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Jefferson Airplane- How about a bunch of Allman Brothers photos as a perfect link to the holiday weekend and you can enjoy 499 rock and roll pictures in free-flight! Climb aboard please.

craigtheairplaneman — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:57:50 +0000

Please spread the word the new Jefferson

Starship book:

“HAVE YOU SEEN THE STARS TONITE” has landed and

the 2 CD Special set Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

with over 900 rock and roll photos and the Cathy Richardson 70 minute interview, has landed too!

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net

http://www.amazon.com (The books are proudly featured here)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE- JEFFERSON STARSHIP-

Great Society- Take Me To A Circus Tent

Have You Seen The Stars Tonite

Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

Quality Rock & Roll Airplane

style.

Welcome to the Air Show for a holiday weekend:

I hope the week was good and now you can have some times to enjoy the rock and roll world.

Can you believe the Rock Tent Vault has now let 499 pictures from the past 4 decades to see the light of day! With the addition of numerous photos today from the Allman Brothers 1982, we are 1 picture away from number 500! This is all thanks to you for being part of our space journey.

Remember as always there are no charges on our flights. People work hard for their money and should enjoy the magical ride without having to go into the wallet. As always I only ask you please spread the word on the books. The best publicity comes from good folks like you. Tell the universe about the Jefferson Airplane book "Take Me To A Circus Tent" and the new Jefferson Starship "Have You Seen The Stars Tonite."

Alright time for the main event. In 1982 the Allman Brothers were on stage and Ralph Temple took some pictures. With written permission please enjoy them. Remember once you are on the ship you can check out wonderful photos of the Beatles, Cream, CSNY, Doors, ELP, Gentle Giant, Jefferson Family, Zappa, to name a few!

Thank you as always!

Please spread the

word:

The 2 new Jefferson projects have arrived!

Thanks as always!

Relax and have fun!

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE-

JEFFERSON STARSHIP- Great Society-

Take Me To A Circus Tent

I look forward to hearing you later!

The book is Take Me To A Circus Tent (The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual) W/93 photos, 32 interviews, 543 pages, and a myriad of 5 star reviews!

Please remember at any moment on an Aircast it can be a rare memory from the Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, KBC, Wooden Ships, Marty Balin, Paul Kantner to name several. Maybe another picture previously unseen from the Rock Tent Vault sees daylight from Herb Greene or Don Aters.

Please board the flight this way for the Allman Brothers photos:

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net/index.php?pr=J.Airshow_Photos_16_Allman_Brothers_The_Road_Goes_On_Forever

Wishing you a great and safe holiday,

craig

Dipping in the Rabbit Hole

mylesfromnowhere — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:53:25 +0000

"You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe."

You can believe that you are young and horny again.

You can believe that your wife is defying gravity

You can believe that you are not a closeted homosexual that isn't attracted to your 25 year old trophy wife with counterfeit boobs.

Top Ten best Movie Villains of all time

Meade — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 05:16:44 +0000

With so much buzz about how great Heath Ledger was as the Joker I've been thinking about who I think the best movie villains of all time actually are. I picked a top ten.

#10 The Devil

Most people won't even know this reference so it gets the ten spot. Back in the 1985 a movie came out with this young actor named Tom Cruise. You might have heard of him. In it he must stop the Lord of the Darkness from stealing "The Light" and his girfriend. The Devil is played by Tim Curry. His costume alone is spectacular.

#9 Pennywise

Tim Curry gets props for appearing twice in my top ten. Honestly as good as the other 8 villains are, if I'm actually scared late at night it's of Pennywise the Clown. I went camping with my cousins 1 week after first seeing It and they left me alone while they went to buy food. I was sure a clown was coming to eat my liver.

#8 Darth Vader

Darth Vader is one of the coolest bad guys of all time. The actor who played Darth Vader is David Prowse and voiced over by James Earl Jones. Honestly he did much better than Hayden Christensen who actually played Vader without the costume. The moment where he is deciding whether or not to allow Luke to be killed by the Emperor is better acting than can be found in all three prequels.

#7 Daryll Lee Cullum

Harry Connick Jr. is really creepy as one of the serial killers in Copycat. This movie disturbed me and made me afraid of southern white guys.

