I first met him in 1991 when I wandered into his performance art class at the Univ. of California, Irvine.

I didn’t know what performance art was, not really, or that the burly, mustached guy teaching it was a famous painter & sculptor, and also one of the early pioneers of L.A.’s performance art scene in the 70s & 80s.

But what he taught blew my mind. He helped becoming-artists dig deep, and many went full throttle, embodying the surreal to unleash emotional undercurrents that were often pure chaos & danger & gorgeous & that sometimes escalated so quickly that John had to grab the reins.

I saw artists throw themselves into walls and out of trees, risk knees & elbows rolling hard across concrete floors, bare their souls while eating lipstick, tap-dance across live electrical wires, one guy played hockey with a cow tongue, somebody else prattled Walt Whitman while pulling out a loaded gun (the gun was a terrible cliche, been done at least a hundred times & the student got expelled, but holey moley). Turning people into anarchic provocateurs wasn’t necessarily John’s intention, but it happened often because he was so good at providing safe spaces without limits.

After college, he took me around and introduced me to kick-ass L.A. performance art venues & artists who took me in like family, and John took me in too. I ate meals at his house. He gave me my first paid art jobs (I painted objects for his art installations around town, Warhol-factory-style). I met his wildly talented wife Sylvia, a driven art dealer/curator who went on to open successful galleries from NY to LA to Mexico while running a business that taught artists how to market themselves. And I met their hilarious little daughter Rachel, who John brought to class so she could critique students’ performance art pieces. “Did you like that performance?” John would ask, to which Rachel would often scream, “NO!” Lolol. (She liked my pieces, thank god!)

John started his 5x5x5 series in L.A. (five 5-minute pieces by 5 artists). The show later moved up to Ventura, which is home to incredible artists and amaaaazing audiences who are game for anything. Hundreds of performances (maybe thousands) erupted in gallery spaces with artists sweating, gambling everything, audiences thrilled & packed to the walls, the things we saw were a miracle, and this went on for decades.

A formally trained painter, John’s need to make art was rabid. Walk into his studio day or night, and you’d see at least 5 paintings going at once on a wall, paint dripping down to the carpet. His paintings are now part of American history in collections at the Guggenheim, LACMA, Smithsonian, Broad, and many others. His favorite studio was a Ventura strip mall storefront located next to a police substation — the cops would drive by the studio slowwww nightly to see what latest wild things were on display.

An avid fisherman and insatiable flirt, he was constantly surrounded by adoring friends and family and artists, and he was always quick to offer art advice, especially when it came to performance. Since he never stopped critiquing my work, I guess I was his student for 34 years (and I’d gladly take 34 more).

I got to hug him just hours before he departed. I reminded him of his favorite performances — some of these included a 6-foot penis; his student Beth who stood on a busy street corner holding a sign that read “Will F**k For Money” that almost caused several traffic accidents; and, the guy (we could never remember his name) who peed on the audience and almost started a riot but still got applause. John also liked the time I did a testicle puppet show, and the time when I asked fellow artists to sell me their souls for a dollar (many did, and I still have those signed contracts! lol).

A memorial was held at the 5x5x5 in Ventura at Art City this past week. The gallery was packed to the gills with artists and friends, and I had the honor of performing a flurry of John White bits referencing his life and long performance art history that spanned 50 years (not easy to sum up in 5 minutes, but I tried!).

Since John was once a pro golfer, it seemed necessary to dump hundreds of golf balls into the audience at the end. Handwritten on each was “87″ (John’s age) and the initials “JW.” Watching everyone trying to exit afterward with all those balls underfoot was a slowgoing delight John would’ve enjoyed.

On my way up to the show from L.A., I stopped off to pick up John’s ashes, which were packed into a container held in a red velvet bag. It was surreal, driving to the 5x5x5 with John’s remains in my car. When I reached Ventura, I put the bag into a black box John had given me in the 1990s, carried it into the gallery, and set it on a tall white pedestal (John would’ve loved that! lol) so he could be physically present for the 5x5x5 one last time.

If you’d told me in 1991 that 34 years later, I would carry John White in my arms into a Ventura gallery where he would sit on stage to watch me perform a retrospective of his life’s work, I’m not sure I would’ve believed it. Talk about full circle.

The final performance of the 5x5x5 memorial was a great piece by Steve Nagler of The Shrimps, who set a tiny empty chair made of matchsticks on fire. We all watched it burn to ash. It was moving, gorgeous, and the perfect finale.

I feel insanely lucky that I got to be part of these many amazing adventures, all thanks to my longtime mentor, doting husband and father, artist and teacher extraordinaire, and loyal friend to so many, John M. White.

Performance art saved many lives (including mine), thanks to him.

(In case it’s not 100% obvious that I’m a rabid John White fan, check out this happy birthday video I made for him in 2021…hahaha. And of course, my novel about performance art is dedicated to John too).

