Jerry Gillies

THE ROMANTIC ELECTION GAME

2012-02-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

In a post on my other blog, I just created a new election campaign game to have some fun and profit with the overwhelming political information bombardment we will be receiving over the next months.

http://moneyloveblog.com/the-presidential-election-prosperity-game/

Now, to celebrate Valentine's Day, I want to offer a variation I call the Romantic Election Game. This version involves watching or listening to or reading about political goings on with a loved one. Since it will be hard to completely avoid all the political rhetoric, attack ads, and over-opinionated partisan punditry, we may as well make the most of it.

The rules are simple, and feel free to make up your own rewards and modify my suggestions to your liking.

1, Every time a candidate is critical of another candidate, the first one to notice it claims and collects one kiss and one hug from the other.

2. Every time a candidate exaggerates something or tells an outright lie, the first to notice it collects an intimate caress from the other.

3. Every time a candidate says something really stupid or crazy and irrational, the one to notice it first gets 15 minutes of total loving pleasure at the hands of the other.

And one extra step in this version:

4. Every time a candidate says something optimistic, hopeful, uplifting, or inspiring, both of you grab each other and create an romantic alternative to politics, with a 24 hour moratorium on reading, watching, or listening to anything about Campaign 2012.

You'll know if you're doing it right if you have a strong urge in coming months to shout out, "Thank you Barack, Mitt, Rick, Ron, Newt!"

Jerry

ME AND MY KINDLE

2012-02-10T06:14:00.000-08:00

Let me start out by saying that I am not suggesting that the Amazon Kindle is the only or even the best choice out there--but it does happen to be the one I bought since I already was buying most of my books from Amazon, and the new basic unit at $79 with free shipping was pretty irresistable. It is also, so far as I know, the lightest model at just 6 ounces.

I have resisted getting an e-reader as I am a longtime lover of books, paperback and hardcover books, books you can hold and look at gathered on your shelves. I derive a tremendous sense of comfort being surrounded by books--and so far, nothing like that happens with my Kindle. I suspect, however, because of advantages both forms and formats have, that hard copy books and electronic reading devices will co-exist for many years to come.

As I have chosen to focus on writing and producing my future books and blogs and Moneylove Club audio series rather than on marketing and making money, I have been on a limited budget since my release from 12 years of incarceration in 2008. Despite this, my book budget was averaging about $50 a month. In the ninety days since I bought my Kindle, I have spent exactly $1. for an e-book, as that was one out of a selection of 100 which new Kindle owners were allowed to choose from Amazon. Ironically, it is the only book I have not finished on Kindle, as it just wasn't very well written.

Not only are most books in the public domain, like those by Jane Austin, Charles Dickens, and Arthur Conan Doyle, available free, but Amazon also has at least 100 mysteries that are free to download immediately to the Kindle. I now have 180 books stored, nowhere near the 1400 book capacity of my model.

I am a mystery novel buff. In prison, I read almost exactly 1000 books in my 12 years. Now, with all that I do on my computer, I mostly read mysteries for recreation while riding the BART train back and forth between my home in San Bruno and San Francisco. Many of the mysteries Amazon features free are the first in multiple book series. The company obviously figures that once hooked on an author, customers will then be willing to buy future volumes at up to $9.99, but with so many books to choose from and now only reading about one mystery per week, I am not tempted to play their game.

In addition, you can borrow e-books from your local library. I do this with my library cards from both San Bruno and San Francisco. The county library lets you keep the book for two weeks, when it magically disappears--while San Francisco has a three week limit.

With so many choices, I don't know how some new restrictions may apply, but if you are considering an e-reader, you should probably be aware that Penguin and other major publishers are starting to cut back on their sales of e-books to libraries, fearing this eats into their retail sales (in my case, they are right).

On several occasions in my life, I have had the emotionally jarring experience of losing a large collection of books. Most recently, this was several thousand volumes when I went to prison--including at least 100 books signed by the authors, many of these quoting me or endorsing Moneylove. Thanks to the Internet, many of these are replaceable, but there is an added measure of security knowing that I can put a large portion of my personal library in my pocket now. I don't have to worry about packing up many cartons when I move. In a device smaller than a paperback book, that easily fits in my pants or jacket pocket, I can travel with hundreds of books, all right at my fingertips.

With the new electronic ink technology, the Kindle reading experience almost exactly duplicates the paper version. In prison, books are at a premium. Sadistic guards often confiscate them, and each inmate is only allowed ten at a time (a rule I consistently broke). What a difference a Kindle would have made, though I'm sure it won't be allowed for the foreseeable future, as video games and computers are also banned.

The main reason I bought my Kindle is that I'm exploring publishing several of my early books in this format, including Moneylove. I plan to have the prison memoir I am now writing come out as a actual book, though probably with a Kindle edition available. I expected to have a better sense of what this new phenomenon was all about as an owner. I did not know I would fall in love with my Kindle, and all the freedom it offers. And as long as it is viewed as a bonus rather than a threat, I can't imagine any true book lover not forming a similar attachment.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog at http://MoneyloveBlog.com

MANNING THE CLASS WARFARE BARRICADES

2012-02-01T06:10:00.000-08:00

When you have billionaires like Donald Trump, the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and almost billionaires like Mitt Romney complaining about Barack Obama's "class warfare" approach to politics, it is indicative of a new cultural and sociological transformation in American society. Though there has always been conflict and confrontation between the very wealthy and the very poor, for the first time we are seeing the ignoble image of the nobility whining: "Poor me, they want to take a small part of my self-made or inherited fortune and redistribute it to people who don't deserve it."

Some extremely wealthy Americans, a small proportion of the total we can hope, are obviously feeling threatened by the increasing public awareness that the government and business establishment is stacked against the average human being pursuing the American Dream. Sheldon Adelson, for all I know, is an honorable and decent hard-working entrepreneur who loves his family and is generous to his employees. But there is something discomforting and, dare I say it, UnAmerican, about one rich man being in a position to possibly buy the presidency by being the sole funder of Newt Gingrich's campaign Super Pac--the man who had more than Newt to do with his big South Carolina victory.

Even Republicans are decrying the Citizens United decision that allowed for the Super Pacs of today, perhaps the ultimate bombardment in whatever class warfare is happening. Not only are billionaires under fire, but the growing wealth disparity in the U.S. has led to their having a much larger and visible say in our affairs. Even the normally unassuming Warren Buffet is now the main poster boy for a fairer tax policy--at least the Democratic version. Did we really need to wait for Buffet to point out to us how unfair the system is?

There is nothing more essential to the American spirit than its entrepreneurial "can do" nature. The main theme of my Moneylove philosophy over the past thirty years has been that every one of us can be a lot richer than we think, that this is a land of unlimited possibility and unfettered human endeavor. But limits and fetters have increased. The definition of "fetter" is a chain or shackle for the feet, and our economy is sort of stumbling along as if its feet were chained and cuffed. Some politicians and business leaders claim we are being fettered by oppressive regulations, like the ones designed to protect the environment. "Let us loose of these chains," they proclaim, "and we will create more jobs and be more responsible citizens without government intervention for the first time in our long history." The problem is, most of us don't trust them to keep their word, as we likewise don't trust government.

Mitt Romney, who could become the next president, though I'd be willing to bet against him, says it's all about envy. The Americans audacious enough to want to tax the rich at a slightly higher rate, still way below the level under Ronald Reagan, begrudge Romney his 250 million dollars, multiple mansions, private jets, and opulent lifestyle, according to his view of things. I don't believe that's true. I think most of us still admire innovators and dreamers who become very rich as aspirational role models. This is certainly true of the late Steve Jobs. But the difference between Jobs and Romney is that Jobs was driven by his passion to change the world by giving us devices that would change our lives. The money was really insignificant for him, and so it came as a surprise to most of us that he was indeed a billionaire. For Romney, however, that's his whole point, his business and financial success. He moved lots of money around at Bain and made many pretty rich people very much richer, including himself. We would be hard-pressed to name one thing he did to improve the human experience, except perhaps Romneycare in Massachusetts, which is he hiding from.

You're probably familiar with the term "empty suit" to describe someone inflated with self importance but who really hasn't had much impact on the world or affected other people in any vital or profound way. This describes most of the very rich who are shouting "Class Warfare!" They are very expensive empty suits. Romney is trying to become an occupied suit by winning the highest office in the world. And he somehow thinks his path will be made easier by accusing everyone else of envying him his wealth. I actually think he is a more worthwhile human being than his campaign slogans and appearances and debates would have us believe--but we also have to judge people by what they tell us is most important to them.

I pick on Romney because he is as good a representative as any of what is wrong with our capitalistic society in this still new 21st Century. The Robber Barons are back, but this time they are not even creating the steel mills and railroads and telegraph systems and ships and automobiles that made America stronger and better for everyone. The legacy of too many of today's billionaires will be failed political candidacies they supported, rather than the lasting impact of those who really made a difference in the past, who left noble thumbprints on the world. Andrew Carnegie with his gifts of hundreds of libraries that changed millions of lives, John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford, who despite some despicable early behavior, redeemed themselves with their foundations, and have a lasting impact. The hit TV show, 30 Rock, wouldn't be possible without the iconic 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Rockefeller Center, home of NBC. I worked there for a year and remember how nice it felt to be going to work every day at NBC Radio in the imposing 1930s Art Deco building.

When teachers pay a higher tax rate than billionaires, something is wrong. When the voices of the lower economic classes are being heard, something is right. I don't envy Donald Trump, Sheldon Adelson, and Mitt Romney their almost unlimited millions. There is nothing I want to model from their roles in society, there is nothing positive I have gotten from any of them, and there is nothing I think will change for the better in voting for them or the candidates they endorse. Now, if Steve Jobs were alive and running.....

Jerry

I also have another blog, focused on prosperity consciousness, but certainly not only about the money. Check it out at: http://MoneyloveBlog.com, and also check out the information about The Moneylove Club by clicking on the link at the top of that home page.

LAMESTREAM MEDIA--IT REALLY FITS

2012-01-22T19:00:00.000-08:00

Let me start off this rant by saying I don't particularly like agreeing with Newt Gingrich and my few right wing friends. But even though I think they blame too much on the mainstream media, and are over the top in their conspiracy theories about the media, I do think the clever, sarcastic phrase, "lamestream media" fits what has happened to what was once a respectable voice for freedom in the world.

When I was a radio journalist over thirty years ago, there were standards in place that have been completely thrown out the window since. I know the 24/7 nature of cable news has caused some of this, but I don't think that can excuse the total loss of objectivity and authenticity. Back in my day, every major news organization had a fact-checking or research department. When I was doing an investigative report, say for NBC Radio or KYW or WINS, the all-news stations I worked for in Philadelphia and New York, I couldn't just put something on the air without having it checked out by several sources. Then I had to run it by an editor whose responsibility was to see whether it was true, really new, and important for the public to know.

Budget cuts have eliminated most fact-checking and research departments today. A big contributing factor is the rush to get things on the air, as well as the rush to judgement. Over and over again, we see media repeating outright lies from public figures, or ignoring truths that are very easily obtainable. To me, the most amazing thing today's news organizations do is report something that can easily be contradicted by information available in their own archives. They are just too lazy to look. Many of today's political candidates are guilty of the same lapse, making statements that are proven to be lies when you go into the files and play back their own words captured on video for all to see and hear. It's as if they are totally ignorant of the permanence of anything they've said publicly in the past. Or maybe they are just depending on the stupidity and laziness of the media preventing anyone from looking it up or checking it out.

For years now, I have winced watching network news reports (which I no longer watch) where there is no sense that the anchor or reporter involved has any background knowledge of the subject he or she is reporting on. Huge historical inaccuracies occur almost on a daily basis. Of course, with Google and other online search engines available today, it is easy to catch media types and political types in their blunders. I don't think it's a conspiracy at all, but rather a failure of respect for the truth and refusal to dig up the full story before any part of it is delivered to an audience.

Just as egregious is the failure to follow up on important stories, especially in the political arena. When I was covering the Virginia Governor's news conferences as a newsman for WRVA in Richmond, it was my job to pick out the sentence or paragraph that was most newsworthy and most revealing. This, along with going through reams of AP newspaper wire reports, helped develop the skill of editorial discernment--figuring out what was worth following up on, checking out, and reporting on the air. Today, I catch some astonishing bits of news that never seem to be caught by anyone else. For instance, while I am not a fan and rarely listen to the Laura Ingraham conservative radio show, she had an exchange on her show this past Friday that had a major contender for the Republican presidential nomination admit to a lie that has been repeated often and loudly--that the economy has gotten worse under President Obama. Newt Gingrich repeated it several times today on Sunday news shows in his victory lap after winning the South Carolina primary. She was talking to Mitt Romney, and here is the exchange, which I just listened to again to make sure I was accurately transcribing it:

Laura Ingraham: Isn't it a hard argument to make if you're saying, "Okay, he inherited this recession, and he took a bunch of steps to try to turn the economy around, and now we're seeing some more jobs, but vote against him anyway?" Isn't that a hard argument to make? Is that a stark enough contrast?.

Mitt Romney: Have you got a better one, Laura? (nervous laughter) It just happens to be the truth!

As might be expected, Rachel Maddow caught this and reported it on her show on MSNBC, but none of the so-called mainstream media seems to have even noticed what could be a major game-changer, and certainly could be the foundation for an Obama campaign ad.

I rest my case.

Jerry

Check out my other blog on prosperity at http://MoneyloveBlog.com

CLOWN CAR POLITICS

2012-01-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

I think Thursday, January 19, 2012 will go down in history in American politics. About as officially as anything can happen, the Republican primary battle changed from a race to a farce, with even top conservative voices starting to use the funny-but-deadly analogy that has up to now been the province of comedians and Democrats: "Clown Car."

Perhaps conservative Republican pundit, and former Ronald Reagan speechwriter and Special Assistant, Peggy Noonan, said it best in today's Wall Street Journal:

"We all know politics ain't beanbag, but it's not supposed to be a clown-car Indy 500 with cars hitting the wall and guys in wigs littering the track."

And in a Washington Post op-ed column today, titled THE GOP'S SUICIDE MARCH, conservative icon Charles Krauthammer wrote:

"The President is a very smart man. But if he wins in November, that won't be the reason. It will be luck. He could not have chosen more self-destructive adversaries."

On MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning, former conservative Republican congressman, Joe Scarborough, pointed out a pretty uncomfortable fact, in a campaign punctuated by more fantasy than fact. He noted that the deficit went up by a trillion dollars in 2011, the first full year in which Republicans controlled Congress and the purse strings, and a higher debt increase than in 2010. And their main campaign focus against Obama is that he is a big spending, big government president.

I won't even go into last night's ABC interview with Newt Gingrich's 2nd wife, in which she said he asked her to consider an open marriage as he had another woman in his life. He denied the story when CNN foolishly gave him an opening to get a standing ovation by putting that "he said, she said" question to him as the opener to the final South Carolina debate. And if it's true, I may upset some folks, especially some sanctimonious folks, by suggesting this is more loving and honest than just tossing his wife aside with no options.

If this weren't such a silly season, far more attention and contemplation would be focused on the question posed by leading evangelical spokesman James Dobson, when he asked whether America was ready for a first lady who was a mistress for eight years.

It is no accident that comedian Stephen Colbert's mock Republican run is gaining so much traction. He has a higher favorability rating than any of the current GOP candidates. I admire President Obama's restraint in not going on national television and doing a funky victory dance.

A couple of my furthest far right friends think I am, as they have put it, "an Obama lover." Not true. While I think he has been a far better president and done more to turn the economy around than John McCain and Sarah Palin would have, I also think he has stumbled a lot, not taken charge of his message, not made his mission clear to the American people, and certainly not taken full advantage of the obstructionist Republican House's blatant disregard for the public welfare in favor of stopping him at any costs.

The current disarray of Republican candidates is a direct result of the oafish Anyone But Obama campaign, which spawned the "birther" idiocy, and the fiasco over the debt ceiling and, more recently, the payroll tax debate. I know it's a contrarian view, but I believe that more rational Republicans like Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, and Tim Pawlenty have opted out of running against Obama because they realize, in their wisdom, that once the dust settles and the truth comes out, Obama will be unbeatable. And they'd like to start clean with a run for the White House in 2016.

My personal preference? I would love to see http://AmericansElect.org be successful in their efforts to have the first direct presidential election online. This is a nonpartisan, visionary experiment in democracy. The organizers want the presidential and vice-presidential candidates to come from different political parties, and they already have more than half the signatures they need to get their effort on the ballot in all fifty states. It would be nice to have a grown-up campaign. Obama will be on the ballot, but I think we all will be better off is he is having an intelligent discussion with a credible opponent rather than acting as ringmaster for that Indy 500 clown-car race.

TO KINDLE OR NOT TO KINDLE

2012-01-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

Okay, it was a hard decision. As an author and voracious reader, I have been resisting buying an electronic ebook reader for some time. I like the feel of a book in my hand, and through the years I have collected and saved thousands of books. In recent years, partly because of twelve years of incarceration, I lost most of my book collection. And while in prison, every book I had sent in by a friend, or managed to borrow or barter from fellow inmates was a precious gift to be savored and valued. But then, in recent months, several people have suggested I approach Amazon.com about re-issuing the original Moneylove in an e-edition for Kindle. So, I wanted to at least get a sense of what reading a book on a Kindle would be like.

Just before the end of 2011, as a gift for myself, I took advantage of the new lowest price model offered at $79. I was especially drawn to it after reading several reviews that said it was the best model out there because it only weighed six ounces. It doesn't have a touch screen like the new Fire and other higher-priced Kindles have, but I don't even use the touchpad on my MacPro, so that was no concern. I don't really know how it compares with other e-readers like the Nook, but have had many dealings with Amazon and have always been satisfied with their service, including their rapid no-questions-asked return policy.

It's been a month now and I find that reading a book on my new machine is as easy, probably easier, than reading a paperback book, and less cumbersome by far than a hardcover. Before it even arrived, I got a library card and checked out borrowing Kindle editions from the library. You can do it in seconds online, and keep them for two to three weeks, at the end of which they just are automatically removed from your Kindle, with no effort at all. As part of the ads and offers that appear when my Kindle is in the sleep mode (otherwise it would cost $100--and these ads only appear when the machine is not used to read books and is turned on) I got an offer to buy one book from a list of 100 for $1. So far, this is my only expenditure other than the original $79 (with free shipping) cost. Meanwhile, I now have 150 books stored in my Kindle, with room for a total of 1400 volumes. This includes a couple of library books, including John Grisham's newest, The Litigators, and a number of the free selections Amazon offers every day.

I like mysteries, and they have at least 100 mysteries that are free on any given day. This is smart marketing, in that they often offer the first book in a mystery series free, and if you fall in love with the author and series, additional volumes are about $9.99 each. However, with so many to choose from free and on loan from the two library systems I belong to, I doubt I'll be buying many books.

Amazon also offers hundreds of books in the public domain free for Kindle. I am catching up on classics I may have missed, including Mark Twain and Jane Austin and Charles Dickens, plus some of the early mystery and thriller writers I've meant to explore, like Edgar Wallace, G.K. Chesterton, and John Buchan of The 39 Steps fame. I've been pretty selective about building my library so far, but have added books by Aristotle, Plato, William James, Andrew Carnegie, Thoreau and Emerson. I still intend to buy and read books, but very, very carefully. I don't have a lot of storage room, and want to stay mobile as my travel plans are uncertain over the next few years. I'm not even sure where I'll be living in a year or two, so it will be nice not to have to lug boxes of books with me, just a device I can easily fit in my pocket.

