TRUERVA BEGINS FILMING FOR THIS YEARS DOCS TODAY!

Please-PLEASE-Contact us ASAP if you have an idea that will fit within the 'documentary short'

format!

It only has to:

-Have something substantial to do with Richmond (Be about the city, happen in the city, involve something happening that is also happening in the city, etc..and, yes, I mean the 'greater richmond area' including anything from  Petersburg, Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, and Charlottesville to Richmond)

-Be a current issue/concept/idea about which there is some contention (if everyone thinks its awesome, then whats the point?) or interest at large

-Be an issue that needs or would benefit from public exposure (we will NEVER film juveniles without being ASKED by the parents, will NEVER benefit from or otherwise further injure
 victims of violent crimes like rape, etfc)

If we think its worthwhile and our team agrees with us (so they will actually spend the hours and HOURS necessary to edit these few minute docs), then we WILL cover the topic.
Topics already in the works for full episodes this year:

-Local Hip Hop community & Rap music : How does a talented artist get exposure when live venues are scarce ?(most are DJ-oriented clubs where Djs or whomever program/play current popular/hit singles from major artists like Drake & Lil Wayne, etc-and seldom have actual live artists)  
         -->subtopic:  Music Industry/Surviving as a 'professional' in an age of virtually free &
                                overwhelmingly numerous/available material.  How do you get heard, earn
                                an income, or interest a significant audience when youre just 1 link among
                                 millions --and not even on the first page--returned by a search engine?

-Cool and Worthwhile locations in Richmond to visit and how to actually get to them:  How & 
         Where to go to get to the best places on the River, a list of locations that still have real grit
         and haven't been 'gentrified' or given to a developer by the government.
         --->subtopic: the OPEN CORRUPTION of the relationship between wealthy developers &
                                   campaign contributors & the city council/govt (FOCUS ON: the real screw
                                   job the public got w/the bus barn property at Cary & Robinson that ended
                                   w/a developer painting OVER HUNDREDS of incredible, original artworks
                                    LEGALLY put there-some by award winning artists and ALL pos4area)

-WHERE TO BUY LEGIT HEALTHY FOOD FOR  REASONABLE PRICES (no thanks to Whole Foods and Elwood Thompson & their 10$ boxes of 'organic, GMO, Gluten, and Pesticide-Free, Cheerios', etc) AND WHERE YOU CAN SHOP
FOR EVERYTHING ELSE TO SUPPORT LOCAL, ORIGINAL & UNIQUE BUSINESSES WITHOUT
PAYING A 'HIPSTER PREMIUM'
       -Where and When and What's there for Farmer's Markets in the area
       -  "   for Flea Markets
       - local Shops, Galleries, and Boutiques where work of artists, artisans, and designers from the

Me answering chat questions during live show

         area can be purchased

       -Which shops in the area are TRULY local and what can be found at each, organized by
          primary types of items (ie. " Toy shops: we took a look at ___ and ___ and were glad to find
         that....bla blah")




-Metal Getting Big From Richmond, and How did it happen without any devoted clubs & a widely varied scene? (Sub: LOG, IR, MW, etc ALL have WORLDWIDE audiences, freak of fate?)

             -WE WILL NEED HELP CONTACTING LAMB OF GOD AND SOME IRON REAGAN 
                MEMBERS PARTICULARLY (but NEED to, as they are 2 of the obvious subjects-especially
                LOG.  ANY OTHER METAL ACTS FROM HERE, EVEN LOCALS WE DONT KNOW,
                WOULD ALSO BE WELCOMED (always, ALWAYS, need more material per topic)
                Neither us, nor anyone on our crew personally knows them and the numerous people
                who CLAIMED they knew them..DID NOT..or were bullshitting about the extent of the
                friendship.  Since they are both, particularly LOG, famous and doing well, there are
                no easy ways to simply ask them and influence them to prioritize few mins w us over
               other things in their likely busy schedule.  PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN!!


-What is going ON with the HUGE MISMANAGEMENT of public funds/tax dollars in Petersburg & Richmond as well as other smaller localities?

