Do What You Want

I suppose any real "Giving Up" (giving it up) involves relinquishing control. The hardest part of getting what we really want?

I always said that instead of doing myself in I'd go out on a Camel in Yemen, or in a bank with a squirt gun--doing whatever I wanted with my last begged, borrowed or earned cent. But to rise up at your darkest moment and do the thing you want most to do..

Then to live like that?

That's real giving up.

And it doesn't lend itself much to blogging about it.

All thanks and praise.

I Give Up

Post #200. Woot, woot.

Watching The Power of Myth series is totally worth it. Netflix has it. Just to see someone your grandfather's age saying "follow your bliss" with a hard-won contented smile is worth the price of admission. He also excellently recounts Nietzsche's story at the beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra about the camel/lion/baby. The lion battles the dragon with "thou shalt" inscribed on every scale. That's pretty good.

I usually meet fall with a fair amount of trepidation. Spring and especialy summer are my main times. I like the growing, not so fond of the dying. Although I know that growth requires massive and ruthless amounts of death. I just try to avoid it.

When I suffered from depression I used to dread the fall. I actually dreaded most things back in those days (that's funny--but true), but November did always kick my ass. I even wrote a story about it called November. Full of death, falling leaves, rain and ex girlfriends. And it was all true.

These days I'd like to think I go gracefully, if not always willingly. You play the cards you're dealt and if you've done your homework, and kept notes, you know that you're dealt certain cards so that you can be the exact person you are. And want to be.

I saw a painting the other day downtown at a church. It was part of a showing of visually impared (visual) artists.

The painting was a picture of a small figure broken down either in prayer or near collapse (on his knees) on a sunflower yellow plain. There was a huge sunflower-like sun and the whole energy of the painting was like a little bit more frantic, a little bit more raw van Gogh. There were four mysterious vertical black marks on the horizon on the right (watchers? trees?).

The focus of the painting was a ladder extending from the plain in front of the prone figure to the sun. It started off big and then dissapeared into a single line as it got farther away. The painting was called "Breaking Down Before the Climb".

Inside the artist's bio included some thoughts the artist had about the piece. He said that a whole bunch of bad things happen to him just before he grows and that as he's learned to recognize this it's helped him weather his storms.

When I read this, I realized that the figure was meant to be collapsed instead of on his knees in prayer. There was a red background coming through most of the painting that made it look like the figure could be in a pool of blood.

It was a gory painting in a lot of ways. Brilliantly brutal. And brutally brilliant. Like the best of van Gogh it showed nature in its own glory--which sometimes has something to do with people and sometimes not--but is rarely as tame and canned as the earlier, more pastoral painters would have us believe. Or even our minds would like us to.

The world quivers with energy. It is safe but it can also be stark. It is one thing to meet the world's eye, and an entirely different thing to hold it. Van Gogh knew he would die if he worked like he planned on working for the ten years he planned on doing it. In a letter to his brother he said, essentially, "I think I can do 10 years".

But I don't believe there's any reason to martyr yourself out like that. Why not enjoy it. If you're really a bull of a human. If you have the guts of a van Gogh, why not make the world come to you a bit? Why not stare god down and enjoy some of it? Why not take 20 and end up getting paid? (Had van Gogh lived another 10 years (to 43) he would have started to see his paintings sell). Or like Picasso, or Warhol get older and rich?

[Note to strugggling artistes: our culture moves so fast that most of the deal these days is getting momentum up and developing a technique whereby you can deliver high art quality and meaning at speed. The old myth of the genius starving artist is pretty outdated. And even so, there are many more ways for the universe to take care of you now, even if the public wont. Or I should say the universe has always taken care of us, although it's unlikely in our developed economy that we will be asked to chose between bread and paint as VG did.]

But the world is peaceful. Even if (especially when?) we choose not to focus on the peace in our lives. Or call it boredom because we are afraid to undertake the work we're dying to do.