#6 That Mom with Munchowsen Syndrome

Remember that woman in the 6th Sense who feeds her daughter rat poison until she dies? That's pretty villainous and therefore gets the #6 spot and only female mention in all 10. The fact that this woman was poisoning her daughter (and her other children) made her role, even though it was relatively minor, one of the best depictions of a really bad person I've ever seen on screen.

#5 Agent Smith

Obviously! The Matrix will be ten years old this fall (which makes me feel old) and there hasn't been another sci-fi movie of it's awesomeness released since. Agent Smith, played by Hugo Weaving, was the coolest bad guy ever to wear a suit and Ray Bans.

#4 John Doe

You probably know this guys as the creative serial killer from the movie Se7en played by Kevin Spacey. The whole movie is build up in such a way that by the time you finally see the villain you're terrified of him and totally on edge as to what plan he might have. Then you find out with the line:

"I visited your home this morning after you'd left. I tried to play husband. I tried to taste the life of a simple man. It didn't work out, so I took a souvenir... her pretty head."

This movie was one I kind of wished I hadn't seen at all because it was so disturbing.

#3 Hannibal Lecter

No list of villains could be legit without Lecter. Although he did mostly kill other bad guys Anthony Hopkins performance is one of the best of all time. His tone, eyes, phrasing and how he gets inside Clarise's head make him fantastic.

#2 The Joker

History can judge me. I think Heath Ledger made The Dark Knight and will be remembered as one of the best nemesis pairs of all time. I loved the contextless, goal-less nature of his evil.

Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.

The idea of having him give multiple stories of how he got his scars made him all the more mysterious and scary.

#1 Kaizer Soze

Duh! Does this one even need an explanation? Kaiser Soze from The Usual Suspect played by Kevin Spacey is the perfect villain. He's cold blooded, evil, deceitful, powerful and a genius. The setup for his reveal as the true bad guy is also one of the best movie twists of all time probably only topped by 6th Sense.

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist. And like that... he is gone.

Honorable Mention: Biff Tannin from Back to the Future (he almost destroyed the space time continuum people!), Ghostface from Scream, Hal 9000 from 2001, and Randal Flagg from The Stand.

Interview: Fanimatrix Auteur Rajneel Singh, Part 2

cliveyoung — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:49:20 +0000

[caption id="attachment_966" align="alignright" width="216" caption="Steven A. Davis (left) and Rajneel Singh."][/caption]

Welcome to part deux of our epic interview with Rajneel Singh, director of the classic Matrix fan film, The Fanimatrix. If you’ve already seen his 16-minute flick, you know its a pulse-pounding action flick made on a non-existent budget; if you haven’t seen it and you happen to dig Keanu Reeves’ second-best franchise, then you owe it to yourself to check this fan film out. If you missed the first segment, well shame on you. After you do, come back and find out how they did it with this installment of our multi-part chat with Singh. In the meatime, we'll see you Tuesday after the long, holiday weekend. Stay outta trouble this time!

You directed, edited, co-wrote, co-produced and did all the camerawork for this flick. Who did the few things you didn’t do?

Well, the majority of The Fanimatrix was due to the work put in by myself and Steven A. Davis. Steve is a professional actor and a stuntman; he played "Dante" and also choreographed the bar-fight and the end-fight. The Medusa vs Security Guards fight was choreographed by Louis MacAllister, our Wushu coach.

"The Agent" was played by Vaughan Beckley, a fellow martial arts student and friend whom I had known since grade school. He was at medical school, so he was pretty exhausted most of the time to begin with. Meanwhile, "The Operator" was played by professional actor Fasitua Amosa. Many members of our martial arts school play the characters that get in on the fight action. We also had two professional stuntmen---Tim McLachlan and Matt Bennett---who performed stunts and wire-gags in the goth bar. Tim also supervised the wire-gags in the garage at the end of the film.

"Medusa" was played by Farrah Lipsham, another martial arts student who works as a professional animator by day. She was a bit shy about having lines in the film, so we rewrote her character to be mute. The two "Goth Thugs" in the bar who give Dante a hard time were played by a professional actor, Mike Edward, and Chris Rigby, a good friend who was an amateur ball-juggler and also brokered our file-hosting. Chris worked for Ihug, one of New Zealand's most successful ISPs at the time, and the company was more than happy to host our site and our files for free after seeing the completed film (they thought it was a hoot).

