Man starts band, Band gains momentum, Band comes up missing, Band dies Has Anyone Seen My Band? Now junior, please play nice and give the band back	stage name nightmares

Ronnie Nelson (left) and Jiva of Bhakti Rasa in performance at Cervantes Ballroom for Godswear Fashion Show, 2004 photo by Vincent

The word got out and now my song called "Hollywood" has been playing on the radio all afternoon. My agent says that David Geffen and Richard Branson have been fist-fighting over rights to use it in a new film about the history of Hollywood, coming out next week and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. There's only one problem. Nobody knows who wrote the song because I have multiple stage name syndrome and rarely go onstage. I called up Geffen and Branson, coincidentally the name of the law firm who defends my show biz interests and royalties, only to discover that the film has been cancelled and I'm being sued by another party for claiming that I wrote my own song. A settlement was on the table that I could avoid financial wipe-out if I agreed to disclaim all rights to Hollywood and submit myself to group therapy sessions with an unknown Denver woman who in 1994 claimed to have written some Michael Jackson songs, causing Michael to appear in court in his pajamas, right here in Denver. Just about then, the landlord knocked on my door and demanded the rent. I quickly agreed with my attorneys and slammed down the phone. I looked at the piles of writings and articles laying all over my dusty "historic" hardwood floor apartment full of smoke from down the hall. Suddenly I realized why I'm a nobody: I don't have a name. Or I have too many of them. But that's my trademark.

Back on planet Earth, I remember when underground journalist Roxanna Alday was calling this town Denvoid in her little Nada 'zine in the 1980s. with genuine ads from enhancement specialist Big Breast-Squeezin' Bob. I think Nada was an acronym for "not a damn thing". And that pretty much sums up a lot of the great disappointment that bands can experience anywhere. Also, here in Denver, a stage name, and keeping it, can make the difference between being known or unknown. Denver is stuck in the middle of a vast void. The only big towns between here and Hollywood are Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Las Vegas. That makes it difficult to do live concert tours. A band in Michigan or Ohio might have ten times as many college towns to play within a hundred miles. Bands come and go mighty fast because players move with the flow, to other parts of the USA. Good luck keeping a band together! Even a loyal audience is subject to erosion, as people often don't stay long here. Denver is a nexus and an oasis on the parched high plains. We are a speck in the dust. On the other hand, people in Colorado probably spend more on entertainment because they make more. But you gotta have a name. And you gotta use it.

Speaking of bands, Jivanada Das, a fifty-something local east-side fellow vegetarian with trendy nerd glasses and a slight paunch, once had a nifty band. He called it Bhakti Rasa. Jiva plays guitar, sitar and assorted other instruments. But not in Bhakti Rasa. He reports that he lost control of his own band.

A name is everything. And this one has all the potency of a mystical George Harrison music venture. Now according to Jiva, this band and its name were always his baby. Bhakti Rasa - pronounced "bok-tee-ross" - is essentially Hindu for "the nectar of devotion". The word Bhakti refers to one's devotion to the Divine. Rasa referes to the "taste" or emotional rapture imparted by spiritual consciousness. It is also a broader arts term in India, where many mystical and transcendental things are legend. But don't sit there hogging down your animal flesh lunch and expect to have the slightest clue what this "taste" means. According to the founder of the Hare Krisna movement in America, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, there is no spirituality without vegetarian compassion to animals. So please, stop and go directly to Watercourse Restaurant and ask for some incredibly delicious lessons on eating tofu before your tongue leads you to the depths of Kali Yuga hell. I love animals. And I happen to think Jiva is a nice guy. But I'm tired of hearing him whimper about the alleged pretender who reportedly hijacked his band. I want to see the real Bhakti Rasa play again soon.

"We are a speck in the dust.... You gotta have a name. And you gotta use it."

The antagonist in Jiva's sad story is said to be one Ronnie Nelson, who for all I know, is perfectly innocent. A lengthy anonymous bio on WikiBin claims that Ronnie started BhaktiRasa in May, 2004. Ronnie has been a Colorado (unofficial) promoter of Burning Man Festival staged annually in Nevada. Jiva told me that Bhakti Rasa (including Jiva) played at Burning Man and attracted a large crowd. And at one time, they were actually making some revenue from live shows around Denver. But naturally, I just had to bring up an uncomfortable curiosity. What was a supposedly spiritual all-veggie band like Bhakti Rasa doing at a festival of upper middle class white hedonism? Jiva tacitly agreed with my summation of this annual cult event. We both high-fived and shouted "hoddy Krishna" for moral support. But back to the meat and gore.