With such authors as Timothy Ferriss choosing Amazon and the Kindle format as their primary publishing outlet, this is obviously going to revolutionize the book business. I'm not sure whether this will be good or bad, and certainly publishing has been changing before this latest technical development. Whatever impact it has on my own writing career, it already has been a delightful personal experience. How many cultural breakthroughs come along that make life a lot easier and less expensive while offering a major expansion of choices?

Jerry

Check out my other blog on prosperity at www.MoneyloveBlog.com

CELEBRATING A NEW YEAR WITH SOMETHING NEW

2012-01-01T21:38:00.000-08:00

Well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that most people don't really don't take advantage of the opportunities offered by a brand new year. Sure, we make resolutions and perhaps take stock of our lives and look at how the last year has been, but in terms of making major changes, or developing new perspectives, most people have a pretty dismal record.

I just berated myself for doing something that I would call, "same old, same old." It wasn't anything criminal or even destructive to me or anyone else, it was just an old habit and I had a clear intention to start out this new year with a whole new set of behaviors and perceptions and actions.

So I decided to make up for my backsliding by actually doing something on this first day of the new year that I have never done before--something I have thought about doing over a number of years, but for some reason have never taken the plunge. It wasn't anything monumental or earth-shaking, but it was something new, something different, and involves somewhat of a risk. You may think it's silly when I tell you.

I placed an order with Omaha Steaks after years of getting their mailings. I've heard their food is good quality, and it was a pretty amazing $49.95 offer. But I'm not even sure I will be able to fit it all in the freezer I share with three housemates. And I'm not sure I will even be able to prepare all of it, since our oven hasn't worked in a couple of years, and I have to cook food in a fry pan or in the microwave. Steaks and stuffed sole and pork chops and stuffed potatoes, gourmet franks and steak burgers and a six piece cutlery set will be a fun package to receive in a week or so. It is something new, after all, and it helps underline that 2012 is also brand new and gives me many new opportunities to reboot myself and my life.

And on this first day of the new year, I've set myself a task that I will finish before I go to sleep tonight. I am making a list of 10 New Things To Do This Year I Have Never Done Before. And all of them have to be things that I think will meet one of my criteria for living a prosperous life, in that they each will have to bring me Pleasure, Profit, or Knowledge.

I'm adding a task that I can tackle in the coming days and weeks. Once I have that list, and know whether it will bring me some pleasure and fun, or somehow enhance my level of prosperity, or teach me something worthwhile and interesting--then I will try to expand the new thing that I will do to include one or both of the other items. And if I can have it bring me profit, pleasure, and knowledge all at once, that in itself will be a source of fantastic new energy and fulfillment in my life. I invite you to explore this task with me with your own ten new things.

Jerry

If you aren't a regular reader of my prosperity blog, even this can be a new thing for you this new year. http://MoneyloveBlog.com

10 STEPS TO MAKE THE WORLD BETTER

2011-12-19T18:58:00.000-08:00

We are living in revolutionary times. This is certainly reflected in the presidential campaigning going on. Sudden surges in popularity for Republican contenders are often based on provocative ideas advocated by the candidates. These include 999, abolishing several cabinet positions, getting rid of the Federal Reserve, ending all foreign aid, forcing poor kids to take jobs as janitors, etc. Obviously, each of these make sense to some voters, at least for a while. I think most of us being fed up with the dysfunctional status quo makes it easy to sell new ideas, even if they are outrageous or ridiculous. And who knows? Some of them might actually have good results.

So I decided to come up with my own 10-step revolutionary program of major change in the ways things are done. You may not agree with all of my ideas, but I think you would have to admit that they would produce a dramatically different world that just might be better than the one we now inhabit. Hold your breath, here we go:

1. Give mandatory polygraph tests to all political candidates with all results published.

2. Allow politicians to continue to raise billions of dollars, but instead of giving it to TV stations for political ads and other campaigning efforts, give it to citizens in exchange for their votes. This would reinvigorate our electoral system and guarantee much larger turnouts than we've had up to now.

3. Have all medical practitioners work on a tips-only basis. You would be paying them based on how healthy you got or stayed after their efforts.

4. Have anyone who intentionally tells lies about any member of government or any legislation or court decision, shot by firing squad.

5. Make annoying behavior a major crime. The harshest sentences, up to life in prison, would be reserved for telemarketers, people who use social media to try to sell you stuff, and any Internet marketers who bombard you with repetitious non-stop emails.

6. End all censorship of the arts, but institute large fines for anyone in any creative field who is boring to a majority of his or her audience.

7. Eliminate all nightly newscasts and replace them with the opening monologues of all the major talk shows, plus The Daily Show.

8. Ban any religion that teaches or preaches violence or intolerance against any other religion.

9. Instruct all potential suicide bombers that there is nothing so tedious, less fun, and more maddening than ending up with 72 virgins.

10. Give Jews and Muslims in the Middle East a one year deadline to resolve their differences. If they fail to do so, force them all to convert to the Quaker religion.

I call this The Jerry Plan, and if you agree, please distribute it wherever possible. Let's change the world together!

Happy Holidays,

Jerry

Check out my other blog on prosperity at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

ABP

2011-12-03T15:42:00.000-08:00

As we grow older, we become more aware and susceptible to all sorts of illnesses--arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer's. But for me there is one I really dread, and has inspired me to come up with a philosophy I call ABP, which stands for Anything But Psoriasis. Yes, psoriasis, that skin condition that produces scaly red and white rashes. But it's not the condition itself that scares me, it's the treatment.

The most successful treatment for moderate to severe psoriasis is Stelara. There are a lot of commercials for this pharmaceutical product, and I am convinced just watching those ads can be harmful to our health. Remember, this is a treatment for a skin condition, an inconvenient and ugly skin condition, but we're not talking about Muscular Dystrophy or leukemia here. And every commercial, by law, has to contain a litany of side effects--those things you can get if you actually take the medication advertised. In the case of Stelara, it doesn't seem like a great trade-off to me. Stelara does work, 75% of the psoriasis patients taking it notice a major improvement.

The side effects could, however, do you in even before your skin clears up. First of all, they tell you that Stelara will lower your ability to fight infection, including some serious infections that may require hospitalization. The drug may also increase the risk for cancer. And you could have headaches, seizures, confusion, vision problems--all of which may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. That condition is known as RPLS, or Reversible Posterior Leukoencephalopathy syndrome, and no one knows what causes it, except Stelara sometimes seems to.

And then there are allergic reactions to the drug, like feeling faint, swelling of your face, eyelids, tongue, or throat, and trouble breathing.

So I picture myself have developed psoriasis, and a possible dialogue like this:

FRIEND: "Hi Jerry, how's that little skin problem you were having?"

ME: "You mean that moderate case of plaque psoriasis? It's doing great, my arms and neck are all cleared up."

FRIEND: Great! Everything else O.K.?"

ME: "Not really. My skin looks and feels fantastic. But I keep getting infections, have gotten cancer, and headaches, seizures, confusion, vision problems--and this may be the sign of RPLS, a rare but potentially fatal brain condition. I also feel faint, my face is all swollen, so are my eyelids, tongue and throat, plus

I have trouble breathing."

FRIEND: "Wow! That's terrible--do you regret ever taking Stelara?"

ME: "Don't be silly. I just concentrate how good my skin will look when I'm lying in that coffin."

Jerry

I have another blog, not nearly as personal and sometimes silly as this one is, and it focuses on prosperity consciousness at: http://MoneyloveBlog.com

LOTS TO BE THANKFUL FOR--RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE!

2011-11-24T14:39:00.000-08:00

It's Thanksgiving, a time to be grateful for all the good things happening in our lives. But even now, there are literally tens of thousands of blogs, media outlets, and politicians spouting a constant stream of negative predictions and horrific expectations. In many of my seminars over thirty years, I have talked about the little negative voice we all have inside our heads--I call him Stanley--the voice Buddhists call "Monkey Mind." The voice that chatters away, telling us why we can't, shouldn't, and mustn't be hopeful and optimistic. The only way I have found to take away Stanley's power to hold us back: drown out his voice in a crowd of positive voices. This has to be a positive decision followed by positive action.

For example,there are many websites to be found that focus on good things. One of these is:

http://theboldlife.com/2011/08/celebrate-world/

another is:

http://www.gimundo.com/

and of course there is this blog, and my other blog,

focused on prosperity consciousness and positive self-programming:

http://MoneyloveBlog.com

So let's get something straight:

If you believe life is a mess, with little hope for the human species, it has more to do with the crap you are paying attention to than reality.

And if you complain about the glass being half empty after drinking half the water and enjoying every drop, you're an idiot.

Feel free to share the above two sentences. I know they don't apply to any of my spiritually evolved, brilliant, and inspired regular readers.

Jerry

NOT KNOWING AS A BLESSING

2011-11-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

I recently came upon a journal essay I wrote in 1998 while I was an inmate at FCI Tucson. It was about the uncertainty of not knowing what is coming in the future. I wrote:

"Perhaps it is an illusion to ever think that we know what is coming up in our lives, but there is solace and comfort in thinking we know what the next year holds for us. In most lives it is not unreasonable to suppose that life will go on pretty much as it has, or that some short-term goal we are aiming toward will be fulfilled. But here I sit in federal prison on this Arizona summer day that is bound to reach over a hundred degrees, and I just don't have a clue. That is disquieting and forms a small undercurrent of discomposure over my normally placid persona."

At that time, I had no idea whether I would win my appeal and be able to avoid a twelve year prison term and had not really come to terms with the possibility of losing the appeal, which I subsequently did. As a learning experience, an adventure in personal growth, however, that uncertain few months was extremely valuable. It taught me the necessity of going within to create a stable internal consciousness no matter what was going on outside myself. I had no control over the external, but could determine my immediate experience in real time:

"At this juncture, it seems to be that the most effective way I can prepare for any possibilities is to keep on writing, keep on walking, keep on focusing on staying calm and centered and productive."

We hear a lot nowadays about businesses worrying about economic uncertainty to the extent of hoarding cash that otherwise could be invested in job-creating activities. It is always a myth to think we know what the future holds, so we may as well act as a current event based on current reality. The inner strength I build in that period of what could have been a fear-ridden, anxiety-producing time for me allowed me to triumph over my incarceration, emerging on the other end with more creative energy, optimism, and inner peace than I had going in. This wasn't brilliant or heroic on my part, just the most sensible path to take considering my realistic options. I ended my short essay by writing:

"I will accept that there are going to be moments of fear and sadness, but this will be the ultimate test of my ability to create my own internal environment despite whatever is going on around me."

Jerry

You might also enjoy my prosperity blog at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

THE REAL DANGER OF WALL STREET

2011-11-02T04:06:00.000-07:00

Wall Street and the major financial institutions that populate it have been coming under increasing attacks by political figures and observers in the wake of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. But this, in my opinion, is a bit misfocused in that the disparity of wealth is not the major danger to our system posed by Wall Streets. Yes, it's good that so much attention has been placed on how vast the gap has become between the lowest income groups and the wealthiest Americans, while middle income earners have seen their purchasing power go down and stagnate. But Wall Street, and its big banks, brokerage firms, hedge fund managers and all the other manipulators in the international financial markets are not even the only factors in creating this disparity. Many of the free trade policies since the Ronald Reagan administration have sent thousands of jobs overseas, so that more and more Americans are shuffling paper rather than inventing, engineering, building things, and providing physical services.

The most disturbing trend I've heard about in recent weeks is the fact that such prestigious universities as M.I.T. have seen their most promising graduates take jobs on Wall Street rather than go into science and engineering as had been usual in the past. The reason is simple, there are more jobs on Wall Street in which a young, clever graduate can start making big bucks almost immediately. This involves moving financial instruments around, and contributes almost nothing to the public welfare.

For two years back in the 1980s, I earned my living mostly by playing poker. It was a very good living, and it was fun and exciting to do. I stopped doing it as a full time activity when I realized that I wasn't contributing anything real to the world. It's a sort of soulless existence, just moving money around rather than producing anything of practical use or beauty in the world. This is what these smart college graduates going to Wall Street to make their fortunes have chosen to do for themselves, to become soulless money-changers. And it takes something out of you, some important and vital part of what it means to be a fulfilled human being.

I think we'll figure out some ways of dealing with the disparity issue, but it might be a lot harder to figure out how to inspire bright young students that earning a lot of money easily and quickly is not the greatest aspiration one can have. Some years ago, I was hired as a consultant for a group of twenty women who either were or had been successful call girls. I worked with them on developing entrepreneurial skills, as their big issue was transitioning back into a normal lifestyle when they had been making an average of $100,000 a year by having sex with strangers. There were hardly any jobs available for women that paid near that amount, and most of them weren't educated for high-paying jobs. Six of them ended up starting a house cleaning business, and it did quite well. This, of course, was the same issue facing these college graduates who might be looking at some more creative and productive career than shuffling money on Wall St.

Jerry

REVISITING THE SIXTIES

2011-10-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

I recently took a musical time machine back to the late 1960s by attending the Tony-winning revival of the ultimate sixties musical, HAIR. I first saw the show with its original Broadway cast, including co-creator Gerome Ragni in the lead role of Burger, in LA in 1968. It was fun to hear the title song, plus Aquarius, Good Morning Starshine, Let The Sun Shine In and other familiar melodies. They handed out fresh flowers to audience members, and at the end of the show, the audience was invited up to dance on stage with the cast. It definitely had the flavor of a counter culture be-in--almost.

In 1968, I imagine I wore a jacket and tie to the show. I was a broadcast journalist at the time, and definitely not even a pseudo-hippie. That came later for me, in the 1970s in Miami, where I wore my tie dye, and loincloths and dashikis, and had hair longer than most of those cast members in the new version of the show.

Several things occurred to me during this performance. One is that we seem to be less a nation of open-minded risk takers now than forty-three years ago. I think that this was epitomized by the fact that they eliminated the famous scene in the original production where the entire cast strips down completely.

But perhaps it's just that California is more uptight than its reputation. I remember being shocked when I came out here in the early 1980s from Florida and was invited to climb into a hot tub with several friends and they all wore bathing suits. This had never happened in hot tub experiences in Miami, or New York, or anywhere that I could recall. (Now I wonder if the New York production of this revival had the nude segment.)

Later that same year in which I saw the original HAIR, I also covered the Democratic National Convention in Chicago for the all-news radio station I worked for in Philadelphia, and for our sister stations in LA, New York and several other cities. I was brought in at the last minute because of the riots triggered by Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden and other members of the Chicago Seven. There were now two sites to cover, but I got to work the less interesting one at the convention itself, so never got to see or meet Jerry Rubin.

Oddly enough, he and I became friends in the 1970s, when he went out of his way to look me up and praise my book on relationships. We even did a few lectures together in the 1980s about future trends and prosperity, titled The Two Jerrys (I'm embarrassed to admit I came up with that title.) Jerry became a very successful entrepreneur and human potential guru George Leonard's son-in-law. He was killed when a car hit him as he was jaywalking across Wilshire Boulevard in LA in 1994 at the age of fifty-six.

So while I thoroughly enjoyed HAIR, I also felt a sense of sadness that we have lost a lot of that sense of innocence, and that feeling that we could actually change the world. Maybe this is what the Occupy Wall St. movement will eventual evolve into.

When HAIR was originally created, it actually was depicting very real events that were happening in the news every day. It would be hard to duplicate that authenticity today--we are so much more jaded and cynical. You could sense that in the shy embarrassment with which most of the audience members accepted their flowers as they entered the theatre. My fantasy is that back in 1968, the people would have immediately and spontaneously responded to this gift by making a peace sign with their fingers, or maybe even hugging the cast members handing out the flowers.

Jerry

A VERY PERSONAL JERRY CHALLENGE

2011-10-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

I only decided a few minutes ago that I would write this and post it. I haven't often shared the major disappointments and painful experiences even with good friends, and my eagerness to do it now demonstrates as much as anything that I really came out of prison a changed person--or maybe it's more correct to say a more awake or evolved person.

On Tuesday, I was exuberant, filled with my favorite robust expectations, as I sent a 70 page book proposal off to Bob, my agent in New York. It's for my long-planned prison memoir. I had visions of his saying it was a masterpiece and he already had six publishers who wanted to get into a bidding war over who got to bring it to the world. But, alas, his email yesterday started with:

Jerry - I don't feel much of a commercial pulse here. There's no narrative arc, no storyline that could evolve into a movie.

It went on a bit, but that's the gist. I had started off on the wrong foot. My immediate reaction was numbness, the feeling that a truck had just fallen on me. I couldn't imagine starting all over, even though I could see his point. I think I was actually depressed, for about 23 minutes, which is pretty significant for me. What prison affirmed and confirmed for me is that it's not that I avoid or don't feel pain, upset, fear, anxiety, but rather than I have developed a very rapid recovery time.

I decided to call Julia Coopersmith, whom I had also sent my proposal. She was the editor at Doubleday who bought my first book, and when she switched careers, became the agent who sold Moneylove. Now she has switched again and is successfully writing her own books. But she's remained a stalwart friend, and while I was still in prison, six years ago, she was urging me to write a prison memoir. I just wasn't ready to do it before last month, when I officially got off my three year parole period.

Julia said almost exactly the same thing as Bob, that it needed to be more about who I was and how I ended up in prison. I had thought to make it more interesting by jumping back and forth over my 12 years of incarceration, throwing in funny, then serious, then uplifting episodes. She said no, it needed to start from my first day in prison and move forward through the experience, in other words, as Bob put it, a "narrative arc." Less depressed as we hung up, I was thinking that I would avoid the project for a week or two, and then begin again.

But then I opened up my daily Nightingale-Conant motivational quote. I confess, I usually don't even open them. Though, about two years ago, I spontaneously opened one and it turned out to be one of my own quotes.

But, again, for some reason I thought this time whatever the quote was, it would speak to me. It turned out to be from a man I knew and admired from our acquaintanceship at National Speakers Association conventions, Dr. Denis Waitley:

"Success is almost totally dependent upon drive and persistence. The extra energy required to make another effort or try
another approach is the secret of winning."

Talk about serendipity. Exactly what Bob and Julia said my proposal needed: another effort, another approach. I immediately opened up my Pages file on my Macbook Pro and started writing, ending up with a new opening paragraph. Bob had said I should call him if I wanted to discuss his email, and I had left a message for him. Almost immediately after writing the new paragraph, my phone rang and it was Bob. We talked at length about the direction I might take, and I read the new paragraph to him. He loved it. It was the reaction I had been hoping for when I had sent him the 70 pages. It was a new start, and I'm already typing away with renewed robust expectations.

I suppose one secret of surviving and thriving in these increasingly fast-paced times is to speed up one's own process, and my prison-enhanced rapid recovery time skills have certainly helped. As a result of this experience yesterday, I will focus even more on how I used this and developed it during my 12 years in prison, and hopefully pass on the skill to many others in my book.

Jerry

A lot of my creative activities go into my other blog, focused on prosperity, so check it out:

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

SAME THREATS, DIFFERENT REACTIONS

2011-09-29T09:33:00.001-07:00

I couldn't resist passing on this piece by Monty Python alumni John Cleese--a brilliant modern take on national quirks and attributes.

ALERTS TO THREATS, IN 2011 EUROPE....... BY JOHN CLEESE

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to"Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbor" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be alright, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled." So far, no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.
John Cleese - British writer, actor and tall person.

And while I have a ways to go before I'm in Cleese's class as a satirist, this did make me wonder

what he might have said if the U.S. were included in this list. Perhaps, something like:

Recent Al Qaeda chatter has caused the United States to raise it's threat assessment level from "Go Shopping," to "Go Shopping More." Meanwhile, Republican members of Congress have introduced legislation that would give major tax credits to any millionaires who build elaborate underground terror-proof bunkers for their friends and family.

