Every Now and Then

I want to run down the street stark naked yelling the most intense nonsense that will pop up in my head that moment. I walk around NYC and I can feel as if people are waiting to explode, but instead they trudge on instead of letting it out. We are all part of shaking things up and we have to allow ourselves to get a little crazy every now and then in a positive way, otherwise we become ingrained into conforming to the point that is almost impossible for our souls to be a peace. I have been having so many special moments that is really hard to go in details about any of them. I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed by NYC, but it forces me to grow and be balanced and gives me opportunity to bring so many different types of people together. The past moves forward into the present and future at the same time. I wander around New York City wearing no contact lenses and the streets have numbers and names that I have to squint so that I can see. I truly do get a sense of people's energies and I just follow the energy that is align with my path. We all desire an occassional distraction myself included.

I am only capable of being focused on God to a certain extent. I am not a sage or even a wise man. I merely a fool desiring to be more foolish. The foolish ones seem to love deepest. I have to give myself long deep looks and be the change that I want to see in this world. It is said so many times to be that change, but I actually have more of an understanding of what that means. I desire to be selfless but at times it makes me nervous. I still cling to an identity, but I am allowing changes to manifest as they are meant to be.

I want to tell you stories of street magicians and junkies and gypsies and people that play the violin that very few can hear or choose to hear. People that dance like their body might split open at any moment and trees that remain perfectly still despite all the craziness possible. I wonder what else I can say with words that can drive a poitn home. I have been having quite a few women retunring from my past that are allowing me to examine certain emotions and feelings. Life is a comedy often mistaken for a tragedy. Yet the best comedies have tears.

Hey there

Been out of touch as of late. So many things and people whirling around me in Nyc and it is hard to formulate it all into words and tell of things that might be of enjoyment and upliftment to whoever reads my blog. I really love NyC and the vast amounts of people that I have an opportunity to interact with. Not a day goes by that I don't have mulitiple blasts from the past of different locations or different periods in my life. I miss so many of you guys and the roles that you have played in the movie of my life. I really do view life as movie and God as the director/producer and me merely having a little bit role to be expereinced. I am in Brooklyn right now dealing with apartment stuff which is a very new experience for me on multiple levels. Just remember before you move the landlord needs a certificate of occupancy and in certain places they don't do it and it might mean that the place does not have proper ventaliation.

In other news I am falling more deeply in love with Union Square Park and central park on the weekends. I see the world changing rapidly and my mind experience a deeper stillness. I want to be immersed in the love that is all things around me. I want to know the formless that is the essence of all living things. I am not a guru merely someone on the path trying to find my inner bliss and happy to meet people that encourage me to go deeper within my core being.

I swear that I still crack jokes. A great funny moment from Bonnaroo was rolling out of a girl's car. And telling her thank you for letting me sleep it and that my name was Te'DeVan and I was running for president of the United States. How many of the other candidates have done something like that. It should not be illegal to sleep outside in this country. Trespassing in the 3rd degree puts poor people in jail and the shelters can be some of the most awful places from homeless people that I have spoken to. Government officials should be made to sleep in the shelters and see if they would be comfortable staying there before they can expect others to stay there. We spend too much money or hurting people we don't know and not enough on helping people that we claim to care about. The way we spend our money needs to change and whoever is reading this consider yourself to be the president and give your feedback. Because we need radical change not a lesser of two evils. We are the change that we want to see in the world around us.

Taking the Campaign to the South

So I have been MIA recently I was at Bonnaroo just enjoying myself immensely and following the flow of adventure. I was doing my best imitation of Sean Penn's character from All the Kings Men and stumping ( i think that is the right term) in front of the long lines at the portapottie. The speeches went over quite well for the most part. I can only imagine what the people inside of the bathrooms must have thought. My VP Smiley was having people make juice on his head and Matt Fisher did lots of explainations about we are all in the same band and that everyone is running for president. There was alot of insanity and many worlds colliding. I met a beautiful girl from Mobile, Alabama who wanted to take me back home and it almost worked out that way. Instead I met two marvelous Ivy league lesbians who took me to the suburbs of conneticut. We had great conversation about life and I did healing on the one from Harvard who had a bad sunburn. I had a ride fall thru last minute and made a ghetto cardboard sign early in the morning. I am back in NYC and working hard to bring the Dharma pad together though hopefully not too hard. We are all heading towards a whole new world and everyone's ability to be anything is becoming more obvious everyday. I just want to give a big shout out to "ask a gay man" I could only imagine being gay in Kentucky is not that easy.

I miss all of my friends in San Fran, Santa Cruz and the rest of Northern California. Alot of amazing people to meet and connect with in NYC. Everyone the Dharma Pad will be open starting July 1st and much love to Sonny for plunging yourself head first into your spiritual path.

Straight to the POINT OF Things

Humor is time removed from Pain. For instance when I spent a good two days feeling very sick in India it felt awful, but in retrospect I find it to be quite hiliarious. I recently have become obcessed with the idea of cute southern girls that use the word Preggers. They are real simple and just want to be married and preggers. I think that preggers is my word of the month. I am not special please do not think me special. I am the same as you and everyone that you know. There is no difference between me and your local bank teller, stripper, police officer, Iraqi citizen, etc.... I am finding people and things that I knew existed but seem to elude my grasp. I am slippery like quickie Koala. I am going to Tennesse and I am feeling that I don't want to talk about change or healing as much rather I prefer to experience these things. People seem to want to talk about this stuff, but are not willing to do expereince it. Get out of your own way and let God fly that plane or drive that car. There will always be someone more out there then you.

