gagablog 116: Ties

I really love feeling in love, I love the feeling of it. You can get that from a Perfect Illusion, too, for a while. And I also love how that feeling inspires me to art - I love to be in love for Art's sake. The secret is to fall in love with Art, to stay in that inspiration of love. But of course we all want people around to help remind us, to connect with, to inspire us and to care for each other. You can feel fantastic inspiration from illusions, too. You can get the feelings and the creativity from Love, whetheer it is true or not. The ideal of True love is that someone will sty ith you through the changes and continue to be both comforting and chllenging, familiar and inspiring. If you just need to grow beyond who you can be with someone, or if they were tricking you, you eventually get to the point where it doesn't work. Work is art. You want it to work, you want to be in love, for the feelings and for the way it makes you appreciate your time with art, enjoying more, making more of it. I've been "off track" in this way, for some time, so "I'm one to talk." But if I was Doing, Loving more, better,
I would be showing by example, not just talkin. So I am one to talk. When I become an artist and do what I've been talking about maybe I will become one to talk about.

       I'm thankful to weed for inspiring me, for being my Lover in this sense all my life and inspiring this very blog. I feel the same way for Art, for Music, and for Gaga. I've always loved them and they've loved me and carried me through. How could I want any more than this, when showered with so much abundant riches? Well, first, regarding weed, you want everyone to share the same advantages, you want it legal everywhere. But personally I want someone to touch, I want affection. And I'm proud of this. I realize some tension in my life has arisen from the refusal to accept the lesson Gaga summed up as "fall in love with Art because art won't ake up in the morning and say it doesn't love you." (She may have said "career" but to me unless the work is creative it can't really compare with love, even love that ends.) I've believed that and known it to be true. But at the same time I wanted ot be the exception to the rule, to find Love before becoming the artist I know I'm meant to be, to find someone who wants to be ith me just for "me", not just for my Art - but the irony is this is probably the only time I really indulge in thinking of myself as a separate being, in order to request some affection "over here", while otherwise I like to think ofmyself as part of the whole fabric of existence, merging with the buddhafield, paradise. I know it is "hell" to stand out from hat, to try and "Be Me", aside from the me who is the true artist I am meant to be - it's no wonder "I" am all that is holding me back. "But I feel justified!" - I feel that is a funny voice inside of me I had to allow. There is a point I'm making here but it's hard to say because it goes against everything we are taught.

       I do believe that we have to accept ourselves, we have to love ourselves in order for anyone to love us. It starts with us, or as a fortune cookie once told me "Our first and last love is self-love." Also I have this idea of the cyclone of love that leads to Oz, based on the principle of loving othes as youself, actively, therefore loving others, more and more others, more and more, and in turn loving yourself more and more, until there is no going back. I do believe in that, and that it does start in each of us, the reason we think of the "heart" being the core. "The heart remains a child" is the Everything But The Girl song I have on since I can't find the uncensored Artpop disc right now and I have another hour to type and find it, but wanted to start instead of looking for it more. "Why don't you love me?" she's wrapping it up, now. And I don't know who Gaga supports in the election but I gave up that spell to get her to support Bernie when she broke up with Taylor, hoping that was all that was "censoring" her,  and I'm only lisetening to the uncensored Artpop now, unless I still can't find it in a few minutes.

      I do believe we have to love ourselves but I also reject this whole society that leads us to believe it is hard to find love. I do believe we love each other, naturally, but end up restricting ourselves to fit this mean society. I reject that society and take the path of loving others as a spiritual path, not just for myself but as a way to transform the world. It helps to have people love you. I relate to Gaga saying she is like a baby in her crative state and appreciates the team of people she has to help make that possible. But of course she had to be a baby on her own at some point. And even in early stages we all have help. I've alays been a musician but I'm eternally grateful to my best friend for making the music that I sing with for our band Foxzen because it literally makes my dreams come true.

       It takes us accepting and loving ourselves but it's not like we have to learn that lesson in complete isolation. Very often we learn it when a relationship goes bad, we are hurt and the only way to pick up and move on from that feeling is to decide to love ourself more. So we learn it, alone, but that leesson hurts. I know, I can say I "learned that lesson" but at the same time there is always the chance there is more to it, or I will have to review, or more often prompt the fear of it by giving in to other fears and insecuritt. And naturally it scares me because it hurts, you don't want to go through it again, it hurts to think about anyone else going through it.- I do need to change the music if I want to stop discussing heartbreak. Just skipping ahead, for now, still have an hour. It is possible to learn these lessons, tough and subtle as they can be, while still in a reltionship, we are generally chipping away at it all the time, I expect. And it is possible to come to understandings in relationships so they don't have to end badly but can continue, maybe in other forms, while new relationships are made. But moments of crisis may bring out how much we feel we love ourselves, and each other. I realized this morning (the next day, this last line is during the edit) that I feel bad for mentioning any issues I have with "my lover" in this gagablog. I usually want to acvoid it but include it sometimes when it is the best way to express my point or i just feel like this is the only wat to express it. But I realized when I talk about peoblems I have with my lover these are usually reflections of my own issues with myself and would likely come up, maybe in different forms, but one way or another even if I was with someone else. So it's not really personal about her but about ways our interactions gradually get me over my own issues. I remember I was going to mention the Bhagavad Gita and how there are various paths to "paradise" or whatever it is. One is the path of the parent and i'm blessed with such wonderful kids that one is easy for me. It seems greedy to look for any other path but I also want the path of devotion to a lover and the path of devotion to the divine. The last one is always open, though Art, to me through Gaga, specifically, but also through nature and other artists, media, and endless variety of religion. There is also an endless variety of people to fall in love with but when you really feel love with someone and it becomes a path of devotion you feel fulfilled and completed by it and can fear losing it. It's just that the actions from fear are the most dangerous ones so it helps to use that energy to look inside instead and change yourself how you can. But we all live in this world which is systematically arranged against our most precious inner selves by making some unnatral demands. So love it the place where we can try to nurtire ourselves,safe from these social judgments, however the same judgments can creep in between us if we don't stay close enough.

       Here's my complaint with society and how it affects all our relationships. We act like there is not enough love going around, not enough to do what is needed, not enough for everyone to get even a little bit. We act like this because our society is run in this Loveless way, but it's simply not true. It's like if they did start charging you for how much air you breathe or how much blue you look at. Our whole world, socially, culturally, is built upon this hurtful lie of scarcity, that there is not enough to go around. I want to prove that there is love out there, that underneth it all everything is actually love. I believe in that more than anything. But we don't act like that, we act like the opposite is true. We act like Love is only at the pinnnacle of existance and we have to go through all sorts of "reality" in order to get there. In fact all of this reality is just a pile of bullshit covering the ground of love we all live upon, based on the myth of love as "only for a few" pie in the sky. "Looking at an open sky" she just sang in Good Cop, Bad Cop." "To want and want and never have." There is a reason there is an analogy beteen how we see worldy success and how we see love - both are part of this pattern of bullshit, increasing the idea of striving instead of appreciating what is there "to only see what isn't there, to want and ant and never have" she sang in ths verse. Hillary Clinton is talking aboout healing this rift between cops and communities but if you can't trust her its because you can tell it is not from the heart. I guesss the hope is that her heart can be reawakened and she can be true but all the cheating she did to win the primaries doesn't make you assume she is close to that. Striving is what allows some people to get on top of a whole.mass of other people, we all support the system of injustice with our own Striving. I'm not saying we can all sit back and relax and do nothing. I'm saying we have been duped into striving, competing with each other, to reach the goals of Rare Love and Treasure. But if we saw through the myth of their treasure we would see that love is ll around us. "We both were in that little house, just hanging out, didn't know what you were about" in the current song, "Wrong."

       So I wanted to fall in love, first, then be an artist. All I needed to do was appreciate the love I found instead of still thinking I had More to go for. When I've felt like we're falling out of love my only recourse is Art when I think poisitively about it.. And when we really feel in love, when I'm inspired by the bliss or comfort of it, the only appropriate thing to do with that energy is make Art, music, or magic. This is all that is wonderful enough to "contain" or commemorate these feelings. My problem is, like everyoine else, I think and file things away and act differently than I ideally can. But I know how to access the ideal, too. If I'm feeling "out of love" dont freak out about it and get desperate to save the relationship, go with it, into Art, to remind myself of the magic that always loves me, is always there for me, even if I've been the one who was away, for a time. If I do this I can avoid really "breaking up". The break-ups always come from trying to fight for an idea of yourself you feel is being lost in the communication of the relationship. Art would be the best way to expresss these kinds of feelings, too, but too often I just want her to listen to me talk about it and tell me what she thinks but these discussions can be so sensitive they turn into arguments. So if I could write it down, a a song, story, or paint it, it would be much better. If I don't and we ague too much, I will eventually feel heartbroken and that can reset my relationship with Art, too, remind me to create again, but it's just not the path I want to take. I also need to remind myself to make the most of every good moment and feeling, not just to seek out the very best all the time. I know art is healing magic and is the best thing to do, when I'm feeling bad or good, it makes me feel better. I feel the same way about love in a relationship where the person actually is good for you, where you aren't in abusive situations or at a place where you just can't care about each other equally anymore. We will always have "our own lives" and want people to fit into them, and leave space for them, to different degrees. I ant to "know" I have true love before being The Artist I am, but that is bullshit to insist on this kind of Order. I need to allow my Artistic self and my love to develop at the same time. The Cd just ended so now it is time to switch to Artpop, even if I have to play the censored one. Ah, only  a few seconds later I found the foil one. And now, to celebrate with 45 minutes left to type, a little more of this Green Crack strain I heard originated in my hometown of Athens, Georgia.

       I'm reminded how much I do want to continue and finish my discussion of all the Artpop lyrics, as I heard them, before reading what they really are, but I can't help feeling I have suffered from the choice of this "Getting it wrong" series and my life will transform, magically, when I get back "on the right track" within this belief in love instead of watching it pass like a a cow watchng a train, as it were. Carson told a joke that they were counting dining cars. The theme of this is Ties for a few reasons, starting with a conversation I had with my daughter yesterday. She asked me what I thought of ties. I said it depended on how you looked at things. If it was something that you really wanted to have a clear winner, a tie could be seen as bad. If you don't want anyone to feel bad for losing, a tie is good. And if someone wants to feel good from winning then a tie could be bad. If one side only wants to win, will only accept winning, but the other side just doesn't want to lose, the tie can be good and bad. I feel like I summed it up better talking with her. But my conclsion was that Ties were better because they had more options to make people feel good and less to make them feel bad. I thought it as interesting to think about and planned to include it in my gagablog. I guess the only side that is likely to be "hurt" by a tie is the one that insists upon winning and maybe that attitude and perspective benefits from being checked sometimes, taken down a peg, like karma. So I came to the overall conclusion that ties were good. Then last night I was struck by a joke Carson told about Ties. He said a Tie is like kissing your sister, no one likes it and you both want to throw up afterards. I don't recall what the context was. I was already kind of alerted that I would put things he as saying in my blog because of the time period: he was making jokes about the first two weeks of the invasion of Iraq, how they never managed any air defenses, how their commanders were dummies (they had put dummies on the batllefied) and then mentioned they had the fourth largest army in the world and had paid for it with oil money and we should have gone over and "relieved" them of the oil before they knew what it was.

      Sexxx Dreams is ending now and I still can't wait to write about it but still don't feel quite "ready". To nights ago I committed to it again because of an episode of Three's Company. Chrissie - damn Gaga as hot as Chrissie on SNL - is asking Janet about dream interpretation. I wish I had written more notes but she is asking if she is a sex fiend since she had a dream about wearing blue shoes to prom. "What's rong with that?" Janet asks and she says she asn't wearing anything else. So of course I see this as a sign that I should write about Sexxx Dreams as soon as possible. Then she mentions her other dream, that she is eating a blueberry muffin while riding a white unicorn with a tulip in it's teeth. I just remembered I saw Vanilla Ice doing the Pasa Doble while channel-surfing, but I don't know if that has a flower in your mouth or not, I don't think he did. But of course I thought it sounded like a Sex Dream, and also reminded me of Gaga with the blueberry muffin and unicorn. And then the very next scene begins ith Helen Roper reading "The Passsionate Countessa" which also reminds me of Gaga and reminds me to watch Hotel."Do what you want ith my Body" is on now and it makes me ant to finish that series so much but I don't want to only half-do it, with 23 minutes loeft to type, so I hope I will resume that for edition number 117.

       Back to what I wanted to say about Ties. I just noticed I wrote a note of the actual question, I think, or the impresion I got from it. She may have asked me "do you think it is better to look at a tie as both people win or both people lose?" In a way that is a more subtle question, but really it just makes it more obvious that, when things are "equal", why not look at that positively?