But to feel the world as peaceful, you've got to come from underneath. You've got to have strong legs. And a relaxed dome. You've got to know everything and forget it all every second, as your laser-like attention sweeps the room/street/scene before you.

One of the things I've been struggling with recently is how to be at peace and charging forward. How to be happy with what I have and where I am even though I almost don't give a shit about it. And could all but throw it away in a second.

It's hard for me to remember that most of what I truly have--that is the peace that I do enjoy--was basically forced upon me. I'm not really a "god's grace" type of person, but in my middle age I'm coming around. I know there is nothing you can have that will make you feel like you think it will. Including love, money, attention, possessions, etc. These are all enjoyable, but to remain able to feel them, you must be firmly married, wedded, welded to yourself. Which is why it's so easy to enjoy the early part of a relationship. Or a new car or house.

Because you still know the person (of yourself) that didn't have it. You still feel the bounty. You're still humbled by its inclusion in your life. Realize it didn't have to be.

And you realize that the world is working. Your prayer worked. You met her just when you thought you never would. You were approved for a mortgage despite your spotty credit. You skipped down the street happy despite the chewing out your boss/spouse/friend/self gave you.

AFTER YOU HAD GIVEN UP! AFTER you had given up. After. You had given up.

You had given up.

After you had GIVEN UP. After you had broken down and given up. After you had been giving it up. You gave it up. And the universe responded in kind. You made your own dreams come true. You prayed and thought and schemed and focused and tried. You prepared and trained and made room in your life. You did the work. And then you gave it up. You could have gotten down, but instead you gave it up.

This painting, "Breaking Down Before the Climb" is all about this. If you want something you must be made ready. When I read the artist's description and realized I had seen the guy as praying--as humbling himself before god--I realized they were the same thing. That I could go hard or I could go easy.

That I could enjoy the whole thing or fight the whole thing. But that either way, there was both a ladder and a sun I couldn't ignore. And that even if I tried, there wasn't nothing on this boring old material plain/plane anyway. Except the four ominous and wierd black marks. And I think I already know what those are.

I've often wondered why, with a loving god of such power in charge, things take so long. Aren't I wasting my time buying and selling widgets when I'm supposed to be making music/writing the next great American novel, care only about beekeeping? Shouldn't I be pushing myself ahead in the area I choose to pursue? (That's got to be one of the dragons scales!) How can giving up possibly be used as a strategy to get what you want?

How can I fucking waste time being happy when I've got _______ to do!!!???

AAAAahahhhahhhahhahaaaahhhhhh....

The older I get, the more I think that all labor is just preparation for our success. That as soon as I could be the exact person I want to be with $100K a month coming in, or an absurdly beautiful wife, or 14 people reporting to me--whatever--it will arrive. Not by the work. But by almost magic. You get a better raise when you switch jobs--step into the unknown.

You can still labor under the old system. With diminishing returns of course. Put in the work these days and you end up not like Charlie Parker but an American Idol winner. (God bless them both). Not to mention that you'll end up hyper and exhausted.

You can push yourself long and hard enough to "become something". But I believe that the real love, the real enjoyment--and, ironically, the real money, is in learning how to relax creatively enough, lovingly enough, to be yourself. The turning around may take a while, but once you're straight, it's on. And you'll manifest like Nas (ever heard his FIRST verse? A guest spot on Main Source's "Breaking Atoms"! Unreal. His first album is regarded as one of the best hip-hop records of all time). Or the YouTube guys. Or LeBron.

You're still going to have to give up everything you've ever held dear. And you will labor. But not like you THINK. Never like you think. Usually like you want. Especially when looked at in hindsight.

Much love. God break me down in any way you see fit. I give up.

The Power of Myth

Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers--required watching.

Rarely as easy as you'd like. Never as hard as you think.

