Right now is Jesse James Hollywood’s most powerful moment

Posted: May 14, 2009 in Brandon McInerney, children, consciousness, Crime, criminal, family, Jesse James Hollywood, life, Stolen Boy
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
1

Any idea what your most powerful moment is? Was it yesterday, last week, the day you were born? Or could it be in the future: tomorrow, next year, or the day we return to our maker? Jesse James Hollywood never really figured out the answer to this question. Nor do most others. You can tell by the problems they have, the difficulties under which they tread through life.

I don’t believe Jesse’s alleged victim, Nick Markowitz, had the answer either. Nor did alleged fourteen-year-old child-killer Brandon McInerney or his alleged victim, fifteen-year-old Larry King. Nor did their families or the major influences in their lives. They didn’t realize something that took over four decades for this author to recognize. And that is this: that our most powerful moment, at all times, whether considering the past, future, or present, is right now.

POINTLESSNESS OF PAST AND FUTURE

At this moment, we have no control over the past. It is a mere pond of memories, energies stored in the world of form and mind. The future? That’s all it is. It is the future. It is not right now. The world of energy and God-consciousness swirls around us at all times, but we act as if we don’t realize this. Because our minds love to identify with form, and the thought forms of negative past or stressful future often prove too enticing to let go of.

We tend to bring into the present too much thought of negative experiences that have colored our past, shaded our present, and often destroys our futures. Jesse had this problem. He couldn’t get over the fact that his former best-buddy, Ben Markowitz, would punk him around. It ate him up. It deflated his ego. It required him to seek a violent end to his internal conflict.

Same for Brandon McInerney. His mind had been so inflated with negative feelings about the type of person Larry King was, and the actions Larry King made, that he supposedly shot Larry in the head twice at point-blank range in their morning classroom. These poor souls, and so many others like them, never figured out how to enjoy life. But you can. And here’s how.

TIPS INTO THE NOW

Use every moment you get to experience in life to count your blessings. Put the energy and thoughts and feelings into what you do have, what you presently maintain control over, not what your mind says is missing. Be appreciative of those many blessings life provides at all times that we so often take for granted. Feel the warmth of the sun upon the face, the smell of flowers and love in the air, the internal grace and beauty of each person who has shared the love – and issues – with you in life.

Sure, you’ve probably had problems in the past with many of these people, but so what? Right now is all you have. So make the best of it. Look at them, all of them, and let the grace from within emanate from every pore of your existence. Recognize that, Yes, we are created from the same thread of life. That we are both born into the world of form, and we shall both one day expire into dust and earth. Yet, we are eternal creatures fruited from the same vine of godly manifestation. That we are connected to all that is, and this will never change. That we were put on this planet to create and to generate and to learn the universal lessons that form and life bring into our Being. That we are here to love and to cherish, not destroy the love that surrounds us. That we are here to share in life’s blessings, not generate the pain and suffering that emanates on a planet so badly in need of balance.

Could surrendering have changed Jesse James Hollywood’s fate?

Posted: May 8, 2009 in children, consciousness, Crime, criminal, Jesse James Hollywood, life, transformation
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
4

I often wonder what might have been had Jesse James Hollywood understood what surrendering is really all about. I don’t mean the kind where you give up and raise the white flag. Exchange prisoners and turn to a civilian lifestyle after the bodies have been burned and the nightmares buried. I’m talking about accepting what life was like at the very moment of his gravest suffering. From all that I learned in researching this amazing story for both the movie Alpha Dog and my book Stolen Boy, all Jesse had to do was accept the fact that Ben Markowitz owed him money. Sure, Ben had spouted off and threatened Jesse. Yes, they’d had major ego-laden, volatile exchanges. And sure, Jesse was worried Ben might hurt one of his family members, but really, so what? Why couldn’t Jesse have just said – okay, the guy’s a punk, I’ve been punked, and now it’s time to move on.

There is an amazing amount of powerful energy behind someone who learns to do this. This is something we can all do. Look around us, and say, this ain’t so bad after all, is it? This is what is called accepting the moment as it is. Surrendering to what is. It may seem very passive, and non-energetic, but it is actually just the opposite. You see we are conduits to God’s energy, to the Supreme Truth, also known as consciousness. Consciousness is the energy of our creator. So, we are the hole in the flute, and what we do is ask the God energy to play us. Let’s not block the hole – let’s open it up to all that is.