       I know it may seem like all this is pointless but I really think there is something to it which ultimately will change the world, undo the wrong in the world. Our world is based upon a "winners" mentality, at least here in America, and certain things we do, such as make over 80% of the worlds weapons, probably, do have an affect on the whole world. We probably aslo make most of the TV and movies, so I'm trying to say influence can go either ay but it is up to us to cut out the bad side. "Could try to sell you out or I" she just sang. I do want to end all war and all exploitative banking and other industries. Sorry to say it, I want to put you out of a job. But I also ant to put all sorts of people out of jobs by automating industry. I want us to move past a "work" standard of living. I absolutely despise the idea that you have to "work" for a living, that you have to earn your living, as if you owe a debt for your existance. That is totally a construction of "this world" and is at the heart of all the problems, stabbing our tue heart like a stake. "We could belong together"   - the song artpop just ended and it sums up this idea so well to me, refashioning the world around Art and love, not money, so that we are together instead of separate.

       This is the beauty of the Tie. This is why I was happy with my conclusion about the Tie, yesterday morning, then kind of horrified by Carson's in the rerun last night and why I associated it so closely wiht his comments about Iraq. He was laughing at them for using dummies, for not being able to get any planes off the ground, and for two weeks into the war putting up minimal resistance. He said there was a traffic light on the Kuwaiti border that went "desert / don't desert" - like a crosswalk signal - since so many were deserting. "Swine" just reached the breakdown part, painting faces. So all this gloating, 25 years later after both the seige of Baghdad was so quick, and the second Iraq war so long, seemed weird. But mostly it seemed weird becuase it was just ragging on the Iraqis with no shame and since then, in the "rebuilding" stage, our culture is always presenting positive, sympathetic views of Iraqis  - so seeing how much animosity was just a joke at the time was jarring. But I remember those times, too, I just didn't have TV back then and never saw Carson live. And I'm not trying to pick on him, now, just referring to how it was at the time. It reminds me of what I detest about the "winner's only" culture, especially when the deck is always stacked in their favor. At the time I never accepted any justification for war in Irq and was against it long before it was ever announced because I knew that was what  Bush was after, the first Bush to sell weapons and the second that same goal as well as some sick Revenge for his daddy - but mostly just an ad for war. They had protestors saying it was about oil and gas prices but to me that as an orchestrated diversion becuase it was really a genocidal, evil advertisment for more war and weapons. And of course the destabilzation created conditions to sell more weapons. I was just talking about this because it stuck out, for the time period and for what he said about ties, at the end.

       But what he said about ties,that they were disgusting, was a symptom of this whole mentality, that Winners are the only valuable ones and that someone has to win, someone has to be on top "I own the world, we own the world" she just sang as I typed that. But of course Gaga is singing about "looking good and feeling fine" and a different kind of power and being on top of the world, feeling your best. Not this standard of war, of being able to kill the most people. Well, slay them with fashion, is all. "Married to the stars" to me has a mystical meaning, though maybe she means movie stars, I don't kmow, with just five more minutes I have to remember I will get into all of this soon, once I'm back on track.

       The beauty of the tie is that no one has to lose and it IS better to see a tie as "all are winners" instead of "all are losers" or "we just don't know who the real winners nad losers are, damn." Its not a problem to have more equality, it's actually improvement, especially in a world when some people are at such great disadvantage. For games, of course, the whole fun is the challenge of having winners and losers and underdogs and champions. But the whole beauty of being able to do it that way is that it doesn't really matter or have life-threatening consequences. But when you have "winners" and "losers" in the street, in the real world, when everyone is not treated equally, you have protected classes, even jobs like our cops who can kill people without punishment. And you have politicians at the top getting away with everything but always wanting to push the envelope further to more evil, as if we can stand anymore, and that can't just continue. We have to be able to look through these things and see the real world beyond it. We can do it and we will but it's so much nicer when we do it by coming together in the magic of love than from destroying each other and realizing only from hat we've lost. Just as I need to use my good AND bad feelings to remind me to make Art, we need to remember that we are alays moving towards either coming closer together or pushing each other apart, as individuals all the way up to nations. We've been set in this standard of always pushing away, to make our own space, to assert our rights, to claim dominance or alternately to plea for justice from those ho dominte us. Well, I have to maake this trip but willl return to conclude this and read it over.

       My friend just mentioned Arnold Palmer, I don't know why. I'm glad he did because it reminded me of some media magic I did not write down because I felt sure I would remember it. The last note I did make was a radio DJ talking aabout it being better to break up and get it over with than live a lie and also about rollercoasters. He said riding them prevented kindney stones because the forces you feel on them end up causing you to pass the stones while they are small to avoid getting larger and more problematic and painful. I noted this, gross as it is, because of recently discussing the "rollercoaster" of emotions of a tumultuous relationship. Of course it sucks to have conflict and ups and downs but if they can help you work out some problems and eliminate them before they get bigger then it an be good, in the long run, as long as it's not too destructive in the short run. The diffference is being able to keep that perspective and share the long-term goal of being together. The falsehood of the "perfect illusion" is that if one person truly wants this and the other person is only saying that they want it, but they do say it, then the person who is truly in love has no idea there is somehting wrong. This is why it is almost better to tell a harsh truth than to sugar-coat a lie, like giving a bitter tonic versus candied poison. I'm not going to try and say anything good about Trump because he stnds for so much evil, and I don't want to talk about Hillary, either, but I will say that the reason they are currently tied, supposedly, in polls is that they are both equally horrible, one for telling th truth about how bad he is andthe other for lying about wanting to be good to cover the fact that she could be much worse. She has more connections with foreign governments, weapons makers and oil companies. But I don't think there will really be  choice between them, it should be Bernie and maybe it will be after some October Surprise. But Bernie will, or would, easily win and that is where you see how she is tied with him. Even if many people don't know anything too bad about her the people who would otherise support her won't do it becuase she stole the primary, in many cases stealing their votes, pesonally. People can't just support someone like that just because they are afraid of the alternative and I think that is why they are Tied, plus I think it truly is entirely a sham this year and he is just playing to lose since he is basically working for her. As long as it's  "tie" they can rake in money from both sides.

       But back to Arnold Palmer. The new season of the Simpsons started last Sunday and I'm glad I got to see it. I've always been religious about the Simpsons and while I always looks for connections between them, and all art, and my life and world events, even with the rerun schedule, just as I did with Carson last night, there are many examples of the Simpsons magically predicting things and stange codes in the jokes. I watched a video about these things once. In the first epiosode of the new season which aired for the first time last Sunday there is a scene where Homer is making Arnold Palmers and says the name "Arnold Palmer" numerous times. Then after the Simpsons there was a news report that Arnold Palmer had died that same day, Sunday. Of course the episode must have been written and animated months ago so this was one of those stand-out examples of media magic, another Simpsons predition. I think they somehat predicted President Trump, though I think the context can leave it open to interpretation. The only reason I can think to mention it relating to this edition of the gagablog is that the theme is Ties and an Arnold Palmer is half lemonade and half iced tea. They are both made what they become, together, only in an equal mixture of both. So it's  tie. This reminds me of a meme I saw on the internet  - I did go back, some, on the fall equinox, to the chos magic group on facebook, found some new people there, some old ones who welcomed me, but there I saw this meme ith various ideologies represented by a glass half full with water, in different arrangements.

There is a Sativa hybrid called Sweet Dream testing at 31% THC so I am going to get some, be back soon.    

       Well, I didn't get a chance to write anymore yesterday so this is the next day, Thursday. I'm glad to say everything is still fine in my personal life. I'm sad to say things have not changed enough in the world. I'm about to read over this but I want to include the last things I didn't get to, about the #blacklivesmatter protest and the book I am reading, The Black Arrow. Now it is Friday morning because all I got to do yesterday with this was read it over.

        There was a communications professor on NPR talking about how he discussed the protests of polce shootings with his class. He said that students get defensive and take things personally, especially if they have family in law enforcement. That would prevent people from opening up and engaging the conversation. The soution he found was to talk about the systems that we are part of instead of talking about individuals. He said he would emphasise the human being who put on the police uniform so he could talk about the system that the uniform represents. He said body cameras and "training" were surface solutions but that we needed deeper systematic changes. This is about racism and classism inherent in the culture of police work. Once you start talking about the system then it is not isolated to any one field. These same factors affect all of our lives. We live in a world that is made out to be all about winners and losers but that is the source of our problem, the idea of superiority and inferiority, and we will evolve as a species when we overcome it. Other animals in the wild may end up losing some members who are different due to natural selection but if not the unique one's adapatation can steer the course of the whole species. When people make arguments that because of "natural selection" some humans should be "allowed to die" you know this is wrong, you can feel it in your heart, in your own nature. This ie because nature is deeper than we allow ourselves to realize on the surface. It is part of our nature, as humans, to support wider variety in our species. I remember my 9th or 10th grade world history treacher telling us that the measure of a civilzation is how it treats it's elderly and disabled people. We have a unique ability to promote ourselves beyond any other species on the planet. We have certainly reached the level of advancement that we could overcome all our natural worries and just fix the new problems we create for ourselves from economics, including enviromentally disasterous energy policies, the evil of war, oppressive law enforcement and prohibitively high health costs.

       The secret is to treat all people equally and do this throughout the system. Most of Hillary's ads here in Colorado were making fun of Trump for making fun of disabled people. She stopped running ads here, foolishly, since they counted 69% of our caucus for Bernie and that was after they stole a lot of our votes. She wasn't very popular to begin with but after stealing the primary people hate her even more strongly. Since her ads left there have been ads for Morgan Carrol, the democratic senate challenger to Mike Coffman. These are actually the same ads, just reminding everyone that Trump mocked a disabled person. They never say anything good about the democratic candidate just demonize him and Mike Coffman for not standing up to him. My point is that everyone should respect disabled or differently abled people and everyone mostly does except for complete assholes like Trump. To have to point this out is going for a really low bar and even Trump supporters don't like him because they hate disabled people but probably make some excuse for his behavior. If everyone agrees that we shouldn't make fun of disabled people but we have a candidate for president who has done this then it does say something about our culture. The problem is he can claim he was not making fun of his disablility, that his opponent is misrepresenting him, When he says sexist and racist things, though, he can't claim this. He says too many of them to pretend they are all misstatements and they all fit with what you can tell he believes, that some people are winners and some people are losers. He probably thinks this way about disabled people, too, but he won't say it because it goes against this "universally" accepted truth. I put that in quotes because it is not "universally accepted" truth. The principle behind respecting differntly abled people is that we respect all people regardless of difference. Different abilities get everyone's respect, supposedly, because you are born that way, or something happened to you as a result of an accident or war. So people are sympathetic. Why don't the differences of race and gender and sexual orientation get the same universal respect? It's because sexism, racism, and homophobia are too deeply ingrained in the culture to oppose them without some effort. If the democrats were running ads in Colorado about Trump and Company being racist they would get more support from me. As it is, they can't count on enough people here being motivated against racism as they can count on people's sympathy for disabled folks. This is wrong, we should be as sensitive to racism, sexism, and homophobia as we are to descrimination or abuse based upon abilities. Legally we claim to be, in many areas, but we just don't live up to it in the culture. They have started running ads for Carrol about the birther controversy, pointing out the racism of Trump insisting for years that Obama was born in Kenya and tying Coffman to him wiht his quote that he doesn't know where he was born but "he knows in his heart" that Obama "is not an American." This is the same evil attitude of deciding who is deserving, based upon race or origin or whatever. The problem is that Trump's claim is probably true that Hillary is the one who began the birther controversy in her campaign against Obama in '08. She, and her supporters, don't have much moral authority to challenge Trump if they originated the lie. You can tell Hillary also thought she scored major points in the debate when Trump admittied that he cheated the tax system and was proud of being smart enough to do it because he doesn't approve of what the taxes are spent on. First of all, many people sympathize with that attitude and respect him for it and even more for being open about it. But even more important Hillary has no moral authority to gloat over Trump for cheating the system because she cheated the whole eloctoral process this year, in every state, in every way she could, in order to be the nominee in the first place. She is the worse cheater, cheating us out of our vote, not just money, and she is worse for acting like she didn't do it, lying about it every step she takes forward without stepping down. I'm not saying he would be a better president, I'm saying we need Bernie, Jill, Tulsi, or a real revolution. There is a reason Trump and Hillary are tied, they are both equally terrible, both equal losers.

