TO ALL MY HALOS AND HELLIONS ….
And to my alien friends who cleverly disguise themselves!
Congratulations to one of my heroes Todd Rundgren for his great new music.
His work is always revealing and inspiring and keeps the rest of us younger punks honest. The pupil gives one of his teachers an A+!
Those of you who marvel at Prince's, Lenny's or my own ability to be a one man band and studio wizard should know that before us were Stevie Wonder and Todd Rundgren as sterling examples of musical self determination and song craft. Like Stevie's Todd's catalogue is full of gems waiting to be rediscovered by the younger generation. He is also a great visionary, who foresaw years ago much of what is currently going on with the internet and DVD. Check him out, it really is worth the effort!
…he also produced some seminal records that helped to shape the vocabulary of Rock and Roll like the first 'New York Dolls' Record and one of the RAMONES Records.
MOST VISIONARIES ARE SEEN ONLY AS STUBBORN FOOLS
….until their vision pans out, afterwhich they are seen only as stubborn fools
who got lucky!
§
my love is scarlet
her poems once fell at my feet
like top heavy leaves
over moistened by dew
now
they have become the waters
that bathe my soul
in mist
even though
I'm already drowning
my skin was bruised
though now
its browning
§
Young players remember:
IF YOU PLAY IT LIKE A MAN, IT WILL SPEAK FOR ITSELF!
What if we could program the satellites in Space to beam frequencies designed to promote peaceful, restful and creative dreams as opposed to the anxiety they beam. Wouldn't that be cool?
The third dimension is the result of the animated thought forms of the fourth dimension. To wit, we are each witnesses to our own thought process (including the shadows we push away), working its way to completion.
Change the way you think about yourself and your physical world will reflect this change. The matrix access point of the third dimension lies in the fourth where we also dream. The practice of lucid dreaming therefore allows you an opportunity to address your neuro-wiring more directly and with faster results. With practice and intention (and it helps to keep a dream-diary) this form of dreaming can be attained. Once this occurs, you will then notice how much more lucid to our waking dream you will become.
Those who choose money over love soon come to find that there's never enough love nor money.
For as long as we maintain our dignity, we maintain our common sense.
I would love to report otherwise, but the reality is that, there is no way for a man to sleep with a lot of women and not wind up with a very confused mind and a belly full of anxiety. This only applies if you have a mind that is of value to you. If you don't, then you are much luckier than you know, so go for it.
Otherwise the attempt to find moderation in this is in and of itself a meditation.
Much terrorism is sponsored secretly by the very governments decrying it, who use it as an excuse to assume more power and control of culture through the apparatus of fear. We are much easier to sheepherd when we are scared senseless according to the logic of our demented, heartless, keepers.
Expect naturally that the closer we get to the most internationally watched U.S. election ever, the more of a 'terror alert' the U.S. will be put on. A cursory reading of NOSTRADAMUS reveals where we are now in our gamesmanship and the price we will all be expected to pay for the economic folly of a few.
Prophets hate being right, it means they've failed to get their message across.
MICHAEL MOORE must be some kind of freak! For he actually believes that filmmakers are allowed to make films that actually say something. He actually believes that film (the pen) is at least as mighty as the sword. Bravo to him for being misguided enough to believe that artists can still make a difference and for putting some balls back into American film!
You can have a great life or an easy life, you cannot have both.
TALES OUT OF SCHOOL: in the early mid '90s one of my heroes JEFF BECK and I were in enthusiastic discussion about doing a project together. Since I've always been a very big ROD STEWART fan and loved the music ROD and JEFF made together back in the day I looked forward to the whole 9 since at that time (and throughout my association with them). The American Label Sony had me so tightly under wraps (political persuasion) that I went from a mack daddy to a moldy mummy in the time it took to close and seal my tomb. For whatever earthly reason 'the Label' were not amused that he and I were going to blaze up some new music. I had no doubt that between myself and Jeff (one of the most daring and innovative musicians alive)
we would come up with some pretty explosive music so 'the Label' decided to kill the idea by poisoning Jeff's mind with some bullshit against me while leading him to believe that it were I who flaked. Once again I retreated back into the bat-cave where I licked my wounds and worked on the magic spells which would one day bring these transnational bullies down to their current size.
HE WHO LAUGHS LAST, LAUGHS IN STEREO.
Are elephants allowed to live in ivory towers?
