Looking wild-eyed forward to this weekend’s First Annual Peace Jam LA ..

Every “big” thing, even mighty rivers, start as a “small” thing, a spring somewhere… a small group, a collaboration of like-minded folks ..   and a project conceived will flow like water, naturally gathering force along the way  ..   and like this and like that an-uh, we’ll JAM together, constellate  this weekend with Blas, Rosendo, Steve and Sekou, Pilgrim, and the Downtown Jazz Project. Let’s get together and feel alright .. shimmi shimmi koko PEACE .. See you there!

Up the coast, and amid Cali’s curvaceous slopes, worldOne festival 2011 is complete .. a grand annual round of contemplation, drawing, seeding, planning, gestation, construction, scraped knuckles, collaboration, exertion, gyration, celebration, recession, exhaustion, and the gazillion errands, in reverse !

It takes a village to raise a proper community festival .. and here’s a foto of the assembled  community of worldOneateers ..  what I mean to say by “proper” is the SPIRIT, around what purpose/intention in which a festival takes place, and the community investment in its eso- and exoteric outcome .. towards relatedness, vision, renewal. Commercial festivals can lean that way, and often, miss that mark.

Now packing-down, repairing, critiquing, note-taking,… ultimately .. giving thanks that we were able to do it gain … post-festival rest-disorder ( the adrenaline-pumped- 24-7 list really, really takes time to wind down.. like my popping up at 2 am, just having to get notes on paper..( like making sure to source “t-post safety caps” and Balinese ceremonial umbrellas )

And yes, I have already tendered invites for 2012. LOL …

On the decks this am … really … Breakout ( Swing Out Sister)  and Desree (Ya Gotta Be) … played them back to back a few times while I was building-packing-sorting in the yard … genuinely upbeat ditties … absolutely glad to her them again …

In recent worldOnemixology: Terra Firma, Afro Celt Sound System, Loop Guru, Temptations, Terryy Linen, I-Tawah, Shayna Dread, Stephen Marley, Selections from the Soundtracks to I Love You Philip Morris and The King’s Speech, Iron and Wine, Bon Iver, Pilgrim, Hudson Mohawke, Crystal Monee Hall,  Free Design, Taurus Riley, Ellis Paul and Vance Gilbert, Celso Fonseca,  Herb Alpert Remixed, Sergio Mendes, Sister Carol, and Jimmy Durante .. in a worldOne you- made-me-Inka Dinka Reminx …. Now dat’s a trumpet .. ha cha cha cha !

More fest resonance and fotos soon …happy summerings !

worldOneradio vibz always available locally, SF Inner East Bay Rim, daily,

via 88.1keCg 97.7 .. and in select archives via www.worldoneradio.org …

Simmering our 13^th annual festival here in El Cerrito, and you are invited !

backdrops and back-stage coordinations, flyers and City meetings about every little thing under the sun …  wash stations, artist transport, and generators ..  food vendor permits .. it takes a village to raise a festival … positive work all around … in the meanwhile ..  sorry we’ve been off line .. it happens this time of year .. the daily school and  festival scramble is on.  So , this one is a multipart thread, jotted down over a few weeks now . please indulge its length and amble .. I’m just a soul whose intentions are good ..

Musics with a message .. waiting for, fomenting some breakthrough …

BTW .. wonders and signs ..  watch for Haley’ Meteors  shower Friday May 6 @ 3:30 am .. in Aquarius …  get to a dark place for better viewing …

( and  better in southern hemisphere)

While its energizing to lock horns with the inimical, its also tiring and even dangerous.

Just about once a year, lately.I write and follow up personally, on what I trust are incisive and revealing  appeals letters to broadcasters about seemingly obvious themes in media literacy …  goodness knows we seem to finally be coming to some new terms

With sugary-salty foods manufacturers..

Most recently, I reached out to the owner operators of  a “dance / POP”  station about the value of messaging inside a recent Ke$ha tune .. personally I’d rather just get to and stay in the good stuff… light with a taste of dark, thank you  (what we teach and broadcast everyday).