         The main reason I am complaining about the Democrats running ads about Trump making fun of disablilty and the birther controversy is the ads themselves, their focus, reveals the democrats own racism. It's basically the same commercial Hillary ran that Morgan Carroll is running against Coffman so I consider this all part of the current DNC tactics. This reflects what the Democrats have become now that they;ve driven us Berners out, a fake party of pretending to oppose Republican ideal while actually implementing them. The racism is obvious in this: Why use the birther controversy to call Tump / Coffman out for racism? They've both made many more racist comments and supported terribly racist policies. Why focus on Obama? Is it because you can't expect the same level of outrage from Coloradoans over racism against black folks in general or the policies that oppress them? Why not run ads about how Trump says he supports stop and frisk, for example? Well, the simple truth is that too many people in Colorado are racist as fuck themselves and they don't care about these issues. A lot of people do, more and more I'm sure as more cool and young people move out here for the weed. But the general population will get upset if you insult disabled people, or pretend they are, anyway,and they will get upset about insulting Obama, most of them will,anyway. But our culture here is too racist, etc, to get people too upset by Trump opposing Muslims, immigrants, Latinos, women and black people. Obama is like OJ or Tiger Woods, he's not Black, he's Obama. This is unfortunate. He should have stayed black,that's why a lot of us voted for him. But  it is because he has "transcended" the way our culture curses black folk that he is "Respectable" enough to expect the majority of Colorado culture to respect him. If he had insited on taking up black folks issues in his presidency things would have been much different by now, already. I'm not saying he should have done what he said he wouldn't do to avoid criticism, that he should "just be a president for black people." But saying, as the first black president, that he is going to be a president for "All people" is basically the foundation of "All Lives Matter." You have to recognize this country's history of oppression of minorities and the way that history continues. Obama should have said something like "I will be president of all people, of all America. But I recognize that America has a history of oppression of minority people, people who look like me. For justice for them, for their benefit, and for the benefit of the whole country and healing the tears in our fabric, I will be a president who focuses on these problems of social injustice and fixes them."

       Hillary said some good things in her debate, all of which I feel like she stole from the Bernie campaign. She ended with his "Its not me, it's us"  appeal,and it isn't her, we can all still hear him saying that since it was his theme. Her best part was how she addressed the issue of the cops abusing people, focusing almost entirely on needing to address the problems in policing. Her solution of body cameras is good an welcome, of course, but again this should have already been universal by Obama, they are slow-walking Justice, and after the professor said these are good but only surface bandaids to avoid addressing the problem at a systematic level it makes me wonder, if Obama was too entrenched in the system to be able to effectively address this problem in eight years what makes us believe Hillary would have the heart to even make as much progress as he has. It's just not changing fast enough, not as fast as we need it to change and not as fast as we will be demanding it change. So if they can't get someone in power who is really willing to make these changes it won't go well for them and could change the country much more than what they have been so desperately trying to avoid by rigging the political system to keep Bernie out of office. Maybe that's just the say it has to happen but I still like to have faith in the Democratic (if we can get that back) idea that the government is like the collective mind. I like the idea that we have the ability to make good choices, as people and as a culture, that we can just choose to improve ourselves and our old bad habits won'tdrag us down. I say that after smoking my first cigarette in a few days, earlier this morning, but Mary Jane Holland on right now reminds me to enjoy this Sweet Dream again, 31% was no joke.

       If you want to be a leader, lead. Don't say "Colorado doesn't care much about racism, immigration, or sexism, or war- well, there are still too many folks there who are conservative about all of those things, we don't have enough leverage on this side of the wedge, so let's focus on them disrespecting Disabled people and Obama, instead." Say "you SHOULD care about all the racism, islamophobic, sexist, war-mongering and anti-environment ideals the opponents are putting out. If you don't, I will tell you why you should, because I am a leader." Hillary kind of did this in her answer to the question about bringing communities and police together. But again she can't be trusted to have the heart to root out the systemic problems if Obama couldn't. I guess we can hope to force her to address them, with protest and spreading awareness, just as we hoped to convince Obama. It just seems like I'm saying that to play devil's advocate and we really just need to accept that they won't change unless we force them to. Like I said, I do believe we can just "make smart choices", as a country, that'swhat dEmocracy is for. But only if they let us have our choice. We chose Bernie, largely with the support milinneals who we all kind of respect as idealistic and full of potential and will be around longer, influencing the next generation more, to see that justice is done, eventually. Hillary stole our chance to do it now and the game they are playing, to keep oil companies and war in business a few more years, is just evil and doomed to fail, plus it's time is up. One way or another we are taking the country back for the earth and for the people. We are all on the same side. The only thing dividing us is this artificial system that decides there must be winners and losers so we know who to treat well and who to treat badly. That just needs to go away so we can realize there is no reason for all this striving and conflict.

       Trump and Hillary both support the same corporate interests. She talks about "taking people out" like murder and war are a fun game to her. He just pretends to be more serious about it but both are equally dangerous for starting wars, in different ways. War is not the answer. Our creativity and ingenuity are the answers. Working together is the answer. I really feel like, from the debate, everything about them was so similar, from their fake Egos, so easily rattled into tantrums, to their policies. The only thing they seemed to be claiming a difference on was addressing the problems with police. Trump said everything you would expect from someone who is racist and out of touch, "law and order" and bringing back the policy of Stop and Frisk even though it was deemed unconstitutional for being desrciminatory. Of course Hillary's answer was much better, from the Bernie Book, but it was her saying it which makes it untrustworthy. And it wasn't anything Obama shouldn't have done already and we apparently can't trust either of them for the same reason, they are the tools of The Man. Still, at least she is talking about doing the right thing and the main problem is, like Obama, she would be in a position to do much more but by dragging her feet becomes an obstacle to progress. So she would be in the way, but at least facing the right direction, and could be motivated to move faster and make some of the progress we need. The problem is that electing her encourages them that they can get away with everything on her terms. Maybe she'd be more humble about it if she lost again. But I truly believe our best choice is to elect Jill Stein, or force the DNC to allow the Return of Bernie. I don't know how that would be possible besides throwing a wrench in the normal process if he wins in Vermont and Wyoming and/or Oregon or other states with Write-in votes, sending it to the house to decide and the people put pressure on their representatives to vote for Bernie. Maybe there would be another way to just replace her with him on the ballot if some major news breaks in October, the famous #OctoberSurprise. I keep veering from the point, though. The point is that both Hillary and Trump seem ready to start a war which is the main reason we don't need either of them. Trump claims to be "pro-business" while Clinton may claim to value the environment but is even more a tool of the oil companies than he is. Trump would be worse on social issues but that does not mean she would be good, or good enough. She dodged the issue when he brought up her using the term "superpredators" to refer to black people just like she dodged when he said she stole the primary from Bernie. Her mentor, Robert Byrd, is a former Klansman and while Trump got the endorsement of one KKK Grand Dragon Hillary was endorsed by another one and he used the same langauge Koch used when he expressed supprt for Hillary, that she was only lying about what she would do to get elected but once in office would do what they wanted.

       All things being equal (as indeed they might be with Trump and Clinton is he is working for her, playing to lose, just a decoy to ensure she becomes president) the difference between Trump and Clinton is that he is making that hyper-"Amerikkkan" (the worst of America) argument that the cops are always right, might makes right, they have the power to kill without question because they are the "winners" and everyone else are "losers" and therefore don't count. Of course the cops protect those who are "winners" enough, rich enough, to be above the law. This is the whole system we need to abolish. Bernie represents abolishing this evil system, this relic of slave days. Hillary represents putting a dress on it. Maybe a dress with body cameras. But if you can't get anyone to see the footage, and you can't get a conviction of cops, then a body camera is like a carnation. Someone here recently got mandatory life in prison for killing a cop in a high-speed chase, he hit him with his car going through an accident scene, and the charge was first degree murder. But the cop who shot an unarmed, compliant civilian with a gun recently in Tulsa may face manslaughter  charges and we can only hope there will actuall be any punishment. This double-standard and blind support of the police is the essence of the "some people are more worthy than others" problem. And the problem is that Hillary suffers from it worse than anyone if she feels like her own "worthiness" to be president entitles her to steal the election and supercedes the worth of millions of other people by stealing their vote.    

        I really didn't intend to talk so much about politics. I want to say that only real leaders, visionary leaders, can change things as radically as we need them to change. They are the only ones who can look at the system an actually root out problems, from the root, not just trim the leaves back. Hillary and Trump just aren't these kinds of people, or aren't anymore, and Bernie is and everyone knows this. People who have heart know that this system is corrupt. And all people have hearts but many people just aren't exposed to the reality of what is happening enough for their hearts to be awakened. And some who are end up getting their hearts covered over with greed, for power or other interests - because Hillary and Obama were both apparently idealistic in their youth. The key is that Bernie is still youthful, still idealistic, and that is why he resonates so much with this generation and people of all ages who have a sense of justice. People like to make excuses for slavery and other atrocities by saying it was a different time when people thought differently. But at all these times there have been radical, progressive people fighting for truth and justice, which proves people have always known better, too, or were capable of knowing better if they only knew what was really happening. These long movements towards justice just keep going but do turn on various revolutionary moments. There is a new movie out, for some reason called Birth of a Nation which I beleive was an old KKK propoganda film of the silent era. A Denver couple produced it and are having its premiere here. It is about Nat Turner's rebellion in 1830 to overthrow the slave system. I admit I don't know much about the history but in the pulicity for it I felt smart and fortunate to have even known who Nat Turner was from my school days in Georgia. John Brown has been on my mind, from the Grateful Dead through the years but also from a silent movie I saw a while back about his rebellion at Harper's Ferry. I still think our culture refrains from considering Brown a hero because he "failed" and because he took up arms, but a movie depicion can do a lot to change or make a person's image in the culture and I imagine this new movie will allow people to see Nat Turner as a hero. Hopefully that will help people see how these issues continue and even inspire people to become heros, too, at this time of great need. My point to bring this up is to say that individuals always have a sense of heart and when these hearts join they become a movement. When the movement gets strong enough is does effect revolutionary change and is referred to as a revolution in the eyes of history, like the Sexual Revolution. Basically it is the fate of humanity, a necessary step in our evolution. It's going to happen one way or another. We can make smart decisions, and change our culture and ways enough to allow the implementation of those desisions, and make this transformation in the most responsible, intelligent, and peaceful way possible. But we have to transform our culture, one way or another, and we will.

       As mush as people need to become aware of systematic injustice you can't, apparently, wake people up with just statistics and news events and information sharing, no matter how compelling the information seems to be to people who already care about the issue. People need a personal appeal to wake up their hearts. Thats one reason we want Bernie so much is that he has the heart, he has that connection with people and way to share your heart, to open up our hearts together. I noticed a post on facebook from a girl who sat behind Bernie in coach class on an airplane recently and he insisted on carrying her diaper bag for her as they walked off the plane to the terminal. That's a person who is "just like everybody else", not putting on airs, just a genuinely nice person. And we're all like that, deep down, but we end up with other "priorities" that take us away from our own hearts unless we are actively trying to b loving to people. But all of our hearts, and the heart of the world, of the universe, are calling out to each other to come together. We just sometimes need a leader, or to become a leader, to help us say that opening up is the brave, powerful, vulnerable thing to do. We need someone to set an example sometimes. Which is why we all wanted, asked for, and voted for Bernie. He set the example, to us, and we recognized that he would have the power to set the example for the whole nation and the whole world. That is what they are most afraid of, apparently, everyone waking up and demanding Justice. But it's going to happen whether they like it or not and the funny thing is, once it happens, everyone is going to like it much more. They are just holding us all backwith greed and pettiness and fear. But we are destined to break through their barriers and we will, one way or another. It's too bad that the DNC didn't let Bernie have his victory because we are losing this time when he could be in the spotlight, having this effect upon the culture. But at the same time a lot of people are turning to Jill and empowering the Green party, some estimates say 90% of us support her now. And I still hope it was all just a plan by the DNC, knowing Bernie will be the nominee but using Hillary to absorb all the attacks, and run a "tie race" to scare everyone into donating money. It seems like a big scam but if it does end in Bernie as our next President, and Tulsi as VP and first woman president, I won't even mind that it was a scam because we will be ready to make that transformation we need. It won't be that bad to have lost Bernie's voice for a couple of months if he has the biggest podium in the land for the next 8 years, and if they get a lot of money out of it, good for the DNC. But we are missing out on Bernie's passion and heart in challenging Trump in these debates. That could ave a very good effect on the culture to see someone who really cares debating against him, someone who's heart is really with the people. So maybe the surprise will happen early and Bernie will be the nominee for the second two debates. I sure hope so. Even if they couldn't raise money based upon it being a tie I still think a lot of people will donate because of the excitement of being part of this movement. If the democrats and Republicans are working together, having Bernie be the nominee might end Republican fundraising since they would know Bernie will win in a landslide but then again they are generally stupid and inclined to throw money at problems so maybe they would do that. It wouldn't be a Tie, though.

