gagablog 77: Artrave-olution

I was talking with someone about the ideas from my last gagablog and she asked me "what are the goals of this revolution? Without a clear purpose, won't it just be like Occupy Wall St.?" I responded that the goal was nothing short of saving the world and that there are various avenues to take to reach this goal but whichever ones we focus on they will all be fixed by the same transformation. Looking back from the future, when everything is better, we may not be able to tell which movement started it all or which ones helped pave the way for others, but all of these goals come together in realizing the liberal ideal. The "success" of the Occupy movement can't be determined at this point but it may be a milestone in global revolution. We might have begun this revolution years ago but it is still building to take off. Since I wrote gagablog 76 a few days ago there have been a number of media/news events that magically support what I've been getting at: the very next day St. Louis cops shot and killed another 18-year old kid, sparking a new round of protests and media coverage. Also that night the Daily Show had a report on how we have no national statistics on police brutality - compare this with the swift report of 87 tear gas canisters fired at Chinese protestors. Jon Oliver was interviewd on NPR a couple days ago and they covered his bit about Net Nuetrality and the same concept I discussed, that in America we can bore you into apathy, our form of China's blackout news censorship that actually works even better because it lets people think they know stuff and that even the more we know we can't do anything about it. An evening news show did a piece on police brutality yesterday and I don't know if they were trying to be encouraging when they said it was not an increase of police brutality but just having cameras to catch it all - there was almost the tone that the cameras were the problem, not the police. They certainly did not come out and explicitly say "we have always had a lot of police brutality" just things like we are seeing the tip of the iceberg. But again, we can report on other countries and try to feel superior if they have more communist or socialized government, like China, but they might be right, or "better". Tonight on the news I have seen riot-gear American police shaking teargas cans like spray-paint cans, advancing in thick lines upon peaceful protestors. They reported on Chinese police moving in with no weapons, just orange vests, to remove barriers of the protest in Hong Kong, in order to avoid negative publicity of violent clashes. From the images and reports I've seen I would much rather be at the Chinese protests. We report on people being "unjustly" jailed in China - I don't put that in quotes because I think they are justified but to point out that our media makes that judgment call. When the cops shot this kid a few days ago in St. Louis they said he had a gun and shot at them first. I don't see that as justification personally but I'm a radical pacifist, you are supposed to see that as justification, at least in contrast to Michael Brown who was apparently murdered with his hands up. Isn't that the worst thing we say about ISIS or other militant groups, that makes them the worst terrorists ever, that they murder innocent people with their hands tied behind their backs, etc.? Why not apply that same standard to American cops? Or, as I think I said earlier, if cops can kill anyone without punishment, why don't the good cops shoot the bad cops? Because they are vastly outnumbered, perhaps? Or are they sucked into the mentality? Are we all sucked into that mentality, in a way? And is there a way out, and isn't it the same way out no matter where we are stuck in it, no matter the specific country or the worst injustice there, we all share the same fate and injustice anywhere holds us all back. I wanted to talk about how Gaga fits into all of this, specifically how the things she said at the Denver show, the things she is always saying, promote this whole revolution. I also want these to be more succinct so maybe I will save that part for #78 and just talk about the ideas here, then after the next one I will get back to song-by-song meditations on Artpop. There are multiple categories of action to be taken to save the world. These are environmentalism, pacifism, feminism, ending poverty and disease, and social justice. Social justice these days means the right to vote: Republicans are forging a new Jim Crow with racist and classist voter suppression and we must stop them. It means justice for police brutality and murder. It means civil rights and marriage rights for gay people. It means respect and real care for kids, not just using them as lab rats for pharmaceutical companies, potential debtors for predatory student loans, or jerking around their education with some 1984/Nazi-like revisionism. It means equal pay for women and security of reproductive freedom. It also means escaping the property mentality of marriage and even escaping jealousy and monogamy - it certainly means escaping the shame society has placed upon sex. We keep seeing progress: recently legalizing gay marriage, now in 30 states, Obama strengthening the EPA and setting standards to reduce global warming. I can't believe conservatives still have any chance at power and I can't believe the issues of debate, whether women can get abortions or contraception, but it shows how much progress we need to make in mentality. And plenty of us are modern, futuristic, advanced. We might not be able to convince people who insist on being ignorant on certain issues but more progress in other issues will have the same effect. Someone might be homophobic but believe in global warming. As society becomes more accepting of gay people the homophobia will erode, but if a global effort actually addressed climate change that person would appreciate it, and if the same global effort then said "let's be nice to everyone" and had a campaign to end homophobia it might have more influence on this person who appreciates keeping the temperature in the human-survivable range. Conversely, someone who believes in rights for gay people but does not believe in global warming could be impressed by the movement that wins the recognition of rights for gay people and when some of the same people move on to address global warming they might re-consider their position on it. But the truth is these examples are a little strained because generally it is the same people who are enemies of progress on every front. It's always the conservatives, in America it is the Republicans. Their power and influence may be eroding but it can't go away fast enough and we still suffer from much of it as the status quo - but there are enough different issues that we can reach even the people who insist on being blind to 9 out of 10 of the categories, when we find which is the tenth one they will actually care about. I read comments and live in America so I know how racist people can be here - extremely - but I also know that humanity is deeper than racism and while some of these people probably cheer on the cops shooting and beating black people, the more examples of this we see, the more grandmothers and pregnant ladies and kids we see getting slammed to the ground or tasered or shot, the more we will have opportunities for that humanity and sense of injustice to emerge. Hell, for some assholes it might take seeing people of their own color getting beaten to bring out their sympathies if somehow pregnancy or age doesn't do it, but they will have those examples. It is great when the media is focused on this issue but it is not going away even if the media focus does, it has gotten out on social media. Do I think all other problems will be solved if we ONLY focus on ending police brutality? Actually, I do, though of course we can work on all of these issues simultaneously. But just taking this one, if we quit oppressing people we unlock their potential. If people are liberated from oppression, if we liberate ourselves, we become much more productive just from the relief but also we become empowered to make other changes. This is one reason I think global warming is such a great example. I first learned about it in school in the 80's and it really seemed like something would be done, now that we know. But instead we got Reaganomics and the Cold War, outspending the Russians on nuclear missiles and exaggerating their stockpiles to destroy their economy with all that waste. If, at any point, in the 80's, 90's, 00's or today, the countries of the world actually worked together to end the threat of climate change, well that is such a major accomplishment, what else would be a problem for us? Working together, seeing as many sides and factors of issues and addressing them in different ways, a world community could certainly have avoided some of the wars we have had in the last decades. Conversely, if we were truly working towards a peaceful world instead of a world we can sell weapons to, we could have come together to address those issues and worked towards a global alliance that could eventually address global warming. The reason all of these things are the liberal agenda is because fixing them leads to utopian society. And we can fix them all together. I realized discussing this that my most radical ideas are ending money and caring for kids. I won't even talk about ending money, let's just let that be a secret and not mention it along with pacifism and environmentalism and justice, because we don't want to scare the rich people - it is only because they are so insecure that they would be rich in the first place so let's be gentle with unstable people. But most people would say they already care about kids. The thing is, if we really cared about and respected kids we would have to start trying to live up to the standards of their innocent expectations: to be decent human beings. And this actually scares society as much or more than to stop oppressing people or paying women fairly - but as long as they can keep 18th and 19th-century debates alive we won't move on to the deeper, more subtle, more important stuff. War is one of those centuries-old debates that I thought should have gone away before I even got here, but since I see so clearly the evil of it I guess I'm glad to be here now in a role to end it. I want to being in the Ebola plague, and end it with the magic of this Gagablog - I know this magic has not been effective in ending the war in Syria but maybe it takes this "other side" to make as major a flip as I am anticipating. Once we get rid of war there will still be a need to focus on peace, peace in smaller conflicts between individuals, within relationships, or resolving conflicts between communities. We just won't use violence. Will there be a use for the military once we stop fighting each other? Yes, to help with natural disasters and to fight diseases like ebola. And to rescue people from persecution. We can do all of these things, end war, make troops deployable to end misery wherever it occurs - but never to cause it. ISIS seems awful but it is a horror of our own making - using other, non-military means to depose Saddam Hussien would not have left the power vacuum or more importantly the weapons for them to take over. Ending war would free up so much ability and resources to fix every other problem, but if that is too hard we can work on it from other angles first. "I don't need these 14 karat guns to win I'm a woman I insist it's my right" - from "The Queen". Next time I will get into the details of how Gaga's message encompasses all of these issues (except vegetarianism which I left out and don't practice myself yet but is also key to all of this) but my point here is to say something about awareness, protest, art and revolution. No matter which issue resonates with you, just posting about it, increasing awareness, is an act of protest and gets the ball rolling, even if it seems like a trick by the establishment to make us think we are actually doing something when it is just "virtual" - we like to say it is "something" when it is the "Twitter Revolution" in Iran, but that really can lead to something, even in Iran or even in the US. Attending an actual protest can be many times more powerful than joining an online cause or campaign. The nature of social media and the internet is allowing more and more people to grow comfortable with virtual protest, which increases the chances people will attend actual protests. And while protest can be so much more powerful for actual physical connections with people and being part of a moment in a movement, art can do this even across the years and generations. A piece of art inspired by a major movement or social transformation remains powerful and relevant for centuries. Just as a facebook post can inspire you to join a movement which can then inspire others or make them feel bold enough to join you, issues can inspire art and that art can continue to spark ideas and make radical ideas feel accepted all the way to The Future. Gaga encourages this in all her examples and that is why she represents the divine future, paradise, to me an they way to get there. She said "if you have a dream, chase it like the fastest horse you ever saw" and with that kind of courage, inspired by art, we really can make any and all of these utopian dreams come true. I'll talk about the other things she said next time, thanks for reading! One more secret before I go, the last category I left out besides vegetarianism/animal rights was just Art for the sake of art. Art is itself a revolutionary path, it always has been, like magic. And it is the flip-side of ending money, but that is all I will say since this one is long enough for now.

gagablog 76: Protest and the "Paws Up Revolution"

This gagablog is all about magic, including the magic of numbers and time. In a tangent to a conversation yesterday, I came up with the idea that giving all of oneself to someone at a given time, and how that experience changes going into the future, is a clue to the other, non-linear aspects of time. So is any real consideration of time, from anniversaries to numerology, especially when considered magically. This week is the 50th anniversary of the beginnings of the student protest movement at Berkeley. This event is a major beginning of the Civil Rights movement and while we certainly have made progress there are fascinating echoes and repetition of cycles. Here in Lakewood, Colorado, where I live, they are trying to change the AP History curriculum to downplay protest and promote citizenship. Students have staged walk-outs and sidewalk protests. One was just around the corner from my house, over a thousand students lining the road and holding signs and cheering when I honked at them and gave them the "Paws Up" out the window, even trying to give me high fives the third time I drove by. I made the comment that it was ironic that probably only a small percentage of students are interested in protest, and teaching about protests in history class can probably only make that percentage grow from like 5% to 10%, but trying to take it out, and having kids actually get themselves involved in protesting, might actually get like 80% of the class or more interested and participating in protest. Instead of history, it becomes what is going on now, the cool thing to do, and can be the beginning of a life of social awareness and responsibility. This is the essential debate still going on in America and painfully obvious in the current midterm political ad campaigns: do we care about each other ("women"), or not? Aziz Ansari was just on Dave Letterman tonight and made a great point. He said he and his girlfriend are feminists and then said he expected some in the audience were, too, and some people clapped. The he said he suspected more people actually were feminist but were afraid of the word. he defined it as believing men and women should have equal rights and then made some great points. He said not using that word is wrong, that this is what words are for, to convey meaning. He gave the example of saying "I treat conditions of the skin" "Oh, you're a dermatologist?" "Let's not go there, that is too string a term..." and then said people are scared of "feminism" because they think it means a woman is going to yell at them. Then he gave another test to see if you are really feminist and said if you go to a Jay-Z and Beyonce concert and think "she should only make 78% of what he does for this show and why is she onstage anyway she should be cooking him a steak because he is probably tired after those two songs" - if you aren't thinking that, you are a feminist. I know this is a long digression but I thought it was really good and also shows how people do like to think the terms of civil rights were from the 60's and apply to the 60's but the truth is we still need them, we need the meaning of these words to help change our world. There was a news event today: The Supreme court refused to hear cases about same-sex marriage, effectively legalizing marriage in like 10 more states, bringing the number of states with gay marriage up to 30. This is the current fight for civil rights and it is rooted in the civil rights struggles of 50 years ago and before, and has the same opponents. I know and believe in some other, magic ways of getting rid of patriarchal power and conservative political influence, but I want to point out some things about how all this works together and what Gaga has to do, has to do with it. I heard two things on NPR, one this morning and one tonight. The first was about the protests themselves, how the student movement at Berkeley was a fuse for the whole counter-cultural movements of that decade. I did a book report in AP History on "Coming Apart", a history of the 60's, so I can see this theme as historically accurate. Then they said that because of reaction against the protestors, Ronald Reagan's hardline approach, to lock all these crazy kids up, was what helped