Interplay

There is a movement underway. All sorts of isolated individuals asserting their accidental individuality in the face of evolutionary necessity, as some wise man once said. It's a crazy little posse we've got forming. Growing in numbers. United in a feeling that can't even be put into words but we signify it by pointing to the banner flying with the L-O-V-E in big 'ol letters made of that gooey stuff that is pumpin' through your guts moments after taking your eyes off the one you're really feeeeeeeeeeeeeeelin' it for, at that moment, whomever they may be, on that day, at that time, in that instant.

The story has been told many times of how I once fell in love with a man riding a bike up a steep hill on a hot day, simply for the effort he was exerting. For the love of his effort. The effortless, too, hath a glowing space in my heart. Yes. Love the effortless, But shit in my shoes, do I ever love effort! Right effort. Right thought. Right practice. In a world without right and wrong? How completely audacious!

Each man is responsible for his own soul, and each to his own, as they say. However – and this is a most fascinating point when one considers it as one should – there is an interplay. An uncontrollable interplay.

It is hard for me to make a sentence go in any one direction lately. Luckily, at least, when reading (in the English language, and a few others I’ve encountered) we move our eyes from left to right, top to bottom, and follow the phrase withersoever it goes. (some poets and word-artists and linguists and fartists have had some other ideas) however, the instinct of the masses remains. The hoi polloi, in general, in the Americas, reads LEFT to RIGHT.

Compare. When listening to another speak -- save for flights of fancy, blank spots, possible drug interference and intentional or unintentional ignoring -- we listen as we live, in real time, experiencing linearity, following the narrative, abstract though the subject matter may be, withersoever it leads. We listen, much like we read. I, personally, both listen and read, and, speaking from my own experience, since that is all I truly have any authority to speak from, can assuredly say that I listen much like I read.

There is an interplay – yet, within it, there is a need for an isolated thought process. A personal inventiveness, which can be viewed as an interaction with the other (though there be no other) be it a person, book, sound, image, or hallucination. Regardless, there is the need for times of quiet in one’s own (common) mind.

Also, we must allot sufficient time for the mutually adventurous to spend time together and create. To breed and compose. Interact. Discuss. Plan. Reflect. The interplay is everything. The one looking at itself as two (or more). Experiencing itself as two (or more).

There is no explaining what has not yet happened to someone who has not yet experienced it.

It is very difficult to merely exist. Practically impossible.

And now, Oh My Lord Don Quixote, all I ask on this night like any other night is the courage to follow, withersoever thou leadest my aching frame; to heed the call of adventure, wheneversoever it heralds, and to love, my dear sweet holy idiot, to love. To cultivate the unconditional giving of self to thy children and plebeians. Thy hoodlums and wackos. Thy dejected, rejected, snotty and shitfaced. Oh lord, sweet lord, daddy of the sugars, momma of the fuckers, sister of the lovesick, brother of the bigness, cousin of the unconscious, uncle of the uglynasties, friend of the faithless, lover of all things just as they are and however they may want to be... give it up. Give it up to us like a 5am jackpot after a long night of pullin' dry on the one armed bandit.

I can see it. It's already happening. It's as ridiculous and pathetic and gorgeous as it can be. The love is raining down, everywhere I'm looking. The sky is falling and it's about time. The rain is helping it all soak in.

Love,
Juli

something to (not) think about

You are asked -- temporarily, of course -- to lay aside all of your philosophical, religious, and political opinions, and to become almost like an infant, knowing nothing. Nothing, that is, except what you actually hear, see, feel, and smell. Take it that you are not going anywhere but here, and that there never was, is, or will be any other time than now. Simply be aware of what actually *is* without giving it names and without judging is, for you are now feeling out reality itself instead of ideas and opinions *about* it. There is no point in trying to suppress the babble of words and ideas that goes on in most adult brains, so if it won't stop, let it go on as it will, and listen to it as if it were the sound of traffic or the clucking of hens.

Let you ears hear whatever they want to hear; let your eyes see whatever they want to see; let your mind think whatever it wants to think; let your lungs breathe in their own rhythm. Do not expect any special result, for in this wordless and idealess state, where can there be past or future, and where any notion of purpose? Stop, look, and listen... and stay there awhile before you go on.

- Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way

Link to Text: http://ping.fm/GVMHQ

a nice reminder

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

RIP Brittany Murphy (and Western Civilization)

I believe the following paragraph from a news article officially marks the surety of the next Decline of Western Civilization...

