’s notice. When we met he was so cool, he shook my hand and was gracious when I thanked him for doing the event, then posed for pics and as I left I gave him our music, told him how I’ve always enjoyed his, and he thanked me and put it on the little table by his wicker throne.  I’m hoping he will listen to it, like it, and contact me! Wish us luck!

It wasn’t until later that day or the next day that I remembered a media magic connection. Snoop is the most famous person I have ever met. I did touch Obama’s hand and yelled something about Big Bird that seemed to influence a campaign speech he gave at a rally. And I met Michael Stipe by chance in the street once and we spoke a few words, he was nice. I met and hung out with David Sherry at a hotel hot tub and he was awesome, a really cool guy, but isn’t yet as famous as these other two. Those are the only famous people I actually met whom I can think of, now. And I will have to say Snoop was the most significant meeting like this of my life. I became a lifelong weed smoker in 1992 and The Chronic, Snoop’s major debut, was the soundtrack of my highschool years. He’s been a major influence in my life ever since through his music and as a symbol and advocate for weed. He’s a total inspiration to me just as weed itself is. I hope I managed to convey that when I said to him “I hope you like our music, I’ve been loving yours since ‘92!” as I made way for the next fan. And I hope even more that I conveyed it in our music, that he will hear the influence he and weed have had upon me and appreciate that he is a great part of what made it all happen. I felt like meeting Snoop was a karmic, magic reward for always taking up for weed, creativity, and liberal ideas. But then later I remembered the media magic connection.

That Friday night, the night before I met Snoop, I was on facebook in Bernie groups. Someone posted a meme with another racist quote from Hillary Clinton, something about “all white people are scared of a black person in a hoodie.” This reminded me of one of my very favorite memes from this election, the one with Jeb Bush smiling in his hoodie and the caption “we were skating and this kid came up to us with some weed and talking about how cool Jeb Bush is.” I found I did not have a copy of it and went to another group to look for it. I searched for “hoodie”and another meme came up first, with Bernie and Snoop juxtaposed at the top and #hillawho and Kanye at the bottom. And it was a wicked picture of Snoop in this awesome hoodie. The original meme of the Krazy Klinton Kwote had her in a black hoodie looking truly sinister like an evil wizard. Snoop wore it better, of course, just looking super-cool and badass. So I saved that meme to copy over to the thread, too. I think I saved the Jeb one for a better joke: someone posted that the DNC bigwigs were about to jump ship on #hillawho since she spent fifty million dollars but could not get her poll numbers to rise. I commented “FIFTY million dollars? I can’t even Remember anyone else who was THAT bad at politics!” and shared the Bush/hoodie/weed meme under the comment, since he spent maybe a hundred million dollars with no effect, but between being Jeb and the weed he IS completely forgettable. Let’s hope the same can be said for Trump and Clinton.

I’ve basically spent all year in 2016 in Bernie facebook groups, when I’m online. I love the Bernie memes and have saved hundreds of them. I’d seen the one with Snoop and Kanye early in the year, maybe before I started saving them, but I didn’t save it, probably because I don’t like making jokes at Kanye’s expense. I even hesitated this time but the hoodie was too perfect. Besides, Snoop is so cool he kinda makes everyone look like Kanye by comparison. And I just don’t like any bandwagon hatred for Kanye or anyone, and I appreciate him using his influence to say that Bush doesn’t care about black people during Hurricane Katrina and the government-caused disaster - or attempted genocide - that followed. And I know he has done other good things, surely, and made good music. But Snoop has been like the face of weed and that’s important to me, important enough that I wrote the book “All I Really Needed to Know I Learned From Smoking Weed” four years ago. Snoop has been one of the best rappers for decades, inspiring multiple generations. I really don’t need to get into comparisons, that’s the whole reason I was kind of averse to the meme in the first place, but it was just such an awesome picture of Snoop. And Snoop does stand out well above other artists as an icon just as Bernie stands out above mere politicians.

The point is, I saved the meme and shared it. The next day I got the text that I could meet Snoop. I didn’t see the connection at the time but now I see it as a classic example of media magic, first the meme, then the meeting. And of course I shared memes with other people in them whom I did not meet, but mostly wouldn’t have wanted to, and would want to meet Snoop before most anybody. I was so excited, to meet him, to give him our music, that I never even thought to bring a phone or camera but I’m thankful for the kindness of strangers to help me get a picture. Thanks Jacques. And thanks Anastasia and your friend, too, for offering and for being such sweet company. Thanks to Snoop for being there for weed, for all of us, all along, and with such great art. And in this case for proving the magic of Bernie, at least to me. This was the main meaning of all of these events, to me: I shared a meme of Bernie and Snoop and met Snoop the next day, never mind the lower  part. That’s magic, what I hope for and love.

While that was the coolest thing to happen to me, and my next trip to the weed store was rewarded with the wonderful Zeta Sage, pure sativa, I have now, there were many other interwoven events of this past week. I shared a meme remembering a transgender woman who was murdered recently, for being transgender, and that shows how serious ignorance and bigotry can be. If it weren’t for such hateful, violent factors it would seem like just another political wedge issue the recent stories about gender and public restrooms. But of course it is an important issue and  part of the all-important issue of people overcoming hatred. From my privileged perspective of not having to “worry” about it, but also of being androgynous, it was just a source of humor to me when, during a Carson monologue rerun on July 2nd, 2016, he said “ladies and gentlemen, and those who arrived too late to be classified” as my lover walked into the room during the last part. It was also notable to me, seeing that I wrote it on my note card, that during an episode of the Twilight Zone, also rerun on July 2nd, 2016, I believe, there was this line exclaimed “She’s gaga - sitting on a park bench in the pouring rain!” I don’t know what to make of it, or what I made of it then, just that it stood out to me. (Edit from 7-22-16, since this was written on 7-19 - the girl was crying over Love. - more on Gaga’s personal Love at the end)

The focus of this era of media magic was space exploration prior to the publicized shootings. You’ll see the ultimate connection, but first to cover the space angle. The news at the beginning of the month was about the NASA probe entering Jupiter’s atmosphere. On the night of July 2nd, 2016, Antennae TV replayed the Johnny Carson show mentioned above. I don’t know the original date but his guest that night was Ray Bradbury. I’m still reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea so of course I took note when Ray mentioned the author, Jules Verne. I believe Carson may have asked him if he could write a story about FTL travel and he deferred to “better” authors, even Sagan himself. It was interesting, to me, to hear Ray Bradbury, whom I know to be one of the most famous sci-fi authors though I have not read his work, imply he thought his own talents were limited compared to others. Maybe he was just being humble or felt unequal to approach that particular concept. But the most important thing he said, to me, stood out in the context of the current news about the Juno probe. Bradbury mentioned that the NASA budget, at that time in the ‘80’s, was 0.1% of the military budget. This seems to be one of the more active periods for NASA, too, with all the space shuttle flights and cultural obsession with space exploration. But saying it was only 0.1% of the military budget put it in perspective. I don’t know if it was this guest or another one from that era, or Carson in the monologue, but I recall someone on the show mentioning that the military budget was 170 billion dollars that year. Yes, I think I mentioned it last time, it was a comedian who said why not just split it up and give each American ten million dollars each year to protect ourselves. It makes a lot more sense to question the military when you really break it down and question what good it does.

