(Just) Do It

I'll have a painting to post later today, I swear. But right now I'm feeling energetic, like I've got something to say, so I'd better say it before the moment's past.

That's kind of what I want to say: don't hesitate. Do it. Don't even wait for the "just". Do it. What's the worst that can happen?

Call a friend simply to say "I love you, have a good day" (call, don't text it).
Table dance (do the Conan).
Add a comment on a blog you've just found (not necessarily mine).

There's freedom in being free. Push boundaries, break out of your box, break the damn box. Be inspired, allow it in. Get scared, get your pupils wide, don't blink (you'd think I like rollercoasters).

Be timeless, out of time, in the "now".

Live. Oh, and make your own LAUNCHcast station. Share it too.

Peace.

Cybernetics And Peace

Continuing to listen to my new LAUNCHcast station, Rage Against The Machine's "Killing In The Name Of" reminded me of something else I wanted to share of me. At UCLA I majored in Cybernetics (since renamed), which fundamentally was the study of control and communications of systems biological and non-biological. Back then the cool yet nerdy example was the character Data on Star Trek. The coursework was big picture stuff: understanding ecology, statistics, and theoretical computer science's concept of The Internet.

Control. How do we model the human heart and its interaction with a new drug to help it work better? Create a theory, turn it into math, throw tests at it, get feedback, modify the theory, redo the math, continue testing, and so forth. Control the situation, the system.

Can't control humanity. Even Hitler with his focussed, passionate charisma could not change what was true, what was inside individuals. Yes he, and all of history's evil dictators corrupted those willing to "do what they told ya", those willing to look at people based upon labels and groups rather than tolerate individuality, but society will give people their just desserts eventually.

Now, communication can effect change. I latched onto this side of my major, realizing how amazing the possibilities of The Internet were. This was when browsers and email were in their initial versions. Dialup bulletin boards gave way quickly to Usenet as students and early adopters quickly pushed the boundaries of computing power and revolutionized how humanity flows. Telnet and chat clients began to explore what today we take for granted in communicating with all the variations of social media. It's incredible to think back and see how society has layered on top of The Internet a whole new method to reach out, to listen, and to be heard. This can theoretically lead to endless tolerance and compassion, lead to acceptance of self and others, lead to

Peace. Help "make it so".

Keep Hope Alive

For some reason techno hits my emotions hard. There's something primal about it. The Crystal Method's "Keep Hope Alive" sends waves down the back of my neck and tears down my cheeks. I've started to rate songs, bands and albums, developing my own Yahoo! LAUNCHcast station to share what inspires my art.

Listening to such a raw form of human communication made me think about our world's condition. Recently I was responding to a blog post about world peace, and I came up with the realization that it's not about peace as in an end to war. It's about inner peace, inner hope for Life. Eastern beliefs focus on acceptance, recognizing the perpetual existence of opposites. I can certainly attest to the fact that everything and its opposite are more present than ever. They pull the pendulum of Life into swinging so far around they almost touch at the top. Human war and conflict will never cease until individuals stop worrying about everybody else and focus on their own inner peace. Accept yourself. You are perfect as you are, as Life made you. Live and experience your piece of Life and find peace. Others can and will take care of themselves.

Gandhi Lived this. His methods weren't about imposing his will on others, they weren't about treating a symptom. They were about treating the cause of his suffering, his drama. Get right with yourself. Let others be. Individuals are here for a reason, Life living lessons. Learn from yours, learn from others. Then there can and will be

Peace.

Chrono(il)logical Order

Since I started this blog, I thought it was odd that one could only easily read a blog in reverse chronological order. I even flipped the order of the archive at first until it did something weird or I just decided to go with the flow and not confuse readers.

Godin discussed this question a long time ago, so it's not like I'm the only one wondering. He even in one post I've lost in his archives discussed the difficulty in plumbing the depths of said archives (irony).

I have put a link to my first post over to the right to make it easier to start at the beginning, but I remember Godin suggesting something like an index. Tags attached to each post can be used to search using the search box up at the top, kind of like an index. However that leaves it up to the reader to find appropriate and consistently used tags and forces them to do the search, generating kind of a fragmented posting thread, if you will.

I think what I'm going to do is create my own index. Nonfiction books do this to let the reader know where to find all the references to a common subject. I know to expect readers to go through all 100 plus of my posts is a bit unrealistic. Some posts would probably loose their impact and readers would get bored, skipping and scanning, maybe missing my brilliance. So, the plan is to go back through and assign consistent tags more like categories. Some blogs call them categories even, which made it dawn on me to use them that way. Then I can automatically group posts that follow a common thread using pre-linked searches.

This will be kind of like reassembling what could be considered chapters that were just created in fragments of time. I'm thinking like what they did with the X-Files: releasing a collection of DVDs of just those episodes that follow the main series' mythology, leaving out the stand-alone episodes.

Sound good? I'll be working on this for awhile, deciding what categories and so forth, but I'll post about it when I'm done. And, of course, the new index will show up in the sidebar to the right. Let me know, please, if you have any suggestions about this idea or if you want to vent about the same thing.

Peace.

Right Time And Place

What a coupla days! Wow. I had posted a listing on Craigslist wanting old records that people might be preparing to throw away. A lady contacted me saying that she was moving in 2 weeks and couldn't take her collection with her. She had been impressed with my work, the reasonable price, and the obvious passion I had for music.

So I met her yesterday. Holy moly! What a collection, and what a great connection! This is why I'm doing what I'm doing. She had loved music so much she ended up working for the manager of Rage Against The Machine! Smart, smart, smart woman. Very enjoyable to talk to and share stories. Stories are what it's about.

I'm painting Van Halen for her in exchange for a vast collection including Zeppelin, Prince, Hendrix, the Beastie Boys, the Beatles, and some great 80s bands. I'll post a picture when I'm done.

Then, today. Hooboy! I awoke to an email from Dan Davis of the local morning news team on Channel 3, azfamily.com. He wanted to interview me and film me painting! I had sent him an email awhile ago and he had a last minute cancellation. I apparently responded in the nick of time before he told his producer that he nothing to shoot today. So I scrambled and cleaned up the house, tidied up my studio a bit, and got the above Johnny Cash started so they could see the good part when the painting pops. Hopefully the segment works well once they edit it down. Man, what an experience! I hope I didn't ramble too much.

It'll run next Thursday, the 17th, at around 7:45 am on Channel 3 in Phoenix.

So, hooray for being in the right place at the right time, and prepared for it!

Peace.

ON CONSIGNMENT - Johnny Cash 07/10/08