Hate To Keep Railing Against It But…

Posted on July 10, 2009 by Varg

… there needs to be some tiny record of the anger.

Psychics see magic in Michael Jackson’s life

When Glynis McCants looks at Michael Jackson’s life, she sees the number five.

Jackson’s talent was discovered when he was 5 years old, he came to fame as a member of the Jackson 5 and he planned a series of 50 concert dates in London, England, as part of a comeback tour before he died on June 25 at the age of 50.

For McCants, a noted numerologist and author, those facts are very telling: “Five is the number for drama, and it was in his life his whole life.”

This isn’t a MJ post. It’s a post on unproven paranormal stuff being posted as news and it’s becoming more and more common on CNN’s front page. I’ve seen all sorts of ghosts and images in toast and UFOs showing up there.

It’s a difficult argument to say CNN is tasked with reporting the important stuff because what is important is the subjective part. As a media outlet, CNN should provide news that is important to the people and if enough people think the psychic stuff matters then it needs to go ahead and do the stories.

Folks rail against the media a lot and I have been known to say that the media IS us. It’s society that demands this crap. But society also needs a scapegoat because no one person is going to take responsibility. So it gets put on the media. And they don’t do us any favors by sucking the blood.

Regardless of whose fault it is (and I have made it a standard to not click on these links but did so in this case because I was writing a post about it and needed to know what I was talking about)*, the point remains that in these times it truly falls on the concerned citizens to pay attention to what is happening to us. Because the monoliths are keeping us doped on religion, sex and TV.

And I can’t help but think if more were done to better educate folks on coastal restoration and flood protection, we wouldn’t be met with such ignorance every step of the way.

Also, it is 7 that dictated MJ’s life…

And I’ll buy a beer for anyone who can make the same coincidences with, oh, I don’t know, 4.

* I understand posting the link will draw more hits. This post overflows with contradictions.

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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.