Many of my friends are in the entertainment business. I started doing serious home movies at about 13, with my own sets and and all. Sometimes got the neighbor kids involved as well, but usually just me.

Once did "Atlantis the Lost Continent" complete with a 5' diameter laser crystal made of white sheets and wood framework. It had a white light in the center, and destroyed the neighbors if they walked by.

I loved to film people and then "turn them into poop" or other things young boys do in their orneriness. I am the insatiable prank master, but harmless. I use dissonance as my sharpest tool in the kit, so to speak. And stage drama involving others in similar predicaments is the best way for people to see themselves without prejudice. Any good comedian or storyteller will tell you that.

hollywood dogs

What I am going to do is really very simple:

* Create a community based on STRONG common interests
* Offer equal status in the community
* Reveal the the simplicity of freedom (gaining freedom from personal tyranny)
* Share the simplicity of teaching freedom
* Make personal helps available, and nurture other online communities

This approach encourages positive competition, role-play, and charitable acts. We will examine eclecticism, bullies, grandstanding, and religious power plays used by others in manipulation. My approach will resemble daytime educational TV. After all, sitcom writers have been your virtual moms and dads for decades!  What a large percentage of the world has grown up in the virtual fantasies of "Leave It To Beaver," Laugh-In, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, and Jon Stewart. Now it's reality shows, Desperate Housewives, and ER.

The TV script writer understands how our "better half" seeks to do good to others, taking into account our "animal side." How many comedians use self-deprecating humor as their main game? Why does it work? Why does seeing Ben Stiller get smashed about and dunked in the ocean make us laugh? Is it just the salacious or epicurious Roman in us, or is it more of an invisible social lesson that must be repeated over and over because otherwise our energies put us out of balance?

Humans must be self-challenged to survive. We must see ourselves in the flow of organic life on this planet, assessing our limited strengths and weaknesses, and continually adjust our perspective to avoid going insane. Insanity to us humans is when you see everything so clearly, and it is stark and ugly, and you can't invent a fantasy to cope. So you are put on drugs so as to create in you socially acceptable virtual fantasies, and then you are watched so your fantasies are kept in check.

One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest is a classic example. It is all far simpler than using human psychology, because it takes the mammal into account as the primal fire of life. Psychiatric advice is all fine, were it not for the beast inside.

I think of a white female poodle being gussied up in a Dog Parlour, ready for the show. But then she licks her behind, wanting just the right amount of pheromones to accomplish her goals. Sure she loves all the attention, but a hot date is the prize. So she unwittingly smears the makeup, licking her butt! Which is all fine and funny, but someone else's virtual world (usually the dog handler's) is messed up in the process. It's like Gary Larson's The Far Side, where animals have their own surprisingly intelligent agenda, UNKNOWN to humans who have simply stereotyped them. The animals use that human ignorance to their own advantage.

Watchtower doctrine seems harmless to many who desire a virtual fantasy that seems to answer the tough questions. But what is largely unrecognized by most of us is the tendency of the intelligent mammal to create entire fantastic worlds in the mind, each having its own laws and precepts that define how it works. The greatest storytellers, such as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis have changed our world by adding fantastic elements to it. The great faiths are, for the most part, virtual worlds that large numbers of mammals have agreed upon to "represent" reality, mainly for control purposes. In actual reality, we do appear to need these worlds in order to cope with our existence, at least at this stage of our species. Tribal myths, legends, and stories are required to survive, just as a working "virtual world" is required to keep the mental patient or the elderly and infirm "sane" enough to cope with the vagarities of life. It is an act of MERCY to help create powerful and useful fantasies, as they are our main realm of inspiration and change. But they are equally powerful and destructive in their chaotic/anarchist side. (I personally predict that eliminating that "meme" of self-destructiveness on the anarchist side from the memetic - not genetic - pool will be the major goal of progressive social institutions in the 21st century.)

Socially, we love reminders of how weak we really are. There is primal satisfaction in leveling the playing field in a room. Think AA meetings, EST sessions, holy jihadist missions - the bonding power of solidarity. This is the same powerful meme that controls all alpha-male circles, whether they be a tribe in Africa, or an office in Manhattan. In the mammalian world, when one is injured or weakened, the others do not zoom in for the kill. They all become moms and dads for awhile! Dogs know what they are... mainly because in their circles, they have to play "musical chairs" with authority, and have no problem with it, as long as all the hassles are resolved. They just want to hang as dogs, without trouble! Ask your neighborhood dog-walker.

Again, it's like the AA meeting, or evenings at the pub, or the soccer game. Men are dogs with interesting fantasies. If you were able to give your dog intelligence, he would most likely come up with a Dog Religion, with master agenda, the Great Poo-Bah Mastiff, and so forth. That's how I will use parody in short skit form. Funny, unabrasive, extremely witty, and perhaps even cute. But most of all inspirational! Just like a good ad.

In an intervention, I tell people I have 15 minutes to make friends with someone who already believes I'm the devil. I have good practice in that. If I applied it in the commercial world, I'm sure I could be wealthy. But then the world of non-profit and the common people might never see the advantage - lost in the money.

I took Hollywood script-writing course years ago and wrote the only comedic script out of over 100 people. It was about a chihuahua who was loved and hated. The DISSONANCE THE DOG CREATED WHILE REMAINING LOVABLE is the WHOLE POINT. This was a year before Taco Bell did their chihuahua mascot that earned them millions. How did I come up with it? The simple awareness of using a vehicle like that little dog, that for some crazy reason, evoked such a terrific rallying response, though often hated.

You use a VEHICLE to cut to the bone (kindly) and do your intervention. Deprogramming with a smile, no nastiness or harshness, which negates the whole point of the intervention. NO EGO ALLOWED except as part of the "sitcom" so to speak. schmooze. Fun! No bitterness or harsh message disguised as humor. Too revealing of bitterness and anger.

People are in cults for many reasons, but the first thing they are stripped of is the chance to see themselves as intelligent mammals on a wacky planet. They are suddenly WAY MORE than that, and there is where the intervention gets used... the psychological comedown, the DISAPPOINTMENT. But for it to work and actually be attractive or desirable to the cult member, they have to smell FREEDOM and RELEASE. They have to sense the primal power of it. This happens subconsciously, in a moment of time, an evolutionary memetic shift, if you will. You show them the primal way out. This little "trick" is the ENTIRE KEY to my whole work ahead in the next 15 years... to accomplish and polish that technique. I have been an exit-counselor for nearly 20 years, and I know what works and what doesn't. If you show them something better and more powerful than the life they have in the cult, that will trump all the hypothetical virtual worlds you can invent.

Show them a happier, more powerful life, in a moment of time... in flash of primal inspiration. It has the motivational power of one's winning the lottery, compared to one's having read a "helpful book."

The ones who DO understand what I am about to do are the blue-collar workers... the pet handlers, zookeepers, COMEDIANS for sure, and moms with 5 boys. Who "gets" the Beverly Hillbillies? People are often unawares of the inspiration and motivation behind writers who create these artificial worlds. They do have inspiration, and they have noble goals with their shows. That's the way writers are... it is their art. They don't care about the money... just make a name and enable yourself to do more and better.... to create a happy, virtual world that all can enjoy.

And finally, take nothing I say seriously! :-)

yours,

Randy

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