Special FX makeup was carried out by Annamarie Connors, a very good friend who was training in her craft at the time. The rest of our crew was made up of whoever could turn up on each night to help shuffle lights and crash mats around the place---two of our biggest helpers were Gene Rugg (who was our behind the scenes photographer and secured our garage location) and Daniel Beeching. Although, having said that, we had a couple of nights where it was literally just myself, Steve and Vaughan, and I was moving lights around and filming at the same time.

The only post-production help we employed was another good friend---David Fraser---who had photoshop skills and painstakingly removed the wires from our wire-gag shots.

Clearly you had a lot of connections, so had you made films before?

Not really as such. I had shot a handful of fight videos beforehand and we made an abortive attempt at a feature film, but The Fanimatrix was the first piece of narrative filmmaking I had ever completed.

One of the great things about this flick is that even though there’s a lot of fighting, there’s actually a plot---something that most fight-oriented fan films seem to forget. How long did it take to write?

My memory of the writing process escapes me, but I think it took about two weeks. Steve took care of most of the writing and I only just edited scenes and restructured and reshaped it in the end. The honest truth is that the screenplay wasn't that important for us at the time. We were focused on growing our filmmaking craft, not our writing, at the time.

Doh! OK, so then how did you assemble your cast and crew?

With the exception of Vaughan for "The Agent" and Farrah for "Medusa"---chosen specifically because they could fight and had the best resemblance to the characters we had in mind---every other cast and crew member was filled with whoever put their hands up to help us.

That’s a lot of people to coordinate, especially on an on-going basis. How long did it take to shoot?

The movie was shot over 9 nights, spread over the course of 2 months in total. Most nights were between 8-12 hours long.

Since this was your first sizable production, did you find it relatively easy to shoot or were there any hurdles to be overcome?

The shoot was a lot of fun, but phenomenally difficult in terms of stamina. We were shooting in the dead heart of winter and it was all night shoots and most of our locations had no heating to speak of. The final fight sequence was constantly hampered by Steve and Vaughan's muscles seizing up in the freezing temperatures and the video camera's chasis would become so cold that it would burn my fingers.

The chase sequence was shot all over downtown Auckland---mostly illegally---and the sequence where Dante bumps into a pedestrian in the alleyway was interrupted by a security guard telling us to push off.

We were nervous about other locations we had to shoot in; for instance, the office building that Dante and the Agent run through was a location we snuck into afterhours, thanks to an inside man (it was a major IT company and the staff got quite a shock seeing their offices in the movie).

The sequence where Dante gets hit by a car was shot in a somewhat dubious back alley in a bad part of town and it was all our five-man crew could do to shoot the sequence as quickly as possible and then hightail it out of there.

In fact, that entire night, we were very high strung as it was the coldest and foggiest night of the year and there was a frightening series of arsons all across the city at the time. Everywhere we went, we were pursued by the sounds of police cars and fire trucks echoing in the fog. The following day, there were reports on the news of security camera footage showing "a highly suspicious gang of people spotted all across the city at the time of the arsons" and we found ourselves crossing our fingers and praying to the film gods: "Please don't be us, please don't be us, please don't be us, please don't be us!" Fortunately it wasn't.

The only other major difficulty, as mentioned before, was endurance for myself and Steven. The hardest night was the weekened we shot the final fight and the goth bar sequence. We shot the final fight sequence from 7pm till about 5am across Friday night to Saturday morning. After we packed up, returned the heavy crash mats and safety gear to the drama school where we borrowed them from, Steven and I made it to our respective homes by 7AM. We then had to wake up by 1PM in order to get to Goth Bar location, dress it up and be ready for extras to arrive at 4PM. We then shot at that location from 6PM (Saturday night) till 3:30AM (Sunday morning).

Steven told me later that his body was literally shaking from exhaustion and he was unable to sleep for hours because of the pain from the muscle spasms and the cold of winter. I was so exhausted by the time I got to bed at 6AM, Sunday morning, that I was delirious and wasn't able to see straight!

Next week's installment: Editing and the creation of a viral video hit!