The readers for my blog the last few days looks exactly how I've been feeling. Like the chart could literally be my Biorythms or something (remember Biorhythms?). I know that we create our own reality, but this is literally like amirror. Not that how many people have been reading is my whole life. If I waited for y'all I never would have finished, or even put out my book.

Speaking of which, there are some good Meta Designer movements afoot. Bono's Red label is one. White Gold will be about twenty times more comprehensive--and the love, etc will be built into the product, not just sold as a fundraiser, but the idea is definitely percolating on some mass frequencies. Listen to my Meta Art podcast for more on that one. White Gold is going to be Meta like a mug. And bring the love like no company so far.

I just want folks to remember where they saw it first. No one has a $120 book out. No one. And no one's talking about $14 songs. No one. But I'm recording them. As we speak.

All this is coming. But some of them may not reference me at all. Some of them may not even have heard of me. The idea is free, love is free, I just happened to get there first. (And, if I've done my job right, more lovingly than most.)

> > >

I had a dream the other night that told me to expect whatever I wanted. That that was what pulled it in. And that it was twice as hard, or near impossible without expectation. That feeling of just aboutness.

Sometimes I think that that's all anything is: learning, practice, growth--doing something enough so that you know you can. Convincing yourself so that you can expect it. And then it happens. If that's true, then there are ways THROUGH BELIEF that we can grow and get what we want much more rapidly than traditional methods. I firmly believe this. We create our own trajectory--and not just for type As--for everyone. And we can bling it out, slow it down, love it lovely, whatever. We do that. With money, love, access, etc.

But it's not the same as sitting on the couch expecting something great to show up at your front door. Another dream showed me that a quarterback's posture, his poise, determines the success or failure of the pass before the ball even left his hand. Our body is hard-wired to our beliefs. We are literally the physical embodiment of what we believe. If we say we can't, if we give up, if we decide to take the leap--those are all reflected in our physical self. And affect how we look.

There's a lot of talk in the New Age world, and a lot of "healing" but I believe that you can't really be the person you want to be until you are doing the things you want to be doing. This, in my opinion, is some long hidden Western knowledge. The East thinks what you do is immaterial, and the left and many New Agers have followed along, preferring to focus on the how of things (and they're right about that), but what you are doing cannot be thunk, or meditated, or yoga'd away.

If you're here to sing, or keep bees, or teach kids, or be a jet flying CEO hairdresser rock star, then you aren't going to be the person you want to be until you get on with it. Even--ESPECIALLY--if your parents, society, partner, kids, the guys at work, your conscience, tells you its impossible. Impossible means I'm Possible! ANd you wouldn't want to do it if it had already been done. Woot, woot. Just start telling mo-fos, get the software and get to stepping.

There's a great story about Alexander the Great and the Gordian Knot in a book about Kabbalah that my brother gave me. It was prophesyied that whoever could untie this knot would rule some kingdom. Alexander was slipping and had no money to pay his armies. There was a serious challenger to his rule in an enemy army who was riding a significant wave of momentum.

Alexander had been told he would be the guy, but he was having his doubts. Then he arrived upon the knot.

And he couldn't untie it. He tried again and again. Nothing. If he was the one, he should be able to get it, and eveyone who had turned out to watch him knew that. His army knew that.

He gave up and sat there and looked at the damn thing. Long and hard.

Then he drew his sword, cut it down the middle and walked through it. Going on to rule whatever land hewas aiming for.

A short while later his adversary died from a mysterious illness.

Rarely as easy as you'd like. Never as hard as you think.

But you've got to expect it. You've got to want it. You've got to make it your own. You've got to give your life to proving it. Be about it. Bout it, bout it.

You won't think you will be able to accomplish it. I never thought I could finish my book if it took more than a year and a half. It took 5. I certainly never thought I could go on and do more if the book flopped (I borrowed heavily to put it out). The book flopped. I'm sitting in a professional-quality music studio working on the album. And I'm more in debt. Just like the YouTube guy was in debt. Just like Bill Gates was in debt.