The easy duck is for commercial operators is “Geez, we hope you will not change the station, but you have choices”  .. and/or  “ we listen to lyrics and follow FCC rules”.  Utter Bullsh–t.  Let’s unf–k, that sscchall we ?

That’s the same side–step used by food industry giants over decades , and you can see what a national health crisis (obesity/diabetes) and informed-citizen-actioneer mobilization are now accomplishing. While the giant corps get busy white-washing their role or complicity, and finally are draaaagged to some new level of conscience and compliance.  They’ll still make money. How about some personal and enviro-health as a premise and by-product. Stunning revelation, to be sure.

I know , I know , crass, ( salty, sticky-sweet) racy or vulgar material has its place. Remember that lovely taste of dark juice, previously mentioned. But really, where is any craft or what we would agree is some health-seeking  soulfullness.  Especially in a POP all ages setting.I understand it’s hard to make great porn.

With the slope slippin the way it has, digressively,  over decades, extreme materialism screeching away ( and to countless  inevitable crashes all around) ..  scandalizing the image of younger and younger girls.

Why is the blatantly soft-porn and obscene openly promoted, while karate moms or soccer dads shrug? Overwhelm, I suspect.

Ke$ha is now on ,officially, her “Sleaze Tour” …

hot and dangerous, running this town just like a club, we are superstars … in hot pants   .. dumb , dancing till we’re numb,  looking sick and sexy fine ,  forever young,  don’t mess with us … Jesus in my neck-a-lace.. ( that lyric perhaps best word play , worst image)

I KNOW there is great music getting produced .. but it doesn’t find its way into mainstream broadcast media, excepot ten tears later on Jimmy Kimmel spot light. That kinda resistance keeps us socially retrograde.

Neon and naked excepted, bright lights are typically flatly rejected, dismissed with the outrageous suggestion,  at the end of the day, you gotta give the people what they want.

< Sic: for forty years, under this logic, the people apparently wanted obesity, diabetes, etc..>

Well, if the over-ganda has precluded real choices,  education, and critical thinking regarding same, the people will choose, poorly, from a pair of options presented by the promoter / propagandist.   It helps if you obfuscate and /or outright lie ( ahem .. we never advertised tobacco to youth) .

Broadcasters have shucked off and danced away from any real civic sense, localism, and responsibility and have become ( like oil companies, tobacco companies, food companies ), vehicles for accrual of personal / corporate wealth . Our civic life and federal government are rife with corruption due to this influence. Money apparently only hears money. The major networks report mayhem but do not even quietly question the ”imperative” for multiple undeclared “wars” , or unchecked defense spending. There is a broad and concerted “attack” on all foundations of civil services, public education and civic sense.  Though, Ding Dong Osama’s dead. Thanks a billions.  America seems hell bent on eating itself!

OUR DREAM OF LIGHT NEEDS TO OUT SHINE, DISPELL THE DARK DREAM OF THIS CURRENT MISCGUIDED PLAN OF ENDLESS, HEADLESS, HEARTLESS PROFIT.

I KNOW we can all ring bells by writing and calling, gathering talking, dancing, hugging, envisioning , organizing relentlessly, to business  management, and especially cc’ing their advertisers, constituents.    Like making that small and precious donation to the Peace Project this week !

Baby Boomers/ Boomlets .. Get your Boom Back ON !    turn up YOUR volume, bass , and some reverb!

On the very UP side .. Ghanaian-born Blitz the Ambassador is introducing a new CD this week .. Native Sun, following up Stereotype ( 2009) .. the entire cd is being released freely on You Tube .. check out his afrobeat and horn-laced conscious hip hop. WE had the proviledge to interview him in youth led studio this last week, and I later   attended his all ages and searing venue at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley … side by side with Mark Bamuthi’s spoken word  and traditional Ghanaian drum and dance. Blistering beats and exuberant entertainment. Everyone grooving between 4 and 84.   Akwaaba!

POP is by definition, flash in the pan … and still any concept of deep pop seems almost to have vanished .. gets swallowed up …

Why doesn’t the heaviest of the heavy resonate these days …

One of our students, now 16, keenly observes, sic : “ since deregulation, the aesthetic of media has capitulated to free market mentality, that is make money, with no social mission in sight. OUCH!

We seem inured to hearing and feeling collectively on a mass scale … no focus, soul- fire  .. a gazillion media channels, including this one … clamoring for ears and eyes .. ayayay ….

We recently revisIted a few compendia of MUSICAL material by WAR ( Very Best of Double)  and the Temptations ( Psychedelic Souls) . And we re-added Wailing Souls’ Psychedelic Soul …   OMJ.

Notice that as you turn the dial, we do not commonly hear …

STOP THE KILLING NOW …

DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT NOW  …

or

CHOP  WAR SPENDING NOW ..

CHOP IT CHOP IT CHOP IT CHOP IT CHOP IT CHOP IT NOW   …

“  TAX THE RICH NOW “

“ TAX GIANT CORPORATIONS NOW ” …

“ PUNISH AND REGULATE THE BANKERS NOW ”   …

“ HEAL THE PEOPLE NOW” …

“WORK HARD NOW”

“LIVE LOVE NOW”

I believe we have to hold  broadcasters accountable, same as any operator of public parks/space, resources, including oil/energy  companies , which have run amok, fomenting war and environmental fouling, including burning a hole in forever.  Thank you for the favor surfing through this .. be well, laugh more..  it will be great to hear from you   … = : ) ~

What say you ?

From the Muse Room ..

In recent worldOneradio programs, all available in archive @ www.worldoneradio.org:

Ryuichi Sakamoto/ Chasm, John Brown’s Body/ Amplify , ZIONI / Healing the Nation,

Porcupine Singers/ Honoring Songs, Mark Knopfler/ Get Lucky, Robbie Roberson/How to Become Clairvoyant, Duran Duran. All you Need is Now, Calafia ( self- titled), Xue Fei Yang ( Rodrigo), Marcus Printup / A Time for Love), Katchafire /On the Road Again.

America .. where art thou …

In the streets of Wisconsin .. defending basic workers rights, which, over decades, were logically supposed to accrue as corollary benefits for workers contribution of time and effort. Now yanked, by the same governments who gave away tax breaks, and thus state revenues, to corporations, political donors, and special corporate interests.

Michael Moore calls out the Corporate States of America  … and says of billionaires, media moguls ( as do other critical thinkers /actioneers) :

They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. < See entire context of his letter/recitation:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/america-is-not-broke

elsewhere … deregulation opened Pandora’s box for media “developers- buy + spinners” .. and in some cases straight-up extreme capital-ideologues …   this may account for why Drake-isms are ubiquitous on our high school campus and on urban commercial radio stations, in full expletive splatter of his glamorous boredom, while Roots-isms are not.

And Network Pleeease .. another program about Real Housewives of WTF– … emptyV… soul-deadening .. dumb and dumberer.. makes the population numb and numberer …

One is compelled to ask, where are the well produced TV programs about Real Soccer-Moms? Real Neighborhood Entrepreneurs, Farmers, Real Social Workers, Real Urban High School Teachers and Students, Real Hard-Working City Council Members ?

Maybe that’s the domain of local cable channels, if Comcast /Xfinity will leave any real room / promotion for them. And then, will the public value them more than the commercial jangle-juggernaut.

There is commercial media ( quarterly-sales-driven) and then there is soul-power-media … which one will you feed ?

Recently in communication with Farook @ MusicVoyager.com .. oh, you’ll have a good time in there “travelling” with host Jacob Edgar.  And you will likely enjoy getting more familiar with npr.org and www.npr.org/series/alt-latino/altlatino.

Working and visiting with Artist Photographer Fletcher Oakes locally is just totally, wow … electric-soul-power ..

Here’s a mandala image of Rocky Dawuni at worldOnefestival 2010 along with neighborhood actioneer and original Rosie-the-Riveter Mary Peace .. she’s also a great dancer !

And.. here’s another Fletcher Oake’s  image we will be employing on the main stage as a back drop in July 2011 ..