Jefferson Airplane- New Jefferson Starship book gets 5 Star REVIEW, thank you!

craigtheairplaneman — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:36:59 +0000

Please spread the word the new Jefferson Starship book:

“HAVE YOU SEEN THE STARS TONITE” has landed and

the 2 CD Special set Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

with over 900 rock and roll photos and the Cathy Richardson 70 minute interview, has landed too!

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net

http://www.amazon.com (The books are proudly featured here)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE- JEFFERSON STARSHIP-

Great Society- Take Me To A Circus Tent

Have You Seen The Stars Tonite

Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

Quality Rock & Roll Airplane

style.

August 29, 2008

12:01 AM Eastern Airplane Time

Update Update UPDATE

Welcome to the Air Book Report:

Thank you so much to Eric for the 5 Star review on my new Jefferson Starship book "Have You Seen The Stars Tonite." Amazon is so kind to offer free shipping in the USA and great rates to the rest of the planet!

The review is below but a quick mention to please also check out the Rock Tent Vault post to the right from 30 minutes ago. It's Eric Clapton doing a great cover tune for you! Enjoy it in free-flight.

I've Seen The Stars Tonite thanks to Craig Fenton's new Jefferson Starship book, August 26, 2008

By	Eric S. Martin - See all my reviews

Approximately two years ago Craig Fenton gave us the Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual with Take Me To A Circus Tent. He returns with Have You Seen The Stars Tonite (Jefferson Starship Flight Manual) 74-78 as well as 1992-2007.

Once again the level of expertise reaches the heart of not only the reader but an original Jefferson Airplane member. Marty Balin gave Craig some accolades on the back cover of the Jefferson Airplane book. Signe Anderson does the same for the Jefferson Starship. The finest recommendation a rock and roll author and historian can receive is when the highest level of satisfaction comes from the band.

Have You Seen The Stars Tonite is over 500 pages and contains nearly 180 photos. The contents make you wonder how many years the information took to assemble. You can look at over 700 concerts the band performed, the personal of the particular show, and the songs they played. Craig furnishes the first time a song appeared on stage, a year by year break-down of the tunes played, which Jefferson Airplane songs they decided to perform, a complete list of all the members of the band and the shows they played through the years. There is a terrific listing of the studio albums, singles, and many of the solo releases, and special guests that played with the Jefferson Starship on stage.

If what you see is as important as what you read, Craig has you covered with many photos not previously in print. That was one of the many things that made the Airplane book so special. The full-page photo of Spencer Dryden from the benefit in 2004 is tremendous in capturing the moment and the mood, page 168 features Grace Slick from the Airplane at the Isle Of Wight, and there are a good deal of KBC Band photos that have not seen the light of day.

The book is content free of any of the period with Mickey Thomas. You don't have to be concerned about superfluous chapters!

While other airlines seem to be streamlining, Craig Fenton is giving the consumer a first class ticket aboard the flight.

************

Please spread the

word:

The 2 new Jefferson projects have arrived!

Thanks as always!

Relax and have fun!

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE-

JEFFERSON STARSHIP- Great Society-

Take Me To A Circus Tent

I look forward to hearing you later!

The book is Take Me To A Circus Tent (The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual) W/93 photos, 32 interviews, 543 pages, and a myriad of 5 star reviews!

Wishing you a great day,

craig

Jefferson Airplane- Tell them E.C. Eric Clapton was here. A great cover and an interesting arrangement!

craigtheairplaneman — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:12:36 +0000

Please spread the word the new Jefferson Starship book:

“HAVE YOU SEEN THE STARS TONITE” has landed and

the 2 CD Special set Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

with over 900 rock and roll photos and the Cathy Richardson 70 minute interview, has landed too!

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net

http://www.amazon.com (The books are proudly featured here)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE- JEFFERSON STARSHIP-

Great Society- Take Me To A Circus Tent

Have You Seen The Stars Tonite

Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

Quality Rock & Roll Airplane

style.

Welcome to Air Rock News and World Rock Report:

How are you? Anything nice planned for the holiday weekend?

We have a great gem from the Rock Tent Vault in a bit. First Signe Anderson thanks everyone that made her return to the stage feel so special in Oregon this past week. She has the next set of medical tests around September 2, 2008. Please wish her well. We want her health reports to show she is cancer free.

