Don't believe the hype : Wall Street and "the Economy" are not instrumental to your survival. They are over-ripe cocoon shells whose purpose has been served, and their inevitable demise is to be mourned no more than the loss of your baby teeth or the intrusion of hair onto your once bald pubis. If you're not quite ready to celebrate this wonderful state of transition, at least remember that you will live through this and, if you keep breathing and remember what's truly important, you will even smile, laugh, and love. Accept this : it MIGHT go down, and if it goes down, let it go down. Those who cling to it are lashing their spirits to the rails of the titanic. Smile. Don't Panic. Everything is okay...

Photo Illustrations by Pete Moraites

For over a decade, Ross and Heidi Lagumina have organised and hosted the New York Power Team's annual Thanksgiving Basket Brigade, bringing everything for a great holiday meal to less fortunate families around the city !

I shared in this awesome experience nine or so years ago. It was a great experience then, and in the years between, Ross and Heidi have expanded the group of participants and the number of families to whom they bring their gifts. As usual, the day was filled with smiling faces.

Last December I met a terrifically talented painter named Deb Chaney. After some great conversation about the reasons, the compulsions, the process and the power of creativity, I traveled up to Deb's studio at her home in Santa Barbara for a collaborative painting and photography experience. After spending some time with Matt and Ruthie ( her excellent husband and their beautiful and charming little girl ), we headed into the studio where Deb shared some of her current inspirations and processes with me as we worked on a piece together. Partway through Deb encouraged me to start working on another piece of my own , sharing that she sometimes works on up to twenty pieces at a time ! I can understand why. Her passion for painting is infectious and she made the experience alot of fun. I got totally into it and wished we had allocated even more time. By the end of the night I was well into the "timeless zone" of creative joy. This is my second painting experience this month and I'm starting to feel a little bit by yet another creative bug. I can also see the effect such prolific activity has had in her development. Deb shared alot of her archival work with me so I got to see alot of her range of styles and approaches, and for all that work it's obvious from being in the studio with her as she gets into her groove that she's just hitting her stride. Check out Deb's artwork as well as her instructional courses and keep watch on this one. Thanks for the experience Deb.

Here's the photos from the night. Music : "mopiano", "M-brace", and "OpenUp" .

This past week I was invited to show as Guest Video Artist by Spring Arts Collective on LA's downtown Artwalk. The show was great and I was honored to display my work along with a host of amazing artists including : Deborah Martin, Evah Hart, Bryan De Roo, Michael Gardner, TAZ, Jefrey Jones, and Martha Wilson.

Deborah Martin is a beautifully skilled realist with a fascination for things in decay and places which have been "left behind". Evah Hart works in various media and showed mixed media painting as well as a wall of polaroid self-portraits taken daily for a year. Taz works with bold graphic simplicity on heavy wood which contrasted marvelously with Jeffrey Jones's delicately built and balanced wire sculptures. Bryan De Roo created an assemblage titled "Famliy Tree" which draws the viewer into a story with fragments and artifacts of interconnected lives. Andy Cline's brightly colored oils on canvas explored a diversity of forms while Martha Wilson's whimsical works celebrate romantic love in a series of vignetted moments.

I was given a beautiful huge space to project "Spelling Test" in, and an adjacent bank vault for "Corpus Collosus" The experience was amazing and the party was great fun. I met amazing artists and patrons of the Artwalk. Special thanks to all my friends who came to support and celebrate together. Thanks as well to Victorious and Lucky Mohawk at Eyepsience for hooking this show up (as well as hooking the projectors up!) and Eder One for the sign.

"Spelling Test" has it's roots in my solo development as an artist, but in it's fruition it's truly a collaborative work and couldn't exist without Eric Scott musically and Alyson Boote visually.

Painting is, for the most part, a new experience, and painting BIG even moreso. I photographed Eder painting live at coachella and had the great opportunity to hang out and get to know this tremendously talented and supercool artist. recently I photoed Ed again at the "VS" artpARTy, which he curated. Ed's been at the art game for a long time, and his talents and experiences range from skateboard design , poster and sticker tagging, large scale painting, billboard design, museum and gallery installations, and even totem-pole carving in Alaska. Ed's got the shamanic spirit and passion for art and cultivates a strong political stance in his own works as well as fostering the growth of other artists around him. When he invited me down to his R.E.H.A.B. Studio to paint together I jumped at the chance (and naturally brought my camera for the ride). This was my first time painting on a big scale. I'd have learned more if I slowed down a bit, but that's not the first time my enthusiasm's gotten the best of me, which of course is it's own lesson. It was a great time. Check out Eder's myspace and when he's doing another showing or live painting gig, check him out.

I photographed the Love Me Nots at LA's Crash Mansion during the Rock-N-Wrestling show. The wrestling was... interesting... the music was F-ing awesome. their were alot of great bands that night ( 16 I think) all playing dark-surf-rock-psychobilly type stuff. Whoever curated the bands did an excellent job of creating a musical "scene" that night, with a really distinct vibe. It was like being somewhere else in time, someplace that never quite existed in the past. Kinda like being in the future... but the future from the past.

The highlight was the Love Me Nots. Fuzzy GoGo Surf-Spy Music. Edgy, Sexy, and Fast. Shotting them onstage was fun and we did a quick bit of extra photos in the hallway after before their drummer Jay tore out for his flight home to his family in true married rockstar fashion.

The album is called "In Black and White" and is available on Atomic Records.

REHAB Studio's Eder One curated this excellent gathering of visual and musical artists at LA's Crash Mansion. Live painting by Eder One, Joey "The Phantom" Krebs, Raul Frame and more, with DJ's and trumpeter Josh Koslow and visual projections by

I first saw the Mutaytor perform at Coachella 4 or 5 years ago. I was absolutely amazed. Brilliant musically and visually, they do great justice to the word "spectacle". Since then I've had the good fortune of friendship with Suzy-Q, Lisa Han, Vjs Lucky and Victorious, and I'm gradually getting to know the rest of this enormous ensemble of uber-talent. Victorious invited me to the Smash Lab to photograph the band and some of the performers rehearsing for "the Mustache Show" at LA's the ROXY.

This was a crazy weekend. Five shoots in four days. Monster throws a good party. It was fun to see De La Soul, and Black Sheep joined them on stage later for "The Choice is Yours" which has always been a favorite.

Johnny and Mikey and their gang of villains blowing up the skies of New York.

Explosive.

'Nuff Said.

After being passenger in a car accident two summers ago, I began chiropractic treatments under the care of Dr. Marc Golub. Marc adjusted me twice weekly for a couple of months. During each of my visits, he worked me out on the LPG Spineforce machine.

I found the Spineforce to be a fun workout; I loved the focus of attention necessary to “hit the bullseye” consistently, working my neurology even more than my muscles… training balance and stability into my body.

After a couple months of adjustment and using the machine as a clinical tool, usually twice weekly, I was feeling better emotionally as well as physically.

As Marc and I talked about the benefits of this machine as an athletic training tool, and about the benefits of clarity and emotional stability I was experiencing, we started to get excited about the potential of training the human neurology intensively to higher and higher levels of balance, stability, and somatic awareness. Since we experience our emotions in our physical bodies, the effects permeate every area of life. The more our brains are in clear and direct communication with our bodies, the more we feel “at home” within our bodies. This is a very good feeling to have.

Marc started working me out on the Spineforce at least an hour daily for a week over the course of about two months, creating sequences for different muscle regions and focusing intently on the fine motor precision necessary to “stay in the bullseye consistently”. I felt awesome physically, mentally, and emotionally. Peolpe started to tell me I looked great… I seemed more balanced. By several accouunts I “seemed taller” I was hooked. I wanted to tune in to my neurological system daily. For hours at a time. I wanted the keys to the office. I wanted a Spineforce machine in my apartment.

It’s now been nearly two years and Splneforce has become a regular part of my personal training regimen. My training has been so immersive that I am now cerified myself as a Spineforce Trainer, and subsequently certified on LPG’s Endermologie KeyModule, another amazingdevice for massaging and stimulating connective tissues. The two machines work great in conjunction with one another and I’m very grateful for the effects they’ve had in my life.

The best comparison I can give to this is when Keanu Reeves uses a machine to program his neurology in The Matrix. “More. I want more.”

The surface hasn’t even been scratched yet. With regular and occasional immersive training on the Spineforce, I know I can experience higher and higher levels of human potential physically and emotionally.

This is a very exciting time.

In the beginning, there was RES...

now we have Tomorrow Unlimited   more »

Horn of Heimdall, Horn of Gabriel, the great bridge unifies all...

Thanks to Ari Raz for the photography and for always being psyched to make something for fun. to Belief for the greenscreen stage, for inspiration, challenge and encouragement and for teaching me vectorPaint. and for the roto practice. Thanks to Kelly Morgan for the VisionQuest course which helped shape the intentions of this piece and all of my friends at CreativeLife for such powerful inspiration and environment. Thanks also to LozaFJ at YouTube whose kaleidoscopicmotion pieces were a visual inspiration.

This is always one of my favorite nights of the entire workshop. I've always said : "I wish halloween was four times per year", and so it is !

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Prior to the civil rights movement, the idea of "black people" (insert PC term du jour, if you like) being integrally involved in the political direction of their home nation was considered by those who took such power for granted to be a joke.
Fifty years prior to that, the suggestion that a woman should wield such power was equally laughable.   more »

Well, okay, one classroom in Ohio... but there ARE two classes there!   more »

This sunday I have my graduation event for DJ-101 at Scratch academy.   more »

Fuck Lasik. Healing my own vision isn't as quick, but it's a far more satisfying process.   more »

You're in a quiet, pitch dark tank, floating in a solution of skin-temp water and ... um... I think it's salt... alot of salt... enough to make you bouyant. All your sensory input is minimized. You're a point of awareness in the warm dark void...   more »