The Ruby Slippers. The Red Shoes. The Glass Slipper. The other shoe... But what about the banana flops?
Personally, I think the banana flops rank higher in history, or should, than any other aforementioned fairy tale footwear. These opulent yellow clogs are considered by the masses - okay, the majority - well, at least a good crowd - alright, a definitive minority possibly almost every once in a while - okay, at this very second at least one crazy surprise i know you're ticklish here kinda chick is sitting at Los Angeles airport considering these obtrusive rubber toesy covers in fact and indeed, majority or no: official Magick Slippers.
Even on the most unforgiving Sunset Blvd, covered in yesterday's Bubalicious and women who would be homeless if it weren't for their stilettos, these vivacious sandals spoil one's heel with an Army of Squish, eliminating repetitive impact from our doomed biped joints, allowing the spine to reach full height, the hips to rotate freely, the knees glide effortlessly like a hot engine burning biofuel. These shoes feel like magick to the avid walker. But that is not the basis of their name.
The color: yellower than yield, surer than sunshine, brighter than Big Bird, more distracting than the itsy bitsy tiny weeny. Upon entering any room, one becomes the carnival that came to town, the clown that actually got sent in, the submarine we all wanna live on. Obscene silliness is a direct consequence of engaging in los zapatos amarillos, but glowing footprints too, are still not the foundation of their legendary powers.
In the study of Chaos Magick, where rules are arbitrary beyond the extend of their usefulness, belief deconstruction is a widely recognized spiritual practice. "Deconditioning" keeps reality flexible and in a state of Not Knowing (warm clay aching for shape - the charged battery, ever-ready). Let the Christian Scientist heal broken bones through prayer, let the raw foodist live to a healthy 120, let the Native American dance rain into the desert - heck, let this massive 747 fly me from LA to Detroit - all advancements in human evolution, all social revolutions, each and every little daily miracle emerge from a gap in the system structure. Experience is the box we are trying to think outside of.
So instead of tossing the banana flops out on the corner for one of Hollywood's sequined wearing street people to have a peek or a pee at, I, in my long anticipated escape from LA, in an attempt to avoid overweight luggage fees at the airport (super hero cape: gotta go, squirt gun arsenal: not so much, magick botanicals: a natural priority - I have a very safe place reserved for these). Yes, on the eve of their demise, I put the nerf ball footies on for one final squish - only then was their true power thus revealed. Systems shattered, beliefs crumbled, and power grew with each step, for not one preoccupied actress busy looking fabulous, not one Beverly Hills pooch leading their owner around on diamond leash, not one "that's not your natural color?!" greasy record producer/Save On cashier did not break, double take and reconsider their entire perspective on life. Smiling at absurdity, giggling in appreciation, I used other's perceptions of me to shape my reality, open up a space for ever-ready possibility, become the non-threatening well-liked ray of sunshine they offered me to be and walk right through airport security (keeping certain places very safe as they were intended to be).
Now run to your closet, dig through the drawer - you know you have Magick Slippers too. Put them on, like you shouldn't like you're not sure you can like you're not supposed to, but do it anyway because doing more of what you've always done will get you more of what you've always had. It's time to throw a monkey wrench in and let the machine ask you how to run.
Detroit, MI
Experience is the Box We Are Trying to Think Outside Of
Experience is the Box We Are Trying to Think Outside Of
June 28, 2004
my permission always
June 19, 2004
Let me rest.
I need to be alone.
Take a moment to reintroduce me to mySelf;
"Hello, Beautiful. Hello, Perfect. Hello, Alive. This is me. I'm you."
I've got some shit to learn.
Blessing connection, not comparing myself to it, romancing how short I fall each time, what a poor mistreated fatally lonely soul... I do so love my lonely, but no one goes to that party anymore.
There's too many people there.
