(Dream Time) March 18, 2026: Walk amongst the dead on a trip to paradise, where neither he nor she will return, and it comes as no surprise. Yes, let's take a walk through Hollywood and the memories it produced from the 1950s with a new romantic song. Journeys going back in time down Memory Lane combine with 1950s' musical styles from rockabilly, rock and roll, doo-wop to romantic love songs.
O, Jewish God, let me be famous!
ABOUT: This video is an AI-assisted artistic tribute and historical reimagining of the 1950s created to celebrate the atmosphere, style, music, and cultural memory of the era [the golden years of tinsel town]. All persons, characters, and scenes depicted are synthetic, AI-generated creations designed to represent the aesthetics of the period. They are not intended to represent any real individual, living or deceased. Any resemblance to actual persons or well-known public figures is purely coincidental. This work is for entertainment and cultural appreciation only and is not presented as authentic archival footage. No endorsement, affiliation, or official association with any person, estate, brand, or rights holder is implied.
Production Credits and Workflow: Lyrics: 100% human-written original compositions by Thomas. Music: Musical arrangements composed via Suno AI (Premium Commercial License). Visuals: Crafted using Higgsfield AI and PicLumen for authentic 1950s aesthetics (Premium Commercial License). Post-Production: Edited with custom filters (Piclumen, Canvas, Nano Banana 2/Pro) and CapCut (Premium Commercial License). Created and produced by 1950s Dream Time. Personal appearance and original voice outro in several videos.
Is "brainrot" real? It must be. It was the word of the year. It hasn't affected us. Effected? What were we saying? Hold on, the phone is vibrating. Uh, what's happening? Oh, there was this funny one...uh, this, umm, hey, what's up? Digital gurlfrynd, Gemini-Siri-Alexa, what's brain rot?
American scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans), SuttaCentral.net; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Here & Now Podcast (NPR, 3/8/24), Sky & Telescope
Kelly Beatty, a senior editor at Sky & Telescope made it onto the "Here & Now" podcast carried by NPR (scpr.org, LAist.com) to talk about the impending glory (or foreboding disaster) that is the upcoming Total Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024.
The U.S. will be able to see a partial eclipse, but a lucky or unlucky strip will get more than 4 minutes of totality, which could change lives, leaving many spectators in awe. In India, it's bad luck to look or have the shadow hit you, so many retreat inside until the celestial battle between the bodies -- Rahu swallowing Surya (Suriya, Sol, our sun). Prayers may be uttered to secure Surya's release. But it's all right because Buddhist monastics will utter them to save the world, from atop the Himalayas in Tibetan temples and on the plains and jungles across South and Southeast Asia.
(3) The foremost of those who exercise authority is Māra the Tempter.
(4) In this world with its devas, māras, and brahmās (angels, devils, and divinities), among this generation (population) with its wandering ascetics and temple priests (Brahmins), its devas (light beings, "shining ones") and humans, the Tathāgata [Wayfarer], the Arahant [Fully Enlightened], the Supremely Enlightened One [the Buddha] is declared foremost.
“These are the four proclamations of those who are foremost.”
AUDIO: HERE & NOW ANYTIME (March 8, 2024): We're counting down to the total solar eclipse of 2024 with Sky & Telescope editor Kelly Beatty, plus many more stories. It's "the news you need to know today — and the stories that will stick with you tomorrow" with special series and behind-the-scenes extras from Here & Now hosts Robin Young, Scott Tong, and Deepa Fernandes with help from Producer Chris Bentley and the team at NPR and WBUR.
SUTRA: The [Buddha is like the] Sun
Bhikkhu Bodhi, Suriya Sutta, "The Sun (2)" (SN 56.38); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly
“Meditators, so long as the sun and moon have not arisen in the world, for just so long there is no manifestation of great light and radiance.
“Then blinding darkness prevails, a dense mass of darkness; for just so long
day and night are not discerned,
the month and fortnight are not discerned,
the seasons and the year are not discerned.
“But, meditators, when the sun and moon do arise in the world, then there is the manifestation of great light and radiance; then there is no blinding darkness, no dense mass of darkness;
then day and night are discerned,
the month and fortnight are discerned,
the seasons and year are discerned.