Most of the God energy that swirls around us is wasted through negative thoughts, emotions, and actions. This is what the world of form is all about. We see it swirling around us at all times. And what we tend to do is use the negativity from thought and emotion to help us create in the world of form. And look where that gets us. Look at the shape the world is in right now. But what if we tried something different for a change? What if, when the thoughts and emotions frame a negative energy within us, we stop, and recognize it? Honor that, Yes, something is not going right here, so now we need to slow it down, and turn the energy into a positive form before we continue creating in the world of form?

And what if Jesse had done this, if he had realized, Yes, I’m really mad with what Ben had done. And, yes, there is this ball of hateful energy right here in my gut, but I’m not going to let it take me over. I’m not going to let the negative emotions usurp my ego and create hatred and negativity all around me. If Jesse had done this, then he would have stopped living in the past, which is something the ego just loves to do. It loves to color the present emotions with negativity from past thoughts and memories. And this is what happened with Jesse. And the same for Ben, if he had just stopped for a moment – something he couldn’t do because he was so messed up with drugs, alcohol and hatred at the time – then he would have been able to take control of himself, and forget about Jesse. Forget about this little ex friend of his who acted like he wanted to hurt him. And both these guys could have gone on with their lives, all their actions being sponsored by positive emotions and thoughts, which would lead to creating loving, positive happenings in their lives, rather than death to family, and death to self.

The bottom line they could never learn is this – present consciousness creates ultimate reality.

How to deal with negative triggers (Part 4): Surrender

Posted: April 30, 2009 in Stolen Boy
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
7

Jack Hollywood is a man who knows a thing or three about surrender. He’s lived a hell of a life that has included many things that needed surrendering to. And he’s finally figured out how to do it. You got to remember Jack’s a guy from the old school of having to learn dearly for life’s mistakes. And he’s made plenty of them to learn from, for sure. But who hasn’t? This is precisely the path I took in life. Pain after fripping pain. Suffering and unconsciousness. Wasted energy and lost love.

Same with Nick Cassavetes, my best friend as a kid, who brought me into the Alpha Dog project in the first place. We used to suffer together as kids, with all of our other friends, as we battled and fought each other, and anyone else who got in our way, for supremacy of each other and our surroundings. And this is the way it’s gone pretty much for everybody I’ve ever known. The school of hard knocks is what we used to call it. And the key to the whole deal is to be able to look back and recognize all the mistakes one’s made – and to learn from them. There’s no other reason to venture into the past. The past is merely our identification point for who we are. It isn’t really us; it’s just our memories, the points from where we were conditioned. What we have identified as being us. But the key to all this is not to wait too long. Not to wait until we do something really stupid that ruins our lives, along with all those who love us.

CHANCE ENCOUNTER

It was really bizarre when I was in court last week for the Brandon McInerney fiasco. When the judge threw us all out, including the DA, to conduct an in camera hearing with Brandon’s attorneys, Scott Wippert and Robyn Bramson, out in the hallway I ran into, of all people, Jesse James Hollywood’s lawyer, James Blatt. We spoke briefly, and then when we herded back into court, out of the corner of my eye, in the back corner of the courtroom, I spotted Jack Hollywood taking in all the action.

Jack looked good, and he told me he was doing “really well.” He said he was a man who had read all that Eckhart Tolle had to say and he had learned to surrender to his circumstances, rather than to continue to fight against it. He’s now working with life’s flow, and not in denial of it, not fighting all that is, which is a very powerful experience. And it’s made him very comfortable with his present moment, which includes his son facing the death penalty.

I asked Jack if he felt his son had also learned to surrender to his circumstances. Jack didn’t believe Jesse had, yet. Which, of course, is understandable, because Jesse is in a very difficult place. But if I were to talk to Jesse right now, I would encourage him to do so. To put away any anger or resentment that might afflict him. Which is something we all could learn. When we find ourselves in a very difficult spot that we can’t get away from, or we can’t change, we need to surrender to it. We need to accept what is at this very moment. We need to quit fighting the flow of life, and realize that right now, at this very moment, this is all we’ve got. So why not accept it? We may have memories or thoughts of our past, but that’s all it is – our past. It has no bearing on the present other than what we bring into it.

Same with our futures. We have no control over what’s happening later in our lives, because it may never happen. It’s out there, then, in the future, and we’re here, right now.