We have thoughts that pull us on numerous directions and we are the ones who are capable of seeing things as they are once we can remove our biases that have been programmed into us. I want to find Judy Garland somewhere over the rainbow and tell her I have a yellow brick road with her name on it. Get off the heroin and the cocaine it will only break everyones heart and make you more insane. Been around quite a few druggies lately and there anguish is devastating. We need to wake up out of out bubbles. Manic mysterious and completely delirious and just don't take yourself way too serious.

There will be death and there will be life and nothing really separates one from the other. There will be dancing and stillness hunger and fullness and all of it is some sort of experience that we have at some point or another. I don't care for politics I care for people. The problem is that politics doesn't care for people merely it cares to preserve itself. We all have to look at the next person we see and let us see the person that we most love and admire in their face.

The War stops when the internal conflict stops. Something is happening here and what it is clear is that there will be a whole lot of shaking going on. The rubber band will snap and the bubble will burst and there will be many people with great thurst and many people being driven off in a hearse such is the curse when there is imbalance. There is no reason to be sad because the sun will always come out tommorrow. Tommorrow tommorrow I love you tommorrow your only a few weeks or maybe months away.

First Batch of Campaign Videos

The Impossible Prez - Trailer #1


The Impossible Prez - War Room #1


On the Campaign Trail: San Francisco #1


On the Campaign Trail: San Francisco #2


On the Campaign Trail: San Francisco #3


On the Campaign Trail: San Francisco #4


On the Campaign Trail: San Francisco #5


Coming Soon: The Te'DeVan Presidential Video Library

Why Do I Care So Much What You Think

I am not sure why it is that maybe 8,000 people can tell you that you are amazing and it will feel good, but ultimately you pick out one person and decide that if they tell you that you are amazing then it means the entire world to you. Why and how is that we pick this person and bring them into our lives or push them out of our lives. We can't really seem to do one without the other. I am in uptown NYC which is not my usual stomping grounds, but these are not my usual days either. I still seem to do things to make myself jealous of things that I don't even care about because there is a part of me that seems to enjoy the slight anguish that causes me. I continue to become more aware of the unecessary challenges I place before myself and I am focused on just allowing them to fall by the wayside. We are part of an ongoing spontaneous Jazz song in the city of NYC and following our heart and meeting the friends of friends and intersecting at the most perfect moments as the clarinet and trumpet combine with a stand up bass that bring us to a point where it all makes sense. That all of the rational thought is not so rational.

There is something about a rainy night in NYC and random couchsurfing that only a few people have ever gotten to experience. We are all part of a play exiting and entering as some unseen force behind the curtains sets up the stage for the next scene. I am about to enter the next scene of my life and it will be one displayed before the masses of the public and hopefully it helps at least one other person to better understand themeselves. May they see a reflection of themselves within me and may I do the same with them. It is not about me but about team and the team is the human race and it is not a battle but a cipher that most be stirred so that we can have a lasting change. The cipher must swell within us and move outward. I must surrender the I so that I can just be a drift in streams of life that show anything can truly happen if we are open to it. Here I am and there you are very close and yet very far. I want to grab you thru the computer screen and slam you down in the most gentle and sensual way possible. I want to get thru all the illusions that we place before each other and see you for the omniprescent soul that bounds from your being that pulled me towards you and keeps my spirit with you and has unforseen surprises that will better help me to find the boundless love that is at the core of our being. All of us just want to know that love and somehow we settle for something less then that love. I am the love and in a look there is love and in a thought there is a love that is sometimes obstructed. Go beyond that thought and may those emotions be released and let your heart take where it will and may I find you when I will.

Being A Bridge for Connections

Each day in NYC is some sort of intense version of "this is your life" for me. Everywhere I go I am running into someone that I met at some point at my life on my journey. I have to go thru the catalog and figure exactly how I know them. For the other person it is usually a little easier. I think the signs I carry and my general height seem to narrow it down for most people. Life comes at you so fast in this city especially and it comes from all different angles. It is so important to always be on your toes in NYC. Things move so quickly here and I always find myself caught in highly new scenarios that allow me to connect to some of the most amazing people. I have been running into people from Charleston, South Carolina, Key West, San Fran, Coachella, Bonnaroo an other amazing musical festivals. I love playing the role of help people to connect to other people. People use my sign as an excuse to start conversations with other people. Basically I act as a bridge to help people to connect and I really love the role I play and helping to establish relationships.

I want all my friends back on the west coast to know that I miss you and I send my best and to all the people that have shared a moment with me (however brief) thank you for sharing that truest part of yourself with me. It encourages me to do the same. The walls are coming down and though facism seems to be gaining momentum it is actually losing its stranglehold on our country. We must remove the walls that we have within ourselves and it will then start to happen in our society.

1 degree of separation from Kevin Bacon

I ended up meeting two awesome cats from Columbia University while visiting Stanford. They are now both back in NYC and I have been kicking it with them. Humorously enough one of their friends recently met Kevin Bacon. Ah yes 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon which really only turns out to be one degree from multiple angles. My blinddate episode which took place 4 years ago was with a girl from Columbia (many blessings wherever you maybe) and I dedicated the first episode to the legalization of dancing in NYC. That's right NYC has some weird law that makes it illegal to dance at many bars and at certain times has actually arrested people for dancing. This brought about the DLF (dance liberation Front). Anyway back in 2003 I was stopped from dancing at bowery bar because they did not have a cabaret license. I realized that I needed to do something about it and an opportunity was provided to go on blinddate. I ended up going back to hang with the girl from the date and she was across the street from where Kevin Bacon used to live. This was all 4 years ago. Recently it has been reairing on television and people keep in NYC keep mentioning it. And just a few moments ago I met a Columbia student who had been hanging out with Kevin Bacon last night. Once again Kevin Bacon the dancing prophet and myself have almost crossed paths (for those of you who don't understand the dancing prophet reference see the movie "Footloose").