But mark my words, the ROI (that's return on investment) will be unprecedented. YouTube and Microsoft were both in the material world. They're just tightening bolts on the delivery system. And they have taken themselves out of the running to provide content. Without a ten to twenty year turn around, that is.

White Gold money is creative money. Spiritual money. Quantum money. Delivering the goods money. Would you rather make cardboard boxes or the precious cargo that they will contain? Quantum money moves at the speed of light instead of the speed of the internet. Or the USPS. Hell, Microsoft isn't moving at any speed the last few years. And the YouTube guys have just made themselves very high paying jobs.

It's not like they enjoy a relaxed lunch. Or have better sex. They just have nicer cars sitting in a nicer parking spot while the Google goos try to stress their money back out of them. (A recent article detailed Google's culture of insanity: including a ticking digital clock projected on the walls at meetings.) It's not like they're happy, or fulfilled, just rich.

To be really rich, you've got to feel it first--then make the money! Make love money. (And keep your dick/breasts out of the machine while doing so--no easy task these days, with the gatekeepers being so astute and perfectionally uptightk).

Off to bang beats..

Ptwwwpwwwtppppwweeeppp...

Late Transitions

Currently I'm working on late transitions.

What's a late transition, you ask? It's when you're between two things--and things are moving a bit slower than maybe you'd like. Or maybe you're just done and ready to move on. Whatever it is, your attention is asking to give up. To die so it can be reborn somewhere else. An honest instinct to be sure, but not one that I want to be ruled by.

The deeper I get into an transaction--interaction--be it positive or negative, the more likely I am to find it difficult to maintain my calm. The more likely I am going to want to swing to be a destroyer, or try to join with someone. The more difficult I find holding on to myself without some drastic action that corrupts my under-standing of the situation. (I believe that if you are strong enough, you can approach any situation with under-standing, that is with a relatively open stance, mind and hands. And by the way if you are relating this directly to sex, you are smart--that's the penultimate interaction--and where we learn most powerfully that the proper approach and demeanor reaps rich rewards.)

Then I try to jump to over-standing, which despite it's good press in some Reggae songs, for me is more like control. As in I know what's going on, I'm in charge, and I....

Which, even if it's true (and given that I'm an intelligent part of any interaction I have I should by the law of probability know what's going on at least a portion of the time), I don't want to do. Being in charge is somewhat my nature. So much so that I pretended I wanted nothing to do with it for a long time. Ironically (and those times were all about irony), it was when I denied I had any interest in being in charge that I wielded my control most sharply. Much of it was passive, but nothing screams "I don't feel like anyone's listening to me" like raising your voice. Or going on and on.

But over time I have learned that I don't want to be in charge, for anyone but myself that is. It takes up way too much time. And you much less reward. Someone else's fun doesn't parse half as well as your own. It's too much work.

It's crucial for intimacy, though. To do all transition well. Transition is hard. Everything is changing. Shifting under your feet. The rules even. And the outcome is by no means certain. The risk is real and the reward has yet to be uncovered. Moving, changing jobs, changing seasons, saying goodbye. When you get down to it, most of life is transition of one sort or another. And while the introduction line is important, and your short game, not to mention how well you perform at the actual task, what happens next--in the deep transition--is where lasting impressions are made or broken.

Were you present after you got the payoff? The next morning did you make eggs (or in my case broccoli)? Did you look in her eyes and listen as she said goodbye? Did you look in here eyes and mean it when you did?

Or--cause I know not everyone's getting married two months down--were you honest and tell her how you felt. Or that you probably wouldn't call? Or just not say anything? Were you as real and as much a man on the far side as you were on the front?

And it's not restricted to lovers by any means. In fact that may just be the ne plus ultra--a heightened, blatant example of what we're doing constantly with the folks and world all around us. Energetically, personally, conversationally, with body language. And that's likely just a yardstick for something even more important: how we're doing in our relationship with ourself. And how we are doing in our relationships with ourselves.