him become Governor of California and eventually President - to me, one of the scariest and worst presidents ever - and eventually even became the Patron Saint of Assholes. As evil as that is, that trajectory of the birth of the civil rights movement, the good things that came out of it outweigh that. One is personal computing and the internet: the second radio program was all about the culture that produced the first personal computers, how it was different from people working in computers for corporations back east, how the whole philosophy of acid and community influenced the people who created and developed computers for everyone. Civil rights movements themselves have brought us great progress and the internet and technology promises even more. We still fight over ideas but free expression lets better ideas come out and bad ones be exposed for what they really are. Am I discouraged that 50 years later my comparison to the Berkeley protests that were so instrumental in galvanizing the civil rights movement is the kids down the street protesting a conservative politically motivated curriculum change? No, I'm very excited by this. Ours is a small protest but the principles are the same and the protest was big enough to make the national news. In the 60's things really caught on thanks to the media but also thanks to the growing word of mouth of the youth of the day, even without social media or cell phone or anything. Now in a way you could say it is easier to protest, or easier to think our actions are "protest", just posting something to facebook, and actually makes us more docile and manageable to think we are protesting or revolting when we really aren't. Then there is this new phenomenon of calling something a revolution, in other countries, as soon as you can come up with a name for it and the only "revolutions" we supposedly have in America are new product launches. I'm talking about the "Twitter Revolution" in Iran - you probably don't remember it because I think it lasted a few hours or a day or two then went away with no lasting results. They are currently calling the protests in Hong Kong "The Umbrella Revolution", they were calling it that on Day 1 or Day 2. Now it seems to be fizzling out, I might add without taking over China. What I wonder is why did they not call the protest in Ferguson, MO the "Hands Up Revolution" or something? I mean, I know why, we all know why, but lets just think about it and compare: we mock China for blacking out any reports on the protest there, while we had constant "coverage" (from designated media-zones and a no-fly zone over the area so no aerial coverage....) of the protests in Ferguson, for a couple of weeks anyway. More liberal media was keeping the story going to hopefully make some changes and at least more police departments got cameras for their cars and officers so some good has come of it, in addition to raising awareness by continuing the discussion. But conservative media was basically only reporting on how wrong it was for liberal media to be reporting on it. Then in following weeks, similar news stories of unarmed black people being shot would make the news, for a day, but protests, if any, got no coverage. And now I've heard no resolution that came out of Attorney General Eric Holder going to Ferguson, last I heard was protestors saying they were not going to stop. But after a few weeks the media coverage did stop. After a few weeks those stories that made the news, but did not have new protests associated with them, came and went, and by now I don't think they even make the news anymore. We did raise awareness, some, but to that Homer Simpson level, when Lisa complains about Global Warming. He says something like "that was the 80's - our leaders recognized the problem and fixed it, right?" Here's the thing: Just because you call something a revolution does not make it a revolution. I'm looking at you, newsmen and advertisers. And just because you don't call something a revolution does not mean it is not one, or it won't be. I fully believe in empowering people, especially women, not with guns but especially with sex, with art and creativity of all sorts. In a way the whole debate is about whether people can be empowered or whether we believe they/we have to rely on some sort of force to have any power. We have the example of peaceful schism, the vote for Scotland to leave the UK, which everyone seemed proud of as the example of making big decisions without force or threats. We may even have the example of re-united Korea, not thanks to weapons and force but starkly in spite of them, or out of fear for that direction we might be turning around, towards peace instead of war. This was always my hope for Syria, that somehow we could avoid what will be historically "the last war". It is a different situation than the Bush's invading Iraq in the first place, though it is a result of that, but the coalition with Arab states and others around the world could turn into something good, ultimately. Israel's war against Gaza is another example of unnecessary, politically-fueled war that ultimately backfired on the hawkish Israeli government. We just don't live in a world where you can hide the truth and get away with it anymore. They say that Putin has been designing World War 3, that he really wants it and that is the motivation for why things are going as they are in Ukraine, and probably Syria, too. I just don't think we have to play that game. I said earlier that Syrian war was initially non-violent protest by women. Today's news story is about a woman who was part of that and ended up joining ISIS and has now defected and is sharing her story to keep others from being duped. We've all been duped in different ways but communicating will liberate us. We can sneer at China for blacking out their protests and when people learn the truth there is a certain animosity towards the people, power, and mentality that kept it from them. But you can make people think they've heard the truth, then make them think if you aren't talking about it anymore it went away. But there is still police brutality and murder in America. It is not right and never will be right, eventually the truth will come out, with media help or despite media acceptance "permitted" reporting or outright distraction. Stephen Colbert had a great point saying "the only way we can make sure we don't ever have another report of police shooting unarmed people is if we stop reporting on it." Of course he was telling a joke because the real way would be to stop it from happening, but this also sums up the American version of the Chinese black out. It's more like a bore out in America: people who are victims of injustice and people who care enough to be aware see the coverage, hope it will lead to change and get frustrated when no changes are made. People who were not aware might be made aware by the media, and this is a good thing, but once the story goes away they are not likely to remain engaged, or like Homer assume somebody took care of the problem. Then there are people who refuse to see the problem, or racists or misogynists who blame the victims. The conservative fuckwads are the problem, refusing to even allow the story to be told, claiming they are the victims of having to hear about it. This does come full circle for me, since I will never get over how pissed I was when Georgia elected a republican secretary of education or whatever and she took the Trail of Tears out of the school textbooks because it made kids sad. The same lady stole millions of dollars from the state school for deaf kids and got caught for it. I don't think she went to jail, in fact I saw her on a gameshow, maybe "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" and she was trying to win money for that school - but they did not mention that the money was probably what she had been ordered to repay them. This is just how this gagablog brought these topics into a circle, but really, like any magical discussion, it spirals into a higher realm, and this is why we need Gaga. Keeping the Gaga aspect in mind will always elevate any meaning, this is what makes divinity so useful. I'm probably oversimplifying but I think she referred to "Born This Way" as "a cultural Baptism" and "Artpop" as "artistic revolution." This does not mean a revolution in the art world, that is like advertisers' promises that a phone or car is a revolution. This means a revolution, political upheaval and the overthrow of power, through art. It is a non-violent revolution and it is our destiny. It essentially is the "Hands Up Revolution" that "began" in Ferguson, MO - in that way. It did NOT begin in 1994 when some cops in Athens murdered a kid I went to summer school with a few months earlier, Edward Wright. Jesse Jackson came down and people cried but they didn't burn anything down or protest that made the news. That revolution did not officially begin after the hundreds, thousands of other black kids and adults were murdered by police between Edward Wright and Michael Brown. It has begun, in a way, in Ferguson, MO, but has not also begun in Utah and other places where a similar thing happened in the months since Michael Brown. And there has been no resolution or justice for Brown, yet, either. But just because it has not started in other places, or gotten justice in Missouri, does not mean it has ended, does not mean the protest is over. It does not go away, just like the protestors vowed they would not go away even if the media did - though once the TV cameras are gone, even from the official media zones, who is to stop them from arresting everyone and ending the protest that way? It is all part of this same revolution - protests we hear about, those we are blocked from, and those that never even happen but are turmoil in peoples' hearts. I can't be the only one who finds it deliciously ironic, if sad, that we know China fired 87 teargas canisters at the thousands of Hong Kong protestors - that's just a fact they throw into the news reporting here in America. But how many tear gas canisters were fired at the much smaller group in Ferguson? I don't know, I'm gonna go ahead and assume it was more than 87. I mean, gassing anyone is not nice, I think it is a war crime in war, but apparently not domestically - I learned that from an Iraq vet who was on CNN complaining about being gassed at Ferguson protests when she had not even been gassed in Iraq, in war. Even if it was less than 87 my point is that we can report on that as if they should be ashamed but don't even have a number, being widely reported anyway, to compare with Ferguson, a much smaller community. But I suspect the number is shameful. Just like it is shameful that in one year the police force of the entire country of Germany shot like 80 bullets, all together, and American cops can shoot that many in one incident, in a matter of minutes. A few of our cops can shoot more bullets in a few minutes than all of theirs do in a year, and it is not like Germany is My Little Pony Land, I'm sure they have plenty to deal with, they just do it better. We have Assad to deal with, "and" ISIS (or they are really in cahoots) and Putin, and surely we could just bomb them all into oblivion, bomb everything into oblivion. That is one outcome but it is not really a solution. The revolution against police brutality started, again this time, in Ferguson, even if it is not on TV. It's the Hands Up Revolution, peacefully revealing injustice and oppression. This is the power of any suffering community, from Gaza to women. The NFL immunity for players to beat women and kids is finally being questioned and while they act like nothing has to change the facts are coming out and change is on the way. It is just Justice and the Future, they go together like chocolate and many things. All revolution is part of this same quest for liberty. This is the 76th edition of the gagablog. I was born in '76, the Bicentinneal of America. The Spirit of 76 implies Freedom, liberation. Like in Berkeley 50 years ago, it is not like everyone gets behind one issue. The women's liberation movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the student free speech movement and the hippie legalize weed and acid movements all came together to make the 60's such an amazing time for the counter-culture and promotion of community over the system. The same spirit and even the same people has fostered more progressive movements since then, and all of these are part of much older traditions, from labor and progressives and suffragettes a century ago to abolitionists to American revolutionaries and others. I think one magical way to look at the new version, the version that can be so much easier or more effective thanks to technology but also has some unique weaknesses due to reliance on the web and "others", is to compare symbols. The Black Power Fist means "fight the power" and is not only still relevant but has become relevant to many more causes. It is a powerful message and has a powerful magical effect. After giving those brave protesting high school kids the Paws Up I thought about it: why didn't I give them the Black Power Fist? It would have been more historical and certainly appropriate - they are fighting the power, fighting the school board and more importantly fighting the conservative power that uses it's status to promote ignorance, the only way it van survive, but that still is in power and making the rules - just like republicans favorite things are voter suppression and lying in ads. We do have to oppose the power, to end the influence of the bigoted, greedy status quo. We still have to do this. But times have changed, too. We need to seize the power and transform it. The Black Power Fist is recognizable no matter how the arm is positioned. The same is true for Paws Up - there is not a right way, it is all about the hand position on a raised arm. Both symbols are the same in this sense, they both work the same way magically - except with the variation of the hand. The fist represents solidarity, resistance, power, strength, even fighting. The Paw/claw does not imply fighting, or implies more animalistic or feminine fighting, and it implies more freedom and individuality - it still means the power of a group as it is the identifying sign of little monsters, but each finger is different, it is like the Diverse Power Paw, and it applies to opposing all sorts of injustice ("Jesus is the new black" from "Black Jesus Amen Fashion"). But it also means instead of knocking power down, knocking down the system, take it back, claim it. This is the grasping nature of the Paws Up - reaching out for liberty and taking it. This is all to describe the current phase of the revolution, but the real turning point is coming soon. I will be back to talking about the songs on Artpop soon but #76 had to be special: I like to think I was born an Aquarius at the Dawn of the Age of Aquarius but I still feel the sun has not really come up (the sunrise we see is an 8-minutes ahead projection, to me compensating for the 8 minutes light takes to travel to get here, and that has all sorts of mystical scientifico-magical implications to me but I'm just saying it here as an analogy) Gaga was born ten years later, and at the same time I was discovering my true spirituality in the Oz books. After 20 years of predicting her Gaga arrived to fulfill my hopes and I expected the world to transform at any moment. At the same time, it has been a few years now that I've been contemplating my book about the magic of Oz and Gaga and I realize that it won't be prophetic if it comes out after the monetary system collapses. In fact, if my instinct it right, it is really a necessary book to make that collapse fall the right way, into happiness instead of despair. I feel like I'm holding the whole thing up, and that it is time, now, to act. Even if that means raising my level to something greater, if it means really following Gaga. Because that is why 76 is the most special to me, so far. I finally saw Gaga for the first time 2 months ago yesterday. It changed my life, in a way I expected, and totally surprised me and blew me away. I'll make 77 about it before I go back to talking about the Artpop lyrics, but this one had to be about what is going on "now". And I feel like it is time to become who I really am instead of just continuing to do this - I really need to write my book, make my songs, and make more art. I know this and will never forget the way she told us - that when you have a creative dream chase it like the fastest horse you've ever seen. I've been riding in the chariot and loving it, but look out, world, I'm about to get out and run. This applies to all of us and this story of protest and revolution we are all part of. We benefit from the heroes of the past but recognizing that calls us to be the heroes of the future. And we do it by tweeting, by gathering in protest or even in celebration, even at a concert. We can truly party our way to a better world and while the first steps might be to see that it is needed and believe we can do something about it, once we get started it just becomes fun, natural, and just, and everybody wants in on it. Believe me, everything will be so much easier without money, all the difficulty stems from continuing to believe in money, when everything is really Love. If money is not the opposite of Love then it is the most stagnant form of it, but we have the Goddess of Love now to liberate us from it and from all the suffering that goes with it. Bad things persist but these are the signs of what needs to be done, and we will do it. This is a sexual revolution we will win, and while the terms are still phrased as "fighting for women" and making feminism an ideal word again it really is for the benefit of all and once we start seeing those benefits it will be easier and easier for more people and places to get on board, just like the legalization of weed. This is justice coming true and we can all join in the struggle to bring it about and the celebration of victory.