Last night I asked Jiva why he can't just go out and do a show as Bhakti Rasa and take his band back. After all, his other backup players remained loyal. And it does not appear that Ronnie is doing very many shows as "Bhakti Rasa" lately. The band website shows the "next" show is dated three years ago. Jiva sobbed that Ronnie has control of the band name because Ronnie registered it. I did a tradeark search at USPTO.gov and did not find "Bhakti Rasa". However, the domain names BhaktiRasa.com and BhaktiRasa.net are registered with a concealed registrant name, suggesting someone who has opted for privacy. But if anyone is actually squatting on a domain name representing an artistic venture that does not in fact belong to them - and I'm not saying that's the case - but if it is, then lo and behold, there are legal remedies. Or if one side will not admit wrong for the sake of their karma, then the disagreeing parties can sometimes work something out.

Further digging and it appears that Ronnie has claimed to have a background in contractual law and a diversity of arts talents including significant theater credits. And he's had many web sites and Yahoo pages giving him a preeminent visibility with Colorado's participation in Burning Man. Or so it was.

"Will the real Bhakti Rasa please stand up?"

The tragedy of the Bhakt Rasa name disagreement reminds me of an old teenage acquaintance named Eric Moore from the 1960s, who grew up and started a biker band of limited global cult fame called The Godz in Columbus, Ohio, then started getting phone calls from attorneys of another band of the same name. I bought him a shot of whiskey in Akron recently, just before aging rock star Chrissie Hynde returned to town to start a restaurant right across the street, with an all-vegetarian menu and many dishes apparently named after dead chickens. Obviously the name "chicken" sells.

Efforts to reach Ronnie for immediate verbal comment were confounded since the phone number on the whois domain registration was only for the domain registration company. I glanced once again at the Bhakti Rasa web page today. A photo on the contact page shows a contemporaneous forty-something Ronnie Nelson with sunglasses, mugging with two scantily clad belly dancers and a couple or relief statues presumably representing sacred lingerie models in ancient Pompii. Jiva is nowhere to be found on the entire website. Will the real Bhakti Rasa please stand up? I hate to see a good band name go to waste.

- Vincent Blaine Rain (2010 July26)

Please email feedback to Colorado Arts Net

• Jivananda Das <Myspace.com/jivanandadas> -
• Bhakti Rasa <BhaktiRasa.com> -
• Colorado Burning Man <ColoradoBurningMan.com> - (one of Ronnie's sites)

Writer-performer-artist Vincent B. Rain is founder of the prestigious Art Bums International and is starting a secret religion for old disheveled men who woship young goddesses.

Teen Idol
The King Tut exhibit has arrived at Denver Art Museum. But don't expect to see the great pharaoh's mummy. It's resting in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Likewise, Tutankhamun's fantastic golden death mask was too fragile to make the tour. But you can get a glimpse of the deified teenager's world, via many other artifacts raided from his tomb by Harry Burton in 1922. Tut was regarded as a god in his time. He ruled Egypt from the age of ten through nineteen. Adult tickets are priced around $20 to $22 for the general public. No cameras allowed. Expect long waits in line. This may be your last chance to gawk at the world of a teenager who existed before mobile phone texting, Myspace and Twitter. Visit Denver Art Museum through January 19, 2011.

ps: The July 12, 2010 edition of Newsweek (p16) reports that King Tut's - ahem! - male apparatus has turned up missing in Egypt.