"Ashton Kutcher, who once dated Murphy and co-starred with her in 2003's "Just Married," posted his condolences on his Twitter page today. "See you on the other side kid," it began."

Read more: http://ping.fm/LwEdN

:-(

Loving

CalArts Theater, Loving
Originally uploaded by California Institute of the Arts

Just found a cool set of pictures on Flickr of the opera I directed at CalArts last spring.

Such a cool opportunity to work in the MOD, with fantastic singers and actors, full orchestra, video design.... the works! I love that school and I love that space!! :-)

Live for Today

I just found a piece of old writing of mine in which the final lines were:

"Panties down. Live for today."

That saying is now posted in large letters on my wall for maximum daily reflection.

So Sweet: Now on YouTube!

Please watch, rate, comment, SHARE!

xoxo

Dryers

Dryers help protect the environment. They save trees from being used for paper towels. They eliminate paper towel waste. They are more sanitary to use than paper and help maintain cleaner facilities.

:-)

Lead singer with 'The Evangenitals'

Lead singer with 'The Evangenitals'
Originally uploaded by jlaird76 (only dipping in and out at weekends as t

Wow. Just found this awesome photograph of ME on Flickr... taken during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It's so incredible to get to see myself being MYSELF... :-)

Calling All Idealists!

I love this organization! Please join and let's *@!* up the world in a good way. :-)

**
Launching This Week: A Global Network of Idealists - at Idealist.org

It’s time to build a global network that will serve and support all those people who want to make the world a better place, online and in person.

This is the idea that has always grounded and fueled our work. We believe that all over the world people and communities face three common challenges:

* There is often a big gap between our good intentions and our actions.
* Our problems are connected, but we are not.
* The world is full of good ideas that don't spread quickly enough.

What we need, then, is a network, a movement, an ecosystem that will:

* Make it easier for people and organizations to move from intentions to action.
* Connect people, organizations, and resources in every possible way.
* Find good ideas wherever they are, and distribute them as widely as possible.

If we can do this, and do it well, most of our local and global challenges will be easier to deal with.

At http://ping.fm/0IzIs you can read the vision behind this in more detail; follow along on our Imagine, Connect, Act blog; and sign up to help us get started.

Will you join us?

http://ping.fm/1JY0y

New Video: So Sweet, Indeed

Check it out!!!

Director DJ Mendel from New York just made us a video for our tune "So Sweet" off the new Evangenitals EP (now availalble on iTunes, CDBaby, etc)

http://ping.fm/BNYq4

We met DJ in Scotland while at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He directed Cynthia Hopkins' "Accidental Nostalgia" (featuring the band Gloria Deluxe) and the cast and crew of that show made appearances at several Evangenitals gigs. In fact, their fiddle player Philippa Thompson even sat in with us on violin and harmonies at our last show! Glorious deluxe, indeed!!!

It was a love fest, indeed, and the lovin' continues with this cyber-collaborative video.

Please take a look and leave a comment!!! Post, share, etc. Spread the love! :-)

http://ping.fm/BpCRw

Love, love, love
Juli & the Evangenitals

TONIGHT at the TRIP in Santa Monica

On Thursday November 5th the Evangenitals are taking a pilgrimage to the West Side for a family affair funk & junk shaking evening with our good friends Cousin Junebug at THE TRIP in Santa Monica.

This is a cool club with a really nice promoter who is trying to create something lovely over in Santa Monica, so please come out and sing, dance, and support the great night of music!

Opening the night is CHARLIE CHENEY -- Pirate Superhero Citizen Adventurer -- on a wild Amtrak tour Michigan and he's stopping in to play for YOU. Rumor hasn't it that Juli Crockett of the Evangenitals is gonna duet with him too. Oooooh! Let's duet!

Then the Evangenitals will make love to your ear holes, and then Cousin Junebug wil funk you up. And then the Catch and Waves will funk, fusion, freestyle you into oblivion.

All for just $5.

Can I get a HELL YEAH?!?!!

The TRiP (http://ping.fm/I2Bc5)
2101 Lincoln Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90405

8pm Charlie Cheney (http://ping.fm/VKLl5)
9pm Evangenitals (http://ping.fm/0Gt6l)
10pm Cousin Junebug (http://ping.fm/urhnf)
11pm The Catch and Waves (http://ping.fm/MvTQu)

See you there!

