So you wanna be a rock superstar, and live large
a big house, 5 cars, you're in charge
comin' up in the world, don't trust no body
gotta look over your shoulder constantly

[...]

Egomaniac in the Brainiac

[...]

til the next rock superstar
with no shame
give em a year, he'll be right out the game
the same as the last one who came before him
gained fame, started gettin ignored, I warned him
assured him, this aint easy take it from Weezy
sleezy people wanna be so cheesy, the fuckin people (gun cock noise)

- Cypress Hill, Rap/Rock Superstar

Man, am I ever glad I don't need protection and I know for sure that my friends are my friends. You only need protection if you've holed yourself up in an ivory tower.

In ape species, and I believe orangatans stand out in this regard, there exists alpha male behavior which appears as compassion or generosity, but is really only the behavior of a creature who is recognized for it's generosity and compassion. If the behavior wasn't rewarded and if the ape did not appear to be more powerful for it, they probably wouldn't do it, because it would have no selfish purpose.

It is the difference between donating a million dollars because I have a hundred million, and donating one dollar because I genuinely care about the other person. That may be my only dollar (note a biblical story that mirrors this). People and animals are generous when they can afford to be and when that generosity or compassion will add more value to themselves, otherwise, they don't.

So actually, this link is to an aniboom awards finalist and their video "Live Life" which is a claymation animation of the famous Sedlec Ossuary set to William Shatner's 'You'll have Time'. Which is meant as a kind of meditation on our mortality. The video and the concept are incredibly neat and therfor also incredibly approprite for this site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCfK0xE2OPw

But please correct me if I've misinterpreted the inclusion of black metal as a form of dark imagery. If by it they mean nothing than to be prideful of national accomplishments, then I guess we aren't talking about the same kind of "global awakening".

Dark imagery is a portal to the supernal realm. Certainly it was for figures like Alister Crowley and his Abbey of Thelemists. At a recent dinner party a young man asked a child-artist to draw something and he would buy it from her, for tattoo art. He wanted something like the totem of skulls he already has inked in his forearm. The girl's mother, however, insisted that it was evil imagery and that it would bring all kinds of evil thoughts and inclinations to mind as she was drawing it. Stating "I know that when artists work they feel what they are drawing, and I don't want her to feel that."

What? A totem of skulls? Death? The final state of all human beings, our ultimate destiny? You don't want her to see where she is going ahead of time? This same woman was disturbed by the images of cadavers in a color Atlas of Human Anatomy which she gave me to keep myself amused. She said the images were too disturbing to look at. They aren't disturbing to me, but then I've learned to accept death and even appreciate the contrast it provides to the living. The human body is a miraculous work of art, it looks sick to people who can't stomach their own mortality. But a word of advice to people who don't want to live in fear and don't want to suffer immensely on their death-bed, learn to love it, look for the hidden lining that is made out of silver. But, if you never look out of fear...

So, I can see how dark imagery would be necessary for "awakening".

Dolls are a kind of pre-packaged life action-figure. They are to help kids into conformity. See, you can waste all kinds of valuable time and breath doing her hair just like mommy.

I know most of us don't think that far ahead. I actually did some research on it because it disgusted me that so many people would insist on wearing a poppy whithout any historical understanding, or otherwise, of what happened or why it happened. I thought "They are just wearing it like a badge, because it's the thing to do, and that doesn't help at all, it just diminishes actual rememberance to a childish bandwagon of tradition."

And so I suspected the veteran's would be breaking even or possibly losing funds on poppy pin production, I had no idea it would be 50%, but the veteran's don't complain because their stated goal is just to get everyone wearing them and provide a visual reminder. Any donations are supposed to go to widows or veteran's, but there isn't any. Instead they have to come up with money to pay for all the good-guy badges.

Which is why I find our societies so dismal, because of stuff like this, what a sick world. Its all about appearances, which is the realm of looking good, i.e. egotism. Consequently I've resolved to donating a minimum of $1 and leaving the poppies in the tray. There is enough egotists around the remind us all by wearing the poppy. I'll buy 5 of their poppies and listen to them chide me for being unpatriotic.

Hmm, not quite the Canterbury Cathedral, but colorful none-the-less and a very interesting message. But to add something to our understanding of the poppy. Those little pins cost an average of $0.20/each to produce and the average donation before taking one to pin on like a good-guy badge is $0.10.

Personally I think it is great to remember war, particularly let us remember what caused the war, but that is not our concern here, our concern is appearing to be considerate and patriotic citizens, and that is why we take the badge at half the production cost and let the veterans pay the rest.

But of course, like all great music that stands the test of time, which are either about Good or Evil this song is about the Luciferean ego. Which the ego can identify with and so sing along as if the song were actually an anthem for the ego, but it is cleverly anti-ego. It would be like some irate teen singing along to Metallica's "Master of Puppets" as I once did, thinking that the master was my parents or the community or maybe the Prime Minister, when in actuality the master is desire. I didn't notice it as an irate teen because I was too busy being an irate teen and the song *sounded* like it sympathized with me.

{Quietly} Oh my God...

Cha!
Welcome to the jungle
We got fun 'n' games
We got everything you want
Honey we know the names
We are the people that can find
Whatever you may need
If you got no money, honey
We got your disease

In the jungle
Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your shun na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, knees, knees!
I, I wanna watch you bleed

When you're high you never
Ever want to come down, so down, so down, so down... YEAH!

