The Souldrama Italy week flew by. We moved through Connie Miller doors of transformation. I was growing faster than I ever dreamed possible.
I dreaded the day when we were to face our shadow self. Fearing the rage darkness I have hid inside myself since I was a child.
But Connie gives you tools to cope with the stuff coming up from your dark shadow self. And one of those is understanding how we can be loved just being who we are. She calls it "Your Moment of Love" where you reenact that first moment in life you knew you were loved unconditionally. For me and many in the group it was with our grandmothers. Lucky grandma's don't have the burden of raising us an can love us just who for who we are.
And I recalled Grandma Gooder making me apple pie in the kitchen in Milwaukee near Lake Michigan and hugging me to her bosom. She patted the top of my head and said "Why, Kenny, You're as tall as my heart." Love... Yes, I was doing nothing but being me. No great feats of over compensation. I was just a kid in the kitchen feeling the love of another human being, my Grandma.
Connie taught us that day how our shadow is an important part of us not be ashamed of. My rage is my champion not a villain.
Connie Miller's Souldrama got through to me so quickly. I'd done a lot of work on my issues in therapy over the years. EMDR, anger management, psychoanalysis, self-help books; I had tried them all. But eventually I felt I running in place and stopped working on myself and started working on films.
My screenplay STEPS was about the pain of divorce, the project that brought me to Hollywood 7 long years ago. The project got dreailed because I was not strong enough financially and spiritually to stand up to the strains of Hollywood and the cavilcade of hanger-ons who siphoned my cash away while messing up the story to the point where I hated it and myself. Thus ended my first foray into Hollywood.
I withdrew into learning how to make movies myself, without the need for all the bums I usually stumble across out here like some kind of asshole magnet. Perhaps it is me who has been the asshole.
But out of that learning to be low cost and independent, along would come YouTube and social media marketing where all my new hard won film skills and business skills would converge in a venture I call BuzzBroz. So named as I wanted so badly for my brother Fred to leave his factory welding life behind and come out here to build a social media company with me. Fred never came, not wanting to give up the comforts and security of life, what little there is in this mess of an economy, in Wisconsin.
Now, less than six months into the BuzzBroz venture I was hanging out in Italy with a really cool bunch of people. Therapists from all over the world and a rock star who owned the resort. And I had earned more in the first sic months of BuzzBroz than all my seven years in Hollywood put together, Now, this was not much. But all the film biz had been money out not in. It felt good to be getting paid for my film work, even if it was only for Youtube. And you realy can't say only about YouTube. It is a miracle of a site if you can generate Google ads for videos and I can when clients have good content and let me do the promotion right.
So when Connie had us talk about our childhood heroes and how their energies were going to help us in this week of group I was shocked when it came my turn to play Superman, my kid hero -- because nothing could hurt him, a skill I longed for whenever dad got out the belt -- and Superman said he was prepared to do nothing for Ken, me, all week. Connie askes why and Superman explained he had given up on me a long time ago. How he had tried. Supes was fed up!
The gates of Santa Maria Del Sole in Puglia Italy swung open. Marco, the resort driver who had picked up at the train station, explained how this place was a farm before Salvatore, the owner, an Italian music celeb turned resort owner, bought it. And that 100 years prior it was run by Monks as a healing place for almost 200 years.
Marco pointed out the small out building that was the chapel and how Salvatore had bought the property not knowing that gorgeous frescoes were buried under the stucco.
My room was under a Trulo and just the right size for a solo traveler. Far more luxurious than my room in Rome, I wondered why I did not come here sooner as Salvitore, had offered me 70 Euro per night rate. Which was half what I paid in Rome for a tiny room not much bigger than a walk-in closet.
But I shook off second guessing myself and took a nap on the beautiful bed, knowing my work with Souldrama was going to start in about an hour and that I had a strenuous 6 hour train ride from Rome to sleep off.
As I lay in bed starring up at the dome of the Trulo over my head I began to worry. Client Connie Miller had insisted I do more than film the event for YouTube, she wanted me to participate in Souldrama, as a group member. I have never done group therapy and I was worried I'd make a fool out of myself.
