Maybe it’s because I have learned so much about the mind, the unconscious mind, and the ways that the media attempts to manipulate us, (or maybe it’s just because I have a clear head and eyes that can see), but I have become hyper-aware of how downright ridiculous our culture and media have become.

I have written articles about how different productions use similar images in their advertisements (see Billboredom, and Billboredom 2: The Billbordening), and I have written articles about offensive gun-laden movie posters, (see I call bullshit on this,  F–K you Hollywood, and Dreamy grandpas with guns). This article will be a combination of the two.

I live in Santa Monica where there are thankfully very few billboards. However, recently I drove across town into Hollywood and was subjected to the usual assault on my senses and sensibilities.

During my drive I couldn’t help noticing that a majority of the billboards were about the FBI. Four separate productions were advertising their new FBI dramas. (It seems we are meant to be so busy watching the FBI that we forget the FBI is watching us). I saw well over 25 billboards for each one which means that my subconscious was bombarded with the word FBI over a hundred times on one little drive to Hollywood and back.

First and foremost was Quantico.

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This is what it has come to.

In order for me to sign into WordPress and write this blog I have to enter my email, then I have to enter my increasingly complicated password, and then finally I have to prove my humanity.

Lets be clear here. Proving your humanity apparently consists of solving a first grade math problem.

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“The menu is not the meal”. This is the great Alan Watts’ way of re-stating Alfred korzybski’s famous quote “the map is not the territory”.

As humans, everything we know of the external world comes to us through our nervous systems. Our senses interpret the data coming in from the outside world, and we then create a world in our minds based on that information.

The words that we have in our minds which label things in the external world such as “chair”, or “apple”, or “god” are just that, they are in words in our head. They are how we internally represent external objects and events.

Words are like maps, in that maps are representations which by their very nature have to generalize, and distort, and delete information. A truly accurate and detailed map of Los Angeles would have to literally be the size of Los Angeles, with every detail of Los Angeles included within it. It would in fact have to be Los Angeles itself.

Simply put, words are not the objects they describe. The miracle of language is an abstraction, a construct, that tends to get mistaken for reality itself.

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I was never much of a UFO enthusiast. Part of me had always believed that not all UFO sightings/encounters are fake, but I never put too much thought into it. Then I found myself taking a lot of pictures of the sky in an effort to document the chemtrails and sylphs I was seeing so often. That’s when things got weird.

I was showing some pictures I took to a good friend of mine and he saw something other than clouds floating in the sky. Here is that picture.

And here is the picture zoomed in.

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What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)?

NLP is a form of conversational therapy that optimizes the way you organize and utilize your thoughts and feelings. NLP is a way of thinking about the way you think, which can change the way you feel about the way you feel.

The most important part of this work is usually changing an attitude, not solving a problem, because how you are thinking about your problem is your problem more than you think your problem is.

Often NLP is referred to as a “pattern interrupt”. My job is to gather information, identify resources, and help you disrupt negative patterns.

The beauty of NLP is that it’s about process not content. It’s not about what the details of your problem are; it’s about how you do your problem. We won’t sit there like in traditional therapy and make you go over every detail of your problem session after session. I’m far more interested in discovering the way your problem manifests itself, so that we can interrupt that pattern and install new behavioral strategies. We won’t work on your stuff; we’ll work through it. We will learn your process then I will guide you to a new process. I will show you what your thoughts and feelings consist of, and then I will offer you the choice to change, (because if you don’t have choices, you can’t make them).

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Here is another little poem I wrote back in 1994

Behind your eyes
And between your ears
Is where you’ve been lost
For all these years
Restricted by fears
Drowning in tears
Dying to live
Before you’re dead.

Everything ever is
All in your head
Yours to do with
What you choose.
If you play the game
Know how to lose
That is how you win.

You must look
At how you look
That you might see
All there is
To do
Is be
And the only way
To be
Is free.