I would then tell Jesse that his accepting the present circumstances does not mean he has to accept his negative life situation. We all have the opportunity to change our life’s situation for the better, once we learn to accept life as it stands at this very moment. Then, we eliminate the negative thoughts or emotions of how we got here or how we might get away. We realize this is it, and we accept it. We surrender to it. We then put our higher vibrating energies into thoughts or ideas of how to change our life’s situation for the better. It’s that simple. Don’t stress out about the now. It brings a very low vibrating reality into our lives.

Feel the love and joy that emanates from within. Apply this love and joy to everything we do, and see if things don’t begin to transform into our favor. We have no pain and suffering inside, because we’re no longer fighting the moment. There is peace and serenity from within. And if people like Jesse James Hollywood and Brandon McInereney, and all those who find themselves in their own unbearable prisons of hell, can learn to accept their present moment, and to thrive through it, they will begin to transform not only their own negative conditions, but, through helping to raise the collective consciousness, the overall conditions of the universe.

We literally can change the world, one person at a time, right now.

How to deal with negative triggers (Part 3): Get away from them

Posted: April 20, 2009 in Brandon McInerney, children, consciousness, Crime, criminal, life, news, transformation
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

There are certain situations that confront us in life that make us wish we’d developed better skills in dealing with them. They act as triggers, allowing our emotions to get the best of us and our negative thoughts and reactions to create grief for others and ourselves. We say things we regret, or we explode and hurt others we love and adore. There are things in life – situations or people or jobs – that are seemingly unbearable to the sanctity of humanness. But they are just situations, and they can be dealt with in a different way.

By rationally handling any life situation from a conscious perspective, rather than from spinning out of control with negative thoughts and emotions, we can improve the reality that awaits us each and every day. We don’t have to continue the painful lessons life so readily offers, if we don’t want to. This is what Brandon McInerney and his family were never able to discover in life. Brandon was not raised with the skills that would have allowed him to deal with the pressure he felt coming at him from his school situation with Larry King. Brandon’s ego wouldn’t allow it. The more Larry teased him, the more hostile Brandon became. His rage grew as did his father’s. Yet, as we spoke about last week, Brandon and his family had made efforts to change the situation. However due to their pervasive unconsciousness, and the fact that school officials lacked a solid plan in handling the escalating problems between these kids, everyone’s attempts to thwart Larry’s provocative behavior failed. Larry may very well have had every right to do everything he did, but the reality is that these were both very immature children from an emotional level. They were both extremely unconscious in their lack of grace in dealing with life and each other, and, unfortunately, so were the adult figures in their lives.

GET AWAY FROM THE NEGATIVITY

And this is where others failed Brandon and Larry by not coming up with a solution to their problems. Once it became apparent that school officials would or could not alter Larry’s behavior, Brandon needed to make greater change in the way he responded to both Larry and the situation. He needed to learn how to calm down. He needed to turn his cheek, walk away, or go see a school counselor. He needed to somehow find the support base that would help him deal with his out-of-control rage. But once it was realized that this was not going to happen, then someone, anyone, had to get Brandon out of there. Remove him from what in Brandon’s immature mind had become an unbearable situation. Which is the second positive step Brandon, or any of us, can take in any given troubling situation.

If we can’t change it, then we need to get away from it. Remove ourselves from the negativity of relationship or the situation. Pick up our foundation and move it to smoother waters. But, of course, not all of us find ourselves in situations that we can just get up and move away from. Many of us live in untenable situations, like in prison, or in a prison-like situation where change and getting away are not options. For these types of situations, the only answer is surrender, which may be the greatest tool life has to offer …

To be continued….

How to deal with negative triggers (Part 2): Change

Posted: April 9, 2009 in Brandon McInerney, consciousness, Crime, criminal, family, life, transformation
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
1

I sit here and I think about what Brandon McInerney might have done differently when confronted with his very difficult situation. Much has been written about his brutal childhood upbringing filled with neglect from his mother and insane unconsciousness from his father. This is no judgment on either parent, just a reflection of what this child’s life was like.

By the time he had reached fourteen, Brandon had pretty much learned life along the lines his father had drawn. Of course Bill McInerney was a man confounded by his own nest of demons, including alcohol, drugs, bigotry, judgment, hatred, disrespect, anger, and guns. The man shot his wife, threatened to kill his sister, and looked to be on his way to jail, before death cut his life short this past month. And this all had a great impact upon Brandon. It is what this child had to deal with while growing up. In fact, this is what Brandon was in the process of becoming before fate interceded in the form of two bullets going into fifteen-year-old Larry King’s head, from Brandon’s trigger finger.

