editorial...a living hell

I’m starting to see shadows of the gates of hell bordering the Atlantic to the east, tracing the Pacific Coast Highway to the west, lining the scalp of Mexico, and skimming the soles of Canada…Yes, we are living in hell. The United States of America have fallen far from heaven, and are floating somewhere in the sea of the underworld. They’re living with Lucifer. Earth is nowhere to be found. Literally, it is being destroyed. Our values are in their most carnal form. We are lords of the flies. We spend our time like money: aimless and frequent. And for many, both are borrowed commodities. Despite the commonality of divorce, marriage exists, though it has morphed from a sacred triad to a relation between humans and things. As trite as it may sound, it seems that rather than dying to live, we are living to die. Killing ourselves softly with the venomous hedonistic snake we’ve created. We’re living in a recession alright, but I’m afraid it’s far more spiritual than fiscal.

Entertainment and corporations pervade everything, even the most altruistic at heart: churches, schools, and family dinners. Everyone can be a star thanks to reality television. The fairy tale has become attainable, and up close, we’re finding it’s more nightmarish than we thought. Young entertainment stars are painted as clowns, surgically enhanced with parts that make Betty Boop seem like the girl next door. What you see is not what you get. We walk around displaying porcelain-laden smiles and skin stained oompa loompa orange. Each day is a masquerade. Competition has waged a war amongst us. But what are we fighting for? Maybe we should ask the residents of South Central LA.

Farms have become factories, farmers-slaves to the pimps of the food industry. Genetically produced animals and coming soon…genetically arranged humans. Oh wait, haven’t we done that already with steroids and embryos? Pharmacists are the new physicians, the wizards in white coats, concocting the magic potions for our invented ailments. Salespeople and marketing CEO’s are the new royalty. Pop stars and professional athletes are jesters of the entertainment circus. It’s a mad world.

Time is an illusion, conversation-a lost art. We’ve got to launch rockets to find space, for busy-ness has replaced intimacy. Interaction is interrupted by noise and distraction. We’re a culture of runners. Not only in the “physical fitness” sense but also in the living sense. Generated by fear: of being fat, of being ugly, of being poor, of being inferior, of loss, of pain…and the irony is that the more we avoid it, the more we create it. There is no end to our appetite. We are never satisfied. We produce food in unprecedented bulk, but have sent quality to the slaughterhouse with the rest of the e-coli ridden cattle. We do not fix problems but medicate symptoms. Prescription drugs, pesticides, and plastic surgery are one in the same. Where are we? Who are we? Are you proud to be an American? I recognize the many attributes of our nation: clean water, peaceful transfer of governmental power, freedom of religion, and the list goes on. But who are we as a people? What is our undercurrent? Beneath the cloak of consumption, is there substance? Are we aspiring towards heaven or content living in hell?

holiday spirit...Henri Nouwen

Sorry, folks, no beverage endorsement here. But if you're in the market for something spiritual, may I suggest The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen. I have never read a work that so closely resonates with my inner voice. On its pages, Nouwen offers thoughtful, nurturing words for anyone in the midst of transformation or open to it...Nouwen takes his readers, one pivotal idea at a time, from a place of confusion to a place of contentment-even in the face of lingering strife and heartache. It's truly profound. I hope you kindly remember to nurture the spirit along with your belly this holiday season. Season's Greetings!

poetry...clouds

Suffocating mask

Reminder of gravity

Stuck to the earth

Weighed down

Flight to the sun

Undone

Launch to the blue

Untrue

A stay

In the gray

Eye level

Headed nowhere

Smoke ascends

Disappearing into

Gray

Dust to air

Out there

Tree reaching

Yet smashed

Thick blanket

Of the sphere

Gray bound

Unwound

The blue

featured artist...Mary E. Morgan

Allow me to introduce you to an up and coming visual artist of the era: Mary E. Morgan. Postmodern expression at its finest, Mary's mixed media is a marriage of color and emotion, experience and imagination, giving spirit to the senses. When last I spoke with Mary about her work she said, "If I could talk about my work, I would be a writer." Touche. I think her work amply speaks for itself.