This ties into the problem of racist policing and violence but first another tie-in from a recent  Carson rerun, in the last week. He mentioned that the oil companies had record profits that year, again in the late ‘70’s or early ‘80’s, the network skips around. He said they made 1.9 billion dollars in the first quarter, a 19% increase. And he quoted the oil companies saying they needed the profits to expand operations then joked that they needed to invest it in new bank vaults, or Swiss bank vaults, I forget. Then he says he gets letters from them every time he makes jokes critical of the oil industry and mentioned a moment later “now bring on the letters.” It reminds me of a simpler time of both Big Industry pressure but also relative media independence - it wasn’t the network telling him he could not tell jokes about the oil companies, he just had to deal with the letters. Compared to that, I don’t know how the other hosts have been but Stephen Colbert seems to have totally sold out, revived the #OldColbert in a way, by complying with demands the network surely makes upon him to try and deligitimize Bernie’s campaign. Ironically last night for his live coverage of the RNC he revived his old “The Word” bit from Comedy Central when he was playing a ludicrous conservative. The media is more controlled, now, and the oil companies are still breaking their record profits every year, and all these factors he was joking about a generation ago have only gotten worse in many ways. At the same time we can, could be more aware of things, have greater potential to communicate, collectively, with the internet, and finally have the potential to fix these problems we’ve been aware of for so long.

Both the oil company profits and the enormous military expenditure reveal who is really running the country, currently. And it all is built around racist policing and a culture of violence as well. It’s the same movement, for peace, environmentalism, and social justice because it’s all the same evil and we are all fighting it.  Some of us are too caught up in it and need to learn what side we are really on because ultimately all people ARE together, on the side of peace, against these evil forces of hate and fear which divide us. But we are caught up in the middle of the power they have built, and mentalities they have traumatized into supporting them. We need a cure for all of this angst and conflict. One magically potent cure is weed. Weed is what inspires my art and magic all the time and others as well, bringing us together even literally like my getting to shake hands with Snoop. But it is also a clue at the heart of all this magic. Another joke Carson told during one of his bits about inflation was to save money by “avoiding name brand marijuana.” Of course in that era this was a joke because people may have heard of Acapulco Gold or Maui Waui or other strains, before kind bud became a well-known phenomenon beyond certain subcultures, but there certainly was no “name brand”marijuana at that time. But hearing the joke, now, a few days after meeting Snoop when he was promoting HIS name-brand marijuana, it just struck me as funny in that magical way. Could Carson have possibly imagined that joke would be replayed 40 years later and be “true” in another way? Doesn’t it have to mean something, to me, even if I were not looking for these meanings everywhere, to hear this joke shortly after meeting Snoop promoting his weed brand?

The context, what I would have been focusing on had I written this a week earlier, was still space exploration with the news about the Jupiter probe. On July 5th, I heard one of the scientists on NPR that the probe would slingshot around the Earth, reaching a speed of .02 of light speed. This reminded me the figure Bradbury quoted, that the NASA budget was 0.1% of the military budget. His message was “we should spend less on missiles and more on rockets.” I’m not saying that if we spent ALL the military budget on space we would go a hundred times faster, twice the speed of light, but there is a correlation between what you invest and what you can do. It’s important how you use your resources. The NPR reporter asked why there have been so few space missions in recent years. The answer was that during the 2013 sequester, the Republikkkan attempt to kill Obamacare, I believe, the program was left without much of a budget and they therefore could not plan any major new projects. I feel like we have all seen so much benefits from the advance of science in all fields that it should be easy to support these efforts far more than we do, and doing so would reap immense, incalculable rewards. You just have to have the will to do it. One wonderful thing about the space program (and I don’t know if it is Bradbury or someone else I heard recently echoing in my head as I say this) is that it brings us together in a common cause. The need to address and reverse the effects of climate change is also something that requires and inspires this kind of cooperation that literally transcends differences and lesser problems. And it’s the same approach we need to address problems of injustice, oppression, war, and incarceration around the world and especially at home.

It could seem callous to say “we need way more money for space exploration!” when cops are murdering people regularly and now some war veterans have murdered cops. But it is the same spirit, to come together to pursue non-violent goals and major, collective, world-changing undertakings, that we need. It’s the same people united by the same spirit. In this case many of us recognize how this spirit is enthroned in Bernie and that ours is the movement to make the changes we so desperately need. But the point is that it is what we put our money and energy and respect into. We have a madly out-of-control military industrial complex. We need to deal with that somehow. Even diverting any of its funds to the space program helps by diminishing it that much, but despite the monetary amounts, giving more attention to something hopeful, giving the culture something to be unified by pride and wonder, helps overcome divisions. The War Machine relies on divisions, obviously, because divisions that lead to conflict are the whole reason, or excuse, for war. But it also relies on divisions in society, on keeping people poor and desperate enough to join the military. Or training people in a culture of violence that prides soldiering and lies about the true causes of wars, causing them for profit instead of ending them for good. And ultimately the police, and racist, oppressive policing, play a key role in this. The Drug War and most states making marijuana illegal is a foundation of this, since people do have a natural right and need for weed that has been denied for decades, but we smoke it anyway, yet this is an excuse for the initial contact between police and the public in a large number of cases. And what starts as a marijuana “stop” far too often turns into something much worse.

The killings in Dallas were a tragedy for many reasons. One of these is surely the effect of tarnishing the image of the #blacklivesmatter movement which is about peaceful protest. These protestors are the good guys in this situation, trying to change a racist and violent system by using nonviolent methods. The response to the shootings in Dallas reveal so much of what is wrong with this country. I want to focus on one thing here though I have a lot to say about this whole incident. I don’t even want to get into the dimensions of the police using a bomb to kill the sniper, not now. Just a few hours after the shooting the news was showing a press conference with a police chief. I think it was in another city, maybe Boston or New York, but maybe it was in Dallas - I just thought it was another major city. The chief said that in response to the shootings they would be replacing all of their equipment. He mentioned specifically their armored vehicles. Because they already have all of this equipment, but now they have an excuse and governments willing to fund vast new purchases, and I suppose they will pass the old military-grade hardware onto smaller departments, when really none of them actually needed them to begin with. All of these military weapons in police hands are part of the problem. It’s provocative but also outright oppressive. It’s simply foolish for anyone to think they can win against the US government by taking up arms, though that is one reason gun nuts claim to need weapons. Just get rid of them, if that is why you want them, and let’s seek peaceful resolutions to problems instead. It’s a tragedy that this military-trained sniper murdered five police officers. But it becomes a tragedy of an even greater magnitude that police departments would use it as an excuse to arm themselves even more. It just makes the problem worse, is ultimately more guns, etc, on the street if they replace all of theirs. And this chief was just an example, I’m sure many others are doing the same thing or replacing as much as the new funds allow. It wasn’t an equipment failure that caused this whole problem, though.

