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Love Rain Down - A Short Film"Love Rain Down" is a 2012 Official Entry in the Palm Beach International Film Festival
An animated film based on the song "Love Rain Down" from the album "AFropolitan" by Derrick N. Ashong (aka DNA) & Soulfège. The movie follows the tale of a little boy named "Johnny" who makes a trip to the legendary "Crossroads" of Robert Johnson fame, and stands down the Devil armed only with a song...
This Mother's Day the band wanted to send a global shout out to all the Sweet Mothers of the world! So we've started a social media campaign to share the "Sweet Mother" remix video with the women we love, along w/ a free download mp3 download of "Sweet Remix"!
Whether you remember the epic story behind the making of this video in DNA's hometown of Accra, Ghana, or you're seeing it for the first time, it is a tribute to the mothers across the globe who make our world go 'round. Please share it as a Mother's Day love letter to every mother you know!
Today's Washington Post online has a revealingly in-depth story on Mitt Romney's mistreatment of some of his classmates as a high school student at the Cranbrook private school in Detroit back in the 1960s. In short, it details conversations with a number of his peers who recount him engaging in, and sometimes leading, bullying behavior towards students perceived to be gay (among other youthful "pranks"). Romney has denied any recollection of these activities, and issued the usual tepid Washington non-apology.
A couple of quick thoughts. First, I don't think it's fair to judge Mitt Romney the "60-something-year-old presidential candidate" by something Mitt Romney the "high-school prankster" did. I know it's tempting to all the people who can't stand the guy, and I must admit he's not currently on my Christmas card list. But something he did FIFTY YEARS AGO would have to be a lot worse than this to disqualify him from consideration - President Obama was smokin' weed and carrying on himself around the same age, and Lawd knows that Bill Clinton and GW were up to...
That said, what is fair to consider is how the present-day Mitt Romney responds to the allegations of misdeeds against his younger self. I kind of wish he'd just said "you know, I remember that incident and I've always regretted it. I wish I'd taken the time to apologize to that gentleman before he died." Oh yes, if you missed that part of the story, the victim of the most disturbing act of bullying succumbed to cancer in 2004. Today Mitt issued a general apology for any ancient malfeasance, even though he claims not to remember it. I wonder if he ever apologized to the victim, while dude was still alive? That's a greater measure of the man than the childhood ignorance we were all complicit in to some degree or other.
Turns out a second victim of Mitt Romney's bullying is in fact still alive today. Care to apologize to him Governor Romney? The rest of us don't really need the generalized apology, so maybe you might make a phone call?
It would say a lot more to us about the kind of man you are today.
This Saturday I had the opportunity and honor to participate in the Unite Against The War on Women rally in Washington DC. The issue of the degradation of women's rights in this country is something I've been thinking about for a while now, but the impetus to attend the rally actually came from Facebook. One of the organizers of the campaign had reached out to us about using "Fight On" as the soundtrack for one of their videos and we agreed:
The interesting thing about the request is that while "Fight On" was written with oppressed people in mind, a big part of the theme of those who "fight on in a world that doesn't see them" is specifically inspired by the bravery and challenges faced by women around the world - those who don't get medals when the soldiers come home, but who nonetheless keep the world moving and make our lives worth living.
Today the rights of women are under assault in the United States by leaders who preach "small government" while practicing the politics of invasive ultrasounds. It strikes me that this actually follows a pattern we've seen in many parts of the world, where predominantly male leaders in societies facing significant challenges, latch onto the issue of a woman's "virtue" as a panacea for society's ills. Such efforts are couched in terms of honoring women, yet they result in such heinous practices as the prevention of girls from attending school in Afghanistan, women being forced to marry their rapists in parts of the Middle East, and the practice of Female Genital Mutilation in parts of Africa.
For Westerners these perspectives are seen as barbaric and a world away from anything we can understand. But how far are we from "barbarism" when an opinion leader like Rush Limbaugh can call Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" for testifying in Congress about women's contraception, and the putative leader of the GOP, Mitt Romney, doesn't have the balls to take him to task on it? The whole right-wing peanut gallery was likewise silent about the original all-male panel on the subject. If silence is consent, we have a political movement in this country today that is pretty Medieval in it's view of women's rights.