See more of her work at:

http://maryemorgan.com/index.html

seasonal sounds...Leona Naess

Music plays by the rules of the season. It's officially fall, and there are sounds and tastes that I crave, like anything of the pumpkin variety. Right now, Leona is my fall music fix. She is the go to girl for a gentle morning kiss, a workplace backdrop, or an evening lullaby. I'm no music critic, but if you like poetic melodies and lyrical romanticism with an edge, you'll love the likes of Leona. My formal introduction to Leona was in the fall of 2004. We fell out of touch for a bit and reacquainted just a few weeks ago. I hope you'll consider a coffee date with her. Here's to sounds of the season!

http://www.leonanaess.com/

for the senses...ode to europe

Lately, I've been experimenting with visual history, you know, photographs. This image captures my latest obsession with Western Europe: the culture, the cuisine...I've got the itch, but for now, I'll settle for imitation meals, imported wine, and Anthony Bordain. Cheers!

editorial...the honest truth

I’m starting to believe that truth can be found in anything….even untruth. It can be found in the trivial, mundane, and vulgar. It can be found flowing from the lips of fools, the eyes of the blind, the child. It can be hidden in a one liner from a terribly filmed, edited an organized motion picture….from the lips of nerds, comics, jocks, and fictional characters. Truth transcends the scenarios of life but somehow enters into our own. I can walk home, turn on the television, and hear something from the mouth of a fanatical televangelist that morphs into truth before hitting my heart center in a very personal, pragmatic way. A way that applies to me, comforts me, and gives me hope. But I think we must have the right lens for it. Sometimes the naked eye lures us. It guards truth like Buckingham Palace, perhaps for our own protection. Sometimes, we’re just not ready to see it. The senses-our shield, our compass….sometimes truth is the hairs standing at attention on the back of the neck. Sometimes, it’s the bottomless pit of the gut continuing to fall, or the loss of breath when the mind rolls a clip of a scene so clearly….the truth is collaboration at its finest. Emotion, thought, body and spirit each contributing their two shillings to the mighty cause of truth. If only they didn’t quarrel, it would be so much easier. We’re caddy, and perhaps that’s a good thing. Knit pickers of ourselves, others, and our world…gold diggers, aspiring for greatness, but mining coal. Truth can be seen, felt, understood, unspoken, wailing in the microphone, drowning, floating, bombing, walking, waiting, quiet…truth is. In spite of you, in spite of me…it will always be true to itself. Truth is a textbook narcissist, a borderline, and a schizophrenic. It’s snobby, shy, impolite, and cordial. Truth knows way too much about everything. The nosy neighbor, the hovering coworker, the monster within who tells us way more about ourselves than we’d like to know. The truth hurts, heals and happens. Truth is…everywhere. But especially, it is within us.

editorial..media as villain

Maybe the media is doing its job…much better than I am doing mine. If painting, matting, and framing the unattainable is indeed its objective, then bravo! Maybe that’s what the media is supposed to do? Make us covet, envy, desire, strive, and long for that which can never be!!! It gives us the gift of hope, false hope that keeps the hunger alive…the quest for the holy grail of perfection, which is impossible. Nonetheless, the chase is oh so appealing isn’t it? We all want what we don’t have. The grass is always greener, as the common adage goes. Maybe the media is a human in its most carnal form: the temptress, the murderer, the gossip, and the glutton. The problem perhaps is that we entertain the media as god at best, demi-god at worst, when really it’s just human. Rather than criticize, blame and idolize the human, what if we simply saw it for what it is-a mere mortal? A mighty, charismatic, influential one no less, but alas, it is human.

From this perspective, there is then the dilemma of how to treat it-not in the medical sense, but in the judicial sense. For humans living in modern civilizations, there is a code of ethics and a governing authority. If a man living in the United States commits murder, he too will lose his life: via life imprisonment OR death penalty OR retaliation. Of course there are caveats: intent, self-defense, etc. But there are always consequences for actions, imposed upon the self by a higher power. And every culture has it’s own menu. Singapore serves up severed limbs, for example. But the media seems to be living in anarchy. The older it gets, the more cavalier it becomes. It is its own authority. It is the law. It self promotes and waves giant foam fingers, the pointer on one hand, the middle on the other. Mixed messages are its modus operandi. It loves to stir the pot, start rumors, and hold people against the wall by their throats. Is it human? For human by its very nature is capable of both good and evil, is it not? Perhaps instead, it is the great evil of our time. Its power is supernatural. The heroic villain cloaked in black…the phantom, the chameleon, and the great deceiver. And we are all deceived because we think it’s just like us…wandering mortals aspiring for divinity, seekers of comfort without a cause.