SO WHAT DOES A THIRTEEN YEAR OLD DO?

Brandon was all of thirteen years old when the condition that ended Larry’s life – and may very well take Brandon’s – crept into the fold of mass destruction. This was when Brandon found himself confronted by the most difficult situation in his young life. His home life was in a shambles, filled with violence and neglect. This created great unconsciousness in Brandon which bred intolerance and an inability to monitor his emotions. Brandon was out-of-bounds, filled with unconsciousness, and had no ability to temper his anger.

He had no skills whatsoever to enable him to handle the advancements of Larry King. So Brandon shot and killed his teenage classmate. Yet, this is not how this matter should have ended. It could have been a much happier story, if those around this child had possessed some of the consciousness that evaded Brandon. Instead of resorting to his out-of-control anger with violence, Brandon could have spent more time trying to change the situation that plagued him. Of course, this is what makes Brandon’s case so sad. Because, he did try to change his situation, he just didn’t try hard enough. He told his parents what was happening, and his parents spoke with teachers and teachers spoke with administrators about how to stop what Brandon perceived in his distorted view as sexual harassment. Yet, nothing changed.

CHANGE THE SITUATION

Brandon had the right impulse: He should have changed the negative situation that confronted him, and that’s exactly what he tried to do. But school officials and others failed to recognize the severity of the situation. They failed to address the impact it was having on both Larry and Brandon. They encouraged Larry to explore his personality and express himself, which is what Larry did. This enraged Brandon who could only perceive Larry’s expressions as sexual harassment. Brandon took it personally. And so did his father, who couldn’t get school officials to end the problem. So Brandon took matters into his own hands.

Even though Brandon’s and his parents’ efforts to change the situation had failed, Brandon still had two other choices when dealing with this negative situation, that could have saved both his and Larry’s lives. He could have tried to get away from the situation, or he could have surrendered to it, and we will explore both of these options next…

TO BE CONTINUED…

How to deal with all the negativity and internal triggers

Posted: April 1, 2009 in children, consciousness, Crime, criminal, family, life, transformation
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

Yeah, okay, so we have problems in life sometimes, right? Who doesn’t? Whether we’re kids or their parents, stuff happens, and it’s often very unpleasant. And that’s when it hits us. The trigger to our negativity buttons, sending us off, again and again. Whether it’s tapping into that deep depressive state – you know the one I’m talking about – that sinks us into a flood of disquietude. Where we can’t talk to anyone, or we cry, or we lose our sense of consciousness.

Or maybe anger is our preferred mode of dysfunction. Anyone relate to this one? Where the hatred and the anger and all the negative past conditioning sets us off beyond our abilities of self-control and dignity. Sound maybe even vaguely familiar anyone? This is the one that seems to have plagued many of the kids we talk about here at StolenBoy.com. And it afflicts their parents and probably their parents before them, like bad DNA being handed down from one generation to the next. The knee-trigger reactionary pattern where parent flies off the handle because of something a loved one did, and spreads their internal ugliness and unhappiness to their spouse or their children or anyone else who happens to be near, maybe even the dog.

And then the spouse and the child become the victims, or maybe they turn this familial dysfunction against someone else, someone they love very much. And the cycle continues and this pattern of spiritual unconsciousness increases and spreads like house mold onto everything this family touches. Know anyone like this? We’ve seen these patterns of familial dysfunction through our friends and associates and even our own families. We see it dance around us, yet, most of us have really no clue as to the cause or the cure.

THE CURE TO NEGATIVE REACTIONARY PATTERNS

One answer might be to learn a very simple trick on how to deal with negative situations or triggers in life. Basically, there are three things we can do to deal with any negative development, person, or situation that confronts us. They are: 1) to get away from the problem; 2) to transform the situation into a positive one; or, 3) surrender to whatever is, at all times.

Choosing any or either of the above will do it. It will eliminate the negative reactionary pattern that causes pain and suffering for those around us and ourselves, and causes us to do things we often regret later, bad things that destroy lives and families, and we will discuss these in our next three sessions.

