Interview with Gaze X on punk, art, and activism

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, no. That's fine. That's fine. Go ahead. Let it run. This is one of the craziest things I've ever heard. No, can you scratch that and put on more power? I love this song. More power. All right, sorry. Can we play it later? We can play it later. Well, it'll play under the bed. Okay. Cool. Your choice. Yeah, here we go. That was Gaze X, but this is Gaze X 2. Oh, I see why you want to play this, of course. I get it. This reminds me of the 60s. I was really active and I had one of those jackets with the fist on it. Uh-huh. Red fist on it from the colleges. Well, it definitely caught my attention. It drew me to thelympics when I was little. Obviously, I listened to a lot of cartoons when I was a kid. Yeah, he said. Yeah, he said something about that. Yeah. I pretty much grew up on cartoons. I still watch cartoons all the time. I grew up on cartoons as well. Yeah. There were some amazing cartoons in the 40s, you know, and when I was a kid in the 50s, they were showing those on early television, you know, and it's like they were just running back to back. Okay, but there is a problem. Is that Woody Woodpecker? I don't know. That's funny. That's what I was telling her, I guess. Okay. Wait, no, just let her play. It'll fade out. Cool. Okay, that was Gaze X. Thank you. That's punk if I ever heard punk. Is it? Yeah, pretty much. Even in the punk days, that was sort of an anomaly because I was a little bit older and I'd like really been like very fascinated by Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart and all of those kind of like weirdos from the 60s. So, you know, when punk rock came in, I just had to kind of violate the punk idiom, too. And sort of like mutated. And I ended up in a lot of bands that did like sort of these atonal jazzy kind of things that were, you know, punk attitude, but musically a lot different than what some of the other people were. So, so basically you were into that whole 60s or, but I mean, 60s, but punk, when did punk hit the scene? Punk really hit the scene in the mid 70s. Yes. Right. A little bit later in like 76, 77 is when it began. But there was a lot of people doing weird stuff, even in the 60s. And, you know, I'm old. I have been around for a long time. So, you know, in the 60s, I was very active as a, you know, student radical. And yeah, that was going to be our question. Were you radical in the 60s? Oh, yeah. Okay. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Well, I mean, you know, in the 60s, there was so much going on and there was a lot of culture and there was a lot of underground culture. That was really, for me, the beginnings of underground culture that I became so fascinated by later on. And I'm interested in it to the point where I could say that I really, really, I pursue it almost like a sociologist would. I'm fascinated by, yes, ma'am? I didn't hear you that time. Closer to the mic. Okay. Happily. I am always trying to stay away from the mic because I'm such an egomaniac. So in the 60s, there was a whole cultural renaissance fueled partly by drugs and partly by art and partly by music. I guess you could say. And there was so much new stuff happening, but there was also a lot of change in the air because there was a war. There was a war in Vietnam and we didn't like that. And so there was a tremendous amount of protesting and picket sign waving. And I went, you know, from one area to the other. I sort of like ditched high school to go to UCLA and all the college campuses where all the big politics were going down and, you know, help, you know, print up posters and, you know, print up posters. I'm going to go to UCLA. I'm going to go to UCLA. I'm going to go to UCLA. I'm going to go to UCLA. There were silk screening, all of these like, you know, fists on people's jackets and stuff like that. I'm sure you've seen the pictures of that. So that's something I was like deeply involved with. How about you, Jonathan? Oh, well, in the 60s, I was still pretty much a kid, but I did grow up in a very volatile time in Detroit. Oh, yeah. Detroit had a great scene. Yeah. We, I was. Oh, no. Yeah. No, she's. I told her. That's fine. I'm going to just play it under the bed. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. And growing up in Detroit, in 64, we moved into a neighborhood that was changing from white to black. And we were a white family that had just moved into that neighborhood. And we moved there because our church had decided to stay in the neighborhood and change with the neighborhood. And so we were very. We were very much involved with a changing neighborhood from white to black. And we were the white family that stayed behind. And we had a lot to deal with in that respect. In junior high, we had two whites per classroom. And so a lot of us were getting the flack and the blame for, you know, of course, all the history and everything. Sure. And. But. But by the time I got into high school, I learned that my black friends were my best friends. And in college, I was part of an all black theater company. I was a token white. I played all the villains. That's great. Fun. Okay. Yeah. But Gaze, a little bit more about your history. I mean. Well, so what happened was, you know, flash forward. To the 70s, I was always interested in electronics and science. My dad was a rocket scientist. So I kind of grew up in a very scientific household. And so I got, you know, kind of involved with electronics and also with music very early on. When I was young, I could sort of recite the names of all these classical concertos. And one day my older sister said, well, that's so unhip, you know, and she took me up into the attic and started playing me all these Elvis records and trying to make me name those. And actually, that was really good for me. B. Because that was I got really interested in like, you know, 45 RPM singles, which is where kind of all the one hit wonder kind of songs came from. And in the 60s, things started to move more towards an album format. But in the 70s, that changed again. And what happened was we started, you know, pressing our own records because the record companies wouldn't touch punk rock music. So I ended up, you know, after hitchhiking