Jerry

SAME THREATS, DIFFERENT REACTIONS

2011-09-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist passing on this piece by Monty Python alumni John Cleese--a brilliant modern take on national quirks and attributes.

ALERTS TO THREATS, IN 2011 EUROPE....... BY JOHN CLEESE

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats
and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon,
though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A
Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when
tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from
"Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a
"Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the
Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have
been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror
alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are
"Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that
destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's
military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to
"Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat
Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to
"Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher
levels: "Invade a Neighbor" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat
they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy.
These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get
a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to
"She'll be alright, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I
think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is
cancelled." So far, no situation has ever warranted use of the final
escalation level.

John Cleese - British writer, actor and tall person.

And while I have a ways to go before I'm in Cleese's class as a satirist, this did make me wonder

what he might have said if the U.S. were included in this list. Perhaps, something like:

Recent Al Qaeda chatter has caused the United States to raise it's threat assessment level

from "Go Shopping," to "Go Shopping More." Meanwhile, Republican members of Congress have

introduced legislation that would give major tax credits to any millionaires who build elaborate

underground terror-proof bunkers for their friends and family.

Jerry

BFF? RARELY, UNLIKELY, IMPROBABLY.

2011-09-18T23:58:00.000-07:00

Of course, the myth is that a really good and loving and substantial friend will be a Best Friend Forever. But reality is quite a different matter. When I wrote my book on the subject of friendship and the importance of supportive interpersonal environments, FRIENDS: The Power and Potential of the Company You Keep, I used several examples of what seemed to certainly be everlasting friendships. None of them survived. This is not to say it's impossible to keep a close friend for a generation or longer, but in our increasingly changing world, filled with transient living and short term attention spans, it gets more difficult to hold onto the same values and interests that tend to glue us together.

I am still in touch with five friends from the 1970s in Miami, where I wrote that book. That seems amazing to me. Two of them are very close, even though we are separated by substantial geography. But emails, phone calls, and Skype video chats keep a sense of intimacy alive. Both are former lovers, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with the longevity of the relationships. Both were faithful correspondents during my entire twelve year term of incarceration. Since my release, several people have reached out to me in friendship and then fallen by the wayside--I suspect they thought I could do something for them that it turned out I couldn't. A couple of others seem like they are in it for the long haul. We may not be in frequent touch, but I have no doubt they would be there if I needed something they could provide, as I would be for them.

In prison, one learns to let go of friendship. There are kind, smart, supportive friends to be found and made behind those stone walls, but you never know when a friendship will suddenly end because one of the other of you will be suddenly transferred to another prison, or another yard at the same institution--and communication in that event is almost impossible. So you put yourself forward just a little bit, knowing it cannot possibly last. I've kept up with just one friend I made in prison, Keith, with whom I shared a cell for over two years. I joined he and his family for several holidays since my release.

Several of my friends going way back in the Human Potential Movement have become superstars and multi-millionaires. They're still cordial, but I wouldn't call them friends.

General speaking, I am proud and pleased at the quality of the friends I've attracted over the years, even the ones who are no longer part of my life. I think what constitutes success in the realm of friendship, isn't how long someone stays your best friend, but how organic the flow is from friendship to acquaintanceship and back again.

Time to go, I just got an email from one of my newest best friends, a lovely and successful movie actress in Europe. I'm not sure I'll ever tell the story of how we made contact, but that too is what gives some friendships their juice. As I look back, a lot of my friends came into my life in strange and wonderful ways. And the more strange and wonderful that beginning, the longer the friendship seems to have lasted. Maybe I'm onto something here. Are you open to a new friend arriving in a strange and wonderful way?

Jerry

Check out my Prosperity blog at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

TEACHING PAP, RAP, AND CRAP

2011-09-14T19:47:00.000-07:00

Everyone talks about the decline of American education, but very few innovative ideas have emerged and been implemented in recent decades. Much of what is taught today is pap--material lacking real value or substance. Sure there are some great teachers still out there, and some kids who are moved to greatness by what those teachers do. But the numbers are seriously declining. When I was a schoolchild, almost any student could name one teacher they really admired, looked up to, and learned a lot from. Today that isn't easily found.

When prison guards in California make an average of over $100,000 a year with no skills or education beyond high school, and teachers make about $60,000, the trend is clear in what our current society values. Of course, with more good teachers, the prisons would not be filled to overflowing. More Americans are in prison today, 1 in 100, than in any other country. China is a distant second with 1 in 1000 Chinese in prison.

When you listen to some of the stuff coming out of political candidates' mouths today, you can clearly see that they are less well-educated and well-read than those of a generation or two ago. Of course, they are speaking to an equally dumbed-down electorate, so perhaps it all works to their advantage.

I don't think it's going to be very easy for government, local or national, to change the status of teachers. But there was a time when it was considered a prestigious, honorable profession.

This can happen again with the help of the private sector, which would be the beneficiary of an upgrade in teachers, schools, and students. My suggestion is a merit award for teachers beyond any yet tried. If some of the billionaires who are now so committed to help cure Malaria and other diseases overseas, would put some of that same energy and capital into the U.S. education system, I think we could see dramatic changes. We could start with a series of grants to exceptional teachers, perhaps styled after the MacArthur Foundation genius grants.

The criteria would be that the person had to be selected by students as being a wonderful, inspiring influence. And referees would sit in that teacher's class for some hours to determine if this was truly a fantastic teacher. I think a $200,000 figure split between the teacher and the school would have a big impact. And not just a handful of these grants, but dozens in every state. This would be a strong incentive for truly gifted students to consider teaching as a career choice once again. Expensive? Yes, but well worth it. And it could be financed just by Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Ted Turner and perhaps a few other big and very rich givers.

Would it solve all the problems? No, not by a long shot. But it would get the conversation going, and definitely inspire some new, creative ways to make the great leap forward our entire education system needs.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

A STAR IS REBORN

2011-09-03T06:14:00.000-07:00

As a theatre-lover, I've been privileged to see a few earth-shattering, stunning performances in my time. In 1962, at an out-of-town tryout of a Broadway-bound musical, I Can Get It For You Wholesale, I saw a nineteen year old Barbra Streisand in a minor role stop the show with her featured song, Miss Marmelstein. It is hard to believe the performance I saw last night at the Berkeley Rep was done by a woman exactly sixty years older, Rita Moreno.

It almost does her a disservice to mention she will be eighty on December 11th, because by any standards she deserved her standing ovation in the first public performance of her new one woman show,

Rita Moreno--Life Without Makeup.

She held the stage with zest and majesty for two-and-a-half hours, with the assistance of some brilliant staging and two male dancers probably one third her age. Rita calls the energetic dancing she herself does, SKD, "sorta kinda dancing." This is certainly true of many aging dancers who sorta go through the motions, but what this Puerto Rican beauty did was way beyond that, despite recent knee replacement surgery.

As I launch my own solo performance career, I am inspired and intimidated by this Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner's virtuoso display. Of course, it doesn't help build my confidence that I don't sing or dance, act, or have as still gorgeous legs as Rita Moreno--nor as colorful a life as this woman with 74 years in show business and still counting. She recently took on the role of Fran Drescher's mother in the new sitcom, Happily Divorced--and there's no doubt in my mind, or in the mind of any other audience member last night, that her first solo performance will eventually sellout on Broadway. Brilliantly piecing together segments from the tapestry of her life is her co-creator, the Berkeley Rep artistic director, Tony Taccone, whom she credits with talking her into the project two years ago, after she originally turned him down five years ago. He convinced her that, at 77 then, she had better get on with it.

The mark of success in any performance art is to leave the audience wanting more. Afterwards, I was Googling like crazy, trying to fill in some of the rest of the story. But I guess I'll have to wait for Rita Moreno's promised memoir. Though I admire her classiness and grace in refusing to dish very much dirt, I really would like to know exactly how she went about trying and succeeding in making Marlon Brando jealous by dating Elvis Presley. I never knew she was in a tumultuous five year relationship with Brando while still in her twenties. She eventually had a forty-five year marriage with Leonard Gordon, who died last year at the age of ninety.

The most astonishing thing about this one woman show isn't that a woman who will be eighty in three months is starring in it, but rather than for most of her commanding, adorable presence on stage, you can't even remember how long she's been around. There's a newness, a childlike sense of wonder, the energy and charisma of someone who is immensely talented and just starting out in a fantastic career that will lead to inevitable stardom. I'd be willing to bet that in the next few years, many performers half her age, seeing this show will be saying to themselves, "I wish I could walk out on a stage and do that."

And Rita Moreno also gets off some great one liners. At one point, she talks about Betty Wand, who dubbed one of her songs in West Side Story because Rita couldn't hit the lowest notes, but then went on to claim she did all of the other songs, too. With an arch of her eyebrow and ironic shrug of her still beautiful shoulders, Rita Moreno says, "May she rest in peace.." hold for a sweet pause, then, "Of course she's still alive."

Since she has already won the four top entertainment awards, they really have to invent a new one for this.

I'm not even sure I'm going to try to explain, or even could if I wanted to, my rather contradictory reaction to this amazing performance: It has made me feel older than I really am, and at the same time, a lot younger.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog, too, at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

A STAR IS BORN!

2011-08-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday was a marvelous trifecta for me. First off, after being released from Folsom on August 22, 2008, I officially was released from parole status after three years. Serendipitously and symbolically, I received my new passport ahead of schedule, and I debuted the short works-in-progress version of my one man show about my prison experience, to a rousing reception at The Marsh theatre, the nation's premier showcase for one man and one woman shows. It was the culmination of a longtime aspiration and a wonderful class by superstar solo performer and artist-in-residence Charlie Varon.

A description of my segment of the five solo performances:

The Great Escape. The most outrageous, moving, inspiriting, and hilarious description of a bestselling self-help author’s 7 years at Folsom State Prison.

One piece of my work-in-progress involved the audience, as I told them that one of the greatest blows to my emotional equilibrium in prison was the periodic arrival of a new cellmate. A stranger entering your cell to spend hour after hour, sometimes 24 hours a day, seven days a week, locked in this tiny space with you. You have no idea how long you will be cellmates, or even what his crime was, and prison protocol dictates you don't ask, unless they volunteer the information. I suggested audience members look around and find their own stranger nearby and imagine that this person just arrived as their cellmate and had some of the characteristics of a few of my real life cellies, like:

"Charlie, who has an obsession...his fancy breed pet chicken back home. Something i still remember was called a feather-footed, bearded and muffed black-breasted red Cubalaya chicken..and he even brought a stack of photographs of the chicken...and he constantly talks about the chicken and how much he loves it....and now considers you his best friend because you foolishly reveal that you don’t like eating chicken in any form."

I have considered myself free since long before I left Folsom, thanks to the rich internal world I created for myself, but it is nice to now have the physical reality of freedom from all parole restrictions, like not being able to travel more than 50 miles from San Bruno, California. But since I was released, I've enjoyed an even greater freedom, to choose the company I keep. Back in 1976, I had a book published, FRIENDS: The Power And Potential of The Company You Keep. At that time, I couldn't have imagined not being in charge of the company I kept. And now I count that blessing every day. The ultimate freedom is to be doing what you love to do and want to do, when and where you want to do it, and with whom you want to do it. Without that, anyone is a prisoner.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog, too, at www.MoneyloveBlog.com

NOT OLDER BUT BETTER

2011-08-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

So there is more and more evidence that the old saw, "I'm not getting older, but better." is based on fact. Several recent reports have come out that talk about how creativity increases with advancing years. One in Psychology Today was especially insightful on the subject in an article by Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D., which said:

The aging brain resembles the creative brain in several ways. For instance, the aging brain is more distractible and somewhat more disinhibited than the younger brain (so is the creative brain). Aging brains score better on tests of crystallized IQ (and creative brains use crystallized knowledge to make novel and original associations). These changes in the aging brain may make it ideally suited to accomplish work in a number of creative domains. So instead of promoting retirement at age 65, perhaps we as a society should be promoting transition at age 65: transition into a creative field where our growing resource of individuals with aging brains can preserve their wisdom in culturally-valued works of art, music, or writing.

Since I've long suggested that retirement is a bad concept, I was pleased at the idea that since we get more creative in certain ways, (being less inhibited in our thinking as well as more easily distracted), we transition instead of retire. Move into some more creative field of endeavor at age 65. A lot of seniors have been doing that in recent decades, but since it is not considered the societal norm, they often get criticized, "What was he thinking at his age?"

I am very grateful that I came out of 12 years in prison with a more open and disciplined and uninhibited and creatively productive mind. I have so many creative projects lined up on my back burner, that I will have to live to at least the 150 year mark I predicted in my book, Psychological Immortality. Right now, I am writing this blog and my prosperity blog as well, plus twenty or thirty cartoon gags for several successful magazine cartoonists, and material for a one man show about prison life that I hope to take to off-Broadway in 2012, and bits and pieces for a stand-up comedy act, and notes for a prison memoir that will probably be published next year, and coming up with innovative, new ideas and strategies for my Moneylove Club monthly audio series on prosperity consciousness.

And I am definitely not doing this in any frenzied way, but living a rather leisurely lifestyle, and doing a lot of catching up on the twelve years' worth of good films I missed while in prison via Netflix, plus getting somewhat addicted to some great British series like Monarch of the Glen, Coupling, and New Street Law, plus great cable series like Saving Grace and several shows on TNT, as well as some of the best Hulu.com has to offer.

And I don't even have a TV! I watch it all online on my 24 inch high definition LED monitor, so that I can easily switch back and forth between engrossing entertainment and exciting creative efforts, which my mind does seem able to do with increasing ease and alacrity. And as just an example of my always exploring new things, the preceding sentence is the first time in my life I've ever used the word "alacrity," which I just looked up after writing it to find it means, "cheerful readiness." Don't you love that phrase? Imagine everyone you meet for business or pleasure greets you with cheerful readiness.

I'm walking a lovely woman to her door after a delightful date and ask if I may come in, and she says, "I welcome you with alacrity." Oh well, maybe that's a bit much. Then again, as I am now older and more "disinhibited," why not expand my expectations?

Speaking of gratitude, and my cartoon gags, I'm going to close by sharing a favorite from the newest batch I sent out just this weekend.

SCENE: WOMAN TO DATE WHO HAS JUST WALKED HER TO DOOR.

CAPTION: "I'd invite you in for my nightly Gratitude Ritual, but tonight it's about being grateful I don't have to ever see you again."

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

A HUMAN BANDAID

2011-07-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

A friend was really complaining about how miserable she was since her daughter went away to college. She said that being a single mother so absorbed her that she was able to bury some of her doubts and fears and anger, which were now coming up as she no longer had her daughter nearby to draw her attention and energy. I realized that this woman had been using her daughter as a human bandaid to cover up the symptoms of inner despair. And I began to wonder how many of us do the same thing--use our devotion or obsession or infatuation toward another person to escape confronting our inner demons and pain.

Of course, the big difference is that when you remove a bandaid, healing has often occurred. This is not true with a human bandaid. When someone you have been using in this way disappears from your daily life, by moving or dying or even going away to college and leaving that empty nest behind, instead of healing, the festering wound is reopened--worse than ever. Some people use a sequential set of relationships to keep covering up those symptoms, and this is done in many different forms. Some years ago, I did this by getting involved with a very beautiful, very sexy, and very happy, nurturing woman. The only problem was she was extremely high maintenance. She required constant attention day and night. I thought it was a pretty good trade-off at the time, as she provided a lot of pleasure. But it gave me a great excuse for not dealing with some major issues I should have been dealing with, and probably indirectly led to my ending up broke and in prison.

Sometimes even work acts as this kind of temporary bandaid--men particularly sometimes use intense focus and commitment to work as a way of avoiding commitment and responsibility in other areas of their lives.

One of the oddest manifestations of this bandaid effect is when someone uses personal growth programs and workshops to avoid dealing with the pain deep within them. I remember some years ago there being a very popular series of weekend workshops that required total absorption of participants with a very rigid structure. So much so, that someone attending would have no time or emotional energy left to deal with any depression or issues buried deep within their core.

It almost sounds like a joke, but my friend attends a grief group to deal with the absence of her daughter, now happily attending college in another state. All the other members of the grief group are dealing with the death of a loved one. But my friend says her pain is just as real, and the counselor has told her it may even be a deeper sense of grief because the person she is mourning is still alive. I suppose it is harder to let go of someone who still exists but is no longer in close proximity.

Sometimes it hurts to quickly tear off a bandaid, but that is a small price to pay for the healing impact if we take the opportunity to seek a more permanent solution.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog: http://MoneyloveBlog.com

I CONFESS--I'M A BOOK ADDICT

2011-07-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

It suddenly came to me as I prepare material for my solo performance class at the famed Marsh theatre in San Francisco with teacher/director/solo performer Charlie Varon. The focus of this piece is a humorous/serious look at my 12 year prison experience. I mentioned that one of the events that really upset and depressed and angered me, and was the biggest challenge to my ability to go within and ignore external adversity and deprivation, were the regular book raids.

This is something that happened every several months, when a functionally illiterate corrections officer (what a laughable title!) would bang on my cell door loudly, unlock the door and barge into the small 6 X 8 foot space, announcing, "Gillies, you have too many books--you have two minutes to get it down to the maximum of ten books allowed!" Since I often had 30 or more books, thanks to the Amazon.com account provided by my old friend Mark Victor Hansen, this was an almost impossible task.

I could send some of the books to a friend, but this would cost exorbitant postage (no book rates available) and the friend couldn't send them back to me at a later date. All books had to come from publishers or recognized retail entities like Amazon or a major bookstore chain. Or I could donate them to the prison library, but from experience, I knew that the officer rarely took the time to do this and just threw them away or gave them to some of his pet inmates. All of this was running through my head as I frantically tried to decide what I couldn't do without. I had to keep at least a few mystery novels and the dictionary. It was the rest of the keepers that I had trouble picking.

I usually took more than two minutes and the guard would stand there muttering obscenities, saying he was too busy for this, that if I didn't hurry up, he would just take all the books. I had to make quick choices, and sometimes regretted them as soon as he left with his bagful of loot. I remember one time when I couldn't decide between Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life; Allen D. Bragden's Building Mental Muscle and James Jay Masters' Finding Freedom: Writings From Death Row. I kept the Quindlen book and still haven't read the other two.

After an hour or two, longer than it usually took me to recover from negative events, I calmed down and realized that any book was eventually replaceable, and it didn't have to affect my usual upbeat mood and optimistic outlook. And I immediately wrote to Mark's assistant with a new order, including at least a few replacements in the ten maximum books we could have sent in. This taking of action got rid of any residual bad feelings. But on a couple of occasions, a special visualization exercise I created for myself also helped. I pictured myself at a 12-step program for book addicts, standing up and saying, "Hello, I'm Jerry and I'm a bookaholic, and have been one since my mother taught me to read at the age of three. Today I realized I only need one book at a time, and don't have to pile them up to feel secure."

I've never been "book sober" a day in my life, and except during certain brief periods when I was in a holding cell after transfer from one prison to another, I have never lived a day without a book in my hand. My stockpile in prison made me feel a sense of abundance. The fact that I read some 1000 books in those 12 years gave me a strong sense of accomplishment.

I still am a voracious reader, but limited space in my current living environment prevents me from having hundreds of comfort-providing volumes surrounding me. So I suppose I am partially rehabilitated from my obsession/addiction. The ultimate test will be when I get a much larger budget and living space. One major sign of progress: I no longer think or feel, "So many books, so little time."