TO BE CONTINUED…

We are all creatures of unconsciousness

Posted: March 27, 2009 in Brandon McInerney, children, Crime, criminal, family, life, murder, news, transformation, Tyler Edmonds
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
3

Most if not all of our lives are spent in states of spiritual unconsciousness. We grow up with little clue as to the true nature of our realities. We don’t understand who we are, or what our abilities might truly consist of. We really don’t. We believe we are in control, and we battle to control what little we have control over, until finally we realize we really aren’t in control of anything. And this generates much pain and suffering and sadness and anger and regret, and we take that and we aim it at others only to have it boomerang right back at us, and ruin the very existence we were trying to improve in the first place.

When I was a kid, I experienced all of this unconsciousness just like Larry King and Brandon McInerney did. I battled through unconscious existence with most of my friends and family. Only, unlike Larry, I survived my unconscious childhood, barely. Before his tragic demise, Larry had suffered so much pain at such a difficult time in his life. He was fifteen, battling everyone and everything to understand who he thought he might be, and he battled for acceptance in his very home for the very same reason, and he lost that battle too.

Same with William McInerney. His lack of consciousness haunted him until his 47th year when it stole his life through a thick fog of booze and opiates and blunt trauma to the head. But not before this man showered his world with violence in temper and hateful, angry thoughts. His emotions raged out of control. He shot and abused his wife. He sired a child and raised him as best he could, which meant spreading his violent lack of consciousness through his offspring.

Nicholas Markowitz was riding the unconscious highway to extinction before reaching his sixteenth birthday. He was upset at being unable to live life as he saw fit. He battled to control who he was, and what he wanted out of life. Same for his brother Ben, whose unconscious spiral through drugs and violence and alcohol toward his own aborted death instead triggered the chain of events that led to his brother’s murder, and the near destruction of his family, all in the name of unconsciousness. Ben’s chief antagonist, Jesse James Hollywood, and all those who went down with him in a hail of bullets and prison and destruction, guys like Ryan Hoyt, Jesse Rugge, William Skidmore, and Graham Pressley, also spent their entire lives in unconscious states.

THE AWAKENING

Unconsciousness also landed Tyler Edmonds in prison for five of the most precious years of his life, from 13 to eighteen years of age. And you know what? Tyler will never get those years back, one of the sad costs of unconsciousness. Through his ordeal, however, Tyler did gain something even more important. Something that’ll help him survive and probably even thrive during these very difficult times in life. It’s called awareness. Tyler has become aware of who he is, and he has awakened to his very presence. He has begun to understand that this moment, right here and right now, as it stands in his life, is all he’s got. It’s all any of us ever really have, although most of us don’t realize it yet.

When I speak of unconsciousness, I’m talking about a condition that affects us all at some point in our lives, and most of us throughout. We are born into the Garden of Eden, so to speak. As children, we are but reflections of the Kingdom of God. Our minds do not run incessantly, tormented with anger and hatred and stress and anxiety from thoughts and obsessions with past and future times that we have no control over. As a child, our negative emotional body has generally not developed enough to take over and control our every thought and move. Our egoic mind has not formed enough to try to control what is not controllable, segregate us from all that is, and fill everything we do with a negativity that will paint an unfortunate reality around us. It takes time to develop these negative, conditioned qualities.

As young children, most of us have not yet been conditioned away from our natural state of Being, this connection to the Divine, this God consciousness. Yet, with a little time spent with dysfunctional parents, controlling government, manipulative religion, and a null-and-void educational system, we begin to identify ourselves as separate from others. We believe we are different. We watch too much media, play too many video games, and assume every act in life can be redone through a reset button. We are socially conditioned to judge and label and build prejudices against certain colors, looks, and ways of life. This is ego out of control. This is unconsciousness at its most powerful and negative influence. This is who we are. This is how most of us run our lives on a daily basis, through ego-driven unconsciousness. This is how I spent many years of my life, and so did you, whether you want to admit it or not. And you probably still are right now as you read this.

The conditioning we are raised with colors everything we do. It taints what should be our unadulterated appreciation for everything that surrounds us at all times. It makes us want to be somewhere else or someone else, or hate or envy others for very selfish reasons. I was lucky. I found a crack in my dark existence that peeled away to light and I’m now able to write about these experiences. I survived my difficult time as a child, and now I can write about those experiences as well. Guys like Larry, Brandon, William, Nick, Ben, Jesse, and Ryan, however, never really had the chance to see themselves in this light. They were operating in a world of darkness where family and friends were wearing unconscious blinders along with them, and nobody could show anybody how to act or where the light was because no one could see it. That’s why they’re all in prison, now…and worse.

