Saturn, the lord of karma, the planetary personality grinder, is about ready to change signs as it moves from the stately ruler of Leo into the sign of the worker bee, Virgo.
Virgo rules health, service, and officious lower level beaureaucrats like meter maids and bank tellers. It's all in the details with Virgo, while Saturn presses down hard. Look for changes to occur in public health care, and an upswing in parking tickets. While that may sound funny, it's not, as the cost of public services is going to rise dramatically and some might even disappear to cover cash shortfalls that will come when the accounting is due and due it will come. Look for a massive reform of health care while the nutritional and alternative health industries will have to fend off more focused attacks from the FDA and big pharma.
Saturn in Virgo will show us how we'll be able to do more with less, though the ride will be bumpy and often spartan.
People will learn to do more things for themselves to save money, something many of us have lost touch with.
Of all the potential presidential candidates, Rudy Giuliani will have the toughest go initially with Saturn in Virgo as it will square his Gemini sun. "Da Mayor" will come off looking stiff, while a list of critics will grow, assailing his record as a public servant.
So for the next two-and-a-half-years, be nice to the little guy and learn to skin a deer--you'll be a better person for it.
Stephen Kent's Living Labyrinths
In case you don't know who Stephen Kent is, he's one of the finest non-aboriginal didge players on the planet. Not only can he bellow, grunt and growl with the best of them, he's also one of the finest improvisors I have ever seen.
If Kent had been an sax player instead, we'd be comparing him to Roland Kirk.
Living Labyrinths is a radical departure for Kent as he plugs his didge into an algoryhthmic program that assigns patterns and oscillations to the sacral blasts of the didge.
The result is pure, fourth-world-ambience that echos the work of Jon Hassell and Brian Eno.
Take a journey into the land of the living labyrinths at: Stephen Kent.net
Imagination Club Now Accepting New Members
Eda Maxym's full-length-debut, The Imagination Club has been out for well over a year, but her seductive vocals along with her mytho-poetic lyrics still deserve wider spread recognition. The band is stellar, as Maxym leans heavily on some great, Bay Area players, including her multi-instrumentalist husband, Stephen Kent.
It all comes together on the haunting re-working of The Beatles classic, "I've Got A Feeling." It might go down as one of the best Fab Four covers ever.
You can still get copies directly from Eda at: EdaMaxym.com
Britney Spears has rapidly morphed into a trainwreck that is taking on mythic proportions of southern discomfort. While she plays the freaky fey with a constantly roving gang of paparazzi hot on her heels, Spears can often be seen with a copy of the Zohar clutched close to her breast. Spears icon/mentor, Madonna initiated her into the Zohar, a massive tome that is the textual backbone of the Kaballah, which is rapidly being franchised into the next great spiritual epistle. But while Madonna is shrewd, calculating and self-serving, using the Kaballah and her rabinnical connections to keep stoking her star-making-machinery, Spears is a wild card, a cracker jackie who could let a couple of alien ideas take her deeper into the space of uncharted unpredictability.
Madonna (Leo) loves the status and attention that the Kaballah and all things related brings to her. Spears (Sag) is stumbling ever so publicly towards some faint vision of truth and who knows how that will turn out. She doesn’t appear to be filled with the holy fire of the dispensationalist breed of Southern Baptist that John Hagee champions, and that’s where it gets downright frightening. Launching the dualistic matrix of the Zohar into the Britney Spears program may either blow her circuitry into the Anna Nicole zone, or Spears may emerge from the post-partum-party fueled by the ordinances of the Elohim as a Persephone with a very public pulpit.
All I have to say to the rabinnical elders coaching Spears from beyond the flash of the press is be careful, your next transformation of a white goddess might mutate into something far less controllable than you had bargained for.
If a movie portrayed bees getting gassed in a hive like it was a concentration camp, a famous black comedian represented as a bloodsucking insect, Winnie The Pooh getting hit with a tranquilizing dart, and the Caucasian race getting blamed for the exploitatation of bees for the production of honey, would you take your kid to go see it? I did and boy, did I feel stung when I left the theater after watching Bee Movie.
