You're so much cooler than the cool kids

I had already planned this post but finding the statement from A&F CEO Jeffries was the perfect way to make my point.  My last post I talked about the people who are bullied becoming the bullies.  Today it's about those of us who were the outcasts and how "different" is "better".

I'm a female so that already comes with its own issues of being made to feel "less than".  I was kind of lucky because my dad believed I could do anything, my maternal great-grandmother had been a rebel and renaissance woman and both my mom and her sister were very headstrong.  When "women's lib" came along the women in my family were half-way there.

Today the most prominent community we are trying to help is the LGBT, but they're not the only ones who get picked on.  The smart kids, the too tall kids, the too short kids, the too fat kids, the too skinny kids, kids with glasses, braces, curly red hair or purple mohawks, kids who shop at Wal-Mart and kids who shop at Hot Topic, arts kids, math kids, etc. etc.  And that just looking at the 5-17 year olds (K-12) and the crap they put up with at school.  Later on in life it is the adults of any counter-culture who don't have someone physically in their face every day but who get all the subliminal messages from TV, movies, magazines, the media that we just don't fit and that makes us somehow bad? wrong? TARGETS!

Here's the thing though.  Is the flock "right"?  I don't think so.  I think they're scared but societies and cultures have provided them with armor of physical strength, "beauty" and set goals so they feel like they are more "right" than you.  Consider this though...why are they trying so hard and why do they never feel like they've accomplished anything.  Going to their graves they will still feel like they have fallen short because that's how the game is played.  The people who run the game always have a twist that will prove that you're not quite "perfect"...yet.  Of course you never reach "perfect" before you die so you die believing you have somehow failed.  You know how you failed?  You failed at being YOU!

Look at people trying to live up to the game.  Are they ever truly happy?  None of them that I have met.  They're too busy trying too hard to fold themselves into a shape that The Fates never intended for them.  Those of us who seek to find out who we were born to be actually feel accomplished when we discover another talent we were born with.  Me!  I started writing when I was 14.  I didn't realize then what it released in me and how much it opened me up, allowed my wings to unfold and the joy that filled me with.  I got away from writing for a number of years and spent those years trying to fold myself into society's and my significant other's shapes.  It hurt...physically.  I smoked to much. I ended up with heart palpitations and anxiety attacks.  I cried a lot.  Now that I am free of that and not only writing but discovering my other arts and all the artists around me, I'm happy.  In fact I have found joy and peace on this plain.  I don't have to wait for some reward in the afterlife.  It is in the here and now.

Go find you bliss.  Go find you.  While you're young and stuck in the hostile environment of school, find the people like you who don't fit.  Create your own community. You probably have already-in the music or art room, in the shop, at math or science club.  These are sanctuaries where you can heal each other and give each other strength.  Remember you are emotionally stronger than your tormentors.  You're character in solid.  Theirs is weak because it depends on living by someone else's rules.  Yes, you have to still be nice.  In my house the rules were "No hitting.  No kicking.  No biting. No pushing.  No lying and no yelling"  Besides when you nice back, they don't know how to deal with that.  That's why they pick on you.  Because you don't play by their rules.  You can depend on yourself.  Your friends are real and you can trust them.  With you and your friends it is not about competition but about collaboration.  You know how to compromise...not your core self but when trying to meld two or more ideas.

You are the people who will change the world. You are the people who are creative enough to go searching for the best solutions to all kinds of things.  Because you refuse to let go of your imagination you will not just be a better artist but a better scientist, better mathematician, better engineer, better architect.  You will design the best green energy source.  You will find homeopathic remedies that actually cure without causing other problems, you will figure out ways for the world to work together. The sheeple have been trying it their way for a long time and it still doesn't work.  Divide and conquer, segregate and control lives everyone going to their graves unfulfilled.  They may have money, a big house, a fancy car and have traveled the world but they have neither joy nor peace.  The time for the "other people" to try it their way has come.  So be YOU!!

