Mad One Media

I went on a stroll in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and asked, "What do you do for your mental health?” It’s the revival of a series I did called Mental Health Minute where everyone interviewed is the teacher of their wellness tools. I’ll be doing this in different areas as location-based narratives to highlight how a place tells a story.

*Personal Note- I had to move out of my place in a rush, due to an allergic reaction I was having. Where should I live next? I’m open to all the suggestions, near and far. I want to avoid becoming the Man (who lives in) the park.

More on this next week.

Currently, I’ve been staying with friends and family. Thank you for having me- and for following along at home.

-Joshua

June. 8th was Oakland Filmmaker and comrade Josh Healey’s 40th Birthday (another ‘84 baby). He had a roast in his living room that brought The Ruckus. I went up first, and roasted him as the first act, just as I did as the first toaster at his wedding in 2011.

After 40 years of life and 20 years of marriage, I celebrate Brother Healey, my Josh from another Jewish Mother. I recorded the living room set I did for 20 of his closest, but the laughter was so loud and the crowd was so rowdy the audio was unusable (had to be there). The next night I did a round 2, in my Oakland Hills Living Room, the material I didn’t get to do for his roast. Check out my homage to him, which has inspired a return to the stand-up stage.

PS- Josh just put out a podcast with another frequent guest of this show, Sammy Obeid, you can find their newest work here:

Man of the Mission 

The Mission District (Spanish: Distrito de la Misión),[4] commonly known as the Mission (Spanish: La Misión),[5] is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is derived from Mission San Francisco de Asís, built in 1776 by the Spanish.[6] The Mission is historically one of the most notable centers of the city's Chicano/Mexican-American community.

The Freestylin’ J.Dubs 

(press play to listen to this with sound design)

“The best agenda is no agenda.”

—Book of J.dubs, adopted from some monk who didn’t realize how freewheeling a single man in the city could be.

I walk out of the house (Sunday 5/26). It’s Carnival, feather boas and big booties are everywhere. The Mission is alive with a celebration of all things Latino.

I have a strategy for Home-Town-Hero-Run-Ins. Wander until you see someone you know, then join whatever they're doing. I run into Du, my neighbor, at the house I am sitting in Bernal Heights. She's got all sorts of plans for the day, and now I'm adopted into the schedule. We see her housemate, Daniel, on a float, manning a puppet for the Mission Cultural Center. He throws me some beads. My neighbor is now a celebrity. Du and I go to a brunch on the 19th, that’s Persian-themed with a truly international mix of people—Turkish, Mexican, Columbian, Italian, and Iranian. I’m one of 4 common Americans out of 20 people and the only guy from The Bay. The next closest local is from Detroit. Two kids, 2 dogs, 20 adults—it’s a monthly, Persian-themed brunch of friends who have come together in SF. 

The backyard of the house is glowing. T-shirt weather, with the faint sounds of Carnival in the distance. We eat. We laugh. We commune with our fellow Friscan-Fam. The kind of joy, I feel heaven would be. When everyone is in a good mood, full of funny things to say, it’s a moment of bliss, where you don’t want it to end. As the local ambassador, I welcome everyone to The City, even as a newcomer to the gathering. I am a guy who’s from the area but never left. In being included, I rediscover new communities of my home area. 

“It’s the good times in life that everyone can relate to.”

— “Happiness”, Dead Prez

I walk out of the house (Wednesday 5/29). It's a day of random interactions. The first day where I don’t feel limited by my ankle injury. 

I bop down Valencia Street. I stop in a clothing boutique (State of Flux), where I meet Jonny the owner. “I’ve been on your email list for years,” I say. “I signed up as my rap persona Dr. Jaw, and I still get the emails.” We talk about email marketing and owning a small business. The nitty-gritty of “open rates” and “click-through percentages.” We are two people with a service to the public: clothing and content.

I keep bopping down the street, I run into Maresol, the local DJ and provider of sound baths sitting at Dandelion Chocolatiere. The conversation turns into mentoring, about being an artist in the Bay, about finding your way, and the feast and famine of artistic income and success. 