Constructive anger fuels most progress.
Babies spend most of their waking time meditating and their sleep time playing with Angels. Mainly they meditate on the nature of what appears before them, each time new, like cats.
I will never again allow a corporation to stand in between me and the will of my creator.
Clarity supercedes logic.
THE PRICE OF TRANSFORMATION IS to not only lose the fear of walking through the fires that you yourself create, but to create more fires so that creation always is.
Peace is not about attainment, it is about acceptance.
Just because I am independent does not mean that I am not willing to be of service to the music industry.
After all this is still the industry (although dramatically different and politically co opted) that gave me the Beatles.
So here goes a suggestion: 'the recording industry will take a huge step forward when they begin to reinvent themselves by breaking their networks down into smaller regional distribution outlets, leaving the A&R to the artists and producers themselves. Since it is clear by the numbers that the public are not begging for more formula, but for more fiber, originality and passion, a little more sincerity and a little less desperation. This would also serve to spare the industry the unnecessary overhead which currently bogs it down in debt while leaving it more mobile to respond to trends as they happen in real time.
Allowing the artists to make the music their creators placed in their hearts will show a big difference and give the public something worth coming back for: divine inspiration and new wicked grooves. After all progress cannot be stopped, it can only be taxed.'
No one needs a huge advance to make a good record, just good songs. One needs a lot of money to make mediocre music better. Furthermore an artist being given more money than is necessary for the work, places too much stress on the artist as well as the label. It also has a tendency to dull the creative edge and promotes complacency. To earn a fortune is much better for the health of the psyche than to be given one.
The price of your truth not being spoken is that you become indecisive and chocked with grief, GO ON AND LET YOUR SCREAM OUT!
COMING SOON! NEW SONGS FOR A NEW ELECTIC ERA!
Evil fears those who do not fear evil
It will always be hard to understand the nature of evil if you yourself are not. What I do know of it is that to fear it is to allow it. To not fear it is to reduce it. A little evil must be if we are to remain honest and focused otherwise we fall asleep and become fodder for its terror.
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
The distinction is whether or not WE are paying him.
From the cultural image department: 'Historically there does seem to be an image that frightens U.S. culture more than the consistently circulated image of a black man with a gun and that is a black man with a guitar'.
It would be wonderful to see my country grow up and expand itself beyond its deeply flawed mean-spirited racist foreign policy which does seem to conflict mightily with the democratic ideals we say we wish to export and convince others of, yet which we ourselves fail so miserably to enact even at home and with such half-hearted determination. It is hard to export something that amounts to more slogan than substance. Furthermore, it will also do well for our country to lay off the surveillance of prominent American men of colour who have influence abroad for it only serves to verify why they chose to live abroad in the first place and it serves no function other than intimidation and only increases the heavy karmic burden that we, as a nation, are already suffering under the weight of. Our American desire to recreate the world in the image of our ideology would seem to be more effective if were we actually to become the nation we wish to export elsewhere. Our allies abroad are increasingly witnessing the transparency of our credibility.
From the truth of my heart I have been under some form of surveillance since the 1st Bush administration and yet remain under the eye of other agents (some pretty sloppy in their methods) and apologists for the biased contingency plan for the world. Furthermore when I lived in Los Angeles I was kept under the lens by the L.A.P.D. which keeps a secret file on many people, most celebrities and almost all known men of colour. And for what exactly?
I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart all of the people who've responded so positively to the first offering from 'Angels & Vampires'. I still aim to mix in some free stuff as the opportunity allows and to keep the price within easy range of spending. Let's face it: it's just music NOT A HERNIA OPERATION!
SANANDA'S SMALL TABLE FABLES:
A lion once told a rabbit that it was going to eat it.
The rabbit asked for a head start. The lion told him that since he wasn't already in the lion's mouth, he already had a head start.
With this the rabbit took off. (this proved convenient for the rabbit since he was already late for a doctor's appointment).
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By some miracle the rabbit escaped. Normally lions accept that their images are larger than their percentages, since most mobile, active food prefers to remain mobile and active.
This particular rabbit however would not escape the lion's mind and two days later (which is really quite long in the life of a rabbit), the lion happened upon the same rabbit asleep in the middle of an open field. It was almost too easy thought the lion, in fact, rabbit was dead.
