What is Project Eklektro?

"Eklektro" turns 10 years old this February, and i'm gonna celebrate it in Thailand! But lately a few new friends wanted to know exactly what it is that i do... or that i'm trying to do. And well wow, its so multi-dimensional, and yet so obvious i'd think (?) hope (?)... at least once you've read through (and visualized) the ecstatic struggle of THIS: (enjoy!)

So i bought my first RV 8 years ago, after having to vacate my awesome Boston studio...
with a solo album of electronica half in the can, and almost ready to perform live... Boston was getting lame, but the warehouse was a sanctuary, and it hurt to leave the place where i was just starting to experience some techno-creative bliss.
But i quickly outfitted the RV with the beginnings of a mobile studio and hit the road west... and I immediately experienced a completely new kinda creative surge.
The surge was amplified further when i stumbled upon Moontribe, and then of course blew my mind when
hit my first Burningman.. with my RV/studio/solar-powered house on wheels... i felt like i stepped into a cyber dream come true.
Or rather ABOUT to come true!
So the next couple years were times of intense brainstorming.
and then i got hooked up to wireless internet... at the beach.. wherever i'd go. for the year 2001, this was amazing.
So 9-11 happened, and strangely 2 weeks later my unique (and ahead of their time) WIFI carrier went bankrupt (!),.... my new inspirational mobile internet life-stream was cut off! so then rather than get depressed about it, i decided to fight back, and so i launched Eklektro.net!
and then i bought the 2nd RV, and did Eklektro Karavan.. cross-country, with TechTV following us...
didn't quite pan out, 'cause TechTV had a downsizing, and we lost our producer!!
Then my 2nd RV blew an engine, and as the icing on the cake after 16,000 miles of RV expenses... i was pretty much bankrupt.
Yeah, Eklektro Karavan was self-funded (didn't want any corporate sponsors) and setting out to be a wireless internet radio station (!)
broadcasting live-played electronica, interviews, adventures... emanating from SoCal, but able to go most anywhere.
yep, this was something that for 2002 was still a bit ahead of its time.
the live-played electronica part of it made it quite a challenge.
i learned the hard way... that although i could run a SOLO mobile studio, and live this way just fine on my own;
the variables of all the other characters were too much for me and the RVs to handle at the time.
but i was still trying, despite being dead-broke. Mark Trance took up a residency in my silver RV, and we started to collaborate... but perhaps even this was too much. 'cause then the universe gave me a major path-correction.. a drunk driver came outa nowhere and totalled my tan RV... and sent me to the chiropractor. 3 days after 10 year Moontribe, the whole magic summer was shot...
So i took it as a blessing in disguise, having to build back from bankrupt, i got a modest insurance settlement, and decided to go to Mexico for an undetermined bit of time, with my one solar RV... to sit on a beach and work on the "story" of what i was trying to build. I'd make a DVD and write an accompanying book!
After 2 months i started making great progress (!), and i posted hours of crazy road video to my website along the way. but then i caught adult chickenpox! and thus began an up and down series of whole seasons where i'd have wildly fluctuating energy... and could often barely keep up. i decided that i needed a break from RVs!
I went to Thailand, backpacking... but still with a mini "studio" worth of laptops and hard drives. i found a better balance, and i'd work on writing and editing... and as my health improved.. i started a video blog.
and of course all along the way there were upstarts and collaborations that ALMOST took off.
but i was still living full-time nomadic (which i thought to be quite an accomplishment, but in retrospect proved a bit of a handicap).
In a quest for terra firma, i tried moving my RVs to a warehouse in SanFran... but missed my friends and the LA weather. i came back and lived at the beach again (in winter)... toughing it out...
and then i found the Silverlake Studio.
and the past year has been one of "setting up shop"... starting to look for a crew....
and making some money, so i can afford materials to transform the RVs in time for next summer...
for Perpetual Apollo
http://eklektro.net/perpetual_apollo/
for CyberEZRyder
http://recreationalvehicle.blogspot.com/

'cause YO! 2007 is off to an amazing start,
and the skies aren't even the limit!

OK, leaving soon for Thailand... stay tuned!

E>K>G

pic blog

go!

Chronic RV, Clearing the air, and a 3 year disclaimer!

Retracing my steps... overcoming the big flood of changes which all began with the drunk driver crashing into my RV in '03...

Maybe if it wasn't for the crash i might've never packed up and gone so deep down into Mexico.... and I might've never got so deep down into video blogging if it wasn't for that trip. Those were some amazing months for project Eklektro...  Paolo karavanned with his van and his 3-chip cam, and so we headed out towards Mazatlan: shooting adventures along the way, editing same-day in the mobile studio, and uploading international road-video like there was no tomorrow! Seemed like things were off to a great re-start, and a big sigh of relief, as i had just worked through an exceptionally tough summer, a summer spent dislocated from my mobile "home" and studio... this was more than just some car crash. Due to some dude's drunken "mishap", suddenly I was a midsummer prisoner in an East LA garage, living in a disabled RV and beginning a regimen of chiropractic therapy... So opting to try to save my sanity (and my spine), I decided that rather than wait for the insurance battle to settle, i'd retrofit the silver RV with all the living amenities and solar-sonic stuff from the totalled tan RV... and get back to the beach ASAP. Yeah, flashing back pre-crash to the promise of summer '03... 2 days after summer solstice and fresh from a utopian 10-year Moontribe anniversary gathering, performing improvisational electronica with Mark Trance (who was set up in my other RV); we were past the dual mobile-studio configuration stage. Our electronic collaboration had survived the rocket science and we were starting to line up the gigs... and then bam! I get hit head-on by a drunk driver (who caught me unaware while i was parked at the beach, chilling out with headphones on, no time to brace for the crash...  so then chiropractic recovery, insurance battles, etc...). 