Since cities and the public are more sympathetic to cops to give them huge funds, now, why spend all of that money on weapons? Why not spend it weeding out bad cops, hiring better cops, and training everyone better? Why not hire outside consultants to help fix your corrupt culture where no cop can report on any other cop and they all protect each other, even so-called good cops protecting bad ones? And why not spend some money helping improve communities in the first place, instead of oppressing people with unjust policing, so the problems that lead to social ills are actually cured? That gets to the heart of the matter, that we have the ability to make things better, for everyone and especially in communities that need it the most, but our will has been diverted into evil focuses such as racism and nationalism.

It’s hard to see the good amidst a lot of bad but there is good out there. And a lot of bad stuff, like the true evil of racism, lies “buried” in some ways, to some people, then erupts in moments like the ongoing protest against police brutality or, on the other side, in the Trump campaign. We saw the devastation following the Brexit vote, most of the media was about economic losses and uncertainty.  But I heard another report that was even more disastrous in a different way. Apparently the Brexit vote was primarily motivated by racism and xenophobia. The same fear-mongering politics lied to people, convinced them that voting to leave the EU would result in stricter immigration policies. It would keep people in other EU countries from coming to or working in the UK as easily but all the populations from other countries, the ones they were stirring up racism against, immigrated according to the UK’s own rules, which wouldn’t even be affected by the vote. I’m trying to put it politely but there is no polite way to describe racism. To tell the truth, the right-wing, mostly rural, mostly older population is racist against people from non-European countries. That racism was mustered by the politicians. It was used to make the Brexit vote and reveals how stupid and damaging racism is, just in the example of the economic devastation, which is really only a symbol of all the evil this causes. And the same thing is going on in America with the Trump campaign preying on people’s racism and fears of terrorism or fears of diversity and cultural evolution, and also with the #hillawho campaign preying on people’s fear of Trump or fear of swift, revolutionary change when that is exactly the change we need, a reversal of direction on so many fronts.

There is a YUGE difference between what has been going on in American politics and British politics. After calling for then losing the Brexit vote, David Cameron resigned. After all the fallout from how terrible the decision was, the politicians promoting it on the other side all resigned. I heard some program where someone interviewed an actual Russian spy who praised Cameron for at least taking responsibility and resigning. In these same weeks, the UK report was released scrutinizing the Iraq War and Tony Blair has been totally vilified and is now a roundly hated figure. He apologized but then stood up for himself, angering the public even further. He had nothing to resign from, I suppose, but his well-known shame is at least some punishment for his actions. By contrast, when Obama took office he immediately said he was not concerned with finding fault with the past, with Bush. While Bush was extremely popular amongst so many Americans during his terms, it would be rare to find many who would admit to liking or supporting him now. You could tell how low his stock had sunk by the way they ran the Jeb campaign and the public response. And by the fact that the Bushes did not attend the RNC, though that could relate to other factors, too. Even though no one likes Bush, we don’t have the same thing the British have with Tony Blair: we don’t have a report on the wrongs he did, we don’t have a public outcry or awareness of the shame and terror he caused us and the rest of the world. We have that because we all know it in our hearts, and some more than others, some of us knew all along why he was wrong and how wrong he was. But we don’t have a public expression of it. And Obama has continued and furthered far too much of Bush’s War agenda and is trying to pass it on to Hillary. They won’t ever hold anyone else accountable and can never be held accountable themselves for “inheriting” a terrible situation but the truth is we can all do something to change the world and Presidents can maybe do more than most, if they are truly willing. But just talking about it, lying about it to gain support, won’t work. We have to do everything we can to fix the problems we face, including reversing course in major ways.

After the Brexit, the racists had won, had gotten what they wanted. You would think this would make them happy but the disaster it caused of course put a damper on their celebration, made folks question or regret their decision, or in too many cases, just upset them and made them look for someone else to blame when they couldn’t face the guilt they felt for doing wrong. I heard that hate crimes against immigrants went up 500% in the week after the Brexit vote. They may have felt emboldened by their “victory” but they obviously didn’t really feel good, choosing to attack random people. It just shows the whole problem of the evil of racism - if racism gets what it wants there will be more suffering. We have to fight against it, together. Those of us who seek justice always know we need to liberate ourselves and others who suffer from oppression. We can also look at it like we need to liberate the people who are contributing to and therefore trapped in positions of power in an oppressive system

I just had a few notes about the hate crimes in the UK and next to it one about the FBI director saying “no prosecutor who values his job would bring a case against HRC” - which can be interpreted as there is no case but seems more obviously that he fears retribution because she has too much power. The whole problem with being “above” the system is at the heart of Hillary’s untrustworthiness. And it is the foundation of nationalism, xenophobia, and racism, in the UK and US: people who believe in white supremacy or entitlement believe the rules and laws should be written to favor them and keep them on top in the system and so far have mostly had it that way And it is also the nature of the problem of police brutality. If no one holds the police accountable they will inevitably grow increasingly corrupt and brutal. The whole idea of enforcing “right” with the threat of violence is wrong. But that is the only situation possible as long as certain people retain an “above-the-law” position. We need to avoid further empowering Hillary that way, we need to elect Bernie, but we also need to remove all of those unchecked positions of power.

Power should be granted and respected based upon the ability to help people, not hurt people. Of course we have the “strongest”, meaning most deadly and potentially destructive, military on earth because we spend more than the next ten biggest military spenders combined, more than half of our budget goes to this juggernaut. And it’s completely unnecessary since there are much better ways to be strong than violence and they all provide a much better return for your investment than the ability to destroy and incur all the various “costs” of rebuilding. The RNC has been criticizing Clinton and Obama for their foreign policy. Giuliani was hammering Obama on the deal with Iran last night. I personally have always believed the way to end the nuclear threat is to lead by example and disarm. I also believe the whole premise of “allowing” nuclear power should not prejudicial but on the other hand, especially following the Fukushima disaster in Japan - and I doubt anyone truly knows the impact of that  - the smarter strategy is to all work together to advance clean renewable energy thus eliminating the demand for nuclear altogether. He was making the point that the deal unlocks billions in aid and claimed Iran would be using that to fund terrorism. While I am suspicious of all these fear-mongering, sabre-rattling claims I know there can be some truth to that. And even worse I heard a recent report about an Iranian-backed Shia militia in Iraq that murdered over 900 civilians while fighting ISIL in Iraq. Of course these militias are also backed by Iraq and the US, operating in accord with our government(s) so we hold some responsibility for this atrocity just as we hold much of the responsibility for creating the whole situation to begin with. And we are being even more irresponsible to pretend we can just blame Iran for this in the way we think about it. And just today I heard reports that an American airstrike killed 56 civilians in northern Syria. (this was all in the original draft, written mid-July.)