FINE LINE BETWEEN VICTIM AND PERPETRATOR

There used to be a joke running around the office that said there’s a fine line between a lawyer and a liar. The same could be said about the fine line of unconsciousness between victims and their perpetrators. The negative pull from one attracts the negative emission from the other like moths to a light. The negative energy from one feeds the negative body inside the other, which grows with negativity, causing us to do things we never would if we had a clue to our conscious abilities. Consciousness begets consciousness. And in the same light, or shadow, unconsciousness breeds its like energies. If these unconscious patterns go undetected, they can be passed down from one generation to the next, with the unconsciousness seemingly growing greater and greater until crisis destroys the victim, or helps to stir them awake. This is where Tyler Edmonds finds himself now. Awakened to the reality that peace and love do not exist from operating through a perpetually negative emotional state. Awakened to the understanding that the energy he generates now through thought and emotion and sensory perception – his present consciousness – will continue to feed his ultimate reality.

Tyler will never find himself in legal trouble again because of this newfound awakened state. And this is what I pray we can accomplish with each and every unconscious person who we find spinning out of control in a world filled with anger and hatred. People like Tyler Edmonds will prove to one and all that all it takes is a little time and effort to transform oneself. It’s a process, not a quick fix. And it’s never too late to start. This begins by putting the past behind us, as Tyler has done. It continues by never worrying about what might take place in a future we have no control over. This is when we begin to realize that all we have, for better or worse, is what we’ve generated for ourselves right at this moment. And now’s the time to be grateful for all that is. To set aside conditioned reactive patterns that generate negative personal reality. Become the change that we want to witness around us. And this can be done for all of us, at any time, right now.

One perspective on Brandon McInerney, his father, and death on court day

Posted: March 19, 2009 in Brandon McInerney, children, family, life, news, politics, Stolen Boy
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
5

I hardly knew the man, but I understood him well. Thick, tall, and deeply troubled, William McInerney wore the weight of someone tied to the bottom of a run away locomotive. He reeked from the guilt associated with crimes his son had been charged with. I had spoken with Bill several times since I first started covering his son’s case. His face was always tight with strain, his eyes penetrating the very depths of your thoughts with self-imposed anger. But through all the insanity that was Bill McInerney, one thing stood perfectly clear to this observer: the man had a heart that beat like a frantic drum upon his very thick sleeve.

mcinerneymic21

Our first meeting was actually quite bizarre. My friend, and excellent Ventura County defense attorney, Brian Vogel, was representing Bill in relation to Brandon’s case. They were sitting and talking together one day in the hallway outside of court during one of Brandon’s early hearings, when I came up to have a word with Brian. Bill ultimately introduced himself and said he knew who I was because he had read some of the things I had written about his son’s case. He liked what I had to say and he practically begged me to please help do whatever I could to help save his son’s life. I could feel the pull of his words clatsping on my mind like an anchor. I abhorred the crime Brandon had been accused of committing, but I’ve also always been sympathetic to his plight in this particular instance. Children are never adults. And this child, who was barely fourteen years old when he took Larry King’s life away, must not, in all good conscience, be allowed to spend the rest of his life in an adult men’s prison. It just can’t happen, and I’ve never wavered in this opinion. But, I have also always, in the deepest and darkest recesses of my gray matter, felt it to be out of our hands in a worldly, physical kind of way, anyway.

It is inevitable that the Ventura County District Attorney will continue to prosecute Brandon McInerney as an adult, which will lead to the child being locked away for a mandatory minimum of fifty-one years, or the equivalent of the rest of his life. Gregory Totten will not change his mind. And Maeve Fox, the prosecuting attorney, appears relentless in her persecution of Brandon. This will not change. Thus, from the ways in which the universe operates, the only way for Brandon to truly change the reality that stares him directly in the face is for him to begin to transform his life from the inside out.

The world of form has not been good to Brandon nor his family. It has generated hatred and violence in his own home. It has led to harm being inflicted upon and between his parents. It has created a child who learned to solve his problems with two squeezes of his father’s trigger finger. Brandon’s lack of consciousness in childhood created a dire crisis that would threaten his life in the present. The only way for that to change will be for Brandon to begin transforming himself from within.

