Detox

So-called "celebrities" burn through $30,000 in cash for this, yo.

Just like Californian wildfires and desert droughts, every year summer's are extremely hot across America, and every year New Yorkers short out the power grids by turning on their air conditioners full blast at the very first sense of heat and/or discomfort (http://bit.ly/1D96Ny1). You may not know it, but your ridiculous "lifestyle" makes us easy targets for developing Third World countries around the globe, who mistake our waste for future affluence. 

Trust me, you don't want this. Shiny cars and blonde bimbos with fake tits and spray tans look good for awhile, but just like any high maintenance object, they require an almost constant stream of money to stay that way, and after awhile, "Father Time" gets us all in the end. It's Fool's Gold*; not a genuine gold rush like the Old Hollywood movies and t.v. shows of the past portrayed it. Most of those fantasy movies were made by East Coast Jews and low class Micks who didn't fit into their own pictures "look" anyway. 

No amount of money could erase that fact, written across their faces for the world to see, obscured only by costumes, makeup, and fake "movie magic". It was recently reported that Mariah Carey needs $50,000 an appearance** to maintain the illusion of beauty (which would certainly explain the less attractive Billionaire Euro she's now dating), and you really don't want to know what those Kardashians spend. If I saw that on t.v., and my child was starving to death in my arms in some refugee camp, I'd hate us, too. Bombs away!

This "celeb" is also AFRICAN-AMERICAN! http://bit.ly/1MwnaYH

I can only tell you that me (and many others like me) are not the wasteful ugly Americans you see on t.v., because almost every day for years, I have written about our collective truths and showed you our landscapes here, so you would know that I am not lying to you about how I live, who my people are, and how we got here.

We have to detox from: sugar, processed foods, plastic surgeries, countless harmful cosmetic procedures, alcohol and drug addiction, ignorance about treatments for mental illness and psychosis, wanton consumer consumption, fossil fuels, bullshit vacations to escape hateful (and wasteful) office jobs, over-commuting to stressful city jobs to maintain an illusion of success (when you are, in reality, one paycheck away from losing it all: the houses, the cars, the "family" toxic cruises), the old factory model of business management, the medieval concept of "landlording" and serfdom, and a billion other hateful systems that Old Money Europe set up in America. 

You don't need all that stuff, hoarder, so just let your useless, worthless junk go. We've been bankrupted by rotten debt, from a system I certainly didn't create or support, nor ever willingly participate in. Did you? Then turn down that friggin' A/C*** with your dumb, sweaty ass in that twenty floor office building. Asshat.

*     http://bit.ly/1DMfqcN
**   http://bit.ly/1SL9Oqj
*** http://nbcnews.to/1LfaLX2


Oh, I ain't done, yet, kids. I'm about to ruin your day completely with this joint right here: http://bit.ly/1IGN6QL. Enjoy!

On the hunt

http://www.venisondonation.org/

If you're a regular reader of mine, you should know by now that hunger is a human problem, and not a food one. Humans have always used resources as leverage against one another in times of war, and what greater weapon of mass destruction is there if not for starvation? 

Many a cynic has gone on t.v. in some corporate-sponsored advertisement to disturb your Saturday ballgame viewing with horrible images of bloat-belly children in Africa, in a crass exploitation of so-called "white guilt" and the collective sense of responsibility we feel as hardworking, wealthy Americans. 

But, as my man Father Raphael (from Nigeria) pointed out to one such carnival barker who used the St. Francis parish to fund-raise, with his disgustingly lurid pictures of poor children: "When hasn't there been starving children in Africa?", which is a delicate, sensitive, and extremely intelligent criticism that opens up further under scrutiny. Aren't there rich people in Africa who care about Africans?! 
What happened to them all? 

As bad as the slave trade has been for many people of American descent, it isn't the full story about our world in crisis. It's sort of like my old housemate from art school, who immediately noticed when I didn't pack-rat my tiny hearing aid batteries for recycling later, because I replaced an old one for a new one while walking and talking with her on the street, and then tossed the tiny battery into a garbage pail. (Sue: they're mercury-free because I asked my audiologist on my next visit to town. Thanks for making me feel paranoid and irresponsible. Sleep easy, gentle hippie). 

Is it really up to me and my every miniscule action to save the world?! How can that be? I understand the Butterfly Effect*, and the implications that a small movement may have many miles away, but like my mom's exhortations about sending my uneaten broccoli to Africa, there's something about useless fretting that obscures much deeper issues.

When I had no money to give, I gave my blood. When I had no food to eat, I sold my belongings. When I had more time to spare, I gave it back to the church as an apprentice Sunday School teacher. 
Which brings me back to the same eternal question of: what can you do? Besides sending badly cooked vegetables overseas. 

This week, I urge you to look beyond the quick, obvious, and easy, as you reach back out into the world to help. What can you do right now, with just what you have on hand? 

Thank you for your patience while we right your wrongs, most directly with new legislation that addresses massive supermarket waste. 
Don't worry: we won't send you deer meat, if venison isn't your thing. 
It isn't mine, either.

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/food_waste_loc/?bkmQyjb&v=61604

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
 

The Gift

Early morning delivery.

On Christmas Eve Day, I opened the door early morning to what I first thought was a Christmas present, then I thought it was a freebie sample that I ordered online, but when I bent down to pick it up, I saw the label. Oh. It's from a small indie publisher that I designed for in the past, a rich kid imprint paid for by his also-rich daddy, a guy who cashed out by selling his imprint years ago. They probably use the son's company as a tax shelter for the earnings from that sale, which renders their product indifferent, like so many widgets that exist only to serve their obscured financial purpose, not worth the paper they're printed on. And so the gift was actually my own work mailed back to me in bound book form, certainly not a new experience for me. How...well, not a gift.

I quickly took a look at the work I did for them on the cheap, unsurprised by its' poor quality. One book had been case stamped on the spine incorrectly (upside down, actually; a major production error that's a firing offense in major league houses), which I noticed by removing the jacket I designed, because I always inspect books for their quality. The other book contains some inane drivel about an arrogant British wanker who hates the yoga retreat he's attending, and (surprise, surprise), probably has epiphanies later on down the road, read: further along in the book. Ho hum. A real pager turner, not worth my time. It's not exactly prize-winning stuff, but that's the whole point; they position themselves deliberately on the bottom of the pile, to mine the marketing niche as low-end producers, probably wanting to escape notice so The Tax Man doesn't come a-calling. Huh. I know that game, too.

It's embarrassing, but people do this kind of stuff ALL the time. Every day, actually. They take a real vocation and turn it to shit, then piss and moan about the cost, which is exactly what they did to me when I worked for them. It was beneath me, and by them time they shamefacedly told me they were flat broke, (the first and only time their "publisher" deigned to speak to me in person), and besides, like, they could totally use my desk space for one of his six or seven pretty boy "assistants" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), I think they thought they were lashing out at me for being a major talent who stooped to their level for shekels because they had me in a vulnerable position financially, which is about as far from the truth as we are from the sun; another light that will forever fail to reach them, because they just don't get it on every level, and that includes way existentially, man.

As they continue to play their petty games with one another at their inept labors today, I couldn't help but reflect on my time there, in the early morning light, Christmas Eve morning, looking at these books that could have been so beautiful, and I thought that when they had the real deal right beneath their gazes, they refused to see true worth. They took the hefty gifts I gave them, and they turned their backs on them, because they know they aren't worth the price of the ticket. I thought about how sad that was for them, but that they were no longer my flock to tend to. They are now someone else's poor problem.

I wish you peace on this 26th day in December during our continued Christmas season, as we recall the journey of The Three Magi who came bearing gifts for our Lord and Savior, a baby born lowly in a manger, because His parents were turned away from the inn at Bethlehem, and Amen for that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Magi.

More cheap, shoddy goods, just in time for Christmas! How thoughtful.

Sky Lines

Intersecting Lines (Pearl River, NY. December 2014).

Last week I spotted a gorgeous crescent moon still hanging brightly in the full light of day. It was beautiful, until something else obscured the object of my original intentions: the many, many intersecting lines of a thousand or so airplane chemtrails that fill the sky every day in the tri-state area, spewing toxic waste high up in the atmosphere above us, which led me to another musing. Yes, I was safe down below, out of harm's way, but what do we do about our atmosphere? Who protects that, fragile as it is, and hard to reach, way out of our grasp. How do we clean it up? 

I trust that this daily missive reaches someone out there with the authority and courage to make the neccesary changes needed to protect life, fragile as it, as this pollution must surely reach us on the ground after falling from the sky above. That's the nature of my faith. 

Amen to you during this Advent season, a humble time of repentance and reflection during our hectic daily lives. May you look up into the light, and see the truth as it is written before your eyes, like lines drawn by the hand of G-d. This is not our coloring book to write upon, like irate children scrawling across a blank page.  

We belong to this earth and one another.