Jerry

P.S. I think being the insatiable reader I am had to inevitably lead to my being an author. I still find it amazing that two million people bought Moneylove. My new audio club and prosperity blog are both inspired by that work, and you can check out both at http:MoneyloveBlog.com

YOUR OWN MAGIC SHOW

2011-06-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking about one of my favorite comic book characters, Captain Marvel, and how Billy Batson would go into the secret cave and say the word "Shazam!" to be transformed into the red costumed superhero. Shazam was the name of a wizard, and Captain Marvel, launched at the same time as Superman, was far more popular in the 1940s. Through the years, as the franchise moved from Fawcett to DC Comics, which had claimed the character infringed on their Superman image, litigation has prevented Captain Marvel from being portrayed in a major movie, just some television shows and a movie serial in 1941. Because of all the copyright disagreements, DC can't even promote the character under the name Captain Marvel, which is why the comic book was renamed Shazam, also the name of a music website now.

I miss the word as a magical incantation. I used to, as a kid, like to imagine that I could give myself super powers by just saying, "Shazam." All of which got me to thinking we can all use a magic word. And it doesn't matter whether you believe in magic or not. If you made up your own magic word, merely by saying it you would remind yourself of what you would like to have appear if you did have magical powers. All of us have had wonderful things happen as if by magic, but these are often accidental or serendipitous events. Wouldn't it be better to at least make the effort to conjure them up intentionally?

In any event, I am working on a few words for myself to explore this concept. Right now, I'm looking at "Serendigenous." I seem to have a lot of the kind of happy, accidental good luck that is described as serendipity in my life, so that it feels native and natural to me, or I could say "indigenous" to my lifestyle and experience. Thus, serendigenous. But the magic word any of us chooses doesn't have to refer to any actual definition, it can be as nonsensical and make-believe as Shazam or Abracadabra. You might want to check out the book on Magic Words listed in the link below for some creative stimulation to trigger your imagination in this regard.

http://www.mysteryarts.com/magic/magicwords/1-tip-of-the-hat/

So whether you believe in magic or miracles or even serendipity, or not, what would you want to add to your life if just saying one word could produce any result you desired?

Happy Conjuring!

Jerry

Check out my other blog on prosperity consciousness at:

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

THOUGHTS FROM MY INNER CODGER

2011-06-27T04:04:00.000-07:00

So the word is usually modified with "old", and a codger is defined as usually an elderly man, somewhat eccentric or curmudgeonly. Well, since I was just as eccentric and curmudgeonly when I was a young man, I'm not sure I really mind the title. Curmudgeon is interesting in that it's official definition is "bad-tempered," but in modern times is has usuallly been used in reference to cynical or sarcastic commentators on life's absurdities, like H. L. Mencken, one of my personal heroes.

The film, Grumpy Old Men, starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau has been called a documentary on codgerhood and curmudgeonhood.

The film, Elegy, by Spanish director Isobel Coixet, whom I recently discovered and whose films as masterful epics of human behavior from a passionate perspective, is somewhat a celebration of old codgers. In this case played by Ben Kingsley as a sharp-tongued critic and Dennis Hopper as an outspoken poet. Kingsley's love interest is played by Penelope Cruz--and who wouldn't want to be labeled an "old codger" if she were part of the mix?

At the beginning of the film, Kingsley's character is looking out a window and we hear his inner soliloquy on growing older:

"I think it was Betty Davis who said 'Old age is not for sissies,' but it was Tolstoy who said, 'The biggest surprise in a man's life is old age.' Old age sneaks up on you and the next thing you know you're asking yourself, I'm asking myself, 'Why can't an old man act his real age?' How is it possible for me to still be involved in the carnal aspects of the human comedy? Because, in my head, nothing has changed."

And this pretty well sums up the aging experience for me--in my head, I'm still in my thirties. Maybe if I were a triathlete or involved in any other strenuous physical pursuit, I would notice more of a change. But as a reader, writer, and speaker, I seem to be able to do as much as I could thirty years ago. And I'm actually more disciplined and creatively productive now than I was then. So codger it is, and I'm kind of fond of that title, though instead of "old," I think I'd prefer it prefaced with the adjective, "creative."

Your friendly Creative Codger,

Jerry

Check out my other blog on prosperity at:

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

PHILLY THE TREAT CAPITAL!

2011-06-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

It's sort of sad that so many of the specialty foods created in my hometown of Philadelphia are so diluted and tasteless when attempts are made to duplicate them elsewhere. The ubiquitous cheesesteak is a prime example. For thirty years, I have tried to find one as delicious as Pat's or Geno's or any of dozens of Philly snack emporiums to little avail. Finally, I accidentally discovered Phat Philly on 24th Street near Valencia in San Francisco, as it is on the way to The Marsh Theatre, where I am currently attending a class on solo performance. The rolls and meat are authentic, and they even have my favorite hot cherry pepper slices, very rare on the West Coast where the jalapeno reigns.

But the cheesesteak is just one of the foods originated in Philadelphia--there are four of them altogether. The soft pretzel was invented in Philly, but quickly showed up at New York street vendors. Elsewhere in the nation, not nearly so tangy. In South Philly, the vendors always seemed to have several layers of raggedy clothing and very black palms. To this day, I don't know if this was dirt or some by-product of pretzel baking. But their product seemed to be the most delicious, the small ones selling for 5 cents, the jumbo size a quarter, and always with a splash of mustard.

Next, a sweet treat I've never seen anywhere else except the South Jersey shore, which is practically a suburb of Philly anyway. It's the Italian water ice. This is not a snow cone or shaved ice, it's more liquid, and the authentic version came in two flavors, lemon or cherry, with pieces of the fruit permeating the soft, smooth dessert. It was made in a churning vat quite often standing in the open doorway of corner candy stores throughout South Philadelphia, and served in soft paper cups--2 cents for the smallest. Almost all other versions involve pouring artificial flavors over ice.

And, last but not least, the famed Tastykake snack cakes. My favorites of many varieties were and still are the plain chocolate cupcake (as opposed to the cream-filled) and the chocolate Kandy Kake (which used to be called Tandy Kake). They used to be available more widely, but are largely limited to Philly, New York, and New Jersey. A few cheesecake shops have them shopped in, but at exorbitant prices. They have no preservatives, so just a two or three week shelf life, unless frozen. I now have a freezer full of the chocolate Kandy Kakes, as you have to order them by the case from the company, but they're pretty reasonable at $68 for the case of 18 boxes, each containing six packages with two cookie-sized cakes in each. So that's 216 actual Kandy Kakes.

http://www.tastykake.com/

Many online reviews compared Tastykake products to other snack foods, and I like one typical review that says Tastykake is to Hostess products as a premium prime rib is to McDonald's McRib.

Of course, we're all attached to the favorite snacks of our childhood years, and if still available, this is often our first choice for comfort food. Even though the four food items above make Philadelphia probably the leader in specialty treats that originated in any city in the world, there are still more. I've never tasted an Italian hoagie more delicious than at almost any Philly hoagie shop, and Nick's roast beef sandwiches put Arby's to shame, and the old Horn & Hardart retail shops had a chocolate chip loaf cake to die for. H&H also invented the automat in 1902 in Philadelphia, and it also quickly spread to New York. As a kid in Philly, I fondly remember getting a table full of food for a dollar's worth of nickels popped into the slots and then pulling out the dishes like fantastic beef pot pie when the little door flipped open. And chocolate covered frozen bananas were also a favorite. They actually have traveled the best, as it is pretty hard to screw them up.

On the way to class tonight, I'm stopping at Phat Philly's. And here's a guilty confession--all my life, I have ordered my cheesesteaks without the cheese, just steak and onions and perhaps a few hot cherry pepper slices. So while an ardent addict for this hometown treat, I am far from a purist.

Jerry

Do check out my prosperity blog at

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

CHEWING UP AND SPITTING OUT AN OLD COLD HOTDOG

2011-06-12T10:03:00.000-07:00

Congressman Weiner was on a roll

until he suddenly fell down a hole.

Instead, he should have been on a bun,

not exposing his weird sense of fun.

The congressman from New York certainly has given punsters and comics (including me) a gift that keeps on giving. Us amateur psychologists could well ponder whether childhood teasing about his name led him to express suppressed anger in the form of that specific male body part, which he photographed and distributed to a number of women online.

Certainly, despite some apparently intelligent policy position papers (which I now suspect staffers wrote), the guy is definitely two or three condiments short of a good hotdog sandwich. Some of the evidence for this:

1. He went to a technical high school after failing by one point to gain admission to regular high school in Brooklyn.

2. He chose to chase media coverage relentlessly despite having an embarrassing fetish.

3. He used his real name.

4. He failed to understand the nature of the Internet, and particularly Facebook's almost non-existent privacy protection.

5. He made major denials when he knew there were at least six witnesses plus photographic evidence of his transgression.

6. He kept his own face on the photos, a face that only a mother could love, but anyone could recognize.

There's been lots of discussion lately about sex and politics amidst a number of such scandalous revelations. It is true that male politicians seem to have a sense of sexual entitlement. But I think it is more a sign of our still-repressed culture. They act like naughty little boys because in terms of sexual knowledge and maturity, they are little boys. Remember Bill Clinton? He made clumsy attempts at seduction that any grown woman would be likely to reject, or if dumb enough to accept, run straight to the tabloids and/or lawyers.

And then there are the self-righteous colleagues pointing their dirty fingers at the shame of it all. I suspect anyone who protests Weiner's actions too much. Also remember than many of Clinton's accusers, including Newt Gingrich, turned out to have much more serious marital transgressions going on.

My provocative solution for all this? Adopt the practice often observed in primitive cultures of having the tribe's elder women train boys in the arts of love and sex. Women are much more knowledgeable on this subject, and there are always more women surviving to a ripe old age than men--can anyone think of a better reason for this to be so?

I've learned over the years that the secret to success with women is to give them what they want--and that certainly isn't the kind of silly photos sent out by this sad congressman.

He used to be hot

but now he's cold

Let's hope the story

soon gets old

Weiner on a roll

Weiner on a bun

Came out too raw,

Now he's more than done.

Jerry

On a more serious note (but not too serious I hope), check out my prosperity blog at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

PARTISANS OR SEDITIONISTS?

2011-06-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

Let me say first of all that this comment is more speculation than declaration on my part. I'm not really in favor of any kind of censorship, and think Freedom of Speech is one of our most treasured bastions of liberty and justice for all. That being said, however, I am getting more and more concerned at the coarseness and scurrilous nature of attacks against the policies, especially the economic policies of the current U.S. administration. At this point in time, I am not certain whether Obama will be considered a good President or a bad one. Too many results of his policies are still to be played out. But the non-stop attacks from the opposition sometimes make me cringe.

Just this past weekend, on Fox News Sunday, Maybe/Maybe Not Republican candidate Sarah Palin used so many sinking ship analogies in her interview that it could have been a promotion trailer for Titanic. Not exactly words to inspire confidence in our foreign allies and creditors. When does appropriate criticism of a president by the opposition party cross the line into sedition? Well, the dictionary definition of sedition is speech or writing that incites discontent or rebellion. Does constant reference to the U.S. economy as being bankrupt, in collapse, or a sinking ship incite discontent? I certainly think there are fair criticisms of Obama's policies, and room for some alternative proposals, but the continuing avalanche of attacks that create lack of confidence in the markets and the world are hardly productive.

Check out this item from Wikipedia:

The Sedition Act of 1918 was an Act of the United States Congress signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on May 16, 1918.^[1] It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt.

Disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language. If you have any doubts that political discourse has descended to these levels, check out Fox or talk radio or the blogosphere. The temporary Sedition Acts of 1798 put it this way:

That if any person shall write, print, utter. Or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them. or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years

One man arrested under the 1918 act was one of the richest men in America, who held a patent on a new way of manufacturing barbed wire and held 75% of the barbed wire market, as well as being head of the Louisiana Railroad. William Edenborn was a German-born naturalized U.S. citizen who was accused of trying to calm American fears about the threat of Germany. The statement that got him in trouble seems pretty mild compared to some of the outrageous commentary from the right today:

There has been much talk about Germany coming over here and attacking the United States. We need have no fear that Germany will ever attack the United States. It would take a maritime nation to do that, because America is surrounded by water. America can look to other countries for any attacks in the future.

When does some of the current language rise to the level of the time-honored exception to Freedom of Speech, yelling "Fire" in a crowded theatre? I don't claim to have the answer, but I do think we need to ask the question.

Jerry

For a good news approach to matters financial, check out my prosperity blog: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

POLITICAL PRESCIENCE OR PROGNOSTICATION?

2011-05-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

So here's my prediction: In 2012, Democrats will win back the House, and keep both the Presidency and the Senate. Time, and not much time at that, will tell whether I am prognosticating--just predicting what I think will happen, or being prescient, knowing how it will all turn out before the actual election.

Here's just a few of the reasons I have made this assessment:

1. The Paul Ryan plan, passed by House Republicans, to dramatically change the one thing 78% of Americans say they don't want changed, Medicare. It may be brave of Ryan to finally put entitlements on the table, but it was done with so little preparation, and as such an obvious pandering to Tea Partiers, that more Republicans are likely to lose their seats over having voted for it than Democrats did for backing Obamacare in the 2010 midterms.

2. By 2012, many Americans will see that some major Obama decisions, like rescuing General Motors and Chrysler, were brilliant successes. Chrysler has paid back its government loans with interest, and thousands of jobs were saved in both companies.

3. Like a tiny circus car disgorging its crowded passenger load of clowns, more and more ridiculous Republican comments will reveal the party to be in thrall to the most extreme aspects of its lunatic fringe. What a fun sitcom we could have starring Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney as the straight man (as in butt of jokes rather than sexual preference). I like Jay Leno's line that Republicans have certainly turned around from their old family oriented image with three-time married aspiring candidates like Trump, Gingrich, and Guliani--and Mitt Romney has only had one wife and he's the Mormon!

4. Since many, perhaps most, Americans are basically fair-minded, there will, I also predict, be a backlash against the unprecedented and often racially motivated attacks on Obama, including the insidious birther movement.

5. Republicans do tend to have political death wishes. How else to explain Newt's catastrophic first week, and his announcement that his third wife Calista will be a full partner on the campaign trail. And Pawlenty's railing against ethanol gas subsidies when he'd have to win Iowa to have a real shot at being nominated. And Mitt Romney's defending his Massachusetts precursor to Obamacare to Republican audiences.

6. Republicans with great popular support and reputations for honesty and competence, such as Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, and Mike Huckabee, have been rushing for the exits. They are likely to be replaced by such quirky candidates as Bachman and Texas governor Rick Perry, whose main claim to fame is that he floated a trial balloon to have Texas secede from the U.S. Of course, there is Herman Cain, but I think after the dismal performance of Michael Steel as the first African-American GOP chairman, the party may be unwilling to support another person of color. And all those attacks on Obama as someone "not like us," "possibly born somewhere else," "uppity," indicate a deep well of anti-black feeling at the core of the party. After all, it has proudly worn the mantle of the party of the "White Rich Christian Guys." Besides, though he makes some good rhetorical points, the former CEO of Godfather Pizza has never been elected to anything, and candidates with no electoral experience whatsoever have never won a presidential nomination.

7. Obama, after some rocky times, is on an upswing and this is likely to continue over the next 18 months. All historical experience has shown that pessimism and cynicism are temporary events in the national mood.

8. Republicans have missed the boat, not capitalizing on their momentum from 2010, not figuring out how to take advantage of the populism of the Tea Party movement, or assimilate the Tea Party House members into the party fold. Lots of pandering, lots of missed opportunities, lots of cowardice in not confronting their extreme elements. Their time has passed, at least for this historical moment.

9. It seems commonsensible to presume that some of those tens of millions of uninsured Americans scheduled for coverage under Obamacare will vote for the man who finally delivered on the promise of healthcare for everyone. Also, there is Obama's core constituency of young adults under 26 who are now covered by their parents' medical insurance.

Of course, this is just my personal opinion and prediction after 50 years of observation, including 12 as a broadcast journalist. I promise I'll do a post after election day 2012, and either gloat or eat crow, depending on the outcome.

Jerry

While this blog focuses on everything from politics to humor to sex and relationships, my other blog is all about prosperity consciousness. Check it out at:

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

MY ODE TO THE END THAT WASN'T

2011-05-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

Apocalypse Day has come and gone.

Did you get your Rapture on?

The world's still here, sonofagun,

but we had some Rapture fun.

Did you dance like there's no tomorrow?

which might have been cause for sorrow.

But alas, it didn't come to pass,

Each doomsayer proved an ass.

So much for Mayan accuracy,

Do they think they're the GOP?

Lots of bargains at garage sales

as the sinners prepared to bail.

Maybe this was just a practice run,

With October or December the real fun.

If you're still ready to give up on life.

Please give me your house, and maybe your wife,

your bank account and young adult daughter,

so I can trade them for bottles of water,

and lots of canned food, including Spam

and then announce, "Prepared I am,"

For whatever survivalists and Mayans predict,

On whatever Apocalypse date they pick,

Dark chocolate will be filling my shelves

in case we're attacked by doomsday elves

Or a huge volcano decides to erupt,

or a giant hole opens up,

or the floods start to really flow

with no help from a modern Noah

How could he build another Ark

when he can't even find a place to park?

But now we're here another day

free to go on our merry way

Charlie Sheen will complete his collapse

And so will Donald Trump's synapse

Michelle Bachman will say something stupid

Hugh Hefner will keep worshipping Cupid

Arnold Schwarzeneggar will keep being wild

Perhaps fathering Lindsay Lohan's child.

And we can keep hugging everyone near,

Ahhh Shucks, the world's still here.

Jerry Gillies

May 21, 2011

P.S.

Mark 13:32 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

IMMIGRATION REFORM FOR YOUR MIND

2011-05-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

So here's my brand new rule:

Any entrepreneur, marketing guru, newsletter publisher, seller of coaching, courses, books or audios who emails me more than once a week is going to be either unsubscribed or automatically deleted without opening--forevermore.

Why? Because we all need to have the same comprehensive immigration plan many are advocating for the U.S. government. We need to figure out what to do with the tons of information that has already come in, and ways of being selective about what is bombarding our minds on a daily, make that hourly basis. We need to set up borders and border controls. And you get to decide what kind of control you want to assert, but you need to stop leaving it up to others to decide for you.

Tighter border security is a must. Too much useless, time-consuming, repetitious, and deceptive material is inundating our emails and our brains. I'm been campaigning for a long time on the need for all of us to exercise more selectivity, discrimination, and wisdom in deciding what we let in.

I also have been have been eliminating old emails from my files. Most marketing programs and internet gurus and ebook and webinar producers get my alternate email address, and in just a few months, I had built up a collection of 11,000 unread emails. True, some might have interesting or entertaining or even useful information. But I don't have a staff to go through them all, and can't see a window to do so considering how much new stuff is constantly flowing in. So I adopted another rule that says anything I haven't opened or done anything about in ninety days gets deleted. And I started off this new immigration policy by deleting all 11,000 emails from that address. What a freeing, uplifting message I now get:

There are no emails in your Inbox folder

Most of all I'm excited that I now have room for the really important, joyful, wonderful stuff.

I have friends who are imprisoned by the sheer glut of their email Inboxes. One told me she hadn't read one of my emails that had some time relevant information I knew she wanted and needed--she was three weeks behind in opening any emails at all. So a new mantra in this regard might be:

GUT THE GLUT!

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog at:

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

TURNING POINTS

2011-05-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know how interesting it is to anyone else, but right now my life is the most fascinating it's ever been for me. Probably this is because I'm in a period of turning points--activities and events and projects that could lead me in any number of different directions. We all have these, and I believe the best way to experience them is to be as open as possible to all that is possible.

