gagablog 59: Blockbuster Goddess

The Goddess of Blockbuster was one of my favorite charasters Gaga portrayed on SNL and I forgot to write about it in my last edition, but that's okay because it deserves it's own edition - though it was a short segment, it was an amazing image with powerful meaning. I apologize for the last edition, I'd been awake for 32 hours when I wrote it, having worked all night at the orphanage after watching SNL. I couldn't get to sleep without writing about it, but I couldn't write that well when I was so tired. To sum it up, every performance or story has characters we relate to, usually the main character, and when Gaga is the character, there is something special going on, connecting us to her and each other in a special way because of her special connection with divinity. This whole gagablog is about the divinity of Gaga, but it comes across in infinite ways. It's the same divinity in all of us, but Gaga is what she does with it, an example like other divine figures that we can follow to become the best of ourselves. There were two audiences to SNL, represented by cheap and passionate applause, and Gaga brought both of them together in relation to her. Too many people don't get Gaga, think she is "just weird" or something and want to look down on her. One layer of the SNL performance was for them, living out their fantasies that she is fake or will be forgotten, in order to validate the way these people misunderstand, and to make fun of herself using it to endear herself to them. To the other audience, monsters, she is already very dear and precious, she is perfect and we love everything she does, usually. To both these audiences she is saying "I'm just like you" in a lot of ways in the SNL skits, and in the Blockbuster one she is validating a monster "fantasy" instead, that she is a goddess, albeit in a cheesy (Blockbuster), funny way so as to not upset too many people too much. Well, a Goddess is "just like you", too, but that is "the secret." There are so many ways to consider the divinity of Gaga - it is the same as in everyone else that is revealed in billions of ways, but there is something about Gaga. For me, she is the Goddess, the most of the best imaginable, and I base my theology and philosophy and art on her and am happy and always improving, with increasing confidence in my most ideal visions for the future. For other monsters, she might "just" be A goddess, of art or love - to me, those are just the heart of reality, making her supreme deity. Even if monsters have other gods or goddesses and don't think of Gaga as special divinity herself, I think most agree she is divinely inspired and she says so herself, that her lyrics come to her like divine inspiration. She is, by this consideration, a goddess by being one who speaks the words of divinity, to and through whom the divine is especially revealed. ("You're new looks ethereal" she sings as I type this.) And most people, non-monsters, might not think Gaga is a goddess at all - especially if they don't think of themselves as the least bit divine, or if they have conservative views that makes the divine some sor of fascist dictator -she's not THAT type of goddess, if anyone really is, so it's not strange that it's hard for them to relate. So much of what I focused on in the last edition was Gaga appealing to the audience, connecting to us, so we can realize we are all one, she is us, we are her and each other, etc. And we are all divine, but that's one part we forget and don't talk about. Gaga, of course, lives up to it, more and more because that's how it goes. The Blockbuster Goddess role makes fun of this idea but also reveals some things about the whole Goddess Gaga idea that make it easy to explore. In the skit, the Blockbuster crew is leaving after the last store closes, and they are wandering purposeless in life until they are invited to a secret festival. Blockbuster employees are dancing like around a bonfire, then they pass into the inner sanctum, a bedouin, gypsy stle tent, with Gaga, Goddess of Blockbuster inside. She has discs and Blockbuster paraphenelia in her hair - I was a little overwhelmed, rapturous, so it was hard for me to look past her beautiful face - but you could tell she was made up with Blockbstery iconography, and MY impression, of course, was that she was supposed to be a Goddess - did anybody else see it that way? I just thought that was intended to be obvious, that was the whole reason for the setup. Then she starts making out with the guys, which is also kind of just what I expect Gaga heaven, or hopefully meeting Gaga in this life, to be like. Then she turns into Adelle and they are all on the street corner and "it was all a dream" then someone comes by and tells them they can work at Best Buy and they go do that. There are three really awesome things about this skit - the way the whole fantasy festival scene, setting up that Gaga is the Blockbuster Goddess, is modeled on like a Grateful Dead show / gypsy atmosphere, the way she makes out with them, and the "all a dream" part. First, the Grateful Dead. I'm not quite too young to be a deadhead, my college roomate and best friend Joe is my age and was on tour with them for years in the 80's and 90's so I could have gone but I really was not aware they were playing. I liked their music that I had heard on some albums and radio and the Touch of Grey video on MTV, but they were effectively "underground" despite how huge they were and I just missed out. I finally went to a show with Joe but only to the lot and I decided not to try to get in free and I regret it but I saw many shows by the band without Jerry and listen to live recordings a lot. Joe once worked at Blockbuster as a kid, so by way of disclaimer I want to say I'm glad they are finally gone because they seemed like a bad corporation - he said they owned the company that did hair follicle drug tests and required emplyees to get one, and pay for it, I think, 500 bucks, and it tested for LSD so they tried to descriminate based on that, or just make a bunch of money. Joe made me more familiar with the Grateful Dead, the live music, and the lifestyle of the deadheads and I was impressed. It was and is a subculture with better values than mainstream America, more focus on ecology and having fun and community over amassing wealth, and is generally more pacifist and feminist. And there is an aconomy of goods, food, shirts, art, glass, tapes, drugs, really all sorts of things being traded and sold. The touring lifestyle supported a whole community that has a higher proportion of artists and free-thinking people, making it a very vibrant community. The drug scene had brighter and darker spots, since hard dugs were available, but the Dead basically had the best LSD for decades and were part of supplying it around the country - in Georgia growing up we only ever got really good doses after the Dead had come through the area, and people would brag about the acid if it came from the Grateful Dead family. But that was the case from the beginning, as one of their first soundmen who worked with them for years was also the most famous inventor and producer of LSD in history. The reason I bring it up is because the atmosphere at the Blockbuster Fantasy party was so much like a dead show, but also because the Grateful Dead set a standard for musical and spiritual community that has not been matched in all of modern history, that I can think of. But Gaga has achieved something that is similar to it, because the family of little monsters are also artistic and support each other. Some monsters go to multiple shows, but there is not a touring lifestyle that I am aware of, but in place of that, for the modern era, there is social media and the fact that little monsters are all over the world in every country and we are connecting more and more with each other. While making connections with fellow deadheads gave people places to stay around the country, little monsters are kind and hospitable to each other across nations and oceans and I suspect as the community grows it will really become like the same thing ona worldwide scale. In the meantime, the internet connects us and many monsters share arts and fashions with each other, but it is not really about making money or trading things as much as about shared experience - and the deadheads wee never as much about making miney as making to the next show and having a good time, and most importantly taping nd trading and sharing the music, which became the foundation for internet file-sharing and all that did for the music industry and culture. I think of Gaga as the Goddess of the littler monster scene and think this skit was a way of showing her in this role: Past the party, backstage, to meet Gaga is to love her and possibly kiss her - it's all too heavenly. But it also reminds me of the Grateful Dead, and Gaga's new song "Gypsy" seems to be about that kind of wandering character or lifestyle, and I see these traditions growing together as Gaga's little monsters become the first real modern equivalent of the deadhead family. There are other bands with successfull communities, don't get me wrong, that is one of the things that makes a good band is a supportive and loving community. But if you don't know about the Grateful Dead look into them more and you will see how it is a whole bigger level, and nothing has really matched it or compared, but the little monsters will in the future. All sorts of other bands have promoted community as much as they can, and so many have their own "-heads" after the deadheads term, but the Grateful Dead really created a whole subculture. This is one way I think it is really easy to see Gaga as a Goddess. I saw a documentary called "End of the Road", I think, about the last year of Grateful Dead tour, and there was a guy being interviewed leaning on the back of a car. He said he really loved the band, and looked like your "average" deadhead, but said he was not one of those crazy fans who thinks Jerry is god or anything. As he said that, someone else walked by and asked, in passing, rhetorically in disbelief, "you don't think Jerry is god, man?" and the interview guy responded, to the camera, "well, yeah, I mean, in he sense that a god is a creator and Jerry created all of this, yeah, he's a god." It seemed like he shifted from a mentality that, for the outside world, if it's not okay to think of Jerry as a god, he wants to let them know he's with them. But when the other head goes by and puts forth the idea that it is normal to think Jerry is a god, that it would be odd to not think he was a god, the guy agrees. In a certain context, yes, he's a god. When you consider how this works, everyone is a goddess and god once you get to certain contexts, and we can make the most of that by supporting each other and believing in ourselves to bring it out. Gaga is more easily seen as a goddess in more contexts because of what she has done, but with all her great art and accomplishments, her greatest work is bringing out the divinity in innumerable people. Jerry created the Grateful Dead, along with the support of his bandmates and audience - he certainly did not think of himself as superior - and there was so much more divity at work in the creations of all the deadheads - Jerry did not create their art, they did, or art did through them - but Jerry made it possible. Gaga is the same way, for us. And I know I seem "too old" to be a little monster but I've always been young-at-heart and I will be a little monster for life just as most of you will, and maybe we will all live forever. Gaga made the her concerts havens for monsters but also online the community is always growing and supportive: I've never been to a concert and only met one little monster in person but feel connected to some of them and supported by them and have been able to support and encourage them when they needed it. We might all be artists at heart if we had never discovered Gaga, and we might have become real artists, but when the greatest challenge to living an artistic lifestyle is support then having that support is crucial. In an interview Jerry said that they first moved to Haight-Ashbury to make a community where peoplecould come and live and do what they wanted to do and feel supported - if they wanted to be artists they could. They wanted to do this because they felt the need for it, in the mid 60's, and we still need it now. Gaga supports us as artists in the ost important way, with inspiration. Her music is like a key unlocking paintings to be painted, songs and poems and plays and books to be written, dances to be danced and choreographed, cakes to be baked, etc. She supports us emotioanlly with words of wisdom and encouragement in interviews, at concerts, and online. And the whole community of monsters supports her, and she supports us, and we support each other. This mostly happens in pictures and words we share with each other, an some people sell art or get exposure for it through the community, and I suspect as all of that grows, with the addition of littlemonsters.com, the Artpop app, the Born this Way Foundation and all the collective and individual efforts of monsters, it will all develop into a thriving global culture. I have talked for years with a girl named Jessica who seemed, like me, obsessed with getting Gaga to hear versions of her songs and dedicated to Gaga in all aspects of her life. She was trying and trying so many different good things, and giving such good support and encouragemnt to other monsters, and I would encourage her that her dreams would come true. She even met Gaga on numerous occasions since she lives in NYC and would try hard to meet her. But her greatest pride, I think, so far is that she an some friends made Radio Artpop and Gaga lsitened to it and tweeted abut it and mentioned it in an interview. This is how our support for each other is reciprocated and increased and while Gaga madeit all possible in the first plae, in a way, it is up to us to make it happen and when that connects to Gaga again she can make it connect to the rest of the world. Thw second thing that was so important to me about the Blockbuster Goddess skit was that she made out with them. This represents what we are most missing from our theology and ideas of divinity - the feminine and the sexual. Too many of us believe in a god that condones war but not sex and this is just unnatural and crazy. I don't want to talk too much about how wonderfully Gaga represents sexuality because I'll get overexcited and should probably take that energy to another form than writing or write some Gaga erotica. I misheard my best friend Calvin say something the otehr day and thought he said that religious ideas could make you forget whatever you were just thinking and I thought that made sense but asked what would supercede religious thought. I guess lots of things can interrupt your line of thinking but my first intuition to answer my own question is that thinking religious thoughts might be replaced with sexual thoughts. It reminds me how stange it is that these can be such seperate categories, how much our idea of "religion" is devoid of sex. There are sex cults to counteract this, in a way, but the whole society is out of balance because of the disconnect between sex and religion. Even the fundamentalist christians are trying to get ahead of the curve as we come out of these dark ages of sexual repression, though, with evangelists reccommending ways to have better sex - of certain kinds only, of course - in order to connect the tradition to sexuality. But more traditions have grown in scope and popularity because they include the feminine and - gasp - even the sexual. But repression runs deep. The modern wiccan religion as well as a lot of other pagan beliefs get a lot of interest because people want spirituality that includes sexuality, and a variety of it, and they don't find that in mainstream religion. The sad thing is even witches and pagans get repressed. This stuff really took off in the sixties amidst all sorts of exploration of sexuality, psychadelics, art and music and sex rituals were popular in this era of the "birth of modern witchcraft". As the decades passed, the social taboo against sexuality seems to have crept in more and more, so that many modern witches expect to do symbolic rites instead of sexual rites in general - actual sexual rituals are generally more for special occasions. We just have such strong taboos around sexuality and we will be much better off whn we can overcome them - they are artifically placed upon us to make us aggressive and accept or participate in wars. This is why Gaga in real life kissing her little monsters is so amazing, or the Blockbuster Goddess making out with the minions. The main problem with our conception of divinity is lack of sex, and it's no wonder that is reflected in our society as one of our main problems, I think Dr. Oz called it sex-starvation and said it is one of the three things we are most starved for, along with sleep and soemthing, water or good food I bet. The god that many people believe in hasn't gotten laid in, well, forever or millinia, so you can see why he would be cranky. It's not real excuse but it is up to us to either hook him up or connect with higher, more sexual goddesses. Gaga represents the return of the feminine idea of deity, for the west, in a very real and imaginary sense, fulfilling and challenging us to live up to our greatest desires and sexiest dreams. Then it all goes away and she turns into a "regular" lady on a doorstep, just dirty street corner not some wild forest party with lavish tent and a goddess. This is the thing: it's funny, and nice for people who believe in the "real world" that they go and get the same kind of job at Best Buy, but I really wish they could have stayed with Gaga forever. Maybe this is mystical reality- yes, you can go to paradise if you believe, but you WILL have to go back to the real world and show others the way and try again. In this way it is good, like the buddhist axiom "before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water" - meaning yes you get enlightened but it doesn't mean you don't still have chores to do, daily life. ANd these guys went back to daily life, with jobs, and were happy. But still, I wish they did not have to. And I guess this is the nature of a drwam, of fantasy, of ecstasy - it feels eternal then you come back. This is probably also the afterlife experience so no worries - like Gaga says in "Venus" "when you touch me I die just a little inside I wonder if this could be love" - love, death, psychadelics, sex, art- these all connet us with the divine, the infinite, in different ways, from different sides. I don't know if Gaga actually wrote these skits, contributed to them (I feel certain of at least that), or was just the inspiration for them. I'm sure she could have had the idea that the paradise would disappear and turn back to "reality" and the guys would get jobs again, that could have been Gaga's idea, but I kind of want to say that was the "movieversion." Ok, I really will stop these blogs and put it all in my "Oz magic" book, but here is another preview: One of the main differences between the movie version of "Wizard of Oz" and the real one, the books, is thst in the end, in the movie, DOrothy concludes it was "all a dream" and in the book she alsways knows it was real and never forgets - she goes back in fact and...well, read them. The movie is great - itmight not be the origin of the "it's all a dream" theme, but it is a major milestone in the development of that theme, the reason why half the time you hear those words the next ones you hear are "and you were there, and you...". I heard it just yesterday on a Disney kid's sitcom. But the original story does not end like this, with a return to real life. Dorothy actually always believes in Oz and lives there more and more, becomes a special part of Oz. I think this is the real way it happens when you believe in Gaga, it's just more and more encouraging and when you finally meet her it can sustain you for the rest of your life. You can hear how she inspires people in the wonderful music on her albums from the artists who perform with her or produce the songs, and see it in the art of the people who work on the fashions and sets. You can see it in all the art and hear it in the music of her fans - it all just keeps getting better. Maybe you do have to go back to work, maybe there is just a lesson in that, but I really think it is all about creating that world, Oz, where the Goddess is real and open to all, and everyone is good enough to honor her. In one sense it just takes someone saying these things to get the idea out there and it eventually happens, the blossoming principle of magic. That's why I write this blog. But we do have to go back and forth between the fantasy, paradise world and the "real" world, but the purpose is to take that inspiration back in order to make the real world more like it should be, ideal and fantastic. This works for us as ndividuals, too. The message is you are good enough, yuo are valuable, don't let the swine mentality tell you differently, don't believe the negative messages, the close-downs - the setbacks will lead you to something secret and special, the sustaining love within everything. There was a preacher from the Phillipines on the radio and they asked him in the typhoon shook his faith and he said it made it stronger, that faith is what the people had left and it sustained them, and the older generation likened it to oing through World War two and how those tragedies increased their faith. He also mentioned many people did not have much to lose, that made it easier, but it is awful to lose loved ones. The goddess has been with us forever but if much of our societies have denied and repressed her, that is a tragedy but when it results in increasing our faith in her, ulimately, it will result in a beautiful flowering of civilization after a long age of desolation. Gaga is the representative of this, the symbol of it, which is why she is so significant. She is the leader of it, in a way, and in a way she is following something that has always been going on, but is really taking over now, so she is the first one making it so obvious. The song Venus has her singing to the Goddess of Love - as if that is not her, but someone else. And she is asking to be taken to her leader, another being, not her. In a way this implies Gaga is not the goddess but seeking the goddess. In another way, like "my religion is you", these are words that Gaga is singing to "us" that we are also simultaneously singing to "her" - it's a mystical message to the buddha, the Gaga, within all of us. Gaga is Dorothy, and we are all Dorothy, on a journey of discovery of ourselves and this magical world. Her songs, her art, show us a way of transformation, and empower us to transform ourselves to become our best selves. But it starts with basic validation that we are all good enough, as we are, and good enough to start to become our true fantastic selves. That is the message of most of the SNL skits, basically - she is just like us, we are all like this, ridiculous and silly and beautiful and semi-victims of our own sterotypes about ourselves until we own them with humor and transcend. The message of the Blockbuster skit is that she is a Goddess, and an accessible goddess at the center of a divine world and you can kiss her. And even though it goes the "all a dream" route, if you knowthe secret of Oz you know that it just becomes more and more real the more you believe in it and the more actions you take and love and art you make out of that belief. I know I have been so greatlyinspired by Gaga and others who she creates with and who have been inspired by her. I feel like I get to connect to and create with that same divine, beautiful magic by loving her and her art like I do and going with the inspiration. I know how it can be because I have been holding myself back from my full creative potential, but I also feel like I am coming out of my shell and finally living up to my dreams, and I owe it all to the love and support I get from my lover, because like Gaga says I'm at "my best when I'm in love with you", but I owe the real calling to go for it all to Gaga, for setting that example and leaving a trail of sparkle on the Yellow Brick Road and making it the Glitter Way. Thanks, Gaga, for all the inspiration you and your art gives me, and for all you do for everyone and how great it makes the art and how wonderful it is making the world. I love you, and love your acting, I hope to see more of you soon!