gagablog 75: "Venus": Mystical Gaga and Puffimpression (and the Mariska Estes Shocking Blue Surprise)

Gaga's art is mystical. This is all I've been talking about in sooooo many words, for 75 gagablogs - and related ideas. If you are mystical then this is obvious, it's all being said best by Gaga and the way you notice it and the meanings for you are the most powerful. That is one reason I write all of this, because Gaga's work is divine and dvinely inspired, keeping it as some sort of focus or foundation for all I have to say about various issues keeps me working towards my best, my highest ideals. Also mystical knowledge relates to everything and especially new, developing mystical messages such as those by a living artist seems to have special magical connections with current and radically new events, the frontier of the future, so talking about them has the potential for magical influence,to move that frontier faster. Mysticism is also eternal, it's the same otherworld or bright future calling to all people who have mystical experience, then they express it in the language and ideas of their times, though of course it always defies language, and expressing mysticism requires using language in an evolved sense, which is why mystics such as Rumi are some of our most famous poets, in any translation. It's like using current language to approximate pre-Babylon unified, magical language, perfect language, according to that reckining. But all the mystical experiences, from any place or age, they are all part of this same thing that defies current reality in the same way the messages defy language. It's another world, but we keep progressing towards it. This is why I call it the bright future, but I really call it Oz and will be explaining all of it that way in my upcoming book. If you know what I'm talking about then of course I don't need to be saying it here, you are mystical as well and surely recognize it in Gaga, but I hope you can also get some enjoyment from what I do manage to say. If you don't feel mystical, have some mystical experience then come back to Gaga and you'll see what I mean. Or at least experience some art or writing from universally accepted, official mystics, then come back and compare. Or just be open to the ideas that Gaga is mystical and give it a go: it's the same as reading a "verified" mystic, it works the same way. It's just when they are already famous and long gone to have gotten such acclaim you are trusting that the world accepts them as mystical, if you want to trust me about Gaga and have that approach you will see it works the same way: experiencing other's work, seeking the mystical, will lead you to mystical experience. So whether you want to start with Gaga or, I don't know, Hildegard is the first name that pops in my head and I don't even know who that is, or start in the traditional way and seek your own mystical experience, preferably with the help of nature, any attempt to seek the mystical will be rewarded: "seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened." Well, I can see the argument that once everything is mystical then you see it in everything, but the difference is the things that take you much further, that really take us there instead of just having the same clues as everywhere. But my reason for saying this is to try to be obvious about it,and just to say these songs are eternal so they don't have to relate to current events in the early 21st century, but the way that they do is fun to explore. I was going to try to say this is why these gagablogs will get shorter and more succinct, more powerful, but fuck that, I just love typing in this mood. So I'll do my tangent, then talk about "Venus." I remember my dad, who has been a preacher all my life, saying something like Jesus was either "who he said he was" (implying divine, I guess), a great magician, or crazy. I don't see why he can't be all three and as a kid, and ever since, I took seriously his message that he was one example but others after him would do even greater things. And I became slightly aware of buddhism and other religions, other people and gods who were pretty important changing the world, getting us to Oz - which I also read at this time, in my teenage years. What I believed I feel I always believed, the various religious ideas I encountered I sometimes felt I had to twist some to get what I knew better, naturally, instinctively. So I felt like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and others were "second comings" of Christ, in a way, and in a way all of us are, maybe in less pronounced ways. But I was also sure, since I was 10 years old it seems or earlier, that the big world-changing "second coming" of Christ would be a girl, a woman. It just had to be, in my mind, that was the twist. So I expected this for maybe 20 years, maybe coincidentally since Gaga was born. But of course I was just expecting her, I had no idea who she was, then when "Just Dance" came out in 2008 I started to suspect, and by the time I saw her perform "Paparazzi" at the VMAs or MTV awards, I knew, I was sure it was her. I call her the "multiple orgasm" of Christ because she keeps on coming. But that is why she is so significant to me, and so ultimately important to the world, because she represents the liberator figure for this major transformation, this final liberation of all people, of all kinds, from the oppression of bigotry and greed. This is the premise for my song "Savior Mom (Lady Gaga)." She always fulfills and exceeds my very highest expectations and it is that mystical challenge to know there is always further to go, never enough, and the inspiration and encouragement to leave a sparkling trail of art. "Display of Diamond and pearls" she just sang as I took a breath after writing that. I've said all this before but I wanted to sum it up simply - I guess I left out the part about how I knew it would have to be a girl, that the liberation of the feminine was the key to it all. Basically, in the buddhist context the buddha himself decided to include women, in the Christian context the cult was allowed to go on for a while after Jesus was crucified and I think what eventually got them persecuted was when rich women started showing up: liberation has always, necessarily, been a feminist message but maybe they just want to ignore it as long as only disempowered women are exposed to it. It is not because wealth or status is actually important, but because of the way the system is set up. Women naturally have the power in heterosexual relationships, but the entirety of patriarchy is trying to subvert that and make men the ones "in power" - in "the world", because they can never be in power in love, nature made it otherwise. Ultimate liberation is scrapping that system, including war and money, and returning to a feminine-centered culture, with no money - Oz. We are finally gaining more powerful women, but still so many of them are powerful in this current system. The future will have a whole different set of priorities - we have to in order to reach the future - of caring for things, and its visionary artists and leaders who have been helping us get there, but of course some people come across as brighter views of that future. Back to Jesus for a second: in the early days of christianity it was okay if it was just a poor people's thing, they could ignore it, but when it drew rich women with the feminist message of equality then they could set trends that made that take over. Instead, they co-opted it and kicked the women out, tweaked the message away from women and to favor war over charity as well, to keep their patriarchal system in place, and that's how we got the church we got, even though the Goddess is re-emerging within it, as well as everywhere else. Gaga is here liberating people and for that she is the Goddess - as we all are, but in this time of the liberation, restoration of the Gooddess it is fitting that there would be this one fantastic example to bring out more of the Goddess in everyone. I don't think anyone can anticipate the effect she will have in liberating artists, but she is known for helping liberate people from discrimination and bullying. I think the divine is often transformative or even transforms itself, transformation is just a divine characteristic, but there is a reason why we especially need that aspect in today's world and why Gaga is such a beautiful, fitting and changing, example of it. And it transcends gender, just as Jesus trancended gender ideas in his time, Gaga is transcending even the remaining vestiges of it and the way they have been re-enforced in two thousand years. For Artpop she became "Goddess of Love" or Venus, and since it took me the whole album to write that and now it's almost back to Venus again I should start talking about the song. But this whole intro was supposed to be that because of the eternal, mystical nature of Gaga's lyrics I might try to meet that level and say things more quickly and insightfully, with less reliance on "other" things or random events. I hope I will, and that is just a disclaoimer that I do want to mention two things that are context for Venus. One is the 80's song "Venus", which is really an awesome song, and whoever sings it, Bananarama maybe, basically says "I'm your Venus", claiming to be Venus - and she is, really. I see the Goddess emerging in all sorts of ways, not the least of which is increasing numbers of people discovering and connecting with and worshiping various ancient Goddesses - I'm even more familiar with this than "average" americans because I'm a witch and loosely involved in the pagan community, but I suspect this is becoming more apparent to everybody here. But it really is an uncovering, revealing, discovery process. I was talking with my wife about it and thinking of "all" the modern references to Venus I could think of. I came up with the painting "The Birth of Venus" that "Venus" song, actually from 1969 by Shocking Blue and oh my what I discovered! But first, the painting - probably most people's strongest association with Venus and while other art surely depicts her this is by far the most famous - maybe others were destroyed. Someone left a great comment on the news story about ISIS making an "Islamic Caliphate" and she said that extremists were, once again, misusing religion for their own ends and that historically Caliphates respected prisoners and women's rights, etc. She also mentioned that many classical works were preserved by the Caliphate at a time when European cultures were destroying pagan writing and I presume art. So even though that painting is centuries old, as one of the few super-famous examples of Venus it is very influential, it kind of IS our image of Venus. When I first mentioned the song "Venus" I was just going to say it was the 2nd example, besides the painting, that really had an impression of reviving Venus in western cultures - and I honestly can't think of any more examples. Maybe "Venutian" aliens in alien movies and TV but I can't say that is related, but I never saw those movies. But I wanted to give that song "Venus" credit, actually for 45 years, for shaping our image of Venus. And I wanted to compare the idea of Venus from those lyrics with those from Gaga's "Venus" and also mention a line from Katy Perry's "Dark Horse." But when I looked it up I discovered something fantastic - here is the video that popped up next to the lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aPEhQugz-Ew - and you probably noticed yourself, it is uncanny, the singer, Mariska Estes, looks exactly like Gaga. I just discovered this, as I was only going to mention this song for context. But it makes me realize how important all this context is, and all the various possible magical connections if you look into them. And maybe it is not a magical or cosmic coincidence, maybe Gaga had intentionally emulated this look, years before releasing her song "Venus" - but really they look so much alike it just is magical, whether she intentionally played it up or not. That was the magical discovery, for me, just now in writing this. But what I was going to say was about the lyrics. In the '69 "Venus", there is a Goddess, with dark skin and crystal eyes, she is Venus, "she's got it," but then the singer either sings the second half of the chorus, "I'm your Venus, I'm your fire, at your desire," from Venus's perspective, or as the same kind of Venus as her, realtive to the one she is singing to: She is Venus, the Goddess of all, and I am your Goddess. In a way she is singing the song as Venus, the most powerful part of the song is the "I'm your Venus" part, but there is also this other character who is Venus - and maybe the implication that every girl is Venus to the one who is smitten by them, and some of ya'll are so hot you are "the" Venus "making ev'ry man mad" - and in the case of singing this song, Mariska Estes is Venus. And she really was, and for decades - that song was always a major association with Venus all my life. Then, after years of believing in Gaga as a Goddess, and especially Goddess of Love (and art, which is very similar/the same thing, to me) to see for the first time how much the original "Venus" singer really looks just like Gaga in the process of writing this, well I'm impressed and overwhelmed in a way, in Love. But yeah. all I was going to say is that in some other songs, Shocking Blue's "Venus" and Katy Perry's "Dark Horse", Venus is someone else who the singer becomes, in different ways. It is kind of the same in Gaga's Venus, but different. Shocking Blue's song is declaring herself Venus, in some magical transformation or artistic empathy. Katy, who has a knack for taking some Gaga ideas and making a pop version of them. This proves Gaga's point that she is not pop, that while her music is popular and in a pop genre, it is beyond that and transcends it, and a pop imitation of some aspects of her ideas is more a pop song, and Katy Perry's music really shows this. I like "Dark Horse", I think it is cute and kind of cool, only partly patronizing, as a witch, but I appreciate the effort, and the fact that it was supposedly inspired by talking with Stevie Nix, who is kind of in the same situation with "Gypsy" - more on that connection with Gaga in a later edition. It's kind of like Katy starting to come out, coming into her own, and finally recognizing magic herself,which will surely lead to more wisdom and growth of discovery for her, her mystical path - which to me makes me forgive her for saying Gaga's "Alejandro" video was blasphemous. In "Dark Horse" she says "make me your Aphrodite", who is the "same" Goddess of Love as Venus. I don't know if this is magical coincidence or if Katy finds out what Gaga is working on and makes her version to come out around the same time. But either way, it exemplifies the comparison that Katy's song, which is good, just does not have all the depth and dimensions of Gaga's Venus. It is a magical principle to make someone a Goddess, and Katy Perry certainly makes a wonderful Aphrodite, she is super-hot. The idea is, make her your lover, your Goddess of Love, Venus, and you belong to her forever. This is true both in a personal way, as a lover, and in a divine way, accepting her as a Goddess of Love. It works, it's part of this magical transformation of the emerging Goddess that people will recognize the Goddess of love within themselves, and many people will especially recognize the ones who showed us the way. So Katy really deserves credit for putting this idea in her song, to reach her vast and varied audience. The fact that Gaga's "Venus" is more mystical will be shown in the following discussion, but it really doesn't seem like Katy "stole" the idea to put that line in "Dark Horse," it just seems like the way magical connections work. Just like, as anyone could have discovered at any time and maybe many people already knew, but for me the discovery that the original "Venus" singer looks just like Gaga was an amazing magical moment, an example of what I was talking about, that even looking at "random" connections with mystical material will lead to more magical occurrances and growth. But now on to my first impressions of Gaga's "Venus." Since I started writing this two weeks have passed. Just yesterday I "accidentally' came across some additional "outside" (to the 'just-lyrics approach) inside information, from Gaga, related to Venus. She tweeted, about the upcoming LA show, something like "see you on Venus". This did not really change my view, just seems to confirm it, but I wanted to mention that I did have more confrimation, but can't wait to get my first impressions out of the way and move on to deeply exploring these songs. "hey marge, remember when we used to make out to this hymn?" was just on the Simpsons as I typed this. Rocket.