In some ways, I feel like I felt in my 20s and 30s, where all things were possible and I felt I was doing exactly what I should be doing in the moment, but wasn't quite sure where it would all lead. I recently saw several reports on the new research that says people reach their greatest level of happiness and joy in their eighties. I think I would have scoffed at that in my 30s and 40s, but don't now.

If we're lucky, I think we do learn how to savor life more, how to appreciate the good things, minimize the bad, and take it all in with a smile in our hearts. Mostly, I feel more creative and productive than I did thirty years ago. "Grow" is the operative word here in "growing older."

I suppose part of this is that I am in areas of endeavor that age well, mostly to do with writing and reflective thinking. And there are results from these endeavors that let me know I am not being delusional in thinking all this.

For instance, a few days ago I got an email from one of the cartoonists I started writing cartoon gags for in the early days of my incarceration. Roy Delgado told me Readers Digest had approached him about doing some animal cartoons, and he asked if I could come up with a few to send him, so he could draw up ones he liked, and then submit them to the magazine. I amazed myself by producing 26 animal gags in less than an hour. Roy liked 8 of them. And I now get the pleasure of anticipating how he will illustrate these, and how Readers Digest will respond, and eventually the possibility of their buying some, thus earning a modest fee. One of my favorites I already posted on Facebook, and may even use in another potential career choice/change: stand-up comedy:

SCENE: A man speaks to his wife as he comes home carrying a gecko in a pet carrier.

CAPTION: "Would you believe GEICO won't insure our gecko?"

In addition to writing several posts a week for my two blogs, coming up with mostly new ideas on prosperity for my Moneylove Club monthly audio series, writing cartoons, stand-up, and outlining episodes I want to include in my future one man show, I am looking at exactly what kind of public talks and seminars I want to present when I am off parole later this year and can get a passport and travel beyond California for the first time in fifteen years. There is no doubt this creative multitasking is possible because of all the meditating and inner work I did while in prison.

I see this cornucopia of turning points in my life as an amazing opportunity to have the next segment be more fulfilling and more fun than any that preceded it. Of course this involves some diligence on my part--making sure I don't try to focus on more things than I can handle at any one time.

For right now, I am in a preparatory phase--checking out my skills and talents in several arenas, getting ready to explore more, and acting as my own air traffic controller for all the ideas flying about in my consciousness. As these evolve, I will decide where to focus and put my major energy. Serving me well then will be my Ninety Day Trial Period strategy. This is giving myself one major project for ninety days. And then deciding whether to stick with it or move to something else, based on results.

As I contemplate all these potential turning points in my life, I also am aware of a Big Truth that has been reaffirmed many times in my past. If I stay open and aware, I may end up on a path I can't begin to imagine right now--something totally different from all the areas I am now considering and exploring.

It's actually satisfying and invigorating for me to wake up each morning not only with robust expectations, but with no idea of what I will be doing a year from now. Or where I will be doing it, or whom I might be doing it with. Oh, there are some clues, but like in any good mystery, there could really be some major twists and turns in the story.

Jerry

My other blog focuses on prosperity, so check it out.

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

WORLD LAUGHTER DAY!

2011-05-01T01:03:00.000-07:00

So the cartoon shows an airport security post with one guard speaking to another as a beautiful woman in a medieval gown is ready to go through the archway. "She wants to know if she has to remove her chastity belt to go through?"

Hurray! It's World Laughter Day, which is designated as the first Sunday in May each year. This one is the best one of my life by far. I am now involved in three vocations/avocations designed to promote laughter among the masses--or even the select group of chosen ones who read this blog.

If you're a regular visitor here, you know I've been writing cartoon gags for years. I started as a young disc jockey for a part-time activity to occupy myself during commercial breaks. Coming up with a description of the cartoon, and the caption, submitting it to a magazine cartoonists, having them draw up the ones they selected, then send them to magazines for possible acceptance, and hopefully receiving a 25% share of the fee because they were sold. After many years of writing books and doing seminars, I got back to this gagwriting activity while in prison, doing a number of the Howard Huge gags for PARADE magazine, plus cartoon gags that eventually appeared in Saturday Evening Post, Playboy, Wall St. Journal, Harvard Business Review, etc.

Just recently, I've been focused on writing and performing some stand-up comedy, such as:

What does an atheist text instead of OMG?

Dogs now have their own Social Network called ButtBook.com

My girlfriend asked me the other night, after a bout of passionate lovemaking, "Was it good for you?" I said, "It must have been, it didn't even wake me up."

Computers are making newspapers obsolete. Unfortunately, it's very expensive laying a bunch of iPads on the floor to housebreak your dog.

Well, I didn't say I was the world's greatest stand-up comedian or comedy writer, but as a fledgling, I'm quite satisfied with the laughs I get.

Finally, I am fulfilling a longtime aspiration by working on writing and performing a one man theatre piece, which would be funny and serious reflections on my life, including my 12 years in prison, 2 years traveling with a girlfriend in a motorhome, 3 years living in a sex commune, 12 years as a broadcast journalist, and 25 years as a workshop leader and motivational speaker and author of six self-help books. My main task will be editing it all down from its current 47 hour performing length.

I've accelerated my plans for the one man show as a result of discovering the Marsh, two theaters--one in San Francisco and one in Berkeley--that develop, nurture, and present solo performances. I'm taking an eight week class starting in June with the highly acclaimed performer, director, and teacher, Charlie Varon. This will culminate in a twenty minute solo performance one evening at the SF venue. And this should give me an idea if my life is interesting enough to sustain an entire evening's entertainment the way I remember it, write it, and perform it.

http://www.CharlieVaron.com

http://www.TheMarsh.org

So what can you do to celebrate World Laughter Day? CDs and videos of my shows are not available yet (check in 2012), but there's an awful lot of funny stuff online.

You could do worse (a lot worse) than the following three sites nominated for a Webby award as best humor websites this year:

http://www.FunnyOrDie.com

http://www.CollegeHumor.com

http://www.TheOnion.com

Also, a site I was introduced to by friend, Richie Levine, who often performs on it, and always makes me smile or giggle:

http://www.OldJewsTellingJokes.com

Here's hoping your World Laughter Day goes on all year. Remember:

"Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you get your own reality TV show."

Jerry

On a more serious note, check out my other blog, focused on prosperity:

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

FUNDAY AS THE 8TH DAY OF THE WEEK

2011-04-25T07:45:00.000-07:00

Sunday, Funday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday...what a great sounding week we could have!

I hereby start the official campaign to have a new day. Now, I know some people have been calling Sunday "Funday", but that's just wasting the energy and desire to finally change our calendar in a 21st Century way. Everything has changed but this ancient attachment to a seven day week. And who hasn't said or felt at some time and for some time that "There are just not enough days in the week!"

All that is required is to divide the hours of the week up into eight 21 hour days. This would be in alignment with the sun, the stars, and all other mathematical factors at the foundation of our current calendar.

Being a new construct, we could give Funday some special, beneficial significance, and not just let it slide into habitual labeling, such as Saturday "date night," Sunday "day of rest," Monday as "blue Monday." Funday could be just what its name implies, a day of fun between our day or rest and the first day of the work week. We could establish some original rules at the onset. On Funday, we would all make a real effort not to do anything that wasn't fun, wasn't pleasurable, didn't make us smile or laugh.

And the unemployment problem would be solved in a snap. Think of all the work for calendar designers and printers, watch and clock makers, computer technicians. Think of a regular three day weekend, and even more to talk about around the water cooler at work, "And what did you do this Funday?"

Maybe we could get Rebecca Black to record a sequel to her viral hit, Friday, called Funday, Funday. Well, maybe not, though she has certainly has been having a lot of fun with all of us.

Whole new businesses could spring up to sell us fun services and products to use on Funday. And when we ask someone out on a date for Funday, it would be mutually understood that this was not meant to lead to a serious relationship.

Any hurtful things we do or say on Funday would be automatically excused by,

"I was just kidding--after all, it's Funday!"

I'm sure you can come up with your own creative ideas that would make this new day special. How about a rule that if you're caught frowning on Funday, you have to hug ten strangers? And you're given permission to go off your healthy tofu-based diet and have all the hot dogs, funnel cakes, cotton candy, and chocolate covered frozen bananas you want. And even in the fanciest restaurants, food fights would be permitted on Funday.

Composers and performers would have a field day creating new songs with Funday in the title, as there now are for the seven other days of the week. "A Funday kind of love." The titles would certainly be more cheerful than "Blue Monday," or "Stormy Monday." A few suggestions:

My Funday Valentine

My Funny Funday Love

I've Got Those Funday Giggles

(the opening line for this one, "I've got those Funday giggles, every time my lover wiggles. Smiling in our Snuggies, as our baby poops its Huggies.")

This whole idea has definitely lightened up my Monday. Think on it, but not too seriously, please.

Jerry

Even creating prosperity can be fun. Check my other blog:

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

SIZE MATTERS

2011-04-22T09:40:00.000-07:00

WARNING: This post rated R for content and rambunctiousness.

So let's talk about male enhancement. At least that's what the woman with the raspy, very sexy voice wanted to talk about when she called me first thing this morning. At first, because their voices are similar, I thought it was a former girlfriend of mine who often calls very late at night--and I said, "I can't believe you're calling me in the morning instead of the middle of the night." And the sexy voice said, "I'd be happy to call you in the middle of the night if you'd prefer it."

She then said she wanted to talk to me about something that would improve my life, and my size. I said I wasn't interested, in fact I was looking for something that would cut down my size as the petite women I preferred were always complaining of pain. She then said, "You're going to hang up on me now, aren't you?" I said, "Not quite yet--first I want to tell you how much I enjoy your sexy voice, and that I wish you a very sexy weekend, and now I'm going to gently and lovingly hang up on you."

But it did remind me of a realization I had quite recently, having watched a number of independent and foreign films on Netflix--many of which feature full frontal nudity of both men and women. For the most part, these men are of average, modest size. I wondered whether they were chosen for these roles because they would not intimidate men watching, or raise expectations of women watching. On the other hand, in porn, the men are so well endowed that I wonder why any man of normal proportions would want to watch them perform.

I have seen a lot of naked men--in the military, in prison showers, living in a sex commune, attending and even conducting a number of all-nude massage workshops, and attending some weekend workshops where nudity was part of the opening up experience. So I know from much observation that most men are not anywhere near the size of porn actors. It still, however, seems to be an issue for many men. Just as women are insecure about the size and shape of their breasts, men wonder if size really matters to a woman. In my experience and my opinion? Only for a small fraction of women, some of whom even join organizations devoted to women who like 'em big.

In one of my stand-up segments, I talk about receiving many emails advertising, at a discount, dozens of devices and supplements guaranteed to make a man's penis dramatically larger. And I also get many emails from various members of Nigerian royalty offering me large sums of money. In the past week, this added up to about $37 million. And here's my question for men: If you had $37 million, would you really need a bigger penis?

A further opinion: size does matter, but only the size of your bank account.

Now if only some sexy-voiced woman would call me up and offer a deal on a product devoted to laughter and joy enhancement.

Jerry

IS THE BAD NEWS REALLY THE GOOD NEWS?

2011-04-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

I just checked and found out Famous Johnny's Pizza Restaurant in San Bruno, CA has ended their monthly comedy night, which I performed at last month and have been writing new material to do so again next week. A bit disappointing to know that won't be happening, but as my life experience has shown me, it probably will lead to even better things. For one thing, it will accelerate my trying out at San Francisco comedy clubs.

I have no doubt that something interesting and rewarding will be happening as a result of my finally pursuing some of my longtime aspirations to perform comedy. It might be a one man show, or stand-up, or some as yet unimagined media. And there is no doubt whatsoever that whatever I end up doing that is successful will have been impacted by my plans for Famous Johnny's being cancelled.

How very many things in life that don't turn out the way you want have led to great things happening and wonderful things coming into your life? I can't tell you how many hundreds of stories I heard in my prosperity seminars and coaching sessions from people who were fired from jobs and then started their own more profitable and satisfying businesses--or found much better jobs. In fact, considering all this reality, it is quite amazing to me that people still have the fantasy fears that when small bad things happen it means a major setback or permanent negative results.

I guess these events led me to come up with my concept that unpleasant experiences and results in my life are merely temporary aberrations, while positive ones are part of the long term trend.

In terms of the larger world view, it takes the same pessimism that has people suffering over these small setbacks in their personal lives, to imagine that our current financial struggles will lead to the collapse of the U.S. dollar and demise of civilization as we know it, not to mention the End of Days so many people are predicting for next year.

Well, my life is going to keep getting better. I am more creatively engaged, productive, and excited right now that at any time in my life. The only downside I see to this is that I really don't have the time to count all my blessings, or taste all the things in life I am looking forward to tasting. But the solution to this is simple, I'm going to live a long, long time--and stay vital and healthy and creative---and, above all, keep my sense of humor.

Jerry

One thing that is true about all the wonderful things we experience in life: they can be even more wonderful and we can share them with more people when we are prosperous. Do check out my prosperity blog for many new ideas on how to make this happen. http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

SEE MY BUTTERFLY WINGS FLAP

2011-04-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

So the whole concept of The Butterfly Effect started out with a short story back in 1952 by my old friend and mentor Ray Bradbury. It then inspired an MIT professor, mathematician, and meteorologist, Edward Norton Lorenz, one of the pioneers of chaos theory. When he couldn't think of an apt title for a talk before the American Association for The Advancement of Science in 1972, a colleague suggested, "Does The Flapping Of A Butterfly's Wings In Brazil Set Off A Tornado In Texas?"

This is often called The Butterfly Effect, or the ripple effect, and in the quirky way my mind and imagination work, I had the realization that I could have had an impact on the lives of the two most out-of-control shipwrecks in today's celebrity culture, Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan.

Here's my hypothesis, and it all starts with my very first girlfriend, Jane Gentry, in 1959. We dated for six months in Dover, Delaware, where I had gotten my first job at a small radio station and Jane's father was the station engineer as well as owning a TV repair shop. I was very very shy, a late bloomer who hadn't yet bloomed at nineteen--in other words, an awkward virgin. Whenever I walked Jane to her door after a date I went through the agony of not being able to kiss her goodnight. There was no kissing in my family, so I had little or no practice. Puckering up for the back of my hand just didn't seem to inspire any confidence. We stopped dating. But what if we hadn't? What if I were more experienced or confident and we fell in love and got married? In 1959 that sort of thing happened a lot.

One result would have been that Jane wouldn't have gone on five years later to meet and marry a man named Vince Polo and give birth to a future successful actress, Teri Polo, the star of Meet The Parents and all the sequels, and a number of other movies.

If Jane had become Jane Gentry Gillies instead of Jane Gentry Polo, the producers of those films would have had to find another young, attractive actress with some comedic talent. They may well have chosen Lindsay Lohan, and the stability of that repeating role, not to mention working with such icons as Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Barbra Streisand, might have given her the emotional strength and satisfaction to avoid turning to drink and becoming a tabloid sensation and butt of so many late night comedians' jokes.

And is it so farfetched to imagine she might have met and fallen in love with another talented and troubled actor named Charlie Sheen, and that the stability of their relationship might have prevented him from going totally nuts.

Of course, if I had been less shy and more ready to commit, there may have been some collateral damage in saving these two lost souls. Think of all the papparazzi, reporters, bloggers, comedians, who might be unemployed as a result of losing two of their most notorious and dependable subjects.

So maybe it's better that my butterfly wings didn't flap in this situation.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog at

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

THE REWARDS OF BAD BEHAVIOR

2011-04-11T15:55:00.000-07:00

When I was in prison, one thing that ticked me off was how good behavior was no longer rewarded in any way. The practice of giving someone time off for good behavior no longer exists. But inmates with really bad behavior do get rewarded. They are feared and respected by fellow prisoners and guards alike. They often get into special programs or even special prisons where treatment is more individualized and the food usually better. The fear they generate also often gets them good prison jobs.

I thought all this would change once I got back into the world, but if anything it's worse out here. There always were some benefits to be had by being a bad boy or bad girl, but now it's reached heroic proportions. Charlie Sheen goes on a few rampages, abuses women, openly abuses drugs, and is offered two million dollars a week to play a disreputable character his real self makes like like a boy scout. And now he's filling stadiums with irrational rants that indicate some serious drug damage to his brain. These aren't audiences he's attracting, but enablers. Can't someone figure out how to help this poor out-of-control freak?

Lindsay Lohan, another former well-respected actress who has become a spectator sport. And there's the far less talented Paris Hilton, and overrated Britney Spears, and on and on, including all the felonious NFL and NBA players and steroid abusing baseball players, and adulterous or almost illiterate politicians, and crooked CEO's. When Rome fell, I wonder if they had anywhere close to the sheer numbers of malfeasants in high positions receiving public acclaim.

Now this spouting off is coming to you from a confirmed hedonist. I like my fun, and I even like the idea that there are so many great subjects for ridicule as I start a possible stand-up career. But, on the other hand, it is hard to make fun of someone already doing such stupid things as to make themselves a parody of themselves. Has any of the hundreds of Charlie Sheen comedy riffs or impressions come close to being as laughable as Charlie himself has become? Tiger blood, winning, and trolls indeed!

And I have nothing against excess, as long as it involves total consent and harms no one else physically or emotionally. I'm sort of sorry Hugh Hefner is the butt of so many jokes as an 84 year old man with a 24 year old fiancee, though I think many of the jokes are evoked by envy. Here's a guy who built an empire as an editor with an erotic sensibility, who is highly intelligent and literate, and built a large playpen for himself, the Playboy Mansion, filled it with interesting and entertaining and talented people, including lots of willingly naked ladies, and picks up the bill for all of it from money he legitimately and deservedly earned creating a magazine that, whatever you think of it, changed the culture forever. And to tell the truth, I wouldn't mind being made fun of if I were having such a good time at his age.

Jerry

My other blog is focused on prosperity and giving you a free mini Moneylove Seminar with every post. Check it out.

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

INTENTIONAL PROCRASTINATION

2011-04-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

So this is a new strategy I just invented and I wanted to share it right way, before I even hone and develop it further. This may be true for many of us, but I notice that when I keep putting off something, I usually feel disappointed in myself. I still try to adhere to famed time management guru John Lee's four Ds.
As I've written about before, he suggested there are four ways to deal with anything on your agenda: Do It, Drop It, Delay It, Delegate It.

And I've also talked about my Back Burner strategy in terms of delaying something. But now I've come up with this other form, Intentional Procrastination.

I found myself resisting calling an Internet superstar who has promised me several times that he would help promote my audio club. I don't want to seem like a pest, and I also am concerned that I might start railing at him for being out of the integrity he often professes. I actually tried to call his assistant yesterday but she was out, so rather than beating myself up for continuously postponing the inevitable confrontation, I have set next Wednesday as the day I will contact him no matter what.

This gives me some breathing room, time to assess exactly what I want to accomplish, and time to focus on coming to a successful conclusion. It's still putting something off, but this time with a deadline I am committed to meeting. And also committed to doing more effectively because of the extra time I'm giving myself. I'll let you know if this works.

Jerry

My recent posts on my prosperity blog are among the most powerful articles I've ever written on the subject. And it's free, as is the download of my online book, The Moneylove Manifesto. Check it out at:
http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

A MONTH-LONG BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

2011-03-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

A week after the actual date, it does seem like my birthday party hasn't waned a bit. Last night was my stand-up comedy debut and I was a hit. Or at least as much of a hit as one can be performing at Famous Johnny's Pizza Restaurant in San Bruno, California. But the audience gave me attention between bites and laughs and even some applause. And with my still good critical eye, I have to say I was probably the best performer of the evening, though there were at least two professionals there. They have some of the moves and timing down better than I do at this early stage in this new career adventure, but I have them on comfort in front of an audience and the quality of my writing. A couple of my biggest laugh lines:

Dogs even have their own Social Media site now, Buttbook.com
and:
Do you ever wonder what atheists text instead of OMG?
and "I met a woman who thought the limit of 140 characters on Twitter meant that was how many guys she could sleep with."