• King Tut, Denver Appearance <TutDenver.com> -
• Tutankhamun <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun> -

Mad Genius Art Minds Thrive on Fresh Air Rent Smoke Free New Website Listing Air-Filled Apartments in Denver	news & opinion

Passive cigarette smoke, which contains carbon monoxide and a zillion other brutal toxins, causes headaches, fatigue, insomnia, burning eyes, sleep apnea, gagging, impotence and serves as a powerful date-repellant. Even if you succeed in pregnancy, you may end up with Rosemary's Baby. Passive smoke also causes massive suffering to children and pets. And it makes food taste like big piles of manure. Anyone who pays extra for organic food is wasting their money if their bodies are already filled with millions of free radicals from other people's cigarettes. All that stuff about cancer, emphysema, cataracts, heart disease, lymphoma, extra colds, asthma attacks and chest pains are just the icing on the cake. Passive smoke makes life hell for millions of apartment dwellers, long before death. And I think the medical industry is a bunch of idiots for not realizing the connection between tobacco smoke and dementia. When you are stuck in an apartment building full of ciggy stench, your mental ability diminishes very quickly. This is hazardous to the conception of art. Smoke and low mental scores have been linked. And trust me, there's nothing worse than being a stark raving artistic genius and suffering the loss of your mental powers to the daily incessant presence of the yellow gas from other apartments. It also dulls the insides of camera lenses and digital sensors. It puts a haze on your big 30 inch creative Mac Cinema Display. It dulls the vivid colors in paintings laying around in your studio. It slows the synaptic power of writers. It can erode the vocal range of singers. Passive smoke and artistic genius don't mix. The insomnia alone will have you feeling undead and depressed as hell.

There generally are no legal standards for apartment ventillation systems, since most legislators live in single family homes and have no motivation to protect renters. Most landlords do not live in their death traps that build vast amounts of toxic smoke. They live in nice homes with clean air. Therefore they don't care. Some landlords make matters worse by sealing up hallway windows, painting upper windows shut and not replacing missing screens that keep out squirels. Renters do not have any lobby out fighting to protect their health either. And I really don't see state and local health departments doing anything to protect renters. In summary, passive death-stick smoke is a huge problem for artists who are cramped into low and middle cost apartments and studios. The landlords who rent apartments in cigarette-sick buildings without maximizing ventillation or installing mechancical exhaust removal fans, should be taken to a Utah firing sqaud and not given a final smoke.

In theory, every renter has a choice. But there is no choice without informed consent. Typically, when you rent an apartment at noon, the smoke levels may not reach their full stench momentum until evening when all the smokers come home to suck on their poison. By then you've signed a lease and you are burned. Besides, where in Capitol Hell or anywhere in Denver can anyone find smoke-free apartments?

The answer may come in the form of a new website, currently seeking to list these heavenly air-filled stench-free oases in the oxygen-deprived desert. Rent Smoke Free currently has only a handful of building listings, amounting to under a thousand smoke-free units. Priority is being given to Capitol Hill and Denver. The hope of Rent Smoke Free is to build up a large number of listings, enabling nonsmokers to shout "eureka!", boycott their old ripoff landlords, and move into buildings where landlords are conscientious regarding the mutual damage of passive smoke. I mean it's less painting and fire risk for them as well as more air for us. There is a potentially huge rental market here for intelligent landlords who might wake up and begin renting to more non-smokers. Actually, many smoke-free apartment and condo buildings already exist. We all just need to find them. Please go to Rent Smoke free to report smoke-free apartment buildings in Denver. Let's get this obscure naiscent fresh air rental craze rolling. Just click the weblink below.
- Vincent Vin (2010 July 04 Sunday)

• Rent Smoke Free <RentSmokeFree.com> - for renters who want to live and breathe. Qualified listings provided free of charge to Denver metro properties with priority to Capitol Hill and apt/condo buildings having 20+ units.

Beats at Naropa, an Anthology (Coffeehouse Press), edited by Anne Waldman and Laura Wright, explores the gritty writing process, human values and personalities of Beat Generation authors as told through living persons and assorted audio archives of Naropa University. The institution has a Beat tradition going back to its founding association with Allen Ginsberg in 1974 in Boulder and is home to the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.   Left to right: Steven Taylor, Allan Kornblum of Coffeehouse Press, Anne Waldman, Junior Burke and Laura Wright at Boulder Bookstore (2009 July 12)

Kelsey Grammer Haunted by Colorado Memory.... and others On July 1,1975, 18 year old Karen Elisa Grammer was abducted from her place of employment, a Red Lobster restaurant, beaten, raped, butchered and left to die after a failed robbery of the restaurant. Freddie Glenn, Winslow Watson and Larry Dunn were charged in the crimes. Dunn testified against his partners, resulting in their convictions. The most savage portion of the attack occurred in a dirt alleyway adjacent to a trailer park in Colorado Springs, where the men took turns raping her. Glenn reportedly slashed the victim's throat and plunged a knife into her back. The men then fled. She crawled some 800 feet to the door of a manager at the trailer park and left a trail of blood leading to the doorbell button. But she was unable to ring it before she bled to death. The murder still haunts Karen's brother who is actor Kelsey Grammer, probably best known for his beloved roles in the Cheers and Frazier TV sitcoms. Grammer, then a young acting student at Julliard School, learned of the death after several days trying to call his sister beginning on July 4th, and then calling police to discover the shocking news. He has recounted that it crushed him and their mother and destroyed their grandmother. On July 27, 2009, Glenn came up for a parole hearing in the Colorado Dept. of Corrections. (Click "Inmate Locator" to see his mug and stats). Grammer attempted to appear at the hearing but his flight from New York was canceled by rain. Nonetheless he made an impassioned plea, and Glenn remains behind bars where he has been since age 19. He had been sentenced to death until the death penalty was overturned. Glenn also brutally murdered two young men in 1975. In a letter to the Parole Board, Grammer stated "Surely a man who has killed so many must never take a single breath as a free man." Glenn comes up for his next parole hearing on July 01, 2014. Prior to all this, in 1968, at age 13, Grammer also lost his estranged father in a murder that occured on his front lawn in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Additonally, two half brothers were killed by sharks while scuba diving. - Consulted Denver Post, Wikipedia. Internet Movie Database, AskMen.com, and Find a Grave. (2009 August 20) Footnote: The FindAGrave article on Karen is interesting but excruciating to find from their site. "Just Google "Karen Elisa Grammer". Our special thanks to all those who support the arts by providing a return link to Colorado Arts Net! ColoradoArts.Net named "BEST FREE ARTS LINK-UP" - Westword, Best of Denver, 1998 "There is a great satisfaction in building good tools for other people to use." - Freeman Dyson (b. 1923) Two Colorado Arts Net Web Addresses ColoradoArts.Net and CoArts.Net are one and the same. Remember the short one! Colorado Arts Net went online in 1996 as "Denver Entertainment Directory". (See History of CAN.)

Stage
- theater - dance - comedy
- venues, clubs, stages
- public arts venues, museums, history
- talent reps
- event resources-tix & promoters
- village idiots & buskers

Visual Arts
- artists - arts organizations
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Music
- bands & musicians
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Media
- literary, libraries, poets, publishing, book
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Features
- demographic arts & culture
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Billboard
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- link to ColoradoArts.Net -
- history of CAN - why???

More
- organizations - schools
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- Report a dead link.

Future Sections:
- humanities, language, culture
- science, technology & industrial design
- philos.&relig.
- photo archives (tons of pics going back decades)

True artists and creative writers are never poor. We feel rich and blessed to have incessant visions amidst oceans of the blindfolded.

A Thousand Links
CoArts.Net has over 1,300 external links. Be sure to suggest your own link. All links are provided absolutely FREE of charge.

Colorado's Arts Link Leader Since 1996
Tap into Colorado's burgeoning online arts community. Inside you'll find web sites for arts and entertainment throughout Colorado. New Mexico and Wyoming.

CoArts.Net is unequivocally the largest, the most diverse and best organized arts link portal serving Colorado.
- Read what our audience has to say

Introduction to Colorado Arts Net
Colorado Arts Net was born as a vision to wire Colorado with leading arts connections like no other site. Colorado Arts Net is the most comprehensive and best organized arts web site in all of Colorado, and the most diverse, with scores of pages in dozens of sections. It covers more disciplines and genres of arts and entertainment than any other site. Most listings are provided FREE of charge. Enjoy!

You can accelerate the networking of artists and the arts by simply linking to Colorado Arts Net from your arts-related web site based in Colorado, New Mexico or Wyoming. Each link to Colorado Arts Net gives a boost to more than a thousand arts entities linked inside CAN. Also feel free to submit your link suggestions for any arts web sites in the three-state region. All qualifying links are provided FREE of charge. Nobody has ever paid to be linked in CAN.

Changes to Come
I sincerely hope for Colorado Arts net to take on a new transition in the near future as time may avail. Although CAN is the regional link leader packed with networking gold in the form of arts and entertainment links galore, it needs a more professional design relying upon cascading style sheets and possibly a database driven PHP/MySQL foundation. And although the technical transition is not laid out yet, it should become accessible soon. Regardless of that, a point may come when there is greater capability for actual arts photojournalism and reporting. In fact, we actually have a huge archive of our own arts photography that we plan to gradually publish on a much larger scale on this web site. These include many fascinating and interesting subjects, from celebrities to Colorado history and arts landmarks. These photos number in the hundreds. And they will be used to gradually populate a new photo section that should bring more life into CAN and upgrade its value as a community resource in three states. The biggest problem with small endeavors is the lack of a business model enabling revenues to hire staff. Nobody makes a dime from creating CAN or even wants to. But I have a vision that CAN can and will become a far more vibrant and professional publication. Perhaps this will enable CAN to transition into an offical nonprofit organization or anything that will assure its survival for generations beyond our own lives. What's interesting about Colorado is that it has historically been a crossroads of people coming and going from everywhere. We are thus an ever-evolving arts community. Colorado Arts Net may have a few dozen odd pages of resources and features and a thousand arts links around Colorado. But it ponders becoming a far richer user environment compelling to all levels of the arts. Any positive offers of human skills and volunteer support will be considered, especially technical skills. Regardless of all that, you can expect that CAN will become more diverse and utilitarian, more graphic, photographic and irresistable in the not-too-distant future.

<< Walt Conley house at East 17th Avenue near Williams St., brief home of Bob Dylan & one of the Smothers Brothers before fame. The late Conley hosted the two, circa 1960.. - CAN photo: 1998

Cybersquatter Posing as Colorado Arts Net
Original Colorado Arts Net "Molested" by Local Poseur

Colorado Arts Net is NOT affilliated with the apparent copycat web site of Denver resident Fredric Wiebe. His site is known by the identical name of "Colorado-Arts.net" and appears to mimic our site by offering arts listings with phrases similar to our menu. Furthermore, the poseur site also links to seedy porn sites, something not provided on the genuine original Colorado Arts Net. (Click here to see Fred's site). The latter site has, in our opinion, been infringing upon and damaging our directory's name and goodwill to the arts community for many years. Fred's home page is titled the same as ours. But Fred's web address has a dash in the URL and ours does not. Fred's web site links a substantial amount of adult themed content including "outcall services" and "hot housewives" and "topless nightclubs" along with other non-arts generalities including house cleaning and pool parlors. All of this is listed on Google as "Colorado-Arts.net" (with dash). Thus Fred appears to be plagiarizing our good name to promote his crap. It thereby confuses audiences and distorts and degrades our name through search engine visibility.

The real Colorado Arts Net has been online since 1996 and has been registered as the domain name ColoradoArts.net since year 2000. The Internet whois registry indicates that Fredric Wiebe (pronounced "wee-bee") did not register the domain name "Colorado-Arts.net" (with dash) until 2004. By that time, our name "Colorado Arts Net" had been widely known and publicized since 1997, a period of seven years.

We are curious to learn more about Fredric Wiebe and wish to know if anyone may have had any problem similar to ours. We are also seeking to determine if this is the same person as Fredric Wiebe (DOB 8/8/1946) who, according to 1991 Denver Court records, was arrested for Colorado criminal code "18-3-405" (aka: sex assault on a child by one in a position of trust). No verdict is shown on the online version of the court record. Colorado Arts Net makes no claim regarding Fred's guilt or innocence in the matter at this time. We also do not make any judgment against legitmate adult web content or links. Such content has its rightful place (for adult viewers). But please don't call it "Colorado-Arts.net".

The genuine original Colorado Arts Net (without the dash) is a link directory intended to network regional arts as a goodwill venture benefitting all ages including children (with parental guidance recommended). We do not publish links of prurient or pornographic interest in this web site. We might link bellydancers and the occasional art nude photographer or erotic artist in the genuine context of arts. But we don't link "hot housewives" or outcall services because they are not "arts" in our view and are not suitable for our target audience.

See"History of CAN" for more details about the evolution of Colorado Arts Net.

Once again, we are asking Fredric Wiebe and anyone else concerned, to immediately cease and desist usage of the Colorado-Arts.net domain name (with dash) and not use any name essentially identical to ours, for any purpose that might be wrongful. Anyone with info on Fredric Wiebe, please contact (the real) Colorado Arts Net, right here.