My heart is pounding.  The elevator seems exempt from the consequences of time.  The doors slide open.  The waiting room is filled with the presence of seven other women and an almost unbearable tranquility.  I take a seat.  “Breathe, just breathe,” I repeat to evoke solace hidden by the pulsing of my chest.  I am all but exasperated at the thought of seeing him.  Him.  Minutes pass before I’m asked back into a room.  Palms wet and my body shaking, I take off my shoes, socks, pants.  The cold chair meets my naked thighs. Legs pulled unceremoniously apart.  A woman smiles and says something I do not understand.  The chattering of their voices competes with the thoughts in my own head.  Then it happens.  Without warning.  Without ceremony.  Without my consent.  The most degrading, isolating, and sterile experience of my life unfolds and assaults my intimate space.

A curtain is pulled across my torso and face, separating me from my vagina, and the doctor from the rest of me.

The foreground is blurred by the pale blue curtain and the once comforting eyes of the women’s faces disappear.  I cannot see the doctor or any of his female staff.  I try desperately to pull the curtain.  Voices erupt.  I am unable to decipher any of the foreign tongue they are speaking.  A battle erupts between myself and my womanhood.  I feel ashamed.  I feel scared.  I want desperately to rip the curtain away and expose the doctor, the nurses, the metal apparatus, take my vagina and run.  I want to feel connected, not cut off.  Why am I being separated, forced into seclusion?  Is my body, my vagina, so unsightly that to see my face would induce shame?  Metal clamps close and hold my feet to the extensions of the chair.  I feel a brisk breeze… down there.  Then chilled water and rough hands handle my vagina.  Instruments are inserted and reinserted.  Fingers touch and disappear.  It hurts.  The exam begins and I’m in tears.  The words I hear, I do not understand and I can see absolutely nothing, but worse, no one.  My face, my personality, my thoughts… me, have been separated from my front parlor, my bower of bliss, my slash. Loneliness, guilt, ignominy.

The exam concludes.  Finally, I hear some form of the Japanese lexis I understand.

“Finished.”

I keep the curtain a secret, afraid that it might reflect something indisputably ugly about me and my box.  I suffer in the dissonance between my fury and absolute bewilderment for days, weeks.  Finding the courage to ask the very question that haunted me, I approach my female Japanese friends months later.  They blush and admonish me for talking about “that doctor” in public.  The niceties of my apology conclude and they entertain my queries.  The response given forever changed how I understand myself and my silent beard.  In their words, the curtain was to “save face”, to protect a woman’s prestige from the horror of her valley and judgment of others.  As this social theology seeped into my awareness, a prism of self-loathing was cast, enslaving my voice and harnessing my rage.  This inception of separation and the cultivation of hard-earned anxiety is what urged me to search for a map to my own great Divide and muse over the possibilities of genuine appreciation of self.

The curtain exemplifies a world view held common in Japanese culture.  Discrepancy and class are of the utmost importance; and furthermore, disgrace is avoided even at the cost of expendable sanity.  Men work eighty hours a week with no respite from company expectations or concrete slated cubicles; and for women to emote beyond patience or pleasure would relegate both status and composure.  Teachers apologize for the fault of their students, businessmen relinquish reputation for the sake of net gain, and families expel income of grandiose proportion for the aesthetic of daily ceremony.  Thus, “saving face”, the perfect masquerade, is not only a keystone of tradition; it is the glue binding one person to another.  Hence, a woman and her OB/GYN will never meet, exchange glances, shake hands or bow.  Vagina and face will be joined only for the sake of marriage, childbirth, and pornography.  For the Japanese woman, muff munching, penetration and child bearing as a defining characteristic of eroticism are removed. Sexuality is viewed as an action, not an adjective.  A discussed vagina is cultural taboo, not an enjoyed, shared endeavor.

Japanese women are expected to be subservient, pretty faced, and sexually willing house wives.  Forgive my undulation, but might I also mention that Japanese women are intelligent, cunning, and angelically kind, in addition to being beautiful.  My adoration for the olive toned women fueled my ire against Japanese men for three years.  I felt them to be ignorant, debasing, controlling and chauvinistic.  More specifically, I spent those years fearing men and pitying women.  The women were, in my mind, the victims. Husbands and boyfriends alike are allowed to work insurmountable hours without regard to family time or romantic courtship.  Affairs are frequent and encouraged, while wives are expected to raise children and find little time for social excursions, let alone time with other men.  God forbid women pursue management level positions or exude any small hint of evolved intelligence.

But after a time, I felt my anger being redirected.  I stopped detesting the men, and started resenting the women.  Japanese women seemed complacent in their status…and the status of their uterus.  Unwilling to fight for the freedom they deserved and on a daily basis, earned.  They seemed so engrained in the culture that had been created to imprison them.  Pursuing higher education mostly for the attainment of status and spending their life of matrimony preparing dinners for partners that would never come home.  And when the breadwinners finally do make it through the doors of home and cross the welcome mat, they are grey haired and crippled, from years of arduous employment and tireless commitment to the ladder of corporate gain.  Nevertheless, to my horror, they seemed happy.

Or were they?  How could an individual, a gender, a sex, a society, a people, be happy amidst the slow and protracted separation of their bodies from their minds?  Shopping, nail salons, and children’s homework can only kindle a marriage and personal happiness to a point.  What about the happiness of their beaver?  According to Health News and researchers at the University of Chicago, sex is more satisfying in countries where women and men are considered equal.  Big surprise, but Japan ranked lowest in satisfaction at 25.7 percent.  This may be due, in part, to the vacancy of passion after a long day’s work, or to their husband’s penile selfishness.  But fundamentally, most of their dissatisfaction comes from not only the emotional barrenness of their marriages, but from the metaphysical, earthly, and cultural separation from their vaginas.  Japanese women may appear to succumb to the institution of good manners, but they are absolutely candid about one thing – their happiness.  If given the chance to speak, albeit in private, they will give you an answer with remarkable sincerity.

The curtain speaks, the answer is given.

They recognize they are sexually unhappy and different from many of their Western female counterparts.  They look in the mirror every day and live with its reflection; the shape that culture and stereotype have given them.  The longer they look at their silhouette, the more their vaginas tremble with rage.  A movement is happening within Japan, the women are awakening.  Divorce rates are higher, working mothers are more prevalent, and their voices are unifying.  They are seeking autonomy and stultifying the bounds by which they were historically functioning.  Their madges are arousing to the beauty of amalgamation.  The reflection is shattering and the prism that was defining it is being broken.

Are you looking in the mirror?

American women pride themselves on being fierce, independent, and sexually aware.  Women’s suffrage, the right to vote, the right to equal pay, the consequent dismantling of the glass ceiling… the Vagina Monologues.  Arrogant, condescending, land of liberty, beautifully strong women we are.  Yet, I’ll ask again.

Are you looking in the mirror?

Japanese women are simultaneously apprehending and defying the rules of expectation. Working, vacationing, studying, preening skill sets, and all the while raising their families.  This is not different from the Western woman.  Yet the kinesthetic movement on the road of feminine actualization between East and West are elementally dissimilar.  While Japanese women are awakening, American women are bathing in a stagnant political and edifying debate, leaving them drenched in apathy.  The American feminist movement has become gridlocked in the prose and verbiage of policy, public opinion, and ethical ideals, rather than on the pragmatism that serves its female community.

One could argue that cultures evolve at different times and that the West’s apathy is only a temporary plateau on the road of socio-cultural development.  However, apart from a metaphysical geographic qualifier, American women and men are listless to the plight of an ongoing problem.  We have become too satisfied with historic defeats and have stopped fighting the battles of today.  It is a fallacy to believe that Japanese women are more willing to change their imprisonment or better equipped to dissect sexual nuance and its implication of self.  But it is imperative to realize they are fighting the battle of vaginal independence, not a war of historical attrition.  This is not about feminism for them.  It is about a way of life, quality of happiness, and a connectedness to sexuality as it serves their character, not their cause.

I was consumed by the fire, the “spiritual” movement of women’s suffrage in Japan, only to come home and find a feeble flame: lame-duck feminism.  American women seem defined by the struggle; a silent acceptance of a slow evolution to rightful citizens and a refusal to move beyond the cause.  Forgive my grandiose emotive, but the Western feminist movement is a hollow abyss with nothing but taboo and political squabbles to fill its void.  Like many extremist movements, our edition of feminism has detached itself from the soul, leaving only a facade of resonating purpose.

The curtain is taking form right here in America with nothing but our own apathy to fuel its push and pull, its pert game of hide-and-seek.  Take away your patronizing torch and crown of ego, Ms. Liberty and look at your wavering reflection.  You are no more evolved than your Asian friends.  You are serving the same boundaries, the same limits, the same taboos.  You are placating the chains, the shackles, the constructs that separate you from your horny box.  You do this every day that you ignore the constructs that define who we are, by misusing and bastardizing the language that defines your snatch; every day that you idly tolerate the tactless, verbose mouths of men and women that demean or dishonor someone, something, in the name of a vagina.

The blooms of apathy are translucent and its penalty to the vaginal psyche apparent.

Addressing the roots, the origins, of female apathy in the US, while bedrock to the story, are not being contemplated for this article.  Rather, I implore you to marinate on the battle inscribed for today’s perpetrators.  You.  The battle that you have with yourself every time you use the word pussy to name someone weak, or cunt to debase your ex-girlfriends or friends.  Every time you use a woman’s vagina as a metaphor, a vehicle to enact disgrace.  You buy music, impart slang, and feed the credence that keeps women miserable and separated from their sexuality.  You.  You and I are the women and men that warrant retribution for forwarding the vernacular that succumbs to popular use without regard to its implied meaning, or its systematic destruction of our vaginal ego.  Raise both your awareness and conscious in regard to the daily prose you employ to color a woman’s bits and pieces.

In a study by Gartrell and Mosbacher,

“39.8% of males and 29% of females learned correct anatomical names for male genitalia as children. In contrast, only 6.1% of females and 17.7% of males learned correct names for female genitalia. Most respondents learned either euphemisms or no names for female genitalia as children. Whereas male respondents acquired a complete vocabulary for male genitalia by a mean age of 11.5 years, female respondents did not complete their anatomical vocabulary for female genitalia until a mean age of 15.6 years.”

Females were nearly 4 years behind genital vocabulary completion at 15.6 years of age and less accurately learned correct names of their own vaginas.  The use of slang exists to fill a deficit.  The problem lies in the result. Slang is perpetuated without observance of connotation even at a young age.  This offers some insight as to the beginnings of incorporating slang into our lexis, but it does not defend its continued use as an adult.

Consider this:

Cunt: Compact Oxford English Dictionary – Unpleasant or stupid person.

Pussy: Wikipedia sites its uses for cat, genitalia, and weakness.

Snatch: Urban Dictionary – Applied when describing genitals that are presumed to be filthy or disgusting.

