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Sunday, June 21, 2015

UNLOCKING OUR POTENTIALS-A NEW DAWN FOR MEDIA COMPANIES-PUTTING TOGETHER MINDS THAT HAVE BEEN OVERLOOKED...




I've always wondered what you might do with persons with extreme disabilities...people that have had to work hard to overcome a physical or mental disability to apply themselves in everyday life.  I submit to you today an idea of channeling and unlocking the potential of people with disabilities that may not be able to perform certain job functions in a media setting because of blindness, hearing loss, physical setbacks or mental health issues.  What and how might a media production company flourish if they only hired people with these kinds of disabilities?  A sound man that cannot see...An editor that must perform his tasks with a blind man by his side to listen to the tracks and make sure the edit is performed well.  What about an armless soldier returning from war only able to calculate accounting needs for this company?  Perhaps a person with a stuttering issue who hires voice over talent?  A one eyed editor...a mute talent coordinator...a director confined to a wheel chair?  All of these people may be the new model for an industry that has been programmed to portray the beautiful, the perfect, the models of our society that in fact might not be the future models tomorrow.  What if a new vision media company were to be created that would allow persons with disabilities to shine at new potentials that the industry has never embraced or recognized before?

What if?  The tax incentives for this new model could be enormous and in fact the new visions of those who have had to recalculate their perceptions for a perfect functioning world might evolve into something we've never seen before.

I submit this idea to the new media makers of our time and ask for some sincere creative thinking in shaping what has only in the past been acceptable to what is WELL...What is ideal, what is perfect....Could a vision like this sustain itself in a world where perfection takes on a whole new model?

Something to ponder.....




Friday, June 19, 2015

In South Carolina---When Will the Lynchings Begin Again?


My roommate from Morristown packed up his bags and moved down to South Carolina after a long stint with Verizon and working as a police officer.  His move marked an end to a long stint as my partner in housing up north and it was time for a change.  He soon left the safe comfort of New Jersey and took residents in the state where the Confederate flag flies high over the state house.  I visited him just months after he moved and was propelled into his lifestyle of eating meals at Cracker Barrel and establishing a new home just south of the Mason Dixon.  While visiting the city of South Carolina I was appalled by the Confederate flag that dangled so prominently in front of all to see.  Was this really before my eyes?  It was hard to believe that a state like South Carolina could be still living in an era that almost seemed a throw back to days of lynchings and white supremacists.  My ex roommate seemed to think nothing of it and why not?  His mentality of thinking boiled down to a police officers mindset that was dedicated to racially profiling and apprehending many black suspects during his tenure of police work.  I could only imagine what his real feelings and thoughts must have been as a moderate thinking Jewish boy from the sticks of New Jersey.  Was I really living with a one time "Cracker"?

All in all he was a descent guy but his longevity of referring to me and George Bush as "Papa Bush" made most of my blood boil at some of his sidebar notions.  His mentality of thinking was more like a rent-a-cop policing my days in a rented house in Morristown.  He certainly had his own notions of what might be a rather "white" thing to do after some of my camera equipment was stolen from the apartment during our tenancy....He was no Saint and it became clear to me that his move to the Lynch Mob state was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to him.  I had already been used and spit out by the Republican Party during my months prior to meeting and living with him.  He represented a "kinder" "gentler" member of the white supremacists that you might run across in back woods South Carolina and only fell short of carrying a gun while we lived together.  I felt more like his token Jewish roommate than a true friend, but his hospitality persisted as he welcomed me to his new home in S.C. and took me on the grand tour of prominent "white person" eateries that aligned the state.  It wasn't until I saw the image above with the all mighty Confederacy rising again at the center of the state house that I truly understood what it was like to not only be a white American but in his eyes, a more token member of the Jewish party that was politically and correctable an attempt to win favor with the new right wing.  After it was said and done and the votes were in, I was later only to be spit out like some mutton in his eyes and never heard from again.  His corporate teeth had already played with me like some mouse and cat that tosses about it's pray before the kill.  It was all so politically motivated and well thought out.

In the end, I left South Carolina thinking to myself, when the next lynch mobs would rise again never to look at our rooming situation the same way and only come to believe that I had served my purpose well in the public's eye and his long standing with "white" corporate America standing as a testament to his "kinder, gentler" demeanor...We haven't spoken again ever since.  I guess it was time to finish up what he had begun chewing on during the course of our friendship.

Shalom roommate...and enjoy your Cracker Barrel....


Sunday, June 14, 2015

The Mind Set of Magic and Professional Conjuring







The Mind Set of Magic and Professional Conjuring


I recently reentered the circles of magic and mysticism through my local chapter of the Society of American Magicians.  The age old craft though, centering on deception and trying to prove how our imaginations can conjure up anything, has made me believe that the craft develops a typical mindset that not many subscribe to.  It is this craft that helps an individual see through so many deceptions and prophecies certain persons might try to lead on a person to believe without seeking out scientific and mathematical explanations for phenomena's that many of us know could never be true.  Magic helps train a person in finding and exploring the truth by laying down the understanding of certain misconceptions we all tend to know can't be true.  It trains your mind to see through the all prevalent lies and deceptions that arise in our day to day survival in the real world.  It never seems to amaze me that the children watch with wide eyes and amazement at a magic trick that when practiced and perfected time and time again, we develop, as magicians a craft that not everyone can perform and present to the general public.  The next time you see a magician, remember that he is part of an underground society that helps us all develop skills in looking past the deceptions in our small worlds and helps us each find the truth in whatever it is we tend to believe.  Don't get fooled again.  Let the magic of a conjurer help you better understand what truths really remain in our ever present global society.  As magicians, we are thought and mind police.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Is it Time to Rethink Our Models?



I remember as a child growing up in the seventies watching the Johnny Carson Show and seeing an interview with a well known Southern actress.  As Johnny interviewed her she said something rather profound.  "Ya know....", she said, "When you all Northerners have someone freakish or abnormal you tend to hide them away....put them in institutions, throw away the key and keep them hidden from the world....Hell", she added..."When we Southerners have someone who's abnormal or freakish, we show them off"....

This statement couldn't be more than true today as we head into a time when perhaps a new revolution should be at hand....Can we all just start thinking outside of the box and try to rethink our models?  What appears to be abnormal, freakish, not within the boundaries may just be the new perfection...the new way to approach a problem and possibly a new way to view what would appear to be the mentality of perfection.  Think of the American Astronaut first landing on Mars and meeting the native Martians that inhabit the planet...looking like what we on earth might consider something out of the ordinary...Is the Astronaut considered the new freak from a world where they were once considered normal?...How about how humans were perceived by apes in Planet of The Apes...And what about how we view people with mental illness, their freakish demeanor considered by many to be bizarre and weird something we all might be afraid of because, simply, we don't understand it or it's outside the box of conventional thinking....I submit to you today in the age of Caitlyn Jenners that we start rethinking our models and start asking ourselves whether it's time to begin anew and make the world look differently on what we consider the "new" perfect, the "new" model, the "new" sign of what is beautiful....After all, aren't we sending home new hero's from the war front returning with one leg, one arm, deformed features after being victimized by war blasts and aren't we creating a new evolution where what we once held onto as being the norm is now changing with our everyday evolution of a changing world?  Stand tall Caitlyn and be proud....The new norm is not what you've been led on to believe over the past 10 years.  We're evolving into a new era of new models and what we consider grotesque might be time to reconsider as a new way to look at what is beautiful.  Smile and say that it might just need a little more time to better understand.