That's what I want to be good at. Not flipping when I'm "supposed to". When I'm tired and hungry and stressed and have every reason to. That's when I want to be able to deliver love with full force: when it's needed most. (And it is crucial to note here that love is not only being helpful, or nice, or saying or doing something! That's the well worn half of love. Holding your tongue, believing silently that someone can pull themself out of a hole, bearing witness, walking away, saying no--these are all 100% love as well. And possibly even more helpful as they are often overlooked. They must be applied lovingly to work--from below--otherwise they're just indifference--but love can be anything--in fact love is everything--I think that we must emulate god and use every single tool at our disposal--including possibly violence--which is why love so hard to deliver, to be--it requires full flexibility in any given moment. And that we not be beholden to our more sentimental feelings: that street person can't take care of himself, she'll be mad if I..., I have to _____ right now. Feel them, look at them, and maybe even act on them, but don't lose perspective. It's the loss of perspective, I believe, that crashes us into both "not ourselfdom" and out of love. Love is radical in that we may have to be silent, or appreciative, or relaxed, or encouraging to deliver it. I don't think that it ever requires us to be anything other than ourselves, but it may require us to be our whole, that is flexible, fearless, and fantastic selves.)

And if I can do that, I know the rest of the week/year/relationship/phone call is going to be love. And that dancing's going to be a joy.

RP

Oh--and by the way--if you're wondering if the world I describe is ever going to hove onto the scene, not to worry, it's already here. And getting more so. I had lunch today with my ami RP. More punk than you, including tats on knuckles, hands and neck, RP is a phenomenal bassist and guitar player (who incidentally played drums with me in my fist band VS Gut). He's toured and played with a multitude of indie stars, including some of the absolute best. And he's rolled burritos to do so. So his credentials are pretty much above reproach.

Anyway, my brother was rocking a pair of Versace glasses. And I can all but guarantee that they were Versace not to impress anyone but because he liked them and despite the fact that they were Versace.

Quality wins. Inspiration wins. Care wins. What we like wins. Ultimately, love wins. And once we set it free it becomes it's own thing. And will be the place we can all get down.

I love you RP. Do your thang baby.

Radio GOLD Now Broadcasting Worldwide, YO!

I am so close to tipping this whole mo-fo I can feel it. Podcasting over at: La La La La La Radio GOLD!

There's a more permanent link over here --> on my sidebar. Or just subscribe. Just what you need for the treadmill at the gym.

I remembered on my way back from the gym the other day (Monday), when some small part of me was trying to "gear up" for the week, that this whole thing is in color. High def. In magical full resolution. With streaming perfect audio. And well lit. In smell-o-vision. In feel-o-vision.

And we are guaranteed to have the time and wherewithall to enjoy every second of it.

In fact, the older I get the more I think that every time we decide to not fully enjoy it all that we can ever learn is that we want to choose to enjoy it no matter what it takes.

Hard sometimes to choose to breathe in and have that be enough, to feel ourselves when the rest of the world is so sugary, bangin', foxy, and whatever-licious. Could it be that all we want to do with the whole thing is be ourselves in it? Even when we're getting busy with the supermodel? (Actually not that attracted to many supermodels, but like the frat boy reference I came to slightly regret a few weeks ago, they make for good shorthand. --As if the ends ever justified the means. Must not be totally saved yet. Phew.)

And the better or worse it gets the more crucial it is to remain inside yourself. And the greater the temptation to give up and merge. With the in crowd. With your bank statement. With the new title at the office. With the gun to your head. With your credit card bill. With that meeting next Tuesday.

And the more meaningless they become.

I had a dream the other day that told me not to fear anything that tomorrow had to bring. (Or whatever, dreams always have a little bit dramatic language). By extension, I assume that I can be a perfectly good person and eat and stay warm without fearing what two seconds has to bring. OR--what one second ago just held.