“So too, meditators, so long as a Tathagata [a supremely enlightened buddha] has not arisen in the world, an Arahant [Fully Enlightened One], a Supremely Enlightened One, for just so long there is no manifestation of great light and radiance.
“Then blinding darkness prevails, a dense mass of darkness; for just so long there is no
explaining,
teaching,
proclaiming,
establishing,
disclosing,
analyzing, or
elucidating of the Four Noble [Ennobling = Enlightening] Truths.
“But, meditators, when a Tathagata arises in the world, an Arahant, a Supremely Enlightened One,
then there is the manifestation of great light and radiance;
then no blinding darkness prevails,
no dense mass of darkness;
“Then there is the explaining, teaching, proclaiming, establishing, disclosing, analyzing, and elucidating of the Four Noble Truths.
Gavampati Sutra: The Buddha taught Ven. Gavampati at Sahajāti in the Land of the Ceti. Senior monks were talking about disappointment (dukkha) he tells them that he knows from the Buddha that whoever understands dukkha knows all its aspects: its true nature, its arising, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation (S.v.436).
(SN 56.30) “...Ven. Gavampati said to the elders [theras, senior monastics of ten rains retreats or more]: “Friends, in the presence of the Blessed One I have heard and learned this: ‘Meditators,
one who sees dukkha (disappointment, pain, suffering, ill)
also sees the arising (origination) of dukkha,
also sees the ending of dukkha,
also sees the way (path) leading to the ending of dukkha.
“One who sees its origin also sees its ending, also sees the way leading to its ending.
“One who sees its ending also sees it, also sees its origin, also sees the way leading to its end.
“One who sees the way leading to its end also sees it, also sees its origin, also sees its ending.’” More
Why they matter in practice, not theory
The "Four Noble Truths" are not "Buddhist Kindergarten Basics" for everyone to memorize and "believe," repeat, and accept as so many people seem to think.
When people undertake to understand them in that way, they invariably argue about the first truth: "Not everything is suffering!" they say, completely misunderstanding, misconstruing, and throwing away everything the Enlightened One is about to say as a nutshell teaching of the Dharma, the teachings that lead to that awakening (enlightenment, bodhi) he enjoys, right view, going-and-gone beyond all suffering.
Do not memorize these Four Truths by rote; penetrate them by practice. Leave them, set them aside, and sit in stillness instead. A mind composed by samma-samadhi (the first four absorptions), turning to the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, will penetrate these things and see all psycho-physical phenomena as bearing these marks, these characteristics of existence. Then one can let go. Then one can awaken. Then one will not need the Buddha nor any other teacher to see that these four are true.
They are fundamental truths leading to awakening IF one could only penetrate how true they are! We are too used to them to notice them. Finding them unpleasant, we look everywhere else but at them, even though they color all of life in this existence (as well as other rebirths in the 31 Planes of Existence).
What then is needed? First, we must purify the mind/heart, intensifying it through mastery of the first four absorptions (jhanas). Then we can quickly and successfully undertake to penetrate these truths with insight.
How? We must discern ultimate-materiality (kalapas, "particles") and ultimate-mentality (cittas, "mind-moments") directly.
Then the heart/mind with no effort other than looking will grow disenchanted, will become dispassionate, will turn away from (let go of) to anything it clings to, any phenomena that arise only to perish, all dependently-originated constituent things (1) beset by disappointment (dukkha),(2) radically impermanent (arising, turning, and passing away at every moment and submoment), and (3) and ultimately impersonal.
WHAT HAPPENED? It was the biggest parade ever with countless Monsanto [now Bayer Corporation] corn tortillas being thrown in appreciation of the freak flag, guys in drag, and all the wit, irony, and anti-Israel sentiment one would want in an anti-mainstream flotilla of nonsense. If only Republicans could have seen it. It was not even Democrat-friendly. This is an event for Greens, Peoples Party petitioners, Independents (not LaRouchian Libertarian types), and those willing to speak truth to power. Not that most people are paying attention. If there's one this this event is not is a Grand Tournament of Roses "Rose Parade," though it took place on the exact same spot, a stone's throw from the world-famous Rose Bowl. The after party was at the Old Towne Pub with a band headed up by one of the Hair: The Musical actors and strange vehicles, the rainbow clad, Asian gawkers, and just about the clearest skies after the rains one could ever wish for in Los Angeles.