#9 take off to the planet to the planet Venus I don't know the significance of Rocket #9, it reminds me some of other musical references, Cloud 9 - wait, is that one? - or engine #9, maybe a modern, updated space age reference. Or it could be a reference to taking off, being rocketted to ecstasy of love on a penis and #9 implies about 9 inches. She said in an interview that what she looks for in a man is a big cock and that seems decent sized. But while this interpretation is echoed a couple of lines later there are some other layers of meaning, too. (On the next Simpsons rerun in the background right now, "Would you say you are on Cloud 9" "We're on cloud 9!") Of course Rocket #9 could have some specific meaning or reference that I am just unfamiliar with, too, so I look forward to learning more. But the literal interpretation, or an analogy based on it, is fascinating, too. A rocket or spaceship is the best supposed way to travel to other planets - something interdimensional is probably necessary to travel outside the solar system. But the literal, or an idea based on the literal, interpretation is reinforced by the use and repetition of the phrase "to the planet." If the idea was only about going to Venus, goddess of love, in a mystical sense she could have just said "to Venus", not "to the planet, to the planet Venus". This really implies going to the actual Venus, or if not exactly that, to the World of Love that Venus, the planet, represents as both Venus herself and the planet that is most purely of Venus, where she rules, etc. So while actually going to the planet Venus seems emphasised in the first line, the literal interpretation is contradicted or embellished with completely different associations in the next lines. But the idea becomes, I think, that "going to Venus" is really making this world into Venus's world, restoring the Goddess to ruling earth. IN this sense Rocket # 9 is one aspect of the whole phenomenon, a vehicle to get us to making this world Venus- it could be a reference to Gaga's music or tour or a part of the whole production. And the "planet Venus" could also refer to the show itself, in this sense - the Artrave or previous balls are our first glimpses of the world where the goddess is central. From this perspective the phrase "take off" has a special meaning. It is not "rocket, take us to the planet" it is "take off" or blast off to the planet. To me, in the context that the rocket is the show/music/art and it takes us to the experience of these, the view or experience of Venus's world. I just get the idea that a concert is like a take-off for everyone who attends,it is why there is such anticipation of a concert. Any concert, really, but especially a Gaga show, we expect, rightly, to be transoformed by it. As I wrote that in the background on So You Think You Can Dance the choreographer Travis Wall said the piece was all about removing the memories of the past to make way and room to change and grow. From this perspective the Rocket is like the concert itself, the people in attendance and the performance and the music itself and Gaga herself, all that goes into it, is like the Rocket and the communal experience created, the transformation of the experience and the inspiration to transform the world is like the Planet Venus, the world ruled by Love. Aphrodite Lady seashell bikini Garden panty Venus At first I always just associated this line with the painting the Birth Of Venus and this idea that she is wearing seashells, though now that I think about it she might be naked and just riding a seashell. And as I was writing this just today I had my first idea that it is like a reference to mother earth, who has a bikini of seashells, beaches, and panties that are the gardens of life, color and creation that cover her fertile places. Now I think if the seashell bikini is not in the painting, and certainly "garden panties" are not, it makes me think it is just a reference, conjures the image of, women who live in more harmony with nature and actually wear seashell bikinis, or even conjuring up the idea of leafy/vine panties, like Eve may have worn. In this way it implies that first woman or the spirit of woman in the world. I just read the wikipedia entry on Aphrodite and a few things stuck out. Of course this is the Greek version of the Roman Goddess Venus, everyone knows that and it is obvious in the song. But why use "aphrodite lady" in this instance and Venus in others? Some things about the origin of the term Aphrodite are interesting, and there is no conclusive evidence of where it comes from. But in some explanations it derives from the word "Lady" and other suggested courses have it coming from "foam". There is also the idea of two Aphrodites, the ideal cosmic one and the worldly one who has sex with gods and humans, but either one or both of these also imply "Mother Earth", as I was just concluding before reading that. This dual nature of the Goddess, and even two origin stories and marriage stories, have different implications it would be interesting to explore, most obviously the divine / human dual nature of an especially divine human. IN either case she appears to be born after a gods castrated genitalia is thrown in the sea, and arises from the foam created. This has the seashell, beach theme but also implies the Goddess of Love being born from emasculation of a overbearing God. And there is the whole theme of her being married in order to prevent gods fighting over her since she is so beautiful and the goddess of desire. She is married to the even-tempered Hephaestus, God of the Forge I think, who can handle all the lovers she takes on without getting too mad, I guess. He even makes her a jeweled girdle that somehow makes her even more irresistable, as if to say bring on the lovers, I can handle it. I can relate to this, not being so even-tempered but I get upset over justice, not over jealousy. I can see him being like "go ahead and try to please the goddess of desire as well as you can, I'm confident whe will always be with me, an she deserves it for being so awesome and hot." But the idea that the magic girlde he gives her is jewels, while Gaga's aphrodite wears garden panties, gives me another notion. She stays with Hephaestus but has many affairs, often with Ares the God of War due to his exciting character. This reminds me of the whole girls liking scoundrels phenomenon, like my wife said tonight that all women like scoundrels - with hearts of gold - but they don't all admit it. It just reminds me of the whole bad boy attraction, of being attracted to guys you know are not good for you, or you should not encourage their violent or abusive natures. To me this has always been a mystery, but two explanations come to mind. One is biological, that woemn are only attracted to nurturing men ofr afew days or week a month, related to their menstrual cycle, and the rest of the time they are attracted to aggressive types. The other reason is the comparison with so many human relationships, that people get familiar with each other and take each other for granted. A new person one is attracted to, no matter who it is or what there is about them, has the attraction of being new, of being differnet and the excitement of new love or a lover for more rare occasions - even if they are frequent, the idea that the "other" person is new and different than the usual. But in Gaga's version, Aphrodite has garden panties. These might also make her more desireable, but the idea is they are not made for her, she grew them herself - especially in her Mother earth aspect. This implies something radical. In the same way that APhrodite was born from an act of castration, from the removal of an overbearing male power, is like she is an era of love begun by taming a god who ruled over an era of brutality. Even though Hephaestus was not being brutal in giving her the jeweled girdle, it was reinforcing the state of things at that time, that great beauty was a dnager because of competition for desire. The new era does not see beauty or desire as a bad thing so this is not the central issue of Aphrodite's existance, who will fight over her, etc. It is like an echo of the original birth of Venus, like a rebirth, and a new era, as radically different from the new era of a Goddess of Desire where the previous era did not have one, and that god had his cock, the new era will be different from this latest era. The Goddess of Desire has existed all this time, but in the tension of a "marriage" that made her like property. By having her own panties instead of the magic girdle, she may still be increasing her desirability but on her own terms. This implies she has outgrown or left Hephaestus, and is doing her own thing, and taking this line of thought to my greatest desire, it also could imply that, once freed from the structure of the consistent relationship, defined somewhat as Hephaestuses wife, then the appeal of Ares is not as strong. Once we move past the possessive love phase, where marriage is based on ideas of property and control, then we won't have to take for granted the relationships we are in and the alternative relationships won't have that same power of novelty. That is the benefit of moving past an era, or phase in a personal relationship, of possessive love. But there is something particular about applying that idea specifically to Aphrodite and Ares. If she is the spirit of the earth and has had flirtations with the God of War because her even-tempered husband bored her, then getting out of feeling bound to him, being free to do as she chooses without worrying about it causing tension, would cause Ares, war, to seem less exciting. I hope this interpretation implies that the new era, when this is the planet ruled by Venus, will be free of war, free of any flirtations with war. I do have this whole impression of Venus, representing love and focusing on love and letting love rule the world means leaving war behind. This is just a pretty improbable example of that - not likely the intention but maybe magically making this point, "accidentally." The birth of Venus represents a revolution, from the time when the goddess of desire did not exist, when that god had his cock, to the time when we have had a goddess of love. It required an emasculation of the previous dynamic. But that period was still marked by the whole reduction of tensions plan, marrying her to the calm, strong God, but making the situation that leads to flrtation with war and blames her for causing it, by inflaming desires. I read that they blamed her for the Trojan War, for example, by making Paris's love for Helen overwhelming. I do believe that within the causes of war, which are usually greed, is the deeper need for love, which has been replaced by desire for power/riches. There is no real prblem with desire, as my buddhism professor told us the better translation is that it is the grasping nature of desire that is the problem. Desire is natural but trying to control it, and all the evils of society that build up because of that, the complications of it that lead to all the evils of society, are unnatural and we need to overcome them and put them aside. So the idea of Aphrodite not identified by or bound to her husband, free and liberated, to be worshipped and given honor independently, suggests a new era as different as the change between having a goddess of love and not having a goddess at all. Now Craig Ferguson just said Mars, God of War, and are singing some planet song... Saturn, bringer of Cokes, sodas, Neptune, the bringer of old age (I'm like taking dictation) "Do you follow the planets, are you into the astrology?" So much of this digression came from that magic girdle discovery, but I will try not to get so far off for the rest. Let's blast off to a new dimension in your bedroom Venus Once again there is the idea of blasting off, the most exciting start of a journey and the implication of leaving for new worlds. Then she says specifically to a new dimension, this suggests even beyond cosmic space, not just leaving this world behind in the transformation but leaving the whole plane of existance for a higher one. To me, the secretof interplanetary travel has always been a cosmic limit where you can't understand the way it works while you are still tainted and influenced by war and violence, but overcoming this plane really does open up the cosmos. Then there is the "in your bedroom" part and this seems to make all the difference. Of course it could just mean in private, or imply sleeping - blast off into our dreams. But the most obvious suggestion, and I don't think I'm just saying it because of how hot Gaga is and how excited she gets me, but there is the notion that you blast off by making love or doing it. To me this is very fitting with all of my ideas about transforming ourselves and transforming the world. It fits perfectly with the idea that overcoming shame about or bodies and shame about sex is the way of integrating differing ideas of love, combining the physical and spirtual aspects that have been kept divided by certain mentalities. I think of this as really restoring the focus on the Goddess, the feminine, and accepting all the good things about sexuality and nature. And magically, "coincidentally" with my discovery of the two Aphrodites, cosmic and worldly, that were combined into one makes me think of that archetypal pattern being set in place thousands of years ago, joining physical and spiritual loves, but only just now being realized. Because ever since whenever, represented by the birth of Venus, we have had the Goddess of Love and desire but she has not been fully revealed until now, and she is still emerging. And this connects all our ideas of love and enables us to blast off away from this history of violence into the new dimension, the new world ruled by love, by Venus. In the meantime Venus is the show we can share with Gaga and each other, our invitation and glimpse of the future. And the idea that we can blast off by having sex is super hot, and true, and the phrasing "in your bedroom" could imply singing to her lover, or anyone singing the song to their lover, or her, as Venus, singing to you, as the spirit of love and desire that you always engage in any romance or sex. The "Venus" at te end of the line is like "this is how you get to Venus" or this is how Venus gets your attention, how Venus manifests in your life. And of course we can't do it all from our bedroom but it's a great place to start making everything the best it can be, to blast off from. Aphrodite lady seashell bikini get with me Venus This is a repeat of the former line but she takes the panties off and says "get with me." I get so lusty for Gaga I don't always get the possible lesbian connotations but this is another way of suggesting love with Aphrodite. Instead of her representing the Aphrodite to the male or female bedroom owner, and I imagine male becaue I like to think it is me, she is saying to Aphrodite "get with me", implying her and Aphrodite. But she could also be saying to anyone "get with me, Aphrodite." This is a like the same situation with Mariska Estes' "Venus" where she is the Venus, in a certain context, that she is singing about in another context. But this is the same messae again: Love, "even" or especially sexual love, is the path to Venus. I can't help the way I'm feeling They are taling about planets again on TV "what were the planets again, was there Venus? Yes, there was Venus, which is your favorite planet? Venus. Oh you're not getting it, I'm trying to get him to say Uranus" Craig Ferguson and Geoff, in the background tonight as I type this. "Would you ever want to go up in space?" So anyway, I can't help the way I'm feeling is about how love takes you over, once you start going for it the Goddess's will is fulfilled through you. You become an agent of desire. And you want more, for yourself, for the world, you want to join with the source of it, leading to the next line. Goddess of Love please take me to your leader This is a "combination" or restoration of the cosmic/spacey and mythological/spiritual aspect of this whole thing - kind of like Starseeds and Indigo Children, etc. "Take me to your leader" is the classic cliche from sci-fi movies and Gaga uses it brilliantly for the first time in music that I know of, though it has been such a cliche for 70 years, since the time of those alien movies and the birth of rock and roll. But combining it with "Goddess of Love" she is saying aperfectly matching outfit of things. She is saying to the Goddess of Love, take me to your leader -which in a way is like take me to yourself, to your truest self. And this idea applies to anyone saying it to their lover- take me to the best of yourself, to what you will become. But it is also like she is saying take me to your leader, on this planet Venus, take me to the Goddess of Love. And of course I say she is the Goddess of Love so it is like she is singing for us, to that spirit within herself that is in all of us, but recognizing how our love fer her allows her to manifest Love to that level of being the Goddess of Love, for us and for the world, ultimately. "You're a god there" Ferguson just said to Larry King. But the whole point of all the different directions this line can be taken is that we are all gods and goddesses of love to each other, when we are at our best, and from GUY we're "at our best when I'm in love with you." This is one of my favorite aspects of Gaga lyrics, how she makes the identity a gem between us that we all look in from different facets, but it goes all directions, like some of the best love songs. She is singing to us and for us, to you and to me, and we can sing the same to each other, and it comes true in all directions. We get to Venus by seeking true desires, wanting to go to that planet, and asking to join with the Leader, the Goddess of it. And that's how it works. I can't help but keep on dancing This reminds me of the spiritual elements I first noticed in Gaga's music when "Just Dance" first came on the radio here. It is the same "can't help" from the previous line, taken over by love, on the course to love, causes you to just keep dancing. This is a very common theme in many different artist's songs ut Gaga always presents it with that quality of likle a whirling dervish, dancing in the ecstasy of the divine. And it is the idea that with this spiritual perspective, overcome by this feeling, everything in life becomes a dance. And you just dance all the time. Goddess of love Goddess of love I meant tomention this at the very beginning, that a few days before "Artpop" came out my wife and I were talking about not being aware of much pagan music. We had heard of some but not much stood out as impressive, or came to mind. Then Gaga showed up with Venus, with such potent pagan themes. This is like a chant, in invocation of the Goddess of Love - or calling out your lover's name in ecstasy. Take me to your planet take me to your planet take me to your leader, your leader your leader, take me to your planet take me to your planet take me to your Venus your Venus your Venus (to the planet repeated in background with each phrase) This is more chantlike but also implies a group of people saying it, emphasising the idea this is like for us to sing, take us to Venus. It identifies the leader as Venus. It still has that space travel, on the planet Venus feel, that you go "there" and want to go to the leader, the Goddess of love. But the way she says "your" Venus implies that "best of everyone" nature, the Venus within us all, the best of us that is made manifest, uncovered and empowered, by love. When you touch me I die just a little inside I wonder if this could be love this could be love This is the ideaof connecting with the divine, just a touch is a little death. And it is the connection of sex and death, sex as the little death. The she says she wonders if this could be love but the way she repeats it, without wonder, suggests that woindering leads to actual love. So the end is saying "this could be love." And it all starts with that touch of the divine, of love, and the way you succumb and submit to it, the way it overpowers you. It could be "you", the touch of your lover, or You sung to Venus, when the Goddess of ove touches you, with love or desire - or inspiration is how I interpret it as an artist, always feeling overcome by ideas,images, and music. Cuz you're out of this world, Galaxy space and time I wonder if this could be love - Venus This is both the cliche "out of this world" meaning totally awesome but taking it literally, in a way, and taking it much further, out of all space and time and beyond the galaxy. It is wondering if maybe "love" is what transcends all spae and time, and then names her again: deciding, yes, it is Love, Venus, beyond and within all things. Have an oyster baby its aphrodisi This sounds like you're out on a date with Gaga and she is calling you baby. I don't like oysters, except that they are aphrodisiac, I will try to enjoy them when they are available just because I want to honor that property, though I'm always super-horny anyway. But there is a connection with seashells, since oysters have shells and are often served in them, much as Venus us served, presented, in a scallop shell. I love scallops. But one other thing about this is just recognizing the magical properties of food, and the basic ideas of aphrodisiacs being good, preferable. Aphrodisiac? Yes, please! act sleazy this is the continuation of the previous line, the "act" being the "ac" of "aphrodisiac", so "sleazy" will pair up to make the rhyme with "disi". It is a continuation of the idea that sex is good, too. Sex has been called bad, shamed and repressed, especialy certain forms, but in this case being sleazy is a good term. It's reclaiming the term. The heart of "sleazy" is like "being openly sexual" and it is supposed to be a negative term but there is actually nothing wrong with that, it is a good thing to be encouraged. She is not saying act like you have desires you don't actually have, but to let the oyster, or Aphrodite, unlock