To WELLS FARGO (and the banking institution):

Corporate Offices
Wells Fargo
420 Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94104


To Whom It May Concern,

In this modern day-and-age, I recognize the insignificance of my single letter amidst the horde of email, spammers, robots, and junk mail. But I must speak.

The reason for my query is of complaint, one directed at the heart of banking. Because I am hardly even a customer to Wells Fargo, rather a single digit in a huge tabulation aimed at the bottom line, I know my complaint is doomed to have no effect what-so-ever. In fact, I can rest assured the greatest hope for this letter may be to entertain some of my very own low-wage, desk-sitting, computer-working, co-worker types. You know who I am, and btw, that cute one in the office, she slept with me (and never told her boyfriend) right after she told our jack-ass of a boss to shove it. I don't care if you believe me or not, haha! Maybe my style will earn a couple lols, or even an LOL.

My complaint is simple:

You charge people who have run out of money THIRTY FIVE DOLLARS every time you ALLOW them to use their check card in overdraft.

I want to reach the person whose job it is to say( when he/she is feeling consciencious: ), "Yup, that's what banks have always done - it's a big hassle to deal with juggling all that money, little loans essentially, and that's how Wells Fargo continues to handle it." ( and when he/she is feeling honest: ) "GadDAMN! we're making so much #&$^ing money off these idiot blue-collar slave-driven pleabians who refuse to learn how to 'manage their wealth'!!"

Or not? Is it possible your numbers are so big, you just don't realize that your fees are too high on the little people? Somehow I doubt it. When Queen Bitch Manager Lady will listen to me throw a 30 minute tantrum over of the phone and not budge a dollar, I have to think somebody put these numbers in place for a reason.

If you are that person, with that authority, I want YOU, sir, to stop for a few moments and seriously consider the moral consequences of charging such an exorbitant sum on...who is most likely to become overdrawn?...why....POOR PEOPLE, sir. People who already cannot afford life until their next paycheck.

The mechanisms exist for blocking a card - you seem to have no trouble blocking cards all the time for any number of reasons other than saving us from overdraft. Or even still, how about you make the fee relate to the size of the overdraft? or charge a flat fee for every 24 hour period the account is over-drawn? All I am really asking is that you make some gesture of consideration towards us --

What? Why, yes, I have "overdraft protection" - let's see, hmm, wait, an additional account, with additional fees and obligations, AND a $10 fee for an AUTOMATED TRANSFER OF MY OWN FUCKING MONEY?!! PER OVERDRAFT?? ASSHOLES!!! That's what I'm talking about. I so sick of being victimized this way, like I'm a fucking idiot to live and participate in my own society. It just sucks to not even feel pride for that which my own people built.

My point is, you set it up this way because you can, nobody can stop you, and it's a regular landslide of revenue. Yay, for your team, yay for the invention of cancer.

If you are one of those people who have any ability to affect the corporate consciousness in regard to this, you must either quit your job now, or begin to make reparations by whatever means available to you. Because as it stands, there are millions of afflicted energies who have wished you to Hell hundreds of times over for this negligence and greed. I am quite sure there is no peace in your life, no matter what you might tell yourself -- when the day comes you depart for that which doth come next, you may find nothing comes next and that this life of torment you just finished living was the only one you would ever have. That is going to be a very very sad day for you friend. I am begging you, DO SOMETHING NOW.

Sincerely in hope for YOU, sir,


Greg Connell
a "customer"

Interesting Dream

It's been a cold, long spring in Los Angeles this year. Last night was significant because I published my first EP of newly recorded material Back To Tascam. I realized as I was catching myself wanting for recognition, that such an event is really the expectation of a media-centric culture. Before recorded media, the notion of a musician becoming anything beyond his ability to perform was impossible. And yet, we made music, we dedicated our entire lives to it, in the same way musicians do today. The obvious fact that I do this for love of music and nothing else came through in a happy sense, and being able to publish my own album has its own satisfaction.

I went to bed early. I awoke at first light, more than an hour ahead of my alarm. I noticed the storm had cleared up and it would be a nice day. I went back to sleep and had a very interesting dream.

