For Alma

A friend from my days at Skidmore College, Naomi Vladeck, has asked me to write something for her Creativity Matters website.  To quote her website, Naomi is a "Creativity and Writing Coach" with the goal of coaching "individual artists on artist statements and writing personal narratives," and providing "professional and creative coaching to artists, arts professionals and art entrepreneurs."  She asked me to consider writing something regarding finding inspiration through writing or any other art form, possibly relating stories concerning a challenging moment in the creative process and how those challenging moments can become inspiring ones.

 Simultaneously, we, along with many hundreds of fellow Skidmore Theater department alum, students and teachers, have been faced with the tragic news of the death of one of our most beloved directors and teachers, Alma Becker, who succumbed to cancer this past Sunday after what I believe was a several year battle.  Simply put, I've been crying for a couple days now -- Alma was one of the finest people I've ever met, never mind a great artist and teacher.  I loved (and love) her dearly.

I've decided to attempt to combine the two subjects; the challenge of finding your personal creative voice and inspiration in the arts with the loss of one of the most inspirational creators I have ever known.  So...here we go.

For Alma.

Inspiration can come from anywhere.  Absolutely anywhere.  Take me literally.  If you're not inspired, you probably are just being lazy.  Open your eyes and look around you!  Life is infinitely inspiring.  That's what life does.  That is the nature of life, of the creative force.  Life Creates.  As Obi Wan Kenobi guided Luke Skywalker during the younger man's fledgling Jedi days, "Feel the Force flowing through you."  Be that creative force and you will know inspiration.  It's almost too easy.

Heartbreak can be a great motivator.  A harsh and simultaneously radiant muse.  I've been listening to her whispers for years.  I've received some of my best songs from my Heartbreak muse, experienced the most sublime and potent moments on stage and screen with my dear Heartbreak leaning on my left shoulder.  She's tricked me into sketching a thousand perfectly troubled faces along the edges of my notebooks,  taxed me into searching for the most exquisitely dented love song verses I could muster, and pulled the most so-wrong-they-are-just-right strained and broken notes out of my imperfect singing voice.  My Heartbreak muse has led me to literally wade through rivers (actual rivers) in hopes of capturing the most epic shots possible for a rebellious, no-budget feature film.  She has left a trail for me to follow all over the United States and the continent of Europe, while I foolishly hiked on, hoping she might just put me out of my silly misery and let me hold her in my arms for a little while.  My Heartbreak muse has even left me alone on stage, standing on my head with tears running the wrong way down my forehead and onto the trampled stage floor below me, waiting for the final crossbow shot to snap closed and send me flailing to the ground, a sad little clown, his mission finally over.  Curtain falls. 

 She has done these things for me.  

In this last example, my Heartbreak muse is named Alma.

I find myself now realizing I am one of the lucky hundreds (maybe thousands?) of actors, dancers, singers, writers, directors, teachers, and technicians to have the blessing of being directed, taught, guided and challenged by of the most inspiring Artists I have ever known.  Director, Teacher, Friend to All -- Alma Becker.  Only yesterday (Thursday, June 6, 2013) I learned that Alma had finally passed away from cancer.  She actually shed her mortal coil this past Sunday.  Today, upon reflection, I realized that, if I'm not mistaken, I had experienced the loudest momentary ringing in my ears while sitting on my brother's kitchen floor in Echo Park, LA.  As if a giant bubble had expanded inside my head and demanded I realize that something was up.  Very peculiar.  This was also on Sunday.  Though I could be mistaken.  My memory is not what it used to be.  Maybe it never was 'what it used to be' in the first place.  The spacey folks in esoteric circles say a ringing in your ears is a spirit passing through you.  This was undoubtedly the loudest momentary ringing I've ever experienced.  Was this Alma saying goodbye?

Wait wait wait.

Alma's dead?

I can, without reservation, assure you that my Heart, who knew and loved Alma probably better than the rest of me ever could've hoped to, is absolutely.  Infinitely.  Irrevocably.  Broken.

Right now I can see Alma in my mind's eye, looking at me sideways, arms crossed, saying "Oh come ooonnnnnnn.  Gimme a break!"  Alma wasn't fo no bullshit.  "Ok Ok," I quickly brush off her suspicions of me.  "Bear with me.  I'll get back to this.  Hang on.  I've gotta stop crying first...."

I've been an visual artist since I was 4 years old.  I started acting when I was five.  My first role -- the White Rabbit in 'Alice In Wonderland.'  I started playing drums in 5th grade and began writing rock songs with my buddies Mike, Dennis, Dave and some others in high school.  I've never wanted to be anything else but an Artist (with a capital 'A' for all of the arts).  I have lived, breathed, and often ignored the twin forces of Inspiration and Heartbreak for nearly 40 years.  It has not been an easy life.  Very little financial reward or stability, no health insurance, poor living conditions, a depressingly varied and spotty employment record, many many failures and disappointments as a man, as an artist, as a human.  No true love to share this confusing journey with me.  At times, the disappointment piles up and I start to feel a rogue mutant creature roaming the city streets, shunned by a society that never wanted me, never planned for me, never needed me.  Like Rutger Hauer's replicant from 'Blade Runner' -- powerful and hated, stinging with the emotions of an adolescent who desires to know one more day of real living inside a stunted, precious life.  

 Quote Hauer as the replicant Roy Batty: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain." 

 Like Roy, my lost journeys as an adult Artist on Earth have led me to see things that maybe no one else may even dare to see, know heights and depths many may not have even guessed exists.  Lost it all and won it all and lost it all again.  Won it all for a moment onstage in the dance theater at Skidmore, improvising speed blues rhymes in front of a rabid audience until my consciousness stood two feet above my body, watching with everyone else to see what my mouth might say next.  Lost it all, dressed as Kaiser Wilhelm, insane, balancing on the edge of a wall near a castle in Prague, the wrong move meaning a 40 or more foot drop, trying to scream as my cue demanded, failing to scream because I was simply too scared to scream.  Lost it all, singing with a band in the basement of a coffee shop in Albuquerque, NM, for an audience of no one, soon to quit and drag my tail between my legs to NYC, capital city of losers who can't make it there or anywhere.  Won it all, talking to a homeless Blackfoot Indian man after an earthquake, his actions duplicating the sequences I had drawn him performing weeks before in a comic book through some kind of meta-textual-time-defying-uber-haze.   Won it all and lost it all, standing on my head on the main stage of the JKB theater, the tears running the wrong way down my face.  For Alma.  

Won it all and lost it all.  For the Art.

I have burned to be this man.  An Artist.  Besides the desire to be a good man, a great man, and great lover, He is all I have ever needed to be.

I realize I'm romanticizing this quite a bit. 

Over the years I've tossed around the vague notion that I could combine all my disciplines and inspirations into a single, all-satisfying project.  In 2012, I think I may have finally cracked that code.  At least, gotten a foot into the code-door, so speak, and to speak in poorly worded mixed metaphors.  Let me explain.