How completely me it feels to be in a space, so difficult to find myself in alone recently, with my favorite music coming from the home speaker: Portishead, Nine Inch Nails, Dinah Washington - possibly the most crisp home speakers I've danced to alone for -
How long has it been, Beautiful? (please take care of me)
How long until again, Perfect? (say this time you'll stay)
Hello, Alive. I notice you're dancing alone. I don't have any answers. I can't promise anything. I don't know how to be healthy or in love. And now that there's absolutely nothing you could possibly need from me, now that there is nothing challenging your fierce independence, I have just one question:
if I'm you, then aren't we Alive and dancing right now?
I need to be alone.
Take a moment to reintroduce me to mySelf;
"Hello, Beautiful. Hello, Perfect. Hello, Alive. This is me. I'm you."
I've got some shit to learn.
Blessing connection, not comparing myself to it, romancing how short I fall each time, what a poor mistreated fatally lonely soul... I do so love my lonely, but no one goes to that party anymore.
There's too many people there.
How completely me it feels to be in a space, so difficult to find myself in alone recently, with my favorite music coming from the home speaker: Portishead, Nine Inch Nails, Dinah Washington - possibly the most crisp home speakers I've danced to alone for -
How long has it been, Beautiful? (please take care of me)
How long until again, Perfect? (say this time you'll stay)
Hello, Alive. I notice you're dancing alone. I don't have any answers. I can't promise anything. I don't know how to be healthy or in love. And now that there's absolutely nothing you could possibly need from me, now that there is nothing challenging your fierce independence, I have just one question:
if I'm you, then aren't we Alive and dancing right now?
those who fall know center
June 12, 2004
i'm willing to risk being a hypocrite
i'm willing to contradict myself (who am I kidding, I thrive on it)
when you stand for something, and stand hard inside outside, you might teeter on even the surest feet
like dancing,
you never know the expance of balance until you've explored the edges
and others see you falling, but that's just what happened after you discovered how far how full how much how more how yes how we how i -
have we really danced if we have not gone too far?
i'm willing to contradict myself (who am I kidding, I thrive on it)
when you stand for something, and stand hard inside outside, you might teeter on even the surest feet
like dancing,
you never know the expance of balance until you've explored the edges
and others see you falling, but that's just what happened after you discovered how far how full how much how more how yes how we how i -
have we really danced if we have not gone too far?
Los Angeles, CA
Speaking of Billboards, Big Brother
Speaking of Billboards, Big Brother
Here are some examples of commercial-messages entering school curriculum:
- McGraw-Hill prints a six-grade math textbook that includes brand names in its math equations. The book is currently used in at least 16 US states, building brand loyalty for Nike, Disney, and Burger King, among others. Many school boards, such as the California State education department, give the book a hearty thumbs-up, finding the book superior to earlier textbooks because kids recognize and identify with the brand-name touchstones.
- Companies create "free" ready-made lessons for teachers to use on students. Chips Ahoy has a counting game for little kids where you have to figure the number of chocolate chips in their cookies. Kelloggs has an art project where you make sculpture out of Rice Krispies. Procter & Gamble sponsors lessons on oral hygiene that include giving away Crest samples. Campbell's Soup created (then shamefully recalled) a science lesson where students compared the viscosity of Prego sauce to rival Ragu. The Consumers Union has stated that 80 percent of these "lessons" contain wrong or misleading information.
- Companies profit by changing the way you think. Representatives of the drug Prozac will come to your school to "teach" you about depression. Exxon has ecology curriculum that shows how clean the environment of Alaska is. Some schools actually sell ad space in the hallways, on the sides of school buses, or billboards out in the yard.
- Companies collect information about you at school. In New Jersey, elementary school kids filled out a 27-page booklet called "my all about me journal," basically a marketing survey for a television channel. Students in Massachusetts spent two days tasting cereal and answering an opinion poll. ZapMe! corporation puts "free" computers and internet hookups in schools. Then they monitor your web browsing habits and sell the information, neatly broken down by age, gender and postal code, to their customers.
- Channel One gives schools "free" televisions and audio visual equipment. The catch is that you and 8 million other students have to watch their daily news broadcasts, including the commercials.
