| Dear John, and Yoko and the Family - I can imagine
that you might think this is going to be another one of my "I've always loved yer
stuff" letters.
In a way, it is, because I can't imagine anyone who could be a bigger fan of the
Beatles.
The truth is, though, that I was just a little kid when they came along, and I loved
and knew every one of their songs. Even worked on starting my own "Junior
Beatles" band that eventually lead me to being in a band.
The reason I point this out is because when John Lennon started getting political, and
George Harrison started getting all spiritual, I liked the music, but I wondered what the
heck was going wrong with those guys. I was glad that Paul was into "Silly Love
Songs"... and frankly, I never have quite figured  Ringo out, despite the fact that I played his tunes on the high
school radio station, still wonder about the Yellow Submarine (though I bet Jimmy Carter's
got something nuclear to do with that) and still enjoy Magic Christian Music.
I remember, though, listening to KSJO, San Jose one day. This had to be about 1975.
Could have been as early as '69, but I don't think so.
They had just finished up some countdown of the biggest Album Rock hits at the moment.
I can't remember if "Hey Jude" or "Let It Be" was #1 on that list, or
if it was "Bridge Over Troubled Waters". And then they played 
"Working Class Hero".
Boy did that song make me think. Made me think of my life. The world. The truth of that
song.
I really wasn't a fan of John Lennon's per se. I liked "Imagine" the song. I disagree with it a little bit, because we're
not quite ready for that... but I understand it's intent, and agree with the goal. But
that song made me curious, and my appreciation for the man and his message has grown
immensely over the years.
It was for me a song that allowed me to distinguish the differences between my growing
up in the remote hills and ends of roads of so many places.. the freedom it allowed me to
do what I wanted, how I wanted, when I wanted. I was blessed to grow up amidst beautiful
redwoods, some old growth and some 2nd generation, and oaks and flowers and animals of all
kinds in a very peaceful co-existence with nature.
Particularly when I lived on the Big Bend Ranch in Maple Creek, Humboldt County.
175,000 acres on the edge of the Trinity National Forest. I'd spend many a night on top of
a huge boulder in my front yard playing my guitar and singing to the moon. Hours and hours
every day.
The original dream I had about creating The Family of Artists and Musicians began
there.
It was like heaven. No electricity, water from a spring on the hill, no phones...
music, playing cards, board games, pool and horseback riding... with family and the other
families in the logging camp. I loved it. A mix of Native Americans, Californians, Texans,
Arkansawyers and Carolinians... all big rough and tough types, as you would think of
loggers... who were also some of the most sensitive, sweetest people I ever met.
(We did have a small generator for the old roller washing machine, to charge a few
batteries and sometimes the lights. Of course, we never missed Hee Haw and 60 Minutes on
our AC/DC Black and white tv which we ran off our car batteries. This was all circa
1972-73. We could only get a few radio stations, listened to KRED, Eureka and KRAK Country
from Sacramento. I'd go up on a hill to listen to KFRC in San Francisco)
And then, after graduating high school, like so many people, particularly in the early
seventies, I realized I couldn't really make a living in the small town where I wanted to
live. Like many young people, I ended up moving to the city, where I could actually use
the skills and God given gifts I was lucky to be given.
And that's when I entered the human "race", as described in the Bible.
I'd always thought of myself as a country boy with a city mind.
Over the years, watching what was going on in the world, I'd remember that song
(Working Class Hero) from time to time and wonder what he was really trying to tell
us.
And, then he came out with albums and songs, like "Watching the Wheels Go Round and Round",
"Nobody Told Me There'd Be Days Like These".
And then he was killed.
Election 2000 rolled around and I knew from my training, my belief in America and my
faith in God that it was time for me to do what God had prepared me to do. And I
remembered and played that song, Working Class Hero. Over and over.
I read the Bible and discovered I was doing what the Disciples would have done, and
still I played that song. And I bought some 9 copies of Abbey Road over the years.
Including the Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs Direct to Disc Recording that sure makes the
keyboards/synthesizers stand out like I'd never heard before or since.
Billy Preston told me he was the 5th Beatle. I was stunned. I had no idea. I saw him do
"Get Back"... "and the Let It Be Album"... talk about winning without
winning.