Thank you to Eric for a 5 star review on Amazon for my new Jefferson Starship book "Have You Seen The Stars Tonite." I'll talk about that in another blog update 30 minutes or so from now.

The main event is a goody. We fly back to 1996 and find Eric Clapton and his band on stage in Europe.

He plays a great Bob Marley tune "I Shot The Sheriff."

The rendition is interesting for the approach. Not always slow and not always rocking but always interesting. Check it out and enjoy!

Please spread the

word:

The 2 new Jefferson projects have arrived!

Thanks as always!

Relax and have fun!

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE-

JEFFERSON STARSHIP- Great Society-

Take Me To A Circus Tent

I look forward to hearing you later!

The book is Take Me To A Circus Tent (The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual) W/93 photos, 32 interviews, 543 pages, and a myriad of 5 star reviews!

Please board the flight this way for Mr. Clapton:

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net/media/JeffersonAirplaneTakeMeToACircusTentAircast64tellthemecwasherein96.mp3

Wishing you a great day,

craig

Meditation: breaking out of the matrix...

dadadharma — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:52:40 +0000

Hi All, meditation is a process, it's also a lifestyle with profound consequences for how one experiences reality... Should we be interested in reality today? Absolutely! I believe that reality is not quite as straight forward as it seems! In fact, in my blog yesterday i used the word "control" - that throughout human history we see numerous crude and subtle attempts to control people - kings with armies, priests and intellectuals with ideas, and merchants with money. And today is the same. What then does "control" have to do with "reality"? What's the best way to control people? To "create" how they perceive reality. Think about it - if you can give a slave a view of reality that confirms the inevitability of his / her being a slave, then you have a compliant, accepting slave. So, the ability for a ruling order to create the perceived reality of their "subjects" is important for the viable continuation of that regime.

Could it be that the ruling order today is consciously, actively creating and imposing a "reality" that just happens to be conducive to controlling the population? Sound way out? I would suggest that an analysis of society today based on yoga principles would arrive at precisely this conclusion. In this sense what passes itself off as culture is not real culture but "pseudo-culture", and that "reality-producing" pseudo-culture is carefully designed to keep the population compliant.

The most obvious example of this is the "War on Terror", where the ones purporting to be fighting the terror are actually the ones perpetrating the terror - and yet, the compliant population accepts the phoney version. In other words we have been nicely "conditioned".

So what does that have to do with meditation? Through meditation, one begins to access and experience the higher layers of mind. In Yoga there are understood to be 5 layers of the human mind. Typically human beings on this planet habitually access only the lower 2 layers, the instinctual mind (which works closely with the body), and the intellect, or analytic mind. And each of those layers of mind access a certain type of reality. As regards the imposition of a reality onto a population, practically it will only work at the lower layers of the mind - the narrower, more restricted layers of mind.

There are, however, 3 higher layers of mind - collectively known as the Intuitional layers of mind. Those higher layers of mind will transgress attempts at imposing reality that rely on the lower two layers. Hence, meditation - through accessing higher layers of mind - leads to the experience of a more expanded reality. Any imposed reality based on the lower two layers begin to fall apart. Hence, meditation has always been a profoundly revolutionary act - breaking out of the matrix. An important part of the ongoing struggle for the emancipation of this world from the forces of ignorance is meditation. I encourage everyone to learn meditation, expand the mind, be liberated from the "matrix" and enjoy bliss!

Jefferson Airplane- The Allman Brothers perform one of the best tunes ever written and in a style you may have missed previously! Enjoy our rock and roll flight.

craigtheairplaneman — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:32:04 +0000

Please spread the word the new Jefferson Starship book:

“HAVE YOU SEEN THE STARS TONITE” has landed and

the 2 CD Special set Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

with over 900 rock and roll photos and the Cathy Richardson 70 minute interview, has landed too!

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net

http://www.amazon.com (The books are proudly featured here)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE- JEFFERSON STARSHIP-

Great Society- Take Me To A Circus Tent

Have You Seen The Stars Tonite

Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

Quality Rock & Roll Airplane

style.