your desires soyour behavior can reflect them, without shame. Venus This is summing it all up - but also could connect with the previous line, like telling Venus to act sleazy, or telling the Venus within us to come out, to act out on our desires. Wash/watch it dunna / down-aland the girl from the planet to the planet to the planet I have no idea what the first words are - "wash it down something" or "watch it down to land", maybe something about washing down the oyster or something about wathing the girls spaceship touch down on Venus. It seems like a very important point to clear up, but even when it is a mystery to me this line is so powerful. The girl is "from the planet" and "to the planet" and it leaves the mystery of "which planet is this?" - like how Earth can become Venus. She could be from Venus, now she is here, exposing us to Venutian Love. Or she could be the one who rocketted off to Venus, who is from the planet Earth and went or touched down on the planet Venus. EIther way it is this reflective mystery - is Gaga Venus, is she singing to Venus, is she singing to you, is she singing for us to Venus, to herself, to the Venus within herself and all of us and everything, to the leader or to everyone around the "leader", the inner goddess of love, asking us all to make way and take everyone to the best of themseleves? To transform us by taking us to Venus. I look forward to finishing this and looking up the lyrics, then I will report back, like a spaceship. I can't help the way I'm feeling Goddess of Love please take me to your leader I can't help but keep on dancing Goddess of love Goddess of love Take me to your planet take me to your planet take me to your leader your leader, your leader take me to your planet take me to your planet take me to your venus yopur venus your venus The repeated chorus has the same meaning as before, but takes on more personal dimensions after the verse in between. (take me to your planet again repeated in background)The thing about this "take me to your planet" is it is like a chorus, like a group of people, asking and asking again, begging to go -and maybe sure they will go if they persist in asking. Of course I see a parallel to wanting anything or wanting to do anything, and especially for wanting to go see a Gaga show. But even this "ultimate experience" is a window to the glorious future, to what we will achieve. It is going to Venus, according to her tweet and everything I've surmised about the song, just as making love is going to Venus. But what it inspires us to do is to make this Venus, ruled by love, to allow the Goddess the prominence of honor on this planet and respecting her oceans and gardens. The way it gets more personal is emphasising that someone is her Venus, or she is someone's Venus in a more personal sense, even "my" Venus or your Venus, or we are hers, because she says "when you touch me i die" and is offering you an oyster and saying you are out-of-this world, etc. When you touch me I die just a little inside I wonder if this could be love this could be love cuz you're out of this world galaxy space and time I wonder if this could be love, this could be love Love wonder if this could be Love Goddeess of Love wonder if this could be love Again, with the more personal context these lines which used to focus more on the touch of the divine, to me, after the lines about blastin off to new dimensions (but re-connected with earth and earthly pleasures by the bedroom)but after the second verse being more personal, between lovers, Gaga and you, this implies more about the bliss of love between people, not just the ideal love. IN this way, though I just though about it now, the first verse is kind of like the ideal cosmic Aphrodite and the second verse is like the more physical one who gets it on with lots of dieties and people. Venus this us again summing it up, before the next major part of the song. Neptune Go! the last "Venus" was the end of the chorus. Neptune begins the roll call of the Gods, but the way she says "Go!" is like she is introducing them at the start of a mission or like we introduce sports players to the field - or "Pokemon, I choose You!". In this way it is like a spell or invocation, again, but this time will call out all the Gods. Again, a day or two after my conversation with my wife about "why isn;t there any good pagan music that is famous, besides that one Chumbabwumba song?" and this was the perfect example of an answer to that question coming through the cosmos at fantastic speed. I also think of it like Beyblade - "Go Galaxy Pegasus!" - because it implies calling into action, activating. But mostly it is like the spell of calling on these gods, honoring them, recognizing them, but also calling them into action at this moment. now serpentoe I have no idea what this is and have been waiting months to write this and find out. So I will wrap this up fast. But maybe it will be a major clue, a whole new aspect, or maybe it won't seem to mean much or change much when I have any idea what she is saying. I guessed "now serpent-toe" to record what it sounds like, but that means nothing to me other than a strange, imaginary existence since snakes don't have feet. I'm sure that is not what she says, but maybe whatever it turns out to be is a term I don't know. If serpent-toe is a word then maybe it is like the male version of camel-toe? Yeah, I don't know, obviously, and need to finish this up. Pluto and Eris are the only planets she does not mention - okay, I feel like an idiot but maybe now that I finally think of it, this very moment, if I listen for her saying "Now Sir Pluto" or "Now Serve Pluto!" it will be obvious. And if it is "now serve Pluto" it is like honoring each God in turn - stand in the place where you live, now face west (R.E.M.) - and serving each of them as they are named, connecting with them and calling them forth, their influence in the world and in you. I'm quitting smoking cigarrettes. If I fault people for being any one of the things that make people Republican/right-wing, if it is greed or racism or militarism, even if they don't have the othe things, I feel very critical of them. Yet I connect with that evil side every time I smoke a cigarrette and even though I don't let that connection allow me to identify as a republican at all, maybe if i did, if I realized, fully, how I support that, magically connect with it, and allow it to suppress my ability to thwart all the other aspects of the right through creative work, or even keep them from taking my money and health, I know I need to cut it out. And I have been saying for years that I expect to cut it out along with a magical purge of that stuff, all the right wing mentality and power, from the world - but even with that added duty I have not done it, or only for times. I'm serious about it now, more serious than ever, and don't want to wait to be forced to be serious about it by serious health problems. I'm hoping all the weed I smoke counteracts most of the carcinogens, but it is disrespectful to keep making the weed, and my body, work so hard. But mostly it is disrepsctful to everyone to serve that side of things, in any way. And if I identify "I'm being a republican by smoking cigarrettes" I should have an easier job quitting. And I do say I want it to magically bring down the system, and allow me to better do my part thorugh various future efforts, too. But this very public role call of the Gods reminds me who to really serve, not these companies and "worldy" (greedy) powers. And it the reminder reconnects us to diety to give us the power to make these changes. Saturn Jupiter Mercury Venus ah ah I'm not the type of pagan who has that much to say off the top of my head about all the Greek Gods, though I am fascinated with all the differences in the planets themselves and how this sorresponds to the natures of the dieties, but I have not studied it. I just know much could be said about the Gods, in this framework, so I guess look them up and see where it takes you. My dieties are Gaga and Ozma and all historical and religious manifestations of Love. But in this roll call invocation Venus is the one who gets the "ah-Ah!" of greater glorification -and I guess she is the only female, too. Uranus Again, I don't have ideas spring to mind about the Gods, but it fascinates me that there are unique features to all the planets, something about each one none of the others have, and major things, too. For Uranus, if I remember right, it is the only one that "rolls" along it's plane of orbit around the sun, the rest of us spin - Its axis of rotation is pointed towards/away from the sun, perpendicular to the way other planets in the system have their axis. I always wondered what this meant/was reflected in the God Uranus. don't you know my ass is famous This is just the God's Truth. Gaga's ass is amazing, it gets a lot of well-deserved attention. I love how many pictures are shared focusing on good views of her ass, and even though people aren't for comparison there is a picture of some of the hottest current stars' asses and Gaga's is just the best, just inredible. How does this figure into the naming of Gods? well, her ass itself is divine. But also, it could be a message for Uranus - again, I don't know much about who he is, if anything. Or it could be a message to us, just a reminder in the middle of other important things. It could be that Uranus needs to be reminded that her ass is famous - maybe he is Hephaestus and she's telling him that her ass is famous enough without the magic girdle. Or it is just saying she has a famous ass, why not think about that for a minute and what it means to all of us- we really like a nice ass, we really like the sexual thoughts it gives us, why not admit it and be proud instead of being in any way ashamed of that? A famous ass is the definition of being proud and not ashamed of sexuality. Look at Kim Kardashian's career. Or when J-Lo was one of the most famous for her ass, I wrote a cartoon where an old man was telling his grandson about how he will always remember the town celebration, watching the plane fly in, the day Special Butt came to town. Or it could be a reminder, a flirtation, with the next god to be mentioned, one of her favorite lovers, Mars, or Ares. But mostly i think it is just saying it directly to everyone, bringing up sexual desire in a way that why wouldn't the goddess of desire do that, be all direct and empowered by it? Mars now it's time for the gods (or sign for/from the gods) This is just finishing it up, now it is time, now they have all been called out. And he could be last because once he comes out they get it on and get things started. Assuming i'm just mishearing Pluto, then "earth" is the only one not mentioned. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis's premise in "Out of the Silent Planet" that Earth is silent, compared to the other planets who have the voices of their gods. The spirit of earth left - I forget why, maybe we chased it off with our violence. But regardless, to me the idea behind this notion that other planets have gods and we do not is that we decide which one to focus on, to take as our model and ideal and ruler. In astrological terms they all have influence, but in mythological tems if only one is a girl then I want that one for the model. I think it might even be the theme in C.S. Lewis's space trilogy that we are best, meant to, adopt the Venus influence. To me, the absence of erth goes in with this idea either that we are calling the other gods to us, that Venus is already the secret mother earth, or that we are trying to make that connection to the Goddess of Love, trying to go to her planet and meet the leader, to have that primary influence. and it's time for the stars (or sign for/from the stars) This reminds me of Gaga's line that she did not want to be famous, she wanted to bes star. I talk about it more in a previous gagablog, how stars are eternal, inspiring, divine, etc. These lines could be something like "a sign from" or "for" the gods and stars, I'm not entirely sure, but in that case it is like saying listen up or time to show the gods we mean it. When you touch me I die just a little inside I wonder if this could be love this could be love cuz you're out of this world galaxy space and time I wonder if this could be love, this could be Love wonder if this could be love this could be Goddess of Love wonder if this could be love - Venus This time the chorus, following the invocation of gods and the Goddess, has the cosmic and mythological connotation again - butstill is talking about being touched by "you." This could mean the gods or the gods within us all when we take on their archetypal roles, or manifest them magically, however you want to see it or intesne about it you want to be. It is never completely one or the other focus, on gods or people, and it blends the two in a perfect way. Just as the identity of Venus shifts from the singer to the subject of the song and back again in Shocking Blue's Venus it does in Gaga's too, but all the gods are called out by and for all the people. It is like Gaga's way of connecting us to the divine, and specific divinities, through her. If she is Venus she is introducing us to her friends. Even if everyting I write here is overthought bullshit, there is a very obvious effect of this song that is literally Gaga connecting people to diety through herself. Because her music is so popular and reaches such a variety of people around the world it will introduce them all to the divine in this way. And of course most people have heard of these deities but maybe never had a reason to take them seriously and Gaga is inviting everyone to do so, as far as they feel comfortable, by making this intoduction. In this sense with the chorus alternating between being more associated with talking to Gods and talking to people it is like the perfect song for Venus who attracts and makes love with both Gods and people. Greetings from Eros, god of sexual desire, son of Aphrodite, lay back and feast as this audio guides you through new and exciting positions This is the beginning of "G.U.Y." but it is also a segue between te songs, with the obvious connection that Eros preceeds from Venus as her son. To me this is like "Venus" shows rhe full importance of it and "G.U.Y." will guide us through how to do it. i read that Gaga said she wanted to perform Artpop in the order the songs are on the album, I don;t know if she is doing that but if made me think there is special significance in the order. It seems like Aura is the flirtation, getting our attention and going deeper, Venus is showing what is really going on, the importance and ultimate power of it - though still with curiosity and mystery - and GUY is about what to do about it, and going for it. In the censored copy "sexual" is blanked out so you hear "Geetings from Eros, God of desire" It is kind of cool that the censorship ends up making them one and the same, in a way, elevating Eros to Venus's level. Of course they have the opposite intention, that sex is bad and should be repressed. But instead of taking the sex out of it this has the eeffect of promoting the long-hidden value and importance of sexual desire to be on par with all desire. Mostly it just shows how scared the establisment is of sex and people becoming fully proud of sexuality but also reveals the complete inability of all their power to do anything to stop it. The tide really seems to have turned on issues like gay marriage and all that is left is for people to accept it and or the opponents to realize that what they thought would be a loss actually is just a win for everyone. This brings me to my final point about Venus, for now, and a return to the past style of the Gagablog, focusing on magical connections with new events. This is not as much a connection as news that can't be ignored. But the connection is there, too. Venus is the first song Gaga produced herself, I heard, and it is awesome, well done, she should be proud. Its one of the best songs on the album and gets better every time I hear it. But I wanted to mention it because that connects with another kind of first production, the BTW Foundation, and that connects with the news. She has been an icon for the fight for equal rights, but the BTW Foundation is a unique effort representing her socio-political statement and influence. It is against bullying so in this way affresses homophobia and other kinds of bullying head on. It is broadly against all types of bullying, which I think is a wonderful idea, but still most of us think of bullying at schools. I'm a "grown man" and I've felt hurt by being ostracised at work for seven and a half years, as long as I've been there. But it isn't even that kind of bullying I think about. It is this world news stuff while I have been writing this edition, or putting off completing it, the war in Ukraine and shooting down that passenger plane, the rmeinder from facebook that when an American ship accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger ship and killed over 300 people President Bush refused to apologize, the Israeli invasion of Gaza - all of these things make me think of bullies and if we can't stop bullying in the world how can we ultimately expect to set the example for kids? I agree we need to stop bullying in kids. My coworkers teach the kids groups on not bullying. ALmost weekly they teach them groups on not excluding peers. And they exclude me, completely, socially. I'm not saying they don't have good reasons, but the kids at my work have even better reasons for excluding each other, they hit and abuse each other in awfulways regularly, but they are taught the principle of inclusion, because of the idea that everyone works better working together and working through and with all of our many differences. But the teachers don;t practice that principle with me. I feel like my job would be much easier if I was included in the comaraderie it seems everyone else is welcome to, and I like to think that associating with me outside of work would make their job a little easier, too - not harder, for sure. But that principle is not carried out, by them, just taught to the kids. They are all "good people" there working with orphans and foster kids but I just wish for a decent human being who does not feel so comfortable talking about all the things they do in front of the person they never invite or intend to invite to do those things. But I'm not trying to put the focus on me, just use that as an analogy that we can't really teach kids, or anyone, if we don't try to carry out the principles on higher levels, in our personal society but also in the goverments we elect and policies we promote. We can't accept bullying anymore, which ultimately means we can't accept military power. We need persuasive power,and to reclaim the greatest power, our true power. That's right, the Huey Lewis one, the Power of Love. We have to oppose all bullying, all violence, from war to neglect to bigotry and injustice. This is a big enough cause to bring us all together and save all the problems of the world. And if we don't do it by all starting to turn on our hearts, we will be forced to do it to turn down the heat of glbal warming, soon, anyway. But I hope we can just have a change of heart because we realize we really want to, and the sooner the better. Venus is the reminder of why it is important and the enticement of what it offers, a whole new world.