Julio's Dad was born in Alabama to a family of Lunatics.

Dad was hit by two cars in the same day and had a staple shot into his head. He wrote a book on the history of Alabama, became a history professor, and had affairs with his students. He won 2nd place on Jeopardy but was unable to claim his prize because he hadn't paid child support since the divorce. Dad had an awful temper and would often be sent to his room, by Mom. Mom would make us put ice in his pants to calm him down. He once made scrambled eggs with sugar in them and threw them against the wall. He hid the household bills in shoeboxes that he kept in the closet and recorded porn movies at the end of our cartoon tapes. He tried to make me eat orange peels and hot dogs with peanut butter and cheese because "it all went to the same place anyway." Dad got born-again and wrote a 3000 page novel on the sex life of Jesus Christ. He married a Norweigian woman he met on a cruise ship and moved to Puyallup, Washington where they ran a tuxedo rental business. They would not loan my brother a tuxedo for prom. The new wife fell off a horse, hit her head and went insane. Dad heard Jesus telling him what numbers to play in Vegas. He developed cancer of the lymph nodes and died, right around Christmas time.

The Pangs

The Pangs. The Fucking Pangs.

There is a whole Opus Pistorum to be written on The Pangs.

The feeling: a sort of reverse-nostalgia.

A bittersweet, memory-like longing for something that hasn't yet happened. The girl you never knew that broke your heart comes to the party in the skin of a woman you've never met... will she ever understand that you already love her? Deeply, truly, thoroughly. Is this love any less valid because it exists in another dimension and has nothing to do with anything real* (*i.e. having any connection to that which actually happened in this lifetime)?

The relationships of the mind, whilst listening to songs, whilst watching the sun go down, whilst watching movies, sitting in the tub, are so full, so beautiful, so sad and perfectly imperfect. Inside of these images of imaginary love affairs, cinematically painful, slowly and quietly intense and dramatic, we always look beautiful when we're crying. Our faces are never red and puffy and pathetic, and if they are, they are adorably so, intensely so, sweetly so.

Pain is a pang, a slide-guitar gut sensation, a minor note felt in the aorta, a heart choke. Eyes blink in the soft light, tears roll down the cheeks, always in slow motion, with a sound track, slow, with ringing harmonics which die away, open tuning, the sound of the metal rattling on the fret. Imperfectly perfect, and slow.

Behind, above, surrounding it all, there is the glowing specter of a heart, full to bursting with love, that grows and grows and grows.

The people-in-general, the hoi polloi, the vox populi go on about their business. Another day, another nickel. Back to work. Me too. Here I am. Senor Cog: Welcome to the Urban Junkyard! Your Civic Duties await you! Please report to the office and place your Cog in the Machine. Although the System runs quite smoothly without You (it is, in and of itself, a self-propagating, self-copulating, self-emulating machine) We sure do like having You around. All is Better Back in Line, waiting for your side-order of fries. Here we Go.

Need to get simple and monosyllabic for a minute. Yes, no, good, yes, ugh.... simple simple. Even simple has two-syllables. Too Many! Need the Ones: Plain. Good. Girl. Boy. Beach. Sky. Sea. Camp. Walk. Sleep. Read. Light. Dark. Beef. Fish. Eat. Love. Joy. God.

It is time to cry. Really cry. Not just weep that bittersweet lovesick weep that's burning in the throat 24/7, but fucking WAIL. Wail to the heavens in a combination of a "thank you!" and "why? fucking why?" A question and an exclamation. Why is she so beautiful? Why can't it last forever? Why would I want it to? Why do I deserve such light? Such feelings? Such a friend?

I love those days when one knows, beyond a doubt, that happiness is right here. Nothing more is needed. I could live in a dirt shack chicken coop, and so long as the face turns toward the sun now and then, happy is here.

And yet, simultaneously, that thought horrifies me.... this is it? this is all you want? this is happiness? no no not enough never never never enough.... I am the bitch of ambition! I am the slave of the self talking mind! I am the hog-tied POW of "not enough" "less than" and "falling short", and am a shit sandwich with a side order of failure and a self pity shake.

Those are The Pangs, mang.