        Well, even if we don't have Bernie Truth and Justice will come out one way or another. Kids have heart, naturally, because they haven't "grown up" too much and lost their idealism. Like I said it was partly Bernie's childlike nature that made him such an inspiration to people, that made us hope he would be the way to inspire others. But it's going to happen one way or another and if we can't have child-like leaders then actual children will lead us instead. As much as people need to see the injustice in the system it sometimes takes a person, a heartfelt appeal, to break through all the divisions in society that prevent us from seeing things from another point of view. Recently this leadership emerged in a young girl from Charleston. They were having a town hall meeting following the protests there and she stood up at the microphone and told everyone through tears how they need their fathers and mothers and can't live with the descriminatory oppression of the police anymore. This is the kind of thing that can be a turning point for the culture when people who have been on the sidelines of an issue actually wake up to what is going on. When people on the "other" side of the issue, of the "thin blue line", realize that we are all in this together and trying to get out, from both sides, from a divisive system that oppresses all of us. Some are oppressed in all the traditional ways but even the oppressors are victims of the system because it rots their hearts and takes them further from this place of empathy which is the foundation for the good things in life we all need.  It would be nice if the so-called "adults in the room" could realize this and we could make the decisions that are best for all of us instead of letting ego and power trips get in the way. Since they can't, at least quite yet, it falls to the kids to be the heroes we need.

       I don't even know that little girl's name but I imagine she will be famous for her role in this movement and remembered to the end of time. Names are interesting. I was going to say some things about The Black Arrow but I don't want to give away too much of it, it's really fun to read. I will say that I chose an adventure story because the love themes of the romantic ones I've been reading hit too close to my heart at a tender time, but Love, of various kinds, is still a central theme. Mostly it is the Justice form of love, expressed publicly in shifting sympathies between the warring factions of Lancaster and York, with truth and justice shaking out of all the bloodshed and conflict. There are various ways which the other main charactersare flawed while the hero keeps his course set with truth and Love and keeps progressing. But the main thing I wanted to mention were the names. The first one that struck my attention was Ellis Duckworth and that name probably prompted me to return for a day to the chaos magic group on facebook. There most popular sigil is the Ellis or LS sigil, the linking sigil, and they refer to the Being of it as Ellis. So I took that as a sign and was pleased with my return to the group but don't want to spend much time there, still. Then the main name that stood out was Joanna which was featured prominently in the part of the book I was reading at the same time that it was rumored or announced that Gaga's new album will be titled Joanne after her relative who passed away, whom honors with her team before every show. Then there is a Lord Foxham who reminds me of our band Foxzen. We're about to release our second album, I just really want to make the music for my song "Made Me A Monster," to include with it. It's my best tribute to Gaga, so far, and we have so many other fantastic songs on the album I want them to all be together.  

       As I was finishing this I I had an insight about reverse psychology. Even if people are "on equal footing," and there is not authority being rebelled against, even if the person making the decision knows that the other person is using reverse psychology, it still works. Why? Because there is this idea of "winning", of "who got what they wanted?" in every situation. Even if it doesn't really matter at all, or even if it is a major decision, reverse spsychology can work and I think it is for this subtle reason: there is this idea about who wins a decision, about who gets "their way." If you use reverse psyhology, even if the person knows you are doing it, lying about your preference, it still works because you are surrendering at the very beginning. You are saying "you get to win the 'who decided?' point, getting what 'you want', not what I want." It's somehow less important that you are doing what the other person wants if the "score" shows that you made the choice. And it's doubly ironic because of course "you" are the one making the choice, it's your choice to make. But somehow falling into revers psychology is asserting, on the surface, that you are the one making the decision even if you are actually taking the other's advice. It's a way of taking advice without percieving the other person as "superior" to you. Of course no one is intrinsically "superior" to anyone else, we all have different traits, but the idea of hierarchy is so strong in our culture that even these small, subtle reliefs from it, being willing to be the "wrong" one just to get the right outcome, can really influence our behavior.

      The idea about using reverse psychology is just to say look what you can accomplish by putting your ego aside, by being willing to be seen as wrong in order to reach the right outcome. We are such a traffic jam of ego that just removing one, your own, can free up the space for everyone else to sort it out. This is why saying "I'm sorry" can be so effective. It's just admitting that you regret something, that in some way you could have done something better for the other person. This is saying you respect something about them that had seemed overlooked. How powerful this can be! We live in a world where everyone feels put down, like no one appreciates them enough. If you can just say "you aren't being appreciated for how great you are, and I was one of the ones doing it!" you break through this whole system and say "hey, look! We can look at each other in a new way." As I typed that Tony and Gaga were singing "They All Laughed" and it's the same thing. All of this world of love and art are what has been denied and ignored but it is the real world, real life, and it is emerging so that it can't be ignored and repressed anymore. The same goes for all forms of love, art, and magic. It's just true, it has to come out. And sometimes, without realizing it, we are standing in the way of it. Of course I am guilty, in my way, of doing the same thing I accuse Hillary of: facing the right way, maybe, but not moving fast enough, still being in the way. I'm destined to be an artist but I hold myself back, as I've detailed in this gagablog. But I'm ready to free myself and it just comes from letting this ego go and becoming the new me. it's a little scary but mostly it's exciting, especially as our music keeps getting better and I'm increasingly inspired to write stories and paint and draw, too. And I'm back to my ald ambition I had as a young child to make new styles of card games, as well. Steve Jackson games have recently helped encourage me to get back to that idea and I feel like i have some interesting game constructions to contribute. I know Eurogames are popular for not having "winners" but I don't know much more about them other than I should mention that in this context.

       I was going to say "All things being equal" is an interesting phrase to end this with. In a way, all things are equal, or should be. Everyone should be considered equal under the law and a law that plays favorites is unnatural and will need to evolve or be swept away. But when "all things are equal" then the result of a contest is either Luck or Fate. In games, like in making unimportant decisions where someone is using reverse psychology, it doesn't matter who "wins," it's just for fun. But in life, setting everything up into winners and losers is evil. Politically, socially, economically, there is nothing wrong with going for a tie, where everyone is equal, and everyone is considered a winner. If some people who resent losing their previous "winner' status resent this and feel like losers that would be their own problem but I think the vast majority of people would be too happy enjoying the fact that everyone was happy to be worried about their previous petty concerns. Just like I think if food was free people wouldn't overeat because they would be able to overcome those childhood traumas of needing food, realizing that more food was always available. I feel this way about all goods. They can all be free, no one will take more than they can really use because they won't want to be seen as trying to be above everyone else. There will plenty to go around for everyone to have plenty, especially if people aren't wasting most of the stuff leaving it empty somewhere waiting for the particular holiday they use it, locked in a bank, and such as that.

       A tie means a kind of equality. There is nothing wrong with a tie, in fact, in many ways it is better than a winner and a loser. Games might be the only thing where this is not true: in every other aspect of life we should treat each other equally. As far as how much justice someone gets, or how many votes someone gets, it  shou;ld always be a tie. Nobody should be favored by the system. When they are, that is where the system needs to adjust.We have stark inequality within America and also between nations. If we merely seek to end that state by digging deep and extracting the roots of injustice we can do it. The idea of valuing a tie, of seeking to end the state of favoritism and winners and losers, can be the path to doing this. This could be an application of the buddhist "middle path" idea as well.

       The important thing to consider is that we are all tied together in systems. If we insist on winners and losers we will pass suffering around the web we are all part of. If instead we can value the idea of having a tie, of finishing together and not getting ahead of each other, we can all progress.without the suffering. And we will progress faster and in more vibrant and surprising ways when we include everyone.Willona just made a joke about the debate inspiring a new special at the boutique, "cut low, making all sorts of promises you aren't gonna keep!" When the aldarman asked why Florida doubts his sincerity she says she doesn't doubt it, she'sjust never seen it. Now he just kicked them out when JJ wouldn't give a speech for him to help him get the youth vote, for YAM, "Young Artists for Me." Sorry to squeeze this in but it reminds me of Bernie at the DNC, being pressured to give the supporting speech by some threat. This is the whole problem of people using their power to abuse people. This is what they were getting justice for in The Black Arrow and what we are seeking justice for in the #blacklivesmatter movement.

      Just like all we want is equality in the feminst movement and movement for gay rights, all we want is equality under the law and in the voting booth. Even with Citizens United in place the corporations still have to cheat to subvert the will of the people. But things are changing. I usually don't mention my personal life too much unless I just can't resist it, I'm so proud of my lover. Her new Tarot, the Modern Spellcaster's Tarot, just came out and it's awesome. The first review I read of it was great, too, from www.queerstreettarot.com and it praised the way the cards show many different kinds of people and ways of loving in a casual way. It says it is the first tarot produced by a mainstream company that is inclusive in this way. I believe that being the first in this way is a sign of the new era that is arriving where all love is accepted and celebrated. That's how I've always felt about Stefani, Gaga, that she is introducing the era of love as the Goddess of Love. I know all of this is run by art and magic. I'm so proud to be part of this milestone for all of us but it makes me that much more excited to contribute my own. In the same way Gaga has always inspired me but the idea that I could somehow impress her, or have that influence on the world, when I get into that feeling, makes me capable of art and music beyond my expectations and previous limitations and activates my dreams.

       I feel like it is part of Justice that my intention to succeed is not about being above other people but going to create more ties around the world, more opportunities for people who need them, wherever I can find them, to promote the most equality in the world. I think more and more people will share that goal until we can eliminate the suffering that comes from inequality in the world, especially as more people are helped out from under the worst effects of the current system and can reach their full potential.

       PS: That episode of Good Times ended with JJ doing the speech praising the Alderman in order to keep their apartment, since he had threatened to have them evicted. But JJ ends up telling the truth instead, calling him out for being crooked. Afterwards the alderman tells them he will evict them but when the crpowd loves it, thinking it is a roast, he says he wants JJ on the campaign with him and tells Florida "Don't worry, ss long as I'm Alderman you will always live in the projects." To me these Two Sides of Alderman Fred are like our "choice" in the election. One is threatening to throw us out, make life worse, and the other promises to keep everything the same. We just need a new direction and actual progress. I've decided to focus more on art, on my music. When the next show, the Jeffersons, came on, it starts with George saying "I'm a thousandaire. And I could be a millionaire if I could get some publicity." That reminds me I need to finish this album and start getting it out there. Of course we are only centaires, pennyaires, so far, but I feel the magic in the music and know it promises wonderful things for the future. The Russian guest just told the journalist "Keep on truckin" as he left.

gagablog 115: True Love Overcoming All Illusion - Brandon Marshall's Protest of Abusive Cops and Perfect Illusion video pemiere on Scream Queens!

I've been wanting to write about Perfect Illusion ever since I heard it but I have not heard it again since the day it premiered, since I last wrote this. I have plenty to say just about the chorus and what has happened in the days since then but I look forward to listening closer and going into further detail when I know more of the lyrics. The line "It wasn't love it was a perfect illusion" is the most important to me, now, for many reasons. Most immediately, it seems to be the conclusion of the Artpop era and the conclusion of her relationship with Taylor. A theme of Artpop was "it could be love" / "we could belong together." The chorus of Perfect Illusion says pretty directly that it was not love but instead a perfect illusion. I must say that while all heartbreak and break-ups are hurtful I am overjoyed that Gaga is finally moving past Taylor since seeing through the illusion allows her to find real love and more loves. And for a selfish reason I hope she loves me and for an art-selfish reason I hope her new loves inspire and support her even more in her art.

     I've been extremely pleased with our music recently for our next Foxzen album. I just want to cheer myself in that way. I've also felt some heartache lately, in the last week, while at the same time eager to write this, my response to Gaga's new song. I'm happy we've felt in Love at times, too, but other times were heartbreak, for me. As much as I wanted to include things going on, I didn't really want to write this while I was feeling heartbroken, but it kept happening so I was resigned to doing it anyway. But I misplaced the power cord to my computer for a few days. Now I am glad we are back in love again, at least not heartbroken, and while i feel weird ever talking too much about specific personal stuff I did realize some things during times of conflict and argument between us. One was simply that feeling heartbroken felt like being "out of love", that's what feels so bad about it, but really it is part of love, maybe a dark side of it. It is because I am still in love that I feel heartbroken when it seems like she isn't in love with me. I have always hoped I was right, that we really were in love with each other despite the times it did not seem like it. But I have had to face it more this year than ever that maybe I was deluding myself because I want Love and want to believe in love so much. Now, after hearing Perfect Illusion I realise I could be delusional or i could be in love. "Perfect Illusion" certainly does not describe my relationship, but I can relate to it based upon my understanding of love, art, and magic as "everything" and anything "else" or less than that as being illusion. Maybe it is only because I am sympathetic to Gaga and wish I had the chance to be with her that Taylor had that I assume he misled her and took advantage of her desire for love and belief in love. That's what I am afraid of myself, anyway, that I am so in love with love that I want to delude myself when I really shouldn't, but I do believe our love keeps coming true in different and new ways. Just last night, 9/19, I saw an episode of Newhart in which he sums up love by saying "maybe love is change." George was sad that his old flame, Elanor, played by Rue McClanahan, had changed so much after 31 years of not seeing her and Dick said Love is loving through the changes so people can grow and since we will change, inevitably, then loving must be loving change, or even that Love IS change itself. This is one way to sum up chaos, and the magic of it, to me, as Love.

