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:

Single Man hits the town in San Francisco for a late night meet up with a young woman who he meets spilling out of the bar in North Beach. A romantic moment in time, where they find her record collection as a source of inspiration. This tale has theme of Music, Sex and Psychology that any Dirty Old Uncle would enjoy for a heady way to arouse on Valentines Day.

Subscribe for a free 7-day trail, to hear this and all the past podcasts delivered to your inbox. Next Week we will start with more written content. Tales of J.dubs continues…

We are celebrating Sammy Obeid today, turning 40 years young, as all of us born in 1984 are destined to achieve this year. To highlight him we went back to the vaults and chopped together some hidden files from our interview in May, that turned into a freestyle/music collaboration. On the recording you’ll here me (J.dubs) playing piano and beatboxing. Musical collabs have been apart of what I do since the beginning and highlighting someone like Sammy is easy because of our natural creative chemistry.

I met Sammy in College when I competed against him in Speech and Debate. Then he was a worthy advisory that was just starting his comedy career. Now he regularly tours the US, and has built an impressive following, worth checking out if he comes to your town.

Our communication of jokes and rhymes have been of great inspiration over the years.

You can find his site here:

Sammy Obeid

“Sometimes I Realize I'm not my thoughts.

Sometimes my thoughts realize they're not me.

Sometimes I have someone else's thoughts in my mind.

And sometimes my mind is in someone else's thoughts..”

-Sammy Obeid

ALSO-

Bonus Link: I am reading a One Act on Zoom this Monday with a group of actors from Boston. The One Act was written by Gail Spilsbury a devoted collaborator of Mad One Media. I am playing an old man (OLD STIFF), which fits in with currently being disabled. I am filling in for another actor, and have grown a beard for the roll.

If you need some entertainment, here’s the link, when we will be reading

Zoom Performers Group (ZPG) invites you to a reading of Gail Spilsbury’s one-act play

Old Stiff

February 12, at 7:00 p.m. (EST)

Please use this link to join the reading: ZoomPerformersGroup.com

When a successful investment lawyer and weekend painter confronts the truth about his pretenses, his world threatens to implode. Will his trusty ego, his partner in connivances, come to his rescue one last time?

Cast

Old Stiff             Joshua Walters

Beatrice             Laura Rocklyn

Andrea…………Gail Merzer Behrens

Thank You for Supporting Mad One Media. This a project supported by individual donors. Your contributions go along way in supporting these artistic endeavors

Civil War….World War…there’s a lot of reasons to burry your head in the sand. For me the practice of taking in the small moments and focusing on the little things that bring me joy is about all I can do these days. Maybe it’s all I’ve every been able to accomplish to get through.

Today’s piece was written at the beginning of 2020, when it seemed like the walls were closing in. In perspective it wasn’t the end, just another epic shift as we continue to change.

For me the world has come to an end many times 2012, 2015, 2019…and even a new beginning in 2001.

During the time of this piece in 2020, I called on Elijah (an actual person that used to call).

“Is the world ending?” I said.

“Who’s world?” he replied.

Something to consider as it seems the topic of Armageddon is omnipresent.

With limited time, what is there to do, live and enjoy….

Who do you want to spend it with…

And how can you squeeze every last drop out of this life we have to live.

-Peace and Blessings,

Joshua

Mad One Media is a project of weekly written and audio moments supported by individual contributions. Thank You for you support.

PS- I revamped the old personal website, check it out here:

Part of doing a weekly creative content offering, is getting to dig through the files from the past, and bring out some rare and unreleased material. 2015 I was on tour in the US, working on a piece that never made it to Edinburgh when I was in Europe. To put it mildly it was quite a wild year, some of my best moments, some of my worst, and through it all I was writing and performing. For me I don’t really tell a story till 6 months after it happens, and it takes about 5 years to turn into material for the stage. To get it to the point where it works as an esthetic whole, it’s close to a 10 year journey to really make it into something. I’m still aging some of the moments that proceeded these performances in 2015 (Video in Moab, UT./ Audio version in Boise, ID.) - But as I’ve heard other storytellers say, ‘now is the time to tell your story’, and I believe that. -And so you get these messages. I shall Proceed. To Rock the Mic.

This pieces deals with the experiences of hearing voices, and was the grand finally of a poetry month in 2015, where I sent a poem out everyday in April to my list. Raise your hand if you remember getting this daily email (Hi!)

While that list has expanded, Voices to Arches became its own side project for a while where I discovered how to voice the experience of hearing voices.

If this is happening to you or you are looking for support, there are groups to attend:

Hearing Voices Network is a support group based in the UK, with a US chapter-

There’s also a bunch of other groups for mental health that I have had a long history of being apart of that I can recommend:

DBSA (Depression Bipolar Support Alliance) is the group I started with as a teen, and ended up founding and facilitating their Young Adults chapter for 8 years. They now do 5 different groups online.

NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) I’ve been a State Speaker for their CA conference, as performed mental health comedy in NY and CHI on their behalf. They do great work with friends and family experiencing mental health.

-

And Yes, I am doing my own group. It wasn’t clear it my last blast, but here it is:

Breath, Beats, and Balance (Register)

“Exploring breath-work as a meditative and musical practice, through yogic breathing and beatboxing (the art of vocal percussion). Use your vocal instrument to balance your creative life through music and meditation.”

(To Gain access to this monthly group you become a “Founding Member” in the Mad One Media Subscriptions.)

-

Mad One Media is still very much finding it’s stride. Weekly Audio and Written word content is what it’s become through this substack page. But I would also very much like to enroll you as collaborator to do more in person events, videos, groups and performances.

Whatever your talent list is, you could be a video/graphics type person, or want to advocate by helping with booking. I have a wishlist here of sorts of people I am looking to work with. Take a look and get back to me to see you want to collaborate on this years Comedy Special/Book Release/Live Tour…. We are doing a little bit of everything and even if you have a reference or an Org or individual to work with this would be of great service.

“Creativity as Practice for Mental Health”

Thank You for Reading MAD ONE. Today I am offering a breathwork workshop that includes the art of beatbox. Founding Members are invited to join the group on Feb. 5.

(Meditative Music, Oud Playing by Om Ben Avraham)

You will go through hard times.

When all you have is your BREATH.

It may be the type of situation that puts you right on the edge of living or dying 

Your body and your mind are in the same vessel called yourself

When they are separated you may feel like you lose yourself

Did you lose it?

You can get it back.

Here is a method for going through something that seems like it’s “too much”:

Put your left hand on your stomach and your right hand on your heart

Start counting your breaths.

Count in three parts, exhale, inhale, and hold. Count for 5 each time. Count for 4. Use a number that works for you.

An ancient yogic breathing formula for these counts is 4-7-8. 

Inhale for 4.

Hold for 7

Exhale for 8.

Do this 4 times and notice how you feel.

Do this practice in the morning to ground and in the evening to put your mind at rest.

After a month, increase to 8 times. Keep it at 8 times.

You may find yourself in pain, or you may find yourself in a world of stress or uncertainty.

Do this breathwork, to feel better, ground, and not lose yourself. Or if you do, get yourself back.

They were coming back. Always coming back. 

BEATS

Maybe you need a breath experience that incorporates rhythm. This can be useful when you can’t sit still, the pain is just too much, or you need to fill your ears with something other than silence and your thoughts. 

Mimic the sounds of a drum kit. 

*Kick Drum - “PB”

*Snair (Many to choose from: “Cha”, “Ka”, “Tsa”, “Psh”)

If you want to add *high hats (t, t, t, )

This is a way of making music with your breath

It is a way of singing to the silence

When the silence becomes the song that you sing

Make Music with your mouth

And let your breath be your…

BALANCE

While you are breathing.

Making Beats.

Notice how you feel.

You Can’t Stop,

You Won’t Stop.

You will always be feeling something.

Feel all your feelings.

Don’t shy away from what it is you have going on inside you.

There’s nothing to be afraid of,

We are all eternal,

There’s nothing to be afraid of,

You are not alone.

While it’s hard to learn to breathe and beatbox reading the written word, this formal outline of what our hour will be like on Feb. 5th at 11PST. Some of the ways I am connecting with others are from my current state of recovery. Reach Out!

“The Darkest Days Come Right Before the Light” -Aceyaolone 

My journey of being a disabled man on one leg took a turn into the dark abysses of traumatic pain, where the only way out of it was to rap hard before the heavy drugs kicked in. I’m still spinning the moment of falling with humor and positivity, even when the discomfort and limitations are upon some of the most I’ve felt as an adult, or is it?

It brings me to the notion of invisible disability. Before my injury where I am now for the moment physically disabled, I was invisibly disabled. Navigating a life of mental health differences leads to some severe ups and downs, emotional turmoil, and being untethered from reality. 

You can’t see this by looking at me, and without knowing my history.

Not being able to walk and being stuck at home, you are in a jail sentence of discomfort and limitation, but I’m not sure if that is better or worse than being labeled “Gravly Disabiled” and not being able to take care of your emotional state, with a fully functioning set of limbs. 

When the prison is your mind, “you can’t run away from yourself.” -Bob M.

The week before my crash I recorded something (today’s audio) inspired by going to holiday parties and seeing those family friends with physical disabilities, stating that I’ve been doing well for 5 years. Maybe my delivery and my speaking of my comfort, the universe heard me and echoed a response. If there is any purpose for what has happened, it’s brought up the conversion of being physically disabled and having an invisible disability, now you get two for one~

“At some point in your life, you will experience disability.” -Judy Hueman (paraphrase)

Now the smallest moments of breathing fresh air and feeling sunshine are so much more appreciated when I’m not leaving the house. 

