Fractal Randomness. Crushing Life.

Thank you to Julia Frost on this week’s episode of 5 minute limit.  Julia is an owner of Chive Sustainable Event Design and Catering:

http://www.facebook.com/ChiveEvents?sk=photos

http://www.chiveevents.com/ChiveEvents/home.html

http://twitter.com/#!/ChiveEvents

I believe in the localization of knowledge.  Betters decisions are made when a stimulus is more local to its environment.  If business were allowed to function in more natural environments (no corporate bail outs, no lobbyists), I believe most business would be small.  The larger an organism becomes (in this case a business), the more susceptible it is to failure based off of certain shocks.  When a larger organism fails, it effects its environment to a much greater degree than when a small organism fails in its infancy.  Small failures are healthy in nature which lead to rapid learning from numerous iterations.  For a much more efficient and robust definition of this belief read this book by Nassim Taleb called The Black Swan (it has nothing to do with some Natalie Portman movie) : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400063515/nassimtalebsfavo/081297381X

Anyways, Chive believes in supporting the local farmer and the local community. You can hear Julia in this episode discuss their decision to source food as local as possible.  I commend Chive for their efforts and am lucky to be a part of their family.  Thanks Women of Chive!

Thanks to Dave of Work Bar Boston for discussing co-working and entrepreneurship on the latest episode of the 5 minute limit!  Visit their website here: http://workbarboston.com/

twitter here: http://twitter.com/#!/workbarboston

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WorkBar

MANGLED:

I wake up this morning with a clogged nose and a mangled body. My eyes slowly open and I do not know the pain that will ensue.  I roll over, stand up, and almost fall onto my ass.  I start to walk but brace myself with the wall.  My back is killing me, my knees are bruised, and my head is pounding from a slight cold and head lock takeovers.

“You Can’t Fake Gravity”

-Diamond Dallas Page

A new student started in class this week.  This student is my size, my age, and my experience level.  Now, instead of standing around the ring for most of the drills, he and I can practice together in the other ring.  Last night at practice, we spent 3 hours working on head lock takeovers, shoulder tackles, and attacking the mat.  The harder you throw your back at the mat, the less it hurts…or at least that is what our coaches tell us.

Last night as I entered my 50 square foot room, my body was throbbing.  This morning it asked, “What the hell have you done to me? You’ve put me through 10 years of football, 3 years of boxing, and now you’re smashing my back and crushing my knees?”

As my body complained, my spirit slowly enlivened and intensified.  The pain was nostalgic and welcome.  It made me feel young again.  It reminded me of waking up on a Saturday as a High School Sophomore exhausted from Varsity Defense and Special Teams only to play JV Offense that morning.  It reminded me of waking up on a Sunday after a college football game soar and exhausted only to lift, run, and face hours of film review at the hands of our coaches.  Finally, it reminded me of waking up on a Saturday morning with a smashed nose, swollen eye, and a bruised body, knowing I would have three more fights later that day.

Most importantly, this morning reminded me of my mortality.  I have been stressed lately by modern pressures: my job, time constraints, and the almighty question of “what am I doing with my life?”  The pain quenched my ever running mind.  The mind is what separates us from the savages.  As the mind begins to wander, we create stress from imaginary states of hypothetical situations.  That which is important: our family, our friends, our passions, our world, nature, our spirituality, are pushed to the way side to make room for the accumulation of money, power, status, our jobs, and the safety of routine.  My mangled body this morning has helped my being return to a state of mortal liberation.

Thanks to Olaf Wagner, my special guest on this week’s 5 minute limit.  In this episode, we discuss CouchSurfing and why it is absolutely epic.

My profile: http://www.couchsurfing.org/profile.html?id=AE1GHHA

Olaf’s profile: http://www.couchsurfing.org/profile.html?id=9YOY9YF

Couchsurfing, from my point of view, illustrates some of the greatest aspects of humanity.

Special thanks to today’s sponsor: Meat Gear Apparel for making all of this happen.

DEMO REEL INCLUDED;

Thanks to the following people for making this happen:

Erik Angra:

http://www.erikangra.com/

Michelle Chaison:

http://wouldyoufancythat.blogspot.com/

and Scott Harrington and Lisa Smith of New Way Media:

http://www.youtube.com/user/newwaymedia

When I walk to central square I almost always try to walk through the following alleyway:

I walk here to get my art fix for the day.  We all have busy lives and barely any time to stop and smell the roses (or in this case, the food from the dumpster behind the restaurant near this alley)  

Whenever I pass through, I think of one of my favorite songs: Graffiti the World by Rehab (see video above).  

From my point of view, the song can be summarized with the following line:

“Air, water, land, mind, body and soul pollution”

In our society we pollute the air with our cars, our massive energy consumption and so on.  We pollute the water by throwing our trash in the oceans.

We pollute our minds because: “We’ve got ABC, NBC, MTV, TNT, the BBC, DVD, VHS, DSL, A and E, XTC, mp3, FCC, THC, NRA, GOP??.. ADD”  We spend our time watching mindless television and reading celebrity gossip magazines.

We pollute our bodies by the pesticides and improper food we ingest.  Whether it is chemical infested vegetables or animals fed with diets contrary to their evolution.

We pollute our souls more than anything.  Our society values the vain, rich, and powerful.  We define people not by their individuality, however, by some number hanging over their head.  As humans in a modern society, we are all numbers in our world.  We have social security numbers, phone numbers, license numbers, employee numbers to name a few.  Sometimes I feel like a tagged sheep in a flock of many.

“All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.”  

-Pink Floyd

And what is the most important number that is assigned to our value and worth to society? Our incomes.  Our income level helps determine our social class, social clubs, and friends.   

 Many of us have removed any higher spiritual power from our existence.  We believe that the human enterprise can discover and cure every ailment known to man.  The more we try to replace God with human knowledge the greater society suffers as a whole.

We pollute our souls by ”chasin false idols”: politicians, powerful businessmen, celebrities, etc.  We should instead not idolize anybody but concentrate on making the world a better place for our fellow brothers and sisters.  We should take a humble approach to our respective existences. We need to realize that we are terribly ignorant of the the inner-workings of our world and leave them for something greater than ourselves.

The hook of the song is as follows:

“Graffiti the land with skyscrapers
Graffiti the sky with airplanes and satellites
Graffiti the minds of children with your man-made laws
Graffiti the world, I saw the writing on the wall”

My favorite line in the hook is “Graffiti the minds of children with your man-made laws”  Humans are so arrogant of their supreme knowledge today that our society is slowly turning into a law infested cesspool.  I believe that law flows in this logical manner: the law of man is derived from the law of nature which is derived from the law of the eternal.  Therefore, the law of nature the law and the law of the divine will always trump the law of man.

“I realized just how tainted our thinking really is

While in New York when I saw a teenager being arrested for taggin a fuckin wall.”

   This is the first episode of my weekly/bi-weekly/monthly or however the hell often I want to make a video-podcast series.  Topics include: Ground Hero, Pro-Wrestling, Stand-up Comedy, and Tumblr.  Please note that after the taping I realized that the lyrics from the song I sing in this video are from Bob Seger and not the Allman brothers…got a little excited on camera.  Enjoy.

I’d like to thank our (my) sponsors: Meat Gear Apparel for making this show possible: http://www.meatgearapparel.com/ (coming soon)

Other links:

Video of room: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m0dbXi4BIQ

Improv Boston Tickets: https://www.vendini.com/ticket-software.html?e=337e3d1d04f8e74936d37c1c5df89dd2&t=tix