up and down the coast for a long time and, you know, sort of spreading the word about all these wild kinds of. Musical ideas that I had that I called X music. I sort of landed in L.A. in about 1975 and gradually found my way into the punk rock scene kind of early on when it was just starting to happen. We were watching a lot of things that happened in New York and England and fascinated by that. So we brought together a lot of people, you know, who were interested in, you know, hard rock because there wasn't any such thing in the mid 70s in L.A. that was really nowhere to even play in. And so we started renting halls and starting, you know, punk rock bands. And out of that, you know, I'd had a little bit of experience in a recording studio. So I started spreading the word that I was a record producer. I didn't even know what a record producer did. All I knew was about engineering where you kind of turn the knobs. Well, so there was this legendary punk rock band called The Germs and legendary singer of The Germs called Darby Crash. And he's mostly legendary because he killed himself. You know, he was like very. Nihilistic and suicidal. And he killed himself. And so like now, you know, he's quite well known his name. But he was the first person who tapped me to produce a record and Slash Magazine, which became Slash Records, which became a part of Warner Brothers Records. Slash Magazine was putting out its first record and it was going to be a Germs record. So what happened was Darby sort of tapped me on the shoulder at the notorious Mask Nightclub, which was. M-A-S-Q-U-E. It was like kind of Hollywood's. The Mask is a story of its own. But at any rate, he asked me to produce their record. I said, wow, that'd be great. And and that was the first record that I produced. That was the first, you know, serious Germs record. And that was also the first record on Slash Records. Wow. That's awesome. So we ended up, you know, making our own indie recordings. That was before indie rock, really. And go ahead. No, I was just. Oh, yeah. We ended up having to get them pressed ourselves because record companies weren't interested in what we were doing and taking them literally 500 records to record stores and getting them into distribution that way. Well, that's awesome, man. But the artists, the artwork, if you don't mind just that question, your art is like really, really pretty tight. It's fascinating. You're talking about my art or punk rock art in general? I'm talking about your art. Oh, thanks so much. You know, I started. I started doing art more recently, about 10 years ago. You know, I by that time, I sort of had my beautiful studio in Malibu. And it was like, you know, I had a major hit record called Bitch by this artist named Meredith Brooks. And that sold double platinum. And so I got an opportunity to build my dream studio. And after that was in the works for a long time, I started taking my photographs and mutating them in Photoshop and printing them up nice and big on canvas and turning them into artworks. And so I. Started to get opportunities to put those into galleries. So for about a 10 year period, I was a gallery artist. Is there like a message that you try to convey in your pieces? No, that's what's so funny is that like I'm all message about everything. And then when I do art, it's just to make a pretty picture. It's really, I just want to make it as beautiful as I can. It was a gallery scene. And then there was an art piece and it had words. It was like a skull, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. And it had the words, how you did it. It was a manifesto. I called that. It was a big skull, big red skull. And it had sort of embossed looking words. It was a satire on sort of because, you know, artists, every art movement is supposed to have its manifesto. It was sort of a satire on the art world and on that manifesto idea. And the general thing was it said that digital art is going to replace all of the, you know, ridiculous art of the previous centuries and all that stuff, which is go bye bye and digital art would take over. But. You know, I mean. You were just being crazy, right? Half crazy. In other words, whenever I make a satirical joke like that, the whole point of satire is it's supposed to convey something real behind it. So in the process of like blasting the whole scene, I was also trying to make a point that that whole process of making manifestos and the necessity to do that in order to be a real artist was ridiculous. But at the same time that, yeah, digital art, which is really, really the underdog of the art world. But digital art to this day is like, you know, if you print up a picture, it's considered more like commercial graphics and people will not take it seriously as an art form. And I'm going, why? It's just a whole new texture. It's a whole new palette of possibilities. But they say because it comes out of a computer, it's not like real art and it hasn't been touched by a human hand. Well, I mean. When your wife was in the studio. That's all the animation is these days. Right. Well, I'm just saying I can see that point. I mean, I can. I can see that point. But see, the thing is you touch it with your hands. Because if you are a computer person, which I am, then editing something, this is a good conversation because editing something in a computer, I spend just as much time lovingly nursing something into existence on a computer screen as an artist would with a paintbrush. And then just the fact that when it's done, I push a button and it prints out on a piece of canvas, maybe 40 inches by 40 inches, doesn't take away from the fact that I put a great deal of care into it. But you put your soul into it. As it was. As it was. As it was being developed on the screen. And I mean, I also understand that as well because, yeah, I mean, I can appreciate that and it comes like music. Just a different medium. It's a different set of tools. And the thing is. It's like a rap form versus a classical guitarist or whatever. Exactly. And there was a time when oil paints were the only true art form and then acrylics came out and they were like really high quality. But it's a different kind of color. Acrylics are very vibrant and very sort of pop art and oils are a lot more deeper and sort of like murkier in a way. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. because I had my own printer, you know, and I had to be really conscious of how to get what I saw on the screen to come across and still pop when it came out of the printer. So I was very involved with the printer setups too. Oh, no, it's fabulous. It's like the difference between film and digital as well. Absolutely. Where we used to, you know, take the little frames and actually, you know, splice the film together to edit, and now we do it all on computer. Exactly like the same thing that happens with analog versus digital music, and that controversy still rages. Back in the day, people recorded on tape, and you had to edit the tape in order to put, you know, several pieces of different songs together, and then now everything's being done on the computer, including by me, but they have two different flavors. The tape, the analog still has a certain sound, and the computer has a different kind of sound, and it's exactly analogous to, to film editing, because that changed in a similar way at the same time. So this is the kind of the fine art equivalent of that, where paintings, I believe, can be made in a computer just as readily as they are made by a person's hand, but you're using different sort of hand techniques, and you're doing it on, I mean, some of the stuff is easier to do. It's easier to kind of take a photograph and sort of ruin it in a computer and then make it look like arty and then print it up, but the thing is that it's still a matter of taste. I happen to know, I'm not a painter, so I rely on found pieces. I love found art. I love Duchamp. I was always into Dada, even in the music world, and then when I had an opportunity to sort of do Dada-ish type of things in a computer and then print them up, that's sort of my world. I take a photo of sort of a smudge that I see on a wall somewhere, like something that's left over from some acoustic tile, take a photo of that, put it in Photoshop, morph it until you might not be able to recognize it. I've got a, something like, 23-part series on the Malibu Pier, and the first one was like a photograph done with infrared film, actual film, and then I reversed the colors because that came out all kind of purplish. I got this beautiful goldish kind of color, and then I took that and I put it in the computer, and I continued morphing it, so I have like some of them that I've sold that looks just like the, like an old daguerreotype, you know, that's all gold, almost like gold foil or something, and then as I mutated it further and further, the last one is just like this, this swirl that looks like it's made out of fur, you know, so you doesn't even, you couldn't recognize it as the Malibu Pier. I know, but this is, this is the thing right here, and don't get mad. No worries. Okay. Laguna Beach. The boardwalk, or just over by the ocean, and you got this old guy sitting there with a paintbrush, and he's looking at the sunset, and he's doing that, and he's like, this is the thing, and that, that inspires me to see that, you know, to see that guy out there, but I don't think I'm inspired as much by seeing somebody sitting behind a computer going like this. I mean, your work, I mean, it is, it's, it's a beautiful thing going on inside of you, and your creation is awesome, but I'm like looking at you going like, and then I'm looking at this guy, and I'm seeing, he's got this little, he's got this little stick, and he's holding his hand, so his brush is steady, and he's, he's out there doing that thing, and that inspires me, but I've never really, I mean, I'm inspired by people that, you know, sit and do that. But you've never seen me working on painting on a computer. No. Is it, is it like, It's, there's a certain amount of that to it, and the other thing is that I want to sort of point out that, But do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, but what I also want to kind of point out is that all of this, is a little bit meaningless, unless you actually know how to do something. Like for example, Right. my skills are, I know how to take a real photograph, all the way back to the Ansel Adams School of Photography. I don't particularly like that kind of like perfection thing. I'm more of like a trash can rough it up kind of person. But what I do know how to do is how to take a real photograph. And so for starters, and then second of all, I'm a tech geek to the whatever, you know? Mm-hmm. And so I understand what's going on inside a computer, and that really is my medium because for 20 years, I've been recording computer music and editing. So when I'm on a computer, that's when I'm rocking and rolling and I'm in my world. And so, you know, when I'm really, really taking the time to do the painting, sometimes I just do it on a laptop, but when I really have the time, I have another monitor set up, a large one, and it's more like a canvas. And sometimes I have other tools where I can like, you know, add stuff in. Although I find that a track pad, you know, actually is a rather nice tool you can get, you know, you're used to using it. You could do most of the things that you need to do with one, but I have external things too that I can mutate my art with. You ever take it down by the beach on the board? I thought about that. No, actually it's me. I thought about that. I remember that you have wifi on the beach these days. That's where the camera comes in though, because I take a photograph first and then I alter it. You're brilliant. And I mean, that's, I mean, that's really just, just, just checking you out. It's awesome. And I mean, I mean, I'm really, and I mean, I think a lot of people feel the same way that I do, but I'm checking it out and I'm, I feel honored. And let me say this before I get back on track here, my ministry, Positive Light Ministries, what we, what we do and what we did down in the Skid Row area is that we, we partnered with organizations, organizations that, oh, okay. Organizations that were child programs, with child programs. And what we would do is where they stopped or where they, where they peaked at, we would try to take the child to the next step because when a child reaches a certain point and he can't go any higher, then he goes back down most of the time. So we would give them either job training or art, guitar, you know, something that they could use to try to take them to a higher level. And I believe, you know, the internship that I'm in has given me that same opportunity that I gave or Positive Light Ministries gave to the children down there. And I appreciate you for that because that's, that's what it reminds me of is I can take it if I want, I can take it to the next level. I have an opportunity to go somewhere I didn't have. I didn't have the means or I didn't have an opportunity to go. Got it. And through that. Okay. And with that, I'm going to ask you about the Vortex. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about that. So the Vortex itself is a, is a, it's not technically a nonprofit, but it's run like a nonprofit. It was bought by a visionary named Cameron Melville, the great grandson of Herman Melville. And he, he wrote the book, Moby Dick. And Cameron had an idea. He and I are both sort of, you know, old school Berkeley radicals from the sixties. And he had an idea of creating a community center. That was a true community center that would serve nonprofit groups. And that, you know, in particular, I mean like serve the community, of course, but particularly help nonprofit groups do fundraisers and do their programs for low, very, very low cost. And so he bought a building in downtown LA and fixed it all up. And it's got a venue, a 400 occupancy venue. And what they do is they rent it out just ridiculously cheap. It's the website is vortexla.org. And you can get in there for, you know, with a full on fundraiser for like a couple of hundred bucks a night. And you know, if you have, you know, something smaller like yoga classes and stuff, sometimes there's no charge at all. And they sort of appointed me there, you know, kind of in-house tech geek because they needed someone to do, you know, help them, you know, keep an eye on the PA and do other things. And what I decided to do was I had sort of had a spiritual revolution revelation around the same time they were putting this building together. And I decided that it was about time, you know, getting up there, you know, I'm 62 years old. I decided that I wanted to give something back to them. And I decided that I wanted to give something back to the underground community that had helped me so much over the years, you know, supported me and kept me alive and, you know, all my friends and everything like that. So, you know, I just kind of took my whole studio and, and put it in there, installed it in there and started helping them with their audio and all of their, you know, various computer stuff. And, I, sometimes I think she's tapping on the window. I can't tell. I think she's like, oh, I'm not sure. And so, and so that's what the vortex is. It's a, a, a nonprofit ish community center that is dedicated to helping local groups, you know, build out their vision. Yeah. It's, quite an awesome spot. And, can you give us information how a person could, yeah, all you gotta do is check out the website. It's vortexla.org. And, everything about it is up there. There's an application if you wanted to have an event, and there's a lot of information about how the vortex itself works and what it, you know, kind of what it's about. It's about empowerment basically. And I'm very supportive of that to the point where, you know, they've been kind enough to give me space for the, my studio and to like, you know, really give me sort of a privileged spot in, in the vortex. And so, you know, that's what you might call work trade for them and help them out with their various things. Now, along the way, I saw so many good groups come in that were nonprofit groups or community groups. And so, you know, I decided to start a nonprofit too. I wanted to start a nonprofit that was sensitive to history that was sensitive to documenting, you know, social movements and cultural things and trends that might not otherwise artists, folk artists that might not otherwise be recognized because, because, you know, I come from a background of like a lot of like weirdo bands and stuff like that, that, you know, didn't really, really hit the mainstream and yet had so much, uh, what you might call influence over the, the mainstream itself, either through the art or the music or the, uh, the ideas. So a lot of these things don't really get documented properly. They don't come out in the mainstream magazines. And as we go to a world that's more and more commercialized and that is, uh, you know, corporate controlled more and more by corporate interests, you get less and less opportunity to, um, see things that are sort of off the grid. So one of the purposes of my nonprofit is to either align myself with other nonprofit groups that are doing something worthwhile and document that or find folk movements, folk artists, social movements, trends that are worth, you know, uh, putting a video or recording together. And find a way to get this music and, uh, and art out there or new ideas, new technologies, things like that, that wouldn't otherwise see the light of day. So that's, I have a nonprofit now, and we're just beginning to, you know, flesh that out, but that's the purpose of it. Okay. Now do you have, we're going to, we're going to cut to announcements and then we'll get back to interview with Giza. Okay. Awesome. This is so fun. Elite furniture for affordable prices. Living large furniture. That's living large furniture. For more information, contact Richard Boyd at 951-214-8555. It's 951-214-8555. Melvin Ishmael Johnson and Earlene Anthony of Drama Stage Kumran will resume their free theater workshop this Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Vortex. It's a free course in stage managing, playwriting, and more. Thank you. For more information about this, call Melvin Johnson at 213-479-1764 or email dramastage1 at yahoo.com. I'd like to thank our engineers for helping us out tonight. You guys are doing a great job. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to Positive Perspective. You can check out our podcast for previous shows. Our call-in number is 800-893-9562. You can like us on Facebook at facebook.com slash wearepositively.com. You can visit our website at positivelight.org for more information on making donations and supporting us. Thank you for tuning in to Positive Perspective and back to the show. All right. That was Shante. What's going on out there? Hey, Shante. Okay. Now, what I was going to ask was, do you have to be a 501c3 to nonprofit to- Use the Vortex? Right. Right. Not necessarily. They favor those- Those groups because they're trying to build a sort of a kind of a base of groups that use the Vortex again and again. And the nonprofit groups are usually the ones that are hurting for space and all of that. They need it the most. So, you know, the idea is that they can use the Vortex much cheaper than a other hall that they might want to rent and be able to keep more of the money that they bring in to support their various endeavors. So that's the basic bottom line. But the point that I think I should make is that this all ties in to volunteer work because volunteerism is a sort of a spirit that's kind of like, you know, died a little bit in the 60s. Everybody had a community center and there was all sorts of volunteers within the political arena, the sort of the underground political world. And you don't see that so much. So what I want to do is, if you don't mind, I'll just want to sort of set up the idea of volunteer work and how important it is. And then I want to also pass it on to our other guests. Maybe they have some comments about this. This is something everyone is familiar with. And all of us that do these kinds of shows are really, really kind of in love with the idea of volunteering. But what's happening is that there's a vacuum in America in a lot of ways. And there are so many services that are, you know, kind of just losing money, including schools and including after school programs and including a lot of spaces that used to serve the public, such as parks and stuff. It's all being shut down and turned into private property. And so what happens is, as these large organizations, corporations and private owners take over all of the sort of the public trust, you know, the roads, everything, it's pretty soon we're going to be paying tolls everywhere on every road. That's not funny. It's really, really something that America used to be about having a sort of, you know, you know, services that were for everyone. And we've lost that. So it's all. It's a little more important that people, you know, if they have the time, you know, for people that like, you know, have additional time, young people, elderly people, people after work, if they're not like, you know, exhausted and like, you know, wherever there's time and space and the inclination, people need to pour a little bit of love into their local communities. It's great to join the local neighborhood council. I was in the neighborhood council for two years, once in Boyle Heights and once in downtown. It's fascinating. It's, you know, not so much that, you know. It's a lot more like you learn about what all of the services are that are available. And then you can sort of relay that to your local community. That's super important. Another thing is that if there are places, there's a lot of places people can volunteer after school programs. There's all sorts of like, you know, centers that the city sets up and then they don't really get that much use because people don't really, really realize that they're there. People can also volunteer in their churches and their local communities. So with that being said, I just want to pass it along and, you know, see if. Either of you might have some comments about volunteering in a local way. Yeah, I grew up with my family in church and we did a lot of volunteer stuff all growing up and all. And and also my dad was a veteran. And so in New York, I was able to get involved with what was called the Veterans Bedside Network. That. We would go into hospitals, the psych wards and the drug and rehab wards, and we would record old radio shows or television shows with the patients taking all the parts and then they'd listen to it back. And it would give them a good feeling. And I don't know if it's still around, but I hope it is. That's very cool. I completely, completely agree with that. Well, I think part of. What's gone on with society today is the kids don't have enough to do when they get out of school and not they do is they get in trouble because they don't have a lot of the after school programs. They've taken away so much of the art and the music that kids used to be in even sports to play sports. Now you have to pay for your uniforms, pay for everything. It's out there. Not everybody can afford it. You know, when I was growing up, there was all kinds of things, you know, the parks offered. Um. Free art programs that you could go into on Saturdays and you had in the summertime all kinds of even the schools were opened up that had not summer school, but programs that were in there that you could do or there was, you know, the churches all had some kind of a, um, you know, like a Girl Scout or Boy Scout or some kind of an organization that you could go to. And right now, so many kids don't have that. And then both parents are working. So kids come home to empty houses and, um, they get in trouble because there's nothing. There's nothing for them to do to occupy their time or to occupy their minds. So I think volunteering, you know, the more that you can volunteer and try to get the community and the kids in the community involved in something just raises the level of the whole area on up. Yeah. I mean, it's a very deep conversation and I want to. Yeah. Well, I was going to say that. I mean, there's resources, but they're like you're saying they're decreasing or they're kind of more geared towards a specific. Age group where I think older kids may be more interested in things that aren't available because they cost more money, you know, in terms of music or instruments or things like that. But I think it's it's a lot easier to try to reach out to kids that are younger than it is to reach out to the older children in high school and try to see what it is that would keep them like nice was saying off the streets or off doing things that are nonproductive. Well, I think that you'd have to reach them before they got to high school. I think that would probably be the biggest