Snakes, spiders and mice. OH My. The power of words and the states of mind...

[GordonJ]

OK Dien. OK.

I had an epiphany in the Spring of 68. Here it is:

After studying Salesmanship for about 9 years, and hypnosis for about 2 (along with all kinds of "peripheral" subjects, Metaphysical stuff)...

it took a Navy recruiter to bring it all together for me. You may remember I tried to drop out of school when I turned 18 to join the Marines or Army...but they were out to lunch...and a Navy recruiter got his hooks into me and painted a very gruesome picture of what a drop out could expect in any of the services.

He HYPNOTIZED me to stay in school and get my diploma.

It was during this time that I TRULY came to see the "states of mind" and giant fog that most people live in.

Linda and Janet were the two MAIN objects of my hypnotic prowess... but I wasn't having much success until...ONE day...

on the way to school I walked by the music store and saw the KAZOOs in the window for a nickel each and bought 20 of them.

Next day, I passed them out to a small group of people who showed up early to school (we were allowed to assemble in the gym)...and I started the "International Falls High Silver Kazoo Submarine and Humazoo Band"...based upon a Little Rascals episode.

At first there were just a few of us...but we had so much FUN...that we attracted some attention...and within a week, MY band had like 40 -50 members.

Until that time the only "leadership" skills I had was to command the pepperoni and the mushrooms that I tossed on those Papa Felice pizza's (I worked 40+ hours a week all three years of my high school in a pizza shop).

WELL. Something happened. A lot of those kids, the ones in MY band, whom I had never really had much interaction with...didn't know most of them except to see them...they started to address me in the hallways...

something for MOST of us periphery peoples hadn't experienced...

the SPOTLIGHT...

And suddenly, people who I had gone to school with for 5 years and still didn't know my name (we had 3000 kids in 3 grades in my school)...were suddenly acting like they KNEW me.

The only thing that had changed was my buying a few KAZOO's and passing them out and having some FUN in the morning when it was usually boring and we were just waiting for class to start.

There was soon a BAN on Kazoos being played in the hallways between classes...and that only ADDED to the numbers that played in the gym...and shortly after the BAN, I led a march at lunchtime around the building...OFF school property...of about 100 "Kazoo" protesters.

It was during this time of about 3 weeks that I had my enlightenment...about how much ILLUSION we live in...how much ASSUMPTION... how much of it is just not true...but BELIEVED...

that I had my breakthough.

After a couple of years of trying to "impress", hypnotize and sell myself to LInda and Janet (without much success)...

Within a couple of days of my "LEADING" the great Kazoo Protest...that both Linda and Janet approached ME and asked me out.

What the _________ ?

I'll let you think about this and get back to you a little later with the rest of the story.

GJ "Mr. Kazoo" Alexander