The whole point is that violence is wrong. The ultimate reason to use violence to enforce things, laws or foreign policies, is because there is something corrupt about your authority. If you rule from a place of goodness there is no need for violence, it is only useful to prop up unjust rule. Being “above the law” is the definition of injustice. This is the evil the oil companies and weapons manufacturers are guilty of, as well as the police and politicians. We just need a whole new system, a whole new direction, that demands justice in everything, justice first and foremost with no “exceptions.” We need to end the fear of terrorism by ending terrorism. There are two kinds of terrorism hurting us the most, extremist terrorism globally and police terrorism nationally. The root of both problems is the same:an evil system run by the military mindset and the weapons industry, the belief that violence is ultimately the answer. On one side they cause and foment conflicts, cultivating war, to justify their continued existence. The same resources could be used to fix all the root problems that people initially argue about, if we used them wisely. They simply don’t want the problems fixed, they want war because it is their business. And on the other side they oppress the population, with some populations like poor black people, native americans, and latinos disproportionately and exceptionally oppressed, to make the military seem like an attractive way out. It’s not just the police, everything about economic injustice conspires to make this the case, but the police play the most visibly brutal part of the whole system. And the whole problem is they are acting above the law.

Governments and officials can “get away” with doing wrong, can shield themselves from various consequences. Oil companies can pay to block environmentalist progress. Even though this is simply wrong they CAN do it so they do. They get away with it because they have a lot of money-power. But no amount of money can buy off imbalances we cause in the balance of the climate. No amount of money can buy off the demand for justice in an unjust system. Even if they can pay to break the world’s laws, or change them, there are some laws which can’t be broken and the “worldly powers” will be the ones broken if they keep defying the Natural Powers, since the effects of climate change are impacting us all more and more the longer we delay. And the backlash against murderous policing will increase until they stop the problem at the source, with the cops.

It’s simply not right to kill people, to harass people and use authority in racist ways, or to cover any of that up. They say there are good cops and I know there are but precious few who are good enough to not be guilty of at least the third because they all swear an oath to protect each other. The cops who do try to turn other cops in are often terminated or face even worse retribution. But we need soul-searching from everyone. We need people in power to start doing their jobs very differently, to do very different things at work, or to find new work. We can help politicians by primarying them but the police forces we need to talk with and talk them out of the deadly path they are on. For recent years they have been disrespecting our non-violent protests to various degrees. And for decades, centuries, they have oppressed us for such protests. I’m not saying it’s time to move “past” non-violence, I will never say that, it never is. And that is where the powers-that-be are essentially wrong since their power rests in that error, the presumed power of violence even though there is no good to it. I’m saying they should have listened to our non-violent protest, earlier, and made radical changes in their approach and idea of power. And they should listen to our continued non-violent protest and take clues how to reform this racist and oppressive system. Because it’s good for all of us, it is in all of our best interest, the whole country, and the whole world, to end the system of oppression, conflict, and fear. We have the ability and duty to do this as the “strongest country on earth”. We have the greatest example to set by disarming since we are by far the biggest army, weapons-wise. It’s all about transforming out of a violence-based mindset and our problem is the people in power are stuck there.

So much of the problem is racism and a problem that goes hand in hand with that is a desire for authoritarianism. It’s basically the recipe for all fascist elements of power, demonizing an “other” and positioning oneself as the leader “strong” (murderous) enough to “deal with them.” Hillary is racist and homophobic though she pretends to have evolved for political gain. Trump is worse, in a way, for stirring up bigotry and using it to gain power, like Putin. He is more obvious about his racism but Hillary isn’t any better for being secretive about it, especially when she hypocritically uses fear of him to try to gain support when she is as bad in some ways and worse in others, as a cheater and murderer, for instance. Either way it is the use of fear to justify taking a position of power and maintaining a racist, violence-based system. All the people, of this country and the world, truly want a reform of politics and abuse of power. We all want it and will demand it in different ways. (Since writing this section I saw Trump’s speech accepting the RNC nomination, most of it, and he proved my point about “Law and Order” being the brand of the Fascist and Racist, but more on that later.)

Nothing good can come from violence. Good can come from listening to each other, communication and understanding. Unfortunately, too many people in power feel like they don’t have to listen to anyone and only answer to themselves. Something unbelievable happened after the shootings in Dallas. The media, and police, were all making statements about how much they support peaceful protest. This had never been the case during all the protests of the past years. The media usually slandered the protestors and the police were disrespectful and rude at best. But now they were frequently repeating how much they welcomed peaceful protest. They reported that the officers who were killed were protecting the protesters, when of course they were doing what they always do, containing the protest and showing force, “protecting” part of the city if anything, but mostly being an intimidating presence. They weren’t getting the message, they weren’t listening to the peaceful protests. The Man - the police, the government, Obama - still has not taken a hard look at themselves and decided what they can do differently to solve the problems. There must be some way to reach justice and we first have to recognize the root of injustice, the injustice built into the system. We should be able to reform it, but if we aren’t even really trying can we be surprised it drives some people crazy? I imagine these veterans returned from war with even more stress and issues than they left with, returned to a country where all the news is about the police murders of black people that have gone on for decades but are being exposed thanks to cell phone cameras. I saw a story yesterday about California cops killing a man for pointing a cell phone at them, by the way. The veterans have been trained to kill using the most advanced weapons by the army. They get upset and have easy access to those weapons. I wish this had not happened but the best way to avoid it would have been to fix the problems that led to it. The one we could have the most immediate impact on could be reforming the police. There have always been some cops who advocate banning assault rifles and other gun controls, I see stories about them every time the issue comes up. But their voices seem to be drowned out by NRA and gun-nuts railing against it and the larger cop responses, to  buy more weapons.. After the war veteran in Baton Rouge killed three police officers with an assault rifle it seemed like more cops were calling for gun control, too, and that this side of the story was actually being reported. These aren’t good ways to reach these conclusions, that peaceful protest should be respected and that guns are out of control. We just had to reach them somehow. It is probably the racial element and honestly the guilt the police feel from knowing that so much violence and murder is committed by them with no consequence due to the unjust system that makes the story actually seem to be changing, this time. The cops are literally afraid of the populace more than they were. The reason is they have been increasingly intimidating people with more and more military gear, etc, which is not necessary except to move inventory for the weapons dealers. And they refuse to change their tactics which simply rely on violence and being overpowering and intimidating. The public has always been afraid of the police and avoid them but new equipment, image, and methods always developing into more intimidating and more violence-capable directions instead of ever going the other way is making it worse and creating excessive fear will have fearful consequences. Since fear and anger reduce our ability to think well, we will end up with worse and worse responses to the evil of police brutality unless we fix the problem at the source, in the conscience of the cops and police system that needs to have an actual conscience or review board that could actually enforce laws upon cops. I believe I called for this after Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice were murdered by cops and a cop wanna-be: A complete federal review of all police murder cases of the last century with the assumption that the local review was probably biased. Obama could have done that years ago, but didn’t. It’s not the “craziest” idea to actually hold cops accountable, even retired cops, and put them in jail for their crimes. Just think about it and what the so-called “objections” to this idea could be and if those objections exist for any other reason than to support a racist system.