edge you could have. No, I mean, there's things for kids that aren't in high school. But I mean, when they reach a certain age, they're interested in different things. They get interested. But if you have somebody teaching them or mentoring them at an earlier age, then they might, you know, of course, they're going to be interested in different things. But what I'm saying, it might not be where they're going to go the wrong direction. I found a fantastic statistic here that might be just right, right on what we're talking about. Our current California attorney general, she did a study. And she discovered that a third grade reading level affects elementary truancy, specifically the third grade. And, you know, obviously, elementary truancy, if you're dropping out of elementary school and like you're being a truant, that affects high school dropouts, which causes gangs and jails and death in the college ages, which leads to a loss of about a third of the potential of African-American males. And. Billions of federal dollars in support. It also costs California billions in incarceration and crime. Therefore, support of third grade education is the key to all of this. That's a crazy thing. That's why I wrote it down. I was just like, wow. Well, I think it's like what Shante was saying. There is a lot of things for elementary schools. But once the kids get out of elementary school, you know, let's say I was interested in, you know, playing basketball in an after school program. I was interested in learning how to play a guitar. They have those things in the elementary school. But when they get into middle school and into high school, it's few and far between. And it costs a lot. And these kids may not be able to afford it or they don't have the means of how to get there because they're not necessarily at their school. It's just a limited amount of students that can do it. Exactly. And so what happens is you have the handful that can and the hundreds that can't. And so they find other things to do. And a lot of times it's not good things and it's not productive. But they have. They have the interest at elementary school age. Okay. Well, volunteering is always, you know, I mean, it's they say when you're depressed, go help somebody. Right. Totally. That's also it. So, but the problems America's facing. Well, I mean, that's the that's what exactly what we were covering. It's like the whole point of all of this is that America has lost a lot of its infrastructure. And it's not going to be given back. I mean, it's like the powers that be are finding ways of pulling money out of the system and pulling resources out of the system and pulling resources out of the planet. So it's like this stuff is not going to be given back. We have to take it back simply by creating new resources or making community resources of our own. And so that's kind of like, you know, in terms of there is the problems are obvious now from what we've discussed. The solutions, I mean, are a little bit less obvious. Because, see, to me, one of the bugs in all of the the woodwork, the the the termites in all of this are the mainstream media. The mainstream media support the powers that be in every possible way. And they're part of the hypnosis that's being thrown at people. We're being hypnotized by, you know, what you might call really mainstream religion, the type of evangelism that's really just interested in money. And then we're being hypnotized by mainstream. Right.lymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymplymp techniques of mind manipulation. And then the behavioral scientists kind of got a hold of it, did a lot of experimenting, and then it ended up in the hands of advertisers. And so now in this era, basically the advertisers are using all of the behavioral science techniques that were invented by the army and the Nazis, you know, to brainwash people. Well, that's what the special interest groups do. They got the money, you know, from advertisers, big business, you know, they go out for their specific need or whatever they're pushing at that time. And that's what everybody gets exposed to. And that's what the politicians go after because that's where the money's at. And that's what they think is going to draw the votes in to get them back in for, you know, for next year. It's like job security. I'm going to give you what I think is going to get the votes back and where the money's at that's going to keep me going. And the media supports all that. Perfect. And the thing is, when we hear the word lobbying, a lot of times, you know, we think of one specific thing, but what she just described is really the backbone of what lobbying is about. It's much deeper than just somebody trying to support one little project or one little cause. It's a whole orchestrated machine that is an empire really built around commercial advertising and the products that the corporations that create those products. And so the next... The need for independent media has never been greater because we are in a world of hypnosis. And if you talk to someone who's a steady TV watcher versus someone who's not a steady TV watcher, you really can see the difference because people, they have been pushed into two sort of armed camps, Fox News versus MSNBC. And they see a very, very small slice of international politics and history, but they will argue, and they will argue it to the death. And the reality of it is that both of those things are completely fake. There's just the smallest picture of the world. I had a political science teacher that was saying that, and he was showing us those kind of news stations versus like Democracy Now! or just different news outlets like that. Exactly. Well, even take the sad scene with what was going on in the French with the shooting of the terrorists that went on there. The media is so quick, to want to get out a story. They don't care if they get the facts right. It's whatever's still in the story. And you're listening to the news, and they're telling you in the kosher restaurant, all the hostages are free. All the hostages are killed. There's some getting out. There's one terrorist. No, there's five terrorists. And it was every second something was coming out. And depending upon what news channel you went to, it's