Now wait, some will argue - this is not about women but the rights of the unborn. Is all this controversy, truly based on the American right's love of children? If so, then certainly the policies advanced by the conservative leadership would clearly be pro-mother-&-child right? House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's budget reflects added money for pre-natal care and early childhood education right?
That's a bigger joke than anything we heard at the White House Corrrespondent's Dinner. We all know that these people's money has never been put where there mouths are (with the exception of Mitt Romney who apparently has money pouring out of every Swiss orifice). This is not about serving the interests of women nor children, it's about the exercise of power by men who feel powerless to address the real economic, social & political challenges facing the nation.
Looking at all this through that lens, I'd argue you don't need to be a feminist to realize that the so-called "War on Women" is really an abdication of responsibility by our leaders and as such it's assault on all of us. Whether you consider yourself liberal, conservative or indy like me, we all deserve better from our leadership. And until our leaders start pursuing policies that will provide good jobs for people other than ultrasound technicians, we need to stand firm with our mothers, daughters, sisters and lovers to hold those leaders to account. This ain't Afghanistan. The buck stops at our feet.
Last week I got to attend the Palm Beach International Film Festival to screen our animated short Love Rain Down. I actually had to go straight down to FL after hosting an awesome summit on social media marketing hosted by BazaarVoice. I left with a mindful of creative business ideas, and headed straight into a meeting of people in the business of creativity.
On arrival in Palm Beach I was a little confused as everything was not necessarily happening in the same area. The only other film festival I've been to is Sundance, where it's pretty much impossible to miss where things are going down. Just follow the nearest herd of people slogging through the snows of Park City in any given direction & you'll wind up at something awesome.
Palm Beach, however, had events going down around a much bigger town and in some of the neighboring ones, so the first thing I made sure to do was to literally get lost (no they didn't ask me to "get lost", I took it upon myself thank you very much). Once I finally figured out where things were, I managed to arrive at our screening just in time to see some remarkable short films. Two of them that particularly stood out for me were "Carboard Titanics" and "The Game". The first is a hilarious comedy about people putting they're all into something totally unnecessary - the building and sailing of boats made entirely of cardboard & a smidge of ducktape. The second is an ingenious & chilling animation of two people sitting down to play an otherworldly chess game with extremely high-stakes. Definitely encourage you to watch both.
Probably the best part of the experience for me, was the opportunity to speak to the attendees and filmmakers after our screening. Not only did we get an amazingly warm reception, but people were immediately looking for ways to collaborate. A filmmaker even asked me if I think of myself as a musician or a filmmaker first? He might as well have asked if I consider myself a humanoid or a jelly donut, but I was super flattered. ;)
I wound up having an amazing conversation with a group of filmmakers about the whole concept of open source culture and what it means for all of us as artists. Of course I had to tell them about the Million DOWNLOADCampaign and they immediately "got it." It would be interesting to see how some of these ideas work in other areas of the arts. In the meantime, I've gotta' give mad love to the Palm Beach International Film Festival for recognizing & highlighting our work. Check out the other films & support creativity in all it's forms!
I took a weekend to relax away from Social Media & returned to find a flood of tweets, FB comments, messages etc. Thanks for all the outpouring of love! Rather than engage in a losing battle to answer all those notes individually, I'm going to let you all know what I'm up to it in the simplest way I can en masse:
Many of you know I've had a longstanding interest in how principles from the open source software movement, could be applied to other areas of culture. There are cool examples of it at play in areas ranging from visual art to farming and development, and of course in music. Back in 2004 I wrote the The FAM Manifesto, a text outlining a vision of how open source ideas could help revolutionize and ultimately expand and strengthen the music industry.
I'm going to spend the rest of this year doubling down on that theory. There's a huge opportunity for artistry, enterprise and society in rethinking how we "make, mix & move" music. The Million DOWNLOAD Campaign is all about putting that thought into action. DOWNLOAD & Share!
Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 9:17AM 