     I'm going over my notes to talk about magic, love, art, media, and aliens. I feel like I have only been teasing about alien communication and I just need to really get into it. Just after writing one of my most recent editions about alien contact I watched a DVD of the Flintstones and wrote down this line from the Great Gazoo: "You can see me because you found me, the kids can see me because they understand me." This sums up my perspective on aliens (or fairies and art and magic):: scientists want to be the ones to discover aliens (as I type that, on TV in the background at 4 AM Mork is saying "if you want to see a real life alien being meet me..." - turning himself in for a $25,000 reward to give to Mindy) but the secret is to understand aliens and realize we're all here - "I'm the only alien here" Mork just said but Mindy showed up in a sexy brown alien costume with pointy bat ears and her dad is in a spacesuit too and now the journalist thinks they are all faking. I mean, we don't need to discover aliens, or magic, or even rely too much on "outer" space for artistic inspiration  - though I love that and think that one works both ways, well, they all do, but e are especially trained to expect aliens from "outer" space. It will help oithers understand aliens better if more discoveries are made, sure, but the real, easy, nice way to go about it is by understanding what we are already part of, which will lead to better ways of making discoveries. We are aliens, of course - if you don't want to feel that is a shocking statement, look at it from the "other" aliens' perspective.

     I wrote these notes just a day or two after hearing Perfect Illusion for the first, and last, time - maybe I will talk about some suspicions I have that Gaga upset Disney by ruining the ratings for Chicago Fire and other related shows when she broke up with Taylor and they want revenge by suppressing her new song but most likely Denver radio just sucks. I only ever got into the habit of listening to the pop stations to hear Gaga and now I just turn to them randomly at times to see if they play her but have recently lost almost all hope for them. I should place some requests. And maybe the popularity of Perfect Illusion will catch on here again in a month or more and they will play it regularly, then. The day I wrote these notes, maybe 9/12, I had a nice little blast of media magic: for some reason I was reminded of the Dead Milkmen song "Rocketship", one of my favorite songs of theirs, and sang some to my friend, the line about the girl on Planet X.  That night I turned on the old-timey channels on TV and happened upon a Godzilla movie in which aliens take Godzilla and Rodan to their planet to fight the Zero Beast, I think. I'm sensitive to Godzilla movies, though I've only seen some of them, because my lover says I am Godzilla and she is Mothra, mystically. I'd never seen this one before. It was nice magic to think we could team up to fight a terrible beast on another planet but I didn't watch much, just the beginning. The main reason I noted it was that the planet was named Planet X. The aliens were hostile, after all, and one of the hero's had a girlfriend who it turns out is one of many "clones" or something of that girl  -that all the girls on Planet X look just like her. The lyric in the Dead Milkmen song is "there's a girl on Planet X, I don't know her but that's alright she doesn't know me either." When the hero sees a girl on Planet X, of course he thinks she is "his girl" since they look identi\cal, but she does not recognize him  - then he sees more of them and figures it out. It struck me that "he didn't know her" but ultimately that was alight because she didn't know him either. The song is from 1986, I think, and the movie was from the 50's. It made me think about how people are the "only one" when you are in love and how identity seems so important and significant but is also fluid as much as we want to treat it as solid. Mostly I feel there is a comment about love, about the idea of people being "the only one" or "not like anyone else" and the idea of being wrong about people or someone else being "the same", or different, about differences being internal or external and whether that makes any difference.

       We have been having fires out back all summer, in our little fie pit, and were recently discussing the first human use of fire, just musing about it a few nights in a row. Then the next day, last Sunday, I woke up and turned on PBS, something I never do, really, just had a feeling I wanted to see what was on. It was a show about the origins of the oven, fridge, and washing machine and in the part about ovens it mentioned that when people started using fire to cook food the size of their brains doubled in a short period of time, allowing for much more complex thinking, presumably as a result of better nutrition from cooked food. This made me wonder: do we have nay technologies that can be compared to that, today? Things that make us so much healthier, physically or mentally - or COULD make us more healthy if potentials are realized  - that we double our ability to think? In some ways the internet seems to be doing this already. Some people try to scare us with a specter of "too smart" AI but maybe some people are afraid of how people, everyone, especially young people, have the ability to get way too smart to put up with the same old bullshit anymore. While I kind of want some more integration of our experience to really expect to make as much benefit of the electronic world as we made of Fire, but i do see it as our fate to do so, if we live up to it. The cell phone camera and now police body cameras have the potential to completely change the police, for instance, making police work more than twice as good as it currently is by exposing and ending all the evil in it - if we use them to their potential and lean from the realities they reveal. My notes read "how much more can we develop?" and ""what would we understand better by these developments?" and I will return to this topic another time, perhaps. Basically I just think we can imagine what we could imagine, what could be possible, and by merely opening up our minds, loosening up, we allow new inspiration to be possible, just like feeling like a star helps make better music and art.

       I titled this note card "bringing down the system - all is magic." Then I have "the conspiracy of anti-magic and 'only-magick'" - a condemnation of Science and religion working together to suppress magic, from "both sides" as it were - really from the same side, like the current Democrats and Republicans, but pretending their false debate are the 'two" options - and more on that another time, too, maybe. "Everything is magic / love - EXCEPT the illusion of pretending to be in love when you aren't. People can take advantage of people who love them, who are in love with them. When we are in love we overlook flaws, for better or worse, we idealize the other. I recently argued to consciously try to do that, to help forgive wrongs, and to know it as a choice, not just being lovestruck, but tying to have the same effect without blaming it on fate, making it a choice. If it works it could help people stay in love and not be bogged down by conflict, hopefully to learn how to avoid conflict in the first place from occuring and certainly can feel as good, or better, than when it happens unexpectedly, but maybe is less dangerous if you only decide to do it when you know you are just being overly defensive and you know the person well enough to trust them, deep down.  .

     Everything is magic, love, truth - except pretending to be and therefore standing in the way of it all becoming what it truly is. This was followed by football. I guess we were arguing and I was feeling disconnected from her and wanted to just watch football all day. I sometimes want to watch it because it feels festive and fun but usually I watch some football here and there and do other things, too, unless I'm excited about the game. I felt more excited about it, last Sunday, or more I felt kind of dull from feeling love-sad and it made football seem extra-exciting. It made me wonder if this is why so many men do enjoy football, o cars, or other such things, so much.; a feeling of giving up on more passionate desires and choosing to enjoy the "passion" of the game instead. Or like the pleasure of wearing big blue pants in the Simpsons  commercial "when you've given up on being attractive to women." But they are also artforms in a way and can be enjoyed like that. It just made me think of the whole football craze as in some ways an indication of the lack of love in the culture.

     But there was one reason I wrote about football and it was the protests of the Nath\ional Anthem and how that elates to Truth and Love overcoming illusions. The American Dream is true and Good as far as it is Love, equality, freedom and Justice, in Truth. But when it is these things "in name only", or wonderful things for some people at the expense of awful suffering for others, then the American Dream is one of these illusions standing in the way of true love, of true dreams. It can be either way, the American Dream, but it needs to be redeemed from the mere claim or lie that prevents what it claims to prize. it is the same with war: having more, better weapons is not ultimately the path to peace no matter how often they claim it is. In fact the more they claim this while war continues to exist longer and longer just proves more and more how untrue it is and we are seeing through that lie. In Syria Assad is not afraid to murder his own people just because we have an overwhelmingly powerful military in America, it's just not a deterrant, it hasn't stopped him either by threat or by force. Of course it could stop him and even all life on earth, by force, but the idea is supposedly to use the threat of force to deter evil. The problem is it doesn't work, it is counter-productive. Ultimately just keeping weapons around and keeping development in that field is making war continue past it's "usefulness" to humanity - some people obviously have a vested interest in creating and continuing it because it is their business and unfortunately there is enough money in it that these are the people, along with the oil companies, who actually run our government and control what is going on. This is the reason the People increasingly sensitive to what the world actually needs, so overwhelmingly support the revolution once embodied by Bernie Sanders. I heard an expert on the radio today, NPR 9-19, say there will never be the same kinds of wars as we had in the 20th century because economies are so inteconnected., It makes sense, but what makes even more sense is that we should not have any war any more, already, because of how obviously bad it is for everyone. From that perspective it seems like Syria is a "model" war, a little War Toy the bigger countries are playing with, causing all of his suffering and death just to justify the continuation of their outdated business, war. More to say about this later. Right now its about the protests of the cops war on the defenseless people of America and how that has to stop.

       I'm extremely proud of Colin Kapernek for protesting the national anthem and helping further the discussion. I'm also proud of Brandon Marshall of our local Broncos. for taking a knee in this protest, too, and also for taking some vicious hits upon Cam Newton, drawing fines and more attention to his statement. I have kind of mixed feeling about that but at the same time it seems like it puts things in perspective, breaking their football rules, getting aggression out in a game and getting more attention and airtime, while the rules the cops are breaking are much worse with worse consequences. Believe me, I feel bad for Cam Newton but the point is that football rules have changed with new data on head injuries. Rules for cops have not changed enough even with a steady flow of data about abuse of their power and unpunished murder of civilians. There was just a settlement for millions over the unconvicted police murder of Sandra Bland. There was a news story about a cop in Tulsa who shot another black man this weekend while he had his hands up, claiming he was not complying with police. I was watching these games on September 11th and paying close attention, with respect, to the players who did not have their hands on their hearts. Then at the Kansas City Chiefs game I was pleased to see the team standing with locked arms and the announcer commented upon it. He did not mention the controversy specifically but said the team chose to do this to respect all their players' viewpoints but show a team spirit and that they had done outreach with the local police department - I guess we can all assume we know what the issue is about, as well as we do, in our varied perspectives. I understood why the announcer would not want to "go into it" but at the same time was glad that the visual statement they made led to a statement by him in the media. I was so proud of the Chiefs I watched their game with pleasure even though I usually don't cheer for them. I felt they deserved to in from the very beginning, from showing solidarity as a team and with the protest, too, but in a way that people could take it with less offense than a single player's statement. And I just knew they would win, despite the Chargers taking  a commanding early lead. In the end, the Chiefs had their biggest comeback in team history. I wonder if that bit of magic increased any of the times the sports media mentioned their solidarity-protest, too, and how that showed not only team spirit and cohesiveness but some compassion and cohesion with the community, too.

     As I am typing this the bewitched in the background just had Endora putting a spell on Darren and his secretary, making them flirt with each other, and at some point he says Samantha's favorite animal is a unicorn. My next note on my cad, from eight days ago, is about how one player said he was glad to move from Texas to NY because while in Texas he could be a "horse" in NY he could be a "unicorn." At the time I wanted to mention this because of the Gaga-connection, and what it says about thriving in culture, amidst art, but now, when Darren mentioned a unicorn on TV as I approached that note on the card, I know it's just pure magic, too, no illusions about it. Oh, I think Endora is making different characters tell the truth, ha ha, moment to moment. Sh wasn't "flirting" when she said the dress was three sizes two small and she wore it so he would notice her, just telling the truth,. "When you put career in front of woman a large part of the woman disappears" is what a husband just said, which made the dinner party tense and everyone assumes will result in conflict for his relationship. Samantha is yelling to the air (invisible Endora) that she has proven her point.

     Soledad Obrien recently interviewed a player who is also prominent as a blogger, I forget who he is, he was supportive of Kapernek but not into the protest, the Obama line. She asked him if Kapernek would be seen, in the future, as a hero for standing u-p for justice, like Muhammud Ali, when Ali was seen as subversive at the time he took his stand  - and his stand is still subversive to the staus quo yet somehow they manage to idolize him without taking his critique to heart and changing. I was very proud of her just for asking, for framing it like that, because I think she is right and I think we will look at him, almost universally, as a hero, in the future. We should see everyone fighting for justice and ending police brutality and impunity as a hero, including Soledad for asking the question and framing the conversation this way. She's beautiful, too - I always had a crush on her but justice of course makes me feel it even stronger.