like, man, what's going on? Can't someone just wait one second? Let's see, try to get a clear picture. Try to get a clear, true story of what's going on. Of what actually is going on? Or like Gayser would say, don't watch it, right? Yeah, well, that's what I do. I just don't watch it. But I mean, it's like they're going out because I have to get that news thing out first. Everybody wants to get it first and get credit. They get the credit for it, and then they get a bigger portion of who's going to be watching. Then the advertisement means I'm going to put more in advertising because 50% watched this news channel, only 5% watched this one. The one that had the 5% might have actually had the actual truth that went on, while the other ones were just throwing stuff out. But that's, you know, people were just throwing stuff out. People were glued to it, so that's where the money's at. She's just wrapped up the economics that drives the whole thing. That's exactly what the deal is and what the problem is. And that's why we're talking about independent media as an alternative to that. I'd like to go back to the lobbying thing. Any of you saw the movie Abraham Lincoln? And I'm not sure, the latest one. Oh, with Daniel Day-Lewis, yeah. Yeah, they showed in there to get that amendment passed, and it was a, it was a form of lobbying because he was going to the Republican or the Democrat at that time and trying to get that vote. And they were offering him jobs and offering him, and it just really showed lobbying. The true politics at its best, probably. Right, and you know, you never, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. And I mean, I never knew what it took or, you know, why he was so passionate about it, but it showed, it showed the lobbying. And it's just on super, super steroids now with all the money. And it's crazy what we could do with the money they're spending now just on campaigns. You could heal the whole Skid Row area down here 18 million times over. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, because it's a whole technology. They know exactly how to do it now. So everybody just tried to like kind of out, outdo each other by doing it bigger. Well, everyone knows that. Yeah, and that's what I love about the game. It's all about hypnosis. Where's all the money coming from? Elections only, businesses and people, yeah. Big companies. Yeah. It's crazy. So the antidote, as I say, it's that, you know, my whole life story has been about independent media. I'm just trying to expand from just audio into doing multimedia with video as well. Okay, so did you touch on your education system? Did you already? Well, so now what happened was, when I started the nonprofit, I started training interns for the Vortex. The Vortex needs volunteers, and we've kind of talked about why that's important. And so, you know, I collected a few of you all, you know, to help out. And each person came in with a different level of skill and with different skills. And so what's cool about that is I was able to put together a small class of interns and, you know, really take advantage of the fact that one person had some background in video, another person had some background in audio, another person had background in stagecraft. And, you know, each of these people that I am now training as interns for the Vortex and for my nonprofit already came in with something. And what I decided to do was to put together a sort of a comprehensive but simple multimedia class around that, kind of Multimedia 101, with the general notion that I wanted to turn it into a sort of a launching pad for all of these ideas of how to build independent media and possibly train people to go and export this to other cities and to set up little seedlings like what I'm doing here in downtown L.A., thanks to the Vortex empowering me to do that. There's other places in other cities. If we put together people who know how to do this stuff, people inevitably end up moving and migrating, and then they could just go out and start some of these things in other places. So my educational model, and my, my system is a pay it forward educational system. I feel like I have been paid and helped by the underground that sort of brought me up. And I've learned a lot of skills and I've been allowed to do a lot of things inexpensively or even for free. Well, so basically my students, I collect this class and I'm teaching it for free. But the, the, the deal, you know, if you want to call it that, is that when you guys learn this, you're going to pay it forward and I'm going to teach you. And so I've been able to do that. And I've already begun by allowing each person to sort of teach a class in the areas that they have expertise. And once they learn these things from me, then also I want to set people up to teach them to the next batch of students and also to teach it to each other. So there's a high level of interaction in my intern classes. And, you know, if anyone is interested, I'm always willing to talk to new candidates. I have to keep the classes smaller. I can't like, you know, pack a punch with them. But, um, you know, there's usually use room for like, you know, five to 10 people at a time and not everyone shows up at every class people have to drop in and drop out as their work sort of dictates to. So, you can look it up on the vortex website and that we could talk later. But, um, the general idea is that what I want to do is I want people to learn it and then I want them to teach it to others and that I want them hopefully to even go to other cities. You know, we're planning some possible tours and things like that. So I'm hoping that that's what I do. So I'm hoping that that's what I do. So I'm hoping that that's what I do. that but that's later down the road i don't want to get sidetracked but all of this is basically forms of grassroots activism which is what i think is one of the most important things in the world and because i have a strong background in that and i've read a lot of things about it and seen it in action in a couple of three different generations now first in the 60s and then in the punk rock thing in the 70s and also i'm involved with so many you know kind of burners and you know tribal people that go to festivals and all that kind of stuff