SHORTS:  WE WILL ALSO BE DOING A NUMBER OF SHORT TOPICS, LESS THAN TEN MINUTES IN LENGTH-MOST WILL BE 5 MINUTES OR LESS (some were shot last year but we didn't get them done --& I admit this-- MOSTLY due to the huge amount of other projects competing for MY time-so MY fault)
-where to sneak into the river (may be incorporated into 'cool places' larger topic)
-where to get materials for artwork in Richmond and do it on the CHEAP
-The 30-person Richmond mayoral race with 8 large legitimate candidates

WERE GOING TO GO TO THE POORER PART OF TOWN AND HAND OUT CASH! FOR REAL. NO KIDDING. REALLY.

Yunus -'Social Entrepreneur'-get idea

I'm working on a new plan along the lines of the Mission Fund (recent Macarthur 'genius' Grant recipient), and similar to 'Social Entrepreneur' & Nobel prize winner  Muhammed Yunus in India, simply starting a network of volunteer-comprised 'lending circles' that will get together monthly, pool their ubiquitously uniform contributions, and give them out as a single loan to a low-income individual they decide merits it.

So, looking for volunteers to lead, organize, and participate in said Lending Circles.
How it works:
-meet once a month,  (no requirement for physical attendance, just donate and participate)
-donate 100$ each
-circle makes a decision with total amt (at least $1000), and loans it to
 an individual in need for little or no interest.
-only 4-7% default
-Mission services the loan and reports payments to credit bureaus (so
 little or no work/time required outside of meetings of any volunteers or
 participants in circle)

Im going to host the first meeting of my circle, which will also have a secondary
purpose and portion of the meeting.  After the primary meeting adjourns, some
of us will reconvene and discuss/deal with any business of the larger area
with the 'leadership circle', small set of rules/guidelines for operation, and
any other order of business that comes up and is agreed upon as appropriate to
the purview of that group. For example- the last time I formed a group to do this,
we focused on/gave preference to individuals seeking the loan as part of an
entrepreneurial effort or to otherwise assist them in beginning or improving a
commercial enterprise (starting or running a business).  That was what we as a group thought
was most important to assist in the community we were working in at the time.
However, each group will have the ability to determine their own course and
decide their own priorities and preferences.

What do YOU(POTENTIAL VOLUNTEER) GET OUT OF IT?
-YOU GET TO KNOW YOUVE REALLY TRULY HELPED SOMEONE OUT WHO NEEDED IT AND
WAS WILLING TO PUT HONESTY, HARD WORK, AND EFFORT INTO IT. 
-YOU'LL KNOW YOUVE HELPED THEM< INDIVIDUALLY, AND THE COMMUNITY, IN THE LONG
 RUN AS WELL AS RIGHT NOW.  By helping individuals living in low income
 communities establish credit, you will clearly be helping that person out for
  years to come.  That is not all.  Additionally, you'll be giving the entire
 community they live in help that is direly needed.  Better credit ratings
 have been proven to help individuals in communities establish local
 enterprises that in turn contribute to the community as well by providing
 jobs, filling empty commercial properties, infusing liquid wealth into
 neighborhoods dying of thirst, and eventually improving the standard of
 living in those neighborhoods.
 Once that process begins to move forward and takes hold in a neighborhood
 that needs it as badly as some do in Richmond, all of Richmond will benefit
 as well.  It's just simple, common sense: If one person gets a hand from
 another in their community, they will be more likely to help others there
 in turn.  So the circle will turn around and around- slowly at first, but
 gaining speed every time, so that soon it will be carrying its passengers
 to the goal.

This is a REAL thing that we as individual human beings can do to change the
world around us for the better.  This is something that is within our power
to do for the world that surrounds us and for the future that our children
will live in.
As I'm certain many feel, I feel responsible for the world I pass to my son. 
In a decade, when he is in High School and preparing for college (hopefully)-
I ask myself: "What kind of environment will all of us have handed these
children to deal with?"  and "Will we give them any guidance for dealing with
the violence, environmental disaster, disease, and basic human suffering that
they will face?  Or "Will they have to figure it out all on their own?"
Or much worse: "Will it all be so overwhelmingly bad that no one will be ABLE
to deal with it?"