I didn't make it up.

See if I mean what I say real time over at Radio GOLD!

Luv.

Make that 40

Make that $40 billion minimum in 20 years. I think some part of me is still trying to be faux modest/indie.

The Inspiration Revolution

I guess all I really have to say, a million times over and a million ways, is that that thing you think you'd really want to do, but maybe in an alternate universe, is the thing you're here to do. And exactly what you'd be best at. And maybe most valuable as.

When I worked with a youth group called TSB, we did an exercise where we wrote our dream occupation on a card and then tried to match the cards to the people.

I was already a "writer" or an "artist" or something relatively half way there. I had a solid back-up plan, etc. etc. I may have even been working on my book.

What did I write down? Inspired by the goofy atmosphere of teenagers I put down rap star.

ONLY because it was impossible. Only because I had failed at every instrument I tried as a youngster, my mom had told me I couldn't sing (I don't remember this but she said she did--I certainly didn't grow up thinking I could, but this was likely because it was true rather than any parental suggestion), my band had wiped out, I had given up on guitar and been called "the retarded cowboy" by the one person I can remember commenting on my playing/singing/songwriting. Oh wait, there was another guy I was trying to recruit for my band. He said he liked everything except for the singing (I sang and played guitar).

So I was headed off the write, or paint. Or something. Being a rap star was only safe because it was absolute in it's absurdity. I would be manageable. Top the top writers. Make some paintings. Something I could do without anyone watching. SOMETHING I COULD EDIT INTO SOME SEMBLANCE OF PROFESSIONALITY or Competance. Something I could hide behind and throw a personality out from. Offline.

But that wasn't what my soul wanted. At all. It didn't care about how well I could write or paint when I APPLIED myself. It didn't want to be applied at all. It wanted to play. And then play more. Until the tools of joy started to become second nature.

I have always equated making money with unhappiness. I thought that's just the way it was. You do what you don't want to and people pay you so they don't have to do it. It took a lot of schemulating to figure out that it was the thing I wated to do most that would make me the most valuable.

But! Or I could even say behind.

I had to do it the WAY I wanted too. And that meant challenging everything. Everthing.

Strip down. Start naked and alone. Bring not one assumption along. Not electric guitars from punk nor the beautiful stark beats from hip-hop. Nor the recognizeable vocalizing from anywhere.

But what an idea--that you are most valuable doing what you most love to do. And it may make you a million and it may not. Interestingly, I think that this next 40 years will find former punk kids making money way beyond the hippy to boomer generation ever did.

They created a whole new economy. The lifestyle economy. Punk, hip-hop, indie, hipsterism, good coffee,artisan bread, design--these all came from the beats and hippies.

But the lifestyle economy is short. And soft. It's not worth it. You have to work 8 hours a day (10) to afford it.

Enter the life economy. Not what you consume but how you feel about what you're doing. And if you, 40 years down the line, are amazed at what people will pay for the lifestyle economy--Whole Foods, $5 coffees, $200 jeans, $600 shoes, $3000 couches--to make it LOOK like they're living it up, wait until we have five years traction on the products that impart the FEEL of living.

Right now the assumption is that life sucks ao you might as well be properly accessorized. With skull hoodies, the right Absinthe, an eco car, the iPod full of styled affirmation of that fact. The highest expressions of our material culture, our designer products offer no feelings other than those of bohemia. A dark, at least we know what's going on, stance.

But this only works on the insecure. On those who think there's something somewhere that they're missing. On kids. On those who don't take full responsibility for their own life--financially, emotionally, creatively, physically, etc.

But I digress. I didn't write cultural critic on the card.

It's funny, because when I wrote that I would have told you in a second that life was absurd. That it had little or no meaning. Because I thought I had done the math and it was impossible.