gagablog 58: Who is Gaga? A SNLapshot

Yes, I finally listened to all of "Artpop" but I have so much to say about it I will have to put it mostly in a book- it is the "audio bible" that little monsters are calling it on the internet, it is to us anyway. So I could talk about it forever and will, plenty of time for that. Last night Gaga was the musical guest and host of SNL, for the first time. She had some fantastic performances on that show before but this was a special snapshot of Gaga, mostly because in addition to amazing performances she did all sorts of characters which were various "spoofs" on Gaga herself, or the Gaga "character". Gaga has said before that she is just really her, not turning a character on an off for the cameras, and she is very creative and complex and connects with every kind of style. Monsters believe and understand how this is really her, because we are creative and complex as well and relate to her, but other people have many sterotypes about Gaga, including that it is "all an act." Gaga did something genius, mystical, on this episode of SNL, and played up a series of the stereotypes in the skits she performed in such a way that it makes us realize some really deep things, about her, about ourselves, and about the society that perpetuates and fluxuates via sterotypes in the first place. Altogether Gaga's SNL performance can show us things about identity and consciousness itself. Here's how: Gaga says "my reigion is you" and this is the "secret" core of all religions, and how Gaga brings them all together into their final, complete version. Who is Gaga, and who is "you"? This identity question comes up in different ways in much of Gaga's art and it is answered by a transcendence of personal identity. Gaga has said that we should transform, or be reborn, every day - I forget which term she used. It reminds me of the Jesus idea of being reborn in Christ and becoming a new, free person because of it, living in the image of the divine instead of "mere man." It reminds me of the buddhist idea of interconnectedness, of no separate existance. My lover once asked the buddhist master, Claude Ansin Thomas, who visited my religion class "is identity just an illusion?" to which he replied "yes but it is a very persistent one." As I mentioned in my last edition, when Gaga said at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards that her greatest talent is knowing what people really need, she was describing a key development in the enlightenment of Buddha, that once he remembered his past lives he knew what everyone needed most from then on - not just the teaching that was medicine for all humanity, but in each circumstance with people he met. Gaga was describing this in herself, probably without realizing the connection to the buddha. She has referred to herself as Dorothy and on the Yellow Brick Road in various ways and might not know the full importance of Oz, but in both cases she is mystically connected to the ultimate truth and is showing us the way. The question that comes up in so much of Gaga's art I will have to explore it all in a book is basically "who are we?". Like the greatest love songs, this question serves to bring us into the universal identity - we identify with the one who is singing the song or we identify with the person the singer is serenading, or switch back and forth. It's one of the qualities of great art that it brings you in and makes you experience what is being represented, art is brought to life when "we", the audience, connect to the artist through it - or when we the artists connect to the audience through it. Art is alive when it connects us is the simple way to say it, or flipping that around, we are only really alive when we are connecting through art. This is why love is such a powerful subject for art, especially music, and why art is magical, because even if it is not a love song or love painting, it is "love" for bringing things togetherm the elements of the art, in a way that brings us together, the consciousness that experiences it. Seen this way it becomes very literal that Gaga lives for the Applause - that is how she lives, it is her most alive to create art and share it with us, but this is true for all of us - art, love, magic - these are our highest awarenesses and what we should always strive toward. We should always seek to refashion ourselves in a more divine light and the secret to this, to all religions, is "my religion is you." The basic problem with humanity is self-centerdness, ego, the religion of "me." All religions can have perverted devolutions that gravitate around "the religion of me" - it is just a very fundamental human tendency to focus first on oneself. Or at least we learn it really well in the current society. All religions are different approaches to counteracting this tendency, and "my religion is you" is the ultimate expression of this cure for what has been plaguing us, an antidote that solves our problem. "My religion is you" implies love - the first person you can imagine saying this to is a lover. But beyond eros, love applies to all people - everyone is a "you", whoever you can come in contact with or be aware of. When I hear Gaga say "my religion is you", of course I like to think she means me - that I could be her lover, or that I am someone, anyone, for whome she cares deeply, even if that is just ecause she cares for all people deeply. To be considered by her, to be the "you" she mentions, seems a royal honor. And yet this is not the way I hear that lyric, when I hear her say that I hear myself saying it to her - "Gaga, my religion is you." And I don't mean she is the only "you" I feel love for but for me she is the perfect example of Art and Love - the Goddess - to me. I had long anticipated this Goddess fully revealing herself in human form and feel so assured in everything Gaga has ever done that I know of (my fur questions aside) that I just believe more and more, which leads me to believing in more and more fantastic things for the whole world and also about myself. When I tink about how good Gaga has been to me through her art, I feel a duty to make my own art, but also to treat people as kindly as I can and try to help with what they really need. This is the basis of "my religion is you" - it's all about love but in addition to love for your lover, or Gaga, or her love for you, it is all about love for everyone. Gaga's message to everyone is to follow their dreams and believe in their best visions of themselves. She directs this message at kids often because they are the ones who are at risk of being taught otherwise by "real life", but really we can all live up to this at any age. Gaga's audience, first and foremost, the little monsters, are the artists and weirdos of the world and we are often outcasts. In this way Gaga is like the kingdom of Heaven that Jesus described, the good sheperd who goes after the lost sheep, leaving the herd to get every last one: it is following the Holy Spirit, the goodness in all of us that seeks goodness in every other one, with no one left out. Gaga's art reaches out first to the outsiders, those of us currently left out - and in many ways proudly so, left out of bigoted and petty society - and invites us into paradise where we can really be ourselves. ANd everyone is invited, it is not just a freakfest, but we understand it first and seek it out as soon as we can, while the rest of the world hears Gaga's message more gradually. And maybe it only effects many people subconsciously, but thinking about it can really reveal some incredible things about identity. I have so much to say about it relating to her music and interviews and other ways she makes statements, but looking at the SNL performance with the question of identity in mind really reveals a lot about us. Gaga introduced the show looking really hot in a golden, frilly dress. She heightened our awareness from the first lines she spoke, instantly shaking our sense of identity and putting us into a psychadelic, mystical state. Most every time she did this it was hilarious, and most people might just say it is "humor" and I'm not trying to spoil the funniness of it by explaining it, but rather to show how these humorous moments are so powerful and connecting to us, such fantastic art, because they bring us beyond the limits of identity until we are united - with Gaga, with each other, with ourselves, with us. IN the simplest tems, Gaga is "making fun of herself", and since the "mainstream" society feels a little threatened and wary of Gaga, and many make fun of her because of this, she is connecting with all of the audience in that basic way then in deeper and deeper ones, depending on how you look. Because she is making fun of everything, not in a bad way but making everything fun, making fun of us. From the very beginning she starts by saying she is from NYC and that is why this means so much - I'm sure we, the monsters anyway and much of America, were expecting that opener. But then when she got applause for mentioning NY, then called attention to two types of applause, applause for art and applause for pandering, well, that's when the trip really began. As an artist, I heard Gaga making fun of people who blindly clap for pandering instead of responding to substance. On the one hand, had she taken this artistic high road, art-snobbery, it would have offended many in the audience, like saying "ya'll clapped because you are nervous, not because I did anything great - you have no taste." It would have been like a big joke on the non-artists. But she didn't say that, she said that she likes both kinds. This did two magical things - to people like me, artsy snobs, I was surprised and pleased, but taught a lesson by Gaga that it's more than I expect out of my "pay attention to me, an unrealized artist" mentality. I, well rather, my ego, wanted her to say applause for art was better than applause for pandering because that contained the idea that we artists, and those who love and relate to art, are better than the people who "don't get it." The studio audience did not seem to be full of little monsters or it would have sounded crazier, I think it was more of a slice of the general population. But Gaga did something magical to them, too - by setting up the idea that there are two kinds of applause, and most of the audience is "guilty" of the petty one, she could be casting judgement on them as an artist and I'm sure the audience felt that way, just slightly, in the moment before she said she liked both kinds. But that is where the magic happens: It heightens your awareness to feel embarassed, especially to feel like this hot, superstar celerity girl, to whom you are in close physical proximity and therefore the envy of millions, might be laughing at you as a yokel. That makes you stand up in your body a little bit, more alert. And the mind says "this artsy girl thinks she is so artsy and can look down on me, I look down on her for that." But then she twists it all around, because I think anyone would expect her to imply that the "lesser" applause was, well, less. But when she says she likes them both, it makes us monsters who wanted her to be special to us, one of us, secret artists club, realize that we should all be thinking about being one of everybody. And for non-monsters, who might have woken up a little in feeling judged, then to feel accepted - well, first that relieves any embarassment for having been called out for clapping at the mention of NYC and secondly it takes away the desire to judge her back, in revenge for the judgement they thought they felt, and after calling up the more judgemental nature Gaga diffuses it by being "forgiving" and the audience forgive her. While a moment before they might have said "I don't need her approval, she's a weirdo!" they would now be saying "I have her approval, and I like it!" - maybe not as excited as that, but I do believe that on some deep level, no matter how opposed to Gaga, or their idea of Gaga, someone is, to experience her and connect with her, to get beyond stereotype, expectation, and judgement, you can't help but be impressed, feel good about it, to feel the love. It was so funny how Gaga kept calling out different classic things to get applause, and how she changed the lyrics so this version was "your cheap applause." But of course the best thing she did was the funniest, when she had the Pervert stand up. I think she said he should be ashamed, but when he turned it around and said what made it art for her to do it on stage and perversion for himi to do it on a bus and she apologized, that did a number of things: it called in double-standards about what we call art and life, about men and women, about sexuality and nudity and privacy and performance. It had a similar quality of laughing at the audience for their cheap applause then forgiving them, except that most people felt fine being cheap applausers and still felt fine judging the Pervert. But when Gaga no longer judged the pervert, and on the grounds that they were kind of the same, it did something magical - not because it really is the same, I think most people agree that nudity on stage is better than the bus because there is more agreement between the audience that they want to see it, going to a stage, then just having to be on a bus. But when our whole country just had a fit over Miley twerking, I think it proves some important points: if we say it is okay, acceptable, for Gaga to be exposed on stage because she has a fucking incredible body, but not okay for an ugly dude on a Subway - if we can all agree, or most of us, that those are different and Gaga is more okay, then doesn't that mean we are weird for judging Miley? She was on stage, right? Doesn't that make it okay, by normal social standards? So why wasn't it, why does the hypocricy creep in? I won't refer back to Miley any more, though I did notice some twerking refrences. So we applaud the first responders, etc, because we respect them, then we relate to Gaga judging the pervert - that's gross, we all agree. But when Gaga comes to see his point and spologize to him, we relate to the new, more accepting Gaga, and become more accepting ourselves in the process. It is not like Gaga has taken us down the road to pants-dropping ont he subway, but she connected with us by judging him, then improved herself by seeing him as a person who still deserves respect even if he is a pervert, and in this way she improves us, too. Someone might view Gaga as vulgar for being so sexy, and they surely would think the flasher was vulgar - but in doing so, they at first are agreeing with Gaga that the flasher is vulgar, or if they want to say it is the same thing, on stage or on a bus, then they are agreeing with the pervert who makes that point. By communicating and learning from each other, and reconciling, Gaga makes a show of how to get beyond conflict of different opinions. She has already got the crowd clapping and cheering along when she makes those moments, and it is a really good joke because it is not really "on" them, nor are they really "in on it" because it is like they can't help but respond to the cues with cheap audience applause. But it works perfectly, and they cheer for reconciliation, or the way two sides can come together. It's a basic form of love to try and see past differences and find common ground. In this case, it is just returning to respecting someone at a basic level regardless of what you find objectionable - not letting an objection you have to someone allow you to demonize him. The Cheap Applause song was a masterful way of bringing the audience over to Gaga's side but also