(What's Up Pasadena!) Doo Dah Parade
Pasadena Media, Dec. 22, 2017: The occasional Pasadena Doo Dah Parade celebrates 40 years of irreverent frolicking on the streets of Pasadena, California, in East Pasadena along Colorado Boulevard, the original Route 66.
Website: pasadenamedia.tv/what-s-up...
Neo-Nazi marchers descended on Madison, Wisconsin [nowhere near Pasadena or Columbus], for a twisted weekend rally, prompting swift condemnation from state and local pols and University of Wisconsin-Madison officials. A group of approximately 20 people [angry white guys] dressed in red and black and masks while waving large [swastika] flags and making the [old] Nazi salute ["Heil, Hitler"] made their way from State Street near the UW-Madison campus to the state capitol Saturday, cops [who were on hand to make sure no one stopped them or stood in their way] said [proving that racist white supremacy is still alive and well in the heart of the USA]. More
(Rob Scallon) July 25, 2016. Riffson asked for djent, got 22 strings and nothing but 0. When music industry elitist and Super Metal Records CEO Rick Riffson called, I was of course nervous. But with a 22 string and nothing but 0, I'm confident I delivered.
I found the heaviest distortion pedal and used it on harp
(Emily Hopkins) Aug. 8, 2021. #DJENT #NEPENTHES #DOOM
Prepareth thyselves, djentlemen. Nepenthes by Electrofoods is the heaviest distortion pedal to be found. So today we're trying it out on not one but two harps. The Electrofoods Nepenthes makes the harp sound like a BEAST. Thanks to Electrofoods Ultd for sending this pedal!
(Emily Hopkins) Wah pedal on harp is ridiculous
TIMESTAMPS
00:00-00:38 - Intro
00:38-01:15 - Nepenthes on Lever Harp
01:15-01:56 - Nepenthes + Walrus Fathom on Lever Harp
01:56-02:41 - Nepenthes + Flower Pedals Dandelion Tremolo on Lever Harp
02:41-03:31 - Nepenthes on Pedal Harp (Pedal Slides)
03:11-03:53 - Nepenthes + Shallow Water on Pedal Harp
WWJD? What would Jello do? Jello Biafra is a genius, but too principled for most music lovers. The band the Dead Kennedys could have been big if they had agreed to change their name or comprised in many other ways.
Eventually, in the end, the other members had to make money from their hit songs.
Jello said no to selling out. He had his own label, Alternative Tentacles, to pay the bills. So they got someone else to stand in on tour (as the audience did most of the singing), and they hit the road.
My t-shirt says something to believe in.
The DKs foresaw many things that are happening now. They happened before but never so blatantly. Once in L.A. before a Democratic convention, they played a free concert in a downtown parking lot. The police raided it, shooting people with deadly projectiles (rubber bullets and beanbag rounds) as they ran away terrified.
It was mayhem started by the LAPD, as usual, overreacting as a "show of force." The mainstream media didn't report that side of riots because who dares question police authority in favor of punks or peaceful demonstrators? Certainly not the LA Times or local news stations. Therefore, officers knew they could get away with it -- the same way
(DKs) "California Uber Alles" (Pt. 1) from Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
they get away with rape
racist enforcement of select laws
plant evidence
beat black motorists (Rodney King and many before him)
It's not easy policing such a big city with such a small force, with a police to citizen ratio much smaller than a comparable city like New York. So city officials let them get away with it through the administrations of many police chiefs, paying out tens of millions in settlements to avoid lawsuits in the most egregious cases of crimes committed under color of law.
Now the City of Los Angeles has the lockdown it always dreamed of. This looks like the "power trip" our police force was always on. People aren't afraid of "the enemy" enough. Pres. Trump is doing an asinine job as commander and chief. Youthful partygoers, yearning for spring break, keep flaunting this epidemic scare. It's as if they intuit that it's BS and we're not being told what's really going on. So it looks like Martial Law is on the horizon under one pretense or another. "The people demand it."
(Dead Kennedys) "We've Got a Bigger Problem Now" (which is "California Uber Alles Part 2")
Mayor Garcetti: Love LA. Obey me. I'm leader.