It all focuses around a song called 'Good Ache.'  Written by oldest friend Mike Gordon (I known him since kindergarten!) and yours truly (Mike on guitars, me on vocals and lyrics) for our on-again off-again power pop/psychedelic rock band the Troy Westfield Experience, 'Good Ache' is a summertime love song about (you guessed it) Heartbreak from the perspective of a person who's been around the block enough times to know how to appreciate experiencing something as pure as love while simultaneously trying not to get caught up in the layers of illusion surrounding it.  Let me explain.

While acting in a short film in San Francisco in 2010, where I played a sullen young office worker who falls in love with one of his co-workers, I started to recognize that, during the rehearsal and shooting process, I may actually be falling for the woman playing the love interest from the film.  It was a great feeling.  It was exciting, and surely it was informing my performance for the film.  But I was only too aware that, while the feelings seemed genuine, I was in the midst of cultivating them in the service of a small group of film makers who were busy creating a story that was, of course, imaginary.  It wasn't real.  I knew it wasn't real.  It wasn't real, right?  Right?

The Feeling sure felt real.

Sometime after the shoot ended, I realized this puzzle, the feeling of something pure and honest in the midst of layers of illusion, would make a perfect song.  This feeling of wonderful Heartbreak represented something I'd coined months earlier, something I'd called the Good Ache.  A Good Ache is any time you hear, see, feel or know something so wonderful, so beautiful, that it hurts.  Something that makes you feel alive, feel inspired, on the edge of the unknown.  Yet inside that wonder and beauty is a feeling of separation, or sadness, or impermanence.  Perhaps this is how moments when you feel most alive make you all too aware that someday you will die.  These are divine moments of creativity, and extremely potent.  A life without a series of Good Aches is a life not truly lived.  In my experience.  This is probably why I pursue Art, and I'm sure its the unbearable lightness of being that many many Artist chase their entire lives.   The Heartbreak muse.  The Good Ache.  A beautiful, horrible gift, waiting to be opened in this moment.  What's inside?

So I told Mike I wanted to write this song about my Good Ache experience for our new album, and Mike got it right away, and came back with the perfect tune.  His talent, or one of them, is seemingly knowing how to translate my cockamamie ramblings into a coherent series of chords in melodies lasting 6 minutes or less.  Its extraordinary, and I'm not sure he realizes his own unique genius.  After listening to his demo for a while, I wrote the lyrics and the vocals and emailed them back to him.  And he loved it. 

Recorded along with 5 other songs in the dead of winter, 2011, in NYC at Maze Studios, the recording studio of TWE band member/producer, great friend and fellow Skidmore alum Allen Towbin, all the pieces came together and yielded what Mike and I consider one of the best songs we've ever written.   But I'll let you be the judge:

In the summer of 2011, I was invited to act in an independent feature film called "American Epitaph."  Headed up way way off the grid in the Vermont wilds by a group of shaggy upstart filmmakers called the Young Ruffians, "Epitaph" is the story of a group of 20 somethings confronted with a vast and mysterious war on American soil that is winding their way to their front doorsteps.  I played "Eliot," the only one of the core four or five who decides to go fight the war and look it dead in the eyes.  Consequently, I spend most of the film AWOL, running through small towns, rivers and forests in search of my friends and my home.  Its was an brave and harrowing 40 days of filming in the middle of nowhere.  It was a film about growing up, friendship, and coming to terms with death.  

I decided this would be the perfect place to implement the next two phases of the recording project I'd embarked on with Mike;  I would not only paint the album cover for our upcoming e.p. 'Business on the Lanai: a Refresher Course,' but I'd also use downtime to try my hand at directing and shoot my very first music video.  A music video for 'Good Ache.'

The video concept:  I would use one of the scenes from 'American Epitaph,' a scene where I convince an kind young nurse to help me escape from the makeshift MASH hospital, and interrupt it with the song itself.  This would break the fourth wall of the 'film,' and I'd start performing the song in the midst of the ruined shot, then leave the set, wade into a river nearby, and float downstream, all the while performing the song until I washed up on the shores of Brooklyn, where the rest of the band would be already playing the song on the rooftop of the recording studio in Greenpoint, BK.  There we would finish performing the song, all the while referencing the actress playing the 'good ache' interacting with the river in my absence.  My hope was to create a narrative both in and out of linear time, with the river symbolizing the river of consciousness that leads us all through life.  All the while I'd be showing behind-the-scenes shots, revealing the inherent layers of falseness to the scenario.  Hopefully, some kind of more beautiful truth would arise through all this subterfuge.

I had no money, no cameras, only the kindness of filmmakers, actors and musicians who volunteered to help make this thing happen on both ends of VT and NYC.  I didn't even meet the actress who would be playing the 'good ache' until the second to last day of a 40 day shoot.  Fortunately, she was smart, charming and beautiful, and game to help with the music video.  We shot all the footage of the song interrupting the shoot first, after we shot the actual scene for the film.  We only did two takes.  

The next day, myself, cameraman Justin Epifanio, and video co-director Alistair Redman (also from Skidmore), filmed all the footage in a river nearby.  Justin would shoot me lip-synching the song as we both floated down the river (he, floating backwards) as Al held an ipod and small pair of portable speakers in his sling (he had broken his ribs and shoulder in a car accident only days before) while shouting directions from the shore.  

Both of these scenarios in the bag, and after the film itself was finished shooting, I left for NYC, narrowly missing a superstorm that flooded out VT for miles, more or less destroying the entire area where the whole shoot took place.  In NYC we shot in the Hudson river as well as on the rooftops of Allen's studio with the band: Allen, Mike, and Mike's young son, pretending to play drums, with the help of cameraman/filmmaker and fellow Skidmorian Matt Kalman.  Now all that was left was to gather the footage and edit my first attempt at directing a film.  Easy, right?  

After a year of trying to gather together all the disparate camera footage, I came to realize it would be impossible to get my hands on the footage of the actual film scene that gets interrupted by the music video.  Back the drawing board.  In the summer of 2012 I approached Alistair and our 'good ache,' actress/filmmaker Logan Howe, to shoot new footage for the beginning of the video.  They both agreed.  Alistair went to Logan's home in VT, they set up in her garage, and we shot several hours of improvised dialogue between her and I, with me talking on skype off screen, as I was back in San Francisco.  The conversations proved to be extremely funny and engaging.  I collected all this footage, along with shots of 'Good Ache' drummer Michael Parillo (also from Skidmore) playing the song in his basement, as shot by his wife Margit Herb, and sorted through it to edit together a 16 minute music video-- 10 1/2 minutes of storytelling combined with 5 1/2 minutes of song.  This is my first attempt at film directing.  This is my first attempt at editing.  The flaws and inconsistencies are all too apparent to me, but I did what I could with what I had and what little I knew, and, in the winter of 2013 it resulted in "Good Ache, An Epic Music Video."

Good Ache from These Are Dreams on Vimeo.