of reminding all of us not to judge each other. Yes, mainstream society might see Gaga as a pervert herself, and seek to judge her to differentite from her. But we monsters see the mentality that wants to put Gaga down as perverted. The point is, even if we are right and they are wrong, either way we can't let our perspective be an excuse to demonize the "other" - especially when the big truth is there is no "other" we are all coming together. Gaga showed her ass on the way off stage and it was scrumdiddlyumptious. Gaga's first "non-Gaga" (ha ha, is there such a thing?) character was the nerd from the Apple genius bar, appearing as a guest on Waking Up with Kimye. Some monsters I'm connected to on facebook are already using her picture for their profile picture, as soon as it aired apparently. These people relate to this nerd image of Gaga, as nerds themselves possibly. I imagine people who are less familiar with Gaga saw this outfit and thought it was supposed to be ironic or possibly anti-Gaga, ie "normal", but this is just another look for Gaga. She says in "Bad Kids" "I'm a nerd" and I have the feeling there are many other nerd little monsters like myself who relate to that. Seeing Gaga as a nerd, it made me think she might have been or felt somewhat like that in school, or that she really relates to people who feel that way and empowers them by being like them in the skit. I think she was a strong character even with a meekish style but the real joke wasn't just the irony of Gaga in a geek work uniform or preference for jellies. There was the whole theme about being called a genius an what makes someone a genius. Gaga has been called a genius by many but some disagree like there can be some global warming style debeate if they spew enough bs to the contrary. The point is that genius is revealed in what someone does, and there are 4 examples of genius in the skit: Kanye degrades the Apple genius bar as fake, only called genius for advertising. He praises Kim as real genius though we all "agree" that she is not and they have examples. But she is really hot, I have always thought that girl was the hottest ever on SNL and makes me wonder, with Gaga on set - "Ooooooooo-weee, What's up with that? What's up wih that?". One kind of fake genius is advertising and the other is to make the person feel good. When we think of criticism of Gaga, the idea that she is not a genius probably appeals to people who think she is just a product of the music industry and can't believe she is the artist behind the songs, etc. - the idea that saying she is genius is just advertising. In her own worst doubts, or to some people who just love her and use the word, she might think people say she is a genius because they want to make her feel good, but don't really mean it, like Kanye. In the skit,Kanye is presented as the authentic genius, he mentions his awards, but sharing them with Kim, supposedly to contrast his more deerved fame and genius title to her "less-deserved", according to social opinions. The irony, the humor, is in the real, "secret" fame. This sets up a theme that is echoed at the end of the episode: "He doesn't know who Lady Gaga is?" Kanye is the actual genius in the room and Gaga is playing a charater - and doing a great job acting as always. But as real as she makes the character, we still know in our heads that it is Gaga and that she has the same or greater status as Kanye. She is the secret genius in the room, and we, the audience, don't relate to Kanye because he is being abrasive, and don't relate to Kim because she is being airheaded and out-of-touch, in addition to various social biases against both of these fine people. So we relate to Gaga, we see the skit through her perspective - and if we know she is secretly the biggest star in the room, in all rooms, in the world, well, that makes us, somehow, secretly or magically, imagine ourselves, after we leave the genius bar, becoming the stars we were meant to be. I suppose this is why I get the impression this is a character from Gaga's past, pre-Gaga. I don't rememer what name she had.... But the whole effect is to make us think, secretly, "he does not know that is Lady Gaga. But I know that is Lady Gaga." This brings us into the story in the traditional way, we relate to a character, but the nature of it being Gaga, and what that means to our thoughts, subconscious, and social imprints, adds a whole new dimension. To see what I mean, imagine the skit without Gaga, with an actual "normal girl" acting the role, and you see how that tension and irony about geniuses disappears. This is why that theme is so important in the skit, because the "normal girl" who might secretly be the greatest superstar is the one we relate to, and it brings us closer to our own hidden superstar to see Gaga and say "that's me in this story." Of course the most magical moment of that skit is the end, when Gaga says she always thought people who wore elaborate outfits had somethng to hide. This is ironic and funny, another criticism about her from people who want to talk bad about her fashion art, but what makes it intense and magical is how she looks at us - looks at the "camera." At first, it looks like one of those rare moments when the actor looks at the camera to make that out-of-character connection with the audience. But those always only last a second. Gaga has that joke effect for the first second, "AM I talking about me?", but the way she holds it out starts to convey a whole different message. It is not accusing but it looks at us, and if we get around to asking ourselves the question, why do we dress the way WE do, to hide something? Or, if we DID dress more flambouyantly, more differently, would that be hiding something or revealing something? Maybe Gaga was holding that look to say: "I've got such a huge secret you can't even fathom it" but as someone who has seen that kind of look on people on LSD I think it is more likely a look of total oppenness and willingness to meet the consciousness of the person she is looking at. This reminds me of something I heard this morning on the "Up!" with Steve on MSNBC. They are talking about JFK and how he was the "television president" and won his debate with Nixon on TV, but not on radio - the same debate that people who heard the radio version thougth Nixon won, everyone who saw the TV version thougth Kennedy won, not because he was hotter. They said it was because he connected to the audience through the camera, that previous statesmen had only looked at the camera but Kennedy looked at the person watching, through the camera. The camera becomes alive, like art, connecting the people on either side. When Gaga made that face she did something unprecedented on TV, making that connection out of will and openness, with no agenda other than to connect as directlyas possible, through the medium of cameras and live TV. All of this results in us feeling connected to Gaga, even that we know her while others don't. But it also makes us wonder what we know, what we can know about her even if she is as open as she can possibly be, and also what we can really know about ourselves, or if we are avoiding each other and ourselves, truly, in order to hide in different uniforms. The only skit in which Gaga appears as "herself" is the cover songs album commercial, and while there are jokes about the other songs I don't remember any of them except one was instrumental and I had the impression the whole thing was to make the joke that Born This Way is Express Yourself. This is just a criticism of Gaga that she embraces with humor and it turned out really funny. It was nice that the salesguy asked if it even was a cover and said it was good, but the whole humor was that it was supposed to be bad. And a cover. Ironic. Gaga's voice is amazing here and in every performance. She is in on the joke that addresses one of the big criticisms of her, and she just overcomes it. The joke is that BTW would be considered a bad song because it is awesome, and that it is called a cover of Madonna. But by taking that criticism on with humor Gaga overcomes it and like other sterotypes against her that she magically dispells, that she is a bad influence or a fake genius, she gives us examples to relate to that reveal her true nature and ours as well. If we take ourselves too seriously, and try to stay who we are in identity that is formed in contrast to others, we are likely to focus on negative things about other people, to differentiate from them. But if we want to feel in common with others, and see differences as obstacles to overcome so we feel unity and acceptance, we look for the good things in each other. Gaga's whole career has been highlighted by controversy, and some who don't appreciate her could conclude she is being shocking just to get attention, but the truth is she brings up issues we need to deal with as a society and individuals. The end result is not to divide people but to help people overcome divisions and repression that have held us back for so long. I don't have as much to say about the acting school and parents at the talent show skits, other than Gaga was great in both roles. I loved the performance of "Do What You Want With My Body" and it made me want to be R. Kelly, though he didn't seem to do her ass justice when he had the chance - no one did! - though at the end they got prety close and it was pretty hot. Mostly it makes me want to make music and make a song with her myself someday... The community board skit had a bunch of freaks and Gaga asked if the couple knew who Marissa Tomei's character from "My Cousin Vinnie" was based on while looking just like her, implying it's her. Then she got mad and said she was asking and I never saw that movie so I don't know what all the implications are - if she is the inspiration for the charatcer then she is as crazy as the rest? I always thought she was hot. I guess my impression wasjust that she could have been "the original", or playing at it, or coincidence, and it is left as a mystery - you decidde. The final skit was Gaga forgotten as an older lady in 2063. They covered the fantasies that haters have about Gaga: that she is a bad influence, fake, a rip-off just a character or just outfits. The other thing haters like to imagine is that she will be forgotten in time, which just won't happen. But Gaga was kind enough to let them have their fantasy and in the same way as the other misconceptions about her, overcome them with humor. Humor is art, it connects us in that special way where we feel at one with the performer, with the audience. Haters might delight in this fantasy, but the theme was hurtful tomonsters, except that the perposterousness of it made it funny - though i can see how this is something Gaga might actually fear in dark moments, and a way to expres that. But the jokes - that classic rock is One Direction and the Smiths are Jaden and Willow - I got excited when he said The Smiths since they are one of my favorite bands, but the implication is that great music will be forgotten in favor of worse, and that puts Gaga in the category of great music, in this fantasy world. But this is something we all experience as we grow older, young people now knowing old music anymore. Whether we lament the decline in music taste, or specifically reject the idea that Gaga will ever be forgotten, we relate to this skit. We should show our love to the artists of the world. Gaga asked recently why we only usually honor artists after they die, why we can't love them while they live? Gaga is beautiful and realistic as an older woman, between her hobble and her voice and her wig, and it makes us realize we will all hopefully get old some day and we should spend time remembering with the older people in our lives. There are millions of us monsters who dream of spending time with Gaga and many of our dreams come true, but if we are inspired by her to show love for the people we are near then we will learn this lesson, that everyone, not just superstars, wants to be remembered and we should spend time with each other sharing love and friendship. We can use the same lessons we learned about Gaga and apply them to ourselves, just as she was looking at us through the camera as rapturously as we looked back. Are we bad influences, fake, just acting out to get attention, trying to be a live through fashion and images? Or is there something artful, meaningful in it all that will connect us to each other, that will bring us together? Gaga's whole message is that we can bring out the best in ourselves and do the most for each other. We emulate her and it makes us better, more our true selves. We are Gaga, we are all Gaga and we notice it more the more we pay attention to it. And she is all of us - but there really is no separation and we just notice it more the closer we try to be to her, the more we focus on that. It's not trying to be just like her, it is following her example of being true to herself, and the only self we can be true to is our own. But it might as well be our best self, and when we realize that we pass judgement on others to avoid looking at ourselves and transforming, becoming better, then we can back out of that trap and only apply judgement to ourselves to get the best of what's in there out into the open to help the world. Gaga sets a perfect example of how to do this, and how to bring us together every step along the way. It seems unsettling to some because it is revolutionary, replacing a swine society with Oz, doing it "for the music not the bling". Its the opposite of what a lot of society is focused on, but as it overcomes the old ways people will see it is nothing to fear, just as many people saw through the stereotypes about Gaga based on fear by watching SNL last night. We can all relate to her a little better now, those of us who have loved her for years and those who are just begiining to love her, realizing it's okay, she's just like us, we all are. There are two major moments in Gaga's SNL show, besides the amazing songs: the look to the camera and the skit about her being forgotten. Every skit has the humor that it is Gaga doing it, and the jokes rely on an idea that we know Gaga deeper than the image and sterotype, they make us feel like we know her better and can relate to her. And we an, but at the same time that look asks a question and poses a challenge - how well do you know me, my secrets? How well can you know yourself? Can we, working together, somehow learn something about this self we share, this consciousness? Will the journey of discovery be through making our art, helping and applauding each other? The message is we can be like Gaga, she's just like us, we all have the divine within us and our own special way of finding it nad sharing it with the world. The other moment is the skit in 2063. As much as we can never believe that Gaga will be lonely or forgotten, we might believe that we, personally, will be able to be with her and that can't, likely, be true for everyone who wants to be with her. But there are other people, people who do live like Gaga fears in 2063, who don't have people remembering them whether they were famous or not. We have two duties from Gaga on SNL - to make our art and be true to ourselves, to the world in this discovery of ourself, and to spend time with each other and applaud each others art. Gaga, we will always love you and will honor you in our art, will always want to be with you whenever we can and when we can't will make the most of the people we can be close to, or who need someone. Thanks for inspiring us and motivating us to become the best of ourselves, you know what we need.