And for making John’s memorial a massive success, THANK YOU to Ventura’s 5x5x5 artists & wild fans for your endless talents + support, to brilliant musician Steve Aguilar for organizing & hosting & playing guitar, to Paul Lindhard & Art City Studios for hosting the 5x5x5 all these years, and to my cheerleader, photographer, logician, & creative partner KayDee Kersten for all her magic. xoxo

For starters, I just shot a short experimental film called Untranslatable, where I recorded myself telling an impassioned story in gibberish, then returned afterward to “translate” it into a cohesive narrative using subtitles.

Speaking gibberish without an internal narrative in mind feels really strange. Unlike a textual narrative that builds on the memory of what’s been said, gibberish builds on the memory of the spontaneous feelings you’ve surfaced in yourself out of nowhere.

Listening to the gibberish repeatedly later until a story emerges feels similar to how Surrealists employed automatic writing to plumb their unconscious minds for universal symbols and hidden meaning. It’s like listening to a foreign film whose language you don’t speak, but where you still try to make meaning out of a speaker’s raw human sounds, gestures, and tone.

Interpreting gibberish after-the-fact raises interesting questions: When does authorship truly occur? How does context (such as the addition of subtitles) change content? And, what role does the unconscious play in providing meaning, especially where a work was partially created unconsciously?

On the performance art front, I kicked off the new year by performing Alien Tuning Fork, a new piece that explores my past encounters with possible extraterrestrial intelligences. (Not only does it involve forks, I also discovered I can break a fork in half with my toes — how cool is that?!). I unveiled the new work at the 5x5x5 show at Art City, a killer art space in Ventura, CA that featured a bunch of fun performances for a standing-room-only audience that was positively on fire! You can check out Tuning Fork photos, and I hope to post some video of it soon. Special thanks to Ventura’s Steve Aguilar for producing the 5x5x5, and for his devastating piano work.

And, last but not least, in January ’25 I presented results again from my psychic experiment, this time at the International Remote Viewing Association (IRVA), an organization dedicated to exploring the science, mystery, and utility of remote viewing. I was a little nervous presenting to luminaries in the remote viewing field (some had worked on the U.S. Government’s top secret Star Gate project in the 1970s & 1980s), but the audience was incredibly kind, excited by my research, and super supportive during the Q&A with a ton of great ideas for future research directions. What an amazing and humbling experience. Thank you for inspiring me, IRVA!

May your 2025 be magical! If you’re interested in watching Untranslatable or checking out some performance art (I hope to produce a show in L.A. this summer!) check back here! xoxo

After getting bunches of post-conference requests to share my parapsychology Ph.D. dissertation, I went ahead and made it public. It contains all of the experiment details, the results, the data, and my sources. You can download it here, or from the Psychic Experiment website. (p.s., if you work for the CIA, and are interested in reviving the Star Gate project to leverage intelligence from psychics, gimme a call!).

In other news, I had good intentions of running a 100K (62-mile) race east of San Diego, but 91F weather, a 5000-foot climb, and miles of ravines filled with sharp & slippery river rocks got the better of me.

I decided to drop at the 50K mark for my own safety, and because the heat slog slowed my pace considerably. I thought I’d finish the first 50K in 5-6 hours, but ended up finishing it in 9 hours, which meant I probably wouldn’t complete the second 50K before the race’s cutoff time. Nearly half of the runners dropped out early due to heat exhaustion (I saw some getting sick in the bushes), so I feel lucky I finished 50K unscathed, other than being caked in layers of dirt. Looking forward to revenge at my next 100K in April 2025! xoxo

I’m super excited to announce that I’ll be presenting at the 42nd Society for Scientific Exploration convention Sept. 27-29, where scientists will offer the latest paranormal research on nonphysical beings, crop circles, Tesla, tuning forks, energy healing, and more!

In my talk, Psychic Hacking: Using Remote Viewing to Steal Computer Data, I’ll present evidence from my Ph.D. research showing that psychics can use remote viewing to steal computer data (and possibly even national secrets) from thousands of miles away. Pretty wild!

The conference is streaming online this year, so if you’re into fringe science & the paranormal, check it out at www.scientificexploration.org.

….Andddd, I just learned that my dark caper-comedy screenplay, TWO ARTISTS KIDNAP ELON MUSK, is an official selection at the 2024 Austin Comedy Film Festival!

Adapted from my novel, two performance artists are driven over the edge by their soul-sucking jobs, so they plot the ultimate performance: to kidnap their billionaire boss Elon Musk, and turn him into a performance artist.

Two strong female protagonists? A villainous Elon Musk smoking out with bad boy Joe Rogan? Madcap action and art with danger and absurdity? I guarantee it!

Yesssss….. My parapsychology schooling (scientific study of the paranormal) is finally done — I’m a Ghostbuster at last! Lolol.

Building upon declassified U.S. government psychic research, my Ph.D. project tried to prove whether people can steal information from computers clairvoyantly.