Greetings from the Summer Rock Tour:

Hope things are fantastic. Not so much if you root for the Yankees. Before we get to the pure gem from the Rock Tent Vault, a reminder for you to look at the right side of the page. Recently we have had photos of Emerson, Lake, Palmer, exclusive pictures from the festival that had the return of Signe Anderson, Jefferson Starship nuggets, and Beatles From The Vaults. Enjoy the time on the plane and take in all the sights and sounds.

Let's go back to 1992 for one of the finest tunes ever written.

It's the Allman Brothers unplugged and on top of their game.

Melissa

Enjoy the journey and the memories!

Please spread the

word:

The 2 new Jefferson projects have arrived!

Thanks as always!

Relax and have fun!

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE-

JEFFERSON STARSHIP- Great Society-

Take Me To A Circus Tent

I look forward to hearing you later!

The book is Take Me To A Circus Tent (The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual) W/93 photos, 32 interviews, 543 pages, and a myriad of 5 star reviews!

Please fly here for the Allman Brothers song:

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net/media/JeffersonAirplaneTakeMeToACircusTentAircast64insearchofmelissa.mp3

Wishing you a great day,

craig

How To Be Original When Everybody's Doin' It

amoslanka — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:47:56 +0000

The concept of originality is one that has always allowed my mind to find a ripe cynical moment.

Need I remind you, I don't mean cynical as in, "humanity is stupid and we're all gonna burn", but rather, "Hey did you ever think about this absurd mentality that has found its way into our culture?" Thats a good reason to blog, right?

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis says:

The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns.

Lewis basically means that originality only lasts as long as novelty is available, and novelty doesn't last. Its kind of like eating a slice of cake. Eventually, its gone, and getting another slice looks suspiciously like the slice you just ate.

It also suggests, that "Its all been done before." Sure, thats cliché, but its true. I find it amusing how these noticeable contradictions find their way into fashion. Originality has been a buzzword of the last five or six years, lately one of the big ones is Progress and Change. Lets accept for the moment the silliness and redundancy of the idea of change for the sake of change and how empty that leaves us (kind of like a means to a means, not a means to and end) and mention that ongoing change, or progress, is in itself a contradiction. It may be technical, but if the norm is progress or change, then by definition the norm must move to something beyond itself (progress). Ok, so I didn't mean to get off subject on all that.

I'd like, for the sake of brevity and an avoidance of negativism to say, simply, that you're just not original. (Assuming that you are a human. Do I have any non-human readers? Even then, you're like your species, although you may be unique in that you can read. We'll save that discussion for another day.) You have a body, a mind, a heart, and hopefully some friends. There are unique things about you, but not in the way it is fashionable these days to be original. Yes there are small relative differences between you and your friends, between you and your 75 year old 8th Grade teacher who won't stop talking about turnips, and between you and that pedantic emo kid who looks like all the other emo kids and works at Starbucks and claims "music is my life". But being human is about a lot more than your hairstyle and eating habits.

Birth, death, youth, age, love, hurt, pride, anger, hope, fear, and courage. We are all human, and my thought is that perhaps we should act as though we are a member of a race, not some distantly floating soul with pure originality and a need for nothing more than "to create" or "to just be me". Who is "you" anyway? How many people really fully know themselves from the inside out? Have we stopped knowing who we are because we stopped finding ourselves in each other?

Accepting that we are humans and building bridges between us is responsibility. We are in this together, and to love requires more people than just yourself. You may not believe that humans are responsible for global warming, or you may not believe in the eternal destinations of Heaven or Hell. But if there's anything at all that can be agreed upon that brings goodness to this life, whatever this life may be, it is Love. Yes, we are diverse both ethnically and culturally, but Love doesn't create or widen gaps, it builds bridges, and one bridge built may be as simple as recognizing that we are brothers and sisters and that every human has an equal value. And to clarify, the diversity of ethnicity and culture is not the scope in I am discussing, but rather our immediate surroundings as humans. Real love happens not in the ideals of discussion about what love is or how to do love, but in actually acting in love in relation to the people near you.