Mayor Garcetti almost announcedmartial law on Sunday night. Mainstream media news reporters taunt him to impose fines at scofflaws, arrest kids at the beach, punish them, scare some sense into them, call them "selfish" for infecting no one by not staying six feet from each other. He'll crackdown soon.
Real rebellion is from the inside out.
It's the carrot and the stick. He's been promising carrots, so the dissatisfied need a stick. When there are more tests forced on everyone, who are as of today required to show government ID to be tested, the jump in reported cases will scare the living heck out of the population.
The Great Firewall of China marched doing street theater illustrating torture, pollution, political corruption, the absence of free speech, and environmental degradation like pigs rotting in rivers.
The LohDown on Science drove a white Cadillac pitching a $1,000 prize to promote science in schools.
Fancy rolling dinner (pasadenastarnews.com)
The Roller Derby girls knocked it out of the rink with sexy outfits and sass galore.
And a walking, talking, and otherwise locomoting cast of kinky neighbors, oddfellows, assorted peace activists, and sexpots strutted up and down Colorado Boulevard.
(pasadenasun.com)
This is where the annual Rose Parade usually reigns supreme, as fans threw (Monsanto Bt toxin) toxic corn tortillas, polluting marshmallows, barbecued-burned chemically-treated pig livers and other assorted spinal columns and offal called "hot dogs" stuffed in elongated white flour buns to takers, yuck, along with gaudy Mardi Gras beads and cheap candy.
Cat Mobile with mechanical claws, Doo Dah 2012 (Wells/WQ)
Graphic video re-enactment of the end of a major Mayan cycle... followed bya new cycle (NES)
Aztec warrior at Kukulkan during 12-21-12 Mayan celebrations (ABC.net.au)
Pyramids exist all over the world (Klaus Dona)
"Told You So"? That would be a distasteful title. Wisdom Quarterly said the world would end, and has it not?
Look around and suddenly see that the world is not the same: It's similar but not identical. Never to return, all phenomena is hurtling toward destruction, just as we were warned in the Buddha's final admonition. On that day the Buddha encouraged the devas and ascetics gathered around him before he blissfully reclined into final nirvana:
"Behold now, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"
All "conditioned phenomena" are that way. (Conditioned? Composite things, heaps that depend on supporting conditions, constituents, parts). The world is on fire! But to say so, that is not something anyone ordinarily wants to hear.
We desire and want to grasp and cling to what we desire. We are hurt to find that it is ALL going away, ALL swirling down the drain, ALL perishing just as soon as it arises. What all?
All the world we have ever known, ever experienced here on this plane and every other plane as well.
That is not to say everything is doomed. There is a further shore beyond these planes we cycle through. There is peace. There is rest. There is the non-arising, the not-coming-to-be of what is perishable and subject to suffering.
One can know-and-see it in this very life. Know what? The going, the going, the going beyond, the going altogether beyond. Oh, what an awakening! So it would be.
How will we see it, how will we awaken, how will we go from here to there and make an end of all misery?
One night Young Goodman Brown ventured into the forest adjacent to old Salem town. There he saw a vision of evil -- the "good" town folk engaged in a ritual with a devil. The preacher welcomed the circle: "Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now ye are undeceived! ...Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race."
Were it so, the world could not stand. For, according to the Buddha, the world has "four protectors" (Sigalovada Sutra). These are generosity, kind words, compassionate helpfulness, and impartiality. So the world goes on. But "going on" means constantly ending. Everything is perishing. What is here to hold on to? And we haven't even understood this world.
"Generous, of sweet speech, Helpful, and impartial to all – By these fourfixed, the world goes round As the linchpin serves the moving cart. If these in the world were not found Then this repercussion would redound: Neither mother nor father could expect From children proper honor and respect. But since these four winning ways The wise approve and display, They to eminence have attained With praise and honor rightly gained" (The Buddha,closing verse, "Advice to Householders," DN 31).
Sitchin made it very clear that the Mayans made no prophecies about destruction.
The Mayan Calendar does not represent the end of the world. It is a
long-form count (cycles of 144,000 days) between an event that
occurred in 3113 BC and its anticipated reoccurrence. What event? The
coming of the sky god (winged serpent, naga king) Quetzalcoatl. The date may actually be 2060 not 2012.