Next, I cross Mission and drop into a design studio, IDEO. I have no appointment or business being there, but the guy at the front desk gives me the name of someone to talk to regarding “partnerships.” “What am I doing here?” is a question I often ask myself when I go somewhere “official.” I write down my contact info on a sticky note. If I had a business card, my title would be, “He’s not that serious.” 

I post outside IDEO and meet some people. Deena is doing what I aspire to do, she’s co-working at IDEO through connections but doesn’t have any real role at the company. I do this “co-working” two blocks away at KQED. No hot buttery roles for me. Just schmoozing, snacking, and connecting with actual employees, who always ask me, “What do you do here?” I still haven’t figured out a good response, other than,“I’m not that serious.” In reality, I tell them “I’m working on working my way in.” 

I head over to KQED but don’t go inside. Instead, there is a little two-person seat, where I sit down and await another random interaction. A Mexican guy, Manuel, is waiting for the bus. My Spanish is good enough for a 10-minute conversation. We cover all the basics: “Work?” Trabajo? “You live here?” En casa. “Wife? ” Esposa? No kids for me, I say. “Why not? They're so cute,” he says. It's the most Spanish I’ve spoken since last summer in Columbia with the Uber driver who was teaching me about the country's styles of music. 

I leave, back to 24th Street, where I grab a few basic food items. I mention to the guy in the grocery line my impulse buys that are pure sugar. It was a day of following the impulse to connect, and surrendering to my sweet tooth for human interaction. 

 I walk out of the house (6/4 Tuesday) I go to Delores Park and sit on a bench next to a guy, Gary, who tells me about his life. About the state of flow, when it comes to performing. He speaks about channeling creativity as a way to connect with source. I think of a quote from a past mentor:

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears”

—Ekabhumi

In each interaction, I find learning moments and teaching moments. A moment of kinship with another human being through the art of conversation. Random access memories. Random moments of interactions. At the intersection of following my bliss.

Thank You for Reading and Listening. This was the first piece recorded at our New Podcast Studio 1528 Webster, Oakland. With your support, these works continue. Mad One Media will offer production services for you to podcast your own voice. Please inquire if you are interested. [email protected] -Joshua

“Where do I go to rap?” -JW

“They don’t want you.” -DW

We’ll see. Just My Thoughts. All up in my Feels. 

I attempt an additional improvised FLOW offering for subscribers to ye’ old Substack. An additional once-a-week contribution from the poetic state of mind. In rhyming, I’m not saying anything you haven’t heard before, but at least you're hearing it from me.  

NEW BAF (Building a Following)

I realized I’m less a social media type guy and more an Old Fashioned Emailer. I will pay you to post online on my behalf. $5 a post, credited as your subscription membership to Mad One Media. With one post you will become a subscriber and receive an additional Thursday's pieces directly to your inbox. 

This is an opportunity to connect with other creators and do some needed cross-promotion. Let me know if you are interested in responding to this email: [email protected] 

111- Super Jums-

J-dubs 

I think, therefore I rap,

In trying the next moment of releasing what is new,

I’m returning to the old. 

This is a sample of what subscribers get, an additional piece on Thursdays THRUST.

More musical and all completely improvisational material. 

I’ve been in a creative flow recently, recording all the time, and I want to “FLEX” these chops for you to hear. 

Creating something from a state of mind or feeling organically is a different process than writing, so no transcription for these moments, just raw audio.

While in SF this month I’ve gone to performances, Solo Shows, Poetry, and Comedy…to see what is appealing and what is next. In rediscovering I return to the O>L>Deez 

PS-I’m in the process of building out a new podcast studio in Oakland as a part of a co-working space at 1528 Webster. Very soon you’ll be able to have me as your producer on your podcast in a fancy place. For now, if you want the tour and open house, come to our film festival this Saturday.

PPS- If you’ve reached out and want to connect, via coaching, personal, or By Other Means Necessary…please respond to this email and we can set up a time to connect. Email to phone is how to get me. Hi Alex! Hi Marcian! 

