Matthew’s Blog

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Milwaukee International Film Festival.

http://www.MilwaukeeFilmFest.org

For the past seven years my folks and I have made a pilgrimage every September to the Toronto International Film Festival and had a blast. This year we opted to stay local and try out the MIFF. Much to our surprise we were quite impressed. It was well run, efficient, and high quality in choice of movies to show.

Downside to the MIFF - theatres are too spread out as Milwaukee has lost a lot of the down town movie theatres. The upside: the majority of the films are shown in three great art houses and next year if the Avalon chooses to join they’ll have four.

The majority of the films are shown at The Downer (2 screens), The Oriental (3 screens), and the Times Cinema. The Oriental is Milwaukee’s jewel of a theatre, a movie palace of old in an East Indian theme with bejeweled giant Buddhas, elephants and panthers.

I have a feeling we will be going back to Toronto next year as we discovered that our annual pilgrimage was more than about just seeing cool new movies and movies not likely to play in the Midwest. We found that being local, we were unable to escape our lives and daily responsibilities and truly enjoy each other’s company, the restaurants, culture, and the fabulous host city. MIFF might provide an opportunity to see films that we missed in Toronto as it is a month later.

Hi all,

Here’s something that’s been brewing in me for a while. I received a comment yesterday from someone that got me stirred up enough to write about it. (or maybe it was my inner god).

I hear all the time about goddess programs, goddess groups, awesome women groups, crone circles, wise women enclaves, goddess training, women empowerment groups, etc. Where are the male equivalents? Before anyone gets on the their high horse that those groups came out of the response to the overwhelming male dominated society - I grant that.

AND

As a child of progressive parents who raised my brother and I endogenously and to recognize that women are equal to men I have grown up to be a male feminist. My closest colleagues are women and have surrounded myself with awesome women role models.

That’s great AND

I feel like we’re missing something. Like the balance has been tipped too far the other way. For example when and why has it become acceptable to have national women’s networking groups but not acceptable to have nationwide male networking group? I think the historical argument was valid, but the world is changing, women are changing, men are changing, society is changing. Do women still need to learn about their own personal power and goddess withing? Absolutely! AND that is not the point of my comments here.

My point is, What about the men? What about the conscious men out there who see women as equal partners in life yet while being supportive of women they feel like they have lost their identity of being male, of being the gods (to use the same god/goddess metaphor, Even now as I am writing this I have a twinge of embarrassment in using that word, like I don’t have the rite to use it, but it is ok to use goddess). Are we not all gods and goddesses?

Where are the programs for gods AND goddesses?

Where are the programs for male energy ritual? rites of passage? The ones that celebrate the male spirit? male comradeship (outside of the inane sports metaphors)? The ones that explore what it means to be male in todays society and how to be the best men we can be? What would that look like? Instead of saying what is wrong with men - what is right about us? What is enviable? What is good? What is sacred? What is grounding? What is uplifting? in the male energy.

The Mankind project and its ilk are one variety of maleness training. They seem outdated. They seem to be outgrowths of the 60s&80s - go to the forest, chant, scream, cry and then return to your family and obligations. They seem to make men wrong to make them right. It is not an attractive option for me.

What is the creative, resourceful and whole approach?

I want more. I want a program that is evolved. I want a program that shares with me why I should be proud to be a man. I want a program that shares with me how together men and women will create a better place on earth. I want a place where it is ok to talk about and express and be with all of our emotions anger, love, empathy, wounds, delight, joy, ecstasy. With out being made wrong for doing so.

Comments welcome. Solicitations not! Discussion about coming together/partnering to talk about creating such a program may be of interest.

Feels great getting that out there.

Matthew Egan Rochte

Conscious Human
Conscious Man
Conscious Capitalist

me

http://www.MatthewRochte.com
http://www.MakingTheWorldRoundAgain.com
http://www.ConversationCircle.com

“When given a choice between kindness and being right, choose kindness.” Dr. Wayne Dyer

Back in October, when I was speaking at the Northland Bioneers Conference, I had the opportunity to listen to Paul Hawken (author of Ecology of Commerce). He humbled me and inspired me. Paul Hawken is an amazingly peaceful, exceedingly gentle, and powerful human presence. Listening to Paul was like sitting in the presence of the Dali Lama. The room was quiet and he had our wrapped attention.