Many of you have probably heard bits of this story, and big thanks to those who helped out back then... most especially by letting me ventilate! So anyway, once all the repairs and rehab were completed, it was nearly winter, and time to get out of town... out of the country! Paolo called like clockwork, working his way from Vancouver to karavan with me. We packed up and drove out of LA, worrying about more specific plans once we were actually on the move; talking it up like truckers on 2 way radios. We stopped in at the Naoism studio in Tucson, jammed a few days and uploaded our first drive-by collaborative piece. Next the border, and things got progressively more amazing from there (see the Eklektro Mexico episodes).

But back to the gist of this blog; the unforeseen life-changing thing that happened down there in Mexico all started with me catching chickenpox at age 39.  Yeah, i never got it as a kid. Chickenpox, which caught me while i was LIVING like a kid, totally care-free on a picture perfect paradise beach that me and my RV stumbled upon, 30 miles outside Puerto Vallarta, 1500 miles from LA (half-way into my months-long mission, Paolo having gone home weeks ago, I was now working solo every day on solar-electronic music.. and authoring my own DVD... until the virus got me). This put an immediate halt to things, really wiped me out... I had to uproot my RV from its 6 week jungle perch and head into town to find a clinic. Then with my blood samples in hand, i had to maneuver the RV across Puerto Vallarta's cobblestone streets to the various testing laboratories... then a couple weeks spent recouperating at some gracious Argentine friends' little ranchito near a bird sanctuary. But then i developed a strange 2nd bout of undetermined fever shortly afterwards... followed by a batch of best-guess antibiotics, and more convalescence. So after another month of careful diet and supplements, i regained enough strength to begin the hair-raising solo RV drive back from Puerto Vallarta to LA...  and things got slowly better and better from there... the nastiness was now safely behind me, relegated to war stories...  until fall '04. 

I got a bunch of strange symptoms, so i started a homeopathic approach to rebuild my immune system, taking different herbs and supplements, and finally decided to take my first break from "RV living" in a good long time....  3 months in Thailand!  I came back feeling like a million bucks....  til mid-summer '05.  I did some more self-diagnosis and came to the conclusion that i had too much sugar in my diet, and i had a predictable case of post-chickenpox candida.  So i changed my herbal remedies a bit, cut out ALL sugar from my diet, and by mid-winter i was on the road to recovery.  I took another break from the RV by going to Brazil for 2 months.  Another healthy respite, with fantastic Brazilian food, and i came back to LA in April feeling 100%.  But then a series of homecoming events and stress quickly wiped me out..  I mean seriously wiped me out.. flat on my back.  I went to an accupuncturist recommended by a friend...  ready to try just about everything (short of another western doctor visit that would find nothing substantially wrong with me except slightly low blood pressure... and hey, ever since i bought the 2nd RV and rolled the dice on project Eklektro Karavan, I haven't carried health insurance).  So after an initial accupuncture treatment, the Chinese doctor started me on an herbal regimen, and i experienced great results...  up til about August...  but then a few weeks before Burning Man, i started to have a pretty serious relapse.  At this point i was at my wits end....with some strange new symptoms.  I started doubting my own diagnosis, doubting my accupuncturist, and was grabbing at straws...  meanwhile waking up at night with my heart racing... poor circulation and panicked by weird heart palpitations... struggling to get back to sleep.  Then waking up the next day feeling OK and thinking that maybe i just needed to get out and enjoy life some more...  or maybe just relax and enjoy a bit of weed again (at this point being a month and a half without any ganja).    