Having visited their studios last summer …A Mexican Radio Station has invited worldOne  to consult and guest host in their reggae programming .. que irie  !

worldOne served as dj for a memorial and community march last weekend, in Richmond, remembering a student who was felled in a wild-out vengeance drive by several weeks ago.  Family,  Students, Teachers, Principals, Police, Council- Members, Mayors, and community in attendance.   It was heavy-weight, and the musics bore the message .. Shabba Ranks, Stevie Wonder, Sly + the Fam, BEP + James Brown, Chaka Diemus + Pliers, Lucky Dube, Nas + Damian, John Robinson, Santana and Cubanismo ..

More from the worldOne Muse Room :

Along with mixing in soul stirring musics across decades, and our worldOne heartquarters voice mail .. we have been thrilling lately to : Gil Scott Heron / I’m New Here,  Flying Lotus 1983 and Pattern and Grid World, Ryuichi Sakamoto / Playing the Piano and Chasm,  The Black Keys / Brothers, Khaira Aarby/ Timbuktu Tarab, Sekouba /Sejo, Canyon Records Native Artists Randy Wood and Southern Scratch,  assorted sizzlers from African Dopeness, Bay Rim-dwelling Luther and the Flying Hammer and Steve G / Money Change People,  Hairdoo, revisiting Louis Hayes / Variety is the Spice of Life, and Mojarra Electrica / Calle 19.

Tune us in on-line via www.worldoneradio.org .. listen button on home page ..

worldOnelove! Baby ..                                                                       = : ) ~

And Good Morning to you dear earthnic reader/comspirer  …

This morning I write through the blogoshere into the internet, and the indranet?

Noting that it is likely highly unlikely that I could deliver the missive below through conventional office protocols via Karstadt, the German retailing group, or Prisa, the Spanish media conglomerate that publishes El País and owns Le Monde…

In some confidence that a businessman of Mr. Berggruen’s stature, and our good luck, (see last paragraph, lol )  will comspire to place this otherwise “random” press reflection back through a press/media associate, into his hands, and thus his mind .. and thus, conscious internetception?

On the morning and day dedicated to the living memory of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. whose living example helped shape the conditions and the imperative for thence child Cawky, to continue to learn, conceive of, and implement worldOneradio today. Axé.

Add your good juju !  …. and otherwise do that gud vudu that udu …

and have a beautiful day in your neighborhood …

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Esteemed Mr. Berggruen, Good Morning, Good!

We read about you for the first time this am, and it is received with a bolt of intelligence and hands-on hope,  which we will reinterpret as Heathy Omnidirectional Policy Evolution, for California, and in turn, as an evolving contributing  model for the revitalization of  U.S. ecologeconomy and All-Americans Spirit.

The attached article ( link below) was in my worldOneradio.org in box, sent by an internet journalist friend, a stimulating read, on this Martin Luther KIng Day 2011. On the premise that Mr. Tett’s treatment is mostly fair and / or accurate, I respectfully call for your kind attention, Sir.

The day is relevant as CA school teacher’s / schools have the day off-on. I Live and Work in California these most recent 20 years or so , partly as a full time public school teacher(Spanish), and renter, so with millions of others I am “on the horns”  of the writhing economy.  We are compelled to work for less, personally pay for school supplies, and work on unpaid days off.  Good thing I ran with bulls (Cuidad Rodrigo, España, ‘77).  I am writing from personal history as a New York native, third child of one immigrant and one farmer-parent, after traveling the world a bit (through studies and crewing Pan American), and a student of both public and private schooling. I immersed in Radio broadcasting (Honolulu, LA, SF), due to a life-long-love of music, and art in dialogue, and likely the fact that I can accomplish other tasks, while listening.

Yesterday, while we were listening to some latin-soul-music-for-inspiration (Mucho Axé) , my beloved wife Debra Sue and I were driving back from several hours of snowshoeing in the Sierras when for the second time that day, we weaved along the 580, through fog-bound Cerros crowned with immobile wind-turbines, wrapped in gray other-worldly fog or illumined by bursts of blue sky and tangerine sunshine. My precious wife expressed how much those turbines represented to her symbolically, decades ago, adding inspiration for her to move here (from NYC), as she felt that in California, an envisioneer future was particularly possible, and arriving. She has since become a practitioner of Integrative and Chinese Herbal Medicines, specializing in Oncology/Immune System. For my part, I imagined reinventing how to reapply the miracle of radio broadcast as an entertaining palette for kultimutural arts and as a dialogue tool, and invested the last 16 years producing, hosting and teaching same, along with the creation of worldOnefestival. We are daily working Californians, subject to all the same rules, facilitations and setbacks, as millions.