***

Parker and I were talking the other night about the irresponsibility of two particular situations, the first being Christians calling themselves instead, "Followers of Christ" in order to avoid the stigma of the term Christian, and the second being the many political minds declaring "Bush is not my President". (Or "Clinton", there were plenty of righty's saying the same thing ten years ago) The first problem is that people are so wrapped up in their own individuality and self-definition that they internally remove the actual definition of the words Christian or what it means to be an American. To be a Christian is to believe in Christ. If you believe in Christ, you by definition are a Christian. To be an American means to, by definition, be a citizen of the country who's president is Bush or Clinton or Obama or McCain or whoever. Therefore, to be an American includes in the definition having that president as your president, and just moving to Canada doesn't change that. Its not a choice (beyond elections) unless you were to actually lose or somehow remove your citizenship.

Much of that, however, is only symptoms. What is the disease? Self absorption. I've already broken my promise of brevity, so I won't go too much more into where this culture finds itself. I can say with a straight face that I believe this culture is at a point where there has never been a more wide-spread self-oriented populace. What's more is its like a scale that continually rises and continually seeks more self-gratification where ever it can find it. Here are more symptoms I've noticed:

Talk about finding a church is usually centered around finding the church that is "right for me".
Talk about finding God's will is centered around some ambiguous personal "calling" instead of a recognition that there are obvious needs in the world not being filled.
Finding a spouse is usually about finding the person who fits an extremely precise description instead of choosing to love the person that life puts in front of you.
Some people's free time is increasingly spent pursuing personal accomplishments instead of being a part of a community.
Art has replaced religion.
"Self expression" seems to be making its way to the top of the list of virtues.
Instant gratification culture and its love affair with technological development.
Vanity pharmeceuticals gross more income than health care.
Politics is not about public service, but about the careers and power brokering of life-long politicians.
The list goes on, but feel free to comment with additional ideas if they come to you.

The items on this list aren't all bad individually, I only want you to understand that there are indicators of something much larger going on in a culture. Neil Postman in his book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology widely discusses a small part of this, our cultures addiction to technology, and points out that every new idea developed with the purest of intentions has its negative effects that are not always noticable until further down the road.

***

If I were that annoying commenter who always had to throw a wrench in the wheel of my brilliant technical description of cultural movements, I would say "Why yes, but what allows individuals the perception of uniqueness is diversity and proximity. Those ideas and experiences that would be defined as unique are paralleled by the ideas and experiences of others, but occur beyond the perception of the former individual. This creates a unique experience, even if it be to some degree, an illusion."

Well sure, I guess, if you're ok with illusion.

I've known people to claim to be the most random person I would know, even though in reality they were precisely the opposite. No need to get into the dynamics of a projected self-perception beyond saying that this is once again, illusion.

I've also known people close to me to literally tell me up front that they would rather I tell them what I know they want to hear instead of the actual truth. Occasionally the truth may be painful, but this results once again in illusion.

We live in illusions like this for our own peace of mind and find ourselves willing to repeatedly take the blue pill because we prefer ignorance and social vanity to transparency and authenticity. What I suggest by the title of this blog post is to switch directions away from the lemming herd of illusion, away from the automatic acceptance of common knowledge and pursuit of blind fashionable originality, and back to the virtues mentioned above that have become so lonely. Transparency. Authenticity. Honesty. Community. Radical Love. Red pills.

Sure there may already be a few people pursuing those ideals which technically makes originality a null issue, but if its an illusion in the first place, would you still prefer it?

Jefferson Airplane- Exclusive photos of the return of Jefferson Airplane's Signe Anderson/Marty Balin/Bob Harvey, thanks to the Great Rick Martin

craigtheairplaneman — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:13:23 +0000

Please spread the word the new Jefferson Starship book:

“HAVE YOU SEEN THE STARS TONITE” has landed and

the 2 CD Special set Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

with over 900 rock and roll photos and the Cathy Richardson 70 minute interview, has landed too!

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net

http://www.amazon.com (The books are proudly featured here)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE- JEFFERSON STARSHIP-

Great Society- Take Me To A Circus Tent

Have You Seen The Stars Tonite

Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

Quality Rock & Roll Airplane

style.

Welcome to Airplane History Land:

How are you doing? Thanks for boarding the flight. What a treat. August 24th, 2008 saw the return of Signe Anderson on stage. Astoria, Oregon was the setting as she played for the first time with Marty Balin, Bob Harvey, and Jerry Peloquin since 1965. She had played with Marty and Paul Kantner since she left in 1966 but not with Bob and Jerry.