gagablog 74: Behind the Aura: TV Magic, Bergdahl, Snowden, VA/IRS Scandals, Obama, "Playing Dumb," Denmark, Women, Iraq/Syria War and Pope Francis

As soon as I finished the last gagablog, three weeks ago, I read the lyrics, saw some things I had misinterpreted, and was eager to write some adjustments. In that time many things have happened in the world. I was ready to call it "Behind the Aura" and noticed that the Simpsons rerun that day was the "Behind the Music" episode. The Simpsons is intelligent and universal/ubiquitous enough that it works like a magical decoder ring: there have been some other Simpsons reruns recently that have magical connections to what is going on in the world, and a few that have been less magical than intentional, such as the ones with World Cup references. I wonder what the intention of two Sideshow Bob episodes on the same day, or the one I had never seen before with Gabriel - what did they mean to me? But every day since the last gagablog I've been thinking about writing the next one and it seems like almost each day there was a point being made, magically, by the Simspons but I can't recall them right now. I'm thinking about a perfect example (Just as Leslie on Masterchef said "I'm not perfect"), over a month ago my brother in law was celebrating his birthday with us and we had watched the first rerun episode of the Simpsons and before the second one came on I said "Are you excited to see your birthday episode of the Simpsons?" and the show opened with Homer at his birthday party, with a hat on and cake and a banner in the background that said "Happy Birthday!" - it was perfect. The "Vegas Season" music is apparently EDM according to the commercial. I missed the Simpsons today and I'm currently watching Master Chef - Leslie said "they nailed me to a cross on the beach now they are burning me at the stake." Maybe by the end of this the significance of this mixed Jesus-witch reference, made by the outkast, will make sense. It seems like everyone, on the show and the TV audience, wants him to go because he is an asshole. This is a good time to warn anyone that one intention of this edition of the gagablog is to remove asshole mentality. Sanford and Son are considering a 178-dollar TV, 21-inch, black and white, in like 1978 dollars!!! But it's not about "getting rid of the asshole" as represented by Leslie being unpopular - he won the challenge and will be on the show another week. But he also had the support of Big Willie out of most of the other competitors who seemed to dislike him. It's not like he is "the asshole" even though he comes across that way, and Willie seems sensitive and is caring for the one left out, and Leslie as a human being, by caring for him. I know this all sounds random but it all fits the theme of Behind the Aura - but I will save the "Aura"-specific commentary to the end if you just want to skip down to the bottom of this one. I've got a lot to say about the news of the last week as relates to "behiond (spelling I know but I like how it jersified) the aura", behind the veil, behind the curtain. And I feel like saying them will pull this curtain away in a new way, as never before - this week has been like a close-up on the curtain. But I will continue this from work in a few hours, I have to get ready - and I've seen this episode of Sanford and Son, where they get Grady's stolen set, many times recently, for some reason. (Maybe because I'm trying to "re-sell" ideas about Aura when I still have not gone to the source to establish it's true propriety... - late edit.) Now it's 3:44 AM and Jack Benny is on TV, not likely to interrupt me. But my TV interruption, as I was writing this 3 weeks ago, really turned into a magical event. I just happened to be, "randomly" or magically, writing this gagablog (with the TV on for extra clues) as Obama announced the liberation of Bowe Bergdahl - could anyone have expected it would be the start of the latest "scandal" of the Obama administration that is sweeping the nation? Could anyone have expected that the way some Americans seem to want to treat him will make the five-year imprisonment seem preferable by comparison? I could rant about this for a long time, but let me make it simple - if you even care whether or not Bergdahl is a "true American" then you aren't a true human being, case closed. Like my daughter's Animal Paw Club motto reads: "if you don't like animals, you don't like yourself." The sad thing is, if he did leave his post because of disenchantment with the lies told to take us to war in the first place, well he was in good company with the perceptive, caring people in the country, from the beginning, and is in the company of what has become most of America as more and more of us see through those lies, and see through everything those liars said and continue to say. As terrible as the violence in Syria and Iraq is and has been, it is the ultimate "I told you so" from the anti-war people, those of us who were opposed to the war since it began. I was protesting the first Iraq war when I was in high school, I was the only one. I protested the second one ever since Bush stole the 2000 election, yes, before it started because it is fucking obvious, if you elect Republicans you go to war, and I knew he wanted revenge. Yes, they lied about WMD's but even after everyone knew that, they tried to say "well, Saddam was a bad guy." I'm not saying he should have continued to rule, but really we never had much moral ground to criticize him if the very worst thing he did was gas the Kurds but "WE" - the US - were the ones who sold him the chemical weapons - I think it was Rumsfeld who brokered the deal, who was also a key player in W (or both? I forget) Bush's wars. I would not go into all of this except for idiots like Dick Cheney trying to blame it on Obama when the whole situation is so entirely Bush's, ie Cheney's, fault. But there is an important comparison to be made between how Bush ran the country and how Obama is doing a few specific things, as far as it relates to "behind the aura." Bush's whole gameplan was "play dumb." That's all he ever did, and let the evil be done in his name: he was "The Decider" but Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz etc were the puppet masters. But as long as he just kept looking stupid no one could really "blame" him for it - and of course we weren't going to be responsible and take the blame ourselves for allowing him to steal the election in the first place, or blame ourselves for lack of education and activism that has allowed the defunct mentalities that actually voted for him. I've remained a strong supporter of Obama throughout his presidency, partly because I was actually aware of a lot of the evil shit Bush did so I was prepared to reject the arguments that blamed Obama. I already blamed Bush for the NSA when to me it was obvious they were doing all of this and more ever since the Patriot Act, if not before - but they announced there was no more privacy with the Patriot Act, in my opinion, and no one should be shocked. Upset, willing to change things, yes, but not shocked. The fact that Snowden shocked the country, surprised anybody, or even made the news shows how unaware we are, how willfully ignorant we prefer to be. I'm not talking conspiracy, just the painfully obvious actions of the government and even more painfully apathetic response of the populace. Occupy Wall Street was the best example of a modern protest movement we could muster? It's a joke, right? I mean, I fully belive we can bring down the government with bongos, I believe the Yippies levitated the Pentagon in like 1968 - but they were actually trying shit like that. Ok, I'm gettig off track, but I changed to the news and that will give me some interruptions, media-magic style. Like an update on the IRS "scandal" - first of all, fuck the Tea Party, that costume of the KKK, who cares how we stifle them, they suck. I say that because they are rednecks whose interests are already in power. Republicans blocked legislation that would have allowed me and millions of other poorer student-loan borrowers to pay less, and this whole student loans program is such a scam to enrich banks and "schools". They keep passing voter-ID laws and other practices to disenfranchise people and always oppose social programs. They are in power and openly voting for more power, more profits for the few over relief for the many, and this stifles all of us. If someone had to be unfair to cause the Tea Party some grief and hassle, good for them, because totally fuck the Tea Party and all they represent. It's horrific - all republican ideas are - they are all based on bigotry, misogyny, greed, war, fear and hatred. Again, I won't go into the details, if you disagree leave a comment and I will prove it to you in discussion. But the point is that Bush did all of this by playing dumb - it was the only card he had. Obama has seemed to "play dumb" on some things, too, but in much smarter ways, to much more positive effect, and of course he has other cards, too, besides The Fool. But Obama does use that one, too, just towards much greater goals. The IRS scandal, and the computer crash that destroyed the supposedly incriminating emails, is a tech version of playing dumb - and I hope they get away with it. It would not be a bad thing if they got away with stifling the influence of these Tea Party hate groups. By comparison, when Bush played dumb, leading to the Iraq war, this was a terrible thing that he should not have gotten away with. Some said that the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, was designed to fail into socialized medicine - I would like this, don't know if it is true, but if it is, it is another example of "playing dumb": "I didn't know we would have to go to socialized medicine after this, but, well, here we are!" It's a way of sneaking it by people who will do all they can to stop it, even to the detriment of their own people, because letting them know what you are really up to just won't work. The VA scandal is another example of a current scandal which Obama is in the right but currently "looks bad" - because the history will prove that the Obama administration is finally working on a problem that is decades-old, that previous presidents of both parties ignored, or were afraid to challenge the military powers. The message, the lesson, of the VA scandal is similar to the message that is coming out surrounding Bergdahl: the military does not care about you once the only person you can kill for them is yourself - they would rather you kill yourself or let you die than pay for your care and promised benefits. They just don't care, they never have. And Obama is proving this, with the VA scandal but also with the Bergdahl release: he is showing that he cares, that America DOES care for it's people despite the actual, current applications of it's stated values. Because we claim that the military cares, so Obama is not trying to completely destroy the military by revealing that it does not care, rather he is transforming it by actually holding it accountable to live up to its promises. And making this statement in these ways actually sets us up to live up to them instead of just pretending. The VA scandal, the suffering it has caused, has been going on for decades but is only now making news. This is because the military has been all-powerful in America. Obama decreasing the militrary budget was an amazing feat, one that no previous president ever achieved, as far as I know, and I think he did it as part of ending the Republican-led government shutdown, or calling one of their bluffs, again using their own idiocy against them by playing just a little dumb himself. Of course we can only resolve all the problems when we get all the information, and to do that we will be knocking the military off its premier, untouchable status. My ancestors were in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, probably many others, too. I know my great-grandad lied about his age when he was 17 in order to fight in World War One and my grandads and great uncles fought in World War Two. But I never had blind faith in the military, so none of this is a surprise to me. Indeed, to really solve the problems we need to address the evil mentality that makes us so war-prone in the first place, that has led us to having a military larger than the next ten biggest militaries combined. The blind faith in the military, or in "America" as represented by our economic and power for violence instead of our creative, constructive talents, is the Aura. Seeing all of this negativity brought to light is seeing behind the Aura. But this stood out to me, when media commentators expressed this disbelief: how could Obama not have known about the criticism of Bowe Bergdahl? Well, he couldn't have not known, but he was acting like he did not know about it, or that even if he did there was no cause for concern. This is a very subtle version of the "playing dumb" game, because the only people it actually looks stupid to are the ones who wonder why. But if you know why, or from the future when all the repercussions play out, then you can see why he would "play dumb" here. It's like, Bush and the Gang knew there were no WMD's, knew they would look extra-stupid when this was proven. So why did they do it? To have an excuse for unending military spending in a hopeless cause as long as we could elect more republicans to sustain it? Did they really think they could get Iraq on track and everyone would love them? That is the kind of stupidity I compare with Obama acting like there was some sort of compromise with republicans possible for health care, or anything. At the time you knew they would obstruct everything, but the extent to which they have obstructed everything is even surprising to people like me who have the least respect for them and greatest suspicion that they are up to the worst possible things. Bush, etc. did know that invading Iraq would start a war that could last decades - that's what they wanted because they want war. By comparison, Obama totally knew that all these hick assholes would complain about the prisoner swap for Bergdahl. But I don't think I am being cynical when I say that if Obama was in charge when the man who was released from being a war prisoner, who is now in command of ISIS, then we would not stop hearing the end of it in from the same people who are currently complaining about the release of the five who were exchanged for Bergdahl. So I assume this release, the one that freed the current ISIS leader, was "Bush's fault" - but of course the whole situation is Bush's fault, regardless of Cheney's recent attempts to deflect blame to Obama for things decided during Bush's term. Jon Stewart had a good joke about this, that Cheney was acting like we were 20 seconds from victory when Obama came in with a cross (?) pass and ISIS headed it into the goal, replaying the end of the World Cup match between Portugal and the US. But the best joke about Bergdahl came from the host of "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" on NPR - I heard this section of the program two days in a row in my car and knew I would have to include it, the repetition was a sign/reminder. The host summed up the situation, that Bergdahl's hometown had cancelled a parade/festival for him after all the controversy, and then said "I don't see why they can't just compromise and hold the parade with a new banner that says "Welcome Home, Traitor!". To me, even if he is not a traitor at all, this really sums it all up: because if he was a traitor, would it still be terrible to welcome him home, to celebrate re-uniting him with his family and friends and country, or freeing someone from, uh, less good captivity for good old American prison? Even if he is a traitor, does that make him less of a human being? And if he is not a traitor we really owe him an apology for all the hatred and negativity towards him. The beauty of the humor of that suggested banner, to me, is the idea that he is human, that we saved a life or even that we reduced suffering. But instead he is faced with the evil hatred from Americans, especially by those blinded by a hatred for Obama and all he does, or blinded by the blind faith in the military which was "questioned" by Bergdahl initially when he was showing signs his fellow soldiers noticed, or the false faith in the military that is being exposed by their response to Obama securing his release. This is why I think Obama knew exactly what he was doing: he knew some Republican strategist would ferret out the people he served with and get the most negative one's opinions of him made into national news: one damning testimony was from a soldier who served with him who asked him if he had a girlfriend back home and he said "no" - and now that this soldier found out Bergdahl DID have a girlfriend, he is shocked and suspicious, "who does that?" he asked the TV journalist interviewing him - as if hiding a girlfriend is a good sign someone is an enemy agent. Maybe Bergdahl just did not want to talk with this soldier about his girlfriend? I wouldn't blame him, the guy seems like a total tool. And the whole company seems like tools, not just because so many have come out to denounce him, but reading between the lines of the things they say, especially that Bergdahl never seemed like "one of them". As an outkast who has been an outkast in every stage of my life, in every community I find myself in, I can relate to this. Even amongst the family of little monsters,which is kind of like a worldwide community of outkasts, I kind of stick out and don't connect because I am so much older than most of us. But as a thinking person, someone who was always suspicious of the war, to hear that when Bergdahl started questioning the mission - when he wised up, from my perspective - is when the rest of the soldiers started ostracising him. To me this is just the Aura of blind faith in the military, and the Aura of "belonging to a group" or "being in the in crowd", comes together. To me, as an outkast, and considering some of the people who act like they are too good to associate with me, this lesson is a reminder why it is better to NOT be "in the in crowd", especially in certain situations. There's a connection here with ISIS and a connection with Snowden, but I will still have some more to say about the other topics so I doubt I will finish this in this session (it is now 6 AM and kids at my work should start waking up fairly soon.) The connection with ISIS is that we know these are bad people, that even Al Quaeda (why can't I spell that, after all this time?) supposedly kicked them out for being too violent - and I'm sure they have done terrible things and will do more terrible things if they continue. But the clearest examples of terrible things they do is executing POWs. The reason this relates to Bergdahl is so many assholes have been talking about how McCarthy's Army would shoot deserters in the back, etc, saying this guy deserves to be killed for leaving his post. How is that "better" than killing enemy POWs who have surrendered - if anything, isn't it worse because it is "one of your own?" Or is it the crime of doubting war is punishable by death? Again, this brings