And that’s what I told Bill in court that day, and any time we had a chance to talk after that. That’s what it was going to take to save his son’s life. Bill stared at me with glazed-over eyes. And then I told him about the best book I’d ever read, one we use in our Transformational Third Thursdays workshops at Bank of Books, and what it had done for me and countless others. I told Bill McInerney, in front of his lawyer and the universe, and outside of his son’s courtroom, that the wisdom espoused by Eckhart Tolle could help to change his life. It could turn him around and help push him toward his true, joy-filled destiny, one he might never have imagined could exist for him. In the next breath I urged Brandon’s dad to get a copy of Eckhart’s newest book, A New Earth, read it, and digest everything in it that resonated with him. And then I told William McInerney in no uncertain terms that he should get a copy of the book to his son as quickly as possible. Figure out a way for someone to coach Brandon, to teach him the ways of the Light, so that Brandon could begin to transform the negative energies he’s been feeding into his tragic life situation into something he would want to live with forever.

PRESENT CONSCIOUSNESS = ULTIMATE REALITY

It didn’t appear to be an accident one day in court when I witnessed Bill’s father, Brandon’s grandfather, a hulk of a man sporting a full head of white hair, overflowing from a wheelchair that could barely withstand him. I would learn later that the elder McInerney was a former Marine who appeared to be paying dearly for the negative energies he had spent a lifetime breeding. Then, a few months ago, in court, I witnessed Bill McInerney being wheeled into court in his own wheelchair, wearing a neck brace and a sadly pitiful look. I couldn’t help but dwell on the irony of father-like-son. And then a couple months after that Bill didn’t even make it to his son’s hearing because he had been arrested and charged with felonies for allegedly threatening to kill his sister and blow away the entire Oxnard Police Department. And now, today, William McInerney is dead.

I’m sure Bill never followed my advice. It didn’t resonate with him as I had hoped it might. He couldn’t see the light through the darkness of alcohol and pills and depression and guilt. Bill McInerney simply never had a chance to succeed in life because his unconsciousness was too far out of control. He was not conscious in the way he lived his life. His life was filled with negative emotions and hate-filled thoughts that bred an antagonist reality around him. He treated life as a battle, and that’s what he got. And he lost. And now, his son Brandon wheezes in his father’s shadow. They have both flown recklessly and wantonly through life in unconscious states of being that ultimately has destroyed one, and the jury, so to speak, is still out on Brandon.

That’s why it is up to us to try to help save this child, to allow him to finally see the Light of day. He must have the opportunity to be rehabilitated. He must have that one shot at life his unconscious existence never offered him before.  And, if we work really hard at this, maybe, somehow in the process we might be able to help Maeve Fox and the Ventura County District Attorney to also see the Light. “We’ve had enough death, Mr. Totten.” Two wretched souls have been wrenched from our community in this Greek Tragedy; please don’t take another. And, for Brandon, as the rest of us, we must combine our collective energies to transform this community crisis into something positive for us all. For Brandon, it’s the only way to avoid the destiny that has befallen his father. For the rest of us, it just might be our salvation.

TYLER’S CORNER: Another day in paradise

Posted: March 16, 2009 in Stolen Boy
Tags: , , , , ,
0
Tyler sitting in the front bucket of the backhoe, lifted in the air the day his trial ended.
me sitting in the front bucket of the backhoe, lifted in the air the day my trial ended.

Looking at the sun is so refreshing these days. Since 2003, there weren’t many times when I really noticed the sun. I was too focused on what I was facing ahead to appreciate what little I did still have. But now all of that is over, and every time I see the sun I can’t help but to smile. It reminds me of a song…I can’t think of the name or the exact lyrics, but it talks about seeing better days than these. I’m in my better days now, and, damn, it feels good! Going through the storms showed me how bad it could be so I could appreciate the sunshine even more. It worked each day I see the sun, I look up, smile, and thank God for another day in paradise.

TYLER EDMONDS

Award-winning author Michael Mehas teaches the craft of storytelling, March 28th and 29th

Posted: March 13, 2009 in news, seminar, Stolen Boy, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Legendary author Ernest Hemingway once described the difficulties he faced with telling story:

“I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were which produced the emotion that you experienced…the real thing, the sequences of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always.”