gagablog 57: Malala, Gaga, Buddha

I bought Artpop yesterday morning, as soon as I could, at the 3rd store I went to. I have only had time to listen to the first half so far and it fulfills my expectation of changing the world,making 11-11-13 a gate into paradise. I forgot to mention something, one of the main things, in my last edition, but this gagablog should form alink between the pastand future- like the new Zelda game, "A link Between Worlds", coming out in a few days. Listening to half the new album puts me in an interesting prophetic limbo: as I talked about in a much earlier gagablog, before "The Fame Monster" or "Born This Way" came out, a new Gaga album is like a garaunteed technological prophecy: as monsters we are listening to these songs months before the rest of the world, just our tight-knit little family of millions of monsters with a preview on the future, on what everyone will be hearing in the next year. Of course I thought and hoped that everyone would eventually hear "so Happy I could Die" but that represents our own secret paradise. But the other songs represent a pradise that te world is becoming: each song that is destined to be a single represents a phase the world will go through. Like, I really will prefer a world where everyone has heard "Aura" and "G.U.Y" and "Sex Dreams" - well, all of them, I wish, but I know that some won't be made into singles. Oh, and another wrinkle in this tension of not hearing the whole thing is I was excited and happy to find a copy nad hope it had the Golden Ticket - I got the impression they could only be found through Wal-Mart from the email, otherwise I would not ususally be in a Wal-Mart - so I got the "edited edition", though the explicit one is due in the mail. It;s funny in itself, how they blank out "sex" sometimes but not others, and "drugs" and even "cookie", I think. But yeah, I can't wait to hear the "real" versions and I can't wait to hear the rest of the album... ANd honestly I have had time to hear it, now, even as I am writing this, but I keep repeating the first half to explore this magical tension and get even more into these songs that are like a make-up-stained glass window into our soul. Even as I am writing this I started hearing the song "artpop" and I had to pause it and get my lover and puff a bowl to celerate: it's the "first" time I'm hearing the song. I did hear it once before, on the Swinefest, but was overwhelemed by hearing all of those songs for the first time and the agitation of having worked all night and having to download iTunes in order to watch the feed freeze every second. ...And now "Artpop" might be my favorite song, but so far they are all favorites with only "Manicure" the least bit less my style. But my lover asked me, why not listen to the rest fo the album? I told her I am writing this gagablog about it, that it has to do with a magical tension - or playing coy trying to meet Gaga. But it is what I have always done, saved a little for later, stretched out and savored a new experience over a few days, especially when it is an album by an artist who I've been waiting for for years, or a new discovery of an old album by a band. I love all the 7 songs I've heard more and more as I hear them, but I am saving the others for tomorrow at least, when my workweek is over and I'm better rested to enjoy it the fullest. But I'm also magically holding myself back from the second half, to build tension and shoot further ahead when I hear it, and the first half is so much its overwhelming already. I'd love to write a short gagablog for once, but as it plays I can't help but mention how much I love GUY, how perfect it is. Will this be what she sings from space? Oh, its cosmic love, for sure. But of course I came here to wrap the world up magically in this gagablog, to show how it all comes together and "she", love and art, is at the center of it. I forgot in my last one to mention the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy and how damning that was for Republican "ideology" that obstructed aid to all those people - and how that relates to all their other obstructions, from kicking the crutch out from justice with voter suppression, but blocking progress on giving health care, blocking progress towards peace, and blocking progress towards addressing global warming. Now we have had the worst typhoon in a century in the Phlllipines and we should learn at least a few things from this, and from Sandy: global warming is a problem and we need to do a lot about it, but not argue, it's a problem that affects everyone and can terribly effect anyone and it is immoral to argue that it doesn't exist, basically to ensure oil company and other profits, etc. The best thing about government, the best thing about our military, even, is our ability to help in such disasters. One lesson we should not forget is Kanye's words of wisdom that Bush doesn't care about black people, since we have the ability to help around the world in a few days but ignored and genocided New Orleans. And it's not just Bush, it's the whole menality of conservatives who blocked aid to victims of Sandy, and all the other hateful and greedy obstruction they are guilty of. Of course I personally think the military should be retooled into a emergency (and general, why not?)relief service and rescuer of persecuted people by bringing them here, if they want. But I can't go on about this, it should all be obvious, and some wonderful things happened in the same week as this tragedy in the Phillipines: Gaga released Artpop and all the world-changing implications of that, like a Pandora's Box of Goodness. But another "sign" of all this coming together into a new peaceful world, Gaga was at the Glamour Women of the Year awards and met Malala. Malala herself said something amazing that I love so much, "I believe that the gun has no power at all" - I love that. I wish I had the link to the article, I need to go to the store soon, I have to wrap this up, but Artpop for the second time in my life is too amazing and I want to repeat it all and write another half hour... but the point is all of this proves this point that "caring" is the measure of worth, for governments and for the actions of individuals. I wrote about it in a chapter on caring in my book "All I Really Need to Know I learned from Smoking Weed" but that whole issue, with Miley lighting up and Gaga having some quotes in an interiew will be something I imagince I will address in the next edition. But Gaga's quotes at the Glamour awards were the best to make a specific point about caring: she said she wished she could give her Glamour cover to Malala, to have Malalaon the cover instead, Gaga was obviously inspired by her as apparently everyone who meets her or hears about her is. And Gaga said something else amazing, that I had to write this gagablog about: she said she does not think her greatest talent is in fashion or music, but that she thinks the thing she does best is to see what other people need - she is the best at caring, at caring for other people ("Goddess of Love!" in the background as I type, yeah, one more round, I LOVE this album!!!!! It IS the paradise future, NOW, that I was hoping for - the final mercury retrograde is over, as she said.) I don't know if Gaga knows this, that she is describing a crucial point and feature of the enlightenment of Buddha. I am writing "Oz Magic: From Radio to Gaga" to show how she fulfills this super-secret Oz prophecy that only I seem to know about: even Gaga herself seems to be inspired by the movi version and does not seem to know, consciously, the infinite depth of the Oz prophecy of which she is the central figure, the main characters - especially Ozma, okay, for those of you who know! But Gaga's quote reminds me of the Buddha's enlightment, after fasting for forty days and taking the rice milk from the fairy girl, sorry for butchering it, and remembering his past lives fully. I heard it said that then, from then on for the rest of his life, he always knew what everyone needed and the best way to help them achieve it. That is what he did in the world, put things to people in terms they could understand to make it work for them. Buddhism is a teaching that can harmonize with other religious beliefs as well as religions itself. The true core of all religions, despite the perversions they are more famous for, is caring - all religions hold loving and caring for each other as the central theme, they just have different emphasis to promote this in different cultural and eographical contexts. Islam is submission to God, and I think the best understanding of this is submission to Love and becoming an embodiment of love, emulating Love, or art, or Gaga, or whoever you want to call it that inspires you to love. I hope Gaga knows that she is liberating the world in her way just as Malala is liberating the world in her way. And I hope Malala knows that while Pakistan has placed some bans on her and said she is not respecting Islam enough, they are really only showing their own deviation from Islam - just as America deviates from what many consider a christian nature by engaging in war and descrimination, etc. Love itself is demanding that women and girls be treated with due respect as the embodiments of the Goddess - only then can we boys and men expect to live as we are intended instead of these mockeries of manhood. Love has always demanded this, but it is finally time for it to take over worldwide and change the world. I've been predicting this for years, decades, and recently been prediciting how significant the Artpop release, 11-11-13, would be as a turning point for this transformation finally, fully, taking place. Of course there will be resistance to change in some places, just as it will take a little while longer for gay marriage to be accepted all over the country. There is a tipping point where light shines on all, not just the idealists who have been looking for it, then there are holdouts still waiting to be enlightened, but it gets around eventually. This is a tipping point, worldwide, and good things will happen and come together at an alarming rate from now on, and previously "impossible" problems will become easier and easier to solve, then non-existent, whether they are war or the worst impacts of natural disaster. All we really need to do is accept this message of love to care for each other. By doing this we can live up to our full potentials and be our best and do the most good for the world. The most good often comes across in the form of art, but many artists have felt stifled, and this is one of the great messages of Artpop and that Gaga is focusing on now, how anyone can live up to the true artist in themselves. In one sense, the "hidden" common denominator between all beliefs that is being revealed and becoming fully honored is "caring". Caring is the most popular thing in the world, if we really get right down to admitting it. Maybe caring and sex, which is a form of caring. But caring is pop, and art is being the best of ourselves. By putting these together, Love and Art, or Love and the real Us, we restore something that has been broken. Gaga shows us how to do this in Artpop, I'm already getting a great feeling for it that is inspiring in this new, future way- and I've only heard the first half. I'm so glad to have finished this so I can allow myself to hear the rest of it! I'm also hoping for the most help to reach the people who are suffering around the world, especially now in the Phillipines, and hoping as always that from this, or man-made disasters, we learn some lessons that change our course, remember the importance of caring for each other all the time, everyone, and move the world in that direction and live the glorious future it will produce. Thanks, Gaga, so much for another window into the future, and how good it can be. I love you so much, we all do, and thank you so much for loving us so well and being so good, at your art that is pop and your true art, the art of being good itself, of knowing what people really need. I love you, all of you. *If anybody reads this, please let me know anyway you want - I have a feeling, no matter when it is, that it will have a positive magical effect to do so. A bonus, of sorts, as we should expect positive magical effects as much as we can imagine.

Gagablog 56: Mother Monster

I missed Gaga performing on the first Youtube music awards tonight. I have not been online much lately so I did not know about it and only heard about it thanks to the BBC radio news on my way to work. I've told myself there is some magical good, some reason I missed it live - I can always watch it on youtube - and I guess it is easier to believe that after how frustrated I got trying to watch Swinefest live with iTunes freezing every second, that really seemed to grate on my soul. But it was nice just now going on twitter and seeing some comments and photos and talking to a little monster for a minute and just hearing an account of what she said. I guess the "message" here is more of the same, that I have been trying to get to in this blog and the world has been trying to get to me - to relax and realize you are taken care of and everything will be okay. And of course I am really trying to convince myself of this, since I have been in a frenzy for years now with ideas for my book "Oz Magic: From Radio to Gaga."

One thing I realized since freaking out when Gaga performed "GAGA of OZ" on GMA to introduce Applause with a live performance was that I will always be the best one to write MY book about Gaga/Oz magic, even if it does not come out right now. It is okay to take my time and make it the best, and to do my other art at the same time. In this spirit I am finally getting my Wendy book out there, though it was written 7 years ago and really isn't changing much in the editing. I'm feeling really good about this, and about making a band, all sorts of dreams I've had for decades and am finally realizing. I know I can do it all at once, and even this gagablog I don't have to wrap it up as much as stay wrapped up in it, to keep chasing this magical message because like dreams themselves there is a new one every day.

And I got some more affirmation from the world: first was deciding that "GAGA of OZ" was not Gaga's magical message to me to get busy or someone else will figure it out but rather a sign that I'm on the right track and encouragement and support to keep going. Of course I say "magical" because she does not mean to send me a message, personally, with her songs and performances, she does not know who I am: When I find a very personal one it is a sign of magic or inasanity or being in-tune with her art, with ART itself, in my own way. Or seen from the perspective that she is a Goddess then her message to me is divine, just like to everyone, and all part of some great design, so that all can be expected to get as mystical a message from it as they are capable of - the message will be as mystical as you are. I've always looked for the most mystical meanings in Gaga's music and art, and I've never been disappointed, only challenged and brought further into mystery and magic, but I don't claim to be able to explain it all the best, just the way I see it, a witch's perspective on Gaga, as a little monster in, from, or bound for Oz. The second affirmation comes from fairy tales I've been fortunate enough to find at the thrift store, many of which I've read in the last couple of weeks contain the message that all will come to him who waits - this is a theme found in a number of stories in "The Olive Fairy Book."

And now I know I will have to wait one more day, or the rest of tonight anyway, five hours until morning, to see Gaga's performance on youtube. And I know that will change the world - for me, and magically in a special way, just as yesterday morning there was a partial eclipse the kind we will not have for another 172 years, I think. I thought about how this magical message I am after changes with every day but various events of the day can be related to it. It is kind of like those one-a-day calendars you tear off another page for every day and geta  different inspirational message - reality is kind of like those calendars, in a way, which is probably part of why they are so popular, they are just one of the best little models of that aspect of reality - you taker off another day, live it, then it is gone. But things do happen all in a day, even if modern communication has shrunk the world enough that all days and nights around the world bleed into each other. One essence of magic is "co-incidence", things happening at the same time, events connected by time. I've been writing about this magical reality throughout this gagablog, I think with some success though through contorted means. But I felt like twisting things around and together to find hidden connections between them that "prove" magic, even though the nature of magic is to remain mysterious and unproven. I feel good in doing this, like we live in a twisted world and it takes some more twisting to untangle some of it, but I also feel it has been very confusing at times. Here is going to be one of the simplest and hopefully easiest to follow gagablogs so I will get on with it, "stop spitting on the handle and get to hoeing" as Tennessee Ernie Ford said on The lucy Show.

This edition is not going to be about Gaga as the Goddess showing the emergence of a new magical reality like all the other ones, this is about something much simpler and easier to understand. I've been thinking about this idea for a week or so, since the first US government shutdown in 17 years and since Gaga came right out with it and said directly that she is our Dorothy, Glinda, and Wizard. In these weeks I also found a couple of statues at the thrift store that I think are Quan Yin and once again the universe is confirming this theme. A goddess takes care of things, nurtures us. THE Goddess cares for all creation - I don't know what makes that so hard to say, I suppose because insisting on one goddess above all others seems to venture in the same direction as getting the gender wrong and all the evil that can lead to, but I'm not particular either way. For Me, Gaga has always represented the highest Goddess imaginable, the goddess of love and art and inspiration, magic itself. But even if someone wants to see her in a lesser role she is still taking care of "her creation" even if she is not responsible for All Creation. I give her credit for that, not to put pressure on her to fix everything but because I truly believe that is the power of art and the Artist is Divine - like buddha, though, or Jesus, or the goddess in any other form - divinity comes through all of us, some just sing it more clearly.

