HERE COMES EVERYBODY, AGAIN

In the most revolutionary novel ever committed to paper, "Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce, one of the protagonists is named HCE. He is the archetypal Everyman who, like all of us in the media age, has an elastic identity that transmutes from event to event. Predicting the multiple identities caused by mass media technology, Joyce eventually reveals that HCE's real name is "Here Comes Everybody." Like the enemy in the cartoon strip "Pogo" and the friends in "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," we find out we are all HCE, and HCE is us. Because we relinquish identity in proportion to the amount we let these media walk-ins trip into our soul, we are all together but we are not united. We find out we do need to, as John Doe would say, "stand for each other" regardless of whether there is "no more red, white and blue" and "no more underground."

We need to be reunified because we cannot tell our triumph from our will. We do need biologically and tribally to connect with the good ol' real, down-to-earth humans that make this planet worthwhile. Though they occasionally congeal into a bland gray mass when hypnotized by media, à la 9/11, there are also those times when the entire multi-ethnic, trans-generational mass of us must meet and laugh, and dance, and hug, and thank each other for holding our small flames of consciousness cupped against the dark-veined and unkind winds of Now.

When national dialogue on matters as grave as War turns to fourth-grade schoolyard talk, such as "Iraq is playing hide and seek," and "Iraq keeps playing games," and "Code Red," we need to seek out the bringers of wisdom who speak to the child and the adult who's been arrested by responsibility and reconcile the two.

From Friday, February 14th through Sunday, February 16th, the Los Angeles Conscious Living Expo honored this need by bringing it all back home to the LAX Hilton, coalescing the time-honored rituals of Townhall Meeting, Gospel Hour, and Barn-Raising into a festival of human consciousness for the roughly 10,000 who surged happily through the doors of the hotel!

Dreading attending the larger events that I publicize because of my own anxiety and adrenalized self-consciousness, I entered the event with the intent to hunker down, bide my time, and pray for at least a few sold tickets, and then go home and call it a job well done.

That was Friday morning at 10:30 a.m. By 11:00 a.m., my brilliant P.R. partner Dawna Shuman and I had arranged for the actress Sally Kirkland to read Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn's proclamation declaring February 14th to be "Conscious Living Day" in Los Angeles and, like Yossarian at the end of "Catch-22," we were OFF! And not running, but surfing!

Some divine chip in the bio-computer had me shut my big mouth and plunge into the event as though it was a perfectly arcing tube and I could shoot the curl unerringly for 60 straight hours. First thought, best thought; and third eye, best eye!

What I discovered in the course of my ride is that grand, continuing flourish of the great dissident and heartfelt impulse that the creators and thinkers who are at the core of our time have the graceful tenacity to keep alive. Like the Transcendentalists of the 1800's; like the Wobblies in the 20's and 30's; like the Beat Generation of the 40's and 50's; like the early anti-Viet Nam movement of the 60's; like the early Punk Bands X and Black Flag, there is some Sacred Place where the struggle of being a sentient being in a society of commerce teaches you how to be as tough as a barnacle and adhere to the hull of the ship, no matter how dark the waters churn.

And that's what the tide of people at the Conscious Living Expo washing over me reminded me of so profoundly. The search for a common ground of social justice will always continue!

My tiredness fell off me like old army fatigues, and I felt my pores opening to a simple reality. It's hard to worry about anything when you are in the company of Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived for two years in the canopy of a redwood and has bucked the agenda of the despoilers of our natural world. It's equally hard to bellyache about anything when you're in the presence of Kelly Gallagher, a 17-year cancer survivor who takes her message on the road Kesey-style and crusades to get kids off the mercury filling assembly line. It's hard to worry because these Hard Workers never let up, and it's a huge relief to meet people like them. Yeah, baby, Here Comes Everybody, and Tom Joad and Emma Goldman dancing the Pachuco Bop under the alabaster cherubs in the main ballroom. You find there are people out there worth your prayers and good thoughts.

One after another, humans with depth and purpose (or a reasonable facsimile) parried with me, charmed me, calmed me, made me welcome at an event for which I was the PR guy. They became the message they were living and I became the receiver! What a groove.

Rhonda Britten, the author of "Fearless Living," did a Lord Buckley/Lenny Bruce stream on me that sent me reeling. Scarlet Rivera's extraordinary violin evocations of "The Voice of the Animals" took the crowd into a swooping, satisfying slipstream that inspired a meditation for everyone on the forgotten animal victims of man's injustice.

Pamela Sue Martin, who in another incarnation was Fallon on Aaron Spelling's mega-hit "Dyansty," returned to Los Angeles to share her first talk ever on the spiritual conflicts that caused her to leave TV stardom at its height to find more satisfaction in life itself. Chérie Carter-Scott gracefully melded a largely international audience for her lecture into a brilliant improv chorale about how humans communicate around the world. Lynn Andrews, one of the progenitors of the current Consciousness Movement, journeyed to L.A. to show again why we all

have the ability to become Real Shamans, leaving many to wonder at the authenticity of the late Jim Morrison's claims as L.A.'s pop culture shaman. These were just four of the highlights that I personally witnessed. But for everyone, there was something of substance and uplift!

The expo headliners, Marianne Williamson, John Gray, John Robbins, and Dannion Brinkley, all delivered solidly, exemplifying the fact that what was once derided as "New Age" or "against the grain" doesn't even need to exist in the same grain anymore. It is now its own forest.

And anyone who passed by the legendary Sean David Morton's booth would've been both awed and elated by the fact that he delivered at least a half-hour of encyclopedic wisdom and warmth to every visitor. What a champ!

The art was fantastic as well. Just three of the painters who attended--Roussoli, Shari Silvey, and Laurel Savoie--were worth the price of admission. They are all masters of color and dimension, and exhibited art that you could gladly fall into, optic nerves first, and feel healed and refreshed.

The 300 or so booths were well-stocked with state-of-the-art health modalities such as Spectrahue, a light therapy device that actually eased a full day's anxiety in a six-minute treatment, and readers such as Amirah, who is spot-on accurate but with a layer of gentle humor to her visionary prowess.

But the people who attended formed the core and the heart of the event.

Paul Andrews brought the event back to L.A., and his wife Abigail Lewis was an especially sweet spirit through it all. Everytime I felt my energy flagging, I would see her face imperturbably beaming and know that everything was going to be alright. The same can be said of their whole team: Larry Savoir, Robert Quicksilver, and particularly Lora O'Connor, who was a real powerhouse in making sure that the train kept a-rollin' and the freight kept gettin' hauled.

Considering the event was in the beautiful, Kubrickian LAX Hilton, with its cosmopolitan overtones and chintz, it felt like the whole tableau was unfolding under the trees of Vineland, that virgin greensward of old California that the Vikings spied so long ago. The event sailed along like we were floating together upriver to see the rainbow, and when you felt too tired from trudging through all the exhibits, you felt like you had that 37th second wind to climb surefootedly uphill, guided by the moon.

I'll always cherish Art Kunkin, the founder of the original Los Angeles Free Press, who gave me a hug and said, "This is the best expo I ever attended. And I should know--I put on the first one!"

And I'll always cherish Gypsy Boots, who was actually the first vegetarian I ever saw on TV as a

kid 40 years ago, who kissed me and said, "This is a wonderful event. You should do another one!"

If you were wondering where everybody has been, just know one thing: They are all back in the fold. Here Comes Everybody, Again! Conscious Living Expo 2003 brought all the cultural strands together that have been waiting for some time to entwine. This time we kicked a big hole in the Darkness and let the Light shine on Through!

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