And an hour later I would find myself expressing this to the amazing international group that Connie has assembeled from Greece, Holland, Brazil, Italy and America. Most them were therapists themselves looking to hone their skills.
Connie explained who I was and that I would be filming interviews with anyone who wanted to participate for Connie as my cleint. I assured the group there would be no filming of private moments in the group itself.
Here's one of my favorite interviews from the group, a group would come to know like a second family over the next exciting week.
But despite the glimpse of Monopoli I am excited to hear some passengers speak of Ostuni. A few stops later, we pull into the rather non-descript train station of Ostuni, well, non-descript compared to Monopoli.
An Italian with a gentle smile spots me stagger from the train. I think it is Salvatore, owner of the resort who said he'd be greeting me. But it is a handsome young man, about 30, who introduces himself to me simply as Marco. No last names here.
Marco gives off a welcome air of calm charm as he begins a tour of the Puglia countryside as we wind our way up the narrow country roads that are lined with stone fences.
Marco explains the stone the walls comes from the rocky soil of the region when ancient farmers tilled the soil. The homes I notice have strange roofs, pointy domes with a little ball on top. Marco tells me these are called trulos and that the homes of the region are made of the same stone as the fences and have no mortar.
The reason for the lack of mortar is that the farmers would take their homes apart whenever the tax collector was visiting from Rome to avoid taxes. This was done in America I recall to myself for the same reason in the original colonies, not wanting to interrupt Marco's fine tour of the gorgeous Puglia countryside.
We pass through a fairy tale castle of city called Ostuni, the white City. I want to ask Marco to stop so I can take some photos with my trusty Flip camera but I'm too tired and he says we'll be back here duing the week for the tourist thing. I'll end up working 12 hours days without a day off covering Souldrama and never making it back. One of my few regrets about the trip.
Here's a pic I found on the web of the amazing White City, like something out of a Tolkein novel. Yeah, it really is this beautiful. And if I make back to Puglia for Souldrama 2011 I will spend a day here.
Still, the interview I posted to YouTube just before leaving for Italy featuring Sheldan Nidle's prediction for a 2010 SHIFT of monumental proportions, toppling mountains, causing tsunamis, aliens, yes aliens, changing our very DNA, nags at the back of my brain.
Not to say I believe even a fraction of what Sheldan says has a chance of coming true. I just feel guilt. Guilt that I had a small part in putting on the 55 minute of interview videos, filmed by Filippo's friend, and mine, Dorothy Donahue, onto the web and using my BuzzBroz.com skills to get them seen by 10s of thousands of people already.
Social media is so new and open. I've filmed Filippo, who has become one of my most fascinating friends, interviewing channelers, palm readers and various New Age gurus, who all seem to speak of the SHIFT centering around this era of 2012. Some take the SHIFT literally like Sheldan, while others like the great Barnet Bain, producer of WHAT DREAMS MAY COME and THE CELESTINE PROPHECY, take a metaphorical look at the SHIFT.
But as I wondered who might be watching the Sheldan Nidle interviews, I worry that for someone with less of a Midwestern skepticism like my own, that the predictions of Galactic first contact will be scary.
This is what I am worrying about as we careen through the Italian countryside, Marco at the wheel, as I have been the whole trip from LA. I gaze over the peaceful White City. Happy to be so blissfully far from the eccentricities of LA.
Fortunately, Marco wakes me from my waking dream/ guilt trip with a hearty invitation to a special treat!
Take a trip back to Italy with me. The 5 star treatment of Santa Maria Del Sole began before we even reached the exclusive resort!
We interrupt this talk about my trip to Souldrama in Italy for an important announcement!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
SHEETZ OPTIONS EPIC TALE OF RISE FROM JUNKIE TO TALK SHOW HOST
June 1, 2010
Hollywood, California
Filmmaker and social media guru Ken Sheetz (see IMDB), CEO of Overactive Imagination Pictures and its distribution arm and SMM provider BuzzBroz.com, announced today that he has optioned the life story of talk show host, author and speaker Bradley Quick from the popular novel "The Quick Fix" about his rise from a Skid Row junkie to a Hollywood talk show host, author and motivational speaker into a feature screenplay.