I launched a double-blind study where 146 people from around the world tried to psychically sense information about randomly chosen picture, video, ATM PIN, & passphrase targets stored in computers located at a secret location in L.A., with submissions scored by 6 judges. Computers were not networked, had audio disabled, & screens were dimmed to black & shielded.

Many results were statistically significant. From thousands of miles away, some psychics described as many as 7 unique details about picture targets (a=0.05, p=0.000597) and video targets (p=0.000911). Likelihood was calculated to be on par with flipping a coin & getting heads 11 times in a row.

Some people sensed details tangentially related to psychic targets, even when the details weren’t physically present. One target was a short video clip from The Shining. Some psychics sensed blood, loud heartbeats, “a mother on vacation in the mountains,” and other film specifics, even though these details weren’t contained in the actual clip I used — wild!!

I’ll publish full results (600+ pgs!) after presenting in journals & conferences later this year. For fun, here’s one submission:

THANK YOU to my amazing participants, Dr. C. Bishop of Wesleyan U. for his math genius, the U of Sedona for guidance, my 6 tireless judges who judged 1,752 rounds of data, and to KayDee Kersten for being my adventure buddy on this wild ride!

P.S.: Wanna be more psychic? Participants answered survey questions about past psychic experiences, which I then compared to their actual psychic performance. Based on the data, you’ll have more success in your psychic endeavors if you set your intention to be psychic. Participants who BELIEVED they might be psychic were 21.8 times more accurate than doubters. xoxo

I’m so excited my Psychic Experiment was a success. I was able to show that people with clairvoyant powers can “see” and describe secret data held in computers. The results (which were obvious to the naked eye and statistically significant) provided solid evidence that psychics can mentally access pictures, video clips, ATM PIN numbers, and passphrases stored in laptop machines. The experiment was judged by 6 independent judges (including a skeptic, a psychic, and a stage magician), and I can’t wait to share more results once the paper and research are approved. Stay tuned!

RIP Jerry Springer. Full disclosure: I loved watching him continue what Donahue, Geraldo, Howard Stern, & Les Crane (1960′s) turned into a live-action tabloid art form. It was impossible to look away. Gimme that lurid sleaze, those profanity-laden fistfights, hurled chairs, all of it — our own American style of rough-and-ready sideshow performance, like watching grainy Kenneth Anger films live mixed with Harmony Korine…. Yeah, it was trashy (and probably partly scripted) and childishly ridiculous and definitely exploitative, but it was also reflective of people I knew and saw growing up….the 1970s-1980s were especially sleazy, gritty, and violent in my formative experience. I especially loved the episodes where people in the margins were given a voice, even if it was sensationalized by the form — maybe seeing Springer episodes like “I’m a witch” or “I like to cross-dress” that were considered so shocking back then helped set the stage for some level of normalization and equity that will eventually come. History will judge. But for sure, those episodes connected with the creative, emotive, sensitive, scared, and wilder parts of me that were rejected (often violently) by my peers — somehow I was not alone. And watching all the cro-magnon haters who Springer would bring on stage to create drama? Maybe seeing them helped steel us collectively to battle the ignorant haters still burning books and banning drag shows today.

Watch this clip of tabloid talker Les Crane in 1964 ask a male guest questions about a thing called “homosexuality.” This was ground-breaking for TV. And as archaic and weirdly quaint as this footage looks, one day people will look back on Jerry Springer episodes and probably feel the same about them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev387WTquB8

To everyone who participated and promoted the experiment, THANK YOU SO MUCH! The turnout was fantastic. We had professional psychics participate, but for many people around the world, this was their very first paranormal experience EVER — how amazing is that?!?

I’ll post an update here once results are available sometime in 2023. Again, THANK YOU!

Plus, everyone who participates will be entered into a random drawing to win one of three $200 Amazon gift cards!

The experiment only takes a few minutes, so check out the video, and head on over to www.psychicexperiment.org.

P.S. — Once I have enough data, the experiment will close, so don’t wait too long to join the fun!

*** OCTOBER 31st UPDATE! *** It’s Halloween, and the Psychic Experiment has been ROCKETING forward with more participants than we ever thought possible — if you participated, THANK YOU! And if you’re still planning to try it, good news, there’s still time — the experiment closes Sunday, November 6, 2022.

Here’s a quick thank you:

My psychic extravaganza is finally almost here! As part of my Ph.D. program in Parapsychology (the study of the paranormal), I’m conducting a public psychic experiment to see if people can use psychic powers to see data inside computers.

If you think psychic powers are probably real (and ESPECIALLY if you think you might be psychic), I hope you’ll participate! Starting October 23, point your browser at www.psychicexperiment.org and have at it! 3 participants will also be randomly selected to win a $200 Amazon gift card!

Andddd if you’ll be near Ventura, California on November 4th, swing by the Art City Gallery and Studios, where I’ll be unleashing a new performance art piece with an array of awesome performers! 8PM and FREE!