Well, I know I personally do not have the resources to change the Earth this
morning. 
BUT I DO know that I can have $100 in a month. 
I can do that, and I can CLEARLY see how it will help someone out.
I can just as clearly see how they will be able to help others out
as a result.
I KNOW that is real, positive 'Change' with a capital 'C'.

Honestly, I'm telling you (whoever is reading this), that makes me feel like
I'm a better person because it makes me feel like Im doing somethiing to
change the world that my generation & those before are saddling my son's
generation with.

Is that worth $100?  Absolutely.
Is that worth the TEMPORARY lack of $100? DEFINATELY.

PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING AS A VOLUNTEER OR AS A VOLUNTEER/HOST FOR A CIRCLE
IN YOUR AREA.
Contact me to do so or for any questions at:
newvoodoocustoms@gmail.com
(I WILL respond, and if you prefer to talk via tele, text, skype, etc--simply
 send me an email telling me and I will reply with my number-its just ssilly
 to publish anything but an email account you have prepared to accept spam)

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS AND I HOPE YOU DECIDE TO GET INVOLVED!!


Sincerely-
Jim.

Calling it: I predict commercial success for BORNS (BRNS) b/c of song "American Money" off new Dopamine album

Clearly I cannot figure out how to do the "O with a line thru the middle like I'm a Viking O" deal, as I keep spelling the musician's name 'Borns'..but whatever.  The name of the song is "AMERICAN" money, so he'll just have to live with "American spelling".
Anyway, either the musician-who is a elderly 23 or somesuch, and obviously takes some pains to pursue the somewhat overdone (especially after the recent passing) Bowie 'Ambi-sexual-sometimes-I-get-confused-for-a-lady' look or his management/PR have decided to market his music as "psychadelic" similar to MGMT.

Borns, looking appropo & androgenous (personally, 

I think tying yr shirt above yr belly is trying a bit hard)

Don't worry if this idea turns you off though.  Like many pop acts ("punk" ones like Paramore or "american folk" ones like certain 100% European bands, etc), its really only image-deep.  The 'psychadelia' is pretty much limited to bringing a few echo/delay effects on vocals that would normally be in the background, to the fore so that they are audible...and to (as usual and as in other acts referenced above) the hairdo and costuming of musicians.  In Borns, for the most part, you basically have a young, androgenously attractive & slim, man singing pop songs about love, breaking up, and love.  There is HEAVY use of pitch correction, vocal doubling/backing, and keybed pads matching melody underneath chorus vocals.  There are catchy, foreground, 70-100bpm, simple drum beats/loops and tried-and-true intro/chorus/verse/chorus/break/verse/chorus pop song structure.  There are few, if any, bad words, and NO challenging subject matter.  There is trendy designer clothing, fashionable 'NOW' style in everything from the fonts used to the video directors employed.  Pretty much par for the 'pop' course right?
Well...here's the thing:  There are 3 or so songs that not only partially diverge from that formula, but that are actually GREAT.
Still undeniably Pop, but I'd feel comfortable saying that they are Pop-electronic..w/a touch of psychadelic.  The problem with the psychadelic is that it is VERY hard to be truly psychadelic AND have discernable lyrics that people can sing along to.  As a result, the two genres essentially oppose each other and have a VERY hard time coexisting.  Hence acts like MGMT tend to either have some pop success and continue in the mainsteam direction or veer off in the psychadelic direction.  Seldom do they have more than an album's worth of material that successfully straddles the two.

In this case, I would argue that, truly, Borns doesn't do any of those things.    He has about 8 pop album filler/potential volkswagon commercial type tunes, and then he's written or recorded 3 other tunes which are extremely good and are each some alternate subgenre of commerical music.  For instance, "American Money", the clear monster success on Dopamine, is a Art-Electronic-Pop song very much along the lines of many predecessors like The Eels most notably. Then there is the catchy, sped-up R&B beat-focused pop of "Holy Ghost" that has its most clear contemporary in Grimes work on Art Angels.  The last of the three songs I am referring to is "10,000 Emerald Pools".  Im not going to go into it because my fingers are getting tired from typing and I think ive made my point.