Says Sheetz:
"Bradley's true life story is one of the most inspiring and compelling I've ever heard. His tireless and selfless work for his charity, The Cool Change Foundation, helps others battle substance abuse by backing his talk show "The Quick Fix with Bradley Quick", where over 700 hours of shows can be heard at http://bradleyquick.com. ; Bradley's show features health tips, advice on matters of the recovery and inspirational guests like Wayne Dyer, John Bradshaw and Don Miguel Ruiz, famed author of "The Four Agreements".
It is my sincere hope that once I finish the adaptation of his rise from Skid Row junkie to talk show host that Bradley's tireless fight to overcome substance abuse both in his life and the lives of others finds life on the big screen.
Bradley just celebrated being clean and sober now for 23 years. I am honored to have created his popular new YouTube channel that has about a 250,000 views in just over 60 days and to be adapting his dazzling true life story into a screenplay."
Sheetz has produced a popular election TV series since 1996 called Kids Talk Politics, which has aired as the lead into the 2000 Presidential debates on PBS in prime time and that has a popular YouTube channel with over 500,000 views. The KTP DVD about the exciting 2008 Presidential election, "Kids Talk Politics: A New Puppy in the White House" has been number one in its topic on Amazon for 14 months and counting.
In his 7 years in Hollywood, Sheetz has also produced several pilots, over 100 short films and written 12 screenplays that are in various stages of development.
Prior to becoming a filmmaker Sheetz was a successful real estate broker and developer in Chicago, where he brokered well over a billion dollars worth of business, built a $162 million skyscraper and Oprah's Harpo Studios.
On July 1 Sheetz is traveling home to the Midwest for an extended family visit and to raise capital for the screenplay about Bradley Quick's inspirational rise from junkie to talk show host as well as his other film ventures.
For further information email Ken Sheetz at: imagitv@aol.com.
I hop off the bus, throw open the hatch, dig out my backpack and... Phew. My trusty Flip cam in there. We hop another train and it's onto Ostuni. The train is smaller and traveling south along the coast. There no conductor and as we reach the time when I was suppposed to arrive in Ostuni, 5 hours from Rome, I am worried I missed my stop.
A few weeks earlier to conserve money for this trip I switched to Boost Mobile's basic $50 per month service. I find myself kicking myself for not sticking with my Blackberry Verizon phone as I have no way to know where I am and can't call the resort to know if the delay with crazy bus detour is going to mean I am going to be stranded if I am in fact on the way to Ostuni. Finally I tell myself to shut the hell up and that it will all work out somehow. Enjoy the Italian countryside, bitch.
Amazing little cities pass by the train window and we are now 45 minutes late. I figure if we keep going south the end of the line I can always backtrack and make my way to Ostuni again if I missed it. We pass an amazing town I want to visit on another trip. Beautiful architecture that looks like giant layered tiramasu in a town called Monopoli.
It looks like a paradise. A paradise I've never heard of before where life goes on every day without ever a thought about we people working like slaves to a dream that died a while ago.
Then Monopoli is gone and I wonder why I was ever worrying about making it to Ostuni.
Sorry I have been away. Far away in both body and spirit. For years I've read, written and watched science fiction voraciously. Today I am living science fiction.
I've been filming social media for YouTube for Bradley Quick, which led to my meeting an amazing new client for my fledgling business BuzzBroz. The cleint is Connie Miller, founder of an group therapy workshop she holds all over the world called Souldrama. Souldrama teaches you how to lead a more soulful existence.
Now, I am a regular Joe from the Midwest, always will be, Hollywood can't take that out of me. So when Connie insisted that in addtion to making her YouTube videos that I take the class in Puglia Italy at the amazing private resort she booked to our exclusive use for Souldrama, well, I almost didn't go. I kept making excuses not to go, not enough money, it was a barter deal after all and I did not want to do group therapy. I'd not done any therapy on myself for a good 8 years.
But Connie and Bradley would not give up on me. So eventually I was set on going to Italy. The last time I went to Italy, 20 years ago, I was a mega real estate developer building Oprah's TV studios and 38 story $162 million skyscrapper. Now, post divorce and post financial disaster I was a struggling artist, signing for his supper making YouTube videos.