BUT--I wouldn't have plunged headlong into that which most frightened me. That I most wanted! I wouldn't have said--Oh, it's absurd? Then I'll do exactly what I want and do whatever it takes to do it exactly how I want to do it.

In short I didn't have balls. I didn't have any guts. I was content to pay someone else to create my world and sit back and complain about it. That was my right--to criticize it.

And so I only loved things that were critical--because they were right.

The hardest thing in the world is to not criticize the critical. To accept the unaccepting. To love the intolerant. Even long enough to ignore it long enough to not get bogged down by it.

To be a part of the love/life fest that's coming, in my sometimes humble opinion, you'll likely have to drop out twice. Once from the mainstream and once from the counter-culture. The first is from society's norms and the second is from society's self-styled abnormal. Those who still believe in the mainstream's norms but believe them unjust.

But if you do, I'd like to posit that you just might be free. In a freefall perhaps, but only as long as it takes to develop the faith and strength you need to accomplish what you want to do.

What if every so-called failure was a shortcut to what you really wanted. Either by teaching you to be tougher, or smarter, or happier, or less concerned, or freeer, or more responsible? But what if you had to get up and start like nothing bad had ever happened every morning? Not take even the worst slights personally? What if you had to hold tight to the present and enjoying yourself even while you made and carried out the biggest plans? What if you had to want to be resolutely yourself only as your surroundings got more and more plush, beautiful and comfortable? And the temptations more and more loaded? The lines more and more blurry? The demons more and more convincing?

Would you react by getting more and more vulnerable? Responsibly of course, but more soul nonetheless. More love in more situations and harder circumstances.

And I'm closer to being a rap star than I ever dreamed in this life or last. It still has the same aura of improbability as before, but I'm starting to see that it couldn't be any other way. And if it was--if I looked, smelled, walked, or talked like one then I wouldn't have anything to add.

That it has to be impossible. To even make a good story. IT HAS TO BE. It has to be impossible to even have a chance. To even be anything new. To even have a chance at escaping the reach of the life we're trying to escape.

A whole lot of me died on my way here. But I don't miss any of him. I kept the absolute best parts I could. I'm sure a few good parts got singed off or whatever, and I'm in progress still. But it had to be entirely new for me to love it. Because I didn't love where I was or the way I was living.

From impossible to I'm possible. That's worth the price of admission right there. I'm not going to say some bullshit like I don't even care if it happens because I do, and I'm busily spending my life causing it to, but that feeing is worth the price of admission.

Hmmmm.

BTW, the business model on this puppy is sick. Basically operating trucks to collect and distribute the cash fast enough. And we'll be heavily leveraged getting everything going for a good 5-10 years but after that it's pretty much on golden pond. Take what Worhol did in the seventies and combine Martha/Oprah money with P Diddy/Simmons hustle and Wu-Tang/Prada creativity. Douse liberally with Borachelli quality and environsibility (yo, trademark that word! I need a lawyer). And I figure 20 billion in 20 years. Minimum.

And that's not even the reason to do it. Just what might get your attention (or make you leave). The reason to do it, to get up three times a week and go to the gym so we're strong enough to conduct the negotiations, spend a couple hours in the studio and still make crazed, off the hook love to our wives most nights, and hang out with our kids mornings, evenings and weekends, the real reason to do it is because it'll be fun.

It'll be so fun maybe I won't even want to do half of it. Though how hard could licensing deals be? It's not like I'm going to manufacturing anything. Or distributing it. A team or two of lawyers to crack (lovingly) the whip. A cadre of elite business hustlers to pre-negotiate and keep in motion. No advertising. No marketing. I'm gonna teach a few folks about viral. You don't need anything anymore but ideas. And love. Let the inspiration revolution begin.

T-LA Reading

Please click the link on the right for some of The Love Artist the way it's supposed to be--read out loud. It may take an hour or so for Myspace to put the MP3 up so keep checking back.

I'll also be adding more excerpts as time allows. (Which it does very well, btw).

Luv.

E