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I Was Baptized in a Jacuzzi | Baltimore, MD | 2021

I Was Baptized in a Jacuzzi

MCHL WGGNS April 27, 2021

I can barely remember any religion when I was growing up in Los Angeles. I do remember that my mom was kicked out of Saint Mel's for some reason, so my brother and I stopped going to CCD after like, one or two weeks. But I don't think she was embarrassed by it. That was back in the early 70s. I never associated religion with any of my childhood friends. I did go to a bar mitzvah, so I knew about being Jewish vs being Catholic. It felt the same to me. I took communion a few times. Then I barely thought about religion for about a decade. I did like being in nature though. Camping and such. And I liked nothing more than surfing. It felt miraculous. The perfect combination of joy, being by yourself, and the science of it all. But I was never really alone. There was a camaraderie. I had the world. My college roommate took a class called Cultural Traditions. That got me thinking. But I was really into beers and smoking weed and tripping and dancing and connecting with that inner joy. The same feeling I'd get at Malibu. The singular all comforting bliss of being. Not of the self but of the whole. Light in the head and warm in the heart. These people I would meet on the dance floor were into yoga and meditation. So I read about the Buddha and Taoism. I started my asana journey with Lilias on PBS. I began chanting in Santa Monica. And by the time I moved to NYC in 1995 I realized there were 600 languages spoken in the city and 4,000 religions in the world. And then I would go to a bar and smoke a joint and find a dance floor. I would raise my hands in the air and smile in the knowing that this right here is everything. This world beat. This community. This love. 

Church.





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Tags Bliss, Brother, Church, Los Angeles, Love, Meditation, Mom, Nonfiction, The 70s, Yoga

Doug Angleton | Los Angeles, CA | 1990

Ten Marches Since My Last Confession

MCHL WGGNS March 19, 2021

When you've known someone for 37 years you develop a shorthand.

This is a portrait of my dear friend, Doug Angleton, in a series of March texts. 


March 2, 2012
 

Michael: JAH!
Doug: Rasta fari

Doug Angleton | Brooklyn, NY | 2010

March 2, 2013

Doug: Are you doing alright today bubbi?
Michael: Nothing but good feels.
Doug: I figured as much
Doug: Yay

March 28, 2014

Michael: Bodhisattva, I love you! I can barely wait to see you on Sunday to get our feel on!
Doug: Yes I am pissing on the floor like little chihuahua my tail is wagging so fast

Doug Angleton & Michael Wiggins | New York, NY | 2014

March 3, 2015

Michael: "My barn having burned down I can now see the moon," said Mizuta Masahide.
Doug: Moon vs barn  Moon won
Doug: Everyone's a winner step right up bargains galore

March 17, 2016

Michael: Jah!
Doug: Him make the herbe for Man

Vacuum Flowers by Doug Angleton | 2011 (Oil on canvas, 4 x 6’)

March 1, 2017

Michael: Thinking of you. LA circa 1988.
Doug: Just before I went to Baltimore
Doug: Thirty years, old buddy

Doug Angleton | Los Angeles, CA | 1988

March 11, 2018

Doug: Happy Sunday mon ami
Doug: I was tripping on acid
Michael: Right on!! I was just thinking about the Legend of Doug. And how cool it is that you worked in the Flat Iron building in NYC. What a beautiful feather in your crown chakra head piece. Life is good!
Doug: Yes indeed

Doug Angleton | New York, NY | 2013

March 14, 2019

Michael: We all snowflakes. Ain’t that right, Sensei?!
Doug: True dat
Doug: All together we are the snowfall, our history an avalanche
Doug: When we melt in the sun of wisdom we run together to form the rivers and oceans
Doug: Which is what we were in the first place round and round

Doug Angleton | Rutherford, NJ | 2010

March 21, 2020

Michael: You doing ok Mr Angleton?
Doug: Well enough Wig

March 10, 2021

Michael: Wish we was playing Spades right now. Outside, on a picnic bench.
Doug: O what joy



Mr. Angleton died from complications of diabetes on March 11, 2021.

I will truly miss him.





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Tags Baltimore, Doug, Flowers, Grieving, Los Angeles, Love, Melancholy, Music, Nonfiction, Video

Good Vibes | Baltimore, MD | 2021

The Early Beginnings of the Vibe Rater

MCHL WGGNS February 26, 2021

At the closing bell on February 26, 2039, General Electric’s stock price reached an all-time high of $360. 

But let's take it back to a leaner time—2021—when a GE share traded for twelve bucks. 

The Conglo—which is what the hacker interns used to call the company suits in Boston—were a pretty righteous group despite being Super Crackers. But the leader of the Hacks wasn't a saltine. Nah, Hai was a fly black cyberpunk who loved to bump. And when she wasn't burning up lines of incendiary code she was creating mixtapes—for Saturday night. And when she wasn't meditating on the heart-mind she was straight-up visionary. Hai believed that trust was based on vibe. If the vibe was right, nothing was wrong—Operation Motto (OM). The world was a beautiful place and Hai had a calling—calibrate vibe or bust. The Crackers put Hai in charge of the OM. She was 17. P-to-the-righteous!

I worked for Hai and she was my best friend. Okay. We sold weed together during our first year at MIT. One of our faithful customers was the daughter of a Super-C. She told us that her dad was all about paid internships during the summer. Perfect, cause we prayer-hands-appreciated a Conglo with deep love for R&D. Hai pitched the OM to daddy-get-up and he said, "Let's do this. You're running point, and can have … one assistant," finger gesturing to me—Cool Breezy.

"We can see vibe—yes sir—both CB and I can. It's how we met. We were in this little club downtown and the groove was butter. We were feeling it. And then we stopped, we just stopped dancing and stared at each other—she was pointing at me and I was pointing at her—and then we just hugged."

"That's sweet," said the GE suit. "So you both are psychic."

"Totally,” Hai affirmed. “But no, we figured out how to calculate that beautiful glow we saw on the dance floor. Vibes. So yeah, basically, we’d love to work with y'all to build a cute-ass vibe rater.”

“Crazy,” said the exec as he ping-ponged his head back-and-forth from Hai to me and then back to Hai.

“Fun, right?” Hai sped up her pitch. “The tech is worn on the ear. Hardcore vibers will want it pierced, but you can also get a cuffed version. The earring does two things—it measures and it transmits. It senses breath, body temp, heart rate, words, inflection and some other patented shit involving molecules and pH, but we'll get into that later, and then it converts all this data into a mood, which is mainly a color, but also a numerical rating from 1 to 100, you know, for exacts."

"We do like our science here at the conglomerate," said the proud exec as he adjusted his Herman Miller.

"Us too!" we said in unison. Hai slowed down this last part. "The tech transmits the data to a happy piece of software." Then casually she lifted her iPhone and continued, "The app keeps track of your vibe ratings and over time gives you reward points that can be redeemed for crypto. Purple vibes—the crème de la crème—are money. Red vibes, not so much. That kind of thing. Our palette is based on the seven chakras. Basically, it pays to have—good vibes. That's phase one. Would you like to hear phase two?"

Needless to say, they did. 

And in 2026, General Electric licensed the rights to our patent, OM, for $17 mil. 

Today GE has sold over one billion OMs. Oh, and the chief executive is a Queer Black Woman, the Super Crackers lost their stronghold of the Conglo in 2030, and, vibes are a worldwide commodity—duh.

As Sade, the famous artist from the late 1980s would sing, “Girl you are rich even with nothing” … but good vibes.





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Tags Fiction, Good Feelings
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