Hi, Beliefnet fans and friends we’ve not yet met.
 
We couldn’t be happier to find a home with the fine folks who bring us so much insight, wisdom and joy on Beliefnet.

As the co-producer of the web series we’re about to unveil here, perhaps a few introductory remarks are in order.  

What is Prophet or Madman?  Prophet or Madman is the title of a book authored by our main character, Bruce Adams.  Bruce is a fine fellow, a gentleman of the old school, born and raised in Worchester, MA, now resident philosopher and ice cream scooper at Daddy Dee’s Ice Cream Parlor in Fort Myers, Florida.

To fill in a few of the blanks between his birth and now, along the way, Bruce was visited by a voice and presence he calls the Almighty and instructed to write a book meant to help humanity awaken and live true, spirit based lives.  He did as instructed, at no small personal cost to him, as you’ll see, and found no one paid any attention.  Being a pretty modern fellow, he came up with a reasonable answer to his dilemma:  “I need a PR guy!”

Enter Steve Allen of Steve Allen Media – PR with a conscience, Steve calls it – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Steve elicited the help of some of his pals and partners in the film world and began tracking and filming Bruce, his friends and family, people he’s influenced and a number of Steve’s Hollywood pals, resulting in the first pieces in our web series, Prophet or Madman.

So, what is Prophet or Madman, the Web Series?  They say if you have to explain the joke, it isn’t funny, but I’ll take my chances.  

First, Prophet or Madman, the Web Series is not a joke, though that’s not to say it isn’t funny.  We simply tell stories about serious matters from a lighthearted point of view.
Before Bruce started writing divinely inspired works and scooping ice cream, he was a successful businessman.

Before Steve got in the PR game, he was a moderately successful actor.  His claim to fame?  He was the Father of the Ugly Baby on the Seinfeld series.   And this, dear reader, goes a long way in explaining how we tell our tales.  As the Buddhists say, “Before enlightenment, rivers, mountains, trees.  After enlightenment, rivers, mountains, trees.”  There are no big deals in higher consciousness, right?

We ask you to suspend judgment for a while and forget that there are no car chases, no shoot-em-ups, not much action of any kind in our stories.  There’s also no fire-and-brimstone preaching in our stories.  In the way that the Seinfeld series was a show about nothing, our stories are about the wonders of no big deals.  Exhibit A:  The wonderful lady at the opening of Prophet or Madman #1, The Opening, says, “Oh, it’s the League of Love.  We’re all one.”  The pretty blond lady says that one day it’ll be hip to be awake, not just buy the latest new release from Lady Gaga.  And Steve goes a bit gaga over the improbability of Hollywood coming together to discuss transformational entertainment.  All pretty small deals in the grand scheme of things, but taken together, could there be a movement afoot to inject spirit into ordinary human affairs?

We’re hoping so and you can bet we’ll not only hope, but we’ll be there to film it, too, wherever it can be found.

Chris Johnson, Prophet or Madman Co-Producer

Now let’s let Steve Allen put in his two cents.

Hi everybody and thanks for joining us!  

Here goes video #1 of our on-going, lighter side of higher consciousness, time to awaken web series.  What a perfect place, a perfect venue to set the launch of our web series.  Ladies and gents, we give you the Fox 20th Century lot in Hollywood, California, celebrating GATE’s (the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment) inaugural event.  You see, the GATE founder, John Raatz, had this vision that GATE would be a place where the Hollywood community could come together (Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Melissa Etheridge, among others,) to incubate ideas and projects with a transformational slant.  What a great idea!  And John asked Steve Allen Media to help promote it.  I have to say our team was ecstatic to be part of this endeavor.
 
So, just before it started, as Hollywood was filing into the famous Zanuck Theatre on the Fox lot, a major intuitive vibe came over me.  Back-tracking for a moment- for the longest time, our production team (Mr. Lucky and me), was having a tough time figuring out how to start the web series.  Well, the end of the rainbow was given to us.  The Fox 20th Century movie lot, the inaugural GATE event, movie stars…what a perfect place to introduce our web series!  I grabbed our competent Steve Allen Media cameraman and asked him to turn the camera on me as I let come what needed to be said.  It was unrehearsed, spontaneous, from the hip.

 
I forgot to add that one of my favorites was a keynote speaker that evening- Ekhart Tolle.  I love that man. If you all have a chance, look up www.gatecommunity.org.  The organization and its founder are special and they have very cool events coming up worldwide.

Meanwhile, grab your favorite electronic device and follow along as Steve, PR guy extraordinaire and Father of the Ugly Baby and Bruce, Ice Cream Man and author, explore, document and describe their particular and peculiar take on the lighter side of higher consciousness.

Peace,
Steve Allen