Yoko on the street.

Holy Shite. Yoko Ono’s show at the MCA is absolutely fantastic. No doubt, she is one of the greatest artists of the 20th & 21st Centuries. I have come a long way around. I remember in high school sort of hating on Yoko for breaking up the Beatles. But it was a bad rap. John & Paul just didn’t see eye to eye anymore.

Anyway the show is great. There is a video with a young & gorgeous John & Yoko doing a crazy-ass performance piece. It is so cool and inspiring to see them performing together with total, unbridled, discipline & commitment.

Yoko also has been doing little “dot” drawings since the 90’s. They are absolutely fabulous. A truly thrilling and inspiring show, there is a surprise in every room.

Yoko has had an uncommon, quite brilliant, sad, and wonderful, inspiring, life. As young girl in Japan running & sheltering from the bombs dropped by the USA in World War II, later making avant garde art with John Cage, making short films, doing crazy performances pieces in London & New York, meeting John Lennon and totally blowing his mind, expanding his vision, breaking up the Beatles (ha!), inspiring John to expand his artistic approach, creating some great solo records herself, inspiring John to make music too, then tragically having her husband gunned down in front of her in New York City in 1980.

She has carried on, to this day, doing her thing, never stopping, creating art, and promoting Peace. And that old revolutionary philosophy she & John promoted early on works today too: “Change a Mind/Change a World.”

Peace, yes, but also, in the face of Tyranny, Peaceful, Non-Violent, RESISTANCE! Abolish ICE. Damn the fucking torpedoes. – Jammer

I’ve been falling so long it’s like gravity’s gone and I’m just floating.”Mike Cooley, Drive By Truckers

Will I Miss the Sky?
Good morning existential crisis, your arrival is like the punch-line in a good joke. Things happen. We live in a little community where you see the same people all the time, you know the shop-keepers, neighbors and resturant owners, for good and bad. You say hello to the passing scene, spark up little conversations about this and that. Then one day something happens. A fluke accident. Death. Death, you are now a stranger, one day you will be a close friend. You try to remember the face, the laugh, you hear lines like “Will I miss the city lights? Will I miss the snow? Will I miss the laughter? Will I miss the jokes? Will I miss touch? Will I miss love? Will I miss you?”  – Yoko Ono

Time on your side. vs. Time on my side.
I look through Fashion magazines all the time (it’s sort of part of my day job), a line from an advertisement sticks in my head….Time on your side….. music comes swirling in, cuz that’s what’s going on inside my head… (music, colors, visions) next thing I hear is, “Time is on my side, yes it is. Time is on my side, yes it is.” The Rolling Stones. The mind makes funny connections. Time on your side, time on my side – I realize that is a very different thing.

Saturday morning.
I’ve embraced this existential crisis. Today I have it with yogurt and tea. I discover that Antony and the Johnsons have a new live album, “Cut the World.” I see the Secretly Canadian logo in the corner of the ad. (We sent 10+1 to them, along with many other labels.) I see a little ray of light. I look foward to hearing this new piece. I am inspired by the creative work of others. The way someone runs a little community business, the way we support one another in life, or the way a fellow aritst creates a new surprise. I remember the face, I remember the muse. I see our project taking flight and opening doors to new worlds. Then incoming: “Man gets tired, Spirit don’t, Man surrenders, Spirit won’t, Man crawls, Spirit flies, Spirit lives when man dies.” – Mike Scott, The Waterboys

— Carla

Yes, it’s always time to choose. If you are for peace, someone is for war. If you want to “save the planet,” others want to drill, and cut, and burn. John Lennon & Yoko Ono showed us how to mix art and politics. Lennon was the biggest pop star in the world, and he fell in love with Yoko, and together they became very high-profile conceptual artists, and promoters of peace. A perfect example of how to mix art and politics. And yes, once John was dead and buried, then everyone wanted to make him a saint. But he was no saint. He was a man, a charismatic, talented and committed artist; a “heart on his sleeve” kind of guy. Whatever he was doing, being in a band, or being a “house-husband,” he was always fully committed. “Power to the People” was probably a better slogan than a pop single, but John’s heart was in the right place. Today we all need to choose sides too. There is no middle ground. We can choose to live with love and heart, we can choose a progressive politics where we value science and the planet, and human rights, and women’s rights, and gay rights, and immigrant rights, and a social safety net… or not.  But we must choose, and if we don’t, that’s a choice too. So yes, we choose to wear our politics on our sleeves too. Obama/Biden 2012!– Jammer