I was riding down to the beach, through a dark daytime LA. I was on Jefferson Blvd, for I remember crossing Wilshire and wondering which street I was on, for which there was a sign neated painted into my mind.

It was not a bicycle, but one of those miniature motorcycles that the kids in the neighborhood fool around on. My right hand was forward on a stearing yoke, and my left hand was reaching back on a brake. The vehicle felt pretty unsteady, particularly as I started going down larger-than-life grades to the beach.

My speed became perilous, but I thought, well, as long as I don't crash, this is fun, so don't crash. The entire road became free of obstacles, and I cut wide corners in order to attack the slope at the smoothest grade.

There was a big event on the beach, and someone's property. I didn't feel a part of this scene, and so I loitered around, waiting for something to happen. At some point, a big skinny, shaggy dog appears and seems friendly to me. I get worried that he is homeless and I wonder how in the heck I'm going to get him home on my mini-moped.

A little while later, my brother Thomas is with me in the dream. It is nice to have him there. Somehow we have sort of transitioned into this beach house -- it is all very open, from the bathroom to this yard. Actually, the yard reminds me of that big courtyard property to the south of the old bungalows at 854 Sanborn.

Anyway, as Tom and I are chilling on a couch, I'm getting sleepy (in my dream, haha). As I drift off, I am watching a whole bunch of brightly colored baby parakeets hanging out in the tree above us. They seem to form into individual cocoons and come closer and closer to my face. I sort of wake up as I am falling asleep at this phenomenon of birds cuddling closer and closer to my face.

Somehow a transformation happens and the parakeets have been reborn, all as different varieties of birds. I notice one in particular, the curvature of its beak, the perfect meeting of upper beak to lower beak.

I looked up parrot medicine when I got to work:

The parrot is an alert bird with a good temperament. They are very intelligent and have been taught to mimic humans. A bird which can speak the human language is considered to be a link between mankind's world and the world of nature. They serve as a bridge in which both can cross to gain a deeper understanding about one another. This understanding allows both kingdoms to live in harmony.

One of the most outstanding features of the parrot is its range of coloring. Parrots invoke a sense of hope and promise. Just looking at its brilliant feathers gives us a feeling of excitement and wonder. For those who identify with this totem opportunities to renew their dreams and visions are offered.

Parrots teach us the power of magic. Their feathers are used in healing rituals to invoke the properties of color and light. Color and light therapy have been used by many native tribes to heal the sick or injured. For those with this totem the study of its colors will reveal a lot about yourself.

Parrots can be very vocal or very quiet depending upon the situation they are in. In humans this indicates an innate ability to know when to voice ones opinion and when to be silent. Lessons associated with discernment are always present in a parrot medicine person. The parrot is a feel good bird and is a great ally in healing depression. When the parrot flies into your life it is asking you to recapture the magic of living. It is time to enjoy your life and all it holds.

Native Art Spirit

I'm reading Just Kids by Patti Smith -- an auto-biography about the life-long love affair between herself and Robert Mapplethorpe, the controversial-if-not-appropriate fag artiste extraordinaire of the 80s.

She assuredly describes her adventures of youth in the New York City Art Culture of the late 60s and 70s. She expresses an unspoken confidence in the value of that whole scene, which, myself as an artist, removed as I am by a generation, have only experienced as sad reproductions. I have found all 'scenes' to be lacking in the genuine essence. I have found far more often hordes of people who are searching (and being duped at their own discretion) by vampires seeking not to recreate the authenticity of that culture, but the imagined fruits of experience: The sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll lifestyle.

I've found the whole lot of it to be so off-putting that I've detoured my own artistic development alway from those derivitive scenes with such gusto that I have even come to doubt the sincerity of my blood as the type of a True Artiste.

But despite all insecurities, I have perversely dodged all commitments and paths that would take me to any life other than that of an artist, therefore...! At this point, I can no longer doubt my destiny! Regardless of my flip-flopping mind, some greater intent is at work, manifesting my heart's true desire:

To be an Artist! To be a poet! With this guitar you worship, like sparrows like breeze, like sunshine likes trees, I split heaven asunder, revealing something even more deeply under.

This path is really the only imaginable outcome that is not another blight on humanity due to milk-fed artist-fancied-inclination gone selfishly awry.