Of course, my modestly paying avocation of writing cartoon gags for some top cartoonists has helped keep my sense of humor sharp, and some of those gags can be converted into stand-up lines, like the buttbook line that I have one dog mentioning to another in the cartoon version.

Tomorrow night, I have a belated birthday dinner with my dear friend and theatre historian Bonnie Weiss, who is also taking me to see a one man show, Geezer, at the Marsh Theatre, where they specialize in one man and one woman shows--something I have long aspired to do.

Sunday, after getting a lot of laughs making an announcement about the upcoming film we're showing at Unity SF Friday night, several people came up and asked if I had ever considered doing stand-up comedy, and one was the wife of a prominent comedy coach--another promising connection. As I approach final freedom with parole at the end of August, it seems my life is building momentum in lots of interesting directions. I think it's exciting after being around so long that I have no idea what my major career will be a year or two from now. Will I have another bestselling book? Will I still focus lots of my creative energy on my audio club, and see it grow to one of the largest of its kind online? Will I be traveling the world doing Moneylove Seminars or stand-up comedy in comedy clubs? Will I accomplish my dream of someday doing a one man show in New York?

Or will it be none of the above, but something I can't even imagine now? Serendipity has always been a big factor in my life--happy surprises--and that's one of the things that makes it all so fascinating to me. This may be the best birthday month of all--at least until next year.

Jerry

Some exciting new ideas about prosperity and attracting what you want can be found on my other blog: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

2011-03-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

I usually don't think much about birthdays anymore, but that somehow changed this year as I realized it's an opportunity to take stock and celebrate life. I think we sometimes forget that a birthday means we have survived, and hopefully thrived, still another year. In this uncertain world, that is not always a given. Getting older is a real blessing considering the only alternative.

And what a great time of life this is for me, and becoming even more so. As I am finally off the restrictions of parole in August, this will be the last birthday in captivity of any kind, and I will finally be able to move beyond the Bay area into the rest of the world. Seminars and fun trips await and have been on hold for quite a while now.

Part of today has been spent listening to and editing my interview with David Friedman, whom I talked about in two recent posts on my other blog:

http://moneyloveblog.com/being-in-the-know-about-the-law-of-attraction/

This is for my newest audio program for The Moneylove Club, which you can read all about at the link on top of my MoneyloveBlog website. So much has been said and written about the Law of Attraction, and so much of it is pure poppycock, that it is a revelation to hear David's clarity of vision about how to get what you want.

And traveling from the sublime to the ridiculous, I have been writing material for my debut stand-up comedy performance at a local pizza restaurant next week. When I was sitting in my cell at Folsom State Prison, one of the aspirations that kept me going was the intention to one day audition for Last Comic Standing. That got put on the back burner with the launch of my audio club and other activities, but I am back on course, and eventually plan to offer a one man show I hope to take to New York.

And from the sublime and ridiculous to the ridiculously, sublimely beautiful, I just had a lovely one hour video Skype chat with gorgeous Rupa Cousins in Vermont, and we were even joined for a few moments by her very special cat, Eric.
And today, I got to read some touching birthday greetings from old friends and newer Facebook friends.

And there were special birthday gifts from my friends and super fans, Tony, Barry, and Ned (his Red Lobster gift card bought my birthday lunch), as well as the promise of a belated birthday dinner from lovely Bonnie. So in physical reality, I may have spent this birthday alone in San Mateo County, California, where I don't really know anyone, but because of the richness of my interior life and my creative energy and all the love being sent my way, it has been a full and joyful festival of celebration.
Jerry

TOO MUCH SELF ESTEEM?

2011-03-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

My old friend Jack Canfield will probably have a conniption fit when he hears about this new research about self esteem. Jack was founder of The Self Esteem Institute, and largely responsible for the addition of self esteem training in California schools, and helped create a national movement to this end. There is no doubt that a lack of self esteem can be emotionally and intellectually damaging during a human being's early development, so that this was a good thing Jack and others were doing. But now comes some evidence that it might have been overdone.
My favorite conservative pundit, NY Times columnist David Brooks, whose bantering with Mark Shields every Friday on the PBS Newshour is one segment I never miss, just wrote a column on this subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/opinion/11brooks.html?_r=1&ref=davidbrooks

The example of men drowning twice as much as women was particularly fascinating to me, and I like the term "praise addicts" and the fact that college students would rather receive a compliment than a favorite food or sex. As much as I love compliments, even having as one of my favorite personal strategies, my Compliment Bulletin Board, if I were asked to choose between a piece of chocolate-covered halvah, a beautiful woman wanting to ravish me, or someone telling me they loved what I said on my latest blog post--I'm not exactly sure of my order of preference, but I am definitely sure the compliment wouldn't come in first.

But then again, I am fortunate in that I get probably more than my share of compliments as I am out there in the world with my blogs, my audios, my books, etc. If I were compliment starved, I might agree with most of those college students, and I could very well see myself becoming a praise addict.

It is interesting to speculate that we may have become a nation of slackers and underachievers because we now think so highly of ourselves. In other words, "I'm wonderful, why should I bother studying hard or working hard when success will come to me naturally and easily?"

I think we're talking here about the need for balance in this as in all things. A healthy appreciation of self is vital to create an attractive energy that will bring people toward you in business and your personal life. Too much appreciation of self can be a destructive force, creating a negative, unlikeable energy that will leave others cold--and prevent one from doing the work necessary to create prosperity and fulfillment.

I've struck a balance in writing this just now. I'm very pleased with myself for being able to articulate a few major points I wanted to make. At the same time, I think as I meditate on this subject, I will be able to write in much more depth about it in the future. I know I am merely scratching the surface and know I can do a lot better with more thought and research--but I feel good about what I have accomplished at this early stage of thinking and reading about this.

And how do you feel about yourself today?

Jerry

There are many paths on the road to prosperity, check many of them out at my other blog: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

THE HEART WANTS WHAT IT WANTS

2011-03-06T13:09:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching Any Human Heart on Masterpiece Classic on PBS.org, and it really touched me. The story of a man's life through much of the 20th Century focusing on each of the women he's loved and who loved him back. As I watched it, I reflected on the women in my life over the years, who I think were more beautiful in the aggregate than his, and certainly more fascinating. An underlying theme of the story is a message he got from his businessman father as he was dying. That it's "all about luck, good luck and bad luck."

Of course, I often talk about "playing your luck," that we all have both good luck and bad luck as we go through life, and it's what we do in response to each that makes all the difference. Back to reflections on my past and the women who inhabited it, and still inhabit my heart to a lesser or greater extent, depending on both their place in my life at the time, and on what was happening at the time I knew them and loved them.

Part of why Rupa Cousins is so prominent in my heart today has to do with the amazing period in which we met, fell in love, and went through major life transformations in each other's company and with each other's loving support and inspiration. When we met in a Silva Mind Control workshop in New York, I was leaving in two weeks, having given up my broadcasting career, to move to Miami and live with a psychologist I had met while covering an Association for Humanistic Psychology conference for NBC. Rupa was an actress and married to an actor. But the heart wants what it wants when it wants it, and a few months later we were both in Miami and a couple. She became a yoga teacher and workshop leader, I wrote books and led workshops on love. We each went on, together and later apart in our separate lives, to discover many new vocations and adventures. And in some ways we are closer today than we were way back then. She is smarter and more interesting and just as beautiful as then, with an even more active lifestyle. And I am more creatively productive and starting new projects like a stand-up comedy career and eventual one man show.

In Any Human Heart, the woman Logan Mountstuart remembers most clearly is Freya, the wife who died during a World War II rocket attack on London. The actress playing her actually reminds me physically of Rupa, but Freya never got to grow and expand her talents and knowledge over many years. In that sense, I feel luck has been on my side, and I as eagerly look forward to the days coming as I do back to the days already come and gone.
It was Rupa's cousin, Norman Cousins, who gave me the phrase that has become a life mantra,
"Robust Expectations," and this human heart may not always be quite sure what it wants, but is always pretty certain something good will keep showing up.

Jerry

There is more in the form of another entirely different blog devoted to my work as a prosperity consciousness teacher. Check it out at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

WRITING FOR AND FROM THE HEART

2011-02-18T23:57:00.000-08:00

Often in my life I have internally hugged myself with joy for the blessing of being a writer, of getting to do what I love doing, of find an audience for it, of never running out of words, of always learning new ways to express myself. I was recently reminded of how lucky we writers are when I caught an interview on the PBS NewsHour with essayist, novelist, playwright, and professor at Stony Brook University, Roger Rosenblatt.

Rosenblatt's new book follows his writing class for a semester and is called, Unless It Moves The Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing. During the interview, the author, who often has done video essays for the NewsHour, says he has found four reasons to write:

"To make suffering endurable, evil intelligible, justice desirable, and love possible."

Rosenblatt then said, "The most important is love. That after all the suffering, all the evil, all the injustice one sees in the world, if you can rise above it and make it beautiful and thus loveable, then that's worth a life."

But what fascinated me most about this seven minute segment was a fact it brought out. That despite the terrible state of the publishing industry, where getting fiction published is increasingly difficult, and nonfiction not much better, and book sales are way down--the number of people enrolled in writing classes has surged to new highs. More and more people want to be writers, and Rosenblatt notes that most want it for the sheer art of doing it rather than any expectation of being published or earning a living at it. An offshoot of this phenomenon is of course the amazing number of bloggers out there. Estimates are that there are over 100 million blogs worldwide, and 30% of these are in the U.S. Which would mean almost 10% of the men, women, and children in the U.S. write blogs. Mind boggling to say the least. And all of this is driven by the desire to express oneself through writing.

Roger Rosenblatt says the ultimate criteria for success as a writer is whether what you do is useful in the world, useful to other people. This certainly could be the standard for all of us in whatever we do. A good question to ask ourselves therefore is, "What do I do that is useful to other people?"

Jerry

Check out my other blog on prosperity at:

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

VALENTINE RAMBLINGS

2011-02-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

Well, another Valentine's is here. Counting my prison term, this is the 15th one I've spent alone--without a romantic partner. And what amazes me is that this thought wasn't even in my mind until I started writing this blog post. I am not upset or depressed or even feeling deprived. This is either a sign of inner peace, or rampant mental deterioration. I prefer thinking of it as the former.

Not that I'm really alone. I've had some lovely contact via phone and email with the beautiful Rupa in Vermont. And I sent out over thirty e-Valentines to some very special women. Mostly friends, a few former lovers, and some merely warm acquaintances with the promise of future friendship or whatever.

This continues a habit I formed way back in the 1960s of sending out about 100 Valentines each year. I didn't send Xmas cards, so this was a way for me to keep in touch. Then as now, they didn't only go to romantic interests, but to women I found nurturing in all sorts of ways, including a couple of my favorite cousins and some colleagues. NBCs Andrea Mitchell got them for several years, when we were colleagues and friends at KYW in Philadelphia. When we were close and all involved in the Inside Edge leadership support group, cards went out to Louise Hay, Barbara De Angeles, Susan Jeffers and other new thought leaders and authors.

Having lived in Philadelphia, Miami, New York, Richmond, Virginia, and Los Angeles, a few cards went to each of those cities--and to London and Toronto. For many years, I created my own original cards to send out--and put a lot of time and effort into this practice. One girlfriend was quite upset with my putting so much attention on other women and asked me to promise to never include her on the list if we should ever end our relationship. I never made the promise and she just got one of my e-cards, several decades after our romance ended.

As I get off parole this year, I suspect that this is the last Valentine's Day I will be spending physically alone--so I am going to thoroughly enjoy it, cuddled up with some stunning memories, with a few more phone calls thrown in.

Alas, my MacBook Pro is in the shop, having a new hard drive installed, so I can't do the video phone thing as I am using my spare non-camera equipped IBM Thinkpad to write this.

And the thought just popped into my head that it's a bit incongruent to have the holiday known as Valentine's Day. Shouldn't it be known as Valentine's Night? That's when the candy and flowers and hugs and kisses are usually delivered--unless you're into office romance or adulterous nooners.

One of the most stunning memories I have of this holiday is that in all the years that have gone by, I have never had a sad or upsetting Valentine's. I have loved and been loved through a lot of them by the beautiful women who make up the colorful tapestry of my interpersonal life. And as I look forward to once again being free to travel, to the romantic promise of Vermont, or London, or Panama, or Florida, or even right up the road in San Francisco, I realize that whatever wonderful events occur, my life up to now is going to be a very hard act to follow.

XXXOOO

Jerry

VOTE YOUR HOPES NOT YOUR FEARS

2011-02-08T08:19:00.000-08:00

All over the cities and townships of South Africa in 1989, when I was doing a series of seminars in that nation, these were the signs one saw: "Vote your hopes, not your fears." They were put up by the emerging Liberal Party in preparation for the coming election. Apartheid was still happening, though clearly about to end. Mandela was still in prison, but clearly about to be released. And there was an aura of hope in the air as I talked to South Africans of all political stripes and colors.

It seems to me that there is a narrow but powerful movement in the U.S. right now to get people to vote their fears rather than their hopes. This is largely centered on, but not limited to, the right in terms of politics. The latest so-called document I received in this regard fear mongers on the subject of Muslims, citing the dangers of Muslim populations increasing in a nation:

> When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase
> lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris, we
> are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam and
> results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam, with opposition
> to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen
> daily, particularly in Muslim sections in:
>
> Guyana -- Muslim 10%
> India -- Muslim 13.4%
> Israel -- Muslim 16%
> Kenya -- Muslim 10%
> Russia -- Muslim 15%
>
> After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad
> militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian
> churches and Jewish synagogues.

A well-crafted propaganda piece worthy of some of the stuff turned out by Joseph Goebbels for the Nazis warning of the threat of Jewish hordes taking over the world, it goes on and on. It even includes that old canard whereby we're supposed to be afraid because "the others" have a much higher birthrate than we, the "us" in "us" versus "them" do. It says if the Muslim birthrate continues at its current pace, they will become 50% of the population by the end of this century. So, I suppose we should begin quaking in our boots every time another Muslim baby is born, and really panicked about their numbers projected for 2099. Of course, these doomsayers want to have it both ways. They warn that increasing terrorist attacks will destroy the world long before 2099, which would mean we wouldn't need to be concerned about anyone's birthrate.

This propaganda piece goes on to cite as evidence of a Muslim takeover the recent appointment of two "devout Muslims" to Homeland Security posts, with comments about having foxes guard the chickens, etc.

This is not to say I don't think we shouldn't be vigilant about threats from extremist Muslims, or extremist fanatics of any religious persuasion. There is danger when any religious group considers all other religious groups as infidels. Labeling someone an "infidel" makes his or her life less valuable, less worth preserving, and quite naturally leads to violent acts against the perceived enemy. The teaching of hatred is much more prevalent, for instance, in the many thousands of madrassa schools in Pakistan. We are going to have to confront that issue sooner or later. But there are seeds right now in our own culture that could sprout into such intolerance and rabble-rousing.

Do I have a solution for all this? Not really, but I do have a suggestion for a first step. It is simply that all of us do something to fill in the huge gap in our knowledge of other peoples and other religions fostered by our inadequate educational system. Reading the Koran might be a logical start. Most people citing that holy book as responsible for terrorist acts haven't read it.

Or, you might read some of the works of the most popular poet in the world, the 13th Century Persian mystic Rumi. For example these words on the whole "us versus them" mentality:

"One went to the door of the Beloved and
knocked. A voice asked, 'Who is there?'
He answered, 'It is I.'
The voice said, 'There is no room for Me and Thee.'
The door was shut.

After a year of solitude and deprivation he returned and knocked.
A voice from within asked, 'Who is there?'
The man said, 'It is Thee.'
The door was opened for him."

-- Jelaluddin Rumi
Rumi was a Sufi muslim, incidentally the same form of Islam practiced by Iman Rauf, whose proposed Muslim center near Ground Zero in New York stirred up such anti-Muslim controversy.
Finally, I'll quote one of my favorite lines from Rumi as a motto for voting our hopes instead of our fears.
"Ours is not a caravan of despair."
Jerry

DAVID FRYE--MORE NIXON THAN NIXON

2011-01-30T06:48:00.000-08:00

I only knew him slightly, but once meeting and seeing David Frye perform in person, you could never forget him. His parody impersonation of Richard Nixon, with all the exaggerated gestures, became the image most people remembered almost more than that of Nixon himself.

Back in the early 1970s, he was a big star, with appearances on Johnny Carson and Ed Sullivan. I met him backstage at America's first comedy club, The Improvisation in New York. He was trying out some new material, and I was with a young comic I had written some gags for. David said he was trying to spread out a bit beyond his Nixon impersonation, and would I be interested in writing some material for him. I was and did, though he didn't use it much. Everyone--all the TV producers and nightclub owners--they all wanted him to keep doing Nixon. Talk about being typecast! And David wrote all his own material for those bits, lots of it, and it was very funny stuff indeed.

He was a gentle man, but very high strung. I visited with him at several clubs when he was about to go on, and he was sweating profusely and very twitchy until his name was announced and he walked on. It was easy for him to transform his own neurotic energy into that of Nixon, which probably helped him perform one of the most amazing acts of mimicry ever seen. He was so good, in fact, that he never was able to escape the typecasting. When his death was announced this weekend in Las Vegas, I imagine I was not alone in picturing him doing Nixon from his 1970s act.

He enjoyed his fame, his stardom--but I wonder if he ever regretted that it was so tied to the man he so brilliantly impersonated. I think we probably missed out by not getting to know David Frye himself.

Jerry

WELCOME TO SILLY WEDNESDAY

2011-01-26T09:03:00.000-08:00

In my latest post on my other blog, I talk about what I see as the value of committing ourselves to come up with new ideas we've never thought or expressed before.
http://moneyloveblog.com/moneylove-redux
So I decided to follow my own advice and create a brand new weekly holiday:
Silly Wednesday. This day of the week can now be where we focus on sending friends and loved ones all the silly jokes, videos, photos that people are constantly emailing us--the cream of the crop we would like to share.

And to commemorate the inauguration of Silly Wednesday, I decided to do something I have never done before. I've written comedy for stand-up, and many, many cartoon gags for cartoonists, but I've never written an old-fashioned joke.

While this is not the funniest joke in the world, it is exquisitely mine--but you don't have to give me credit if you choose to share it. And certainly silly enough to qualify as the kickoff event in my ongoing commitment to Silly Wednesday.

Three attractive women in their fifties were sitting side by side under hair dryers at the beauty salon. Mary spoke first and said, "My husband is a stingy so-and-so. He never takes me out, he never buys me gifts, he rarely says anything nice to me, and in the bedroom, a real tightwad."

Next, Jessica said, "Oh, that's nothing. My husband has all of those shortcomings, but he also constantly tells me I'm fat, how much he hates my cooking, and that I'm turning into my mother."

Finally, Sarah joins the conversation by sharing, "Well, I can certainly sympathize with both of you, but I have found the perfect husband. He thinks I'm beautiful and never stops telling me so. He loves making love to me all night. He buys me expensive gifts that he spends lots of time picking out. And every moment I spend with him is a total joy."

And then Sarah bursts into hysterical weeping. Her friends don't know what to make of this, and Mary says, "What is it, is he sick?" Through her tears, Sarah says, "No, he's in perfect health." Jessica says, "Why are you crying then? He does sound like the most wonderful husband in all the world."
And Sarah answers, "He is, he absolutely is--the most wonderful, loving, generous husband in all the world. And he belongs to my best friend!"