       There was some more media magic worth mentioning this week. On another "side"-channel on my antenna TV, one of the dozen or so channels that play all vintage shows, I was flipping past and saw OJ Simpson. He was a guest star, I believe, on an episode of "In the Heat of the Night." The next morning I heard some coverage on NPR about the Emmy's and an interview with the actor who won for his portrayal of Johnny Cochran from that trial. They discussed the time OJ had responded to a question about being black by saying "I'm not black, I'm OJ Simpson." The TV show focuses on how the defense made OJ "black" for strategic purposes, and they talked about this, but the actor touched upon the idea that by "succeeding" in America OJ had so distanced himself from being black and hat this whole idea meant about the racial divide in America and that success itself is perceived as the province of whiteness. It reminded me of Tiger Woods getting offended at the idea that he was black. I know I lose respect for people when they adopt racism in order to feel superior, which is what I see here. I imagine many black people lose respect for them, too, or respect them as black people in spite of their own words about it.

        There are some sad truths about racist, murderous policing in America and we simply must face them and fix them by changing the way the police work. The first step is to get over blind support and act on the evidence of all the videos we have of their misconduct and lack of training or culture of callousness. There were discussions today on the radio about ho police are not trained and don't just instinctively do the naturally caring actions of  getting help for their victims after they shoot or choke them. Many people die ho don't have to. There was a news report today as ell about the federal government issuing guidelines for emerging self-driving cars. One pundit predicted that 96% of accidents could be prevented by this technology and there ere astronomical estimates of how much savings this would provide the country, tens of billions of dollars. The idea was that the government could issue guidelines for this emerging industry to maximize the safety, having the companies share their safety programming and methods instead of competing with them as secrets for the benefit of everyone. Why can't they issue some better guidelines for police work? One statistic was that police shoot and kill three people per day but that the vast majority of these are armed people shooting at police. The more immediate injustice is the unarmed people they kill and better guidelines, like self-driving cars, should be able to cut don on 96% or more of these completely unjustified murders, if we hold the cops to the training with some actual consequences for their behavior, too.

       The biggest news story of the weekend was the bombings in Ne York and New  Jersey. Its been the main focus of the news ever since it happened Saturday night and there was an early report that I want to focus on. Probably one of the first things the media could find out about the suspect once they had his name was any legal trouble he as in. One of the NPR reporters talked about complaints his family had filed against the city and the police force for harassing them. Apparently the family restaurant was the target of police harassment and harassment from people in the community who came in yelling about how they should not be there since they were from Pakistan and yelling that all Muslims were terrorists. Now, of course I'm sure Muslim communities feel even a stronger sense of disappointment that this kid would "make the stereotypes seem true" by committing terrorism but I'm not trying to defend him, just to defend all of us, when I say that if you treat someone like something for long enough you greatly increase the chances they ill act like that. This is a lesson I am trying to reach understanding in our relationship because I feel like we don't often treat each other as our best selves but instead focus on negative things even to the point of being unappreciative of good qualities. I feel like I am a nice person, generally, and while I have had moments here I have gotten angry I don't feel like I am always or often angry. However, one thing that can anger me is being treated like I am always angry when it just isn't true. It becomes more true by making me angry to be treated that way, though. It reminds me of profiling in police work and racism in general keeping certain populations in disadvantaged situations. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in many ways to treat a whole community like criminals. That is not to say that they engage in criminality because it is expected but even innocent people are caught up and made "guilty" and punished by a system that sets people up for it.

       The news has been talking about different "angles" of debate regarding this bombing suspect, mostly focusing on ho it relates to the presidential immigration debate when it really doesn't relate at all. One angle they are not exploring further, that they maybe only mentioned because it was new information before they had anything else to talk about, is that this is also a police harassment story. The father said he was a terrorist, told the cops, after he stabbed his brother in 2012 and in recent years he has spent a lot of time in places in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the Taliban is very active. His dad says now that he is not a terrorist but there do seem to be more signs that he specifically trained to become a terrorist. My point, despite what can be done along the way to prevent violent acts like this and others, hat could be done to prevent someone having the motivation to become a terrorist in the first place?

       Maybe if the police had not harassed his family business and terrorized them, with no consequences for doing so, for years?

       Just a thought: if you don't want terrorists, stop terrorizing people.

      My son just turned 17 last week, on the 17th. The night before we turned on the TV and they were showing "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World." My lover mentioned that we had watched the same movie the night before he was born, 17 years ago, she remembered because she was starting to go into labor during it. I wanted to mention it just because of that magical coincidence but didn't know how it fit in but then last night I felt I had to mention it after a reminder from TV. It was about 3 AM the morning of the 20th, this morning, when Sabrina The teenage Witch came on. I must apologize and issue a correction for calling her Serena in the previous gagablog - sorry, Sabrina. The second episode was about her going to Spring Break with her friends and boyfriend and her aunts being worried she would get too wild and conjuring up a "Good Clean Fun" coordinator ho as played by Frankie Avalon. He is of course the craziest, wildest of the bunch in "Mad mad Mad Mad World" but I had to mention him showing back up, in this context, early this morning. The first episode was where her musician boyfriend told her she was his muse and she started feeling pressure to be interesting all the time and felt like she was failing at it. She asks the help of muses and they tell her to cater to his every whim. Her friend is jealous, wants to be someone's muse, too, and at one point is telling her how she will "out-muse" her and says she has a dress that will make her blow Sabrina away as a muse. Maybe this is just supposed to be her being superficial but I thought it was interesting the different ideas of what it is to be a muse: to be interesting oneself, to be beautiful, or to be dutiful. Very different ideas that can come together in some ways but it was just an interesting episode to ponder the relationship between love and inspiration. This episode, or the next one, also had the aunts on a day pass to heaven, to check it out, since one of them, the one played by Caroline Rhea, was afraid of death. She gets excited after she sees it, how chill it is, though Zelda decides it is too boring, not stimulating enough. The highlight she mentions afterwards is "dirty dancing with Fred Murtz", the landlord and friend on "I love Lucy." I knew I was "meant" to write about these when Frankie Avalon came on and now that I am doing it I want to say it simply. We, like Sabina, do not really need Authorities or police - we are responsible people. Then again we all make mistakes, too, and end up acting out of lesser selves at times, as well, not being our best. And of course currently far too many people are in oppressed circumstances and literally driven to crime in many ways. But the right kind of policing can help in all of these situations and help to change the oppressive system. In fact, the wrong kind of policing is a central part of keeping the system of injustice in place and we just need to remove that evil. The good example is the Good Clean Fun coordinator, or Officer Jenny in Pokemon, having a perpetually positive attitude and leading by example of good things to do. Now I resent the notion that sex is not also Good Fun, dirty or not, but I like, somewhat, the way the Sabrina show treated it. She said she could be trusted and got angry with her aunts for interfering with magic. But since everyone liked the Good Clean fun and she didn't get more intimate with her newish boyfriend it looked like there was an opening for her to hook up with her friend's boyfriend instead.  Like the magical principle I mentioned, earlier, of treating someone or some people like they are real assholes or untrustworthy can bring out negative actions from them, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, trying too hard to prevent some natural, good "naughtiness" can result in the naughtiness coming out in a different way, like ending up with your friend's boyfriend.

     I know I will really enjoy talking more about Perfect Illusions in detail but I feel like I will really enjoy Sexxx Dreams, line by line, really soon now, too, and I finally feel ready for it after over a year of preparation. I feel like I am getting more back into dreams and dream magic, too, and I'm really excited about that, just as I am about writing more fairy tales the more I feel in love. And having this new keyboard, full size, with a working "G" button for the first time in almost a year, at least, it seems. Hitchcock caught my ear when the old wealthy aunt (Agatha? Same name as the bug princess in Zelda?) was expecting "Hillary" to save her, who turned out to be a man, and in the end, I hope, it was her cats and niece who did the liberating.  I didn't want to mention Dougie Howser, M.D. - I always resented and hated that show as a kid without ever seeing a minute of it, have seen some in reruns and hate-watch it with some pleasure and nostalgia, too, but mostly cringing. But last night, or early this morning, it was the return of his Mom's old flame, reuniting their band "Mother Earth and the Pagans" and I had to mention it, as a witch, and would just leave it at that but his final thought was epic: "Most men rush in and fight for the woman they love. My dad sat back and did nothing." then he had his thoughtful pause and finished with the poignant conclusion: "I really admire his courage." I was going to just type that and leave it at that, I won't relate it to my "life" but I will say that as I typed it I realized that could be said about me and how I seem to be trying to in the love of Mother Monster, now -  sitting her doing nothing. It makes me think and want to art much harder. but now I will use it as an excuse to smoke a cigarette though I have been mostly quitting these last two months and haven't smoked all day until now, at 6:30 PM. It makes me want to "rush in and fight" for love, with a paintbrush and song, instead of just continuing this sitting back and doing nothing. And I also thought6 it was interesting that when Dougie is asking his dad why he is not threatened his dad says his mom is "beautiful, intelligent, and charming" and Dougie replies that the old flame is "handsome, rich, and vegetarian." I thought that was an interesting contrast based upon gender. But I also thought it was interesting that both Newhart and Dougie recently featured the return of old flames after 18 or 31 years.

     Since I've already admitted that I watched Dougie Houser I felt it was easier to note the second episode, too. Dougie was studying a mummy and Vinnie believed it was cursed, first due to an earthquake then to a digital reconstruction of the mummy's face and it looked like him. I noticed that they would turn on the TV during this episode and an old black and white Mummy movie was on -  it reminded me how often this happens in TV and movies, a TV on screen echoing the story. And it made me think of what I do, look for ways that the TV programs I see echo my life, like a mirror in mirror, picture-in-picture. His coworker has a sympathetic pregnancy then Dougie has a daydream in which the mummy gets up and talks with him, telling him not to judge Vinnie because we all make meaning of things in different ways. His final thought is that "Vinnie believed in a curse, Tommy (?) believed he was pregnant, and I believe in rationality." He paused and thought again then summed up with "Everyone has a few delusions." I felt like this fit nicely with my own "delusion", of love, or hopefully the delusions we all share of "not love" once we start to discover everything truly is love and magic, once we get though the illusions to the true reality of it. Some delusions, like my dream of being a star, can magically come true if you believe them enough, they are good for you. Sometimes being able to see your love positively can be a helpful delusion, if there aren't any real problems beyond our own criticism and ju\dgement of each other. But that delusion can be bad, whether someone treats us well or badly, if they are not being honest with us and have other motives, if they aren't "there for the right reason" in Bachelor terminology, for Love.

     Everything is, truly, for love and all of our lesser goals show our fear of true growth and development. Lies, illusions, become the only barriers to reaching the true state of being, in peace and harmony. Gaga seeing through the perfect illusion,  the lie that wasn't love with Taylor, is a sign of the whole world finding a truer, deeper kind of love. Some of the worst news this weekend was that the Syrian or Russian army bombed a medical relief convoy in Aleppo, Syria, killing 24 aid workers and suspending relief operations as well as breaking a ceasefire they finally had in place for little more than a week. The US has said it will have "strong words" o something with Russia but of course all sides are complicit in this travesty. They say that, if proven, it is certainly a war crimes but by my count it is another terrible addition to a long list of war crimes and we, America, have plenty of war crimes we are guilty of as well. we don't need to end war crimes, since we aren't doing that anyway, we need to end all of war. "Solutions" that fall short of that or don't work towards it at are all doomed to fail by lack of faith in the truth, a wold of peace.

     I just tuned in to Scream Queens, I loved it last year, and was excited to see that they were going to play the premiere of Gaga's "Perfect Illusion" video. It was awesome and I will use the chance to mention some interesting things from the show. At first I almost turned away because I saw John Stamos and assumed it was "Grandfathered" and the menu was wrong then realized it was Scream Queens, got excited, and saw the ad for the video and got overjoyed. I tuned in late and saw Stamos, a doctor, talking about how he was 23 when he separated the Helmsworth brothers and the nurse said "they aren't even twins" and he said that is why it is so hard. 23 is an Eris number so it stood out but so did the idea of being separated, of being twins in a different way than physical. When the girl asks Munch why, if she is such a feminist, the "staff is just me and a bunch of dudes" (as i typed "staff" the newscaster just said "staff" on the TV). Her response: "feminism is so boring." I was eagerly awaiting the video but also enjoyed the Alicia Keyes Levi's ad, where she is speaking an empowering message and there are at least three really good close-ups of her amazing ass in the tight jeans. Chanel No. 1 says maybe they should try to reform their image by actually doing something good for once and they become "doctors." The video as awesome and I enjoyed how when the show returned the Chanels had undergone a transformation from their plain scrubs to adding boas and hats like Nurse Joy. This reminded me of mentioning Jenny, earlier, and of the idea of magical transformation with Gaga. And the scene was them giving a make-over to the patient. Of course "Perfect Illusion" has the transformation theme, too, of coming through a desert and seeing the illusion for hat it as.