The artist is not a path or term to be taken lightly -- it is, done correctly, a most important service to humanity.

Lest I divulge into a rant, change gears? Shall we?

Native American Spirit.

I will use this term to describe, simply, a quality of living, appropriate to the landscape in which one exists.

I live in Los Angeles, and have a somewhat jaded 15-year perspective, mostly due to the class and power distribution I see. I am disturbed by the lives that people tend to lead in order to make some play at a lifestyle that ought to be presumed to be guaranteed.

Whereas the Spirit I'm talking about is obviously everywhere open to everything, in Los Angeles I feel more personally the spirit of the people who are directly descended from those traditions which did indeed honor the landscape, the weather, and the seasons.

This pertains in several ways and in other ways that I cannot explain; I just know that I am deeply perplexed with this social situation. I feel that the subjugation of the native american people is the most grossly overlooked event in our very, very recent history, and continues, daily, as brutal and unrepentant as it ever was on the Trail of Tears.

Again, for most of you, this is the boy crying wolf -- but I say: Ohhhh, it is sooooo easy to say this life is good enough as is, when what might be better has been sequestered from ever happening in our lifetime! Nice! What proof does that leave me to debate? My arguments are dreams! Fantasies! Ha!

In Montana, what most would expect to be the last vestiges of the Wild West, there was, I'm sorry to say, little to no living Indian Heritage available. Sure, there are the token trinket stores, rock shops, and trading posts...but not much to convince a young German-Irish boy of the original magnificence of this great nation of people. The Reservations (and their schools' athletes' ability to glide in under 17-minute 3-mile cross-country events) was my only indication that my history book's suggestions were incorrect that the American conquest had not utterly eradicated this race of people.


To illustrate:
I remember seeing, perhaps as a sophomore, near the University of Montana and Sentinel High School track (curiously just off of Deerborn, where my brother and his wife now live) this dark-skinned boy drift in to the final 400 meters of a 3 mile race -- I remember watching the pattern of his feet as he ran: It looked like the creation of embroidery, it looked like he was stitching the ground to the horizon, with astounding speed and perfect accuracy. And yet, his chest was not pumping, his face was not flushed...he appeared to be in a perfect state of calm, as if the wind were propelling him and all he had to do was move his legs in this beautiful pattern.


Another occaision:
I played tennis all through high school and even won Montana State Doubles with my best friend during my senior year. However, as a junior, I played singles, and I was terrible. I became so ensconced in the psychology of competition, that I literally would fall to pieces in a real match.

Well, on this particular day, we had travelled to Ronan, a small town a long ways between the city I was born in, Kalispell, and Hamilton where I was going to High School. I had been through this town perhaps dozens of times in my life, but never had we stopped, never had we spent the entire day, as our tennis team was now doing. It was a rare Montana spring day -- very warm and sunny. The courts were heated, which made my body feel good.

The boy I was to play was an indian. I can say this because in my high school I remember only one black and if there were any nativos, they had so mastered the art of invisibility, this white boy never even saw them. However, on this bright day of competition, I saw him -- he was to be my rival.

I won the match that day( 6-4, 6-4 ), a pro-level score, which was extremely odd for two reasons: One, my opponent was far better than me. Two, I played my best, which I had almost never done in competition. The reasons for this victory, I could spend hours indulging in analysis, but I will summarize in the following way:

My energy connected with him. I can say now, with far more experience, that we traded abilities that day -- he inherited my clumsy mental dilemma and I his effortless and untrained agility.

It felt like a dream but in real life, where we agreed to the following: He said, "I the have natural ability to play well, so play well like me!" and I said to him, "I am sensitive to the mental subterfuge white people wage, so be sensitive like me!" He shared with me his ability and I shared with him my sensitivity.