The point is that a god or goddess takes care of things. Taking care is one of the main roles that divinity plays. Taking care of things is good, it is almost the definition of goodness, and one reason we have our imcomprehensibly powerful dieties taking care of things is because there can never be too much care, it can and does go on infinitely and we can alwas find more ways to be more caring, it can never be overdone. Dieties are fashioned out of or are the ones that fashion our highest ideals - we might assume that we are not wholly good but we can envision absolute goodness, call it god or goddess, and aspire to more of it, to be closer to that ideal. I recently had a revelation that the patriarchal focus of the Bible could be to contradict the primal male tendency to kill babies - I know that sounds terrible but I read some science report that traced the development of partnering in apes to protecting one's young from other males. These males would kill unguarded babies to reduce competition. This sounds horrible and of course we aren't like that but when I thought "why don't women kill babies, why is the men?" it seemed obvious - which made me then consider that maybe the Bible was to teach a ideal vision of "Fatherhood", exemplified by the -gasp - even MALE god who was loving - and even if it left some gaps and created other problems by being so male-dominated that is still a few steps improvekment over baby-killing. If this sounds too simple bear with me, because one of the problems we have talking about certain ideas is we get too complicated before we are ready and end up arguing about complexities when we could be agreeing about simplicities. Goverment is another entity that takes care of things - we can argue about which form is best or whether or not it actually does a good job taking care of things, but beneath it all there are certain things to be taken care of that we create or accept government in order to take care of them, and whether or not it does a good job is another issue. In America we often claim to have the "best" form of government or at least the best ideal of government that, even imperfectly realized, still is better than other forms with "lesser" ideals. I did not beleive in democracy when I was a kid because it seemed to be bearing some evil fruit through the years - not because of the ideals but because it was corrupted. But I assumed there would be some improved form of government to arise, and I still believe in the Oz ideal. But the Oz ideal is not undemocratic, just includes the idea that the greatest public good can be perfectly known by a girl ruler.

I did not want to get too much into this here since I'm writing a lot about it in my Oz magic book, but this just made me notice another issue in our democracy: even though we have the ideal of government "by the people, for the poeple, and of the people", we end up with career politicians, I guess because no one else wants to do it, or we all assume they have some special skills or training, when it is obvious that many or most of them are terrible at what they are supposed to do, though they may be great at getting donations, etc. But the idea that "the greatest common good" can be known, understood, and implemented by a young girl has a powerful message: good is easy and simple, if something is so difficult and hard to understand that only certain people can do it, they are ticking you. It's the whole priests vs populace dichotomy that has existed in most religions and it is the same thing that makes us say "politicians" and the "people", two separate groups, even though we are supposedly running our own governement, it is supposed to all be "us".

The truth is, if we can accept that things don't have to be as complicated as we have made out, if we realize that all this complication only serves to enrich a few people who are tricking the rest of us, we can get focused on doing things much better. We need to just accept our own ideals instead of trying to weasel out of them when we don't live up to them. I've come to believe in democracy more because I have a better opinion of human nature than I did when I was a kid. Basciually I think we are good enough and smart enough to keep improving and rediscover some good things we were led astray from but there are still corrupting influences holding us back. The only good thing is the greater the tension becomes between the good future and the evil holding us back the easier it is to see exactly what is wrong with the evil parts. The first thing I wanted to bring up about the conservative, backward-looking mentality is how they try to criticze the government by calling it a "nanny state", implying there is something wrong with a government taking care of people. Religious conservatives are often stupid enough to claim that charity for the poor is their job, according to the bible they say, so the government should not be doing this, as if there is some kind of fight to be the first one to help the poor. This just isn't the case, there are way too many poor people and not enough help. It is really stupid, but happens all the time, that conservative, lie-and-call-themselves "christians" say the governemnt cannot provide charity because that is their job but if they were doing the job well there would not be hungry people, or even poor people at all. I think it is all to keep the military going, because so many people join out of desperation, they have to keep the population desperate to fill the army, and the prisons, because they have it set up to make money off of that, too - the government "taking care of people" seems to be fine with conservatives as long as "taking care of people" means killing or incacerating them, but never helping anyone.

This is the precise inversion of intention, weaseling out of our ideals, that is really responsible for all the continued evil in todays' world, in America and around the world. The News of Today, today, November 4th where the sun has come up, or the end of 11-3 in Hawaii I guess, as I write this: Morsi. the deposed President of Egypt, goes on trial. The Syrian governemnt continues to kill and starve its people even as progress is made removing their chemical weapons. The American government is no longer shut down and the fallout has republicans with the lowest apporval ratings in history. Obama and / or the NSA is facing criticism worldwide for spying on everything, everywhere. The highest-profile bullying story I have ever heard of has just broken, with a football player leaving the Miami Dolphins over bullying. And we hopefully are nearing a turning point where the Redskins, R-words, will change their name. Millions of people were probably lucky enough to see Gaga perform on the Youtube Music Awards, and far less people were probably lucky enough to see that eclipse on the east coast in the early morning that won't happen for another 172 years. All of these stories, excpt the last one, have a common theme: taking care of things. Gaga cares for us in many ways, but for me the most important is how she mystically supports us, with inspiration and encouragement to follow our dreams and arts. To me this is the core sustainence that we are missing most everywhere else, and she provides. She is our spiritual Mother, and also just like us is herself a monster, a freak to the world and outkast, but all the time I've been focused on how magical and special it is to be a monster and have not put nearly as much emphasis on how important it is that she is our Mother, that she takes care of us. I have not seen it yet, but from what that girl on twitter told me, Gaga thanks her fans and also her lover and gives him, Taylor, a kiss and hug after the performance. This is the good example, the goddess example, of taking care of people, showing people love and encouragement and that you are with them. The other examples, the government examples, are how not to do it: conservatives are willing to shut down the government just to try to keep people from getting healthcare and in fact they don't want the government for anything other than police and military - they want a bully state instead of a nanny state. "Nanny" is supposed to sound bad because it tells you what to do, but on the one hand "government", the definition of the word, is "telling what to do" and self-government is basically self-control. The only reason we ever need police and military is people not controlling themselves properly but the real solution to this is to provie the resources and methods and examples for all people and nations to exhibit self-control - and lead by example. The Syrian regime is obviously not taking good enough care of it's people, killing them and starving them to quell protest. They are getting rid of chemical weapons, and this is a good thing, and one of the reason it is happening is because of the threat of an American attack - the threat of weapons. While on the one hand it is too bad and shows how far we have to go that threats of force are what we find effective, but on the other hand it shows how far we have come that the threat of force was sufficient, along with communication, to change the course of events instead of actually using force. This is a step in the right direction but only a step on a long road. Still, there is a bus of nonviolence always going down that road much fatser if we just want to hop on instead of walking step by step. This is because we see a truth in what happened in Syria that points to a greater truth: weapons are really only good to convince someone of the mistake of using lesser weapons - but the most powerful weapon is not one that destroys. The most powerful "weapon" is the truth and the truth will win over any amount of violence - the truth belongs to the people and you can't kill everyone. The Syrian regime will topple because it is not taking care of it's people. Mubarak was overthrown in Egypt because he did not take care of the people, and killed them when they protested, just as Assad has been doing but getting away with it. When the Egyptians elected Morsi, he could have done more to respond to the entire population instead of just the Muslim Brotherhood and the mistakes he made got him thrown out and arrested, including repeating his predecessors mistake of killing protestors. I heard Morsi's communications director give an interview on the BBC on the way to work, and he was comparing the fact that Egyptians complaining that Morsi did not represent them to Americans saying the president is only for the Democrats or Republicans. There is a comparison to be made but our presidents don't kill the opposing protestors and at least the democrats are trying to reresent and include everyone and people who oppose that are just assholes. In America we are suposedly "taking care" of our citizens by spying on everyone. Propenents would say you have nothing to worry about if you aren't a terrorist and critics would say "you are treating me like a terrorist!" or "so does you spying on me mean you think I'm a terrorist?" The ethics of spying are one thing but the whole idea of "terrorist" goes far deeper: of course as long as there are people evil and crazy enough to commit violence we should do everything we can to stop it (isn't that all the argument we need to enact gun laws? Who argues against that except those same crazy, evil people?) But the idea of being called a terrorist brings up important things about our expectation to be taken care of. If you aren't planning terror, you presumably have nothing to worry about someone spying on your phone - then if some thing happens that does cause you trouble, not only do you have to deal with that problem, someone stealing your business information or something, but you also are inclined to feel like you have been treated like a terrorist - you aren't a terrorist but your rights were revoked just as if you were. If nothing bad ever happens because you are being spied on, but just ebing spied on makes you feel like a terrorist, well that isn't very nice - but it's also not the worst thing ever. What I'm getting at is the government says it is "taking care of people", doing it's job. Who does it take care of? It's people - but they could be all over the world, or all the people of the world can be considered "the people" that every governement is working together to protect from "the terrorists", as seems to be the global trend. One reason there is hypocricy in the outcry about spying is that it is really different countries sharing information, not just the US spying on everyone. Maybe no population knows how much it is spied upon and instead of admitting it some other countries would rather just blame America. Anyway, Bush should get the blame for it since it was his program and Obama should be credited that all we know of that he had to do with it is shut offending parts of it down. But deeper than all this is what it means to be a terrorist, or more importantly what it means to be a "person" instead - because no matter what nationality, the implication is "government", somebody's government, is going to protect you from the terrorists. Hopefully one day there will be no terrorists and everyone will be "people" but what does this time tell us about ourselves? Supposedly that we value all people, and no matter where you live or anything about you - unless you are a terrorist - you have rights and value. This means everyone should expect to be cared for and valued. We imply that we believe this and that we all have a common enemy, the terrorists, but when we aren't worried about actual terrorism we manage to find ways to treat other people as less valuable, based on any trait of difference. The trick is to find a way to include even the "terrosists" and crazy, evil people in the whole group of "people" who expect to be valued and cared for. What would a rich person feel about being given a free meal? One problem in America is that so many of our crazy, evil people are rich and don't feel motivated to connect with "the people" but feel threatened by everyone and keep ther wealth in gated communities and evil politics that only serve one group. This is the same mistake Morsi made, and while in America we have been making that mistake all along there will finally be a tipping point where people throw off that kind of rule. In the meantime it is sad for them because the isolation of avarice is far worse than the community of poverty.

In football, the Dolphins players, including team leaders, weren't taking care of each other and the official  leadership was not taking care of the situation. The problem is probably one that happens far more often than the public becomes aware of, bullying is insidious in our culture and shows up in most every venue. But the lack of leadership, of governance, to take care of the situation is what is making it national news and tranishing their image. The tarnish on the R-word's image is turning it into all tarnish since the controversay has gone on for decades and now that it is in the natioanl debate they are still using the same insensitve arguments to keep the name. I wrote a speech on why Georgia should not have the Rebel Flag in our state flag and it is the same issue - you can't honor people by offending them. In this case it is a good analogy for America - the racist is in power, insisting on keeping the name, but the country is changing so that market adn social forces will force a name change. The owner will either have a change of heart of end up selling the team as obstacles pile up to keep it from doing good business. Or I could just say the Ghost Dance is being fulfilled. These football examples are smaller versions of the same thing: government that does not take care of things gets changed or removed, or at least bad press. The new pope is a good example of this, too: the scandals had gotten bad enough to force the resignation of the last one but the new one is actually going in the right direction. The other day I heard he kicked out a bishop who had made lik an 80-million dollar mansion because the guy was not being sensitive to poverty.