That was in '89?.. He and Syreeta Wright did the album "Late At Night".. the
single was "With You I'm Born Again". He had a halo around his head. That's when
he invited me up to his ranch in Topanga. He wouldn't tell me about his gospel music
work. Just his desire to do an album with his hero, Ray Charles. (and even that's another
Biblical story). He said he'd like to participate in The Family of Artists &
Musicians.
Somewhere in this process, I began to realize many of the prophetic qualities of the
music of the Beatles. And the artists originally signed to Apple Records... I laugh at the
old phrase "An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away" (info which always lead back
to the circular trail of facts about Ampex, EMI, and my father and me. And the wisdom to
be gained by listening to those artists, especially me. I did, and I do... more than you
know).
I read and watched programs about Abbey Hoffman, Huey Newton, The Chicago Seven, Ira
Einhorn, Charles Manson... Leonard Peltier and lately, Tookie Williams... when I think
about what I was supposed to learn from them - their peaceful approaches and some of their
lapses into violence that brought their movements to an end - the ways they were taunted
into violence, and set up - and I saw the movie Gandhi...
And I have to take into account a proveable fact or list of odd occurrances... that a
number of artists, and actors and investigaors even - have been harmed when I mentioned
them early on... and the fires all over California and weather events in the midwest all
seem to be strangely related to "coincidences" with my weblogs.
Including the death of Maurice Gibb, and the sudden illness of Gordon Lightfoot, who
sang the song "Sundown" (about Operation Sundown?)... Shaquille O'Neal... the
supposed "last investigator alive" who worked on the JFK assassination... (and
some of this could have been disinformation to discredit me... another long story
I can corroborate.)
FromThe Mother Jones Riff Blog"
US Retaliates for Martha Stewart Snub By Refusing Visa to
Boy George
http://www.motherjones.com/riff_blog/archives/2008/06/8804_us_retaliates_f.html
And, oddly enough, every time I've included this song in a mix over the years (twice),
there has been some sort of massive power failure. In the United States, and in England.
Enron is a common denominator in those power grids. I'm actually a little afraid to post
it here again (7/1/2008) King Harvest - Dancing In the Moonlight.
And here I am, the product of the messages of God's Angels, (Alabama - Angels Among Us) having learned their lessons
as well as many of my own. I even learned that there really are no such things as
coincidences.
Like Werner Erhardt said, "If God didn't want you to be doing what you're doing
right now, you wouldn't be doing it."
And then, I think again about what John Lennon said about how the Beatles success, and
the Rolling Stones, was actually promoted by the CIA, The Montauk Project and British
Intelligence as a means to see if they could use music to break up the counter-culture,
and throw it into chaos (my paraphrasal).
To which Lennon responded by saying that their biggest mistake
was that they underestimated the inherent goodness of people.
Here's something interesting - a large pdf file, from the Montauk, NY Lighthouse
Museum (see page 19) with some fascinating information about NOAA and Hurricane
Katrina. Were rescue efforts hampered by lack of preparedness, or simply intended results?
Look at this, and consider it for yourself. (I accidentally found this
tonight under Poster Designs See Page 19).
And then, there was this: From the author of The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time was released in June
of l992.
And, from Wikipedia, Montauk and other similar projects in mind control and ESP, including
Project Stargate, which, by analogy at least, is well
represented on TV.com by the program Stargate-1. Check out a particular episode called "URGO". (If
you don't know it, tv shows and movies are frequently used to inform you in a covert
manner)
It's that sense within us all that informs us of what the right thing is to do. Because
God is everywhere, and God is within us. God is your conscience. Which is why in
times of trouble, we do the right things as a community, caring and sharing, as God would
be proud to see.
And that's why I took a couple of phrases from the Bible (after watching Kitty Pilgrim
on CNN, and wondering if that was really her name, and thinking, what would that word mean
if she chose that "air" name to symbolize something about who she is in the
world, so I looked it up). And I turned it into this phrase, which I'll bet someone
else has put together before. Still, it makes sense.
"A pilgrim is a person in search
of a country
in which God would not be ashamed to be called God"
Now, I believe this is true of the
universe.
I'll leave it up to you to consider what a global renaissance of the arts and
technologies could mean for us all on the planet, in the universe, and in the cosmos. And
be sure to consider that in God's image, we are all artists...living art... He is
perfected in us... and that is why every being is already a pilgrim, and a lifelong member
of
The Family of Artists &
Musicians
Thank you John, and Yoko for keeping the faith, and God Bless Us All.
Steely Dan - Only A Fool Would Say That :}
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