After seeing Dreamwork’s newest animated feature starring the voice of Jerry Seinfeld as the cute little litigious bee, Barry B. Benson my thoughts were unsettled to say the least. The plot steals a little from The Graduate as Benson decides not to conform to his pre-destined role as a worker bee. He defies the order of the hive and takes time out to not be ok with his lot as a bee. In fact there is a scene that’s directly lifted from The Graduate where he is laying on a floating chaise lounge on a pool of honey just like Hoffman’s character (Benjamin Braddock) in The Graduate doing a similar act in a pool, getting harangued by his parents about making a choice, all of which came after Barry had left the hive to experience the delights of the outside world, including the perky and protective Vanessa, which features the voice of Renee Zellwegger.
Barry falls head-over-stinger for her and takes up residence at her New York apartment. Encouraged by her, Barry decides to take on the human race and sue them for their enforced servitude of bees (sue bee–get it!!! ha ha–funny). Barry talks by the way and not only does he talk, he plays a mean civil litigator, shredding the human appointed attorney–a fat-assed and decidedly unlikable southerner (voice provided by John Goodman). Barry is victorioous and bees are no longer forced to produce honey. in fact, all available honey is returned to them as some form of reparation. The bees have it good now, but the humans are screwed. We need the bees and what they do for us and now look to them to save us.
What treacle.
The film is mean spirited and injects memes that are dark and innapropriate for young children. I hope the buzz on this film fades before more drones lap up this sticky mess.
GOING GLOBAL NEVER SOUNDED SO GOOD I recently attended a special screening for a film based on the, “L’Orchestra Piazza d’Vittorio.” The film is an outgrowth of a much larger project that when viewed from a detached perspective is nothing short of a modern miracle.
The backstory takes place in in a neighborhood in Rome called the “Piazza District.” It was once home to middle-class-Romans, but now houses the largest ethinc community in Rome. Tunisians, Chinese, East-Indians, Eastern-Europeans, South Americans and Africans all migrated there due to the cheap rents caused by the exodus of wealthier Italians and the decline of he neighborhood to the common vices of drugs, prostitution etc. Yet there were still enough native residents that they were uncomfortable with the diversity that they saw as destroying their beloved Italian culture. There were protests and calls for the interlopers to leave. While some of the Piazza dwellers were decrying the end of homgeniety, a small group of courageous artists saw the crisis as an opportunity to bring the district together.
I did this interview back in 1999 when I was helping out Radio-V. Play was everywhere; car commercials, radio, TV shows and it launched Moby right into the heart of mainstream culture. Moby and his management were crafty. They had decided to license music off of Play immediately. It’s catchy fusion of beats and old blues songs were instantly memorable and perfect for commercials. Soon, consumers were sending emails to Volkswagon asking what that song for the Jetta commercial was? Radio quickly took notice and added Play to their playlists on a number of formats and it rapidly ascended into the top forty. I caught up with Moby on the phone and we instantly clicked. The interview you’re about to read is pretty much verbatim.
Moby: Vegan, Christian, Proto-Punk, Self-Exposing Enfant Terrible who twisted bits of the Twin Peaks soundtrack into one of the first Techno hits (“Go”) is riding the crest of a newfound popularity with the breakthrough release of Play. Voted one of the top 99 albums of the Nineties by Spin,the opinionated, self-proclaimed, “little idiot” is also for better or worse plagued by a conscience that has led him to explore his relationship to Chrisitianity, Animal Rights and gigs in Kosovo.
Poised to be either a holy fool or feckless Techno-Messiah of the next century, Moby (aka Richard Hall) will always have something to say. The following is a small slice of the world according to Moby.Read the rest of this entry »
If anyone has been looking for irrefutable proof that there is a God, Gene Simmons’ hideous facelift is proof positive. This “knight in the service of satan” has been transformed by the divine scalpel from leathery, rock predator, to a puffy and harmless, living apple doll. Ironically, Simmons may only recognize himself when the facepaint and glitter are reminders of an image that is the only touchstone to a once familiar identity–although, one could say that he might actually look even scarier now. Meanwhile, Simmons’ Kissmate, Paul Stanley had to pull out of a show at an indian casino last week due to a heart ailment. Let’s face it, the monsters of rock aren’t breathing fire and spitting blood with the same venom they used to.