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Let's face it: sometimes you can try to jack one too many Nicholsons and the next bite woke the rabbit back up and the lion, startled by this unlikely turn of events, began trying to regurgitate rabbit up out of his throat. Rabbit however had other ideas since it wasn't everyday that he received such a vigorous and healthy work out and seemed to be holding on to the lions teeth not for dear life but for dear spite and personal amusement.
The rabbit had decided that it was important for lion to understand why it might be in its current and future best interests to leave the blood of rabbit alone, that the value of its blood was greater for rabbit than for lion. Lion could keep his own blood and that would be that.
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After several days of rolling agonizingly through flatland and roaring in bewilderment and great embarassment, the lion couldn't help but notice a crowd of the jungles' menagerie who were enjoying this amazing spectacle, who would think to see a rabbit fully in control inside the mouth of a lion, whipping the lion's tail and sending out squeals of delight that rippled through the lion's ribcage and caused it to moan an unlikely, un-lion-like, moan. Not a moan of ecstasy, but of despair. Who would ever believe such a thing?
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Finally, after every imaginable ache and pain had wrecked with shivers the lion's flesh, rabbit lie still and allowed lion to breath in new life and so, with a heaping heaving lunge for air, which was now blowing coolly and mercifully towards lion, his mouth opened wide. With but a small shake of his damp fur the rabbit announced
TA-DA!
and stepped outside whereupon he limbered and stretched, checked for all of his pieces and bits and once reassured quickly fainted. He fell into a nice deep restful sleep.
¤¤¤
Lion is still king of the jungle but rabbit is now king of that lion.
They've not seen each other since, though legend now has it that every now and then you will hear somewhere a rabbit roar, whereby the Lions hop away in fright, gather together, lie still, and pray for greater wisdom.
Meanwhile on the other side of the world:
A snake once swallowed a toad and immediately began to regret his appetite because the toad wouldn't go down. After what seemed forever spent in every conceivable position trying to digest the toad, the snake tried in vain to spit it out. BUT TOAD WOULDN'T GO DOWN … and neither would he budge one way or the other and thought to himself:'wow, what a cool ride! Just wait until my friends hear about this later!'.
The snake asked the toad why he wouldn't just come out, wouldn't any toad be grateful and in a hurry to exit the mouth of a snake? 'Perhaps', said the toad,' but you see I am not just ANY toad, I am this particular toad and I am enjoying this view of life immensely. Afterall I don't often get to play with snakes in my pond since they assume their superiority to us and only come around when they are looking for a meal.
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The snake thought he had heard it all and begged the toad to just get out as quickly as possible and leave. The toad reminded him that when he, the snake, assumed that he could take the life of the toad, the toad just as soon assumed that he could take the life of the snake and wouldn't his skin make a nice leather belt? Maybe even with a little left over for a nice hat for his girlfriend Tina Toad. The snake thought this absurd and replied to the toad that for him it was a lot simpler than that. 'It is a snake's right to devour a toad whole and I demand my rights!'
¤¤¤
Toad hadn't heard anything this funny since the toad network cancelled his favourite show: 'THE HA HA MAKE A TOAD LAUGH SHOW FEATURING MR VERY FUNNY TOAD!'.
The toad began to laugh so loud that the snake began to writhe in pain. Once the toad finished with his good rollicking belly laugh, his slid out of the mouth of snake and inhaled the light of day he'd not seen for quite some time. He signed off with a 'ribbit' 'ribbit'
(he was a friend of 'rabbit' 'rabbit' in the other story)
and spent the rest of his life minding his own business, doing his own thing, but now swimming in any pond he wished and lounging on any lily pad which caught his pleasure.
The snake however, no longer quite slithers now mainly he dithers.
¤¤¤
The moral of our story? SOMETIMES, YOU SIMPLY SWALLOW THE WRONG TOAD!
THE END
Finally my restless wonders:
§
sometimes
when I get stuck
for a rhyme
I cheat
I stop writing
with my right hand
and start writing
with my two feet
one foot holds down
the page
to keep it from
moving
out of range
while
the other foot
scribbles furiously
leaving footprints
to stamp out
the raging flames
§
I once read a chapter
in the book of eyes
and which page did not stare
winked
there was a page
which foretold
my entire life
but on that page
I blinked
§
your eternal fool Sananda Francesco Maitreya
COPYRIGHT SANANDA MAITREYA – MILANO 28th MAY 2004
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
INTELLECTUAL COPYRIGHT PROTECTED