ELENA'S CREATIVE UPRISING - 2025 No. 04

A Bold Blend of Creativity, Wellness, and Activism

Elena Greco

Apr 30, 2025

Photo from IrishCentral.com

In this issue:

Introduction: Have A Laugh!

UNITY and COMMUNITY
* Elena's Creative Community

CREATIVE CORNER
* Behind the Scenes - #24 and #25 I'm Still Here....
* Help me record an album!
* Substack Made Easy - Tip #02

WELLNESS
* Life in Balance: Part 2. It's All in Your Perspective

CREATIVE ACTIVISM
* In Comedy

RECOMMENDATIONS
Have a laugh!

QUOTE
Ricky Gervais

April 29, 2025

Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.
~ Mark Twain

We have many reasons to grieve. We grieve because Pope Francis died, even if we’re not religious, because he was a great and lovely human being. We grieve because our beautiful country is being torn apart. We grieve because of the great suffering of others inflicted by this hateful regime. We grieve because our planet is burning and some of its inhabitants are fueling the fire with their greed and narcissism and accelerating our extinction. We grieve for the way of life that is being wrested from us by a cruel fascist regime in the US. We grieve because we can no longer travel freely or safely, something that once gave us pleasure. Even walking down the street in our neighborhood is no longer something that we can take for granted as safe and normal, as we and everyone around us are at risk of being disappeared by ICE and sent to a concentration camp in a distant country. The first steps toward martial law have been taken. Our financial well-being and even the food we eat are at risk. The news, which bombards us at every turn, online and in our daily experiences, is shocking and unrelenting. Every day is a traumatic experience.

We have to keep ourselves sane and well and happy in spite of this! We really do. And laughter is an excellent way to do that.

Sometimes when we’re grieving, it can seem somehow wrong to allow ourselves a laugh or a moment of pleasure, as though we’re being disrespectful to the person or circumstance we’re grieving. But we require balance in order to be healthy. It’s not only all right, but absolutely necessary that we laugh and have moments of delight every single day. We’re not being disrespectful in doing so; we’re just righting the ship, balancing the waves, by adding positivity to the huge amount of negativity we experience every day now.

I’ve lived through some major trauma in my life, both chronic and acute, and I learned instinctively to use comedy to maintain my mental and physical health through it all. At some point I made a decision, not even a conscious one at first, to read or watch something that made me laugh at the end of the day prior to falling asleep, to end my day with something funny and light so that I didn’t carry the trauma of the day into my sleep. I do think that we not only process the work of the day when we sleep, but that paths are drawn in our brain and our psyche in our final experiences of the day that determine the quality of our next day and the direction of our lives. Comedy is medicine.

What we find funny is unique to each of us. There are endless ways to experience laughter, from books to television shows to movies to cartoons to slapstick to stand-up comedy. I end each day by watching an episode of M*A*S*H propped up in bed, and after I turn off the television and turn out the light, I read a comic detective series on my digital reader until I fall asleep. I literally fall asleep with a smile on my face.

What puts a smile on your face? Make sure you get a dose of that every day!

And a nod to Pope Francis (someone who valued humor!) as we say farewell....

The globalization of indifference is a very ugly disease.
~ Pope Francis

The Two Popes (Netflix) – Brilliant, moving movie with Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce offers insight into Pope Francis the man, and the long-term effects of the Argentine Revolution of 1966 on so many, as well as genuinely delightful scenes between these two great actors. Beautifully directed. Recommended. (2 hrs, 5 min)
David Muir looks back at the extraordinary life and legacy of Pope Francis
(7:44 min)
Pope Francis (60 Minutes Archive) – Interesting interview last year on 60 Minutes (13:30 min)
Remembering Pope Francis' Appreciation for Comedy and Laughter - Did you know that Pope Francis held a "Conclave of Comedians"?! (1:36 min)

The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need.
~ Pope Francis

In case you missed it....
Here's a link to last month's Newsletter 2025 No. 03

UNITY and COMMUNITY

Strength in Unity, Support in Community

Elena's Creative Community

ELENA'S CREATIVE COMMUNITY fosters real community to helps us stay strong and focused! Working alone but within the intentional group space is surprisingly supportive and highly productive!

We have two free one-hour online multi-genre Work-Together sessions each month on the first and third Saturdays at 2:00 pm US Eastern (New York). For the month of May, they'll be on May 3 and May 17.

If you're interested in attending a work-together, drop me your name and email address at egreco@elenagreco.com so that I can add you to the invitation. That way you'll always receive the video link a day or so before the work-together.

Substack Made Easy

Substack is a wonderful place to create and enjoy community! Once you sign up, you'll soon find many like-minded souls around the country and beyond in a safe place for sharing.

SUBSTACK TIP #02: Now that you have a Substack account, you can view or read the posts of others, Like, comment on or share their posts as you might have done on Facebook, make posts of your own, share your creative work in a variety of ways and formats, and send a newsletter to your own mailing list (which is always owned by you) if you choose.