And we want to be part of the constellation of solutions that will set this gorgeous land and its hopeful  peoples on a much higher ground in a connected web of social, cultural, educational, economic, and ecological policies .

I urgently see a role for regular inspiration and reinforcement of key intellectual and emotional “habits”  to wrest California and the nation from its travails. It’s more than time for a “frequency shift”, in virtually all phases of daily work and conception, of what we really need-to-be-up-to in our collective and connected lives through education, workplace and recreation, while we live as regular folks, in progressively more extraordinary mediocrity!  Thus, worldOneradio, now in its 16^th year of daily volunteer San Francisco Bay Rim broadcast.

To wit, we oneder how we may constellate with your resonant interests and initiatives.

I culled these quotes from the article by Mr. Tett, these being representative of what caught my attention and compelled me to write for yours.

“California is in trouble – but I think California is ready.”

“But here [in the US] there is a very different attitude. The system is broken, people realise it’s very broken. In California they’re all unhappy.”

So what model does he want instead? Singapore? “I think it’s probably the best-run country in the world. It probably is on the authoritarian side and it needs to loosen up a little bit,” he observes. “But the ideal system is not necessarily the most exciting system. Probably, on average, boring is good for the average person.”

That medicine is presumably not intended for him, I observe; after all, he would not park in “boring” Singapore for long. “I am a hypocrite,” he admits. “But I am not thinking of me but what is good for most.”

He plans to continue with his investments but wants to put more effort into politics and philosophy; one model, he concedes, is George Soros, the financier and philanthropist. Since Berggruen does not have any children, he also plans to give his money away to his political think-tank and other reform causes. He is considering creating a media empire to provide an alternative to Rupert Murdoch’s, and promote civil society.

If Berggruen displays as much stubborn determination in pushing his ideas as he did with this bill, then maybe – just maybe – they might actually fly. In any case, I would like to dream so: right now, the western world certainly needs political magic.

A few random notes in closing this particular invitation to reach back. Singapore is fascinating. A baby orangutan pooped on my lap there once (at the zoo). Not at all unrecommendable, although I was likely just lucky.

The progressive, left-leaning press is savaging Jerry Brown, “making him” sound shrill. Very unpleasant, and more duality / contra-position/ hype  in media-wash, alas.

Some years ago, during a longish and kind of leisurely stroll on an SF pier ( out a side- door at an event) I pressed a worldOne cassette tape in Jerry Brown’s hand, from which I surmise he selected his theme music for his his nascent, erstwhile radio show (Us 3).

I genuinely hope you are already smiling and reaching for your smart-phone, laptop, and staff, to learn more about what we have in mind and heart as people and producers of positive and uplifting work in our community, an overt comspiracy toward …

Heathy Omnidirectional Policy Evolution.  Best always.

Corey Mason        Director         worldOneradio+festival                     = : ) ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gillian Tett is the FT’s US managing editor. Respect and thanks, Mr. Tett.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/4eca9d52-1f55-11e0-8c1c-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1BFvwGBJz

ViPS : From the worldOne Muse Room  : Added this week with élan …

with permission from On The Media (via www.onthemedia.org ) and highly recommended to both players and parents, a four-part series ( @ 10 – 18 minutes each ) on the evolution and devolution, history and future of video games, and the great redemptive hope for same, articulated by energized video game envisioneers. In other muse… please do not delay to insperience:

Huun Huur Tuu / Ancestor’s Call, John McLaughlin / To The One, Kacey Johansing /Painted Diaries.