I’m still at the same number I’ve had since 2003, and some of you go back even further, to when the earth was moss on the beach. 

To set up a time to connect the book with this thingy here:

https://calendly.com/thejoshuawalters

One Time for your Cosmic Flow,

J.dubs

First, let me say thank you to our esteemed subscribers. Your contributions enable this work to continue. Become a subscriber today to support: “Creativity as Practice for Mental Health”

(Press Play for the Audio version/Pic: Miriam’s Garden. Flower Collage)

A five-year-old just asked me, “What do I do when I get sad?” Right away I turned into a corny adult who is supposed to have all the answers. My response was something like, “You just have to push through the sad moments, until you’re back to the glad moments.”

That’s all I could give for impromptu advice, but over the years since then, I’ve written a great deal during periods of feeling extremely low and at the end of my rope. Deep purgings.

Today such dark descents are not the case, and I’m able to look back with some moments of gratitude and perspective for my life on a whole. Nevertheless, I had years of sleeping through life, not wanting to wake up from the nightmare of my inner torture. When you're lost in the void, struggling for basic functionality. Perspective is one of the key elements that’s often missing.

There was a guy from my support group, he was older, named Jay. Whenever anyone asked him, “How are you doing?,” he’d invariably answer, “Ups and downs.” And isn't that way it is? Ups and downs for all of us in this life.

Here are a couple of suggestions for upping the mood when it goes down: 

First, it's important to remember the 3 M's: Movement, Music, and Meditation.

To begin with, become aware that you have a body and you are going to intentionally be still—or intentionally move. Focus on how you are inside this flesh and bone creation, and how your whole life experience is through this body of yours. Sensory check of all your body parts and what you are feeling. Naming, acknowledging all that inwardly happens or functions is a known tool for transformation, though transformation takes some time—time and practice.

Just getting up and changing your posture is huge. Also try changing your intake of sound, light, people, and location. Even though we’re creatures of routine, a new person, place, or thing can give us a moment of heightened realization, sensation, and even peak experience. 

You have other parts of your brain, ready and willing to activate with a new skill or interest. Our potential is limitless.

Oxygenate your brain—get outside to walk or run. Or try rapid breathwork—you can find professional instructional videos online. Take in the good, healing, energizing air through the nostrils and let out your sadness or self-loathing. 

In my lowest moments, I also have deployed these three wise reminders:

1. We are all living at the same TIME. The moments that connect every living thing unify us in this cosmic order. One Time for your cosmic Mind.

2. Remember that we're all going to die. So what's the rush?

3. Be in service. Find a purpose that is bigger than yourself, a mission to serve that is bigger than just you. Step outside of yourself and look at what purpose is connecting you to others; for example, religion, politics, family, culture, education, health, the environment, or the arts. 

It’s new for me to write a straight-out advice piece, or a post not based on a personal narrative. But in the moments where I was seeking answers to escape the darkness, I wanted some practical suggestions, mostly those things I already knew, but had either forgotten or needed the will to activate. 

There are plenty of helpful mantras that I also regularly use, like the Hebrew Gom Say Avore…This Too Shall Pass. Or my own, Play through the pain, singing through those hard moments, examining what we have to live for, focusing on what there is to look forward to. 

I can spin the positive all day, but I also know that I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and in looking at my life, I see there is everything left…so much to look forward to.

It’s beautiful, get out there! Reach out for a personal one-on-one.

The struggle is real and the hustle continues.

One Time for Your Shine.

J-dubs 

Thank You for supporting Mad One in continuing a life’s work of making mental health narratives and wellness tools accessible to all. This work continues weekly with your contributions.

First, Thank You to my readers and subscribers. This work continues with your support of Creativity as Practice for Mental Health. This is an offering for all, Consider Subscribing below.

Coming Back to San Francisco for my residency with Intersection for the Arts, I had a daily writing practice. Every day over the Six months I was there I recounted the location I was in as a prompt for past experiences. These momentos could be a snapshot of how a place affects memory.

