April 3, 2002
Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada11am. Yesterday was beautiful outside, but I needed to say in to finish grant proposal to the New Brunswick Arts Board. The grant was for $7000, to help fund The FAR OUT Preview Motion Pictures. It's like a test. If you pass, they give you money. There's tons of money out there... you just gotta be clever enough to get it. You need a clear vision that others can see and will want to support... because it will benefit a lot of people. The proposal included a budget, samples of my work(a video tape of my TV series, Extreme Adventures), press clippings, and a 250 word description the project, copied below:
The FAR OUT Preview Motion Pictures Over the past four years, I have shared a journey by kayak from Vancouver to Central Mexico through hundreds of slide show presentations and maintaining a web site viewed by hundreds of thousands of visitors. I am now ready to use the skills and understanding I have developed to make motion pictures that will empower both actors and audience.
I want to work with youth who are having a hard time with school and family life. I want to create opportunities for them to experience wilderness and make music, by being a personal guide and providing them with the tools needed to express themselves in whatever way they please. My philosophy is similar to Shakespeare’s: "all the world is a stage." I desire to change life stories from tragedies… to comedies and adventures. With good direction, I believe that every person can play the part of an action hero.
My first project is a "calling card" film, 10 minutes in length, which will be two previews to movies that don’t exist. Spelunkers, follows a half dozen youth crawling into a nightmare as they explore a massive cave system, and Action Hero Training Camp, shares inspiring highlights of a summer camp for youth seeking direction, as they get high… climbing steep cliffs, and push their limits in sea kayaks.
The film will be available for download off the Internet, and will be taken on tour to schools, theaters, festivals, parks and prisons throughout eastern Canada and United States.
I do a lot of work on the computer. Through my web site it must look like I am outside and partying all the time. That's what I want, but it doesn't work out that way. To keep from being chained 9 to 5 I gotta tap on this keyboard for hours on end, sometimes for days and days, seeking ways to make connections to get done what I need to do. I'll never have vast amounts of money. Every cent I make goes back into the project. I am getting smarter about things--like where the money is and how to get it, and my art is evolving, but there is always something else that needs to be done. I'm never finished.
I'm always on an emotional roller coaster... up and down... high and low. I don't write about most of the bad stuff... cuz I don't want to dwell on it longer than I need to, and it can get too political... especially with family members. Last night I had the blues. It sucked. I'm slowly coming out of it now.
Sometimes I'm thrown for a loop... like Sunday night at the Lookout... with all the boys zoomin'... it was the most intense mixture of joy and fear I've ever experienced. There were flashing lights over the city and on the water toward Nova Scotia. They were not flashing in a pattern, it was as if they were sending and receiving information, like Morse code. It was like a light show with laser beams. I could see the flow of information into satellite dishes on people's houses. And I saw a bunch of red and blue flashing lights moving, maybe cop cars. The city looked like a prison, very still and silent, everyone in their cells, watching the box(the opiate of the masses) or drinking their poison of choice, and everything was under control of the authorities.
A transparent vale of fog draped over the bay and landscape. City lights painted pink the low cloud cover. A ship lit bright with orange lights floated on the water near Canaport--a huge buoy a kilometer off the shore where oil tankers hook up to a hose that connects with tanks that feed the refinery. Mike, standing next to me during the entire crazy scene, told me about a recent encounter he had with a UFO. With my imagination running wild, believing anything is possible, I thought that it could be a space ship fueling up out there in the bay. The flashing lights around the city and on the water could be like those of an airstrip, and I reasoned that floating space craft come here because of the regular fog this area; it would be easy to conceal such an operation. An of course there is the oil refinery, the largest, on one of the most advanced in North America; where else would a space craft get fuel?
None of the others were so amused by the lights, and I'm sure they weren't thinking about space craft, higher powers, and who is controlling things. They were just groovin' with the sound of the waves on the beach below. "You guys just don't understand, man." I told them, "This is crazy. If you guys knew... if you saw what I can see... you'd be freaking out like I am!!!" Mike, however, that boy was a lighting rod. "Just stand there an be open to it." he suggested. "You'll feel it. It's all about openness." I let go of reality and everything I knew, trying to be receptive. Then it hit me, a wave of intense energy, throwing my head back. My mouth was open, gasping for breath, making my spine erect, like an orgasm times ten. I was speechless, unable to describe what I was experiencing. It was a glimpse of something ancient, timeless, all consuming in the present. All it was for real. It would come in waves, flowing up from the earth down below, then pass over our heads, hitting Mike and I simultaneously. We'd let out a few moans and groans, and the other boys would laughs, not understanding. I didn't understand it myself, but it was happening.
Back to the fire, where Joel and Sandi were waiting, I told them about my experience and how it was "life-changing." "There is a higher-power..." I said, "I am now certain of that... and I want to find out more. I need to find others who know about what I am seeing and feeling." They were supportive, but couldn't add anything. I walked off into the forest alone, soul searching and seeking more visions.
The forest was alive and the trees danced as if reflecting off the surface of water. With eyes open or closed I saw streams of lines flowing around me, weaving in patterns like Celtic knots or MC Esher drawings. I also saw images similar to those in Mexican art--likely inspired by peyote and the Shamanic path. It wasn't a matter of using my imagination to be creative, I was satellite dish tuned into a force that was flowin'. It's there all the time; you just gotta be on that level and the frequency. I've never heard about anything like this in the papers, and people certainly don't talk about it around town. The closest I've come to people who know is reading Carlos Castaneda and hearing Ray Manzarek of the Doors, talk in a tape recorded interview about the "Tuluric force."
I went back to the fire and got Mike. I wanted him to look at the flashing light on a tower to see if he saw the same thing--how it was sending information, not just acting like a strobe so planes don't hit it. He confirmed that it wasn't just in my head. I told him that I wanted to do some mass media and change some heads for the good of the world. He suggested we get together again soon to act on these experiences, and write some songs. When we returned to the fire, he sang an original tuned with guitar accompaniment. I dug it.
At midnight, everyone else went home and I got dropped at the AQ. I shared my experience with a bunch of people there, but none of them really knew what I was talking about. Chris told me he had ten doses in the last 14 days, but he didn't seem to experience the intense waves of energy like me. Mostly everyone there was pretentious, shifty eyed, with walls up. On the dance floor, I didn't see couples in the same groove, connecting. They were just a bunch of guys bopping' around girls, and lookin' at their boobs. I want to see relationships--people who are in love... or at least open to finding it, or folks who are just freaking out... celebrating life.
Zooms effect everyone differently. It all depends on your head space. I am beginning to see that I am very different from most people around me, including my family and 99.9% of this city. Unfortunately, when I returned to the Gypsy Camp at 3am, the magic was gone. Everything was the same—mundane; no more dancing trees, crazy visions or lights on towers flashing out information. I know it was real, and it is there still. It is just a matter of being at that level of awareness.
3:10pm Searching the web for "Shamanism", and I'm on this site at the moment.
11:30pm Mike brought egg rolls, I made honey and onion rice, and the other Mike brought chocolate chip cookies. Beauitful grooves were created by three guitars and the personalities behind. I showed a bit of trippy footage shot in Mexico, then we headed to O'leary's Open Mike.