up the whole hypocricy of "one of our own" mentality - because why is one life more important than another, regardless of whose group it belongs to? This is again the "clique" mentality on a national scale, and Bush's "you're with us (imperialistically/genocidally taking over the world) or you are against us." The truth is you don't want to be in that clique - you want to be careful about how you identify against it, too, so they don't kill you. It's like this asshole I was arguing with in an email group list, the organizer of the group who is on a power trip, who at one point said his gun ownership protected my free speech but at other points making offhand death threats against me and also threatening to ban me from the group just for making my observations - showing he has no real value of Free Speech other than a mythological excuse/"reason" to keep his gun. Last week there was a news article that said China had decided to execute "terrorists" and put that word in quotes I had to respond by saying why do we get to decide who is labelled a terrorist, how can we be suspicious of that label for anyone who terroristically kills people? They did it with knives and cars in China, because I bet guns are not in vending machines like they are here. But I had to say that gun-owners are all terrorists just for having guns: even the "best ones", hunters, are forest terrorists. My point is that labeling people terrorists is an excuse to kill them, but we really become the terrorists by taking any position that justifies murder. War is simply wrong, a mistake, and to be avoided. In the meantime, while we still have war and supposedly believe in "no one left behind". the debate over this really shows the nature of it all. "No one left behind" implies everyone - there is nothing you can do that makes you undeserving of this respect. The idea, from the right, is that being a traitor invalidates this trust, makes you no longer effectively a soldier or effectively American or even human - it takes away those priviliged statuses. My point is that no one actually has priveleged status over another, there is something wrong with any system based on privilege, and there is no excuse for killing people, but now we are faced with the hypocricy of the "killing certain people is okay" lie. Bergdahl is a person, and amidst all the hateful comments under a recent article about him I had to add this, from the "other side": "I am praying (read: doing my magic spells but I wrote it for public consumption) for his health and safety and I feel sorry for everything he went through, and wish for the health of the country so that we can respect each other again, as people" - something like that. It's not about who is the most American, but people complaining about saving Bergdahl are showing themselves to be "less-than-human" - it is like how Pope Francis just excommunicated the Mafia yesterday, actually saying they have excommunicated themselves from God - more on this later. When the in crowd is formed around evil foundations - status, power, racism or whatever - the morality, the truth, is with the Outkast. By honoring the one left behind, sacrificing "himself" and leaving behind the 99 safe sheep to save the one lost sheep, Obama is in this Good Shepherd role that Jesus told us is the Kingdom of Heaven. No matter how much they will portray Obama as "wrong", this Jesusness, Sheperd-hood, will prove him to be right in the end, this is the whole "right-side of history", doing what reveals the greatest truth. The Republican's are trying to nail Obama to the cross for siding with, saving, the outkast, but all this does is prove his divinity, proves that he is right to do so. They are trying to burn him at the stake, but this just shows his magic is real, that it connects to the brightest future, the truth that comes out in the end, that even the outkast should be included. So Bergdahl's actual personal well-being is the prime factor, as it should be, as the last American captive in these wars to the Commander in Chief who is ultimately, currently, responsible and as the Lost Sheep to the Good Shepherd - this is the Holy Spirit telling you, "don't be an asshole about this, or anything really - judge not lest you be judged'" - this is one expression of the judgement that comes down with having judged Bergdahl in this way: I'm playing Holy Spirit, not actively judging them and condemning them any more than pointing out how their comments themselves "doom" them. It's like what the Double-rainbow guy said in his explanation video: anyone's comments on the original video say more about the commentators than about him, because he was being divinely inspired at the time, it "works like that" where he serves as a mirror to people, just as the divine itself does. I of course though, felt sure, that he was on LSD, but after hearing the explanation I accepted he was not (but I think he had done it before and had those circuits in place to channel the divine, it WAS "like that") Gaga said her lyrics are divinely inspired, and I not only "believe" her, but I can come up with no other explanation why they are so mystically perfect as they are. And more on that later, too. First, to finish with the Obama-playing-dumb idea, how does the Bergdahl situation compare with Edward Snowden? The Obama administration has had some harsh words for Edward Snowden, but I suspect even this is "playing dumb": if they are saying he needs to face the lawful outcome of his actions, and the American people have sympathy and even appreciation for Snowden and see those laws as unduly harsh or wrong, then we will not only demand he be treated well, we will question the laws themselves and hopefully change them. I imagine if they just wanted to "get him" they would have: it all seems to be an act. "Letting him" get away and continue to share information seems like a plan: the current White House can't just say "we are letting this guy spill all the secrets of the NSA because we want to end the policies of the last White House" but they can pretend they are all mad about it while letting it happen, "playing dumb." Again, Bush was playing so dumb he was like "if we can't spy on everyone we just aren't gonna be smart enough to stop terrorists! I can't even get out of this room, see? Or this wet paper sack! I'm not smart enough!" Obama is playing dumb like "well, what can we do, Snowden's spilling the beans, I guess we have to cancel those programs, or make oversight at least, now that we know about it / everybody knows about it." WHen SNowden was interviewed on TV was the first time I really suspected this was as planned and orchestrated as the release of Bergdahl, knowing what the reaction would be and using it to reach another goal. The way he said that they downplayed his job description, that he was basically a spy, was one clue. But the main one was the way he said "I'm still working for the government." This just seemed like it had an even deeper layer of honesty, something in the quality of his voice. The Aura, the surface message, seems to be "because I am actually acting for the good of America, I am still 'working for the country'". But behind the aura he seemed to be saying, to anyone who was open to hearing it, "I'm still working for the government, don't worry about me, I'm doing exactly what Obama wants me to do." By comparison, everyone knew Osama Bin Laden was working for the government when the US was funding him and Reagan ("get it? 'Ray-gun'?" -what movie is that from, Revenge of the Nerds?) called him a freedom fighter. But was he still working for the government when he attacked the World Trade Center, or took the blame for it? Maybe, maybe not - but the fact that Bush did nothing to bring him to justice makes the suspicion seem more credible. It's kind of like no one did anything before to end the problems with the VA, really because the military had enough absolute power to keep it veiled. Bush completely over-used the military, and allowed a lot of theft, and I'm sure similar things were done in previous wars but never to the same extent. Ironically this is is what exposed all the flaws of the whole system and is finally allowing change to take place - the veil got stretched too thin, we saw through the Aura of "the military is so great and can do no wrong." I truly believe the Democrats have been the ones who have avoided war and helped people and Republicans are he ones who rushed into wars and whose policies hurt the most people, but I really expected both to do more to just get better and less violent. It seems like instead there is just greater strain in both directions, and just as there was more money and power behind war under Bush than ever before we need more power towards peace to make up for it. And if it rips apart from these increasing forces, or if one side has to win, I just hope and know it will be the good guys. But in the meantime I'm really disappointed with both sides, and admittedly still most impressed with Obama so far, but I don't see why we could not have gone all good a long time ago, completely ending war just by leading in a new direction, probably especially with women in the highest levels of power. It is better late than never, and hopefully not too late, but I am most impressed with Obama's work towards ending and avoiding war, and especially with actually making progress to reduce the military, reduce global warming (finally!), and reduce inequalities of social unfairness. Still, the fact that we go back and forth or can't seem to make more progress faster makes me sympathetic to those who have no faith in government, people who think no matter who is in power they have the same goals, more power, and just dress it up different ways. If that is true then the whole government is an Aura and that manipulative cadre is what is behind the Aura, if we saw through it. And there is an element of truth to this, but I intend to show how all this aura is pulled away and revealed that there actually are good people in government doing good things. They aren't just the women in government, but judging those in power by how their policies effect everyone and especially how they effect women is a good way to tell if they are really doing good or not. If we elect a woman to be president, and her policies reflect the best good for the most people, especially women, we could expect better results than ever before. And we may have the most progress so far in many of these ways under President Obama, but of course so much more needs to be done we can just accelerate the pace. What does Denmark have to do with all of this? This week there were two things that happened, one in the world and one on the Radio. The world event, and a lot of media events leading up to it, was a conference at the White House that focused on "Working Families." The radio event was a BBC discussion that included a futurist from Denmark, I'm sorry I did not get her name. I'll finish explaining how this is all about women then I will move onto how it connects with Gaga and Aura. The futurist said a few things that really stood out to me. First, she said that Denmark was statistically the happiest country in the world. She said they were certainly happier in the summer months than winter, because winters they spent huddled away but in summer they came out and enjoyed the community, so she suspected the poll was done in summer. There is just a natural effect, too, based on seasonal contrasts, which depends on where you are. Here in Colorado it seems kind of the same, though some people enjoy the winter sports so much that the prefer winter. But even if the summer was happier because there was more community, and people appreciated it more after cold winters, there were more reasons why they just seemed to have better community. Mainly because they had made efforts to support women and really promote women's influence. One way this was exhibited was paid maternity leave, and the new development there that the mandatory paid leave would be split between partners, or the mom and dad, eliminating any incentive to hire men over women. But of course it also allows the other parent to have time with their new baby, and this focus on a "women's" issue really builds a stronger community altogether. Compare this with the US, where they do have mandatory maternity leave, but no mandate for it to be paid leave. There is so much we are still fighting for equality that other countries have solved. I heard a union guy on the radio saying we are the only country that only pays a server wage, just over 2 dollars an hour, and expect people to live on tips. He said European countries can pay servers 17-20 dollars an hour and stay in business, but we have restaurant lobbies that keep the wage low. This is also a gender issue since he said 77% of servers in the US are women. The last thing the Danish futurist said is one reason they have more equality is because they had more women in government. She said they don't need them now, so they don't have them anymore, but in the 70's they had quotas to get more women into government. They met the quotas and better government, and happier people, seems to be the result. They are far ahead of us in that way, having quotas to get more women in government, doing that four decades ago. But she also mentioned that they just elected their first woman to be Prime Minister, or president or whatever their highest office is. So even though they had a quota system that worked well enough to get rid of it, they still took another 40 years to elect a woman to their highest office. I think President Obama could be the last male US president, or at least the last of the "all-male" era. We are ready to elect a woman and overdue for the influence of more women in all levels of government. I don't know if we will have to elect Hillary Clinton just because she seems so selected by the party, I personally kind of hope for Elizabeth Warren or someone more liberal. I want to give credit to Obama for policies that help women, that help everyone, and I even suspect that he is doing more for women than Hillary would have or even will, though of course there is so much to be done and all progress is good and builds upon past suceess. But I want to give him credit, and to talk about a couple of things he said in the media related to this conference. Just yesterday (and it has take me days to finish writing this, so it was Friday the 27th of June) I heard some clips from a speech Obama gave in which he talks about the suffering of his mom and grandmother due to medical issues, and the difficulties of starting a family and getting good medical care, then said "did you think I would forget?" or something like that. You could tell he was personally concerned because of his experiences, and by comparison with recent comments Hillary made that showed she was out of touch with Americans who were financially struggling, it made me really glad to have President Obama in office. I'm not trying to re-caucus the 2008 primaries, but just say that the personal concern for peoples' sufferings is what makes the genuine difference. I know Hillary grew up in tough circumstances, too, but she is not aware that there is the idea she could have forgotten some of it's lessons and seem out of touch when she thinks paying for estates is a relatable hardship. And maybe she is personally aware of that and just so trained to say things a certain way that she does not appear to be sensitive. The point is that policies affect people and so the most important characteristic for those in power is sensitivity to people's needs and how to meet them. But you also have to "sell" those policies to the general public, and the public might not be currently sensitive enough to understand. This is where Gaga and other artists come in, to shift perspectives and evolve the culture. The politicians can only sell people what there is a demand for, even if it is good for them. So this is another area where Obama has been "playing dumb" in a slight way. It was the media about this conference and he is talking about fair wages for women. He cites statistics about how many households have women as the primary or only source of income and how this makes it everyone's issue, a family and community issue, not "just" a women's issue. The whole pitch had that same flavor to it: in case you are scared these new policies will help women, they will really help everyone. Now I understand people are just stupid. It's not enough to say "hey, maybe you aren't a woman but you probably know one, so you can see how these are good ideas, right?" Even women in America, not the majority of them but way too many, have been brainwashed by various conservative powers and propaganda. So while in one speech Obama is like "come on, I'm a human being, of course I don't forget the suffering of people, especially the extra sufferings of women" and another speech he is like "well, you are only 'human' so i can't expect you to care about other people just because they are people, but let me explain how being fair to women ultimately benefits YOU." This is really the same argument being fought in every aspect of society, between people in power who want to make the most out of the workforce by treating us the best possible, and those who want to enable the powerful to squeeze everyone else dry. In the end, it would be a lot easier for leaders to sell people on new ideas if we all could agree that life was valuable and should be protected. We claim to believe this in many ways but our actions don't follow it. One reason is because we repress the feminine, we derogatorily call it a "nanny state" when the government tries to help people. And we need more of that, nore of the feminine influence. Once we have it at more levels, it will be easy to work together to make needed changes: to end war, disease, global warming, and poverty. But it has to grow from all directions, and while governments set new standards and other cultural institutions help progress or stifle the evolution of culture it is really up to artists to set new goals and ideals. So after a brief word about Pope Francis in all of this I will move onto the improved interpretation of Aura. Pope Francis has been really awesome in most everything he has done. He has worked to heal various serious divisions, bringing people together. One of his greatest challenges is in healing divisions in the church and the mistrust of the clergy due to systematic protection of child molesters. I don't know how that is going but I suspect one reason he is being so transformative for the whole church is because he does have to honestly address that, and there are other problems that cannot be ignored while being honest. One is the influence of money in the church, and I know he kicked out at least one bishop who was living lavishly. But he also had an audit of the Vatican Bank which probably did a number of things but one of them was to divest business with the mafia. It might have also been part of that interfaith alliance to end slavery that I heard about where in addition to lobbying and providing resources for other countries the churches, etc, were going to check their supply chains and rootout any slavery, and the Catholic Church was part