One snapshot example of a “location-based narrative” told by a local artist, contently in a museum of his own life.

(Press Play for the Audio Recorded at Intersection: 1446 Market., SF)

DOWNTOWN

I’m back here again,

this time more stable

Remembering coming down here when I was looking for all the wrong reasons

All my theft and treachery.

I was a drinking, smoking, street kid with an oversized backpack and nowhere to go

Now my backpack is tastefully small.

I don’t have to use the public computer at the wellness center

I bring my laptop

I don’t ride BART for free,

I drive a car that I own and pay for parking

It’s been six years since I used to come here,

but I’ve changed. I shave now and get a haircut

I’m medicated and under control.

Less wild, formulating a career plan.

The wellness center I used to go to is on 9th,

now I’m a resident artist at a space on 11th.

On my first day back I ran into the guy who used to run the wellness center,

we recognized each other.

He said, “You’re looking good.”

It struck me, how I used to present;

flipped up cap and wild eyes, sleeping in bus stops and in people’s garages

I sleep on a luxury mattress now, in my own place.

I don’t have to struggle like six years ago.

My life is calm and full of meaningful friendships.

I’m so much more balanced than I used to be.

I was a recluse.

I can tell you some stories of how I used to be

But now I’m on the come up,

recalibrating how many years I have left

Taking my time, and playing the long game

Instead of burnout.

Thank You for reading, listening, and supporting this journey. One Step at a Time.

This is the bonus stanza, cut from the audio. Makes a good wrap-up moment. I include it because I mean every word.

I used to go to groups at the wellness center

now I’m thinking of running my own,

for artists who want to build something

and collaborate with other like-minded people who want to make something of this town.

I would like to build,

rather than destroy.

I am ready to grow into the next thing,

One page at a time

Thank You to my esteemed subscribers. You are receiving this as a free member, your contributions make this work possible. Subscribe here to support Mad One Media.

This week’s piece is from 2012 when I was on a speaking tour in Canada. I’m still returning to these moments, revisiting and piecing together brand-new adaptations of past poetic history. “He who controls the past controls the present, and thus the future…”

How to Go from Jesus to Buddha in 10 Days:

* Turn your speaking career into a display of pure mania, where instead of doing speeches, you do an hour of whatever you feel. 

*  Explode yourself in a bathtub and cover yourself with pure plasma. Then proceed to make yourself dinner on a makeshift plug-in stove. 

* Perch under a tree, gazing up at the branches of a bodhisattva and…     

–become enlightened— 

walk to the cemetery and play with the Stone Age.

* Turn Schizo-Hilarious when you find two government agents tracking you. Go into your hotel room, shut the blinds, and bust out the audio recorder that looks like a pistol. Pretend to be a Black Panther.

* Teach yourself how to hallucinate by closing the curtains just enough to let a peek of light through. Rotate slightly and speak visions. 

* Flee your apartment after making swift accusations about to your agent that she set you up. Feel the throb of your jugular vein and go to catch a train, balling your eyes out at the station. Enter the car with three types of nuts: walnut-brain, almond seeds, and cashews. Eat the three types of nuts and go through the portal of death listening to the solstice sound on a headset.

* Arrive in Montreal and explode/burst from the car with enthusiasm. Go to the house where you are staying to see Edith Piaf and Zsa Zsa Gabor—both signs/reminiscent of your ex. Explode to the streets in search of theatre, but instead, wrap your head with rainbows and walk around for four hours.

* Hit up a French kickboxing class. Before, move maneuvers w/ weights, and after, swim. Kickboxing eyes have a dangerous passion. Your hand is licked by a small black-and-white dawg, the yin and yang of the universe. Your fingertips touch the tongue of God.

* Move to a vacant house in the suburbs, alone with no food, and begin to hallucinate. Outside on patrol, pretend you are Michael Caine and come up with fantastic fantasies.

* (Longest weekend of the Millennia) 

Friday—Salmon dinner and call Nana, check in with her. No phone card.

