Tattoo-Fashions lead designers LeslieAnn on left, Amy on right, inspecting full-color temp tats on a printed sale sheet.
My BBBBFF Amy and I stood around in 94 degree heat yesterday like a couple of teenage girls, chatting and giggling and carrying on to the point of attracting some attention from casual bystanders, but did we care??? Continue reading
I didn’t publish this story until Tiffany herself happened to notice the incredible resemblence… had she not said anything, I’d never have published these photos, but she did, so I will.
A very large number of folks commented to me about that posting a few weeks ago. They were clearly confused by this obviously vintage photo of Tiffany Woodbury at the top of this blog, but it isn’t.
It’s in fact a vintage photo of my live-in girlfriend Tiffany Miller, taken in 1964. We were in our friends’ commercial kitchen at Nicola Twins Market. Les and Mike and Mike Jr. were longtime family friends. We called them “the Lebanese Butchers” and I met Danny Thomas and his daughter here. Tiff is wearing one of Jon’s originals!!!
I took these on our 1930s porch on Edgecliffe in Sunset Silverlake District of Los Angeles. We lived in a very luxurious and beautiful home designed by architect William Wrigley. The roof was curved and very expensive to repair, but worth every penny. The floors were polished hardwood, and all the fixtures were original with the house. We used to shop at the Wholesale Antique Mart — we had a resale license, of course, because Tiffany was a decorator and interior designer by trade, executive by demeanor, and a model by choice. Continue reading
Yes, it’s here, and Leilajiva is willing to teach Tantra classes on weekends, so I’ve dedicated this Ryu water temple & teaching space for her work with you.
See You At The Top!!!
leslieann
Here I am in my new Tat Parlor with some of my newest, latest tats. There’ll be more right next door, three shops in all. I’m wearing my cool face tat, which I’ll have for sale real soon. This is my first shop since 2013, and I’m very proud of it. My tats are all magickal in nature, not tribal or sexual.
I believe in “tit for tat”, my Dad Horace would introduce himself to a young lady back in the ’50s, “may I offer you some tat?”
Little did he know that tattoos would become the standard for Americans, that 90% of all kids born in 2014 will have tattooed faces, hands, torso, feet and genitalia. You’ll be able to pick off the Old Ones by their lack of tattoo. Continue reading
I have a shop online — http://www.tattoo-fashions.com — which features handpainted garments. Actually nothing there even remotely resembles a tattoo. Why the title, then? Seemed like a good idea at the time. Continue reading
This was a very popular book back in the day of the Vietnam war, and is directed at same; yet the idea is so profound, it can be used to describe our psycho-emotional condition at any given moment.
How often have we heard the expression, “The Enemy Within”? We know from Shakespeare that every protagonist has within himself a “fatal flaw” which brings down kings, queens and dictators alike.
Wouldn’t you like a handle on that enemy within? Wouldn’t it be nice to conquer that self-destructive idiot that hides deep inside your darkest subconscious cavern?
Problem is, would you recognize the enemy if you saw him? And what if the enemy looked like you? What if the enemy was, in fact, you??? Continue reading
In art, especially when you’re just learning the advanced levels, as I was at Otis Art Institute on that fateful day in 1967, you eventually learn about “denying the form”. What this means is that you create an illusion, generally a three-dimensional illusion on canvas, such as a landscape oil painting, and then you paint big numbers and letters all over it, jolting the viewer back to the two-dimensional canvas, rather than the deep landscape underneath it.
Well, it happened to my beautiful Ashram, as I predicted it must. I by no means want to discourage builders, but they must learn, not just go wild. Frank Lloyd Wright really had something there when he expressed the opinion that a house should not just be planted down anywhere in any shape — it should take into consideration the environment into which it is going. It’s not just the Purple Penis and the Flying Fairy Ball — in themselves there’s nothing wrong with them in a private region or property, but this is not private, and you are not encouraged to go wild with self-expression; it’s a place of work.
I know it seems absurd of me to point out things like that as glaring examples of inappropriate style in the Ashram, but those examples go a long way toward explaining what I mean here. Continue reading
I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that if one does not actually DO the Practice, it’s worthless and one cannot blame the Teacher. Boy, is this an important idea. You read about the Practice. You hear about the Practice. You study the Practice, and in the end, you must DO the Practice or give it up. I’ll elaborate on the subject…
1. You hear someone talking about work ideas and it sounds interesting and exciting, which it isn’t, but thank your lucky stars you don’t know that yet, or you’d just plain give up right here before you even start.
2. You read a book, watch a couple of videos on youtube and read what your friends say about it on facebook, the final arbiter of human social interaction.
3. You hear a lecture, radio show, interview, something that indicates that something might be there, but doesn’t indicate exactly what it might be.
4. You hesitantly buy a small, inexpensive amulet, just to try.
5. Good things suddenly happen, and now you’re really interested, want to know what more there may be in the goodies box under the CQR tree.
6. You ask around, and find out about the Ashram.
7. You are told that the work you’ll be doing is largely in the Ashram, although you might want to sell greeting cards or operate a small business as part of your Practice, like Eric and Tamara and Ken and I do, and like Lee and Charles used to do in a gallery space.
8. You bring your Avatar into the Ashram and hook him or her or it up to the grist mill, hoping for the same results or better that you’d get from using a bead mala, and that’s exactly what does happen; you get the Merit from the work, plus the Merit for the work you do for others, a double whammy Merit-Hit. Continue reading
I was asked to write up some reminiscences of Lee. Well, Lee and I had more than our share of interesting conversations, but most of them had one underlying theme; not so much helping students to awaken, but how to prepare students for the responsibilities that come automatically Just From Being Awake. Enlightenment is just the beginning. Continue reading
On this side of The Shift, the Street of Dreams is a complete range of Temple environments created by me; each leading to a profoundly different world with a different set of work regulations and work conditions.
My wondrous shops and Jazz Club are gone, alas, as are those of Space and XxaxX, sigh, but we gotta have bypasses, and it’s up to us Vogons to put them in, and that’s what I did.
UPDATE ADDITION:
I’ve managed to buy and put up two more temples tonight, and I want to hasten to add that SpaceBuddhaa has an enormous multi-story gallery & shops boutique, housing many of her wonderful decorating items and other wondrous goodies. It’s on The Strip, at 3201 Meters, along with my Fashionista Shop, right next door to hers.
Bottom line, Spacebuddhaa, XxaxX and Leslie Ann are deluged by tons of stuff coming back into our inventories, but it does make room for the Temple items necessary for their function, and shops are not the primary purpose of the Ashram. Continue reading