Well, it looks like someone finally had the good sense to re-release one of David Bowie’s lost masterpieces, The Buddha Of Suburbia. Recorded and released in 1993, it is the soundtrack to the mini-series based on Hanif Kureishie’s coming out, coming of age novel of the same name, set in middle class England. Originally released only in Europe, it’s proved to be both illusive and costly for Bowie afficianados (I paid over $50 on eBay for a copy) to track down and enjoy. I first heard it in 1996 in New Mexico and was blown away. Bowie has always had a fetish for flashy guitarists such as Mick Ronson, Carlos Alomar, Adrian Belew, and Reeves Gabrels, on “Buddha” he employs a young and cocky, Lenny Kravitz to provide the fiery fretwork. Amazon is taking pre-orders for the release, which will be available to be shipped on October 2nd.
A veteran of the digital music industry, writer, psychic-intuitive, astologer and sports guru, I look to combine all of these facets here, as I decode the ramp-up to 2012, try to make sense of it all, have some fun and share some of my takes on art, music, film and politics, a global gestalt of transformation and emerging spiritual trends.
I'm currently working on a book that embraces the cultural ramifications of sound to be published by North Atlantic Press in the fall of 2008.
I'm available for both professional and personal consulting, new-media and personal branding at: rpm1122@yahoo.com.
Welcome to the sidebar where we worship at the bosom of women that tickle our archetypes.
ASTARTE IS BORN
Is there any woman as fascinating and at the same time, equally as dangerous Angelina Jolie? First, she comes onto the scene as a druggy bad girl that's not above making a move on her brother. Then she meets Jhonny Lee Miller on the set of "Hackers" and marries him. That lasts about as long as it takes for her to meet Billy Bob Thornton on the set of "Pushing Tin" and before you can say, "sex magic" they're swapping blood and immortalizing one another in body art, showing up on the red carpet high as a kite, looking like they had just stepped out of their hotel room, fresh from mainlining each others bodily fluids.
While with Thornton, she begins the process of adopting her world family with her first baby, Maddox. This spooks Thornton even more than Jolie's knife collection and he splits. Jolie is relatively quiet until she meets Brad Pitt on you guessed it! A movie set for the bomb, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." While the film was a dud, apparently the chemistry bewteen Jolie and Pitt was explosive enough for Pitt to pack up and break up.
Jolie then sets out to have her own child while adopting yet another one with Pitt. She becomes a UNESCO ambassador visiting countries devastated by the likes of the IMF and World Bank. Along the way, she loses a shocking amount of weight while rumors swirl that she's shooting dope with her old pal, Marilyn Manson. But she has time to portary the widow of Daniel Pearl and is now being accepted into the Council On Foreign Relations, or the CFR as most conspiracy theorists call it.
Who is Jolie and what is she being groomed for? My hunch is that she is being molded into some form of gaian high-priestess, along the lines of Diana, a fertility queen, a planetary-birth-mother of the sacred mysteries by those who conduct ritual theater on a global scale. She's a modern-day-Mary Magdalene, transformed from a celluloid whore into the handmaiden of an illuminated ressurection, ancient, mysterious, and manifold for a purpose yet to be revealed.
Joe Zawinul 1932--2007
One of the true giants of modern jazz has passed from the body. Joe Zawinul one of the founders of the legendary jazz fusion group, Weather Report dies while on tour at the age of 75.
Zawinul provided the electronic buzz for Weather Report by incorporating synthezisers into the jazz/fusion mix. It was an extension of his keyboard work that he had fleshed out as a studio ace with Miles Davis. In fact, his playing on Bitches Brew helped forge the genre we now know as fusion.
After Weather Report disbanded, Zawinul formed a number of outfits that embraced his increasing appreciation for world music. One night in Santa Cruz, many moons ago, I saw Zawinul with his quartet, which featured guitarist Amit Chaterjee and a fifteen-year-old prodigy on drums. They were expansive, improvistaional, took risks and delivered when it counted.
His energy was a force of nature and his playing and camraderie with the audience and the band oozed passion.
Zawinul was no stonefaced noodler--he channeled joy, intensity and bravado when he played.
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