Holy Boners

I wrote the song, ‘Everything I do, I do to get laid’ around 2000, a post divorce dark anthem. In 2011, thinking about why I want to finish DOG, “Laid’ seems spookily profound.

In the early 90s, after several successful trials of Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization, I decided to go for the gold. Bored with serial monogamy, I asked the universe for my TRUE LOVE. And lo, a SUPER HOT woman showed up! Unfortunately at this point, my epic imagination hijacked the CV protocol. When the SUPER HOT woman repeatedly broke my heart in the months following, I assumed the cosmos was giving me a subtle spiritual test. Rather than walking away, I endeavored to demonstrate my fortitude and persevere.

This was not only a transgression of my prime relationship directive – women who make me sad get dumped, but catastrophic provehamus interruptus -  instead of confidently manifesting my TRUE LOVE I was off chasing a random woman. What the hell, she was SUPER HOT!

Almost everything about me freaked her out, yet I was determined to stay the course. Marriage was a deer blindly bounding in front of the careening school bus of our romance – unavoidable. To help her feel nominally secure, I redacted more and more of my beautiful being, nearly deleting myself to death. A year later, my immune system trashed from constant refutation of my very existence, we agreed to split. With “Everything I do, I do to get laid’, I outed myself as the dangerous terrorist and serial killer she knew me to be all along. Phew. I swung the pendulum back to extreme authenticity, a big cynical joke. I even got to sing it to her and her insta-boyfriend at an open mic night in downtown Beulah. A love song – to myself.

I blame comic books.

As I reflect on rehearsal and manifestation at the end of 2011, ‘Laid’ shimmers with insight. I can now say without shame or cynicism that fiery intimacy is pretty much my grail. With the exception of stewarding and expanding wilderness, the possibility for intimate connection really is the ultimate shining spark behind my every action. Being clear about that is powerful. Maybe this isn’t a digression at all, certainly I associate finishing DOG with feeling masterful, attractive and desirable, with getting laid. Eureka!

Here’s the rub – aside from a passel of pseudo serious poly pals, I’ve had only one long term relationship in the last 11 years. I’ve been avoiding SUPER HOT women and actually driving them back, allowing only HIGHLY ATTRACTIVE women to slip past my force field. Unwilling or unable to effectively approach the women who really turn me on because I’ve been walking around wounded… wow. The armor of isolation kept me safe from further damage, but have I been healing? I played with the magical fires of visualization and got well roasted. Now I know – healing is about trying again.

I’m wise and strong enough, ready to re-invite my bliss and share it with radiant shes. I don’t want this armor anymore.  All I need is to be honest about my desires and attend to what’s actually showing up.

If I know that finishing DOG would make me feel like a magnet for hot women, then maybe that’s why I keep stopping. I have surrounded myself with electric fence, safe from the wounding I put myself through at the end of the 20th century. Present myself as incapable, incompetent and a poser and I’m safe from love. Huh.

Why delve into my sordid personal history in a movie blog? Who cares about my failed marriage, my ridiculous pantings and mystical mumbo jumbo? Shouldn’t I be talking about the new Red camera? The optimal roto workflow?

I’ll trot out every skeleton in the closet if it means getting traction on DOG.

POSTSCRIPT

I went looking for ‘Laid’ lyrics in my music binder and discovered that they had been abducted by architects from the blue dimension!

The yellow legal pages were mysteriously missing, so I wondered if I had typed them in at some point. I started the search with email and sure enough, I’d sent to the lyrics to the late Doug Michels. Now I know I’m on the right path, a wink from our space faring prodigal. Thanks Doug, where ever you are. Much love.

From:         dan kelly <non-attachment@artisthouse.com>
Subject:     Re: she
Date:         July 3, 2000 11:17:03 PM EDT
To:             Doug Michels <Michels@UH.EDU>

EVERYTHING I DO, I DO TO GET LAID

well i want to make love to you tonight
don’t wanna wait for the morning to come
…
you know why I am trying to learn how to sing dontcha?
it’s so I can get laid more often
that’s the truth
that’s why I do everything in my life

(sung)
I tell myself that I’ll get laid
if i practice my guitar and sing
I tell myself that I’ll get laid if
I paint a great big painting
I tell myself that I’ll get laid
if I clean up my house today
and I tell myself I’ll get laid
if I make some money

(spoken)
that’s why I do it
that’s why I do everything in my life

(sung)
I tell myself that I’ll get laid
if I do yoga today
I tell myself that I’ll get laid
if I think of interesting things to say
I tell myself that I’ll get laid
if I make lots of friends
I tell myself that I’ll get laid
(silence)

(sung)
it’s kind of a lie
but you got to get motivated somehow
and it’s kind of fun to paint and sing
and clean the house, do yoga and all that stuff
anyway, yeah
and they are all good for me
but there’s always a hope
that I’m gonna get laid
that’s what really gets me to take action
everyday, action
motivation
decisions

(falsetto)
am I gonna get laid?
am I gonna get laid?
am I gonna get laid?

(low)
am I gonna get laid?
am I gonna get laid?
am I gonna get laid?

sex can be fun
it’s not just about making babies
yeah that’s what it’s for
that’s one of the reasons you do it
but it’s not the only reason you do it
no it’s cause it feels good

there’s really not much complicated about that
the only thing you gotta remember
is to try and make the other person feel as good as you do
if you wanna get laid
I mean, that’s what you gotta do
if you want to get laid
more than once by the same person
it might be a good idea to try and give
them a little pleasure, yeah

I would like to sing
well not only to get laid
but to sing out all the feelings inside myself
i wanna sing out all the feelings inside myself
all the feelings inside myself
all the feelings inside myself
get rid of them
exercise them from my insides
get it out
get it out
like to get feelings
that are inside me
kind of festering inside
kind of make me feel funky and shaky
and nasty and weird
and oh my god that dream i had
the other night that i haven’t told anybody about
maybe I’ll sing about it
for later generations to know
what I was really like
my inner subconscious and what the fuck was really going on in there
well you know that’s what it is
isn’t it?
isn’t it?

BEAT…

Here’s the history of ‘Why finish DOG?’ posts pre 11/25/11, references are mostly oblique to be sure.

The Whys of finishing…

http://www.holyboners.com/2010/01/13/a-coherent-plan-emerges-mission/

Daughter of God is my most ambitious narrative project to date. It’s a surreal exploration of how picturesque and hilarious a crippled global life support system can get. The backstory also explores colonization and exploitation on a planetary scale. With this project I model my theories, channeling the answers to the questions that Fia asked last night – who benefits from the demise of an entire planet? Follow the money, follow the extraction of wealth. Who’s targeting all the world saviors, whose running this prison?

So Daughter of God is a vehicle for piercing the veil. It’s a way of figuring some things out, of playing with the story. Ah, there’s an insight.
…
In summary, DOG supports the mission by being a way to better understand what might actually be going on in RL, suggest in ways like the i ching, never the same movie twice, ya get me? Got cha.

(Also good reasons to finish ALM here 11/25/11)

http://www.holyboners.com/2010/01/14/coherent-plan-objectives-dog/

2.2.2 never the same movie twice, linear i ching
i like the idea of creating a visual oracle, almost like a tarot deck, each scene corresponding to a card in the deck.

2.2.3.2 a delicious ramble through my fav conspiracy theories, mental gymnastics to limber up conceptual capacity

(More what’s and hows here than why 11/25/11)

http://www.holyboners.com/2010/01/14/coherent-plan-objectives-common/

2.1.3 success

2.1.3.1 accepted 3 oscar qualifying festivals 2011

2.1.3.2 awards / recognition for innovation/experimental, visual impact/effects, story

2.1.3.3 vehicle for future funding, collaboration, career

2.1.3.4 500,000 views in first 6 months after release

2.1.3.5 favorable reviews and appreciation by relevant players

2.1.3.6 spanish or chinese subtitle versions

(How would accomplishing these make me feel? 11/25/11)

http://www.holyboners.com/2010/02/09/coherent-plan-future/

What do I want to be and feel in the next 2 years? The next 5 years? The next 10?

This was the 3rd question in my coherent plan. It’s a bit odd actually to answer this question last, after projecting plans for the next year. One might assume that the logical sequence would be to project long term plans first.

(One might also assume that we would ask about what we want to experience BEFORE projecting ANY plans. 11/25/11)

http://www.holyboners.com/2011/05/03/your-art-or-your-life/

I can strive to be fully alive. That’s what this art thing is all about, the art of life. Art isn’t an end, it’s a being and a practice. Paintings and plays are stigmata and signatures of an experience outside of time and place, a metabolism, maybe even spiritual spore. It’s shit! The artist can’t help it, they’ve got to toss it off or die. It’s natural and obvious. A masterful shit is enlivening in a cosmic context we might not understand, probably because we flush our own shit down the toilet and try not to think about it. Shit matters tho, take it from a guy with a composting toilet. The lessons I’ve learned…

So the point here is, perfecting the product is backwards and stifling. Waking up / deepening perception is the only worthy objective. Everything else follows.

(I want to have insights and deepen perception. Tho it boggles to imagine having nothing left to learn, (perfecting the product), this is also a desire. Immortality is less of an abstraction than having nothing left to learn, and would probably be a prerequisite to perfecting a product. If Kurzweil is right, we only have to stay alive for another 10-20 years and then we’ll never die, whoo. He’s silent on the completion of DOG tho, so I’ll have to handle that myself. 11/26/11)

… and the Whys of not finishing

http://www.holyboners.com/2010/10/13/bad-god-i-mean-dog/

vision / mission

http://www.holyboners.com/2009/02/23/glorious-8-fold-protocol-of-creation/

Vision is the convergence of imagination and prescience. Vision is the happy dream I have for myself and the world. I dream of awakened human beings enjoying an experience of themselves as stewards of the spaceship and adventurers in the cosmos.

http://www.holyboners.com/2009/02/23/glorious-8-fold-protocol-of-creation/

What’s the point of making movies? To transform awareness. Our spaceship is in danger, we’ve got to bust a move. My allies and I can have lots of fun on this mission and become something unprecedented in the bargain. Good times!

research and development

http://www.holyboners.com/2009/12/26/storycorps-flash/

what if there were b-roll custom built from scratch that took the moment to another level? What if we could see what the talent saw, an impressionistic glimpse of the talents own experience? Is this an opportunity to innovate the whole technique of b-roll beyond present art, redefine b-roll?

http://www.holyboners.com/2009/12/28/xroll/

What does memory look like? What do thoughts look like? What is the magic ingredient that makes reality real?

http://www.holyboners.com/2010/01/19/xroll-installed/

http://www.holyboners.com/2010/01/26/shut-up-about-the-xroll-already/

The why’s of blogging about finishing

http://www.holyboners.com/2008/07/30/goodbye-final-cut-pro-and-hello-after-effects-tuning-new-gear-for-color-accuracy/

Doing these posts is an attempt to slow down time. When I can consistently articulate what’s happening, I feel more efficient. Not only am I taking stock of my own progress, but I am clarifying what’s most important, what has to happen next. After writing my report, the time I spend working is focused and productive. I am then working super fast, which is in effect slowing down time.

http://www.holyboners.com/2009/12/30/three_blogs/

A blog is a sort of journal that can be shared, either with the public or with a finite group. Initially I began experimenting with blogs as a tool to clarify and plan projects. I’m also down with sharing my process so that others can benefit from my mistakes and triumphs – that’s sort of open source and creative commons ethic.

I’ve always been into writing for project planning and emotional processing. Making the transition from private journals to public blogging has been interesting. I still do some private processing and confidential planning, but probably 70% of what I used to scribble in my closet is now posted to the world wide archive.

So what’s the vision for blogs? Here’s an assessment of needs and potential opportunities…

http://www.holyboners.com/2010/01/19/am-i-a-good-friend/

With the explosion of activity on the net, ‘public’ doesn’t mean seen by everyone. The idea that privacy is dead is misleading. I can publish my life via this blog and 99% of humans will never know I exist.

(Of course, this is a fab resource for the .001% who might identify me as Trouble, for spooks trying to assess my vulnerabilities. The flip side to that is exposure to my transcendent vision could spontaneously turn enemy agents. The one’s who aren’t turned will realize how formidable this blog dude is, and quake at the prospect of tipping their hand with an attack. So I’m down with transparency as a tactic… plus it makes my secrets all the more delicious! • 11-25-11)

Public really means available to my clan. Let’s face it, most of the folks who are willing to wade through this dross already know me. They are here because I invited them. My guess is that even with all my tagging and whatnot, most of my bloggees are going to have some RL connection to me.

mistakes = power

http://www.holyboners.com/2008/10/22/password-protected-update-is-made-available-to-a-few-more-members-of-the-tribe/

Bit of a time warp here. It’s now November 22, 70 days since my last DOG post and/or any structured progress towards completion. What happened?! Let’s have a look.

Is saying I want to finish DOG an articulation of actual desire or merely an affirmation? Certainly I could imagine and even list the benefits of finishing – the spiritual growth, the closure, etc. I’ve certainly detailed what finishing looks like, (here and here) but have I ever discussed how getting DOG done might make me feel? WHY do I want to finish?

Outcomes imply an emotional experience. It’s an if / then statement – if x happens then I’ll get to feel y. If she falls in love with me then I’ll feel ecstatic. The event x becomes an objective that once achieved is experienced as emotion y. Emotion y is motivation, the drive behind scheming on x.

A farty old Austrian suggested we achieve specific goals by delaying gratification, avoiding events that can’t deliver the intensity associated to a target goal. Those who forgo distracting events (control their impulses) are more successful in life – whoo! Freudian dogma not withstanding, delayed gratification is silly. As emotional beings we need to be gratified regularly, there’s no way to delay. Hitting objectives is about rehearsing gratification in the juicy neural holodeck. By associating desired feelings to an imagined outcome, conditional logic replaces transience with an extended immersion. Whether through repetition or squirts of neuro-chemical glamour the simulation becomes much bigger and brighter than RL. It’s about tasting the experience now – even if it’s years away. Maybe once we become savants of the virtual, having swooped and swirled every nuance of the possible, the RL outcome can’t help but manifest, (with a nod to the cosmic overlay). Or we get fitted for a straightjacket.

Previewing is gratification in the here and now.  Rehearsal, practice. To get DOG done, the emotional experience of completion needs to be articulated and then placed in plain sight. Are there any posts relating to my  completion feelings? How about entries buried in the archive? Whether yay or nay, talking about Why is clearly the next step. Detailing my experience with distractions might be edifying too – eg misguided monogamy and erotic adventures with 30 somethings. Stay tuned. Once Why is sorted out, picking up and hanging with the plan will be automatic.

Digression about the song ‘Everything I do I do to get laid’.

Ok so completing DOG means getting laid. Wait, wait… let’s establish the protocol with a more family friendly aspect.

Why do I want to finish this movie, Daughter of God? As my first significant independent effort it’s both loaded with mistakes and brimming with flashes of brilliance. I’d like to be proud of it’s final incarnation, but I would accept not flinching when I screen it for an audience. There’s a persistent intuition – if I can find the right approach, I could pull a sleek silver rabbit out of this moth eaten top hat.

That’s almost a why, here’s the rest – If I pulled a rabbit out of this hat I’d feel – ingenious, competent and magical.

There’s a demonstration of the protocol. The job is to describe all aspects of the completion event and their associated emotions. What about NOT completing DOG, how does that make me feel? Probably some surprises there, also worthy of full consideration. Is keeping DOG incomplete desirable? What other outcomes (goals achieved, distractions and practice) provide a reliable rush?

So here’s the blueprint.

Why do I want to get DOG done?
What might happen to me then?
How will that make me feel?
Am I ok having these feelings?

Is there anything I rather do than get DOG done?
What might happen to me then?
How does that make me feel?
Am I ok having these feelings?

What goals have I achieved?
How does that make me feel?

What has distracted me?
How does that make me feel?

What is my consistent practice?
How does that make me feel?