ImagiNed.com - undergoing total renovation - August-September 2008

Finally, the long awaited transformation of ImagiNed.com from a typical, stodgy and oh-so-boring motivational speaker web-site into something so much more fun, irreverent and relevant to the message: Use some imagination to re-create yourself and re-invent your life.

I've taken down the 30-something pages of dreck that populated earlier incarnations of this site and am in the process, over the months of August-September 2008 (and most likely beyond) of adding lots of cool content, showcasing many conceptual art projects, past, present, future and timeless.

So bear with me if the site, links, etc. are a bit funky for now. If something is egregiously heinous, let me know by clicking here.

Writing Again - April 1, 2008

“Start where you are and go from there.” That’s the title of the book he’s promoting. It’s one of those self-help expressions hoping to become a phenomenon. More on this in a little bit, but first a message from our sponsor.

There’s been a big gap in my writing. When this has happened before in my life, I’ve felt compelled, upon restarting, to chronicle every single significant event that hadn’t been captured in real time, (i.e. written down while it was fresh, but “captured in real time” has some nice multi-layered meanings to it, and he could use them, which takes us back to him and his book.)

“Start from where you are and go from there.” He said that once, years ago, when during a goal-setting seminar, the speaker asked who had a goal to become a speaker. Of course he raised his hand and immediately became an example of immediate goal gratification.

The seminar leader asked him up on stage. What kind of speaker? Oh, a motivational speaker. Well face the audience and say something motivational. All he could think to say was, “Start from where you are, and go from there.” He could have said, “Take it a step at a time, but take the steps,” but that wasn’t the way he lived. No, because there were times in his life when he’d stop taking steps. Not only would he not step, but he would slip, backwards.

It was for times like these that “Start where you are and go from there” was a much more meaningful metaphor.

It was for times like now, when our sponsor, who had neglected his journal for over a year, after many years of not ever neglecting his journal for over a year, started to write again.

Is he me? I’m not sure I want to say yet, because I’m not sure.

He’s part of me, a personality, but I’ve got as many of those as a TV reality show.

He is a writer though, and for a writer not to write is not right. So he’s writing now, from this moment forward, starting from where he is and going from there, not trying to get caught up with the past, because that’s too overwhelming, and being overwhelmed is what stopped him from getting started in the first place.

As a writer, you’d think he’d know about run-on sentences. Yes, intimately acquainted. That’s because they mirror his thought process, with thoughts arising spontaneously (“start from where you are”) and they run on until they run out. (And that’s about as far as they can go from there.)

And what do your friends think of your writing, described by some as “rich as a slice of chocolate decadence?”

Well, some say yummy yum and some get a bummy tum.

The "One of These Days..." 100-Year Calendar Poster

My earliest work of "commercial" conceptual art for, you know, those annoying people (including me and you) who keep yakking on about whatever they are going to do/be/have by "one of these days." Which days did they really mean by "these days?" Well, I made them a calendar with practically every friggin day of a person's lifetime on it, yeah, a big poster with complete calendars for 100 years. Go check one out at www.LifetimeCalendars.com today. (Or if not today, at least one of these days.)

Mom's Book of her life story

My mom beat me to it. She got a book published before I did. This 94 page gem contains stories of her childhood in a village on an island off the Dalmatian coast. It tells of her dramatic "escape" to America and the decades long struggle of her family to reunite itself. It also contains many of her poems and much insight into a truly remarkable woman.

The book, Experiences of My Lifetime, went into print in 2006 and will be available for purchase from this web site by July 2008. Stay tuned.

Be a Fool and tell the world

Everything begins as an idea. The idea may or may not see fruition, but its chances of doing so are vastly improved (some say) by announcing the idea publicly. Wow, I guess some creative concepts take time, because it was almost four years ago that I broadcast the following e-mail to all of my family and friends on April 1, 2004:

The April of The Fool

Here's a heads up from one whose head has been down.

Welcome to April, the month of springtime, my birthday, rebirth, Easter, and resurrection. After a year of my life being shattered, with the shards mired in crap and watered with salt tears, the broken bits have begun to blossom. So many shoots of creativity are coming through that I could be happily cast as the blooming idiot.

You might recall from my April Fools' Fable of five years ago, the conversation between The Fool, The Priest, and The Magician. It seems that my imagination has once again been captivated by the insight of The Fool: "Everything is make-believe, we make what we believe."

more...

Life Imitates Art

At some point I will probably have a Body Building section on this site. Just because a concept is manifested in the physical domain, doesn't mean it can't be conceptual art.

For instance, I created the cartoon at right with some online software, then sized and oriented my own shirtless photo to match the cartoon, thereby demonstrating how "Life Imitates Art."