God Says it is Okay to Feel Good... (but there is always JOB)

James Brown said it. "I feel good!" What are things that make you feel good? Maybe we can take a hint both from the biblical character Sampson and the decade of the l980's in America. There was also a Broadway musical with the same title. H-A-I-R. What is it about hair that makes us feel good? Now that I think about it, the 80's weren't the only decade fascinated and driven by hair. It started with the "Long Hairs." "Them long hairs!" Hippies. Long hairs. Long hairs. Remember the hippies? Hippies were intelligent, college-aged Americans who protested the Viet Nam War. They disagreed with Uncle Sam when he shipped off our young men to fight the Viet Cong in Viet Nam. "Viet Cong in 'Nam, man!" Charlie. Charlie company. War. World War ll. We as a country are not strangers to war. We have had war continually through the history of the United States, but war for what? Freedom? Respect. " R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Your propers." No one likes war, because war is violent. Violence. Does violence make you feel good? Does your hair make you feel good? There must have been something about hair, while we were at war, that made us feel good in a time when the state of our nation did not. Ronald Reagan did a good job at making us feel good as a country. He was after all an entertainer. Although our recent entertainment industry seems to have forgotten entertainment traditionally makes us feel good, most Americans remember. Who wants to go to a movie and come out feeling violent and depressed? Maybe that is why the majority of movies that have been released in the last few years have failed. Both CD and DVD sales have plummeted. There is the phenomena of the MP3, basically a good idea that came from the compression scheme of the minidisc recorder. MP3 lets you store lots of music in a small place, but movie-making specifically is not a small place activity. It is done on a large scale, a grand scale even. It is bigger than life! It is a concept that founded Hollywood in reaction partly to the genocide of Jews in Nazi Germany. "Let's call all a spade a spade." Senator Bullworth said, "I always put the rich Jews on my schedule." Rich Jews run Hollywood. They used to. Now it is the Japanese, because the Sony Playstation has infected many recent American films. Renderman. Renderman. Not reindeer. Steve Job's Render man, the software that, as one group of software designers said, seeks to blur the lines between reality and fiction. "Our goal is to make it impossible for the viewer/consumer to be able to tell the difference between film and animation. Is this a good idea? George Orwell would disagree if you use his novel l984 as an example. Most Americans don't fancy Big Brother looking over their shoulders, re-writing history to support a covert agenda, and using propagandist devices to change the thinking of our people. During Ronald Reagan's term in office during the l980's, hair was big. "Mall hair." Not mohair. Mall hair. Remember? The mullet? Big hair. Hair bands. Hair has always been an interesting and fascinating part of American pop culture. One thing that fueled hair in the 80's was pop culture. Many people don't know it, but there are three things that make a success and money in pop culture. What are they? They are...... "the envelope please!" Are you ready. Music alone as MTV and VH-1 proved. I take that back. Let me think a minute. When AM radio was still alive and living in Paris, I mean the U.S., and when radio was one of the few free forms of entertainment, it flourished. I don't know if you have noticed but radio died. It is dead. It literally died, left earth and headed for the stars. I think we have Google to thank for that, at least most of the popular TV studios would say that. Why advertise on television and radio when the youth population of America is online? Television used to be an educating force in the development of our youth. Not so anymore. Do you think there are any lessons to be learned by watching Survivor and American Idol? I will stop at that. Back to 80's hair and success in pop culture. Pop culture needs three things for success. They are music, dance moves to accompany the music, and a fashion statement to sell the music and dance moves. Think back to memorable moments in American pop history. Gidget goes to Hawaii. There was a specific type of music, say Surf Rock. There were dance moves that accompanied the music. There was a fashion statement like the beach wear of the l950's. This as a package makes, Ana Kudinova cakes. (sorry about that) I mean success in pop culture. Madonna accomplished the same thing. She actually went to the dance clubs in New York, listened to what the DJ's were spinning, and wrote catchy tunes in a similar style. Not only that she created a style of fashion unique to herself. Just watch the movie Bedazzled. Elizabeth Hurley's wardrobe is a pedagogy of good fashion back when the country had a fashion sense. Now our fashion must be veils for women and turbans for men. Let's hope not. Hair was big in the 80's because of the advent of the blow-dryer. Blow-drying, not blow jobbing, made your hair fluff. It went high and made it. It went sideways and made it. It was fun! Americans are not having fun with their hair anymore. Hair in current American media is flat and straight, just like our former Republican government. Plastered-down. Baked. Fried. Scorched. Dead. Let's hear it for a resurrection of H-A-I-R, because hair makes you feel good like war doesn't. It is okay to feel good, although thousands of Americans died in 9/11. It is okay to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. That is what our country is and always has been. Let's not let this wave of violence and the War on Terror stop us from enjoying the very things God suggested. "Let's eat fish and bread and drink wine and revel in the gifts I have given you." Then again some stealth force is trying to plant the seed of doubt in our minds that God even exists. What do you want in your life, to be at war or to feel good?