- Youth Stream has message boards in 7,200 high school locker rooms. They carry product advertisements and try to sell you on visiting the company's website, where even more advertising can be seen. The boards reach almost 60 percent of US high school students.
So, maybe you don't like the idea of school becoming one giant rat maze for the marketing lab. But what will you do about it? Start by figuring out the chain of command -- teacher, principal, school board officials, state and federal education department officials, and so on. Then complain as far up the ladder as you need to go until you get results. Contact the news media. If you call the local newspaper and tell them you are being forced to watch TV commercials during school, for instance, you'll get attention fast. Jamming meetings, protesting outside schools, hanging banners from classroom windows -- it's at least as much fun as doing homework, and you'll probably learn more.
exerpts from article by Allan Casey
Adbusters Magazine, Winter 2000
- McGraw-Hill prints a six-grade math textbook that includes brand names in its math equations. The book is currently used in at least 16 US states, building brand loyalty for Nike, Disney, and Burger King, among others. Many school boards, such as the California State education department, give the book a hearty thumbs-up, finding the book superior to earlier textbooks because kids recognize and identify with the brand-name touchstones.
- Companies create "free" ready-made lessons for teachers to use on students. Chips Ahoy has a counting game for little kids where you have to figure the number of chocolate chips in their cookies. Kelloggs has an art project where you make sculpture out of Rice Krispies. Procter & Gamble sponsors lessons on oral hygiene that include giving away Crest samples. Campbell's Soup created (then shamefully recalled) a science lesson where students compared the viscosity of Prego sauce to rival Ragu. The Consumers Union has stated that 80 percent of these "lessons" contain wrong or misleading information.
- Companies profit by changing the way you think. Representatives of the drug Prozac will come to your school to "teach" you about depression. Exxon has ecology curriculum that shows how clean the environment of Alaska is. Some schools actually sell ad space in the hallways, on the sides of school buses, or billboards out in the yard.
- Companies collect information about you at school. In New Jersey, elementary school kids filled out a 27-page booklet called "my all about me journal," basically a marketing survey for a television channel. Students in Massachusetts spent two days tasting cereal and answering an opinion poll. ZapMe! corporation puts "free" computers and internet hookups in schools. Then they monitor your web browsing habits and sell the information, neatly broken down by age, gender and postal code, to their customers.
- Channel One gives schools "free" televisions and audio visual equipment. The catch is that you and 8 million other students have to watch their daily news broadcasts, including the commercials.
- Youth Stream has message boards in 7,200 high school locker rooms. They carry product advertisements and try to sell you on visiting the company's website, where even more advertising can be seen. The boards reach almost 60 percent of US high school students.
So, maybe you don't like the idea of school becoming one giant rat maze for the marketing lab. But what will you do about it? Start by figuring out the chain of command -- teacher, principal, school board officials, state and federal education department officials, and so on. Then complain as far up the ladder as you need to go until you get results. Contact the news media. If you call the local newspaper and tell them you are being forced to watch TV commercials during school, for instance, you'll get attention fast. Jamming meetings, protesting outside schools, hanging banners from classroom windows -- it's at least as much fun as doing homework, and you'll probably learn more.
exerpts from article by Allan Casey
Adbusters Magazine, Winter 2000
Los Angeles, CA
Quick Pecks a Plenty
Quick Pecks a Plenty
June 05, 2004
The shallowness of Los Angeles is true at least on the surface.
Pinocchio got a nose job in LA, but he didn't make up the reputation. Yes, stereotypes exist for a reason and that's because on some level they are true. Though if explored deeply enough, a stereotype’s accuracy in summing up an entire city, gender, culture or race inevitably disintegrates. In other words, the more educated we become, the less stereotypes apply. At some point we discover life to be an accurate and malleable reflection of ourSelves.
Which is why it disturbed me today, rolling on Sunset Blvd, windows down to let pavement breeze radiate in, when I noticed myself hypnotized by another skyscraper sized billboard shoving a frail label wearing woman with poor choice in glitter eye shadow, looking like the starving African child I saved by not spending $1.70 on Starbucks every morning, yea, the one I am keeping alive by stuffing bags of white rice in like the targeted pigeons of urban decay - lookin like this model. She was staring down at me a mile high from these hollow, ill eyes and I thought to myself a thought I do not even entertain in any other American city: "is my stomach flat enough?"