I did not see the video of the police pepper-spraying the #blacklivesmatter protestors in Arizona between these other events. I read two people’s discussion of it, though, between one who was taking up for the police and the other who gave a very detailed account of what she saw when she watched the video. She said something was thrown, at one point, towards the police but did not reach them, it fell into the crowd. They both agreed the police were telling the protesters to back away or not come closer and they both agreed that the confrontation supposedly began when one of the police officers got “touched.” The pro-police person was saying that an officer being touched, because the crowd got too close, was the justified reason to pepper-spray them. The other lady said that she saw one of the officers, from behind the front line of officers, reach over them towards the crowd with a can of pepper-spray to taunt them just before the supposed “touching” incident happened, but said she could not see anyone actually touch an officer. If there was “touching” it must have been mild. But they fired the pepper spray on them. I thought about it, wondered why the cops could not simply reverse, take a few steps back, especially if they are “guarding” the protest as the official word is, lately. But I imagine there are parts of town they don’t want the protesters to enter,streets they don’t want them to block, etc.  And they are doing what they always do, trying to control the people instead of responding to them. It only takes one asshole like the cop with the pepper-spray can to explode a tense situation. It didn’t have to be that tense if the police would change tactics and their role in the world. And it didn’t have to explode, that cop was an asshole. But after it did, the best response would be to admit that and fire the officer, not try to lie in the media to blame the protesters. That’s just more of the same problem.

I got a clear media magic message about the dangers of racism and authoritarianism when reading comics last week. Years ago I got a copy of a collection called “X-Men Origins”, focusing on Angel, Havok, and Beast, from the thrift store. I never read it until last week but enjoyed it so much I mostly took a break from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and read it all. It included The Amazing Spider-Man #92. I think it is from 1963. There is a politician, Bullit, running for DA of NYC and the Daily Bugle was endorsing him but J. Jonah Jameson calls him up to tell him he’s retracting the endorsement, just days before the election. Bullit is livid, all about how he can’t do this to him when he is so close to winning the election. This immediately made me think of Hillary, and the media presumption she will be the nominee, if at this late hour some of her supporters or media turned on her. Then he goes to confront the Bugle staff and J.J.J. has Robbie Robertson tell him they have a file on him they are going to publish, exposing how he is funded by racist hate groups and that they know what he means by “law and order”: preferential treatment of whites and oppression of minorities. Of course this immediately made me think of Trump and his rhetoric, though it applies to Hillary as well, with her policies and comments including“bring the superpredators to heel” remark I’ve turned into the #bringthesuperdelegatestoheel hashtag. Bullit insults Robbie then kidnaps him and tries to kill him. His racist rants are so Trump-like it seemed prophetic from half a century ago. But mostly it seemed sad that more has not changed since then, except that instead of secretly being funded by hate groups in a bid for DA, Trump is openly supported by them and aspiring to the Presidency. And everyone knows what Hillary stands for, the corporations she really represents, and even murders she is guilty of, but the media won’t report on it.

Another comic I read in that collection a few days ago was echoed in the RNC just last night. Melania Trump gave a speech including many references to how much she loved her country. It was because of her thick accent that I thought of it, but also because the comic was recently in my mind. The Beast, as Hank McCoy, asks his girlfriend to confirm his alibi when he lies to an Air Force officer. She doesn’t and he questions her about it. She says “I couldn’t do anything to betray my country!” or something like that. At the same time, the thought bubble next to that word balloon shows her thinking “little does he know that country is NOT America!”. I’m not saying this is a clue that Melania is controlling Trump and is actually a Soviet spy, I’m just saying that is more fun to think about than he is just a puppet of Hillary and playing a role to get her elected.

I must admit there is some interesting confusion going on in the Republican Party. FOX, the most right-wing network, didn’t cover the RNC at all last night. I don’t know if that is some kind of protest or specifically a beef with Trump or what, just seemed strange. Then NBC, ABC, and CBS all kind of pretended to cover it with weird, worst live TV you’ve ever seen discussion over all the speeches and just weirdness. The might show a little bit of what was going on before cutting to different correspondents so by changing channels every ten seconds you could sometimes follow the speech. It was just all a big farce because of course the speakers were critical of Hillary and the media wanted to talk over any time that got scathing, etc. I guess in a way I wish him well, I certainly wish he and all like him could have a change of heart, the best possibility, but even for what he is, which seems to represent revealing the true racist soul of the Republikkkan party and destroying it at the same time, I hope his convention goes well enough to scare the DNC into nominating Bernie, knowing they can’t take a chance with Hillary.

And since this is being written a few days later, after the end of the RNC, I can report that even mainstream media seems like it is finally, with a few days before the DNC, considering that Bernie might be our nominee. I can’t remember the exact story but it seems like people are realizing she might or probably would lose to Trump, now that he’s “turning on the presidential,”, claiming to not be racist, etc, now that he fully has the trust of the true racists that this part, for the general election, will just be a lie. Or it could be because she is such an awful, unlikable candidate in her own right and spends massive funds with no gains. Or it could be the ones truly pulling the strings, finally releasing the info they have on her or action against her, just to have the DNC revolt at the final hour and no sooner, for whatever reason: to make us look bad or to make people “believe” in the system again with the least time to question it before being swept into the enormous enthusiasm of the general election campaign for Bernie.