Saturday—Time Slows Down. Hallucinations of Hitler and Einstein…little violins. Grandad's military service. Bob Marley’s ghost. Spin the planets on the fryer. Robin Williams and Steve Martin are on the bird watch. Best dance moves. Her face was that of a God. Patrol the ‘hood like a Nazi in Warsaw. Liver in the fridge, the body of Marley, vegan croissant, like big ears. Challenge the Creator to a duel/Duo, with sippy cup glasses, a yellow paintbrush, and a glass of Artisana. Wardrobe of Theatricality. Music > SF Style. Play with candles > bathtub forever and long hair with Max's hands. Send him the notes on Adonai. On the couch with “Adonis Fire,” watching Hitler take a dump. Late Night, trying to sleep…not getting anywhere with this.

 I hope this finds you well and intact. We are not always in one consistent state of mind, but the writing and recording process have aided my wellness journey along the way. Creative Expression for Spiritual Redemption! 

Thank You for subscribing, reading, sharing, caring, moving, loving, learning, and growing with me…

J-dub.

Hosting Friends with Families who have come to visit me in Moss Beach. I made it down the steps to show a couple of young nephs the tide pools. Sharing my parents with the families that have me as an honorary Uncle to their children is a sweet appreciation for all the love I’ve received and the beautiful place I am from.

The SOFTest Streets of MOSS Sweets 

Welcome to the MOSS 

The epic seaside

Cliff and shoreline

Fetched with Cypress Trees 

Tide pools with sea creatures

Cumulus Clouds 

Massive Pacific Waves

Crashing 

Come with your children

My parents will enjoy them 

Auntie Gail reads to them

The very last of my kids books

Uncle Harry goes in for the high five

He’s right on their level 

My Folks are naturals at being grandparents

For a day  

The smooth dinner jazz plays in the background

Jobim and Gilberto

Mid-60s Bossa Nova is the easy elevator flavor of the Moss Couch

Sink in and let the cushions overwhelm your comfort

Let Baby Boomer stories of how it used to be

Lull you with a gentle nassel 

Dine on smoked steelhead

And eat cakes flown in from overseas 

The rolling hills are majestic and the sky is glowing

How much beauty can a place hold?

A rural enclave in an urban area,

Tucked away in the small south sea

Artichokes and Brussels line the seaside crops

Birds of many varieties take you to sonic merriment 

The crash of the ocean waves 

Fresh Salty Air

Returning to the origin

Of our birthplace

We dragged ourselves out of the seas to become human

I must drag myself out of here to evolve 

Even though I could be a fish on the couch forever

I’ve been leaning into my struggles, on this one I’m leaning into my blessings. Thanks for coming by…

Thank you to the Supporters of Mad One. Your subscriptions enable this work to continue. If you haven’t yet subscribed, here is your motivation:

Today’s poem was written in 2017, 7 years ago when I was homeless. There were a few recitals of this poem to strangers at the West Oakland Bart Station after midnight, and to the EMTs that were taking me to the hospital. I always prefaced it with; I’m on my way to NY to read this at The Apollo. After jail, the hospital was like a revolving door for me. I wrote this as an email response to a ticket giveaway. The Subject Line was: “Win 2 Free Tickets to Hamilton”. It was a mass email from a non-profit I volunteered for in Petaluma the year before. My response was this poem. I wrote it in a wellness center, RAMS, Downtown SF on their public computer and was able to print it there. I carried it from place to place and it became so warn and leathery that it looked like an artifact of epic poetic proportions. I recorded the piece last year when I had an artistic residency two blocks from that wellness center. I can’t say it’s aged well, but it’s certainly a time capsule. Being back downtown brought many memories, but it also made me realize how far I had come. One of the projects I worked on during last year was a video series where I went to the corners where I experienced these “street tales” and talked about my life in the actual location. I may have gotten a few worthwhile clips from filming, 6 years later looking like a shiny example of an affluent individual. Nobody knows your stories until you tell them. I’m still working on that series, but for now, there's this…

Thank You for reading and listening to these experiences. Mad One provides “creativity as practice for mental health”. Your support ensures this work can continue: