philosophy

As I donated another small amount today, I had an interesting thought. What is the right amount to donate? I recently donated to the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. Personally, I believe it is a better group to donate to; however, I fully support the 1 Second Film and other art projects. I also plan on donating more to the 1SF before the project is complete.

So, my question to anyone who may read this is how do YOU decide how much to donate and who to give it to? There are many "worthy" charities working to find cures for countless diseases. There are other causes, such as this, that I also feel are worthy. There are websites I frequent that run exclusively on donations. Unfortunately, I cannot give everything I have to each of them. What do you do? How do you do it? Most importantly, why do you do it?

Something is happening in my world...

Charles Francis Richter would be impressed with the momentous shifts, some detectable by the human eye, and some not, that are going on in the life of one Reverend Juli Crockett of the Evangenitals! To list but a few, I've suddenly decided to move from my (way too expensive) South Pasadena apartment that I have loved and lived in for over 2 years into a place that is WAY less expensive (literally half the price), bigger, and I love even more. Huzzah! And I'm going to be roommates with one of the Evangenitals' biggest fans, which is awesome. And perhaps a little weird, but more awesome than it is weird.

Patrick and I will be packing up our joyful, art-filled, vegan lives and our joyful, energy-filled vegan dog and taking this show on the road... just 5 miles away, but it makes all the difference in the world when I don't have to sweat about the rent payments and can focus on a life dedicated to making art -- outside of any semblance of a 9 to 5 job. I LOVE IT!!!

We're skipping school tomorrow to pack. :-)

Last Friday night Lisa Dee, myself, (that's Evangina!), guitarist Henry Bermudez, and Timothy Sellers of Artichoke all jumped in a car and drove to Austin to catch a taste of SXSW and play a day show on Sunday. It was a much-need breaking out and breaking away from the day to day, and also a grand display of willingness and mild insanity. The whole thing made me indescribably happy.

Brian and Jerimi, a WONDERFUL couple who restore any lagging faith that any of us could have in humanity and the generosity of the spirit, put us up in Austin and took great care of us. I barely know these folks, and yet they opened their hearts, ears, home, and fridge to us... for fun and for free. Incredible. I also discovered that Austin has free health insurance for musicians and the audiences actually TIP... what am I doing here? I love LA. It's twisted.

It was great to play with Izzy Cox. I've missed her. She is a powerful performer and I look forward to doing more shows with her when she comes out to LA again. We also DEFINITELY plan to return to Austin next year, if not sooner. Now that Henry is going to be playing with us, we are indeed a road-hungry band... we want to play play PLAY and bring the Evangenital joy to every pair of ears that will listen.

I'm going to be posting the photo-journal from the Austin trip on Flickr real soon. I'll post links here when I do.

Tonight we played a fundraiser show with Veruca Salt in downtown LA and we debuted a never-before-seen/heard Evangenitals lineup featuring Joey Ninja of Ninja Academy on bass and the aforementioned Henry Bermudez on lead guitar. It rocked my socks off! I am excited to be revisiting our old tunes with new energy and explore and reinterpret them -- stretch 'em to the snapping point and see what their spine looks like. Constantly changing, exploring, questioning, enjoying, refreshing... I dig it. "The Hole" almost burst into a Reggae jam tonight, people. It was AWESOME!!!

So, the short version is: the flow is flowing once again, the universe is giving me the green light on all things, it seems, and I am revved up and ready to GROW! The party is about to get started, and you're all always invited.

Love, always and already,
Juli

I've been researching for grant writing for the Collaboration Foundation.

One of the first tasks is to define the social need the organization will address. Juli, Dana and I were discussing this the other day, and defined the need as a response to the challenges of globalization; globalization creates a world were we are all connected, whether we realize it or not. The connections may seem invisible, but they are very tangible. while this creates a host of challenges, i.e. climate change and conflict, it also offers new opportunities for people to exchange ideas and work together in ways that have never been possible. The potential solutions to the issues will come from the same collective actions that create the problems.