Sunday 9 June 2013

The bee apocalypse, zombies, new video, songwriters circle, The Answer, perception & deception

Wow, time flies and stuff happens. Not sure where I left off in the continuing saga of Theo Massop and the BoodAbooM project, but here I am back at the blog. That as well as the long list of injustices, political mismanagement, strange events, stupidity and other things that my vision has scanned over morning coffee at my laptop has inspired me to put fingers on keyboard again.

I’ll leave the annoyances of the world at large till the later part of my blog and concentrate of the music for now.

Somehow in my wild and crazy brain, I thought it would take about three weeks from the beginning of May to have everything in place and have the discs / downloads readily available. Well, I’m nearly there. Four weeks have past since that brave and foolish announcement with loose ends still needing to be tidied up. My friend Brian Hazelbower had a good laugh about that last night as I was waving one of my newly manufactured discs “The Answer” by BoodAbooM in the air at the Nanaimo Songwriters Circle. This gathering comes around once a month and is held in a very informal manner at the Oak St. Manor in Nanaimo. A friendly gathering of musicians of all skill levels to sing our new songs, tell stories and share music. The only criteria is that you perform your own compositions. Although my schedule rarely allows time to attend, I still get there when I can. Great people, great fun. A similar event is also held in the Comox Valley where Helen Austin is the host.

CD’s of  "The Answer" have been manufactured with some in the Toronto warehouse and some discs on the west coast. I will let everyone know once all the links to purchase sites, streaming and downloads have been properly established. CD’s of “The Answer” by BoodAbooM will also be available at HMV stores across Canada. If you’re interested in a BoodAbooM tee shirt (see previous blog), they are $20.00 Canadian plus shipping. Send me an email at boodaboomband@gmail.com and we’ll make the arrangements to get you one or more.

In amongst the pandemonium of life, sorting out distribution details, planning promotional campaigns and mowing the grass (not exciting, but it needs to get done), we’ve managed to squeeze in a video shoot. The first video for a tune from “The Answer” by BoodAbooM was “Another Sunny Day”. This coming video is for the song “Run” and was directed by video-tographer, Marius TV Lohmann. It was an exchange or bartering of intellectual skills. I wrote a song for a series being created by Marius and his colleagues call “Project Paintball” . He wanted a theme song with particular parameters and I was able to write, record and deliver it for him. In exchange Marius offered to shoot a video for one of the songs from my upcoming album. To my fellow musicians in this area I will mention, Marius is available for hire if you like what you see in my new video. We chose the song “Run”, a relationship song reflecting the “fight or flight” response born into all of us.  This tune also features the voice of Tina Jones singing a duet harmony with me. Marius, along with my daughter Angela, came up with a storyline that elicited the response “really???”  from me.
I was safe, no brains. Jeffery couldn't resist the cookies .
Once I understood my role in the story, I was greatly relieved that I wouldn’t have to undergo major makeup. It makes me snicker a little everytime I discuss the video or think about it, because in my personal life I never watch movies about zombies, werewolves, vampires or anything like that. It’s fine and I understand that it is “just entertainment”, but not usually something I indulge in. That being said, no one except perhaps Canadian politician John Baird, really believes we are going to have a “zombie apocalypse”.  Yes folks, the next video for the BoodAbooM album is themed around a “zombie apocalypse”. It is all tongue in cheek as they say and it was huge fun putting it together. All of the actors and actresses were fantastic. The makeup was amazing as we had some master zombie creators and makeup artists working with us. Marius managed to find the right people to fill the roles of the militia protecting the remaining humans. Thanks to all for their outstanding portrayal of their assigned characters. 
Travis "Wingnut" English, one of the actors
Jeffery Randle joined me in the scenes where I am singing the human encampment, banging on the djembe while we’re hanging around the militia guys waiting for supplies. Flash bombs, zombies, military types, rifles and 4x4’s, all cool stuff that makes for a fun video. That’s as much as I will reveal for now and the next blog will include links to our mini movie.

I’m pushing the 700 word mark so let me try to round this up as quickly as possible. First, a big thanks to all those who help get “The Answer” by BoodAbooM it’s first chart action hitting #1 for the week of May 14th, sustaining at  #3 week of June 4th at CHLY in Nanaimo. Next I would like to say that I have a lot of readers from Russia, the USA and all around the world as well as Canada, also a big thanks to you. So with due respect, please understand that the next set of issues and links are merely me shining a spotlight of some of the things that have crossed my path. People are people, we are all basically the same. Politicians also seem to vary little from country to country. To me they look like a bunch of bungling bozos with their hands in the pockets of the working class, while big business pulls the puppet strings and dictates the politicians actions. Just my humble opinion of course.

Here’s some of the things that make me feel that way. Russia is mad at the USA because of Omaha’s continued protection of biogenetic / chemical giants, companies like Sygenta, Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and Dupont. Russia is gravely concerned over the coming “bee apocalypse”. This one’s real, unlike my coming zombie video.

A report I read recently talked about a 82 year old Catholic nun who along with a 57 and 63 year old pacifist broke into a nuclear weapons manufacturing facility in Tennessee in order to protest war and violence. It was a passive protest where they actually waited to be arrested for their deed. The charges should have amounted to a misdemeanor fetching up to a year in prison and a $100,000 dollar fine. In five months the charges were ramped up to terrorism and all three are facing up to 35 years in prison. At 82 it pretty much guarantees the nun will die imprisoned. This while another report from Canada's CBC claims that the FBI fabricates and perpetuates more terrorist acts than any other organization.

Meanwhile in Canada, corporate puppet Stephen Harper gets away with election fraud while feeding his big business buddies 114 billion dollars of taxpayers money in 2009. After all, it was a rough year. It works out to about $3400 for every Canadian citizen. That’s ok though, because Stevie is pushing hard for the success of the Alberta (his home province) tar sands oil. This despite the academics warning us about the catastrophic climate change that this practise could create.

In Rome, the Pope is blaming human misery and suffering on the world capitalist focus. Interesting considering my brother Joe Massop a Baptist minister, recently visited the Vatican where he was appalled by the incredible poverty which exists outside the city walls paradoxically set against the opulence and decadence on display inside. Joe was asked to leave when questioning one of the priests why more resources were not directed to immediate help for the poor and hungry, rather than keeping the money in gold and jeweled trinkets for tourist to come see.

Something a little more cheery was a video I came across in which a University of British Columbia forestry researcher talks about her discovery of communication between trees in the forest. Apparently the trees help each other by communicating through roots systems with the help of certain types of fungus. It lends credence to the idea that everything is connected and we have so much yet to learn when it comes to the mysteries of life.

Despite the many injustices and problems in the world today, as individuals we can start to effect change by approaching everything from the standpoint of loving kindness even when dealing with adversity. Not easy to do, but possible with practise. Be good to each other as much as possible. That’s how we begin to make the world a better place.

Brother T

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