Project Avalon presents Klaus Dona with astounding Earth artifacts
Marshall Masters, 2012 researcher and author, offers an in-depth look at the predictions made in a crop circled formation he calls the "2012 Star Map of Doom."
Known as Avebury 2008, it tells us that on Dec. 21, 2012, we will begin to experience the onset of a protracted global catastrophe. It will last for years and will include a pole shift, such as the one predicted by America's "sleeping prophet" Edgar Cayce.
For the readers of Marshall's book, Crossing the Cusp: Surviving the Edgar Cayce Pole Shift, this video offers an in-depth back story not included in the book.
Maya expert: "End of Times" is our idea, not the ancients' Bill Chappell (The Two-Way, NPR) It is Dec. 20, 2012 -- and citizens of Earth are panicking, consumed by
the idea that the world will end[tomorrow] Friday, something they say was
predicted by Mayan astronomers. Of course, most people are not
panicking, and Maya expert David Stuart says no one should. The
calendar, he says, has plenty of room to go. In an interview airing on Thursday's Morning Edition, David
Greene asks archaeologist Stuart, who helped translate influential
ancient Mayan hieroglyphs in 1996, if he thinks the world will end on
Dec. 21st. LISTEN
PHOTO: Tourists in front of the "Gran Jaguar" Mayan pyramid temple at the
Tikal archaeological site in Guatemala, where ceremonies will be held to
celebrate the end of the Mayan cycle known as Baktun 13 and the start
of the new Maya Era on Dec. 21.
Friday is the last day of a 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan
calendar, sparking talk about the possible end of the world. About two
years ago, a rumor began circulating on the Internet that the French
village of Bugarach, population 200, would be the only place to survive
this apocalypse. But despite many news stories of people
flocking to the village, less than two weeks before "doomsday," there
was no one on the streets. Houses were shuttered against the cold.... For 40 years, [the mayor] says, people have been coming here looking for UFOs and extraterrestrials or the healing power of the mountain. "And now add this Mayan rumor and the buzz created on the Internet..." LISTEN
Buddhist and Mayan Time
Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)
Mayan and Mesoamerican calendars are very sophisticated (freewebs.com).
Twenty-six hundred years ago the Buddha -- like the ancient Vedic seers of the Indus River Valley Civilization and the great Mayan Empire (part of a series of great cultures such as the Aztecs, Toltec, Olmecs, Incans, etc.) -- spoke of cycles of time. In Sanskrit these are referred to as kalpas.
There are various cycles, all confusingly called kalpas. In detail, they are distinguished as great kalpas (maha kalpas), those of indeterminate length, and so on. Translated as "aeons," they break down into ages and epochs and other similar cycles.
In just the same way, the Mayan calendar is not simply a lunar-cycle annual timekeeper, or tzolkin with a 260-day cycle. The Mayan civilization's long-count calendar has cycles within cycles. The most important represents a recurring period of 26,000 years calculated by the precession of the equinoxes.
But the baktun is perhaps the best known. All that is happening in speaking of these cycles covering immense periods is illustrating the repetition of tendencies. Things are cyclical but not circular; they spiral. Sometimes they spiral out of control, yet they right themselves in time. Things devolve and evolve again. This is the intrinsic nature of samsara, the "Wheel of Life and Death."
We are now, and we will be again. However, and this is the unimaginable and unacceptable thing, it will not be us as such. Who will be came from us. It is us again, but we will not be the same. We will die, we are dying, and what we hold dear is lost here. But what we have been will come to meet us again (and again and again...).
Things fall apart at every moment, and in the next moment something re-arises. What re-arises is almost the same but NOT quite identical.
So the stream goes with everything dying, something being reborn, but it is not us. Yet, we identify with and cling to what is now just as we identify and cling with what is yet to come.
Ultimately, we are not all this -- these forms, feelings, perceptions, formations, or consciousnesses-- and we will not be that either. But in the smoldering haze of ignorance it will seem that way, driven by fires of lust and the embers of fear/resentment. Far better, then, would it be to occupy ourselves with doing something about these three defiling influences -- greed, hatred, and delusion.
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