eternal love revolution

Here is a chat transcript of a conversation i had with my friend mark maccora, a film maker who lives in los angeles. mark has been a good friend to me in my travels for years - in my first trip out to LA when i was more of a hardcore poetry bum, in 2003 - i didn't know anyone out there and i spent my first week there sleeping under a pier - he was the first guy i met who really connected to me and what i was doing, he was also the first person to offer me a place to crash, although it didn't work out because his roommates at the time were a little skeptical about him taking in an unwashed stranger. however, we've remained friends for the last 5 years and i've taken every chance i can get to spend the time to visit him.

mark is soon to be going out on a 40 day road trip in which he travels across america with a video camera, recording interviews with people about their views on american spirituality. i wish him great success in his various projects, which he refers to under the banner of a title he calls "the eternal love revolution."

Sunday, June 8, 2008

11:34
mark maccora: How you rockin?

11:35
Lance Robotson: alright
things are pretty good
i got to be in a native american church meeting in a tipi.

11:36
mark maccora: Dude! I should be there taping that!
When are you doing that?

11:37
Lance Robotson
its done already
anyway you can't you know, record that kind of thing

11:37
mark maccora: Oh, I'm sure.

11:37
Lance Robotson: you have to find someone who would first let you observe, that would be a big deal in the first place
then to get permission to record parts of it, that would be huge
anyway i had a good experience

11:38
mark maccora: The lodge I did was one of the most intense experiences of my life!
Any epiphanies?

11:39
Lance Robotson: its not about necessarily having epiphanic moments or anything, its about being in a community of supportive people in times of joy and times of need
it made me feel real humble
like a tiny pathetic creature
and uhh.. i think we forget that sort of reverence for existence a lot
we get caught up in the memory of ourselves

11:40
mark maccora: Yeah, duder. Ego.

11:40
Lance Robotson: word

11:40
mark maccora: Humility can be an epiphany.

11:41
Lance Robotson: yeah i guess it can.

11:41
mark maccora: Especially if it puts us into a more reasonable relationship with the rest of existence.

11:41
Lance Robotson: it makes me feel like
you know i want to express what i feel for people more
like if you have a good feeling for someone you should tell them you know
because you never know if you'll be able to tell them again
or what a good word will do for someone else
and it makes me think about how difficult life could be, how fortunate i am to have the kind of people in my life that i do

11:45
mark maccora: Word.

11:45
Lance Robotson: feel that way about you too, mark.
real glad to know you.

11:45
mark maccora: I love that. I love that you say that. I love you, Lance.

11:45
Lance Robotson: yeah i love you too man.

11:45
mark maccora: Thank you.

11:46
Lance Robotson: you know i'm in the world looking for a community you know and i want to be able to consider you part of mine
even though we can't always be in the same place

11:46
mark maccora: I'm all about assembling a community, or tribe if you will.

11:46
Lance Robotson: collectivity.

11:47
mark maccora: Even though I hate humanity's classic tribalistic nature.

11:47
Lance Robotson: i'm interested in distributed collectivity enhanced by mediated communication technology
but another thing i've been thinking about a lot is how

11:48
mark maccora: Yes?

11:48
Lance Robotson: we have to sort of develop new traditions and new rituals for a new world where people have no relationship to their past
i mean, if you already have traditions to draw on to make you stronger than thats great and more power to ya
but i think a lot of people don't know where they come from or what it means to be a human in the universe

11:50
mark maccora: I agree. That's why we need to explore our (humanity's) traditions, and allow them to be shared and included in a world culture.
Especially a world spiritual culture.

11:50
Lance Robotson: so i'm really interested in the notion of sort of creating theatrical performances that include group participation and keyframe moments of ritual for an audience to experience

11:50
mark maccora: That's cool!

11:50
Lance Robotson: not to sell people on some new bandwagon
or to get them to buy into my new religion or something
thats not my concern
its more to give people an experience that maybe exposes them to something that they might have been lacking
and maybe open that realm up for them so that they could explore it in themselves more.

11:51
mark maccora: Something they didn't know they lacked, but that they feel they lack.