       The video was awesome and powerful. Gaga is super-sexy throughout it and just looks beautiful, but pained. Mostly I noticed how she never, barely ever, looks at the camera. It shows a lot of pain and disillusionment and is a perfect breakup song. My lover said it seemed, I forget what she said, unlike Gaga, not "Gaga" enough but I thought it was perfect and she did say it was a perfect break-up song. I felt like the desert imagery suggested a mirage, a false oasis, like Love, this relationship, was all an illusion. This reminds me of a the lyrics for our new Foxzen song, "Cave of Wonders", which we just wrote a few weeks ago. Some lines are "I wash mirages out from underneath your feet" and "your eyes are the oasis stares to paradise for me" - about true love in someone's eyes, the opposite of being only a mirage or illusion. The way the scene changed from the empty desert to the show, or party, with her singing into her microphone (almost?) all the time made me wonder what the message was for the back-and-forth. My lover just clarified that she thought it seemed more simple than Gaga's previous work but that she might have been going for a more "traditional" video, like rock videos of the classic era. I suspect it could be a decision to do this, for the style of the song, or to appeal to more mainstream audience that likes to see Gaga "less weird" but I also wonder if it was just a matter of time. I imagine Gaga would not continue a relationship after realizing it was "over" and suspect she broke up with Taylor when she found out and then wrote the song, and made the video, since then. All the costumes and sets must take a lot of time so it may be that this style as a result of doing the whole release in a short period of time compared to past songs. But specifically changing back and forth between desert and show, and set-up for the show in the desert, it seemed to have a few different interpretations possible. I assume that Gaga and Taylor had two kinds of life, their careers, where their work took them, and their time together. One interpretation could be that the concert, party scenes represent her time at work, as Gaga, and the deserts, where she is alone, represent the times with him. The line about being caught up in the confusion could relate to the whirlwind of her career, the party.scenes, and being able to miss the signs of her personal life being, actually, a desert, due to her busy lifestyle. Or the confusion of the party could also relate to their personal life, if their time was spent in so much celebration she failed to see the emptiness within it. I feel weird, speculating, because it does so obviously reflect her personal life. I can't help wondering what the meaning of all of i \t is, though, because Gaga's genius always suggests there is a lot of meaning to every detail. for instance, I feel like the way she never looked at the camera could mean something like her relationship, being caught in the illusion, kept her from connecting with the rest of the world and other people. I certainly hope we can all connect more with and through her and feel like she is free from the illusion, free to be the Goddess of Love she truly is. "The saying goes there is a diva in every cast, looks like we just found ours" the character on Mad TV just said, to his co-star who is reading a book. Another idea I had about the juxtaposition of the party and the desert is that the openness of a desert is what allows space for a party or symbolically that being left "barren" by one relationship is an opening for many more. I guess I just feel like she seemed to be going through the same struggle in the crowd that she was when she was alone, that she was still hurting or so caught up in it all that she was not really connecting like she means to and we all desire.

     I was disappointed in myself for taking so long to write this, earlier today, but now I feel like it as meant to be since I got to see Scream Queen and the premiere of the Perfect Illusions video as I as finishing it. One reason I'm not done yet is I found an old notecard I think I left out of previous editions. I will just race through it, now - it was en episode of Rhoda replayed a few weeks ago. John Ritter, Jack Trippe from Three's Company, was a player dating Rhoda's sister, who is played by Judy Kavner, the voice of Marge and others on the Simpsons. I had to watch Jack, as Jerry, and how it all played out. Rhoda tells her, first, about a fantasy of a train going though a tunnel, of being naked on a beach, floating helplessly, and her sister Brenda cuts her off and offers a much tamer version, with a bathing suit, for herself. Jerry breaks their date and when she asks why he asks if she can handle the truth then tells her something better came up. She forgives him saying anyone can think of an excuse but telling the truth wasn't easy - that whole thing about being lovestruck and forgiving things you should not. Rhoda gets mad at her for not showing self-respect. I was surprised to hear the voice of Garfield as the doorman of their apartment. His name is Carlton, says Jerry blew it and offers this advice to "hold onto a man": Give him plenty to drink, tip him well, and keep his uniform clean. This reminds me how love is peculiar to each of us, in our own minds, anyway. Brenda asks Rhoda not to leave, just to stay and not be mad at her since she has been through something tough and she agrees to, then Brenda asks "do you think he will call?" and Rhoda gets mad. To me this shows ho anger can arise in any lack of love, including self-love. Rhoda tells her it is easy to gt a guy like that, just to play "these stupid games" and says if she wants respect she needs to use "stupid dishonest tricks." Her boyfriend, Joe, enters and says in modern times those tricks don't wok anymore. After he leaves, Rhoda says she knew when she saw him she would have to play it straight with him, he is that type, but that what he did not know was that "I was straight deciding to be straight - which is a game." Brenda says "tell me how to get Jerry and I'll do whatever you want". Rhoda tells her the secret to getting him is to realize she does not need him and that she is the prize and to feel like she passed that test, to approve of herself instead of seeking his approval. Brenda asks if she will help he if she promises to drop him if she gets him and Rhoda says those are the conditions. This reminds me of a magical "tick" about love, too, only anting what you don't have or after you've lost it, or only being able to find love when you don't feel like you "need" it. Or the feeling of neediness scaring people away from love. Then Brenda says okay but she has to get him before she throws him. Rhoda tells her these steps: get his number, break a date with him and make him feel less secure, less sure of  himself. She gets Joe to go to he wok, where he woks, too, to flirt with her as well. I guess I just wanted to note all of these techniques, as described in a show from the 70's, and how these were the liberated women ideas current then. I also noticed a number of themes from Newhart and other 80's shows about how offensive it is to give flowers or candy to women to overcome conflict, as if their concerns were never serious. It's interesting to see how people develop regarding where they stand on these kinds of ideas. I'm not sure what show it as, maybe Newhart, in which someone says "I don't see what those merchant marines see in her anyway - maybe a Don Rickles line from Newhart. Michael said "someone got up on the wrong side of the futon" and I think I noted it because it reflected my on life that day. But the main reason I noted this episode was because of the interaction between Rickles and Dick. Rickles was playing Don Prince, an actor who was starting a late night show. Dick signs a contract to be on then he just makes fun of Dick the whole time, for 90 minutes. It is a success and Dick is contractualy obligated to appear every night so the whole show becomes abusing Dick, with a "Pick On Dick" section where the audience can win T-shirts, etc. Sorry if I already mentioned this, it was in my notes but I did not see it when I scanned my recent blog editions. After two weeks of this Dick finally snaps and says "You are bald and fat" and Prince gets upset  - "I gave my whole life to show business and this is how I am repayed, you insult me?" - and storms off stage. Dick confronts him in his dressing room and he tells him what is really going on. He says he, Don Prince, also got swindled into the contract. He decided his only way out would be to provoke Dick into attacking him, claim abuse and void the contract, but Dick was spoiling the plan because he as "so damn nice" he never responded in kind.

       This made me think of the essence of trolling, that in some way people are trying to void a spiritual contract they have entered, some alliance with a bullshit power. Hate and fear are a lack of love, manipulating that same lack of love in others. This is represented by Trump. Obama's speech to the U.N. today was publicized for including a presumed dig at Trump when he said that in today's world a nation surrounded by walls only isolates itself. I wish he could see how this same principle is true about ALL defenses, in the modern world, all excuses for war. It is time, past time, for us to lead the world by disarming, by truly moving away from war. As I pre\dicted and Obama said today, the situation in Syria proves war is not the solution, only diplomacy can solve the problem. I've been saying for years that Syria should be the last war, I was hoping we could be hopeful and find a way to end it, proactively, and use that as a model to end all wars, forever, but even if we have to be forced into these conclusions despite continued insistence on war we will, ultimately, come to the peaceful, completely war-free conclusion, because we must. It just becomes more and more obvious how much we need to end war, ho much we need to end all oppression, the longer we allow the powers that be to resist this necessary revolutionary change.

     I'm glad for one more reason that it took me this long to write this. I just heard on the local news some more details about Brandon Marshall's protest of the national anthem and racist, oppressive police. The new story, tonight, is that he says when he as in Miami five cops charged him and took him don when he exited a club, handcuffed him and took him into the squad car for resisting arrest, saying they were going to charge him, and then got a radio call saying to return him, probably because they realized who he was. They let him go and told him he as free on condition he did not say anything about it. Now he is obviously speaking up and the media has checked with Miami and is reporting the police's story that "they have no record of any contact with him." But of course they wouldn't if they never made an official report. They said if his story as true it would violate protocol but I just believe him, not them, in this and feel like the burden of poof should always fall on cops when they have been literally getting away with murder and worse for so long and violating plenty of protocals, plus missing many new protocols they obviously need. I feel bad that we can't have the same sympathy, as a nation, for everyone who is the victim of harassment from police but the fact that a celebrity will draw more, and more kinds of, attention to the issue makes me so glad he is speaking out. It's another example of how the cops just can't get away with it forever and certain events will be turning points to finally getting justice and ending this terrible system.

       There was another news story about a local church which protected an assistant pastor ho raped a 12-year old girl ho was a church member and student of the church :"home-school." This is the classic example of institutions that are supposed to protect people only being worried about protecting themselves. It reminds me of the cops, it reminds me of the Clintons. They asked Bill recently why so many people who supported him don't support Hillary. His response was most likely just calculated to divert attention from the other issues, but he could just be this out of touch. he said he thought it was because the media treated the email scandal like "the most important event since World War 2" - a phrasing which itself shows a maniacal level of being self-absorbed. I feel like the real reason is that people could see him as a reformer, a champion, as the young governor of a small, poor state and hoped he would bring the issues of disadvantaged people to enact national change. he didn't do enough and neither has Obama despite whatever gains they made but now he and his wife firmly stand in the way of change, only seeking slow, incremental changes, instead of the champions we hoped they would be. They've proven who they both are and many of his supporters from the old days would not support him, now, either.

     Trump represents hate, the dark side of love. You could almost feel sorry for him if he wasn't trying to scare us and rally such racist and evil sentiment in the people, making them feel more justified in their own hate. You could feel sorry for him because you know all hatefulness is a lack of love and something the person can almost not help, like a pit of hell they have dug themselves into. I personally hope for some kind of Love to break through to these people, for them to see though the illusions and barriers of hate. I feel less sympathy for people who should know better because they claim to but are just lying, perpetuating an illusion. Hillary is like this, represent the pinnacle of this devious "achievement" of diverting the demand for change into more support for the status quo, simply by lying. Even Bernie Sanders was recently stumping for her after she worked out a plan with him to make public college tuition free. But he said that one sign of the importance of the election was how much money the Koch Brothers were pumping into it, presumably for Trump since they are assholes. But at the end of the Republikkan primary I heard the talking Koch brother himself say that Hillary represents all Republikkkan values more than Trump, by far, and that she was just lying to get the position then would do all the things that they, the evil folk, want. The Grand dragon of the KKK said the exact same thing about her that she is really their candidate, ideologically, she just has to lie to the public to get in power then ill switch and do everything they want. Recently Tim Caine, her running mate, criticized Trump for not repudiating the KKK and Hillary said half of his supporters belong in her "basket of deplorables" for being racist, sexist, and nationalistic, etc. The problem is that she never repudiated her on endorsement from a different KKK Grand Dragon, Trump actually did more to distance himself, eventually, well, if you interpret it that way, though of course he still openly embraces and encourages the KKK. I think people fail to realize how it has only been about a century since the KKK openly controlled much, most of the political positions in America, at least in certain areas. And the ones that weren't openly KKK could be certainly in league with the ones that are more open about it. I mentioned in one of these gagablogs how the original television and radio productions of Superman were designed to break the influence of the KKK on American culture since they were his constant enemies. But people had to be taught, in that generation and still today, that the KKK was bad and we owe Superman and those creators a lot for helping start to turn things around but I think few people realize how far we must go and that this is the specific enemy.
     