The other news story that has threaded these weeks, and I remembered to include now because I saw some of the developments from it just a few nights ago, was Gretchen Carlson suing FOX CEO Robert Ailes for sexual harassment. A few nights ago I saw the news that Rupert Murdoch was replacing Ailes. One thing I like about this is Murdoch has obviously always been the Puppet Master but now he has to come out of the shadows like a wraith. When I looked up her name just now she was the 2nd item to come up after “Gretchen Weiners” which I have never heard of but must be delicious or have some news story about them today. The first story was about how she might run for Governor. I was going to mention this because of how it connects so many of these issues mentioned in this edition. The main one I would point out is abuse of power. Some people act above the law, sometimes they get away with it for years, with many people. But the truth is that no one is actually above the Law, not human laws but the Law of Justice, the law of Truth itself. People may escape forms of justice but that does not make what they do okay. I guess I can put it this way: people may be dead a long time but in the future we will know what they did to promote a world of love, freedom, and equality for all and what they did to threaten all of that, to the extent that it helped to threaten that very existence of life. And if they “win”and life as we know it expires here, someone else will know this about us, eventually, through archeology, if anyone finds our planet or a reason to care.      

The whole point is that no one should be above the law and the laws should be just and in harmony with the laws of nature. We need laws that say you can’t destroy the environment and governments with the integrity to enforce them. We also need the integrity to rule people justly and end oppressive and racist policing. To do that we need to overturn the whole system. Hillary is a total product of the system and Trump could be a throwback to an older system that is an even worse fit for today and never even really worked for him. He represents the momentum of wealth and ego, not the innovation of intellect or ability. Hillary represents the ability of corrupt power to protect itself. Bernie represents revolution and a change to the new ways of doing things where no one is above the law and no one is demonized. ( 7-24 addition: The more I think about it the more I am convinced Bernie will be the nominee in a few days and the more it seems to be a “surprise” the more it will be evidence that it was all according to some master plan all along, because it could have happened much earlier but whoever is “holding out on us” wants Bernie to win, knows he will, but for some reason is putting us through all this drama. I’m excited for the marches for Bernie in the next few days and the DNC!)

This is how all of this ties together. If you are in an unjust position of power it is up to you to reform it or step back from it, to realize that NO one needs to do that. It can be in small or “major” ways, how we treat people or how we change the world. But we need to reform our ideal of power and only respect and encourage that which is helpful, not harmful. And we can do this in so many ways, in conversation, in art, and in our relationships. We can do that in our community and by reaching out to other communities. The divisions are false and based upon fear. Once we reach across them they will disappear, along with the conflict they cause in our lives. But we must truly reach out, listen, and work to live together.

I have just a couple of examples of media magic from Facebook before I mention the big news of the day. My dad sent me a picture of my Granddaddy, Lloyd, who passed away about 14 years ago. I had never shared a picture of him to facebook but it was a picture of him fishing so I made a comment and wordplay about him angling / “angeling.” I thought about how he “would” support Bernie, or is helping from the spirit world. About an hour later I was in a Bernie group and someone had posted about the Democrats trying to get all the Bernie supporters to return to the party. I heard in my head, as I often do, a movie or TV line I couldn’t place at all, but knew it was a quote of some kind because of how it sounded in my head. It was “Come back, come back!” so I typed it, with quotes and everything. A girl commented “have you ever seen Shane?” and linked the video of the boy calling that out to Shane. I mentioned that I had, but it had been 20 years, and that it was my Granddaddy’s favorite movie. Then I told her how I had just shared his picture for the first time and that I consider this magic. I guess one reason I have been so into media magic these last 14 years has been something that he did when he died. I had already been very into media magic for years at this point but it certainly focused it. About a week after he died he sent an email to my brother. About the same time I saw him in a dream, felt his shoulder, which was warm and damp, through his shirt. But he sent my brother an actual email that read something like “thought you would enjoy this, the internet is a pow’rful tool” and it was a giant-sized file. Anyway, even though I don’t think often about spirits and the afterlife I feel like these connections, which are easier to make or see sometimes online, are signs from the spirit world.

I was talking with a girl online, a friend of mine, whom I like and feel more trusting she is genuine, and embarrassed for doubting, and she said she was in the underground which I asked if she meant the Subway. She said yes and I asked if she liked Peter Murphy, reminded of his song “Subway” which I like a lot. The next morning facebook did one of those “one year ago” today post reminders. They have almost always been 4 years ago, for me, and maybe this was three, but it was a video of lost and rediscovered Bauhaus clips. I felt this was another nice sign, or could just mean facebook is paying attention to my chats, too. But that’s silly thinking when it is so much more fun and innocent to say it is magic or coincidence that Peter came up on my wall a few hours after trying to introduce him to someone.

I feel like there is meaning in meeting Snoop, too. Weed is such a central symbol of what we are versus what we can become. Snoop has always been a pioneer, an advocate and hero for weed and I’ve seen him as a role model all my life in this way, wanting to be a champion of weed, too. I feel like I make more progress all the time and we as a culture make great strides the more we embrace this natural key to the peaceful future. I’m dedicated to reviving the idea of the Peacepipe Party that I originally envisioned 7 years ago in response to the Tea Party. But mostly I’m dedicated to my art, writing, music and magic like never before.

One other major change has occurred, just today to my knowledge, which could be the end of a 5- year era. The top or 2nd-top trending news today was that Lady Gaga and Taylor Kinney split up after dating 5 years and a year-long engagement. I’ve always loved Gaga and wanted to be in love with her in any way possible so I know I was jealous when they got together but tried to put it in perspective. I had doubts about Taylor when they first got together. He seemed attractive but just not sensitive, smart, or creative enough for her, at least from my desire to be the one who was wonderful for her and my impression of him from Vampire Diaries. Since he played Mason Lockwood, the werewolf, on that show at the time I thought to record Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” for her but was afraid if I didn’t post it quickly it wouldn’t be timely since I assumed they would be a short-lived fling. I know I must seem callous, now, sounding eager that “I have a chance!” now that she is single instead of expressing concern for her after ending a 5-year relationship. Of course if I could talk with her I would want to focus on any way to make her feel as special as she makes all of us feel, and I do think it seems only fitting that she would have a monster for a lover, at least sometimes. But just as a jealous wisher, or someone who feels close to her but never thought Taylor was right for her, even though She doesn’t know me at all. It’s just from what we can all feel from her and know from how she resonates with us in what she says and does that we feel like we know her and she knows us, even if we haven’t met yet. Or it’s just love, creativity, magic, calling to itself. I’ve always felt that we could be lovers, just because I always had that feeling for her and felt like we would be good together, could appreciate and compliment each other perfectly. And I just didn’t “feel” that, from Taylor. She seemed happy, though, which made me overcome all other concerns and just want to wish the best for them. And they stayed together for years. I was disappointed to find out how much she believed in monogamy, at one time, but in these same recent years I have come to a much greater appreciation of monogamy in different ways. I’ve always been monogamous when I was lucky enough to make love at all, but I also am polyamorous and believe in that as well. But I came to realize I had been rejecting monogamy on principle due to associations with other things but missing some of the value and importance of it. And I’ve certainly learned a lot in relationships all this time, including working things out with my lover through all this year of seeming like we were breaking up. Of course her first response to the news was that this was my chance to be with Gaga, so she knows how I feel about her. She doesn’t completely believe I’m in love with her, she may think I love Gaga more in some way, or would if I could be with her. I want to treat my lover like a Goddess and my lover grows more divine every day and night so it all just comes together. I’ve always been impressed by how Gaga is open and going for this kind of magic, to make the greatest art she can by making herself as artfully as she can. I feel like you can get support from others in many different ways allowing you to do this but at some level you want to be with someone who recognizes you both as divine with limitless magical potential.