What I think is really the best thing about acts like Borns becoming popular and getting listened to by many, many, young kids is that in the long run Pop garbage like 'Electric Love' lead them to better things like 'Holy Ghost' which leads them to art that has had less penetration into the popular genre and hence less exposure to the average teen demographic.  I can even imagine a world in which some disaffected teen listens to Borns and ends up surfing links, message boards, and youtube, to end up at Skinny Puppy! (No, Really! I checked out a Borns vid on youtube and one of the links of like vids was for a Skinny Puppy vid off their last full album!)

So, go ahead, check out Borns.  The above-mentioned songs are good and catchy, and you can use my reasoning to feel good about it!  Hell, even if you steal it off the net or whatever, you can use his youth and the fact that he is the wealthy son of a wealthy northwestern european diplomat ,to justify that as well.  Cuz its not like he needs the money, right?

Just remember when you hear it later that day at the 7-11 or someone walking by your car comments on it..that I called it first!

Im kidding of course. 

WANTED: Volunteers and Donations for NEW Campaign & Foundation to DECREASE HUMAN BREEDING/OVERPOPULATION:

Here's the concept- Myself and a few others are going to form a nonprofit foundation or other type of nonprofit entity that will be focused on having some effect on the ever-exponentially-increasing human population of our ONLY inhabited planet. 
I think its become quite GLARINGLY CLEAR that the sheer number of human beings on this planet is having deleterious effect on the livability of the entire planet.  In other words:  The huge amount of people here are making it impossible for ANY people to live here.
Something has to be done.
I, and many others, have children now.  So I can no longer simply say "well, i'll probably be gone by the time its so bad that ____" (which is probably untrue anyway).  So I feel like I absolutely MUST do something that affects this GIGANTIC, OBVIOUS problem of a deteriorating environment.  By the time its undeniable and apparent to anyone, it will definately be too late...even if that time is only a decade or two away.
Clearly, we can't leave it to politicians.  Even if there was ONE we could trust, she or he would not be able to individually go against the current of the rest and accomplish anything impactful.
So here's our idea:
This foundation will (and we are still open to submission on methodology & implementation of same) encourage people to STOP HAVING MORE KIDS.
-We are NOT talking about discouraging the continuation of the human race period, but talking about encouraging every couple to have ONE child rather than EIGHT or even TWO.  IF we can accomplish this, even in a few cases, then there will be a DECREASE in the end accounting.  For example, if a couple (meaning 2) people has 1 child only...and that one child in turn has only one child with another individual..and so forth..then in a few generations we will begin to see an exponential DECREASE in overall population, WITHOUT barring anyone's inherent right to reproduce.

The first plan we have come up with and attendant notes follows:
(after another week or two encouraging comment, we will look at whether to go to a crowdfunding site or explore other options for initial funding)

 PAY PPL TO STOP BREEDING
-1 level for 'Promise' or 'Pledge'-where essentially give ppl a ring or somesuch
that is fairly nice but not so nice as to be pawnable..perhaps real silver
w 1 of 12 'birthstones'?
--here, we DO NOT expect 100% compliance with 'pledge' BUT their wearing
the ring or bracelet, etc (tshirt?) functions as marketing & social
incentive

-2 Second Level for getting 'tubes tied' or whatever.  In other words, a PERmaNENT
or as much as can be, solution.
--ALSO should function as HUGE marketing campaign, without even havng to pay
anything for it.  Once we send out press releases detailing foundation's
2nd level..or even the first..then are SURE to be ppl 'outraged'.

THE POINT: 3.5 million people in the next decade will lose their jobs to
'automation' like automated stores, online retailing, robotic manufacturing,
or even autonomous cars!
           1/3rd of the population of Africa-an ENTIRE CONTINENT-is both malnourished
           and undernourished. This is, of course, not a perfect number, and indications
           are it is LOWER than reality..but even so-it represents MILLIONS SUFFERING
           ON A DAILY BASIS
           Gobal warming, carbon waste, coral bleaching, deforestation, melting
           ice caps, acid rain, etc are ALL a result of TOO MANY PEOPLE in some
           fashion, to some degree.  For example, would there be deforestation
           if the total population of, say, Brazil, was 1 million instead of
           MANY TIMES that?  No, almost surely not.