     The reason I had to note the Newhart show with Rickles it that it summed up my notion about trolling - an underlying "contract" based on some sort of spiritual love deficiency that makes people thrive on cruelty and lies, trying to provoke someone into a more genuine response, to some passion,to break them out of that contract. It is like they lack love, don't believe in love, and that kind of attention from upsetting people, triggering and sensing people's love for whatever they care about that the troll is trolling them over, is the only form of "love", attention, they can "handle" for themselves. Or even they can't access their own love so they thrive on exposing other's "loves" or cares to ridicule because their callousness makes them feel powerful or at least "kind of" feel something when the truth is they are afraid of their own feelings and have squashed compassion within themselves.They manipulate a relationship, interaction, with others to get the passion out of them, usually as anger, which has become their substitute for love because it is passion they feel like they are in control of. This is what Trump is, an arch troll because he is probably uniquely starved for actual love and more perfectly exhibits this "fear-only" attitude, just trying to scare people. Clinton is no better, just tying to manipulate people and cheat he way in, also tying to scare people with insecurity. I think that is why I wanted to mention the Rhoda episode though I had misplaced the card and it was a few weeks ago.

     Manipulation is not love, it is control, what people do because they are afraid of the power of love,which can make individual egos feel powerless. That is why people create illusions and lies to keep people in relationships when they don't actually love them. all the games between people in relationships are blockages to real love. All the false posturing for peace and negotiations between counties who are really allowing the awful genocide and suffering in Syria and beyond are also blockages to real love, to harmony we all deserve and are capable of. This is why it is so important to dispel these illusions, to get to the real truth of real love. And the truth is it is just far more incredible and unfathomable than we try to pretend. Thee is a reason it is so transformative that even the illusions of it change us, because our own ideals change us when we are in love. But it is even more so when it is real, and not only real but realized actively by both lovers, renewed as it renews and transforms us.

     I mentioned the Dougie Howser shows because of what they said about belief and the process of letting people love, even different loves, on their own so they don't regret or resent their lovers for missed connections or potential.

     I mentioned the Sabrina episodes because of the muse idea, the idea of relationships with artists and inspiration itself. It made me think of a few years ago when I heard a rumor that Taylor as trying to get Stefani to change, that he wanted her to be "less weird" or something. At the time this was my sign that he was wrong for her, my hope skyrocketing that I must be much better for her and should try to see if we could belong together, through making my art. I feel that way again now, for Love itself, and the Goddess of Love if she will have me, that it is my duty to become the artist I truly am. Even if you don't want to be to artists who are each other's muse, exactly, it does seem romantic to make the most of loving each other, being artists, and being inspired by each other's beauty, attention, and talents as well. It seems to be the perfect, magical combination if you can appreciate it and make the most of this dynamic possibility of artists in love.

       Trying to sum this up I want to focus on the idea that cops should be like Officer jenny, generally positive, stern and commanding when needed but always in the service of the weak over those who use power to oppress them. And cops should be like the Good Clean Fun coordinator, presenting positive options enticing people to make the best decisions while giving people the most credit to be responsible. Legal weed is the perfect tool in this path, too. Really, some good dirty sexy fun, getting people out of all the hang-ups that keep us stressed, can solve many social problems, in my opinion, just as Dougie's mom said the sixties were a time of sexual liberation and I think all would agree that despite increased tensions in those times as well between different sides of the culture, the counter-culture of that era did a great deal to bring people together over deep social divides. The principle of cops being positive and presenting better options, not ruling by force and fear, applies to authority in relationships and between nations as well. We shouldn't scare people into being certain ways by threatening them, we should entice them by being more positive ourselves and always using power to protect the weak, never to protect abuse of power, the system we currently have and the way we go about world affairs as well, like a bully. I was disappointed in Obama today criticizing other countries concerns in a dismissive, juvenile manner at the U.N. Just because we are "on top" in many ways, well, actually that is more reason not to be pompous and demeaning about other's concerns but to be gracious and helpful instead. And of course the biggest issue, now, is the war in Syria and the two "superpowers", Russia and America, supposedly stepping in to help improve the situation but keeping things consistently bad to justify their war machine that runs on fear. Meanwhile they are presenting two candidates for president who are equally hawkish and dangerous and not really an option at all. The reason so many generals support Hillary is because she supports their business of war just as she supports the evil oil industry all over the world. All authorities should be like Ozma, ruling with Love. It can be done, removing fear from our lives, and it just requires a just system of just laws and equal respect for all beings.And we will be forced to realize this by the devastating consequences of refusing to unless we get creative and positive, turn things around to support the people, with Love, instead of the illusion with more lies and fear and violence.

     I mentioned the Chiefs winning because it represented my idea that being on the right side of things gives you the magical power to win, even games, eventually. And this was s spectacular comeback so that was like a symbol of doing it against all odds. I've been waiting to write this for over a week now but I'm glad that even as I wrote it today, including more recent news about Brandon Marshall and his fines and protest, just tonight the news came out about his own trauma at the hands of Miami cops. It seems like the opening of a story that will end up being really big and actually, finally, prompting more significant changes towards justice.

       This could be where I conclude this but I wanted to check my bookmarks from "The tenant of Wildfell hall." I finished it days ago and thought it was wonderful. I mu8ch preferred it to the works by the other Bronte sisters that I read and suspected she was a little ahead of her time or a little too - something  -for the audience of the day. The review of the book confirmed that she was not was highly regarded but in time has come to be and her unique depth and insight is appreciated more. I just felt like I noticed it and felt a strong connection with her, as a writer, that I did not feel when reading her sisters' work but I want to read another one and see how I feel now.

     Before I check the bookmarks I want to say that I started reading The Black Arrow while reading more of Black Elk Speaks at the same time. The Black Arrow is an awesome medieval adventure story and when I started it I said to myself "this story about war and action at least won't have so many parallels with my love life." But very quickly I realized how wrong I was and how much more I would have to discuss, and reveal about the book's "secrets", to really get into the connections. But it is a wonderful, beautiful book. One part that relates to all of this is Justice against evil authorities. The knights have been killing and oppressing the people and the people are finally rising up behind the avenger John Amend-All, among others. It's a fascinating book and of course has a witch reference which really stuck out to me. The main thing besides revenge is about identity but I don't want to give anything away, here, though I hardly feel I can avoid more details next time I write, it is so good, so consider this a spoiler alert for next time. There is a scene where the evil knight's character is being established and he arrests an old man on little or no suspicion, condemns him to die and when the man protests he just says "well, maybe you didn't do it but it might as well have been you and hanging you will still warn others and remind them to fear us"  -something to that effect was his response. It reminded me of cops today. The sad thing is, in Olden Times this was an example of how corrupt the authorities could be, making you sympathize with the rebels whole-heartedly. But in modern times our cops act the same way but "the nation" largely forgives them or considers that they can do no wrong, puts them above the law and won't even consider scrutiny of them, always blaming the victim. This becomes ho our hole culture runs. It gives me wild ideas for sci-fi stories but it is no way to actually live. maybe if I write those stories I can steer us away from these paths by way of warning.

     Of course Black elk Speaks is amazing and mystical, too. I just finished the Great Vision Chapter so I have a lot o go. But one thing I want to mention is the symbolism of arrows and the way some spirits travel like arrows, and also the revenge of these spirits on the tyrannical blue spirit, reminding me both of the Black Arrows of Justice in that old book and the boys in blue of modern times. The arrows are instruments of revenge, killing the guilty and bearing messages - their names or other words  - to scare the remaining targets. And the Black Arrow is the symbol of the revolutionaries. In Black Elk speaks black is the color of the est, of changing storms and winds.

       I do this little recap because I am afraid I got lost in exploring connections and tangents and missed emphasizing some of these points, earlier. The main point is this theme that the only true Authority is kindness, taking care of people, and positivity, hope, and building trust between people is the goal to achieving this. Discussion and people speaking up is the secret to everyone really realizing the problem. And maybe e need a new Superman character to do this, too, to fight evil at the level of Art, to steer the culture a new way.

       When I turn to my first bookmark in "Wildfell Hall" I can't remember why I left it thee. she is describing the first time Hargrave really pitches woo at he and how she anted to get rid of him. Maybe at the time, being romantic, I questioned how she could be so had-set against him. Now I know she just didn't like him at all. Sometimes you ant that to be a mask because they really do, but when it's true, it's true. Maybe it was something about him approaching her within the enclosure of the garden wall. Well, I will try the other one then go to sleep and hopefully some mystical dreams.

       The last bookmark is on a page here, without spoiling too much, I would say the phrase I wanted to noted as "be more likely to appreciate her worth and make her truly happy." I think this is the secret to so much, to why we need love and why we so often feel the world is lacking love o full of heartlessness. It is actually full of heartbreak, a well as love, of all kinds. Within everyone's sadness, or meanness, or insecurity, is a feeling that.we are not valued or have no value. It's sadly ionic because of course we are beyond all value, we are gloriously worthy of the universe, of Love. But we live in a world obsessed with assigning meager values, even to people, and putting us behind walls or in baskets. We are ready to break free of this whole world just as Gaga broke through the Perfect Illusion. I'm glad, hope, it was perfect and fun while it lasted but I am even happier it is now time to move forward even more together and more truly than ever before and to come together in new and fantastically imaginative ways.

       Oh, the last thing I anted to mention was that there as a commercial for the new season of American Horror Story and they used Perfect Illusion for the music for it. It makes me hopeful that Gaga will star in it again but it also reminded me of a hope I had from last year that she would appear in Scream Queens, too, since the producer is the same, I believe. I suppose that is part of why she got the video premiere on the season premiere, tonight, but I hope it also betokens more collaboration. I'm ashamed I still have not seen Gaga in "Hotel" and I really want to but first am not really into non-funny horror and second had an issue, kind of like Dan and Blair from Gossip Girl, and my plans to see it fell though. I just need to get over all my silly barriers and get with it already, though. I forgot to mention that it was fun the theme in Scream Queens new season with a  "wolf-girl" character and the Jacob from twilight as a doctor whose skin is so cold you suspect he's switched teams and could be a vampire, this time around. It reminds me to finish "Made Me A Monster", my best Gaga-tribute song, for Foxzen's second album, since it uses classic horror movie monster imagery.

   I know my best calling, to personal love and to Love in the World, Justice - "love expressed publicly" as Dr. Cornell West says -  is Art. Not this "sitting back doing nothing" kind of "courageous" blogging, but actual writing of focused books on magic and of inspired, channeled fairy tales, when I get into it. Writing these songs has really helped me rediscover the magic in myself. I hope that as Gaga finds more real love we will all benefit from it in her art, as well, and I can't deny it is a lovely, hopeful dream of mine that my art and hers will actually bring us together one day. But first I have to get past all this "nothing" and do it! Thanks for your patience and support, I love you! Oh, and I know i often end this these ways and if I do write stories between them maybe I don't mention it - I don't mean to diminish this form, I love it, but i do prefer when i am feeling in the Story world, I just know when there seems to be a lot to "deal with" then this is the best way to work through that. when I do it, just the writing does make me want to be in the fairy-tale or story-mode writing way, which just is magically superior, but I don't meant to be putting this down all the time just because I see the fairyland on the horizon, this is good, too, and fun. And it will be better when I get back to more closely focusing on Gaga, too - maybe I've been holding back because she was in a relationship, maybe it is just my same old excuse all over again, holding back because I want to resolve and improve my relationship, first, when really it is all an interconnected process and we improve best by growing in many directions at once and finding ways to thrive in new directions. I wish for true loves for Stefani and all of us, bringing us all more closely and fabulously together. If I can be grateful to illusions and fear, however perfect o terrible, it is for showing us here e truly need to go when we inevitably see though them. But mostly I am grateful to all of us, reaching out to each other to come together despite all the barriers and division placed in our way. Thanks again!

       I wrote this starting early yesterday morning, about 4 AM, September 20th and finished it last night.As I was at the end of it my friend told me he saw some news that the Chinese space station had lost control and was crashing to Earth by next year. I don't know hat to make of this but wanted to mention it. Then this morning I had a dream that I was on a double-decker or larger sized bus, the beginning of an amusement park ride. We were all in chairs with wheels on them, on tracks, in rows. We slid back or forwards along the tracks then moved up to the higher row. Both sides of the bus had the same arrangement. The idea seemsd to be that at the top of the four rows, from the highest one, the bus would pull up to a track like a rollercoaster and each chair-car would roll onto it from the bus, then the next row would load up to go. I wondered why only one row went at a time, why the bus drove back and forth as much as it did, but decided it was pacing. Now that I think about it the ride kind of reminded me of the single-car rollercoaster Wild Chipmunk at Lakeside Amusement park. We have not been there all year but went to the other amusement park last weekend and a few times this summer, so maybe that influenced the dream, but I often dream of amusement parks and assume they are my more "important" dreams, that there is a message coming through that will get my attention more if it comes in an amusement park dream. Then I took my lover to work and when she got out of the car the music cut off due to the loose wire / fate. I didn't hear the news report at the top of the hour but as I turned back into my driveway it came back on in time for the jazz station to announce the next song, "In Love with Love."