First, there are two distinct segments to Substack: Newsletters and Notes. This is important, and I find that it's the thing that trips up first-time users. A Newsletter is an area of your account where you can write and send newsletters, long-form essays or articles to your subscription list. Notes refers to the area of Substack that functions much like Facebook. Once you have a Substack account, you can start using the Notes portion of Substack right away, so let's start there. (Don't worry; we'll get to the Newsletter soon!)

Second, although the functionality is much the same, Substack terminology is slightly different from Facebook's.
Heart icon = FB Like
Reply = FB Comment
Restack or Restack with Note = FB Share (only to Substack)
Share button at the far right = share on non-Substack platforms, such as FB or Bluesky, OR share to Substack Notes

Now let's look at the basic functions.

Go to your Substack account and look below your name. You'll see four tabs.
1. Activity: This is your activity—what you've Liked, Restacked, and published.
2. Posts: Your Newsletter posts, as well as Notes you've posted.
3. Likes: Others' posts and notes that you've Liked.
4. Reads: The Newsletters you've subscribed to.

On the left side of your screen, you'll see a menu.
House icon = Home: This takes you to your home page.
Grid icon = Inbox: Shows a feed consisting of posts of all the Newsletters you subscribe to.
Callout icon = Chats: Shows current chats.
Bell icon = Activity: This is your Substack activity; it includes not just your own activity, but that of others who have Liked or Restacked your posts or Notes, as well as recent subscriptions to your Newsletter.

Now you're ready to start posting. More on that in the next issue!

CREATIVE CORNER

All things related to creativity and the creative arts

Behind the Scenes

A peek behind the curtain of self-producing an album and other tales

BEHIND THE SCENES (click to read) is a peek behind the curtain of self-producing an album. The stories and information are relevant to almost any music production, whether recording or performing. Subscribe—it's free!)

We all make mistakes, and I'm grateful that the one I made in this Newsletter segment last month perhaps isn't as damaging to my reputation and my “case” as the one an attorney for the SDNY (click to read) made last week in erroneously filing publicly an internal memo to their client outlining the weaknesses in their strategy. (!*!) My oops was perhaps less life-altering, but embarrassing all the same. I shared here an incomplete and totally unedited draft of my next post in the BTS series, I'm Still Here.

I hope to redeem myself today by sharing with you the correct post, which is in two parts; I'd appreciate your clicking below to read it:

Behind the Scenes: #24 I'm Still Here - Part 1 and
Behind the Scenes: #25 I'm Still Here - Part 2

On a related note, with regard to the new career I mention in the posts above, which I'm beginning against all odds, the Elements Two album I'm making is an important step toward building that new career. I now very much need funding for recording the next two songs for the album. They're two more from the Great American Songbook, Harold Arlen's When the Sun Comes Out and Irving Berlin's Blue Skies.

I have a demo on Bandcamp consisting of the first two songs in this project, together with a folk song I recorded a while back, and if you give me a hand by purchasing these three songs for $4, Bandcamp offers not to take any percentage if you do so on this coming Friday, May 2. (Bandcamp Fridays happen on the first Friday of every month.) I literally cannot do this without your help, so I will be grateful whenever and however much you choose to contribute. Click below:

BANDCAMP: ELENA GRECO - DEMOS
(Click above to help me record the next two songs!)

WELLNESS

All things related to health, healing, and transformation

Life in Balance

A series exploring health: What it really is, how to get it and how to maintain it

I've studied nutrition, healing, and holistic medicine for 50 years. It's a passion of mine. I integrate the best of all worlds in the strategy for health I've developed in all those years, and I feel compelled to share it at this point, at a time when our country needs knowledgeable, forward-thinking people in the realm of health who are uninfluenced by Big Pharma, monetary gain or pressure. Here's Life in Balance: Part 2. It's All in Your Perspective.

CREATIVE ACTIVISM

Creative Activism in Comedy
(click on links to view)

Comedy Newsletters on Substack:
* Dave Pell, NextDraft
* Jeff Tiedrich, everyone is entitled to my own opinion
* Adam Parkamenko and Sam Youngman, The Alt Media
* Andy Borowitz, The Borowitz Report

Daily and weekly comedy shows that have news segments:
* John Oliver, Last Week Tonight (or HBO/MAX)
* Stephen Colbert, The Late Show (or CBS)
* Seth Meyers, Late Night (or NBC/Peacock)
* Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
* Jimmy Kimmel Live (or ABC)
* Saturday Night Live (or NBC)

Stand-Up Comedy:
Netflix, Hulu and other streaming subscriptions have lots of stand-up comedy (check out the Comedy category). For example:
Netflix - Ricky Gervais, Hannah Gadsby, Trevor Noah, Craig Ferguson
Hulu - Wanda Sykes, Ilana Glazer, Margaret Cho, Lewis Black
Tubi - George Carlin, Marx Brothers
YouTube - George Carlin and many comedians from decades past