By the way here's the album cover for "Business on the Lanai."  the waterfall that the fire-winged tiger is sitting on was in the backyard of the house the entire crew of "Epitaph' lived in during our summertime 2011 shoot.  The water was very clean and very, very cold.

So 'Good Ache' became my first ever attempt at combining acting, writing, singing, poetry, directing, producing, editing, recording, and painting.   All for a song about Heartbreak.  It only took 3 years to make.

Where do you find inspiration?

I don't think I would have attempted a project this hair-brained without the influence of Alma Becker.  I'm hoping this doesn't reflect badly on her.  No, I hadn't seen Alma in nearly a decade, and no, I'm sure she had no idea what I might be up to.  In hindsight, she was probably suffering from cancer for most of the duration of the project, which is odd to think about, to say the least.  By the time I'd started on this journey, Alma was not a part of my life.

The thing is, Alma was one of the first people to ever give me a chance to show others (and myself) what I may have actually been capable of.  Not a great sentence, but a true statement.  Let me explain.

Alma was responsible for giving me one of my most important artistic experiences ever.  I don't know if she knew this, I'm pretty sure I never got to tell her.  I like to think it was important to her, as well.   When I was a sophomore at Skidmore, Alma cast me as the lead of a 3 1/2 hour epic main stage production of English playwright Peter Barnes' dark comedy masterwork 'Red Noses.'  In Red Noses, I played a monk, Father Flote, who, when confronted with the mass death of the populace of 13th century France due to the plague, has a spiritual conversion into a clown, and sets out to gather together an oddball band of miscreants to entertain the sick and the dying.  Alma could have cast other more experienced actors in this lead role.  After all, Father Flote would be on stage for nearly the entire 3 1/2 hours.  But for some reason, she chose me, maybe because she saw something in me that I had always felt I'd possessed, the burning need to express the deep desire to live and live brightly in the face of overwhelming adversity.  I admit it, I was very angsty back then.  I like to think we both shared an empathy for humanity, and I tend to believe we both lived with a Broken Heart.  If there was anyone who could identify a Good Ache, it was Alma.  

I don't think I ever knew Alma the person too well.  I don't know where she was from, what she did before coming to Skidmore, who her friends were, what her real dreams were, what her middle name was.  I realize I really know virtually nothing about her.  But my interactions with her -- well, with Alma, you knew you had found someone who was present with you, a listener, considerate, deeply intelligent, funny as shit, open and guarded, playful, strong willed, very patient, and able to make decisions from her heart as well as her head.   Alma was all heart.  She could make you feel special, understood, accepted, and loved.  Ask anyone.  They will tell you the same.  It was one of her true gifts.  I don't know to what degree she knew she was doing this, but Alma was too aware a person to not consider how she affected everyone.   With Alma, she wasn't just your director, or your teacher.  Alma was your friend.  Ask anyone.

I have to admit now that I have very few actual memories of interactions with her while creating 'Red Noses.'  So strange what gets lost to the years and one's own indiscretions.   Alma was certainly handling a huge project, with a giant cast and crew, an orchestra, over three hours of text and staging, and an challenging mix of satire, dark comedy, and deadly serious social commentary.  A few things I do remember from the rehearsal process:  

1. One day I had my wallet stolen, losing what little money I had for the next month, and came to rehearsal rather dejected, only to later find friend and fellow cast member Billy Rubenstein had collected the sum from donations from all of the cast.  It was such a rare moment of generosity that, embarrassed and choked up, I couldn't even bring myself to say thank you. 

2.  I remember crossing the stage early, on a missed cue, during one rehearsal and kissing Jennifer "Jema" Lumley, who was disguised as a leper, her mouth covered in gauze.  I was wrong in my cue, but Alma really liked something about the movement and she said "let's keep it' and changed up the staging accordingly.  It was nice to watch an experienced director turn accidents into art in the moment.  

3.  Another moment, perhaps in a dress rehearsal, because I could swear I watched this from the audience, was seeing '30 Rock' producer David Miner, then playing the role of a blind juggler, lose a piece of a pre-broken plate in mid juggle, and watching it shoot straight out into the audience, nearly missing the head of a woman sitting directly in front of him in the first row.  

More little or odd moments.  That seems to be how my memory works these days.  Whoever I was back in 1990 (1989?) is nearly a stranger to me now.  I think I've died to that kid at least a few times over the past 20-odd years.  

What I do remember, however, was the potency of this piece of theater.  The focus on the importance of loving acts during bleak times.  The gravity and scope of the production, and how moving it was for to all who saw it.  The focus on love and joy over cynicism, nihilism.  The importance of laughter in the face of death.  The bawdy, dark humor.  The struggle of the few to change the hearts of the powerful.  The heart.  The heart.  The Heart.  This was Alma.

Alma was all heart.

She loved freely.  She accepted you for all your flaws and sought to show you they were your strengths in waiting.  I got the feeling she knew her own flaws all too well.  When I'd speak with her, I could see another conversation going on inside of her head, some kind of internal negotiation, and most of it would remain unspoken.  This was a quality I really enjoyed.  Alma was just as willing to bite her tongue as speak her mind,  perhaps in order to let whatever judgement she might have about whatever she was being confronted with take a backseat to the possibility that the problem in this moment just might work itself out in the next one.  This is an exceptional quality.  It can only be achieved by someone who has admitted to herself that perhaps she doesn't have all the answers, hasn't seen all the possibilities, and that something higher might just have a solution no one could have considered.  This is the quality of someone who will trust in the face of doubt, and has made a friend of the unknown.  If Alma did have solutions, they were her alchemies, her personal tomes, kept at bay with an expression that was mysterious, mischievous, amused, careful.  Words were her magical soldiers, she'd let them out with wisdom of a leader who's maybe seen the scorched earth of her own opinions once too often, and was now resigned to wield power properly, selectively, responsibly.  If Alma knew the answers, she knew the joy in self discovery, and she didn't want to ruin the ending for the rest of us.  She was a cool lady.

Most importantly, in my experience of her, Alma seemed to Trust me.  I have often felt, as a performer and creator, that my intuitive instincts would lead me to the correct, or most interesting, discoveries onstage or anywhere else.  I think Alma trusted this intuitive unveiling of the path in a similar way, and she walked it in process.  Perhaps she could tell I was keen on figuring out my role on my own, and I knew she trusted me to make at least some of the right choices.  This level of freedom combined with the responsibility of bearing some of the weight of driving this giant ocean liner of a play led me to a place of being able to inhabit the depths of Father Flote's burden.  He was ultimately a madman, a holy clown, driven on his messianic fool's quest to lighten the hearts of all who suffered.  A man of god who's gnosis drove him to defy the entire structure of his faith, all for the laugh.  I think his character was far less selfish than my own, though perhaps at 19 I was still ego-less enough to approximate a man who has given his bearings to the voices in his head that insist on doing the right thing.  And 19 years of Christianity had mind wiped me into wanting to be a martyr.  Still, what I might have lacked in character personally was solved in the fact that I had someone else to guide me, someone who would have understood all of Flote's choices enough to know why a play like Red Noses was worth doing, and doing right.  I had Alma.