I hope everyone discovers this potential in themselves and in love with good partners. I wish all the best for Gaga, of course, including more change of heart, seeing things differently, or freedom from constraints so she can switch and endorse Bernie before playing the DNC. But mostly I do want her to find the most amazing love that is worthy of the Goddess of Love she has been to all of us. I did compare supporting Hillary to a bad relationship it is hard to leave, last time I wrote this, while was at the same time convincing my lover that did not describe us. But maybe that is a connections with Gaga. I want to be her lover but know that is unlikely, however I do believe in magic and the ability to achieve the impossible. It was always part of my motivation to succeed in art, ever since her inspiration, to create art that would bring us together. I did not lose that inspiration when I put the idea of being her lover as far from my heart as I could, but knowing the possibility exists, however slight, is a rare spark to my creative fires. It was five years ago and in some ways seems like another time when I last really thought there could be any chance with Gaga. I just wanted to give them the best wishes ever and was pleased to see her happy, wanted it to be everything she wanted it to be, for her, but I guess I never gave up wishing it was me who had a chance to be with her. So I can’t help but feeling glad for myself, or whoever her future lover or lovers are. But beyond that I am extremely hopeful for the whole world to hear Gaga as she becomes more fully who she really is. He wasn’t good enough for her. The only example I ever heard of this was a couple of years ago there was a rumor that he said she was too weird. Gaga keeps her personal life very private except what she chooses to display but of course the image was of a happy couple. I just feel a lot happier for Gaga knowing she can find better loves now. And like I said, happy for the world to see even more of her. Because while she certainly had support from Taylor in their relationship it couldn’t have been good enough for her. Anyone who had the chance to be with Gaga who could be good enough surely would be, would do their best, but it wasn’t truly there for them. And maybe this is all conjecture, they will reunite, and it’s just all the feelings I’ve kept hidden while wishing them the best. Or they will always be friends and there was nothing wrong about them, together, I hope so, just it was time to move on ( final edit) But it was always my impression of him, he just didn’t seem like her type. Maybe I say that because I think I am, or the right person or people for her would be more like me. I’m abundantly happy in love, especially now that my lover and I feel more and more in love instead of fighting a break-up. Even in the best of times she has said she would not stand in the way of any chance I had with Gaga, just recognizing our nature, I suppose, and the potential from it. But I really just want my lover to be an example of love and a goddess to the world the same way she is to me, for the whole world to realize how special someone can be and for me to find ways to make her feel even more special. And I want this kind of love for everyone I just want my lover and the love we make to be epic, an example to the world.       

Well, I just finished editing this, which I usually don’t do, but felt I would find the most embarrassing things in the last couple of paragraphs, wanted to change a couple of them but left them alone. I guess I enjoy the record of that feeling, though it is kind of silly. I was interrupted from finishing this, at the time last Tuesday, 5 days ago, by the arrival of my brother. I’ve had one of the best times of my life getting to hang out with him around Denver these last days and it just makes me want to do more of everything, especially to see him more. But I thought  I could wrap this up before picking him up, and could have if I had read his text about his delay correctly, but I got in a hurry. I was expecting it to be him when the phone rang, which is why I stopped writing, about an hour before I was to leave to pick him up. It was one of my best friends of my whole life, whom I’ve known most of my life but haven’t been in contact for years. It is fitting in a way that I’m in this position, now, but all I can say to describe it is to conclude the final details of the notes I took. I’m trying to finish this before meeting my brother again, today, and just had a few more things I wanted to say. On the way up to the store I heard Louis Armstrong “Ain’t Misbehavin” and his line about being just “him and his radio”, from 87 years ago, and thought how it applies to me, my faithfulness, and media magic. Then on the way back I heard two things, one was a song recorded 40 years ago on that same day called “Fallin like Dominos”, I think, and a news report about Hillary saying the RNC was like the Emerald City and Man-behind-the-curtain.

I must say I took offense at this remark,or knew I would have to address it here, as an Ozzite. I don’t want to get into all the details now because I could go on for some time. I will mention she is much more a “pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain” type than Trump, who is more like the Yoop or some other monsters in Oz than the WIzard. But as I said a few blogs ago, Bernie is the True Wizard, the wizard that the Wizard becomes when he gets truly magical - in the books. Just as Gaga is Dorothy / Ozma, and other characters, too  -as we all are - but we play these roles on a world stage, in history, as well. So I wasn’t surprised when Hillary got it all wrong with an attempt at a reference to the most well-known movie of all time with 80 years of history behind it, or some of the best American books with over a century of history of influencing our culture. And I wasn’t surprised when she got it terribly, awfully wrong trying to appeal to the youth with a Pokemon Go! reference. It’s just who she is, someone who reads “say ‘sigh’” off a teleprompter, she’s more machine than woman, now. But she doesn’t have to be that way, she could find her heart and change, transform and not be the Wicked Witch and become Good. Her best path to do this, as all of our best path to do this, is supporting the whole political revolution that will elect Bernie. We will transform this country and many souls in the process.

But I wanted to Avoid going off on an Oz tangent. I might have said more about #hillawho (typing just now had a fairy glitch move Hil and Lary apart, putting the Lary above the sentence, so I decided to use the hashtag version) using this analogy wrongly, that it is a criticism of her that she just tried to use on Trump, if that is all I had left to say. But since I was interrupted from this in such a lovely way I had a few more experiences that I wanted to mention, specifically on my way to pick up my brother from the airport. I can’t say I was at the “wrong” time due to misreading his text when this happened: there was a big dark cloud over the horizon, almost from one side of your field of view to the east to the other. Under the left side there was a beautiful, bright, thick rainbow, then two. They were like two yuge rainbow towers, and super-wide. Since the cloud was just a little over the horizon they were maybe only twice as tall as they were wide, maybe less. At the same time on the right side of the road was a beautiful lightning storm. My girl asked me “what were some things you believed as a kid that you found out later were different and felt really silly?” I couldn’t mention the first thing that came to mind, for me, since it was racist. Growing up in the south where half the kids in school were black I once asked a kid in the lunch line, in 1st grade, if he was black because of chocolate milk. It was a silly idea I had and I was embarrassed when he laughed at me or told me know,I felt silly. But I didn’t want to mention that to her. I asked her for an example and she said she thought teachers lived at the school until she was in first or third grade. I admitted I had the same notion, plus that they folded up into the filing cabinet at night, for some reason. Then she told me when she was in first grade she thought the different colored lunch trays were like mood rings and the cafeteria workers could tell what your mood was and would give you the corresponding tray. The third one she told me was my favorite, in a way. She said she stayed awake one New Year’s Eve because she thought that when it turned the new year there would immediately be flying cars and robots everywhere. She was disappointed to find that “it was just night.” That one was especially magical to me and I wondered what year it was that she “found out” or we disappointed her.