11:51
Lance Robotson: yeah.
thats a good point
so you're right about exploring human tradition
because i think to be effective in staging something like what i'm talking about
you know
a lot of research would be good
to kind of develop an understanding
of what different people have done and still do
you know, what kinds of instruments are employed, what kind of protocols and procedures
and maybe you see the common threads
and you can draw on inspiration from different ways
not to bastardize or take something away from other people but to access the universal

11:54
mark maccora: An open exchange of the human spiritual condition.

11:54
Lance Robotson: i hope so.

11:55
mark maccora
That's what my work is about.
That's what I want the Eternal Love Revolution to be...

11:55
Lance Robotson: yeah i love that..
i want to be down, some how.

11:55
mark maccora: You are down!
You are a part of it already!

11:55
Lance Robotson: fundamentalism is dangerous
but i think that the kind of new age wholesale cultural imperialism appropriation of indiginous practices is dangerous too.

11:56
mark maccora: Yes, it's not about haphazard re-appropriation, it's about respectful inclusion.

11:56
Lance Robotson: yeah it's a hard line to walk though, with that one
because so many traditions consider themselves sacrosanct and self contained, in which their leaders say, "don't mix ways"
and so forth
thats why i'm looking for the motions, the performance aspects
sort of like an inverted cargo cult

11:58
mark maccora: ?

11:58
Lance Robotson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
appearing in tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically-advanced, non-native cultures—which focus upon obtaining the material wealth of the advanced culture through magical thinking as well as religious rituals and practices—while believing that the materials were intended for them by their deities
Cargo cults thus focus on efforts to overcome what they perceive as the undue influence of the others attracting the goods, by conducting rituals imitating behavior they have observed among the holders of the desired wealth, and presuming that their deities and ancestors will, at last, recognize their own people and send the cargo to them instead. Thus a characteristic feature of cargo cults is the belief that spiritual agents will at some future time give much valuable cargo and desirable manufactured products to the cult members

11:59
mark maccora: I am just reading that paragraph.

11:59
Lance Robotson: Famous examples of cargo cult activity include the setting up of mock airstrips, airports, offices, dining rooms, as well as the fetishization and attempted construction of western goods, such as radios made of coconuts and straw. Believers may stage "drills" and "marches" with sticks for rifles and use military-style insignia and "USA" painted on their bodies to make them look like soldiers, thereby treating the activities of western military personnel as rituals to be performed for the purpose of attracting the cargo. The cult members built these items and 'facilities' in the belief that the structures would attract cargo intended to be sent to them.

Monday, June 9, 2008

12:00
Lance Robotson: thats magical thinking- sort of like an inverted kind of science, where causation works in reverse, the effecting the symbol effects a change in reality
whereas what i'm saying is that we're like the technological society who sees the isolated society and desires their spiritual wealth, and so in a sense we must create a reverse cargo cult, and use our rational methodology to emulate their practices to create a magical experience

12:02
mark maccora: Ha ha!
LOL!

12:03
Lance Robotson: the irony?

12:03
mark maccora
Yes,
but also such sadness!

12:03
Lance Robotson: yeah.
its come to this.

12:03
mark maccora: How we sacrifice out connection with the ethereal in existence for technological progress,
which is essentially adopting relationships with our creations,
instead of embracing the rest of existence.

12:04
Lance Robotson: more and more so even still
and so on.
but uhh...
in a sense you know, our connection to the ethereal has always been sort of tenuous
the further and further we have abstracted from our animal nature.
and we've always employed symbols to sort of realign us with that nature
its just that the noise ratio now is so much higher
there is such an excess production of meanings
so in a sense i think that its a perfectly natural step forward, adapting traditions for the new world we encounter. every generation has to do it.
and the more that that world becomes interconnected within itself our cultural responsibilities grow greater.

12:11
mark maccora: Once we each accept responsibility for the total mass of human experience we can fuse culture with respect and reverence.
But back to technology, I have to go do some laundry.

12:11
Lance Robotson: mmhmm.
good to rap with you a bit mark - you make me want to formulate my ideas in a good way, it suprises myself
give me a lot to think about.

12:13
mark maccora: Well, I'm going to save this and possibly include it in the doc, so thank you.
We shall talk again soon.

12:14 mark maccora disconnected