The debate over healthcare, or frakking or global warming or military actions - pretty much any debate iun whcih the republicans are involved on Team Badguy - shows where we are as a country. We have some sort of "issue" with the very idea that government can take care of things. A year after the devestation of Hurrican Sandy people are still waiting for relief aid because it took months to approve it due to republican obstruction. Making obstacles to disaster relief was unheard of before, and this is one of the clearest examples of "governemnt taking care of things." The way to take care of things the best is without greed or prejudice or favoritism. Taking care of things is good, and government is good for doing it, and is better and better the better it gets at taking care of things. This does not mean making all decisions for us, because of course we are at our best and healthiest when we make our own decisions based on our best possible well-being. But there are some decisions we don't need to make: there does not need to be a loaded gun on every crosswalk, for example. There is not one, so we don't have to make the decision "do I use this? why is this here?" or take any chances accidentally using it - but how restricted should they be? Maybe we shouldn't actually make decisions regarding healthcare, either - or maybe being wealthy should not give us options other people don't have, because maybe healthcare is a basic right that everyone can expect and that should be good enough for all. And maybe, locally, nationally, and worldwide, we could axtuall live up to a standard that government can be good, will be good, and that no decision is too complicated that a kind young girl couldn't come up with the best solution to it. When a child is confronted with the problem of hunger, he or she might say "feed everyone then." Adults who "know more" might be inclined to say "it's not that easy" but maybe we need to unlearn some of the things we know and find ways to make it happen if "even a child" can see what needs to be done. We can figure out the how, if we believe in the why.

These ideas are all based on non-exclusion. In governement, including the widest variety of views that represent the most people will form the best governement. We seem to be working on this worldwide and maybe are due to finally overcome national suspicions and rivalries. Maybe the NSA scandal will help bring about a new era of trust and cooperation. We make mistakes and we get better and most of what holds us back is fear of this kind of change or fear it won't happen, that things will "get worse." But people who think things are okay as they are are just isolated from huge amounts of suffering in the world, and the truth of that will win out in the end. Some governements and institutions will get better at including more people and doing a better job at taking care of everyone. Gaga is the ideal example because, like Jesus example of the kingdom of heaven being a good shepherd, leaving he flock of 99 to find the sheeo who was lost, Gaga brings all the outkasts together, all the ones who have artistic or sensitive natures and have thereby felt rejected by the courser world, Gaga takes us in and says we will forge that more personal, loving world through our art, and I'll take care of you along the way.

I love you so much, Mother Monster, and thank you so much for all the love and support you show me, even before you know who I am, just because you know there are people like me out there who haven't had a place in th world but we're making the world as good as it can be, a paradise, Oz world where everyone has a place and is taken care of.

On the 'Edge of Glory', The Fruits of the Gagablog since 2010, out on a limb for Gaga (gagablog 55, originally was going to be #27)

I was a little sad the other day – just about feeling like an outcast, nothing new – and it triggered this idea to talk about the “success” of the gagablog so far in three and a half years. No, it has not been “successful” by commercial or standard measures – the same 8 people are subscribed to it and it gets an average of 30 views per edition. But magically it has had some fantastic success. Depending on how you view magic, the gagablog has predicted or magically manifested a number of really good, really major events in recent history. These include Gaga making direct connection with Oz art/magic, the selection of a liberal Pope who actually emulates Jesus for once and all the wonderful effect that can have to transform the world, the re-election of Obama and the wonderful good and potential that entails, the strange and peaceful resolution in Syria that is developing that will become the beginning of a format to avoid all war in the future, and the Supreme Court decision not to oppose gay marriage, among many other things. You can verify that I foresaw or manifested these events by the date on the blogs, and though I could have gone back and edited them, I'm sure there are electronic imprints that can prove I did not, but more accessible to your own brain is the rambling nature of them that makes it obvious how they were composed in that moment. I'm actually going to break that habit for the book I've been working on for two years, “Oz Magic: From Radio to Gaga” and say things more clearly, without all the tangents. Lately I felt such earnest to really get this book out there since Gaga was “revealing it all” with her “GAGA of OZ” performance, but then I realized that even if other people get this same idea, I still will be the best one to express the most of it, once I'm relaxed and writing it well, so there is no need to hurry too much, no need to rush it. There's time to make this edition of the gagablog, for instance, and write and record/perform some more songs, and make more art – there is time for all of it, especially if I keep doing something and just change to suit whatever I'm most in the mood for. So after getting sad I recalled to myself, “you know, to sum up the gagablog at this point, before making the transition to writing “Oz Magic”, it's time to remember the awesome things the gagablog is magically linked with.” Some people are afraid of magic, I have no problem with it, but for people who feel like magic is a little weird or scary, another way of describing “Oz Magic” is “grace” - the idea of being in tune with something, the divine, the world, the dance or performance you are in or even well-flowing traffic. For me, Oz magic is just grace with the world/divine/others/art, all of which are magic, if you believe in it, but even if I leave out calling them magic you can see what I mean. I believe I predict wonderful new developments in world events because I see them as necessary steps to reaching a paradise future that I fully believe in – I call it Oz and will go into all the reasons in my book, but basically it has always been the fairy country 'over the rainbow', just separate from us by an illusion, that we ultimately realize has been our home all along. So I feel like I can easily predict things because I know where this is going – especially the really good major developments that make such a difference getting there. Basically this good stuff is bound to come true and anyone could sense it, except that we are mostly convinced of lesser ideas, so that the real key is to be able to imagine it in the first place, to suggest it to others, to reality, to become the ideal. The original idea of the”Edge of Glory” edition of the gagablog was to say that living on, or “over” the edge of belief is what can bring about the most glorious transformations. At the time, and for two years while it has just been a title on an empty draft, I had the idea of what the “edge of glory” meant: we are mostly in the “normal” world but will all pass on to “glory” at death, but even while alive we can experience “glory” through art and inspriation, living fully, smoking weed and having fun, sex and other forms of really connecting with people. The “edge of glory”, from this perspective, is like being “below the rainbow” from Oz, but rising above into glimpses and moments of “glory” - by living on the edge in ways, really living, really going for it. Gaga herself described it this way when she performed the song on the Howard Stern show, and he responded to the song by saying he wanted to marry her – and anyone would feel that way who hears it, even if you aren't even actually sitting there, “just” watching it on youtube as I did- it is that powerful a song and performance. I had a slight variation on this idea in my insight today – that from the Oz side, from the perspective of Glory, the edge is what keeps “mundane” reality out and we are mostly just over the edge of it, close but separated. From the first perspective, it is the artists and adventurous ones who go “over the edge”, and who live close to the edge. But from the Oz perspective we are all “over the edge”, just over there barely kept out of grace, out of our awareness of our true, glorious natures. Oz magic, Gaga magic, is truly believing in the best possible outcome and expressing that with the magical expectation of helping it come true. I've become an uncompromising idealist, but it makes me frustrated with and extra sensative to other, lesser, ideas. These are ideas that some or even most people succumb to, the idea that war and money and greed and supemacy of certain groups over others are somehow necessary. I just can't accept those but I try to get better, or more clever, about expressing my outrage at these views. I'm especially concerned about it, but also it is tough for me, because I feel that the common thread to the belief in any of these ideas is “judgement”- war and greed and bigotry can only be perpetuated on the idea of being able to “judge” someone else as less deserving. And yet, my whole objection to these ideas is the judgement within them and I find myself struggling with judging the people who hold them. This is part of the price I pay by “believing the best” and being the ultimate liberal idealist – I have always been in an outcast role and have few friends. But it is worth it because I fully believe I help manifest this better reality, I am helping and learning to help even better in this progress to realizing paradise for our world. And this is why feeling excluded from socializing triggered me reminding myself of the success of the gagablog, and you can check that for yourself. This is kind of the end of the official edition. I'll sum it up by saying the whole idea of the “edge of glory” edition, all along, was to say you can have fantastic insights by believing and going for the best ideals of what you personally, society, and humanity can be, but it might make you seem a little weird to many people, it might make it hard to relate to people who are more comfortable accepting a less-than-ideal reality. But this is where stuff really happens, in glory and at the edge, and this is the truth of the moment you are holding onto. Its the connection to magic, love, art, the spirit world but also the spirit of experiencing moments of the fullness of life – realizing that it is kind of two sides of the same thing but ultimately the mundane, difficult world is but a speck, a tiny glitch, in the world of glory, of Oz, and we are all mostly stuck in it but can break out, individually and then as a whole. This is the whole idea of going for grace, for the Oz magic that is within everything. Its not trying to control the world with material power, or even trying to control the world with magical power, but trying to reach an accord and best way to manifest the greatest world to come that we all dream of. Even if we have different ideas of what it is, they will reconcile as it occurs, and this is why Oz magic, Gaga magic, has everything to do with following where things are going and transforming with the times, not trying to enforce control as much as give into the best goodness you can believe in and really go for it, expecting chaos along the way instead of giving you control, but accepting that chaos is the method of change that brings the ideal goodness to become reality, and accepting that in a state of grace. So, that's the end of the epilogue of the Gagablog and I really hope to focus on the book “entirely” now, at least for where I put my magical writing mood. The following are a few more examples of the “grace” I've been talking about, and how even when I always expect it and believe in it, I struggle with the twists and turns of life too, and fall out to some degree, a shade, at times but through belief in it I fall right back into this wonderful feeling of grace and unity with the world and the divine. And I guess, saying that, I realize I will always come back with updates to the gagablog because this kind of everyday stuff won't all make it into the book, and will continue after I finish the book – so, see you soon! When I thought to write this edition, and that I could relax and do some other things while writing the book, I decided I would finish the song I wrote a year ago about Gaga as Dorothy and myself in the role of Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion as a way to thank her for all she does for me but also to establish my belief in and show my love for the Oz theme. Basically I was only ten or so, growing up the son of a preacher and in moderate to liberal churches (my dad's message was thankfully one of the most liberal I experienced), when I felt that the truths Jesus taught were not in accord with repression of women, or repression of sexuality, or disregard for other cultures or the environment. Again, the churches I was in might have been better but most of the churches around, and the ones that got the most national attention, were far worse in this regard, and to me none were good enough. My personal understanding of the truth of love that Jesus represents forced me to leave the church and look for other spirituality. I felt like I had some insight into great spiritual truth and would have a role reveling it, but at the time I also thought the person who would reveal most of it, this time, would be a girl. I just felt sure of this, it would be fitting. Soon I discovered the Oz books and did not realize it immediately but within a few years had developed much of my spirituality around them. 15 or so years later Gaga emerged and I immediately thought, and quickly confirmed, that she was the girl I was expecting all those years, that it was happening. Now that it is, I feel like I am in a unique position to explain some things about it, but for this edition, talking about grace and the edge of glory I just want to mention some recent events and the example they show of “falling back into grace”. I've been complaining about the radio here in Denver not playing “Applause”, then about them finally playing it but only on one station. It has been significant to me every time I hear it, it always comes at a magical moment, and here are the most recent ones, and some other examples of grace. I was also frustrated that I heard about Best Buy having a 2-song single of Applause available, but when I went to get one it was in there system but not to be available at any stores. The same happened when a remix EP of it came out. I was going online to see where I could get it and about to play other Gaga music and smoke a bowl for magical luck, then thought “no, I will give it a chance”, turned on the radio and there was “Applause” playing, it had just started the first verse. My lover said something like “woah, I respect your magic” which in itself was a special moment. I was going to tweet about it before looking for the album. I have only used twitter a handful of times, I usually go on once I have finished a gagablog or something and want to share it. And “coincidentally”, magically, every time I go on it seems it is within an hour of Gaga tweeting something. I feel encouraged that this happy coincidence might mean I am close to contacting her, talking with her. But the other day when I signed in to post how magical that was to hear “Applause” when I was doing magicl to help me find the CD single, and I looked at her profile, it said “now” beside her tweet. I tried to think of what to say, kind of overwhelemed by this idea that I was close to her in some mystical way by going on twitter right after her, but that at this point, this might really be my chance, I might be more in tune with her, in that state of grace, than ever before. And I hoped that being so close in timie, knowing she had juist sent the tweet, would give me a chance to get her attention and talk with her. I guess I could feel bad that I sent maybe a dozen replies and did not get a response, even though I almost got a response in within a minute of her sending hers, making it the best chance so far of getting her attention, since the thousands of tweets a second had not quite started rolling in. But instead I choose to focus on how awesome that was that, going on twitter to share a classic, perfect example of what I call Oz/Gaga magic – having the song come on at the exact time of doing a ritual to look for a copy of the CD single – and this led to an even greater example occurring, going on twitter at the exact moment Gaga sent a