The key to storytelling in any medium, whether it be fiction, nonfiction, short story, journalism, memoir, screen, or otherwise, rests with not only what happens and how it happens, but how what happens affects characters that we, the reader/viewer, identify with and care about. There is a fine balance in telling story that must be maintained between action/reaction, cause and effect, motivation and stimulus that does not come easily to the average writer. Establishing this balance, and using it to generate emotion within the reader, through the creation of believable characters and truthful story motivation, is what this workshop is all about.

Through a detailed analysis of the keys to storytelling, structured classroom instruction, and precise critiquing of workshop writing, award-winning author Michael Mehas aids writers in mastering the building blocks to creating psychologically believable characters and scenes in story that greatly move the reader. All of his students have improved their writing over just one weekend, with some of them going on to get their books published.

dsc00872

Michael’s former students rave about his class:

“Of the countless seminars, workshops, classes and clinics I have attended in the craft of writing fiction, only Michael Mehas has been able to encapsulate the organic nature of the fiction writing process. His unique Yin and Yang concept incorporates with simultaneous effort the zen experience desired for the reader. A simple, easy to remember methodology for creating a powerful story, and learning how to orchestrate an engrossing reading experience with compelling characters and psychologically believable scenes.”
–Francisco Zapiain, author

“Michael’s teaching and enthusiasm are infectious. They both helped to provide me with the energy I needed to finish my first book, and then to get it published. I don’t think I could have finished the job without him.”
– Gary Ryan, author of Blessing in Disguise

“I couldn’t wait to begin rewriting my book with the help of the writing tips I learned from Mr. Mehas. The skills he’s taught me and his guidance in writing has also helped enhance my songwriting abilities. It’s helped my music skyrocket!!!”
–Nicholas Purkheiser, singer, songwriter, author

In addition to teaching the Yin and Yang of writing at Ventura College and Bank of Books in Ventura, California, Michael has written for the big screen, an award-winning novel, and his journalism has been published internationally.

Michael’s novel, Stolen Boy, has garnered nine prestigious fiction awards, including, an IPPY Gold Medal, Best Book of the Year in fiction from Books-and-Authors.net, and Best New Fiction from National Book Awards. Stolen Boy provides a riveting exploration of character and motivation behind the youngest man ever on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, Jesse James Hollywood. Michael’s unprecedented research on the case enabled him to piece together the story depicted in the major motion picture Alpha Dog, starring Justin Timberlake, Bruce Willis, and Sharon Stone, and Stolen Boy.

The mass media has praised his work. Chris Summers of BBC News wrote about Stolen Boy: “I thought it was excellent. I like the way it built quite slowly into a powerful climax, although I was glad I knew the back story because the ending is sort of a cliffhanger, isn’t it?”

David Conter of the Santa Barbara News-Press also shed heart-felt praise for the author’s book: “Deeply detailed and scatalogically entertaining, ‘Stolen Boy’ lays bare the consequences of callow thrill-seeking–and how the world of senseless excitement is one of the foundations on which rests cheaply available annihilation.”

Other reviewers have labeled Stolen Boy as a “very powerful book”, “a page-turner,” “un-put-down-able,” and, “a wonderful, heartbreaking story.” So, if you’re tired of messing around in the fog that is storytelling, you won’t want to miss this rare opportunity to learn the skills that make bestsellers.

THE CRAFT OF BUILDING EMOTION INTO STORY
(and Yin and Yang of writing)

By popular demand, the weekend writing intensive of the year is back at Ventura College, and you can’t afford to miss it. Whether you’re an aspiring writer, or an established vet looking to gain the competitive edge, then come to this Weekend Writing Intensive and:

· Learn the “trade secrets” to creating characters with great emotional depth
· Study how to plot an emotionally packed story
· Discover character emotional development through scene study
· Practice writing scenes that trigger emotional switches within the reader
· Understand how the Yin and Yang of writing mirrors the Yin and Yang of life

The Ventura College Weekend Writing Intensive will run Saturday and Sunday, March 28th thru 29th, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., at Ventura College, Room 3A, 71 Day Road, Ventura, California 93003.

There is nothing like this class available anywhere. So if you’re interested in learning the techniques selling writers use, and improving your writing game beyond belief, you won’t want to miss this incredible weekend of literary thrill!

To enroll, please go to www.communityed.venturacollege.com or call 805.654 6459. For more information about Michael Mehas, please visit www.MichaelMehas.com and http://stolenboy.com, or write to Michael@StolenBoy.com.

Older Entries
Newer Entries