Disturbing.
At least I know I can leave at any time. And I intend to soonly. Countless complex human beings become paper doll drones in this city ("I could have looked that way so much better"), forgetting that nowhere else in the world functions so blatantly at this degree. It is only here. And you can always leave if someday you find yourself rolling down Sunset Blvd thinking thoughts that are not authentic expressions of yourSelf.
L...A.... The world capitol of Ego Magick - conscious reality forming - using other people's perceptions to create your identity. You gotta love it for what it is. It's fun and it's a game and people pay a lot of money to play and you make a lot of money when you're good. Sunshine everyday. Smiles and quick pecks a plenty. The reason you can't sign up for the budget calling plan.
“I could have looked like that so much better.”
The reason I love Los Angeles is mostly because it is where I landed after tour, certainly intentionally, if even subconsciously. I shot a commercial the first week here - dancing like a raving amphibian in the basement of a vacant downtown ghost town forgotten city warehouse. Foam, 140 hot dancers, and a live d.j. defined the day of “work” I did last month. And now more than ever (post-STOMP / pre-?!) I am clear that this is my moment. Now is my time to invest in my dreams, my creativity, my passion. So right…now I define my future. And right…now I choose again. And right…
Now I am filming a project of my own creation. I dreamt it up 6 months ago during a frighteningly dark period in the desert on tour. Manic-depressives are stereotyped as uncontrollably creative people and it ain't because of their tendency to populate the 9 to 5 alarm clock to do list can I take a vacation lifestyle. It is because during the 5th nite without sleep, they crack and draw up spaceship blueprints and then finally 6 months later off of tour, when the moment is....now, they actually build them.
In Los Angeles now I just finished filming my project yesterday. And we, Robert of (get this) Chaos Productions, and I celebrated our filming finale at no other than Good Mood Food Raw Cafe in Huntington Beach. After dinner, a mother and two teenagers stopped me politely with polite attentive eyes; "do you eat raw food?" Now, I am not one to Think I Know, especially when it comes to other people. But when I am asked, respectfully and straight forwardly, I will gab your brain bonkers about subjects I am passionate about - raw food being almost #1 on the list.
First the mother complimented my figure. Then one of the teens voluntarily guessed my age at 21. The other teen, also unprompted, offered compliments on my “beautiful skin”, which is when I pulled up a chair. "You know, Ladies," I said feeling alive and thankful for their words of affirmation - and I proceeded to tell them how at their age I hated my own reflection because my complexion was so awful. How I had been 20 years vegetarian and 10 years vegan, but after only 3 months raw, my skin metamorphisized to this. How it was so bad, I took antibiotics for 7 years. And how every day now I look in the mirror and am genuinely and humbly grateful for the way I look. It is a miracle and it is completely new.
Teenagers are hungry for role models and they don't care if they are gun toting hip gangsta wanna bes or chop stick carrying crazy artist raw foodists. They just want someone to look up to and identify with. Don't we all? Why not be the parent who makes exercise a joyous priority? Why not be the athlete who eats avocados? Why not be the pop star who shops resale? These are not rhetoric questions. You can hang around Los Angeles forever trying to look like that better, or you could laugh in the face of the hollow eyed white rice larger label than life surfacly shallow icon and find a real life hero instead. I’ll be your role model if you’ll be mine.
In fact, why not role model yourSelf? Why not be your own example? Why not show yourself how to live? These are not rhetoric questions.
Pinocchio got a nose job in LA, but he didn't make up the reputation. Yes, stereotypes exist for a reason and that's because on some level they are true. Though if explored deeply enough, a stereotype’s accuracy in summing up an entire city, gender, culture or race inevitably disintegrates. In other words, the more educated we become, the less stereotypes apply. At some point we discover life to be an accurate and malleable reflection of ourSelves.