Art imitates life - ours is boring and loaded with violence

Are humans designed to be boring?  I don’t think so.  But for some reason there are certain people hell-bent on making and keeping us that way.  Start with religious rules and…actually…end with them too because those are what are used to influence civil rights and laws.  They’re also what have worked their way into jurisdiction of the media with “decency” codes. 

There was a short time however, when even “the church” opened its collective mind when it came to art.  The Renaissance was a glorious time when the human body was depicted in all its naked glory, when minstrels wrote and performed bawdy love songs and plays were filled with bright costumes and beautiful words.  Admitted women were not allowed on the stage or in the pulpit but they still adorned themselves in fabulous garments and danced with equally graceful and stunningly clad men.  Art was not boring.

Last night America again showed how much fear there is of “breaking the rules”.  Really?  Aren’t we programmed to take risks, push the envelope?  Look at the Goddess’s creation, filled with bright colors, bird that soar high and luxuriously furred quadrupeds. Mother Nature’s music is a cacophony of chirps, screams, howls and barks.  Nothing boring there.  So why have we allowed religion to take that out of spiritual writings and replace it with this austere, domineering, and judgmental deity with no spirit of adventure, beauty or curiosity? 

No people, if The Fates had wanted us to listen to boring balladeers for all of our existence on this plain, no one would be born with the talent to dazzle the eye, ear, heart and brain like Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, or even Motley Crue.  It should not have been a risk for any of them to create the art they have.  It should not have been considered risqué to view their performances.  Life should be exciting not boring. 

I do not understand how we have come to romanticize war, murder or other forms of physical violence.  How did these become acceptable risks?  Yet we run from art that is considered even the littlest bit edgy.  Art tribes/communities are looked on by outsiders as odd, weird, hopefully go unnoticed and disappear.  Yet people will pay money over and over for movies still being made about World War II, Korea and Vietnam.  Gore can run deep and wide on the screen but a glimpse of breast or upper thigh is gasped at.  People, the human body is far more beautiful all in one piece than ripped apart on a battlefield or in a dark alley. 

Where did we lose our way?  How do we find it again?  When will beauty and creativity be exonerated, worshipped and encouraged again?  When will minstrels, actors, painters, sculptors, writers, etc. be allowed out from under their rocks and appreciated in all their weird eccentricness?

Difference must be set aside

I have to giggle. Earlier today I started considering my long time battle-cry of “If we don’t work together, this thing will not work”. The thought process rolled on in the vein of our differences and learning to get past them so that each of our unique talents and skills can come together to create a machine that runs, relatively, flawlessly. Some examples that came to mind made me laugh out loud in real life.

The first car of this train of that was super-heroes. Each has their own ability(ies). Even the ones with multiple powers don’t have all the ones necessary to save the world alone. They also each have some weakness so if that is discovered they need someone to jump in and keep fighting. Apparently these superheroes eventually recognized their inability to save the world as single handedly so we got things like The Justice League, the Fantastic 4, X-Men and The New Avengers.


Now consider the everyday personae of most of your favorite comic book heroes. They’re all kinda nerdy, not very pretty, probably with some annoying tick that makes other people uncomfortable to be around them. Seriously. Would you walk over and start up a conversation with Beast or the Thing if you didn’t know how cool they were? Ok, I know-Batman was the handsome Bruce Wayne with tons of money who rolled in all the high-brow circles but he was also a bit of drama-queeny, angsty emo guy. You definitely didn’t want to hang with him after a couple of drinks cuz he’d be crying in your glass and his.

Where the laughter came in was my memory of one of my favorite computer games…it was a little known title “Lost Vikings”. These three crazy little cartoon Scandahoovians had to work their way through various puzzles to get back home to their wives and girlfriends after being spirited away by some aliens with really warped senses of humor. Now the only way for them to get through each of these predicaments to move closer to the exit to the next dimension was to work together. One was very smart and could jump really far. One was a dumb lummox with a shield, which could protect them from lots of things or be used as a platform to reach higher things. The last one was the arrogant, obnoxious strong guy. He has a sword but other than that and his good looks he’s kinda useless. So each has one or two traits that would turn you off and got on each other’s nerves but the game was programmed that they couldn’t leave any of the others behind. All three had to reach the exit or they had to start over.