Then as we turned on the road to the airport there was an jammin instrumental of Michael Jackson’s “So You Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” - no, it was “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” - on the jazz station I hear a lot, ever since “accidentally” changing my preset set. They have been playing a different version of the jazz standard “Cherokee” all month, too, at the hour I take my lover to work. I looked out to the weat, I mean west, thanks typo fairies, to the beautiful mountains you can see from there. The sky was filled with a massive cloud as the sun was setting behind the dark jagged horizon. A stripe of red extended and expanded up through the middle of the purple and grey billows. It looked like a tornado, my girl pointed out. A red tornado in the middle of the sky, stretching from top to bottom. This made me think it was a much better analogy for the RNC. A tornado is a terrible, scary, destructive thing and there is almost nothing good that can be said about it. If you had to say something good about a tornado, in the Oz context, it is that even a terrible thing can be the motivation to reach a glorious new place. The reason Hillary got the metaphor wrong is that she is the Wicked Witch to Bernie’s Wizard and to the Good Witch Glinda who represents Love. The Republikkkans are the violent tornado of forces on this lower,seemingly loveless plane. Their violence, and the need to escape this world of problems for a better one, is the good thing about the Tornado that propels us to make a better world. The Red Tornado was perfect to clue me into this idea. And the perfect contrast to her analogy about the curtain. All Trump is hiding is his racism, now, but everything he is talking about means the same things. She is hiding the fact that she would be as bad or worse than him in many policies and lying about it, putting on a false front. But it is too kind and flattering to compare her even to the false, fearful wizard when she is really more like the Wicked Witch who is completely ruling by fear.

The RNC represents all the evils of this world and merely swirling in reaction to them, fearing death and loss and becoming a force of destruction and war, like a tornado. We need to escape that but also escape this whole world. That is the promise and idea of “Oz.” And yet, even in a magical,more positive understanding of the world like Oz represents there are still evils and fears to face, especially in order to restore that ideal world to what it truly can be. But there are people in the way of that, villains such as the Wicked Witch, #hillawho, and minions under her control like winged monkeys because she has power over them. But that power can be wrested from evil and the monkeys set free, like the superdelegates will switch to Bernie and / or be disbanded as part of the system. In Oz it is liberating for Dorothy to use her 3rd and final wish to set the monkeys free, something beyond what they could hope, for she was the first owner of the Magic Hat who was truly good. This is just like all people will be set free from damaging positions of “power” when we finally get a Good, Honest leader in Bernie.

I can’t go on with all I wanted to say about Love, now. I’m magically pleased, ecstatic, about the recent events and what they mean for me and the world. I of course would like to say more about my lover, about Gaga, and my old friend whom I also love, but I feel like I can move on from just musing and put these notions much better into Art, and I feel that is the more discreet and magical approach.  I feel like it is magic, love itself, drawing me ever closer and some experiences are like leaps into it instead of shuffling steps but it’s always progress no matter how twisty the path. I’m very excited to predict Bernie will be our nominee in a few days and that amazing things will happen to cause folks to switch to him even in the short meantime we have left, two days. I realize how much happened just in the weeks I’ve been contemplating and composing this gagablog. I wish the very best for her and can only see developments as positive, part of a greater fate. I hope she is feeling well and happy and I do feel certain that, while I hoped she would feel like “transforming” after meeting the Dalai Lama, it may be this event that causes her to reconsider or change the course she has set and really feel the Bern. The Bern IS Love, as I have been saying,.and some of us are still resistant to love, even Love Goddesses, because of bad associations. We can be more in love, always, than we are, and seeking to do so overcomes all of the things that hold us back. If lovers, people in general, communities, institutions, and nations simply choose to love each other, to hold themselves to standards of Love instead of standards of violence-based power, we can and will  fix all of our problems. And it starts happening, magically, for you in special moments.

For me it was meeting Snoop. It was finally feeling like my lover and I are getting back together again, or realizing we were never as apart as we pretended. It was hearing the news reporting they now really welcome and encourage peaceful protest. It was hearing from my friend and feeling that love as strongly as ever, even after years of “forgetting” it. And it was Gaga being more free and more open to more, different Love. It’s what that means as a symbol for all of us. Love is an ideal, a state we aspire to and are often left or made to feel undeserving of it. But if we keep true to that link, that magical connection and need to be In Love, we WILL find it, maybe in every other way before the way we expect. One way we have all been missing it is with a Caring Government. That is what we hope to restore, or explore for the first time, with Bernie.

Last night, Saturday, my brother moved from his fancy downtown hotel to another one up north. Looking out to the east from the 9th floor yesterday I saw another chubby, short rainbow under a cloud. Looking to the right I saw the long arc of the right side of it, and another double just barely fading into view. The right side stayed tall and long and bright, the left side, the base of the arch, stayed vibrant and thick under it’s cloud. Just now i had a conversation with my lover. The simplest summation is we all feel undeserving, like we missed out on some kind of love or acceptance in some way and are going about compensating for that in different, weird, unsatisfactory ways. The solution is to realize we do need more love and there is more love. Love is abundance itself. It’s like infinite potential that just has to be activated. It’s like fully funded, ridiculously over funded research programs that can try everything and make hyper-accelerated progress in all fields. It’s like unlocking the potential of communities and nations and individuals by freeing them from fear, poverty, and war. It’s like a paradise planet, one we work for by undoing all the pollution and devastation we’ve caused. It’s like the end of all disease and hunger. It’s everything we all believe in but maybe feel too scared or shy to really go for. It’s like being in love, wanting to be in love, and going for it instead of letting you pass by. I just happened to re-read that and saw I said “you” where maybe I would have meant “It”, love, but it’s much better this way. Thanks, poetry fairies.

If you’re reading this, I love you, thanks, I hope we can talk soon! I also hope Snoop likes our music and helps everyone hear it and that you do, too. I love believing in my dreams that they will come true through the magic of art, including being with you and experincing the amazing things in this world and helping make it more wonderful.