So what new idea or thought or even joke can you come up with to celebrate this or any Silly Wednesday?

Jerry

MR. FITNESS BITES THE DUST

2011-01-24T05:07:00.000-08:00

I know, I know--a very irreverant comment on the passing of an icon. But Jack LaLanne was a friend of mine and he would have appreciated it. What a man and what a life! When he died yesterday at the age of 96, it was the passing of an era, and thousands of fans can celebrate their being alive thanks to Jack's teachings.

But Jack didn't only live a long life, he lived it well and was lively and had a zestful energy that few younger people could keep up with. I first met him over 25 years ago at a National Speakers Association convention. But I remember most vividly a time in Las Vegas in 1994. We were both involved with an MLM nutritional company, which was selling some of his vitamin products. He gave one of his dynamic talks to the large gathering, moving constantly around the stage as he spoke. And then he signed books and chatted with fans for about two hours. My girlfriend and I wanted to get away from the crowds, so we picked an off-the-strip Italian restaurant a friend had recommended. Lo and behold, there were Jack and Elaine LaLanne at a table with a romantic candle glowing from a Chianti bottle.

Jack called us over to their table and insisted we join them. I was reluctant as I felt they were trying to have some private time together after being mobbed all day by fans. I told him I didn't want to interrupt his romantic dinner, and he and Elaine laughed. He said, "This is our post-romantic dinner--we made love in our room after the book signing, sit down." It was a delightful visit, though I was surprised that Jack and Elaine, both advocates of very healthy diets, had big Italian meat dinners. At one point, when Jack went to the restroom, Elaine confided in us that she was concerned about his upcoming 80th birthday, and what stunt he would pull to celebrate.

Jack was famous for his birthday feats of strength, usually involving fantastic stunts while swimming. Sure enough, a few months later we read that for his 80th, he had himself handcuffed and shackled, and swam the 1.5 miles from the Queensway Bay Bridge in Long Beach to the Queen Mary--while towing 80 boats carrying 80 people!
Many of these stunts are unlikely to ever be duplicated. And despite lifting weights two hours every day, Jack was not bulging with muscles, he did not resemble his friend Arnold Schwarzenneger in the least, but was probably stronger.

But what I most admired about the man was the romantic twinkle in his eye when he looked at Elaine, and the obvious very physical affection they had for each other. And he inspired many of us when, in an interview, at the age of ninety, he announced that he and Elaine still had a very active sex life.

He lived a full life doing work he loved, and reaching millions with his messages of exercise and healthy eating, and enjoy a storybook marriage. Yes, it's sad he's no longer with us, and my heart goes out to Elaine--but just thinking about him and that irrepressible energy, I can't help but smile.

Jerry

For some new ideas about prosperity, check out my other blog at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

WHAT'S FRIENDSHIP ALL ABOUT ANYWAY?

2011-01-18T17:14:00.000-08:00

With social media now in such a preeminent position in our culture, it's probably time to redefine friendship and its meaning in each of our lives. Over thirty years ago, I wrote a book entitled, FRIENDS: The Power And Potential of The Company You Keep. In that book I talked about something I called "the supportive interpersonal environment," and the importance of creating an intentional family--especially since our traditional family structures were shrinking. When I was growing up, I shared a house with my mother, father, maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather, and my uncle, also on my mother's side. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and great aunts and great uncles were frequent visitors. My parents even belonged to a club composed of first, second, and third cousins, and it was a very congenial group indeed.

Nowadays, kids are often living with just one parent and perhaps a sibling or two. Friends fill in the gaps, but the nature of friendship has changed. My friends were a vital part of what kept me going during my 12 years in prison. Not all of my friends were there for me, not all of their love was unconditional. Several felt that they signed up for friendship with a successful author and motivational speaker, not a broke convict. A couple felt I broke our trust by going to prison--which I could certainly understand. But an amazing set of friends continued to write to me, send me books and magazines and quarterly food packages, and offer their prayers and good wishes.

When I was released in 2008, one of the first things I noticed coming back into society was how the nature of human interaction had changed. I would see two friends walking together and each would be involved in their own cell phone conversation with someone else. This was also true of couples. I also noticed a deterioration of social skills as kids seemed to prefer to text one another than talk on the phone or in person. The social media expanded on this by allowing someone to meet and greet hundreds of superficial friends in less time and with less effort than it used to take to make one acquaintanceship--the foundation for most deeper friendships.

So I think it's useful to take stock of our friendships and how rich they are in feeding us. In my book on the subject, I suggested that the friends we choose reveal a lot about who we are in the world. And that by looking at the quality of someone's friendships, one could quickly ascertain how successful that person was likely to be in life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.

I like social media, or at least some aspects of it. It's great for reconnecting with old friends you may not have been willing to take the effort to contact before Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, etc. On several occasions, I have made contact with people from my past when I noticed them in the list of friends of other people I reconnected with. We have probably all had these experiences. This is real human contact and making use of the new technology to foster a wider sense of community.

On the other hand, an online friend today can be much more annoying and boring than an old friend who constantly talked about some subject you were totally uninterested in. Few people have ever liked someone who always seems to be trying to sell them something, yet social media participants often are posting links to their businesses or thinly disguised sales pitches. Or inviting others to participate in silly games, or "like" huge lists of things no functioning human being has time to check out, let alone like.

I remember, in a workshop I once presented, asking people to go back and forth in a pair and state what made them good friends to have. If I were to repeat that exercise today, I doubt many people would say, "I'm a good friend because I'm really good at playing Farmville." or: "I'm a good friend because I'm gong to tell you about a terrific MLM opportunity."

On the other hand, Facebook and similar entities do offer us countless opportunities to compliment and acknowledge each other. And especially for those who otherwise don't get to present their ideas and feelings in public, it can be quite a wonderful experience to have someone say, "Well said!" or, "Congratulations, you really did a good job."

Jerry

ME AND A SECRET BILLION DOLLAR STASH OF ART

2011-01-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

Two events in recent weeks reminded me of a secret I've kept for almost forty years. As a former journalist, I've kept a lot of secrets over the years, and one of the recent events was the WikiLeaks controversy, which has gotten many people thinking about the nature of secrets, and whether some things should be kept under wraps, or should we aim for total transparency. Having grown up on Ian Fleming and the James Bond books, I usually side with those thinking it is necessary for some things to be kept secret. Not the sort of grand deceptions that my friend, Daniel Ellsberg, revealed when he released The Pentagon Papers, but the sort of embarrassing details about our diplomats' views of world leaders that WikiLeaks seems to be mainly composed of.

Would you want to negotiate anything with someone who, in private communications, had a negative or critical opinion of you--or someone who did not have the ability to guarantee your discussions would not be made public?

The other event was the Masterpiece Contemporary film, Framed, on PBS, about the flood-threatened British National Gallery art treasures being hidden in a mine in Wales while repairs were made--the same cave Winston Churchill used to keep them out of Nazi hands in case of an invasion during World War II.

What this all reminded me of was a time when I was a radio newsman in New York City, and my girlfriend, whom I'll call Ms. V, had a best friend, Ms. S., who was a curator for something called The Hirschhorn Collection. Her job was to catalog the thousands of paintings and sculptures, which were to form the basis of our first national museum devoted to modern art. So one quiet Sunday, Ms. S. took Ms. V. and myself down Hudson Street on the lower West Side of New York, just above Greenwich Village (where I lived at the time, further down a few blocks on Hudson). On that deserted street, there was a grubby storage warehouse, and Ms. S. unlocked a not-so-substantial door with a key she carried.

During the next two hours, we encountered one rather non-threatening guard, the only security I saw, though I imagined there was some kind of alarm system in place (or maybe not). Leaning against walls and boxes scattered all over the place on several floors, were countless masterpieces--Picassos, Matisses, Jackson Pollocks, sculptures by Alexander Calder and Auguste Rodin, and many, many others I was not familiar with. Ms. S. said they were worth tens of millions of dollars, but I suspect it was hundreds of millions even then, and certainly past the billion dollar mark now.

I've never gotten to The Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at The National Mall in Washington, which opened about three years after my secretive journey to a warehouse in lower Manhatten. If I ever do, I wonder if I'll recognize any of the works of art I saw back then. I did have the thought at the time that it would make an amazing story, probably have gotten me a network position at least. But in those days, those more innocent days, there was a certain respect and regard for keeping secrets when one was asked to do so.

Jerry

For something completely different, check out my prosperity blog:

www.MoneyloveBlog.com

LET IT BE A DANCE

2010-12-29T08:58:00.000-08:00

The theme for this, my last post of 2010, was stimulated by many converging events all happening this week. It started when my friend Bonnie Weiss told me she was spending New Year's Eve at a party hosted by someone who teaches something called Biodanza. I Googled it and found it to be a new personal development sensation around the world that originated in South America--a combination of dance and emotional sharing and group dynamics.

This reminded me of an old friend and mentor in Miami, Poldi Orlando. Every Monday night at the Unitarian church, she taught her creative movement class, and we all learned to move in new and energized ways. I have experienced some of the most celebrated movement teachers in the world, but not one of them could hold a candle to Poldi, the Polish dynamo. She was a dancing magician, transforming many klutzes like me into graceful beings. Joining me at many of those Monday nights was my favorite beautiful dancer, Rupa Cousins. We also attended Sufi dancing classes at the church, and Rupa has since become a teacher of Sufi dancing herself, along with her bodywork and therapy practice, her workshops on Dance As Prayer, her folk dancing, and all the other amazing stuff she does.

www.RupaCousins.com

And when Rupa and I talked about this yesterday, I mentioned that I had had two women in my life with whom dancing was like making love, though neither of them were romantic partners. Then today, I found this great quote from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift From The Sea (one of the ten landmark books given to students of the mail order Famous Writers School). You can see why many couples writing their own wedding vows like to include it:

"A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. Dancers know they are moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it. The joy of the pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation; it is also the joy of living in the moment."

And I was also reminded of my dear friend, the late Ric Masten, often called by such celebrated fans as Bill Moyers "The People's Poet". He also came to the Miami Unitarian church from his home in Big Sur--he was a Unitarian minister as well as poet and troubador.
http://www.uuworld.org/life/articles/2877.shtml
Perhaps Ric's most popular song was Let It Be A Dance:

Let it be a dance we do.
May I have this dance with you?
Through the good times
and the bad times, too.
Let it be a dance.

And one thing Ric said once has stuck in my mind for many years. He said if we could only speed up the mountains, we would see that they were dancing.

And so I have two words for what I prefer calling one of my New Year's Revolutions.

More Dancing!

May your 2011 be filled with the moves and melodies to delight, nourish, enliven,
and inspirit you.

It's been a profound pleasure dancing with you all through 2010 on these pages.

Jerry

THE RICHES OF FRIENDSHIP, OLD AND NEW

2010-12-20T05:37:00.000-08:00

As is my habit at the end of each year and approaching of the new one, I have been doing a lot of meditating and reflecting on the way things are, the way they have been, and the way I hope they will be in the future. This has been colored dramatically this year by the loss of my closest friend, Susannah, reported here in the previous edition.

I went through the grieving, denial, anger phases very quickly, and now have focused on the important lessons I have learned, and noticing the huge gap in my life with her absence.
I wrote about some of this on my prosperity blog:

http://moneyloveblog.com/important-stuff-from-an-unexpected-source/

A comment on that post from Kristine Baker summed up two contradictory qualities Susannah brought to the table that are rare to find in a single person, let alone a friend. She was very traditional, stable, and consistent in many ways--someone you could really depend on to say what she meant and do what she said she was going to do. But she was also one of the most spontaneous and adventurous people I've known. Kristine wrote:

I've been a fan of yours for many years having read your book MoneyLove a long time ago and taking valuable lessons from it. I also have known Susannah in Santa Fe for the past few years through our mutual soprano voices. I would say she was a rock! and a hoot! I'm very glad to have known her.

I just had the thought that maybe I should have titled this post, A Rock And A Hoot!

But also, as I feel the gap that is left, I appreciate even more the friendships that are still here, ever more precious to me now. I talked in my early book, FRIENDS: The Power And Potential Of The Company You Keep, about what the friends you choose can reveal about you and how important this aspect of one's life is. I think of friends I've had for a long time, people with whom I've shared many joys, triumphs, and even some sorrow. Rupa, Mary Ann, Rachel, Gregg, Bonnie. Shared memories have a lot to do with my affection for these friends, but their continuing presence in my life is what I treasure most--as you are no doubt well aware, not all friends hold up so well in the test of time.

But since my release from prison, two very special men have come into that circle of dear friends. Barry Dunlop, big Moneylove fan and successful Internet entrepreneur, who has been a major supporter and mentor in some profound and remarkable ways. And Tony Busse, who has also added much to my still-on-parole limited lifestyle. Barry has taught me a lot about the possibilities and potential of reconnecting with my Moneylove audience online. Tony has painted the wonders of Panama so vividly that I am determined to make it one of my first stops on my post-parole travels in nine months. Both have offered valuable insight and feedback for my re-emerging efforts, and both have made the past year richer and more fulfilling than it would have been otherwise.

So as I celebrate and commemorate the passing of one remarkable friend, so do I also give a prayer of thanks for the arrival of new friends into my life. In this holiday season, counting my old and new friends as my blessings, their presence is the best present of all.

Jerry

MY BEST FRIEND DIED

2010-12-14T11:48:00.000-08:00

Susannah Lippman exemplified what it meant to be a true friend, and helped inspire a book I once wrote on the subject. She died suddenly, but painlessly, this past weekend, on the way to see a play with two friends, one of her very favorite things to do. Her life was long and productive, and she went the way all of us would probably like to go, easily in the blink of an eye. Sadly though, still filled with dreams and creative projects and things left undone.

The most painful part of her passing was visited on those of us who loved her and survive: we have to deal with an enormous gap in our lives. I still expect the phone to ring and hear her unmistakable Midwestern accent, or find an email sharing some new information or insight or silly video or political petition. Susannah could be exasperatingly determined in her high standards, but always tempered this with fairness and unconditional love.

I first met her when she attended the very first workshop I ever gave, on a chilly Valentine's night in New York City. She was a producer at WNET public television. We both got involved in the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and she was the coordinator for the Eastern region AHP conferences--amazing events featuring workshops with all the stars of the blossoming human potential movement.

We celebrated triumphs and the beginnings of love relationships together, and cried on each other's shoulders when things didn't work out. Susannah often joked that some of her best friends were my former girlfriends. We had many adventures, on the beaches of South Florida, Southampton, The Bahamas, and Jamaica. With her Master's in English, she was one of the best editors I ever encountered, and I often would show her my writing before doing a final draft. And I acted as a consultant when she founded Alphasonics International with Gordon Pierce, and started producing and marketing the world's most powerful subliminal audio programs.

This was by far my longest lasting deep friendship, nearly forty years, and perhaps the most significant thing I can say about it is that in those moments when I might have doubts about my being a worthwhile person, these were resolved by the simple knowledge that Susannah Lippman was my friend.

It was everything a friendship should and could be, and the only thing that keeps it from being perfect is that she's not here anymore. On the other hand, because of all those memories we shared, Susannah cannot ever really die. She has made too much of an impact on the very core of my being to ever disappear. Her passing does leave me with one unanswered question:
"Whose shoulder do I cry on about this?"

Jerry

POST DRAMATIC STRESS DISORDER

2010-12-01T21:08:00.000-08:00

Just kidding. I had a great time visiting my former cellmate Keith and his colorful (an understatement to be sure) family and friends on Thanksgiving. As usual, the holiday fare was exquisitely prepared and served. I am writing this almost a week later as I needed the time to digest the experience and the opulent turkey and ham feast.

What I like about this way of celebrating one of my favorite holidays is that it puts me into a completely different world, somewhat akin to one of my favorite mystery writers, Anne Perry, whose stories set in 19th Century England created a delightful alternative universe when I was serving my prison sentence. The first new people I met were two very pleasant and engaging women, though not lovers, they are both lesbians, and both have California's vaunted medical marijuana license, so Keith's wife's sister Janeen ("call me Lou") and her younger friend Caroline were puffing away on their very feminine pipes through most of their visit.

Almost everyone else is addicted to tobacco and crowded the small balcony to do their thing. As someone who doesn't smoke or drink, the company was convivial enough that I didn't even feel left out. I particularly enjoyed Caroline, very shy when we initially met, opening up quite a bit and telling me some of her life story. Though she doesn't wear makeup, has short cropped hair, and was in baggy hiphop clothes, this is a very stunning women who has the facial structure to be a supermodel.

One thing that was different this year from my visit last Thanksgiving was the sons of Keith playing musical chairs (or maybe I should say musical bunks?). Last year, Michael was living with Keith and Jackie, along with his sexy wife Jessica, extremely jealous and volatile, and either threatening to walk out or actually doing so every half hour, mostly because Michael was visiting his baby mama and former girlfriend Jennifer to spend some of the holiday with his young son. I'd only heard about the other son, Stephen, as he was in prison. Subsequently, Michael and Jessica did break up and Keith told me he thought it was completely over.

But here to share Thanksgiving with her young son with a former lover was Jessica, back in her marriage. As usual wearing a sexy low cut outfit (which doesn't both me at all so long as nothing falls into the gravy). She seemed a lot calmer this year, but then Michael wasn't present. He's at San Quentin. But recently paroled Stephen is now living with Keith and Jackie, along with his attractive blonde fiancee Mo and his shaved head and heavily tattooed torso. Seriously, are you following all this?

Bill, a 50ish friend of Keith's who was with us last Thanksgiving isn't any longer. He died of liver failure and other complications due to substance abuse over many years. He was a nice guy and intelligent and interesting conversationalist--just pointing out some of the tragedy of our drug culture. But if we needed a reminder of how blessed we all are to be alive and well and enjoying a full plate, Bill gave us that gift with his absence.

Lou showed off pictures of her home near the Oregon border, with massive marijuana leaves hanging to dry on the inside porch, and the plants themselves surrounding the house. She is also a champion Farmville player on Facebook and was coaching Keith, who wasn't as sociable as last year as he is now addicted to the time-consuming, time-filling game. Lou is evidently in the running to score the most points anyone ever has.

The seven of us crowded into a small two bedroom apartment, but it didn't feel cramped. What was lacking in space was made up in sheer entertainment value. I mentioned to someone how good it feels to get back to my solitary existence after such a visit and she said it must be like banging your head with a hammer and then having it feel so good when you stop. No, I replied, because there was nothing less than interesting and pleasant about my holiday companions--It's more like having an exotic and delicious ethnic meal and then returning home to your favorite grilled cheese sandwich.

Jerry

More interesting adventures on my prosperity blog at www.MoneyloveBlog.com

10 Reasons I Am Grateful For 12 Years In Prison

2010-11-19T17:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally completed my list for a short talk this Sunday at Unity San Francisco.

1. Keith. Keith Crawford was my cellmate or "cellie" at Pleasant Valley State Prison. And as a former meth addict he thought I must have been on that drug to commit my harebrained crime of trying to hijack a motorhome. We talked more after I told him I had never done drugs, and two years after my arrest I figured out why I had been acting so erratically--I was taking a nutritional product for five years, three times a day, loaded with potent ephedra, then thought to be healthy and legal. Keith jumped up and said, "Ephedra--that's what I used to make meth!" So, though unintentionally, I was doing drugs. At least I knew I wasn't crazy.

2. Karen. Karen Wilson was a beautiful friend, author and management consultant, who had insisted that I move into an apartment in her Orange County, CA home (on Pleasant Street) when I was released, and she would provide free room and board and even had some thoughts on helping me produce income, helping her teach some classes at UC-Irvine, and co-author a book she wanted to write. Tragically, she suddenly died around this time of year two years before my release. But for ten years, I had a place to go to and purpose, so I'm grateful tho sad I can never properly thank her.