What does this have to do with world peace? You mean you haven’t figured it out yet? Well you know what, I’m not going to explain it right now. I’m going to wait, let you digest it and see what comments get posted and if we can start an intelligent dialogue on the subject. Peace out, bitches.

The ritualistic intro post

So, besides music, MamaKath's brain and heart are full of a lot of other stuff.  I thought about it and decided that these things warranted a separate blogoshere so as not to detract from my music ramblings and to provide a haven for those who were only interested in my thoughts, feelings, inspirations and affections in the political and spiritual realms.

The slogan for this blog came to me in an email discussion I had with a clergy acquaintence the other day after "Equality for Maine" was thwarted by a mere three precent of the population.  He and I agreed that the church had failed where "the church" prevailed.  The church has this book that talks about putting your neighbor above yourself and looking out for each other.  It speaks of compassion, mercy, justice and humility.  It tells you you will get your hands dirty if you're doing it right.  "The Church" on the other hand preaches a tinier and tinier, selfish, bitchy, prejudice, dictator diety that is anything close to Divine, holy, sacred or benevolent.  Their "god" doesn't like any of us and would prefer that we lock ourselves in our houses and cut ourselves off from any one that doesn't follow its doctrine. Their version "god" has rules...lots of rules about who is good enough and who you should take care of and how you can be better than all the other sheep and the diety will give you lots of money and you will live fat, dumb and happy all the days of your life.  Now in this crazy faci-verse you can play up to a better ticket to the afterlife by supporting the impersonal annihilation of other humans while providing equally impersonal "help" to unknown faces across the seas in the form of checks.  Your hands are squeaky clean with a nice thick coat of Purell on them.

But see the thing is, if you really wanna claim that you "know" Jesus...you need to go back and READ that book again.  See he said "When I was naked you clothed me.  When I was hungry you fed me.  When I was sick you took care of me and when I was in prison your visited me.  AND WHAT YOU DID FOR THE LEAST OF THESE YOU DID FOR ME".  What the guy was saying; cuz back then there were no banks, no post offices and no PayPal, was that you had to get off your fat, lazy, fearful, arrogant ass and go help people.  Don't pass off a fiver in the collection plate for some kid in Central America....go over to the Subway, buy a sandwich and bring it back to that 17-year-old runaway streetwalker you just passed while you were out shopping.  Yeah, you're gonna have to look into those sad eyes and wonder what went down in her comfortable suburban home states away from where she ended up that caused her to run.  She will give you a sad smile and say thank you.  Your heart's gonna break a little more.  For even the briefest of moments you will feel a little bit of love.  You're not going to be afraid of her any more.  You're not going to judge her in that instant.  You're gonna see her as a fellow human who maybe had a dream, maybe still has that dream but right now she's just trying to stay alive.  Trying to turn enough tricks to keep her pimp from beating her up and maybe have some place a little warmer than the street to sleep tonight.  It's probably going to get to you enough that you're going to go home and say some real prayers starting with one for forgiveness for your laziness and stupidity.  Then you're gonna pray for real help for that girl.  And you never know...The Great Spirit's reply may be that you're the help.  You're going to wake up with a need to do something.  And if you listen carefully and watch the signs...that Truly Divine Being will point you to the sources of that girl's eventual "salvation" and I'm not talking getting her to some holy roller church where some guy who plays a preacher on TV lays hands on her and the congregation of hypocrits spends the rest of her life brain-washing and laying guilt trips on her.  No I'm talking finding safe shelter, employment which provides food & clothing.  Who knows, she might get her GED and even go to college.  She may just end up the checker in your local grocery store or she may be destined to be the next Golda Meir or Madaleine Albright.  But whether "peasant" or "noble" she will live not merely survive.

Put a face on it, people.