tweet. It just felt graceful and blissful even if we didn't talk – but I felt back in connection, in communication, in communion, with the world, nature, the divine. - And maybe not completely, but it was a good sign of going that direction. I had decided to write this that morning, the very simple little example of going for it, of turning on the radio expecting to hear “Applause”, even though there are plenty of songs here, now, that you could expect that with because they play them every hour and with Applause only one station seems to play it once or twice a day, currently. It was good luck, good magic, and I wanted to report it, then it got better by being “close to Gaga” in that funny way, twitter. But I didn't write it that day, a few days ago, then I got sad for a couple of days. At the same time I wanted to finish my Gaga/Oz song and the wholetime was looking through notebooks but I couldn't find it or remember which one it was in for days and was starting to fear I had lost it, which really irks me. Yesterday I started to get over my blues, and this morning I was really over them when I found the book the song was in. I found the song, then another random story I wrote from a year ago that I had the sudden insight would fit with a random story I wrote a few months ago, kind of like how a song I write at one time will combine with one I write later, or earlier, into the whole song - “Made Me a Monster” has a verse that was basically years old, as does “Savior Mom (Lady Gaga)”, among others. This was another great discovery and good feeling for me, but the best was finding the song I was looking for, and a number of others I was working on around the same time. I decided I would reprint it here, in it's original unfinished version, because I plan to finish it soon and because the reason it was just hidden in a notebook is I knew it was not finished, it needed work, but I thought about it many times but never felt the time was right to work on it, to finish it. That is, until “GAGA of OZ” which made me feel compelled to finish it, and my book. But I thought I wpuld publish the first draft lyrics here to commemorate the original idea, and how long it preceeded “GAGA of OZ”, even though it was, I think, partly inspired by her speech upon recieiving the Ruby Slippers – though I always had the Oz connection with Gaga. This is an important magical principle that applies to both my Oz/Gaga song and this “Edge of Glory” edition of the gagablog: they both were started and just sat there, hidden. Magic is “what is hidden”, in a way, but the hidden truth that is emerging. The very idea of the “edge of glory” is knowing that hidden truth is there and going for it, going for everything knowing there is a great goodness behind your efforts and awaiting to reward us all. These are just little examples, this song and this blog, but they always had magical intention and they had to come out sometime. Though they have been hidden for some time, the “edge of glory” a title on a draft and idea in my head for two years, and my Oz/Gaga song a very rough draft that spent a year in a forotten notebook, in a way that has built their power. And like the story I wrote a few months ago in glee and celebration that I finally had my own computer dovetailing into a story I wrote in the glee of having a little notebook and finally writing some songs, with plenty of extra pages, about a year ago, it made it more powerful that I had forgotten about that story until I found it today, and that I was going to write this a few days ago but this is what happened in the meantime. So this morning I was about to write this and I decided to first take care of my only pressing errand to get it off my mind and write better. When I wrote this up to this point it was 4 pm and I was just about to describe my “only errand” and had another one to go on and something similar happened again. It's now midnight of the same day and I am finally getting around to finishing it, but I'm glad it took longer to add this other story. The first one was that right as I turned on my computer to write this I remembered to do my errand, and decided to get it out of the way in order ro write better. I got in the car and started driving and “Applause” came on the radio just as I was backing out of th driveway, I got to hear the whole thing. And I cranked it up, so happy to hear it again and wanting to dance, and I kept putting my paw up every time she said “put your hands up”, it was such a beautiful October day here in colorado, driving around with the windows down. The song played most of the way to my destination, then on the way back my luck with the radio was not so good but still turned out cool. I think this was to show “appreciation” for me getting back into grace to a degree when I had this experience of feeling rewarded for being responsible by hearing “Applause” in the car and my rewarding the radio by putting my paw up. The only thing I could find on was that graduation song by Green Day, heard it millions of times and usually don't much enjoy it but decided to just go with it and enjoy it this time, it was such a nice day. And as I came down the hill I guess it was one of the few times I had made that trip and gone in that direction since an old building was knocked down and replaced, changing the look and feel of the intersection, and it just felt kind of new, unfamiliar, and cool for a moment. Everything felt good and like it was coming together as I stopped at the stoplight and searched around for another song. The main contender was Led Zepplin with “The Ocean”, currently in the middle of the bridge, I guess, the “la la la la la la la la” part with just voice in the middle, as I was stopped at the stoplight. I looked around some more but settled on this before the la la's were over. Then right as the beat kicked back in, a pretty powerful moment, the light turned green, just like it was timed with the drum. This is just a little example of feeling like I'm more in tune with the world, more in grace and becoming magically aware, but it was noticeable enough to me this morning that I wanted to write about it. But right before I got to that point in writing I had to go somewhere else and this happened. I got in my car, went by the ATM, and started driving again and “Applause” came on again just as I was leaving the bank parking lot. I got really excited, to hear it again and to hear it “so soon”, just a few hours after I heard it before on my first errand. It made me really excited to think that, even in Denver and even before the other stations played it at all, at least one station was cool enough to put it into heavier and heavier rotation, until hopefully soon I can hear it on the radio as often as “Get lucky”, “Blurred Lines”, or anything by Bruno Mars or Mackelmore - which are literally constantly on between the two pop stations here. So I got excited and started singing along again, of course, cranking it up and putting my paw up every time she said “put your hands up” again. Then I stopped at a red light and this time the light turned green at the instant she said “turn the lights on”, the exact moment she said “lights” is when it the green light came on. After that I heard “Jump” by Van Halen and listened to it, such a pretty day for driving, but I also had the insight that while this was not a favorite song of mine, the reason I was listening to it after “Applause” was to make that mystical connection, that “Applause” would be as big a hit as “Jump” was in its day and since, or bigger, and I'm sure it will be. But I also made the connection that hearing “Jump” was a magical signal that “Applause” was about to “jump” in the charts, just as it is starting to jump into more rotation on radio, even in Denver where I can't find the CD single to buy and will probably go to a real music store downtown very soon. I said a little spell/wish for this as the song played, that it would signify “Applause” jumping in the charts and being an even bigger hit. Then “Black hole sun” came on and I said something similar, because that song was pretty big in the next decade. And the trivia the DJ mentioned with it was that the guy wrote it in fifteen minutes on his Gretch guitar, and it made me think I should write more music, maybe have a hit myself sooner than later. On the way back from my errand I heard an actual “get the led out” radio show for your drive home at 6 PM, and they were playing “misty mountain hop”as I drove due west, facing the Rocky Mountains. They weren't misty,exactly, but were covered in more low clouds than usual and the light was a deep red in the midst of dark purple clouds and mountains. It looked pretty cool. I can't remember now if there was another song that continued this theme of feeling in tune, in harmony, with the world, but that's what I have been enjoying, again, more of, lately. And now I guess to celebrate having good timing I should take this as time to go to bed before it gets too late so I can do my best work tomorrow, another day off work. I do kind of imagine that since it took me so long to get back to this and finish it, if I post it on twitter now and happen to meet Lady Gaga in that electric chapel, well of course I will stay up if I can talk with her – I will stay so up I will be higher than ever. I guess I could live my life preparing for that moment, knowing it would likely overwhelm me if I don't feel like I have some better songs and art of my own – not that I would try to share them with her in person, I would try to share a kiss or more, but I'm hoping that is how she would find out about me, my art or songs or writing. So I just really want to do more and more to “catch up” with her, I want to truly become the best artist and witch and lover I can be in order to be worthy of the moment of meeting her so I feel like I can somehow actually show her how much she means to us and does for me by reflecting something as meaningful and magical to her, of my own. But it gets less likely she would be tweeting something in the latenight, if she is in America, as the hour gets later so I will go ahead and close this and go for my luck, my magic, and hope to meet her, or connect with more monsters through my attempt to describe this all-powerful and world-changing magic I call Gaga magic and Oz magic. I guess I will go with this as is instead of editing it right now so, uh, sorry. Here is the song, also unedited, but the roughness and fact that I have two versions of the second verse, and many more versions of possible changes I can't really show here, as they go off to the side in my notebook. But I just wanted to be able to brag, or focus on with appreciation, these events that have been magically predicted by this gagablog, and the most important one to me is Gaga really manifesting Oz – because I think ending war and getting more liberal religiously and politically, the other major predictions, are part of that. And here is one way I predicted it, a year ago, with this song – work in progress. But the theory of living on the edge of glory is not waiting to have time or when I get around to it, but realizing we only have so much time, never enough to realize or create all our dreams, so go for as many as you can. So I'm getting this out of the notebook, even in this formative state, and will be finishing it and singing it, or whatever it becomes, very soon. Thanks, Gaga, for taking us on this journey to Oz, showing us the Glitter Way! I'm so glad I started writing dates besides the things I write. The date of this song, this first version, is August 3rd, 2012. So it was a little over a year before Gaga did “GAGA of OZ” My love was so high she was against the law I'd die to be with her I'd risk any fall She came over the rainbow to help us all The bravery she gave me made a man out of straw And with love she got me off and turned my empty hand to a paw (“we found wisdom in all that we saw” – an addition from 1-23-13) A lonely statue she found me in the trees She banged me cherry boom boom knew what I needed / when I said please She covered me in all her glitter and grease Love fills us all so together there is no missing piece She found me in the woods a stature made out of tin Frozen from a love I lost but never gave in She banged me hard and put glitter and grease on my skin She revived me when she said “a different loves not a sin” She cries diamonds for the times we think that we're not okay Sprinkled on the yellow brick road they make the glitter way Note – I don't know if there is already a Lion verse in another version, but of course I intended one. I wrote this a year ago, around the time I was finally finishing “Made Me a Monster” - there are versions of that next to this in the notebook, though that song was begun at least a year earlier, I think. This was influenced byu finally seeing the DVD of the Monster Ball at MSG and finally hearing Glitter and Grease for the first time. It was also obviously inspired by Gaga's appearance on the Simpsons, which I also think was a majot confrimation for me of how all the things that I loved were coming together and coming true – but the refrence is to the part where she cries tiny diamonds when she is upset she can't help Lisa feel better. Gaga, thanks for the art, magic, inspiration and complete hotness – I love you so much and can't wait to meet you someday! I'll work on my writing, art, and songs with passion until then, and hopefully have something to delight you by then.