/clip

See the logic; we got fun n' games, we got everything you want. Watch it bring you to your knees. I wanna watch you bleed. This is a reference to Satan, and the "Jungle" is the fallen Eden, which is earth, and the serpentine is the great lie of Self upon which the desires, the wants and "fun n' games" find their footing.

Juxtapose this with; Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones, Running with the Devil by Van Halen, Life's Been Good by Joe Walsh, Peace of Mind by Boston and Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin.

If your eye offends you pluck it out. Perhaps people with disabilities have a leg-up not being able to satiate their petty desires, as with playing video games. This undoubtedly forces them into an abyssmal state of self-reflection, whereby the desire and the reality of not being able to fulfill that desire go toe-to-toe in an existentialist showdown for the soul. Most of us can very easily satiate our desires, especially in the modern world, which makes such a showdown highly improbable. Instead we will form a habit of self-satisfaction and become slaves to desire, which will put further control in the hands of the amoral and non-human corporations, which they can use to further bolster desire for their transient and useless products through highly sophisticated public relations campaigns. And the universal vice of self pinches ever tighter around our hearts. With only one forseeable release, consume more!

After 23 comments I'd have expected to see something like; these men are insecure and seek the comfort of fantasy, in particular childish fantasy directed at girls which is generally more fantastical and childish than that directed at boys (where boys are exposed to violence, betrayal, hate, etc...). And so, for these men My Little Pony is a kind of medication for their existential psychological problems, those that they are unaware of from years of repression. And so MLP is a form of self-medicant for them. I guess that was mentioned in the OP...

"There was a mis­understanding that was too delicious to invite correction,”

Hmm, this is what I would call delusion borne out of a contingent domain of self-worth, but when I say it it applies to much more, and much less people understand it. Suffice to say that we all distort reality according to our desires.

And that is a little piece of ancient Chinese wisdom, c/o Lao Tzu.

"Always without desire we must be found,
If its deep mystery we would sound;
But if desire always within us be,
Its outer fringe is all that we shall see." - 3rd Paragraph of the Tao Te Ching

"All in the world know the beauty of the beautiful, and in doing
this they have (the idea of) what ugliness is; they all know the skill
of the skilful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what the
want of skill is." - 5th paragraph

"All things spring up, and there is not one which declines to show
itself; they grow, and there is no claim made for their ownership;
they go through their processes, and there is no expectation (of a
reward for the results). The work is accomplished, and there is no
resting in it (as an achievement)." - 8th Paragraph

"Not to value and employ men of superior ability is the way to
keep the people from rivalry among themselves; not to prize articles
which are difficult to procure is the way to keep them from becoming
thieves; not to show them what is likely to excite their desires is
the way to keep their minds from disorder.

Therefore the sage, in the exercise of his government, empties
their minds, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthens
their bones.

He constantly (tries to) keep them without knowledge and without
desire, and where there are those who have knowledge, to keep them
from presuming to act (on it). When there is this abstinence from
action, good order is universal." - 10th, 11th, and 12th paragraphs

Whatever, the Jungle Book is a masterpiece of wisdom, but you don't know it, instead you know what a Black Panther looks like, and you can sing along to the Bare Necessities. But you don't gather the anagogical meaning behind Kiplings work. Wow, look at the cute monkeys, let us forget what they are saying "All of us say so, so we must be right!"

Also being "broken upon the wheel" can refer to spiritual ignorance. Where the wheel is the "cycle of rebirth" or the revolving enantiodromedia of the passions and desire, the game to which most stay a slave.

Hitler was a very charismatic individual who could manipulate the passions and desires of those already stuck on the wheel, while he himself remained firmly nailed to it. This may be comparable to "Leader Worship" but this is to use "worship" in the sense of adoration and perceived value, which is its original meaning.

Our societies worship money, celebrity and sex, and in the name of our Gods we kill people. We just don't see it because we have highly charismatic leaders and because we are all stuck upon the wheel. We think we are doing the right thing.

Alternatively we could think that an entire nation of civilized human beings up and desired to kill Jews arbitrarily, with no reason, and by exercising their "free-will". Which is patently not true when we learn of dissenters like Heartfield. Indeed, we could believe the entire world and everyone in it except for us and ours is completely mad. We could all do that and we'd be exactly where we are.

Which should mean absolutely nothing to us, but because we are fanatics that need to dwell on extremes, we think this is neat. And because we are discriminators we have to tell Hernandez to "move over". You don't see it eh?

The Who are one of the least understood bands, IMHO. Almost nobody seems to understand any of their music.

The Who's movie Tommy tells us more than we need to know, and most people did not like Tommy. So I guess they don't really like the Who either, they just like getting cum in their ear-pussies.

"See me, feel me, touch me." Most people would think he was whining and say "suck it up!" Completely unappreciative of what a state of mind devoid of sensation would be like. These very same people when put into sensory deprivation chambers go insane after 20 minutes. A monk or nun could sit in one indefinitely and come out as happy as when they went in, or happier. They may actually glean the mysterious "piper intoning in the distance" a tune to which we all dance. (Paraphrased quotation of Albert Einstein)

Listening to you, I get the music
Gazing at you, I get the heat
Following you, I climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet

Right behind you, I see the millions
On you, I see the glory
From you, I get opinion
From you, I get the story - Closing song from Tommy