Three different dictionaries, three different words.  All illuminate the tantamount flouting of a woman’s valley.  The affray that is brewing between a woman and her camel toe can no longer be ignored.  Apathy is no longer acceptable, it is repugnant.

How is it that Austin Powers can have an entire ten minute parade of fruit and other household objects prancing about as a reckless attempt at penis humor, but to do the same with a woman’s clef would be tasteless, crass, and even rude.  The F.C.C. allows Offspring to chant popular slang for the male genitalia via “Why Don’t You Get a Job”, boasting “dick” every other score.  Yet the same F.C.C. prohibits use of the word “pussy” in Khia’s “Lick My Pussy.”  Is this acronym for the female labia so offensive as to be publicly silenced?  It implies nothing more than a pair of lips between a woman’s legs.  Yet it clearly, according to regulation, warrants ban from radio play. Dick vs Pussy slang: which is the ultimate winner in cultural prohibition?  The F.C.C.’s consistently biased crusade suggests a fundamentally moral juxtaposition.

More over, why do women insist on referring to their vaginas not only as dirty, sexual black holes, but as pretty, nonsexual organic blossoms.  The use of flower is almost as insulting.  When my legs are spread for either a doctor, a man, or a woman, my vulva hardly feels like a flower.  Names, synonyms, colloquialisms, are all important in coloring, texturizing, and sharing the many forms of oral expression that make up our perspectives and world views.  But to do so without honor, tenderness, consideration, and poignancy is robbing a woman of the connection between her and her labia.  It is causing a rift between who we are as women and who we are as individuals.

This language is our curtain and we are pulling its cord.  The historical archetype of a male-dominated society is no longer the culprit of our separation anxiety.  We are a country of equal opportunity and equal rights.  A Western nation governed by vaginas and dicks, donkeys and elephants, and people of all colors.  As a woman who may fit into any or all of these determined modes of description, re-indoctrinate the brush that paints your language.  Uphold the value of a woman’s Divide by reaffirming fidelity of language to its meaning.  Implore that our own tongue can be conscious and your intention gentle.  Reunite your sexual body with your spiritual mind.  This is not a call for the elimination of battered slang, but of the extension of sexual adjective as confidentially beautiful, not morally degrading.  Be the action that preserves integrity, not the hypocrisy that compels the cause.

I will not shed tears or tremble. I will not spread my legs without question and dignity.  I will take my vagina and tear down the curtain that disconnects me from my Divide.  I will not be shamed or scared.  I will not relinquish control or feel fear. I will face my friends, my families, my doctors, my pussy, with gravity and care.

I am my vagina, my vagina is me, and I am the woman behind the curtain.

I mean, we are undisputedly becoming a nation of porkers. Data courtesy of the World Health Organization states that there are “more than 1 billion overweight adults, at least 300 million of them obese.” Damn, Gina. Could this be because we deem a Burrito Supreme from Taco Bell, washed down with a Starbucks blended-milky-gut-bomb-‘accino, to be a frigging moveable feast?

I can just hear you now, my fair reader. You’re snorting at my inevitable forthcoming utopian malarkey regarding the scrutiny; or, lack thereof, when it comes to what we chow down on. You already have me pegged as some obnoxiously contrived vegetarian elocutionist that believes everything she hears, like a thirsty sponge, dabbling in conspiracy theories and deriving great rapture from making everyone around her feel like inadequate Neanderthal shits for eating fast food and red meat and multi-beaked chickens.

Shoot, player; you’re good. It’s as if someone handed you my curriculum vitae. I suddenly feel rather close with you.

The question of why we collectively have such yawning lassitude for what we digest is, in large, a taboo topic labeled of less import than what type of car we drive. Yet, it is one that we should be discussing daily given its direct correlation with the uproar in our health care system. You see, obesity-related diseases (i.e., diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, respiratory problems and stroke) “account for nearly 10% of all U.S. medical spending, an estimated $147 billion a year.” Might we begin to determine how we can reconcile this paradigm shift from a nation of producers to one of gluttonous, ennui consumers, and rekindle the concept of active lifestyles centering on mindful eating habits, thereby lowering those staggering statistics? Diet notwithstanding, I’m not going to preach too long on what you should eat and why; rather, I’m going to think aloud, albeit erratically, about what drives us to consume empty calories at a rate that decimates not just our environment, but our bodies. Moreover, why do we consume, in general, with such disregard to the long term affects, whether that be food, oil, rain forests, or pharmaceuticals?

Why have we become a nation entrenched in such irrevocable short-sightedness?

Since when is the “here and now,” more important than forecasting where we might position ourselves if we aren’t more cautious when it comes to our slovenly food habits and lifestyles? This is no case of the chicken or the egg and which came first, the bad food or our bad habits. It is about how to redeem ourselves and take back our health. It’s about no longer taking up two seats on the fucking airplane because we feel entitled to that Filet ‘o Fish and large fry. It’s about the people that are not genetically predisposed to be heavier and have a true handicap when it comes to their proportions. It is about those that could be thin, but consciously choose not to be.

I’m prepared to incur the wrath of those who feel we are too concerned with weight, and I’m being callous and abrasive, inconsiderate and myopic. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Part of my bewilderment stems from when a person makes the most ardent attempts to eat thoughtfully and consciously, attentive to what enters their body, why it seems they are looked down upon contemptuously by others who feel there should not be so much agonizing over what we eat; and, oftentimes, they are met with the old reproach of ‘we’re all going to die one day regardless.’ Well, there is one tiny flaw with that “logic,” since the advent of the pharmaceutical snake-and-apple-abundant Garden of Eden we have concocted to solve, or at least mask all of our aches and pains. What if you aren’t going to die some natural death at the age of sixty, but thanks to synthesis of our ubiquitous prescription drugs that keep us hanging on for empty dear life, and our noxious food making us more portly by the day, you’ll be anything but dead. Rather, you’ll be a depressed, overweight, doped-up geriatric nearing ninety-five that only wishes they could die. Oh joy! Good Times ain’t just a fast food restaurant, homie.

I told someone the other day that I was nearing the end of a two week cleanse, which had required a bit of fortitude on my part given that I had to forgo any alcohol, caffeine, simple carbohydrates, some fruit, and of course dairy and meat. While I realize for many this sounds masochistic, to me it was not so far removed from the norm, as I always have been very circumspect when it comes to choosing my meals, and do not intend to adapt any time soon, as I much prefer to be acutely cognizant of precisely what enters my effing bloodstream and digestive tract. Call me foolishly quixotic, but I like being aware. Heck, you can even call me high-maintenance or picky; I’ll graciously accept your indirect compliment. Coincidentally, (depending on how you look at it), my co-worker was hospitalized with E.coli the week I began writing this, so any argument you may have had about my diet restrictions just flew the nasty chicken coop. Alas, my poor co-workers sure are used as fodder quite often in my rambles, so allow me to take a moment to apologize.

Sorry Brian.

Poor Brian’s intestines will likely never fully recover from his brush with the nasty bacteria which he contracted from eating ground beef.

When I say we’re becoming too rotund for our own good, and we’re viewed as the tubby kids on the global playground, this is not to say that other nations are the genetically-superior slender kids in school picking on the poor little fat boy. No; in fact, we are the bully and the fat boy, all rolled into one. We are Americans, and while our dimpled thighs grow more thunderous with a cushion no longer conducive to pushing without the fear of suffocating our lover, so does the breadth with which we share our predilection for things resembling food. What we eat looks good, smells good, tastes great and has very little nutritional value. We have perfected attractive, aesthetically-pleasing packaging under with which lurks evil. Other countries have sampled a taste of the sugar-loaded pseudo-food that we have exported to their urban centers, and they have noticed an increase in their pants sizes due to the dangerous exposure to the Standard American Diet (SAD). Frankly, when I think of the U.S. being an influential maverick in the global economy, I do not welcome the image of our persuasion that of making foreigners chubby. I want to see us fostering certain proclivities toward better ways of living and lifestyle rather than contributing to quantitative tipping of the scales even outside our continental borders.

Much like global warming before anyone gave a damn, what we eat, how we eat it and the physical ramifications, is not being taken with considerate seriousness. And, instead of conjuring warranted and necessary debate and thoughtfulness, it sparks disdain and condescension from the meat-eaters and fast food junkies who raise their hackles and feel alienated and defensive when anyone mentions what is wrong with today’s diet. And, to those skeptical at times of the measurement accuracy associated with the Body Mass Index (BMI), it is painfully clear that we are taking up more space.

Despite a deluge of choices lining our supermarket shelves that take up a highway mile in their length, and some nutritional labeling claiming to be free of trans-fats and GMO’s, and seemingly innocuous organic brands like Horizon that are now owned by some of the very multinationals some of us try desperately to avoid, we aren’t losing any weight. Yet, our big bums are not burgeoning in size because we ate the malfunctioning blueberry gum a ‘la Veruca Salt, so what gives? Could it be many of us are still eating far too much meat and dairy than the recommended daily (screw you, FDA) amount? Mention that to the steak and potatoes carnivore and prepare to be castigated as though you just demanded they give you their first born son. That we really don’t need to consume meat in the quantities that we do as a nation, that we should really be incorporating more plant-based nutrients into our diet, is a vainglorious argument which will be met with flippant disregard by many Westerners very loyal to their red meat. The only worse audience you could command would be South Americans, the only cultures that eat more red meat than we. Try to convince a Morton’s shareholder to eat less beef and prepare to be pegged as some anemic animal rights crack pot that doesn’t know how to just enjoy this one life you have. In a recent post for Rootspeak, I grappled with this very subject in my opinion piece Breakin’ Up is Hard to Do,” thinking I would extrapolate further on this corporate-sponsored monster that we call our FDA and USDA. However, once I really sat back and thought about this in its entirety, the encompassing dilemma of how our food and diet have become such shams, I found myself nonplussed. I started asking myself why we both individually and collectively allow this fraud with our food. Is it laziness, indifference, entitlement, or an incredibly erroneous and misplaced trust that we have in our legislators and regulatory bodies? Why are we not fastidious to the point of treating our food with the same fervor we apply to our religions? When did we stop celebrating the most essential, superlative act of our existence: that of eating good motherfucking food.

As most often is the case when confronting the complete scope of something, it becomes frightening and far easier to shrug it all off and leave it to someone else to figure out. Tragically, it is this absence of ownership and accountability that many argue have led us to this place of gross consumption, with an end result one of obesity, E. coli and salmonella outbreaks, and separation of sanctity with our food. It is more than just the fact that we went from a country of producers, engaging in manual labor to build and grow rather than riding in cars and sitting prostrate at our desks where we have gained weight and lost the ability to communicate with one another. While I agree wholeheartedly that inactivity coupled with our poor eating habits is nothing to be taken lightly, there is something inherently wrong with how we became so mired in these voracious ways. It’s even called junk food, for crying out loud. We have a problem on our hands and around our corpulent waistlines- we are not your grandparent’s country. Gran and Gramps were not the fatties of the global world like we are now. They didn’t wash down a large pizza with a two liter of Pepsi and then do some half-hearted exercise in the form of Wii tennis. These palpable signs of how our size and physique are swelling as a country are undeniable and worthy of consequential discussions pinpointing why we are not just living longer, but living longer with diseases and a medicine cabinet bulging with every prescription known to Pfizer.