He spoke of this movement that we are all a part of. How we have all been entrenched in our camps of “Social Justice”, “Environmentalism”, “Green”, “Orange”, “Brown”, etc. That this movement is so much larger than that. “There is no green movement without a black, brown and copper colored movement.” He said that the movement we are all in is one of ending suffering for all. That we must realize that we are all part of the same movement and that until we do we will be fragmented and ineffectual. However when we come together and the environmentalist feels the pain of the inner city youth and the when the inner city youth feels the pain of the forest being logged - then we’ll be united.

He followed this message with an equally powerful one.

” ‘There comes a time’ when this must stop. (evoking MLK’s classic phrase) We can not disparage, ridicule, or belittle others anymore.”
He was referring to the inner rivalries between the different groups within our movement. However, I found it land deeply and personally. For several years now I have taken the stand that sarcasm is sanction verbal violence and I don’t want it in my life. When I heard these words from Paul I was ashamed. I had been troubled by a letter I had written to a friend earlier that day and now I knew why. Most would never have noticed it and even the friend to whom I was writing hadn’t noticed it either. It is because it so prevalent pervasive in our society.

I had let sarcasm into the reply. The sarcasm was a way of belittling her, which was completely unnecessary other than to stroke my ego. I knew I was in trouble with myself and even toned it down so it was sweetly subtle, but deep down I wanted to be RIGHT. That was about me not her. In my kindness of a response I chose to be RIGHT too and thus negated the kindness.

Paul’s comments are embedded in my conscious mind.
So when I came across an email today
“When given a choice between kindness and being right, choose kindness.” Dr. Wayne Dyer

I knew I had to share it.

Yours in spirit and in friendship

Today I felt like this picture. I think I need sleep.

I don’t know the source of this, but I found it while I was cleaning out my harddrive today and feeling like the picture.

This came in my email this morning.  I don’t know the author, however if I find out I will credit them.  This is just great and soo true.

Sincerely,

Flowing Crackerjack Armstrong

(a.k.a Matthew - as I can’t pull off Pegleg Lemon Johnson - even if I had a pegleg, see below)

=============================SINGING THEBLUES=======
If you are new to Blues music, or like it but never really understood the whys and wherefores, here are some very fundamental rules:

1. Most Blues begin with: “Woke up this morning….”

2. “I got a good woman” is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line like, “I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town.”

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes - sort of: “Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and she weigh 500 pound.”

4. The Blues is not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch…ain’t no way out.

5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don’t travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state- sponsored motor pools ain’t even in the running. Walkin’ plays a major part in the Blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.

6. Teenagers can’t sing the Blues. They ain’t fixin’ to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, “adulthood” means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or anywhere in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the Blues in any place that don’t get no rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain’t the Blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is.. Breaking your leg ’cause you were skiing is not the Blues. Breaking your leg ’cause a alligator be chomping on it is.

9. You can’t have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

11. Bad places for the Blues:
a. Nordstrom’s
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

12. No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit, ‘less you happen to be an old person, and you slept in it.

13. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if:
a. you’re older than dirt
b. you’re blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can’t be satisfied
No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived
d. you have a 401K or trust fund

14. Blues is not a matter of color. It’s a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the Blues. Sonny Liston could have. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the Blues.

15. If you ask for water and your darlin’ gives you gasoline, it’s the Blues.

Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. cheap wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. black coffee
The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. Perrier
b. Chardonnay
c. Snapple
d. Slim Fast

16. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So are the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken-down cot. You can’t have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.

17. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

18. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

19. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Jennifer, Debbie, and Heather can’t sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

20. Blues Name Starter Kit:
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Mute, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, Clinton, etc.)
For example: Blind Lime Jefferson, Pegleg Lemon Johnson or Lame Kiwi Clinton, etc. (Well, maybe not “Kiwi.”)

21. I don’t care how tragic your life is: if you own a computer, you cannot sing the blues, period. Sorry!

x15UH1 8wu 10wd (2:30 rest)HR 138 1250kcal@45% Higher Ranking on 10km as well! knocked 5 min off last score.
Happy Birthday to ME!!!

I am sure that over the course of my rowing in college and post college I have rowed well over a million meters, perhaps even two.  However since I started tracking and recording my rowing online on my own machine I have passed the 500,000m  mark today.  YAY.   In addition I have only 9,241m to go to reach my 200,000m Holiday Challenge