Together we could maybe heal this fallen world for the stretch of an eighth of a day through a message of Love.  Love in the face of pain.  Love in the face of power.  Love in the face of death.  These were the Good Aches, the Noble Disappointments.  To Love with the full knowledge that, through the kindness of death, each one of us was born to lose.

What I consider to be my most important moment performing Red Noses came to me at the end of the final show of the run.  For two weeks, the play would end (for me) with Father Flote's showdown with the Pope, the latter wheeled in to this confrontation in a glass box surrounded by armed guards to keep him safe from the plague and the people.  Knowing Father Flote's execution was imminent,  I used this last gasp to lash out with all I had at the figurehead of the people's oppression.  Every night I'd lay into my final monologue like a hel-god possessed, filling every sentence with pointed rage, words as truth-daggers, in a string of bitter pills.  This was finally my chance to go for it and go hard, all rage and tears and justice.  Honestly, I felt like I'd earned the catharsis.  When the speech was finished,  I'd stand on my head and wait for the sound effect of a crossbow firing to know I had been shot down.  The clown martyr reaching his apotheosis.  I'm sure my delivery lacked quite a bit of subtlety, but I hope my enthusiasm carried the gist of the thing through to good effect. 

But on the last evening, (was it a Sunday afternoon?)  as I leaned in to the monologue, something caught in my throat, and I couldn't yell.  The final lines of my final monologue in the final performance fell out of my mouth  gentle and ordinary.  "...absurd, like me."  I assure you, I had no control over what was happening to me.  I imagine, for the audience in that moment, Flote would have appeared to realize his own absurdity, his own hypocrisy,  as his vitriol suddenly gave way to a man's self realization of humanity and frailty, a man who knew he was just about to die.  This was my last chance to make a grand stand, and I'd lost control of it all right at the end.  And then I'd stand on my head one last time, tears running down my face the wrong way, and wait for the crossbow to fire.

After the performance, Alma told me this version of the final monologue was her favorite.  I don't think I totally understood why at the time, maybe I did.  Now it seems obvious:  Flote had found the last piece of his humanity by accident, and knowing he was about to die, didn't need to conquer anything or anyone.  He was ordinary in that moment.  He was at last a real man.

What blows my mind is considering that this final delivery was what Alma must have been hoping for the entire run of the show.  What if, in her eyes, I'd been doing it wrong the whole time?  Instead of showing me my error, Alma left me to my ego-stained catharsis, maybe at the cost of her artistic intentions for the play.   She waited for me to find it, and perhaps in this last show I did.   To consider the sacrifice of that gesture.  It is surely a sacrifice Alma would have made.  Out of Patience, out of Trust, out of Love.

I nearly flunked out of school that year;  three Fs, a D, and a B.  All my mind, heart, and soul had gone to Alma and Red Noses.  But I would have flunked out of a 1000 schools for a theatrical experience that pure, and I would have thrown away a 1000 futures for Alma.  Its only now, with her death, do I realize how insanely lucky I was to have this great, short time to play pretend with her beautiful spirit.  And to get to share a stage with a woman that kind, that patient, that trusting and loving, perhaps despite her own misgivings, and certainly despite my own weaknesses and ignorance.  Alma, I lost track of you over the years.  Can you forgive me?  I Love you so....

This is dedicated to Alma Becker, an important Artist and an amazing Human Being.  Ask anyone.  They will tell you the same.

Are you feeling short on inspiration?  What are you willing to do to find it?  Open your eyes.  Open your heart.  Let the world in.  Let others teach you how to be human.  Put the pen to the paper and give something back.  Let the world in and give something back.  Let the world in and give something back.  Have a thought, make a sound, spit something out.  Anything.  Trust this life.  Act from Love.  Find your Good Ache, make it your friend, feel it, and let it show you the way.

It's what Alma taught me.

The Second Half of TWOThousandTWELVE

Howdy

Thanks for stopping by TheseAreDreams.com.   If you are new to this website:  This is a site created by Phil Ristaino - I am an actor/artist/and musician living on the west coast.  Please look around the site, there's tons of material derived from about 20 years of living the artist's life in NYC, San Francisco, New Mexico, Europe (a little bit) and wherever else I wandered to during the time between when I graduated college and now.

New stuff:  One of the more recent new things is this:  www.theTWEx.com   This is the site for the power pop/psychedelic rock band the Troy Westfield Experience, a band I front and play drums for from time to time.  Our latest album, "Business on the Lanai: a Refresher Course" was released summer 2012.   5 songs, 3 music videos so far, one more vid coming.  Here's the latest video, the lead off track, "Danny the Street."   This video was shot and edited by Mike Gordon, and animated by yours truly.  It features the enigmatic Mr Three Fiddy.  Check it out, it'll make you tweek:

We also fixed/remixed/remastered our classic album from 2001, "Tantric Scrimshaw."  It sounds amazing!  Both albums were produced and mixed by the great Allen Towbin at his Maze Studios NYC in Brooklyn.   Here's the lead of track from that album, sounding 100 times better than it ever did:


Both albums can be purchased at the TWE's website: www.theTWEx.com

 The band also played a couple shows on the east coast in celebration of the both records being released.  You can see some great pics from our NYC gig here.

On the acting front:  I've been worked on several projects since I last posted news this summer.  In the midst of playing gigs and releasing TWE albums this summer, I managed to fit in a week of filming an entire feature film, called "Brother Sister Lover."   I play the brother.  We really jammed on shooting that film, I think it should be a nice little piece of drama - the actual filming of the movie only happened in 3 days!  It was intense, but our director Jason Torrey (of Blood Was Everywhere) and his crew kept the three actors on track, and I think the intensity of shooting over such a short period of time added to the tension, resulting in a few moments that even surprised me.  Here's the facebook page for BSL:  facebook.com/brothersisterlover

Next up, a short film I starred in called "Fix."  This film was shot over 5 days or so right at the end of 2011, rolling over into the new year.  We actually shot it during the new year's celebration here in downtown San Francisco.  That was a challenging shoot.  I was mixing it up with lots of poor and insane folks in one of the hardest-lucked parts of SF, the Tenderloin.  I play a down and out guy who lives under ground and must travel to the surface world during new year's eve to fulfill a secret mission.   "Fix" also marks the first time I've acted with rats.  Actual rats.  This film was shot by a 4 person crew from Salt Lake City, Utah, but you'd never know because it looks really astonishing.  Excellent editing, excellent cinematography, a great soundtrack.  I would consider this the most polished piece I've gotten to be a part of, not counting the Hollywood films in which I've appeared as an extra.  The film was on my website for a while, but the film makers took it down because I believe it is about to be screened at Slamdance.  Cool.  You can, however, see it if you go to the Stowaway Films site.  Its well worth a view.  I can't wait to be able to show it again on TheseAreDreams.com.

Since this summer, I've filmed a few short internet pieces, a short film called "Michael Sadler's Crusade" about a 19th century English politician who changes the child labor laws, I've been an hippy in feature called "The Garden of Eden" about a strip club in SF in the late 60s, and done a few episodes of the Japanese show "World's Astonishing Stories."  Lately I've been auditioning a bit, so hopefully more gigs will materialize in the near future.

In terms of the website itself, I've done a bit of work to make it easier to navigate, cleaned up and added content to a lot of pages (like the Voice Acting and Interviews Page, for example, or the Dreams for Sale page, for another example) and even added a page that features old tunes I recorded with various friends mostly from the 90s while I was learning how to write pop music.  Here's an example:

There's lots more like that (or unlike that, really) at the Old Tunes page on my site. Hopefully I'll unearth more rare tracks to share in the future.

Please take some time to really look over the site, I think its in better shape than its ever been!  And stay tuned, I will have more to share, maybe even before the end of the year, because there's another Troy Westfield video on the way...

Happy Dec 21, 2012

phil

Venus transit + rare solar eclipse = progress!

Lots of crazy constellation activity in 2012, but I would expect no less from such a mythic year.  I actually looked at a rare solar eclipse the other week, one that happens only 25,000 years or so.  My brother was at a colleague's house on Bernal Heights (a hill below the Mission in SF) where they had special goggles that allowed intrepid folk to stare straight into the heart of the sun.  I rode my bike over to their pad as the eclipse was happening, the light was strange to say the least - dark but warm.  I stared into the eclipse like a voyeur of God as the moon was perfectly placed in the top center of the sun, it was ridiculous how it timed out so perfectly.  But then again, I had been meditating for an hour before that with the intention of manifesting my greatest life, so it really should come as no surprise.  Consciousness creates reality. Believe it, because the universe does.

The rare Venus transit across the face of the sun is only days away, (june 5-6), and I'll be spending most of it in an airplane traveling from the west coast of Turtle Island to the east, a tiny Agent of Venus mirroring her sojourn to tear the cosmic veil asunder before the great white fire god in the sky threatens to burn the seas and crack the heavens wise.  Why do I travel?  Two reasons, really:

NEW TROY WESTFIELD EXPERIENCE MUSIC.   It happens only once a decade, it seems, but a nearly a year and a half of hard fun, heated aesthetic compromise and weed smoke has finally yielded a new album from the Experience:  "Business on the Lanai: A Refresher Course" (the title a conjoined Fletch reference in honor of a shared reverence between myself and my partner in crime Mike Gordon for Chevy Chase's immensely quotable classic 80s film.)  Our five song extended player is no slight matter -- these songs are potent and will certainly entertain and challenge the listener.  I think they're some of the best songs we've ever written, honestly.   We lead off the newly launched record (which can be digitally downloaded at our website thetwex.com) with our summer smash hit Good Ache, a song about playing a character in a movie who's falling in love and not being sure if you are actually falling in love along with the character or just falling into character.   Mike aka Troy himself has assembled a video made of old monster films to illustrate his interpretation of the song's themes.  I'll have my own version coming out just as soon as I get a  hold of all the precious footage I shot last summer....

We'll be playing a few live shows in nyc and maybe MA during the month of June/early July, keep an eye out for em. that website again: thetwex.com

 Which brings me to my second share: as I prepare to film a new feature with Sun In 10 productions, a new commercial I play the lead in has been released online and is soon to be on TV here in SF.  Produced by Fill In the Blank Media for Community Housing Partnership, a non profit that finds jobs and homes for the homeless and the jobless, this commercial was shot with a camera that would chop up the action to make it look like stop motion animation.  Except for the opening scene, which was taken one photo at a time with a camera on a curved track -- you'll notice it goes from daytime to night time, well that is an indication of how long it took to actually get this entire sequence.  But I think it works well:

June should prove to be quite a month, lots to do, many to see, and another film to make, and a universe that bucks and slides through the wetworks of time as it transmogrifies into a zoo of celestial butterflies the likes of which none of us could ever imagine.   I'll let you know how it goes....

American Epitaph: A Young Ruffian Production

So much awesome stuff is in the works right now.  The triumphant return of the Troy Westfield Experience rock and roll extravawowzer is mere months away, maybe less!  We have two, count em, two albums to offer all you wonderful folks, along with music videos, art, t shirts, and maybe a live show if you're lucky.... Stay tuned, damn it!  You can find out more about the band on the Troy Westfield section of my website, TheseAreDreams.com, or on our Facebook page.

But really, the main reason for this post is the debut of the teaser trailer of the Young Ruffian Productions first full length feature film, American Epitaph!  shit yeah.   Dig in:


"American Epitaph" Teaser Trailer from Ryan Holden on Vimeo.

This was an epic filming experience for myself and the entire Ruffian crew.  Filmed over a 40 plus day period during the summer of 2011 in the wilds of Vermont, American Epitaph is the story of four friends trying to live life to the fullest as an unseen war inside the United States slowly makes its way to their doorsteps.  I had a truly unique, amazing and inspiring experience making this movie with Ryan Holden, Mike Scudder, Joe Holden, Logan Howe, Andrew Mclennon, Justin Epifanio as well as my old friends Erin Lynch and Alistair Redman and all the incredible and inspiring cast and crew of the film.  It was truly a crazy good time.   I can't wait to bring you more news about this film and the TWE albums.  Soon oh so soon......

Journey into the Invisible World to Kubrick's Moon Landing

Happy 2012!  Happy 2912!  Happy 29120012!

I had a super busy December in 2011.  Went to NYC.  Finished (more or less) mixing the all new Troy Westfield Experience album (coming soon) with my power pop compatriots Mike Gordon and Allen Towbin.  I also starred in a upcoming short film called Left For Dead, where I played a man who lives deep underground and must embark on a mission to the surface world during new years eve.  We filmed all over the Tenderloin District in San Francisco (and if you know the Tenderloin, then you know it was a urine-soaked, crazy-crackhead-good time) at ungodly hours for five days and nights, including during the stroke of midnite amongst the heaving, thronging masses on new years eve 2011-2012.

It was insane.

I also appeared in studio on episode 85 of Frank Todaro's the Invisible World, where we talked about the brilliant Jay Weidner documentary "Kubrick's Odyssey."  Weidner has put together a rather convincing (in my opinion) doc on the deeper meanings and behind the scenes history of Stanley Kubrick, his films, and his alleged deal with the US Govt to help fake the Apollo moon landings.  Its a truly wonderful doc, check it out, you won't regret it:


Kubrick's Odyssey from Charlie Crumlish on Vimeo.

And then, please follow this link to listen to my conversation with Frank. I could have talked about the multitude of facets of this crystalline puzzle of the mysterious collision of sci fi and sci fact for 8 hours....

The Invisible World ep 85 12/14 by Theinvisibleworld | Blog Talk Radio

Much more to come in 2012.  Holy shit, its 2012!

wow.  who would've thought we'd even get this far....

3 For Thursday

I haven't posted in quite some time, apparently since the end of last year.  Since then I've been acting up a storm: short films, TV, extra work in feature films, music video, voice work, lots of live improv, and of course, performing for elementary school kids as a giant light bulb superhero named Bulbman.  All to varying degrees of success or quality.  I've also been to NYC to record a new 5 song EP with the legendary Troy Westfield Experience!  Hopefully we'll be finishing that record this summer and maybe even making a music video for our epic pop heartbreaker Good Ache.  Can't wait to get that song out to folks.  Hooray for being a working actor!  This has definitely been the most paid I've ever been as a performer.  Its been very encouraging, and I'm finally convinced there is a future for me as an actor, more specifically, a film actor.  This summer I'll be going back to the east coast to work on a play, finish the record, and act in a lead role in a new feature film called American Epitaph.  All this and my older brother Carl gets married, so I think it will prove to be an interesting summer....

I wanted to post 3 projects I worked on since winter 2011, in order of when they were completed:

1.  Save My Favorite Show


A bizarre little piece, this short was made to enter a contest to win $100,000.00 from dockers to make a feature.  The producer was a huge fan of a cancelled sci fy channel show called the Invisible Man, and wanted to reunite the cast for an unrelated full length movie.  I appear as a protester, as one of the producer's favorite actors, as the voice over narrator, and as a silver painted singing telegram.  I don't think this piece is very successful, but it gets points for weirdness.

2.  A Rapturous Scent


I have the lead in this one.  Filmed at the beginning of 2011, this was created by a SF State student and shot on real film!  Any actor in the digital age will realize how rare it is to actually get to perform for actual film.  This was made by a smart group of filmmakers determined to use all the tools available to them to get some interesting shots.   The subject matter is a bit more cheesy than I normally enjoy, pretty much a straight up romantic story, and this version of the film is a condensed 5 minute version of what will eventually be a 10 minute film, complete with trippy dream sequence that didn't make the cut.  I think the 10 minute version will work better than this one.  My experience of the process of making this film inspired the upcoming TWE tune Good Ache, and I'll be happy to explain that progression once the song is released.  I can't help noticing how strange looking I am in this film, especially my profile.  It reinforces my feeling of being an alien in a human body....

3.  Coulda Woulda Shoulda


Legendary SF rapper Lyrics Born's brand new video.  This was a one day shoot I did for free (the other two were paid gigs).  It just seemed like a great opportunity to be in an LB vid.  This is actually my favorite of the three, even tho I barely appear in it (you can spot me dancing in a black and white poke-a-dotted shirt).  Its a cool disco tune, and I dig the little animations they added to the video.  I remember the drummer and bass player playing cover tunes during some downtime during the shoot and they were extremely sick musicians.  Hopefully I'll get more opportunities like this in the near future....

More videos to share as they are released, but I think we're off to a good start here.  Stay tuned!

Epic Interview with my old pal Troy Westfield

My oldest buddy in the world Mike G aka musical partner in crime Troy Westfield conducted a rather lengthy interview with yours truly about the Agents of Venus album "Boduvt" and posted it in its entirety over at his blog Kinde Words.  Mike was nice enough to let me blather on not only about the Agents of Venus writing and recording process, he was also kind enough to let me jabber about the mythological underpinnings of some of the themes of the album and my personal experiences that informed the lyrics of the record.

Many many thanks to Mike for his friendship and for his interest in the AoV project.

Please go here to read the interview: "Her Favorite Album of 2010"

My latest Invisible World chat with Frank

Here's my latest interview with Frank Todaro for Frank's Invisible World show.  I'm hoping it will be the first of a several part talk on the subject of extra terrestrials and ufos, probably focusing a bit on Venus' relationship with all that due to the Agents of Venus band name.  Don't know about Agents of Venus?  Where have you been?  Go here and learneth, newbie.  Otherwise, enjoy the interview.  You may notice the debut of our smash hit single "Her Favorite Song" on the show:

I have to say, this interview just barely began to explain a larger subject I'm looking forward to exploring, either with Frank or here in blog form (probably both).  That subject, the seemingly contradicting understand of the planet Venus being represented historically (in western traditions) as either Venus or Aphrodite (or maybe Isis or Mary Magdelene, perhaps?), the goddess of love and beauty, as well as Lucifer, the first cast out angel from heaven, the Lightbringer, that much maligned representative of all things hidden and nefarious in this world. 

I inadvertently seem to blame the Freemasons for representing the latter in our discussion, without being able to really explain why I say it and what I really mean by it.  I'm not going to go into it yet here, but I will eventually explain myself either on this blog or on the Agents of Venus blog (again, maybe both).  I do want to admit that I have nothing against those wacky kabalists the Freemasons in general.   During the interview, I was trying to spout out a large idea in a small amount of time, and I didn't really formulate my idea all that clearly.   Suffice it to say, when choosing the band name, I was trying to find a way to bring two polarities, two opposing ideas together under one roof, so to speak, in hopes of creating a higher level of perspective on just what the morning star (Venus) means to our little planet and our world traditions.  It seems to me that its time to unify polar opposites, not only because we surely could use a fresh perspective on the seemingly endless struggle of good and evil in this world, but because the struggle itself is indicative of a 3rd dimensional perspective, as the push/pull of the polar opposites seems to be (to me) the creative force in action in our world, and I believe, since we appear to be moving into times that call for us to broaden our awareness of higher levels of reality, then the act of unifying these polarities actually propels one into these higher levels.   I promise somewhere down the line I will do my darndest to explain this further (or "furthur," as the Merry Pranksters might have put it.)

Stay tuned....

Been Busy --- Blood Was Everywhere Teaser Trailer

Internet wizlings

Damn, I been busy.  Lots of stuff to report, not sure I'll do it all here and now, but soon.

I'm currently in a show at the Town Hall Theater in Lafayette, Ca.  Its a newish version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.   You can find out about it and get tickets here, and here's a review.   It runs through October 31.

In other newseses,  the film in which I acted this summer, Blood Was Everywhere, has released a teaser trailer, featuring the opening song from none other than Agents of Venus' album Boduvt (that song being Fall Off the Earth).  Here ya go:



Its sort of a strange teaser, as this is a slasher film, but you don't really get that sense until late in the clip.  I had a little facebook discussion with the director Jason Torrey, and he said they put it together fairly quickly to show at the wrap party (which I missed, due to being on the wrong coast), but that also he is following his tendencies to sublimate expectations about how a horror movie works by slyly slipping the killer and his actions gradually into a series of images that initially looks like a day in the life film about people in a small town.  You have to watch the trailer a few times to figure out who the killer is and what he's up to.

I've decided that he is creating a film featuring an ensemble cast where one of the ensemble happens to try and kill everyone else in the story.  What genre would we be talking about with this take on film-making?  Has he invented something new? 

Here's Blood Was Everywhere's page on the facebook.  Their website is currently under construction.

Hopefully there will be a full on trailer by the end of the year.  I'll keep you posted....

Agents of Venus all over the web!

Boduvians! At long last, Agents of Venus' new album is all over the web.

If you go to AgentsofVenus.blogspot.com, you can hear tunes, read info, see art, and follow links to buy the record!  Or....

The best deal to get the physical CD is on CD Baby, only $9.99 (which also sells the album on MP3 for the same price). You can download Boduvt on Itunes for only $9.99, too! The best price to get the MP3 album is on Amazon - only $8.99! Sweet, yeah? Seriously, this is a freakin steal. You can also purchase the CD on Amazon, (its a little pricier, but if you want to spend the dough, we ain't gonna stop ya). Any of you NAPSTER freaks can listen to full songs and buy AoV:Boduvt here.

And the coolest discovery: LAST FM! This site is great. Not only does it allow you to hear new tracks from our album, you can also add it to a music library, along with music from any other band you may dig, and Last FM will create a playlists for you, free streaming your own AoV inspired radio station. Dope! Make it happen here!

So what are you waiting for? Ride a Boduvt to Synchroni City all over the web, and grok hard with your Agents of Venus!

Spooky Snack

Here's a commercial I acted in when I first moved to San Francisco late last year.  I finally got a hold of a copy.  Its a little silly, but the special effects are cool.  I was performing with an actor wearing a head to toe green screen suit, so that he could be edited out in post.  Also, the Doritos spilling out of the bag when I fall off the counter and the Dorito at the end of commercial that I grab for and it disappears are totally animated.  I think it looks decent.  Nice to have been part of movie magic.

I'm the dead guy...

Just go here and you'll understand it all, I promise.

Interviews, Reviews, and News part Tiew

Blogspot was giving me some trouble with expanding this original post, so here's part 2:

Old buddy, former news hound, frog lover, and web entrepeneur Lorin Kalisky has written up an rather intelligently rendered review of the new Agent of Venus album, Boduvt, (and shame on you if you haven't looked into our album or blog, here's your chance).  I highly encourage you to go over to his Lodog blog to read it and be wowed by his dopeness.  Homeboy can really write.  Thanks for the kind words, Lorin.  He says he's listened to the record 20 times in a row, which is the best review anyone could give our record.

Lastly, I've learned that an actor pal from college has been wrestling with cancer, and is writing a rather masterful document of his experiences on a blogspot blog.  Celebrity Holter Graham is not only a talented actor and the bastard son of George Carlin, Denis Leary, and Rob Halford when he talks (though dude can't sing like Halford, but homey gets the metal), but he is also one hell of writer and a damn fine human being, if I do say so my damn self.  Reading his blog has been sobering and entertaining: Holter has never been short on personality and has a particularly, dare I say, Holteresque take on this predicament.  I highly recommend checking out his online diary.  This is my way of sending out good wishes to the man and my profound hope for a speedy and effortless recovery.  Love ya, Holter, even though I know you'd hate to hear it....

Strangely enough, and relevant to this blog, I had been seeing people on the street yesterday that had been reminding me of Holter, and then only hours later learned of his illness.  The invisible world at work, or some knowledge crossing over through time, but the precognitive thing just sort of happens to me from time to time, especially when someone you care about is really going through the shit.  Its like some kind 5th dimensional alarm clock, if that makes any sense.

Whatever it is, it is succeeding in breaking my heart.

Dammit Holter, you better get better....

Interviews, Reviews, and News

Hey folks.  Some odds and ends to take care of here.  Since I've started a few other blogs, I tend to forget about this one, but I'm back, here to share developments with you and encourage you to explore my fellow Artists (with a capital A, cause when I say artist I'm talking about all the arts) work, because, if there is one thing the internet is keen on reminding us, its that we are all connected.

First off, I'd like to share these two swell interviews I've done with my good pal Frank Todaro over on his blogtalk radio show, The Invisible World.  Frank and I used to do Start Trekkin NY improv together (Frank's still doing it) and during those couple years we learned that we shared a mutual interest in the paranormal, and extra terrestrials in particular.  Frank's also a sci fi nerd and comic book maven, like me.  Fortunately for both of us, Frank has channeled his love of all this mucky muck into a weekly radio show.  Thus, the Invisible World is born.  You'll notice, not coincidentally, that the invisible world itself, in the form of orbs, have popped up in several pictures of Frank and I from a Start Trekkin photo shoot.  (You can click on the pictures to enlarge them, and thus, see the orbs up close, there's some great orbs in these pictures.)  Frank is tight with the orbs.

Due to my particular experiences, many of which I still haven't gotten to on this here blog, I seem to fit the role of having a unique perspective with Frank's growing list of guests, so Frank has already had me on the show twice in the course of two months to talk about synchronicity, dreams, visions, 2012, ets, my music, and mucho mas.  Frank has also featured three Agents of Venus tunes on the program: Hero with 1000 eyes, Cobalt Silver, and 33 (the last of which was spun on a show where I wasn't being interviewed, which is pretty cool -- the music is speaking for itself.

Here are the two interviews, in order of date (first interview first).  I recommend listening to them in sequence, cause the second interview builds on the first.    If you want to download them, you should head on over to The Invisible World, and they will hook you up with the goods:

Invisible World interview 3/23/2010

Invisible World interview 4/20/2010

A few good things...

I'll be getting to part 3 of OOooooooooorrrrrrbbbbbbsssssssss! as soon as I can.  I just wanted to take a second to tell you about a couple of cool developments that might make your life even more fun than I suspect it already is.

First, I would love folks reading this blog to go on over to my new band's blog site, (which is soon to be accompanied by our new virtual CD website, stay tuned).  The band is called Agents of Venus, the album is called Boduvt (pronounced Boe-doovt) and if you go to AgentsofVenus.blogspot.com you can read up about us and hear 3 of our new songs.  We will be releasing the album both physically and as a digital download at some point in April.  Awesomeness abounds!

Second (and also awesome), last night I was the special guest on former Start Trekkin stage mate and now paranormal talk show host Frank Todaro's blogtalk radio show, The Invisible World.  I got a chance to rap with Frank and his psychic expert Lady Fontaine about the discovery of Earth type planets, Frank's recent ufo sighting, and my two important spiritual experiences in the 90's that put me on the path to exploring the hidden and strange, and that also gave this blog its name.  At the end of the show you can hear a brand new Agents of Venus song, "Hero with 1000 Eyes" played in its entirety.

To listen to the show, please go to blogtalkradio.com/theinvisibleworld.  It is the newest episode (#4) and it is also available for download on itunes.

These are a few good things.  More to come!

OOOOOOORRRRRRRBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSSS part 2

Orbs Love Rock

This isn't an opinion. Its a fact. Orbs love the rock. After learning about the ECs, I went back into some of my pictures and realized that at least 6 or seven years before they had shown up in photos of a couple of concerts. These first three photos are from the legendary Troy Westfield Experience's final concert on 42nd st, during what I think was a fund raiser for the NTUSA at one of Chashama's theaters (the whole block is now a bank, but for a time, artist were running the block). Above you see me belting with a rather large orb in the upper left. Now, I concede this could be a stage light, but it really matches the orb profile.