I love this Life

rock faces
Originally uploaded by juliocrockett

Spent a whole lotta time today uploading, rotating, tagging, and titling a bunch of Lisa Dee's pictures from the Evangenitals/Dawn of Quixote quixotic trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. It was super-awesome to get to reflect and remember what an amazing adventure it was, how incredible it is that we pulled the whole thing off, and what a priceless experience was had by all.

I am insanely grateful to these folks for believing it was possible and for their willingness to take that ride. I love these guys and gals.... and I love all the Evangenitals that came before, all who are yet to come, and everyone who has given us their time, attention, and support through the years.

It is a beautiful thing. :-)

The Lee Shore

"In landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God—so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!"

(Moby Dick, Chapter 23)

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him...

(Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good)

....... A super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

(credit: Eddie Bieble's blog: http://ping.fm/UDupi)

Cash'd Out Midwest Tour Continues!

Another great round of shows through Missouri, South Dakota and Minnesota! We have a much deserved day off tomorrow and then we're headed to Chicago, Green Bay and St. Louis. See details below.

House of Blues – Back Porch
Chicago, IL
Saturday, October 24
http://ping.fm/lvBL9

Oneida Casino
Green Bay, WI
Sunday-Tuesday, October 25-27
http://ping.fm/ntzSc

Beale on Broadway
St. Louis, MO
Wednesday, October 28
http://ping.fm/P4QYA

Upcoming Schedule:
Saturday, October 24: HOB Back Porch (Chicago, IL)
Sunday-Tuesday, October 25-27: Oneida Casino (Green Bay, WI)
Wednesday, October 28: Beale on Broadway (St. Louis, MO)
Friday, October 30: Eagles Ballroom (Omaha, NE)
Saturday, October 31: The Bottleneck (Lawrence, KS)
Friday, November 6: Blank Club (San Jose, CA)
Saturday, November 7: Blue Fin (Monterey, CA)
Sunday, November 8: Fishlips (Bakersfield, CA)
Saturday, November 14: Thee Parkside (San Francisco, CA)
Wednesday, November 18: Urban Lounge (Salt Lake City, UT)
Friday, November 20: Knitting Factory (Spokane, WA)
Saturday, November 21: Knitting Factory (Boise, ID)
Friday, November 27: Viper Room (West Hollywood, CA)
Saturday, November 28: Winstons (Ocean Beach, CA)
Saturday, December 5: Aliante Station (Las Vegas, NV)
Friday, December 18: Tractor Tavern (Seattle, WA)
Saturday, December 19: Dantes (Portland, OR)
Saturday, December 26: Belly Up Tavern (San Diego, CA)

Thanks for your support!

What do you think of my Genitals? :-)

It occurred to me today that a whole lot of people -- all over the world!!! -- have gotten the new Evangenitals EP. That's awesome.

Now, how about telling us what you think of it?!?!?! WE NEED YOUR REVIEWS!!!

Please take a moment to log in to CDBaby.com (it's free and all... if you don't already have an account there) and give us some stars! Let us know what you think of the album. We would love your feedback. WHAT DO YOU THINK???

Here's the link to the album page where you can post your reviews: http://ping.fm/6G7bF

Thank you!

xoxo
Juli & the Evangenitals

Evangenitals & Cash'd Out at the Belly Up!

On Saturday October 10th the Evangenitals will play our biggest show yet! We are opening for Cash'd Out, the world's premier Johnny Cash tribute band (that Evangenital Juli Crockett sings the June Carter parts with!) at San Diego's BEST live music venue -- The Belly Up!

The incredible Bill Cardinal is also on the bill, and DJ Gonzo will be spinning all the great cowboy classics between sets. The Belly Up is a beautiful venue with amazing sound, an awesome lineup, and a HUGE opportunity for the Evangenitals to shine our light on San Diego.

If you are in the area, please come see the show! If you know anyone in the area, please help us spread the word!

If you're in LA and would like to carpool, please email us! We are organizing a carvan to cruise down family-style. :-)

Tickets are cheaper if you buy 'em in advance, and Cash'd Out shows at the Belly Up often tend to sell out... so get your tix here: http://ping.fm/bukS0

Doors at 8pm, music starts at 9pm. Come and see the whole damn show, cuz it's all gonna ROCK!

What a great day to be an Evangenital!

If you're too far to make it, you can grab the new EP off CDBaby, throw on the tunes Saturday night, close your eyes and be with us in spirit. We need your love: http://ping.fm/LESTS

Being and Loveliness,
Juli & the Evangenitals