Which is why it disturbed me today, rolling on Sunset Blvd, windows down to let pavement breeze radiate in, when I noticed myself hypnotized by another skyscraper sized billboard shoving a frail label wearing woman with poor choice in glitter eye shadow, looking like the starving African child I saved by not spending $1.70 on Starbucks every morning, yea, the one I am keeping alive by stuffing bags of white rice in like the targeted pigeons of urban decay - lookin like this model. She was staring down at me a mile high from these hollow, ill eyes and I thought to myself a thought I do not even entertain in any other American city: "is my stomach flat enough?"
Disturbing.
At least I know I can leave at any time. And I intend to soonly. Countless complex human beings become paper doll drones in this city ("I could have looked that way so much better"), forgetting that nowhere else in the world functions so blatantly at this degree. It is only here. And you can always leave if someday you find yourself rolling down Sunset Blvd thinking thoughts that are not authentic expressions of yourSelf.
L...A.... The world capitol of Ego Magick - conscious reality forming - using other people's perceptions to create your identity. You gotta love it for what it is. It's fun and it's a game and people pay a lot of money to play and you make a lot of money when you're good. Sunshine everyday. Smiles and quick pecks a plenty. The reason you can't sign up for the budget calling plan.
“I could have looked like that so much better.”
The reason I love Los Angeles is mostly because it is where I landed after tour, certainly intentionally, if even subconsciously. I shot a commercial the first week here - dancing like a raving amphibian in the basement of a vacant downtown ghost town forgotten city warehouse. Foam, 140 hot dancers, and a live d.j. defined the day of “work” I did last month. And now more than ever (post-STOMP / pre-?!) I am clear that this is my moment. Now is my time to invest in my dreams, my creativity, my passion. So right…now I define my future. And right…now I choose again. And right…
Now I am filming a project of my own creation. I dreamt it up 6 months ago during a frighteningly dark period in the desert on tour. Manic-depressives are stereotyped as uncontrollably creative people and it ain't because of their tendency to populate the 9 to 5 alarm clock to do list can I take a vacation lifestyle. It is because during the 5th nite without sleep, they crack and draw up spaceship blueprints and then finally 6 months later off of tour, when the moment is....now, they actually build them.
In Los Angeles now I just finished filming my project yesterday. And we, Robert of (get this) Chaos Productions, and I celebrated our filming finale at no other than Good Mood Food Raw Cafe in Huntington Beach. After dinner, a mother and two teenagers stopped me politely with polite attentive eyes; "do you eat raw food?" Now, I am not one to Think I Know, especially when it comes to other people. But when I am asked, respectfully and straight forwardly, I will gab your brain bonkers about subjects I am passionate about - raw food being almost #1 on the list.
First the mother complimented my figure. Then one of the teens voluntarily guessed my age at 21. The other teen, also unprompted, offered compliments on my “beautiful skin”, which is when I pulled up a chair. "You know, Ladies," I said feeling alive and thankful for their words of affirmation - and I proceeded to tell them how at their age I hated my own reflection because my complexion was so awful. How I had been 20 years vegetarian and 10 years vegan, but after only 3 months raw, my skin metamorphisized to this. How it was so bad, I took antibiotics for 7 years. And how every day now I look in the mirror and am genuinely and humbly grateful for the way I look. It is a miracle and it is completely new.
Teenagers are hungry for role models and they don't care if they are gun toting hip gangsta wanna bes or chop stick carrying crazy artist raw foodists. They just want someone to look up to and identify with. Don't we all? Why not be the parent who makes exercise a joyous priority? Why not be the athlete who eats avocados? Why not be the pop star who shops resale? These are not rhetoric questions. You can hang around Los Angeles forever trying to look like that better, or you could laugh in the face of the hollow eyed white rice larger label than life surfacly shallow icon and find a real life hero instead. I’ll be your role model if you’ll be mine.
In fact, why not role model yourSelf? Why not be your own example? Why not show yourself how to live? These are not rhetoric questions.