I mention this story for the following reason: The Native American Spirit is much deeper than any of its conquistadores ever fathomed. Not because Europeans are apes, or act like heathens or devils (all human beings are animals), but because they had simply forgotten that Spirit is not the brains gimp!! lol!! >:D

Remember that, Europe had been fighting down the Humanists (let's just say, Folks-Who-Live-By-Magic-Not-By-Science) with Reason (books & steal - to which the common people were powerless and called polytheistic by their agressors but for the number of ways they could pray for mercy) for centuries. Therefore, quite naturally, successive generations of Europeans were further and further distanced from the metaphysical conditions of existence. When no words exist in the language to describe a commonly understood entity, when no Elders are given respect & priviledge of Wisdom, when God-As-Interpretted-By-Printed-Word is made more powerful than The Mother & Father...children become confused and lost by the industrially rigid constructs of the universe -- you might also say unhappy, or unsatisfied.

Therefore, while Europeans did a jig on the indigenous peoples of the world, they really fraked themselves even more. They connected every continent, strung eyes, academia, and questage for knowledge and power back into the oceans, the continents, the jungles, the mountains, the poles, the atmosphere, the moon -- touching everything everywhere! And that is their last several thousand years of history.

And now, can you believe the shock a child feels at finding his forefathers the purveyors of such bloody extremes? Having acquainted himself of every concept and every philosophy of every culture, cross-indexed,...and only to find himself spent and with no peace? To find all that he had touched, had withered? To find himself responsible for the subjugation of all peoples, the pollution, and the malnutrition of Mother Earth? Woe be this man! Hahaha!

You can be sure, a lot of people have had really bad trips on acid for this reason. They catapult right into military and christianity(the religion not the faith) and drunkenly left into anarchy and mindlessness(the insanity not the peace).

The rest of us adopt the oh-so-highly-regarded "Middle Ground", doing as our most esteemedly recorded wise old men suggested. We choose applicable professions, fall in love, get married, have kids, enjoy life marginally, and die. And all the while, we appear recomspent as to why "why-oh-why" are we here? Why are we enduring this great responsibility and sorrow? And to this question, we are usually answerless! I say - but for the extremes of religions and insanity / faith and peace...answerless!

And yet the answer is plain to see: A relationship of love is at hand! An affair as however it desires to be manifested, for the experience and benefit of all! How exciting and worthy!

And how curious! How mysteriously charming, beguiling, alluring, and passionate must then be the Spirit who can sidestep the very best thrust of this Empire which holds the planet's fate in it hand? How wonderful that it is safely untouchable, yet speaking freely and personally to us in our hearts?

I did not find this love in my European heritage, but for the environment I lived in and our musicians, writers, and artists. Art was indeed a lifeline, but I experienced this love by way of the seasons, weather, and daily joy exclusively.

What caused me to lose sight of this heritage? Was it simply that I have a head and a heart for drama? For suffering? For becoming this semi-beloved figure of tragedy and self-discovery? For being the cause of an industry of speculation and copulation? And ultimately, the cause of war?

Yes, I have been. I believe I have maintained belief patterns and behaviors which are the very same as those mindsets which caused said events. Yes, and I believe I am responsible.

Except I do not believe this is all my creation. I am not under the grand illusion that if I abandon these egocentric behaviors, the world will erupt or collapse.

Rather, I believe confidently, if I take seriously the reign of my life, in consideration of this vast web which has bounced me back from a directionless trajectory, the world will make known and available to me the avenues which lead to its resussitation.

Like so, as written by Jamie Sams:

Sacred dawn of my spirit's fire
I open beyond self-centered desire
I choose to serve and to be
A shining example for all to see
I honor the spirit in all living things
And commit to the life that honesty brings
I seek the truth that lives in me
And respect the truths that others see
I give to others with a happy heart
Asking no return for gifts I impart
I open my heart to those in need
Walking my path, as I plant love's seeds.

That is why I make such haughty allusions to the Native American Spirit. The notions which can heal our land and our world culture, attitudes that are not violent or destructive. They are peace, in a language of nature, and they are most similar to the wisdom of the American Indian. And it has been in Los Angeles that I have come to know many living legends of this spiritual tradition.

Indeed! The spirit is everywhere, and that is why no more losers need move to Silverlake -- the resurgence can be found in your flowerbed, in a local hike, and most powerfully, in the handling of your love affairs.

If you have read this, I genuinely thank you and hope you have a nice day.

Peas and Carrots,
Greg Connell
2010 Feb 27
Highland Park