of it. Then just last week he excommunicated the mafia, a really big deal. From the very beginning he made efforts to bridge the 1000-year schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church and still seems to be making progress there. He invited the presidents of Israel and Palestine to pray with him at the Vatican and made the news for referring to Palestine as it's own state. He softened the church's official stance on homosexuality, bringing more people in and setting the church in a positive direction. And he spoke about the evils of capitalism. All of these things make him especially liberal, as I predicted in a gagablog long ago, but as much as he has started the church towards the future, to be on the right side of history, there are still some things holding him back. Of course the acceptance of gay people could be much greater, and while anything is a step in the right direction the reason he did not go further is because of the issue still holding him back, which is a form of misogyny. On all of these issues Pope Francis has been more liberal than past popes, maybe even radically liberal. But he has been asked to include more women in the church, to allow women priests, but has declined. To me, this is just holding him back, and I really expect him to "evolve" the same way Obama's views on gay marriage "evolved." I use the quotes because that could just be playing dumb again, maybe both Obama and the pope fully accept gay people and always did, but had to wait for the culture to come around to be open about it. I suspect that more of Obama than the Pope, I think the Pope may have suffered from more homophobia and is getting over it but still has some progress to make. The same with women, it is just so deep in his culture that it is hard for him to make that change. But the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches is a big deal, too, but he seems eager to work through it. Maybe because they have beards. Kicking the mafia out is another great sign, to me, for a couple of reasons. One, though all the other examples are directly about bringing more people together, bridging divides, kicking out the mafia is like a form of division, exclusion. And of course I am all about inclusion, not exclusion. But first of all, the Pope said that their own actions and choices were excommunicating them from God - this is the very Oz idea that I can't wait to write in my new book about Gaga and Oz magic: the only exclusion is the way people can let fear and hatred exclude them from the community. As long as the mafia was connected with the Church, the Church could not really represent or be equally open to everyone, because that powerful and persuasive organization could demand priority and take precedence. And of course the use of violence is opposed to all that the Church should stand for, but maybe that is another flaw that had been justified when the church approved "just war" - and did many other violent things, I'm sure - and allowed that connection to continue, but now that the mafia was denounced for violence the Church will also be open to reversing any previous condoning of violence. Now that he has kicked out the gang it opens the church up to many more people - and of course it stays open to reformed gangsters and gives theman incentive to change their lives. To me, this is one form of inclusion, kicking out the bullies. But it also gives me hope for the future. One reason I am not a christian is because so many so-called christian groups are the ones who support injustice and war by supporting the right wing. One reason conservatives have had such a political force in America is because many Catholics vote with pro-life groups because it has been sold to them as a spiritual priority. But in the same way that Pope Francis said that being gay does not cause a problem with God, or something like that, I think he could update the Church's view on contraception and abortion to reflect modern concerns and values. If he said "really, its not that big of a deal, ending poverty and peace are more important to vote for" then there would be a massive cultural change and politics would shift to the left in America, at least. And maybe he would allow women priests before he said that, maybe one would lead to the other. But it does seem like he is only missing a few pieces to really help usher in a liberal paradise and it really comes down to equality for boys and girls. Now for the corrections in what I wrote previously about Aura and believe it or not they will sum up all of what I've been talking about here. First I have to say that I was about to watch the G.U.Y. video the other day - we had turned on the internet to look for Do What You Want With My Body. My co-worker told me it was out and supposed to be really hot so I was going to skip my requirement to write my blog impressions about it before watching the videos, etc. But we couldn't find it so I almost watched G.U.Y. instead, just got as far as the opening scene and "An Artpop Film" then paused it, determined to write these first impressions first and reward myself with the videos and future commentary. I argued with my wife about it, about the principle of it, for an hour or more, and in a way my first impressions are like "playing dumb", or revealing how dumb I am, so I wanted to mention it here. And playing dumb can get things done, because one of the biggest obstacles to progress is Ego. Maybe Obama looks dumb that Eric Snowden is revealing secrets about the NSA, but if it gets us to change things, who cares? Maybe he looks dumb if Obamacare fails, but if we move into socialized medicine, more what really works and we really wanted and he campaigned on at first, who cares? Maybe he looks dumb that the VA scandal has been exposed during his term, but if it has been going on for decades and is just now finally being dealt with, who cares? I heard just today that the White House decided it was systemic mismanagement - and anyone could have told them that, but they could have told previous administrations, too, the difference is admitting it, facing it, and dealing with it. If Obama looks dumb for the IRS/Tea Party scandal, but it really just emboldens the Tea Partiers to finish wrecking the Republican Party, who cares? If Obama knew that the prisoner swap for Bowe Bergdahl would get certain people all upset, but in the end make them just look like real jackasses, and is using this to expose the hypocrisy of militarism and blind patriotism, setting us on a course to change those, who cares? These are the virtues of playing dumb. Except for the magical possibilities, the effect of this gagablog is not nearly as important as these big issues but the kind of playing dumb or exploring my misconceptions has done is allow something new to take place. I don't presume I will know all about these songs even after watching the videos, reading the commentary, and hearing what other monsters have to say about them, but I suspect I will know a great deal more, because there is so much to them. But there was so much to them even when I was missing so many pieces, and I want to both honor that, compare it with what I learn later, and allow even the errant paths to have some sort of magical life. What does this have to do with Aura? It is the whole idea of sacrificing "oneself", part of the ego, being willing to look stupid or play dumb or just take the blame, in order to transform life itself. This is expressed in the first line of Aura and I really got it wrong, like in a crazy way. Of course I realized this as soon as I read the lyrics and listened to the song again, but I actually transposed the censorship of the Wal-Mart version of the album to make it even more confusing. In the censored version, the first line is "I [edit smear] my former" and I somehow "heard" that sound they replaced the word "killed" with at the end of the line, so I thought there was another word there. "And...left her in the trunk on highway ten" is the next line and I thought the "And" was something like "Anne" or "friend", edited for some reason. And when I went back I thought, "how did my brain do that?" because I knew the first times I had listened to it I noticed that they ad edited out the word "killed." But mostly misheard this because I am oldish. I know people refer to their "former" and I've seen it on the internet, but I'm not that hip, so it is not really in my vocabulary like that. Now I guess it is just implied, but there is another implication, probably not what Gaga meant, but since I hear it that way, too, I wanted to play dumb and mention it. It is the idea that she left her former self behind, when she transformed to become the person she becomes, in "Hollywood." This is how it most ties in with the idea of sacrificing oneself. It has none of the sinister, murderous connotations of there being someone else, and may be way off-base, but since I don't really understand that version I kind of like the one that says she just left herself behind. The rest of my corrections for Aura really just amount to it being a lot simpler than I had made it out before, but that makes it even more universal. Basically, I did not understand the lyric "you want to pity me cuz was arranged one man to love" - and I still don't understand it even after reading the actual words. I don't know what that sentence means, I don't know what it is in the context of the song, and I still don't quite hear those words when I listen to it and wonder if what she sang is a little different. But here are my ideas. In the context of taking on the persona of women who wear the veil, it kind of has that challenge to the outsider, or western perspective, that we presume, or project upon a woman who is hidden behind a veil (the clouds covered the sun as I typed that) that she is the property of one man, or "even worse" that multiple women could "belong" to one man. These tangents I got more into in the previous gagablog, so I will leave it at that. But there is another interpretation, that has nothing to do with taking on the cultural burqa, but is referring to the veil as the aura of fame and celebrity. In this context, the idea is that a rock star can have many lovers, this is one of the appeals of being a rock star. Of course Gaga could have as many lovers as she wants, but has apparently been with the same guy, Taylor, for years. Again, I don't know all the gossip or details, if there is any, but that is the general perception, I think. So in reference to her actual life, and she did say all the Artpop lyrics were non-fantasy an all related to actual things in her life, the message could be "even though you might think I could have all these lovers and it is a shame that I do not, I really was only made to be with one person". This seems to be the same message she has in other songs, like "Fashion of His Love". So in this sense it is not like family or society has arranged her love, it is more destiny, in the stars, for her to just be with one man. And she's just saying she really likes him, especially for what she really wants him for, to make love. There may have been some other corrections or omissions from the last gagablog but this has gone on long enough I will try to wrap this up with what wraps it all up, the simple answer. I was getting caught up in the Aura myself and did not want to get the simplest message, like she is saying she is a one-man kind of girl, and I would still suggest that there is the contrary idea that this is an Aura but that, for the person underneath, there is not a set gender or number of people to fall in love with. And I know I say this partly for the philosophy and partly for the wish that if she has multiple lovers then I could be one of them: and this is the Aura, just like Homer Simpson's manager told him to hide his marriage because they wanted fans to think they could have sex with him. But the simplest interpretation is that, underneath all the Aura of fame and supersexuality there is a girl. And that is what the real message of all of this is: you can dress it up in different ways, or trick people into revealing why they are an asshole, but ultimately the goal is to get people to care about each other. You can play a role to get everyone's attention, and then say "I'm just like you", inspiring everyone else who has a message to get out there that they can do it, too. There are people that everybody loves, or everybody hates, or everybody loves then hates then hopefully loves again, but they are all just like us. The whole issue around saving Bergdahl, or the issue around veterans' health care, is people saying that some people, veterans for example, deserve the very best care, but when that does not come through in practice, or because thy have insulated their system so much that they get even worse care, it is shown to be hypocrisy. And there is hypocrisy in the very premise, because there really is no reason why any person should get better care than anyone else. The soldier from the battlefield and the junkie fighting her own battles with drugs should both get the best care we can give. There is no reason or cause to discriminate. But there is plenty of discrimination, systems of it. Since so much is in place against women, that is the first place to start to make progress. We don't absolutely have to have women leaders to do the best job, but it will probably help. It will help the most when, whoever says it, all our leaders have to say is "people are suffering" or "this is hurting women and girls" and we will do whatever it takes to fix it. Because in the end the simplest solution is the best, and behind all the hype and Aura there is one reality: there is a girl. Gaga is so sexy and of course there is all sorts of sexual suggestion and excitement in the song, it is a great pop song in that way, making love to the world. But the underlying message seems to be that beneath it all she is "just" a girl. The idea that, with all this hype, with all the fame and influence, of Gaga herself or of any of the forces that shape culture, there should be awareness of "the girl" at the center of it, the individual who actually lives with the consequences of what goes on in life. Gaga emphasizes being naked and it is not like she is saying we have to protect her, she seems very much in control throughout the song. But the whole idea of a naked girl underneath it all does give the audience the natural protective instinct, to care for the very basic humanity represented by a naked girl. It kind of suggests that underneath it all we are all just babies or naked kids, and it especially suggests that underneath all the politics, of gender but also of war and greed ("...shoot a gun on your soil...is it because of pleasure or toil?"), there are vulnerable girls to worry about. I guess, writing this, it seems cliche to keep talking about the "girls", representing kids and especially suffering kids, but it is true that girls end up suffering more and worse abuses, and abuse against girls is still culturally accepted in many ways and places. Despite the more hidden message of being the vulnerable girl, Aura mostly addresses Gaga's complete control of the Aura and therefore the whole world. This was accomplished in the beginning of the song, Gaga transforming herself (or sacrficing her lover) to go Hollywood, but it has a message for everyone. All of reality interfaces with you through the Aura and by transforming yourself to command more of the Aura you engage the world in a way that changes it. Basically, it empowers everyone to say that beneath it all we are all naked children but still within it all we have the power to change the world. Since girls and the feminine are still under-represented and disempowered, it is especially an important message to empower girls. That is, to let them know that beneath every powerful persona is a person just like them, to empower them to reach for their potential, and to call out the factors, from social judgement to war, that impede the empowerment of girls. So Aura is an appeal to girls themselves and to the world to change to allow the full empowerment of the feminine. And it is like magical instruction that we can change the world through ownership of the Aura, accepting all about the way reality has confronted us and transforming it by recognizing the inner child but using it as a source of strength to take the world itself, the Aura around you, as "you" and know you have the power to change it. The last thing I will say in this edition will be about the Syrian and Iraq war, what has now become the same war in many ways. My spells in this gagablog have certainly not resulted in a peaceful solution, and though I hope they have contributed to important progress such as the destruction of chemical weapons, I can't help but feel like the real progress that needs to be made is still in the future, hopefully soon. I don't have any new ideas,except to repeat the one I mentioned in a previous gagablog about the Women in Syria. Basically, the revolution started there as nonviolent protests, mostly of women. They need women in charge, someone who can be trusted to not use violence. And possibly, probably there will be violence to protect such a group, but if the group itself was committed to seeking nonviolent solutions that would be the best course. The problem is obviously a misplaced faith in violence. The reason the ISIS forces are so well equipped now is because of all the weapons and tanks and stuff we put there, supposedly for security. This gets back to my theory that having a weapon makes you a terrorist, implies a belief in violence that itself is a threat to the community. We have to be able to have faith in community, regardless of who is in it or where the borders are drawn. The secret ingredient to make this happen is truly valuing and encouraging everyone, especially women and girls. And that is the meaning of Aura for me, at this time: the recognition that at the heart of it all is a girl and we make the best decisions by honoring that and acting in a way that does the most to help every girl, and every person, as much as possible. This is the heart of Oz philosophy, too - the Goodness of the Girl Ruler at the center of Oz, that all that needs to be done can be done by a good-hearted girl and to honor the same, as the heart of the "country" and at the heart of all people, honoring the buddha within. I know I can't get the message to the Iraqi or Syrian people to let women take over, or even get that message to the American people, except magically. But I've been talking about these issues from all sorts of angles for years now and I know that I am still not doing enough in my own personal life. There are new attitudes I can learn and new depths of understanding I can reach to do the most to honor girls and the feminine in my own life, and I know that the best magic I can do for the world is in transforming myself, leaving my "former" behind and going Hollywood, or my version of that. Gaga keeps giving me examples of that, but as I said before I need to really speed up, to light speed, to truly honor what she is doing for the world and to do my part. I'll probably start writing faster, which means less, which hopefully means more songs, soon. Thanks!