collaboration

This is pretty awesome, one of our producers (Barry Watson from South Carolina) went around Charleston with a video camera and asked people to share a perfect moment to make into a one second film.

I think they are all really cool, but my absolute favorite moment is the begining of video number 3.

Moment 1 of 7:

Yesterday we had a meeting for the Collaboration Foundation's LA Board of Directors.

The meeting was at GOOD Magazine's HQ; Ben Goldhirsh and Stephen Nemeth were in attendance, as well as Juli Crockett, our newly minted Secretary/Treasurer, and my cinematrographer friend Marcin, who was filming for our doc.

This felt like a really big meeting as there was a lot to discuss; the Road to Oprah update, fiscal and project status reports, the new web development, and overall project goals/focus.

Something is happening in my world...

Charles Francis Richter would be impressed with the momentous shifts, some detectable by the human eye, and some not, that are going on in the life of one Reverend Juli Crockett of the Evangenitals! To list but a few, I've suddenly decided to move from my (way too expensive) South Pasadena apartment that I have loved and lived in for over 2 years into a place that is WAY less expensive (literally half the price), bigger, and I love even more. Huzzah! And I'm going to be roommates with one of the Evangenitals' biggest fans, which is awesome. And perhaps a little weird, but more awesome than it is weird.

Patrick and I will be packing up our joyful, art-filled, vegan lives and our joyful, energy-filled vegan dog and taking this show on the road... just 5 miles away, but it makes all the difference in the world when I don't have to sweat about the rent payments and can focus on a life dedicated to making art -- outside of any semblance of a 9 to 5 job. I LOVE IT!!!

We're skipping school tomorrow to pack. :-)

Last Friday night Lisa Dee, myself, (that's Evangina!), guitarist Henry Bermudez, and Timothy Sellers of Artichoke all jumped in a car and drove to Austin to catch a taste of SXSW and play a day show on Sunday. It was a much-need breaking out and breaking away from the day to day, and also a grand display of willingness and mild insanity. The whole thing made me indescribably happy.

Brian and Jerimi, a WONDERFUL couple who restore any lagging faith that any of us could have in humanity and the generosity of the spirit, put us up in Austin and took great care of us. I barely know these folks, and yet they opened their hearts, ears, home, and fridge to us... for fun and for free. Incredible. I also discovered that Austin has free health insurance for musicians and the audiences actually TIP... what am I doing here? I love LA. It's twisted.

It was great to play with Izzy Cox. I've missed her. She is a powerful performer and I look forward to doing more shows with her when she comes out to LA again. We also DEFINITELY plan to return to Austin next year, if not sooner. Now that Henry is going to be playing with us, we are indeed a road-hungry band... we want to play play PLAY and bring the Evangenital joy to every pair of ears that will listen.

I'm going to be posting the photo-journal from the Austin trip on Flickr real soon. I'll post links here when I do.

Tonight we played a fundraiser show with Veruca Salt in downtown LA and we debuted a never-before-seen/heard Evangenitals lineup featuring Joey Ninja of Ninja Academy on bass and the aforementioned Henry Bermudez on lead guitar. It rocked my socks off! I am excited to be revisiting our old tunes with new energy and explore and reinterpret them -- stretch 'em to the snapping point and see what their spine looks like. Constantly changing, exploring, questioning, enjoying, refreshing... I dig it. "The Hole" almost burst into a Reggae jam tonight, people. It was AWESOME!!!

So, the short version is: the flow is flowing once again, the universe is giving me the green light on all things, it seems, and I am revved up and ready to GROW! The party is about to get started, and you're all always invited.

Love, always and already,
Juli

Political views aside, from a strictly grassroots marketing point of view, I'm really blown away by some of the creative innovation i'm seeing around the Barack Obama campaign. Probably most of you have seen the Yes We Can video remix of this Obama Speech. It was made independent of Barack's campaign by Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas who felt inspired, got some people together, and made it happen.

Hey folks!

As you may or may not have heard, I'm hosting a day of music on the fringe of the South by Southwest music fest in Austin, TX on March 16th from 3-8pm. (show info can be found here: http://www.evangenitals...

In an effort to make the day more than just a bunch of bands playing (cuz the WHOLE CITY is doing that trick) we wanted to shake things up by inviting some other kinds of acts to jump up on stage and show their stuff... magicians, ventriloquists, contortionists, stand up comedians... anyone who would like to do a short bit in between band set-ups is welcome.

Watched this TED Talk video last night. Really enjoyed it: Howard Reinghold discusses down the evolution of collective action, as new forms of working together encroach on competitive survival of the fittest models.

I've been researching for grant writing for the Collaboration Foundation.

One of the first tasks is to define the social need the organization will address. Juli, Dana and I were discussing this the other day, and defined the need as a response to the challenges of globalization; globalization creates a world were we are all connected, whether we realize it or not. The connections may seem invisible, but they are very tangible. while this creates a host of challenges, i.e. climate change and conflict, it also offers new opportunities for people to exchange ideas and work together in ways that have never been possible. The potential solutions to the issues will come from the same collective actions that create the problems.