There are so many things your mind goes through when you are physically limited, in pain or discomfort. About your life going forward and how you see yourself. I let my mind go to some dark dark places when the pain started from the fracture, but then I also had a journal, a guitar, and a way to record.

I sing to my pain. When I do the sweetest melodies arise. I have no blame for what happened that fractured my ankle. I am singing for my healing, my learning curve, and my journey to making the most out of this experience. 

Thank You to all those who have reached out, come over with food, or give me a call or text. Your support is a huge part of my positive attitude. 

Keeping a creative practice keeps me going. It shows up for me in these times of struggle, and moments of difficulty it is my most championed narrative.

When The Sound Man Dances.

There is a man behind the curtain that you can't see.

Out of the way and unrecognized, he is a silent supporter of sound.

The man is on the dials, who controls the mic level, adjusting for feedback, pivotal to the process.

Out of the way, he's seen everything.

Your performance is one of the millions of moments categorized in his computer brain.

There was a moment when I was the sound man's apprentice.

The sound man himself was due to perform and I was now at the helm.

With placid beats and symphonic eruptions of chords, I had to adjust the levels.

But there was a moment when his music overtook me.

The song grabbed me by the vest to throw me toward the stage.

I abandoned my post at the controls, flung to fancy by familiar beats and rhymes.

Overtook with laughter and lyricism, my body moved like a marionette.

When the Soundman Dances

I thought that this week I would actually do more of a concert review something that I did at the start of my journalistic career in school going to shows and writing reviews about the music that I saw and I saw some living legends on Saturday.

I went back to the Fox Theater in Oakland and saw Parliament Funkadelic with George Clinton.

I mean living legends, you know guys that started so much of the music I listen to I Have been a fan since I was 19 -20 years now but all the hip-hop That has been sampled from them and just the legacy of their music career and the legacy of what they created as a group Has always been inspiring and I never saw them.

I never saw them until now and there was one time I

When I was still in school, it was like 2004, 2005, and I saw it advertised that they were going to play the Filmore with Bootsy Collins, and Bernie Worrell.

I Dropped the paper.

I was so shocked.

I wanted to see them but you know $60 You know at 19.

It was a lot of money and I didn't go And I regretted that. There was a guy at school who came the next day, “Oh I saw these guys and they had all these costumes on and they were you know being you know these funk guys” he didn't even know what he had seen he got the ticket from someone.

I want to see the legends while they're still here. George Clinton is 72 now and in the performance, he sits down quite a lot but there's a series of front men and front women from the backup vocalists that all take a chance of being the front person.

George doesn't need to be up at the top of the stage the whole time but the musicianship of the horn players man and just the skill level of these guys that have been doing this since the 70s some people have rotated out as you would assume some of the background vocalists are newer fresher faces.

I think his daughter or granddaughter is one of the main background vocalists, had a huge pink afro, the guy next to her was dressed in jailhouse orange, and then all the way to the left, the horn players had these Nation of Islam fits, so the myriad of costumes, everyone had a different style.

What I really loved about being at the Funkadelic show was that the crowd, was so Bay Area, all sorts of ages, all sorts of nationalities, races, and just every sort of style that you could imagine was there.

Every sort of musical genre was represented in that crowd.

Their music was everything they covered hip-hop hard rock metal Funk they did a lot of their classics but they started with like a half hour of brand new stuff that I had no idea what they were doing.

It was a really long show, they went on for two and a half hours there were two opening acts so it was five maybe five hours of music, quite a long show.

I got in it was sold out I saw what people were doing they were just

It took me about two hours before I was really feeling it.

But by the second hour, I was laughing and dancing and having a good time.

And that's what music is for.

That's what music does to you.

It lets you loosen up.

And just the spirit of Funkadelic is so amazing to me that you can be free in who you are and you can celebrate the freakiness of life and all the silly costumes that you see in Burning Man culture, so much of hip hop;

This is the original granddads of that culture of dressing up so silly where everyone has their own costume on.

It was great to see some of my favorite music that I had grown up on.

When I first started listening to them, Bootsy Collins, I was listening to Funkadelic.

I would play that CD in the car on my way to school over in 92 in Half Moon Bay to San Mateo.

I played that every single day, that same CD.

And I was such a fan of I'd Rather Be With You.

So thank you for making it to Oakland.

Thank you for coming out and had a wonderful show.

And you got to see the legends while they're still around.

If you've got favorites, you know, a lot of people from that era, the 70s are gone.

And so if they're still existing, they might not be jumping up on the stage as, as they were, but you got to see them and respect for the legacy and the longevity of keeping the music alive.