We already know that the mass consumption of sugar in the form of soda, candy, and simple carbohydrates is bad, bad, bad. Let’s save the erudite explanation. This is no arcane secret. Sugar, when not monitored, whether it be sugar in its natural form, or sugar cooked up in a laboratory and sneaked into our food in the form of high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, sucralose or aspartame, catches up to the human body in the form of diabetes, osteoporosis, and huge asses. Thank you, Big Gulp for giving us, in one seemingly innocuous container, more sugar than we should be consuming in several days. Yet, herein lies the rub: the 7-11 convenience store chain does not station gun-pointing sales associates next to the fountain pop machine, demanding that you fill up the 24 oz. cup; you do that all by your lonesome.

Or we can play this jocular game that I do so delight in, one where we upbraid the media and their biased marketing strategies which cater to the multinational corporations like Tyson and Dean Foods, so that they all get richer whilst the population gets sicker? Guess what? I’m over blaming the media so that we as a society are enabled to place fault everywhere but with ourselves. Mayhap, we take it a step further, shall we, and ponder why it is that our government allows former high ranking officials from these same corporations to invade our USDA and FDA so that the bodies which should be protecting us while forming the policies and regulatory statutes to keep us and our food safe and nutritious, are actually in bed humping the lobbyists. The misguided agenda of both our easily bought government officials and the corporations they spread their financial legs for, facilitated under the ruse of giving us what we as a nation demand: cheaper, faster food, is tantamount to genocide.

I must say, it’s quite ironical to me (what, Tyson can feed you chickens with four beaks, but I can’t throw out a cheeky word hybrid?) when one of my more liberal compatriots rambles on about how the government needs to speak for the people and regulate more of this, or more of that, right before taking a big greasy bite from their ham-soy-ammonia-E.coli-burger and I choke back the retort ready to belly flop from my tongue. Oh friends, the government has enough of a role, so much so that they convince you that they are protecting you and have your best gastrointestinal interests at heart (and belly), when in all actuality, they have enough of a role and rope to hang not themselves, but us with. They have so much of a vested interest in the power they wield that while they snack on their organic yogurt and fresh local vegetables because they wouldn’t dare touch the disgusting crap they allow you to eat (elitist vs. populist), they are laughing manically all the way to the bank, and the passenger in their car is none other than some asshole from Monsanto.

Why is it that we allow our food, vulnerable and meant to be handled with utmost reverence, the thing that should be, by nature, simple and organic, to be mutated into genetically-modified mutant fruits and vegetables that look luscious even when not in season, but hold very little nutritional value? Why do we not question that the same manufacturer of Agent Orange and RoundUp fertilizer, produces our two largest commodity crop seeds, corn and soybeans? It infuriates me because the people that can make a difference, namely all of us, don’t give a damn. Our apathy is killing us; literally. In the same impartial absence of feeling that I personally believe led us to be so far behind where the green movement is concerned, we might discover too little too late that our prettily packaged food is barely edible. I cannot help but wonder, why let this be the case when we can steer the market? That is the beauty of supply and demand. Only we can get our shelves stocked with something other than cuts of meat from animals that stood in excrement for most of their existence, pumped full of antibiotics to combat the bacteria percolating in its intestines due to being fed a counterintuitive diet of corn. In a statement reminiscent of Shoeless Sam, I say, if you demand it, it will come. Until we do that, we will continue down this path. Until we start spending a little less on our Botox and a little more on our broccoli, then prices will reflect this. Soda will cost less than a head of lettuce. Until then, we will be a nation of cheapskates when it comes to our food.

This is not copacetic! We are better than this, smarter than this and have more access to educate ourselves on just how faulty this system is.

We have The American Obesity Association, the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control, the National Center for Health Statistics, and a few other large entities that seem to agree that our weight is a serious and pertinent issue, and what we eat is the largest contributor to what all of these experts coin the “obesity epidemic.”

When did this happen? What was the tipping point, as Malcolm Gladwell would ponder. Some speculate it started with my own gender once we as women decided careers became more important than cooking for our families and being the gatekeepers of nutrition in our households. We became too busy, juggling children and our jobs. We wanted more. Material items and status did not allow much time for homemade dishes passed down from our grandmothers. I’m not picking on feminism (or, am I?), but it would be biased of us not to at least consider this possibility when we talk of the affects of modernization and urbanization and the impact it had on our daily consumption. When we stop cooking and immersing ourselves and our loved ones in the joy and beauty derived from handling spices and freshly baked breads and homemade pastas and cherry pie made from our own orchards, as idyllic as that sounds, we lose touch with the importance of food, in its most basic form. Other countries have not lost sight of this. They still take great pleasure and time with their meals and the synergy created from serving dishes made with passion and devotion to ones own body, and the body of those they want to see happy.

Is it really that costly to make a meal from scratch to hand to our spouses and children, so as to watch them savor your buttermilk mashed potatoes and green beans picked from your own garden? Why does it seem that for as far as we have come, our ancestors are shaking their heads in disapproval at how we are living our lives? Aw, eff; this article of mine went from cerebral to emotive, quickly. Meh.

Moreover, the same person that is in a heated debate this very moment over the state of healthcare in this country, will go out later tonight and order up a ribeye steak from the Outback Steakhouse. Does anyone else see a bit of hypocrisy in this action? If you care so much as to spout off to me about the rights and wrongs of politics, then why don’t we really wrench you from your comfort zone and ask you to forgo meat for a few months, thereby reducing your risk of cancer, heart disease and high cholesterol. Don’t for a second tell me there is no proof that red meat is linked to cancer. Tell that to a cancer patient whose Western doctor has them on a strict, meat-free diet.

I’m sorry to sound all Al Gore right now, but eating healthy is not convenient. It’s a bit of work. I suppose my rationale is, in the long run, it’s worth it. If you want it to be more convenient, then you need to drive the trends towards healthier food, and you will see a shift.

But, keep saying you’re so busy, you just can’t go home after a long day’s work and then actually cook, keep being a lazy bastard, and you won’t see that happen. Keep saying you do not have that many hours in the day, because in a way you’re right. Soon you won’t have enough hours, or any at all, ‘cause you’ll be dead as a doornail. Or, you’ll be so fucking fat and short of breath that you can’t enjoy life anyway. Double suck-y. I’m sorry to once again be the winged harbinger of doom, but we only have ourselves to blame. If we don’t like all the despair associated with our well-being that should be no-brainers in the simplicity and optimism departments, then we need to do something about it.

Here comes the fun part: the action plan. Perhaps you cut back on your meat and poultry intake. I would say your salmon too, depending on where you acquire your salmon, but we don’t eat that much of it because we’re too busy stuffing our faces with dead cow.

*Perhaps you forgo the drive thru a few days a week, and head home to help your wife or husband to cook dinner. If you’re really feeling ambitious, you could dusty off that wooden apparatus with the four legs often referred to as the “dining table,” and eat the meal with your family.

*Those Pop Tarts that you throw to little Johnny before he leaves for school each morning? Toss them and stop feeding your growing teenager meals of sugar so that his system becomes attracted to it, rather than foods of nutritional value. Gently sit his texting arse down for a few minutes to eat a bowl of whole grain cereal with fresh fruit bought locally. Imagine that, instilling in your son that healthy food does matter, and that buying locally doesn’t have a negative carbon foot print attached to it. I don’t think that sounds like a Herculean task, do you?

*It might not hurt to consider buying a few more things locally or regionally, and organically, and sucking it up when you want to moan about your pocketbook, because you realize the efforts made now, the proactive steps to eat healthier, will save big dividends in the future when you aren’t overweight or dealing with debilitating health issues. Even if you say cancer runs in your family and it might be inevitable, then tell yourself you have a better chance of stalling the beast and fighting it more effectively, if you have a trim waistline when starting the race. Furthermore, what many people fail to realize is that organic needs to be purchased locally so that you are supporting local farmers while lessening the carbon footprint. If you buy organic food in New  York that was shipped from California, then it’s a bit moot, don’t you think?

*Stop drinking soda every single day. Period. As I said in a former blog, of the seven horses of the apocalypse, surely one of them will be carrying the Pepsi or Coca-Cola banner.

*Maybe, you can skip the blockbuster farce like G.I. Joe, now and then, to go see a documentary, even if it’s one that offers an opposing view, such as Food, Inc. What are you afraid of, that you might actually start eating more ethically? Educate yourself.

*Look, I wouldn’t be okay with it if someone ran up to me on the street and stabbed me with a dirty needle of salmonella. I’m not okay with my government allowing that very thing to happen behind the scenes due to the severely lacking regulations where poultry is concerned. Pay attention to legislative efforts to curb the sway of the multinational corporations that monopolize our grocery shelves.

*Slow down. Remember the relationship you can have with your food and how gratifying it is to cook something with your bare hands and share it with the ones you love. Train your brain to crave natural foods instead of Doritos. It takes time and you actually need to remember how to navigate the kitchen, but you may find it to be therapeutic. Don’t be that person who brags about not being able to boil a pot of water.

*Treat your grocery list more sagaciously. Be picky, dammit, and if you don’t know how to be, come see me.

I can put the “ick,” in picky.

Header photo by Aaron Edwards and licensed under a Creative Commons AN 2.0 GL.

Although not registered as a lobby itself, the organization at the center of the author’s book takes no obvious action in hiding the theological fallacies central to what the public is now waking up to as one the most covert, influential and dangerous groups in all of Washington.

In front of the familiar sounds that mark airport transit, Sharlet states, “I really do think that this group overturns decades of thinking about how religion and politics work in America. With great respect to all the wonderful scholarships out there, here’s this 800 lb gorilla, right there in the middle of Washington that doesn’t look like Jerry Falwell and it doesn’t look like Pat Robertson.”

“On one of my first days at Ivanwald, the house in which I stayed, we had a visit from Jesse Helms. I had gone in there not really knowing it was a political group, so Jesse Helms was surprising… but not that surprising. A few days later we had a visit from Kjell Magne Bondevik. He was the then newly elected prime minister of Norway. And that was just odd, because when we think of the Christian right, we think of pulpit pounders and bible thumpers and you don’t imagine this much more sophisticated international diplomatic community; foreign heads of state traveling and gathering in this little cul-de-sac in northern Virginia to talk about foreign affairs and to do so in this language that is infinitely related to the language of evangelicalism, but at the same time is radically different.”

It’s this evangelical-influenced, almost empirical foreign diplomacy that predominates many of the most shocking events documented during Sharlet’s days embedded within the organization and its devout and politically prominent members.

The writer’s initial encounter with The Family, as they have so christened themselves in obervervance of the Mafioso vernacular, began in a way that, often times, all grand adventures do: With the simple introduction from a friend in need. Sharlet’s associate, who happened to be worried that her brother had become involved with a cult-like group, told him of the startling transformation that occurred when the family member left his career and his relationship behind to immerse himself in the teachings of C-Street’s opaque organization in Washington, D.C. Having known his associate’s brother for nearly twelve years, Jeff Sharlet found himself engaged by what was taking place in the context of the man’s spiritual re-awakening. Formerly a bully of sorts, the brother seemed to be immersed in a watershed moment in which he briefly returned to New York City as a much gentler individual, to survey what he called “the ruins of secularism.”

It was this statement that captivated Sharlet, and upon an invitation from the brother, the writer who had been on the road for weeks surveying and writing a book on various religious communities around the U.S., set up shop at C-Street’s residence and began listening intently as the group’s custom-tailored theology and political ambitions were taught eagerly and openly to its privately referred recruits. Almost immediately, Sharlet was indoctrinated in one of the organizations primary tenants, the use of a sensational metaphor in which Jesus’ intention for those in power is showcased through the example of his favor of the most hardened and hated dictators that history has ever witnessed.

“If you get down to it, you can see the logic in their use of this brutal metaphor of Hitler or sometimes they’ll switch out Stalin or Mao,” says Sharlet. “The idea is that the best way to understand Jesus is by looking at these genocidal killers of the 20th century. They do have this concentric-ring model theology, with the idea being that Jesus had one set of teachings for the masses who can’t really understand what he’s about and another set of teachings for the inner circle… those in power. But once you’re in the inner circle, because they believe in this very interventionist God, you’re there because God put you there. There’s not a whole lot of testing.”

The author is quick to point out that although the group’s use of Hitler as a model of God’s intention and favor isn’t a sign of support for a neo-nazi ideology or rhetoric, it is equally scary in their belief that those in power, even those that fall far outside the moral boundaries of Christian thought, are still none-the-less ordained and justified in their placement through the name of Jesus.

Insisting that Christ’s favor was more structured for those at the top rather than the poor and humble at the bottom, it’s this favored Christianity that lends itself to the most frightening elements of The Family. It is also central to understanding why this ideological approach is as ultimately disturbing to individuals on the Left as it is to those on the Conservative Right, who find these creative theological inventions to be bastardizations of the most sanctified adages within the Bible itself.

The Beginnings of a Tailored Theology:

To fully grasp the scope of C-Street and their rise to power within the American political landscape, one must go back to its founding in 1934 San Francisco by Dr. Abram Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant and Methodist evangelist who categorically opposed President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Traveling the country and instituting prayer breakfasts amongst prominent business types and politicians, Vereide sought to bring about discussion in opposition to Unions and Communism, both of which the doctor viewed as Satan’s influence in action. By 1942, Vereide had over 60 nationwide prayer breakfasts taking place and he had made deep inroads with the U.S. House of Representatives by holding similar gatherings in which an emphasis was placed on fellowship through a very low-profile public front. Vereide’s named International Council for Christian Leadership, or the ICCL for short, continued its expansion and according to Sharlet, eventually found their public persona to be hindering some of the more covert influence that could be had amongst Washington’s power elite.

“The group begins in 1935 and until the 1960’s they had letterhead. They had a formal organization, the International Council for Christian Leadership and they’re not going out and seeking press because they really don’t care about the masses. You go back to the 1953 power breakfast, the first one, which they kind of shanghai Eisenhower into attending. He doesn’t really want to do it because I think he sees the violation of church and state but he owes some favors and he says, ‘Ok I’ll do it… but I don’t want any media there. And Vereide is fine; he doesn’t want any media to be there either. The idea is a decision should be made beyond the den of the Vox Populi – this pretentious little bit of Latin they use – to suggest that they are not interested in democracy. But I think up until the sixties they didn’t have to work too hard because there was a really dramatic shift in the American press when they really started looking at power very suspiciously. So then you get into the late sixties and everything is changing and I think this is part of the reason that Doug Coe assumed leadership and sort of leap-frogged over other guys who were more his senior. He comes up with the idea and sends out this memo that says the time has come to ‘Submerge our public profile… We’re going underground.’ These are his words, not mine. From his perspective he’s not doing anything conspiratorial. He thinks he’s saying look, we want to do this work, but don’t want the attention to be paid on the institutional structure so don’t use letterhead, don’t even speak of an organization. Let’s stop talking about ICCL. Let’s just call ourselves The Family and let’s be a social movement. At the time, Doug Coe is also being influenced by the great social movements of the sixties. You call yourself ‘The Family’ and you’re really drawing on that stuff, the Jesus People Movement we call it. At one point they dump 600 boxes of paper in the Billy Graham archives…”

It was this slightly contradictory move in the face of the group’s desired secrecy that allowed Sharlet to gain a vantage point of The Family’s early inner-workings, as subversive as they may have seemed.

“I was not the first person to look at these archives, I was the second and they’re not well-organized. It was a document dump but my guess is, and I couldn’t verify this, is that they were probably not meant to be in there. There is a lot of congressional correspondence, government correspondence, intelligence correspondence; stuff that’s probably not supposed to be in a public archive. I think they counted on people not caring. You have to remember that by the way they think, they are doing something good so they were pretty certain that if anybody sees what’s going on, it’s not going to be a problem.”

It was in fact, Doug Coe’s assumption of power from Abram Vereide which has lead The Family into it’s most influential but ultimately covert years of association and power within Washington and then to other nations’ inner pantheon of government and ruling officials. According to Sharlet, eleven members of Coe’s family are currently on the payroll with Doug referred to as the “first brother.”

“There’s a son named David Coe who kind of seems to be heir apparent although another son Tim Coe is also very active and a daughter is involved in a women’s ministry. More recently there was a guy named Dick Foth, this interesting character who was an old friend to John Ashcroft. When Ashcroft went to Washington, Foth quit his job and moved to D.C. to be a friend to John. And that’s what he would describe when you would ask him ‘what’s your job?’ He would say ‘well, I’m just a friend to John.’ That’s very much in keeping with The Family. I would hear this again and again from people who encountered them and were creeped out by it when they would ask David Coe what his job was, and he would simply say, ‘I’m just a friend.’ Jeff laughs… ‘Do you put that on your taxes? What’s your job?’

In what is surely a testament to Sharlet’s seminal work and first hand-experience while surrounded by the members of The Family itself, is the fact that certain members of the right who originally labeled the work as conspiracy-laden diatribe, have come full circle in their recognition of the need to publicize the more covert influence that The Family’s radical and certainly off-kilter evangelical agenda is wielding.

“I was speaking out at Calvin College, in Western Michigan, and in the audience was one of the really great historians of American fundamentalism – a guy named Joel Carpenter. A conservative evangelical himself but also a terrific scholar who has written a book called ‘Revive Us Again,’ which has been very useful to me. This guy seemed like a straight shooter and I’m giving my talk and I’m speaking about The Family’s involvement in Somalia and Joel gets very upset and he says, ‘I don’t believe you.’ Because I knew this was a Christian right college, and I knew I might have these problems, I brought along some documents…A little show and tell. I ask him to tell me what he thinks and he becomes very angry. Afterwards he said, ‘well I knew about his organization’ that previously he had mentioned just briefly in the book. I said ‘really, you knew about their level of access to power? Why didn’t you put it in your book since it’s such a great history of American fundamentalism.?’ He said ‘well they prefer to be private.’”

“You now have an individual like James Inhofe saying that – It’s not secret, it’s private – which is an odd thing for a Congressman who is accountable to the public to say. They have another defender – a center-right sociologist named D. Michael Lindsey down at Rice University who did his dissertation at Princeton on faith in the halls of power and published it with Oxford. He had a tremendous amount of access to the organization, and he also said it’s not secret, it’s private. Secret is only when you can find privacy with power but they’re just doing this for their personal benefit.”

Sharlet goes on to expand regarding the influence of C-Street and its adhering members. “I mean, on the most crass level, John Ensign just combined privacy with power, using The Family to help cover up this affair but in a much bigger sense you have someone like Senator Inhofe, who since this scandal broke, we found this little video of him talking about and confirming all the stuff we’ve known about for years. It’s interesting to hear him say it so directly because he uses his status as a senator to travel overseas on missionary trips for The Family on the tab of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.”

“In his words, he promotes the political philosophy of Jesus as taught to him by Doug Coe. That’s not personal, that’s power. He’s using power and insists that you have no right to know about it. The other thing I think is really interesting about why this happens and how you reconcile these two things is you have to look at one of the really great things about the American press and one of the really terrible things. One of the great things is because the first amendment is really important to journalism; we tend to think of it as the free speech amendment. Of course the first line is about freedom of religion – that’s what the first amendment is – that Congress shall make no law establishing religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. And I think the press has developed this American tradition that religion is private and that comes from this place back in the early days of The Family, before the days of JFK, when almost every politician was from a small handful of Protestant denominations. There really was a consensus. You had a handful of Jews and in cities you had some Catholics and really that was it. You didn’t even have a whole lot of variation in the types of Protestants. So it was a private thing, a gentleman thing you respected, that and you didn’t ask tough questions about it because it was personal business…”

When asked if any of the members of C-Street, whether in the outer circles or the inner-most bastions of congressional power, ever questioned the rationale or doctrine being set forth through Christ’s name, domestically or abroad, Jeff Sharlet pauses and speaks to one of the more conscientious moments of his time spent living off of Virginia Ave.

“Those moments occur rarely and in very minor ways – they’re interesting,” says Sharlet amidst what sounds like screaming babies in the bustling airport. “There’s a guy named Elgin Groseclose, who was a right wing Quaker. Elgin had a high-ranking propagandist job within the Pentagon and during the Cold War. He also had been advisor to the Shah of Iran… This was a guy who was comfortable being a representative of the American empire, being involved in that old imperial way and as an emissary to the local strongmen. So when it came to The Family’s relationship and support of Indonesian President Suharto, a guy who made the Shah look like a teddy bear and was really just one of the bloodiest killers of the 20th century, he was a little uncomfortable with this partly because of the brutality. But also partly because in order to reach out to Suharto and guys like him, The Family was diluting any kind of Christian methods and it was all being reduced to this absolute of American power and Christ’s will…. And he got kind of worried about this. I wouldn’t say there was a debate, they just sort of steamrolled over him.”

“And that really was Doug Coe – this was the distinction and what’s happening now with this Christian right new world saying that Coe has muddied theology. Which they all have muddy theology – it’s crap to say that Coe is the bad apple in the barrel. But there was a moment in the late sixties again where you had all these old western Europeans that were part of the family, part of the conservative Christian democrat branch of western European politics. They were very uneasy with what Coe was doing, very uneasy with the secrecy and the willingness to deal with anybody. Which is ironic because they were dealing with the Germans, not really paying attention to the fact that the only reason they had been rehabilitated after Hitler’s regime is that they were now enjoying positions in high west German government and they had made friends in the American congress was because The Family had been willing to muddy theology and overlook their past. Some of them had been former Nazi’s, one of them was known as Hitler’s banker and was finally outed and forced to resign from public life. Another, before the war, had been a prominent public preacher, speaking about how God had ordered Germany to hunt down the Jews. After the war he had a different tune, ‘please let’s not talk about that recent unpleasantness…’ But the way The Family has set itself up with this muddy theology allows it to always just roll over that. To say but we’re just talking about love – it’s love with an iron fist.”

It’s details such as these that make Jeff Sharlet’s book as ultimately disturbing as it is requisite reading to fully understand the theology at the hearts of several of our elected officials. Whether as a reminder of the essential separation between church and state or a more electrified antagonist to incite the public’s questioning of hidden lobbies that influence both domestic and foreign policy, “The Family” is perhaps one of the most important insights into Washington’s inner-workings in the past twenty years.

One of the most poignant moments in Sharlet’s work comes nearly half-way through the book as a critical look is taken in regard to the weaponry meetings that were arranged through the agency of congressmen who perceived that Indonesian President Suharto was a man of God because of his involvement with The Family.

“Suharto’s victims – 602,000, 1.2 million, or 1.8 million – may never find a place in literature. But they deserve a place in history, and to win them that, one small problem must be solved here in America, that of Jesus plus nothing, the logic of faith that allows American politicians to contribute to the nightmares of other nations, and the rest of us to vote for them… Coe and his inner circle do believe in the trinity; a Washington fundamentalist activist told me, but “they’ll give the father and the Holy Ghost the weekend off. Because they clutter the conversation…”

Perhaps the central idea of David Coe and his “Jesus plus One” theology, truly equates to nothing more than, well, zero.

And perhaps it’s journalists like Jeff Sharlet who are willing to bravely and objectively expose the flawed math for itself.

Having discovered and nurtured such talent as Ben Harper and Jack Johnson, even managing the former while directing music videos throughout the process, JP’s instinctive grasp for others artistic vision and potential is what has assured the fact that even should you be unfamiliar with his name, you’ve surely heard his work with others.

A literal renaissance Frenchman man of sorts, Mr. Plunier is many things: The owner of Everloving Records, an artist manager, a producer and a photographer whose entrance into the music business was, as he puts it, “a bit complicated…”

Says the charming Plunier in what is soon be discovered as a tangent-prone delivery, “I met Chris Darrow by chance in California and he was in a group called Kaleidoscope. At the time he had made incredible records and when we were introduced, he had moved on to other things and lost the capacity, business-wise, to be producing records on major labels so he was making stuff on his own. I was frustrated and thought I would love to produce a Chris Darrow record but I had no ambition to be in the music business…”

Continues J.P., “I had known Ben (Harper) since he was a kid and we re-connected when he was about 21 or so. I thought, you know… It would be interesting to work with this guy’s music. He had done a few things with his pals in town and I thought I’m hearing something different in what these guys were doing. I love tradition and I love traditional stuff, but I just felt like there was another dimension to be gotten out of some of the things he was working on then. So I was 33 years old and I started super late… Most guys in the music business start in their teens or twenties and I came to it way after doing other things. I was a photojournalist and a photographer for 7 years before that and I worked for Interview and Men’s Vogue in France and all different kinds of publications, small and large. But then this came up and Ben had some material, and I thought there was some real potential to connect with people and to do something different than what was currently going on…”

It was this intuitive base for finding new talent amongst a very tangible human element that Plunier says was somewhat honed in his early childhood years by parents that ensured a larger world view for their son through their many travels and friends.

“I was born in Beirut and I grew up all over the world. My dad’s business territory was Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and so on. I moved to Japan and lived there for 9 years, and I also lived in India and all this was before I was 18, so I learned as a little kid that there were all these people who believed in different things than I was taught.”

It was this bit of inspiration in the early years that would come to represent the namesake of his record label and management-wing when it finally came time to launch a proper business to house his creative endeavors.

“I grew up in a Catholic environment, but all these guys were Hindus and Muslims and devil worshippers and my parents had friends from every political bent, some worked for National Geographic and one was a Jewish mathematics professor,” says the multi-faceted expressionist. Everyone had a different take on life but only one person seemed to make sense. It was an Indian guy and he said the meaning of life is “Injai” and for a long time I couldn’t really tell what he was saying, but I realized it was “enjoy” so that’s what lead to the name of Enjoy Records,”

In what sounds like a story line crafted by Soprano’s creator David Chase, the Enjoi name was eventually retired when the eclectic producer was encountered a few years back with a rather intense group of not-so-gentlemanly East-Coast visitors.

“Apparently some Italian guys from New York had at one point owned a label called Enjoy and it was laying dormant, and it didn’t come up. But you know, they visited us and explained that we owed them money and I said ‘ah, don’t worry about it. Keep your name. I’ve got tons of names.’ I think that was the first time that they encountered that kind of non-resistance and they were very surprised and upset because they didn’t get any money, but we went with the name Everloving.”

In what becomes a very sentimental and perhaps solemn moment in conversation comes when J.P. Plunier expands on the mantra between both incarnations of his record labels and those individuals that have come to embody the mission behind each.

“Enjoy and Everloving are related in that it’s about a philosophy of life. Two friends of mine died in the past week. One I found out through the paper and one I just got an email earlier today. One was Jeff Johnson, the father of Jack Johnson and another was a guy named Andy Kessler who was a skateboarder in New York. If I can say one thing about the two of them was that they enjoyed life and it was about the enjoyment of life.”

It’s this humanist approach that ultimately keeps Plunier nothing but sincere in both his personal politic but also the sonic and emotional palate that he has helped to create for the artists that call Everloving home.

“I have to connect with the artist on some level. Not everyone is a songwriter. There was a time when the artist was an interpreter and someone else was writing the songs for them. So the songs have to be good. Their instrument, if they are singing, has to connect on some kind of human level. I’m personally attracted to the cello range. I think that the cello is the most human of instruments so I’m looking for that kind of tone and that kind of ability to take flight or to have gravitas, some kind of weight. In the case of Ben and Jack, I thought that their voices connected instantly on a human level.”

The ocean affianado and sometimes wave-crasher continues with an all too appropriate analogy, “Me personally, I like surfing. I don’t like windsurfing. And that doesn’t mean I don’t like someone who likes windsurfing, but if you go to a spot like Ho’okipa on Maui where you can see both, windsurfing is acrobatic and surfing is a pure line. So that’s what I’m looking for is pure lines within the music. “

It’s this cognizant realization of space and tonal quality that came to define the new-school, ocean-infused folk that Plunier helped shepherd into the mainstream’s greater consciousness in the nineties with the release of Ben Harper’s first records and Jack Johnson’s inaugural effort a few years behind.

Realizing that while in the studio, his job is focused on not only the technical and auditory output of the sessions at hand, Plunier is obviously aware of his responsibility to serve as an objective sounding board when, perhaps, ideas become too abundant.

“I’m not afraid of layers or layering. But sometimes it’s deceptively simple so people think, ‘Oh there’s no production here. This guy just pressed record.’ But that’s not the case. Usually there’s a breaking down period of saying look, we need to get to the core of this. So whether it’s Ben or Jack or Piers Faccini or any of the others that I’ve been lucky to work with, there’s a pre-production period in which I try to get to the essence of what the artist’s music is about and what their songwriting is about. I think it’s quite difficult for an artist to do that for himself because whether anyone wants to admit it or not, we’re all influenced by different things that we thought were bitchin’. You know Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, the Beatles, the BeeGees, whatever. But really the essence of it is when you’re in it, it’s hard to see what it is. So I try to find the pure line for the artist and in turn, help them find it.”

J.P. Plunier is the first to admit that his interests are not exclusive, nor should they be relegated alone to the production realm. Whether it is an issue of personal sanity or simply sound business practice, the man at the helms has consciously kept an open approach to all levels of artistic enterprise  in an age when the recording industry’s business model itself is evolving on a daily basis.

In his pronouncement, “That’s why Everloving is both a label and a management company. It’s more and more ridiculous to try to be a label at this moment. Right now I’m much more comfortable in the role of manager which is what I used to do with Ben, because really, the return on your investment and finances is so risky at this point to put out an album. Any record that may not be a huge budget to make in the studio, but let’s say something that cost $20k… Which is not cheap, will cost you $100,000 to get it out there. And maybe 10 years ago there was some financial sense in doing that but today it’s much more precarious.”

Business quandaries and risk aside, it’s clear this scruffy and shaved-head man is ultimately concerned with a half-cup full philosophy that surrounds those he chooses to work with. Perhaps at a point in his career that he can be more selective of the projects he takes on, Plunier seems content in the moment as he discusses his most recent projects and points of inspiration.

“Right now I’m working with two bands that I think are incredible. One is the Entrance Band and the other is The Growlers. These people are bringing power; they are bringing energy and this energy is what gives me my strength and my power. Obviously it’s a two way street and I hope that I inspire them in my own way and give them courage and artistic experience to fall back on but at the same time it’s really what is bringing me inspiration at the moment. I’m always looking for people who are contesting the status quo, whatever it may be. I’m not only a contrarian although I am a contrarian by nature. The minute the general public assumes things are one way, you can be sure it’s the opposite. I’m always looking for the people that are representing something else.”

Continues Plunier, “It’s all kind of a friends network. Even the things that are more distant come through people who know us and it’s probably the same for everyone. There’s no talent scout referrals that come through or lawyers, although if that happens, it’s usually through people we know. I’m not going to give you some bullshit ‘oh its one big family story,’ but it is one big network…”

In what has over the ages becomes a mentality that one must suffer through their respective artistic endeavor to get to the core of the expression itself, J.P. Plunier is attempting to change the paradigm even if just slightly by living up to the personal philosophy of his Everloving Records. It’s this happy medium that has allowed J.P. to fly reasonably under the radar while radically impacting the general sonic state of the music industry so radically.

“It’s not a grind. It is about everloving and secondly about enjoying. There’s always difficult and frustrating moments. As I said before, just this week I had two friends that passed away, and three years ago my mom died and I spent two months with her when she was leaving. When I was really little my sister who was just 10 months younger than me died and then when I was about 3 years old my best friend and I were messing around on a bridge and he fell off and he drowned. And of course having been born in Beirut and been around Vietnam and all, it’s always been clear to me how quickly all of this can go. So I value every moment and I try never to waste it. It’s very difficult to balance life, and you try to keep a balance, but the balance doesn’t come from always being Zen. This is more Chaos Theory Buddhism.”

“There’s no limiting band-width. You have to accept the ups and downs.”

Paulson, the group’s guitarist, recently spoke to Truth&Rights from the European wing of their latest tour regarding the band’s intentions and their take on society’s ills at large.

T&R: Describe Black President’s philosophy as a band. What is it that you hope your audience takes away from your music?

Charlie Paulson: Open a newspaper, be kind to a stranger, realize that you don’t know everything, and stand up for those who are weaker than you.

T&R: It seems we live in an age of “disposable everything” and listening to your band has been a breath of fresh air for many involved with Truth&Rights. What are your responsibilities to your craft and how do they manifest themselves?

Charlie Paulson: Jesus, you don’t ask trivial questions do you? Haha… There are so many fucking bands today that if someone is taking time out of their busy day to listen to you, then don’t waste their fucking time.

I mean how many songs can someone write about girls? I’d say that Motown music and the Beatles already did that better than anybody. When I write I’m speaking to the person who likes aggressive music but maybe doesn’t have the most open mind about the world around them. Hopefully some of our Left-wing shit sinks in…

T&R: What lead to Black President’s formation and what dynamics are at play internally when you guys step onto a stage or into the studio?

Charlie Paulson: We’ve all been friends for years so when I wanted to start a new band it was an obvious decision for us to play together. We don’t agree on everything and some of the guys don’t always support what I have to say lyrically… For example, there’s a new song written from the point of view of a high school shooter. In America we’ve had several situations over the past few years where some kids go to their school and shoot the place up. I wanted to get into their head and see things from their point of view. Our singer Christian has a daughter and obviously he’s not down with the thought of someone blowing away his daughter in class. So i asked him what would drive his daughter to the point where maybe, she was the one with the gun?

T&R: What are your thoughts on the current state of Punk? Is it living up to its potential as “music from the people?”

Charlie Paulson: That’s almost impossible to answer when you’ve got everyone from Rancid to the Gaslight Anthem to Die Toten Hosen and even Avenged Sevenfold loosely qualifying as punk.

T&R: Are there any other bands -or artists in other mediums for that matter- that you feel a great deal of solidarity with?

Charlie Paulson: I’m a big fan of the artist Banksy. He does very counter-culture style pieces in major cities all over the world. He might be one of the only
true punks left. I mention him in one of our songs called “Short List of Outspoken Suspects.”

As far as bands go, we’re friends and fans of the Street Dogs, Rise Against, Leftover Crack… They’ve all got something to say that’s worth listening to.

T&R: What in your mind are the greatest threats to our society at large?

Charlie Paulson: Ignorance and apathy… Period.

T&R: Do you hold fast to any particular ideology?

Charlie Paulson: The problem with ideologies is that people tend to follow ideologues more than the ideas they supposedly represent. For example people in the States are almost in a state of worship over Obama. They’re still holding on to his campagin promises but not seeing that he’s not living up to them… So far.

Common Market, the Hip-Hop duo comprised of emcee Ra Scion and turntablist and producer, Sabzi, are no exception. An almost perfect hybrid of intelligence and melodic, spot-on groove, the act is perhaps one of the most exciting new underground groups in the country… Even so much so that Hip-Hop legend KRS-One has lent his support and endorsement.

Truth&Rights recently caught up with the self-described “premiere janitor” of Seattle, Ra Scion, to discuss the intentions behind Common Market’s work and how he finds balance between the duties of his day-job and the pursuit of his evening endeavors.

T&R: As opposed to other genres, what do you think it is about hip-hop in its core essence that is more conducive to discussing the larger themes out there? Things such as politics, social thought, and even conscious evolution…

Ra Scion: I think that stylistically Hip-Hop lends itself to being much more direct. Whereas in some other genres and forms of music, lyrically, they are more poetic so it’s like you’re saying things in a more abstract way. With Hip-Hop it was never really like that. I don’t mean to take away the poetic attributes of Hip-Hop music -obviously it is poetic- just in a different sort of way. It’s just more direct, more in your face and unapologetic in its delivery. From the beginning, with groups like NWA or Public Enemy it was like let’s just say it – let’s be less like Bob Dylan and more like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Let’s shout about it, let’s rap and let’s just tell it like it is. The biggest exception in my opinion would be Punk music as I think that Punk and Hip-Hop historically have similar roots. They’re like cousins really, and I think that they have both been effective in addressing social issues.

T&R: One thing that really strikes a chord and sets you apart from your peers is your personal level of earnestness. Where do you draw the line between bravado and humility?

Ra Scion: I think that’s a fantastic question and I’m not sure that I have a simple answer. I think that my approach to writing is to just lay the cards on the table. I’ve really never had anything to hide when it came to music and I’ve always felt most comfortable writing about a personal experience. In terms of styles, you know writing styles or even delivery in freestyle vs. rhythm and all that Hip-Hop stuff -there are really great story tellers in Hip-Hop- probably Slick Rick gets credit for being that. But I’ve never been able to tell that story effectively. It’s always just come much more naturally for me to sit down and write a personal narrative. That’s where the music comes from, obviously. The whole bravado thing, I don’t know – it’s a difficult thing for me and I’ve always grappled with it. With KRS-One being such a tremendous influence I think that maybe no other emcee has really been able to balance the two as well as he has. But for me I’ve never been able to find that balance, I’ve just erred on the other side.

T&R: Can you talk to me about your label and imprint MassLine? What’s the overriding mantra or intention?

Ra Scion: I think the intention was to bring together the efforts of the Blue Scholars, Common Market, Gabriel Teodros and really all of the people who were associated with those groups; bring them together under one umbrella, one imprint as you identified so that possibly we’d be able to brand our efforts. Whether it was merchandising, or music, or community involvement, it seemed like a good idea to fly those efforts or products and everything that was associated with the labor, under one banner. I think to some degree that’s still the intention. We’ve just found that as a handful of fledgling business-minded individuals that it’s been much more difficult to put into action than it was to conceptualize. I mean nobody could argue the fact that it was a great idea but it was very difficult to execute. As a result what’s really happened was each of the 4 individuals that originally comprised that MassLine label, basically what we decided to do was to continue doing what we’re doing -obviously nobody ever said stop- but it was very difficult to approach it from a business standpoint. I have a tremendous amount of respect for indie labels like Rhymesayers, Quantum out of LA, and Baby Grand, which until recently have been largely successful. That was the idea… An indie Hip-Hop label out of Seattle. We had every intention of becoming something that Rhymesayers was for Minneapolis; it was just really hard to do.

T&R: So is MassLine still operating but maybe from a cooperative standpoint then?

Ra Scion: Let me take you back to around 2006… It really is not much more than just an imprint now. We never even got to the level of being a label because there’s this misnomer, especially in Hip-Hop, where people just start a website and all of a sudden they become a CEO of a company, right? The logic is so twisted. It’s all about status, all about stature. It’s all about the appearance of being successful. And so you become a CEO of a record label in Seattle, I mean give me a fuckin’ break. This isn’t a publicly traded company. You have no stockholders, no shareholders… What are you the CEO of? So we weren’t delusional to that extent but we really wanted to become a label. Nobody in Seattle should be calling themselves a label if they’re not doing label shit. Call yourself and imprint, and really that’s what we’re doing with MassLine now – it’s an imprint and maybe we’ll be able to do something with that in the future. The Blue Scholars have the best shot at it as they’ve been the most commercially successful of the groups involved and that’s what it really takes – it takes capital, it takes commercial success and it takes really hard work. And the Scholars have dedicated themselves to doing that and I’m extremely proud of them . They represent MassLine well, they represent Seattle well and they’re just doing their thing. So in essence, MassLine hasn’t gone away but it has gone through a series of transformations and it is something very different now than it was even 3 years ago.

T&R: Do you think that there is a particular archetype that comprises a Common Market fan? Are there any discernable characteristics that you see across the board when you’re standing in front of a packed venue or do you find that you guys are pulling from segments of all society?

Ra Scion: I think to answer the question directly would mean that I would have to impose a lot of preconceived ideas about a lot of certain classes of people. But our fan-base is overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly middle class, overwhelmingly male and for the most part between the ages of 17 and 30. So that pretty much gives you an idea of what you’re going to see when you come to a Common Market show. But that in no way dictates how we promote the music, it has absolutely no bearing on the music that we create. It really doesn’t. It’s not made for any particular demographic of people. In fact I probably try harder to reach people outside of that demographic with the music we create going forward. Obviously we want to reach as many people as possible. I don’t know whether it’s a Seattle thing or it’s a Hip-Hop thing, but you know my experience with music is fairly limited. I’ve never been a rock musician; I’ve never been a Hip-Hop musician outside of Seattle you know, not one that did a consistent amount of shows. So my experience really is sort of relegated to what I’ve seen and done here in Seattle as a Hip-Hop musician. It’s hard for me to say whether it’s a result of being in Seattle or not. You take the breakdown of the demographics here and it’s easy to understand how you can go to a Hip-Hop show and see nothing but white folks.

T&R: Even aside from breaking it down in those clear boundaries within the demographic, do you find that your audience is probably a little more inclined from a socially-conscious standpoint to want to patron an act like Common Market?

Ra Scion: Absolutely, I mean we have been promoted since day one as a conscious Hip-Hop act, so whoever is promoting and selling our music is obviously packaging it as such. And so it’s easy for me to understand how I stand in front of the type of audience I do when I’m on stage. And I don’t complain about it either. Maybe on occasion I do but I try not to seem ungrateful, I am very thankful for the opportunities I’ve had and thankful for every single person that has ever come to a show and paid attention to the music but, yeah, you always wish that you could reach outside of that broad-based demographic.

T&R: You’re probably one of the best examples I think-especially after the piece on you that ran on Current TV- of an artist that has two feet firmly planted on the ground who happens to be pushing forward in your respective medium. How do you find balance between your craft and honing your skill there, while also providing for a family?

Ra Scion: I wish that I could devote more time to becoming a better artist but I really can’t because the priority is paying the mortgage, paying the bills, putting the food on the table. And music hasn’t provided that security for me. So… The split really, and especially lately, has been more of an 80/20 or maybe even a 90/10 split, the higher number being the day job… The work. If I could find the time or maybe even establish a discipline to develop the craft even further than I have then maybe I could find more of a balance, I don’t know. It’s almost like being a semi-pro ball player. You know you’re so thankful for the opportunity to play because it’s what you love to do but it’s not sustainable, it won’t support your family, so there’s something else you’ve got to do. By virtue of the fact that you’ve got to be dedicated to something else it takes away from your ability to become fully professional. I think the balance has to take place in my head. You just really have to reconcile that enormous discrepancy between work and play and I think every American really struggles with that idea. Whether it’s just how much time do I devote to a job that doesn’t seem to give anything back to me, vs. the stuff that I really want to do. Fortunately for me, the job does provide material. I’m able to process the experiences through labor, through work and then turn that in to art of some sort. So I think that’s been the balance for me. The job does in a way give back.

T&R: When you guys go into the studio how do you quantify your focus thematically speaking? Is that dictated by the news of the day or are you writing weeks or months in advance?

Ra Scion: For me I would much rather have a completed concept and an over-arching view of the project itself before I even step foot in the studio. I’m not the type of guy that feels comfortable feeling my way around the studio or composing something in the studio. When I go to the studio it’s strictly for work. And the reason for that is I’ve got a job, I’ve got several jobs actually. I’ve got so many other commitments I don’t have time to waste inside the studio. I know a handful of emcees, rappers, musicians, beat makers or producers who spend so much time in the studio that it seems to me like a full time job for them. And they put out an album once every three or four years but they’re constantly talking about being in the studio. I don’t get that – I don’t understand how you can be productive that way. I mean at least put something out if you’re spending all this time in the studio, even if it’s for free. I mean it seems like you’re wasting time, even if not money. I get the beats in advance. Most of the time I send the producer information back that says ‘this is the way I’ve written to it, this is how it should be formatted.’ We record it, step out of the studio, go to a separate place to mix it, then on to a separate place to master it and then product is finished. I don’t waste time in the studio.

T&R: What do you perceive is your responsibility as an artist?

Ra Scion: I have to be accountable certainly. The idea that I don’t want to be a role model and that I don’t want to have to answer to things that I’ve said that contradict things that I do, I’ve got to get past that. I do have to be accountable. If I say something on record, I have to be sure that it at least coincides somehow with my life. Personally, professionally, whatever. That actually is more of a challenge than it seems like – it’s more than just ‘you gotta be real,’ ‘you gotta keep it real,’ whatever. Being real is actually very difficult. We live in a very complicated time and it’s difficult to always keep your bearings and know this is good and this is bad, there’s just a whole lot of grey area. So remaining accountable is my top priority – I would say it’s a huge responsibility. Beyond that, I have a very real responsibility to provide for my wife and daughter and however I can manage to do that, that’s what comes next.

T&R: What’s inspiring you as an emcee and a wordsmith? Where do you pull that from to ensure that your cup is half full?

Ra Scion: Right now it’s the economy without question. I am so inspired every single day by the current economic crisis at a local level, at a national level, at a global level. Every day I hear a new story about someone who’s been affected and if you’re an artist who is clued into that sort of thing, you really can’t help but to see the inspiration in it. I mean there’s pain, there’s suffering, there’s struggle and it’s a real, tangible struggle. A lot of the music I’ve written has been about a spiritual struggle. Because in my opinion I believe that’s the one thing that runs current throughout all of humanity. We can talk about socio-economic conditions all day but as a white male it’s really difficult for me to talk about the black struggle or for me to talk about the female struggle. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But the one thing I have always been able to talk about is the spiritual struggle and the relationship between God and man, and the difficulties of trying to find good and trying to do good. Now, with the economic conditions with the current day and age, a lot of people have become more united through the dollar. Again, it serves as a tremendous inspiration for me because people can’t pretend like it’s not real anymore. Especially in Seattle. We had our local network news telling us on a regular basis that Seattle’s doing well, it’s not affected. I mean that’s not responsible journalism. You don’t tell your viewers everything’s going to be okay and there’s no need to worry about the economic crisis, this and that and here we are a year later and certainly nobody is unaffected. And also there’s great music. Seattle is making great hip hop right now. And seeing my town-mates actually come out with new music were the production is great, the quality of recording sounds good, that’s just an inspiration in and of itself.

T&R: One final question for you. What’s on the horizon right now for Common Market if you were to look 6 to 12 months out?

RA Scion: In the next couple of months I hope to drop a project called ‘Victor Shade.’ That will be me as an emcee with another producer by the name of MTK out of Everett. What I would really like to do is be able to re-establish myself as an emcee, as Ra Scion, not as one half of Common Market. I can walk around the streets in Seattle and people will identify me as Common Market. That was never really the intention. The Common Market project was something that Sabzi and I had talked about doing just outside of his commitment to Blue Scholars and in addition to what I was doing as a solo artist. I’ve said time and time again that I’m so grateful for everything we’ve accomplished as Common Market but we have absolutely smashed every goal that we ever set for ourselves. If nothing else came out of Common Market than what we’ve accomplished so far, then we’d both be very happy. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to just put it down and walk away from it. Sabzi is focused on Blue Scholars stuff right now. They’re about to release a new EP, they’re touring Hawaii and they’re signing a deal with Duck Down Records. Like I said, they’re doing very well and I’m extremely proud of them so I want to support and encourage him as much in that endeavor as possible. But while he’s busy doing that, I’ve got to stay relevant as an artist myself. That’s where I’m focused right now – more solo projects, more stuff as Ra Scion and this little concept project I’ve got coming out in the next couple months called ‘Victor Shade.’

For anyone that has had their ears open over the past twelve months to indie electro styles, you’ll surely be familiar with Mikey and Beans, the two boys from Vegas, known affectionately together as Afghan Raiders. Recently having won Black Lips’ remix content for the song “Drop I Hold,” the duo talked to Truth&Rights about their independence, history and subsequent plans for the remainder of 2009.

T&R: You guys seem to be perfecting a 360 approach to DIY-independence. How has this mentality been ingrained in Afghan Raiders?

Afghan Raiders: Keeping a strong DIY mentality has definitely played a vital role in getting us where we are right now.  Our philosophy or process is really straightforward.  We sit down and discuss a project or idea, and we figure out the steps we need to take to make it happen.  Sometimes we end up doing it completely on our own, and sometimes we will collaborate with other artists, designers, photographers, or whomever we need to help get the job done.  Either way, we are always pushing ourselves harder with that DIY approach to get where we want to go.

T&R: Give us a little background into the history of Afghan Raiders. How did the two of you initially meet and wind up opening for Broken Spindles?

Afghan Raiders: We got to know each other back in high school from just jamming around on guitar, skateboarding, and going to shows and parties together.  There was definitely a strong musical connection between us from the start, and we have been sharing creative ideas ever since.  We were in a thrash/rock band together before, and after that fell apart, we talked a lot about doing a more electronic based project together with just the two of us.   Ideas turned into songs and here we are.  Actually a few weeks after we put our first two original tracks online, we got a message from a local promoter asking us to open for Broken Spindles.  We didn’t even have enough material for a live set yet, but we were both big fans of The Faint, Broken Spindles, and Joel Peterson, and we really wanted to open up for him, so we threw together a set and introduced Afghan Raiders to Las Vegas.

T&R: What is it like calling Vegas your creative hub and also your home? How has the cultural aesthetic of the city shaped who you are as musicians?

Afghan Raiders: We sort of took advantage of Vegas in that there is a really small music scene here comprised of mostly DJs and indie/rock bands.  We figured if we put together a live, energetic, dark, electronic “band” then people would really dig it and flock to it because it was so different from the norm.  Compared to LA or NY where there are literally tens of thousands of bands trying to capture people’s attention, we wanted to start in Vegas because we thought it would be so much easier to build a following.  Having said that, we’ve really had to do a lot of our own traveling and research to find creative inspiration, because being the tourist driven city that it is, the cultural aesthetic in Vegas is practically non-existent.

T&R: In your mind, what is the current state of dance music in 2009? Where does the progression lead now?

Afghan Raiders: Dance music will always be prevelant because people love to listen to music, dance, and have fun.  Having said that, the current state of dance music is definitely changing.  Genres are bleeding together, producers and DJs are getting more creative with mashing and blending different types of music, and the handful of really good remixes that are out there are proof that the future of dance music as we know it has no limitations.  As for Afghan Raiders, we are always going to continue to develop our sound and let it naturally evolve, and our constant flux of musical influences will definitely pave the way.

T&R: When looking at the accompanying blog at Badical Beats, it’s obvious that both of you are well-read and well-versed in cultural trend. How do you decide what is, in your minds, worthwhile art or expression?

Afghan Raiders: We really find value in any art form that raises awareness and takes the observer into a new frame of mind. Artists who can utilize their medium to evoke intense feelings and challenge society’s general conceptions, theologies, ideals, and politics are worthwhile in our mind.

T&R: While being socially-aware, it’s tough to discern if you guys are politically-driven. Do politics find their way into your art?

Afghan Raiders: We’re not a “political band”, but certainly, politics find their way into the music we make. Politics effect our lives and thus effect the lyrics and music we are writing.  It’s a very exciting time for our country again and as an artist you are given a unique voice in the world.  You might as well put it to good use before your time runs up.

T&R: You talk about acts like Madlib and Animal Collective heavily influencing your work. Are there artists in other mediums that are doing the same?

Afghan Raiders: Yes, we definitely get inspired by all mediums of art. We are both heavy readers and that shows in many aspects of our music. We’ve sampled excerpts from “HOWL” by Allen Ginsberg for one of our tracks, and being huge sci-fi fans, we got lyrical inspiration for “Future Thinkers” from Philip K. Dick’s novel The Divine Invasion.

Some other musical artists outside the dance/electro genre that have inspired us lately include Grizzly Bear, Micachu and the Shapes, Mos Def, and Black Lips, but to tell you the truth, we really enjoy all types of good music.

T&R: Are there any songs in this moment that you can freely say are turning your world upside down?

Beans:

Japandroids – “Young Hearts Spark Fire”

Grizzly Bear – “Two Weeks”

Neon Indian – “Deadbeat Summer”

Glass Candy – “Poison Or Remedy”

Dirty Projectors – “Stillness Is The Move”

Mikey:

Nosaj Thing – “1685/Bach”

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Heads Will Roll (Passion Pit Remix)”

Woolfy – “The Warehouse”

Mayer Hawthorne – “Maybe So, Maybe No”

Miike Snow – “Plastic Jungle”

T&R: What are your plans for the rest of 2009?

Afghan Raiders: Well, we just finished up a mini west coast tour playing some amazing parties like Blow Up SF, Bravado in Sacramento, and a Dim Mak Tuesday in LA. We’d like to hit up some other parties on the west coast like Popscene(SF) and Dance Right(LA). We are also working on a handful of remixes for bigger artists in a variety of genres. We just remixed Black Lips’ track “The Drop I Hold Feat. GZA” which went on to win the Filter Magazine Remix Contest. Other than that we will be writing new material, and prepping for CMJ this fall in New York City.

T&R: What’s the overriding mantra in what you’re trying to accomplish with Afghan Raiders?

Afghan Raiders: “Party! Party! Party!”

San Francisco’s Overview are the sonic equivalent of well, pure amazing. As a band whose sound is often too large for the intimate spaces in which they perform, it’s easy to imagine these Northern Californian rockers filling up arenas with their fast-paced, airy and at times haunting melodic refrains. Truth&Rights caught up with the band as they passed through Colorado while on their way through a glorious tour filled with the revelry that can only be had by four men compacted into a wheels-of-steel van.

T&R: You’ve made mention that your album, Forty-Four Stone Tigers was written and recorded over the course of 4 weeks. Tell us about the process of writing and recording that album vs. how your new batch of songs; including “When Will They Take Us” differs.

Greg Sellin: Forty-Four Stone Tigers was thrown together at a very volatile time in our band. Our former 5th member split and we asked ourselves, well what now? We hastily created seven new tracks in a few weeks. Spencer’s keyboard had taken the place of the former guitarist as a secondary melodic instrument and we needed a recording to enable all of the touring we wanted to accomplish. Now in hindsight of that overly eager process, we’ve learned to be a bit smarter putting together songs. We like testing them on a tour and changing things around after seeing what works in a live setting before stamping the final portable version of the song.

T&R: When the term “indie” is sometimes over-applied, how do you view an artist’s independence from a major label structure? Is it an asset or liability?

Greg Sellin: It’s no secret that nowadays bands can get incredibly far and accomplish impressive success on their own. In our case, we decided to earn ourselves a national fanbase and have the power and control of our group from the beginning. The next 3 or 4 years will be interesting to see what becomes the norm for bands trying to break out.

T&R: You guys don’t seem to shy away from the totality of epic soundscapes. Your live sound is almost stadium sized. In your mind, what’s the perfect size venue for an ideal communion between band and audience?

Greg Sellin: I think most peoples favorite groups really have to be able to put on a show, right? For years we have embraced that mindset. Still trying to figure out how to get all that into a record though, really.

T&R: You’ve had the chance to play alongside some heavyweights. What do you admire most when looking at artists who have set an archetype for what you’d like to accomplish?

Greg Sellin: Diversity, Honesty, hard work.

T&R: How would you describe your responsibilities as artists in 2009?

Greg Sellin: We have never been a political group, if that’s what you mean. Musically, we sometimes feel like it would be nice to grab some kids by the shoulders and shake them up a bit, give ‘em a little perspective, ya know? That’s what our shows are about.

T&R: How has Northern California shaped the creative output of Overview?

Greg Sellin: San Francisco has long been a hub for musical and cultural pioneers. You get a pretty good sense of different lifestyles and what’s really out there. Legs pretty strong too, lots of hills, no parking.

T&R: Who were your primary influences when the band first started and where have they evolved over the years?

Greg Sellin: We like to sing the blues more than the anger now, more grooves.

T&R: If each band member were given a bottle of tequila and a train ticket, where would they end up?

Greg Sellin: …. passed out at the train station.

T&R: What defines good art to Overview?

Greg Sellin: Someone who’d do it even if they knew nobody would ever see or hear it.

The Truth&Rights Volume is not your average publication. In fact, we’re quite proud to say that we are treading ground on which perhaps there were no footprints before. With each subsequent release, a simple notion seems to manifest itself more and more in our acceptance of the fact that perhaps, we need not be like anyone else to have a vantage point that is just as, if not more, inspired in it’s reach and scope.

You see, inspiration is our traded commodity at Truth&Rights. We have no advertisers to appease nor do we have a corporate ownership that limits our content or editorial presence. We choose to reinvent the wheel consistently in the hopes that perhaps, somewhere along the way, we’ll stumble upon even bigger. And if we’re lucky, maybe even brighter.

VOL2009.02 is our second release and with it has come a refined commitment to bring you the finest minds in independent thought and expression. You’ll notice in this issue that our design aesthetic is much improved thanks to the addition of one Mr. Daniel Garza, Truth&Rights’ recently acquired Creative Director. Not only is his eye highly attuned to the visual nuance of perceived meaning and interpretation, but in plain speak, this guy can conceptualize and illustrate with the best of them.

You’ll be seeing quite a few new voices in this issue, including that of Cory K., a dynamic Senior Contributor who tackles those topics that are all too often gleamed over in the face of the polite niceties that are as pervasive as the social injustices she exposes.

Ron Lewis, the author of  “Stick it to the Man,” perhaps one of the most useful pocket guidebooks to dethroning corporations, governments and pseudo-pundits; joins the Truth&Rights family on this go-around to put forth a simple plan for the evolution beyond race.

Amidst all of this, you’ll also find an expanded media presence as we provide you with not only in-depth insight into the likes of Black President, Overview, J.P. Plunier and more but also free music in the hopes that you’ll take a reminder of these artists into your daily endeavors.

Ultimately it’s your voice that matters most. I encourage you to leave feedback on our writer’s pieces, even should you disagree with their viewpoint. The Truth&Rights Volume is a community-based forum, dedicated to the respectful dialogue that occurs when multiple perspectives occupy one space.

If you feel so inclined to our mission and want to support our endeavor, the kindest thing you can do is to refer our magazine to a friend.

All of this being said, please dive right in. I can assure you that what you’re about to read leaves little room for ambivalence, regardless where your particular vantage point may fall.

In respect-

Nicholas MH, Director

Header image by Mike Krieger and licensed under a Creative Commons AN 3.0 UL.

I’ll bet you’re the creative sort, aren’t you? If you are reading/viewing/listening to the Truth&Rights VOL2009.02, then you’re probably a writer, musician, artist or a creative thinker of some other stripe. We creative types wear that badge proudly. We secretly hope that our creativity sets us apart (and above) our fellow humans who choose to focus on the more mundane aspects of life.

Here’s a quick reality check: If you’re so creative, are you having more fun with your life than the creatively challenged people around you?

Damn. I hate it when I fail my own tests. If I were truly creative, I could design a life for myself that’s the spittin’ image of my fondest dreams. Then everything I do would be fun, I’d make a handsome living doing what I love, and I’d have all the time in the world to do it…

If you answered the reality check question the same way I did, there’s hope for us after all. In Truth&Rights VOL2009.01, I wrote about narrow-mindedness, and how this disease of the mind restricts us to seeing only two possibilities in any given situation. Everything boils down to a simplistic view of the world in a black/white, good/evil, friend/foe, us/them mentality. You have only to watch the news to see how this stunted form of thinking is leading us along a path of mutual destruction.

But what if we could train ourselves to not just see the bigger picture, but begin to create a new world from a field of unlimited possibilities? What if we didn’t have to play within the rules of reality? What if we could make up our own reality?

In the last few years, two films have introduced a large number of people to the notion of creating their own reality: “The Secret” and “What the Bleep?” These movies propose that we can learn to attract the people, money, situations, health and relationships that we desire into our lives. “What the Bleep?” even bases these ideas on quantum physics, and explains that even what we normally consider to be hard physical reality is far less substantial than we think. Theoretically, at the quantum level we can change reality just by observing it. We can, in effect, “select” the reality we want to see and the universe changes to accommodate our desires.

Like many people, I’ve played around with these ideas and created some small successes in generating the results I’d like to see in my life. I’ve manifested lots of free parking spaces, some smooth and profitable transactions, new friends in an environment where I didn’t know anyone, and similar kinds of results that some would call “coincidence.”

But nothing prepared me for Dr. Richard Bartlett. My wife and I encountered this fellow at a local conference (ISSSEEM) and we were blown away. At his presentation he was able to perform spontaneous healing and transformations on stage in front of hundreds of people, all while prancing about, cracking jokes and generally acting like a madman.

At the end of the presentation we were truly bewildered. It was not clear what was happening, or how he could perform such “miracles.” So we came back for more. A few weeks later he returned to the Denver area to conduct another more thorough demonstration, and train others to do what he does. I came for the demo, and my wife, Bev stayed for the full training.

What we witnessed, along with several hundred others in attendance, seemed to be impossible. Dr. Bartlett would bring random people up on stage, have a brief conversation, quickly detect some underlying condition that was troublesome to the person, then he would touch the person on the shoulder or head and the person would instantly collapse into the arms of an assistant who would gently guide the person to the floor, where they rested quietly. In some cases where the changes taking place involved physical maladies like a frozen shoulder, or limited movement due to injury or arthritis, it was easy to see the instant transformation. In the space of a few seconds the afflicted person would suddenly be able to move their limbs in the ways that normal people could, completely without pain or discomfort. The shocked looks on the faces of the people being treated added to the impossibility of these events.

To confound our lost sense of reality, several of Dr. Bartlett’s assistants performed similar feats with no apparent effort. Later, two of the assistants went on stage and shifted into a trance-like mental state, and proceeded to contort their normal-looking 30+ year-old bodies into pretzel-like positions that would confound a yoga master. During the training that followed over the weekend, Bev and hundreds of others were able to perform some of the same kinds of impossible feats. What was happening here?

Dr. Bartlett is quick to point out that his methods do not treat existing disease conditions, as such. As he explains it in his book, Matrix Energetics, “We hold a state of awareness and enter into a kind of energetic rapport with clients, holding for them what shamanic cultures would call “sacred space,” so they can have the freedom to choose to express a different outcome…Often the trouble is that no one ever tells you with any real sense of conviction that you have that choice.”

Our sense of conviction about the “realities” of our lives is what holds those realities in place. If you believe that you have a math phobia, or emotional damage from a previous relationship, or trouble keeping a job, or any of hundreds of other mental, emotional or physical “conditions,” your beliefs are holding you hostage to that very “reality.” As I understand it, Dr. Barlett disarms the client with laughter and his goofy antics, temporarily suspending the client’s conviction about their condition, then holds the space for transformation to take place according to the client’s deep-seated desire for wholeness and wellness.

While I thought I understood a bit about quantum physics theory, this was my first experience of the seemingly impossible “instant transformation.” I began to wonder what else was possible that I previously considered impossible. Suddenly my notions of what it means to be creative took on a far deeper meaning…

In his book, Dr. Barlett refers to this quote from Lewis Carrol’s classic, Alice in Wonderland: “Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”


“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Dr. Barlett continues, saying: “If we do this as a daily habit we will begin to have experiences and thoughts that do not merely maintain the orthodox party line of normal consensus reality. Instead, we will begin to inhabit within the domain of our thoughts, a realm of wondrous and magical possibility. It is from such a realm that the experience of Matrix Energetics originates and resides.”

Since we are all just making up our realities, why not create some truly fantastic and exciting possibilities? We can begin to expand our sense of what we could create by practicing what the Queen suggests. Dare to entertain the impossible in YOUR mind!

If you’re not sure where to start, this will get your wheels moving. Keep a small journal where you ask the wild and outrageous “Why?” and “What if?” questions.

Try questions like: “Why do I have to work eight hours a day?” “What if I could work two hours a day, make twice as much as I do now, and spend the rest of the time playing?”

“Why do I have to write my words left to right, one after the other?” “What if I sprinkled them around on the page like a Jackson Pollack painting?”

“Why do I have to layer the melody over the bass line?” “What if the bass soared over the melody instead?”

“Why do I have to shoot my videos or tell my stories from a character’s point of view?” “What if I made the film or told the story from the viewpoint of a bird, or a snail, or a button on a shirt, or from my left hand?”

“Why do our minds and bodies deteriorate with age?” “What if we became stronger, smarter, more creative, more flexible, and more energetic with each passing year?”

When you read the previous questions, did that get your mind in gear—thinking of your own variations? If so, you’re beginning to tap the infinite well of fresh possibilities in an entirely new way. To start your own transformation, begin asking these same kinds of questions about the “conditions” of your life that you’ve never questioned before.

As Dr. Barlett suggests, “When you start to habitually ask open-ended questions of the universe, it starts to answer back, teaching you new things.” If it’s true that we can create anything our minds can conceive, let’s expand what we can conceive first. When we begin to entertain the impossible, we prepare ourselves to create on a much broader scale. Surprise yourself. Live life subject to change without notice.

Header photo by tavopp and licensed under a Creative Commons AN 3.0 UL.