Meanwhile, I was bound and determined, and yet obviously borderline on the Burning Man decision, whether or not to attend the week-long desert fest; and this in itself was kinda stressful.  But when my BM ride-share was late getting out of the gate, i decided last minute to stay home; and so instead of partying (albeit sometimes the best medicine, yet the desert held rather unknown health consequences).... instead i'd take the time and money saved... and work on putting my home base in better order... and so i sold my ticket and then almost on cue, I lucked-out on my summer-long car search.  I found an unprecedented deal on a 2000 Saab turbo (!) ...  which made me feel better about missing the burn :)  So back to the beach i went with the RV.  I decided to make a last-ditch super-concerted effort on getting better, taking it REALLY easy for a week, eating and sleeping right, detoxing and flushing my system with fluids and searching the internet for any clues as to what was wrong with me.  Symptoms didn't improve.  I made an appointment with a clinic for some blood tests to rule out any catastrophic disease.  Meanwhile, i started following a thread on the web.  Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome....  a hotly debated topic in the medical world, with many doctors saying it doesn't exist as such.  I had read about it before, but dismissed it.  In the early days of my problems, I couldn't say that "fatigue" was my main complaint (of course i was masking it with caffeine or weed sometimes, and this was contributing to the problem).... As to my declining energy and lessened productivity, I thought maybe i was just getting "older".  But then i read further the list of symptoms of Chronic Fatigue (CFIDS) and my curiosity was peaked.  I dug further on the web... dug and dug until i found this one PDF document... And the more i read, the more i discovered that i was a text-book case.  CFIDS is indeed a "syndrome", which is exasperated by any of countless infections...  and usually an "opportunist" infection that hops onboard and flares up while your immune system is suppressed by some other virus... or stress... environmental toxins, allergies, all of the above... or parasites!  So yeah, flash back to 2004, it was adult chickenpox which began this process!  ....and to this day i don't even know what that 2nd fever was... i was tested for everything from typhoid to malaria, etc.. all negative, and was just glad when it was over.  So then the Mexican doctors told me to watch my diet, 'cause i emerged from the illness borderline anemic... and so i promptly gave up my 90% vegetarian ways, started eating meat, and taking supplements.  

But diet was only part of the equation. I was still an RV-dweller.... and in my recovering state, the long list of other potentially dangerous environmental factors were still unknown to me... affecting my bodily systems slowly, and behind the scenes.  I was living like i always had (and if you'd ask me, i'd say a rather charmed existence, with only minor trade-offs), back and forth between the beach and the streets of Los Angeles... seemingly healthy... but subjected to fluctuating living conditions, constantly! So now when i look at the list of causes of CFIDS, i'd suggest re-naming the syndrome as "RV disease", or Chronic RV Syndrome, 'cause as much as i'm an advocate of this lifestyle,  I can now act as cautionary council.   There are certain aspects of urban RV living that allow the convergence of multiple potentially toxic factors, starting with "instability" of house and home...moving around all the time... a form of subconscious stress, which in retrospect i suppose can take its toll on you.... and especially when using one's RV as one's studio... working long hours on computers.... and even more detrimental: having one's sleep cycle disrupted by having to move the RV off the beach by midnight, then back down to the beach in the morning. I was paying a steep price by not getting enough delta wave "deep" sleep, the cellular repair stage of sleep... and CFIDS thrives off of this deficiency.  It was literally starting to kill me... poisoning my blood...  choking my internal organs of their oxygen supply, and totally zapping my energy.

So i'm writing this shortly after making my discovery...  while still feeling most of the symptoms, and knowing that i probably will for a while to come.  The 2nd batch of tests came back recently, and I've been diagnosed with a latent strep infection; I've started the antibiotics. And now with the 3rd batch of tests i'm being screened for parasites.  Yeah, its a syndrome.  Any one of these afflictions might go unnoticed on their own for years.  People live with strep and don't know it.  People can live 30 years with parasites and feel no effects.  Well, i've visited several 3rd world countries in the past several years, and so i'll be surprised if the results DON'T come back positive.  So hey, i have to laugh at the analogy between fixing my body, and fixing a car. Like when your car fails smog: One by one, you weed out and fix lingering problems. And so for CFIDS especially, you have to remove the drains on your system before your system starts to fix itself, and then you overcome the "syndrome".

So I finally have a game-plan that should at least get me back to some semblance of normal within hopefully a few weeks.  And only by writing all this could i explain to some of my friends, fellow artists and tech-nomadic conspirators what i've been going through... and why things have been so silent from my direction... and why my video blog has been dormant. And so i'd say best explained in a text blog, rather than hours and hours of commiserating telephone conversations... its time to move on! Talk about a weight off of the shoulders!  And yet, completely overcoming CFIDS is not so automatic as taking some certain fix-all drug and being all cured in a month.  No, its gonna take dedication and discipline, and i'm going to have to watch my diet, sleep schedule and overall lifestyle for at least the next several months.  

So the past year has been one of reckoning.... cleaning up from the past several years spent mobile! I've got the new studio in Silverlake, which puts me into a more healthy semi-nomadic status; a place which better faciliates working on the RVs, and safely leaving them behind when necessary!
So next, most especially, socially; once i get healthy, it'll be time to start making up for the past few difficult years...
yeah, I'm looking forward to a few good parties!
As a new "resident" of los angeles, I hope to see you out there!
Thanks for reading... and thanks AGAIN to those who've lent support along the way.
Cheers, and here's to your health!
G

Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome: INFO, for those who might need to know:
http://lassesen.com/cfids/idefx.pdf

http://eklektro.blogspot.com

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE:

I've moved the main video blog over to "EKLEKTRO - BREAKBEAT OF THE WEEK"

HTTP://EKLEKTRO.BLOGSPOT.COM

Once there, you can subscribe via your choice of
iTunes, Yahoo, FireAnt and more...

I'll probably maintain this blog-spot for behind-the-scenes stuff, so you might want to keep it dialed in as well...

Thanks for your patience!

- EKG

Welcome to BreakBeat of the Week!
We now join our program already in progress....

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