Rick Martin was kind enough to give written permission of his copyrighted photos he had of the rehearsal that tool place on the same day.

You can enjoy the pictures of Signe, Marty, Bob, Barry Flast the one time keyboard-player for the Jefferson Starship, and Slick Aguilar from the Jefferson Starship. Rick Martin gets in a couple of pictures as well.

If you fly here please:

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net/index.php?pr=J._Airshow_Photos_2

It will be a flight to reality. The past and the present as one.

While you are on board please look at all the great photos on the site. Almost 500 total rock and roll treasures for you to explore.

Thanks as always. A large thanks to Rick!

Please spread the

word:

The 2 new Jefferson projects have arrived!

Thanks as always!

Relax and have fun!

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE-

JEFFERSON STARSHIP- Great Society-

Take Me To A Circus Tent

I look forward to hearing you later!

The book is Take Me To A Circus Tent (The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual) W/93 photos, 32 interviews, 543 pages, and a myriad of 5 star reviews!

Have a great day as always,

charliediedaprisoner — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:09:29 +0000

i want to wake up.
where is morpheus with my red pill?

The White Rabbit

planetross — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:14:35 +0000

When you see a white rabbit, it's usually just a white rabbit.

Don't be thinking you are Alice in Wonderland or in The Matrix or something.

note: If you see a white rabbit flying an iron, well that's a different story all together.

double note: I'm waiting for "Jefferson Wormhole Technology" to come out with a new Cd.

http://humor-blogs.com/

Jefferson Airplane- Beatles From The Vaults #94 a Beatle is searching for a driver. It's live and in free-flight. Enjoy the journey.

craigtheairplaneman — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:13:40 +0000

Please spread the word the new Jefferson Starship book:

“HAVE YOU SEEN THE STARS TONITE” has landed and

the 2 CD Special set Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

with over 900 rock and roll photos and the Cathy Richardson 70 minute interview, has landed too!

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net

http://www.amazon.com (The books are proudly featured here)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE- JEFFERSON STARSHIP-

Great Society- Take Me To A Circus Tent

Have You Seen The Stars Tonite

Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

Quality Rock & Roll Airplane

style.

Welcome to Rock & Beatle Jefferson Roll:

I hope things have gotten off to a fine start this week.

We have one from the Rock Tent Vault that sounds real good. It’s Sir Paul McCartney as he is found on tour 2008 looking for a driver.

Drive My Car from Beatles From The Vaults #94.

In other Jefferson Land news. I am so pleased you enjoyed the 4 songs from the Jefferson Family rocking and rolling in New York City from our lost post. If you check to the right please you can see the entry. Clicking on it will let you hear a whole lot of sounds. Why not look at all the great updates of late. Beatles/Jefferson's/ELP photos/ and so much more. Thank you as always.

Happy birthday 70 to David Freiberg! I am not sure if I posted the birthday wishes a couple of days back. Sorry for my error.

Please spread the

word:

The 2 new Jefferson projects have arrived!

Thanks as always!

Relax and have fun!

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE-

JEFFERSON STARSHIP- Great Society-

Take Me To A Circus Tent

I look forward to hearing you later!

The book is Take Me To A Circus Tent (The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual) W/93 photos, 32 interviews, 543 pages, and a myriad of 5 star reviews!

Please fly this way for Sir Paul McCartney live:

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net/media/JeffersonAirplaneTakeMeToACircusTentAircast64paulneedsadriver.mp3

All the best,

Craig

The Best Trilogies Ever Made

jlovebomb — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:49:38 +0000

10. The Matrix

9. The Bourne movies

8. Austin Powers

7. Lord of the Rings

6. X-Men

5. Indiana Jones

4. The Godfather

3. Back to the Future

2. Lord of the Rings

1. Star Wars

(Honerable Mentions: Land Before Time (all 10 of them), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Terminator, Crocodile Dundee)

This is a definitive list and cannot be refutedby anyone on earth. Not only are you wrong if you think otherwise, you cannot argue with it's supremacy. Through careful and deliberate measuring methods, I have whittled down the list into an extremely accurate and cohesive list that ranks the top ten trilogies of all-time.