3. Inner Work. When dealing with the dehumanizing, debilitating prison environment, the best weapon is the ability to ignore the physical plane and go inside yourself. I was lucky that over twenty years of presenting and attending workshops on consciousness all over the world ideally prepared me, so that I was rarely present in prison--quite often lying on a hammock in Tahiti or Bali instead.

4. Creativity. Though I didn't know at the time that it was about getting off ephedra, within a few days of my arrest, my mind seemed to clear up, and for the first time in several years, I began to write and create all sorts of future projects--a definite sanity saver.

5. Sense of Humor. An essential factor in overcoming any adversity, but especially in prison, where I was surrounded by violent, sadistic, drug addled men who thought of me as the lowest form of life--and that was just the corrections officers.

6. Writing and Reading. One of my great blessings during these twelve years was that I was able to continue, and even increase, two of my favorite activities from my former life. I read over 1000 books, and wrote up a storm. In the first few months, in the dismal county jail in Martinez, California, I actually wrote an entire mystery novel, my first, using scraps of paper and the only writing instrument available, a small wooden golf pencil I had to sharpen with my teeth. I went on to write hours of stand-up material, 15 legal pads of prison journals, several stories for Chicken Soup For The Prisoner's Soul and its two sequels (the original was my idea, which I passed on to my old friend Jack Canfield), and over 10,000 cartoon gags which I sent to several cartoonists, a number of which they drew up and sold to major publications.

7. Friends. Or as I described them in my 1974 book, FRIENDS, a "supportive interpersonal environment." This was vital to thriving in the prison setting. Some famous friends like Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Wayne Dyer, who kept me supplied with books and magazine subscriptions and words of encouragement. And some famously caring and supportive friends like Rupa and Susannah and Karen and Kalei and Rachel and Mary Ann and Gregg and Marla, Steve and Lenny, Judi, Julie, Tom, Will, Bonnie, and Andrew.

8. The Internet. Though I had no access to a computer, let alone the Internet, it did keep my name out there. Several friends let me know that many of my quotes were being circulated by MSN, Google, and Yahoo. Though I had no idea of the full extent of it until I got out there. And this got me off and running into my own online activities, including this blog, as several top Internet gurus and entrepreneurs knew of my existence and volunteered to help me get a foothold in this amazing medium.

9. Discipline and Patience. I'm not sure exactly how this happened, but during my incarceration I dramatically increased these two qualities. The big difference friends who have known me a long time have noticed since my release is my huge gains in discipline and patience and creative productivity.

10. Savoring. In prison, if you're lucky, you get to take big, big pleasure out of even the smallest treats. My favorite definition for "savoring" is: "To give one's self to the enjoyment of." I did that big time whenever anything good showed up. Like the time some Mexican inmates grew tomatoes in a secret garden. I was able to obtain these from them for several months--tomatoes and onions were almost unheard of in prison and at the top of my list of foods I felt deprived without. To this day, I savor every bite of a tomato (or onion) and usually have them at least once a day. And you'd better believe I've enjoyed the handful of homecooked meals I've had in the past two years. In fact, I savor everything with a new zest, even fast food--I loved my burger at In 'N Out last week. And this also includes every sensual delight in my life, from hugs to compliments to fun new websites to the feel of the sun on my face.
I hope your Thanksgiving will give you as much to be grateful for.
Jerry

P.S. One of those people who searched me out as a result of my Internet presence during my incarceration helped me design my prosperity blog: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

PICKING UP THE CHECK LONG DISTANCE

2010-11-17T01:13:00.000-08:00

This past evening I had a unique and most enjoyable experience. I spoke on the phone to my long-time good friends, Gregg and Marla Sanderson, in Clearwater Beach, Florida, where they were partaking of a meal at Bob Heilman's Beachcomber restaurant. The reason for the call was that I was paying for the meal, as a result of this month's election results. Yes, I bet that the Democrats would retain the House, and I think this is the first election bet I have lost.

As I use almost everything that happens to me and around me as material for future books, my two blogs, and my audio club programs, I tend to look at new experiences with laser vision and as much self-awareness as I can muster. And I realized, somewhat surprisingly, that I did not feel upset at the election results or at losing the bet to Gregg. I know it has become popular of late to be very pessimistic about the direction this country is taking, and it seems to me that many of the people whose candidates won are still predicting doom and gloom in the immediate future. And there is nothing more boring than an unhappy winner.

I am exceedingly optimistic that we will find a way out of our difficulties, as we always have. And to personalize it to the extreme, the Republican victory has allowed me to have the very real pleasure of taking Gregg and Marla out to dinner. This was a special treat for me as well as the two of them. The last time I had the satisfaction of buying a couple of friends dinner was before I started my 12 years of incarceration back in 1996.

And this was unusual in that it was done at a great distance--me in California, the two of them in Florida. So, I was not present, I did not get to enjoy my own meal at the Beachcomber, but I am planning to vicariously savor every bite as Gregg promises to give me a full report with photos. All I know at this point is that he started with Oysters Florentine while Marla had Vichyssoise (I have gotten some weird reactions in restaurants when asking if they could heat this cold thick soup--it just doesn't seem like soup to me unless it's hot.).

After we talked, I went online and read some reviews of the restaurant. And I already have a complaint about Gregg's choice of an appetizer (we have a long and fun history of sticking our noses in each other's business). Several of the reviews mentioned that a specialty of the house was Clams Casino, one of my own favorites, so my vicarious thrill would have been even more so if that had been their first course.

The truth is that I plan to get more out of this long distance taking of friends to dinner than if I did it in person. This is about intention. And reflection. Gregg and Marla and I have had many meals together, as Gregg and I also did with his beautiful and amazing first wife, Linda, who passed on much too soon. They were divorced for some years when that sad event occurred, but had remained really close and supportive friends.

So this meal tonight reminded me of many others we shared. At the Red Diamond, an Italian place in Miami where we would go after one of my early workshops at the Cornucopia growth center. At the Court of the Two Sisters in New Orleans, where Gregg almost took his pants off--but that's a story for another time. At some great places in San Diego and Nevada City where Gregg and Marla lived for a time. At a great lobster place Gregg introduced me to in Rosarito Beach in Baja, Mexico.

We've broken bread at many meals in many places, and always with a zest for the epicurean delights being offered and a warm conviviality nurtured in the warmth of each other's company. So I felt much of that good feeling as Gregg and Marla enjoyed dinner on me, and consider it a prelude to many more meals enjoyed together once I am off my parole period and able to freely travel.

And of course, I look forward to a rematch in 2012, when I'll be the recipient of Gregg's generosity and hospitality, assuming I get better at reading the electorate in these weird and wonderful political times.

Jerry

THE POST ELECTION REALITY SHOW

2010-11-12T17:54:00.000-08:00

In the aftermath of the 2010 mid-term election, there is more than enough material for a reality show. But I think we have all overdosed on politics, especially since we are probably plunging right into the 2012 Presidential campaign. After all, that election is just two years away, and you may remember the 2008 campaign got pretty much into full swing after the 2006 mid-terms.

So where are we now? Well, the Republicans have a lot of promises to deliver on. But blowing big opportunities is unfortunately not foreign to their past experiences (nor is it for the Democrats). Some academics have suggested that government as now constituted just cannot function in this modern word of the Internet and 24 hour cable news. They may have a point, but having some knowledge of how politics works, as a one time speechwriter for a U.S. Senator, and a broadcast journalist, and once even being approached to run for office by some powers-that-be, I am not optimistic that enough current politicians on either side of the political spectrum will ever forgo personal ambition for the good of the country. Time and again, I have seen idealistic candidates become disillusioned once elected and finding out how things work in the real world of governance.

As a nation, I don't think we can be proud of the recent campaigns. On either side. More uncivil, bigoted, and abusive behavior was present than ever occurred leading up to the famous 1804 duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Racism reared its ugly head on more than one occasion, aimed at both black and Latino candidates. But I think some of the most egregious example of how low we've sunk in our political discourse is the demonization of such women candidates as Christine O'Donnell and Nancy Pelosi. Whatever their respective political positions, both women are intelligent and sincere in their beliefs. Unlike some of the hypocracy present among so many candidates, they spoke out with passion and never-wavering authenticity.

In terms of Christine O'Donnell, whom I definitely disagree with on most issues, I think she is a charming media figure and absolutely a better sport than most men would be if they were subjected to the treatment she received at the hands of Karl Rove and late night comedians. You may say that Karl Rove shouldn't be grouped with Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, and David Letterman--but I think that's exactly where he belongs. Her post-election appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno was a study in graciousness and honesty. I have much more respect for her than I do for the majority of pundits on Fox, she is refreshingly human and she might have made an interesting U.S. Senator. But she has the last laugh, as probably the person who has gained the most in this last election--an opportunity to capitalize on worldwide fame. I imagine she is fielding a lot more varied and interesting offers right now than almost any other candidate, winner or loser.

So it's all over, though for me I still have to take my friend Gregg to dinner as a result of the Democrats losing the House. Most pundits on both sides are predicting two years of gridlock, with little or nothing getting done in Washington. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know, quite honestly, whether we are better or worse off for now having a split government. There are good arguments for both sides of that debate. But I do know that I will continue to be fascinated, frustrated, and amused by politics in general and certain candidates in particular. Maybe that's the American Way.

Jerry

THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE

2010-11-01T02:43:00.000-07:00

On my prosperity blog, I just did a post about the value of old wisdom.

http://moneyloveblog.com/prosperity-wisdom-tried-and-true/

And quoting from John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," sometimes translated as, "and the truth shall set you free," is pretty old but potent wisdom. Understandably, people often ask me about what changes I noticed after coming back out into the world after 12 years in prison. One of the things I've noticed is how much more acceptable lying is nowadays. Even by prison standards, it's gotten pretty out of hand. We now expect our leaders to lie, and political candidates, and anyone selling anything--and all of these rarely disappoint us.

Then there are our sources of information. The so-called mainstream media often lies by omission--they don't do the research, the background checking, the vetting of sources that used to be the standard of maintaining journalistic integrity when I was a newsman in the 1970s. Remember Watergate and The Pentagon Papers, and how much work editors and reporters did to check their facts before releasing the information to the public?

And where the mainstream media lies by omission, the Internet often lies by intention. And what has diminished us as a civilization as much as anything is the fact that more people believe what they read and see on the Internet than from any other source. Including voters. I can't tell you how many ridiculous stories people have sent me from websites that they have fallen for lock, stock, and barrel. There are even a number of websites to counter this avalanche of lies and rumors, such as:

http://www.snopes.com/, and:

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/

It used to be said that Americans were the best-informed people on Earth. We pioneered so many technological breakthroughs in communication, and had a commitment to truth. Remember when President Dwight Eisenhower admitted we had sent the U2 spy plane over Russia despite the damage it would do to our reputation and diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union? Now he would be considered a fool for not taking the easy path and lying about it. One of the most shocking things revealed in the documentary I talked about in my last post, The Most Dangerous Man In America, the story of my friend Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers, was that the American people have been lied to by every recent American President, going back at least to Harry Truman on the subject of Vietnam, but probably about a lot more subjects and a lot further back.

One could say that political leaders lie to us for our own good, because the truth would hurt us, demoralize us, give comfort to our enemies. But these disputable noble intentions soon get lost in the layering of lie upon lie, until veracity is seen as a liability, even a bad habit. In some Facebook posts not too long ago, I suggested that all political candidates be given lie detector tests, or be made to swear to "tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth," when they take office, or even when they run for office. More and more, I see that this might be a good idea. The truth is we can't be truly free without freeing truth from the dark cave it's now buried in.

Jerry

SECRETS, DANIEL ELLSBERG, AND ME

2010-10-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

I don't think I have ever before seen a movie that has moved me as much, or provoked as much thought about the nature of our nation and its politics as, The Most Dangerous Man In America, on PBS--the Academy Award nominated documentary depicting the story of Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers.

At several points during the film, I had tears in my eyes, something that only usually occurs during beautiful love stories, or scenes with puppies or kittens (which weren't a part of this movie at all). There was a beautiful love story briefly depicted amidst the exciting drama of this man's astoundingly courageous life, the one between Daniel and Patricia Ellsberg. And just enough was shown of the young anti-war activist and broadcaster Patricia meeting the pro-war high level military analyst Daniel, and the amazing relationship that unfolded and changed the world as we know it, to give a hint of what a great follow-up movie could be possible.

Here is a short video of Daniel and Patricia introducing the documentary in San Francisco. Not great video quality, but worth watching anyway to get a sense of their presence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohJ97tYA8ag

I met the Ellsbergs last year and was very impressed with their dignity, warmth, intelligence, and quiet charisma. Daniel and I chatted and he was fascinated that I had spent twelve years in prison and asked me a bunch of questions about that experience. After all, at one point, Richard Nixon was trying to send him to prison for the rest of his life. Luckily, he told me, he had only spent a few nights in jail during the course of some of his anti-war protests.

A few weeks later, Daniel sent me a copy of his book, Secrets, the source material for the documentary. I admit I avoided reading it for a few months. During my career as a broadcast journalist, even including a six week stint as a radio correspondent in Vietnam, I thought I had read everything I ever wanted to about that ignoble event. But I was wrong and when I finally got to it, knowing the film would be shown on PBS's POV, I was very impressed. I had also thought I knew a lot about the story of the release of The Pentagon Papers, but there were many points revealed in the book I hadn't known, as there were about the war itself.

All of this was fascinating, but did not have the emotional context of the movie, and I think this was largely provided by the forthright appearance of Ellsberg himself at various stages of his life. To steal a phrase from JFK, he's "a profile in courage"--a towering, emotionally contagious profile in courage.

And as seems to be true of almost every event in my life, there were a couple of serendipitous happenings involved. The first was that I discovered that Patricia Ellsberg was the sister of a woman I knew and had long admired, Barbara Marx Hubbard, a leading voice in the New Age Movement, and the first woman to seriously run for Vice President of the United States. I met her back in the 1970s, and she became president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology at the same time as I headed up the Florida chapter of that organization.

The second "six degrees of separation" moment occurred in the panel discussion following the PBS showing of The Most Dangerous Man In America. Former NY Times Managing Editor, Max Frankel, related an anecdote about the leaking of classified material and told how President Johnson bragged to him how he got the best of Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygn during the Glassboro, New Jersey summit conference in 1967. According to Frankel, LBJ told him he had arranged to have all of Kosygn's telephone conversations to Soviet colleagues recorded, so that he knew everything the Russian leader was telling them about what went on and his reaction to it. LBJ evidently considered this the major triumph of the summit, making it a big win for the U.S.

And, coincidentally enough, I was there at Glassboro. I was one of the radio reporters covering the summit for KYW Newsradio in nearby Philadelphia, and even won an Associated Press award for my reporting. This also was an accident, as the connecting lines broke down between the summit itself being held in the Glassboro State College president's home, and the hundreds of reporters in the college gym, myself included. Our chief correspondent, in the summit location itself, was unable to broadcast, so I had to basically adlib for close to two hours on the air. I still remember how pleasurable it was to roll the name of the summit location off my tongue during those two hours, Hollybush Mansion.

Ellsberg and what he did and is still speaking out about is very relevant today in the current political climate--and most especially in light of the WikiLeaks story. In fact, Ellsberg himself made a surprise appearance at a WikiLeaks news conference in London just a few days ago, praising that organization for releasing its huge cache of documents on the war in Afghanistan.

I think one of the most profound statements by Ellsberg happened in the conversation PBS broadcast after the film, with several NY Times editors and reporters. Ellsberg reminded us that the Founding Fathers intended that a free press have as its true purpose, protecting the governed rather than the governing. And Ellsberg said at that time, and repeated during the WikiLeaks news conference, something that everyone planning to vote next week should consider:

"Secrecy is essential to empire... Under Obama, as under Bush, we are moving more toward the British system of control of information, which is after all, The Official Secrets Act, which is a legacy of empire and that torch is passing. A Republican administration -- a Republican House and Senate, if that comes in to being in the next month is almost certain to pass a British-type Official Secrets Act. Essentially ending leaks of the sort we have seen over the last forty years, sixty years."

This would mean that the release of any and all classified material would become illegal, and journalists would become more unlikely to take the risks that they take today to get the truth out. Scary stuff. And Daniel Ellsberg remains a hero. In fact, if he wore a cape and could fly, Ellsberg could not be more of a superhero for truth, justice, and authentic American values.

Jerry

(By the way, do check out my prosperity blog at

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com)

MURDER AIN'T FUNNY!

2010-10-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

So one of my conservative friends forwarded the following joke to me today:

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam going into downtown Chicago .
> Nothing is moving north or south. Suddenly a man knocks on
> his window.
>
> The driver rolls down his window and asks, "What happened, what's the hold up?"
>
> "Terrorists have kidnapped Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Rosie O' Donnell, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
>
> They are asking for a $10 Million ransom. Otherwise, they are going to
> douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. We are going from car
> to car, taking up a collection."
>
> The driver asks, "On average, how much is everyone giving?"
>
> "About a gallon."

Now as a sometime comedy writer and cartoon gagwriter who has often used sarcasm for humorous purpose, and even occasionally mean-spirited humor, perhaps I should just let this one go by without comment. But I won't. First of all, it is beyond mean-spirited and definitely reminiscent of some of the jokes aimed at Jews by German comedians in the 1930s and white racists during the civil rights turmoil. It resembles some of the bad jokes told at Ku Klux Klan rallies in the South that I covered as a reporter in the 1960s.

I know it also seems like some of the jokes about lawyers, suggesting that the only good lawyer is a dead lawyer--but by not being about specific lawyers, the harmful intent in those is greatly diluted and not worthy of being taken nearly as seriously as the above joke. Perhaps conservatives and Tea Partiers won't be willing to admit it, but if you belong to neither group, don't you agree that many of them would not be upset if someone actually did set fire to all the above-named people?

I recently heard and agreed with an analyst who said that the difference between the people on the extreme far right and the extreme far left is that those on the right are nasty, self serving, and willing to lie to get the results they want. And just like ordinary non-racist citizens in the South and in Nazi Germany didn't protest at the attacks against blacks and Jews, ordinary, otherwise decent conservatives don't protest some of the outrages of the lunatic fringe--often won't even admit it's happening, even though nowadays there are videos of almost every political utterance.

Here's an example of appropriate anti-Obama humor:

President Obama and the first lady say they will not be exchanging Christmas gifts this year. Michelle Obama says they used to, but she got tired of Barack promising big things and then not delivering.

Pretty cutting, but funny rather than mean. And a few of my own gags:

WOMAN STANDING AT GRAVESIDE SPEAKS TO LATE HUSBAND'S TOMBSTONE.
"Well, Sidney, I'd like to tell you the results of the last election. Do you have room to turn over down there?"

LAWYER TO INMATE IN PRISON VISITING ROOM
"The bad news is you lost your appeal, the good news is you won reelection."

POLITICIAN TO INTERVIEWER.
"I think I lost the election because of the underhanded way in which my opponent kept on repeating every stupid statement I made during the campaign."

Many in the Tea Party and the conservative movement would say that, of course, this joke isn't seriously suggesting all these liberal icons be doused with gasoline and set alight--that can't anyone take a joke, for gosh sake? But this is the epitome of rightwing denial. Here's what Glenn Beck, the presumptive head and most admired spokesperson of the Tea Party, had to say:
"I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out."
Obviously, Beck's vaunted born-again Christianity doesn't run to acceptance of or adherence to The Ten Commandments.

Jerry

Please do check out my other blog, focused on prosperity:

http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com