20 years ago I was rich in money but poor in spirit and now I was poor in both departments. I lost my faith on the way to Italy reading THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES by the great Joseph Campbell, who opened my eyes to the fact all religions share common mythologies.
Now, in 2010, Italy was calling me back for a new kind of spirituality, one that infused my belief in a great universe we all share as spiritual beings having a human existance, to borrow from Wayne Dyer.
As the time to go to Italy approached I worked intensely to make the trip. No $162 million dollar project to pick our marbles for the lobby to back me up this time, I had to make many little YouTube videos, do Twitter work and Facebook assignements to earn my way; the fees in the hundreds of dollars this time instead of the hundreds of thousands like back in 1990.
I did social media for an amazing client I met through Bradley named Filippo Voltaggio. A larger than life American Italian, Filippo hosts a New Age show called Life Changes. And after doing a lot of work on spec for a percentage of YouTube ads I was forced to start charging him as Google ads I've learned, unless you have videos consistently getting millions of views, are not going to make you much money.
But I love the subject matter Filippo covers along with his producer and Reiki teacher Dorothy Donahue, an amazing woman in her 60's. A motherly figure who watches carefully over her New Age flock.
One day Filippo called me that he had filmed an interview with famed ET expert Sheldan Nidle about his views on the coming "Shift", all centering around 2012. Filippo needed the video edited and posted to YouTube. I agreed because I wanted to learn more about "The Shift". As you'll see in this video from the 6 part series on YouTube, I learned more than I bargained for.
Please watch the video before reading further.
See what I meant earlier in this post about living science fiction?
Sheldan's calm description of the collapse of banks, nations, mountains falling and rising, tectonic plate shifts, aliens reprogramming our DNA left me shaken. His great certainty about it all was unnerving. But I worked some long hours and got the videos loaded but they were hard for me to watch even though I'd help make them.
The last few days before Italy were spent in Las Vegas covering social media for Bradley Quick and his Quick Fix talk show. Bradley is the single worst driver I have ever met. And as we left Hollywood for the 5 hour drive to Vegas I wondered if my trip to Italy would be cut short as Bradley zig zagged through traffic with our assitant for the trip screaming at him to slow down and drive with his hands on the wheel. Bradley is a notorious text and drive guy.
But somehow we made it into town and despite trouble with the assistant, an Italian/Iranian woman with attitude like I've never witnessed -- who we had to let go, and who's parting crack was that I was Bradley's wife -- we managed to make a beautiful collection of videos and I had money for Italy just in the nick of time.
The flight seemed easier compared to 20 years ago. Perhaps because I was imagining travel to be tougher post 9/11. But it was a breeze. My passport sailed me along.
I staggered onto a train to Rome from the Rome airport and the first thing that struck me was the amount of graffiti lining the train's path. The city was not the same. The pristine Rome of 20 years ago was not to be found. Of course I was in a far richer hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps in 1990. Now the Lira was no more, replaced by the Euro and the exchange rate was terrible. I had to Western Union home to friends and my brother to be able to afford my way to Puglia.
I had little money to spend during my 2 days in Rome. So I tried to get some social media gigs, but the language barrier prevented any of that from happening. I made the best of my meager budget and saw some of the sites and even managed to buy a lightweight tripod for my trusty flip camera.
It was to be a relaxing 5 hour train ride from Rome to Ostuni, on the heel of the boot of Italy, where the Santa Maria Del Sole staff would pick me up. But the train ride proved confusing as hell. Half way to Ostuni the train stopped and emptied out.
I was still drowsy from the flight and grabbed my bags and followed the passengers to a cluster of buses. The bus driver could not speak English, or I should say I could not speak his Italian. But he checked my ticket, and told me to get on board. There was one seat left and I squirmed in.
As the bus pulled onto the highway I felt my pockets for my trusty Flip camera and it was missing. I thought about the beautiful train shots and kicked myself now for taking out the camera.
How was I going to cover Souldrama without a camera?!