BTW .. we are indeed hearing from distant points, that our audio stream is being enjoyed by folks in far flung places … please do try and do tell via ..

www.worldoneradio.org ( archive) and www.jazzbeatradio.tv ( live 6-9 weeknights CST) .. we are retooling worldOne site in coming weeks and will make the player, and various reception points,  more friendly and accessible.    = : ) ~

and dark sacred nights, throughout the rolling year …

We have been enthralled of late.. swooning and scintillatingly reconnected with the transcendental early 70’s synth-spiritualizer sounds of TONTO and Mssr. Malcolm Cecil, thanks to a three-bank-shot through a dear friend Loren and Stuart Maconie / BBC 4 ..  please enjoy a revelatory introduction? or revisit, and a listen  www.tontostudio.com and you may learn a lot you may not already know about Stevie Wonder’s wonder years, and the otherwise popularly hidden (co)creation of 4 epic albums, starting with Music of My Mind, through Songs in the Key of Life.

Thank you TONTO,  and endless appreciation!

Malcolm Cecil and Bob Margouleff.

New year sneak peek ahead .. looking forward to worldOnefestival 2011 .. pouring through Sister Carol’s catalyzing catalogue … no matter how hard they try they can’t sop reggae .. Isis survive any crisis … ital is vital is total …see: www.blackcinderellla.com ,.. more 2011 worldOnefestival details, as the season progress  .. you are invited !

Been thrilling to Makana these last several weeks… from his ki ho’alu roots through progressive fusions. Makana kindly preformed in worldOnefestival 2001, and we’ve  just sent him an (archived) original cassette of that performance. Yup. a cassette! LOL .  Tape/Cassette recording was the order of the day in 2001!   Querying if he had a player, he wrote me that he also keeps a Victrola!

Visiting with Elvon and Roxanne and their mustangs (quadruped kine) recently at home in both snow-covered  Shasta, and again the next week in our El Cerrito  heart-quarters ( sans ‘stangs) … Elvon (one ecclectic jazzrockfusion-loving Haida) put me onto Terje Rypdal ( Crime Scene ) and pointed me back-to-the-future Jeff Beck ( Emotion and Commotion). We chained up and rumbled around Tahoe basin and back this past weekend, swaying and swinging with encantadores Orquesta La Moderna Tradicion ( En Canto), danzonazos !

Finally picked up  afrobeat-living-legend-soul-star Tony Allen’s Lagos No Shaking, and relished another gem in his discography.  His relentlessly latticed, low-in-the-cut permutations and sparked by his potent social lyricisms.  Dug out a paper-sleeved recent arrival, kinda shuffled into an in-bound stack (o’ wax? er, polymer) and thank goodness I didn’t loose its slim-packaged-self amidst the constant musical ebbs and tides here  .. and I can urge South Asian /Middle Eastern attuned hEARtS to Shoshan Shye Ben-Tzur (EarthSynch). Jazz alert:  Colin Dean, bassist, has pressed a release titled Shiwasu … I hope you will love it, too.

Our beloved step mom Arlene chatted up her NYC taxi driver (driver-artist, natch) , and voila .. we are broadcasting selections by Afro-Haitian artist Luka Adjaffi.  And of course, as serendip would have it, we have been listening in to Robert Earl Keen, West Coast, VP Dance Hall scorchers ( bawdy) , and N.W.A. (more inflammatory scorch ). We have been listening the Wizard of Oz original soundtrack, which is somewhere up and overwhelming in its breadth, sensitivity, darkness, humor, joy and redemption.  Shakira’s new one does have a few hooky-pop-cumbia passages, and feels alas, formulaic, I suppose that may not be a big surprise or let-down.

And perhaps upsetter-ringer of the last few weeks has to be, with props to my high school chargé, Ultra Lounge’s (‘99) Wild Cool and Swinging Mrs. Miller. Yes, that Mrs. Miller, from the Johnny Carson-era Tonight Show, in this setting, thoroughly reinterpreting/ruining, in the best way possible, others’ smash hits from the Beatles to Nancy Sinatra.  Mrs Miller gives “Downtown” a whole nuther (fun house mirror) dimension.

So… you can see this is all one big musical blender-bender, whot?  And why not?

With all reverence aside .. and the exuberance and overindulgence of solstice-fueled and holli-grog-soaked festivities on all sides … designate a driver .. and have endless fun scanning nalgitas  ( or mistlefoot!?) at your holiday office parties …

have a happy holli jolli !  and getchusommadat kujuchagulia,  and yes …

Holy Nights ..  all star, all right …    = : ) ~