these days you know listen to dance music um that's a whole third generation of people that are doing very similar things you know local community grassroots activism and the spirit isn't dead it's just uh found itself in you know different little areas what i like to do what i've always been good at is sort of back in the day i was hitchhiking up and down the coast and sort of spreading the word you know now i'm a little older i can't hitchhike maybe i'll hit it in a van or just you know send people out to different cities you know after they kind of have got a little crash course and grassroots activism and get some skills with the multimedia because to my mind the independent media is going to be the thing that sort of if we want to save the country we need independent media that's not lying to us because that's what the mainstream media is doing okay you think and i always sorry i always go ahead you think the country can be saved i think that people can be saved i think that what What it is is that the country isn't really a country. Nothing is really like what it appears to be. It's more like groups of people that agree on things and love each other enough, just give a crap enough to stick together and to support certain ideas. And you think that's possible in this time and age? I think it's possible if people get past the hypnosis and the brainwashing of the mainstream media. But you think that the media is the whole fault or the whole reason that things are the way they are? If I had to find a culprit, it would be the media, the mainstream media. But the mainstream media is an appendage. It's like an organ of corporate law, of large corporations. So if you want to really, really find, and this is controversial, but if you really, really want to find, the problem at the heart of all of it, it's corporate law, the thing that has allowed corporations to act like living things. And a corporation is like a Frankenstein monster. It can live for 300 years. And it's devoid of conscience because its mandate is to just make as much money for its stockholders as possible. So corporations are sort of this strange, spiritless, kind of creation that was created sort of by fiat, you know, by like just the stroke of a pen. And that generates conditions that have now resulted in all of the billboards and all the advertising and all the brainwashing and all of this sort of the mass media because the mass media is ruled really by advertising. Do you believe in voting? I believe in voting, but I find myself not doing it very much. Because I don't really, really see that the options are very good. And unfortunately, that dilutes the process of voting by all of us sort of despairing and giving up before we get a chance. But, you know, we're not being given very good options. And the options are manipulated. So I vote with a camera. I vote with a microphone. That's how I vote, is I get stuff down and get people to see it. Well, I mean, I understand that. I'm right there with you on that. That's the same way I feel. And I've failed. I've felt that way for many, many years. And just seeing through it, in my opinion, the only reason they let us vote is so we can... Yeah, you feel like you're... You feel like you're... Making a difference. Making a difference. Once I saw how the whole Bush election went down and how much fraud and manipulation was taking place there, and the fact that all of these votes in America always end up like sort of 51 to 49, I'm like, how is that even possible? This is such a huge country. That's just too weird. And so, you know, it's just Fox versus MSNBC. And I give up. You know, I mean, I watch MSNBC if I watch anything, but I don't feel like it's giving me that much better of a perspective than Fox. It's just a few shades of gray down in ugliness. Yeah, I don't really... Me, I'd still rather just watch my cartoons. I watch a lot of cartoons. Adventure Time. Yeah. So, okay. Well, any final... We're going to wrap this up. Any final comments? No, I just wanted to say that, like, I've been finding it really exciting to do this intern class because it's really, really given me an opportunity to focus a lot of the things I've thought about over the years. And it's sort of an experiment for me, too. I'm learning my chops now of how to, like, you know, cement some of the ideas. I have on social theory and how to make some kind of a change possible. And that's the way to do it, huh? Yeah. And Jonathan? Yeah, we want to change the world however we can. And it seems daunting at times. But if we all get a more positive attitude out there, we can do it. That's probably a key to being positive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. change it. just the two seconds that you may say, and it's something that you've always said, good morning, how is your day going? You know, that could change the whole outlook on their day that way, or their whole outlook on their life. And I think if more of us tried to give back a little bit, instead of always being out there grabbing what we can get for ourselves, that would, as Jonathan was saying, be a lot more positive attitude and would make the world to me a lot better of a place instead of everybody just being for themselves. Chante Marie. Go ahead, just show world. Sum up what everyone else was saying. I think I would agree with that. And I think just finding something that you're passionate about, something that you're good at and learning it and well, and generating a message that's positive and teaching other people how to find what they're good at, find their passions, their gifts, and being willing to give of yourself. And pour into someone else that needs it. I have one more thing. I think if you believe in something, then you need to stand your ground and be able to go out and not be afraid to say, this is what I believe in. This is what I stand for. Instead of bending over to, you know, because you're afraid of what somebody else may think, what somebody may say. But when you believe in something, go for it. Oh, that's deep. Okay. With that being said, I'm going to say we are never more like Jesus Christ than when we are loving, forgiving, or creating. And that's our show. Thank you for tuning in to Positive Perspective. Don't forget healing. Bye.