A STAR IS BORN!

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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 tasty. 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 cheesesteak 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 a favorite at many candy stores. They actually have traveled the best, as it is pretty hard to screw them up. Trader Joe's has them sliced in their Gone Bananas version.

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