This one is the least obvious , but I'm pretty sure there are some orbs in the upper left. I'm busy in this shot summoning the fire out of Stevey D's guitar.

This one I find the most peculiar. If you go back to the Ooorrbbss part one, you'll recall Nancy Burson, Extra Celestial spokeswoman. Her website not only features lots of light spheres, there are also many images of more humanoid figures who manifest as tall light beings or in clouds of smoke. I never realized this before, but that cloud of smoke to my left looks an awful lot like a giant skull, a typical EC manifestation. Whatayathink?

These next 4 are from a concert a few years later, starring the hard hitting 80's glam rock cover band Rok Goddington. Again, this is years before I knew about orbs, but I think you'll find the EC's presence in these images much more pronounced. Also, I realize that the snaps from above are film, while the ones below were digital, so that may be another factor.

Cock, Spock, and Lox Goddington jamming on the one with a band of orbs . Even ECs are nostalgic for 80s hair metal, apparently. The orbs kind of look like cartoon intoxication bubbles in this photo which, if I remember correctly, would be extremely, let's say...accurate for this show

Yours truly pointing to a guitar as Vox Goddington, big ole orb looking on. That's the singer's job on stage, to point to where the guitars are, in case the audience can't find them. I've noticed I get lots of orbs near my head for some reason.


You'll notice if you look closely that there seems to be some kind of face in this one. I might also note this guy appears near an image of a bird with a halo, so we're kind of channeling the holy spirit as a reinforcing synchronistic symbol.

A little EC hanging near one of my rok-gloves. Small but very bright. You'll notice a stage light behind Spock -- I bring it up just as a comparison, they look quite different from an orb.

A seemingly serene moment of roking

Cock and Spock on the job, probably singing some Judas Priest, orbs just below Spock's bass.

The ECs showing up during rock shows seems fairly plausible, as we are creating ecstatic states of vibration through sound, a building block of matter. In the beginning was the word, as they say. Plus, as we all know, rock is awesome, so why wouldn't they want a part of our good time? The orbs know what is important. Rok is our church. Let us pray.

Stay tuned for Oooooorrrrrbbbbbssssss part 3, ooooorrrbbbsss iiiiiin ssssppaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

OOOOOOORRRRRRRBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSSS part 1

Hello. I am feeling a little depressed and out of sorts today. I am not sleeping normally -- lately I have been working or making art all night and sleeping all day, still adjusting to being in San Francisco without a real regular schedule, and though I didn't work last night, I meditated a lot and tried to sleep, alas, to no avail. I need a little cheering up. So......

It is time.

For.

OOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRBBBBBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! part 1.

Frank's folk's orb farm in Herkimer, NY (I'll explain later)--click to enlarge this image, its worth it!

That's right, folks, orbs. Also known as extra celestials, these little balls of light have been popping up in photographs worldwide -- often suspected to be a trick of light or dirt on the lens, or the result of some kind of malfunction of the digital camera. But we in the know are aware that those explanations are all bullshit, and that orbs are some kind of other dimensional entities that like us humans and our earth, and are, well, living with us day to day, just outside of our visual perception range. And they like us, I swear it. I've even seen one with a little smiley face sticking out of it.

I first learned about the orbs while I was taking a meditation class, and an older woman from the class offered to take me to a lecture held by Nancy Burson, an NYC artist and spiritualist who talks about her experiences with the orbs (she calls them Extra Celestials -- I will probably alternate referring to them as orbs or ECs throughout this post). I believe the ECs began to visit her after she entered a crop circle in England. She has developed a real relationship with them and now considers herself to be their emissary. During her lectures she also breaks out a little glow in the dark statue of Mother Mary that dances when she turns off the lights and plays spiritual, beat-ladened music. I don't remember seeing any orbs during this lecture, but I did soon thereafter begin to photograph them:

click to enlarge. Steal these pictures and enlarge them even more. orbs are cool looking!

Within a week or so of the lecture, I was painting a mural on 38th st and 8th ave in NYC, and upon photographing the image for my files (the mural had to be painted in a weekend, I chose the image of a root chakra as a grounding, healing image for passersby) I found that the pictures had picked up some ECs around the front of the building.

The one just below is particularly amazing, probably the brightest orb I've ever photographed.

It seems that if you are exposed to the ECs you will most likely start finding them in your photos, so if you read this orb series of posts, start to look through your photos and you will realize you have been posing for pictures with invisible friends!

Nancy says these are higher dimensional light beings who are here to assist humanity in our enlightenment. They are very happy little fellers. I tend to agree with her assessment. She says if you call to the ECs they will come and help you out with whatever might be ailin' ye. So maybe give it a try and see what happens.

Consequently, relating this back to Nancy's experience of the ECs with the crop circle, often bright balls of light are seen hovering over fields just before or during the making of crop circles. Are the ECs making the circles? A potential connection between the two phenomenon are the geometries that exist inside both the orbs and circles. If you look closely at some of these photos, you may see some very intricate geometries lying inside of them.

For example:

Perhaps a year or two later, I went to another Nancy Burson lecture, and some of her "friends" were photographed hanging with us afterwards (look closely):
I think it might be important to mention here that the orbs, to me, appear to have depth to them. Or more specifically, they seem to be portals or tunnels, as if you could dive into them.

For example:

The reason I point this out is because I think the orbs are illustrating an important quantum idea. It seems to me that source energy, god energy, consciousness, emanates from every atom, from every point in the "material" world. Being that energy is never created nor destroyed, perhaps energies are transferred from point to point through vortexes, (essentially a portal or tunnel that has torsion, or spin.) Perhaps these ECs travel by creating their own portals, by turning themselves into vortexes, and then teleporting from place to place, dimension to dimension, through themselves.

I bring this up for two reasons: 1. My out-of-body experience (the "first dream," the reason this blog exists, which can be read here), where I witnessed a giant vortex made of light that spoke to me, meaning it was conscious. 2. A friend of a friend whom I met at the last Nancy Burson event, who described seeing a giant energetic portal in Central Park in NYC some years earlier. Essentially, I think these orbs are individuated, living vortexes of light. They are conscious energy centers, just floating all around us. But for some reason, we can't see them. Yet, the digital camera CAN. So the question begs to be asked: Are the cameras just making them up? It is possible they are some sort of digital anomaly, but I really don't buy that. I think the cameras are doing what they are designed to do: reproducing images of what is actually there. They are literally photographing glowing objects that exist in the way a tree or a car exists. This same phenomena manifests with photographs of spirits, ufos, etc. We as humans are either psychologically blocked against seeing them, or the camera has a wider visual spectrum than the human eye. The camera can't just invent an orb, right? Right?

So what the heck is goin on here?

Stay tuned for oooooorrrrrrrrbbbbbbbbbbsssssssss 2!